722 THE MIDDLE AGES. A.D. 1294-1517.
The new path which Erasmus struck out in his edition of the New Testament was looked upon in some quarters as a dangerous path. Dorpius, one of the Louvain j^rofessors, in 1515, anticipated the appearance of the book by remonstrating with Erasmus for his bold project and pronounced the received Vulgate text free "from all mixture of falsehood and mistake." This, he alleged, was evident from its acceptance by the Church in all ages and the use the Fathers had made of it. Another member of the Louvain faculty, Latromiis, employed his learning in a pamphlet which maintained that a knowledge of Greek and Hebrew was not necessary for the scholarly study of the Scriptures. In England, Erasmus' New Testament was attacked on a number of grounds by Lee, archbishop of York ; and Standish, bishop of St. Asaph, preached a furious sermon in St. Paul's churchyard on Erasmus' temerity in undertaking the issue of such a work. The University of Cologne was especially outraged by Erasmus' attempt and Conrad of Hersbach wrote : ^ —
They have found a language called Greek, at which we must be careful to be on our guard. It is the mother of all heresies. In the hands of many persons I see a book, which they call the New Testament. It is a book full of thorns and poison. As for Hebrew, my brethren, it is certain that those who learn it will sooner or later turn Jews.
But among the men who read Erasmus'^ text was Martin Luther, and he was studying it to settle questions which started in his souL About one of these he asked his friend Spalatin to consult Erasmus, namely the final meaning of the righteousness of the law, which he felt the great scholar had misinterpreted in his annotations on the Romans in the Novum instrumentum. He believed, if Erasmus would read Augustine's works, he would change his mind. Luther preferred Augustine, as he said, with the knowledge of one tongue to Jerome with his knowledge of five.
Down to the very end of its history, the mediaeval Church gave no official encouragement to the circulation of the Bible amonff the laity. On the contrary, it uniformly set itself against it. In 1199 Innocent IIL, writing to the diocese of
1 Hase : Ch. Hist., II. 2, p. 403. Faulkner: Erasmus, p. 127 sqq. Dorpius' letter is given by Nichols, II. 168 sqq.
§ 77. STUDY AND CIRCULATION OF THE BIBLE. 723
Metz where the Scriptures were being used by heretics, declared that as by the old law, the beast touching the holy mount was to be stoned to death, so simple and uneducated men were not to touch the Bible or venture to preach its doctrines.^ The article of the Synod of Toulouse, 1229, strictly forbidding the Old and New Testaments to the laity either in the original text or in the translation ^ was not recalled or modified by papal or synodal action. Neither after nor before the invention of printing was the Bible a free book. Gerson was quite in line with the utterances of the Church, when he stated, that it was easy to give many reasons why the Scriptures were not to be put into the vulgar tongues except the historical sections and the parts teaching morals.^ In Spain, Ferdinand and Isabella represented the strict churchly view when, on the eve of the Reformation, they prohibited under severe penalties the translation of the Scriptures and the possession of copies. The positive enactment of the English archbishop, Arundel, at the beginning of the 15th century, forbidding the reading of Wyclif's English version, was followed by the notorious pronouncement of Archbishop Bertholdt of Mainz against the circulation of the German Bible, at the close of the same century, 1485. The position taken by Wyclif that the Scriptures, as the sole source of authority for creed and life, should be freely circulated found full response in the closing years of the Middle Ages only in the utterances of one scholar, Erasmus, but he was under suspicion and always ready to submit himself to the judgment of the Church hierarchic. If Wyclif said, " God's law should be taught in that tongue that is more known, for this wit [wisdom] is God's Word," Erasmus in his Paraclesis * uttered the equally bold words : —
I utterly dissent from those who are unwilling that the sacred Scriptures should be read by the unlearned translated into their own vulgar tongue, as though the strength of the Christian religion consisted in men's
1 Migne CCXIV : 695 sq.
2 Ne prcemissos libros laid habeant in vulgari translates arctissime inhibemus, Mansi, XXIII. 104.
3 Prohibendam esse vtdgarem translationem librorum sac, etc. Contra vanam curiositatem, Du Pin's ed., I. 105.
* Basel ed., V. 117 sq.