of several terms established by ecclesiastical use, and conveying precisely the idea intended by the sacred penmen, as an indication of an excessive squeamishness in point of Latinity. Such terms, in my judgment, are, in matters of revelation, entitled even to be preferred to classical words. For, though the latter may nearly suit the idea, they cannot have, to the same degree as the former, the sanction of use in that application.

12. But let it be observed, on the other hand, that the preference above-mentioned is limited by this express condition, that the ecclesiastic term, in its common acceptation, plainly conveys to the reader the same idea which the original word, used by the sacred penmen, was intended to convey to the readers for whom they wrote. To plead, on the contrary, with Father Simon and others, for the preferable adoption of certain theologic words and phrases consecrated by long use, as they are pleased to term it, though admitted to be obscure, ambiguous, or even improper, is to me the greatest absurdity. It is really to make the sacred authors give place to their ancient interpreters: it is to throw away the sense of the former in compliment to the words of the latter. We must surely consider inspiration as a thing of very little consequence, when we sacrifice it knowingly to human errors. This would, in effect, condemn all new translations, whatever occasion there might be for them for correcting the faults of former versions. But into the truth of this sentiment I shall have occasion to inquire more fully afterwards. Only let it be remembered, that the limitation now mentioned affects two classes of words-first, those by which the original terms were early mistranslated; secondly, those which, though at first they exhibited the true sense of the original, have come gradually to convey a different meaning. For these, in consequence of a change insensibly introduced in the application, are become now, whatever they were formerly, either improper or ambiguous.

There are some terms in the Vulgate, which, in my judgment, were never perfectly adapted to those in the original in whose place they were substituted. Whether sacramentum for μvengiov were originally of this number or not, it is certain that the theological meaning, now constantly affixed to that word, does not suit the sense of the sacred authors, which is fully and intelligibly expressed in Latin, as Castalio and Houbigant have commonly done, by the word arcanum. The Vulgate sometimes renders it mysterium, which is not much better than sacramentum; for mysterium, not being Latin, and being variously used as a technical term by theologians, must be vague and obscure. Many other latinized Greek words (as scandalizo, blasphemia, hæresis, schisma) are in some measure liable to the same objection. The original terms are none of those which were observed formerly* not to be susceptible of a translation into another language. And

* Diss. II. Part i. sect. 5.

in that case to transfer the words, leaving them untranslated, rarely fails either to keep the reader in ignorance, or to lead him into error. For this reason, I am far from condemning, with Boys, Simon, and some others, the modern translators, particularly Castalio, for rendering them into proper Latin. I intend, in another Dissertation, to evince, that they would not have executed faithfully the office they had undertaken, if they had not done it. The words with which Castalio has commonly supplied us, instead of those above-mentioned, (officio, maledictum or impia dicta, secta, dissidium, or factio,) are in general as apposite for expressing the sense of the original as any other words of the same class. And even the Vulgate is not uniform in regard to those words. Aiptσig is, in several places of that version, rendered secta, and oxioua, scissura and dissensio. But of this I have treated already in the preceding Dissertation.

13. After all the zeal Castalio has shown, and the stretches he has made, for preserving classical purity, could it have been imagined that he would have admitted into his version manifest barbarisms, both words and idioms, of no authority whatever? Yet, that he has afforded a few instances of this strange inconsistency is unquestionable. It would not be easy to assign a satisfactory reason for his rejecting the term idolum, idol, a classical word, and used by Pagans in the same meaning in which it is used by us. If it be said, that in their use it was not accompanied with the same kind of sentiment as when used by us; as much may be affirmed with truth of Deus, numen, and every word that relates to religion, which could not fail to affect differently the mind of a heathen from the way in which it affects the mind of a Jew or a Christian. Ought we to have different names for the Pagan deities, Jupiter, Juno, &c. because the mention of them was attended with reverence in Pagans, and with contempt in Christians?

