The Vulgate () is a late-4th-century Latin translation of the

Bible The Bible is a collection of religious texts that are central to Christianity and Judaism, and esteemed in other Abrahamic religions such as Islam. The Bible is an anthology (a compilation of texts of a variety of forms) originally writt ...

. It is largely the work of Saint

Jerome Jerome (; ; ; – 30 September 420), also known as Jerome of Stridon, was an early Christian presbyter, priest, Confessor of the Faith, confessor, theologian, translator, and historian; he is commonly known as Saint Jerome. He is best known ...

who, in 382, had been commissioned by

Pope Damasus I Pope Damasus I (; c. 305 – 11 December 384), also known as Damasus of Rome, was the bishop of Rome from October 366 to his death in 384. It is claimed that he presided over the Council of Rome of 382 that determined the canon or official list ...

to revise the

Gospel Gospel originally meant the Christianity, Christian message ("the gospel"), but in the second century Anno domino, AD the term (, from which the English word originated as a calque) came to be used also for the books in which the message w ...

s used by the Roman Church. Later, of his own initiative, Jerome extended this work of revision and translation to include most of the

books of the Bible A biblical canon is a set of texts (also called "books") which a particular Jewish or Christian religious community regards as part of the Bible. The English word ''canon'' comes from the Greek , meaning ' rule' or ' measuring stick'. The us ...

. The Vulgate became progressively adopted as the Bible text within the

Western Church Western Christianity is one of two subdivisions of Christianity (Eastern Christianity being the other). Western Christianity is composed of the Latin Church and Western Protestantism, together with their offshoots such as the Old Catholic C ...

. Over succeeding centuries, it eventually eclipsed the texts. By the 13th century it had taken over from the former version the designation (the "version commonly used") or for short. The Vulgate also contains some ''Vetus Latina'' translations that Jerome did not work on. The

Catholic Church The Catholic Church (), also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the List of Christian denominations by number of members, largest Christian church, with 1.27 to 1.41 billion baptized Catholics Catholic Church by country, worldwid ...

affirmed the Vulgate as its official

Latin Latin ( or ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic languages, Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally spoken by the Latins (Italic tribe), Latins in Latium (now known as Lazio), the lower Tiber area aroun ...

Bible at the

Council of Trent The Council of Trent (), held between 1545 and 1563 in Trent (or Trento), now in northern Italy, was the 19th ecumenical council of the Catholic Church. Prompted by the Protestant Reformation at the time, it has been described as the "most ...

(1545–1563), though there was no single authoritative edition of the book at that time in any language. The Vulgate did eventually receive an official edition to be

promulgated Promulgation is the formal proclamation or the declaration that a new statutory or administrative law is enacted after its final approval. In some jurisdictions, this additional step is necessary before the law can take effect. After a new law i ...

among the Catholic Church as the Sixtine Vulgate (1590), then as the

Clementine Vulgate The Sixto-Clementine Vulgate or Clementine Vulgate () is an edition of the Latin Vulgate, the official Bible of the Roman Catholic Church. It was the second edition of the Vulgate to be formally authorized by the Catholic Church, the first be ...

(1592), and then as the '' Nova Vulgata'' (1979). The Vulgate is still currently used in the

Latin Church The Latin Church () is the largest autonomous () particular church within the Catholic Church, whose members constitute the vast majority of the 1.3 billion Catholics. The Latin Church is one of 24 Catholic particular churches and liturgical ...

. The Clementine edition of the Vulgate became the standard Bible text of the

Roman Rite The Roman Rite () is the most common ritual family for performing the ecclesiastical services of the Latin Church, the largest of the ''sui iuris'' particular churches that comprise the Catholic Church. The Roman Rite governs Rite (Christianity) ...

of the Catholic Church, and remained so until 1979 when the ''Nova Vulgata'' was promulgated.

Terminology

The earliest known use of the term ''Vulgata'' to describe Jerome's "new" Latin translation was made by

Roger Bacon Roger Bacon (; or ', also '' Rogerus''; ), also known by the Scholastic accolades, scholastic accolade ''Doctor Mirabilis'', was a medieval English polymath, philosopher, scientist, theologian and Franciscans, Franciscan friar who placed co ...

in the 13th century. The term ''Vulgate'' was used in a 1538 edition Latin Bible by

Robert Estienne Robert I Estienne (; 15037 September 1559), known as ''Robertus Stephanus'' in Latin and sometimes referred to as ''Robert Stephens'', was a 16th-century printer in Paris. He was the proprietor of the Estienne print shop after the death of his f ...

which coupled the popular (i.e. the Vulgate) with the "most improved" (i.e., the recent new Latin translations of Pagninus,

Beza Theodore Beza (; or ''de Besze''; 24 June 1519 – 13 October 1605) was a French Calvinist Protestant theologian, Protestant reformer, reformer and scholar who played an important role in the Protestant Reformation. He was a disciple of John Ca ...

and Baduell): ''Biblia utriusque testamenti juxta vulgatam translationem et eam, quam haberi potut, emendatissimam''.Canellis (2017), ch. "Introduction: From Jerome's...", pp. 216–7.

Authorship

While the majority of the Vulgate's translation is traditionally attributed to

, the Vulgate has a compound text that is not entirely Jerome's work. Jerome's translation of the four Gospels are revisions of ''

Vetus Latina The ''Vetus Latina'' ("Old Latin" in Latin), also known as ''Vetus Itala'' ("Old Italian"), ''Itala'' ("Italian") and Old Italic, and denoted by the siglum \mathfrak, are the Latin Bible translations, translations of biblical texts (both Old T ...

'' translations he did while having the Greek as reference. The Latin translations of the rest of the

New Testament The New Testament (NT) is the second division of the Christian biblical canon. It discusses the teachings and person of Jesus in Christianity, Jesus, as well as events relating to Christianity in the 1st century, first-century Christianit ...

are revisions to ''Vetus Latina'' texts, considered as being made by

Pelagian Pelagianism is a Christian theological position that holds that the fall did not taint human nature and that humans by divine grace have free will to achieve human perfection. Pelagius (), an ascetic and philosopher from the British Isles, ta ...

circles or by

Rufinus the Syrian Rufinus the Syrian or Rufinus of Syria (fl. c. 400) was a Christian theologian, priest and author, generally identified as a Pelagian.Rufinus of Aquileia.Canellis (2017), pp. 89–90, 217. Several unrevised (deuterocanonical or non-canonical) books from ''Vetus Latina'' Old Testaments also commonly became included in the Vulgate. These are: 1 and 2 Maccabees,

Wisdom Wisdom, also known as sapience, is the ability to apply knowledge, experience, and good judgment to navigate life’s complexities. It is often associated with insight, discernment, and ethics in decision-making. Throughout history, wisdom ha ...

Ecclesiasticus The Book of Sirach (), also known as The Wisdom of Jesus the Son of Sirach, The Wisdom of Jesus son of Eleazar, or Ecclesiasticus (), is a Jewish literary work originally written in Biblical Hebrew. The longest extant wisdom book from antiqui ...

, Baruch and the

Letter of Jeremiah The Letter of Jeremiah, also known as the Epistle of Jeremiah, is a deuterocanonical book of the Old Testament; this letter is attributed to Jeremiah and addressed to the Jews who were about to be carried away as captives to Babylon by Nebuchadnez ...

.Canellis (2017), ch. "Introduction: Revision...", p. 217. Having separately translated the book of

Psalms The Book of Psalms ( , ; ; ; ; , in Islam also called Zabur, ), also known as the Psalter, is the first book of the third section of the Tanakh (Hebrew Bible) called ('Writings'), and a book of the Old Testament. The book is an anthology of B ...

from the Greek ''

Hexapla ''Hexapla'' (), also called ''Origenis Hexaplorum'', is a Textual criticism, critical edition of the Hebrew Bible in six versions, four of them translated into Ancient Greek, Greek, preserved only in fragments. It was an immense and complex wor ...

Septuagint'', Jerome translated all of the books of the Jewish Bible—the Hebrew book of Psalms included—from Hebrew himself. He also translated the books of Tobit and

Judith The Book of Judith is a deuterocanonical book included in the Septuagint and the Catholic Church, Catholic and Eastern Orthodox Christianity, Christian Old Testament of the Bible but Development of the Hebrew Bible canon, excluded from the ...

from

Aramaic Aramaic (; ) is a Northwest Semitic language that originated in the ancient region of Syria and quickly spread to Mesopotamia, the southern Levant, Sinai, southeastern Anatolia, and Eastern Arabia, where it has been continually written a ...

versions, the additions to the Book of Esther from the ''Common Septuagint'' and the additions to the Book of Daniel from the Greek of

Theodotion Theodotion (; , ''gen''.: Θεοδοτίωνος; died c. 200) was a Hellenistic Jewish scholar, perhaps working in Ephesus, who in c. A.D. 150 translated the Hebrew Bible into Greek. History Whether he was revising the Septuagint, or was wor ...

