•Thus LIghtloot (Colntsians, p. 246 n.) writes aa follows:— 'The readings of the Memphitic (or Bohairic] version are very incorrectly given even by the principal editors such as Tregelles and Ti8chcii(li)rf, the traiiblation of Wilkins being commonly adopted though full of errors, and no attention being paid to tbe various readings of Bocllicber's text' ; and >^in (li. p. 247), ' the true readings of the yyriac version are Just the reverse of those assigned to them even by the chief critical editors, Trugelles and Tisclicndorf.' In JThSt, I. Oil, it is noticed that Tiscliendort oft«n omits altogether the renderings of Philoxenian Syriac. The time has almcst come for a new edition of Tischendorf, but this will not be possible till ciitical editions of the scparat« Versions and Fathers are available.
852
VERSIONS
VEESIONS
where we might have expected uniformity, we find that the Old Latin fragments at Ljoiis, Wiirzburg, and Municli stand in quite diliereiit relations to each other in the Books of Exodus, Leviticus, and Numbers — a fact which shows that the Old Latin text in those MSS had a separate history in these separate books.
2. (a) The two considerations just mentioned depend on the fortunes of the Version after it left the hand of the translator, and are not especially characteristic of Versions ; but there are otliers which are peculiar to translations as such. Thus we have to ascertain whether a Version is primary or sucomltirtj, i.e. derived directly from the text which it is to be used to restore, or indirectly through the medium of another translation.
Perhaps the best-knOAvn illustration will be afforded by the Latin Psiilter.* Of this book we have (i.) the text of the Old Latin Psutter as contained, for instance, in MS 11947 o! the Bihlioth^qite National ; (ii.) the lioman Psalter, the first revision of Jerome made in A.D. 383 with the help of the luiyr. text of the LXX ; (iii.) the Gattican Psalter, made in a,d. 385 according to the hexaplar text of the LXX, the present Vulgate Psalter; (iv.) the PnaUerium Hebraicmn, be^un some years later, and based on a Heb. text. In the well-known Codex Caraud8 of the Latin Bible we have the third and fourth, and on the margin extracts from the first. We also find quadruple Psalters.
One more illustration may be taken, and in this case not from a MS, but from an edition! of a Version, viz. Erpenius' edition of the Arabic of a.d. 1016. Here the Gospela preserve a trans- lation from the Greek, and are therefore a primary Version ; the Acts, Pauline Epistles, and three Catholic Epistles pre- serve a translation from the Peshitta ; the other Catholic Epistles and the Apocalypse a Version from some other source. Sometimes one ian'.,'iiage preserves both primary and secondary Versions, aa, for instance, the Armenian does. Sometimes it is a matter of ar^'ument whether a Version is primary or secondary.
It will be ob^^ous that the chief value of secondary Versions is in regard to the primary from which they are taken ; those derived from the LXX, for instance, are useful to determine the history of the Septuagint and only indirectly to restore a right Hebrew text, and the Armenian will help in restoring the original text of the Old Syriac from which it was in part translated.
(6) Another point which is of the first import- ance in drawing conclusions as to particular read- ings implied by a Version, is the capacity and intention of the translators in regard to Uteral- ness, accuracy of rendering, and doctrinal or other bias.
The Versions vary very much in their ettbrts to preserve the letter of the te.xt they are trans- lating.
As extreme instances of those which sacrifice lanfjuatre, and even clearness, to literalness, may he mentioned Ai|uila's ver- sion of the OT and the Ilarklean revision of the Philoxenian. These represent one extreme, and at the other we get para- phrastic renderings which are content with giving the general sense. As a rule, however, the mean is observed between undue literalness and undue laxity.
In regard to accuracy of translation, it may be said generally that the Versions were made by persons of competent knowledge in regard to both of the languages >vith which they were dealing.
Exception must be made in some parts or passages of a Version. Thus it is difflctilt to conceive that the Greek in some |)arts of the LXX can have conveyed any meaning to the trans- lator, and the Ethiopic la a Version the value of which must be depreciated by such confusions as ttiose between tucTyixo^f^^cc and xaL-iuxofAtd* (llo l^y or ilnti-mirt and iiJiTaTriri (Ro "n). \ It should here be mentioned that accuracy of translation does not require that the same word should always have the same equivalent in the Version, and this possibility often cjiuses uncertainty in the conclusions which may be drawn (see below). And it may be remembered that even mistaken renderings may be helpful : thus the rendering n^rjUxit of e of the Old Latin at Mk 5^, though wrong, supports watpecztinrcK as against axiijrett, and all attempts to translate &twipoT/n.,T^ at Lk (>i, even if un- successt jl, witness to the existence of soioe epithet attached to
' Bee Berger, Bittoire ds la Vulijate, pp. 130, 181, and Index, S.r. ' Psalter.*
t See Tregelles in Smiths DD iii. 1614.