Restriction of the Bible from Lay people

[Rolltide]

By the way, this discussion ties nicely into the “Why do Catholic Churches have idols” (paintings, statues, icons, stained glass representations, etc.) argument. With less than 1% of the population literate in 700 AD, people certainly weren’t going to learn about the faith from Bible study! So… churches used imagry in their churches so that the priests could visually illustrate Biblical stories and discuss them.

 

[RCCDefender]

I dont understand?

I think Rick was just being sarcastic.

No one was prevented from reading authentic translations of scripture. Although unreliable translations were obviously condemned.

…early Protestant editions [of the Bible] in England weren’t so much translations of the Bible as wildly inaccurate variations, like the “Wicked” Bible that commanded “Thou shalt commit adultery” and the “Murderer’s” Bible that gave Mk 7:27 as “But Jesus said unto her, let the children first be killed.” The one by William Tyndale was so bad that even Henry VIII called it “crafty, false, and untrue” and ordered it to be “utterly expelled, rejected, and put away out of the hands of the people.” Then, of course, Henry had his own innovative version written.

Every church, of course, had to have at least one. Most had an extra copy or two chained in the public space of the church for the same reason we chain phone books (as previously mentioned), so anyone could use it and no one could steal it.

Remember that a new Bible would cost a community about as much as a new church building, and the finished book was easily worth a manor. Books in the Middle Ages were done on parchment or on vellum (made from the skins of young sheep or cattle) and lettered, gilded, and illuminated by hand. A whole Bible took maybe four hundred animals and years of work by a score of scribes and artists. Then as now, there were plenty of unscrupulous collectors, so a stolen Bible could always be converted into an immense sum of cash. Plus there were the customary “garnitures”, the covers and bindings that could run to twenty pounds of gold, decorated with jewels and enamels (when Henry VIII burned all of the Bibles in England, he was careful to keep the bindings for himself). The miracle is that so many still survive.

The quotes are from Why Do Catholics Do That? by Kevin Orlin Johnson. I highly suggest you get a copy for your fiancé. It’s an excellent, though not exhaustive, book with explainations from where the Bible came from to why Mary is always portrayed wearing blue to the way the calendar came about.

I want to leave you with one last small quote from the book:

The oldest German document of any kind is a translation of the Bible done in 381 by a monk named Ulfilas; he translated it into Gothic, which is what German was back then.

This is about 1150 years before Luther, and as others have noted, there were plenty of German editions before Luther was even born.

 

[Kurt_G]

…
That restriction occurred with the REGIONAL council at Toulouse (France) in the early 13th Century. The reason for that council was the aftermath of the Albigensian Crusade–the surpression of a gnostic heresy that among other things threatened the very survival of medieval civil society…

The restrictions on Scripture lay-ownership were ONLY temporary and only applied in the areas that had been infested by the AC heresy (Southern France). Psalters (Psalms & Proverbs) were still allowed lay ownership. Scripture continued to be read to be read (in the vernacular) EVERY Mass…

Thanks, Lion, for letting us see part of what the Church had to deal with thru this sad, dangerous period in France…

And, for those who want to hear a little more, I strongly recommend the CD set “Fire and Sword”, by Catholic convert Matthew Arnold. This Albigensian cult was becoming widespread with its beliefs that:

1. Matter was evil
2. Our bodies were evil, so even children were evil.
3. Marriage was evil, since it led to children.
4. Sexual activity was OK (evidently AC/DC) as long as children did not come about.
5. Authority was evil, both secular and church.
6. One of their sacraments, the endura, involved your choice of suicide: starvation or asphyxiation with a pillow over your face.
   That guaranteed you a place in heaven.

These were definitely not your “garden variety” heretics…
Arnold discusses society’s attempts to control them, and society’s vigilante forces themselves actually getting out of hand, with innocent people being “accused” of practicing the heresy, and ending up executed. It appears the Church had to step in to protect innocent people from being executed… The result is now known as the French Inquisition.

Might the Church try to preserve the faith (and the faithful!) in a different way today? Maybe, it’s 750 years between us… but I truly feel they were working the best they could with what they had, to keep a pure faith in Jesus Christ alive and well.

Get Matthew Arnold’s (Fire and Sword), it’s really good!

God Bless Us All!

 

[redmars3000]

Sounds like he has already made up his mind about the Church. He should stop reading Anti-Catholic material. Satan is always trying to destroy Gods’ Church by lies. Everytime we show that one of his stories is a lie he fires another shot. There are so many false accusations against the Church that to answer every one of them completely would take years. If he thinks so highly of the Catholic Church then why does he believe all those lies??
.

From the perspective of a potential convert, I would suggest you give up apologetics and instead do something else to help your church, because your attitude is pretty offensive and the thought of joining the same side as one with your comments would give me pause if i did not know other, nicer Catholics.

