Letters 36.1–38.5

As soon as I received your holiness's letter, I sent at once for a secretary and told him to take it down; and while he was getting ready for the task, I was first sketching in my mind what I was going to say aloud. Meanwhile I was already moving my tongue and he his fingers, when suddenly a Hebrew arrived bringing quite a few volumes which he had received from the synagogue as if to read. "And here," he says at once, "you have what you asked for"; and he so alarmed me, hesitating and not knowing what to do, with his haste, that I dropped everything and flew to copying, which I am still doing now. But since yesterday, when you sent the deacon to me, you said you were expecting a letter, as you think, but, as I see it, a commentary, wanting a short answer to questions each of which needs large volumes, I have improvised this for you, leaving aside some little questions; not that I could not answer them too, but because they have been treated in Latin by most eloquent men, namely our Tertullian and Novatian, and, if we wanted to bring something new, it would have to be discussed at greater length. I await, certainly, what you please: whether you want the views set out for you in the brevity of a letter or books composed on each point. For Origen too, in the fourth volume of his exegetical works on Paul's letter to the Romans, discussed circumcision magnificently, and in Leviticus said much about clean and unclean animals, so that, if I could find nothing myself, I might still borrow from his springs. And, to speak more truly, I have in hand Didymus's book On the Holy Spirit, which, when translated, I wish to dedicate to you, lest you think that I am only asleep, you who consider reading without a pen to be sleep. So, having set first the problems you put at the foot of your letter, I have added what I think, asking pardon both for haste and for delay: for haste, because I wanted to dictate in one night's work what needs days; for slowness, because, held back by another work, I did not reply at once to your questions.

What is meant by what is written in Genesis: "Whoever kills Cain will pay sevenfold vengeance"? Before we discuss the question, it seems right to set out the editions of the individual translators together with the Hebrew itself, so that the sense of Scripture may be more easily understood: uaiomer lo adonai lochen chol orec cain sobathaim ioccamo. Aquila: "And the Lord said to him: Therefore whoever kills Cain will be avenged sevenfold." Symmachus: "And the Lord said to him: Not so, but whoever kills Cain will be avenged seventh, or in the seventh." The Seventy and Theodotion: "And the Lord said to him: Not so, but whoever kills Cain will pay seven vengeances." After Cain had killed his brother, when asked by the Lord, "Where is Abel your brother?", he answered insolently, "I do not know; am I my brother's keeper?" Condemned for this by a curse to live groaning and trembling on the earth, he would not pray for pardon, but, doubling sins on sins, he thought his crime so great that it could not be forgiven by the Lord. Finally he answered the Lord: "My case is greater than that I should be forgiven" (that is, "I have sinned more than to deserve to be absolved"). "See, you are driving me today from the face of the earth, and I shall be hidden from your face, and I shall be groaning and trembling on the earth; and it will be that whoever finds me will kill me." "I am cast out," he says, "from your sight, and, unable to bear the light itself because of my consciousness of crime, I shall hide myself to lie concealed; and whoever finds me will kill me," understanding from the trembling of my body and the agitation of my frenzied mind that I am one who deserves to be killed. But God, not willing to end his torments by the shortcut of death, nor handing him over to the punishment to which he had condemned himself, says: "Not so"; that is, "You will not die, as you think, and receive death as a remedy; but you will live until the seventh generation and be tormented by the fire of your conscience, so that whoever kills you will, according to a double understanding, free you either in the seventh generation or from the seventh torment"; not that he who strikes Cain is to be subjected to seven punishments, but that the slayer who kills one left alive for punishment pays off the seven vengeances that had run their course in Cain over so long a time.

To make what we are saying clearer, let us give an example from daily life. Let a slave say to his master amid the lashes: "Since I have burned your house and squandered all your property, kill me"; and let the master answer: "You will not die as you wish and end your punishment by death; but you will be kept alive for a long time and live so unhappily in this world that whoever kills you will do a kindness to the one killed, freeing you from so many torments." This seems to us the sense according to the Septuagint edition.

