The Vulgate Contamination of Leo the Great’s Scriptural Quotations
Leo the Great wrote at a time when the newly-revised Latin Bible (which would in time come to be established as the “Vulgate”) was starting to gain ground. His letters are transmitted to us in over 250 manuscripts, ranging from the sixth through sixteenth centuries. A cursory glance at the selection...
| Main Author: | |
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| Format: | Electronic Article |
| Language: | English |
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| Published: |
Brepols
2016
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| In: |
Sacris erudiri
Year: 2016, Volume: 55, Pages: 157-193 |
| Online Access: |
Volltext (lizenzpflichtig) Volltext (lizenzpflichtig) |
| Parallel Edition: | Electronic
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| Summary: | Leo the Great wrote at a time when the newly-revised Latin Bible (which would in time come to be established as the “Vulgate”) was starting to gain ground. His letters are transmitted to us in over 250 manuscripts, ranging from the sixth through sixteenth centuries. A cursory glance at the selection of manuscripts used by E. Schwartz in his edition of Leo’s Tome in ACO 2.1 (Ep. 28 in PL 54) demonstrates to the reader that, for those biblical quotations that represent a non-Vulgate reading, many scribes or editors wrote down the Vulgate text as known to them. In this article, the phenomenon of Vulgatisation is assessed in two of Leo’s letters, the Tome and Ep. 167, working through the manuscripts chronologically and systematically. We see in the study that sometimes manuscripts as early as the seventh or eighth century have gone through a process of Vulgatisation, probably at the hands of an editor; we also see that there is a general trend of more Vulgatised readings in the later manuscripts, especially in the twelfth century and beyond. However, the trend towards Vulgatisation is not as extensive as might have been expected. Besides demonstrating how Vulgatisation operates in the letters of Leo the Great, the article also determines that Leo’s text of the Latin Bible - whether in a manuscript before him or in his mind - was a non- or pre-Vulgate text. Finally, another very important aspect of Leo’s citation style that emerges is the fact that Leo at times quotes a biblical passage in a form that corresponds more closely with his own rhetorical style and use of clausulae than the Vulgate or pre-Vulgate text; whether by design or simply through stylistic habit cannot be known. |
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| ISSN: | 2295-9025 |
| Contains: | Enthalten in: Sacris erudiri
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| Persistent identifiers: | DOI: 10.1484/J.SE.5.112601 |