Doug Kutilek - 2002
The Latin Vulgate Translation in Historical Perspective,
part II
Quotes on the History And Value of the Latin Vulgate
“The Vulgate is regarded by Papists and Protestants in very different points of view: by the former it has been extolled beyond measure, while by most of the latter it has been depreciated as much below its intrinsic merit. Our learned countryman, John Bois (canon of Ely [and one of the leading translators of the KJV--
editor]), was the first who pointed out the real value of this version, in his
Collatio Veteris Interpretis cum Beza aliisque recentioribus (8vo--1655). Bois was followed by Father Simon, in his
Histoire Critique du Texte et des Versions du Nouveau Testament, who has proved that the more antient the Greek manuscripts and other versions are, the more they agree with the Vulgate; and in consequence of the arguments adduced by Simon, the Vulgate has been more justly appreciated by biblical critics of later times.
Although the Latin Vulgate is neither inspired nor infallible, as Morinus, Suarez, and other advocates of the Romish church have attempted to maintain, yet it is allowed to be in general a faithful translation, and sometimes exhibits the sense of Scripture with greater accuracy than the more modern versions; . . . . The Latin Vulgate, therefore, is by no means to be neglected by the biblical critic . . . . Even in the present state, notwithstanding the variations between the Sixtine and Clementine editions, and that several passages are mistranslated, in order to support the peculiar dogmas of the church of Rome, the Latin Vulgate preserves many true readings, where the modern Hebrew copies are corrupted.”
Thomas Hartwell Horne,
An Introduction to the Critical Study and Knowledge of the Holy Scriptures (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1970 reprint), vol. II, part I, pp. 239-240.
“. . . the Vulgate should have a very deep interest for all the Western churches. For many centuries it was the only Bible generally used; and directly or indirectly, it is the real parent of all the vernacular versions of Western Europe . . . . In the Reformation the Vulgate was rather the guide than the source of the popular versions. . . It is enough to remember that the first translators of our [English] Bible had been familiarized with the Vulgate from their youth, and could not have cast off the influence of early association. But the claims of the Vulgate to the attention of scholars rest on wider grounds. It is not only the source of our current theological terminology, but it is, in one shape or other, the most important early witness to the text and interpretation of the whole Bible.”
”And when every allowance has been made for the rudeness of the original Latin, and the haste of Jerome’s revision, it can scarcely be denied that the Vulgate is not only the most venerable but also the most precious monument of Latin Christianity. For ten centuries it preserved in Western Europe a text of Holy Scripture far purer than that which was current in the Byzantine Church; and at the revival of Greek learning, guided the way towards a revision of the late Greek text, in which the best of the Biblical critics have followed the steps of Bentley, with ever-deepening conviction of the supreme importance of the coincidences of the earliest Greek and Latin authorities.”
“
t is evident that the study of the Vulgate, however much neglected, can never be neglected with impunity. It was the Version which alone they knew who handed down to the Reformers the rich stores of medieval wisdom; the Version with which the greatest of the Reformers were the most familiar, and from which they had drawn their earliest knowledge of Divine truth.”
B. F. Westcott, “Vulgate,” in Smith’s Dictionary of the Bible edited by Horatio Hackett (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1981 reprint), vol. IV, p. 3451, 3479, 3481-3482.
“Throughout the notes I have quoted the readings of the Latin Vulgate in the hope of directing more attention to the study of it. It seems to me that we have lost much in every way from our neglect of a version which has influenced the theology of the West more profoundly than we know.”
B. F. Westcott, The Gospel According to St. John (London: John Murray, 1882), p. xcvi.
“His [i.e., Jerome’s] improved Latin version of the Bible, called the Vulgate, gave to Western Europe in the dark ages when Hebrew was unknown and Greek forgotten, nearly all its scanty knowledge of the Word of God, and is still the standard Bible of the Roman Church. It was of inestimable value also to the Reformers and Protestant translators of the Bible into the vernacular tongues, whereby it has ceased to be merely a manual for the clergy and become what it was intended to be, a book for the common people, for all sorts and conditions of men. Our English Bible, if we are to judge from the innumerable cases where the definite article [in the original Hebrew and Greek texts] is disregarded, seems to have been made from the Latin Vulgate rather than from the original Greek and Hebrew. Even for the Biblical scholarship of the present day Jerome retains an important place among the indirect witnesses for the oldest text of the Greek New Testament.”
Philip Schaff, Through Bible Lands (New York: American Tract Society, 1878), pp. 228-9.
“. . . despite a certain unevenness and even an occasional error in Jerome’s work as reviser, the general standard of his labors is high. The Vulgate represents the solid judgment of a competent and careful scholar, passed on textual materials as old (or in some cases older) than those available to textual critics today.”
Bruce M. Metzger, Early Versions of the New Testament (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1977), pp. 354-5.
“In the New Testament, at all events, the Vulgate is often nearer to the sense of the sacred writers than are many of the later manuscripts of the Greek New Testament . . . . The Latin translation, being derived from manuscripts more ancient than any we now possess, is frequently a witness of the highest value in regard to the Greek text which was current in the earliest times, and . . . its testimony is in many cases confirmed by Greek manuscripts which have been discovered or examined since the sixteenth century.”
