The twelve Minor Prophets are contained among the Hebrews in one volume. They prophesied at different times in Judah or Israel. The first among them is Hosea, under the kings under whom Isaiah had prophesied. He foretold the rejection of the Jews and the election of the Gentiles, as is evident in chapters 1 and 2.
“Go,” the Lord said to Hosea, “take to yourself a wife of fornications,” and so forth. Jerome says that Hosea is not to be blamed if he converted the harlot whom he took in marriage to chastity; rather, he is to be praised, because he made a good woman from a bad one, cause 32, question 1, final chapter.
“And I shall espouse you to Me forever; and I shall espouse you to Me in judgment and justice and mercy; and I shall espouse you to Me in faith.” The first espousal was in the Incarnation. The second was in the Passion, in which He made Himself justice by satisfying God, bestowed mercy upon us, and inflicted upon the devil the judgment of expulsion. The third is the particular espousal of the elect through conversion to the faith.
Hence he says: “Woe to them, because they have withdrawn from Me,” and so forth; and below: “They shall fall by the sword,” and so forth. Gratian, in On Penance, distinction 4, section To the children also, with the following chapter, declares that they are to fall, to be severely punished, and to be exterminated, not because of their parents’ sins but because of their own sins.
“Out of Egypt I called My Son.” Matthew the Evangelist adduces this testimony in chapter 2 concerning the return of the child Jesus from Egypt.
And below: “How shall I make you as Adama? I shall set you as Seboim. My heart is turned within Me; My repentance is troubled. I shall not do,” and so forth. Augustine says: “Does it not appear in Hosea that the Lord Jesus is therefore indignant with us when we sin, so that He may convert us by the terror of His indignation? For His indignation is not the execution of vengeance but rather the operation of absolution,” in On Penance, distinction 1.
But immediately afterward he speaks in chapter 6 concerning our final resurrection, begun in the risen Christ, the exemplar of our resurrection, saying: “He shall revive us after two days, and on the third day He shall raise us up.”
§ I. Joel
The second among the Minor Prophets is Joel. He prophesied at that time the devastation of the Jewish people to be wrought by four successive monarchies, signified by the four things he places at the beginning: “What the caterpillar left, the locust ate; what the locust left, the bruchus ate; and what the bruchus left, the rust ate.” The caterpillar signifies the Assyrians; the locust, the Medes and Persians; the bruchus, the Greeks down to Antiochus; and the rust, the Romans.
“Awake, you drunkards, and weep,” and so forth. He invites them to penance, saying: “Turn to Me with your whole heart, in fasting and weeping,” and so forth. What conversion is and what rending is found in On Penance, distinction 1, section Rend, and what follows, namely, “Turn.”
He announces the abundant sending of the Holy Spirit upon the disciples, saying: “Upon My servants and My handmaids I shall pour out My Spirit,” and so forth.
“In that time, when I shall turn the captivity of Judah and Jerusalem, I shall gather all nations and lead them into the valley of Josaphat, and there I shall dispute with them concerning My people.” This is understood of the Final Judgment. The vice that will be especially reproved is then added: “because they placed a boy in a brothel and sold a girl for wine.”
§ II. Amos
Amos, a shepherd and rustic, prophesied in the time of Hosea, king of Judah, saying: “For three crimes of Damascus, and for four, I shall not turn it back.” He adds the same concerning seven other nations: Gaza, Tyre, Edom, Ammon, Moab, Judah, and Israel, assigning the causes of their failure to be converted.
See the moral exposition concerning the four degrees in sin in On Penance, distinction 1, For three. This can be adapted to pride with the seven capital vices. Jerome, declaring those four degrees there, says: the first is to have thought things that are evil; the second, to have consented to perverse thoughts; the third, to fulfill in deed what one has resolved in the mind; the fourth, not to do penance but to take pleasure in one’s own offense. Thus Jerome.
This fourth is that of which the Lord says, “I shall not turn it back,” namely by infusing grace, while in the other three He intimates conversion and pardon.
There it is also written: “Behold, the days come, says the Lord, and I shall send a famine into the land—not a famine of bread, nor a thirst for water, but of hearing the word of God.” This was fulfilled in the preaching of the apostles.
Amos 4 says: “I rained upon one city; upon another city I did not rain. One part was rained upon, and the part upon which I did not rain withered.” What is said of the part rained upon and not rained upon is understood as regards the detestation of some sins, in On Penance, distinction 3, section 1.
§ III. Obadiah
Obadiah is placed fourth. The Hebrews say that he was the man who, under Ahab and the most impious Jezebel, fed one hundred prophets hidden in caves. Treating here of Christ’s Passion, he says: “The men of your covenant mocked you and prevailed against you; the men of your peace, who eat with you, shall place snares beneath you, and there is no prudence in them.” This is understood of the Jews and Judas the traitor.
“And upon Mount Zion there shall be salvation, and it shall be holy.” This is understood of Christ and the Holy Spirit sent forth.
§ IV. Jonah
Jonah is found in the fifth place. The Jews say that he was the son of the widow of Zarephath whom Elijah raised from the dead. He lived in the time of Jeroboam, king of Israel.
When he was sent by God to preach the destruction of the Ninevites, he boarded a ship bound for Tarshish so that he would not go there, suffering something human: he feared that, if God changed His sentence in response to their penance, he would be judged a liar. Or he feared that, if the Gentiles were elected to divine worship, the Jewish people would be rejected.
When a tempest arose because of this, he was cast into the sea and swallowed by a great fish. Praising God there, he was vomited out alive by it on the third day, and he proceeded to preach. At his word the Ninevites were converted to penance, on account of which God granted pardon.
When Jonah, having left Nineveh, made a shelter for a house, the Lord caused ivy to climb over it, in whose shade Jonah greatly rejoiced. But in one night a worm gnawed the root of the ivy. When it withered, Jonah was distressed by the heat, for which the Lord reproved him.
He signifies Christ’s Passion and Resurrection, as Christ Himself expounded in Matthew 12, and the conversion of Gentility to penance after the synagogue had been rejected.
Jerome says upon Jonah: “As Herodotus, a certain historian, says, Nineveh was overthrown by the king of the Medes while Josiah reigned among the Jews.” Hence it is evident that at Jonah’s preaching Nineveh merited pardon through penance. But because afterward it returned to its vomit, entangling itself in graver crimes, it was overthrown by God’s wrath, in On Penance, distinction 3, section The Ninevites also.
