Origin and revision of the Latin Bible manuscripts

The Old Latin version is commonly known as the Itala, a term which should, however, be avoided as it is apt to mislead. The origin of this translation is involved in much obscurity. The Acts of the Scillitan martyrs, who suffered between A.D. 198 & 202 at Carthage, exist in a Latin text which is generally accepted as genuine. These martyrs told the prefect that they possessed the "Four Gospels of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Epistles of St. Paul, and all divinely inspired Scripture." These Acts may thus prove the existence of an accepted Latin text in Africa before the close of the second century. Similarly, the martyrs of Vienne who died A.D. 177 seem certainly to have known a Latin version from which they quote freely, cf. H.E. v. 1. It is generally conceded now that Tertullian had a version in Latin before him as he wrote, and that he did not merely translate for himself from Greek as he required.[1] Hence it is allowable to suppose that a Latin version of the Bible existed early in the second century.

Origin of the Old Latin Bible

Ever since the days of Cardinal Wiseman, the view that there was one original translation of the Bible into Latin, and that it took its rise in Africa, has been held by many as almost demonstrated, see Two Essays on I. John v. 7. Wiseman's arguments were chiefly these:

(1) There was no need for a Latin translation in Rome, for it was a Greek-speaking city.
(2) St. Jerome only knew of two Latins who wrote in Latin previous to Tertullian, viz., Apollonius and Victor, the latter of whom died A.D. 197.
(3) There are many Africanisms in the old Latin version,
(4) Wiseman urged that the divergences existing between the existing old Latin manuscripts could all be reduced to a common basis and merely indicated the vagaries of copyists.

Every one of these statements has been controverted and it now seems fairly certain that various Latin renderings were published in the early days of Christianity. Thus, as against Wiseman's arguments, it is maintained that:

(1) The 'Plebs' in Rome would certainly need a Latin translation.
(2) Inscriptions at Pompeii and Herculaneum are mostly in Latin, this is especially the case with the Christian inscriptions.
(3) The argument from Africanisms is precarious, for all the examples alleged can be paralleled from the writings of undoubted Latins, e.g. Plautus, Quinctilian, etc., thus the Latin translation of the works of St. Irenaeus and the Canon of Muratori contain as many Africanisms as do the old Latin MSS.
(4) It is almost impossible to concede Wiseman's position with regard to the fundamental unity of the existing MSS.
(5) We actually have different Old Latin translations of Tobias, Baruch, and I-II. Maccabees.
(6) Lastly, it must be conceded that St. Augustine's well-known words about the multiplicity of Latin texts can hardly be explained save of different translations; he says, De Doctrina Christ. II. 14-15, "The writers who translated from Hebrew into Greek can be counted; not so those who translated into Latin. For whenever in the early ages of the faith a Greek codex came into a person's hands, and he fancied he had sufficient knowledge of the two languages to do so, he ventured to make a translation."

These words cannot without undue violence be read in any but their plain sense. And a perusal of the Saint's Enarrationes in Psalmos, especially on Psalm 118, will convince any one that he really did mean that there were a crowd of early translators. The witness of St. Jerome fully accords with this, it is true that his words in the Pref. to the Gospels are ambiguous, but a comparison of other passages shows the view he took of the question, cf. Prefs. to Proverbs, to Chronicles, and to Job, also Ep. xviii. 21.

Principal Manuscripts of the Old Latin Versions

We have no complete MS. of any one book of the Old Testament except the Psalter; fragments of the rest exist and have been collected by Sabatier. The Cod. Lugdanesis published in 1881, and fresh portions in 1895, by Robert and Delisle, is practically complete for the Pentateuch, Josue, and part of Judges.

St. Jerome's Life and Work

No true view of the Vulgate version of the Bible could be formed without some idea of the life and work of one who has been ever acknowledged as the greatest Biblical scholar the world has seen and who was undoubtedly raised up by God to do the work which will always be associated with his name, viz., the revision of the Latin New Testament, and the translation of the Hebrew original of the Old Testament into Latin.

Born at Strido in Dalmatia about the year 345, Jerome was early sent to Rome for his education. He was baptized at the age of twenty, and in 372 he went to the east, where he took up his abode in the desert of Chalcis, and devoted himself to the study of Hebrew and Greek, Ep. cxxv. 12. In Ep. lxxxiv. 3, he gives us an account of his earlier studies. In 379 we find him at Constantinople, where he attended the lectures of St. Gregory of Nyssa. About this time, too, he translated the Chronicle of Eusebius. It was at this time that he became acquainted with Pope Damasus, at whose request he wrote Ep. xviii. on the meaning of the word 'Seraphim.' Damasus summoned him to Rome in 382, and here, at the Pope's desire, he corrected the N.T. by the Greek: "Only early manuscripts," he wrote to Pope Damasus, "have been used. But to avoid any great divergences from the Latin which we are accustomed to read, I have used my pen with some restraint; and while I have corrected only such passages as seemed to convey a different meaning, I have allowed the rest to remain as they are," cf. also Praef. in Quatuor Evangelia, Ep. xxvii. It was at this time, too, that he made his first revision of the Psalter by the Greek text, this is known as the Roman Psalter. He refers to this edition in his Preface to his second revision of the Psalter, probably made at Bethlehem about 388. He says in this Preface that he had made his former revision cursorily according to the LXX, (Ep. cvi. shows that it was made from the Hexaplar of Origen); the second revision was also made according to the LXX, but attention was paid to the variations between that text and the Hebrew, and obeli and asterisks were introduced in order to indicate these discrepancies. This revision is known as the Gallican Psalter, because, becoming speedily popular, it was introduced into the Churches of Gaul by St. Gregory of Tours; it is the Psalter which is now in use throughout the Church save in St. Peter's at Rome, St. Mark's at Venice, and the Duomo at Milan, where the former revision is still used.

