A vulgar creation

Latin Learning Latin
1

Hello all,

This is my first post here. I am at the end of my first year of Latin (Wheelock).

I am translating the first few paragraphs of Genesis from the Vulgate and have a couple of questions. I am familiar enough with the Bible that the translation is disappointingly easy- I feel like I am cheating!

However I have run into a problem interpreting exactly what Jerome meant in the latter half of the sentence:

Vocavitque Deus firmamentum caelum: et factum est vespere et mane dies secundus

  1. why are vespere and mane in the ablative? Is this ablative of time, or of means/instrument?

  2. Why is factum singular, shouldn’t it be “facta sunt” (bc. of vespere AND mane)

Thank you

2

I’m not an expert, but that has never stopped me so far from saying my opinion
:smiley:

I think St. Jerome was translating literally from the Hebrew and using Semitic expressions that are not part of Ciceronian Latin.

3

Hi, Merus Ipse. Welcome! Salvus sis, Mere Ipse. Gratus est nobis tuus adventus!
I’m not an expert either but… Necnon peritus sum, atqui…
Vespere et mane, dies secundus factus est– “With an evening and a morning, the second day [singular, numeri singulis] was made”.
Ablative of means for a manner or circumstance of doing, I believe. Ablativus modi, ut opinor.

4

factum est is something you will find throughout the Bible, and if you read it in Greek at some point, you will read it as ?γένετο δὲ - it’s a semitism and should be considered a clause of its own, with the main clause translated as a subjective clause (even though not so in Latin, since subjective clauses take subjunctive):

et factum est autem in diebus illis exiit edictum a Caesare Augusto ut describeretur uniuersus orbis (Lucas II,1)

And it came to pass in those days, that there went out a decree from Caesar Augustus that all the world should be taxed. (King James version)


Today, factum est is often omitted in translations.


The answer to your question is thus that factum has no congruence to any other word in your sentence except est.

5

Oops. Timeodaneos is right. I misread “factus est” for “factum est”.
Rectè dicit Timeodanaos. Perperà m “factus est” ob “factum est” legi. :blush:

6

it’s a semitism and should be considered a clause of its own

The Hebrew isn’t that way though. The noun erebh “evening” is the subject of the reverse-imperfect of the verb “to be” vayehi “and (there) was” and then thilk verbform is used again with boqer “morning” as the subject, literally “And there was evening and there was morning, a second day”.


            


            

              
              
              
            


          

          

            

              



              
                  
                  
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I think vespere and mane are used adverbially here and mean in the evening and in the (early) morning respectively.

            


            

              
              
              
            


          

          

            

              



              
                  
                  
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Thanks all,


There were some accompanying notes which my professor gave to us-unfortunately they were not listed in the same order as they appeared in the text.


Of relevance is that vespere is actually in the nominative, as well as mane (actually indecl.), a particular oddity of post-classical Latin.