§ V. Micah
Micah is placed sixth. He lived in the times of Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah, kings of Judah, and foretold the captivity and destruction of Judah and Israel because of idols, avarice, and other evils. Hence among other things he says: “Its leaders judged for gifts, its priests answered for hire, and its prophets divined for money,” and so forth.
Jerome says: “Let no one doubt that Jerusalem was overthrown because of the crimes set down here,” cause 1, question 1, Judges.
Prophesying of Christ’s Resurrection and Ascension, Micah says: “He shall ascend, opening the way before them. They shall divide and pass through the gate, and shall go out through it; and their king shall pass before them, and the Lord at their head.”
Concerning Christ’s Incarnation, preaching, and the conversion to the faith, he says: “In the last days the mountain of the Lord’s house shall be prepared,” and so forth.
Concerning Christ’s temporal birth in Bethlehem and His eternal birth, he says: “You, Bethlehem, land of Judah,” and so forth. The chief priests and scribes told Herod that these words were spoken of Christ, as is evident in Matthew 2.
Concerning the Passion he says: “With a rod they shall strike the cheek of the judge,” and so forth. The Lord complains of His people’s ingratitude, saying: “My people, what have I done to you, or in what have I troubled you? Answer Me,” and so forth.
And below: “I shall show you, O man, what is good and what the Lord requires of you: indeed, to execute judgment”—as regards oneself, namely through examination of conscience and penance—“and to love mercy,” namely as regards one’s neighbor through the virtue of almsgiving, in On Penance, distinction 1, Medicine; “and to walk solicitously with your God,” as regards the Lord, in On Consecration, distinction 1, When.
§ VI. Nahum
Nahum is placed seventh. The Hebrews say that he prophesied before the deportation of Israel to the Assyrians. He foretells the future destruction of Nineveh.
When the Ninevites had done penance at Jonah’s preaching, on account of which God revoked His sentence, they became ungrateful for the benefit and entangled themselves in graver crimes. Therefore the prophet, announcing God’s judgment against them, says at the beginning: “The Lord is a jealous and avenging God, having fury, and the Lord takes vengeance upon His enemies,” and so forth.
“The Lord will not judge twice the same thing in tribulation; a double tribulation shall not arise.” Upon this Jerome says: “Therefore those who have been punished here shall not afterward be punished,” namely in the future.
Gratian understands this, and rightly, of those who, being contrite amid the scourges themselves, return to God, in On Penance, distinction 3, section The authority of Nahum, and when the punishment inflicted here by God or man is such that it makes satisfaction for the faults committed. Otherwise, what was lacking would be punished in the other world.
Hence Jerome says in cause 23, question 5, What therefore, and below: “To this we shall reply that God, as He knows all things, knows the measure of punishments in such a way as neither to anticipate the sentence of the Judge nor henceforth take from Him the power to exercise punishment against the sinner, and that a great sin is washed away by great and long-lasting torments, while a light fault is compensated by present punishment?”
He gives the example of the man who was stoned by the people because he had gathered wood on the Sabbath. This is understood as stated when he repents and bears it patiently.
According to Jerome, Nineveh is interpreted “beautiful,” signifying the world. Hence whatever is said of Nineveh is figuratively foretold of the world, which is finally to be judged. This prophecy is therefore woven for the consolation of the saints, so that whatever they see in this world they may despise as passing and perishable, and prepare themselves for the day of Judgment, when the avenger will come against the Assyrians, that is, the wicked.
Concerning evangelical preaching Nahum says, among other things: “Behold upon the mountains the feet of him who evangelizes and announces peace.”
§ VII. Habakkuk
Habakkuk is placed eighth. “No one,” Jerome says, “has dared with so bold a voice to summon the Lord to a disputation about justice, asking why so great an iniquity of affairs prevails in human matters and in this world. Let no one who sees the wicked prosper here be disturbed. Here there is no full repayment of vice or virtue, but only a certain foretaste, so that those who do not believe in the resurrection may be instructed by such examples,” and so forth. Chrysostom, in On Penance, distinction 3, What therefore.
At the beginning of his volume Habakkuk describes the devil with his members. At the end he announces the advent and Passion of the Savior. For of what other thing than Christ’s future advent is this understood: “It shall appear at the end and shall not lie. If it delays, wait for it, because the one who comes shall come and shall not tarry”?
Concerning the Passion, the cross, and the name of Jesus, he says in the Canticle: “O Lord, I have heard Your report,” and so forth; “Horns are in His hands”; and also: “I shall exult in God my Jesus.”
§ VIII. Zephaniah
The ninth is Zephaniah, whom the Hebrews hand down to have been the son of a prophet, prophesying under Josiah, king of Judah. He shows the day of Judgment to be exceedingly terrible, saying: “The great day of the Lord is near; it is near and exceedingly swift. The voice of the day of the Lord is bitter, and there the strong man shall be afflicted. A day of wrath,” and so forth.
Concerning the resurrection he says: “Wait for Me on the day of My resurrection in the future, because My judgment is that I gather the nations and assemble the kingdoms,” and so forth.
§ IX. Haggai
After the foregoing follows Haggai, the tenth, who prophesied in Jerusalem after the return of the people of Judah from Babylon.
According to Jerome, when the seventy years of Babylon had been foretold by Jeremiah, in the sixty-second year of that captivity the kingdom of the Chaldeans was overthrown by Darius, king of the Medes and Persians, as is evident in Daniel 5. After Darius died and Cyrus of the Persians succeeded to the kingdom, the seventy years were completed. Cyrus gave permission to return to Jerusalem, as is evident at the very end of 2 Chronicles.
When another Darius afterward succeeded the said Cyrus, and the Jews were hindered by their neighbors from rebuilding the city, the prophet Haggai was sent by the Lord to encourage Zerubbabel, who was of the royal seed of Judah, and Jesus son of Josedech, the high priest, to rebuild the city, and to assure them that the years of captivity had been completed.
“Those who gathered wages put them into a bag with holes.” Gregory says of the bag with holes: “What is put in through one place goes out through another, because undiscerning minds do not perceive how they lose through an evil work the rewards acquired from a good work,” in On Penance, distinction 4—not simply, but as regards the eternal reward.
Among other things Haggai foretold Christ’s Advent, saying: “Yet one little while, and I shall move heaven and earth and the dry land; and I shall move all nations, and the Desired of all nations shall come, and I shall fill this house with glory.” Augustine says in The City of God that this was fulfilled in Christ’s Nativity, in the Purification of the Virgin, and in Christ’s preaching in the temple.
