ON ST. GIDEON, JUDGE OF THE ISRAELITES,
IN PALESTINE,
HISTORICAL COMMENTARY.
Gideon, judge of the Israelites, in Palestine. (S.)
Written by J. L.
§ I. The Saint's eulogies; cult; the variation of his name; his family: his father an idolater, but afterwards converted by his Son the judge: he always a worshipper of the true God: was he a tribune before his princedom?
[ ] Of St. Gideon, Saint Gideon, of men — by an angel's testimony — the bravest, was the fifth judge of the Israelites in civil affairs and their commander in war; if you number among his predecessors Samgar, who was over them for a few months. How dear he was to God you may gather even from this, that God Himself chose him to judge His people and to free them from the servitude of the Midianites; and sent an angel to announce to him this divine counsel. Then, instructed by the oracles of the Lord and animated by His Spirit, he overthrew the altar of Baal, cut down the grove, and conquered the enemies of the Hebrew name by an unusual and wonderful manner of fighting. Peace and liberty being restored to Israel, he kept his subjects in the worship of the true Godhead, until he laid down the magistracy, which the Lord made illustrious with signal prodigies, and also his life, which by his faith and piety toward God, his submission of mind, and his other virtues he rendered worthy of perpetual memory in the Calendars of the Saints. This is a kind of summary of the things which in the book of Judges, chapters six, seven, and eight, Scripture, and Josephus in book 5 of the Antiquities, chapter 8, narrate about the Saint. In reporting the sacred words and those of Josephus we shall keep the same manner of writing as in the Life of St. Joshua.
[2] whom there praise The Apostle to the Hebrews, chapter XI from verse 32, places Gideon in the catalogue of those who in the old Law excelled by exceptional faith and by heroic works of faith: And what shall I yet say? he says. For the time would fail me to tell of Gedeon, Barac, Samson, Jephte, David, Samuel, and the Prophets: who by faith conquered kingdoms, wrought justice, obtained promises, stopped the mouths of lions, quenched the violence of fire, escaped the edge of the sword, recovered strength from weakness, became valiant in battle, put to flight the armies of foreigners, etc. Ecclesiasticus chapter 46, from verse 13, follows the judges of the Israelites with these praises: And the judges, every one by name, whose
heart was not corrupted: who turned not away from the Lord, that their memory might be blessed, and their bones spring up out of their place, and their name continue for ever, the glory of the holy men remaining unto their children. The sacred Writer does not here speak of the judges who were created neither by God's nor by the people's free election: hence his words are not to be extended to the impious Abimelech, who, seventy brothers being killed, seized the princedom by force, so that he deserves the name of a tyrant rather than of a judge. Whether, and in what sense, Scripture affirms these things of the other judges — whose heart was not corrupted; who turned not away from the Lord — it does not belong here to examine. Of Gideon we shall show in their places that it cannot be proved from the sacred history that he obscured the glory of his right deeds by even a light sin, and so that nothing stands in the way of the said words of Ecclesiasticus being truly predicated of our Saint even taken strictly and in their whole latitude.
[3] The book of Judges, chapter 8, verse 32, bears this testimony about his death: Scripture and the Fathers, And Gedeon the son of Joas died in a good old age. Besides St. Gideon, the sacred Letters call no one else's old age good, except Abraham's, Genesis chapter 15, verse 15, and chapter 25, verse 8; David's, first book of Paralipomenon chapter 29, verse 28; and the younger Tobias', or, as some will have it, that of his parents-in-law, Tobias chapter 14, verse 15. Whence it is gathered that this phrase of Scripture signifies more than an age far advanced in years. Let us hear Salianus in the Epitome of his Annals at the year 2800: The sacred text says that Gideon died IN A GOOD OLD AGE, with a eulogy which falls upon the best of the Patriarchs, so as to refute the opinions and interpretations of some who think that Gideon (Judges chapter 8, verse 27) committed the same wickedness as the people — nay, such and so great as is found in idolatry and in the scandal of the whole people. He rather dies IN A GOOD OLD AGE, which crowns a good life passed before; he dies signal in merits and virtues, and rejoicing in the most delightful testimony of a good conscience. So he, following the common explanation of the interpreters. Although St. Augustine in the Heptateuch, on Judges, questions 41 and 42, is very severe against the Saint, yet in sermon 108 On the Season he calls him chosen unto grace and holy. By other ancient Fathers too he is honored with the titles of a just Man, dear to God, holy, nay most holy, and with others of the kind. How beautifully he shadowed forth Jesus Christ in many and great things, St. Augustine teaches in the place last cited, St. Ambrose in the Prologue to book 1 On the Holy Spirit, St. Gregory the Great in book 30 of the Morals, chapter 25, on chapter 39 of blessed Job, St. Isidore of Seville in his Commentary on the book of Judges from chapter 3, and Salianus in the Annals at the year 2800.
[4] Calvisius prefixes to his chronological Work a Chronological Isagoge, into whose chapter 2 is woven the ancient Julian Calendar, his memory in the sacred Calendars, which marks St. Gideon on the XXVIII of March. But all the other Calendars of the Latin Church in which the Saint is known join him in their announcements at the Kalends of September with St. Joshua. The author of the small Roman Martyrology reports both Heroes thus: Of Jesus Nave and Gideon, prophets. Then Ado and Usuard, and not a few younger than they, adopted the same announcement. But Notker omitted the title of prophets; whom among other moderns Baronius also followed in the new Roman, announcing both thus: In Palestine, of the holy Josue and Gideon. In the Calendars of the Greek Church I do not find our Saint's name. The Ethiopians in Job Ludolf, page 402, honor him on the XVI of the fourth month Tachsas. Three Coptic Martyrologies in manuscript, received from Rome, we keep in our Museum, in which on the same day, namely the XVI of the fourth month, which they call Chiahac, the memory of the holy Judge is marked. And the XVI day of the month Tachsas or Chiahac is the XII of our December. To this day St. Gideon is judged by Castellanus to be referred. For what cause I do not see. The Saint's day of death neither Scripture nor an ancient and trustworthy tradition teaches: any day of the year therefore could at pleasure be destined for his cult. As those Orientals chose the XII of December, so the Latin Church chose 1 September. To this, not to them, we must conform ourselves.
[5] the Saint's various names, their reason and etymology; The Saint's name in the Scriptures varies. The first and most usual is Gedeon, which among the interpreters is the same as cutting down, overthrowing, breaking in pieces. His deeds answered to his name: for he overthrew the altar of Baal, cut down the grove which was about it, broke the Midianites and their auxiliary forces, and with the thorns of the desert, as is said in Judges chapter 8, verse 16, and with sledges crushed and ground to pieces the impious. His other name, frequent enough in the sacred Letters, is Jerobaal. He received it on this occasion. When he had destroyed the altar of Baal, the idolatrous inhabitants of the city of Ephra demanded of Joas his father that he bring out his Son, to be punished with death for the injury done to the god: To whom he answered: Are you the avengers of Baal, that you fight for him? He that is his adversary, let him die before tomorrow's light come. If he be a god, let him avenge himself on him that hath dug down his altar. From that day Gedeon was called Jerobaal, because Joas had said: Let Baal avenge himself on him that hath dug down his altar. What Jerobaal signifies this passage teaches, and Osee chapter 10, verse 14; where, for from the house of him that judged Baal, there is read in the Hebrew from the House of Arbel, that is, Jerobaal, by St. Jerome's testimony in book 3 of his Commentary on the cited prophet: Salmana was laid waste, he says, … as is contained in the Hebrew, by Arbel, which signifies the very same as Jerobaal, but in briefer and more expressive speech. Therefore Jerobaal signifies both these things: Let Baal avenge himself on him, and He that judged Baal. The etymology of the name explained by other words, but kindred in signification, you will find among the interpreters. There is also another name of St. Gideon in the second book of Kings chapter XI, verse 21, where the Hebrew text has, for Jerobaal as it is in the Vulgate, Jerubbescheth or Jeruboseth. And Bescheth or Boseth, that is, confusion, is also with the Hebrews an idol: and so this name coincides in signification with Jerobaal and Arbel. A like change was made in the names of Saul's son and of his grandson by Jonathan: for these, called before Esbaal and Meribbaal (as is plain from the first book of Paralipomenon chapter 8, verses 33 and 34, and chapter 9, verses 39 and 40), were afterwards called Isboseth and Miphiboseth. Namely, the Hebrews made it a matter of religion to pronounce the name Baal, as Calmet notes in his Biblical Dictionary at the word Gedeon.
[6] his forebears and family; Our Saint's father was Joas, Judges chapter 6, verse 29: Joas of the family of Ezri, ibid., verse XI: this of the tribe of Manasse, ibid., verse 15: this same family of Ezri is called the house of Abiezer, ibid., verse 34. Ezri or Abiezer was the same as Jezer, whose genealogy is given in Numbers chapter 26 from verse 28: The sons of Joseph by their kindreds, Manasse and Ephraim. Of Manasse was born Machir, from whom the family of the Machirites. Machir begot Galaad, from whom the family of the Galaadites. Galaad had sons: Jezer, from whom the family of the Jezerites, etc. It remains therefore that Ezri, from whom the Saint descended, had as father Galaad, as grandfather Machir, as great-grandfather Manasse, as great-great-grandfather the patriarch Joseph. But that this Ezri is not to be distinguished from Jezer, whose father and forebears I have just recounted from Scripture, these reasons persuade me. The first is that both were of the tribe of Manasse. The second, that Jezer, of whom the book of Numbers speaks, is called Abiezer in Joshua chapter 17, verse 2, and that Ezri, the patriarch of St. Gideon's family, bore the same name too. The third, that otherwise the catalogue of the families of the tribe of Manasse which the cited books of Joshua and Numbers give would not be accurate. The fourth, finally, that, as is plain from Joshua chapter 17, Jezer or Abiezer received his portion in Canaan on this side the Jordan; and that on the same side of the river also that Ezri or Abiezer who was among the Saint's forebears had his possession, namely the city of Ephra. That this belonged to the family of Abiezer, that is, of the father of Jezer, or by metathesis Ezri, from which the Saint was born, is evident from Judges chapter 6, verse 24. That this same city was situated in the tribe of Manasse on this side the Jordan will be manifestly plain from what we shall report of the Saint from the sacred Letters. Further, in Ephra St. Gideon was born and brought up, as is gathered from chapter 6, verses XI, 24, and following; in the same, as Judge of the Israelites, he had his dwelling, chapter 8, verse 29, and was buried, ibid., verse 32.
[7] St. Jerome and the Vulgate in chapter 6, verse XI, call Joas the father of the family of Ezri, [his father Joas, prince of the Jezerites, an idolater, but afterwards converted by his Son the judge:] which in verse 15 is said to be the meanest in Manasse. The obvious sense of those words is that the Saint's father was the first or prince of the whole family: Joas, says Abulensis here, question 9, is called father, that is, prince; because he was the more honorable man in the whole family of the Ezrites: and perhaps he descended directly from Ezri by the line of firstborn, and on this account the princedom of the family belonged to him. Certainly that he was of the chief men of the Jezerites or Ezrites you may deduce even from this, that in those evil times, in which the Israelites were oppressed by the Midianite servitude, he had a great band of servants, ibid., verse 27, and possessed a grove and an altar dedicated to the idol Baal, ibid., verse 25. The Saint, when about to destroy that altar with the grove by the Lord's precept, is written in the same place, verse 27, to have feared his father's house, so far that he did not dare to undertake that pious work save by night. From this fear of the Saint, and from the altar erected to the false god, it is abundantly gathered that Joas was an idolater, yet a rather lukewarm one; inasmuch as his Son's life was of more account to him than the honor of the violated idol. See verse 31. Although Scripture keeps silence about his conversion, yet I do not doubt that, led by his pious Son's examples and admonitions, he embraced the true religion. Nor is it fitting to believe that the Judge of the Israelites, who had exterminated idolatry from the whole region, left it in his father's house, from which he had taken the beginning of rooting it out when it most flourished.
[8] Of the Saint's life in boyhood and youth the sacred history teaches us nothing. who more likely always worshipped the true God. It testifies, chapter
8, verse 28, that he was over Israel as judge for forty years, to which, since more probably the seven years of the Midianite servitude are to be added, as was said in the Life of St. Joshua at num. 272, about thirty-three years before his death, which he met in a good old age, he learned from the angel God's counsel about the Hebrews being claimed into liberty with himself as leader and judge. Hence it is gathered that the Saint was a man in years at that colloquy which he had with the angel. By Josephus indeed he is said to have been at that time a young man; but this is not likely, unless he takes young man broadly for a man of flourishing age. Since after the death of Debbora and Barac the Hebrew nation had returned in its usual manner to its vomit, that is, to the sacrilegious superstition of false gods, and the Saint's own father had erected an altar to the idol Baal, there could be a suspicion that St. Gideon, either compelled by the command of an idolatrous parent, or led by his and the other impious Israelites' example, had at some time shown worship to a false god. But it must rather be judged that he always execrated the common and domestic impiety, served the true God with constant faith and piety, and therefore was held worthy by Him to learn from an angel that he was chosen before all to be the savior and judge of the Israelites, wretchedly afflicted under the Midianites' yoke and repenting. Before he began to discharge this office, there had already been born to him Jether, the firstborn of seventy brothers, as is plain from chapter 8, verse 20. But since he was then still a boy, the greater part of the other sons must have been born after the Midianite victory. Therefore below there will be a fitter place for treating of his wives and children.
