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Vulgate

The Vulgate is a Latin translation of the Christian Bible produced primarily by Jerome between approximately 382 and 405 AD, at the commission of Pope Damasus I to revise existing Latin versions for greater accuracy to the original Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek texts.^[1]^[2] Jerome began with a revision of the Gospels based on Greek manuscripts, then extended his work to the rest of the New Testament and a fresh translation of most of the Old Testament directly from Hebrew sources, while retaining the Psalms in a prior Gallican version he had prepared.^[3] This effort addressed inconsistencies in the earlier Vetus Latina translations, establishing a standardized text that became dominant in Western Christianity by the early Middle Ages.^[1] The Vulgate's designation derives from vulgata, signifying its widespread adoption as the common Latin Bible, supplanting prior variants and serving as the authoritative scriptural text for the Roman Catholic Church following its declaration as authentic by the Council of Trent in 1546.^[4]^[2] Subsequent papal editions, including the Sixtine Vulgate of 1590 and the Clementine Vulgate of 1592, refined its transmission amid the Renaissance recovery of ancient manuscripts, though textual scholarship later identified interpolations and variants accumulated over centuries.^[5] Its enduring influence shaped liturgy, theology, and vernacular translations across Europe, from the Gutenberg Bible to early English versions like the Douay-Rheims, underscoring Jerome's role in preserving and interpreting biblical sources for Latin-speaking Christendom.^[6]

Origins and Authorship

Historical Context of Pre-Vulgate Translations

The Vetus Latina, or Old Latin, translations of the Bible originated in the mid-second century AD, coinciding with the expansion of Christianity into Latin-speaking regions of the Roman Empire, where Greek scriptural texts were inaccessible to many converts. These versions were rendered primarily from Greek sources—the Septuagint for the Old Testament and early Greek manuscripts for the New Testament—by anonymous translators working independently for local communities rather than under centralized authority.^[7]^[8] Unlike later standardized efforts, the Vetus Latina comprised a diverse array of partial and full translations, reflecting oral traditions and ad hoc adaptations rather than scholarly uniformity.^[9] By the third century, distinct regional variants had emerged, including the African type attested in writings of Tertullian (c. 160–220 AD) and Cyprian of Carthage (c. 200–258 AD), who quoted extensively from these texts in North African Latin. Italian and Gallic versions also circulated, often preserving idiomatic Latin but introducing inconsistencies due to multiple retranslations from varying Greek exemplars. Surviving manuscripts, though fragmentary, date from the fourth century onward, with over 80 Old Testament and 50 New Testament witnesses identified, demonstrating widespread liturgical and doctrinal use prior to Jerome's revisions.^[7]^[10] These pre-Vulgate translations, while facilitating evangelism in the West, accumulated errors, paraphrases, and divergences over time—exacerbated by the lack of a control text—leading to doctrinal ambiguities and textual corruptions noted by patristic authors. For instance, variations in key passages, such as Romans 5:12 on original sin, highlighted the need for harmonization, as the multiplicity of versions (estimated at dozens across regions) hindered uniform ecclesiastical practice.^[11] This fragmented landscape, dominant until the late fourth century, underscored the Vulgate's later role in establishing textual stability amid growing institutional demands for scriptural reliability.^[7]

Jerome's Commission and Early Work

In 382, Pope Damasus I commissioned Jerome, then serving as his secretary in Rome, to revise the existing Vetus Latina translations of the Four Gospels, aiming to align them more closely with Greek exemplars amid discrepancies in the circulating Latin texts.^[2] This task addressed the textual variations plaguing the Old Latin versions used in the Western Church, which Jerome described as differing "from themselves" in his dedicatory preface to Damasus.^[12] Jerome approached the revision cautiously, collating multiple Greek manuscripts—primarily from the Alexandrian tradition—and the Latin texts, without undertaking a full fresh translation at this stage.^[13] Jerome completed the Gospel revisions by 383 or early 384, presenting the corrected text to Damasus shortly before the pope's death in December 384.^[14] In his preface, Jerome emphasized the authority of the Greek originals, noting that he had emended the Latin according to "ancient Greek books" while preserving the traditional order of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John.^[15] This work marked Jerome's initial foray into systematic biblical revision, focusing on philological accuracy rather than doctrinal innovation, though it drew criticism from those attached to the familiar Vetus Latina renderings.^[16] Following Damasus's death, Jerome departed Rome in 385 amid ecclesiastical controversies, relocating to Bethlehem where he established a monastery and continued scriptural labors independently, expanding beyond the initial commission to revise the rest of the New Testament and eventually translate the Old Testament from Hebrew.^[13] His early Roman efforts laid the foundation for the Vulgate's New Testament, prioritizing fidelity to source languages over literal word-for-word equivalence, a methodological choice he defended against accusations of novelty.^[12]

Attribution and Non-Jeromian Elements

The Vulgate is traditionally attributed to Eusebius Sophronius Hieronymus, known as Jerome (c. 347–420 AD), who undertook its core translations and revisions at the behest of Pope Damasus I starting in 382 AD, completing much of the Old Testament from Hebrew by around 405 AD.^[17] However, textual criticism establishes the Vulgate as a composite work, with Jerome responsible for the protocanonical Old Testament books, a Greek-based revision of the Psalter (the Gallican Psalter), translations of select deuterocanonical books, and thorough revisions of the four Gospels from Greek manuscripts, while other sections derive from unrevised or minimally altered Vetus Latina (Old Latin) versions predating his efforts.^[18] This hybrid character arose during the Vulgate's early manuscript transmission in the 5th–6th centuries AD, as scribes blended Jerome's contributions with familiar Old Latin texts to form a cohesive codex, a process not directed by Jerome himself.^[19] Non-Jeromian elements prominently include the full texts of the Prayer of Manasseh and 4 Esdras (also known as 2 Esdras), which remain wholly unrevised Vetus Latina renderings incorporated into Vulgate manuscripts without Jerome's intervention.^[18] In the New Testament, beyond the Gospels, the Vulgate preserves substantial Vetus Latina material: Acts of the Apostles features only scattered Jerome revisions amid predominantly Old Latin phrasing; the Catholic Epistles (James through Jude) and Book of Revelation similarly retain large blocks of pre-Jeromian Latin, with Jerome's influence limited to selective emendations rather than comprehensive retranslation.^[18] These portions reflect the practical challenges of Jerome's project, as he prioritized the Gospels per Damasus's initial commission and did not fully execute broader New Testament revisions amid ongoing debates over textual fidelity.^[17] Among the deuterocanonical books, Jerome translated Tobit, Judith, Wisdom of Solomon, Sirach (Ecclesiasticus), and 1–2 Maccabees—often reluctantly, using Hebrew or Aramaic sources where available and prefacing them with disclaimers on their limited authority—but omitted direct work on others.^[2] The Book of Baruch (including the Letter of Jeremiah as chapter 6), the Greek additions to Esther, and the appendices to Daniel (Prayer of Azariah and Song of the Three Young Men, Susanna, Bel and the Dragon) thus derive from Vetus Latina traditions, as Jerome deemed these without verifiable Hebrew originals and declined to render them anew, preferring to exclude or marginalize non-protocanonical material.^[2] ^[18] Furthermore, certain prologues, such as that to the Pauline Epistles defending Hebrews' authorship by Paul, contradict Jerome's expressed scholarly doubts on the matter, indicating later interpolations or attributions not originating with him.^[18] This admixture underscores the Vulgate's evolution as a church-sanctioned standard rather than a singular author's output, with non-Jeromian strata preserving regional Latin variants that influenced its widespread adoption by the 8th century AD.^[17]

Translation Process

Sources and Methodological Principles

Jerome's revisions to the New Testament Gospels were based on the Vetus Latina (Old Latin) versions, which he emended by collating them against available Greek manuscripts, likely including those of the Neutral text-type akin to Codex Vaticanus.^[2]^[20] This process, initiated around 382 at the request of Pope Damasus, aimed to resolve textual discrepancies in the Latin traditions by prioritizing fidelity to the Greek originals over uncritical retention of Latin variants.^[2] For the Old Testament protocanonical books, Jerome translated directly from Hebrew manuscripts, emphasizing Hebraica veritas (Hebrew truth) as the authentic source over the Greek Septuagint.^[11] He consulted Jewish scholars for interpretive guidance and drew on Origen's Hexapla—accessed around 387 in Caesarea—which juxtaposed the Hebrew text with Greek versions by Aquila, Symmachus, and Theodotion to verify renderings and resolve ambiguities.^[2] Deuterocanonical books like Judith and Tobit were rendered from Aramaic originals, while others such as Wisdom and 1-2 Maccabees relied on Septuagint-derived sources with limited Hebrew attestation.^[2] Jerome's guiding principle was ad sensum sensus (sense for sense) translation, prioritizing the conveyance of meaning over rigid ad verbum (word-for-word) literalism, as articulated in his letter to Pammachius where he cited classical precedents like Cicero for adapting foreign idioms to the target language.^[21] This approach balanced semantic accuracy with Latin stylistic elegance, incorporating synonyms to avoid monotony and etymological explanations for proper names to aid comprehension, though he preserved Hebrew word order and participles where deemed divinely significant.^[20]^[2] Despite occasional deviations for clarity, his Old Testament work closely mirrored the Masoretic Hebrew tradition, particularly in the Pentateuch.^[22]

