THE CATHOLIC CHURCH AND THE BIBLE.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume I, Issue 42, 14 February 1874, Page 13

THE CATHOLIC CHURCH AND THE BIBLE.

[The Rev. Kenelm Vaughan having been savagely attacked by a -number of correspondents in the ' Manchester Examiner ' on the •übject of the Catholic Church and the Bible, ably and temperately defends himself in tho same paper. His reply contains in a small compass a refutation of the often exploded ideas instilled into many non-Catholics that the Catholic Church forbids to her people the Holy Scriptures, and is well deserving of careful reading. It is as follows :— *< Bbpobk I attempt to reply to the four letters directed agaiust me in your papers of the sth and 6th inst., allow me to lay down certain general principles upon which the Catholic Church has always acted in her legislation as to the Holy Scriptures. 1. The Church does not permit the sacred Scriptures, divinely ■committed to her care by the Apostles, to be mistranslated, misused Ift the ignorant, or perverted by false teachers. 2. In her desire to maintain the integrity of Scripture, and purity of its entire text, the Church condemns and destroys erroneous, heretical, or falsified copies of the same. 3. At certain times, when, for example, the Jews rose in Spain, the Lollards in England, the Waldenses in Savoy, and the Albigenses in France, the Church has been compelled to legislate, not against the right use of Scripture, but in order to preserve its purity and integrity Jfrom perversion. These are the three chief principles which govern the action of the Church in her legislation on the use of Scripture. I will now take up, one by one, and expose Mr 13 rwick's so-called 1 list of facts.' 1 will show that some are simply fictitious, and the rest, so far from disproving what I maintained in my last letter— -viz., 1 that the Catholic Church has never forbidden the use of the Holy Scriptures to her subjects,' substantiate what I affirmed. • Fact I.' Untrue, Pope Gregory VII. did not condemn • the ' general freedom allowed to read the Bible in the vulgar tongue,' nor did he make the slightest reference to this subject. In the letter to Wratislaus he speaks only of the hiddenness of the meaning of some passages of Holy Scripture, and of the wisdom of God in so •ordaining. • Fact 2.' The letter of Innocent HI. contains no prohibition against reading the Scriptures-; on the contrary, he admonishes the faithful to read them, but in the words of the Apostle, 'ad sobrietatem.' ' Fact 3.' Inexact. The Council of Toulouse (a.b. 2229) allowed the people to read portions of the Bible in the vernacular, such as the Gospels and the Epistles, the Book of Psalms, &o>, &c, but restricted the use of the whole Bible. This decree was made for the Province ef Toulouse only, and to defeat the efforts of the Waldenses, who used the Scriptures for propagating error. When, by the preaching of St. Dominic, the Manichean heresy ceased, then ceased likewise the enforcement of these laws. The history of those times of religious -anarchy explains the stern necessity for Buch a strict legislation. • Fact 4.' The Council of Terracona forbade the circulation of the Bible in Somanico only, and for this reason ; because in ihose days the converted Jews taught their children the Mosaic laws and ceremonies out of the Bible, for the express purpose of leading them back into Judaism. 'Fact 57 Untrue. The Syned of Oxford (a.d. 1408) merely ordained that no one should, of his own authority, translate into the English or other tongue any text of the Holy Scriptures. It did not forbid English translations published with authority ; for there already existed several in use, such as those of Venerable Bede, St. Aidan, &c, ■&c. The Synod was legislating only agaiust false and unworthy translations, such as that of Wycliffe. ' Fact 6.' The words of Cardinal Ximenes, quoted by Mr Urwick, I cannot find. If they exißt, they do not prove that the Catholic Church prohibits the Scriptures. They are simply an opinion of one of her prelates. Here, I may add, that this cardinal published tho first Polyglot edition of the Holy Scriptures — the Complutensian, printed at Aleala in 1523. ' Fact 7.' Untrue. Catholic Bibles were never burnt in the reign of Queen Mary, or in any other reign. If any were thrown into tho flames, they were editions unauthorized and perrerted. By this very fact, which I am not lauding, Catholics showed how they condemned wilful alterations of the Sacred Scriptures ; like unto the Jews, who burnt every copy of the Scriptures that either was deficient in a single letter, or contained one letter too much. ' Fact B. Irrelevant. The necessity of a license for reading the Holy Scriptures was not a prohibition to read them ; it was but a •check or caution against the popular abuse of the Bible, so rife in those days, when men entered into the Tabernacle of Holy Scriptures, not to study and adore the mind of fctod, but to fabricate from the t words of eternal truth weapons wherewith to war against the Author of Truth and the Home of Truth — the Church of God. ' Fact 9.' Here Mr Urwick quotes no authority. If the words ■were uttered, they do not prove that the Church forbids tho reading of Sciipture. Tney only show that Cardinal Hosius judged it expedient that those who were under his jurisdiction should receive the Word of God from sermons and spiritual books of instruction rather than be led to seek it themselves iv those versions of the Holy Scriptures which, having become contaminated by evil hands, were no longer the pure source of Divine Wisdom. He also expressed himself to be of the same mind as St. Chrysostoua, who said that to cast the Sacred Scriptures to the carnal and maacious was like throwing holy things to dogs and pearls to swine. ' Fact 10.' The Jerusalem Synod did not forbid the reading of the Bible, but permitted its use with discrimination. 'Fact IX.' The famous bull of Clement XL does not forbid the circulation of the Holy Scriptures, but merely condemns their indiscriminate use by persons unqualified for such reading— that is, tho unlearned and unstable, of whom St. Peter speaks. Even Fuller, Hey, and many other Protestant divines, have honestly acknowledged the danger of such indiscriminate reading.

