a very ancient translation of the Bible, and the only one acknowledged by the church of Rome to be authentic.
See BIBLE, No. 32.
a very ancient Latin translation of the Bible; and the only one the church of Rome acknowledges to be authentic. The ancient Vulgate of the Old Testament was translated almost word for word, from the Greek of the Septuagint. The author of the version is not known. It was a long time known by the name of the Italic, or old version; as being of very great antiquity in the Latin church. It was the common, or vulgar version, before St. Jerom made a new one from the Hebrew original, with occasional references to the Septuagint; whence it has its name Vulgate. Nobilius, in 1558, and F. Morin, in 1628, gave new editions of it; pretending to have restored and re-collated it from the ancients who had cited it. It has since been retouched from the correction of St. Jerom; and it is this mixture of the ancient Italic version, and some corrections of St. Jerom, that is now called the Vulgate, and which the council of Trent has declared to be authentic. It is this Vulgate alone that is used in the Romish church, excepting some passages of the ancient Vulgate, which were left in the Missal and the Psalms, and which are still sung according to the old Italic version. St. Jerom declares that in his revisal of the Italic version, he used great care and circumspection, never varying from that version but when he thought it misrepresented the sense. But as the Greek copies to which he had access were not so ancient as those from which the Italic version had been made, some learned authors have been of opinion that it would have been much better if he had collected all the copies, and, by comparing them, have restored that translation to its original purity. It is plain that he never completed this work, and that he even left some faults in it, for fear of varying too much from the ancient version, since he renders in his commentaries some words otherwise than he has done in his translation. This version was not introduced into the church but by degrees, for fear of offending weak persons. Rufinus, notwithstanding his enmity to St. Jerom, and his having exclaimed much against this performance, was one of the first to prefer it to the vulgar or Italian. This translation gained at last so great an authority, by the approbation of Pope Gregory I, and his declared preference of it to every other, that it was subsequently brought into public use through all the western churches. Although it was not regarded as authentic, except by the council of Trent, it is certainly of some use, as serving to illustrate several passages both of the Old and New Testament.
The two principal popish editions of the Vulgate are those of Pope Sixtus V and Clement VIII: the former was printed in 1590, after Pope Sixtus had collected the most ancient MSS., and best printed copies, summoned the most learned men out of all the nations of the Christian world, assembled a congregation of cardinals for their assistance and counsel, and presided over the whole himself. This edition was declared to be corrected in the very best manner possible, and published with a tremendous excommunication against every person who should presume ever afterward to alter the least particle of the edition thus authentically promulgated by his holiness, sitting in that chair, in qua Petri vivit potestas, et excellit auctoritas, [in which the power of Peter lived, and his authority excelled.] The other edition was published in 1592, by Pope Clement VIII; which was so different from that of Sixtus, as to contain two thousand variations, some of whole verses, and many others clearly and designedly contradictory in sense; and yet this edition is also, ex cathedra, [from the chair,] pronounced as the only authentic one, and enforced by the same sentence of excommunication with the former. Clement suppressed the edition of his predecessor; so that copies of the Sixtine Vulgate are now very scarce, and have long been reckoned among literary rarities. Our learned countryman, Dr. James, the celebrated correspondent and able coadjutor of Archbishop Usher, relates, with all the ardent of a hard student, the delight which he experienced on unexpectedly obtaining a Sixtine copy; and he used it to good and effective purpose in his very clever book, entitled “Bellum Papale,” in which he has pointed out numerous additions, omissions, contradictions, and glaring differences between the Sixtine and Clementine editions. All the popish champions are exceedingly shy about recognizing this irreconcilable conflict between the productions of two such infallible personages; and the boldest of them wish to represent it as a thing of nought. But it is no light matter thus to tamper with the word of God.
The Romanists generally hold the Vulgate of the New Testament preferable to the common Greek text; because it is this alone, and not the Greek text, that the council of Trent has declared authentic: accordingly that church has, as it were, adopted this edition, and the priests read no other at the altar, the preachers quote no other in the pulpit, nor the divines in the schools. Yet some of their best authors, E. Bouhours for instance, own, that among the differences that are found between the common Greek and Vulgate, there are some in which the Greek reading appears more clear and natural than that of the Latin; so that the second might be corrected from the first, if the holy see should think fit. But those differences, taken in general, only consist in a few syllables or words; they rarely concern the sense. Beside, in some of the most considerable, the Vulgate is authorized by several ancient manuscripts. Bouhours spent the last years of his life in giving a French translation of the New Testament according to the Vulgate. It is probable that at the time the ancient Italic or Vulgate version of the New Testament was made, and at the time it was afterward compared with the Greek manuscripts by St. Jerom, as they were then nearer the times of the Apostles, they had more accurate Greek copies, and those better kept, than any of those used when printing was invented.
“Highly as the Latin Vulgate is extolled by the church of Rome,” says Michaelis, “it was depreciated beyond, measure at the beginning of the sixteenth century by several learned Protestants, whose example has been followed by men of inferior abilities. At
the restoration of learning, when the faculty of writing elegant Latin was the highest accomplishment of a scholar, the Vulgate was regarded with contempt, as not written with classical purity. But after the Greek manuscripts were discovered, their readings were preferred to those of the Latin, because the New Testament was written in Greek, and the Latin was only a version; but it was not considered that these Greek manuscripts were modern in comparison of those originals from which the Latin was taken; nor was it known at that time, that the more ancient the Greek manuscripts and the other versions were, the closer was their agreement with the Vulgate. Our ablest writers, such as Mill and Bengal, have been induced by F. Simon’s treatise to abandon the opinion of their predecessors, and have ascribed to the Latin
Vulgate a value perhaps greater than it deserves.”
Is the name of the Latin version of the Scriptures used by the church of Rome. The Old Testament was a very close translation of the Greek Septuagint, not of the Hebrew. It was made at a very early period by an unknown author. A part of this version was afterwards revised by Jerome, and some of the books retranslated from the Hebrew.\par
By: Crawford Howell Toy, Ira Maurice Price
Earlier Latin Translations.
Latin version of the Bible authorized by the Council of Trent in 1546 as the Bible of the Roman Catholic Church. It was the product of the work of Jerome, one of the most learned and scholarly of the Church leaders of the early Christian centuries. The earliest Latin version of the Scriptures seems to have originated not in Rome, but in one of Rome's provinces in North Africa. An Old Latin version of the New Testament was extant in North Africa in the second century C.E., and it is thought that a translation of the Old Testament into Latin was made in the same century. Indeed, Tertullian (c. 160-240) seems to have known a Latin Bible. There were at least two early Latin translations, one called the African and the other the European. These, based not on the Hebrew, but on the Greek, are thought to have been made before the text-work of such scholars as Origen, Lucian, and Hesychius, and hence would be valuable for the discovery of the Greek text with which Origen worked. But the remains of these early versions are scanty. Jerome did not translate or revise several books found in the Latin Bible, and consequently the Old Latin versions were put in their places in the later Latin Bible. These Old Latin versions are represented in the books of Esdras, Wisdom, Ecclesiasticus, Baruch, and Maccabees, and in the additions to Daniel and Esther. The Psalter also exists in a revised form, and the books of Job and Esther, of the Old Latin, are found in some ancient manuscripts. Only three other fragmentary manuscripts of the Old Testament in Old Latin are now known to be in existence.
