St. Jerome, Chronicle (2004-5). Preface of Jerome; preface of Eusebius
Eusebius Hieronymus to his friends Vincentius and Gallienus, greetings.
There was an old custom of the scholars, that they would reduce Greek books to Latin speech for the purpose of exercizing their wits, and, what has even more difficulty in it, they would translate poems of illustrious men, with the added necessity of correctly rendering the metre. For the same reason our Cicero translated complete books of Plato word-for-word: and after he had published Aratus in Roman dress, in hexameter verses, he amused himself with Xenophon's Economics . In this work that golden stream of eloquence is so frequently obstructed by certain rough and turbulent obstacles, so that whoever does not know that they are translations does not believe they were said by Cicero.
For it is difficult for someone who is following another's lines not to stray outside them from time to time; when things were said well in another language, it is hard to preserve the same elegance in translation. An idea was captured appropriately by a single word: I do not have my own word to convey it, and while I seek to complete the sentence, in a long detour I hardly advance a brief distance along the road. The twists of hyperbaton , the dissimilarities of cases, finally the varieties of figures of speech are added to the sense itself and, so to speak, the native idiom of the language. If I translate word for word, it sounds absurd; if perforce I alter something in sequence or style, I shall seem to have failed in the duty of a translator.
Therefore, my dearest Vincentius, and you, Gallienus, part of my soul, I beg that you reread whatever in this work is hasty, not with the spirit of judges, but as friends: especially since I dictated as quickly as possible to a secretary, as you know; and also the style of the divine books testifies to the difficulty of the task, which, when published by the LXX translators, did not retain the same flavour in the Greek language. For this reason Aquila and Symmachus and Theodotion were roused up to produce almost different works from the same work: with the first expressing it word-for-word, and the next preferring to follow the sense, and the third not differing much from the ancients. However the fifth, sixth and seventh versions , although it is unknown from which authors they originate, yet they contain intrinsic variants that are so probably correct, that they have earned authority without having names.
That's how it comes about that Sacred Literature seems unpolished and harsh sounding, for while scholarly men -- not understanding that they were translated from Hebrew -- look at the outside but not into the kernel, they tend rather to be thoroughly horrified at the mean clothing, so to speak, before they find the fair body of the things within.
Indeed what is more melodious than the psalter, which like the works of our own Flaccus or the Greek Pindar, now runs along in iambics, now rings out in alcaics, now swells in sapphics, and now walks in semifoot? What is more beautiful than the Song of Deuteronomy or Isaiah? What is more serious than Solomon? What is more perfect than Job? All of which compositions circulate among their own people in hexameter and pentameter verses, as Josephus and Origen write. When we read these in Greek, they sound like something else; when we read them in Latin, they are scarcely coherent.
For if it seems to someone that the grace of a language does not change in translation, let him present Homer word-for-word in Latin, -- let me say something more -- let it be translated into his own language in words of prose; he will see that the word-order has become ridiculous and a most eloquent poet barely readable.
What is the point of all this? Obviously so that it does not seem amazing to you, if we offend occasionally, if sluggish speech is either raspy in consonants or divided and split in its sounds, or constrained by the brevity of these matters, since the most learned men have struggled in this same task: and to the general difficulty that we have pleaded in every translation, this in particular is added to us: that the history is multiplex, possessing barbarian names, matters unknown to the Latin-speaking peoples, inexplicable numbers, and columns equally interwoven with events and numbers, so that it is almost more difficult to discern the order in which things must be read, than to arrive at an understanding of the meaning.
[ In order that, moreover, it may be understood, with a clear indication of which number any text pertains to, let the reader attend to these inserted distinctions, so that, if the text must be related to the first number of kingdom previously marked out, let him look at the first letter in the explanation of the text: and, if he should see it in bright red, let him know that it must apply to that period or in the year, which the number similarly drawn, that is in bright red, will have suggested: but if he shall perceive that the number (=initial letter?) is not in a pure bright red, but was written after black was mixed in, the text must be related to the number of the second column: if however it must be related to the third column of numbers that has been written down, the middle of the number (initial letter?) will be seen in a pure bright red and the remaining part given solely in black. The fourth column of numbers will have nothing in bright red, but there will be for an indication how the text is bound to it (the column of numbers), when the letter done in bright red at the start of the explanation of the text, that must also be supplied for the signs above, is displayed anyway, (and) they corresponded in category to none of the signs mentioned above. If on the contrary, the (initial) letter was expressed, not actually in bright red but in mixed black and red, he will be able to turn to the number gleaming with red in the fifth column of numbers; and so the sixth column of numbers will be indicated like the second, the seventh like the third, and the eighth also like the fourth with a two-colour-appearing letter. But when there are none of those signs which we mentioned earlier either in the numbers or in the explanation of history, the ninth column which was annotated is referred to. However, not all of these requirements are needed when the number of columns is less.]
From this I think that it is necessary to warn in advance that, exactly as they have been written, the variety of colours should also be preserved; lest someone suppose that so great an effort has been attempted for a meaningless pleasure of the eyes, and, when he flees from the tedium of writing, inserts a labyrinth of error. For this has been devised so that the strips of the kingdoms, which had almost been mixed together because of their excessive proximity on the page, might be separated by the distinct indication of bright red, and so that the same hue of colour which earlier parchment pages had used for a kingdom, would also be kept on later ones.
