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At_His_Feet
Guest
When producing the Latin Vulgate, did Saint Jerome have access to better, or more ancient, source texts than we have today?
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M
Marie
Guest
At His Feet:
Saint Jerome was without question a formidable scholar of the most ancient tongues of our Holy Bible – of Latin, of Greek, and of Hebrew. While in Rome he became fluent in Latin and Greek, and read the literatures of those languages. His personal writings tell us that “it was my custom on Sundays to visit, with friends of my own age and tastes, the tombs of the martyrs and Apostles, going down into those subterranean galleries whose walls on both sides preserve the relics of the dead.” Here he enjoyed deciphering the inscriptions.
What has made his name so famous was his critical labor on the text of the Scriptures. The Church regards him as the greatest of all the doctors in clarifying the Divine Word. He had the best available aids for such an undertaking, living where the remains of Biblical places, names, and customs all combined to give him a more vivid view than he could have had at a greater distance. To continue his study of Hebrew he hired a famous Jewish scholar, Bar Ananias, who came to teach him by night, lest other Jews should learn of it. As a man of prayer and purity of heart whose life had been mainly spent in study, penance, and contemplation, Jerome was prepared to be a sensitive interpreter of spiritual things.
He undertook to translate most of the books of the Old Testament directly from the Hebrew. The friends and scholars who urged him to this task realized the superiority of a version made directly from the original to any second-hand version, however venerable. It was needed too for argument with the Jews, who recognized no other text as authentic but their own. He began with the Books of Kings, and went on with the rest at different times. When he found that the Book of Tobias and part of Daniel had been composed in Chaldaic, he set himself to learn that difficult language also. More than once he was tempted to give up the whole wearisome task, but a certain scholarly tenacity of purpose kept him at it. The only parts of the Latin Bible, now known as the Vulgate, which were not either translated or worked over by him are the Books of Wisdom, Ecclesiasticus, Baruch, and the two Books of the Maccabees.3 He revised the Psalms once again, with the aid of Origen’s ,4 and the Hebrew text.
Yes. All of the ancient text’s were at his disposal. He developed the use of philological and geographical material in his exegesis and recognized the scientific importance of archaeology. In his interpretation of the Bible he used both the allegorical method of the Alexandrian and the realism of the Antiochene schools. Saint Jerome probably alone for 1500 years possessed the qualifications necessary for producing an original version of the Scriptures for the use of the Latin churches.
Saint Jerome was without question a formidable scholar of the most ancient tongues of our Holy Bible – of Latin, of Greek, and of Hebrew. While in Rome he became fluent in Latin and Greek, and read the literatures of those languages. His personal writings tell us that “it was my custom on Sundays to visit, with friends of my own age and tastes, the tombs of the martyrs and Apostles, going down into those subterranean galleries whose walls on both sides preserve the relics of the dead.” Here he enjoyed deciphering the inscriptions.
What has made his name so famous was his critical labor on the text of the Scriptures. The Church regards him as the greatest of all the doctors in clarifying the Divine Word. He had the best available aids for such an undertaking, living where the remains of Biblical places, names, and customs all combined to give him a more vivid view than he could have had at a greater distance. To continue his study of Hebrew he hired a famous Jewish scholar, Bar Ananias, who came to teach him by night, lest other Jews should learn of it. As a man of prayer and purity of heart whose life had been mainly spent in study, penance, and contemplation, Jerome was prepared to be a sensitive interpreter of spiritual things.
He undertook to translate most of the books of the Old Testament directly from the Hebrew. The friends and scholars who urged him to this task realized the superiority of a version made directly from the original to any second-hand version, however venerable. It was needed too for argument with the Jews, who recognized no other text as authentic but their own. He began with the Books of Kings, and went on with the rest at different times. When he found that the Book of Tobias and part of Daniel had been composed in Chaldaic, he set himself to learn that difficult language also. More than once he was tempted to give up the whole wearisome task, but a certain scholarly tenacity of purpose kept him at it. The only parts of the Latin Bible, now known as the Vulgate, which were not either translated or worked over by him are the Books of Wisdom, Ecclesiasticus, Baruch, and the two Books of the Maccabees.3 He revised the Psalms once again, with the aid of Origen’s ,4 and the Hebrew text.
