Ruth 2 · set as a daf · Migne’s recension, PL 11312 glosses in the school’s own voice · 0 naming a sourceLatin on migne.app · pilot view, Ruth only
GlossaLaon, c. 1120 · unattributed
Douay-Rheims · Challoner
Auctoresthe Fathers Migne names
1Now her husband Elimelech had a kinsman, a powerful man, and very rich, whose name was Booz.
2And Ruth, the Moabitess, said to her mother in law: If thou wilt, I will go into the field, and glean the ears of corn that escape the hands of the reapers, wheresoever I shall find grace with a householder, that will be favourable to me. And she answered her: Go, my daughter.
3She went, therefore, and gleaned the ears of corn after the reapers. And it happened that the owner of that field was Booz, who was of the kindred of Elimelech.
v. 3It happened. Because the holy Church belongs to Christ, whose bride and body she is. Of whom it is said: The Lord is my strength and my praise (Psal. CXVII). And elsewhere: The Lord who is strong and mighty. The Lord mighty in battle (Psal. XXIII). He himself is the kinsman of Elimelech, who, born of Bethlehem and of the stock of David, has testimony from the law and the prophets. He brought words of salvation and of peace to his own household, at whose nativity the angels sang, Glory to God in the highest, and on earth, etc. (Luc. II). To whom, as he came into Jerusalem, the crowd that met him cried out, saying: Blessed is he that cometh in the name of the Lord (Matth. XXI).
4And behold, he came out of Bethlehem, and said to the reapers: The Lord be with you. And they answered him: The Lord bless thee.
5And Booz said to the young man that was set over the reapers: Whose maid is this?
6And he answered him: This is the Moabitess, who came with Noemi, from the land of Moab,
7And she desired leave to glean the ears of corn that remain, following the steps of the reapers: and she hath been in the field from morning till now, and hath not gone home for one moment.
v. 7And she asked. Because the holy Church perseveres in the field of divine reading, after the reapers and preachers, gathering the mysteries of the Scriptures, that she may recall within the bosom of her mind the testimonies and examples of the virtues. Or that field is the discipline of heavenly study; the harvest, spiritual understanding; the reapers, the preachers; the ears left behind, the sentences of the Scriptures, which, being much hidden by mystery, remain as it were fuller for the exercise of one who meditates. The Gentile people therefore ardently desires the discipline of the Church, that it may be admitted to the meditation of the divine law and to the fellowship of the saints, and be refreshed by the documents and the examples of the saints.
8And Booz said to Ruth: Hear me, daughter, do not go to glean in any other field, and do not depart from this place: but keep with my maids,
v. 8Go not. As if he said: Withdraw not from the state of faith, follow not the errors of heretics or of schismatics: but rather join thyself to holy souls, that thou mayest reap the holy Scriptures by meditating and by fulfilling them in work; and that thou too mayest drink the draught of divine wisdom out of the books of the two Testaments (whence the servants, that is, the saints, drink).
9And follow where they reap. For I have charged my young men, not to molest thee: and if thou art thirsty, go to the vessels, and drink of the waters whereof the servants drink.
10She fell on her face, and worshipping upon the ground, said to him: Whence cometh this to me, that I should find grace before thy eyes, and that thou shouldst vouchsafe to take notice of me, a woman of another country?
v. 10And she, falling on her face. The Church of the Gentiles gives thanks to the Saviour, who deigned to look upon her. To whom he answered: that it pleased him that, her husband being dead — that is, the devil — she left her idolatrous parents and the land of her birth, that is, fleshly desires, and joined herself to the people of the saints, who beforetime was unknown to her, while she followed the covetousness of the old man.
11And he answered her: All hath been told me, that thou hast done to thy mother in law after the death of thy husband: and how thou hast left thy parents, and the land wherein thou wast born, and art come to a people which thou knewest not heretofore.
12The Lord render unto thee for thy work, and mayst thou receive a full reward of the Lord the God of Israel, to whom thou art come, and under whose wings thou art fled.
