Question IV. (marg.) To what [mountain] did Joshua go with Moses?

He ascended Mount Sinai, of which [Scripture] had spoken [in] Exodus ch. 19 and 20; and that mountain is called by three names. First, “the Mount of God” (Exodus ch. 3, v. 1); and Josephus thinks the cause [is] that the Lord had already dwelt on it of old, and that therefore, among the neighbors, it had hitherto always been inaccessible and sacred. But whence can that be gathered? And since God’s dwelling in some place is [manifested] only through certain notable effects which he does not produce elsewhere, what [effects] did he ever produce on that mountain before he addressed Moses? It seems to me [that] he conjectured that from the opinion of the Gentiles, among whom the loftier mountains were [held] religious and dedicated to certain gods. For [note] that well-known [passage] about the Tarpeian mount (Aeneid 8):

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This grove, this hill with leafy top (what god, is uncertain) a god inhabits. The Arcadians believe they have seen Jove himself, when often with his right hand he shook the blackening aegis and roused the storm-clouds. [Virgil, Aeneid 8.351–354]

And therefore I would rather believe it is called “the Mount of God” because it was exceedingly vast and lofty. For great things, as I also said above, are wont to be called “God’s things” — as though divine, or worthy of God for [their] author, and to be ascribed to him. And then too because on that mount he was already appearing, and afterward determined to appear more often with great majesty, and to give the Law. Secondly it is called “Horeb,” as appears from Deuteronomy 5, v. 2, and Psalm 101 [106], “they made a calf in Horeb, and adored the graven thing.” For what (Exodus 20:24; Acts 7, v. 38) is said to have been done at Sinai is there recorded [thus]: “The Lord our God made a covenant with us in Horeb.” They are sometimes distinguished as though there were two mountains, because, although they were of the same mountain, they nevertheless formed two peaks, as it were, and separated ridges: Horeb toward the west, Sinai toward the east. Its third name, this “Sinai,” it took from the brambles which [were] frequent on it. For a bramble, in Hebrew — and indeed [in] that very ch. 3 of Exodus — is called seneh; nay, even the mountain itself [is so called] (Deuteronomy 33, v. 16). For R. D. Kimchi hands down that iod is put for he [ה], by the usual interchange of the quiescent letters among the Hebrews. Or rather, as St. Jerome holds (in the epistle to Fabiola), the plural Sinai will be [formed] from the singular Sin, as it were “my brambles.” But Horeb is called as it were “dry” and “parched.” The mount was greatly ennobled by those so many and so wondrous apparitions of God, and by the law-giving itself; but today [it is ennobled] also by the relics of St. Catherine, and by the excellent monastery of the Caloyers [Greek monks], in the midst of the Turkish nations. Which the eyewitness Belon describes at length (book 2, chs. 62, 63, 64, and 65); and from it was that Archimandrite whom Qansuh [Campson] the Egyptian [Sultan] — wondrously enraged at the Portuguese voyages to India — sent to Rome, to Pope Alexander VI, with bundles of letters threatening the overthrow of the Lord’s Sepulchre and of the other Christian churches, as may be read in Maffei, book 3 of [his] History. But now, as to how that [mount] is said [to be] “a mountain joined to that which is now Jerusalem” (Galatians 4, v. 25):

Some answer [that it is] joined by [a chain] of mountains which stretch as far as Jerusalem; or by Arabia itself, which is joined to Judea, in which [is] Jerusalem. But by the former manner, the Caucasus too could be called “near to Jerusalem,” through the linking and some association, namely, of the Taurus [with] Lebanon, Antilebanon, Hermon, and Sion. By the latter manner, Memphis and Tanis too could be called “joined” to the same Jerusalem — or Tyre, Gaza, and Sidon — on account of the nearness of the region in which they are. St. Thomas [Aquinas] says [it is] “joined” by continuity of the journey, because the Israelites came from Sinai to Jerusalem. But at that rate the Red Sea, or Heshbon, and the whole Transjordan region, and the Jordan itself, would be “joined” to that same city. [It] must rather be said [that] this mount is “joined” to Jeru-…

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…[joined] to Jerusalem not in place, but in signification. For the Greek word which St. Paul uses signifies this. For it is συστοιχεῖ [systoichei] — “to be of the same order and series with something”; or, “to have the same στοῖχος [stoichos],” that is, “order.” And therefore the Syriac too renders [it] by [a word] which is “to be at peace with someone,” or “to agree with another,” to accord with someone, and to be consonant and like [him] — as [in] Acts 14 and 22. There is added St. Jerome, who, translating into Latin the second homily of Origen on the Canticle, said: “Sinai is a mountain in Arabia, which is compared to that which is now Jerusalem.” And, that this whole passage likewise may be understood, [it] must be observed [that] the Apostle teaches [that] we Christians are no longer liable to the servitude of that old law, but called to the true liberty which is his [own] spirit, and born by a new regeneration through CHRIST. And this indeed he explains by a notable [allegory]:

