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Vulgate Verse: immaculate

2008-02-24T20:21:00.003-06:00

Now that I have finished doing the Vulgate Verses book, I am commenting on some of these verses here in this blog, focusing on the verses that have a special significance for religious literacy and cultural literacy in general, completely aside from the Latin itself. You can see other posts in this series by clicking on the Vulgate Verses label.

The verse I wanted to comment on today comes from one of the more controversial books of the Bible, called the "Song of Songs" (or "Canticle of Canticles"), and also the "Song of Solomon" (based on its traditional attribution to Solomon, to whom other wisdom books are attributed as well). In Latin, the book is called Canticum Canticorum. This ancient collection of love songs, seemingly ill-suited to the Bible's religious project, has been interpreted allegorically: instead of being about the love of a man and a woman, the songs are considered to be an expression of the soul's love for God (or the love of God and the church, God and his people, and so on). You can read more about the Song of Songs in wikipedia.

The particular verse I want to comment on here is Song of Songs 4:7, which reads:

Tota pulchra es, amica mea, et macula non est in te. (Latin)

"Thou art all fair, my love; there is no spot in thee." (King James)

The word that I want to focus on here is the Latin word macula, translated as "spot" here in the King James version. The Latin word means a spot or a stain, and corresponds quite nicely to the Hebrew word used here, moom. The hymn of praise here to the woman who is unspotted or unblemished eventually leads us to the Virgin Mary. Here's how.

From this word macula we get the English word "immaculate," which means un-spotted, un-stained. In the history of the Catholic Church, this word has taken on extraordinary importance because of the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception. Most people seem to think, incorrectly, that Immaculate Conception means the same thing as the virgin birth, the conception of Jesus without a human father.

The Immaculate Conception, however, is something much more arcane. The Immaculate Conception means that Mary herself was conceived in an unusual way, created without original sin in the womb of her mother, traditionally known as Anna. Although Mary was conceived through sexual intercourse between a woman and a man (Anna's husband is traditionally known as Joachim), she was born suffused with divine grace, which preserved her from the state of original sin so that the body in which Jesus would later be conceived would be a fit vessel, unpolluted and unstained. Mary is thus the woman who is without the stain of original sin, the woman who is divinely without a blemish, without a macula; she is the immaculate product of the immaculate conception. You can read more about the fascinating notion of the Immaculate Conception at wikipedia. It is one of the distinctive doctrines of the Roman Catholic Church, not shared by other Christian churches.

You might also have encountered this Latin word macula through its Italian reflex, macchia, which gives us the word "stained, spotted" - macchiato. Yes, a caffè macchiato is a spotted coffee, stained with a dollop of milk. It is not immaculate - it is maculate coffee, caffè macchiato.

Literacy, Allegory and Exempla

2008-01-31T16:13:00.000-06:00

In a discussion at a GREAT educational ning community (Fireside Learning), the question came up that has a real bearing on what we are talking about when we talk about cultural literacy in general, and Bible literacy in particular.

In Stephen Prothero's book Religious Literacy, just as in E.D. Hirsch's New Dictionary of Cultural Literacy (which is available online), there is a whole panoply of Bible characters and stories that are included in a "list" approach to cultural literacy. If you are curious, here is what made Hirsch's list for the Bible.

The question that came up in the discussion was about what to call these things that appear on such lists. It's actually not easy to say what they are. People assume it's good to know these things because they make it possible to identify allusions. So, if high school students are reading Faulkner's Absalom, Absalom, they need to know that Absalom is the son of King David who rebelled against his father, etc. Faulkner, in the title of his book, is alluding to the story of David and Absalom. But what do we call "Absalom" here, the thing alluded to? It's actually a bit hard to come up with a good word for that in English!

Someone in the discussion at FiresideLearning referred to them as "allegories" but that is definitely a term that will not work, and actually has a very unfortunate connotation when it comes to material from the Hebrew Bible.

In an allegory, something, call it "The Thing," is interpreted as a symbol of something else, call it "The Meaning." The problem with allegory is that The Thing is usually considered to have no meaning or value in and of itself. Instead, the only thing that matters is The Meaning. In extreme cases (and allegory does tend to extremes!), The Meaning actually anhilates The Thing. Allegory has thus traditionally been used to contain awkward or uncomfortable aspects of culture, which cannot be simply deleted from the cultural tradition. The ancient Greeks used it to deal with embarrassing behavior on the part of their gods, for example, converting Homer's myths into an allegory of Platonic philosophy; you can read a great account of that in Homer the Theologian: Neoplatonist Allegorical Reading and the Growth of the Epic Tradition by Robert Lamberton. Homer was not a Platonic philosopher by any means, but the device of allegory is able to empty out Homer's epic and fill it with new Platonic meaning.

This style of allegory had a great influence on both Jewish and Christian tradition. The middle Platonic philosopher and great Jewish theologian Philo used allegory in order to turn the stories of the Hebrew Bible into a Platonic allegory of the soul. The erotic love songs of the "Song of Songs" have been interpreted by both Jewish and Christian scholars as an allegory of the soul; it is not about carnal love between man and woman, but the spiritual love between the soul and God. You can't get rid of the book, but at least you can insist that it is not about what it is about. It is about something else.

It is with Paul, however, that the decisive step is taken for allegory. In his interpretation of the story of Sarah and Hagar in Galatians 4, Paul decides that the story of Sarah and Hagar is not about the historical persons Sarah and Hagar at all, but about the Jews of Jerusalem (Hagar) and the children of a heavenly Jerusalem (Sarah) who are the followers of Jesus. In their triumphalist narrative, the Christians were definitely in trouble with a text, the Hebrew Bible, which presented a triumphalist narrative of the Jews, God's chosen people. So Paul uses allegory to make the Hebrew Bible mean something quite the opposite of what its literal meaning tells us: the children of Abraham through Isaac are not the Jews, but rather than Christians (the free children of the promise), while it is the children of Abraham through Ishmael who are the Jews (the slave children of the covenant God made on Sinai).

Beginning with Paul, allegory has played an enormous role in the Christian tradition, assimilating the Jewish text of the Hebrew Bible and turning it into a crypto-Christian text, filled with prefigurations of the coming of Christ, created by the allegorical style of interpretation. Joseph sold into slavery by his brothers: allegory for Jesus. Jonah in the belly of the whale: allegory for Jesus. And so on.

It is for that reason that we need to hesitate about saying Bible stories should be taught as part of general cultural literacy because they are allegories.

There are some other terms, however, which can convey the cultural assumption that there is a value in studying the stories and characters from the Bible as a contribution to cultural literacy. The term I would propose is "example" or the Latin word "exemplum" (many words in our vocabulary of rhetorical terms come directly from Latin or Greek). I am not 100% happy with this term, but it is the best I can come up with. (Better ideas, anybody...?)

The idea with "example" is that characters from the Bible and the famous stories in which they are engaged serve as examples of some kind, examples of a general type of story or some general message. By studying these examples (Latin plural, exempla) from the past, we can build up a storehouse of knowledge to help us in interpreting the events we participate in ourselves today.

There used to be a whole genre of "exemplum" literature, in both the ancient and medieval worlds. The study of exempla was an important part of the educational process. The reason this term is especially appealing to me for educational purposes is that it saves us from the rote memorization of the "facts" and instead insists that these examples be understood in terms of their meaning. Instead of just "background information," these items are being included for their meaning, not just for the information they contain.

Let me take an example from Hirch's list of Biblical items to show what I mean. Absalom, interestingly enough, did not make the list. Poor Faulkner! I think that alone points to the pernicious danger of making such lists; I hope that nobody assumes reading this post that I am in favor of such lists - I am not.

Anyway, here's an item that did make the list: Cain and Abel. Since I recently posted about that story here in the blog, let's see what Hirsch says about them: The first children of Adam and Eve, born after the Fall of Man. Once, when they were grown men, both Cain and Abel offered sacrifices to God. When Cain saw that Abel’s pleased God whereas his did not, Cain murdered his brother out of jealousy. For his crime, Cain was exiled by God to a life of wandering in a distant land. God “set a mark upon Cain” to protect him in his wanderings. The “mark of Cain” now refers to an individual’s or humankind’s sinful nature.

Great! That is exactly what I mean by an exemplum. You would want to talk about Cain as an example of sinful nature. Of course, you can also use Cain as an example of rivalry and jealousy, and as an example of homicide (this was the first homicide in the Biblical history of the world, after all). You can also use Cain as an example of strife among brothers, or as an example of a condemned criminal living abroad (you can find at least one of those in the pages of the New York Times any day, I would guess!). If you read the Biblical story, you will find out that Cain went to dwell "east of Eden," giving you a very nice exemplum to go with a reading of Steinbeck's novel of the same name, which features a bitter rivalry between two brothers for their father's affection.

