(printed p. 191 — Book III)
Just as Saint Jerome does on the first chapter of Saint Matthew, and often elsewhere, when he gives advice about the letters with which certain words should be written, so I am compelled to do in this place by Drusius, who not only himself applies aspiration to both the Essenes and the Hasidaeans, but also wants it necessarily applied by everyone who wishes
[margin: Source page 216 continues the mid-sentence argument from page 215.]
(printed p. 192)
to speak or write correctly.
There are three syllables in Essenes. I run through them one by one. The first comes from the first syllable of the Syriac name chasi, which can also be written chesi, since the Chaldaeans and Syrians not rarely shorten sounds which among the Hebrews are uttered with long points, as when for cathoub they have cethib, for karou they have keri, and for barach they have berich. Conversely, Academia came to stand for Ecademia.
But should it be said in Latin or Greek with aspiration, Hessenus or Hessenus? Drusius says in chapter 2 of his appendix: “It is not surprising that the aspiration is commonly neglected, since this happens in very many other words which are now aspirated by all the learned. Thus we write Hasideus, although in the books it is Asidaeus without aspiration.” A little afterward he says: “In the same way a fault was committed in Esseni, which ought to be aspirated as Hesseni,” and similar things on folio 12.
Since, in book 1, question 47 of his questions, he had demanded almost with a grammarian’s rod that those whom Greeks and Latins call Asideans should be called hafidai, I wrote in my commentary on the Maccabees: “I wonder why he demands the Hebrew aspiration so insistently in this name.” I then added several reasons why I wondered. So that the futility of what Drusius argues against them may be clear, I must repeat them here, after first indicating again two notions of my mind about these spellings and pronunciations, since they have also been indicated in the same place elsewhere.
One is this: in the spelling and pronunciation of uncertain words which some learned men write and pronounce in different ways,
[margin: On the first syllable. On what should be done amid variation of spelling and pronunciation.]
(printed p. 193)
one should not labor or contend greatly over which way a person writes and pronounces them.
The other is this: Asidei and Hafidai, Essei and Hessai, are indeed written and pronounced correctly, but neither way of writing or pronouncing is necessary. For in that passage I wrote as follows:
I acknowledge various ways of writing and pronouncing, and I freely grant to anyone whichever he prefers in this and in similar cases, as above in Asamonei, Hasamonei, Hasmonii, and Chasamonaei, and in many others, even Latin ones. Indeed I think those men could also be called Asaei or Chasaei, since among the Syrians Asi, Hasi, or Chasi is customary, as is clear in the Syriac Acts of the Apostles, chapter 2, and Romans 3, when the final letter is worn away.
What could be clearer? And yet, so that I might make this judgment of mine even plainer in practice, I wrote there, and intentionally write here again, sometimes Essenes and Asideans, sometimes Hessaeans, Chasideans, and Hasidaeans. I saw a Pliny printed at Hagenau in 1518 in which book 5, chapter 17 has “the nation of the Hessenes,” as also in the one corrected by Alexander Benedictus.
Do these not sufficiently show that I do not wonder that Drusius writes or prefers Hasidaeans or Hessaeans, but that he makes this one mode of writing or speaking necessary and condemns the other? I brought forward four reasons for wondering at this. Since I have taken them up a little earlier, I briefly indicate and explain them.
The first was that Greeks and Latins usually omit the Hebrew aspiration both in this name and in very many others.
(printed p. 194)
Indeed, when the Greek Seventy wished to retain a name related and almost native to the one under discussion, in Jeremiah 8:7, they did not say chasidah with aspiration, but softly asida. What do you answer to this? Not a little word.
Besides these names of ours, which the Greeks softly call Asidaeans, take these others: Anna, Alphaeus, Agabus, Aceldama, Bethlehem, Isaac, Ephron, Esebon, and Tharca. Listen also to the father of the Latin language. Cicero says:
I myself, since I knew that the ancestors had spoken in this way and had used aspiration nowhere except before a vowel, spoke in this way, saying pulcros, Cetegos, triumpos, and Kartaginem. Later, and indeed rather late, when truth had been forced from me by the reproach of ears, I yielded the usage of speech to the people, but kept the knowledge for myself.
