Both the most constant faith in [his] promises, [and] the power in great and arduous matters, the highest benevolence toward the people, and the favor and zeal toward Joshua himself, are sufficiently seen from what has been said. But [it] is also shown to us how great-souled we ought to be in the most difficult matters and times. Through the midst of rivers [there] are dry footsteps for virtue. He almost mocks the very dangers, who — full of God — sings: “What ails you, O sea, that you fled? and you, O Jordan, that you were turned backward?” (Ps. 113 [114] v. 5 [printed “123”]). “To the sinner,” says Origen (homily 4), “every creature is an enemy — as [it] is written of the Egyptians: ‘The land fought them, the air itself fought them.’ But to the just [man], even [the things] which seem inaccessible are made level and easy [downhill]. The just [man] crosses the Red Sea as [if] through dry [land]; but the Egyptian, if he should wish to cross, is drowned, nor does the water become for him a wall on the right and the left. The just [man], even if he enter a horrible and vast desert, has food ministered to him from heaven. So then also the ark of the testament had led the people of God into the Jordan. The Sacerdotal and Levitical order halts, and the waters — showing, as it were, a certain reverence to the mysteries of God — rein in their course, and are heaped up into a pile, granting a harmless passage to the people of God. But here [was] our Joshua exalted; here [it] appeared how dear and beloved he was to God; here [it] is known how excellent and useful [it] is to obey him instructing, ruling, leading, and admonishing. Nay indeed, he will lead us not only through the waters safe and dry, but will also snatch us aloft through the air into heaven; through the midst of the flames he will carry [us] safe and unharmed into the region of the blessed” — as, in the same place, Origen notes. Nor—
(col. 465)
—“Do not marvel,” he [Origen] says, “when these [things] done toward the former people are related to you — [that] to you, O Christian, who have crossed the streams of the Jordan through the Sacrament of baptism, the divine word promises far greater and loftier [things], and pledges you a journey and crossing through the air itself. For hear Paul saying of the just: ‘We shall be caught up,’ he says, ‘to meet Christ in the air; and so we shall always be with the Lord’ (1 Thess. 4). [There] is nothing at all which the just [man] should fear: every creature serves him.”
According to the letter, says Rupert (ch. 13): “If perhaps you were asking what the Lord meant when he said, ‘as I was with Moses, so I will be with you,’ and likewise, ‘today I will begin to exalt you before all Israel, that they may know that, as I was with Moses, so I am with you [too]’ — behold, you have [it]: [that,] as [he] was with Moses, so that, at his lifting up his rod over the sea, the Lord bore it away, a vehement wind blowing and scorching the whole night, and turned [it] into dry [land], that the water might be divided, and, the sons of Israel having entered through the midst of the dry sea, the water was as a wall on their right and left — so also now, using by the divine power the same element for his own ministry, at Joshua’s entering he divides the Jordan, the people advancing, and the priests who carried the ark of the covenant of the Lord standing upon the dry ground. But, moreover, according to the spirit — behold, [something] more than Moses [is] here; behold, with Joshua the Lord was [something] more than [he] was with Moses. In what? Namely in this: that ‘the descending waters stood in one place; but those which were lower’ (it says) ‘descended into the Sea of the Wilderness, which is now called the Dead [Sea], until they wholly failed.’ The lower waters were the justifications of the Old Testament, of which the Apostle, when he had said, *‘But what is antiquated and grows old is near to destruction’ (Heb. 8), immediately subjoined: ‘the former [covenant] had indeed justifications of worship, and a worldly sanctuary. For a tabernacle was made, the first,’ &c. (Heb. 9). But the descending and following waters are the Gospel faith, [which] is the justice of God. The lower waters descended into the Sea of the Wilderness, into the Dead Sea, and wholly failed — because, namely, the justifications of the flesh, the justifications of the Jews, all their carnal ceremonies, which brought nothing to perfection, came to nothing like a running water; nay, are to be held for a loss, and to be reckoned as dung (Phil. 3). So they descended into the Dead Sea. But those which follow, descending and coming from above, [are] living waters, waters of the heavenly grace. Descending, I say, from above, from the Father of lights — behold, standing in one place, they swelled up like a mountain, appearing afar off from the city which is called Adom, unto the place Sarthan: Adom is interpreted ‘red,’ Sarthan ‘their tribulation.’ Adom, then, [is] ‘red’ — it is the earthly Jerusalem, whence, according to the Prophet, this true Joshua came, ‘beautiful, with dyed garments’ (Isa. 63). But Sarthan — that is, ‘their tribulation’ — is the Roman empire, by which that Jerusalem, [worthy] of pity, nay, by [its own] desert, was afflicted, and turned to destruction. From that Jerusalem unto the Roman empire, the descending waters of the Jordan, and [those] swelling like a mountain, appeared. For, beginning from Jerusalem unto the bosom of the Roman city, the gifts of the Lord came down — namely, penitence and the remission of sins. Therefore (as was foretold) God is more with this Joshua than he was with Moses, and exalted this [one], rather than that, before all Israel [as] Prince and Saviour.”
