of refinement, by his asperity of temper, by his vanity and self-assertion. We look in vain for that transparent simplicity which is the true foundation of the highest saintliness. But in this instance the nobler instincts of the Biblical scholar triumphed over the baser passions of the man; and in his lifelong devotion to this one object of placing the Bible in its integrity before the Western Church, his character rises to true sublimity. 'I beseech you,' he writes, 'pour out your prayers to the Lord for me, that so long as I am in this poor body I may write something acceptable to you, useful to the Church, and worthy of after ages. Indeed I am not moved overmuch by the judgments of living men: they err on the one side or on the other, through affection or through hatred. 'My voice,' he says elsewhere, 'shall never be silent, Christ helping me. Though my tongue be cut off, it shall still stammer. Let those read who will; let those who will not, reject". And, inspired with a true scholar's sense of the dignity of conscientious work for its own sake irrespective of any striking results, after mentioning the pains which it has cost him to unravel the entanglement of names in the Books of Chronicles he recalls a famous word of encouragement addressed of old by Antigenidas the flute-player to his pupil Ismenias, whose skill had Op. IX. 1526.

1 Op. IX. 1364.

2

failed to catch the popular fancy: Play to me and to the Muses.' So Jerome describes his own set purpose; 'Like Ismenias I play to myself and to mine, if the ears of the rest are deaf''

Thus far I have dwelt on the opposition which Jerome encountered on all hands, and the dauntless resolution with which he accomplished his task. Let me now say a few words on the subsequent fate of his revision, for this also is an instructive page in history". When completed, it received no authoritative sanction. His patron, pope Damasus, at whose instigation he had undertaken the task, was dead. The successors of Damasus showed no favour to Jerome or to his work. The Old Latin still continued to be read in churches: it was still quoted in the writings of divines. Even Augustine, who after the completion of the task seems to have overcome his misgivings and speaks in praise of Jerome's work, remains constant to the older Version. But first one writer, and then another, begins to adopt the revised translation of Jerome. Still its recognition depends on the caprice or the judgment of individual men. Even the bishops of Rome had not yet discovered that

1 Op. IX. 1408, 'Mihimet ipsi et meis juxta Ismeniam canens, si aures surdae sunt ceterorum.'

2 The history of the gradual reception of Jerome's Revision is traced in Kaulen's Geschichte der Vulgata, p. 190 sq. (Mainz, 1868).

it was 'authentic.' One pope will use the Hieronymian Revision; a second will retain the Old Latin; while a third will use either indifferently, and a fourth will quote from the one in the Old Testament and from the other in the New1. As late as two centuries after Jerome's time, Gregory the Great can still write that he intends to avail himself of either indifferently, as his purpose may require, since 'the Apostolic See, over which by the grace of God he presides, uses both. Thus slowly, but surely, Jerome's revision won its way, till at length, some centuries after its author's death, it drove its elder rival out of the field, and became the one recognised version of the Bible throughout the Latin Churches.

II.

I cannot forbear to call attention in passing to the close parallel which these facts present to the history of the so-called Authorised Version. This too, like Jerome's revision, was undertaken amidst many mis

1 These statements may be verified by the quotations in Kaulen's work.

2

9 Greg. Magn. Mor. in Iob., Epist. ad fin. Novam translationem dissero; sed cum probationis causa exigit, nunc novam, nunc veterem per testimonia assumo; ut, quia sedes Apostolica cui Deo auctore praesideo utraque utitur, mei quoque labor studii ex utraque fulciatur' (Op. I. p. 6, Venet. 1768).

givings, and, when it appeared, was received with coldness or criticized with severity. When the proposal for a revision was first brought forward, 'my Lord of London' is reported to have said that 'if every man's humour should be followed, there would be no end of translating.' The translators themselves, when they issue their work to the public, deprecate the adverse criticism which doubtless they saw very good reason to apprehend. Such a work as theirs, they say in the opening paragraph of the preface to the reader, 'is welcomed with suspicion instead of love and with emulation instead of thanks,...and if there be any hole left for cavil to enter (and cavil, if it do not find a hole, will make one), it is sure to be misconstrued and in danger to be condemned. This will easily be granted by as many as know story or have any experience. For, was there ever anything projected, that savoured any way of newness or renewing, but the same endured many a storm of gainsaying or opposition?' and again; Whosoever attempteth anything for the public (especially if it pertain to religion and to the opening and clearing of the Word of God) the same setteth himself upon a stage to be glouted upon by every evil eye, yea, he casteth himself headlong upon pikes, to be gored by every sharp tongue. For he that meddleth with men's religion in any part, meddleth with their

custom, nay with their freehold: and though they find no content in that which they have, yet they cannot abide to hear of altering.'

The parallel moreover extends to the circumstances of its reception. It seems now to be an established fact (so far as any fact in history which involves a comprehensive negative can be regarded as established) that the Revised Version never received any final authorisation either from the ecclesiastical or from the civil powers: that it was not sanctioned either by the Houses of Parliament, or by the Houses of Convocation, or by the King in Council. The Bishops' Bible still continued to be read in churches; the Geneva Bible was still the familiar volume of the fireside and the closet'. Several years after the appearance of the Revised Version, Bishop Andrewes, though himself one of the revisers, still continues to quote from an older Bible. Yet notwithstanding all adverse circum

1 The printing of the Bishops' Bible was stopped as soon as the new revision was determined upon. The last edition of the former was published in 1606. The Revised Version states on its title-page (1611) that it is 'Appointed to be read in Churches,' but we are not told by whom or how it was appointed. As the copies of the Bishops' Bible used in the churches were worn out, they would probably be replaced by the Revised Version; but this seems to have been the only advantage which was accorded to it. On the other hand, the Geneva Bible continued to be printed by the King's Printer some years after the appearance of the Revised Version, and was still marked 'Cum privilegio Regiae majestatis.'