The sun. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1833-1916, 1907-05-05

land Franco. OF especial interest will be
found o chapter dealing with the history
Of the Scriptures under censorship; an
other showing how the book production OF
Europe was affected by censorship. and a
third on the censorship OF the stage. About
q hundred pages are devoted 10 memorable
examples Of condemned literature. while
the present methods OF Roman censorship
are described in a concluding section.
The cordial cooperation of the Roman
Church in the work Of the printers con-
tinued until the Humanists. more than a
generation before the protest Of Luther,
began TO assail the authority OF the Church
and the infallibility Of the Pope. Roman
eoclesiastics then took the ground that
errors and heresies arose through q wrong
full understanding Of the Scriptures, and
from the beginning Of the sixteenth CEN
fury adopted measures TO discourage and
finally to prohibit the circulation OF the
Bible. II appears that the first Hebrew
Bible printed in Europe was issued in SON.
elmo in 1901. In the following year Faust
brought to Paris from Mayence a supply Of
his folio Bibles, copies Of which he was able
to sell for fifty crowns. the usual price for
manuscripts of like compass having pre-
viousiy been four to five hundred crowns.
The first Bible printed in a v~crnacular was
issued in 146e n Strasbourg. Among the
earlier printers Of Zurich. where the work
of printing was taken up in 1904, was
froschauer. He published editions OF the
Bible not only in German but in French,
Italian. Flemish and English. 1t is not
generally known that his editions we're the
Arst Bibles printed on the Continent in the
English tongue. In 1881 Anthoni Koberger
Of Nuremberg printed an edition in eight
volumes folio of the Bible which had been
produced about 1910 by Cardinal Hugo
and had been used for two centuries (of
course In manuscript form as one Of the
theological text books OF the Sorbonne.
The text Of the Scriptures as revised by
Hugo, together with his notes. we're utilized
by Luther and by a number of the later
editors and tr~anslators. In the year 1883,
the year in which Luther was born. Ko-
berger published his German Bible. trans
lated from the Latin Of the Vulgate. This
version never took any permanent place in
German literature: Luther described the diA
Loot In which IL was written as ~outlandish.
A series of Latin Bibles we're printed by
Froben OF Basel between 1900 and 1928.
He added subsequently an edition OF the
New Testament in Greek. edited by Eras-
mus, which included, printed in parallel
columns, an improved Latin version. This
was the first printed edition OF the Greek
text, and was utilized by Luther In the
preparation OF his German version. Mr.
Putnam tells US that notwithstanding the
approval given to the book Of Erasmus by
the Pope it's publication provoked many
and bitter criticisms. Accusations Of
heresy and Arianism we're heard. II was
pointed out that Erasmus had departed
from the version Of the yulgste and in his
Latin text had substituted pure Latin for
monastic barbarisms. Another complaint
was that he had charged the Apostles with
writing bad Greek. What was worse, he
had the temerity to correct a number
of texts in such a way as materially to alter
their meaning, and in the First Epistle OF
John had ventured to omit altogether the
testimony of the three Witnesses This
verse. after being accepted by the Prot
estants on the strength Of its retention by
Luther and by the editors OF the King James
version. wa finally condemned as an inter
polAtion by the revisers under Victoria, who
thus, after an interval of three and a half
centuries. bore testimony to the scholar
ship End the editorial boidness of Erasmus.
The character of his notes also attested the
courage of his convictions. Commenting
upon the we'll known text in Matthew:
upon this rock will build my church.
Erasmus takes occasion TO deny the primacy
OF Peter, and to express surprise that words
undoubtedly meant to apply to all Chris
tians should have been interpreted as ap-
exclusively to the Roman Pontiff.
The paraphrase OF the New Testament pub
Iished by Erasmus in Basel in 1924 was re-
in an English version in London.
and 90 highly appreciated that a copy was
to be placed in every parish church
beside the Bible. 8