Page:Catholic Encyclopedia, volume 15.djvu/578

 VULGATE

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VULGATE

him by Pope St. Damasus. He, moreover, had access to Greek and other MSS., even at that time considered ancient, which are not now known to exist; he could compare dozens of important texts, and he had Origen's " Hexapla" and other means of determining the value of his material, which we do not possess. It is obvious that the pure text of St. Jerome must form the basis of any critical version of the Latin Bible, and, what is more, that it must be taken into account in any critical edition of the Septuagint Greek version of the Old Testament and the various Greek texts of the New Testament, no manuscript copies of which are older than St. Jerome's Latin translation made on the then ancient copies. Richard Bentley, the great scholar, as long ago as 1716, saw the importance of St. Jerome's translation. "'Twas plain to me", he writes, "that when that copy came first from that great Father's hand, it must agree exactly with the most authentic Greek exemplars; and if now it could be retrieved, it would be the best text and voucher for the true read- ing out of several pretended ones." Substantially, no doubt, the present authentic Clementine text represents that which St. Jerome produced in the fourth century, but no less certainly it, the printed text, stands in need of close examination and much correction to make it ag:-ee with the translation of St. Jerome. No copy of the actual text is known to exist; and the corruptions introduced by scribes, etc., in the centuries posterior to St. Jerome, and even the well intentioned work of the various correctors, have rendered the labours of trj'ing to recover the exact text from existing MSS. both difficult and delicate. This, however, is the work which must be done as the first step in the revision of the Vulgate. It is conse- quently the aim of the present commission to deter- mine with all possible exactitude the Latin text of St. Jerome and not to produce any new version of the Latin Scriptures. Of course it is altogether another matter to determine how far St. Jerome was correct in his translation: to settle this wiU no doubt be the work of some future commission.

In the autumn of 1907 the present writer reached Rome to make preparation for beginning the work thus entrusted to the Benedictine Order. From the first Pius X manifested his personal interest in the work, and discussed various points of detail. He made it clear that he desired the work of revision to be conducted upon the most approved scientific methods of modern times and that no exj^ense was to be spared in securing thorough and accurate work in the collation and comparison of MSS. On 3 December, 1907, he addressed a letter to the Commission in order to make clear in as public a manner as possible his own personal interest in the work. He expressed his desire that an exhaustive examination of the libraries of Europe, public and private, should be made to bring to light any MSS. hitherto unknown and to furnish reliable copies and collations of the most important early texts. He urged aU who in any way could assist in furthering this work to do so, either by personal service or by helping to meet the expenses by their alms, and upon all such he bestowed his ApostoUc blessing.

Before the beginning of the year 1908 the small Commission had begun their sittings in Rome, which were chiefly occupied for some months in considering how best to start the work. For the purpose of bringing together tliecollationsof the various ^ISS.,it was dctrrniiiied to i)rint an edition of the Olementine text for the u.se of tho.se engaged in the work. Three courses seemed ojicn: the variants could be entered on slips of pajier with reference to some text already printed: or a chosen text might be mounted on paper and used for bringing together the various readings: or thercliy the received text might bo printed for their special work in such a way that the variations of MSS. could be entered upon the eheete as prepared.

This last method was chosen by the pope himself, who desired that the best system should be adopted in spite of the great expense entailed by printing the entire Bible.

The printing of this Bible occupied considerable time, and it was not until the autumn of 1908 that it was ready for distribution. The edition is printed in such a way that the print occupies about a third of each page, the rest being left blank; there are no capital letters and no stops; and no word is divided between two lines. In this way the printed text is most easily corrected according to any MS. with which it is compared. If there is a capital letter in the MSS. two strokes under the letter in the print shows this; if a word or letter, etc., is different in the MSS., it is corrected in the printed sheet in the same way that it is usual to correct a proof sheet. Additions of words or sentences or their absence in the MS. are shown in the usual way. The result, when the printed sheets have been fulh' collated, is that the corrected copy of the Bible, or any book of the Bible, represents, or should, if properly collated, represent, the manuscript exactly. To secure accurate work the rule was laid down that no collation of any MS. should be accepted as final unless the collation made by one worker should be gone over by another person.

Tlie Bible printed in this way extended to nearly .5000 pages, the Old Testament occupying roughly 4000. The Psalms took up some 299 pages and St, Paul's Epistles 278. The version of the Psalms pre- pared for the workers was arranged in a new fashion, which has proved to be very useful in practice. St. Jerome was responsible for three versions of the Psalms. His first recension was made upon the old Latin version in use at that time. He compared it with the Greek of the Septuagint, and issued his cor- rections, which were accepted and pas.sed into use, especially in Italy, becoming known as the "Romana version". After a brief time, however, St. Jerome found that the corrections he had made were not ade- quate, and he made a second recension with further corrections from the Greek, which subsequently was taken up in France, and was the version most in use in Gaul, etc., and became known as the "GalHcana". Gradually this recension superseded the "Romana version", which, however, remained in use in Rome for a considerable time, and at the present day is still used in the Divine Office chanted at St. Peter's. The "Romana version" was that which St. Augustine of Canterbury, coming as he did from Rome, brought with him to England, and it appaiently remained the common version in that country until the Norman conquest.

The two versions thus made by St. Jerome by cor- rections of the old Latin in view of the Greek natu- rally contain much that is the same. To show this at a glance the conmion jiart has been printed in the centre of the text and the variants on either side, on the one the readings of the "Romana", on the other those of the "Gallicana". By the help of this print it is possible to see at once what version is to be collated, and the vacant space on the page serves for the collation of either version. The third version made by St. Jerome at a later period of his life was translated directly from the Hebrew. Although St. Jerome considered that this version really repre- sented the true sense of the Psalmist, it was never accepted by the Church for practical use. It is to be found in some Bibles, especially of Spanish origin, either as an addition to the usuar'Gallicana version", or in place of it. For the purpose of collating this Psalter of St. Jerome from the Hebrew it wa.s necessary to print the best text of it separately.

The printing of this Bible occupied almost twelve months, and the preparation of the text and the cor- rections of the proof sheets alone were no light task.