Vulgate

Saint Jerome in His Study, by Domenico Ghirlandaio.

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 Old Latin text of the four Gospels 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 Old Latin text of the Psalms in the Roman Psalter, a version which he later disowned and is now lost.[8] How much of the rest of the New Testament he then revised is difficult to judge,[9][10] but none of his work survived in the Vulgate text of these books. The revised text of the New Testament outside the Gospels is the work of other scholars. Rufinus of Aquileia has been suggested, as has Rufinus the Syrian (an associate of Pelagius) and Pelagius himself, though without specific evidence for any of them.[11][12] This unknown reviser worked more thoroughly than Jerome had done, consistently using older Greek manuscript sources of Alexandrian text-type. 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.[13][14]

In 385, Jerome was forced out of Rome and eventually settled in Bethlehem. There he was able to use a surviving manuscript of the Hexapla, likely from the nearby Theological Library of Caesarea Maritima, a columnar comparison of the variant versions of the Old Testament undertaken 150 years before by Origen. Jerome then embarked on a second revision of the Psalms, translated from the revised Septuagint Greek column of the Hexapla which later came to be called the Gallican version. There are no indications that either of these revisions from the Hexapla, or Jerome's later revised versions of the Old Testament from the Hebrew, were ever commissioned officially.

He also appears to have undertaken further new translations into Latin from the Hexaplar Septuagint column for other books, of which only that for Job survives. From 390 to 405, Jerome translated anew from the Hebrew all of the books in the Hebrew Bible, including a further version of the Psalms. He labelled this new translation of the Psalms as "iuxta Hebraeos" (i.e., "close to the Hebrews", "immediately following the Hebrews") and this was the version most commonly found in Vulgate bibles until it was supplanted by his Gallican psalms beginning in the 9th century. Jerome lived 15 years after the completion of his Old Testament text, during which he undertook extensive commentaries on the Prophetic Books. In these commentaries he generally took his own translation from the Hebrew as his subject text, sometimes proposing further improvements, suggestions which would often be incorporated later as interpolations to the Vulgate text of these books.

In Jerome's Vulgate, the Hebrew Book of Ezra–Nehemiah 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 Old Latin Old Testaments, preceding Esdras B, the combined text of Ezra–Nehemiah.[15] Following the same principle, Jerome's Vulgate translation presents Samuel, Kings and Chronicles each as a single book. In the Septuagint Greek and Old Latin texts, these had all been split as "double" books.

The Vulgate is usually credited as being the first translation of the Old Testament into Latin directly from the Hebrew Tanakh rather than from the Greek Septuagint. Jerome's extensive use of 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[16] in which he translated, makes it difficult to determine exactly how direct the conversion of Hebrew to Latin was.[17][18][19] Saint Augustine, a contemporary of Saint Jerome, states in Book XVII ch. 43 of his The City of God 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."[20] Nevertheless, Augustine still maintained that the Septuagint, alongside the Hebrew, witnessed the inspired text of Scripture and consequently pressed Jerome for complete copies of his Hexaplar Latin translation of the Old Testament, a request that Jerome ducked with the excuse that the originals had been lost "through someone's dishonesty".[21]

As Jerome completed his translations of each book of the Bible, he recorded his observations and comments in covering letters addressed to other scholars. These letters were collected and appended as prologues to the Vulgate text for those books where they survived. In these letters, Jerome described those books or portions of books in the Septuagint that were not found in the Hebrew as being non-canonical; he called them apocrypha.[22] Jerome's views did not prevail, and all of the complete manuscripts and editions of the Vulgate include some or all of these books.

Of the Old Testament texts not found in the Hebrew, Jerome translated Tobit and Judith anew from the Aramaic, and from the Greek the additions to Esther from the Septuagint and the additions to Daniel from Theodotion, distinguishing the additional material with an obelus. He refused to translate the additions to Jeremiah and these texts, Baruch and the Letter of Jeremiah, remained excluded from the Vulgate for 400 years. Other books (Wisdom, Ecclesiasticus, 1 and 2 Maccabees and the Prayer of Manasses[23]) are variously found in Vulgate manuscripts with texts derived from the Old Latin sometimes together with Latin versions of other texts found neither in the Hebrew Bible nor in the Septuagint (4 Esdras and Laodiceans.) Their style is still markedly distinguishable from Jerome's.

