書信集（CSEL） 第 1 章 第 11/85 段

'And Samuel the boy ministered before the presence of the Lord, girded with an ephod bad, and he had a little double cloak which his mother had made for him and brought to him from day to day, when she went up with her husband to sacrifice the sacrifice of the days.' And so you ask what the ephod bad is, with which the future prophet is girded — whether it is a girdle, or, as some suppose, a censer, or some kind of garment. And if it is a garment, how is one girded with it? And after the ephod itself, why is bad joined to it? You write also that in what follows you have read where the man of God comes to Eli and says to him: 'Thus says the Lord:'

I plainly revealed myself to the house of your father, when they were in the land of Egypt serving in the house of Pharaoh, and I chose the house of your father out of all the tribes of Israel for myself unto the priesthood, that they should go up to my altar and burn incense and bear the ephod.' You have followed the whole order of the book, and have also taken your example from that passage in which Doeg the Edomite, at the king's command, slew the priests: 'and Doeg the Syrian turned,' says the Scripture, 'and himself put to death the priests of the Lord, and slew on that day three hundred and five men' — or, as it is read in the Hebrew, eighty-five — 'all who bore the ephod. And Nob, the city of the priests, he smote with the edge of the sword, from man even to woman.'

'From the infant even to the suckling, and the ox and the ass and the sheep, with the edge of the sword. And there was saved one son of Ahimelech, the son of Ahitub, and his name was Abiathar, and he fled after David.' I cannot restrain myself from anticipating the order of the problem by my reply, where we now read: 'and all who bore the ephod,' the Hebrew has: 'and all who bore the ephod bad.' Why I have said this thus, you will learn in what follows. That too which follows you have added: 'And it came to pass, when Abiathar the son of Ahimelech fled to David, that he also went down with David to Keilah, having the ephod in his hand. And it was told to Saul that David had come to Keilah.' There, when the king's coming was feared and the siege of the city, David said to Abiathar:

'Bring the ephod of the Lord.' These are the things which, having set forth as excerpts from the Book of Kingdoms, you passed over to the Book of Judges, in which Micah of Mount Ephraim is written to have restored to his mother eleven hundred silver shekels which she had vowed, and that she thence made a graven and a molten image. And you add that a little later these are called ephod and teraphim — although surely, if it be a girdle or a kind of garment, it cannot be graven and molten. I recognize the error of almost all the Latins, who suppose that the ephod and teraphim, which are afterwards named, were cast from this silver which Micah had given his mother, whereas the Scripture reports thus:

'And his mother' — doubtless Micah's — 'took the silver and gave it to the founder, and he made of it a graven and a 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 suppose that those things which above were called graven and molten are afterwards named ephod and teraphim, learn that they are not the same things, since after the 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 survey the land answered and said to their brethren:'

Behold, you know that in these houses there is an ephod and teraphim and a graven and a molten image.' And after many things, which you have omitted in the middle: 'And the five men went up,' it says, 'and rushed in there and took the graven and the molten image, and the ephod and the teraphim. And the six hundred men, who were girded with weapons of war, entered the house of Micah and took the graven and the molten image, and the ephod and the teraphim.' Therefore the opinion of those is refuted who, in order to make the question insoluble, supposed the ephod to be of silver. Note this briefly, that it is never named except in connection with the priesthood; for both Samuel, who is reported to have been girded with it, was a Levite, and so were the priests of Nob.

They bore it as the insignia of their dignity; and — what is not found in the Latin codices — when David, fleeing from Saul, came to Ahimelech and demanded a sword, saying: 'See if there is at your hand a spear or a sword, for I have not taken my sword and my weapons in my hand.' And the priest answering said: 'Behold, the sword of Goliath the foreigner, whom you struck in the valley of the terebinth, and it is wrapped in a garment behind the ephod' — for in the sanctuary the ephod was certainly kept stored. This very thing too, which we have now set down, 'graven and molten,' although it be an idol, yet, because through error it was thought to be a religious object, an insignia is fashioned for its veneration, just as for the ministry of God the ephod and teraphim.

What the teraphim is, if there be space for dictating, we shall pursue. For now, in the meantime, we must explain about the ephod, as we have begun. In Exodus, where Moses is commanded to order the priestly garments to be made, after the rest it is read: 'And these are the vestments which they shall make: a breastplate and a superhumerale and a full-length robe and tunics with rings, and a mitre and a girdle.' But where we have set down 'superhumerale,' in the Greek the Seventy interpreters have rendered epomida, namely because this kind of garment comes over the shoulders. Then it is joined: 'And they shall take gold and hyacinth and purple and scarlet and fine linen, and they shall make the superhumerale of twined byssus, a woven work of varied kind.' And what more? The whole book of Exodus is full of this description of vestments.

