Homilies on Judges 9.1–9.2

The multitude gathered against Israel was huge, so that it was compared to locusts for its number. "And their camels," it says, "were like the sand on the seashore, without number." Let us see, then, how so countless a multitude of enemies could be overcome. "Thirty-two thousand armed men of the children of Israel," it says, "went out with Gideon" to fight against all that multitude. And God gave answer to Gideon, saying: "The multitude with you is great." And what if the multitude is great? Does not a larger army give safer support in wars? By no means, he says, because these are not human battles: divine battles are not fought as human ones are. The work of divine power is not made glorious if it is propped up by human supports, because "a king is not saved by the greatness of his strength." Lest perhaps Israel should boast and in vanity claim a share of the victory, the Lord therefore says to Gideon: "The people with you are many; I will not hand Midian over into their hands, lest perhaps Israel exult against me, saying, 'My hand has saved me.' Therefore speak in the ears of the people, saying: Whoever is timid and fearful at heart, let him go back. And twenty-two thousand men of the people went back from Mount Gilead, and ten thousand remained." Let us see first, then, what it means when it says, "timid and fearful at heart"; for two marks of human frailty are named by which human frailty is exposed, namely the timid and the fearful at heart. The timid can be taken to be the one who trembles at the first sight of the encounter, yet is not terrified with his whole heart, but can be restored and encouraged again. But the fearful is the one in whom the vice is already, as it were, ingrown, who is terrified by the mere thought even before he sees the evils, rolling a chill dread through his limbs, so that he is undone not so much by the sight of the evils as by merely hearing of them and expecting them; and that is why it added, "fearful at heart." For in the heart and in the inner parts of the soul this vice now remains fixed. Do we say, then, that only at that time did Gideon say to the people: "If anyone is timid and fearful at heart, let him depart from the ranks, desert the wars, leave the contests of brave men"? For today too the commander of our army, the Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, cries to his soldiers and says: "If anyone is timid and fearful at heart, let him not come to my wars." For this is what he says in the Gospel in other words but with the same sense: "Whoever does not take up his cross and follow me is not worthy of me"; and: "Whoever does not hate his father and mother and brothers and sisters, and even his own life, is not worthy of me." And again: "Whoever does not renounce all that he possesses cannot be my disciple." Do not these words plainly show Christ separating and setting apart the timid and fearful from his camp? All of you, then, who want to follow the warfare of Christ, who desire to be in his camp, drive far from you timidity of mind, drive far the fear of the heart, so that the soldier of Christ may say with confidence: "Though a camp be set against me, my heart will not fear; though war rise against me, in this I will hope." Let him say with confidence: "The Lord is my light and my salvation; whom shall I fear? The Lord is the protector of my life; of whom shall I be afraid?" But lest this warfare frighten us, it contains nothing difficult, nothing steep or impossible. Do you want to know how easy it is for those who fight in faith to fulfil these things? In this camp even women often conquer, because the fight is not by bodily strength but by the power of faith. Earlier in this very book of Judges we read of the triumphs of the woman Deborah, and womanly fear did not trouble her woman's mind. Why should I recall that magnificent and most noble of all women, Judith? When matters were almost lost, she did not hesitate to come to the rescue alone, and alone to expose herself and her own head to death at the hands of the most savage Holofernes; and she went out to war not in arms, nor on war horses, nor relying on military support, but by courage of soul and confidence of faith she slew the enemy by counsel and daring together; and the freedom of the fatherland which men had lost, a woman restored. And why do we unroll the examples of the ancients from so far back? Before our own eyes we have often seen women and girls still in their first youth endure the torments of tyrants for martyrdom, in whom the frailty of a life still young was added to the weakness of their sex. So, then, in those who fight for the truth, and who fight for God, it is not strength of body but of soul that is required, because victory is sought not with iron javelins but with the darts of prayer, and it is faith that gives endurance in the contest. That is why the holy apostle too equips the soldiers of God for battles of this kind with fitting arms, saying: "Stand, therefore, having put on the breastplate of righteousness, and having girded your loins with truth; and take the helmet of salvation and the sword of the Spirit; but above all take up the shield of faith, with which you can quench the flaming darts of the evil one, and have your feet shod with the preparation of the gospel of peace"; and, armed in this way, to raise the standard of the cross of Christ and follow it. Yet even this is allowed in the warfare of Christ: if ever in persecutions you feel yourself weaker in strength, and see that the contest against the tyrant's cruelty is not equal for you because of the frailty of your body, you may "give place to wrath" and flee from place to place; nor is this counted against you as a military offence. This too is laid down in the laws of Christ, who says: "If they persecute you in this city, flee to another." For the sum of the matter is not to deny Jesus, whom you have once confessed. For it is certain that he confesses Christ who flees so as not to deny him. If anyone, then, is timid and fearful at heart, let him depart from the camp and go back to his house, lest he set an example of timidity and fear to the rest. Do you want to see how great a crime it is to be timid and fearful? In the Apocalypse, where those to be cast into the lake of fire are listed, there he puts the timid and fearful before all, and with them counts the unbelieving, the sexually immoral, and the sorcerers. So the crime of timidity and fear is placed among enormous and abominable crimes. We have said these things because of those who are first dismissed from the camp as timid and fearful at heart.

