# about ablatives in Vulgate



## YangMuye

Genesis 1:5 said:
			
		

> Factumque est *vespere et mane*


Why is vespere in the ablative rather than its nominative?



			
				Genesis 1:26 said:
			
		

> *praesit* piscibus maris, et volatilibus caeli, et bestiis, *universaeque terrae*, omnique reptili quod movetur in terra


Why isn't universaeque terrae in the ablative?

Thanks.


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## relativamente

Hello!
universae terrae is not ablative but genitive
Beside this the Latin of the vulgate is not really classical Latin.Althoug Saint Jerome was very learned person who could write perfect Latin, having in mind that the text was going to be used by believers in liturgy and prayer, it is evident that he tried to sound familiar to them.


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## miguel89

relativamente said:


> Hello!
> universae terrae is not ablative but genitive


I think it is dative, isn't it?


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## Cagey

_vespere_ and _mane_ are "ablatives of time when."   Something was done in the evening and in the morning. 

As to the second, I fear I must differ with relativamente.  _Praesum_ governs the dative.   Here _universae terrae_ is the dative, as are _piscibus, volatilibus, bestiis _and_ omni reptili_.  In other contexts it might be the genitive. 

Both of these are consistent with the uses of classical Latin.

*Added*: Cross-posted with Miguel. We agree.


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## YangMuye

Thanks for all your replies.

universae terrae should be dative. I confused Latin with Chinese and Japanese. In these languages, we use verbs of existence with _locatives,_ which are usually ablatives in latin, to express ownership where in Latin datives are used. P_raesum_ doesn't donate ownership, but it contains a _sum_ and literally means _be in front of_, which misled me into thinking it should be followed by an ablative of place...

Cagey, I even thought it might be more logical to be an ablative of instrument.
But it seems that vespere should be nominative according to the Hebrew text, isn't it?
--(The creation of the first day was done, and then)evening and morning came forth.


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## Scholiast

Good afternoon everyone.

Unfortunately the question is more complicated (at least as regards Genesis 1.5).

The Vulgate has "...factumque est vespere et mane dies unus."

This is (in terms of classical Latinity) virtually senseless, not least because apart from the adverbially ablative _vespere_, and _mane_, which cannot qualify a noun at all, and only with extreme difficulty any verb of being/becoming (_factum est_); but more importantly, because although the gendering of the noun _dies_ varies between masculine and feminine, it is never, as far as I know, neuter, as _fact*um*...est_ would require it to be if it is to be understood as a subject of the verb.

Reaching for the Greek Septuagint, which Jerome certainly had at his elbow, we find:

...καὶ ἐγένετο ἑσπέρα καὶ ἐγένετο πρωί ἡμέρα μία

This gets us little further, however, because it turns "evening" (ἑσπέρα) and "day" (ἡμέρα) into subjects of the verb(s) (ἐγένετο, 2x), which they cannot be in the Latin.

But Jerome also knew some Hebrew, and so let's try there. Regrettably, I do not know Hebrew, but someone who does informs me that _yom eshad_ ("One Day") is a "hanging" nominative, which does not make for easy construal in any conventional grammar.

It may therefore look as if Jerome has indeed faithfully reproduced the Hebrew syntax, but without making due sense of it for Latin readers; and indeed, the possibility occurs that the Hebrew may mean, more or less: "And it was done/made/came to pass in the evening and the morning:  Day One".

Perhaps another Foreaster with better knowledge of Hebrew than I (CapnPrep?) can illuminate this tangle?

Else, let's try and find here the Higgs Boson.


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## CapnPrep

Scholiast said:


> But Jerome also knew some Hebrew, and so let's try there. Regrettably, I do not know Hebrew, but someone who does informs me that _yom eshad_ ("One Day") is a "hanging" nominative, which does not make for easy construal in any conventional grammar.
> 
> It may therefore look as if Jerome has indeed faithfully reproduced the Hebrew syntax, but without making due sense of it for Latin readers; and indeed, the possibility occurs that the Hebrew may mean, more or less: "And it was done/made/came to pass in the evening and the morning:  Day One".


