“All things,” says Ecclesiastes (ch. 3, v. 1), “have their time. A time to be silent, a time to speak” (v. 7). But Joshua does not permit each of these two times, in the common business of all, to the discretion of anyone; rather, as one to whom the care of the common and public good [belongs], he accurately dispenses that [matter], and enjoins [it] upon the people (v. 10): “You shall not cry, nor shall your voice be heard, nor shall any word go forth from your mouth, until the day comes on which I shall say to you: shout and cry aloud.” Now that day was the seventh day, and indeed then, when the seventh circuit had been completed, as was expounded above, q. 17. But the causes of the silence were not those which Ralbag has devised — namely, lest the men of Jericho, roused by the shouts of the Israelites, should defend their walls, defend the city, and, as those [Israelites] walked around, attack them with darts and stones. What? Were the men of Jericho so deaf that they did not hear the noise and clangors of the trumpets? So heedless and mad that they had not, even in the higher towers, any watchman to announce the enemies’ plans and approaches? These [are] rather the causes. First: Before a battle, and while the enemy is still at a distance, the masters of military affairs judge that one must abstain from all shouting. “On the march,” says Gellius (book 1, ch. 11), “there is need of calm and silence, when one goes toward an enemy standing far off, at a long distance in view. But when it has come near, to close quarters, then now, from nearby, the enemy is both to be driven back by the charge and to be terrified by the shout.” Now although there was here no [actual] battle, yet the appearance of a battle was on the seventh day, when the Israelites were borne with great force into the city and to the slaughter: it would have been a battle in either case, had not a loftier force struck both their [the enemies’] courage and their walls. But on the earlier days there was no nearer approach to the enemy. II. The clangor of the trumpets manifested the presence of God; and the same [was], as it were, a certain voice and exhortation of God himself, as is had [in] Num. 10:9. Therefore, with ears and minds attentive and alert, it was fitting to receive it, and to hear [it] in a reverent silence — [so] that not even the least little word should chatter in among it. III. While mouth and tongue were silent, [it was fitting] to ponder in the mind the goodness, benefits, and majesty of God; to give him thanks; to offer vows and prayers, [asking] that he would now deign to bestow the good things he had promised: so that this silence was by no means stupid and idle, but joined with a great stirring of mind, with religion, and with prayer. He [Homer] censures — as is noted by Eustathius — in the Iliad, the Trojans, because in battle “they went like birds, with clamor and clangor”; but on the contrary he praises the Achaeans going to the fight not shouting, chattering, [and] making a din, but with a keen silence, [full of] modesty and a silent concord, [and] meditative:
“But the Achaeans went in silence, breathing might, eager in their heart to defend one another.” [Iliad 3.8–9]
IV. It is indicated generally what is to be done in sacred [rites], what in Christian processions. The Gentiles used to say in their sacrifices, “Favor [us] with tongues and minds” [keep a holy silence]: how much more ought we Christians [do] this very thing? Here was a war, and yet, though very many myriads of men [were] together, there was the utmost silence. What [ought to be done] in the temples, at the time of that sacrifice by which peace is established between us and God; what in the public prayers and litanies, in which we all beg the same Lord for pardon and peace to be made? A few things which I once set down in [my] On the Joshuan Priests I shall add on this matter: “Processions — whether amburbales, or ambaruales, or any others whatsoever — we rightly fetch not from the institutions of the Gentiles (as I-know-not-who objects), but from the pomps of the men of Jericho, so often and so seriously repeated — that we may learn not only their most ancient origin, but also the best manner and reason [of them]. In them one must not walk for the sake of [idle] spirits or curiosity, nor spend time in silly chatterings. ‘Your voice shall not be heard,’ he says, ‘nor shall any word go forth from your mouth’; but one must proceed gravely, modestly, and religiously: something pious must be meditated, prayed, and sung together. For to this end also are carried [in procession] the sacred relics of the saints, the labara [banners] of the Lord’s cross, and the ark itself of the