CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER TWO
ail nd when the days of Pentecost were drawing to a close they were all together in the same place, that is, in the upper room to which they had gone up, as has been described.! Now whoever desires to be filled with the Holy Spirit must transcend the abode of the flesh by contemplation of the mind. For just as the forty days during which the Lord kept company with'* his disciples after the resurrection designate the church of this present pilgrim-state as it rises with Christ,? so also the fiftieth day, upon which the Holy Spirit was received, appropriately represents the perfection of the blessed rest in which the temporal labor of the church will be rewarded with an eternal denarius.* For the number forty, itself, when it is computed by its component parts, yields a further denarius and makes fifty—for a half of forty is twenty, a fourth of forty is ten, a fifth is eight, an eighth is five, a tenth is four, a twentieth is two, a fortieth is one; and twenty plus ten plus eight plus five plus four plus two plus one makes fifty.
The figural meaning of this computation is easily accessible, for [our] present struggle is, as it were, imperceptibly generating for us the everlasting joy of the jubilee.' As the Apostle says, For our minor tribulation at the present time is working out for us an eternal weight of glory, that is sublime beyond measure.* Moreover, our true blessedness of body and soul is the fact that while glorying in immortal1. Ac 1:13.
2. See com. on 1:3.
3. Mt 20:1-16.
4. See com. on 1:3.
5. 2 Co 4:17.
Chapter Two ity, we are to be satisfied by an eternal vision of the most high and blessed Trinity. For with respect to the body we consist of four well-known properties, while in the inner man we are ordered to love God with our whole heart, our whole soul, and our whole mind: and this is the perfect denarius of life, that we are to take delight in the present vision of divine glory.?*.
Indeed it should be noted with respect to the historical sense3* that among the ancients the day of Pentecost (that is the fiftieth day, on which the law was given) was computed from the [time of] the killing of the [paschal] lamb.**
In our case, however, it is not from the Lord's passion, but from his resurrection, as the blessed Augustine explains it,°® that we are to calculate the fiftieth day, on which was sent the Holy Spirit, who, recalling the example of the old sign, most clearly consecrated the Lord's day to himself by his coming. Indeed, by this specific time [of his coming] he also showed that the pasch was to be celebrated on the Lord's day. For here too God appeared in a vision of fire, as he had also in the earlier case, as Exodus says, For the whole of Mount Sinai was smoking because the Lord had descended upon it in fire.'
2:2
And suddenly there came a sound from heaven, as of a violent wind coming, and so forth. The Lord appeared indeed through fire, as the blessed pope Gregory explains,? but by his own interior [presence] he caused speech to be produced. And God was neither the fire, nor the sound, but by what he exhibited exteriorly he expressed what he brought about interiorly. For because he caused the disciples to be internally inflamed with zeal, and skilled in words, externally there showed tongues of fire. The elements, therefore, were put to use in signification, so that 6. Aug., Ep. 55, 1, 2 (CSEL 34, 2:171, 2/4).
7. Ex 19:18.
8. Greg., Moral. 28, 1, 2 (PL 76:447D-448A).
Chapter Two
those who in their bodies perceived fire and sound might indeed be taught in their hearts by invisible fire and by a voice without sound.
2:3a And there appeared to them, it says, parted tongues as of fire. Now the Holy Spirit appeared in fire and in tongues because all those whom he fills he makes simultaneously to burn and to speak—to burn because of him, and to speak about him. And at the same time he indicated that the holy church, when it had spread to the ends of the earth, was to speak in the languages of all nations.
2:3b And it settled upon each of them. That [fire] which is said to have settled [on them] was a token of royal power. Or certainly [by this] was indicated that his resting place is among the saints.
2:4
And they began to speak in a variety of languages. The church's humility recovers the unity of languages which the pride of Babylon had shattered.
