Posted on 05/06/2011 11:09:57 AM PDT by Alex Murphy
While [King Henry VIII] was still Catholic, William Tyndale sought permission to translate the Bible into English so that even “a boy who drives the plow” might know Scripture. Permission was denied, and Tyndale moved to Germany where he completed the first translation of the English New Testament made from Greek. It was published in 1526, and over the next ten years 50,000 copies were smuggled into England. Tyndale was betrayed, captured, and in 1536 killed for the crime of publishing the New Testament in English.
Although his body was burned at the stake, Tyndale had unleashed an enormous demand for Bibles in “the vulgar English tongue.” A number of translations were printed, including the Bishops’ Bible and the immensely popular Geneva Bible, which was the Bible Shakespeare read and the Bible Puritans carried to New England.
Elizabeth I, who reigned from 1558 to 1603, sought to bring peace among religious factions. But more importantly for our story, varied creative forces came together then to form the most splendid age in English literature. James VI of Scotland was a product of this season of creativity. When James VI became king of all Great Britain and Ireland in 1603, he called a conference to try to settle differences between Anglicans and Puritans. Out of this conference came the decision to create a new translation of the Bible.
[SNIP]
The King James Bible is the best-selling English-language book of all time. It has been in print continuously for 400 years. It has helped form our language; it has given context to our literature; it has inspired our music; and for centuries it was the one book a family would own and read before all others
(Excerpt) Read more at foxnews.com ...
You wrote:
“2. a course of action adopted and pursued by a government, ruler, political party, etc.: our nation’s foreign policy.”
That can be the only definition of “policy” that fits your usage.
Here is how you stated things:
“Posts 68 & 69. It was a matter of policy.”
And:
“If you wish to explain away the policy, have a nut - but don’t pretend it didn’t exist.”
And here’s what you are saying the policy was:
“The Gutenberg Bible has almost no impact, since only the enormously wealthy could own it. It was NOT meant for the common man, but for the very wealthy - who were in alliance with the Catholic Church. The Church wasn’t worried about the nobility, but the common man.”
And:
” The Catholic Church actively tried to keep scripture out of the hands of profane commoners - like me.”
And, as expected, you completely failed, utterly failed, to provide any proof whatsoever that any such policy existed.
SHOW ME THE POLICY which you claim existed. SHOW IT TO ME. Please explain why you have no documents at all, NONE, that show any such policy, any such policy debate, any such canon law, any such papal edict, any such ecumenical council canon or decree, any such catechism passage, etc.
All you posted that even remotely looks like what you claim is an edict from Pope Pius IV - PUBLISHED DURING THE PROTESTANT REVOLUTION when false Bible interpretations were leading to bigamy, polygamy, murder, revolutions and other idiocies - saying the vernacular Old Testament should be read by pious and learned men ACCORDING TO THE JUDGMENT OF THE BISHOP as a help to understanding the Vulgate. Thus, there is no policy of “actively [trying] to keep scripture out of the hands of profane commoners - like [you].”
First of all, if you had lived then in a Catholic country and were a Catholic at that time, counted as a “profane commoner” or unlearned man? Nope. Think about it. Do you have 12 years of education under your belt? This is how you describe yourself, “Retired military. 3 kids (2 out of the house), 3 horses and 3 dogs.” Does that sound like a commoner - with at least 12 years of education to boot - in 1564? Did any of that even occur to you? I bet not.
You wouldn’t qualify as “pious” because you attack Christ’s Church - but that’s your own choice.
Secondly, even if you were a “commoner” - which you clearly would not be - that doesn’t mean you would be able to read the Bible. You might have a new copy of the Old Testament - and ONLY the Old Testament - restricted to you, but that would only be if your bishop thought you were impious or so unlearned that you might harm yourself spiritually by twisting the scriptures. Logically you have to look at the fact that Bible publications continued to increase - in the vernacular - under Church auspices and with the Church’s blessing. Just a few years later the Douay Rheims OT was completed (but not published until 1610 because of lack of money).
Please explain this to me: The modern Vietnamese alphabet was created by Jesuits in the 17th century and Jesuit missionary Alexandre de Rhodes used it for the first Bible in Vietnamese in 1651. Clearly the Jesuits knew about the Index. How could they produce a Bible for people who never could attend a Catholic university nor be a Catholic noble and in fact just learned how to read their own native language in modern script - AND ALL OF THIS WITH THE CHURCH’S BLESSING - if your understanding of Dominici Gregis is right?
Once again, you are wrong.
You wrote:
“The only complete translation of the NT into English prior to Tyndale was Wycliffe’s,”
False. First, Wycliffe never knew English. He wrote in MIDDLE ENGLISH. Second, as I posted fromn Gasquet, there is reason to believe there were OTHER TRANSLATIONS at the time of Wycliffe which Wycliffe received credit for.
“and the Catholic Church did NOT give approval for it.”
The Catholic Church did appove translations at the time. I posted the evidence from Gasquet and you, of course, ignored everything I posted.
“Having been done before 1408, it wasn’t illegal provided the copy predated 1408, which is why Wycliffe Bibles tended to all have dates prior to 1408...”
Wrong again. It wasn’t wrong to make translations after 1408 as long as the Bishop approved.
“and why Thomas More screwed up and praised the same translation he had condemned. From 1408 thru the Chained Bible, the Catholic Church did not approve of a single translation of the Bible into English.”
Catholic bishops did. Again, I posted the evidence from Gasquet. You ignored it. How convenient.
Here’s what you seem to be avoiding dealing with:
Gasquet:
I cannot but think that an unbiassed mind which will reflect upon the matter must see how impossible it was for a poor persecuted sect like the Lollards, for the writings of which frequent and rigid searches were made, to produce the Bibles now ascribed to them. Many of these copies, as we may see for ourselves, are written with great care and exactness, and illuminated with coloured borders executed by skilful artists. These must surely have been the productions of freer hands than the followers of Wyclif ever were allowed to have in England. The learned editors of the so-called Wyclifite Scriptures, Messrs. Forshall and Madden, apparently hardly appreciated the force of this when they wrote:
“The new copies passed into the hands of all classes of the people. Even the Sovereign himself and the princes of the blood royal did not disdain to possess them. The volumes were in many instances executed in a costly manner, and were usually written upon vellum by experienced scribes. This implies not merely the value which was set upon the Word of God, but also that the scribes found a reward for their labours among the wealthier part of the community.”1
This is undoubtedly the case, and it is to be explained only on the supposition that the English Bible thus widely circulated was in truth the authorised catbolic version, and was in the possession of its various owners with the thorough approval of the ecclesiastical authorities. Is it likely that men of position, of unquestioned orthodoxy and of undoubted hostility to Lollard aims and opinions, would have cherished the possession of copies of a Wyclifite Bible? When we find, for example, that a finely-executed vellum folio copy of the Scriptures, with illuminated borders, was not only the property of King Henry VI.—a monarch, by the way, of saintly life and “enthusiastic in the cause of religion “—but that he bestowed it upon the monks of the London Charterhouse, we cannot but acknowledge that this must have been known as the perfectly orthodox translation of the English Church.
The same version is found to have had a place in the royal library of Henry VII. In this copy not only is the excellent character of the workmanship altogether inconsistent with the notion that it is from the pen of some poor hunted adherent of Wyclif, but a leaf supplied at the beginning, in a late fifteenth century hand, is illuminated with the royal arms, the portcullis and red and white Tudor roses. Moreover, curiously enough, this border surrounds the prologue, “Five and Twenty Books” so freely attributed to Wyclif.
A third copy of the English Scriptures—the veiy manuscript now displayed in the British Museum as Wyclif’s translation, to which I referred at the commencement of this paper—formerly belonged to Thomas of Woodstock, Duke of Gloucester, the firm friend and ally of that uncompromising opponent of Lollard opinions, Archbishop Arundel. Indeed, the inventory of the Duke of Gloucester’s goods,, now in the Record Office, shows that, besides “the Bible in English in two big volumes bound in red leather,” he possessed in his by no means extensive library an English Psalter and two books of the Gospels in English.1 Another copy of this version of the New Testament was the property, and ha& the autograph, of Humphrey—” the good Duke Humphrey “—of Gloucester, the generous benefactor of St. Albans, and the constant friend of its abbot, Whethamstede, whose hostility to Lollard doctrines is well known.
Another point which must not be overlooked is the good catholic company in which this version of the Scriptures, or parts of it, are occasionally found. Thus, in a volume in the Museum collection we find not only the lessons from the Old Testament read in the Mass book, together with the table of Epistles and Gospels, but a tract by Richard Rolle, “of amendinge of mannes life, or 1 the rule of lifing,’” and another on contemplative life and love of God.1 Another copy of The Book of Tobit, in the later version, which is followed by the translated Magnificat and Benedictus, has also in the volume some tracts or meditations, and what is called the “Pistle of the Holy Sussanne.” With this is bound, possibly at a later date, Richard Rolle of Hampole’s Graft of Deying. The catholic origin of this volume is borne out fully by the fact that it belonged to the abbey of Barking in Essex. Indeed, it appears to have been written by one of the nuns named Matilda Hayle, as the note hte liber constat Matilde Hayle de Berkinge is in the same hand as the body of the book, which, by the way, subsequently belonged to another nun named Mary Hastynges.*
A copy of the English Bible, now, at Lambeth,
1 UaadowM MS., 466. ‘Add. MS., 10,696.
formerly belonged to Bishop Bonner, that Malleus hereticorum, and another, now at Cambridge, to William Weston, the Prior of St. John’s, Clerkenwell.
