2. Revision of Alciiin. — Meanwhile the text of the different parts of the Latin Bible was rapidly deterio- rating. The simultaneous use of the Old and New ver- sions necessarily led to great corruptions of both texts. Mixed texts were formed according to the taste or judg- ment of scribes, and the confusion was further increased by the changes which were sometimes introduced by those who had some knowledge of (ireek. From this cause scarcely any Anglo-Saxon Vulgate MS. of the 8th or 9th century, in all probability, is wholly free from an admixture of old readings. Several remark- able examples are noticed below; and in rare instances it is difhcult to decide whether the text is not rather a revised Vetus than a corrupted Vulgata nova (e. g. Brit. Mus. /?e/7. i, E. vi; Addit. 5463). As early as the 6th century, Cassiodorus attempted a partial revision of the text (Psalter, Prophets, Epistles) by a collation of old MSS. But private labor was unable to check the growing corruption, and in the 8th centurj' this had arrived at such a height that it attracted the at- tention of Charlemagne. Cliarlemagne at once sought a remedy, and intrusted to Alcuin (cir. A.D. 802) the task of revising the Latin text for public use. This Alcuin appears to have done simply by the use of MSS. of the Vulgate, and not by reference to the original texts (Porson, Letter vi to Travis, p. 145). The pas- sages which are adduced by Hody to prove his famil- iarity with Hebrew are, in fact, only ijuotations from Jerome, and he certainly left the text unaltered — at least in one place where Jerome points out its inaccu- racy (Gen. XXV, 8). The patronage of Cliarlemagne gave a wide currency to the revision of Alcuin, and several MSS. remain which claim to date immediately from his time. According to a verj' remarkable state- ment, Charlemagne was more than a patron of sacred criticism, and himself devoted the last year of his life to the correction of the gospels " with the help of Greeks and Syrians" (Van Ess, p. 159, quoting Theganas, Script. Hist. Franc, ii, 277).
However this may be, it is probable that Alcuin's re- vision contributed much towards preserving a good Vul- gate text. The best MSS. of his recension do not differ widely from the pure Hieronymian text, and his author- ity must have done much to check the spread of the interpolations which reappear afterwards, and which were derived from the intermixture of the Old and New versions. Examples of readings which seem to be due to him occur: Deut. i, 9, add. solitudinem ; venissemns, for -etis ; ver. 4, ascendimus, for ascendemus ; ii, 24, in manu tua, for in manus tuas ; iv, 33, vidisli, for vixisti ; vi, 13, ipsi, add. soli; xv, 9, oculos, om. tuos ; xvii, 20, filius, for flii; xxi, 6, add. venient ; xxvi, 16, at, for et. But the new revision was gradually deformed, though later attempts at correction were made by Lanfranc of Canterbury (A.D. 1089, Hody, p. 416), Card. Nicolaus (A.D. 1 150), and the Cistercian abbot Stephanus(cir. A.D. 1150). In tlie 13th century Correctoria were drawn up, especially in France, in which varieties of reading were
discussed ; and Roger Bacon complains loudly of the confusion which was introduced into the " common, that is, the Parisian, copy ;" and quotes a false reading from Mark viii, 38, where the correctors had substituted con- fessus for confusus (Hody, p. 419 sq.). Little more was done for the text of the Vulgate till the invention of printing; and the name of Laurentius Valla (cir. 1450) alone deserves mention, as of one who devoted the liigh- est powers to the criticism of Holy Scripture, at a time when such studies were little esteemed.
V. History of the Printed Text. — 1. Earhj Editions. — It was a noble omen for the future progress of printing that the first book which issued from the press was the Bible ; and the splendid pages of the Mazarin Vulgate (Mainz — Gutenburg and Fust) stand yet unsurpassed by the latest efforts of typography. This work is referred to about the year 1455, and presents the common text of the 15th century. Other editions followed in rapid succession (the fust with a date, Mainz, 1462, Fust and Schoiffer), but they offer nothing of critical interest. The first collection of various readings appears in a Paris edition of 1504, and others followed at Venice and Lyons in 1511, 1513; but cardinal Ximenes (1502-1517) was the first who seriously revised the Latin text ('■ contuli- mus cum quamplurimis exemplaribus venerandie ve- tustatis; sed his maxime, ipiaj in publica Complutensis nostra3 universitatis bibliotiieca rcconduntur, qua; supra octingentesimum abhinc annum lilteris Gothicis con- scripta, ea sunt sinceritate ut nee apicis lapsus possit in eis deprehendi" [/'/•ce/'.]), to which he assigned the mid- dle place of honor in his Polyglot between the Hebrew and Greek texts. The Complutensian text is said to be more correct than those which preceded it, but still it is very far from being pure. This was followed in 1528 (2d ed. 1532) by an edition of R. Stephens, who had bestowed great pain^ upon the work, consulting three MSS. of high character and the earlier editions; but as yet the best materials were not open for use. About the same time various attempts were made to correct the Latin from the original texts (Erasmus, 1516; Pag- ninus, 1518-28; Card. Cajetan: Steuchius, 1529; Cla- rius, 1542), or even to make a new Latin version (.lo. Campensis, 1533). A more important edition of R. Ste- phens followed in 1540, in which he made use of twenty MSS. and introduced considerable alterations into his former text. In 1541 another edition was published by Jo. Benedictus at Paris, which was based on the colla- tion of MSS. and editions, and was often reprinted af- terwards. Vercellone speaks much more highly of the Biblia Ordinaria, with glosses, etc., published at Lyons,