The Catholic bulletin. [volume] (St. Paul, Minn.) 1911-1995, 1911-05-06
THE WORK OF THE
BIBLICAL Commission
AN INTERVIEW WITH RT. REV. ABB.
BOT GAsQUET, o. S. g., PREsl-
DENT OF THE COMMISSION.


An interesting Account Of How the
Work of Revising the Bible is Pro-
gressing-Entrusted to the Benedic-
tine order-Many Persons Engaged
Subscriptions.
A writer in the Catholic Sun
gives the following interesting
facts in regard to the monumental task
which His Holiness, Pope Plus X, has
entrusted to the Biblical Commission,
of which the Abbot Gasquet is Presi-
dent This Commission is comparing
the Bible text of today with that Of
the time of St. Jerome with view to
eliminating whatever mistakes and in
accuracies may have crept in through
the errors of copyists. He says:
"An hour spent on the Aventine Hill
is always of interest to the Christian,
for there the mustard seed was first
sown by the Prince of the Apostles
after his arrival in Rome in AZ A. D.,
or, as some hold, in 43. 1t was in the
home of the Jew, Aquila, and his wife,
Priscilla, the wanderer found hospi-
tality and exercised the ministry. The
little edifice is in my sight as l climb
the steep mount. 1t was excavated in
1774 and is a place of pilgrimage for
all.
1t was up here also ST. Dominic lived
for while and they still show you
the orange tree planted in the garden
by him. 1t is still hale and hearty and
sent out new offshoot in 1852 which
bore fruit two years later. And the
room in which he received visits from
St. Francis of Assist and st. Angelns the
Carmelite is still to be seen; and so
is that of st. Plus ", the Dominican
i Pope whose body lies incorrupt in St.
Mary Major and under whose rule the
i battle of Lepanto--fn which the power
of the Turk in the West was broken
was fought and won
And hard by is the site of the man.
sion Of that holy youth, st. Alexis, who
i fled from Rome the day Senator Euphe-
main, his father, forced him into mar
riage, and who returned seventeen
years afterwards to live and die in
the guise of a beggar under the pa
/ ternal staircase. These and hun
dred other memories crowded On my
the International monastery of the
Benedictine Order, to meet, by appoint
ment, the Rt. Rev. Abbot Gasquet, o.
S. B., President of the Pontifical Com
mission for the Revision of the Vul-
gate, and to learn some of the details
regarding the progress made by that
body during the past six months.
Abbot Gasquet placed all possible
information at my disposal as to the
working of the commission and
brought me into the council chamber
of the collaborators and also that de-
voted to the storage of the work al
ready complete.
Just two words regarding the his
tory of this Commission.
AS our clerical readers are aware,
no small amount of dissatisfaction has
been experienced by the Church
through the errors made by copyists
of the Bible Age after age added
it's mistakes, and the Holy See found
it necessary to correct the accumula-
ton of errors that carelessness or
distraction had originated. And thus
it was that Pope Piux X. decided to
| institute a commission that should
sweep back through the mist of ages
and find ''the Bible as it issued from
the hands of st. Jerome"
When asked how many collaborators
are engaged in the great work, Abbot
Gasquet informed the writer that they
number eighteen savants who have
been sent through the libraries of Eu-
rope for the past three years. Spain,
North Italy, England and Ireland fur
nished exceptional aid in the number
of old editions of the Bible. To colIate
these the utmost patience is required,
especially since it was difficult and ex-
pensive for one to remain for three or
four months in some European library
working on an ancient copy. This diff
ficulty, however, has been surmounted
by photographing the copy, two pages
at time, by camera placed verti-
cally over the recumbent Bible. When
the negatives are well developed and
mounted they are just as useful as the
original for the uses of the commission
and they can be used where and when
one likes. Quite a number of nuns
are at present employed by the COM
mission in comparing photographs
taken of different old copies of the
Bible. In fact, it would be invidious
to mention the converts that are help
ing us in this way in the quiet of the
cloister,' replied the President when
asked the names of those SO employed.
Dom Gasquet's description Of the
mounting Of the Bible negatives is in