On that passage of Cicero, Saint Augustine speaks this way in his book On Grammar: “Let us observe that we do not subject euphony to rule or reject euphony. For euphony, that is, pleasantness of good sound, has been admitted into Latin speech so that it may temper harshness; and at times one departs from rule and reason where harshness offends hearing. Thus Cicero says: ‘It was obtained from reason that one might err for the sake of pleasantness.’”
Catullus too, who mocks excessive aspirators, could be summoned here when he says:
Arrius would say chommoda whenever he wished to say commoda, and hinsidias for insidias.
[margin: Four reasons why Hafidai need not necessarily be aspirated: reason 1.]
(printed p. 195)
My second reason was this: Drusius writes Ebraeus, although the first Hebrew letter of that word has aspiration. If that aspiration can be omitted by him in Ebraeus, why not also in Asidaeus? He answers: “The case is different with the name Hebraeus, where ayin is at the beginning, which they often expressed by a bare vowel.” Who expressed it so? Latins and Greeks, as is clear in Arabia, Elamites, Emmanuel, and similar words. Yet the same people very often did not aspirate names which begin with heth, as has now been made plain.
Is it not vanity, and a kind of ostentation, to say Ebraeus when all others say Hebraeus, but to breathe out Hafidaeus for the same man whom others call Asidaeus? This seems much more deserving of the rod than Saint Augustine’s fault when, as a little boy, he pronounced ominem for hominem and was beaten, as he says in book 1 of the Confessions, chapter 18.
The third reason was this: if aspiration must necessarily be applied in Hasidaeans, as Drusius the grammarian insists, should not that aspiration be the one which Saint Jerome, in the Hebrew questions, advises should be expressed by the Greek letter chi? Drusius answers: “The Greek letter chi is not bare aspiration.” Why? “Because it includes the letter c besides aspiration, so that grammarians note that chi and ch are equivalent.”
But the same reasoning applies to the Hebrew letter. It includes both a sound like c and aspiration. Hence, among the Septuagint and Latins, there are Chalanne, Chalach, Chara, Chabratha, and Cham. Therefore Saint Jerome says
[margin: Reasons 2-3.]
(printed p. 196)
in his book On Hebrew Places: “Up to this point we must read by the letter c, that is, the Greek kappa; from here on it must be written and read by the element chi, which contains aspiration in itself and is not possessed by the Latins.”
And in the book On Hebrew Names he says: “Up to this point we have read by the simple letter c; from here on it must be read with aspiration added.” He repeats this often afterward, even in the Hebrew questions, and so does Drusius himself, book 3, question 83.
But now Drusius makes this exception: “The reason certain names beginning with heth are written by chi among the Greeks is that they lack that element.” I deny that they lack it; rather, I say that chi, though somewhat more gently, corresponds to the Hebrew. Thus even in a common noun, that is, a portion, the Septuagint say chelcha in Joshua 11. The Arabs, moreover, often change the Hebrew cheth into caph, just as it was said in the discussion of the Sadducees that the Samaritans change other letters.
Yet Drusius concludes: “So we correctly write Hermon and Chermon, Hebron and Chebron, because these are found written this way in ancient books.” What follows from that “therefore”? By exactly the same reasoning we can rightly write Asidaeus, Hafidaeus, and Chasidaeus, because the first is found in ancient Greek and Latin books, and against Drusius’s law quite sufficiently; while the other two have some reasoning behind them.
“But Chasidaeus is nowhere extant.” I did not say it was extant; I said that, by the analogical reasoning of the other names, which Saint Augustine in the place cited in On Grammar testifies is abundant, and which Drusius himself acknowledges in the examples already given, it should be said rather in that way than Hafidaeus.
