The extensive variations then existing between different copies of the Old Latin version, and the obvious corruptions which had crept into some of them, prompted Damasus, Bishop of Rome, in a.d. 382, to commit the important task of a formal revision of the New, and probably of the Old Testament, to Jerome, a presbyter born at Stridon on the confines of Dalmatia and Pannonia, probably a little earlier than a.d. 345. He had just returned to Rome, where he had been educated, from his hermitage in Bethlehem, and in the early ripeness of his scholarship [pg 057] undertook a work for which he was specially qualified, and whose delicate nature he well understood62. Whatever prudence and moderation could do in this case to remove objections or relieve the scruples of the simple, were not neglected by Jerome, who not only made as few changes as possible in the Old Latin when correcting its text by the help of “ancient” Greek manuscripts63, but left untouched many words and forms of expression, and not a few grammatical irregularities, which in a new translation (as his own subsequent version of the Hebrew Scriptures makes clear) he would most certainly have avoided. The four Gospels, as they stand in the traditional Greek order without Western variation, revised but not re-translated on this wise principle, appeared in a.d. 384, accompanied with his celebrated Preface to Damasus (“summus sacerdos”), who died that same year. Notwithstanding his other literary engagements, it is probable enough that his recension of the whole New Testament for public use was completed a.d. 385, though the proof alleged by Mill (N. T., Proleg., § 862), and by others after his example, hardly meets the case. In the next year (a.d. 386), in his Commentary on Galat., Ephes., Titus, and Philem., he indulges in more freedom of alteration as a translator than he had previously deemed advisable; while his new version of the Old Testament from the Hebrew (completed about a.d. 405) is not founded at all on the Old Latin, which was made from the Greek Septuagint; the Psalter excepted, which he executed at Rome at the same date, and in the same spirit, as the Gospels. The boldness of his attempt in regard to the Old Testament is that portion of his labours which alone Augustine disapproved64 (August, ad [pg 058] Hieron. Ep. x. tom. ii. p. 18, Lugd. 1586, a.d. 403), and indeed it was never received entire by the Western Church, which long preferred his slight revision of the Old Latin, made at some earlier period of his life. Gradually, however, Jerome's recension of the whole Bible gained ground, as well through the growing influence of the Church of Rome as from its own intrinsic merits: so that when in course of time it came to take the place of the older version, it also took its name of the Vulgate, or common translation65. Cassiodorus indeed, in the middle of the sixth century, is said to have compared the new and old Latin (of the New, perhaps of both Testaments) in parallel columns, which thus became partially mixed in not a few codices: but Gregory the Great (590-604), while confessing that his Church used both “quia sedes Apostolica, cui auctore Deo praesideo, utrâque utitur,” (Epist. Dedic. ad Leandrum, c. 5), awarded so decided a preference to Jerome's translation from the Hebrew, that this form of his Old Testament version, not without some mixture with his translation from the Septuagint (Walton, Polyglott, Prol. x. pp. 242-244, Wrangham), and his Psalter and New Testament as revised from the Old Latin, came at length to comprise the Vulgate Bible, the only shape in which Holy Scripture was accessible in Western Europe (except to a few scattered scholars) during the long night of the Middle Ages.
