Already touched above (quaest. 8); but the eighth verse [is] to be explained, in which [it stands] thus: “But after all were circumcised, they remained in the same place of the camp until [donec] they were healed.” Did they, then, after they were healed, straightway go away from that place of the camp? This [is what] that particle “until” seems to sound [imply]. But at Gilgal they remained for several years, as will appear below (ch. 18). For so long a time, then, [were] those [men] wounded and uncured? Ridiculous! — since [it] was said above (quaest. 4) [that] on the fourth day after the circumcision they sacrificed and ate the Passover, and again — not much below — [it is] to be said [so]. Namely, this is like that [objection] which Helvidius brought against the integrity of the Blessed Virgin, from Matt. 1: “And he knew her not, until [donec] she brought forth [her] son.” But St. Jerome answers (in the book against him) [that] the particle “unto” and “until” signifies a twofold time — finite or certain, and infinite or uncertain. And because examples of that former signification [are] everywhere obvious, [but] of the latter — which the heretic either did not see or dissembled — he heaps up many and beautiful [examples]. As is that (I will now set down his very words) [in] which God speaks to certain [ones] in the Prophets: “I am, I am; and until [donec] you grow old, I am [he].” Will God, after they have grown old, cease to be? And the Saviour, in the Gospel, to the Apostles: “Behold, I,” he says, “am with you all days, unto the consummation of the age.” Will the Lord, then, after the consummation of the age, depart from his disciples — and then, when the Twelve are going to judge the twelve tribes of Israel [upon twelve thrones], will [they] be defrauded of the Lord’s fellowship? Paul the Apostle too, writing to the Corinthians: “The first-fruits [is] CHRIST,” he says; “then they who are Christ’s, who believed at his coming; then the end, when he shall have delivered up the kingdom to GOD and the Father, when he shall have destroyed all principality, and all power, and virtue. For he must reign, until [donec] he put all [his] enemies under his feet; for he has subjected all [things] under his feet.” Be it [granted] [that this] is said of the man [Christ’s human nature]: we do not deny [it] of him who suffered the cross, [and] who afterward is bidden to sit at the right hand. What does this mean, that he says: “For he must—
(col. 524 — right column; printed “531”)
—reign, until he put all [his] enemies under his feet”? Will the Lord reign only so long, until [his] enemies begin to be under his feet; and, after they have been under [his] feet, will he cease to reign — when [it is] precisely then [that] he will the more begin to reign, when the enemies have begun to be under [his] feet? David too, in the fourth of the Gradual Psalms [Ps 123]: “As the eyes of a handmaid [look] to the hands of her mistress,” he says, “so our eyes [look] to the Lord our God, until he have mercy on us.” Will the Prophet, then, hold [his] eyes to the Lord [only] so long as he obtain mercy, and, after mercy is obtained, will he twist [his] eyes to the earth? — [he] who says in another place: “My eyes have failed for thy salvation, and for the word of thy justice.” I could heap up [things] beyond innumerable examples, and hide all the impudence of the assailant [Helvidius] under a cloud of testimonies; but I will yet subjoin a few, that the reader may find for himself [others] like these. The divine discourse speaks in Genesis: “And they delivered to Jacob the strange gods which were in their hands, and the earrings which were in their ears. And Jacob hid them under the terebinth which is at Shechem, and destroyed them unto the present day.” Likewise, at the end of Deuteronomy: “And Moses, the servant of the Lord, died in the land of Moab, near the house of Phogor; and no one knows his sepulchre unto this day.” Certainly “this day” is to be reckoned [as] the time [in] which the history itself was composed — whether you will [choose to] say Moses [is] the author of the Pentateuch, or Ezra the restorer of the same work, I do not object. Now this is asked: whether that which was said [holds true] as the books were published or written. Let [Helvidius] then show that — after that day, [with] so many years now unto us having passed away in [the composition of] the volumes — either the idols which had been hidden under the terebinth were recovered, or Moses’s tomb was tracked down; because he obstinately asserts [that], after “until” and “unto,” that begins to be which [for] so long was not, [namely] so long as the “until” [clause] was being fulfilled and [the] “until” [lasted]. Nay rather, [would that] he had observed the idiom of holy Scripture — and, along with us (in which he wavers), understand [that] those [things] concerning which [there] could be doubt, if they had not been written, are marked; but the rest [is] left to our understanding. Thus far the holy Father [Jerome]. [It] may perhaps be permitted to say [it] more briefly: [that] by those particles is signified, primarily, the continuation of some action up to a certain time — whether that action be expressed affirmatively or negatively; but [that] an interruption of the same action (whether affirmed or negated), and a new inauguration, as it were, of the same [action now] changed, is sometimes indeed signified, but neither always nor necessarily. And this [is] to be gathered from other circumstances — for example, in the affirmation: “I am with you unto the consummation of the age.” That is: the presence and constancy of CHRIST the LORD with [his] disciples will be continued unto the consummation of the age itself; but whether, after this terminus of time, [it] is to be changed — so that [he] cease to be with the same [disciples], or further remain — by these words indeed nothing is asserted. In the negation: “Joseph knew not Mary, until she brought forth [her] son.” That is: truly, up to her holy childbirth, this negation of not-knowing [her] was continued; but whether afterward this negation was changed into affirmation, so that he began to know her, the signification of those words does not import — as Helvidius ineptly gathers otherwise from them. So also in this place: “The Israelites remained in the same place of the camp until they were healed.” That is: this remaining was continued up to their [very] healing; [but] whether, after the removal of this [need]—
(col. 525 — left column; printed “533”)
—[whether, after the removal of this need, they] straightway went away from here, cannot be made out from the words themselves, and from the force of those particles “until” and “unto.” But we know from elsewhere [that] they did not straightway go away. And so, to the examples by which that place of St. Matthew is wont to be explained, this too can not ineptly be added — concerning which place [also] elsewhere. But [that] the text throws in so clear a mention of this remaining — and indeed up to the recovered health — [there] seems to me [that] a cause is greatly insinuated why they were not circumcised elsewhere on the journey: namely, because concerning a remaining of this kind — until the wound should be cured — they were nowhere certain, as [was] more fully discussed in quaestion 3.