5. Remuins.~\t will be seen that, for the chief part of the Old Test, and for considerable parts of the New Test. (e. g. Apoc; Acts), the old text rests upon early quotations (principally Tertullian, Cyprian, Lucifer of ('agliari for the .\frican text, Ambrose and Augustine for the Italic). These were collected by Sabatier with great diligence up to the date of his work; but more recent discoveries (e. g. of the Boman Spicvlitm) have furnished a large store of new materials which have not
yet been fully employed. (The great work of Sabatier, already often referred to, is still the standard work on the Latin versions. His great fault is his neglect to distinguish the different ty))es of text — African, Italic, British, Ciallic — a task which yet remains to be done. The earliest work on the subject was by Flaniinius No- bilius, Vetus Test. ,S(c. LXX Liilint' h'eddi/um. etc. [ Koma;, 1588]. The new collations made by Tischendorf, Mai, IMiinter, Ceriani, have been noticed separately.) See Italic Version.
III. Labors of Jerome. — 1. Occasion. — It has been seen that at the close of the 4th century the Latin texts of the Hible current in the Western ('hurch had fallen into the greatest corruption. The evil was yet greater in prospect than at the time; for the separation of the East and West, politically and ecclesiastically, was grow- ing imminent, and the fear of the perpetuation of false and conflicting Latin copies proportionately greater. But in the crisis of danger the great scholar was raised up who, probably alone for fifteen hundred years, pos- sessed the qualifications necessary for producing an original version of the Scriptures for the use of the Latin churches. Jerome — Eusebius Hieronymus — was born in A.D. 329 at Stridon, in Dalmatia, and died at Bethlehem in A.D. 420. From his early youth he was a vigorous student, and age removed nothing from his zeal. He has been well called the Western Origen (Hody, p. 3.-)0) ; anil if he wanted the largeness of heart and generous sympathies of the great Alexandrian, he had more chastened critical skill and closer concentra- tion of power. After long and self-denying studies in the East and West, Jerome went to Rome (A.D. 382), probably at the request of Damasus the pope, to assist in an important synod {Ep. cviii, (5), where he .seems to have been at once attached to the service of the pope (t6/f/. cxxiii, 10). His active Biblical lal)ors liate from this epoch, and in examining them it will be convenient to follow the order of time.
2. Revision of the Old Latin Version of the N. T. — Jerome had not been long at Home (A.D. 383) when Damasus consulted him on points of scriptural criticism {F.p. xix, "Dilectionis tuse est ut ardenti illo strenui- tatis ingenio . . . vivo sensu scribas"). The answers which he received (A}?, xx, xxi) may well have en- couraged him to seek for greater services; and, appar- ently, in the same year he applied to Jerome for a re- vision of the current Latin version of the New Test, by the help of the Greek original. Jerome was fully sen- sible of the prejudices which such a work would excite among those " who thought that ignorance was holi- ness" (A/), ad Ma7-c. xxvii) ; but the need of it was ur- gent. " There were," he says, " almost as many forms of text as copies" ('"tot sunt exemplaria piene quot co- dices'' [^Prcpf. in Evv.~\). Mistakes had been introduced " by false transcription, bj' clumsy corrections, and by careless interpolations" (^ibid.)\ and in the confusion which had ensued the one remedy was to go back to the original source ( " Grceca Veritas, GrsBca origo" ). The gospels had naturally suffered most. Thoughtless scribes inserted additional details in the narrative from the parallels, and changed the forms of exi)ression to those with which they had originally been familiarized (ibid.), Jerome therefore applied himself to these first ("haec prjesens pra'fatiuncula pollicetur quatuor tantuni Evangelia"). But his aim was to revise the Old Latin, and not to make a new version. When Augustine ex- pressed to him his gratitude for "his translation of the (iospel" (A};, civ, 6, " Non parvas Deo gratias agimus de opere tuo quo Evangelium ex Grtrco interpretatus es"), he tacitly corrected him by substituting for this phrase " the correction of the New Test." (ibid, cxii, 20, " Si me, ut dicis, in N. T. einendutume suscipis , . ."). For this purpose he collated early Greek MSS., and preserved the current rendering wherever the sense was not injured by it (" FZvangelia . . . codicum Grsecorum emendata collatione sed veterum. Quae ne multum a lectionis Latino; consuetudine discre[)areiit, ita calarao
VULGATE
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VULGATE
ternperavimus [^all. imperavimus] ut his tantura quae sensum videbantur miitare, Cdrrectis. reliqua mancre pa- teremur ut fuerant" \_Fnef'. ad Dam.^). Yet although he proposed to himself this limited object, the various forms of corruption which had been introduced were, as he describes, so numerous that the difference of the Old and Revised (Hieronymian ) text is throuohoiit clear and striking. Thus, in Matt, v \vc have the following variations :
Old Latin. 7 ipsis miserebitur Deus.
11 diserint . . .
— pvoplev justitiam.
12 ante vos patres eorum
(Luke vi, 26).
17 nun veni solvere legem