Letters (CSEL) 1 part 24/85

following the words only so far that they do not clash with our own usage — words which, even if they will not all have been translated from the Greek, we have yet labored that they be of the same kind (and so forth).' But Horace too, a keen and learned man, prescribes this same thing in his Art of Poetry to the educated translator: 'Nor, as a faithful translator, will you take care to render word for word.' Terence translated Menander, and Plautus and Caecilius the old comic poets: do they cling to the words, and not rather preserve seemliness and elegance in the translating? What you call the truth of translation, the learned name κακοζηλία (misplaced affectation).

Whence I too, taught by such masters about twenty years ago, and deceived then likewise by a similar error — certainly not foreseeing that this would be cast in my teeth by you — when I was rendering the Chronicle of Eusebius into Latin, used among other things such a preface: 'It is difficult, in following another's lines, not to fall out somewhere; and it is hard that things well said in one language should preserve the same seemliness in translation. Something is signified by the property of a single word: I have no word of my own by which to bring it out; and while I seek to fill out the sense, by a long circuit I scarcely complete the spaces of a short road.

There are added the windings of hyperbata, the dissimilarities of cases, the varieties of figures, and lastly the very — so to speak — native genius of the tongue: if I translate word for word, it sounds absurd; if from necessity I change anything in the order or in the wording, I shall seem to have departed from the office of a translator.' And after many things which it is now idle to pursue, I also added this: 'But if to anyone it seems that the grace of a language is not changed by translation, let him render Homer word for word into Latin — nay, I will say something more — let him translate the same author, in his own tongue, into the words of prose:

he will see a ridiculous order, and the most eloquent poet scarcely able to speak.' But lest the authority of my own writings be of little weight — although by this I only wished to prove that from my youth I have always translated not words but meanings — learn by reading it what kind of little preface there is on this subject in the book wherein the life of blessed Antony is described: 'A translation expressed word for word from one language into another obscures the sense, and, as it were, chokes the standing crop with rank grass. For while the discourse serves the cases and figures, what it might have indicated in a brief phrase it scarcely unfolds by a long circuit.' This, therefore, avoiding, I have so rendered the blessed Antony at your request that nothing be lacking from the sense, though something be lacking from the words.

Let others hunt after syllables and letters; do you seek the meanings. The day will fail me, if I unfold the testimonies of all who have translated according to the sense. It suffices for the present to have named Hilary the Confessor, who turned into Latin from the Greek homilies on Job and very many treatises on the Psalms, and did not sit down beside the drowsy letter, nor rack himself with the insipid rendering of rustics, but as though by a victor's right transferred the captive meanings into his own tongue. Nor is this a wonder in other men, whether of the world or of the Church, since the Seventy translators, and the evangelists and apostles, did the same in the sacred volumes. We read in Mark the Lord saying: 'Talitha cumi,' and at once subjoined: 'which is interpreted:

Damsel, I say unto thee, arise.' Accuse the evangelist of a lie, in that he added 'I say unto thee,' when in the Hebrew there is only 'Damsel, arise': but in order to make it more emphatic (ἐμφατικώτερον), and to express the sense of one calling and commanding, he added 'I say unto thee.' Again, in Matthew, when the thirty pieces of silver had been returned by the traitor Judas and the potter's field bought with them, it is written: 'Then was fulfilled that which was spoken by the prophet Jeremiah, saying: And they took the thirty pieces of silver, the price of him that was valued, whom they valued of the children of Israel; and they gave them for the potter's field, as the Lord appointed me.' This is not found at all in Jeremiah, but in Zechariah, in far different words and with the whole order at variance; for the common edition runs thus:

'And I will say unto them: If it be good in your sight, give me my wage, or refuse it. And they weighed out my wage, thirty pieces of silver. And the Lord said unto me: Put them into the smelting-furnace, and consider whether it be tried, as I have been tried by them. And I took the thirty pieces of silver and cast them into the house of the Lord, into the furnace.' How far the Septuagint translation stands from the evangelist's testimony is plain. But in the Hebrew too, though the sense be the same, the words are inverted and almost different: 'And I said,' saith he, 'unto them: If it be good in your eyes, bring me my wage; and if not, hold your peace. And they weighed out my wage, thirty pieces of silver. And the Lord said unto me:

