Letter 28 #catechesis/fathers/jerome
Letters · Jerome · Church Fathers
To Marcella
An explanation of the Hebrew word Selah. This word, rendered by the LXX. διάψαλμα and by Aquila ἀ εί, was as much a crux in Jerome’s day as it is in ours. “Some,” he writes, “make it a ‘change of metre,’ others ‘a pause for breath,’ others ‘the beginning of a new subject.’ According to yet others it has something to do with rhythm or marks a burst of instrumental music.” Jerome himself inclines to follow Aquila and Origen, who make the word mean “forever,” and suggests that it betokens completion, like the “explicit” or “feliciter” in contemporary Latin manuscripts. Written at Rome A.D. 384.
[!info]- Source
Translated by W.H. Fremantle, G. Lewis and W.G. Martley. Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Second Series Vol. 6. Edited by Philip Schaff and Henry Wace. Buffalo, NY: Christian Literature Publishing Co., 1893.
Revised and edited for New Advent by Kevin Knight. fathers/3001028.htm