Jerome was born of Christian parents about 340-342, at Stridon, in the province of Dalmatia. He received a good education, and carried on his studies at Rome, being especially fascinated by Vergil, Terence, and Cicero. Rhetoric and Greek also claimed part of his attention. At Trier in Gaul he took up theological studies for several years. In 374 he traveled in the Orient. In a severe illness he was so impressed by a dream that he dropped secular studies. But his time had not been lost. He turned his brilliant mind, trained in the best schools of the day, to sacred things. Like Moses and Paul, he retired to a desert, that of Chalcis, near Antioch, where he spent almost five years in profound study of the Scriptures and of himself. At this period he sealed a friendship with Pope Damasus, who later opened the door to him for the great work of his life. In 379 Jerome was ordained presbyter at Antioch. Thence he went to Constantinople, where he was inspired by the expositions of Gregory Nazianzen. In 382 he reached Rome, where he lived about three years in close friendship with Damasus.
Jerome's Bible-Revision Work.
For a long time the Church had felt the need of a good, uniform Latin Bible. Pope Damasus at first asked his learned friend Jerome to prepare a revised Latin version of the New Testament. In 383 the Four Gospels appeared in a revised form, and at short intervals thereafter the Acts and the remaining books of the New Testament. These latter were very slightly altered by Jerome. Soon afterward he revised the Old Latin Psalter simply by the use of the Septuagint. The name given this revision was the "Roman Psalter," in distinction from the "Psalterium Vetus." The former was used in Rome and Italy down to Pius V. (1566-72), when it was displaced by the "Gallican Psalter" (so called because first adopted in Gaul), another of Jerome's revisions (made about 387), based on many corrections of the Greek text by reference to other Greek versions. About theend of 384 Pope Damasus died, and Jerome left Rome to travel and study in Bible lands. In 389 he settled at Bethlehem, assumed charge of a monastery, and prosecuted his studies with great zeal. He secured a learned Jew to teach him Hebrew for still better work than that he had been doing. His revision work had not yet ceased, for his Book of Job appeared as the result of the same kind of study as had produced the "Gallican Psalter." He revised some other books, as Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, Song of Songs, and Chronicles, of which his revisions are lost, though their prefaces still exist.
Jerome's Bible-Translation Work.
But Jerome soon recognized the poor and unsatisfactory state of the Greek texts that he was obliged to use. This turned his mind and thought to the original Hebrew. Friends, too, urged him to translate certain books from the original text. As a resultant of long thought, and in answer to many requests, Jerome spent fifteen years, 390 to 405, on a new translation of the Old Testament from the original Hebrew text. He began with the books of Samuel and Kings, for which he wrote a remarkable preface, really an introduction to the entire Old Testament. He next translated the Psalms, and then the Prophets and Job. In 394-396 he prepared a translation of Esdras and Chronicles. After an interval of two years, during which he passed through a severe illness, he took up his arduous labors, and produced translations of Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, and Song of Songs. The Pentateuch followed next, and the last canonical books, Joshua, Judges, Ruth, and Esther, were completed by 404. The Apocryphal parts of Daniel and Esther, and Tobit and Judith, all translated from the Aramaic, completed Jerome's great task. The remainder of the Apocryphal books he left without revision or translation, as they were not found in the Hebrew Bible.
Jerome's Translation in Later Times.
Jerome happily has left prefaces to most of his translations, and these documents relate how he did his work and how some of the earlier books were received. Evidently he was bitterly criticized by some of his former best friends. His replies show that he was supersensitive to criticism, and often hot-tempered and stormy. His irritability and his sharp retorts to his critics rather retarded than aided the reception of his translation. But the superiority of the translation gradually won the day for most of his work. The Council of Trent in 1546 authorized the Latin Bible, which was by that time a strange composite. The Old Testament was Jerome's translation from the Hebrew, except the Psalter, which was his Gallican revision; of the Apocryphal books, Judith and Tobit were his translations, while the remainder were of the Old Latin version. The New Testament was Jerome's revision of the Old Latin translation. These translations and revisions of translations, and old original translations, constitute the Vulgate. See also Jerome.
Bibliography:
Grützmacher, Hieronymus: eine Bibliographische Studie, vol. i., Leipsic, 1901;
S. Berger, Histoire de la Vulgate Pendant les Premières Siècles du Moyen Age, Paris, 1893;
H. J. White, Codex Amiatinus and Its Birth-place, in Studia Biblica et Ecclesiastica, vol. ii., Oxford, 1890;
E. Nestle, Ein Jubiläum der Lateinischen Bibel, Tübingen, 1892;
E. von Dobschütz, Studien zur Textkritik der Vulgata, Leipsic, 1894;
Hastings, Dict. Bible. See fuller bibliography in S. Berger's work, mentioned above.
VULGATE.—1. The position of the Latin Vulgate, as a version of the original texts of the Bible, has been dealt with in the two articles on the Text of the OT and the NT. But its interest and importance do not end there. Just as the LXX
2. The textual articles above mentioned have shown that, when Jerome’s Biblical labours were at an end, about a.d. 404, the Latin Bible as left by him was a very complex structure, the parts of which differed very considerably in their relations to the original Greek and Hebrew texts. The Canonical Books of the OT, except the Psalms, were Jerome’s fresh translation from the Massoretic Hebrew. The Psalms were extant in three forms—(a) the Roman, Jerome’s slightly revised edition of the OL, which still held its own in a few churches; (b) the Gallican, his more fully revised version from the Hexaplar text of the LXX
3. Jerome’s correspondence and the prefaces attached by him to the several books of his translation (notably those prefixed to the Pentateuch, Joshua, Ezra and Nehemiah, Job, Isaiah, and the Gospels) sufficiently show the reception given to his work by his contemporaries. He complains constantly and bitterly of the virulence of his critics, who charge him with deliberate perversions of Scripture, and refuse to make themselves acquainted with the conditions of his task. Especially was this the case with the OT. In the NT Jerome had restrained his correcting pen, and made alterations only when the sense required it [‘Ita calamo temperavimus ut his tantum quæ sensum videbantur mutare correctis, reliqua manere pateremur ut fuerant’ (Prœf. ad Damasum)]; and though even these were sufficient to cause discontent among many readers, the openings given to adverse criticism were relatively insignificant. But in the case of the OT the basis of the OL rendering to which people were accustomed was the LXX
4. Nor was Jerome’s translation assisted by authority to oust its predecessor. Never until 1546 was it officially adopted by the Roman Church to the exclusion of all rivals. It is true that the revision of the Gospels was undertaken at the instance of Pope Damasus, and was published under the sanction of his name; and the Gallican version of the Psalms was quickly and generally adopted. But the new translation of the OT from the Hebrew had no such shadow of official authority. It was an independent venture of Jerome’s, encouraged by his personal friends (among whom were some bishops), and deriving weight from his reputation as a scholar and from the success of his previous work, but in no sense officially commissioned or officially adopted. It was thrown on the world to win its way by its own merits, with the strong weight of popular prejudice against it, and dependent for its success on the admission of its fundamental critical assumption of the superiority of the Massoretic Hebrew to the LXX
5. The extant evidence (consisting of occasional statements by ecclesiastical writers, and their ascertainable practice in Biblical quotations) is not sufficient to enable us to trace in detail the acceptance of Jerome’s version in the various Latin-speaking countries. Gaul, as it was the first country to adopt his second Psalter, was also the first to accept the Vulgate as a whole, and in the 5th cent. the use of it appears to have been general there; but Gaul, it must be remembered, from the point of view of Christian literature, was at this time confined mainly to the provinces of the extreme south. Isidore of Seville, however, testifies to the general use of the Vulg.