If the accusations against your church are in fact false, then you have nothing to worry about, and nothing to get angry about, because in the end you will prevail if I let myself be guided by reason. I would be wrong not to fully ask all and any questions I have regarding the catholic church that make me doubt the validity of the Catholic church. The fact that they appear blatantly false to you is because you are not the one who doubts. The defensive reaction all protestants have when their faith is challenged is the same as yours, and you should not blame them for that because they do it because they love God and do not want to dishonor Him or stray from Him. You can only blame them when they believe the truth they have been told but still refuse to change. The fact is, that converting to Catholicism can and has taken a lifetime for some people. And I am only 23. Your anger only shows a lack of patience on your part.

The questions are thrown out to be proven wrong.

Oh, by the way, the Holocaust didn’t happen either

You have lost any credibility with me. This is a ridiculous comment.

 

[redmars3000]

Sounds like he has already made up his mind about the Church. He should stop reading Anti-Catholic material. Satan is always trying to destroy Gods’ Church by lies. Everytime we show that one of his stories is a lie he fires another shot. There are so many false accusations against the Church that to answer every one of them completely would take years. If he thinks so highly of the Catholic Church then why does he believe all those lies??
.

From the perspective of a potential convert, I would suggest you give up apologetics and instead do something else to help your church, because your attitude is pretty offensive and the thought of joining the same side as one with your comments would give me pause if i did not know other, nicer Catholics.

If the accusations against your church are in fact false, then you have nothing to worry about, and nothing to get angry about, because in the end you will prevail if I let myself be guided by reason. I would be wrong not to fully ask all and any questions I have regarding the catholic church that make me doubt the validity of the Catholic church. The fact that they appear blatantly false to you is because you are not the one who doubts. The defensive reaction all protestants have when their faith is challenged is the same as yours, and you should not blame them for that because they do it because they love God and do not want to dishonor Him or stray from Him. You can only blame them when they believe the truth they have been told but still refuse to change. The fact is, that converting to Catholicism can and has taken a lifetime for some people. And I am only 23. Your anger only shows a lack of patience on your part.

The questions are thrown out to be proven wrong.

Oh, by the way, the Holocaust didn’t happen either

You have lost any credibility with me. This is a ridiculous comment.

 

[puzzleannie]

Hi,

My fiancé is learning about Catholicism and recently read that Lay people were not allowed to have their own bibles and not allowed to read it for themselves.

where did he read this? certainly not in any authentic Catholic teaching. Why not encourage him to learn about Catholicism from Catholic sources, preferably RCIA in a parish with authentic Catholic teaching. A search on this topic will yield dozens of threads so keep looking.

 

[Crumpy]

Wow, there’s a lot in this thread.

Some general pointers I have picked up have been mentioned, that the Vulgate (Latin) was considered so accurate, that the Church was careful, let’s say, about other translations. The Latin was used in the Mass until the mid-1960’s, in my lifetime.

There was, thus, tremendous respect for the Latin version. This had a specific meaning, that all vernacular versions should be derived from the Latin Vulgate, and not from some other source. But, this was a rule based on respect for the Vulgate, until modern studies of the ancient languages gave us more modern translations based as much as possible, on the earliest texts.

I have a personal observation and theory about this. My oversimplification of history is that there was some definite cooling off about reading the Bible after the Reformation took hold. And, that was because Reading the Bible was SO encouraged (I generally assume) by the Reformers and their followers.

Catholics and non-Catholics have strongly tried to distinguish themselves from each other, often and conspicuously in un-charitable ways.

So, things start to warm up with the encyclical Providentissimus Deus (The Most Providential God, or, God of all providence) around 1890. This encyclical (letter from the Pope) is said to have “opened the door” to modern explorations of the Bible. I think that was written by Pope Leo 13th. Then, on the anniversary of that encyclical, Pope Pius 12th issued the encyclical Divino Afflante Spiritu which further celebrated the earlier encyclical and encouraged further study and reading of the Bible. So, that would have been around 1940.

Then, the Second Ecumenical Vatican Council in the early 1960’s further elaborated on Scripture in the Decree on Sacred Scripture with the title Verbum Dei (The Word of God).

The issue over the centuries relating to the Reformation was the issue of private interpretation of scripture. There certainly seems to have been pastoral advice about not reading scripture in the past, but it was not dogmatic advice (not a hard rule or law, just practical advice).

It is probably this latter, pastoral advice that I have heard about in my own lifetime, recently, and more than I expected. The funny thing is, the people who seem to be almost tittilated to tell me about the injunctions against reading the Bible can never really explain it. They’ve never heard that advice themselves, they have Bibles, they used Bibles in Catholic school, etc. but they delight in telling this story, perhaps for the sake of conversation.

I know that both Catholic and non-Catholic Bible experts (of all degrees) admit that untrained people can really only go so far, and should not get carried away with Bible interpretation (that is, reading and understanding the Bible) without consulting qualified sources for validation of their understanding. That point is still valid, even though the contemporary pastoral advice has tipped in favor of reading and appreciating Scripture.

Reading the footnotes of a particular edition of the bible is handy for beginners. But, scripture study groups get stale if they’re all reading the same footnotes. Then, too, there’s controversies in these forums about the validity of the comments even in some Catholic versions of the Bible.