Vulgate

The Latin translation of the Bible most widely used in the West, and the authoritative translation of the Roman Catholic Church. The name derives from the Latin word 'vulgus,' 'the people'; thus 'vulgar,' or 'common.'

The early church in Rome was Greek-speaking and, therefore, had no need for a vernercular translation. The north African territories of the Roman Empire (present day Morocco, Algeria and Libya), however, was Latin-speaking, and it was to meet the needs of these churches that an authoritative Latin translation of the Bible was first mooted by Pope Damascus in 382, and the task of accomplishing set to his secretary, Jerome. It was a thankless task, with politics already a significant fact of church life. Jerome accepted the challenge, however, hoping it would pave the way for him to the papal throne. Within two years he had the four Gospels translated, at which time Damascus died and Jerome was not elected pope. Faithfully, however, Jerome continued his task; moving to Palestine (and learning Hebrew to translate the OT portions from the Hebrew rather than the Septuagint) to live out the rest of his life as a monk, he completed the translation in 405. Jerome had serious doubts about the reliability and canoncity of the Apocrypha and had recommended that they should excluded from the final work. His recommendation was rejected, but his attitude towards them shows in the quality of their translation.

With the original patron dead, Jerome's translation found little acceptance outside of friends and admirers. Scholars like Augustine of Hippo and Pelagius recognized its merits and used it extensively. Jerome's dependence on the Hebrew text of the OT meant that he produced a translation that felt 'strange' to many who were used to the Septuagint. In the years following his translation was 'borrowed' and changed according to the user's palette so that, before long, it became totally contaminated so that there were, instead of a Vulgate, versions of it. The seriousness of the lack of an authoritative Latin version was felt acutely by the Roman Catholic Church, but it was not until 1546, when the Council of Trent decreed to do something about it. A commission—as commissions often do—sat on it for forty years, did nothing. Pope Sixtus V (1585-90) took the task upon himself and published the revised Vulgate which he decreed would henceforth be the 'authorized version.' He died the same year and his decree was never enforced. His work, however, was significantly revised by Pope Clementine VIII (1592-1605), and it is this version of the "authorized" Vulgate ever since.

The Vulgate was, despite its convoluted history the de facto Word of God of the Western Church from the time of its adoption in the early 5th Cent. Its apical status was superceded only when Erasmus produced the first complete Greek edition of the NT, followed by the translations of the Bible into the vunercular by reformers like Martin Luther (German) and William Tyndale (English) in the 16th Cent. This fact is not without significance for Roman Catholic theology, especially, when the Reformers turned to the Greek text as their authoritative source for theology; F. F. Bruce observes:

The genius of the Latin language is different from that of the Greek, and in Western Europe a good deal of the Latin genius has found its way into both Roman and Protestant theology. Greek theology tends to be expressed in philosophical terms, Latin theology in legal terms. When we use elementary Christian terms as 'justify' and 'sanctify' we should remember that we have derived more than the words themselves through Latin. There is a legal connotation about the Latin words iustificare and sanctificare (especially the former) which is not so apparent in their Greek equivalents diakaioo and hagioo. These Greek equivalents in turn . . . are to be understood in the light of the corresponding Hebrew expressions. The Greek theologians have been interested rather in those aspects of Christian doctrine which gave scope for metaphysical speculation; the Latin theologians rather in those which lent themselves in legal formulation. Western thought about God tended to be cast in forensic categories. This is not a misrepresentation in itself, of course, for God is the Judge of all the earth; it simply means that those to whom Christianity has been mediated through the Latin Bible and Latin Fathers appreciate one aspect of the truth, whereas the Greeks appreciate another. The danger arises when the aspect is exaggerated and identified with the whole truth. For that reason among others the re-awakening of interest in Hebrew and Greek learning in the days of the Renaissance and Reformation was salutary in its influence on Western Christianity. (The Books and the Parchments, 211.)