Contagious Holiness in the Old Testament?

Amazon Books

Rudolf Otto's book on The Idea of the Holy is worth a close reading, but you'll need to go to Amazon to click on it. I don't recall if Otto analyzes the contagiousness of holiness in the Old Testament, but he does investigate other aspects, such as the danger posed by the holy's powerful dynamism, a related aspect.

I start my intensive writing course today, so I don't have as much time as I'd like to have, and thus didn't find a specific Old Testament passage that I was looking for on the holy's contagiousness, but I found a few useful verses on the transmissibility of holiness.

There is, for instance, Exodus 29:37 (referring to the altar):

Seven days thou dost make atonement for the altar, and hast sanctified it, and the altar hath been most holy; all that is coming against the altar is holy. (Young's Literal Translation)

A bit further is found Exodus 30:29 (referring to effect of holy anointing oil on the tent of meeting, the ark of the testimony, the table and all its vessels, the candlestick and its vessels, the altar of perfume, the altar of burnt-offering and all its vessels, and the laver and its base):

And thou hast sanctified them, and they have been most holy; all that is coming against them is holy; (Young's Literal Translation)

In the biblical book that follows is found Leviticus 6:18 (referring to the food of fire offerings):

Every male among the sons of Aaron doth eat it -- a statute age-during to your generations, out of the fire-offerings of Jehovah: all that cometh against them is holy. (Young's Literal Translation)

In all three of these, the expression "to come against" means "to come into contact with." Much further along -- and perhaps less clear -- is found Ezekiel 44:19 (referring to sacred garments):

And in their going forth unto the outer court -- unto the outer court unto the people -- they strip off their garments, in which they are ministering, and have placed them in the holy chambers, and have put on other garments; and they do not sanctify the people in their own garments. (Young's Literal Translation)

The implication seems to be that if the sacred garments were worn by the priests while they are ministering to the people, the people who come into contact with the priests will become holy, or so other translations say, but I recognize that the translation here is not so clear. By the way, note verse 23, merely four lines further along:

And My people they direct between holy and common, and between unclean and clean they cause them to discern.

This verse is nearly identical to Leviticus 10:10, which we looked at yesterday. Anyway, these verses, or at least three of them, show that the idea of contagious holiness is not foreign to the Old Testament.

I'll continue looking for the passage that I was thinking of but couldn't find today.

Staffordshire Hoard: Gold Strip with Old Testament Verse

The Staffordshire website offers a hoard of images, including the two fine ones below showing the entire gold strip with its semiliterate inscription taken from Numbers 10:35, "surge d[omi]ne [et] disepentur inimici tui et fugent qui oderunt te a facie tua," which translates as "Rise up, O Lord, and may thy enemies be dispersed and those who hate thee be driven from thy face."



In a previous entry, I noted that the Old Testament offers two parallels:

Numbers 10:35 "surge Domine et dissipentur inimici tui et fugiant qui oderunt te a facie tua"

Psalm 67:2 "Exsurgat Deus et dissipentur inimici eius et fugiant qui oderunt eum a facie eius"

Comparison with the inscription, however, clearly shows that Numbers 10:35 is the source:

"surge d[omi]ne [et] disepentur inimici tui et fugent qui oderunt te a facie tua"

Note the use of "tui" and "tua" in both the inscription and in Numbers 10:35, whereas Psalm 67:2 has "eius" (and note as well the use of "Domine" versus "Deus").

Brandon Hawk has some interesting things to say about this inscription -- though he gets one thing wrong. He approvingly cites the usually impeccable Michael Drout, who says that the inscription is "probably taken directly from Psalm 67:2, where it is also used." Drout, however, offers no reasons or evidence in his blog entry, so I don't know why he thinks this unless he took the inscription's "dNE" as "Deus" rather than as an abbreviation for "Domine," but the use of "tui/tua" argues against Psalm 67:2. At any rate, here are Hawk's interesting remarks:

A search of the Fontes Anglo-Saxonici database reveals that only one text (or set of texts, as will be revealed) known in Anglo-Saxon England also quotes this passage from Numbers 10:35/Psalm 67:2: Felix's Vita S. Guthlaci. This Vita was written in c.730-49, and, according to E. Gordon Whatley, the text was present in Anglo-Saxon England in at least eight extant manuscripts, one of these (a fragment) from the late eighth or early ninth century (Biggs et al.). The corresponding use does appear in the Old English prose Life (which corresponds closely to Felix's Latin version), but not in Vercelli Homily XXIII or Guthlac A or B.

What is interesting about the passage in which this verse is used is that it is not merely a quotation; instead, Guthlac himself uses the Psalm to ward off evil spirits. According to the Old English prose version (Goodwin), Guthlac "þone sealm sang: Exurgat deus et dissipentur, et reliqua. Sona swa he þæt fyrmeste fers sang þæs sealmes, þa gewiton hi swa swa smic fram his ansyne" ("sang the psalm: Exurgat Deus et dissipentur, et reliqua. As soon as he had sung the first verse of the psalm, they departed like smoke from his presence") (Goodwin, 44, trans. 45). What we find, then, is an act of warding off evil, a use of the psalm to achieve victory over one's enemies. In this case, demons are the main enemies, but it is curious to think about the use of such a verse in the Old Testament as referring to humans all too hostile to the psalmist. Likewise, the use of the newly discovered gold strip with the biblical inscription also hearkens to a warrior's need to keep himself safe from his all-too-real opponents. More could be said, and perhaps in the future I will have more to add, but it may be enough to leave this examination without any more conclusion than to say that this verse evokes a supplication for bodily and spiritual aid from a warrior in need of the grace of God.

