In the Talmud of the Jews, in the tractate Sotah ch. 7, [one] can read of the prodigious size of these stones. For they relate [that] certain of their Rabbis measured [them]—
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—[measured them]. But because [the men] were able to take up each [stone], of these twelve men, onto [their] shoulders, and to carry [it] from the Jordan into the place of the camp — “that,” says Masius, “is certain: [that] they were no greater than [such as] individual men could carry from there as far as Gilgal.” And the same is the opinion of Abulensis here (quest. 11). But indeed someone might perhaps suspect [that] a certain huge strength was divinely given to these [men], so that they could bear even huge rocks. For thus we read [that] Samson carried the gates of the city of Gaza on [his] shoulders up a mountain [Judg. 16]; and, in Cassian (Institutes bk. 4 ch. 26), [that] a certain John, most excellent in obedience, rolled a huge rock, [being bidden] by [him] whom he was commanded [to obey]. Or certainly [that] these [men] were so pre-eminent in merely natural strength, that [they carried] burdens far greater than [those which] the rest of men could bear, and therefore also much greater than even the strongest men of our present age can. For [there] are not now to men strengths as great as [there were] in those times. For thus — to mention nothing of Goliath and other giants — Josephus (bk. 3 of the [Jewish] War ch. 16) says [that] Eleazar took up, and cast from the wall against the enemy, πέτραν ὑπερμεγέθη [petran hypermegethē] — that is, “a huge rock”; so [also] of the Rock of Ajax, Agathias (bk. 1 of the Anthology), and Juvenal (Satire 15):
”…And now they begin to hurl stones, sought along the ground with bent arms — the household weapons of sedition; nor [is it] this stone, such as Turnus and Ajax [could hurl], and [such as that] with whose weight Tydides [Diomedes] struck the hip of Aeneas: but such as right hands can send forth [that are] unlike those [ancient ones], and born in our time. For this race was already diminishing while Homer yet lived; earth now brings forth wicked men, and puny ones.” [Sat. 15.63–71]
So Homer himself [in] Iliad [books] Ε, Η, & Φ; and Virgil, who imitated him (bk. 12, of Turnus):
”…He looks about [and spies] a huge stone — a stone ancient [and] huge, which by chance lay on the plain, a boundary set in the field, to settle disputes over the plough-lands. Scarcely could twice-six chosen [men] bear it on [their] neck — [men] of such bodies as earth now brings forth.” [Aen. 12.896–900]
These [things] could indeed be said — especially since [it] seems probable enough, [as] St. Augustine asserts (City of God bk. 15 ch. 9), St. Cyprian (Against Demetrianus), the Angel Uriel (bk. 4 [2] of Esdras ch. 5), [and] Pliny (bk. 7 ch. 16), and [as], in many [places] of bk. 4, Magius proves — and our [fathers of] Coimbra (bk. 8 of the Physics ch. 2 q. 3)—
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—[Pliny bk.] 1, of the [human] race (ch. 3): [that there] are now smaller and weaker bodies of men [than of old]. Yet because the text hints at neither a miracle nor those eminent and prodigious strengths, I know not whether trust can here be safely placed in the Jews, who fable so many [things]. And yet, if the stones were small — such as anyone else could lift or move — how could a firm and lasting monument be set up [from them]? — unless perhaps [they] were raised into certain masses and built up [as a structure]; about which [more] later. But of what sort these stones were, our Interpreter said (verse 3): “the hardest,” namely. But in the Hebrew that word is not [there]; but hacin [הָכִין], about which those who are said to know Hebrew letters fight it out here and at the preceding chapter (v. 17), where our [Interpreter] put “the priests girded” [accinctos]. For Masius thinks [it] is a verb, which is to be taken actively, and therefore renders [it] above, “the priests stood preparing” — namely, the crossing for the people, as he explains in his commentary; but here, “from the station of the priests preparing” — namely, the same crossing. But Münster and Tremellius say [it] is to be taken passively — so that the same priests are understood to have stood “prepared, and fixed, and made firm.” I say, first, [that] this Hebrew [word] is of the infinitive mood. Secondly, [that] in the Hebrew tongue that kind of infinitive is sometimes taken for adverbs or adjectives. And thus, in the preceding chapter (v. 16), the 70 rendered harchek meod, as we saw, σφόδρα σφοδρῶς [sphodra sphodrōs, “exceedingly far”]. That hacen or hacin Aquila and Symmachus render, in the same place (v. 17), ἕτοιμος [hetoimos, “ready”]; but here (v. 3), with the 70, ἑτοίμως [hetoimōs, “readily”]. And this exposition the Rabbis too approve, [and] the Chaldee Paraphrast, and R. Isaiah. And our Interpreter, following it, put that [rendering] which seems to follow [from] that readiness or preparation. For if the priests were ready and prepared in the preceding chapter, they were also “girded.” If these 12 stones were to preserve the memory of this deed for future ages forever (as [is] said, v. 6), they had, being ready [set], to be “the hardest.”