Spiritually, however, the variety of languages signifies gifts of a variety of graces. Truly therefore, it is not inconsistent to understand that the Holy Spirit first gave to human beings the gift of languages, by which human wisdom is both learned and taught extrinsically, so that he might thereby show how easily he can make men wise through the wisdom of God, which is within them.>* 2:5
Now there were dwelling in Jerusalem Jewish religious men from every nation under heaven. | think that it is proper to make a diligent inquiry into who these men were and from what Jewish bondage. For surely that [bondage] which had occurred in Egypt or that in Babylonia had by this time been brought to an end, and they had not yet come into bondage under the Romans, although already that [bondage] was imminent which would avenge the crime committed concerning the Savior. It therefore is left for us to understand the captivity in question to have been the
Chapter Two one which occurred under Antiochus, and indeed this had happened not long before.® 2:6
For everyone heard them speaking in his own language. The question here concerns the way in which everyone heard them speaking about the wonders of God in his own language. Was it that the speakers expressed what they had to say in the diverse discourse of every language—that is, in such a way that each of them, speaking now this language and now that, thus proceeded through all [the languages of those present]? Or was the marvel rather the fact that the discourse of those who were speaking, in whatever language it may have been uttered, was understood by everyone of the hearers in his own language? So, for example, when any one of the apostles was talking in the assembly (for one person had to speak while the rest were silent, and one discourse had to come within the hearing of everyone) that very discourse had within itself the power that, when there were hearers of diverse nations, each of them would perceive what they heard in terms of his own language and would grasp the meaning of that one and the same discourse which had been uttered by the apostle—unless perhaps this makes the miracle seem to be more in the hearing than the speaking 7 7"
2:9
And those who dwell in Mesopotamia, Judaea, and Cappadocia. Judaea here does not signify the entire nation, but part of it, that is, the tribe of Judah and Benjamin, especially in distinction from Samaria, Galilee,
Decapolis, and the other regions in the same province.
There, although all spoke one language, Hebrew, nevertheless [the residents] of each region had a distinct local way of talking. Hence it was that Peter also, in the course of the Lord's passion,'® was recognized as a Galilean by his way
9. Greg. Naz./Rufin., Orat. 4, 15 (CSEL 46:160, 17/21; 161, 1/11).
10. Mt 26:73.
Chapter Two ad of speaking.®* 2:11
Jews also and proselytes. Proselytes, that is, foreigners, was the term applied to those who, although their origin was from the pagan nations, preferred to choose circumcision and Judaism, as Achior is said to have done in the book of Judith.!! They are saying, therefore, not only that those who are Jews by nature but even these
[foreigners] who adhered to the rite concerning the foreskins of their sons had come together from diverse regions.
2:13
Others, however, said in mockery that they were full of new wine. These mockers nevertheless mystically bore witness to truths, for they [the disciples] were not filled with the old wine which ran short in the marriage of the church, but with the new wine of spiritual grace.°* For now new wine had come in new skins, ! since the apostles reechoed the wonderful works of God'? not in the oldness of the letter but in the newness of the Spirit. '4
2:15
For these men are not drunk, as you suppose, since it is the third hour of the day. In order to proclaim to the world the glory of the indivisible Trinity, the Holy Spirit descended appropriately at the third hour. And since it was said above, They were persevering in prayer,' they quite rightly received the Holy Spirit at the hour of prayer, so that it might be shown to readers that it is not easy to receive the grace of the Holy Spirit unless the mind is raised from material things by concentration on the things which are above. Now we read that three times a day Daniel bent his knees and prayed,'® and the church understands these to have been the third, sixth, and ninth hours.!7 Also the Lord sent the Holy Spirit at the third hour, he himself
11. Jdt 14:6.
125 Mt 9:17.
IB WAG 2 TT,
14. Rm 7:6.
15. Ac 1:14.
16. Dn 6:10.
17. Jer., Comm. in Dn. 2, 6, 10 (CC 75A:832, 301/306).
ay Chapter Two ascended the cross at the sixth, and he yielded up his soul at the ninth.'§ He thus saw fit to enjoin these same hours preeminently upon the rest of us and to sanctify them.
2:17.
I will pour forth of my spirit on all flesh.'° The word effusion! shows the lavishness of the gift, for the grace of the Holy Spirit was not to be granted, as formerly, only to individual prophets and priests, but to everyone in every place, regardless of sex, state of life, or position. The prophet subsequently explains what all flesh may be, saying, Your sons and daughters will prophesy" and so forth, and J will give prodigies in heaven above and signs on the earth beneath?!—prodigies in heaven when with the Lord's birth a new star appeared, and with his ascending of the cross the sun was dimmed and heaven itself was covered with darkness;?? signs on the earth when, with the Lord's breathing forth of his spirit, it [the earth] trembled violently, broke open sepulchers, split apart rocks, and brought forth alive again the bodies of many of the saints who had fallen asleep.?3
2:19
Blood and fire and vapor of smoke—the blood of the Lord's side; the fire of the Holy Spirit; the vapor of compunction and tears, because just as smoke is produced from fire, so vapor is produced from the ardor of the Holy
Spirit. And as for blood flowing in a vigorous stream from [the Lord's] dead flesh,?4 because this is contrary to the nature of our bodies it remains [for us] to believe that this was done for a sign. A sign of what, to be sure, if not of our salvation and the life which is born from his death?!!*
It is also possible to understand the fire as the enlightening of the faithful, and the vapor of smoke as the blindness of the Jews who did not believe. Whence also when about to 18. Mt 27:45-46.
