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| To Pammachius on the Best Method of Translating.
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Letter LVII. To
Pammachius on the Best Method of Translating.
Written to Pammachius (for whom see Letter LXVI.) in
a.d. 395. In the previous year Jerome had
rendered into Latin Letter LI. (from Epiphanius to John of Jerusalem)
under circumstances which he here describes (§2). His version soon
became public and incurred severe criticism from some person not named
by Jerome but supposed by him to have been instigated by Rufinus
(§12). Charged with having falsified his original he now
repudiates the charge and defends his method of translation (“to
give sense for sense and not word for word” §5) by an appeal
to the practice of classical (§5), ecclesiastical (§6), and
N.T. (§§7–10) writers.
When at a subsequent period Rufinus gave to the world
what was in Jerome’s opinion a misleading version of
Origen’s First Principles, he appealed to this letter as
giving him ample warranty for what he had done. See Letters LXXX, and
LXXXI, and Rufinus’ Preface to the περί
᾽Αεχῶν in Vol. iii. of this series.
1. The apostle Paul when he appeared before King Agrippa
to answer the charges which were brought against him, wishing to use
language intelligible to his hearers and confident of the success of
his cause, began by congratulating himself in these words: “I
think myself happy, King Agrippa, because I shall answer for myself
this day before thee touching all the things whereof I am accused by
the Jews: especially because thou art expert in all customs and
questions which are among the Jews.”1649
He had read the saying of Jesus:1650
| 1650 i.e., the son
of Sirach. | “Well is
him that speaketh in the ears of them that will hear;”1651
and he knew that a pleader only succeeds in
proportion as he impresses his judge. On this occasion I too think
myself happy that learned ears will hear my defence. For a rash tongue
charges me with ignorance or falsehood; it alleges that in translating
another man’s letter I have made mistakes through incapacity or
carelessness; it convicts me of either an involuntary error or a
deliberate offence. And lest it should happen that my
accuser—encouraged by a volubility which stops at nothing and by
an impunity which arrogates to itself an unlimited license—should
accuse me as he has already done our father (Pope) Epiphanius; I send
this letter to inform you—and through you others who think me
worthy of their regard—of the true order of the facts.
2. About two years ago the aforesaid Pope Epiphanius
sent a letter1652
to Bishop John,
first finding fault with him as regarded some of his opinions and then
mildly calling him to penitence. Such was the repute of the writer or
else the elegance of the letter that all Palestine fought for copies of
it. Now there was in our monastery a man of no small estimation in his
country, Eusebius of Cremona, who, when he found that this letter was
in everybody’s mouth and that the ignorant and the educated alike
admired it for its teaching and for the purity of its style, set to
work to beg me to translate it for him into Latin and at the same time
to simplify the argument so that he might more readily understand it;
for he was himself altogether unacquainted with the Greek language. I
consented to his request and calling to my aid a secretary speedily
dictated my version, briefly marking on the side of the page the
contents of the several chapters. The fact is that he asked me to do
this merely for himself, and I requested of him in return to keep his
copy private and not too readily to circulate it. A year and six months
went by, and then the aforesaid translation found its way by a novel
stratagem from his desk to Jerusalem. For a pretended monk—either
bribed as there is much reason to believe or actuated by malice of his
own as his tempter vainly tries to convince us—shewed himself a
second Judas by robbing Eusebius of
his literary property and gave to the adversary an occasion of
railing1653
against me. They tell the unlearned
that I have falsified the original, that I have not rendered word for
word, that I have put ‘dear friend’ in place of
‘honourable sir,’ and more shameful still! that I have cut
down my translation by omitting the words αἰδεσιμῶτατε
Πάππα.1654
| 1654 i.e.,
‘most reverend pope.’ This title at first given to all
bishops was in Jerome’s time becoming restricted to metropolitans
and patriarchs. Jerome, however, still uses it in the wider sense. The
omission of the title here may well have seemed deliberate, as Jerome
was known to entertain very bitter feelings towards John of
Jerusalem. |
These and similar trifles form the substance of the charges brought
against me.
