Vulgate
2 of the 7 encyclopedias on this shelf carry an entry for Vulgate. Both are reproduced below, so you can see where they agree and where they differ.
Collier's New Encyclopedia (1921)
the edition of the Latin Bible which, having been sanctioned by the usage of many ages in the Roman Church, was pronounced "authentic" by the Council of Trent. originally given to the "common edition" of the Septuagint used by the Greek Fathers, and thence transferred to the "Itala" or the "Old Latin" version of both Old and New Testaments current during the first centuries in the Western Church. It finally passed to the present composite work, which gradually took the place of the "Old Latin." The relation of the component parts of this venerable version to the original texts will be best understood by a description of the work of St. Jerome, from whose hand it mainly proceeded. In the time of Pope Damasus, toward the end of the 4th century, the text of the "Old Latin," the origin of which is lost in obscurity, had fallen into considerable confusion. It was a very literal representation of the Greek, rude in style and full of provincialisms. Every one, it seems, who had a smattering of Greek, thought fit to make alterations; and so great became the variety of recensions that it is still a matter of dispute whether there was not at their basis a number of independent translations rather than a single version often retouched. To remedy the evil Jerome, at the request of Damasus, A. D. 382, undertook a revision of the New Testament. He corrected the Gospels thoroughly, though with great caution, and the rest more cursorily, rily, with the aid of Greek codices which were then reputed ancient and trustworthy. The critical value of the result as a primary witness to the Greek text in its best state in the 4th century has recently been generally recognized. Jerome next turned his attention to the Psalms. He at first merely corrected the Latin from the "common edi-gians (first under the care of Henten of tion" of the Greek, and this revision, called the "Roman Psalter," completed in 383, was introduced by the Pope into the Roman liturgy, and is to this day used in the Ambrosian or Milan rite and in St. Peter's at Rome. Shortly after Jerome made a more thorough revision by the aid of Origen's rigen's Hexapla; and it is this , the so-called "Gallican Psalter," which is now read in the Vulgate. After the death of Damasus, Jerome was induced by the urgency of private friends to undertake a more serious task, a new translation of the Old Testament from the Hebrew. This he accomplished in Palestine , where he had perfected himself in Hebrew with the assistance of learned Jews, during the years A. D. 390- 405. To this work he added a free translation of the books of Tobit and Judith from the Chaldee version of the original Hebrew, now lost. The other books of the Greek canon, afterward incorporated with the rest of his work-viz. Wisdom, Ecclesiasticus , and Maccabees were left by him untouched; and these, with, in a somewhat less degree, the Psalms and the New Testament, are of special value to the linguist, preserving as they do, quite apart from their Grecisms, many lexical and grammatical forms, relics of the dialect of the people, which are not found in the classical or literary language. The new translation met at first with much opposition. The Fathers had been accustomed to regard the Septuagint as an inspired version, and Jerome's departure from that version appeared to be a dangerous innovation. It won its way by degrees, and by force of its intrinsic worth. Gregory the Great says that in his time the Roman See made use of both versions. Venerable Bede speaks of St. Jerome's as "our edition ; " and soon the "Old Latin" fell into disuse and neglect, so that, notwithstanding the keen researches of scholars, a complete copy of the pre-Hieronymian Old Testament cannot now be made up from the surviving fragments. In the course of the Middle Ages the Vulgate necessarily contracted some corruption. Charlemagne, with the aid of Alcuin, took pains to procure and disseminate a pure text; and later on, with the same object, University of Paris and some of the religious the us orders compiled "Correctoria," or with their corrections. The numerous lists of common errors editions printed in the 15th century were of no critical value, but in the first half of the following century several attempts were made to provide thoritative text, the most important edia revised and autions being those of R. Stephens (1528, and later) and of the Louvain theolo- Malines in 1547, and secondly with the co-operation of Lucas of Bruges and the printer Plantin, 1574). Meanwhile the carrying out of the Tridentine decree, that the Vulgate should be printed as correctly as possible, was undertaken by the Popes, who appointed commissions of cardinals and learned men for the purpose. Nearly 40 years passed, however, before their labors close. Sixtus V. in 1590 first issued the were brought to a long-expected work, together with a bull i in which he ordered received as "true, lawful, authentic, and this edition to be unquestioned "; but he had of his own judgment made many important changes in the readings sion, and these met with so little approposed by the commisproval that the edition was after Sixtus' death almost immediately recalled, the work again submitted to a papal congregation for revision, lly issued in 1592 as the authoritative text by Clement and finally is VIII. This Clementine Bible differed from the Sixtine in some 3,000 readings. A few of were corrected in a second impression in 1593; and others, again, in the third and last official impression standard all copies should be conformed. of 1598, to which
Aiton's Encyclopedia (1910)
a translation of the Scriptures into Latin. This translation was largely the work of St. Jerome, who, after spending his life in the study of Hebrew, Greek, and Latin, and in travel, shut himself up with companions in a monastery at Bethlehem and gave thirty-four years to writing and translating. The Vulgate was made up, in part, by adopting or revising versions of some books and by translating others from the original Hebrew and Greek. Jerome began with the Gospels in 383. He died in 420. Inasmuch as the version of Jerome differed from the versions in use, he was execrated as one tampering with the inspired word, but finally the Vulgate was adopted by the Christian church. As copies were multiplied, necessarily in manuscript, variations crept in. After the invention of printing efforts were made to issue an edition free from errors. The Clementine Vulgate, issued under the authority of Pope Clement in 1592, just a hundred years after the discovery of the New World, was declared the official Bible of the Catholic church. This put an end to the "intolerable confusion of texts." The Latin of the Vulgate is said to be colloquial--such as was used by educated people of the day rather than the classical Latin used by the authors read in college. Nevertheless the Vulgate is praised for literary quality. The first translation from the Vulgate into English was the Wyclif Bible. The next was the Douai Bible. The latter is the version used by English speaking Catholics. See Bible