The Vulgate, also called Biblia Vulgata, or the Latin Vulgate, is a late-4th-century Latin translation of the Bible, done by St. Jerome. St. Jerome, also known as Jerome of Stridon, was an early Christian priest, confessor, theologian, translator, and historian. He was born in 347 AD and died in 419/420 at Bethlehem, Palestine.
Pope
Damasus I (Damasus of Rome, reign, from October 366 to December 11, 384)
commissioned Saint Jerome to produce a standard Latin translation of the Bible.
There were many different Latin versions of the Bible at that time. But Pope
Damasus I wanted the church to have a standard version to promote universal
doctrine.
St. Jerome translated the
Bible into Latin between A.D. 383 and 404. He translated the gospels from
Greek. He also corrected or revised some of the existing translations. He
translated the Old Testament from Hebrew. In 406, he completed his translation
of the Bible into Latin. Jerome’s Latin Bible is known as the Vulgate because
he used the common, or vulgar, language of early mediaeval times.
The Latin phrase “Coram Deo” appears in Psalm 55:13 of the Vulgate. The verse is found in Psalm 56:13 in modern English translations.