Old Testament Translation

Jerome's translation of the Old Testament for the Vulgate primarily involved rendering the Hebrew protocanonical books directly from original Hebrew manuscripts, rather than relying on the Greek Septuagint as in prior Vetus Latina versions.^[23] This approach marked a significant shift, prioritizing the hebraica veritas (Hebrew truth) to align more closely with Jewish scriptural sources Jerome deemed authoritative.^[20] He began this phase after completing New Testament revisions and an initial Septuagint-based Psalter, starting with prophetic books like Daniel around 392–393 AD.^[24] The process encompassed all 39 books of the Hebrew Bible, with translations produced anew over approximately 15 years, culminating in the Pentateuch near 404–405 AD.^[25] Jerome consulted Hebrew texts, Aramaic Targums, and Jewish scholars for interpretive accuracy, aiming for a balance between literal fidelity and readable Latin prose without slavish word-for-word rendering that could obscure meaning.^[2] For instance, his rendering of Samuel–Kings and the Prophets reflected direct Hebrew engagement, often diverging from Septuagint variants to correct perceived inaccuracies in earlier Latin texts.^[26] Deuterocanonical books, not part of the Hebrew canon, received mixed treatment: portions like Tobit and Judith were translated from Aramaic or Hebrew fragments where available, while others such as Wisdom and Sirach drew from Greek Septuagint sources.^[23] Jerome expressed reservations about their canonicity, noting their absence from Jewish Scripture, yet included them to serve ecclesiastical needs despite his preference for the narrower canon.^[16] This selective methodology resulted in a Vulgate Old Testament that integrated Hebrew primacy for core texts with supplemental Greek-based elements, influencing its eventual standardization.^[27]

New Testament Revisions

Jerome undertook revisions to the New Testament as part of his broader Vulgate project, commissioned by Pope Damasus I in 382 AD to standardize the Latin biblical texts. Unlike his Old Testament translations from Hebrew, Jerome revised existing Vetus Latina versions of the New Testament by collating them against Greek manuscripts, aiming for greater fidelity to the Greek originals. This work began with the four Gospels, completed around 383-384 AD in Rome.^[17] In his preface to the Gospels, addressed to Damasus, Jerome lamented the proliferation of variant Latin manuscripts, stating "Tot enim sunt exemplaria paene quot codices" (there are as many versions as there are manuscripts), and committed to producing a corrected edition iuxta Graecam veritatem (according to the Greek truth). His methodology involved emending the "Italian" type of Old Latin texts, which were closer to the Greek, by removing interpolations, eliminating provincialisms, and enhancing stylistic clarity while preserving idiomatic Latin where possible. Notable changes included adopting supersubstantialis for the elusive Greek epiousion in Matthew 6:11 and incorporating Eusebian Canons for Gospel harmonization. The revisions emphasized literal correspondence to the Greek, often retaining participial constructions and Hebraisms, as seen in examples like Acts 12:3 where the Latin mirrors Greek syntax closely.^[14]^[17]^[20] The extent of Jerome's New Testament revisions beyond the Gospels remains debated among scholars. While his work on the Gospels is most thorough and innovative, evidence suggests he extended revisions to the full New Testament, albeit less comprehensively, as indicated by his reference to the "emendatione Novi Testamenti" in Epist. 112.20 and citations from his versions of Romans 12:11 and 1 Timothy 1:15. However, no prefaces survive for Acts, Epistles, or Revelation, and contemporaries like Augustine referenced only the Gospel revisions. Early Vulgate manuscripts reflect Jerome's influence across the New Testament, but subsequent copyists often blended his text with unrevised Old Latin elements, particularly in the Epistles and Apocalypse.^[17]^[17]

Treatment of the Psalter and Deuterocanonical Books

Jerome produced three distinct Latin translations of the Book of Psalms as part of his broader Vulgate project. The first, known as the Roman Psalter, was a revision of the Vetus Latina version undertaken around 382–384 at the request of Pope Damasus I, drawing primarily on the Greek Septuagint to align it more closely with that source while retaining much of the existing Latin phrasing.^[2] This version gained liturgical prominence in Rome but was eventually supplanted in wider use. The second, the Gallican Psalter, completed circa 387–390 in Bethlehem, represented a more thorough revision of the Vetus Latina, incorporating the Septuagint text as amended by Origen's Hexapla and other Greek variants for greater fidelity; it became the standard Psalter in Vulgate manuscripts and Catholic liturgy due to its poetic quality and acceptance among the Gauls, from whom it derives its name.^[28]^[29] Finally, Jerome translated the Psalms directly from the Hebrew original around 391–392, prioritizing literal accuracy over the Septuagint tradition, though this Hebrew Psalter saw limited adoption and was often appended separately rather than integrated into the core Vulgate Psalter.^[13] The retention of the Gallican Psalter in the Vulgate, rather than Jerome's Hebrew version, stemmed from ecclesiastical preference for the Septuagint-influenced text familiar in liturgy and its alignment with early Christian interpretive traditions, despite Jerome's advocacy for Hebrew primacy in his prefaces.^[30] This choice introduced variances from the protocanonical Old Testament books, which Jerome rendered from Hebrew, highlighting inconsistencies in the Vulgate's textual basis. Jerome explicitly critiqued Septuagint divergences in the Psalms, arguing in his prologues that the Hebrew offered the authentic prophetic voice, yet practical transmission favored the Gallican for its widespread recitation in monastic and clerical settings.^[20] Regarding the deuterocanonical books—namely Tobit, Judith, Wisdom, Sirach (Ecclesiasticus), Baruch, 1 and 2 Maccabees, and the Greek additions to Daniel and Esther—Jerome translated these from Greek sources, primarily the Septuagint, between approximately 404 and 407, after completing the protocanonical Old Testament from Hebrew.^[2] He included them in the Vulgate at the insistence of contemporaries like Augustine, who defended their ecclesiastical value, but Jerome consistently expressed reservations about their canonicity, noting their absence from the Hebrew canon and classifying them as edifying yet not divinely inspired in the same degree as protocanonical texts.^[31] In prefaces such as that to Judith, Jerome described these works as useful for moral instruction but warned against equating them with Scripture proper, reflecting his methodological commitment to Hebrew originals as the criterion for authenticity.^[2] This stance arose from consultations with Jewish scholars, who rejected these books, influencing Jerome's view that they represented post-prophetic Hellenistic compositions rather than core revelation.^[31] Transmission of the deuterocanonical portions in early Vulgate codices often placed them after the protocanonical books or in appendices, underscoring Jerome's hesitancy, though their integration persisted due to longstanding Septuagint usage in Latin Christianity.^[2] Jerome's translations aimed for fidelity to Greek idioms while smoothing Latin style, but he omitted independent Hebrew variants where unavailable, resulting in a Vulgate Old Testament that blended Hebrew-sourced protocanonicals with Greek-derived deuterocanonicals—a hybrid Jerome himself viewed as imperfect but necessary for comprehensive coverage.^[20]