3. At the outset before I defend my version I wish to
ask those persons who confound wisdom with cunning, some few questions.
Where did you get your copy of the letter? Who gave it to you? How have
you the effrontery to bring forward what you have procured by fraud?
What place of safety will be left us if we cannot conceal our secrets
even within our own walls and our own writing-desks? Were I to press
such a charge against you before a legal tribunal, I could make you
amenable to the laws which even in fiscal cases appoint penalties for
meddlesome informers and condemn the traitor even while they accept his
treachery. For though they welcome the profit which the information
gives them, they disapprove the motive which actuates the informer. A
little while ago a man of consular rank named Hesychius (against whom
the patriarch Gamaliel waged an implacable war) was condemned to death
by the emperor Theodosius simply because he had laid hold of imperial
papers through a secretary whom he had tempted. We read also in old
histories1655
that the schoolmaster who betrayed
the children of the Faliscans was sent back to his boys and handed over
to them in bonds, the Roman people refusing to accept a dishonourable
victory. When Pyrrhus king of Epirus was lying in his camp ill from the
effects of a wound, his physician offered to poison him, but Fabricius
thinking it shame that the king should die by treachery sent the
traitor back in chains to his master, refusing to sanction crime even
when its victim was an enemy.1656
| 1656 Plutarch, Life of
Pyrrhus. | A principle which
the laws uphold, which is maintained by enemies, which warfare and the
sword fail to violate, has hitherto been held unquestioned among the
monks and priests of Christ. And can any one of them presume now,
knitting his brow and snapping his fingers,1657
| 1657 Jerome constantly
speaks of Rufinus in this way. See Letter CXXV. 18 and Apol. c. Ruf. I.
13, 32. |
to spend his breath in saying: “What if he did use bribes or
other inducements! he did what suited his purpose.” A strange
plea truly to defend a fraud as though robbers, thieves, and pirates
did not do the same. Certainly, when Annas and Caiaphas led hapless
Judas astray, they only did what they believed to be expedient for
themselves.
4. Suppose that I wish to write down in my note books
this or that silly trifle, or to make comments upon the scriptures, to
retort upon my calumniators, to digest my wrath, to practise myself in
the use of commonplaces and to stow away sharp shafts for the day of
battle. So long as I do not publish my thoughts, they are only unkind
words not matter for a charge of libel; in fact they are not even
unkind words for the public ear never hears them. You1658
may bribe my slaves and tamper with my
clients. You may, as the fable has it, penetrate by means of your gold
to the chamber of Danaë;1659
| 1659 Danaë, the
daughter of Acrisius, was confined by her father in a brazen tower to
which Zeus obtained access in the shape of a shower of gold. | and then,
dissembling what you have done, you may call me a falsifier; but, if
you do so, you will have to plead guilty yourself to a worse charge
than any that you can bring against me. One man inveighs against you as
a heretic, another as a perverter of doctrine. You are silent yourself;
you do not venture to answer; you assail the translator; you cavil
about syllables and you fancy your defence complete if your calumnies
provoke no reply. Suppose that I have made a mistake or an omission in
my rendering. Your whole case turns upon this; this is the defence
which you offer to your accusers. Are you no heretic because I am a bad
translator? Mind, I do not say that I know you to be a heretic; I leave
such knowledge to your accuser, to him who wrote the letter:1660
what I do say is that it is the height of
folly for you when you are accused by one man to attack another, and
when you are covered with wounds yourself to seek comfort by wounding
one who is still quiescent and unaggressive.
