Vulgata

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. A Latin version of the Bible, officially adopted by the Roman Catholic Church for its religious texts and teachings
2. A critical edition of the Scriptures translated from the original languages into Latin, forming a significant theological work
3. A historically important biblical text, which consolidated various earlier versions and interpretations into a single authoritative reference

Etymology: The Vulgate is the Latin Bible that Jerome produced around 382 to 405 CE, at the request of Pope Damasus I, who wanted a reliable revision of the older Latin translations circulating in the Western church. Those older versions, collectively called the "Vetus Latina" or Old Latin, had been made piecemeal from the Greek Septuagint and were riddled with inconsistencies. Jerome went back to the Hebrew for the Old Testament, a choice that drew real controversy among his contemporaries. The name comes from the Latin "vulgata editio," meaning "common edition" or "edition for the people," from "vulgaris," "of the common crowd." The adjective had no pejorative sense in Latin; it simply meant what was in general circulation. Only later did "vulgar" drift toward its modern sense of coarse or crude, so the title once implied wide accessibility rather than low quality. Its influence was enormous. The Council of Trent in 1546 declared it authentic for the Latin Church, and it remained the standard Bible of Western Christendom for over a thousand years. The English word "Vulgate" itself entered the language in the 1600s, as a term for this specific text.

Synonyms: vulgate