13And she said: I have found grace in thy eyes, my lord, who hast comforted me, and hast spoken to the heart of thy handmaid, who am not like to one of thy maids.
v. 13May I find, etc. Note the humility of the Gentile Church, who knows herself unequal to so great a grace, and does not dare to set herself level with the primitive Church; whence she says: For the whelps also eat of the crumbs, etc. And elsewhere: Lord, I am not worthy that thou shouldst enter under my roof, but only say the word and my servant shall be healed (Matth. VIII).
14And Booz said to her: At mealtime come thou hither, and eat of the bread, and dip thy morsel in the vinegar. So she sat at the side of the reapers, and she heaped to herself frumenty, and ate and was filled, and took the leavings.
v. 14When the hour. The hour of eating was when it was said to the apostles: Go, teach ye all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost (Matth. XVI). For it had been said by the Lord: Go ye not into the way of the Gentiles (Matth. X). Dip thy morsel. The law, that is, which, long meditated on and abiding in the former people, was corrupted by the conditions or the traditions of the Pharisees and lost its native savour. In this the Church dips her morsel, that is, she says that the mystery of Christ's incarnation is in the Old Testament, and therefore believes it the more firmly, because she knows it was prefigured long before.
15And she arose from thence, to glean the ears of corn as before. And Booz commanded his servants, saying: If she would even reap with you, hinder her not:
16And let fall some of your handfuls of purpose, and leave them, that she may gather them without shame, and let no man rebuke her when she gathereth them.
v. 16Of your own. Note the humility of the father of the household, who not only allows the ears of the testimonies that are left to be gathered, but even bestows handfuls of knowledge with unasked generosity. Cast forth of your own hands, etc. Because he does not despise the weakness of the Gentile people, nor cast up to it its former errors, but by the shrewdness of his zeal leads it on to edification.
17She gleaned therefore in the field till evening: and beating out with a rod, and threshing what she had gleaned, she found about the measure of an ephi of barley, that is, three bushels:
v. 17About an ephi. When in her reading she learns the catholic faith through the confession of the holy Trinity. In the measure of the ephi, which holds three pecks, is signified the one substance of the Godhead and the propriety of the three persons.
18Which she took up, and returned into the city, and shewed it to her mother in law: moreover, she brought out, and gave her of the remains of her meat, wherewith she had been filled.
v. 18Carrying which. Because she shows her faith to her mother the Church. Or the Church shows to the synagogue the grace which she received by the gift of her bridegroom, that she might provoke her to the faith. He gave her. My heart hath uttered a good word, that is, out of the fulness of the heart the food of preaching. Blessed be he. The synagogue, at the preaching of the Church of the Gentiles, comes to know the goodness and the power of the Lord, and the strength of her own protector: and at length, the truth compelling her, she blesses the name of the Lord, because he kept for the dead the grace which he showed to the living.
19And her mother in law said to her: Where hast thou gleaned today, and where hast thou wrought? blessed be he that hath had pity on thee. And she told her with whom she had wrought: and she told the man's name, that he was called Booz.
20And Noemi answered her: Blessed be he of the Lord: because the same kindness which he shewed to the living, he hath kept also to the dead. And again she said: The man is our kinsman.
v. 20A kinsman. Our mother the Church knows her kinsman through the free benefits bestowed upon the people of the Gentiles, and at the hearing of his name she remembers the benefits of old; whence: I remembered the days of old, I meditated on all thy works (Psal. CXLII).
21And Ruth said: He also charged me, that I should keep close to his reapers, till all the corn should be reaped.
v. 21He charged me. Because Christ charges all who come to him that they be joined rather with his faithful to the harvest of the spiritual crop than with strangers; to which persuasion the mother-in-law consents, saying: It is better, my daughter; this, as good and useful, the Synagogue cannot deny.
22And her mother in law said to her: It is better for thee, my daughter, to go out to reap with his maids, lest in another man's field some one may resist thee.
23So she kept close to the maids of Booz: and continued to glean with them, till all the barley and the wheat were laid up in the barns.
v. 23Until the wheat. That is, she cleaves to the teachers in the meditation of the Scriptures so long, until she has laid up the knowledge of the Old and the New Testament in the storeroom of her heart: whence she might have food enough for her soul.
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.