Who indeed these two spies were is not handed down to memory [recorded]. Since, however, the names of all those whom Moses once had sent off to the same duty are published, Num. 13, Masius gives the causes [reasons] why [these are not]: because these [were] Joshua’s, sent by Joshua alone, [while] the Mosaic [ones] by the whole people; these [were] obscure men, those clear [famous] and primary [chief]; these did nothing memorable — neither in a good, nor in a bad part; but those [did], either by a notable crime and destruction, or [were] most conspicuous by preeminent faith and religion. But these causes are either not apt enough, or even false. For — as [when] the names of legates [envoys] are kept silent, or brought forth — what does it matter whether they be sent by a people or by a Commander [Emperor], and whether they be primary [chief] or not? But [that] nothing memorable [was] done by these — when about them, in this very chapter, such preeminent [things] are to be said — who would believe [it]? Nor yet, besides the divine will (which subducted [withheld] those names by the pen of this writer [author]), have I anything to bring forth. But [that] they were Caleb and Phinehas hands down R. Salomo [Rashi] and two other Rabbis — who say [that] one of these spies was an Angel. For thus they sometimes speak about Phinehas. Masius denies [that] these spies [were angels], because — the enemies’ minds being now excited and intent — the Commander would not be willing to object [expose] so great forces to so great a danger. But in arduous and great matters, are not [those] most apt to be chosen — [even with] every thought of the dangers cast before [them]? Are not, in Xenophon, Cyropaedia [bk.] 16, men illustrious in dignity [chosen as] most fit for exploring? Scipio Africanus indeed, [when] occasion was seized of sending a legation to Syphax, ordered tribunes and most-chosen centurions to go with Laelius in the habit [dress] of slaves — [those] whose care [it was] to perceive [scout] the royal forces — says [Livy] bk. 1[30], ch. 7. Frontinus, who also (ch. 1) adds: “of these: 1. Statorius, because he had rather often been in the same camp, and certain of the enemies seemed to recognize [him] — by Laelius, for the sake of concealing his condition, as a slave [he was] chastised with a staff.” Q. Fabius Maximus, in the Hetruscan [Etruscan] war (the words of the same Frontinus are in the same [book], ch. 2), “when [things] were still unknown to the Roman leaders, [seeking] more sagacious ways of exploring, ordered his brother, Fabius Caeso, skilled in the Hetruscan tongue, to penetrate the Ciminian forest in Hetruscan dress.” Behold — these [men] spare not men of highest dignity, and of closest necessitude [kinship], [their] kinsmen and brethren, that they may well consult the common good — and will Joshua be more timid [pavidior]? He reproved — as if I would do [the same] — the Greek Poet [Homer’s] Agamemnon, because to Diomedes, seeking a companion of the exploration, he would advise [suaserit] that he choose the best indeed, but added, “if he be not of the royal stock” — because, namely, ἔδεισε περὶ ξανθῷ Μενελάῳ [edeise peri xanthō Menelaō, “he feared for fair-haired Menelaus” — Iliad 10.240], that is, [Agamemnon] feared lest into the fellowship of the danger there be taken [associated]—
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—the Atrides [Agamemnon], whom he held most dear, [his] brother Menelaus. What [of the fact] that, of their own accord, men [who are] princes [chief], and each of the strongest, demand [deposcunt] such [dangerous] roles for themselves? When, in the most desperate affairs of the Achaeans, in the dead of night, with the greatest danger of life, that Tydides — Diomedes — had heard [that] a spy was being sought by Nestor, at once he himself [offered]:
Νέεσθαί μ᾽ ὀτρύνει κραδίη καὶ θυμὸς ἀγήνωρ / ἀνδρῶν δυσμενέων δῦναι στρατὸν ἐγγὺς ἐόντα. [Neesthai m’ otrynei kradiē kai thymos agēnōr / andrōn dysmeneōn dynai straton engys eonta, “My heart and manly spirit urge me to go, to plunge into the host of the hostile men [that is] near” — Iliad 10.220–221.]
