- Jerome and Vigilantius
By Rick Greathouse
After reading your article on the Old Latin Vulgate and the KJB, you might
want to add a section on the rift that occurred between Jerome and
Vigilantius during the three years that Vigilantius was visiting Jerome at
Bethlehem. It appears that Vigilantius arrived in Bethlehem in 395 to a most
respectable greeting by Jerome. Something distasteful developed between them
though which resulted in Vigilantius returning to his home land, which
appears to have been northern Italy near Savoy and Turin, the land of
Vallenses or in the general area. If Vigilantius went to Bethlehem to study
under Jerome, he would have had access to the unrevised Old Latin
manuscripts that Jerome later revised to suit the needs of the Roman
Catholic Church. Vigilantius would have been with Jerome during the time he
was working on the 28 book canon translation into Greek from the ancient
Hebrew manuscripts available to Jerome at the time.
Vigilantius arrived at Bethlehem in 395 based on Jerome. Another source
suggests Vigilantius was back in his homeland by 397. Jerome completed his
work on the 28 book canon from the Hebrew in 405. In 406, books by
Vigilantius which were critical of Jerome was brought to Jerome by way of
Sinussi. Jerome blew up with rage... wrote a very lengthy treatise
belittling and demeaning everything about Vigilantius, urged the Governor of
the area Vigilantius was preaching in to persecute Vigilantius. Later though
they came to an agreement where it appears Vigilantius agreed to keep his
mouth shut and perhaps apologized which invoked an apology the form of a
letter from Jerome.
Vigilantius though would more than likely have never accepted Jerome's
Vulgate, because something about Jerome's work on it, pardon the pun,
"galled" Vigilantius enough for him to starting spreading his objective
critique which suggested that Jerome was following Origen and was too
superstitious about 4 points.
http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/source/jerome-againstvigilantius.html
What was Vigilantius doing while visiting Jerome? Perhaps copying text from
the ancient manuscripts available. If Vigilantius was of the mind set that
the ancient texts should have been preserved as they were, then he perhaps
would have been copying from the ancient texts, in order to have scrolls to
take back to his home land with him so his church people could translate
them into the languages of the people around them.
If that was the case, then Vigilantius returned to his home land about 397,
perhaps carrying his own copied scrolls from the ancient manuscripts with
him.
Now it has been reported that the Vallenses [scratch Waldenses... why should
we call them by their Papal given and Waldo associated name. Those servants
of God were there before Waldo lived.] translated their Bible from the Old
Latin Italic in 157 AD. If Vigilantius copied scrolls from the ancient
manuscripts when he was visiting Jerome in Bethlehem and brought his copies
back to his homeland... then imagine what it would have been like when
Vallenses compared their Old Latin Italic versions to the copies Vigilantius
brought back from Bethlehem with him in 397 AD and they discovered a close
match between the texts?
Rick Greathouse
rick@greathouse.us
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