In like manner a copy of the English translation of the New Testament, now attributed to Wyclif, among the manuscripts of the Duke of Northumberland at Alnwick, was originally, and probably not long after the volume was written, the property of another religious house. On the last page is the name of Katerina Methwold, Monaclia, Katherine Methwold, the nun.
There are, moreover, instances of the English Bible—the production, the secret production, of the Lollard scribes—that perilous piece of property to possess, as we are asked to believe—there are instances of this being bequeathed by wills publicly proved in the public -courts of the Bishop. Others, not less publicly, are bestowed upon churches or given to religious houses. It is, of course, obvious that this could never have been done had the volume so left been the work of Wyclif or of his followers, for it would then indeed have been, as a modern writer describes the Wyclifite books, “a perilous piece of property.” Thus, before the close of the fourteenth century, namely, in 1394, a copy of the Gospels in English was bequeathed to the chantry of St. Nicholas, in the Church of Holy Trinity, York, by John Hopton, Chaplain there.1 Fancy what this means on the theory that the English Scriptures were the work of ‘Wyclifite hands 1 It means nothing less than that a catholic priest publicly bequeaths, in a will proved in his Bishop’s court, to a catholic church, for the use of catholic people, the proscribed work of some member of an heretical sect.
Again, in 1404, Philip Baunt, a Bristol merchant, leaves by will a copy of the Gospels in English to a priest named John Canterbury, attached to St. Mary Redcliffe’s Church. And—not to mention many cases in wills of the period, where it is probable that the Bible left was an English copy— there is an instance of a bequest of such a Bible in the will of a priest, William Revetour, of York, in 1446. The most interesting gift of an English New Testament, as a precious and pious donation to the Church, is that of the copy now in the possession of Lord Ashburnham,1 which in 1517 was given to the Convent of our Lady of Syon by Lady Danvers. On the last page is the following dedication :—
“Good .... Mr. Confessor of Sion with his brethren. Dame Anne Danvers widowe, sometyme wyffe to Sir William Danvers, knyght (whose soul God assoyle) hatbe gevyn this present Booke unto Mastre Confessor and his Brethren enclosed in Syon, entendyng therby not oonly the honor laude and preyse to Almighty God but also that she the moore tenderly may be committed unto the meroy of God.
1 Aehbornham MS., Appendix xix. (No. 156 in Forsball and Madden). The text of this MS. Iu printed for Mr. Lea Wilson by Pickering, in 1848.
The aforseid Dame Anne Danvers hathe delyvered this booke by the hands of her son Thomas Danvers on Mydde Lent Sunday in the 8th yere of our lord King Henry VIII. and in the yere of our Lord God a M. fyve hundred and seventeene. Deo gracias.”
To all who know what Syon was: how for a century past it had represented the very pink of pious orthodoxy and was the centre of the devotional life of the period; how the practical piety of its sisters was fostered by the highest ascetical teaching of Richard Whytford and others; to all who understand this it must appear as nothing less than the height of absurdity to suppose that any lady would insult its inmates by offering for their acceptance an heretical version of the English Bible.
And, whilst on the subject of Syon, attention must be called to another very important piece of evidence for the existence of a Catholic version of the Scriptures. It is contained in a devotional book, written probably not later than the year 1450 for the use of these sisters of Syon, and printed “ at the desyre and instaunce of the worshypfull and devoute lady abbesse1 of the worshypf ul Monastery of Syon and the revendre fadre in Gods general confessowre of the same” about the year 1530. It is called The Myrroure of our Lady very necessary for religious persons, and it is practically a translation of their Church services into English to enable the nuns the
better to understand their daily ecclesiastical duties. The point to which attention is directed is the following paragraph in the “ first prologue,” written, remember, not later than the middle of the fifteenth century: “Of psalms I have drawn (i.e., translated) but fewe,” says the author, “for ye may have them of Richard Hampoules drawinge, and out of Englygske bibles if ye have lysence thereto.”1 It is not very likely that these pious sisters would have been able to get their psalms from Wyclifite versions.
It is clear that the compiler of this book of devotions did in fact obtain them on imprimatur of authority for the translations of various quotations from Scripture in the volume. He writes :—
“And for as much as it is forbidden under pain of cursing that any man should have or translate any text of Holy Scripture into English without licence of the Bishop diocesan; and in diverse places of your service are such tests of Holy Scripture. Therefore I asked and have licence of our Bishop to translate such things into English to your ghostly comfort and profit, so both our conscience in translating and yours in the having may be more sure and olear in our Lord’s worship, which may it keep us in His grace and bring us to His bliss.” Amen.’
1 “The Myrroure of oure Ladye” (ed. J. II. Blunt), E. Eng. Text 800., p. 8.
‘Ibid., p. 71. The editor of The Myrroure upon this passage notes: “This reference to English Bibles seems to imply that they were very common in the middle of the fifteenth century. These may have been the copies of the Wyclifite version, but it seems unlikely that the Sisters would have received ‘licence’ to read these, especially as • de quibus cavendum est’ is written against some works of Wyclif in the Library Catalogue preserved at C.C. Coll. Cambridge.” After quotingthe Oxford Constitution of 1408, and Lyndewood’s Gloss, Mr. Blunt add*: “As his words were written about the same time aa those to which the note refers, they seem to corroborate the evidence given in the Mirror, that in the earlier half of the fifteenth century English Bible* ware freely used by the people.” (Notes on The Myrrourt, p. 310).
To pass to another point—it has been remarked upon as somewhat strange that in Wyclif’s sermons, which seem to have been written at the close of his life, the Scripture quotations are in no case made from the version now declared to be his. A preacher, of course, may have turned the Latin into English at the moment, but in his case this is hardly likely, if, as we are given to understand, the popularising of his reputed version was the great object of his life. Moreover, what may well have been the case in spoken discourses would scarcely have been adhered to in written and formal sermons. Beyond this the same is true of every work reputed to be WycliPs. In no instance does he quote his own supposed version. On the other hand it is at least most remarkable that the Commentary upon the Apocalypse, formerly attributed to “Wyclif, but which is now acknowledged not to be from his pen, has the ordinary version for its text.
Further, it is not without significance that Bishop Pecock in his “Repressor,” a work written ostensibly against the position of the Lollards, and their claim to make the Sacred Scripture their sole and sufficient guide in all things, not only uses what is now called the Wyclifite version of the Bible in all his quotations, but throughout his work evidently takes for granted that the lay-folk generally had the Scriptures with authority, and nowhere blames the fact. Moreover, he is careful to explain that he only speaks of the Lollards as “Biblemen,” because of their wish to found every law of faith and morals on the Written Word.
All of this is found in Gasquet’s Old English Bible.
Did you miss it? THE WYCLIFFE BIBLE MAY NOT HAVE BEEN HIS, BUT MAY HAVE BEEN AN ENGLISH CATHOLIC VERSION PASSED OFF AS HIS!!! Even Wycliffe didn’t use his version for sermons!!!
“THE WYCLIFFE BIBLE MAY NOT HAVE BEEN HIS, BUT MAY HAVE BEEN AN ENGLISH CATHOLIC VERSION PASSED OFF AS HIS!”
BWAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I’ve got some land in Atlantis - would you be interested in purchasing some? I’ll give you a special price....
BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Here,again, is what you seem to be avoiding dealing with:
Gasquet:
I cannot but think that an unbiassed mind which will reflect upon the matter must see how impossible it was for a poor persecuted sect like the Lollards, for the writings of which frequent and rigid searches were made, to produce the Bibles now ascribed to them. Many of these copies, as we may see for ourselves, are written with great care and exactness, and illuminated with coloured borders executed by skilful artists. These must surely have been the productions of freer hands than the followers of Wyclif ever were allowed to have in England. The learned editors of the so-called Wyclifite Scriptures, Messrs. Forshall and Madden, apparently hardly appreciated the force of this when they wrote:
“The new copies passed into the hands of all classes of the people. Even the Sovereign himself and the princes of the blood royal did not disdain to possess them. The volumes were in many instances executed in a costly manner, and were usually written upon vellum by experienced scribes. This implies not merely the value which was set upon the Word of God, but also that the scribes found a reward for their labours among the wealthier part of the community.”1
This is undoubtedly the case, and it is to be explained only on the supposition that the English Bible thus widely circulated was in truth the authorised catbolic version, and was in the possession of its various owners with the thorough approval of the ecclesiastical authorities. Is it likely that men of position, of unquestioned orthodoxy and of undoubted hostility to Lollard aims and opinions, would have cherished the possession of copies of a Wyclifite Bible? When we find, for example, that a finely-executed vellum folio copy of the Scriptures, with illuminated borders, was not only the property of King Henry VI.—a monarch, by the way, of saintly life and “enthusiastic in the cause of religion “—but that he bestowed it upon the monks of the London Charterhouse, we cannot but acknowledge that this must have been known as the perfectly orthodox translation of the English Church.