But it was not a pure Vulgate text that was thus used; the old versions went on side by side with it for centuries, and even when they were thus nominally superseded, fragments of them found their way into probably all existing MSS. We have already remarked (in c g &c.) how the same MS. will present us with an Old Latin text in some books of the New Testament, and with a Vulgate text in others; we shall note the same phenomenon in other MSS., especially the British and Irish (see the MSS. numbered 51, 67, 78, 85, 87 below), which preserve on the whole a pure Hieronymian text, but are coloured here and there from the earlier versions. Variation was still further increased by the apparently numerous local or provincial recensions which were made, sometimes anonymously, sometimes [pg 059] under the editorship of famous men. Many of the Irish MSS., for instance, seem to have been corrected immediately from the Greek; but the two most notable recensions of the text came, not, as we might have expected, directly from Rome, but from Gaul; they are those of Alcuin and Theodulf in the ninth century. That of Alcuin was undertaken at the desire of Charles the Great66, who bade him (a.d. 797) review and correct certain copies by the best Latin MSS. without reference to the original Greek. Charles' motive was not so much critical as a wish to obtain a standard Bible for church use, and consequently of simple and intelligible Latin. Alcuin obtained bibles for this purpose from his native Northumbria, the scene at the beginning of the eighth century of an earlier recension of the text; for it was to their monasteries at Wearmouth and Jarrow (see below, p. 71) that Benedict Biscop and Ceolfrid had brought the bibles and other books collected in Rome and elsewhere during their journeys; and it was in Northumbria that the magnificent Anglian texts (such as those numbered 29, 64, 82, 91, &c.) were written, perpetuating the pure Vulgate text contained at that time in the Roman MSS.67
At Christmas in 801, Alcuin presented Charles with a copy of the revised Bible68; specimens of this revision are to be found in the MSS. numbered below, 5, 9, 25, 37, 117, and others.
About the same time, Theodulf, Bishop of Orleans (787-821), undertook a similar revision, and not of a less scientific character, but followed a different method. Theodulf, himself a Visigoth and born near Narbonne, seems to have done little more than introduce into France the Spanish type of MSS., which was mixed, confused, full of interpolations, and of very slight critical value69; this however he corrected carefully and enriched with a large number of marginal readings. This revision is preserved for us in the Theodulfian Bible at Paris (no. 18 below), [pg 060] less correctly in its sister volume at Puy (no. 24), the Paris MS. (no. 22 below), and partly also in the correction of the Bible of St. Hubert (no. 6).
Two centuries later the text had again degenerated, and our Primate Lanfranc (1069-89) attempted a similar task, perhaps rather with a view to theology than textual criticism (“secundum orthodoxam fidem studuit corrigere”)70. In 1109 Stephen Harding, third abbot of Citeaux, made a further revision, partly from good Latin MSS., partly from the Greek, partly, in the Old Testament, from the Hebrew, as he obtained help from some learned Jewish scholars71. In 1150 his example was followed by Cardinal Nicolaus Maniacoria72. As these individual efforts seemed to have but slight success, the task was taken up in the thirteenth century more fully and systematically by bodies of scholars, in the so-called “Correctoria Bibliorum;” here the variant readings with their authorities, Greek, Latin, ancient, modern, and citations from the Fathers, were carefully registered. The most noticeable examples of these correctoria are (1) the “Correctorium Parisiense” prepared by the Paris theologians. Roger Bacon had a poor opinion of the work done by these students; for some time the MSS. of the Bible that were copied and bought and sold in Paris, he says, were corrupt; they were bad to begin with, and copied carelessly by the booksellers and their scribes, while the theologians were not learned enough to discover and amend the mistakes73. This correctorium is also frequently, but according to Denifle (p. 284) wrongly, called Senonense, as if it was undertaken at the instance of the Bishop of Sens; there is, however, no correctorium Senonense, only the correctiones Senonenses, i.e. corrections made in the Paris Correctorium by the Dominicans residing at Sens; (2) the “Correctorium” of the Dominicans, prepared under the auspices of Hugo de S. Caro, about 1240, the final corrected [pg 061] form of which is now preserved at Paris, B.N. Lat. 16719-16722 (see below, p. 70, no. 23)74; this, however, was again an attempt, not so much to get at Jerome's actual text as, to bring the Latin text into accordance with the Greek or Hebrew75; (3) a better and more critical revision, the “Correctorium Vaticanum,” a good MS. of which is in the Vatican Library (Lat. 3466); the author of this has done his best to restore Jerome's reading throughout, although well learned in Greek and Hebrew; and he has with some probability been identified by Vercellone with a scholar much praised by Roger Bacon as a “sapientissimus homo,” who had spent nearly forty years in the correction of the text76 (Denifle suggests Wilh. de Mara).