§ X. Zechariah
The eleventh in order is Zechariah, who prophesied at the same time as Haggai, namely in the second year of Darius after Cyrus, exhorting the people with Haggai to rebuild the temple, which was done.
Jerome says in distinction 50: “Thus Jesus son of Josedech, the high priest, although he preceded as a type of the Savior who bore our sins and joined to Himself a foreign Church from the Gentiles, nevertheless according to the letter is introduced as stained after the priesthood, while the devil stands at his right hand; and afterward white garments are restored to him.”
According to Jerome, the prophecy is manifold. For Zechariah saw Jesus the priest stripped of filthy garments and afterward clothed in white; a lamp of seven eyes and a golden lampstand with lamps, that is, Christ with sevenfold grace; and two olive trees, one at the lamp’s left and one at its right. He also saw black, red, variegated, and white horses, and scattered chariots.
He also foretold: “Behold, your king comes to you, meek, sitting upon the colt of one under the yoke,” Zechariah 5.
Likewise he saw a flying scroll, whose length was twenty cubits and width ten. Likewise he saw a vessel and a woman sitting in the middle of the vessel and bearing a talent of lead, and so forth.
Likewise he spoke of the thirty pieces of silver that were cast into the sanctuary and were the price at which Christ was valued.
He also says there: “I shall pour out upon the house of David and upon the inhabitants of Jerusalem the Spirit of grace and of prayers; and they shall look upon Me whom they pierced, and they shall mourn for Him as for an only-begotten son,” and so forth.
And below: “On that day there shall be a fountain open to the house of David and the inhabitants of Jerusalem for the washing of the sinner and the menstruous woman.” And below: “What are those wounds in the midst of Your hands? And He shall say: With these I was wounded in the house of those who loved Me. Strike the shepherd, and the sheep shall be scattered.”
§ XI. Malachi
Malachi is the twelfth in the order of the prophets and was the last to prophesy in Babylon. The Hebrews say that he was Ezra the scribe.
Malachi rebukes the priests concerning improper sacrifices and because they scandalize the peoples through their evil works, whence they became contemptible. Hence he says: “O priests, you despise My name.”
Jerome says upon Malachi, distinction 5: “Priests despise the Lord’s name and, insofar as lies with them, offer polluted bread when they approach the altar unworthily, and when they presume upon the priesthood after a gift has been given. He also pollutes the bread who badly distributes the Lord’s teaching among the people, who honors the powerful and despises the poor.
“If you offer a blind animal, is it not evil?” He offers a blind animal who ordains an unlearned man in place of a learned one and makes a master of one who could scarcely have been a disciple. He offers a lame animal who appoints one seeking earthly gains, as though placing his feet in different directions, one in divine things and the other in carnal things. He offers a sick animal who regards a vicious man as religious, and also one who regards a slow and lazy man as patient.
“Return to Me, and I shall return to you,” and so forth. And below: “And you have said: In what have we pierced You? And He says: In tithes and firstfruits,” namely because you do not give them, “and in scarcity you are accursed.”
Jerome says: “If at any time famine, scarcity, and want of all things oppress the world, let us know that this descends from God’s wrath. He says that He is defrauded in the poor of His alms if they do not receive them, and of His own possession,” cause 16, question 1, Return.
“Behold, I send My angel, and he shall prepare the way before My face,” and so forth. And at the end: “Behold, I shall send Elijah the Tishbite before the great and terrible day of the Lord comes, and he shall turn the heart of the fathers to the sons.”
There were also several other prophets in the Old Testament. Either they did not write books of their prophecies, or, if they wrote them, those books were not received into the canon, although many of their prophetic sayings are contained in various books, as in the Books of Kings. The chief among them, who also shone through miracles, were Elijah and Elisha among the people of Israel. They were discussed above in Third and Fourth Kings.
It must also be noted, according to Augustine, that not only the words of the fathers of the Old Testament in which they foretold some future things were prophetic; the deeds of that people were also a certain prophecy of the life of the Christian people.
Hence the Hebrews number among the prophets all the historical books placed above, namely Joshua, Judges, and Kings. They exclude from the books of the prophets Job, Chronicles, Daniel, the Psalter, and the books of Solomon, calling these the Hagiographa, as will be said more fully in the following section.
§ XII. Job and the Hebrew Division of the Old Testament
Although Job was a Gentile and said many things prophetically in his book—especially concerning the final resurrection of bodies, more openly than all others according to Jerome: “I know,” he says, “that my Redeemer lives”; and whence a redeemer except through the Passion? “And on the last day I shall rise from the earth,” and so forth—and although he spoke of many other mysteries of Christ and the Church, as Gregory shows in the books of the Moralia, nevertheless the Hebrews place him not among the prophets but among the Hagiographa.
For the Hebrews divide the Old Testament into four parts. They call the first the Law, namely the five books of Moses. They call the second the Prophets, comprising under it the Book of Joshua as the first; the Book of Judges as the second, together with the history of Ruth; First and Second Kings, entitled Samuel, as the third; Third and Fourth Kings as the fourth; Isaiah as the fifth; Jeremiah as the sixth; Ezekiel as the seventh; and the volume of the Twelve Minor Prophets as the eighth.
They call the third part of the Old Testament the Hagiographa, that is, sacred writings, which they hold to be authoritative. They are nine: Job; the Psalter of David; the Proverbs of Solomon; his Ecclesiastes and Song of Songs; Daniel; First and Second Chronicles; Esdras, containing two books; and Esther. Thus in all they assign twenty-two authoritative books.
They call the fourth part the Apocrypha: the Book of Wisdom, Ecclesiasticus, Tobit, Judith, and First and Second Maccabees. Yet the holy Church also receives the Apocrypha as true, as is found in distinction 15, The holy Roman Church, and venerates them as useful and moral, although in disputes over matters of faith they are not compelling for argument.
Returning to Job, it must first be known that some wrongly said Job did not exist in the nature of things, but that this history was a constructed parable serving as the theme for a disputation concerning divine providence. But blessed Thomas, in his exposition upon Job, disproves this because Job is numbered with others who existed in the world. For it is said in Ezekiel 14: “If Noah, Job, and Daniel, these three men, were in its midst, they would deliver their souls by their justice.” And James 5 says: “You have heard of Job’s patience,” and so forth. Job’s patience would be proposed to us in vain as an example if he had not existed in the nature of things. Therefore this must not be doubted.