.Canellis (2017), ch. "Introduction: From Jerome's...", pp. 213, 217.

Content

The Vulgate is "a composite collection which cannot be identified with only Jerome's work," because the Vulgate contains ''

'' texts which are independent from Jerome's work. A famous historical edition of the Vulgate, the

Alcuin Alcuin of York (; ; 735 – 19 May 804), also called Ealhwine, Alhwin, or Alchoin, was a scholar, clergyman, poet, and teacher from York, Northumbria. He was born around 735 and became the student of Ecgbert of York, Archbishop Ecgbert at Yor ...

ian ''

pandects The ''Digest'' (), also known as the Pandects (; , , "All-Containing"), was a compendium or digest of juristic writings on Roman law compiled by order of the Byzantine emperor Justinian I in 530–533 AD. It is divided into 50 books. The ''Dige ...

'' from the end of the 700s, contain: * New Testament ** ''Revision of Vetus Latina'' by Jerome: the

Gospels Gospel originally meant the Christian message (" the gospel"), but in the second century AD the term (, from which the English word originated as a calque) came to be used also for the books in which the message was reported. In this sen ...

, corrected with reference to the

Greek manuscripts Greek may refer to: Anything of, from, or related to Greece, a country in Southern Europe: *Greeks, an ethnic group *Greek language, a branch of the Indo-European language family **Proto-Greek language, the assumed last common ancestor of all kno ...

which Jerome considered the best available. ** ''Revision of Vetus Latina'' perhaps by

Rufinus the Syrian Rufinus the Syrian or Rufinus of Syria (fl. c. 400) was a Christian theologian, priest and author, generally identified as a Pelagian.Rufinus of Aquileia or by so-called

groups: Acts,

Pauline epistles The Pauline epistles, also known as Epistles of Paul or Letters of Paul, are the thirteen books of the New Testament attributed to Paul the Apostle, although the authorship of some is in dispute. Among these epistles are some of the earliest ext ...

Catholic epistles The catholic epistles (also called the general epistles) are seven epistles of the New Testament. Listed in order of their appearance in the New Testament, the catholic epistles are: Naming The use of the word ''catholic'' in the term catholic' ...

, and the

Apocalypse Apocalypse () is a literary genre originating in Judaism in the centuries following the Babylonian exile (597–587 BCE) but persisting in Christianity and Islam. In apocalypse, a supernatural being reveals cosmic mysteries or the future to a ...

. * Old Testament **''Translation from the Hebrew'' by Jerome: all the books from the Hebrew canon except the

Book of Psalms The Book of Psalms ( , ; ; ; ; , in Islam also called Zabur, ), also known as the Psalter, is the first book of the third section of the Tanakh (Hebrew Bible) called ('Writings'), and a book of the Old Testament. The book is an anthology of ...

. **''Translation from the Hexaplar Septuagint'' by Jerome: his Gallican version of the Book of Psalms. * Deuterocanonicals and non-canonicals ** ''Translation from

'' by Jerome: the book of Tobit and the book of

. ** ''Translation from the Greek of

'' by Jerome: the three additions to the

Book of Daniel The Book of Daniel is a 2nd-century BC biblical apocalypse with a 6th-century BC setting. It is ostensibly a narrative detailing the experiences and Prophecy, prophetic visions of Daniel, a Jewish Babylonian captivity, exile in Babylon ...

: the

Song of the Three Children A song is a musical composition performed by the human voice. The voice often carries the melody (a series of distinct and fixed pitches) using patterns of sound and silence. Songs have a structure, such as the common ABA form, and are usuall ...

, the

Story of Susanna Susanna ( ; ), also called Susanna and the Elders, is a narrative included in the Book of Daniel (as chapter 13) by the Catholic Church, Oriental Orthodox Churches and Eastern Orthodox Churches. It is one of the additions to Daniel, placed in ...

, and the Story of Bel and the Dragon. Jerome marked these additions with an

obelus An obelus (plural: obeluses or obeli) is a term in codicology and latterly in typography that refers to a historical annotation mark which has resolved to three modern meanings: * Division sign * Dagger * Commercial minus sign (limited g ...

before them to distinguish them from the rest of the text.Canellis (2017), pp. 132–133, 217. He says that because those parts "are spread throughout the whole world, ehave appended by banishing and placing them after the spit (or "obelus"), so we will not be seen among the unlearned to have cut off a large part of the scroll." ** ''Translation from the Common Septuagint'' by Jerome: the

Additions to Esther The Book of Esther (; ; ), also known in Hebrew as "the Scroll" ("the Megillah"), is a book in the third section (, "Writings") of the Hebrew Bible. It is one of the Five Scrolls () in the Hebrew Bible and later became part of the Christian ...

. Jerome gathered all these additions together at the end of the Book of Esther, marking them with an obelus.Canellis (2017), ch. "Introduction: Revision...", pp. 133–134. **''Vetus Latina, wholly unrevised:'' Epistle to the Laodiceans,

Sirach The Book of Sirach (), also known as The Wisdom of Jesus the Son of Sirach, The Wisdom of Jesus son of Eleazar, or Ecclesiasticus (), is a Jewish literary work originally written in Biblical Hebrew. The longest extant wisdom book from antiqui ...

, 1 and

2 Maccabees 2 Maccabees, also known as the Second Book of Maccabees, Second Maccabees, and abbreviated as 2 Macc., is a deuterocanonical book which recounts the persecution of Jews under King Antiochus IV Epiphanes and the Maccabean Revolt against him. It ...

. The 13th-century Paris Bibles remove the Epistle to the Laodiceans, but add: *** ''Vetus Latina, wholly unrevised'': Prayer of Manasses, 4 Ezra, the

Book of Baruch The Book of Baruch is a deuterocanonical book of the Bible, used in many Christian traditions, such as Catholic and Orthodox churches. In Judaism and Protestant Christianity, it is considered not to be part of the canon, with the Protestant B ...

and the

. The Book of Baruch and the

were first excluded by Jerome as non-canonical, but sporadically included in Vulgate Bibles from the 9th century onward. ** ''Independent translation, distinct from the Vetus Latina'' (probably of the 3rd century): 3 Ezra a.k.a. 1 Esdras. Jerome is connected to three different Latin versions of the Psalms, which were adopted in different Vulgate editions, regions or uses: * ''Versio Romana'' formerly attributed to Jerome (384): a revision of the earlier ''

vetus latina The ''Vetus Latina'' ("Old Latin" in Latin), also known as ''Vetus Itala'' ("Old Italian"), ''Itala'' ("Italian") and Old Italic, and denoted by the siglum \mathfrak, are the Latin Bible translations, translations of biblical texts (both Old T ...

''. It is still sung in Catholic Latin liturgies, in the

Roman Missal The Roman Missal () is the book which contains the texts and rubrics for the celebration of the Roman Rite, the most common liturgy and Mass of the Catholic Church. There have been several editions. History Before the Council of Trent (1570) ...

. * ''Versio Gallicana'' by Jerome (386-389): a translation of the Psalms from the Greek

became the most common version in Bibles. * ''Versio juxta Hebraicum'' by Jerome (c.390 to 398):Canellis (2017), ch. "Introduction: Revision...", p. 98. a translation of the Psalms from the Hebrew. This translation of the Psalms was kept in Spanish manuscripts of the Vulgate long after the Gallican psalter had supplanted it elsewhere.

Jerome's work of translation

Jerome did not embark on the work with the intention of creating a new version of the whole Bible, but the changing nature of his program can be tracked in his voluminous correspondence. He had been commissioned by Damasus I in 382 to revise the ''Vetus Latina'' text of the

four Gospels Gospel originally meant the Christian message ("the gospel"), but in the second century AD the term (, from which the English word originated as a calque) came to be used also for the books in which the message was reported. In this sense ...

from the best Greek texts. By the time of Damasus' death in 384, Jerome had completed this task, together with a more cursory revision from the Greek Common Septuagint of the ''Vetus Latina'' text of the Psalms in the Roman Psalter, a version which he later disowned and is now lost. How much of the rest of the New Testament he then revised is difficult to judge, but none of his work survived in the Vulgate text of these books. The revised text of the New Testament outside the Gospels is deemed the work of other scholars. Rufinus of Aquileia has been suggested, as has

Rufinus the Syrian Rufinus the Syrian or Rufinus of Syria (fl. c. 400) was a Christian theologian, priest and author, generally identified as a Pelagian.Pelagius Pelagius (; c. 354–418) was a British (Celtic Britons, Brittonic) theologian known for promoting a system of doctrines (termed Pelagianism by his opponents) which emphasized human choice in salvation and denied original sin. Pelagius was accus ...

