PREFACE.

The works which Jerome translated into Latin from the Greek text of the sacred code, if you except one or two small books, once the Hebrew Canon was already completed, are contained in this tenth volume of his works. This place and order seemed to be demanded by the very sequence of this review of ours, or, to speak more truly, by the type of his Hieronymian interpretation, derived from the other source of the Scriptures. This volume itself is divided into two parts: one of which contains the monuments of the Old Testament, of which not many survive after the great shipwreck; the other includes the entire New Testament: both from the Greek, except that the former reflects a copy apographon transcript, while the latter reflects the original and archetypon archetype text. So that you may properly understand these things, they must be explained more clearly part by part, as is the custom, before you approach the reading, and the matter must be reviewed from a slightly deeper perspective.

Jerome, than whom no one since the birth of man has ever excelled more in the knowledge of divine Letters, and no one has contributed more diligence and industry to its acquisition, first made a trial of his genius and erudition by subjecting the Latin version of his own time—which swarmed with defects, whether by the fault of the interpreters or the scribes—to the native copy of the Seventy, and by correcting it. He preluded such a massive work with that review of the Psalms, almost, I would say, tumultuous, which, as he himself says, he had prepared hurriedly while placed at Rome with Damasus, and for the most part, only in great measure. Perhaps he did not even use another Greek edition at that time than the one that was at hand, and which is called the Koine Common, because it was commonly held. Certainly, the matter itself persuades us that even the Hexaplar of Origen, equipped with obelisks and asterisks, was not even taken into council. Although this rudiment itself turned out well, and was approved by the votes of the Roman Church in particular (it is still called the Roman Psalter), he applied his mind to remaking that entire version from the beginning according to the Greek, and indeed according to that far most corrected Hexaplar text. And there seems to be no doubt that he executed the purpose through individual parts, and polished the entire Old Testament Canon with that continuous comparison of the archetype: yet even if only two books now survive from that review intact, Job and the Psalter, and as many prologues to the books of Solomon and Chronicles—which cause the lost work to be desired all the more. If that labor had survived the ages, we would have a treasure of sacred erudition of great value, from which it would be possible both to restore the Hexaplar edition itself often, and to restore the remains of the Old Latin with the help of asterisks and obelisks: then, to distinguish without any difficulty what the intent and spirit of that interpreter was in the most vexed places. How great these are, those easily perceive who desire to scrutinize the sacred Scriptures according to the mind of the ancients and from the original books. Now, since it has been given to enjoy only that particle, it behooves us to embrace it with all greater care and study, so that in preparing its edition, we contribute nothing but work.

But there are, and there were once, not unlearned critics, from whose number is Serarius in the Prolegomena, who are so far from grieving over this loss that they rather contend that no books existed other than the praised books recognized by Jerome against the Greek. For a long time, Martianæus also held this opinion as uncertain. We contend that all their arguments have no weight; rather, that the Saintly Interpreter himself vouches for it in the way we feel. They say that he only remembered these books in his work against Rufinus, when he defended this interpretation of his according to the LXX from his accusations: nor, furthermore, did he ever mention others in the prefaces to the same books from the Hebrew; finally, when, with the books of Solomon and Chronicles from that review lost, small prefaces to them still survive, they argue that not even these would survive for others, and that no convenient cause can be offered why the Antiquarians, who saved these with the collection of prefaces, would have omitted others if they had existed. They add that to none of the ancient writers were others ever known except those praised; yet the holy Augustine in epistle 104 among the Hieronymian letters, which pertains to the year 403, when [discussing] the interpretation of Job...

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