approved by collation of the best MSS. On the 28th of August, 1592, Toleti's work was submitted to the Cardinals and approved by them, and Rocca was commissioned to write them on the margin of a copy of the Sixtine edition for the printer.

At this point Valverde interposed an objection. Being an able Hebraist, he bore it ill that the Vulgate had not in all places been rendered conformable to the Massoretic text. He presented to the Pope a libellus, wherein were over two hundred passages in which the Vulgate differed from the Hebrew. The Pope took counsel, and after mature deliberation, forbade Valverde ever, in word or writing, to treat of this difference. Such treatment of a man seems to us harsh, and subversive of human liberty, but we must consider the nature of the fact and the circumstances. The proposition of Valverde was against the first design in all the corrections, which was not to re-translate the Scriptures from the Hebrew, but to restore the pristine text of the Vulgate. The divergencies were not in matters of faith or morals; in many cases the Massoretic text has no more claim to purity than the Vulgate; the people were waiting for the Bible, and prone to ugly rumors regarding the delay; to put into execution Valverde's proposition, would have necessitated a long period of toil, for they could not adopt his readings on his sole authority; scholars can always collate the two texts, so that no real necessity existed for the change; and finally, had Valverde been allowed to speak his views to the public, the protestants would have raised a great cry against the Latin text of the Catholic Church, and faith would have suffered thereby. There were but two ways, either to do what he advised, or restrain him from speaking. The former was not possible at that time; the latter was wisely adopted.

If it be not presumption, I express here a regret, that the authorities of the Church did not at that time, by the labors of those great linguists and theologians, make a translation of the entire Scriptures, as far as possible, from the original texts, employing in the work the Vulgate only for reference, and inasmuch as it helped to the full meaning of the original text. They may have thought that such a move would be interpreted to signify that the text of the Latin Scriptures had been unreliable, but a comparison of the two texts would have convinced all that the substantial truths of God's covenants were safely contained in the Vulgate, and this would have repelled the false accusation.

Clement VIII. appointed Toleti to supervise the printing of the Vulgate; and Angelo Rocca to correct the proofs. The edition was pushed rapidly forward, and completed before the end of 1592. And thus, at last, the design formulated in 1546 by the Fathers of the Council of Trent, and approved by the Pope, was put in effect, and the Church received an authentic version of Scripture.

The edition differed not in external form from the Sixtine edition. It was printed by Aldo Manuzio, who had printed the edition of Sixtus. Moreover, it bore at first the name of Sixtus in its title: "Biblia Sacra Vulgatae Editionis Sixti V. Pont. Max. jussu recognita atque edita." It was not till 1641 that the name of Clement VIII. was placed in the title page, and the honor of the work was given to whom it by right belonged. Since that time it is called the Clementine edition. It differs from the Sixtine edition in over three thousand texts.

The preface of the Clementine edition, which is supposed to have been written by Bellarmine and Toleti, candidly admits that certain things "quae mutanda videbantur" were left unchanged to avoid the scandal of the people, and because there was some doubt whether the original texts had remained in such passages free from corruption.

The edition, therefore, does not lay claim to absolute perfection, but it is, without doubt, the best translation of the Scriptures in any language. Yet, we still think that the Church with her immense resources, human and divine, could prepare a better edition, and we look forward to future times to add this glory to the works of the Catholic Church.

The difference between the Sixtine and Clementine editions was made the subject of a fierce attack on papal infallibility by Thomas James, in a work entitled "Bellum Papale," London, 1600. He has been ably refuted by Henry Bukentop, in the excellent work ", Lux de Luce," Brussels, 1710. The line of defense is the same as we have pointed out in treating of Pope Sixtus' work.

CHAPTER XXXI.

MODERN ENGLISH VERSIONS OF SCRIPTURE.

The calumny is often put upon the Church that she withheld the Scriptures from the people.

We live in an age of universal shallow enlightenment. Nothing is more subversive of faith than this smattering of

knowledge. The general tendency of varied superficial knowledge is to make people irreligious. Broad, deep, true knowledge would lead to God, but the great number never attain this. The knowledge obtained by many is just sufficient to destroy reverence, generate intellectual pride, and make the man intolerant of all restraint. Even the man of the humblest intellectual attainments imbibes the superficial philosophy of those with whom he comes in contact, and loses some of his faith and his reverence.

I am speaking especially of America, and I endorse heartily the following description of American thought by Wendell Phillips: "The most objectionable feature of our national character is self-conceit,-an undue appreciation of ourselves, an exaggerated estimate of our achievements, of our inven. tions, of our contributions to popular comfort, and of our place, in fact, in the great procession of the ages. We seem to imagine that, whether knowledge will die with us or not, it certainly began with us. We have a pitying estimate, a tender compassion, for the narrowness, ignorance and darkness of bygone ages. We seem to ourselves not only to monopolize, but to have begun the era of light. In other words, we are all running over with a fourth-day-of-July spirit of self-content. I am often reminded of the German, whom the English poet, Coleridge, met at Frankfort. He always took off his hat with profound respect when he ventured to speak of himself. It seems to me, the American people might be painted in the chronic attitude of taking off its hat to itself."

