Page "Vulgate" Paragraph 14

As Jerome completed his translations of each book of the Bible, he recorded his observations and comments in an extensive correspondence with other scholars ; and these letters were subsequently collected and appended as prologues to the Vulgate text for those books where they survived.

In these letters, Jerome described those books or portions of books in the Septuagint that were not found in the Hebrew as being non-canonical: he called them apocrypha.

Jerome's views did not, however, prevail ; and all complete manuscripts and editions of the Vulgate include some or all these books.

Of the Old Testament texts not found in the Hebrew, Jerome translated Tobit and Judith anew from the Aramaic ; and from the Greek, the additions to Esther from the Septuagint, and the additions to Daniel from Theodotion.

Other books ; Baruch, Letter of Jeremiah, Wisdom, Ecclesiasticus, 1 and 2 Maccabees are variously found in Vulgate manuscripts with texts derived from the Old Latin ; sometimes together with Latin versions of other texts found neither in the Hebrew Bible, nor in the Septuagint, 4 Esdras, the Prayer of Manasses and Laodiceans.

Their style is still markedly distinguishable from Jerome's.

In the Vulgate text, Jerome's translations from the Greek of the additions to Esther and Daniel are combined with his separate translations of these books from the Hebrew.