Novum Instrumentum omne
 Novum Instrumentum Omne, later titled Novum Testamentum Omne, was a series of bilingual Latin-Greek New Testaments with substantial scholarly annotations, and the first printed New Testament of the Greek to be published. They were prepared by Desiderius Erasmus (1466–1536) in consultation with leading scholars, and printed by Johann Froben (1460–1527) of Basel. An estimate of up to 300,000 copies were printed in Erasmus' lifetime.[1] They were the basis for the majority of Textus Receptus translations of the New Testament in the 16th–19th centuries, including those of Martin Luther, William Tyndale and the King James Version.[2] Contemporary effortsGiannozzo Manetti translated the New Testament from the Greek, and the Psalms from the Hebrew, at the court of Pope Nicholas V, around 1455. The manuscripts still exist, but Manetti's version was not printed until 2014.[3] Greek fragments began to be printed as Greek fonts were cut: the Aldine Press published the first six chapters of John's Gospel in 1505.[4]: 59 The early 1500s saw several authorized efforts to create and print scholarly polyglot and Greek editions of Bible texts.
ApproachHistorian Erika Rummel identifies four tasks for the publication:
However, Erasmus did not believe that a single translation could ever be a definitive rendition of a different language. Having multiple translations of the Latin plus the Greek, and especially his Annotations, allowed fuller coverage of the verses' meaning:
— Erasmus, Letter to Étienne Gaigny, May 1533[14] Because of this, Erasmus claimed his translation was not intended to supplant the Vulgate for public use,[15] though both the Vulgate and the Greek needed to be purged of copyist errors. Indeed, demonstrating a nascent intuition of different text traditions, one of the aims was to allow comparison of the Latin quotes of the Western Church Fathers and the Greek quotes of the Eastern Church Fathers. However Erasmus even noted that sometimes even the original Greek itself may not fully convey the original meaning:
— Erasmus, Preface, Novum Instumentum omne (1516)[16] According to historian Lucy Wooding, "Three points stand out: Erasmus did not expect to find a single definitive text;[n 2] he was happy (like St Augustine) to see several possible interpretations of any given biblical verse;[n 3] and he expected ultimately to rely on Church tradition."[18] The Greek and Latin New Testament with annotations was the scholarly part of his wider biblical program that included his Paraphrases (from his conviction that the humble and faithful unlearned could be true "theologians") and Patristic editions (from his conviction that even an optimal translation should not be read divorced from the understanding of the immediately succeeding generations of Christian teachers). Some historians have claimed that, for Erasmus' Philosophia christi, the popular Paraphrases were actually more important than the Novum Testamentum omne[19] (in which, in turn, his Annotations were perhaps more important to him than his Latin and Greek recensions). Erasmus himself later summarized his approach as philological, forensic and pre-theological, and that the formal aim was not to produce a definitive Greek recension or Latin translation: he included Patristic quotations as evidence about the existence of different traditions. Notably he did not warrant that his Greek manuscripts were necessarily more correct in every passage than the Latin sources:
— Erasmus, The Chief Points in the Arguments Answering Some Crabby and Ignorant Critics[20]: 305 Erasmus' philological efforts helped launch what has been described as a "golden century of Catholic biblical scholarship" in the hundred years following his death.[21]: 17 LatinErasmus polished the Latin, declaring, "It is only fair that Paul should address the Romans in somewhat better Latin."[22] By the last editions, Erasmus' Latin version differs from the Vulgate for about 40%[19] to 60%[23] of the text. Erasmus frequently borrowed from Lefèvre d'Étaples's and Valla's translations.[23] In the negative judgement of one modern scholar "Erasmus' (Latin) translation is a monstrous mix of Vulgate (Western) and Byzantine elements…Only linguistically, by the standards of humanistic Latin, is it an improvement...Erasmus changed the Vulgate text (of Heb. 9, in 5th ed.) wherever this seemed to him to be necessary or desirable, but otherwise he left it as it stood."