Two centuries later the text had again degenerated, and our Primate Lanfranc (1069-89) attempted a similar task, perhaps rather with a view to theology than textual criticism (“secundum orthodoxam fidem studuit corrigere”)[70]. In 1109 Stephen Harding, third abbot of Citeaux, made a further revision, partly from good Latin MSS., partly from the Greek, partly, in the Old Testament, from the Hebrew, as he obtained help from some learned Jewish scholars[71]. In 1150 his example was followed by Cardinal Nicolaus Maniacoria[72]. As these individual efforts seemed to have but slight success, the task was taken up in the thirteenth century more fully and systematically by bodies of scholars, in the so-called “Correctoria Bibliorum;” here the variant readings with their authorities, Greek, Latin, ancient, modern, and citations from the Fathers, were carefully registered. The most noticeable examples of these correctoria are (1) the “Correctorium Parisiense” prepared by the Paris theologians. Roger Bacon had a poor opinion of the work done by these students; for some time the MSS. of the Bible that were copied and bought and sold in Paris, he says, were corrupt; they were bad to begin with, and copied carelessly by the booksellers and their scribes, while the theologians were not learned enough to discover and amend the mistakes[73]. This correctorium is also frequently, but according to Denifle (p. 284) wrongly, called Senonense, as if it was undertaken at the instance of the Bishop of Sens; there is, however, no correctorium Senonense, only the correctiones Senonenses, i.e. corrections made in the Paris Correctorium by the Dominicans residing at Sens; (2) the “Correctorium” of the Dominicans, prepared under the auspices of Hugo de S. Caro, about 1240, the final corrected [pg 061] form of which is now preserved at Paris, B.N. Lat. 16719-16722 (see below, p. [70], no. [23])[74]; this, however, was again an attempt, not so much to get at Jerome's actual text as, to bring the Latin text into accordance with the Greek or Hebrew[75]; (3) a better and more critical revision, the “Correctorium Vaticanum,” a good MS. of which is in the Vatican Library (Lat. 3466); the author of this has done his best to restore Jerome's reading throughout, although well learned in Greek and Hebrew; and he has with some probability been identified by Vercellone with a scholar much praised by Roger Bacon as a “sapientissimus homo,” who had spent nearly forty years in the correction of the text[76] (Denifle suggests Wilh. de Mara).
These remedies, partial and temporary as they were, seemed all that was possible before the invention of printing; and, indeed, by an unfortunate chance, the worst of the three correctoria, the “Parisiense,” was made use of by Robert Stephen.
Among the earliest productions of the press, Latin Bibles took a prominent position; and during the first half-century of printing at least 124 editions were published[77]. Of these perhaps the finest is the earliest, the famous “forty-two line” Bible, issued at Mentz between 1452 and 1456, in two volumes, and usually ascribed to Gutenberg[78]. This is usually called the “Mazarin Bible,” from the copy which first attracted the notice of bibliographers having been discovered in the Library of Cardinal Mazarin; in the New Testament, the order of books is Evv., Paul., Act., Cath., Apoc. Mr. Copinger enumerates twenty-five copies on vellum and paper as still known to exist; there are two in the British Museum. The first Bible published at Rome is dated 1471, and was printed by Conrad Sweynheym and Arnold Pannartz, two vols., folio; the first octavo edition, or “poor man's [pg 062] Bible,” was printed at Basle in 1491 by Froben. The early editions, however, reproduced the current mediaeval type of text, or copied from each other, the only exceptions being those printed by Froben, whose copies, says Mr. Copinger, were sought after, for their accuracy, by the best scholars in Europe, and whose edition of 1502 with the “glossa ordinaria” sometimes stands quite alone in possessing the true reading. The first, edition with a collection of various readings appears to be one published at Paris in 1504[79], followed by others at Venice and Lyons in 1511, 1513; and a definite revision of the text was attempted by Cardinal Ximenes, in the famous Complutensian Polyglott (1514, &c.; see Chap. [V])[80], in which he made use of the Bible of Alcalá (see below, no. [42]); but though an advance was made on previous editions, the text was still far from pure. Erasmus, in his famous edition of the Greek Testament, appended a Latin translation; this he made himself directly from the Greek, but in his notes he discusses the current Vulgate text and gives readings from MSS. which he had examined; of these he mentions those at the Royal Library at Mechlin, St. Paul's Cathedral, London, Corsendonk Austin Priory, Constance Cathedral, St. Donatian (Abbaye des Dunes) of Bruges; of these the first and third only can be now identified, see below, pp. [84], [81], nos.