The priestly mode of prophecy consisted in the application of the ephod. But the ephod was twofold. One was linen and permitted even to the lesser orders, as to the boy Samuel. The other was priestly, which was also called the superhumeral, ornamented with gold and a variety of three colors. This is described in Exodus 28. Josephus also calls it the most sacred stole, the priestly robe, the shoulder-garment, and the double garment.
To this, by golden chains, was hung the rational or pectoral, for the Latins use both names. The Hebrews call it chesen, according to the points we now have; for Josephus perhaps used others when he calls it Essen. The Greeks, on the same witness, call it logion. Sometimes indeed among the Septuagint, Philo, and Jerome you may find it written logeion, but corruptly; for that would belong rather to the place of consultation. More correctly, among the same authors elsewhere, it is logion, as if one should say “oracle.” For thus logia are explained by Hesychius as manteumata, and in Plutarch’s Sulla prophets are called logioi.
But why logion? If you weigh Josephus’s Greek words, it is because it poured forth oracles of irrefragable truth. Among the Latins it was called pectoral because it was hung on the breast; rational because, in the manner of a living being endowed with reason, it reasoned. For this very reason, with the encomium of judgment added, they honored it by calling it the rational of judgment, the judgment of the children of Israel, and, in the Hebrew source, the judgment of Urim.
[margin: 1 Samuel 2; Angelomus on the same place; Exodus 28; Josephus; Hesychius; Plutarch, Sulla; Exodus 28:15, 30; Numbers 27:21]
Jarchi gives the reason: because the little word Mishpat was inscribed above Urim. But this is a dream of the circumcised man. I would rather believe that sacred Scripture is accustomed to call what anyone must do, or anyone’s office, his judgment. But the priest, clothed with the rational, placed before God human doubts, desires, and affairs; and through the rational God not only was propitiated, but also signified to human beings what he wished to be done and what the outcome of the matter would be, as Aben Ezra not badly says. The name itself, Urim and Thummim, plainly supports this. Its meaning and use must also be examined.
Many indeed have written on this, but you may rightly wish that they had written more distinctly and clearly, as the dignity of the matter demanded. Tostado, Lipomano, Francisco Ribera, and Nicolas Serarius handled it better than the rest. Three things must be treated accurately: the name, the thing, and the use.
[margin: Proverbs 17:3; Tostado and Lipomano on Exodus 28; Francisco Ribera, On the Temple, book 3, chapter 12; Nicolas Serarius’s thesaurus material on Joshua the priest and the priestly vestments; Hebrew terms for Urim and Thummim]
As to the name: the Chaldeans called them Peraia and Thumaia; the Hebrews Urim and Thummim. Urim signifies illuminations or lights, from the root Ur. The Greeks translate it as declarations, manifestation, illumination, illuminators. Our interpreter renders it “doctrine” when he deals with the rational; but when he deals with the priest himself, “learned.” Thummim signifies perfections, from thamam, to perfect. The Greeks call it truth, fulfillments, perfect things; our interpreter translates truth, and sometimes metonymically priests, or otherwise, according as the matter seemed to require.
But what were those names Urim and Thummim in reality? Some deny that they know. I think, however, that this can be gathered from Scripture. Others judge that there was something in the rational different from the twelve stones; but they disagree among themselves. Some have thought that there was a thirteenth stone - Suidas calls it adamant - whose color changed, when the priest entered the courts, according to the difference between a prosperous or adverse outcome. In my judgment St. Augustine called this opinion fabulous, and he was not speaking about Josephus’s opinion. Aben Ezra invents I know not what figures of an astrolabe; Tostado refutes him splendidly with many reasons. Solomon Jarchi and Eugubinus judge that the ineffable name was inscribed in the rational. Philo the Jew and Hugh of St. Victor hold that these very words, Urim and Thummim, were engraved on the rational. Others imagine certain shining plates; and everyone imagined whatever he dreamed or whatever came into his mouth, as may be seen in Tostado.
