PREFACE

TO THIS EDITION.

BENEVOLENT READER,

We offer you a remarkable monument of antiquity, the translation of the seventy interpreters the Septuagint, once so highly praised by the Fathers and approved by their common consent; which Ptolemy Philadelphus, King of Egypt, caused to be made at great expense and with the most exact diligence about three hundred years before Christ; and which Pope Sixtus V, by his own authority and vigilance, rescued from the darkness, restored to its pristine luster and integrity as far as was permitted, and commended to the whole Christian world. A more valuable and precious treasure could hardly be offered to you. For if you look at the cause, what is more noble? If the subject matter, what is holier? If the fruit, what is more useful? If the study of literature, what is fuller of variety? If antiquity, what is more worthy of greater veneration?

"For the apostles and apostolic men," as Morinus says, "used this translation and no other; with it they confirmed the dogmas of the faith and their own doctrine; and finally, they deposited this one alone in the bosom and protection of the Churches, and entrusted it to the faith of the Bishops. Nor was the Christian Church merely born with it fostering and acting as a midwife; but having been made tender, it was nourished and educated on no other milk of the divine word than that expressed from this translation; it grew, sustained by no other food, and stretched out its arms across the whole world. For four hundred years, that is, up to Saint Jerome, no Catholic dared to translate otherwise than as the Seventy had prescribed. The Latin translations, as many as there were, were made from the edition of the Seventy. That edition was the trans-"