Let's try Elijah, whom Hirsch also includes: A prophet of the Old Testament, who opposed the worship of idols and incurred the wrath of Jezebel, the queen of Israel, who tried to kill him. He was taken up to heaven in a chariot of fire.

This is more disappointing. What would a student make of this entry? It does give the student something to memorize which you can ask on a multiple choice test (so beloved by so many so-called reformers of education). Yet it does not tell a student what is meaningful about Elijah, why out of the thousands of individuals mentioned in the Bible, Elijah has made his way onto this list. The pieces of the story told here do not fit together to tell a meaningful story.

Now, the "chariot of fire" shows up as a movie title, indeed. It also appears in the hymn Jerusalem, originally written by William Blake, which has become an important part of the British tradition (more on that here).

So do we say people should memorize a few sentences about Elijah because there is a movie with the title "Chariots of Fire"...? Do we include Elijah so that students can understand what it means to leave a seat "for Elijah" at a Jewish Passover seder? Or simply because Elijah is still a pretty commonly found name in America? In other words: why Elijah? Hirsch's presentation of Elijah's story does not make that clear - it is hard to tell what Elijah is meant to be an example of, and why he would be used by others - great writers, painters, poets, ourselves - to convey a particular meaning.

I would argue that unless Elijah himself is able to convey some meaning, unless we say that Elijah is an example of something, it is going to be very hard to teach Elijah's story to students in a meaningful way. Without some meaning, without being an example of something, Elijah will not be someone students remember as being really important, as more than just a "factoid" on a list.

Okay, that's surely enough for now. I hadn't realized what a can of worms I had opened in asking myself this question. Definitely worth pondering some more. I do care about cultural literacy very much, and I wonder if the absence of a way to even really talk about it is part of the reason why we are having such a crisis about it in our schools, eh? Hmmmm....

Meanwhile, I cannot resist including an image of that chariot of fire! It comes from the Nuremberg Chronicle (you can read more about this amazing book at wikipedia).

Vulgate Verse: blessed are you, the poor

2008-01-25T13:47:00.000-06:00

Now that I have finished doing the Vulgate Verses book, I am commenting on some of these verses here in this blog, focusing on the verses that have a special significance for religious literacy and cultural literacy in general, completely aside from the Latin itself. You can see other posts in this series by clicking on the Vulgate Verses label.

The verse I wanted to comment on today comes from one of the renderings of the "Sermon on the Mount," and in particular the section of that sermon called the "Beatitudes."

The Beatitudes appear in the gospels of both Matthew and Luke, but they are not identical. The wikipedia article provides an overview of the notable differences. Perhaps most importantly, the list of the blessed is considerably longer in Matthew. There are only three blessings in Luke (or four, depending on how Luke 6:22-23 is regarded), while Matthew includes four more which are not found in Luke (the meek, the merciful, the peacemakers, and the pure of heart).

Yet there is a grammatical different between the two sets of Beatitudes that seems to me very remarkable. Here is the First Beautitude, as it appears in Matthew 5:3:

μακάριοι οἱ πτωχοὶ τῶ πνεύματι, ὅτι αὐτῶν ἐστιν ἡ βασιλεία τῶν οὐρανῶν.
Beati pauperes spiritu: quoniam ipsorum est regnum caelorum.
Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. (KJV)

Here is the version in Luke 6:20:

μακάριοι οἱ πτωχοί, ὅτι ὑμετέρα ἐστὶν ἡ βασιλεία τοῦ θεοῦ
Beati pauperes, quia vestrum est regnum Dei.
Blessed be ye poor, for yours is the kingdom of God. (KJV)

As you can see there are several notable differences here, such as Matthew's inclusion of the phrase "in spirit" (similarly, Matthew speaks about those who "hunger and thirst after righteousness," while Luke speaks only of those who "hunger"), and the variation between "kingdom of heaven" and "kingdom of God."

What is most intriguing to me, however, is the difference in pronouns, which the King James Version actually captures quite beautifully, "Blessed be ye poor, for yours is the kingdom of God." Luke presents Jesus addressing the poor, speaking to them in the second-person form (second person plural, to be precise - given that King James English can distinguish between "ye" and "thee"). In Matthew, this element of direct address is lacking.

I think that is a very powerful aspect of the version in Luke, although it is the version in Matthew which is most commonly cited. Perhaps the version in Matthew is so much better known because it is longer, but the second-person form of address found in Luke is very much worthy of our attention. Here are the three Beatitudes as presented in Luke:

Blessed be ye poor: for yours is the kingdom of God.
Blessed are ye that hunger now: for ye shall be filled.
Blessed are ye that weep now: for ye shall laugh.

So simple, and so powerful. What a difference a pronoun can make.

Here is an image of the "Blessing Christ" from a medieval manuscript, c. 1200. The banner shows the opening words of the Lord's prayer.

Vulgate Verse: What is truth?

2008-01-23T17:23:00.000-06:00

Pilate therefore said unto him, Art thou a king then?
Jesus answered, Thou sayest that I am a king. To this end was I born, and for this cause came I into the world, that I should bear witness unto the truth. Every one that is of the truth heareth my voice.
Pilate saith unto him, What is truth?

In Latin, the words of Pilate are Quid est veritas?

These words take on a special quality in Latin, because they are actually an anagram. If you re-arrange the letters you obtain the following sentence: Est vir qui adest, "It is the man who is here."

Now, I don't know about you, but I find anagrams to have a magical, compelling power. With his novel The Da Vinci Code, Dan Brown exploited the mysterious power of anagrams to great effect.

How much more powerful here, where the original question contains its own answer! It works in Latin, of course. In English, "What is truth?" doesn't yield the same answer. The wonderful WordSmith Anagram Server yields 392 phrases in English, most of them nonsense. Of the ones that are not nonsense, they are still not answers to the question that Pilate has asked, "What is truth?" "Hat with ruts" is not much of an answer, nor is "Art with huts" or "Art with tush."

So, for the magic of the anagram, which is more than just the rearrangement of letters, but the rearranging of letters into what appears to be a secret message, the prize this time goes to Latin. Quid est veritas? Est vir qui adest.

If you are interested in more wonderful examples of anagrams, check out the wikipedia article. Meanwhile, here is a picture of Jesus before Pilate, by Duccio di Buoninsegna:

Vulgate Verse: out of Egypt

2008-01-14T13:23:00.000-06:00

Formerly, the Feast of the Ass was celebrated on this day, in commemoration of the 'Flight into Egypt.' Theatrical representations of Scripture history were originally intended to impress religious truths upon the minds of an illiterate people, at a period when books were not, and few could read. But the advantages resulting from this mode of instruction were counterbalanced by the numerous ridiculous ceremonies which they originated. Of these probably none exceeded in grossness of absurdity the Festival of the Ass, as annually performed on the 14th of January.

The escape of the Holy Family into Egypt was represented by a beautiful girl holding a child at her breast, and seated on an ass, splendidly decorated with trappings of gold-embroidered cloth. After having been led in solemn procession through the streets of the city in which the celebration was held, the ass, with its burden, was taken into the principal church, and placed near the high altar, while the various religious services were performed. In place, however, of the usual responses, the people on this occasion imitated the braying of an ass; and, at the conclusion of the service, the priest, instead of the usual benediction, brayed three times, and was answered by a general hee-hawing from the voices of the whole congregation. A hymn, as ridiculous as the ceremony, was sung by a double choir, the people joining in the chorus, and imitating the braying of an ass. Ducange has preserved this burlesque composition, a curious medley of French and mediæval Latin, which may be translated thus:

From the country of the East,
Came this strong and handsome beast:
This able ass, beyond compare,
Heavy loads and packs to bear.
Now, seignior ass, a noble bray,
Thy beauteous mouth at large display;
Abundant food our hay-lofts yield,
And oats abundant load the field.
Hee-haw! He-haw! He-haw!

True it is, his pace is slow,
Till he feels the quickening blow;
Till he feel the urging goad,
On his hinder part bestowed.
Now, seignior ass, &c.

He was born on Shechem's hill;
In Reuben's vales he fed his fill;
He drank of Jordan's sacred stream,
And gambolled in Bethlehem.
Now, seignior ass, &c.

See that broad majestic ear!
Born he is the yoke to wear:
All his fellows he surpasses!
He's the very lord of asses!
Now, seignior ass, &c.

In leaping he excels the fawn,
The deer, the colts upon the lawn;
Less swift the dromedaries ran,
Boasted of in Midian.
Now, seignior ass, &c.

