in the celebration of the festival, is sometimes translated and sometimes retained. In these it is proper to follow the usage of the language, even although the distinctions made may originally have been capricious. In several modern languages we have, in what regards Jewish and Christian rites, generally followed the usage of the old Latin version, though the authors of that version have not been entirely uniform in their method. Some words they have transferred from the original into their language, others they have translated. But it would not always be easy to find their reason for making this difference. Thus the word neoroμn they have translated circumcisio, which exactly corresponds in etymology; but the word ßantioμa they have retained, changing only the letters from Greek to Roman. Yet the latter was just as susceptible of a literal version into Latin as the former. Immersio, tinctio, answers as exactly in the one case as circumcisio in the other. And if it be said of those words, that they do not rest on classical authority, the same is true also of this. Etymology, and the usage of ecclesiastic authors, are all that can be pleaded. Now, the use with respect to the names adopted in the Vulgate has commonly been imitated, or rather implicitly followed, through the western parts of Europe. We have deserted the Greek names where the Latins have deserted them, and have adopted them where the Latins have adopted them. Hence we say circumcision, and not peritomy; and we do not say immersion, but baptism. Yet, when the language furnishes us with materials for a version so exact and analogical, such a version conveys the sense more perspicuously than a foreign name. For this reason I should think the word immersion (which, though of Latin origin, is an English noun, regularly formed from the verb to immerse) a better English name than baptism, were we now at liberty to make a choice. But we are The latter term has been introduced, and has obtained the universal suffrage; and though to us not so expressive of the action, yet, as it conveys nothing false or unsuitable to the primitive idea, it has acquired a right by prescription, and is consequently entitled to the preference. not. 3. I said, that in the names of rites or sacred ceremonies we have commonly followed the Vulgate. In some instances, however, we have not. The great Jewish ceremony, in commemoration of their deliverance from Egypt, is called in the New Testament nάσxa, the sacred penmen having adopted the term that had been used by the Seventy, which is not a Greek word, but the Hebrew, or rather the Chaldaic name in Greek letters. The Vulgate has retained pascha, transferring it into the Latin character. The words in Greek and Latin have no meaning but as the name of this rite. In English the word has not been transferred, but translated passover, answering in our language to the import of the original Hebrew. Exnvonnyia, scenopegia, in the Gospel of John, is retained by the Vulgate, and with us translated " the feast of tabernacles," John 7: 2. It would have been still nearer the original Hebrew, and more conformable to the Jewish practice, to have called it the feast of booths. But the other appellation has obtained the preference. The Latins have retained the Greek name azyma, which we render properly enough" unleavened bread." But the words jubilee, sabbath, purim, and some others, run through most languages. 4. There is a conveniency in translating, rather than transplanting the original term, if the word chosen be apposite, as it more clearly conveys the import than an exotic word that has no original meaning or etymology in the language. This appears never in a stronger light than when the reason of the name happens to be assigned by the sacred author. I shall give, for instance, that Hebrew appellative, which I but just now observed that both the Seventy and the Vulgate have retained in their versions, and which the English interpreters have translated. The word is, puscha, passover. In the explanation which the people are commanded to give of this service to their children, when these shall inquire concerning it, the reason of the name is assigned: "Ye shall say, It is the sacrifice of the Lord's PASSOVER, who PASSED OVER the houses of the children of Israel in Egypt when he smote the Egyptians,' Exodus 12: 27. Now, this reason appears as clearly in the English version, which is literal, as in the original Hebrew; but it is lost in the version of the Seventy, who render it thus: 'Eosite. Θυσία τὸ ΠΑΣΧΑ τοῦτο Κυρίῳ, ως ΕΣΚΕΠΑΣΕ τοὺς οἴκους τῶν υἱῶν ̓Ισραὴλ ἐν Αἰγύπτῳ, ἡνίκα ἐπάταξε τοὺς Αἰγυπτίους. Here, as the words лάoza and toxinaoɛ have no affinity, it is impossible to discover the reason of the name. The authors of the Vulgate, who form the word phase, in the Old Testament, more closely after the Hebrew, (though they call it pascha in the New), have thought proper, in turning that passage, to drop the name they had adopted, and translate the word transitus, that the allusion might not be lost: "Dicetis, victima TRANSITUS Domini est, quando TRANSIVIT super domos filiorum Israel in Ægypto, percutiens Ægyptios." This manner is sometimes necessary for giving a just notion of the sense: But it is still better when the usual name, in the language of the version, as happens in the English, preserves the analogy, and renders the change unnecessary. In proper names, it is generally impossible to preserve the allusion in a version. In such cases, the natural resource is the margin. The occasion is not so frequent in appellatives, but it occurs sometimes. It is said by Adam, of the woman, soon after her formation, "She shall be called WOMAN, because she was formed out of MAN," Gen. 2:23. Here the affinity of the names, woman and man, is preserved, without doing violence to the language. But in some versions the affinity disappears altogether, and in others is effected by assigning a name, which, if it may be used at all, cannot with propriety be given to the sex in general. It is lost in the Septuagint: Aurŋ xλyðýontai ΓΥΝΗ, ὅτι ἐκ τοῦ ΑΝΔΡΟΣ αὐτῆς ἐλήφθη. Not the shadow of a reason appears in what is here assigned as the reason. The sounds yun and adoos have no affinity. The same may be said of mulier and vir in Castalio's Latin. "Hæc vocabitur MULIER, quia sumpta de VIRO est." Other Latin interpreters have, for the sake of that resemblance in the words on which the meaning of the expression depends, chosen to sacrifice a little of their latinity. The Vulgate, and Leo de Juda, have " Hæc vocabitur VIRAGO, quia sumpta de VIRO est." Junius, Le Clerc, and Houbigant, use the word vira, upon the authority of Festus. Neither of the words is good in this application; but not worse than avdois εš avdoós, used by Symmachus for the same purpose. Much in the same taste are Luther's mannin, the homasse of the Geneva French, and the huoma of Diodati's Italian. PART III. DEESS, JUDICATORIES, AND OFFICES. I SHALL now proceed to the third general class of words not capable of being translated, with exactness, into the language of a people whose customs are not in a great measure conformable to the customs of those amongst whom such words have arisen. This class comprehends names relating to dress, peculiar modes, judicatories, and offices. In regard to garments, it is well known that the usages of the ancients, particularly the orientals, differed considerably from those of modern Europeans. And though I am by no means of opinion, that it is necessary in a translation to convey an idea of the exact form of their dress, when nothing in the piece translated appears to depend on that circumstance, I am ever for avoiding that which would positively convey a false notion in this or any other respect. Often, from that which may be thought a trivial deviation from truth, there will result inconveniences of which one at first is not aware, but which, nevertheless, may produce in the mind of the attentive reader, unacquainted with the original, objections that affect the credibility of the narration. A general name, therefore, like clothes, raiment, is sufficient when nothing depends on the form, in like manner as a piece of money, a corn measure, will answer, when no light for understanding the scope of the place can be VOL. I. 36 derived from the value of the one, or the capacity of the other. Where some distinction, however, seems to have been intended in the passage, there is a necessity for using names more definitive. It is not often necessary, for naming the parts of dress, to retain the terms of a dead language. The English translators have never done it, as far as I remember, except in naming that part of the sacerdotal vestments called the ephod, for which it would be impossible to find an apposite term in any European tongue. Phylacteries, too, will perhaps be accounted an exception. 