The Old Latin Gospels: A Study of Their Texts and Language (review)

Philip Burton. The Old Latin Gospels: A Study of Their Texts and Language. Oxford Early Christian Studies. New York: Oxford University Press, 2000. Pp. xi + 232. $74.00.

This book will be of interest to Latinists, to biblical scholars with a particular interest in textual criticism, and to Bible translators (theorists and practitioners). Philip Burton of the University of St. Andrews presents a study of the Old Latin Gospel texts that predate Jerome's revision known as the Vulgate. He brackets out of direct consideration "the biblical citations in the patristic writings" (4). The work is divided into three parts: (1) The Textual History of the Old Latin Gospels, (2) Aspects of the Translation, and (3) The Old Latin Gospels as Linguistic Documents with an appendix dealing with Jerome's "Translation Technique."

Burton writes with a strongly independent voice and does not hesitate to disagree in matters of detail with authorities such as Fischer (16, 25), Metzger (193), Mohrmann (153-54), and Sparks (195). More fundamentally, his critique of the limitations of the standard edition of the Old Latin Gospel text, the Itala (ed. Jülicher, Matzkow, and Aland), is well argued. In the matter of nomenclature, Burton remarks that "[T]he 'Itala' category has not survived" and that "the name is now regarded as unhelpful . . ." (15). In my opinion it needs pointing out that part of the problem here has been the failure to appreciate that in Augustine's age, and in later times, "Itala" designated the north of Italy and, more particularly, the diocese of Milan. For example, the Lives of the Irish Saints give evidence that the Irish peregrini of the early Middle Ages understood Rome to be in Latium, as distinct from Italy.

Burton registers his misgivings over the confusion of sigla for the Old Latin Gospel codices (15-16), singling out Fischer's introduction of "X followed by a small roman letter, which confusingly is only sometimes the same as its traditional designation" (16). However, the present reviewer wonders if the situation can now ever be rectified. Perhaps we must simply learn to live with it. Thus, the book is full of lively debate on a wide range of issues, a fact which makes it a very interesting and provocative read for textual critics not only in the areas of the Greek and Latin transmission but also for those interested in the history of the Bible in English. Burton regularly points out instances where options made by Latin translators impinged on English translations.

Burton's independence of mind is clearly seen in his analysis of Jerome's translation technique (appendix). He challenges the assumption that Jerome's alterations to the Old Latin texts always represent a shift from an excessively literal to a more readable style. He examines twenty-six sample texts from the Vulgate Gospels and concludes that they represent a literalism of translation that involves "distortions of natural usage and idiom" (199). For example, the panem supersubstantialem of Matthew 6.11 is described as obscure and "more concerned to reproduce the form of the Greek than to give a meaningful translation" (196). He does not address the intriguing fact that the Lukan parallel cannot be faulted on the same score. I would like to point out a similar example in Matthew 8.20 (not tabled by Burton). Here the Vulgate reads the pretentious sounding tabernacula while the Lukan parallel (9.58) retains the nidos of the Old Latin. The Greek original is used nowhere else in Greek literature in reference to birds! This is another example of what Burton terms Jerome's "etymologizing renderings" (195), but the question remains why he did not "correct" the Lukan text also.

This point is relevant to the content of chapter 3, which Burton devotes to unraveling the complex matter of the origins of the text(s) of the Synoptic Gospels, namely whether they all derive...