Textual Relations and Early Variants

Comparison with Vetus Latina

The Vulgate differs from the Vetus Latina primarily in its methodological foundations and textual fidelity. The Vetus Latina comprised a heterogeneous collection of pre-Jeromian Latin translations, rendered from the Greek Septuagint for the Old Testament and from Greek New Testament manuscripts for the Gospels and Epistles, resulting in diverse regional variants with frequent interpretive expansions, harmonizations, and divergences from the source languages.^[32]^[33] Jerome's Vulgate, commissioned by Pope Damasus I around 382 AD, systematically revised the New Testament portions of the Vetus Latina against Greek exemplars to eliminate errors, reduce stylistic inconsistencies, and achieve greater literalness, producing a more uniform text across the corpus.^[34]^[16] For the Old Testament, Jerome largely abandoned the Septuagint-based Vetus Latina in favor of direct translation from Hebrew originals (except for the Psalms' Gallican version from the Septuagint and certain deuterocanonical books), aligning the Vulgate more closely with the Masoretic Text and introducing renderings absent in the Old Latin, such as in Isaiah where Jerome's phrasing reflects Hebrew idioms over Septuagintal expansions.^[34]^[35] Notable textual variances highlight these shifts; for instance, in Matthew 6:11 (the Lord's Prayer), the Vetus Latina employs "panem nostrum quotidianum" (daily bread), drawing from a common interpretive gloss, whereas the Vulgate uses "panem nostrum supersubstantialem," a neologism faithfully capturing the enigmatic Greek epiousion for conceptual precision over familiarity.^[35] In the Catholic Epistles, scholarly analysis reveals the Vulgate as retaining some Vetus Latina influences but often exhibiting parallel or greater dependence on Greek Vorlagen, challenging assumptions of uniform superiority while demonstrating Jerome's intent to curb the Old Latin's tendencies toward paraphrase and Western textual additions, such as extra phrases in Acts or the Epistles.^[35] These revisions fostered a standardized ecclesiastical text by the early medieval period, though initial resistance persisted due to the Vetus Latina's entrenched liturgical use, with hybrid manuscripts blending elements until the Vulgate's dominance circa 800 AD under Charlemagne's reforms.^[32]^[26] The Vulgate's linguistic register also marks a departure, employing a more classical and consistent Latin syntax compared to the Vetus Latina's colloquial, provincially varied idiom, which often mirrored spoken Late Latin but introduced ambiguities; Jerome's prologues explicitly critique these as "barbarous" and error-prone, prioritizing philological accuracy over idiomatic flow.^[36] Despite this, the Vulgate incorporates unrevised Vetus Latina elements in books like Wisdom and parts of the historical narratives, reflecting pragmatic limits in Jerome's project rather than comprehensive overhaul.^[34] Overall, the Vulgate's approach yielded a text with fewer interpolations and greater source-language adherence, influencing subsequent Latin traditions, though modern reconstructions of Vetus Latina fragments occasionally preserve unique early readings potentially lost in Jerome's harmonizations.^[33]^[35]

Incorporation of Prologues

Jerome composed a series of prologues to accompany his biblical translations, which were systematically incorporated into Vulgate manuscripts as introductory texts preceding the relevant books or sections.^[14] These prologues, numbering over two dozen for the Old Testament alone, detailed his methodological approach, including direct translation from Hebrew originals for most Old Testament books and revisions of the New Testament from Greek sources, while critiquing the inaccuracies of prior Vetus Latina versions.^[37] For instance, the Prologus Galeatus (Helmeted Prologue) to the historical books of the Old Testament justified the exclusion or marginalization of certain deuterocanonical texts not found in the Hebrew canon, influencing their placement in later Vulgate codices.^[38] In the textual transmission of the Vulgate, these prologues served as authenticating markers, helping scribes and readers identify Jerome's contributions amid hybrid manuscripts that retained Vetus Latina readings for books like the Psalter and Wisdom literature.^[39] Early pandect Bibles, such as those from the 6th century onward, routinely prefixed prologues to canonical epistles, gospels, and Pentateuchal books, with their inclusion becoming standardized by the 8th century in Carolingian scriptoria to preserve translational intent.^[40] Variants arose from scribal omissions or interpolations; for example, the prologue to the Catholic Epistles, absent in some pre-9th-century witnesses, later incorporated references to the Comma Johanneum (1 John 5:7), sparking debates over whether it reflected Jerome's original text or later additions.^[41] ^[42] Medieval Vulgate copies, including illuminated 13th-century Parisian manuscripts, bundled these prologues with interpretive aids like the Interpretatio Hebraicorum Nominum, reinforcing their role in exegetical tradition despite occasional textual divergences from Jerome's autograph versions.^[39] Their preservation across Insular and continental recensions underscores their utility in countering Old Latin corruptions, though authenticity varies—prologues to the Prophets and Gospels are widely accepted as Jeromian, while others, such as expansions to the prologue on Job, show evidence of post-Jeromian elaboration based on comparative patristic citations.^[43] This incorporation not only stabilized the Vulgate's textual identity but also embedded Jerome's canonical preferences, with prologues explicitly listing 39 Old Testament books aligned with the Hebrew Bible.^[38]

Initial Manuscripts and Transmission Challenges

No autograph manuscripts of Jerome's Vulgate translation survive, as the originals produced around 405 AD were lost to time and the perishability of ancient materials.^[16] The earliest extant fragments date to the late 5th and early 6th centuries, but these are partial and often show admixtures with pre-Vulgate Latin versions known as the Vetus Latina.^[2] For the New Testament, Codex Fuldensis, compiled around 546 AD by Victor of Capua, contains a Vulgate-based harmony of the Gospels alongside other NT books, representing one of the oldest witnesses to Jerome's revisions, though not a pure sequential text.^[44] Complete Vulgate Bibles appear later, with the Codex Amiatinus, produced circa 700 AD in the Northumbrian monastery of Wearmouth-Jarrow, standing as the earliest surviving pandect (full Bible manuscript) in Jerome's translation.^[45] This three-volume work, crafted from Italian exemplars, is noted for its fidelity to Jerome's text and served as a diplomatic gift to Pope Gregory II in 716 AD.^[46] Similarly, Codex Sangallensis 1395, an 8th-century manuscript, preserves the oldest complete New Testament in the Vulgate version, highlighting early insular (British) scribal efforts to copy Jerome's work.^[47] Transmission faced significant challenges due to manual copying by scribes unfamiliar with Jerome's neologisms and Hebraic phrasing, leading to inadvertent alterations, omissions, and harmonizations with the more familiar Vetus Latina readings.^[16] Regional recensions emerged, such as the Italian (purest early form), Spanish (with unique variants, e.g., in Job and Psalms), and African types, each accumulating distinct errors and contaminations over centuries.^[2] By the early Middle Ages, circulating Vulgate texts were often corrupted hybrids, with thousands of variants across over 8,000 surviving manuscripts, complicating efforts to reconstruct Jerome's original until critical editions in the 20th century.^[2] These issues stemmed from the absence of printing technology and centralized authority, allowing local traditions to proliferate unchecked until Carolingian reforms under Alcuin of York in the late 8th century began partial standardization.^[16]

Ecclesiastical Adoption and Authority

Early Church Reception

Jerome completed the Vulgate translation around 405 AD, but it encountered significant resistance in the early Church due to longstanding attachment to the Vetus Latina versions and the Septuagint tradition.^[2] In North Africa, attempts to introduce it provoked riots among communities accustomed to older Latin texts, while figures like Tyrannius Rufinus actively opposed it.^[2] Jerome's abrasive personality further impeded widespread acceptance during his lifetime.^[17] St. Augustine of Hippo, a prominent contemporary, expressed reservations about Jerome's approach, particularly the Old Testament translation from Hebrew originals rather than the revered Greek Septuagint, which he viewed as divinely inspired and authoritative.^[48] In correspondence around 401–405 AD, Augustine urged Jerome to revise the Septuagint-based Vetus Latina instead, warning that diverging from it could sow confusion and undermine ecclesiastical consensus on scriptural readings.^[48] Though Augustine later showed some sympathy toward Jerome's efforts, he refrained from publicly endorsing or using the Vulgate, preferring familiarity with existing versions.^[2] Adoption proceeded gradually in the Western Church, gaining initial favor among scholars in Gaul and Spain during the fifth century, where it began supplanting regional Old Latin variants.^[2] By the late sixth century, it held equal status with the Vetus Latina in Italy, as evidenced by Pope Gregory the Great (r. 590–604), who referenced both in his writings.^[2]^[17] However, textual blending persisted, with scribes often conflating Vulgate readings with Old Latin, leading to early corruptions especially in the New Testament.^[17]

Medieval Standardization Efforts

In the late 8th century, during the Carolingian Renaissance, Charlemagne commissioned revisions of the Vulgate to address textual corruptions accumulated through copying errors. In 797, he invited Alcuin of York to Tours Abbey to produce a corrected edition based on high-quality manuscripts, particularly English codices known for their fidelity to Jerome's original work.^[2] Alcuin's team collated texts, emended variants against older exemplars, and completed the revision by around 800, presenting a set of Bibles to Charlemagne on Christmas Day that year, which served as a model for subsequent Carolingian scriptoria. Concurrently, Bishop Theodulf of Orléans undertook an independent correction, incorporating readings from Hebrew sources for the Old Testament and emphasizing literal accuracy, resulting in the "Theodulfian" text type preserved in certain manuscripts like the Codex Toletanus.^[49] These efforts reduced discrepancies but did not eliminate regional variants, as evidenced by ongoing diversity in 9th-century pandects. By the 12th century, proliferating glosses and commentaries had further complicated the Vulgate's transmission, prompting renewed standardization amid the rise of scholasticism. In the early 13th century, scholars at the University of Paris developed the "Paris Bible," a compact, uniform codex format integrating the full Vulgate text with standardized prologues, chapter divisions (adopted from Stephen Langton around 1205), and exclusions of non-canonical books like the Epistle to the Laodiceans.^[23] This edition, finalized by approximately 1230, prioritized a corrected textual base drawn from multiple exemplars, facilitating portable volumes for theological study and preaching; over 1,000 such manuscripts survive, reflecting mass production in Parisian ateliers.^[39] The Paris Bible's pecia system—dividing texts into quires for efficient copying—ensured consistency across Europe, supplanting earlier pandect traditions and forming the textual foundation for late medieval and early printed Vulgates.^[50] These medieval initiatives, while advancing uniformity, relied on iterative emendation rather than comprehensive critical apparatus, leaving residual Vetus Latina influences and scribal errors that persisted until the Renaissance. Papal endorsements, such as those under Gregory IX in the 1230s promoting corrected texts, reinforced their adoption in liturgy and scholarship, though enforcement varied by region.^[2]

