A correctory (plural correctories) is any of the text-forms of the Latin
Vulgate
The Vulgate (; also called (Bible in common tongue), ) is a late-4th-century Latin translation of the Bible.
The Vulgate is largely the work of Jerome who, in 382, had been commissioned by Pope Damasus I to revise the Gospels u ...
resulting from the critical emendation as practised during the course of the thirteenth century.
Antecedents
Owing to the carelessness of transcribers, the conjectural corrections of critics, the insertion of
glosses
A gloss is a brief notation, especially a marginal one or an interlinear one, of the meaning of a word or wording in a text. It may be in the language of the text or in the reader's language if that is different.
A collection of glosses is a ''g ...
and paraphrases, and especially to the preference for readings found in the earlier Latin versions, the text of
St. Jerome
Jerome (; la, Eusebius Sophronius Hieronymus; grc-gre, Εὐσέβιος Σωφρόνιος Ἱερώνυμος; – 30 September 420), also known as Jerome of Stridon, was a Christian priest, confessor, theologian, and historian; he is com ...
was corrupted at an early date. Around 550 CE,
Cassiodorus
Magnus Aurelius Cassiodorus Senator (c. 485 – c. 585), commonly known as Cassiodorus (), was a Roman statesman, renowned scholar of antiquity, and writer serving in the administration of Theodoric the Great, king of the Ostrogoths. ''Senator'' ...
made an attempt at restoring the purity of the Latin text.
Charlemagne
Charlemagne ( , ) or Charles the Great ( la, Carolus Magnus; german: Karl der Große; 2 April 747 – 28 January 814), a member of the Carolingian dynasty, was King of the Franks from 768, King of the Lombards from 774, and the first ...
entrusted the same labour to
Alcuin
Alcuin of York (; la, Flaccus Albinus Alcuinus; 735 – 19 May 804) – also called Ealhwine, Alhwin, or Alchoin – was a scholar, clergyman, poet, and teacher from York, Northumbria. He was born around 735 and became the student o ...
, who presented his royal patron with a corrected copy in 801. Similar attempts were repeated by
Theodulphus,
Bishop of Orléans
A bishop is an ordained clergy member who is entrusted with a position of authority and oversight in a religious institution.
In Christianity, bishops are normally responsible for the governance of dioceses. The role or office of bishop is ca ...
87(?) – 821 Lanfranc,
Archbishop of Canterbury (1070–1089),
Stephen Harding,
Abbot of Cîteaux (1109–1134), and Deacon
Nicolaus Maniacoria (about the beginning of the thirteenth century).
Dominican
The general chapter of the Dominicans held in 1236 connects a corrected text of the Latin Bible with the members of the province of France; it ordained that all Bibles should be conformed to this. Little more is known of this work but the following correctories are more noted:
* The "Biblia Senonensis", or the Bible of
Sens, is not the Paris Bible as approved of by the
Archbishop of Sens, nor is it a particular text adopted by the ecclesiastical authority of that city, but it is a correction of the Paris Bible prepared by the Dominican Fathers residing there. Whatever be the value of this correctory, it did not meet with the approval of the Dominican Order, as may be inferred from an ordination of the general chapter held in Paris, 1256. Quotations from it found in the "Correctorium Sorbonicum" resemble the readings of the Latin manuscript No. 17 in the
National Library
A national library is a library established by a government as a country's preeminent repository of information. Unlike public libraries, these rarely allow citizens to borrow books. Often, they include numerous rare, valuable, or significant wo ...
, Paris. The fathers of Sens failed to produce a satisfactory text because they were too sparing in their emendation of the Paris Bible.
*
Hugues of Saint-Cher tried to restore the primitive text of the Latin Vulgate, which in his day was practically identical with the Paris Bible, by removing its glosses and all foreign accretions. But instead of having recourse to the manuscripts of St. Jerome's text he compared the Paris Bible with the original Hebrew and Greek readings, thus furnishing a new version rather than a correctory. Roger Bacon calls his work "the worst corruption, the destruction of the text of God". Eight manuscripts of Hugues' correctory are still extant.
* Theobald is the name of the Dominican Father who is usually connected with the next correction of the Latin Vulgate text, which appeared about 1248. The text of this too resembles that of the Latin manuscript No. 17 in the National Library, Paris, and is thus related to the "Correctorium Senonense". It may be identical with the "Correctio Parisiensis secunda", quoted in the "Correctorium Sorbonicum".
