Newspaper Page Text
THE BULLETIN OF THE CATHOLIC LAYMEN’S ASSOCIATION OF GEORGIA
sion appeared in 1478, and the entire Bible in 1488;
at Cutrie in 1498. A Polish edition, with the ap
probation of the Pope, appeared in 1556, 1577, 1599
and 1619. An Ethiopian version was printed in
Rome in 1548.
English Bibles.
The Rheims Bible was printed in 1582. This was
the first printed Bible, but many manuscript copies
of the Bible were in circulation long before Wyck-
liffe’s. It may not be amiss to say that the first
printed book appeared in 1454.
But it is claimed that during what is called the
Dark Ages the people knew nothing of the Bible.
A deliberate effort was made to teach the people of
this error, for the Book of Homilies of the Anglican
Protestant Establishment, which in the reigns of Ed
ward VI, Elizabeth and James I, was ordered to be
read every Sunday in every parish church in England,
declared: “Laity and Clergy, learned and unlearned,
all ages, sects and degrees of men, women and chil
dren of whole Christendom, had been altogether
drowned in damnable idolatry and that for the space
of eight hundred years or more.” This solemn dec
laration, of course, implies that these poor people
could not have had the Bible; it likewise disposes of
the theory, so dear to the hearts of some of the
members of the Established Church, the continuity
of the Established with the Catholic Church.
Cranmer, whose testimony ought to be of great
value, as he was a most bitter enemy of the Catholic
Church, says in his preface to the authorized version
of 1540: “The Holy Bible was translated and read
in the Saxon tongue, which at that time was our
mother tongue, and when this language waxed old
and out of common usage, because folk should not
lack the fruit of reading, it was gaain translated to
the newer language.”
Dr. Maitland, a Protestant, in his “Essay on the
Dark Ages,” p. 470, says: “The writings of the Dark
Ages are, if I may use the expression, made of Scrip
tures. I do not merely mean that the writers con
stantly quoted the Scriptures and appealed to them
as authorities on all occasions—though they did this,
and it is strong proof of their familiarity with them
but I mean that they thought and spoke the thoughts
and words and phrases of the Bible, and that they
did this constantly and habitually as the natural mode
of expressing themselves.” And in the same work
(pp. 220, 221) he says: “I have not found any
thing in the history of those times about the arts and
engines of hostility, the blind hatred of half barbarian
kings, the fanatical fury of their subjects, or the reck
less antipathy of the Popes. I know of nothing which
should lead me to suspect that any human craft or
power was exercised to prevent the reading the mul
tiplication, the diffusion of the Word of God.”
Rev. Dr. Cutts, a Protestant minister, in a work
published by the Society for Promoting Christian
Knowledge, says: “There is a good deal of popular
misapprehension about the way in which the Bible
Was regarded in the Middle Ages. Some people think
it was very little read, even by the clergy; whereas
the fact is that the sermons of the medieval preachers
1 1
are more full of Scriptural quotations and allusions
than any sermon these days, and the writers on other
subjects are so full of Scriptural allusions that it is
evident their minds were saturated with Scriptural
diction. Another common error is that the clergy
were unwilling that the laity should read the Bible
for themselves, and carefully kept it in an unknown
tongue that the people might not be able to read it.
The truth is that most people who could read at all
could read Latin and would certainly prefer to read
the authorized version to ajny vernacular version. But
it is true that translations into the vernacular were
made. And we have the authority of Sir Thomas
More for saying that the whole Bible was, long be
fore Wyckliffe’s time, 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. (Dial. Ill-14.)”
The Quarterly Review (October, 1879), in review
of Goulburn’s Life of Bishop Herbert di Losinga, says:
“The notion that people in the Middle Ages did not
read their Bibles is probably exploded, except among
the most ignorant of controversialists. But a glance
at this volume is enough to show that the notion is
not simply a mistake; it is one of the most ludicrous
and grotesque of blunders. If having the Bible at
their fingers’ ends could have saved the Middle Age
teachers from abuse and false doctrines, they were
certainly well equipped. They had their minds as
saturated with the language and association of the
sacred text as the Puritans of the seventeenth cen
tury.” The writer of this was a Protestant.
I submit that I have furnished abundant evidence
that the Reformation was not brought about by the
“fortuitous discovery” of the Holy Scriptures, and
that the Bible was known, reverenced and read for
centuries before the Reformation.
DEATH OF MR. TOALE.
As we go to press word comes of the death of
Mr. George E. Toale, of Augusta, one of the founders
of the Catholic Laymen’s Association, and a leader in
the business affairs of his city. The end came after
a short illness.
Mr. Toale was one of the nine men who attended
the meeting in Augusta at which the Catholic Lay
men’s League plan was launched. He was present at
the first convention in 1916, and has been a delegate
to every one since.
The funeral was held from Sacred Heart Church
Thursday, December 30th, and men prominent in the
business life of Augusta acted as pallbearers. Inter
ment was at Charleston, S. C., where Mr. Toale lived
before coming to Augusta.
The Association extends its deepest sympathy to
Mr. Toale’s wife and relatives.
December 21, 1920, was the forty-seventh anniver
sary of the ordination of Bishop Keiley to the priest
hood. The laymen of the Diocese of Savannah join
in heartiest congratulations and the prayer that he
will be spared many years as the shepherd of the
faithful in Georgia.