Note 307 — Chapter XIII · THE AFRICAN PROVINCES.

How far our Latin texts of the Bible are to be referred to several translations originally different, or whether, as Lachmann assumed, the different recensions have proceeded from one and the same translation as a basis by means of manifold revision with the aid of the originals, are questions which can scarcely be definitely decided—for the present at least—in favour of either one or the other view. But that both Italians and Africans took part in this work—whether of translation or of correction—is proved by the famous words of Augustine, de doctr. Christ. ii. 15, 22, in ipsis autem interpretationibus Itala ceteris praeferatur, nam est verborum tenacior cum perspicuitate sententiae, over which great authorities have been perplexed, but certainly without reason. Bentley’s proposal, approved afresh of late (by Corssen, Jahrb. für protestant. Theol. vii. p. 507 f.), to change Itala into illa and nam into quae, is inadmissible alike philologically and in substance. For the twofold change is destitute of all external probability, and besides nam is protected by the copyist Isidorus, Etym. vi. 4, 2. The further objection that linguistic usage would require Italica, is not borne out (e.g. Sidonius and Iordanes as well as the inscriptions of later times, C. I. L. x. p. 1146, write Italus by turns with Italicus), and the designation of a single translation as the most trustworthy on the whole is quite consistent with the advice to consult as many as possible; whereas by the change proposed an intelligent remark is converted into a meaningless commonplace. It is true that the Christian Church in Rome in the first three centuries made use throughout of the Greek language, and that we may not seek there for the Itali who took part in the Latin Bible. But that in Italy outside of Rome, especially in Upper Italy, the knowledge of Greek was not much more diffused than in Africa, is most clearly shown by the names of freedmen; and it is just to the non-Roman Italy that the designation used by Augustine points; while we may perhaps also call to mind the fact that Augustine was gained for Christianity by Ambrosius in Milan. The attempt to identify the traces of the recension called by Augustine Itala in such remains as have survived of Bible translations before Jerome’s, will at all events hardly ever be successful; but still less will it admit of being proved that Africans only worked at the pre-Hieronymian Latin Bible texts. That they originated largely, perhaps for the most part, in Africa has certainly great probability. The contrast to the one Itala can only in reason have been several Afrae; and the vulgar Latin, in which these texts are all of them written, is in full agreement with the vulgar Latin, as it was demonstrably spoken in Africa. At the same time we must doubtless not overlook the fact that we know the vulgar Latin in general principally from African sources, and that the proof of the restriction of any individual linguistic phenomenon to Africa is as necessary as it is for the most part unadduced. There existed side by side as well vulgarisms in general use as African provincialisms (comp. Eph. epigr. iv. p. 520, as to the cognomina in -osus); but that forms like glorificare, nudificare, justificare, belong to the second category, is by no means proved from the fact that we first meet with them in Africa, since analogous documents to those which we possess, e.g. for Carthage in the case of Tertullian, are wanting to us as regards Capua and Milan.