History
of the Bible
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Vulgate
General Information III
Vulgate (Latin vulgata editio, "popular edition") is the edition of the Latin Bible that was pronounced "authentic" by the Council of Trent. The name originally was given to the "common edition" of the Greek Septuagint used by the early Fathers of the Church. It was then transferred to the Old Latin version (the Itala) of both the Old Testament and the New Testament that was used extensively during the first centuries in the Western church. The present composite Vulgate is basically the work of St. Jerome, a Doctor of the Church.
At first St. Jerome used the Greek Septuagint for his Old Testament translation, including parts of the Apocrypha; later he consulted the original Hebrew texts.
He produced three versions of the Psalms, called the Roman, the Gallican, and the Hebrew. The Gallican Psalter, based on a Greek transliteration of a Hebrew text, is now read in the Vulgate. At the request of Pope Damasus I in 382, Jerome had previously undertaken a revision of the New Testament. He corrected the Gospels thoroughly; it is disputed whether the slight revisions made in the remainder of the New Testament are his work.
Through the next 12 centuries, the text of the Vulgate was transmitted with less and less accuracy. The Council of Trent (around 1550) recognized the need for an authentic Latin text and authorized a revision of the extant corrupt editions.
This revision is the basic Latin text still used by scholars. A modern reworking of it, called for by Pope Paul VI as a result of the Second Vatican Council, was largely completed in 1977. It was used in making up the new liturgical texts in Latin that were basic to the vernacular liturgies mandated by the council.
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Article by Believe Project
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