I would imagine that most of the people who regularly read this blog are familiar with the Raccolta or A Manual of Indulgences: Prayers and Devotions Enriched with Indulgences. (It always sounds to me like “enriched with vitamins and minerals.”) I myself only discoved the Raccolta last year and at that time, I thought it was the coolest thing that I had ever found. In fact, though I tend to be fickle in my loves, one book and then another capturing my heart, the Raccolta on my shelf is well-worn and it comes with us nearly every Sunday on the road to Scranton.

Before our road trips, for example, we use #665, a prayer for those who are undertaking a journey or a walk. It’s sort of a shortened form of the prayers before travel which appear in the old Roman Breviary. (I also made my usual Sunday companions, Clara, Robertus, and Iacobus learn, in Latin, the prayers from the Roman Breviary, which are surpassing beautiful in both content and form. But since praying those prayers, because of the langauge barrier, as it were, takes us nearly the two full hours to Scranton, we generally go with the much shorter, though still beautiful, poem, versicle and prayer in honor of St. Raphael the Archangel. You see, though we give some of the four hours (there and back) to prayer, much of the time Robertus and I listen while we give Iacobus and Clara free reign to declaim (and dispute) any topic which strikes their fancy.

This past Sunday, my companions (particulary Iacobus) demonstrated their erudition by translating, without first having seen it, and only by hearing it, this sweet little prayer of St. Bonaventure. This is another great advantage of the Raccolta: it is fine collection of Latin prayers and poetry which are not online and which one would hardly know where to find elsewhere. Perhaps this little prayer is somewhere in St. Bonaventure’s Opera Omnia, or perhaps not, I don’t know. It was indulgenced by Pius IX, rescript in his own hand, on April 11, 1874. It is as follows:

Domine sancte, Pater omnipotens, aeterne Deus, propter tuam largitatem et Filii tui, qui pro me sustinuit passionem et mortem, et Matris eius excellentissimam sanctitatem, atque omnium Sanctorum merita, concede mihi peccatori, et omni tuo beneficio indigno, ut te solum diligam, tuum amorem semper sitiam, beneficium passionis continuo in corde habeam, meam miseriam recognoscam, et ab omnibus conculcari et contemni cupiam; nihil me contristet nisi culpa.

There, St. Bonaventure has said all that needs to be said in a few words. The Latin of the prayer exudes the simplicity of sanctity.

If you do not yet own a copy of the Raccolta, I highly recommend the purchase of it. And it makes a great gift, especially for the Novus Ordo Catholic. The prayers in the Raccolta are almost exclusively from the time of Pius XII and earlier: no sissy, modernist, “O Divine Gift-giver, I stand beneath the endless waterfall of your abundant gifts to me,” sorts of prayers. In fact, the Raccolta contains any number of prayers which are far, far from political and ecumenical correctness.

I bought my Raccolta last year from St. Athanasius Press and the Angelus Press has a nicer, hard cover version (with the same text).

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This has been my week in terms of finding delightful interfaith initiatives around the world. First, I posted about the imam in Paris who had sound advice for the French episcopate. Now, thanks to a forward from a friend in Oxford with a special love of Russia, I’ve come across this delightful article from last week about initiatives between the Russian Orthodox and Russian Muslims. If that doesn’t sound like a match made in heaven . . . these two found out just how much they had in common when some sodomites tried to have a parade. This was probably my favorite passage from the article (except for every other part of the article which was also my favorite):

Earlier this week Chief Mufti Talgat Tadzhuddin warned that Russia’s Muslims would stage violent protests if the march went ahead.

“If they come out on to the streets anyway they should be flogged. Any normal person would do that - Muslims and Orthodox Christians alike . . .”

The cleric said the Koran taught that homosexuals should be killed because their lifestyle spells the extinction of the human race and said that gays had no human rights.

