Letters 29.1–32.2

The business of a letter is to write something about family matters or daily life, and in a way to make absent friends present to one another, while they tell each other what they want or what has happened; although sometimes such a feast of conversation is also seasoned with the salt of learning. But you, busy with treatises, write me nothing that does not torment me and force me to read the Scriptures. So yesterday, having put forward a most notorious question, you asked me to write back at once what I thought; as if I held the chair of the Pharisees, so that whenever there is a dispute about Hebrew words I am called on as arbiter and umpire of the case. No banquet is pleasant that does not smell of cake too, that Apicius does not season, in which nothing of the sauce of the masters of our time gives off its fumes. But since the bearer and go-between of our correspondence is hurrying to return, I dictate a great matter more quickly than I ought; though in discussing the Holy Scriptures words are not so necessary as sense, because, if we seek eloquence, we must read Demosthenes or Tullius; if divine mysteries, we must examine our own books, which do not sound well when translated from Hebrew into Latin.

At the head of your letter you had put the question what is meant by what is written in the first book of Kingdoms: "And the boy Samuel ministered before the Lord, girded with an ephod bad, and he had a little double cloak which his mother made for him and brought to him from year to year, when she came up with her husband to offer the yearly sacrifice." So you ask what the ephod bad is with which the future prophet is girded: whether it is a belt, or, as some think, a censer or some kind of garment; and if it is a garment, how he is girded with it; and why bad is added after ephod. You write that you also read later on, where a man of God comes to Eli and says to him: "Thus says the Lord: I plainly revealed myself to your father's house when they were slaves in the house of Pharaoh in the land of Egypt, and I chose your father's house out of all the tribes of Israel for my priesthood, to go up to my altar, to burn incense, and to wear the ephod." Having followed the whole course of the book, you also took an example from the passage where Doeg the Edomite killed the priests at the king's command: "And Doeg the Syrian," says Scripture, "turned and himself put to death the priests of the Lord, and killed on that day three hundred and five men (or, as it reads in the Hebrew, eighty-five), all wearing the ephod. And Nob, the city of the priests, he struck with the edge of the sword, from man to woman, from infant to nursling, and calf and ass and sheep, with the edge of the sword. And one son of Ahimelech the son of Ahitub was saved, named Abiathar, and he fled after David."

I cannot keep from anticipating the order of the problem with my answer: where we now read "all wearing the ephod", the Hebrew has "all wearing the ephod bad". Why I say this you will learn in what follows. You also added what follows: "And it came to pass, when Abiathar the son of Ahimelech fled to David, that he too went down with David to Keilah, having the ephod in his hand. And it was told Saul that David had come to Keilah." There, when the king's coming and a siege of the city were feared, David said to Abiathar: "Bring the ephod of the Lord." These are the passages you set out from the book of Kingdoms, and then you passed on to the book of Judges, in which Micah of Mount Ephraim is said to have returned to his mother eleven hundred shekels of silver, which she had vowed, and she made from it a graven and a molten image. And you add that shortly afterwards these are called ephod and teraphim, whereas, if it were a belt or a kind of garment, it could not be graven or molten. I recognize the error of almost all the Latins, who think that the ephod and teraphim, which are named later, were cast from the silver that Micah had given his mother; whereas Scripture relates: "And his mother (no doubt Micah's) took the silver and gave it to the founder, and he made it a graven and molten image; and it was in the house of Micah. And the man Micah, and his house was a house of God; and he made an ephod and teraphim, and filled the hand of one of his sons, and he became his priest." But if you think that what were earlier called a graven and molten image are afterwards named ephod and teraphim, learn that they are not the same; for after his mother's idol, which is called graven and molten, Micah made an ephod and teraphim, as is proved from what follows: "And the five men who had gone to spy out the land answered and said to their brothers: See, you know that in these houses there is an ephod and teraphim and a graven and molten image." And, after much that you passed over in between: "And the five men went up," it says, "and burst in there and took the graven and molten image and the ephod and teraphim. And the six hundred men girded with weapons of war entered the house of Micah and took the graven and molten image and the ephod and teraphim." So the opinion of those who, to make the question insoluble, thought the ephod was of silver, is refuted. Note briefly that it is never named except in connection with the priesthood. For Samuel, who is said to have been girded with it, was a Levite, and the priests of Nob wore it as the mark of their dignity; and (what is not in the Latin manuscripts) when David, fleeing from Saul, came to Ahimelech and asked for a sword, saying, "See if there is a spear or a sword at your hand, for I did not bring my sword and my weapons in my hand," the priest answered and said: "See, the sword of Goliath the Philistine, whom you struck in the valley of the terebinth, and it is wrapped in a garment behind the ephod": so the ephod was surely kept stored in the sanctuary. And this very thing we have now mentioned, the graven and molten image, though an idol, yet, because it was mistakenly thought to be religion, an ephod and teraphim are made for its worship as a mark of honor, as for the ministry of God.