5. In the above remarks I have assumed that I have made
alterations in the letter and that a simple translation may contain
errors though not wilful ones. As, however the letter itself shews that
no changes have been made in the sense, that nothing has been added,
and that no doctrine has been foisted into it, “obviously their
object is understanding to understand nothing;”1661
and while they desire to arraign
another’s want of skill, they betray their own. For I myself not
only admit but freely proclaim that in translating from the Greek
(except in the case of the holy scriptures where even the order of the
words is a mystery) I render sense for sense and not word for word. For
this course I have the authority of
Tully who has so translated the Protagoras of Plato, the
Œconomicus of Xenophon, and the two beautiful orations1662
which Æschines and Demosthenes
delivered one against the other. What omissions, additions, and
alterations he has made substituting the idioms of his own for those of
another tongue, this is not the time to say. I am satisfied to quote
the authority of the translator who has spoken as follows in a
prologue1663
| 1663 Only a small part
of this is extant. | prefixed to the orations. “I
have thought it right to embrace a labour which though not necessary
for myself will prove useful to those who study. I have translated the
noblest speeches of the two most eloquent of the Attic orators, the
speeches which Æschines and Demosthenes delivered one against the
other; but I have rendered them not as a translator but as an orator,
keeping the sense but altering the form by adapting both the metaphors
and the words to suit our own idiom. I have not deemed it necessary to
render word for word but I have reproduced the general style and
emphasis. I have not supposed myself bound to pay the words out one by
one to the reader but only to give him an equivalent in value.”
Again at the close of his task he says, “I shall be well
satisfied if my rendering is found, as I trust it will be, true to this
standard. In making it I have utilized all the excellences of the
originals, I mean the sentiments, the forms of expression and the
arrangement of the topics, while I have followed the actual wording
only so far as I could do so without offending our notions of taste. If
all that I have written is not to be found in the Greek, I have at any
rate striven to make it correspond with it.” Horace too, an acute
and learned writer, in his Art of Poetry gives the same advice to the
skilled translator:—
And care not thou with over anxious thought
To render word for word.1664
Terence has translated Menander; Plautus and Cæcilius the old
comic poets.1665
| 1665 i.e. the
poets of the so called New Comedy. | Do they ever stick at words? Do they
not rather in their versions think first of preserving the beauty and
charm of their originals? What men like you call fidelity in
transcription, the learned term pestilent minuteness.1666
Such were my teachers about twenty years
ago; and even then1667
| 1667 That is, five
years later. Jerome translated the Chronicle of Eusebius at
Constantinople in 381–2. | I was the
victim of a similar error to that which is now imputed to me, though
indeed I never imagined that you would charge me with it. In
translating the Chronicle of Eusebius of Cæsarea into Latin, I
made among others the following prefatory observations: “It is
difficult in following lines laid down by others not sometimes to
diverge from them, and it is hard to preserve in a translation the
charm of expressions which in another language are most felicitous.
Each particular word conveys a meaning of its own, and possibly I have
no equivalent by which to render it, and if I make a circuit to reach
my goal, I have to go many miles to cover a short distance.1668
| 1668 Vix brevis
viæ spatia consummo. | To these difficulties must be added the
windings of hyperbata, differences in the use of cases, divergencies of
metaphor; and last of all the peculiar and if I may so call it, inbred
character of the language. If I render word for word, the result will
sound uncouth, and if compelled by necessity I alter anything in the
order or wording, I shall seem to have departed from the function of a
translator.”1669
| 1669 Preface, translated
in this Volume, § 1. | And after a long
discussion which it would be tedious to follow out here, I added what
follows:—“If any one imagines that translation does not
impair the charm of style, let him render Homer word for word into
Latin, nay I will go farther still and say, let him render it into
Latin prose, and the result will be that the order of the words will
seem ridiculous and the most eloquent of poets scarcely
articulate.”1670
6. In quoting my own writings my only object has been to
prove that from my youth up I at least have always aimed at rendering
sense not words, but if such authority as they supply is deemed
insufficient, read and consider the short preface dealing with this
matter which occurs in a book narrating the life of the blessed
Antony.1671
| 1671 This life long
supposed to have been the work of Athanasius was originally composed in
Greek but had been rendered into Latin by Evagrius bishop of
Antioch. | “A literal translation from
one language into another obscures the sense; the exuberance of the
growth lessens the yield. For while one’s diction is enslaved to
cases and metaphors, it has to explain by tedious circumlocutions what
a few words would otherwise have sufficed to make plain. I have tried
to avoid this error in the translation which at your request I have
made of the story of the blessed Antony. My version always preserves
the sense although it does not invariably keep the words of the
original. Leave others to catch at syllables and letters, do you for
your part look for the meaning.” Time would fail me were I to
unfold the testimonies of all who have translated only according to the
sense. It is sufficient for the present to name Hilary the confessor1672
| 1672 i.e.,
Hilary of Poitiers. | who has turned some homilies on Job and
several treatises on the Psalms from Greek into Latin; yet has not
bound himself to the drowsiness of the letter or fettered himself by
the stale literalism of inadequate
culture. Like a conqueror he has led away captive into his own tongue
the meaning of his originals.