As for Aquila's "sevenfold" and Symmachus's "will be avenged seventh" or "in the seventh", our forefathers hold this view: they think that Cain was killed in the seventh generation by Lamech. For Adam begot Cain, Cain begot Enoch, Enoch begot Gaidad, Gaidad begot Maleleel, Maleleel begot Methuselah, Methuselah begot Lamech, who, seventh from Adam, killed Cain unintentionally, as is written in a certain Hebrew book. And he himself afterwards confesses: "For I have killed a man to my wounding and a young man to my bruising; for sevenfold vengeance will be taken for Cain, but for Lamech seventy times seven." And indeed about Cain, that he was killed in the seventh generation and, according to another explanation, paid the penalty for his crime, I think nothing obscure remains.

Now something you did not ask has crept in while we were doing something else: what are the seventy-seven vengeances to be paid for Lamech? They say there are seventy-seven generations from Adam to Christ. Reread the evangelist Luke and you will find that it is as we say. So, just as in the seventh generation Cain's sin was dissolved (for the Lord will not punish twice for the same thing, and he who has once received his evil things in his life will not suffer in death the same torments he suffered in life), so too the sin of Lamech, that is, of the whole world and of the blood that has been shed, will be loosed by the coming of Christ, who takes away the sins of the world, who washed his robe in the blood of the grape and trod the winepress alone, who, ascending from Edom to heaven red with blood, amazed the angels who cried out: "Lift up your gates, you princes, and the King of glory shall come in," and so on. A certain Hebrew told me that in the books of the apocrypha seventy-seven souls are found of Lamech's offspring who were destroyed by the flood, and that vengeance was taken on Lamech in this number, since his family lasted until the deluge.

Others have various conjectures about the seven vengeances on Cain. They assert that his first sin was that he did not divide rightly; the second, that he envied his brother; the third, that he acted deceitfully, saying, "Let us go over into the field"; the fourth, that he killed; the fifth, that he insolently denied, "I do not know; am I my brother's keeper?"; the sixth, that he condemned himself, "My guilt is greater than that I should be forgiven"; the seventh, that even when condemned he did not repent, like the Ninevites and Hezekiah king of Judah, who put off impending death by their tears. And they say that he was put off by the most merciful God until the seventh generation so that, driven at least by his very sufferings and the grief of a long life, he might repent and deserve to be absolved.

Some interpret the number seven as full and perfect, collecting testimonies from many places in Scripture, and hold the sense we touched on above: that whoever kills Cain frees him from an enormous punishment surpassing all torments.

There are also those who recall Peter's question from the gospel: "Lord, how often shall my brother sin against me and I forgive him? Up to seven times?" Jesus says to him: "I do not say to you up to seven times, but up to seventy times seven." And they think that death and sin kept Sabbath in the seventh generation, when Enoch was caught up and was not found, because God took him. As for the seventy-seven, they follow the explanation that at the coming of Christ the sting of death and sin was broken.

I will set down one more opinion, lest I seem to have passed over anything. Some interpret in many ways the seventh year of release, the fiftieth of jubilee, and the four hundred and ninetieth, which they take to be meant by seventy times seven, asserting that for this reason the debtor of fifty and five hundred is placed so solemnly in the gospel, and the fiftieth psalm of repentance, which is made up of seven weeks and breaks out into the beginning of an eighth. But, not to let the discussion go on longer, let it be enough to have spoken thus far on this, since from what we have scattered you can yourself construct a great forest of discussion, knowing that Origen dictated the twelfth and thirteenth books on Genesis on this question alone.

"Why does God say to Abraham that the children of Israel would return from the land of Egypt in the fourth generation, and afterwards Moses writes: 'But in the fifth generation the children of Israel went up from the land of Egypt'? Unless this is explained, it certainly seems contradictory." When I had read this problem, I began to seethe silently within myself, and at once, running through Genesis and Exodus, I found the places where the words that seem to raise the question are written. And at first, comparing spiritual things with spiritual, I thought it insoluble, as many other things are. For Methuselah too is written to have lived fourteen years after the flood, and yet he did not enter the ark with Noah; and, whereas God himself said to Abraham, "Know for certain that your seed will be a sojourner in a land not its own, and they will reduce them to slavery and afflict them and humble them four hundred years," afterwards Moses writes in Exodus: "And it came to pass after four hundred and thirty years, all the host of the Lord went out of the land of Egypt." Hagar too carries Ishmael on her shoulders as if a tender nursling, although he is found to be about eighteen years old or more, and it is ridiculous that so big a young man should have sat on his mother's shoulders; and Rehoboam, son of Solomon, began to reign in the forty-first year of his age and reigned sixteen years in Jerusalem, although his father, beginning to reign in his twelfth year, reigned forty years and could not have begotten a son at eleven.