But most beautiful are the examples of the priests. These first, at Joshua’s word, enter the still-overflowing waters; nor do they fear lest they be swept off by their eddies, or drowned; or lest, if perhaps the waters had not yielded to them, they should offer themselves as a laughing-stock to the rest of the people. Great [is] their faith, when — the river flooding beyond its banks — they doubt not that Joshua prudently bids them go before:—
(col. 466)
—and they hope surely [that it] will come to pass that the waters will withdraw, and grant a passage to the whole multitude. But when they saw those [waters] had withdrawn, [it] was [a matter] not only of great fortitude, to remain in the middle of the channel while the most menacing [waters] hung over their heads; but also of great patience, to stand unmoved so many hours on one and the same footing; and neither, from desire of the now-smiling, longed-for land, to run forward into it, nor to be scared from the station once begun by any masses of the gliding and tumbling waters. At last the whole people had crossed, and they [the priests], who had been first, bear [it] not at all ill to be left last in the deep. Who will grant that today’s Clerics, Priests, and Bishops all imitate the virtue of these priests? The ark of the divine law is to be borne; the Gospel is to be promulgated; God’s precepts and testimonies are to be explained. But so, that [it] be done not by words only, but much more by examples. If any dangers, difficulties, [or] labors are at hand, [it] is [the part] of true Prelates to occupy the first place in them, [and] to withdraw from them the last of all. And so [it] is to be understood of all [things] in which the honor of God, and the glory and exaltation of our Joshua, is at stake. There are [those] who sometimes carry the ark with the tongue, [but] set no hands of works [to it]; or set hands [to it] indeed, but so that they scarcely lift it from the ground, while their life has nothing high and lofty above the Laity’s. But [it] is most just to put one’s shoulders under so sacred and noble a weight, that it may be borne both higher and more steadily. For [there is] so much the more honor to God, the loftier the life of his ministers, and the more separated from all earthly contagion; [and] so much the more usefulness to themselves, the less they rest in the midst of this bearing, and set the ark down on the ground.
But as the ancients, for their eminent knowledge of things and their varied reading of various books, were called either “Museums” or “Libraries” — so among us, for the science of divine things and the assiduous poring-over of the sacred books, some [are called] “arks of the testament.” These, that the ardor of sacred studies might [flourish], the priests who abound in wealth and dignity ought to attend with all beneficence, to honor, and, as it were, to sustain on their own shoulders. They carry [the ark] before the whole people, that, to all striving toward the land flowing with milk and honey, they may make an entrance — [that] they may be leaders, by doctrine, by example, and by the dispensation of the sacred mysteries. “By the priests,” says Origen, “the people is led; and it makes its journey to the land of promise by the teaching of the priests — that is, [it] is the Sacerdotal and Levitical order which shows the way to the people of God that came out of Egypt. For they are the ones who teach the people to come out of Egypt — that is, out of the errors of the world — and to cross the vast Desert — that is, to run through the diverse kinds of temptations, and not to be harmed by the serpents of the demons, which are the bites of demons and the poisons of the evil suggestions of [this] life. But if perhaps someone has been struck in the Desert by a serpent, [it is theirs] to show him the bronze serpent hung on the cross (Num. 21; John 3) — which whoever shall look upon (that is, whoever shall have believed in him whose figure that serpent showed) shall by this escape the diabolical poisons. It is the Sacerdotal and Levitical order that stands by the ark of the testament of the Lord, in which the law of God is carried, without doubt; and they illuminate the people concerning the commands of God, as the Prophet says: ‘Thy word, O Lord, is a lamp to my feet, and a light to my paths’ (Ps. 118 [119] v. 105). This light is kindled through the priests and Levites.” And a little after: “Israel makes its journey not by its own [power], but by the helps and—
(col. 467)
—the providence of the priests.” And Isidore: “In that,” he says, “the Sacerdotal and Levitical order shows the way to the people of God, the sacerdotal magisterium [teaching-office] is shown.” “If anyone,” says Procopius, “shall wish to cross the Jordan, let him not advance rashly, but let him await the preparation of the priests, who by the standing of the ark sanctify the waters, and by the very crossing furnish [that] security which they [others] knew not — as [they] did not perceive [it] who, going this same way, are ignorant of the laws of the Church [τὰ νόμιμα τῆς ἐκκλησίας, ta nomima tēs ekklēsias, “the Church’s ordinances”], and ought first to learn them.” And afterward: “The Scripture shows that, by the work of the priests, those who will [it] cross the Jordan, and just as [there was] then a mystagogy [initiation into the mysteries] at that time.” But Theodoret says: “The priests who carried the ark of the covenant of the Lord represent John the Baptist. For he was a priest, and the son of a high priest. As, therefore — the priests holding the ark, [and] first entering the Jordan — all the people crossed with JESUS [as] leader and prophet: so plainly, when John began to baptize, and JESUS the Saviour sanctified the nature of the waters, the pious people entered the kingdom of heaven through the most holy baptism.” “The elder people,” says St. Augustine, “the Red Sea being crossed, is buried in the desert; but the younger crossed this river Jordan, to receive the kingdom. No one shall receive the blessedness of the heavenly kingdom, unless he first pass through the Sacraments of baptism.” Very similar [things] too [says] Isidore. What Aeneas said to his father amid the flames of Troy (Aeneid 2), this let us say [that we bear] our heavenly father — not [as borne] in himself, but [as borne] in his word and his name by us, [and] especially in this most sorrowful age of the burning Church:
“Come, then, dear father, mount upon our neck; I myself will bear [you] on my shoulders, nor will this labor weigh me down.” [Aen. 2.707–708]