7. That secular and church writers should have adopted
this line need not surprise us when we consider that the translators of
the Septuagint,1673
| 1673 Lit. the seventy
translators. | the
evangelists, and the apostles, have done the same in dealing with the
sacred writings. We read in Mark1674
of the
Lord saying Talitha cumi and it is immediately added
“which is interpreted, Damsel, I say unto thee, arise.” The
evangelist may be charged with falsehood for having added the words
“I say unto thee” for the Hebrew is only “Damsel
arise.” To emphasize this and to give the impression of one
calling and commanding he has added “I say unto thee.”
Again in Matthew1675
when the thirty
pieces of silver are returned by the traitor Judas and the
potter’s field is purchased with them, it is
written:—“Then was fulfilled that which was spoken of by
Jeremy the prophet, saying, ‘And they took the thirty pieces of
silver the price of him that was valued which1676
| 1676 Quod. A.V. has
‘whom.’ | they of the children of Israel did
value, and gave them for the potter’s field, as the Lord
appointed me.’” This passage is not found in Jeremiah at
all but in Zechariah, in quite different words and an altogether
different order. In fact the Vulgate renders it as
follows:—“And I will say unto them, If it is good in your
sight, give ye me a price or refuse it: So they weighed for my price
thirty pieces of silver. And the Lord said unto me, Put them into the
melting furnace and consider if it is tried as I have been tried by
them. And I took the thirty pieces of silver and cast them into the
house of the Lord.”1677
It is evident
that the rendering of the Septuagint differs widely from the quotation
of the evangelist. In the Hebrew also, though the sense is the same,
the words are quite different and differently arranged. It says:
“And I said unto them, If ye think good, give me my price; and,
if not, forbear. So they weighed for my price thirty pieces of silver.
And the Lord said unto me, Cast it unto the potter;1678
a goodly price that I was priced at of
them. And I took the thirty pieces of silver and cast them to the
potter in the house of the Lord.”1679
They may accuse the apostle of
falsifying his version seeing that it agrees neither with the Hebrew
nor with the translators of the Septuagint: and worse than this, they
may say that he has mistaken the author’s name putting down
Jeremiah when it should be Zechariah. Far be it from us to speak thus
of a follower1680
of Christ, who
made it his care to formulate dogmas rather than to hunt for words and
syllables. To take another instance from Zechariah, the evangelist John
quotes from the Hebrew, “They shall look on him whom they
pierced,”1681
for which we
read in the Septuagint, “And they shall look upon me because they
have mocked me,” and in the Latin version, “And they shall
look upon me for the things which they have mocked or insulted.”
