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 VBIE

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VULGATE

1908), who had been his most intimate friend from childhood. F^ron-Vrau had not shared the philo- sophical aberrations of Phihbcrt, but had studied med- icine in Paris and was established at Lille, the friend of the poor and a skilful practitioner. When a new partner was needed in the Vrau firm in 1871 he abandoned his professional career. He established rehgious and beneficial societies for the working peo- ple, planned model dwellings for them, and also organized a society of employers and employees to close the gulf infideUty was making between capital and labour. He insisted on the right of the labourer to a Uving wage. In aU this Philibert Vrau co-operated. F6ron-Vrau was arrested in 1892 for allowing a relig- ious element in the association of employers and em- Eloyees of which he was president, and it was dissolved y law, but was soon revived under another name. Nocturnal adoration of the Blessed Sacrament was introduced into Lille by Phihbert Vrau in 18.57. He was largely instrumental in estabUshing Eucharistic Congresses. Urged by Mile Tamisier, Mgr de Sfigur had appealed to Phihbert Vrau, and the first congress was held at Lille. Catholic education from the primary school to the University of Lille owed much to him and to F&on-Vrau (see Lille). Both greatly promoted the efficiency of the Conference of St. Vincent de Paul and multiplied its numbers. F6ron- Vrau did much to Catholicize the medical profession, notably through the Society of St. Luke. After the death of his mother in 1S8.S, Phihbert Vrau devoted his time almost exclusively to prayer and numerous good works. He travelled much in these interests but in the humblest way. At the Vatican he was a familiar figure. The power of the press for good had not been overlooked by him, but to his nephew, Paul F6ron-Vrau, the systematized apostolate of "The Good Press" is due. Philibert Vrau was sentenced to a month's imprisonment and a fine for allowing some Sisters of Providence, though now in secular dress, to continue their superintendence of the women in his factories, a charge which they had begun in 1876. An appeal was made and the case was called up again two days after his death. In the crypt of the Church of Our Lady of TrieUe, built by their efforts, are the busts of the two men who had worked so hard to supernaturalize all the activities of life.

BAtrNARD, Les deux frhres, Philibert Vrau, Camille Fhon-Vrau (Paris. 1911); Idem. PA»;>6ct-( Vrau el les tmtrres de Lille (2ad ed., Paris, 1907); A Modern SairU in Catholic World (August, 1909).

B. Randolph.

Vrie, Theodoric, historian of the Council of Con- stance. He describes himself as a brother of the Order of Hermits of St. Augustine, and a lector in sacred theology in the Province of Saxony. From his description of facts it a|5pears that Vrie must have been an eye-witne.ss of the events he records. The history is brought down to the election and consecration of Martin V, 21 Nov., 1417. Vrie was stiU living in the summer of 142.5, when a general chapter of his order at Rome authorized the republication of his work. Vrie's work is modelled on the "De con- solatione philosophL-c " of Boetius; this also is its original title. It presents a vivid picture of the facts and disorders of the time, pointing out their source, and the remedy of the evils under the form of a series of dialogues in prose and metre between Christ and the Church Mihtant. The "De consolatione" of Vrie was printed at Cologne in 14S4 with the works of Ger.son (fourth volume), but was not repeated in the Stnwhurg edition of Gerson of 1494. It w.as printed again with a short life of the author in von der Hardt (see below).

Von deb Hardt. Magni (Eatmenici Concitii Constaniiensis HitloTia (Gvols.. Frankfort and Leipzig, 1697), I, introd., 1-228; Lanteri, Poslrema smcula sex (Tolentino, 1858); Alzoo, Manual of Church llitlory (Cincilmati, 1903), II. 858.

FRANCIS E. TotTRSCHER.

Vrimaria, Henricus de. See Henry op Friemar.

Vulgate, Revision of. — In the spring of 1907 the public jjress announced that Pius X had deter- mined to begin preparations for a critical revision of the Latin Biljle. The need for such a revision had long been recognized and in fact it formed one item in the programme of the Biblical Commission estab- hshed by Pojie Leo XIII. In spite of the care which during forty years had been bestowed upon the text of the present authentic edition issued by Clement VIII in 1592, it had been recognized from the first that the text would have to be revised some day, and that in some ways this Clementine revision was inferior to the Sixtine version of 1590, which it had hastily superseded. Many generations have passed away without the realization of this exjiected revision. The last few decades have been pre-eminently a period for the critical examination of texts, classical and other, and it has of late been frequently urged upon the ecclesiastical authorities that the time had come when the well-established princii)les of textual criti- cism should be applied to determine the mo.st correct Latin text of the Holy Scriptures. Private indi- viduals, like the learned Barnabite Fr. Vercellone, had done something to prepare the way for such a work by the collect ion of manuscript variants, etc., and such works had received the thanks and other marks of approval from the authorities of the time, but no official action had been taken until Pope Pius X announced his intention of preparing for the revision.

In May, 1907, the abbots president of the various Benedictine congregations assembled in Rome received a communication from Cardinal Rampolla, asking the order in the pope's name to undertake the first stages in the process of revision of the Vulgate texts. Although the fathers fully recognized that such a work must necessarily be arduous, lengthy, and costly, they unanimously voted acceptance of the honourable task thus confided to them. In the autumn of the same year the present writer was appointed the head of a small commission of Bene- dictines to organize the work, to consider the best means of carrj'ing out the wishes of the pope, and to determine the principles upon which the work of revision should proceed.

As considerable doubt has been expressed as to the exact scope of the present commission, it may be use- ful here to state clearly that its end is not to produce a Latin Bible, to be proposed as an official text for the approbation of the Church, but to take merely a preliminary step towards that official version. The object is clearly set forth in the charge given by the pope to the commission. It is to determine as accurately as possible the text of St. Jerome's Latin translation, made in the fourth century. This text is admitted on all hands to be an absolute necessity as a basis of any more extended and critical revision.

The Latin text of the Sacred Scriptures had existed from the earliest times of Christianity. The trans- lator or translators were unknown to St. Augustine and St. .lerome; but the former says that the old Latin version had certainly come "from the first days of the Faith", and the latter that it "had helped tostrengthen the faith of the infant Church". Made and copied without any offici.al stipervision these western texts soon became corruj)! or doubtful and by the time of St. Jerome varied so much that that doctor could declare that there were almost "as many readings as codices". It was this that, as Richard Bentley, WTiting to Archbishop Wade, declares, "obliged Damasus, then Bishoj) of Rome, to employ St . Jerome to regulate the last revised translation of each part of the New Testament to the original Greek and to set out a new edition so castigated and corrected". This St. Jerome did, as he declares in his preface "ad Gra-cam Veritatem, ad exemplaria Grsca sed Vetera. "

At the present day scholars are practically agreed as to the competence of St. Jerome for the work given