The same Abulensis, quaest. 48, makes a twofold terror, natural and supernatural, and judges [that] that [terror] which terrified the Jerichoites was of this latter kind. And he recounts two conditions [marks] of a supernatural terror of this sort. The one is, that it be sent in by God. The other, that it be exceedingly hard, and utterly enervate [men’s] spirits; and this condition he thinks to be also a sign of the former [mark] — a most certain argument by which the [supernatural] itself may be distinguished from the natural. That, indeed, there is some such supernatural terror, cannot be doubted. For just as the Lord sometimes sends upon men sicknesses of body and debilities of members, so [also] perturbations of soul — namely fears and languors; and each posited condition is manifestly discerned [in] Leviticus 26 v. 36: “I will give a dread in their hearts in the regions of the enemy. The sound of a flying leaf will terrify them, and thus they will flee as [from] a sword. They will fall with none pursuing.” And so [it] was even among the Gentiles, [that terror] which was called panic terror — about which [see] Polyaenus bk. 1, and Lipsius bk. 4, On military [matters], dialogue 11 — and δαιμόνιος φόβος [daimonios phobos, “a divine/preternatural dread”], in which [terrors] they used to say, φύζαν καὶ παῖδας θεᾶν [phyzan kai paidas theān, a proverbial phrase — flight and the “children of the goddess” (of panic)]. But in the former condition [mark], it can be asked, in what manner GOD sends in a terror of this sort. I answer [that] this can be done in two ways. First, if an evil—
—[if] some impending evil be set before the minds of men — [one] which is great, and which is brought on by great forces — and, on the contrary, [if God] show in those who ought to fear the utmost weakness for withstanding that evil. For hence arises the flight of the blood to the heart, in the countenance pallor, in the members of the body trembling, in the mind a poverty and dejection of counsel for resisting. Secondly, if, without any knowledge and foresight of an evil or weakness of this kind, [God] should drive the blood in that manner from the exterior [parts] of the body to the interior parts, and rouse up those pallors and tremors. But this latter mode would scarcely have the nature of true fear, but only a certain part or effect of it; and without the former [it] scarcely ever, as I think, comes about from God.
But God twice over sets before minds an impending evil, and forces too weak to ward it off, in two ways. First, by working, for [the benefit of] some, things truly great, from which that opinion deservedly arises in others — as when he does miracles for the advantage and safety of others, or does something similar. Secondly, by working [so] that men apprehend in [their] mind something which is not [real], or certainly not so great [as they think] — as if, from some clamour and war-cry [barritus] of soldiers, because it is perhaps re-echoed by the ridges and valleys of the mountains, an army of enemies far greater than it is should be imagined. But you will say to me: Is God then the author of a fallacious thing and a false opinion? Some indeed nod assent, but [it] is to be denied. First, because God then sets before the senses [things] which truly strike the senses, and which do not necessarily signify that which men gather and suspect. But these [men] gather and suspect this by their own unskillfulness, rashness, and of their own accord. For that echo resounding in valleys and mountains is assuredly a true sound; and if it were diligently and skillfully weighed a little, it would be understood [to be] an index not of so great a multitude as the terrified mind feigns. And so in other [cases]. Secondly, because it can be granted [that] there is always present the evil which is dreaded, and likewise present the weakness of forces which are far unequal to warding off that evil — not indeed if that very [thing] which brings fear be considered nakedly and in isolation, but if it be considered in the manner in which it then is. For although, as regards itself, it be some very slight [thing], and as it were nothing, yet insofar as God is involved and joined with it — [God] who wills to use that thing, as an instrument, for crushing the spirits of the enemy — thus [it] is in truth something very great, and [far too great for] the slender forces of men, that they should be able in any way to withstand [it]. And thus, in what manner the Lord sometimes sends in a terror, let it stand expounded.