Here the evangelist, the Septuagint, and our own version1682
| 1682 i.e., the
Italic, for the Vulgate, which was not then published, accurately
represents the Hebrew. | all differ; yet the divergence of
language is atoned by oneness of spirit. In Matthew again we read of
the Lord preaching flight to the apostles and confirming His counsel
with a passage from Zechariah. “It is written,” he says,
“I will smite the shepherd, and the sheep of the flock shall be
scattered abroad.”1683
But in the
Septuagint and in the Hebrew it reads differently, for it is not God
who speaks, as the evangelist makes out, but the prophet who appeals to
God the Father saying:—“Smite the shepherd, and the sheep
shall be scattered.” In this instance according to my
judgment—and I have some careful critics with me—the
evangelist is guilty of a fault in presuming to ascribe to God what are
the words of the prophet. Again the same evangelist writes that at the
warning of an angel Joseph took the young child and his mother and went
into Egypt and remained there till the death of Herod; “that it
might be fulfilled which was spoken of the Lord by the prophet saying,
Out of Egypt have I called my son.”1684
The Latin manuscripts do not so give
the passage, but in Hosea1685
the true Hebrew
text has the following:—“When Israel was a child then I
loved him, and called my son out of Egypt.” Which the Septuagint
renders thus:—“When Israel was a child then I loved him,
and called his sons out of Egypt.” Are they1686
| 1686 i.e., the
Septuagint and Vulgate versions. | altogether to be rejected because they
have given another turn to a passage which refers primarily to the
mystery of Christ? Or should we not rather pardon the shortcomings of
the translators on the score of their human frailty according to the
saying of James, “In many things we offend all. If any man offend
not in word the same is a perfect man and able also to bridle the whole
body.”1687
Once more it is written in the
pages of the same evangelist, “And he came and dwelt in a city
called Nazareth: that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by the
prophets, He shall be called a Nazarene.”1688
Let these word fanciers and nice
critics of all composition tell us where they have read the words;
and if they cannot, let me tell
them that they are in Isaiah.1689
For in the
place where we read and translate, “There shall come forth a rod
out of the stem of Jesse, and a branch shall grow out of his
roots,”1690
| 1690 So A.V. the Vulg.
varies slightly. | in the Hebrew
idiom it is written thus, “There shall come forth a rod out of
the root of Jesse and a Nazarene shall grow from his root.” How
can the Septuagint leave out the word ‘Nazarene,’ if it is
unlawful to substitute one word for another? It is sacrilege either to
conceal or to set at naught a mystery.
8. Let us pass on to other passages, for the brief
limits of a letter do not suffer us to dwell too long on any one point.
The same Matthew says:—“Now all this was done that it might
be fulfilled which was spoken of the Lord by the prophet saying, Behold
a virgin shall be with child and shall bring forth a son and they shall
call his name Emmanuel.”1691
The rendering of
the Septuagint is, “Behold a virgin shall receive seed and shall
bring forth a son, and ye shall call his name Emmanuel.” If
people cavil at words, obviously ‘to receive seed’ is not
the exact equivalent of ‘to be with child,’ and ‘ye
shall call’ differs from ‘they shall call.’ Moreover
in the Hebrew we read thus, “Behold a virgin shall conceive and
bear a son and shall call his name Immanuel.”1692
Ahaz shall not call him so for he was
convicted of want of faith, nor the Jews for they were destined to deny
him, but she who is to conceive him, and bear him, the virgin herself.
In the same evangelist we read that Herod was troubled at the coming of
the Magi and that gathering together the scribes and the priests he
demanded of them where Christ should be born and that they answered
him, “In Bethlehem of Judæa: for thus it is written by the
prophet; And thou Bethlehem in the land of Judah art not the least
among the princes of Judah, for out of thee shall come a governour that
shall rule my people Israel.”1693
In the
Vulgate1694
| 1694 i.e. the
Versio Itala which was vulgata or ‘commonly used’ at this
time as Jerome’s Version was afterwards. | this passage appears as
follows:—“And thou Bethlehem, the house of Ephratah, art
small to be among the thousands of Judah, yet one shall come out of
thee for me to be a prince in Israel.” You will be more surprised
still at the difference in words and order between Matthew and the
Septuagint if you look at the Hebrew which runs thus:—“But
thou Bethlehem Ephratah, though thou be little among the thousands of
Judah, yet out of thee shall he come forth unto me that is to be ruler
in Israel.”1695
Consider one by
one the words of the evangelist:—“And thou Bethlehem in the
land of Judah.” For “the land of Judah” the Hebrew
has “Ephratah” while the Septuagint gives “the house
of Ephratah.” The evangelist writes, “art not the least
among the princes of Judah.” In the Septuagint this is,
“art small to be among the thousands of Judah,” while the
Hebrew gives, “though thou be little among the thousands of
Judah.” There is a contradiction here—and that not merely
verbal—between the evangelist and the prophet; for in this place
at any rate both Septuagint and Hebrew agree. The evangelist says that
he is not little among the princes of Judah, while the passage from
which he queries says exactly the opposite of this, “Thou art
small indeed and little; but yet out of thee, small and little as thou
art, there shall come forth for me a leader in Israel,” a
sentiment in harmony with that of the apostle, “God hath chosen
the weak things of the world to confound the things which are
mighty.”1696
Moreover the
last clause “to rule” or “to feed my people
Israel” clearly runs differently in the original.
