Biblical Prefaces

Whether it is more difficult to do what you ask or to say no, I have still not decided.2 For, on the one hand, it is impossible to refuse you when you are requesting something of significance. But, on the other hand, the weight of the burden imposed presses down upon my neck so hard that it would be necessary to lighten it before rushing into it thus encumbered. In addition to this, there is the hostility of my detractors. They think everything I write3 ought to be refuted and rip apart in public what they read in private, even though their conscience accuses them. They do this to such an extent that I am compelled to cry out and say, “Lord, free my soul from wicked lips and from the deceitful tongue!”4 For three years now you have been continually writing and rewriting to me, asking that I translate the book of Ezra for you from Hebrew, making your request as if you did not already have Greek and Latin editions, or as if everyone would not immediately spit upon whatever I translate.5 As someone said, “To strive in vain and not to seek anything in your weariness except hatred is the pinnacle of insanity.”6 And so, I beseech you, my most dear Domnio and Rogatianus: do not make the book known to the public and be content to read it privately. Do not toss food to those who disdain it and thus avoid the snobbery of those who know only how to judge others but not how to do anything themselves. But if there are some of the brothers who are not displeased with my work, you may give them the master-copy. Advise them to copy the Hebrew names, of which there is a great abundance in this book, with distinct spaces between them. For it will be of no benefit to have corrected the book unless the corrections are diligently preserved by the copyists. No one ought to be bothered by the fact that my edition7 consists of only one book, nor ought anyone take delight in the dreams found in the apocryphal third and fourth books. For among the Hebrews the texts of Ezra and Nehemiah comprise a single book, and those texts which are not used by them and are not concerned with the twenty-four elders ought to be rejected outright.8 But if anyone should oppose you on the basis of the Septuagint translation (whose very variety of texts indicates that its copies are corrupt and damaged, nor can it by any means be claimed that what is diverse is true), have him take a look at the gospels.9 There are many passages in them which are said to be from the Old Testament but which are not found in the Septuagint translation. Examples include: “He shall be called a Nazarene,”10 “Out of Egypt I have called my son,”11 “They shall look upon him whom they have pierced,”12 and many others that I shall reserve13 for a more extensive work. And so, have him attempt to locate where these passages are written in the Septuagint. When he cannot locate them, you should read aloud from the editions I recently did,14 which are continually denigrated by the tongues of those who have nothing good to say. Though I intend to keep things brief, what I am about to say by way of introduction certainly makes the most sense.15 In my version I translated whatever was not contained in the Greek version or was there in a variant form.16 What translator do they butcher with their criticism? Let them ask the Hebrews and judge the fidelity of my translation on the basis of their authority. It is quite a different matter, if with eyes shut (as the saying goes), they want to speak ill of me and not follow the example of the Greeks in their application to study and goodwill. When the Gospel of Christ was already shining brightly, after they had read the Septuagint translators, the Greeks attentively read the Jewish and Ebonite translators of the old Law, that is, Aquila, Symmachus, and Theodotion. Through the labors of Origen in his Hexapla, the Greeks caused these three to be used for ecclesiastical purposes. How much more ought speakers of Latin be grateful for having discovered that Greece in her exultation borrows something from herself!17