The Hebrew Masoretic Text of the Book of Jeremiah is considerably longer than the counterpart text of Jeremiah in the Septuagint translation, and the chapters are arranged differently. Consequently, since Jerome's Hebrew source text corresponded to the Masoretic Text, the Book of Jeremiah in the Vulgate version contains a great many passages that had not been found in the previous Old Latin version.

In the 9th century the Old Latin texts of Baruch and the Letter of Jeremiah were introduced[24] 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.[6] 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 Ezra and the Nehemiah 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.[25]

The inter-relationship between various significant ancient manuscripts of the Old Testament (some identified by their sigla). "Mt" here denotes the Masoretic Text; "LXX", the original Septuagint.

In translating the 38 books of the Hebrew Bible (Ezra-Nehemiah being counted as one book), Jerome was relatively free in rendering their text into Latin, but it is possible to determine that the oldest surviving complete manuscripts of the Masoretic Text which date from nearly 600 years after Jerome, nevertheless transmit a consonantal Hebrew text very close to that used by Jerome.[26] Jerome translated the books of Judith and Tobit, engaging a Jewish intermediary to render the Aramaic into oral Hebrew for him then to paraphrase into Latin. The Vulgate Old Testament texts that were translated from the Greek, whether by Jerome or preserving revised or unrevised Old Latin versions, are early and important secondary witnesses to the Septuagint.

Given Jerome's conservative methods and that manuscript evidence from outside Egypt at this early date is very rare, these Vulgate readings have considerable critical interest. Also valuable from a text-critical perspective is the revised Vulgate text of the Apocalypse (whose translator is unknown), a book where there is no clear majority text in the surviving Greek witnesses; as both the Old Latin base text and its revisions show signs of using early Greek texts.

In addition to the biblical text, Vulgate editions almost invariably print 17 prologues, 16 of which were written by Jerome. His prologues were written not so much as prologues but rather as cover letters to specific individuals to accompany copies of his translations. Because they were not intended for a general audience, some of his comments in them are quite cryptic. These prologues are to the Pentateuch,[27] to Joshua,[28] and to Kings (1–2 Kings and 1–2 Samuel) which is also called the Galeatum principium.[29]

Following these are prologues to Chronicles,[30] Ezra,[31] Tobias,[32] Judith,[33] Esther,[34] Job,[35] the Gallican Psalms,[36] Song of Songs,[37] Isaiah,[38] Jeremiah,[39] Ezekiel,[40] Daniel,[41] the minor prophets,[42] the gospels,[43] and the final prologue which is to the Pauline epistles and is better known as Primum quaeritur.[44] Related to these are Jerome's Notes on the Rest of Esther[45] and his Prologue to the Hebrew Psalms.[46] In addition to Jerome's prologue to the Gallican version of the Psalms, which is commonly found in Vulgate manuscripts, his prologues also survive for the translations from the Hexaplar Septuagint of the books of Job, Ecclesiastes, Song of Songs and Chronicles.

A recurring theme of the Old Testament prologues is Jerome's preference for the Hebraica veritas (i.e., Hebrew truth) over the Septuagint, a preference which he defended from his detractors. He stated that the Hebrew text more clearly prefigures Christ than the Greek. Among the most remarkable of these prologues is the Galeatum principium (a.k.a. Prologus Galeatus), in which Jerome described an Old Testament canon of 22 books, which he found represented in the 22-letter Hebrew 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.[29] Consequently, Jerome takes this text in the Book of Revelation as authoritatively limiting the Old Testament canon to the 24 books of the Hebrew bible; and in other prologues he sets the "24 elders" of the Hebrew Bible against the "Seventy interpreters" of the Septuagint.[31] The 12 minor prophets are counted as one book, 1 and 2 Samuel as one book, 1 and 2 Kings as one book, Ezra and Nehemiah as one book, and 1 and 2 Chronicles as one book, making a total of 24 books. Alternatively, Ruth is counted as part of Judges, and Lamentations as part of Jeremiah, for a total of 22 books.

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. 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); and its dissemination had the effect of propagating the belief that the whole Vulgate text was Jerome's work.