These remedies, partial and temporary as they were, seemed all that was possible before the invention of printing; and, indeed, by an unfortunate chance, the worst of the three correctoria, the “Parisiense,” was made use of by Robert Stephen.
Among the earliest productions of the press, Latin Bibles took a prominent position; and during the first half-century of printing at least 124 editions were published77. Of these perhaps the finest is the earliest, the famous “forty-two line” Bible, issued at Mentz between 1452 and 1456, in two volumes, and usually ascribed to Gutenberg78. This is usually called the “Mazarin Bible,” from the copy which first attracted the notice of bibliographers having been discovered in the Library of Cardinal Mazarin; in the New Testament, the order of books is Evv., Paul., Act., Cath., Apoc. Mr. Copinger enumerates twenty-five copies on vellum and paper as still known to exist; there are two in the British Museum. The first Bible published at Rome is dated 1471, and was printed by Conrad Sweynheym and Arnold Pannartz, two vols., folio; the first octavo edition, or “poor man's [pg 062] Bible,” was printed at Basle in 1491 by Froben. The early editions, however, reproduced the current mediaeval type of text, or copied from each other, the only exceptions being those printed by Froben, whose copies, says Mr. Copinger, were sought after, for their accuracy, by the best scholars in Europe, and whose edition of 1502 with the “glossa ordinaria” sometimes stands quite alone in possessing the true reading. The first, edition with a collection of various readings appears to be one published at Paris in 150479, followed by others at Venice and Lyons in 1511, 1513; and a definite revision of the text was attempted by Cardinal Ximenes, in the famous Complutensian Polyglott (1514, &c.; see Chap. V)80, in which he made use of the Bible of Alcalá (see below, no. 42); but though an advance was made on previous editions, the text was still far from pure. Erasmus, in his famous edition of the Greek Testament, appended a Latin translation; this he made himself directly from the Greek, but in his notes he discusses the current Vulgate text and gives readings from MSS. which he had examined; of these he mentions those at the Royal Library at Mechlin, St. Paul's Cathedral, London, Corsendonk Austin Priory, Constance Cathedral, St. Donatian (Abbaye des Dunes) of Bruges; of these the first and third only can be now identified, see below, pp. 84, 81, nos.81 134, 109. The first edition of a really critical nature was that of Robert Stephen, in 1528; for this he used three good MSS., the Exemplar S. Germani parvum (Par. lat. 11937), the Corbey Bible (Par. lat. 11532-3), and the Bible of St. Denis (Par. lat. 2); see below, nos. 22, 20, 10; and he published a more important edition in 1538-40 (reprinted 1546), in which he made use of seventeen MSS., of which the following82, numbered 19, 21, 22, 100 below, have been identified. This edition is practically the foundation of the Modern Vulgate, and is cited by Wordsworth as ϛ. Later, John Hentenius, in his folio edition of the Bible, (Louvain, 1547, and often reprinted); cited by Wordsworth as [Gothic: H] seems to have used about thirty-one MSS. and two printed copies; but as no various readings are cited from individual [pg 063] MSS., they cannot well be identified; see his preface. Lucas Brugensis (see his catalogue at the end of the Hentenian Bible of 1583, p. 6) also gives a long list of MSS., which seem impossible to be identified83, and we must also bear in mind the corrected editions published by Th. Vivian (Paris), and Junta (Venice), 1534 (both are small copies of the New Testament, corrected occasionally from the Greek), Isidore Clarius (Venice, 1542), J. Benedictus (Paris, 1558), Paul Eber (1565), and Luke Osiander (1578).
