A Pious Seductress (Studies in the Book of Judith) || The Ancient Versions of Judith and the Place of the Septuagint in the Catholic Church

The Ancient Versions of Judithand the Place of the Septuagint

in the Catholic ChurchSTEPHEND. RYANO.P.

In the concluding pages of his 1966 book on the diverse textual traditions of Judith, the French Dominican André Marie Dubarle asked anintriguing question: “Which text of Judith is canonical?”1 The diversityof Greek and Latin forms of the Book of Judith which have been received by the Catholic Church presents both theoretical questionsabout Biblical inspiration and practical questions about the form of thetext of Judith to be translated in Catholic Bibles and lectionaries. WhileDubarle’s focus was on the relative theological status of the Hebrewand Greek texts of Judith, this paper examines the status of the Greekand Latin versions, specifically Jerome’s Vulgate and the Nova Vulgata,and follows the scholarly consensus holding that the Hebrew texts ofJudith are late and secondary.

In 1860, the reformed scholar Gustav Volkmar noted that Jerome’spreface to Judith presents a problem for Catholic theologians. Volkmar,who held the Vulgate text of Judith to be historically worthless, posedthe problem this way:

A more difficult cross could not have been imposed on Catholic theologythan trying to uphold on the one hand the decree of the Council [of Trent]on the Vulgate, even for the Book of Judith, and on the other hand not totally abandoning the claim to Wissenschaft.2

In seeking to articulate a theological account of the status of the Greekand Latin texts of Judith that does justice to both the textual history ofthis deuterocanonical book and to the Catholic theological tradition, thework of Adrian Schenker is particularly helpful. Schenker has articulated a theological vision of the place of the Septuagint in the Churchthat can both account for its privileged status, and at the same time

1 DUBARLE, Judith 1, 179.2 VOLKMAR, Judith, 10.

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provide a rationale for modern translations to be based on the originallanguages of the Old Testament.3 His work establishes principles usefulin any consideration of the place of the Septuagint, the Vulgate and theNova Vulgata in the Catholic Church. After briefly describing the ancient versions of Judith and comparing the Greek and Latin versions ofseveral illustrative passages, I will use Schenker’s work to illustratehow magisterial teaching, textual criticism, and a Catholic doctrine ofinspiration may be applied to Judith.

The Ancient Versions

Helmut Engel defines the original language of Judith as that languagein which the original author wrote and thought.4 Both Engel and Jeremy Corley hold that this was most likely Greek, or, in Engel’s words,Septuaginta Griechisch. That is, Greek written in the style of SeptuagintGreek, perhaps, as Corley suggests, by an author for whom Greek wasa second and acquired language.5 A brief review of the most importantversions of Judith is given below.

The Greek Texts

The original Greek text of Judith was composed in the Hasmonean era,between 161 BC and 63 BC.6 The earliest physical witness to the book isthe 3rd century AD ostracon containing Judith 15:1 7 that was discovered in 1946.7 The principal Greek texts can be arranged into the following groups: the LXX uncials (BSAV); the O Text (58 583); the Lucianic(19, 108, 319); Recensions a and b.8 Modern critical editions from bothCambridge and Göttingen give approximations of the original Greektext.

3 SCHENKER, Septuaginta, 459 464; L’Ecriture Sainte, 178 186; Die Heilige Schrift, 192200.

4 ENGEL, Der HERR, 156.5 CORLEY, Septuagintalisms, 67.6 CORLEY, Septuagintalisms, 74.7 SCHWARTZ, Un Fragment Grec, 534 547.8 HANHART, Iudith, 4 5; Text und Textgeschichte, 11 12.



The Ancient Versions of Judith 3

The Vetus Latina

The Vetus Latina, currently being edited by Pierre Maurice Bogaert,may have been composed in North Africa in the 3rd century AD, and isbased on a Greek text similar to that used as the source for the Peshittatranslation of Judith.9 The Vetus Latina was replaced by the Vulgateonly slowly, and was copied in the West even as late as the 13th century. Vetus Latina readings were preserved especially in the liturgy.10

The Vulgate

The Vulgate translation of Judith was made ca. 407, and is a revision ofthe Vetus Latina based on a “Chaldean” text, a term which may refer toa Syriac version.11 A number of questions remain about the text andinterpretation of Jerome’s preface. These will be treated below only inso far as they are pertinent to our discussion of the contemporary statusof the Vulgate.12

9 BOGAERT, Judith, Vetus Latina.10 BOGAERT, Judith, 246.11 BOGAERT, Judith, Vetus Latina, 32.12 On these questions see BOGAERT, Judith, Vetus Latina, 30 42. For convenience a

translation of the preface is included here: “Among the Jews, the book of Judith isconsidered among the apocrypha, which are less suitable to confirm those thingsthat have come into dispute. Moreover, since it was written in the Chaldean language, it is counted among the historical books. But because the Nicene Synod issaid to have counted this book among the holy Scriptures, I have acquiesced to yourrequest, no rather requirement, and, my other work set aside, from which I wasforcibly restrained, I have given a single night’s work, translating according to senserather than verbatim. I have hacked away at the excessively error ridden panoply ofthe many codices; I conveyed in Latin only what I could find expressed coherently inthe Chaldean words. Receive the widow Judith, example of chastity, and with triumphant praise acclaim her with eternal public celebration. For not only for women,but even for men, she has been given as a model by the one who rewards her chastity, who has ascribed to her such virtue that she conquered the unconquered amonghumanity, and surmounted the insurmountable.”