Cast it to the statue-maker, the goodly price at which I was valued by them. And I took the thirty pieces of silver and cast them into the house of the Lord, to the statue-maker.' Let them accuse the apostle of falsity, because he agrees neither with the Hebrew nor with the Septuagint translators, and — what is greater than these — errs in the name, for instead of Zechariah he set down Jeremiah; but far be it to say this of a follower of Christ, whose care it was not to hunt after words and syllables, but to set down the meanings of the doctrines. Let us come to another testimony of the same Zechariah, which the evangelist John took according to the Hebrew truth: 'They shall look on him whom they pierced,' for which in the Septuagint we read:

καὶ ἐπιβλέψονται πρός με, ἀνθ' ὧν ἐνωρχήσαντο, which the Latins have translated: 'And they shall look on me for the things wherein they mocked' or 'insulted.' The evangelist, the Septuagint, and our translation differ, and yet the diversity of words agrees in unity of spirit. In Matthew too we read the Lord foretelling to the apostles their flight, and confirming this very thing by the testimony of Zechariah: 'It is written,' saith he, 'I will smite the shepherd, and the sheep shall be scattered.' But in the Septuagint and in the Hebrew it is far otherwise; for it is not spoken in the person of God, as the evangelist will have it, but in the person of the prophet entreating God the Father: 'Smite the shepherd, and the sheep shall be scattered.'

In this place, as I think, according to the discernment of certain people, the evangelist is guilty of a sacrilege, in that he dared to refer the prophet's words to the person of God. The aforesaid evangelist writes that, at the angel's warning, Joseph took the little child and His mother and entered Egypt, and remained there until the death of Herod, that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by the Lord through the prophet: 'Out of Egypt have I called my son.' This our codices do not have; but in the prophet Hosea it is written according to the Hebrew truth: 'Because Israel was a child, I loved him, and out of Egypt have I called my son.' For which, in the same place, the Septuagint have translated: 'Because Israel is a little one, and I loved him, and out of Egypt have I called his sons.'

Are they utterly to be rejected, who translated this passage otherwise because it pertains chiefly to the mystery of Christ, or is pardon rather to be granted them as men, according to the saying of James: 'In many things we all offend; and if any man offend not in word, the same is a perfect man, able to bridle the whole body'? But as for that which is written in the same evangelist: 'And coming he dwelt in a city which is called Nazareth, that it might be fulfilled which was spoken through the prophet, that He shall be called a Nazarene' — let the word-jugglers and fastidious appraisers of all commentators answer where they have read it, and let them learn that it is set down in Isaiah. For in that place where we read and have translated:

'And there shall come forth a rod out of the root of Jesse, and a flower shall rise up out of the root,' in the Hebrew, according to the idiom (ἰδίωμα) of that tongue, it is written thus: 'There shall come forth a rod out of the root of Jesse, and a Nazarene shall grow out of his root.' Why did the Septuagint omit this? If it is not lawful to translate word for word, it is a sacrilege either to have concealed or to have been ignorant of a mystery. Let us pass on to the rest — for the brevity of a letter does not suffer us to linger longer on single points —: the same Matthew says: 'Now all this was done, that it might be fulfilled which was spoken of the Lord through the prophet, saying: Behold, a virgin shall be with child, and shall bring forth a son, and they shall call his name Emmanuel.' Which the Septuagint have translated:

'Behold, a virgin shall conceive, and shall bring forth a son, and you shall call his name Emmanuel.' If they cavil about words, surely 'shall be with child' and 'shall conceive' are not the same, nor 'they shall call' and 'you shall call.' Furthermore, in the Hebrew we read it written thus: 'Behold, a virgin shall conceive, and shall bring forth a son, and she shall call his name Emmanuel.' Not Ahaz, who was reproved for unbelief, not the Jews, who were about to deny the Lord, but she shall call — it saith — she herself who shall conceive, the virgin herself who shall bring forth. In the same evangelist we read that Herod was troubled at the coming of the Magi, and, having gathered the scribes and priests, inquired of them where Christ should be born, and that they answered: 'In Bethlehem of Judah; for so it is written in the prophet:

