§ 88. The method in which the versions ought to be used.

The method of using the versions is twofold. 1) Compare the translation of any book throughout, word for word and sentence for sentence, with the Hebrew text, and note the useful observations which such a comparison affords on the margin, or on the interleaved sheets of a good lexicon, where they can readily be referred to on any occasion. This method of using a version supplies many hermeneutical helps, and at the same time affords instruction respecting the character of the version. It would be proper, therefore, to confine one's self to this, were not life too short for so great a labour. As it is, one or two books must comprise the extent of such an examination.-2) Consult the versions only in the more difficult places. For this purpose concordances which add the corresponding Hebrew words are very useful, because they exhibit at one view all the meanings which are attributed in the version to any word. There are only two concordances of this kind for the Alexandrine version; KIRCHER'S, printed in 1607, which follows the order of the Hebrew alphabet, but contains also an appendix arranged according to that of the Greek; and TROMM's, printed in 1728, which is composed after the order of the Greek alphabet, and is accompanied by an appendix made after the Hebrew order, and a lexicon for the study of Origen's Hexapla. To these Concordances are to be added BIEL'S Thesaurus Philologicus seu Lexicon in LXX. et alios interpretes V. T., 1779, and SCHLEUSNER'S Spicilegium Lexici in interpretes Græcos V. T. maxime Scriptores Apocryphos, 1784 and 1786;* also, Glossæ Sacræ HESYCHII, Græce, 1785, and SUIDE et PHAVORINI Glossæ Sacræ, Græce, 1786, which were separately edited by ERNESTI.

§ 89. Requisites for a proper use of the versions.

In order that the versions may afford the expected benefit, some qualifications must previously be possessed. 1) A knowledge of the cognate dialects must be obtained. For as there is no version with

* [Since this time, SCHLEUSNER has published his Novus Thesaurus PhilologicoCriticus sive Lexicon in LXX. et reliquos interpretes Græcos ac Scriptores Apocryphos V. T., 5 vol. 8vo. 1820, 1821; to which also a Supplement has been furnished by BRETSCHNEIDER, 2 vol. 8vo. 1822, Tr.]

out many errors, the meanings given to the Hebrew are to be examined by the dialects; and a reader unacquainted with them will often charge the translator with ignorance, when his more extensive knowledge of the language, attested by the evidence of the dialects, rather entitles him to praise, even admitting that by obtruding the meaning in a place to which it does not apply he has erred against the rules of interpretation. Comp. in the Vulgate, Hab. ii. 9, qui congregat avaritiam, and in the Septuagint, ii. 5, egάvn.—2) An accurate and extensive acquaintance with the language in which the version is composed is necessary. It is impossible to use translations of translations without falling into errors; and this will be unavoidable if the erroneous Latin translations of the Oriental versions in the Polyglots, are relied on. How great a knowledge of the language of the version is requisite, may be illustrated by the fact, that men in other respects not unlearned, have misunderstood several places of our Latin Vulgate ;* as is proved by their expositions of certain words, as visitare, which is rendered to visit, while it means to regard, favourably or unfavourably; sacramentum, in Eph. v. 32, which has been explained according to its ecclesiastical use, of a sacrament, although like the Greek pugngov it means a secret, in which sense Jerome uses it when he writes to Paulinus: "Apocalypsis tot habet sacramenta quot verba;" lucifer in Isa. xiv. 12, and nuga in Zeph. iii. 18.3) A knowledge of the art of criticism is requisite. This is important, not merely in order to form a judgment of the readings of a version, but also that we may not accuse an ancient translator of error where he expresses a reading different from that now commonly received. Thus in Ps. xxii. 18, for ", as the lion, the Septuagint has wgvžav, they have pierced through, which was deri-4) The last requisite is a skil

.*

.כארו or כּרוּ ved from the reading

4114

ful observation of difficult and obscure passages, which the translators not having understood, have conjectured the sense from the subject, the series of discourse, and other circumstances. With regard to such, they cannot be considered as witnesses; they merely pass a judgment on the probability, to do which we are as competent as themselves, or more so.

[The reader will recollect that the author is a Roman Catholic. Tr.]

§ 90. Josephus and the Fathers of the Church.

The Jewish Antiquities of JOSEPHUS, may be reckoned among the versions; for although he followed the Alexandrine, yet he often examined the Hebrew text, as is proved by his abandoning the sense of that version in very many places. With regard to these he is an evidence of great authority, for he is more ancient than the other translators except the Alexandrine, the Chaldee was his vernacular dialect, and, as he was a learned priest and subsequently a commander of an army in Galilee during the war with the Romans, he was well versed in all ecclesiastical, civil and military matters. His readers, however, will find it necessary not rashly to give credence to all his statements, especially such as are warped in favour of his own nation or even of the heathens, or such as represent the temple of Solomon by a description taken from that of Herod.