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Nova Vulgata

The Nova Vulgata (1979) version of Judith is a modern revision (correction) of the Vetus Latina, based on Vetus Latina manuscripts and editions, with reference also being made to Greek witnesses.13

The Syriac Texts

There are three forms of the Syriac text of Judith, the Peshitta, the SyroHexapla, and a revision of the Peshitta found in an 18th century Indianmanuscript published by van der Ploeg.14 The Peshitta was made fromGreek manuscripts close to the minuscules 58 and 583 and shares manyreading with the Vetus Latina.

Judith in Greek and Latin

Jeremy Corley’s thorough review of the question of the original language of Judith concludes that “a Hebrew Vorlage can not be presumed,while a Greek origin can be suggested as very possible.”15 For the purposes of this paper my working assumption is that Judith was composed originally in Greek and that the Göttingen edition by Hanhartgives us a close approximation of the book’s original form. I would

13 The Praenotanda to the Nova Vulgata includes this note to readers about the text ofJudith: “The Greek reading of the Book of Judith is well attested in these particularforms: BAS; MSS 19.108; MS 58 (similar to the Vetus Latina and the Syriac version).Since, however, the Supreme Pontiff has allowed that the text employed in the NovaVulgata include the more recent editions (Audience of 30 March 1968), the PontificalCommission chose the sources according to the reading of the Vetus Latina. It decided to use the text of the Codex Vercellensis XXII (10th cent.) for the Book of Tobitand the Codex Bernensis (10th cent.) for the Book of Judith.” [The full Latin textreads: Libri Iudith lectio Graeca bene exhibetur tribus in praecipuis formis: BAS; mss19.108; ms 58 (similis Veteri Latinae ac Syriaco). Cum igitur Summus Pontifex permisisset ut in Novam Vulgatam induceretur etiam textus apud recentiores editionesadhibitus (Audientia 30 Martii 1968), Pontificia Commissio fontes elegit secundumlectionem Veteris Latinae censuitque utendum codice Vercellensi XXII (saec. X) prolibro Thobis et codice Bernensi (saec. X) pro libro Iudith, quos autem contulit diligenter antea cum codicibus Latinis et Graecis proprio loco descriptis.]

14 BOGAERT, Judith, Vetus Latina, 75. The Leiden List of Old Testament Peshitta Manuscripts lists 37 biblical manuscripts containing the Book of Judith, the oldest dating tothe 7th century (MS Milan, Ambrosian Library, B, 21. Inf.; 7a1). On the 18th centuryIndian manuscript see VAN ROMPAY, No Evil Word About Her, 229.

15 CORLEY, Septuagintalisms, 96.




agree then with George Montague, who spoke of “the superiority of theGreek text in determining the Word of God to the Church.”16 The encyclical Divino Afflante Spiritu urged scholars “to explain the originaltext which, having been written by the inspired author himself, hasmore authority and greater weight than even the very best translation,whether ancient or modern.” (DAS 16) But the problem remains that inthe Western Church the Book of Judith was received as Scripture in aquite different form, namely the Vulgate. Before considering the theological status of the Latin texts of Judith, and what to make of that “difficult cross” that Volkmar referred to over a hundred years ago, I willbriefly present several passages which illustrate some of the manifoldways in which the Vulgate differs from the Greek.

A. Judith 8:6

In Judith 8:6 the Vulgate text does not represent the word prosabbat n(prosabba,twn) found in most Greek manuscripts. According to theGreek text Judith is said to fast

all the days of her widowhood, except the day before the sabbath and the sabbath itself, the day before the new moon and the day of the new moon, andthe festivals and days of rejoicing of the house of Israel.17

Since the practice of refraining from fasting on the day before the sabbath is not attested in Biblical law, James Kugel sees here an instance ofthe pious Jewish practice of guarding the sabbath borders.18

The Vulgate, some Greek texts (e.g., 106), most Vetus Latina texts,and the Syriac, omit the words “the day before the sabbath,” readingsimply praeter sabbata, except the sabbaths. Thus translations based onthe Vulgate, such as the Douay Rheims, or Luther’s translation of Judith, which is also based on the Vulgate, do not mention Judith’s practice of refraining from fasting on Fridays. This is indeed a small difference, and the omission is probably due to Jerome’s reliance on theVetus Latina, but this example illustrates one of the many small details

16 MONTAGUE, Esther and Judith, 13.17 Kai. evnh,steue pa,saj ta.j h`me,raj th/j chreu,sewj auvth/j cwri.j prosabba,twn kai. sabba,twn kai.

pronoumhniw/n kai. noumhniw/n kai. e`ortw/n kai. carmosunw/n oi;kou Israhl.18 KUGEL, Traditions of the Bible, 686.



