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to the inception and successful completion of such a work as the revision of the Bible. Is this old book worth the trouble? might have been expected to be the cry, or at least the secret thought, of many. In these circumstances the universal interest taken in the work, and universal examination and testing of the portion of it published, is a testimony of the most practical and valuable kind to the profound, though sometimes unsuspected, hold, God's revelation has upon society at large.

In view of the interest and importance of an undertaking which is one of the characteristic features of Church life in our day, and to make the past live again in the interest of the present, we purpose to give in brief outline the life and labours of one of the earliest revisers and translators of the Christian Bible, JEROME, "the great representative of Western learning, its true head and glory, and the rich source from whom almost all critical knowledge of Holy Scripture in the Latin Churches was drawn for ten centuries."

He was born at Strigonium in Dalmatia, or, as some think, Stridova in Hungary; the date of his birth being variously put between 329 and 345 A.D. He was of Christian descent, and his father Eusebius was of good family and estate. Hometaught in his earlier years, he was, at a still early age, sent to Rome, where he received his further education from Aelius Donatus, a celebrated teacher of the day. He perfected him in Latin and Greek. Under his guidance the lad stored his retentive memory with the choice passages of many authors in both these languages; and cultivated his rhetorical powers by public speaking, and studying the examples of forensic eloquence Rome afforded. At twenty-five he had completed the ordinary courses of study, and was able to devote himself to such pursuits as his bent of mind inclined him to. The progress of his religious training is shown by the fact that, at this period, he was baptized, and took the robe of Christianity, the mark of a public profession of that faith.

The strength and susceptibility of his religious feelings reveal themselves in his life. He was of warm, even ardent piety; but, as frequently happens, the eager, passionate temperament with which that is usually allied was, in his case, not sufficiently brought under the control of the enthusiastic religiousness to which it too often contributed irregular and inferior fire.

In criticising men who have left their mark on the world, we have often to discriminate between the different senses of the epithet "great," and in Jerome's case it must be used with a certain limitation. His work was, in the full sense, great: but his personality, his moods, his revelation of himself, betray at times an irritability, a vanity, a weakness, and want of dignity, which show the absence of that calmness and strength of soul which belong to true greatness. He was too much under the influence of his feelings. When these were not unduly engaged, he could take well-balanced, practical, judicious views of things. Under a sense of sacred responsibility, we see him also keeping them well under control, as in his Commentaries. At most other times they are indulged to the full. His controversial, and a good deal of his epistolary, writings, leave on us this impression, that he habitually yielded himself to the full influence of the view that presented itself at the moment. He saw nothing else, and tried to see nothing else. Frequently, therefore, he is one-sided, exaggerated, and even self-contradictory. Upon the grounds such a habit always abundantly furnishes, Rufinus subsequently founded his charges of falsehood and hypocrisy against his former friend. In marked and fortunate contrast, however, to this frequently indulged tendency, and showing that he was not without control over it, are the moderation and impartiality of his Biblical translations and commentaries.

The passionate and as yet undisciplined fervour of religious impulse which about this time filled him, made the next ten years, till he was thirty-five, the most unsettled period of his life. He had not found his true work, and did not know what it was to be. Days and years passed in ascetic rigours, and religious meditation, seemed to him the highest type of life. His student, literary bent increased its attractiveness. Returning from Gaul, he sought to lead this retired, contemplative existence in Rome, but without success, notwithstanding the helps he had in a good library he had begun to collect. The great metropolis of the world was too noisy. His native place, to which he might have turned, was disturbed by a turbulent bishop. The East, the birthplace and home of asceticism, drew him to herself. Her atmosphere alone seemed to breathe the calm of religious contemplation. Visiting Jerusalem, then

Influence of Origen on Jerome.

37

moving from place to place in Asia Minor, he at length buried himself for four years in the Syrian deserts, with three companions whom he had persuaded to join him in religious seclusion. To his great disappointment, however, one of them, Heliodorus, soon withdrew. In an extant letter we see Jerome remonstrating with him in the strongest manner, and with many rhetorical expressions and arguments pleading, in vain, with him to return. The wisdom of the step Heliodorus took is shown by the fact that by and by the others, Innocent and Hylas, died; and, to save his own life, Jerome, wasted by sickness, was obliged to return to Antioch.

Here he was ordained as priest, making however the stipulation that he should not be under obligation to abandon his monastic or literary life, or perform priestly functions. Having thus reserved his liberty, he did not enter his name in the register of the clergy in Antioch.

