Letter M

M.

MARK, bishop of Alexandria, and Evangelist (whom Luke, in the Acts of the Apostles, chapter twelve, names John, son of Mary) ¹ — after the gospel gathered by him from the mouth of Peter the Apostle, whose companion and interpreter he was ² — wrote, in a brief volume, the life of Barnabas the Apostle, and his cousin — [a life] which Bede the presbyter is believed to have translated from the Greek tongue into the Latin speech. James, Archbishop of Genoa [Jacobus de Voragine], makes mention of this work in the book of the Yearly Festivities. There are also those who report that he committed other [things] to the monuments of letters; of which neither do they themselves recount the titles, nor have we found [them] noted anywhere.

THE WRITING OF THE HAND appearing on the wall of the Babylonian palace had only three Chaldaic words, and those messengers of a most inauspicious omen — namely: ³

מנא MENE, that is, He hath numbered; or, as the Greeks read, ἐμέτρησε, He hath measured.

תקל THEKEL, which is, He hath weighed.

פרס PHERES, that is, He hath divided.

The occasion of the writing of these, and at the same time the interpretation, Daniel — in the fifth chapter of his volume — relates to have been such: When Belshazzar, king of the Assyrians, was besieged within Babylon by Cyrus, king of the Persians, and Darius [king] of the Medes — he, the enemy being utterly neglected, feasting in a certain spacious hall, reclined with great magnificence, [his] concubines reclining with [him], and the chief of [his] nobles. And when he had now grown hot with wine, he commanded the sacred vessels to be brought — which Nebuchadnezzar had placed from the temple of Jerusalem into his own temple; and when he was drinking in them together with his concubines, and hurling many contumelious words against God: suddenly, from the wall opposite, a hand was seen to project, whose fingers left the aforesaid words, gradually written thereon. By which portent the king, most greatly terrified, when he had long and much sought the meaning of the writing from his magi and diviners, and had not been able to find [it]; at last, Daniel being summoned, obtained from him the mournful interpretation of the words, in this manner: ⁴ SINCE, O king, said Daniel, thou hast proudly despised the greatest God of all, who raised thee to the summit of so great a kingdom, and hast poured forth impious words against him with a sacrilegious mouth, and hast not feared to drink from his sacred vessels together with thy concubines; on account of these [things] God, being angry, announces to thee by this writing what [kind of] end thou shalt have of [thy] kingdom and life. For thus are the several words of it to be interpreted. MENE, that is, He hath numbered, signifies that God has numbered the days both of thy life and of thy kingdom, and that the end of both is soon at hand. THEKEL, that is, He hath weighed, signifies that God has weighed thy works in the balance of his justice; and in the one scale of the balance, which was lower [heavier], there appeared an enormous weight of pride, luxury, blasphemy, and thy tyranny; but in the other, which was very light, there appeared that thou hast less piety toward God and justice toward men than would be fitting for a king — and above all for that king whom God had set over so many kingdoms and peoples. PHERES, which is He hath divided, signifies that God has divided all the riches of thy most opulent kingdom, and has now distributed them in portions among the Medes and Persians. And this was the occasion of this writing, and its right interpretation. Which indeed to have been most true, the event of the prediction itself confirmed immediately the very next night; for while Belshazzar was lying [there], partly struck with the horror of the portent, partly overcome with sleep and wine, he was slain by his chamberlains, who had already before conspired against his life; and the city, by treachery, was handed over to the Medes and Persians.

I judge that it is not to be passed over in this place, that the Rabbis of the Hebrews took, from the interpretation of this writing, occasion of devising a certain new kind of exposition upon the sacred letters ⁵ — called by them kabbalistic: ⁶ in that they not only explain the sentences and entire clauses of the divine scripture, but also, weighing separately the syllables and each single letter, examine [them], and expound [them] with various senses, both historical and mystical — the argument being taken from hence, that just as it was permitted to Daniel to explicate single words by single whole clauses, so it is lawful for the other Rabbis of the synagogue, by a like example, to interpret the syllables — and even the letters of words themselves, one separated from another — by certain words which those letters signify. But concerning this manner of interpreting we have written enough and more than enough below, in the book On the modes of expounding the sacred scriptures, when we treated the Method of the elementary exposition: to which place we refer the reader who is curious of these matters.

