Emser’s interpretation of Rom. 3:28.^462 Dr. Eck’s German Bible has few notes, but a strongly
anti-Protestant preface.^463
To be just, we must recognize the sectarian imperfections of Bible versions, arising partly
from defective knowledge, partly from ingrained prejudices. A translation is an interpretation.
Absolute reproduction is impossible in any work.^464 A Jew will give a version of the Old Testament
differing from that of a Christian, because they look upon it in a different light,—the one with his
face turned backward, the other with his face turned forward. A Jew cannot understand the Old
Testament till he becomes a Christian, and sees in it a prophecy and type of Christianity. No
synagogue would use a Christian version, nor any church a Jewish version. So also the New
Testament is rendered differently by scholars of the Greek, Latin, and Protestant churches. And
even where they agree in words, there is a difference in the pervading spirit. They move, as it were,
in a different atmosphere. A Roman Catholic version must be closely conformed to the Latin
Vulgate, which the Council of Trent puts on an equal footing with the original text.^465 A Protestant
version is bound only by the original text, and breathes an air of freedom from traditional restraint.
The Roman Church will never use Luther’s Version or King James’s Version, and could not do so
without endangering her creed; nor will German Protestants use Emser’s and Eck’s Versions, or
English Protestants the Douay Version. The Romanist must become evangelical before he can fully
apprehend the free spirit of the gospel as revealed in the New Testament.
There is, however, a gradual progress in translation, which goes hand in hand with the
progress of the understanding of the Bible. Jerome’s Vulgate is an advance upon the Itala, both in
accuracy and Latinity; the Protestant Versions of the sixteenth century are an advance upon the
Vulgate, in spirit and in idiomatic reproduction; the revisions of the nineteenth century are an
advance upon the versions of the sixteenth, in philological and historical accuracy and consistency.
A future generation will make a still nearer approach to the original text in its purity and integrity.
If the Holy Spirit of God shall raise the Church to a higher plane of faith and love, and melt the
antagonisms of human creeds into the one creed of Christ, then, and not before then, may we expect
perfect versions of the oracles of God.
NOTES.
the official revision of the luther-bible, and the anglo-
american revision of the authorized english bible.
(^462) Biblia beider Allt unnd Newen Testamenten, fleissig, treulich vn Christlich nach alter inn Christlicher Kirchen gehabter Translation,
mit Ausslegung etlicher dunckeler ort und besserung vieler verrückter wort und sprüch ... Durch D. Johan Dietenberger, new verdeutscht.
Gott zu ewiger ehre unnd wolfarth seiner heil. Christlichen Kirchen ... Meynz, 1534, fol. From a copy in the Union Seminary (Van Ess
library). Well printed and illustrated.
(^463) I have before me three copies of as many folio editions of Eck’s Bible, 1537, 1550, and 1558, bearing the title: Bibel Alt und New
Testament, nach dem Text in der heiligen Kirchen gebraucht, durch Doctor Johan Ecken, mit fleiss, auf hochteutsch verdolmetscht, etc.
They were printed at Ingolstadt, and agree in the number of pages (1035), and vary only in the date of publication. They contain in an
appendix the Prayer of Manasseh, the Third Book of Maccabees, and the spurious Epistle of Paul to the Laodiceans.
(^464) There is an Italian proverb that translators are traitors (Traduttori traditori). Jerome speaks of versiones which are eversiones. As
Trench says, there are in every translation "unavoidable losses inherent in the nature of the task, in the relations of one language to the
other, in the lack of accurate correlations between them, in the different schemes of their construction."
(^465) Hence the stiffness of literalism and the abundance of Latinisms in the Rhemish Version of the N. T. (first published in 1582, second
ed. 1600, third ed. at Douay, 1621), such as "supersubstantial bread" for daily or needful bread (Jerome introduced supersubstantialis for
the difficult ἐπιούσιος in the Lord’s Prayer, Matt. 6:11, but retained quotidianus in Luke), transmigration of Babylon, impudicity,
coinquinations, postulations, agnition, cogitation, prepuce, pasche, exinanite, contristate, domesticals, exemplars of the coelestials, etc.
Some of them have been silently removed in modern editions. The notes of the older editions abound in fulminations against heretics.