p. 159 | Papal and Protestant Bible

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Apr 28, 1874

Papal and Protestant Bible.

By John Norton Loughborough

The papists say, “We do not object to the Bible, but to the Protestant version; for it is a corrupt translation.” When Bishop Hughes objected to the use of the Bible in the schools of the State of New York, he said: “We do not object to the Bible in the public schools; we object to the Protestant version of it.” When it was proposed to introduce the Douay version for the use of the Catholic children, Bishop Hughes was the first to object.

We are not ready to admit the charge that King James’ version is simply a Protestant translation. “The work was begun by Wickliffe when he was in full communion in the Romish church. It was continued by Tyndale, Coverdale, Matthew, and others, in the same Romish church. It was printed, published, and circulated, by the authority of a Romish king. This translation was taken as the basis of the translation issued under King James. So this translation of the Bible which we read to you every Sabbath, is not a Protestant translation at all, but simply the English, and of such perfect freedom from anything sectarian, as between Romanism and Protestantism, that the learned Dr. Alexander Geddes, an ecclesiastic of the Romish church, called it ‘of all versions the most excellent for accuracy, fidelity, and the strictest attention to the letter of the text.’

Eminent Roman Catholic bishops have borne witness to the excellence of King James’ translation. The late Dr. Doyle, Bishop of Kildare and Leighlin, is called “one of the ablest and wisest of Roman Catholic prelates.” In 1825 he was examined before a Committee of the House of Lords. Among other questions, he was asked, “Do you consider the authorized version of the Scriptures used in the church of England as of sufficiently perverse quality to warrant the description that it is the gospel of the devil?” He replied, “I have said before, God forbid that I should so consider it; for, though it has many errors, I consider it as one of the noblest works, and one of the ablest translations that has ever been produced.”

The Roman Catholic archbishop of Baltimore, Dr. Hendric, in 1831, published a revised translation of the New Testament. In his introduction he alludes to the Protestant translation in these words: “In adopting occasionally the words and phrases of the Protestant version, I have followed the example of others who have from time to time revised the Rhemish translation. It is not to be regretted that whilst we point to errors that need correction we acknowledge excellencies which we are free to imitate, thus diminishing the asperity of censure by the tribute which we willingly render to literary merit.”

We will give one more testimony of this character. It is that of a pervert to the Romish faith, John Henry Newman. In the Dublin Review of June, 1853, he says: “Who will not say that the uncommon beauty and marvelous English of the Protestant Bible is not one of the strongholds of heresy in England? It lives on the ear like music that can never be forgotten—like the sound of church bells which a convert hardly knows how he can forego. Its felicities seem often to be almost things, rather than mere words. It is a part of the national mind, and the anchor of the national seriousness. The memory of the dead passes into it. The potent traditions of childhood are stereotyped in its verses. The power of all the griefs and trials of a man is hidden beneath its words. It is the representative of his best moments, and all that there has been about him of soft and gentle, and pure and penitent and good, speaks to him forever out of his English Bible. It is his sacred thing, which doubt has never dimmed, and controversy never soiled. It has been to him all along the silent, but oh! how intelligible, voice of his guardian angel; and in the length and breadth of the land there is not a Protestant with one spark of religiousness about him whose spiritual biography is not in his Saxon Bible.”

The common assertion of Catholics is that their translation of the Bible is an infallible one, and the one Protestants use is a corrupt one. But let us look at the two. King James’ version of the Bible has been before the world more than 250 years. During all that time it has remained unchanged; not so the Douay, or Roman Catholic version of the Scriptures. The earlier editions of the Douay, published at the beginning of the seventeenth century, had in many passages such a Latin English garb that it was scarcely intelligible to ordinary English readers. Without going back to these, on comparing the edition published at the commencement of the present century with the present edition, and then comparing these two with the Protestant Bible, we find more difference between the Roman Catholic editions of the Bible than between the present Douay and the Protestant Bible. Isaac Buck, M. A., says: “In the Gospel of St. Matthew alone, you will find about 1500 variations between the earlier and later editions of the Douay; of these corrections, 1200, including all the most important, agree word for word with the Protestant Bible.”

We will give a few illustrations of the changes that have been made. In the earlier editions of the Douay Bible, Luke 2:10, reads, “I evangelize you.” The foot note attacks, at some length, the Protestant translation, “I bring you good tidings.” In the last edition of the Douay the text reads, “I bring you good tidings.” In Gal. 5:21, 22, the Douay used to read, “ebrieties,” “commessations,” and “longanimity.” Now it reads the same as the Protestant Bible, “drunkenness,” “revellings,” and “long-suffering.” In Heb. 9:23, it formerly read, “The exemplars of the celestials.” Now it reads as the Protestant Bible, “The patterns of heavenly things.” Heb. 13:16, used to read in the Douay, “Beneficences and communication do not forget, for with such hosts God is promerited.” Their present translation reads, “And do not forget to do good, and to impart; for by such sacrifices God’s favor is obtained”—very nearly the same as our Bible.