The regular prologue to the Pauline Epistles in the Vulgate Primum quaeritur defends the Pauline authorship of the Epistle to the Hebrews, directly contrary to Jerome's own views—a key argument in demonstrating that Jerome did not write it. The author of the Primum quaeritur 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.[11]

In addition to Primum quaeritur, many manuscripts contain brief notes to each of the epistles indicating where they were written, with notes about where the recipients dwelt. Adolf von Harnack,[47] citing De Bruyne, argued that these notes were written by Marcion of Sinope or one of his followers.[48] Where Vulgate books lacked a genuine prologue from Jerome, the apparent lack was commonly supplied over time by pseudonymous compositions, many of which are frequently found in medieval Vulgate manuscripts. Where Vulgate bibles included the Psalter in the Roman version (rather than Jerome's Hebraic version) this inclusion was occasionally supported by pseudonymous letters between Jerome and Damasus. These were subsequently attached occasionally to Jerome's Gallican Psalter when that supplanted the Hebraic Psalter in the Vulgate in the 9th century. Many medieval manuscripts also include a pseudonymous prologue from Jerome for the Catholic Epistles, composed to support the interpolated Comma Johanneum at 1 John 5:7.

While the Genevan Reformed tradition sought to introduce vernacular versions translated from the original languages, it nevertheless retained and extended the use of the Vulgate in theological debate. In both the published Latin sermons of John Calvin (1509–1564) and the Greek New Testament editions of Theodore Beza, the accompanying Latin reference text is the Vulgate. Where Protestant churches took their lead from the Genevan example—as in England and Scotland—the result was a broadening appreciation of Jerome's translation in its dignified style and flowing prose. The closest equivalent in English, the King James or Authorized Version, shows a marked influence from the Vulgate, especially by comparison with the earlier vernacular version of Tyndale, in respect of Jerome's demonstration of how a technically exact Latinate religious vocabulary may be combined with dignified prose and vigorous poetic rhythms.

The Vulgate continued to be regarded as the standard scholarly Bible throughout most of the 17th century. Walton's London Polyglot of 1657 disregards the English Language entirely.[58] Walton's reference text throughout is the Vulgate in the Clementine text. The Vulgate Latin is also found as the standard text of scripture in Thomas Hobbes' Leviathan of 1651,[59] indeed Hobbes gives Vulgate chapter and verse numbers (e.g., Job 41:24, not Job 41:33) for his head text.

In Chapter 35, "The Signification in Scripture of Kingdom of God", Hobbes discusses Exodus 19:5, first in his own translation of the "Vulgar Latin", and then subsequently as found in the versions he terms "the English translation made in the beginning of the reign of King James", and "The Geneva French" (i.e. Olivetan). Hobbes advances detailed critical arguments why the Vulgate rendering is to be preferred. It remained the assumption of Protestant scholars that, while it had been of vital importance to provide the scriptures in the vernacular for ordinary people, nevertheless for those with sufficient education to do so, biblical study was best undertaken within the international common medium of the Latin Vulgate.

The Vulgate was given an official capacity by the Council of Trent (1545–1563) as the touchstone of the biblical canon concerning which parts of books are canonical.[60] 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 Catholic Church, and as they are contained in the old Latin 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.[61] On 2 June 1927, Pope Pius XI clarified this decree, allowing that the Comma Johanneum was open to dispute,[62] and further clarification came with Pope Pius XII's Divino afflante Spiritu.

The council cited Sacred Tradition 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.[63]

The qualifier "Latin editions, now in circulation" and the use of "authentic" (not "inerrant") show the limits of this statement.[64]

The Vulgate has been declared to "be held as authentic" by the Catholic Church in the Council of Trent.[63] Later, in the 20th century, Pope Pius XII declared it as "free from error whatsoever in matters of faith and morals" in his encyclical Divino Afflante Spiritu:

Hence this special authority or as they say, authenticity of the Vulgate was not affirmed by the Council particularly for critical reasons, but rather because of its legitimate use in the Churches throughout so many centuries; by which use indeed the same is shown, in the sense in which the Church has understood and understands it, to be free from any error whatsoever in matters of faith and morals; so that, as the Church herself testifies and affirms, it may be quoted safely and without fear of error in disputations, in lectures and in preaching [...]"[65]

— Pope Pius XII

It is important to understand that 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" but not in a philological sense. The meaning denoted by the words is free from error in faith and morals, but the particular arrangement of letters or words may be different:

[...] and so its authenticity is not specified primarily as critical, but rather as juridical.[65]

The Catholic Church has produced three official editions of the Vulgate: the Sixtine Vulgate, the Clementine Vulgate, and the Nova Vulgata.