Gold from Araby the blest,
Seba myrrh, of myrrh the best,
To the church this ass did bring;
We his sturdy labours sing.
Now, seignior ass, &c.

While he draws the loaded wain,
Or many a pack, he don't complain.
With his jaws, a noble pair,
He doth craunch his homely fare.
Now, seignior ass, &c.'

The bearded barley and its stem,
And thistles, yield his fill of them:
He assists to separate,
When it 's threshed, the chaff from wheat.
Now, seignior ass, &c.

'With your belly full of grain,
Bray, most honoured ass, Amen!
Bray out loudly, bray again,
Never mind the old Amen;
Without ceasing, bray again,
Amen! Amen! Amen! Amen!
Hee-haw! He-haw! He-haw!'

For those of you who might know some Latin, I thought I would present the Latin version (with French chorus) which is cited here in translation!

Orientis partibus
Adventavit Asinus,
Pulcher et fortissimus,
Sarcinis aptissimus.
Hez, Sire Asnes, car chantez,
Belle bouche rechignez,
Vous aurez du fom assez
Et de l'avoine a' plantez.
Lentus erat pedibus,
Nisi foret baculus
Et eum in clunibus
Pungeret aculeus.
Hez...
Hic in collibus Sichem
Iam nutritus sub Ruben,
Transiit per Iordanem,
Saliit in Bethleem.
Hez...
Ecce magnis auribus
Subiugalis filius,
Asinus egregius,
Asinorum dominus.
Hez...
Saltu vincti hinnulos,
Damas et capreolos,
Super dromedarios
Velox Madianeos.
Hez...
Aurum de Arabia,
Thus et myrrhum de Saba
Tulit in ecclesia
Virtus Asinaria.
Hez...
Dum trahit vehicula
Multa cum sarcinula,
Illius mandibula
Dura terit pabula.
Hez...
Cum aristis hordeum
Comedit et carduum;
Triticum a palea
Segregat in area.
Hez.
Amen, dicas, Asine,
(hic genuflectabatur)
Iam satur de gramine:
Amen, amen itera
Aspernare vetera.
Hez...

So, HEE HAW, everybody! And here is a picture of the flight into Egypt, by the great painter Giotto:

Vulgate Verse: ecce homo

2008-01-09T15:24:00.000-06:00

Exivit ergo iterum Pilatus foras, et dicit eis: Ecce adduco vobis eum foras, ut cognoscatis quia nullam invenio in eo causam. Exivit ergo Jesus portans coronam spineam, et purpureum vestimentum. Et dicit eis: Ecce homo.
Pilate therefore went forth again, and saith unto them, Behold, I bring him forth to you, that ye may know that I find no fault in him. 5 Then came Jesus forth, wearing the crown of thorns, and the purple robe. And Pilate saith unto them, Behold the man!

This phrase has retained its currency in Latin because it is used as a kind of shorthand in the art history tradition to refer to that genre of pictures which shows the scourged Jesus, crowned with thorns, presented to the audience.

There are two main types of "ecce homo" paintings. One type can be considered an illustration of the scene in John, showing not just Jesus, but also Pilate, and perhaps something also of the setting and even the audience to whom Pilate is speaking. You can this fully contextualized scene in an "Ecce homo" painting by Hieronymus Bosch (c. 1480). Click on the image for a larger view:

Another type focuses in on the figure of Jesus alone, out of context, sometimes staring dramatically at the audience of the painting itself, sometimes with gaze downcast. Here is an example in scultpure, 15th-century, from France. Click on the image for a larger view:

As a result of its continuing vitality through the art history tradition, the phrase "ecce homo" has become a kind of Latin saying in its own right. Nietzsche provocatively titled his own memoir, Ecce Homo. And, in a sheerly comical usage, wikipedia informs me about the British television show, Mister Bean, starring Rowan Atkinson: "At the beginning of episode two onwards, Mr. Bean falls from the sky in a beam of light, accompanied by a choir singing Ecce homo qui est faba - Behold the man who is a bean."

Vulgate Verse: my brother's keeper

2007-12-29T12:09:00.000-06:00

And Cain talked with Abel his brother: and it came to pass, when they were in the field, that Cain rose up against Abel his brother, and slew him. And the LORD said unto Cain, Where is Abel thy brother? And he said, I know not: Am I my brother's keeper? And he said, What hast thou done? the voice of thy brother's blood crieth unto me from the ground. And now art thou cursed from the earth, which hath opened her mouth to receive thy brother's blood from thy hand. When thou tillest the ground, it shall not henceforth yield unto thee her strength; a fugitive and a vagabond shalt thou be in the earth. And Cain said unto the LORD, My punishment is greater than I can bear. Behold, thou hast driven me out this day from the face of the earth; and from thy face shall I be hid; and I shall be a fugitive and a vagabond in the earth; and it shall come to pass, that every one that findeth me shall slay me. And the LORD said unto him, Therefore whosoever slayeth Cain, vengeance shall be taken on him sevenfold. And the LORD set a mark upon Cain, lest any finding him should kill him. And Cain went out from the presence of the LORD, and dwelt in the land of Nod, on the east of Eden.

It is one of the most amazing stories in the Bible, all told within just a few verses, and giving rise to this very famous Biblical saying, "Am I my brother's keeper?" By negative implication the answer is, yes, you are your brother's keeper.

This is one of the many stories from the Hebrew Bible which also figures in the Koran, although the brothers are not given names in this account from Surah 5, The Table:

Relate to them exactly the story of the sons of Adam when they each offered an offering; accepted from the one of them, and not accepted from the other. The one said, "I will surely slay thee." Said the other, "God only accepted from those that fear Him. Even if thou stretch forth thine hand against me to slay me, I will not stretch forth my hand against thee to slay thee. Truly I fear God the Lord of the Worlds. Yea, rather would I that thou shouldest bear my sin and thine own sin, and that thou become an inmate of the Fire: for that is the recompense of the unjust doers." And his passion led him to slay his brother: and he slew him; and he became one of those who perish.

You can find various English translations of the Koran, along with an Arabic text, at Sacred Texts Archive.

You can also find at Sacred Texts Archive one of my favorite books for learning about extra-Biblical stories and legends: Ginzberg's Legends of the Jews. As you would imagine from a story as striking and dramatic as that of Cain and Abel, there are many ancillary accounts of the story.

For example, one legend tells us that Cain was not the son of Adam at all, but the son of Satan (in an attempt to explain such marked differences between these two brothers, and Cain's evil proclivities). Here is what Ginzberg reports: "After the fall of Eve, Satan, in the guise of the serpent, approached her, and the fruit of their union was Cain, the ancestor of all the impious generations that were rebellious toward God, and rose up against Him."

There is also an ingenious story of why the two brothers were assigned such different occupations by their father - it was an attempt by Adam to prevent Abel's death, which Eve saw prophetically in a dream: "The slaying of Abel by Cain did not come as a wholly unexpected event to his parents. In a dream Eve had seen the blood of Abel flow into the mouth of Cain, who drank it with avidity, though his brother entreated him not to take all. When she told her dream to Adam, he said, lamenting, "O that this may not portend the death of Abel at the hand of Cain!" He separated the two lads, assigning to each an abode of his own, and to each he taught a different occupation. Cain became a tiller of the ground, and Abel a keeper of sheep. It was all in vain. In spite of these precautions, Cain slew his brother."

In the spare account provided by Genesis, it is possible to feel a bit sorry for Cain, when his offering to God was slighted in favor of Abel's (when I was a child, I never understood just why it was that God would reject Cain's offering, preferring the shepherd's fruits to those of the farmer). This is obviously something that has troubled others in their understanding of the story, and Ginzberg reports this extra-Biblical detail which would explain the problem: "Abel selected the best of his flocks for his sacrifice, but Cain ate his meal first, and after he had satisfied his appetite, he offered unto God what was left over, a few grains of flax seed."

As you saw in the version of the story in the Koran, the confrontation between Cain and Abel in the field, before Cain murders his brother, provides a dramatic opportunity for dialogue between the two of them, even though the Book of Genesis does not tell us what was said. Ginzberg reports a Jewish legend which, like the Koranic version, has the brothers engage in a debate in the field. This version also explains just what Abel was doing there in Cain's field to begin with:

One day a sheep belonging to Abel tramped over a field that had been planted by Cain. In a rage, the latter called out, "What right hast thou to live upon my land and let thy sheep pasture yonder?" Abel retorted: "What right hast thou to use the products of my sheep, to make garments for thyself from their wool? If thou wilt take off the wool of my sheep wherein thou art arrayed, and wilt pay me for the flesh of the flocks which thou hast eaten, then I will quit thy land as thou desirest, and fly into the air, if I can do it." Cain thereupon said, "And if I were to kill thee, who is there to demand thy blood of me?" Abel replied: "God, who brought us into the world, will avenge me. He will require my blood at thine hand, if thou shouldst slay me. God is the Judge, who will visit their wicked deeds upon the wicked, and their evil deeds upon the evil. Shouldst thou slay me, God will know thy secret, and He will deal out punishment unto thee." These words but added to the anger of Cain, and he threw himself upon his brother.

