Complete Works of Saint Jerome, Vol. X

[...continued from previous page] ...ples from the Epistles of Paul. Let them read, rejoicing in hope, serving the time; we shall read, rejoicing in hope, serving the Lord. Let them think that an accusation against a priest must be accepted by all means; let us read, Against a priest, do not accept an accusation, etc. Let it please them to say, A human word, and worthy of all acceptance; we, with the Greeks, shall avoid error and say, A faithful word, etc. From this, an argument is drawn for the remaining books, and indeed for the entire Canon of the New Testament, which the holy Father brought into conformity with the authority of Greek codices. Although he provided a prologue only for the Gospels, this is because that part is the first and most noble of all, and perhaps also because he applied his remedial hand and effort to it in far more places.

Richard Bentley, who, for the purpose of preparing an edition of Jerome’s work of this kind based on the most ancient manuscripts of various nations, tested the judgments of learned men by issuing a prospectus, preferred to exhibit a specimen of his great Work from the final chapter of the Apocalypse, in order to show that he did not even doubt that this book, which seems subject to many criticisms from the critics, had been revised by Jerome according to the Greek. That labor could have greatly benefited us, had the death of the Editor himself not intervened after long delays. In the meantime, even without it, we have omitted nothing that was to our purpose.

We have prefixed to the Canons of the Gospels the letter of Eusebius to Carpianus in Greek and Latin, which was missing in the preceding edition of Martianay, yet was absolutely necessary for understanding the structure of the Canons. We have scrutinized the Gospels themselves, the Epistles of Paul, and the remainder of the text of Scripture against the most ancient and best-regarded manuscript codices, having little or no regard for more recent ones. Although there is a great number of these in the libraries of Italy, they do not possess equal authority when the matter at hand is the restoration of Jerome's original reading. You will distinguish the rest from the annotations.

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