Reception of the New Translation.— Je rome's friends could not keep their good thing.s to themselves; his translations, eagerly sought and copied, and soon widely circulated, raised a storm of opposition. The gospels, indeed, though sanctioned by the authonty of Pope Damasus, had been bitterly attacked by many; but when his Old Testament was published and the extent of its variations from the Old Latin rendering of the Septuagint became known, Jerome .found enemies in every quarter. The Se.ptuagint was popularly regarded as an in spired translation, according to the well-known legend; to vary from it was to corrupt the word of God. So Jerome was sacrilegious and pre sumptuous in daring to correct the venerable text: he was disturbing the faith of the people. Even the great Augustine at first did nut ap prove of his translation. Jerome defended himself with more than his usual warmth, es specially against the charge of disrespect to ward the Septuagint: for had not he spent years of his life rendering it faithfully into Latin? Gradually the stonn subsided; part of his work won favor and public recopition; the bitter attacks were passed— he died in peace and was recognized as a Saint and Doctor of the Church.
Vulgate During the Middle Ages.— It was long centuries, however, before the translation of Jerome became the Vulgate or official version. Old memories and affections were entwined around the ancient text and the new was looked upon as an intruder; just as in our ol,vn day, the Revised Version has thus far made no ad vance in public favor. At Rome, Jerome had great prestige because of hig many friends there, his reputation as a scholar, and the patronage extended to him by Damasus. Many of the clergy admired and used his version and the example of Rome was followed in different parts of Europe. The remote provinces, like Britain and Africa, clung to the old. In the 6th century we see the new translation current almost everywhere except in Africa; yet Pope Gregory the Great, who saw the beginning of the next century and died (604) just 200 years after Jerome had completed his trans lation, did not enforce its usage. His marked preference for it, however, turned the tide in its favor and it spread rapidly all over Europe. In the 9th century it was used throughout the Church; yet it is a curious fact that the Old Latin survived till the 13th century wherever the heresy of the Albigenses prevailed, and even, in Bohemia, till the 15th century (Berger, p. 74).
Corruption.— The old Bible did not die without leaving traces of itself upon its success ful rival. It must be remembered that in the early Middle Ages. the Bible circulated, not in
one volume, but in separate books; it easily happened, then, that a new manuscript was copied, according to the books at hand, partly from the old, partly from the new translation. Many readings of the Old Version, too, found their way into the new, particularly in the gos pels .and epistles, where the famihar text, dwell ing in the memory of the scribe, displaced Je rome's corrected text. In the synoptic gospels, containing so many parallel passages, the text of one gospel was often substituted for the text of another. Occasionally, though. not fre quently,. a phrase was altered to give clearer expression to a doKrna. Other sources of error existed, but the chief of all was the perennial one— the carelessness of scribes.
Efforts to counteract this downward tendency were unceasingly made during the Middle Ages. Cassiodorus, Alcuin, Lanfranc, Stephen Hard ing and many others are mentioned as strenu ous laborers in this field. Roger Bacon, we are told, spent nearly 40 years correcting and ex plaining the sacred text. Schools even were established for the purpose of recovering, dif fusing and handing down to posterity the pure text of God's word. Often the supposed cor rections were themselves mistakes; yet they were perpetuated in many manuscripts, with the chance of being accompanied by new errors in every new copy. Their importance, however, must not be exaggerated. The many manu scripts of the Vulgate which we inherited from the Middle Ages show, so far as they have been examined, that these inistalces are seldom seri ous from a dogmatic or devotional point of view. Only the printing press seemed capable of preventing their multiplication, for the schol ars of that titne, as White says, had used all the remedies that could be applied before the invention of printing.
Printed Vulgate:, The press, at first, did little toward the restoration of a pure text. The best texts, it is believed, were preserved in the most handsome manuscnpts and these were too costly to be sent to the printing shop. In ferior texts were consequently the first printed and little criticism was applied lo correct them. The famous Complutensian Bible made an attempt at a critical edition of the Vulgate, but its success was slight. Stephanus, a French Protestant, was somewhat more successful. The printing press was multiplying Bibles rapidly and mistakes as well, it may be said. According to White, during the first half century following the invention of printing, in 1436, it is com puted that 124 editions of the Vulgate were printed; another count, from 1471 to 1599, enu merates 179 editions.