Chap. iii. Internal History. Ps. lvii. The version of the New Testament obscure, especially in the Epistles. This is not what a translation of the Psalms should be, but the following passage is positively painful from the ostentatious disregard of meaning in the words': 9 As wax that melteth shall they be taken away; fire hath fallen on them, and they have not seen the sun. 10 Before your thorns did understand the old briar: as living so in wrath he swalloweth them. II The just shall rejoice when he shall see revenge: he shall wash his hands in the blood of a sinner. 12 And man shall say: If certes there be fruit to the just: there is a God certes judging them on the earth. The translation of the New Testament is exactly similar to that of the Old; and next to the Psalter the Epistles are most inadequately rendered. Neither the Psalter, indeed, as translated by the Rhemists, nor the Epistles had the benefit of Jerome's independent labour. He revised the Latin texts of both hastily and imperfectly, but in both he left much which he would not himself have written. A few isolated quotations will be enough to shew the character of the Rhemish Version: Rom. v. 18 Therefore as by the offence of one, unto all men to condemnation: so also by the justice of one unto all men to justification of life. vi. 13 Exhibit yourselves as of dead men alive. viii. 18 I think that the passions of this time are not 1 The translation follows the Gallican Psalter verbally. Jerome's own translation is wholly different. Rom. ix. 28 For consummating a word and abridging it in equity: because a word abridged shall our Lord make upon the earth. Eph. vi. 12 Our wrestling is...against princes and potentates, against the rectors of the world of this darkness, against the spirituals of wickedness in the celestials. Heb. xiii. 16 Beneficence and communication do not forget, for with such hosts God is premerited'. Chap. iii. of Latin words which adopted in have been our Ver Such translations as these have no claim to be con- Examples sidered vernacular renderings of the text: except through the Latin they are unintelligible. But still they only represent what there was in the Vulgate incapable of sion. assimilation to an English version. And on the other hand a single Epistle furnishes the following list of Latin words which King James' translators have taken. from the Rhemish Testament: separated (Rom. i. 1), consent (mg.) (i. 32), impenitent (ii. 5), approvest (ii. 18), propitiation (iii. 25), remission (id.), grace (iv. 4), glory in tribulations (v. 3), commendeth (v. 8), concupiscence (vii. 7), revealed (viii. 18), expectation (viii. 19), (conformable, viii. 29), confession is made unto salvation (x. 10), emulation (xi. 14), concluded (xi. 32), conformed (xii. 2), instant (xii. 12), contribution (xv. 26). But at the same time it must be added that the scrupulous or even servile adherence of the Rhemists to the text of the Vulgate was not always without advantage. They frequently reproduced with force the original order of the Greek which is preserved in the Latin; and even while many unpleasant roughnesses All the quotations are made from the first editions. In the later (Irish) editions of the Rhemes and Doway' Bible and New Testament there are considerable alterations, and the text is far nearer to that in the A. V. Preservation of the original order; and Chap. iii. form of expression. The Greek Scholarship of the Rhemists. occur, there can be little doubt that their version gained on the whole by the faithfulness with which they endeavoured to keep the original form of the sacred writings. Examples of this simple faithfulness occur constantly, as for instance: Matt. xviii. 9, having one eye to enter into life; id. 27, the debt he forgave him; xx. 12, the burden of the day and the heat; id. 23, my cup indeed you shall drink of; xxi. 41, the naughty men he will bring to naught; xxii. 13, those that are going in you suffer not to enter; xxvi. 11, the poor you have. The same spirit of anxious fidelity to the letter of their text often led the Rhemists to keep the phrase of the original where other translators had unnecessarily abandoned it: e.g. Matt. xvii. 1, hour; id. 6, it is expedient; id. 9, the hell of fire; xx. 20, the sons of Z.; xxii. 2, likened; id. 44, the footstool of thy feet; xxvi. 25, Is it I, Rabbi? (contrasted with v. 22) and so v. 49. When the Latin was capable of guiding them the Rhemists seem to have followed out their principles