[Sidenote: Translation out of Hebrew and Greek into Latin.] There were also within a few hundred years after _Christ_ translations many into the _Latin_ tongue: for this tongue also was very fit to convey the Law and the Gospel by, because in those times very many countries of the West, yea of the South, East, and North, spake or understood _Latin_, being made provinces to the _Romans_. But now the _Latin_ translations were too many to be all good: for they were infinite; (_Latini interpretes nullo modo numerari possunt_, saith St. _Augustine_.) [Sidenote: _St. August. de doctrin. Christ. lib. 2. cap. 11._] Again, they were not out of the _Hebrew_ fountain, (we speak of the _Latin_ translations of the Old Testament,) but out of the _Greek_ stream; therefore the _Greek_ being not altogether clear, the _Latin_ derived from it must needs be muddy. This moved St. _Hierome_, a most learned Father, and the best linguist without controversy of his age, or of any other that went before him, to undertake the translating of the Old Testament out of the very fountains themselves; which he performed with that evidence of great learning, judgment, industry, and faithfulness, that he hath for ever bound the Church unto him in a debt of special remembrance and thankfulness. [Sidenote: The translating of the Scripture into the vulgar tongues.] Now though the Church were thus furnished with _Greek_ and _Latin_ translations, even before the faith of _Christ_ was generally embraced in the Empire: (for the learned know, [Sidenote: _St. Hieron. Marcell. Zosim._] that even in St. _Hierome’s_ time the Consul of _Rome_ and his wife were both Ethnicks, and about the same time the greatest part of the Senate also:) yet for all that the godly learned were not content to have the Scriptures in the language which themselves understood, [Sidenote: 2 Kin. 7. 9.] _Greek_ and _Latin_, (as the good lepers were not content to fare well themselves, but acquainted their neighbours with the store that God had sent, that they also might provide for themselves;) but also for the behoof and edifying of the unlearned, which hungered and thirsted after righteousness, and had souls to be saved as well as they, they provided translations into the vulgar for their countrymen, insomuch that most nations under heaven did shortly after their conversion hear _Christ_ speaking unto them in their mother tongue, not by the voice of their minister only, but also by the written word translated. If any doubt hereof, he may be satisfied by examples enough, if enough will serve the turn. [Sidenote: _St. Hieron. Præf. in 4. Evangel._] First, St. _Hierome_ saith, _Multarum gentium linguis Scriptura ante translata docet falsa esse quæ addita sunt_, &c.; that is, _The Scripture being translated before in the languages of many nations doth shew that those things that were added_ (by _Lucian_ or _Hesychius_) _are false_. [Sidenote: _St. Hieron. Sophronio._] So St. _Hierome_ in that place.