Bellarmine · De Controversiis · On the Word of God · Book II: On the Editions and Versions of Scripture
Chapter 8: On the Latin editions
Our translation, from the Latin of the Opera Omnia (Paris: Vivès, 1870–74), vol. I, De Verbo Dei, Book II: On the Editions and Versions of Scripture. The Latin source text is public domain; this English rendering is released with the site. Scripture quotations follow Bellarmine's Vulgate citations, rendered in Douay-Rheims wording where he quotes exactly. Click “Show the Latin” for the original (raw OCR of the scan; scanning errors remain — the scan itself is the authority).
Concerning the Latin editions we have taken three things to explain. First, how many and which were the Latin editions of old. Secondly, who is the author of that which is now called the Vulgate. Thirdly, of how great authority this very Vulgate edition is.
And that we may begin with the first, that the Latin editions of the Old Testament from the Greek version of the Seventy, and of the New Testament from the Greek source, were almost innumerable before the times of Jerome, blessed Augustine testifies book 2 On Christian Doctrine chapter 11 in these words: “Those,” he says, “who translated the Scriptures from the Hebrew tongue into the Greek can be numbered; but the Latin interpreters in no way. For as, in the first times of the Faith, a Greek codex came into anyone's hands, and he seemed to himself to have some little faculty of both tongues, he dared to interpret.” The same teaches Saint Jerome in his preface on Josue: “Since among the Latins,” he says, “there are as many copies as codices, and each one has, according to his own judgment, either added or subtracted what seemed to him.”
Nevertheless there was one more common, which was called the old and Vulgate edition, as is plain from blessed Gregory in his preface on the Morals chapter 5, and from blessed Jerome on chapters 14 and 49 of Isaiah, and elsewhere. And this seems to be that Italic interpretation which blessed Augustine book 2 On Christian Doctrine chapter 15 prefers to all the other Latin, when he says: “Among the interpretations themselves let the Italic be preferred to the rest; for it is more tenacious of the words, with clearness of sense.”
But St. Jerome twice turned the Old Testament into Latin: first from the Greek, that is, from the version of the Seventy, as can be understood from book 2 against Rufinus, and from epistle 10 of Augustine and the following 11, which is Jerome's to Augustine, and also from the preface on Job. And again from the Hebrew, as he himself testifies at the end of the book On Illustrious Men, and in the prefaces of the several books which he made Latin.
But the New Testament he did not turn from Greek into Latin, but only emended from the many errors which had crept in by the fault of the copyists. Of which his labor he himself thus speaks in the book On Illustrious Men at the end: “The New Testament,” he says, “I restored to the Greek fidelity.” And in the preface of the Gospels to Damasus: “So,” he says, “we tempered our pen that, those things only being corrected which seemed to change the sense, we suffered the rest to remain as they had been.” But if anyone think that the New Testament was translated by him, because blessed Augustine epistle 10 to Jerome writes, “Therefore we give no small thanks to God for thy work, that thou hast interpreted the Gospel from the Greek, etc.,” let him hear Jerome solving this doubt in epistle 89 to Augustine, which is the eleventh among Augustine's epistles: “If you receive me in the emendation of the New Testament, etc.”
Moreover blessed Jerome's version from the Hebrew into Latin soon began to be received by certain Churches, and to be publicly read, as is plain from epistle 10 of Augustine to Jerome, yet so that the other old edition also was not despised. Which is understood more openly from blessed Gregory in the epistle before the preface on the Morals chapter 5, where he says that in his time the Roman Church was wont to use both editions, that is, the old translated from the Greek, and the new of Jerome translated from the Hebrew. But after the times of blessed Gregory, all the Latin editions seem to have vanished except that one which we now call the old and Vulgate, of whose author we shall soon speak. But in this our age we seem to have returned again to that age in which all who were able at all continually translated the sacred books; since indeed the Latin interpretations of the more recent men, and especially of the heretics, can scarcely be numbered. But so much of these.