For his information about Felix's Vita S. Guthlaci, Hawk cites Whatley and seems to be using "Guthlacus," in Sources of Anglo-Saxon Literary Culture Volume 1: Abbo of Fleury, Abbo of Saint-Germain-des-Prés, and Acta Sanctorum, which is edited by Frederick M. Biggs, Thomas D. Hill, Paul E. Szarmach, and E. Gordon Whatley (Kalamazoo, 2001), for he offers a note to that effect and references pages 244-247. For "the Old English prose version" of Saint Guthlac's life, Hawk cites the Cotton version presented in The Anglo-Saxon Version of the Life of St. Guthlac, hermit of Crowland, which is edited by Charles Wycliffe Goodwin (London: John Russell Smith, 1848).

Anyway, Hawk's musings on the Psalm 67:2 with respect to the inscription raise the possibility that the gold strip was intended as a sort of 'charm bracelet' used for warding off spiritual evil. Relevant in this context might be the words of Saint Paul in Ephesians 6:12, and let's cite the Latin from the Vulgate since the Anglo-Saxons were using Latin:

quia non est nobis conluctatio adversus carnem et sanguinem sed adversus principes et potestates adversus mundi rectores tenebrarum harum contra spiritalia nequitiae in caelestibus

The New International Version gives this modern translation:

For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms.

Of course, the 'charm bracelet' might be just as useful against physical evils as well. Incidentally, Richard Marsden, on page 73 of The Text of the Old Testament in Anglo-Saxon England (Cambridge University Press, 1995), presents Saint Guthlac as citing Numbers 10:35 (rather than Psalm 67:2) in a somewhat loose 'quote':

et fugient a facie tua qui te oderunt

Compare with Numbers 10:35 in the Vulgate:

et fugiant qui oderunt te a facie tua

Somewhat loose, as noted, but given the use of "tua" instead of "eius," this clearly comes from Numbers 10:35, not Psalm 67:2. In the passage noted by Hawk, however, Saint Guthlac is obviously using Pslam 67:2, for it states "Exurgat deus" rather than "surge Domine." Did Saint Guthlac splice the opening words of Psalm 67:2 to the following words of Numbers 10:35? I don't have the sources before me for checking, so I'll leave this to my readers . . . if there be any.

Incidentally, the evidence from Saint Guthlac's use of Latin for both Numbers 10:35 and Psalm 67:2 demonstrates that the Staffordshire gold strip with its Latin inscription could very well have come from an Anglo-Saxon context rather than being war booty taken from Christian Celts, a possibility that has also been suggested, but further analysis by experts will be necessary on this point.

Anglo-Saxon Hoard Found in Former Kingdom of Mercia

Anglo-Saxon Treasure

(Image from Yahoo.com)

Exciting news this morning awaited those of us interested in such Anglo-Saxon literature as Beowulf, for we read of an archaeological find with enormous implications for Anglo-Saxon studies. I read of it in Yahoo's article by Raphael G. Satter: "Largest hoard of Anglo-Saxon treasure found in UK."

Roger Bland, the expert who directed the hoard's excavation, calls it a "fantastic find." The treasure was unearthed in the former Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of Mercia and is dated to 675-725 AD, which puts it close in time to the composition of that epic poem Beowulf.

Relevant to this literary 'connection' would be the small strip of gold shown above, for it is inscribed with a martial quotation from a Latin version of the Old Testament:

"Rise up, O Lord, and may thy enemies be dispersed and those who hate thee be driven from thy face."

Satter doesn't identify the precise source, nor does he provide the Latin, so I shall. It's Numbers 10:35 and says in Latin:

"surge Domine et dissipentur inimici tui et fugiant qui oderunt te a facie tua"

If you compare this verse to the image, you will be able to make out some of the Latin words, albeit differing slightly in spelling, e.g., "dissipentur" is given as "disepentu(r)" and "fugiant" as "fugent."

That will give linguists something to puzzle over, but I'm more interested in possible implications of this warlike verse choice for my theory that in the poem Beowulf, the character "Beowulf is being presented as a pagan antetype of Christ in an epic Anglo-Saxon praeparatio evangelium" that models pre-Christian Anglo-Saxon culture as being under the old covenant described in the Old Testament.

I argue this latter point at length in my article "Praeparatio Evangelium: Beowulf as Antetype of Christ," published back in 2004 by The Medieval and Early Modern English Studies Association of Korea (Volume 12, Issue 2).

The literature scholar Brother Anthony has kindly placed my article online for those intrepid enough to venture in such realms.

UPDATE: Current Archaeology 236 (cf. Wikipedia) provides the entire Latin inscription, "surge d[omi]ne [et] disepentur inimici tui et fugent qui oderunt te a facie tua," and references both Numbers 10:35 (i.e., "surge Domine et dissipentur inimici tui et fugiant qui oderunt te a facie tua") and Psalm 67:2 (i.e., "Exsurgat Deus et dissipentur inimici eius et fugiant qui oderunt eum a facie eius"), but the inscription is obviously much closer to the Numbers citation.