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 as well as other Old English Bible translations, the translation of John Wycliffe, the Douay–Rheims Bible, the Confraternity Bible, and Ronald Knox's translation were all made from the Vulgate.

The Vulgate had a large influence on 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 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" 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). Other examples include apostolus, ecclesia, evangelium, Pascha, and angelus.

A number of early manuscripts containing or reflecting the Vulgate survive today. Dating from the 8th century, the Codex Amiatinus is the earliest surviving manuscript of the complete Vulgate Bible. The Codex Fuldensis, dating from around 545, contains most of the New Testament in the Vulgate version, but the four gospels are harmonised into a continuous narrative derived from the Diatessaron.

Alcuin of York oversaw efforts to make an improved Vulgate, which he presented to Charlemagne in 801. He concentrated mainly on correcting inconsistencies of grammar and orthography, many of which were in the original text. More scholarly attempts were made by Theodulphus, Bishop of Orléans (787?–821); Lanfranc, Archbishop of Canterbury (1070–1089); Stephen Harding, Abbot of Cîteaux (1109–1134); and Deacon Nicolaus Maniacoria (mid-12th century). The University of Paris, the Dominicans, and the Franciscans following Roger Bacon assembled lists of correctoria—approved readings where variants had been noted.[66] Many of the readings that were recommended were later found to be interpolations, or surviving remnants of the Old Latin text, since Medieval correctors commonly sought to adjust the Vulgate text into consistency with Bible quotations found in Early Church Fathers.

First page of the first volume of the Gutenberg Bible: the epistle of St Jerome to Paulinus from the University of Texas copy. The page has 40 lines.

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.

Erasmus 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, 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.[49]

In 1550, Stephanus fled to Geneva, 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 theology.

The Sixtine Vulgate.

The prologue of the gospel of John, Clementine Vulgate, 1922 edition.

The Clementine Vulgate (Biblia Sacra Vulgatæ Editionis Sixti Quinti Pontificis Maximi iussu recognita atque edita) is the edition most familiar to Catholics who have lived prior to the liturgical reforms following Vatican II. 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."[23]

After the Reformation, when the Catholic Church strove to counter the attacks and refute the doctrines of Protestantism, the Vulgate was reaffirmed at the Council of Trent as the sole, authorized Latin text of the Bible.[67] Furthermore, the council expressed the wish that the Vulgate be printed quam emendatissime ("with fewest possible faults").[3][68]

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."[69] On 5 September of the same year, the College of Cardinals 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, 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, "whom Sixtus had offended by putting one of Bellarmine's books on the 'Index' ".[70]

In the same year he became pope (1592), Clement VIII recalled all copies of the Sixtine Vulgate.[71][72] The reason invoked for recalling Sixtus V's edition was printing errors, however the Sixtine Vulgate was mostly free of them.[72][73]

The Sistine edition was replaced by Clement VIII (1592–1605). This new edition was published in 1592 and is called today the Clementine Vulgate[74][75] or Sixto-Clementine Vulgate.[75] "The misprints of this edition were partly eliminated in a second (1593) and a third (1598) edition."[74]

The official status of the Clementine Vulgate and the mass of manuscript material discouraged the creation of a critical edition of the Vulgate. In 1734 Dominic Vallarsi published a corrected edition of the Vulgate. 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[76] Fleck's edition[77] of 1840, and Constantin von Tischendorf's edition of 1864. In 1906 Eberhard Nestle published Novum Testamentum Latine,[78] 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 scholars at the University of Oxford began to edit the New Testament in 1878 (completed in 1954), while the Benedictines of Rome began an edition of the Old Testament in 1907 (completed in 1995). Their 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.[79] From the original Oxford Vulgate, the editors of these critical editions adopted two major critical principles. The first was to present the text in sense lines per cola et commata, that is to say putting individual phrases or clauses on new lines, with no other indications of punctuation. The second was to reconstruct the earliest text solely on the authority of primary manuscript witnesses dating from before the 11th century (a few later Bibles are selectively cited in the apparatus, but not used for the texts). Consequently, for the most part, the later medieval development of the Vulgate text is apparent in these critical editions only in citations of variants printed from the Sistine and Sixto-Clementine editions; albeit that these can only provide two snap-shots of the wide range of variant readings found in medieval texts. Neither in the Old nor New Testaments, do the critical editions print conjectural readings (even in instances of manifest error or contamination, such as pietatis for timoris Domini at Isaiah 11:2).[23] Every reading is taken from one or another of the primary witnesses for that book.

