Catholic Commentary
The Colophon: Authentication and Translation of the Letter
14In the fourth year of the reign of Ptolemeus and Cleopatra, Dositheus, who said he was a priest and Levite, and Ptolemeus his son brought this letter of Purim, which they said was authentic, and that Lysimachus the son of Ptolemeus, who was in Jerusalem, had interpreted.]
Esther 10:14 is a scribal colophon found only in the Greek Septuagint that documents the translation and authentication of the Book of Esther. It records that Dositheus, a priest and Levite, and his son brought the verified Purim text, which Lysimachus of Jerusalem had translated into Greek during the reign of Ptolemaic kings in the second century BC.
God's Word doesn't float down from heaven—it arrives through named priests, accountable translators, and verified witnesses, demanding trust in persons, not abstractions.
"Lysimachus the son of Ptolemeus, who was in Jerusalem, had interpreted"
The translator, Lysimachus, is identified by patronymic and location—a resident of Jerusalem, not Alexandria. This is theologically suggestive: the translation moved from Jerusalem to Egypt, tracing a trajectory from the land of the covenant to the diaspora. Lysimachus connects the Hebraic source with the Greek-speaking Jewish world that would eventually become the seedbed of early Christianity. His work is not merely linguistic transposition but cultural and spiritual mediation—the same impulse that would later animate Jerome's Vulgate and the Church's entire tradition of biblical translation.
Typological and Spiritual Senses
Typologically, this colophon enacts in miniature the theology of Tradition: the living transmission of divine revelation through consecrated human hands. The movement from Jerusalem to Egypt evokes the patriarchal journey of Jacob's family (Genesis 46) and the flight of the Holy Family (Matthew 2:13-15), sanctifying Egypt as a place of preservation and refuge for God's people. The named witnesses—Dositheus, Ptolemeus, Lysimachus—anticipate the apostolic chain: the faith is not delivered abstractly but through persons who can be questioned, verified, and held accountable. The authentication of the "letter" prefigures the Church's labor in canon formation: determining which texts are genuine, which translators are faithful, which transmissions are trustworthy.
Catholic tradition illuminates this colophon in ways that purely Protestant or critical-historical approaches cannot fully reach.
Canon and the Deuterocanonicals. The Council of Trent's definitive canon (Session IV, 1546) includes the Greek additions to Esther, of which this colophon is the closing seal. This was not novelty but the explicit affirmation of what the Church had received—a canon substantially consistent with that of Augustine and the Councils of Hippo (393) and Carthage (397/419). The colophon thus sits within the Church's canonical embrace precisely because the Church has always read Esther in its Greek fullness.
Scripture and Tradition. The Catechism teaches that "Sacred Tradition and Sacred Scripture form one sacred deposit of the Word of God, committed to the Church" (CCC 97). This verse dramatizes that truth: the Word does not fall from heaven pre-packaged but is carried by priests, translated by scholars, authenticated by communities. Dei Verbum §9 insists that Scripture must be read "in the living Tradition of the whole Church." Lysimachus the translator is a living icon of that Tradition.
The Human Dimension of Inspiration. The Church teaches that the sacred authors wrote as "true authors" under the Holy Spirit's inspiration (Dei Verbum §11). The colophon names the human actors—priest, son, translator—without embarrassment. This reflects the Catholic conviction that divine inspiration does not suppress human agency but elevates and employs it. St. Thomas Aquinas taught that God works through secondary causes (Summa Theologiae I, q. 22, a. 3), and the transmission of Scripture is itself such a secondary causality.
The Priestly Office as Custodian of the Word. Dositheus' priestly identity resonates with Malachi 2:7: "the lips of a priest should guard knowledge, and people should seek instruction from his mouth, for he is the messenger of the LORD of hosts." The ordained ministry of Word-keeping is an ancient covenant responsibility, one that the Catholic priesthood inherits and continues.
This verse may seem like a dry administrative footnote, but it carries a surprisingly urgent message for Catholics today who face a culture of information overload, misinformation, and the erosion of institutional trust.
We live in an age when anyone can publish anything and claim authority. Dositheus and his son did the opposite: they named themselves, identified their lineage, staked their priestly credentials, and handed over a document they personally vouched for as authentic. This is a model of accountable witness—the same quality the Church demands of those who teach, preach, and interpret Scripture. It is the instinct behind the Imprimatur and Nihil Obstat.
For the ordinary Catholic, this colophon is an invitation to take seriously the source of what they receive as sacred. Who translated your Bible? Who interpreted this passage for you? What community authenticated it? The Church's magisterial tradition—its scholars, councils, and saints—functions precisely as Lysimachus did: rendering the living Word accessible without distorting it.
Practically, consider examining the Catholic edition of the Bible you use. Read the introduction. Learn something about the translation committee. Trust is not naïve when it is informed. The act of picking up a Catholic Bible and reading it is itself an act of faith in a long chain of accountable witnesses stretching back to Jerusalem.
Commentary
Esther 10:14 — A Colophon in Full
This single verse constitutes what scholars call a colophon—a scribal note appended at the close of a manuscript to record information about its origin, transmission, or translation. Such notes were commonplace in the ancient Near East and Hellenistic world, serving as a form of authentication and chain-of-custody documentation. The verse belongs exclusively to the Greek (Septuagint) tradition of Esther, which the Catholic Church accepts as canonical (the longer Greek text), in distinction from the shorter Hebrew version. The Council of Trent (1546) affirmed the canonical status of the entire Greek Esther, including this colophon and the six deuterocanonical additions.
"In the fourth year of the reign of Ptolemeus and Cleopatra"
This chronological anchor has generated considerable scholarly discussion. Several Ptolemaic kings bore this regnal combination. The most probable candidates are Ptolemy VIII Euergetes II and Cleopatra III (c. 114 BC) or Ptolemy XII Auletes and Cleopatra V (c. 78 BC). If the earlier date is correct, it places the translation roughly a generation after the composition of the Septuagint's Torah. The precision of the dating underscores the Hellenistic Jewish community's concern with historical verifiability—this was not myth but a document with a dateable, traceable history.
"Dositheus, who said he was a priest and Levite, and Ptolemeus his son"
The self-identification of Dositheus as "priest and Levite" is a pointed assertion of credentials. In Jewish tradition, priestly and Levitical lineage guaranteed a level of trustworthiness in the handling of sacred texts—they were custodians of the Law. The phrase "who said he was" (ho phaskōn einai) is sometimes read as a mild expression of uncertainty or as a conventional legal formula of self-attestation rather than as suspicion of fraud. The bearer is not anonymous; he names himself, his tribe, and his son. This chain of personal accountability is significant: the sacred text is entrusted to persons, not merely to institutions or processes.
"Brought this letter of Purim, which they said was authentic"
The phrase "letter of Purim" (Greek: tēn prokeimēnēn epistolēn tou Phourim) refers to the entire Book of Esther as it functioned liturgically—read aloud at the feast of Purim. "Which they said was authentic" translates a term (einai autēn) attesting to the document's integrity: it had not been tampered with, altered, or forged. This concern for textual authenticity is not merely bureaucratic. In the ancient world, a forged or corrupted sacred text was a religious catastrophe. The bearers stake their personal reputations and ancestral credentials on the document's fidelity.