A Source Book for Ancient Church History - Mirrors

533us by a descent of three steps. I do not ask what Aquila andSymmachus think, or why Theodotion takes a middle coursebetween the ancients and the moderns. I am willing to let that bea true translation which had apostolic approval [i.e., the LXX]. Iam now speaking of the New Testament. This was undoubtedlycomposed in Greek, with the exception of the work of the ApostleMatthew, who first published the gospel of Christ in Judea and inHebrew. This [i.e., the New Testament], as it is in our language,is certainly marked by discrepancies, and the stream flows indifferent channels; it must be sought in one fountainhead. Ipass over those manuscripts bearing the names of Lucian andHesychius, which a few contentious persons perversely support.It was not permitted these writers to amend anything in the OldTestament after the labor of the Seventy; and it was useless tomake corrections in the New, for translations of the Scripturesalready made in the language of many nations show that they areadditions and false. Therefore this short preface promises onlythe four gospels, of which the order is Matthew, Mark, Luke,and John, revised by a comparison of the Greek manuscripts andonly of the ancient manuscripts. And that they might not departfar from the Latin customarily read, I have used my pen withsome restraint, so that having corrected only the passages whichseemed to change the meaning, I have allowed the rest to remainas it was.(c) Jerome, Ep. 7, ad Pammachium. (MSL, 23:376.)The principal errors of Origen according to Jerome.This is the most important work of Jerome in the controversyknown as the Origenistic controversy. Jerome attacks in thiswork John, bishop of Jerusalem, and writes as a result ofthe work of Epiphanius in Palestine three years before. Thefollowing were addressed to John to reject, as a test of thatbishop's orthodoxy. See above, § 43.