[9] That he was a tribune before his princedom St. Augustine in the Heptateuch, question 34 on the book of Judges, and Procopius on chapter 6, verse 15, of the same, assert that St. Gideon, when he was bidden by the angel to take up the command of the war against the Midianites, was a tribune, or was set over a thousand men. Namely, they understood the Saint's modest answer in verse 15, by which he professes himself unfit for freeing the Israelites from servitude, otherwise than St. Jerome. In the Hebrew it is literally: Behold my chiliad; by which he understood a family which consists of a thousand, that is, of many men: whence he rendered thus: Behold my family is the meanest in Manasse, and I am the least in my father's house. See Bonfrerius and others here. But St. Augustine with Procopius so explain that Behold my chiliad, as they read it in the Septuagint, as if St. Gideon were a chiliarch or leader set over a thousand men. I shall give the words of each. Those of the holy Doctor are these: Where Gedeon answers the angel… Behold my thousand are lowlier in Manasse, he is understood to have been set over a thousand men, whom Scripture in Greek calls χιλιάρχους. Procopius subjoins to the sacred words, understood in the same way, this exposition: For the Israelites remained divided into tribunes and centurions, from the time when Jethro gave counsel to Moses, Exodus chapter 18. Being therefore a tribune, he complained that his subjects were weak.
[10] or a chiliarch, St. Augustine and Procopius probably teach. Although the Saint's words, Behold my family is the meanest in Manasse, as St. Jerome rendered and understood them, in no way signify that he then discharged any magistracy, yet St. Augustine's and Procopius' explanation does not conflict with the Hieronymian interpretation. For if about 184 years before eight families of the tribe of Manasse numbered 52,700 men fit to bear arms, Numbers chapter 26 from verse 28, the family of the Jezerites in the same tribe in St. Gideon's times could be inferior to the other seven in strength and in the number of warriors, and yet comprise three or even more chiliads, and therefore under Joas, the supreme head of the family, have as many chiliarchs, of whom one was our Saint. Bonfrerius and others attribute little likelihood to this opinion: but for what cause I do not see. There is no doubt that among the Israelites in conferring honors and dignities account was taken of bravery and of birth. But St. Gideon, by the angel's testimony, was the bravest of men, and the son of Joas, prince of all the Jezerites. Why then should the opinion which makes him a chiliarch or tribune be more foreign to the truth than that which makes him a centurion, or confers on him another lower prefecture or even none at all? Certainly what the said Fathers asserted is no less likely than anything else. Josephus too favors it, book 5 of the Antiquities, chapter 8, which thus begins: About the same time Gedeon the son of Jasus, one of the chief men of the tribe of Manasse. Nor is it an obstacle, first, that the Saint says of himself, I am the least in my father's house: for from the fact that he thought so modestly of himself as to seem to himself of all men the least fit for freeing the Israelites from the servitude of most powerful enemies, it does not follow that he really was of all the least fit. Those words to the angel betray his modesty and submission of mind; but the greeting of the angel, addressing him at his first approach as bravest of men, sufficiently declares how apt he was for claiming Israel into liberty. Nor is it an obstacle, secondly, that when the angel came to him he himself was threshing and cleaning grain in the winepress, which is a servile and rustic work. For this must be attributed to urgent necessity, which demanded the common labor and diligence of all the household, that the coming of the enemy, by whom everything was plundered, might be forestalled.
§ II. An angel rouses St. Gideon to free the Israelites from servitude; he proves himself sent by God, consuming with a prodigious fire the flesh and the loaves which the Saint had more probably offered him for the refreshment of his body.
[ ] [God, about to free the Israelites from the Midianite servitude through St. Gideon,] Debbora and Barac being dead, the Israelites relapsed into idolatry. God, being angry, did not defer the penalties of their perfidy. What and how great and how long-lasting these were, the book of Judges teaches, chapter 6 from verse 1: And the children of Israel did evil in the sight of the Lord: who delivered them into the hand of Madian seven years, and they were grievously oppressed by them. And they made themselves dens and caves in the mountains and strongholds to resist. And when Israel had sown, Madian and Amalec and the rest of the eastern nations came up; and pitching their tents among them, laid waste all things as they were in the blade even to the entrance of Gaza: and they left nothing at all in Israel for sustenance of life, nor sheep, nor oxen, nor asses. For they and all their flocks came with their tents, and, like locusts, filled all places, an innumerable multitude of men and of camels, wasting whatsoever they touched. And Israel was humbled exceedingly in the sight of Madian. With these calamities the Hebrew people was afflicted seven years. At last, when it found in itself no defense against the enemy, it implored the divine mercy, And cried to the Lord desiring help against the Madianites. And he sent to them a man, a prophet, and he spoke: Thus saith the Lord the God of Israel: I made you to come up out of Egypt and brought you out of the house of bondage, and delivered you out of the hands of the Egyptians and of all the enemies that afflicted you: and I cast them out at your coming in, and gave you their land. And I said: I am the Lord your God, fear not the gods of the Amorrhites in whose land you dwell. And you would not hear my voice, verse 7 and following. God, about to free the Israelites from the Midianite servitude through St. Gideon, had sent a prophet beforehand, who by recalling the benefits received might reproach their ungrateful mind, their idolatry, and their other crimes, and so might the more stir them to repentance. Nor is there doubt that most returned to their heart and seriously promised the Lord that thereafter they would serve Him alone. Yet the Saint's fellow citizens, the inhabitants of the city of Ephra, were not converted before the Midianite victory, as is plain from verse 28 and following.
[12] sends an angel, who discloses to him the Lord's The minds of the Israelites being thus prepared by the prophet's speech, the Lord sent from heaven an angel to St. Gideon, whom He had destined for snatching His people from so many calamities. Most suspect that this was Michael the archangel, and not without reason; for the matter concerned the safety and salvation of the whole Hebrew people, of which he was the president and, under God, the protector. Some indeed think that he was the Son of God, because in verses 14 and 16 he is called Lord. But this name is attributed to him as to God's envoy and one sustaining His person. See what was said in the Life of St. Joshua at num. 120 and following. And an angel of the Lord came and sat under an oak that was in Ephra and belonged to Joas the father of the family of Ezri. And when Gedeon his son was threshing and cleansing corn in the winepress, to flee from Madian, an angel of the Lord appeared to him and said: The Lord is with thee, O most valiant of men. And Gedeon said to him, attending not so much to his own praise in the greeting as to a formula of well-wishing, I beseech thee, my lord, if the Lord be with us, why have all these evils fallen upon us? Where are his miracles which our fathers have told us of, saying: The Lord brought us out of Egypt? But now the Lord hath forsaken us and delivered us into the hand of Madian, verse XI and following. These words are not those of one complaining of God, as Abulensis will have it in question 12 on chapter 6, or of one doubting of His power; but of one wondering that by the angel, whom he thought a man, the Lord was said to be present, whom the present calamities inflicted on the people for their sins signified to be absent and hostile.
[13] counsel, and promises His help against the enemy: And the Lord looked upon him — that is, His angel representing His person — and said: Go in this thy strength, and thou shalt deliver Israel out of the hand of Madian: know that I have sent thee, verse 14. The heavenly envoy by these words announces to St. Gideon that he has been divinely appointed savior and judge of the Hebrews, and at the same time rouses him, the office offered being accepted, to undertake with confidence and alacrity the deliverance of Israel. But the Saint out of submission of mind judged himself unequal to accomplishing so great a thing, on account of his own and his family's slenderness. Of which thus the following verse: And he answering said: I beseech thee, my lord, wherewith shall I deliver Israel? Behold my family is the meanest in Manasse, and I am the least in my father's house. See above, num. 9 and following. And the Lord said to him: I will be with thee; and thou shalt cut off Madian as one man, verse 16. Theodoret in question 12 on the book of Judges thus explains this verse with the preceding, commending the Saint's faith and modesty: Since, he says, he was mindful of God's wonders and held a firm opinion of God, that He, if He willed, could easily free them from their calamities,
in which they were held, he deserved to hear from the angel: "Set out in the strength of this faith, and thou shalt conquer." Nor let anyone condemn what follows: for he said not as one distrusting God, "My family is the lowliest in the tribe of Manasse, and I am the least," etc., but as one thinking modestly of himself. Wherefore the angel, holding this answer acceptable, says: "The Lord will be with thee; and thou shalt slay Madian as one man."
[14] The Saint did not know, as is manifest from verse 22, [not knowing that he was speaking with an angel, the Saint asks a sign from him by which he might prove that he was sent by God;] that he was an angel who promised so easy a victory over so many thousands of Midianites: but neither was it certain to him whether he was a prophet. Such indeed, as is credible, was the outward appearance of the appearing angel as would represent a sincere and holy man; he felt too without doubt a wondrous consolation and alacrity from his presence and address, and was inwardly moved to give credit to his promises: yet because fraud might lie hidden, he prudently asked some sign by which he might procure for himself greater certitude. If I have found grace before thee, he says, verse 17, give me a sign that it is thou who speakest to me on God's part; that I may be able to believe thee promising that I shall rout a numerous army of enemies, as if I had to contend with one man. The angel granted this in verse 21, when with his rod he drew forth fire from the rock, by which the kid's flesh and its broth and the unleavened loaves were consumed.
[15] To this petition the Saint soon subjoins another, verse 18: he brings unleavened loaves and a cooked kid, Depart not hence, till I return to thee, bringing a sacrifice and offering it to thee. By sacrifice I here understand a meal or a banquet-gift, which, because it was afterwards turned by the angel, beyond the Saint's expectation, into a sacrifice, is here called a sacrifice by prolepsis from the event that followed. That Scripture here more probably uses a figurative expression, I shall presently show, and at the same time I shall remove from the Saint the suspicion of every sin; which those can hardly do who expound this passage otherwise. Therefore, according to what is to be said, verse 18 seems to be so understood that St. Gideon willed only to bring and offer to the angel foods which afterwards passed into a sacrifice. And he answered: I will await thy coming. Gedeon therefore went in (verse 19) and boiled a kid and made unleavened loaves of a measure of flour: and putting the flesh in a basket and the broth of the flesh into a pot, he carried all under the oak and presented to him — namely to the angel, whom he thought a man — that he might eat of them, and then by some sign might prove that he was a prophet sent by God.
[16] Whether I have rightly expounded the sacred words — that is, not with the end of sacrificing them to God whether the Saint said, Depart not hence, till I return to thee, bringing a sacrifice, and then offered the boiled kid and the loaves to the angel with the intention of receiving his guest with a meal — is a much controverted question. St. Augustine in question 35 on the book of Judges teaches that St. Gideon said and did these things with the end proposed to himself that he himself should offer a sacrifice to God: for he speaks thus: It must be noted that Gedeon does not say to the angel: "I will offer thee a sacrifice," but says: "I will offer my sacrifice and will set it in thy sight" (in the Vulgate it is, Bringing a sacrifice and offering it to thee). Whence it is to be understood that he wished to offer not to the angel but through the angel, that is, to use his ministry. For a little below he has: The angel in the sacrifice which Gedeon offered fulfilled the office of a minister. And presently: At first he was speaking as with a man, whom nevertheless he believed to be a man of God, so that he wished to offer sacrifice before him, as though to be helped by the presence of his sanctity. Of the moderns who hold that St. Gideon intended a sacrifice, Estius and some others think with St. Augustine. Yet the greater part of them judge with Lyranus that the Saint, the angel being bidden to wait under the oak, went home and brought the boiled flesh and loaves, not that he himself, but that the angel should offer them, and while offering should declare by some miracle that he had been sent by God.
[17] nor of doing so himself, To these two opinions we shall set some arguments, whose solution we await: then we shall establish our own opinion. First of all, the holy Man did not resolve to offer a sacrifice himself: for that would have been impious, since he was not a priest, being of the tribe of Manasse, nor had he determined to go to Shiloh, the place destined for offering sacrifices. But you will say with the holy Doctor, ibid., question 36: But it must be understood that he had at first thought that angel a prophet, and in him, as in God who can dispense in all these things, had consulted about offering a sacrifice. Which if he had forbidden, it certainly would not have been done. But since he approved it and consented that it should be done, Gedeon in doing it followed the authority of God dispensing. For God so established those legal ordinances that He gave laws not to Himself but to men. Whence whatever He Himself has commanded beyond them must be understood to have been fulfilled not by transgressors but rather by the pious and obedient: as Abraham in immolating his son. Let me be allowed to bring forward the reason why I cannot here acquiesce in the holy Doctor, whose authority I greatly venerate. Be it so: let the angel have declared that God had dispensed with the Saint. He could not lawfully use that dispensation: for since he was not certain that he was such a one as could safely be believed, and therefore had asked a sign by which he might manifest that he was sent by the Lord, neither could he be certain of the divine dispensation.
[18] nor that the angel should do so; Nor, secondly, had St. Gideon the intention that the angel should sacrifice the material which he had prepared; for since, as I said just now, he was not so certain that the one with whom he spoke was sent by God as not to fear lest perhaps he were deceived by an impostor, how could he without fault will that he should act as priest and sacrifice, of whom it was not evident to him whether he really was a priest, either ordinary or, by divine dispensation, extraordinary? Besides, if he departed from the angel with the end of killing a kid to be sacrificed to God, it follows that he began the sacrifice from the killing of the victim, and so willed unlawfully to take upon himself at least a part of the priestly office: for the slaying of the victim is a part of the sacrifice, forbidden to any profane man outside the place of the tabernacle. If you say that the Saint did not indeed know whether he with whom he was dealing was a prophet of God or an angel under human likeness, yet did not doubt that he was one or the other, you will easily avoid the difficulties objected, but will strike against others. For if he had no doubt that he was truly sent by God, why, when he promised victory over the Midianites, did he doubt whether he foretold true things? Or if he did not doubt, what necessity was there for asking a sign? What sense will you give to the sacred words of verse 17: Give me a sign that it is thou who speakest to me? This passage manifestly hints that the Saint doubted whether he with whom he spoke announced divine counsels, and that to remove this doubt of his he asked some sign. Sufficiently, as I think, the reader sees that on the opinions hitherto set forth the Saint can hardly be excused from every fault.