6. Although this method of official non-interference was probably necessary, in view of the fact that Jerome’s version of the OT was a private venture, and one which provoked much hostile criticism, and although in the end the new translation gained the credit of a complete victory on its merits as the superior version for general use, nevertheless the price of these advantages was heavy. If the Vulgate had enjoyed from the first the protection of an official sanction, which Sixtus and Clement ultimately gave to the printed text, it would have come down to us in a much purer form than is actually the case. Under the actual conditions, it was peculiarly exposed to corruption, both by the ordinary mistakes of scribes and by contamination with the familiar OL. In some cases whole books or chapters in a Vulg.
7. During the 5th and 6th centuries, when Jerome’s version was winning its way outwards from the centre of the Latin-speaking Church, the conditions over a large part of Western Europe were ill fitted for its reception. Gaul, in the 5th cent., was fully occupied with the effort first to oppose and then to assimilate the heathen Frankish invaders; and even in the 6th it was a scene of almost perpetual war and internal struggles. Germany was almost wholly pagan. Britain was in the throes of the English conquest, and the ancient British Church was submerged, except in Wales and Ireland. Outside Italy, only Visigothic Spain (Arian, but still Christian, until about 596) and Celtic Ireland were freely open at first to the access of the Scriptures; and in these two countries (cut off, as they subsequently were, from central Christendom by the Moorish invasion of Spain and the English conquest of Britain) the two principal types of text came into being, which, in various combinations with purer texts from Italy, are found in the different MSS which have come down to the present day. From the Visigothic kingdom the Spanish influences made their way northward into the heart of France. Irish missionaries carried the Bible first into southern Scotland, then into Northumbria, then into northern France and up the Rhine into Germany, penetrating even into Switzerland and Italy, and leaving traces of their handiwork in MSS produced in all these countries. Meanwhile Rome was a constant centre of attraction and influence; and to and from Italy there was an unceasing stream of travellers, and not least between Italy and distant Britain. These historical facts find their illustration in the Vulg.
8. In the 6th and 7th cent. the primacy of missionary zeal and Christian enterprise rested with the Irish Church; but in the latter part of the 7th and the first half of the 8th cent. the Church of Northumbria sprang into prominence, and added to the gifts which it had received from Iona a spirit of Christian scholarship which gave it for a time the first place in Christendom in this respect. In the production of this scholarship the arrival of Theodore of Tarsus as archbishop of Canterbury in 669 happily co-operated, if it was not a chief stimulus; for Theodore and his companions brought with them from Italy copies of the Latin Bible in a purer text than Ireland had been able to provide. There is clear evidence to show that the celebrated Lindisfarne Gospels (Y in Wordsworth’s numeration) was copied from one of these MSS, and the same was probably the case with another Northern copy of the Gospels now in the British Museum (Royal 1 B vii.). The great Cod. Amiatinus (A) itself, the best single MS of the Latin Bible in existence, was written in Northumbria before 716, and must have been copied from MSS brought from Italy either by Theodore or by Ceolfrid of Jarrow, by whose order it was made. Other MSS (notably ∆ and S), written in the north, are closely akin to these, and must he derived from the same source; and this whole group of MSS furnishes the best text of the Vulg.
9. To this renown it was due that, when a king at last arose in France with a desire to improve the religious education of his country, he turned to Northumbria for the necessary assistance to carry out the reform. The king was Charlemagne, and the scholar whom he invited to help him was Alcuin of York; and the record of their joint achievement constitutes the next chapter in the history of the Vulgate. Alcuin came to France in 781, and was made master of the schools attached to Charlemagne’s court at Aix-la-Chapelle (Aachen). He was subsequently made titular abbot of Tours, and in 796 he obtained leave to retire to that monastery, where he spent the nine remaining years of his life (d. 805) in establishing the school of calligraphy for which Tours was long famous. His work in connexion with the Latin Bible falls into two stages. To the earlier part of his life at Aix belongs, in all probability, the beginning of a series of magnificent copies of the Gospels, of which several have survived to the present day. Certainly, they date from about this period, and have their home in the country of the Rhine and the Moselle. They are obviously modelled on the Anglo-Celtic MSS, of which the Lindisfarne Gospels is the most eminent example. Prefixed to each Gospel is a portrait of the Evangelist (in the Byzantine style), a full page of elaborate decoration, and another containing the first words of the Gospel in highly ornamental illumination. The English MSS excel their French successors in elaboration and skill of workmanship; but the French books have an added gorgeousness from the lavish use of gold, the whole of the text being written in gold letters, sometimes upon purple vellum. Hence the whole series of these books (the production of which continued through the greater part of the 9th cent.) is often described as the ‘Golden Gospels.’
10. The importance of the ‘Golden Gospels’ group of MSS is artistic rather than textual, and although their dependence upon Anglo-Celtic models is obvious, their connexion with Alcuin personally is only hypothetical. It is otherwise in both respects with another great group of MSS, which are directly due to the commission given by Charlemagne to Alcuin to reform the current text of the Vulgate. About the end of 796, Alcuin established the school of Tours, and sent to York for MSS to enable him to carry out his work. On Christmas Day of 801 he presented to the king a complete Bible, carefully revised. Several descendants of this Bible are still in existence, and enable us to judge of Alcuin’s work. They differ from the ‘Golden Gospels’ in being complete Bibles, and in being written in the beautiful small minuscule which at this time, under Charlemagne’s influence, superseded the tortured and unsightly script of the Merovingian and Lombardic traditions, and of which Tours was one of the principal homes. The MS. which appears most accurately to represent the edition of Alcuin at the present day is the Cod. Vallicellianus at Rome (Wordsworth’s V); with this Wordsworth and White associate the ‘Caroline Bible’ (Add. MS 10546 [Wordsworth’s K] In the British Museum), and there are some 8 or 10 other MSS (written mostly at Tours), besides several others containing the Gospels only, which in varying degrees belong to the same group. In text these MSS naturally show a great affinity to the Northumbrian MSS headed by the Cod. Amiatinus, and there is no question that Alcuin introduced into France a far purer text of the Vulgate than any which it had hitherto possessed.
11. Alcuin’s attempt, however, was not the only one made in France at this period to reform the current Bible text. Another edition was almost simultaneously produced in western France by Theodulf, bishop of Orleans and abbot of Fleury (about 795–821); but its character was very different from that of Alcuin. Theodulf was a Visigoth, probably from Septimania, the large district of southern France which then formed part of the Visigothic kingdom of Spain; and it was to Spain that he looked for materials for his revision of the Latin Bible. The MS which represents his edition most fully (Paris, Bibl. Nal. 9380) has a text closely connected with the Spanish type of which the Codd. Cavensis and Toletanus are the most prominent examples, except in the Gospels, which are akin rather to the Irish type; and a contemporary hand has added a number of variants, which are often Alcuinian in character. With this MS may be associated a volume at Puy, and Add. MS 24124 in the British Museum, which are closely akin to the Paris MS, but follow sometimes its first and sometimes its second reading; the latter (especially in its corrections) has been used by Wordsworth and White along with the Paris MS to represent the Theodulfian edition. All are written in an extremely minute Caroline minuscule.
