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The Bible: Testament

The original translation of the Hebrew Testament into Greek, about the year 260 в.c., bore the title of the Septuagint because it employed the labours of seventy, or rather of seventy-two, translators. More than six hundred years afterwards, viz., in the Year of Our Lord 405, when St. Jerome (born 346, died 420) rendered the whole of the Scriptures-to be The Bible. sure the New Testament had not an existence at the time of the Greek translation-into the Latin tongue, his performance was styled the Vulgatus, or Vulgate, from vulgare, to make known to the vulgus, the multitude. This Latin Vulgate constitues the Bible of the Roman Catholics as authorized by the Council of Trent in the year 1546. It was first printed for the use of the Christian world generally in 1462. The English translation of the Old Testament portion of the Vulgate bears the title of the Douay Bible because it was first printed and published at the English College at Douay, in France, in 1609. The New Testament portion, known as the Rheims Bible, was issued at Rheims twenty-seven years earlier, viz., in 1582.