For at the end of the same volume it is also written: 'And every wise man among the workers made the garments of the holy things, which are Aaron the priest's, as the Lord commanded Moses. And they made the superhumerale of gold and hyacinth and purple and scarlet and twined byssus.' But since in Exodus this kind of garment is only commanded to be made, and afterwards is reported to have been made, yet Aaron is not clothed with it there, in Leviticus it is explained how he was clad in the priestly garments:

'And Moses brought Aaron and his sons and washed them with water, and clothed him with the tunic and girded him with the belt, and clothed him with the poderes' — which we can interpret as the 'sub-tunic,' or 'the tunic with which he is clad underneath' — 'and put upon him,' it says, 'the superhumerale, and girded him according to the fashioning of the superhumerale, and bound it fast upon him.' You see how this man is girded with the superhumerale, just as Samuel was girded with that ephod bad by I know not what. But, lest I draw you out too long, hold this conclusion: wherever in the Seventy interpreters, that is, in our codices, is read epomis, that is 'superhumerale,' in the Hebrew is written ephod.

Why they chose to translate it in one place and left it untranslated in another is not for my judgment to decide, since they did this very thing in many instances: that things which elsewhere they had expressed now one way and now another, at last, wearied by the variety of translation, they set down the Hebrew words themselves. But Aquila renders that which they called epomis and poderes by ependyma and endyma, that is 'garment' and 'over-garment' — meaning that what in the Hebrew tongue is called meil signifies the 'inner tunic,' while the ependyma, that is the epomis, which in Hebrew is called ephod, signifies the 'upper mantle,' with which the whole priestly ensemble is covered. Perhaps you may ask, if the ephod is a priestly mantle, why in certain places bad is added to it?

Hearing 'bar,' I cannot hold back my laughter. For whereas among the Hebrews it is said 'bad,' and it is manifest that the very Seventy interpreters translated it so, the error prevailed that 'bar' should be written for 'bad.' Now bad in the Hebrew tongue means 'linen,' although linen is more precisely expressed by phestim. Finally, where we read: 'And make for them a linen undergarment, that they may cover the shame of the flesh from the loins even to their thighs,' in the Hebrew 'bad' is put for 'linen.' With this kind of garment that man too was clothed who is shown to Daniel: 'And I lifted up my eyes and saw, and behold one man clothed with baddim,' by which plural number the 'linen garments' are named.

For this reason both Samuel and the eighty-five priests are reported to have worn a linen ephod, since the high priest alone had licence to be clothed with an ephod that was not of linen, but, as the Scripture records, woven of gold, hyacinth, purple, scarlet, and byssus. The rest had an ephod, but one not distinguished by that variety nor adorned with the twelve stones which rested on either shoulder, but a linen one, plain, and of the purest whiteness throughout. But, since I had promised above that, if there were space for dictating, I would also discourse briefly about the teraphim, and no interrupter has meanwhile arrived, know that teraphim is interpreted by Aquila as morphomata, which we may call 'figures' or 'figurations.'

For in that passage too, when Saul sent messengers to seize David, and they answered that he was grievously afflicted, and he sent again saying: 'Bring him to me on the bed, that I may kill him,' and the messengers came, and behold cenotaphia were on the bed — for 'cenotaphia' in the Hebrew teraphim, that is morphomata, is set down; and not 'a goat's liver,' as our codices have, but 'a pillow sewn of goatskin,' which with its unshorn hair might counterfeit the head of a man wrapped up on the little bed. And that I may equally set forth the truth of each tongue, in Hosea God threatens that He will take away all graces from the people that plays the harlot, saying:

'For many days the children of Israel shall 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,' just as Theodotion also and Symmachus translated. From which we understand that in ephod, according to the Seventy also, who interpreted the sense rather than the word, 'priesthood' is signified, while in teraphim, that is 'figurations' or 'figures,' the various works which are called teraphim are understood.

For in Exodus and in other places, where garments woven with feather-work art are described, they are described as made 'the work of cherubim,' that is 'varied and embroidered,' yet in such a way that the cherubim do not have the letter vau; for wherever they are written with this letter, they signify living creatures rather than works. According to this sense, therefore, Micah too is shown to have made, along with the priestly garment, the other things also which pertain to priestly adornment, by means of teraphim. How I should wish now to expound to you the whole attire of the priest, and to show through each kind of vestment the divine mysteries!

