Monday, April 15, 2024

Jerome Identifying the Queen of Psalm 45 as the Church in Epistle 65 to the Virgin Principia

  

15. “The queen stood by your right hand, clothed in vestments wrought in gold.” And for what follows: “arrayed in diverse colors,” no other interpreter translated this, only the common edition. In the Hebrew it says: “The spouse stood at your right hand with a golden diadem.” Where we translated “spouse,” the Hebrew reads segal. Aquila translated this as συγκοιτον [“bed companion”]; Symmachus and the fifth edition by παλλακην, that is, “concubine”; the Septuagint, Theodotion, and the sixth edition by “queen.” Then, where I have recorded: “with a diadem of gold,” Symmachus translated: “in fine gold”; Aquila, the fifth and the sixth editions: “in tincture,” or “in gold of Ophir.” By means of myrrh, the drop, cassia, and ivory palaces, these women, who are daughters of kings, and who are prepared for the embraces of the bridegroom, delight him, whose throne is forever and ever. Now, the one who has already been founded and firmly rooted on Christ the rock, the Catholic Church, has single dove, perfect and very intimate, stands at the right hand and has nothing in it on the left (sinistrum). She stands in vestments wrought with gold, passing from the words of Scripture into their meaning, and full of all virtues; or, as we have translated, with a diadem of gold. For she is a queen, and she reigns with the king whose daughter we can understand in a general way as the souls of believers and, in a special way, the choirs of virgins. Ophir is a kind of gold, so called either form its location in India or from its color. For there are seven words for gold in Hebrew. The wife and the concubine we should understand according to the Song of Solomon. She is the one who cannot sleep without her bridegroom, or husband.

 

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17. Let us ask the Jews who this daughter is to whom God is speaking. I have no doubt that they would answer: the synagogue. But how is it said to the synagogue and to the people of Israel: “Leave your people and your father’s house”? Did they forsake the Hebrew nation and Abraham, their ancient father? If they reply that it is signifying the calling of Abraham because he abandoned the Chaldeans, who then is this king who will love the beauty of Abraham? Certainly, there is one who says: “Hear, O daughter,” and another of whom it is said: “The king will covet your beauty.” And this other one is not only king, but also Lord and God, who is to be worshiped. (Jerome, “Epistle 65 to the Virgin Principia,” A.D. 397, in St. Jerome: Exegetical Epistles, 2 vols. [trans. Thomas P. Scheck; The Fathers of the Church 147; Washington, D.C.: The Catholic University of America Press, 2023], 1:289-90, 291-92)