[19] Now receive the reasons why I, with Cajetan, Arias Montanus, but more probably that he, whom he thought a man, might eat of them: Bonfrerius, and others, judge that St. Gideon more likely thought only of preparing food, and in no way of a sacrifice to be offered either by himself or by the angel. First, if he had intended a sacrifice, he would have brought fire and wood for burning up the flesh and the loaves: for how could he know that fire would be drawn from the rock by him with whom he was speaking? But, you will say, the prodigious fire that was to consume the victim was the very sign which St. Gideon awaited to be given by him, if he were truly sent by God. But if he had awaited this, he would first have erected some altar, and would not have boiled the kid; for for a sacrifice a live animal had to be brought. Secondly, the angel showed himself to him in the likeness of a traveler: for he carried a rod or staff in his hand, verse 21. It seems therefore that St. Gideon, who believed him a man and a traveler, wished to show the office of hospitality and to bring food for the refreshing of his body. Thirdly, that boiling and stewing of the kid's flesh, and the joining of unleavened loaves with the flesh and its broth, sufficiently indicate that all these were destined for eating. From all which I judge it sufficiently plain that the Saint more probably had only this mind, to give food to his guest; and that in verse 18 they are called a sacrifice because they were afterwards turned into one. Hear Procopius: The Saint calls that a sacrifice which was destined for a banquet. For a victim was not boiled according to the law. Moreover he sets it under the oak, imitating Abraham (Genesis chapter 18), and thinking that this man would consume the dishes. Whence here too the Chaldee paraphrast in the Royal Bibles has in Latin, for sacrifice, gift; and the Arabic text in the Greatest Bibles has meal. Whoever desires more to our purpose, let him go, among others, to Bonfrerius and Cornelius a Lapide here, who have laboriously discussed this question. What I have thus far brought forward seems to me sufficient for removing from the Saint every suspicion of fault.
[20] Therefore, just as Abraham in Genesis chapter 18, verse 8, set butter, milk, and a calf which he had cooked before three angels to be eaten, [the angel gives the sign asked, consuming the food with a prodigious fire as a holocaust to God;] and Manue in Judges chapter 13, verse 15, wished to cook a kid of the goats that the angel might eat of it who had announced to him that Samson would be born to him; so also St. Gideon carried unleavened loaves and boiled kid's flesh in a basket, and their broth in a pot, to the angel with this design, that he might receive him with a banquet. Both he and they believed that they were dealing with men. Further, the food being brought, the angel of the Lord said: Take the flesh and the unleavened loaves and lay them upon that rock, and pour out the broth thereon, verse 20. The Saint obeys the angel, who was to give the sign asked and to consume by a prodigious burning the meal prepared for him, in God's honor; wondering indeed to what end all these things, and especially that pouring out of the broth, were commanded, yet not daring to resist him whom, although he did not certainly know, he suspected to be a holy man and a prophet of God. And when he had done so, the angel of the Lord put forth the tip of the rod which he held in his hand and touched the flesh and the unleavened loaves: and there arose a fire from the rock and consumed the flesh and the unleavened loaves.
[21] And the angel of the Lord vanished out of his sight. suddenly vanishing he strikes the Saint with fear of death, which being removed And Gedeon, seeing that it was an angel of the Lord, whom until then he had believed a man, said:
Alas, my Lord God! for I have seen an angel of the Lord face to face. And the Lord said to him: Peace be with thee: fear not, thou shalt not die, verses 21 and following. From this exclamation of the Saint it is gathered that it was a common opinion in those times that he would die who had seen an angel of God. Whence this opinion arose, learn from the interpreters. Further, after the angel had freed St. Gideon from the fear of death, and by that signal miracle, in which he had burned up the food as a holocaust to God, had shown that he was sent by God, the Saint had no further doubt that he had been chosen by the Lord to snatch His people from servitude: and he conceived a firm hope that he would obtain victory over the enemy by divine help with that ease which the angel had promised.
[22] he builds an altar to the Lord. Gedeon therefore built there an altar to the Lord and called it, The peace of the Lord, until this present day, verse 24. If the altar spoken of here be distinguished from that which verse 26 presently mentions, I say with a Lapide that he erected it not for offering sacrifices, for these were forbidden outside the place of the tabernacle, which was then fixed in Shiloh; but for a perpetual memory of the safety and peace granted him by the angel he had seen, and of the deliverance of the Israelites from the Midianite servitude promised him by the same. Whence also he called it The peace of the Lord. And altars of this kind, which should be for a monument of some matter, could lawfully be raised anywhere, as is plain from the book of Joshua chapter 22; where the tribes of Ruben, Gad, and the half of Manasse are read to have built a like altar beside the Jordan, all Israel approving the deed. I said above: If the altar of verse 24 be distinguished from that which verse 26 mentions. For if it be the same, as most suspect, that one too was indeed raised for sacrificing, but only after God had commanded it to the Saint in verse 26, And thou shalt build an altar to the Lord thy God, etc.: so that the execution of this precept, which verse 27 narrates, is anticipated in verse 24. But what seems to us more likely — whether St. Gideon built one altar or two — we shall say below at num. 25.
[23] [The prodigies which Philo Byblius narrates that the angel wrought were invented by himself.] Philo Byblius, in Natalis Alexander's Ecclesiastical History of the Old Testament, fourth age of the world, chapter 6, article 3, writes that to St. Gideon asking a sign the angel answered: Run and take me water from that lake and pour it upon this ground; I will give thee a sign. And going he took it as he had commanded him. And the angel said to him: Before thou pour the water upon the rock, ask what thou wilt have made of it, whether blood, or fire, or that it should nowhere appear. And Gedeon said: Let half be blood and half fire. And Gedeon poured out the water upon the ground. And it came to pass, when he had poured it out, that half became flame and half blood, and both were mingled: and the blood did not extinguish the fire, nor did the fire drive out the blood. And Gedeon, seeing these things, asked other signs, and they were given him. Are not these things written in the book of Judges? So indeed is the miracle of the fire suddenly bursting from the rock and consuming the food; but what the trifler pseudo-Philo brings forward was invented in his empty brain.
§ III. He destroys the altar of Baal with the grove; he raises another to God and sacrifices; he receives the name Jerobaal and the Spirit of the Lord; he calls together forces against Madian; he asks a double sign in the fleece, in which he is shown not to have sinned.
[ ] At the Lord's command, When the day had passed on which the angel's apparition happened of which the preceding paragraph spoke, on the next night St. Gideon is admonished by the same angel, as I judge, to begin the princedom divinely conferred on him with the destruction of the grove and the altar of Baal, with the erection of an altar to the true Godhead, and with the offering of a holocaust. The sacred author narrates the matter thus, verse 24 and following: And while he was yet in Ephra, which is of the family of Ezri, the Lord said to him that night: Take a bullock of thy father's and another bullock of seven years, and thou shalt destroy the altar of Baal which is thy father's: and cut down the grove that is about the altar: and thou shalt build an altar to the Lord thy God on the top of this rock whereon thou didst lay the sacrifice before: and thou shalt take the second bullock and shalt offer a holocaust upon a pile of the wood which thou shalt cut down out of the grove. From these it is understood that God here dispensed with the Saint, that he should discharge the office of priest and offer a holocaust far from the place of the tabernacle.
[25] Gedeon therefore, taking ten men of his servants, [the altar and grove of Baal being overthrown, he raises an altar to God and sacrifices:] did as the Lord had commanded him. But fearing his father's house and the men of that city, he would not do it by day, but did all by night, verse 27. Therefore, the altar of Baal being overthrown and its grove cut down, the Saint, as he had been bidden, upon the top of the rock on which he had before laid the food, afterwards turned by the angel into a sacrifice, built an altar to the Lord by night, and on it offered a holocaust as an extraordinary priest of God. The altar spoken of here was more likely the same as that which verse 24 mentions: where St. Gideon is said to have built an altar there: by which word is designated the place where the angel had sacrificed, or had freed him from the fear of death, or certainly another near it about the oak. But that in so small a space of places a double altar was built to the Lord I hardly believe; and I incline rather to that opinion which holds that the sacred writer in verse 24 used the figure of prolepsis, and that he wished to join immediately to the angelic words Peace be with thee, etc., which had taken away from the Saint the fear of death, some mention of the altar erected the following night, which from those same words was called The peace of the Lord. If, however, anyone prefer to assert that a double altar was erected by the Saint, I shall not oppose him; provided he admit that in building the first, of which verse 24 speaks, he intended another end than that he should sacrifice upon it. See what was said above at num. 22.
[26] When the holy Judge had carried out the pious work commanded him by the angel, the complaint of the townsmen: he receives the name Jerobaal. And when the men of that town were risen in the morning, they saw the altar of Baal destroyed and the grove cut down and the second bullock laid upon the altar which then was built. And they said one to another: Who hath done this? And when they inquired for the author of the deed, it was said: Gedeon the son of Joas did all this. And they said to Joas: Bring out thy son hither, that he may die: because he hath destroyed the altar of Baal and hath cut down the grove. To whom he answered: Are you the avengers of Baal, that you fight for him? He that is his adversary, let him die before tomorrow's light come: if he be a god, let him avenge himself on him that hath dug down his altar. From that day Gedeon was called Jerobaal, because Joas had said: Let Baal avenge himself on him that hath dug down his altar, verse 28 and following. See num. 5.
[27] [The Midianites cross the Jordan: St. Gideon, breathed upon by the Spirit of the Lord, gathers an army;] In the meantime all Madian and Amalec and the eastern people were gathered together, to bring upon the lands of the Hebrews the same devastation as in the seven former years; And passing over the Jordan they camped in the valley of Jezrael, verse 33. There had flowed together thither a hundred and thirty-five thousand warriors, as is understood from chapter 8, verse 10. Their leaders were Oreb, Zeb, Zebee, and Salmana, chapter 7, verse 25, and chapter 8, verse 5. When these things happened, it was springtime; for, as chapter 6, verses 3 and following, teaches us, the Midianites and the other auxiliary peoples with their flocks were wont, when the crops were in the blade, to fly in like locusts to devour all the hope and produce of the year. Verse 34 subjoins: But the Spirit of the Lord clothed Gedeon; who, sounding the trumpet, called together the house of Abiezer, that it might follow him against the enemy, to turn aside the impending calamity. The Abiezrites, the inhabitants of the city of Ephra, ran up furnished with arms; and among these doubtless at least some of those also who had lately demanded the Saint for death. Him whom a little before they wished removed from their midst, they now acknowledge as their leader and follow. Wonderful truly is this so great a change made so suddenly in their minds. Did that divine Spirit by which the Saint was moved so show itself outwardly that, its outward signs being perceived, anyone would be roused to follow him with hope of victory? Moreover he not only stirred to war his own townsmen and kinsmen, but besides he sent messengers into all Manasse, who also followed him; and other messengers into Aser and Zabulon and Nephthali, who came to meet him, verse 35. These being added, in the holy Leader's army thirty-two thousand fighting men were numbered, as is plain from chapter 7, verse 3.
[28] he asks and obtains a double miracle in the fleece and the floor: And Gedeon said to God: If thou wilt save Israel by my hand, as thou hast said, I will put this fleece of wool on the floor: if there be dew on the fleece only, and it be dry on all the ground beside, I shall know that by my hand, as thou hast said, thou wilt deliver Israel. And it was so. And rising before day, wringing the fleece, he filled a vessel with the dew. And he said again to God: Let not thy wrath be kindled against me if I try once more, seeking a sign in the fleece. I pray that the fleece only may be dry and all the ground wet with dew. And God did that night as he had asked: and it was dry on the fleece only, and there was dew on all the ground, verse 36 and following.
[29] this petition was not made from a defect of faith, About these miracles asked by the holy Judge a question grave enough is moved: whether the Saint did wrong in asking them. There is against him an argument of no light weight: since from manifest tokens he had already sufficiently known that it was an angel sent by the Lord, from whom he had understood that Israel under his leadership would gain victory over the Midianites: he sinned therefore against faith if he doubted whether God would really do what He had promised through the angel; but if he was certain that the divine promise would be fulfilled, he was irreverent toward God in asking miracles without necessity. Nay, St. Gideon himself, when in verse 39 he says, Let not thy wrath be kindled against me if I try once more, seeking a sign in the fleece, seems sufficiently to acknowledge that he was committing a great irreverence toward God by a repeated petition for a miracle. The authority of some too is adverse to the Saint. By Rupert, on the book of Judges, book 1 of his Commentaries, chapter 10, he is accused of having tempted God,
in asking signs: but whether he did this from a defect of the faith by which he was bound to believe the divine promises sufficiently set before him, or whether he committed the sin of tempting God, because, although he was not unbelieving, yet the petition for miracles was made without a cause approved by God, he does not explain. But Abulensis in question 47 is wholly bent on proving that the holy Man fell into unbelief. He has favoring him St. Thomas, 2-2, question 97, article 2, reply 3, where he says: But Abraham (Genesis chapter 15, verse 8) asked a sign by divine prompting, and therefore did not sin. But Gedeon seems to have asked a sign from weakness of faith, and therefore is not excused from sin, as the Gloss there says.
