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'STAND FAST IN THE FAITH'

(A Weekly Instruction specially written for the N.Z. Tablet by Ghimel.) THE CHURCH’S ATTITUDE TOWARDS THE ' SACRED SCRIPTURES. It is often taught and more often insinuated by Protestant lecturers that the Church has no love for the Sacred Scriptures (she really fears the light), that the Popes have never done much to encourage the study of the Bible, and that the Popes in particular who lived just before the Reformation came to dispel the darkness (same old darkness) of the Middle Ages were the vigilant enemies of God’s Word. Serious charges, these but lightly made and made too often with a total disregard of the solemn command found in the first pages of the Sacred Book itself ; ‘Thou shalt not bear false witness.’ Let us take up the twice-told tale and get at some of the facts. (1) The art of printing was invented by a Catholic, John Yon Gutenburg, about the year 1440. (2) The first book printed was printed largely with the help of the Archbishop of Mainz. (3) ‘ The first book sent out by the press was the Latin Bible. No book was more frequently printed ’ (so writes Schaff, a great Protestant authority). Latin was naturally chosen because that language was then the ordinary means of instruction and communication. It occupied the same place in religious life that French now occupies in the diplomatic world, and that German until recent events was fast acquiring in the scientific world. (4) Printing came In about the year 1440 and the Protestant revolt was in train, let us say, by 1500 (to give it a very early date). In other words, Protestantism was simply not in existence during this period of GO years: the Pope and his bishops could go on their way, jealously and tyrannically keeping lie Bible out of the hands of their flocks, lest they should learn too much. Well, what happened? Let. me quote some non-Catholic historians. Professor W. F. Moulton, a scholar of note and one of the revisers of the Protestant Revised Version of the New Testament, writes: ‘Of the Latin Bible alone, as many as ninety-one editions had been issued before the close of the fifteenth century. Within twenty years of this date —i.e., 1455, the printing of Gutenburg’s Bible—the invention had found a home in more than a hundred European cities ; and by the end of the century more than a thousand presses were at work. The Continental presses, almost in the earliest years of their existence, teem with editions of the Bible in different languages. Before 1477, four editions of the German Bible had been given to the world; ten more were issued during the forty years which followed’ (11 tutor if of the hnglish Jiible). Moulton’s estimate is below the mark, for there were one hundred and eleven Latin Bibles printed before the year 1500; but let it pass. Only note that these were not copies but editions of the Latin Bible, and an edition would easily run into anything up to a thousand copies. And we ask does all this activity look as if the Popes were fully determined not to let the people get hold of the Bible—for, you know, Popes, especially Popes in those dark ages, have unlimited power, and are endowed with diabolical cunning. Let me quote also the Anglican Dean Maitland, who deals with the hoary old story that Luther up to his twentieth year did not know of the very existence of the Bible, and that it was by chance he discovered one (chained up, of course) in 1503: ‘ lo say nothing of parts of the'Bible, or of books whose place is uncertain, we know of at least twenty different editions of the whole Latin Bible printed in Germany only, before Luther was born. These had issued from Augsburg, Strassburg, Cologne, Ulm, Mainz (two), Basle (four), Nuremburg (ten), and were dispersed through Germany, I repeat, before Luther was born ; and I may add that before that event there was a printing-press at work in this very town of Erfurt, where, more than twenty years

after/ he is said to have made his “ discovery.” And yet ... we find a young irfan, who had received “a very liberal education, ’•’ who “had made great proficiency in his studies at Magdeburg, Eisenach, and Erfurt, and who, nevertheless, did not know what a Bible was, simply because “the Bible was unknown in those days.” ’ (Dark Ages, p. 506.) Another writer, Coppinger, informs us (giving dates and places) that before Luther was born (1483) fifty-' eight editions of the Latin Bible alone had been printed, that before his famous discovery of the Bible one hundred and twenty-nine editions had been issued, and of these, thirty-eight editions belonged ■ to Germany. Again we note that these were editions, not copies. Copies of the Bible must have been as numerous their, in proportion to the population, as German soldiers are to-day. „ Why, the British Museum alone now possesses twenty-seven Catholic editions of the Bible, published before Luther’s translation (1522, 1534).

This article text was automatically generated and may include errors. View the full page to see article in its original form.I whakaputaina aunoatia ēnei kuputuhi tuhinga, e kitea ai pea ētahi hapa i roto. Tirohia te whārangi katoa kia kitea te āhuatanga taketake o te tuhinga.
Permanent link to this item
Hononga pūmau ki tēnei tūemi

https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/periodicals/NZT19150708.2.12

Bibliographic details
Ngā taipitopito pukapuka

New Zealand Tablet, 8 July 1915, Page 11

Word count
Tapeke kupu
842

'STAND FAST IN THE FAITH' New Zealand Tablet, 8 July 1915, Page 11

'STAND FAST IN THE FAITH' New Zealand Tablet, 8 July 1915, Page 11

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