12. In spite, however, of the labour spent upon these attempts to improve the current text of the Vulgate, the forces of deterioration were more powerful than those of renovation. Theodulf’s edition, which was a private venture, without the advantages of Imperial patronage, had no wide sphere of influence, and left no permanent mark on the text of the Vulgate. Alcuin’s had, no doubt, much greater authority and effect; yet its influence was only transient, and even at Tours itself the MSS produced within the next two generations show a progressive departure from his standard. On the other hand, the study of the Scriptures was now definitely implanted on the Continent, and the number of copies of them produced in France and Germany shows a great increase. During the 9th cent. splendid copies of the ‘Golden Gospels’ continued to be produced in the valley of the Rhine, and Alcuinian texts at Tours; while a new centre of Scripture study and reproduction came into existence in Switzerland, at the famous abbey of St. Gall. The library and scriptorium of this monastery (many of the inmates of which were English or Irish monks) first became notable under abbot Gozbert (816–836), and perhaps reached the height of their importance under abbot Hartmut (872–883). Many copies of the Bible were written there, and the influence of St. Gall permeated a large portion of central Europe. Here, too, was produced by Walafridus Strabo, dean of St. Gall before 842, the original form of the Glossa Ordinaria, the standard commentary on the Bible in the Middle Ages.
13. After Alcuin and Theodulf no important effort was made to recover the original text of the Vulgate, though some attempt in this direction was made by Lanfranc, of which no traces seem to survive; but the history of its diffusion can to some extent be followed by the help of the extant MSS, which now begin to increase greatly in number. The tradition of the ‘Golden Gospels’ was carried into Germany, where copies of the Gospels were produced on a smaller scale, with less ornamentation, and in a rather heavy Caroline minuscule, which clearly derive their origin from this source. In France itself, too, the later representatives of this school are inferior in size and execution to their predecessors. Spain and Ireland had by this time ceased to be of primary importance in the circulation of Bible texts. In England a new departure was made, on a higher scale of artistic merit, in the fine Gospels and Service-Books produced at Winchester between about 960 and 1060, the chief characteristics of which are broad bands of gold forming a framework with interlaced foliage. These details, however, relate more to the history of art than to that of the Bible, and with regard to the spread of the knowledge of the Scriptures there is nothing of Importance to note in the 10th and 11th cents. beyond the increase of monasteries in all the countries of western Europe, in the scriptoria of which the multiplication of copies proceeded apace.
14. In the 12th cent. the most noteworthy phenomenon, both in England and on the Continent, is the popularity of annotated copies of the various books of the Bible. The ordinary arrangement is for the Bible text to occupy a single narrow column down the centre of the page, while on either side of it is the commentary; but where the commentary is scanty, the Biblical column expands to fill the space, and vice versa. The main staple of the commentary is normally the Glossa Ordinaria; but this, being itself a compilation of extracts from pre-existing commentaries (Jerome, Augustine, Isidore, Bede, etc.), lent itself readily to expansion or contraction, so that different MSS differ not inconsiderably in their contents. The various books of the Bible generally form separate MSS, or small groups of them are combined. Simultaneously with these, some very large Bibles were produced, handsomely decorated with illuminated initials. Of these the best examples come from England or northern France. These are of the nature of éditions de luxe, while the copies with commentaries testify to the extent to which the Bible was at this time studied, at any rate in the larger monasteries; and the catalogues of monastic libraries which still exist confirm this impression by showing what a large number of such annotated MSS were preserved in them, no doubt for the study of the monks.
15. A further step in advance was taken in the 13th cent., which is to be attributed apparently to the influence of the University of Paris then at the height of its renown and the intellectual centre of Europe. The present chapter division of the Bible text is said to have been first made by Stephen Langton (archbishop of Canterbury, 1207–1228), while a doctor at Paris; and the 13th cent. (probably under the influence of St. Louis) witnessed a remarkable output of Vulgate MSS of the complete Bible. Hitherto complete Bibles had almost always been very large volumes, suitable only for liturgical use; but by the adoption of very thin vellum and very small writing it was now found possible to compress the whole Bible into volumes of quite moderate size, comparable with the ordinary printed Bibles of to-day. For example, one such volume, containing the whole Bible with ample margins, measures 51/2×31/2×1¾ inches, and consists of 471 leaves. From the appearance of these Bibles (hundreds of which are still extant) it is evident that they were intended for private use, and they testify to a remarkable growth in the personal study of the Scriptures. The texts of these MSS seem to embody the results of a revision at the hands of the Paris doctors. Correctoria, or collections of improved readings, were issued at Paris about 1230, and at other places during this cent., the best being the ‘Correctorium Vaticanum,’ so called from a MS in the Vatican Library. This revision, however, was superficial rather than scientific, and is of importance in the history of the Vulgate mainly because it established the normal text which was current at the time of the invention of printing. These small Bibles were produced almost as plentifully in England as in France, and in an identical style, which continued well into the 14th century.
16. After the Parisian revision of the 13th cent. no important modification of the text or status of the Latin Bible took place until the invention of printing two centuries later. The first book to be printed in Europe was the Latin Bible, published in 1456 by Gutenberg and Fust (now popularly known as the Mazarin Bible, from the circumstance that the first copy of it to attract notice in modern times was that in the library of Cardinal Mazarin). In type this Bible resembles the contemporary large German Bible MSS; in text it is the ordinary Vulgate of the 15th century. During the next century Bibles poured from the press, but with little or no attempt at revision of the text. Some MSS were consulted in the preparation of the Complutensian Polyglot; but the only editions before the middle of the 16th cent. which deserve the name of critical are those of Stephanus in 1540 and Hentenius in 1547, which laid the foundations of the modern printed Vulgate. It is, however, to the action of the Council of Trent that the genesis of an authorized text is ultimately due. Soon after its meeting, in 1546, a decree was passed declaring that the ‘vetus et vulgata editio’ of the Scriptures was to be accepted as authentic, and that it should be printed in the most accurate form possible. It was forty years, however, before this decree bore fruit. Sixtus V., in his short pontificate of five years (1585–90), not only caused the production of an edition of the Greek OT (1587), but in 1590 issued a Latin Bible which he declared was to be accepted as the authentic edition demanded by the Council of Trent. This edition was the work of a board of revisers appointed for the purpose, but Sixtus himself examined their results before they were published, and introduced a large number of alterations (rarely for the better) on his own authority. The Sixtine edition, however, had hardly been issued when it was recalled in 1592 by Clement VIII., at the instance, it is believed, of the Jesuits, with whom Sixtus had quarrelled; and in the same year a new edition was issued under the authority of Clement, with a preface by the famous Jesuit Bellarmin, in which (to avoid the appearance of a conflict between Popes) the suppression of the Sixtine edition is falsely stated to be due to the abundance in it of printers’ errors, and to have been contemplated by Sixtus himself. The Clementine revisers in many instances restored the readings of Sixtus’ board, which Sixtus himself had altered; and the general result of their labours was to produce a text resembling that of Hentenius, while the Sixtine edition was nearer to that of Stephanus. The bull in which the Clementine edition was promulgated forbade any future alteration of the text and any printing of various readings in the margin, and thereby stereotyped the official text of the Vulgate from that day until this.
17. Clement’s bull practically closed the textual criticism of the Vulgate in the Roman Church, though Vallarsi was able to print a new text in his edition of the works of St. Jerome in 1734, and Vercellone published a collection of various readings in 1860–64. The course of criticism outside the Roman communion can be briefly sketched. Bentley, with the help of his assistants, made large collections for an edition of the Vulgate, but was unable to carry through his task. Lachmann, in the second edition of his Greek NT (1842–50), added a text of the Vulgate, based on a collation of the Cod. Amiatinus and a few other selected MSS. Corssen in 1885 printed a revised text of Gal. as a sample of a new NT, but has carried his enterprise no further, being perhaps deterred by the appearance of the great Oxford edition now in progress. This edition, planned by Bishop J. Wordsworth of Salisbury, and carried out by him with the assistance of the Rev. H. J. White and others, gives a revised text of the Vulgate with a full critical apparatus and introductions. The four Gospels and Acts have now appeared (1889–1905); it is to be hoped that nothing will prevent the completion of the entire work, which will establish the criticism of at least the Vulg.
