Page:Catholic Encyclopedia, volume 8.djvu/628

 JUDITH

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JUDITH

the church, which was formerly done at the words in the Gospel "Jesus hid Himself", but is now done on the previous evening. Martene says that in very early times this day was called " Dominica mediana", a title that seems more properly to belong to mid-Lent Sunday. On Judica Sunday several significant changes fake place in the Church's Liturgy. The Judica psalm is not again said at the beginning of Mass until Easter Day; the Gloria is omitted, to sig- nify the ignominy of Christ's Passion, when His glory was for the time being laid aside; and the whole spirit of the Office and Mass is one of solemn preparation for the great events of the coming Holy Week. At Rome the station on this day was formerly observed in the Vatican Basihca.

T3vRt.ND. Rationale Divini Officii (Venice, 1568); Martene, De Antiq. Man. Ritibus (Lyons, 1690); Gu^ranger, L' AnnCe Liturgique, tr. Shepherd (Dublin, 1867); Lerosey, Hist, et Symbolisme de la Liturgie (Paris, 1889).

G. Cyprian Alston.

Judith, Book of. — History. — Nabuchodonosor, King of Ninive, sends his general Holofernes to subdue the Jews. The latter besieges them in BethuUa, a city on the southern verge of the Plain of Esdrelon. Achior the Ammonite, who speaks in defence of the Jews, is maltreated by him and sent into the besieged city to await his punishment when Holofernes shall have taken it. Famine undermines the courage of the besieged and they contemplate surrender, but Judith, a widow, upbraids them and says that she will deliver the city. She goes into the camp of the Assyrians and captivates Holofernes by her beauty, and finally takes advantage of the general's intoxication to cut off his head. She returns inviolate to the city with his head as a trophy, and a sally on the part of the Jews results in the rout of the Assyrians. The book closes with a hymn to the Almighty by Judith to celebrate her victory.

The Text. — The book exists in distinct Greek and Latin versions, of which the former contains at least eighty-four verses more than the latter. St. Jerome (Prief . in Lib.) says that he translated it from the Chal- daio in one night, "magis sensum e sensu, quam ex verbo verbum transferens" (aiming at giving sense for sense rather than adhering closely to the wording). He adds that his codices differed much, and that he expresses in Latin only what he could clearly under- stand of the Chaldaic.

Two Hebrew versions are known at present, a long one practically identical with the Greek text, and a short one which is entirely different : we shall return to this latter when discussing the origin of the book. The Chaldaic, from which St. Jerome made our pres- ent Vulgate version, is not recoverable unless indeed it be identified with the longer Hebrew version men- tioned above. If this be the case we can gauge the value of St. Jerome's work by comparing the Vul- gate with the Greek text. We at once find that St. Jerome did not exaggerate when he said that he made his translation hurriedly. Thus a comparison be- tween vi, 11, and viii, 9, .shows us a certain confusion relative to the names of the elders of Bethulia — a con- fusion which does not exist in the Septuagint,where also X, 6, should be compared. Again in iv, 5, the high priest is Eliachim, which name is later changed into Joachim (xv, 9) — an allowable change but somewhat misleading; the Septuagint is consistent in using the form Joachim. Some of the historical statements in the Septuagint directly conflict with those of the Vul- gate; for example, the thirteenth year (Vulg.) of Nabuchodonosor becomes the eigliteenth in the Sep- tuagint, which also adds a long address of the king to Holofernes. St. Jerome has also frequently condensed the original — always on the supposition that the Sep- tuagint and the longer Hebrew version do really repre- sent the original. To give but one instance: —

Septuagint (ii, 27). Vulgate (ii, 17). _

" And he came down into " And after these things the plain of Damascus at he went dcrni into the the time of the wheat- plains of Damascus in the harvest, and he burnt up days of the harvest, and all their fields, their flocks he set all the corn on fire, and their herds he deliv- and he caused all the trees ered to destruction, their and vineyards to be cut cities he ravaged, and the down." fruits of their fertile plains he scattered like chaff, and he struck all their young men with the edge of the sword."

With regard to the Septuagint version of the Book of Judith it should be not^d that it has come down to us in two recensions: Codex B or Vaticanus on the one hand, and Codex Alexandrinus (A) with Codex Sinaiticus (x) on the other.

Historicity. — C!atholics with very few exceptions accept the Book of Judith as a narrative of facts, not as an allegory. Even Jahn considers that the gen- ealogy of Judith is inexplicable on the hypothesis that the story is a mere fiction ("Introductio", Vienna, 1S14, p. 461). Why carry out the genealogy of a fictitious person through fifteen generations? The Fathers have ever looked upon the book as historical. St. Jerome, who excluded Judith from the Canon, none the less accepted the person of the valiant woman as historical (Ep. Ixv, 1).

Against this traditional view there are, it must be confessed, very serious difficulties, due, as Calmet insists, to the doubtful and disputed condition of the text. The liistorical and geographical statements in the book, as we now have it, are difficult to un- derstand: thus (i) Nabuchodonosor was apparently never King of Ninive, for he came to the tlirone in 605, whereas Ninive was destroyed certainly not la- ter than 606, and after that the Assyrians ceased to exist as a people; (ii) the allusion in i, 6, to Erioch, King of the Elicians, is suspicious; we are reminded of the Arioch of Gen., xiv, i. The Septuagint makes him King of the Elumseans, presumably the Elamites, (iii) the character of Nabuchodonosor is hardly that portrayed for us on the monuments: in the India House Inscription, for example, his sentiments are re- markable for the modesty of their tone. On the other hand, we must remember that, as Sayce saj-s, the " Assyrian kings were most brazen-faced liars on their monuments " ; (iv) the name Vagao, or the Septuagint Bagoas, for the eunuch of Holofernes is suggestive of the Bagoses, who, according to Josephus (.Antiquities, XI, vii, 1), polluted the temple and to whom appar- ently we have a reference in the recently discovered papyri from Assuan; (v) the mixture of Babylonian, Greek, and Persian names in the book should be noted; (vi) the genealogy of Judith as given in the Vulgate is a medley: that given in the three principal Greek codices is perhaps better but varies in every one. Still it is an historical genealogy, though ill-conserved; (vii) a geographical puzzle is presented by the Vulgate of ii, 12-1(3; the Septuagint is much superior, and it should be noted that throughout this version, espe- cially in Codex B, we have the most interesting details furnished us (cf. particularly i, 9; ii, 13, 28-9). The Septuagint also gives us information about Achior which is wanting in the Vulgate: it is apparently hinted in vi, 2, 5, that he was an Ephraimite and a mercenary hired by Moab; (viii) Bethulia itself is a mystery: according to the Septuagint it was large, had streets and towers (vii, 22, 32), and withstood a long siege at the hands of a vast army. Its position, too, is stated with minuteness; it stood on the edge of the Plain of Esdrelon and guarded the pass to Jerusalem; yet no trace of the existence of such a place is to be found (unless we accept the theory of Conder, " Hand- book", 5th ed., p. 239); (ix) the names, Judith (Jew-