Vetus Latina is a collective name given to the Biblical texts in Latin that were translated before St Jerome's Vulgate bible became the standard Bible for Latin-speaking Western Christians. The phrase Vetus Latina is Latin for Old Latin, and the Vetus Latina is sometimes known as the Old Latin Bible. A Bible handwritten in Latin, on display in Malmesbury Abbey, Wiltshire, England. ... Latin is the language originally spoken in the region around Rome called Latium. ... The Bible has been translated into many languages. ... , by Albrecht Dürer , by Peter Paul Rubens Jerome (about 340 - September 30, 420), (full name Eusebius Sophronius Hieronymus) is best known as the translator of the Bible from Greek and Hebrew into Latin. ... The Vulgate Bible is an early 5th century translation of the Bible into Latin made by St. ... Christianity is the worlds largest religion. ...

A page of the Codex Vercellensis, an example of the Vetus Latina. This section contains the Gospel of John, 16:23-30.

There was no single "Vetus Latina" Bible; there are, instead, a collection of Biblical manuscript texts that bear witness to Latin translations of Biblical passages that preceded Jerome's. After comparing readings for Luke 24:4-5 in Vetus Latina manuscripts, Bruce M. Metzger counted "no fewer than 27 variant readings!" To these witnesses of previous translations, many scholars frequently add quotations of Biblical passages that appear in the works of the Latin Fathers, some of which share readings with certain groups of manuscripts. As such, many the Vetus Latina "versions" were generally not promulgated in their own right as translations of the Bible to be used in the whole Church; rather, many of the texts that form part of the Vetus Latina were prepared on an ad hoc basis for the local use of Christian communities, or to illuminate another Christian discourse or sermon. There are some Old Latin texts that seem to have aspired to greater stature or currency; several manuscripts of Old Latin Gospels exist, containing the four canonical Gospels; the several manuscripts that contain them differ substantially from one another. Other Biblical passages, however, are extant only in excerpts or fragments. Download high resolution version (529x768, 181 KB) File links The following pages link to this file: Vetus Latina Categories: Public domain images | Manuscript images ... Download high resolution version (529x768, 181 KB) File links The following pages link to this file: Vetus Latina Categories: Public domain images | Manuscript images ... The Gospel of John is the fourth gospel in the sequence of the canon as printed in the New Testament, and scholars agree it was the fourth to be written. ... A manuscript (Latin manu scriptus, written by hand), strictly speaking, is any written document that is put down by hand, in contrast to being printed or reproduced some other way. ... The Gospel of Luke is the third of the four canonical Gospels of the New Testament, which tell the story of Jesus life, death, and resurrection. ... Sermon is the name of 11th century ruler of Srem, vassal of Bulgarian emperor Samuel. ... In Christianity, Gospels are a genre of Early Christian literature essentially concerning the message and meaning of Jesus. ...

The language of the Old Latin translations is uneven in quality, as Augustine of Hippo lamented in De Doctrina Christiana (2, 16). Grammatical solecisms abound; some reproduce literally Greek or Hebrew idioms as they appear in the Septuagint. Likewise, the various Old Latin translations reflect the various versions of the Septuagint circulating, with the African manuscripts (such as the Codex Bobiensis) preserving readings of the Western text-type, while readings in the European manuscripts are closer to the Byzantine text-type. Many grammatical idiosyncrasies come from the use of Vulgar Latin grammatical forms in the text. St. ... In linguistic prescriptivism, a solecism is a grammatical or other mistake or absurdity. ... The Modern Hebrew language is a Semitic language of the Afro-Asiatic language family. ... The Septuagint (LXX) is the name commonly given in the West to the Greek translation of the Hebrew Bible (Old Testament) produced in the third century BC. The Septuagint Bible includes additional books beyond those used in todays Jewish Tanakh. ... The Western text-type is a diverse group of manuscripts of the New Testament whose text is similar to that of early Christian writers in Rome and Gaul, including Justin Martyr and Irenaeus. ... The Byzantine text-type (also called Constantinopolitan, Syrian, ecclesiastical, and majority) is the largest group of Greek manuscripts of the New Testament. ... Vulgar Latin (in Latin, sermo vulgaris) is a blanket term covering the vernacular dialects of the Latin language spoken mostly in the western provinces of the Roman Empire until those dialects, diverging still further, evolved into the early Romance languages — a distinction usually assigned to about the ninth century. ...