Literature.—The Prolegomena to Wordsworth’s and White’s edition; art. by Bp. Westcott in Smith’s DB
F. G. Kenyon.
I. NAME AND ITS HISTORY
1. Present Usage
2. Earlier Usage
3. Post-Hieronymic
4. Historical Importance of the Vulgate
II. ORIGIN
1. Corruption and Confusion of Old Versions
2. Heresy
3. Inevitable Separation of East and West
4. Request of Pope Damasus
III. JEROME’S TRANSLATIONS AND REVISIONS: METHOD
1. The New Testament
Gospels or Whole New Testament?
2. Old Testament from the Septuagint
3. Translation of Old Testament from the Hebrew
IV. SUBSEQUENT RECENSIONS AND HISTORY OF VULGATE
1. In the Manuscripts
2. Printed Vulgate
V. MANUSCRIPTS OF VULGATE
VI. LATINITY
VII. USE OF VULGATE VERSIONS
LITERATURE
I. Name and Its History.
1. Present Usage:
The term “Vulgate” with us means but one thing - the standard authoritative Bible of the Latin or Roman church, prepared mostly by the labors of Jerome. But this is not the original use of the word and it was never so used by Jerome himself; indeed, it did not at first refer to a Latin version or translation at all. The word “Vulgate” comes from the adjective or participle vulgata which usually accompanied editio, and meant at first current or regularly used text. It was originally used as the equivalent of
2. Earlier Usage:
Jerome (Commentary in Isa 65:20), “Hoc juxta Septuagint interpretes diximus, quorum editio toto orbe vulgata est” (and same place Isa 30:22), vulgata editio again refers to the Septuagint. Elsewhere Jerome actually gives the Greek words (of the Septuagint) as found in editione vulgata (Commentary in Osee 7 13). Augustine identifies the expression with the Septuagint (De doctr. christ., xvi. 10): “Secundum vulgatam editionem, hoc est interpretum Septuaginta.” The term editio vulgata was next extended to the form in which the Septuagint was at first known to the West - the Old Latin versions (see LATIN; LATIN VERSIONS), although, as Westcott remarks, there does not appear to be any instance in the age of Jerome of the application of the term to the Latin version of the Old Testament without regard to its derivation from the Septuagint or to that of the New Testament, so that Jerome usually intended the Septuagint though he quoted it in Latin form. Vulgata editio, having acquired the meaning of the current or ordinarily used text of Septuagint, was once again extended to mean a corrupt or uncorrected text as opposed to the standard emended Septuagint version of Origen’s Hexapla, and in this sense is used by Jerome as synonymous with antiqua or vetus editio.
Epistle cvi. 2 deserves citing in this connection: “Admoneo aliam esse editionem quam Origenes et Caesariensis Eusebius omnesque Graeciae translatores (
3. Post-Hieronymic:
It was only very slowly that Jerome’s version acquired this name, the phrase editio vulgata being applied to the Septuagint or the Old Latin versions of the Septuagint sometimes down to medieval times, while Jerome’s translation was known as editio nostra, codices nostri, translation emendatior, or translation quam tenet Rorn ecclesia. The Tridentine Fathers were therefore guilty of an anachronism when they referred to Jerome’s translation as vetus et vulgata editio. Roger Bacon was apparently the first, in the 13th century, to apply the term Vulgata in our sense (not exclusively, but also to the Septuagint), and this usage became classic through its acceptance by the Tridentine Council (“vetus et vulgata editio”).
4. Historical Importance of the Vulgate:
The interest of the Vulgate (Jerome’s Latin Bible, 390-405 A.D.) will be apparent when we reflect that this translation proved to be to the West what the Septuagint had been to the East, that it was prepared with great care by the greatest scholar whom Latin Christianity produced, that it was for hundreds of years the only Bible in universal use in Europe, that it has given to us much of our modern theological terminology as well as being the sponsor for many Greek words which have enriched our conceptions. It has also proved of primary importance as an early and excellent witness to the sacred text. Add to this that “directly or indirectly it is the real parent of all the vernacular versions of Western Europe” except the Gothic of Ulfilas. For English-speaking students it possesses peculiar interest as the source of the earlier translations made by the Venerable Bede, and portions of the Old Testament were translated in the 10th century from the Vulgate (Jerome’s Latin Bible, 390-405 A.D.) by AElfric. Its greatest influence was exerted in the English version of Wycliffe - a literal translation from the Vulgate (1383). And Coverdale’s Bible (1535) was “faithfully and truly translated out of Dutch (i.e. German of Luther) and Latin.” The Rheims and Douay version was based on the Vulgate, though “diligently conferred with the Hebrew and Greek.” The Vulgate exercised considerable influence upon Luther’s version and through it upon our the King James Version.
II. Origin.
1. Corruption and Confusion of Old Versions:
Latin Christianity had not been without a Bible in its own language. Old Latin versions are found in North Africa as early as the middle of the 3rd century and are found in the texts of Cyprian and Tertullian. But these translations were characterized by “simplicity,” “rudeness” and provincialism. There was not one standard authoritative version with any ecclesiastical recognition. Versions were rather due to “individual and successive efforts.” Augustine says that anyone who got hold of a Greek manuscript and thought he knew Greek and Latin would venture on a translation. These versions originated in Africa and not from Rome, else they had been more authoritative. Besides, the first two centuries of the Rom church were rather Greek; the earliest Christian literature of Rome is Greek, its bishops bear Greek names, its earliest liturgy was Greek. When the church of Italy became Lat-speaking - probably at the end of the 3rd century - the provincialisms of the African version rendered it unfit for the more polished Romans, and so recensions were called for. Scholars now recognize a European type of Old Latin text. And Westcott thinks a North Italian recension (at least in the Gospels) was made in the 4th century. and known as the Itala (see LATIN), and which he recognizes in the Itala mentioned in Aug., De doctr. christ., xv, as “verborum tenacior cum perspicuitate sententiae”; but F.C. Burkitt (The Old Latin and the Itala, 54 ff) takes the Itala here as referring to Jerome’s version. Amid such confusion and the appearance of national or provincial recensions, the Latin church became conscious of the need of a standard edition. There were almost as many types of texts as there were manuscripts: “Tot exemplaria paene quot codices,” says Jerome (Preface to Gospels). Independent and unauthorized or anonymous translatitons” - especially of the New Testament - aided by the gross carelessness of scribes, made confusion worse confounded. Augustine complains of this “Latinorum interpretum infinita varietas.”
2. Heresy:
In addition to the inconvenience in preaching and the liturgical variations, a greater demand for an authoritative version arose from the continual watch of the early church against heretics. Confusion of text abetted heresy, and the absence of a standard text made it harder to refute it. Besides, the Jews, with one authoritative text, laughed at the confusion of the Christian Scriptures.
3. Inevitable Separation of East and West:
The inevitable separation of East and West, both politically and ecclesiastically, and the split between Greek and Latin Christianity, rendered the existence of a standard Latin text imperative. Christianity was felt to be the religion of a book, and hence that book must be inspired and authoritative in every word - even in its order of words.