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that the Vulgate, which is significantly shorter than the Greek version,omits.19

The question of which Vetus Latina texts Jerome had before hiseyes is difficult to answer, but the variety of Vetus Latina readings inthis verse may explain why the Vulgate lacks the phrase. It is of interestthat some early North African manuscripts have the word cenapura(“pure dinner”) here, which was a Jewish term in use in the Westerndiaspora for the day before the sabbath or Friday.20 This evidence hasled some scholars to trace the origin of the Vetus Latina text of Judith toa third century CE Jewish community in North Africa, though PierreMaurice Bogaert does not find this argument convincing.21

The Nova Vulgata, a revision of the Vetus Latin and thus based ultimately on the Greek via the earlier translation into Latin, reads withthe Greek here: praeter pridie sabbatorum, “except on the day before theSabbath.” This reading does not have a basis in the Vetus Latina manuscript tradition, but is rather a modern correction of the Vetus Latinabased on the Greek.

B. Judith 8:31 33

As Pancratius Beentjes has noted, the Vulgate text of Judith 8:31 33adds several requests by Judith to Uzziah and the elders to pray forher: orate (8:31), orate (8:32), oratio pro me (8:33).22 These requests arenot found in the Greek texts and so are probably to be ascribed toJerome or his Aramaic source.

In his 9th century commentary on Judith, Rabanus Maurus cites theVulgate text and comments on Judith’s request for prayers, noting thatthe Church, here prefigured by Judith, relies on her priests to ensurethat she is not harmed by her enemies. By vigilant watchfulness and byworking to arm the Church with prayer, they see that she is un

19 Jeremy Corley (private communication) has suggested a possible reason for theVulgate departing from the Greek text here. Jerome may not have wanted to depictJudith as refraining from fasting on Fridays, because Christians observed a contrarypractice, fasting on Fridays on account of Jesus’ passion. A study of references tofasting on Fridays in Jerome’s writings could help to ascertain the likelihood of thisexplanation for the Vulgate’s departure from the Greek text of this verse.

20 See BOGAERT, Judith, 54 55; HORBURY, Cena pura, 104 140, esp. 113.21 BOGAERT, Judith, 54 55.22 BEENTJES, Bethulia Crying, 239 n. 32.




harmed.23 A somewhat abbreviated form of this same commentary isfound in the marginal Glossa Ordinaria to Judith 8.24

C. Judith 10:4

In the Vulgate of Judith 10:4 we find one of several glosses that areusually attributed to Jerome:

And the Lord also gave her more beauty: because all this dressing up didnot proceed from sensuality, but from virtue. And therefore the Lord increased her beauty, so that she appeared to all men’s eyes incomparablylovely.25

In his commentary on this verse Rabanus Maurus explains the physicalbeauty of Judith as a gift of God’s grace, since her dressing up was notfocused on this present life but on the life to come. It is fitting, he notes,that someone with such a great desire for the love of God should behonored by all men and women.

The verse in its particular Vulgate formulation has entered into theChristian tradition in a variety of contexts, and was used, to cite butone example, as the biblical foundation for a sermon comparing thevirtues of Judith and Joan of Arc by Bishop Charles François Turinazon the occasion of the dedication of a statue of Joan of Arc at the Cathedral in Nancy, France in 1890.26

D. Judith 9:16

Judith 9:16 in the Vulgate, which has no corresponding verse in theGreek text, has Judith pray to God with these words: “the prayer of thehumble and the meek has always pleased thee.”27

23 Rabano Mauro, Expositio Hrabani Mauri in Librum Iudith, 41: “Commendat Iudithpresbiteris portam, quia sacerdotibus Christi sancta ecclesia sollicitam castrorum Deicommendat custodiam, ut pervigili intentione ac solerti cura per arma orationum eamunire et contra hostium insidias inlaesa servare studeant.”

24 FROEHLICH / GIBSON, Biblia Latina, 351.25 Cui etiam Dominus contulit splendorem quoniam omnis ista conpositio non ex

libidine, sed ex virtute pendebat et ideo Dominus hanc in illam pulchritudinem ampliavit, ut incomparabili decore omnium oculis appareret.

