Commentaria in Esther
Furthermore these women, by the very fact that they were brought to Ahasuerus, became his concubines, that is, secondary wives; from whom the king then chose one as principal wife and Queen, as he here chose Esther. For marriage was made by the mutual consent of man and woman to marital union. Hence Josephus, book XI, chapter vi: “When Esther,” he says, “had come to the king, he was delighted with her and, captured by love of her, lawfully took her as wife, and celebrated the wedding with her in the twelfth month of the seventh year of his reign, which month is called Adar.”
Ask whether the faithful Esther could lawfully marry the unbelieving Ahasuerus. I answer that she could, because Deuteronomy vii, 3, marriages of Jews are forbidden only with Chanaanites, not with Persians and other Gentiles.
So Bellarmine, Serarius, Sanchez and others. Add that Esther could not refuse this edict of the King, lest she provoke his anger against herself and the other Jews; nay, had she resisted, the king could have abused her against her will and done her violence. Finally, Esther and Mardochai felt a divine impulse to enter into marriage with the king, that they might reconcile him to their whole nation; and thus remove the danger of slaughter that threatened them from Aman.
Allegorically, “Esther the queen is the Blessed Virgin Mary,” says St. Bonaventure in the Mirror, chapter vii, “who was led into the King’s chamber at the Assumption, into the chamber of eternal rest, having the favour of the true King above all women, that is, above all angelic intelligences and above all blessed souls, so that in Mary there is grace upon the grace of all the blessed; for indeed on her head the King of kings placed a crown of the kingdom so priceless, so delightful, so wonderful, that it is unspeakable to every tongue and unsearchable to every mind.” Wherefore Methodius, on the Presentation, teaches that the sacred head of Mary was crowned by God. Therefore Robert, book III on Canticles iv, expounds of her: “Thou shalt be crowned from the dens of the lions, from the mountains of the leopards: Thou shalt be crowned,” he says, “as Queen of the Saints in heaven, and Queen of kingdoms on earth.”
Anagogically, the Blessed Virgin, assumed into heaven, was there crowned Queen of heaven, of men and of Angels. Hence Apocalypse xii, 1, she is called “a woman clothed with the sun, and the moon under her feet, and on her head a crown of twelve stars;” see what is said there. Hear St. Bernard On the Assumption: “Then the Blessed Virgin, like a second Esther, was brought from the dining-room of the women, that is, from the Church militant, and through the whole host of the heavenly army to the chamber of Ahasuerus, that is, of the most high God, so that the Prophet’s word applies to her: Thou hast held me by my right hand, and by thy will thou hast conducted me, and with glory thou hast received me. Which today was truly fulfilled, when all the citizens of heaven saw her ascending, and overflowing with the delights of divine embraces, leaning upon her beloved.” Rightly therefore the Church sings, as St. Ildephonsus testifies, sermon On the Assumption: “The Virgin Mary was taken up into the heavenly bridal chamber, in which the King of kings sits on a starry throne, nay, an ineffable one, as Ildephonsus says.”
17. And the king loved her more than all the women,—because Esther surpassed all in beauty, modesty, shamefastness, purity, grace and holiness; hence she was a type of the Blessed Virgin, whom the Angel saluted, saying: “Hail, full of grace, the Lord is with thee, blessed art thou among women,” Luke i.
18. And he gave rest to all the provinces—from taxes and other burdens, that is, he relaxed the tributes which he himself had before imposed on the people. For Herodotus, book III, teaches that Darius imposed many: “For under Cyrus,” he says, “and then under Cambyses, nothing had yet been established concerning tribute, but gifts were brought. On account of this ordering of tribute, and other such things, the Persians say that Darius was a shopkeeper, Cambyses a master, Cyrus a father; since Darius made everything a matter of profit, Cambyses was harsh and morose, but Cyrus behaved mildly and sought in every way to deserve well of them.”
Others understand this “rest” as from labours, as if to say: Darius commanded all to rest from their works, and to keep feast days in joy and banquets, on account of such notable nuptials contracted with Esther.
And bestowed gifts according to princely magnificence,—that is, royal; for the Hebrew is according to the magnificence of a king, which befitted only a king as great as Darius.
19. And when virgins were sought the second time.
Hence it appears that virgins were sought twice for Ahasuerus, for this is what the words say. For polygamy was then usual, especially among kings. Hence Solomon had 700 queens and 300 concubines, that is, secondary wives. So even now the kings of the Turks, Arabs and Indians have a great crowd of wives. For lust is insatiable, as well as fastidious and curious; for those whom they have once known they soon loathe, and seek another, so that they do not so much satisfy their lust as change it, and try whether pleasure is greater elsewhere.
20. She did all things in the same manner as she was wont at the time when he brought her up a little one.—See here Esther’s rare obedience, by which, though now made queen, nay empress, she obeys Mardochai as she obeyed him when a little child, and through this obedience God directed her most prudently in all things, that she might supplant Aman and deliver her people from slaughter.
21. Bagathan and Thares, two eunuchs (palatines and courtiers of Darius), were angry, etc., and designed to rise up against the king and to kill him.—For what reason? Different writers assign different reasons, with probability. The Septuagint gives this, that the king had preferred Mardochai to them. Others, that he had repudiated Vasthi and put Esther in her place. Others, that they were not content with their dignity and rank, but aspired to a greater, nay to the kingdom, as the Magus Smerdis before Darius had seized the kingdom by guile. Others, more probably, that they wished to transfer the kingdom to Aman, who was first after the king; and so they judge that Aman was privy to their conspiracy or its author, and gather this from the fact that in chapter xii, verse 6, Aman is said to have been offended with Mardochai because he was the cause that these two eunuchs were hanged. They were therefore friends, supporters and ministers of Aman, that, the king being killed by them, he himself might seize the kingdom as the first after the king; and because, says the king, chapter xvi, 12, of Aman: “Who was lifted up to such a swelling of arrogance that he strove to deprive us of the kingdom and of our spirit,” that is, life. For ambition to reign attempts everything and overturns all things. It is favoured by what Josippon son of Gorion writes: “When Mardochai,” he says, “was sitting in the king’s gate, he noticed the whispering of two eunuchs of the king, who kept the gate, and consulting how they might lay hand on the king and carry his head cut off to the king of Macedonia, who had already declared war on the kings of the Persians. But when the eunuchs were hanged on the cross, Aman was very angry that his counsellors had been so put on the cross, and tried to exterminate all the Jews.” Of this war declared by the king of Macedonia on Darius and the Persians we read nothing elsewhere; yet there could have been some suspicion of it; both because shortly afterwards Xerxes son of Darius waged war against the Macedonians and Greeks; and because Alexander the Great, who was king of Macedonia, after some years transferred the monarchy from Darius Codomannus and the Persians to himself and the Macedonians; and because Aman, who was a Macedonian, aspired to the kingdom, of which more in chapter iii, verse 1.