Second, it is asked who this Job was and of what race. Some say that he descended from Esau, asserting that he was the one of whom it is said in 1 Chronicles 1: “Balath died, and Jobab son of Zare from Bozrah reigned in his place.” Isidore held this opinion in the book On the Birth and Death of the Saints, where he says: “Job son of Zare from Bozrah, king of the Idumeans, the fourth successor after Esau, succeeded Balath son of Beor in the kingdom.” The Policraticus says the same.
Jerome, however, in the Hebrew Questions seems to say that Job descended from Nahor, Abraham’s brother, through Nahor’s wife Milcah. For it is said that a son named Huz was born of Nahor, from whose stock Job descended. Hence it is said at the beginning of this book: “There was a man in the land of Huz.” Isidore therefore also says that Job was contemporary with Moses, that is, he lived at approximately the same time as Moses.
Third, it is asked who composed the Book of Job. To this some say it was Moses, recounting the deeds of that holy man. Others say one of the prophets, without determining which; others Solomon or Job’s friends; and others Job himself. This last is the more common opinion, which our Gregory the pope follows, saying: “We can more truly judge that the same Job who endured the contests of spiritual warfare also narrated the deeds of his completed victory.”
But Gregory also says at the beginning of the Moralia: “Who wrote these things is sought very superfluously, since the Holy Spirit is faithfully believed to be the author of this book; just as, if one knew certain letters to be a king’s, one would vainly ask with what pen they had been written.” Thus the principal efficient cause, namely God, and the secondary cause, namely Job, are apparent.
According to Thomas at the beginning of his work upon Job, the final cause is to show how human affairs are governed by divine providence. The opinion contrary to this is exceedingly harmful to the human race, for if divine providence is taken away, no reverence or fear of God together with virtue will remain among men.
According to Lactantius in the book of the Institutes, Epicurus followed this most wicked opinion; and many who appear wise to themselves follow it, saying that all things among men happen by chance, except insofar as they are governed by human providence and counsel, or by the necessity of fate, that is, by the constellations of heaven.
Hence it was the principal study of those who attained wisdom through the divine Spirit to remove this false opinion from men’s hearts. This is done in the Book of Job, for it is shown by probable reasons that human affairs are governed by divine providence.
The thing that seems especially to argue against human affairs being governed by divine providence is the affliction of the just. For although the occurrence of good things to the wicked may at first sight appear unreasonable and contrary to providence, it can nevertheless have some excuse, namely from divine compassion. But that the just are afflicted without cause seems wholly to undermine the foundation of providence.
Therefore, as a kind of theme for the intended question, the manifold and grave affliction of the most holy Job is proposed. Job’s friends who visited him believed in divine providence concerning human affairs, but they erred greatly in this: they thought that the whole repayment for deeds done well or badly was received or conferred by God here, not in another life, and consequently that men sustained afflictions only because of guilt and obtained prosperity from good deeds.
Thus they argued that Job had been wicked and a hypocrite and had been afflicted in this way because of his sins. Their statements are set forth twice by each of them. Job answered and refuted them, showing that there is another repayment for works than the one in the present life and that he had not been scourged because of guilt.
When Job’s friends, as men convicted, were no longer able to answer his arguments, another man present there, Elihu, younger than the others, spoke. He reproved Job’s three friends because they could no longer argue against him, and Job himself because it seemed to Elihu from Job’s speech that God had judged and scourged him unjustly, although Job had not done this.
Finally, the Lord determined the disputation. He reproved Elihu for his opinion because he had unjustly condemned Job as thinking badly of God’s justice; and He rebuked Job because he had spoken in such a way as to give them occasion to judge that he thought badly of God’s justice, as if God had scourged him unjustly. Yet Job had not spoken with this intention, but only wished to show that he had been scourged not for his own faults but for the exercise of virtue, as was the case.
The Lord was angry with Job’s friends because they thought wrongly about the cause of afflictions. Hence they also called Job a dissembler and wicked. He commanded them, in satisfaction, to offer a certain sacrifice, as is evident at the end.
Because human wisdom is not sufficient to comprehend the truth of divine providence, it was therefore necessary that the said disputation concerning divine providence be ended by authority. This begins to occur in chapter 38, where it is said: “The Lord, answering from the whirlwind,” and so forth.
In that chapter the Lord questions Job concerning divine effects, saying: “Where were you when I laid the foundations of the earth?” and so forth. These effects are exposed to the human senses. Since He shows man to be ignorant of them, it is much more conclusively demonstrated that man does not possess knowledge of higher things, such as God’s providence. He questions him concerning the elements, the heavens, and the creatures in them.
Then the Lord argues against Job by showing God’s excellence above men, in comparison with whose justice and goodness all human justice appears injustice. His excellence is manifested in the effects He works in good and wicked men and in the devil, concerning whom He speaks at length under the attributes of Behemoth, that is, the elephant, and Leviathan, that is, the great fish, as in Job 40.
The material cause, therefore, is the history in which first is narrated Job’s prosperity in substance, family, and power; then the adversity arising from the loss of all the foregoing, the death of his children, and the loss of health at one time; the reproach of his wife; and afterward the visit of his friends to console him. In all these things Job did not sin.
For when he cursed his day, he spoke not according to the deliberation of reason but according to the movement of sensuality, which abhorred such affliction and detested the things from which he had come into it, namely birth and conception. Because these occur by day or night, those times are called evil—not by reason of the time, but by reason of the event within it—just as the Apostle says, “The days are evil.”
It is also as though a wise man, tasting a bitter medicine that was nevertheless healing, were to call it evil and accursed according to the sensual appetite because of the bitterness he sensed in it, although according to reason he judged it good.
Nor did Job sin by recounting his good works, as is evident in chapters 30 and 31, because he did so not for boasting but to restore his confidence in God lest he fall into despair amid so many adversities.
Finally, the restoration of Job’s prosperity is set down: double as regards substance, but not as regards his children in number, though in power, because afterward he had seven sons and three most beautiful daughters, as he had before; and when he had been healed, vigor was added to him. Hence he lived another 140 years.
This intimates that, although divine providence permits the good to be afflicted here even without fault of their own, it afterward rewards them abundantly in the other life, which endures forever.
