Scottish Text Society publications > Old series > New Testament in Scots > Volume 1, 1901

INTRODUCTION.
XXVU
has been made within the Roman Church to improve
the text, though individual scholars have done much to
elucidate its history.1
Mr Skeat reminds us that ‘the Vulgate version of the
Bible is one of the most important books in the world,’
and J. D. Michaelis long ago remarked that ‘as a version
of the Scriptures it excelled all others.’2 Yet, according
to M. Berger, one of the highest authorities on the sub¬
ject, the Vulgate is still, or was in 1887, ‘the worst edited
and the least known work of Latin literature.’ 3
Undoubtedly the ultimate revision of the text under the
Gregorian commission of 1590-91 was somewhat hastily
done. The Carafa congregation had endeavoured to
recover the text as Jerome had left it. The changes of
Sixtus V. were not as arbitrary as has been sometimes
supposed. The actual errors of the press in his edition
1 An account of what was done by the several papal congregations since the
Council of Trent for the emendation of the text will be found in 1 Prselectiones
de Nov. Test, et Historia Vulgate editionis a Concilio Tridentino auctore A. M.
Ungarello’ (ed. Vercellone), Romse, 1846, reprinted in the Prolegomena to
Vercellone’s own unfinished work, ‘ Variee lectiones Vulgate Latinse bibliorum
editionis,’ Romae, i860. The state of the text in the early Middle Ages is
described by Samuel Berger in his ‘ Histoire de la Vulgate pendant les premiers
siecles du moyen age.’ Paris, 1893.
2 ‘Versionum una omnium praestantissima,’ quoted by Brunati, ‘Dissert, de
Vulgata,’ 1825.
3 ‘ De 1’PIistoire de la Vulgate en France’ (Paris, 1887), p. 16. On the
other hand, Ernest Ranke in his ‘Codex Fuldensis’ (Marburgi, 1876, p.
569) gave a more favourable estimate of the Clementine edition, pronounc¬
ing it to be in universum satis bonum . . . textum, neque absimilem a
fontibus authenticis. In 1889, however, there issued from the Oxford press
the first portion of the long-desired work, now in course of publication, by the
Bishop of Salisbury, in collaboration with the Rev. J. H. White : ‘ Novum
Testamentum . . . Latine secundum editionem S. Hieronymi ad codd. manu-
scriptorum fidem recensuit Johannes Wordsworth,’ &c. The Four Gospels
have already appeared ; and here for the first time are collected the readings
of all the most ancient MSS. by which the genuine Hieronymian text can as
nearly as possible be restored. It has been used with every line of the
present volume.