Commentaria in Scripturam Sacram, Vol. 11: Prolegomena (prefaces and canons)
The former part, namely that they did not do this by God’s command, is plain from the fact that God sent to them no Prophet to create them emperors, and give them right over other kings and nations, as He sent a Prophet to Jeroboam, to confer on him the kingdom of the ten Tribes, and to Jehu, to anoint him king; each therefore, rebelling against his own lords and occupying the kingdom, did justly, as St. Augustine teaches, book 17 On the City, chapter 21, and is plain 3 Kings 11. Otherwise it is with the others, as I said.
Second, it is plain from the fact that they themselves either knew not, or cared not for this will of God, but served their own ambition. For this is what Isaias says of Sennacherib, chapter 10, verses 5 and 7: “Woe to the Assyrian, the rod of my fury. I will send him to a deceitful nation, to take away the spoils, etc., but he meaneth not so, and his heart shall not think so: but his heart shall be set to destroy, and to cut off nations not a few.”
And to Cyrus Isaias says, 45:3 and 4: “I will give thee hidden treasures, etc., and thou hast not known me.”
Third, because He calls them “robbers and thieves,” Jeremias 4:7: “The robber of the Gentiles,” namely Nabuchodonosor, “hath raised himself;” and 15:8 [xvi, 22]: “Thou shalt bring the robber upon them suddenly.”
Fourth, because Scripture charges them with tyranny and ambition, and forthwith foretells their ruin, and that because they invaded and laid waste other nations, especially the Jews, as God says of the Babylonians, Jeremias 51:24: “I will render to them all their evil that they have done in Sion;” and chapter 50, verse 29: “For she hath lifted herself up against the Lord, against the Holy One of Israel.” The same is plain of the Moabites, Ammonites and Idumeans, Jeremias 48:27.
Fifth, because in like manner Attila, Totila, and now the Turks were and are the scourge of God, with which He chastises Christians; and yet it is certain God did not give them empire over Christians; nay Luther himself confesses this, although he taught that the Turk is not to be resisted, because he comes by God’s will to chastise us: As, he says, a son ought not to resist the rod of his father, in which matter he errs shamefully; for a rod is one thing, a tyrant another: the latter may be resisted, the former not, when it is inflicted by a father or another having the right.
The latter part, namely that tyrants are called servants of God, because God used them, and ordained their tyranny for punishing the sins of the Jews and other nations, is plain first from the fact that God says He will do what the Chaldeans and Assyrians were about to do: for what anyone does through another is as if he did it himself, as the rule of Law has it.
Second, for this cause God is said to have commanded that they slay all, and leave nothing in it, ibid., verse 20.
Third, because Jeremias 27:6 it is said that God gave to Nabuchodonosor all the nations, that they should serve him seventy years.
Fourth, because the destruction of Babylon is called the work of God, that is, of divine justice and vengeance, Jeremias 50.
Fifth, because for this work of His, in which Nabuchodonosor had served Him materially, by besieging and storming Tyre for thirteen years, He promises him Egypt as it were as a reward and material wages, Ezechiel 29:19. I say materially: for this was not a formal and intended merit: therefore not a formal reward.
Sixth, because they are blessed, and are called blessed, who serve God in this holy work of justice, though they do it materially only, since formally they intended to serve not God but their own ambition and avarice. So Psalm 136:8 it is said: “Blessed (Cyrus) shall he be that shall repay thee (O Babylon) thy payment which thou hast paid us: blessed be he that shall take and dash thy little ones against the rock.” So the wood (of Noe’s ark) is said to be blessed, by which justice was done, Wisdom 14:7. For the ark, preserving the just Noe, loosed as it were the hands of God, that He might destroy the other sinners by the flood. For as a work of justice is holy and blessed, so those who in any way cooperate with it, even if materially only, are called holy and blessed; but only so far as they cooperate with that holy work.