[margin: Augustine, question 117 on Exodus; David Kimchi; Oleaster; Pagninus; Suidas; Aben Ezra; Tostado; Solomon Jarchi; Eugubinus; Philo; Hugh of St. Victor]
But the view which pleases me, and many others, is that they were nothing distinct from the twelve stones themselves. First, because I judge these to have been the names of those stones themselves, just as the same stones elsewhere are also called Soham and Milluim, stones of brightness or translucence and of fullness; or else they are called only Milluim, as our interpreter seems to have understood it, translating “onyx stones” when he speaks of the two stones over the shoulders, and “gems for adorning the ephod” when he translates Milluim concerning these twelve stones. More obscure is the Septuagint, which renders Soham as sardius, for sardius is one of the twelve.
Second, because if they had been something else, Moses, who so accurately wrote out and enumerated all the things which were in the logion, would surely have given us something about what they were, their form, quantity, quality, matter, and place. Jarchi answers that these things were passed over because either God himself or Moses had fashioned Urim and Thummim on Mount Sinai. Away with you, fabulist: that is from your own head. If it were true, sacred Scripture itself would have handed this down to us, just as it handed down that the first tablets of the Decalogue were written by God and the later ones by Moses.
[margin: Exodus 25:7; Exodus 28 and 28:30; the source notes Jarchi’s explanation and Del Rio’s rejection of it]
They object that after God ordered Moses to place those twelve stones in the rational, soon afterward, as if concerning an entirely different thing and in another place, it is said: “You shall place in the rational of judgment doctrine and truth,” and so forth. I answer that this is said as a brief recapitulation and explanation of all that he had previously set out about all these stones. It is as if he said: I have ordered you to insert such and such gems in the rational. Now understand the cause of that command. I ordered it so that these gems might be Urim and Thummim for you, that is, manifestation and truth of future things. For this he says briefly: what you will place in the rational, this will be doctrine and truth for you.
Nor do I see any obscurity here in this repetition, nor novelty in a name not new but even celebrated among the Hebrews. Moses is most correctly said to place Urim and Thummim in the rational, because he caused those stones to be inserted into the rational by Bezalel according to God’s prescription, unless perhaps they think that Moses himself wove those words into it by himself and not through the skill and hands of the weavers. But if Moses must be said to place them according to those men, certainly he must be said to do so also in our view.
Next, let the opponents know that the phrase “stones of Milluim” has the same force as simply “Milluim”; likewise “stones of Urim and Thummim” and simply “Urim and Thummim.” In both places the same stones are signified. In one place the word “stones” is added because the gems were being treated simply as gems; here, however, the word “stones” is omitted because they are being treated not as stones, but as gems that present an oracle. What absurdity is there if the name of the oracle is metonymically attributed to the gems which pour forth the oracle? Are metonymical expressions new in sacred Scripture? What darkness covers these words: “You shall place,” and so forth, for “you shall place in the rational the stones which from their function are named Urim and Thummim”? Nor was there any need to express another mode, since the very arrangement of the gems had been sufficiently expressed.
[margin: Augustine, question 117 on Exodus; David Kimchi in the Book of Roots; Cajetan on Exodus; Pagninus and others; Exodus 25:7; Exodus 28:17 and 28:30; Hebrew terms for the stones, including Soham and Milluim, in the argument over whether the words or the stones are meant]
Rather, they ought to explain where that vacant place was in the rational for weaving in these names: whether between the individual stones, around the circumference of all, on the right, or on the left. They should explain why the demonstrative pronoun points rather to this woven inscription than to the miracle of the stones; indeed it points rather to the admirable stones, Urim and Thummim. The authority of the authors objected against us would be great if they either agreed among themselves or had discussed the matter more diligently.
