ON ST. AARON.
COMMENTARY.
Aaron, the first priest of the Mosaic Law, on Mount Hor (S.)
BY THE AUTHOR J. B. S.
§ I. On the cult of the Saints of the Old Testament.
We begin this month with some Prince of the ancient Law, just as Henschenius began May, there with the prophet Jeremiah, here with Aaron, the first and supreme Priest of the Levitical race and order. There Henschenius wisely took care lest the bulk of this work should swell beyond measure, Among the Saints of the Old Testament and so the most illustrious things which are written of St. Jeremiah he bade be sought from his very many prophetic interpreters, embracing in a few words those things which pertained to proving some measure of cult of the Prophet, both in the Eastern and in the Western Church. It is settled for us always to keep to that method, and to bring forward nothing concerning those ancient Saints of the Old Covenant other than what we shall find handed down in our Martyrologies and Catalogues of the Saints, already commonly admitted. If perhaps there still remain any who marvel that holy men of both Testaments have been mingled by the Church in her sacred Fasti, let them consult the treatise on the public cult of Job and of the other Saints of the old Law, in Volume VII of May, fully drawn out from a distinguished and most learned Roman dissertation, from page 665: we here, on the occasion of Aaron, will discuss at the outset, as briefly as we can, another little question which properly belongs to our forum.
[2] On the X of April, on which day in most of the Fasti the prophet Ezekiel is recorded, Papebroch, weaving as usual a compendious commentary, The Maccabees first inscribed in the Christian Fasti, begins thus: As for who noted the memory and name of Ezekiel the prophet on this day in the Martyrology, before Bede indeed none is found; yet that this was not done by him without an older exemplar of the ancient Fasti, the very brevity which he uses is the argument. Many things our praised Master there ingeniously and plausibly conjectures, which need not here be recalled to a new examination. I should indeed wish that our Predecessors had somewhere attempted to dig out who first among the Martyrologists inserted into our Christian Fasti the Patriarchs, Prophets, and others of that sort of the Old Testament. What Papebroch here asserts of Bede, however probable it may be, in that opinion which he had conceived concerning the Martyrology of Bede edited by himself and Henschenius, I am forced to think otherwise, from the arguments proposed by me in the preface to Usuard, chapter 1, article 2, from page 13, which seem to prove that the greater part of that Martyrology must be ascribed to Florus, by whose study the labor of Bede had been increased. And if this is true, it must consequently be established that no Saint of the Old Testament was produced by Bede in his Martyrology, except the Maccabees alone, whom in his own genuine metrical Martyrology, perhaps from the Hieronymian, he marked on I August: The Maccabees are crowned at the rising of the month of August, where an exact reckoning of the meter is not to be demanded.
[3] also in the Hieronymian Martyrology, where also the Babylonians are, Nevertheless, whether by Bede himself or by his augmenter Florus the Saints of the Old Testament were set down in that Martyrology, it is well here to investigate a little more accurately what was the first origin of mingling Saints of both Covenants. In the cited Usuardine preface, chapter 2, article 4, number 144, among the proper characteristic marks of the Little Roman Martyrology, we judged one to be this, that many Patriarchs and Prophets of the Old Testament, passed over in the Hieronymian codices, are found collected in that Martyrology which there we claimed both as ancient and as Roman. But did the author of that Martyrology dare to undertake this both first and without exemplar? Are no Patriarchs and Prophets mentioned in the Hieronymian codices, no Saints of that old Testament? I have already said that in the genuine metrical Martyrology of Bede the Maccabees are celebrated, and they quite plausibly received from the Hieronymian, inasmuch as they are most distinctly announced also in the Epternach codex, and indeed in the most ancient list of Polemius Silvius, edited in Volume VII of our June. And these I think are the first Saints who, obtaining a true and full cult, so to speak, in the Church from the earliest centuries onward, as I have said at greater length in the observation on Usuard, on the cited day I August—these, I say, I think to be the first Saints who were carried over from the old Law to the new; and that from them later Martyrographers took their example (the Church so willing, or at least permitting) to endow others also with ecclesiastical cult.