LOM IES als
205 IL 331
Ac 2317bt Peis MI Sia) SAN@ P2102).
22. Mt i252: 02745, 25a Mt 2725528 24. Jn 19:34.
Chapter Two oy) give the law the Lord descended in fire and smoke?> because through the brilliance of his manifestation he enlightened the humble, and through the murky smoke of error he dimmed the eyes of the proud.
2:20
The sun will be turned into darkness and the moon into blood. This is believed partly as something which had been done at the Lord's passion, and partly as something to be done in the future, before the great day of the Lord, that is, the day of judgment. For at that earlier time [of the passion], the sun was darkened,?¢ but the turning of the moon into blood could not have appeared openly to men, for inasmuch as it was then, at Passover, in the fifteenth [day of the lunar month], the moon was hidden by day from the sight of mortals by the interposition of the earth.
2:21
And it shall be that everyone who calls upon the name of the Lord will be saved. This is what Peter says elsewhere:?' God ts not a respecter of persons, but in every nation one who fears him and works at justice is acceptable to him.
2:22-23 Jesus of Nazareth, a man approved by God, and so forth, up to striking him, you killed him. As a learned teacher, he [Peter] first admonishes unbelievers for the crime which had been committed, so that once their consciences had been stung by righteous fear, he might afterwards devote [his discourse] more advantageously to the plan of salvation.!** And because he is speaking to those who know the law, he shows that Christ himself is the one promised by the prophets. Nevertheless, here Peter does not at first give him the name Son of God on his own authority. Rather [he calls him] a man approved, a righteous man, a man raised from the dead—not raised with others
D5 WEXAI9 LS:
26. Mt 27:45.
27. Ac 10:34-35
Chapter Two in the ordinary and general resurrection (that is, the resurrection which is deferred to the end of the world!3*), but raised in that resurrection celebrated on the third day, so that his assertion of a unique and glorious resurrection might acquire [the value of] a testimonial to his eternal divinity.
For when he has proved that the bodies of others underwent corruption after death, he demonstrates that this man, of whom it is said, J will not give over your holy one to see corruption,?® was exempt from human impermanence.
Peter also proves that he [Christ] exceeded the merits of the [merely] human condition, and that he should therefore be considered to be God rather than [merely] human.
In the history'4* of Cornelius the Centurian?? and in the sermon given by the apostle Paul at Athens,*° you will be shown the sort of introduction which the apostles used in preaching among the gentiles.
2:25
I saw the Lord before me always, for he is at my right hand so that I may not be shaken, and so forth.
He says:3! 15* Coming to things which pass away, I did not take away my eyes from him who always remains, thus foreseeing that I might return to him after temporal things have been finished. For he shows favor to me so that Imay remain steadfastly in him, and so that I may ascribe not to humanity but to divinity the fact that I have not committed sin and that deceit has not been found in my mouth.32
Wherefore there is delight in my thoughts and exaltation in my words on account of the resurrection, because through it the world has been set free. Moreover, my flesh will not vanish in dissolution but will fall asleep in the hope of resurrection, for you will not give my soul over to the possession of hell, nor will you allow my sanctified
28. Ps 16:10 (15:10) = Ac 2:27.
29. Ac 10:34-43.
SO RAG E22 —5ik 31. Aug., Ennar. in ps. 15, 8-10 (CC 38:91, 8, 2-10, 12).
3 2ee lePe2e2On
Chapter Two
body, through which others also are to be sanctified, to be corrupted; for 'you have made known to me the ways'33 by which one goes to eternity, [and] in which, after the sorrow of the passion 'you will fill me with joy with your countenance, ' and as I ascend to heaven you will give [me] delights 'at your right hand forever. '34
2:31
For neither was he abandoned to hell. In fact, Christ did indeed descend, with respect to his soul, to those in hell so that he might come to the aid of those for whom it was necessary; but he was not abandoned in hell, because returning immediately he sought his body, which was to rise again. !°* 2:33a Therefore exalted by the right hand of God.