MARY, the most blessed Virgin, Mother of our Lord and God Jesus Christ, is said to have written a certain very brief letter to Ignatius the martyr ⁷ — disciple of John the Apostle ⁸, and the third bishop of the Church of Antioch after Peter. For he [Ignatius], since he was held by an incredible ardor of seeing, and of speaking face to face with, the mother of the Lord, wrote to her a rather brief letter in this manner: ⁹

To Christ-bearing Mary, her own Ignatius.

ME — a neophyte, and a disciple of thy John — thou oughtest to have comforted and consoled. For concerning thy Jesus I have received innumerable [things] to tell, and I was astounded at the hearing. But from thee — who wast always familiar and joined to him, and privy to his secrets — I desire in [my] mind to be made more certain concerning the [things] heard. I have written to thee also at other times, and asked. Farewell: and let the neophytes who are with me be comforted from thee, and through thee, and in thee. Amen.

To which letter the Mother of God satisfied [replied] with this response: ¹⁰

To Ignatius, [her] beloved disciple, the humble handmaid of Christ Jesus.

THE [things] concerning JESUS which thou hast heard and learned from John are true. Believe them, cleave to them, and firmly hold the vow of Christianity, and conform [thy] morals and life to the vow. And I will come, together with John, to see thee, and those who are with thee. Stand, and act manfully in the faith. Nor let the austerity of persecution move thee; but let thy spirit be strong, and exult in God thy salvation. Amen.

St. Bernard makes mention of Ignatius’s letter, ¹¹ on the ninetieth psalm, in the seventh sermon, in these words: THAT GREAT Ignatius — a hearer of the disciple whom Jesus loved, our martyr, with whose precious relics our poverty is enriched ¹² — salutes Mary, in several letters which he wrote to her, as CHRIST-BEARING. An excellent title of dignity indeed — that is, a commendation of immense honor. Dionysius the Carthusian, in the commentaries which he published on the book of Dionysius the Areopagite On the divine names, thus writes concerning the letter of Ignatius: ¹³ SAINT Ignatius, in one of his letters to the most sacred Virgin, fervently asks her that, for the consolation and comforting of himself and of many neophytes, she would deign to come to him. But of both letters Marcus Michael, a presbyter of Cortona, in the book Of illustrious men, makes record in this manner: ¹⁴ IGNATIUS wrote four letters to various [recipients]: the first to the Ephesians, the second to the Magnesians, the third to the Colossians [so; the genuine third is to the Trallians], the fourth to the Romans. There are also extant his letters to John the Evangelist, his teacher, and to Mary, the most blessed Virgin, and the most humble mother of our Lord the Saviour; to whom she herself did not humbly disdain to render a brief letter in response.

