The Letter of St. Jerome, priest and doctor of the Church, to Pope St. Damasus I

A portion of St. Jerome, the translator of the Latin Vulgate, to Pope St. Damasus I. It is the preface of the Latin translations of the Gospels in Vulgate. The Latina Vulgata is the first Bible translated and collected in One Language - Latin, the most spoken language of those time.

""To the blessed Pope Damasus, from Jerome,

You urge me to make a new work from the old, and that I might sit as a kind of judge over the versions of Scripture dispersed throughout the whole world, and that I might resolve which among such ...vary, and which of these they may be which truly agree with the Greek. Pious work, yet perilous presumption, to change the old and aging language of the world , to carry it back to infancy, for to judge others is to invitejudging by all of them. Is there indeed any learned or unlearned man, who when he picks up the volume in his hand, and takes a single taste of it, and sees what he will have read to differ, might not instantly raise his voice, calling me a forger, proclaiming me now to be a sacrilegious man, that I might dare to add, to change, or to correct anything in the old books? Against such infamy I am consoled by two causes: that it is you, who are the highest priest, who so orders, and truth is not to be what might vary, as even now I am vindicated by the witness of slanderers. If indeed faith is administered by the Latin version, they might respond by which, for they are nearly as many as the books!

Therefore, this present little preface promises only the four Gospels, the order of which is Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, revised in comparison with only old Greek books. They do not disagree with many familiar Latin readings, as we have kept... our pen in control, but only those in which the sense will have been seen to have changed (from the Greek) are corrected; the rest remain as they have been.

source:

http://www.ccel.org/ccel/pearse/morefathers/files/jerome_preface_gospels.htm

COMMENT:

WOW. So, Pope St. Damasus I authorised St. Jerome to change the old and aging language of the world with the new one. SOUNDS LIKE POPE PAUL VI and MSGR. BUGNINI TO ME. The Pope has the Power and Authority to change the Old and Aging language being used by the Church once they are no longer used by the people in ordinary conversation.