great importance for several reasons, and particularly for this, that it often assists in suggesting the true reading in cases where the present Hebrew copies are obscure, or appear to have been vitiated. Jerom in such cases judiciously recurred to that translation; and often when it was more perspicuous than the Hebrew, and the meaning which it contained seemed better adapted to the context, borrowed light from it. Perhaps he would have done still better to have recurred oftener. For however learned those Jews were to whose assistance he owed the acquisition of the language, they were strongly tinctured with the cabalistical prejudices which prevailed more or less in all the literati of that nation. Hence they were sometimes led, on very fanciful grounds, to assign to words and phrases meanings not supported by the obvious sense of the context, nor even by the most ancient versions and paraphrases. In this case, there can be no doubt that these were more to be confided in than his Jewish instructors.

3. No intelligent person will question the fitness of that judicious and learned writer for the task of translating the Bible into his native language. But that we may not be led too far in transferring to the work the personal merit of the author, we ought to remember two things; first, that the Vulgate, as we have it at present, is not entirely the work of Jerom; and, secondly, that even in what Jerom translated, he left many things, as he himself acknowledges, which needed correction, but which he did not choose to alter, lest the liberties taken with the old translation should scandalize the vulgar. It is no wonder, then, that great inequalities should be observable in the execution. In many places it is excellent: The sense of the original is conveyed justly and perspicuously; no affectation in the style; on the contrary, the greatest simplicity combined with purity. But this cannot be said with truth of every part of that work.

4. In the preceding part of this Dissertation, page 330, I took notice of one passage rendered exactly in the manner of Arias, who found nothing to alter in it in order to bring it down to his level. Indeed, there are many such instances. Thus ovк av εowon Taσa oap is rendered, "Non fieret salva omnis caro," Matt. xxiv. 22. In some places we find barbarisms and solecisms to which it would be difficult to discover a temptation, the just expression being both as literal and as obvious as the improper one that has been preferred to it. Of this sort we may call," Neque nubent, neque nubentur," Matt. xxii. 30, Mark xii. 25: "Nonne vos magis plures estis illis?" Matt. vi. 26: "Non capit prophetam perire extra Jerusalem," Luke xiii. 33; and "Filius hominis non venit ministrari sed ministrare," Matt. xx. 28. Yet as to the last example, the same words in another Gospel are rendered without the solecism," Filius hominis non venit ut ministraretur ei, sed ut ministraret," Mark x. 45. Very often we meet with instances of the same original word rendered by the same Latin word, when

the sense is manifestly different, and the idiom of the tongue does not admit it. This absurdity extends even to conjunctions. The Greek or answers frequently to the Latin quia, because, and not seldom to quod, that. Here, however, it is almost uniformly, in defiance of grammar and common sense, rendered quia or quoniam. Thus, "Tunc confitebor illis quia nunquam novi vos,' Matt. vii. 23, and "Magister, scimus quia verax es," chap. xxii. 16. These expressions are no better Latin than these which follow are English: "Then will I confess to them, because I never knew you," and "Master, we know because thou art true;" words which, if they suggest any meaning, it is evidently not the meaning of the author: nor is it a meaning which the original would have ever suggested to one who understands the language.

Nay, sometimes even the favourite rule of uniformity is violated, but not for the sake of keeping to the sense, the sense being rather hurt by the violation. Thus, λaoç, answering to populus, and commonly so rendered, is sometimes improperly translated plebs. ETоinσ Autowσiv Ty day avrov, Luke i. 68, is rendered, "Fecit redemptionem plebis suæ.' Sometimes the most unmeaning barbarisms are adopted merely to represent the etymology of the original term. Τον αρτον ἡμων τον επιούσιον δος ἡμιν σημε pov, is rendered, "Panem nostrum supersubstantialem da nobis hodie," Matt. vi. 11. Panis supersubstantialis is just as barbarous Latin as supersubstantial bread would be English, and equally unintelligible. There is an additional evil resulting from this manner of treating holy writ, that the solecisms, barbarisms, and nonsensical expressions which it gives rise to, prove a fund of materials to the visionary, out of which his imagination frames a thousand mysteries.

