“He who believes quickly is light of heart, and shall be lessened” (Ecclesiasticus 19:4) — whether [this is said] of divine faith, as Origen seems to feel (bk. 6, Against Celsus), or of human credulity only, as St. Bernard holds (Epistle 190). [As] Euripides says: “of prudent distrust [σώφρονος ἀπιστίας, sōphronos apistias] there is nothing more useful [οὐκ ἔστι οὐδὲν χρησιμώτερον, ouk esti ouden chrēsimōteron]” — and this Alciatus declared, from Epicharmus, by a not ungraceful emblem. And in [bk.] 1, On Duties, Cicero: “To slip, to err, to be ignorant, to be deceived — we reckon [it] both an evil and a base thing.” And afterward he enjoins [that] “nothing is to be committed such that one must sometime say, ‘I had not thought [it].’” Therefore [Israel] cannot be wholly excused, nor freed from all [charge of] excessive facility and credulity, as was noted above (q. 9). Yet in that very [thing] there is an I-know-not-what worthy of love and praise. For it appears [that] both Joshua and the other Israelite princes were good men — simple, open, by no means crafty or suspicious. And this St. Ambrose saw, and greatly praised (bk. 3, On Duties, ch. 10): “That ancient formula concerning guile — not of the jurists, but the sentence of the Patriarchs — the divine scripture evidently expressed in the book of the Old Testament which is entitled ‘Jesus [Joshua] son of Nun.’ For when the fame had gone out among the peoples [that] the sea had been dried up at the crossing of the Hebrews; [that] water had flowed from the rock; [that] daily nourishment was ministered from heaven, abundant for so many thousands of the people; [that] the walls of Jericho had fallen, struck by the sacred sound of the trumpets and battered by the shouting of the people; [that] the king of the Gethaeans too had been conquered, and hung on a tree until evening — the Gabaonites, fearing the strong hand [of Israel], came with craft, feigning themselves to be from a far country, and [that], having long journeyed, they had worn out [their] shoes [and] frayed the coverings of [their] garments, so as to show tokens of aging [things]. But the cause of so great a labor was the desire of earning peace and entering into friendship with the Hebrews; and they began to ask of Jesus [Joshua] son of Nun that he confirm a fellowship with them.” St. Augustine (on Psalm 147): “What does peace do? It does not judge concerning uncertain [things]; it does not affirm [things] unknown. It is more inclined to believe well of a man than to suspect ill. It does not grieve much to err; it long believes well even of an evil [man].” And therefore, in Bababathra (ch. 5, fol. 91), an honorific name [is given] to Joshua himself,
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“Iokim” [Jokim] (1 Chron., ch. 4, q. 22) the Rabbis explain [as signifying], because he kept the oath. Thence afterward arose that evil, that scarcely does one believe another otherwise than under oath; and [thus] is done that which St. Augustine says (bk. 1, On the Lord’s Sermon on the Mount, and from him the [decretal] chapter “Non est,” causa 22, q. 1): “that the oath is from the evil — not of the swearer, but of the unbeliever, by whom one is compelled to swear.” See our Rosignolus (bk. 4, On the discipline of Christian perfection, ch. 26).