Commentaria in Isaiam
Tenthly, there were with Gedeon three hundred, so that by this very number they might indicate the hundredfold fruit to be tripled through Christ, and the perfection of all virtues to be bestowed by the benefit of the Trinity. Moreover, in Greek the letter T is the mark for three hundred, and expresses the form of the cross: by the trophy of the cross Christ subdued the spiritual enemies, and so drew to the faith the Gentiles, who in the New Testament are usually designated by the name of Greeks. So St. Augustine, chapter 37 on the book of Judges, where he adds that this number is also marked in the servants born in Abraham’s house, with only eighteen added, so that in each time ascribing a six, in the third time, which is the time of grace, we understand it to be fulfilled. Similar things in the third.
St. Ambrose has, in his book On Noe and the Ark, the next to last chapter, and in his book On Joseph the Patriarch, chapter 13, and in the book On Abraham, chapter 3.
Eleventhly, Gedeon went down to spy out the camp of the enemy with his servant Phara or Pura. Pura signifies a winepress, which the Lord alone trod. Phara signifies division, because, the Apostles being divided throughout the world, Christ subdued the spiritual Madianites; and the Apostles, having confidence in this winepress, fearlessly overturned the camps of foreigners.
Twelfthly, a certain man saw a loaf of bread baked under the ashes rolling and overturning the camp of the enemy. What is this cake of bread but the most holy Eucharist, which under the humble ashes of humanity, in the oven of burning love, I mean the Lord’s passion, was baked, and daily overthrows all the infernal ranks and all the armies of enemies that assail the Church of God?
Thirteenthly, the soldiers of Gedeon are given burning lamps in earthen vessels: so the Apostles, as St. Paul writes of himself, had the treasure of the Gospel light in earthen vessels, which by being broken in martyrdom overcame their persecutors; Christ also bids us stand girded, having burning lamps in our hands, and shine with the light of works when the time is, that those who see us may praise our Father who is in heaven. Again, the earthen pitcher, which contains within it the brightness of a burning lamp, is an excellent symbol of Emmanuel, who, hiding his divinity covered in mortal flesh, when that was crushed and broken by the passion, the divinity shone forth in the resurrection, and even in his death itself, the sun being darkened, the earth shaken and the rocks rent, the forces of Madian, that is, of the devil and of hell, were broken.
Fourteenthly, the soldiers, otherwise unarmed, held trumpets in the left hand: so the Apostles always discoursed of divine things. But why in the Greek are these trumpets called horns? Perhaps because of Christ and the Saints it is said: “His horn shall be exalted in glory.” This happened when the Apostles set forth the mysteries of the knowledge of Christ: the mystery of the cross is indeed usually designated by horns, as is plain in Habacuc 3:4: “Horns are in his hands.” Again, in Gedeon’s victory, where the enemies were destroyed without any work of men, the arm of God plainly appeared. For what had Gedeon besides the empty noise of pitchers, with which mice could scarcely be driven off? And he had three hundred soldiers, whom he set against so many thousands of enemies, to whom for arms he gave this empty bugbear of noise. So Isaias compares to this victory of Gedeon the divine victory to come, in which the naked and illustrious hand of God will shine no less plainly, who, as if fire were sent down from heaven and thunderbolts suddenly hurled, will destroy the enemies of the Church. For Christ, leader of the war, will rout and slay the army of enemies by his sole nod and word, as will be said in chapter 11, verse 4, and 2 Thessalonians 2:8.
Fifteenthly, the Madianites cut each other down by mutual slaughter: so too the enemies of Christ, the Jews, rather by internal discord and seditions than by the arms of the Romans; the sects of the Philosophers destroyed one another by quarrels and contentions; our heretics daily, like the brothers sprung from Cadmus, destroy each other with mutual wounds. So allegorically the Madianites are the heretics, who by mutual dissensions destroy and kill one another, as we have seen in every age, and see happening at this time in Holland. For since heresy is proud, and is the offspring of Satan, who is the father of dissension as of lies, it is impossible that there should be peace and concord among heretics; for one will not yield to another, each reckons himself wise above the rest, each devises something new, and rejoices in his inventions as an ape in her young, and fawns on them. Error is contrary to error, as vice to vice. Truth alone has peace and concord, because it is one and undivided. St. Jerome truly said on Ezechiel: “The fighting of the heretics is our victory.” And Hilary, book 7 On the Trinity: “The war of the heretics is the peace of the Church.”
