St. Jerome, Commentary on Daniel (1958). Preface to the online edition.

Little need by said by way of introduction to this translation by Gleason L. Archer of Jerome's Commentary on Daniel.  I owe my knowledge of the translation to David Braunsberg, who first drew my attention to it in a series of emails relating to the fragments of Porphyry.  On writing to the publisher myself, I received the following email:

Dear Roger,

The text of this book is in the public domain. If you post it on your
website, please cite the source of the material.

Thank you!

Lynn McBroom
Permissions Coordinator
Baker Publishing Group

My very sincere thanks to Ms. McBroom and to Baker Book House for their helpfulness in this matter.  

There are a couple of points about the formatting of the text which require explanation.  Archer has chosen to put his footnotes mainly in the body of the text in square brackets.  He also translated the Patrologia Latina text of Jacques-Paul Migne (PL 25, p.491 ff, p.513 ff in the second edition), and added a translation of Migne's notes at the end.  He also added the page numbers and the A-D section numbers on each page into the body of his translation.  This all seems rather strange, and makes it hard to read.  However it is good to have the text available, and a text that cannot fail to be of serious interest to very many people.

Jerome, Commentarii in Danielem is Clavis Patrum Latinorum 588.  The critical Latin text of F. GLORIE may be found in Corpus Christianorum 75 (1964).

Postscript: I understand that Dr. Archer has recently died.  The following picture and notice come from the Trinity International University site. 

Dr. Gleason Archer
May 22, 1916–April 27, 2004

On the evening of April 27, longtime TEDS professor Dr. Gleason Archer passed away. Dr. Archer taught at Trinity as professor of Old Testament and Semitics from 1965 to 1986 and as Professor Emeritus from 1989 to 1991.

Dr. Archer was one of the great men of God raised up in the past century to train biblically grounded leaders for the evangelical church. He spoke more languages than is imaginable (some have said it was more than thirty). Having an active and fertile mind, Dr. Archer was an apologist for the truthfulness of the Bible, a researcher and author, and a faithful teacher and mentor for thousands of ministers of the Gospel all over the world. He wrote several books, including Encyclopedia of Biblical Difficulties and Survey of Old Testament Literature. He contributed articles to such periodicals as Christianity Today, Westminster Journal, The United Evangelical Action, and Decision. He also served at Fuller Theological Seminary as professor and acting dean and at Tyndale Theological Seminary in the Netherlands as a visiting professor of Old Testament. 

Those who know of his scholarship may not know of his deep personal devotion to Christ and the Lord's people. Whenever possible, Dr. Archer was always in chapel at TEDS, always at faculty prayers, and always serving faithfully at his church. This was a man who disciplined his mind to learn the faith revealed in the Scriptures, committed himself to living that faith with integrity, and consistently demonstrated courage to call others to His Lord Jesus Christ.

The wake will be held on Sunday, May 2, from 1:00 to 4:00pm at Kelley & Spalding Funeral Home in Highland Park. Funeral services will be held on Monday, May 3, at 10:00am at North Suburban Evangelical Free Church in Deerfield. Dr. Archer is survived by his five children, Gleason III, Jonathan, Heather, Laurel, and Elizabeth.

I regret that I never knew of his work until late in 2004.  It would have been good to tell him that his work was appreciated.

Roger Pearse
Ipswich, Suffolk
21st February 2005

This text was transcribed by Roger Pearse, Ipswich, UK, 2004.  All material on this page is in the public domain - copy freely.

Greek text is rendered using the Scholars Press SPIonic font, free from here.