) and Pelagius himself, though without specific evidence for any of them; Pelagian groups have also been suggested as the revisers. This unknown reviser worked more thoroughly than Jerome had done, consistently using older Greek manuscript sources of

Alexandrian text-type In textual criticism of the New Testament, the Alexandrian text-type is one of the main text types. It is the text type favored by the majority of modern textual critics and it is the basis for most modern (after 1900) Bible translations. Over 5,8 ...

. They had published a complete revised New Testament text by 410 at the latest, when Pelagius quoted from it in his commentary on the letters of

Paul Paul may refer to: People * Paul (given name), a given name, including a list of people * Paul (surname), a list of people * Paul the Apostle, an apostle who wrote many of the books of the New Testament * Ray Hildebrand, half of the singing duo ...

. In Jerome's Vulgate, the Hebrew Book of

Ezra–Nehemiah Ezra–Nehemiah (, ) is a book in the Hebrew Bible found in the Ketuvim section, originally with the Hebrew title of Ezra (, ), called Esdras B (Ἔσδρας Βʹ) in the Septuagint. The book covers the period from the fall of Babylon in 539&nbs ...

is translated as the single book of "Ezra". Jerome defends this in his Prologue to Ezra, although he had noted formerly in his Prologue to the Book of Kings that some Greeks and Latins had proposed that this book should be split in two. Jerome argues that the two books of Ezra found in the Septuagint and ''Vetus Latina'', Esdras A and Esdras B, represented "variant examples" of a single Hebrew original. Hence, he does not translate Esdras A separately even though up until then it had been universally found in Greek and Vetus Latina Old Testaments, preceding Esdras B, the combined text of Ezra–Nehemiah. The Vulgate is usually credited as being the first translation of the Old Testament into Latin directly from the Hebrew

Tanakh The Hebrew Bible or Tanakh (;"Tanach"
. ''

exegetical material written in Greek, as well as his use of the Aquiline and Theodotiontic columns of the Hexapla, along with the somewhat paraphrastic style in which he translated, makes it difficult to determine exactly how direct the conversion of Hebrew to Latin was.

Augustine of Hippo Augustine of Hippo ( , ; ; 13 November 354 – 28 August 430) was a theologian and philosopher of Berber origin and the bishop of Hippo Regius in Numidia, Roman North Africa. His writings deeply influenced the development of Western philosop ...

, a contemporary of Jerome, states in Book XVII ch. 43 of his ''

The City of God ''On the City of God Against the Pagans'' (), often called ''The City of God'', is a book of Christian philosophy written in Latin by Augustine of Hippo in the early 5th century AD. Augustine wrote the book to refute allegations that Christian ...

'' that "in our own day the priest Jerome, a great scholar and master of all three tongues, has made a translation into Latin, not from Greek but directly from the original Hebrew." Nevertheless, Augustine still maintained that the Septuagint, alongside the Hebrew, witnessed the inspired text of Scripture. He reminded Jerome of the need for the Latin church to be in sync with the Greek church, and practical difficulty in finding any Hebrew-reading Christian scholar who could check Jerome's translation from the Hebrew. He consequently pressed Jerome for complete copies of his Hexaplar Latin translation of the Old Testament, a request that Jerome ducked with the excuses that scribe were in short supply and the originals had been lost "through someone's dishonesty". He used a novel layout technique ''per cola et commata'' which put each major clause on new line.

Prologues

Prologues written by Jerome to some of his translations of parts of the Bible are to the

Pentateuch The Torah ( , "Instruction", "Teaching" or "Law") is the compilation of the first five books of the Hebrew Bible, namely the books of Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy. The Torah is also known as the Pentateuch () o ...

, to

Joshua Joshua ( ), also known as Yehoshua ( ''Yəhōšuaʿ'', Tiberian Hebrew, Tiberian: ''Yŏhōšuaʿ,'' Literal translation, lit. 'Yahweh is salvation'), Jehoshua, or Josue, functioned as Moses' assistant in the books of Book of Exodus, Exodus and ...

, and to Kings (1–2 Kings and 1–2 Samuel) which is also called the '' Galeatum principium''. Following these are prologues to Chronicles, Ezra, Tobit, Judith, Esther, Job, the Gallican Psalms, Song of Songs, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Daniel, the minor prophets, the gospels. The final prologue is to the

and is better known as ; this prologue is considered not to have been written by Jerome. Related to these are Jerome's ''Notes on the Rest of Esther'' and his ''Prologue to the Hebrew Psalms''. A theme of the

Old Testament The Old Testament (OT) is the first division of the Christian biblical canon, which is based primarily upon the 24 books of the Hebrew Bible, or Tanakh, a collection of ancient religious Hebrew and occasionally Aramaic writings by the Isr ...

prologues is Jerome's preference for the ''Hebraica veritas'' (i.e., Hebrew truth) over the Septuagint, a preference which he defended from his detractors. After Jerome had translated some parts of the Septuagint into Latin, he came to consider the text of the Septuagint as being faulty in itself, i.e. Jerome thought mistakes in the Septuagint text were not all mistakes made by copyists, but that some mistakes were part of the original text itself as it was produced by the Seventy translators. Jerome believed that the Hebrew text more clearly prefigured

Christ Jesus ( AD 30 or 33), also referred to as Jesus Christ, Jesus of Nazareth, and many other names and titles, was a 1st-century Jewish preacher and religious leader. He is the Jesus in Christianity, central figure of Christianity, the M ...

than the Greek of the Septuagint, since he believed some quotes of the Old Testament in the New Testament were not present in the Septuagint, but existed in the Hebrew version; Jerome gave some of those quotes in his prologue to the Pentateuch.Canellis (2017), ch. "Introduction: Revision...", pp. 99–109. In the ''Galeatum principium'' (a.k.a. ), Jerome described an Old Testament canon of 22 books, which he found represented in the 22-letter

Hebrew Hebrew (; ''ʿÎbrit'') is a Northwest Semitic languages, Northwest Semitic language within the Afroasiatic languages, Afroasiatic language family. A regional dialect of the Canaanite languages, it was natively spoken by the Israelites and ...

alphabet. Alternatively, he numbered the books as 24, which he identifies with the 24 elders in the Book of Revelation casting their crowns before the Lamb. In the prologue to Ezra, he sets the "twenty-four elders" of the Hebrew Bible against the "Seventy interpreters" of the Septuagint. In addition, many medieval Vulgate manuscripts included Jerome's epistle number 53, to Paulinus bishop of Nola, as a general prologue to the whole Bible. Notably, this letter was printed at the head of the

Gutenberg Bible The Gutenberg Bible, also known as the 42-line Bible, the Mazarin Bible or the B42, was the earliest major book printed in Europe using mass-produced metal movable type. It marked the start of the "Printing Revolution, Gutenberg Revolution" an ...

. Jerome's letter promotes the study of each of the books of the Old and New Testaments listed by name (and excluding any mention of the

deuterocanonical books The deuterocanonical books, meaning 'of, pertaining to, or constituting a second canon', collectively known as the Deuterocanon (DC), are certain books and passages considered to be canonical books of the Old Testament by the Catholic Chur ...

); and its dissemination had the effect of propagating the belief that the whole Vulgate text was Jerome's work. The prologue to the Pauline Epistles in the Vulgate defends the Pauline authorship of the

Epistle to the Hebrews The Epistle to the Hebrews () is one of the books of the New Testament. The text does not mention the name of its author, but was traditionally attributed to Paul the Apostle; most of the Ancient Greek manuscripts, the Old Syriac Peshitto and ...

, directly contrary to Jerome's own views—a key argument in demonstrating that Jerome did not write it. The author of the is unknown, but it is first quoted by Pelagius in his commentary on the Pauline letters written before 410. As this work also quotes from the Vulgate revision of these letters, it has been proposed that Pelagius or one of his associates may have been responsible for the revision of the Vulgate New Testament outside the Gospels. At any rate, it is reasonable to identify the author of the preface with the unknown reviser of the New Testament outside the gospels. Some manuscripts of the Pauline epistles contain short

Marcionite Marcionism was an early Christian dualistic belief system that originated with the teachings of Marcion of Sinope in Rome around 144 AD. Marcion was an early Christian theologian, evangelist, and an important figure in early Christianity. ...

prologues to each of the epistles indicating where they were written, with notes about where the recipients dwelt.

Adolf von Harnack Carl Gustav Adolf von Harnack (born Harnack; 7 May 1851 – 10 June 1930) was a Baltic German Lutheran theologian and prominent Church historian. He produced many religious publications from 1873 to 1912 (in which he is sometimes credited ...