When the Council of Trent met, the duty of providing for the members of the Church of Rome the most correct recension of the Latin Bible that skill and diligence could produce was obviously incumbent on it; and in one of its earliest sittings (April 8, 1546) the famous decree was passed, ordaining that of the many published editions of the Holy Scripture “haec ipsa vetus et vulgata editio, quae longo tot saeculorum usu in ipsa ecclesia probata est” should be chosen, and “in publicis lectionibus, disputationibus, praedicationibus, et expositionibus pro authentica habeatur” (Sess. iv. Decr. 2); and directing that “posthac sacra Scriptura, potissimum vero haec ipsa vetus et vulgata editio quam emendatissime imprimatur.” No immediate action, however, was taken in the matter, and for forty years the editions were still printed and published by private scholars; the Hentenian, for the time being, becoming almost the standard text of the Roman Catholic Church.
Pope Pius IV had indeed begun the task of correcting the Vulgate Bible, but without immediate result, and under his successors the matter still rested, till the accession of Sixtus V (1585-90)84, a Pope as energetic in his labours on the Holy [pg 064] Scripture as in other spheres of activity. He appointed a commission on the subject, under the presidency of Cardinal Carafa; and after they had presented the Pope with the result of their work, in the beginning of 1589, he devoted himself personally to the study, reading through the whole Bible more than once, and using his best endeavours to bring it to the highest pitch of accuracy. The result of this appeared in a folio edition of the Bible in three volumes, in 159085, accompanied by a Bull, in which, after relating the extreme care that had been taken in preparing the volume, Sixtus V declared that it was to be considered as the authentic edition recommended by the Council of Trent, that it should be taken as the standard of all future reprints, and that all copies should be corrected by it. The edition itself (cited by Wordsworth as [Gothic: S]) was not without faults, and indeed received a good number of corrections by hand after the proofs were printed off; it presents a text more nearly resembling that of Robt. Stephen than that of John Hentenius. In a few months, however, Sixtus was dead; a number of short-lived Popes succeeded him, and in Jan. 1592, Clement VIII ascended the throne. Almost immediately he gave orders for the copies of the Sixtine Vulgate to be called in; it has been hitherto supposed simply on account of its inaccuracy, but Professor Nestle (pp. 17 ff.) argues reasonably enough that this ground is insufficient, and suggests that the revocation was really due to the influence of the Jesuits, whom Sixtus had offended by placing one of Bellarmine's books on the Index Librorum prohibitorum. Be that as it may, in the same year the Clementine edition of the Vulgate (Wordsworth's [Gothic: C]) was published, differing from the Sixtine in many places, and presenting a type of text more nearly allied to Hentenius' Bible. To avoid the appearance of a conflict between the two Popes, the Clementine Bible was boldly published under the name of Sixtus, with a preface by Bellarmine asserting that Sixtus had intended to bring out a new edition in consequence of errors that had occurred in the printing of the first, but had been prevented by death; now, in accordance with his desire, the work was completed by his successor. The opportunity, however, was too good a one for Protestants to miss, and Thomas James in his “Bellum Papale sive Concordia discors” [pg 065] (London, 1600), upbraids the two Popes on their high pretensions and the palpable failure of at least one, possibly both of them86.
From this time forward the Clementine Vulgate (sometimes under the name of Clement, sometimes under that of Sixtus, sometimes under both names)87 has been the standard edition for the Roman Church; by the Bull of 1592, every edition must be assimilated to this one, no word of the text may be altered, nor even variant readings printed in the margin88.
Thus the modern attempts at a scientific and critical revision of this version have come from students mainly outside the communion of the Roman Church.
