An "understood" verb in Expositio in Librum Judith?

Latin Learning Latin
1

In my continuing reading of Expositio in Librum Judith by the Archbishop Rabanus Maurus, I have come across a construction that has puzzled me. The Latin is from a critical edition by Simonetti and an OCR’d copy/paste. The bold is what I’m puzzling over, but I’ll give a little extra context to help understand:

Ipsi sunt enim «altare Dei» qui in ara cordis sui iugiter landis hostiam Deo immolant. Cilicium enim, quod de caprarum pilis texitur, bene peccatorum gestat figuram, pro quibus necessaria est omnino penitentia, quia sine illa ipsi peccatores verae salutis non inveniunt remedia.

Hocque sciendum quod magnum et praecipuum in piis precibus fit adiutorium > si mentio dominicae passionis adhibeatur, quae in ara crucis pro peccatis nostris expleta est, quia non solum pro nostris offensionibus, sed etiam pro totius mundi in expiationem omnium peccatorum sanguis redemptoris nostri effusus est. De quo Iohannis ait: «Advocarum habemus apud Patrem Iesum Chrisrum iustum, et ipse est propitiatio pro peccatis nostris; non pro nostris autem tantum, sed etiam pro totius mundi».

My stab at a translation follows:

In fact, these very ones are the altar of God, who, upon the altar of their hearts, continually offer a sacrifice of praise to God. Truly the haircloth, which is woven from the hair of goats, bears well the figure of sins, for which repenting is entirely necessary, because without it the sinners themselves do not find remedies of true health.

And this must be be known, which great and foremost in pious prayers becomes an aid > if a remembrance of the Lord’s passion is employed, which was completed on the altar of the cross for our sins, because not only for our offenses, but also for the whole world’s, was the blood of our redeemer shed in expiation of all sinners…

In the second paragraph there either doesn’t seem to be a main verb… or perhaps fit is the main verb? In the version above I have assumed that the verb is an understood “est.” An alternative is the following:

And this, needing to be known, which is great and foremost, becomes an aid in pious prayers…

I’m uncomfortable with this version because the clause “quod magnum et praecipuum” doesn’t seem to be complete. But I’m also uncomfortable with the first version because being an English speaker, it bothers me to be missing an explicit verb.

Does anyone have a suggestion as to what I’m misunderstanding?

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Yes sciendum is the same as sciendum est. quod is correlative with hoc. “And this is to be known, that …” or “A further point to be recognized is that it’s (lit. becomes) a tremendous help if …”.

salutis is presumably what in English has come to be known as “salvation” rather than “health.” It’s here a defining genitive with remedia: the cure consists in true salvation—unattainable without repentance.
And according to this ridiculous and repugnant doctrine Jesus’ blood was shed for the expiation of all sins, not of all sinners as you have it.

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Coincidentally, genitive plural would be ambiguous.

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brianglass, Timothée means that peccatorum in and of itself is ambiguous. If it weren’t, I wouldn’t have needed to correct “sinners” to “sins” in that bit of your translation. The context is determinative. Peccatores may be “redeemed,” but it’s their peccata that are “expiated.” So goes the doctrine that Christians buy into.

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mwh and Timothée, thank you for your helpful replies.

mwh, I belong to the eastern tradition rather than the western tradition. In the east we tend to see “salvation,” or salutis as more of a healing of souls than deliverance from punishment (via sacrifice). That is one of the reasons I latched onto that particular definition. In addition, L&S provide “atonement” as a synonym for expiationem. An archaic use of atonement is “to bring into unity.” So one might say that rather than expiation of sins we have a bringing into unity (with God) of sinners. In other words, people are healed by bringing them into unity with God rather than that people are delivered from God’s punishment for their transgressions. The present western approach to this seems to have really been solidified by Anselm 3 or 4 centuries after Abp. Rabanus Maurus.

Could that make sense with respect to translating the latin?

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Thanks for the explanation, but the answer is No. In saying non solum pro nostris offensionibus sed etiam pro totius mundi in expiationem omnium peccatorum sanguis redemptoris nostri effusus est Rabanus certainly did not mean expiatio of sinners rather than of sins. He’d have had to square that with St. Paul. To appeal to a dictionary translation of expiatio in classical Latin and then an archaic meaning of that English word is not a good way to arrive at the meaning of expiatio peccatorum, which is simply “expiation of sins” (“atonement for mistakes” if you prefer, but this is theology and the lingo is tied to it).

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I haven’t made a careful search, but isn’t expiationem Old Testament talk? I think that in the New Testament, it is mostly remissionem. Romans 3:25 should tie them together, but there Jerome uses propitiationem.

Here is the great Christopher Hitchens making the argument that I think that mwh refers to about Christianity’s doctrine of “Vicarious Redemption.” He dissects it very well: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=By9JJSVzlTw

However, I would disagree with Hitchens. He is only able to make his point by assuming a transaction-based morality. Alasdair MacIntyre, in After Virtue, critiqued this sort of thing as a language problem. Hitchens makes perfect sense in our modern moral language, a language forged by modern experience in heavily urban, capitalist societies. In contrast, Christians believe some interesting things around morality. 1) Water baptism and re-birth. 2) Eating the blood and body of God, sacrificed for them. These aren’t beliefs to be understood based on the justice/punishment model that Hitchens assumes. Rather, this is about purity and blood sacrifice religion. Now, baptism and washing sin/impurity away, I can sort of understand. But blood sacrifice is beyond me. What did it mean to attend the family sacrifice to the gods and share in the feast afterwards? I have no idea. But everyone in the pagan world would known exactly what it meant and felt like.

Our problem is that we have expiation, remission, and propitiation, all as nice English words. And that fools us into thinking that we can read Leviticus and know what’s going on.