[24] ExamplesErasmus' Latin contained several controversial renderings—different to or augmenting the Vulgate—(with philological or historical justifications in the Annotations) of words which became significant in the Reformation. The Greek: metanoein was a notable problem: his each edition of the New Testament adopted a different rendering from the Vulgate's Latin: poenitentiam agite (do penance): variously Latin: poeniteat vos (may you repent), Latin: poenitemini (repentance) and Latin: poenitentiam agite vitae prioris (repent of the former life). However the 1519—the edition used by Martin Luther's German translation—notably adopted Papal secretary Lorenzo Valla's suggestion of Latin: resipiscere (to repent, to become wise again, to recover from insanity or senility, or to regain consciousness) with historical justification from Lactantius, and with an intellective rather than affective connotation.[n 4] In the 1522 Annotations Erasmus insisted that a true change of mind would include sorrow, confession, and satisfaction,[25] the traditional three components of penance,[26] yet noting that these components were not actually explicit in the traditional proof-text, 2 Cor 7:10. Another important translation choice was Greek logos to Latin sermo (speech, conversation) rather than verbum (word), after the first edition. "Christ is for this reason called logos, because whatsoever the Father speaks, he speaks through the Son."[27]: 46 This emphasized the Son as the self-disclosure of God, and dynamic or energetic rather than static. Critics worried this turned Christ into the Voice of God rather than the Mind of God.[28] For Romans 12:2, the Greek has συσχηματίζεσθε (syschēmatizesthe) and μεταμορφοῦσθε (metamorphousthe).[29]
GreekAccording to scholars such as Henk Jan de Jonge, "In judging the Greek text in Erasmus' editions of the New Testament, one should realize from the start that it was not intended as a textual edition in its own right, but served to give the reader of the Latin version, which was the main point, the opportunity to find out whether the translation was supported by the Greek."[n 5] To some extent, Erasmus "synchronized" or "unified" the Greek (Byzantine) and the Latin textual traditions of the New Testament by producing an updated translation of both simultaneously. Both being part of canonical tradition, he clearly found it necessary to ensure that both were actually present in the same content. In modern terminology, he made the two traditions "compatible". This is clearly evidenced by the fact that his Greek text informs his Latin translation, but also the other way round: there are numerous instances of retroversion where he edits the Greek text to reflect his Latin version (and, perhaps, some lost Greek or patristic source from his prior research or annotation.)[33] In one case back-translating was necessary: the manuscript page containing the last six verses of Revelation had been lost (from Minuscule 1rK, as used for the first edition), so Erasmus translated the Vulgate's text back into Greek, noting what he had done. Erasmus also re-translated the Latin text into Greek wherever he found that the Greek text and the accompanying commentaries were mixed up, where his Greek manuscripts lacked words found in the Vulgate,[32]: 408 or where he simply preferred the Vulgate's reading to the Greek text (e.g., at Acts 9:6).[33]: 4 In Acts 9:6 the question that Paul asks at the time of his conversion on the Damascus road, Τρέμων τε καὶ θαμβὣν εἲπεν κύριε τί μέ θέλεις ποιῆσαι ("And he trembling and astonished said, Lord, what will you have me to do?") was incorporated from the Vulgate.[34]: 145 Erasmus was not aware that the text of the New Testament had bifurcated early (into different text types) and presumed that some Greek manuscripts had been "Latinized" from the Vulgate.[19]: 600 In the negative judgement of a modern Dominican scholar "As an edition of the (Greek) New Testament, his work has no critical value, even by Renaissance standards. But it was the text that first revealed the fact that the Vulgate, the Holy Book of the Latin Church, was not only a second-hand document but, in places, quite erroneous."[35] Annotations and scholiaThe New Testaments included scholia: various prefaces on methodology, a list of problems in the Vulgate translation, and substantial annotations justifying the word choices. MethodusOne notable preface, Methodus,[36] was expanded in the second edition, then spun out as an independent work: the "System (or Method) of True Theology" (Latin: ratio seu compendium verae theologiae, RVT):[37] it promoted affective devotional reading where one inserts oneself into the Gospel situation as an observer of Christ's human actions and interactions, akin to the monastic Lectio Divina.[38] Erasmus wrote that the “signs of profit from study” of the New Testament (RVT 1) using this method are, summarized:
ParaclesisHis preface Paraclesis promoted scriptural knowledge for devotional use by even uneducated laymen, including the vernacular. (See Plowboy trope.)
