The Vulgate exists in many forms. The
Codex Amiatinus is the oldest surviving complete manuscript from the 8th century. The
Gutenberg Bible is a notable printed edition of the Vulgate by Johann Gutenberg in 1455. The
Sixtine Vulgate (1590) is the first official Bible of the Catholic Church. The
Clementine Vulgate (1592) is a standardized edition of the medieval Vulgate, and the second official Bible of the Catholic Church. The
Stuttgart Vulgate is a 1969 critical edition of the Vulgate. The
Nova Vulgata is the third and latest official Bible of the Catholic Church; it was published in 1979, and is a translation from modern critical editions of original language texts of the Bible.
Manuscripts and early editions '' containing the beginning of the
Gospel of Mark A number of
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.
Carolingian period "The two best-known revisions of the Latin Scriptures in the early medieval period were made in the
Carolingian period by
Alcuin of York (–840) and
Theodulf of Orleans (750/760–821)." Alcuin of York oversaw efforts to make a Latin Bible, an exemplar of which was presented to
Charlemagne in 801. Alcuin's edition contained the Vulgate version. It appears Alcuin concentrated only on correcting errors of grammar,
orthography and punctuation. "Even though Alcuin's revision of the Latin Bible was neither the first nor the last of the Carolingian period, it managed to prevail over the other versions and to become the most influential edition for centuries to come." The success of this Bible has been attributed to the fact that this Bible may have been "prescribed as the official version at the emperor's request." However,
Bonifatius Fischer believes its success was rather due to the productivity of the scribes of
Tours where Alcuin was abbot, at the
monastery of Saint Martin; Fischer believes the emperor only favored the editorial work of Alcuin by encouraging work on the Bible in general. "Although, in contrast to Alcuin, Theodulf [of Orleans] clearly developed an editorial programme, his work on the Bible was far less influential than that of hs slightly older contemporary. Nevertheless, several manuscripts containing his version have come down to us." Theodulf added to his edition of the Bible the Book of Baruch, which Alcuin's edition did not contain; it is this version of the Book of Baruch which later became part of the Vulgate. In his editorial activity, on at least one manuscript of the Theodulf Bible (S Paris, BNF lat. 9398), Theodulf marked variant readings along with their sources in the margin of the manuscripts. Those marginal notes of variant readings along with their sources "seem to foreshadow the thirteenth-century
correctoria." In the 9th century the
Vetus Latina texts of Baruch and the Letter of Jeremiah were introduced 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. By the 9th century, due to the success of Alcuin's edition, the Vulgate had replaced the
Vetus Latina as the most available edition of the Latin Bible.
Late Middle Ages The
University of Paris, the
Dominicans, and the
Franciscans assembled lists of
correctoria—approved readings—where variants had been noted.
Printed editions Renaissance 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. 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." 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' ". In the same year he became pope (1592), Clement VIII recalled all copies of the Sixtine Vulgate. The reason invoked for recalling Sixtus V's edition was printing errors, however the Sixtine Vulgate was mostly free of them. or Sixto-Clementine Vulgate. However, historical scholar Cardinal
Francis Aidan Gasquet, in the
Catholic Encyclopedia, states that the Clementine Vulgate substantially represents the Vulgate which Jerome produced in the 4th century, although "it stands in need of close examination and much correction to make it [completely] agree with the translation of St. Jerome". A 2018 comparison of the Latin Clementine Vulgate and the Greek Stephanus Textus Receptus, with the modern Latin Nova Vulgata and the United Bible Society Greek text, looking in particular at missing phrases or words, found that "differences between the Vulgate and the Textus Receptus on the “missing” verses are shown to be trivial in comparison with the UBS text and Nova Vulgata."
Modern critical editions 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, Fleck's edition of 1840, and
Constantin von Tischendorf's edition of 1864. In 1906
Eberhard Nestle published
Novum Testamentum Latine, 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). The Oxford Anglican scholars's 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.
Oxford New Testament 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. This was eventually published as
Nouum Testamentum Domini nostri Iesu Christi Latine, secundum editionem sancti Hieronymi in three volumes between 1889 and 1954. 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, Codex Mediolanensis (in the Gospels), and Codex Reginensis (in Paul). 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).
Benedictine (Rome) Old 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. This text was originally planned as the basis for a revised complete official Bible for the Catholic Church to replace the Clementine edition. The first volume, the Pentateuch, was completed in 1926. For the Pentateuch, the primary sources for the text are the
Codex Amiatinus, the Codex Turonensis (the
Ashburnham Pentateuch), and the Ottobonianus Octateuch. For the rest of the Old Testament (except the
Book of Psalms) the primary sources for the text are the
Codex Amiatinus and
Codex Cavensis. Following the Codex Amiatinus and the Vulgate texts of Alcuin and Theodulf, the Benedictine 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, and the abbey was suppressed in 1984. 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.
Stuttgart Vulgate Based on the editions of Oxford and Rome, but with an independent examination of the manuscript evidence and extending their lists of primary witnesses for some books, 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. The project was originally directed by Robert Weber, OSB (a monk of the same Benedictine abbey responsible for the Benedictine 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. The Weber-Gryson includes of Jerome's prologues and the
Eusebian Canons. It contains two Psalters, the
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 Ezra 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.
Nova Vulgata 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. In 1979, the
Nova Vulgata was promulgated as "typical" (standard) by
John Paul II.
Online versions 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: •
Heva: the
Clementine Vulgate •
Hava: the
Stuttgart edition of the Vulgate •
Eva: the
Nova Vulgata == See also ==