But St. Jerome was already becoming convinced of the necessity of recurring to the Hebrew original if the true sense of the Sacred Scriptures was to be apprehended. In 381-2 he had translated the Chronicle of Eusebius and in his Preface he dwells upon the difficulties besetting all translations; "some," he says, "consider the Sacred Writings harsh, not being aware that they are a translation from the Hebrew." In this same Preface, written at this early date, he shows a full knowledge of the work done by the early translators, viz., the Seventy, Theodotion, Symmachus, and Aquila, and even of those translations which, since the days of Origen, had passed current under the titles of "the fifth, sixth, and seventh" versions.

In 385, Jerome, who had made many enemies by his outspoken criticism, left Rome on the death of Damasus, and in 386 we find him settled at Bethlehem where he remained till his death in 420. His life here was one of unremitting labor. Sulpicius Severus, Dial. i. 8, says of him, "totus in lectione, totus in libris est; non die non nocte requiescit; aut legit aliquid semper aut scribit." His activity at this period seems almost incredible. Between the years 386 and 392, he completed his commentary on "Ecclesiastes, he translated the work of Didymus on the Holy Spirit, he wrote commentaries on Ephesians, Galatians, Titus, and Philemon, a treatise on Pss. x-xvi., he translated Origen on St. Luke and on the Psalms; he further translated Eusebius on The Names of Hebrew Places, also the Book of Hebrew Proper Names, and that on Hebrew Questions in Genesis; he wrote the Lives of SS. Malchus and Hilarion, and the invaluable treatise De Viris Illustribus. But, more wonderful than all, he appears from repeated allusions in his writings to have at this time revised the whole Septuagint (he always speaks of the existing Latin translation of the Old Testament by this name) by Origen's Hexaplar. The only portions of this gigantic task which have come down to us are Job and the Psalter; the rest, so he tells us, was stolen from his locker; cf. Ep. Ixxi. 5, Contra Ruf. ii. 24, and iii. 25. At the same time it must be noticed that this revision, as he tells us in his Preface to the Books of Solomon, did not include Wisdom and Ecclesiasticus, an assertion which clearly implies that he did revise all the rest, cf. Ep. cxxxiv. We must also assign to this period the commencement of his greatest work, viz., the translation of the whole of the Hebrew Bible into Latin. For this task his previous studies had prepared him as no Biblical scholar before or since ever has been prepared. He took immense pains to perfect himself in his knowledge of Hebrew and Chaldaic, and has left us an amusing account of the trouble it cost him to acquire a real mastery over these languages, cf. his Prefaces to Job and Daniel, and to his commentary on the Galatians.

Origen had attempted the task of editing a critical edition of the LXX by comparing it with the Hebrew, St. Jerome had attempted to do the same for the Latin version by comparing it with the Greek; but his efforts in this direction soon convinced him that the LXX. was a hopeless criterion owing to the various translations which had been made and which had so mutually affected one another that it was now impossible to arrive with any certainty at the original LXX text. Hence he felt compelled to go -- as he expresses it -- "to the fountainhead," cf. Pref. to the Book of Hebrew Questions, and also Pref. to his commentary on Ecclesiastes.

St. Jerome had received no commission to translate the Hebrew text such as he had received from Pope Damasus with regard to the correction of the New Testament. His work was private and without authority. The story of its gradual publication is of interest as showing the lines on which he worked. In the catalog of his works which he gives in the De Viris Illustribus, he says: "The Old Testament I have translated in accordance with the Hebrew"; this was in 392. He seems to have intended publishing the whole at one time, cf. Pref. to the translation of Samuel and Kings (Prol. Galeatas), but it appears from Ep. xlix. 4, that the translation of Samuel and Kings was published first and was immediately followed by that of the sixteen Prophets. This was in 393, and from the same letter we learn that he had also translated Job at that time but that other portions already translated were withheld by him from publication for the time being, presumably till he should see what kind of reception those met with which had already been put in circulation. Esdras and Nehemiah were published in the following year, see Pref. to these books, and, apparently at the same time, Genesis, see Pref. to that Book. A long illness, and the invasion of the Huns, caused delay, and it is not till 395 that we find him writing to Chromatius and Heliodorus that at their request he has "dedicated to them three days work, viz., the translation of the three Books of Solomon," i.e., Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, and Canticle of Canticles. This gives us some idea of his rate of working; we are not to gather from it that he was slip-shod in his work, his long and intimate acquaintance with the Bible, as well as his revision of the Latin by the LXX, had given him an immense facility; moreover it appears from many passages that he always worked with the assistance of a number of amanuenses. Again illness supervened, and in 398 we find him writing to Lucinius, a Spaniard, that he has put at the disposal of the copyists whom Lucinius has sent to Bethlehem to make copies of Jerome's works, "the canon of the Hebrew verity -- except the Octateuch, which I have at present in hand." By the Octateuch he means the first eight Books and it is not easy to understand how he can say this since Genesis had already been published save on the supposition that he was engaged in revising his former translation, Ep. lxxi. 5. A gap of some five years now intervened, and it was not until 404 that the work was completed by the publication of the rest of the Pentateuch and Esther, see Prefaces to Josue and Esther.