And after he had said these [things], and others, did not
Οἵ ἔθελον Διομήδεϊ πολλοὶ ἕπεσθαι; [Hoi ethelon Diomēdei polloi hepesthai, “many wished to follow Diomedes” — Iliad 10.227]
—[did not many wish to follow] him [as companions]? And among these [were] the servants of Mars [Ares]: the two Ajaxes, and Meriones, and the Nestorides [son of Nestor], and Menelaus, and Ulysses [Odysseus]? Whoever, therefore, shall have reckoned with himself the virtue of Caleb and Phinehas — [their] greatness of mind and zeal — [would] easily persuade himself [that] these [were] in nothing inferior to those poetic heroes, and more appetent [eager] of dangers, for the utility of the whole nation, and for GOD [and] religion; and therefore [Abulensis] embraces that opinion of R. Salomo [Rashi], [as do] Abulensis and all the old Rabbis in [i.e. cited by] Tanchuma. And I would most willingly embrace the same, if [things] which somewhat distract me from it were aptly resolved [into] two [points]. First [Vnum]: Phinehas’s and Caleb’s praises are recounted, Ecclesiasticus ch. 45 [and] 46; and in these [passages], of this exploration — [which was] nonetheless of [such] magnitude of danger, of Rabbah faith [?], and of safety, [and] most noble by the fruit [benefit] of the whole people — [there is] no word at all. It can be responded: [that] not all [things] of all [persons] whose praises are woven there are commemorated, but from these [only] the chief [things] are tasted, and moderately touched — so much so that not even that notable legation of Phinehas to the returning Transjordanian tribes [is mentioned], of which below ch. 22 [it will be] referred. The other [Alterum], which more retains [holds] me, is the authority of the 70 Interpreters, who here — and below ch. 6 v. 23 — say [that] these two spies were νεανίσκοι [neaniskoi]. For this Greek word avails [means] “adolescents [adolescentulos], little youths [iuvenculos],” or certainly “adolescents” or “youths [iuvenes],” as when our [interpreter] renders [it] Acts 2:17 and Joel 2:28, “your young men [iuvenes] shall see [visions]” — where in Greek [it is] νεανίσκοι. But at this time Caleb was 80 years old, as [is] had below, ch. 14:7 & 10. How, then, [is] he himself a νεανίσκος? Masius responds: “By that word [the 70] wished to signify rather the audacity of those men, and [their] strenuousness, than the youthful age, I esteem.” But I confess [that] a reason [account] of strength, audacity, and strenuousness can be had in that word, and in its cognate νεανίας [neanias] — not of age only, as in my St. Paul, Num. 18, I said once, and [as] is patent from Josephus in [his] Life, and bk. 4 ch. 30; [and] from Lipsius in [his] Epistolic Questions, q. 1; and from those [things] which above, bk. 1 ch. 6 quest. 1, [were] handed down. Nay, even “youth” [iuventutem] by Galen — who circumscribes [defines] it [as] the 25th and 36th year of age — is called τῶν νεανίσκων ἡλικίαν [tōn neaniskōn hēlikian, “the age of the neaniskoi”], as against Valeriola the Physician Fuchsius proves, bk. 1 sect. 3. But I do not esteem [that] either in scripture or in other writings [it] is anywhere found, that [those] who have already passed settled age, and have entered old age of 60, 70, or 80 years — even if in mind keen and in body vigorous and strong (as below, ch. 14, of Caleb we read) — [that] these, simply and without any addition, are called νεανίσκοι. Therefore these spies were “youths” [iuvenes] — or, as in the Hebrew and Latin [it] is, “men [Viri], robust, strenuous,” and such as, for exploring, Menelaus required in the cited Poet: θρασυκάρδιος [thrasykardios, “bold-hearted”]. For thus here the Hebrew name is to be taken, R. Kimhi advises,
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—and of the Latin [word] Tullius [Cicero] said [that “man,” vir, derives] “from man, virtue [a viro virtus].” But the other of them [alter] — both through these gifts of body and of mind, and through age — could be Phinehas. And this opinion seems afterward to have rather smiled upon [pleased] Abulensis himself, ch. 6, after q. 54. But that Phinehas was truly an Angel, [as] the Rabbins say, [is] scarcely worthy of refutation. For how could he be the son of Eleazar, [and] how [the] father himself of the other sons? But [John Baptist] Gramaye cites, in [his] bk. on Israel q. 51, Philo writing [that] these legates [spies] were Cenez [Kenaz] and Seceniamias [?]. And of Cenez indeed it is said, ch. 1 of Judges; but Seceniamias — who [is he]? And who [is] the publisher of these [names]? Not Philo, but Pseudo-Philo.