But what shall we say of his supplying idolum by a barbarism of his own, deaster, a word of no authority sacred or profane? It suited the fundamental principles of his undertaking to reject idololatra, idolater, because, though analogically formed from a good word, it could plead only ecclesiastic use. But, by what principle he has introduced such a monster as deastricola, that was never heard of before, it would be impossible to say. He could be at no loss for a proper expression. Idolorum or simulacrorum cultor would have served. He has given but too good reason, by such uncouth sounds as deaster, deastricola, and infidens, infidel, to say that his objections lay only against the liberties in language which had been taken by others. Castalio argues against barbarisms as being obscure: surely this argument strikes more against those of his own coining, than against those (if they can be called barbarisms) which are recommended by so long continued and so extensive an use. For, though he should

not allow the use of theologians to be perfectly good, it is surely on those subjects sufficient for removing the objection of obscurity. I do not see any thing in his work which has so much the appearance of self-conceit as this: in other respects I find him modest and unassuming. It has also been observed, that his idioms are not always pure. Dominus ad cujus normam is not in the Latin idiom: Norma legis is proper, not norma Dei, or norma hominis. But this I consider as an oversight, the other as affectation.

14. I shall add a few words on the subject of Hebraisms, which Castalio is accused of rejecting altogether. This charge he is so far from denying, that he endeavours to justify his conduct in this particular. Herein, I think, if his adversaries went too far on one side, in preferring the mere form of the expression to the perspicuous enunciation of the sense, this interpreter went too far on the opposite side, as he made no account of giving to his version the strong signatures which the original bears of the antiquity, the manners, and the character of the age and nation of the writers. Yet both the credibility of the narrative, and the impression which the sentiments are adapted to make on the readers, are not a little affected by that circumstance. That those are in the worst extreme of the two, who would sacrifice perspicuity and propriety (in other words, the sense itself) to that circumstance, is not indeed to be doubted. The patrons of the literal method do not advert, that, by carrying the point too far, the very exhibition of the style and manner of the author is, with both the other ends of translating, totally annihilated. Quo pertinent," says Houbigant,*" istiusmodi interpretationes, quæ nihil quidquam resonant, nisi adhibes interpretis alterum interpretem?" Again, "Num proprietas hæc censenda est, quæ mihi exprimat obscure ac inhumane, id quod sacri scriptores, dilucide ac liberaliter expresserunt?" The sentiments of this author, in regard to the proper mean between both extremes, as they seem entirely reasonable, and equally applicable to any language, (though expressed in reference to Latin versions only,) I shall subjoin to the foregoing observations on Castalio: Utroque in genere tam metrico quam soluto, retinendas esse veteres loquendi formas, nec ab ista linea unquam discedendum, nisi gravibus de causis, quæ quidem nobis esse tres videntur : primo, si Hebraismi veteres, cum retinentur, fiunt Latino in sermone, vel obscuri vel ambigui; secundo, si eorum significantia minuitur, nisi circuitione quadam uteris; tertio, si vergant ad aliam, quam Hebraica verba, sententiam."+

66

15. I shall finish my critique on this translator with some remarks on a charge brought against him by Beausobre and Lenfant, who affirm,‡ that, abstracting from the false elegance of his style, he takes greater liberty (they must certainly mean with the sense) than a faithful interpreter ought to take. Of this his ver• Proleg. Preface Generale, P. ii. des Versions du N. T.

+ Ibidem.

