Various [things] can be understood [as those] which came to be, from the Angel, for dividing and stopping the Jordan. First: his command and order alone. For such a thing the Poet [Virgil] attributes to some Nymph-or-other, when he led down Aristaeus, the son of the river Peneus, “beneath the watery realms” (bk. 4 of the Georgics):
“…at once she bids the deep waters withdraw far and wide, where the youth might set his steps. But, curved into the shape of a mountain, the wave stood around him.”
Which verse also — otherwise translated from Homer (Iliad 11) — Lactantius cited in the place cited in the preceding question. Second: if [the Angel] impeded the divine concurrence — not, of course, with God unwilling, but willing — so that [the waters] could flow up to that place where [there] was to be crossing, [but] not further, except after the space of the section [the gap]. Third: and they [the waters] could also flow back toward the source, and swell up, if [some] assert [that] a certain mass, either of stones or of any similar material, was thrown by the same Angel against the rushing waters — so great that they necessarily had to flow back and swell up. Fourth: if [the Angel] put into the waters themselves some force toward that part where they ceased to flow further — by which they, as it were, froze together, congealed into crystal, or in any other way whatsoever solidified; or [if] the surrounding air, solidifying in the same way, [and] having itself like [the shape of] wineskins or glass, restrained them. Fifth: if so great a force of the winds opposed itself, from the contrary [direction], to the falling waters, that they, having slid down, were forced to be carried backward. Sixth: if certain heavenly rays or influxes were sent into the waters, and by these they were retained and welled back — just as we see in the flux and reflux of the sea, and just as [some] thought the Red Sea was crossed by the Israelites (falsely indeed, but they nevertheless thought [so]) — in Diodorus of Tarsus, and Eusebius (bk. 9 On the Preparation of the Gospel, last chapter), [namely] the Memphites. Seventh: if in stones, or in animals, or in any other natural things — even [if] unknown to us, [yet] known to the heavenly Spirits — [there] were some power by which the course of rivers could be impeded and driven back. For if [there] is something (as indeed [there] is) by which iron is drawn [the magnet], by which fire is warded off, by which speeding ships are fixed [the remora], by which flowing blood is stopped — could not something be [founded] by God—
(col. 432)
—[could not something] be found, founded [by God], by which rivers might be cut off, and delayed from their [winding] course?
But first: the command of an Angel, unless something else be joined to it, can effect nothing in an inanimate creature. For a command and order is nothing other than a certain fixed expression of an efficacious will. But what would this effect upon that thing which does not perceive that expression? And therefore [it] is necessary [that], with that command, some other efficiency concur — as also was done when the Lord commanded the sea and the winds (Matt. 8 v. 26). Second: but for impeding or withdrawing the divine concurrence, [there is] no Angel [that is] either necessary or fit. For that [concurrence] depends on God alone; and therefore, when God only wills not to concur, that concurrence at once ceases; nor is any creature required simply to remove it. Third: moreover, no mass was here thrown [in the way]. For [there] would have been, between the standing waters and the crossing Israelites, some solid and gross body interposed; and thus it would have impeded their eyes — even if it itself were not seen — because the rays which are called “visual” (whether they be taken [as going] from the seer to the thing seen, with the Platonists, or from the thing seen to the seer, with the Aristotelians) would have been interrupted. Then, this opposed matter, whether it fell under sight, or lay hidden after the manner of the Vulcanian [invisible] bonds, would (I think) have been sub-indicated by some little word in the text. Fourth: [there were] no winds here; and if [there] had been any, they would surely have brought great trouble to those crossing. For, during the whole time in which they crossed, [the winds] would have had to blow, and to strive against the rushing waters with a constant and vehement blast. Fifth: since no thing of this kind is known to us, which could either slow or altogether check the courses of rivers, [it] is not fitting that we imagine something of this kind [to have been] employed. Sixth: and therefore I reckon [that] a certain very-cold and utterly icy force was excited in those waters — or some other [force], whether heavenly influences were present or not — infused by the Angel; by which that part of the waters (which was found where God wished the river to be divided, and which first thereupon flowed up) coalesced into a hardness and, as it were, a crystalline solidity — so that [it] became a wall, watery indeed and shining, yet solid, for restraining and stopping the other flowing [waters]. For what I here assert of one side of the waters was of old asserted of both sides of the divided sea (Exod. 14 v. 22): “And the sons of Israel entered through the midst of the dry sea. For the water was as a wall, on their right hand and [their] left.” And in bk. 1 of the Recognitions of Clement, we read [that] those waves stood “constrained as if by frost.” Nay, in this place too (v. 16), the Greek renders πῆγμα [pēgma, “a congealed mass”] — that is (as Masius renders [it]), “congealed [concretum]” — in that manner, namely, in which ice is thickened and grows together; and [it] is gathered from ch. 15 of Exodus (v. 8), where it is said ὕδωρ ἐπάγη [hydōr epagē, “the water congealed”]; and Dionysius, in the Periegesis, calls the [frozen] sea πόντον πεπηγότα [ponton pepēgota, “a congealed sea”]. Whence Masius (fol. 66) says [that] the waters stood, “congealed and compacted as if by frost.” St. Ambrose (bk. 2 of the Hexaemeron ch. 3): “This is not wont to be [the way] of nature, that water should separate itself from water, and in the deep the interfusions be parted by a middle [strip] of earth. The waves froze,” he says, “and, in the appearance of a firmament, reined in their course by an unwonted end [boundary].”
(col. 433)