THE STORY OF THE DOUAY BIBLE.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XXVIII, Issue 41, 11 October 1900, Page 15

THE STORY OF THE DOUAY BIBLE.

Tin. ' Dnuay Bible' is the name commonly given to the translation ot the Holy Scriptures current among English-speak ng Catholics. The Dam. 1 (<-ayn an exchange) in m^leading, for the Bible was not translated into English at I>«,uay, aud only a part of it was publi«htd ther>>, while the version now in use has been so seriously altered that it can scarcely be considered identical with that which fir^t went by the name of the Douay Bible. After tbe accession of Queen Eh/.abeth, William Allen, a member of an old Lancashire family, canon of York and doctor in Theology at Oxford, subsequently a Cardinal and Archbishop of Mtchnu. n«»-.««-<l <.n.i L,j Luwub, -,;hrrc lie fcrm^ a friendship with one Vande\ ille, a professor in the University. The idea struck Allen ot ereeuii" a ooui-t;c in foioiKii p.irfn for English ccc!"pin a tie«, and in 1 ">r>2 Vai deville was summoned to Douay as professor of cuion and civil law in the newly-ereote 1 university. Allen took up his residence there as professor of theology. Here it was that O'Connell studied as a boy and Alban Butler wrote his Lives of the S<nnts. by which his name will be for ever known. Owing to political trouble its members, a few years after its foundation, took refuse at Rheims There they set to work at an English version of the Bible made from the Vulgate, but with diligent comparison of the Hebrew and Greek texts. The divines chiefly concerned in the translation of the New Testament were : f'ardinal Allen (mentioned above), Dr. Gregory Martin, D. Richard Bristow, and John Reynolds, all of them bred at the University of Oxford. The publication was delayed by lack of means, but in 1582 the New Testament was published at Rheims, the Old, in 1609-10, at Douay. The first Douay Bibles were proscribed by English laws. Booksellers and others found having it for sale were hanged. Cardinal Wiseman said that no EDglish Catholic could enter Douay without tears. The desecrated college and chapel recall the hundreds of martyrs who perished in England. No Catholic can look on the original Douay Bible without respect and awe. Every copy is linked with sufferings, perhaps with death, under the terrible penal lawa of England, Ireland, and Scotland.