Navigation auf uzh.ch
Navigation auf uzh.ch
„totusque orbis hac inter se trifaria varietate conpugnat“ – „and the whole world is fighting each other because of the threefold variety”. Using these words in the prologus in libro paralipomenon, Jerome describes the issue with the existing editions of the Septuagint in his day. Following the Hexapla of Origen, up to three editions existed in the various locations: Hesychius in Alexandria and Egypt, Lucian of Antioch from there to Constantinople and the Palestinian codices that Jerome links to the work of Origen and the publication of Eusebius and Pamphilus. Jerome states that he wouldn’t have had to initiate his translation project if it wasn’t for this threefold variety and the corruption and violation of the original text.
During Jerome’s lifetime, his work didn’t get much recognition, as we can see in book 18, chapter 43 of Augustine’s de civitate dei, where Augustine praises Jerome’s philological competences and calls him “homo doctissimus et omnium trium linguarum peritus”, but also adheres to the legend of the origin of the Septuagint and therefore prefers the work of the 70 (or 72) translators over Jerome’s, “nullus eis unus interpres debuit anteponi”.
Nowadays Jerome is seen as one of the doctores ecclesia and a Great Church Father of the Western Church, praised for his translation work that resulted in the so-called Vulgate. The ambivalence of his work and its reception raises the question of his original motivation.
In my lecture, I’m investigating Jerome’s translation work and trying to examine whether his text works as a new translation of the LXX and the Hebrew Bible or rather as an emendation of Sacred Scripture. For this purpose, I’m looking at the contemplation of Jerome’s translation progress, which he shares with us in a few of his letters and prefaces, in order to retrace his way a trifaria varietate ad fontes – or as he states it: ad Hebraeos igitur revertendum est.