In the desert he had yielded to a temporary impulse of selfcondemnation; and laying all secular literature aside, he had devoted himself to exclusively Biblical studies. He there acquired the rudiments of Hebrew, and began the writing of commentaries. Notwithstanding its undue but temporary narrowness, this earnest devotion to Biblical study had its part to play in preparing him for his providential post. And not long after, another element in his training came into operation. He received an invitation to Constantinople from Gregory Nazianzen, with whose ascetic, contemplative spirit he was in sympathy. Gregory gave his mental and spiritual development a further and important direction, by leading him to study the works of Origen, to whom, as a Biblical authority, he became so eminent a successor. The influence of Origen was in the direction of thorough exegetical study of the Scriptures, with all the aids learning could give. Coming to Jerome through the Antiochian school, this exegetical method was separated from the allegorising tendency Origen combined with it; and its scientific truthfulness at once commended itself to him. Under its guidance he reached a freer, truer theory of inspiration than was common with many of his day; and gained a breadth and insight of critical judgment which, in the then condition of the Church, he could not have acquired elsewhere. He never really abandoned the views of the moderate Origen

istic school, nor forgot to whom he owed the introduction to so important a part of his training. He habitually spoke with reverence, gratitude, affection, of Gregory as his master.

After a year in Constantinople he returned to Antioch, and soon went to Bethlehem, where he thought to settle. But on a summons from Damasus, Bishop of Rome, he went thither with Paulinus to take part in a synod in connection with the Meletian disputes in Antioch. Here, however, he at last found his life-task, and in another department. For Damasus, observing his scholarly attainments, obtained from him, first, corrections of passages of Scripture, and thereafter commissioned him to complete a revision of the old Latin, or current Latin, version of the New Testament.

At this point we may suitably diverge to consider the need for this, the condition of the text of the Latin Bible in Jerome's day, and the causes which had produced it.

Accustomed to a Bible which, wherever we go, whatever church we worship in, and however many copies we examine, presents us with one uniform text, it requires a strong effort of imagination to realise the state of things in the fourth century, when "there were almost as many texts as copies" of the Scriptures; when, in church, individual worshippers found, each in his own manuscript, a different version of the passages of Scripture read in the services; and irreconcilable differences in the various copies perplexed the thoughts and increased the controversies of the age.

The Hebrew, the Greek, and the vernacular texts generally, of the Scriptures were liable to the errors due to the impossibility of finding mechanically perfect copyists, a fertile source of error which the art of printing has eliminated. The last, in addition, showed the imperfections of translations, especially of translations hastily made, and completed by different hands. The Latin Bible suffered from a further cause. The Christian Scriptures were early rendered from Greek and Aramaic into the vernacular of the countries into which their tidings penetrated. The Church at Rome formed an exception to this. As Westcott points out, till nearly the end of the second century it remained essentially Grecian, the Scriptures and the liturgy used in its services being in Greek. A translation of the Bible in the polished language of Rome was thus unnecessary.

Need for Biblical revision.

39

Where Greek was unknown, as in North Africa, the case was different. Very early a translation of books of the New Testament had been made into the barbarous Latin spoken throughout that province. A version of the Septuagint, including therefore the Apocrypha, was already extant in the same. dialect; and by the middle of the second century probably, the Bible in African Latin was complete. This gradually came into use in Rome, and in the Italian provinces; and as its barbarisms and harsh literalisms were offensive, attempts were made to improve it. Reference to the abundant Greek texts secured a version commended by Augustine for its close accuracy, and its plainness. But many revisions, privately executed, were also current. And thus through errors of transcribers, prepossessions of private translators, and unrestricted combinations of free or erroneous versions, the commou copies of the Latin Scriptures, especially of the New Testament, had become so corrupt as to call for immediate and authoritative revision. A deepening conviction of this led Damasus to turn to the scholarly ability at his command in Jerome: "Put the original Greek into good Latin for us." And the eager student addressed himself to his task.

That task had many difficulties. The vast number of corrections required was itself a serious obstacle. Contradictions, arising from the combination of differing and blundering MSS., or additions to one Gospel of details from another; incorporation in the text of originally marginal notes; errors arising from ignorance of the original, or mistakes as to what it was, all called aloud for rectification at the hand of a faithful reviser.

rage

Jerome was not unaware of the ordeal through which his work and himself would have to pass, though the reality surpassed even his forebodings, and drew from him the passionate reproaches and invectives we find in his later letters on this subject. He gives a vivid picture of the surprise, consternation, and of a reader, learned or unlearned, accustomed to the old interpolated, confused text, on taking up a copy of the revised version, and, when he begins to read, missing the old and familiar words and errors. He breaks forth with exclamations, and calls me falsifier, sacrilegious, for daring to add to, change, correct anything in the books of the ancients." The favourite charge against him was that of "introducing changes

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