Jerome

English

In the beginning God made heaven and earth. Very many suppose — as is written also in the Altercation of Jason and Papiscus, and as Tertullian argues in his book against Praxeas, and as Hilary too asserts in his exposition of a certain Psalm — that the Hebrew has: 'In the Son God made heaven and earth.' That this is false, the truth of the thing itself proves. For both the Seventy Translators and Symmachus and Theodotion rendered 'in the beginning'; and in the Hebrew it is written BRESITH, which Aquila translates 'in the head', and not BABEN, which is rendered 'in the son'. It can therefore be taken of Christ rather according to the sense than according to the translation of the word: he who, both at the very forehead of Genesis, which is the head of all the books, and also at the beginning of John the Evangelist, is shown to be the founder of heaven and earth. Whence also in the Psalter he says of himself: 'In the head of the book it is written of me' (Ps 40:8 [Vg 39:9]) — that is, in the beginning of Genesis. And in the Gospel: 'All things were made through him, and without him was made nothing' (John 1:3). But this too is to be known, that among the Hebrews this book is called BRESITH: they have the custom of giving volumes their names from their opening words.

Fresh draft (Claude), approved by Wilson Pruitt · cc-by

Latin

PL 23, col. 937C · pd

Notes

The pivot of the Latin side of this crux, and it goes against the Latin side. Jerome names three authorities who had said the Hebrew reads 'in the Son' — the lost Altercation of Jason and Papiscus, Tertullian, Hilary — and refutes them from the languages: the three Greek versions all have 'in the beginning', the Hebrew word is bresith, which Aquila renders ἐν κεφαλαίῳ, 'in the head', and the Hebrew for 'in the son' would be ba-ben, which is not what is written. Then the concession that is quoted for the next seven hundred years while the refutation is not: it may still be taken of Christ 'according to the sense rather than the translation of the word', because Genesis and John begin alike. Aquila's in capitulo is rendered 'in the head' here to keep Jerome's pun working — capitulum is what lets him bind bresith to caput librorum and to Ps 40:8's in capite libri. Wigbod reproduces this passage almost entire and drops the refutation.

Threads

• → cites · The Seventy
  Jerome names the Seventy as his first witness against the reading 'in the Son': 'Nam et Septuaginta Interpretes, et Symmachus, et Theodotion, in principio, transtulerunt.' The Greek is what decides the Latin.
• ← cites · Wigbod
  Verbatim Jerome, minus the argument: the three Greek versions, Bresith, Aquila's in capitulo, the forehead of Genesis, Ps 40:8, John 1:3 and the Hebrew custom of naming books are all kept, while the authorities who read 'in the Son' and Jerome's refutation of them — including the decisive point that the Hebrew for 'in the son' would be ba-ben — are dropped. The concession survives; the correction does not.
• ← echoes · Angelomus of Luxeuil
  Jerome's closing remark, that the Hebrews name volumes from their opening words, becomes the first question of Angelomus' commentary and acquires a conclusion Jerome did not draw: that Bresith is therefore rightly rendered Genesis.
• ← contests · Alcuin
  The reading Jerome had declared false, printed as the answer to the question and in four words: 'In Filio perfecit Deus coelum et terram.' No Hebrew, no versions, no 'according to the sense rather than the word'.
• ← echoes · Rupert of Deutz
  Rupert concedes Jerome's philology in Jerome's own terms and with the Hebrew words in his mouth — 'son is ben in that language, and beginning is bresith' — and then holds the Christological reading anyway, on the ground that the identity is of sense and not of speech. He reaches Jerome's conclusion about the word and refuses Jerome's conclusion about the sense.
• ← echoes · Honorius Augustodunensis
  Jerome had read Genesis and John together as evidence for one another; Honorius notices what that costs — in Genesis the beginning is the Son, in John the beginning is the Father — and resolves it by the unity of substance rather than by choosing.
• → contests · Origen
  Phase 6. Jerome refutes the reading this homily states, and names his opponents: the Altercation of Jason and Papiscus, Tertullian against Praxeas, Hilary on a Psalm. Origen is not among them — and could not have been, since Rufinus's Latin is a decade later than the Quaestiones. But notice what Jerome actually refutes and what he concedes. He refutes the claim that the HEBREW has 'in the Son', with the philology: the Seventy, Symmachus and Theodotion all render 'in the beginning', the Hebrew is BRESITH and not BABEN. Origen never made that claim; his is an exegetical claim about what in principio means. And Jerome's own last sentence grants it — 'it can therefore be taken of Christ rather according to the sense than according to the translation of the word'. The distinction the Latin bench will need for nine hundred years is Jerome's, made in the act of refusing the reading he then allows.
• ← contests · Chalcidius
  The two Latins of the fourth century who had access to what the other bench was saying, and the opposite outcomes. Chalcidius quotes Prov 8:22, concludes that divine Wisdom is the primordium of the universe, adds that Wisdom was made by God but not in time — and stops there, without naming Christ. Jerome, at Bethlehem forty years later, states the Christological reading, refutes it on the Hebrew (the three Greek versions all say 'in the beginning'; the Hebrew for 'in the son' would be ba-ben), and then concedes it 'according to the sense rather than the translation of the word'. It is Jerome's concession and not Chalcidius's restraint that the Latin bench inherits.
• ← parallel · Chalcidius
  Both Latins reach for the Greek versions against the Septuagint, and only one of them is remembered for it. Jerome's Hebrew Questions argue from the fact that Aquila, Symmachus and Theodotion all render bereshit 'in the beginning'. Chalcidius, fifty years earlier, prints Aquila and Symmachus in Latin with their variants intact — Aquila's caput rerum condidit Deus coelum et terram, Symmachus's ab exordio condidit Deus — so that the Latin reader can see the disagreement Jerome will later summarise away. Aquila's caput is reshit read as head, which is the reading the rabbinic bench builds on and which no Latin on this daf reaches.
• ← parallel · Philo of Alexandria
  The near miss that makes this crux what it is. Jerome: in the Son God made heaven and earth, and the Hebrew has bresith. Philo: the world of the ideas has no place but the divine Reason. Both read the beginning of Gen 1:1 as something rather than some time, and the something is in both cases the Logos. But Philo's Logos is not a person, is not begotten, and is not distinguished from God as a Son from a Father: it is the place where the ideas are, which is to say the mind of the maker planning. The Latin bench inherits the reading and not the metaphysics, and inherits it from a channel it cannot name.