THE GREAT QUESTIONS OF MARY, and the Small Questions of the same, are books filled with execrable impieties and blasphemies by the Gnostic and Stratiotic heretics ¹⁵; in which, among other mysteries of detestable foulness, is handed down a rite of the Lord’s Supper, celebrated among those same heretics with such abomination that the mind shudders to speak [it], and the hand recoils from writing [it]. But, that it may appear from this into how great a deep of prodigious blindness, and abyss of diabolical madness, they rush who imitate the Gnostics (so called from the knowledge of all things which they professed) ¹⁶ — that is, who, relying on their own wit and wisdom, depart from ecclesiastical discipline and the traditions of the holy fathers — I shall not be reluctant briefly to report what Epiphanius writes concerning this in the first [book] of the Panarion against the Gnostics. ¹⁷ These, then, in the aforesaid volume of the Great Questions, have [it] that the Lord Jesus Christ revealed to the Virgin Mary a rite of the synaxis and of the Lord’s communion, afterward observed by the Gnostics in this manner: All — men and women — assembled together into the same dining-room; there, when they had dined largely and sumptuously, the husbands, all shame cast aside, exposed their wives to the public, and invited one another into the embrace of his [own] wife with these words: Rise, brother, and make love with thy brother. And when the invited [man] mingled with the offered woman, each with his own hands received the flux of the male seed. Then, with palms spread and hands stretched out after the manner of suppliants, he offered this very [thing] to God, with this little prayer added: We offer to thee this gift, namely the body of Christ; ¹⁸ and immediately, taking the seed itself with the mouth, and eating [it], they added: For this is the body of Christ, and this is the Pascha, that is, the passion: therefore our bodies suffer, and in this manner confess the passion of Christ. In the same manner also, when it happened that a woman was in the flux of blood, they offered to God the menstruum collected from her; and immediately, eating [it], they said: And this is the blood of Christ. Now for the confirmation of this most base foulness they used not only the aforesaid volumes of the Questions, but — what can scarcely be believed — also the testimonies of the divine scriptures ¹⁹; God so permitting, lest we should lightly believe those who strive to build up their dogmas (contrary to the traditions of the Church) from the divine letters, wrested in some way [to their purpose] — after the example of the Gnostics, who interpreted of this prodigious turpitude that which was said by Christ: ²⁰ WHEN you shall see the Son of man returning where he was before — that is, the flux of the human seed returning thither whence it had gone out. And likewise that [saying]: ²¹ UNLESS you shall have eaten the flesh of the Son of man, and drunk his blood — that is, [they said, this means] in the human seed and the menstrual blood. To the same [purpose] they referred what Solomon said: ²² DRINK water from thy cisterns. And that which is had in the first psalm: ²³ LIKE a tree planted beside the courses of waters, it shall give fruit in its season — and they expounded [it] of the genital member, which in the flux of the seed gives the fruit of pleasure. And that [phrase], ²⁴ ITS leaf shall not fall, they said was added for this [reason]: that one should not let the drops of the seed fall to the ground, but should eat [it when] collected. Similarly, what is read in the Apocalypse concerning the tree bearing twelve fruits in the year, through the several months — which is the tree of life — they figuratively interpreted of the menstrual blood of a woman, flowing in the several months. ²⁵ Thus Epiphanius. But Augustine, in the book On heresies, to Quodvultdeus, writes that the Manichaeans in his own time, at Carthage, addicted to this execrable superstition, ²⁶ were accustomed to take a Eucharist sprinkled [mixed] with flour and the human seed of those coupling.

THE STOCK, or LINEAGE, OF MARY — as, in the place cited above, Epiphanius reports ²⁷ — is a book famous among the Gnostics, containing a horrible and pernicious doctrine; in which, among other portents, it is narrated that the priest Zechariah, having entered into the inner parts of the temple to burn incense before God, saw a certain form endowed with an ass’s head ²⁸; and when he wished to reveal this vision, and to admonish the people not to worship an ass, he who had appeared took away from him the use of voice and tongue, but a few days after restored [what had been] taken away. Which [faculty] being received back, Zechariah disclosed the vision to the Jews; [and] they, indignant, cut him down. Moved by this cause, the lawgiver of the Hebrews commanded the priest that, entering to perform the sacred [rites], he should wear little bells hung on [his] garment: so that, warned by the sound, that ass-headed God might hide himself, lest his form, unseasonably beheld, should bring destruction on the beholder. Serapion, bishop of Thmuis, in the book against the Manichaeans, affirms that from the occasion of this book the Christians were once accused by the pagans ²⁹, that — mingled with the Jews — they worshipped an ass as the deity of the Jews. Tertullian, however, in the Apologeticus, supposes that the Gentiles came into this suspicion from the writings of Cornelius Tacitus; who, in the fifth book of the Histories, relating the origin of the Hebrew religion, says that the Jews, driven out of Egypt — when in the vast solitude of Arabia they were wasting away with thirst — learned [the location of] the springs of water from wild asses, which by chance were making for drink from [their] pasture; and, mindful of the benefit, they honored the beast with divine honors, and afterward consecrated its image in the temple; and thence [it was] presumed by the Gentiles that the Christians, as [being] near to the Jewish religion, venerated an ass for [their] god. Whence also a certain hirer-out of beasts of burden dared, in the times of Tertullian, at Carthage — before the stable of the beasts, as it were the emblem of his trade — to hang up a placard, in which was painted a man wearing a toga, holding a book in [his] right hand: from whose head asinine ears projected; and on [his] feet the hoofs of an ass were seen; with this inscription: THE GOD OF THE CHRISTIANS, ONONYCHITES — that is, [having] ass’s hoofs.