[4] then others gradually added In another Usuardine observation on X May I seemed to doubt whether the mirror of patience, the Prophet Job, truly belongs to the Hieronymian Martyrology. The reason for doubting was that in the aforesaid Epternach codex I had found no such Saints expressed in the text, besides the already mentioned Maccabees and the three Babylonian youths, noted also as Martyrs on XXIV April, while Job, on the cited day X May, was coldly added at the end of the text in these words: Elsewhere the deposition of Job the Prophet—whom indeed it would be strange for Bede, Florus, and Rabanus to have passed over, if it had had a place in the more ancient apographs of the Hieronymian Martyrology. However that may be, namely whether Job belongs to the Hieronymian, or is reckoned an addition, I have the example I was seeking in the Maccabees and the Babylonians, there most certainly noted, whence, unless I am greatly mistaken, occasion was afforded to the martyrologists who followed soon after, of adding something beyond the most ancient Martyrology, in which manner Aaron crept into some Hieronymian apographs, concerning whom we must here treat expressly; and thus Habakkuk and Micah on XV January, etc.
[5] Here you see the first outlines of those ancient Saints in the Christian Fasti; from older tables, first in the Martyrs, then in Job and Aaron, who gradually were added in the augmented Hieronymian codices; but whom I should set up as the true standard-bearer in amplifying the Martyrologies to a greater degree and in inserting so many names of ancient Patriarchs and Prophets, although I have long since laboriously inquired, I dare not yet safely determine, unless with Papebroch I take refuge in certain unknown older Fasti, from which the author of the Little Roman, Florus, and the metrical Martyrologist Wandelbert plucked most of their Patriarchs and Prophets, and received yet others from their own store. And in that way a means is opened by which the question proposed in the Usuardine preface, chapter 1, article 3, §1, number 63, may be illuminated, namely whether in setting forth Saints of this kind Wandelbert followed the Little Roman as his guide.
[6] Again I warn that we here set aside the already stated hypothesis which I tried to establish in the Usuardine preface, which Florus saw, receiving some thence; concerning the announcements, of which no memory exists in the metrical Martyrology of Bede, which are to be attributed to the supplement of Florus, even though in Papebroch's edition they are ascribed to Bede himself. For whatever path you have here entered upon, there will still remain to be assigned that martyrologist, the collector of the ancient Saints, from whom they became known to Bede or Florus and were transferred into their Martyrology. For loosening this knot no more fitting wedge has thus far occurred than if, with Papebroch, we assert that there existed long ago certain older, briefer Fasti, composed by whomsoever, in which a few were marked—as Jeremiah on I May, Elisha on XVI June, Isaiah on VI and Daniel on XXI July, Samuel on XX August, Zechariah on VI September—and that these Fasti came to Bede or Florus, and thence such Saints passed into the Martyrology under Bede's name; but that the author of the Little Roman either collected or found a fuller harvest, whence he might enrich his Martyrology, as, besides the cited days, is to be seen on XV January, X May, I, IV, VI and XIII July, I and IV September, IX and X October, V November, XI and XXIX December.
[7] There are therefore in the Little Roman thirteen announcements of ancient Patriarchs and Prophets, as also the author of the Little Roman, above those which are found in the Martyrology of Bede and Florus, from which the character proper to it is abundantly confirmed, of those ancient Fathers being inserted into the Martyrology in greater number: but you would quite vainly seek which or what sort of Fasti shone before the author of that Little Roman. Moreover, that the often-mentioned Fasti, of whatever kind, truly existed, older than both Bede and the Little Roman, is most clearly persuaded from this, that the above-cited Jeremiah, Elisha, Isaiah, Daniel, Samuel and Zechariah from Bede are referred to by both, on quite the same days, in the same manner, in the same phrase, constantly and concordantly. But again, that neither the author of the Little Roman consulted the Martyrology of Bede, nor conversely Bede or Florus the Little Roman, you gather manifestly, unless I am mistaken, from this, that that old Roman Martyrology surpasses the other by so great a number of announcements. This much for the comparison of those two Martyrologies with each other.
