Expert: Maria - 3/1/2011

Question
From the Vulgate, Mat 2: 11  et intrantes domum invenerunt puerum cum Maria matre eius et procidentes adoraverunt eum et apertis thesauris suis obtulerunt ei munera aurum tus  et murram
... apertis thesauris suis ... is the ablative case but is not the Ablative Absolute, correct?  If not, why the Ablative?

Answer
Hello,

In Matthew 2:11 the sentence “... apertis thesauris suis ...” is just an Ablative Absolute whose literal meaning is  “…their treasures having been opened… “, i.e. “… when they had opened their treasures…”.

This Ablative Absolute consists of the past participle masculine plural  “apertis” agreed with the ablative plural “thesauris” + the possessive adjective  “suis”  in the ablative plural agreed with “thesauris”.

See below for grammatical analysis.

Best regards,
Maria
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Note that:

-APERTIS (past participle masculine plural  of  “aperio”, I open) = literally, “having being opened”

-THESAURIS (ablative plural  of the noun “thesaurum”, treasure,  used as a subject of the ablative absolute) = literally, “treasures”

-SUIS (ablative plural of the possessive adjective “suus” agreed with “thesauris”)= literally, “their”