For the psalm had said, For he is at my right hand so that I may not be shaken.>° 2:33b And having received from the Father the promise of the Holy Spirit, he has poured forth this Spirit, whom you see and hear. [Whom] you see in the tongues of fire; [whom] you hear in our discourse. Indeed, by saying that He received from the Father the promise of the Holy
Spirit and he poured [the Spirit] forth, both natures of Christ are manifested, for he received [the Spirit] as a man, and poured [him] forth as God.*° 2:34a For David did not ascend into heaven, but he says himself. He [Peter] says, as it were: For the blessed
David made these prophesies, which are very well known, not with reference to his own ascension, but to that of his
Lord, who was to be sent from Sion, that is, from the royal stock of the same David, and who was to come and to rule
33. Ps 16:11 (15:10) = Ac 2:28.
34. Ps 16:11 (15:10); end of quote from Aug., Ennar. in ps.
35. Ps 16:8 (15:8).
36. Aug., De trin. 15, 26 (CC 50A:527, 70/72).
Chapter Two in the midst of his enemies. You should therefore acknowledge that those things which I mentioned before do not pertain to David, but to the death and resurrection of Christ.
2:34b The Lord said to my lord, sit at my right hand.
The primary [use of] the name 'Lord' among the Hebrews is the tetoayoaupatov,'7* which is used exclusively for God; the secondary [use], which is common, is for mortals, and both kings and other men are called [Lord]. If the Arian heresy should wish to use this diversity to argue against us that the Son is lesser and the Father greater, we shall respond: a subordinate name is appropriate to one who is being commanded to sit.37 And as the blessed Peter then explains, God has made him both Lord and Christ, this
Jesus whom you crucified.>* For it was not divinity but flesh which was crucified, and this certainly can happen because it was able to be crucified.
2:35
Until I make your enemies your footstool. This is what Peter himself said about the Lord at another time:
Heaven indeed must receive him until the times of the restoration of all things. For then, when the times of refreshment have come, he will send us, from the presence of the Lord Jesus Christ, the one who has been proclaimed*® from royal seats, for the judging of the living and the dead.
2:37
When they heard this they were pierced to the heart, and so forth. Behold the fulfillment of the prophecy of Joel.4! Notice that after the fire of the Holy Spirit there followed the vapor of compunction, for smoke tends to cause tears. Those who had laughed in ridicule begin to weep. They beat their breasts. They present their prayer to God as a sacrifice, so that as people who are to be saved they may be able to taste of that blood which before, when
37. Jet., Gomm.imps 109% 1 (CC 7232329 1/7).
38. Ac 2:36.
39. Ac 3:21.
40. Ac 3:20.
41.
Jl 3:3 = Ac 2:19,
Chapter Two Zyy/ they were damned, they had called down upon themselves and their children.*? It continues:
2:38
Do penance and be baptized, every one of you.
When he was about to speak of baptism, he first mentioned the lamentation of penance, so that in accordance with the church's practice they would first pour over themselves the water of their sorrow, and afterwards wash themselves in the sacrament of baptism.*> 2:41
And there were added that day about three thousand souls.
When the Church's baptism was celebrated for the first time, divine mercy providentially gathered together three thousand souls for the profession of the holy Trinity.On the fiftieth day of Passover, when the law was given,'®* Moses indeed ordered the festival of first fruits to be introduced.44
Now, however, with the coming of the Holy Spirit, it is not sheaves of grain, but the first fruits of souls, which are consecrated to the Lord.
2:44
And they had everything in common, and so forth. If the love of God pervades our hearts, without a doubt it will soon engender affection for our neighbor as well. Hence, because of the double ardor of one and the same love, we read that the Holy Spirit was given twice to the apostles, and the possession of everything without [anyone] having anything of his own is a great token of brotherly love.
42. Mt 27:25:
43. Greg., Reg. past. 3, 30 (PL 77:112A).
44. Ex 23:16; 34:22, 26.
NOTES TO CHAPTER TWO
1. 'Kept company with': conversatus est. See note 3 to ch. 1.
