San Jerónimo, traductor paradigmático

Resumen

56

The Apostolic Constitution Scripturarum thesaurus, promulgated by His Holiness John Paul II on April 25, 1979, has made the figure of St. Jerome return to the foreground as a model translator of the Holy Scriptures. Referring to the Saint from Estridonia the Roman Pontiff affirmed that he "continues being like a teacher". These words are confirmed by the facts that show the value of the Latin version of this great Doctor. In order to demonstrate its worth we will look at three time periods in which there crose many versions of the Bible, but all of which gave way to the "Vulgate", translation which the New Vulgate Bible or "Neovulgata" usually follows.

The first period corresponds to the end of the fourth century. lt is a moment of great proliferation of latin versions of the sacred books. Unfortunately, the desire to spread the Word of God throughout the world was not matched by a mastery of the art or translation. Consequently, the many versions didn't always agree, creating a truly chaotic situation and motivating the Bishop of Rome, St. Damasus, to try and remedy the problem; he puts St. Jerome in charge of unifying, at least with the New Testament, the numerous group of conflicting translations. It was the beginning of the great work that would bring so much fame to the monk of Bethlehem. After revising and unifying the New Testament and having been solicited by many to continue, St. Jerome set forth on the arduous task of translating all the books of the Old Testament directly from the originals.

Throughout his difficult job, the saintly translator enjoyed great satisfaction in seeing the welcome reception his work received in determined sectors. But he also had to suffer incomprehension and merciless attacks by many others, who could not see the worth of a translation based on an original in hebrew, work of a set of Jesws who were most bitter enemies to christianity during those times. Whatsmore, this translation implied a certain scorn towards the version of the LXX, used by the inspired writers of the New Testament and regarded by many as inspired. Both this state of affairs and the violent and passionate character of St. Jerome lead him to justify his version. Many of his works, therefore, contain references to his task and set forth the reasons that moved him to its undertaking.

From these writings we can extract some of the basic principles that were present in the elaborating of the Vulgate. A translation that has withstood the march of sixteen centuries surely can still teach us something. The first important lesson we learn from the Estridontine is the importance of working with the originals. No translation, for all ist worth, can ever be more faithful to what the inspired writer said than that which he himself wrote. Admittedly it is true that, strictly speaking, in the case of the Bible, the originals themnselves have not been conserved; but it is also true that a copy of that written by the sacred author will always be of more value than a translation of the same.

St. Jerome also gives great importante to the precision and elegance of his translation. This does not go to say that his prose is not clear and simple; precision implius above all that the reader understands what he reads. This leads us to see a third principle of St. Jerome: the translation must always aim at the meaning of that which is translated, rather than being slave to a literalism which makes the understanding of what the sacred writer wanted to say impossible. The Stridonian priest also used as long possible the same way of speaking that the Church had been trying to conserve throughout the decades. He respects as much as possible the traditional terminology and avoids phrases that could sound strange to his readers. Similarly, the great Doctor is extremely concerned in interpreting the text in accord with the interpretation of the Holy church, and more than once consults the opinion of Rome. Finally, it is obvious that our translator views the Holy Scripture as inspired by God, and meritous of an attitude of faith and reverence which would make possible, with the divine help, a translation made in the same spirit in which were written the sacred books.