sion of the following passage, (Acts xxvi. 18,) is given as an example. Του επιστρέψαι απο σκοτους εις φως, και της εξουσίας του Σατανα επι τον Θεον, του λαβειν αυτους αφεσιν ἁμαρτιων, και κληρον εν τοις ἡγιασμένοις, πιστει τη εις εμε: which is thus translated by Castalio-"Ut ex tenebris in lucem, et ex Satanæ potestate ad Deum se convertant, et ita peccatorum veniam, et eandem cum iis sortem consequantur, qui fide mihi habenda sancti facti fuerint:" and by Beza, whom they here oppose to him, "Et convertas eos a tenebris ad lucem, et a potestate Satanæ ad Deum, ut remissionem peccatorum et sortem inter sanctificatos accipiant per fidem quæ est in me." In my opinion there is a real ambiguity in the original, which, if Castalio be blamable for fixing in one way, Beza is not less blamable for fixing it in another. The words πιστει τη εις εμε may be construed with the verb λαβειν at some distance, or with the participle nyiaoμevois immediately preceding. In the common way of reckoning, if one of these methods were to be styled a stretch or a liberty, it would be Beza's, and not Castalio's, both because the latter keeps closer to the arrangement of the original, and because the apostle, not having used the adjective άγιοις, but the participle ἡγιασμένοις, gives some ground to regard the following words as its regimen. Accordingly, Beza has considered the version of Erasmus, which is to the same purpose with Castalio's, and with which the Tigurine version also agrees, "ut accipiant remissionem peccatorum, et sortem inter eos qui sanctificati sunt, per fidem quæ est erga me," as exhibiting a sense quite different from his own; at the same time he freely acknowledges, that the original is susceptible of either meaning. “ Τη πίστει. Potest quidem hoc referri ad participium ἡγιασμένοις, quemadmodum retulit Erasmus." In this instance Beza, though not remarkable for moderation, has judged more equitably than the French translators above-mentioned, who had no reason to affirm dogmatically that the words ought to be joined in the one way and not in the other, or to conclude that Castalio affected to give the words this turn in order to exclude the idea of absolute election. Did the English translators, for this purpose, render the passage after Erasmus and Castalio, not after Beza, "That they may receive forgiveness of sins, and inheritance among them which are sanctified by faith that is in me?" Nobody, I dare say, will suspect it.

66

I cannot help thinking those critics unlucky in their choice of an example: for had there been more to say, in opposition to this version of the passage, than has yet been urged, it would still have been hard to treat that as a liberty peculiar to Castalio, in which he was evidently not the first, and in which he has had the concurrence of more translators than can be produced on the other side. For my part, as I acknowledge that such transpositions are not unfrequent in holy writ, my opinion is, that the connexion and scope of the place ought chiefly to determine us

in doubtful cases. In the present case it appears to me to yield the clearest sense, and to be every way the most eligible, to join the words πιστει τη εις εμε neither to ἡγιασμένοις nor to λαβειν, but to the foregoing verb ETLOT peau; for when the regimen is thrown to the end of the sentence, it is better to join it to the first verb with which it can be suitably construed, than to an intermediate verb, explicative of the former. Nothing can give a more plain, or a more apposite meaning, than the words under examination, thus construed: "To bring them by the faith that is in me," (that is, by my doctrine, the faith, Toris, being often used by the sacred writers for the object of faith, or thing believed,) "from darkness to light," &c.

16. Thus I have endeavoured to examine, with impartiality, Castalio's character as a translator, without assuming the province of either the accuser or the apologist. I have neither exaggerated nor extenuated either his faults or his virtues, and can pronounce truly, upon the whole, that though there are none (Arias and Pagnin excepted) whose general manner of translating is more to be disapproved, I know not any by which a student may be more assisted in attaining the true sense of many places, very obscure in most translations, than by Castalio's.

PART V.

STRICTURES ON BEZA.

BEZA, the celebrated Geneva translator of the New Testament, cannot be accused of having gone to either of the extremes in which we find Arias and Castalio. In general, he is neither servilely literal, barbarous, and unintelligible, with the former; nor does he appear ashamed of the unadorned simplicity of the original, with the latter. It was therefore, at first, my intention not to criticise his version, no more than to inquire into the manner of all the Latin translators of sacred writ, but barely to point out the most egregious faults in the plan of translating sometimes adopted, specifying, in the way of example and illustration, those versions only wherein such faults were most conspicuous. On more mature reflection, I have judged it proper to bestow a few thoughts on Beza, as his translation has, in a great measure, been made the standard of most of the translations of the reformed churches (I do not include the Lutheran) into modern tongues. He has, perhaps, had less influence on English translators than on those of other countries; but he has not been entirely without influence even on them. And though he writes with a good deal of purity and clearness, without florid and ostentatious ornaments, there are some faults which it is of great moment to avoid, and with which he is, upon the whole,