Scriptures Before Luther

[thessalonian]

Replying to a Protestant Pastor regarding Catholic neglect of scripture and lack of vernacular versions.

Dear Pastor xxx,

I am a Catholic friend of Kirk xxx, a member of your congregation. Kirk has been allowing me the listen to of a series of lectures you gave on the history of Christianity. I have very much enjoyed them as they have filled in many holes regarding my historical knowledge. I did not know about the efforts of Constantine's mother for instance regarding the Church of the Holy Seplechure and though I did not agree with some of your conclusions and need more study in the area, the information on the Crusades was quite helpful. From a Protestant side of the coin they are very well done and God Bless you for attempting to educate your congregation regarding Christian history. I do have to say however that I have had some disagreements with your presentation. I will only deal with a few.

First of all I want to be sure that I don’t misrepresent you in what you have said but it sounds almost like you are teaching that the Catholic Church was essentially putting the Bible on a shelf and letting the dust collect. Was there neglect among some priests and clergy? To be sure there was. But I can show you the writings of countless saints at the time of Martin Luther who knew their Bibles well and preached the Gospel. Men like St. Ignatius of Loyola, St. Francis Xavier (who converted nearly 1 million souls to Christ), St. Peter Claver (who converted nearly 300,000 negro slaves to Christ), St. John of the Cross, St. Phillip Neri (who ran an oratory where there were daily talks given on scripture), St. Cathereine of Genoa, and St. Teresa of Avillia to name just a few. These people came to a far different conclusion than Luther regarding correct understanding of the scriptures. The issue of whether or not the bible was in the vernacular was not as big a problem as we think today. Those who could not read had no use for a vernacular version but those who could read would able to read and understand Latin. There were copious Latin copies of the Bible throughout Europe. Not to mention breveries which priests were duty bound to read every day that contained much of scripture and in the Mass over three years nearly the entire Bible was read to everyone by the priest. Martin Luther himself would have been duty bound to read the brevery and also would have had the Latin scriptures as well as the Psalter quite readily available to him. If it is true that he found a Bible and started reading it one day, as some allege, then he was horribly neglectful of his priestly duties. But I find that to be unlikely. I can’t recall the name of the man you said assigned him to be a Bible teacher (odd that they would have Bible teachers if the scriptures were forgotten) but I can’t imagine someone receiving that responsibility with little or no background in the scriptures. There is much that does not add up with the Martin Luther story regarding how he came to the “Gospel”.





“John Wycliffe –translated the bible in to the Vernacular and suffered a great deal as a result.”

This statement is much oversimplified. The root of the “persecution” of Wycliffe was not that he translated the Bible. Many had translated the bible in to English prior to him with no consequences. But one must ask is any translation of the bible a good translation? Wycliffe had bought in to Loolardy which according to the Church was errant in many ways. But Wycliffe remained a Catholic and so under the authority of his Bishop and Rome, trying to subvert Church teaching from within. He translated a Bible that supported his views and used this corrupt version to undermine the Catholic Church and attack monks and priests. The Church was not against bible translations but did consider it here right as guardian of the scriptures to protect them from the corruption of individuals who wanted to mistranslate them to introduce erroneous doctrine. Most certainly you would not agree that one should read the new gender neutered versions of the bible, nor the New World Translation, or the Mormon version of the King James Bible. Nor would you tolerate in your Church someone teaching doctrines that are contrary to the teachings of the LMCS and causing discord by insulting and attacking the LMCS and it’s hierarchy. These are the reasons that Wycliffe “suffered”. Not simply translating the bible.

There is much historical revisionism of history with regard to translating the Bible. First of all, Wycliffe was not at all the first to translate the scriptures in to the English vernacular. There were translations in Spanish, Italian, Danish, French, Norwegian, Polish, Bohemian, and Hungarian before the day of the printing press.

[b]From Henry Graham’s “Where We Got the Bible”[/b]

7th Century – Caedmon’s translation (monk in Whitby) was a translation of a large part of the Bible.

8th Century – Venerable Bede, monk of Jarrow, died during his translation of John’s Gospel.

Eadhelm, Bishop of Sherborne’s transalation

Guthlac, a hermit near Peterborough;

Egbert, Bishop of Holy Island

King Alfred the Great

Aelfric, Archbishop of Catentebury

Book of Durham



Translations in Anglo-English

Orm 1150

Salus Animae (1250)

William Shorehame and Richard Rolle, 1349



[b]A Practical Bible Commentary- Bishop Fredrick Knecht:[/b]

Teutonic tongues attained some literary development. Anglo-Saxon translators were first in the field (counting from Caedmon's paraphrase of combined parts of the Bible ab out 670 to Ven. Bede's translation of St. John's Gospel finished in 735, and thence Aelfric's partial translation of the OT a bout 990. As far as we are aware, no French versions had appeared before two Norman-French Psalters came in to use in about 1100. In lands of German Speech there was more activity, the Benedictine Monastery of Mondsee being a pioneer with the translation of St. Mathew's Gospel in 748. In monasteries like St. Gall and Ebersberg we know of translations made in the 10the and 11th centuries by such scholars as Notker Labeo and Abbot Willram. Translation of the Bible into the vernacular had evidently established itself by that time in Germany. According to W. Walther (Duetsche Bibleubersezung des MA) there were about 3600 Manuscripts of complete or partial German Bibles in circulation before printing was invented. Translation, according to needs, and manuscript circulation of translations evidently went on without let or hindrance.