And you, Bethlehem, land of Judah, are by no means the least among the princes of Judah; for out of you shall come forth a leader, who shall rule my people Israel.' This passage in the common edition runs thus: 'And you, Bethlehem, house of Ephrathah, are small to be among the thousands of Judah; out of you there shall come forth for me one to be prince in Israel.' How great the discord of words and order between Matthew and the Septuagint — this you will marvel at the more if you look at the Hebrew, wherein it is written: 'And you, Bethlehem Ephrathah, are little among the thousands of Judah; out of you there shall come forth for me one to be ruler in Israel.' Consider step by step what has been set down by the evangelist: 'And you, Bethlehem, land of Judah': for 'land of Judah' the Hebrew has (Ephrathah), the Septuagint 'house of Ephrathah';

'you are by no means the least among the princes of Judah': in the Septuagint it reads 'you are small, to be among the thousands of Judah'; in the Hebrew, 'you are little among the thousands of Judah' — and the sense is contrary, the Septuagint and the Hebrew agreeing with each other in this place alone. For the evangelist said that it is not least among the princes of Judah, whereas on the opposite side it is set down: 'little indeed you are and small; but nevertheless out of you, little and small, there shall come forth for me a leader of Israel,' according to that saying of the apostle: 'God has chosen the weak things of the world, that He may confound the strong.' Furthermore, what follows — 'who shall rule,' or 'who shall feed,' my people Israel — is, it is plain, otherwise in the prophet.

These things I recount, not to accuse the evangelists of falsity — for that belongs to the impious, to Celsus, Porphyry, Julian — but to convict my critics of unskillfulness, and to obtain pardon from them, that they may grant to me in a plain letter what, will they, nill they, they are bound to grant to the apostles in the holy Scriptures. Mark, the disciple of Peter, thus begins his Gospel: 'The beginning of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, as it is written in Isaiah the prophet: Behold, I send my messenger before your face, who shall prepare your way. The voice of one crying in the wilderness: Prepare the way of the Lord, make his paths straight.' This passage is compounded from two prophets, namely from Malachi and Isaiah. For the first, which is said:

'Behold, I send my messenger before your face, who shall prepare your way,' is set at the end of Malachi; but what is subjoined next — 'The voice of one crying in the wilderness,' and the rest — we read in Isaiah. And how is it that Mark, at the very beginning of his volume, put: 'As it is written in Isaiah the prophet: Behold, I send my messenger,' which is not written in Isaiah, as we have said, but in Malachi, the last of the twelve prophets? Let unskilled presumption resolve this little question, and I will beg pardon for my error. The same Mark brings in the Savior speaking to the Pharisees:

'Have you never read what David did, when he had need and was hungry, himself and those who were with him — how he entered into the house of God under Abiathar the high priest, and ate the loaves of proposition, which it was not lawful to eat save for the priests only?' Let us read Samuel — or, as it is held under the common title, the books of Kingdoms — and there we shall find that it is written not 'Abiathar,' but 'Ahimelech' the high priest, who afterward was struck down by Doeg, together with the rest of the priests, at Saul's command. Let us proceed to the apostle Paul. He writes to the Corinthians: 'For if they had known it, they would never have crucified the Lord of glory. But, as it is written:

that which eye has not seen, nor ear heard, neither has it entered into the heart of man, the things which God has prepared for those who love him.' In this place certain persons are wont to follow the ravings of the apocrypha and to say that the testimony is taken from the Apocalypse of Elijah, whereas in Isaiah, according to the Hebrew, it reads thus: 'From of old they have not heard, nor perceived with their ears; the eye has not seen, O God, besides you, the things which you have prepared for those who wait for you.' This the Septuagint have translated far otherwise: 'From of old we have not heard, neither have our eyes seen a God besides you, and your true works; and you will show mercy to those who wait for you.'

