Biblia Sacra (Gutenberg Bible)

provoked: for he mixed the ancient translation of Theodotion a second-century Jewish convert who retranslated the Hebrew Bible into Greek into the edition, distinguishing the whole work with an asterisk and an obelus, that is, a star and a spit; while he makes clear what was less so before, or cuts and strikes through whatever is superfluous, and especially that which the authority of the evangelists and apostles has promulgated. In which we read many things from the Old Testament that we do not have in our own codices: such as that which is, "Out of Egypt I have called my son," and "He shall be called a Nazarene," and "They shall look on him whom they pierced," and "Rivers of living water shall flow from his belly," and "Things which eye has not seen, nor ear heard, nor have entered into the heart of man, which God has prepared for those who love him," and many other things which require a proper treatise. We ask them, therefore, where these are written, and when they cannot say, we bring them forth from the Hebrew books. The first testimony is in Hosea a book of the Minor Prophets; the second in Isaiah a book of the Major Prophets; the third in Zechariah a book of the Minor Prophets; the fourth in Proverbs a book of Wisdom literature; the fifth likewise in Isaiah; which many, ignoring, follow the ravings of the apocrypha and prefer Jewish nursery tales to authentic books. It is not for me to explain the causes of the error. The Jews say it was done by a prudent plan: lest Ptolemy the King of Egypt, patron of the Septuagint translation, a worshiper of one God, should also perceive a double divinity among the Hebrews, which they did especially because it seemed to fall into the dogma of Plato the Greek philosopher. Finally, wherever the scripture testifies to anything sacred concerning the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, they either interpreted it otherwise or were altogether silent, so that they might both satisfy the king and not vulgarize the mystery of the faith. And I do not know who the first author was who constructed seventy cells at Alexandria the city in Egypt where the Septuagint was allegedly translated with his lie, in which they wrote the same things while separated, when Aristeus the supposed author of the Letter of Aristeas, the bodyguard of the same Ptolemy, and not long after him Josephus the Jewish historian, reported nothing of the kind, but in

a single basilica they write that they gathered and conferred, not that they prophesied. For it is one thing to be a prophet, another to be an interpreter. There, the Spirit predicts things to come; here, erudition and an abundance of words translate what is understood. Unless perhaps one must think that Tully Cicero, the Roman orator, inspired by a rhetorical spirit, translated the Economics a treatise on household management of Xenophon a Greek philosopher, and the Pythagoras a Greek philosopher of Plato a Greek philosopher, and the Ctesiphon a speech by Demosthenes of Demosthenes a Greek orator. Or does the Holy Spirit guide the testimonies of the same books differently through the seventy interpreters and differently through the apostles, such that where those were silent, these lied that it was written? What then? Do we condemn the ancients? By no means; but after the studies of the pious in the house of the Lord, we labor as much as we can. They translated before the coming of Christ, and what they did not know, they brought forth in doubtful sentences; we, after his passion, write not so much prophecy as history. For things heard are narrated in one way, things seen in another. As we understand better, we also present better. Listen, therefore, rival; listen, detractor. I do not condemn, I do not rebuke the seventy: but I confidently prefer the apostles to them all. Through the mouths of these, Christ sounds to me, whom I read placed before the prophets among the spiritual charisms, in which interpreters hold the last degree. Why are you tormented by envy? Why do you stir up the minds of the ignorant against me? If you think I err in the translation, ask the Hebrews, consult the masters of different cities. What they have concerning Christ, your codices do not have. It is another thing if the testimonies later usurped by the apostles pleased them, and the Latin copies are more corrected than the Greek, and the Greek more than the Hebrew. But these things are for the envious. Now I beseech you, dearest desire, because you have made me perform such a work, that you take up the beginning from Genesis the first book of the Bible; may it help me with your prayers, so that I may be able, by the same spirit in which the books were written, to turn them into Latin speech.