n o i s e i s a r t

The term “celt” came about from what was very probably a copyist’s error in many medieval manuscript copies of Job 19:24 in the Latin Vulgate Bible, which became enshrined in the authoritative Sixto-Clementine printed edition of 1592; however the Codex Amiatinus, for example, does not contain the mistake.[1] In the passage: Stylo ferreo, et plumbi lamina, vel certe sculpantur in silice (from Job 19:24, “Let it indeed be carved with an iron pen on a plate of lead or in stone”), the certe (“indeed”) was spelled as celte by mistake, which would have to be the ablative of a non-existent third declension noun celtes or celtis, the ablative case giving the sense “with/by a celt”.