This manner is regarded either in God Himself [being] interrogated, [with] the Priest interrogating, or in the Prince, or another man, interrogating the Priest himself. That [former manner]— which indeed does not please me —is handed down [as] twofold. One, by Hugh, in the place cited (quest. 24): namely, that the Priest interrogated by lots. But where [is there] ever any mention of lots, or the least judgment [of lots], when it is treated of Urim? And was not the reckoning altogether diverse — of seeking out something by lots, and of asking through Urim? Both reckonings we read in the same ch. 14 of bk. 1 of Kings [1 Sam.]: but as the reckonings of interrogating were diverse, so also they were explained by diverse words. For this our interrogation through Urim is described [in] verse 18, where our [interpreter], and the Hebrew: “Apply the ark,” or “bring [it] near,” or “make the ark to approach”; the Septuagint, “Apply the ephod” [προσάγαγε τὸ ἐφούδ], as also Theodoret notes (quest. 16 on Judges); and again afterward [in] verse 37. But the casting-of-lots [is] verse 40 and following. — The other manner [is] handed down, in Abulensis (quest. 15 on Exod. 28), by R. Solomon [Rashi], Aben-Ezra, and others: that the priest wrote on a paper [charta] that about which he wished to inquire; and this manner seems to be borne out by the Latin version of the Nicene, [that is] Anastasius’s version, when it says: “When the priest was about to consult God Himself concerning some head [matter], he bound that same [paper] upon the humeral, in the middle of the breast, and placed [it] under his hands; and it was found expanded in his palms like a little box [pyxidula].” For that very [thing] which he bound, and hid under his hands — what [was it], unless the head [matter] about which he interrogated? Or if you say [it was] the adamant [diamond] itself, which a little before he [Anastasius] had placed [there] — it will also have to be said [that] it did not always cohere to the rational, but was wont to be taken away, and again imposed; which how it could be done, does not appear. [Was it] the Ephod itself? [So] it seems, because that too is taken merely for the rational; and in Suidas there is [something] which necessarily is referred not to the adamants, but either to the κεφάλαιον [kephalaion, “head/chief matter”], or to the Ephod. But assuredly rather to the κεφάλαιον, because there is subjoined, “Looking to the Ephod,” when it would have sufficed to say, “Looking to it [illud]” — which, namely,—
(col. 212)
—[the Ephod itself] he [Suidas] was explaining, and about which he was just now going to speak. Nay, even St. Cyril (bk. 11 On Adoration, fol. 279): “The text does not openly indicate whether [it was] the stones, or as it were on a small tablet [tabella] that he ordered that inscription to be made. And besides,” he says, “whether those were the stones, or whether those names were written as it were on a golden tablet — this indeed we shall not too curiously investigate.” Moreover, in Sophronius’s Meadow [Pratum Spirituale], ch. 147, we read [that] St. Leo placed a certain epistle of his, against the heretics, upon the tomb of St. Peter, and asked that, if there were anything of sin [in it], the Apostolic hand might correct it — and that so it was done. Nay, even from some Heliopolitan Apollo or other, responses were sought — the absent [petitioners] having sent sealed documents [diplomata] — [as] Macrobius, the author of bk. 1 Saturnalia, ch. 23 [reports]. But of a Scripture of this kind, [there is] no trace in the whole Scripture, or [only] an obscure one. And was God ever absent, that one should have to deal with Him by letters? Was time, in sudden matters, sometimes consumed by writing?
That [other view] rather is to be held: [namely] that, by the priests — this gemmed pectoral being taken up, and prayers and words being applied [as] the matter required — questions were put. Whence (1 Kings [Sam.] 23) the King [says] to the Priest, “Apply the Ephod” — whose part, as I said, was the pectoral; and words are added, not any letters, by which the whole inquiry might be made (vv. 10 & 12). If the ark was present, before it the interrogation was made — not indeed by entering the holy of holies, but standing only in the holy [place], or at least turned toward it in countenance, standing somewhere, as [in] 1 Kings [Sam.] 14. For that the priest ought altogether to have been turned in face to the Shekhinah [שְׁכִינָה, schecinah], or to the majesty of God, the Tractate Yoma (ch. 7, fol. 73) teaches, and Rambam (ch. 10; Tractate On the Vessels of the Temple, vol. 3, fol. 188), where he says the priest so stood that panaiu liphne haaron [פניו לפני הארון], “his face was before the ark.” If the ark was not present, the very putting-on of the ephod sufficed, as seems gathered from 1 Kings [Sam.] 23; and both this is called, in the Hebrew (2 Esdras [Neh.] 7, v. 65), “to stand for Urim and Thummim,” where our [interpreter has] “until there should arise a learned and instructed priest.” For the opinion is that those [of whom the discourse is there] — [priests] driven out from the number of priests — [were] not to be admitted to the communion of the priestly foods and revenues before the Lord Pontiff should consult the Lord about them through Urim. Finally, [the priest] was wont, that he might ask and pray to God, to expand [his] hands, and lift [them] to heaven. For that [very thing] seems signified [in] 1 Kings [Sam.] 14, v. 19, when the King said to the priest asking the oracle: “Draw back thy hand,” or (as the Hebrew word also notes) “Gather [it].” Yet this can also be so understood, as if the King said: “It is enough; do not [further] admonish the ark, as I had said. Cease to attempt this, and to stretch out thy hand to it. For the clamor of the enemies grows.” There is no time of waiting longer. But when he had prayed, Anastasius says that he [the priest] “looked to the Ephod.” But the truth of this hangs on the [things] which shall be said about the manner of responding.
But while, in the priest interrogating God, the sacred ephod is said [to be] necessary, at the same time it is signified [that] it behooved him to be adorned with the proper sacred vestments — as the cited Tractate Yoma teaches (ch. 7, fol. 72b), and, in the cited place, Rambam, who also, toward the end of the chapter, distinguishes the Pontifical epomis from the others which were of the other priests, of the Levites, and of the Prophets. But it does not seem to be passed over, that in those same places so much [do the] Talmudic—
(col. 213)
—[so much do the] Talmudists warn, as Rambam: “Cohen sheeno medabber beruach ha-qodesh, u-shechinah sheruyah alau, en sho’alin bo” [כהן שאינו מדבר ברוח הקדש ושכינה שרויה עליו אין שואלין בו], that is: “Through a priest who does not speak in the Holy Spirit, and upon whom the majesty of God does not reside, one is not to inquire.” And this they prove from 2 Kings [Sam.], ch. 15, v. 24.