profanation. Pope Innocent III. was of the opinion that the Scriptures were too deep for the common
people, as they surpassed even the understanding of the wise and learned. Several synods in Gaul,
during the thirteenth century, prohibited the reading of the Romanic translation, and ordered the
copies to be burnt. Archbishop Berthold, of Mainz, in an edict of January 4th, 1486, threatened
with excommunication all who ventured to translate and to circulate translations of sacred books,
especially the Bible, without his permission. The Council of Constance (1415), which burnt John
Hus and Jerome of Prague, condemned also the writings and the hopes of Wiclif, the first translator
of the whole Bible into the English tongue, to the flames: and Arundel, archbishop of Canterbury
and chancellor of England, denounced him as that "pestilent wretch of damnable heresy who, as a
complement of his wickedness, invented a new translation of the Scriptures into his mother tongue."
Pope Pius IV. (1564), in the conviction that the indiscriminate reading of Bible versions did more
harm than good (plus detrimenti quam utilitiatis), would not allow laymen to read the sacred book
except by special permission of a bishop or an inquisitor. Clement VIII. (1598) reserved the right
to grant this permission to the Congregation of the Index. Gregory XV. (1622), and Clement XI.
(in the Bull Unigenitus, 1713), repeated the conditional prohibition. Benedict XIV., one of the
liberal popes, extended the permission to read the Word of God in the vernacular to all the faithful,
yet with the proviso that the translation be approved in Rome and guarded by explanatory notes
from the writings of the fathers and Catholic scholars (1757). This excludes, of course, all Protestant
versions, even the very best. They are regarded as corrupt and heretical and have often been
committed to the flames in Roman Catholic countries, especially in connection with the
counter-Reformation of the Jesuits in Bohemia and elsewhere. The first edition of Tyndale’s New
Testament had to be smuggled into England and was publicly burnt by order of Tunstall, bishop
of London, in St. Paul’s church-yard near the spot from which Bibles are now sent to all parts of
the globe. The Bible societies have been denounced and condemned by modern popes as a "pestilence
which perverts the gospel of Christ into a gospel of the devil." The Papal Syllabus of Pius IX.
(1864), classes "Societates Biblicae" with Socialism, Communism, and Secret Societies, calls them
"pests frequently rebuked in the severest terms," and refers for proof, to several Encyclicals from
November 9th, 1846, to August 10th, 1863.^9
Such fulminations against Protestant Bible societies might be in some measure excused if
the popes favored Catholic Bible societies, which would be the best proof of zeal for the spread of
the Scriptures. But such institutions do not exist. Fortunately papal bulls have little effect in modern
times, and in spite of official prohibitions and discouragements, there are zealous advocates of
Bible reading among modern Catholics, as there were among the Greek and Latin fathers.^10 Nor
have the restrictions of the Council of Trent been able to prevent the progress of Biblical scholarship
and exegesis even in the Roman church. E pur si muove. The Bible, as well as the earth, moves for
all that.
(^9) Schaff, Creeds of Christendom, II. 218; Köllner, Symbolik II. 351, sqq.; Hase, Handbuch der Protestant. Polemik, fourth ed., 1878,
p. 68 sqq. There were indeed vernacular translations of the Bible long before the Reformation; but it is a most astounding exaggeration
when Perrone, as quoted by Hase, asserts (Praelect. Theol. III. § 317): "Per idem tempus 800 plus minus editiones Bibliorum aut N. T.
ante Reformationem prodierant, ac per universam Europam catholicam circumferebantur, antequam vel protestantis nomen agnosceretur.
Et ex his 200 versiones in linguis vernaculis diversarum gentium omnium manibus libere versabantur."
(^10) See L. Van Ess,Auszüge über das nothwendige und nützliche Bibellesen aus den Kirchenvätern und anderen kathol. Schriften, second
ed., 1816; also the preface to his translation of the New Testament.