The words are, as indeed they can be rendered from the Greek: “For it is written that [Abraham] had two sons: the one of the handmaid, and the one of the free woman. But he who was of the handmaid was born according to the flesh; but he who was of the free woman, by the promise. Which things are said by an allegory. For these” (namely the two wives of Abraham, as St. Chrysostom says on that passage) “are the two testaments” — that is, in signification, as the prefixed name “allegory” indicates. “The one indeed” (of those wives) “from Mount Sinai, engendering unto bondage, which” — the former of the wives — “is Hagar. For Sinai is a mountain in Arabia. And by the same series, Hagar herself corresponds to [answereth]” — or signifies — “that Jerusalem which now is, and serveth with her children. But that Jerusalem which is above is free” — she is that other, free wife; in signification, that is, or she signifies her “who” (the other of the wives) “is” (by signification) “our mother. For it is written,” etc. Likewise, too, the Syriac text can be rendered.

But, you will say, the Latin disagrees. For, first, in it there is not “For these are two testaments,” but “for this [is].” Secondly, [there is] not in it “the one [wife],” but “the one [thing].” Thirdly, nay, even the Greek and the Syriac do not have simply “For Sinai is a mountain in Arabia,” but τὸ γὰρ Ἄγαρ Σινᾶ ὄρος ἐστὶν ἐν τῇ Ἀραβίᾳ [“For this Hagar is Mount Sinai in Arabia”]. And finally, in the Latin it is “which mountain is joined to that which is now Jerusalem.” I answer, to the first: that [reading] crept in through a fault of the copyists. And although in the Greek αὐτὰ [“these things”] could be referred to διαθήκας [the testaments], nevertheless [the sense] is better shown by that pronoun [pointing to] what went before than to what follows. And the sense is much clearer and easier. To the second: when someone saw “testament” placed nearby, he thought that particle was to be joined with it, and so substituted “one [thing]” for “one [wife]” — especially because “Sinai” is at once added, on which he remembered the old testament was given,

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…and [because] in the Greek “one” [μία] can be said as much of “testament” (which [is] διαθήκη) as of a woman; and likewise in the Syriac, in which that Greek word for “testament” is in use. For if you should contend [that it is] to be referred to “testament,” how is it said [to be] “engendering unto bondage”? How [is there] nowhere a name of the other testament, which it engenders unto liberty? How is not also “Sion,” or a mountain, or some other place from which it arose, named? How is it said of that testament, “which is Hagar”? And indeed here appears what I was saying above — [that] on account of the preceding word “testament” the neuter “one” [unum] was here put. For, for the same cause, in [the commentary of] St. Augustine [and] St. Ambrose one reads “which is Hagar.” But now, I think, you await [an answer to] how [it is] that not “testament,” but Hagar — one of those two women — is “from Mount Sinai,” since she was an Egyptian (Genesis 16). I answer: [she is] “from Sinai” not because she arose thence, but because there — that is, in Arabia, in which (as the Apostle himself notes) that mountain is situated — she dwelt with her son and all [her] posterity; and thus [she is] summoned thence, as from her own proper seat and domicile, and called forth to the explanation of this allegory. For it avails not a little toward understanding how that old covenant is signified by that same Hagar, since in the workshop of this covenant — and, so to speak, in its first cradle — she herself lived, and her son, and all [her] descendants. There are indeed among the Jews some Rabbis who think this Hagar and Keturah [are] the same — as I said in a certain question above, ch. 2. But that question belongs to Genesis, especially since, with [regard to] the [things] already said here, it does nothing [against them]. To the third: it seems either [that] Ἄγαρ [Hagar] was made out of γάρ [“for”], but superfluously; or rather [that it was] added from the margin — and [read] so that it is to be taken in the genitive: “For this Sinaitic mount of Hagar is in Arabia.” And thus that Greek text…

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…[the Greek] and the Syriac confirm what I was saying a little before: that from Mount Sinai [Scripture] says [it is] not the “testament,” but Hagar herself, [that is spoken of].

To the fourth: the Latin agrees with us not indeed in word, but in sense. For this mountain is joined to Jerusalem not by nearness of place but, as I said, by signification. For since it signifies this Hagar, and the same Hagar is “from Sinai” (as [was] already explained), it comes about that Sinai too signifies that Jerusalem allegorically — but mediately, by reason, namely, of Hagar herself, who is “from it.” But since Hagar signifies that Jerusalem immediately, the whole text will be, in the manner I have set down, clearer and plainer, and will not need the parenthesis which in some books is put. There is added [the fact] that, if “Sinai” were put so that by it, immediately and most nearly, either this “temporary Jerusalem” or the “old testament” were denoted, then a mountain or some other place ought also to be named which should be similarly a mark and figure either of the eternal Jerusalem or of the new testament. For just as this allegory consists of systoichiai [corresponding rows], so also of antistoichiai [opposing rows]. These [things], then, seem [to stand] thus concerning that passage. But why those who are in Judea sometimes say, with a demonstrative particle, “this Sinai,” as though they were pointing to it [as] present there (as [in] Psalm 67 [68], v. 9 [8]; Judges 5:5), I shall tell in that noted chapter of Judges.