2. But, though it is rarely necessary to adopt the ancient or foreign names of garments, it may not be always proper to employ those terms for expressing them which are appropriated to particular pieces of the modern European habit. The word coat answers well enough as a name for the under garment, in Greek zerov. Cloak, by which our translators in the New Testament commonly render quarto, the name for the upper garment, I do not so much approve. My reasons are these: First, cloak is not the term that they have used in the Old Testament for that vestment; though we have no reason to believe that there was any change in the Jewish fashions in this particular. It is well known, that the modes respecting dress are not, nor ever were in Asia, as at present they are in Europe, variable and fluctuating. The orientals are as remarkable for constancy in this particular, as we are for the contrary. Now, though the Hebrew words answering to iuáriov are frequent in the Old Testament, and the Greek word itself in the translation of the Seventy, the word cloak has never been admitted by our translators into the version of the Old Testament except once, in Isa. 59: 17, where it is used only as a simile. Wherever they have thought proper to distinguish the upper garment from that worn close to the body, they have named it the mantle. See the places marked in the margin. But these are not all the places in which the original word might have been so rendered. Sometimes, indeed, it means garments in general, and in the plural especially, signifies, clothes. Now, though the difference of a name employed in the version of the Old Testament, may be thought too slight a circumstance for founding an argument upon in regard to the manner of translating the New, I cannot help thinking, that, even if the words mantle and cloak were equally proper, we ought not, by an unnecessary change, without any reason, to give ground to imagine that there had been in this article any alteration in the Jewish customs. Secondly, I am the more averse to introduce in the New Testament a change of the name that had been used in the Old, as it Judges 4: 18. 2 Sam. 28: 14. 13. Ezra 9: 3, 5. 1 Kings 19: 13, 19. 2 Kings 2: 8, Psal. 109: 29. is evident that in Judea they placed some share of religion in retaining their ancient garb. They did not think themselves at lib. erty to depart from the customs of their ancestors in this point. As their law had regulated some particulars in relation to their habit, they looked upon the form as intended for distinguishing them from the heathen, and consequently as sacred; Numb. 15: 38, 39. Deut. 22: 12: the knots of strings which they were appointed to put upon the four corners or wings, as they called them, did not suit any other form of outer garment than that to which they had been always accustomed. Thirdly, The word mantle comes nearer a just representation of the loose vesture worn by the Hebrews, than cloak, or any other term, which refers us to something particular in the make; whereas their iμárov was an oblong piece of cloth, square at the corners, in shape resembling more the plaid of a Scotch Highlander than either the Greek pallium or the Roman toga. This mantle it would appear, on ordinary occasions, they threw loosely about them; and, when employed in any sort of work in which it might encumber them, laid aside altogether. To this, doubtless, our Lord refers in that expression, "Let not him who shall be in the field return home to fetch his mantle," Mark 13: 16. When setting out on a journey, or entering on any business compatible with the use of this garment, they tucked it up with a girdle, that it might not incommode them. Hence the similitude of having their loins girt, to express alertness, and habitual preparation for the discharge of duty. I know not why those who have been so inclinable in some other articles to give a modern cast to the manners of those ancients, have not modernized them in this also, and transformed girding their loins, a very antique phrase, into buttoning their waistcoats. This freedom would not be so great as the reduction of their money and measures above considered. It would not even be greater than giving them candles for lamps, and making them sit at their meals instead of reclining on couches. In regard to this last mode, I propose to consider it immediately. 3. Of all their customs they were not so tenacious as of what regarded the form of their clothes. In things which were not conceived to be connected with religion, and about which neither the law nor tradition had made any regulation, they did not hesitate to conform themselves to the manners of those under whose power they had fallen. A remarkable instance of this appears in their adopting the mode of the Greeks and Romans, in lying on couches at their meals. In the Old Testament times, the practice of sitting on such occasions appears to have been universal. It is justly remarked by Philo,* that Joseph "made his brethren sit down accor * Εξῆς δὲ προσταξώντος κατὰ τὰς ἡλικίας καθίζεσθαι, μήπω τῶν ἀνθρώ πων ἐν ταῖς συμποτικαῖς συνουσίαις κατάκλισει χρώμενων. Lib. de Josepho. |