As a result of the inaccuracy of existing editions of the Vulgate, in 1878, the delegates of the Oxford University Press accepted a proposal from classicist John Wordsworth to produce a critical edition of the New Testament.[80][81] This was eventually published as Nouum Testamentum Domini nostri Iesu Christi Latine, secundum editionem sancti Hieronymi in three volumes between 1889 and 1954.[82] Along with Wordsworth and Henry Julian White, the completed work lists on its title pages Alexander Ramsbotham,[83] Hedley Frederick Davis Sparks, Claude Jenkins, and Arthur White Adams.

Wordsworth died in 1911.[84] Even with the death of some of those involved in the project during the First World War, the second volume (containing the Pauline epistles) had been published as far as the Second Epistle to the Corinthians by 1926. In 1933, White enlisted Sparks to assist him in the work. After White's death in 1934[85] Sparks assumed primary responsibility for the edition. After its completion, he served on the editorial board for the Stuttgart edition of the Vulgate, beginning in 1959.[86]

The edition, commonly known as the Oxford Vulgate, relies primarily on the texts of the Codex Amiatinus, Codex Fuldensis (Codex Harleianus in the Gospels), Codex Sangermanensis and the Codex Mediolanensis. It also consistently cites readings in the so-called DELQR group of manuscripts, named after the sigla it uses for them: Book of Armagh (D), Egerton Gospels (E), Lichfield Gospels (L), Book of Kells (Q), and Rushworth Gospels (R).[87] The only major early Vulgate New Testament manuscripts not cited are the St Gall Gospels, Codex Sangallensis 1395 (which was not published until 1931), and the Book of Durrow. For several of these cited manuscripts, however, the Oxford editors had relied on collations subsequently found to be unreliable. Consequently, many Oxford citations are corrected in the apparatus of the Stuttgart Vulgate New Testament.

In 1907, Pope Pius X commissioned the Benedictine monks to prepare a critical edition of Jerome's Vulgate, entitled Biblia Sacra iuxta latinam vulgatam versionem.[88] This text was originally planned as the basis for a revised complete official Bible for the Catholic church to replace the Clementine edition.[89] The first volume, the Pentateuch completed in 1926, lists as its primary editor Henri Quentin, whose editorial methods were described in his book Mémoire sur l'établissement du texte de la Vulgate.[90][91][92]

After Henri Quentin's death in 1935, the Roman Vulgate's editors for the Old Testament books from I Samuel onward modified their underlying textual theory and methods towards those of the Oxford editors. They were looking explicitly to establish for each book the best two or three primary sources from the Italian Vulgate tradition and then decide readings between them using secondary sources. For much of rest of the Old Testament, the chosen primary sources were the Codex Amiatinus and Codex Cavensis. For the Book of Baruch, their only source was from the bibles of Theodulf of Orleans. As neither Amiatinus nor Cavensis presented the Gallican Psalter, the selected primary sources for the Book of Psalms were three of a series of 8th-10th century psalters which presented both Jerome's Gallican and Hebraic translations in parallel columns.

Following the Codex Amiatinus and the Vulgate texts of Alcuin and Theodulf, the Roman 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,[93] and the abbey was suppressed in 1984.[94] 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.[95] Since the Oxford editors had already published a full critical text of the Vulgate New Testament, no attempt was made to duplicate their work.

Based on the editions of Oxford and Rome, but with an independent examination of the manuscript evidence, the Württembergische Bibelanstalt, later the Deutsche Bibelgesellschaft (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.[96] The project was originally directed by Robert Weber, OSB (a monk of the same Benedictine abbey responsible for the Rome 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.[97]

