LATIN VERSIONS OF THE BIBLE. — Before the Vulgate (q.v.) of Jerome, various Latin versions, partially preserved, were in use in the Christian communities of Africa and Western Europe. From the very beginnings of Christianity in these Latin-speaking countries, there was a need 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 said of Tertullian (d. after 222). A Numidian martyr from Scillium (c. 180) must have referred to Latin texts when he stated that he had with him «the books and letters of Paul, a just man» (Acta of the Scillitan Martyrs). For the Roman Church, the testimony of Novatian (d. 257–258) is available. Therefore, by 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 (q.V. ITALIA). A comparison between the texts cited by Cyprian and those of Novatian shows that the two writers used different translations. Hence, there were at least two versions, probably only partial. 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. codices Lugdunensis, Monacensis, Wircbergensis, and the text used by St. Augustine in his *Locutiones et quaestiones in Heptateuchum*).
This fact somewhat justifies St. Augustine’s statement that the translators of the Bible into Latin had been innumerable (De doctrina christiana, II, 11, 16; PL 34, 43); though this seems, from the overall evidence, to refer to the number of different authors who had translated individual books. St. Jerome always speaks of a single version, undoubtedly that in use in the Roman Church, while often lamenting the great variety of readings in different copies. In fact, for some books, such as Ecclesiasticus and Wisdom, no secure evidence of multiple versions has yet been adduced. From this, it appears that while some books circulated in two, three, or four distinct versions, others were translated only once.
From the dates given, it can only be deduced that the work began around the middle of the 2nd century and may have extended to the end of the 3rd. There is equal uncertainty regarding the places where these anonymous versions originated. For serious reasons, based on alleged linguistic provincialisms and the usage of African authors, it is thought that the first version originated in North Africa. Yet the need for a translation existed in other regions where Greek was little or not at all understood, such as northern Italy, Gaul, and Spain. Whatever the original homeland of the translation, today, for practical reasons and to respect ancient testimonies (of the Carthaginian Cyprian and the Roman Novatian), it is preferable to speak of the «African» and «European» texts. However, it should be noted that the two texts are interdependent, as one served to aid the extension of the other. Their individualization in individual cases is very difficult, even in books that clearly contain them, because the two texts often became contaminated in their transmission, both with each other and with the text of the Vulgate when (5th–6th century) it gained ascendancy.
The study of the ancient Vetus Latina versions is very useful from a linguistic point of view, because they often reproduce grammatical forms and vocabulary foreign to literary Latin. These peculiarities, especially in lexicon, so interesting for the history of Latin, constituted one of the reasons for St. Jerome’s revision, who—at least for the Psalter—aimed to make the diction «less plebeian» (Epist., 106, 54–56), reproving as «verbal monstrosities» certain terms, such as *andullare* or *mollificare*, coined by the ancient translators or taken from dialects (Epist., 106, 57). The examination of the early Vetus Latina versions is also profitable for textual criticism, due to their often slavish fidelity to the Greek text of the Septuagint (only the book of Daniel was translated from Theodotion’s Greek version). For the critical study of the authoritative Greek translation, the ancient Vetus Latina versions offer the advantage of reproducing a pre-Hexaplaric text (q.V. ESAPLE), and thus their testimony is sometimes to be preferred to that of certain Greek manuscripts. In the New Testament, they reproduce a good text of the Western type. However, the great theoretical usefulness of these versions is often rendered doubtful in practice because their manuscripts were frequently revised 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 Vetus Latina form (Baruch, Ecclesiasticus, Wisdom, 1 and 2 Maccabees).
There are no manuscripts of the entire Bible in pre-Jeromian versions. The Codex Sessorianus (in S. Croce in Rome) of the 8th–9th century contains almost the entire New Testament, but only in fragmentary passages.
This refers to the widespread *Speculum* of Scripture, falsely attributed to St. Augustine. There are a fairly large number of Gospel manuscripts, designated by the lowercase letters of the Latin alphabet. The most notable are: codex a, Vercellensis (4th century), attributed to St. Eusebius (q.v.), containing extensive fragments of the four Gospels; codex b, Veronensis (5th century), famous for its beauty, containing all four Gospels; codex d, Bezae or Cantabrigiensis (6th century), i.e., the Latin part of the bilingual D. It contains the four Gospels and almost all the Acts of the Apostles; codex f, Brixianus (6th century), written very elegantly, with all four Gospels; codex ff, Corbeiensis (now in Paris, Bibliothèque nationale) of the 5th–6th century; codices g1 and g2, both Sangermanenses (now both in Paris), of the 9th and 10th centuries, are mixed because in many places they report the text of Jerome’s Vulgate.
The listed codices, along with several others, represent the so-called «European» text. The African text is represented by codex e, Palatinus of the 5th century (now in the Museum of Trent; a leaf in Dublin) with the four mutilated Gospels, and by codex k, Bobiensis of the 4th–5th century (now in Turin), which contains only Mk 8:38; Mt 15:36.
For the Acts of the Apostles, in addition to the aforementioned Codex Bezae Cantabrigiensis, it suffices to mention codex e, Laudianus, a bilingual manuscript of the 6th century, written in Sardinia and now in the Bodleian Library in Oxford. Codex d, Bobiensis palimpsest (now in the National Library of Naples), besides fragments of Acts, also contains notable passages from the Letter of St. James and 2 Peter. For the Pauline Epistles, in addition to the few bilingual codices, the fragments from Freising (r, Frisingensis, now in Munich) of the 6th–7th century should be noted.
For the Old Testament, there is the *Epitafium*, generally in a fragmentary state, or combined with some books with the text of the Vulgate, in the following codices: Lugdunensis of the 6th–7th century; Wircbergensis of the 5th–6th century; Monacensis and Ottobonianus (Vatican Library) of the 7th–8th century. The historical books can be almost entirely reconstructed from various codices, the principal ones being: 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 Monzabaticum. The sapiential books not included in the Vulgate can be read in the following codices: Vindobonensis, of the 5th–7th century; Tolosanus, of the 8th–9th century; Veronensis, of the 7th century; and Monacensis. The prophetic books are represented by the Wircbergensis, Constantinianus-Weingartenensis of the 5th–6th century, dispersed in various libraries, Sangermanensis of the 5th–6th century, Gothicus Legionensis of the 10th century, and the Veronensis of the 8th century.
A large part of these and other manuscripts has already been published in individual editions. An attempt to reconstruct the Old Testament using testimonies gathered from various codices and drawn from the works of the Fathers was made in the 16th century by Flaminio Nobili (v.). Far 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 recent years, the Benedictine monks of Beuron have been preparing a new edition of Sabatier (v. DENK), which meets the demands and conditions of modern scholarship. So far, the introductory fascicle with a specimen leaf has appeared (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. I. Verzeichnis der Sigel für Handschriften und Kirchenschriftsteller*, Freiburg im Br. 1949. The Berlin Academy has published the Gospels of Matthew (1938) and 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, 1915). — See pl. LVII.