St. Jerome, to Fabiola, has nothing that fights against us, and just as much that favors the opponents: he merely uses the manner of speaking of sacred Scripture. St. Augustine, question 117, speaks ambiguously, and indicates what could have been, professing that it is not known. St. Gregory, Pastoral Rule, part 2, chapter 1, says absolutely nothing except the words of Scripture and a mystical exposition. Rabanus, in the last book on Exodus, resolves the matter with “whether this or that.” Radulfus, book 6 on Leviticus, merely asserts that these words could have been inscribed. Rupert on Exodus says incidentally, and no more than this: “doctrine and truth is inscribed on it.” Therefore, among the Fathers, only Philo, with Hugh of St. Victor, seems to have judged this as certain.
Yet even concerning Philo someone could say, not ineptly, that he did not call the inscription of these words the texture, but the insertion of the stones, and that these very settings of the stones were called manifestation and truth; and thus he also says that these virtues were depicted in the logion because of the stones emitting prophetic brightness. And from Josephus, book 3 of the Antiquities, chapter 9, our Ribera, with Lyra and others, rightly gathered what we have said. Although Josephus does not name the words Urim and Thummim, nevertheless, when he describes the use and miracle, he indicates plainly enough that he attributes the prophecy through Urim and Thummim to the stones themselves. Could Josephus have been ignorant of this Scripture concerning these names? Or if he knew it, would he have wrapped it in such stubborn silence?
[margin: Jerome to Fabiola; Augustine, question 117 on Exodus; Gregory, Pastoral Rule, part 2, chapter 1; Rabanus on Exodus; Radulfus on Leviticus; Rupert on Exodus; Philo; Josephus, Antiquities, book 3, chapter 9; Lyra; Ribera]
Therefore I establish that Urim and Thummim were these very twelve gems, as Josephus, Lyra, Tostado, Oleaster, and Ribera hold. For this seems more probable both because of what we have already said and because, in Leviticus, where the priest is vested, no mention is made of those twelve stones, without which the priest would never have been properly vested; but in place of them only Urim and Thummim are mentioned. From this it appears that the stones themselves are signified by such names. And because they were splendid and flashing, shining with the brightest light, they were called not only splendid and shining - which would have been too little - but splendors and illuminations, Urim. And because they were of the most chosen, whole, and perfect kinds of gems, they were called not perfect, but perfections, Thummim, with that emphasis by which Hebrews, and also Latins, are accustomed to use abstracts for concretes. It was not fair for Oleaster’s opinion to be attacked too sharply by a learned man.
But the Septuagint and the Vulgate, when they interpret “doctrine and truth,” preferred by their translation to present to us the use of the stones rather than the signification of the word, prudently embracing what did more to form the morals of the reader. The reason for the names was this: they were called Urim because, like a kind of light, by their brightness they dispelled the darkness of ignorance; but Thummim because, as in every prophecy, the promise of brightness too was certain, and God indubitably fulfilled by the event what he promised by brightness. It was not lawful to doubt. This concerning the thing.
[margin: Leviticus 8:8; Deuteronomy 33:8; Oleaster; Lyra; Tostado; Ribera; notes on the Septuagint and Vulgate renderings of Urim/Thummim as doctrine and truth]
Concerning the use of the prophecy, two things must be considered: the mode of asking and the mode of answering. Hugh of St. Victor judges that the question was commonly proposed through certain lots. I do not know whence he received this, or what supports him. Jarchi and Aben Ezra hand down that people used to write the questions on little papers and place these on the rational. Since no trace of this matter is found in sacred Scripture, I have no fear in rejecting it as a fiction and embracing the common opinion of the others.