Concordance to the Vulgate Bible for the Stuttgart Vulgate

This edition, alternatively titled Biblia Sacra Vulgata or Biblia Sacra iuxta vulgatam versionem, is a "manual edition" in that it reduces much of the information in the large multivolume critical editions of Oxford and Rome into a handheld format. It identifies the primary manuscript witnesses used by those earlier editors to establish their texts (with some adjustments) and provides variant readings from the more significant early Vulgate manuscripts and printed editions. The first editions were published in two volumes, but the fourth (1994) and fifth (2007) editions were published as a single volume with smaller pages. The text reproduces and updates those of the Rome and the Oxford Editions for the Old Testament, Gospels, Acts and the earlier Pauline epistles; with changes mainly limited to standardisation of orthography. In the later New Testament books (those where the Oxford editors had retained the text of the 1911 editio minor unchanged), the Stuttgart editors felt justified in making a greater number of critical changes, especially as H.F.D. Sparks was included among their number. The critical text has not been modified since the third edition of 1983 (to retain consistency with the concordance published in 1977). However, the apparatus has been rewritten for many books in more recent editions based, for example, on new findings concerning the Vetus Latina from the work of the Vetus Latina Institute, Beuron. Like the editions of Oxford and Rome, it attempts, through critical comparison of the most significant historical manuscripts of the Vulgate, to recreate an early text, cleansed of the scribal errors and scholarly contaminations of a millennium. Thus, it does not always represent what might have been read in the later Middle Ages.

An important feature of the Weber-Gryson edition for those studying the Vulgate is its inclusion of Jerome's prologues, typically included in medieval copies of the Vulgate. It also includes the Eusebian Canons. It does not, however, provide any of the other prefatory material often found in medieval Bible manuscripts, such as chapter headings, some of which are included in the large editions of Oxford and Rome.

In its spelling, it retains medieval Latin orthography, sometimes using oe rather than ae, and having more proper nouns beginning with H (e.g., Helimelech instead of Elimelech). Unlike the edition of Rome, it standardises the spelling of proper names rather than attempting to reproduce the idiosyncrasies of each passage. It also follows the medieval manuscripts in using line breaks, rather than the modern system of punctuation marks, to indicate the structure of each verse, following the practise of the Oxford and Rome editions, though it initially presents an unfamiliar appearance to readers accustomed to the Clementine text.

It contains two Psalters, both the traditional 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, containing Psalm 151 and the Epistle to the Laodiceans in addition to 3 and 4 Esdras 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.

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 for use in the contemporary Roman rite. 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.[98] Consequently, it introduces many readings that are not supported in any ancient Vulgate manuscript, but which provide a more accurate translation from the original languages texts into Latin.

In 1979, the Nova Vulgata was promulgated as "typical" (standard) by John Paul II.[99]

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's name in Genesis 3:20:[100][101]

• Heva: the Clementine Vulgate
• Hava: the Stuttgart edition of the Vulgate
• Eva: the Nova Vulgata

By the end of the 4th century, the New Testament had been established in both Greek and Latin Bibles as containing the 27 books familiar to this day. These are the books found in all Vulgate New Testaments. Over 100 late antique and medieval Vulgate texts also include the concocted Epistle to the Laodiceans (accepted as a genuine letter of Paul by many Latin commentators), although often with a note to the effect that it was not counted as canonical.

The Vulgate Old Testament from the first comprised the 38 books of the Hebrew Bible (as counted in Christian tradition before Nehemiah became split from Ezra in the medieval period). It also always included books from the Septuagint tradition, which by this date had ceased to be used by Jews, but which were copied in Greek Bibles as their Old Testament. Modern critical editions of the Septuagint take their texts from the Old Testament found in the great 4th/5th-century uncial codices: Codex Vaticanus, Codex Sinaiticus, and Codex Alexandrinus. However, no two of these present exactly the same canon of Old Testament books. Similarly, Vulgate Old Testaments continued to vary in their content throughout the Middle Ages, and this was not considered problematic until Protestant Reformers questioned the canonical status of books outside the Hebrew canon.

Although Jerome preferred the books of the Hebrew Bible, he deferred to church authority in accepting as scripture not only the Greek additions to Esther and Daniel (albeit distinguished as apocryphal with the obelus), but also an extra six 'apocryphal' books in Judith, Tobit, Wisdom, Ecclesiasticus and the two books of Maccabees, which in his listing of the Old Testament in the prologus galeatus he placed after the Hebrew canon. But, as Jerome explained in the prologue to Jeremiah, he continued to exclude the Book of Baruch (and with it the letter of Jeremiah) altogether. Indeed, these two books are not found in the Vulgate before the 9th century, and only in a minority of manuscripts before the 13th century. The 71 biblical books as listed by Jerome, although not in his order, formed the standard text of the Vulgate as it became established in Italy in the 5th and 6th centuries. No early Italian manuscript of the whole Vulgate Bible survives. Such pandect Bibles were always rare in this period, but the Codex Amiatinus, written in Northumbria from Italian exemplars around 700, and intended to be presented to the Pope, represents the complete Bible according to the Italian Vulgate tradition. It contains the standard 71 books, with the Psalms according to Jerome's translation from the Hebrew, except for the addition of Psalm 151 in a version corresponding closely to that later attached to the Gallican Psalter.

