LATIN VERSIONS OF THE BIBLE. - Before the Jeromean Vulgate (v.), Latin versions were in use, partially preserved, in the Christian communities of Africa and western Europe. From the very beginnings of Christianity in these Latin countries the need was felt for a Latin translation of the Bible. St. Cyprian (d. 258) uses in his writings a biblical text already translated; the same can probably be asserted of Tertullian (d. after 222). A Numidian martyr of Scillium (ca. 180) must have been referring to Latin texts when he declared that he had with him "the books and the letters of Paul, a righteous man" (Acts of the Scillitan martyrs). For the Roman Church there is the testimony of Novatian (d. 257-58). Thus toward the end of the 2nd century the Bible, or at least part of it, had already been translated into Latin: it was the Vetus Latina (v. ITALA). From a comparison, moreover, between the texts cited by Cyprian and those of Novatian, it emerges that the two writers used different translations. Therefore at least two versions existed, probably only partial ones. The same conclusion is suggested by the biblical manuscripts that have come down to us. Indeed, for some books, such as Leviticus, as many as four versions can be identified (cf. codd. Lugdunensis, Monacensis, Wirceburgensis and the text used by St. Augustine in the Locutiones et quaestiones in Heptateuchum).
This fact justifies to some extent the statement of St. Augustine, according to which the translators of the Bible into Latin had been innumerable (De doctrina christiana, II, 11, 16; PL 34, 43); which, however, seems on the whole to refer to the number of different authors who had translated the individual books. St. Jerome always speaks of a version in the singular, undoubtedly of the one in use in the Roman Church, while he often laments the great variety of readings in the different copies. In fact, for some books, such as Ecclesiasticus and Wisdom, no sure proofs of a plurality of versions have so far been adduced. From this it follows that, while certain books circulated in two, three or four distinct versions, others were translated only once.
From the dates cited it can only be deduced that the work began around the middle of the 2nd century and perhaps extended to the end of the 3rd. Equal uncertainty prevails concerning the places in which these anonymous versions arose. For serious reasons, based on alleged linguistic provincialisms and on the usage of the African authors, it is thought that the first version originated in North Africa. But the need for a translation existed also in other regions, where Greek was understood little or not at all, such as northern Italy, Gaul, Spain. Whatever the homeland of origin of the translation, today, for practical reasons and to respect ancient testimonies (of the Carthaginian Cyprian and the Roman Novatian), it is preferred to speak of an "African" text and a "European" text. However, it should be noted that the two texts are interdependent, inasmuch as one served as an aid for the extension of the other. Their individualization in particular cases is very difficult even in the books that evidently contain them, because the two texts often contaminated each other in their transmission, both with one another and with the text of the Vulgate when (5th-6th centuries) the latter gained the upper hand.
The study of the ancient Latin versions is very useful from the linguistic point of view, because they often reproduce grammatical forms and vocabulary foreign to the literary language. These peculiarities, especially of vocabulary, so interesting for the history of Latin, constituted one of the reasons for St. Jerome's revision, who - at least for the Psalter - set out to make the diction "less plebeian" (Epist., 106, 54, 56), censuring as "verbal mongers" certain terms, such as adnullae or nullificare, coined by the ancient translators or taken from dialects (Epist., 106, 57). The examination of the earliest Latin versions is profitable also for textual criticism, because of their fidelity, often servile, to the Greek text of the Septuagint (only the book of Daniel was translated from the Greek version of Theodotion). For the critical study of the highly authoritative Greek translation the ancient Latin versions offer the advantage of reproducing a pre-Hexaplaric text (v. HEXAPLA), so that sometimes their testimony is to be preferred to that of certain Greek manuscripts. In the New Testament they reproduce a good text of the Western type. However, the usefulness, great in theory, of such versions is often rendered doubtful in practice, because their manuscripts were frequently retouched according to other Greek recensions or conformed to the text of the Vulgate. Five books, not translated by Jerome, are still read by the Church in their ancient Latin version (Baruch, Ecclesiasticus, Wisdom, I and II Maccabees).
Manuscripts of the entire Bible in the pre-Jeromean versions are lacking. The codex Sessorianus (at S. Croce in Rome) of the 8th-9th century comprises almost the whole New Testament, but only in fragmentary passages.