Council of Trent's Decree

The Council of Trent convened its fourth session on April 8, 1546, under Pope Paul III, amid the Protestant Reformation's challenges to Catholic scriptural authority, including disputes over the biblical canon and textual reliability. In response, the session's first decree affirmed the traditional canon of Scripture, declaring that the books "as they are contained in the old Latin Vulgate edition" were to be received as sacred and canonical, with an anathema pronounced on any who rejected them in their entirety.^[51]^[52] This endorsement implicitly validated the Vulgate's contents over emerging vernacular translations and Hebrew/Greek critiques from reformers like Martin Luther, who questioned deuterocanonical books absent from the Hebrew canon.^[51] The session's second decree specifically addressed the Vulgate's edition and use, proclaiming it the Church's authentic Latin version for public readings, disputations, preaching, and expositions, while acknowledging accumulated scribal errors in existing manuscripts.^[51]^[52] The decree mandated that future printings be corrected against ancient codices and approved by the Apostolic See, prohibiting unapproved versions and requiring approbation for interpretations or annotations.^[51] This measure aimed to curb textual proliferation—over 100 Vulgate editions had appeared since Gutenberg's press—and ensure doctrinal uniformity, without claiming verbal inerrancy but prioritizing ecclesiastical tradition over original-language primacy.^[52] The decree's impact solidified the Vulgate's role as the normative Bible for the Latin Rite, influencing subsequent revisions like the Sixtine Vulgate (1590), though it drew Protestant objections for allegedly subordinating Hebrew and Greek autographs to a fourth-century translation.^[51] Catholic theologians, such as those at Trent, defended this as consonant with the Church's interpretive authority, viewing the Vulgate's "authenticity" as derived from its venerable use and alignment with apostolic tradition rather than philological perfection.^[52] The provisions also extended to vernacular translations, requiring Vulgate fidelity and ecclesiastical approval, thereby reinforcing centralized control amid confessional divides.^[51]

Printed Editions and Revisions

Incunabula and Renaissance Prints

The inaugural printed edition of the Vulgate was the Gutenberg Bible, produced in Mainz, Germany, circa 1455 by Johannes Gutenberg, with an estimated print run of approximately 180 copies, of which around 49 complete copies survive today.^[53]^[54] This two-volume work, known as the 42-line Bible, marked the first major use of movable type for a substantial text, disseminating Jerome's Latin translation across Europe and establishing the Vulgate's dominance in printed form.^[55] Subsequent incunabula editions proliferated rapidly, with printers in centers like Strasbourg, Augsburg, and Rome producing Vulgate Bibles by the 1460s and 1470s. Johann Fust and Peter Schöffer issued a Latin Bible in Mainz in 1462, utilizing refined typography and including Jerome's prologues, while Johann Mentelin printed an early edition in Strasbourg around 1466, though some attribute his initial efforts to German translations derived from the Vulgate.^[56] In Italy, Conrad Sweynheym and Arnold Pannartz printed a Vulgate Bible in Subiaco (1465) and later Rome (1471), and Günther Zainer produced the first illustrated Latin Bible in Augsburg in 1475, featuring 73 woodcuts.^[57] By 1500, over 120 such incunabula editions had appeared, reflecting the Vulgate's textual tradition from late medieval manuscripts, which incorporated cumulative variants rather than a strictly Jeromian original.^[58] Into the Renaissance, post-1500 prints enhanced production quality and volume, with Venetian and Lyonnaise workshops issuing refined Vulgate editions that influenced scholarly and liturgical use. For instance, a notable Vulgate appeared in Lyon in 1511, exemplifying improved formatting and accessibility before systematic revisions.^[59] These early modern prints, while still variably based on manuscript lineages, facilitated broader dissemination amid rising humanist interest in textual origins, paving the way for later critical efforts without yet achieving standardization.^[60]

Sixtine and Clementine Vulgates

Following the Council of Trent's 1546 decree affirming the Vulgate's authenticity for doctrinal purposes and mandating its correction, papal commissions progressed slowly under Pius IV from 1561 onward, with four cardinals overseeing initial efforts that yielded limited results by the 1580s.^[2] Pope Sixtus V, elected in 1585, appointed a new commission in 1586 to produce an official edition, but dissatisfied with their conservative approach adhering closely to Jerome's text, he personally intervened, incorporating emendations drawn from Hebrew and Greek sources to align more closely with perceived originals.^[17] This resulted in the Sixtine Vulgate, printed by the Vatican press and released on May 1, 1590, marking the first papal-authorized edition of the Vulgate; however, it introduced numerous textual alterations deviating from longstanding manuscript traditions, alongside printing inaccuracies.^[34] The Sixtine edition faced immediate backlash for over 100 substantive changes, such as altering verses in Psalms, Job, and the New Testament that affected theological interpretations, prompting Sixtus V to order its recall by September 1590, with most copies destroyed or suppressed under the pretext of typographical errors, though critics attributed issues to the pope's unchecked revisions.^[2] Sixtus's death on August 27, 1590, facilitated the suppression, as his successor's administration deemed the text unreliable for liturgical and doctrinal use.^[17] Pope Clement VIII, elected in 1592, established a revised commission including Francisco de Toledo, Augustinus Valerius, and Frederick Borromeo to amend the Sixtine text, restoring many traditional readings while correcting identified errors, culminating in the Clementine Vulgate published on November 9, 1592, as the Sixto-Clementine edition to honor Sixtus's intent.^[34] This version incorporated approximately 4,900 differences from the Sixtine, primarily reverting to pre-Sixtine Vulgate manuscripts to preserve ecclesiastical familiarity and authority.^[2] The Clementine Vulgate served as the official Latin Bible of the Catholic Church for nearly four centuries, until supplanted by the Nova Vulgata in 1979, influencing printed Bibles, commentaries, and translations worldwide.^[17]

Modern Critical Editions and Nova Vulgata

In the early 20th century, efforts to produce a critical edition of Jerome's Vulgate intensified. Pope Pius X commissioned the Benedictine Order in 1907 to prepare a comprehensive critical revision based on manuscript evidence, aiming to restore the original text as closely as possible.^[34] This project resulted in detailed studies and partial publications, particularly for the Old Testament, but remained incomplete as a full edition. Independently, British scholars John Wordsworth and H.J. White developed the Oxford Vulgate, a critical edition of the New Testament published in fascicles from 1889 to 1954, collating over 80 manuscripts to establish the text with apparatus criticus.^[61] The most widely used modern critical edition of the entire Vulgate is the Biblia Sacra iuxta Vulgata versionem, first edited by Robert Weber in 1969 and revised by Roger Gryson, with the fifth edition published in 2007 by the Deutsche Bibelgesellschaft.^[62] Known as the Stuttgart Vulgate, it reconstructs Jerome's text using principal manuscripts like Codex Amiatinus and Fuldensis, includes prologues and deuterocanonical books, and provides a critical apparatus with variants, serving as the standard for scholarly study.^[62] This edition prioritizes paleographic and philological analysis over later medieval corruptions, differing from printed Renaissance versions in numerous readings. Parallel to these scholarly endeavors, the Catholic Church pursued an official revision. Following the Second Vatican Council, a pontifical commission under Pius XII and continued under Paul VI revised the Vulgate, incorporating textual criticism alongside consultations of Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek originals to address perceived inaccuracies in Jerome's translation.^[63] The resulting Nova Vulgata, completed in 1979, was promulgated by Pope John Paul II on April 25, 1979, through the apostolic constitution Scripturarum thesaurus as the Church's official Latin Bible for liturgy and doctrine.^[63] A second edition appeared in 1986; unlike pure critical editions, it includes emendations diverging from surviving Vulgate manuscripts to align with modern source-language reconstructions, such as omitting the Comma Johanneum in 1 John 5:7-8.^[63]

