A Brief History of the Bible - 15
The Council of Trent declared the Vulgate to be 'authentic' (authenticum).
One could argue for a long time what 'authentic' meant. It did not mean
infallible, or superior to the Greek or Hebrew. It did mean that it was a
reliable source of dogma. It had never been found to be heretical, as some
of the newer translations were already considered to be.
The first printed editions of the Vulgate were the 42-line Bible and 36-line
Bible of Gutenberg, and there were many more editions - more than a hundred
- before the end of the 15th century. The first critical text was that of
Robert Stephanus (Paris, 1528). Pope Sixtus V issued an edition of the
Vulgate in 1590, which he intended to be definitive and unchangeable. Even
before its publication it was however perceived to be full of errors. An
improved edition was issued by Pope Clement VIII in 1592, and the
"Clementine Vulgate" remained in use until recently; indeed it still
remains in use, where Latin is used in the Liturgy.
In the later 16th Century the Catholic Church felt the need for an
acceptable English translation of the Vulgate. The two 15th-century
Wycliffite translations had not, of course, found favour with the Church
authorities. The NT was now translated by members of the English College at
Reims. The chief translators were Gregory Martin and Richard Bristow, and
it was issued in 1582; the OT was translated later, in 1609-10, by which
time the College had moved to Douai. The "Douai-Reims" Bible is still used
when a close translation of the Vulgate is required - as often by medievalists.
A modern critical edition of the Vulgate NT begun by John Wordsworth (d.
1911) and H.J. White (d. 1934), was published by the Oxford University Press
between 1889 and 1954. In 1908 Pope Pius X appointed a Commission, presided
over by F.A. Gasquet, an English Benedictine, to produce a new edition of
the Vulgate. It is still in progress. A two-volume edition was produced in
Stuttgart in 1969.
And so I end this very brief history of the Bible.
The Supple Doctor.
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