Daily globe. [volume] (St. Paul, Minn.) 1878-1884, 1882-12-04
the remaining books his very incomplete

the remaining books his very incomplete
revision of the old Latin.
In the days of Charlenagne Jerome's
text had SO deteriorated by the meddling
! of transcribers who had presumed to choose
according to their own fancy from the old
and new versions which had been printed
in parallel columns by Cassiodorus, that a
thorough revision became prime neces;
sity. The care of this work, in which ths
emperor took great interest, was commit
ted to Alcuin in A. H., SOP. In the tenth
century Alcuin's text was much de-
formed. In the eleventh century Laufane
of Canterbury and in the twelfth century
Cardinal Nicolaus made Intellectual at
tempts to stay the growing corruption.
With the invention of printing new
era in textual criticism began. Cardinal
Ximenes revised the text in the beginning
of the sixteenth century. The edition OF
Stephens followed in 1910; of Henteneas
in 1547. The reformers regarded it of the
last Importance to purify the text and
therefore in giving us the King James YER
sion they did not scruple to change the
vulgate whenever the weight of manu-
script authority added to the testimony OF
other versions was opposed to it. Unfor-
tunately for the council of Trent and its
cast iron decree it was held
just at the beginning of an era
of great discoveries. The time
had not come when the church could say of
any text with reasonable safety, much less
with infallibility, ''This edition, entire
with all its parts is sacred and canonical
This alone is authentic"
From this brief surveyor the origin and
growth of the Latin vulgate we discove,
| that there must have been in use 1T the
time of tho Trentine decree great many
editions of the vulgate, each differing
from the other at longer or shorter inter
| walls, sometimes by word, sometimes by
o clause and sometimes by whole verse
(Ths differences never extended to a chap
ter, much less to book
There was the edition of Cardinal
Ximenes, of Cardinal Nicolaus, of Lau
franc, of Canterbury, beside part Of
transcripts made by unknown monks
the council of Trent mean wher
| vulgate ''as read in the Catholic churches
was sacred and canonical?
/ This question was full of difficulty thu
| magnitude of which dawned upon the
Trsntins fathers themselves, SO much sc
at last, that they added q codicil to thei1
former decree in the following words
considering that no small utility may &C
srue to tho church Of God if it be made
known (Which out of all the Latin editions
I no,O IN circulation, of the sacred books il
to be held as authentic, tho holy synod or
dams and declares that the said old and
vulgats editions which by the lslgthsnsd
usage of 80 many ages has been approved
Of in the church b held authentic."
It is then, according to the codicil, the
cid edition of the vplgats which is authen.
tic, but whore was that old edition and
what was it? Csnfssssdly there wsre many
editions IN use, all since the days OF
Jerome, composite in their nature
and all differing from each in a thousand
minor particulars. Where was the stand
ard copy? This was the question which an
noysd Pope Sixtus the Fifth, and which
with characteristic decision he determined
to answer.
In regard to the failure of the church tc
produce q standard edition of the old vul-
gate, he says: s'From his first accession
to the pspal throne he had felt great indig
nation that the Trentins decree was still
unsatisfed."
By which he means to say that without
such . standard, the Trentinc decree was
practically meaningless, that no one Gin
the state of biblical chaos into which the
Catholic world was then thrown, knew with
certainty what was and what was not g
genuine part of scripture"
In the spirit then of modern infallibility
Sixtus set to work with indomitable
perseverance to collate out of wide
~ scattered materials the old Latin
vulgate, qvhich, atnlite the aUorks Of God, had
been pronounced perfect before 1t avas Gre
dted.
His method may have been scholarly,
but it certainly was an odd one, if perfect
Latin text had ever existed. He collated
net only Latin manuscripts but Greek,
and did not hesitate to make new Latin
translation whenever the Greek original
seemed to demand it.
Si1tus, as all will admit, was no indif-
fsrent scholar. With his scholarship he
combined confidence in his own ability
and in his apostolical Office which made
him shrink from no responsibility.
He established printing press at Rome
that he might personally superintend the
WOAA VA ICNtSAOAs <1S IhV ouCot0 OuiuO
from the printer he corrected them
with his own hand. When the work
was complete, so we'll satisfied was he
with its entire accuracy that no put it forth
in 1890 with the famous constitution pre-
fixed which declared the plenary authority
of the edition for all future time. ''Ille
oeternus' was his confident language.
But unfortunately for the consistency OF
papal infallibility this decree though ec
cathedrc, given to the whole church as he
says with tho fulness OF apostolical
power" was not considered binding.
The new Bible scandalized the people,
disturbed the faith of the clergy and in
the succeeding pontifcate fell into entire
aisreputs. At this juncture Bellarmine
came to the rescue of his church.
This great Gallo divine, amid all these
violent changes, had feared at first for the
authority of revelation, but latterly he had
come to fear for the ''honOr of the pope"
At his suggestion the edition of Si1tus was
not publicly recalled, lest one pope should
seem to contradict another, but a new
edition was put forth under
tho joint names of Sixtus and Clement
which IN the main should restore the text
which Si1tus had SO rashly changed.
In the preface of this edition appears
the famous falsehood of Bsllarmine, sane
toned by papal authority, that Sixtus in
tended to recall his edition on account OF