Reception of the New Translation by the Church

St. Jerome's work met with much opposition. St. Augustine's attitude towards it is generally represented as adverse, but this is not a fair view of the African Bishop's position. He held the LXX in the deepest respect, and hence urged St. Jerome to devote his labor rather to a revision of that version than to the publication of a new one, cf. Ep. civ. among those of St. Jerome. As a matter of fact St. Augustine's intense love for Holy Scripture compelled him to recognize the immense value of St. Jerome's labors. Thus it has been shown that in the church at Hippo during St. Augustine's episcopate, the Gospels were, from 400 onwards, read according to St. Jerome's correction; and further, while adhering to the old Latin version of the Old Testament, St. Augustine could and did use the new rendering for the sake of its excellence, thus De Doctrina Christiana, iv. 16, he quotes Amos vi. 1-16 from St. Jerome's version, "not according to the Seventy ... who are sometimes obscure (by the "seventy" he of course means the Old Latin version) ... but according to the Latin translation made from the Hebrew by the priest Jerome, who is most skilled in either language." It is not impossible indeed that when St. Augustine in the same treatise, De Doct. Christ, ii. 22, says "Of all these rendering's the Itala is to be preferred, since it adheres more closely to the words (of the original), and gives the sense more clearly," he may be referring to the Vulgate version made by St. Jerome; it is certainly remarkable that the very same words are used by St. Isidore of Seville, 636, De Offic. Eccles. i. 12, and later by Walafrid Strabo; both of these writers would seem to be quoting St. Augustine, and both are clearly referring to the Vulgate version.

Be this as it may, the version gradually made its way, and in St. Gregory the Great's Preface to his Moralia in Job, we find him saying that he uses either translation indifferently; while St. Bede, in the eighth century, speaks of it as "our version."

Subsequent History of the Latin Vulgate

The old and the new versions existed side by side, and the inevitable result followed -- each affected the other. Those who were familiar with the older version were tempted to write in the margins of their copies of the more recent one readings which they remembered from the version to which they had been so long accustomed. A revision was soon necessary, and in all cases it was not a correction of St. Jerome's work that was demanded but a restoration of existing copies to the state in which they left his hands. This work was attempted by Alcuin in about 800, by Lanfranc about 1089, by St. Stephen Harding about 1150. The revision by Alcuin, undertaken for Charlemagne, was the most important of all these attempts at recovering St. Jerome's original text. The MSS. then existing may be conveniently divided into three classes, those from Italy, those from Spain, and those from Ireland. All these types of MSS. met at Tours, where Alcuin worked. The product was the set of Bibles known as the Alcuinian, conspicuous among which is the famous Codex Vallicellanus, cf. infra, Alcuin went to Northumbria for Bibles, for it was there that St. Benet Biscop and the Abbot Ceolfrid had formed a famous scriptorium and had gathered together most precious MSS., such as the Codex Amiatinus, the Lindisfarne Gospels, and those of Durham and Stonyhurst, cf. infra.

The "Correctories" of the Bible

At the commencement of the thirteenth century the newly-founded University of Paris took one particular Alcuinian text of the Vulgate as the basis for lectures. This text was unfortunately a bad one as it had been vitiated in its passage through the hands of a multitude of copyists. The University authorities multiplied it, however, and its success seems to have been due in great measure to the chapter-divisions drawn up, according to some by Stephen Langton, according to others by the Dominican, Cardinal Hugo à St. Caro. Its defects, how ever, were known, and the theologians using it corrected it as occasion arose. These "corrections" were at first placed in the margins, but as they grew in bulk they were gathered into separate books which received the title of "Correctories." No less than three hundred of these manuscript Correctories remain. The best known are the Correctory of the Sorbonne and that of Sens, otherwise known as the "Paris Correctory." This latter is of great interest by reason of the principles which guided its compilers. It was not an attempt to recover the text of the Vulgate as it left St. Jerome's hands, but rather to correct the existing Vulgate text by the Greek and Hebrew originals; thus Card. Hugo, who was mainly responsible for its production, says: "In many books, especially the historical, we do not use the translation of Jerome." It is interesting to note the enactments of the early Dominican General Chapters with regard to the Bibles to be used in the Order; thus the Chapter of 1236 says "all Bibles in the Order are to be corrected according to the Correctory of the (Dominican) Province of France"; in the Chapter of 1256, the Correctory of Sens is rejected as being an insufficient correction of the Bible of the University of Paris. We possess three autograph Correctories which belonged to the famous Convent of St. Jacques at Paris, and which probably date from this same year, 1256. No doubt the principle here at work was a false one from the point of view of those who at all costs would preserve the translation of St. Jerome, and Roger Bacon condemns it unsparingly, cf. Opus Minus, p. 330; opus Tertium i. 94, cap. xxv. The Franciscans proceeded on different lines, and in the Vatican we have the well known "Correctorium Vaticanum" produced by a learned Franciscan scholar who was well versed in Greek and Latin, and whose aim was to restore as far as possible the text of St. Jerome.

It is clear from this brief sketch of the various attempted revisions and corrections that the Vulgate text had, by the time of the invention of printing, got into an exceedingly bad state; and when the printing-press came into vogue the confusion grew greater still, though ultimately the printing-press was to prove a valuable means for securing an uniform text. During the first half century after the invention of printing no less than one hundred and twenty-four editions of the Latin Bible were published perhaps the very best refutation of the old calumny that the Church reprobated the publication of the Bible. The most famous of these early editions was that known as the Mazarin Bible in two volumes, it was printed by Guttenburg at Mentz, twenty-five copies of it are still existing. The first Roman edition dates from 1471, and the first octavo edition appeared from Froben's printing-press at Basle in 1491. How numerous were these early editions is evident from the fact that even now copies which date from 1484-1497 are not rare.