Version of the whole or of part of the Bible in the language of the common people appear first in England and Germany in the eight Century, in France and Hungary in the twelfth, in Italy, Spain, Holland, Poland, and Bohemia in the thirteenth. The decree of the council of Trent makes no reference to such versions, but the question was raised in the deliberations of the Council and Cardinal Madruzzo emphatically declared that they should be not only permitted but encouraged.

Vernacular versions were for private reading only until Pius XII allowed 1943.

This much should suffice against the charge that the Church kept the people in a state of Biblical starvation. England, indeed, may have been slow in the sense explained above for historically speaking she has usually been a generation behind the Continent in her ideas. On the continent vernacular versions had long had wide manuscript circulation, and had come from the printing presses in goodly numbers before Luther's Bible was published. It has been calculated that 104 editions of complete vernacular Bibles were printed before the first Protestant Bible: 20 Italian, 26 French, 19 Flemish, 2 Spanish, 6 Bohemian, and 30 German,` not to speak of portions of Scripture, especially the New Testament and the Book of Psalms`. We may add that the first printed Bible in German Appeared at Strassburg as early as 1466,

[b] “The Facts About Luther” O’Hare[/b]

Whilst the Vulgate was in general use we know that translations into the vernacular of the various peoples were also made and read. In Germany, not to mention Italy, France, Spain, Denmark, Holland, Norway, Poland, Bavaria, Hungary and other countries before the days of printing, we know that Raban Maur, bornin in Mainz in 776, translated the Old and New Testament into the Teutonic, or old German, tongue. Some time later, Valafrid Strbon made a new translation of the whole Bible. Huges of Fleury also translated the Scriptures into German, and the monk Ottfried of Wissemburg rendered it into verse. In Germany prior to the issue of Luther’s New Testament in 1522, no authority enumerates fewer than fourteen editions in High German and three in Low German. “Those in High German,” says Vedder, “are apparently reprints of a single MS. [manuscript] version, of which two copies are still preserved, one in a monastery of Tepl, Bohemia, the other in the library of the Uinversity at Freiburg in the Breisgau. The former, known as the Codex Templensis, has recently been printed and accessible to all scholars.”. The library of the Paulist Fathers of New York City contains, at present, a copy of the ninth edition of a German Bible profusely illustrated with colored wood engravings and printed by A. Coburger at Nuremberg in 1483, the very year in which Luther was born. In the year 1892 the Protestant historian Wilhelm Walther published in Brunswick a book under the title, The German Translation of the Bible in the Middle Ages, in which he proves that previous to the year 1521, before Luther ever thought of translating the Bible into the German language, there existed seventeen editions of the whole Bible in German, besides an almost countless number of German versions of the New Testament, the Psalms, and other parts of the Bible. He gives the following list of pre-Lutheran editions of the whole Bible in German, viz:edition Mentel, Strassburg, A.D. 1466; edit. Eggenstein, Strassburg, 1470; edit. Pflanzmann, Augsburg, 1480; two editions of Koln (Cologne) by Quentel, 1480; edit. Koburger, Nuernberg, 1483; edit. Grueninger, Strassburg, 1485, edit. Schhoensperger, Augsburg, 1487; edit. Shroensperger, Augsburg, 1490; edit Arndes, Luebeck, 1494; edit. H. Otmar, Augsburg, 1507; the Swiss Bible, Basel, about 1474; edit. Zainer, Augsburg, 1477; and edit S. Otmar, Augsburg, 1518.



“”Not only are there very many editions of the Latin Vulgate long anterior to that time, but there were actually nine German editions of the bible in the Caxton Exhibition earlier than 1483, the year of Luther’s birth and at least three more before the end of the century.””



“The Protestant Professor Lindsay, in his partisan work on the Reformation published in Edinburgh in 1908, admits that “other translations of the Bible into the German language had been made long before Luther began his work”. He says moreover: “It is a mistake to believe that the medieval Church attempted to keep the Bible from the people”.



