# creavit Deus ut faceret



## UkrainianPolyglot

The full passage is from Genesis 2:3 from the Vulgate Bible.

"Et benedixit diei septimo, et sanctificavit illum, quia in ipso cessaverat ab omni opere suo quod creavit Deus ut faceret."

The sentence is quite simple except the last part... Why is it "ut" and not "et"? The only logical answer would be that "ut" here means "as" or "just as", but if that were the case then why is it followed by the subjunctive? It must be followed by indicative, as far as I know. Or maybe "faceret" follows some tense sequence that I haven't detected and its subjunctive form has nothing to do with "ut"? Or perhaps this is some Late Latin peculiarity? Please help me out, gratias magnas vobis ago amici amicaeque.


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## Scholiast

salvete!

Good question, but (Moderator, please advise?) _me iudice _better put into the Hebrew or All Languages forum, as Jerome was not a native speaker of Latin, let alone of Greek or Hebrew, and may have all sorts of things muddled up between the received text of the Torah in his time and the Septuagint and the _Hexapla_.

Σ


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## Flaminius

In the original Hebrew text the verb corresponding to _ut faceret_ stands in something similar to the English _to_-infinitive.  The construct infinitive with preposition _l-_ (the original of _ut faceret_) can be used to complete or elaborate the notion of the preceding finite verb (the original of _creavit_).

Hieronymus used a few patterns to translate the same construction but this would require deeper discussion into Hebrew grammar and I digress.


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## Glenfarclas

It's apparently a somewhat obscure construction.  The Pulpit Commentary for that verse explains, inter alia,

Because that in it he had rested from all his work which God had created and made. Literally, _created to make_, the exact import of which has been variously explained. The "ω΅ν ἤρξατο ὁ θεός ποιῆσαι of the LXX. is obviously incorrect. Calvin, Ainsworth, Bush, _et alii _take the second verb _emphatice_, as intensifying the action of the first, and conveying the idea of a perfect creation. Kalisch, Alford, and others explain the second as _epexegetic_ of the first, as in the similar phrases, "spoke, saying, literally, spoke to speak" (Exodus 6:10), and "_labor_ed to do" (Ecclesiastes 2:11). Onkelos, the Vulgate (_quod Dens creavit ut faceret_), Calvin, Tayler Lewis, etc. understand the infinitive in a _relic_ sense, as expressive of the purpose for which the heavens and the earth were at first created, viz., that by the six days' work they might be fashioned into a cosmos.​


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## Scholiast

salvete iterum!

An OT scholar of my acquaintance confirms that the original Hebrew is highly idiomatic, involving two words for "create", one of which is restricted in rabbinic literature to God's agency in fashioning the world (i.e., not used of, for example, human manufacture or sculpture). The LXX translators, and Jerome too, evidently, wrestled with this, as have modern Biblical translators, though there is apparently no consensus about the extent to which Jerome was working from the LXX' ὧν ἤρξατο ὡς ποιῆσαι and how far he consulted (or indeed understood) the Hebrew.

So it seems somewhat misguided to try to explain this _ut faceret_ structure in terms of classical Latin syntax. Maybe a Hebraist < --- > can come in here and shed further light on the thing. I'd be fascinated myself.

Σ

< --- > Unneeded.  Removed by moderator. Cagey.


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## quasi.stellar

Hello
I would like to know if the question is about what Bible originally said, or about the meaning and latin use of " ut faceret ".
In first case, probably this is the wrong forum. But I don't think.

In second case, this as quite common "way of say" for "he did it, like he did wanted to do". I know that times of verbs are not the same in latin, as in italian or in english. The meaning is like the text said that:
"he made it, exactly as he did" or something that. It express his anterior willing and a posterior action, for confirming he acted like he wanted. It is an incidental phrase, quite offen used.
(sorry for my english)


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## Scholiast

Salvete iterum

Housekeeping seemed requisite.


quasi.stellar said:


> I would like to know if the question is about what Bible originally said, or about the meaning and latin use of " ut faceret ".


UkrainianPolyglot made it clear that this was a question about Jerome's Latin.



quasi.stellar said:


> In second case, this as quite common "way of say" for "he did it, like he did wanted to do"





quasi.stellar said:


> confirming he acted like he wanted. It is an incidental phrase, quite offen used.



Is qu.st here referring to the Hebrew, as in #5 I invited?

Σ


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