THE CATHOLIC CHURCH AND THE BIBLE

Otago Daily Times, Issue 23558, 22 July 1938, Page 13

THE CATHOLIC CHURCH AND THE BIBLE

TO THE EDITOR

Sir, —After columns of “ incontrovertible evidence” of the flood of English Romanist Bibles, Father Bennett has not yet produced them, but attempts bluff. He also once more charges me with assertions of Rome’s hostility to the Bible, though I have referred to books and articles on her vernacular versions till I am tired. Your readers who have followed this discussion must regard his first sentence as stupid or merely dust-raising. I can only believe that your readers will intelligently weigh our letters and not accept merely bald assertions His closing peroration is unworthy of a serious discussion, being intended to inflame the sectarian loyalty of his coreligionists. An earlier sentence disqualifies him completely as a serious controversialist: “And our proof for the fact that the clergy were thus ignorant lies in this: that ‘ Calvin' says that Workman says that a certain Miss Deansely says that is so.” Now, Sir. that kind of argument belpngs only to a low-class debating society. Your readers will recall that I mentioned Bishop Hooper’s examination, which revealed the clergy’s ignorance of the simplest Scriptural teaching, and the statement of the last Roman Arcnbishop of St. Andrews, “considering that the inferior clergy of this realm and the prelates have not for the most part attained such knowledge of the Holy Scriptures as to be able by their own efforts rightly to instruct the people, etc.” Father Bennett’s statement is simply dishonest, and when your readers compare it with my actual evidence they must only regard him as unreliable and refuse to believe anything that he writes. But also I must stress that Professor Workman and Miss Deansely are recognised authorities on the age of Wycliffe. whose results cannot be controverted: therefore such impertinences as your correspondent’s are to be treated with contempt. But I have an authority to which all Romanists must bow, St. Thomas Aquinas. About 1255 he wrote that a decree of 1215 providing for the training of secular priests was inoperative, and that very few priests had studied Holy Scripture, and in certain countries many priests did not even know Latin. Roger Bacon is another authority. One of the greatest English authorities on the Middle Ages, who on account of his scholarship and passion for truth has been frequently led into controversy, says: “ Romanists are steadily playing now for stalemate They calculate with great worldly wisdom, that so long as the details are complicated, and special knowledge is required for judgment, they only need to raise a great cloud of dust, and the public will fall back upon a rough and ready verdict—'six of one and half a dozen of the other,’ ”

It is necessary to get back to the real discussion. Father Bennett asserted (1) that the Church of Rome gave the Bible to the world; (2) that all her restrictions on broadcasting the Bible were “partial and temporary,” and (3) that the Reformers spread false and perverted translations. On the first and second I have shown:—

(1) The Jews gave us the Hebrew Old Testament, the Greek churches of the East gave us a Greek translation; and it was they who gathered the books of the New Testament. From the Greek churches we 'got our Greek manuscripts. The Roman Church had latin translations, and to her we owe only Jerome’s translation of 400 A.D., called the Vulgate. (2) The books of the New Testament were gradually assembled, and others rejected, by the Christion instinct of the many churches, synods and councils merely ratifying what had previously been accepted. Read Westcott’s little book, “ The Bible in the Church.”

(3) For the first centuries the Scriptures belonged to the laity without any restrictions. They were in no sense subordinate to the church, but were used exactly as they are to-day by the Protestant churches. Read again my quotation from Harnack, which Father Bennett treats in a silly way, seeing he cannot refute it. The Bible was “ a free gift to the community and to the individual without restriction or reserve."