[8] and Wandelbert. The difficulty touched above returns, and proposed in the Usuardine preface, whence the metrical martyrologist Wandelbert summoned the ancient Fathers; whom it is certain to have seen also some older Fasti, in which he found more Saints of this kind than our Martyrology of Bede has; fewer than are reckoned in the Little Roman, since on IV and XIII July he lacks the Prophets, but on the VI of the same month he sings only Isaiah, passing over Joel, who in the Little Roman is joined to Isaiah. But on the contrary, on XIV June the aforesaid Metrical Martyrologist exceeds the Little Roman, when besides Elisha he also celebrates Obadiah, in this same little verse: The seer Elisha together with Obadiah shine forth. Here we are compelled to halt the inquiry, though not sufficiently explained, since no further light shines, by which we might dig out something more certain in these shadows. I would dare to hope that our efforts will add a spur to curious investigators of these matters, so that by probing more deeply they may perhaps unearth other monuments, which may lead our conclusions from doubt into clearer truth.
[9] Thus the way opened to mingling the Saints, Meanwhile, from what has been said, it is not obscurely concluded, as I intimated above, namely that the first compiler of the Hieronymian Martyrology, by one or another commemoration of only Martyrs of the Old Testament, opened the way which the later composers or amplifiers of the Martyrologies, having entered, thought it permitted to themselves, to collect many others from the same Covenant, whom they might mingle with the Christian Saints. Besides this, another conclusion can also be drawn, which may pluck out the scruple implanted in the more religious admirers and defenders of the Martyrologies, concerning the fixed days consecrated to the festivities of various Saints. I here call those the rigid observers of days, who think it impious to call into doubt whether the martyrdom, death, or deposition truly happened on such a day, when they find the names of the Saints thus set down in the Martyrologies; whereas nothing is more obvious (as is clear in the Patriarchs and Prophets praised above) than that days of this kind were selected at the mere discretion of the Martyrographers, just as concerning the Little Roman we have shown all too often in our observations on Usuard.
[10] by which many today abuse. It remains to be warned that this inquiry of ours extends only to those Patriarchs and Prophets to whom this prerogative has been granted by the Church, that they should at least be reckoned among the Saints in the Martyrologies, such as those who from the praised Little Roman were derived into Ado, and from this into Usuard and other Latin or Greek Fasti of any note; for it is altogether unlikely that the rashness of certain men was ever approved or will be approved by the Church, who thought that almost all the Patriarchs, Judges, Kings, ancient Priests, even those whom the sacred text reproves, should be adopted into their pseudo-calendars or Catalogues of our Saints. This observation of ours is directed only to this, that it may be clear to curious explorers of the Martyrologies from what small beginnings the excessive license of the compilers gradually grew strong, in admitting from every quarter, without discrimination, the names of famous men, by which the Christian Fasti grew beyond measure; by a most bad example indeed, which I wish had not pleased certain more recent ones, who, following such footprints, so amplify their Martyrologies, Menologies, Gynæcea, and books of that kind, that it is most difficult to distinguish the true Saints from the others, or at least very liable to ill-will or detraction.
[11] Let it here be permitted to attach another not useless observation, The distinction between Calendars concerning the genuine distinction of Calendars and Martyrologies, about which, although our Predecessors and others have treated abundantly, not all seem to have attended to all things. I have found this almost proper to all true Christian Calendars (I speak here not etymologically but ecclesiastically), this, I say, proper to Calendars, that they refer only to those Saints who, in the Church for whose use they were compiled, obtain a true and properly so-called cult, or of whom in the ecclesiastical Offices and even in the very sacrifice of the Mass some commemoration is made. But in such Calendars strictly taken, ordered to the ecclesiastical rite either in the ninth century or earlier, no Patriarch or Prophet of the Old Testament is to be found, so that thence it easily appears that there was far greater license in the Martyrologists, scraping together all Saints and of whatever sort. The Calendar by Achery, in volume 10 of the Spicilegium, subjoined to Bede's metrical Martyrology, can be consulted, in which no Saints but Christian ones are celebrated, except the Maccabees alone, who even in the Carthaginian Calendar itself, so often praised by us in the edition of Usuard, are most expressly commemorated on the same day I August, and thus were honored with a true and properly so-called cult from the very beginning of the Church, as Gregory Nazianzen, Chrysostom, and other Fathers left attested by the orations spoken in their praise.
