Gideon's Place

Sed primo illud quod ex Epistola quae ad Hebraeos est, commemoravi, inter illos laudabiles viros qui ibidem recoluntur, non solum est Jephte, verum etiam Gedeon, de quo similiter Scriptura dicit, Spiritus Domini confortavit Gedeon: et tamen ejus factum, quod de illo auro praedae operatus est ephud, et fornicatus est post illud omnis Israel, et factum est domui Gedeon in scandalum, non solum laudare non possumus; verum etiam quia Scriptura hic apertissime judicavit, reprobare minime dubitamus: nec tamen ex hoc ulla fit injuria Spiritui Domini, qui cum confortavit, ut hostes populi ejus tanta facilitate superaret. Cur ergo inter illos commemoratur, qui per fidem vicerunt regna, operantes justitiam; nisi quia sancta Scriptura, quorum fidem atque justitiam veraciter laudat, non hinc impeditur eorum etiam peccata, si qua novit, et oportere judicat, notare veraciter? Nam et in eo quod idem Gedeon signum petens, sicut ipse locutus est, tentavit in vellere, nescio utrum non fuerit transgressus praeceptum quod scriptum est, Non tentabis Dominum Deum tuum: verumtamen etiam in ejus tentatione Dominus quod praenuntiare volebat ostendit; in compluto scilicet vellere et area tota circumquaque sicca, figurare primum populum Israel, ubi erant sancti cum gratia coelesti, tanquam pluvia spirituali; et postea compluta area sicco vellere, figurare Ecclesiam toto orbe diffusam, habentem non in vellere tanquam in velamine, sed in aperto coelestem gratiam, illo priore populo velut ab ejusdem gratiae rore aliento atque siccato. Nec tamen frustra inter fideles et operantes justitiam, propter bonam fidelemque vitam, in qua eum credendum est esse defunctum, tale in Epistola ad Hebraeos meruit testimonium. Sanctus Augustinus Hipponensi, Quaestionum In Heptateuchum, Liber VII Source: Migne PL 34.813-814

But first, that which is in the letter to the Hebrews, that I have mentioned, among those who are recounted as praiseworthy men, not only is Jephtah found but even Gideon, 1 concerning whom Scripture similarly says that the Spirit of the Lord strengthened Gideon, 2 and yet one of his deeds was the making of the gold ephod from spoil, which caused all Israel to fornicate after it and made the house of Gideon a scandal, 3 which we are not only not able to praise, but since Scripture openly condemns it, we must without doubt reprove. Not, however, that this is any injury to the Spirit of the Lord, who when He strengthened gave triumph with such ease to the hosts of his people. Why, then, is he among those who are recalled, who through faith conquered kingdoms, and worked righteousness, unless that Holy Scripture, the faith and justice of whom truly it praises, is not at all impeded by their errors, when that which it knows, and judges necessary, it note truly? For even in the act of that same Gideon seeking a sign, as it is said, he made trial with a fleece, I do not know whether it were not a transgression of that command written: 'You shall not test the Lord your God.' 4 But the Lord in his testing showed what He wished to be foretold. That is, the wetting of the fleece with the whole area around it dry, is a figure of the first people Israel, when they were holy with the grace of heaven, as with spiritual water; and then the later wetting of the dry area around the fleece, is a figure of the Church spread throughout the whole world, having not heaven's grace in the fleece, as a covering, but in the open, and with the former people by the same grace bedewed as the foreign dryness. 5 Not, then, among the faithful and workers of righteousness, on account of good faith and life, in which believing in Him he died, did such a man vainly merit testimony in the Letter to The Hebrews. Saint Augustine of Hippo, Questions on The Heptateuch, Book 7 1 Hebrews 11.32 2 Judges 6.23 3 Judges 8.27 4 Deut 6.16 5 Judges 6.36-40

