Question VII. Whether Joshua is rightly called Auses by some?

In the Recognitions of Clement he notes certain blemishes — [Clement], who edited them with certain notes of his own — [namely] Lambert Gruter; and he hands down as a fourth [blemish] this: that they call that Joshua Ausem. Yet he adds, “unless it were a double name, or its epithet” — and then perhaps [it would be] Amsi, a man’s name in Nehemiah ch. 11, which signifies “strong” and “robust.” But [to insist on this] is to be in the dark at midday. For that former name Iosue — Osee, namely — the Septuagint themselves render (Numbers 13) [as Hebrew] אוסי, Ause. Whence, so that it might come nearer to the Greek and Latin form of names, it was made Auses, in the same manner in which Anchises is said. And so not only the Greek Fathers (as, in the place cited, Origen, and Cyril) but the Latins too speak [thus] — as in the book Against the Jews, ch. 9, [and] book 3 Against Marcion, Tertullian: “But Jesus, son of Nave, [was] called Auses before.” Yet St. Jerome, in the place often cited: “Wrongly,” he says, “in the Greek codices and the Latin, is Ause read for Osee.” But here one [rule] from that same St. Jerome — in the epistle on Melchizedek, to Evagrius — a rule which is useful for very many [things], is to be set down. “The Hebrews,” he says, “very rarely use vowels as letters; and according to the will of the readers and the variety of regions, the same words are uttered with different sounds and accents.” Now, therefore, since in Ause there are two syllables, the dispute is either about the former or about the latter. About the former I say, first, that [those letters] which among the Hebrews are aspirated are very often uttered by Greeks and Latins, for the sake of greater sweetness, more softly [without aspiration] — as Josephus also warns in his Life. Then, that which is read by us in Hebrew as ho is by some pronounced au or o — as in Mose [Moses], I was saying (Exodus ch. 2), and the land of Hus [Uz] is by the Seventy called Ausitis (Job 1); and it is clear among the Syrians, for whom Ioseph is Iauseph, as in the Syriac Testament it is always written (Matthew 1, and elsewhere). Yet it is a blemish [an error] in Anastasius of Nicaea (question 55) when Nauses is said. About the latter syllable I shall speak not long after. But you will observe, in Herodotus (book 4), that there are certain peoples of Africa who are called Máchlyes and Auses, of whom the former [wear] the back of the head only, the latter the front of the head only, with hair.