The sacred text points out, as [it were] with an intent finger, the place of Joshua’s burial (v. 30). “They buried him,” [it] says, “the Israelites, in the borders of his possession in Thamnathsare [Timnath-serah], which is situated in Mount Ephraim, on the north side of Mount Gaas” — for which [Gaas] the Seventy corruptly have “Mount Galaad”; and for “Thammathsare” [it] is sometimes — and rightly — Θαμνασαράχ [Thamnasarach], sometimes — and wrongly — Θαμνάσαχαρ [Thamnasachar], as above (ch. 19); and occasionally by another name, Θαμναθαρές [Thamnathares], as [in] Judges ch. 1, for “Thamnachares” or “Thamnacheres.” At the beginning of Midras Ruth [Ruth Rabbah] (fol. 40, col. 2), R. Barachias says: “We have gone through the whole Scripture, and found no place whose name is Gabaas [Gaas].” And he adds [that] this name [was] imposed on that place, because there [the people] rioted [tumultuati sunt], so that by no benefit or piety [would] they requite Joshua himself, who had distributed the land to them.
But mourning [planctus] and lamentation for great men, [lasting] several days, was wont to be made among the Jews — as for Jacob (Gen. 50), for Aaron (Num. 20), [and] for Moses (Deut. 24 [recte 34:8]). For these two [Aaron and Moses, there were] 30 whole days of mourning [each]. What, then, [was] done for our Joshua? [It is] likely [it was] done no less. Yet about this nothing at all is handed down in writing. And therefore St. Jerome (Epist. to Fabiola, On the 42 Mansions, mansion 34): “Aaron is mourned; JESUS is not mourned. In the Law [there is] a descent to hell; in the Gospel, a transmigration to paradise.” And to Paula, on the death of Blesilla: “I cannot,” he says, “sufficiently praise the mysteries of Scripture, and admire the divine sense in words [even if] simple: what [does] this mean — [that] Moses is mourned, and JESUS [Joshua] son of Nun, a holy man, is reported [as] buried, and yet is not written to have been wept [over]? Namely, [because] that [case] which [is] in Moses — that is, in the old law — under Adam’s sin all were held by the sentence [elogio], and, descending to hell, [the dead] were accompanied by following tears, according to the Apostle, who says (Rom. 5): ‘And death reigned from Adam even unto Moses, even over those who had not sinned.’ But in JESUS — that is, in the Gospel — through whom paradise is opened, [the dead] are accompanied to death by joys; and the Jews, weeping and with bare feet, wallowing in ashes, lie upon sackcloth. And, lest anything be lacking to [their] superstition, from the most vain rite of the Pharisees, [they] first take food of lentils — showing, namely, by what [sort of] dish [they] lost [their] birthright. But deservedly: because, not believing in the resurrection of the Lord, [they] are prepared for the coming of Antichrist. But we, who have put on CHRIST, and have been made — according to the Apostle (2 Peter 2 [recte 1 Peter 2:9]) — a royal and priestly race, ought not to be saddened over the dead.” These [things] St. [Jerome said]; to which the mourning-rites of our present-day Jews too lend credence — [they] who, at the funerals of their [own], here at Mainz [Moguntia], fill the sand (when, from the neighborhood where they wash their corpses, they go out from a hut [tugurium]) with wailings and feigned tears; and [they] make a small part of their own garments, around the neck, to be cut off a little by a Rabbi, and a little afterward [they] themselves pluck and tear [it] by hand.