The book does not so much indicate to us the deeds of the son of Nun as it represents for us the mysteries of Jesus my Lord. For he himself is the one who assumes power after the death of Moses; he is the one who leads the army and fights against Amalek. What was foreshadowed there on the mountain by lifted hands^[1] was the time when he attaches [them] to his cross, triumphing over the principalities and powers on it.^[2]

Thus Moses is dead; for the law has ceased, because the law and the prophets extend only up to John.^[3] Do you want me to bring forth proofs from the Scriptures that the law is called Moses? Hear what he says in the Gospel: They have Moses and the prophets, let them listen to them.^[4] Here, without any doubt, he calls the law Moses.

Therefore Moses, the servant of God, is dead;^[5] for the law is dead, and the legal precepts are now invalid. HOMILIES ON JOSHUA 1.3.^[6]

JOSHUA AS TYPE OF CHRIST. CHRYSOSTOM: The name of Jesus [Joshua] was a type. For this reason then, and because of the very name, the creation reverenced him. What then! Was no other person called Jesus [Joshua]? But this man was on this account so called as a type; for he used to be called Hoshea. Therefore the name was changed: for it was a prediction and a prophecy. He brought in the people into the promised land, as Jesus into heaven; not the law; since neither did Moses [enter the promised land] but remained outside. The law has not power to bring in, but grace.

What is the special excellence of Joshua? His generalship, and the distribution of the inheritance, and the taking possession of the Holy Land. ON BASIL THE GREAT, ORATION 43.72.^[1]

There are certain diabolical races of powerful adversaries against whom we wage a battle and against whom we struggle in this life. However many of these races we set under our feet, however many we conquer in battle, we shall seize their territories, their provinces and their realms, as Jesus our Lord apportions them to us. For they were once angels; they were glorified in the kingdom of God. Or do we not read that Isaiah says of one of them, How did Lucifer fall, the one who rose in the morning?^[2] That Lucifer, without a doubt, had a throne in the heavens until he became a fugitive angel. If I should conquer him and set him under my feet, if I should deserve that the Lord Jesus crush Satan under my feet,^[3] I shall be ready as a consequence to receive the place of Lucifer in heaven.

Thus we understand the promise to us from our Lord Jesus that every place we set the soles of our feet^[4] will be ours. But let us not imagine that we may be able to enter into this inheritance yawning and drowsy, through ease and negligence. The wrath of his own race possesses the angel [Lucifer]. Unless you vanquish this [wrath] in yourself and cut off all violent impulses of anger and rage, you will not be able to claim as an inheritance the place that angel once had. For you will not expel him from the land of promise by your slothfulness. In like manner, some angels incite pride, jealousy, greed and lust and instigate these evil things. Unless you gain the mastery over their vices in yourself and exterminate them from your land—which now through the grace of baptism has been sanctified—you will not receive the fullness of the promised inheritance. HOMILIES ON JOSHUA 1.6.^[5]

If therefore you have arrived all the way to Christ, who sits at the right hand of God, by your faith, life, purity and virtue, and by those soles of your feet^[6] that Jesus washed, you have approached that place. God will give it to you. Then not only will you be made heirs of God but also co-heirs with Christ.^[7]

Pay attention to what comes next: Without love, a measure of money is sufficient for present needs,^[1] because he himself said, ‘I will not forsake you, I will not desert you.’^[2] You were afraid of I don’t know what evils, for that reason you were saving up money; count me as your guarantor. That’s what God says to you. It isn’t a man, not your equal or you yourself, but God who says to you, I will not forsake you, I will not desert you. If a man made such a promise, you would trust him; God makes it, and you hesitate? He made the promise, put it in writing, made out the bond; you needn’t worry at all. Read what you’ve got in your hand, you’re holding God’s bond; as your debtor you hold the one whom you have asked to cancel your debts. SERMON 177.11.^[3]

GOD’S PRESENCE. CASSIODORUS: The fifth kindness follows, which is bestowed with true certainty on every really staunch Catholic. He means: Even if I were to walk among heretics and schismatics (they are rightly called the shadow of death since they have the form of death as they lead us to hell) I will not fear their foul enticements, for you defend me with the protection of your presence. In the prophet’s words: I will not leave you or forsake you; for in this world the church walks among the wicked, until he who separates the good from the evil shall come on judgment day.