What teraphim are I shall pursue if there is time for dictating. Meanwhile, as I began, I must explain the ephod. In Exodus, where Moses is commanded to have the priestly vestments made, after other things we read: "And these are the garments they shall make: a breastplate, a shoulder-garment, a long robe, a fringed tunic, a turban, and a girdle." Where we put "shoulder-garment", the Greek has epomis, which is how the Seventy translated it, because this kind of garment goes over the shoulders. Then it continues: "And they shall take gold and blue and purple and scarlet and fine linen, and they shall make the shoulder-garment of twisted fine linen, a varied woven work." What more need I say? The whole book of Exodus is full of this kind of garment. For at the end of that volume too it is written: "And every wise man made, among the works, the holy garments that are for Aaron the priest, as the Lord commanded Moses. And they made the shoulder-garment of gold and blue and purple and scarlet and twisted fine linen." But since in Exodus this garment is only commanded to be made and afterwards reported made, yet Aaron is not clothed in it, in Leviticus it is explained how he was dressed in the priestly vestments: "And Moses brought Aaron and his sons and washed them with water, and clothed him with the tunic and girded him with the girdle, and clothed him with the under-robe" (which we can render as the undergarment or tunic beneath which he was clothed), "and he put on him," it says, "the shoulder-garment and girded him according to the making of the shoulder-garment and bound it on him." You see that he is girded with this shoulder-garment just as Samuel was girded with that ephod bad, whatever it was. But, not to drag you on further, take this conclusion: wherever in the Seventy, that is, in our manuscripts, epomis, that is "shoulder-garment", is read, in the Hebrew ephod is written. Why they chose to translate it in some places and left it untranslated in others is not for me to judge, since they did the same in many cases: what they had rendered in various ways in different places, at last, wearied by the variety of translation, they set down in the Hebrew itself. Aquila, for what they called the under-robe and the shoulder-garment, gives "garment" and "overgarment"; that is, what in Hebrew is called mail means the lower tunic, and the overgarment, that is, the epomis, which in Hebrew is called ephod, means the upper mantle, by which the whole priestly dress is covered.

You may perhaps ask: if the ephod is a priestly mantle, why is bar added in some places? When I hear bar I cannot keep from laughing. For since among the Hebrews it is called bad, and it is clear that the Seventy translators themselves translated it so, the error has prevailed of writing bar for bad. Bad in the Hebrew language means linen, although linen is more precisely expressed by phestim. Finally, where we read, "And make them linen breeches to cover the shame of the flesh from the loins to the thighs," in the Hebrew bad is put for "linen". The man who is shown to Daniel is also clothed in this way: "And I lifted up my eyes and saw, and behold, a man clothed in baddim," by which plural linen garments are named. And for this reason Samuel and the eighty-five priests are said to have worn a linen ephod: because only the high priest had permission to be clothed with an ephod not of linen, but, as Scripture records, woven of gold, blue, purple, scarlet, and fine linen. The others had an ephod, not indeed marked with that variety and adorned with twelve stones resting on both shoulders, but of linen, simple, and purest in its whole whiteness.

But since I promised above that, if there was time for dictating, I would also discuss teraphim briefly, and no one has come in meanwhile to interrupt, know that teraphim is translated by Aquila as "shapes", which we can call "figures" or "figurings". For in that place, when Saul sent messengers to take David and they answered that he was seriously ill, he sent again saying, "Bring him to me in his bed, that I may kill him," and the messengers came, and behold, cenotaphs in the bed; in the Hebrew, in place of "cenotaphs", teraphim, that is, "shapes", is put; and not a goats' liver, as our manuscripts have, but a pillow sewn of goats' skin, which, with its unshorn hair wrapping a head, might feign a man in the bed. And to explain the truth of both words together: in Hosea God threatens that he will take away all favors from the fornicating people, saying: "For many days the children of Israel will sit without king and without prince and without sacrifice and without altar and without priesthood and without manifestations." For "priesthood" and "manifestations" the Hebrew has "without ephod and without teraphim", as Theodotion and Symmachus also translated. From this we understand that by ephod, according to the Seventy too, who translated the sense rather than the word, the priesthood is signified; and by teraphim, that is, figurings or figures, the varied works that are called teraphim are understood. For in Exodus and other places, where garments woven with embroidery are described, they are said to be made "cherubim work", that is, varied and pictured; yet in such a way that there cherubim lacks the letter vav, because wherever it is written with this letter it signifies living creatures rather than works. According to this sense, then, Micah is shown to have made, along with the priestly vestment, the other things belonging to priestly adornment, by means of teraphim.

