Abstract: This article presents a problem of medieval French traductology applied to Bible
translations from Latin to the vernacular. The French translator tries to avoid the loss of information due to the supposed weakness of vernacular idioms, and hits on the idea of
proving his fidelity to the original sacred text. The comparison between Latin and vernacular
shows (1) alteration of the original dictum close to semantic neology; (2) new senses of
imported means from the classical languages; (3) rewriting of the original text revealing
the gap existing between the horizon of expectations of the ancient text and its translation.
