Editing Vulgate (section)

== {{Anchor|Relation with the Old Latin Bible}}Relation with the ''Vetus Latina'' Bible ==
{{Main|Vetus Latina}}
The Latin biblical texts in use before Jerome's Vulgate are usually referred to collectively as the ''Vetus Latina'', or "Vetus Latina Bible". "Vetus Latina" means that they are older than the Vulgate and written in [[Latin Language|Latin]], not that they are written in [[Old Latin]]. Jerome, in his preface to the Vulgate gospels, commented that there were "as many [translations] as there are manuscripts"; subsequently noting the same in his preface to the Book of Joshua. 

The translations in the ''Vetus Latina'' had accumulated piecemeal over a century or more. They were not translated by a single person or institution, nor uniformly edited. The individual books varied in quality of translation and style, and different manuscripts and quotations witness wide variations in readings. Some books appear to have been translated several times. 

The Vulgate did not immediately supersede the ''Vetus Latina '' translations. Pandects from the Early Middle Ages sometimes had some books (e.g. deuterocanonicals, Acts, Revelation), or took phrases, or had glosses from the ''Vetus Latina'', but this declined through the High Middle Ages.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Houghton |first1=H.A.G. |chapter=The Tenth Century Onwards: Scholarship and Heresy |title=The Latin New Testament |date=1 February 2016 |pages=96–110 |doi=10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198744733.003.0005}}</ref>

=== New Testament ===
Jerome's work on the Gospels was a revision of the ''Vetus Latina'' versions, and not an entirely new translation. The base text for Jerome's revision of the gospels was a Vetus Latina text similar to the [[Codex Veronensis]], with the text of the Gospel of John conforming more to that in the [[Codex Corbiensis]].<ref>{{Cite book|last=Buron|first=Philip|title=The text of the New Testament in Contemporary Research; 2nd edn|publisher=[[Brill Publishers]]|year=2014|page=182}}</ref> 

The ''Vetus Latina'' gospels had been translated from Greek originals of the [[Western text-type]]. Comparison of Jerome's Gospel texts with those in Vetus Latina witnesses, suggests that his revision was concerned with substantially redacting their expanded "Western" phraseology in accordance with the Greek texts of better early [[Byzantine text-type|Byzantine]] and [[Alexandrian text-type|Alexandrian]] witnesses. For the Gospels "High priest" is rendered {{lang|la|princeps sacerdotum}} in Vulgate Matthew; as {{lang|la|summus sacerdos}} in Vulgate Mark; and as {{lang|la|pontifex}} in Vulgate John. 

In places Jerome adopted readings that did not correspond to a straightforward rendering either of the Vetus Latina or the Greek text, so reflecting a particular doctrinal interpretation; as in his rewording ''panem nostrum'' ''[[epiousios|supersubstantialem]]'' at [[Matthew&nbsp;6:11]].<ref>{{Cite book|last=Houghton|first=H. A. G.|title=The Latin New Testament; a Guide to its Early History, Texts and Manuscripts|publisher=Oxford University Press|year=2016|page=33}}</ref>

One major change Jerome introduced was to re-order the Latin Gospels. Most Vetus Latina gospel books followed the "Western" order of Matthew, John, Luke, Mark; Jerome adopted the "Greek" order of Matthew, Mark, Luke, John. His revisions became progressively less frequent and less consistent in the gospels presumably done later.<ref>{{Cite book|last=Houghton|first=H. A. G.|title=The Latin New Testament; a Guide to its Early History, Texts and Manuscripts|publisher=[[Oxford University Press]]|year=2016|pages=32, 34, 195}}</ref> 

The unknown reviser of the rest of the New Testament shows marked differences from Jerome, both in editorial practice and in their sources. Where Jerome sought to correct the Vetus Latina text with reference to the best recent Greek manuscripts, with a preference for those conforming to the Byzantine text-type, the Greek text underlying the revision of the rest of the New Testament demonstrates the Alexandrian text-type found in the great [[Uncial script|uncial]] [[Codex|codices]] of the mid-4th&nbsp;century, most similar to the [[Codex Sinaiticus]]. The reviser's changes generally conform very closely to this Greek text, even in matters of word order—to the extent that the resulting text may be only barely intelligible as Latin.<ref name="Houghton 2016 41" />

=== Old Testament ===
Jerome himself uses the term "Latin Vulgate" for the ''Vetus Latina'' text, so intending to denote this version as the common Latin rendering of the [[Greek Vulgate]] or Common Septuagint (which Jerome otherwise terms the "Seventy interpreters"). This remained the usual use of the term "Latin Vulgate" in the West for centuries. On occasion Jerome applies the term "Septuagint" (''Septuaginta'') to refer to the Hexaplar Septuagint, where he wishes to distinguish this from the ''Vulgata'' or Common Septuagint.

