The author of the Marvels of Scripture (bk. 2 ch. 1), Freculphus of Lisieux, and before all these Herodotus (bk. 1) relate how, through the dried-up Gyndes, Cyrus the King of the Persians led his forces. But best of all, and in the most elegant Latin, Seneca (bk. 3 On Anger ch. 21): “Cyrus was angered at a river. For when, about to besiege Babylon, he was hastening to a war whose chief moments lie in [seizing] opportunities, he tried to cross by a ford the Gyndes, a widely-spread river — which is scarcely safe [to cross] even when [the river] has felt the [heat of] summer, and is drawn down to its lowest. There one of those horses which were wont to draw the royal chariot, [being] white, [was] swept away, and vehemently moved [angered] the King. He swore, therefore, that he would reduce that river — [which was] carrying off the passage of the royal horses — to [such a state] that it could be crossed and trodden even by women. Hither he then transferred all his war-apparatus, and sat so long at the work, until, the channel being divided by 180 tunnels [cuts], he scattered [it] into 360 streams, and left [it] dry, the waters flowing off in different [directions].” But Julius Frontinus (bk. 3 ch. 7): “Alexander,” he says, “at Babylon, which was divided in the middle by the river Euphrates, laid out both a ditch and a mound [dyke], so that the enemy should think the earth [was] carried out for the use of it [the works]; and thus, the river being suddenly turned aside, he entered the city through the old channel (which, being dried, gave entrance).” Semiramis, against the same Babylonians, the same Euphrates being turned aside, is said to have done the same. Of the same Alexander, near the end of the second [book] of the Antiquities, Josephus says [that], by his leading, the Pamphylian sea gave way to the Macedonians, and — [they] having no other way — opened a passage there, since—
(col. 468)
—God had decreed to use his work for destroying the empire of the Persians. And this last, indeed, Peter Crinitus believes [to be] false (bk. 17 On Honest Discipline ch. 13). And [so it] indeed is, if we should reckon Josephus to say [that] the waters of the sea, of their own accord, by some miracle, gave a way to Alexander’s forces. For nothing of the sort happened. But I think he means only [that] God brought [it] about that [Alexander], by a great and vast daring, overcame by crossing the mid-waves poured back on the shore of that sea — in the manner which Curtius (bk. 5), and more clearly Strabo (bk. 14), narrated. And these are his [Strabo’s] words: “There is a mountain by the name of Climax, lying upon the Pamphylian sea, and, on account of the narrow shore, leaving [only] a passage: which, when the sea is calm, is laid bare, and can be walked over by travelers; [but] when the sea overflows, [it] is much covered by the waves. But Alexander fell into a wintry storm; and since he believed the greatest part of the outcome [to lie] with fortune, before [the waters] should flow off whence they had set out — so it happened that the soldiers made their way through the water the whole day, plunged into it up to the navel.” And therefore, either more aptly, or at least in no way more ineptly, could Josephus have mentioned Scipio — who, as Frontinus relates (the cited book, ch. 9), at Carthage, at the ebbing of the maritime tide, following “God” (as he said) [as his] “Leader,” approached the walls of the city; and, the lagoon receding, because [it] was not expected, burst in.
But all these divertings or recessions of waters happened by many and great human works and efforts, over a long time too, and by digging; or else by the daily and usual impulse of natural causes, and by a diligent and accurate observation of them. But in dividing the Jordan, and holding [it] back for several hours, [there] was no effort, digging, or diversion of any [man], even the least; no usual tide and reciprocation of the waters; no watched-for and seized occasion of the same. But suddenly — beyond all the custom of all the years gone by, beyond the opinion of all, both Israelites and Canaanites — the whole river was cut and laid open by a divine power and an angelic hand. Suddenly and all at once its bottom dried up; the lower part flowed off; the upper stood [firm], like a mountain; nor, though wave pressed on wave flowing from the head [source], did it pour or scatter even one little droplet beyond the appointed limit. St. Gregory Thaumaturgus dried up a lake [pool] by his prayers, so that afterward [there] were ever woods, fields, and meadows there; and St. Gregory of Nyssa, in his Life, compares that miracle with this Joshuan one. And that indeed [was] great; but this [is] surely as much greater as [it is] more marvellous — [as it would be more marvellous] suddenly to stay a fire raging through the roofs and devouring all things, and — the flames heaped on high — [the fire, as if] terrified and stupefied, not to lick even a little the nearest house before it, but to be wholly extinguished and overwhelmed.
But the division of the Red Sea was itself also supernatural — yet between this and that [there] are differences. First: there [it] was a sea, here a river — that is, there the water [was] stupid [sluggish], inert, resting as in a kind of pool and lake, unless perhaps [it] were stirred by winds; but here [it was] living water, restless, ever flowing — so that the division could not happen without the waters which came from above being at the same time blocked, or prohibited from flowing further. Second: there [the crossing] was from Egypt into the wilderness, nearby; here from the wilderness into a most cultivated and most-longed-for land.