2. The intricate number symbolism reflected in this comment and elsewhere in Bede's Commentary owes much to the example of Augustine. The conclusion of the paragraph, which arrives at 'the perfect denarius' (ten) by way of the Trinity, plus the four properties of the human body, plus the three spiritual properties
(3 +4+3=10) finds a parallel in De doctrina christiana 2, 16, 25. For an illuminating discussion of Augustine's technique of deriving the significance of large numbers by adding up their component parts, and also of his use of combinations of the numbers three and four, with many references to Augustine's works, see
Vincent Hooper, Medieval Number Symbolism (New York:
Columbia Univ. Press, 1938), pp. 82-86.
3. 'With respect to the historical sense': tuxta historiam. See note 6 to ch. 1.
4. The second great feast of the Jewish calendar was the feast of the first fruits of the grain harvest (Ex 23:16), sometimes called
'the feast of weeks' (Ex 34:22; Dt 16:9-10). It was to be celebrated seven weeks after the feast of unleavened bread (Mazzoth), and Lv 23:15-16 specifies this as seven full weeks, or fifty days. Hence the Greek name for this feast was Pentecost (2M 12:31-32; Tb
2:1). Originally the date of this feast varied according to the beginning of the grain harvest, but when the priests connected the feast of Mazzoth with the Passover, Pentecost was fixed fifty days after Passover, as Bede states.
5. In his Retr. on Ac 4:32 (CC 121:126, 111-127, 129), Bede presents an expansion of the thought expressed in the Commentary on Ac 2:4. Discussing the statement in Ac 2:44 that the believers 'had all things in common,' Bede draws an extended contrast. In the 'tower of pride' of Babylon, iniquity justly led to an inability to recognize one another's 'will or words'. This is presented as a type of sinners' zealous service of the devil, carried out with dissension among themselves. On the other hand, humility justly brought about a unity of language for the early church, and a unity 'of will and soul' as well, in consequence of which 'the elect in a multifarious division of tongues serve the Lord with a heart and intention which is one and undivided'.
Notes to Chapter Two
6. 'Bondage': captiuitas. Bede seems to think that only in a state of bondage would Jews live outside their own land, and to have assumed that the Jewish diaspora of New Testament times was the result of the events narrated in the Books of Maccabees, particularly the persecution under Antiochus Epiphanes (see the list of places where Jews dwelt given in 1 M 15:22-24).
7. Bede's Retr. on this verse (CC 121:110, 42-111, 70) reveals that his treatment of the miracle of Ac 2:5-11 in his earlier Commentary had produced some criticism. 'I know,' says Bede, 'that I have been blamed by some because I said that this sentence
[Ac 2:6] can be understood in two ways.' He first defends himself by pointing out that his earlier comment on this verse was not simply his own idea, but that he had taken it from 'the words of a holy and completely irreprehensible master, Gregory of Nazianzus'. Bede then expands upon his earlier comment. He points out that he is not questioning the fact of the miracle, but merely speculating on how it happened, and he presents two alternatives:
1) that 'the discourse of the apostles had such a power that when it was heard by everyone who knew different languages, it could be understood equally;' or 2) that whoever was speaking spoke each language successively. At great length he presents a picture of the discourse being given 'first in Hebrew for the Hebrews, with the others not knowing what was said, and then in Greek to the Greeks, with the others not recognizing and waiting,' and so on through the Parthians, the Medes, and the others. This picture seems to have the ring of an ironic reduction to absurdity. In any case, Bede then points out that Luke's description of Peter's dicourse, which begins in verse 14, does not seem to reflect a repetition in different languages successively, but rather an immediate comprehension and acceptance by the whole crowd, followed by their baptism (Ac 2:37-41). He concludes by saying that he does not think that a proponent of either explanation can be said to be in error, but that the view that the apostles' words were 'grasped equally by all who heard them, in whatever language they may have been delivered' is, in fact,
'the greater miracle'.
8. In his Retr. (CC 121:111,72/79), Bede completes his earlier thought on this verse in the Commentary by observing that the five provinces mentioned after Judaea in Ac 2:9 were all Greekspeaking, and therefore the gift of the Holy Spirit involved not only a diversity of languages, but also a recognition of different
'properties' of this one language according to the number of provinces which used it.