According to Old Testament scholar [[Amanda Benckhuysen]]: "Jerome omits from the Vulgate the phrase “who was with her” in Genesis 3:6, making Eve doubly culpable for the fall and responsible for Adam’s sin. By implying Adam’s absence during the serpent’s conversation with Eve, the Vulgate portrays Eve as the seduced who becomes the seducer, beguiling a naive Adam to eat the forbidden fruit."<ref>{{cite book |last1=Benckhuysen |first1=Amanda W. |title=The Gospel According to Eve: A History of Women's Interpretation |date=October 29, 2019 |publisher=IVP Academic |isbn=9780830852277 |page=17}}</ref>

=== Psalter===
The Book of [[Latin Psalters|Psalms]], in particular, had circulated for over a century in an earlier Latin version (the Cyprianic Version), before it was superseded by the Vetus Latina version in the 4th&nbsp;century. 

After the Gospels, the most widely used and copied part of the Christian Bible is the Book of Psalms.  Consequently, Damasus also commissioned Jerome to revise the psalter in use in Rome, to agree better with the Greek of the Common Septuagint. Jerome said he had done this cursorily when in Rome, but he later disowned this version, maintaining that copyists had reintroduced erroneous readings. Until the 20th&nbsp;century, it was commonly assumed that the surviving Roman Psalter represented Jerome's first attempted revision, but more recent scholarship—following de Bruyne—rejects this identification. The Roman Psalter is indeed one of at least five revised versions of the mid-4th&nbsp;century Vetus Latina Psalter, but compared to the other four, the revisions in the Roman Psalter are in clumsy Latin, and fail to follow Jerome's known translational principles, especially in respect of correcting harmonised readings. Nevertheless, it is clear from Jerome's correspondence (especially in his defence of the Gallican Psalter in the long and detailed Epistle&nbsp;106)<ref>{{Cite book|last=Goins|first=Scott|contribution=Jerome's Psalters|editor-last = Brown|editor-first = William. P.|title=Oxford Handbook of the Psalms|publisher=OUP|year=2014|page=190}}</ref> that he was familiar with the Roman Psalter text, and consequently it is assumed that this revision represents the Roman text as Jerome had found it.<ref>{{Cite book|last=Norris|first=Oliver|contribution=Tracing Fortunatianus's Psalter|editor-last = Dorfbauer|editor-first = Lukas J.|title=Fortunatianus ridivivus|publisher=[[CSEL]]|year=2017|page=285}}</ref>
=== Deuterocanonials===
[[Book of Wisdom|Wisdom]], [[Book of Sirach|Ecclesiasticus]], [[Books of the Maccabees|1&nbsp;and 2&nbsp;Maccabees]] and [[Book of Baruch|Baruch (with the Letter of Jeremiah)]] are included in the Vulgate, and are purely ''Vetus Latina'' translations which Jerome did not touch.<ref name="Stuttgart">{{Cite book|title=Biblia Sacra iuxta vulgatam versionem|publisher=[[Deutsche Bibelgesellschaft]]|others=Robert Weber, Roger Gryson (eds.)|year=2007|edition=5|location=Stuttgart|page=XXXIII}}</ref>

In the 9th&nbsp;century the ''Vetus Latina'' texts of Baruch and the Letter of Jeremiah were introduced into the Vulgate in versions revised by [[Theodulf of Orleans]] and are found in a minority of early medieval Vulgate ''[[wiktionary:pandect#Noun|pandect]]'' bibles from that date onward.<ref name="Bogaert 2005 286–342" /> After 1300, when the booksellers of Paris began to produce commercial single volume Vulgate bibles in large numbers, these commonly included both Baruch and the Letter of Jeremiah as the ''Book of Baruch''. Also beginning in the 9th&nbsp;century, Vulgate manuscripts are found that split Jerome's combined translation from the Hebrew of [[Book of Ezra|Ezra]] and the [[Book of Nehemiah|Nehemiah]] into separate books called 1&nbsp;Ezra and 2&nbsp;Ezra. Bogaert argues that this practice arose from an intention to conform the Vulgate text to the authoritative canon lists of the 5th/6th&nbsp;century, where 'two books of Ezra' were commonly cited.<ref>{{Cite journal|last=Bogaert|first=Pierre-Maurice|year=2000|title=Les livres d'Esdras et leur numérotation dans l'histoire du canon de la Bible latin|journal=Revue Bénédictine|volume=110|issue=1–2|pages=5–26|doi=10.1484/J.RB.5.100750}}</ref>  Subsequently, many late medieval Vulgate bible manuscripts introduced a Latin version, originating from before Jerome and distinct from that in the ''Vetus Latina'', of the Greek Esdras&nbsp;A, now commonly termed [[1 Esdras|3&nbsp;Ezra]]; and also a Latin version of an Ezra Apocalypse, commonly termed [[2 Esdras|4&nbsp;Ezra]].