Pope tried to translate Bible?

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awalt

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Hi,

I wonder if anyone could help me clarify whether the following story is truth or fiction, and if so some facts of the truth. I am sure I heard this story on CA Live, and I have been trying to track down the facts to no avail.

What I remember they said was there was a story of a Pope that showed how the Holy Spirit protects the Church. One of the Popes attempted to do his own translation of the Bible, and make this the standard for the Church. I think some time in the Middle Ages. He was advised that his translation had lots of problems, it was a bad translation, but he was committed to completing the work. Just before he was ready to publish iut, he dropped dead. The Bible never saw the light of day, and it was an example of how the Holy Spirit intervenes if/when necessary.

Truth or fiction?
 
Daniel_Marsh said:
My vote is fiction, because if it were true, then surely an anti-catholic publisher would have published it as proof aganist your doctrine of infalliblity.

shopping.com/xPF-The_Holy_Bible_Translated_from_the_Latin_Vulgate_and_Diligently_Compared_With_the_Hebrew_Greek_and_Other_Edtions_in_Divers_Languages_The_Old_Testament_Was_First_pu_by_Pope_Leo_Xiii
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The story is true, I can’t remember which pope it was, but on the contrary it actually attests to the infabillity doctrine. It happens that the death of this pope was almost “miraculous” because he was perfectly HEALTHY. He died before he could give his final pronouncement. God taught us through this that the infallibility given to His Church does not come from the pope itself but COMES from GOD. It meant that GOD would never ever, in one way or another, allow ERROR to creep into His Church.

Blessings,

E.C.
 
El-camino, you don’t remember any details do you? Name of Pope, some way I could research it?

thanks…
 
I remember that I heard it in a CD on papal infallibility. But at the moment I can’t even remember the CD it was on.

I am sure someone will turn out in this forum that will know about.

Thanks,

E.C.
 
The Pope in question was Sixtus V.

I don’t see how an anti-Catholic publisher can exploit this; if Pope Sixtus was going to solemnly promulgate an erroneous Bible ex cathedra (however that’s possible), then he dies before it can be done, this only serves to support infallibility rather than disprove it. Infallibility is preventive.
 
Thank you porthos11, I found some entries discussing him!

I am using this in a talk about the power of the Holy Spirit. I too think this is a very powerful and unique example of God’s guidance of his Church.
 
awalt said:
Thank you porthos11, I found some entries discussing him!

I am using this in a talk about the power of the Holy Spirit. I too think this is a very powerful and unique example of God’s guidance of his Church.
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Just make sure that in your talk, you provide full support that his promulgation was going to meet the requirements for infallibility: solemn declaration in faith and morals; ex cathedra; etc.
 
After revising it, Sixtus V ordered it to be taken as the standard text. After his death a further revision was carried out under the direction of Franciscus Toletus, S.J., and finally the work was printed in 1598, with its title unchanged: “Biblia Sacra Vulgatæ editionis, Sixti V Pontificis Maximi jussu recognita et edita”. This was under the pontificate of Clement VIII, and his name has appeared in the title since 1641. This revision is now the officially recognized version of the Latin Rite and contains the only authorized text of the Vulgate.
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:confused:

newadvent.org/cathen/15367a.htm
Impatiently setting aside the scholarship of experts, he took upon himself the enormous task of preparing a revised edition of St. Jerome’s translation of the Bible. So marred with mistakes was his work that it had to be corrected under Pope Clement VIII.
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answers.com/topic/pope-sixtus-v
 
Pope Sixtus V’s Editio Sixtina was so horrible a translation that, once Pope Sixtus V died, the newly elected pope, Pope Clement VIII, ordered another translation, the Editio Clementina, which remained the standard Bible translation for the Church until the 1960s.
 
Translation does not fall under papal infallibility. Papal infalliblity is concerned with definitively proclaiming doctrines of faith and morals to be held by the whole Church.
 
porthos11 said:
Just make sure that in your talk, you provide full support that his promulgation was going to meet the requirements for infallibility: solemn declaration in faith and morals; ex cathedra; etc.
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Porthos11 I am not sure I understand what you mean?

Thanks
 
Genesis315 said:
Translation does not fall under papal infallibility. Papal infalliblity is concerned with definitively proclaiming doctrines of faith and morals to be held by the whole Church.
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Yes, I agree that even if Pope Sixtus V would have made the pronouncement, it doubtfully would have fallen into the category of infallibility.

