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 RUTH

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RUTH

444-48, he built the church of Xarbonne; in 451, he assisted at the convocation of forty-four bishops of Gaul and approved St. Leo's letter to Flavian, con- cerning Xestorianism; he was present also at the Council of .-Vrles, with thirteen bishops, to decide the debate between Theodore, Bishop of Frejus, and the Abbey of Lcrins. A letter from Ravennius, Bishop of Aries, sent to Rusticus, proves the high esteem in which he was held. His letters are lost, with the exception of the one to St. Jerome and two others to St. Leo, written either in 452 or in 458. His feast is celebrated on 20 October.

AcHARD, Hommes ill. Provence, II (Paris, 1787), 184-5; Hist, litt. de France. II (Paris, 1735), 362-5; Le Blant. Inscriptions chrei., Gaule. II (Paris, 1865), 765-71; de Rey, SS. egl. Mar- seiUe (Paris, 1885), 299-303; Tillemont, Mem. hist. eccL, XV (Paris, 1711), 401-09.

Joseph Dedieu.

Ruth, Book of, one of the proto-canonical writ- ings of the Old Testament, which derives its name from the heroine of its exquisiteh' beautiful story.

I. Contents. — The incidents related in the first part of the Book of Ruth (i-iv, 17) are briefly as follows. In the time of the judges, a famine arose in the land of Israel, in consequence of which Elime- lech with Xoemi and their two sons emigrated from Bethlehem of Juda to the land of Moab. After Elimelech's death Mahalon and Chelion, his two sons, married Moabite wives, and not long after died without children. Noemi, deprived now of her hus- band and children, left Moab for Bethlehem. On her journey thither she dissuaded her daughters-in-law from going with her. One of them, however, named Ruth, accompanied Noemi to Bethlehem. The barley harvest had just begun and Ruth, to relieve Noemi's and her own poverty, went to glean in the field of Booz, a rich man of the place. She met with the greatest kindness, and following Noemi's advice, she made known to Booz, as the near kinsman of Elimelech, her claim to marriage. After a nearer kinsman had solemnly renounced his prior right, Booz married Ruth who bore him Obed, the grand- father of David. The second part of the book (iv, 18-22) consists in a brief genealogy which connects the line of David through Booz with Phares, one of the sons of Juda.

II. Pl.^ce in the Canon. — In the series of the sacred writings of the Old Testament, the short Book of Ruth occupies two different principal places. The Septuagint, the Vulgate, and the English Ver- sions give it immediately after the Book of Judges. The Hebrew Bible, on the contrary, reckons it among the Hagiographa or third chief part of the Old Testa- ment. Of the.se two places, the latter is most likely the original one. It is attested to by all the data of Jewi.sh tradition, namely, the oldest enumeration of the Hagiographa in the Talmudic treatise "Baba Bathra", all the Hebrew MSS. whether Spanish or German, the printed edifirtns of the Hebrew Bible, and the testimony of St. Jerome in his Preface to the Book of Danifl, according to which eleven books are included by the Hebrews in the Hagiographa. The pre.«ence of the Book of Rut h aft er that of Judges in the Septuagint, whence it pa.s.sed into the Vulgate and the P>nglish Versions, is easily explained by the systematic arrangement of the historical books of the Old Testa- ment in that ancient Greek Version. As the episode of Ruth is connected with the period of the judges by its opening words "in the days . . . when the judges ruled", its narrative was made to follow the Book of Judges a-s a sort of complement to it. The same place assigned to it in the lists of St. Melito, Origen, St. Jerome (Prol. Galeatus), is traceable to the arrangement of the inspired writings of the Old Testament in the .Septuagint, injismuch as the.se lists bespeak in various ways the influence of the nomen- clature and grouping' of the sacred books in that

Version, and consequently should not be regarded as conforming strictly to the arrangement of those books in the Hebrew Canon. It has indeed been asserted that the Book of Ruth is really a third appendix to the Book of Judges and was, therefore, originally placed in immediate connexion with the two narra- tives which are even now appended to this latter book (Judges, xvii-xviii; xix-xxi); but this view is not probable owing to the differences between these two works with respect to style, tone, subject, etc.

III. Purpose. — As the precise object of the Book of Ruth is not expressly given either in the book it- self or in authentic tradition, scholars are greatly at variance concerning it. According to many, who lay special stress on the genealogy of David in the second part of the book, the chief aim of the author is to throw light upon the .origin of David, the great King of Israel and royal ancestor of the Messias. Had this, however, been the main purpose of the wTiter, it seems that he should have given it greater prominence in his work. Besides, the genealogy at the clo.se of the book is but loosely connected with the preceding contents, so it is not improbably an ap- pendix added to that book by a later hand. Ac- cording to others, the principal aim of the author was to narrate how, in opposition to Dent., xxiii, 3, which forbids the reception of Moabites into Yahweh's assembly, the Moabitess Ruth was incorporated with Yahweh's people, and eventually became the an- cestress of the founder of the Hebrew monarchy. But this second opinion is hardly more probable than the foregoing. Had the Book of Ruth been written in such full and distinct view of the Deuteronomic prohibition as is affirmed by the second ojMnion, it is most likely that its author would have placed a direct reference to that legislative enactment on Noemi's lips when she endeavoured to dissuade her daughters-in-law from accompanying her to Juda, or particularly when she received from Ruth the pro- testation that henceforth Noemi's God would be her God. Several recent scholars have regarded this short book as a kind of protest against Nehemias's and Esdras's efforts to suppress intermarriage with women of foreign birth. I3ut this is plainly an in- ference not from the contents of the book, but from an assumed late date for its composition, an inference therefore no less uncertain than that date itself. Others finally, and indeed with greater probability, have maintained that the author's chief purpose was to tell an edifying story as an example to his own age and an interesting sketch of the past, efTecting this by recording the exemplary conduct of his various personages who act as simple, kindly. God-fearing people ought to act in Israel.

IV. Historical Character. — The charming Book of Ruth is no mere "idyll" or "poeticjd fiction". It is plain that the Jews of old regarded its contents as historical, since th(\v iiiehided its narrative in the Sep- tuagint witliiii the i)roplietic histories (Josue-Kings). Tlie fact tlijit .Josephus in framing his account of the Jewish y\.nti(iuities utiUzes the data of the Book of Rutli in exactly the s;iine manner;is he does those of the historical hooks of the Old Testament shows that this inspired writing was then considered as no mere fiction. Again, the mention by St. Matthew of sev- eral personages of the episode of Ruth (Booz, Ruth, Obecl), among (he actual ancestors of Chri.st (Matt., i, 5), points in the same direction. Intrinsic data agree with these testimonies of ancient tradition. The book records thi\ intermarriage of an Israelite with a Moabitess, which shows that its narrative does not belf)ng to the region of the poetical. The his- tf)ric;il clKinicter of the work is also confirmed by the friendly intercourse between David and the King of Moal) which is described in I Kings, xxii, 3, 4; by the writer's distinct reference to a Jewish custom as obsolete (Ruth, iv, 7), etc.