The design of Bentley for a critical Greek Testament is described below (Chap. V); it was obvious that for its prosecution the MSS. of the Vulgate would have to be collated as carefully as those of the Greek text itself; and accordingly the variant readings of a good number were collected by Bentley himself, nos. 3, 59, 60, 61, 62, 63, 64, 65, 66, 68, 69, 70, 71, 72, 74, 75, 76, 77, 82, 83, 85, 155, 160; other MSS. were collated by his friend and colleague John Walker, who worked much at Paris in 1719 and the following years; to him we owe collations of nos. 10, 11, 15, 16, 19, 20, 21, 52, 96, 97, 102, 151, 164, while he obtained collations of the Tours MSS. (nos. 106, 107, 108, 166) from L. Chevalier, through their common friend Sabatier; and of the Oxford MSS. (nos. 86, 87, 89, 90, 148, 161), from David Casley. Walker died, however, in November, 1741, six months before the great Bentley, and the projected edition came to naught89. Their collations have not been published, but are contained in the following volumes, in the Library of Trinity College, Cambridge: B. 17. 5 containing collations by Walker, Chevalier, Casley, and Bentley; and B. 17. 15 containing collations [pg 066] by Bentley; and they have been made use of by Bishop Wordsworth in his edition of the Vulgate90.
Two attempts are being made now to restore the text of St. Jerome: that of Dr. Peter Corssen, of Berlin, and the Oxford edition under the hands of the Bishop of Salisbury. Dr. Corssen's published results at present consist only of the Epistle to the Galatians (“Epistula ad Galatas,” Berlin, Weidmann, 1885), but he has been spending several years in the accumulation of material, and other books of the New Testament will probably be published before very long. The Bishop of Salisbury after nearly eleven years' preparation, in conjunction with the Rev. H. J. White and other friends, published the first volume of his edition, containing St. Matthew's Gospel, in 1889; St. Mark following in 1891, and St. Luke in 1892; and it is hoped that the rest of the New Testament may be published in due course. More than thirty MSS., those numbered 5, 6, 18, 21, 28, 29, 37, 41, 51, 56, 64, 67, 68, 72, 77, 78, 82, 85, 86, 87, 91, 97, 98, 106, 115, 128, 129, 130, 132, 147, 148, 153, 154, 159, 175 below, have been carefully collated throughout for this edition, and a large number of others are cited in all the important passages, besides correctoria, and the more noticeable of the earlier printed Bibles.
To enumerate all the known MSS. of the Old Latin version was an easy task; to enumerate those of the Vulgate is almost impossible. It is computed that there are at least 8,000 scattered throughout the various Libraries of Europe, and M. Samuel Berger, the greatest living authority on the subject, has examined more than 800 in Paris alone. Nor would an exhaustive enumeration be of much critical value, as a large number of comparatively late MSS. probably contain the same corrupt type of text.
In the following list it is hoped that most of the really important MSS. are included; the writer has had the unwearied and invaluable aid of M. Samuel Berger91, besides that of many other kind friends, in its compilation. It has been thought best to arrange the MSS. on a double system; first according to their contents:—A. Bibles, whole or incomplete; B. New Testament; [pg 067] C. Gospels; D. Acts and onwards; E. Epistles and Apocalypse; and secondly under each of these heads, A-E, according to countries (alphabetically):—Austria, British Isles, France, Germany, Holland, Italy, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, United States.
For other lists the student is referred to Le Long, Bibliotheca Sacra, ed. 1723, vol. i. p. 235; Vercellone, Variae Lectiones, Romae, 1860, vol. i. p. lxxxiii f., ii. p. xvii f.; Berger, p. 374 f.; and for a fuller treatment of the history and text of the Vulgate, to Bishop Westcott's article “Vulgate” in Smith's Bible Dictionary; Kaulen, Geschichte d. Vulgata, Mainz, 1865; Fritzsche, “Lateinische Bibelübersetzungen” in Herzog, Realencyclopädie, second ed., vol. viii; P. Corssen in Die Trierer Adahandschr., Leipzig, 1889; and the important work of S. Berger, Histoire de la Vulgate pendant les premiers siècles du moyen âge, Paris, 1893; to economize space, this will be quoted below simply as “Berger.”
After the list of MSS. are added indices of the various notations by which respectively Bentley, Tischendorf, Wordsworth, &c., have cited them.