Lastly, Gedeon cast the Madianites to the Ephraimites to be slain: so Christ and the Apostles left the unbelieving and contentious Jews to be destroyed by the Romans, as the following verse will teach.
5. For every violent taking of spoils is with tumult.
First, Forerius expounds thus, as if to say: All bloodthirsty soldiers, who bear arms and garments sprinkled with the blood of the wretched, will yield to the divine fire of the charity of Christ, and by his grace will turn savagery into gentleness, anger and quarrels into charity.
Secondly, Sanchez, as if to say: Christ wrested the prey of men from the hands of the demon; for the demon had with him, of the wretched men whom he had driven into sin, as it were their garments marked and inscribed with blood, that is, the bond and obligation by which they confessed themselves conquered and addicted to the servitude of the demons; these garments, therefore, and these pledges of servitude God snatched away, and so abolished them that like fire he reduced them to ashes, that is, annihilated them.
Thirdly, Vatablus takes this of the vengeance of Christ through Titus and Vespasian, and renders and explains in this way: for every battle of those fighting with uproar, that is, the battle of the warring Romans against the Jews, enemies of Christ and Christians, will be with onset, brandishing and agitation of spears, will be fierce; and the garments of the fighters will be defiled with the blood of the slain, and therefore will be for burning and the food of fire, that is, will be burned. As if to say: The victory will not be bloodless.
Fourthly, St. Thomas and Hugh take this of the soldiers of Sennacherib, who, having stained their garments with the blood of the Jews, were consumed by an Angel with heavenly fire, as the Hebrews relate.
Fifthly and genuinely, because it gives the reason why he said: “Thou hast overcome, as in the day of Madian.” The sense then is, as if to say: As the violent plundering of Gedeon was made with the tumult of the camp of Madian, and the violent plundering of any leader is wont to be made with tumultuous slaughter and flight of the enemies, so the violent plundering of Christ stirred up a tumult both in hell and in the camp of the world and of the demon, and put to flight and cast down the demons tumultuating among themselves, and drove them into hell.
Again, as a garment stained with human blood in war cannot be washed but is burned with fire, as the garments of the Madianites, dyed with blood, either of the Jews whom they had slain or their own when they themselves were slain, were burned by Gedeon with their very corpses, so the cohorts of demons, bloodstained, as it were, both with the blood of men whom they either slew or destroyed, and with their own when they were routed and cut down by Christ, will be burned in the fires of hell assigned to them. So St. Jerome, Basil and Rupert. This sense seems the fittest of all. For it is a catachresis and metaphor from warfare and battle, in which the bloodstained bodies and garments of the enemy are burned: so Christ will burn the enemies themselves, namely the demons and their followers. The garment is therefore put for the soldier whose it is, namely for the demon. For he speaks of the demons as soldiers by anthropopathy; whence he attributes to them garments and blood. Similar is chapter 63, verse 3.
The Septuagint render: because they shall restore every garment gathered by fraud, and the garment with exchange, and they will wish themselves to have been burned. This Eusebius, book 7 of the Demonstratio, chapter 3, takes of the Jews who killed Christ by force and fraud and by the suborning of false witnesses, and stained his garment with blood, seizing and dividing it, and who were therefore adjudged to the fire both of the Romans and of eternal hell. Eusebius says then that those garments will be as the torch of that conflagration in which the Jews afterwards were consumed. For this was their just exchange and, as it were, restitution. Others expound the Septuagint version thus: Christ will rescue men from the power of the demons, and the demons will take this so ill that they will dread the fire of hell less than the prey already wrested from them. So St. Jerome.