26 LANÉRY D’ARC, Le livre d’or, 370.27 Humilium et mansuetorum tibi semper placuit deprecatio.



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Like many of the distinctive Vulgate readings, this one too has entered into the Western tradition. It is cited, for example, in the first ofthe nine ways of prayer of St. Dominic, where the founder of the Dominican Order is said to have recited Judith’s words while humblinghimself before a crucifix.28 It is also cited several times by St. ThomasAquinas, for example, in his commentary on Psalm 34:6 and in hiscommentary on the Lord’s Prayer.29

E. Judith 15:11 and 16:26

Bogaert has observed that the addition to the Vulgate in 15:11 aboutJudith’s love of chastity (quod castitatem amaveris) and her refusal toremarry, prepares for a similar addition in 16:26, where Judith is againsaid to join chastity to her virtue (virtuti castitatis adiuncta) and to haveremained a widow (non cognosceret virum) after the death of her husband.30

These Vulgate glosses helped to make of Judith the kind of moralexample she would become in Western Christian tradition. In his preface, Jerome gives his readers a key to the book:

Receive the widow Judith, example of chastity… for not only for women,but even for men, she has been given as a model by the one who rewardsher chastity, who has ascribed to her such virtue that she conquered theunconquered among humanity, and surmounted the insurmountable.

It is God, so Jerome claims, who has given Judith as a model of chastity.What the saint has done in these Vulgate pluses is merely to develop,clarify, and expand upon a moral example that God himself has proposed for the Church.

28 TAURISANO, De novem modis orandi S. Dominici, 96.29 In his commentary on the Lord’s Prayer Aquinas writes: “Prayer ought to be hum

ble: … in the words of Judith: ‘The prayer of the humble and the meek hath alwayspleased Thee.’ This same humility is observed in this prayer, for true humility is hadwhen a person does not presume upon his own powers, but from the divine strengthexpects all that he asks for.” (Debet etiam oratio esse humilis, … et Iudith IX, 16: ‘Humilium et mansuetorum semper tibi placuit deprecatio.’ Quae quidem humilitas in hacoratione servatur: nam vera humilitas est quando aliquis nihil ex suis viribuspraesumit, sed totum ex divina virtute impetrandum expectat). Aquinas, In orationem dominicam, 222.

30 BOGAERT, Judith, 247.




F. Judith 8:14

Vincent Skemp has noted that in the extra material in the Vulgate ofTobit there is a tendency to add references to tears (at least 6 times),especially to prayers made with tears (four times).31 Something similaris found in Judith 8:14 where the Vulgate has Judith refer to beggingthe Lord’s pardon with tears: “But forasmuch as the Lord is patient, letus be penitent for this same thing, and with many tears let us beg hispardon (et indulgentiam eius lacrimis postulemus).”

This text, in its Vulgate formulation, was cited by Jan Hus in histreatise on indulgences, because the word “indulgentiam” found in theVulgate helped to make this verse relevant to his topic.32

Similar additions making reference to tears are found in the Vulgate of Judith 7:23 (Ozias infusus lacrimis), 8:17 (dicamus flentes Domino),and 13:6 (orans cum lacrimis), which are also Vulgate pluses. This lasttext, Judith 8:17, which describes Judith praying with tears before slaying Holophernes, is cited in a paean of praise for the gift of tears by St.Peter Damian, who after referring to the tears of Esther, adds: “No lessdid tears enable Judith to cut off the head of Holofernes and to preservethe flower of her most virtuous chastity in the chamber of licentiousseduction.”33

These brief examples reveal something of the strengths and weakness of the Vulgate as a translation. Whatever its limitations as a translation of the original Greek text, the Vulgate version of Judith was received as Scripture by the ancient Church of the West and its specialmaterial, the Vulgate pluses, played a key role in helping the Church tosee in Judith a type of Christ, a type of Mary, and a type of theChurch.34 The Vulgate has also been instrumental in the shaping of theparticular character of the vernacular Judith retellings, a phenomenonrichly documented in Henrike Lähnemann’s monograph on theHystoria Judith.35

31 SKEMP, The Vulgate of Tobit, 463.32 Hus, Quaestio VII: De indulgentiis, p. 75, line 155: Et sic loquitur Scriptura, Iudith 8:

“Indulgenciam Domini cum lacrimis postulemus.”33 Damian, Letter 153, 41.34 See, e.g., TKACZ, Women as Types of Christ; and The Doctrinal Context.35 LÄHNEMANN, Hystoria Judith, e.g., 25, 438 439.



