After the Council of Trent, which declared in 1546 that the Vulgate alone was to be held as "authentic in public readings, discourses, and disputes, and that nobody might dare or presume to reject it on any pretence" (Sess. IV, De editione et usu sacrorum librorum), the Holy See undertook the task of producing a corrected, standard text of the Vulgate for the use of the universal Church. In 1590, an edition was duly produced in Rome by a commission of scholars, revised further by Sixtus V, and finally approved by him. After his death a further revision was carried out under the Jesuit Franciscus Toletus, and finally the work was printed in 1598 during the pontificate of Clement VIII, whose name has been attached to it since 1641. The Clementine text was the offical version of the Vulgate until 1979. There is a single, definitive Clementine text, namely the Editio Typica published by the Typographus Vaticanus in 1598 under the title "Biblia Sacra Vulgat editionis, Sixti V Pontificis Maximi jussu recognita et edita", with the single proviso: "nisi aliquid occurrat, quod typographic incuri manifeste ascribendum sit" (Clement VIII, Cum sacrorum). This is thus the version that appears here.

Contributor: Michaele Tvveedale [email protected]
Creator: ws
Publisher: FreeBibleSoftwareGroup
Rights: The text is released into the public domain, and you can use it as you wish with no legal obligations.