[30] But others better make the Saint free from all sin. First of all, he did not ask signs because he had not certain faith in the divine promises. nor had it any irreverence toward God joined with it: For who would believe that he who is praised for faith by the Apostle to the Hebrews, XI, verse 32, and is recounted there first of all among those who by faith conquered kingdoms, wrought justice, obtained promises, … became valiant in battle, put to flight the armies of foreigners, etc.; whom a little before he asked signs the Spirit of the Lord had clothed, as is said in verse 34 — who, I say, would believe that he was unbelieving? Certainly that alacrity with which he overthrew the altar of Baal and the grove consecrated to it, and erected an altar to the true God, not being ignorant that the thing was most full of danger; with which, about to fight against so many enemies, he called his own men to arms by the sounding of the trumpet, is an argument of immense confidence and hope of a happy issue of affairs, founded upon that firm faith by which he believed that God would perform what He had promised through the angel. Nor, if with us you free the Saint from the sin of unbelief, should you suspect that the petition for miracles was faulty on another head. This could be done without any irreverence toward God, although he was certain that he would obtain the victory foretold by the angel. When God wrought the miracles asked, He Himself sufficiently showed by manifest tokens that He approved not only the reason for which but also the manner in which the Saint asked them. If in any part the petition for signs had been evil and not pleasing to God, would He have heard him? Hear St. Ambrose in the book On Widows, chapter 3: It is shown by (St. Gideon's) example that it does not belong to all to merit the miracles of the divine power; but to those for whom the zeal of religious devotion pleads: and that those are cut off from the fruit of the divine work who are without heavenly reverence. Whence the same holy Doctor, as he removes any other fault, so also that of unbelief from the Saint, in the Preface to book 1 On the Holy Spirit: Perhaps someone asks whether he does not seem as it were unbelieving, who, informed by frequent tokens, still demanded more? But how can he seem as it were doubtful and uncertain to have tempted, who, in asking dew and dryness in the fleece and on the floor, was speaking mysteries? He therefore was not doubtful, but provident, lest we should doubt. For how was he doubtful, whose prayer had its effect? Origen on the book of Judges, Homily 8, says: Perhaps someone of those who listen more attentively to what is read about St. Gideon asking a double miracle will say that these things do not seem to agree with what is written, "Thou shalt not tempt the Lord thy God," which the law commanded. But the issue of the thing teaches that it was not done against the commandment. For God would not hear a petition asking anything against the law.
[31] with a good end, namely that the people might be confirmed in faith, Francisco Suarez, book 1 On Irreligiousness, chapter 2, num. 10, Bonfrerius here, and others who absolve St. Gideon from all fault allege various reasons why the petition for a double miracle could lawfully be made. Among others that one greatly pleases me which Cajetan and Salianus bring forward. They say that the holy Judge asked the signs not for his own confirmation but for that of his companions whom he had called together to war; namely, that they might have firm faith about the Saint's mission for freeing Israel and about the divine promises made to him, and might be raised to a sure hope of victory. That the Saint proposed to himself this end in asking the signs can in some way be gathered from the very context of the sacred narrative. This in verse 35 reports that four tribes ran together to St. Gideon; presently in verse 36 it subjoins the petition for miracles; and, the granting of these being narrated, it at once again subjoins that the holy Leader and all the people with him rose and went against the enemy. Whence it is likely that the Saint demanded the signs before the army itself, and that the whole army, or some appointed for it, inspected the fleece and the floor in the morning, that the miracles might be established. The words of both will illuminate the whole matter better. Cajetan's are these: That Gedeon asked such a sign not for himself but for the people (and therefore did not sin, nor tempt God, but asked the sign for the people's benefit, that it might follow him securely to war) is hinted first of all from this, that the petition for a sign was made when the army was already gathered. Then, because Gedeon himself repeats without doubt that God had said this: not therefore that he himself might know (who already knew), but that the people might know, did he ask a sign.
[32] we believe that St. Gideon asked the signs, Salianus in the Annals at the year 2768, num. 27 and following, thus historically draws out the sacred narrative from verse 35: Likewise the rest of the tribe of Manasse, summoned by messengers, came eagerly to Gideon, God suggesting the will. He sent other messengers also into Aser and Zabulon and Nephthalim; which tribes were situated on this side the Jordan to the north of Manasse, and joined themselves to the rest: nay, when he was already beginning to advance against the enemy, they came to meet him. These being gathered, Gideon asked of God two miracles concerning the fleece. On which matter various men speak variously, as you will see in Serarius; but Cajetan pleases me most, who denies that they were asked or exhibited for Gideon, but for his army… And this is hinted first of all from the fact that he asked when the army was already gathered, namely that it might believe the things which Gideon had told them about his calling and about the victory and liberty divinely promised. But lest any difficulty stick in the words themselves, the petition and exhibition of the miracle stands thus: "And Gedeon said to God: If thou wilt save Israel by my hand, as thou hast said" — namely through the angel, whose word had been: "Go in this thy strength, and thou shalt deliver Israel out of the hand of Madian." And he recalls the promise before the people, that it may be established that he doubts neither of the divine power nor of the divine will… And he goes on: "I will put this fleece of wool on the floor: if there be dew on the fleece only, and it be dry on all the ground beside, I shall know that by my hand, as thou hast said, thou wilt deliver Israel." When he says, I shall know, it is the same as if he said, This people who are with me shall know. So St. John, when he sent his disciples to Jesus to ask him: "Art thou he that art to come, or look we for another?" transferred the doubt of his disciples to himself, when he willed Christ to be questioned in his own name and not in his disciples'. "And it was so (as Gideon had asked), who rising before day filled a vessel with the dew" — the whole floor, namely, remaining dry and parched. But since perhaps that unbelieving people was not yet satisfied, and he went on to seek a sign, another sign was both asked and given him. For in their name "he said again to God: Let not thy wrath be kindled against me if I try once more" etc. But, someone will say, on the opinion of Cajetan and Salianus it is indeed easily understood that the petition for miracles was lawful for St. Gideon; but it does not yet appear how he did not tempt God by demanding determinate signs. The determining of them should have been left to the disposition of the divine wisdom. This difficulty will be removed by what is to be said in the following number.
[33] Origen on the book of Judges, Homily 8, subjoins to the words which I gave at num. 30 inspired by God, this: The reason of this mystery must be seen, of which I remember that one also of our predecessors in his little books said that the fleece of wool is the people of Israel, but that he set the rest of the earth for the other nations: and that the dew which fell upon the fleece is the word of God, which had been granted from heaven to that people alone. For upon Israel alone had the dew of the divine law come. But all the nations had dryness; because no moisture of the divine utterance was poured upon them. But the reason of the second sign is changed to the contrary; in which he asks that the dew should come down upon all the earth, but that dryness should remain upon the fleece. Which he then interprets more fully of the aridity of the Jews, and of the coming of Christ the Lord and of the dew of divine grace and heavenly doctrine poured out through Him upon the other nations. Whence he concludes: Holy Gedeon therefore, beholding this order of the mystery with prophetic spirit, not only asked the first sign of God, but repeats also the second in inverted order. For he knew that the divine dew, which is the coming of the Son of God, would come not only to the Jews but afterwards also to the gentiles, since indeed from Israel's unbelief salvation comes to the nations. And this is why, for the dryness of the fleece, the whole earth is filled with the grace of the divine dew. Serarius in question 24 and a Lapide here give many holy Fathers who explain in almost the same way this same mystery, shadowed forth by the prodigious falling of dew on the fleece and the floor. SS. Ambrose, Jerome, Ephrem, Sophronius, Bernard, and others in the same authors also teach that by the dew here is signified Christ, by the fleece the most blessed virgin Mary, into whose womb He, taking human nature, came down. Whence even now devout Catholics call and invoke the Mother of God and their own Mother as the Fleece of Gideon. St. Ambrose in the book On Widows, chapter 3, and in the Preface to book 1 On the Holy Spirit, with Origen expressly affirms that St. Gideon knew the first mystery, and asked the signs to this end, that some notable figure of it might be given. The same was believed by St. Isidore of Seville and, among the moderns, by Villaroël, induced by the authority of the said Fathers. If, however, this should seem not to deserve such easy credit, another safer way can be entered, and it can be said that God had in view either both the mysteries which the Fathers here acknowledge, or one of them, and, that He might give a figure of it, inspired St. Gideon to ask for prodigious dew and dryness in the fleece and on the floor; and that these determinate miracles were asked by the Saint, who knew indeed that it was God's will that they should be asked, but not the mystery for whose figuring they were destined.
[34] we believe. The other causes which others bring forward why St. Gideon lawfully asked signs I do not report. Two
I have set forth, of which the last makes it manifest that the Saint without any irreverence toward God asked dew in the fleece and on the floor rather than another miracle. Now I thus set out my opinion. The holy Judge asked signs for the confirming in faith of the Israelites who had flowed together to him: he asked determinate signs by divine prompting, which Suarez, cited at num. 10 and 13, Lessius, book 2 On the Cardinal Virtues, chapter 45, doubt 1, Bonfrerius here, and others judge must here be admitted. That the end intended by God in inspiring the determinate signs was both or one of the two mysteries of which the preceding number spoke, the authority of the Fathers persuades; that St. Gideon proposed to himself the end of which num. 31 spoke, reason persuades, and also, as it seems to me, the very context of the sacred history. To the argument which can be drawn from verse 37, If there be dew on the fleece only, and it be dry on all the ground beside, I shall know that by my hand thou wilt deliver Israel, Salianus answered above at number 33. Nor can anything be inferred against us from the Saint's words asking a sign a second time, verse 39: Let not thy wrath be kindled against me if I try once more, seeking a sign in the fleece. For these do not signify that the Saint acknowledges some fault in this petition of his and therefore asks pardon of God; but rather indicate his modesty, submission of mind, highest reverence toward God, and the dread arising from it lest perhaps he deal too freely and boldly with God, and with less consideration than is fitting of his own vileness and of the divine majesty. Since God's inspiration does not take away such dread, we acknowledge and praise it in the Saint.
[35] [Josephus keeps silence about what is honorable to the Saint: the few things he narrates are weighed.] Further, both prodigies wrought by God in the fleece; the food consumed by the angel with prodigious fire as a holocaust to God; the altar of Baal overthrown, the grove cut down, an altar raised to the Lord, a sacrifice offered on it — these things, I say, and the other wonders of which we have treated in this and the preceding paragraph, Josephus suppressed with strange taciturnity; for which he is deservedly rebuked by Salianus in the Annals, num. 30. But the few things which he transferred from chapter 7 into his history he corrupted in more than one place: About the same time, he says at the beginning of chapter 8, Gedeon the son of Jasus, one of the chief men of the tribe of Manasse, was threshing sheaves of corn secretly carried into the winepress: for he did not dare to do this openly on the floor because of the enemy. And when an apparition (in Scripture it is five times an angel of the Lord) presented itself to him in the likeness of a young man and had called him happy and dear to God, he answered and said: This is the greatest argument of my happiness, that I now use a winepress for a floor. And when the other bade him be of good courage and think of vindicating liberty, he denied that it could be done; for his tribe yielded in number to any other (in verse 15 the Saint does not say tribe but family, or, as it is in the Hebrew and Greek text, that his chiliad is the meanest in Manasse), and he himself was a young man and unequal to such arduous affairs. But God promised that He would supply whatever was lacking and would give victory to the Israelites, provided he himself were not unwilling to take up the command. This matter Gideon shared with certain young men, who, gladly believing the oracle, without delay brought it about that ten thousand soldiers were at hand, most ready to dare anything for liberty. These last things do not agree with verse 34 and following, where it is said that St. Gideon himself, moved by the Spirit of the Lord, called out to war by the sounding of a trumpet and by messengers not ten but thirty-two thousand, as is plain from verse 3 of the following chapter.
§ IV. At God's command he reduces the army to CCC; he surveys the enemy's camp: he is vindicated from unbelief: confirmed by hearing the interpretation of a dream, he drives the Midianites by a wonderful stratagem into mutual slaughter and flight, and pursues them.
[ ] God commands St. Gideon to dismiss the fearful: 22,000 withdraw: On the next day, when the second miracle about the fleece was observed, the people, as is credible, doubted no more of St. Gideon's mission for saving Israel, and of the victory to be won under his leadership. Then Jerobaal, who is also Gedeon, rising up early and all the people with him, came to the fountain that is called Harad. Now the camp of Madian was in the valley on the north side of the high hill, chapter 7, verse 1. The situation of the places of which mention is here made and will be made hereafter, learn from the interpreters. And the Lord said to Gedeon: The people that are with thee are many, nor shall Madian be delivered into their hands: lest Israel should glory against me and say: I was delivered by my own strength. Speak to the people and proclaim in the hearing of all: Whosoever is fearful and timorous, let him return. And there went back from mount Galaad and returned of the people twenty-two thousand men, and only ten thousand remained, verses 2 and 3. It is strange that in the holy Leader's army there was so great a number of the timorous, especially since by a double prodigy they had been made certain of the happy outcome of the war: But, says Salianus at num. 33, they could believe for certain that they would be victors, yet fear lest they should purchase the people's victory and liberty with their own death, God namely, who willed them dismissed, withdrawing from them vigor and presence of mind.
[37] Nor, content with one diminution, does the Lord prescribe another, [out of the remaining 10,000 three hundred are chosen, who had drunk water from the hand without bending the knee:] that the Israelites might the more clearly acknowledge that it was not by human strength but by God's help alone that they had received back their former liberty. The matter is thus described from verse 4: And the Lord said to Gedeon: The people are still too many, bring them to the waters, and there I will try them: and of whom I shall say to thee that he shall go with thee, let him go; whom I shall forbid to go, let him return. And when the people were come down to the waters, the Lord said to Gedeon: They that shall lap the water with their tongues, as dogs are wont to lap, thou shalt set apart by themselves: but they that shall drink bowing down their knees shall be on the other side. And the number of them that had lapped water, casting it with the hand to their mouth, was three hundred men: and all the rest of the multitude had drunk kneeling. And the Lord said to Gedeon: By the three hundred men that lapped water I will save you and deliver Madian into thy hand: but let all the rest of the multitude return to their place. Those three hundred, who out of the ten thousand were taken for finishing this war, with feet upright had lapped water drawn in the hollow of the hand, after the manner of dogs which do not plunge their mouths into the water itself; the rest, who had drunk with bent knee and mouth plunged into the spring, were dismissed. So Tirinus, more rightly than Salianus and Bonfrerius, who will have it that no ground of distinction was placed in the bending of the knees. But of the different manner of the drinkers and other things pertaining hereto read more, if you please, among the interpreters.