At the beginning [Initio] of this chapter, both those [points] are noted. First, they are said [to be] sent from Setim, of which place [it was] said in Exodus, [it being] the last station [mansio]. Only Josephus is now to be reconciled [concordandus]. For he likewise, bk. 5, [says the Israelites set out] from Abila, whence he says [they] set out for the Jordan, and he insinuates [that] these [spies] were sent [from there]. But Abila, in Coelesyria, is placed by Ptolemy toward the north much higher [farther] than [the point] to which the Israelites had already ascended. [It is] to be said, from St. Jerome (bk. On the [Hebrew] Places), [that] there are various Abilas. Whence also that [Abila] which is objected [as] more northern, for distinction from the rest — both by Ptolemy and by St. Luke ch. 3 — is called Abila of Lysanias [Abila Lysaniae]. But all [of them], from Abel — when it signifies “a plain” — take [their] name. And therefore in Josephus “from Abila” avails [means] “from the plains [campestribus] of Moab,” which are the same as Setim.
But whither [Quo] they were sent, the very words of Joshua show, v. 1: “Go, and consider the land, and the city [of] Jericho.” By “the land” is understood not all Canaan, as Cajetan thinks, but its nearest part, in which was — and which of all the cities occurred [came] first — Jericho: as [is clear] of it from v. 3 here. But this [region] Josephus described, bk. 4 ch. 27 [Jewish War], and says [it] was in a plain; but [that] on its western side — namely, between it and Jerusalem — a thin [meager], unfruitful, very long mountain lay [incubuisse], on account of which, in the preceding chapter, he had said τὴν ἀντικρὺς Ἱεροσολύμων ὀρεινήν [tēn antikrys Hierosolymōn oreinēn, “the hill-country over against Jerusalem”] — that is, “the mountainous land which is in the region of Jerusalem,” where [are] robberies and very many slaughters, as he signifies bk. 16 [Antiquities]; [and so] Strabo, and D. Jerome on Matt. 20, and in Paula’s Epitaph. Whence that [man] who was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho, Luke 10, “fell among robbers, and by them was despoiled and grievously wounded.” And D. Jerome, in the Epitaph of Paula: “…she went down to Jericho, and saw the place Adommim, which is interpreted ‘of blood [sanguinum],’ because much blood was there shed by the frequent incursions of robbers.” But in the foot of these mountains, where they look toward the west, [is] that desert in which CHRIST the Lord is established to have fasted 40 days, Matt. 4, [it] is handed down. Hence, indeed, by the inhabitants it is called quarantana [Quarantania]. But in the other foot of the same [mountains], where it looks toward the east, is that noble spring which — 4 Kings [2 Kings] 2 — was sweetened [dulcoratum] and made fruitful by Elisha, as we shall hear from this same Josephus. And on the same eastern side of the city Jericho [is] the μεσιάς [mesias — reading uncertain] — or “level field” [planus ager] — up to the Jordan, of fruitfulness and amenity [pleasantness] once the greatest, on account of which Pliny bk. 5 ch. 14 says Jericho [was] “planted with palm-groves [palmites], watered by springs.” Tacitus, Histories bk. 5: “[The crops] exuberate [abound] in Judea [beyond] those — and, besides them, balsam and palms.” Thus Strabo bk. 17; D[ominus] Radziwiłł, epist. 2, fol. 106: “Around Jericho,” he says, “of all provision [annona], of fruits—”
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—of dates [dactyli] especially, and of similar medicinal [fruits], to which the warm temperature of the sky is friendly; and of wine [there is] the greatest abundance. And afterward: “Although this Jerusalem be distant only six miles directly [per directum] from here [Jericho] — [Jerusalem] which has many date-trees round about — yet fruits of this kind do not ripen there (at Jerusalem); but here [at Jericho] they come to full maturity. There is had here a tree [called] spalatum [?], which is estimated at the greatest price, and needs a most warm temperature of the air; as also the roses of Jericho [rosae hierichuntinae], whose use marvelously confers to easier childbirth for women. All fruits and crops come forth here two weeks earlier than at Jerusalem. Nor [is it] a wonder, for here are such immense heats that hence, to those seeking Jerusalem, the sky may seem far colder — where the air [is] likewise more salubrious, and the nights not excessively [oppressive].” And Josephus, [in] the cited place: “Of the palms,” he says, “which are irrigated by that spring of Elisha, there are several kinds, differing among themselves in taste and appellation. Of these, [those] which are fatter [pinguiores], if they be pressed [calcentur], emit even copious honey [mel], not much worse