To the former [point] Abulensis answers (q. 33); to the latter (q. 34). And if you ask what clothes they had afterward, he answers (q. 35). That Moses and Aaron “fell to the earth,” the context says; and of that matter he brings three causes (q. 9, ch. 14). Abulensis [gives] more (q. 29), but which can in a way be reduced to three. First: that so great a newness and magnitude of so great a crime astounded them — but of this in the prior question. Second: that by that most humble gesture they wished to beg the people not to kill them, or rather not to return to Egypt and to desist from the madness already begun. For to minds burning with anger and despair a coaxing and suppliant speech avails more than a harsh and imperious one; and this latter [cause] Abulensis rather embraces (q. 29), because they are said to have fallen not before God, but before the multitude. Third, then: that they wished to pray God for so great a wickedness of the people — and this is consonant with what the same Moses did at the adoration of the calf (Exod. 32; Deut. 9); and it was long ago the [view] of Josephus (bk. [—]…
(col. 167)
…[Josephus, bk.] 3, ch. 13, [is his] opinion; and it is today Cajetan’s. “Moses,” says Josephus, “and Aaron, when they had fallen to the earth, were praying God not for their own safety, but that He might make the people cease from their ignorance, and calm the mind of all — disturbed by the vehement force of the disturbance then pressing upon them.”