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Sgt_Sweaters
Guest
Along the same line, my Da rejects “the Apocrypha” in part because he claims that St Jerome first rejected it. Jerome being an eminent scholar of that time, Da stands by his expertise. He said the only reason Catholics kept the deuterocanonicals was because the Pope of the time decided to be obstinant. Anyone have any information?
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puzzleannie
Guest
the formation of the canon of scripture has been documented on dozens of threads, not to mention the CA tracts and articles on the home page, please, people do your research before starting another discussion. It wastes a lot of time, space and processing capacity on the forum to discuss info and ask questions readily answered on the home page.
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Marie
Guest
Sgt Sweaters:
The sub-Apostolic writings of Clement, Polycarp, the author of the Epistle of Barnabas, of the pseudo-Clementine homilies, and the “Shepherd” of Hermas, contain implicit quotations from or allusions to all the deuterocanonicals except Baruch (which anciently was often united with Jeremias) and I Machabess and the additions to David. No unfavourable argument can be drawn from the loose, implicit character of these citations, since these Apostolic Fathers quote the protocanonical Scriptures in precisely the same manner.
St. Justin Martyr is the first to note that the Church has a set of Old Testament Scriptures different from the Jews’, and also the earliest to intimate the principle proclaimed by later writers, namely, the self-sufficiency of the Church in establishing the Canon; its independence of the Synagogue in this respect. The full realization of this truth came slowly, at least in the Orient, where there are indications that in certain quarters the spell of Palestinian-Jewish tradition was not fully cast off for some time.
Jerome came along in the Fourth century. In appreciating his attitude you have to remember that Jerome lived a long time in Palestine. It was an environment where everything outside the Jewish Canon was suspect.
An analysis of Jerome’s expressions on the deuterocanonicals, in various letters and prefaces, show that while he strongly doubted their inspiration; he occasionally quotes them, and translated some of them as a concession to ecclesiastical tradition, is an involuntary testimony on his part to the high standing these writings enjoyed in the Church at large, and to the strength of the practical tradition which prescribed their readings in public worship. Not to mention the Early Church Fathers quoted them.
Obviously, the inferior rank to which the deuteros were relegated by authorities like Origen, Athanasius, and Jerome, was due to too rigid a conception of canonicity, one demanding that a book, to be entitled to this supreme dignity, must be received by all, must have the sanction of Jewish antiquity, and must moreover be adapted not only to edification, but also to the “confirmation of the doctrine of the Church”, to borrow Jerome’s phrase.
But, again, Jerome was a scholar not the voice of authority on the books to be included in the Canon’s. While he is a Doctor of the church and highly regarded, he was never in authority to make the difinative decisions of what belonged in the canons. End of story.
First of all…Jerome was a scholar, not a Bishop nor Pope.
The sub-Apostolic writings of Clement, Polycarp, the author of the Epistle of Barnabas, of the pseudo-Clementine homilies, and the “Shepherd” of Hermas, contain implicit quotations from or allusions to all the deuterocanonicals except Baruch (which anciently was often united with Jeremias) and I Machabess and the additions to David. No unfavourable argument can be drawn from the loose, implicit character of these citations, since these Apostolic Fathers quote the protocanonical Scriptures in precisely the same manner.
St. Justin Martyr is the first to note that the Church has a set of Old Testament Scriptures different from the Jews’, and also the earliest to intimate the principle proclaimed by later writers, namely, the self-sufficiency of the Church in establishing the Canon; its independence of the Synagogue in this respect. The full realization of this truth came slowly, at least in the Orient, where there are indications that in certain quarters the spell of Palestinian-Jewish tradition was not fully cast off for some time.
Jerome came along in the Fourth century. In appreciating his attitude you have to remember that Jerome lived a long time in Palestine. It was an environment where everything outside the Jewish Canon was suspect.
An analysis of Jerome’s expressions on the deuterocanonicals, in various letters and prefaces, show that while he strongly doubted their inspiration; he occasionally quotes them, and translated some of them as a concession to ecclesiastical tradition, is an involuntary testimony on his part to the high standing these writings enjoyed in the Church at large, and to the strength of the practical tradition which prescribed their readings in public worship. Not to mention the Early Church Fathers quoted them.