The same version is found to have had a place in the royal library of Henry VII. In this copy not only is the excellent character of the workmanship altogether inconsistent with the notion that it is from the pen of some poor hunted adherent of Wyclif, but a leaf supplied at the beginning, in a late fifteenth century hand, is illuminated with the royal arms, the portcullis and red and white Tudor roses. Moreover, curiously enough, this border surrounds the prologue, “Five and Twenty Books” so freely attributed to Wyclif.
A third copy of the English Scriptures—the veiy manuscript now displayed in the British Museum as Wyclif’s translation, to which I referred at the commencement of this paper—formerly belonged to Thomas of Woodstock, Duke of Gloucester, the firm friend and ally of that uncompromising opponent of Lollard opinions, Archbishop Arundel. Indeed, the inventory of the Duke of Gloucester’s goods,, now in the Record Office, shows that, besides “the Bible in English in two big volumes bound in red leather,” he possessed in his by no means extensive library an English Psalter and two books of the Gospels in English.1 Another copy of this version of the New Testament was the property, and ha& the autograph, of Humphrey—” the good Duke Humphrey “—of Gloucester, the generous benefactor of St. Albans, and the constant friend of its abbot, Whethamstede, whose hostility to Lollard doctrines is well known.
Another point which must not be overlooked is the good catholic company in which this version of the Scriptures, or parts of it, are occasionally found. Thus, in a volume in the Museum collection we find not only the lessons from the Old Testament read in the Mass book, together with the table of Epistles and Gospels, but a tract by Richard Rolle, “of amendinge of mannes life, or 1 the rule of lifing,’” and another on contemplative life and love of God.1 Another copy of The Book of Tobit, in the later version, which is followed by the translated Magnificat and Benedictus, has also in the volume some tracts or meditations, and what is called the “Pistle of the Holy Sussanne.” With this is bound, possibly at a later date, Richard Rolle of Hampole’s Graft of Deying. The catholic origin of this volume is borne out fully by the fact that it belonged to the abbey of Barking in Essex. Indeed, it appears to have been written by one of the nuns named Matilda Hayle, as the note hte liber constat Matilde Hayle de Berkinge is in the same hand as the body of the book, which, by the way, subsequently belonged to another nun named Mary Hastynges.*
A copy of the English Bible, now, at Lambeth,
1 UaadowM MS., 466. ‘Add. MS., 10,696.
formerly belonged to Bishop Bonner, that Malleus hereticorum, and another, now at Cambridge, to William Weston, the Prior of St. John’s, Clerkenwell.
In like manner a copy of the English translation of the New Testament, now attributed to Wyclif, among the manuscripts of the Duke of Northumberland at Alnwick, was originally, and probably not long after the volume was written, the property of another religious house. On the last page is the name of Katerina Methwold, Monaclia, Katherine Methwold, the nun.
There are, moreover, instances of the English Bible—the production, the secret production, of the Lollard scribes—that perilous piece of property to possess, as we are asked to believe—there are instances of this being bequeathed by wills publicly proved in the public -courts of the Bishop. Others, not less publicly, are bestowed upon churches or given to religious houses. It is, of course, obvious that this could never have been done had the volume so left been the work of Wyclif or of his followers, for it would then indeed have been, as a modern writer describes the Wyclifite books, “a perilous piece of property.” Thus, before the close of the fourteenth century, namely, in 1394, a copy of the Gospels in English was bequeathed to the chantry of St. Nicholas, in the Church of Holy Trinity, York, by John Hopton, Chaplain there.1 Fancy what this means on the theory that the English Scriptures were the work of ‘Wyclifite hands 1 It means nothing less than that a catholic priest publicly bequeaths, in a will proved in his Bishop’s court, to a catholic church, for the use of catholic people, the proscribed work of some member of an heretical sect.
Again, in 1404, Philip Baunt, a Bristol merchant, leaves by will a copy of the Gospels in English to a priest named John Canterbury, attached to St. Mary Redcliffe’s Church. And—not to mention many cases in wills of the period, where it is probable that the Bible left was an English copy— there is an instance of a bequest of such a Bible in the will of a priest, William Revetour, of York, in 1446. The most interesting gift of an English New Testament, as a precious and pious donation to the Church, is that of the copy now in the possession of Lord Ashburnham,1 which in 1517 was given to the Convent of our Lady of Syon by Lady Danvers. On the last page is the following dedication :—
“Good .... Mr. Confessor of Sion with his brethren. Dame Anne Danvers widowe, sometyme wyffe to Sir William Danvers, knyght (whose soul God assoyle) hatbe gevyn this present Booke unto Mastre Confessor and his Brethren enclosed in Syon, entendyng therby not oonly the honor laude and preyse to Almighty God but also that she the moore tenderly may be committed unto the meroy of God.
1 Aehbornham MS., Appendix xix. (No. 156 in Forsball and Madden). The text of this MS. Iu printed for Mr. Lea Wilson by Pickering, in 1848.
The aforseid Dame Anne Danvers hathe delyvered this booke by the hands of her son Thomas Danvers on Mydde Lent Sunday in the 8th yere of our lord King Henry VIII. and in the yere of our Lord God a M. fyve hundred and seventeene. Deo gracias.”
To all who know what Syon was: how for a century past it had represented the very pink of pious orthodoxy and was the centre of the devotional life of the period; how the practical piety of its sisters was fostered by the highest ascetical teaching of Richard Whytford and others; to all who understand this it must appear as nothing less than the height of absurdity to suppose that any lady would insult its inmates by offering for their acceptance an heretical version of the English Bible.
And, whilst on the subject of Syon, attention must be called to another very important piece of evidence for the existence of a Catholic version of the Scriptures. It is contained in a devotional book, written probably not later than the year 1450 for the use of these sisters of Syon, and printed “ at the desyre and instaunce of the worshypfull and devoute lady abbesse1 of the worshypf ul Monastery of Syon and the revendre fadre in Gods general confessowre of the same” about the year 1530. It is called The Myrroure of our Lady very necessary for religious persons, and it is practically a translation of their Church services into English to enable the nuns the
better to understand their daily ecclesiastical duties. The point to which attention is directed is the following paragraph in the “ first prologue,” written, remember, not later than the middle of the fifteenth century: “Of psalms I have drawn (i.e., translated) but fewe,” says the author, “for ye may have them of Richard Hampoules drawinge, and out of Englygske bibles if ye have lysence thereto.”1 It is not very likely that these pious sisters would have been able to get their psalms from Wyclifite versions.
It is clear that the compiler of this book of devotions did in fact obtain them on imprimatur of authority for the translations of various quotations from Scripture in the volume. He writes :—
“And for as much as it is forbidden under pain of cursing that any man should have or translate any text of Holy Scripture into English without licence of the Bishop diocesan; and in diverse places of your service are such tests of Holy Scripture. Therefore I asked and have licence of our Bishop to translate such things into English to your ghostly comfort and profit, so both our conscience in translating and yours in the having may be more sure and olear in our Lord’s worship, which may it keep us in His grace and bring us to His bliss.” Amen.’
1 “The Myrroure of oure Ladye” (ed. J. II. Blunt), E. Eng. Text 800., p. 8.
‘Ibid., p. 71. The editor of The Myrroure upon this passage notes: “This reference to English Bibles seems to imply that they were very common in the middle of the fifteenth century. These may have been the copies of the Wyclifite version, but it seems unlikely that the Sisters would have received ‘licence’ to read these, especially as • de quibus cavendum est’ is written against some works of Wyclif in the Library Catalogue preserved at C.C. Coll. Cambridge.” After quotingthe Oxford Constitution of 1408, and Lyndewood’s Gloss, Mr. Blunt add*: “As his words were written about the same time aa those to which the note refers, they seem to corroborate the evidence given in the Mirror, that in the earlier half of the fifteenth century English Bible* ware freely used by the people.” (Notes on The Myrrourt, p. 310).
To pass to another point—it has been remarked upon as somewhat strange that in Wyclif’s sermons, which seem to have been written at the close of his life, the Scripture quotations are in no case made from the version now declared to be his. A preacher, of course, may have turned the Latin into English at the moment, but in his case this is hardly likely, if, as we are given to understand, the popularising of his reputed version was the great object of his life. Moreover, what may well have been the case in spoken discourses would scarcely have been adhered to in written and formal sermons. Beyond this the same is true of every work reputed to be WycliPs. In no instance does he quote his own supposed version. On the other hand it is at least most remarkable that the Commentary upon the Apocalypse, formerly attributed to “Wyclif, but which is now acknowledged not to be from his pen, has the ordinary version for its text.
