Jerome

[Daniel 7:1] "In the first year of Belshazzar, King of Babylon, Daniel beheld a dream. And a vision of his head upon his bed. And when he wrote the dream down, he comprehended it in a few words and gave a brief summary of it, saying..." This section which we now undertake to explain, and also the subsequent section which we are going to discuss, is historically prior to the two previous sections. For this present section and that which follows it are recorded to have taken place in the first and third years of the reign of King Belshazzar (Jeremiah 39) [Jerome's citation of Jeremiah 39 seems quite pointless in this connection]. But the section which we read previously to the one just preceding this, is recorded to have taken place in the last year, indeed on the final day, of Belshaz-zar's reign. And we meet this phenomenon not only in Daniel but also in Jeremiah [cf. Jeremiah 35 and Jeremiah 34] and Ezekiel (Ezekiel 17), as we shall be able to show, if life spares us that long. But in the earlier portion of the book, the historical order has been followed, namely the events which occurred in the time of Nebuchadnezzar, and Belshazzar, and Darius or Cyrus. But in the passages now before us an account is given of various visions which were beheld on particular occasions and of which only the prophet himself was aware, and which therefore lacked any importance as signs or revelations so far as the barbarian nations were concerned. But they were written down only that a record of the things beheld might be preserved for posterity.

[Daniel 5:30-31] "On that same night Belshazzar, King of the Chaldeans, was slain, and Darius the Mede succeeded to his kingdom at the age of sixty-two." Josephus writes in his tenth book of the Jewish Antiquities that when Babylon had been laid under siege by the Medes and Persians, that is, by Darius and Cyrus, Belshazzar, King of Babylon, fell into such forgetfulness of his own situation as to put on his celebrated banquet and drink from the vessels of the Temple, and even while he was besieged he found leisure for banqueting. From this circumstance the historical account could arise, that he was captured and slaughtered on the same night, while everyone was either terrified by fear of the vision and its interpretation, or else taken up with festivity and drunken banqueting. As for the fact that while Cyrus, King of the Persians, was the victor, and Darius was only King of the Medes, it was Darius who was recorded to have succeeded to the throne of Babylon, this was an arrangement occasioned by factors of age, family relationship, and the territory ruled over. By this I mean that Darius was sixty-two years old, and that, according to what we read, the kingdom of the Medes was more sizable than that of the Persians, and being Cyrus's uncle, he naturally had a prior claim, and ought to have been accounted as successor to the rule of Babylon. Therefore also in a vision of Isaiah which was recited against Babylon, after many other matters too lengthy to mention, an account is given of these things which are to take place: "Behold I Myself will rouse up against them the Medes, a people who do not seek after silver nor desire gold, but who slay the very children with their arrows and have no compassion upon women who suckle their young" (Isaiah 13:17-18). And Jeremiah says: "Sanctify nations against her, even the kings of Media, and the governors thereof and all the magistrates thereof and all the land under the power thereof" (Jeremiah 51:28). Then follow the words: "The daughter of Babylon is like a threshing-floor during the time of its treading; yet a little while, and the time of its harvesting will come" (Jeremiah 51:33). And in testimony of the fact that Babylon was captured during a banquet, Isaiah clearly exhorts her to battle when he writes: "Babylon, my beloved, has become a strange spectacle unto me: set thou the table and behold in the mirrors those who eat and drink; rise up, ye princes, and snatch up your shields!" (Isaiah 21:4-5).

