Vulgate

The Vulgate is Jerome's Latin translation of the Bible, produced primarily between A.D. 382 and 405 at the commission of Pope Damasus I. Jerome translated the OT directly from Hebrew (a radical innovation, since earlier Latin versions, the Vetus Latina, were based on the Greek Septuagint) and revised the existing Latin NT using Greek manuscripts. The Vulgate's name (from Latin vulgata editio, "common edition") reflects its eventual status as the Bible in common use throughout the medieval western church.

For over a millennium, the Vulgate was the virtually sole Bible of western Christianity, shaping the theological vocabulary of the Latin West (terms like gratia, paenitentia, sacramentum, fides entered Christian usage through Jerome's translation choices). The Council of Trent (1546) declared it the authentic Latin version for doctrinal use. The Reformers' return to the Greek and Hebrew originals, enabled by Renaissance scholarship, led to new vernacular translations independent of the Vulgate — most notably Luther's German Bible (1534) and the English Authorized Version (1611).