> Jerome, doctor (420): His father took great care to have his son
> instructed in religion and in the first principles of letters and
> sent
> him to Rome for education. Jerome had there as a tutor the famous
> pagan
> grammarian Donatus. Concerning his translation of the Bible, Butler
> writes: "His new translation from the Hebrew of most of the books of
> the
> Old Testament was the work of his years of retreat at Bethlehem ...
> He
> did not translate the books in order, but began by the books of
> Kings,
> and took the rest in hand at different times. The only parts of the
> Latin Bible called the Vulgate which were not either translated or
> worked over by Jerome are the books of Wisdom, Ecclesiasticus, Baruch
>
> and the two books of Machabees."
I quote (subject to correction from the Krafty Doctor) from Plater and
White, "A Grammar of the Vulgate":
The modern Vulgate is a composite work, only some parts of which are
due to Jerome. It may be arranged in six divisions, giving his share
in an ascending scale:
(1) OLD LATIN, wholly untouched by Jerome, as merely 'ecclesiastical',
not 'canonical': Wisdom, Ecclesiasticus, I and II Maccabees, Baruch.
(2) OLD LATIN, slightly revised, but to an extent hard to determine:
Acts, Epistles, Apocalypse. Here Jerome left a good deal uncorrected;
and in later MSS the Vulgate and the Old Latin texts were often mixed,
so that the traces of his revision were still further obscured.
(3) Free and rapid translation from the CHALDEE, as Jerome calls it
[i.e. Aramaic]: Tobias (i.e. Tobit) and Judith. The former book was
finished in one day, the latter in a single sitting (lucubratiuncula).
(4) Translation from the SEPTUAGINT: The Psalter. The Psalter
included in the Bible is this earlier or 'Gallican'; not the later
translation made by Jerome direct from the Hebrew.
(5) Revision and partial correction of the Old Latin from the most
ancient Greek MSS available: the Gospels.
(6) Jerome's independent translation from the HEBREW, the first ever
made: the Canonical Books of the Old Testament, with the exception of
the Psalter.
Any inaccuracies should be referred to Messrs. Plater and White, now
deceased.
The Supple Doctor.
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