Cultural and Theological Influence

Shaping Western Liturgy and Doctrine

The Vulgate rapidly supplanted earlier Latin translations known as the Vetus Latina in Western ecclesiastical use by the 6th and 7th centuries, becoming the primary source for scriptural readings in the liturgy of the Roman Rite and other Latin traditions. Its pericopes—selected passages for the Mass, Divine Office, and sacraments—standardized the proclamation of Scripture across Europe, fostering uniformity in worship amid regional variations in earlier texts. This integration ensured that the Vulgate's phrasing permeated public prayer, with psalms and Gospel lessons drawn directly from Jerome's version, influencing the rhythmic cadence and theological emphasis of liturgical chant and recitation.^[2]^[64] A pivotal standardization occurred in the late 8th century when Alcuin of York, at the behest of Charlemagne, revised the Vulgate using high-quality manuscripts to correct scribal errors and produce a reliable edition for liturgical and scholarly purposes. Completed around 798–801 AD as part of the Carolingian Renaissance, this edition was disseminated through monastic scriptoria and imperial decree, embedding the Vulgate more deeply into the fabric of Frankish and subsequent Western liturgy; it served as the basis for lectionaries and missals that shaped daily and seasonal observances for centuries.^[2] Doctrinally, the Vulgate's renderings informed scholastic theology and conciliar teachings by providing a Latin interpretive lens that prioritized Jerome's exegetical choices over Greek or Hebrew originals in practice. For instance, Thomas Aquinas, in his Summa Theologica (completed 1274), cited the Vulgate over 4,000 times as the authoritative biblical text, using its terminology—such as gratia plena for "full of grace" in Luke 1:28—to underpin arguments for doctrines like the sanctifying grace of Mary. Similarly, the Vulgate's ipsa (she) in Genesis 3:15, diverging from some Greek interpretations, bolstered proto-Marian interpretations of the protoevangelium in Western patristic and medieval exegesis, contributing to doctrinal developments on redemption and enmity with sin. These translation decisions, while rooted in Jerome's philological aims, embedded causal links between scriptural wording and theological realism, privileging empirical textual fidelity amid debates over variant readings.^[65]^[66]

Impact on the English Language and Vernacular Translations

The Vulgate served as the primary source for the first complete English Bible translation, John Wycliffe's version completed around 1384, which rendered the Latin text into Middle English and thereby introduced numerous Latin-derived terms into the vernacular, expanding the language's capacity for theological expression.^[4]^[67] This translation, produced by Wycliffe and collaborators like Nicholas of Hereford, relied exclusively on the Vulgate rather than Hebrew or Greek originals, reflecting the text's dominance in medieval Western scholarship.^[68] As a result, phrases and vocabulary from Jerome's Latin, such as adaptations of creatio and salvatio, entered English usage, influencing not only biblical phrasing but also broader literary and doctrinal discourse.^[69] In the Catholic tradition, the Douay-Rheims Bible, with its New Testament published in 1582 and Old Testament in 1609–1610 by English exiles at Douai and Rheims, provided a direct vernacular rendering of the Vulgate, maintaining fidelity to the Latin amid Counter-Reformation efforts to counter Protestant translations from original languages.^[70]^[71] This version, revised by Bishop Richard Challoner in the mid-18th century, preserved Vulgate-specific renderings, such as caritas translated as "charity" for the Greek agapē, which shaped Catholic English liturgy and terminology for centuries.^[72] Its influence persisted in English-speaking Catholic communities, embedding Vulgate idioms into prayer books, hymns, and catechetical materials even as modern Catholic translations like the New American Bible (1970) shifted toward Hebrew and Greek sources while retaining some traditional phrasings.^[73] Even Protestant translations, such as the King James Version of 1611, which prioritized Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek texts under royal commission, exhibited subtle Vulgate influences through the translators' familiarity with Latin scholarship and liturgical Latin.^[74] For instance, certain Psalm renderings in the KJV echo Vulgate-LXX alignments rather than strict Masoretic Hebrew, as noted in analyses of specific passages.^[75] This indirect impact extended to English vocabulary, where Vulgate-mediated terms like "salvation" and "creation" became standardized in Protestant Bibles, bridging Latin ecclesiastical heritage with vernacular accessibility and contributing to the Bible's role in shaping early modern English prose.^[76]

Role in the Reformation Controversies

During the Protestant Reformation, the Vulgate's longstanding authority as the standard Latin Bible came under sharp scrutiny from reformers who argued that its accumulated translation inaccuracies and reliance on secondary sources undermined its use for doctrinal interpretation. Martin Luther, after studying Greek and Hebrew, rejected translating directly from the Vulgate, instead basing his 1522 New Testament on Erasmus's Greek edition and Hebrew texts, viewing the Vulgate as riddled with errors that distorted key teachings such as justification by faith alone.^[77]^[78] For instance, reformers highlighted the Vulgate's rendering of metanoeite in Matthew 3:2 as penitentiam agite ("do penance"), which they claimed supported Catholic sacramental practices over genuine repentance, a critique echoed by William Tyndale in his English translations.^[79] Central to these debates were perceived Vulgate mistranslations that appeared to bolster Catholic positions on works righteousness and purgatory. In James 2:24, the Vulgate states ex operibus iustificatur homo et non ex fide tantum ("a man is justified by works and not by faith alone"), which Protestants like Luther contended misrepresented the Greek pistis monon and contradicted Paul's emphasis on faith, attributing the phrasing to interpretive biases favoring ecclesiastical traditions over scriptural primacy.^[80] Similarly, passages in the deuterocanonical books, such as 2 Maccabees 12:46 invoking prayers for the dead, were cited in the Vulgate to defend purgatory, but reformers dismissed these texts as non-canonical additions absent from the Hebrew canon, arguing they introduced doctrines without original-language warrant.^[78] The inclusion of the Comma Johanneum (1 John 5:7-8) in the Vulgate further fueled Trinitarian controversies, as its explicit reference to "three that bear witness in heaven: the Father, the Word, and the Holy Spirit" lacked support in early Greek manuscripts but aligned with Latin patristic usage. Erasmus's initial omission of the comma in his 1516 Greek New Testament prompted accusations from Catholic scholars of undermining orthodoxy, leading him to include it in later editions (1522 onward) after claims of Greek manuscript evidence, a move reformers like Luther initially accepted but which later textual scholarship revealed as a retrojected Latin interpolation.^[81]^[82] These disputes underscored the reformers' sola scriptura principle, prioritizing autograph languages over any translation, including Jerome's, and intensified calls for vernacular Bibles directly from Hebrew and Greek sources.^[83] The Vulgate's role thus crystallized a key Reformation divide: Catholics defended its ecclesiastical authenticity and interpretive tradition against Protestant charges of corruption through centuries of copying errors, while reformers leveraged philological critiques to advocate textual return to origins, eroding the Vulgate's monopoly and spurring editions like Luther's Bible that bypassed it entirely.^[80]^[78] This contention, evident by the 1520s in Luther's writings and Erasmus's prefaces, not only exposed the Vulgate's limitations as a fourth-century translation but also catalyzed broader scriptural access, though without resolving underlying textual variances.^[84]

Scholarly Assessment and Debates

Textual Criticism and Manuscript Evidence

The Vulgate's textual tradition is preserved in approximately 10,000 surviving manuscripts, far outnumbering those of the original Greek and Hebrew biblical texts, though none are autographs from Jerome's time around 405 AD.^[85]^[86] The earliest complete manuscript is the Codex Amiatinus, produced circa 700 AD in the Anglo-Saxon monastery of Wearmouth-Jarrow, representing a direct link to Italian exemplars and considered one of the purest witnesses to Jerome's original translation.^[87]^[88] Earlier partial manuscripts, such as the Codex Fuldensis containing the New Testament dated to 547 AD, provide additional evidence but show influences from pre-Vulgate Old Latin (Vetus Latina) versions.^[89] Textual criticism of the Vulgate addresses challenges from scribal errors, deliberate revisions, and conflations with Vetus Latina readings, which persisted in early copies due to the Vulgate's gradual adoption over the Old Latin texts. Scholars classify manuscripts into families based on shared variants and errors using stemmatic analysis (stemma codicum), a genealogical method tracing descent from hypothetical archetypes to eliminate later corruptions and reconstruct Jerome's text.^[90] Pre-Carolingian manuscripts like Amiatinus exhibit fewer emendations, while ninth-century Alcuin revisions standardized the text but introduced harmonizations. Key variants include orthographic inconsistencies, word substitutions, and omissions, often resolved by preferring readings attested in multiple independent early witnesses. Modern critical editions, such as the Benedictine Vulgate (1969) and the Stuttgart Vulgate (Biblia Sacra Vulgata, fifth edition 2007), collate dozens to hundreds of manuscripts, prioritizing those from the sixth to eighth centuries for the apparatus criticus.^[91] The Stuttgart edition, for instance, selects Amiatinus and other insular and continental codices as base texts for the Old Testament, employing eclectic methods to evaluate internal evidence like Jerome's translation style—favoring literal Hebrew renderings over Septuagint-influenced Old Latin—and external evidence from manuscript age and distribution. These efforts reveal the Vulgate's stability relative to its transmission span, with core doctrinal passages showing minimal variation, though ongoing scholarship debates the extent of Jerome's direct authorship in certain books amid evidence of later interpolations.^[92]