THE PASSING OF MARY [Transitus], or the Book of the passing of St. Mary, is rejected by Gelasius among the Apocryphal writings. James, Archbishop of Genoa [Jacobus de Voragine], in the Book of the Yearly Festivities, reports that he lit upon a certain Apocryphal volume of the same subject and title, ascribed to St. John the Evangelist ³⁰: in which it was written that the Virgin Mary, in the twenty-fourth year from the ascension of her Son, departed from this life; and that all the Apostles, snatched through the air in a moment of time, were present at [her] dying; and that they bore out her body with a public funeral and solemn obsequies, and laid [it] in a stone monument; and that she, after the third day, revived; and, with body entire, the Angels leading [her], flew up into heaven. But that Thomas — since he had been absent, and returning refused to believe — received, as a proof of the resurrection and of the bodily assumption into heaven, the girdle with which the body of the Virgin had been girded, let down from on high. Augustine, in sermon 35 On the saints, refutes the inscription, narration, and authority of this work in these words: [In] what order the Virgin Mary passed hence to the highest [places], no Catholic history narrates. ³¹ Not only, moreover, is this Church said to spit out the Apocrypha, but even to be ignorant [of these things]: since there are some [writings] composed, without the name of an author, concerning her assumption; which, as I said, are so guarded against that they are by no means permitted to be read for confirming the truth of the matter. Hence indeed some are troubled, because neither is her body found on earth, nor is her assumption with the flesh — as is read in the Apocrypha — found in Catholic history. But it is not worthy that anyone should be anxious about the knowledge of her body — [she] whom he doubts not to reign with Christ, exalted above the heavens. ³² But neither is any of the treatise-writers found to have said anything openly concerning her death. And what do I say of these, when not even he who received her before the cross of the Lord into his own [care] — that is, John the Evangelist — committed anything of this in writings to be retained by posterity? For no one could have narrated this more faithfully, had God willed it to be manifested. It remains, therefore, that a man should not mendaciously feign as manifest what God willed to remain hidden. But the true opinion concerning her assumption ³³ is that — according to the Apostle, [whether] assumed in the body or out of the body, [we] not knowing — we should believe her to be above the angels. Thus Augustine concerning the passing and assumption of Mary: who seems openly to dissent from this opinion in the little book On the assumption of Mary, which, under his name, is reckoned among the writings of the ninth tome. ³⁴ Jerome — or Jerome’s companion Sophronius — in the sermon On the assumption of the Virgin, making mention of this book, thus writes: ³⁵ IF that Apocryphon Of the passing of the Virgin Mary should come into your hands, receive not doubtful [things] for certain; which many of the Latins, out of love of piety and zeal for reading, embrace [too] fondly. And her sepulchre is shown, even to the present, in the midst of the valley of Josaphat. These [things] I would say for this reason, because many of our [people] doubt whether she was assumed together with the body, or departed [her] body being left [behind]; but how, or at what time, or by what persons her most