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10 THE BULLETIN OF THE CATHOLIC LAYMEN’S ASSOCIATION OF GEORGIA THE BIBLE IN THE PUBLIC SCHOOLS. (Continued from Page Five) found amongst us without a correct version of the Holy Scriptures.” Can any honest and unprejudiced person reading these words from all the Bishops to Catholics doubt what is the teaching of the Catholic Church on this subject? The next statement of our good friends is that Protestants practically discovered the Bible or recov ered it from oblivion and neglect. I am quite sure that the average Protestant today believes that the Reformation was absolutely necessary in order that the Bible might be placed in the hands of the people. They are persuaded that the Reformation was mainly due to the dissemination of the Bible, for they are firmly cohvinced that the people had been kept in profound ignorance of the Holy Scriptures—in fact, knew nothing of them—but that as soon as the Bible was given them, they promptly embraced the teach ings of the reformed churches. The facts do not sustain these views. I shall quote a few Protestant writers to show. The Church Times, a Protestant Episcopal publi cation of England, in its issue of July, 1878, said: ‘‘This Catalogue (The Caxton) will be very useful for one thing at any rate; as disproving the popular lie about Luther finding the Bible for the first time in Erfurt about 1507. Not only are there many edi tions of the Latin Vulgate long anterior to that time, but there were actually nine German editions of the Bible in this exhibition earlier than 1483, the year of Luther’s birth, and at least three more before the end of the century.” In The Athenaeum, of October 6, 1883, Mr. H. Stevens, a Protestant, writes: ‘‘By 1507, more than one hundred Latin Bibles had been printed, some of them small and cheap pocket editions. There had been besides thirteen editions of a translation of the Vulgate into German and other modern languages.” In the Grenville Library in the British Museum, there is nearly a complete set of fourteen grand old Ger man Bibles, 1460-1518—the first twenty-odd years before the birth of Luther. On December 22, 1883, The Athenaeum, in an article on ‘‘The German Bible before Luther,” says: “That the Bible was in common use among the people long before Luther’s time; and that Luther evidently had the old Catholic German Bible of 1483 before him while making his translation;” and it adds: “It is time we should hear no more of Luther as the first German Bible translator, and of his translation as an independent work from the original Greek.” In a review of Dr. Edgar’s “The Bibles of Eng land,” this Protestant reviewer says: “Dr. Edgar still repeats the oft-exploded notion that the Catholic Church had a widespread horror of Scripture trans lations, whether accompanied with notes or not, and however faultlessly executed.” He does not seem to know that long before the Reformation every Cath olic nation all over Europe had versions of the Bible in the vernacular of the country. Between 1477, when the first edition of the first French New Testa ment was published at Lyons and 1533”, when the first French Protestant Bible was published, upward of twenty editions of the Bible in the French vernacular issued from the Catholic press. In Germany, prior to the first publication of the first edition of Luther s Bible, 1534, no fewer than thirty Catholic editions of the entire Scriptures and parts of the Bible ap peared in the German vernacular. In Italy, the very seat of the Papacy, two editions of an Italian transla tion appeared in 1471, and several other editions appeared prior to the Reformation. These facts any student can verify by a visit to the British Museum, where most of the Bibles are to be seen. Not to multiply evidence of the fact that the Bible was well known in Germany long before Luther’s time, it will suffice to state these facts. German Bibles. The first German printed Bible issued from the Mentz press about 1462. Another version came out in 1466. There were twenty-seven different editions of the Bible in German pritned before that of Luther independent of the two at Leipsic. A German ver sion, under the auspices of the Archbishop, appeared at Mentz in 1534, and it passed through more than twenty editions. Italian Bibles. Three editions were printed in 1471, one a trans lation by a Camaldodese Monk in 1 42 1. More than eleven editions of this, published with the expressed permission of the Pope, appeared before 1567. At Venice, the Gospels were translated and published by a Monk named Guido in 1486; in 1532, Brussioli pub lished a new and complete edition in Venice. In the space of twenty-seven years it passed through ten editions. Another edition was published at Venice in 1 538, and again in 1 546 and 1 547. There were more than forty editions of the Bible in Italy before ‘the Protestant one. Spanish Bibles. In 1405, the whole Bible was published in the vernacular, and again in 1478 and 1515, with the approbation of the Church. In 1512, the New Testa ment appeared, and it was reprinted in 1544, 1601, 1603, 1608 and 1615. French Bibles. A French edition by two priests of the Order of St. Augustine was published at Lyons in 1478. The Bible first published in 1290 was printed in 1487, and before 1547 it passed through sixteen editions. In 1512, Le Ferre commenced a new edition, which ap peared in 1523 and again in 1530, 1534 and 1541. This version passed through more than forty editions before 1700. The first Protestant version appeared in 1535. Other Versions. A number of Dutch and Flemish versions appeared before the Reformation. Low German versions ap peared in 1470 and 1480; at Delft in 1477; at Geneva in 1479; at Lubeck in 1491; at Halberstadt in 1522; at Antwerp in 1515, 1525, 1526 and 1528. Ten editions of the Testament published in Ant werp appeared within thirty years. A Bohemian ver-