Evaluations of Translation Accuracy

Jerome's Vulgate has been evaluated by scholars for its fidelity to the Hebrew and Greek originals, with assessments highlighting both its literal approach and occasional interpretive choices that diverged from modern understandings. In the Old Testament, Jerome prioritized translation directly from Hebrew texts, a method he termed Hebraica veritas, consulting Jewish scholars and multiple versions including the Septuagint to ensure accuracy while adapting Hebrew idioms to idiomatic Latin.^[2] This resulted in a rendering praised for preserving original nuances, such as etymological translations of names (e.g., Genesis 41:45) and syntactic adjustments for clarity, though not without criticisms of over-literalism in places like Psalm 51:14, where "de sanguinibus" mirrors Hebrew plural "bloods" idiomatically but awkwardly in Latin.^[20] Overall, textual critics like Bonifatius Fischer note the Vulgate's Old Testament as comparably literal to prior Latin versions, reflecting Jerome's access to pre-Masoretic Hebrew manuscripts that aligned closely with later discoveries.^[20] Specific alleged inaccuracies in the Old Testament often cited include Exodus 34:29-35, where Jerome rendered the Hebrew qaran (to shine or emit rays) as "cornuta" (horned), influencing artistic depictions of Moses but arguably capturing a root sense of "projecting rays like horns" based on available lexical understanding.^[93] Another example is Psalm 127:4, translated as "filii iuventutis tuae" (sons of thy youth) in some readings but rendered in Vulgate-influenced versions as "children of them that have been shaken," potentially stemming from Septuagint influence or variant manuscript interpretations rather than Jerome's error.^[93] Critics, particularly from Protestant traditions, argue such choices introduced doctrinal biases favoring Catholic interpretations, but defenders emphasize Jerome's fidelity to his sources and the limitations of 4th-century philology, where ambiguities in Hebrew (e.g., Isaiah 45:1's "messiah" for Cyrus rendered as "Christus") reflect literal alignment with the Masoretic Text rather than anachronistic imposition.^[93] ^[20] For the New Testament, Jerome revised existing Old Latin versions against Greek manuscripts, achieving greater literalness by incorporating Greek participial constructions (e.g., Acts 12:3's "adposuit adprehendere et Petrum") even when unidiomatic in Latin, a technique Bruce Metzger credits with enhancing doctrinal precision over predecessors.^[20] This revision aligned often with early "Neutral" Greek texts like Codex Vaticanus, contributing to the Vulgate's enduring value, as noted by linguist Reginald Foster, who described it as "amazingly accurate" for textual reconstruction despite not being a fresh translation.^[94] Criticisms here are fewer, though some point to Jerome's occasional smoothing for readability, potentially obscuring Greek nuances, and Protestant sources highlight terms like "gentilis" for ethnos (nation), which carried pejorative connotations absent in the original, influencing later vernacular Bibles.^[93] Contemporary scholarship, informed by discoveries like the Dead Sea Scrolls, affirms the Vulgate's high accuracy relative to its era—outperforming many ancient versions in fidelity—but underscores that modern critical editions surpass it due to superior manuscript evidence and philological tools.^[20] Catholic evaluations, such as those post-Council of Trent, uphold its reliability for doctrine while acknowledging transmission errors in medieval copies, whereas Protestant critiques often amplify perceived flaws to challenge its authority, reflecting historical Reformation debates over Latin primacy.^[93] No translation is error-free, yet Jerome's work remains a benchmark for its balance of literalness and readability, with textual critics like E.V. Rieu praising its innovative Latin to convey Semitic structures.^[20]^[2] ![Codex Amiatinus Folio5rEzra.jpg][float-right]

Contemporary Perspectives and Recent Scholarship

Recent scholarship on the Vulgate has advanced through critical editions that prioritize early manuscript evidence to approximate Jerome's fourth-century text. The Biblia Sacra iuxta Vulgatam versionem, known as the Stuttgart Vulgate, first appeared in 1969 under editor Robert Weber and was revised in 1994 by a team including Bonifatius Fischer, employing stemmatic analysis of principal witnesses like the Codex Amiatinus (8th century) to address over 8,000 surviving manuscripts' variants.^[95] The Catholic Church's Nova Vulgata, promulgated by Pope John Paul II on April 25, 1979, integrates findings from 20th-century textual criticism, including comparisons with Hebrew Masoretic Text and Septuagint, for liturgical and doctrinal use, though it diverges from Jerome in places for clarity and fidelity to originals.^[96] Scholars note this edition's reliance on post-Tridentine revisions while aiming for greater precision, as evidenced in its updated renderings of disputed passages.^[97] Contemporary assessments of translation accuracy vary; linguist Michael Rico in 2022 highlighted Jerome's Vulgate as remarkably faithful given his Hebrew and Greek sources, emphasizing its role in preserving interpretive traditions despite inevitable translational limits.^[98] Conversely, textual critics like those in the 2025 Oxford Handbook of Textual Criticism of the Bible underscore Jerome's occasional deviations from literalism, influenced by rabbinic consultations and Old Latin precedents, urging cross-verification with Dead Sea Scrolls discoveries since 1947 for Old Testament fidelity.^[99] The 2025 Handbook of the Vulgate Bible and Its Reception compiles interdisciplinary studies, from Hebrew/Greek textual bases to Vulgate linguistics, revealing Jerome's revisions as a bridge between antique versions and medieval exegesis, while critiquing later corruptions in transmission.^[95] Ecumenical scholarship, such as Protestant analyses since the 2010s, values the Vulgate for patristic studies and Latin unity across testaments, though rejecting claims of inherent superiority over Greek/Hebrew autographs.^[100] Digital tools, including manuscript databases, have enabled recent stemma reconstructions, confirming Jerome's Psalter revisions (e.g., Gallican version's dominance) as adaptive rather than erroneous.^[101]

