Vetus Testamentum Graecum: Septuagint with Latin Translation

...their understanding; their opinions and remarkable scholarly works can sometimes hardly, if at all, be perceived without prior knowledge of that version. Moreover, the interpretation of the Vulgata Vulgate (the Latin Bible) will become clearer and more lucid in many places with the help of the seventy men referring to the seventy-two translators of the Septuagint. And what shall I say of the instrument of the New Testament, whose principal testimonies were drawn from their version? For, as Saint Jerome says, "Wherever the holy Apostles or apostolic men speak to the people, they mostly use those testimonies that had already been spread among the nations." And here, most excellent Prelate, you might marvel at the miracle of divine providence by which this translation of the Holy Scripture was made, in the very language that had become known throughout all nations, and at the time when their salvation was approaching, so that the divine books might be spread everywhere, and thus all the nations, which were then sitting in darkness and in the shadow of death, might be prepared for the light of evangelical truth. This book, therefore, a second precursor of Christ, which acted as a midwife to the nascent Church and a nurse to the growing one, is clearly most worthy of being cherished with all esteem and fostered with studies. "This is the book of the commandments of God, and the law that is for ever: all they that hold it shall come to life." Since, therefore, it is in everyone's interest, we have taken care that it should be accommodated to everyone's capabilities; moreover, with the Latin translation placed word-for-word alongside it, this most wholesome spring will be opened to all, even to those who are foreigners to the Greek language. You therefore, most Reverend Prelate, who have "known the sacred letters from infancy," who have had them as a solace in adversity, and who turn the most holy Code with your hand by night and by day, being by your own office its guardian and interpreter, I ask that you favor our attempts, and may you deign to water with the dew of your blessing the labors exhausted by us, and may God indeed give the increase.