CHAPTER X. INFLUENCE OF THE REFORMATION ON THE BIBLE, ON BIBLE READING, AND BIBLICAL STUDIES. "By various texts we both uphold our claim, Both grant the words, and quarrel for the sense. Thus all disputes forever must depend, For no dumb rule can controversies end."-Dryden. "Mark you this, Bassanio: The devil can cite scripture for his purpose."-Shakspeare. Protestant boastings-Theory of M. D'Aubigné-Luther finds a Bible -How absurd!-The "chained Bible"-Seckendorf versus D'Aubigné-The Catholic church and the Bible-The Latin LanguageVernacular versions before Luther's-In Germany-In Italy-In France-In Spain-In England-In Flanders-In Sclavonia-In Sweden-In Iceland-Syriac and Armenian versions-Summary and Inference-Polyglots-Luther's false assertion-Reading the Bible -Fourth rule of the index-A religious vertigo remedied-More harm than good-Present discipline-A common slander-Protestant versions-Mutual compliments-Version of king James-The Doway and Vulgate Bibles-Private interpretation-German RationalismIts blasphemies-Rationalism in Geneva. OUR inquiry into the influence of the reformation on religion would be incomplete, without some examination of the extent of this influence on the Bible, and on the general diffusion of Biblical learning. It is one of the proudest boasts of the reformation, to have rescued the Bible from the obscurity to which the Roman Catholic church had consigned it; to have first translated it into the vernacular tongues; and to have opened its hitherto concealed treasures of heavenly wisdom to the body of the people. These pretensions have been so often and so confidently repeated, as to have passed current for the truth, even with many persons of sincerity and information. And so firm is the conviction of many, that the Catholic church studiously concealed the sacred writings from the multitude, and that the reformers brought them out "from under the bushel" to be a light to the nations; that it is exceedingly difficult to remove it, even by the sternest facts and the most overwhelming evidence. The theory of M. D'Aubigné on this subject is indeed strange, but it has not the merit of novelty. Many a credulous and drivelling theologaster had often before woven the same tissue of absurd speculation. According to our historian of the reformation, Luther owed his first conversion to Christianity to an accidental discovery of the Bible in the Library of the University at Erfurth. "One day" (he had been two years at Erfurth, and was twenty years. of age)" he was opening the books in the library one after another, in order to read the names of the authors. One which he opened in its turn drew his attention: he had not seen any thing like it till that hour: he reads the title, it is a Bible, a rare book, unknown at that time! His interest is strongly excited: he is filled with astonishment at finding more in this volume than those fragments of the gospels and epistles, which the church has selected to be read to the people in their places of worship every Sunday in the year. Till then he had thought that they were the whole word of God. And here are so many pages, so many chapters, so many books, of which he had no idea! His heart beats as he holds in his hand all the scripture divinely inspired. With eagerness and indescribable feelings he turns over those leaves of the word of God. The first page that arrests his attention, relates the history of Hannah and the Samuel." young He then relates, how the young Luther piously re * Vol. i, p. 131. solved to imitate the devotedness of the young Samuel; and continues: "the Bible that had filled him with such transport was in Latin. He soon returned to the library to find his treasure again. He read and re-read, and then in his surprise and joy went back to read again. The first gleams of a new truth then arose in his mind. Thus has God caused him to find his holy word! He has now discovered the book of which he is one day to give to his countrymen that admirable translation, in which the Germans for three centuries have read the oracles of God. For the first time, perhaps, this precious volume has been removed from the place that it occupied in the library of Erfurth. This book, deposited on the unknown shelves of a dark room, is soon to become the book of life for a whole nation. The reformation lay hid in that Bible."* This was not however the only Bible he had the good fortune to find: for after he had entered the convent of Augustinians at Erfurth, "he found another Bible fastened by a chain."t M. D'Aubigné professes to borrow all this fine history from Mathesius, a disciple and an ardent and credulous admirer of Luther, and from M. Adam, another biographer of the reformer. It is a story absurd enough in all conscience, and toe clumsily contrived even for a well digested romance. What? Are we to believe that Luther, at the age of twenty, did not know that there was a Bible, until he chanced to discover one in the library at Erfurth ? And that until then he piously believed, that the whole scriptures were comprised in that choice selection of gospels and epistles, read on Sunday and festivals in the church service? He, too, a young man of great talent and promise, who had successively attended the schools of Mansfeld, Eisenach and Magdeburg, and had already been two years at the university of Erfurth! Credat Judæus Apella! The thing is utterly incredible, and stamped † Ibid. p. 141. * Ibid. p. 132. with absurdity on its very face. Luther must have been singularly stupid indeed, had he remained thus ignorant. And then the idea intended to be conveyed by the chained Bible! Would the good monks have enchained it, unless it had been in such demand with the people as to endanger its safety? In that early stage of the art of printing, all books were much more scarce and more highly prized than at present; and perhaps then, as now, borrowed books were seldom returned to the owner. M. D'Aubigné in the course of his history repeatedly quotes Seckendorf, the biographer and great admirer of Luther. Did he never chance to read in the first book of this writer's "Commentaries on Lutheranism," a passage in which he states, that three distinct editions of the Bible, translated into German, were published at Wittemberg, in 1470, 1483, and 1490: one of them seven years before the birth of Luther, another in the very year of his birth, and a third seven years thereafter ?* And all these in the immediate vicinity of Luther's birth place; not to mention another edition, which the same author assures us,† was published not far distant,-at Augsburg, in 1518, just one year after Luther had turned reformer, and twelve years before he published his own German version of the Bible! How could M. D'Aubigné avoid seeing this passage in his own favorite historian for reference: and if he saw it, what are we to think of his honesty in wholly concealing it, and even in stating what is plainly contradicted by it-that "the Bible was then an unknown book ;" and that Luther never saw it till his 20th year ? The Bible then an unknown book! Who preserved this book during the previous fifteen hundred years? From whom did the reformers receive it? Who kept it safe through all dangers; in the midst of conflagrations, wars, and the torrents of barbarian incursion? Who copied it * Commentarii in Luther. Lib. 1, sec. 51. § cxxv. p. 204. † Ibid. over and again, before the art of printing? The Roman Catholic church did all this: and yet she is to be accused of having concealed this book of life from the people! But for her patient labor, vigilant watchfulness, and maternal solicitude, the Bible might have perished with thousands of other books: and yet she, forsooth, was an enemy of this book, and wished to keep it under a bushel! She read choice selections from it to her people every Sunday and festival, even according to the avowal of her bitterest enemy, M. D'Aubigné; and yet she wished to conceal this treasure from the people! A curious way of concealing it, truly! But perhaps she preserved it in the Latin tongue only, and was opposed to its general circulation in the living languages of Europe. She did no such thing, as we shall presently see; though even if she had done this, she would not have concealed the Bible from the people. The Latin language continued to be that which was most generally understood, and even spoken in Europe, until the reign of Charlemagne, in the beginning of the ninth century: and even for several centuries afterwards, it continued to be very generally known, while the modern languages were struggling into form. At the beginning of the sixteenth century, and for a long time afterwards, it was the only language of literature, of theology, of medicine, and of legislation. Most of the modern languages of Europe were formed from it, and were so similar to it both in words and in general structure, that the common people of Italy, Spain, Portugal, and even France, could understand that mother tongue without great difficulty. In Hungary, it had been the common language of the people since the days of king Stephen, in the tenth century. It was taught and studied in every school and college of Christendom, and it was the medium through which most other branches were taught. It was, then, at the time of the reformation, a language which was very commonly understood in Europe. Therefore, even if the Catholic |