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| How Faulty Interpretations Can Be Emended. PREVIOUS SECTION - NEXT SECTION - HELP
Chapter 13.—How Faulty
Interpretations Can Be Emended.
19. But since we do not clearly
see what the actual thought is which the several translators
endeavor to express, each according to his own ability and
judgment, unless we examine it in the language which they
translate; and since the translator, if he be not a very learned
man, often departs from the meaning of his author, we must either
endeavor to get a knowledge of those languages from which the
Scriptures are translated into Latin, or we must get hold of the
translations of those who keep rather close to the letter of the
original, not because these are sufficient, but because we may use
them to correct the freedom or the error of others, who in their
translations have chosen to follow the sense quite as much as the
words. For not only single words, but often whole phrases are
translated, which could not be translated at all into the Latin
idiom by any one who wished to hold by the usage of the ancients
who spoke Latin. And though these sometimes do not interfere with
the understanding of the passage, yet they are offensive to those
who feel greater delight in things when even the signs of those
things are kept in their own purity. For what is called a
solecism is nothing else than the putting of words together
according to a different rule from that which those of our
predecessors who spoke with any authority followed. For whether
we say inter homines (among men) or inter hominibus,
is of no consequence to a man who only wishes to know the facts.
And in the same way, what is a barbarism but the pronouncing
of a word in a different way from that in which those who spoke
Latin before us pronounced it? For whether the word
ignoscere (to pardon) should be pronounced with the third
syllable long or short, is not a matter of much concern to the man
who is beseeching God, in any way at all that he can get the words
out, to pardon his sins. What then is purity of speech, except
the preserving of the custom of language established by the
authority of former speakers?
20. And men are easily offended
in a matter of this kind, just in proportion as they are weak; and
they are weak just in proportion as they wish to seem learned, not
in the knowledge of things which tend to edification, but in that
of signs, by which it is hard not to be puffed up,1786 seeing
that the knowledge of things even would often set up our neck, if
it were not held down by the yoke of our Master. For how does it
prevent our understanding it to have the following passage thus
expressed: “Quæ est terra in quo isti insidunt super eam,
si bona est an nequam; et quæ sunt civitates, in quibus ipsi
inhabitant in ipsis?”1787
1787 “And what the land is that they
dwell in, whether it be good or bad; and what cities they be that
they dwell in.”— Num.
xiii.19 (A.V.). | And I am more disposed to think
that this is simply the idiom of another language than that any
deeper meaning is intended. Again, that phrase, which we cannot
now take away from the lips of the people who sing it:
“Super ipsum autem floriet sanctificatio mea,”1788 surely
takes away nothing from the meaning. Yet a more learned man would
prefer that this should be corrected, and that we should say, not
floriet, but florebit. Nor does anything stand in
the way of the correction being made, except the usage of the
singers. Mistakes of this kind, then, if a man do not choose to
avoid them altogether, it is easy to treat with indifference, as
not interfering with a right understanding. But take, on the
other hand, the saying of the apostle: “Quod stultum est
Dei, sapientius est hominibus, et quod infirmum est Dei, fortius
est hominibus.”1789 If any one should retain in this
passage the Greek idiom, and say, “Quod stultum est Dei,
sapientius est hominum et quod infirmum est Dei fortius est
hominum,”1790
1790 “What is foolish of God is
wiser of men, and what is weak of God is stronger of
men.” | a quick
and careful reader would indeed by an effort attain to the true
meaning, but still a man of slower intelligence either would not
understand it at all, or would put an utterly false construction
upon it. For not only is such a form of speech
faulty in
the Latin tongue, but it is ambiguous too, as if the meaning might
be, that the folly of men or the weakness of men is wiser or
stronger than that of God. But indeed even the expression
sapientius est hominibus (stronger than men) is not free from
ambiguity, even though it be free from solecism. For whether
hominibus is put as the plural of the dative or as the plural
of the ablative, does not appear, unless by reference to the
meaning. It would be better then to say, sapientius est quam
homines, and fortius est quam homines.E.C.F. INDEX & SEARCH
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