Annotatio CLI

”Embrace discipline, lest at any time the Lord be angry,” etc. — Psalm 2:12

Rufinus, priest of Aquileia, reprehends Jerome in the interpretation and exposition of the present little verse;¹ to whom Jerome, responding in the first Apology against the same man, wrote these things to Pammachius: “Rufinus is also said to carp at this: that, interpreting the second Psalm, for that which we read in the Latin, ‘Embrace discipline,’ and in the Hebrew volume is written נשקו בר Nashku bar, I said in my little commentaries, ‘Adore [kiss] the Son’; and again, turning the whole Psalter into the Roman [Latin] sound, as if forgetful of the ancient exposition, I put ‘Adore purely’ — which [two renderings] to be contrary to each other is plain to all. And truly he is to be pardoned, if he be ignorant of the truth of the Hebrew tongue, who sometimes hesitates even in the Latin. נשקו Nasku, that I may render it word for word, [is] κατεφιλήσατε — that is, ‘kiss ye’ [adore ye]; which I, unwilling to translate coarsely, followed rather the sense, so as to say ‘Adore’: for those who adore are wont to kiss the hand and bow the head — which the blessed Job denies that he did to the elements and to idols, saying, ‘If I saw the Sun when it shone, and the Moon walking in brightness, and my heart rejoiced in secret, and I kissed my hand with my mouth² — which is the greatest iniquity, and a denial against the most high God.’ And the Hebrews, according to the property of their language, put ‘kissing’ for ‘veneration’: this I translated as they themselves understand it, whose word is בר Bar. But Bar among them signifies diverse things: for it is said [to mean] ‘son’ — as in that, ‘Bar-Jona,’ ‘son of the dove,’ and ‘Bartholomew,’ ‘son of Ptolemy’; ‘Bartimaeus,’ and ‘Barchisui,’ and ‘Barabbas’; [Bar] also [means] ‘wheat,’ and ‘a sheaf of ears,’ and ‘chosen,’ and ‘pure.’ What, therefore, have I sinned, if I turned an ambiguous word by a diverse interpretation? And I who, in the little commentaries — where there is liberty of discussing — had said ‘Adore the Son,’ in the [body] itself, lest I should seem too violent an interpreter and give place to Jewish calumny, said ‘Adore purely,’ or ‘electly’ — which Aquila also and Symmachus translated. What, therefore, does it harm ecclesiastical faith, if the reader be taught in how many ways a single little verse is explained among the Hebrews?”