CRAMPON, JOSEPH-THÉODORE-AUGUSTIN. - French exegete, b. at Franvillers (diocese of Amiens) on 4 Feb. 1826, d. at Paris on 16 Aug. 1894. At the seminary of St. Sulpice in Paris he had the celebrated Le Hir as his professor of Hebrew. More than to teaching, he devoted his life to the publication of various works, such as the commentary on Holy Scripture by Cornelius a Lapide (21 vols., Paris 1857-63), the Explanatio in Psalmos of St. Robert Bellarmine, to which he added a new Latin version from the Hebrew original (ibid. 1861), the commentary of Balthasar Cordier on Job (ibid. 1861), etc. His principal work was the translation of the entire Bible from the original texts, with introductions and notes. It was the first work of its kind by a Catholic (apart from two attempts without sequel in Germany), from the Council of Trent onward.
C., however, was able to publish only his translation with notes of the Pentateuch (Tournai 1894); the rest of the Old Testament came out under the care of certain fathers of the Society of Jesus, professors of Holy Scripture, among them J. Corluy (ibid. 1898-1904). As for the New Testament, the version of the Vulgate that C. had published at Tournai in 1885 was simply revised. An edition of C.'s translation with few notes, issued in one volume in 1905, was several times updated and even entirely redone in the years 1923, 1930, 1938; it is much in use among the educated public and useful to scholars.
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