Somebody needs to remind the Chief Mufti about the language of tolerance and compassion! By the looks of it, though, the Chief Mufti and the Russian Orthodox episcopate can do the tolerance training course together. It would seem that the Russian Orthodox have yet to see that very powerful movie, Brokeback Mountain. I’m sure that if they saw two beautiful man-lovers on screen, they would drop all of these harsh, hurtful words:

The Russian Orthodox Church has called [the parade of the sodomites] “the propaganda of sin.” Bishop Daniil of Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk yesterday condemned the plans as a “cynical mockery” and likened homosexuality to leprosy.

Last I checked, saying things like this was an imprisonable offense in England. When half the “episcopate” and “clergy” of the Church of England would deserve to be flogged, I can understand why.

As crazy as Russia is, doesn’t she yet give us some hope for civilization? In any case, it’s clear that they have a flair for good hats in Russia.

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A good friend of this blog has passed on to me something sure to cheer the hearts of our loyal readers: a prayer, in English and Latin, for advancing the cause of Raphael Cardinal Merry del Val. For those of you unfamiliar with this great man, Cardinal Merry del Val was Secretary of State to Pope St. Pius X. This is not the first time (see here and here) he has received posthumous praise on this blog, though this is the first time that we can credit another traditionalist, Fr. Chad Ripperger, FSSP, with bringing honor to this saintly soul. Not only did Fr. Ripperger write this prayer, but he also had it approved by His Excellency, Fabian Bruskewitz. (As a sidenote, this would be a good place to say that if this rumor is true, we here at Cornell would throw a party only somewhat smaller than the one we’d throw for a universal indult.)

Here it is:

Omnipotens sempiterne Deus, qui gloriam tuam manifestas per humilitatem, et exemplum integritatis religionis, per odium modernismi et per castigationem mortificationemque carnis servi tui Raphaelis Merry del Val, praesta, quaesumus, si conforme voluntati tuae sit, ut eum intercessione eius in terra glorifices per beneficium ………… quod ferventer imploramus per Cor Sacratissimum pro gloria tua et gloria Matris Mariae doloris quam piissime diligebat. Amen.

Credo. Pater Noster. 7 Ave Maria.

Almighty everlasting God, Who manifests Thy glory through the humility, example of integrity of religion, the hatred of the heresy of modernism, and by the castigation and mortification of the flesh of Thine servant Raphael Merry Del Val, grant, we beseech Thee, if it be in conformity with Thy Will, that Thou may glorify him on earth through his intercession by the favor of ………… which we fervently implore through Thy Sacred Heart for Thy glory and the glory of Mary the Sorrowful Mother, whom he devoutly loved. Amen.

Creed. Our Father. 7 Hail Marys.

And no less than 7 Ave’s attached to this prayer! That’s classy. Truly, there has to be something a little bit different about Merry del Val: how many Cardinals have prayers, written by them, even ejaculatory prayers, which appear in the Raccolta? Gems such as these:

“O merciful Lord, Thou art never weary of speaking to my poor heart; grant me grace that, if today I hear Thy voice, my heart may not be hardened.” (An indulgence of 300 days, June 8, 1949.)

“Lord, I am nothing, but, although nothing, I adore Thee.” (An indulgence of 300 days, June 8, 1949.)

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The title of this post is an early lesson in Hebrew pronouns, both seemingly well-suited for the English learner and yet for that reason perhaps all the more confusing!

I thought that I would share some things that I noticed about the Genesis 3:15 discussion which we were having in the comments under this post. Since those comments were more about other things, I thought it good to start another thread here, or at least to take this space to make some further points about the “ipsa” / “ipse” discussion.

Our friend, Joe Six Pack, had noted that his bible from TAN, a Douay-Rheims, had this to say about Genesis 3:15: “The footnote . . . goes on to say something about the early Church Fathers changing the pronoun to the feminine in order to make it apply to Our Lady.” Then, I pointed out that the Hebrew text, as we have it now, definitely reads “he.” Further, I noted the following things:

. . . the reason the footnote in the TAN bible said what it did is because the Hebrew is unambiguously “he.” The Septuagint also has “he.” But, and speaking off the top of my head, the oldest manuscripts we have for the Hebrew of that portion of the Bible are no older than the 10th century - so very late compared to the Vulgate.