[38] [with these the holy Leader, preparing for the contest, is bidden to explore the enemy's camp.] Taking therefore victuals and trumpets according to their number, he commanded all the rest of the multitude to depart to their tents: and he with the three hundred men gave himself to the battle. And the camp of Madian was beneath in the valley, verse 8. Abulensis' conjecture here in question 12 pleases me, where he says that this supply of trumpets, which below in verse 16 are read to have been distributed to the three hundred soldiers one by one, were left at holy Gideon's command by the departing multitude; and the praised prelate adds that at that time there had already been revealed to him by God that wonderful manner of fighting by which a little after the victory was won: although it is no less likely that the holy Leader bade them be handed over to him by the Lord's precept, still not knowing for what they were necessary; yet not doubting of the necessity of those things whose handing over the Lord had commanded. On the same night, namely on which St. Gideon, the rest being dismissed, had girded himself for battle with the three hundred men, the Lord said to him: Arise and go down into the camp of the enemies: for I have delivered them into thy hand. But if thou art afraid to go alone, let Phara thy servant go down with thee. And when thou shalt hear what they say, then shall thy hands be strengthened, and thou shalt go down more secure to the enemy's camp, verses 9 and following.
[39] From verses 10 and following Abulensis wrongly infers the Saint's unbelief; Abulensis in question 47 on the preceding chapter laboriously tried to prove that the Saint tempted God out of unbelief, when, doubting of the victory foretold by the angel of the Lord, he asked a double sign that he might acquire certitude about it. In question 13, which he raises on this chapter at the words just given, he is more severe against the Saint; for he asserts that after both prodigies of the wet and dry fleece, and after hearing besides the divine oracle in this chapter, verse 7, I will deliver Madian into thy hand, he yet did not believe, but remained very doubtful. Hear him speaking: It must be answered that Gideon was an imperfect man, and doubting of the victory to be given him: and although God had made him certain, yet afterwards he twice asked a sign. Now therefore, although he did not himself ask a sign, God made him certain in the recounting of the dream, to which Gideon greatly assented; and He did this that He might condescend to his condition, because he was very doubtful about it. It is strange that the interpreters do not oppose themselves to this harsh censure of Abulensis. For what cause, contrary to their custom, they keep silence or dissemble, is hidden from me. Certainly the sacred words are not so plain and open as not to need a kindly commentary against the most learned but too severe prelate. To him we must by no means assent. For he whom the Apostle praises first among the judges for faith, whom the Latin Church judges the only one of the judges of whom the book inscribed with their name treats to be worthy for the holiness of his life of eternal memory and cult in the sacred Calendars — is he, I say, where he can be excused, to be said to have lost sanctity by an obstinate unbelief? By an obstinate unbelief, I say; for how, after so many prodigies seen and oracles received, could he be very doubtful without obstinacy and a grave fault against faith? But whether this can be proved from the Scriptures, let us weigh.
[40] First of all, Gideon's unbelief cannot be proved from the Lord's words, But if thou art afraid to go alone, let there go down with thee, etc. The argument for verse 10 can be explained of a dread, which can thence be deduced against the Saint is this: sent to explore the enemy's camp, he feared to go unaccompanied, lest perhaps he should be taken or killed by the enemy: but since by so many prodigies and oracles God had testified that Gideon would free Israel, and that the enemy would be delivered into his hands, how could he fear the danger of life or of captivity, and at the same time believe in a victory to be won under his own leadership? Divine faith does not
admit any dread of the opposite. I answer that this is true of a dread which arises, or can arise, from deliberate suspicion and voluntary doubting. But I deny that the Saint had a dread of this kind. Just as in believers there can be, and often are, suspicions and motions of doubt which neither the command of the will nor any deliberation preceded, and which accordingly are nothing else than mere apprehensions that perhaps the matter is otherwise than God has revealed; so also in them there can be a dread or some horror naturally flowing from those unfree motions of the mind; especially if the matter proposed to faith, which is necessarily obscure, be a thing which, considered in itself, is very dangerous and terrible. As faith, which is an assent about a thing obscurely known, does not exclude the said apprehensions, so neither does it exclude the dread which these excite.
[41] Now of the Saint I determine thus. He believed with firm faith that he would obtain victory over 135 thousand enemies, which stands with faith; although he saw his army reduced to three hundred, so that 450 Midianites had to be conquered by each man; he believed, I say, that under his leadership they would be victors, and consequently that he would return safe to his own from exploring the enemy's camp, although he was bidden to come so near to it that he might hear and understand the sentinels talking. Nevertheless, since the Saint's faith was about a matter which from new circumstances appeared more obscure, arduous, and dangerous, there arose in his understanding unfree apprehensions of the peril which he was approaching; whence too a dread or some horror crept over his mind, which the very solitude and the darkness of night could increase. Of this dread are to be understood the Lord's words in verse 10, But if thou art afraid to go alone. This is gathered even from His subjoining: Let Phara thy servant go down with thee. If St. Gideon's fear as he went down to the enemy's camp had arisen from a defect of faith, the company of one boy — that is, of a servant or armor-bearer — nor even of three hundred, could not have driven it away. But it is much more easily understood how the presence even of one companion can lessen, nay sometimes take away, that horror with which the mind is wont to be struck at the mere apprehension of some terrible thing. Since no interpreter denies that the Saint felt dread, and since it cannot but ineptly be said that the bravest of men shuddered at the mere shadows of night — and so it seems must be said that he feared lest in the nocturnal exploring of the enemy's camp some evil should befall him — I do not see what better can be brought forward for excusing the Saint from unbelief.
[42] Secondly, nothing is proved against the Saint from verse XI, verse XI is of an increase of faith and bravery, And when thou shalt hear what they say, then shall thy hands be strengthened. Hence the praised prelate deduces that he believed only then, and with faith received strength of mind, when he learned the enemy's panic from the interpretation of the dream; but wrongly: for it does not lawfully follow, then Gideon will be strengthened; therefore he now lacks bravery: for he who receives an increase of bravery is truly strengthened. Therefore the Lord's words to the Saint admit this kindly interpretation: When thou shalt hear what they say, then shall thy hands be strengthened, that is, thy faith and bravery shall be fuller and more intense. To this exposition are agreeable the words which immediately follow, And thou shalt go down more secure to attack the enemy's camp with the three hundred men.
[43] which he received on hearing the Midianite's dream and its interpretation: He went down therefore (verse XI and following) he and Phara his servant into that part of the camp where were the watches of armed men. And Madian and Amalec and all the eastern people lay scattered in the valley (of Jezrael) like a multitude of locusts: their camels also were innumerable, as the sand that lieth on the sea shore. And when Gedeon was come, one told his neighbor a dream: and in this manner related what he had seen: I dreamed a dream, and it seemed to me as if a hearth cake of barley bread rolled and came down into the camp of Madian: and when it was come to a tent, it struck it and beat it down and threw it flat to the ground. He to whom he spoke answered: This is nothing else but the sword of Gedeon the son of Joas, a man of Israel: for the Lord hath delivered Madian and all their camp into his hands. And when Gedeon had heard the dream and the interpretation thereof, he adored — namely God — and gave Him thanks for so happy an omen. For he recognized that both the dream and its interpretation, in which otherwise there could be deceit, were from God. By this new confirmation the Saint received an increase of faith and of strength of mind, by which he was made readier and more eager for accomplishing the matter. And returning to the camp of Israel he said: Arise, for the Lord hath delivered the camp of Madian into our hands, verse 15.
[44] he furnishes the three hundred with wondrous arms, Then, the dream and its interpretation being related, he divides the well-animated band of three hundred men into three parts, that, breaking into the Midianites' camp at once from three sides, he might throw their whole army into confusion. But he furnished his men with arms unusual in war, at God's bidding; of which thus the following verse: And he divided the three hundred men into three parts and gave them trumpets in their hands and empty pitchers and lamps within the pitchers. What those pitchers, lamps, and trumpets were, and for what use and end they were distributed, Salianus' Epitome teaches at num. XI: He gave to each a trumpet to terrify the Midianites, who would think that as many troops and companies of enemies were pressing upon them as they heard trumpets, especially by night, when even things near at hand can hardly be discerned. For the torches brought near to the eyes availed more to dazzle the sight than to give light. Secondly, he gave the soldiers pitchers or earthen jars for a double use: the first, to hide within the burning torch, which, flashing out unexpectedly, would dazzle eyes occupied by the darkness of night and by the vapors of sleep, and would trouble their minds; the second, that when they were all broken at a signal they might, from their emptiness, give a greater sound, and, while they shook their ears on every side with a crashing din, would thrust upon their imagination the ruin and shattering of their own tents and of all their gear together. Finally he gave the soldiers torches of solid and compacted material, although from their brightness they are called lamps, and so fear was struck into them both by the fire and by the imagined vast multitude of enemies before whom three hundred men were bearing lights.
[45] When the holy Leader had armed his men, he said to them: What you shall see me do, do you the same. I will go into one part of the camp, and do you as I shall do. When the trumpet shall sound in my hand, do you also blow the trumpets on every side of the camp and shout together to the Lord and to Gedeon, verses 17 and 18. and teaches the manner in which they were to be used and the enemy attacked; There is no doubt that the Commander before the battle explained in detail the rest of the manner and order of fighting, which a little below we read was observed in it. As God inspired all this to the Saint, or commanded it through an angel, so also without doubt this military watchword, The sword of the Lord and of Gedeon; with which words it is said in verse 20 that both were acclaimed. And God willed, says Salianus in the Annals, num. 45, that it should be so shouted, accommodating Himself to the enemy's present disposition, to whom Gideon's name was terrible, as can be estimated from the aforesaid dream. He willed also to honor Gideon's bravery, faith, and obedience, and at the same time to teach that God gladly uses the ministry of men endowed with such virtues for accomplishing His wondrous works, and in a manner glories in them.
[46] The slaughter and flight of the Midianites is thus described from verse 19: who, their camp being thrown into confusion, rush into mutual slaughter And Gedeon and the three hundred men that were with him went into part of the camp at the beginning of the midnight watch, or the third, and the guards being awakened, whose duty was to keep watch from midnight until the fourth watch, they began to sound their trumpets and to clap the pitchers one against another. And when they sounded their trumpets in three places round about the camp and had broken their pitchers, they held their lamps in their left hands and with their right hands the trumpets which they blew, and they cried out, The sword of the Lord and of Gedeon, standing every man in his place round about the enemy's camp. And all the camp was troubled, and crying out and howling they fled away: and nevertheless the three hundred men continued sounding the trumpets. And the Lord sent the sword into all the camp, and they killed one another, fleeing as far as Bethsetta and the border of Abelmehula in Tebbath. These places were on this side the Jordan, toward which the enemy fled.
[47] That wonderful manner of fighting, at which God bestowed on the Israelites so signal a victory over the enemy, and are cast into flight; the often-named writer of the Annals thus expounds in his Epitome from num. XI: Therefore, he says, the three leaders, each with his own century, at the beginning of the midnight watch — when, namely, deeper sleep holds mortals and the daylight is still far off — approached the camp from three places. This too was convenient, that on account of the darkness the enemy should not know one another and should the longer mangle themselves with mutual wounds: while the light coming on little by little would give the Hebrews the convenience of dispatching the remnants of the enemy with their own arms. Gideon began to sound the trumpet; his companions eagerly follow their Leader's example; and, the guard on watch being first roused by that din, the rest of the army runs together with tumult to arms; and since the trumpets sounded in three places round about the camp, they knew not to which side to run first. But when they had broken the earthen vessels, they held torches in their left hands and trumpets in their right, and alternately howled with the trumpets and cried, "The sword of the Lord and of Gedeon." Nor yet did they fight, but the Lord fought for them. "For he sent the sword into all the camp, and they killed one another" — while, namely, with confused mind they take their own men for enemies, and, maddened, attack all who meet them. But others, placing no hope in arms and thinking that the army could not be drawn up or restored on account of the sudden confusion of all things — and since, because of the sound of three hundred trumpets, they could not hear one another — cast themselves in disorderly flight, wherever a place was given free of the torch-bearers and trumpeters: escaping from whom by the benefit of darkness, they hurried off some one way, some another, as chance carried each, to be the messengers both of their own disaster and of Gideon's victory.
[48] [the Israelites pursue them; Oreb and Zeb are killed: the disaster of the Midianites.] There follows verse 23: And the men of Israel shouting together out of Nephthali and Aser and all Manasse pursued after Madian. These seem to have been the same as those who the day before had of their own accord departed out of fear, verse 3, and had been dismissed at the waters, verse 8. Of the Aserites and Nephthalites I have no doubt; for since they dwelt in the farthest parts of northern Canaan, they could not be present so quickly. These therefore
with the rest, of whom he speaks here and in chapter 6, verse 35, to whom perhaps others also joined themselves, running up, pressed upon the backs of the enemy now turned to flight. It is likely that they were summoned by messengers from the Leader of the Israelites, that those of the enemy who by the benefit of darkness had escaped and had not fallen by mutual arms might be killed by the Israelites. And Gedeon sent — that every way of flight might be cut off for them — messengers into all mount Ephraim, saying: Come down to meet Madian and take the waters before them as far as Bethbera and the Jordan. And all Ephraim shouted and took the waters and the Jordan as far as Bethbera. And having taken two men of Madian, Oreb and Zeb, he slew Oreb in the rock of Oreb, and Zeb in the winepress of Zeb, verses 24 and 25. Of these kings or leaders of the Midianites, from whose names both places where they were killed received their names, mention is made in Psalm 82, verse 12, and also in Isaiah chapter 10, verse 26. But the Ephraimites could not so occupy all the fords of the river but that Zebee and Salmana, by hastened flight, reached the other bank. Which being learned, they too crossed the river, And they pursued Madian, carrying the heads of Oreb and Zeb to Gedeon beyond the streams of the Jordan, verse 25. How many thousands of the enemy were killed, both by their own arms in the valley of Jezrael and by the Hebrews' in the flight down to this time, the following chapter teaches, verse 10: For there remained fifteen thousand men of all the troops of the eastern people, a hundred and twenty thousand warriors that drew the sword being slain. But neither these remnants of the Midianites nor their leaders Zebee and Salmana found safety in flight; for St. Gideon overtook them and utterly destroyed them, as will be narrated below.