Further, it is not without significance that Bishop Pecock in his “Repressor,” a work written ostensibly against the position of the Lollards, and their claim to make the Sacred Scripture their sole and sufficient guide in all things, not only uses what is now called the Wyclifite version of the Bible in all his quotations, but throughout his work evidently takes for granted that the lay-folk generally had the Scriptures with authority, and nowhere blames the fact. Moreover, he is careful to explain that he only speaks of the Lollards as “Biblemen,” because of their wish to found every law of faith and morals on the Written Word.
All of this is found in Gasquet’s Old English Bible.
Did you miss it? THE WYCLIFFE BIBLE MAY NOT HAVE BEEN HIS, BUT MAY HAVE BEEN AN ENGLISH CATHOLIC VERSION PASSED OFF AS HIS!!! Even Wycliffe didn’t use his version for sermons!!!
You can laugh at it all you want - I don’t think anyone here believes you have any ability to refute any of this. All you apparently can do is dismiss it out of hand. You apparently can’t deal with the facts.
“SHOW IT TO ME.”
This, from someone who claims the Wycliffe Bible was “AN ENGLISH CATHOLIC VERSION PASSED OFF AS HIS”?
I’ve shown you the citations, but cannot help someone who refuses to read them.
Tyndale and Wycliffe both believed in letting folks read for themselves and make up their own mind, which is why they made their translations. I’ll follow their example, and let the posts made speak for themselves.
You wrote:
“This, from someone who claims the Wycliffe Bible was “AN ENGLISH CATHOLIC VERSION PASSED OFF AS HIS”?”
None of what you posted proved your point as I easily showed. And about Wycliffe’s Bible, why didn’t he quote it himself in his sermons if he made it? Can you explain that to me?
“I’ve shown you the citations, but cannot help someone who refuses to read them.”
You never showed a single scrap of evidence toward your claim of a “policy” against reading the Bible in the vernacular by commoners.
“Tyndale and Wycliffe both believed in letting folks read for themselves and make up their own mind,”
Nope. Both were heretics and wanted people to believe their heretical doctrines.
“which is why they made their translations.”
Nope. Since translations already existed - even if not of the whole Bible (and that’s an ‘if’) - they didn’t need to translate the whole Bible just so “folks [could read for themselves and make up their own mind.”
Also, since when is Sacred Scripture - the revealed word of God - about letting people make up their own minds rather than conveying revealed truths? God already gave us freewill. He didn’t inspire scripture merely to allow us to exercise free will but instead to convey revealed truths.
“I’ll follow their example, and let the posts made speak for themselves.”
What speaks for itself is your repeated failure to refute this:
Here,again, is what you seem to be avoiding dealing with:
Gasquet:
I cannot but think that an unbiassed mind which will reflect upon the matter must see how impossible it was for a poor persecuted sect like the Lollards, for the writings of which frequent and rigid searches were made, to produce the Bibles now ascribed to them. Many of these copies, as we may see for ourselves, are written with great care and exactness, and illuminated with coloured borders executed by skilful artists. These must surely have been the productions of freer hands than the followers of Wyclif ever were allowed to have in England. The learned editors of the so-called Wyclifite Scriptures, Messrs. Forshall and Madden, apparently hardly appreciated the force of this when they wrote:
“The new copies passed into the hands of all classes of the people. Even the Sovereign himself and the princes of the blood royal did not disdain to possess them. The volumes were in many instances executed in a costly manner, and were usually written upon vellum by experienced scribes. This implies not merely the value which was set upon the Word of God, but also that the scribes found a reward for their labours among the wealthier part of the community.”1
This is undoubtedly the case, and it is to be explained only on the supposition that the English Bible thus widely circulated was in truth the authorised catbolic version, and was in the possession of its various owners with the thorough approval of the ecclesiastical authorities. Is it likely that men of position, of unquestioned orthodoxy and of undoubted hostility to Lollard aims and opinions, would have cherished the possession of copies of a Wyclifite Bible? When we find, for example, that a finely-executed vellum folio copy of the Scriptures, with illuminated borders, was not only the property of King Henry VI.—a monarch, by the way, of saintly life and “enthusiastic in the cause of religion “—but that he bestowed it upon the monks of the London Charterhouse, we cannot but acknowledge that this must have been known as the perfectly orthodox translation of the English Church.
The same version is found to have had a place in the royal library of Henry VII. In this copy not only is the excellent character of the workmanship altogether inconsistent with the notion that it is from the pen of some poor hunted adherent of Wyclif, but a leaf supplied at the beginning, in a late fifteenth century hand, is illuminated with the royal arms, the portcullis and red and white Tudor roses. Moreover, curiously enough, this border surrounds the prologue, “Five and Twenty Books” so freely attributed to Wyclif.
A third copy of the English Scriptures—the veiy manuscript now displayed in the British Museum as Wyclif’s translation, to which I referred at the commencement of this paper—formerly belonged to Thomas of Woodstock, Duke of Gloucester, the firm friend and ally of that uncompromising opponent of Lollard opinions, Archbishop Arundel. Indeed, the inventory of the Duke of Gloucester’s goods,, now in the Record Office, shows that, besides “the Bible in English in two big volumes bound in red leather,” he possessed in his by no means extensive library an English Psalter and two books of the Gospels in English.1 Another copy of this version of the New Testament was the property, and ha& the autograph, of Humphrey—” the good Duke Humphrey “—of Gloucester, the generous benefactor of St. Albans, and the constant friend of its abbot, Whethamstede, whose hostility to Lollard doctrines is well known.
Another point which must not be overlooked is the good catholic company in which this version of the Scriptures, or parts of it, are occasionally found. Thus, in a volume in the Museum collection we find not only the lessons from the Old Testament read in the Mass book, together with the table of Epistles and Gospels, but a tract by Richard Rolle, “of amendinge of mannes life, or 1 the rule of lifing,’” and another on contemplative life and love of God.1 Another copy of The Book of Tobit, in the later version, which is followed by the translated Magnificat and Benedictus, has also in the volume some tracts or meditations, and what is called the “Pistle of the Holy Sussanne.” With this is bound, possibly at a later date, Richard Rolle of Hampole’s Graft of Deying. The catholic origin of this volume is borne out fully by the fact that it belonged to the abbey of Barking in Essex. Indeed, it appears to have been written by one of the nuns named Matilda Hayle, as the note hte liber constat Matilde Hayle de Berkinge is in the same hand as the body of the book, which, by the way, subsequently belonged to another nun named Mary Hastynges.*
A copy of the English Bible, now, at Lambeth,
1 UaadowM MS., 466. ‘Add. MS., 10,696.
formerly belonged to Bishop Bonner, that Malleus hereticorum, and another, now at Cambridge, to William Weston, the Prior of St. John’s, Clerkenwell.
In like manner a copy of the English translation of the New Testament, now attributed to Wyclif, among the manuscripts of the Duke of Northumberland at Alnwick, was originally, and probably not long after the volume was written, the property of another religious house. On the last page is the name of Katerina Methwold, Monaclia, Katherine Methwold, the nun.
There are, moreover, instances of the English Bible—the production, the secret production, of the Lollard scribes—that perilous piece of property to possess, as we are asked to believe—there are instances of this being bequeathed by wills publicly proved in the public -courts of the Bishop. Others, not less publicly, are bestowed upon churches or given to religious houses. It is, of course, obvious that this could never have been done had the volume so left been the work of Wyclif or of his followers, for it would then indeed have been, as a modern writer describes the Wyclifite books, “a perilous piece of property.” Thus, before the close of the fourteenth century, namely, in 1394, a copy of the Gospels in English was bequeathed to the chantry of St. Nicholas, in the Church of Holy Trinity, York, by John Hopton, Chaplain there.1 Fancy what this means on the theory that the English Scriptures were the work of ‘Wyclifite hands 1 It means nothing less than that a catholic priest publicly bequeaths, in a will proved in his Bishop’s court, to a catholic church, for the use of catholic people, the proscribed work of some member of an heretical sect.
Again, in 1404, Philip Baunt, a Bristol merchant, leaves by will a copy of the Gospels in English to a priest named John Canterbury, attached to St. Mary Redcliffe’s Church. And—not to mention many cases in wills of the period, where it is probable that the Bible left was an English copy— there is an instance of a bequest of such a Bible in the will of a priest, William Revetour, of York, in 1446. The most interesting gift of an English New Testament, as a precious and pious donation to the Church, is that of the copy now in the possession of Lord Ashburnham,1 which in 1517 was given to the Convent of our Lady of Syon by Lady Danvers. On the last page is the following dedication :—
“Good .... Mr. Confessor of Sion with his brethren. Dame Anne Danvers widowe, sometyme wyffe to Sir William Danvers, knyght (whose soul God assoyle) hatbe gevyn this present Booke unto Mastre Confessor and his Brethren enclosed in Syon, entendyng therby not oonly the honor laude and preyse to Almighty God but also that she the moore tenderly may be committed unto the meroy of God.
1 Aehbornham MS., Appendix xix. (No. 156 in Forsball and Madden). The text of this MS. Iu printed for Mr. Lea Wilson by Pickering, in 1848.
The aforseid Dame Anne Danvers hathe delyvered this booke by the hands of her son Thomas Danvers on Mydde Lent Sunday in the 8th yere of our lord King Henry VIII. and in the yere of our Lord God a M. fyve hundred and seventeene. Deo gracias.”
