HKB
(Venice), 1534 (both are small copies of the New Testament, corrected occasionally from the Greek), Isidore Clarius (Venice, 1542), J. Benedictus (Paris, 1558), Paul Eber (1565), and Luke Osiander (1578).
When the Council of Trent met, the duty of providing for the members of the Church of Rome the most correct recension of the Latin Bible that skill and diligence could produce was obviously incumbent on it; and in one of its earliest sittings (April 8, 1546) the famous decree was passed, ordaining that of the many published editions of the Holy Scripture “haec ipsa vetus et vulgata editio, quae longo tot saeculorum usu in ipsa ecclesia probata est” should be chosen, and “in publicis lectionibus, disputationibus, praedicationibus, et expositionibus pro authentica habeatur” (Sess. iv. Decr. 2); and directing that “posthac sacra Scriptura, potissimum vero haec ipsa vetus et vulgata editio quam emendatissime imprimatur.” No immediate action, however, was taken in the matter, and for forty years the editions were still printed and published by private scholars; the Hentenian, for the time being, becoming almost the standard text of the Roman Catholic Church.
Pope Pius IV had indeed begun the task of correcting the Vulgate Bible, but without immediate result, and under his successors the matter still rested, till the accession of Sixtus V (1585-90)(84), a Pope as energetic in his labours on the Holy Scripture as in other spheres of activity. He appointed a commission on the subject, under the presidency of Cardinal Carafa; and after they had presented the Pope with the result of their work, in the beginning of 1589, he devoted himself personally to the study, reading through the whole Bible more than once, and using his best endeavours to bring it to the highest pitch of accuracy. The result of this appeared in a folio edition of the Bible in three volumes, in 1590(85), accompanied by a Bull, in which, after relating the extreme care that had been taken in preparing the volume, Sixtus V declared that it was to be considered as the authentic edition recommended by the Council of Trent, that it should be taken as the standard of all future reprints, and that all copies should be corrected by it. The edition itself (cited by Wordsworth as [Gothic: S]) was not without faults, and indeed received a good number of corrections by hand after the proofs were printed off; it presents a text more nearly resembling that of Robt. Stephen than that of John Hentenius. In a few months, however, Sixtus was dead; a number of short-lived Popes succeeded him, and in Jan. 1592, Clement VIII ascended the throne. Almost immediately he gave orders for the copies of the Sixtine Vulgate to be called in; it has been hitherto supposed simply on account of its inaccuracy, but Professor Nestle (pp. 17 ff.) argues reasonably enough that this ground is insufficient, and suggests that the revocation was really due to the influence of the Jesuits, whom Sixtus had offended by placing one of Bellarmine’s books on the Index Librorum prohibitorum. Be that as it may, in the same year the Clementine edition of the Vulgate (Wordsworth’s [Gothic: C]) was published, differing from the Sixtine in many places, and presenting a type of text more nearly allied to Hentenius’ Bible. To avoid the appearance of a conflict between the two Popes, the Clementine Bible was boldly published under the name of Sixtus, with a preface by Bellarmine asserting that Sixtus had intended to bring out a new edition in consequence of errors that had occurred in the printing of the first, but had been prevented by death; now, in accordance with his desire, the work was completed by his successor. The opportunity, however, was too good a one for Protestants to miss, and Thomas James in his “Bellum Papale sive Concordia discors” (London, 1600), upbraids the two Popes on their high pretensions and the palpable failure of at least one, possibly both of them(86).