most holy Sacrament — which, under a certain appearance and covering, yet a propitiatory one, contains CHRIST the Lord and Savior.” See, if it please [you], [my work] on processions, book 1, ch. 7, p. 75. And weigh, I pray, how gravely, how seriously our Jesus [Joshua] enjoins this silence. It was not enough for him to say “You shall not cry out”: but he added, “nor shall your voice be heard”; or, as it is word-for-word in the Hebrew, “You shall not make your voice to be heard.” And, not content with this, he still subjoins: “nor shall any word go forth from your mouth.” What if something new and unusual had happened? Was it not [then] permitted to ask what the matter was, [or] to answer one asking? What if someone did not keep his rank, or advanced too slowly, or went on too swiftly — would there be no means of warning [him]? What if, in contempt of the Israelites — as was done in the siege of Jerusalem — the men of Jericho should do something: [was it not] right to murmur a word and point it out to another? What too, if the same [men] should sally out from the city — [was it not permitted] to shout “to arms, to arms”? Truly, “no word,” says our Jesus, “shall go forth from your mouth” — [no word], that is, which may make a sound. Is coughing, then, and clearing the throat, also forbidden? Rambam [Maimonides] disputes (book 1, Halacha 3, ch. 4) whether, if someone sneezes in a house of Midrash [study], it is permitted to wish him Rephuah — that is, to pray a blessing of health for him. And he answers that it is not necessary, because the sanctity of this house is greater than [that of] the house of Kenisuth [the synagogue] (fol. 20, at the end of the chapter). Moreover, our [interpreter, the Vulgate] rendered “speech,” because the Hebrew dabar denotes not only a thing but a word — nay, a thing, because it is wont to be denoted by a word; and this whole clause the 70 omitted, content with the prior two — because by it nothing new is prescribed, although, without doubt, [it serves] to inculcate the prior [clauses] the more; in the Hebrew and Latin…
(col. 775)
…[in the Hebrew and Latin] let it be [repeated]. For the things we most of all, and most accurately, wish to be done, these very [things] we repeat again and again. V. While the trumpets of the divine word resound, [while] the Gospels are preached, [while] sermons are made, the lips are utterly to be restrained with the fingers. VI. Silence, indeed, seems a sign of timidity — nay, it is even wont to bring fear itself; as, on the cited passage of Homer, the Archbishop of Thessalonica [Eustathius] notes, and perhaps some of the men of Jericho suspected thus of the Israelites. But the Israelites despised suspicions and talk of this kind; and [chose] to obey Joshua in silence, rather than to make a vain show of boldness, and of minds loosed from all fear, either by disordered shouts or by [too-]careless words and chatterings. After the six-day silence, the shout was commanded. First, indeed, on account of the things said above, q. 16. Secondly, that there might be an approbation of the things which had hitherto been signaled by the priests with the clangor of the trumpets. Thirdly, that it might be signified that, after the priestly trumpets and exhortations, God is to be praised by us, and the hand at once to be set to the work. Fourthly: In sacred rites and processions, when the priests have discharged their parts, [it is fitting] that the Laity also perform their own parts, by communicating [taking part], praying together, [and] singing together. Fifthly: one must not always be silent, but, when the matter and need demands, one must cry out most gravely and most intently against the enemies of the faith, the sowers of crimes, [and] the imitators of the impiety and wickedness of Jericho. Sixthly: one must always be silent both first and longer than one speaks. For here [there was] shouting on one day, and [only] once; but silence [was kept] all six days, and in the thirteen circuits. Seventhly: that the notable agreement and consonance of the peoples with the priests, and of both among themselves — which is [found] in the Catholic Church — might be foreshown and commended. When he discusses that concordant joint-shout of the people with the priests’ trumpets, in hom. 7, Origen wonders why it was said in Ps. 88[89]:16, “Blessed [is] the people that knows jubilation.” “It moves [me],” he says, “this saying — what so great a work [it is] that makes a people blessed. He did not say, ‘Blessed the people that works justice,’ or ‘Blessed the people that knows the mysteries,’ or ‘that knows the reckoning of heaven and earth and the stars’; but ‘Blessed,’ he says, ‘the people that knows jubilation.’ In others [i.e., other texts] the fear of God makes [one] blessed, yet makes only a single man blessed. For so he says, ‘Blessed the man that fears the Lord.’ Elsewhere too many are made blessed — as the poor in spirit, or the meek, or the peacemakers, or the clean of heart. Hither [belongs] the Beatitude [that] is poured out lavishly, and here I-know-not-what so great a cause of blessedness is indicated, that it makes the whole people alike blessed — [any people] that shall [only] have known jubilation.” But at last the same Origen answers: “It seems to me that jubilation indicates a certain disposition of concord and unanimity. If it fall upon two or three disciples of Christ, [then] all things whatsoever they shall have asked in the name of the Savior, the heavenly Father grants them. But if the blessedness be so great that the whole people remains concordant and unanimous, so that all say the same things, abiding in the same sense and in the same judgment — then, when such a people lifts its voice unanimously, that will come to pass which is written in the Acts of the Apostles: that a great earthquake was made, where then they were praying with one mind — the Apostles with the women, and Mary the mother of JESUS — and, an earthquake being made, [the walls] will be destroyed, and all things that are earthly will fall, and the world itself will be overthrown. Hear, finally, our Lord and Savior [saying], to this very [end] exhorting his soldiers — how he says, ‘Be of good cheer, I have conquered the world.’ Under him, therefore, as leader, the world is now conquered for us, and its walls, on which the men of the [worldly] age relied, have collapsed.” Moreover the same author adduces yet two other causes. The one — to me the eighth — that there might be signified the joy and exultation with which the Angels were affected at the Lord’s Nativity, when, as with one voice, they cried out together, “Glory to God in the highest.” The other — to me the ninth — that there might be signified the clangor and shout of the same Angels and of the saints at the world’s end, or the Lord’s second coming. The former [Origen] pursues [in] homily 7, thus: “At the coming of JESUS [Joshua] the walls of Jericho were overthrown; at the coming of my Lord JESUS the world is conquered. Yet how the world is conquered, I should wish to know, [and] to understand more manifestly and clearly the things that are said. I myself, who teach, wish to learn together with you. Let us take Paul in common as our Master. For he is the minister of Christ, who can show us how Christ conquered the world. Hear him, then, saying: ‘What was contrary to us, he took away from the midst, fixing it to his cross; and, despoiling the principalities and powers, he led [them] across, freely triumphing over them on the wood of the cross’ [Col. 2:14–15]. From these words, therefore, I understand this: that the heavenly Virtues, seeing the battle of Jesus — [seeing] the contrary principalities and powers stripped of their powers, the strong one bound, and his vessels plundered — sounded out with their heavenly trumpets, because, the prince of this world being bound, the world was conquered; and the heavenly host gave the voice of jubilation in the triumph of Christ. Truly, therefore, blessed is the people of the Gentiles, that has known this jubilation of the heavenly host, and that acknowledges and believes the mysteries.” But in the sixth homily [Origen] explains the latter cause thus: “We frequently find in the Scriptures that Jericho is set as a figure of the world. For also in the Gospel, where it is said that a man went down from Jerusalem to Jericho, and fell among robbers, [that man] was without doubt a form of that Adam who was thrust out from Paradise into the exile of this world. And also the blind men who were in Jericho, to whom Jesus came to make them see, bore the form of those who in this world were oppressed by the blindness of ignorance, [and] to whom the Son of God came. This Jericho, therefore — that is, this world — is [destined] to fall. For the consummation of the age has long since been published abroad in the holy volumes. How, then, will the consummation be given to it? by what instruments? By the voices,” he says, “of the trumpets. Of which trumpets? Let Paul betray to you the secret of this mystery. Hear what he himself says: ‘The trumpet,’ he says, ‘shall sound, and the dead who are in Christ shall rise incorruptible; and the Lord himself, at the command, at the voice of the Archangel, and at the trumpet of God, shall descend from heaven’ [1 Thess. 4:16]. Then, therefore, our Lord Jesus, with the trumpets, will conquer Jericho, and cast it down.”