In Genesis, the text reads simply: "And Cain talked with Abel his brother." As so often in the Hebrew Bible, there is a hint of more: if Cain talked with Abel, what did they say to each other? There is a gap here, a gap which the extra-Biblical stories and legends naturally try to fill.

Many people tend to assume that there are two camps in the field of Biblical interpretation: literal reading and figurative reading. Speaking for myself, however, I am more interested by far in this other way of looking at the Bible, studying the relationship between intra-Biblical stories and those extra-Biblical stories, legends beyond the Bible which both expose the gaps of the Biblical text and attempt to fill them.

The book I used in writing this post, Ginzberg's Legends of the Jews, is available online, and it is a marvelous place to begin to study the extra-Biblical storytelling tradition. For more, check out any and all of the marvelous books by James Kugel, such as The Bible As It Was - an amazing and delightful feat of scholarship and storytelling.

Meanwhile, for an image, here is Jan van Eyck's rendering of the slaying of Abel for his painting the Ghent Altarpiece, completed in 1432. I may be wrong, but it looks to me like Cain is slaying Abel with a jawbone - perhaps an echo of the jawbone of an ass from the story of Samson? What do you think?

Vulgate Verse: victima holocausti

2007-12-27T15:37:00.000-06:00

Now that I have finished doing the Vulgate Verses book, I have the pleasure of getting to comment on some of these verses here, focusing on the verses that seem to me to have a special significance for religious literacy and topics of general interest, completely aside from the Latin itself. You can see other posts in this series by clicking on the Vulgate Verses label.

I recently finished watching the very long but surprisingly thought-provoking television mini-series from 1988, War and Remembrance, a 27-hour follow-up to the highly successful 15-hour miniseries, Winds of War from 1983. Over the past several months, I watched the entire series, and in the midst of those 40 hours of television melodrama I was amazed to see the most graphic footage of German death camps that I've seen anywhere outside of a traditional documentary. I was not a television-watcher when these miniseries came out, but I am indeed sorry to have missed them when they first came out; kudos indeed to the director and producer who did not shy away from including incredible graphic historical photographs and film footage, along with absolutely heart-rending dramatic recreations, including the death of one of the main characters in the gas chambers at Auschwitz, up to and including the thrusting of his body into the crematorium oven.

Having just finished the last episode of the series, and thinking much about the Holocaust, I was prompted to comment on this particular Vulgate verse today, where you can see the word "holocaust" used in Latin. The passage is a very sad one indeed, where Isaac, like the Jews of Auschwitz, is being led without knowing it to his own death. He has noticed, however, that while they have fire and wood with which to build the sacrificial fire, his father has not brought a sacrificial animal for the "holocaust," the burnt offering they will make:

Genesis 22:7. Ecce, ignis et ligna; ubi est victima holocausti?

(Greek: ἰδοὺ τὸ πῦρ καὶ τὰ ξύλα ποῦ ἐστιν τὸ πρόβατον τὸ εἰς ὁλοκάρπωσιν)

The Latin word holocaustum is a word formed from Greek roots, holo- (meaning "whole, entire") and caust- (meaning "burnt"). The word is used in Biblical Latin to refer to offerings which are burned in their entirety at the altar.

The Greek word, ὁλοκάρπωσις (holokarposis), is rather different, and means "whole fruiting," without anything about burning, the idea being that the fruit (symbolic, in this case) of the sacrifice is offered whole. The Greek word ὁλοκαυτῶσις (holokautosis) is found in other Bible passages, but it is not the word spoken by Isaac in this passage. The Hebrew word is simply "olah" (עולה), from a root meaning "going up, ascending steps," with the idea being that the burnt offering sends up smoke.

In the King James version of this passage, the Latin holocaustum is not adopted as "holocaust," but is instead interpreted into familiar English words: "Behold the fire and the wood: but where is the lamb for a burnt offering?"

The word "holocaust" was used in English religious vocabulary as early as the thirteenth century, however, and also included extended metaphorical meanings, as I learned from consulting the Oxford English Dictionary. For example, in 1648 Beaumont in his Psyche could refer to "the perfect holocaust of generous love." It could even refer to destruction by fire in even a trivial sense, i.e. B. M. Croker's Pretty Miss Neville in 1883: "Major Percival has made a holocaust of your letters."

In the twentieth century, however, the word "holocaust" acquired a definitive new meaning in English, referring specifically to the systematic extermination of six million Jews by the Nazis. It is less clear whether people who refer to this holocaust also have in mind the five million more people - Slavs, Gypsies, communists, religious minorities, the handicapped, and others - who were also executed by the Nazis. The Oxford English Dictionary documents that the word "holocaust" was already being used in this way during World War II, and such usage became even more widespread after the war.

There is also a tendency now to spell the word with a capital H, Holocaust, when referring to the Nazi slaughter of the Jews. In Hebrew, the standard term of reference is "Shoah," meaning a disaster or catastrophe.

What has always surprised and disturbed me about the use of the word holocaust in this regard is both its staggering literalness, invoking the burning of whole bodies and the rising smoke from the crematoria. The use of the crematoria is one of the most shocking and unprecedented elements of "efficiency" in the Nazi's so-called "Final Solution" (German Endlösung). If you have any knowledge of the etymology of the word "holocaust," you are forced - rightly, I think - to think of the staggering physical fact of what happened.

At the same time, there is something disconcerting about the use of "holocaust" here, which is that in the religious tradition, the burnt offering, the "holocaust," was something good given to God, a positive manifestation of religious practice in ancient Judaism. When Isaac unwittingly asks about the "victim of the holocaust," he has nothing grim in mind (unless you have in mind the rights of the animals themselves, a very modern issue not relevant to Isaac's thoughts at that moment). The Bible is filled with references to "holocausts" which are indeed, in Beaumont's words, "perfect holocausts of generous love," affirming the relationship between God and his followers. What happened, it seems, is that English vocabulary of the Bible, profoundly affected by the Christian rejection of this kind of animal sacrifice, came to use the term "holocaust" in a negative sense, even though it began as a positive term in the Hebrew Bible tradition.

You can find more information about the use of the word "holocaust" in the detailed Wikipedia article on this subject, which provides a comprehensive and thoughtful discussion of this shocking moment in human history. It is a topic that I think we all need to study, and to study in detail - which brings me back again to the films Winds of War and War and Remembrance. There is a lot of Hollywood schlock in those 40 hours of film, but there is also a brutally honest depiction of the Nazi death camps, something almost unbearable to watch and therefore something which must be watched. You will not find anything like it in Schindler's List.

Human Light: December 23

2007-12-23T10:28:00.001-06:00

The HumanLight celebration is a secular holiday connected with the advent of the winter solstice, but its organizers chose to assign the holiday a specific calendar date that would cause minimal interference with existing holidays that take place either on the winter solstice itself, or the solstice-related holidays of Christmas Day and Christmas Eve. You can read more about HumanLight in this Wikipedia article. You can also find out more at the HumanLight homepage itself, which contains on the front page a list of the places where 2007 celebrations took place.

Given that the symbolism of this holiday resonates so nicely with the other holidays of this season (the light symbolism of the solstice celebrations, the Christmas star, the candles of Hanukkah, etc.), it seems like it would be possible for people to join in on this celebration easily, sharing this holiday together with others from many different faiths or for those who are secular without a professed faith at all. Given the current climate, however, I'm sure that there are many people who would perceive this holiday not as a complement to other holidays, but as a threat to them, alas.

One thing in particular I would like to give the organizers of HumanLight credit for is that they have a page at their website where they address the many different concerns and complaints that people, both religious and secular, have raised about the holiday. A static webpage is not exactly a dialogue in and of itself, but it is a strong gesture towards a dialogue, and I found it full of interesting questions and ideas.

Speaking for myself, I like very much the idea of celebrating the winter solstice, even though I am not a Wiccan, because the sheer natural profundity of that moment in astronomical time is really striking to me. I find the Wiccan wheel of the year, built on the solstices and equinoxes, to be profoundly appealing. So, in my own personal calendar, you'll find me organizing observations of those "wheel of the year" holidays. At the same time, if somebody invited me to a HumanLight celebration, I would definitely attend - I think it's a lovely idea, and I respect these people's efforts very much!

