852 



VULCANISTS VULGATE. 



the coast of Portugal, during a voyage to Spain, he 

 succeeded so well in painting the storm- which 

 caused his misfortune, that he dedicated himself 

 entirely to sem pieces, on his return home. About 

 this time, the Earl of Nottingham, lord high admiral 

 of England, being desirous of preserving the details 

 of the defeat of the Spanish armada, in which he bore 

 so conspicuous a part, bespoke a suit of tapestry 

 descriptive of each day's engagement. For this 

 tapestry Vroon was employed to furnish designs ; 

 and the tapestry for years excited great admiration 

 in the house of lords, where it was placed. The 

 conflagration of 1834 ntused its total loss. 



VULCANISTS; those geological theorists who 

 maintain that the earth was at first in a state of 

 igneous fusion, and that it gradually cooled, and 

 became covered only at a subsequent period. Ac- 

 cording to the Vulcanists. the land was raised up 

 by an internal force ; the irregularities which diver- 

 sify its surface are the effects of volcanic eruptions ; 

 and the transpoi ted soils have been formed by the 

 disintegrations of the higher grounds. The Nep- 

 timists.oti the other hand, maintain that the earth 

 was originally in a state of aqueous solution. See 

 Geology. 



VULCANUS ; a god of the ancients, who pre- 

 sided over fire, and was the patron of all artists 

 who worked iron and metals. He was the son of 

 Juno alone, who, in this, wished to imitate Jupiter, 

 who had produced Minerva from his brains. Ac- 

 cording to Homer, he was son*of Jupiter and Juno ; 

 and the mother was so disgusted with the deformi- 

 ties of her son, that she threw him into the sea as 

 soon as born, where he remained for nine years. 

 According to the more received opinion, Vulcan 

 was educated in heaven with the rest of the gods, 

 but his father kicked him down from Olympus, 

 when he attempted to deliver his mother, who had 

 been fastened by a golden chain for her insolence. 

 He was nine days in passing from heaven upon 

 earth, and fell in the island of Lemnos. He broke 

 his leg by the fall, and ever after remained lame of 

 one foot. He fixed his residence in Lemnos, where 

 he built himself a palace, and raised forges to work 

 metals. Bacchus intoxicated him, and prevailed 

 upon him to come to Olympus, where he was recon- 

 ciled to his parents. Vulcan has been celebrated 

 by the ancient poets, for the ingenious works and 

 automatical figures which he made. It is said, 

 that, at the request of Jupiter, he made the first 

 woman that ever appeared on earth, well known 

 under the name of Pandora. (See Pandora) The 

 Cyclops of Sicily were his ministers and attendants ; 

 and with him they fabricated, not only the thunder- 

 bolts of Jupiter, but also arms for the gods and the 

 most celebrated heroes. His forges were supposed 

 to be under mount Etna, in the island of Sicily, as 

 well as in every part of the earth where there were 

 volcanoes. Venus was the wife of Vulcan. Her 

 infidelity is well known. Her amours with Mars 

 were discovered by Phoebus, and exposed to the 

 gods by her own husband. The worship of Vulcan 

 was well established, particularly in Egypt, at 

 Athens, and at Rome. He was represented cover- 

 ed with sweat, blowing, with his nervous arm, the 

 fires of his forges. His breast was hairy, and his 

 forehead was blackened with smoke. Some repre- 

 sent him lame and deformed, holding a hammer, 

 raised in' the air, ready to strike; while, with the 

 other hand, he turns with pincers a thunderbolt on 

 his anvil. He appears, on some monuments, with a 

 long beard, dishevelled hair, half naked, and a small 



round cap on his head, while he holds a hammer 

 and pincers in his hand. The Egyptians represent- 

 ed him under the figure of a monkey. Vulcan re- 

 ceived many other names, among which the most 

 common is Mulciber. He was father of Cupid bv 

 Venus. Cicero speaks of more than one deity of 

 the name of Vulcan. One he calls son of Coelus, and 

 father of Apollo by Minerva. The second he men- 

 tions as son of the Nile, and called Phthas by the 

 Egyptians. The third was son of Jupiter and Juno, 

 and fixed his residence in Lemnos ; and the fourth, 

 who built his forges in the Lipari islands, was son 

 of Menalius. 



VULGAR ERA; the common era used by 

 Christians, dating from the birth of Christ. See 

 Epoch. 



VULGAR FRACTIONS. See Fractions. 



VULGATE; the name of the Latin translation 

 of the Bible, which has, in the Catholic church, 

 official authority, and which the council of Trent, 

 in their fourth session, in May 27, 154G, declared 

 " shall be held as authentic, in all public lectuies, 

 disputations, sermons, and expositions ; and that 

 no one shall presume to reject it, under any pre- 

 tence whatsoever." Even in the early period of 

 the church, a Latin translation of the Old Testa- 

 ment existed, called Itala, made after the Septu- 

 agint. (q. v.) St Jerome found that this translation 

 was not always accurate, and made a new Latin 

 translation from the Hebrew, which however, was 

 only partially adopted by the church, about the 

 year 387. In the sequel, the translations were 

 combined, and formed the Vulgate, so called. This 

 grew up between the eighth and sixteenth centu- 

 ries. Only the Psalms were retained in the ancient 

 form. That its Latin phraseology is impure, if the 

 Latin of the classical Roman authors is taken as 

 the standard, is not, in all cases, an objection. 

 New ideas require new terms ; but the Vulgate 

 does not give, in many passages, the sense of the 

 original, and does not correspond to the present 

 advanced state of philology and archaeology. Many 

 Catholics have often represented the necessity of a 

 new translation, as much of the old one was made 

 when scriptural philology was in a very low state ; 

 and all of them admit that the church does not 

 consider the Vulgate as a perfect translation, but 

 only as the most satisfactory of all the Latin edi- 

 tions. Cardinal Bellarmin maintains that all which 

 the counsel of Trent says, is, that the Vulgate 

 contains no errors which affect points of faith or 

 morals : he does not pretend that it is without 

 fault. The Protestants, however, were of opinion 

 that the Vulgate was to be absolutely rejected, if 

 they desired to rest their faith on the Bible. But 

 what edition of the Vulgate was to be adopted by 

 the Catholics, after the decree mentioned above, 

 became a question, because the editions were vari- 

 ous, and differed essentially. A committee was 

 appointed to prepare a proper text ; but, the pope 

 not liking it, it was abandoned. Pius IV., Pius V., 

 and Sixtus V., then took the greatest pains to form 

 a correct Vulgate. The latter published his edi- 

 tion in 1590, with anathemas against any who 

 should venture to make changes ; but this edition 

 had scarcely appeared, when pope Clement VIII. 

 published a new one, in 1592, accompanied by a 

 similar bull. Another improved edition was print- 

 ed in 1593. The differences in these editions are 

 very considerable. The decree of the council above 

 mentioned, gives the list of the canonical books, as 

 given in our article Bible. St Jerome inserted, it 