Obviously, the inferior rank to which the deuteros were relegated by authorities like Origen, Athanasius, and Jerome, was due to too rigid a conception of canonicity, one demanding that a book, to be entitled to this supreme dignity, must be received by all, must have the sanction of Jewish antiquity, and must moreover be adapted not only to edification, but also to the “confirmation of the doctrine of the Church”, to borrow Jerome’s phrase.
But, again, Jerome was a scholar not the voice of authority on the books to be included in the Canon’s. While he is a Doctor of the church and highly regarded, he was never in authority to make the difinative decisions of what belonged in the canons. End of story.
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Marie
Guest
I don’t mind typing it out for the poster. If they want to know more or you find fault with it just put in the threads you are refering to.
God Bless,
Have a nice day…Marie
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At_His_Feet
Guest
Hi everybody -
Thanks for your responses. Maybe I should have been more specific: my question was not meant to discuss Jerome’s role in the formation of the canon (although I appreciated the responses and enjoyed reading them-thanks!), or a discussion of the canon itself, but merely about the quality of the texts that he had before him. Did the texts that he had available for his use when translating the Vulgate exceed in quality, say, the texts that were used for the UBS’s latest edition of the Greek New Testament?
amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/3438051133/ref=cm_bg_d_18/103-8405241-9291063?v=glance
It seems to me that, if this is the case, this makes an argument in favor of specific readings from the Douay Rheims version, if those readings are at variance with non-Vulgate based Bibles.
Sorry if this information is readily available here on this site; I didn’t catch it.
Thanks for your responses. Maybe I should have been more specific: my question was not meant to discuss Jerome’s role in the formation of the canon (although I appreciated the responses and enjoyed reading them-thanks!), or a discussion of the canon itself, but merely about the quality of the texts that he had before him. Did the texts that he had available for his use when translating the Vulgate exceed in quality, say, the texts that were used for the UBS’s latest edition of the Greek New Testament?
amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/3438051133/ref=cm_bg_d_18/103-8405241-9291063?v=glance
It seems to me that, if this is the case, this makes an argument in favor of specific readings from the Douay Rheims version, if those readings are at variance with non-Vulgate based Bibles.
Sorry if this information is readily available here on this site; I didn’t catch it.
M
Marie
Guest
Yes, again I will restate the part your interested in. All of the ancient text’s were at his disposal. He developed the use of philological and geographical material in his exegesis and recognized the scientific importance of archaeology. In his interpretation of the Bible he used both the allegorical method of the Alexandrian and the realism of the Antiochene schools. The correct ancient use of the meaning of the words was a large part of his expertise in the various ancient languages.
Saint Jerome studied the old text’s in existance at that time in ancient tongues used in their writting. Latin, Greek, and Hebrew text’s were at his disposal.
His ability to read and correctly translate were par excellant at the time and even today he would be an ace translator…
Saint Jerome studied the old text’s in existance at that time in ancient tongues used in their writting. Latin, Greek, and Hebrew text’s were at his disposal.
His ability to read and correctly translate were par excellant at the time and even today he would be an ace translator…
T
TOME
Guest
About Jerome’s sources, first, remember that his work wasn’t favorably accepted by many during his life time because he went beyond his original commission of “cleaning up” the “Old Latin” bible (many inaccuracies crept in over the years as is to be expected when there were no printing presses around and we had to rely on hand written manuscritps). Jerome decided to the best course was to start anew using the texts in Hebrew and Greek he had available building, as it was pointed out , on his knowledge of the various cultures in which the scriptural text were developed plus the other disciplines mentioned before. However, I believe that with the archeological discoveries of older text these past few centuries and the rise of modern biblical scholarship using the best in scientific research that includes History, liturature, anthropology etc. more accurate translations than Jerome’s now exist and dare I say are the text we commonly use but imagine the translation we would have today had Jerome known then what we know now? Finally, I think by using Titles of the Jerome Biblical Commentary and the New Jerome… expresses the deep appreciation of Jerome’s brillance, by some of the better, in my opinion, scriptural scholars today.
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Marie
Guest
Quite true. He was the best of his day, but even Jerome would boggle at the information unearthed since his time. But he sure would be good at it.
R
romano
Guest
At His Feet:
amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/3438053039/ref=pd_sim_b_2/103-7263732-1539835?%5Fencoding=UTF8&v=glance
As I understand it, Jerome’s Vulgate has textual authority because of the great antiquity of the manuscripts with which he worked. Modern editions of the Greek NT apparently have had to make do with much later manuscripts.