Pope Damasus determined to remedy this state of affairs, and with all the authority of the papal see commissioned Jerome to produce an authentic and standard authorized version
4. Request of Pope Damasus:
The pope’s choice could not have fallen upon a more competent scholar - a man who had been providentially gifted and prepared for the task. Jerome - his Latin name was Eusebius Hieronymus - was born at Stridon on the borders of Dalmatia about 340 AD, or a little later, of Christian parentage. He had the advantages of the best classical education and became a devoted student of the best Latin writers. In a dream he saw a vision of judgment, and on claiming to be a Christian he was rebuked: “Mentiris, Ciceronianus
III. Jerome’s Translations and Revisions: Method.
1. The New Testament:
These fall into three main groups: (1) revision of the New Testament; (2) Old Testament juxta the Septuagint; (3) Old Testament from Hebrew. The exact date of the pope’s commission is not given: it was probably in 382 - the year of Jerome’s arrival in Rome - or early in 383, in which year the Gospels appeared in revised form. Damasus asked simply for a revision of the Old Latin versions by the help of the Greek rather than a new version Jerome collated Greek manuscripts, and carefully compared them with the “Italian” type of Old Latin texts; where possible the Old Latin was preserved. Thus, Jerome approached the task with a conservative spirit. Still the result was a considerable departure from the Old Latin version, the changes being (1) linguistic, removal of provincialisms and rudeness, (2) in interpretation, e.g. supersubstantialis for
Gospels or Whole New Testament?
It is disputed whether Jerome revised the whole New Testament or only the Gospels.
Against the revision of the whole New Testament the arguments briefly are: (1) That Augustine, writing 20 years after the appearance of the revised Gospels, speaks only of “Gospel”: “Evangelium ex Graeco interpretatus est” (Epistle civ. 6); but Augustine may here be speaking generally or applying “Gospel” to the whole New Testament. (2) Jerome in his preface apparently speaks of “only four Gospels” (“quattuor tantum evangelia”). (3) The rest of the New Testament does not show the same signs of revision as the Gospels. (4) The absence of the prefaces usual (“solita praefatione”) to Jerome’s revised versions. On the other hand, to more than counterbalance these, (1) Damasus required a revision of the whole New Testament, not only of the Gospels (Preface of Damasus). (2) In other statements of Jerome he expressly says he revised the New Testament (not Gospel or Gospels); in Epistle cxii. 20, he seems to correct Augustine’s evangelium by writing: “Si me, ut dicis, in Novi Testamenti emendatione suspicis,” and in Epistle lxxi. 5, “I translated the New Testament according to the Greek” (“NT Graecae reddidi auctoritati”); compare also De Vir. Ill., cxxxv. (3) Jerome quotes passages outside the Gospels where his version differed from the Old Latin VSS, e.g. Rom 12:11; 1Ti 1:15; compare Epistle xxvii. (4) Damasus died at the end of 384 - perhaps before the rest of Jerome’s revision was published, and so Jerome thought no further prefaces needed.
2. Old Testament from the Septuagint:
The more likely conclusion is that Jerome revised the whole New Testament, though not all with equal care. His revision was hasty and soon became more or less confused with the Old Latin versions to which the people clung as they do to all old versions. Having probably completed the New Testament from the Greek, Jerome began immediately on the Old Testament from the Greek of the Septuagint.
(1) Roman Psalter.
He commenced with the Psalms, which he simply emended only where imperatively required (compare preface), and cursorily (circa 384). This revision is called the Rom Psalter (Psalterium Romanum), which continued in use in Rome and Italy till it was displaced under the pontificate of Plus V by the Gallican Psalter, though the Roman Psalter is still used in Peter’s, Rome, and in Mark’s, Milan.
(2) Galliean Psalter.
This Psalter soon became so corrupted by the Old Latin version that Jerome (circa 387) undertook a second revision at the request of Paula and Eustochium. This became known as the Gallican Psalter because of its early popularity in Gaul. It was also made from the Septuagint, but with the aid of other Greek versions. Jerome adopted in it the critical signs used by Origen - a passage enclosed between an obelus and two points being absent from the Hebrew but present in the Septuagint, that between an asterisk and two points being absent from the Septuagint but supplied from Theodotion (Preface to Psalms).
(3) Rest of the Old Testament.
About the same time Jerome published translations of other Old Testament books from the Septuagint. Job was revised very soon after the Gallican Psalter. The preface to Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, Canticles and Chronicles is extant to show he had revised these books. Job and Psalms are the only books of this revision juxta Septuagint extant.
It is again disputed whether Jerome completed the whole Old Testament in this revision because (1) the usual prefaces are again lacking (except to the books already mentioned), and (2) in his prefaces to the revision from the Hebrew Jerome makes no reference to an earlier revision of his own; (3) the work implied was too great for the brief space possible and must have been done between 387 and 390 (or 391), for by this latter date he was already on the translation from the Hebrew. But Jerome was a phenomenal worker, as we learn that his translation of Proverbs, Ecclesiastes and Canticles from the Hebrew was made in three days. And his commentary on Ephesians was written at the rate of 1,000 lines a day.
Jerome probably completed the whole, as we infer from his own direct positive statements. He speaks of “mea in libris canonicis interpretatio” (Epistle cxii. 19; see references in Westcott), and in the preface to the Books of Solomon after the Septuagint he states he did not correct Wisdom and Ecclesiasticus, “desiring only to emend the canonical books” (“tantummodo canonicas scripturas vobis emendare desiderans”). Once again, he speaks of having carefully translated the Septuagint into Latin (Con Ruf., ii. 24; compare Epistle lxxi).
3. Translation of Old Testament from the Hebrew:
If the postscript to Epistle cxxxiv, to Augustine is genuine, Jerome complains he had lost the most of his former labors by fraud (“pleraque enim prioris laboris fraude cuiusdam amisimus”). And Augustine requests (Epistle xcvi. 34) from Jerome his versions from the Septuagint (“Nobis mittas, obsecro, interpretationem tuam de Septuagint quam te edidisse nesciebam”). Having in the course of these labors discovered the unsatisfactory condition of the Septuagint text and his friends pleading the need of a translation direct from the Hebrew, Jerome began this huge task about 390 with Samuel and Kings, which he published with the Prologus galeatus (“helmeted prologue”) next the Psalms (circa 392), Job and the Prophets (393), 1 and 2 Esdras (circa 394) (3 and 4 being omitted), Chronicles (396). Then followed a severe illness until 398, when “post longam aegrotationem” he translated Proverbs, Ecclesiastes and Canticles. He then started on the Octateuch: “Octateucho quem nunc in manibus habeo” (Epistle lxxi. 5), the Pentateuch being first translated in 401, Joshua, Judges, Ruth and Esther soon after (xl.4: “post sanctae Paulae dormitionem”). Tobit and Judith were translated for him from Chaldee into Hebrew from which he then translated them into Latin (circa 405), and shortly before or after these he added the apocryphal additions to Daniel and Esther. Baruch he passed over. Wisdom and Ecclesiasticus were not revised by him. Whether he revised Maccabees is doubtful. Thus was completed in 15 strenuous years (390-405) a work which has proved a
Reception.
But human nature rarely recognizes merit in its own generation, and the spirit of conservatism rose in rebellion against beneficial innovation. Jerome was accused of slighting the Septuagint, which even in the eyes of Augustine was equally inspired with the Hebrew original. Jerome’s fiery temper and his biting tongue were not calculated to conciliate.
