Sebastian Castellio's Biblia Sacra Latina

[Johannes Patruus]

Awearied of the abysmal quality of Google's scans, I have located three
copies (of different editions) scanned by European libraries, their
respective T.O.C. pages being the following:

http://reader.digitale-sammlungen.de/de/fs1/object/display/bsb10272048_00056.html

http://reader.digitale-sammlungen.de/de/fs1/object/display/bsb10212493_00016.html

http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:gbv:3:1-161230-p0018-7

Patruus

[Ed Cryer]

"In principio erat sermo, et sermo erat apud Deum, et Deus erat is sermo."

I suppose that's simply "language".

Language, Truth and Logic - A J Ayer.
(Sermo, veritas, logica)

Ed

[Johannes Patruus]

Erasmus was aboard the same bandwagon of controversy -

http://www.google.com/search?q=%22In%20principio%20erat%20sermo%22%20%22controversial%22

Patruus

> Ed
>

[Johannes Patruus]

On 27/08/2011 19:52, Johannes Patruus wrote:
>

Although the second of the above three editions is the most attractive,
unfortunately in many places, both in the online and PDF versions, gaping
black voids appear where page images ought to be, e.g. -
http://reader.digitale-sammlungen.de/de/fs1/object/display/bsb10212493_00687.html

A different scan of the same edition which does not suffer this problem,
is here -
http://books.google.com/books?id=uPBEAAAAcAAJ

Patruus

[Johannes Patruus]

On the one hand, we are told that the German philosopher Christian Wolff
made heavy use of Castellio's translation in his Theologia Naturalis, and
that "in many places Wolff compares Castellio’s translation with the
Vulgate and Luther in terms of faithfulness to the original, and finds
Castellio’s version preferable" -
http://www.olms.de/artikel_14750.ahtml

On the other hand, we are advised that this translation has been "widely
rejected by both Catholic and Protestant theologians due to Castellio's
blatant disregard for the Vulgate", and criticized for its "translatio
ethnica" of common terms -
http://books.google.com/books?id=zqlPAn2JxJ8C&pg=PA367

From the page following the above, we learn that for chapter nine of the
epistle to the Romans, Castellio "had written a commentary refuting
Calvin's doctrine of predestination, which for fear of censors was not
permitted to appear in his Bible translation", though it seems to have
resurfaced in the 1697 Frankfurt edition in the form of a shockingly long
footnote extending over five pages -
http://books.google.com/books?id=uPBEAAAAcAAJ&pg=PA244
this presumably being the "nota prolixior" boasted of on the title page -
http://books.google.com/books?id=uPBEAAAAcAAJ&printsec=frontcover

Patruus

[Johannes Patruus]

The International Review of Biblical Studies describes Castellio's opus,
with particular reference to its 1697 Frankfurt edition (reprinted in
2008), as -
[Quote:] . . . one of the foremost Latin biblical translations produced in
the period of humanism. Humanists generally (and rightly) felt that the
Vulgate used an inadequate, and often problematic language; its literalism
often bordered on the incomprehensible. Castellio (1515-1563), today
chiefly remembered as someone who fell out with Calvin whose intolerance
he found reprehensible, translated the Bible both into French and Latin .
. . In [this] edition the name of the Old Testament God is variously
printed as Ioua and Jova. The Latinist will immediately recognise and
appreciate the translator's virtues; frequently, he produces a literal
translation of the Septuagint, and avoids Hebraisms (thus in 1 Kings 1:3,
he has "nec ille cum ea rem habuit", where the Hebrew and the Greek say
"rex vero non cognovit eam"). The Lord's Prayer includes the line "sancte
colatur nomen tuum" . . . One remarkable feature is the translator's
insertion, at the end of [the Old Testament] of a survey of Jewish history
meant to fill the gap in the account between the Old and New Testaments;
the source for this is Josephus.[:Unquote]

http://books.google.com/books?id=eVijVL9udhUC&pg=PA9 (§37)

Patruus