Depending on how old our various manuscripts are, it’s always possible that the Vulgate preserves a more faithful reading. Indeed, in certain critical editions of the Hebrew scriptures, the Vulgate and Septuagint are regularly cited in the appartus, if they have a different or interesting reading.

On the other hand, the Jews were notoriously scrupulous about preserving the text precisely as they had received it from their fathers. While this may tell against the “she”, it also means that, in a nearly extraordinary way, we have a very accurate text of a very, very old work/s. There’s nothing quite like it, as far as I know, even speaking on a purely human level.

Of course, I’m all in favor of the “she” myself, if only because I have no problem with the idea that, led by the Holy Ghost, some Father or Fathers, saw to it that it was emended thus.

Further, what exercises me about the issue is that I see the removal of the “ipsa” as part of a campaign of liberals/modernists in the Church to minimize the place of Our Lady in the Church’s theology.

If that issue weren’t driving the matter, I don’t see that I would have any reason to get exercised, though I myself would preserve the “ipsa”. The editors of the 1969/1994 critical edition of the Vulgate text (I’m not talking about the neo-Vulgate) mention four editions or manuscripts of the Vulgate read “ipse” and not “ipsa”:

(1) the Ottobonianus from the 7th or 8th century in Italy

(2) the Toletanus from the 10th century in Spain

(3) a version at Tours from the 8th or 9th century

(4) and the Vetus Latina, for which it doesn’t offer a date on manuscripts, so for what that’s worth, this is supposed to be the pre-Jerome texts in circulation.

The Vulgate is difficult because we don’t have an official text of it until the 18th century, with Clementine version. (I think that’s the right name.)

So to reiterate my thought, once we have the “ipsa”, I think it’s unnecessary (and motivated by heretical scholars and theologians) to remove the “ipsa” in favor of “ipse.” But if we could leave aside the attack on Our Lady, you couldn’t accuse someone of being a deceiver or a great lier or anything bad for using “ipse” since it’s supported by our best texts of the Hebrew, the Septuagint, as well as various (old) Vulgate manuscripts, including the old Latin.

Finally, Joe Six Pack quoted from an article which said the following, and to which I want now to respond:

“Depending on where you placed the point, the same consonants could mean ‘he’ or ’she.’ The personal pronoun in Hebrew is spelled (in Hebrew letters) he, vav, aleph. If you put your point in the middle of the vav, it means ‘he’, if you put it under the he, it means ’she.’ Needless to say these points are not inspired but rather been the source of innumerable errors in the present-day Massoretic Hebrew text.”

I don’t have any strong disagreement with the things quoted from Br. Sennott’s article, but I wanted to share my view about the situation in the Hebrew. Undoubtedly, there is very good theological reason to interpret the passage just as he does, but I don’t think that the Hebrew text itself would lead one to be so enthusiastic.

As I said, the current consonantal text and vowel pointing has it to be “he” as in “he will crush thy head.” Br. Sennott notes that if it were only pointed in a different way, it would be “she”, thus leading one to think that the text could easily have been misinterpreted by the Massoretes: they put the wrong vowels with the consonants.

I would note that this isn’t the most obvious possibility because the correct spelling for the “she” pronoun is he - yod - aleph, not he - vav - aleph. It is the case, however, that the consonantal pattern he - vav - aleph can be, according to Brown, Driver and Briggs, “of common gender, the feminine form he - yod - aleph occuring only 11 times [in the Pentateuch]. The punctuators [the Massoretes], however, sought to assimilate the usage of the Pentateuch to that of the rest of the Old Testament, and accordingly whenever he - vav - aleph was construed as a feminine pointed it [accordingly as] he - vav - aleph [with a hiriq vowel under the he].”

Okay, so that’s probably a little obscure, especially for those with no knowledge of Hebrew. Here is the idea. Hebrew definitely has a way to express the feminine third person singular pronoun, and this pronoun is used, as the dictionary says, 11 times in the Pentateuch - not many, but then again, women are hardly the main actors therein. So if the composer of this text had wanted to say “she” unambiguously, he very well could have. It remains a possbility, however, that this is the instance of the common gender, and that it was incorrectly pointed by the Massoretes who had no inkling of our Lady’s prerogatives.