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The Place of the Septuagint in the Church

Adrian Schenker’s 1995 article, “Septuaginta und christliche Bibel,”36offers a description of Origen’s ecclesiological argument that thechurches which used the Septuagint had access thereby to the authenticWord of God. Origen’s thinking on this topic is most clearly expressedin his response to Julius Africanus, who had doubts that the story ofSusanna is a translation from Hebrew or Aramaic, and thus wonderedif it is an authentic part of the Book of Daniel. Origen’s Letter to Africanus 8 reads as follows:

And, indeed, when we notice such things, are we then to suppress the copies in use in the churches, and to order the community to reject the sacredbooks in use among them… Are we to suppose that Providence (Pro,noia)which has given in the Sacred Scriptures edification for all the churches ofChrist, had no thought for those bought with a price (1 Cor 6:20; 7:23), forwhom Christ died (Rom 14:15); whom, although His Son, God who is love(1 Jn 4:9.16) spared not, but gave Him up for us all, that with Him Hemight freely give us all things (Rom 8:32)? In this case consider whether itwould not be well to remember the words, “You shall not remove the ancient landmarks which your predecessors have set” (Deut 19:14).37

The argument is this: from the beginning of the Church to Origen’sown day there had been authentic Christian churches which had noaccess to the Hebrew Bible, but which used only the Greek Scriptures.38For Origen it was unthinkable that God would have established Christian churches without giving them access at the same time to the Wordof God in an authentic form. Hearing the Word of God in the Scripturesis a constitutive element of the Church. Schenker follows the FrenchDominicans Pierre Benoit and Dominique Barthélemy in seeing in thispassage a very important patristic witness to the belief that the Septuagint used in the churches was an authentic form of the Bible, given byGod in his divine providence.39 This argument for the Septuagint is not

36 SCHENKER, Septuaginta und christliche Bibel.37 Origen, La Lettre à Africanus, 532.38 Here I will summarize and comment on SCHENKER, L’Ecriture Sainte, and the re

vised and expanded German form of that article: Die Heilige Schrift.39 Origen’s argument from providence for the status of the Septuagint as the authentic

Word of God in its own right was noted already by Paul Wendland in 1900 (WENDLAND, Zur ältesten Geschichte). Pierre Benoit discussed the argument in the 1950sand 1960s and it was treated more extensively by Dominique Barthélemy. See his articles: BARTHÉLEMY, L’Ancien Testament; La place de la Septante. A helpful recent




one based on usage and tradition alone. It is an ecclesiological argument touching on questions of God’s providence and the ecclesiologicalauthenticity of the early Greek speaking churches. It differs then, inimportant ways, from the argument for the Septuagint developed byMogens Müller in his 1996 book, The First Bible of the Church: A Plea forthe Septuagint.40 Müller’s argument is largely based on tradition, centering on the notion that the Septuagint was often used by the writers ofthe New Testament, and widely used in the early Church. Schenkerand Dominique Barthélemy call for the recognition of a Christian OldTestament in two columns: one containing the Septuagint of the firstcenturies of our era, the second the Hebrew text canonized by thescribes of Israel.

Schenker’s 2003 article (“Die Heilige Schrift subsistiert gleichzeitig”) shows that the canon of Scripture can refer not only to lists ofbooks but also to the textual form of individual books.41 Origen,Augustine, and Jerome, he argues, held that the Sacred Scriptures subsist simultaneously in several canonical forms.

With regard to St. Augustine, Schenker shows that he does not basehis notion of the authority of the Septuagint ultimately on the Letter ofAristeas, but rather on the Apostles, who cite the prophetic witness ofboth the Septuagint and the Hebrew texts.42 But Augustine goes onestep further than Origen. Unlike Origen, who seems to have believedthat the Septuagint alone was the Bible of the Church, Augustine nowargued, under the influence of Jerome, that the Hebrew original hadalso to be considered the true Word of God for the Church, and was not

discussion of Origen’s argument, with bibliography, is found in CARLETON PAGET,The Christian Exegesis.

40 MÜLLER, The First Bible of the Church. A more recent contribution provides a usefulsummary of his position, with a focus on canonical interpretation: MÜLLER, Die Septuaginta als Teil des christlichen Kanons. A Festschrift in Müller’s honor containsseveral additional contributions relating to this topic: LEMCHE, Kanon.

41 Schenker’s development of this latter theme is found in his 2001 (SCHENKER,L’Ecriture Sainte) and 2003 (SCHENKER, Die Heilige Schrift) articles stemming from asymposium on “The Interpretation of the Bible in the Church” in 1999 sponsored bythe Vatican’s Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. Schenker’s article was theresponse, given in French, to a paper by the Tübingen fundamental theologian MaxSeckler. Seckler had addressed problems related to the canon and raised the issue ofthe status of the Septuagint and Vulgate. Schenker’s 2003 article is an expandedGerman translation of the original 2001 response to Seckler. He has returned to thetopic in a 2011 essay; see SCHENKER, L’apport durable, 385 394.

42 Augustine, De civitate Dei, 641: “Wherefore I, too, in my small measure follow in thefootsteps of the apostles who themselves quoted prophetic testimonies from the Hebrew and from the Septuagint alike, and have concluded that both ought to betreated as authorities, since both the one and the other are divine and form a unity.”