(4) In the Middle Ages church dogmas took the place of Scripture and were all that people needed to know. But when the Scriptures were read, they raised doubts about those dogmas. Says von Dobschutz, “Where Bible study was fostered in lay circles, there was to be found, as a rule, ah anti-heirarchical, anti-clerical, sectarian tendency." Hence restrictions, and in some cases bloody persecution. Several columns are needed to enumerate the many orders of Suppresson. This was before the Reformation. Bible reading was permitted under supervision and conditions, to which I have sufficiently referred in previous letters. I have said enough about English versions the only Romanist Bible being the Rheims-Douay Version. I have frequently referred to Continental printed versions, but the Council of Trent soon put them in their place. (5) Now, here is the difference between the two churches, on which I quoted Harnack’s clear statement, and which I myself elaborated, but which Father Bennett has ignored. Even if the Roman Church scattered Bibles as freely as the Protestant Bible Societies, there would still be a world of difference between the churches, and it is these points, which deal with fundamental principles, that Protestant scholars stress: (1) The Authorised Bible is the Latin Vulgate, itself a translation from Hebrew and Greek. All that some Romanists have said against translating from Latin applies to translating into Latin. Latin words have not always conveyed the right ideas of the original Hebrew and Greek. Roman vernacular versions are translations of a translation, while Protestant ones are direct translations from Hebrew and Greek. The Apocrypha also is added to the Old Testament. (2) The Church of Rome is opposed to all translations not made by Romanists —or even if so made not officially recognised. Here is one permanent restriction. (3) The Bible is to be interpreted according to the teaching of Holy Mother Church, Harnack states: “Tradition, together with the living word of the infallible Church, stands side by side with the Bible as equal, indeed in many respects as superior, to it in authority. The traditions, something undefined and “the unanimous consent of the fathers” —which does not exist—form the norm. But all this is enshrined in Roman dogma, therefore the Bible is only to be read with notes. Thus we have the circle—the Bible is to be interpreted according to Roman doctrine; the Bible then proves Roman doctrine. And seeing that the Decree of 1870 declared the Pope above all councils and infallible in defining doctrine —the Pope, not the Bible, is the vehicle for the Divine Word “ Even ' tradition,’ like Scripture, plays but a secondary part in the Roman Catholic system. The appeal to either of them is an appeal -o reason, and that is barred in advance. The position was accurately described by the late Cardinal Bourne when he said that it made no difference though a man believed all the articles of the Catholic faith, unless he believed them on the authority of the church." “ Were Rome’s position truly Scriptural, her cause would not be so immensely and fatally endangered by the principle of the ' open Bible ‘ as she clearly feels it to be. She has been unwilling to allow even her loyal members free access to the unadorned word of Scripture, because such access (apart altogether from special ignorance or perversity) almost inevitably undermines their faith in her pretensions. Rome, therefore, would be in a stronger and more logical position if she rested her claims exclusively on her a priori infallibility, and frankly abandoned the attempt to build also on a scriptural basis. She has been most consistent when she has been most opposed to all appeal to the authority of the Bible. There is, indeed, no room for two supreme authorities.” Here is a complete and permanent restriction. This whole discussion sprang from the celebration of the free giving of the open Bible to every man without any restriction by the Reformed Churches.

(6) Finally, leaving the past, what is this church doing in the present? The Reformed Churches have translated the Bible, or portions, Into a

thousand tongues. Will Father Bennett tell us into how many nonEuropean languages Roman missionaries have translated the Bible? Notwithstanding all the noise of what was done in pre-Reformation days, we hear nothing of what is done to-day. Is Rome hiding her light—or is she doing nothing? Surely she, who did as much as Father Bennett claims, should far excel the Protestant Bible societies. With her monopoly of Mexico and South America for centuries, what Bibles has she given the peoples in lieu of the Protestant Bibles she there bums—yes, even to-day? I await an answer and also await the perversions and wilful mistranslations. —I am. etc., Calvin. [ln one sentence in the above letter “ Calvin ” confesses to a feeling of tiredness in respect of this controversy. It is probable that the readers of the correspondence have begun, or may be beginning to appreciate that it must in any event be inconclusive. In the circumstances, it may be suggested to the controversialists that the correspondence might be brought to such an issue as would allow of its being closed without anv curtailment of the rights of either.—fed. O.D.T.]