How I would like now to explain to you the whole dress of the priest, and to show the divine mysteries in each kind of vestment! But since in this very matter we have exceeded the brevity of a letter, and Josephus and Philo, most learned men of the Jews, and many of our own writers have treated it at great length, you will hear me face to face, as they say, by the living voice. Likewise, what you wish to know about other matters, ask me in person, so that, if perhaps I do not know something, it may die in a faithful ear without witness or judge. As you know, being absorbed in reading Hebrew, I have let rust gather on my Latin, so much so that even when I speak a kind of un-Latin grating sounds. So pardon the dryness; "even if I am unskilled in speech," says the apostle, "yet not in knowledge." He did not lack either, and humbly disclaimed one; we lack both, for we have lost whatever pleased people in us as boys, and we have not attained the knowledge we wanted: like Aesop's dog, while we chase great things, we lose even the lesser.

The day before yesterday, when I was trying to introduce you to the hundred and eighteenth psalm, and was saying that the whole field of morals is contained in it, and that, just as the philosophers used to divide their discussions into physics, ethics, and logic, so the divine oracles too discuss either nature, as in Genesis and Ecclesiastes, or morals, as in Proverbs and scattered through all the books, or logic, in place of which our writers claim theology for themselves, as in the Song of Songs and the Gospels (although the apostle too often sets out premises, takes them up, confirms them, and draws conclusions, which properly belong to the art of dialectic), you asked most eagerly what the Hebrew letters meant that seemed to be inserted in the psalm we were reading.

I answered that it was composed in the order of the alphabet: eight verses begin with the first letter, which among them is called aleph; again as many verses take their beginning from the next, beth; then the same number is completed with gimel; and so the psalm is written all the way to tau, which is the last letter among them; and in each letter what follows ought to be understood according to the letter's meaning. You asked me again and again to tell you the meanings of the individual letters. I told you, I confess; but since, because of the strangeness of the language, everything we said slips from the memory, you want a little commentary made, so that if you happen to stumble on any point, reading may make up for forgetting.

And before I discuss them one by one, you should know that four psalms begin according to the order of the Hebrew letters: the hundred and tenth, the hundred and eleventh, this one about which we are now writing, and the hundred and forty-fourth. But in the first two, a single short line is attached to each letter, consisting of an iambic trimeter; the later ones consist of iambic tetrameter, just as the song of Deuteronomy is written. In the hundred and eighteenth, eight verses follow each letter; in the hundred and forty-fourth, one verse is assigned to each letter. There are some who think that other psalms also begin in this order, but their opinion is false. You also have in the Lamentations of Jeremiah four alphabets, of which the first two are written as if in Sapphic meter, because a heroic comma closes three short lines that are linked together and begin with only one letter; the third alphabet is written in trimeter, and three verses begin with three letters, but the same ones; the fourth alphabet is like the first and second. The Proverbs of Solomon too close with an alphabet, which is reckoned in tetrameter.

Just as in our own writing no one can go on to reading and understanding words without first beginning from the letters, so in the divine Scriptures we cannot know the greater things unless we have a beginning in ethics, according to what the prophet says: "From your commandments I have understood": namely, that after works he began to have knowledge of hidden things. But now I must fulfill what you asked, so that the interpretation attached may show the sense of each letter.

ALEPH is interpreted "teaching", BETH "house", GIMEL "fullness", DELETH "of tablets", HE "this", VAV "and", ZAI "this", HETH "life", TETH "good", IOD "beginning", CAPH "hand", LAMED "of discipline" or "of the heart", MEM "from them", NUN "everlasting", SAMECH "help", AIN "fountain" or "eye", PHE "mouth" (understand os as from "mouth", not "bone", lest you be misled by the ambiguity of the letters), SADE "of righteousness", COPH "calling", RES "of the head", SEN "of teeth", TAU "signs".

After the interpretation of the letters, the order of the meaning must be stated. The first connection is: "Teaching, house, fullness of tablets, this": namely, that the teaching of the church, which is the house of God, is found in the fullness of the divine books.

The second connection is: "And this life." For what other life can there be without knowledge of the Scriptures, through which Christ himself, who is the life of believers, is known?

The third connection has "Good beginning", because, although we now know all that is written, yet we know in part and prophesy in part, and now we see through a mirror in an enigma; but when we have deserved to be with Christ and have become like the angels, then the teaching of books will cease.

The fourth connection is "hand of the heart" or "of discipline". Hands are understood of work, heart and discipline are interpreted of understanding, because we can do nothing unless we first know what must be done.

The fifth connection is "From them eternal help." This needs no explanation; it is clearer than any light that eternal aid is supplied from the Scriptures.

