[ad. L. vulgāta (sc. ēditio or lectio) and vulgāt-us (sc. textus), fem. and masc. pa. pple. of vulgāre: see next. Cf. (in sense B. 1 b) F. Vulgate, It., Sp., Pg. Vulgata.]
A. adj. 1. In common use as a version of the Bible (or portion of this); employed or occurring in one of these versions.
Ordinarily limited to the versions specified in B 1, and particularly to St. Jerome’s. In various contexts the adj. coalesces with attributive uses of the sb.
1609. Bible (Douay), To Rdr. p. iii. b. So that the old Vulgate Latin Edition hath bene preferred, and vsed for most authentical aboue a thousand and three hundered yeares.
1727. Blackwall, Sacred Classics, II. Pref. 16. The Latin vulgate Bible was declar’d authentic and canoniz’d by the council of Trent, A. D. 1546.
1728. Chambers, Cycl., s.v., M. Simon calls the Greek Version of the Seventy … The antient Vulgate Greek.
1782. V. Knox, Lord’s Supper, xvii. Wks. 1824, VII. 423. At this hour it stands so translated in the Vulgate Bible, for ages the only Bible of the people.
1818. Hallam, Mid. Ages, ix. I. (1819), III. 338. The vulgate Latin of the Bible was still more venerable.
1863. W. A. Wright, in Smith, Dict. Bible, I. 857/2. The Vulgate rendering of Prov. xxvi. 8.
1872. (title) The Vulgate New Testament, with The Douay Version of 1582, in Parallel Columns.
2. Forming (part of) the common or usual version of a literary work.
1861. Paley, Æschylus (ed. 2), Prometh., 966, note. His objection to the vulgate reading and interpretation … appears quite groundless.
1894. Athenæum, 26 May, 681/2. [The papyri,] as is generally the case with Homer papyri of this period, support the vulgate text.
B. sb. 1. a. The old Italic version of the Bible, preceding that of St. Jerome.
1728. Chambers, Cycl., s.v., The antient Vulgate of the Old Testament, was translated almost Word for Word, from the Greek of the Seventy.
1855. Cassell’s Pop. Bibl. Educator, II. 39/1. At that time the old Itala was the Vulgate, or Common Version.
b. The Latin version of the Bible made by St. Jerome (completed in 405).
1728. Chambers, Cycl., s.v. Septuagint, The Chronology of the Seventy, is … very different from what is found in the Hebrew Text, and the Vulgate.
1776. Adam Smith, W. N., V. i. (1869), II. 352. The Latin translation of the Bible, commonly called the Latin Vulgate.
1843. Penny Cycl., XXVI. 465. All the Romish translations of the Bible into the modern languages profess to have been made not from the Greek and Hebrew, but from the Vulgate.
1846. Mrs. A. Marsh, Father Darcy, II. ii. 65. The answer of the priest … was to repeat … the following passage of Scripture from the Vulgate.
1881. Westcott & Hort, Grk. N. T., Introd. § 111. The name Vulgate has long denoted exclusively the Latin Bible as revised by Jerome.
c. The usual or received text or version of the Bible or of some portion of this.
1815. F. Nolan (title), An Enquiry into the Integrity of the Greek Vulgate, or Received Text of the New Testament.
1865. Smith’s Concise Dict. Bible, 992. But both the Greek and the Latin Vulgates have been long neglected.
1883. Athenæum, 22 Dec., 809/2. This pre-Lutheran Bible version has been fittingly termed by Geffcken the ‘German Vulgate.’
1887. Encycl. Brit., XXII. 824/1. The so-called Pĕshīṭtā,… the Syriac vulgate.
d. An edition of the Vulgate.
1865. Smith’s Concise Dict. Bible, 994. The splendid pages of the Mazarin Vulgate. Ibid., 995. The Sixtine and Clementine Vulgates.
2. The ordinary reading in a text; the ordinary text of a work or author.
1861. Paley, Æschylus (ed. 2), Supplices, 61, note. This is ingenious; but he fails to show that the vulgate is wrong.
1886. Leaf, Iliad, I. Introd. p. xiv. The conclusion is very strong; namely, that the edition of Antimachos was in the main the same as our present vulgate.
3. Common or colloquial speech.
1854. J. E. Cooke, Virginia Comedians, I. xiii. 75 (Cent.). ‘Here’s a pretty mess,’ returned the pompous gentleman, descending to the vulgate; ‘you threaten me, forsooth!’
1883. D. H. Wheeler, By-Ways of Lit., ix. 176. There is always ‘a free and easy’ vulgate for the street, the market, and the fireside.