The history of this Gentile Job is placed among the deeds of the holy fathers of the Old and New Testaments as an example of every kind of patience and, especially, of wisdom concerning God’s providence and of every perfection of justice, and as a figure of Christ and the Church. Gregory makes this clear by expounding the whole work allegorically or morally, while Thomas expounds it literally and marvelously.
This is first to intimate that there is no acceptance of persons with God, but that in every nation the one who fears God is acceptable to Him, as Peter said in Acts 10. Second, it is for the confusion of wicked believers and to sharpen the goad of the just in doing good. For if a Gentile, bound only by the natural law, lived so perfectly, how much more ought every believer to do this, assisted by the Mosaic and evangelical laws? Third, because Christ was to come to save all, Jews and Gentiles, He decreed to be foretold and figured by every race of Jews and Gentiles.
The formal cause of the book is its manner of treatment, which is narrative and disputative. As Jerome says: “It begins in prose, slips into verse”—namely from the place “Let the day perish” to “I reprehend myself” in chapter 40—“and afterward ends in prose.” Eusebius, Origen, and others assert that verse is found in the books of the Hebrews, as in the Psalter, Job, and Lamentations. But in the translation made by Jerome from Hebrew or Chaldean into Latin, the meters could not be preserved in the same way, and everything was reduced to prose, as is evident.
§ XIII. Tobit
Because the history of Tobit occurred before the captivity and deportation of Judah to Babylon, in the time of Ahaz and Hezekiah, we shall therefore recapitulate it briefly.
This Tobit was of the tribe of Naphtali and dwelt in Galilee. Almost alone in Israel, he observed God’s law. Led captive to Nineveh with many others by Shalmaneser, king of the Assyrians, he there exercised himself in manifold works of mercy and provided burial for the dead.
One day, while he rested leaning against a wall, droppings of swallows falling from above blinded his eyes. Yet he was not saddened by this.
Tobit, after being reproached by his wife, and Anna daughter of Raguel, after being insulted by one of the maids whom she had reproved, concerning the killing of her seven husbands, were saddened and prayed to the Lord. Their prayers were heard, and Raphael was sent to heal them both.
Tobit, believing that he had been heard so that he might die, instructed his son, likewise named Tobias, concerning the vices to be avoided and especially the works of almsgiving to be done.
The angel Raphael, appearing in the form of a traveler, was brought to Tobit the father. Asked his name, he said that he was Azariah, offering to lead his son to Rages of the Medes, to Gabelus, and bring him back.
While they were on the way, when Tobias stopped to wash his feet beside the River Tigris, a fish came out to devour him. But at Raphael’s command he drew it out and killed it. He roasted its flesh to eat on the journey, but reserved its heart, gall, and liver as medicines.
The angel advised them to lodge with their kinsman Raguel and for Tobias to take his daughter Sarah as his wife. Raguel received them joyfully. After he recognized Tobias when the angel revealed who he was, Tobias at length sought Raguel’s daughter in marriage. Raguel was afraid, yet at the angel’s counsel he gave her to him.
When the wedding had been celebrated and Tobias entered the bridal chamber, Tobias placed some of the fish’s liver upon coals, and Raphael bound the demon named Asmodeus in the desert. The demon had strangled the seven husbands whom Sarah had previously had. Tobias and Sarah remained in prayer for three nights. On the fourth he consummated the marriage, and the devil could not harm him.
Tobias sent Raphael to Gabelus at Rages to recover the money that had been lent. Once the debt had been repaid, the angel brought Gabelus to Tobias’s wedding.
When they delayed in returning, Tobias’s mother Anna wept inconsolably, while the blind Tobit comforted her. At length the younger Tobias, having taken leave of Raguel, set out with his wife Sarah and Raphael. Tobias, going more quickly than the others with the angel, arrived home first.
His blind father came out to meet him. Tobias took some of the fish’s gall and placed it upon his father’s eyes, restoring his sight. When the others arrived, they blessed God and feasted together.
The younger Tobias, recalling Raphael’s services to his father, advised his father to offer him half of all their goods, for they thought him a man. But the angel then revealed himself, instructed them to give thanks, and disappeared while they blessed God.
The prophecy of Tobit is then given, in which he foretold many things concerning the Church. Last, it is stated that he lived 102 years. He was forty-six years old when he became blind and sixty when his sight was restored. He foretold that Nineveh’s destruction was imminent and that they should not remain there.
§ XIV. The Sibyls
To continue the histories of the kings of Judah and Israel after omitting the deeds of the Gentiles, we shall now resume very briefly the notable deeds that occurred among the Gentiles at various times.
First, concerning the Sibyls, Isidore says in book 8 of the Etymologies, chapter 8: In Greek, all prophetic women are generally called Sibyls. For in the Aeolic language sios means God, and the Greeks call the mind boule. Hence Sibyl means, as it were, the mind of God. Therefore, because they were accustomed to interpret the divine will to human beings, they were named Sibyls. For just as every man who prophesies is called a seer or prophet, so every woman who prophesies is called a Sibyl. The name comes from an office, not from the proper meaning of the word.
The most learned authors hand down that there were ten Sibyls.
The first was the Persian. The second was the Libyan. The third was the Delphic, born at the temple of Delphic Apollo; she prophesied before the Trojan War, and Homer inserted very many of her verses into his own work. The fourth was the Cimmerian in Italy.
The fifth was the Erythraean, named Herophila, born in Babylon. She prophesied to the Greeks who were going to Ilium that Troy would perish and that Homer would write falsehoods. She was called Erythraean because her poems were found on the island of that name.
The sixth was the Samian, who was called Semonoë and surnamed from the island of Samos, whence she came. The seventh was the Cumaean, named Amalthea, who brought nine books to Tarquinius Priscus in which the Roman decrees were written. She is also the Cumaean of whom Virgil says, “Now comes the final age of the Cumaean song.” She was called Cumaean from the city of Cumae in Campania. Her tomb still remains in Sicily.
The eighth was the Hellespontine, born in the Trojan territory, who is said to have lived in the time of Solon and Cyrus. The ninth was the Phrygian, who prophesied at Ancyra. The tenth was the Tiburtine, named Albunea.
The poems of all these women are circulated. In them it is most manifestly demonstrated that they wrote much about God, Christ, and the Gentiles. The Erythraean, however, is considered more celebrated and renowned than the others. Some say that she prophesied when Rome was founded, when Ahaz was king in Judah—or, as others reckon, his son Hezekiah.
