What is to be learned by the leaders of wars in the care of provisioning, we saw before (quest. 1, p. 2). But now all men — of whatsoever order and age — can learn other [things]. For thus [it is] to be thought: after “three days,” that is, [a] few [days], which are given us for living, the Jordan is to be crossed — that is, this life, which (in the manner of running water) flows assiduously, is to be exchanged with death; and [we are] to come into another region, before neither inhabited by us, nor traversed, or seen. Let us prepare victuals [cibaria], therefore, [as] we ought. “Work,” says the Lord (John 6:27), “not the food which perishes, but which endures unto life eternal.” And Ecclesiasticus 14:17: “Before thy death, work justice, because there is no finding food among those below.” Which [thing] also the poetry of the ancients thus admonished:
“There is no crop below, no cultivated vine, but bold / Cerberus, and the sailor [Charon] of the Stygian bark of waters.”
But variously the Fathers expound the “victuals” which [are] to be prepared. Procopius says [that] the works of penitence, actions of piety, and the frequent reception of the most holy Eucharist are commended; and to him subscribe the Talmudists cited [in] q. 1 of this second part. But truly to the faith of the Holy Trinity hence exhorts St. Augustine, serm. 106 On the Seasons: “Moses being dead,” he says, “Jesus took up the empire; and, the law ceasing, our Lord the true Jesus obtained the principate of the whole world. That Jesus, therefore, who bore [pre-figured] the type of the Lord, coming to the Jordan, said to the people: ‘Prepare for yourselves victuals for the third day.’ The third day, dearest brethren, we recognize to be the mystery of the Trinity. What victuals, therefore, ought we to prepare, that we may come to the third day? It seems to me that this food ought to be understood [as] faith. For in Christians there is faith, by which the Trinity is believed, and [by which one] arrives at the sacrament of baptism.” What, therefore, that [famous] Jesus then said to his people, this now the true Jesus also says, through his ministers, to the Christian people. For what else is it to say “Prepare for yourselves food for the third day” than “Receive the sacrament of the Trinity”? Origen, hom. 1 on this book, invites [us] to all the offices of virtue, and the study of the divine Books: “Victuals,” he says, “are the works which accompany us to the future life as a faithful provision for the way [viaticum]. We see, however, since it agrees not to read the divine letters negligently, and as if in passing, whence he bids them prepare victuals [who] do not have grain. For the manna was food to them. But when now we shall have crossed the banks of this river, the manna fails; and therefore if not everyone shall have prepared for himself victuals, he will not be able to follow JESUS entering the land of promise.” Rupert, on this book ch. 8, explains both these [things], and [about] those who ought to admonish the people about the preparation of these victuals: “The princes,” he says, “of the people are the holy Apostles, about whom to this Joshua — that is, to the Saviour CHRIST his Son — GOD the father says in the Psalm: ‘For thy fathers, sons are born to thee; thou shalt constitute them
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princes over all the earth; they shall be mindful of thy name.’ Moreover Joshua’s camps here, or his people, all are the elect — all are they who are pre-ordained to life. But where, or when, did Joshua (that is, our Saviour) bid these his princes cross through the middle of the camps, and command these [things]? In Galilee, on the mountain, after he rose from the dead — where, ‘seeing him, the princes adored, but some doubted.’ For then he said: ‘All power is given to me in heaven and in earth. Going therefore, teach ye all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit: teaching them to observe all [things] which I have commanded you.’ Therefore Joshua — because he had heard the Lord saying to him, ‘Rise, and cross this Jordan’ — at once commanded the princes of the people, saying: ‘Cross through the middle of the camps.’ Because our Saviour, who had heard the Father GOD saying, ‘Arise, my glory; arise, Psaltery and Harp,’ nonetheless commanded his Apostles, teaching: ‘Go into the whole world, go, and cross through the middle of the nations; cross, I say, girded; cross expedited [unencumbered], nowhere halting, nowhere looking back, [with] no secular business impeding you; neither carrying purse, nor scrip, having no bronze [money] in your belts — so that, unburdened of all [things], and under no burden [as if] for a chariot, you may swiftly carry the good news to all. And command,’ he says, ‘the people, and say: Prepare for yourselves victuals, because after the third day you shall cross the Jordan, and shall enter to possess the land which the Lord our God will give you. Command, I say, [and] use the liberty of the imperious spirit — because where [is] the Spirit of the Lord, there [is] liberty, which fawns [upon] no one’s beauty, [and] fears no one’s atrocity. Prepare for yourselves victuals; provide fruits worthy of penitence: treasure up faith, carry together hope, lay up for yourselves charity. For these victuals are [victuals] of eternal life.’”
“After the third day you shall cross the Jordan” — that is, [in] the second business, or work of the third day: from death to life, from enemy to friend, from the devil you shall cross to GOD. “I, on the third day, rose from the dead through the glory of the Father: so also may you walk in newness of life. This,” he says, “command the people, say this, do this by commanding, this by saying, [and] swiftly cross.” A splendid parable [of] this very thing, in the history of St. Barlaam, demonstrated St. John Damascene: “What, indeed, if not after the space of three days [triduum], but — as Ausonius speaks — after the space of three hours [trihorium], must be migrated hence to another [place] by us? For it is permitted to think [that] youth is a certain [thing] as it were [like] a river, and after its crossing, into wrinkled old age [we] must come.” And therefore, when he was speaking about wisdom, the fifth Satire of Persius:
“Seek hence,” he says, “[both] youths and old men, / a fixed end for the mind, and provisions [viatica] for wretched grey hairs.”
And it is a common and widespread admonition of the wise, that good arts [bonae artes] are to be procured most studiously for youth as it were [as] the ἐφόδιον [ephodion, “way-provision”] of old age, or as a viaticum [provision for the journey].
“While strength and years permit, endure labors: / Now will curved old age come with silent foot.”
Let them observe, finally — [those] to whom the office of teaching others is incumbent — how seriously they ought to inject to their [people] the mention of the last things, and of this crossing, and of preparation: and indeed to all, and publicly, in the midst of the Church — in the schools, I say, and in the temples, as often as occasion is given.
(End of the first, universal preparation. Caput I continues below with the SECOND preparation — of a certain part of the people, i.e. the 2½ Transjordan tribes, Josh 1:12–18.)
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