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merely a text to be used in polemics with the Jewish community. In thisway he developed a notion of the textual plurality of the Bible which istrue to what we now know about the complex realities of the transmission of the biblical text. At times it is the Hebrew text that witnesses tothe earliest form, what might be called the original text, and at times itis the Septuagint or the Vetus Latina.

With regard to St. Jerome, Schenker shows that he too recognizesthe textual plurality of the Old Testament. He notes Jerome’s practice ofciting both the Hebrew and the Greek texts in the lemmata of his biblical commentaries.43 For Jerome it is largely apostolic precedent andChurch usage that give both the Hebrew and the Greek texts a place inthe life of the Church. For all three Church Fathers, the use of the Greekand Hebrew forms of the Old Testament by Jesus, the Apostles, and theearly churches is normative. Origen’s deeper insight is that the hearingof the Word of God is a constitutive element of an authentic church,and that in the Septuagint the early churches, through God’s providence, had access to the Word of God.44

The Book of Judith and the Pluriform Bible

What is particularly relevant for the texts of Judith is that Schenkergoes on to raise the question about the canonicity of other early translations such as the Peshitta, the Vulgate, the Ethiopic, Coptic, and Armenian. He suggests that Origen’s ecclesiological principle also applies tothese translations, that is, that in these translations the early churches,lacking access to the Hebrew text, had access nonetheless to the authentic Word of God. By this he means a form of the Bible in which theWord of God is truly transmitted, even if many nuances of the biblicaltext in its original languages may have been lost. We have seen aboveexamples in which nuances of the Greek texts of Judith are lost in the

43 Schenker (SCHENKER, Septuaginta und christliche Bibel, 461) writes: “Vergessen wirnicht: in allen seinen Bibelkommentaren bietet Hieronymus stets zwei Lemmata, zuerst die Übersetzung des hebr. Textes, dann jene der LXX. Warum? Weil er auch hierOrigenes folgt: die LXX ist die Bibel der Kirche.”

44 Origen at times recognizes that a reading in the Hebrew is correct but goes on tooffer a commentary on both the correct text and the text read in the churches, arguing that the secondary readings are the work of providence. On this practice seeCARLETON PAGET, The Christian Exegesis, 506, and HARL, La Septante et la Pluralitétextuelle. Harl shows that the Fathers, who were largely preachers and teachers,were well aware of textual diversity and errors in the texts of the Bible, but generallywelcomed any reading that could be used to advance the Gospel, whether it was anoriginal reading or clearly secondary.




Vulgate. If space allowed we might well have called attention to manymore such “lost in translation” phenomenon, such as the loss of Leitwörter, something documented by Barbara Schmitz in her careful studyof the Vulgate of Judith chapter 5.45

But whatever may be been lost in translation, the key theologicalclaim is that in so far as ancient translations such as the Vulgate or thePeshitta fulfill the same function as the Septuagint, providing access tothe authentic Word of God for a church that otherwise would not havethe Scriptures, they share in the qualities of canonicity and inspiration.For Schenker canonicity and inspiration are qualities that are realizedon different levels and which are predicated analogously. That is, canonicity and inspiration can be predicated not only of the 46 books of theCatholic Old Testament canon in their original Hebrew, Greek, andAramaic, but also of the great variety of textual forms of those booksfound in the ancient versions of the Bible. To say with Pierre Benoit thatinspiration is an analogous term is simply to say that these ancienttranslations, by analogy, may also be said to be both canonical andinspired, even when the textual forms of the books, the wording ofindividual passages, and the meaning conveyed to the reader, differsignificantly from the original.

Conleth Kearns and Maurice Gilbert have argued that both theoriginal Hebrew and the later Greek translation of Ben Sira are to beconsidered canonical and inspired.46 Similarly, with regard to the Bookof Judith, one can say that it is canonical and inspired, and that thisinspired book has been received in both the original Greek and the

45 SCHMITZ, Gedeutete Geschichte, 120.46 KEARNS, The Expanded Text. Kearns treats the question of inspiration in an appen

dix entitled, “The Divine Inspiration of the Added Passages,” 210 214, in which heargues that even the secondary glosses enjoy inspiration. GILBERT, L’Ecclesiastique.Gilbert contends that both the long and short forms of the text are canonical and inspired. I am grateful to Fr. Jeremy Corley for the reference to Gilbert. HARTMAN,Sirach in Hebrew and Greek, 444 seems to take a different view when he says that“the only ‘inspired’ text as such is the original manuscript of the inspired author.”But Hartman also argues that translations share in inspiration in as far as they reproduce what the original, inspired author wrote. At times Hartman speaks of canonicity, at times of inspiration, and the two related concepts are often difficult to define and to delineate. The topic of biblical inspiration, long neglected by biblicalscholars and theologians, has recently received new attention (see, e.g., FARKASFALVY, Biblical Foundations; and Inspiration and Interpretation) and it is to be hopedthat contemporary reflection on this topic will be informed by recent developmentsin the field of textual criticism occasioned by the discoveries at the Dead Sea. DirkKurt Kranz has recently published a book (KRANZ, Griechische Übersetzung) andseveral articles on the topic of patristic attitudes toward the Septuagint and the contemporary discussion of the inspiration of the Septuagint.