[12] Not the same is the reckoning concerning those Saints, recorded in great number in the Martyrologies, and Martyrologies. whose names alone were recited in the ecclesiastical Office at Prime, or as the great Gregory intimates to Eulogius: We have the names of nearly all the Martyrs, with their passions distinguished through the several days, collected in one codex, and on the daily days we celebrate the solemnities of Masses in their veneration. Which last words I do not see can be understood in any other sense than of that mere enumeration or reading of the names, not in the Mass properly so called, to which certainly the Martyrology did not pertain, but in the Office alone, just as can be demonstrated to the eye from Gregory's own Sacramentary, as all the learned know who have not perfunctorily surveyed the ancient Sacramentaries and ecclesiastical Calendars; unless one should prefer that Gregory here signifies that some general memory of the Saints is made in the Masses. Certainly almost innumerable Saints had a place in the ancient Martyrologies, and now have, of whom no commemoration ever existed in the sacrifice of the Mass. These things premised, we will now expedite in a few words, after our manner, the things which pertain to Aaron.
§ II. On the particular cult of St. Aaron.
It has been said above that the name of Aaron does not exist in the most ancient Hieronymian apograph of Epternach; In which Martyrologies Aaron is noted. it is in others edited by Florentinius, under nearly the same formula: On Mount Hor, the deposition of Aaron the Priest, or Aaron the Pontiff, concerning which that most learned man had nothing to observe, except that, from the notation, unless I am mistaken, of Baronius, he refers to Josephus book 4 chapter 4, to whom we too refer the curious reader, content to have run through the Martyrologies and catalogues. Nor is there need to describe one by one the other Hieronymian codices, which we call the briefer ones, since their text for this day is abundantly enumerated in the aforecited Usuardine preface, chapter 1, article 1, §2, from number 27. Bede's supplements keep the same phrase, but received from Usuard, who wrote from Ado: On Mount Hor, the deposition of Aaron the first Priest. In our Usuard the whole of his progeny is exhibited, besides the elogium of the Hagenau codex, which for the sake of the curious I shall subjoin below. There is also in Usuard the whole metrical encomium of Wandelbert. Rabanus's words are Hieronymian, Notker's Adonian, or at least such as can be reckoned Ado's, since Ado's perpetual guide, the Little Roman, reads thus: On Mount Hor, the deposition of Aaron, the first Priest in the Law. I forbear to review the remaining copies of these Martyrologies.
[14] His ancient elogium. But not to be passed over is the elogium of the larger Ado, of the monastery of St. Lawrence at Liège, which, since it was copied from the book on the life and death of the Saints of both Testaments, published under the name of Isidore of Seville, will here be set forth more purely from the very source, whether true or supposititious. Thus it is read in the cited work: Aaron, brother of Moses, and illustrious companion of miracles, and in the Law the first Priest of the Lord, bearing the censer in his right hand, opposed himself to the raging flame, and standing between the living and the dead, by the interposition of his own body, did not permit the fire to pass to the host of the living. He, through the history of the victims and the sacrifice of blood, expressed the future passion of Christ. But in the fortieth year of the going-out of the children of Israel from the land of Egypt, when he was one hundred and twenty-three years old, he died near Petra, a notable city of Arabia, where also his sister Mary lies buried, where even now to this day is shown the rock which, when struck, Moses gave water to the thirsting people. And this place is in the farthest borders of the Idumeans.