But the multiplication of copies brought into clearer light the discrepancies which existed, and the first definite attempt at a revision appeared in the Complutensian Polyglot of 1514. About the same time Erasmus, in his edition of the Greek Testament, gave a Latin translation of his own with notes on the Vulgate translation. In 1528, Robert Stephens, or Etienne, published an edition of the Vulgate New Testament for the production of which he used three codices of the ninth century; in a later edition, A.D. 1538-1540, he used seventeen MSS., some of these are good MSS., and the edition then published is regarded as the foundation of the present Vulgate New Testament. Meanwhile a host of Catholic scholars were at work, correcting the Vulgate New Testament by the Greek; among these we may mention Cardinal Cajetan, O.P., and Steuchius in 1529, and the Dominican Santes Pagninus, 1518-1528.

The Action of the Council of Trent

The invention of printing, the flooding of Europe with MSS. due to the fall and sack of Constantinople, as well as the general renaissance, had brought a multitude of abuses in their train, not the least of which was the incautious multiplication of Biblical texts together with rash and misguided criticism on their contents. In the Session held on March 17th, 1546, the Fathers of Trent specially singled out four abuses regarding the Bible, which called for immediate remedy. These were:

(a) the variety of texts in circulation;
(b) the great corruption prevailing in the printed editions;
(c) the perverse principles of interpretation;
(d) the reckless propagation of the Bible.

As a remedy for the first-named abuse they proposed that of all the Latin versions the Vulgate alone should be declared authentic. cf. infra. As a remedy for the second abuse, viz., the corruption of the Vulgate text, they urged that an edition of the Vulgate purified from the corruptions which had crept into it in the course of centuries should be brought out as speedily as possible. There is no doubt that the Tridentine Fathers had only very vague ideas as to the labor which the production of such a revised edition would involve, they seem to have thought that it could be done during the Sessions of the Council! There were scholars, however, who, while fully alive to the difficulties of the task, were yet competent to deal with them. John Hentenius, a Dominican of Louvain, set to work at once and in the course of one year produced the Louvain Bible. This was in 1547, and between the years 1573 and 1594, no less than nine editions of this Bible were produced. Hentenius used the best of Stephen's editions, see above, and added readings from thirty other MSS. On his death, Luke of Bruges, a Franciscan, was chosen to continue Hentenius task; he added readings from sixty fresh MSS. The troubles of the times caused a suspension of the sittings of the Council, and a series of vexatious delays retarded the work of revision. Some of the revisers, too,, preferred to go slowly, thus we find that between April 28th and December 7th, 1569, twenty-six sessions were held, during which the text of Genesis-Exodus alone was examined. But there can be little doubt that this slow procedure was an ultimate gain, men's minds were forming, and the huge mass of material was sifted by passing through the hands of the successive members of the various commissions; and each commission profited by the labors of its predecessors. It is customary for writers who have not read the acta of the Council, and who have not troubled to take into account the stormy period during which its sittings were held, to make merry over the forty odd years which elapsed between the promulgation of the Decree for the publication of an emended Vulgate and the actual appearance of the volume. But no scholar who has followed the slow and cautious progress of the Oxford Vulgate will sneer at the slow procedure of the Tridentine revisers -- the Oxford Vulgate, it may be remarked in passing, was commenced in 1877, and as of 1912, the Gospels, Acts, and Romans have alone been published! [2]

At length, however, in 1568, Sixtus V. became supreme Pontiff, and at once proceeded to push forward the work of revision. The commission appointed by this Pope set to work in a methodical manner, It is interesting to note the MSS. which they consulted; in Rome they examined the famous Codex preserved in the library of St. Paul's without the walls, also the Codex Ottoboniensis, and the Codex Vallicellianus preserved at the Oratorian Church the Chiesa Nuova. They also examined MSS. preserved in the monastery of Monte Cassino, and, above all, the famous Codex Amiatinus now at Florence in the Laurentian library. They also sent to Spain for collations of MSS.; amongst others, the Codicies Toletanus and Legionensis were thus examined. All this shows that the revisers were well acquainted with what are even now conceded to be the best MSS. of the Latin Bible. Laelius collated the various readings thus discovered; Agellius compared the difficult texts with the originals, Hebrew and Greek; and at the public sessions, over which Cardinal Carafa presided, the readings chosen after discussion were inserted in the margin of a copy of the Louvain Bible. This copy still exists and is known as the Codex Carafa. This work occupied the commissioners two years. The goal at which they aimed was, be it remembered, the restoration of the Vulgate as it left St. Jerome's hands. They consulted the best Codices as far as they knew them, and posterity with all its research has seen no reason to reverse their judgment as to which were the best Codices, though of course nowadays we have far more material at our disposal than the Tridentine Fathers had. When the witness of the MSS. disagreed they had recourse to the versions and to the early Fathers; and when these two aids failed them they went to the original texts, Hebrew or Greek for the Old and New Testaments respectively. But in this last case recourse was had to the originals -- not in order to correct the Vulgate -- but to avoid any ambiguity.

