Ruth 1 · set as a daf · Migne’s recension, PL 1139 glosses in the school’s own voice · 2 naming a sourceLatin on migne.app · pilot view, Ruth only
GlossaLaon, c. 1120 · unattributed
Douay-Rheims · Challoner
Auctoresthe Fathers Migne names
1In the days of the judges, when the judges ruled, there came a famine in the land. And a certain man of Bethlehem Juda, went to sojourn in the land of Moab with his wife and his two sons.
Rabanus Maurus · v. 1It came to pass. Because of the scarcity of spiritual teachers to whom the authority of judging is given, there came a famine of the word of God, when the law also had been corrupted through Jewish traditions. And the man went away, RAB. Christ, that is, born in Bethlehem of Juda, visited the pilgrimage of this world with his wife, that is, the Church, and with two children, that is, with the two orders of prophets and apostles, who by the blood of Christ were freed from the servitude of sin. The man went away. RAB. Whom certain men understand to be the Decalogue of the law, and his wife the synagogue, and his two sons the royal honour and the priestly: which acquired to themselves a bond not only among the people of the Jews, but of the proselytes also, as was done in the time of David and of Solomon and of others.
2He was named Elimelech, and his wife Noemi: and his two sons, the one Mahalon, and the other Chelion, Ephrathites of Bethlehem Juda. And entering into the country of Moab, they abode there.
v. 2Mahalon. He who is from the window, or from the beginning. This is the choir of the prophets, through whom the light of faith first went forth into the world from the window: who were also the first preachers of the true light, that is, of Christ. Chelion, consummation. These are the apostles, who brought the riddles of the prophets to the consummation of full understanding. These are rightly Ephrathites, sprung from Bethlehem of Juda: who, filled with the bread of heaven, gathered the fruit of their preaching through the preaching of the Gospel. For Ephrathite is interpreted fruitful, Bethlehem the house of bread, Juda confession; whence: Give ye them the hand. Likewise, Going, preach ye the Gospel of the kingdom of God. And elsewhere: I have chosen you out of the world, that you should go and bring forth fruit (Marc. VI, XVI; Joan. XVI).
3And Elimelech the husband of Noemi died: and she remained with her sons.
4And they took wives of the women of Moab, of which one was called Orpha, and the other Ruth. And they dwelt their ten years,
v. 4Ruth. She is interpreted seeing, or hastening, or failing: in whom the obedience and the belief of the Gentiles is designated, of whom it is said: A people which I knew not hath served me, etc. And elsewhere: Ethiopia shall soon stretch out her hands to God (Psal. LXVI). Two peoples therefore were called through the holy preachers to the fellowship of the faith and of the elect of God, that out of diverse flocks there might be made one fold.
5And they both died, to wit, Mahalon and Chelion: and the woman was left alone, having lost both her sons and her husband.
v. 5They died. After the completion of their holy labour, that is, they passed over from the exile of this world to the heavenly kingdoms, so that, the commandment of the Decalogue being fulfilled, they might receive the penny of blessedness.
6And she arose to go from the land of Moab to her own country, with both her daughters in law: for she had heard that the Lord had looked upon his people, and had given them food.
7Wherefore she went forth out of the place of her sojournment, with both her daughters in law: and being now in the way to return into the land of Juda,
v. 7She went out, etc., both of them. The Church busily takes pains to lead the peoples, whom the Apostles and the prophets instructed in their own time, to the unity of faith and to the fellowship of the Christian religion: she who has learned, on the report of Scripture, that the just man shall not be forsaken, nor his seed seeking bread — the bread which came down from heaven (Psal. XXXVI).
8She said to them: Go ye home to your mothers, the Lord deal mercifully with you, as you have dealt with the dead and with me.
v. 8Go into the house. The Church does not act without discernment, nor receive anyone without discernment, whence: Believe not every spirit, but try the spirits, whether they be of God (I Joan. IV). These things can also fit the synagogue, which draws back those who are coming to the faith of Christ, and most of all this: that, overcome by the truth, she acknowledges herself too weak for child-bearing: Return, my daughters.
9May he grant you to find rest in the houses of the husbands whom you shall take. And she kissed them. And they lifted up their voice, and began to weep,
10And to say: We will go on with thee to thy people.
11But she answered them: Return, my daughters: why come ye with me? have I any more sons in my womb, that you may hope for husbands of me?
