The Irish standard. [volume] (Minneapolis, Minn. ;) 1886-1920, 1913-10-04
the object of the Biblical Commits.
sion? Will it prepare a Latin Bible
to be proposed as an official text for
the appreciation Of the church,"
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NO." answered Abbot Gasquet, "the
object of the commission Is merely to
take preliminary step toward that
official version. We are trying to de-
termine accurately the text of the
Latin translation OF the Bible made
by st. Jerome in the fourth century.
We are doing this by gathering in the
libraries of the world the variants of
the ancient Biblical manuscripts.
There are only ten sf us on the
commission. A large commission, you
know, never accomplishes anything.
And, in addition, we. have the valu-
able aid of twenty or thirty scholarly
workers not members of the commits
sion.
among the scholars engaged in
this work are Dona de Bruyne, of
Belgium; Dom Henri Quentin, author
of a great work pn martyrologies;
Abate Amelli, of Italy, and Dom An
selm Mauser, of Belron.
"The work is tremendously expen-
sive, as you will .nnd derstand when I
describe our methods Of procedure.
OF course, the work of research and
collation. is done gratuitously. But
(, the workers must sbe provided with
, food, and their railway fares must be
paid. In the Middle Ages the ex-
penses of the undertaking, of course,
would have beens much less. For
work of this magnitude no adequate
payment could ever be made. We
are fortunate in having the services
of such body Of men"
"How did the commission come in.
to existence?" Abbot Gasquet was
asked.
I'm May, 1907" he answered. Gear
dinal Rampolla sent a communication
to the abbots president of the various
Benedictine congregations asking, in
the Popes names that the order un
dertake the first Siaages Of the pro.
cess Of revision i5A Eu.gate texts
! II the autumn MSs made the head
of small commission to organize the
work, to consider the best means o
carrying out the Pope's wishes, ant
to determine the principles on which
the work of revision should proceed
"Pius the Tenth showed from tn
first lively interest In the commits
4 sions activities. He Expressed a de
sire that the public and private II
braries of Europe should be exhaus
lively searched for manuscripts hith
erto unknown, and that no expense
should be spared in securing thor
ough and accurate work in the cola
ton and comparison of the manu-
scripts.
"No private enterprise could &C
complish the great task. Private en-
terprises stop at the death of indi
viduals, but this enterprise will g
on. The Pope has declared his will
. ingness to be responsible in the las
} resort, and he met the initial expens
of printing the text for the collation.
But he feels that the need of SOM
such revision of the Latin text is s.
!, obvious that the funds will be pro
vided, and he has asked me to appea
! to the generosity Of Catholics an
! others throughout the world. H
/ urges all who can in any way assist
, by personal service or by their aims
to do so, and upon all who do so h
!, bestows his apostolic blessing. Thank
/, largely to the generosity of som
!, Americans, have kept the enterpris
going for five years."
"Will you tell something about tn
methods the commission follows?
i. was the next question.
Minute Comparison Made.
"Well," said Abbot Gasquet, eth
first thing we had to do was to prin
an edition of the Clementine text TO
the use of the workers. The forma
of the volumes was selected by th
Pope himself.
"One-third Of every page Is file
, with the text, and the rest is lef
vacant for the writing in of sue
variations of the manuscript as ma
be discovered. There are no capital
!, and no stops, and no word is divide
between two lines.
"If the worker finds q capital lette
!. in the manuscript he is studying, b
makes two strokes under the CORE
spending letter in the printed tex
:. Any difference between the man,
script before him and the text in hi
book is noted on the printed shee
in the way in which proof shee
: is corrected. The Bible printed !
the manner described fills nearly Nv
thousand quarto pages.
sy,k4 81. ntn