You are right about "one day" or "Day One" being a disconnected noun phrase in Hebrew, and this construction — or lack thereof — is maintained in the Greek and Latin versions, and we can leave it aside while discussing the rest of the sentence. The Greek translation is more faithful to the Hebrew in repeating the verb וַיְהִי / καὶ ἐγένετο with both "evening" and "morning" (see here, for example). In Latin this is reduced to a single impersonal _factum est_, the first of many occurrences of this characteristic Biblical expression ("And it came to pass…"). In other words, we don't need to search for a suitable subject for the Latin verb, and _vespere_ and _mane_ can be interpreted as ablatives of time (or of something else), as Cagey suggested above. 

I suspect that a lot has been said/written about whether the Latin translation correctly renders the Hebrew (and what the Hebrew was supposed to mean in the first place), but that would probably be a question for another thread, in another forum…


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## YangMuye

Thank all of you so much.
I have got so many great explanations.
I couldn't thank you more.


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## okutavio

According to wikitionary... neither vespere nor mane are ablative. 
Ablative of vespera is vespera, and ablative of mane is matutine.
Vespere and mare are both adverbs: in the evening and in the morning.


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## CapnPrep

okutavio said:


> Ablative of vespera is vespera, and ablative of mane is matutine.


_Vespere_ is one of the ablative forms of _*vesper *_(the Wiktionary entry for this noun omits several attested forms and includes several purely hypothetical forms, and cannot be considered an adequate source on its own). _Mane_ is invariable in Classical Latin, so its ablative is _mane_ (arch. _mani_). Wiktionary is again unreliable in this case: _matutinus_ is a different word.


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## Quiviscumque

The estimated CapnPrep is too considered. The wiktionary entries for "vesper" and "mane" are rubbish (and hence I infer that every Latin entry in that work). Please refer at least to L&S:
http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus:text:1999.04.0059:entry=vesper
http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus:text:1999.04.0059:entry=mane


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## okutavio

Ok, then again they could be both. Would you say those words are adverbs as in "Factum es in the evening and in the morning"?


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## fdb

The most straight-forward translation for וַיְהִי־עֶרֶב וַיְהִי־בֹקֶר יֹום אֶחָד is “and there was an evening and there was a morning: day one” and it was understood thus by the KJV. But since Hebrew does not have any cases (the Semitic case system having been lost in Hebrew) one could theoretically interpret ʻereb and boqer as adverbials and translate “and it was in the evening and it was in the morning: day one”. This is how Jerome chose to understand it.


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## tilmiz

Isn't it possible for "_factum est_" to represent the verb "_appello?_"

In the preceding sentence, there is an action: "_Appellavitque deus..._" As you know, infinitives in Latin are naturally in _neuter _gender. Since the action in the first sentence is about naming the day periods, it seems reasonable to associate these two sentences and their tendencies.

Here's my offer, although it's a kind of enforcemet of the meaning:

"(*Appellare*) factum est _vespere _et _mane..._" means "(*The appellation*) was made in _the evening _(God named "_nox_" the "_darkness_.") and in _the morning _(God named "_day_" the "_light_.")_..._" And of course, in this way, _vespere _and _mane _are the ablatives of time.

I'm not sure by the way. But there is a difference between "_nominare_" and "_appellare_." Nominare means simply to give a name, but appellare also contains a function which gives a new predicate to the subject. Thus, since the verb is appellare, there is not only a naming but also an *appointment* to the light and darkness, so it can be spread to one day time.

According to this theory, the sentence may be translated like this: "(*The appointment*) was made in the evening and in the morning: day one."

I'm so unsure. It's just an idea.

edit: This expression can contain all of the creations in all of the days, by the way, not only day one.


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