Prepared almost entirely by Jerome, the Vulgate was for centuries the definitive Latin version of the Bible in the West

In the fourth century Pope Damasus commissioned the preparation of a standard Latin text of the Bible to replace several competing versions. Most of the work on this text was done by Jerome. The text of the entire Bible in a standard Latin translation was in use by the sixth century. In 1546 the Council of Trent (1545-1563) declared the Vulgate to be the only normative Latin text of the Bible for the Roman Catholic Church.