The Latin Vulgate is the Latin Bible that Jerome translated between roughly AD 382 and 405, drawing on the Hebrew Old Testament and Greek New Testament. The Catholic Public Domain Version (CPDV) is a modern English translation of the Vulgate, completed by Ronald L. Conte Jr. in 2009 and placed in the public domain. The two are not the same kind of text: the Vulgate is the source; the CPDV is one of several English renderings of that source. If you want a freely available, public-domain English Bible that follows the Catholic biblical tradition — including the Deuterocanonical books — the CPDV is one of your few options.
This article explains both, what they’re for, and where they fit alongside translations made directly from Hebrew and Greek.
The Vulgate: a brief history
In the late 300s, the Christian church had a problem. Multiple Latin translations of Scripture were in circulation — the so-called Vetus Latina (Old Latin) versions — and they did not always agree. Pope Damasus I asked Jerome, the most accomplished Christian linguist of the era, to standardize the Latin text.
Jerome’s project ran from roughly AD 382 to 405. What he produced was not a single fresh translation but several efforts:
- A revision of the Old Latin Gospels against Greek manuscripts.
- A translation of the Old Testament from the Hebrew rather than from the Greek Septuagint — a controversial choice at the time (Augustine objected) but now widely seen as the right one. The Latin Psalms are an exception; Jerome’s psalter from the Hebrew never displaced the older Latin version in liturgy.
- A translation of the Deuterocanonical books (Tobit, Judith, etc.) that was less ambitious.
The result, gradually accepted across Western Christianity, became known as the Versio Vulgata — “the common version.” For more than a thousand years it was the Bible of Latin Christianity. It shaped Western theology, liturgy, art, and the vocabulary of English itself.
The Council of Trent (1546) declared the Vulgate the official Latin text for Catholic doctrine and liturgy. The Sixto-Clementine edition (1592) standardized the wording for the next four centuries. The Nova Vulgata (“New Vulgate”), issued by Pope John Paul II in 1979 and revised in 1986, is now the official Latin edition, updating Jerome’s text in light of modern scholarship and the Dead Sea Scrolls.
When someone says “the Vulgate,” they usually mean the Sixto-Clementine edition unless context makes clear otherwise.
What the CPDV is
The Catholic Public Domain Version is a modern English translation made by Ronald L. Conte Jr. and released between roughly 2005 and 2009. Several features make it distinctive:
- Source text. The CPDV is translated from the Sixto-Clementine Vulgate, not from Hebrew and Greek directly. It is, in that sense, a translation of a translation.
- Public domain. Conte placed the CPDV in the public domain. There are no licensing restrictions on reading, sharing, quoting, or distributing it.
- Includes the Deuterocanonical books. Tobit, Judith, 1 and 2 Maccabees, Wisdom, Sirach, Baruch, and the additions to Daniel and Esther — the seven additional books and various passages in the Catholic canon — are all there.
- Modern English. Plain, contemporary American English. Less elevated than the KJV; less casual than the NIV.
The CPDV is not the official Catholic English Bible — that role belongs to translations like the New American Bible Revised Edition (NABRE) in the United States, the Revised Standard Version Catholic Edition (RSV-CE) in many other English-speaking countries, and the Jerusalem Bible family. But the NABRE and RSV-CE are copyrighted; the CPDV is free.
How the CPDV reads
A few comparisons. From Genesis 1:1:
Vulgate (Sixto-Clementine): In principio creavit Deus caelum et terram. CPDV: In the beginning, God created heaven and earth. KJV: In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth. NIV: In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.
From John 1:14:
Vulgate: Et Verbum caro factum est, et habitavit in nobis: et vidimus gloriam ejus, gloriam quasi unigeniti a Patre plenum gratiæ et veritatis. CPDV: And the Word became flesh, and he lived among us, and we saw his glory, glory like that of an only-begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth. KJV: And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, (and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father,) full of grace and truth.
The CPDV’s English is generally clear and unadorned. Because it is following the Latin, it sometimes preserves Vulgate phrasings that Hebrew/Greek-based translations smooth or correct.
Why a Christian reader might use the CPDV
Several legitimate reasons.
You want to read the Bible in the form that shaped Western Christianity. For more than a thousand years, the Vulgate was the Bible for most Christians in the Latin West. Reading the CPDV alongside a Hebrew/Greek-based translation gives you a window into how passages sounded to Aquinas, Anselm, Bonaventure, Erasmus, and Luther (until he turned to the originals).
You want the Catholic canon in public-domain English. If you want to read Tobit, Judith, Wisdom, Sirach, or 1–2 Maccabees without buying a Bible, the CPDV is one of the few free options that includes them.
You are doing historical-theology work. Wherever the Vulgate’s wording shaped later theological debate (and it shaped a great deal of it), a CPDV reading gives you the same wording the disputants were arguing about.
You want a freely shareable Catholic-tradition Bible for apps, sermons, or print. Public domain status means there’s nothing to license.
Where the CPDV is less ideal
Be honest about the trade-offs. The CPDV is a translation of a translation. The Vulgate itself is excellent, but it is a 4th-century Latin reading of the Hebrew and Greek. Some passages have famously contested Vulgate renderings — most notably the Hebrew word translated cornutam (“horned”) in Exodus 34:29, which the Vulgate uses for Moses’ face. Modern translations render the underlying Hebrew root as radiating light. The CPDV, faithful to the Vulgate, says Moses’ face was horned (with a translator’s note).
For day-to-day reading and study, most readers will be better served by a translation made directly from Hebrew and Greek. For the historical and ecclesial reasons above, the CPDV remains a worthwhile second translation.
The CPDV in The Context Bible
The Context Bible includes the CPDV alongside 20 other English translations and 8 Spanish translations. You can switch between the CPDV and any Hebrew/Greek-based translation passage by passage — useful for seeing where the Vulgate’s wording shaped Western theology and where modern translations restore the original. Download the app free or read in your browser.
Every passage in the CPDV — like every passage in every translation we include — comes with the historical context, the early church reception, the biblical debates, the cross-references, and the original-language word study that help you read it well.
“Thy word is a lamp unto my feet, and a light unto my path.” — Psalm 119:105 KJV