Happy HumanLight!

Vulgate Verse: Deus lux est

2007-12-22T10:58:00.000-06:00

Deus lux est et tenebrae in eo non sunt ullae

God is light and there are no shadows in him.

(Greek: ὁ θεὸς φῶς ἐστιν καὶ σκοτία ἐν αὐτῶ οὐκ ἔστιν οὐδεμία)

We are so used to this type of Biblical language that it is hard to see it again with fresh eyes. The way I read this, although others might read it differently, is that it is a metaphorical statement, but one that is combined with a paradox.

It is a metaphorical statement in that the statement does not mean God is is the light that we see with our eyes, the physical light of the world, the particles and waves studied by physicists. Rather, God is like light; we can use our everyday experience of light in order to attempt to understand an extraordinary divine realm.

The paradoxical part is the second part of the verse: God is a light without any shadow part in him. The idea that light and shadows coexist is part of our everyday experience. Any object that is placed in front of a light casts a shadow. The day of light is succeeded by a night of darkness, and night's darkness is succeeded by day, and so on in succession. The night of the Winter Solstice, commemorated tonight, marks a pivotal moment in the balance of the day's light and the night's darkness, but it is still light with darkness.

The word "paradox" is from Greek and means, literally, beside or beyond (Greek para-) accepted appearances or common sense (Greek doxa). So a paradox is a statement beyond everyday experience, something outside accepted beliefs, yet which is nevertheless true. The idea that God is light is not paradoxical, but the existence of pure light, without shadows, introduces an element of paradox. The language of Christianity often revels in paradox, although sometimes we have grown so accustomed to the cliches of Christian expression that its paradoxical qualities escape us.

It is perhaps worth noting here also that "shadows" are at the heart of the Philip Pullman books, the trilogy comprising His Dark Materials, which has lately been upsetting some Christian organizations. In the universe imagined by Pullman, there is something called "dust" or "shadows," the embodiment of self-awareness, and also free will. Rumor has it that Pullman is working on a fourth volume which will be called the Book of Dust. We shall see what he has to say about shadows there! For me, rather than seeing a war between different systems of belief here, I believe we can learn more on both sides from the exploration of these different ways of seeing the universe, in all their metaphorical paradoxes.

Pullman's novels are famously set in an alternative Oxford, so I will use for an image here the motto of Oxford University itself, which is built on the metaphor of light which is at the heart of Christianity: Dominus illuminatio mea, "The lord is my illumination," as shown here in Oxford University's coat of arms:

Winter Solstice: December 22 2007

2007-12-22T05:35:00.000-06:00

The Winter Solstice marks the longest night of the year. In 2007, the Winter Solstice will take place on December 22. The word "solstice" comes from Latin, meaning when the "sun-stops," i.e., the moment when the sun reaches a position in the sky with the greatest angular distance on the other side of the equatorial plane as the observer. It marks the shortest day of the year, and the longest night; after the Winter Solstice, the days will begin to get longer and longer, and the nights will get shorter and shorter, until the Summer Solstice approximately six months from now.

Because the Winter Solstice is a celestial event, it takes place on different days of the calendar, depending on the year, varying between December 21 and December 23. You can see a list of the days and times of the solstices and the equinoxes here at this Hermetic Systems webpage. Moreover, this is a hemisphere-specific holiday: December marks the Winter Solstice in the northern hemisphere, but in the southern hemisphere, it is the Summer Solstice.

There are many cultures which celebrate a special ritual on the occasion of the Solstice, often based on the symbolism of light and its triumph over the night. Yesterday, I posted about the Iranian festival of Yalda. You can find a long list of Winter Solstice celebrations in many cultures listed in this Wikipedia article.

There are many connections between Christmas celebrations and the Winter Solstice. The Gregorian calendar puts the Winter Solstice between December 21 and 23, but in the old Julian calendar the Winter Solstice took place around December 24, in other words, at Christmas. Over time, the Gregorian and Julian calendars have diverged farther and farther; to see this difference calculated, you can use this fascinating Calendar Calculator.

In northern Europe, the traditional winter solstice celebration was called Yule, which is a word many people associate today with Christmas. Yule traditions include decorating a fir tree, making decorations of mistletoe and holly, gift-giving and merry-making. The Yule log tradition takes different forms in different cultures, such as the Tió de Nadal in Catalonia, or the yummy Bûche de Noël pastry.

Another word for the Yule festival is Midwinter, like the corresponding Midsummer fesitval which takes place at the Summer Solstice. You can see this relationship clearly in the Wiccan Wheel of the Year, where Yule (Midwinter) and Misummer are opposite one another.

We're celebrating the Winter Solstice with some friends tonight, and here is a selection of Winter Poems we will be reading: enjoy!

Yalda: December 21

2007-12-21T15:47:00.000-06:00

In the Holiday Calendar widget, the holiday for December 21 is Yalda, an ancient Iranian festival that was originally a movable feast, celebrated on the Winter Solstice. When the Iranian calendar was reformed in 1925, the date for this festival was fixed so that it always occurred on December 21. In some years, this coincides with the Winter Solstice, but this year it is one day before the Solstice.

The word Yalda derives from a Syriac word meaning birth (compare the Arabic word "yeled" meaning "young boy"). According to Wikipedia, it was Syriac-speaking Christians who brought the word to Iran during the Sassanid period, where the coincidence of Christmas (the celebration of the infant Jesus) with the time of the Winter Solstice, more or less, led to the use of this word for the Winter Solstice festival in Iran. You can read more about the ancient Zoroastrian roots of this festival at FarsiNet.

Some of the traditional foods associated with the Yalda night celebrations are pomegranates and watermelons. Here is a picture of special items for this Iranian winter feast, and you can read about this year's Yalda in the world news using this Google News: Yalda search.

Vulgate Verse: stella matutina, morning star

2007-12-19T08:37:00.000-06:00

Vulgate Verse: alpha et omega

2007-12-15T09:46:00.000-06:00

Now let us sing with mirth and joy,
Our heart's consolation
Lies in præsepio, (= the manger)
And shines as the sun,
Matris in gremio. (=in his mother's lap)
Alpha is and O, Alpha is and O.

Although Christian scholars debate about whether the appellation "Alpha et Omega" belongs properly to God only, and not to Jesus, it is clear in this song that at this birth, Jesus is being greeted as the "Alpha et Omega."

Meanwhile, here is an image by a modern Christian artist, Roberta Williams, which she has entitled "Alpha and Omega."

Vulgate Verse: sanctus sanctus sanctus

2007-12-12T11:07:00.000-06:00

Et quattuor animalia singula eorum habebant alas senas et in circuitu et intus plena sunt oculis et requiem non habent die et nocte dicentia sanctus sanctus sanctus Dominus Deus omnipotens qui erat et qui est et qui venturus est

(King James) And the four beasts had each of them six wings about him; and they were full of eyes within: and they rest not day and night, saying, Holy, holy, holy, Lord God Almighty, which was, and is, and is to come.

The "holy holy holy" portion is from the Hebrew Bible, Isaiah:

Et clamabant alter ad alterum et dicebant sanctus sanctus sanctus Dominus exercituum plena est omnis terra gloria eius

(King James) And one cried unto another, and said, Holy, holy, holy, is the LORD of hosts: the whole earth is full of his glory.

This special repetition, "holy holy holy" (Latin sanctus sanctus sanctus) is called the "trisagion" in Greek, the "thrice-holy," and it forms an important part of the Christian liturgical tradition, especially in the Orthodox churches. You can read more about that at wikipedia.

In the Catholic tradition, there is a liturgical prayer called "Sanctus" which you can also read about at wikipedia. Here is the Latin text of that prayer, which opens with the triple sanctus:

Sanctus, Sanctus, Sanctus,
Dominus Deus Sabbaoth;
Pleni sunt caeli et terra gloria Tua.
Hosanna in excelsis.

The Hebrew Kadosh Kadosh Kadosh, "Holy Holy Holy," is found in a prayer called the Kedusha; more on that at wikipedia also (what on earth would we do without wikipedia?).

Any form of repetition has a poetical or magical effect in language, and the triple repetition has a special symbolic significance, especially within the Christian tradition. The technical rhetorical term for this type of repetition, two or more repetitions, with no intervening words, is epizeuxis. Here are some famous examples, many of which are also based on triple repetition:

Hamlet: "Words, words, words."

Milton's Samson Agonistes: "O dark, dark, dark, amid the blaze of noon."

Tennyson: "Break, break, break / On thy cold gray stones, O Sea"

Samuel Coleridge, The Rime of the Ancient Mariner: "Alone, alone, all all alone, / Alone on a wide, wide sea"."

