The year is 382, and Rome is in turmoil. The old empire is crumbling, and with it, the authority of its once-unassailable institutions. In the midst of this chaos, a brilliant and notoriously cantankerous scholar named Jerome was commissioned by Bishop Damasus to create a standardized Latin translation of the Bible. As Christianity spread through the western part of the Roman Empire: North Africa and Spain, then to Italy, Gaul (modern-day France), and Germany, there was a growing need for Latin versions of the Bible for those who did not understand the Septuagint (the Greek translation of the Old Testament) or the Greek letters of the New Testament. Initial Latin translations were made independently by various individuals and churches, without central authority. A patchwork of different regional versions was filled with inconsistencies and errors. The church needed a unified text, one that could be held as authoritative and authentic for the millions now impacted by the Christian message.
It would be Jerome’s translation of the Bible that would advance the march of God’s Story of Grace in ways that can hardly be calculated. But its strongest contribution was to provide a common language, theology, and story to unify the western nations, many of whom were escaping barbarism and paganism to follow Christ. In this article, we will trace the journey to the translation of the Latin Vulgate and its impact on civilization. It took a fractured Europe and brought it together under the authority of God’s Word.
The Call to Translate
Jerome, a Roman-educated scholar, became seriously ill in Antioch in 375 AD. A powerful vision during his illness led him to abandon his worldly ambitions and embrace life as a desert monk to follow Jesus Christ. Following in the ways of the desert fathers, he entered into the life of a monk around 373 AD, about five years before he was commissioned by Bishop Damasus. Living in a desert cell in very austere conditions outside of Antioch in the Syrian desert, he disciplined himself to learn Hebrew and engage in scriptural study to know God better. Without realizing it, this would prepare him for his monumental translation work to which he would be called.1 As Damasus approached him, he left the area of Antioch and settled in Bethlehem, eventually immersing himself more deeply in the study of Hebrew and Aramaic to translate the Old Testament directly from its original sources—a radical act for his time.2 While his contemporaries favored translating the Old Testament from the Greek Septuagint because they believed it was inspired and authoritative, Jerome’s approach was rooted in his conviction that going back ad fontes (“to the sources”) was the only way to achieve a truly accurate and sound translation.
For more than two decades, Jerome labored in his Bethlehem monastery, dedicating himself to his work. By 405 A.D., he produced a polished and accessible translation in the “vulgar” (common language) Latin of the day, more commonly titled The Latin Vulgate. This translation would be widely comprehensible to millions. The Vulgate was more than just a new translation; it was a cultural and spiritual linchpin to hold Western civilization together for a millennium.
A Thousand Years of Influence
The Vulgate became a force for unity: With the collapse of the Western Roman Empire, the Church became a unifying force across a fractured continent. This unity would have been impossible without a common book. The Vulgate empowered the Church by providing a single, authoritative scripture that stabilized language, stories, doctrine, and worship practices. Kings and emperors, such as Charlemagne, relied on the Vulgate to unify their realms under a common Christian worldview. Even the Protestant Reformers, though knowing Greek and Hebrew, would commonly quote the Vulgate.
The Vulgate became formative for the development of theology: The Latin translation shaped the theological language of Western Europe for centuries. Jerome’s translation would give rise to many other translations including the first English translation of the Bible from John Wycliffe and his followers around 1382. The Gutenberg Bible, one of the first books ever printed, was a copy of the Vulgate, ensuring its continued dominance into the modern era. Even the King James translators consulted the Vulgate.3 In addition, the Latin terms Jerome used shifted the understanding, or at least the way they were read, of some of the key Greek terms in the New Testament. The Latin terms Jerome used in translating the Greek, in some cases, took on a more legal, governmental and military shift.4 This would have an enduring influence on theological development.
Conclusion
The work of Jerome was central for unifying the western countries of Europe around a common theme of God’s revelation in Christ through the Old and New Testaments. As Christianity spread throughout Europe, this Bible created a common theology, language and unifying story for which civilization could be brought and held together as the Roman Empire fell apart. Within the scriptures itself, we see this is the desire of God for the nations:
I will bless those who bless you,
and whoever curses you I will curse;
and all peoples on earth
will be blessed through you. (Genesis 12:3)
Now there were staying in Jerusalem God-fearing Jews from every nation under heaven. (Acts 2:5)
After this I looked, and there before me was a great multitude that no one could count, from every nation, tribe, people and language, standing before the throne and before the Lamb. (Revelation 7:9)
Though this reality will not be fully attained until the return of the Savior to the earth, through the Latin Vulgate, the world would become more trinitarian as the MANY different nations would become more unified as ONE around the Story of Grace.
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- Before being approached by Pope Damasus, Jerome was motivated to study Hebrew by a desire for penance and a need to overcome temptations during his life as a desert hermit. This was combined with a passion for precise biblical scholarship and a growing conviction that translations of the Old Testament should be based on the original Hebrew texts.
- Translating the Old Testament from the Hebrew was a radical act at Jerome’s time because the church primarily used the Greek Septuagint translation, and many Christians considered it divinely inspired. Jerome’s decision to base his translation on the Hebrew Bible was controversial because it challenged the authority of the Septuagint, seemed to connect Christianity too closely to its Jewish roots, and was seen by some as an insult to the Greek-speaking East of the church.
- By the time of the Protestant Reformation (1517), the very success of the Vulgate had ironically made it inaccessible to the average person. Latin had evolved from the common spoken language of the Roman Empire into a scholarly and ecclesiastical language, no longer understood by the average person.
- Below is a comparison chart of some of the key theological shifts in terms.
| Original Greek Word | Vulgate Latin Translation | Meaning Shift and Doctrinal Impact |
|---|---|---|
| metanoia | paenitentia | Metanoia means “a change of mind” or “repentance” in Greek. Jerome translated it as paenitentia, which comes from the Latin verb paenitere, meaning “to cause to regret or repent” or “to perform an act of penitence”. This translation led to a shift from an internal change of heart to the external, ritualistic actions of the sacrament of penance in Latin theology. |
| kecharitōmenē | gratia plena | In Luke 1:28, the angel’s greeting to Mary, kecharitōmenē, means “highly favored one” or “having been graced”. Jerome rendered it as gratia plena, “full of grace”. This change, though subtle, emphasized the Catholic doctrine that Mary was filled with grace in a unique, permanent sense, rather than simply being the recipient of a divine favor. |
| ethnos | gentilis | The Greek word ethnos simply means “nation” or “people group” without any negative connotation. Jerome’s choice of gentilis for “Gentile” carried a more negative meaning, sometimes implying “foreigner” or “heathen” in Latin. This introduced a subtle racial and religious hierarchy that was not present in the original Greek. |
| logos | verbum | Logos is a rich Greek word encompassing ideas of “word,” “reason,” and “divine meaning”. The Vulgate’s translation as verbum captured the idea of “word” but lost some of the philosophical depth of the Greek, which had been influenced by Stoic and Platonic thought. This flattened the concept to a more literal, spoken word. |
| mysterion | sacramentum | The Greek mysterion means “a secret rite” or “revealed secret”. By translating it as sacramentum, Jerome applied a term that had existing legal and military connotations in Latin, related to an oath of allegiance. The new word helped define the Christian sacraments as sacred oaths or rituals. |
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