holy body was taken away from thence, or where it was transferred, [and] whether she has risen again, is unknown. Although some wish to affirm that she is already raised up, and clothed with blessed immortality with Christ in the heavenly [places]. Nevertheless, which of these is to be reckoned the truer, we are in doubt. Better, however, [that] we commit the whole to God, to whom nothing is impossible, than that we should wish to define anything rashly by our own authority. But also, whether she has returned into the dust of the earth, we hold [it] not certain. Trithemius, in [his] catalog, reckons the book Of the passing of St. Mary among the works of Melito, bishop of Sardis — whose beginning is, MELITO, THE SERVANT OF CHRIST — which, however, Jerome, enumerating the writings of Melito, passed over. BEDE the presbyter, concerning this book, in the Retractations on the Acts of the Apostles, expounding that [verse], ³⁶ All were dispersed through the regions of Judaea and Samaria, except the Apostles, left [it] thus written: IF, the Church being dispersed, the Apostles remained in Jerusalem, as Luke says, it is evident that he wrote a falsehood who — composing a book, in the person of Melito, bishop of Asia, concerning the death of the blessed Mother of God — says that in the second year after the ascension of the Lord all the Apostles were divided over the whole world for preaching, each into his own province: who all, as the death of blessed Mary drew near, were lifted up on clouds from the places in which they were preaching the word of God, [and] snatched to Jerusalem, and set down before the door of her house; among whom also Paul, lately converted from a persecutor to the faith of Christ, who was taken up with Barnabas into the ministry of the Gentiles. Which writing also relates specially concerning John the Apostle, that at that time he was preaching at Ephesus — [things] which all contradict the words of blessed Luke; by which [words] he narrates that the Apostles, the other faithful being driven from Jerusalem, remained in that same place ³⁷, and preached throughout all [things], until the Church had peace through all Judaea, and Samaria, and Galilee — which [peace] could have been achieved in one year, [of which] there is no doubt to anyone. [Luke] also manifestly insinuates that Paul was ordained into the ministry of the Gentiles with Barnabas ³⁸, not in the second year after the ascension of the Lord, but a long time afterward. But far be it that we should believe [that] blessed John the Apostle — to whom the Lord on the cross commended his virgin mother, [entrusting the] virgin to [the] virgin — departed after one year, and left her alone, and so long cast down that she even feared that her body, [when] dead, would be burned by the enemies; and that she, on whose account he was snatched up on the clouds, anxiously begged that he — as if forgetful or careless of her — would return to her, saying: I BEG thee, son John, that thou be mindful of the word of thy master, my Lord Jesus Christ, who commended me to thee. For behold, [being] called, I shall enter the way of all the earth. And I have heard the counsels of the Jews, saying, Let us await the day when she dies who carried Jesus the Nazarene, and let us burn her body. Now therefore, son, take care of my obsequies. These [things] I have taken care to relate for this reason, because I have known some to give assent, by incautious rashness, to the aforesaid volume, against the authority of blessed Luke. Thus far Bede.