The Bible thus prepared differed in many instances from the Louvain Bible, not because -- as is often supposed -- the revisers, who had laid it down as a canon to compare St. Jerome's translation with the Hebrew, corrected this translation by the Hebrew, but because they attached immense importance to the witness of the Codex Gothicus or Legionensis. We referred above to a certain Lucinius, a Spaniard, who had sent copyists to Bethlehem to make copies of St. Jerome's works, and we quoted a passage from Ep. lxxi., in which St. Jerome says that he has provided Lucinius envoys with copies of all his translations of the Old Testament save the first eight books. The revisers under Carafa were convinced that in the Codex Legionensis they had the nearest approach to these copies sent to Spain; hence, in endeavoring to arrive at the nearest approach to St. Jerome's Vulgate, they felt that the witness of this particular codex must have preponderating authority. This fact shows how tenaciously the revisers adhered to the Tridentine Decree which demanded an accurate edition of the Vulgate, not a correction of it.

But when the revisers presented their completed work to Sixtus he declined to rank the Codex Gothicus or Legionensis so highly as they had done; hence while he made a "delectus" of the proposed readings he refused to accept them "en bloc." Whether the Sixtine revisers were justified or not in the estimate they had formed of the value of Legionensis is a moot question; certain it is that in inserting its readings into the margin of the Louvain Bible, they changed the character of the latter very considerably. Sixtus, however, preferred to go by the consensus of the Latin Bibles rather than allow a preponderating authority to any one codex. Consequently the Sixtine Vulgate, which was finally published in 1590, did not really represent the views of the revisers so much as the personal predilections of the Pope. It is well to understand this for much capital has been made by controversial writers out of the conflict between Sixtus and Bellarmine on this point. The Sixtine Vulgate was exceedingly well printed. It is true that we often read accounts of the shocking way in which it was brought out, and are told that it was so full of misprints that the Pope had to paste over an immense number of places with bits of paper in order to hide the printers errors! Nothing could be further from the truth. There are only forty misprints in the whole edition and of these Sixtus detected thirty, which -- it is true -- he did paste over in the way described. In the first edition of the Clementine Vulgate there were at least eighty misprints. The completed Bible was published with the famous Encyclical Aeternus Ille prefixed to it; in this Encyclical the Pope declares that the edition now published was not to be tampered with on any account: it is often asserted that Clement VIII., who published his revised edition in 1592, disregarded this Encyclical. Yet to every Catholic it should be perfectly plain that Sixtus only prohibited unauthorized persons from making changes in the edition he was publishing, he could never have meant that no successor of his in the See of Peter was to make changes in the text.

Sixtus died in August 1590. Urban VII succeeded him, but died in the same year. Before the close of the year Gregory XIV was elected, but unfortunately Cardinal Carafa, who had worked so strenuously for the revision, died almost at the same time. A new commission was immediately constituted; it consisted of seven Cardinals, with the elder Cardinal Colonna at their head, together with eleven consultors, of whom the principal were Cardinal Allen, Miranda the Master of the Sacred Palace, Bellarmine, Agellius, Morinus, and Rocca. They commenced their sittings in October 1591, at Zagorola whither Cardinal Colonna took them in order to secure complete retirement.

No doubt Sixtus had given offence to the members of Cardinal Carafa's commission by his disregard of their conclusions, and no doubt, too, he had acted hurriedly in adopting certain changes, but we must not be too ready to condemn as so many do this great and learned Pontiff. The following brief account of the events which led to the publication of our present Clementine Vulgate will serve to bring into clearer light the real value of the Sixtine edition and also to prove that Sixtus was not the hasty, ill-advised corrector he is generally represented as being.

A commission was formed, as we have seen, immediately after the death of Urban VII. Rumors were rife regarding the relations between Sixtus and Carafa's commission, and it was felt on all sides that they must be set at rest by the speedy publication of an emended edition of the Vulgate. Bellarmine in his autobiography, writes as follows: "In the year 1591, when Gregory XIV was thinking over what should be done with regard to the Bible published by Sixtus V in which there were very many unfortunate changes (permulta perperam mutata) there were not wanting serious-minded men who felt that the aforesaid Bibles ought to be publicly withdrawn. But I showed the Pope that it would be better not to prohibit them, but, to save the honor of Pope Sixtus, to publish them in corrected form. I pointed out to him that this could be managed if these unfortunate changes were corrected as soon as possible, and if the said Bibles were reprinted under Sixtus name with a Preface saying that in Sixtus first edition owing to the haste with which it was produced some errors, either of the printers or of others, had crept in." Bellarmine then remarks that in giving this advice he had rendered Sixtus good for evil since the latter had put a work of Bellarmine's on the Index! He then adds, "This advice was accepted by the Pontiff, and he ordered the formation of a commission which should at once revise the Sixtine Bible, and make it conform to the ordinary Bible, especially to that of Louvain."

Two questions at once present themselves: what was wrong in the Sixtine Bibles? What, in other words, were the permulta perperam mutata of which Bellarmine speaks? And how -- considering that Sixtus is said to have preferred the witness of the Louvain Bibles to the conclusions arrived at by Carafa's commission -- can Bellarmine say that the Sixtine Bible is to be now made to conform to these same Louvain Bibles?