For instance, pope Clement who followed Sixtus V and then gave the pronouncement for the usage of the Editio Clementina, which is a very good version of the vulgate, such pronouncement was NOT infallible, so why would Sixtus V’s pronouncement would have been any different?

Many blessings,

E.C.
 
awalt said:
Porthos11 I am not sure I understand what you mean?

Thanks
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I mean that not every Papal pronouncement is infallible. For a pronouncement to be infallible, criteria must be met:
  1. the Pope must be speaking in his capacity as shepherd and teacher of the Universal Church (i.e. ex cathedra);
  2. it must be a solemn definition specifically on faith or morals.
I highly doubt though that translations are of faith and morals, but if Sixtus V planned to promulgate the erroneous Bible this way:

“We declare, define, and pronounce that this Edition of the Sacred Scriptures is free from doctrinal and moral error and henceforth is to be the sole version suitable for use for all time by the Holy [Roman] Church…and must be given the assent of faith…”

perhaps then, that brings it periously close to infallibility, in which case, it may have kicked in and protected the Church.

But without further details, I can’t be too sure.
 
About the Sixtine Vulgate of 1590
  • It has been exploited by polemicists against Catholicism 😃
  • it was not a translation - it was an edition (of the Vulgate, as pointed out by OPP).
  • It was indeed “horrible” - it included about 4,000 misprints, & left out four & a half verses in the OT.
    James Broderick (S.J) gives a brief account of it in his life of Saint Robert Bellarmine - Robert Bellarmine, Saint and Scholar. Westminster, MD: Newman Press (1961)
Go to this: websitetoolbox.com/tool/post/apologia/vpost?id=698628

& search for this:

"Pope Sixtus V desired that the Vulgate should be examined and restored/corrected. St. Robert Bellarmine was on the commission that was charged with this task, and assisted in the work - the scholars added thousands of marginal notes where they thought corrections should be made. When the finished product was presented to Sixtus V by Cardinal Carafa, he got so angry at what he saw that he threw the cardinal out and decided that he would handle the project himself.

Eighteen months later, his work was ready for printing, but when he saw the initial copies that came back from the presses, he discovered misprints in the text."

I’ll quote from St. Robert Bellarmine’s biographer: "
 
Gottle_of_Geer said:
About the Sixtine Vulgate of 1590
  • It has been exploited by polemicists against Catholicism 😃
  • it was not a translation - it was an edition (of the Vulgate, as pointed out by OPP).
  • It was indeed “horrible” - it included about 4,000 misprints, & left out four & a half verses in the OT.
    James Broderick (S.J) gives a brief account of it in his life of Saint Robert Bellarmine. ##
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But the question remains: was the promulgation going to fit the conditions for infallibility?
 
porthos11 said:
But the question remains: was the promulgation going to fit the conditions for infallibility?
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I would be going far beyond what I know if I said “yes” or “no” 😃​

What is clear, is that one has to ask how infallibility was thought of in 1590 - again, I don’t know.

I know very little of the details of the whole affair - including the theological side of it. :o 🙂
 
I think what’s happened here is that the story of “Pope translates Bible – doesn’t work out well” has been conflated with the “Pope drops dead” story.

The Pope drops dead story is the one about the learned theological dispute (on a point I frankly don’t understand). The Franciscan theologians championed one interpretation; the Dominicans another. Lots of heat, very little light. Pope gets sick of it and decides to make a magisterial pronouncement about which side is right.

Pope drops dead.

New pope is elected. Theological dispute continues. New pope decides to make a pronouncement to end the dispute.

Pope drops dead.

New new pope is elected. New new pope decides that no pronouncement on the point is needed. Also, daunted theologians decide to be a bit more cautious about the point. 🙂

(Apparently, this turned out to be one of those “both-and” situations on the theological point.)
 
Mintaka said:
I think what’s happened here is that the story of “Pope translates Bible – doesn’t work out well” has been conflated with the “Pope drops dead” story.

The Pope drops dead story is the one about the learned theological dispute (on a point I frankly don’t understand). The Franciscan theologians championed one interpretation; the Dominicans another. Lots of heat, very little light. Pope gets sick of it and decides to make a magisterial pronouncement about which side is right.

Pope drops dead.

New pope is elected. Theological dispute continues. New pope decides to make a pronouncement to end the dispute.

Pope drops dead.

New new pope is elected. New new pope decides that no pronouncement on the point is needed. Also, daunted theologians decide to be a bit more cautious about the point. 🙂

(Apparently, this turned out to be one of those “both-and” situations on the theological point.)
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Never heard of this one.
 
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