And I am not unaware that there will be many people who from their customary desire to detract from all things, will sink their fangs into this volume, which cannot be avoided unless one writes nothing at all: they will misrepresent dates, change the order, dispute events, split syllables, and, because it is generally customary that this should happen, they will ascribe the negligence of copyists to authors.
Although I would be within my right to repel those that it displease, by saying let them not read, in short I prefer to send them away satisfied, so that they can both assign the fidelity of the Greek things to their own author, and what new matters we have inserted, they may recognize that they have been extracted from other very learned men. And indeed it should be known that I have filled the role of both translator and in part writer, because I have both most faithfully expressed the Greek, and I have added some things which seemed to me to have been omitted, in Roman history especially which Eusebius, the originator of this book, seems to me, not to have been thus ignorant, for he was most learned, but since he was writing in Greek, to have skipped over those things less necessary to his countrymen.
And so from Ninus and from Abraham down to the captivity of Troy is a simple translation from the Greek: from Troy down to the 20th year of Constantine many things are added or modified, which we have carefully excerpted from Tranquillus , and the other illustrious historians: but from the aforementioned year of Constantine down to the 6th consulate of the Emperor Valens and second of the Emperor Valentinian, is totally my own.
Contented with this end-point, I have reserved the rest of the time of Gratian and Theodosius for the pen of a broader history; not that I have been afraid to write freely and truly about living persons -- for the fear of God drives out the fear of men -- but because while the barbarians are still raging here in our land, all things are uncertain.
The Translated Preface of Eusebius.
The most learned men -- Clement, and Africanus, and Tatian from among ourselves, and Josephus and Justus from among the Jews, all while compiling books of ancient history -- have related that Moses, of the Hebrew nation, who first of all the prophets before the advent of the Lord Saviour expounded the divine laws in the sacred texts, lived in the time of Inachus. Again, Inachus precedes the Trojan War by 500 years: indeed from among the pagans, that impious man Porphyry in the fourth book of his work which he with pointless labour concocted against us, affirms that Semiramis, who reigned over the Assyrians 150 years before Inachus, lived after Moses. And so, according to him, Moses is discovered to be older than the Trojan War by almost 850 years.
When these things are taken into consideration, I have considered that it is necessary to search after the truth more diligently, and on account of this in a prior book I have noted in advance for myself, as a sort of source for a future work, all the dates of kings, of the Chaldaeans, Assyrians, Medes, Persians, Lydians, Hebrews, Egyptians, Athenians, Argives, Sicyonians, Lacedaemonians, Corinthians, Thessalians, Macedonians, and Latins who afterwards were called Romans.
In the present book, however, putting each set of dates in turn in a column side by side, and counting the years of each of the nations, in order that this was contemporary with that, I have thus joined them together in careful order. Nor has it escaped me that differing numbers of years are to be found in the Hebrew books, either more or less, depending on how it seemed to the translators; and I would rather follow that which a great number of copies have guaranteed.
But let anyone who wishes calculate it: he will find that, in the time of Inachus who they say first ruled at Argos, Israel was patriarch of the Hebrews, from whom the twelve tribes of the Jews drew the name of Israel. Morever it is clear that Semiramis and Abraham were contemporaries: for Moses, although he might be younger than the aforementioned, nevertheless is understood to be older than all of those whom the Greeks consider most ancient: that is, Homer and Hesiod, and the Trojan War, and much older than Hercules, Musaeus, Linus, Chiron, Orpheus, Castor, Pollux, Aesculapius, Liber, Mercury, Apollo, and all the other gods of the nations, and sacred figures, and oracles, even the deeds of Jupiter, whom Greece placed at the summit of divinity. I say that all of these whom we have enumerated, we prove that they also lived after Cecrops Diphyes, the first king of Attica.
Moreover the present history shows that Cecrops is coeval with Moses and precedes the Trojan War by 350 years. Which, lest it should seem doubtful to someone, the following reasoning will thus prove.
Christ was born in the 42th year of the rule of Augustus. He started to preach in the 15th year of Tiberius. If someone therefore, counting backward through the number of years, seeks the second year of Darius, king of the Persians, in whose reign the Temple in Jerusalem which had been destroyed by the Babylonians was rebuilt, he will find 548 years from Tiberius back to Darius.
Of course the second year of Darius was in the first year of the 45th Olympiad, and the 15th year of Tiberius occurred in the 201st Olympiad. Therefore there were 137 Olympiads between Darius and Tiberius, 548 years, counting four years in one Olympiad.
Then in the second year of Darius the 70th year from the destruction of the Temple is completed, from which 64 Olympiads, or 256 years, are counted backwards to the first Olympiad; the years are counted similarly backwards, from the aforementioned year of the destruction of the temple to the 50th year of Uzziah, King of the Jews, in whose reign Isaiah and Hosea lived.
And so, the first olympiad occurred in the age of Isaiah and the rest who prophesied with him.