In the other condition [mark] of this terror, I am compelled to dissent a little from that most learned man [Abulensis]. For, first, just as he can cast in certain huge terrors, so he can [cast in] lesser [ones] too, according as he shall have judged [it] expedient. For he does not effect only grave and incurable diseases in bodies, but sometimes even bruises, and [such] as can easily be healed. [2] There are also certain natural fears so hard that they utterly enervate and break [men’s] spirits. See — to omit now our [own] Damascene and [Gregory of] Nyssa, praised in St. Thomas 1.2 quaest. 41 a. 4 — [what] the greatest investigator of nature,
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—Aristotle, teaches, [Rhetoric] bk. 2 ch. 15, and [what] Cicero [teaches], Tuscul. 4, where he describes desperation, faintness [exanimatio], and dread, “which is a motion striking down the mind, and expectorating [driving out] all wisdom from the soul,” as Ennius says there. Or let those orators be an example, who, when they came forward to speak, sometimes trembled in all [their] limbs and became utterly mute — as is written by Cicero [in the] book On the Orator. How then is this [the “hardness”] the best mark for distinguishing a natural from a supernatural fear? I should prefer, therefore, another condition or mark: namely, when by God some things are done in an unwonted manner, by which the spirits of the enemy are deservedly struck; or when it is agreed that a divine business is being carried on, and meanwhile, from some thing which in itself is either nothing or ordinary [foreign to the case], the adversaries tremble and, terrified, shudder. For these [things] I see frequently commemorated in the sacred writings: Gen. 35 v. 5; Exod. 23; Deut. 2, 11, 28; Job 6; Psalm 87; Isa. 30; Jerem. 15 & 49; Levit. 26; and Ps. 52 [53]: “They trembled for fear, where there was no fear.”
Moreover, this terror of the Canaanites can be known [to be] supernatural or divine in either mode. For first, as Rahab herself here relates, the Lord had brought forth the greatest portents for the Israelites. Nor does it stand in the way that Masius objects [that] that sea [the Jordan/Red Sea] had dried up several years before, and [that] the kings of the Amorites were destroyed by opportunity rather than by [Israelite] strength. For both the memory of that drying-up, and the gift of this opportunity, showed present the divine force and aid [given] to the Israelites. Secondly. Since the Hebrews were equal to the Canaanites neither in number nor in strength (Deuteronomy 7 v. 1 — so much so that the Israelites themselves greatly dreaded them, Numbers 14), yet now the Canaanites themselves — as though the Israelites were far more numerous and more robust [than they] — tremble and shudder utterly.
But perhaps someone will object [that] the trembling of the Canaanites does not appear so great as Rahab here narrates: “All the inhabitants of the land languished.” “Our heart melted [languished], nor did there remain in us a spirit at your entering in.” For certainly, when the Israelites approached, the Jerichoites shut the gates [against them]; the Havvites and others (about whom [more] afterward) dared to go forth against them into battle-line and field, and sometimes even inflicted certain slaughters of the Israelites. How then are they reported [to be] so faint and lifeless with fear? It is a saying of the natural philosophers [that] “[things] which differ little seem to differ not at all.” The nation of the Canaanites was, in strength, arms, number, [and] fortifications, most well-defended. It could have finished off and destroyed the nation of the Israelites, if [the matter] had been carried on by human prudence and strength alone. Now they resisted so moderately that they seem to have resisted nothing at all; and therefore, dismayed by dread and fear, [they] had no spirit [of courage], no strength or breath. And this only did Rahab wish [to be] signified by a moral manner of speaking.
For the rest, you will note in the text [that] our Interpreter renders by the word “to languish [elanguescendi]” that which in the Hebrew is “to be made liquid [linquefieri]” — like wax, namely, or snow; but [that] the 70 [LXX] omitted it [in] v. 9, and turned it [in] v. 11: ἡμῖν ἐξέστη μὲν τῇ καρδίᾳ ἡμῶν [hēmin exestē… tē kardia hēmōn, “our heart was beside itself in us”], that is, “we were driven out of [our] mind; by an ecstasy, as it were, we departed from ourselves” — and therefore our [Interpreter] too there interposed “we were greatly afraid.”