Vulgata

The Vulgata, or the Latin Vulgate, is the late antique Latin translation of the Bible traditionally attributed to Saint Jerome. The term vulgata, meaning "common," reflects its role as the standard Latin text used throughout the Western Church for centuries.

Jerome was commissioned by Pope Damasus I in the late 4th century to produce a reliable Latin Bible and to correct the proliferation of earlier Latin versions. He revised or replaced the older Latin paraphrases known as the Itala and translated the Old Testament anew from Hebrew, while consulting Greek and Hebrew manuscripts for the prophets and other books. For the New Testament he translated from Greek, aiming for a faithful and lucid Latin rendering. The result, completed during the late 4th and early 5th centuries, became the standard Latin Bible in medieval Western Christianity.

Over time, the Vulgate existed in several editions, with the most influential being the Clementine Vulgate (authorized in 1592 under Pope Clement VIII). This edition, often called the Clementine text, served as the Catholic Church’s official Latin Bible for more than four centuries. The Vulgate’s authority was reaffirmed by the Council of Trent, which endorsed it as the church’s normative Latin text for Scripture and liturgy.

In the modern era, the Catholic Church produced a new edition, the Nova Vulgata (Nova Vulgata editio typica), published starting in 1979, representing a scholarly update that aligns the Latin text more closely with Hebrew and Greek sources. The Nova Vulgata remains the official Latin Bible of the Catholic Church, though the Clementine Vulgate is still used liturgically in some contexts and by scholars.