The cause, in this chapter, is commemorated at least four times. 1. (v. 9): “because the Lord had so commanded Joshua.” 2. (v. 12): “so had Moses, the servant of the Lord, commanded Joshua.” 3. (v. 15): “as the Lord had commanded
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Moses his servant, so did Moses command Joshua; he fulfilled all [things]: he passed over nothing of all the commandments, not even one word which the Lord had commanded Moses. 4. (v. 20): because the Lord had so commanded Moses. Finally (v. 23): “As the Lord had spoken to Moses.” And hence we learn the notable obedience of two supreme men: of Moses indeed toward God, but of Joshua toward God and Moses. And that [obedience] is not in vain set before us so brightly, so often, and in so many words, and inculcated. But, first indeed, that we may know what made these men so admirable and so pleasing to God — namely, obedience. Secondly: that the finger might be pointed at the fountain, whence so many rivers of victories flowed. “The obedient man shall speak of victories” (Prov. 21:28). Thirdly: that we may consider [that] Joshua himself, in all these wars, battles, slaughters, devastations, burnings, and destructions, did nothing through inborn savagery or cruelty, nothing through unjust hatred, impotent anger, the accursed hunger for gold, or any other perturbation of mind — as, against his calumniators, the old heretics, St. Augustine (Against Faustus, and here, q. 16), Origen, and Theodoret (on this book) admonish more than once, as I shall say elsewhere below more fittingly. Fourthly: that the express image of the true Jesus might be set before our eyes — [he] who (Phil. 2:8) “humbled himself, being made obedient unto death, even the death of the cross.” Fifthly: that in arduous and difficult matters — even in those which lie open to the reprehension and calumny of some — we may closely hold holy obedience. For to how great calumnies were all these works of Joshua exposed — the occupations of others’ lands, the devastations of fields, the slayings of the natives, the burnings of cities, the captures, tramplings, [and] crucifixions of Kings? But the obedient man despises petulant tongues, reckons malicious judgments as nothing, [and] wishes the fame of his name to depend on God and on obedience, not on the levity and wickedness of men. Sixthly: that we may understand whom [it is right] to obey. Some sometimes dispute [that] they are willing to obey, if God should command anything; but that they can neither bear nor be willing [to bear] the commands of men. “Let us break,” they say (Ps. 2:3), “their bonds, and cast their yoke from us.” But Joshua obeyed not only God, but Moses too. Seventhly: But most of all [it is right] to obey those whom we understand [to be] beloved by God, and instructed and sent by him — of which sort Joshua knew Moses to be, as appeared above (ch. 1, v. 7). But whom can we know, or feign, [to be] more endowed with authority of this kind, than the very Bride of CHRIST JESUS, “the pillar and ground of truth” (1 Tim. 3) — I mean the Catholic Church? — and than [her] supreme Rectors, Masters, and Pontiffs, concerning whom divine promises exist? Eighthly: We understand how, [and] how fully and perfectly, obedience is to be rendered. Of Joshua we have heard: he “fulfilled all [things]: he passed over nothing of all the commandments, not even one word which the Lord had commanded Moses.” Farewell to those who, in some one matter, are willing to comply with their superiors, [but] in others shuffle [evade]. Farewell too to the heretics, and to some deceived by heretics, who keep saying [that] they are indeed willing to be compliant sons of the Church in other [respects], but, in the communion of one species [i.e. Communion under one kind], are not willing. Farewell [to those who are], in all the rest, half-obedient, half-alive, half-dead — nay, rather wholly dead.
But what I undertook in the seventh prolegomenon of this book, it is fair [that] I now discharge. Masius, therefore (p. 211), thus philosophizes about these matters: “We are taught, by this most obedient obedience of Joshua, to observe plainly and simply [καὶ ἀφελῶς, kai aphelōs] the divine oracles [that are] also delivered to us in the sacred letters, and explained by the Catholic and Apostolic Church; neither to inquire curiously into them, nor to weigh and measure their reason by our [own] grasp, but, with a humble and reverent mind, to embrace in all ways that doctrine which was delivered by CHRIST to the Church, and thereafter propagated by the Apostles, and other most holy men, the interpreters and ministers of God, in a continuous series as [it were] by hand, all the way down to us — and to follow [it] as the most correct norm and rule. For indeed there is no doubt [that] various affections of mind from time to time came upon Joshua — a man trained in the school of Moses to all gentleness — and all but moved and disturbed [him], in exercising everywhere so rigid a victory, since [he] had to rage through the deaths of every kind of men. And yet, with a firm and obstinate mind, he thought [that] he must pursue that which Moses had prescribed. By this example, therefore, let us compel our own curiosity too — both in all the divine prescriptions, and most of all in those which pertain to the mysteries of our religion — to acquiesce in the Sacrosanct authority, and the Catholic Church; whose authority, as St. Augustine left [it] written, was begun by miracles, nourished by hope, increased by charity, [and] confirmed by antiquity; finally, continued by the perpetual tenor of succession from Peter down to us; and approved by the most beautiful consensus of very many peoples. In the most sincere wisdom of this our mother — as the sacred writers call [her] — let us religiously acquiesce; let us join faith to her words, obey her commands, [and] follow her guidance in every way. So indeed shall we nowhere stray from the right and eternal way of life.” And a little after: “It is plainly shown [that] that doctrine, by which God discloses his will to the Church, proceeds indeed from his own divine inspiration, but is delivered and explained to the rest of men through men whom he himself has chosen [as] the certain interpreters and ministers of his counsel and will. Which St. Paul too wrote to the Romans. Rightly, therefore, are they exploded — and most deservedly, first of all, all those fanatic men who, as of old, so in our age too, have given great disturbances in the Church of CHRIST. Then also those who do not fear to enter and profess this divine office, although they are set over it by the authority neither of God nor of the Church, nor are they sufficiently instructed for it by the knowledge of the sacred letters and the exercise of piety. God could, indeed, easily inform the minds of his own, by secret inspiration, with those precepts by which [one] must live piously and agreeably to his will, and [could] rule the life of each, as [it were] by hand, by a heavenly instinct and impulse. But it seemed [good] to the best and wisest parent to use the work of men for that thing — and not [the work] of any men whatever, but of those whom he himself calls, ‘as Aaron,’ says Paul. For otherwise it could not but be [that] the Church of God would soon be led about through infinite errors, and a confusion of religions would follow — the most pernicious thing of all. For the disposition of mortals is such, that the more inept each is, and the more unfurnished with all good things, [with] the greater license he engages in the function of that divine office. Rightly, therefore, [Scripture] called Moses — through whom God disclosed his commands to Joshua, and his laws — the servant
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of Jehovah, or of the Lord — they call those sacred words. For [those] who strive to obtrude upon the people, and to persuade [them of], their own fabrications — which they themselves have feigned, accommodated to the lust of the unskilled — and not the doctrine handed down by the perpetual consensus of the Church, are assuredly to be reckoned servants and slaves in no way of Jehovah (that is, of the true God), but of Satan, and of their own vainglorious ostentation. And this very [thing] the sacred context again shows luminously, when it has: “He omitted no word of all that the Lord had commanded Moses” — for the series of the sentence seemed to demand that it be said: “which Moses commanded Joshua.” But [that] the sayings of Moses were the pure meaning of God, this it behooved to be clear and attested.