On the contrary, of the Babylonians punishing and laying waste the Moabites it is said, Jeremias 48:10: “Cursed be he that withholdeth his sword from blood,” as if to say: Unhappy be he, and ill befall him, who performs this work of divine justice remissly, who does not slay the guilty Moabites but spares them; namely speaking in general, and abstracting from this or that man who tyrannically or unjustly invades them, and looking only at this work as it is a work of justice and divine vengeance, which God wills to be carried out. For so a hangman or executioner, who is negligent in this work and its execution, deserves to be cursed and punished. This work therefore, namely the destruction of the Moabites, as it was a work of divine justice and decreed by it, was just and holy; and whoever cooperated with it acted justly and holily, and were blessed: but so far as the same work was carried out by the Chaldeans, wishing to increase their wealth and empire, so far it was a work of tyranny and rapine, and therefore unjust and accursed.
CANON XXXVII. God is said to have commanded, and called forth, stirred up, sent in the Chaldeans, Assyrians and other tyrants to invade Judea and other nations, not that He positively and directly stirred them up to this tyranny, but that He so directed and bent their tyranny, foreseen by His providence, that it burst forth only upon the Jews and nations destined by Him for punishment. For all God’s providence and ordination is in Scripture called command, calling forth, stirring up. For God presides over the evil wills themselves, and rules and governs them, so that, though they are evil by their own fault, yet by God’s providence they are allowed to be borne to one evil rather than to another. St. Augustine teaches this on Psalm 77: “Their impiety,” he says, “is made as it were the axe of God: they became the instrument of the angry, not the kingdom of the appeased.” Then St. Augustine adduces the example of the rod with which a father chastises his son, then casts the rod into the fire. For the impious are the rod with which God chastises the pious; but when these are chastised He casts the impious into hell. The same Hugh of St. Victor teaches more clearly, book 1 On the Sacraments, part 5, chapter 29: “God,” he says, “gives to evil wills not corruption, but order. For to will evil is evil, and from an evil will; but that it is directed rather to this than to that is good, because it is order, and from Him who disposes well (God). An evil will can therefore be corrupted in itself, and dissolved by its own vice, which is not given it from elsewhere; but it cannot by willing be cast headlong outside itself, unless a way is opened to it. And he who opens the way to ruin for one rushing where it wills, in a manner inclines it, not by impelling but by permitting and not holding; nor is he the author to it of rushing, but the ordainer of its going.” As therefore one who holds a lion or a furious dog bound by the hand, and now restrains it lest it bite this or that friend, now when an enemy passes looses and lets it go, is said to have sent the lion or dog upon him: so God holds bound by the hand of His omnipotence all the wills of the impious: and when He looses them, and lets them be borne to this evil, not to another, He is said to stir them up to this, or send them: because without His loosing, and as it were consent or leave, nay concurrence, they could not have burst forth into this evil. So therefore He loosed the Chaldeans, and permitted them to invade the Jews, not the Indians.
Add that God is said to have stirred them up. First, because, as I said in the preceding canon, He gave them vast spirits, strength, wealth and victories. Spirits, I mean, for daring great things, and for extending empire far and wide. Second, because He set before their mind the Jews and other nations, as wealthy and easily subdued. Third, because through Jeremias and the other Prophets He foretold that Nabuchodonosor would subdue them, and that He willed that all should serve him seventy years. What was this other than to sound the trumpet for him, and as it were call him forth to invade the other nations? Nor is there doubt that Nabuchodonosor learned this partly from messengers and envoys, partly from deserters, partly from common rumor and fame; and therefore he himself commanded Nabuzardan in the storming of Jerusalem to take care of Jeremias as favoring him, and treat him kindly, chapter 39, verse 11. Fourth, because He outwardly set obstacles in the way to turn Nabuchodonosor aside that he might not invade other nations, and removed obstacles which would make as it were a smooth road for him to invade the Jews and the nations He wished to punish through him. So Ezechiel 21:21, when Nabuchodonosor cast lots by two arrows, and sought an omen from it whether he should march against the Ammonites or against Jerusalem; God caused the lot to fall against the Jews, and thus as it were impelled him to invade Jerusalem. “For lots,” says the Wise Man, “are cast into the lap, but are tempered and disposed by the Lord.” Moreover how God calls this war to which He summons the Chaldeans “holy,” I shall say on Jeremias 6:4.