[Daniel 5:30-31] "On that same night Belshazzar, King of the Chaldeans, was slain, and Darius the Mede succeeded to his kingdom at the age of sixty-two." Josephus writes in his tenth book of the Jewish Antiquities that when Babylon had been laid under siege by the Medes and Persians, that is, by Darius and Cyrus, Belshazzar, King of Babylon, fell into such forgetfulness of his own situation as to put on his celebrated banquet and drink from the vessels of the Temple, and even while he was besieged he found leisure for banqueting. From this circumstance the historical account could arise, that he was captured and slaughtered on the same night, while everyone was either terrified by fear of the vision and its interpretation, or else taken up with festivity and drunken banqueting. As for the fact that while Cyrus, King of the Persians, was the victor, and Darius was only King of the Medes, it was Darius who was recorded to have succeeded to the throne of Babylon, this was an arrangement occasioned by factors of age, family relationship, and the territory ruled over. By this I mean that Darius was sixty-two years old, and that, according to what we read, the kingdom of the Medes was more sizable than that of the Persians, and being Cyrus's uncle, he naturally had a prior claim, and ought to have been accounted as successor to the rule of Babylon. Therefore also in a vision of Isaiah which was recited against Babylon, after many other matters too lengthy to mention, an account is given of these things which are to take place: "Behold I Myself will rouse up against them the Medes, a people who do not seek after silver nor desire gold, but who slay the very children with their arrows and have no compassion upon women who suckle their young" (Isaiah 13:17-18). And Jeremiah says: "Sanctify nations against her, even the kings of Media, and the governors thereof and all the magistrates thereof and all the land under the power thereof" (Jeremiah 51:28). Then follow the words: "The daughter of Babylon is like a threshing-floor during the time of its treading; yet a little while, and the time of its harvesting will come" (Jeremiah 51:33). And in testimony of the fact that Babylon was captured during a banquet, Isaiah clearly exhorts her to battle when he writes: "Babylon, my beloved, has become a strange spectacle unto me: set thou the table and behold in the mirrors those who eat and drink; rise up, ye princes, and snatch up your shields!" (Isaiah 21:4-5).

[Daniel 5:1] "Belshazzar the king made a great feast for his one thousand nobles; and each one drank in the order of his age." It should be known that this man was not the son of Nebuchadnezzar, as readers commonly imagine; but according to Berosus, who wrote the history of the Chaldeans, and also Josephus, who follows Berosus, after Nebuchadnezzar's reign of forty-three years, a son named Evilmerodach succeeded to his throne. It was concerning this king that Jeremiah wrote that in the first year of his reign he raised the head of Jehoiachin, king of Judah, and took him out of his prison (Jeremiah 52:31). Josephus likewise reports that after the death of Evilmerodach, his son Neriglissar succeeded to his father's throne; after whom in turn came his son Labosordach. Upon the latter's death, his son, Belshazzar, obtained the kingdom, and it is of him that the Scripture now makes mention. After he had been killed by Darius, King of the Medes, who was the maternal uncle of Cyrus, King of the Persians, the empire of the Chaldeans was destroyed by Cyrus the Persian. It was these two kingdoms which Isaiah in chap. 21 (Isaiah 21:7) addresses as a charioteer of a vehicle drawn by a camel and an ass. Indeed Xenophon also writes the same thing in connection with the childhood of Cyrus the Great; likewise Pompeius Trogus and many others who have written up the history of the barbarians. Some authorities think that this Darius was the Astyages mentioned in the Greek writings, while others think it was Astyages' son, and that he was called by the other name among the barbarians. "And each one of the princes who had been invited drank in the order of his own age." Or else, as other translators have rendered it: "The king himself was drinking in the presence of all the princes whom he had invited."

I am forced, through each of the books of Divine Scripture, to respond to the slander of adversaries who accuse my translation of rebuking the Seventy translators, not as though among the Greeks Aquila, Symmachus, and Theodotion had also translated either word for word, or meaning for meaning, or by mixing both together, also a kind of translation of equal proportion, and also Origen had divided all the scrolls of the Old Instrument with obeli and asterisks which, either added by him or taken from Theodotion, he added to the ancient translation, proving what was added to have been lacking. Therefore my detractors should learn to accept in full what they have accepted in part, or to erase my translation along with their asterisks. For it should not be, that those who they accepted to have omitted many things may not be acknowledged to have certainly erred in some things, especially in Job, in which if you will have removed those things which are added under the asterisks, the greater part will be cut off. And this is only among the Greeks. Otherwise, among the Latins, before their translation which we recently edited under asterisks and obeli, almost seven hundred or eight hundred verses are (missing), so that the book, shortened and cut up and eaten away, shows its deformity publicly to readers.

And this translation follows no translator of the ancients, but will rather convey from the speech itself (which is) Hebrew and Arabic and sometimes Syrian, now words, now meanings, now both together. For even among the Hebrews the whole book is considered oblique and slippery and what the Greek rhetors call figuratively arranged (εσχηματισμενος), and while one thing is said, it does another, as if you would hold tightly an eel or a little murena fish, when you press harder, then the sooner it escapes. I remember I paid not a little money toward understanding of this scroll, for an instructor from Lydda who among the Hebrews was thought to have first rank, with whose teaching I know not whether I accomplished anything; this one thing I know: for me not to have been able to translate anything that I didn’t know before.