5. I would not, however, be understood by these remarks as passing a general censure on this version, which, though not to be followed implicitly, may, I am convinced, be of great service to the critic. It ought to weigh with us, that even the latest part of this translation was made about fourteen hundred years ago, and is consequently many centuries prior to all the Latin translations now current, none of which can claim an earlier date than the revival of letters in the West. I do not use this argument from an immoderate regard to antiquity, or from the notion that age can give a sanction to error. But there are two things in this circumstance, which ought to recommend the work in question to the attentive examination of the critic. First, that having been made from manuscripts older than most, perhaps, than any now extant, it serves in some degree to supply the place of those manuscripts, and furnish us with the probable means of discovering what the readings were which Jerom found in the copies which he so carefully collated. Another reason is, that being finished long before those controversies arose which are the foundation of most of the sects now subsisting, we may rest

assured, that, in regard to these, there will be no bias from party zeal to either side of the question. We cannot say so much for the translations which have been made since the rise of Protestantism, either by Protestants or by Papists. And these are, in my opinion, two not inconsiderable advantages.

6. I take notice of the last the rather, because many Protestants, on account of the declaration of its authenticity solemnly pronounced by the council of Trent, cannot avoid considering it as a Popish Bible, calculated for supporting the Roman Catholic cause. Now this is an illiberal conclusion, the offspring of ignorance, which I think it of some consequence to refute. It is no further back than the sixteenth century since that judgment was given in approbation of this version, the first authoritative declaration made in its favour. Yet the estimation in which it was universally held throughout the western churches, was, to say the least, not inferior, before that period, to what it is at present. And we may say with truth, that though no judicious Protestant will think more favourably of this translation on account of their verdict, neither will he, on this account, think less favourably of it. It was not because this version was peculiarly adapted to the Romish system that it received the sanction of that synod, but because it was the only Bible with which the far greater part of the members had, from their infancy, had the least acquaintance. There were but few in that assembly who understood either Greek or Hebrew: they had heard that the Protestants, the new heretics, as they called them, had frequent recourse to the original, and were beginning to make versions from it: a practice of which their own ignorance of the original made them the more jealous. Their fears being thus alarmed, they were exceedingly anxious to interpose their authority, by the declaration above-mentioned, for preventing new translations being obtruded on the people. They knew what the Vulgate contained, and had been early accustomed to explain it in their own way; but they did not know what might be produced from new translations: therefore, to pre-occupy men's minds, and prevent every true son of the church from reading other, especially modern, translations, and from paying any regard to what might be urged from the original, the very indefinite sentence was pronounced in favour of the Vulgate, "vetus et vulgata editio," that in all disputes it should be held for authentic, "ut pro authentica habeatur."

7. Now if, instead of this measure, that council had ordered a translation to be made by men nominated by them, in opposition to those published by Protestants, the case would have been very different; for we may justly say, that, amidst such a ferment as was then excited, there should have appeared, in a version so prepared, any thing like impartiality, candour, or discernment, would have been morally impossible. Yet even such a produc

tion would have been entitled to a fair examination from the critic, who ought never to disdain to receive information from an adversary, and to judge impartially of what he offers. As that, however, was not the case, we ought not to consider the version in question as either the better or the worse for their verdict. It is but doing justice to say, that it is no way calculated to support Romish errors and corruptions. It had been in current use in the church for ages before the much greater part of those errors and corruptions was introduced. No doubt the schoolmen had acquired the knack of explaining it in such a way as favoured their own prejudices. But is this any more than what we find the most discordant sects acquire with regard to the original, or even to a translation which they use in common? For my own part, though it were my sole purpose, in recurring to a version, to refute the absurdities and corruptions of Popery, I should not desire other or better arguments than those I am supplied with by that very version which one of their own councils has declared authentical.