Whatever is found in the writings of Origen and Jerome relating to the Hebrew, and in the books of Augustin to the Punic, is by no means to be disregarded; for those writings contain much information to which nothing superior has yet been advanced. Much of what occurs on this subject in Justin, Epiphanius, and Theodoret, is of no great consequence, although there are some things which deserve attention. The other fathers depended on the versions, and had no acquaintance with Hebrew learning, and therefore cannot testify respecting the usage of that language.

§ 91. Decree of the Council of Trent respecting Interpretation.

Lest any should consider the opinion just stated as injurious to the fathers of the church, I have thought proper to add the decree of the Council of Trent, Session 4th. The holy Synod, "in order to restrain petulant minds, decrees, that no one relying on his own knowledge, shall presume to interpret scripture, in matters of faith and morals relating to the edification of the church, distorting the sacred scripture to senses of his own contrary to that sense which mother church hath held and doth hold, to whom it belongs to judge of the true sense of the holy scriptures, or even contrary to the unanimous consent of the fathers.' A few remarks will be sufficient.

* [" Ad coercenda petulantia ingenia decernit" (sacrosancta synodus)" ut nemo suae prudentiae innixus, in rebus fidei et morum ad aedificationem ecclesiae perti

1) The petulant minds, whom the council censures, are not those Catholics who reject, as witnesses of any particular fact, persons who are ignorant of it; or, which is equivalent, exclude the fathers who had no knowledge of the Hebrew language from giving testimony respecting the Hebrew usage, and produce other witnesses whom no one doubts to have understood and intended to teach it, that is to say, the dialects, which constitute one and the same language with the Hebrew. The decree strikes at those who in that age were introducing novelties.2) One's own knowledge, which the council reproves, is not a proper knowledge; unless a man choose to pretend that the council resolved ignorant men to be the best interpreters. It is the boasted perspicacity of the innovators of that age, by means of which they endeavoured, by a perverted interpretation of scripture, to overturn ancient doctrines and institutions.

-3) This is confirmed by what follows. The knowledge referred to, is that on which the interpreter depending distorts scripture to senses of his own, to do which has always been, is still, and will ever be unlawful in all books. But no man can distort scripture to a sense of his own who admits no sense which is not proved by competent witnesses, whom no one can deny to know and to testify to the truth.4) The interpreter is prohibited from distorting scripture to senses of his own in matters of faith and morals, relating to the edification of the church, which expression, as Cardinal PALAVICINI testifies, (Hist. Conc. Trid. L. VI. c. 8.) does not refer merely to the words, contrary to that sense which mother church hath held and doth hold, but also to those, contrary to the unanimous consent of the fathers: and this law of the council only provides that no one, relying on an arrogant self-conceit, shall force the sacred scripture, in matters of faith and morals, contrary to the sense of the church, or contrary to the unanimous consent of the fathers; which is repugnant to sound reason, and, as Palavicini expressly says, was always unlawful from the very nature of the thing. The council therefore only declares, in what way scripture in matters of faith and morals is not to be explained, but it certainly

nentium, sacram scripturam ad suos sensus contorquens, contra eum sensum quem tenuit et tenet mater ecclesia, cujus est judicare de vero sensu sanctarum scripturarum, aut etiam contra unanimem consensum Patrum, ipsam scripturam interpretari audeat." Conc. Trid. cum declarat. ed. T. Gallemart, 1722. p. 9.]

does not teach on what principles it is to be explained; in a word, it is merely a negative decree, not a positive.

That this is the meaning of the decree, the circumstances of those times and the words themselves of the Council plainly declare; and consistently with this view of the matter, Benedict XIV. did not hesitate to receive favourably from the Dominican MILANTE, the dedication of the Bibliotheca Sacra of SIXTUS SENENSIS, in which objections are made to very many interpretations of the Fathers; and Cardinal Cajetan, who interpreted Scripture without any reference to the fathers, and professed it also in the plainest terms in his dedication to Clement VI., although he gave offence to many, is justified by Cardinal PALAVICINI, (Hist. Conc. Trid. L. VI. & 8.) If a man will not acquiesce in this, he must be considered as a contentious person, and left to put what sense he may think proper on the decree. Comp. Matt. xv. 14. Lu. vi. 39. [a]

(a) Although this section is evidently intended by the author as an apology to some of his brethren for his exclusion of the Fathers as witnesses to the usage of Hebrew and the cognate languages, and refers to a difficulty suggested by the opinion of the infallibility of the Church, with which Protestants have nothing to do, yet we have thought it best upon the whole to retain it. The judicious reader will know how to regard it. We are forcibly reminded of the note of Erasmus on Eph. v. 32, where the author's reputation as a scholar will not permit him to explain the word Mungov so as to support the doctrine of his church, and yet he is too much shackled by system or circumstances to speak plainly against it. Tr.]