— Erasmus, Paraclesis, paraphrase by M.A. Screech.[40] Annotations.jpg) The Annotations were a major and integral part the effort, rather dry, and were thoroughly re-worked in each edition. The annotations were primarily philological, but later included more theological justifications in response to subsequent academic controversies. The annotations sometimes gave readings that were not adopted in his Latin, or were not derived from his Basel manuscripts.[41] The initial version was largely written in England and Brabant before the decision to create the Greek recension (and perhaps, the Latin recension too). Much use was made of Latin and Greek church fathers (with the exception of the Cappadocian Fathers: Basil, Gregory of Nyssa, and Gregory of Nazianzen)'[42] the book's title named Origen, Chrysostom, Cyril, Vulgarius, Jerome, Cyprian, Ambrose, Hilary, and Augustine, in particular. "In general he was appreciative of the early church Fathers and contemptuous of medieval commentators."[43] The Annotations contain some readings of the Greek not found in the Basel manuscripts, but from prior research in England, etc.[44] In England before coming to Basel in 1515, Erasmus had consulted with four Greek manuscripts, as yet unidentified.[45] Erasmus also made use of Lorenzo Valla's Collatio Novi Testementi, which had been based on seven Greek and four Latin manuscripts in Italy.[19]: 59 The annotations gave extra material that helped subsequent vernacular translators, such as Johannes Lang and Martin Luther.[41] PreparationErasmus had been inspired back in 1504 by his discovery of Lorenzo Valla's Adnotationis Novum Testamentum, a work comparing the Latin Vulgate against Greek manuscripts. Erasmus republished Valla's work in 1505 and wrote in his preface about the need to recover the true text of the Bible. From 1499, encouraged by John Colet of Oxford, Erasmus began an intensive study of the Greek language. He began studying, collecting and comparing Latin and Greek manuscripts far and wide in order to provide the world with a fresh Latin translation from the Greek.[46] By 1505 he had completed the letters of Paul, and by 1509 the Gospels, with a large collection of notes.[32] Erasmus also "recognized the importance of biblical citations in the commentaries of the Fathers as valuable evidence for the original biblical text."[20]: 12 Latin skills preparationErasmus learned Latin at an early age, read voraciously, and for much of his life refused to write letters or speak in any language other than Latin, favouring classical syntax but embracing the expanded post-antiquity vocabulary.[47]: 148 Over more than a decade, he assembled a large number of variants in Vulgate and patristic manuscripts, enabling him to choose those Latin readings which approached closest to the Greek texts in his judgement.[32]: 397 A key resource used for his initial Latin rendition (1516) was his long-prepared complete works of Jerome (1516), an author Erasmus had intensively studied and the editor of the Vulgate Latin version New Testament, which was in turn largely based on older Vetus Latina translations. He had begun collecting material on specific issues from the early 1500s, in his extensive travels.[citation needed] In the later versions of the New Testament and Annotations, Erasmus made use material from his Froben editions of the Western and African patristic and classical authors, notably Ambrose and Augustine.[citation needed] Greek skills preparationErasmus had, unusually, been taught basic classical Greek at school,[48] but did not actively learn it until his mid 30s under the influence and assistance of his English circle, notable Greek experts Thomas Linacre and William Grocyn, and the writings of Lorenzo Valla, a Renaissance biblical scholar of the previous generation. In 1506/1507 he lived and worked at the Aldine Press which supported a community of over 30 Greek scholars, many refugees, such as Janus Lascaris and his protégé Marco Musuro,[49] and which conducted most of its business in Greek.[50] In 1508 he studied in Padua with Giulio Camillo. He honed his Greek-to-Latin translation skills by translating secular Greek authors, such as Lucian (with Thomas More), Euripides and classical Adages and Apophthegms. In the later versions of the New Testament and Annotations, Erasmus made use material from his Froben editions of the Eastern and African patristic and classical authors, notably Cyprian, Origen and John Chrysostom. Erasmus was assisted by numerous scholars, both in Basel (such as Oecolampadius, for the first edition) and through his first-class network of correspondents (for example, he made enquiries of Papal Librarian Paulus Bombasius about Codex Vaticanus).[51]: 22 First editionIn his dedication to Pope Leo X, whom he knew personally from his visits to Rome, Erasmus positioned the 1516 work within the humanist ad fontes (back to the source of the stream) program:
It was a bilingual edition; the Greek text was in a left column, the Latin in a right. The substantial annotations came from Erasmus' previous decade of manuscript and philological research throughout Western Europe.  The initial Latin versions only lightly touched the Vulgate.[n 6][44]: 374 Some later editions gave Erasmus' own Latin translation, which was still based on the Vulgate but slightly more revised especially with more polished Latin. The Annotations had been researched during the previous decade with recourse to many Latin and Greek sources. Froben PressOn a visit to Basel in August 1514, he contacted Swiss-German printer Johann Froben of Basel[34]: 142 It seems that it was decided first to make his word notes into annotations on the Greek and Vulgate Latin, and then, at a late stage, to use a new Latin translation.[44]: 373,374 In their own advocacy of the competing Alexandrian text-type and Critical Text against Erasmus' work, Victorian scholar S. P. Tregelles and modern critical scholar Bruce Metzger speculated that Froben might have heard about "the forthcoming Spanish Polyglot Bible," and tried to overtake the project of Cardinal Francisco Jiménez de Cisneros for commercial reasons.[51]: 19 [54][34]: 142 However, not only had the Complutensian Polyglot New Testament already been printed back in January 1514, months before Erasmus met with Froben in August, but the historical record shows the Pope had issue with some translations in the Polyglot. Translator Antonio de Nebrija quit the Polyglot project when Cardinal Cisneros refused to allow him to alter the translations according to the Pope's satisfaction.[55] In July 1515, Erasmus travelled from his Brabant base to Basel. Student Johannes Oecolampadius served as his editorial assistant and Hebrew consultant.[56] The printing began on 2 October 1515, and in very short time was finished (1 March 1516). It was produced quickly – Erasmus declared later that the first edition was "precipitated rather than published" (praecipitatum verius quam editum)[57]: 105 – with hundreds[32]: 409 of spelling and typographical errors[34]: 143 Against his usual practice, Erasmus was absent for some of the printing leaving the correction to his assistants, who introduced their own errors as well.[23] Title The work was titled:
This title, especially words: Novum Instrumentum [...] Recognitum et Emendatum, means New Instrument [...] Revised and Improved. An instrumentum is a decision put down in writing.[32]: 396 Direct Greek manuscriptsTo prepare the Greek text for the First Edition, Erasmus and team used several manuscripts available locally in Basel,[n 8][32] though the accompanying Annotations and the updated Latin were based on his lengthy manuscript research throughout Western Europe, in particular the four unidentified manuscripts available at Cambridge. Eight Greek manuscripts have been identified as the sources of the Greek text:[58]: 45 in Basel, Erasmus had three Greek manuscripts of the Gospels and Acts, five manuscripts of the Pauline epistles, two manuscripts of the Catholic epistles, but only one manuscript with the Book of Revelation:
It seems that Erasmus did not intend to make a critical edition of the Greek, as such. He sent Minuscules 2e and 2ap to the printers "somewhat corrected" against the other manuscripts.[32]: 404  He borrowed the manuscripts from Basel Dominicans Library.[n 9] Manuscripts 1eap and 1rK Erasmus borrowed from Johannes Reuchlin. He did not use the Codex Basilensis, which was held at the Basel University Library and was available for him, for the Greek text. RevelationSourceErasmus had a problem with the Book of Revelation, in that he could find no old Greek manuscript which contained it. The book was not used in the liturgical readings of the Greek or Latin churches (and still now rarely[59]), was not in e.g. Codex Vaticanus, it was only established as part of the canon of Scripture late, and in Erasmus' view was of dubious apostolicity. Furthermore, apocalypticism was diametrically opposed to the spirituality and mentality of Erasmus' Renaissance humanism; Erasmus' relative disinterest may be gauged from that he did not write a paraphrase of Revelation and provided only brief annotations. Rather than omit the book, he adopted a different strategy to the rest of the New Testament: he obtained from Johannes Reuchlin Minuscule 2814, a Greek interlinear commentary on Revelation by Andreas of Caesarea, and had an assistant extract the embedded scriptural text which Erasmus then used for correction. He was not in Basel to correct the printer's proofs. Missing TextHowever, the Reuchlin manuscript was not complete, the leaf that contained the last six verses of Revelation 22 (the final chapter) having been torn off.[44] Erasmus decided to back-translate the missing verses Rev. 16:16-21 from the Latin Vulgate into Greek, minimally alerting readers that he had provided some words from the Latin in a note in his Annotations, and thereby provoking enduring controversy.[n 10] Erasmus explained his thinking in a response to strong criticism from Edward Lee:
— Erasmus, Letter to Lee[61] According to scholar Jan Krans, in the second sentence Erasmus was justifying (to Lee) his approach as in fact heeding the content of the missing text, which includes the famous curse on omission or addition of verses: it would be bold or rash to not correct the missing text that itself specified that there should be no omissions.[61] For the second edition, Erasmus instructed that the text of the more recent Aldine edition (a corrected edition of Erasmus' first edition) be used, unaware that it did not have significant revisions for Revelation. For the fourth edition, Erasmus had access to the Complutensian Polyglot edition, but did not know the nature or provenance of the manuscript sources. Tree of LifeErasmus took from the Vulgate the textual variant libro vitae (book of life) instead of ligno vitae (tree of life) in Revelation 22:19.[n 11] Other Latin ReadingsEven in other parts of Revelation and other books of the New Testament, Erasmus occasionally introduced self-created Greek text material taken from the Vulgate. F. H. A. Scrivener remarked that in Rev. 17:4, instead of using τὰ ἀκάθαρτα (the impure), Erasmus created a new Greek word: ἀκαθάρτητος.[62]: 184 In Rev. 17:8 he used καιπερ εστιν (and yet is) instead of και παρεσται (and shall come).[34]: 145 [n 12] Several philologist have noted that some of Erasmus' Greek innovations in his printed New Testaments subsequently found their way into some later-produced Greek manuscripts, confusing the historicity of the phrases. Second editionThe reception of the first edition by some theologians was mixed, but the English bishops who had been Erasmus' primary sponsors and mentors on the project were enthusiastic at the result,[63] and within three years a second was made. Erasmus' network of friends and correspondents, notably (Master of the Rolls and future bishop) Cuthbert Tunstall, supplied many improvements for the Latin text. Pope Leo X contributed a letter of recommendation, featured as one of the prefaces. Erasmus described it as "a new work":[64]: 185 it used the more familiar term Testamentum instead of Instrumentum. (A testamentum is an agreement without a written record.[32]: 396 ) For this edition, Erasmus re-worked his initial revision of Vulgate recension of earlier Latin translations into a new, more elegant translation.[34]: 145 The Latin text frequently provided alternative phrasing[57]: 107 to the Vulgate's.[44]: 374 About 40% of the Latin words were changed in some way, frequently for better grammar.[65] This new Latin translation had a good reception. In the second edition Erasmus also used Minuscule 3 (Codex Corsendoucensis, or Vindobonensis Suppl. Gr. 52, entire NT except Revelation; 12th century) and an unidentified Gospel codex.[45] The Greek text was changed in about 400 places, with most—though not all—of the typographical errors corrected. Some new erroneous readings were added to the text.