Translating St. Robert Bellermine, S.J. : "Translating"

The Trilogy of Renzo de Lorenzo is a unique blog that attempts to give our ego centric generation a look back at its foundational materials in languages that are not our own. Being that this blog is about somethings Ignatian, we are fortunate in finding such a great post about St. Robert Bellermine, S.J. and his enormous impact on the Catholic Church. Fathers post entitled, St Robert Bellarmine (slip, slidin’ away) examines biblical source material and the rules that Bellermine conceived and implemented in an attempt ensure accuracy of meaning and translation of the Gospels.

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St. Robert Bellermine (slip slidin' away)

These are the six rules of Saint Robert Cardinal Bellarmine, S.J., regarding textual critical redaction of the ancient mansuscripts of Sacred Scripture many decades after the fourth session of the Council of Trent.
This is my translation of his Latin; anyone with a more elegant, exact translation, is welcome to comment.

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The rules are horrifically unscientific. Can anyone guess why? HINT: CHECK OUT THE WORDS IN RED. Nota bene: the “regia” is the ancient Greek manuscript he and the commision of Cardinals used as a working document for this project, all at the behest of the Supreme Pontiff. The manuscripts he used from the Vatican’s Apostolic Library are all duly noted in the registers. Yet, he had more manuscripts available to him than this. This must be researched further. Yet, this research has become extremely difficult for reasons I cannot share… yet, at least… (that is, because of some circumstances in real life). What is important to remember here, for the sake of the plot in Book 1 of the Trilogy (which will carry us through some little bit of this drama) are the meaning of these rules as they stand here. I’ll try to put up Chapter 5 soon. Meanwhile, it’s good to stare at these rules for a while before reading that chapter.

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1. Quando plura manuscripta antiqua convenient cum vulgata latina: mutetur regia.
1. When many ancient manuscripts agree with the Latin Vulgate: the ‘regia’ is to be changed.
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2. Quando omnia manuscripta contra vulgata et contra regia inter se conveniunt: mutetur regia, sed in notationibus ratio reddatur.
2. When all manuscripts against the Vulgate and the ‘regia’ themselves agree: the regia is to be changed, but the reason is given in the notations.
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3. Quando vulgata non refragatur, et maior pars manusciptorum contraria est regiae; mutetur regia, et reddatur ratio in notationibus.
3. When the Vulgate does not oppose, and a major part of the manuscripts are against the ‘regia’, the ‘regia’ is to be changed, and the reason is given in the notations.

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You will have to go to Fathers blog now (here) to read the rest of the rules. Make sure you look for Father's sidebar list of Lowest Common Denomintor of Utter Rubbish on his title page, I could not agree more with the list.