Scarlett O'Hara in the film Gone With the Wind: "Rhett, Rhett, Rhett! If you go, where shall I go? What shall I do?"

Captain Renault in the film Casablanca: "I'm shocked, shocked to find that gambling is going on in here!"

Winston Churchill: "Never, never, never quit."

The Beach Boys: "She’ll have fun, fun, fun 'til her daddy takes her T-Bird away."

The etymology of "epizeuxis" is words that are yoked ("zeug"-ed) one upon (epi) of the other. The same notion of things being "yoked" is found in the related rhetorical term, zeugma.

Of course, all the rhetorical terms are just window dressing. The real power is not in the terminology but in the speech act itself. Reptition is POWERFUL, and as such it forms a vital part of the tradition of ritual religious language.

Vulgate Verse: gloria in excelsis

2007-12-08T11:56:00.000-06:00

(Gloria greeting card)

Crucifixion Scene: The Two Thieves

2007-12-04T16:32:00.000-06:00

The scene of crucifixion which shows up this week in the "Cross Scenes" widget is an amazing work by Jan van Eyck. It dates to around 1430, and thus represents one of the earlier works by this master artist of the Flemish school. The crucifixion scene is part of a diptych (two-painting panel), paired with a scene of the Last Judgment (Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York). You can click on the image for a larger view:

Overall, this painting is an amazing composition, especially with the activity in the foreground and the haunting appearance of the sky in the background. In terms of the crucifixion scene itself, there are a number of characteristic elements, such as the titulus above Jesus (see my previous post about that), and the dramatic piercing of Jesus's side, as recounted in the Gospel of John. You can click on the image for a larger view:

What I wanted to comment on here, however, are not the details that are based in the Biblical text. Instead, I want to comment on a striking detail not found in the Bible: the two thieves are blindfolded.

This is the kind of detail which can become part of the iconographic tradition, not in violation of the Biblical text, but simply by filling in the silence of the text on this issue. The motivation to do this is not the quest for some kind of literalistic or a historical truth. Rather, the impulse is to add a depth of meaning to the painting, to increase its symbolic expression.

The thieves are "blinded" spiritually, unlike Jesus, who sees (and understands) fully what is happening around him. The thieves are sinners, blinded by their sin. The darkness they are experiencing now anticipates the darkness that is about to unfold over the world at the moment of Jesus's death (Luke 23:44, "there was darkness over all the earth").

Both of the thieves are blindfolded, yet the two men are not identical in every respect, as you can see from the other physical details which distinguish the two men one from the other. This distinction between the two thieves is something found in only one of the Gospels; only Luke makes a distinction between the two thieves. Matthew does not make a distinction between the two thieves, nor does Mark. In John, they are not even called thieves, and no distinction is made between them, although John does note that the soldiers came and broke the legs of these two men, but not the legs of Jesus. In Luke, however, one robber insults Jesus, while the other robber rebukes him, saying that they are being executed rightly, for their deeds, while Jesus is innocent. He then speaks to Jesus and asks to be remembered, whereupon Jesus says to him: "This day thou shalt be with me in paradise."

The story told in Luke took on a life of its own beyond the Gospel. The thief later became known as Saint Dismas, or the "Good Thief" or the "Penitent Thief." Saint Dismas later became the patron saint of those condemned to death, and also of undertakers. In the Arabic Infancy Gospel (in which the good thief is named Titus), the two thieves are said to have first encountered Jesus as an infant, when Joseph, Mary and Jesus fled into Egypt. The good thief bribes the bad thief so that he will let the family go free. When Mary realizes what has happened, she prays that God will grant him a remission of his sins. The infant Jesus then prophesies that these two thieves will be crucified together with him, and that the good thief will be on his right.

Following in the tradition of Luke, van Eyck also distinguishes between the two thieves, using physical details of their outward appearance in order to indicate the different in their inner, spiritual situations. In van Eyck's painting, the thief who is shown to Jesus's right (our left) is depicted in a tranquil state, bound tightly to the cross, subdued. The bad thief, to Jesus's left, is twisting and writhing, dangling at a distance from the cross. You can also see a kind of indication in the clothing worn by the three: the bad thief wears a longer garment around his waist, the good thief wears almost nothing while it is Jesus who is completely uncovered. So, in the symbolic equation which van Eyck has established, the Good Thief is closer to an imitation of Jesus than the Bad Thief is.

So, as you can see here with van Eyck's painting, based on the remarkable distinction made between the two thieves in the Gospel of Luke, other narrative and iconographic traditions emerged, taking up the theme presented by Luke and exploring it more fully. This is the kind of larger cultural awareness of the Biblical tradition that I would like to promote in this blog, not just limited to the text of the Bible alone, but to the rich and creative engagement with the Bible that has taken shape over the centuries.

On a side note, this painting is also famous for its realistic rendering of the moon in the background! Crucifixion scenes sometimes feature a stylized sun and a stylized moon in the background, but van Eyck has drawn here a recognizably realistic moon - making it the first such rendering in European art history. You can read more about that at this BBC article.

Vulgate Verse: Martha, Martha

2007-12-03T11:36:00.000-06:00

Back in action!

2007-12-02T15:35:00.000-06:00

This blog is back in action after a long hiatus! During the summer and fall I was working on a book which is - at last - finished.

Vulgate Verses: 4000 Sayings from the Bible for Teachers and Students of Latin

In addition to the book itself (which is available from Lulu Publishers), there is a companion wiki and blog. If you are interested in the Latin Vulgate, take a look!

Although I'm still finishing up another book project (a Latin edition of Aesop's fables for Bolchazy-Carducci Publishers), I should be able to find some time to blog again more regularly here. I've missed it! :-)

Hinduism: Balarama

2007-07-16T20:01:00.000-06:00

I've been just swamped trying to get my Bible Latin sayings book ready before school starts (I'm up to 2500 sayings now, which is good - but a long way still from 4000, which is the target!), but I did want to post at least something here this week, so I thought I would say something about Balarama, who is the Hinduism widget topic for the week.

Balarama (also called Baladeva) is the brother of Krishna, the avatar of the god Vishnu who is perhaps best known to Americans. Just as Lakshmana, the brother of Rama, another avatar of the god Vishnu, was himself considered to be an avatar of the great serpent and naga lord, Sesha, the same is true of Balarama. You can read more about Sesha (Shesha) at wikipedia.

The mother of Krishna and Balarama, Devaki, was being persecuted by her brother, Kamsa, who had vowed to kill all of Devaki's children because of a prophecy that her eighth child would bring about his own death. Kamsa put Devaki and her husband Vasudeva into prison and killed their children, one after another. He killed six children in this manner; Balarama was then the seventh child. Miraculously, Balarama was transferred before birth from the womb of his mother Devaki into the womb of Rohini, another wife of Vasudeva (or, in a less miraculous variation on the story, he was smuggled out of the prison and then raised by Rohini as her son). Other miracles, of course, attended the birth of Krishna, who also escaped Kamsa's wrath and went on to kill Kamsa, just as the prophecy foretold.

Although Balarama was Krishna's elder brother, he was Krishna's devoted follower. Like Krishna, Balarama participated in the events of the epic Mahabharata, training the Pandu and Kaurava princes in the martial arts that would culminated in the calamitous war between the cousins. Balarama's specialty was the use of the mace, and he trained both Duryodhana and Bhima in the use of that weapon - and in the final battle between the two of them, Bhima used his mace to kill Duryodhana.

Probably the most famous story about Balarama is the story of the river Yamuna and Balarama's plough. Balarama was notoriously fond of drinking and one night he became thoroughly drunk and then summoned the Yamuna river to approach him so that he could take a bath and romp with his lady friends in the water. The river did not move, of course. So Balarama took a plough and dragged it through the river, pulling the river this way and that until the river took on human form and begged Balarama to leave her alone! This story is told to explain why it is that the Yamuna river has so very many small branches: they are the scratches of Balarama's plough in days gone by.

When Balarama and Krishna are shown together, Balarama is traditionally depicted in a light color, while Krishan is a dark color, as you can see in this image, with the light Balarama and the dark Krishna, side by side:

Crucifixion Scene: Titulus Crucis

2007-07-10T18:03:00.000-06:00

Although I am really getting crunched by the calendar trying to finish up my Latin Bible sayings book (my goal is 4000 sayings, and I'm not even halfway there yet, gulp!), I did want to try to post something in the blog today and since I have not posted about a crucifixion scene in a while, that is what I have chosen to do!

The crucifixion scene of the week this week is actually a deposition scene, in which the body of Christ is shown being taken down ("deposed") from on the cross. The deposition was an especially popular scene with artists and, like the crucifixion, the deposition has a range of motifs which are usually featured.

