Pursuing Veritas

This post is part of an ongoing series on the Scriptures of Saint Patrick of Ireland.

This passage—often called a Vetus Latina reading[1]—actually does not exist in any period Old Latin manuscript. A significant shift in terminology—from discent loqui pacem to loquetur et plane—suggests a non-Vulgate version. Apparently, existing studies have conflated “non-Vulgate” with “Vetus Latina.” Even the Septuagint here does not give clear indicators as to where Patrick’s quotation came from. It is possible that he possessed a “lost” version of the text, that he was simply citing from memory, or that he made modifications to the form of this passage.

[1] O’Loughlin, Discovering Saint Patrick, 147.