Divine Assistance

Ερώτησις ΙϚ' Τί δήποτε τοὺς κυνὶ παραπλησίως πεποκότας μόνους ἐκέλευσε παρατάξασθαι; Δεδήλωκε τὴν αἰτίαν αὐτὸς ὁ Δεσπότης Θεός· Πολὺς γὰρ, φησὶν, ὁ ὄχλος ὁ μετὰ σοῦ, ὥστε παραδοῦναι με τὴν Μαδιὰμ ἐν χειρὶ αὐτῶν, μήποτε καυχήσηται Ἰσραὴλ ἐπ' ἐμὲ, λέγων· Ἡ χείρ μου ἔσωσέ με. Τῶν πλείστων τοίνυν ἀπολυθέντων, τοὺς ὑπολειφθέντας τῷ ποταμῷ προσαχθῆναι προσέταξεν, εἴτα τῶν πλειόνων εἰς γόνυ κλιθέντων, καὶ πεπωκότων συντόμως· τῶν δὲ τριακοσίων τοῦτο μὲν δι' ὅκνον οὐ πεποιηκότων, τῇ δὲ χειρὶ τὸ νᾶμα προσενεγκόντων τῷ στόματι, τούτους μόνους ἐκέλευσεν, ὡ ἀργοὺς καὶ νωθεῖς, κατὰ τῶν ἀντιπάλων ὁρμῆσαι· ἵνα γένηται δήλη πᾶσιν ἡ θεία ῥοπή. Οὔτω καὶ διὰ δώδεκα ἁλιέων καὶ τελωνῶν, καὶ σκυτοτόμου ἑνὸς, τὴν τῶν δαιμόνων κατέλυσε φάλαγγα, καὶ τῶν ἀνθρώπων τὴν φύσιν διέσωσε. Τούτο χάριν ὁ προφήτης Ἡσαῗας τούτοις ἐκεῖνα παρέβαλλεν, καὶ ἔφη· Τὴν γὰρ ῥάβδον τῶν ἀπειθούντων διεσκέδασε Κύροις, ὡς τῇ ἡμέρᾳ τῇ ἐπὶ Μαδιάμ. Ὥσπερ γὰρ ἐνταῦθα γυμνοῖς ἐχρήσατο στρατιώταις, τῇ μὲν λαιᾷ φέρουσι κεκρυμμένας ἐν ἀμφορεῦσι λαμπάδας· τῇ δεξιᾷ δὲ τὰς σάλπιγγας· οὕτω τοὺς ἵεροὺς ἀποστόους γυμνοὺς εἰς τὴν οἰκουμένην ἀπέστειλε, φέροντας τὴν λαμπάδα τῶν θαυμάτων, καὶ τὴν σάλπιγγα τῶν κηρυγμάτων. Θεοδώρητος Ἐπίσκοπος Κύρρος, Εἰς Τους Κριτάς Source: Migne PG 80.504a-b

Question 16 Why were those who acted like dogs alone sent into battle? The Lord God Himself revealed the reason: 'There are too many men with you that I give the Midianites into their hands, lest Israel glory against me, saying, 'My own hand has liberated me.' 1 Then, with the greater part dismissed, He commanded that those who remained should be led to the river, from which the majority, those who swiftly bent the knee to drink, He sent away, and the thirty who through hestiation did not do this, who brought water to the mouth with the hand, these alone, unready and sluggish, He commanded go forth against the enemy, that the Divine aid be apparent to all. 2 Indeed in this way, by the twelve fishermen and tax collectors, and a shoe maker, He scattered the army of demons and saved human nature. Whence the Prophet Isaiah, arranging both together, says: 'The Lord scattered the staff of the faithless as on the day of Midianites.' 3 For as He once used unarmed soldiers, bearing in their left arms torches hid in urns, and in the right trumpets, 4 so He sent out the holy Apostles unarmed into the world, bearing the light of miracles, and the trumpet of preaching. Theodoret of Cyrrhus, Questions On Judges 1 Judges 7.2 2 Judges 7.4-6 3 Isaiah 9.4 4 Judges 7.8