We understand whence he took the testimony, and yet the apostle did not express word from word, but paraphrastically (παραφραστικῶς) indicated the same sense in other words. In the epistle to the Romans the same blessed apostle, taking an example from the prophet Isaiah, says: 'Behold, I lay in Zion a stone of stumbling and a rock of offense.' It disagrees with the old translation, and yet agrees with the Hebrew truth. For in the Septuagint the sense is contrary: 'You shall not fall upon it as upon a stone of stumbling, nor as upon a rock of ruin,' whereas the apostle Peter too, agreeing with the Hebrews and with Paul, has put it thus: 'but to the unbelieving, a stone of stumbling and a rock of offense.'

From all which it is evident that the apostles and evangelists, in translating the old Scriptures, sought the sense, not the words, and did not greatly concern themselves with the arrangement and the phrasing, so long as the matters were plain to the understanding. Luke, an apostolic man and evangelist, writes that Stephen, the first martyr of Christ, in a dispute with the Jews, narrated: 'In seventy-five souls Jacob went down into Egypt, and he himself died, and our fathers, and they were carried over into Shechem; and they were laid in the sepulchre which Abraham bought for a price of silver from the sons of Hamor, the son of Shechem.'

This passage is found quite otherwise in Genesis, namely that Abraham bought from Ephron the Hittite, the son of Zohar, near Hebron, for four hundred didrachmas of silver, a double cave and the field around it, and buried in it Sarah his wife. And in the same book we later read that Jacob, on his return from Mesopotamia with his wives and sons, pitched his tent before Salem, the city of the Shechemites, which is in the land of Canaan, and dwelt there, and bought a portion of the field on which he had his tents from Hamor, the father of Shechem, for a hundred lambs, and set up there an altar and called upon the God of Israel. Abraham did not buy the cave from Hamor, the father of Shechem, but from Ephron, the son of Zohar; nor was he buried in Shechem, but

in Hebron, which is corruptly called Arboc. Now the twelve patriarchs were not buried in Arboc, but in Shechem, and that field was bought not by Abraham but by Jacob. I put off the solution of this little question as well, so that my detractors may seek and understand that it is not the words in the Scriptures that are to be weighed, but the sense. The opening of the twenty-first psalm according to the Hebrews is that very thing which the Lord spoke on the cross: Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani, which is interpreted: My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? Let them give a reason why the Seventy translators inserted 'look upon me.' For thus they rendered it: My God, my God, look upon me, why hast thou forsaken me?

They will surely answer that there is no loss to the sense if two words are added. Then let them hear from me that the standing of the churches is not endangered if, in the haste of dictation, I have left out some words. It would take long now to unfold how much the Septuagint added of its own, how much they omitted, things which in the copies of the church are marked off with obeli and asterisks. For that which we read in Isaiah, 'Blessed is he who has seed in Zion and a household in Jerusalem,' the Hebrews are wont to laugh at when they hear it; and likewise in Amos, after the description of luxury, 'They reckoned these things to be standing and not fleeting.' This is truly rhetorical sense and Ciceronian declamation; but what shall we do with the authentic books, in which these things are not found written, and other things like them?

If we were to strive to bring these forward, we should need countless books. Furthermore, how much they omitted, either the asterisks, as I said, are witnesses, or my own translation, if it be compared by a careful reader with the old version. And yet by right the Septuagint edition has held its place in the churches, either because it is the first and is said to be before the coming of Christ, or because it was used by the apostles — though even in these places it does not differ from the Hebrew. But Aquila, a proselyte and a contentious translator, who tried to render not only the words but the etymologies of the words, is rightly cast aside by us.

For who, in place of 'grain and wine and oil,' could either read or understand cheuma, oporismon, stilpnoteta — which we might render 'pouring,' 'fruit-gathering,' and 'brightness'? Or, because the Hebrews have not only articles but also pre-articles, that fellow, out of a perverse zeal for imitation, translates even the syllables and letters, and says syn ton ouranon kai syn ten gen, which neither the Greek nor the Latin tongue at all admits. We can take an example of this matter from our own speech. How many things are well said among the Greeks which, if we render word for word, do not ring true in Latin; and on the other hand, things that please among us, if they be turned according to their order, will displease among them!