This deposition by Fra Angelico was painted in the early 15th century (and is on view these days in the lovely church of San Marco in Florence). Although the colors and composition are radiantly beautiful, there are traces of the violence of the crucifixion, with blood visible from the crown of thorns and from the wound in Christ's side. You can see Mary Magdalene (hair unbound) and Mary, the other of Jesus, along with the other female followers of Jesus, waiting to receive the body as it is lowered down by Joseph of Arimathea and other men using a ladder, which is a typical element in deposition scenes. (You can read more about ladder symbolism.)

What I wanted to focus on here in Fra Angelico's painting is the Titulus Crucis, the sign put at the head of the cross. Although it is a bit difficult to make out here in the painting, it is shown in three languages, following the text of the Gospel of John: "And Pilate wrote a title, and put it on the cross. And the writing was, JESUS OF NAZARETH THE KING OF THE JEWS. This title then read many of the Jews: for the place where Jesus was crucified was nigh to the city: and it was written in Hebrew, and Greek, and Latin."

In Fra Angelico's painting, reflecting the new learning of the Renaissance, you can indeed see the working written out in three languages: Latin, Iesus Nazarenus Rex Iudaeorum; Greek, Ἰησοῦς ὁ Ναζωραῖος ὁ Bασιλεὺς τῶν Ἰουδαίων; and even in Hebrew:
ישוע (Yeshua) הנצרי (HaNotsri) ומלך (U'Melech) היהודים (HaYehudim). Apologies for the Hebrew: I am not an expert in the right-to-left style for HTML, alas.

Now the Latin and Greek texts come from the Biblical text itself, but the Hebrew is more of a puzzle. Historically, the language that would have been used would have been Aramaic, rather than Hebrew. For Christian scholars during the Renaissance, however, the historical factor is not what intrigued them. Instead, they were more interested in the mystical properties of the Hebrew inscription itself, which is how they ended up including a vav, "and" ("Jesus the Nazarene AND King of the Jews"). The result is the four-lettered name of God, the tetragrammaton, yod-he-vav-he: Yeshua` HaNotsri U'Melech HaYehudim. Fascinating! You can find out more about this topic in the extremely detailed article at wikipedia.

An anagram of the Latin inscription, INRI (Iesus Nazarenus Rex Iudaeorum), is commonly found in Catholic art, and you might also note the inscription here on Jesus's halo, which reads: CORONA GLORIE, which would be in classical Latin, corona gloriae, "crown of glory."

You can see the halo here in a detail from Fra Angelico's painting which shows the location of the sign at the top of the cross; you can visit the Web Gallery of Art for more views of the entire triptych.

Bible Book: Psalms

2007-07-07T08:41:00.000-06:00

Summer is my only time to really focus on writing, so I'm working hard now on the follow-up book to the Latin Via Proverbs book which I published last summer. It will be a collection of sayings from the Latin Vulgate, organized grammatically, just as in the first book. Over the past two days, I've been pulling verses, or parts of verses, from the book of Psalms to include.

One of the problems I face with the Book of Psalms in Latin is that there are MULTIPLE versions of the Psalms in Latin. So, that is what I thought I would do my post on today, since it gives some insight into the nature of the Book of Psalms in the Hebrew Bible, and also to the fascinating story of the Vulgate and the Latin tradition of Bible translation.

The "psalms" are songs, intended for musical accompaniment. The name itself, "psalm," is a Greek translation from the Hebrew, meaning "song played on a stringed instrument." There is a detailed article at wikipedia about the types of songs contained in the book and their intensive use in both Jewish and Christian worship.

In the Roman Catholic tradition, the old Liturgy of the Hours - matins (vigils, nocturns), lauds, prime, terce, sext, none, vespers, and compline - provided a schedule for the recitation (the canonical hours) of psalms throughout the day.

Written originally in Hebrew, the Psalms were translated into Greek and included in the Septuagint (Greek translation of the Hebrew Bible). Then, in the second century C.E., the Greek version of the Psalms was translated into Latin. This is the so-called "Itala" or "Old" Latin Psalter (Psalterium Vetus) translation, and it survives only in the form of quotations found in the ancient Church fathers, along with some limited manuscript evidence.

Then, in the late fourth century, Pope Damasus asked Jerome to revise the Old Latin translation of the Psalms, making corrections so that it matched the Septuagint (Greek) version more closely. This became known as the "Roman Psalter" (Psalterium Romanum) but Jerome was very unhappy with the results. He believed that the version he was revising was itself so full of errors that the project of revising it was simply misguided. Yet the Roman Psalter is still used in the Vatican, even today.

Jerome then did another version, starting from scratch, using this time the famous Hexapla edition of the Bible, created by the great scholar Origen, which gave Jerome access to multiple Greek translations of the Hebrew, along with the Hebrew text itself. This second version by Jerome is now referred to as the "Gallican Psalter," and it is included in the Vulgate Bible. You can find many beautiful medieval psalters based on this text online, such as the lovely Burnet Psalter. Here is an initial image from the Burnet Psalter showing King David, the putative author of many of the psalms, kneeling with his harp before an altar.

Finally, Jerome completed a third version of the Psalter, done directly from the Hebrew, the "Versio juxta Hebraicum," "Version according to the Hebrew" (Jerome at this point was living in Bethlehem, where he had learned Hebrew; Jerome settled in Bethlehem in the year 388 and he died there in 420). This version of the Psalms is used by scholars today as a way to understand the Hebrew text as it existed in the late fourth century, although the Latin translation itself has no official role in the liturgy of the Catholic Church and it is not part of the Vulgate Bible.

In 1945, Pope Pius XII sponsored a new translation of the Psalms, called the Novum Psalterium, the "New Psalter." Although it is based on the Hebrew, it uses a classical Latin style, rather than imitating the style of the Hebrew in the Latin. This neo-classical Latin version of the Psalms has had both its defenders and its critics, although it is increasingly less well-known since the Catholic Church issued yet another translation in 1969, the Nova Vulgata version, or "New Vulgate" version. This one follows the Hebrew text and also imitates the style of Jerome's Gallican psalter. It is this verison which is printed today in the Roman Catholic liturgy.

The Psalms are truly beautiful, in whatever language you read them. Many phrases from the King James version of the Psalms in English are among the gems of the English literary tradition.

Meanwhile, here is a random quote from the King James version of Psalms - although I've not provided chapter and verse number here, you'll find it easy to Google the words and look up the King James version online (if you are reading this post via RSS, you'll need to visit the blog in order to see the script in action):

If all goes well, I should have one or more Bible books to report on each day over the rest of the summer!

Bible Woman: Anna, Wife of Tobit

2007-07-05T19:30:00.000-06:00

The woman in the Bible Women Widget for this week is Anna, the wife of Tobit, whose story is told in the Book of Tobit.

This is one of my favorite books of the Bible, and is found in both the Catholic and Orthodox Bibles, although it is no longer included in most Protestant Bibles, having been classified with the "apocrypha." That means it is part of the King James Bible, but it is grouped separately from the canonical books. You can read the King James version of the Book of Tobit online - and if you have never read the book, it is one that I highly recommend.

Tobit, the hero of the book, is a pious Jew living during the time of the exile in Nineveh. He is devoted to God, and risks everything to go out and bury a fellow Jew whose body was thrown into the street. Through a series of events connected with this pious action, he goes blind. His wife Anna works to support the family, and the book features some wonderful dialogue between the two of them that reveals a domestic intimacy and personal quality that is quite remarkable for a Biblical text.

For example, one day Anna is given a goat by her employers to bring home. Although her husband Tobit is blind, he can hear the goat bleating, and he thinks she has stolen the goat. She indignantly tells him that is not the case at all. Here is how Tobit tells the story in his own words:

And my wife Anna did take women's works to do. And when she had sent them home to the owners, they paid her wages, and gave her also besides a kid. And when it was in my house, and began to cry, I said unto her, From whence is this kid? is it not stolen? render it to the owners; for it is not lawful to eat any thing that is stolen. But she replied upon me, It was given for a gift more than the wages. Howbeit I did not believe her, but bade her render it to the owners: and I was abashed at her. But she replied upon me, Where are thine alms and thy righteous deeds?

Tobit may be famous for his righteous deeds, but Anna does not like being accused of theft when she is simply working as hard as she can to support the family!

