1 Samuel 14:14

This is called the first plague, because the saints are described as striking the wicked even afterward, at the last judgment. Hence Paul also rouses the Corinthians, saying: "Do you not know that we shall judge angels?" (1 Cor. 6:3). Hence the Psalmist, prophesying, says: "The saints shall exult in glory, they shall rejoice upon their beds, the praises of God in their throats, to execute vengeance upon the nations, rebukes among the peoples" (Ps. 149:5–6). This first plague belongs to conversion, the second to damnation, because now the saints ask us to be converted to the Lord, but then they condemn more harshly those who have not been converted. In this event twenty men are reported killed, so that the mystery of the number five may be commended. For five repeated four times, or four times five, make twenty. And because through the vigor of the five senses every period of sin is accomplished, and in the books of the four Evangelists we find the remedies of our salvation, by the figure of the twenty men all sinners who are to be saved are represented. They are said to have been killed in half the area of a field, which a yoke of oxen was accustomed to plow in a day. The oxen are the preachers of the Church, who plow when they preach, who, when they open the hearts of their hearers with heavenly words, scatter seed as it were in good soil. But the oxen plow by day, because the Lord threatens, saying: "The night is coming, when no one can work" (John 9:4). Likewise two oxen plow, namely Jonathan and his armor-bearer. By these oxen, indeed, either the wise and the simple are to be understood, or priests of lesser and of higher rank. Moreover, in the two oxen all the preachers of the holy Church can generally be understood, because they are filled with the grace of the twofold love, and they do not love themselves with selfish love. Therefore the half of the field is this present life. This part, tempered for cultivation, is softened by the rains of winter; that other part is scorched to barrenness by the heats of summer for the sluggish. The oxen can plow this part of the field, but not that other part, because in this life good works are to be sown, but in that other life works are not to be sown, but rather the reward of works is to be reaped. Rightly, then, twenty men are reported killed in half a field, because sinners can be profitably converted only…