Another possibility, as various Catholic doctors seem to suggest in the article quoted by Joe Six Pack, is that the text was corrupted in some way. The Hebrew letters “vav” and “yodh” are very close to each other orthographically - the distinction will depend on the hand of the copyist, as to how clear the difference will be. To overly simply, the “vav” is just a longer “yodh”: so given the nature of the copying work, that it was done by hand, it is quite possible that a corruption snuck into the text. If the “yodh” had been lengthened into a “vav”, what had been clearly “she” would have become ambiguous or “he.”

How likely this is, I don’t know. To my mind, and I certainly do not have great expertise in this area, the fact that the Septuagint reads “he” (autos) is awfully telling; the Septuagint, though only a translation, was an extremely, extremely important translation in the history of the both of the Church and the Jews. Moreover, it is undoubtedly based on manuscripts of the Old Testament far, far older than anything we have in our possession today (with the possible exception of the Dead Sea Scrolls).

Further, I find it most interesting that three important Vulgate manuscripts, including the Vetus Latina (the old Latin), read “ipse” and not “ipsa.” Between the Vulgate, the Septuagint, and the current state of the Hebrew text, there is simply no solid evidence that Genesis 3:15 said “she will crush thy head.” I do not deny in anyway that this reading is a possibility; I’m just saying that there is no textual warrant for it. In most cases of a disputed reading, there is some varying manuscript evidence of an ancient date; in this case, all we have is the Clementine Vulgate. (Maybe that “all” is unfair, but those are how the texts stand.)

Now if it’s clear that St. Jerome approved the “ipsa”, that’s great evidence in my eyes, but that’s not going to convince someone who isn’t moved by the eminent sanctity and erudition of St. Jerome. But, of course, we shouldn’t forget that St. Jerome was not peerless in his day and age: there was St. Augustine moaning and groaning about St. Jerome’s new translation into Latin. St. Augustine had worked with the Vetus Latina (or with versions we don’t have today) and he wasn’t so impressed in all places by St. Jerome’s revisions. St. Augustine wrote to St. Jerome by letter (I paraphrase): If you change this word and that sentence, and this and that, and if it begins here, where does it all stop? Does the revision of the Scripture in our hands never end?

(Does St. Augustine have a commentary on that passage of Genesis, I wonder?)

As someone pointed out in the comments of our other discussion, this is an excellent, excellent point against the so-called principle of Sola Scriptura: I don’t know if we have ever, and we certainly do not now, agree as to the precise text of the Sacred Scripture, whether in translation or even in the original languages! If from day to day the Bible changes, how can it and it alone, be the norm and rule of our life and faith?

On the other hand, I don’t want to exaggerate the differences between the various texts and translations. If anything, they are remarkable for their similarity and harmony: this seems the great miracle, especially to anyone who has ever played the telephone game; there are so many ways the text could be corrupted and obscured, and yet, by and large, in its various versions, it is monolithic.

To return to the article I am responding to: “It makes no difference that the verb is masculine “yasuph”, that is “(he) shall crush,” for it often happens in Hebrew that the masculine is used in instead of the feminine and vice versa, especially when there is an underlying reason or mystery as I have just said (*citation from Fr. A Lapide).”

Again, this doesn’t look good for the “ipsa” case: it hardly makes no difference that the verb which follows the pronoun is clearly a masculine form of the verb “shooph”. Rather, the difference it makes is that it confirms the reading the of pronoun as “he” instead of “she.” After a somewhat cursory glance through Gesenius’ Hebrew Grammar, I couldn’t find a presentation of this point about masculine and feminine forms switching; I don’t find it implausible, but I’d like to see the evidence for it. It has been awhile since I was reading Hebrew, but I can certainly say that the feminine forms of the verbs (whether second person or third) are rather rare; still, they exist and, one might think, would be used on such an occasion to make the point more clear.

Anyway, again, all of this discussion makes the very good point that Scripture is not an open, obvious book.

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