BIBLE, PROHIBITION OF. This is one of the main points of opposition between the Roman Catholic and the Protestant church. In the earliest times we find no evidence of any prohibition of Bible-reading by the laity. On the contrary, as the foundation on which the church was built, and the sole source of religious knowledge, the reading of the Bible formed an essential. part of the instruction communicated by pastors to their congregations; and the greatest orators of the church—especially Chrysostom and Augustine—continually reminded their hearers that private reading and study of the Scriptures should follow attendance on public services. This great fact is by no means contradicted by the warnings found here and there in the fathers against abuse or mis take of the meaning of Scripture; these warnings rather imply that Scripture-reading was common among the laity. The gradual widening of the distinction, or rather the separation, between the clergy and the laity, was the work of the middle ages; and, among other means of preserving traditions inviolate and maintaining the exclusive character and sacred authority of the hierarchy, the Bible was held in the background, even while there was no direct prohibition of its common use. In 1080. Gregory VII. ordained that Latin should be the universal language of Catholic worship, and conse quently excluded all vernacular readings of Scripture in public assemblies. Again, with regard to the Waldenses, Innocent 1IL, in 119U, prohibited the private possession and reading of Scripture (excepting the portions contained in the Breviary and the Psalter) without priestly permission and supervision. Similar prohibitibns were repeated at Toulouse (1229), at Biers (1233), and with regard to Wickliffe, at the synod of Oxford (1383). Ultimately, the recognized Latin version, or vulgate, was more and more decid
edly made the sole authorized church version. Indeed, as early as 1234, the synod of Tarragona denounced as a heretic any one who, having a translation of the Bible, refused to surrender it to be burned within the space of eight days. As, however, it soon appeared plain that little could be effected by such prohibitions, milder measures were employed. The Tridentine council, being required to pronounce OD the question of Bible translations, purposely employed a word of ambiguous meaning in styling the vulgate simply " authentic;" but nothing was determined on Bible-reading among the laity. This was first done in the publication of the first Index Librorant i'rohibirorant soon after the Tridentine council. Afterwards, the rules of the church, placing the use of the Scriptures under the supervision of the bishops, were more and more strictly defined. The publication of the New Testament with practical annotations by Mischa sins Quesnel (1687), gave occasion to the Roman Catholic church to speak more definitely on the reading of the Bible by the laity in the bull Unigenitus Dci 1713. New ordinances were issued by pope Pius VII. in his brief to the archbishop of Gnesen and Mohilew (1816) against translations formerly authorized; again, by Leo XII., in his con demnation of Bible societies (1824), and by Pius VIII. All these ordinances of the Roman Catholic church imply that it is dangerous to give the Bible freely to the laity, and that, therefore, no vernacular versions ought to be used without interpretations taken from the fathers, and an especial papal sanction.