MATTHEW the Evangelist ³⁹ is falsely made the author of two books, of which the one is inscribed Of the birth, or lineage, of Mary, the other Of the infancy of the Saviour: which are figments of the Valentinians and Gnostics. To these books certain foolish [persons], desiring to claim authority [for them], added prefaces feigned under the name of the bishops Chromatius and Heliodorus, to Jerome, and of Jerome to them; which [prefaces] would testify that both works were translated by Jerome, for the favor of those same bishops, from the Hebrew volume of Matthew, and purged from the falsifications of the heretics. But since in these books there now stand the same old-wives’ fables which Irenaeus, in the first [book] against the heresies of the Valentinians, and Epiphanius, in the first [book] of the Panarion, section three, refute out of those same volumes, the deception of the impostors plainly appears. Gelasius, in the 15th distinction, casts out both among the books condemned by the Church.

THE GOSPEL OF THE APOSTLE MATTHIAS ⁴⁰ — among other non-canonical gospels, Origen enumerates [it] in the first homily on Luke. The Traditions of the same [Matthias] Clement cites in the second book of the Stromata; and in the seventh book of the same work he writes that Marcion and Basilides confirmed their heresies from the authority of these. Eusebius, in the third book of the Ecclesiastical History, chapter twenty-five, reckons the Gospel of Matthias among the books forged by the heretics.

THE BOOK OF REMEMBRANCE [Memorial], or Of the Monument, in Hebrew ספר זכרון Sepher zikkaron. The Prophet Malachi, in the third chapter, recalls this, saying: ⁴¹ THE LORD attended, and heard, and wrote a book before [him], for those fearing the Lord, and thinking upon his name. This book signifies the particular memory and consideration which God has of his elect. The impious, seeing them afflicted, think that they are in forgetfulness with God. But the prophet says that God bears so great a care of them, and attends, and hears, that he numbers and writes all the groans of his own, lest they come into forgetfulness; and he always has the book before [his] eyes: so that, when the opportune time shall have come, there be no need of anyone suggesting [reminding him] — just as, in Isaiah also, he says that he has written [it] on [his] hands ⁴². Therefore no one is to despair in afflictions. For the devil tempts us — like the friends of Job — saying that God has forgotten us, and does not consider our [affairs]. Whence they say: How long wilt thou forget [us] unto the end? To whom God answers that he has a memorial book of everlasting remembrance, which no forgetfulness shall ever blot out.

MENANDER, among the ancient comic poets of Greece a most celebrated poet (some of whose plays — especially the Andria and the Perinthia — Terence confesses he made Latin) ⁴³, wrote, as Athenaeus in the Deipnosophists is witness, forty-nine comedies ⁴⁴: out of one of which Paul the Apostle (as Jerome, writing to Magnus the Orator, attests) — when, in the former epistle which he wrote to the Corinthians, he dissuaded them from the conversations of seducers — took an iambic senarius [verse] of this kind: ⁴⁵

Φθείρουσιν ἤθη χρηστὰ ὁμιλίαι κακαί. — that is, Evil communications corrupt good manners.

He flourished in the 115th Olympiad — in the first year of which he publicly exhibited his first play, surnamed Orge [Anger] — and died in the first year of the 122nd Olympiad.

THE INSCRIPTION OF THE GREAT HARLOT (concerning which John in the Apocalypse says: ⁴⁶ I SAW a woman sitting upon a beast, and upon her forehead a name written, BABYLON, THE GREAT MOTHER OF THE FORNICATIONS AND ABOMINATIONS OF THE EARTH) signifies ancient Rome ⁴⁷ — [showing] that, while she still served the uncleannesses and abominations of idols, she most impudently and without any blush perpetrated execrable crimes; and, among other [things], that she cruelly shed also the blood of the martyrs, who were rebuking her, that she might more freely enjoy the fornications of her gods. Thus Arethas, bishop of Caesarea, in the commentaries on the Apocalypse. For the same cause Papias, [Jerome], Oecumenius, and Bede think that Peter, at the end of [his] former epistle, called Rome by the name of Babylon ⁴⁸, when he said: The church which is gathered in Babylon saluteth you.