We must carefully distinguish the three steps by which our present Clementine Bible was arrived at. First there came the Sixtine commission appointed to prepare a Vulgate text; their labors resulted in the production of the Codex Carafa or, as we have seen, the Louvain Bible furnished with marginal variants derived from an examination of other MSS. of the Vulgate and from a study of the original texts. The next step was Pope Sixtus examination of this Codex, and his acceptance or rejection of some of its conclusions, the result of his examination being the publication of the Sixtine Bible, but on principles which the members of the commission resented. What then, in the minds of these commissioners, was wrong with the Sixtine Bible? Bellarmine says that there were in it many unfortunate changes, and in his Preface to the Clementine edition says that Sixtus himself noticed that there were many misprints, and consequently proposed to reprint the whole, but was prevented by death. In his declaration to Pope Gregory given above, Bellarmine goes much further and says that these errors were due to the printers or others, and it is hard not to see in the words "or others" an allusion to Sixtus himself.

If we now compare the Sixtine and the Clementine editions, we shall find that the latter differs from the former in no less than 2,134 places. But among these only 40 rank as misprints, and of these latter Sixtus himself corrected 30. It is evident then that the remaining 10 cannot justify Bellarmine's assertion that there were many unfortunate changes. When we turn to the rules laid down for the commission formed by Gregory XIV., we find that the first ran: "ut ablata restituantur," i.e., that words or passages found in the ordinary and Louvain Bibles, but omitted in the Sixtine, should be restored to it; the second rule was "ut adjecta removeantur;" the third "ut immutata considerentur;" the fourth "ut punctationes perpendantur;" the fifth declares that no change is to be made without necessity, and that when doubts occur about any particular reading, recourse is to be had to the oldest MSS. and then to the Hebrew and Greek originals, and to the Fathers and Doctors of the Church. In the MS. notes of Angelo Rocca the Secretary of the commission we find the mode of procedure stated as follows: there were to be three meetings a week, the text was to be read aloud to the members of the commission; when readings differ recourse is to be had to the Louvain Bibles and to the Hebrew and Greek, and to the notes from MSS. collected into one volume and now in the palace of Card. Carafa, of happy memory; if a decision cannot be arrived at the case is to be brought before a general meeting of the commission. And in case a decision cannot then be arrived at, recourse is to be had to the Supreme Pontiff. What, then, were the ablata, adjecta, and immutata which called for correction in the Sixtine edition? As far as can be discovered the only omissions which Sixtus thought fit to make were justified by the witness of the Louvain Bibles which he followed. Thus he omitted the notes inserted by St. Jerome in the Books of Esther and Daniel to indicate that certain passages did not exist in the Hebrew text; these were re-inserted by the Gregorian revisers. Many other passages were also omitted by him though occurring in the ordinary [3] and Louvain Bibles but the Gregorian revisers did not find it necessary to re-insert them. Again, no one has ever succeeded in showing that Sixtus made uncritical changes, though it is possible that at times he relied too exclusively on the application of critical principles as opposed to MSS. evidence. Nor should it be thought that Sixtus, because he did not give in his adherence to the Codex Carafa to the same extent as its framers had done, was therefore opposed to it, he used it largely and in many cases adopted its readings. But perhaps the most striking proof of the real value of the Sixtine edition lies in the fact that when at length it was felt that the Gregorian commission was not proceeding as fast as could be wished, and a new commission was formed for the purpose of bringing their work to a close, the whole Bible was revised in the incredibly short space of nineteen days! This could not have been done had Sixtus edition needed so much emendation as is commonly supposed. The story of this final revision is of interest. A MS., probably due to Rocca, informs us that for this special commission were chosen Cardinal Mark Antony Colonna and Cardinal Allen; to assist them the most learned members of the commission already existing were singled out, viz., Bartholomew Miranda, O.P., Master of the Sacred Palace, Andreas Salvener, Antony Agellius, Robert Bellarmine not yet Cardinal, Valverde, Laelius, Morinus, and Rocca. These the Cardinal Colonna took out to his seat, at Zagorola, and there they lived at his expense and completed the work of revision in nineteen days. This wonderful performance is commemorated by an inscription still existing at Zagorola; we give it in full as it is too little known.

Gregorius. XIV. P.M.
De. Incorrupta. Sacrorum. Bibliorum. Puritate. Sollicitus.
Textum. Vulgatse. Editionis. Sedente. Prsedecessore. Suo. Sixto. V.
Typis. Vaticanis. Indiligenter. Excusum.
A. Pluribus. Quse. Irrepserant. Mendis. Expurgari
Pristinoque. Nitori. Restitui. Curavit.
Delectis. In. Hunc. Scopum.
Atque. Zagorolum. Missis. Clarissimis. Viris.
Bartolomaeo. Miranda. Andrea. Salvener.
Antonio. Agellio. Roberto. Bellarmmo. Joanne. De-Valverde.
Lelio. Lando. Petro. Morino. Et. Angelo. Rocca.
Additis. Etiam. Doctrina. Non. Minus. Quam. Dignitate.
Eminentissimis. Cardinalibus.
Marco. Antonio. Columna. Et. Gulielmo. Alano.
Qui. Pontificiae. Ob; sequentes. Voluntati.
Anno. MDLXXXXI.
Communibus. Collatis, Animadversionibus. Et. Notis.
Opus. Insigne.
Et. Catholicse. Religionis. Maxime. Salutare.
Assiduo. Seduloque. XIX. Dierum. Labore.
His. Ipsis. In. Aedibus. Perfecerunt.
Ne. Tantas. Rei. Notitia. Aliquando. Periret.
Clemens. Dominions. Rospigliosus.
Clemens. IX. P. O. M.
Ex. Fratre. Pronepos. Zagorolensium. Dux.
Monumentum. Posuit.
Anno. Salutis. MDCCXXIII.

