I read somewhere that someone preceded Bede, even. And the account I read of Bede was quite touching, as he tried to finish while dying.
But by 1300, Bede’s translation would have been largely unreadable. And by 1300, Catholic doctrine had developed enough that it had developed right away from the Orthodox. But there were stirrings, at first from those who would correct the Catholic Church - and I believe there were a number of reformers WITHIN the Catholic church, although I won’t reveal my pitiful scholarship by trying to cite them.
Wycliffe was one of the first in western Europe to outright reject the Catholic Church, and to do so based on scripture...OK, on HOPIOS (his own personal interpretation of scripture). However, he had enough confidence in HOPIOS to believe that simply distributing scripture would suffice to win his argument.
We can debate if HOPIOS was correct or not, and we obviously will disagree...but that is open for discussion. That the Bible was not available to the common man in English in 1400, and that the Catholic Church took steps to stop Wycliffe by stopping the distribution of scripture in English, is not.
***I read somewhere that someone preceded Bede, even. And the account I read of Bede was quite touching, as he tried to finish while dying.***
A great man, very overlooked in the religious history of the West (especially the English west).
***But by 1300, Bede’s translation would have been largely unreadable. And by 1300, Catholic doctrine had developed enough that it had developed right away from the Orthodox.***
I would have to disagree on both counts. Remember that literacy was very tiny in the 1300s, and the two wings of the Church still maintained a common belief. There have been a handful of disagreements, but not a chasm.
***But there were stirrings, at first from those who would correct the Catholic Church - and I believe there were a number of reformers WITHIN the Catholic church, although I won’t reveal my pitiful scholarship by trying to cite them.***
There have always been theologians and those who have tried to improve things. The difference is that there is not the authorization of a single man to achieve these things; the Consensus Patrum is required and has maintained Orthodoxy to the extent that it has even to this day. The very fact that the Orthodox are in serious talks with the Latins about reuniting shows that the gulf is small and is over relatively few things. Not bad for a thousand years, eh?
***Wycliffe was one of the first in western Europe to outright reject the Catholic Church, and to do so based on scripture...OK, on HOPIOS (his own personal interpretation of scripture). However, he had enough confidence in HOPIOS to believe that simply distributing scripture would suffice to win his argument.***
Most of the first millennium heretics used Scripture as justification and so have most of the second millennium ones. Wycliffe was not the first, not by a long shot. But he got a lot of publicity.
***That the Bible was not available to the common man in English in 1400, and that the Catholic Church took steps to stop Wycliffe by stopping the distribution of scripture in English, is not.***
Let’s loook at these two points.
http://www.erasmatazz.com/library/Book%20Reviews/historyofreading.html says that: “ In the High Middle Ages, literacy rates in cities were only 5%, and in the country they were essentially zero.”, and, “Another surprise was the cost of books throughout most of history. These things were labor-intensive, and regularly cost hundreds to thousands of times as much as a worker’s daily wage.”
Putting these two together, one must conclude that almost nobody could read and couldn’t afford the books even if they could.
Versions of the whole or parts of the Bible in the language of the common people first appeared in Germany in the eighth century, in France and Hungary in the twelfth, and Italy, Spain, Holland, Poland and Bohemia in the thirteenth century. (Catholic Encyclopedia.) In the 1500’s in Italy, there were more than 40 vernacular editions of the Bible. France had 18 vernacular editions before 1547, and Spain began publishing editions in 1478, with full approval of the Spanish Inquisition.
In all, 198 editions of the Bible were in the language of the laity, 626 editions all together, and all before the first Protestant version, and all having the full approval of the Church. (Where We Got the Bible, TAN Publishers)
The biggest reason that English was one of the very last is because England before the 1300s was a minor unpopulated backwater with a very small population. Another thing: while I was researching this reply, I was struck by the number of times I ran into articles stating the hostility of Henry Tudor (typical of the English monarchy) to English language Bibles because of the control by the secular monarchy, not the control of the Church.
Remember too, that Gutenburg, a Catholic, printed his first book (the Vulgate) in 1452, authorized by the Church. The Church was trying to keep bad translations from the people, not good translations of Scripture. And let us also not underestimate the importance of Latin. Sir Isaac Newton wrote his Principlicae Mathematica in Latin for publication, not English in 1660.