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| Job.
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Job.
This was put into circulation about the same time as the
sixteen prophets, that is, about the year 393. It was written in 392.
It has no dedication, but is full of personal interest, and shows the
deplorable state in which the text of many parts of Scripture was
before his time, thus justifying his boast, “I have rescued Job
from the dunghill.”
I am compelled at every step in my treatment of the
books of Holy Scripture to reply to the abuse of my opponents, who
charge my translation with being a censure of the Seventy; as though
Aquila among Greek authors, and Symmachus and Theodotion, had not
rendered word for word, or paraphrased, or combined the two methods in
a sort of translation which is neither the one nor the other; and as
though Origen had not marked all the books of the Old Testament with
obeli and asterisks, which he either introduced or adopted from
Theodotion, and inserted in the old translation, thus showing that what
he added was deficient in the older version. My detractors must
therefore learn either to receive altogether what they have in part
admitted, or they must erase my translation and at the same time their
own asterisks. For they must allow that those translators who it is
clear have left out numerous details, have erred in some points;
especially in the book of Job, where, if you withdraw such passages as
have been added and marked with asterisks, the greater part of the book
will be cut away. This, at all events, will be so in Greek. On the
other hand, previous to the publication of our recent translation with
asterisks and obeli, about seven or eight hundred lines were missing in
the Latin, so that the book, mutilated, torn, and disintegrated,
exhibits its deformity to those who publicly read it. The present
translation follows no ancient translator, but will be found to
reproduce now the exact words, now the meaning, now both together of
the original Hebrew, Arabic, and occasionally the Syriac. For an
indirectness and a slipperiness attaches to the whole book, even in the
Hebrew; and, as orators say in Greek, it5401
is tricked out with figures of speech,
and while it says one thing, it does another; just as if you close your
hand to hold an eel or a little5402
| 5402 A small fish well
known to the ancients, but apparently not identified with any species
known to us. | muræna, the more you squeeze it,
the sooner it escapes. I remember that in order to understand this
volume, I paid a not inconsiderable sum for the services of a teacher,
a native of Lydda, who was amongst the Hebrews reckoned to be in the
front rank; whether I profited at all by his teaching, I do not know;
of this one thing I am sure, that I could translate only that which I
previously understood. Well, then, from the beginning of the book to
the words of Job, the Hebrew version is in prose. Further, from the
words of Job where he says,5403
“May the
day perish wherein I was born, and the night in which it was said, a
man-child is conceived,” to the place where before the close of
the book it is written5404
“Therefore I blame myself and
repent in dust and ashes,” we have hexameter verses running in
dactyl and spondee: and owing to the idiom of the language other feet
are frequently introduced not containing the same number of syllables,
but the same quantities. Sometimes, also, a sweet and musical rhythm is
produced by the breaking up of the verses in accordance with the laws
of metre, a fact better known to prosodists than to the ordinary
reader. But from the aforesaid verse to the end of the book the small
remaining section is a prose composition. And if it seem incredible to
any one that the Hebrews really have metres, and that, whether we
consider the Psalter or the Lamentations of Jeremiah, or almost all the
songs of Scripture, they bear a resemblance to our Flaccus, and the
Greek Pindar, and Alcæus, and Sappho, let him read Philo,
Josephus, Origen, Eusebius of Cæsarea, and with the aid of their
testimony he will find that I speak the truth. Wherefore, let my
barking critics listen as I tell them that my motive in toiling at this
book was not to censure the ancient translation, but that those
passages in it which are obscure, or those which have been omitted, or
at all events, through the fault of copyists have been corrupted, might
have light thrown upon them by our translation; for we have some slight
knowledge of Hebrew, and, as regards Latin, my life, almost from the
cradle, has been spent in the company of grammarians, rhetoricians, and
philosophers. But if, since the version of the Seventy was published,
and even now, when the Gospel of Christ is beaming forth, the Jewish
Aquila, Symmachus, and Theodotion, judaising heretics, have been
welcomed amongst the Greeks—heretics, who, by their deceitful
translation, have concealed many mysteries of salvation, and yet, in
the Hexapla are found in the Churches and are expounded by churchmen; ought
not I, a Christian, born of Christian parents, and who carry the
standard of the cross on my brow, and am zealous to recover what is
lost, to correct what is corrupt, and to disclose in pure and faithful
language the mysteries of the Church, ought not I, let me ask, much
more to escape the reprobation of fastidious or malicious readers? Let
those who will keep the old books with their gold and silver letters on
purple skins, or, to follow the ordinary phrase, in “uncial
characters,” loads of writing rather than manuscripts, if only
they will leave for me and mine, our poor pages and copies which are
less remarkable for beauty than for accuracy. I have toiled to
translate both the Greek versions of the Seventy, and the Hebrew which
is the basis of my own, into Latin. Let every one choose which he
likes, and5405
| 5405 Reading
studiosum me magis quam malevolum probet. Substituting se
for me, according to some manuscripts, we must translate
“and thus show that he is actuated more by a love of learning
than by malice.” | he will find out that what he
objects to in me, is the result of sound learning, not of malice.E.C.F. INDEX & SEARCH
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