While I was anxiously turning over these and many things of this kind, he who has the key of David opened the door for me, brought me into his chamber, and set me in a cleft of the rock, so that after the raging wind, after the earthquake in my land, after the fire of ignorance with which I was burning, the voice of a gentler breeze might come to me and I might say: "I have found him whom my soul sought; I will hold him and will not let him go." For although Scripture seems contradictory, both statements are true, since they refer to different things. The children of Israel went out of the land of Egypt in the fourth generation: go over the genealogy of Levi. Levi begot Kohath, Kohath begot Amram, Amram begot Aaron, Aaron begot Eleazar, Eleazar begot Phinehas. Kohath entered Egypt with his father Levi; again, Eleazar went out of Egypt with his father Aaron. From Kohath to Eleazar four generations are counted, although some wish to begin from Amram and reach to Phinehas, as we did to Eleazar. But if you want to show the unequal number, how according to Exodus the children of Israel went out of the land of Egypt in the fifth generation, let the line of the tribe of Judah be counted for you: Judah begot Perez, Perez begot Hezron, Hezron begot Ram, Ram begot Amminadab, Amminadab begot Nahshon, Nahshon begot Salmon. Perez entered Egypt with his father Judah; Nahshon is described as prince of the tribe of Judah in the desert, whose son Salmon entered the land of promise. Count from Perez to Nahshon and you will find five generations, although some, as we showed in the tribe of Levi, begin with Hezron and go on to Salmon.

I think the problem is solved. But if this does not satisfy you, I will come to a short answer and say that in the Hebrew there is no discrepancy. For Aquila, who translates word for word not out of contentiousness, as some think, but out of diligence, in the place where the Seventy put, "But in the fifth generation the children of Israel went up from the land of Egypt," translated thus: "And armed the children of Israel went up from the land of Egypt"; although for what we have called "armed", according to the ambiguity of the Greek word, "equipped" or "provided" can also be understood, because of the goods with which they despoiled the Egyptians.

Do you think curiosity is ended? A greater ardor for inquiry arises, and, like Jeremiah, I am dissolved on every side and cannot bear it: why did the Seventy translate "fifth generation" and Aquila "armed"? I unroll the Hebrew scroll, which according to some Paul calls the phelones, and, attending carefully to the characters themselves, I find written: uamusim alu bne israhel mearez mezraim. In the rest the translations agree; the whole battle is over the word amesim, which is written with these letters: heth, mem, sin, iod, mem, whether it means "five" or "armed". And indeed we cannot deny that "five" is expressed by this word, but "five" in the plural, not "fifth" in the singular, as they translated. Nor is "generation" found added, which in the Hebrew language is called dor, so that, if it were "fifth generation", it would read in their language amesa dor. As it is, only amissim, that is, "five", is written, and the sense becomes, as it were: "But five went up, the children of Israel, from the land of Egypt"; and because this seemed less intelligible, "generation" was added. But all Judea cries out, and all the benches of the synagogues agree, that Aquila translated properly both elsewhere and especially in this place; since, that is, the same word written with the same letters has among them different sounds and meanings. Of these we give one example for the sake of illustration, to make what we say clear: "shepherds" and "lovers" are written with the same letters, res, ain, iod, mem; but "shepherds" is read roim, "lovers" reim. Hence it happens that where Jerusalem in the prophets is rebuked for fornication with her lovers, in our manuscripts the name "shepherds" has been substituted for "lovers".

I know these things are tiresome to the reader; but one discussing Hebrew letters should not hunt for the arguments of Aristotle, nor draw a stream from the river of Tullian eloquence, nor soothe the ears with the little flowers of Quintilian and school declamation. What is needed is plain speech, like everyday talk and smelling of no midnight lamp, which explains the matter, sets out the sense, and makes obscure things clear, not one that sprouts leaves in its arrangement of words. Let others be eloquent, let them be praised as they wish, and with puffed-out cheeks let them weigh their foaming words; it is enough for me to speak so as to be understood, and, discussing the Scriptures, to imitate the simplicity of the Scriptures.