To all who know what Syon was: how for a century past it had represented the very pink of pious orthodoxy and was the centre of the devotional life of the period; how the practical piety of its sisters was fostered by the highest ascetical teaching of Richard Whytford and others; to all who understand this it must appear as nothing less than the height of absurdity to suppose that any lady would insult its inmates by offering for their acceptance an heretical version of the English Bible.
And, whilst on the subject of Syon, attention must be called to another very important piece of evidence for the existence of a Catholic version of the Scriptures. It is contained in a devotional book, written probably not later than the year 1450 for the use of these sisters of Syon, and printed “ at the desyre and instaunce of the worshypfull and devoute lady abbesse1 of the worshypf ul Monastery of Syon and the revendre fadre in Gods general confessowre of the same” about the year 1530. It is called The Myrroure of our Lady very necessary for religious persons, and it is practically a translation of their Church services into English to enable the nuns the
better to understand their daily ecclesiastical duties. The point to which attention is directed is the following paragraph in the “ first prologue,” written, remember, not later than the middle of the fifteenth century: “Of psalms I have drawn (i.e., translated) but fewe,” says the author, “for ye may have them of Richard Hampoules drawinge, and out of Englygske bibles if ye have lysence thereto.”1 It is not very likely that these pious sisters would have been able to get their psalms from Wyclifite versions.
It is clear that the compiler of this book of devotions did in fact obtain them on imprimatur of authority for the translations of various quotations from Scripture in the volume. He writes :—
“And for as much as it is forbidden under pain of cursing that any man should have or translate any text of Holy Scripture into English without licence of the Bishop diocesan; and in diverse places of your service are such tests of Holy Scripture. Therefore I asked and have licence of our Bishop to translate such things into English to your ghostly comfort and profit, so both our conscience in translating and yours in the having may be more sure and olear in our Lord’s worship, which may it keep us in His grace and bring us to His bliss.” Amen.’
1 “The Myrroure of oure Ladye” (ed. J. II. Blunt), E. Eng. Text 800., p. 8.
‘Ibid., p. 71. The editor of The Myrroure upon this passage notes: “This reference to English Bibles seems to imply that they were very common in the middle of the fifteenth century. These may have been the copies of the Wyclifite version, but it seems unlikely that the Sisters would have received ‘licence’ to read these, especially as • de quibus cavendum est’ is written against some works of Wyclif in the Library Catalogue preserved at C.C. Coll. Cambridge.” After quotingthe Oxford Constitution of 1408, and Lyndewood’s Gloss, Mr. Blunt add*: “As his words were written about the same time aa those to which the note refers, they seem to corroborate the evidence given in the Mirror, that in the earlier half of the fifteenth century English Bible* ware freely used by the people.” (Notes on The Myrrourt, p. 310).
To pass to another point—it has been remarked upon as somewhat strange that in Wyclif’s sermons, which seem to have been written at the close of his life, the Scripture quotations are in no case made from the version now declared to be his. A preacher, of course, may have turned the Latin into English at the moment, but in his case this is hardly likely, if, as we are given to understand, the popularising of his reputed version was the great object of his life. Moreover, what may well have been the case in spoken discourses would scarcely have been adhered to in written and formal sermons. Beyond this the same is true of every work reputed to be WycliPs. In no instance does he quote his own supposed version. On the other hand it is at least most remarkable that the Commentary upon the Apocalypse, formerly attributed to “Wyclif, but which is now acknowledged not to be from his pen, has the ordinary version for its text.
Further, it is not without significance that Bishop Pecock in his “Repressor,” a work written ostensibly against the position of the Lollards, and their claim to make the Sacred Scripture their sole and sufficient guide in all things, not only uses what is now called the Wyclifite version of the Bible in all his quotations, but throughout his work evidently takes for granted that the lay-folk generally had the Scriptures with authority, and nowhere blames the fact. Moreover, he is careful to explain that he only speaks of the Lollards as “Biblemen,” because of their wish to found every law of faith and morals on the Written Word.
All of this is found in Gasquet’s Old English Bible.
Did you miss it? THE WYCLIFFE BIBLE MAY NOT HAVE BEEN HIS, BUT MAY HAVE BEEN AN ENGLISH CATHOLIC VERSION PASSED OFF AS HIS!!! Even Wycliffe didn’t use his version for sermons!!!
I’ve spent enough time debating conspiracy kooks to refuse to do so here.
If someone wants to ignore all of history and believe that Wycliffe’s Bible was an approved Catholic translation stolen by his followers, nothing I write can persuade them otherwise.
“In a letter to Pope John XXIII in 1412, Archbishop Arundel referred to “that wretched and pestilent fellow John Wycliffe, of damnable memory, that son of the old serpent, the very herald and child of antichrist.” Climaxing his denunciation, Arundel wrote: “To fill up the measure of his malice, he devised the expedient of a new translation of the Scriptures into the mother tongue.”
http://www.thebookblog.co.uk/2010/04/john-wycliffe-c-1320-1384/
Apparently, the Archbishop deceived the Pope, since the Wycliffe Bible was REALLY an approved Catholic translation!
“To follow the description given by Knighton in his Chronicle, the gift of the English Bible was regarded by Wyclif’s contemporaries as both a novel act and an act of desecration. The irreverence and profanation of offering such a translation was likened to the casting of pearls before swine. The passage in Knighton, who wrote 20 years after Wyclif’s death, runs thus:
The Gospel, which Christ bequeathed to the clergy and doctors of the Church — as they in turn give it to lay and weaker persons — this Master John Wyclif translated out of the Latin into the Anglican tongue, not the Angelic tongue, so that by him it is become common, and more open to the lay folk and to women, knowing how to read, than it used to be to clerics of a fair amount of learning and of good minds. Thus, the Gospel pearl is cast forth and trodden under foot of swine, and what was dear to both clergy and laity is now made a subject of common jest to both, and the jewel of the clergy is turned into the sport of the laity, so that what was before to the clergy and doctors of the Church a divine gift, has been turned into a mock Gospel [or common thing].”
“The work speedily received reprobation at the hands of the Church authorities. A bill presented in the English parliament, 1391, to condemn English versions, was rejected through the influence of the duke of Lancaster, but an Oxford synod, of 1408, passed the ominous act, that upon pain of greater excommunication, no man, by his own authority, should translate into English or any other tongue, until such translation were approved by the bishop, or, if necessary, by the provincial council. It distinctly mentions the translation “set forth in the time of John Wyclif.” Writing to John XXIII, 1412, Archbishop Arundel took occasion to denounce “that pestilent wretch of damnable memory, yea, the forerunner and disciple of anti-christ who, as the complement of his wickedness, invented a new translation of the Scriptures into his mother-tongue.”65
In 1414, the reading of the English Scriptures was forbidden upon pain of forfeiture “of land, cattle, life and goods from their heirs forever.” Such denunciations of a common English version were what Wyclif’s own criticisms might have led us to expect, and quite in consonance with the decree of the Synod of Toulouse, 1229; and Arundel’s reprobation has been frequently matched by prelatical condemnation of vernacular translations of the Bible and their circulation down to the papal fulminations of the 19th century against Bible societies, as by Pius VII, 1816, who declared them “fiendish institutions for the undermining of the foundation of religion.” The position, taken by Catholic apologists, that the Catholic hierarchy has never set itself against the circulation of the Scriptures in the vernacular, but only against unauthorized translations, would be adapted to modify Protestantism’s notion of the matter, if there were some evidence of only a limited attempt to encourage Bible study among the laity of the Catholic Church with the pages of Scripture open before them. If we go to the Catholic countries of Southern Europe and to South America, where her away has been unobstructed, the very opposite is true.
In the clearest language, Wyclif charged the priestly authorities of his time with withholding the Word of God from the laity, and denying it to them in the language the people could understand. And the fact remains that, from his day until the reign of Elizabeth, Catholic England did not produce any translations of the Bible, and the English Reformers were of the opinion that the Catholic hierarchy was irrevocably set against English versions. Tyndale had to flee from England to translate his New Testament, and all the copies of the first edition that could be collected were burnt on English soil. And though it is alleged that Tyndale’s New Testament was burnt because it was an “unauthorized” translation, it still remains true that the hierarchy made no attempt to give the Bible to England until long after the Protestant Reformation had begun and Protestantism was well established.
The copies of Wyclif’s and Purvey’s versions seem to have been circulated in considerable numbers in England, and were in the possession of low and high. The Lollards cherished them. A splendid copy was given to the Carthusians of London by Henry VI, and another copy was in the possession of Henry VII. Sir Thomas More states distinctly that there was found in the possession of John Hunne, who was afterwards burnt, a Bible “written after Wyclif’s copy and by him translated into our tongue.”66 While for a century and a half these volumes helped to keep alive the spirit of Wyclif in England, it is impossible to say how far Wyclif’s version influenced the Protestant Reformers. In fact, it is unknown whether they used it at all. Some of its words, such as “mote” and “beam” and “strait gate,” which are found in the version of the 16th century, seem to indicate, to say the least, that these terms had become common property through the medium of Wyclif’s version.67 The priceless heirloom which English-speaking peoples possess in the English version and in an open Bible free to all who will read, learned and unlearned, lay and cleric, will continue to be associated with the Reformer of the 14th century. As has been said by one of the ablest of recent Wyclif students, Buddensieg, the call to honor the Scriptures as the Word of God and to study and diligently obey them, runs through Wyclif’s writings like a scarlet thread.68 Without knowing it, he departed diametrically from Augustine when he declared that the Scriptures do not depend for their authority upon the judgment of the Church, but upon Christ.”