In many other instances, where the text is unchanged, they have given the Protestant translation in their foot notes to explain the text. We will give a few instances illustrative of this. In Matt. 6:11, the present edition of the Douay Bible reads, “Give us this day our supersubstantial bread.” The note says, “In St. Luke the same word is rendered daily bread,” agreeing with the Protestant translation. In Matt. 26:17, “the first day of Azymes” is called, in the note, “the feast of unleavened bread,” the same as in the Protestant Bible. Luke 23:24, reads, “It was the day of Parasceve,” that is, according to the note, a day “of preparation for the Sabbath,” the same as the text in the Protestant Bible. In Gal. 3:24, we read, “The law was our pedagogue,” that is, says the note, “schoolmaster.” So reads King James’ version.

The Douay Bible is only a translation from the Latin Vulgate; so it is only a translation of a translation. The Council of Trent declared that the Latin Vulgate was “the only authentic authority for the Roman Catholic church.” This Latin Vulgate, adopted by the council of Trent, was the translation of Hieronymus, but when the translation first appeared, many complaints arose against its correctness, especially from St. Augustine. But if, as the Catholics claim, the decrees of councils are infallible, then the Vulgate, at the time of the Council of Trent, is infallible. But, behold, in the time of Sextus V., A. D. 1585, we have a new edition of the Vulgate, and, to correct the errors of the old edition, the new one was struck off in the printing office of the Vatican itself. Of this new edition Sextus said, “This new edition of the Vulgate which I present, without any doubt or controversy, is to be reputed and taken to be the only edition, which, being as well as was possible reformed, our will is, and we decree it to be read throughout the Christian world.” Gavazzi, after quoting these words, says, “Mark, now, here we have from an infallible pope, an infallible Vulgate, reformed, and to be used as the only edition.”

We will see how this infallible edition of the Vulgate fares seven years later, when Pope Clement VIII. begins his reign. Gavazzi says of Clement VIII., “He issued a bull, stating that in the edition of Sextus V., called ‘reformed,’ he had found two thousand dangerous errors.” This statement is found in the preface to the edition of the Vulgate published by the authority of Clement VIII., where he says still further, “In this edition, as some things we expressly changed, so many others, purposely, we left unchanged.” So by the admission of their own pope, their present Vulgate is corrupted.

“Father Ungarelli, a great friend of Gregory XVI., . . . a few years ago wrote a book which was printed in Rome, revised by the Inquisition of Rome, approved by the master of the Sacred Palaces at Rome, in which book this monk stated . . . that he found in the present Vulgate not less than seven hundred and fifty capital errors.”

We will notice one of these fatal errors. Gen. 3:15, reads, “I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed; it shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel.” The Douay reads, “She shall crush thy head.” The note says, she shall crush, ipsa, the woman; so divers of the fathers read in this place, conformably to the Latin.” Of this, Gavazzi says, “It is a little alteration indeed; it consists merely in changing e into a (ipsa instead of ipse); but by such an unimportant alteration the Virgin Mary became co-Redeemer, and the co-Mediator, and then deserving of particular worship.”

I will notice another instance, in which they seem to have allowed the peculiar doctrine of their church to influence their translation. The Greek word metanoia signifies, according to Robinson, “change of mind or purpose, repentance,” and thus points to an inward change. The Douay translators have rendered this word “penance,” which points to an outward act. This word metanoia occurs twenty-four times in the New Testament; eighteen times they have rendered it “penance,” twice they have omitted the word, and in four instances, where they could not avoid it, they have translated it “repentance.” As an example, see Heb. 12:17, speaking of Esau, “He found no place of repentance.” It would not sound well for them to say, “Esau found no place to do penance.” In translating the word metanoia by the word repentance four times, they tacitly admit that which is indeed the true meaning of the word.

The papists claim that their church is the only church that existed through the dark Middle Ages, and therefore it was the exclusive guardian of the Holy Scriptures, and that Protestants have received the Scriptures from the Romish church. On this point Kirwan says: “The Scriptures, as we possess them, existed before the rise of your church—before a general council ever commenced—before a declaration was ever made by a council as to the canon of Scripture.” Rev. Isaac Brock says, “But I am not prepared to admit that through the Middle Ages the Roman church was the exclusive guardian of the Holy Scriptures. Through the greater portion of those ages there were several independent churches in Western Europe in which the Scriptures were preserved. And throughout that entire period there were large branches of the church in Eastern Europe and Western Asia that never owned the sway of the Bishop of Rome; and to this day, these ancient churches of the East protest as strongly as we do against the arrogant claims of the pope. Some, indeed, of our most valuable MSS. of the Scriptures come to us from the churches of the far East.”

J. N. LOUGHBOROUGH.