Since Achan was conscious to himself of the sacrilege, and the lot [had been] prescribed by God and now introduced with great religion, and a night intervened meanwhile — how did he not snatch himself away in flight? How did he not attempt to escape the appointed punishment in the nocturnal darkness? How did he dare, with the rest, to approach the ark of the Lord, the divine tribunal, the heavenly judgment and indication? Nay, when, by the first casting of lots, his tribe [was] now truly marked, by the second his clan, by the third his house — why did he delay? Why did he not betake himself to his feet? Why did he wait until, as to his own [name], the name of the one [man] was openly published, and he was apprehended as though by a divine hand, and publicly proclaimed sacrilegious? A wonder indeed. Yet several causes of that delay can be given. The first: It was a camp, and that [was] hedged on all sides by guards and watches. And because the committed sacrilege had now been divinely disclosed, all [places] were full of suspicion. If anyone had lifted a foot [set out], this crime could easily be laid upon him. On that day too all [were] intent on the sanctification for the lots of the morrow. Whoever had done anything else, [or] turned aside elsewhere, the eyes, thoughts, and hands of all would have been turned upon him. What, then, would Achan do? Whither and how would he flee? — and especially at the morning dawn, when all Israel stood gathered before the seat and eyes of God? How great
(col. 871)
a force, indeed, flight has for the incriminating of someone, Julius Clarus teaches (bk. 5). The second: Perhaps so depraved an opinion had entered Achan’s mind that he thought his deed hidden even from God. For sometimes the mind of the sinner is so blinded by desire, and almost by madness and frenzy, that with that [man] in Job (ch. 22, v. 13) he says in his heart: “For what does God know? And he judges as though through a mist. Clouds [are] his hiding-place, nor does he consider our [affairs], and he walks about the poles of heaven.” The third: Grant [that] he felt better and truer [things] about God; [Joshua] himself, that prince, was perhaps suspect to him, as though he had feigned a lot prescribed by God, or [as though] there were no power in this [lot] — [that it] was only an empty scarecrow of the timid. The fourth: Yet let the lots be something: [still] there are many thousands of Israelites, and there was occasion for manifold and notable spoils. Who would believe that all the others kept their hands from them — [that] he alone was overcome by desire? There will perhaps be several among whom [there] is anathema, and who have perhaps stolen much more and greater [things]. The lot will betray those others: [but] as for me, it will be silent. The fifth: But [even] should it betray me too, I shall take exception against the vain and fallacious mode of inquiry: I shall show that the lot is by no means to be believed — especially in a matter of such moment, when it is a question of a man’s fame and life; [and] that this [method] has not hitherto been employed among the Israelites; [that] no faith is to be put in a new manner of searching out crimes; [that] otherwise it would come to pass that safety itself could be brought into peril. For [suppose] there are two innocent [men]; let them be compelled to try the lot concerning a capital crime. One or the other, surely, the dread lot will seek — [an] innocent [man], nonetheless. This manner of inquiry, therefore, must be resisted at [its] nascent beginnings. These and similar [thoughts] are wont sometimes to come into the mind of criminal men, lest flight take counsel for their safety. But another cause too not rarely holds them, and, fixed deep [within], restrains them: namely, thoughtlessness and an admirable stupor, which invades even prudent, anxious, and otherwise cautious men after some crime undertaken, so that they think of none of these [precautions] — [but] cling to the very footprint of the crime, [and] all but summon the executioner himself. We see [it] daily in homicides, thefts, and poisonings. Into the prisons so many little women and men are dragged, so many consumed by the flames, burdened with so many suspicions, sometimes with such manifest accusations and indications of [their] accomplices on the spot, [and yet], though they could most easily flee, they remain in the same place, [and] attempt no flight. Conscience, namely, snatches away all [presence of] mind from them; and God the avenger urges them to punishment — as [it is] found to have happened in many other ways, Plutarch attesting (in the book On the Delayed Vengeance of the Deity). Whence also that [verse] of Ausonius:
“When Ibycus perished, the high-flying crane was [his] avenger.”
And these [causes] pleased Abulensis, for [explaining] this, toward the end of the 42nd question. But what if — since nothing else is established — we think better [things] of Achan? For he could thus have reasoned with himself: “I have sinned. My sin is conspicuous to God. Now he declares himself angry at the people: he prescribes a lot, by which I may be found. I shall await the outcome, whichever he shall will. Does he will me to be publicly infamous? I have deserved it. I will undergo the infamy. Does he will me to be condemned to the fire? I am worthy of it. I will await the sentence. Ash, according to my desert, shall I be made.”