"Why did Isaac, a righteous man and dear to God, bless not the one he wished but the one he did not wish, deceived by error?" I defer the types for a while and pass over what our forefathers have interpreted in this place, not because I do not agree with their view, but because you ask only this: why a righteous man was ignorant of something and acted against his own will. To which the strict answer is that no human being, except him who deigned to take flesh for our salvation, has had full knowledge and most certain truth. Finally, Paul knows in part and prophesies in part and now sees through a mirror in an enigma, and says that we do not know what to pray for as we ought, because, when what is perfect comes, what is in part will be done away. The prophet Samuel, numbered with Moses in the Psalter, sent to anoint the king, when he saw Eliab, the eldest of Jesse's sons, said: "See, his anointed is before the Lord." "And the Lord said to Samuel: Do not look at his face or his stature, for I have rejected him; for God does not see as man sees; man sees the face, God sees the heart." And he is described as not knowing through each son in turn, down to David. Elisha too, who was glorified with a double spirit, whose bones gave life back to a lifeless corpse, when the Shunammite woman came to him on the mountain and fell weeping at his feet, and Gehazi tried to stop her, said: "Let her alone, for her soul is in bitterness, and the Lord has hidden it from me and has not told me." There are too many examples for us to need to show that holy men dear to God knew only what was revealed to them by the Lord and were ignorant of what had not been revealed, and that at each vision Zechariah and Daniel asked the angel and humbly begged him to explain what it was they saw. So it is not surprising that Isaac too did not know what he was doing, very much to his own advantage, since he was in greater error at the time when he wished to exalt a son given to bloody pleasure, one who could later kill his brother, passing over the one who dwelt innocently at home, and to do his own will rather than God's. So I think it was of divine providence that he was blinded in his eyes, and that, though he said, "The voice is the voice of Jacob, but the hands are the hands of Esau," he still did not understand that it was the younger son who stood there, having snatched his brother's blessing.

But since we promised also to add what this signified in figure, we will set down the words of the martyr Hippolytus, from whom our Victorinus too does not differ much; not that he has treated everything fully, but that he can give the reader occasion for a broader understanding: "Isaac bears the image of God the Father, Rebecca of the Holy Spirit, Esau of the former people and of the devil, Jacob of the church or of Christ. That Isaac grew old shows the end of the world; that his eyes grew dim signifies that faith has perished from the world and that the light of religion has been neglected before him. That the son is called the elder is the Jews' reception of the law; that the father loves his food and game signifies people saved from error, whom every righteous man hunts by teaching. The word of God is the promise of blessing and the hope of the future kingdom, in which the saints will reign with Christ and celebrate the true Sabbath. Rebecca, full of the Holy Spirit and knowing what she had heard before she gave birth, that the elder would serve the younger (rather, as a figure of the Holy Spirit, she contemplates beforehand in Jacob what she knew would come to be in Christ), says to the younger son: 'Go to the flock and bring me from there two kids,' prefiguring the Savior's coming in the flesh, in which he would free above all those held liable for sins, since in all the Scriptures kids are taken for sinners. That he is told to bring two signifies the taking up of two peoples; that they are tender and good, souls teachable and innocent. Esau's robe is the faith and Scriptures of the Hebrews, with which the people of the Gentiles has been clothed; the skins put around his arms are the sins of both peoples, which Christ, in the stretching out of his hands, nailed together with himself to the cross. That Isaac asks Jacob why he has come so quickly means that he marvels at the swift faith of believers; that delightful food is offered means that the sacrifice pleasing to God is the salvation of sinners. After eating follows the blessing, and he enjoys his fragrance, foretelling openly the power of the resurrection and of the kingdom, how his brothers too will worship him and believers from Israel will serve him. Since, then, iniquity is the enemy of righteousness, Esau is stirred to discord and craftily plans murder, saying in his heart: 'Let the days of my father's mourning draw near, and I will kill my brother Jacob.' The devil, foreshadowing the fratricidal Jews already in Cain, confesses it most plainly in Esau, even showing the time of the killing: 'Let the days of mourning draw near,' he says, 'that I may kill my brother.' Therefore Rebecca, that is, patience, told her husband of his brother's plots, and he called Jacob and commanded him to go to Mesopotamia and take from there a wife of the family of Laban the Syrian, his mother's brother. So, just as Jacob, fleeing his brother's plots, goes to Mesopotamia, so Christ too, driven by the unbelief of the Jews, sets out into Galilee, to take from there a bride for himself from the Gentiles, the church." Thus far the man mentioned above.