[margin: Response to Drusius on chi, heth, and alternate spellings.]
(printed p. 197)
“If aspiration has rightly been added by learned men in Havilah, Hesebon, and six hundred other words, why may we not do the same in Hasidaeus, especially since it is clear that, by the choice of writers, it has often been omitted?”
What is babbling if this is not? I freely affirmed that Hasidaeans can be said without fault. But I said that there is no law, good Drusius, imposing aspiration on them, and that Asidaeans is also said correctly. And you, as though you were attacking me, are actually defending my position. This is to beat the air and cast mist before the unskilled.
Yet he adds a new conclusion: “Asidaeus is therefore an error of scribes, Hafidaeus the truth of Scripture, and Chasidaeus Serrarius’s fiction.”
I beg you, my Drusius, since you are a grammarian, answer grammatically. In writing these names you want either reason or ancient usage to be preserved. If reason, then Hafidaeans can indeed be said, but Chasidaeans is the truer form, as has been proved. If ancient usage, then Chasidaeus will not be said, but neither, as you wish, will Hafidaeus or Habel be said; rather, one will say Asidaeus and Abel.
Because you call Chasideus a fiction of Serrarius, behold for you from the Calvinian tripod, in which they always express cheth by ch: Junius, Tremellius, Beza. It would take long to run through all their Bibles. One chapter of Joshua, chapter 11 cited earlier, supplies these four examples: Chatzor, Chittheus, Chivvaeus, Chermon. One chapter of Matthew, chapter 27, supplies these four in Beza’s notes: Chebel, Numbers 27; chala, Numbers 34; Chomets in the same place; chaphets, Numbers 43.
The fourth reason was from Drusius himself against himself, book 3, question 83, where he says:
[margin: Calvinian examples are invoked against Drusius. Reason 4.]
(printed p. 198)
“Hheth must always be pronounced with doubled aspiration. But because the Greeks sometimes write kappa for it, we followed that custom in Malluach, book 1, question 17.”
Here he answers two things. First: “The Hebrew aspiration could not be expressed otherwise in Malluach.” If that aspiration could not be expressed otherwise there, let us transfer it from the end of that name to the beginning of the Asideans, and, despite him, they become Chafidei.
Second: “Yet if I had written Mallue, I could have defended myself from that name and from similar ones.” That is so. But this confirms what I said first: that one can write Asidaeans with the Greeks and Latins without aspiration. This is the one thing most strongly argued against those who, as they pursue new things, also pursue new words and new pronunciations and spellings of them, as may be seen in the biblical translations of Lutherans, Calvinists, and others like them.
Let the conclusion therefore stand: Asidaeans and Esseans are rightly written and pronounced, as are Chasideans, Hasidaeans, and Hessenes; yet there is a free choice of either mode, both the aspirated and the softer one. The ancients, moreover, more gladly removed harshness from these same words. So much, and rather a lot, against Drusius’s rather harsh command concerning the first syllable of the Essenes.
[margin: Reason 4 concludes. The first syllable may be written with or without aspiration.]
(printed p. 199)
The remaining two syllables are easier. In the second syllable, one s from the Hebrew and Syriac could indeed have been enough; but usage, the master of speech, long ago added the other, as when from Meschiach or Messia came, among Greeks and Latins, Messias, and from Deborah, Debbora, and in certain books, Pharisaeus.
In the third syllable there is a termination nearest to the Syriac, as was said above: Essaeus; and in Greek and Latin, Essenus, as Tubiaeus and Tubienus, Nazaraeus and Nazarenus. Scaliger and Drusius note that Stephanus of Byzantium, under the word Abarnus, says that the termination in enus is barbarous rather than Greek. Yet he does not say this; rather, from Apollonius he says it is Asiatic rather than European, as in Medabenus, Abilenus, Arindelenus, Gebalenus, though he scarcely disentangles himself in Abydenus and Cyzicenus.