The sixth connection has "The fountain" or "eye of the mouth of righteousness", according to what we explained in the third group.

The seventh connection, which is also the last (so that in the number seven itself there may also be a mystical meaning), is "Calling of the head, signs of the teeth." Through the teeth the articulate voice is produced, and by these signs one comes to the head of all, who is Christ.

I ask you, what is holier than this mystery? What more delightful than this pleasure? What food, what honey is sweeter than to know God's wisdom, to enter his sanctuary, to look into the mind of the Creator, and to teach the words of your Lord, which are mocked by the wise of this world, as full of spiritual wisdom! Let others keep their riches, drink from jewels, shine in silk, delight in the applause of the people, and be unable to exhaust their wealth in various pleasures; let our delights be to meditate on the law of the Lord day and night, to knock at the door that is not open, to receive the loaves of the Trinity, and, with the Lord going before us, to tread the waves of the world.

Greet Blesilla and Eustochium, our little recruits; greet Feliciana, truly happy in her virginity of flesh and spirit; greet the rest of the choir of chastity and your household church, for which I fear everything, even what is safe, lest, while the householder sleeps, the enemy sow tares on top. For although they dare to say, "I am a strong city, a city that is besieged," no one is secure while a hostile army is laying siege. As blessed Cyprian says, no one is safe enough who is near danger. Give a copy of this letter to our Marcella, most studious, if she wishes to receive it; and remember me, praying that the Lord Jesus may crush Satan under our feet swiftly.

Small in appearance but great in love are the gifts I have received from a virgin: bracelets, a letter, and doves. And since honey is not offered in God's sacrifices, their excessive sweetness has been skillfully changed and seasoned, so to speak, with the sharpness of pepper. For with God nothing merely pleasurable, nothing merely sweet is pleasing, nothing that does not also have in it something of the bite of truth. Christ's Passover is eaten with bitter herbs.

It is a feast day, and the birthday of blessed Peter must be celebrated more festively than usual; yet in such a way that playful talk does not escape the hinge of the Scriptures, and we do not wander too far from the bounds of our wrestling school. In Ezekiel Jerusalem is adorned with bracelets; Baruch received letters from Jeremiah; the Holy Spirit is borne down in the form of a dove. So, that some pepper may bite you too, and that you may still remember my former little book, take care not to lay aside the adornments of good works, which are the true bracelets of the arms; not to tear up the letter of your heart, which the profane king cut with a penknife when Baruch delivered it; not to hear, like Ephraim through Hosea: "You have become foolish like a dove." "Too severely," you will answer, "and in a way not suited to a feast day." You yourself provoked it with such gifts; since bitter things were joined to sweet, you will receive the same from me: bitterness will accompany praise.

But, lest I seem to have belittled the gifts, we also received a basket full of cherries, and cherries blushing with such virginal modesty that I thought they had just been brought by Lucullus; for he was the first to bring this kind of fruit to Rome from Cerasus, after the conquest of Pontus and Armenia, and hence the tree took its name from its homeland. So, since in the Scriptures we read of a basket full of figs but do not find cherries, we praise what was brought in terms of the basket it was brought in, and we pray that you may become one of those fruits that are before the temple of God, and of which God says: "The good ones are very good." For the Savior loves nothing that is in between; and just as he does not shun the cold and delights in the hot, so he says in the Apocalypse that he wishes to spew out the lukewarm. Hence we must take care all the more to celebrate the feast day not so much with abundance of food as with exultation of spirit, because it is quite absurd to wish to honor with excessive feasting a martyr whom we know to have pleased God by fasting. You should always eat in such a way that prayer and reading follow the meal. And if this displeases some people, sing the apostle's words: "If I still pleased men, I would not be the handmaid of Christ."

There were two reasons for writing so short a letter: the courier was in a hurry, and I was held back by another work. I did not want to occupy myself with this as a side task. You may ask what this work is, so great and so necessary, that the service of a letter's conversation has been shut out. For some time now I have been comparing Aquila's edition with the scrolls of the Hebrews, in case the synagogue has changed anything out of hatred of Christ; and, to confess to a friendly mind, I find more things that serve to strengthen our faith. Having now carefully revised the Prophets, Solomon, the Psalter, and the books of Kingdoms, I have Exodus in hand, which they call ele smoth, and am about to pass to Leviticus. So you see that no duty should be put before this work. Still, lest our Currentius should have run for nothing, I have attached to this little talk two letters I had sent to your sister Paula and her dear child Eustochium, so that, while you read them and find in them something of learning and charm alike, you may think that what was written was written to you too.

I hope that Albina, our common mother, is well (I speak of the body, not doubting that she is well in spirit), and I beg that she be greeted by you and cherished with a double duty of affection, since in one and the same person both a Christian and a mother is loved.