But we say that the Lord came only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel, and did not wish to take the children's bread and give it to the dogs, and that he offered the first blessing to the Jewish people, to whom were entrusted the oracles of God, the promise, the giving of the law, and the making of the covenant; but because they would not believe, the blessing was transferred to Jacob, the younger people. Yet the elder son was not wholly despised, because, when the fullness of the Gentiles has come in, then all Israel will be saved.

Recently, when I had read through the commentaries on the Song of Songs (which the Hebrews call sir asirim) by Reticius, bishop of Autun, who was once sent to Rome by the emperor Constantine, under Bishop Silvester, over the case of the Montenses, I was greatly surprised that an eloquent man, besides the absurdities of his other interpretations, thought that the city of Tharsis was Tarsus, in which the apostle Paul was born, and that the gold of Ophaz signified "rock", because in the gospel Peter was called Cephas. He had, surely, the same word in Ezekiel, where it is written of the four living creatures, "And the appearance of the wheels was like the appearance of tharsis," and in Daniel, of the Lord, "And his body was like tharsis," which Aquila translates "chrysolite" and Symmachus "hyacinth"; and in the Psalms: "With a violent wind you will break the ships of Tharsis." And among the stones engraved with the names of the tribes for the adornment of the priest, the name of this same stone is included, and almost the whole of Scripture is full of this word. As for Ophaz, what shall I say, when the prophet Daniel mentioned above, in the third year of Cyrus king of the Persians, after three weeks of fasting and sorrow, says: "I lifted up my eyes and saw, and behold, a man clothed in baddim, and his loins girded with gold of Ophaz"? For among the Hebrews there are several kinds of gold; hence Ophaz is put here to distinguish it, so that no one would think it was zaab, which in Genesis is said to be found together with the carbuncle stone.

You may ask: if tharsis is the stone chrysolite or hyacinth, as the various translators wish, to whose likeness God's appearance is described, why is the prophet Jonah said to want to go to Tharsis, and why did Solomon and Jehoshaphat, in the books of Kingdoms, have ships that used to bring goods from Tharsis or trade there? To this the answer is easy: it is a word with several meanings, since a region of India is so called, and the sea itself, because it is blue and, often struck by the sun's rays, takes on the color of the aforesaid stones, received its name from the color; although Josephus thinks that the Greeks, changing the letter tau, called Tarsus what was Tharsis.

There are countless things in his commentaries that seemed worthless to me. The style is indeed polished and flows with Gallic buskin; but what is that to an interpreter, whose profession is not to show how eloquent he is himself, but to make the reader understand as the writer understood? I ask, did he not have the ten volumes of Origen, or the other translators, or at least some Hebrew acquaintances, to ask or to read what the things he did not know meant? But to have thought so badly of posterity, as if no one could judge his errors!

So you ask me in vain for this man's commentaries, since in them much more displeases me than pleases me. And if you object, "Why then have you given them to others?", you will hear that not everyone eats the same food. Jesus in the desert feeds more people with barley loaves and fewer with wheat; the Corinthians, among whom sexual immorality was heard of, and such immorality as is not found even among the Gentiles, are fed with milk, because they could not yet take solid food; but the Ephesians, among whom no crime is rebuked, feed on the heavenly bread, the Lord himself, and recognize the mystery that had been hidden from the ages. Nor should you be led by the authority or age of those who have received copies from me, since Daniel judges old men and Amos, a herdsman of goats, inveighs against the chief priests.

Abraham is tested in his son and is found more faithful; Joseph is sold into Egypt so that he may feed his father and brothers; Hezekiah is terrified by approaching death, so that, bursting into tears, his life is prolonged by fifteen years; the apostle Peter is shaken by the Lord's Passion, so that, weeping bitterly, he may hear, "Feed my sheep"; Paul, a ravening wolf and Benjamin the youngest, is blinded in ecstasy so that he may see, and, surrounded by a sudden horror of darkness, calls on the Lord whom he had long persecuted as a man.