[49] The same history Before we pass to the following paragraph, let us as usual visit Josephus. His words will give some light to what Scripture narrates in the seventh chapter: but they will also be convicted by it. He has thus: But God, appearing to Gideon in his sleep, said that men were of such a disposition that, pleasing themselves, they would yield to no one in valor, and would attribute the victory to themselves rather than to God, relying namely on their great forces. That they might therefore know that the whole matter depended on His help, He bade him about noon, when the heat is fiercest, lead the army to the river, and that as many as should drink lying down he should believe brave men; but as many as should take drink fearfully and in disorder, he should judge that they did this from fear of the enemy. And after he had done as he was bidden, three hundred were found taking water in perturbation, bringing it to their mouths in the hollow of their hands. And God commanded that, these being taken, he should attack the enemy. That the Lord appeared to the Saint in his sleep, and bade the army be led to the river about noon, is not read in Scripture. But that he writes that God commanded him to believe those who drank lying down to be brave men, but to judge the others fearful, and to keep the latter, dismissing the former — this, I say, has little likelihood. For since God a little before had bidden it be proclaimed to the whole army, Whosoever is fearful and timorous, let him return, verse 3, is it likely that He willed the fearful to be kept? Therefore it must rather be believed that those three hundred were, for their bravery, most fit for finishing the war. Besides, why does Josephus write that only ten thousand Israelites flowed together to the Saint (I gave the words at num. 35), where in Scripture 32,000 are numbered? Why does he keep silence about the first diminution of this number, by which it was reduced to 10,000? Did he perhaps prefer to discharge 22,000 by his silence rather than betray to the Greeks the cowardice and dread of his nation, from which so many returned home? Let us return to his narrative.
[50] But since Gideon was anxious, because he had received a command from God to attack them by night, is given from Josephus, God, willing to remove from him all fear, bade him, taking one soldier, approach secretly the tents of the Midianites: for from them he would receive occasion of confidence. What fear God willed to remove from the Saint I said at num. 41. He goes where he is bidden, with only one servant accompanying him. And when he had crept up to a certain tent, he found the soldiers in it sleepless, and one telling his fellow soldier a dream, so that it could be heard by Gideon also. And it was of this sort: He had seemed to himself to see a mass of barley, baked under the ashes, to be loathed by a man for its meanness, rolling through the camp and overthrowing first the king's tent and then all the others. He answered that it signified the destruction of the army, adding whence he gathered this. Among all grains, he said, barley is without controversy the meanest: and among all the Asiatic nations you would not easily find one meaner than the Israelites are today, so that they can deservedly be compared to barley. These have now, with Gideon as their author, drawn together forces and are attempting a revolution. Therefore, since thou sayest that thou sawest that mass overthrowing our tents, I fear lest God grant Gideon a triumph over us. But Gideon, having heard this dream, full of good hope and confidence, gives orders to his men that all should be in arms, having told them of the vision which he had heard in the enemy's camp. They did as was commanded, kindled by this sign to undergo any labor or danger.
[51] Then Gideon about the fourth watch leads his men against the enemy, with a note of those things, divided in three ways into three cohorts. And they were of a hundred each; and each carried empty jars and in them burning torches, that they might be able secretly to attack the enemy who expected nothing of the sort: and in their right hands a ram's horn in place of a trumpet. (The Vulgate has trumpets, which indeed in the Septuagint I read were of horn, but not of a ram's horn.) The enemy's camp lay widely open, because they had a great number of camels: and although they encamped distributed according to their clans, yet all were contained within the same circuit. But the Hebrews, forewarned by their Leader, when they were now not far from the enemy, at a signal given among themselves, sounding their horns and breaking their jars and raising a military shout, sure that God was present to Gideon, make an assault upon the camp with their torches. By which art, the terrors of night being divinely added, so great a consternation arises among the half-asleep men that incomparably more fell by mutual wounds than by the enemy's sword, since men of different tongues had the same camp: for once confounded by panic, they slaughtered all whom they met as enemies. When the report of so great a slaughter and of Gideon's victory reached the other Israelites, arms being seized, they pursue the fleeing enemy: whom, overtaking him as he stuck about places hindered by torrents, they surround, and kill as many as came to hand, and among the rest the two kings Oribus and Zibus.
[52] in which chiefly they must be corrected. Two things Josephus narrates in the preceding number which cannot be reconciled with Scripture. First, he says that the holy Leader led his men against the enemy about the fourth watch. But verse 19 says that he did this at the beginning of the midnight watch, from which the third takes its beginning, not the fourth. Secondly, he affirms that in that prodigious battle more fell by mutual wounds than by the enemy's sword, namely the Hebrews'. But how could these cut down the Midianites, who had their left hands encumbered with lamps or torches and their right with the trumpets which they blew? I do not say that they were girded with no arms; for it is not likely that they pursued unarmed an enemy already cast into flight on every side. Certainly that arms were not wanting to them then, when they overtook the remnants of the Midianites beyond the Jordan, is manifest from chapter 8, verse XI: but in the valley of Jezrael the Hebrews used no arms: at the mere sound of the trumpets, the din of the earthen vessels, and the flash of the lamps the Midianites were conquered and the Israelites were made victors, God fighting for these against those. Whence St. Sidonius Apollinaris in his Panegyric thus addresses the Holy Spirit:
Thou, O Spirit, set within the sounding trumpets, didst strengthen Gideon, and victory came by song alone.
Other remarks on Josephus' narrative read in Salianus in the Annals, num. 54 and 56.
§ V. He appeases the Ephraimites; destroys the remnants of the enemy; punishes the men of Soccoth and of Phanuel for refusing provisions; kills Zebee and Salmana; refuses the kingship offered him by his own people.
[ ] The Saint appeases the Ephraimites quarreling against him: In the last verse of the seventh chapter the Ephraimites are said to have pursued the enemy, carrying the heads of Oreb and Zeb to Gedeon beyond the streams of the Jordan; namely they thought that the holy Leader had crossed the river with his men: but when they learned that he was still on this side the Jordan, they returned, And the men of Ephraim said to him: What is this that thou meanest to do, that thou wouldst not call us when thou wentest to fight against Madian? chiding him strongly and almost offering violence. And he answered them: What could I have done like to that which you have done? Is not one bunch of grapes of Ephraim better than the vintages of Abiezer? Of the meaning of the metaphorical expression consult the interpreters. The Saint goes on: The Lord hath delivered into your hands the princes of Madian, Oreb and Zeb: what could I have done like to what you have done? And when he had said this, their spirit was appeased, with which they swelled against him, chapter 8, verses 1 and following. The demon tried to avenge so great a blow received from St. Gideon and to stir up civil war, and therefore suggested to the proud Ephraimites that they had been passed over by the Saint when the other tribes were called into fellowship of the war, lest any part of the glory of the deeds well done should be derived to them. But his deadly counsel was broken and made void by the most prudent Leader's mild and modest answer, by which, extolling the Ephraimites and lowering himself and his family, he stilled the quarrels and composed the whole tumult. After these things, in verse 4, Scripture subjoins that the Saint with his men crossed the Jordan: whence I believe that these tumults were stirred on this side the river, and that I rightly said at the beginning of this number that the Ephraimites — who from the end of the preceding chapter certainly had crossed the Jordan — returned to the nearer side of the river to meet St. Gideon. Many interpreters indeed dissent, affirming that the historical order in Scripture is here disturbed; but what necessity is there for asserting this?
[54] This civil war being suppressed, the holy Leader pursues the remnants of the enemy's army: for provisions refused, the men of Soccoth And when Gedeon came to the Jordan, he passed over it with the three hundred men that were with him. So protected by God was that band of three hundred Israelites that not even one of them was missing. But they who had stood almost the whole night watching under arms, and had exhausted their breath with long shouting and blowing of trumpets, and had besides pursued the enemy with hostile arms with great labor, could not, for hunger and weariness, pursue the fugitives farther, verse 4. Therefore the Saint came to the town of Soccoth, which was situated not far beyond the Jordan in the tribe of Gad, through which the surviving forces of the Midianites were fleeing into their country: And he said to the men of Soccoth: Give, I beseech you, bread to the people that is with me, for they are very
faint: that we may pursue Zebee and Salmana the kings of Madian. The princes of Soccoth answered: Perhaps the palms of the hands of Zebee and Salmana are in thy hand, and therefore thou demandest that we should give bread to thy army, verses 5 and 6. The holy Leader, moved by just indignation at the bread refused with this bitter sarcasm, threatens the men of Soccoth with a grave vengeance: And he said to them: When therefore the Lord shall have delivered Zebee and Salmana into my hands, I will thresh your flesh with the thorns and briers of the desert, verse 7.
[55] And going up from thence, he came to Phanuel: and he spoke the like words to the men of that place. and threatens grave penalties to the men of Phanuel: And they also answered him as the men of Soccoth had answered. And he said to them also: When I shall return a conqueror in peace, I will destroy this tower, verses 8 and following. There is no doubt that the men of Soccoth and of Phanuel, inhabitants of the tribe of Gad, sinned gravely both against God and against the commonwealth and against their three hundred Israelite brethren, in that to the authors, under God, of so signal a victory and of their own liberty, failing for hunger and weariness, they returned bitter mockery in place of a supply of bread, and that at a time when they were still occupied in procuring the common good of the Hebrews, and were already on the march to make the safety of all certain by the utter destruction of the surviving enemy. Whence too it was lawful for St. Gideon, whom God had appointed leader and judge of His people, to decree and inflict grave penalties on those inhuman and unmerciful men of Gad, as we read was afterwards done.
[56] After this double repulse the holy Leader with his men, he destroys the remnants of the enemy and captures Zebee and Salmana: weakened by hunger and labor, yet with a generous mind — or perhaps with divine help sustaining the weakness of their bodies — went on to finish happily the work well begun. But Zebee and Salmana were resting with all their army. In the Hebrew and Chaldee text, and in the Septuagint, there is added here in Carcar, by which word is designated the place into which the scanty remnants of the enemy had flowed together. For there remained fifteen thousand men of all the troops of the eastern people, a hundred and twenty thousand warriors that drew the sword being slain. And Gedeon going up by the way of them that dwelt in tents, on the east of Nobe and Jegbaa, struck the camp of the enemies, who were secure and suspected no harm. And Zebee and Salmana fled, and Gedeon pursued and took them, all their host being put in confusion, verses 10 and following. I subjoin the words of Salianus in the Annals, num. 66: The enemy's army therefore being scattered and crushed and the kinglets thrown into chains, the three hundred Israelites refresh their bodies, almost dead with hunger, from the booty, and, some rest also being taken, at the whitening of the sky prepare their return. For all these things were done by night; whence at once (verse 13) it follows that he returned from the war before sunrise. Not indeed on that same night on which in the valley of Jezrael they were divinely confounded and, conquered, dispatched themselves with mutual wounds, as some have thought; but on the following. For in the intervening day were accomplished the things which have thus far been related in chapter VIII; which certainly cannot be crowded into one and the same night.
[57] [he punishes the men of Soccoth and of Phanuel, the tower of the latter being destroyed:] There follows the punishment of the men of Soccoth and of Phanuel, which is thus narrated from verse 13: And the holy Leader returning from the battle before sunrise took a boy of the men of Soccoth — namely some servant of Soccoth who had gone out of the city at earliest morning — and asked him the names of the princes and ancients of Soccoth — of those, namely, whose guilt was established; for the merciful Commander was unwilling to destroy the innocent with the guilty — and he described unto him seventy-seven men. And he came to Soccoth, and unexpectedly seized the city; and, the seventy-seven men whom he had described being taken, he brought the two kings of the Midianites bound into their sight; and he said to them: Behold Zebee and Salmana, concerning whom you upbraided me, saying: Perhaps the hands of Zebee and Salmana are in thy hands, and therefore thou demandest that we should give bread to the men that are weary and faint. So he took the ancients of the city and thorns and briers of the desert, and tore them with the same and cut in pieces the men of Soccoth. Of this punishment consult the interpreters. He destroyed also the tower of Phanuel, and slew the men of the city, who perhaps had all fled to this tower and had defended it against St. Gideon. If the townsmen did not resist their Leader or surrendered of their own accord, I should think that only the authors of the refused provisions paid the penalty and that the innocent were spared, as had been done at Soccoth. Yet I should prefer to believe the first, namely that all the men of Phanuel were killed, because they had made themselves guilty by the stubborn defense of the tower.
[58] he kills Zebee and Salmana These things being done, there returned to the Saint's memory the pitiable destruction of his own brothers by the same mother. These, in some one of the seven former years of the servitude, as I judge, had fled to mount Thabor, that in its hiding places they might withdraw their goods from plunder or themselves from death: whom Zebee and Salmana, having taken them, using no mercy toward the innocent, had slain with barbarous ferocity. St. Gideon, suspecting what was the fact, that the kinglets whom he held bound had perpetrated the crime, questions them: and, as they confess the deed, he adjudges them to death, whom otherwise his clemency would have granted life. Therefore, both to avenge the injury and at the same time to trample on royal pride, he bids his son, still a boy, kill them, that he might avenge the unjust slaying of his uncles: but, the boy fearing and the guilty asking it — because perhaps they dreaded a slow butchery — the Saint rushed upon them and killed them. These things are thus reported from verse 18: And (Gedeon) said to Zebee and Salmana: What manner of men were they whom you slew in Thabor? They answered: Like thee, and one of them as the son of a king. Here they indirectly flatter the Victor, while they confess him adorned with a royal form. He answered them: They were my brethren, the sons of my mother. As the Lord liveth, if you had saved them I would not kill you. And he said to Jether his firstborn: Arise and slay them. But he drew not his sword: for he was afraid, being still a boy. And Zebee and Salmana said: Do thou rise, and rise, and run upon us: for the strength of a man is according to his age. Gedeon rose up and slew Zebee and Salmana: and he took the ornaments and bosses with which the necks of the royal camels are wont to be adorned.