Here is what Gordon Winrod (who was not a Catholic) has to say in the Preface to his facsimile edition of the original Douay-Rheims translation of the Vulgate (not Bishop Challoner’s 18th century revision of the D-R but the 1635 reprint of the Douay Old Testament along with the 1582 Rheims New Testament):
"In this 20th century, Bibles appear, claiming to be "diligently compared with the original Hebrew and original Greek manuscripts.’’ This is fallacious, since such are not known to be in existence, and were not known to be in existence in the 16th century. “Hebrew” manuscripts extant in the 16th century were anti-Christian Masoretic fabrications, which were not true to the old Latin Vulgate. The Preface to the Rheims New Testament states that “most of the auncient Heretikes were Grecians, & therfore the Scriptures in Greeke were more corrupted by them, as the auncient fathers often complaine.” Sixteenth century Greek manuscripts were neither as old nor as authoritative as the Latin Vulgate of the 4th century, some of them having been recently constructed by enemies of Christianity for the purpose of altering the text of Holy Scripture."
Just how true this is, and whether or not Winrod actually wrote this Preface himself, I don’t know. The full text can be found at:
drbo.org/preface_winrod.htm
Yours is a very interesting question. You might take a look at the Amazon reviews of the Biblia Sacra Iuxta Vulgatam Versionem by R. Weber.
amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/3438053039/ref=pd_sim_b_2/103-7263732-1539835?%5Fencoding=UTF8&v=glance
As I understand it, Jerome’s Vulgate has textual authority because of the great antiquity of the manuscripts with which he worked. Modern editions of the Greek NT apparently have had to make do with much later manuscripts.
Here is what Gordon Winrod (who was not a Catholic) has to say in the Preface to his facsimile edition of the original Douay-Rheims translation of the Vulgate (not Bishop Challoner’s 18th century revision of the D-R but the 1635 reprint of the Douay Old Testament along with the 1582 Rheims New Testament):
"In this 20th century, Bibles appear, claiming to be "diligently compared with the original Hebrew and original Greek manuscripts.’’ This is fallacious, since such are not known to be in existence, and were not known to be in existence in the 16th century. “Hebrew” manuscripts extant in the 16th century were anti-Christian Masoretic fabrications, which were not true to the old Latin Vulgate. The Preface to the Rheims New Testament states that “most of the auncient Heretikes were Grecians, & therfore the Scriptures in Greeke were more corrupted by them, as the auncient fathers often complaine.” Sixteenth century Greek manuscripts were neither as old nor as authoritative as the Latin Vulgate of the 4th century, some of them having been recently constructed by enemies of Christianity for the purpose of altering the text of Holy Scripture."
Just how true this is, and whether or not Winrod actually wrote this Preface himself, I don’t know. The full text can be found at:
drbo.org/preface_winrod.htm
R
romano
Guest
At His Feet:
I think that one proof of his superiority is found in the Vulgate Apocalypse 22:14 -
"BEATI, QUI LAVANT STOLAS SUAS IN SANGUINE AGNI."
For this Challoner’s revision of the 1582 Rheims NT gives:
"Blessed are they that wash their robes in the blood of the lamb."
Here Jerome’s Vulgate gives us the vitally important phrase - in sanguine agni - a phrase necessary to complete the sense but which doesn’t seem to occur anywhere else except, oddly enough, in Wyclif’s 1380 translation:
"blessid be thei that waischen her stoolis : in the blood of the lambe. . . ."
Without this phrase we are left with " Blessed are they who wash their clothes" which makes it sound as if a trip to the laundromat will suffice to get us into the Kingdom!
The Aland Greek NT 3rd Edition gives only: “Makarioi hoi plunontes tas stolas auton. . . .”
St Jerome received a splendid education at Rome and was the greatest Biblical scholar of his age. His dates are ca.340 - ca. 420. In other words, he was 1600 years closer to the sources than we are.
I think that one proof of his superiority is found in the Vulgate Apocalypse 22:14 -
"BEATI, QUI LAVANT STOLAS SUAS IN SANGUINE AGNI."
For this Challoner’s revision of the 1582 Rheims NT gives:
"Blessed are they that wash their robes in the blood of the lamb."