But since even in this very thing we have exceeded the brevity of a letter, and Josephus and Philo, most learned men of the Jews, and many of our own, have pursued this most fully, you shall hear me in person, as they say, by living voice. Likewise, whatever else you may wish concerning the rest, inquire in person while I am present, that if perchance I am ignorant of anything, it may die without witness, without judge, in a faithful ear. I, as you know, being held fast by the reading of the Hebrew tongue, have contracted rust in the Latin language to such a degree that even when I speak, a certain non-Latin harshness grates through my speech. Wherefore pardon the dryness: 'Though I be rude in speech,' says the apostle, 'yet not in knowledge.' In him neither was lacking, and one he humbly disclaimed;

but in us both are lacking, since we have both lost whatever plausible skill we had as boys, and have not attained the knowledge we desired — the fable of Aesop's dog — while pursuing great things, we lose even the lesser. XXX. TO PAULA. Two days ago, when I was trying to introduce to you the one hundred and eighteenth psalm, and was saying that every moral topic is comprehended in it, and that, just as the philosophers were wont to divide their disquisitions into physics and ethics and logic, so too the divine oracles

either discourse of nature, as in Genesis and Ecclesiastes, or of morals, as in Proverbs and scattered throughout all the books, or of logic, in place of which our own claim theology for themselves, as in the Song of Songs and the Gospels — although the apostle too often propounds, assumes, confirms, and concludes things which properly belong to the art of dialectic — you most studiously inquired what those Hebrew letters mean which seemed to be inserted into the psalm we were reading.

I answered that it was composed according to the order of the letters, namely so that eight verses began with the first letter, which among them is called aleph, again just as many verses took their beginning from the following beth, and afterwards the same number was completed from gimel, and so on until tau, which among them is the last letter, the psalm was written; and that in each of the several elements, according to their interpretation, one ought to understand the things which followed. Again and again you demanded that I set forth to you the interpretations of the several letters. I did speak them, I confess; but since, because of the barbarism of the tongue, everything we said slips from the memory, you desire that a little commentary be made, so that, if perhaps you should stumble in anything, reading may console forgetfulness.

And before I discuss the several letters, you ought to know that four psalms begin according to the order of the Hebrew elements: the one hundred and tenth and the one hundred and eleventh and this one, of which we now write, and the one hundred and forty-fourth; but in the former ones single little verses, which consist of iambic trimeter, are appended to single letters, while the latter ones consist of iambic tetrameter, just as the Song of Deuteronomy is also written; in the one hundred and eighteenth, eight verses follow upon single letters; in the one hundred and forty-fourth, single verses are assigned to single letters. There are those who suppose that others too begin in this order, but their opinion is false.

You have also in the Lamentations of Jeremiah four alphabets, of which the first two are written as if in Sapphic metre, because a heroic colon concludes three little verses which are joined together and begin from one letter only; but the third alphabet is written in trimeter, and three verses each begin from three letters, but the same ones; the fourth alphabet is like the first and second. The Proverbs of Solomon too play out with a final alphabet, which is reckoned in tetrameter.

Now just as in these our letters no one can proceed to reading and covering words unless he has first begun from the elements, so too in the divine Scriptures we are not able to know those things which are greater, unless we have had the beginning of ethics, according to that which the prophet says: 'From your commandments I have understood' — whereby, that is, after works he began to have knowledge of the secrets. But now that must be fulfilled which you asked, that the interpretation attached should signify the sense of each element. ALEPH is interpreted 'doctrine,' BETH 'house,' GIMEL 'fullness,' DELETH 'of tablets.'

HE 'this,' VAV 'and,' ZAI 'these,' HETH 'life,' TETH 'good,' IOD 'beginning,' CAPH 'hand,' LAMED 'of instruction' or 'of the heart,' MEM 'from themselves,' NUN 'everlasting,' SAMECH 'help,' AIN 'fountain' or 'eye,' PHE 'mouth' — understand it from 'mouth' (os, oris), not from 'bone' (os, ossis), lest you be deceived by the ambiguity of the letters — SADE 'of justice,' COPH 'calling,' RES 'of the head,' SEN 'of teeth,' TAU 'signs.' After the interpretation of the elements, the order of their meaning must be told. The first conjunction is 'doctrine, house, fullness, of tablets, this,' whereby, namely, the doctrine of the Church, which is the house of God, is found in the fullness of the divine books. The second conjunction is 'and these, life.'

