Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers: Series II/Volume VI/The Letters of St. Jerome/Letter 34

Letter XXXIV. To Marcella.

In reply to a request from Marcella for information concerning two phrases in Ps. cxxvii. (&#8220;bread of sorrow,&#8221; v. 2, and &#8220;children of the shaken off,&#8221; A.V. &#8220;of the youth,&#8221; v. 4). Jerome, after lamenting that Origen&#8217;s notes on the psalm are no longer extant, gives the following explanations:

The Hebrew phrase &#8220;bread of sorrow&#8221; is rendered by the LXX. &#8220;bread of idols&#8221;; by Aquila, &#8220;bread of troubles&#8221;; by Symmachus, &#8220;bread of misery.&#8221; Theodotion follows the LXX. So does Origen&#8217;s Fifth Version. The Sixth renders &#8220;bread of error.&#8221; In support of the LXX. the word used here is in Ps. cxv. 4, translated &#8220;idols.&#8221; Either the troubles of life are meant or else the tenets of heresy.

With the second phrase he deals at greater length. After showing that Hilary of Poitiers&#8217;s view (viz. that the persons meant are the apostles, who were told to shake the dust off their feet, Matt. x. 14) is untenable and would require &#8220;shakers off&#8221; to be substituted for &#8220;shaken off,&#8221; Jerome reverts to the Hebrew as before and declares that the true rendering is that of Symmachus and Theodotion, viz. &#8220;children of youth.&#8221; He points out that the LXX. (by whom the Latin translators had been misled) fall into the same mistake at Neh. iv. 16. Finally he corrects a slip of Hilary as to Ps. cxxviii. 2, where, through a misunderstanding of the LXX., the latter had substituted &#8220;the labors of thy fruits&#8221; for &#8220;the labors of thy hands.&#8221; He speaks throughout with high respect of Hilary, and says that it was not the bishop&#8217;s fault that he was ignorant of Hebrew. The date of the letter is probably 384.