Rabanus Maurus · v. 11Shall I have any more. RAB. The voice of the synagogue confessing the truth and not keeping silence about the guilt that has come upon her: who, forsaken by her husband, that is, by David, and deprived of her sons, that is, of kings and princes, confesses after the coming of Christ that she is barren and too weak to conceive sons for God.
12Return again, my daughters, and go your ways: for I am now spent with age, and not fit for wedlock. Although I might conceive this night, and bear children,
13If you would wait till they were grown up, and come to man's estate, you would be old women before you marry. Do not so, my daughters, I beseech you: for I am grieved the more for your distress, and the hand of the Lord is gone out against me.
14And they lifted up their voice, and began to weep again: Orpha kissed her mother in law, and returned: Ruth stuck close to her mother in law.
v. 14She lifted up. By these women — of whom the one, grieving and mourning, goes back from her mother-in-law, while the other clings to her with obstinate mind — believers are signified: of whom some, when the grace of baptism and its fellowship has been received, slip back into their former errors, whom Orpha signifies, who returned to her own gods; but others, with settled purpose, take possession of the grace they have received, whom Ruth signifies.
15And Noemi said to her: Behold thy kinswoman is returned to her people, and to her gods, go thou with her.
16She answered: Be not against me, to desire that I should leave thee and depart: for whithersoever thou shalt go, I will go: and where thou shalt dwell, I also will dwell. Thy people shall be my people, and thy God my God.
v. 16Whithersoever. So the Church, called out of the Gentiles, her country left behind — that is, idolatry given up, and the fleshly manner of life and its desires — professes that God is her own, in whom the saints have believed, and that she will go where the flesh of Christ ascended, and for his name will suffer in this world even unto death, and be with the people of the saints and of the prophets and of the patriarchs; whence: Rejoice, ye Gentiles, with his people (Rom. XV).
17The land that shall receive thee dying, in the same will I die: and there will I be buried. The Lord do so and so to me, and add more also, if aught but death part me and thee.
18Then Noemi seeing that Ruth was steadfastly determined to go with her, would not be against it, nor persuade her any more to return to her friends:
v. 18Seeing. The Gentile people follows the preachers with obstinate mind into the holy land, and into the city of God, Bethlehem, where it is made ready to receive the bridegroom born of the stock of Abraham, in whom all the nations, or tribes, of the earth shall be blessed.
19So they went together, and came to Bethlehem. And when they were come into the city, the report was quickly spread among all: and the women said: This is that Noemi.
20But she said to them: Call me not Noemi (that is, beautiful,) but call me Mara (that is, bitter), for the Almighty hath quite filled me with bitterness.
v. 20Call me not. The synagogue acknowledges her own calamity, which after the coming of Christ she deservedly suffers: and she shrinks from being called fair, because she sees the times of her prosperity coming to an end. When first. That is, when the law turned the order of his incarnation to the mystery of the passion of Christ. For the barley harvest expresses the time of the Lord's passion, which fell in the month of new things, that is, in the first month. Rightly therefore do they come to Bethlehem at that time, when the law preaches Christ slain at the pasch, that is, in the month of new things — Christ whom it teaches to have been born in Bethlehem. Holy Church too labours with all her effort that those whom she calls together to the faith she may steep in the merit of the incarnation, of the passion, of the resurrection. The barley harvest expresses the belief of the Jews: who, when the sacrament of the passion had been accomplished, come first to the faith at the preaching of the apostles. Who elsewhere are read to have been fed by the Lord with five barley loaves.
21I went out full and the Lord hath brought me back empty. Why then do you call me Noemi, whom the Lord hath humbled, and the Almighty hath afflicted?
22So Noemi came with Ruth, the Moabitess, her daughter in law, from the land of her sojournment: and returned into Bethlehem, in the beginning of the barley harvest.
The page follows the form the Glossa itself was written for: text in the centre, the school’s own glosses on the inner margin, the Fathers it excerpts on the outer. The printed Talmud page, on the usual reading, descends from this Latin glossed page (Soncino 1483, Bomberg 1520). Migne’s nineteenth-century recension keeps only the marginal layer; the interlinear glosses survive here only as the italic lemma that heads each note. Sigla are printed as Migne gives them; Id. and ibid. are resolved to the last author named, and the resolution is shown.