Jerome says to the same effect in Against Jovinian: “Why should I recount the Erythraean and Cumaean Sibyls and the other eight, whose distinguishing mark is virginity, and the reward of virginity, divination?”
Lactantius also mentions them in the books of the Divine Institutes and sets down many of their sayings in Greek and Latin. Augustine gathers and reports them in book 18 of The City of God, chapter 23. There express mention is made of worshiping the one God, Creator of all, and of God Himself incarnate, His Passion, death, and resurrection.
There are also set down twenty-six verses of this Sibyl that most openly express the Last Judgment. If the first letters of the verses are taken and joined together, they yield these words: “Jesus Christ, Son of God, Savior.” The verses begin as follows:
The sign of judgment: earth shall be wet with sweat.
From heaven shall come the King, destined to endure through all ages,
Present, namely, in the flesh, that He may judge the world.
Hence unbeliever and believer alike shall behold God,
Exalted with the saints, at the very end of the age.
Thus souls shall be present with the flesh, whom He Himself judges,
While the world lies uncultivated amid dense thorns.
Men shall cast away their idols and all their treasure too.
Fire shall burn the lands, the sea, and the sky,
Searching, and shall break open the gates of foul Avernus.
For free light shall be given to all the flesh of the saints;
The guilty shall be delivered up, and eternal flame shall burn them.
Then each shall speak, revealing hidden deeds,
And God shall expose secret hearts to the light.
Then there shall also be mourning; all shall gnash their teeth.
The radiance of the sun is taken away, and the choir of stars perishes.
Heaven shall be rolled up; the moon’s splendor shall pass away.
He shall cast down the hills and raise the valleys from the depths.
Nothing lofty or high shall remain among human things.
Now mountains are leveled with plains, and the blue waters of the sea likewise.
All things shall cease; the shattered earth shall perish.
Springs and rivers alike shall be scorched by fire.
But then the trumpet shall send down a mournful sound from on high,
Groaning over the world’s wretched crime and its many toils.
The gaping earth shall reveal Tartarean chaos,
And here all kings together shall be set before the Lord.
From heaven shall fall a river of fire and sulfur.
In these Latin verses, translated as best they could be from Greek, the meaning formed by joining the letters at their beginnings could not be reproduced. Wherever the letter y occurred in Greek, Latin words that both began with the same letter and suited the sense could not be found. These are three verses: the fifth, eighteenth, and nineteenth.
Accordingly, if in joining the letters at the beginning of every verse we do not read the letters written at the beginnings of those three verses, but remember the letter y as though it had been placed in those same locations, five words are expressed in them: “Jesus Christ, Son of God, Savior,” as stated above—but in Greek, not Latin.
This Sibyl, whether Erythraean or, as some more readily believe, Cumaean, has nothing at all in her entire poem—of which this is but a small portion—that pertains to the worship of false or fabricated gods. Indeed, she speaks against them and their worshipers, so that she seems to deserve to be counted among those who belong to the City of God.
Lactantius also inserts into his work certain Sibylline prophecies concerning Christ. Although he does not identify which Sibyl spoke them and sets them down individually, I have thought that they should be placed together here as though they were one continuous passage, because he recalled several short sayings:
Afterward He will come into the hands of unbelievers. They will strike God with their defiled hands and spit venomous spittle from an impure mouth. But He will simply give His holy back to the lash, and, receiving blows, He will remain silent, lest anyone recognize what Word He is or whence He came, so that He may speak to those below and be crowned with a crown of thorns.
For food they will give gall, and for thirst vinegar; they will display this table of inhospitality. For you, foolish nation, did not understand your God. Though He played among the minds of mortals, you crowned Him with thorns and mixed dreadful gall.
The veil of the temple will be torn, and at midday the night will be exceedingly dark for three hours. He will die a death, having taken three days of sleep, and then, returning from below, He will come to the light, the first to reveal the principle of resurrection by being called back.
Lactantius employed those Sibylline testimonies piecemeal at intervals in his disputation, as the points he intended to prove seemed to require them. Without inserting anything, I have placed them together in a single sequence, taking care to distinguish them only by headings—provided that later copyists do not neglect to preserve them. Some have written that the Erythraean Sibyl lived not in Romulus’s time but in the time of the Trojan War. Augustine says all these things in book 18 of The City of God, chapter 23.
There one should also note what Augustine says in his book Against the Manichaeans: “If the Sibyl or Orpheus or any other seers or philosophers of the Gentiles are said to have foretold anything true about God, it is indeed useful for refuting the vanity of the pagans, but not for embracing their truth. For the distance between the preaching of angels and the confession of demons concerning Christ’s coming is as great as that between the authority of the prophets and the curiosity of sacrilegious writings,” distinction 37, If Anything.
Jerome likewise says in the same distinction, Those Who from the Table: “If at times we are compelled to recall secular literature and say some of the things from it that we formerly omitted, this is not by our own will but, so to speak, by the gravest necessity, so that we may prove that the things foretold by the holy prophets many centuries beforehand are also contained in the books of the Greeks, the Latins, and other nations.” Thus Jerome.
It is also related in the chronicles, as Blessed Thomas reports in the Second Part of the Second Part, that in the time of Emperor Constantine—not the first Constantine, but the one who ruled with his mother Irene—the following inscription was discovered upon a tablet at the head of a certain Gentile who had died before Christ’s Incarnation: “Christ will be born of the Virgin Mary, and I believe in Him. O sun, you will see me again in the time of Constantine and Irene.”
Augustine also says in book 22 of The City of God, chapter 27: “Plato and Porphyry each said certain things which, if they could have shared with one another, might perhaps have made them Christians. Plato said that souls cannot exist eternally without bodies. He therefore said that even the souls of the wise, after however long a time, would nevertheless return to bodies.” Virgil, taking this also from Plato, says: “Again they begin to desire to return to bodies.”
Porphyry said: “When the most purified soul has returned to the Father, it will never return to the evils of this world.” Therefore, if Plato had granted to Porphyry the truth that he himself saw, namely that the most purified souls of the just and wise would return to human bodies; and, in turn, if Porphyry had granted to Plato the truth that he saw, namely that holy souls would never return to the miseries of corruptible bodies—so that they would not each say one of these things separately, but both would each say both—I think they would now have seen it to follow that souls would return to bodies and receive bodies of such a kind that in them they would live blessedly and immortally.” Thus Augustine.
