64 BAUMAN RARE BOOKS 84BIBLE. The Holie Bible Faithfully Translated into English, out of the Authentical Latin… Douai, 1609-10. Two volumes. Quarto, contemporary vellum rebacked in vellum at an early date, ink writing on spines and front boards, custom slipcase, box. $25,000 1609-10 First Edition Of The First Roman Catholic Old Testament In English Scarce first edition of the first Roman Catholic translation of the Old Testament into English, from the Latin Vulgate. “The Douai Bible is, as it professes to be, a literal translation of the Vulgate, and in some places more accurately hands down the very words of the [biblical] writers than any English translation then existing” (Dore, 316-17). “This version of the Old Testament… came from the same hands as the Rheims New Testament of 1582” (Darlow & Moule, 129), translated by “religious refugees who carried their faith and work abroad. Since the English Protestants used their vernacular translations, not only as the foundation of their own faith but as siege artillery in the assault on Rome, a Catholic translation became more and more necessary in order that the faithful could answer, text for text, against the ‘intolerable ignorance and importunity of the heretics of this time.’ The chief translator was Gregory Martin… Not only was [Martin] steeped in the Vulgate, he was, every day, involved in the immortal liturgical Latin of his church. The resulting Latinisms added a majesty to his English prose, and many a dignified or felicitous phrase was silently lifted by the editors of the King James Version, and thus passed into the language” (Great Books and Book Collectors, 108). Lack of funds and “our poore estate in banishment” prevented the publication of this two-volume Old Testament until 1609-1610. Darlow & Moule 231. Text just occasionally embrowned, with infrequent light foxing; last 1-3 letters of bottom 19 lines supplied in an early pencil on page 1079 of the first volume; last 20 leaves of Volume II with expert cleaning, later pastedowns with free endpapers restored and preserved. Expected light soiling to contemporary vellum.
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