Annotation CCLXXVII
”Cursed [is] everyone who shall not continue in all [things] which are written in the book of the law.” — Galatians 3:10
Whether it is read in the sacred letters that God cursed anyone.
Genesis 3. Genesis 4. Malachi 2. 2 Kings 2.
Luther reproves Jerome — [who,] in the commentaries on the epistle to the Galatians, [was] sifting these words — because he so boldly denies that anyone is found in the scriptures [to have been] cursed by God, and [that] the name of God [is] never joined with a cursing: since [Luther] had read in Genesis that God cursed the serpent; and [that] the earth was cursed by God in the work of Adam; and [that] Cain was struck with a divine curse; and [that] God, in Malachi, says, “I will curse your blessings”; and [that] Elisha cursed the boys of Bethel in the name of the Lord. Ambrose, bishop of Compsa, [in] the fifth book against Luther, refuting his calumny, says [that] Jerome did not deny [that] which Martin builds up from the divine letters — namely, that God curses, or has cursed, or [that] holy men uttered a cursing in the name of God: but affirmed only this, that the name of God is nowhere found joined to the verb of cursing. For although in the sacred scriptures we read that God cursed some, and that some [were] cursed by God: yet nowhere is the divine cursing expressed under this form of words, “God cursed this [one],” or, “This [thing] was cursed by God.” And that this was the opinion of Jerome, the same Ambrose approves from the same Hieronymian explanation, whose words run thus: “WITH bold foot, therefore, I proceed into this contest, that I appeal to the sacred books, [that] in no place is it written that anyone was cursed by God; and wheresoever a cursing is set down, never is the name of God joined. ‘Cursed [art] thou from [above] all beasts,’ is said to the serpent; and [to] Adam, ‘Cursed [is] the earth in thy works’; and to Cain, ‘Cursed [art] thou upon the earth’; and elsewhere, ‘Cursed [is] the boy Canaan’; and also, in another place, ‘Cursed [is] the fury of them, which [was] bold [audacious].’ It would be long, if I should enumerate all the cursings which are written in Leviticus, and in Deuteronomy, and in Joshua [Jesus Nave]: and yet in none of them is the name of God added.” These [things] he [Jerome]. There are [those] not lacking who affirm that this period, together with some following lines, is not Jerome’s, but passed, by the fault of copyists, from the margin into the context [main text]; to whom I neither say nay nor yea. Read the [things] which are written concerning this passage of Jerome, [in] book 8 of this work, in the confutation of the second heresy.