The early Vulgate text in Spain tended to vary much further from Jerome's original, specifically in the retention of many Old Latin readings, in the expansion of the text of the Book of Proverbs, and in the incorporation into the first epistle of John of the Comma Johanneum. Spanish Bibles, on occasion, also included additional apocryphal texts, including the Book of Baruch, the Letter of Jeremiah, 3 Esdras and 4 Esdras. Spanish, Italian and Irish Vulgate traditions were all reflected in Bibles created in northern France, which by the end of the 8th century featured a wide variety of highly variable texts. Prompted by the emperor Charlemagne, in the 9th century several scholars attempted to reform the French Vulgate. The English scholar Alcuin produced a text based substantially on Italian exemplars (although also including the Comma Johanneum), but with the major change of substituting Jerome's Gallican version of the psalms (with Psalm 151 added from the Old Latin) for Jerome's third version from the Hebrew that had previously predominated in Bible texts. In the 50 years after Alcuin's death, the abbey of Tours reproduced his text in standardised pandect Bibles, of which over 40 survive. Alcuin's contemporary Theodulf of Orleans produced a second, independent reformed revision of the Vulgate, also based largely on Italian exemplars, but with variant readings, from Spanish texts and patristic citations, indicated in the margin. Theodulf kept Jerome's Hebraic version of the Psalms and also incorporated the Book of Baruch and the Letter of Jeremiah within the book of Jeremiah. Theodulf adopted Jerome's proposed order of the Old Testament, with the six books from the Septuagint at the end. Theodulf's text was widely influential. A Vulgate revision was also undertaken in the early 9th century by scholars in the Abbey of Corbie, and the Bibles from this abbey are the first in France to include the books of 3 Esdras and 4 Esdras, though this practice remained rare.

Although many Bible manuscripts resulted from all this work, no standard Vulgate text was established for another three centuries. Marsden points out, in discussing how the Gallican version of the Psalter came to become established as the text of the psalms in the Vulgate Bible, "Its dominant position was in fact not assured before the early 13th century, and even then was not universal". However, the explosive growth of medieval universities, especially the University of Paris during the 12th century, created a demand for a new sort of Vulgate. University scholars needed the entire Bible in a single, portable and comprehensive volume, which they could rely on to include all biblical texts which they might encounter in patristic references. The result was the Paris Bible, which reached its final form around 1230. Its text owed most to Alcuin's revision and always presented the Psalms in the Gallican version. However, readings throughout were adjusted in many places to be more consistent with patristic citations (which would very frequently have been based on Old Latin or Greek texts). The book of Baruch and the Letter of Jeremiah were now always included, as too were 3 Esdras, and usually (appended to the book of Chronicles) the Prayer of Manasseh. Less commonly included was 4 Esdras.

The early printings of the Latin Bible took examples of the Paris Bible as their base text, culminating in the successive critical Vulgate editions of Robert Estienne (Stephanus). Estienne's Geneva Vulgate of 1555, the first Bible to be subdivided throughout into chapters and verses, remained the standard Latin Bible for Reformed Protestantism. It established the content of the Vulgate as 76 books: 27 New Testament, 39 Hebrew Bible (with Ezra and Nehemiah now separated), plus Tobit, Judith, Wisdom, Ecclesiasticus, Baruch (including the Letter of Jeremiah), 1 and 2 Maccabees, 3 Esdras, 4 Esdras and the Prayer of Manasses. At the Council of Trent, it was agreed that seven of these books (except 3 Esdras, 4 Esdras and the Prayer of Manasses) should be considered inspired scripture. The term "deuterocanonical", first applied by Sixtus of Siena, was adopted to categorise them. The Council also requested that the Pope should undertake the production of definitive editions of the Latin, Greek and Hebrew scriptures conforming to their definition of the biblical canon. After several false starts, this resulted in the publication of the Clementine Vulgate of 1592. This incorporates the books of Trent's Deuterocanon in the main Bible text. It also introduces, following the New Testament, a section of Apocrypha, containing the Prayer of Manasses, 3 Esdras and 4 Esdras, of which only the first two are found in the Septuagint.