For what other life can there be without knowledge of the Scriptures, through which Christ Himself also is known, who is the life of believers? The third conjunction has 'good beginning,' because, although we now know all things that are written, yet we know in part and prophesy in part, and now we see through a glass in a riddle; but when we shall have deserved to be with Christ and shall have become like the angels, then the doctrine of the books shall cease. The fourth conjunction is 'hands of the heart' or 'of instruction.' Hands are understood in work, heart and instruction are interpreted in the sense, because we can do nothing unless we first know the things that are to be done. The fifth conjunction is 'from these, eternal help.'

This needs no explanation and is clearer than any light: that eternal supports are supplied from the Scriptures. The sixth conjunction has 'fountain' or 'eye of the mouth of justice,' according to that which we expounded in the third number. The seventh conjunction is that which is also the last, so that in this very sevenfold number there may be a mystical understanding: 'calling of the head, signs of the teeth.' Through the teeth an articulate voice is uttered, and by these signs one arrives at the head of all, which is Christ. I beseech you, what is more sacred than this mystery? What is more delightful than this pleasure?

What foods, what honeys are sweeter than to know the wisdom of God, to enter into His inner sanctuaries, to gaze upon the mind of the Creator, and to teach the sayings of your Lord, full of spiritual wisdom, which are mocked by the wise of this world! Let others keep their riches for themselves, drink from jewelled cups, gleam in silk, delight in the applause of the crowd, and be unable to exhaust their wealth through various pleasures: let our delight 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 to tread down the waves of the world with the Lord going before. Greet Blesilla and Eustochium, our young recruits; greet Feliciana, truly happy in the virginity of flesh and spirit;

greet the remaining choir of chastity and your household church, for which I fear all things, even those that are safe, lest, while the father of the family is sleeping, the enemy man oversow tares. For although they may dare to say: 'I am a firm city,' the city that is assailed, no one is secure while a hostile army besieges it. No one, as blessed Cyprian says, is safe enough who is near to danger. Give a copy of the letter, if she wishes to receive it, to our Marcella, so dear to us, and remember me, beseeching that the Lord Jesus may crush Satan swiftly under our feet. XXXI. TO EUSTOCHIUM. Small in appearance, but great in love, are the gifts to have received from a virgin: bracelets, letters, and doves.

And since nothing of mine is offered in the sacrifices of God, the excessive sweetness has been changed by art and seasoned with a certain austerity, so to speak, of pepper. For with God nothing voluptuous, nothing merely sweet is pleasing, nothing which does not have in itself something also of biting truth. The Pasch of Christ is eaten with bitter herbs. It is a festal day, and the birthday of blessed Peter is to be celebrated more festively than usual, yet in such a way that jesting speech does not flee the hinge of the Scriptures, nor that we stray farther from the prescribed rule of our wrestling-school. With bracelets is Jerusalem adorned in Ezekiel; Baruch received letters from Jeremiah; in the likeness of a dove the Holy Spirit is brought.

And so, that something of pepper may bite you too, and that you may even now recall the earlier little book, beware lest you let go the ornaments of good works, which are the true bracelets of the arms; lest you tear the letter of your breast, which the profane king cut with a knife when it was delivered by Baruch; lest, after the likeness of Ephraim, you hear through Hosea: 'You have become foolish as a dove.' 'Too austere,' you will reply, 'and unfitting for a festal day.' You yourself provoked with such gifts; since sweet things have been joined with bitter, you shall also receive their like from us: bitterness shall accompany the praise. But — lest I seem to have diminished the gifts — we have received also a little basket filled with cherries, so red with virginal modesty that I thought they had now been brought from Lucullus;

since indeed, after Pontus and Armenia had been subdued, it was Lucullus who first brought this kind of fruit to Rome from Cerasus, whence the tree also received its name from the country. Therefore, since in the Scriptures we read of a basket full of figs, but do not find cherries, in that in which it was brought we praise that which was brought, and we wish you to become of those fruits which are over against the temple of God, and of which God says: 'The good, very good.' For the Saviour loves nothing lukewarm, and, just as, not shunning the cold, He delights in the hot, so in the Apocalypse He says that He wishes to spew out the lukewarm.