Therefore, from the beginning to the words of Job, among the Hebrews the speech is prose. Next, from the words of Job in which he says, "May the day perish in which I was born, and the night in which it was said: A man is conceived," to that place, where it is written before the end of the scroll: "Therefore I accuse myself and make repentance in dust and ashes," the verses are in hexameter, running in dactyl and spondee and, according to the idiom of the language, also accepting numerous other (poetic) feet not of the same (number of) syllables, but of the same intervals. Sometimes also, by breaking the law of (poetic metrical) numbers, the rhythm itself is found sweet and ringing, which is understood better by prosodists than by a simple reader. And from the verse mentioned above to the end of the book, the small section that remains continues with prose speech. If that seems unbelievable to anyone, namely that among the Hebrews there are meters, and either the Psalter or the Lamentation of Jermiah or almost all the songs of the Scriptures are to be understood in the manner of our Flaccus and the Greek Pindar and Alkaios and Sappho, let him read Philo, Josephus, Origen, and Eusebius of Caesarea, and by their testimony he will prove me to speak the truth.

For which reason, let my dogs therefore hear me to have labored at this scroll, not as rebuking the ancient translation, but rather so those things in it which are either obscure or missing or certainly corrupted by the error of scribes may be made more clear by our translation, who have both learned Hebrew speech in part, and also in Latin, almost from our cradle we were worn out (?) among grammarians and rhetors and philosophers. But if among the Greeks, after the edition of the Seventy, with the Gospel of Christ shining, the Jew Aquila, and Symmachus and Theodotion, judaizing heretics, are accepted, who have hidden many mysteries of the Savior by sly translation, and yet are found in the Hexapla among the churches and are explained by men of the Church, how much more should I, a Christian of Christian parents and bearing the standard of the cross on my forehead, whose study was to recover the missing, to correct the corrupted, and to open the sacraments of the Church with pure and faithful speech, not be rejected by either disdainful or by malicious readers? Let whoever will to keep the old books, either written on purple skins with gold and silver, or in uncial letters, as they commonly say, loads of writing rather than books, while they leave to me and mine to have poor little leaves and not such beautiful books as correct ones. Each edition, the Seventy according to the Greeks and mine according to the Hebrews, was translated into Latin by my labor. May each one choose what he will, and prove himself studious rather than malevolent.

(Chapter 1, Verse 1) The word of the Lord that came to Joel the son of Pethuel. The Seventy Interpreters translated Pethuel as Bathuel, which has no meaning in Hebrew. However, Pethuel is translated into our language as the breadth of God, or God opening, as we read in Mark with the Savior saying to the deaf-mute: Ephphatha, which means, be opened (Mark 7). For just as the Apostle could say: Our mouth is open to you, O Corinthians, our heart is widened (2 Corinthians 6:11), and he heard from the Lord: Open your mouth wide, and I will fill it (Psalm 81:11). The opening of the mouth itself is in the power of God, not of man, as Paul says: A great and evident door has been opened to me; but there are many adversaries (1 Corinthians 16:9); therefore, God is said to be the opener. When the saint always makes progress, knowing in part and prophesying in part, until what is perfect comes, generated from breadth and openness, he is called Joel, which in our language means beginning, or is God, as the Apostle says: Brothers, I do not consider myself to have taken hold of it (Phil. III, 13); growing in humility, he deserves to hear with Moses: I Am Who I Am (Exod. III). For the distinction is made between those who are not, about whom we also read in Esther: Do not give your scepter to those who are not (Esther XIV, 11), to show that God and His saints exist. Let these things be briefly described about the name of Joel and his father, so that the word of God, which was in the beginning with God, may be correctly told to have been made, as John the Baptist reports: He who is coming after me has become before me, because he was before me (John 1:30). Moreover, the word is said to have been made according to his merit, to whom it is said, not according to the condition of the one who is said to be made, as we read elsewhere: The Lord has become my salvation (Psalm 118:21). But in the book of the Prophet Hosea, whom we explained at the beginning as one of the twelve prophets, the prophecy is attributed to the ten tribes under the name Ephraim, which are often mentioned as either Samaria or Israel: in the same way, in Joel, who is second according to the Hebrews, it is to be believed that everything that is said pertains to the tribe of Judah and to Jerusalem, and no mention at all is made of Israel, that is, the ten tribes. We must also consider the times in which he prophesied, which we also read about in Hosea: In the days of Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah, kings of Judah, and in the days of Jeroboam, son of Joash, king of Israel.