THE BOOK OF DEATH is the most certain and immovable knowledge of God, recognizing them, and holding [them] reckoned in [his] count, whom the divine justice — by a hidden but nevertheless most just judgment — from eternity and unto eternity reprobated, and condemned to eternal punishment not without preceding demerit ⁴⁹; in which volume indeed are written all the evil and reprobate, whom God foreknew [would] die outside charity and grace, without penance — which book, however, although the divine scriptures have not expressed [it] in bare and open words, and some schools of the theologians do not receive [it]; yet from many places they have latently indicated its necessity. For since the sacred letters everywhere teach that there is with God — to whose eyes all things are naked and open — a book of life, that is, a clear and infallible knowledge and record of predestination and of the predestined; ⁵⁰ it is necessary also — since the knowledge of opposites is one and the same — that there be in God, from whom nothing can be hidden, a clear knowledge and certain record of reprobation and of all the reprobate; and this is called the Book of Death, in which are described, one by one, the names, and the evil merits, and the sins of all the reprobate, whom God — [they] having so deserved — has consigned to perpetual damnation. Concerning whom Augustine, in the 28th chapter of the Soliloquies, thus addresses God: THE DEATH of sinners is most evil — of those, I say, whom, before thou madest heaven and earth, according to the deep abyss of thy hidden judgments (ever just), thou didst foreknow unto eternal death: whose numbering of names and of depraved merits is with thee — [thou] who hast numbered the number of the sand of the sea, and hast measured the depth of the abyss. JOHN also, in his Revelation, attests that the names of the reprobate are numbered in the divine foreknowledge, when, speaking of the impious, he said: ⁵¹ AND there were slain in the earthquake names of men, seven thousand. Whence also St. Jerome, in the commentaries on Isaiah, explaining that [text], ⁵² THE HEAVENS SHALL BE FOLDED UP LIKE A BOOK, said that the heavens, on the day of judgment, are to be folded up like a book, so that the sins of the wicked be no longer written in them. And just as our Saviour — saying, ⁵³ REJOICE, BECAUSE YOUR NAMES ARE WRITTEN IN THE HEAVENS — wished to signify those whose names are written in the book of life: so Jeremiah wished to signify those who are written in the book of death by those whom he asserted to be written in the earth, when he said: ⁵⁴ O LORD, all they that depart from thee shall be written in the earth. But whether some can be deleted from this book of death, that they may be saved, and again rewritten, that they may be damned ⁵⁵: there is no slight difficulty among the Theologians, especially the scholastics — which is easily resolved if, just as we said elsewhere [that] in the book of life some are written within, some without: so now also we say that the book of death is written within and without ⁵⁶; and that some are written in it within and without ⁵⁷, but some only externally. Those are written within and without whom God, according to [his] eternal and firm wisdom, foreknew either [as] about to persevere in evil unto the end, or at least [as] about to depart from this life in [their] iniquities; whom, according to the foreknowledge of everlasting damnation, and according to the purpose of perpetual misery, he irrevocably rejected from eternity, and proscribed with an indelible proscription — as Cain, Judas, Esau, Pharaoh, Antiochus, and other reprobates; who indeed can by no means be deleted from the inner writing of this book. For although sometimes they are deleted, or seem to be deleted, from the external circumscription of the book — while they exercise in some way a certain temporal grace of present righteousness (with Cain, offering sacrifices; with Judas, following Christ in a state of the highest perfection; with Esau and Antiochus, doing penance, and imploring mercy with many tears): yet within they remain indelibly written. But those are written in this book only on the outside ⁵⁸ whom God foreknew [as] about to remain in [their] crimes for a while and for a time, but afterward to be saved through penance — as Paul, Peter, and Augustine; who, although they were in the book of death, and for a time circumscribed [written on the edge], and externally deleted from the book of life, on account of the lethal and death-bringing crime of infidelity; nevertheless were not written within, in the book of death, eternally and indelibly, and deleted from the inmost pages of the book of life; but were inscribed in the inner part of that same book of life, and numbered among those who — as Augustine says — can by no means perish; to whom all things cooperate unto good ⁵⁹, even [their] very sins: ⁶⁰ who, when they fall, are not dashed to pieces, because God puts under his hand, guarding their bones, that not one of these be crushed. Not that their sins are not sins, and worthy of death and eternal damnation; but that they themselves, after [their] fall, recognizing the gravity of the crime and the weakness of their own strength, rose again more easily, repented more sharply, walked more cautiously, and — with more ardent zeal and stronger effort — strove, as it were, violently to seize the kingdom of God. The Jews make mention of this Book of Death ⁶¹, of which we have now spoken, in the second order of the Talmudic volumes, tractate eight: ⁶² where they fable that God, in each year, in the first ten days of the September moon [Tishri], writes the good in the book of life, but the evil in the book of death.

