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| He Begins from the Creation of the World—Not Understanding the Hebrew Text.
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Chapter III.—He Begins from the
Creation of the World—Not Understanding the Hebrew
Text.
5. Let me hear and understand how in the
beginning Thou didst make the heaven and the earth.1024
Moses
wrote this; he wrote and departed,—passed hence from Thee to
Thee. Nor now is he before me; for if he were I would hold him, and
ask him, and would adjure him by Thee that he would open unto me
these things, and I would lend the ears of my body to the sounds
bursting forth from his mouth. And should he speak in the Hebrew
tongue, in vain would it beat on my senses, nor would aught touch
my mind; but if in Latin, I should know what he said. But whence
should I know whether he said what was true? But if I knew this
even, should I know it from him? Verily within me, within in the
chamber of my thought, Truth, neither Hebrew,1025
| 1025 Augustin was not singular amongst the early
Fathers in not knowing Hebrew, for of the Greeks only Origen, and
of the Latins Jerome, knew anything of it. We find him confessing
his ignorance both here and elsewhere (Enarr. in Ps. cxxxvi.
7, and De Doctr. Christ. ii. 22); and though he
recommends a knowledge of Hebrew as well as Greek, to correct
“the endless diversity of the Latin translators” (De Doctr.
Christ. ii. 16); he speaks as strongly as does Grinfield, in
his Apology for the Septuagint, in favour of the claims of
that version to “biblical and canonical authority” (Eps.
xxviii., lxxi., and lxxv.; De Civ. Dei, xviii. 42,
43; De Doctr. Christ. ii. 22). He discountenanced Jerome’s
new translation, probably from fear of giving offence, and, as we
gather from Ep. lxxi. 5, not without cause. From the tumult
he there describes as ensuing upon Jerome’s version being read,
the outcry would appear to have been as great as when, on the
change of the old style of reckoning to the new, the ignorant mob
clamoured to have back their eleven days! | nor Greek, nor Latin, nor
barbarian, without the organs of voice and tongue, without the
sound of syllables, would say, “He speaks the truth,” and I,
forthwith assured of it, confidently would say unto that man of
Thine, “Thou speakest the truth.” As, then, I cannot inquire of
him, I beseech Thee,—Thee, O Truth, full of whom he spake
truth,—Thee, my God, I beseech, forgive my sins; and do Thou, who
didst give to that Thy servant to speak these things, grant to me
also to understand them.
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