Show the Latin (Vives edition, OCR)
CAPUT vm. De Latinis editionibus. De Latinis editionibus tria nobis explican¬ da sumpsimus. Primum, quot et quae fuerint olim Latinae editiones. Secundo, quis sit au¬ ctor ejus quae nunc Vulgata dicitur. Tertio, quantae sit auctoritatis haec ipsa vulgata editio. Ac ut incipiamus a primo , editiones Lati¬ nas Testamenti veteris ex Graeca versione LXX , et Testamenti novi ex Graeco fonte prope innumerabiles fuisse ante tempora Hieronymi, testatur B. Augustinus lib. II. doctrin. Christ. cap. 11. his verbis : «Qui, inquit, Scripturas ex Hebraea lingua in Grae¬ cam verterunt numerari possunt :-Latini au¬ tem interpretes nullo modo. Ut enim cuique •rimis Fidei temporibus in manus venit co- „^'^px Graecus , et aliquantulum facultatis sibi utriusque linguae habere videbatur, ausus est interpretari. » Idem docet Sanctus Hie¬ ronymus preefat. in Josue : « Cum apud La¬ tinos, inquit , tot sint exemplaria quot codi¬ ces, et unusquisque pro arbitrio suo vel addiderit, vel subtraxerit quod ei visum est. » Nihilominus tamen una erat communior, quae vetus et vulgata editio dicebatur, ut pa¬ tet ex B. Gregorio praefat. in lib. Moral.c.V. et ex B. Hieronymo in cap. XIV. et XLIX. Isaiae, et alibi. Et haec videtur esse illa Itala interpretatio, quam B. Augustinus lib. II. doct. Christ. cap. 15. omnibus aliis Latinis anteponit, cum ait: «In ipsis interpretationi¬ bus Itala caeteris praeferatur : nam est ver¬ borum tenacior cum perspicacitate senten¬ tiae. » At S. Hieronymus bis Testamentum vetus in Latinum convertit, primum ex Graeco , id est, ex versione LXX, ut intelligi potest ex lib. II. contra Ruffinum, et ex epist. 10. Au¬ gustini et sequent. 11. quae est Hieronymi ad Augustinum, necnon ex praefat. in Job. Et rursum ex Hebraeo, ut ipse idem testatur in lib. de viris illustr. extremo, et in praefa¬ tionibus singulorum librorum quos .Latinos fecit. Novum autem Testamentum non convertit de Graeco in Latinum, sed solum emendavit a multis erroribus, qui vitio Librariorum ir¬ repserant. De quo suo labore sic ipse loqui¬ tur lib. de viris illustr. in fine : « Novum Tes¬ tamentum, inquit, Graecae fidei reddidi. » Et ■praef. Evangeliorum ad Damasum : « Ita, j> inquit, « calamo temperavimus, ut iis tan- tunf , quae sensum mutare videbantur, cor¬ rectis reliqua manere pateremur ut fuerant. » Quod si quis putet conversum esse ab illo novum Testamentum, quoniam B. Augusti¬ nus epist. 10. ad Hieronymum scribit .‘«Pro¬ inde non parvas Deo gratias agimus de opere tuo, quod Evangelium ex Graeco interpreta¬ tus es, etc. » audiat Hieronymum dubium hoc solventem in epist. 89. ad Augustinum, quae est 11. inter epist. Augustini : «Sime,» inquit , « in novi Testamenti emendatione suscipis etc. » Porro B. Hieronymi versio ex Hebraeo in Latinum mox coepit a quibusdaim Ecclesiis recipi, et publice legi, ut patet ex epist. 10. Augustini ad Hieronymum, ita tamen utetiam alia editio antiqua non contemneretur. Quod apertius intelligitur ex B. Gregorio in epist. ante praefat. in lib. Moral. cap. 5. ubi dicit, suo tempore Romanam Ecclesiam utraque editione uti consuevisse; id est, antiqua versa ex Graeco, 'et nova Hieronymi versa ex He¬ braeo. Post tempora autem B. Gregorii, vi¬ dentur omnes Latinae editiones evanuisse praeter unam istam, quam nunc veterem, et vulgatam vocamus ; de cujus auctore mox dicemus. Hoc autem nostro saeculo iterum ad illam aetatem rediisse videmur, in qua omnes qui aliquid poterant, continuo sa¬ cros libros transferebant. Siquidem recentio- rum, ac praesertim haereticorum Latinae in¬ terpretationes numerari vix possunt. Sed de his hactenus. »