Properly to understand its value as a version of the inspired writings, it is necessary to go back to the original history, and discover through what precedent forms they have come into English.

All the canonical books of the Old Testament were written in Hebrew.  The apocryphal books were produced either in a corrupted dialect, or in Greek.

THE SEPTUAGINT.—­Limiting our inquiry to the canonical books, and rejecting all fanciful traditions, it is known that about 286 or 285 B.C., Ptolemy Philadelphus, King of Egypt, probably at the instance of his librarian, Demetrius Phalereus, caused seventy-two Jews, equally learned in Hebrew and in Greek, to be brought to Alexandria, to prepare a Greek version of the Hebrew Scriptures.  This was for the use of the Alexandrian Jews.  The version was called the Septuagint, or translation of the seventy.  The various portions of the translation are of unequal merit, the rendering of the Pentateuch being the best; but the completed work was of great value, not only to the Jews dispersed in the countries where Greek had been adopted as the national language, but it opened the way for the coming of Christianity:  the study of its prophecies prepared the minds of men for the great Advent, and the version was used by the earlier Christians as the historic ground of their faith.

The books of the New Testament were written in Greek, with the probable exception of St. Matthew’s Gospel, which, if written in Hebrew, or Aramaean, was immediately translated into Greek.

Contemporary with the origin of Christianity, and the vast extension of the Roman Empire, the Latin had become the all-absorbing tongue; and, as might be expected, numerous versions of the whole and of parts of the Scriptures were made in that language, and one of these complete versions, which grew in favor, almost superseding all others, was called the Vetus Itala.

THE VULGATE.—­St. Jerome, a doctor of the Latin Church in the latter part of the fourth century, undertook, with the sanction of Damasus, the Bishop of Rome, a new Latin version upon the basis of the Vetus Itala, bringing it nearer to the Septuagint in the Old Testament, and to the original Greek of the New.

This version of Jerome, corrected from time to time, was approved by Gregory I., (the Great,) and, since the seventh century, has been used by the Western Church, under the name of the Vulgate, (from vulgatus—­for general or common use.) The Council of Trent, in the sixteenth century, declared it alone to be authentic.

Throughout Western Europe this was used, and made the basis of further translations into the national languages.  It was from the Vulgate that Aldhelm made his Anglo-Saxon version of the Psalter in 706; Bede, his entire Saxon Bible in the same period; Alfred, his portion of the Psalms; and other writers, fragmentary translations.

As soon as the newly formed English language was strong enough, partial versions were attempted in it:  one by an unknown hand, as early as 1290; and one by John de Trevisa, about one hundred years later.