he calls the translation of the church, as to consider the deviations from it in modern versions, from whatever cause they spring, attention to the meaning, or to the letter, of the original, as erroneous and indefensible. The manner in which the first of these aims has been pursued by him, I took occasion to consider in a former Dissertation 3, to which I must refer my reader; I intend now to inquire a little into the methods by which he supports this secondary aim, the faithfulness of the Vulgate, and, if not its absolute perfection, its superiority, at least to every other attempt that has been made, in the Western churches, towards translating the Bible. This inquiry naturally falls in with the first part of my subject in the present Dissertation, in which I hope to show, to the satisfaction of the reader, that he might, with equal plausibility, have maintained the superiority of that version over every translation which ever shall, or can, be made of holy writ. § 5. FROM the view which I have given of his design with respect to the Vulgate, one would naturally expect, that he must rate very highly the verdict of the council of Trent, in favour of that version, that he must derive its excellence, as others of his order have done, from immediate inspiration, and conclude it to be infallible. Had this been his me. thod of proceeding, his book would have excited little attention from the beginning, except from those whose minds were pre-engaged on the same side by bigotry or interest, and would probably, long ere now, have been forgotten. What person of common sense in these days ever thinks of the ravings of Harduin the Jesuit, who, in opposition to antiquity and all the world, maintained, that the Apostles and Evangelists wrote in Latin, that the Vulgate was the original, and the Greek New Testament a version, and that consequently the latter ought to be corrected by the former, not the former by the latter, with many other absurdities, to which Michaelis has done too much honour, in attempting to refute them in his lectures? But Simon's method was, in fact, the reverse. The sentence of the council, as was hinted formerly, he has explained in such a manner as to denote no more than would be readily admitted by every mo 4 Such as, that, except Cicero's works, Pliny's Natural History, the Georgics, Horace's Epistles, and a few others, all the ancient classics Greek and Latin are the forgeries of monks in the 13th century. Virgil's Eneid is not excepted. This, according to him, was a fable invented for exhibiting the triumph of the church over the synagogue. Troy was Jerusalem, in a similar manner, reduced to ashes after a siege. Eneas carrying his gods into Italy, represented St. Peter travelling to Rome to preach the gospel to the Romans, and there lay the foundations of the hierarchy. I heartily join in Boileau's sentiment, (for of him it is told, if I remember right) "I should like much to have conversed with friar Virgil, and friar Livy, and friar Horace; for we see no such friars now." derate and judicious Protestant. The inspiration of the translator he disclaims, and consequently the infallibility of the version. He ascribes no superiority to it above the original. This superiority was but too plainly implied in the indecent comparison which Cardinal Ximenes made of the Vulgate as printed in his edition (the Complutensian) between the Hebrew and the Septuagint, to our Lord crucified between two thieves, making the Hebrew represent the hardened thief, and the Greek the penitent. Simon, on the contrary, shows no disposition to detract from the merit either of the original, or of any ancient version; though not inclinable to allow more to the editions and transcripts we are at present possessed of, than the principles of sound criticism appear to warrant. He admits that we have yet no perfect version of holy writ, and does not deny that a better may be made than any extant. In short, nothing can be more equitable than the general maxims he establishes. It is by this method that he insensibly gains upon his readers, insinuates himself into their good graces, and brings them, before they are aware, to repose an implicit confidence in his discernment, and to admit, without examining, the equity of his particular decisions. Now all these decisions are made artfully to conduct them to one point, which he is the surer to carry, as he never openly proposes it, namely, to consider the Vulgate as the standard, by a conformity to which, the value of every other version ought to be estimated. 5 Hist. Crit. du V. T. liv. III. ch, i, § 6. In consequence of this settled purpose, not declared in words, but, without difficulty, discovered by an attentive reader, he finds every other version which he examines, either too literal or too loose, in rendering almost every passage which he specifies, according as it is more or less so, than that which he has tacitly made to serve as the common measure for them all. And though it is manifest, that even the most literal are not more blameably literal in any place than the Vulgate is in other places; or even the most loose translations more wide of the sense than in some instances that version may be shown to be; he has always the address, to bring his readers (at least on their first reading his book) to believe with him, that the excess, of whatever kind it be, is in the other versions, and not in the Vulgate. In order to this he is often obliged to argue from contrary topics, and at one time to defend a mode of interpreting which he condemns at another. And though this inevitably involves him in contradictions, these, on a single, or even a second or third perusal, are apt to be overlooked by a reader who is not uncommonly attentive. The inconsistencies elude the reader's notice the more readily, as they are not brought under his view at once, but must be gathered from parts of the work not immediately connexed; and, as the individual passages in question are always different, though the manner in which they are translated, and on which the criticism turns, is the same, Add to this, that our critic's mode of arguing is the more spe cious and unsuspected, because it is remarkably simple and dispassionate. It will be necessary, therefore, though it may be accounted a bold and even invidious undertaking, to re-examine a few of the pas. sages examined by Father Simon, that we may, if possible, discover whether there be reason for the charge of partiality and inconsistency, which has been just now brought against him. 7. In his examination of Erasmus's version of the New Testament, he has the following observation: "Where we have in the Greek 78 opiodevTos "vis Oes ev Svvaus, the ancient Latin interpreter "has very well and literally rendered it, qui præ"destinatus est filius Dei in virtute, which was "also the version used in the Western churches "before Saint Jerom, who has made no change on "this place. I do not inquire whether that inter preter has read προορισθέντος as some believe : "for prædestinatus signifies no more here than des"tinatus: and one might put in the translation præ"destinatus, who read opiodevτos, as we read at pre"sent in all the Greek copies; and there is nothing "here that concerns what theologians commonly call predestination. Erasmus, however, has forsaken "the ancient version, and said, qui declaratus fuit fi"lius Dei cum potentia. It is true, that many learned "Greek fathers have explained the Greek participle Η ορισθέντος by δειχθεντος, αποφανθέντος; that is, • Rom. i. 4. |