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patrick457
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As per the title, we would tackle random trivia concerning Scripture (variants, translations, versions, etc.). Without further ado:
’Vulgate’
Newsflash: that late 4th-century Latin translation of the Bible what we now know today as the “Vulgate” was actually originally not called by that name!
The term ‘Vulgate’ now means but one thing: the standard authoritative Bible of the Latin Church, prepared mostly by the labors of St. Jerome. But this is not the original use of the word and it was never so used by Jerome himself; indeed, it did not at first refer to a Latin version or translation at all.
In his day, the phrase editio vulgata (a calque from the Greek koine ekdosis, ‘common edition’*) meant only one thing: the Greek Septuagint - or more properly, that edition of the Septuagint + Theodotion in use among Christians. St. Jerome himself used the phrase in this way: “Hoc iuxta Septuaginta interpretes diximus, quorum editio toto orbe vulgata est” (Comm. in Isa. 65:20; ib 30:22) Elsewhere he actually gives the Greek words (of the Septuagint) as found in editione vulgata (Comm. in Osee 7:13).
His contemporary St. Augustine also identifies the expression with the Septuagint (De doctrina Christiana, xvi. 10): “Secundum vulgatam editionem, hoc est interpretum Septuaginta.” The term was next extended to the form in which the Septuagint was at first known to the West—the Old Latin versions, although there does not appear to be any instance in the age of Jerome of the application of the term to the Latin version of the Old Testament without regard to its derivation from the Septuagint or to that of the New Testament, so that St. Jerome usually intended the Septuagint though he quoted it in Latin form.
Vulgata editio, having acquired the meaning of the current or ordinarily used text of Septuagint, was once again extended to mean a corrupt or uncorrected text as opposed to the standard emended Septuagint version of Origen’s Hexapla, and in this sense is used by Jerome as synonymous with antiqua or vetus editio.
’Vulgate’
Newsflash: that late 4th-century Latin translation of the Bible what we now know today as the “Vulgate” was actually originally not called by that name!
The term ‘Vulgate’ now means but one thing: the standard authoritative Bible of the Latin Church, prepared mostly by the labors of St. Jerome. But this is not the original use of the word and it was never so used by Jerome himself; indeed, it did not at first refer to a Latin version or translation at all.
In his day, the phrase editio vulgata (a calque from the Greek koine ekdosis, ‘common edition’*) meant only one thing: the Greek Septuagint - or more properly, that edition of the Septuagint + Theodotion in use among Christians. St. Jerome himself used the phrase in this way: “Hoc iuxta Septuaginta interpretes diximus, quorum editio toto orbe vulgata est” (Comm. in Isa. 65:20; ib 30:22) Elsewhere he actually gives the Greek words (of the Septuagint) as found in editione vulgata (Comm. in Osee 7:13).
His contemporary St. Augustine also identifies the expression with the Septuagint (De doctrina Christiana, xvi. 10): “Secundum vulgatam editionem, hoc est interpretum Septuaginta.” The term was next extended to the form in which the Septuagint was at first known to the West—the Old Latin versions, although there does not appear to be any instance in the age of Jerome of the application of the term to the Latin version of the Old Testament without regard to its derivation from the Septuagint or to that of the New Testament, so that St. Jerome usually intended the Septuagint though he quoted it in Latin form.
Vulgata editio, having acquired the meaning of the current or ordinarily used text of Septuagint, was once again extended to mean a corrupt or uncorrected text as opposed to the standard emended Septuagint version of Origen’s Hexapla, and in this sense is used by Jerome as synonymous with antiqua or vetus editio.
- Nope, vulgata editio does not mean that the work is in Vulgar Latin! Vulgata here is not used to mean the ‘vulgar’ tongue (i.e. common speech) but means the ‘current’ or ‘ordinarily used’ text.