, citing De Bruyne, argued that these notes were written by

Marcion of Sinope Marcion of Sinope (; ; ) was a theologian in early Christianity. Marcion preached that God had sent Jesus Christ, who was distinct from the "vengeful" God ( Demiurge) who had created the world. He considered himself a follower of Paul the Apost ...

or one of his followers. Many early Vulgate manuscripts contain a set of Priscillianist prologues to the gospels.

Relation with the ''Vetus Latina'' Bible

The Latin biblical texts in use before Jerome's Vulgate are usually referred to collectively as the ''Vetus Latina'', or "Vetus Latina Bible". "Vetus Latina" means that they are older than the Vulgate and written in

, not that they are written in

Old Latin Old Latin, also known as Early, Archaic or Priscan Latin (Classical ), was the Latin language in the period roughly before 75 BC, i.e. before the age of Classical Latin. A member of the Italic languages, it descends from a common Proto-Italic ...

. Jerome, in his preface to the Vulgate gospels, commented that there were "as many ranslationsas there are manuscripts"; subsequently noting the same in his preface to the Book of Joshua. The translations in the ''Vetus Latina'' had accumulated piecemeal over a century or more. They were not translated by a single person or institution, nor uniformly edited. The individual books varied in quality of translation and style, and different manuscripts and quotations witness wide variations in readings. Some books appear to have been translated several times. The Vulgate did not immediately supersede the ''Vetus Latina '' translations. Pandects from the Early Middle Ages sometimes had some books (e.g. deuterocanonicals, Acts, Revelation), or took phrases, or had glosses from the ''Vetus Latina'', but this declined through the High Middle Ages.

New Testament

Jerome's work on the Gospels was a revision of the ''Vetus Latina'' versions, and not an entirely new translation. The base text for Jerome's revision of the gospels was a Vetus Latina text similar to the Codex Veronensis, with the text of the Gospel of John conforming more to that in the Codex Corbiensis. The ''Vetus Latina'' gospels had been translated from Greek originals of the

Western text-type In textual criticism of the New Testament, the Western text-type is one of the main text types. It is the predominant form of the New Testament text witnessed in the Old Latin and Syriac translations from the Greek, and also in quotations from ...

. Comparison of Jerome's Gospel texts with those in Vetus Latina witnesses, suggests that his revision was concerned with substantially redacting their expanded "Western" phraseology in accordance with the Greek texts of better early

Byzantine The Byzantine Empire, also known as the Eastern Roman Empire, was the continuation of the Roman Empire centred on Constantinople during late antiquity and the Middle Ages. Having survived the events that caused the fall of the Western Roman E ...

and Alexandrian witnesses. For the Gospels "High priest" is rendered in Vulgate Matthew; as in Vulgate Mark; and as in Vulgate John. In places Jerome adopted readings that did not correspond to a straightforward rendering either of the Vetus Latina or the Greek text, so reflecting a particular doctrinal interpretation; as in his rewording ''panem nostrum'' '' supersubstantialem'' at Matthew 6:11. One major change Jerome introduced was to re-order the Latin Gospels. Most Vetus Latina gospel books followed the "Western" order of Matthew, John, Luke, Mark; Jerome adopted the "Greek" order of Matthew, Mark, Luke, John. His revisions became progressively less frequent and less consistent in the gospels presumably done later. The unknown reviser of the rest of the New Testament shows marked differences from Jerome, both in editorial practice and in their sources. Where Jerome sought to correct the Vetus Latina text with reference to the best recent Greek manuscripts, with a preference for those conforming to the Byzantine text-type, the Greek text underlying the revision of the rest of the New Testament demonstrates the Alexandrian text-type found in the great

uncial Uncial is a majuscule script (written entirely in capital letters) commonly used from the 4th to 8th centuries AD by Latin and Greek scribes. Uncial letters were used to write Greek and Latin, as well as Gothic, and are the current style for ...

codices The codex (: codices ) was the historical ancestor format of the modern book. Technically, the vast majority of modern books use the codex format of a stack of pages bound at one edge, along the side of the text. But the term ''codex'' is now r ...

of the mid-4th century, most similar to the

Codex Sinaiticus The Codex Sinaiticus (; Shelfmark: London, British Library, Add MS 43725), also called the Sinai Bible, is a fourth-century Christian manuscript of a Greek Bible, containing the majority of the Greek Old Testament, including the deuterocanonica ...

. The reviser's changes generally conform very closely to this Greek text, even in matters of word order—to the extent that the resulting text may be only barely intelligible as Latin.

Old Testament

Jerome himself uses the term "Latin Vulgate" for the ''Vetus Latina'' text, so intending to denote this version as the common Latin rendering of the

Greek Vulgate ''Vulgata editio'' simply meaning a "common text" of the Bible; the following works have been called the Greek Vulgate over the years, particularly in older scholarship before the 20th century: * It was the name that Frederick Nolan used for the T ...

or Common Septuagint (which Jerome otherwise terms the "Seventy interpreters"). This remained the usual use of the term "Latin Vulgate" in the West for centuries. On occasion Jerome applies the term "Septuagint" (''Septuaginta'') to refer to the Hexaplar Septuagint, where he wishes to distinguish this from the ''Vulgata'' or Common Septuagint. According to Old Testament scholar Amanda Benckhuysen: "Jerome omits from the Vulgate the phrase “who was with her” in Genesis 3:6, making Eve doubly culpable for the fall and responsible for Adam’s sin. By implying Adam’s absence during the serpent’s conversation with Eve, the Vulgate portrays Eve as the seduced who becomes the seducer, beguiling a naive Adam to eat the forbidden fruit."

Psalter

The Book of

, in particular, had circulated for over a century in an earlier Latin version (the Cyprianic Version), before it was superseded by the Vetus Latina version in the 4th century. After the Gospels, the most widely used and copied part of the Christian Bible is the Book of Psalms. Consequently, Damasus also commissioned Jerome to revise the psalter in use in Rome, to agree better with the Greek of the Common Septuagint. Jerome said he had done this cursorily when in Rome, but he later disowned this version, maintaining that copyists had reintroduced erroneous readings. Until the 20th century, it was commonly assumed that the surviving Roman Psalter represented Jerome's first attempted revision, but more recent scholarship—following de Bruyne—rejects this identification. The Roman Psalter is indeed one of at least five revised versions of the mid-4th century Vetus Latina Psalter, but compared to the other four, the revisions in the Roman Psalter are in clumsy Latin, and fail to follow Jerome's known translational principles, especially in respect of correcting harmonised readings. Nevertheless, it is clear from Jerome's correspondence (especially in his defence of the Gallican Psalter in the long and detailed Epistle 106) that he was familiar with the Roman Psalter text, and consequently it is assumed that this revision represents the Roman text as Jerome had found it.

Deuterocanonials

, 1 and 2 Maccabees and Baruch (with the Letter of Jeremiah) are included in the Vulgate, and are purely ''Vetus Latina'' translations which Jerome did not touch. In the 9th century the ''Vetus Latina'' texts of Baruch and the Letter of Jeremiah were introduced into the Vulgate in versions revised by Theodulf of Orleans and are found in a minority of early medieval Vulgate '' pandect'' bibles from that date onward. After 1300, when the booksellers of Paris began to produce commercial single volume Vulgate bibles in large numbers, these commonly included both Baruch and the Letter of Jeremiah as the ''Book of Baruch''. Also beginning in the 9th century, Vulgate manuscripts are found that split Jerome's combined translation from the Hebrew of

Ezra Ezra ( fl. fifth or fourth century BCE) is the main character of the Book of Ezra. According to the Hebrew Bible, he was an important Jewish scribe (''sofer'') and priest (''kohen'') in the early Second Temple period. In the Greek Septuagint, t ...

and the

Nehemiah Nehemiah (; ''Nəḥemyā'', "Yahweh, Yah comforts") is the central figure of the Book of Nehemiah, which describes his work in rebuilding Jerusalem during the Second Temple period as the governor of Yehud Medinata, Persian Judea under Artaxer ...

into separate books called 1 Ezra and 2 Ezra. Bogaert argues that this practice arose from an intention to conform the Vulgate text to the authoritative canon lists of the 5th/6th century, where 'two books of Ezra' were commonly cited. Subsequently, many late medieval Vulgate bible manuscripts introduced a Latin version, originating from before Jerome and distinct from that in the ''Vetus Latina'', of the Greek Esdras A, now commonly termed 3 Ezra; and also a Latin version of an Ezra Apocalypse, commonly termed 4 Ezra.

