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For while there were other interpreters who translated these sacred
oracles out of the Hebrew tongue into Greek, as Aquila,
Symmathus, and Theodotion, and also that translation which, as the
name of the author is unknown, is quoted as the fifth edition, yet the
ChUrch has received this Septuagint translation just as if it were
the only one; and it has been used by the Greek Christian people,
most of whom are not aware that there is any other. From this
translation there has also been made a translation in the Latin
tongue, which the Latin churches use. Our times, however, have
enjoyed the advantage of the presbyter Jerome, a man most learned,
and skilled in all three languages, who translated these same
Scriptures into the Latin speech, not from the Greek, but from the
Hebrew. But although the Jews acknowledge this very learned labor of
his to be faithful, while they contend that the Septuagint translators
have erred in many places, still the churches of Christ judge that no
one should be preferred to the authority of so many men, chosen for
this very great work by Eleazar, who was then high priest; for even
if there had not appeared in them one spirit, without doubt divine,
and the seventy learned men had, after the manner of men, compared
together the words of their translation, that what pleased them all
might stand, no single translator ought to be preferred to them; but
since so great a sign of divinity has appeared in them, certainly, if
any other translator, of their Scriptures from the Hebrew into any
other tongue is faithful, in that case he agrees with these seventy
translators, and if he is not found to agree with them, then we ought
to believe that the prophetic gift is with them. For the same Spirit
who was in the prophets when they spoke these things was also in the
seventy men when they translated them, so that assuredly they could
also say something else, just as if the prophet himself had said both,
because it would be the same Spirit who said both; and could say the
same thing differently, so that, although the words were not the
same, yet the same meaning should shine forth to those of good
understanding; and could omit or add something, so that even by this
it might be shown that there was in that work not human bondage, which
the translator owed to the words, but rather divine power, which
filled and ruled the mind of the translator. Some, however, have
thought that the Greek copies of the Septuagint version should be
emended from the Hebrew copies; yet they did not dare to take away
what the Hebrew lacked and the Septuagint had, but only added what
was found in the Hebrew copies and was lacking in the Septuagint, and
noted them by placing at the beginning of the verses certain marks in
the form of stars which they call asterisks. And those things which
the Hebrew copies have not, but the Septuagint have, they have in
like manner marked at the beginning of the verses by horizontal
spit-shaped marks like those by which we denote ounces; and many
copies having these marks are circulated even in Latin. But we
cannot, without inspecting both kinds of copies, find out those things
which are neither omitted nor added, but expressed differently,
whether they yield another meaning not in itself unsuitable, or can be
shown to explain the same meaning in another way. If, then, as it
behoves us, we behold nothing else in these Scriptures than what the
Spirit of God has spoken through men, if anything is in the Hebrew
copies and is not in the version of the Seventy, the Spirit of God
did not choose to say it through them, but only through the prophets.
But whatever is in the Septuagint and not in the Hebrew copies, the
same Spirit chose rather to say through the latter, thus showing that
both were prophets. For in that manner He spoke as He chose, some
things through Isaiah, some through Jeremiah, some through several
prophets, or else the same thing through this prophet and through
that. Further, whatever is found in both editions, that one and the
same Spirit willed to say through both, but so as that the former
preceded in prophesying, and the latter followed: in prophetically
interpreting them; because, as the one Spirit of peace was in the
former when they spoke true and concordant words, so the selfsame one
Spirit hath appeared in the latter, when, without mutual conference
they yet interpreted all things as if with one mouth.
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