32. Wherefore let us rather do our utmost to set before our beloved friends, who most cordially wish us well in our labours, such an example that they may know that it is possible for the most intimate friends to differ so much in opinion, that the views of the one may be contradicted by the other without any diminution of their mutual affection, and without hatred being kindled by that truth which is due to genuine friendship, whether the contradiction be in itself in accordance with truth, or at least, whatever its intrinsic value is, be spoken from a sincere heart by one who is resolved not "to hide in his heart anything which does not agree with the utterance of his lips." Let therefore our brethren, your friends, of whom you bear testimony that they are vessels of Christ, believe me when I say that it was wholly against my will that my letter came into the hands of many others before it reached your own, and that my heart is filled with no small sorrow for this mistake. How it happened would take long to tell, and this is now, if I am not mistaken, unnecessary; since, if my word is to be taken at all in regard to this, it suffices for me to say that it was not done by me with the sinister intention which is supposed by some, and that it was not by my wish, or arrangement, or consent, or design that this has taken place. If they do not believe this, which I affirm in the sight of God, I can do no more to satisfy them. Far be it, however, from me to believe that they made this suggestion to your Holiness with the malicious desire to kindle enmity between you and me, from which may God in His mercy defend us! Doubtless, without any intention of doing me wrong, they readily suspected me, as a man, to be capable of failings common to human nature. For it is right for me to believe this concerning them, if they be vessels of Christ appointed not to dishonour, but to honour, and made meet by God for every good work in His great house. [2069] If, however, this my solemn protestation come to their knowledge, and they still persist in the same opinion of my conduct, you will yourself see that in this they will do wrong.
33. As to my having written that I had never sent to Rome a book against you, I wrote this because, in the first place, I did not regard the name "book" as applicable to my letter, and therefore was under the impression that you had heard of something else entirely different from it; in the second place, I had not sent the letter in question to Rome, but to you; and in the third place, I did not consider it to be against you, because I knew that I had been prompted by the sincerity of friendship, which should give liberty for the exchange of suggestions and corrections between us. Leaving out of sight for a little while your friends of whom I have spoken, I implore yourself, by the grace whereby we have been redeemed, not to suppose that I have been guilty of artful flattery in anything which I have said in my letters concerning the good gifts which have been by the Lord's goodness bestowed on you. If, however, I have in anything wronged you, forgive me. As to that incident in the life of some forgotten bard, which, with perhaps more pedantry than good taste, I quoted from classic literature, I beg you not to carry the application of it to yourself further than my words warranted for I immediately added: "I do not say this in order that you may recover the faculty of spiritual sight--far be it from me to say that you have lost it!--but that, having eyes both clear and quick in discernment, you may turn them to this matter." [2070] I thought a reference to that incident suitable exclusively in connection with the palinodia, in which we ought all to imitate Stesichorus if we have written anything which it becomes our duty to correct in a writing of later date, and not at all in connection with the blindness of Stesichorus, which I neither ascribed to your mind, nor feared as likely to befall you. And again, I beseech you to correct boldly whatever you see needful to censure in my writings. For although, so far as the titles of honour which prevail in the Church are concerned, a bishop's rank is above that of a presbyter, nevertheless in many things Augustin is in inferior to Jerome; albeit correction is not to be refused nor despised, even when it comes from one who in all respects may be an inferior.
Chap. V.
34. As to your translation, you have now convinced me of the benefits to be secured by your proposal to translate the Scriptures from the original Hebrew, in order that you may bring to light those things which have been either omitted or perverted by the Jews. But I beg you to be so good as state by what Jews this has been done, whether by those who before the Lord's advent translated the Old Testament--and if so, by what one or more of them--or by the Jews of later times, who may be supposed to have mutilated or corrupted the Greek Mss., in order to prevent themselves from being unable to answer the evidence given by these concerning the Christian faith. I cannot find any reason which should have prompted the earlier Jewish translators to such unfaithfulness. I beg of you, moreover, to send us your translation of the Septuagint, which I did not know that you had published. I am also longing to read that book of yours which you named De optimo genere interpretandi, and to know from it how to adjust the balance between the product of the translator's acquaintance with the original language, and the conjectures of those who are able commentators on the Scripture, who, notwithstanding their common loyalty to the one true faith, must often bring forward various opinions on account of the obscurity of many passages; [2071] although this difference of interpretation by no means involves departure from the unity of the faith; just as one commentator may himself give, in harmony with the faith which he holds, two different interpretations of the same passage, because the obscurity of the passage makes both equally admissible.
35. I desire, moreover, your translation of the Septuagint, in order that we may be delivered, so far as is possible, from the consequences of the notable incompetency of those who, whether qualified or not, have attempted a Latin translation; and in order that those who think that I look with jealousy on your useful labours, may at length, if it be possible, perceive that my only reason for objecting to the public reading of your translation from the Hebrew in our churches was, lest, bringing forward anything which was, as it were, new and opposed to the authority of the Septuagint version, we should trouble by serious cause of offence the flocks of Christ, whose ears and hearts have become accustomed to listen to that version to which the seal of approbation was given by the apostles themselves. Wherefore, as to that shrub in the book of Jonah, [2072] if in the Hebrew it is neither "gourd" nor "ivy," but something else which stands erect, supported by its own stem without other props, I would prefer to call it "gourd" in all our Latin versions; for I do not think that the Seventy would have rendered it thus at random, had they not known that the plant was something like a gourd.
36. I think I have now given a sufficient answer (perhaps more than sufficient) to your three letters; of which I received two by Cyprian, and one by Firmus. In replying, send whatever you think likely to be of use in instructing me and others. And I shall take more care, as the Lord may help me, that any letter which I may write to you shall reach yourself before it falls into the hand of any other, by whom its contents may be published abroad; for I confess that I would not like any letter of yours to me to meet with the fate of which you justly complain as having befallen my letter to you. Let us, however, resolve to maintain between ourselves the liberty as well as the love of friends; so that in the letters which we exchange, neither of us shall be restrained from frankly stating to the other whatever seems to him open to correction, provided always that this be done in the spirit which does not, as inconsistent with brotherly love, displease God. If, however, you do not think that this can be done between us without endangering that brotherly love, let us not do it: for the love which I should like to see maintained between us is assuredly the greater love which would make this mutual freedom possible; but the smaller measure of it is better than none at all. [2073]
[2011] Ludamus. Letter LXXXI. On this unfortunate word of Jerome's Augustin lingers with most provoking ingenuity.
[2012] See Letter LXXII., sec. 2.
[2013] Letter LXVIII. sec. 2.
[2014] Gal. ii. 14.
[2015] Gal. iv. 19.
[2016] Gal. i. 20.
[2017] Matt. xxvi. 75.
[2018] 2 Sam. xi. 4, 17.
[2019] Acts xvi. 3.
[2020] Acts xviii. 18.
[2021] Acts xxi. 26.
[2022] Acts xxi. 21.
[2023] Acts xxi. 20-25.
[2024] Acts xxi. 24.
[2025] Gal. ii. 3-5.
[2026] See Jerome's Letter, LXXV. sec. 16, p. 340.
[2027] Ezek. xx. 25.
[2028] See Letter LXXV. sec. 13, p. 338.
[2029] See Letter LXXV. sec. 14, pp. 338, 339.
[2030] Luke xvi. 16.
[2031] John v. 18.
[2032] John i. 16, 17.
[2033] Jer. xxxi. 31.
[2034] Mark i. 44.
[2035] John vii. 10.
[2036] Gal. v. 2.
[2037] Gal. ii. 21.
[2038] Gal. v. 4.
[2039] Gal. v. 18.
[2040] Jerome, Letter LXXV. sec. 14, p. 339.
[2041] Ex. xx. 17 and Deut. v. 21.
[2042] Evangelica maxime illustratione prædicari.
[2043] Rom. vii. 13.
[2044] Rom. v. 20.
[2045] Gal. iii. 19.
[2046] Rom. xiii. 10.
[2047] Rom. v. 5.
[2048] Letter LXXV. sec. 14, p. 339.
[2049] Mendacium offisiosum.
[2050] Jas. v. 12; Matt. v. 37.
[2051] Ps. v. 6.
[2052] 1 Cor. iv. 2.
[2053] Cum ipsa fides in latino sermone ab eo dicatur appellata quia fit quod dicitur.
[2054] Jerome's Letter, LXXV. sec. 6, p.335.
[2055] Ibid. sec. 4, p. 334.
[2056] In his Commentary on Galations.
[2057] In his letter, LXX., to Quintus; Ante-Nicene Fathers, Am. ed. vol. v. p. 377.
[2058] Gal. i. 20.
[2059] Letter XL. sec. 4, p. 273, quoted also by Jerome, LXXV. sec. 12, p. 338.
[2060] 1 Tim. iv. 4.
[2061] We follow here the reading of fourteen Mss., "agit" instead of "ait."
[2062] 1 Tim. i. 5.
[2063] 1 Cor. ix. 19-22.
[2064] Matt. vii. 12.
[2065] Gal. vii. 2.
[2066] Letter LXXII. sec. 4.
[2067] Terence, Andria, Act i. Sc. 1.
[2068] Prov. xxvii. 6.
[2069] 2 Tim. ii. 20, 21.
[2070] Letter XL. sec 7, p. 274.
[2071] An important sentence, as indicating the estimation in which Augustin held the "consensus patrum" as an authority in the interpretation of Scripture.
[2072] Jon. iv. 6.
[2073] It is interesting to know that Jerome afterwards admitted the soundness of the view so ably and reasonably defended by Augustin in this letter concerning the rebuke of Peter at Antioch. In Letter CLXXX., addressed to Oceanus, we have these words: "This question the venerable Father Jerome and I have discussed fully in letters which we exchanged; and in the last work which he has published against Pelagius, under the name of Critobulus, he has maintained the same opinion concerning that event, and the sayings of the apostles, as I myself had adopted, following the blessed Cyprian." See Jerome, book i., against the Pelagians, and Cyprian, Letter LXX., to Quintus.