Jerome
PL 23, col. 939A
English
'And the Spirit of God was borne over the waters.' For what our copies have as 'was borne,' the Hebrew has MERAHEFET, which we may render 'was brooding' or 'was warming,' in the likeness of a bird quickening her eggs with her heat. From this we understand that it is not said of the spirit of the world, as some suppose, but of the Holy Spirit, who is himself called the giver of life to all things from the beginning. And if giver of life, then consequently creator; and if creator, then God. 'Send forth,' he says, 'your Spirit, and they shall be created' (Ps 104:30).
Fresh draft (Claude), approved by Wilson Pruitt · cc-by
Latin
Et Spiritus Dei ferebatur super aquas. Pro eo quod in nostris codicibus scriptum est, ferebatur, in Hebraeo habet MEREFETH ( ), quod nos appellare possumus, incubabat, sive confovebat, in similitudinem volucris, ova calore animantis. Ex quo intelligimus, non de spiritu mundi dici, ut nonnulli arbitrantur, sed de Spiritu Sancto, qui et ipse vivificator omnium a principio dicitur. Si autem vivificator, consequenter et conditor. Quod si conditor, et Deus. Emitte enim, ait, Spiritum tuum, et creabuntur (Psal. CIII, 30) .
PL 23, col. 939A · pd
Notes
Jerome claims the bird from the Hebrew verb itself, not from the Syrian. His bird broods and warms (incubare, confovere); Ben Zoma's hovers and does not touch. Same verb, opposite physical picture. The star thread's Latin end.
Bird brooding, warming
Threads
- → parallel · Babylonian Talmud
Both derive a bird from merahefet. Jerome: incubabat/confovebat, a bird warming eggs. Ben Zoma: a dove hovering over her young and NOT touching. Same verb, opposite physical claim. No citation either way; Jerome's 'in Hebraeo' points at the word, not at a rabbinic informant. - ← cites · Wigbod
Wigbod prints Jerome's paragraph verbatim under the label HIERONYMUS (PL 96:1116C). - ← echoes · Angelomus of Luxeuil
'alia translatio dicit: Incumbebat seu confovebat, in similitudine volucris, ova calore animantis' is Jerome's wording, unnamed and re-labelled as a translation variant. - ← contests · Peter Abelard
Abelard reports 'Hebraicum habet volitabat' against Jerome's 'in Hebraeo … incubabat'. He does not name Jerome, but the claim about the Hebrew is contradictory and deliberate. - ← cites · Peter Comestor
'Hebraeus habet pro superferebatur incubabat' is Jerome's rendering, attributed to 'the Hebrew'. - ← cites · Glossa ordinaria (school of Laon)
Labelled 'HIERON. in Gen. t. III, col. 939' — the Glossa (as printed by Migne) cites the very column; 'incubabat vel fovebat, more volucris ova calore animantis' is Jerome's sentence lightly recast. - → parallel · Rashi
Jerome's incubabat and Rashi's Old French acoveter ('to cover, brood') give the same vernacular sense to merahefet, 700 years apart, with no possible contact. The only place on this crux where the two benches reach the same word.