Works & Councils of Toledo 74

The Emperor Justinian Augustus to Areobindus, the most glorious praetorian prefect. It was indeed fitting that the Hebrews, when they lend their ears to the sacred books, should not lightly and be delighted only with the deeds recounted, but should look upon the hidden senses within them, through which they announce that great God and Savior of the human race, Jesus Christ. But in very truth, although, while they commit themselves to the interpretations devised among themselves, they have to this very day strayed from right understanding; yet because we have learned that they have a controversy among themselves, we have not endured to leave that tumult among them uncomposed.

Indeed, through the petitions which are referred to us, we have learned that some of them are held by the Hebrew tongue alone, and wish that it be used in the reading of the sacred books; while some contend that the Greek also is to be assumed; and for a long time now they have stirred up seditions among themselves about that matter. We therefore, instructed concerning this controversy, have judged those to be better who have wished to assume the Greek tongue also in the reading of the sacred books, and (in a word) every tongue at last which the locality may render more suitable and more familiar to the hearers.

We ordain therefore that in whatsoever places there are Hebrews, those Hebrews who wish shall have license to read the sacred books in their synagogues in the Greek tongue also, and likewise perhaps in this ancestral tongue, namely the Italian, or in any other tongue changed according to the circumstance of the place, by those who understand them: that thereby, through their reading, the whole sequence of what is said may be made manifest in order to those who understand, and that according to these things they may order both their life and their pursuits;

and that there be no power to those interpreters of theirs who assume the Hebrew tongue alone to treat this maliciously at their own discretion, hiding their own wickedness by the ignorance of the common people. Indeed, those who read in the Greek tongue shall use the interpretation of the Seventy, which is more exact than all, and beyond the rest contains many hidden things, especially on account of that which befell in the interpreting—since, when they were always shut up two by two apart, and interpreted in diverse places, they nevertheless all put forth one composition.

To this, who would not marvel at this in these men, that, although they preceded by a long time the saving appearance of the great God and our Savior Jesus Christ, yet, beholding that future event as it were with present eyes, with a kind of prophetic grace shining round about them, they accommodated the interpretation of those books to it? And this indeed all shall especially use. Yet, lest they come into the opinion that we have excluded the other interpretations, we give them license that they may use also the interpretation of Aquila, even though he was of a different nation, and in some expressions has no slight difference from the Seventy.

But that which is called the deuterosis, the secondary tradition by them, we forbid in general, as that which is not comprised in the sacred books, nor handed down from above through the prophets, but contains certain excerpts of men who speak only earthly things, and have in themselves nothing of divine inspiration. But let them by all means read the very sacred utterances themselves, when they unroll the sacred books; and, not concealing those things which have been brought forth to me, let them not assume from without unwritten vanities of words, devised by themselves to the perdition of the simpler folk. Whence, by this license granted by us, neither shall those who assume the Greek and other tongues be subjected to any losses whatsoever, nor likewise be prohibited by anyone.

Nor shall those who are called among them archiphericitae, or for the present the elders, or even teachers, have license to prohibit this by certain crafty contrivances and anathematizings, unless they wish to be chastised with corporeal penalties, and moreover to be despoiled of their goods, and even unwillingly to consent to us, who will and command both the more excellent things and those more acceptable to God. Certainly if anyone shall have attempted to introduce impious and sacrilegious vanities of words, and to deny either the resurrection of the dead, or the last judgment, or to affirm that the angels are a figment and a creature of God subsisting through angels, these we will to be expelled from all places; nor let them utter so blasphemous a word, who have utterly fallen away even from the very knowledge of God.

For those who shall have attempted to declare anything of this kind we subject to the sharpest of all punishments, purging the Hebrew nation of the error introduced through these men. And it is in our prayers that, lending their ears to the sacred books through both this and that tongue, they may also observe the perversity of the interpreters, and not attend to the letters alone, but taste the very things themselves, and perceive the more sacred senses entirely, that thereby they may both learn what is more excellent, and at length cease to be deceived and to stray from that which is most excellent of all, namely confidence in God.

For on this account we have opened every tongue to them for the reading of the sacred books, so that, if all embrace in order the knowledge of them, they may be rendered more apt for learning the better things; since it is confessed that he is far readier for discerning and grasping the better things who has been nourished by the reading of the sacred books, and stands not far from correction and from being led to good fruit, than he who understands none of these things, but depends on the mere name of religion, and clings to it as to a sacred anchor, and thinks the knowledge of God to consist in the mere appellation of his sect. The things therefore which have pleased us, and are declared through this sacred law, both your glory and the cohort obedient to you shall observe.

And he too who shall for the time be placed at the summit of your magistracy shall observe it, and shall not allow the Hebrews to act against these things. But those also who resist, and altogether attempt to prohibit them, he shall first subject to corporeal penalties, and, their goods also being taken away, compel them to inhabit exile, lest they ever, more insolently and with rash daring, lift themselves up against God alike and the imperial majesty. And he shall use mandates also to the governors of the provinces, adjoining to them our law, so that they too, being instructed about this, may set it forth through the several cities: it being known that these things must necessarily be observed by those who fear our indignation. Given on the Ides of February, at Constantinople, in the consulship of our lord Justinian Augustus, Basil the most distinguished gentleman being consul.