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Vulgate translation, while also adhering to the papal teaching of DivinoAfflante Spiritu that the original text “has more authority and greaterweight than even the very best translation, whether ancient or modern.” (DAS 16) Both forms of the text are authentic, with the originalGreek having more authority and greater weight.

Catholic tradition tends to have a high view of Church authority,and concomitantly of the ability of tradition to faithfully transmit,shape, and interpret Scripture. Marie Joseph Lagrange articulates something of this perspective with regard to the shaping of the biblicaltradition: “To translate, transcribe, develop a sacred work is certainlylicit and and perhaps the result of inspiration.”47 While Lagrange wasclearly referring to ancient Israelite tradents and scribes and their workin shaping the Pentateuch, his insight might also be extended to include even the work of St. Jerome, who clearly had an important role inshaping and developing the Book of Judith as it was received in theLatin Church. We might recall in this context the common theologicalopinion that some of the post biblical writings of the early Church enjoy the quality of inspiration, even though they are not part of the biblical canon.

Schenker’s understanding takes full account of the great textual diversity found in the Bibles received by the Church as canonical. Theunity to be found in this canon, so largely conceived, is that all of theseBibles present the true and authentic Word of the Lord. As RichardSimon said in 1699 in reference to the ancient biblical versions: “TheRoman Church receives all of these nations with their Bibles.”48

The canonical and inspired quality of the ancient translations doesnot extend to modern translations, Schenker argues, in that, unlike theancient and medieval churches, all contemporary churches have accessto the Hebrew and Greek texts of the Bible through the work of competent scholars who can read, interpret, and translate these texts. Theplace and function of translations is thus more limited in the modernperiod. They are not the only source from which the churches canknow the Word of God in an authentic form.

It is particularly in cases where there are diverse textual forms of abiblical book that the notion of locating canonicity and inspiration atthe level of the book or even of a whole canon, rather than at the levelof a manuscript or a particular textual form makes sense. Dieter Böhler,

47 “Traduire, transcrire, déveloper un ouvrage sacré est assurément licite et peut être lerésultat de l’inspiration.” LAGRANGE, Les sources du Pentateuque, 18.

48 “L’Eglise Romaine reçoit toutes ces nations avec leurs Bibles.” SIMON, Réponse, asquoted in BARTHÉLEMY, L’enchevêtrement, 37.




in speaking of the Hebrew and Greek Old Testaments, summarizes thisapproach thus:

Since the Church has always included books in the Canon rather than particular versions of them, both versions are, in principle, authentic editionsof the canonical book. When Jerome, on Pope Damasus’ instructions, waspreparing a uniform Latin version of the Bible, he departed from this fourhundred year old practice of the whole Church and went back to theproto Masoretic text. And so, despite Augustine’s initial objection, yet another tradition of the biblical text was recognized and accepted as inspired.Augustine holds, like the Evangelists before him, that both traditions of thetext are inspired and canonical. And so too does the Catholic Church.49

Just as the Church preserved four Gospels and not one, so with regardto the biblical canon, the tradition seems quite at home with a pluralityof witness to the Word of God. St. Leo the Great, in the preface to theMoralia on Job, describes his use of both the Vetus Latina and the newtranslation—the Vulgate, in these words:

I base my discussion on the new translation, but when the need to provesomething demands it, I take sometimes the new, sometimes the old aswitnesses; because the Apostolic See, over which I preside by God’s design,uses both, and also the labor of my study is supported by both.50

Schenker’s approach to biblical canonicity and inspiration outlinedabove seems consonant with this tradition of irreducible plurality.What is perhaps more important, this approach is true to what weknow about the transmission of the biblical text. Maurice Gilbert estimates that some 30% of the Catholic Old Testament is found in two orthree different, irreducible versions. The inclusive vision of the OldTestament canon articulated by Schenker and Böhler is shared by theSpanish textual critic N. Fernández Marcos, who suggests a practicalconsequence for the editing of Bibles today:

The procedure adopted by the Polyglot Bibles has something to teach ustoday: to edit the different ancient texts that circulated among the distinctcommunities and which constitute sensu pleno the Books, ta biblia.51

49 BÖHLER, Some Remarks, 4.50 Moralia in Job, Epistula Leandro 5, ed. M. Adriaen in CCL 143 (1979) 7, as quoted in

JEFFERY, A Chant Historian 2, 157; and in JEFFERY, Translating Tradition, 50.51 FERNÁNDEZ MARCOS, The Use of the Septuagint, 72.



