To denying this contributes very much the extraordinary religion, piety, and industry of so great a Commander, Joshua, who would by no means have allowed that to be [so]. [There] accedes the testimony of this chapter (v. 31): “Israel served the Lord all the days of Joshua.” Yet to affirming this same [thing] these words impel (v. 14): “Take away the Gods whom your fathers served”; and (v. 23): “Now take away the strange Gods from the midst of you.” Either [view] can be probably thought, and the negation pleases more the Jew Ralbag [Gersonides], and our Caietanus [Cajetan], and especially St. Augustine (here, q. 29): in whose words [there] are several arguments for that opinion. First: [They] are not to be believed to have had hitherto any images of the nations, since above (ch. 22:2 & 3; ch. 23:3 & 4 & 8) [the text] most greatly proclaimed their obedience. Second: Or if [they] did have [them], [would they] follow those set-forth [proposals]? Third: Since vengeance was so taken upon them, because one of them had made a theft of [from] the anathema [the devoted thing — Achan]. Fourth: Finally, Jacob said (Gen. 35:2) this to those who had gone out with him from Mesopotamia, where thus idols were worshiped — as also Rachel stole the paternal [idols] (Gen. 31:19). But after that admonition of Jacob [they] gave [up] what [idols] they had. Whence [it] appeared [that] this [was] so said to them, because he who had said [it] knew [that] they had [them]. But now, after this admonition of Joshua, son of Nun, no one brought forth any such [thing]. And this last [point] can be confirmed by another example. For when Saul had said (1 Kings [1 Sam.] 7:3): “Take away the strange Gods from the midst of you,” at once [it] is subjoined (v. 4): “The children of Israel therefore took away the Baalim and the Astaroth, and served the Lord only.” But nothing similar [was] here done by the Israelites. We saw besides (ch. 22) how all the tribes of the Cisjordanian Israelites blazed up [in anger], and, snatching up arms, were prepared to invade [their] brethren, because [they] suspected [them] to have raised an altar of impiety. How, therefore, would they themselves still venerate the most vain idols of the Gods? But if, in Moses’s time, when the people was dwelling in the wilderness, [there] were idols, and shrine-carriages [thensae] and tabernacles of idols, [made] by that [people]
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[…idols, and shrine-carriages and tabernacles of idols were made,] by that people — as I touched [on] at the end of the previous question — carried about and worshiped, what wonder if also under Joshua’s command? Or did the most prudent and most sharp-eyed Commander, Joshua, say so absolutely in vain (v. 23): “Now take away the strange Gods”? Why did [he] not say: “Now take away the strange Gods, if you have any? if perhaps [there] are [any] among you”? The cited Ralbag [Gersonides] and B. Augustine respond [that] “by strange Gods” [there] are here understood depraved — or at least false — thoughts, while even the true God is thought [to be] such as [he] is not. The holy Prophet (Augustine’s words are these) “perceived [that there] were, in their hearts, thoughts about God [that were] estranged from God, and [he] admonished [that] these very [thoughts] be taken away. For whosoever thinks God [to be] such as God is not, carries about in [his] thought an alien and false God in every way.” But since the phrase always elsewhere commands the removal and extermination of idols — as we saw [from] Gen. 35 and 1 Kings [1 Sam.] 7 — why would [it] here import something else? Why would [it] be taken properly [literally] elsewhere, [but] improperly here? Certainly no cause urges [us] to depart from the proper and usual notion of the words. And although “strange Gods” are all thoughts about God which form and behold him otherwise than [he] is — [so that] nearly all the impious will have false Gods in their mind — do not all [men] see him “in a mirror and in an enigma [riddle],” but not as [he] is (1 Cor. 13)? “Who is [there],” says Augustine himself in this place, “who thinks God [to be] such as [he] is?” Through a mystical sense, therefore, vain phantasms of that kind can indeed be called “false Gods,” yet not truly and according to the letter.
Yet concord between these discordant opinions seems able to be established, if [it] be said: 1. [That there] was then no public and open worship of any idol in the Israelite people. For this nearly all the arguments [so far] adduced prove. 2. [That] Joshua does not affirm [that there] are false Gods among the people; but, since [he] was the people’s Leader and Commander, and wished to admonish them of [their] duty, [he] feared lest perhaps some Gods still lay hid among some [persons]: and so, [he] admonished of what [it was] permitted to him, as to a Prince, to fear and suspect. 3. [That it] is sufficiently likely [that there] were some — though very few — who still retained certain idols, and secretly worshiped [them]. For in a great multitude, even of the best and most holy [people], some wicked and worthless [ones] are always found. And these [points] nearly make up the arguments of the second opinion. 4. [That] Joshua found out about those [idolaters] by no indication, divine or human. Otherwise indeed [he] would without doubt have animadverted [acted] against them most gravely, as so great a wickedness deserved. Nor do those [things] which Masius said at v. 22 greatly dissonate from these. But Caietanus [Cajetan] indeed proposes both [opinions] — he proposes the first opinion at v. 14; but [he] rather approves that which refers [it] to that removal of the Gods, as appears from [the things] which [he] wrote at v. 23.