Council of Trent and position of the Catholic Church

In the early 1500s numerous new Catholic and Protestant biblical translations or revisions in Latin appeared, and theological disputes had arisen over the canonical status of books which e.g. supported doctrines that Luther disagreed with. The

(1545–1563) both finalized the

biblical canon A biblical canon is a set of texts (also called "books") which a particular Jewish or Christian religious community regards as part of the Bible. The English word ''canon'' comes from the Ancient Greek, Greek , meaning 'ruler, rule' or 'measu ...

, and re-endorsed the Vulgate among Latin versions for public reading: it was to "be held as authentic".Canons and Decrees of the Council of Trent, The Fourth Session
1546 (In liturgical use, this was not the case: the

uses Psalms and Pater Noster taken from the ''vetus latina'' Latin versions.) The Council of Trent cited long usage in support of the Vulgate's magisterial authority:

Moreover, this sacred and holy Synod,—considering that no small utility may accrue to the Church of God, if it be made known which out of all the Latin editions, now in circulation, of the sacred books, is to be held as authentic,—ordains and declares, that the said old and vulgate edition, which, by the lengthened usage of so many years, has been approved of in the Church, be, in public lectures, disputations, sermons and expositions, held as authentic; and that no one is to dare, or presume to reject it under any pretext whatever.

The qualifier "Latin editions, now in circulation" and the use of "authentic" (not "inerrant") show the limits of this statement. When the council listed the books included in the canon, it qualified the books as being "entire with all their parts, as they have been used to be read in the

, and as they are contained in the Vetus Latina vulgate edition". The fourth session of the Council specified 72 canonical books in the Bible: 45 in the Old Testament, 27 in the New Testament with Lamentations not being counted as separate from Jeremiah. On 2 June 1927,

Pope Pius XI Pope Pius XI (; born Ambrogio Damiano Achille Ratti, ; 31 May 1857 – 10 February 1939) was head of the Catholic Church from 6 February 1922 until his death in February 1939. He was also the first sovereign of the Vatican City State u ...

clarified this decree, allowing that the

Comma Johanneum The Johannine Comma () is an interpolated phrase (comma) in verses of the First Epistle of John. The text (with the comma in italics and enclosed by brackets) in the King James Version of the Bible reads: In the Greek Textus Receptus (TR), th ...

was open to dispute. Later, in the 20th century, Pope Pius XII declared the Vulgate as "free from error whatsoever in matters of faith and morals" in his

encyclical An encyclical was originally a circular letter sent to all the churches of a particular area in the ancient Roman Church. At that time, the word could be used for a letter sent out by any bishop. The word comes from the Late Latin (originally fr ...

Divino Afflante Spiritu ( English: " ythe divine inspiration of the Spirit" ) is a papal encyclical letter issued by Pope Pius XII on 30 September 1943 calling for new translations of the Bible into vernacular languages, using the original languages as a source in ...

'': The inerrancy is with respect to faith and morals, as it says in the above quote: "free from any error whatsoever in matters of faith and morals", and the inerrancy is not in a

philological Philology () is the study of language in oral and written historical sources. It is the intersection of textual criticism, literary criticism, history, and linguistics with strong ties to etymology. Philology is also defined as the study of ...

sense: The Catholic Church has produced three official editions of the Vulgate: the Sixtine Vulgate, the

, and the '' Nova Vulgata'' (see below).

Variants

As with the ''vetus latina'' and the Greek

text types Text types in literature form the basic styles of writing. Factual texts merely seek to inform, whereas literary texts seek to entertain or otherwise engage the reader by using creative language and imagery. There are many aspects to literary wr ...

, manuscript versions of the Vulgate texts exhibit a considerable number of minor variations by scribes. Regular attempts were made over the centuries to conserve Jerome's text or to purify the text of obvious errors or substitutions from ''vetus latina'' phrases: attempts such as by

Cassiodorus Magnus Aurelius Cassiodorus Senator (c. 485 – c. 585), commonly known as Cassiodorus (), was a Christian Roman statesman, a renowned scholar and writer who served in the administration of Theodoric the Great, king of the Ostrogoths. ''Senato ...

in the 6th century,

in the 8th, Stephen Harding in the 12th,

Erasmus Desiderius Erasmus Roterodamus ( ; ; 28 October c. 1466 – 12 July 1536), commonly known in English as Erasmus of Rotterdam or simply Erasmus, was a Dutch Christian humanist, Catholic priest and Catholic theology, theologian, educationalist ...

in the 16th, to the modern Stuttgart Vulgate. Scholars have identified families of variants, allowing tracing of influence or provenance of texts: for example, the Latin text of the Rushworth gospels belongs to the Insular or Irish family with characteristic inversions of word order.'

Influence on Western Christianity

Gutenberg_bible_Old_Testament_Epistle_of_St_Jerome

For over a thousand years (c. AD 400–1530), the Vulgate was the most commonly used edition of the most influential text in Western European society. Indeed, for most

Western Christians Western Christianity is one of two subdivisions of Christianity (Eastern Christianity being the other). Western Christianity is composed of the Latin Church and Western Protestantism, together with their offshoots such as the Old Catholic Ch ...

, especially

Catholics The Catholic Church (), also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the largest Christian church, with 1.27 to 1.41 billion baptized Catholics worldwide as of 2025. It is among the world's oldest and largest international institut ...

, it was the only version of the Bible as a publication ever encountered, only truly being eclipsed in the mid-20th century. In about 1455, the first Vulgate published by the

moveable type Movable type (US English; moveable type in British English) is the system and technology of printing and typography that uses movable components to reproduce the elements of a document (usually individual alphanumeric characters or punctuation ...

process was produced in

Mainz Mainz (; #Names and etymology, see below) is the capital and largest city of the German state of Rhineland-Palatinate, and with around 223,000 inhabitants, it is List of cities in Germany by population, Germany's 35th-largest city. It lies in ...

by a partnership between

Johannes Gutenberg Johannes Gensfleisch zur Laden zum Gutenberg ( – 3 February 1468) was a German inventor and Artisan, craftsman who invented the movable type, movable-type printing press. Though movable type was already in use in East Asia, Gutenberg's inven ...

and banker John Fust (or Faust). At the time, a manuscript of the Vulgate was selling for approximately 500 guilders. Gutenberg's works appear to have been a commercial failure, and Fust sued for recovery of his 2026 guilder investment and was awarded complete possession of the Gutenberg plant. Arguably, the

Reformation The Reformation, also known as the Protestant Reformation or the European Reformation, was a time of major Theology, theological movement in Western Christianity in 16th-century Europe that posed a religious and political challenge to the p ...

could not have been possible without the diaspora of biblical knowledge that was permitted by the development of moveable type. Aside from its use in prayer, liturgy, and private study, the Vulgate served as inspiration for ecclesiastical art and architecture,

hymn A hymn is a type of song, and partially synonymous with devotional song, specifically written for the purpose of adoration or prayer, and typically addressed to a deity or deities, or to a prominent figure or personification. The word ''hymn'' d ...

s, countless paintings, and popular mystery plays.

Reformation

The fifth volume of Walton's London Polyglot of 1657 included several versions of the New Testament: in Greek, Latin (a Vulgate version and the version by Arius Montanus), Syriac, Ethiopic, and Arabic. It also included a version of the Gospels in Persian. The Vulgate Latin is used regularly in

Thomas Hobbes Thomas Hobbes ( ; 5 April 1588 – 4 December 1679) was an English philosopher, best known for his 1651 book ''Leviathan (Hobbes book), Leviathan'', in which he expounds an influential formulation of social contract theory. He is considered t ...

' ''

Leviathan Leviathan ( ; ; ) is a sea serpent demon noted in theology and mythology. It is referenced in several books of the Hebrew Bible, including Psalms, the Book of Job, the Book of Isaiah, and the pseudepigraphical Book of Enoch. Leviathan is of ...

'' of 1651; in the ''Leviathan'' Hobbes "has a worrying tendency to treat the Vulgate as if it were the original".

Translations

Before the publication of Pius XII's ''Divino afflante Spiritu'', the Vulgate was the source text used for many translations of the Bible into vernacular languages. In English, the interlinear translation of the

Lindisfarne Gospels The Lindisfarne Gospels (London, British Library Cotton MS Nero D.IV) is an illuminated manuscript gospel book probably produced around the years 715–720 in the monastery at Lindisfarne, off the coast of Northumberland, which is now in the Bri ...

as well as other Old English Bible translations, the

translation Translation is the communication of the semantics, meaning of a #Source and target languages, source-language text by means of an Dynamic and formal equivalence, equivalent #Source and target languages, target-language text. The English la ...