[81] [134], [109]. The first edition of a really critical nature was that of Robert Stephen, in 1528; for this he used three good MSS., the Exemplar S. Germani parvum (Par. lat. 11937), the Corbey Bible (Par. lat. 11532-3), and the Bible of St. Denis (Par. lat. 2); see below, nos. [22], [20], [10]; and he published a more important edition in 1538-40 (reprinted 1546), in which he made use of seventeen MSS., of which the following[82], numbered [19], [21], [22], [100] below, have been identified. This edition is practically the foundation of the Modern Vulgate, and is cited by Wordsworth as ϛ. Later, John Hentenius, in his folio edition of the Bible, (Louvain, 1547, and often reprinted); cited by Wordsworth as [Gothic: H] seems to have used about thirty-one MSS. and two printed copies; but as no various readings are cited from individual [pg 063] MSS., they cannot well be identified; see his preface. Lucas Brugensis (see his catalogue at the end of the Hentenian Bible of 1583, p. 6) also gives a long list of MSS., which seem impossible to be identified[83], and we must also bear in mind the corrected editions published by Th. Vivian (Paris), and Junta (Venice), 1534 (both are small copies of the New Testament, corrected occasionally from the Greek), Isidore Clarius (Venice, 1542), J. Benedictus (Paris, 1558), Paul Eber (1565), and Luke Osiander (1578).
When the Council of Trent met, the duty of providing for the members of the Church of Rome the most correct recension of the Latin Bible that skill and diligence could produce was obviously incumbent on it; and in one of its earliest sittings (April 8, 1546) the famous decree was passed, ordaining that of the many published editions of the Holy Scripture “haec ipsa vetus et vulgata editio, quae longo tot saeculorum usu in ipsa ecclesia probata est” should be chosen, and “in publicis lectionibus, disputationibus, praedicationibus, et expositionibus pro authentica habeatur” (Sess. iv. Decr. 2); and directing that “posthac sacra Scriptura, potissimum vero haec ipsa vetus et vulgata editio quam emendatissime imprimatur.” No immediate action, however, was taken in the matter, and for forty years the editions were still printed and published by private scholars; the Hentenian, for the time being, becoming almost the standard text of the Roman Catholic Church.
Pope Pius IV had indeed begun the task of correcting the Vulgate Bible, but without immediate result, and under his successors the matter still rested, till the accession of Sixtus V (1585-90)[84], a Pope as energetic in his labours on the Holy [pg 064] Scripture as in other spheres of activity. He appointed a commission on the subject, under the presidency of Cardinal Carafa; and after they had presented the Pope with the result of their work, in the beginning of 1589, he devoted himself personally to the study, reading through the whole Bible more than once, and using his best endeavours to bring it to the highest pitch of accuracy. The result of this appeared in a folio edition of the Bible in three volumes, in 1590[85], accompanied by a Bull, in which, after relating the extreme care that had been taken in preparing the volume, Sixtus V declared that it was to be considered as the authentic edition recommended by the Council of Trent, that it should be taken as the standard of all future reprints, and that all copies should be corrected by it. The edition itself (cited by Wordsworth as [Gothic: S]) was not without faults, and indeed received a good number of corrections by hand after the proofs were printed off; it presents a text more nearly resembling that of Robt. Stephen than that of John Hentenius. In a few months, however, Sixtus was dead; a number of short-lived Popes succeeded him, and in Jan. 1592, Clement VIII ascended the throne. Almost immediately he gave orders for the copies of the Sixtine Vulgate to be called in; it has been hitherto supposed simply on account of its inaccuracy, but Professor Nestle (pp. 17 ff.) argues reasonably enough that this ground is insufficient, and suggests that the revocation was really due to the influence of the Jesuits, whom Sixtus had offended by placing one of Bellarmine's books on the Index Librorum prohibitorum. Be that as it may, in the same year the Clementine edition of the Vulgate (Wordsworth's [Gothic: C]) was published, differing from the Sixtine in many places, and presenting a type of text more nearly allied to Hentenius' Bible. To avoid the appearance of a conflict between the two Popes, the Clementine Bible was boldly published under the name of Sixtus, with a preface by Bellarmine asserting that Sixtus had intended to bring out a new edition in consequence of errors that had occurred in the printing of the first, but had been prevented by death; now, in accordance with his desire, the work was completed by his successor. The opportunity, however, was too good a one for Protestants to miss, and Thomas James in his “Bellum Papale sive Concordia discors” [pg 065] (London, 1600), upbraids the two Popes on their high pretensions and the palpable failure of at least one, possibly both of them[86].