Tobit has a son, Tobias, and most of the book is occupied with the story of how Tobias goes on a long and dangerous journey in order to recover some funds that his father has left deposited in another city. Tobias also rescues a kinswoman, Sarah, who is being tormented by a demon. He marries her, and brings her back home with him. In these adventures, Tobias is accompanied by the angel Raphael, in disguise, and there are many beautiful European paintings which depict Tobias together with the angel, sometimes showing him as a mere child, and at other times showing him as a young man. Tobias and the angel are also accompanied by a loyal pet dog on their journey! Tobias even acquires some medicine which restores his father's sight at the end of the story.

Of course, Anna is not happy when her husband sends their son out on this long and dangerous journey. She does not think it is worth risking his life in order to recover the money; even though they are impoverished, it is enough to get by, at least as far as Anna is concerned!

But Anna his mother wept, and said to Tobit, Why hast thou sent away our son? is he not the staff of our hand, in going in and out before us? Be not greedy to add money to money: but let it be as refuse in respect of our child. For that which the Lord hath given us to live with doth suffice us. Then said Tobit to her, Take no care, my sister; he shall return in safety, and thine eyes shall see him. For the good angel will keep him company, and his journey shall be prosperous, and he shall return safe. Then she made an end of weeping.

Anna stops weeping, but you know she is worried for their son.

Although Tobias is slow in returning home simply becuase he is celebrating his wedding feast at the house of his father-in-law, his parents do not know that, and they become terribly worried when he does not come back:

Now Tobit counted every day: and when the days of the journey were expired, and they came not, Then Tobit said, Are they detained? or is Gabael dead, and there is no man to give him the money? Therefore he was very sorry. Then his wife said unto him, My son is dead, seeing he stayeth long; and she began to wail him, and said, Now I care for nothing, my son, since I have let thee go, the light of mine eyes. To whom Tobit said, Hold thy peace, take no care, for he is safe. But she said, Hold thy peace, and deceive me not; my son is dead. And she went out every day into the way which they went, and did eat no meat on the daytime, and ceased not whole nights to bewail her son.

Finally, she sees him coming home at last: "Now Anna sat looking about toward the way for her son. And when she espied him coming, she said to his father, Behold, thy son cometh, and the man that went with him."

The man, of course, is not just a man, but is the angel Raphael in disguise. In the image below, which comes an illuminated manuscript of the early 14th century, you can see Tobias together with the angel, Raphael, on the right, together with the faithful dog at Tobias's feet. Then, on the left, you can see Anna, together with her husband Tobit, who is blind. I like the way that Anna seems engaged in dialogue with Tobit right here in the painting, just as she engages him in dialogue in the Biblical text itself!

Bible Book: Genesis

2007-07-03T08:11:00.000-06:00

Well, it's July - and I'm not sure if I will be able to accomplish my goal of finishing a book this summer (this move to North Carolina made everything topsy-turvy!), but I've started in on a follow-up book to the Latin Via Proverbs book which I published last summer. It will be a collection of sayings from the Latin Vulgate, organized grammatically, just as in the first book. So, I've started going through the Bible looking for likely verses or parts of verses to include. I did the Book of Genesis yesterday, which is always a pleasure to work on.

There are so many marvelous stories in Genesis, and those stories in turn have provoked a huge body of legends and tales outside the Bible, filling in the gaps in the Biblical narrative or amplifying on the stories that are already there. The great scholar Louis Ginzberg compiled a collection of these extra-Biblical stories in his monumental Legends of the Jews.

Luckily for all of us, this book is now available at several websites, including Sacred Texts Archive. The book was originally published in six volumes, with four volumes of stories and two volumes of notes to the stories. Unfortunately, only the four volumes of stories are available online. To consult the notes, you will need to acquire a printed copy, although there are inexpensive paperback editions available of the notes volumes, along with a helpful index volume for all six volumes.

The stories that Ginzberg collected in conjunction with the Biblical book of Genesis occupy the entire first volume and the first half of the second volume! So, for example, if you have always been curious about the legend of Lilith, Adam's first wife, here is Ginzberg's account of that legend:

The Divine resolution to bestow a companion on Adam met the wishes of man, who had been overcome by a feeling of isolation when the animals came to him in pairs to be named. To banish his loneliness, Lilith was first given to Adam as wife. Like him she had been created out of the dust of the ground. But she remained with him only a short time, because she insisted upon enjoying full equality with her husband. She derived her rights from their identical origin. With the help of the Ineffable Name, which she pronounced, Lilith flew away from Adam, and vanished in the air. Adam complained before God that the wife He had given him had deserted him, and God sent forth three angels to capture her. They found her in the Red Sea, and they sought to make her go back with the threat that, unless she went, she would lose a hundred of her demon children daily by death. But Lilith preferred this punishment to living with Adam. She takes her revenge by injuring babes--baby boys during the first night of their life, while baby girls are exposed to her wicked designs until they are twenty. days old The only way to ward off the evil is to attach an amulet bearing the names of her three angel captors to the children, for such had been the agreement between them.

That's just one example out of the literally thousands of stories which Ginzberg collected from the Talmud, Midrash and other traditional sources.

Meanwhile, here is a random quote from the King James version of Genesis - although I've not provided chapter and verse number here, you'll find it easy to Google the words and look up the King James version online (if you are reading this post via RSS, you'll need to visit the blog in order to see the script in action):

If all goes well, I should have one or more Bible books to report on each day over the rest of the summer!

Film: Children of Men

2007-07-02T18:52:00.000-06:00

Well, the weekend ran away from me before I was able to post again about another film I thought would be relevant to this blog, in addition to the marvelous film Saints and Soldiers, which I posted about earlier.

The film is Children of Men, an adaption of the novel of the same name by the author P.D. James (Baronness Phyllis Dorothy James), who is best known for her mystery novels featuring the detectives Adam Dalgliesh or Cordelia Gray. But in 1992, James wrote a book that can be classified as science fiction, although it is shies away from scientific detail. Instead, it simply starts from the premise that all human beings on planet Earth ceased to reproduce in 1995. All men ceased to produce sperm, and all sperm stored in laboratories became infertile. No more babies were born. The action of the novel then starts in the year 2021, when the youngest people on the planet are in their twenties, and all human societies have been changed - brutally, horribly, weirdly - in response to the departure of children from the world of men, which is now heading to extinction. The book takes its title, Children of Men, from a passage in the Psalms: "Thou turnest man to destruction; and sayest, Return, ye children of men."

I read the book when it first came out since I was very struck by the plot's main premise and the book is, indeed, a good read.

The film, on the other hand, is really excellent. Extreme liberties - EXTREME liberties - were taken in the adaptation of the book to film. It's probably more fair to call it a film inspired by the same premise as James's novel, but with a plot that takes on a quite different shape. And, speaking for myself, I enjoyed the film far more than I did the book. A rare event, but that is decidedly the case here. I do wonder what P.D. James herself thinks of what happened to her story! James's novel is extraordinarily bleak with very little human sentimentality of any kind to redeem it. That is not surprising; her mystery novels, too, are brimming over with desperate, sad, lamentable characters whose emotional lives are anything but sympathetic. (Don't get me wrong: her books are great to read, and I've read about a dozen of them... but sympathetic characters are not the appeal.)

In the film version of Children of Men, however, all kinds of changes are made to P.D. James's novel which give it an emotionally satisfying quality that the book, for all its intelligence, never achieved for me. As you can imagine, the plot does involve a woman who becomes pregnant (the story's premise essentially demands that, of course!) - but the film constructs a wholly new character for this expectant mother, and she is a character who resonates much more profoundly with the archetypal figure of the Virgin Mary, the mother of Jesus. And like Jesus, this new baby, born in desperate circumstances - circumstances far worse than a manger in Bethlehem - is destined to save the world, not from sin, but from extinction. The film does a brilliant job with the "nativity" of the child, and the stunning effect that the infant has on those around her (note: her, not him).

The film has garnered very high ratings at imdb.com (although it seems to be a love-it-or-hate-it reaction, as you can see from the viewer reviews at amazon.com). The movie can definitely be appreciated without pondering the parallels between the miraculous birth story in the film and the account of Jesus's nativity. Yet for me, as I watched the film, it was even more satisfying to see in my mind's eye the nativity scenes of the infant Jesus and compare them to the scenes unfolding in the latter part of the film.

The filmmakers, of course, were very aware of this connection: in the U.S., the film was released on none other than December 25!

So, if you are curious, I would definitely recommend this as a film worth watching, especially if you want to ponder a modern inflection of the Christian nativity story from two thousand years ago.

Here's a still from the film, showing Theo, the film's reluctant hero, escorting the mother, Kee, and her newborn baby from the midst of a warzone. Both actors (Clive Owen, Claire-Hope Ashitey) do an excellent job in the film. It must have been a grueling experience to make the movie and, be warned, it is a bit grueling to watch - but well worth it, I think!