Annotatio LXXXIV
”The dove returned, bearing a branch of olive.” — Genesis 8:11
”The dove returned, bearing a branch of olive.” — Genesis 8:11
Chrysostom, in homily 26 on Genesis, seems to read and expound in a contrary sense that which our Vulgate edition has — “The dove RETURNED, bearing a branch of olive with green leaves” — saying, “The dove RETURNED, having a dry olive-leaf in its mouth.”1 But it appears that Chrysostom’s translator was deceived,2 no less by a tautology than by the ambiguity of the word, which in this place is found as much in Chrysostom as in the Septuagint interpreters and among the Hebrews. For the Hebrew codices have it thus: וְהִנֵּה עֲלֵה זַיִת טָרָף בְּפִיהָ [ve-hinneh aleh zayit taraf be-fiha], that is, “And behold, an olive-leaf, a branch, in its mouth.” But Aben Ezra [Ibn Ezra] asserts that here there occurs an apposition and a certain tautology; for he says that “olive-leaf” and what is immediately subjoined, Taraf, that is, “branch,” are the same — as, he says, often in the scriptures (as in “dust and ashes”). Therefore the Septuagint, changing nothing, translated καὶ εἶχε φύλλον ἐλαίας κάρφος ἐν τῷ στόματι αὐτῆς, that is, “And it had an olive-leaf, a twig, in its mouth.” Following these, Chrysostom too applied to “olive-leaf” the word κάρφος, which is ambiguous to the Greeks and signifies two things — namely “dry” and “a twig,” or a little branch. His translator, therefore, not considering the repetition of the synonymous word, translated κάρφος — which in this place signifies “a twig” — as “dry,” the sense of Chrysostom plainly protesting against it, who a little after adds words of this kind: “This tree is ever-green, and it is probable that, when the waters had receded, this tree still had a head of leaves.” By which words he shows that he spoke not of a dry olive-leaf, but rather of a green one — although the Hebrew truth indicates that the olive-leaf was neither dry nor green. The Chaldaic [Aramaic] edition translated this passage more correctly than the Septuagint, saying: “And behold, an olive-leaf plucked with its mouth.” For טָרָף taraf signifies to the Hebrews both “a twig” and “seized” or “plucked.”