Was Joshua of a humble, broken, and abject mind, that he needed to be strengthened in so many and so great manners, and that — lest he should collapse in desperation — he needed to be steadied? For Deut. 1:38 the Lord commands about him to Moses: “Exhort him and strengthen [him].” And ch. 3:28: “Corroborate him and comfort [him].” And ch. 31:7: “Moses called Joshua, and said to him before all Israel: Be comforted, and be strong.” Again, several [verses] being interposed, v. 23: “And the Lord commanded Joshua the son of Nun, and said: Be comforted and be strong.” But this [again], ch. 1 [of Joshua], four times: “Be comforted, and be strong. Fear not, and dread not.” What [was] this so great and so effeminate weakness, fear, and trepidation of his? Truly, if we should wish to consider [it], two causes especially will appear to us why he was so often to be raised up and corroborated. One is that the Lord willed to make [him] judge how much — and how arduous, difficult, and dangerous — it is to be set over others. The other, that our Joshua perceived and felt this very thing by highest [thought], and by the wisest eye of the mind, thoroughly. Nowhere is a breaking of spirit, languor, or cowardice objected [imputed] to him: nay, even from the things hitherto strongly and excellently done, he can be understood to have been magnanimous, constant, and generous. But to whom does the charge, fear, and horror of the burden not present itself — while there are others to be governed — [given] the greatness [of it] and the consciousness of one’s own weakness?
Look at the end of government. It is not the advantage, delights, or honor of the one governing, but of those who are to be governed. For “to the moderator of the Republic,” says Tullius [Cicero] bk. 5 On the Republic, “the blessed life of the citizens is set forth as the purpose — that it be firm in resources, rich in supplies, ample in glory, honorable in virtue.” Otherwise he would be a Tyrant rather than a Prince, as the Philosopher [Aristotle] shows bk. 8 Politics ch. 10.
“Thou shouldst bear thyself [as] citizen and Father: thou, take counsel for all. / Not for thyself: nor let thy own [affairs] move thee, but the public losses” — says Claudian to Honorius. Now let anyone, not imprudent, descend into himself. Let him weigh how much a self-server [laena] our nature is — how appetent of its own emoluments, how inflamed with zeal for pleasure and praise — and at once he will feel with how much difficulty it is joined [i.e. how hard it is] to cast away all care and zeal for one’s own advantage, to think assiduously of others’ conveniences, and to procure these always and alone.
And how to procure [them]? With so great zeal, so keen care and endeavor, that no labor — however immense — is to be shunned, no trouble or fatigue refused: and almost always the [personal] genius is to be defrauded; necessary rest is to be postponed, sleep scarcely tasted. For thus that Homeric [saying] admonishes, Iliad [book] 2 [β] and 10 [χ]: οὐ χρὴ παννύχιον εὕδειν βουληφόρον ἄνδρα [ou chrē pannychion heudein boulēphoron andra, “it is not right for a counsel-bearing man to sleep the whole night through”]. And Silius Italicus: “It is base for a leader to consume the whole night in sleep. O Ruler of Libya, for the watchful Master wars stand [ready].”
Now what prudence and attention, what justice and equity, what greatness of soul, clemency and modesty, how great temperance and sobriety, and — what is the head [chief thing] — how great religion toward GOD the Best and Greatest [O.M.], what hope and confidence in Him and from Him, is required [in a ruler]? For without these — [without] the things which pertain to his office — he will do nothing rightly and usefully; and it behooves [him] by his own example to instill and infuse virtue into all [his] subjects. For, as the Latin poet before cited [says]—
(col. 277)
—the Poet [Claudian] says: ”…[after the pattern of the King] the world is composed [ordered]. — 4. By the King’s example [the whole world is shaped].” If he be impious, iniquitous, inert, given over to lust, drunkenness [crapulam], and cowardice, he will be seen to teach those same morals to his inferiors. On the contrary, [if] he fear God himself, be of best faith, [and] cultivate virtue and duty — from him, as from some sun, all the stars borrow [their light], of whose rising and setting he is the Leader, a signal light. “The King,” says Seneca in the Thyestes, “wills honorable things: no one but will [will] the same.” But if in the administration itself anything be sinned by him, “all things,” says the same [author] (bk. 1 On Clemency), “the rumor of the Prince’s deeds and words catches up: nor does it happen to him more than to the sun to lie hid.” And as the Satirist [Juvenal] said (Sat. 8): “Every vice of the soul has in itself a blemish so much the more conspicuous, as he who sins is held the greater.”
Nor [is this so] among men only, but with God also — to whom the Prince himself must give account for the individual heads [matters] committed to him: for the individual tributes, moneys, [and] honors received from the same principate; for the whole end of his principate, and for the means and reasons by which he could and ought to attain it. Serious meditation of these and like matters casts a fear — neither unjust nor small — into a prudent man, when he is called to the helms of the peoples. There were very many — almost all — of the Gentile Princes inflamed with an incredible cupidity of principate, and most ambitious; yet from those very causes some [men] were terrified by these, so that they refused empires and principates, or grieved [at] them received, and sometimes even laid [them] down. This last thing Augustus more than once thought to do; Diocletian did [it]; and Antoninus Pius did [it] — [he] adopted by Hadrian — and afterwards Pertinax, as [it is] in Julius Capitolinus. But in the first rank — though many can be reckoned — [yet] in that kind what can be brought forth clearer and nobler than He in whom [are] all the highest [things], who [is] King and Lord of the heavens and of all [beings], CHRIST JESUS? For that he might teach the just dread of the dangers which most greatly impend over those commanding, and a not-useless flight from all ambition, when he had known (John 6:15) — because “they would come to seize him, and make him King” — “he fled again into the mountain, himself alone.” So that in our Joshua that very flight of our Savior, and horror of empire, may seem to have been foreshown long ago. Yet besides these general [considerations], there were also two others which could disturb our Joshua, and affect [him] with no small fear: namely, the consideration of the enemies, against whom [it was] now to be fought hand-to-hand [manu]; then also of the people itself, whom [he had] to rule by [his] command, and to settle in their seats. For of these [enemies] there was a huge multitude, greatest strength, arms and spirits most ready for wars. But of these [the people], as of other things nothing failed them, [there was] a wondrous hardness, an intolerable contumacy. Who [was] a Prince more prudent, more temperate, more modest, more laborious than Moses? Who, being the same, more religious toward God, more courteous [comior] and affable toward the people? And yet how often did this people blaze up against him with most savage wrath and fury? How often did it murmur against him, tear his name with revilings, assail [proscidit] him with dire imprecations, and attack him even with stones—
(col. 278 [printed 279])
—did it wish to overthrow [him]? Joshua had seen all these things, and deservedly he greatly feared [things] worse for himself; and for these causes the Lord now so often addresses [him], raises him, and — as it were with a certain strength [robore] — besets and walls [him] around. Nay, if we wish to judge rightly, by this very [fact] the Lord also indicates how great was Joshua’s modesty, and how lowly [demissa] an opinion [he had] of himself, as Masius rightly notes, fol. 20.