The people wished to stone Moses and Aaron (Josephus being author, bk. 2), not Joshua and Caleb. But if, on the contrary, we look at the text, it would rather seem—
(col. 169)
…that these two were the people’s counsel for stoning. For the relative “them” seems to look most nearly to those whose speech had just now been recited. And so Cajetan judges that Joshua then, and Caleb, were [the ones] to be stoned. And Rupert seems to nod [to this] (bk. 1 on Numbers, ch. 36): “The multitude,” he says, “wished to overwhelm with stones those who with another spirit followed the Lord.” And Origen (Hom. 8): “The people, driven headlong by the desperation of unbelief, leapt to stone those who announce good things.” To me, however, this whole fourth murmuring of the people seems to have pertained to all these. For of them [the spies] it had first been said how, before the whole multitude of the children of Israel, they cast themselves prone to the earth; but of these [Joshua and Caleb], how they made words against that same [multitude], is then universally subjoined: “And when the people cried out, and would overwhelm them with stones” — or, as it is in Hebrew, “And all the multitude said” (or, as the Seventy always render, “all the synagogue [said], to stone them with stones”) — that is, all cried out, with the greatest and most confused voices, “Stones! stones! Let us take the wicked out of the midst; let us overwhelm the liars; let us root out the false-speaking impostors.” For it seems too thin, what Cajetan says — that “they did not say they wished to stone them, but only that they must be stoned.” But it was done, without doubt, because — insane with whatever madness they were carried by — [the crowd] saw that [Joshua and Caleb] did not assent to their counsel, but by prayers, words, and deeds dissuaded them from it. But here it is to be considered: 1. how dire was the neck of those Jews, how iron their face, how mad their mind. Once one of the Gentiles wrote [Virgil, Aeneid 1]:
And as, in a great people, when sedition has oft arisen, and the base rabble rages in its mind, and now firebrands and stones fly — fury supplies arms; then, if by chance they have beheld some man grave in piety and merits, they fall silent, and stand with attentive ears: he rules their minds with words, and soothes their breasts.
But here [it was] all the contrary. When that rabble beheld so many and such men, so grave with such piety and such merits — and heard those same [men] addressing them most wisely and most gently — it not only did not suffer its swollen minds and boiling breasts to be ruled and soothed, but then most of all blazed up with anger, fury, and madness, raged in mind, [and] snatched up stones. Who would not be astounded? There is, besides, this too to be considered: what in the world is the lot of the pious. When they withstand wickedness, chastise impiety, dissuade from vices, [and] strive to draw men’s minds away from sins, at once against them [rise] infinite outcries and revilings; concerning them, most false rumors; upon their heads, stones; against their life and body, swords and nooses. For so [is it said] of all the pious, and of their Head, Christ Jesus — in Wisdom, ch. 2, v. 12, and in Isaiah, ch. 3, v. 10; in the Greek the impious speak: “Let us surround this man, since he is useless to us, and is contrary to our works, and upbraids us with sins against the law.” Third: upon whom was the penalty of stoning established by law? Certainly only upon those who had committed something against God by idolatry, blasphemy, or violation of the holy days and ceremonies (Lev. 24; Deut. 13 and 17; Num. 15), or had defiled another’s marriage-bed by foul adultery (Deut. 22). And yet against most holy, most God-fearing, and chastest men this stony [death] is thus prepared. Nothing [did Joshua]—
(col. 170)
—feign, nothing did he exaggerate, nor did Moses say [anything] rashly, when (Exod. 17, v. 4) he said: “What shall I do to this people? Yet a little more, and it will stone me.” Namely, that those Fathers of the old covenant might attain the crown of eternal felicity, it behooved them to be, even then, “Stephens” [proto-martyrs].