(printed p. 34 — Book I)
As we saw above, Drusius criticizes my translation of Gorionides in a single particle and little word, lebaddam, and at the same time boasts of his own translation, adding on page 7: “Since it ought to be translated ‘they alone,’ as we were the first to translate it.” But if a person is ready to speak against another, is it not most fair that he should be free from every fault, or at least from the very fault with which he charges the other? Otherwise the saying of the Savior will be ready at hand: “Why do you see the speck in your brother’s eye, and not see the beam in your own eye?”
I have already shown that there was not even a speck in the thing he blamed in my translation, and that, so far as that one little word is concerned, my rendering departs not at all from the opinion which Drusius approves. Now, however, I shall show that in his own translation, which we heard in chapter 8, he labored with fraud and deceit so as to drag and bend Gorionides into his own opinion.
[margin: Matthew 7:3.]
(printed p. 35)
“And those pious men, or Hasidaeans, alone,” he says. First, why does he say, “And the pious, or Hasidaeans”? Why is he not content with one of these names? In the Hebrew there is only one word, Chesidim. And it matters a great deal whether we translate it generally as “pious men,” or take it as the proper name of a certain class of pious men. In the same way, if the words “apostles” or “angels” occur in a Hebrew or Greek text, there is a difference between interpreting them by the general words “envoys” or “messengers” and retaining the proper and customary name of that class, “apostles,” I say, and “angels.”
But if someone were to express that one word as “messengers, or angels,” would he not indicate that there was something obscure in that Hebrew or Greek text, or that one Latin word seemed less suitable than the other? This would be especially so if similar words were added in the same place, capable of being translated in two ways, and yet translated by one word only.
In this passage of Gorionides, however, there are Pharisees, who, by Drusius’s own admission - indeed by his own loud assent on page 31 - could be translated in a general way as “distinguished men.” Why, then, does he use two interpretations only for Chesidim, but for Peruschim only one, namely the one proper to the sect? Why does he not likewise say in number 3 of the same chapter, “These are the distinguished men, or Pharisees”; in number 8, “one of the distinguished men, or Pharisees”; and so likewise in numbers 14, 15, 16, 20, and 22? The same question may be asked about Tsedukim, since they can be explained by the more general name “just men” and by the more special name “Sadducees.”
[margin: First fault in Drusius’s translation of Gorionides.]
(printed p. 36)
Why, in number 12, does Drusius not say, “He was one of the just men, or Sadducees”? Why not in number 15, “He was strengthened with the just men, or Sadducees, and was a just man, or Sadducee”? And so on in numbers 21 and 22. What, then, was the reason for using this double translation only with Chesidim? Clearly this: Drusius wanted slyly to suggest that Chesidim is not taken here as the proper name of a sect, as happens with Pharisees and Sadducees - for then a third sect, which he does not want there, would have immediately shone forth - but as a common epithet by which the Pharisees were called pious.
But in order to persuade the reader of this more strongly, he also inserted the particle “those”: “And those pious men, or Hasidaeans.” For although in Hebrew there is the letter he, which sometimes produces a demonstrative force, it very often does not do so, as is perfectly well known to those who have touched Hebrew, as they say, even with the very edges of their lips.
Indeed, Drusius himself more than once did not want that demonstrative force to be present in this same chapter of Gorionides. Otherwise, in verse 20 he would have had to say, “Behold those Pharisees,” and in the same place, “by the mouth of those wise men,” and in number 21, “those Sadducees,” and again “those Cutheans,” and in number 22, “with those Pharisees” and “with that king.” Why did he omit that Hebrew he in all these places, but mark it so deliberately only with Chesidim?
[margin: The demonstrative particle in Drusius’s rendering.]
(printed p. 37)
Because, of course, he wanted “those pious men” to be understood as the persons previously mentioned, namely the Pharisees. For this reason, in the same words he should also have added, “or those Hasidaeans,” but he forgot himself.
Yet let it be granted that the demonstrative had to be expressed here. Why did he prefer to say “those pious men” rather than “these pious men,” or at least “these men are pious”? For when he performs the office of demonstration, it signifies those two latter phrases rather than the former, or at least not less than the former. But Drusius did this shrewdly. Among Latin speakers, when several groups have previously been mentioned and something is later narrated not about all of them but about some of them, the word “those” is usually applied to the more remote ones, or to those first designated, while “these” or “these here” is applied to the nearer or later ones.
Now Gorionides had spoken first about the Pharisees in number 20, then about the Sadducees in verse 21, and in the same verse he adds concerning these Hasidaeans of ours. Therefore, because Drusius wants these men not to be distinct from the Pharisees but the same as they are, if he had translated, “And these pious men,” no one would have understood the Pharisees, but rather those who had just been named, the Sadducees. In order to send the reader away from the Sadducees to the Pharisees set farther back, he craftily wrote, “And those pious men.” Is this not to force the author whom you are interpreting to say what you wish, rather than to interpret what he himself means?
There is still another roughness in Drusius’s translation, when he renders chelek acher as “the other part,” as though the Hasidaeans were the second part or sect of the Jews, not the third. But in Hebrew it is not “the other part,” but “another part.”
[margin: Third fault: “another part,” not “the other part.”]
(printed p. 38)
The difference between these two expressions is sometimes considerable. Whoever is “the other” is also “another”; but not whoever is “another” is “the other.” In divine matters, the Son is another and the other from the Father; the Holy Spirit is not the other from the same Father, but another. In human matters, a son is the other and another in relation to his father; in relation to his grandfather, he is not the other, but another. So the fellowship of the Hasidaeans is another fellowship distinct from the other two, not the second of two.
It is therefore clear that these few words of Gorionides were not correctly translated by Drusius, but wrongly and craftily bent and shaped to his own meaning. But we must now approach the other part of this writing, which, after the three sects of the Jews have now been set down, discusses each one separately.
(printed p. 39)
Those things which seemed necessary to say in general about the three sects of the Jews have now been completed. I shall next treat each one specifically. And although bitter hatreds and enmities sometimes flourished between the first two, as will be explained below in its own place, I have nevertheless decided to join them together in this one second book, because there was a great likeness of very bad morals among the followers of those sects, and because, in the most holy Gospels of our Lord Jesus Christ, these same men, joined together, are very frequently and most justly rebuked. But the Pharisees will go first; the Sadducees will follow.