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One of the benefits of this approach for theologies of inspiration is thatit helps one guard against fundamentalistic ways of speaking aboutinspiration, or of referring primarily to inspired manuscripts or autographs rather than books, as if the Word of God is primarily a text, oronly a written phenomenon. As Marguerite Harl writes,

The text is not normative in itself, it is so in the word that it bears… Ifsomething of a divinely inspired word is transmitted, it is by the text andby its gloss, by “l’Écriture” and by “la parole,” by a plurality of witnesses.52

The Status of the Vulgate and Neo Vulgata

I began with a reference to the decrees of the Council of Trent about theauthority of the Vulgate, and before concluding I will briefly return tothis topic.

On April 8, 1546 the Fourth Session of the Council of Trent approved decrees that adopted the Latin Vulgate, with all its parts (integros cum omnibus suis partibus), as sacred and canonical (sacris et canonicis), and therefore as “authentic” (authentica), declaring that when usedin public lectures, disputations, sermons and expositions, it is so to beheld. The term authentic here means simply “authoritative in the publicsphere of the Church.”53

As Dominique Barthélemy has argued, when the Church recognized the authenticity of the Vulgate for the Latin Church, it in no waydeclared previous forms of the Bible, or the Bibles in circulation in theother churches, to be inauthentic. It was rather a recognition of oneparticular form without prejudice to others. The limits of the juridicalauthority or authenticity of the Vulgate were clearly defined in PopePius XII’s encyclical Divino Afflante Spiritu, which affirmed that theVulgate, while “free from any error whatsoever in matters of faith andmorals,” has an authority based primarily on its long continued use,not for scientific reasons. The special authority or

authenticity of the Vulgate was not affirmed by the Council [of Trent] particularly for critical reasons, but rather because of its legitimate use in theChurches throughout so many centuries… and so its authenticity is notspecified primarily as critical, but rather as juridical (DAS 21).

52 HARL, La Septante et la Pluralité textuelle, 266.53 WICKS, Catholic Old Testament Interpretation, 627.




In the practical order this means that matters of doctrine in the LatinChurch should be determined not only on the basis of the Vulgate, butalso with recourse to “the original texts.”

The Nova Vulgata is a modern revision of the Vulgate which servesas a Latin typical edition for use in the Roman Rite. For the Book ofJudith, the Vulgate was not chosen as the base text, but rather the VetusLatina, as found in Codex Bernensis, a manuscript from the 10th century. By moving from the Vulgate to the Vetus Latina, the Churchmoves closer to the original Greek, while at the same time preserving alink with Christian Latinity. Critics of the Nova Vulgata, and of the2001 Vatican instruction Liturgiam Authenticam, notably the chant historian Peter Jeffery, have lamented the decision to purge the Vulgate ofits distinctive readings, citing the resultant loss of connection with therich liturgical and artistic tradition based on the Vulgate, and whatsome regard as the unnecessary harmonization of the received biblicalversions.54

Translating Judith: La Bible en ses Traditions

I conclude with a note about the new translation underway at the EcoleBiblique in Jerusalem, La Bible en ses Traditions (BEST). This moderntranslation is based on the original languages and uses the canon of theVulgate as its point of reference. It seems to be intended primarily, atleast initially, for personal rather than liturgical use. When the textualhistory warrants it, such as in sections of Jeremiah, for example, thetranslation will present two parallel columns, based on Hebrew andGreek, the general editors stating that one of their goals is to show thatthe Bible often has many meanings and even many texts.

In light of the position articulated above it seems that it would beentirely appropriate for the editors of the Book of Judith to present twotranslations, one from the Greek, and one from the Vulgate. In this waythe reader would be given access, as the Second Vatican Council demands, to a translation based on the original languages, while alsoheeding the council’s recognition that the Church “has always given aplace of honor to other Eastern translations and Latin ones especiallythe Latin translation known as the Vulgate” (DV 22). If this new Biblewere at some point to be used in a vernacular liturgy, then the translation based on the Greek would be appropriate. By including an integraltranslation of the Vulgate, the editors would not only heed the invita

54 JEFFERY, Translating Tradition.



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tion issued by St. Jerome’s preface to “Receive the widow Judith, example of chastity… not only for women, but even for men,” but wouldalso answer the call of Liturgiam Authenticam, that “effort should bemade to ensure that translations be conformed to that understanding ofbiblical passages which has been handed down by liturgical use and bythe tradition of the Fathers of the Church.” (LA 41). Here the presenceand availability of a modern annotated translation of the ancient Vulgate could still make a very useful contribution.

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Documents

A Pious Seductress (Studies in the Book of Judith) || The Ancient Versions of Judith and the Place of the Septuagint in the Catholic Church