This concerns the widely circulated scriptural Speculum, falsely attributed to St. Augustine. Fairly numerous are the Gospel codices, designated by the lowercase letters of the Latin alphabet. The most notable are: cod. a, Vercellensis (4th century), attributed to St. Eusebius (v.), containing ample fragments of the four Gospels; cod. b, Veronensis (5th century), famous for its beauty, containing all four Gospels; cod. d, Bezae or Cantabrigiensis (6th century), that is, the Latin part of the bilingual D. It contains the four Gospels and almost all the Acts of the Apostles; cod. f, Brixianus (6th century), written very elegantly, with the four Gospels complete; cod. ff, Corbeiensis (now in Paris at the Bibliothèque nationale) of the 5th-6th century; the codd. g, and g, both Sangermanenses (now both in Paris), of the 9th and 10th centuries, are mixed because in many passages they carry the text of the Jeromean Vulgate.
The codices listed, with several others, represent the so-called "European" text. The "African" is offered by cod. e, Palatinus of the 5th century (now in the Museum of Trent; one leaf in Dublin) with the four Gospels mutilated, and by cod. k, Bobiensis of the 4th-5th century (now in Turin), which contains only Mk. 8, 8: Mt. 15, 36.
For the Acts of the Apostles, besides the aforementioned codex Bezae Cantabrigiensis, it suffices to mention cod. e, Laudianus, bilingual, of the 6th century, written in Sardinia and now at the Bodleian in Oxford. Cod. d, Bobiensis, a palimpsest (now in the National Library of Naples), besides fragments of the Acts, also contains notable passages of the Letter of St. James and of the II of Peter. For the Pauline letters, besides the few bilingual codices, the fragments of Freising (r, Frisingensis, now in Munich) of the 6th-7th century are to be noted.
Of the Old Testament there is the Heptateuch, generally in a fragmentary state, or in union with some books with the text of the Vulgate, in the codd.: Lugdunensis of the 6th-7th century; Wirceburgensis of the 5th-6th century; Monacensis and Ottobonianus (Vatican Library) of the 7th-8th century. The historical books can be reconstructed almost entirely from various codices, of which the principal are: the Vindobonensis (now in the National Library of Naples) of the 6th century; the Complutensis (now in Madrid) of the 9th century; the Vaticanus of the 9th century and the Monacensis of the 9th century. The Psalter is contained in about ten codices, of which it suffices to mention the Veronensis of the 6th century, the Sangermanensis of the 6th century, the Mediolanensis of the 9th century and the Psalterium mozarabicum. The wisdom books not included in the Vulgate can be read in the codd.: Vindobonensis, of the 6th-7th century; Tolosanus, of the 7th-9th century; Veronensis, of the 6th-7th century, and in the Monacensis. The prophetic books are represented by the codd. Wirceburgensis, Constantinianus-Weingartensis of the 5th-6th century, dispersed among various libraries, Sangermanensis of the 5th-6th century, Gothicus Legionensis of the 10th century and by the Veronensis of the 8th century.
A large part of these and other manuscripts has already been published in special editions. A reconstruction of the Old Testament with testimonies gathered from the various codices or derived from the works of the Fathers was attempted in the 16th century by Flaminio Nobili (v.). Much more perfect and complete was the work of P. Sabatier, Bibliorum Sacrorum latinae versionis antiquae seu vetus Italica et ceterae quaecumque in codicibus mss. et antiquorum libris reperiri potuerunt, 3 vols. (Reims 1739-43; 2nd ed., ibid. 1751). In these years the Benedictine monks of Beuron are preparing a "new Sabatier" (v. DEWE), which corresponds to the needs and conditions of present-day scholarship. So far the introductory fascicle has appeared with a specimen sheet (cf. Biblica, 31 [1950], pp. 116-18) under the title: Vetus latina, Die Reste der altlateinischen Bibel nach Petrus Sabatier neu gesammelt und herausgegeben von der Erzabtei Beuron. 1. Verzeichniss der Sigel für Handschriften und Kirchenschriftsteller, Freiburg im Br. 1949. The Berlin Academy has published the Gospels of Matthew (1938) and of Mark (1940), edited by A. Jülicher. Many texts can be read in Old-Latin biblical texts (I-VII, Oxford 1883-1923), and in Collectanea biblica latina (I-V, VIII, Rome 1912-21, 1945). - See pl. LVII.
Bibliography13 works
Angelo Penna