Saint Jerome, Complete Works, Vol. I

35. Libraries and manuscripts which we use and how. — Having arranged these things, as it seemed, quite conveniently, I turned myself to purifying the text itself, and applied my mind entirely to it as far as it could be done. The first effort was to search the shelves of libraries and to diligently compare and describe whatever manuscripts were relevant to our matter. And I did not entrust this labor to the faith or diligence of another, as is often the case, because I have found that those who have not been exercised for a long time previously either in reading ancient codices or in reading the author whom they are comparing do not perform this work very curiously or usefully. Therefore, however much this labor is most thankless, I have certainly performed the greatest part with my own eyes and my own diligence; nor did I despair of my mind due to the length of the work or the weariness that almost creeps in, which the abundance of variant readings and most certain emendations refreshed from time to time. The more famous libraries I examined are, first of all, the Vatican at Rome, with its immense store of excellent codices; and, with the addition of other libraries—the Urbinate, the Palatine, and the Queen of Sweden's—it is richer than can be said. Then another there of the Cistercian monks, formerly the Nonantulan, now of the Holy Cross in Jerusalem, of which I had quite a few examples of venerable antiquity. Thence the Milanese, commonly the Ambrosian, equally well-instructed, especially with the very ancient and, for the most part, best-regarded copies of St. Columbanus of Bobbio transferred here. Finally, this Veronese of ours, or that of the most ample chapter of canons, which, if it is far inferior to the others in the number of books, almost excels in antiquity and excellence. To these can be added the Parmese, from which I particularly had an elegant and emended codex of the Eusebio-Hieronymian chronicle at hand, and the Vercellese, which is much better instructed; then other various ones which I would call private, for it is not possible to list individual codices with an instructed catalog at leisure, and to discuss their age, especially since I addressed each by its own name in the notes where it was necessary to establish trust. Moreover, since I encountered a huge number of manuscripts in these libraries, I decided to use their authority in a way other than what is commonly done. Namely, before I read from cover to cover, as they say, I put their faith to the test; for since it is possible to find many who appear not undeservedly to have been described from one and the same exemplar, because they agreed on the very same critical cruxes and the same errors of the scribes, I judged them to be worth no more than one codex; [and] I invited others, which I judged to have flowed from a different source, into consultation, which, when they agreed on any reading of no small moment, only then prevailed by authority, and when there was a struggle and variation, by their own disagreements either cast suspicion on the health of the passage or taught the remedy. Following this law, I nevertheless preferred those which approached their source, that is, the age of Jerome, more closely; nor should anyone think it spoken rashly if, of those I use, I would prefer many to the tenth century, and almost all to the seventh.

36. By what method the text was emended. — In re-establishing the text from these ἀντιγράφοις copies, I held to this further method, that I would not dare to change anything unless the error manifested itself clearly from the ignorance of the old scribes or the audacity of critics; nor did I attribute so much to even the most approved membranes that I would drive out the received scripture from them alone, but I weighed and examined the context of the speech, the deeper sense, the use of Jerome in writing, and his talent. Those readings which, with these gifts and the argument of right reason, were approved by the suffrage of ancient books, I brought into the text; and indeed there are quite many which had escaped the skill of prudent editors before, and many others commonly received which I deserted, concerning which, as if they were found in all manuscripts, there was not even a doubt. Conjectures, which were born at home in great numbers, I suppressed often at the threshold, lest I disturb things that were moderately well established; if, however, the sense itself indicated some corrupt place, and I could restore it from talent while the manuscripts were silent, whenever I could demonstrate the causes of the error most evidently in the notes, why should I allow the learned to suffer annoyance for longer, or have the slip objected to by the unlearned? Yet I did this very rarely and cautiously, and when the faulty writing of the ancient codices themselves was not so much an indication as an argument; so that I do not doubt that there will be prudent men who find matter to blame more for timidity than temerity. For with a certain religious diligence, we preferred at times to propose even a liquid truth to the judgment of the reader than to risk [it] regarding the sense of the author.

37. Variant readings. — I append variant readings, in the extracting and digesting of which I had almost this method. First, those which are mere pranks of scribes, and the huge force of idle diversities, which, whether you reject or place in the spot of the printed [text], [mean] nothing.