For instance, the following quote from the Gallican Psalter is a familiar verse frequently set to music, Psalm 122(121):6, which goes: Psalms (Tehilim תהילים, in Hebrew) is a book of the Hebrew Bible or Tanakh, and of the Old Testament of the Christian Bible. ...

Rogate quae ad pacem sunt Ierusalem

which means "ask what are for the peace of Jerusalem." The same text is translated in the Jerusalem Bible as "Pray for peace in Jerusalem." Literal to the Septuagint original, the object of "rogate" (ask) is an implied antecedent to "quae" (what), which in turn is the subject of "sunt" (are). Ad pacem (literally "towards peace") serves for the more idiomatic in pace, and Ierusalem is an indeclinable proper noun whose case must be inferred from context. Here the case is most likely a genitive, although it could also be a dative or even a locative. The Old Latin version attempts to preserve the word order and usage of the Septuagint here, resulting in a peculiar style of Latin. The Jerusalem Bible is a Catholic translation of the Bible which first was introduced to the English-speaking public in 1966. ... The genitive case is a grammatical case that indicates a relationship, primarily one of possession, between the noun in the genitive case and another noun. ... The dative case is a grammatical case for nouns and/or pronouns. ... Locative is a case which indicates a location. ...

With the publication of Jerome's Vulgate, which offered a single, stylistically consistent Latin text translated from the original tongues, the Vetus Latina gradually fell out of use. Jerome, in a letter, complains that his new version was initially disliked by Christians who were familiar with the phrasing of the old translations. However, as copies of the complete Bible were infrequently found, Old Latin translations of various books of the Bible were copied into manuscripts along side Vulgate translations, inevitably exchanging readings; Old Latin translations of single books can be found in manuscripts as late as the 13th century. However, with the authority of a canonized saint behind it, the Vulgate generally displaced the Vetus Latina and was acknowledged as the official Bible of the Roman Catholic Church at the Council of Trent. General definition of saint In general, the term Saint refers to someone who is exceptionally virtuous and holy. ... Saint Peters Basilica in Rome. ... The Council of Trent (Italian: Trento) was an ecumenical council of the Catholic Church held in discontinuous sessions between 1545 and 1563 in response to the Protestant Reformation. ...

The Old Latin Psalms are a special case. Here, the Latin liturgy of the Roman Catholic Church continues the use of the Gallican psalter, which is a version of the Psalms from the Vetus Latina that was slightly revised by St Jerome before he began to prepare his Vulgate translation. These Psalms had already become widely used in the liturgy, and their phrasing was familiar to worshippers despite their occasional divergences from classical Latin usage. Jerome also translated the Psalms from the original Hebrew; Jerome's new Psalter is called the Iuxta Hebraea, but this new version failed to displace the Gallican psalter in liturgical use. These are the psalms that are chanted to Gregorian chant and used in classical music. In 1979, the Roman Catholic Church issued a Nova Vulgata version of the Psalms, and authorised them for liturgical use; by then, Latin liturgies were seldom used, and the Nova Vulgata has made little impact. Classical Latin is the language used by the principal exponents of that language in what is usually regarded as classical Latin literature. ... Gregorian chant is also known as plainchant or plainsong, and is a form of monophonic, unaccompanied singing, which was developed in the Catholic church, mainly during the period 800-1000. ... Classical music is music considered classical, as sophisticated and refined, in a regional tradition. ... 1979 is a common year starting on Monday. ... The Vulgate Bible is an early 5th century translation of the Bible into Latin made by St. ...

External link

• Vetus Latina (http://www.vetuslatina.org/) - Resources for the study of the Old Latin Bible (in English, German, and Latin)