Some of the Jews answer [that] these [things] were done in the time of Esther and Mardochai [Mordecai], when the Amalekite Aman [Haman], with all his offspring, was driven to the gibbet and destroyed. All the rest say [that] what is here handed down looks to the time of Saul, when he waged war on the Amalekites and captured their king Agag (1 Kings [Samuel] 15). And R. Eliezer (ch. 44 and 49) couples both opinions. But a great doubt can arise. For the memory of the Amalekites does not then seem to have been deleted. 1. Because [in] ch. 1 of 2 Kings [Samuel] an Amalekite still survives. 2. Nay, the nation itself survives — so that, still with great forces, it bursts into the neighboring places (1 Kings [Samuel] 29 and 30). 3. David is said to have subdued the Amalekites (2 Kings [Samuel] 8, v. 12). 4. From the Amalekites the Macedonians seem to have been propagated, as [was] probably shown in the commentary on Esther, part 1, particle 8, q. 1. But how illustrious and widespread [is] the fame of the Macedonians! 5. The cities of the Amalekites were indeed taken…
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…and filled with the corpses of their [own] citizens, as Josephus narrates (book 6); yet they themselves stood, and by new offspring gradually flourished again. 6. Nay indeed, even if by those disasters all the walls of the Amalekites had been cut away from the foundation — and the whole nation too — nevertheless their memory [was] not yet utterly deleted. For even now today it flourishes, and will flourish, as long as the sacred leaves of the Bibles shall survive. For these [leaves] are so inscribed with their name that, these remaining, that [memory] cannot perish.
It must be said [that] someone’s memory being “deleted” is taken in various ways. For, first, [it is] sometimes altogether to take it away, so that posterity know nothing more of it — [and there be] nowhere among men any mention or thought [of it]. But of this kind — [one] whose memory has been utterly deleted and torn out by the roots — I could not indeed name any (for otherwise some memory of it would already survive); yet [that] some have been plunged into that supreme oblivion [Lethe] of the ages, I do not doubt. Secondly: that [there] be indeed some memory of them, but small, and far less than [it] would have been. Thirdly: that [there] be likewise a memory of them, but black, execrable, infamous. For a memory is extinguished in that [second] manner which men desire, and which is a certain good of theirs; but dishonor and infamy all men shrink from, and it is wont to be branded upon them as a punishment and a very grievous penalty. Fourth and last: the memory of some family or nation is deleted when, even if some of it survive, they nevertheless now bear another name — whether because, from shame, fear, or some other cause, they [so] will [it], or because, though they be unwilling, they cannot hinder [themselves] from now being called otherwise. To these latter three modes are referred those [passages] which [occur] everywhere in the Scriptures. Deuteronomy 32, v. 26: “Where are they? I will make the memory of them to cease from among men.” For behold: after so many and so great sins of the Jews themselves — after even the Son of God himself [was] slain — there is a memory of them, but a detestable and deadly one. Psalm 9, v. 6: “Thou hast rebuked the nations, and the wicked one hath perished: thou hast blotted out their name for ever, and unto ages of ages.” And v. 8: “Their memory hath perished with a sound [crash].” For although — because in the Hebrew it is hemma [המה] — it could rightly be rendered “the memory of them themselves hath perished,” or “of them, and they [too],” or, as in [the text] of St. Chrysostom a certain other [translator] renders [it], σὺν αὐτοῖς, “with them” — yet to me “with a sound [crash]” seems best rendered. For the Seventy rendered [it] μετ’ ἤχου, and, the points of the more recent Hebrews being removed, read המה from the verb המה — that is, “to sound, to make a din.” Psalm 33 [34], v. 17: “The face of the Lord [is] upon them that do evil things, to cut off the memory of them from the earth.” Psalm 108 [109], v. 15: “Let them be [always] against the Lord, and let the memory of them perish from the earth.” Ecclesiastes 9, v. 5: “The dead know nothing more, neither have they a reward any longer, for the memory of them is delivered to oblivion.” Wisdom 4, v. 20 [19]: “The memory of them (the ungodly) shall perish.” Ecclesiasticus 10, v. 19 [17]: “The Lord hath overthrown the lands of the nations, and destroyed them even to the foundation. He hath dried [them] up out of them, and destroyed them, and made the memory of them to cease from the earth.” And of the adulterous woman, ch. 23, v. 36 [26]: “She shall leave her memory for a curse (or, her [own memory]), and her disgrace shall not be blotted out.” And of the posterity of certain most-praised men, ch. 44, v. 8 [9]: “They that are born of them have left a name, to declare their praises: and [there] are [some] of whom there is no memory. They have perished as if they had never been, and are born as though [they had never been born]…”
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…nor born, and their children with them” [Ecclus. 44:9]. Isaiah 26, v. 14: “Thou hast crushed them, and destroyed all their memory.” Jeremiah 25, v. 10: “The Lord threatens to bring it to pass that there be no more a memory of the sons of Ammon among the nations.” Zechariah 12 [13], v. 2: “I will destroy the names of the idols out of the earth, and they shall be remembered no more.”
