Jerome's Preface to the Vulgate translation of Job.
While Jerome's earliest Latin translations of the Christian Bible were based exclusively on Greek texts (including the Greek translation of Hebrew Scripture known as the "Septuagint" for the seventy Jewish elders who supposedly worked on the translation ), he later came to believe that an accurate Latin Bible translation could only be achieved by comparing the Greek with the Hebrew text, or "Hebrew Truth" as he called it. His method was quite controversial, as it was seen by some to undermine the authority of the Greek Christian Bible, and so Jerome was forced to defend his method on numerous occasions, as here.
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[The following brief introduction and translation are from the CCEL
(Christian Classics Ethereal Library) web site]
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 [the Septuagint]; 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, it 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 little muraena[1],
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, "May the day perish wherein I was born, and the night in
which it was said, a man-child is conceived,"[2]
to the place where before the close of the book it is written "Therefore I blame
myself and repent in dust and ashes,"[3]
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 Alcaeus, and Sappho, let him read Philo,
Josephus, Origen, Eusebius of Caesarea, 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[4]; 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, and he will find out that what he objects to
in me, is the result of sound learning, not of malice.[5]
NOTES
[1] A small fish well known to the ancients, but apparently
not identified with any species known to us.
[2] Job iii. 3.
[3] Job xlii. 6.
[4] Jerome refers to his own work here using the first person
plural
[5] 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." In other words, even if some object to Jerome's translation, he
hopes they will recognize that the program is motivated by scholarship rather
than a lack of faith or a rejection of the Greek fathers.