THE ASCENSION OF MOSES, in Greek ἀνάβασις τοῦ Μωσέως, is a book; concerning which it is said that Jude the Apostle, in his Catholic epistle, took the testimony ⁶³ of the Archangel Michael contending with Satan concerning the body of Moses. Origen ⁶⁴ recalls this writing in the 3rd book of the Periarchon, chapter 2, in these words: FIRST indeed, in Genesis, the serpent is described to have seduced Eve: concerning whom, in the Ascension of Moses (which little book the Apostle Jude mentions in his epistle), Michael the Archangel, disputing with the devil concerning the body of Moses, says to the devil that the instigated serpent was the cause of the transgression of Adam and Eve. Thus he. Now this book is inscribed, as I judge, the ASCENSION of Moses, ⁶⁵ because it contains the ascent of Moses from the plains of Moab up to Mount Nebo, on the top of Phasga [Pisgah], over against Jericho; likewise the conversations of Moses — now on the very point of dying — held with God, and his sepulchre dug out in a hidden place by the hands of the Angels; also the dispute of Michael and the devil, concerning which Oecumenius ⁶⁶, in the commentaries on the epistle of Jude, thus writes: IT IS SAID that Michael the Archangel furnished [his] ministry in burying Moses. This the devil did not endure, but brought an accusation on account of the slaying of the Egyptian, as if Moses were his [own]; and therefore he did not permit that [Moses] should obtain honorable burial. But when Michael, in this controversy, had occasion to assail the devil with a curse on account of his impudence, he did not do this, but only brought this against him: ⁶⁷ THE LORD REBUKE THEE, O DEVIL. Thus far the words of Oecumenius. Jerome ⁶⁸, in the commentaries on the epistle to Titus, being in doubt about the book whence the Apostle received this, says: FROM WHAT scriptures Jude took this testimony, is not easily evident. But nevertheless it must be known that we find something like these [things] in the prophet Zechariah. For he himself says: ⁶⁹ showed me Jesus [Joshua] the high priest, standing before the Angel of the Lord: and Satan stood at his right hand, to oppose him. And the Lord said, THE LORD REBUKE THEE, O SATAN.* Thus he [Jerome]. Origen, in the 35th homily on Luke, cites a certain more secret book of almost the same argument, in which are introduced the angels of justice and of iniquity, disputing over the death and salvation of Abraham ⁷⁰ — while both troops wish to claim him for their own company. Clement, in the sixth [book] of the Stromata, alleges out of the Assumption of Moses a certain vision of Joshua and Caleb, who saw Moses — while he was being assumed [taken up] — illustrated with glory among the Angels. Athanasius, in the Synopsis, rejects this Ascension of Moses — together with another writing akin to it, whose title is THE TESTAMENT OF MOSES — among the Apocrypha. That other books also, under the name of MOSES, were forged by the heretics who are called Sethians, Epiphanius is witness ⁷¹, in the first [book] of the Panarion, confuting the heresy of the Sethians; where also, against them, he brings in the authority of a certain very ancient volume, which is inscribed JUBILEES, or GENESIS MORE EXACTLY EXPLAINED, setting forth, in a long discourse, the lineage and genealogies of the sons of Adam. There is also carried about a certain book under the name of Moses, cited by George Cedrenus, whose title is λεπτιγένεσις [= λεπτὴ γένεσις] — that is, Little Genesis. That this is that Apocryphon which the Synod of Trent lately condemned under the name of the little flowers of the Bible, several narrations sufficiently indicate — which the same Cedrenus seems to have transfused out of this work into his histories.