(Version 2, 3.) Listen to this, elders, and perceive with your ears, all inhabitants of the earth, whether this happened in your days or in the days of your fathers: tell this to your children, and let your children tell their children, and let their children tell the next generation. LXX: Listen to these things, elders, and perceive with your ears, all inhabitants of the earth, whether such things happened in your days or in the days of your fathers: tell this to your children, and let your children tell their children, and let their children tell the next generation. The elderly are ordered to listen, the inhabitants of the earth to perceive with their ears. It is not said to the elderly, 'Listen, everyone'; to the inhabitants of the earth it is added, 'Perceive with your ears, everyone.' For in the holy scriptures, hearing is not that which resonates in the ear, but that which is perceived in the heart, according to what the Lord speaks in the Gospel: 'He who has ears to hear, let him hear' (Matt. 13:9). And what we have translated as 'perceive with your ears' is the same word in Greek and Hebrew, in Greek it is ἐνωτίσασθε, in Hebrew it is Eezinu, which is properly perceived not in the heart, but in the ear. And in order that we may know that hearing is more sacred than that which resonates in the ears, let us learn from the words of Isaiah: 'Hear, O heavens, and give ear, O earth' (Isa. I, 2). The elderly, who are heavenly, hear spiritually; those who dwell on the earth, and are called earthly, hear with their ears. And this should be noted in all the Scriptures where these two words are joined together. We also read this in the case of Lamech, a sinner, who spoke to his wives Ada and Sella: 'Hear my words, O wives of Lamech, give ear to my words, for I have slain a man to my wounding, and a young man to my hurt' (Gen. IV, 23); he knew that what he spoke was obscure, and therefore he called his wives not only to the simple sound of his words, but also to the understanding of his hidden sayings. So if someone is an old man, and an old man chosen in the Lord of mature age, as we read in the following passages according to the Septuagint Interpreters, and he has left behind the infancy of little ones, let him hear what is being said. But whoever still dwells on the earth, and cannot say, “I am a stranger and a pilgrim like all my fathers” (Ps. 39:12), let him perceive with his ears. If it has happened, he says, in your days, or in the days of your fathers. The art of rhetoric, focused on the magnitude of things, captivates the listener: no age, he says, remembers these things, which have not happened in your time, nor in the time of your fathers and ancestors. But recognize the fathers, grandfathers, and great-grandfathers, and the sons of sons, and all the subsequent offspring, according to that Virgilian saying (Aeneid, Book III):

And the children of the children, and those who will be born from them:

And therefore, old men and inhabitants of the earth, tell your sons and posterity; let the old man teach his children the mysteries: let the inhabitant of the earth tell a simple story. Until this day, we who believe in Christ, from whom the veil has been taken away from our eyes together with Moses, and of whom it is said: The wisdom of an aged man is in his gray hairs (Wis. IV, 8), we narrate secret and wonderful things to our children. But the Jews who inhabit the land speak earthly things, and cling to the earth, of whom it is written: He who is of the earth speaks of the earth: He who comes from heaven is above all (John III, 31).