I have also found other sayings of a certain Sibyl whose name I have not found, testifying about Christ as follows:
A woman will arise from the stock of the Hebrews, named Mary, who has a spouse named Joseph. From her, without union with a man and by the Holy Spirit, will be born the Son of God, named Jesus. She will be a virgin before giving birth and a virgin after giving birth. He who is born of her will be true God and true man. He will fulfill the law of the Jews and add His own law to it, and His kingdom will remain forever and ever.
A voice will come over Him, saying, “This is My beloved Son; hear Him.” There will be a resurrection of the dead, and the lame will run most swiftly; the deaf will hear, the blind will see, and those who did not speak will speak. From five loaves and two fish many thousands of people will be fed. He will restrain the winds by a word and calm the raging sea. Walking upon the sea, He will tread upon the waves, curing human weakness and driving away many pains.
Likewise another Sibyl, who is said to have been the Erythraean, says: “In the final age God will humble Himself; the divine offspring will become human. Divinity will be joined to humanity. The Lamb will lie in the hay, and God and man will be reared by a maiden’s service. He will choose for Himself the number twelve from fishermen and the rejected.” Thus she.
Augustine says in book 10 of The City of God, chapter 2: “Often and insistently the philosopher Plotinus, explaining Plato’s meaning, asserts that even the soul which they believe to be the soul of the universe is blessed from no other source than our own soul is. That source is a light which the soul itself is not, but by which it was created and, through intelligible illumination, shines intelligibly.”
Thus that great Platonist says that the rational or intellectual soul—from which class he understands the souls of the immortal and blessed beings whom he does not doubt inhabit the heavenly abodes, namely the angels—has no nature above it except God, who fashioned the world and by whom it too was made. Nor are blessed life and the light of the understanding of truth supplied to those heavenly beings from any other source than that from which they are supplied to us. Hence, he thinks that they, and therefore we as well, become blessed by the presentation of a certain intelligible light, which is God, just as he thinks the moon is illuminated by the presentation of the sun.
Again Augustine says in the same book, chapter 29, concerning the Gentile Porphyry, whom he calls the noblest of the philosophers but the fiercest enemy of Christians: “You proclaim the Father and His Son, whom you call the Father’s intellect or mind, and a being between them whom we think you mean by the Holy Spirit. Yet you are unwilling to acknowledge the Incarnation of the unchangeable Son of God, by which we are saved. You somehow see, though from afar, the homeland in which one must dwell, but you do not hold the way by which one must go. You confess grace, since you say that it has been granted to few to reach God through the power of the intellect.”
For undoubtedly, when you say that it was granted, you confess God’s grace, not human sufficiency. Following Plato’s opinion, you yourself do not doubt that a human being can in no way attain the perfection of wisdom in this life, but that, after this life, everything lacking to those who live according to the intellect can be supplied by God’s providence and grace.
Augustine likewise says in chapter 27 concerning Porphyry: “Your own oracles, as you write, have confessed Christ to be holy and immortal.” Concerning Him the most noble poet, namely Virgil, also spoke poetically, because under the shadowed figure of another person, but nevertheless truthfully if you refer it to Christ: “Under your leadership, the remaining traces of our crime shall be void and shall free the lands with perpetual fortitude.”
§ XV. In the Time of Joash, King of Judah
In the 182nd year, and the year 3030 from the beginning of the world according to the shorter computation, Lycurgus was held in renown, according to Eusebius. He established laws for the Lacedaemonians.
As Justin relates in book 3, Lycurgus could, had he wished, have succeeded his brother Polybites, king of the Spartans, and reigned. But when Charillus, his brother’s posthumously born son, reached adulthood, Lycurgus restored the kingdom to him with the greatest fidelity, so that all might know how much more the claims of filial duty prevail among good people than riches do.
In the meantime, while the child grew strong, Lycurgus instituted laws. But he sanctioned no law for others of which he himself did not first give an example. He abolished the use of gold and silver as the material of every crime. He permitted the people the power to elect the senate or to create whatever magistrates they wished. He divided all the lands equally among everyone, so that equal patrimonies would make no one superior to another.
He ordered everyone to dine publicly, lest anyone’s riches or luxury be hidden. He permitted the young to use no more than one garment throughout the whole year, and allowed no one to go out more elegantly dressed than another or to feast more lavishly. He ordered everything to be purchased not with money but by an exchange of goods.
He commanded that boys who had reached puberty be led not into the forum but into the countryside, so that they would spend their earliest years not in luxury but in work and labor. He decreed that they should spread no bed beneath themselves for sleep, live without relishes, and not return to the city until they had become men.
He ordered virgins to marry without a dowry, so that wives would be chosen not for the sake of money and husbands would govern their marriages more strictly, since they would be held by no restraints imposed by a dowry. He judged that the greatest honor belonged not to the rich and powerful but to the elderly. For this reason old age held a more honored place there than anywhere else in the world.
Because these and similar measures seemed harsh to people whose customs had previously been unrestrained, he pretended that Delphic Apollo was their author and that he had brought the laws from there. Then, to give permanence to his laws, he bound the city by oath to change nothing in them before he returned to his homeland. He said that he wished to consult Apollo again about what appeared to require addition to or subtraction from these laws.
He departed for Crete, where he spent the rest of his life in voluntary exile. Even when dying he ordered his bones to be placed in a leaden casket and cast into the sea, lest, if they were by chance brought back to Lacedaemon, the Lacedaemonians think themselves released from their oath. Thus Justin.
The same author says that Sardanapalus was the last of the Assyrian kings, a man more ornamented than a woman. Arbaces, governor of the Medes, discovered him among companies of prostitutes, dressed as a woman and spinning purple wool. In bodily softness and the wantonness of his eyes, he surpassed every woman while dividing the wool among them. Arbaces, indignant that so many men were subject to such a woman, stirred up war against him. Sardanapalus fled and withdrew into the palace. There, after a pyre had been constructed and set alight, he burned himself and his riches, imitating a man in this one respect alone.
Cicero says of him in the Tusculan Disputations: Sardanapalus ordered this inscription to be placed upon his tomb: “I possess these things which I ate and whatever fully satisfied lust consumed; but those many and splendid things lie abandoned.”
Therefore, when Sardanapalus—who burned himself, as has been said—had been defeated by Arbaces the Mede, Arbaces transferred the monarchy from the Assyrians to the Medes, according to Vincent. This occurred in the time of Uzziah, king of Judah.