IV. Subsequent Recensions and History of Vulgate.
1. In the Manuscripts:
By degrees the fierce opposition died down, and even by the time of Jerome’s death men were beginning to perceive the merits of his version which Augustine used in the Gospels. Some parts of Jerome’s Vulgate (390-405 A.D.) won their way to popularity much sooner than others - the Old Latin versions died hard and not without inflicting many a wound on the Vulgate. His Psalter from the Hebrew never ousted the Gallican which still holds its place in the Vulgate. Some scholars were able to appreciate Jerome’s edition sooner than others. And it was at different dates that the different provinces and countries of the West adopted it. Pelagius used it in his commentary on the Pauline Epistles. As might be expected, the Old Latin versions retained their place longest in the place of their origin - North Africa. Britain proved the next most conservative. The old versions were never authoritatively deposed, and so Jerome’s version was compelled to win its way by its own merits. In the 5th century - especially in Gaul - it continued to grow in popularity among scholars, being adopted by Vincent of Lerins, Eucherius of Lyons, Sedulius, and Claudianus Mamertus, and Prosper of Aquitaine. In the next century its use became almost universal except in Africa, where the Old Latin was retained by Junilius and Facundus. At the close of the 6th century. Pope Gregory the Great acknowledges that the new (i.e. the Vulgate) and the old are both equally used by the Apostolic See; and thus the Vulgate was at least on equal footing with the old. In the 7th century the Old Latin retreats, but traces of it survive down into the Middle Ages, affecting and corrupting the Jerome version. Mixed texts and conflated readings arose - the familiarity of the Old Latin in lectionaries and liturgies telling on the Vulgate. The New Testament, being only a revision and not a fresh translation, and being most in use, degenerated most.
(1) As early as the 6th century the need of an emendated Vulgate (Jerome’s Latin Bible, 390-405 A.D.) text was felt, and Cassidorius undertook to revise part of it. This was merely private enterprise and did little to stem the flood of corruption.
(2) About the close of the 8th century, Charlemagne commissioned an Englishman Alcuin, abbot of Martin, Tours, to produce a revised text on the basis of the best Latin manuscripts, without reference to the Greek text. Alcuin sent to York for his manuscripts and thus produced a text after British manuscripts. On Christmas Day, 801 AD, he presented the emperor with the emended text. The authority by which this text was prepared and its public use together with the class of manuscripts used did much to preserve a pure Vulgate (Jerome’s Latin Bible, 390-405 A.D.) text and stay interpolations: “The best manuscripts of his recension do not differ widely from the pure Hieronymian text” (Westcott).
(3) Another recension of about the same date - but a scholar’s private enterprise - was produced by a Visigoth, Theodulf, bishop of Orleans. He made the Spanish family of manuscripts together with those of Southern France the basis of his text. His inscribing variant readings in the margin really helped the process of corruption. His text - though prepared at enormous labor - was far inferior to that of Alcuin and exerted little influence in face of the authoritative version of Alcuin. manuscripts were rapidly multiplied in the 9th century on the Alcuinian model by the school of Tours, but with carelessness and haste which helped to a speedy degeneration of the text. Again the confusion called for remedy.
(4) In the 11th century Lanfranc, bishop of Canterbury (1069-89), attempted correction - apparently with little success. About the middle of the 12th century, Stephen Harding of Citeaux produced a revision - extant in manuscript in Dijon public library (number 9), as did also Cardinal Nicolaus. The increased demand for Bibles in the 13th century gave opportunity for further corruption of the text - publishers and copyists being indifferent as to the character of manuscript chosen as a basis.
(5) In consequence of the fame of the University of Paris in the 13th century and the enormous activity in producing Bible manuscripts, there resulted a type of text called by Roger Bacon Exemplar Parisiense, for which he has nothing good to say.
(6) In the same century steps were taken toward a standard text and to stay corruption by the drawing up of correctoria, i.e. books in which the readings of Greek and Latin manuscripts were weighed to decide a text, the authority of Fathers cited, etc. Some of the principal correctoria are: Correctorium Parisiense known also as Senonense - one of the worst, following the Parisian type of text; Correotorium Vaticanum, the best; Correctorium Sorbonicum, in the Sorbonne; Correctorium Dominicanum.
2. Printed Vulgate:
(1) Early Editions.
Little more was done till the invention of printing, and the first products of the press were Latin Bibles. Unfortunately at first the current text was accepted without any critical labors, and so the earliest printed Vulgates only perpetuated an inferior text. Only a few from among some hundreds of early versions can be noted: (a) the Mazarin Bible - one of the most beautiful and valuable books in the world - printed at Mainz about the middle of the 15th century (1455, Westcott) by Gutenberg, Schoffer or Fust; (b) the first Bible published at Rome in 1471 by Sweynheym and Pannartz and reprinted in Nuremberg in 1475; (c) 1504 a Paris edition with variant readings; (d) an edition in Complutensian Polyglot (1514 ff) from ancient manuscripts and from the Greek; (e) practically the first critical edition, by Robertus Stephanus (lst edition 1528, 2nd 1532, reprinted later), of interest as being practically the basis of the standard Roman Vulgate; (f) Hentenian critical edition (Louvain, 1547). Attempts to produce a corrected text by aid of the original were made by Erasmus in 1516, Pagninus in 1518 ff, Cardinal Cajetan, Steuchius in 1529, Clarius in 1542, etc. Even new translations were made by both Roman Catholic and Protestant scholars. This bewildering number of versions and the controversies of the 16th century called for a standard edition. The Council of Trent (1546) took up the matter and decreed that the “ipsa vetus et vulgata editio quae Iongo tot saeculorum usu in ipsa ecclesia probata” (“the same old and ordinarily used text which has been approved in the church itself by the long usage of so many centuries”) should be regarded as authentic (authentica). By this they apparently meant the Jerome version, but did not state in which manuscript or printed edition it was to be found.
(2) Sixtine Edition (1590).
No further steps were taken for the present to secure a standard official Bible for the church - the private edition of John Hentenius of Louvain serving in the meanwhile until the pontificate of Sixtus V. This pope entrusted the work to a committee under Cardinal Caraffa, but he himself strenuously cooperated. Manuscripts and printed editions were examined, but the original Greek or Hebrew was to be regarded as decisive in difficulties. The result was published as the Sixtine edition of the Vulgate by the Vatican press in 1590 (see title on 1st and 2nd pages). The text resembles the Stephanus edition of 1540. A new puzzling method of verse enumeration was introduced. As one would expect, there was prefixed to the edition a Bull Aeternus ille, etc., in which the divines gave themselves credit for their painstaking labors, and the result was declared the authorized Vulgate of the Tridentine Council, “pro vera, legitima, authentica et indubitata, in omnibus publicis privatisque disputationibus ...” (“by virtue of truth, usage, authenticity and certainty, in all public and private disputes”). Errors of printing were corrected by the pen or by pasting a slip of paper with the correction over the error. This edition was not to be reprinted for 10 years except at the Vatican, and after that any edition must be compared with the Vatican edition, so that “not even the smallest particle should be altered, added or removed” under pain of the “greater excommunication.” Sixtus died the same year, and the Jesuit Bellarmine persuaded Clement VIII to recall the Sixtine edition and prepare another standard Vulgate in 1592.
(3) Clementine Edition (1592).
In the same year appeared the Clementine edition with a preface by Bellarmine asserting that Sixtus had himself determined to recall his edition on account of printers’ errors (from which it was remarkably free). The pains and penalties of the Sixtine Bull were evaded by printing the book as a Sixtine edition, actually printing the name of Sixtus instead of Clement on the title-page: Biblia Sacra Vulgatae Editionis Sixti Quinti Pont. Max. iussu recognita atque edita. The awkward system of verse enumeration of the Sixtine was dropped. The text itself was rather of the Hentenian type. No future edition was to be printed except on the exact pattern, “even to the smallest particle” of the Vatican edition. Thanks largely to the papal Bull this Clementine edition of 1592 still remains the official version of the Roman Catholic church. A second edition appeared in 1593, and a third in 1598. Roman Catholic scholars were discouraged from undertaking a new version, and Protestant scholars were, until recently, too occupied with the original texts.
