Expositio prologi
by St. Bonaventure
Source text: Public Domain Mark 1.0. English translation/apparatus/encoding: CC BY-NC 4.0, Wroot Press.
https://bonaventure.wrootpress.com/browse/15/d/0/q/bon-eccl-prol
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### The Prologue of the Commentary of St Jerome on Ecclesiastes.

I remember that about five years before this, when I was still at Rome and was reading Ecclesiastes with the holy Blesilla, in order to rouse her to the contempt of this world, and that she might count everything she beheld in the world as nothing, I was asked by her to expound whatever was obscure after the manner of a short commentary, so that she might be able to understand without me what she was reading. And so, since, when our work was in train, she was taken away by a sudden death, and we did not deserve, O Paula and Eustochium, to have such a companion of our life, and I, struck down at that time by so great a wound, fell silent; now, placed at Bethlehem, in a more venerable city that is, I render both to her memory and to you what I owe; giving this brief warning, that I have followed no man's authority; but, translating from the Hebrew, I have accommodated myself rather to the usage of the Septuagint translators, in

those things only which did not much differ from the Hebrew. At times I have called to mind Aquila also and Symmachus and Theodotion, so as neither by too great a novelty to deter the reader's zeal, nor again, against my own conscience, to follow after the rivulets of opinions with the fount of truth forsaken.

### The exposition of this prologue.

To this book Saint Jerome prefixes a Prooemium, in which he first makes manifest the motive for translating. Secondly he determines the manner of the translation, there: *Giving this brief warning.*

The first part has three parts. First he says what moved him to begin, namely the intercession of the holy Blesilla. — Secondly he touches on what hindered him, so that he deferred it, namely her death, there: *And so, since, when our work was in train* etc. — Thirdly, what moved him to complete it, namely both her memory and the intercession of Eustochium and Paula, there: *Now, placed at Bethlehem* etc.

*Giving this brief warning.* Here the manner of translating is touched upon, and first the *manner* is set down, namely that he neither altogether agrees with the others nor altogether differs from them; rather, in those things in which he could do so in a good way, he has imitated them. Secondly the *reason* is subjoined, namely there: *So as neither by too great a novelty* etc. And the reason is that he followed them in some things, lest he should seem to bring in too great a novelty; and did not altogether follow them, lest he should forsake the truth.

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