” Note. – The Authorship of the First English Bible. Recently the priority of Wyclif’s translation has been denied by Abbot Gasquet in two elaborate essays, The Old English Bible, pp. 87–155. He also pronounces it to be very doubtful if Wyclif ever translated any part of the Bible. All that can be attempted here is a brief statement of the case. In addition to Knighton’s testimony, which seems to be as plain as language could put it, we have the testimony of John Huss in his Reply to the Carmelite Stokes, 1411, that Wyclif translated the whole Bible into English. No one contends that Wyclif did as much as this, and Huss was no doubt speaking in general terms, having in mind the originator of the work and the man’s name connected with it. The doubt cast upon the first proposition, the priority of Wyclif’s version, is due to Sir Thomas More’s statement in his Dialogue, 1530 (Works, p. 233). In controverting the positions of Tyndale and the Reformers, he said, “The whole Bible was before Wyclif’s days, by virtuous and well-learned men, translated into English and by good and godly people, with devotion and soberness, well and reverently read.” He also says that he saw such copies. In considering this statement it seems very possible that More made a mistake (1) because the statement is contrary to Knighton’s words, taken in their natural sense and Huss’ testimony. (2) Because Wyclif’s own statements exclude the existence of any English version before his own. (3) Because the Lollards associated their Bible with Wyclif’s name. (4) Because before the era of the Reformation no English writer refers to any translating except in connection with Wyclif’s name and time. Sir Thomas More was engaged in controversy and attempting to justify the position that the Catholic hierarchy had not been opposed to translations of the Scriptures nor to their circulation among proper classes of the laity. But Abbot Gasquet, after proposing a number of conjectural doubts and setting aside the natural sense of Knighton’s and Arundel’s statements, denies altogether the Wycliffite authorship of the Bible ascribed to him and edited by Forshall and Madden, and performs the feat of declaring this Bible one of the old translations mentioned by More...
...The second proposition advocated by Dr. Gasquet that it is doubtful, and perhaps very improbable, that Wyclif did anything in the way of translating the Bible, is based chiefly upon the fact that Wyclif does not refer to such a translation anywhere in his writings. If we take the abbot’s own high priest among authorities, Sir Thomas More, the doubt is found to be unjustifiable, if not criminal. More, speaking of John Hunne, who was burnt, said that he possessed a copy of the Bible which was “after a Wycliffite copy.” (Eadie, I. 6O sqq.); Westcott (Hist. of the Eng. Bible.), Gairdner (who discusses the subject fairly in his Lollardy, I. 101–117), Capes (pp. 125–128), F. D. Matthew (in Eng. Hist. Rev., 1895), and Bigg (Wayside Sketches, p. 127 sq.) take substantially the position taken by the author. Gasquet was preceded by Lingard (Hist. of Eng., IV. 196), who laid stress upon More’s testimony to offset and disparage the honor given from time immemorial to Wyclif in connection with the English Bible.
How can a controversialist be deemed fair who, in a discussion of this kind, does not even once refer to Wyclif’s well-known views about the value of a popular knowledge of the Scriptures, and his urgency that they be given to all the people through plain preaching and in translation?”
http://www.bible-researcher.com/wyclif1.html
“His historical work has been attacked by later writers. Geoffrey Elton wrote of “the falsehoods purveyed by Cardinal Gasquet and Hilaire Belloc.”[1] His collaboration with Edmund Bishop has been described as “an alliance between scholarship exquisite and deplorable.”[2] A polemical campaign by G. G. Coulton against Gasquet was largely successful in discrediting his works in academic eyes.[3] One of his books contained an appendix “A Rough List of Misstatements and Blunders in Cardinal Gasquet’s Writings.”[4]
David Knowles wrote a reasoned piece of apologetics on Gasquet’s history in 1956, Cardinal Gasquet as an Historian.[5] In it he speaks of Gasquet’s “many errors and failings”, and notes that he “was not an intellectually humble man and he showed little insight into his own limitations of knowledge and training.” Coulton, though, he felt was in error, through over-simplifying the case.[6]
Eamon Duffy said in an interview:
“ ...Cardinal Francis Aidan Gasquet, a great Benedictine historian, was both a bad workman and not entirely scrupulous about what he said. So you can be a churchman and a lousy historian.[7]”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Francis_Aidan_Gasquet
The reason for him being attacked by the Archbishop of Canterbury seems to have political overtones too, but I need to read up more to comment.
The upshot of this is that for Wycliffe bible, the first translation was faulty and it made sense to restrict it. About the second, that was undertaken after Wycliffe's death.
Blog articles drawn from Protestant works of hagiography don’t count for much as history.
You wrote:
“Apparently, the Archbishop deceived the Pope, since the Wycliffe Bible was REALLY an approved Catholic translation!”
Again, answer this question: why didn’t Wycliffe use his own translation in his own sermons?
You apparently are unable to refute a single thing that I posted.
And none of that changes the fact that what I posted from Gasquet was based squarely on sources and quoted them extensively. Again, you apparently can’t refute anything I posted.
When you actually deal with what I posted? Deal with the evidence. Deal with the quotesd. Can you? Probably not. Will you? Probably not.
Here, I’ll make it easy for you:
Messrs. Forshall and Madden, apparently hardly appreciated the force of this when they wrote:
“The new copies passed into the hands of all classes of the people. Even the Sovereign himself and the princes of the blood royal did not disdain to possess them. The volumes were in many instances executed in a costly manner, and were usually written upon vellum by experienced scribes. This implies not merely the value which was set upon the Word of God, but also that the scribes found a reward for their labours among the wealthier part of the community.”1
Refute that. Can you?
When we find, for example, that a finely-executed vellum folio copy of the Scriptures, with illuminated borders, was not only the property of King Henry VI.—a monarch, by the way, of saintly life and “enthusiastic in the cause of religion “—but that he bestowed it upon the monks of the London Charterhouse, we cannot but acknowledge that this must have been known as the perfectly orthodox translation of the English Church.
Refute that. Can you?
The same version is found to have had a place in the royal library of Henry VII. In this copy not only is the excellent character of the workmanship altogether inconsistent with the notion that it is from the pen of some poor hunted adherent of Wyclif, but a leaf supplied at the beginning, in a late fifteenth century hand, is illuminated with the royal arms, the portcullis and red and white Tudor roses. Moreover, curiously enough, this border surrounds the prologue, “Five and Twenty Books” so freely attributed to Wyclif.
Refute that. Can you?
A third copy of the English Scriptures—the very manuscript now displayed in the British Museum as Wyclif’s translation, to which I referred at the commencement of this paper—formerly belonged to Thomas of Woodstock, Duke of Gloucester, the firm friend and ally of that uncompromising opponent of Lollard opinions, Archbishop Arundel. Indeed, the inventory of the Duke of Gloucester’s goods,, now in the Record Office, shows that, besides “the Bible in English in two big volumes bound in red leather,” he possessed in his by no means extensive library an English Psalter and two books of the Gospels in English.1 Another copy of this version of the New Testament was the property, and ha& the autograph, of Humphrey—” the good Duke Humphrey “—of Gloucester, the generous benefactor of St. Albans, and the constant friend of its abbot, Whethamstede, whose hostility to Lollard doctrines is well known.
Refute that. Can you?
Another point which must not be overlooked is the good catholic company in which this version of the Scriptures, or parts of it, are occasionally found. Thus, in a volume in the Museum collection we find not only the lessons from the Old Testament read in the Mass book, together with the table of Epistles and Gospels, but a tract by Richard Rolle, “of amendinge of mannes life, or 1 the rule of lifing,’” and another on contemplative life and love of God.1 Another copy of The Book of Tobit, in the later version, which is followed by the translated Magnificat and Benedictus, has also in the volume some tracts or meditations, and what is called the “Pistle of the Holy Sussanne.” With this is bound, possibly at a later date, Richard Rolle of Hampole’s Graft of Deying. The catholic origin of this volume is borne out fully by the fact that it belonged to the abbey of Barking in Essex. Indeed, it appears to have been written by one of the nuns named Matilda Hayle, as the note hte liber constat Matilde Hayle de Berkinge is in the same hand as the body of the book, which, by the way, subsequently belonged to another nun named Mary Hastynges.*
Wow, from one nun to another. Refute that. Can you?
A copy of the English Bible, now, at Lambeth, formerly belonged to Bishop Bonner, that Malleus hereticorum, and another, now at Cambridge, to William Weston, the Prior of St. John’s, Clerkenwell.
Refute that. Can you?