So now too, my Marcella, we have seen our Blesilla burning continually with fever for almost thirty days, so that she might learn to reject the delights of a body that will shortly be plowed up by worms. The Lord Jesus came to her too, and touched her hand, and behold, she rises and serves him. She smelled somewhat of negligence, and, bound in the grave-clothes of riches, she lay in the tomb of the world; but Jesus groaned and was troubled in spirit and cried out, saying, "Blesilla, come out." Called, she rose, and, coming out, she eats with the Lord. Let the Jews threaten and swell with anger, let them seek to kill the one who was raised, let only the apostles glory: she knows that she owes her life to him in whom she has believed; she knows that she embraces the feet of him whose judgment a little before she dreaded. Her body lay almost lifeless, and approaching death shook her gasping limbs. Where then was the help of her relatives, where the words emptier than any smoke? She owes you nothing, ungrateful kindred, she who has died to the world and come to life for Christ. Let him who is a Christian rejoice; he who is angry shows that he is not a Christian.

A widow who has been loosed from the bond of marriage needs nothing but to persevere. "But her rather dark dress scandalizes someone." Then let John scandalize him, than whom none greater has arisen among those born of women, who was called an angel and baptized the Lord himself, who was clothed in a covering of camel's hair and girded with a leather belt. "Her cheaper food displeases." Nothing is cheaper than locusts. Let those women rather scandalize Christian eyes who paint their faces and eyes with rouge and cosmetics, whose chalky faces, disfigured by excessive whiteness, look like idols, down which, if a careless tear happens to burst out, it runs in a furrow; whom even the number of their years cannot teach that they are old; who build up their heads with others' hair and polish their past youth into their old women's wrinkles; who, finally, in front of a crowd of grandchildren, make themselves up as trembling little girls. Let a Christian woman blush if she forces nature's beauty, if she makes provision for the flesh to its lusts; for those who are in the flesh, according to the apostle, cannot please Christ.

Our widow used to be adorned with necklaces and spent the whole day asking her mirror what she lacked; now she says confidently: "But we all, with unveiled face beholding the glory of the Lord, are transformed into the same image from glory to glory, as by the Spirit of the Lord." Then little maids arranged her hair, and her innocent head was squeezed in curling headbands; now her neglected head knows it is enough for it to be veiled. At that time even the softness of feathers seemed hard, and she could scarcely lie on piled-up couches; now she rises quickly to pray, and, taking the alleluia from the others with tuneful voice, she is the first to begin praising her Lord. Her knees are bent on the bare ground, and her face, once smeared with white lead, is cleansed by frequent tears. After prayer the psalms resound, and her weary neck, faltering knees, and eyes sinking into sleep can scarcely obtain rest from the excessive ardor of her mind. Her tunic is dark: it gets less dirty when she lies on the ground. Her slipper is cheaper: the price of gilded shoes will be given to the needy. Her girdle is not set with gold and jewels, but woolen and purest in its simplicity, able rather to fasten her clothes than to cut them. If the scorpion envies this resolve and with smooth words persuades her again to eat of the forbidden tree, let an anathema be dashed against him instead of a sandal, and let it be said to him as he dies in his own dust: "Get behind, Satan," which means "adversary"; for the adversary of Christ is Antichrist, to whom the commands of Christ are displeasing.

I ask you, what have we ever done like what the apostles did, that people should rightly be scandalized? They leave their old father with the boat and the net; the tax collector rises from his booth and follows the Savior; a disciple who wishes to return home and first say farewell to his family is forbidden by the Master's voice; burial is not given to a father, and to be unfilial for the Lord's sake is a kind of filial piety. We, because we do not wear silk clothing, are judged monks; because we are not drunk and do not open our mouths in guffaws, we are called abstainers and gloomy. If our tunic is not white, at once comes the cry from the street corner: "He is an impostor and a Greek." Let them mock with even more cunning and carry about men stuffed with fat bellies: our Blesilla will laugh and will not deign to hear the abuse of croaking frogs, since her Lord was called Beelzebub.