2. Forging New Weapons
THE Roman church had discovered that the root of her troubles lay in the reading of the Bible by the laity, and had opposed it with all the power at her command. But she finally realized that her open war on the Scriptures had aroused suspicion that her life and doctrines were out of harmony with God’s word, and could not endure the light of an open Bible.
To allay such feelings she must make it appear that she was not opposed to the Scriptures, but only to the “erroneous Protestant Bible.” But how could such an impression be made, when that Bible was a faithful translation of the Hebrew and Greek texts, in which the Scriptures were originally written? Then, too, the Protestants had, at that time, some of the most able Hebrew and Greek scholars in all Christendom.
Providence had brought the Reformers in
contact with some of the best sources of Bible manuscripts: (1) When the Turks
captured Constantinople in 1453, many of the Greek scholars fled to the West,
bringing with them their valuable manuscripts from the East where Christianity
originated, and then Greek and Hebrew learning revived in the West. (See
“History of the English Bible,” by W. F. Moulton. pp. 34-36). (2) With this
influx from the East came also the Syrian Bible, used by the early church at
Antioch in Syria (Acts 11: 26), which was translated directly from the Hebrew
and Greek manuscripts long before the Massoretic (O.T.) text, and is the oldest
known Bible manuscript (unless it should be the one lately discovered by Chester
Beatty. (Copies of the Syriac Bible were later found among the Syrian
Christians at Malabar.
Translations direct from the original languages in which the Holy Scriptures were written, and comparisons with ancient sources, by men of high scholarly ability and sterling integrity, gave the Protestants a perfectly reliable Bible. In spite of these plain facts, the Catholic authorities had to do something to turn the minds of their people away from the Protestant Bible, so widely distributed. They therefore advanced the claim that Jerome’s Latin Vulgate translation was more correct than any copy we now have of the original Hebrew and Greek texts. We shall now examine this claim.
The Latin Vulgate Bible
At the Council of Trent (1545-1563), in the fourth session, the second Decree, in 1546, they decided that the Latin Vulgate should be the standard Bible for the Roman church. But then they discovered a curious fact, that during the 1050 years from the time Jerome brought out his Latin Vulgate Bible in
405 A.D., until John Gutenberg printed it in 1455, it had been copied so many times, mostly by monks, and so many errors had crept in, that no one knew just what was the actual rendering of the original Vulgate. The learned Roman Catholic professor, Dr. Johann Jahn says of it:
“The universal admission of this version throughout the vast extent of the Latin church multiplied the copies of it, in the transcription of which it became corrupted with many errors. . . . Cardinal Nicholas, about the middle of the twelfth century, found ‘tot exemplaria quot codices’ (as many copies as manuscripts).” “introduction to the 0ld Testament.” Sec. 62,63. (Quoted in “History of Romanism,” Dr. John Dowling, ed. of 1871, P. 486.)
The Catholic Encyclopedia says of the Latin Vulgate:
“From an early day the text of the Vulgate began to suffer corruptions, mostly through the copyists who introduced familiar readings of the Old Latin or inserted the marginal glosses of MSS. which they were transcribing.” - Vol. XV, p. 370, art. “Versions” “The Vulgate.”
The Council of Trent having made
Jerome’s Latin “Vulgate the standard text,” (See Cardinal Gasquet’s article in
the Forum for August, 1926, p. 203), it must now determine which of the
hundreds of copies (all differing) was the correct “Vulgate.” A commission was
therefore appointed to gather materials so as to “restore
Pope Sixtus V undertook this work of
revision, and to make sure of its being correct, he read the proofs himself.
This edition was printed at
The Catholic Encyclopedia comments:
“But Sixtus V, though unskilled in this branch of criticism, had introduced alterations of his own, all for the worse. . . . His immediate successors at once proceeded to remove the blunders and call ill the defective impression.” - Vol. II, p. 412.
All available copies of the Bible of
Pope Sixtus were called in and burnt as were the heretics. Pope Clement VIII,
in 1592, ordered a better edition to be made, accompanying it with a similar
bull. Dr. James, keeper of the Bodleian Library at
Dr. Thomas James, in the following statement, gives valuable information on the Vulgate Bible:
“Isidorus Clarius hath noted eight
thousand places erroneous in the vulgar bible, the divines of Louvaine, and
Joannes Benedictus have observed above twice as many differences, from the
original Hebrew and Greek fountains. If Paulus V., the now pope, will take the
pains to reform these also; in my judgment, he shall do a work very acceptable
unto the whole Christian world, both Protestant and papist.” - “A Treatise
of the Corruptions of Scripture, Councils, and Fathers,” p. 208.
The Catholic Encyclopedia says of the latest revision of the Vulgate by Pope Clement:
“This revision is now the officially recognised version of the Latin Rite and contains the only authorised text of the Vulgate. That it has numerous defects has never been denied.” - Vol. XV, p. 370.