References

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Jerome's Latin Vulgate - 405 A.D. - Library of the Bible
In 382 A.D. Pope Damasus I, commissioned Jerome to translate the Bible into Latin. Jerome's Latin translation made the Bible accessible to the known world, ...
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Library : The History of the Latin Vulgate | Catholic Culture
(1) Because of the many variant readings in the Old Latin text, Pope Damasus requested Jerome to revise the Latin translation of the Four Gospels. Hence, he did ...
[3]
[PDF] Question 77 - What are the facts regarding the Latin Vulgate?
Thus the Latin Bible of Jerome, which came to be known as the Vulgate, was a composite work of four parts: (1) The Old Testament, except the Psalter, a. Page 3 ...
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https://answersingenesis.org/the-word-of-god/from-vulgate-to-vulgar/
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Biblia Sacra Vulgata (VULGATE) - Version Information - Bible Gateway
... Latin, was completed in 405. It was recognized as authoritative during the Council of Trent (1546) and became the official Bible of the Roman Catholic Church.
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https://ascensionpress.com/blogs/articles/st-jerome-the-vulgate-and-our-biblical-heritage
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These Old Latin translations going back in their earliest forms to nearly the middle of the 2nd century are very early witnesses to the Greek text from which ...
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Vetus Latina - Resources for the Study of the Old Latin Bible
The first translations were made by individual Christians for use within their own community. These are known as the Old Latin or Vetus Latina. Towards the end ...
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The Oldest Latin Versions of the Bible - Veterum Sapientia Institute
Long before Jerome's time, however, Latin-speaking Christians had produced many different translations of the various books of the Bible. For the Old Testament ...
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SSP: Vetus Latina - Pursuing Veritas
Jul 25, 2016 · The Vetus Latina (“old Latin”) is a family of locally made Latin translations of both the Old and New Testaments.
[11]
A Brief History of the Latin Vulgate - The Thoughtful Catholic
Dec 29, 2024 · These translations are collectively known as the “Vetus Latina” or “Old Latin”. The Vetus Latina translations were not produced ...
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Jerome Preface to the Four Gospels - Early Church Texts
Addressed to Pope Damasus, A.D. 383. You urge me to revise the old Latin version, and, as it were, to sit in judgment on the copies of the Scriptures which ...
[13]
Jerome – Translations of Scripture - Fourth Century Christianity
... Jerome was “commissioned” by Pope Damasus (d. 384) to produce a new Latin translation of the Bible. In his preface to his revision of the gospels (384), Jerome ...
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CHURCH FATHERS: Prefaces (Jerome) - New Advent
Jerome's prefaces discuss translation difficulties, his work on Hebrew, and his aim to revise the old Latin version of the New Testament.
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Beginning of the Preface to the Gospels
This present little preface promises only the four Gospels, the order of which is Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, revised in comparison with only old Greek books.
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405 Jerome Completes the Vulgate | Christian History Magazine
After twenty-three years of labor, Jerome finished his translation in late 404 or 405. If twenty-three years seems like a long time for a translation, consider ...
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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 ...
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Vulgate - Textus Receptus
Mar 8, 2016 · The Vulgate is a compound work, only some parts of which are due to Jerome. Old Latin, wholly unrevised: Prayer of Manasses, 4 Esdras ...Missing: composite | Show results with:composite
[19]
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Jerome's translation, which later came to be called the Vulgate, was a composite text. ... Sections of the Vetus Latina were also eventually merged back into ...
[20]
The Literal Character of the Vulgate - Bible Research
Jerome's version of the Old Testament is somewhat less literal than his revision of the New Testament, but it is no less literal than the Old Latin versions.
[21]
Jerome's Letter to Pammachius “On the Best Method of Translating”
Charged with having falsified his original he now repudiates the charge and defends his method of translation (“to give sense for sense and not word for word” ...Missing: litteram | Show results with:litteram
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https://brill.com/downloadpdf/book/9789004343009/B9789004343009_004.xml
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Vulgate | Description, Definition, Bible, History, & Facts - Britannica
Oct 17, 2025 · In 382 Pope Damasus commissioned Jerome, the leading biblical scholar of his day, to produce an acceptable Latin version of the Bible from the ...
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Jerome's Sources in His Translation of the Hebrew Bible
Aug 20, 2025 · In this volume, Paul Rodrigue investigates the sources that Jerome may have drawn upon in the process of translation.Missing: Origen Hexapla
[25]
Vulgate Latin Bible With English Translation
Jerome translated anew all 39 books in the Hebrew Bible, including a further, third, version of the Psalms, which survives in a very few Vulgate manuscripts.Genesis 3 · Genesis 6 · Exodus 15 · Genesis 15
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Following the Footnotes: The Old Latin and the Vulgate
Oct 9, 2024 · Latin manuscripts that seem to represent a translation made prior to Jerome's in the late fourth century are typically classed as Old Latin.
[27]
(PDF) Jerome's Sources in His Translation of the Hebrew Bible
In this volume, Paul Rodrigue investigates the sources that Jerome may have drawn upon in the process of translation. Far from being just a rendering of the ...
[28]
Revised Psalter according to the Greek text (Gallican Psalter)
Feb 17, 2014 · This translation was so successful that the Gauls preferred it to Jerome's translation from the Hebrew, hence it was eventually incorporated ...
[29]
Gallican Psalter - Search results provided by BiblicalTraining
The Roman Psalter was superseded by the Gallican, a version which Jerome made in Bethlehem about 389, using the Septuagint, Theodotion's Greek version, and the ...
[30]
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[31]
Jerome and the Deuterocanonicals | Catholic Answers Podcasts
Aug 29, 2023 · St. Jerome (c. 347–420), the foremost Scripture scholar of his day, didn't accept the deuterocanonical books as Scripture.
[32]
The Vetus Latina, or the Pre-Jerome Latin Text - purecambridgetext
Aug 15, 2018 · Jerome, for whom the Jerome Text is named, translated what texts he had using the more modern of the two Latin styles starting in the late 4th ...
[33]
The Latin New Testament: A Guide to its Early History, Texts, and ...
Oct 7, 2016 · The most confusing aspect of scholarship on the Vetus Latina and Vulgate for outsiders is the bizarre array of sigla and abbreviations that ...
[34]
CATHOLIC ENCYCLOPEDIA: Revision of Vulgate - New Advent
St. Jerome was responsible for three versions of the Psalms. His first recension was made upon the old Latin version in use at that time. He compared it with ...
[35]
[PDF] the vulgate text of the catholic epistles: its language, origin and ...
The Vulgate, which has traditionally been considered a more refined text than the Vetus Latina is shown here to be equally, and often more, influenced by the ...
[36]
The Latin of the Vulgate - LVLT 2024
The peculiarity of Vulgate's language emerges from its comparison with the earlier Biblical translations (Vetus Latina), as well as with Jerome's own usages ...<|control11|><|separator|>
[37]
[PDF] Preface to the Books of the Vulgate Version of the Old Testament
There are three stages of Jerome's work of Scripture Translation. The first is during his stay at Rome, a.d. 382–385, when he translated only from the Greek ...
[38]
Jerome, Prologues to the Vulgate - Catholic Library Project
Jerome, Prologue to Genesis (2006) · Jerome, Prologue to Joshua (2006) · Jerome, Helmeted introduction to Kings (2006) · Jerome, Prologue to Chronicles (2006).<|separator|>
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Vulgate Bible, with the Prologues and Interpretation of Hebrew Names In Latin, illuminated manuscript on parchment [Northern France, Paris, c. 1250]
[40]
Biblia Sacra [Bible. Latin. Vulgate], 13th century - Archive
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[41]
Jerome's Prologue to the Canonical Epistles and 1 John 5:7
Oct 16, 2017 · The prologue has textual critical value because it bears on the question of the authenticity of the Johannine Comma, 1 John 5:7.
[42]
The Comma Johanneum Part 5 - Confessional Bibliology
Feb 7, 2025 · This installment focuses on Jerome's contribution, particularly (1) how his Vulgate shaped the text of 1 John 5:7 in the Latin-speaking world.
[43]
Vulgate Prologue - super-evidence - English translations
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[44]
How old is the oldest Latin manuscript of the Bible? - Forerunner
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Biblical Manuscripts: Latin OT Manuscripts - SEBTS Library
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[47]
Codex Sangallensis 1395, the Earliest Surviving Copy of the ...
Codex Sangallensis 1395 Offsite Link, designated by Σ, is the oldest surviving Latin manuscript of the New Testament in the Vulgate translation by Jerome.
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But Augustine had learned that Jerome was now making a translation from the Hebrew, which differed in many places from the Septuagint. (Jerome had previously ...
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V - The Medieval History of the Latin Vulgate. Published online by Cambridge University Press: 28 March 2008. By. Raphael Loewe.
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The thirteenth century and the Paris Bible (Chapter 21)
Robert Branner catalogued approximately 177 illuminated Bibles in his survey of manuscripts illustrated in Paris in the thirteenth century.
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General Council of Trent: Fourth Session - Papal Encyclicals
This sacred and holy Synod resolves and decrees, that the next ensuing Session be held and celebrated on the Thursday after the next most sacred festival of ...
[52]
Decree Concerning the Canonical Scriptures | EWTN
THE COUNCIL OF TRENT. Session IV - Celebrated on the eighth day of April, 1546 under Pope Paul III. Index. Decree Concerning the Canonical Scriptures
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The first book printed in the western world from movable type on a printing press, by Johannes Gutenberg in Mainz, Germany, in an edition of about 180 copies.
[54]
INCUNABULA - Library of Congress
Historians refer to books printed between 1455 and 1501 as incunabula, the Latin word for "in the cradle."
[55]
