A letter from Jerome (c.390)

Translated letter:

If I were weaving a basket from rushes or enfolding palm leaves or eating bread in the sweat of my face and carrying out the work of my stomach with an attentive mind, no one would torment or reprove me. But now that I want to occupy myself with food that, according to the words of the saviour, does not perish and purge the ancient path of the divine volumes from their thickets I am attacked.(1) Corrector of faults, I am called a forger, not removing errors but planting them. For such is the custom of old that confessed faults please many while they much prefer beautiful manuscripts to emended ones. Therefore, o Paula and Eustochium, unique model of nobility and humility, accept these spiritual and enduring things as a gift, the little present of monks, in place of a fan, a bowl, or a basket. And rejoice that blessed Job who until now lay in dung among the Latins and abounded in the worms of errors, is whole and immaculate. In this way all things are restored to him by investigation/approval and victory. I gave back to him — I speak boldly — in our language what he had lost. Therefore I remind you and any reader as a sound preface tieing up things at the beginnings of books and I ask that wherever you see a stroke preceding you may know that those subjects are not in the Hebrew books; and where a star flashes, that is added in our speech out of Hebrew. And I also corrected with great labor, at your request, what we seemed to have but was so corrupt that it removed the sense for readers; I thought that what came from my leisure was more useful to the churches of Christ than [what came] from the traffic of others.

Original letter:

Si aut fiscellam junco texerem, aut palmarum folia complicarem, ut in sudore vultus mei comederem panem, et ventris opus sollicita mente tractarem: nullus morderet, nemo reprehenderet. Nunc autem quia juxta sententiam Salvatoris volo operari cibum, qui non perit, et antiquam divinorum Voluminum viam, sentibus virgultisque purgare, mihi genuinus infigitur: corrector vitiorum falsarius vocor, et errores non auferre, sed serere. Tanta est enim vetustatis consuetudo, ut etiam confessa plerisque vitia placeant, dum magis pulchros habere malunt codices, quam emendatos. Quapropter, o Paula et Eustochium, unicum nobilitatis et humilitatis exemplar, pro flabello, calathis, sportellisque, munusculo monachorum, spiritualia haec et mansura dona suscipite: ac beatum Job qui adhuc apud Latinos jacebat in stercore, et vermibus scatebat errorum, integrum, immaculatumque gaudete. Quomodo enim probatione atque victoria dupliciter universa ei sunt reddita: ita ego in lingua nostra (audacter loquor) feci eum habere quae amiserat. Igitur et vos, et unumquemque lectorem solita Praefatione commoneo, et in principiis librorum eadem semper annectens, rogo, ut ubicumque praecedentes virgulas ÷ videritis, sciatis ea quae subjecta sunt in Hebraeis voluminibus non haberi. Porro ubi stellae imago fulserit + ex Hebraeo in nostro sermone addita. Nec non et illa quae habere videbamur, et ita corrupta erant, ut sensum legentibus tollerent, orantibus vobis, magno labore correxi; magis utile quid ex otio meo Christi Ecclesiis venturum ratus, quam ex aliorum negotio.

Historical context:

Jerome offers his translation to Paula and Eustochium, based on his edition of a very corrupt text which he has been criticized for correcting. He carefully alerts them to the signs that indicate omissions and additions in his text. This is one of the works Jerome had earlier translated from the Septuagint Greek and later emended according to the Hebrew.

Scholarly notes:

(1) The printed text gives "mihi genuinus infigitur," "a genuine [?] is thrust/imprinted on me," for which the editor suggests a missing word like "error." Other readings gave "geminus," for "genuinus," which might be construed "a double [?] is thrust on me." Whatever Jerome originally said or meant to say, his intention is clear, that he has been attacked.

Printed source:

Praefatio Hieronymi in Librum Job, PL29 c.61-62.

Date:

c.390