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—[a land] most desired. Third: there the Egyptian enemies pressed hard upon the Israelites from behind; here the Canaanites [threatened] from the front. Fourth: there the waters [were] drawn apart by the stroke of the rod; here disrupted by the contact of the priestly flesh, and the putting-in of [their] feet. Fifth: there on both sides stood, as it were, solid walls of the waters (Judith 5); here, on the left side, all the water vanished, but on the right [side], not only [a wall] most high, but, like a mountain, [it] stood [firm]. Sixth: there, before [it] was crossed, the divided and gaping sea lay open the whole night; here, at the [very] moment in which [it] had to be crossed, and in which the crossing was now begun by the priests, the river was divided and opened. Seventh: there the mud of the sea [was] dried by a nocturnal wind; here the river [was] at once both divided and dried. Eighth: there Moses crossed first of all, as St. Chrysostom says (hom. 23 on 1 Cor.); here [it was] partly the priests, [going] to the middle, namely, and partly Joshua himself, [going] to the other bank. Ninth: there no one stood still on the dried bottom, but all pressed on to the other shore; here the ark-bearing priests stood still — spectators and, as it were, encouragers of all who crossed. Tenth: there the Egyptians [were] swallowed up and drowned by the waves; here not one man perished, but safe and unharmed [were] all who entered the river. Eleventh: there [it was crossed] on the fifteenth day of the first month; here earlier — namely, on the Tenth day — [it] was crossed. Twelfth: there before the crossing [was] dread, and, on account of the nearness of the enemy, horror; here the utmost security, and — through the various zeals of holiness — a preparation neither slothful nor anxious. Thirteenth: there, after the crossing, a signal ode of the divine goodness [was] sung (Exod. 15); here, for the perpetual memory of so great a benefit granted by God, stones [were] erected and firmly set up. Fourteenth: finally, there Moses [was] Leader, here Joshua; there he [was] glorified, here this [one was] exalted.
But in which of the two the miracle was the greater, [it] is scarcely [possible] for me to say. In one, some [things] stand out; in the other, others excel. Greater indeed, in the [Red] Sea, was the mass of the waters divided; greater the paved way; greater the danger from enemies; and a more unheard-of kind of miracle. Greater from it [was] the slaughter to those [Egyptians] and the terror to others; greater the celebrity to the Israelites; and a more widespread fame among all, and glory to God himself, the author of so great a thing — as appeared above from ch. 2, and from Judith (the cited ch. 5). Yet here, in the Jordan, [was] the greater speed of the division; greater the courage of the priests penetrating into the waters; greater the efficacy of those touching these [waters]—
(col. 469, lower)
—greater the majesty of the Lord’s ark; and greater and more illustrious the power of God in holding back the waters that flowed constantly from the source itself, and [in] delaying [them] by, as it were, a single barrier. For great rivers, which otherwise flow placidly, are wont — when they are struck against and held back — to go mad, and to break off all their delays; no otherwise than that [river] of the poet:
“…the Araxes, indignant at the bridge.” [Aen. 8.728]
For, as Seneca says (bk. 6 of the Natural Questions ch. 17): “as long as the channel is easy and free for it, it spreads out the first waters [smoothly]. [But] all that wave—
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—[all that] wave which comes up from behind, and grows upon itself, when [the river] could not sustain its own burden, prepares a force of ruin, and, headlong, flees along with those [waters] which lay [ahead].” But here [there was] no ruin of anything — no breaking-off and submersion of the [things] which delayed the waters, [namely] of the priests and the sacred ark. Nay indeed, the power of God shone forth greatest even in this: that when all had crossed, and — the way being now given to the waters — they might have rushed, [God] nevertheless brought [it] about so placidly and moderately, that they neither overwhelmed the neighbouring cities and villas, nor subsided to the harm of anyone. Our Villalpandus (in the preface to the Reader) relates, from Epiphanius, [that] Ezekiel was the author of leading the Israelites across the river Chebar [Cobaris] by a dry footpath. The Rabbis of the Jews, in St. Jerome (on Zech. 10): “The Lord will strike,” they say, “sweeping before his people, the sea-waves; and all the deeps of the rivers shall be confounded — as [it] was once done when the Jordan was dried, and the people crossed the Red Sea in the desert.” But St. Jerome subjoins [that] these [are] like fables.
But now let the Jordan be compared with itself. For [it] will one day be divided and dried up (Apoc. 16 v. 12). And even after this Joshuan division, [it] happened [that] it was divided again twice by a great miracle, and gave a dry way to those crossing (2 Kings [Reg.] ch. 2): once, indeed, with Elijah himself [as] the author (v. 8), and once with Elisha the prophet (v. 14). St. Augustine (bk. 21 of the City [of God] ch. 8) [says]: “We read in the sacred letters,” he says, “[that] the river stood above and flowed below, when the people of God, with Joshua son of Nun [as] author, took the way; and when Elijah the Prophet crossed, and afterward his disciple Elisha.” Here, indeed, an immense multitude of men crossed; there, once only two — Elijah and Elisha; [and] once the same Elisha alone. Here, by the impress of the priestly feet, the waters fled apart; there either by the striking of Elijah’s mantle alone, or with the added prayer of Elisha too. Here the waters stood on one side only; there on both, as St. Jerome notes in the epitaph of the mother Paula. Here Joshua the Leader [was] affected [honored] by God with signal glory; there, when they had crossed, Elijah [was] taken up into heaven in a fiery chariot (v. 11), and Elisha [was] reverently adored by the prophets (v. 15) — so that it may appear [that], to all who, with God [as] helper, shall have piously crossed the Jordan of this flowing world, a great glory and honor is prepared by him. “Glory,” says the Apostle (Rom. 2 v. 10), “and honor, and peace to everyone that works good.”
Lead, O Lord JESUS — lead me through that Jordan. Let the most sacred ark of thy word — nay, [the ark] of thy virginal womb — go before me. Let so many and so great priests of thine, my Fathers and Doctors, go before me. Let them watch me as I walk; let them examine, correct, [and] exhort [me]. And I hope [it] will come to pass that I escape from the most dangerous channel of the temptations of this world, and obtain the promised throne of heavenly felicity — encompassed with that glory which thou hast prepared for those following and diligently [seeking] thee. Grant [it], O Lord JESUS, my Leader and Saviour. Amen.