John Wycliffe John Wycliffe (; also spelled Wyclif, Wickliffe, and other variants; 1328 – 31 December 1384) was an English scholastic philosopher, Christianity, Christian reformer, Catholic priest, and a theology professor at the University of Oxfor ...

, the

Douay–Rheims Bible The Douay–Rheims Bible (, ), also known as the Douay–Rheims Version, Rheims–Douai Bible or Douai Bible, and abbreviated as D–R, DRB, and DRV, is a translation of the Bible from the Latin Vulgate into English made by member ...

, the Confraternity Bible, and

Ronald Knox Ronald Arbuthnott Knox (17 February 1888 – 24 August 1957) was an English Catholic priest, theologian Theology is the study of religious belief from a religious perspective, with a focus on the nature of divinity. It is taught as an ...

were all made from the Vulgate.

Influence upon the English language

The Vulgate had significant cultural influence on literature for centuries, and thus the development of the English language, especially in matters of religion. Many Latin words were taken from the Vulgate into English nearly unchanged in meaning or spelling: '' creatio'' (e.g.

Genesis Genesis may refer to: Religion * Book of Genesis, the first book of the biblical scriptures of both Judaism and Christianity, describing the creation of the Earth and of humankind * Genesis creation narrative, the first several chapters of the Bo ...

1:1, Heb 9:11), '' salvatio'' (e.g. Is 37:32, Eph 2:5), '' justificatio'' (e.g. Rom 4:25, Heb 9:1), '' testamentum'' (e.g. Mt 26:28), '' sanctificatio'' (1 Ptr 1:2, 1 Cor 1:30), '' regeneratio'' (Mt 19:28), and '' raptura'' (from a noun form of the verb ''rapere'' in 1 Thes 4:17). The word "

publican The (Latin ; Greek τελώνης ''telōnēs'') were public contractors in the Roman Republic and Empire. In their official capacity, they often supplied the Roman legions and military, managed the collection of port duties, and oversaw pub ...

" comes from the Latin ''publicanus'' (e.g., Mt 10:3), and the phrase " far be it" is a translation of the Latin expression ''absit.'' (e.g., Mt 16:22 in the

King James Bible The King James Version (KJV), also the King James Bible (KJB) and the Authorized Version (AV), is an Early Modern English translation of the Christian Bible for the Church of England, which was commissioned in 1604 and published in 1611, by ...

). Other examples include '' apostolus'', '' ecclesia'', '' evangelium'', '' Pascha'', and ''

angelus FIle:Jean-François Millet (II) 001.jpg, ''The Angelus (painting), The Angelus'' (1857–1859) by Jean-François Millet The Angelus (; Latin for "angel") is a Catholic devotion commemorating the Incarnation (Christianity), Incarnation of Jesus ...

''.

Critical value

In translating the 38 books of the Hebrew Bible (

being counted as one book), Jerome was relatively free in rendering their text into Latin. Paleograher Frederic Kenyon notes that "the translation is of unequal merit; some parts are free to the verge of paraphrase, others are so literal as to be unintelligible." Jerome's translation has been regarded by scholars as very useful for reconstructing the state of the Hebrew text as it existed at his time, that being quite close to the

Masoretic The Masoretic Text (MT or 𝕸; ) is the authoritative Hebrew and Aramaic text of the 24 books of the Hebrew Bible (''Tanakh'') in Rabbinic Judaism. The Masoretic Text defines the Jewish canon and its precise letter-text, with its vocaliz ...

consonantal Hebrew text version compiled nearly 600 years after Jerome.

Manuscripts and editions

The Vulgate exists in many forms. The '' Codex Amiatinus'' is the oldest surviving complete manuscript from the 8th century. The

is a notable printed edition of the Vulgate by Johann Gutenberg in 1455. The Sixtine Vulgate (1590) is the first official Bible of the Catholic Church. The

(1592) is a standardized edition of the medieval Vulgate, and the second official Bible of the Catholic Church. The Stuttgart Vulgate is a 1969 critical edition of the Vulgate. The '' Nova Vulgata'' is the third and latest official Bible of the Catholic Church; it was published in 1979, and is a translation from modern critical editions of original language texts of the Bible.

Manuscripts and early editions

A number of manuscripts containing or reflecting the Vulgate survive today. Dating from the 8th century, the Codex Amiatinus is the earliest surviving

manuscript A manuscript (abbreviated MS for singular and MSS for plural) was, traditionally, any document written by hand or typewritten, as opposed to mechanically printed or reproduced in some indirect or automated way. More recently, the term has ...

of the complete Vulgate Bible. The

Codex Fuldensis The Codex Fuldensis, also known as the Victor Codex (, ''Codex Bonifatianus I''), designated by F, is a New Testament manuscript based on the Latin Vulgate made between 541 and 546. The codex is considered the second most important witness to the ...

, dating from around 545, contains most of the New Testament in the Vulgate version, but the four

gospel Gospel originally meant the Christianity, Christian message ("the gospel"), but in the second century Anno domino, AD the term (, from which the English word originated as a calque) came to be used also for the books in which the message w ...

s are harmonised into a continuous narrative derived from the ''

Diatessaron The ''Diatessaron'' (; c. 160–175 AD) is the most prominent early gospel harmony. It was created in the Syriac language by Tatian, an Assyrian early Christian apologist and ascetic. Tatian sought to combine all the textual material he fou ...

''.

Carolingian period

"The two best-known revisions of the Latin Scriptures in the early medieval period were made in the Carolingian period by

Alcuin of York Alcuin of York (; ; 735 – 19 May 804), also called Ealhwine, Alhwin, or Alchoin, was a scholar, clergyman, poet, and teacher from York, Northumbria. He was born around 735 and became the student of Archbishop Ecgbert at York. At the invita ...

(–840) and Theodulf of Orleans (750/760–821)." Alcuin of York oversaw efforts to make a Latin Bible, an exemplar of which was presented to

Charlemagne Charlemagne ( ; 2 April 748 – 28 January 814) was List of Frankish kings, King of the Franks from 768, List of kings of the Lombards, King of the Lombards from 774, and Holy Roman Emperor, Emperor of what is now known as the Carolingian ...

in 801. Alcuin's edition contained the Vulgate version. It appears Alcuin concentrated only on correcting errors of grammar,

orthography An orthography is a set of convention (norm), conventions for writing a language, including norms of spelling, punctuation, Word#Word boundaries, word boundaries, capitalization, hyphenation, and Emphasis (typography), emphasis. Most national ...

and punctuation. "Even though Alcuin's revision of the Latin Bible was neither the first nor the last of the Carolingian period, it managed to prevail over the other versions and to become the most influential edition for centuries to come." The success of this Bible has been attributed to the fact that this Bible may have been "prescribed as the official version at the emperor's request." However, Bonifatius Fischer believes its success was rather due to the productivity of the scribes of

Tours Tours ( ; ) is the largest city in the region of Centre-Val de Loire, France. It is the Prefectures in France, prefecture of the Departments of France, department of Indre-et-Loire. The Communes of France, commune of Tours had 136,463 inhabita ...

where Alcuin was abbot, at the monastery of Saint Martin; Fischer believes the emperor only favored the editorial work of Alcuin by encouraging work on the Bible in general. "Although, in contrast to Alcuin, Theodulf f Orleansclearly developed an editorial programme, his work on the Bible was far less influential than that of hs slightly older contemporary. Nevertheless, several manuscripts containing his version have come down to us." Theodulf added to his edition of the Bible the Book of Baruch, which Alcuin's edition did not contain; it is this version of the Book of Baruch which later became part of the Vulgate. In his editorial activity, on at least one manuscript of the Theodulf Bible (S Paris, BNF lat. 9398), Theodulf marked variant readings along with their sources in the margin of the manuscripts. Those marginal notes of variant readings along with their sources "seem to foreshadow the thirteenth-century '' correctoria''." In the 9th century the ''Vetus Latina'' texts of Baruch and the Letter of Jeremiah were introduced into the Vulgate in versions revised by Theodulf of Orleans and are found in a minority of early medieval Vulgate '' pandect'' bibles from that date onward.

, Isidore of Sevilla, and Stephen Harding also worked on editions of the Latin Bible. Isidore's edition as well as the edition of Cassiodorus "ha enot come down to us." By the 9th century, due to the success of Alcuin's edition, the Vulgate had replaced the ''Vetus Latina'' as the most available edition of the Latin Bible.

Late Middle Ages

The

University of Paris The University of Paris (), known Metonymy, metonymically as the Sorbonne (), was the leading university in Paris, France, from 1150 to 1970, except for 1793–1806 during the French Revolution. Emerging around 1150 as a corporation associated wit ...

, the

Dominicans Dominicans () also known as Quisqueyans () are an ethnic group, ethno-nationality, national people, a people of shared ancestry and culture, who have ancestral roots in the Dominican Republic. The Dominican ethnic group was born out of a fusio ...