In like manner a copy of the English translation of the New Testament, now attributed to Wyclif, among the manuscripts of the Duke of Northumberland at Alnwick, was originally, and probably not long after the volume was written, the property of another religious house. On the last page is the name of Katerina Methwold, Monaclia, Katherine Methwold, the nun.
Refute that. Can you?
There are, moreover, instances of the English Bible—the production, the secret production, of the Lollard scribes—that perilous piece of property to possess, as we are asked to believe—there are instances of this being bequeathed by wills publicly proved in the public -courts of the Bishop. Others, not less publicly, are bestowed upon churches or given to religious houses. It is, of course, obvious that this could never have been done had the volume so left been the work of Wyclif or of his followers, for it would then indeed have been, as a modern writer describes the Wyclifite books, “a perilous piece of property.” Thus, before the close of the fourteenth century, namely, in 1394, a copy of the Gospels in English was bequeathed to the chantry of St. Nicholas, in the Church of Holy Trinity, York, by John Hopton, Chaplain there.1 Fancy what this means on the theory that the English Scriptures were the work of ‘Wyclifite hands 1 It means nothing less than that a catholic priest publicly bequeaths, in a will proved in his Bishop’s court, to a catholic church, for the use of catholic people, the proscribed work of some member of an heretical sect.
Refute that. Can you?
Again, in 1404, Philip Baunt, a Bristol merchant, leaves by will a copy of the Gospels in English to a priest named John Canterbury, attached to St. Mary Redcliffe’s Church.
Refute that. Can you?
And—not to mention many cases in wills of the period, where it is probable that the Bible left was an English copy— there is an instance of a bequest of such a Bible in the will of a priest, William Revetour, of York, in 1446.
Refute that. Can you?
The most interesting gift of an English New Testament, as a precious and pious donation to the Church, is that of the copy now in the possession of Lord Ashburnham,1 which in 1517 was given to the Convent of our Lady of Syon by Lady Danvers. On the last page is the following dedication :—
“Good .... Mr. Confessor of Sion with his brethren. Dame Anne Danvers widowe, sometyme wyffe to Sir William Danvers, knyght (whose soul God assoyle) hatbe gevyn this present Booke unto Mastre Confessor and his Brethren enclosed in Syon, entendyng therby not oonly the honor laude and preyse to Almighty God but also that she the moore tenderly may be committed unto the meroy of God.
The aforseid Dame Anne Danvers hathe delyvered this booke by the hands of her son Thomas Danvers on Mydde Lent Sunday in the 8th yere of our lord King Henry VIII. and in the yere of our Lord God a M. fyve hundred and seventeene. Deo gracias.”
Refute that. Can you?
To all who know what Syon was: how for a century past it had represented the very pink of pious orthodoxy and was the centre of the devotional life of the period; how the practical piety of its sisters was fostered by the highest ascetical teaching of Richard Whytford and others; to all who understand this it must appear as nothing less than the height of absurdity to suppose that any lady would insult its inmates by offering for their acceptance an heretical version of the English Bible.
And, whilst on the subject of Syon, attention must be called to another very important piece of evidence for the existence of a Catholic version of the Scriptures. It is contained in a devotional book, written probably not later than the year 1450 for the use of these sisters of Syon, and printed “ at the desyre and instaunce of the worshypfull and devoute lady abbesse1 of the worshypf ul Monastery of Syon and the revendre fadre in Gods general confessowre of the same” about the year 1530. It is called The Myrroure of our Lady very necessary for religious persons, and it is practically a translation of their Church services into English to enable the nuns the better to understand their daily ecclesiastical duties. The point to which attention is directed is the following paragraph in the “ first prologue,” written, remember, not later than the middle of the fifteenth century: “Of psalms I have drawn (i.e., translated) but fewe,” says the author, “for ye may have them of Richard Hampoules drawinge, and out of Englygske bibles if ye have lysence thereto.”1 It is not very likely that these pious sisters would have been able to get their psalms from Wyclifite versions.
It is clear that the compiler of this book of devotions did in fact obtain them on imprimatur of authority for the translations of various quotations from Scripture in the volume. He writes :—
“And for as much as it is forbidden under pain of cursing that any man should have or translate any text of Holy Scripture into English without licence of the Bishop diocesan; and in diverse places of your service are such tests of Holy Scripture. Therefore I asked and have licence of our Bishop to translate such things into English to your ghostly comfort and profit, so both our conscience in translating and yours in the having may be more sure and olear in our Lord’s worship, which may it keep us in His grace and bring us to His bliss.” Amen.’
Refute that. Can you?
‘Ibid., p. 71. The editor of The Myrroure upon this passage notes: “This reference to English Bibles seems to imply that they were very common in the middle of the fifteenth century. These may have been the copies of the Wyclifite version, but it seems unlikely that the Sisters would have received ‘licence’ to read these, especially as • de quibus cavendum est’ is written against some works of Wyclif in the Library Catalogue preserved at C.C. Coll. Cambridge.”
Refute all of that. Can you?
After quotingthe Oxford Constitution of 1408, and Lyndewood’s Gloss, Mr. Blunt add*: “As his words were written about the same time aa those to which the note refers, they seem to corroborate the evidence given in the Mirror, that in the earlier half of the fifteenth century English Bible* ware freely used by the people.” (Notes on The Myrrourt, p. 310).
Refute that. Can you?
To pass to another point—it has been remarked upon as somewhat strange that in Wyclif’s sermons, which seem to have been written at the close of his life, the Scripture quotations are in no case made from the version now declared to be his.
Can you possibly refute that? Can you? What does it mean if you utterly fail to do so?
A preacher, of course, may have turned the Latin into English at the moment, but in his case this is hardly likely, if, as we are given to understand, the popularising of his reputed version was the great object of his life.
Refute that. Can you? Well, can you?
Moreover, what may well have been the case in spoken discourses would scarcely have been adhered to in written and formal sermons. Beyond this the same is true of every work reputed to be WycliPs. In no instance does he quote his own supposed version. On the other hand it is at least most remarkable that the Commentary upon the Apocalypse, formerly attributed to “Wyclif, but which is now acknowledged not to be from his pen, has the ordinary version for its text.
Refute that. Can you?
Further, it is not without significance that Bishop Pecock in his “Repressor,” a work written ostensibly against the position of the Lollards, and their claim to make the Sacred Scripture their sole and sufficient guide in all things, not only uses what is now called the Wyclifite version of the Bible in all his quotations, but throughout his work evidently takes for granted that the lay-folk generally had the Scriptures with authority, and nowhere blames the fact. Moreover, he is careful to explain that he only speaks of the Lollards as “Biblemen,” because of their wish to found every law of faith and morals on the Written Word.
Wow, can you refute all of that? Can you refute any of that? Any of it at all?
My bet is that you will fail - UTTERLY FAIL - as is always the case. I have posted this to you at least four times now and you have never once made an effort to deal with it even though it is filled with original source quotes and citations (in the original cuts; I left them out here). Will you now finally deal with it and what it says? Anti-Catholics usually just run like cowards when confronted with sources since actual facts work against them. Let’s see what you’ll do.
I’m not going to waste my time refuting what no serious person believes. That some Wycliffe Bibles were made under the protection of wealthy people is well known, but the idea that the Archbishop of Canterbury didn’t know who made the translation when writing the Pope, or when pressing for the Constitutions of Oxford in 1408 is silliness.
That the Lollards who copied them didn’t know who had done it, and that the Catholics who persecuted them didn’t know what they were persecuting is silliness.
There are no surviving texts of a Bible that differs noticeably in text from the normal Wycliffe texts, yet you would have me believe that Catholics persecuted Lollards for using the Wycliffe Bible, and the Lollards suffered and sometimes died for doing so, without anyone saying, “But this is a Catholic Bible!”
And all this in contrast to the public statements of all contemporaries, on the Catholic side opposing vernacular scriptures in the hands of commoners, and Wycliffe saying it was essential for people to read God’s word for themselves.
I can’t convince some people that GWB didn’t personally fly the planes to the WTC and parachute out at the last moment, or that Ronald Reagan didn’t creep out at night to steal food from the hands of homeless people, and I can’t convince some people that George Bush the father didn’t fly to Paris in an SR-71 to negotiate with Iran...nor do I waste time trying.
No historian believes Gasquet because Gasquet was a nutjob trying to convince people that the Wycliffe Bible was Catholic, and that no contemporary ever noticed it.
You might want to read about the followers of Wycliffe. Some were quite wealthy. But you’ll have to read real historians, and not Gasquet...
The revised edition of Wycliffe appeared around 1395. At the same time, attempts were made to ban translating bibles into vernacular English. In 1408, that move succeeded - yet you want me to believe that neither side knew what side they were on?
You wrote:
“I’m not going to waste my time refuting what no serious person believes.”