[59] Now the envy and anger of the Ephraimites had subsided, the quarrels and complaints against the Saint had ceased; the kingship offered him by the people there had succeeded love, thanksgiving, and a generous will to render these to Gideon, who had deserved so well of Israel. This they and the other Hebrews left attested when they offered the Saint and his descendants the supreme lordship in Israel: And all the men of Israel said to Gedeon: Rule thou over us, and thy son, and thy son's son: because thou hast delivered us from the hand of Madian, verse 22. But what power do they here offer St. Gideon? Not the judiciary; for this he already had, conferred on him by God: nay, by this very title it was in some manner due to him, that he had claimed the people into liberty. Certainly hitherto no one else had borne this magistracy than he who had brought salvation to Israel. Do the Israelites try to turn him from his purpose when he wished to lay down the care of the commonwealth? But there is no trace of this will in the sacred text, which does not treat of the office of judge, as we shall presently show.
[60] It is the common opinion that royal lordship was offered him. he greatly refuses. Of what else would you rather understand this demand of the Hebrews, Rule thou over us, and thy son, and thy son's son, etc.? Those words reject this interpretation: Take up the prefecture of judge, or go on bearing it when taken up; for judges properly did not rule over the people, since they could neither make new laws, as kings could, nor do or decree anything in weightier matters without the consent of the sanhedrin. Besides, here to the Saint's son and grandson the same power is offered as to himself; but the judiciary power was not transmitted to descendants, as the royal was, but was ended by death. But that the word rule is here taken strictly, so as not to extend to that less perfect lordship of jurisdiction which the judges of old exercised, is gathered also from the Saint's answer to the Israelites: And he said to them: I will not rule over you, neither shall my son rule over you; but the Lord shall rule over you, verse 23. Again the sense here cannot be: I will not be your judge, etc.: for he had already accepted that magistracy conferred on him by the Lord, and bore it forty years until death. Besides, here St. Gideon wills that power which the people offered to be the Lord's, not his own: but he does not will the judiciary power to be the Lord's, but the royal; this therefore was offered him. Among the Israelites God willed Himself to have and exercise the royal name and power; but He instituted judges and other lower magistrates, that in His name and according to the laws which He had given they should administer the commonwealth. Hence, when the Israelites afterwards asked a king for themselves, He says to Samuel, first book of Kings chapter 8, verse 7: Hearken to the voice of the people in all that they say to thee. For they have not rejected thee but me, that I should not reign over them. From these it is sufficiently clear that the people wished to make the holy Judge king. But he refused that dignity with a great and lofty mind: deserving hence assuredly greater praise and glory than could have come to him from royal power and its exercise.
[61] In many things is corrected Josephus, having narrated the death of Oreb and Zeb, thus pursues his history, full of the gravest errors: But the leaders who survived, with the remnants of the army, about eighteen thousand men (Scripture in verse 10 numbers only fifteen thousand), took a place for their camp as far as they could from the enemy. Nor did Gideon, wearied, with all his forces (in verse 4 it is said, with the three hundred men) hasten thither, and, engaging again, in this last conflict slaughter them all to a man, and take the remaining two leaders Zebim and Hezarbunim (in verse 12 we read that Zebee and Salmana were taken, all their host being put in confusion). In these battles there were slain of the Midianites and of the other Arabs who had come to their aid about a hundred and twenty thousand. That so many had been slain already before the last battle is written in verse 10. The Hebrews also gained great booty of gold, silver, woven stuffs, camels, and beasts. But Gideon, returning to his own country Ephra, took punishment of the kings of the Midianites. More likely these were punished beyond the Jordan, a little after the punishment taken of the men of Soccoth and of Phanuel, about whom he keeps deep silence.
[62] Josephus' narrative. What he subjoins about the Ephraimites' quarrel against their Leader he narrates in a wrong place, since from Scripture it is certain that after the remnants of the Midianites were destroyed all the people was so favorably disposed toward him that they offered the kingdom to him and his descendants:
Moreover, he says, the tribe of Ephraim, bearing ill Gideon's good fortune, decided to make war upon him, because he had attacked the enemy without their knowledge. But Gideon, a man supreme in every virtue, answered modestly that he had not attacked the enemy without them by his own judgment but by divine command: that the victory nevertheless was no less theirs than that of the very men who had fought: and by these words (not sufficiently agreeing with the sacred ones in verses 2 and 3) their anger being calmed, he profited the Hebrews no less than by his prosperous deeds; for he prevented a civil war from arising. Yet this tribe paid the penalty of this pride, as we shall say in its place. He hints at the disaster which in the time of Jephte was brought upon this tribe, Judges chapter 12, verse 6, where forty-two thousand of the Ephraimites are narrated to have been slain by the Galaadites. Further, Gideon (what follows is refuted at numbers 59 and 60), although he wished to lay down the command, was compelled to keep it for forty years, occupied in pronouncing judgment and in ending lawsuits, the people holding ratified whatever he pronounced in disputed causes. Then, dying in old age, he is buried at Ephra in his native place. But other things also preceded his death, of which the following paragraph.
§ VI. The Saint makes an ephod and places it in Ephra: he is defended against many who assert that by this deed he sinned: his family and holy death.
[ ] [He makes an ephod and places it in Ephra, for which various men accuse him of various sins:] When the holy Judge had bravely refused the royal dignity offered him by the Israelites, he asked them rather to manifest their goodwill and ready desire to gratify him in another matter: And he said to them: I desire one request of you: Give me the earrings of your spoils. For the Ismaelites were wont to have golden earrings. They answered: We will give them most willingly. And spreading a mantle on the ground, they cast upon it the earrings of the spoils. And the weight of the earrings that were asked was a thousand seven hundred sicles of gold, besides the ornaments and jewels and purple raiment which the kings of Madian were wont to use, and besides the golden chains of the camels. And Gedeon made an ephod thereof and put it in his city Ephra. And all Israel committed fornication in it, and it became a ruin to Gedeon and to all his house, verses 24 and following. These last words again seem to many and grave authors openly to make the Saint guilty of sin. St. Augustine in questions 41 and 42, Theodoret, Procopius, Dionysius the Carthusian, Cajetan, Lyranus, Estius, and many others assert that he did wrong. Manifold are the crimes of which the holy Man is accused: they are reduced almost to the following: that he himself worshipped the ephod as an idol, or exercised some other superstitious worship in it; that he did not hinder the Israelites from paying it divine honor, or from otherwise abusing it; or, if nothing of the kind was committed while he lived, that he made the ephod foreseeing that after his death it would be an occasion of idolatry, or would be turned to other impious uses. Many absolve him from these sins; but they place his fault in this, that he made the ephod, and perhaps other apparatus of divine worship, outside the place of the tabernacle; or that he himself, clothed in the ephod, consulted the Lord, which was not lawful for laymen; or finally that he used it for sacrifices to be offered, either by himself or by others, outside Shiloh.
[64] Of the ancients I have found no one who defends the Saint: the foundation on which they chiefly rely, but many of the moderns free him from all sin. They are almost wholly bent on showing how the making of the ephod, its placing in Ephra, and its abuse after the Saint's death could have taken place without any fault of his. But that saying, And it became a ruin to Gedeon and to all his house, they so explain that the Saint's name is put not for his person but by a trope for his family; they say that the little word and does not here discharge its office, which is to join distinct things, but is exegetic, so that it is the same as that is. But these things do not loose the very knot in which the difficulty chiefly sticks: for since there is no doubt that the more proper and obvious sense of the said words is And it became a ruin to the person of Gedeon and to all his house, it must first be proved that this sense must be departed from. It is not enough to say: the ephod could lawfully be made; and therefore of a holy Man it must be presumed that he did not sin until the contrary is demonstrated. The adverse party will deny the consequence: a prudent presumption, it will say, does not stand for anyone's innocence where the obvious sense of Scripture manifestly convicts him of sin. It will contend that this must be adhered to until it be proved from elsewhere that something stands in its way; and that the burden of proving this lies upon the Saint's defenders, who maintain a figurative and improper expression of Scripture. Therefore the very foundation on which the censure of others chiefly rests must first be undermined, and it must be shown that the Saint's name here does not signify his own person, nor does the particle and here join two distinct things. Receive the arguments which seem to me sufficiently to prove this.
[65] by arguments Very many things first of all stand in the way of that saying, And it became a ruin to Gedeon and to all his house, being understood of a ruin of the soul which Gideon incurred through a grave sin. For if he fell into unbelief or idolatry, how is his faith praised by the Apostle to the Hebrews, chapter XI? How will that testimony of Ecclesiasticus chapter 46, from verse 13, be true: And the judges, every one by name, whose heart was not corrupted by idolatry, who turned not away from the Lord, that their memory might be blessed, etc.? Nor say that these praises are not predicated of Gideon. If they do not extend to him whom alone of the judges treated of in the book bearing their name the Church has inscribed in the Calendars of the Saints, what judges then shall I believe Ecclesiasticus to praise? If he did not in time withstand the Israelites abusing the ephod for idolatry or superstition, or foresaw that after his death they would commit fornication in it, how does Scripture here in verse 25 testify that he deserved so well of Israel as to assert that all his family too was worthy of mercy according to all the good things that he had done to Israel? Is it because he had claimed the people into liberty? But it is a greater evil to have given, with grave fault, the cause or occasion of ruin and eternal damnation to souls, than it is a good to have been the author of liberty to bodies. If, finally, he had lost sanctity by any other grave offense, would the Church have judged him worthy of the cult of the faithful? Would the cited Apostle have enrolled him in the number of those who by faith … wrought justice, obtained promises, etc.? Would Scripture have called good the old age in which he died: And Gedeon the son of Joas died in a good old age, verse 32?
[66] from sacred But, you will say, these things do not press, since before death he did penance. If this be true, he destroyed or removed, as he ought, the occasion, cause, or material of his own or another's grave sin: the second was not done, therefore neither was the first. That the ephod still existed after the Saint's death all everywhere confess, no one calling it into doubt; and it can be sufficiently proved from Scripture: And all Israel, it says in verse 27, committed fornication in it (the ephod). From the words all Israel it is understood that the fornication in the ephod was public: but this did not happen while St. Gideon lived, for a little below in verse 33 it is manifestly indicated that the Israelites did not relapse into public idolatry save after the holy Judge's death: And after Gedeon was dead, the children of Israel turned away and committed fornication with Baalim, that is, with idols, of which one perhaps was the ephod; or, if they did not adore it, certainly they abused it for the honor or worship of some idol. See the interpreters at hand. Now if the ephod was not destroyed or removed by Gideon, how can his penance be understood? Lyranus devised some evasion: But to that which is argued against this, that he did not destroy such things, it can be said that he repented near his death, when he was already so weak that he could not do this by himself: yet he commanded his sons that it should be done, or at least that the said vestments should be carried to the place of divine worship: which, because it was not done, is not to be imputed to him but rather to those who abused them for the idolatry to which they were prone. Is it so indeed? Did he put off doing penance for so many years down to almost the very point of death, when for the weakness of his body he could no longer remove the occasion of his own or another's crime? Then at least his old age was stained with a foul crime, except the last days of his life. But Scripture is not wont to call the old age of such men good. See above, num. 3. Nor do such men deserve those praises with which the Apostle follows Gideon: nor would the Church, if she judged that he had committed a grave fault and had persevered so long in it, propose him to be honored by the faithful for the holiness of his life; especially since Scripture keeps silence about his penance.
[67] Nor can it be said that he wished immediately after the crime committed to remove the ephod from their midst, Scripture but that the Israelites hindered the execution of this good will: for after the victory over the Midianites he found them so devoted to him that they offered the kingdom to him and his descendants, and readily handed over the golden earrings asked from the booty, to which they of their own accord added many other precious gifts; he had them, I say, so obedient to him that they forsook the worship of idols, for which they had been punished for seven years with hard servitude, and persevered in the true religion as long as the Saint was over them. This all everywhere deduce from verse 33, whose words I have just given. If he could convert a people so prone to superstitions to the worship of the true God, could he in no way, as supreme Head of the commonwealth, induce that people, now converted and more observant of the divine laws, not to hinder the removal of that thing which had already been the occasion of a grave offense against God? And how could the people hinder Gideon from destroying the ephod by night, as he had lately destroyed the altar and grove of Baal, or from secretly transferring it elsewhere from his house or from the city of Ephra, if by removal the danger of relapse could be taken away? Now I thus meet the adverse party: Gideon could and ought to have removed or destroyed the ephod he had set up, because he knew that it had given the cause or occasion of his own or another's idolatry, or of another grave sin: as long as he lived he neither removed nor destroyed it: therefore he did not do penance. The evasions to which I have replied in this and the preceding number help nothing here. But whether
you will devise anything better, I greatly doubt. But if it cannot be understood that Gideon, whom the Holy Spirit testifies to have died in a good old age, did penance for a grave crime, what else remains but that he did not commit it? Therefore this passage, And it became a ruin to Gedeon and to all his house, cannot be expounded of a ruin of the soul, or of a deadly fault of the holy Judge; and consequently St. Augustine is too severe toward him when in question 42 he speaks thus: There arises a question not to be passed over, how the land rested forty years in the days of Gedeon, since after the victory by which he freed the Hebrews he made an abomination out of the gold of the spoils, and after that all Israel committed fornication, and it was a scandal to him and to his house. How then, after so great a wickedness which both Gedeon and the people committed, did the land rest forty years? To the question thus raised he subjoins an answer which seems to me so adverse to our Saint and to sacred Scripture that I cannot approve it. What it is will be opportunely said in the following number; where we shall also establish what has been said by another argument.