Gideon And Christmas

Cum his Gedeon ad praelium pergit, eosque non armis, sed tubis, lampadibus, et lagenis armavit. Nam, sicut illic scriptum est, accensas lampades miserunt intra lagunculas, et tubas in dextera, lagenas autem in sinistra tenuerunt, et ad hostes suos cominus venientes cecinerunt tubis, confregerunt lagunculas, lampades apparuerunt, et hinc tubarum sonitu, illinc lampadarum coruseatione territi hostes in fugam versi sunt. Quid hoc est, quod tale bellum per prophetam ad medium adducitur? An indicare nobis propheta studuit quod adventum Redemptoris nostri contra diabolum illa sub Gedone duce pugnae victoria designavit? Talia illic nimirum acta sunt, quae quanto magis usum pugnandi transeunt, tanto amplius a prophetandi mysterio non recedunt. Quis enim unquam cum lagenis et lampadibus ad praelium venit? Quis contra arma veniens, arma deseruit? Ridicula nobis haec profecto fuerant, si terribilia hostibus non fuissent. Sed victoria ista attestante, didicimus ne parva haec quae acta sunt perpendamus. Gedeon itaque ad praelium veniens? Redemptoris nostri signat adventum, de quo scriptum est: Tollite portas, principes, vestras, et elevamini portae aeternales, et introibit rex gloriae. Quis est iste rex gloriae? Dominus fortis et potens, Dominus potens in praelio. Hunc Redemptorem nostrum non solum opere sed etiam nomine prophetavit. Gedeon namque interpretatur circuiens in utero. Dominus enim noster per majestatis potentiam omnia circumplectitur, et tamen per dispensationis gratiam intra uterum Virginis venit. Quid est ergo circuiens in utero, nisi quia omnipotens Deus Christus intra uterum fuit per infirmitatis substantiam, et extra mundum per potentiam majestatis? Madian vero interpretatur de judicio Sanctus Isidorus Hispalensis, Mysticorum Expositiones Sacramentorum Seu Quaestiones In Vetus Testamentum, In librum Judicum, Cap V Migne PL 83.383-384

With this company Gideon went to war, men who had no arms but were equipped with trumpets and torches and jars. For, as it is written, burning torches they placed within their jars and trumpets they held in their right hands and jars in their left, and coming near to their enemies they blew their trumpets and broke their jars and their torches appeared, and with this roar of sound and the blazing of the torches the terrified enemy were turned to flight. 1 And then what is this, that such tale of battle is brought to us by the Prophet? 2 Does the Prophet not wish to indicate to us that this victory in battle under the leadership of Gideon is as the advent of the Lord against the devil? Certainly such are the deeds, and the more they pass the common custom of combat, so the more they acquire the mystery of prophecy. For who goes to battle with jars and torches? Who comes against arms lacking arms? Undoubtedly to us these things would be ridiculous if they had not terrified the enemy. But victory being recorded, we learn not to judge these deeds to be slight. Gideon goes to war in such a manner? It signifies the advent of the Lord, concerning which it is written, 'Open your gates, princes, lift up the eternal doors, and the king of glory shall enter. Who is this king of glory? The Lord strong and powerful, the Lord powerful in battle.' 3 And our Redeemer is not only prophesied by the deed but by the name, for Gideon interpreted means 'surrounded in the womb.' For our Lord is surrounded by all power of majesty, however by the dispensation of grace he came into the Virgin's womb. Why is He thus surrounded in the womb unless because in the womb the Divine Christ was in the infirmity of our substance as beyond the world in the power of majesty? And Madian, the place of battle, interpreted is 'concerning judgement'. Saint Isidore of Seville, from Expositions of Sacred Mysteries or Questions on the Old Testament, On the Book of Judges, Chap 5 1 Judg 7.17-21 2 cf Is 9 1-7 3 Ps 23.7-8