honestly; but wherever it was inadequate or ambiguous they had the niceties of Greek at their command. Their treatment of the article offers a good illustration of the care and skill with which they performed this part of their task. The Greek article cannot, as a general rule, be expressed in Latin. Here then the translators were free to follow the Greek text, and the result is that this critical point of scholarship is dealt with more satisfactorily by them than by any earlier translators. And it must be said also that in this respect the revisers of King James were less accurate than the Rhemists, though they had their work before them. For example the Rhemish version omits the definite article in the following passages where it is wrongly inserted by A.V. and all earlier versions: Matt. ii. 13 (an angel); Luke ii. 9 (an angel); John vi. 26 (signs not the miracles). Much more frequently it rightly inserts the articles where other versions (including A.V.) omit it: e.g. Matt. iv. 5 (the pinnacle); vi. 25 (the meat, the raiment); xiv. 22 (the boat); xxv. 30 (the utter); xxviii. 16 (the mountain); John v. 35 (the lamp); 1 Cor. x. 5 (the more part); Gal. iii. 25 (the faith); Apoc. vii. 13 (the long white robes)'. Chap. iii. Internal History. words. There are also rarer cases in which the Rhemists English furnish a true English phrase which has been adopted since, as fellowservants (Matt. xviii. 28), kingdom against kingdom (Matt. xxiii. 7), fail (Luke xvi. 9), darkened (Rom. i. 21), foreknew (Rom. xi. 2). Elsewhere they stand alone in bold or idiomatic turns of expression : throttled him (Matt. xviii. 28), workmen (Matt. xx. 1), stagger not (Matt. xxi. 21), impious broods (Matt. xxiii. 33), bankers (Matt. xxv. 27), overgoe (1 Thess. iv. 6). $9. THE AUTHORISED VERSION. gate re newed. The Rhemish Version of the New Testament, sup- The study ported by Martin's attack on the English Bible, had of the V'ulonce again called attention to the importance of the Latin Vulgate before the revision of King James was undertaken. During the sixteenth century this had been in a great degree thrust out of sight by the modern translations of Erasmus and Beza, which had influenced respectively the Great and the Genevan Bibles. At the same time the study of Hebrew and Greek had been pursued with continued zeal in the interval which had elapsed since the publication of the Bishops' Bible; and 1 For most of these and of the other references to the Rhemish Version, I am indebted to the kindness of Prof. Moulton, who placed at my disposal a most exact collation of the Chap. iii. two important contributions had been made to the inHistory. terpretation of the Old Testament. New Latin Arias In 1572 Arias Montanus, a Spanish scholar not unTestament. Worthy to carry on the work of Ximenes, added to the Montanus. Antwerp Polyglott, which he edited by the command of Philip II., an interlinear Latin translation of the Hebrew text, based on that of Pagninus, whose readings he added to his own. The translation is rigidly verbal, but none the less it helped to familiarize ordinary scholars with the exact forms of Hebrew idioms which were more or less hidden in the earlier versions. Seven Tremellius. years afterwards Tremellius, by birth a Jew, published an original Latin translation of the Old Testament (1579), with a commentary, which rapidly obtained a very extensive currency. His son-in-law Junius added a translation of the Apocrypha. The whole Bible was completed by a translation of the New Testament by Tremellius from the Syriac; but for this the New Testament of Beza was frequently substituted. Vernacular French. Italian. Spanish. Besides these works, which were designed for scholars, three important vernacular versions also had been published. In 1587-8 an authoritative revision of the French Bible was put forth by the 'venerable company of Pastors' at Geneva which was based upon a careful examination of the original texts. The chief part of the work is said to have been executed by B. C. Bertram, a Hebraist of distinguished attainments, and he was assisted by Beza, Goulart and others. An Italian translation was printed in the same city in 1607 by J. Diodati, who was a professor of Hebrew there. This translation has maintained its place to the present day, and though it is free, it is of very great excellence. In the mean time two Spanish versions had appeared, the first at Basle in 1569 by C. Reyna, and the second, which was based on |