' Fact 12/ Quesnel had merely published a translation, not of the Bible, bat of the Now Testament, appending to it his own note*. Now, the Church condemned his interpretations as erroneous, and not the use of any faithful translation of Scripture, as Mr. TTrwick wouLl lead us to understand. Indeed, there were then many French edition* in common use, such as those by De Viquay, Corbin, Atnelotte, De Sacy, and Bishop Godeaa. * Fact 13.' Even if it be true that Pope Benedict XIV. withheld his sanction for a new translation of the Bible into Persian, it was only because the translator was unqualified for the work, and because there existed already two Persian translations, ona by a Citholio of Jaffa, and the other by Jerome Xavier, also a Catholic. Here I may add that the great majority of foreign versions of Scripture hare bean done by Catholics, mostly Missionaries, and that the Protestant Bible Societies have availed themselves largely of their labors. 1 Facts 14, 17, 18.' Irrelevant. In the encyclicals referred to here by Mr. Urwick it is the Pro test aht Bible Societies that are condemned, and not the reading of the Scriptures. And why does the Church condemn these societies ? Not because she is ill-disposed against the personal members, or against the circulation of the Holy Scriptures, as if, as Protestants say, subversive of the Catholics faith, but because the editions which they publish ara either defective or erroneous. Such Bibles are the G-ospel of man rather than the Gojpel of God. 1. They are defective. They suppress on principle, without any justifiable motive, eight entire books, besides three chapters in the book of Esther, and three in the book of Daniel, all of which belong to the Word of G-od. Many Protestant Bishops and divines refused to join the Protestant Bible Societies, for the very reason that they suppressed even books out of Which lessons are app stated to be real in the Anglican service. 2. That their versions are unfaithful it abundantly shown in 1 Ward's Errata of the Protestant Bible.' 3. The principles of these societies, to use the words of a late Protestant Bishop, tend to shake the foundations on which belief in the inspiration of Holy Scripture rests. • Fact 15.* False. In that very year, when Mr. tTrwick pretends that the Holy Scriptures were forbidden in Ireland, there were published in Ireland cheap editions of the New Testament, with the approbation of the Catholic Archbishop of Dublin, for general distribution in the schools, hospitals, and prisons. In the following years, when the clergy of Ireland, Mr. Urwick pretends, ' were doing their utmost to put a stop to the circulation of the Scriptures,' there were from the year 1820 to 1854, as many as forty-six various editions of the Bible, or parts of the Bible, brought out in Ireland alone, mostly by Catholics Bishops. 1 Fact 16.' False. Pope Pius VII. never prohibited the circulation of the Scriptures : but in the bull referred to by Mr. Urwick he expressly commends the Archbishop of Mohilew for exhorting his people to the reading of Holy Scripture, so long as the regulations of the Church were adhered to. And he refers the Archbishop to the letter of Pius VI., where ho says that ' the Scriptures ought to be left open to all to draw from them purity of faith and, of morals. 1 Thus much for Mr. Urwick's list of facts. So far from proving that the Church takes the Scriptures from her people, they show that she is the faithful guardian of Holy Scripture, and only fulfils her sabred duty in preventing her pecple from being led into error by false and corrupt rendering of the sacred text. That Protestants should systematically misinterpret the actions of the Church in this matter is indeed incomprehensible. The Church debars from Holy Communion persons ' not discerning the body of the Lord,' lest they may ' eat and drink damnation ' to themselves. Would it be right to say that she thereby prohibits to her people the bread of eternal life? But thus Protestants argue. For because the Church has, from time to time, been compelled to make certain disciplinary laws with regard to the use of Scripture, they raise throughout the country a cry that the Church takes away the Bible from her people — that her motto i-s as Mr Urwick woul I have us believe, 'Halo the Scriptures' — 'Burn them.' Is not this most unjust ? I have sufficiently defended my proposition, which in looking , over Bishop Milner's work, I find is also his. IJe says thac ' thj ! Church has never interdicted the use of the Bible to the laity, as Protestants say.' I will therefore now leave it to the public to decide wlu is an instance of ' gross ignorance or reckless ignoring the truth,' who it is who is throwing dust in the eyes of the Manchester poople— ilr Urwick or myself ? This letter is already too long. But another time I should like to prove the truth of the assertion ironically stated iv your paper by ' W. E. It.,' that ' the Church of Rome has always been the best agent in the toorld for disseminating the Word of God.' "