[15] Likewise another from the Hagenau codex, It is not of this design to illustrate elogia of that kind at length; the deeds of Aaron are sufficiently described in the sacred Scriptures, concerning which the interpreters on the books of Exodus, Leviticus, and Numbers may be consulted; whence our Salian arranged the history chronologically in its places, from the year of the world 2461 to the year 2583. Let there now follow another elogium, of which we began to speak, from the Usuardine codex of Hagenau, which, as to the author's style, sounds thus: On Mount Hor, the deposition of Aaron, the first Priest in the Law of Moses. This Aaron was the son of Aram Amram and Jochabed of the tribe of Levi, and brother of Moses, leader of the Israelite people, who was anointed as Priest by the precept of the Lord with his sons. He stood with Moses before Pharaoh in Egypt, showing the signs which the Lord commanded. Afterward, when in the desert Moses had to receive the law of the Lord from the hand of the Lord on Mount Sinai, he made an idol for the people, for which, being reproved by his brother, he excused himself and laid the crime on the people. He nevertheless afterward governed the people of the Lord most excellently with Moses. His rod also flowered Numbers chapter 17 as a sign of the everlasting priesthood, and on Mount Hor by the precept of the Lord he died and was buried.
[16] then from the sacred Scriptures. It will be helpful to hear the words of the sacred Text, Numbers chapter 20: And when they had moved camp to Cades, they came to Mount Hor, which is in the borders of the land of Edom; where the Lord spoke to Moses: Let Aaron, he said, go to his people: for he shall not enter the land which I have given to the children of Israel, because he was unbelieving to my mouth at the waters of contradiction. Take Aaron and his son with him, and lead them to Mount Hor. And when you have stripped the father of his garment, you shall clothe Eleazar his son with it: Aaron shall be gathered and shall die there. Moses did as the Lord had commanded: and they went up Mount Hor in the sight of all the multitude. And when Aaron had been stripped of his garments, he clothed Eleazar his son with them. He having died on the summit of the mountain, Moses descended with Eleazar. And the whole multitude, seeing that Aaron had died, wept over him thirty days through all their families. See these things more fully explained by the praised Salian at the above-said year 2583. There are not lacking others who have written of Aaron and the other ancient Fathers by various method, style, and tongue; but lest we go beyond the limits already prescribed, it will be enough here to weave in a historical summary from the catalogue of Peter of Equilino, especially for the sake of those who have no leisure to gather more from other books. Here is his compendium of the life of Aaron.
[17] Aaron, the first Priest and Pontiff according to the Law, A longer history from Peter of Equilino brother of Moses, son of Amram of the tribe of Levi and of Jochabed his wife, who among the holy Fathers of the Old Testament, Ecclesiasticus 45, is greatly commended, led the people of Israel out of the land of Egypt together with his brother, and was the helper of the leadership of Moses for forty years in the wilderness. For he, being most eloquent, was given by the Lord to Moses, who was impeded in tongue, that he might be his mouth to the people: for the Lord commanded Moses, and Aaron himself narrated the words of God, and to the people or to Pharaoh, from the mouth of Moses, reported all things as an intermediary, as is had in Exodus chapter 4. He also stood with Moses before Pharaoh, and showed the signs of God. For the Lord wrought also the first three signs of the plagues, with which Egypt was struck, by the hand of Aaron. But after the people of Israel had crossed the Red Sea, as all these things will be treated more copiously in the deeds of Moses, on the day before the Nones of September; and Moses ascended Mount Sinai by command of the Lord to receive the Law, where he remained forty days without bodily food, when Moses delayed his returning on the mountain, the impatient people instantly demanded gods to lead them on the journey from Aaron and Hur, whom he had left in his place. Thus far rightly enough, but in what follows some things are added which could better have been omitted.
