The New Zealand WEDNESDAY, JULY 15 ,1925. OLD BIBLES

New Zealand Tablet, Volume LII, Issue 26, 15 July 1925, Page 33

The New Zealand WEDNESDAY, JULY 15 ,1925. OLD BIBLES

; quater-centenary of Tyndale gives THE quater-centenary of Tymlale gives Dr. Dickie of Knox College an oppor<s;’ v tunity of repeating in the Dunedin .Evening 'tar the story of ‘‘how we got our Bible,” thus perpetuating the ancient fable ( that the Church feared to lot. the people read the Bible in their own language. How false this is we shall now proceed to prove. ' |.55v' i >.VM • • ~l n the first place Dr. Dickie did not get ; his Bible from Wycliff, or from Luther, or yet from Tyndale: he got it from Rome, who collected the original scrolls ; translated them from the Hebrew, Chaldee, Syriac, and Greek; made thousands of copies of them in 'i her monasteries and scriptoriums; preserved them from error for over a thousand years before Tyndale was born; and by the voice of Tradition transmitted the unchangeable truths from generation to generation. Thus, even Dr. Dickie has to accept the authority of Rome, for his Bible. To the Church the Bible is the written Word of God, Tradition being the unwritten Word; to Protestants the Bible is the complete Word of God, requiring no interpreter. Under the loving £ guardianship of the Church the Holy Scriptures always have been treated with the reverence due to their sacred character, but she never . forbade their translation in the vernacular so long as such translation was free from error and was provided "with pro- . per explanatory notes. At the present moment there is in the library of the Pan list Fathers cf New York a copy of the ninth edition of a German ! Bible ’ printed by A. Coburger at Nuremberg in 1483, the very i in which Luther, was, born. Catholic V translations were published in other countries long' before Luther’s time. In Spain v a Spanish • version appeared in 1478 five A years before Luther was born; in Italy Malerini translated the Bible into Italian in 1471, and so popular did it become that

this version was. published seventeen - times t before Luther’s Bible appeared in 1530, In France a translation appeared in 1478, another by Menaud in 1487,, and many others later on. Sir Thomas More tells us that “the’Holy Bible was, long ( before Wycliffe’s •days, by virtuous and well-learned- men, translated into the English tongue, and. by good and godly people, with devotion and soberness, well and reverently read.” Tyndale’s translation of the New Testament was condemned by the Roman authorities because it was full of errors, and constituted in addition a vicious attack upon the Church. Thus the Church preserved the Bible, respected the Bible, translated the Bible' into the vernacular, placed it in the hands of her children, and urged them to read it. But how did the Bible fare with the Protestants when they tore it from the hands of the Church and subjected it to the doctrine of private judgment? Read Disraeli and learn how hatred and fanaticism can turn even a holy thing into an object of contempt “It is affirmed tfyat one Bible swarmed with 0000 faults. Indeed, from another source wo discover that Sterne, a solid scholar, was the first who summed up 3600 faults that were printed in our Bibles in London.” “In Bibles by Field and Hills we find abundant errata, reducing the text to nonsense or to blasphemy, making the Scriptures contemptible to the multitude who came to pray and not to scoff.” Even Henry VIII, in his last speech to Parliament, thus lashed the Reformers for their ribald conduct: “The Bible itself is turned into wretched rhymes, sung andfcjangled in every ale-house and tavern. Yet 1 1 am sure that charity was never so faint among ye, virtue never at so low an ebb, and God Himself never less honored or worse served in Christendom.” Is it any wonder that the wise old Church set her face against permitting the people to wrest the Scriptures to their own destruction? The Bible societies, extolled by Dr. Dickie, have in many cases in the foreign missions reduced the Holy Book to a blasphemous absurdity. 1 Nothing different, however, can be expected from a religion that places a difficult book in the hands of an untutored rabble, asking them to believe that any absurd notion regarding it that comes into their heads is the inspiration of the Holy Ghost. Our foolish Rome-haters never tire of boasting that their ancestors established in spite 'of the Pope the right .of everyone to interpret l; the Sacred Scriptures as he pleased. But what has this licence done for the world It reduced a prosperous population to beggary it has divided Christendom into more than 600 warring sects; it has stultified religion generally it has weakened authority where it has not abolished it altogether ; it has destroyed the stability-' of marriage and imperilled the security of the family ; it has Corrupted morals and destroyed the common standard of right and wrong that existed when the Church was universally recognised as the interpreter of -the Scriptures, thus preparing the way for all kinds of complications, misunderstandings, and excesses; it responsible for ‘most of the evils that ,infest our .social,’ economic, and political orders to-day; and while it fills the earth with confusion and despair, it makes the devils chuckle with glee.

; 'How- wise the • old Church is may. be.seen from her thronged temples, and her growing influence' in all parts of the world. Notwith- . ~ •: ~ ; ■,•.•. • „ . ■ ■ ■.. . standing the persecutions of powerful men and States, notwithstanding the revolutions and heresies that spring up around her, she still lives on, ancient yet' ever young like her Founder Who grows'* not old; and when our turbulent sects have passed away and are forgotten in. the misty years, the old Church still will be there awaiting with the faithful the Sign of the. Son of Man in the heavens.