It is not at all in harmony with the analogy of faith.
It is not at all in harmony with the analogy of faith.
§ 194. [III] The Book of Judith by no means agrees with the analogy of faith. In Judith 9:2 approval is given to the deed of Simeon and Levi, who killed the Shechemites with the sword, contrary to the treaty and promise they had made. You see, here Judith prays: “Lord God of my father Simeon, in whose hand You put a sword to take vengeance on the foreigners who had acted as violators to defile her and had bared her thigh to shame her … and You gave up their wives to plunder and their daughters to captivity and all their spoils to be divided among Your servants, who were very zealous for You.” Here the zeal of Simeon and Levi is called divine. The patriarch Jacob, however, clearly disapproves of this deed of his sons: “They took their swords and entered the city confidently (
) and killed all the males” (Gen. 34:25), that is, contrary to the treaty and good faith they had given. So when Jacob hears of this cruelty, he says, “You have brought trouble on me and made me odious to the Canaanites,” etc. (Gen. 34:30). In fact, he also adds that cruelty to his curse later: “Simeon and Levi, weapons of violence (
) are their swords. Let my soul not come into their council, and let my glory not be joined to their company. For in their anger they slew men, and in their purpose they hamstrung an ox! Cursed be their anger, for it is obstinate, and their indignation, for it is cruel! I will divide them in Jacob and scatter them in Israel” (Gen. 49:5[-7]). Therefore Simeon and Levi sinned in many ways: (1) by exercising private revenge, (2) by drawing swords without God’s command, (3) by raging against the whole city because of one man’s sin, (4) by plundering not foes but hosts who had received them with kindness, (5) by acting contrary to the good faith that they gave, (6) by putting their father and family in the immediate danger of being killed.
But you say that in Gen. 35:5 it says, “A terror from God fell upon the cities that were round about them so they did not pursue Jacob; therefore the Shechemites were destroyed by divine judgment.” We respond. God used well that wrongheaded zeal of Simeon and Levi to the glory of His own righteousness. We must distinguish, therefore, between the just judgment of God and the unjust action of men. We must marvel at the former and proclaim it; but the latter, a culpable thing, we must detest. It is to this judgment of God that the patriarch Jacob is also looking when he bequeaths Shechem to Joseph (Gen. 48:22). Thus he took it away from the promise-breakers, for they had armed several of their father’s family. Consequently, Jacob claims that he took that area “from the hand of the Amorites with his hand and sword.” As I said, we must make a distinction between the just suffering of the Shechemites and the unjust act of Simeon and Levi. God restrained their neighbors not because He approved of the deed of Simeon and Levi but because He wanted to provide for Jacob and his family, which was the seat of the Church.
But with this distinction one also cannot overthrow our argument against the canonical authority of this book. You see, Judith does not just look at the judgment of God but also praises the deed itself of Simeon and Levi. Lyra distinguishes between zeal and the manner of zeal. He says that Judith is praising the former but not the latter. Yet neither the zeal nor the manner of zeal deserve praise in the case of Simeon and Levi. Jacob calls it “madness and iniquity.” Thus it was not the good and praiseworthy zeal that begins from the Holy Spirit and is directed to God’s glory; rather, it was that wicked and detestable zeal that springs from a desire for revenge and thus from the flesh.