Someone might say that the stars and the other orbs of the heavens did not stand still, because Joshua neither asked for that, nor does the text in any way intimate [it]. Abulensis indeed disputes many things about this (questions 19, [20], 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33). But because they are Physical and Astrological [matters], I do not wish to drag so many things in here. Certainly Dionysius the Areopagite (Epistle to Polycarp) reckons either part to be probable. Nor is there doubt that, by other modes and miracles, God could have brought it about that the Sun alone rested, and the Moon alone with it. Yet I say briefly that the whole machine of the stars, and of all the heavens, stood still together with the Sun and Moon. First: because either a great perturbation of the celestial motions would have followed, or a huge number of many miracles would have had to be joined and heaped up [to prevent it]. But now, with all the orbs standing still together, there is no perturbation, and so many miracles need not be heaped up. St. Augustine (book 21 of the City of God, chapter 8), when he had brought forward from Varro the little story about the star Vesperugo [Venus] (cited above, question 25), continues: “What has been so arranged by the Author of the nature of heaven and earth, as the most orderly course of the stars? What is established by laws so fixed and sure? And yet, when He willed — He who rules by [His] supreme command and power what He founded — the star most notable above the rest in magnitude and splendor [Venus] changed its color and magnitude and figure, and (what is more wonderful) the order and law of its course. It assuredly then troubled the Canons of the Astrologers, if there were any then — [canons] which they have written, as it were by an unerring computation of the past and future motions of the stars, by following which they have dared to say that this, which happened concerning Lucifer [the morning star], neither before nor afterward happened.” But if, together with [one] star, it could come about that all the other stars likewise changed their course with the wonted tenor and proportion, [there would be] a great avoidance of this disadvantage which St. Augustine rightly objects. Just as, if in Joshua’s time there had been Astrological Ephemerides, in their calculations there would have been no error at all, no change of numbers, but only — the same numbers rightly remaining — all things would have happened one day later [than predicted], if any had been predicted. Secondly: the Sun and Moon are the leaders of the celestial host. Therefore, when they stood still, it is probable that all the other constellations stood still. Thirdly: there was no other reason for Joshua to ask the Moon to stand still, than that the concord of those stars might be preserved in [their] motion. For he sought only the Sun’s light for destroying the enemy, and willed [the Sun] to be borne to its setting only after they were destroyed. But he had no need of the Moon’s light; nor, had he needed it, could he have received much, since it was not yet full, nor would it delay long in setting after the Sun, as is clear from what was said in question 22. Therefore, lest the consent and harmony in the revolutions of the stars and of the other heavens should be dissolved and broken, rightly was there a rest of all.
Fourthly, [and] so it seemed [right] not only to Abulensis, in the places cited, but also to Cajetan, Masius, [and] the Coimbrans, and of old to St. Maximus [the Confessor] (in the Epistle to Thalassius), [and] to the Author On the Marvels of Sacred Scripture (book 2, chapter 4), whose [are] these words: “This delay of the luminaries committed nothing new in nature, although it showed some new [thing] sometimes born for [some] ministry. But that variation also disturbed nothing in the course of the year and of the remaining days, since equally the Sun and Moon, each one, rested in its own order. For if one luminary should run while the other meanwhile rested, it would throw into confusion the accustomed course of days and months and years. But while both had this delay, [the Sun] proceeded, as it were after the wonted day, to the limit of its setting. For the Moon is not commanded to stand because it then, in the presence of the Sun, profited [anything] for the illumination of the battle, but lest anything in the fitting passage of the luminaries should be destroyed through the rest of the one and the course of the other.” And a little after: “But the Moon not only rested in this station, but could not meanwhile carry on the custom of its increase or decrease. For if, while the Moon stood still, it should — though standing — carry on its increases or decreases, that lunar increase, [going] beyond the Sun’s course, would disturb something in the reckonings of the cycles.” And when he had reviewed the sum of all the lunar cycles, he concludes that, since the cycles agree among themselves and return without any variation, “it is manifestly understood that that delay or reversion left nothing hindered or unwonted in the accustomed course of the luminaries and of the times.”
The holy Joshua, since he was knowing and skilled in the most liberal arts — but especially in Astrology — knew well enough that from the rest of the chief stars a fitting and connected rest of the others [followed], and that it would be enough if he commanded the most splendid orb of the Moon (most exposed to the eyes of mortals) to halt its step together with the Sun. But the text narrates not all things, only those which are chief; the rest it commits to [men’s] thought and good reasoning — as, concerning the tide of the sea, the Author On the Marvels says in the cited place. Indeed the text is so fond of brevity that, although the Moon rested with the Sun (as has been said up to now from verse 13), yet [the text] repeated only the former [the Sun], not the latter [the Moon], when in the same verse 13 it said, “So the Sun stood still.”