9. I refer to these passages, not to convict the
evangelists of falsification—a charge worthy only of impious men
like Celsus, Porphyry, and Julian—but to bring home to my critics
their own want of knowledge, and to gain from them such consideration
that they may concede to me in the case of a simple letter what,
whether they like it or not, they will have to concede to the Apostles
in the Holy Scriptures. Mark, the disciple of Peter, begins his gospel
thus:—“The beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ, as it
is written in the prophet Isaiah: Behold I send my messenger before thy
face which shall prepare thy way before thee. The voice of one crying
in the wilderness, Prepare ye the way of the Lord, make his paths
straight.”1697
This quotation
is made up from two prophets, Malachi that is to say and Isaiah. For
the first part: “Behold I send my messenger before thy face which
shall prepare thy way before thee,” occurs at the close of
Malachi.1698
But the second part: “The
voice of one crying, etc.,” we read in Isaiah.1699
On what grounds then has Mark in the very
beginning of his book set the words: “As it is written in the
prophet Isaiah, Behold I send my messenger,” when, as we have
said, it is not written in Isaiah at all, but in Malachi the last of
the twelve prophets? Let ignorant presumption solve this nice question
if it can, and I will ask pardon for being in the wrong. The same Mark
brings before us the Saviour thus addressing the Pharisees: “Have
ye never read what David did when he had need and was an hungred, he and they that were with him, how he
went into the house of God in the days of Abiathar the highpriest, and
did eat the shew-bread which is not lawful to eat but for the
priests?”1700
Now let us turn to
the books of Samuel, or, as they are commonly called, of Kings, and we
shall find there that the highpriest’s name was not Abiathar but
Ahimelech,1701
the same that was afterwards put to
death with the rest of the priests by Doeg at the command of Saul.1702
Let us pass on now to the apostle Paul who
writes thus to the Corinthians: “For had they known it, they
would not have crucified the Lord of glory. But, as it is written, Eye
hath not seen nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of
man, the things which God hath prepared for them that love
Him.”1703
Some writers on this passage betake
themselves to the ravings of the apocryphal books and assert that the
quotation comes from the Revelation of Elijah;1704
| 1704 This book is no
longer extant. It belonged to the same class as the Book of Enoch. |
whereas the truth is that it is found in Isaiah according to the Hebrew
text: “Since the beginning of the world men have not heard nor
perceived by the ear, neither hath the eye seen, O God, beside thee
what thou hast prepared for them that wait for thee.”1705
| 1705 Isa. lxiv. 4, lxx. A.V. has ‘what he hath
prepared for him that waiteth for him.’ | The Septuagint has rendered the words quite
differently: “Since the beginning of the world we have not heard,
neither have our eyes seen any God beside thee and thy true works, and
thou wilt shew mercy to them that wait for thee.” We see then
from what place the quotation is taken and yet the apostle has not
rendered his original word for word, but, using a paraphrase, he has
given the sense in different terms. In his epistle to the Romans the
same apostle quotes these words from Isaiah: “Behold I lay in
Sion a stumbling-stone and rock of offence,”1706
a rendering which is at variance with the
Greek version1707
| 1707 Lit. ‘with
the old version.’ | yet agrees with
the original Hebrew. The Septuagint gives an opposite meaning,
“that you fall not on a stumblingstone nor on a rock of
offence.” The apostle Peter agrees with Paul and the Hebrew,
writing: “but to them that do not believe, a stone of stumbling
and a rock of offence.”1708
From all these
passages it is clear that the apostles and evangelists in translating
the old testament scriptures have sought to give the meaning rather
than the words, and that they have not greatly cared to preserve forms
or constructions, so long as they could make clear the subject to the
understanding.
