ABBOT GASQUET IN HIS WORKING ROOM

New Zealand Tablet, 31 July 1913, Page 49

ABBOT GASQUET IN HIS WORKING ROOM

Day by day for the past five years (writes a Rom© correspondent) the body known throughout the Catholic world as the Commission for the Revision of the Vulgate, which Pope Pius X. appointed under the guidance of the Right Rev. Abbot Gasquet, President of the English Benedictines, has labored; diligently to fulfil the task given by the Sovereign Pontiff, Set on the summit of the Aventine Hill, the International College of the Order of St. Benedict is eminently fitted «for the pursuance of a work that demands deep learning and untiring patience — is far enough distant from Rome to be out of the noise and whirl of the city, while sufficiently near for all practical purposes. And so the body of eighteen Benedictine savants may continue their labors amid peace and tranquillity on the famous Aventine, which is now a place almost deserted except by the tourist, but which two thousand years ago was one of the busy, fashionable centres of the Eternal City. It was, therefore, with a sense of pleasure the writer found himself in the room in which the great work is being done, on the invitation of Abbot Gasquet to hoar the president’s explanation of the progress made during the past year. One must always keep before his mind, as the Abbot explained, that the end of the Commission is to get at the text of the Scriptures as it came from the pen of St. Jerome when that great churchman had translated them. How necessary this caution is came forcibly home to one as he listened to the methods adopted by the Commission in comparing antique Bibles found in libraries of Italy, France, Ireland, England, Spain, and other countries, for it was the one guiding star to one looking at the results of patient collating of time-worn manuscripts, some of which the ancient scribes had written with infinite care, arid some in a manner that showed they had often suffered from distractions. Probably the most interesting part of the explanations given the writer on the occasion by Abbot Gasquet regarded the assistance which the art of photography has been to the Vulgate Commission. For example, suppose there was a precious codex of a Bible in a library in Spain or Switzerland, which had to be examined from cover to cover, letter by letter, and which the owners would not allow to be carried over the threshold. What was the Abbot to do in order to effect his end ? He should send to the library one of his lieutenants at some cost and not a little inconvenience. If he had the codex in the working-room at Rome, all would go well. But he hit upon another plan. The Abbot simply called into the library an expert photographer, had a photo taken of each page, and when the films had been developed he had the prints sent to Paris for mounting and binding. On the shelves of the Vulgate room are row after row of these photographed Bibles, bound into volumes. Not only are these photos of the Bible pages as clear and serviceable as the original manuscript, but, in many cases, they are even more so, as being more easily decipherable and less cumbersome. One can work more boldly with strongly mounted photos than with the faded leaves of manuscripts, which he must touch gingerly and treat every leaf as being worth a hundred times its weight in gold. It is likely that the Commission over which Abbot Gasquet presides will have its work finished within two years. Then it may be the task of another Commission to find out how correct St. Jerome himself was in this translation of Holy Writ. Seeing that St. Jerome used the Hebrew, the Aramaic and the Greek languages in his translations, the task for the nr- ' Commission may be anticipated by it as a pretty big one.