For I think it more received and more true that the priests, after the due prayers, proposed the questions by the living voice, clothed in the other priestly garments and also in the ephod and the rational or jeweled necklace hung from the ephod, about which we are now speaking. This they called applying the ephod, or consulting the Lord with the ephod applied; or simply consulting the Lord, when the speech is about the priest, either for himself or for the king. For the king consulted the Lord through the priest. Sacred Scripture explains this custom to us through Esdras if you return to the Hebrew source. For where we have “until there should stand a learned and instructed priest,” the Septuagint translated, “until he should stand with illuminations and perfections.” Those who prefer “initiations” with the Gentiles speak Latin indeed, but do not adequately express the force of the Hebrew word, which the Septuagint interpreted very well. There, I say, the Hebrew is: “let the priest stand with Urim or Thummim.” And the sense is: until the priest consults the Lord clothed with Urim and Thummim.
And, as Ribera learnedly noted, to designate the conferral of the highest pontifical dignity the sacred letters say that Urim and Thummim were conferred on someone. For thus Moses blessed the Levitical tribe: “Your perfection and your doctrine to your holy man.” There in Hebrew it is: “Your Urim and your Thummim to your holy man”; and in the same sense the Septuagint translated: “Give to Levi his manifestations and his truth.” These things must be taken literally of the same priestly ornament; but by this ornament there is allegorically signified the perfection and doctrine with which a priest ought to be endowed. Tostado struggles greatly there and turns it into various forms of interpretations; but the one I have given is the simplest.
[margin: Hugh of St. Victor; Josephus, Oleaster, Lyra, and Tostado; 1 Samuel 13:3, 23:4 and following, 22:13 and 15, 28:6; 2 Esdras 7:65; Deuteronomy 33:8]
I think the mode of answering was twofold. For since God ordered these gems to be inserted into the pectoral so that, through such shining and perfect stones, he himself, the author of all light and perfection, might be questioned, and, by answering, might illuminate and perfect both priests and prince and people by his spiritual light, unfolding hidden things, explaining doubtful ones, and teaching what should be done or omitted, and prescribing the modes by which affairs should be begun and brought to completion, it is clear enough that the answers had to be accommodated to the questions. Some questions can be resolved by affirmation or negation; others require a longer explanation.
Therefore I think that to that former kind of questions an answer was given by the bare shining or brightness of the stones, and from this the priest was accustomed to gather whether he should advise or dissuade the one consulting. In this sense I take Josephus’s words, whom Tostado and Ribera deservedly follow. Nor is there reason for anyone to think that St. Augustine judged this fabulous, for a little earlier I showed what he was touching upon.
To the latter kind of questions, the answer was not given by that brightness alone, for this could not conveniently happen, but in a very different way. For a certain internal, or sometimes external, speech or oracle was heard by the priest, which he afterwards made manifest to the one asking. Yet here too it is not absurd to suppose that, to the brightness of the stones, prophetic light infused by God into the priest’s mind was then added. This more extended answer is clear from the deeds in Kings, where, beyond the answer to the things asked, God also taught the mode of joining battle. Because of such a mode of response, I think this kind of oracle was commonly called an answer through priests.
[margin: 2 Samuel 5:23; 1 Samuel 28:6, where the Hebrew has Urim; Josephus; Tostado; Ribera]
I have seen a learned man attack the opinion of Josephus, whom I follow, with more than one battering ram. First, he writes that the singular testimony of Josephus displeases him and is suspect to him. Second, since Josephus slips in two other matters in the same place, he thinks he slipped here also: both because he says that this was called logion by the Greeks, although the Septuagint, who were Hebrews, so called it; and because he says that these splendors were extinguished, on account of violation of the law, two hundred years before his own commentaries, while nevertheless the Talmudists, Jarchi, Kimchi, and Elias Germanus testify that this oracle had been ended long before, namely already from the Babylonian captivity. This is also said to have been the answer given by Jaddus to Alexander the Great when Alexander asked him to consult God for him about the outcome of the Persian war.
Finally, he says that from this narrative of Josephus it would follow that this oracle was accustomed to answer only about war, which is not true; likewise that it was accustomed only about those questions to which answer could be made by yes or no. But it is established that it often answered several matters, and indeed sometimes unexpected things beyond the question.
