PREFACE.

To compare [the current text] with the former, as is established, neither was adorned by the labor and refinement of a new translation. There are, however, learned men—among whom is Simon, Book II, Chap. 10—who contend that the words added under asterisks were translated immediately from the Hebrew into Latin by the holy Interpreter. This is indeed true, if they are speaking of the Book of Chronicles, which the holy Father testifies he compared—in that very revision according to the Seventy—with a teacher of the law who was held in admiration among the Hebrews, from the crown of the head, as they say, to the tip of the toe: for it was so corrupt in both Greek and Latin codices that it seemed to contain not so much Hebrew as certain barbaric and Sarmatian names heaped together. Therefore, he warned in explicit words: Wherever you see asterisks, that is, stars ✳ radiating in this volume, there you may know it was added from the Hebrew, which is not held in the Latin codices. Truly, it seems not to have been done so in the others, in which the holy Interpreter himself signifies again that he translated the Greek from the edition of Theodotion, just as they had been stitched on by Origen in the Hexapla. We shall praise one passage on this subject from Letter 112, to Augustine:

Wherever, he says, there are virgules, that is, obelisks, it is signified that the Seventy said more than is held in the Hebrew. But where there are asterisks, that is, shining little stars, it was added from the edition of Theodotion by Origen: and there we have translated the GREEK.

The words which are immediately connected to these, We have expressed here from the Hebrew itself, which we understood, sometimes preserving the truth of the meanings rather than the order of the words, have been a stumbling block to those who are of the contrary opinion; for they do not refer, as they think, to that revision according to the Greek, but—as the context of the passage proves—to that other translation without these signs, from the Hebrew, which he had mentioned in the immediately preceding period. But that we may not skirmish longer with such testimonies, everyone will be able to judge the matter for himself from the books themselves, once a comparison of both texts has been made.

Now, a few words on the books individually. Tobias and Judith occur first, which, however, were translated into Latin not from the Greek, but from a Hebrew or Chaldean exemplar. Perhaps it is also sufficient that what was to our purpose has been said about these in the notes to the prologues, which it does not seem worth the effort to repeat here. The first book that is distinguished for us by asterisks and obelisks, and which properly concerns this series, is Job; a book of which it can hardly be said how many faults—not only of copyists, but also those ingrained by the fault of critics—we have freed it. I could truly say with Jerome: Job was still lying on the dungheap among the Latins, and was swarming with the worms of error. And, Just as all things were doubled to him through trial and victory, so have I in our language (I speak boldly) made him possess what he had lost. Saint Augustine in his book of Annotations, as well as the recent edition of the Alexandrian codex, provided much help for repairing the text and for restoring to the truth and to the signs of the asterisks what was either missing in countless places or was held incorrectly: which I would prefer you perceive from the reading of the work itself, rather than think our own industry is being commended to you. The Book of Psalms, which follows after, is presented from the dual edition of the holy Father, as was noted a little above, according to the Greek. It has also been explained once and again in the notes, as others before us have taught everywhere, why the former and less accurate revision is called the Roman Psalter, and the other the Gallican: in which terms the history of the matter itself, not useless, is contained. But indeed, after Walton in Prolegomena x, 5, Natalis Alexander is also mistaken in Question iii, on the Latin Vulgate, where he thinks that Jerome labored four times on the Psalter, and thus fabricates another amendment after those two from the Greek, which never existed. Peter Pithou errs in the opposite direction, on the Latin interpreters of the Bible, when he does not wish our Vulgate edition of the Psalms (which, excluding the marks of obelisks and asterisks, is entirely the same as the Psalter they call Gallican, as will be clearer than the sun to anyone comparing the text) to be considered anything other than the old one that prevailed before Jerome from that edition which was called Lucianic; and furthermore, that the only version of Jerome from the Greek exemplar is that which the Roman Psalter exhibits. The learned man was deceived because in printed copies of the Vulgate there are certain things, albeit rarely, which are not approved by Jerome: such is that in Psalm 5, verse 9: Direct my way in your sight, for which the holy Interpreter orders to be rewritten, your way in my sight. But that is the reading of the printed codices, not likewise of the manuscripts, which, just as has been noted by Jerome, read more correctly. Other things of that kind, which seem to go against his intent, were mostly brought about by the selection of obelisks in the common books, which, since they are correctly placed in the old hand-copied manuscripts, eliminate the difficulty entirely. It has gone famously for us, indeed, that we have not lacked such codices, and those of the highest antiquity and correctness, along with the foremost Vatican one, formerly belonging to the Queen of the Swedes, which is written in what they call uncial letters.