Incunabula & Early Printed Books - Facsimiles of Medieval ...
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[56]
CATHOLIC ENCYCLOPEDIA: Editions of the Bible - New Advent
Roughly speaking, there are three classes of editions of the Hebrew text: The so-called Incunabula (Latin cunabula, pl., "cradle"); The common editions; The ...
[57]
INCUNABULA - The Library of Congress
Augsburg printer Günther Zainer produced the first illustrated Bible in the history of printing with movable type. Zainer's edition contains 73 large ...<|separator|>
[58]
Medieval and Renaissance Bibles: Manuscripts and Early Printing
The fifteenth-century transformation of the Bible, and of reading in general, is represented by a single leaf from Gutenberg's first printed Bible (c. 1455) and ...
[59]
Exhibition: "From Gutenberg to Kindle: The Art of Bible Making"
Mar 15, 2011 · ... earliest printed editions of the Vulgate, produced in 1511 in Lyon, France. Johann Gutenberg (c. 1400–1468) produced the first printed Bible ...
[60]
The Making of the Bible, 400-1700
May 27, 2020 · This collection will introduce you to how the Bible was made from a “library” (that is, a series of related but distinct religious texts) into a “book.”
[61]
Jerome and the Vulgate Gospels
Mar 22, 2023 · This chapter revisits key questions concerning the Vulgate gospels and discusses their character as a revision in relation to Jerome's preface and his ...
[62]
Vulgate - www.die-bibel.de - Deutsche Bibelgesellschaft
Forty years after its first publication, this critical concise version of the Vulgate is now in its fifth edition and has become established as the definitive ...
[63]
Scripturarum Thesaurus (April 25, 1979) - The Holy See
Apr 25, 1979 · THE TREASURE OF THE SCRIPTURES, in which is contained the message of salvation given by God to the human race—for Saint Augustine rightly says: ...
[64]
The Latin Vulgate as Background to the Version Debate
May 7, 2012 · The Latin Vulgate was the accepted Bible of Western Christendom. It was read in the churches and was considered the standard text in theological discourse.
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The Threefold Division Of The Law In The Thought Of Aquinas ...
The most important influence on the thinking of Aquinas was the text of Holy Scripture. In fact, it is rumored that during a two-year imprisonment intended to ...
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Topical Bible: The Vulgate - Bible Hub
The Vulgate's impact on Christianity and Western culture is immense. It shaped theological discourse, liturgy, and education throughout the Middle Ages. The ...
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English Words/Phrases from Early Translations
When John Wycliffe translated the Bible into English from Jerome's Latin Vulgate in the fourteenth century, he enlarged the English language by adapting many ...
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https://www.antiquebible.com/wycliffe-bible-an-early-english-translation
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What Is the Vulgate? The Beginner's Guide - OverviewBible
Sep 7, 2018 · The Vulgate is a fourth-century Latin translation of the Bible, produced primarily by St. Jerome. Working from ancient Greek manuscripts.<|separator|>
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Douay-Rheims Bible - Vulgate.Org
The Douay–Rheims Bible is a translation of the Bible from the Latin Vulgate into English undertaken by members of the English College, Douai in the service of ...
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Douay-Rheims & Clementina Vulgata [side by side] - Baronius Press
In stock $5.50 deliveryThe Douay-Rheims Bible is an English translation of the Latin Vulgate Bible, a version universally used in the Church for over 1500 years, itself ...
[72]
https://tanbooks.com/products/books/douay-rheims-bible-large-print-edition/
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Why a 1,600-Year-Old Translation Belongs in Your Bible Study
Feb 23, 2017 · The Vulgate was the common Bible for many centuries, key to understanding theological terms, and influenced later translations and the English ...
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English Bible translations based on the Vulgate
Aug 12, 2013 · The King James Version (1611) shows some influences from the Vulgate though its committees mainly worked from the Greek, Hebrew, and Aramaic.
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[PDF] the influence of the vulgate on the english translation of certain ...
The Vulgate Psalter, as we have mentioned, is a translation of the LXX, from which the book of Hebrews quotes. Therefore, it can easily be seen how these ...
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The Latin Vulgate Influence on the King James Version
I was recently reminded of how much the Latin Vulgate influenced the King James Version. The topic of the sermon was giving to the poor, and after reading the ...
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The Most Dangerous Thing Luther Did - Christianity Today
Oct 17, 2017 · Luther did not translate directly from the Latin Vulgate, and for some, this amounted to heresy. Luther had learned Greek the usual way, at ...
[78]
The Reformation's Influence on How We Got Our Bible
Oct 2, 2018 · The story of the Reformation's impact on how we got our Bible begins with the most influential movement at the end of the Middle Ages: humanism.
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Vulgate - a source of errors in RCC teaching | The Puritan Board
May 30, 2013 · The Tyndale biography says that the more Tyndale studied the Greek NT, the more he saw errors both in the Latin Vulgate and in church teaching.<|separator|>
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Calvin, Trent, and the Vulgate: Misinterpreting the Fourth Session
Jun 13, 2011 · First, it has been said that the Council of Trent never called for a revision of the Latin Vulgate. Since this objection has been leveled as ...
[81]
The Story Behind The Comma Johanneum (1 John 5.7) - Restitutio
Dec 8, 2015 · By 1589 the Comma was officially recognized as Scripture by Rome's choice to include it in the Clementine Vulgate. Centuries later, as the field ...
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Luther and the Johannine Comma - Beggars All
Jun 17, 2012 · "Another interesting note in the history of this edition of the Vulgate is the insertion of the Comma Johanneum (1 John 5:7-8, KJV) by Erasmus.
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The Reformers and the Bible : sola scriptura - Musée protestant
The Reformers based their faith on the supreme authority of the Bible. They stressed the importance of “sola scriptura” (by Scripture alone).<|separator|>
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Sendbrief vom Dolmetschen 2 – The Translation Controversy
Sep 29, 2022 · For Luther, by contrast, Scripture meant the Bible in its original languages rather than the Vulgate, and Scripture was the sole authority.
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Vulgate - The Development of the Canon of the New Testament
The Vulgate is the version of the Latin Bible, primarily translated from Hebrew and Greek by St. Jerome, used by the Roman Catholic Church for more than 1000 ...
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The Bibliographical Test Updated | Christian Research Institute
Oct 1, 2013 · Many Christian apologists base the number of NT manuscripts on the ... The number of Latin Vulgate MSS of the NT remains at more than ten thousand ...
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The Codex Amiatinus: the Earliest Surviving Complete Bible in the ...
Aug 24, 2014 · The earliest surviving manuscript of the complete Bible in the Latin Vulgate Offsite Link version, and is considered the most accurate copy of St. Jerome's ...Missing: oldest | Show results with:oldest
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Codex Amiatinus (8th Century): The Oldest Complete Vulgate Bible ...
Jun 27, 2025 · Codex Amiatinus is the oldest extant complete Latin Bible in the Vulgate tradition, produced around 700 C.E. at the dual monastic community of ...
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CATHOLIC ENCYCLOPEDIA: Codex Amiatinus - New Advent
Accordingly, it was settled that the Codex Amiatinus dated from the middle of the sixth century, was the oldest manuscript of the Vulgate, and was written in ...
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[PDF] A Brief History of Textual Scholarship - GitHub Pages
Jerome's Vulgate, commissioned by Pope Damascus I in the late 4th century CE, was ... this day) of stemma codicum, the "family tree" of textual versions.
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Introduction | The Oxford Handbook of the Latin Bible
The Old Latin Bible was, eventually, replaced by a text associated with the scholar Jerome and later known as the Vulgate. Chapter 3 (Kreinecker) explores ...
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Vulgate | Encyclopedia MDPI
Nov 23, 2022 · The Book of Baruch and the Letter of Jeremiah were excluded by Jerome as non-canonical, but sporadically re-admitted into the Vulgate ...Missing: Jeromian elements
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Criticism of the Vulgate: alleged errors and inaccuracies in translation
Aug 12, 2013 · One Example One word that Jerome (Heironymus) mistranslated was the Greek word, ethnos (ethnics). In the Greek, this simply means nation or ...Missing: Jeromian elements
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A Catholic linguist praises St. Jerome's Vulgate
while not perfect, as no translation is — has proven to be amazingly accurate and very valuable for the ...Missing: evaluations | Show results with:evaluations
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Handbook of the Vulgate Bible and its reception
The book is a handbook of the Vulgate Bible and its reception, titled 'Handbook of the Vulgate Bible and its reception. Vulgata in dialogue.' by Bernhard Lang.Missing: transmission challenges
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Revision of Vulgate | Catholic Answers Encyclopedia
The revision of the Vulgate aimed to determine St. Jerome's 4th-century Latin text, as a preliminary step to a more critical revision, not a new official text.
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Review of a New Reprint of an Old Edition of the Vulgate
Sep 11, 2024 · The new reprint is a devotional, Catholic-looking edition with line art, author illustrations, and a competitive price, suitable for daily ...
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Are modern Bible translations always better? A Catholic linguist ...
Sep 30, 2022 · While again cautioning that no translation is ever perfect, Rico was quick to praise Jerome's Vulgate for its accuracy and its importance in the ...Missing: contemporary | Show results with:contemporary
[99]
https://academic.oup.com/edited-volume/61539/chapter/537115214
[100]
Why (and How) Protestants Should Study the Latin Vulgate
Dec 26, 2015 · Prior to this time, virtually the whole Bible existed in Latin, but it was a patchwork of different translations. By translating the whole ...
[101]
Textual Criticism and the Ancient Versions in Bible Translation
Jun 30, 2025 · Smith, writing in 1899, claimed: “The text of these books in the current Hebrew recension is more corrupt than the text of any other part of the ...