10. Luke the evangelist and companion of apostles
describes Christ’s first martyr Stephen as relating what follows
in a Jewish assembly. “With threescore and fifteen souls Jacob
went down into Egypt, and died himself, and our fathers were carried
over1709
| 1709 So the Vulg.: A.V.
punctuates differently. | into Sychem, and laid in the sepulchre
that Abraham bought for a sum of money of the sons of Emmor1710
the father of Sychem.”1711
In Genesis this passage is quite
differently given, for it is Abraham that buys of Ephron the Hittite,
the son of Zohar, near Hebron, for four hundred shekels1712
of silver, a double cave,1713
and the field that is about it, and that
buries in it Sarah his wife. And in the same book we read that, after
his return from Mesopotamia with his wives and his sons, Jacob pitched
his tent before Salem, a city of Shechem which is in the land of
Canaan, and that he dwelt there and “bought a parcel of a field
where he had spread his tent at the hand of Hamor, the father of
Sychem, for an hundred lambs,”1714
and that
“he erected there an altar and called there upon the God of
Israel.”1715
Abraham does not
buy the cave from Hamor the father of Sychem, but from Ephron the son
of Zohar, and he is not buried in Sychem but in Hebron which is
corruptly called Arboch. Whereas the twelve patriarchs are not buried
in Arboch but in Sychem, in the field purchased not by Abraham but by
Jacob. I postpone the solution of this delicate problem to enable those
who cavil at me to search and see that in dealing with the scriptures
it is the sense we have to look to and not the words. In the Hebrew the
twenty-second psalm begins with the exact words which the Lord uttered
on the cross: Eli Eli lama azabthani, which means, “My
God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?”1716
Let my critics tell me why the Septuagint introduces here the words
“look thou upon me.” For its rendering is as follows:
“My God, my God, look thou upon me, why hast thou forsaken
me?” They will answer no doubt that no harm is done to the sense
by the addition of a couple of words. Let them acknowledge then that,
if in the haste of dictation I have omitted a few, I have not by so
doing endangered the position of the churches.
11. It would be tedious now to enumerate, what great
additions and omissions the Septuagint has made, and all the passages
which in church-copies are marked with daggers and asterisks. The Jews
generally laugh when they hear our version of this passage of Isaiah,
“Blessed is he that hath seed in Zion and servants in
Jerusalem.”1717
In Amos also1718
| 1718 According to the
LXX. | after a description of self-indulgence1719
there come these words: “They have
thought of these things as halting and not likely to fly,” a very
rhetorical sentence quite worthy of Tully. But how shall we deal with
the Hebrew originals in which these passages and others like them are
omitted, passages so numerous that to reproduce them all would require
books without number? The number of the omissions is shown alike by the
asterisks mentioned above and by my own version when compared by a
careful reader with the old translation.1720
| 1720 Jerome’s
Vulgate version supplied from the Hebrew the omissions and removed the
redundancies of the old Latin version. These were due to the uncertain
text of the LXX., on which alone the old Latin version was founded. |
Yet the Septuagint has rightly kept its place in the churches, either
because it is the first of all the versions in time, made before the
coming of Christ, or else because it has been used by the apostles
(only however in places where it does not disagree with the Hebrew1721
| 1721 This statement is
not borne out by the facts. | ). On the other hand we do right to reject
Aquila, the proselyte and controversial translator, who has striven to
translate not words only but their etymologies as well. Who could
accept as renderings of “corn and wine and oil”1722
such words as χεῖμα
ὀπωρισμός
στιλπνότης ,
or, as we might say, ‘pouring,’ and
‘fruitgathering,’ and ‘shining’? or, because
Hebrew has in addition to the article other prefixes1723
as well, he must with an unhappy
pedantry translate syllable by syllable and letter by letter thus:
σὺν τὸν
ὀυρανὸν καὶ
σὺν τὴν γήν, a
construction which neither Greek nor Latin admits of,1724
| 1724 Lit. ‘with
the heaven and with the earth’ (Gen. i. 1). In Hebrew the preposition
‘with’ is identical in form with the sign of the accus.