[18] To these Hur, resisting, was, as is said, suffocated by their spittle: whence Aaron was compelled by fear, mixed with fabrications; and asked for their gold and silver, which he cast into the fire, and there came out a molten calf in the likeness of an ox, which they had worshiped in Egypt, a demon performing this work, whom the people also, solemnizing and offering victims, worshiped. When the Lord had revealed this to Moses, and had threatened the dispersion of the people, Moses interceded for the people, and the Lord being appeased, he came down from the mountain, and seeing so great a wickedness, indignant, he broke the tablets of the Law given to him by the Lord: he also burned the calf, and sprinkled the dust into water, and from it gave the people to drink. And when, as Josephus relates, he had recognized the authors of the wickedness from the color of the drunk gold, which miraculously appeared in their beards, he joined to himself the sons of Levi for vengeance, and slew of them about twenty-three thousand. And when he accused Aaron, that he had heeded the people, he excused himself, that he had feared the people, because it was prone to evil. This in Exodus chapter 32. But excepting the fabrications of Josephus or others, which here are unskillfully sewn onto the sacred history, see them among the interpreters. Equilino continues.
[19] the things which from sacred Scripture After this, as is had in Leviticus 9, Moses by the command of the Lord, having first washed Aaron and his four sons Nadab, Abihu, Eleazar and Ithamar with water, anointed them with the oil of sanctification and constituted them Priests for the ministries of the sacrifices; of all of whom Aaron was the highest and first; to whom alone it was permitted to enter the Holy of Holies only once a year. And the day of the consecration of Aaron and his sons was the eighth day of the second year of the going-out of the children of Israel from Egypt. And when Aaron by the precept of the Lord had placed the victim on the altar, fire issuing forth divinely from God first inflamed the sacrifice. And that fire was kept perpetual through the generations until the transmigration of Babylon. On the same day Nadab and Abihu, sons of Aaron, now consecrated Priests, because they offered incense with strange fire, were consumed by divine fire: whom Aaron and his other two sons were forbidden to mourn, because of the holiness of the unction and the reverence of the divine judgment, yet their kinsmen buried them.
[20] and from the interpreters But after these things, as is written in Numbers chapter 16 and 17, when Korah son of Izhar, brother of Amram, seeing his cousins honored, the one with the priesthood, the other with the leadership of the people, envied them; and murmuring against Moses and Aaron, had with him 250 of the Levites, and joined to himself Dathan and Abiram, the more powerful of the Reubenites, and stirred up sedition among the people. All of whom, with their wives and sons and households and all their furniture, the earth, opening itself, miraculously swallowed, for which the people, stirred to fury, wished to stone Moses and Aaron as slayers of the multitude; and when they fled to the tabernacle, fire issuing from the Lord began to devour the people, and slew fourteen thousand and seventy of the people. Then Aaron, at the suggestion of Moses, taking the censer, drew divine fire from the altar; and, the incense being placed, ran quickly to the people, and opposed himself to the burning between the living and the dead, and prayed for them, and immediately the plague ceased.
[21] are easily corrected. But the tumult over the priesthood of Aaron still not ceasing, because the children of Israel said that even from the other tribes worthy ones were found who might perform the priesthood, Moses by the command of the Lord took twelve rods from the princes of the twelve tribes, and on each one wrote the name of the prince and of his tribe; but the name of Aaron he wrote on the rod of Levi, which, when he had placed them in the tabernacle before the Lord, on the following day he found the rod of Aaron to have budded and produced almonds with leaves. By which sign, God ordaining, Aaron most firmly possessed the priesthood; which rod also was laid up in the tabernacle for a testimony. But when the people had been for forty years in the desert, and the Lord had decreed that Moses and Aaron should not enter the promised land, because they had not sanctified him at the waters of contradiction, as is had in Numbers 20, and will be said in the deeds of Moses, God commanded that Aaron should go to his people. He ascended Mount Hor with Moses his brother and Eleazar his son; where Moses stripped the Pontiff Aaron, clothed in all priestly vesture, and clothed Eleazar.