, and the

Franciscans The Franciscans are a group of related organizations in the Catholic Church, founded or inspired by the Italian saint Francis of Assisi. They include three independent religious orders for men (the Order of Friars Minor being the largest conte ...

assembled lists of ''correctoria''—approved readings—where variants had been noted.

Printed editions

Renaissance

Though the advent of printing greatly reduced the potential of human error and increased the consistency and uniformity of the text, the earliest editions of the Vulgate merely reproduced the manuscripts that were readily available to publishers. Of the hundreds of early editions, the most notable today is the Mazarin edition published by Johann Gutenberg and Johann Fust in 1455, famous for its beauty and antiquity. In 1504, the first Vulgate with variant readings was published in Paris. One of the texts of the Complutensian Polyglot was an edition of the Vulgate made from ancient manuscripts and corrected to agree with the Greek.

published an edition corrected to agree better with the Greek and Hebrew in 1516. Other corrected editions were published by Xanthus Pagninus in 1518, Cardinal Cajetan, Augustinus Steuchius in 1529, Abbot Isidorus Clarius (

Venice Venice ( ; ; , formerly ) is a city in northeastern Italy and the capital of the Veneto Regions of Italy, region. It is built on a group of 118 islands that are separated by expanses of open water and by canals; portions of the city are li ...

, 1542) and others. In 1528, Robertus Stephanus published the first of a series of critical editions, which formed the basis of the later Sistine and Clementine editions. John Henten's critical edition of the Bible followed in 1547. In 1550, Stephanus fled to

Geneva Geneva ( , ; ) ; ; . is the List of cities in Switzerland, second-most populous city in Switzerland and the most populous in French-speaking Romandy. Situated in the southwest of the country, where the Rhône exits Lake Geneva, it is the ca ...

, where he issued his final critical edition of the Vulgate in 1555. This was the first complete Bible with full chapter and verse divisions and became the standard biblical reference text for late-16th century

Reformed Reform is beneficial change. Reform, reformed or reforming may also refer to: Media * ''Reform'' (album), a 2011 album by Jane Zhang * Reform (band), a Swedish jazz fusion group * ''Reform'' (magazine), a Christian magazine Places * Reform, Al ...

theology.

Sixtine and Clementine Vulgates

After the

, when the Catholic Church strove to counter Protestantism and refute its doctrines, the Vulgate was declared at the Council of Trent to "be, in public lectures, disputations, sermons and expositions, held as authentic; and that no one is to dare, or presume to reject it under any pretext whatever." Furthermore, the council expressed the wish that the Vulgate be printed ''quam emendatissime'' ("with fewest possible faults"). In 1590, the Sixtine Vulgate was issued, under Sixtus V, as being the official Bible recommended by the Council of Trent. On 27 August 1590, Sixtus V died. After his death, "many claimed that the text of the Sixtine Vulgate was too error-ridden for general use." On 5 September of the same year, the

College of Cardinals The College of Cardinals (), also called the Sacred College of Cardinals, is the body of all cardinals of the Catholic Church. there are cardinals, of whom are eligible to vote in a conclave to elect a new pope. Appointed by the pope, ...

stopped all further sales of the Sixtine Vulgate and bought and destroyed as many copies as possible by burning them. The reason invoked for this action was printing inaccuracies in Sixtus V's edition of the Vulgate. However,

Bruce Metzger Bruce Manning Metzger (February 9, 1914 – February 13, 2007) was an American biblical scholar, Bible translator and textual critic who was a longtime professor at Princeton Theological Seminary and Bible editor who served on the board of th ...

, an American biblical scholar, believes that the printing inaccuracies may have been a pretext and that the attack against this edition had been instigated by the

Jesuits The Society of Jesus (; abbreviation: S.J. or SJ), also known as the Jesuit Order or the Jesuits ( ; ), is a religious order (Catholic), religious order of clerics regular of pontifical right for men in the Catholic Church headquartered in Rom ...

, "whom Sixtus had offended by putting one of Bellarmine's books on the 'Index' ". In the same year he became pope (1592), Clement VIII recalled all copies of the Sixtine Vulgate. The reason invoked for recalling Sixtus V's edition was printing errors, however the Sixtine Vulgate was mostly free of them. The Sistine edition was replaced by Clement VIII (1592–1605). This new edition was published in 1592 and is called today the

or Sixto-Clementine Vulgate. "The misprints of this edition were partly eliminated in a second (1593) and a third (1598) edition." The Clementine Vulgate is the edition most familiar to Catholics who have lived prior to the liturgical reforms following

Vatican II The Second Ecumenical Council of the Vatican, commonly known as the or , was the 21st and most recent Catholic ecumenical councils, ecumenical council of the Catholic Church. The council met each autumn from 1962 to 1965 in St. Peter's Basilic ...

. Roger Gryson, in the preface to the 4th edition of the Stuttgart Vulgate (1994), asserts that the Clementine edition "frequently deviates from the manuscript tradition for literary or doctrinal reasons, and offers only a faint reflection of the original Vulgate, as read in the '' pandecta'' of the first millennium." However, historical scholar Cardinal Francis Aidan Gasquet, in the

Catholic Encyclopedia ''The'' ''Catholic Encyclopedia: An International Work of Reference on the Constitution, Doctrine, Discipline, and History of the Catholic Church'', also referred to as the ''Old Catholic Encyclopedia'' and the ''Original Catholic Encyclopedi ...

, states that the Clementine Vulgate substantially represents the Vulgate which Jerome produced in the 4th century, although "it stands in need of close examination and much correction to make it ompletelyagree with the translation of St. Jerome".

Modern critical editions

Most other later editions were limited to the New Testament and did not present a full critical apparatus, most notably Karl Lachmann's editions of 1842 and 1850 based primarily on the Codex Amiatinus and the Codex Fuldensis, Fleck's edition of 1840, and

Constantin von Tischendorf Constantin is an Aromanian language, Aromanian, Megleno-Romanian language, Megleno-Romanian and Romanian language, Romanian male given name. It can also be a surname. For a list of notable people called Constantin, see Constantine (name). See ...

's edition of 1864. In 1906 Eberhard Nestle published ''Novum Testamentum Latine'', which presented the Clementine Vulgate text with a critical apparatus comparing it to the editions of Sixtus V (1590), Lachman (1842), Tischendorf (1854), and Wordsworth and White (1889), as well as the Codex Amiatinus and the Codex Fuldensis. To make a text available representative of the earliest copies of the Vulgate and summarise the most common variants between the various manuscripts,

Anglican Anglicanism, also known as Episcopalianism in some countries, is a Western Christianity, Western Christian tradition which developed from the practices, liturgy, and identity of the Church of England following the English Reformation, in the ...

scholars at the

University of Oxford The University of Oxford is a collegiate university, collegiate research university in Oxford, England. There is evidence of teaching as early as 1096, making it the oldest university in the English-speaking world and the List of oldest un ...

began to edit the New Testament in 1878 (completed in 1954), while the

Benedictines The Benedictines, officially the Order of Saint Benedict (, abbreviated as O.S.B. or OSB), are a mainly Christian mysticism, contemplative Christian monasticism, monastic Religious order (Catholic), order of the Catholic Church for men and f ...

of Rome began an edition of the Old Testament in 1907 (completed in 1995). The Oxford Anglican scholars's findings were condensed into an edition of both the Old and New Testaments, first published at Stuttgart in 1969, created with the participation of members from both projects. These books are the standard editions of the Vulgate used by scholars.

Oxford New Testament

As a result of the inaccuracy of existing editions of the Vulgate, in 1878, the delegates of the

Oxford University Press Oxford University Press (OUP) is the publishing house of the University of Oxford. It is the largest university press in the world. Its first book was printed in Oxford in 1478, with the Press officially granted the legal right to print books ...

accepted a proposal from classicist John Wordsworth to produce a critical edition of the New Testament. This was eventually published as ''Nouum Testamentum Domini nostri Iesu Christi Latine, secundum editionem sancti Hieronymi'' in three volumes between 1889 and 1954. The edition, commonly known as the

Oxford Vulgate The Oxford Vulgate (full title: ''Nouum Testamentum Domini nostri Jesu Christi latine, secundum editionem Sancti Hieronymi'', Translation, tr.: ''Latin New Testament of our Lord Jesus Christ, according to the edition of Saint Jerome'') is a criti ...