[51]: 25 The Aldine press had in 1518 produced its own version of the first edition, with its own corrections from unknown Greek manuscripts in Venice. These changes were also considered by Erasmus.[23] The second edition became the basis for Luther's German translation.[34]: 145 After this edition, Erasmus was involved in many polemics and controversies. Particularly objectionable were the objections from the universities of Cambridge and Oxford, such as over the Comma Johanneum.[34]: 1446 Third editionThe Greek of the third edition (1522) differed in 118 places from the second.[51]: 26 It addressed many issues raised by opponents such as Lee and Stunica; though Erasmus tended to call corrections printer's errors.[19] In this edition Erasmus, after using Codex Montfortianus, misprinted εμαις for εν αις in Apocalypse 2:13.[62] Recent research suggests Erasmus likely included more than 30 new readings from Volume V of the Complutensian Polyglot, without attributing them.[4]: 59–77 Oecolampadius and Gerbelius, who had assisted Erasmus, insisted that he introduce more readings from the minuscule 1eap in the third edition. But according to Erasmus the text of this codex was altered from the Latin manuscripts, and had only secondary value.[66] He also found several important new Latin sources with alternative Latin renderings he used, such as a commentary of the Venerable Bede.[20]: 12 This edition was used by William Tyndale for the first English New Testament (1526), by Robert Estienne[citation needed] as a base for his editions of the Greek New Testament from 1546 and 1549, and by the translators of the Geneva Bible and King James Version. Publishers outside Basel frequently re-printed or cannibalized Erasmus' work without license: Erasmus' Latin Matthew, and his preface, were bundled with Johannes Lang's German translation in 1522.[41] Comma JohanneumLópez de Zúñiga, known as Stunica, one of the editors of Ximenes' Complutensian Polyglot, reproached Erasmus that his text lacked part of the 1 John 5:7-8 (Comma Johanneum). Erasmus replied that he had not found it in any Greek manuscript. Stunica answered that Latin manuscripts are more reliable than Greek.[34][51] In 1520 Edward Lee accused Erasmus of tendencies toward Arianism and Pelagianism, and of unorthodox sacramentology.[67] Erasmus replied that he had not found any Greek manuscript that contained these words, he answered that this was a case not of omission or removal, but simply of non-addition. He showed that even some Latin manuscripts did not contain these words.[34]: 146 [51]: 22 Erasmus asked his friend, the Prefect of the Vatican Library, Paulus Bombasius, to check the Codex Vaticanus. Bombasius sent two extracts from this manuscript containing the beginnings of 1 John 4 and 5,[51] which has three dots in the margin but not the text of the Comma.[68] .jpg) However, from the third edition the Comma Johanneum was included. A single 16th-century Greek manuscript subsequently had been found that contained it. (Codex Montfortianus)
Fourth edition.jpg) The fourth edition (1527) was printed in a new format of three parallel columns, they contain the updated Greek, Erasmus' own Latin version, and a standard Vulgate.[34]: 148 Except in Revelation, the Greek of the fourth edition differed only in about 20 places from the third[51]: 27 (though according to Mill it is only about 10 places). Shortly after the publication of his third edition, Erasmus had seen the Complutensian Polyglot, and used its Greek text for improvement of his own text. In the Book of Revelation he altered his fourth edition in about 90 passages on the basis of the Complutensian text.[34]: 148 Unfortunately Erasmus may have forgotten what places of the Apocalypse he translated from Latin and he did not correct all of them. In November 1533, before the appearance of the fifth edition, Sepúlveda sent Erasmus a description of an ancient Vatican manuscript, informing him that it differed from the fourth edition text in favour of the Vulgate in 365 places.[51]: 108 Nothing is known about these 365 readings except for one. Erasmus in Adnotationes to Acts 27:16 wrote that according to the Codex from the Library Pontifici (i.e. Codex Vaticanus) name of the island is καυδα (Cauda), not κλαυδα (Clauda) as in his Novum Testamentum (Tamet si quidam admonent in codice Graeco pontificiae bibliothecae scriptum haberi, καυδα, id est, cauda).