But the troubles of the revisers were not yet over. Hardly had they completed their task than Gregory XIV died, October 15th, 1591. Innocent IX was elected a fortnight later but died before the end of the year. Little more than a month later, however, Clement VIII was elected. He determined to bring the labors of the successive commissions to an end, and for this purpose he entrusted the task of final revision to Cardinals Valerius of Verona and Frederick Borromeo, and also to Francis Toletus, S.J., afterwards Cardinal. The work of revision fell almost wholly on the shoulders of the latter. There exists in the Vatican library a copy of the Sixtine Vulgate, in the margin of which Toletus has marked all the corrections which he felt to be necessary. His references are to the Hebrew originals, to the LXX., to the Complutensian Vulgate, to the Biblia Regia, to the Louvain Bibles, and to the Ordinary bibles. He makes special mention of the Codex of St. Paul's with-out the walls, and to the Codex Antiatinus, and he refers constantly to the decisions arrived at by the Sixtine and Gregorian commissions. On the last page of this Sixtine Bible is written in Toletus hand: "August 28, 1592, the feast of St. Augustine, the first year of Clement VII. (sic!) I completed these annotations." Thus within seven months from the time of the accession of Clement VIII to the Pontifical throne Toletus completed the revision of the whole Bible. He could not have done this had it not been for the labors of his predecessors, the members of the preceding commissions. And here we may repeat what we insisted on above, viz., that the repeated revisions which the changes detailed above have indicated ensured the thoroughness of the work. The Clementine Vulgate as we now have it was not the work of any one man nor of any one age. It was not produced by any one school of exegetes who might have prepossessions of their own; it was the work of a whole series of successive revisers each of whom profited by the work of their predecessors. This fact should not be lost sight of in estimating the value of our present Vulgate text.

When Toletus work was completed it was submitted to the two above-mentioned Cardinals, and was then entrusted to the printer, Aldus of Venice. But it is clear that Toletus corrections were not accepted en bloc, for many of them are not to be found in the Clementine edition of 1592. But there exists in the Bibliotheca Angelica at Rome another copy of the Sixtine Vulgate, in which the margin has preserved readings, titles of books, and verse-divisions, which now, stand in the Clementine Vulgate but which are not to be found in the copy of the Sixtine Bible referred to above. These MS. notes appear to have been compiled partly by Angelo Rocca, partly by Toletus himself, and from this copy the first edition of the Clementine Vulgate was printed in 1592. Before, however, it was finally entrusted to the printers, a difficulty was raised, which, but for the prompt action of the Pope, might have caused endless delay: Valverde, himself one of the Sixtine Consultors, presented to the Pope a list of at least two hundred places in which the proposed Vulgate text differed from the Hebrew or Greek originals. He appears to have obstinately insisted that these should be corrected, but Clement, after taking advice on the matter, imposed perpetual silence upon him! This instance is instructive as showing how men who were themselves members of the commissions, failed at times to grasp the real purport of the Tridentine Decree which aimed not at a correction of St. Jerome's work but at a restoration of the current Bibles to the state in which they left St. Jerome's hands.

Unfortunately the printer, Aldus, in spite of his deservedly great reputation, failed on this occasion to do himself justice, and the first edition was disfigured by a number of more or less serious misprints, one of which was never corrected in any of the three subsequent editions: in Genesis 35:8, Deborah, Rebecca's nurse, was said to have been buried on top of the oak instead of under it, "super" being printed for "subter"! The next year, 1593, saw a new edition, this time in 4to; this also had its own misprints, and was replaced in 1598 by an edition in small 4to, which was provided with a triple list of typographical errors for the three editions respectively. These lists were drawn up by Rocca and Toletus. No official Roman edition of the Vulgate has been published since 1598, though other editions have been brought out with official sanction. Most of the misprints occurring in the three official editions have been corrected, but even now new ones are to be found.

The three editions published during Clement's life time all bore on their frontispiece the title:

Biblia Sacra
Vulgates Editionis
Sixti V. Pont. Max.
jussu recognita atque edita.
Romae ex typographia Vaticana.

It was not till 1675 that a Bible appeared with the name of Clement on the title-page:

Biblia Sacra
Vulgatae Editionis
Sixti V. P.M.
jussu recognita et
Clementis VIII
auctoritate edita.

To the edition of 1592, Sixtus' famous Constitution Aeternus Ille was appended, but in the edition of 1593 it was replaced by Bellarmine's Preface. Sixtus Constitution was thus suppressed, and hence is not to be found in the Bullarium Magnum.

The Holy See has now taken steps to secure an adequate revision of the Vulgate; in May 1907, Pope Pius X. announced his determination to have this revision made, and almost immediately afterwards it was officially declared that the work was to be entrusted to the Benedictine Order which, owing to its long centuries of work on the text, was eminently fitted to carry out the task. Abbot Gasquet, Abbot-President of the English Benedictines, was nominated President of the commission appointed for the revision, and it is hoped that before many years have elapsed we shall have an edition of the Vulgate worthy not nly of the Benedictine Order, but also of the great part which the Latin Bible has played in the history of the Church. But how vast the labor which this work of revision will call for will be clear even from the foregoing brief sketch.

The Authenticity of the Latin Vulgate

The Council of Trent declared the Vulgate authentic; to grasp the true significance of this declaration we must note the steps which led to this pronouncement.