But, to pass over countless instances and to show you — most Christian of all noble men, most noble of Christians — of what sort are the falsehoods they reprehend in my translation of a letter, I shall set down the very beginning of the letter together with the Greek text, so that from one charge the rest may also be understood: 'It behooves us, beloved, not to be carried along by the conceit of the clergy' — which I recall having rendered thus: 'It behooved us, most beloved, not to abuse the honor of the clerical office unto pride.' 'Look,' they say, 'how many lies in a single little line! First, agapetos is beloved, not most beloved; then oiesis is called estimation, not pride' — for he did not say oiema but oiesis, of which the one sounds swelling, the other judgment —;

'and the whole of what follows, "not to abuse the honor of the clerical office unto pride," is your own invention.' What say you, O pillar of letters and Aristarchus of our times, you who pass sentence upon all writers? Have we then labored so long in vain, and so often drawn back our hand from the ferule? On leaving harbor we straightway ran aground. Therefore, since both to have erred is human and to confess one's error is the mark of a prudent man, do you, whoever you are that reprehend me, do you, I beseech you, correct me, O master, and render word for word. 'You ought,' he says, 'to have said: It behooved us, beloved, not to be carried by the estimation of the clergy.' This is Plautine eloquence, this the Attic charm, and, as they say, comparable to the eloquence of the Muses! There is fulfilled in me the proverb worn threadbare in common speech:

'He wastes oil and expense who sends an ox to the wrestling-ground.' This is not the fault of him under whose person another acts out the tragedy, but of his teachers, who taught him at great cost to know nothing. Nor do I reprehend want of skill in speech in any Christian — and would that we had that saying of Socrates, 'I know that I know not,' and that of another sage, 'Know thyself'! To me holy simplicity has ever been an object of reverence, not wordy rusticity. He who says that he imitates the apostles in speech, let him first imitate them in life. The greatness of their holiness excused the simplicity of their speech, and a dead man rising again refuted the syllogisms of Aristotle and the twisted subtleties of Chrysippus.

For the rest, it is ridiculous if any one of us, amid the riches of Croesus and the delights of Sardanapalus, should boast of his mere rusticity alone — as though all robbers and men guilty of various crimes were eloquent, and hid their bloody swords in the volumes of philosophers rather than in the trunks of trees. I have exceeded the measure of a letter, but I have not exceeded the measure of my grief. For I, who am called a forger and am torn apart amid the spindles and looms of little women, am content to wash away the charge, not to return it. Wherefore I leave all to your judgment: read the letter itself, both the Greek and the Latin, and you will at once perceive the trifles and the precious complaints of my accusers. Moreover, it is enough for me to have instructed a most dear friend, and, lurking in my little cell, only to await the day of judgment.

And I choose, if it can be, even though my adversaries rage, to write commentaries on the Scriptures rather than the Philippics of Demosthenes and of Cicero. LVIII. TO THE PRESBYTER PAULINUS. A good man out of the good treasure of his heart brings forth those things that are good, and a tree is known by its fruits. You measure me by your own virtues, and, being great, you exalt me who am small, and take the lowest place at the banquet, that by the judgment of the master of the house you may be advanced. For what is there in us, or how little, that we should deserve the heralding of a learned voice, that we, humble and slight, should be praised by that mouth by which a most religious prince is defended? Do not therefore, dearest brother, reckon us by the number of years, nor account grey hairs to be wisdom, but wisdom to be grey hairs, as Solomon testifies:

