Eighth, from the excellence of the Hebrew, Greek, and Latin languages.
Eighth, from the excellence of the Hebrew, Greek, and Latin languages.
§ 503. (VIII) From the excellence of the Hebrew, Greek, and Latin languages. “We are content with the three languages that the Lord honored in the inscription on His cross (John 19:20) and that by unanimous agreement surpass all others in antiquity, breadth, and gravity, and finally in which those divine books were originally written—that is, Hebrew, Greek, and Latin.”
We respond. (1) Firm arguments are not drawn from allegories unless their application and explanation can be shown from the Scriptures themselves. (2) Those three principal languages used in the inscription on Christ’s cross meant that the Gospel had to be spread far and wide throughout the entire world “because those languages stood for all languages,” as Cajetan says in his commentary on that passage of John. (3) Those three languages used in the inscription on Christ’s cross were not used for the purpose that they alone might be consecrated for the Holy Scriptures and public worship but that the report of Christ’s death might be spread widely in languages that at that time were known most widely. (Cf. our Harm. passion. on this passage.) (4) We deny that any canonical book was written in Latin by its author. Therefore the consequence would be that one must disapprove of a translation of Scripture into Latin. (5) If we had to be content with those languages in which the divine books were written originally, the books of the Old Testament should not have been translated into Greek, though the devout ancients attribute much to that Greek Septuagint translation—in fact, sometimes more than is due.
§ 504. Although we do not disapprove of translations of Holy Scriptures into other languages, we nevertheless acknowledge no version as authentic, whatever it finally may be. Rather, we claim that one can appeal from all translations to the original text. We prove this from the following: (1) Only the Hebrew text in the Old Testament and the Greek in the New are authentic, as we have shown earlier (c. 13, § 311). (2) No version of Scripture can be authentic unless it is God-breathed (2 Tim. 3:16). The translations of the Scriptures, however, are not God-breathed. “It is one thing to be a prophet; it is another to be a translator,” says Jerome (preface to the Pentateuch). (3) Streams cannot be made equal to their sources. All translations are streams. Therefore they cannot be made equal with the sources of truth, that is, with the Hebrew text in the Old Testament and the Greek in the New Testament. (4) That which is normed cannot, as such, be the norm. All translations relate to the original and authentic text as the normed to the norm and the ruled to the rule. (5) The practice of the Israelite and Christian Churches shows that no translation is to be placed on the throne of authentic authority. This is what we have to say in general concerning the authority of translations. We shall now briefly discuss specifically the superior and more widely used translations.