The priests who carried the ark having entered the Jordan, and their feet being dipped in part of the water, the text says [that] it was divided. And [it] is the common opinion — which Abulensis often touches, especially after question 32 — [that,] at the first entering of the priests into the river, while their feet were first dipped and wetted in its first waters, at once — in those same whole waters, [through] the whole channel, from one bank to the other — the division of the whole stream came to be, so that, before the eyes and feet of the priests, a way so open and solid [was] at once [made] as [that] they could conveniently [pass] with a great [multitude]. But Masius dissents, and reckons [that] the whole stream [was] not so suddenly divided, but step by step, at each contact of the water [coming] to meet — while they made [their] individual steps, and plunged their feet into the waters standing before [their] face. For these his words mean this: “As soon as the priests began to plunge [their] feet into the waters, so far as they advanced, so far those [waters] which were above, as if held back by a mound, were stopped.” And a little after: “The priests, gradually going out [across], nearly up to the opposite bank, little by little stopped the course of the upper waters, and, from the lower [waters] gliding away, gradually dried up the fords. And then at last they, as widely as the channel lay open, step by step advancing, laid bare the fords.” Similar [things] again afterward (folios 65, 67, 68). But this reckoning of the miracle [is] too slow, which the text itself at first rejects. For when [it] is said “they having entered the Jordan, and their feet being dipped in part of the water,” is it not signified [that], as soon as they entered the Jordan and their feet were dipped, that [thing] which is being treated was done? — just as the greatest speed would also be signified, if I should say: “when I had entered into Masius’s book, and cast [my] eyes upon that place, [someone] came who would announce [that] the recently-instituted Regensburg disputation was being bragged of by the Frankfurt Lutherans, as if victory stood on their side.” So too the Hebrew: “When the bearers of the ark had come to the Jordan, and the feet of the priests, the bearers of the ark, were dipped in part” — or, as Masius himself renders, “in the edge of the waters.” Secondly. Since, in our individual steps, the feet are moved forward not much farther than the head, [it] would nearly happen [that] the head would strike against, and be wetted by, the water which stood before [it]. Thirdly. At the least, the poles [vectes] by which the ark was carried [would be]—
(col. 428)
—[the poles by which the ark was carried would be] continually dipped into that water; for some part of these projected before the shoulders. Fourthly. If the water gave way only while [it] was touched by the feet, the priests would not see where, in that deep gulf of the river, they [might] plant [their] foot. For — for example — let us suppose the most obscure and most murky air [darkness] to stand before me, which, at my approaching, gives way, so that the part where I now set [my] foot goes off only after I shall have set [my] foot [there]: certainly, when I first set [my] foot, I shall not see where I set [it]. What if [there be] — as sometimes in certain rivers — some deep pit and abyss there? Fifthly. [It] would besides be necessary [that] several other miracles concur at the same time. For the upper waters would have to be stopped step by step, and as it were line by line; [and] the lower [waters] likewise to run down — while the rest [of the waters] meanwhile kept their usual course. For while the priest set [his] foot before himself, all the upper waters — corresponding to this foot along a straight line on either side — would stand still; the lower [waters] would run down so [as] to leave [only] a tiny empty space, and therefore the upper [waters] would swell up step by step — and how would they not fall to the side into the other waters continuous with them? And when the lower [waters] too ceased step by step, how would the neighbouring and continuous waters not fall back into their place? But if the upper [waters] stand swollen line by line, and do not fall back into the neighbouring [ones], [there] will be a great miracle in the liquid element; and likewise if those [waters] from the lower [region] do not slip into the space of [the waters] which flowed away — [the space] which the foot has not yet reached. Sixthly. Finally, from that so great speed of the division of the whole river, the force and power of God is more clearly perceived — which would wonderfully confirm and raise up the minds of the Jews. Suddenly, therefore, and in the briefest, as it were, point of time, the waters were burst apart from the waters; and this the author of On the Marvels of Sacred Scripture also affirms (bk. 2 ch. 1): “When,” he says, “the priests — adorned with the burden of the ark of the covenant, [and] preceding the rest of the people — entered the first waves, from that place where they stood, all the way to the sea, the channel of the whole river was at once bared of its waters; and the upper mass of waters, which was increased from the springs, mounted upward into the air, until all Israel had crossed the channel of the river with dry feet.” But since two priests carried the ark, and one was before, the other behind it — was the same bursting done when that former [priest] plunged [his] foot into the water? The Text says all [things] in the plural — both the feet and the priest-bearers — so [that it was] not when the former touched the waters [that] the [waters] departed one from another; but [it was so] when the latter also [touched them]: [that is,] when each of the two set both feet into the water.