Vulgate

The Vulgate Bible is an early 5th century translation of the Bible into Latin made by St. Jerome on the orders of Pope Damasus I. It takes its name from the phrase versio vulgata, "the common (i.e., popular) version" (cf. Vulgar Latin), and was written in an everyday Latin used in conscious distinction to the elegant Ciceronian Latin of which Jerome was a master. The Vulgate was designed to be both more accurate and easier to understand than its predecessors. It was the first, and for many centuries the only, Christian Bible translation that translated the Old Testament directly from the Hebrew original rather than indirectly from the Greek Septuagint.

Relation with the Old Latin Bible

The Latin Bible used before the Vulgate is usually referred to as the Vetus Latina, or "Old Latin Bible", or occasionally the "Old Latin Vulgate".

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This text was not translated by a single person or institution, nor even uniformly edited. The individual books varied in quality of translation and style -- modern scholars often refer to the Old Latin as being in "translationese" rather than standard Latin. Its Old Testament books were most likely translated from the Greek Septuagint, not from the Hebrew.

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Jerome did not completely re-translate the original Greek and Hebrew and exactly how much revision he did is unclear. He certainly translated the Old Testament from the Hebrew and the Gospels from the Greek. Whether he translated other parts of the New Testament or just revised them from Old Latin translations is not known with certainty. At first, Jerome did not want to include the Deuterocanonical books. However, Augustine of Hippo argued for their inclusion, and Pope Damasus insisted on it, so these books were included and the Old Testament canon of the Vulgate was mostly the same as that of the Septuagint, which was at that time the translation most widely used by Greek-speaking Christians. However, since Jerome regarded the Deuterocanonical books of secondary importance to the books found in the Hebrew canon, he left most (except for Tobit and parts of Judith) unrevised and untranslated from the Septuagint. After Jerome's death, however, these less than polished Old Latin renderings of the deuterocanonical books crept back into the officially sanctioned Vulgate, where their style can still be markedly distinguished from Jerome's.

Related Topics:
Deuterocanonical books - Augustine of Hippo - Canon - Septuagint

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The Old Latin version remained in use in some circles even after Jerome's Vulgate became the accepted standard throughout the Western Church. Some Gauls (Celts) continued to prefer the Old Latin version for centuries. It has been asserted that heretical groups such as the Waldensians and Albigensians preferred this version as well, as they associated the Vulgate with the Catholic Church.

Related Topics:
Waldensians - Albigensians

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