William F. Moulton, The History of the English Bible (London: Charles H. Kelly, 1911. 5th ed.), pp. 29, 184.
“With the exception of the Gothic and Slavonic, the Latin is the parent of all the [Bible] versions of modern Europe, and has had no small share in determining the combined dignity and simplicity of their style . . . . [W]hile the original Hebrew and Greek Scriptures, and even languages, were lost to the West for over a thousand years, the Latin Scriptures and the literature based on them remained all through that time the common possession of every scholar in Europe.
“Again, the very rudeness and servile fidelity of the earlier Latin versions form a valuable witness to the text of the still earlier Greek and a powerful instrument for restoring the sacred text to its original purity.”
“On the whole the Vulgate Old Testament is a finer translation than even our own Authorized Version; where the two agree, the latter is, directly or indirectly, derived from the former; where they differ, the Vulgate is usually found on the side of later and fuller scholarship.”
“Latin, as is well known, has no Article, Definite or Indefinite; lux may = light, the light, or a light, according to the context. The want is especially felt in a translation from, or into, languages which possess one or both, and it is the cause of many defects and ambiguities in our own A.V., the English of which, as we have often pointed out, is greatly affected by the Vulgate. Strangely enough, the Douay Version, though made directly from the Vulgate, often reproduces the article more fully and faithfully.”
“It is impossible to exaggerate the debt which the whole Western Church owes to the Vulgate, the version which ‘lived and reigned a thousand years’; which, amid the common ignorance of Greek, and in the absence of the buried Greek original text, represented and preserved the sacred Scriptures.
To speak only of the debt which England owes; the earliest versions, such as those of Wyclif, Hereford, and Purvey, were entirely dependent on the Vulgate; it is still the Bible of all English Roman Catholics. At one time pulpit quotations were exclusively drawn from it; and still from Sunday to Sunday, from tens of thousands of pulpits, the magnalia Dei, the wonderful works of God, are set forth in words derived directly or indirectly from
its pages.”
W. E. Plater and H. J. White, A Grammar of the Vulgate (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1926) pp. 4-5; 7; 76-77; 135-136).
Latin Vulgate—Bibliography
[especially important items marked with *]
General Articles
Berger, Samuel, Histoire de Latin Vulgate Pedants les Premiers Siecles du Moyen Age. New York: Burt Franklin, 1958. Reprint of 1893 Paris edition.
Bogaeret, Pierre-Maurice, “Versions, Ancient (Latin),” in The Anchor Bible Dictionary. New York: Doubleday, 1992. Vol. VI, pp. 799-803.
Loewe, Raphael, “The Medieval History of the Latin Vulgate,” in The Cambridge History of the Bible, ed. by H. W. F. Lampe, vol. II, pp. 102-154; bibliography, pp. 514-518.
McClintock, John, and Strong, James, ed., “Vulgate”, in Cyclopedia of Biblical, Theological, and Ecclesiastical Literature. Grand Rapids: Baker, 1981 reprint of Harper and Bros. edition, 1867-1887; vol. X, pp. 824-839.
*Metzger, Bruce M., The Early Versions of the New Testament. New York: Oxford University Press, 1977. Chapter VII, “The Latin Versions,” pp. 285-374.
Nestle, E., “Bible Versions, II. Latin Versions,” in The New Schaff-Herzog Encyclopedia of Religious Knowledge, ed. by Samuel M. Jackson. Grand Rapids: Baker Book House, 1963 reprint. Vol. II, pp. 121-127.
Schaff, Philip, History of the Christian Church. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, reprint. Vol. III, pp. 972-976.
Scrivener, F. H. A., Introduction to the Criticism of the New Testament. Cambridge: Deighton, Bell & Co., 1883. 3rd ed. Pp. 338-365.
Stratton-Porter, Gene, "Vulgate," in The International Standard Bible Encyclopedia, ed. by James Orr. Chicago: Howard-Severance Co., 1929. Vol. V, pp. 3058-3063.
*Westcott, B. F., “The Vulgate,” in William Smith, ed., Dictionary of the Bible, rev. and ed. by Horatio B. Hackett. Grand Rapids: Baker Book House, 1981 reprint. Vol. IV, pp. 3451-3482.
*White, H. J., “Vulgate,” in James Hastings, ed., A Dictionary of the Bible. Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1902. Vol. IV, pp. 873-890.
Texts and Editions
*Darlow, T. H, and Moule, H. F., Historical Catalogue of the Printed Editions of Holy Scripture in the Library of the British and Foreign Bible Society. London: British and Foreign Bible Society, 1903-1911. Vol. II, Part II, pp. 903-1003.
Grammars & Dictionaries
Harden, J. M., Dictionary of the Vulgate New Testament. London: S. P. C. K., 1921. xvi+126 pp.
Lowe, J. E., Church Latin for Beginners. London: Burns Oates & Washbourne Ltd., 1933. Fourth edition.
Nunn, H. P. V., An Introduction to Ecclesiastical Latin. Eton: Alden & Blackwell Ltd., 1952. Third edition reprint.
*Plater, W. E., and White, H. J., A Grammar of the Vulgate. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1926.
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