[margin: Acts 14 and common New Testament distinction of Jews and Greeks; Curtius Rufus, Diodorus Siculus, Plutarch, and Arrian on Alexander; Josephus, Antiquities, book 11; Zonaras; Glycas; 1 Samuel 28:6; 2 Kings 22:14]
With these arguments that acute and outstandingly learned man tries to darken Josephus’s brightness; but the soot can be removed with a light hand.
To the first I answer that even if Josephus alone had said it, his authority ought to be very great in matters pertaining to the priesthood, since he himself was a priest. Besides, no other Hebrew writer of that age survives who could have discussed such things except Philo and Josephus. Philo touched lightly on a few such things, being intent only on allegories, and did not deny this. What wonder, then, if Josephus alone affirmed it?
To the second I deny that Josephus slips in these matters. For although the Septuagint were Hebrew Sanhedrites, nevertheless they wrote in Greek, not Hebrew, and when they wrote in Greek they said logion; all Greek proselytes afterwards followed them in this nomenclature for no other reason than the one Josephus there related. From his Greek context it is evident that he speaks only of those Greeks who revered Jewish rites. It is well known that Jews and Greeks are so distinguished that all those who had passed from the Gentiles to Judaism retain the name Greeks.
Concerning the cessation of the oracle, I rightly prefer Josephus’s authority to all the Talmudists and six hundred more recent rabbis, who are utterly ignorant of all antiquity. As to that answer of Jaddus, concerning the cessation of the oracles, neither the Latin nor the Greek historians who followed Alexander’s affairs almost scrupulously remember it in even one little word. But Josephus, Zonaras, and Glycas, when they narrate accurately what Jaddus did with Alexander, recount things from which it is sufficiently gathered that Alexander thought nothing about an oracle through Urim and Thummim. I judge it entirely likely that he was even ignorant of it. He was made more certain by God through a vision concerning victory against Darius.
I think therefore that Josephus was speaking of a brightness of this kind ceasing wholly and forever. For that it sometimes ceased at intervals, even earlier, in Saul’s time and afterwards in the time of certain kings after David, should not be doubted. Glycas indeed indicates that when the Israelites had offended God, God was not accustomed to answer them by the ephod. Thus I suspect that the Jews first used to consult God through the priests with the ephod applied; if they did not succeed in this way, they resorted to prophets, even those who were not priests. Thus you read that even the priests went to the prophetess Huldah for the sake of an oracle.
To the third I say that none of the things they infer follows. Josephus mentions war as the matter which was treated more frequently. And he mentions only the brightness, passing over the priestly manifestation that followed, because that manifestation was a customary matter, while the brightness was a thing wholly unaccustomed and unheard-of among other peoples, and therefore he had resolved to commend it to memory.
Therefore the manifestation or answer of one oracle, Urim and Thummim, was twofold: the former and exterior one, only through the brightness of the stone; and the latter, sometimes also extrinsic, through the priest imbued with the spirit of prophecy, who afterwards manifested to the questioners what he had perceived when the pectoral was applied. Perhaps because so many manifestations concurred, the Septuagint interpret it as “the judgment of the declarations,” that is, a judgment of things first manifested twice to the priest, and then to be manifested a third time to those consulting. For the same reason they called Urim illumination, and Thummim truth or perfection, for these amount to the same thing, since God neither can nor wills to deceive anyone; but whatever he told the priest was most true and in every number most complete. The priest’s office too was to announce the same things to the people truly and fully, with no mixture of omission, dissimulation, alteration, or any other falsity added.
[margin: Philo, Life of Moses, book 3; Origen on Leviticus, book 6; Jerome on Hosea 3 and Epistle 127 to Fabiola]
These things about a very obscure matter, if not brilliantly, at least certainly not altogether carelessly said, may suffice.