They were not written in Hebrew but in Greek.
They were not written in Hebrew but in Greek.
§ 199. We prove that the supplement to Esther is not in the canon with the following arguments. [I] It was not written in Hebrew but in Greek, according to Jerome in his preface to Esther,39 where he adds: “Not a single interpreter takes this seriously.” Bellarmine makes the exception: “It is probable that at one time those chapters were in Hebrew” (De verbo Dei, bk. 1, c. 7). But this would not just have to be probable but certain because the prophets wrote the books of the Old Testament in no language except Hebrew. As proof, Bellarmine brings up Josephus in Antiquit., bk. 11, c. 6, who “mentions the two epistles of Ahasuerus and the prayer of Mordecai, and these are found in the last chapters, not in the first. Thus he is trying to prove that the material from 11:1 on was translated from Hebrew into Greek.”
We respond. (1) With clear language Jerome denies that these are in the Hebrew text, to whose express assertion we must give more than uncertain conjectures.
(2) Let us grant that these last seven chapters were at one time extant in Hebrew. Nevertheless because we have them only in Greek and Latin today, nothing is therefore added to their authority. You see, if they were canonical, divine providence would never have allowed the original text to have been lost. Their condition, therefore, would be equal with the Book of Sirach and of 1 Maccabees, which Jerome asserts (in his preface to the Books of Solomon) were indeed written in Hebrew. Nonetheless he places them outside the canon for the aforementioned reason.
(3) Bellarmine claims: “Those seven chapters of the Book of Esther that were last in the Latin Vulgate version are not really the last chapters. Some of them belong to the beginning of the book, some to the middle, and some to the end.” But how probable is it that some things disappear from the beginning, middle, and end [but] not from the other intermediate parts that are in between?
(4) If a gap appeared in the Hebrew book, Bellarmine’s suspicion could seem probable to someone. But everything is joined together rightly, and the connection is only then disturbed if you insert and sew on that fragment. For then the idle repetition of the plots made by the eunuchs against the king comes forth [cf. Esther 2:21-23].
(5) The authority of Josephus does not prove anything incontestably. What if Josephus took something from these chapters to emphasize or illustrate history? Does he consequently decree that such chapters belong to canonical Scripture? At the end of his commentary, Lyra says, “Rather, Josephus made these up, and they were later put into the Latin version.” Sixtus Senensis follows Lyra. It is certain that Josephus’s judgment on the canonical books of the Old Testament was none other than what Jerome’s judgment was or what our churches’ judgment is, as is evident from Contra Apion., bk. 1.
(6) Lysimachus is said to have translated nothing except the letter of Purim (11:1).
(7) Bellarmine imagines that there were two Books of Esther, the first of which came to us in Hebrew, and the second (written in greater detail) came to us translated. However, he contradicts himself in this because earlier he had drawn the conclusion against Sixtus Senensis that “the entire Book of Esther having been approved by the Council of Trent, its individual parts are also approved and, thus, those seven chapters too.” But now he indicated that those controversial chapters are a book that is diverse from the volume that is now extant in Hebrew and, in fact, that was written by another author. He also contradicts the fathers when, contrary to their unanimous consensus and contrary to the decree of Trent, he claims not just one Book of Esther but two, equally canonical.