Whence we must more carefully provide that we celebrate the solemn day not so much with abundance of food as with exultation of spirit, since it is very absurd to wish to honour with excessive fullness a martyr whom we know to have pleased God by fasting. So you must always eat in such a way that both prayer and reading follow your food. But if this displeases some, sing the words of the apostle: 'If I still pleased men, I should not be the handmaid of Christ.' XXXII. TO MARCELLA. There was a twofold cause for my writing so short a letter: both that the letter-carrier was hastening, and that I was detained by other work. With this I was unwilling to occupy myself as though with a by-work. You will ask what that thing is, so great, so necessary, by which the duty of epistolary conversation has been shut out.

For a long time now I have been comparing the edition of Aquila with the Hebrew volumes, lest perhaps the synagogue, out of hatred for Christ, may have altered something; and, to confess to a friendly mind, I find many things that pertain to the strengthening of our faith. Now, having carefully revised the Prophets, Solomon, the Psalter, and the Books of Kingdoms, I hold Exodus, which they call ele smoth, being about to pass over to Leviticus. You see, therefore, that no duty is to be preferred to this work.

Nevertheless, lest perhaps our Courier should have run in vain, I have appended to this little discourse two letters which I had sent to your sister Paula and her pledge Eustochium, so that, while you read them and find in them something of doctrine together with charm, you may think that those things which were written were written to you also. I desire that Albina, our common mother, be well — I speak of the body, not being ignorant that she is well in spirit — and I beseech that she be greeted through you and cherished with a twofold office of piety, whereby in one and the same person she may be loved at once as Christian and as mother. XXXIII. TO PAULA. Antiquity admires Marcus Terentius Varro, because among the Latins he wrote so innumerable books.

The Greeks extol Chalcenterus with wondrous praises, because he composed as many books as any one of us cannot copy out of others' works with his own hand. And since it is now idle to weave together among the Latins an index of Greek volumes, I shall recall some things about him who wrote in Latin, that we may understand that we are sleeping the sleep of Epimenides and are putting into the amassing of wealth the zeal which they put into the erudition of secular letters.

Varro, then, wrote forty-five books of Antiquities, four On the Life of the Roman People, fifteen of Portraits, seventy-six Logistorici, twenty-five On the Latin Language, nine of Disciplines, five On Latin Speech, five of Plautine Questions, three of Annals, three On the Origin of the Latin Language, three On Poems, three On the Origins of the Stage, three On Dramatic Performances, three On Stage Acts, three On Descriptions, three On the Character of Writers, three On Libraries, three On Readings, three On the Likeness of Words, three of Embassies, three of Suasions, three On Pompey, ten Singular Books, three On Persons, fifteen On Civil Law, an Epitome of the Antiquities in nine books out of the forty-two, an Epitome out of the fifteen books of Portraits in four books, an Epitome On the Latin Language out of fifteen books in nine books, nine books On the Principles of Numbers, three books of Country Matters, one book On Preserving Health, three books On His Own Life, three books On the Form of Philosophy, three books of City Matters, one hundred and fifty books of Menippean Satires, ten books of Poems, twenty-two books of Orations, six books of Pseudo-tragedies, four books of Satires, and very many other things, which it would be long to enumerate.

I have scarcely described the half, and there is weariness for the readers. But on the contrary our own ages have learned men, and they know in what pool fish were born, on what shore each shell grew. About the spittle of thrushes we have no doubt; Paxamus and Apicius are always in hand; the eyes are toward inheritances, the senses toward dishes; and if anyone, of the philosophers, or of the Christians who are truly philosophers, in a worn cloak and dirty tunic gives his leisure to reading, he is hissed off as though a madman. To what end has mention been made of Varro and Chalcenterus, you ask? Namely, that we may come to our own Adamantius and our own Chalcenterus, who laboured with such sweat in commentaries on the holy Scriptures, that he justly received the name of Adamant.

Do you wish to know how great monuments of his genius he left? The following list will show it: he wrote thirteen books On Genesis, two books of Mixed Homilies, Excerpts On Exodus, Excerpts On Leviticus, ten books of Miscellanies, thirty-six books On Isaiah, likewise Excerpts On Isaiah, one book On Ephraim in Hosea, a Commentary On Hosea, two books On Joel, six books On Amos, one book On Jonah, three books On Micah, two books On Nahum, three books On Habakkuk, two books On Zephaniah, one book On Haggai, two books On the Beginning of Zechariah, two books On Malachi, twenty-nine books On Ezekiel, Excerpts on the Psalms from the first even to the fifteenth;