OVER the past few centuries, at least half of the world’s languages have disappeared. A language dies when it no longer has native speakers. In that sense, Latin is usually defined as “a dead language,” even though it is widely studied and remains the official tongue of Vatican City.
Latin is also the language of some of the first and foremost Bible translations. Could such renderings into an obsolete tongue be “alive” today, affecting Bible readers now? The fascinating history of such translations helps to answer that question.
The Oldest Latin Translations
Latin was the first language of Rome. When the apostle Paul wrote to the Christian community in that city, though, he wrote in Greek.
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That did not present a problem, as it was common for people there to speak both languages. Because many of Rome’s inhabitants came from the Greek Orient, it was said that the city was becoming Greek. The linguistic situation of the Roman Empire differed from region to region, but as the empire grew, so did the importance of Latin. As a result, the Holy Scriptures were translated from Greek into Latin. This process seems to have begun in the second century C.E. in North Africa.
The various texts that were produced are known as the Vetus Latina, or the Old Latin version. No ancient manuscript containing a complete Latin translation of the Scriptures has come down to us. The parts that have survived as well as the parts quoted by ancient writers seem to indicate that the Vetus Latina was not a single, united piece of work. Rather, it was apparently produced by several translators who worked separately at different times and places. So instead of being a single text, it is more precisely a collection of translations from the Greek.
Independent initiatives to translate parts of the Scriptures into Latin created some confusion. At the end of the fourth century C.E., Augustine believed that “every man who happened to get his hands on a Greek manuscript and who thought that he had any knowledge—be it ever so little—of the two languages ventured upon the work of translation” into Latin. Augustine and others thought that there were too many translations in circulation and doubted their accuracy.
Jerome’s Version
The man who attempted to end this translation confusion was Jerome, who at times served as secretary to Damasus, the bishop of Rome, in 382 C.E. The bishop invited Jerome to revise the Latin text of the Gospels, and Jerome completed that task in just a few years. Then he began a revision of the Latin translation of other Bible books.
Jerome’s translation, which later came to be called the Vulgate, was a composite text. Jerome based his version of the Psalms on the Septuagint, a Greek translation of the Hebrew Scriptures completed in the second century B.C.E. He revised the Gospels, and he also translated a good part of the Hebrew Scriptures from the original Hebrew. The rest of the Scriptures were probably revised by others. Sections of the Vetus Latina were also eventually merged back into Jerome’s Vulgate.
Jerome’s work initially received a cool response. Even Augustine criticized it. Yet, it slowly established itself as the standard for single-volume Bibles. In the eighth and ninth centuries, such scholars as Alcuin and Theodulf set about correcting linguistic and textual errors that had crept into Jerome’s version because of repeated copying. Others divided the text into chapters, making it easier to consult the Scriptures. When printing with movable type was invented, Jerome’s version was the first Bible to go to press.
It was at the Council of Trent in 1546 that the Catholic Church for the first time called Jerome’s version the Vulgate. The council declared this Bible “authentic,” making it a reference text for Catholicism. At the same time, the council also called for a revision. The work was to be overseen by special committees, but Pope Sixtus V, impatient to see it completed and evidently a little overconfident regar
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