[It] is the opinion of all [that] — for the sake either of inspecting the city, or of making prayer — [Joshua] withdrew for a while from the camp, & from the throng of men. And both [are] probable. For, as to the former: great Leaders sometimes, while others do other things, quietly approach nearer the enemies’ camps or cities, to discern on what side the assault should be more easily & more safely mounted. For, when all things have been thus prudently & diligently provided for, [there] is less of trepidation & perturbation when [it] comes to the matter [action]; [and] less loss of blood & of soldiers is made. But on the contrary, [those who do otherwise] often have not-a-little rash onsets of disaster & grief. As to the latter: [it] was not infrequent for great men of old to withdraw from the crowd for prayer & the meditation of divine things, & to seek solitary places, such as fields & mountains. For if, as a certain Poet says:
Songs require seclusion, & the leisure of the writer [Ovid, Tristia 1.1.41]
much more indeed [do] the meditations of divine things, & the sacred colloquies with God. No thing, says Seneca in the book On the Brevity of Life, would be well performed by a preoccupied man. The minds of the preoccupied are as if under a yoke. And epistle 19, book 2: if thou canst, [he] says — as has already been said, bk. 1, ch. 4, q. 16 — withdraw thyself from those occupations; if not, snatch [thyself away]. & epistle 25: Then especially [withdraw] in[to thyself…]
(col. 683 — left column; printed “690”)
—withdraw into thyself, when thou art forced to be in a crowd.* And this latter cause pleases me more in Joshua’s [case]. 1. Because I would scarcely think [that] so prudent & circumspect a Leader — with the minds & arms of all the enemies now attentive — would have wished to approach the city nearer alone, & survey it [himself]. For [thereby he] would have cast himself, & therefore the whole army too, into the greatest peril — & indeed, as [it] seems, without a suitable cause. For [he] could indeed survey [it], but with some companions, & with anxious caution. 2. He who goes out from the camp with that intent, & approaches some city, is always with eyes raised toward it & nowhere wandering. But the text seems to assert [that] Joshua stood with eyes fixed on the ground, as will be touched below. 3. Although we read [that] Angels have appeared to various [people] doing various things, [it is] yet more willingly & more frequently to those who pray, sacrifice, or ponder some divine [matters] in [their] mind — as Daniel ch. 9; the B. Virgin, Luke 1; Zachariah, ibid.; Cornelius, Acts 10; S. Paul, Acts 16 & 27:4. Thus Isaac is read to have gone out into the field to meditate, Gen. 24, v. 63; or, as the Targum interprets, to pray. Nor does the version of the 70 [LXX] hinder this interpretation, when [they] put ἀδολεσχεῖν [adoleschein, “to muse / meditate aloud”]. For they are wont to use that verb in a good sense, for “to meditate assiduously” & “to pray,” as Psalm 54 [55], verse 2: I was grieved in my exercise — ἐν ἀδολεσχίᾳ μου [en adoleschia mou], that is, in my prayer, murmuring, & contemplation, as Euthymius notes there; & Psalm 118 [119], v. 15: in thy commandments I will be exercised — ἀδολεσχήσω [adoleschēsō] — & I will consider thy ways. See, if [it] please, the most beautiful oration of our Perpinian On philosophy. Thus Moses ascended Mount Sinai with our Joshua, as was said in book 1, ch. 4; & from the din of the camp [Moses] stretched the tabernacle for prayer, in which our Joshua was assiduous, ibid., ch. 6 — so that [it] is no wonder [that he] should now seek the occasion & fruit of that former holy solitude amid the greatest occupations. 5. [the book skips “4”] Is not this also a most-illustrious type of the solitude & withdrawal which our JESUS is read to have sought more than once for the sake of prayers & contemplations — Matt. 4 & 14, v. 23; ch. 17, v. 1; Luke 6, verse 12; ch. 9, verse 28; John 6, verse 3; & 15:6? Concerning St Anthony, indeed, D. Jerome [writes] thus in [the Life of] St Hilarion: On the lofty summit of the mountain — [reached] by those climbing as if by a spiral [stair], with very steep effort — two cells were seen, in which, fleeing the throng of comers & the company of his disciples, [Anthony] tarried.
(Translator’s note: the book prints “QVÆSTIO LXIX”; the L and X are transposed — read XLIX, the forty-ninth question.)