'The grey hair of a man is his prudence.' For Moses too was commanded to choose seventy elders, whom he himself knew to be elders — to be judged, assuredly, not by age but by prudence; and Daniel while yet a boy judges even aged men, and a wanton age condemns unchaste old men. Do not, I say, weigh faith by lengths of time, nor think me the better for this, that I began earlier to serve in the army of Christ. Paul the apostle, changed from a persecutor into a vessel of election, though last in order is first in merits, because, though the last, he labored more than all. Judas, who once had heard, 'But thou, O man, my guide and mine acquaintance;

in the house of God we walked with one accord,' is convicted as the betrayer of his friend, his master, his Savior, and knots the noose of shapeless death from a high beam. But on the contrary the robber exchanges his cross for paradise, and the punishment of homicide makes him a martyr. How many today, by living long, bear about their own funerals, and, like whitewashed sepulchres, are full of the bones of the dead! A sudden heat overcomes a long-drawn tepidity. Finally, you too, having heard the Savior's saying, 'If you would be perfect, go, sell all that you have and give to the poor, and come, follow me,' turn words into works, and, naked following the naked cross, more unencumbered and lighter, you climb Jacob's ladder.

You change your tunic together with your mind, and with no full purse do you seek out glorious squalor, but with pure hands and a candid breast you glory in being poor both in spirit and in goods. For there is nothing great in feigning or displaying fasts with a sad and pallid face, in abounding in the revenues of possessions and flaunting a cheap little cloak. That famous Crates of Thebes, once a most wealthy man, when he was setting out for Athens to pursue philosophy, cast away a great weight of gold, and did not think he could possess both virtues and riches at once. But we, stuffed with gold, follow the poor Christ, and under the pretext of almsgiving, brooding over our former wealth, how can we faithfully distribute what belongs to others, we who timidly keep back what is our own? A full belly readily disputes about fasting.

It is not to have been at Jerusalem, but to have lived well at Jerusalem, that is praiseworthy. That city, that city is to be sought after — not the one which slays the prophets and shed the blood of Christ, but the one which the rushing of a river gladdens, which, set on a mountain, cannot be hidden, which the apostle proclaims to be the mother of the saints, in which he rejoices to have his citizenship together with the just. Yet in saying this I do not convict myself of inconstancy nor condemn what I do, so as to seem in vain to have left my own kindred and country after the example of Abraham; but I dare not confine the omnipotence of God within a narrow limit, and cramp within a small place of earth Him whom heaven does not contain. Each one of the believers is weighed not by diversities of places, but by the merit of faith;

and the true worshippers worship the Father neither at Jerusalem nor on Mount Gerizim, because God is a spirit, and it behooves His worshippers to worship Him in spirit and in truth. And the Spirit breathes where it wills. The earth is the Lord's, and the fullness thereof. After the fleece of Judaea was dried and the whole world was bedewed with heavenly dew, and many coming from the east and from the west reclined in the bosom of Abraham, God ceased to be known only in Judaea and His name to be great only in Israel, but their sound went out into all the earth, the sound of the apostles, and their words unto the ends of the world. The Savior, speaking to His disciples while He was in the temple, said, 'Arise, let us go hence,' and to the Jews, 'Your house shall be left unto you desolate.'

If heaven and earth shall pass away, then surely all that is earthly shall pass away. And so both the places of the cross and of the resurrection profit those who bear their own cross and rise again with Christ daily, who show themselves worthy of so great a dwelling. But for the rest, those who say, 'the temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord,' let them hear from the apostle: 'You are the temple of God, and the Holy Spirit dwells in you.' And to Jerusalem and to Britain alike the court of heaven lies open; for the kingdom of God is within us. Antony, and all the swarms of monks of Egypt and Mesopotamia, of Pontus, Cappadocia, and Armenia, never saw Jerusalem, and the gate of paradise lies open to them apart from this city.

The blessed Hilarion, though he was a Palestinian and lived in Palestine, saw Jerusalem on only one single day, so as neither to despise the holy places because of their nearness, nor again to seem to mock God by confining Him to a place. From the times of Hadrian until the reign of Constantine, for about one hundred and eighty years, in the place of the resurrection an image of Jupiter, and on the rock of the cross a marble statue of Venus set up by the heathen, were worshipped — the authors of the persecution reckoning that they would take from us faith in the resurrection and the cross if they defiled the holy places by idols. Bethlehem now our own, and the most august place of the world, of which the psalmist sings: