864 THE GERMAN REFORMATION. A.D. 1517 To 1580.
therefore confines the “law” here to the ritual law, and “works” to Jewish works; while, according to the best modern commentators, Paul means the whole law, moral as well as ceremonial, and all works commanded by the law. And yet even in the same chapter and throughout the whole Epistle to the Romans, Emser copies verbatim Luther’s version for whole verses and sections; and where he departs from his language, it is generally for the worse.
The same may be said of the other two German Catholic Bibles of the age of the Reformation. They follow Luther’s language very closely within the limits of the Vulgate, and yet abuse him in the notes. Dr. Dietenberger adds his comments in smaller type after the chapters, and agrees with Emser’s interpretation of Rom. 3: 28.1 Dr. Eck’s German Bible has few notes, but a strongly anti-Protestant preface.2 _
To be just, we must recognize the sectarian imperfections of Bible versions, arising partly from defective knowledge, partly from ingrained prejudices. A translation is an interpretation. Absolute reproduction is impossible in any work.’ A Jew will give a version of the Old Testament differing
1 Biblia beider Allt unnd Newen Testamenten, fleissig, treulich vn Christlich nach alter inn Christlicher Kirchen gehabter Translation, mit Ausslegung etlicher dunckeler ort und besserung vieler verriickter wort und spriich.
. Durch D. Johan Dietenberger, new verdeutscht. Gott zu ewiger ehre unnd wolfarth seiner heil. Christlichen Kirchen ... Meynz, 1534, fol. From a copy in the Union Seminary (Van Ess library). Well printed and illustrated.
2 I have before me three copies of as many folio editions of Eck’s Bible, 1537, 1550, and 1558, bearing the title: Bibel Alt und New Testament, nach dem Text in der heiligen Kirchen gebraucht, durch Doctor Johan Ecken, mit fleiss, auf hochteutsch verdolmetscht, etc. They were printed at Ingolstadt, and agree in the number of pages (1035), and vary only in the date of publication. They contain in an appendix the Prayer of Manasseh, the Third Book of Maccabees, and the spurious Epistle of Paul to the Laodiceans.
8 There is an Italian proverb that translators are traitors (Traduttori traditori). Jerome speaks of versiones which are eversiones. As Trench says, there are in every translation ‘‘ unavoidable losses inherent in the nature of the task, in the relations of one language to the other, in the lack of accurate correlations between them, in the different schemes of their construction.”’
§ 63. CRITICAL ESTIMATE OF LUTHER’S VERSION. 365
from that of a Christian, because they look upon it in a different light, —the one with his face turned backward, the other with his face turned forward. A Jew cannot understand the Old Testament till he becomes a Christian, and sees in it a prophecy and type of Christianity. No synagogue would use a Christian version, nor any church a Jewish version. So also the New Testament is rendered differently by scholars of the Greek, Latin, and Protestant churches. _ And even where they agree in words, there is a difference in the pervading spirit. They move, as it were, in a different atmosphere. A Roman Catholic version must be closely conformed to the Latin Vulgate, which the Council of Trent puts on an equal footing with the original text.1 A Protestant version is bound only by the original text, and breathes an air of freedom from traditional restraint. The Roman Church will never use Luther’s Version or King James’s Version, and could not do so without endangering her creed ; nor will German Protestants use Emser’s and Eck’s Versions, or English Protestants the Douay Version. The Romanist must become evangelical before he can fully apprehend the free spirit of the gospel as revealed in the New Testament.
There is, however, a gradual progress in translation, which goes hand in hand with the progress of the understanding of the Bible. Jerome’s Vulgate is an advance upon the Itala, both in accuracy and Latinity; the Protestant Versions of the sixteenth century are an advance upon the Vulgate, in
1 Hence the stiffness of literalism and the abundance of Latinisms in the Rhemish Version of the N. T. (first published in 1582, second ed. 1600, third ed. at Douay, 1621), such as ‘‘supersubstantial bread’’ for daily or needful bread (Jerome introduced supersubstantialis for the difficult ἐπιούσιος in the Lord’s Prayer, Matt. 6:11, but retained quotidianus in Luke), transmigration of Babylon, impudicity, coinquinations, postulations, agnition, cogitation, prepuce, pasche, exinanite, contristate, domesticals, exemplars of the ccelestials, etc. Some of them have been silently removed in modern editions. The notes of the older editions abound in fulminations against heretics.