To those first three [doubts], therefore, which bred the difficulty, I say [that], after the slaughter inflicted by Saul, the Amalekites were indeed reborn — from those who were then either absent, or had escaped by flight and by hiding-places, and afterward returned — but with a fame, power, and dignity far less than of old; and their name was thenceforth more obscure, and more closely joined with reproach and disgrace. To the fourth: the answer is plain from the third mode of deleting a memory. For the memory of the Amalekites was so cut down and worn away that another, new name was imposed upon their remnants — and indeed so [thoroughly] that [it] is still very obscure whether those very Macedonians [sprang] from those Amalekites. And perhaps the Septuagint looked to their destruction in that Haman of the Esther-story, when they said [they were] to be scattered ἐν κρυφαίᾳ χειρὶ [with a hidden hand]. For how hidden [was] this observance [regard] of God’s toward their poor remnants — concealed under the wrappings of those places, times, and all [their] circumstances? To the fifth: I say, first, [that it is] not sufficiently established whether Saul let the cities and roofs of the Amalekites stand (for [there is] nothing about them in either Scripture or Josephus); yet [it is] more likely [that] all [were] demolished, or certainly reduced to ashes by flames cast [upon them]. For in that war nothing else of the [things] which the Lord had ordered to be done seems to have been passed over by Saul, except that the king’s life was spared, and the herds of cattle driven off. But the Lord had commanded [that] all the goods of the Amalekites be devoted to destruction, and be held accursed and detestable. For [in] 1 Kings [Samuel] 15, v. 3, where in Latin we read “Strike Amalek, and demolish all that is his,” in Hebrew it is “and subject to the anathema all things that are his.” And of this anathema — which in Hebrew is called cherem [חרם] — the nature and force was that it willed all things to be consumed by sword and flame, as we shall see at Jericho below, ch. 6, question 33, and following; and it is commanded concerning other cities [in] Deuteronomy 13. Among the Greek Seventy, various versions appear heaped up. For one retains almost that Hebrew word itself, and says: πατάξεις τὸν Ἀμαλὴκ καὶ ἱερέμα, for καθ’ ἱερέμα — as if κατὰ χέρεμ, that is, ἀνάθεμα [anathema]. Another expressed the same thing in these words: καὶ οὐ περιποιήσῃ ἐξ αὐτοῦ, that is, “thou shalt make nothing remaining of it”; or, as in our Latin, “thou shalt not covet any of his things.” Another: καὶ ἐξολεθρεύσεις αὐτόν, that is, “thou shalt utterly destroy it.” Another, finally: καὶ ἀναθεματιεῖς αὐτὸν, καὶ πάντα τὰ αὐτοῦ. Unless, therefore, this so great a heap of words meaning nearly the same thing was made purposely, to explain better that matter and utter-destruction, we should read [it], more agreeably to the Hebrew text and more correctly, thus: πατάξεις τὸν Ἀμαλὴκ, καὶ ἀναθεματιεῖς αὐτὸν, καὶ πάντα τὰ αὐτοῦ. There is added [the fact] that the Canaanites — who, with king Arad leading, attacked the Israelites — were bound by the anathema and deleted (Numbers 21). Why then not the Amalekites also? For, [being] equal in crimes, let them be equal in punishments. To the sixth: of these, and of others of this kind, the memory survives — but of what sort? Foul, sad, damned — [such] that it would be better [there] were none at all. For as, of certain [men], the Saviour said (Matthew 18, v. 6)[, that it were] better for [them]…
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…that, an ass’s millstone being tied about their neck, they be plunged into the deepest [sea] — so also for Pilate, Judas, and others of that kind [with their] most unhappy names, it would be far more tolerable to be overwhelmed with everlasting oblivion, than to be commemorated so often in the symbols [creeds] of our religion. And to this tend the [things] noted in the Minerval, book 2, ch. 1; and [the fact] that of the wicked David says (Psalm 15 [16], v. 4), “Nor will I be mindful of their names by my lips”; and, of false gods, Moses (Exodus 23, v. 13), “Neither shall the name of them be heard out of your mouth.” But again, question 30, [there will be said] something that pertains hither.
The cause can — from the [things] said, and from this very ch. 17 of Exodus — not be altogether unknown; yet [it] is clearly set forth by the Lord [in] Deuteronomy 25, v. 17: “Remember,” he says, “what Amalek did to thee in the way, when thou wast coming out of Egypt: how he met thee, and cut down the hindmost of thy army, who [being] weary sat down, when thou wast spent with hunger and toil, and he feared not God. Therefore when the Lord thy God shall have given thee rest, and shall have subdued round about all the nations in the land which he hath promised thee, thou shalt blot out his name from under heaven. Beware lest thou forget.” And [in] 1 Kings [Samuel] 15, v. 2: “Thus saith the Lord of hosts: I have reckoned up all that Amalek hath done to Israel; how he stood against him in the way, when he came up out of Egypt. Now therefore go, and strike Amalek.” But someone may say:
——Can such [great] anger [dwell] in heavenly minds? [Virgil, Aeneid 1.11]