And so shall be the plague of the Lord ... - Dionysius: “So, when God sendeth the plague, all the irrational animals of antichrist and his satellites shall perish as the aforesaid men, who used them, perished. For, for the sins of men, God, to their greater confusion, sometimes slays their beasts, sometimes also for their loving correction.” “The imagery is from the Mosaic law of the ban. If a whole city became guilty of idolatry, not the inhabitants only, but the beasts were to be destroyed Deuteronomy 13:15, so that here, in miniature, should be repeated the relation of the irrational to the rational part of the creation, according to which, for the sins of men, ‘the creature is,’ against its will, ‘made subject to vanity.’ Analogous is it also, that on the offence of Achan Joshua 7:24, beside him and his children, his oxen, asses and sheep were (stoned and) burned with him.”

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