“These [things] being heard” (says Origen, homily 8), “it is likely [that] the hearers say, ‘what [is] this to me? what does it profit me, if I learn that those who dwelt at Ai were conquered — as if similar, or even more powerful, wars were not either waged or being waged?’ Was this the care of the Holy Spirit, that — so many destructions of so great and noble cities being passed over — the battle of the city of Ai should be inscribed and committed to the sacred volumes? It would perhaps be rash, [this thing] which we do, trying to explain places of Sacred Scripture so arduous and so difficult: but if you aid us by your prayers, we shall not only escape the fault of audacity, but also God the Father of the Word, embracing our devotion, will give a word in the opening of our mouth, by which both you may be edified, and we may obey not undevoutly.” He then subjoins the allegory — but I say [it] briefly: “This world is Ai, as the interpretation of the name and the malice of the city declare. To storm this world — [it being] to be captured by sacred eloquence and pious virtues — the true JESUS sent, of old, a few [men] under the law of nature and of Moses: Patriarchs and Prophets, and their disciples and intimates: but they profited little; nay, [some] of them [were] partly slain, partly put to flight and mocked — because there was a great sin in the people of God. JESUS himself came, and transferred the punishment of this sin onto himself, and expiated it by his death. Then the people, whom he gathered into his Church, he divided into two troops. One attacks the world openly; the other from ambush. The former seemed at first to be cut down and to flee, when the Christians were seized by tyrants and tortured to pieces. Who would not think it was over with that religion? that those [others] had triumphed [over it]? And JESUS himself, who had descended into the most obscure valley of the deepest humility, seemed even to be conquered and to yield, when he was driven to the cross. But he stood firm at last, turned [his] face [about], extended toward Ai [his] hands full of prayers to the heavenly Father, and the arms of the cross, of patience, chastity, humility, and of all virtues; all the soldiers stood firm with him: they began to turn back those who
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those [very ones] who wished to pervert and destroy them; to put the impious to flight; to take the metropolis of all crimes, Ai, [to] burn [it], [and] to establish [it as] an everlasting mound. But in ambush were placed as many as, lying hidden in mountains and caves, buried in solitudes and caverns of the earth, in sheepskins and goatskins, lived needy, straitened, [and] afflicted; and by their prayers, sighs, and fastings — sometimes even by miracles — deceived and stormed the world: they carried off very many of its inhabitants, and most ample spoils. But they also contrived most-hidden ambushes — [they] who, near Ai, in the midst of the crowds of men, in the forum and the assemblies, in the halls of Princes and Kings, instructed with a holy zeal of souls, by the innocence of [their] life and the example of chaste morals, with divine grace, burst into the wicked city, and cast in the flames of holy charity, so that the fire might invite very many to the same [fire] — not to be extinguished, but to be increased. Finally they took the King himself, the Cacodemon [evil-spirit], when they compelled him to serve them, not to command [them]: they drove him to the cross, when they affixed all sins and vices to some unlucky tree, or removed [them] from themselves through the cross of CHRIST the Lord: and they exposed [him] detestable to all ages by a heap of stones, when, by the firmness of [their] examples, and the hardness and constancy of [their] discipline, they made [it so] that posterity detest and trample him. But in what way he was crucified “on a double wood,” Adamantius Origen says (in the cited place), it is worth the labor to know. “The cross of our Lord Jesus Christ was double [twin]. A wondrous discourse, perhaps, and new, seems to thee — that I say the cross was double: this is, it consists of a double and twofold reason. Because visibly indeed the Son of God was crucified in the flesh; but invisibly, on that cross, the devil, with his principalities and powers, was affixed to the cross. Will this not seem true to thee, if I produce the Apostle Paul [as] witness of these [things]? Hear, then, concerning those [things] which he himself pronounces. ‘That which was contrary to us,’ he says, ‘he took away from the midst, affixing it to his cross; despoiling the principalities and powers, he led [them] in triumph, freely triumphing over them on the wood of the cross’ [Col. 2:14–15]. Although in other copies it is had, ‘TRIUMPHING IN HIMSELF,’ but among the Greeks it is had, ‘ON THE WOOD.’ Therefore [there is] a double reason of the Lord’s cross: the one, that by which the Apostle Peter says [that] CHRIST, crucified, left us an example; and this second, by which that cross was the trophy [tropaion] of the devil, on which [Christ] was both crucified and triumphed. Therefore, finally, the Apostle Paul too said: ‘But God forbid that I should glory, except in the cross of my Lord JESUS CHRIST, through whom the world is crucified to me, and I to the world’ [Gal. 6:14]. Seest thou that Paul too has set forth a double reason of the cross? For he says two contrary [things] are crucified: himself [as] holy, and the sinful world — after that form, without doubt, which we said above, of CHRIST and the devil. For we are crucified to the world, then, when the coming prince of this world finds nothing in us. And the world is crucified to us, when we do not receive the concupiscences of sin.” And Peter Damian (in the sermon on the exaltation of the holy cross, in Surius, vol. 5): “The King of Ai (as the history narrates) was hung on a double gibbet: so the king of death is hung on a double gibbet — because, while he kills Christ, he is crucified on the very cross which he found.” Again Origen (in the same place): “But another [thing] too occurs to me, considering in the passage JESUS fleeing from the face of the army of Ai. What thinkest thou it is, that Jesus, fleeing, designated? Let us see whether perhaps there be something [in this], that by fleeing we may conquer, and [whether] there be some perfect virtue in flight. Paul the Apostle teaches us, saying: ‘Flee fornication.’ Seest thou, then, [that] there is a certain spirit of fornication, which we ought to flee — whoever we [are who] wish to remain chastely and piously and modestly in CHRIST. This, then, is the flight which has salvation; this [is] the flight of virtue; this flight confers beatitude. And not only the Spirit of fornication is to be fled, but in a similar way, as it was said, ‘flee fornication,’ let us hear it said to us, ‘flee avarice, flee envy and malice, flee detractions and evil-speakings’ — which, however, I know not whether anyone escapes, I know not whether anyone evades. Such was that army of Ai, which JESUS taught his soldiers to flee, and concerning which perhaps he commands his disciples, saying: ‘If they persecute you in this city, flee into another.’ For he wishes us to flee from enemies of this kind, wishes us to be made far from evils of this kind: and if we shall have been able meanwhile to evade the contagions of these evils to be fled, then, seeing our devotion, and the purpose of a holy mind and each [several] virtue, [there are] those, perhaps, concerning whom the Apostle says: ‘Are they not all ministerial spirits, sent into ministry for the sake of those who take the inheritance of salvation?’ Who perhaps are the holy Angels: who, seeing us suffer the persecution of demons, rise up against those who persecute us, and, cutting [them] down behind [our] backs, meanwhile destroy them all. For JESUS is with those who suffer persecutions, more than with those who persecute. And rightly: because he delights to be with those who flee pride, who flee guile, and who flee lying. If, then, we should so understand those [things] which are written, the reading will perhaps seem worthy of the style of the Holy Spirit. For what does it profit me, if I know that the king of Ai was hung on a double wood? But if I should know [that] the virtue of the cross is double, on which both CHRIST is hung in the flesh, and the devil with his army is triumphed over, my soul will be edified from the understanding of the sacrament.”
Second Part of Chapter 8 — On the Ceremony on Mounts Ebal and Gerizim
The whole history of this ceremony, performed on Mounts Ebal and Gerizim, is here indeed not omitted by the 70 Interpreters, but transferred into the following chapter 9, and postponed after the two first verses of the same chapter: although, from other Greek texts, and from Origen (homily 9), the same order seems once to have been among them which is in the Hebrew and Latin. But that ceremony holds itself thus. First: The whole people — both as to the Israelites and the Proselytes, both men and women, and children — had to go to those mountains. Then: One altar had to be raised. Thirdly: Likewise twelve stones [had] to be erected, and to be incrusted with lime [plaster]. Fourthly: On these the law [had] to be inscribed. Fifthly: On the altar sacrifice [had] to be made. Sixthly: Six tribes had to be on one of these mountains, six on the other. Seventhly: In the middle of these mountains — namely, in the very valley — [they] had to stand with the priests of the Lord, with the ark. Eighthly: By these, with a great and strained [loud] voice, a certain formula of blessings and cursings had to be recited, in such a way that the whole people could respond to the individual [clauses], “Amen.” This [is] the rite of that ceremony, which — in the Hebrew and Latin text, and, as I said, in some Greek [texts] — is here narrated to have been performed by Joshua with the whole people. But more [is] to be discussed in that whole rite.
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