Here Jerome’s Vulgate gives us the vitally important phrase - in sanguine agni - a phrase necessary to complete the sense but which doesn’t seem to occur anywhere else except, oddly enough, in Wyclif’s 1380 translation:
"blessid be thei that waischen her stoolis : in the blood of the lambe. . . ."
Without this phrase we are left with " Blessed are they who wash their clothes" which makes it sound as if a trip to the laundromat will suffice to get us into the Kingdom!
The Aland Greek NT 3rd Edition gives only: “Makarioi hoi plunontes tas stolas auton. . . .”
Yes, it would seem so, although you’re going to have to be careful to distinguish between the original D-R and Challoner’s revision of the D-R as they are two very different things.
A
At_His_Feet
Guest
Thanks for your responses, everyone!
Z
Zooey
Guest
I think that he no doubt had access to a lot of texts that we do not have now. (On the other hand, I feel sure that he would have been delighted to lay hands on some of those that have been discovered more recently).
Something that I just ran across in reading, is that permanent ink was invented by Gutenberg, to use with his printing press. All the ink before that, was the kind that faded with time. Obviously, this has to mean that many of Jerome’s source texts have degraded & vanished by now.
Also, we have really lost our knowledge of the classical languages & literatures. (Did you know that as late as the 19th C, Irish markets were operated in Latin? It was the common language between Gaelic & English speakers). Only a few specialists learn what every schoolchild was expected to learn, not so long ago: Latin & Greek were the mark of an educated person. Now, we think of them as “esoteric”. So, the texts were not only better, they were more easily understood.
Something that I just ran across in reading, is that permanent ink was invented by Gutenberg, to use with his printing press. All the ink before that, was the kind that faded with time. Obviously, this has to mean that many of Jerome’s source texts have degraded & vanished by now.
Also, we have really lost our knowledge of the classical languages & literatures. (Did you know that as late as the 19th C, Irish markets were operated in Latin? It was the common language between Gaelic & English speakers). Only a few specialists learn what every schoolchild was expected to learn, not so long ago: Latin & Greek were the mark of an educated person. Now, we think of them as “esoteric”. So, the texts were not only better, they were more easily understood.
A
At_His_Feet
Guest
Thanks Zooey! No I didn’t know that about the Irish markets. Interesting. I’ve seen a report card from a school in the rural Appalachian south in the 1920s that shows that they were expected to learn Latin!
Thanks for the info about Gutenberg (the Catholic), too.
Thanks for the info about Gutenberg (the Catholic), too.
M
Marie
Guest
I just found some interesting info in regards to Jerome, a quote of his about his abilities.
The Hebrew word can also mean “horns,” and Jerome chose the latter meaning. This error has been perpetuated to the present in many ways. When Michelangelo sculpted a marble Moses in 1515, he relied on Jerome’s description in the Latin Vulgate translation. The resulting 235-cm-high horned statue can be seen in Rome (S. Pietro in Vincoli) today.
I always wondered about those horns on Moses’.
His most famous mistranslation put horns on Moses’s head. The original Hebrew scripture (Exodus 34) stated that when Moses descended from Mt. Sinai, he had “rays of light” coming from his head.
The Hebrew word can also mean “horns,” and Jerome chose the latter meaning. This error has been perpetuated to the present in many ways. When Michelangelo sculpted a marble Moses in 1515, he relied on Jerome’s description in the Latin Vulgate translation. The resulting 235-cm-high horned statue can be seen in Rome (S. Pietro in Vincoli) today.
I always wondered about those horns on Moses’.
B
But_for_Grace
Guest
Marie - I see your point, but Jerome’s translation is very intresting when compared with the second beast of revalation.
Rev 13:11 And I saw another beast coming up out of the earth: and he had two horns, like a lamb: and he spoke as a dragon. (DRB)
The second beast is a false prophet and is being likened unto moses, only he is bringing a false law from a false god
Rev 13:11 And I saw another beast coming up out of the earth: and he had two horns, like a lamb: and he spoke as a dragon. (DRB)
The second beast is a false prophet and is being likened unto moses, only he is bringing a false law from a false god
M
Marie
Guest
But for Grace:
Yes, it is an interesting in that regard. I don’t think Jerome had that in mind when he did it, but it is still quite interesting.
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