[68] drawn The sacred words, about whose sense there is controversy, likewise cannot be so understood that the Saint on occasion of the ephod suffered a ruin or grave loss in some temporal matter after the Midianite victory. Whether the grave loss be supposed to have been inflicted by the Lord as a penalty for a grave or light offense, or to have been inflicted on him though innocent by enemies or by the Israelites themselves, Scripture, at least as it stands under the interpretation everywhere received, sufficiently declares that his rule was happy on every side. From verse 28 we learn that the land rested from wars as long as St. Gideon was over it; from verse 30, that God blessed him with numerous offspring; from verse 32, that he died in an old age good both in merits and in the number of years; from verse 33, that only after his death did the Israelites commit fornication with idols, and therefore that they were kept in the worship of the true God while he lived. If he could restrain them from committing that to which they were most prone, there is no doubt that in the rest also he had them obedient to him. From these are confirmed the things said in the immediately preceding numbers, namely that Gideon was neither an idolater nor sacrilegious, nor the author of another's idolatry or sacrilege: for the grave crimes of which he is accused are reduced to these. How severely God avenged idolatry, the twenty-fifth chapter of Numbers teaches, and the Hebrews experienced to their own great harm, so often already oppressed by the servitude of foreign nations as the penalty of that crime. Nor did He leave unpunished those who handled sacred things irreverently. Examples are given by the book of Leviticus, chapter 10, in Nadab and Abiu, struck by heavenly fire, and by the second book of Kings, chapter 6, in Oza, cut off by a sudden death. If Gideon had contracted the fault of idolatry or of grave sacrilege, the Lord would not have blessed him with so long-lasting and prosperous a government, since he would have been worthy of the greater penalties the more benefits he had received from Him. The argument drawn from the Saint's prosperous and peaceful rule of 40 years seemed so pressing to St. Augustine that to the question whose words I reported from him in the preceding number he judged it must be answered that the holy Judge set up the ephod against God's law at the end of his days. Did he then toward the end of his life lose sanctity by a grave sin? So, as sufficiently appears from his words given above, the holy Doctor judges; but from him the divine Oracles compel us to depart, which pronounce that the old age in which he departed to the Fathers was good. Now at last I thus conclude: The Saint did not sin gravely, as has now been sufficiently proved; nor did he suffer any grave temporal evil from God, from foreigners, or from his own people while he was judge, as we have just seen: therefore the ephod did not turn to the ruin of Gideon's own person: therefore that saying, And it became a ruin to Gedeon and to all his house, cannot be taken in its proper sense.
[69] is undermined: Many who disapprove Gideon's deed lay upon him a sin grave indeed in itself; but they try to extenuate its malice by a defect of full advertence, by ignorance, and otherwise. But these, in my judgment at least, depart farther from the obvious signification of the sacred text than those who take the name of Gideon not for the Saint's own person but for his family, and say that the particle and is exegetic. That this is sometimes so taken in the Scriptures Salianus proves by examples at num. 77: and that the head of a family is put for the family itself is most usual, as no one can deny. Now I ask that some place in the sacred Letters be assigned me where the word ruin does not signify the death of the human soul, if the speech be of this. In Proverbs chapter 18, verse 7, it is said, And his lips are the ruin of his soul: and elsewhere, both often in this book and in others, where there is treatment of harm to the soul, the same word recurs, which everywhere will be ineptly expounded if by it the death of the soul be not understood. And indeed, as a slight loss in goods of fortune cannot simply be called the ruin of a rich man, so neither can harm to the soul arising from a light sin simply be called its ruin. If therefore the ephod was the occasion or cause of a light fault only, this proposition is not simply true, And it became to Gedeon a ruin of soul: it will indeed be true in a certain respect, or as to a diminution of grace; but Scripture nowhere understands by ruin of soul that alone: so neither by the ruin of regions, peoples, cities, houses does it ever signify anything slight, but their devastation, slaughter, overthrow, and destruction. From all these I judge it sufficiently clear that the saying And it became a ruin to Gedeon and to all his house cannot be better expounded than in this manner: And it became a ruin to Gedeon, that is, to his house, etc. Since the text thus explained affirms no fault of the Saint, the whole burden of proving it is now transferred to his accusers.
[70] The whole question therefore is solved if it be shown how the making of the ephod and its placing in Ephra could have been done without any fault, the milder opinions of Salianus although it was the occasion of the Israelites afterwards committing fornication in it. This you will easily understand from what follows. First of all, one may safely tread the way which Salianus chose, who in his Epitome of the Annals, num. 19, has thus: But all these things (namely the golden earrings and the other precious gifts) the holy Man turned not to his own advantage but to the worship of God. For Gideon made an ephod of it — by which word is understood the pontifical ornament in which the Pontiff was wont to consult the Lord — and put it in his own city Ephra. For since there, at the command of the Lord speaking through an angel, an altar had been built, and there sacrifice had been offered to God by the angel himself and by Gideon, the profane worship of that place, which had long been given to idols, being transferred to the worship of God, it can rightly be said that there too the whole apparatus of sacred things was provided by him. For upon one priestly vestment, or rather a shoulder-cape, so great a quantity of gold could not have been spent. Gideon therefore, who had been made prince of the people in most difficult times, in which God's will had often to be sought out, willed to have with him the pontifical ornament, through which Zaraias the pontiff might consult God, who should also sacrifice at that altar: and he could deservedly believe that this would be pleasing to God, by whose command an altar had already been raised there and sacrifice offered, as we have said. That by ephod here must be understood not an idol, as Procopius will have it, nor even a priestly vestment, Levitical or civil — for the material of these was only linen — but the pontifical one of gold and other precious material, to which was attached the Rational with Urim and Thummim, through which God, being consulted, gave oracles, is by far the more common opinion, which Bonfrerius defends here. Many grave authors too judge with Salianus that besides the ephod Gideon made all the rest of the sacred furniture necessary for sacrifice: but among these Lyranus and Estius, whom St. Augustine favors in question 41, add that he sinned in setting up the apparatus of sacrifices outside the tabernacle, and in sacrificing there either by himself or by others against the divine precept. But as they affirm this, so Salianus denies it, and rightly; for since in chapter 6, verse 26, God had bidden the Saint erect an altar in Ephra and immolate bullocks upon it, he could prudently judge that the divine dispensation still lasted, at least as to the place in which an altar had not long before been built. For to what end an altar, unless that sacrifice be offered upon it? Since the burden of proving the crime lies on the adverse party, they must prove that it was God's will that only once should a sacrifice be offered on the altar which He had commanded to be raised, and that this had become known to the holy Judge; which they will never be able to perform.
[71] and of Bonfrerius, either of which one may safely embrace: Bonfrerius enters another way. He thinks that no sacred furniture besides the pontifical ephod with the Rational was made by St. Gideon; and that with this end alone, that in affairs of greater moment he might consult the Lord — not by himself, as Theodoret will have it in question 16, but through the Pontiff: and he adds at the end of his dissertation: The tribe of Manasse was contiguous to that of Ephraim, in which were Silo and the tabernacle, and so Ephra was distant by a small interval from Shiloh and the pontifical house: from which it can be believed that the Pontiff was wont frequently to go to Gideon, the holy prince, or in graver affairs was wont to be summoned by Gideon to consult God. Further, that outside the tabernacle, in any place, God could be consulted through the ephod by the Pontiff, we said at Exodus XXVIII, and the oracles of that kind sought in various places, which Scripture records, indicate it. But if it was lawful to seek oracles outside the place of the tabernacle, the use of the ephod for that matter could also be outside the tabernacle, and so the ephod could be made and kept outside the place of the tabernacle. By this argument he refutes the opinion of St. Augustine, who in question 41 says that the making of the ephod and its placing in Ephra was against the divine precept. It can be objected: For And he made an ephod thereof there is in the Hebrew And he made it (namely all the gold of which chapter 8, verse 26, speaks) into an ephod. But so great a weight of gold does not seem to have been spent on the shoulder-ornament to which the Rational was joined; therefore under ephod, as the chief sacred furnishing, the rest of the apparatus necessary for sacrificing is also understood. It can be answered that it does not seem so incredible that those twelve precious stones in the Rational, and the two on the shoulders
great onyxes and the rest of the adornment equaled the price of so much gold, so that it must necessarily be asserted that other sacred instruments were made from it. See more in Bonfrerius. The two opinions reported do not much exceed one another in likelihood. In neither does it manifestly appear that the Saint sinned even in the lightest degree; but neither can any fault of his be inferred from those words, And it became to Gedeon, etc., as has been proved above: therefore the holy Man must be absolved from all.
[72] [the fornication of the Israelites in the ephod is not to be imputed to the Saint.] Further, since the ephod was of exceptional beauty and most precious in gold and gems and all its weaving, the Hebrews, both rude in mind and prone in their habits to idolatry, attributed divine honor to it; and the thing was turned into idolatry, not otherwise than the brazen serpent erected by Moses in the desert, fourth book of Kings chapter 18, verse 4. And all Israel, says the text here, committed fornication in it. Some believe that the Israelites are said to have committed fornication in the ephod because they transferred it to Baal to adorn him with it, or handed it over to the impious ministers of that idol for sacrilegious rites. To this conjecture the words which are subjoined in verse 33 give some likelihood: And they made a covenant with Baal, that he should be their god. But whatever that fornication of the Israelites in the ephod was, the holy Man is not to be said to have been a sharer of their fault: the whole sticks to the people, who impiously abused a thing not evil in itself and established for the best end. As the Hebrews were given no scandal in the serpent, so neither in the erection of the ephod: every crime committed on the occasion of either thing owes its origin to their own malice and is to be imputed to it alone. Nor, while the holy Judge was living, did all Israel commit fornication in the ephod: he always so kept his people in their duty and in the true religion that at least publicly they did not fall away from God's worship. This all everywhere gather from verse 33, And after Gedeon was dead, etc. I said publicly: for it is not necessary that I should deny that a few perhaps secretly adored the ephod or Baal while the Saint still lived. Nothing can thence be inferred against him unless it be first proved that he knew of his people's impiety.
[73] After verse 27, which has long detained us, there follows: And Madian was humbled before the children of Israel, neither could they any more lift up their necks: but the land rested for forty years while Gedeon presided. But liberty and peace being restored to Israel, The strength of the Midianites had been so worn down in this year that nothing more was to be feared from them. But neither did the other peoples dare to attack Israel in war. For great among the nations placed round about was the name of St. Gideon, who with such small forces had been able to rout and destroy four kings and their vast armies; and that at a time when the affairs of the Hebrews, now for the eighth year, seemed plainly cut down by continual devastations. Further, peace and liberty being restored to the Israelites, their affairs began to flourish again: nor less was the worship of God, on which that happiness depended, restored by the holy Judge's endeavor.
[74] So Jerobaal the son of Joas went and dwelt in his own house, namely his father's, which was in Ephra: he fixes his dwelling in Ephra; his children and he had seventy sons who came out of his thigh, for he had many wives. And his concubine, whom he had in Sichem, bore him a son named Abimelech, verses 29 and following. Of the Saint's family thus Josephus, book 5 of the Antiquities, chapter 9: And he had seventy legitimate sons, begotten not of one marriage, but one bastard of his concubine Druma, whose name was Abimelech. Josephus is deceived when he calls Abimelech a bastard, and the Saint's other sons legitimate. Many of these were born of secondary wives, of whose number was also the mother of Abimelech; why then does he not call him a legitimate son as well as them? As to the number of the sons, many conjecture that the Saint had neither more nor fewer than seventy, so that Abimelech must not be added to this number, as he is by Josephus, but included. It is read indeed in Judges chapter 9, verse 5, that Abimelech killed seventy brothers, but that Joatham, the youngest, escaped death; but, they say, for 68 the round number 70 is there put, which Abimelech and Joatham fill up if they be added to the slain. Besides these two, Scripture names no other except Jether the firstborn, born before the Midianite victory, of whom chapter 8, verse 20, speaks. Moreover, this number of 70 sons does not seem to comprise exactly the whole offspring of St. Gideon, for the female sex does not seem to have been wanting.
[75] and his wives: But that the Saint had several wives cannot be turned to his fault, because polygamy was then lawful. The wife of lower rank, of whom the degenerate Abimelech was born, did not dwell with the Saint in Ephra, but stayed in Sichem, as is said in verse 31. Tirinus gives likely reasons on verse 1 of chapter 9: Since, he says, Gideon, as judge and prince of the whole people, was compelled often to be absent from his own city Ephra … and to be present at Shechem, he chose for himself a wife at Shechem also; but, as I said, a secondary one or concubine, whom Josephus calls Druma: who, because she was born of that city and had her kinsfolk there …, and would not be equally dear to him as the other wives, was left by Gideon at Shechem in her father's house. Born of this mother, Abimelech, [who] with the greatest cruelty and tyranny, his 70 brothers being butchered, seized the princedom by force: nor content with the title of judge, he wished also to be called king, verses VI, XVIII, and XXII.
[76] the time in which he presided; his holy death and burial. St. Gideon judged Israel forty years, in which we think the seven of the Midianite servitude are included. The year in which the Saint was appointed by the Lord through an angel leader for claiming the people into liberty was indeed the first in which he began to exercise the office of judge; yet it was the eighth, if you regard the manner in which Scripture is wont to compute the years of the judges. It begins to number them from the death of the predecessor, and not from the creation of the successor. Read what was said at num. 270 and following in the Life of St. Joshua. Although the sacred history willed it to be hidden from us what the holy Judge did in the last thirty-two years of his life — for the making of the ephod more probably happened in the same year in which Israel was restored to liberty — yet it is not permitted to doubt that the rest of his life answered to his old age and death: that both were good and holy Scripture testifies when it says in verse 32: And Gedeon the son of Joas died in a good old age. See above, num. 3. And he was buried in the sepulchre of Joas his father in Ephra of the family of Ezri.