In the Session held on March 17th, 1546, four principal abuses regarding the Holy Scriptures were pointed out. The third and fourth referred to the wild interpretations then in vogue, and to the reckless dissemination of the Scriptures, two natural results of the invention of printing. The first and second abuses were that all manner of Latin texts were in use, and that they were many of them exceedingly corrupt. In view of these two latter abuses the Fathers proposed as a remedy "to have only one edition, namely the Old Vulgate, which all are to use as authentic in public lectures, expositions and preach ing; and no one must be allowed to reject or contradict this (authentic text); but this is not meant to detract from the authority due to the pure and true translation of the Seventy, which the Apostles sometimes used, nor is it meant as a repudiation of the other versions in so far as they further the understanding of the authentic Vulgate." With regard to the corrupt state of the Vulgate text, the remedy proposed was that, by correcting the MSS., the pure and genuine Vulgate edition, freed from errors which have crept in, be restored to the Christian world. The Holy Father was, therefore, begged to see to this, and also to see that a correct Greek and Hebrew text be provided.

This proposal was carefully considered in three successive sessions with the result that the following Decree was published:

"The Holy Synod, feeling that it would be no small gain to the Church of God if it were clearly stated which, of all the Latin editions of the Scriptures which are in circulation, is to be held as authentic, hereby declares and enacts that the well-known (haec ipsa) Old Vulgate edition, which has been proved by its long continued use throughout so many centuries in the Church, is, in public conferences, disputations, preachings, and expositions, to be held as authentic, and that no one is, upon any pretext, to dare or presume to repudiate it."

Attached to this Decree was the order to printers to see that henceforth the Sacred Scriptures, particularly the Old Vulgate edition, be most carefully printed.

Now an "authentic" document is defined as one which stands of itself, it needs no confirmation from without. Further, it is apparent that there is a distinction between the authenticity of an original document, e.g., the original of one of St. Paul's Epistles, the authenticity of a copy of the same, and finally the authenticity of a translation of the same. The Vulgate clearly can only claim the last-named species of authenticity. Now an authentic translation of a will, for example, demands that it faithfully represents what was in the original; it must not mislead in essentials, it need not, indeed, render word for word, and accidentals may be differently presented, but the substance must be the same with that given in the original. This is absolutely all that is claimed for the Vulgate.

The original inspired documents were a genuine source of knowledge of Revelation, so also is the Vulgate; no false doctrine could be legitimately deduced from the original, so neither from the Vulgate; and further, it faithfully expresses whatever belongs to the substance of the originally-written word. It should be noted, too, that the Vulgate is declared authentic because proved by long usage in the Church. If then any passage now standing in the Vulgate can be shown not to have been thus in long usage in the Church it will cease to fall under this Decree; this is important, for if it should ever be held as proved that 1 John 5:7 was not so read in the Church throughout a long course of centuries, it would cease to form an authentic part of the Vulgate.

In order to avoid misunderstandings, the following points should be noted: (a] The Vulgate is declared to be the only authentic Latin copy. (b) The originals are not mentioned in the Decree; the LXX., indeed, is praised in the proposition submitted to the Council. (c) In the course of the discussions, Cardinal Pole wished to have not only an authentic copy of the Vulgate, but also of the Hebrew and Greek, and even of the Bible in each tongue, (d) Salmeron, one of the Theologians of the Council, maintained that the Decree was in no sense meant to deprive us of the right to defend the Church's teachings from the Hebrew or LXX. (e) The Fathers of Trent were perfectly well aware that there were errors in the Vulgate translation and insisted on the necessity of correcting these either by recourse to the originals, or, failing these, to tradition. (f) The Decree was not prospective, i.e., it did not refer to the Vulgate which was to be brought out, but to the Vulgate itself as it left the hands of St. Jerome. In the edition contemplated by the Council, it was hoped to be able to restore this original text of St. Jerome as completely as possible.

Latin Vulgate Manuscripts

The most important of those which contain the O.T. are:

Codex Cavensis, so called from the Benedictine monastery of Corpo di Cava, near Salerno. It was written in Spain, probably in the sixth century, in Visigothic characters; it is very similar in character to Codex Toletanus, now in the National Library, Madrid. It probably belongs to the tenth century, though some would refer it to the eighth. It is written in Visigothic characters, and was collated for the Sixtine revision by Palomares, but the collation arrived too late. It will prove of use, however, to the present Benedictine revisers.

Codex Amiatinus, now in the Laurentian Library at Florence; seventh or eighth century. It was written either at Wearmouth or Jarrow, by order of Abbot Ceolfrid, and sent by him to the Pope in 715 A.D. It derives its name from the monastery of Monte Amiata where it was long kept. It was used by the Sixtine revisers, and is probably the nearest approach to the Vulgate, as it left St. Jerome's hands, of all the MSS. accessible to us at present.

Codex Vallicellianus, in the Oratorian Library attached to the Chiesa Nuova, Rome; it is probably the best specimen of Alcuin's revision extant, ninth century.

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1 - Mangenot's recent investigation of this question has, however, made it exceedingly doubtful whether Tertullian had a Latin translation before him; cf. E. Mangenot: Patrie et Date de la Premiere Version Latine du Nouveau Testament 1911.

2 - A compendious edition of the whole New Testament has now been published: Novum Testamentum Latine, ed. White; Editio Minot Clarendon Press, 1911.

3 - By the term "ordinary Bibles" was meant the edition of the Vulgate with the ordinary or common Gloss, a species of running commentary drawn from the writing of the Fathers.


By Very Rev. Hugh Pope, O.P., S.T.M.
Doctor in Sacred Scripture
Member, Society of Biblical Archaeology
late Professor of New Testament Exegesis
Collegio Angelico, Rome