Wow. So, no one believes this:
The most interesting gift of an English New Testament, as a precious and pious donation to the Church, is that of the copy now in the possession of Lord Ashburnham,1 which in 1517 was given to the Convent of our Lady of Syon by Lady Danvers. On the last page is the following dedication :—
“Good .... Mr. Confessor of Sion with his brethren. Dame Anne Danvers widowe, sometyme wyffe to Sir William Danvers, knyght (whose soul God assoyle) hatbe gevyn this present Booke unto Mastre Confessor and his Brethren enclosed in Syon, entendyng therby not oonly the honor laude and preyse to Almighty God but also that she the moore tenderly may be committed unto the meroy of God.
1 Aehbornham MS., Appendix xix. (No. 156 in Forsball and Madden). The text of this MS. Iu printed for Mr. Lea Wilson by Pickering, in 1848.
.......
So, what you’re saying is that no one believes the facts that there was a gift of an English New Testament, to the Church, now in the possession of Lord Ashburnham, which was given to the Convent of our Lady of Syon by Lady Danvers? No one believes that?
And, so, no one believes this is on the last page of that NT:
“Good .... Mr. Confessor of Sion with his brethren. Dame Anne Danvers widowe, sometyme wyffe to Sir William Danvers, knyght (whose soul God assoyle) hatbe gevyn this present Booke unto Mastre Confessor and his Brethren enclosed in Syon, entendyng therby not oonly the honor laude and preyse to Almighty God but also that she the moore tenderly may be committed unto the meroy of God.
And no one believes that that is all found written up in the following source?:
1 Aehbornham MS., Appendix xix. (No. 156 in Forsball and Madden). The text of this MS. Iu printed for Mr. Lea Wilson by Pickering, in 1848.
No one believes that? No one?
What you’re posting now is exactly why I think anti-Catholics so often come across as stupid, ignorant, reality-denying twits.
If you want to reject Gasquet’s conclusion, fine. But to suggest that no one believes his evidence is just insane. Again, I am dealing with facts - facts you can’t refute. I am dealing with evidence - evidence you can’t refute. all you can do is dismiss his conclusion. You don’t seem to realize that even if he was wrong on that particular confusion, he most definitely proved BEYOND ANY POSSIBLE DOUBT that vernacular Bibles were more widespread than many people think and that many faithful Catholics possessed them and did so without any problems.
I gave you several opportunities to refyte what Gasquet said - and I don’t even mean his conclusions about a Catholic Church produced and approved vernacular version. I mean simply the facts about what had to be more widespread Bible possession BY FAITHFUL CATHOLICS than any of your posts would allow.
You utterly failed to refute any of those facts. They are facts. There’s no interpretation in those individual facts. People possessed vernacular translations and those people listed were faithful Catholics.
The King James Bible and the scholars who produced it put the Word of God into the hands of ordinary people in such a way that it reached the critical mass necessary for the moral underpinnings and eventual founding of our nation.
“But to suggest that no one believes his evidence is just insane. Again, I am dealing with facts - facts you can’t refute.”
Come up with a vernacular translation made in the 1400s whose text differs substantially from Wycliffe’s texts.
Can’t? Of course not. None were made. So the bibles you cite were Wycliffe bibles, not Catholic-made vernacular translations.
“Parts of the Bible had, of course, been translated into English before Wycliffe’s time—both in the Old English period and, more recently, in Middle English. But these partial translations had been designed for devotional or liturgical use or for narrative interest. In the Old English period we have the translation of the Psalter by Aldhelm of Sherborne as early as the eighth century, while from the tenth century we have the Wessex Gospels and the Heptateuch (Genesis-Judges) of Aelfric of Eynsham. Alfred the Great’s law-code was introduced by an English version of the Decalogue and other parts of Exodus 20-23. From the early fourteenth century we have Middle English translations of the Psalter, the best known of which is that by Richard Rolle, the hermit of Hampole (near Doncaster), which was accompanied by a verse-by-verse commentary; it was evidently a popular work, being copied in other dialects than Rolle’s own. Later in the same century comes a version of the New Testament epistles made apparently for members of religious houses.
But before the time of Wycliffe no one seems to have thought of providing ordinary layfolk with a vernacular version of the whole Bible. The provision of such a version, however, was imperative if ordinary layfolk were directly responsible to God as Wycliffe taught, for knowing and obeying his law.
Wycliffe was certainly the prime instigator of the work of translation associated with his name, whether he himself took little or great part in the actual work of translating. In the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries he is repeatedly credited with the work. In 1411 Archbishop Thomas Arundel charged him with ‘devising—to fill up the measure of his malice—the expedient of a new translation of the Scriptures into the mother tongue.’ 6 About the same time, the continuator of Knighton’s Chronicle says that ‘Master John Wyclif translated from Latin into English ... the gospel that Christ gave to the clergy and doctors of the church’, 7 while Jan Hus in Prague writes, ‘By the English it is said that Wycliffe
translated the whole Bible from Latin into English.’ 8 This tradition persisted: in Sir Thomas More’s Dialogue Concerning Heresies (1529) it is stated that ‘the great arch-heretic Wyclyffe, whereas the whole Bible was long before his 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, took upon him a malicious purpose to translate it of new’. 9 More was mistaken in supposing that ‘the whole Bible’ had been translated into English before Wycliffe’s day, but he had no doubt that Wycliffe did make his own translation.
There was nothing in the translation itself to which objection could reasonably be taken. The objections brought against it arose from its being produced by such a suspect group as Wycliffe and his disciples, and from the purpose for which they produced it: it was designed to be a replacement for canon law and ecclesiastical authority in general. But when detached from its obnoxious context it could be quite acceptable in the highest echelons of society.
This was specially so with an edition of the four gospels in this version, in which the biblical text was accompanied by an English commentary based on the Golden Chain of Thomas Aquinas, with quotations from other authorities (such as Bishop Grosseteste). Who was responsible for compiling these Glossed Gospels, as they were called, is not certain, but it may have been Wycliffe’s secretary, John Purvey, who carried on his master’s biblical work after his death. One copy of the Glossed Gospels was acquired by Anne of Bohemia, wife of Richard II, with the approval of that hammer of the Lollards, Archbishop Arundel of Canterbury. Arundel reported at her funeral service in 1394 that he approved for Anne’s use ‘all the four gospellers in English with the doctors upon them’. 12...
...There is no reason to doubt More’s personal witness. There was, however, one thing of which he was unaware: those English ‘Bibles fair and old’ were copies of the later Wycliffite version. There was nothing in the translation itself that smacked of Lollardy or any other form of ‘heresy’, and the copies bore no indication of the translators’ identity. Many bishops would feel quite happy to grant permission for the possession and use of such copies to those who could be trusted not to exploit the permission for ‘improper’ purposes.
But many others, who could not obtain official permission, refused to be deprived of the opportunity of reading the Scriptures in their own tongue, and met together in small groups to read and discuss them together. The house-meeting for reading the Bible in this way became a tradition that still lives on in English-speaking lands (as well as elsewhere), but in the fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries those who attended such groups did so at the risk of liberty and even of life itself.”
http://www.churchsociety.org/churchman/documents/Cman_098_4_Bruce.pdf
“3 The extent of the circulation gained by this version may be estimated from the fact that in spite of all the chances of time and all the systematic for its destruction made by archbishop Arundel others, not less than 150 copies are known to be extant, some of them obviously made for persons of wealth and rank, others apparently for humbler readers. It is significant as bearing either on the of the two works or on the position of the writers while the quotations from Scripture in Langton’s Virion of Piers Plowman are uniformly given in Latin, those in tbe Persone’s Tale of Chaucer are given in English which for the most part agrees substantially with Wycliffe’s translation.
4 The following characteristics may be noticed as distinguishing this version: (1) The general homeliness of its style. The language of the court or of scholars is as fur as possible avoided and that of the people followed In this respect the principle has been acted by later translators...”
“I mean simply the facts about what had to be more widespread Bible possession BY FAITHFUL CATHOLICS than any of your posts would allow.”
Given that I have written multiple posts saying that the objective of the Catholic Church was to prevent scripture from falling into the hands of commoners, and that they would give permission, at times, to approved people to read in the vernacular, and given that I pointed out that at times this permission had to come from the Pope himself, I can only conclude you haven’t read my posts.
Please do not erect straw men that you can then beat up. I have repeatedly posted that the goal of the Catholics was to prevent commoners from reading scripture in their own tongue. Indeed, you attacked me in a post saying I wasn’t like the commoners of old England - so at one point you understood my argument.
To repeat post 104:
“THE WYCLIFFE BIBLE MAY NOT HAVE BEEN HIS, BUT MAY HAVE BEEN AN ENGLISH CATHOLIC VERSION PASSED OFF AS HIS!”
BWAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
You wrote:
“Come up with a vernacular translation made in the 1400s whose text differs substantially from Wycliffe’s texts.”
Why would it have to be substantially different? Wycliffe’s own sermon made translations differ from the Bible ascribed to him!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
“Can’t? Of course not. None were made.”
Prove none were made. You can’t. There’s no way to prove a negative anyway. Now explain why Wycliffe didn’t use his own translation.
“So the bibles you cite were Wycliffe bibles, not Catholic-made vernacular translations.”
What I said was that there were Bibles clearly in circulation and the Church did NOTHING to stop them from circulating. And there is no way for you to say they were not made by Catholics.
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