minds of the multitude, and to lead them to Christ, by furnishing them with those writings in which the plan of salvation through him is laid open, and the industry with which this object was pursued by men of every description, cannot be better understood than from the great number of Latin translations of the sacred volume which were set forth even in the very infancy of Christianity. For, as the Latin language had been rendered familiar to a great part of the world, and was not entirely unknown even to what were called the barbarous nations, the Christians conceived that, by their translating the books of the New Testament into it, the way of truth would at once be laid open to an innumerable portion of mankind." But these primæval translations cannot now be identified; indeed the existence of any so early as the first century, in which it is thought such attempts were probably made by Christians at Rome, of Jewish extraction, is not capable of demonstration. But, unless the scripture texts in Tertullian, who wrote in the last decade of the second century, were renderings of his own from the Greek, we are certain there must have been a Latin version in current use so early as A. D. 190. In the time of Augustine, however, who was born in 354, we have evidence of the circulation of several versions in that language. In his treatise Of Christian Doctrine, a discourse expressly intended to serve as an introduction to the reading and interpretation of the holy scriptures, after advising that, in addition to the attainment of a knowledge of the original languages, recourse should be had to the different versions of the Bible, inasmuch as one serves to illustrate another, he takes occasion to refer to the multitude of Latin translations then in current use; but in such a way as to caution his readers against the greater number of them, as having been made by persons who were not sufficiently qualified for the under taking. Qui scripturas ex Hebræa lingua in Græcam verterunt numerari possunt, Latini autem interpretes nullo modo. Ut enim cuique primis fidei temporibus in manus venit codex Græcus, et aliquantulum facultatis sibi utriusque linguæ habere videbatur, ausus est interpretari.* But in the same work he speaks in terms of great commendation of one among these many versions, for the closeness of its renderings, and the perspicuity of its style. This version he distinguishes by the name of the ITALA. In ipsis autem interpretationibus, Itala ceteris præferatur; nam est verborum tenacior cum perspicuitate sententiæ. As this sentence is the only place among all the writings of the fathers in which mention is made of the Italic version, it is evident that the custom of modern critics in applying the name of "the Itala" to the whole mass of Latin biblical text prior to the time of St. Jerome, is injudicious; since it invests a large class of productions, of very different degrees of merit, with a character which is affirmed by Augustine respecting one of them only. And whether, indeed, among the ancient Latin translations which have come down to us, this particular one is yet extant, is a question that cannot be determined with certainty. The African bishop gives no extracts from it, no specimen of the work whatever, and only mentions its existence in a solitary sentence. How, then, is it to be identified? Nevertheless there is a strong opinion in favour of the text exhibited in the Codex Brixianus, as being that referred to by Augustine. This celebrated manuscript of the Gospels was written eleven hundred years ago on purple vellum, the characters traced in ink, and subsequently silvered, and the initial letters tinged with gold; the work itself, from this latter circumstance, being commonly known as the Codex * AUGUSTINUS De Doct. Christ. lib. ii. cap. 11. Aureus.* It is considered that this version took the name of Itala from the diocese in which it was in common use, the Italic, of which Milan was the metropolis.† The text of the manuscript of Brescia, (Cod. Brixianus,) together with that of three others, the Verceil, Corbeil, and Verona, as well as the Codex Forojuliensis, a мs. of the later version of St. Jerome, was edited in 1749, by Joseph Blanchini, a priest of the Oratory, in four volumes folio, with the title, Evangeliarium quadruplex Latina Versiones antiquæ, seu veteris Italicæ, nunc primum in Lucem editum, ex Codicibus Manuscriptis aureis, argenteis, purpureis, aliisque, plusquam millenariæ Ætatis, sub Auspiciis Joannis V. Regis fidelissimi Lusitaniæ. [The manuscripts here first printed are described by Semler in the appendix to Wetstein's Prolegomena, pp. 635-678. But Griesbach has furnished more extensive information, in a catalogue of no less than seventeen codices. The Verceil manuscript (which