That the Roman church is not satisfied
with the present Vulgate text is seen by the fact that in 1907 Pope Pius X,
according to the Forum, commissioned H. E. Francis Aidan Cardinal Gasquet, with
his Benedictine Order, to reproduce the true Latin text of
“The commission laboured for some forty years, and strange to say, many of the changes proposed by them were never inserted in the final revision. From the notes of this commission it may be safely said that had they been accepted we should have had a much better critical text than we now possess.” - “Forum,” August, 1926, p. 203.
The Catholic Encyclopedia points out a
fact often overlooked by scholars today, that “the Hebrew text used by
E. S. Buchanan, M. A., B. Sc., says of Jerome’s translation:
“Jerome, to the great loss of
posterity, did not dig deep into the history of the text. He did not revise on
the Latin and Greek texts of the second century but solely on the Greek text of
the fourth century, and that was a text too late and too limited in range and
attestation on which to base an enduring fabric. . . . He was not bidden to
search for the earliest MSS. He was not bidden to bring together the versions
of the East and the West. He was not bidden to make inquiry for the lost
autographs with a view to the reconstruction of the Apostolic text. He was only
bidden to prepare a suitable text for ecclesiastical usage. And this he has
done; but it is painful to think of all he left undone, that with his position
of vantage he might have done.” - “The Records Unrolled,” p. 20.
From these considerations we see, that,
even if the original text of Jerome’s translation could be reconstructed, it
would not be of as much textual value as is sometimes supposed. We are not
depreciating the Catholic Bible. We wish Catholics would read it more than they
do. All we are here aiming at is this: When leading Catholic authorities admit
that their Bible is of so little value as a “Standard Text,” then why do they
so relentlessly oppose the circulation of the authorised Protestant Bible,
which is translated from the best original sources? Henry Guppy, M. A., D. Ph.
et Litt., Librarian of the John Rylands Library,
“The Church of Rome has always bitterly
opposed any attempt to circulate the Bible in the language of the people, and
license to read the Scriptures, even when truly and catholicly translated, was
but sparingly granted. “In spite, however, of the denunciations uttered by the
Roman Catholic priests against what they were pleased to term the incorrect and
untruthful translations which were in circulation, the Bible continued to be
read by increasing numbers of people. Indeed, the attempts to suppress it
created a prejudice against the Roman Catholic Church; and, as time wore on, it
was felt by many Catholics that something more must be done than a mere
denunciation of the corrupt translations in the direction of providing a new
version which the Roman Church could warrant to be authentic and genuine. “A
Brief Sketch of History of the Translation of the Bible,” p. 54.
After the Jesuits had been expelled
from
1. The Douay Bible uses the word “adore” where the Protestant Bible has “worship.” (Compare Matthew 4: 10 in both Bibles.) While the Protestant Bible says that Jacob “worshipped, leaning upon the top of his staff,” the Douay Version says that he “adored the top of his rod.” Hebrews 11: 21. “The Approved Holy Catholic Bible,” with “Annotations by the Rev. Dr. Challoner,” and approved by Pius VI, says: “Jacob . . . worshipped the top of his rod.” Thus Catholics have proof for worshipping relics.
2. Our Protestant Bible more correctly
translates 2 Timothy
In full view of all the foregoing facts, how can Roman Catholic authors shut their eyes to it all, and brazenly declare that their church alone has the true and correct Bible? They say:
“She alone possesses the true Bible and the whole Bible, and the copies of the Scriptures existing outside of her pale, are partly incorrect and partly defective.”
“This Bible was the celebrated Vulgate,
the official text in the Catholic Church, the value of which all scholars admit
to be simply inestimable. . . . The Council of Trent in 1546 issued a decree,
stamping it as the only recognized and authoritative Version allowed to
Catholics. . . . It was revised under Pope Sixtus V in 1590, and again under
Pope Clement VIII in 1593, who is responsible for the present standard text. It
is from the Vulgate that our English Douai Version comes.” “Where We Got the
Bible,” Right Rev. Henry G. Graham, pp. 7, 16, 17.
Do these men actually believe that Protestants have no access to the facts of history, but are dependent on such misstatements! Or are they vainly hoping that the public will have no opportunity to read the Protestant side of the story?
The interesting part of it all is the
fact that the Catholic Church, after proclaiming so loudly since 1546 that the
Latin Vulgate is “the only recognized and authoritative version,” and crying
out against the Protestant Bibles (translated from the original Hebrew and
Greek text) as “heretical,” is herself at last driven, by facts long known
within her own circle, to translate the Bible “from the original text,” Hebrew
and Greek. What a complete somersault! This late Catholic version is called
“The Westminster Version” (printed by Longmans, Green and Co.,
Inspired by Revelation 22: 14, P. P. Bliss, musician assisting D. L. Moody, wrote the hymn:
“Hear the words our Saviour hath spoken,
Words of life unfailing and true:
Careless one, prayerless one, hear and remember,
Jesus says, ‘Blessed are they that do.’
Blessed are they that do His commandments,
Blessed, blessed, blessed are they.”
Later Mr. Bliss went to
Some follow the Roman Catholic
translation of Revelation
Home | Previous Chapter | Next Chapter