Nevertheless, powerful Assyrian kings continued afterward, though without the monarchy, until Nineveh was destroyed, apparently by Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon. His kingdom failed entirely in his grandson or great-grandson Belshazzar, who was killed by Cyrus and Darius. At that time the monarchy of the Medes and Persians was exalted and, in this sense, is said to have begun then—namely, in its greatest power.
§ XVI. In the Thirteenth Year of Manasseh, King of Judah
Gyges reigned in Lydia. Tully says of him in book 3 of On Duties that, when he was a royal shepherd and a deluge of rain occurred, he descended into a certain opening in the earth. There he found a dead man sitting upon a bronze horse. On the man’s finger he found a ring through which he became invisible. He violated the queen and, with her assistance, killed the king, his lord.
Helinand agrees with Justin and Tully concerning the murder of his lord, but I have found the discovery of the ring written nowhere else except in Ambrose’s On Duties, which treats the same matter from Cicero.
In the fifth year of this Gyges, Midas, or Mides, while reigning among the Phrygians, died after drinking bull’s blood. At that time Archilochus, Simonides, and the musician Aristoxenus were held in renown.
Valerius says in book 6 that the Lacedaemonians ordered the books of the poet Archilochus to be carried out of the city because they considered their reading insufficiently chaste. For they did not wish the minds of their children to be steeped in them, lest they harm their morals more than they benefited their abilities. Thus they punished even this great poet with exile because he had torn apart a household hateful to him with the obscene abuse of his poems.
The same poet Simonides boasts that, at eighty years of age, he both taught poetry and entered a contest in it. When he had brought a ship to shore and buried an unburied body that lay there, the dead man warned him not to sail the following day. Simonides therefore remained behind. Those who began to sail were overwhelmed by waves and storms.
In the fifty-first year of Manasseh, Zaleucus the lawgiver was celebrated among the Locrians with frequent praises. As Valerius relates in book 6, when Zaleucus’s son had been condemned for adultery and was required to lose both eyes, the entire city resisted for some time out of respect for his father. At last Zaleucus yielded only so far as to prevent his law from being violated: first gouging out one of his own eyes and then one of his son’s, he left each of them the use of sight. Thus, by an admirable moderation of equity, he divided himself between the merciful father and the just lawgiver.
§ XVII. In the Reign of Amon, Son of Manasseh, in Judah
Phalaris the Sicilian, having seized the tyranny, ravaged the Agrigentines. Cruel in mind and still crueler in his torments, he did everything wickedly against the innocent, yet sometimes, though himself unjust, found someone whom he punished justly.
For a certain Perillus, a worker in bronze, sought the tyrant’s friendship. Thinking that he had found a gift suited to Phalaris’s cruelty, he made him a bronze bull. He fashioned a door in the side of the work as an entrance through which condemned persons could be thrust inside. When a person enclosed there was roasted by fires placed beneath, the capacity of the hollow bronze would amplify the sound of his tortured voice and emit, with a deathly resonance suited to the image, a bellowing murmur. Thus, in that wicked spectacle, it would seem to be the lowing of a beast, not the groaning of a human being.
But Phalaris embraced the work while cursing its maker, and furnished material both for vengeance and for cruelty. For he punished the artisan himself by means of his own invention. Orosius says this in book 1.
At that time the philosopher Zeno flourished. Leaving his own country, where he could enjoy secure freedom, he went to Agrigentum, which was oppressed by miserable slavery. He relied upon such confidence in his ability and character that he hoped the ferocity of both the tyrant and Phalaris’s mind could be tamed by him.
When at last he perceived that with Phalaris the long habit of domination had more force than wholesome counsel, he inflamed the noblest young men of his city with the desire to liberate their homeland. When knowledge of the affair reached the tyrant, Phalaris summoned the people to the forum and began to torture Zeno with various torments so that he would betray his fellow conspirators.
Without naming anyone, Zeno began to rebuke the people who had gathered for the spectacle, asking why they had tolerated Phalaris’s tyranny for so long. By his words he so incited them against the tyrant that they stoned him.
Valerius, however, relates the matter differently in book 3. When Zeno was tortured by a certain tyrant so that he would name the man who had plotted the tyrant’s death, Zeno said that he wished to speak to him privately. Released from the rack, he seized the tyrant’s ear with his teeth and did not let go before he himself lost his life and the tyrant lost that part of his body.
Under Josiah, king of Judah, Arion, the Lesbian lyre-player, was sailing with abundant wealth. The sailors wished to kill him in order to obtain his property, and even when it was offered to them, it could not appease them. He asked that they at least permit him, dressed in his garments, to sing for a little while a song about his misfortune as a consolation to himself.
When this was permitted, he sang with the lyre in a very high voice and threw himself into the sea. A dolphin of great size appeared among the waves, received the falling Arion upon its back, and carried him unharmed, still arrayed in his clothing, all the way to shore.
When he came to Corinth, he presented himself to Periander just as he had been carried by the dolphin and narrated the event as it had happened, but the king was reluctant to believe him. When the sailors were questioned about Arion, they answered that he was safe, flourishing in wealth, and fortunate. During their words Arion showed himself, still arrayed and bearing his lyre. At that time Thales of Miletus, the first natural philosopher, was renowned.
In the year of Zedekiah, king of Judah, according to Justin in book 43, Massilia was founded by the Phocaean Greeks near the mouths of the River Rhône, in a remote inlet like a corner of the sea. From them the Gauls learned the practice of a more cultivated life, the cultivation of fields, and the enclosing of cities with walls. Their barbarity was tamed, and they learned to live by laws rather than arms and devoted themselves to planting vines and grafting olive trees.
Valerius also says of Massilia in book 3: Since the founding of Massilia, there has been a sword there with which criminals are beheaded. Although consumed by rust, it is kept as a memorial of antiquity. Prepared hemlock poison is also kept there and is given to the person who has made public the counsels of the senate. No one enters their city bearing a weapon.
The city of the Massilians, a most severe guardian of discipline, gives mimes no admission to a banquet, because their plots consist for the greater part of enacted sexual offenses, lest a custom of seeing and hearing such things also assume the license to imitate them.
Around those times Milo of Croton is found to have lived. Solinus says of him that in the Olympic contest he carried an ox upon his shoulders through the stadium, killed the same ox with a blow of his hand and made it a sacrificial victim, and on that day ate the whole animal without being burdened. He died the victor of every contest.