Preface to the Commentary on the Blessings of the Twelve Patriarchs

Rufinus’s work on the blessings Jacob gave his sons, in Genesis 49, came about because of the following letter from Paulinus. Paulinus mentions it when he writes to Sulpicius Severus, in his twenty-eighth letter: “I have written a short note to the presbyter Rufinus, the companion of the saintly Melania on her spiritual journey, a truly holy and truly learned man, and for that reason joined to me in the closest affection.” The work itself, being an exposition of Scripture, is not given here; only its preface is. Paulinus to his brother Rufinus, all best wishes.

Even a short letter from someone as like-minded as you is a great refreshment, like the dew that revives a thirsty field when the rivers are low. I admit that this letter has refreshed me. It is short, but it is still from you, and it came by the servant of our common children. Yet I have been troubled to hear that all at once, through the unrest of your anxiety and the uncertainty caused by delay, you have decided that you must go to Rome. May the Lord grant you joy in the Lord from what we are doing, so that, as we now share in your anxiety, we may also rejoice in your joy. And may we still keep some beginnings of hope that we will enjoy your company, once you begin to see your way clearly, and what the Lord wills for you. [d]

With the love that makes you love me as yourself, you are kind enough to wish that I would take up the study of Greek literature more seriously. I recognize the kindness behind the wish, but I cannot carry it out unless, by God’s blessing on my earnest desires, I have the happiness of your company for a longer time. How can I make any progress in a foreign language without the one who could teach me what I do not know? In the matter of my translation of Saint Clement, I think you noticed, besides the other shortcomings of my ability, this one in particular, which shows the weakness that comes from lack of practice: where I could not understand the words or express them accurately, I translated them according to my idea of their drift, or, to speak more truthfully, I set down what I thought ought to be there. All the more, then, do I need your company in fuller measure, through God’s mercy. For that will be like wealth to the poor, or like gathering, with the eager hunger of a slave’s heart, the crumbs that fall from the rich man’s table. [e]

At the very moment I was writing these words, my eye fell on a passage of Scripture in a portion I had set down for reading: the place where Jacob blesses Judah. After a while I decided to knock at the door of your mind, since the Lord had given me this most timely occasion. I beg you, if you love me, or rather because you love me so much, to write and tell me how you understand this blessing of the patriarchs. And if there are things in it that are worth knowing but hard to understand, share that knowledge with me too, especially the passage that says, “Binding his colt to the vine, and his donkey’s colt to the haircloth.” Tell me what the colt is and what the donkey’s colt is, and why his colt is to be tied to the vine, but the donkey’s colt to the haircloth. [g]

Rufinus’s answer forms the preface to his Exposition of the Blessings. The more I excuse myself to you, and the more I insist that I am unable to answer your questions, the more pressing your requests become, and the harder your demands. You treat me as you would an ox you have found to be lazy: when he stops and turns back, you prick his flanks and his back with goads that grow sharper and sharper. So I must point out to you that, even if I can bow my neck low enough just to drag the heavy yoke you lay on me, I have no chance of bursting at a rapid pace into the open, wide-spreading plains with a style of speech that flows freely and pours itself out over a great expanse. Bear with me, then, if I have been slow to carry out my resolve, and if I reach the point you call me to only at a feeble pace.

You ask me how to understand the passage in Genesis where Israel, the father of the patriarchs, is shown foretelling what he saw would happen to each of his sons, and where, among other things, he says of Judah, “Binding his colt to the vine, and his donkey’s colt to the tendril of the vine.” You write it, “and his donkey’s colt to the haircloth,” cilicium in Latin. But in the Greek it stands, “and to the helix his donkey’s colt.” By the name helix, which means a twist, the Greeks do not mean the sprigs of the vine, as our copies have it, but those sickle-like shoots by which the vine holds itself up on the branches of trees, or on poles, or on supports of the kind I think the farmers call “little goats.” In this way these clinging shoots keep the vine safe from all danger of falling, and the tendril can either become loaded with grapes or grow out freely to its full length. I think, then, that this very word, helici, like some others, must have been set down long ago in the Latin versions, and that copyists who did not understand it afterward supposed that helici must mean haircloth, cilicium.

It is easy to correct the mistakes of the translation in this way, but it is not so easy to find out the meaning of the expression itself unless we take the whole passage into account. And the treatment of this passage would be set in a fuller and clearer light if we could go back to the beginning of all these blessings. But that calls for no small amount of leisure and time; or, to speak in a more Christian way, it demands a mind enlightened by the Holy Spirit. My talent is slight, there are many demands on my time, and my friends are pressing me to grant their requests about Origen. Still, as far as these circumstances allow, and as far as so great a matter can be treated briefly, I will state at once what seems to me the true meaning of this passage. I do it for the love with which you bid me trust you in everything, and without prejudice to the judgment of others, who may have something better to say about it.