to Jerome's and Augustine's theories of
translation are frequent throughout the course of Biblical translation
but are generally vague. The _Preface to Eusebius_ and the _Epistle to
Pammachius_ contain the most complete statements of the principles which
guided Jerome. Both emphasize the necessity of giving sense for sense
rather than word for word, "except," says the latter, "in the case of
the Holy Scriptures where even the order of the words is a mystery."
This corresponds closely with Aelfric's theory expressed in the preface
to the _Lives of the Saints_: "Nec potuimus in ista translatione semper
verbum ex verbo transferre, sed tamen sensum ex sensu," and his
insistence in the _Preface to Genesis_ on a faithfulness which extends
even to the _endebirdnisse_ or orders.

The principle "word for word if possible; if not, sense for sense" is
common in connection with medieval translations, but is susceptible of
very different interpretations, as appears sometimes from its context.
Richard Rolle's phrasing of the theory in the preface to his translation
of the Psalter is: "I follow the letter as much as I may. And where I
find no proper English I follow the wit of the words"; but he also makes
the contradictory statement, "In this work I seek no strange English,
but lightest and commonest, and _such that is most like to the
Latin_,"[175] a peculiar conception of the translator's obligation to
his own tongue! The Prologue to the second recension of the Wycliffite
version, commonly attributed to Purvey, emphasizes, under cover of the
same apparent theory, the claims of the vernacular. "The best
translating," it runs, "is out of Latin into English, to translate after
the sentence, and not only after the words, so that the sentence be as
open, either opener, in English as in Latin, ... and if the letter may
not be sued in the translating, let the sentence be ever whole and open,
for the words owe to serve to the intent and sentence."[176] The growing
distrust of the Vulgate in some quarters probably accounts in some
measure for the translator's attempt to make the meaning if necessary
"more true and more open than it is in the Latin." In any case these
contrasted theories represent roughly the position of the Roman
Catholic and, to some extent, the Anglican party as compared with the
more distinctly Protestant attitude throughout the period when the
English Bible was taking shape, the former stressing the difficulties of
tran