The only thing that is valuable in human life is the service that comes to the Creator out of it, and certainly the so-called spread of enlightenment has not augmented this. It is not to be said that religion thrives in ignorance, and hates the light, but she hates that false light which travesties her real nature. It would be better that a people should be ignorant of this shoddy education, and well taught the truths of God and his law, where full, deep knowledge is unattainable. "Shallow draughts of knowledge intoxicate the brain, but drinking largely sobers us again."

Now the Church, with a wisdom greater than man's, wisely regulated the reading of the Bible by the masses. Many things in the Bible are hard to understand, and the man of little knowledge would often wrest these to his own destruction. Large use was always made in the Catholic Church of the Scriptures of God. They were explained to the people, and those portions which they could understand, mainly the

Gospels and the Psalms, were put into their hands, but the Church never misunderstood Christ, that she should convert the world by placing the text of the Bible in the vulgar tongue in the hands of the people. The Church has yielded to the exigencies of the times to prevent greater evil, and has made more concessions in this regard than is good for man. I believe to-day that the indiscriminate reading of the Bible in the vernacular is not for the best interests of man. Hence we see that in England some parts of Scripture, which were adapted to the people's use, were translated centuries before the whole Bible was translated.

It is very doubtful whether the entire Scriptures have ever been translated into Anglo-Saxon. We have no traditionary account of a complete version, and all the biblical MSS. in Anglo-Saxon now in existence contain but select portions of the sacred volume. The poems on sacred subjects usually attributed to Cædmon, afford the first feeble indications of an attempt being made by the Saxons to convey the truths of Scripture in their vernacular tongue. Cædmon lived in the seventh century; he was a monk in the monastery of Streoneshalch in Northumbria. His poems have been strung together so as to form a sort of metrical paraphrase on some of the historical books of Scripture. He commences with the fall of the angels, the creation and fall of man, and proceeds to the history of the deluge, carrying on his narrative to the history of the children of Israel, and their wanderings in the desert. He also touches on the history of Nebuchadnezzar and of Daniel. The authenticity of this work has been doubted, some writers being of opinion that it was written by different writers at different periods; the striking similarity between some of the poems and certain passages in Milton's Paradise Lost has been repeatedly noticed. Two editions have been printed; the first by Francis Junius at Amsterdam in 1655, and the second, with an English translation and notes, by Mr. Thorpe, in London, in 1832.

The literal versions of such portions of the Scripture as have been translated into Anglo-Saxon have chiefly been transmitted to us in the form of interlineations of Latin MSS. A Latin Psalter, said to have been sent by Pope Gregory to Augustine, is still preserved among the Cottonian MSS., and contains an Anglo-Saxon interlinear version, of which the date is unknown. Aldhelm, bishop of Sherborne, and Guthlac, the first Anglo-Saxon anchorite, translated the Psalms soon after the commencement of the eighth century, but their MSS. are

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lost, and nothing is known with certainty respecting them. The same may be said concerning the portions of Scripture reported to have been translated by the Venerable Bede. At the time of his death, this renowned historian was engaged in a translation of the Gospel of St. John, and almost with his latest breath he dictated to his amanuensis the closing verse of the Gospel. Alfred the Great also took part in the translation of the Scriptures. He translated the commandments in the twentieth chapter of Exodus, and part of the three following chapters, which he affixed to his code of laws. He likewise kept a "hand-boc," in which he daily entered extracts from various authors, but more especially verses of Scripture translated by himself from Latin into Anglo-Saxon.

There are three different versions of the Four Gospels at present known to be in existence. The most ancient of these is the famous Northumbrian Gloss, or Durham Book, preserved among the Cottonian MSS. in the British Museum. This MS. is one of the finest specimens extant of Saxon writing. The Vulgate Latin text of the Four Gospels was written by Eadfrid, bishop of Lindisfarne, about A. D. 680; his successor in the See adorned the book with curious illuminations, and with bosses of gold and precious stones; and a priest named Aldred added an interlinear gloss or version, probably about the year 900. The second Anglo-Saxon version of the Gospels belongs to the tenth century, and was written by Farmen and Owen at Harewood, or Harwood, over Jerome's Latin of the Four Gospels. The Latin text was written about the same period as that of the Durham Book, having been made during the seventh century. This valuable MS. is in the Bodleian Library, and is called the Rushworth Gloss, from the name of one of its former proprietors. The other translation of the Gospels was made by an unknown hand, apparently not long before the Norman conquest, and is thought to have been translated from the Latin version which was in use before Jerome's time.

Two editions of the Anglo-Saxon Psalter have been published. The first appeared in 1640; it was printed in London under the care of Spelman, from an ancient MS. by an unknown translator, and collated with other MSS. of equal antiquity. This version was undoubtedly made from the Latin Vulgate, which interlines with the Anglo-Saxon. A splendid edition of the Psalms was published in 1835 at Oxford: the MS. which forms the text formerly belonged to the Duc de Berri, the brother of Charles V., king of France, and was preserved in the Royal Library at Paris. Mr. Thorpe, the editor