Hence Aquila’s rendering. | as many passages in our own writers
shew. How many are the phrases charming in Greek which, if rendered
word for word, do not sound well in Latin, and again how many there are
that are pleasing to us in Latin, but which—assuming the order of
the words not to be altered—would not please in Greek.
12. But to pass by this limitless field of discussion
and to shew you, most Christian of nobles, and most noble of
Christians, what is the kind of falsification which is censured in my
translation, I will set before you the opening words of the letter in
the Greek original and as rendered by me, that from one count in the
indictment you may form an opinion of all. The letter begins ῎Εδει
ἡμᾶς,
ἀγάπητε, μή
τῇ οἰ& 208·σει
τῶν κλήρων
φέρεσθαι which I
remember to have rendered as follows: “Dearly beloved, we ought
not to misuse our position as ministers to gratify our pride.”
See there, they cry, what a number of falsehoods in a single line! In
the first place ἀγαπητός means
‘loved,’ not ‘dearly beloved.’ Then οἴησις means
‘estimate,’ not ‘pride,’ for this and not οἰδημα is the word
used. Οιδῆμα
signifies ‘a swelling’ but οἰ& 208·σις means
‘judgment.’ All the rest, say they: “not to misuse
our position to gratify our pride” is your own. What is this you
are saying, O pillar of learning1725
| 1725 Jerome
apostrophises his critic. | and latter
day Aristarchus,1726
| 1726 The famous
grammarian and critic of Homer. | who are so
ready to pass judgment upon all writers? It is all for nothing then
that I have studied so long; that, as Juvenal says,1727
“I have so often withdrawn my
hand from the ferule.” The moment I leave the harbour I run
aground. Well, to err is human and to confess one’s error wise.
Do you therefore, who are so ready to criticise and to instruct me, set
me right and give me a word for word rendering of the passage. You tell
me I should have said: “Beloved, we ought not to be carried away
by the estimation of the clergy.” Here, indeed we have eloquence
worthy of Plautus, here we have Attic grace, the true style of the
Muses. The common proverb is true of me: “He who trains an ox for
athletics loses both oil and money.”1728
| 1728 Oleum perdit et
impensas qui bovem mittit ad ceroma. | Still he is not to blame who merely
puts on the mask and plays the tragedy for another: his teachers1729
| 1729 Rufinus and
Melania, who were believed by Jerome to have instigated the theft.
Their names are inserted in some copies. | are the real culprits; since they for a
great price have taught him—to know nothing. I do not think the
worse of any Christian because he lacks skill to express himself; and I
heartily wish that we could all say with Socrates “I know that I
know nothing;”1730
| 1730 Plato, Apol. Soc.
21, 22. | and carry out
the precept of another wise man, “Know thyself.”1731
| 1731 This saying is
variously attributed to Chilon and others of the seven wise men of
Greece. | I have always held in esteem a holy
simplicity but not a wordy rudeness. He who declares that he imitates
the style of apostles should first imitate the virtue of their lives;
the great holiness of which made up for much plainness of speech. They
confuted the syllogisms of Aristotle and the perverse ingenuities of
Chrysippus by raising the dead. Still it would be absurd for one of
us—living as we do amid the riches of Crœsus and the
luxuries of Sardanapalus—to make his boast of mere ignorance. We
might as well say that all robbers and criminals would be men of
culture if they were to hide their blood-stained swords in books of
philosophy and not in trunks of trees.
13. I have exceeded the limits of a letter, but I have
not exceeded in the expression of my chagrin. For, though I am called a
falsifier, and have my reputation torn to shreds, wherever there are
shuttles and looms and women to work them; I am content to repudiate the charge
without retaliating in kind. I leave everything to your discretion. You
can read the letter of Epiphanius both in Greek and in Latin; and, if
you do so, you will see at once the value of my accusers’
lamentations and insulting complaints. For the rest, I am satisfied to
have instructed one of my dearest friends and am content simply to stay
quiet in my cell and to wait for the day of judgment. If it may be so,
and if my enemies allow it, I hope to write for you, not philippics
like those of Demosthenes or Tully, but commentaries upon the
scriptures. E.C.F. INDEX & SEARCH
|