[22] Which done, immediately Aaron died on that very mountain, Nor is the day of his death rightly marked, on the Kalends of July, where the place of his burial is still shown. And the children of Israel wept for him thirty days. These things from where above, namely from the alleged places of the sacred Text, and from the sayings of Josephus and Jerome, also from the Scholastic history, and likewise from the Chronicles of William. From wherever they are received, the things which are superadded to the narration of sacred Scripture would, in our opinion at least, better have been passed over. But not to undertake here a sacred critique, there is one thing which I do not know, in which of the cited writers the compiler of this elogium found, namely that Aaron died on the Kalends of July; when at the most it would seem able to be said that he died toward the end of the month of July. It is likely enough that Peter learned that day from the above-cited Latin Martyrologies, since among the Greeks and Orientals he is commemorated on quite other days, equally selected at discretion; as it now remains to be said cursorily from their Fasti.
[23] I have found some who write that no memory of Aaron, The Greeks honor him otherwise of Moses, and of the other ancient prophets is made among the Greeks, except some general one on the first Sunday of Lent; but why do they not note the Sunday preceding the feast of the Nativity of Christ, just as we read in the Greco-Muscovite Ephemerides on XVII December page 58, where the observation of my Master Papebroch deserves to be seen, and from what is soon to be said the number of the distichs there cited may be corrected. I confess indeed that there is not made among the Greeks that distinction of days, to which the aforesaid ancient Saints are determinately bound, in the way which we have shown was done in our Martyrologies, with greater license gradually growing; and certainly besides that confused and general memory of all together, of whatever kind it be, I find in the Menaea on XIX December ninety-five distichs, not one hundred sixteen, as is written in the Ephemerides, in which those ancient Fathers of the abolished Covenant are led down from Adam, no order of chronology however being kept, to Susanna.
[24] But that which in that series of distichs is sixth and seventieth in number seems at first sight to connect Mount Or or Hor with two brothers, those honoring him with Moses, leaders of the Israelite people, and to fashion some Prophet out of the place of Aaron's burial. Here is the title: "Commemoration of the Prophets Moses, Or and Aaron the priests." And the distich is of this kind: "With Or, Aaron foreshadows the passion of Christ, both raising Moses up crosswise." Which is rendered into Latin thus: Or and Aaron beforehand expressed the punishments of Christ, both exalting Moses with the foresignified cross. The unskillfulness or carelessness of the writer substituted the name Or for Hur, whom most recently we saw suffocated, if it is right to believe, by the spittle of the raging Israelite people. His true praise stands in Exodus 24:14: You have Aaron and Hur with you; if any matter of question arise, you shall refer it to them. Hence, without doubt, it came about that in the above distich he was placed with two other Prophets. Thus concerning Aaron the Menaea on the cited day XIX December.
[25] otherwise among the Copts, and others. The Coptic Calendar published by Ludolf departs far from the Fasti of the Greeks, in this more conformable to the style of the Latins, that it sprinkles Patriarchs, Prophets, and others from the Old Testament among the Christian Saints with a generous hand, with Pilate himself even superadded, to whom with his wife Procla a place was granted on XIX June. Abraham, Isaac and Jacob have the 28th day of each month dedicated to themselves in perpetual course, and with like tenor the archangel Michael the 12th day, the Virgin Mary the 21st, the nativity of Christ the 29th, besides others of that kind very strange to us. Further, whether those ancient ones, or other Saints, recur more than once; among whom our Aaron has obtained a double festivity, the one on XXVII March with full rubric, Aaron the high Priest; again on XXXI July another, under this but less solemn formula, Aaron brother of Moses. The Arabo-Egyptian Calendar is no better patched together. Translated into Latin by Gratia Simonius, it reads on XX July: The memory of Moses, Aaron and Elisha. I will not divine what could have been the cause of so many variations and repetitions; let it suffice to have pointed out with the finger that the Greeks as well as the Latins, indeed the rest of the Orientals, were once not greatly solicitous to inquire the true days of death or deposition, to which at least they might recall the festivities of Saints of this kind. So much concerning Aaron. There follows in the catalogue of Peter de Natalibus