From this time forward the Clementine Vulgate (sometimes under the name of Clement, sometimes under that of Sixtus, sometimes under both names)[87] has been the standard edition for the Roman Church; by the Bull of 1592, every edition must be assimilated to this one, no word of the text may be altered, nor even variant readings printed in the margin[88].
Thus the modern attempts at a scientific and critical revision of this version have come from students mainly outside the communion of the Roman Church.
The design of Bentley for a critical Greek Testament is described below (Chap. [V]); it was obvious that for its prosecution the MSS. of the Vulgate would have to be collated as carefully as those of the Greek text itself; and accordingly the variant readings of a good number were collected by Bentley himself, nos. 3, 59, 60, 61, 62, 63, 64, 65, 66, 68, 69, 70, 71, 72, 74, 75, 76, 77, 82, 83, 85, 155, 160; other MSS. were collated by his friend and colleague John Walker, who worked much at Paris in 1719 and the following years; to him we owe collations of nos. 10, 11, 15, 16, 19, 20, 21, 52, 96, 97, 102, 151, 164, while he obtained collations of the Tours MSS. (nos. 106, 107, 108, 166) from L. Chevalier, through their common friend Sabatier; and of the Oxford MSS. (nos. 86, 87, 89, 90, 148, 161), from David Casley. Walker died, however, in November, 1741, six months before the great Bentley, and the projected edition came to naught[89]. Their collations have not been published, but are contained in the following volumes, in the Library of Trinity College, Cambridge: B. 17. 5 containing collations by Walker, Chevalier, Casley, and Bentley; and B. 17. 15 containing collations [pg 066] by Bentley; and they have been made use of by Bishop Wordsworth in his edition of the Vulgate[90].
Two attempts are being made now to restore the text of St. Jerome: that of Dr. Peter Corssen, of Berlin, and the Oxford edition under the hands of the Bishop of Salisbury. Dr. Corssen's published results at present consist only of the Epistle to the Galatians (“Epistula ad Galatas,” Berlin, Weidmann, 1885), but he has been spending several years in the accumulation of material, and other books of the New Testament will probably be published before very long. The Bishop of Salisbury after nearly eleven years' preparation, in conjunction with the Rev. H. J. White and other friends, published the first volume of his edition, containing St. Matthew's Gospel, in 1889; St. Mark following in 1891, and St. Luke in 1892; and it is hoped that the rest of the New Testament may be published in due course. More than thirty MSS., those numbered 5, 6, 18, 21, 28, 29, 37, 41, 51, 56, 64, 67, 68, 72, 77, 78, 82, 85, 86, 87, 91, 97, 98, 106, 115, 128, 129, 130, 132, 147, 148, 153, 154, 159, 175 below, have been carefully collated throughout for this edition, and a large number of others are cited in all the important passages, besides correctoria, and the more noticeable of the earlier printed Bibles.
To enumerate all the known MSS. of the Old Latin version was an easy task; to enumerate those of the Vulgate is almost impossible. It is computed that there are at least 8,000 scattered throughout the various Libraries of Europe, and M. Samuel Berger, the greatest living authority on the subject, has examined more than 800 in Paris alone. Nor would an exhaustive enumeration be of much critical value, as a large number of comparatively late MSS. probably contain the same corrupt type of text.