is said to be an autograph of St. Eusebius, a bishop of that diocess in the fourth century) had been published at Milan in 1743, by Jean Andre Irico. Before this, father Martianay, of the Benedictines of St. Maur, had edited an old Latin Gospel of St. Matthew, with the Epistle of St. James, in what he calls "the Italic version." But the most complete collection of the ancient Latin scriptures is that published at Rheims, by Sabbatier, entitled, Bibliorum sacrorum Latinæ Versiones antiquæ, seu vetus Italica, et ceteræ, quotquot in codicibus MSS. et antiquorum libris reperiri potuerunt, quæ cum Vulgata Latina et cum textu * St. Jerome notices manuscripts of this kind: Habeant qui volunt veteres libros, vel in membranis purpureis auro argentoque descriptos, vel uncialibus, ut vulgo ajunt, litteris onera magis exarata, quam codices.-Præf. in Job. + NOLAN "On the Greek Vulgate," Preface; CAVE'S "Government of Ancient Church," p. 127; ALLIX, "On the Church of Piedmont," chap. i. Græco comparentur. Remis, 1743. Remis, 1743. The text exhibited in these three folios is not printed from Latin manuscripts only, but also from what are called the Codices Græco-Latini, or manuscripts of the early and middle ages, which present both the original Greek and a Latin translation, the latter, in some cases, being very ancient. Such is the celebrated Codex Beza at Cambridge, (the Gospels and the Acts,) a Ms. of the fifth century; the Codex Laudiani, No. 3, (the Acts,) in the Bodleian at Oxford; and the Codex Boernerianus, in the Electoral Library at Dresden, in which the Latin is interlined with the Greek text.] In the Old Testament the ancient Latin follows the Septuagint in its ante-hexaplaric state, and must on that account have been liable to the errors which rendered the labours of Origen so serviceable. The Vetus Latina of the Old Testament may therefore be referred to in evidence for readings of the Seventy in the early part of the third century. The different parts of the New Testament, as confessedly translated from the original at a very early age, are of much use in the department of criticism, in pointing out the readings of Greek Mss. of greater antiquity than any now in existence. It is admitted that many of the renderings may be far from faultless; but we may nevertheless consider the rule laid down by Bengel as sufficiently accurate, that the co-incidence of the Latin versions with such a Greek manuscript as the Codex Alexandrinus, may be considered as an undeniable argument for the authenticity of a reading. And the value of the old Latin becomes yet more apparent by the phenomenon, that the more ancient the Greek manuscripts, the closer is their agreement with it. These translations are distinguished by a certain rude simplicity. They follow the idiom of the Hebraistic Greek of the apostles and evangelists as by a connatural habit in the versionist, or by a systematic care. This plainness of style passes in numerous instances into grammatical inaccuracy. The authors, if native Italians, appear to have been accustomed to live at a distance from the great centres of civilization, or, as Michaëlis was fond of arguing, were Syrians, or Christianized Jews, who were among the most active agents of the gospel in the apostolic age at Rome. So early as the middle of the fourth century, the text of these primitive Latin versions had become much deteriorated. As separate productions they were losing their individuality of character, by being mixed and mutually interpolated. A new text arose, which was a composition of various parts of once distinct works, by the rejection of passages or phrases in a manuscript, which were supplied by parallel ones from another which seemed preferable; as well as by the adoption into the text of what had before been merely marginal suggestions. In speaking of this state of things, St. Jerome says that no one copy resembled another; and that, in fact, there were different texts as manuscripts.* almost as many Eusebius, bishop of Verceil, the friend of Athanasius, appears to have been the first to turn his energies towards the correction of this serious evil. He was prompted to the undertaking by Julius, who then presided over the church of Rome. We have in the Codex Vercellensis (printed separately by Irico, and incorporated in the magnificent work of Blanchini) the result of his labours on the text of the Gospels. But for St. Jerome was reserved the honour of renovating the greater part of the Latin text. He, too, was stirred up to this herculean task by Damasus, at that time pope; and he brought it to a conclusion about the year 384. He had then re-translated the canonical * Si Latinis exemplaribus fides est adhibenda, respondeant, quibus 2 tot enim sunt exemplaria pœne quot codices. |