than any other. And the region [is] a nurse [altrix] of the year. It bears also opobalsamum [balsam-juice], which indeed [is] most excellent; and among the fruits which are born here, also Cyprum [henna]” — (Some say this is a tree which in Italy is called by the word ligustrum [privet], Pliny bk. 12 ch. 25.) — “and myrobalanum: [so] that — that nothing may be erred — [he] who said this [to be] a divine little region [regiuncula], in which the rarest and most beautiful [things] are copiously produced [spoke rightly]. For, by the grace of the fruits of others also which are in the same [region], no clime of the whole orb of lands can easily be compared with it; so much, and with great profit [faenus], does it repay what has been cast into it and sown.” And before Josephus, Strabo, [in] the cited book: “Jericho,” he says, “is a plain [planities] enclosed round about by mountains, which nevertheless in some place incline to that theatre-form [amphitheatre-shape]. Here indeed is a palm-grove [palmetum], having mixed into [it] also other material [growth], both mild [mansuetam] and fruitful; abounding indeed in palms to the length of a hundred stadia, wholly irrigated, and full of dwellings. There also is the royal [seat], and the balsam-paradise [balsami paradisus]; which [balsam] is in great price, because it comes forth only there” — teaches (although from it Masius cites another [reading]), a few [words] interjected, Strabo. And again, in these words, Pliny bk. 12 ch. 26: “To all odors is preferred balsam [balsamum], granted to the one land of Judea.” Justinus bk. 36: “The wealth [Opes] of the nation (of the Jews) grew from the revenues [vectigalia] of opobalsamum, which is produced [gignitur] only in these regions.” But because the heretics abuse these testimonies for elevating [them as] material for the confirmation of a sacrament, [it] is to be added [that] those authors spoke of it [as] what either in those times [it] was, or [as they] had heard [it] to be, or [spoke] of the regions which they know. Otherwise [see] Masius [in] this place, Lipsius in bk. 5 of Tacitus, Bellonius bk. 2 Observations ch. 39, Thomas Bozius On the Signs of the Church — all, who go to Egypt in our age, affirm balsam to grow there also; and Dioscorides once affirmed [it] of old, and in Palladius’s Epithalamium, Claudian:
“The gems, others, throughout the whole [cask] covered with balsam, / to pour forth from the hard cask, which the companion, with the nail [ungue], / the Nile-ish [Niliacus] bark [cortex], with [its] fat, sweats out [desudat] by a wound.” [Claudian — corrupt verses on balsam-tapping.]
Nay, in a hand-written epistle of a certain Marcus Antonius Ambazari [?], an Armenian, to the most Reverend Cardinal Julius Antonius Santorius, I read [of] a marvelous ceremony and concourse of Christians at Ezmiazim [Etchmiadzin] of Armenia, and of the patriarchal and primary [chief] see of all its churches—
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—[that,] at single quadrennia [four-year intervals] or quinquennia, Chrism is confected [made], and to it is applied balsam, which is called “Egyptian” [balsam] — because at this time true balsam is not thought to grow except in Egypt, and its place [the garden] is besieged [guarded] by the Turks with most diligent custody. Yet the most illustrious Duke of Olyka [Radziwiłł], epist. 3, fol. 184 & 205, hands down [that] these balsam-trees have now dried up [exaruisse] in Egypt; but [that] from them others [have been] transplanted, by Suleiman procuring [it], into Arabia Felix, so that thence [there] is now had a great supply of it — so much so that [he] brought back not a little of it with himself into Poland. But that it grows in India too [is] now a matter ascertained, and balsam sent thence [I] have seen more than once — although certain accidents [incidental features] be a little diverse, as is wont to happen in various kinds of wines. But because, [at] Isaiah 38, by R. Salomo [Rashi] and other Rabbis, and by Arias Montanus, [balsam] is called par excellence “the ointment [unguentum],” I am easily led into that opinion — that it was therefore called balsamon as if baal schemen [בַּעַל שֶׁמֶן], that is, “prince of ointment,” or “lord of ointments [unguentorum dominus].” For to that [passage] Canticles 7 — “The mandrakes gave [their] odor” — R. Elias Levita, from the Targum, says in [his] Thisbi: “A sweet odor was before me, like the odor of balsam; the ointment is very sweet, nor is found an odor better than it itself; and by another name it is called apharsemon [אֲפַרְסְמוֹן].” The Anonymous Animadversor of Clusius carps [criticizes], in twofold [manner], the Bellonius cited before. First, as if he [Bellonius] were asserting [that] there was no balsam-grove [balsametum] in Jericho. Secondly, that [Bellonius says] balsam was planted by the Soldans [Sultans]. But the former [the Animadversor] does not assert that: “Unless,” he says, “we ourselves had seen the balsam-plant, we would incline into almost that opinion — [that balsam] was never cultivated on the plains of Jericho.” As to the latter, indeed, Bellonius only refers [reports] that which was [just] now noted from the most illustrious Radziwiłł: [namely] that, when the Cairene balsam-grove had dried up, by the care of the Soldans and the Bassas [Pashas] set over Egypt, a new one [novelletum] was substituted [suffectum]. But Masius esteems that plain [to be] — from Josephus bk. [—], ch. [—] — handed down [to be] long by a space of about 70 stadia, and wide indeed 20. But this Josephus handed down not of the plain, but of the flux [flow] and irrigation of the Elisaean spring. For when he was speaking about it, he subjoined: καὶ μὲν ἔπεισιν ἑβδομήκοντα σταδίων μῆκος [kai men epeisin hebdomēkonta stadiōn mēkos, “and indeed it runs over a length of seventy stadia”], etc.; and of the same [thing] he adds: ἐπιτρέφει τε ἐν αὐτῷ [epitrephei te en autō, “and it nourishes in it”] — namely the πεδίον [pedion, “plain”] — παραδείσους καλλίστους [paradeisous kallistous, “most beautiful gardens/paradises”]. And in the same place Josephus testifies otherwise [that] that city [is] distant from Jerusalem 150 stadia, [and] from the Jordan only 60. Nor about this latter distance do they differ from Josephus, the Talmudists in the tractate Yoma [Ioma]; but about the former — [reckoning] from Jerusalem up to Jericho — they establish 10 perasot [פַּרְסָאוֹת], that is, parasangs. But to one parasang R. Salomo [Rashi] attributes 4 miles, so that a parasang would contain 32 stadia; or, if [reckoned] of the shorter parasangs which Masius thinks Xenophon uses in the Anabasis of Cyrus, 29 stadia. And thus, by that former reckoning of the larger parasangs, there would be between Jerusalem and Jericho 320 stadia; by the latter, which is of the smaller [parasangs], 290. The most illustrious Duke, cited before, epist. 2 fol. 106, says [that] Jericho [is] distant from Jerusalem — if a direct route be held — 6 miles; and fol. 104, [that it is distant] from the Jordan one and a half, or a little more.
I will add yet something small [exiguum] about the name [of Jericho]. In our Interpreter [the Vulgate], Hiericho [is] indeclinable — as of Rages in Tobit I said, ch. 1. In Ptolemy, and Pliny [in] the cited places, [it] is Hierichus—
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—of Jericho [hierichuntis], as [of] Emmaus; in Strabo, Hiericus similarly; in Josephus, Ierico (and Dido [?]) bk. 4 ch. 28, and Hiericus in the same place ch. 26 & 27, and bk. 5 Antiquities ch. 1; likewise D. Jerome, bk. On the Hebrew Places, [under] the word Galgala. But it is derived either from luna [the moon] — which in Hebrew is called iareach [יָרֵחַ] — because the Jericho-plain imitates the not-yet-full, or diminished [crescent], form of this [moon]; or, as it seems to Gorionides Josephus [Josippon] ch. 51, from the best and most fragrant odor which its palms, and opobalsam and xylobalsam, pour forth. For to the Hebrews odor is reiach [רֵיחַ], as [to] the Germans richen [riechen]; and then, when [Hebrew] is wont to form proper names — Isaac, Jehovah, and the like — the letter iod [י] would be prefixed. From luna [the moon] I would prefer [it] chiefly: 1. because that [derivation] the ancients rather hand down — at Luke 10, and Nazianzen orat. 4 On Theology, D. Chrysostom hom. on him who [fell] among robbers and hom. On the Anathema, Basil in some places of scripture, and others. 2. because thus not even the iod [need] be fetched extrinsically [imported artificially]. 3. because in Italy, in Strabo bk. 5, we read also a city Ἄλουνα [Aluna (?)], among us Lüneburg, and everywhere that Italian Luna. 4. because, either on account of the form of this [town’s] flatness, or for another cause, Jericho was most attended by divine honors of the moon [luna], as below [it will be] said, q. 5 p. 2. In Horapollo bk. 1 ch. 3 it is called “city of odor and of the moon” [urbs odoris & lunae], because the Phoenix, or palm, is sacred to the moon. But what Suidas says — ἱερικοντία τείχη [a corrupt Greek gloss in the scan] — why [it] is [so] said, I do not see. For by Ptolemy it is written ἱεριχοῦς [Ierichous], and ἱεριχοῦντα τείχη [Ierichounta teichē, “Jericho-walls”]; why can they not be said? But whether those walls [moenia] were sevenfold [septemplicia], as [it] seemed to some, below [it will be] inquired. These [things] now about the city — of which [there is] such frequent mention thereafter, and often in other scriptures, [things] which may be noted — have been examined.