[70][n 13] In another letter sent to Erasmus in 1534 Sepúlveda informed him, that Greek manuscripts had been influenced by the Vulgate.[71] Final editionThe fifth edition of Erasmus, published in 1535, the year before his death, discarded the Vulgate again[58] and omitted the well-known Paraclesis and the list of solecisms of the Vulgate. Otherwise it was a minor revision: according to Mill the Greek of the fifth edition differed only in four places from the fourth.[51]: 28 The fifth edition was the basis of Robert Estienne's 1550 New Testament, which was the first variorum critical edition of the Greek, showing variants from the Complutensian Polyglot.[72] Estienne's edition was used as the basis of Theodore Beza's versions, the Elzevier's 1633 Textus Receptus editions, and the base text of John Mill's 1707 critical edition.[72] Popular demand for Greek New Testaments led to a flurry of further authorized and unauthorized editions in the early sixteenth century; almost all of which were based on Erasmus's work and incorporated his particular readings, although typically also making a number of minor changes of their own. Tregelles gives Acts 13:33 as an example of the places in which commonly received text did not follow Erasmian text (εν τω ψαλμω τω πρωτω → εν τω ψαλμω τω δευτερω).[51]: 29 Subsequent developmentsProtestantThe first generation of Protestant vernacular bible translations into Germanic languages were based on Luther's German and Erasmus' Latin, with the unfamiliar Greek being used as supporting evidence. However, for Protestants, interest in Erasmus' Latin version was superseded by vernacular translations and increasing focus on the supposed Greek and Hebrew original texts. After his death, several decades of revision of Erasmus' Greek text became known as the Textus Receptus ("received text") Greek family; this was the basis for most Western non-Catholic vernacular translations for the subsequent 350 years, until the new recensions of Westcott and Hort[73] (1881 and after) and Eberhard Nestle (1898 and after.) His annotations continued to be respected and used. CatholicFor Catholics, Erasmus' main thrust (that the Vulgate's Latin text had suffered a millennium of scribal variations and should be revised in light of old texts in the original languages and patristic usage) was accepted at and following the Council of Trent, even if his own Latin recension was not favoured: Trent called for a new standardized "Vulgate" edition corrected with contemporary scholarship: "The council decrees and determines that hereafter the sacred scriptures, particularly in this ancient Vulgate edition, shall be printed after a thorough revision."[74] Erasmus' Latin translation choices and annotations were considered during the preparation of the Sixto-Clementine Vulgate (1592), and the Vulgate itself was replaced for official use by the Nova Vulgata (1979), a version that gave greater weight to the Greek and Hebrew. However, Erasmus' Latin recension was side-lined from liturgical use and scholastic disputation following the Council of Trent, which decreed that "the old and Vulgate edition...(should) be, in public lectures, disputations, sermons and expositions, held as authentic; no one is to date or presume to reject it under any pretext whatever."[74]: 71–72 Protestant polemicists have made strong interpretations of this decree: for example Jean Calvin claimed the Trent decrees are "condemning all translations except the Vulgate" including the Greek and Hebrew.[75] In practice, this decree established that the Vulgate (largely based by e.g. Jerome on the Western text-type Vetus Latina, with the Deuterocanonical books derived from the Septuagint and adjusted in phraseology to be more like the Alexandrian and Byzantine text-types[76]) was a distinct and authentic text tradition (similar to the Greek traditions, the Syriac, etc.) that must not be rejected as inauthentic, not having less or greater status than other traditions. And that this version, with corrections, was uniquely approved for public use, as distinct from e.g., scholarly or private devotional or musical use. See alsoNotes
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