ROME DESTROYED BIBLES September 7, 1997 (David W. Cloud, Fundamental Baptist Information Service, 1701 N. Harns Rd., Oak Harbor, WA 98277) - The following is abridged from the book ROME AND THE BIBLE: TRACING THE HISTORY OF THE ROMAN CATHOLIC CHURCH AND ITS PERSECUTION OF THE BIBLE AND OF BIBLE BELIEVERS, by David W. Cloud, Way of Life Literature, copyright 1996. $19.95 + $4 S/H -- For 600 years the Roman Catholic Church attempted to keep vernacular translations of the Bible out of the hands of the people. The Council of Toulouse, in 1229, decreed that "the laity" could not possess the books of the Old and New Testament "in the vulgar tongue." Waldensian and other Bible-believing people were mercilessly persecuted and their Scriptures destroyed. The Council of Trent, in 1546, claimed that the indiscriminate distribution of the Scriptures caused more evil than good and forbade the people to possess the Bible without a written license. Those who possessed Bibles without a license were commanded to deliver them up to the Catholic authorities under threat of inquisition terrors. Booksellers were forbidden to sell any Bibles except to people who possessed a license from the Catholic church. Huge quantities of Scriptures in English, Germany, Italian, French, Spanish, and in other languages, were confiscated and destroyed throughout the 13th to the 19th centuries. Bible translators and distributors were imprisoned and burned. Even after the Catholic inquisition was outlawed in many lands in the 18th and 19th centuries, the popes continued to condemn the free distribution of Scripture. Pius VII, in 1816, condemned the Bible society in Poland and claimed that the distribution of Scripture was undermining "the very foundations of religion" and was "eminently dangerous to souls." He said, "The Holy Scriptures, when circulated in the vulgar tongue, have, through the temerity of men, produced more harm than benefit." Leo XII, in 1824, said that "if the sacred Scriptures be everywhere indiscriminately published, more evil than advantage will arise." In 1825 Leo mandated that the decrees of the Council of Trent be enforced against distribution of Scriptures. Pius VIII, in 1829, condemned the Bible societies and the free distribution of Scripture. Gregory XVI, in 1836, and again in 1844, affirmed the decrees of his predecessors. In another bull of 1845, this pope repeated his condemnation of Bible society Scriptures and denied that the Scriptures should be freely distributed to all people. Pius IX, in 1850, issued an encyclical letter which condemned the Bible societies. In 1864 this pope issued a Syllabus of Errors, in which he again condemned Bible societies, lumping them together with Communism, secret societies, and other evils, labeling them "pests of this kind." Leo XIII, in 1897, prohibited "all versions of the vernacular, even by Catholics, unless approved by the Holy See, or published under the vigilant care of bishops."
Posted on: Fri, 12 Jul 2013 21:23:43 +0000
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