Joshua (Judges, Ruth), Kings, the Prophets, in which Jerome touches more or less plainly on tlie difficulties of his task, while he does refer to his former labors on Job, the Psalter, and the books of Solomon in the par- allel prefaces to those books, and also in his Apology against Rufinus (ii, 27, 29-31). It has. indeed, been supposed (Vallarsi, Prcef. in IJier. x) that these six books only were published by Jerome himself. The remainder may have been put into circulation surrep- titiously. But this supposition is not without difficul- ties. Augustine, writing to Jerome ( cir. A.D. 405 ), earnestly begs for a copy of the revision from the Sept., of the |iublication of which he was then only lately aware {Ep. xcvi, 34, " Deinde nobis mittas, obsecro, in- terpret at ionem tuam de Septuaginta, quam te edidisse nescifbam ;" comp. § 34). It does not appear whether the request was granted or not, but at a much later pe- riod (cir. A.D. 416) Jerome says that he cannot furnish him with "a copy of the Sept. [i.e. the Latin version of it] furnished with asterisks and obeli, as he had lost the chief part of his former labor by some person's treachery" (ibid.cxxxiv, " Pieraiiue prioris laboris fraude cujusdam amisimus"). However this may have been, Jerome could not have spent more than four (or five) years on the work, and that too in the midst of other labors, for in 491 he was already engaged on the ver- sions from the Hebrew which constitute his great claim on the lasting gratitude of the Church.
4. Translation of the. Old Test, from the Hebrew. — Jerome commenced the study of Hebrew when he was already advanced in middle life (cir. A.D. 374), think- ing that the difficulties of the language, as he quaintly paints them, would serve to subdue the temptations of passion to which he was exposed {^Ep. cxxv, 12; comp. Pnef. in Dan. ). From this time he continued the study with unabated zeal, and availed himself of every help to perfect his knowledge of the language. His first teacher had been a Jewish convert, but afterwards he did not scruple to seek the instruction of Jews, whose services he secured with great difficulty and expense. This excessive zeal (as it seemed) exposed him to the misrepresentations of his enemies, and RuHnus indulges in a silly pun on the name of one of his teachers, with the intention of showing that his work was not "sup- ported by the authority of the Church, but only of a second Barabbas" (Ruf. Apol. ii, 12 ; Hieron. Apol. i, 13 ; comp. Ep. Ixxxiv, 3; Prcef. in Paral.). Jerome, how- ever, was not deterred by ojiposition from pursuing his object, and it were only to be wished that he had sur- passed his critics as much in generous courtesy as he did in honest labor. He soon turned his knowledge of Hebrew to use. In some of his earliest critical letters he examines the force of Hebrew words {Epp. xviii, xx, A.D. 381, 383); and in 384 he had been engaged for some time in comparing the version of Aquila with He- brew MSS. (ibid, xxxii, I), which a Jew had succeeded in obtaining for him from the synagogue (ibid, xxxvi, 1). After retiring to Bethlehem, he appears to have devoted himself with renewed ardor to the study of He- brew, and he published several works on the suljject, cir. A.D. 389 (Qwest. Hebr.in Gen. etc.). These essays served as a prelude to his New version, which he now commenced. This version was not undertaken with anjf^ ecclesiastical sanction, as the revision of the gospels was, but at the urgent request of private friends, or
VULGATE
830
\^LGATE
from his own sense of the imperious necessity of the work. Its history is told in the main in tlie prefaces to the several instalments wiiich were successively pub- Hsheti. The books of Samuel and Kiuji;s were issueil (irst, and to these he prefixed the famous Proloijus Galeatng, addressed to Paula and Kustochius, in which he gives an account of the Hebrew canon. It is impos- sible to determine why lie selected these books for his experiment, for it does not appear that he was request- ed by any one to do so. The work itself was executed with the greatest care. Jerome speaks of the transla- tion as the result of constant revision {Prol. Gal./^ Lcs^o ergo primum Sauuiel et Malachim meum : meum, in- quam, meum. (^uidquid euira crebrius vcrtendo et emendando soUicitius et didicimus et tenemus nostrum est"). At the time when this was published (cir. A.D. 391, 392) other books seem to have been already trans- lated ( iitt/., " omnibus libris quos de Hebraeo verti- mus"'); and in 393 the sixteen prophets were in circula- tion, and Job had lately been put into the hands of his most intimate friends (/,)>. xlix, uJ I'amimwh.). In- deed, it would ai>pear that already in 392 he had in some sense completed a version of the Old Test. {De Vir. III. cxxxv, " Vetus juxta Hebraicum transtuli :" this treatise was written in that year); but many books were not completed and published till some years after- wards. The next books which he put into circidation, yet with the jirovision that tliey should be confined to friends (Picef. in Ezr.), were Ezra and Nehemiah, which he translated at the request of Dominica and Roga- tianus, who had urged him to the task for three years. This was probably in the year 394 {Vit. Ilieron. xxi,4), for in the preface he alludes to his intention of discuss- ing a question which he treats in Ep. Ivii, written in 395 (Z'e Optimo Gen. Interpret.). In the preface to the Chronicles (addressed to Chromatins), he alludes to the same epistle as "lately written," and these books may therefore be set down to that year. The three books of Solomon followed in 398, having been "the work of three days" when he had just recovered from a severe illness, which he suffered in that year (Pz-^b/;, " Itaque longa segrotatione fractus . . . tridni opus nomini vestro [Chroinatio et Ileliodoro] consecravi ;" comp. Ep. Ixxiii, 10). The Octaleuch now alone remained (ibid. Ixxi, 5), i. e. Pentateuch, Joshua, Judges, Ruth, and Esther {Prcef. in Jos.). Of this the Pentateuch (inscribed to Uesiderius) was published first, but it is uncertain in what j'ear. The preface, however, is not quoted in the Apology affain.it Riifimts (A.D. 400), as those of all the other books which were then published, and it may therefore be set down to a later date (Hody, p. 357). The remaining books were completed at the request of Eustochius, shortly after the death of Paula, in 404 {PrcpJ'. in Jos.). Thus the whole translation was spread over a period of about fourteen years, from the sixtieth to the seventy-sixth year of Jerome's life. But still parts of it were finished in great haste (e. g. the books of Solomon). A single day was sufficient for the trans- lation of Tobit (Prcef. in Toh.), and "one short effort" (una lucubratiuncula) for the translation of Judith. Thus there are errors in the work which a more careful revision might have removed; and Jerome himself in many places gives renderings which he prefers to those which he had adopted, and admits from time to time that he had fallen into error (Hody, p. 3(52). Yet such defects are trilling when compared with what he ac- complished successfully. The work remained for eight centuries the bulwark of Western Christianity, and, as a monument of ancient linguistic power, the translation of the Old Test, stands unrivalled and unique. It was at least a direct rendering of the original, and not the version of a version.