JEROME’S PREFACES. xxii

The same author’s preface to the Twelve Prophets.

237

1The order of the Twelve Prophets Commonly known today as the "Minor Prophets," from Hosea to Malachi. is not the same among the Hebrews as it is among us. Therefore, they have been arranged here according to how they are read there. Hosea is concise original: "commaticus," meaning he speaks in short, punchy, or broken sentences and speaks as if through brief maxims. Joel is clear at the beginning but more obscure toward the end. And right through to Malachi, each has his own characteristics. The Hebrews believe Malachi to be Ezra the scribe and teacher of the Law. Because it would take too long to speak of them all now, I only want to advise you, O Paula and Eustochium Two aristocratic Roman women who were Jerome's closest students and patrons, that the Twelve Prophets constitute a single book. I also wish to note that Hosea was a contemporary original: "synchronon" of Isaiah, while Malachi lived in the times of Haggai and Zechariah. In cases where the time is not stated in the title, it is understood that they prophesied under the same kings as those prophets whose titles appear before theirs.

The same author’s preface to the Evangelists, addressed to Damasus.

3You compel me to make a new work out of an old one: that I should sit as a kind of judge over the copies of the Scriptures scattered throughout the whole world, and because they vary among themselves, I must decide which ones agree with the Greek truth original: "Graeca veritate." Jerome prioritizes the original Greek manuscripts over existing Latin translations.. This is a work of piety, but a dangerous presumption: to judge others when I myself am to be judged by everyone; to change the tongue of an old man and to pull a world already growing gray back to the beginnings of children. For what learned or unlearned man, when he takes the volume into his hands and sees that what he reads differs from the "saliva" he once tasted A metaphor for the familiar wording people grew up with, will not immediately burst into speech, shouting that I am a forger and a sacrilegious man for daring to add, change, or correct anything in the ancient books?

Two comforts sustain me against such envy: first, that it is you, the Supreme Pontiff Pope Damasus I, who reigned from 366–384 AD, who orders it to be done; and second, that even the testimony of my detractors proves that what varies cannot be true. For if we are to put faith in the Latin copies, let them tell us in which ones: for there are almost as many versions as there are codices. But if the truth is to be sought from many sources, why not return to the Greek original and correct those things which were either poorly rendered by flawed translators, or more perversely "improved" by unskilled presumers, or added and changed by sleepy scribes?

I am not now discussing the Old Testament, which, having been translated into Greek by the Seventy Elders The Septuagint, has reached us in a third-hand stage. I do not ask what Aquila or Symmachus thought, nor why Theodotion walks a middle path between the new and the old. Let that be the true interpretation which the Apostles approved. I am speaking now of the New Testament, which is undoubtedly Greek, except for the Apostle Matthew, who first published the Gospel of CHRIST in Hebrew letters in Judea. Certainly, where this Gospel disagrees in our own language and leads us down different paths of streams, we must seek the source in the single fountainhead. I ignore those codices associated with the names of Lucian and Hesychius, which a perverse contention of a few men upholds; they were not permitted to "correct" anything in the Old Testament after the Seventy, nor did it profit them to "correct" the New, since the Scripture previously translated into the languages of many nations teaches that what they added is false.

Therefore, this present little preface promises only the four Gospels, whose order is this: Matthew, Mark, Luke, John. These have been corrected by a comparison of Greek codices—but ancient ones—so that they would not differ too much from the customary Latin reading. We have tempered the pen so that only those things which seemed to change the meaning were corrected, while we allowed the rest to remain as they were.

We have also expressed the Canons A cross-referencing system created by Eusebius of Caesarea to find parallel passages in different Gospels. which Eusebius, the Bishop of Caesarea, followed from Ammonius of Alexandria and organized into ten numbers, just as they are found in the Greek. If any curious reader wishes to know which passages in the Gospels are the same, or similar, or unique, they will learn through this distinction. For a great error has grown strong in our codices because when one Evangelist said more on the same subject, people added it to the other Gospel where they thought it was missing. Or, when another expressed the same sense differently, the person who had first read one of the four would think the others should be "corrected" to match that first example. Thus it happens that in our copies, everything is mixed together: in Mark, you find many things from Luke and Matthew; in Matthew, many things from John and Mark; and in the others, you find things belonging to the rest.

Therefore, when you read the Canons placed below, the error of confusion will be removed; you will know the similarities of all and restore to each their own. In the first canon, four agree: Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. In the second, three: Matthew, Mark, and Luke. In the third, three: Matthew, Luke, and John. In the fourth, three: Matthew, Mark, and John. In the fifth, two: Matthew and Luke. In the sixth, two: Matthew and Mark. In the seventh, two: Matthew and John. In the eighth, two: Luke and Mark. In the ninth, two: Luke and John. In the tenth, each recorded their own unique material not found in the others.

To each Gospel, starting from one and going to the end of the books, a differing number is added. This number, written in black ink, has another number under it written in red original: "minio," a bright red pigment. This second number, which goes up to ten, indicates in which canon the first number should be sought. When you open the book and wish to know which canon a particular chapter belongs to, you will be taught immediately by the number placed below it. By returning to the beginning, where the collection of canons is set apart, and finding that same canon by the title at the top, you will find the number you were seeking for that Evangelist. By looking at the nearby paths of the others, you will note which numbers they have in their respective columns. Once you know this, you can return to the volumes of each individual Evangelist, and having found the numbers you noted, you will find the places where they said the same or similar things.

However, one should be careful lest an error arise from the similarity of numbers. If in the notation of the distinct canons, three Evangelists have the same number listed two, three, four, or more times in a row, while the fourth has different numbers, it means that those three said it only once in that place, but the fourth put it in his own volume as many times as there are different numbers listed against the repeated numbers of the others. Likewise, if in one or even two of them, the same canon number is found twice, three times, four times, or more in order...