But after those twenty-two thousand had departed, the divine word adds still more and says to Gideon: "The people are still many; bring them down to the water, and there I will test them for you." As I see it, those who were rejected first had not even gone down into the water, but were still marking themselves out as catechumens, and they were so frightened by the vice of fear that they did not even go down to the saving bath; so those were rejected. But these second ones come to the water to be tested there. And let us see how they are tested. "And the Lord said," it says, "to Gideon: Everyone who laps the water with his tongue, as a dog laps, you shall set apart; and everyone who bends his knees to drink, you shall set aside. And the number," it says, "of those who lapped the water from the hand, or with the tongue, was three hundred men. But all the rest bent their knees to drink the water. And the Lord said to Gideon: With these three hundred men who lapped the water from the hand I will save you, and I will hand Midian over into your hand." In almost all the deeds of the ancients great mysteries are signified, as we see happening in this place too: those who go down to the water, that is, who come to the grace of baptism, must not fall to the ground, nor bend their knees and give way to the temptations that will come, but stand firmly and steadfastly, as the prophet also said: "Lift up the drooping hands and the weak knees"; and: "Make straight paths for your feet." You have come to the water of baptism: that is the beginning of the contest and of spiritual battle; from there the beginning of your battle against the devil arises. If you are slack, if you can easily be bent, how will you fight? How will you stand against the wiles of the devil? That is why the apostle too cries out: "Stand, therefore, and do not again submit to a yoke of slavery"; and again he says, "Stand in the Lord"; and a third time he says: "For now we live, if you stand in the Lord." He, then, will be approved, he is chosen, who, after he has come to the waters of baptism, does not bow down to earthly and bodily needs, does not indulge vices, and is not thrown face down by thirst for sin. But that lapping of the water with the hand or the tongue seems to me written not without some significance of a mystery: namely, that the soldiers of Christ must work both with hand and tongue, that is, in deed and word, because "whoever does and teaches will be called great in the kingdom of heaven." And as for Scripture's also setting down the likeness of a dog lapping, this animal seems to me named here because above all other animals it is said to keep love for its own master, and its affection is said not to be effaced either by time or by wrongs. Only three hundred, then, who prefigured the image of this mystery, these were chosen, these approved, these consecrated for victory, who by the very mystery of the number can overcome the adversaries. For there are three hundred, who multiply a hundred by three and bear the number of the perfect Trinity, under which number the whole army of Christ is enrolled. In it we pray that we too may be worthy to be enrolled. Yet how do these fight? They carry jars, it says, and torches and horn trumpets in their hands; and so, it says, they come against those countless multitudes of enemies, among whom the camels were like the sand of the sea. And when they had come to battle, they sounded, it says, with the horn trumpets. And they let the jars fall, it says, from their hands, and they were broken. Then, seizing the torches, they rush upon the adversaries, and at the same time sound the trumpets. See that the chosen soldiers of God fight with torches. For so Christ had armed them, saying: "Let your loins be girded and your lamps burning." And again: "So let your light shine before men, that they may see your good works and glorify your Father who is in heaven." With such torches lit, then, the soldiers of Christ ought to fight, shining with the light of their works and the splendour of their deeds. But what are the horn trumpets with which the trumpet is sounded? Whoever speaks of heavenly things, whoever discourses on spiritual things, whoever reveals the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven, he sounds the trumpet; he speaks with the trumpet who speaks of great and the greatest things, who opens the knowledge of Christ to human ears. But why is the trumpet also called "of horn"? Because of the saint too it is said: "His horn will be exalted in glory." Hence each one's trumpet is called "of horn," in that it discourses on the manifold knowledge of Christ and the mysteries of his cross, which is signified in the horn. Fighting, then, with this trumpet and making war with it, we conquer the foreigners and put the enemies to flight, even if their multitude is like locusts. For the multitude of demons is compared to locusts, which have a seat neither in heaven nor on earth. Let the light of works, then, the power of knowledge, the preaching of the divine word, go before us too in this war. Let us too fight, singing in hymns and psalms and spiritual songs and crying to God, that we may be worthy to obtain victory from him in Christ Jesus our Lord, to whom be glory and dominion for ever and ever. Amen.