The well-known Anglican writer, Dr. Blunt, in his History of the Reformation (Vol I pp. 501-502), tells us that “there has been much wild and foolish writing about the scarcity of the Bible in the ages preceding the Reformation. It has been taken for granted that the Holy Scripture was almost a sealed book until it was printed in English by Tyndale and Coverdale, and that the only source of the knowledge respecting it before them was the translation made by Wyckliffe. The facts are…that all laymen who could read were, as a rule, provided their Gospels, their Psalter, or other devotional portions of the Bible. Men did, in fact, take a vast amount of personal trouble with respect to the productions of the Holy Scriptures, and accomplished by head, hand, and heart what is now chiefly the Word of God and made it known to the laity; and those few among the laity who could read had abundant opportunity of reading the Bible either in Latin or English, up to the Reformation period.



Far more evidence than this is given by Protestant as well as Catholic historians. I will gladly send you whole sections of the books I am quoting from if you like.



“Luther starts reading the bible in detail. “

“Luther begins reading it”. “its only as he reads the scriptures that he understands we are saved only by the mercy of Christ”.

If you intend to say that this was the first that Luther had read or studied the scriptures, these statements are simply not credible as I stated before. Luther in fact was trained as a priest as you noted. Priests in fact were required to be familiar with the scriptures and generally memorized the psalms and much of the New Testament. There were daily readings in the Brevery from the scriptures, not to mention nearly full coverage of them in the daily readings of the Mass. If Luther did not, as stated before it was neglect on his part. Not a reason to globally speak of all priests as ignorant of the scriptures as some of your statements come across.

Certainly the laity were in a state of ignorance. But that was primarily because they could not read. Something we cannot fathom in today’s society where almost everyone can read at some level. I can imagine trying to teach those who could not read for themselves. I should also add that the Church has never been against Bible reading in general. Nor were they against all vernacular translations. Only against those by men who were either not qualified to translate the scriptures or who were doing the translating for an agenda.



I would also contend quite strongly with the next couple of statements but this email is too long already.

“look upon no longer as one of several equals. Gregory the great”

“papacy not seen in the New Testament”.

You said the reformation was about “grace, through faith in Christ alone”. The Catholic Church does not have a problem with that statement and never has. But what was the statement mean? We see grace on a far broader level. “In him we live and move and have our being”. Grace is not just God being nice and forgiving our sins. It is everything in the world that causes us to come to know him, love him, and serve him in this life. Once we know him and repent and are baptized, then the grace becomes internal and sanctifies us. Grace is then the Holy Spirit working in and through us for the glory of God. (Eph 3:20-21), producing 30, 60, or 100 fold. In other words we become grace for others. Otherwise we can claim a part of their salvation. The words that you spoke have meaning and it is not in that phrase but in the details of what it means that the Catholic Church objected about regarding Luther’s new doctrines, primaily sole fide and sola scriptura and the role and authority of the Church. Oddly enough you did not show any historical continuity with regard to Luther’s new teachings before Tyndale (and from Tyndale to Luther it was kind of sketchy as well). Your presentation was historical before Luther. Where is this theology traced down through the ages? When did the Catholic Church stop preaching the Gospel if that is in fact what happened? Salvation in a process in which we respond to grace and do the will of God to his greater glory. Deeds must be a part of the salvation equation or Romans 2:4-8 and Matt 25 (sheep and the goats) makes not sense. Grace must be responded to in faith, resulting in acts of love.



6: For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision nor uncircumcision is of any avail, but faith working through love.

I will make one final comment. the 4 or 5 phrases that you spoke regarding the confutation of the Augsburg Confession were distortions of Catholic teaching. For instance you said the Catholic Church rejected the priesthood of the believers. I see no such statement in the confutation. An affirmation of ministerial priesthood does not reject the believer priesthood any more than in the Old Testament when it speaks of all as believers. I think it was in Duet 19. Peter is actually referring to that statement in his letters when he speaks of the believer priesthood.

That is enough for now. If it is acceptable to you, I would like to address the Biblical foundation of the papacy in another email.

Grace and peace in Christ Jesus our savior,

[Starets]

Fascinating
I was familiar with the english history of biblical vernacular translations, but had never looked into continental european translation history

[thessalonian]

Now I've done it. My friend sent the email to his pastor and now the guy wants to talk to me.

Staretz, glad it was helpful.

[jswranch]

Bravo to you!!

Some more info to keep in your quiver:

1. What year did first book published off a printing press?

2. What book was it?

3. Which tongue was it in?

4. What year did Luther post the 95 Theses?

5. Which canon of scripture was in this book?

[quote name='thessalonian' post='1132036' date='Nov 30 2006, 01:34 PM']
Now I've done it. My friend sent the email to his pastor and now the guy wants to talk to me.

Staretz, glad it was helpful.
[/quote]
Take Kirk and any of this friends with you.

[phatcatholic]

i added this to your tracts:
[url="http://www.phatmass.com/directory/index.php/cat/524"]http://www.phatmass.com/directory/index.php/cat/524[/url]

you've probably written alot of other ones too, but i always forget about the "tracts by phatmassers" entry in the directory.

peace,
nick

[thessalonian]

Cool. I'm published. Sort of.