Still, toss all pride far from your side, and be valiant. Look: when Joshua [son] of Nun was valiant, God delivered his enemies into his hands. If you are fainthearted, you become a stranger to the law of God. Faintheartedness fills you with pretexts for laziness, mistrust and negligence, until you are destroyed. INSTRUCTIONS 21.^[1]

Yet I am not maintaining that we ought not to be mindful of God at all times. My adversaries, ever ready and quick to attack, need not pounce on me again. It is more important that we should remember God than that we should breathe: indeed, if one may say so, we should do nothing else besides. I am one of those who approve the precept that commands us to meditate day and night,^[2] to tell of the Lord evening, and morning, and at noon,^[3] and to bless the Lord at all times,^[4] or in the words of Moses, when we lie down, when we rise up, when we walk by the way,^[5] or when we do anything else whatever, and by this mindfulness be molded to purity. So it is not continual remembrance of God I seek to discourage, but continual discussion of theology. I am not opposed either to theology, as if it were a breach of piety, but only to its untimely practice, nor to instruction in theology, except when this goes to excess. Fullness and surfeit even of honey, for all its goodness, produces vomiting;^[6] and to everything there is a season,^[7] as Solomon said I think, and what’s well is not well if the hour be ill. A flower is completely out of season in winter, a man’s clothing is out of place on a woman, a woman’s on a man. Immoderate laughter is unseemly during mourning, as are tears at a drinking party. Are we then to neglect the due season only in the discussion of theology, where observing the proper time is of such supreme importance?

At the death of Moses, Joshua received the rule; and when the law ended, our true Lord Jesus obtained the rule of the whole world. Therefore, Joshua who typified the Lord said to the people when he came to the Jordan: Prepare your provisions until the third day. The third day, dearly beloved, we recognize as the mystery of the Trinity. What food should we prepare so that we may come to the third day? It seems to me that this food should be understood as faith; for Christians it is by faith that they believe in the Trinity and arrive at the sacrament of baptism. Therefore, what Joshua then told his people, the true Joshua or Jesus now tells the Christian people through his ministers. Indeed, what else does this mean: Prepare your provisions until the third day, except to receive the mystery of the Trinity? After this the Jordan was crossed just as if the mystery of baptism were completed, and the people of Israel entered the promised land. It is true, brothers; unless a person crosses through the sacrament of baptism, he will not see the land of true promise, that is, eternal beatitude.

Let us look closely at what sign those two and a half tribes hold who receive the land of inheritance through Moses, and what sign the remainder of the nine and a half tribes hold who receive the promise of the holy land through Jesus [Joshua].

First of all, I think it is impossible for it to have happened accidentally that those who receive a portion through Moses were all firstborn. For Reuben was the firstborn of Leah;^[1] Gad, the firstborn of Zilpah;^[2] and Manasseh, the firstborn of Asenath the Egyptian whom Joseph married, the daughter of Potiphar the priest of Heliopolis.^[3] For myself, I can never be persuaded that it was by chance that the firstborn were the only ones whose inheritance was determined through Moses. Rather, I believe that in these things the design of two groups of people was already foreshadowed at that time: One would seem to be the firstborn according to the order of nature; the other, the people who would receive the blessing of their inheritance through faith and grace. HOMILIES ON JOSHUA 3.1.^[4]

Thus those who are strong men, their loins armed and girded with truth, go forth to our aid and fight with us. But infants and women do not go out to our battle. This is not an astonishing thing, for an infant is said to be one who does not speak. How is a person able to assist me who has spoken nothing, the one of whom I discover nothing that I may read, the one who does not instruct me by a word? But the apostle says that a woman is a weak vessel.^[5] Suitably, therefore, a weak vessel does not come to the conflict lest it be broken in pieces and destroyed. For concerning our Lord Jesus, it is also said in the Gospels that he did not break a bruised reed.^[6]