8. I am not ignorant that a few passages have been produced wherein the Vulgate and the original convey different meanings, and wherein the meaning of the Vulgate appears to favour the abuses established in that church. Some of these, but neither many nor of great moment, are no doubt corruptions in the text, probably not intentional but accidental, to which the originals in Hebrew and Greek have been in like manner liable, and from which no ancient book extant can be affirmed to be totally exempted. With respect to others of them, they will be found, upon a nearer inspection, as little favourable to Romish superstition as the common reading in the Hebrew or the Greek. What is justly rendered in our version, "I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed; it shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel," Gen. iii. 15, is in such a manner translated in the Vulgate, as to afford some colour for the extraordinary honour paid the virgin mother of our Lord: "Inimicitias ponam inter te et mulierem, et semen tuum et semen illius. Ipsa conteret caput tuum, et tu insidiaberis calcaneo ejus." She shall bruise thy head.' In this way it has been understood by some of their capital painters, who, in their pictures of the Virgin, have represented her treading on a serpent. It is however certain, that their best critics admit this to be an error, and recur to some ancient manuscripts of the Vulgate, which read ipsum not ipsa.

A still grosser blunder, which seems to give countenance to the worship of relics, is in the passage thus rendered by our interpreters: "By faith Jacob, when he was a-dying, blessed both the sons of Joseph; and worshipped, leaning upon the top of his staff," Heb. xi. 21: in the Vulgate thus: "Fide Jacob moriens singulos filiorum Joseph benedixit, et adoravit fastigium

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virgæ ejus;" adored the top of his rod,' as the version made from the Vulgate by English Romanists, and published at Rheims expresses it. But the best judges among Roman Catholics admit, that the Latin text is not entire in this place, and that there has been an accidental omission of the preposition, through the carelessness of transcribers: for they have not now a writer of any name who infers, from the declaration of authenticity, either the infallibility of the translator or the exactness of the copiers. Houbigant, a priest of the Oratory, has not been restrained by that sentence from making a new translation of the Old Testament from the Hebrew into Latin, wherein he uses as much freedom with the Vulgate, in correcting what appeared to him faulty in it, as any reasonable Protestant in this country would do with the common English translation. Nay, which is more extraordinary, in the execution of this work he had the countenance of the then reigning pontiff. In his version he has corrected the passage quoted from Genesis, and said, "Illud" (not illa) conteret caput tuum." I make no doubt that he would have corrected the other passage also, if he had made a version of the New Testament.

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9. I know it has also been urged, that there are some things in the Vulgate which favour the style and doctrine of Rome, particularly in what regards the sacraments; and that such things are to be found in places where there is no ground to suspect a various reading, or that the text of the Vulgate has undergone any alteration, either intentional or accidental. Could this point be evinced in a satisfactory manner, it would allow more to Popery, on the score of antiquity, than, in my opinion, she is entitled to. It is true that marriage appears, in one passage, to be called a sacrament. Paul, after recommending the duties of husbands and wives, and enforcing his recommendations by the resemblance which marriage bears to the relation subsisting between Christ and his church, having quoted these words from Moses, "For this cause shall a man leave his father and mother, and shall be joined unto his wife, and they two shall be one flesh," adds, as it is expressed in the Vulgate, "Sacramentum hoc magnum est, ego autem dico in Christo, et in ecclesia;" as expressed in the English translation, "This is a great mystery; but I speak concerning Christ and the church," Eph. v. 32: that is, as I had occasion to observe in the preceding Dissertation,* to which I refer the reader, "This is capable of an important and figurative interpretation, I mean as it relates to Christ and the church." Under the Mosaic economy, the relation wherein God stood to Israel is often represented under the figure of marriage; and it is common with the penmen of the New Testament to transfer those images, whereby the union between God and his people is illustrated in the Old, to that which subsists between

Diss. IX. Part i. sect. 7,8.