(Verse 4) The residue of a caterpillar is eaten by a locust, and the residue of a locust is eaten by a beetle, and the residue of the beetle is eaten by rust. In the same way seventy times. The beginning is followed by a narrative: there, to make the listener pay attention, he promised that he would say great and incredible things, which neither the ancient history nor the present age would know. Here he placed the caterpillar, and the locust, and the beetle, and the rust, so that what each one rarely experiences, all may be remembered as happening at the same time, and therefore be marvelous. The caterpillar, which is called 'gezem' in Hebrew and 'kampē' in Greek, is interpreted by the Assyrians, Babylonians, and Chaldeans, who, coming from one climate of the world, devastated all the ten tribes and two, namely, the Israelite people. The locust, however, is interpreted by the Medes and Persians, who held the Jews captive after the overthrow of the Chaldean empire. The worm, on the other hand, refers to the Macedonians and all the successors of Alexander, especially the king Antiochus, who was known as Epiphanes, and who sat like a worm in Judaea and devoured all the remnants of the previous kings, under whom the wars of the Maccabees are narrated. They refer to the Roman Empire that completely oppressed the Jews during the fourth and final reign, to the extent of driving them out of their own territory. Josephus writes about this extensively in seven volumes, recounting the triumphs of Vespasian and Titus. We also read about the expedition of Elius Hadrian against the Jews, who so completely destroyed Jerusalem and its walls that he established a city named after himself, Eliam, from the remnants and ashes of the city. Zacharias writes that he saw in a vision four kingdoms that would overthrow Judah, represented by four horns, with an angel saying to him: 'These are the horns that scattered Judah, Israel, and Jerusalem.' (Zechariah 1:19). And again: I lifted up my eyes and saw, and behold, four chariots coming out from between two mountains, and the mountains were mountains of brass. In the first chariot were red horses, and in the second chariot black horses, and in the third chariot white horses, and in the fourth chariot dappled strong horses (Zach. VI, 1). And when the prophet had said to the angel who spoke in me, What are these, my Lord? the angel answered: These are the four winds of heaven, who come out to stand before the Lord of all the earth. And the meaning is: These are the ones who come forth from the face of the Lord, to fulfill his will. When we hear with our ears what the caterpillar, locust, weevil, rust signify to the inhabitants of the earth: now let us hear with the old men what has been said. All schools of philosophers proclaim that there are four disturbances, by which the health of souls is subverted. Two are present and contrary to each other, two are future and mutually dissenting. The present ones are sorrow and joy. We speak of sorrow of the soul, otherwise it is not sorrow of the body, but it is called illness. Therefore, we are sad and consumed by grief, and our state of mind is overturned. Hence, the Apostle warns that the brother should not be swallowed up by excessive sadness (I Cor. II). On the contrary, we rejoice and are filled with joy, and we cannot bear our blessings in moderation. It is the mark of a just and strong man not to be broken by adversities or lifted up by prosperity, but to be moderate in both. We have spoken about the disturbance of present things; let us also speak about things to come, in which there is either fear or hope. We fear adversity, we await prosperity; and what causes sorrow and joy to operate in the present, fear and hope do regarding the future, while either we fear adversity more than it is appropriate for it to be coming, or prosperity which we hope for makes us rejoice to such an extent that we cannot keep a measure, especially in those things which are uncertain, because the future is expected rather than held. The illustrious poet captures these disturbances in one incomplete verse (Aeneid, Book VI):

They fear and desire (this about the future), they grieve and rejoice (this about the present), nor do they look at the breezes, he says, enclosed in darkness and a blind prison.

For those who are enveloped in the darkness of disturbances are unable to behold the bright light of wisdom. Therefore, we must beware lest sorrow, like a caterpillar, consumes us; lest joy, like a locust, flying here and there and exulting in gladness, ravages us; lest fear and anxiety about the future, like a worm, devour the roots of wisdom; lest rust and longing for things to come desire useless things and lead us to ruin. Rather, in all things, let us govern the four-horse chariot with the four reins and the four red, various, white, and black horses, that is, navigate through both adverse and prosperous circumstances, guided by the reins of wisdom. I believe that anger is a passion that is slow and cannot be controlled, and delay itself and persistence weaken and exhaust all strength: if we do not kill it, it grows in us and flies away, and now it devours whatever it touches, now departing, it moves on to other things: and returning to its former seat, it becomes a pest, so that not only does it devour the crops, leaves, and bark, but even the very marrow with its slowness. But if it should happen, which, however, is rare, that even after the spirit of life has departed from us, rust destroys everything, so that it turns straw and worthless hay into blackness, so that they are not only useless for eating, but also for manure. Concerning these four disturbances, we will also discuss in the beginning Amos, if life is a companion, where it is written: On account of three transgressions of Damascus, and of four, I will not convert them, says the Lord (Amos 1:3). The disturbances that we have interpreted, the Greeks call them πάθη, which if we translate κακοζήλως into passions, we will have expressed the word rather than the meaning of the word.