, relies primarily on the texts of the Codex Amiatinus, Codex Fuldensis (Codex Harleianus in the Gospels), Codex Sangermanensis, Codex Mediolanensis (in the Gospels), and Codex Reginensis (in Paul). It also consistently cites readings in the so-called DELQR group of manuscripts, named after the ''

sigla Scribal abbreviations, or sigla (grammatical number, singular: siglum), are abbreviations used by ancient and medieval scribes writing in various languages, including Latin, Greek language, Greek, Old English and Old Norse. In modern Textua ...

'' it uses for them:

Book of Armagh The ''Book of Armagh'' or Codex Ardmachanus (ar or 61) (), also known as the ''Canon of Patrick'' and the ''Liber Ar(d)machanus'', is a 9th-century Irish art, Irish illuminated manuscript written mainly in Latin. It is held by the Library of Tri ...

(D), Egerton Gospels (E), Lichfield Gospels (L),

Book of Kells The Book of Kells (; ; Dublin, Trinity College Library, MS A. I. 8 sometimes known as the Book of Columba) is an illustrated manuscript and Celts, Celtic Gospel book in Latin, containing the Gospel, four Gospels of the New Testament togeth ...

(Q), and Rushworth Gospels (R).

Benedictine (Rome) Old Testament

In 1907, Pope Pius X commissioned the

Benedictine The Benedictines, officially the Order of Saint Benedict (, abbreviated as O.S.B. or OSB), are a mainly contemplative monastic order of the Catholic Church for men and for women who follow the Rule of Saint Benedict. Initiated in 529, th ...

monks to prepare a critical edition of Jerome's Vulgate, entitled ''Biblia Sacra iuxta latinam vulgatam versionem''. This text was originally planned as the basis for a revised complete official Bible for the Catholic Church to replace the Clementine edition. The first volume, the Pentateuch, was completed in 1926. For the Pentateuch, the primary sources for the text are the Codex Amiatinus, the Codex Turonensis (the Ashburnham Pentateuch), and the Ottobonianus Octateuch. For the rest of the Old Testament (except the

) the primary sources for the text are the Codex Amiatinus and Codex Cavensis. Following the Codex Amiatinus and the Vulgate texts of Alcuin and Theodulf, the Benedictine Vulgate reunited the Book of Ezra and the Book of Nehemiah into a single book, reversing the decisions of the Sixto-Clementine Vulgate. In 1933, Pope Pius XI established the Pontifical Abbey of St Jerome-in-the-City to complete the work. By the 1970s, as a result of liturgical changes that had spurred the Vatican to produce a new translation of the Latin Bible, the '' Nova Vulgata'', the Benedictine edition was no longer required for official purposes, and the abbey was suppressed in 1984. Five monks were nonetheless allowed to complete the final two volumes of the Old Testament, which were published under the abbey's name in 1987 and 1995.

Stuttgart Vulgate

Concordance of Stuttgart Latin Vulgate Bible

Based on the editions of Oxford and Rome, but with an independent examination of the manuscript evidence and extending their lists of primary witnesses for some books, the Württembergische Bibelanstalt, later the

Deutsche Bibelgesellschaft The Deutsche Bibelgesellschaft ("German Bible Society") is a religious foundation regulated by public law. It is involved in publishing and in spreading the message of the Bible. The Society publishes the Bible in the original languages and in ...

(German Bible Society), based in Stuttgart, first published a critical edition of the complete Vulgate in 1969. The work has continued to be updated, with a fifth edition appearing in 2007. The project was originally directed by Robert Weber, OSB (a monk of the same Benedictine abbey responsible for the Benedictine edition), with collaborators Bonifatius Fischer, Jean Gribomont, Hedley Frederick Davis Sparks (also responsible for the completion of the Oxford edition), and Walter Thiele. Roger Gryson has been responsible for the most recent editions. It is thus marketed by its publisher as the "Weber-Gryson" edition, but is also frequently referred to as the Stuttgart edition. The Weber-Gryson includes of Jerome's prologues and the

Eusebian Canons Eusebian canons, Eusebian sections or Eusebian apparatus, also known as Ammonian sections, are the system of dividing the four Gospels used between late antiquity and the Middle Ages. The divisions into Chapters and verses of the Bible, chapters ...

. It contains two Psalters, the '' Gallicanum'' and the '' juxta Hebraicum'', which are printed on facing pages to allow easy comparison and contrast between the two versions. It has an expanded

Apocrypha Apocrypha () are biblical or related writings not forming part of the accepted canon of scripture, some of which might be of doubtful authorship or authenticity. In Christianity, the word ''apocryphal'' (ἀπόκρυφος) was first applied to ...

, containing Psalm 151 and the Epistle to the Laodiceans in addition to 3 and 4 Ezra and the Prayer of Manasses. In addition, its modern prefaces in Latin, German, French, and English are a source of valuable information about the history of the Vulgate.

''Nova Vulgata''

The '' Nova Vulgata'' (''Nova Vulgata Bibliorum Sacrorum Editio''), also called the Neo-Vulgate, is the official Latin edition of the Bible published by the

Holy See The Holy See (, ; ), also called the See of Rome, the Petrine See or the Apostolic See, is the central governing body of the Catholic Church and Vatican City. It encompasses the office of the pope as the Bishops in the Catholic Church, bishop ...

for use in the contemporary

Roman rite The Roman Rite () is the most common ritual family for performing the ecclesiastical services of the Latin Church, the largest of the ''sui iuris'' particular churches that comprise the Catholic Church. The Roman Rite governs Rite (Christianity) ...

. It is not a critical edition of the historical Vulgate, but a revision of the text intended to accord with modern critical Hebrew and Greek texts and produce a style closer to Classical Latin. In 1979, the ''Nova Vulgata'' was promulgated as "typical" (standard) by

John Paul II Pope John Paul II (born Karol Józef Wojtyła; 18 May 19202 April 2005) was head of the Catholic Church and sovereign of the Vatican City State from 16 October 1978 until his death in 2005. In his youth, Wojtyła dabbled in stage acting. H ...

Online versions

The title "Vulgate" is currently applied to three distinct online texts which can be found from various sources on the Internet. The text being used can be ascertained from the spelling of

Eve Eve is a figure in the Book of Genesis in the Hebrew Bible. According to the origin story, "Creation myths are symbolic stories describing how the universe and its inhabitants came to be. Creation myths develop through oral traditions and there ...

's name in Genesis 3:20: * Heva: the

* Hava: the Stuttgart edition of the Vulgate * Eva: the '' Nova Vulgata''

Notes

References

Bibliography

* **Chapter "Introduction : Révision et retourn à l''Hebraica veritas''" ('Introduction: Revision and return to ''Hebraica veritas'' ') **Chapter "Introduction : Du travail de Jérôme à la Vulgate ('Introduction: From Jerome's work to the Vulgate')

External links

Clementine Vulgate
The Clementine Vulgate
fully searchable and possible to compare with both the Douay Rheims and Knox Bibles side by side.
Clementine Vulgate 1822, including ApocryphaClementine Vulgate 1861, including ApocryphaThe Clementine Vulgate, searchable
Michael Tweedale, ''et alii''. Other installable modules include Weber's Stuttgart Vulgate. Missing 3 and 4 Esdras, and Manasses.
Vulgata, Hieronymiana versio
(Jerome's version), Latin text complete as ebook (public domain)
''The Vulgate New Testament, with the Douay Version of 1582. In Parallel Columns''
(London 1872). Oxford Vulgate * * * Stuttgart Vulgate
Weber-Gryson (Stuttgart) edition
official online text
Latin Vulgate with Parallel English Douay-Rheims and King James Version
Stuttgart edition, but missing 3 and 4 Esdras, Manasses, Psalm 151, and Laodiceans. Nova Vulgata

from the Vatican website Miscellaneous translations *

'
Biblical Prefaces
* Vulgate text of Laodiceans including a parallel English translation Works about the Vulgate
Eight examples of the Vulgate, 13th – 15th centuries, Center for Digital Initiatives, University of Vermont LibrariesTimeline of Jerome's translations
* * {{Authority control 4th-century books in Latin 4th-century Christian texts Catholic bibles Works by Jerome Western Christianity Vetus Latina

Terminology

Authorship

Content

Jerome's work of translation

Prologues

Relation with the ''Vetus Latina'' Bible

New Testament

Old Testament

Psalter

Deuterocanonials

Council of Trent and position of the Catholic Church

Variants

Influence on Western Christianity

Reformation

Translations

Influence upon the English language

Critical value

Manuscripts and editions

Manuscripts and early editions

Carolingian period

Late Middle Ages

Printed editions

Renaissance

Sixtine and Clementine Vulgates

Modern critical editions

Oxford New Testament

Benedictine (Rome) Old Testament

Stuttgart Vulgate

''Nova Vulgata''

Online versions

See also

Related articles

Selected manuscripts

Notes

References

Bibliography

Further reading

External links