HistoricalChristian.Faith

Hrabanus Maurus on the Rabbinic Corruption of Scripture

Dates: c. 845 (De rerum naturis, a.k.a. De Universo, composed c. 842–847; d. 856) · Wikipedia
Summary: The Carolingian transmitter. In Book V of his encyclopedia De rerum naturis (De Universo), the abbot of Fulda and archbishop of Mainz copies Isidore of Seville's Bible-book almost word for word, carrying the Septuagint legend — the seventy translators sealed in separate cells, rendering the text "through the Holy Spirit" so identically that nothing differed "even in the order of the words" — from seventh-century Spain into the ninth-century Frankish schools. He inherits the whole premise of the corruption charge and, like Isidore, levels none of it: the rival versions (Aquila, Symmachus, Theodotion) are listed flatly, the one "corruption" he names is by the gentiles (healed by Ezra), and Jerome's Hebrew-based Vulgate is "deservedly preferred." His one small editorial touch even cuts the other way: where Isidore states the separate-cells miracle as bare fact, Hrabanus inserts "as some assert" (ut quidam asserunt). His fuller role, as a witness to the inspiration legend itself, belongs to the companion doctrine, the Origin and Inspiration of the Septuagint.

Claims & evidence

The inspired-LXX premise, carried verbatim into the Carolingian world

"He [Ptolemy] too, seeking the writings of the Old Testament from the pontiff Eleazar, saw to it that they were rendered from the Hebrew tongue into the Greek speech by seventy translators — copies which he kept in the Alexandrian library; seeing that, separated each apart in his own cell, as some assert, they all translated everything through the Holy Spirit in such a way that nothing was found in the manuscript of any one of them that differed from the rest, even in the order of the words."

— Hrabanus Maurus, De rerum naturis (De Universo) V.4, "On the library" (De bibliotheca), working translation from the Latin of Patrologia Latina 111, cols. 121–122, source.¹ The passage is Isidore's Etymologies VI.iv.1–2 transcribed almost exactly — the inspiration miracle at its most developed (not merely the same sense but the same words in the same order, produced by men who could not consult one another), the providential guarantee that makes the Greek text authoritative and so makes any later Hebrew divergence look like tampering. It is the very premise the corruption charge needs, now firmly lodged in the standard reference book of the Frankish schools. Hrabanus prefaces it with Isidore's round numbers, again copied: Ptolemy Philadelphus, "most sagacious in every kind of literature," gathered "not only the writings of the nations but the divine letters too," so that "seventy thousand books were found at Alexandria in his day."²

He lists the rival versions flatly — and prefers Jerome's Hebrew Vulgate

"There were also other translators who rendered the sacred utterances out of the Hebrew tongue into Greek, such as Aquila, Symmachus, and Theodotion; as also that common (vulgaris) translation whose author does not appear, and which on that account, having no translator's name, is called the Fifth Edition… Moreover the priest Jerome, skilled in the three languages, turned these same Scriptures from Hebrew into Latin speech and rendered them eloquently. His translation is deservedly preferred to the rest, for it is both truer to the words and clearer in the transparency of its sense."

— Hrabanus Maurus, De rerum naturis V.4, working translation from PL 111, col. 122, source.³ Where Epiphanius had told the tale of Aquila as deliberate, post-Christian distortion of the messianic proof-texts, Hrabanus — following Isidore — simply enumerates the later versions alongside the Septuagint and Origen's "sixth and seventh edition," as items in a bibliography. The polemical charge this strand could carry — the rival versions as anti-Christian forgeries — is wholly absent, and the chapter closes by ranking Jerome's Hebrew-based Latin above all the Greek, the exact inverse of the corruption thesis.

The one "corruption" he names is by the gentiles, healed by Ezra

"The scribe Ezra, after the Law had been burned by the Chaldeans, restored the library of the Old Testament — once the Jews had returned to Jerusalem — breathed upon by the divine Spirit; and he corrected all the volumes of the Law and the Prophets that had been corrupted by the gentiles (a gentibus), and arranged the whole Old Testament into twenty-two books."

— Hrabanus Maurus, De rerum naturis V.4, working translation from PL 111, col. 121, source.⁴ The corruption motif is present in Hrabanus, as in Isidore, but pointed the opposite way from the doctrine's thesis: the text was "corrupted by the gentiles," and the restorer was a Jew — Ezra, "breathed upon by the divine Spirit." He holds the inspired-LXX legend and a preference for the Hebraica veritas side by side, untroubled by the tension the corruption charge would later draw out of it.

Notes

• A transmitter, not a charger. Hrabanus belongs on this timeline for the same reason as Isidore, whom he copies: he is a measure of how much of the corruption thesis is later argument rather than received tradition. He inherits every ingredient — the inspired LXX, the separate cells, the word-perfect agreement, the named rival versions — and draws none of the conclusion. The De rerum naturis was the encyclopedia a ninth-century preacher reached for; that the charge is absent from it, even as the premise is reproduced in full, shows the accusation still had to be built from the premise and was not simply handed down with it.
• Near-verbatim dependence on Isidore — with one telling touch. Hrabanus's whole chapter "On the library" is Isidore's Etymologies VI.iii–iv stitched into one (Isidore had split the matter across De bibliothecis and De interpretibus). The one substantive divergence runs against the legend: where Isidore states flatly "singuli in singulis cellulis separati" ("separated each apart in his own cell"), Hrabanus writes "singuli in singulis cellulis ut quidam asserunt separati" — inserting "as some assert," a faint distancing qualifier on the separate-cells miracle that the skeptics (Jerome, and later Hugh of Saint Victor) would press much harder. He carries the miracle, but not quite as bare fact.
• His real home is the origin legend. The substance of Hrabanus's testimony — the Holy-Spirit inspiration, the identity "even in the order of the words" — is a witness to the Origin and Inspiration of the Septuagint, where the legend's growth is traced. He is here on the rabbinic-corruption timeline only because he carries that premise deep into the Latin West, where it would be turned (in Julian of Toledo and others) into the chronological accusation it never is in him.
• Source note. Hrabanus's De rerum naturis is cited from the standard edition in Migne's Patrologia Latina 111 (cols. 121–122), as transcribed at Documenta Catholica Omnia; the English in the blockquotes is a working translation, with key Latin given in the notes. The verse-by-verse near-identity with the Barney–Lewis–Beach–Berghof English of Isidore (Cambridge, 2006) can be checked against that page.

Sources