Oxford Vulgate

The Oxford Vulgate (full title: Nouum Testamentum Domini nostri Jesu Christi latine, secundum editionem Sancti Hieronymi, tr.: Latin New Testament of our Lord Jesus Christ, according to the edition of Saint Jerome) is a critical edition of the Vulgate version of the New Testament produced by scholars of the University of Oxford, and published progressively between 1889 and 1954 in 3 volumes.

Nouum Testamentum Domini nostri Jesu Christi latine, secundum editionem Sancti Hieronymi
Title page of the first volume (1889)
LanguageLatin
Published1889-1954

History

As a result of the inaccuracy of existing editions of the Vulgate, the delegates of Oxford University Press accepted in 1878 a proposal from classicist John Wordsworth to produce a critical edition of the New Testament.[1][2] This was eventually published as Nouum Testamentum Domini nostri Iesu Christi Latine, secundum editionem sancti Hieronymi in three volumes between 1889 and 1954.[3] Along with Wordsworth and Henry Julian White, the completed work lists on its title pages Alexander Ramsbotham,[4] Hedley Frederick Davis Sparks, Claude Jenkins, and Arthur White Adams.

As preliminary work to the full edition, Wordsworth published the text of certain important manuscripts in the series Old-Latin Biblical Texts, with the help of William Sanday, H. J. White (professor of New Testament studies at King's College, London), and other scholars.[5] Wordsworth was consecrated Bishop of Salisbury in 1885, and White (who became Dean of Christ Church, Oxford in 1920) assumed co-editorship of the edition, which was published in fascicles beginning with the Gospel of Matthew in 1889;[6] the first volume, with an extensive epilogue discussing the history of the manuscripts and the text, was completed in 1898.[7] In the gospel volumes, the Oxford editors printed an interlinear text from the Codex Brixianus, believing this to represent the most likely representative of Jerome's Old Latin source text; but subsequent studies linking the Codex Brixianus to the Gothic version of the New Testament make this supposition unlikely.

Acts, forming the beginning of the third volume, was published in 1905.[8] In 1911, Wordsworth and White produced a smaller editio minor with the complete text of the New Testament and a limited apparatus, but using modern punctuation.[9] In the subsequent publication of main editions of the Epistles to the Corinthians, Galatians, and Ephesians the text of the editio minor was revised slightly; but for the rest of the New Testament the 1911 editio minor text is retained unchanged, publication consisting in the presentation of a full critical apparatus.

Wordsworth died in 1911.[10] Even with the death of some of those involved in the project during the First World War, the second volume (containing the Pauline epistles) had been published as far as the Second Epistle to the Corinthians by 1926. In 1933, White enlisted Sparks to assist him in the work, who after White's death in 1934[11] assumed primary responsibility for the edition. After its completion, he served on the editorial board for the Stuttgart edition of the Vulgate, beginning in 1959.[12]

Manuscripts used

The edition, commonly known as Oxford Vulgate, relies primarily on the texts of the Codex Amiatinus, Codex Fuldensis (Codex Harleianus in the Gospels), Codex Sangermanensis and Codex Mediolanensis; but also consistently cites readings in the so-called DELQR group of manuscripts, named after the sigla it uses for them: Book of Armagh (D), Egerton Gospels (E), Lichfield Gospels (L), Book of Kells (Q), and Rushworth Gospels (R).[13] The only major early Vulgate New Testament manuscripts not cited are the St Gall Gospels, Codex Sangallensis 1395 (which was not published until 1931); and the Book of Durrow. For several of these cited manuscripts, however, the Oxford editors had relied on collations subsequently found to be unreliable; and consequently many Oxford citations are corrected in the apparatus of the Stuttgart Vulgate New Testament.

See also

References
  1. Wordsworth, John (1883). The Oxford critical edition of the Vulgate New Testament. Oxford. p. 4.
  2. Watson, E.W. (1915). Life of Bishop John Wordsworth. London: Longmans, Green.
  3. Nouum Testamentum Domini nostri Iesu Christi Latine, secundum editionem sancti Hieronymi. John Wordsworth, Henry Julian White (eds.). Oxford: Clarendon Press. 1889–1954.CS1 maint: others (link) 3 vols.
  4. Sparks, Hedley F.D. (1935). "The Rev. A. Ramsbotham and the Oxford Vulgate". The Journal of Theological Studies. o.s. 36 (144): 391. doi:10.1093/jts/os-XXXVI.144.391. ISSN 0022-5185.
  5. Watson, E.W. (2004). "Wordsworth, John". In H.C.G. Matthew; B. Harrison (eds.). The Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. Oxford: Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/37025.
  6. Abbott, T.K. (1889). "Bishop Wordsworth's Edition of the Vulgate" (PDF). The Classical Review. 3 (10): 452–454. doi:10.1017/S0009840X00196192. JSTOR 692429. Abbott, T.K. (1890). "The new edition of the Vulgate". Hermathena. 7 (16): 330–335. JSTOR 23036406.
  7. Nouum Testamentum Domini nostri Iesu Christi Latine, secundum editionem sancti Hieronymi. 1. John Wordsworth, Henry Julian White (eds.). Oxford: Clarendon Press. 1898.CS1 maint: others (link)
  8. Nouum Testamentum Domini nostri Iesu Christi Latine, secundum editionem sancti Hieronymi. 3. John Wordsworth, Henry Julian White (eds.). Oxford: Clarendon Press. 1905.CS1 maint: others (link)
  9. Nouum Testamentum Latine, secundum editionem Sancti Hieronymi, editio minor. John Wordsworth, Henry Julian White (eds.). Oxford: Clarendon Press. 1911.CS1 maint: others (link)
  10. White, H.J. (1911). "John Wordsworth, Bishop of Salisbury, and his work on the Vulgate New Testament". The Journal of Theological Studies. o.s. 13 (50): 201–208. doi:10.1093/jts/os-XIII.50.201. ISSN 0022-5185.
  11. Souter, Alexander (1935). "Henry Julian White and the Vulgate". The Journal of Theological Studies. o.s. 36 (141): 11–13. doi:10.1093/jts/os-XXXVI.141.11. ISSN 0022-5185.
  12. Livingstone, Elizabeth A. (2004). "Sparks, Hedley Frederick Davis". In H.C.G. Matthew; B. Harrison (eds.). The Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. Oxford: Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/64018.
  13. H. A. G. Houghton (2016). The Latin New Testament: A Guide to Its Early History, Texts, and Manuscripts. Oxford University Press. p. 74. ISBN 9780198744733. Retrieved 5 June 2016.
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