* Another correctory was prepared about 1256 in the Dominican convent of Saint-Jacques, Paris. The manuscript thus corrected contains a text as bad as, if not worse than the Bible of Paris, the readings of which were carried into the new correctory. The principles of Hugues of Saint-Cher were followed by the correctors, who marked in red the words to be omitted, and added marginal notes to explain changes and suggest variants. They are more copious in the Old Testament than in the New. The autograph is preserved in the National Library, Paris, Manuscripts lat. 16,719-16,722.
Franciscan
The Franciscan writer
Roger Bacon was the first to formulate the true principles which ought to guide the correction of the Latin Vulgate; his religious brethren endeavoured to apply them, though not always successfully.
* The "Correctorium Sorbonicum", probably the work of
William of Brittany, was so-named because the thirteenth-century manuscript in which the emendations were made belonged to the Library of the Parsian Sorbonne university, though at present it is kept in the National Library, Paris, Manuscript lat. 15554, fol. 147-253. The marginal and interlinear glosses are derived from the Paris Bible and the correctory of the Dominican Father Theobald; the make-up of the work imitates the Dominican correctories.
* The "Correctorium Vaticanum" owes its name to the circumstance that its first known manuscript was the Cod. Vaticanus lat. 3466, though at present eight other copies are known, belonging to the thirteenth or the beginning of the fourteenth century. Its author is William de Mara, of Oxford, a disciple of Roger Bacon, whose principles and methods he follows. Though acquainted with several Latin and Hebrew manuscripts, the
Targum
A targum ( arc, תרגום 'interpretation, translation, version') was an originally spoken translation of the Hebrew Bible (also called the ''Tanakh'') that a professional translator ( ''mǝturgǝmān'') would give in the common language of the ...
, the commentaries of
Rashi
Shlomo Yitzchaki ( he, רבי שלמה יצחקי; la, Salomon Isaacides; french: Salomon de Troyes, 22 February 1040 – 13 July 1105), today generally known by the acronym Rashi (see below), was a medieval French rabbi and author of a compre ...
, and the original texts, he relied more on the authority of the early manuscripts of
St. Jerome
Jerome (; la, Eusebius Sophronius Hieronymus; grc-gre, Εὐσέβιος Σωφρόνιος Ἱερώνυμος; – 30 September 420), also known as Jerome of Stridon, was a Christian priest, confessor, theologian, and historian; he is com ...
's text. There are some faults in the correctory, resulting mainly from the author's limited knowledge of Greek.
*
Gérard de Huy was a faithful follower of Roger Bacon's principles; the old Latin manuscripts and the readings of the Fathers are his first authority, and only when they disagree does he have recourse to the original texts. He knew no Latin manuscripts older than those of the ninth and tenth centuries containing a text of Alcuin's recension. But Gérard knew the history of the versions and the origin of the textual corruptions of the Sacred Scriptures. He corrected the Paris Bible and gave an account of his emendations in his marginal notes.
* Two more Franciscan correctories are Manuscript 61 (Toulouse), of the fifteenth century, which reproduces the correctory of
Gérard de Buxo, of
Avignon, a work rather exegetical than critical in character; and Manuscript 28 (Einsiedeln), of the beginning of the fourteenth century, containing the work of
John of Cologne
John of Cologne (Joannes van Hoornaar), was a friar and priest of the Dominican Order, born in the Electorate of Cologne, part of modern Germany. He later became a parish priest of Hoornaar, in the Spanish Netherlands. He was executed for his ...
.
Allied
Mangenot mentions six other groups of correctories which have not been fully investigated yet.
Two of them are allied to the Dominican correctory of the convent of Saint-Jacques; one is represented by the Manuscript lat. 15,554, fol. 1–146, National Library, Paris; the other by Cod. Laurent., Plut., XXV, sin., cod. 4, fol. 101–107 (Florence), and by Manuscript 131, fol. 1, Arsenal, Paris.
Two other groups are allied to the Franciscan correctories; one, represented by Cod. 141, lat. class. I, fol. 121-390, Marciana (Venice), depends on
William de Mara and Gérard de Huy; the other, found in Manuscript 82, Borges. (Rome), depends on Gérard de Huy.
Finally two very brief correctories are to be found in Manuscript 492, Antoniana, Padua, and in Manuscript Cent. I, 47, fol. 127, Nuremberg.
References
Sources
*
{{Catholic
Bible versions and translations