Jerome begins the Vulgate
Pope Damasus I commissioned the scholar Jerome to revise the Old Latin text of the Gospels against the Greek. Jerome went on in Bethlehem to translate the Old Testament from Hebrew, and his work, the Vulgate, became the standard Bible of the Latin West in the Middle Ages.
- Date
- 382year known
- Place
- Rometoday: Rome, Italy · Western and Central Europe
- Participants
- Jerome, Pope Damasus I
- Threads
- Europe in the Roman age (1st–5th c.)
- Also known as
- Vulgate; Versio vulgata; Vulgata; Jerome’s Bible; Вульгата; Библия Иеронима
Latin-speaking Christians read the Scriptures in a variety of translations, known together as the Vetus Latina (“Old Latin”), which differed from one another. Jerome, a scholar from Stridon who knew Greek and had made his first attempt to learn Hebrew during his years as a hermit in the desert, came to Rome for the church council of 382 and stayed on as secretary to Pope Damasus. That year Damasus commissioned him to revise the Latin Gospels from the best Greek texts; by the pope’s death in December 384 Jerome had finished them, together with a more cursory revision of the Psalms.
After Damasus died, Jerome left Rome and in 386 settled in Bethlehem. There, by 390, he turned to translating the Hebrew Bible directly from the Hebrew, and he completed this work by 405. The Latin text of the rest of the New Testament in the Vulgate is not his: it consists of revisions of the Old Latin made by others; Rufinus the Syrian, Rufinus of Aquileia and the circle of Pelagius have been suggested, without firm evidence.
Jerome’s version gradually displaced the older translations and only much later came to be called the Vulgate, the “common” version. The Council of Trent declared it authentic on 8 April 1546; the Sixtine edition (1590), withdrawn within months, and then the Clementine (1592) became its official editions in the Catholic Church.
Connections
Related events
- Wulfila’s Gothic Biblebetween 348 and 383 · Balkans and Anatoliain the same decades the Bible was translated anew into Latin and for the first time into Gothic
- Edict of Thessalonica27 February 380 · Balkans and Anatoliathe edict of 380 named Damasus, Jerome’s patron, as a standard of the true faith
- Sack of Rome by the Visigoths24–27 August 410 · Western and Central Europefrom Bethlehem Jerome lamented the fall of the city where he had begun his translation
Same place
- Great Fire of Rome19 July 64 – c. 27 July 64 · Western and Central Europe
- Martyrdom of Peter and Paul in Romebetween 64 and 68 · Western and Central Europe
- Nero crowns Tiridates I in Rome66 · Western and Central Europe
- Pliny the Elder’s Natural History77 · Western and Central Europe
- Inauguration of the Colosseum80 · Western and Central Europe
- Hadrian’s Pantheonbetween 114 and 118 – between 125 and 128 · Western and Central Europe
- Galen in Rome162 · Western and Central Europe
- Antonine Plague165–180 · Western and Central Europe
- Murder of Commodus and the Year of the Five Emperors31 December 192 – June 193 · Western and Central Europe
- Constitutio Antoniniana212 · Western and Central Europe
- Decian persecutionJanuary 250 – 251 · Western and Central Europe
- Plotinus teaches in Rome: the rise of Neoplatonismc. 244 – 270 · Western and Central Europe
- Crisis of the Third CenturyMarch 235 – 20 November 284 · Western and Central Europe
- Aurelian Walls271–275 · Western and Central Europe
- Battle of the Milvian Bridge28 October 312 · Western and Central Europe
- Vandal sack of Rome2–16 June 455 · Western and Central Europe
- Gothic War (535–554)535–554 · Western and Central Europe
- Coronation of Charlemagne25 December 800 · Western and Central Europe
- Imperial coronation of Otto I2 February 962 · Western and Central Europe
- Fourth Council of the Lateran11–30 November 1215 · Western and Central Europe
- “Summa Theologica” by Thomas Aquinas1265–1274 · Western and Central Europe
- Sack of Rome (1527)6 May 1527 · Western and Central Europe
Adjacent events in the thread
- Ambrose, bishop of Milan7 December 374 – 4 April 397 · Western and Central Europe
Meanwhile in the world
Other regions, within a year of this event
Eastern Europe
- Bishop Aetherius of Chersonesus at the Second Ecumenical Council381
- Vinitharius’ war with the Antes of Bozbetween 375 and 380
- Chernyakhov culturebetween 200 and 250 – between 400 and 430
- Kyiv culturec. 200 – between 400 and 430
Balkans and Anatolia
- Gothic War (376–382)376 – 3 October 382
- Wulfila’s Gothic Biblebetween 348 and 383
Middle East and Egypt
- Jerusalem Talmudbetween 360 and 450
Africa
- Donatist schismbetween 311 and 312 – 411
Central and Northern Asia
- Lü Guang takes Kucha and carries off Kumārajīva384
- Hunnic kings of Bactria: the Kidaritesbetween 360 and 370 – 467
South Asia
- Reign of Chandragupta II Vikramadityabetween 375 and 381 – between 412 and 415
East Asia
- Battle of Fei Riverbetween 30 November 383 and 9 January 384
- Kofun period: the age of keyhole tombsbetween 250 and 300 – 538
Southeast Asia and Oceania
- Gold pendant copying a coin of Antoninus Pius at Óc Eobetween 152 and 600
- The yupa inscriptions of King Mulavarman at Kutaibetween 350 and 450
- Óc Eo, the port of Funanbetween 1 and 100 – between 601 and 700
North America
- Late Basketmaker II erac. 50 – c. 500
- Hopewell traditionbetween 200 and 100 BC – c. 500
Latin America
- Teotihuacan at its height: the largest city of the Americasc. 250 – c. 550
- Nazca culture and the Nazca Linesbetween 200 and 100 BC – between 500 and 800
The same period
Sources
- Wikipedia (English): Vulgate
- Wikipedia (English): Jerome
- Wikipedia (English): Vetus Latina
- Wikipedia (English): Sixtine Vulgate
- Wikipedia (English): Pope Damasus I
- Wikipedia (Russian): Вульгата
- Wikipedia (Russian): Иероним Стридонский
- Wikipedia (Russian): Дамасий I
- Kelly J. N. D. Jerome: His Life, Writings, and Controversies. — London: Duckworth, 1975.