Bentley’s projected edition of the New Testament never appeared. Under cover of the works of Jerome a corrected text was published by Vallarsi, 1734 - really the completion and revision of the edition of Martianay of 1706. Little more was done in the way of critical editions till the latter half of the 19th century.
(4) Modern Critical Editions.
In 1861 Vercellone reprinted the Clementine Vulgate (with an excellent preface), the names of Sixtus and Clement both appearing on the title-page. In 1906 an edition - Biblical Sac Vulgatae edition by Hetzenauer - was published at Oeniponte. (The majority of recent editions have been confined to the New Testament or part of it: Tischendorf, Nov. Test. Latin: textum Hieronymi...restituit, Leipzig, 1864; Hetzenauer, Nov. Test. Vulgate (Jerome’s Latin Bible, 390-405 A.D.) ed.: ex Vat. editions earumque correctorio critice edidit P.M.H., Oeniponte, 1899.) The Oxford Vulg, prepared by Bishop J. Wordsworth and H.J. White, of which the first part was issued in 1889, is a comprehensive work of great value. P. Corssen published the first installment of a Vulgate New Testament (Epistle ad Gal, Berlin, 1885). This is exclusive of the printed editions of several important manuscripts. Pope Plus X entrusted the preparation of a revised edition of the Vulgate to the Benedictine order - but as yet nothing has appeared.
V. Manuscripts of Vulgate.
To give a satisfactory list would be impossible within our space limits. The number is legion - estimated at about 8,000. As yet the same order has not been called out of the chaos of Vulgate (Jerome’s Latin Bible, 390-405 A.D.) and Old Latin manuscripts in the manner in which Westcott and Hort have reduced the Greek manuscripts of the New Testament to a system. The student may conveniently approach the subject in White’s list in the 4th edition of Scrivener, A Plain Introduction to the Criticism of the New Testament, II 67 ff, or the longer one by Gregory in Tischendorf’s New Testament Greek, 8th edition, III, 983 ff, also in Westcott’s article in DB or White’s in HDB; Vercellone, Variae Lectiones, 1860; Berger, Histoire de la Vulgate, 374 ff.
VI. Latinity.
Space permits only a few general remarks. The Latin of the old versions was simple, rude and vernacular, abounding in literalisms and provincialisms. In many ways, in vocabulary, diction and construction, it offended scholars. As was natural Jerome smoothed the roughness of the old versions and removed the most glaring solecisms and offensive provincialisms. His work is a masterpiece - like our the King James Version - in the harmonious blend of simple, popular, forceful language and a scholarly graceful translation. “As a monument of ancient linguistic power the translation of the Old Testament stands unrivaled and unique” (Westcott). The Vulgate (Jerome’s Latin Bible, 390-405 A.D.) has enriched our language by introducing many Greek words, “apostle,” “evangel,” “synagogue,” “baptism,” etc. It has also given us much of our theological vocabulary, “edification,” “justification,” “propitiation,” “regeneration,” “Scripture,” etc. It still retains many marks of its birth in (1) Old Latin words elevated from the vernacular, (2) Africanisms: clarifico, etc., saeculum for mundus, long compound verbs like obtenebrare, etc., (3) Graecisms, like the use of the pronoun for the article, as hic mundus =
VII. Use of Vulgate.
In the Old Testament the Vulgate (Jerome’s Latin Bible, 390-405 A.D.) is not of much importance for the criticism of the Hebrew text, because of the freedom which Jerome permitted himself in translation, and because our present Massoretic Hebrew text had by that time taken on its present form. But on the Septuagint it often throws a very useful light. In the New Testament Jerome’s version ranks practically in importance with our oldest and best Greek manuscripts in establishing (in conjunction with the Old Latin VSS) the received Greek text of the 4th century, both by way of supplementing and correcting our Greek authorities. It is in the Gospels that Jerome’s work is most thorough and useful. His version also supplies many a hint for the interpretation of our Greek text.
VIII. Differences Between Vulgate and Our English Versions.
Apart from differences of rendering and minor points, the Vulgate (Jerome’s Latin Bible, 390-405 A.D.) text differs from the English in the order of the books, in the amount contained in some of them, in the occasional divergence of chapter and verse enumeration. The New Testament is practically the same in the Clementine text, though the order of books varies in many manuscripts - the Catholic Epistles being placed sometimes after Acts. In some manuscripts the Epistle to the Laodiceans is found. Most variety obtains in the Old Testament. The sequence of canonical books is the same, but the apocryphal books are interspersed among them and not placed at the end. Tobit and Judith are inserted between Nehemiah (2 Esdras) and Esther, Wisdom and Ecclesiasticus between Canticles and Isaiah. Baruch follows Lamentaions, chapter 5 of which is called the “Prayer of Jeremiah the Prophet”; 1 and 2 Maccabees are placed after Malachi; 3 and 4 Esdras and Prayer of Manasses appear as an appendix after the New Testament. In Psalms the divergence is considerable, the Vulgate - like the Hebrew - counting the title as the first verse. Psalms 9; 10 of our version = Ps 9 in Vulgate, so that the Vulgate is one Psalm behind the English till Psa 114:1-8, then Psa 114:1-8; 115 again form one Psalm = Vulgate 113. The Vulgate is now two behind. Matters are equalized by Ps 116 being divided into two in the Vulgate (= 114; 115), and 147 again = two Vulgate Psa 146:1-10; 147. Thus, only Psalms 1 through 8 and 148 through 150 run the same. Against Jerome’s advice the apocryphal parts of Daniel and Esther were accepted as integral parts of those books, the Song of Three Children being inserted at Dan 3:23, Susanna forming chapter 13 and Bel and the Dragon chapter 14. Ad Esther is linked on to the end of Esther. In conclusion, the present Vulgate, as Westcott remarks, is a composite of elements belonging to every period and form of the Latin version, including (1) unrevised Old Latin (Wisdom, Ecclesiasticus, 1 and 2 Maccabees and Baruch); (2) Old Latin corrected from the Septuagint (Psalter); (3) Jerome’s free translation from the original (Job and Judith); (4) Jerome’s translation from the original (the Old Testament except the Psalter); (5) Old Latin revised from Greek manuscripts (the Gospels); (6) Old Latin cursorily revised (the rest of the New Testament).
Literature.
This is too vast to cite, but in some of the following works sufficient bibliographies will be found: Berger, Hist de la Vulgate pendant les premiers siecles du moyen age, 1893; H. Hody, De bib. textibus originalibus, 1705; F. Kaulen, Gesch. der Vulg, 1868; Van Ess, Pragmatisch-krit. Gesch. der Vulg, 1824; E. Nestle, Urtext u. Uebersetzungen der Bibel, 1897, and Ein Jubilaum d. tat. Biblical, 1892. Two splendid articles - each by an authority - in DB (Westcott) and in HDB (White). A very readable account is in Kenyon, Our Bible and the Ancient manuscripts, 165 ff, and in his Handbook to the Text Crit. of the New Testament, 168 ff. For the language: Ronsch, Itala u. Vulgata, 2nd edition, 1875; A. Hartl, Sprachliche Eigentumlichkeiten d. Vulg, 1864.
- From Latin "vulgata", "to make public" = in common use. Latin translation of the Christian Bible made in the 4th century by Jerome, much of it in Bethlehem. The Vulgate was in wide use until the Reformation, and is still the official text of the Catholic church.