Posted on 06/27/2014 7:44:48 AM PDT by Salvation
Featured Term (selected at random:
CHAINED BIBLES
An institution of the medieval Church to protect copies of the Bible from thievery. Before the advent of printing, the rarity of books made them available only to the wealthy. they were often locked away in chests. The Church, wishing to make the Bible available to all the faithful and still to ensure it against loss, chained it to a desk or lectern near a window. There even poor students had its use and it was in popular demand. Bias and ignorance have interpreted this chaining as proof that the Church withheld the Bible from the laity.
All items in this dictionary are from Fr. John Hardon's Modern Catholic Dictionary, © Eternal Life. Used with permission.
The Church, wishing to make the Bible available to all the faithful and still to ensure it against loss, chained it to a desk or lectern near a window. There even poor students had its use and it was in popular demand.
Great post. This was used as a negative by others.
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That’s pretty rich. The poor couldn’t read Latin.
But they could read Hebrew and Aramaic.
You also missed a word in your quote:
**There even poor students*
How do you not know that they might have been studying Latin?
Latin is how the Catholics kept the Bible from being read by the masses for themselves. They wanted dependency from the masses. IF you want Salvation, you must go through US - the ONE TRUE CHURCH in the world.
“Poor students” would be people like St. Francis Xavier and St. Peter Faber, as well as thousands of other academically gifted men without large amounts of ready cash.
One wonders what objection there could be to preventing a valuable piece of church property - as well as a sacred object - from being stolen and sold for a fraction of its value or burned. If they’d let all the Bibles be stolen and had none in the churches, no doubt that would “prove” something “bad” about the Catholic Church, too.
Thus anyone who could read, could read the Bible.
I'm not against translation, mind you. The first Bile translations into modern European languages were translated by Catholics. But in the days before movable type, a church, school or monastery could only have a few books, so this way the books you had were accessible to all nationalities, because Latin was the only truly widespread language.
It was like English is today.
Replace “students” with Catholic clergy.
Second, if somebody was actually God, and actually founded a Church as a means of salvation for mankind, refusing to join or to remain in that Church wouldn’t make sense, wouldn’t it? Unless you (1) didn’t believe there was someone on earth who was God, or (2) didn’t believe Him when he said He was building a Church; or (3) wanted to tell God “I want Salvation, but on my terms, not yours.
Jesus is the One who provided the means of salvation - not your church. Second it is everybodys responsibility to tell others the Gospel - not just your church. Third Jesus' Church is not the institution you call Catholicism but is instead all of the believers from all ages who believe Gods' promise. Lastly it is not the "One True Church" who can dictate who can have salvation but it's got to be on their terms.
Yes, they taught specific religious subjects like Scripture, which was highly prioritized. They also prioritized the "Trivium and Quadrivium" of the classical education: the Trivium consists of Grammar, Logic and Rhetoric; these being preparatory for the Quadrivium: Arithmetic (numbers in the abstract), Geometry (numbers in space), Music (numbers in time) and Astronomy (numbers in space and time).
Those who reject their Catholic forebears are taking an axe to the roots of Western civilization. That may be OK with you, but it represents the spiritual and intellectual vacuity of the West. That vacuum is what is bringing on the Caliphate.
Yes, they taught specific religious subjects like Scripture, which was highly prioritized. They also prioritized the "Trivium and Quadrivium" of the classical education: the Trivium consists of Grammar, Logic and Rhetoric; these being preparatory for the Quadrivium: Arithmetic (numbers in the abstract), Geometry (numbers in space), Music (numbers in time) and Astronomy (numbers in space and time).
Those who reject their Catholic forebears are taking an axe to the roots of Western civilization. That may be OK with you, but it represents the spiritual and intellectual vacuity of the West. That vacuum is what is bringing on the Caliphate.
I don't think you realize that handwritten copies (which is all there were) were so labor-intensive and scarce, private ownership of even one book of the Bible in the medieval period would be more or less like private ownership of a jet airplane. It happened, but not much.
Most of the books of the Bible existed separately and were read as individual texts. Even a Cathedral or a a large monastic house could afford only the pericopes used in the Liturgy.
People who don't know the bibliographic history often think that Wycliffe was the first one who did a translation into a modern European language, but this is not so. In the late 600's, Venerable Bede and Aldhelm translated the complete Book of Psalms and large portions of other scriptures into Old English.
In the 10th century an Old English translation of the Gospels was made in the Lindisfarne Gospels: a word-for-word gloss inserted between the lines of the Latin text by Aldred. This is the oldest extant translation of the Gospels into the English language. There were probably many more in such monastic centers as Jarrow, Iona, etc. but the Vikings came and pillaged them, burning the texts and keeping the book covers, which were jeweled. Whole libraries were lost that way.
The mass distribution of books was not, at that time, physically possible. Hence, the royalty and nobility kept their books secure in their treasure-rooms. The Church kept them attached to the lecterns.
THis is comparable to the mid-20th century use of telephone directories "chained" to phone booths. And for what purpose? To prevent people from using telephone directories? Or to make them available where they were needed,and prevent them being stolen!
One needs to have a realistic historic sense, un-distorted by the ignorant polemic against historic Christianity.
Very well said.
Perhaps so. But on whose part? I don't disagree with the scarcity of Bibles. That wasn't the main points of my posting and you well know it. Rome wanted exclusive rights to distribute the Word as she saw fit and was willing to shed blood to keep it that way. You sidestepped why she insisted on Latin only and the political influences she used to maintain a monopoly. But historically that could be expected for a church that claims to be founded on a man who denied his Lord thrice.
And wishing, as is just, to impose a restraint, in this matter, also on printers, who now without restraint,—thinking, that is, that whatsoever they please is allowed them,—print, without the license of ecclesiastical superiors, the said books of sacred Scripture, and the notes and comments upon them of all persons indifferently, with the press ofttimes unnamed, often even fictitious, and what is more grievous still, without the author's name; and also keep for indiscriminate sale books of this kind printed elsewhere; (this Synod) ordains and decrees, that, henceforth, the sacred Scripture, and especially the said old and vulgate edition, be printed in the most correct manner possible; and that it shall not be lawful for any one to print, or cause to be printed, any books whatever, on sacred matters, without the name of the author; nor to sell them in future, or even to keep them, unless they shall have been first examined, and approved of, by the Ordinary; under pain of the anathema and fine imposed in a canon of the last Council of Lateran: and, if they be Regulars, besides this examination and approval, they shall be bound to obtain a license also from their own superiors, who shall have examined the books according to the form of their own statutes. As to those who lend, or circulate them in manuscript, without their having been first examined, and approved of, they shall be subjected to the same penalties as printers: and they who shall have them in their possession or shall read them, shall, unless they discover the authors, be themselves regarded as the authors. And the said approbation of books of this kind shall be given in writing; and for this end it shall appear authentically at the beginning of the book, whether the book be written, or printed; and all this, that is, both the approbation and the examination, shall be done gratis, that so what ought to be approved, may be approved, and what ought to be condemned, may be condemned.
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