9. The story of the marriage feast at Cana, where the wine ran short (Jn. 2:1-3), was sometimes interpreted as representing the
Notes to Chapter Two marriage of Christ and the church, particularly in relation to Ep
5:31-32. See, for example, Augustine's Tract. in Ioh. 9, 10 (CC 36:96, 7/16, 23/33).
10. 'Word of effusion': verbum effusionis, referring to the verb effundam ('I will pour forth') in the Acts verse.
11. In his Retr. on this verse (CC 121:111, 87-112,99), Bede refers to his earlier interpretation of the blood mentioned in Ac
2:20. Without precisely rejecting his interpretation of this blood in relation to the blood of Christ on the cross, Bede offers an alternative interpretation developed in terms of Christ's sweat falling upon the ground as drops of blood during his prayer in the garden of Gethsemane (Lk 22:44). In this interpretation the blood referred to in Peter's citation of the prophecy of Joel (Ac 2:19-21) is a cosmic symbol, 'signifying that the entire world is to be washed in the blood of the Lord, so that just as formerly the tabernacle or the temple was to be consecrated to the Lord by the blood of sacrificial victims, so now through all the earth the people of the faithful are to be dedicated to him in a holy house by his blood, and the place of prayer is to be not only Jerusalem, but the elect are to lift up their hands in pure prayers to the Lord in every place of his dominion.'
12. In this comment on Ac 2:22-—23, Bede analyzes Peter's style of argumentation in Ac 2:22-36, and reference to this entire passage is necessary in order to grasp the import of some of Bede's remarks. He begins this comment by referring to Peter as a 'learned teacher' (doctus magister). In his Retr. on Ac 3:13 (CC
121:119, 10/20), Bede offers a very similar appreciative analysis of Peter's teaching style in his next discourse (Ac 3), there referring to Peter with the perhaps even more complementary title
"wise teacher' (doctor sapiens).
13. 'Deferred to the end of the world': Laistner's edition reads in finem saeculi dilatata. Dilatata would demand the translation 'spread broadly,' or, in a temporal sense, 'prolonged'. My translation, 'postponed,' is based on the variant reading dilata, which has ample MS. support (9 MSS. out of the 15 which Laistner used), and which seems to make better sense.
14. 'History,' i.e., narrative. See note 6 to chapter 1.
15. Acts 2:25-28 is a quotation from Ps 16:8-11 (15:8-10).
Bede's comment on Ac 2:25 is mostly quoted from Augustine's commentary on these psalm verses in his Ennar. in ps. 15, 8-10
(CC 38:91,
8, 2-10, 12). However, Bede omits most of Augustine's quoting of the psalm verses (those which remain I have placed within quotation marks), and he presents Augustine's commentary consecutively, thereby producing the rather difficult-to-follow line of thought found in Bede's comment on Ac 2:25. Note also that those passages in the comment on Ac 2:25
Notes to Chapter Two
which are not italicized are Bede's own additions to Augustine's commentary. By these additions, including the allusion to 1 P
2:22, Bede highlights the relevance of the psalm verses to Christ, a dimension not explicitly part of Augustine's treatment, but quite appropriate to the use that Peter makes of this psalm in his sermon in Ac 2, for Peter introduces the psalm quotation with the words, 'For David says with reference to him [Christ]'. Therefore the subject of the introductory verb inquit ('He says') is, in one sense David, but in another sense Christ himself.
16. The descent into hell is referred to in the creed, between Christ's burial and his resurrection. Western theologians attributed the descent to Christ's soul, since his body was in the grave and his deity was in heaven at this time (see Pelikan. The Growth of Medieval Theology, 600-1300 [Chicago: Univ. of Chicago Press, 1978], p. 154.) The descent into hell was a very popular theme in Anglo-Saxon poetry, as, for example, in the poems entitled Descent into Hell in the Exeter Book (ASPR
3:219-223) and Christ and Satan in the Junius Manuscript (ASPR 1:133-158), as well as in the closing section of The Dream of the Rood (ASPR 2:65, 150/156).
17. The tetragrammaton refers to the four Hebrew consonants of Yahweh, the personal name of God in the Old Testament, which the Vulgate translated by dominus ('lord' or 'master').
18. The Feast of Weeks (see note 4 above) came to be connected with the giving of the law at Sinai, but this connection was made late in Jewish history. There are no clear references to the connection within the canonical Old Testament. See R. De Vaux,
Ancient Israel (1961; rpt. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1965), Vol.
2, p. 494.