Question XVIII. Whether, besides the Altar's stones, some others [were] erected?

Josephus seems to establish [that they are] the same as the stones of the altar — those which are said here to have been erected by the people; and Masius attributes this opinion to him. Abulensis, in this place (q. 26), notes [that] he indeed handed down [something] different in Deuteronomy; yet now he concedes [that] they can be called the same, because in Deuteronomy the very stones of the altar had to be smeared with lime (ch. 27, v. 4). But to what end, unless that in them might be inscribed [those things] which were there ordered to be inscribed? Yet I think they were different [distinct]. First: Because in Deut. 27, v. 4, [the stones] are said first to be erected and to be incrusted with lime; but afterward the altar is ordered to be built (v. 5). But if those erected stones pertained to the altar itself, by that very [fact], that they were erected, the altar would already have been built. For they were firmly and in order arranged. Then, to the [altar] stones, not incrustation and smoothing, but roughness and native scabrousness is attributed (v. 6). Secondly: Because this is the opinion of very many, and of [men] not common — as of Cajetan, of Masius, and, as it indeed seems to me, of Josephus himself. For when he had named a single βωμὸν [bōmon, “altar”] for sacrifice, he says afterward [that] τὰς ἀρὰς [tas aras, “the curses”] or imprecations were inscribed ἐπὶ τῶν βωμῶν [epi tōn bōmōn, “upon the altars”] — that is, upon those erected and lofty stones. For he calls these βωμὰς [bōmas, “altars, high-places”]. Otherwise there would have been several altars there, against scripture. And therefore the old Interpreter of Josephus errs, saying [that] “on the altar [ara] were written the curses” [maledictiones] — since Josephus uses the plural number. And lest thou say [that] it was written by Josephus ἐπὶ τὸν βωμὸν [epi ton bōmon, “upon the altar”], see, in this very matter, Deut. 27 in the 70 [LXX]: γράψεις ἐπὶ τῶν λίθων [grapseis epi tōn lithōn, “thou shalt write upon the stones”], and here (ch. 9): ἔγραψεν ἐπὶ τῶν λίθων [egrapsen epi tōn lithōn, “he wrote upon the stones”]. For Josephus, therefore, I would rather group [him] with that other opinion — [that of] Origen (homily 9), concerning whom [see] below.