Antithesis.
Antithesis.
§ 316. The Council of Trent, sess. 4, decrees “that the ancient Vulgate edition be considered as authentic in public readings, debates, preaching, and expositions and that no one dare reject it under any pretext.” (Note “under any pretext.” Therefore they exclude those times when Bellarmine and Canus judge that one can go back to the sources.) They are actually denying, therefore, that the Hebrew text in the Old Testament and the Greek in the New are authentic; otherwise they would allow one to appeal to them. Melchior Canus (Locor., bk. 2, c. 13) draws four conclusions from this decree of the council: “(1) The ancient Vulgate edition must be retained by the faithful in all those matters that pertain to faith and behavior. (2) All questions of faith and behavior must be defined by this Latin edition. (3) In debates one must not appeal to the Hebrew and Greek texts. (4) In those matters related to faith and behavior, the Latin versions must not be corrected from the Hebrew and Greek.” Andradius Payva, Defens. fid.: “[The Council] says that it is not to be endured for anyone to spurn the authority of that version that the Church uses nor to appeal freely to the Hebrew and Greek.” Gregorius de Valentia, Anal. fid., p. 8:
We understand from the statements that we must by no means listen to those authors who are still contending after the Council of Trent that the Vulgate edition even now can be corrected in some places through the Hebrew and Greek codices as through sources, as they say, as far as this judgment is concerned. It is not permissible to do this. In fact, the Hebrew and Greek codices, wherever they differ from our edition, must be corrected and emended by ours. You see, the Church with its own definition has approved the latter in every respect, but not the former ones, though it has not rejected those except where they by chance contradict this version of ours.
The Jesuit Franciscus Turrianus says, “Those who prefer the Hebrew truth are giving their approval to the Jews” (Defens. locor. script. advers. Sadeelem, p. 57). Gordonus Huntlaeus, Controv., 1, c. 8: “Those are not acting rightly who flee from the common and pure text (of the Latin version) to the already-corrupted Jewish (Hebrew) text.” They try to prove this opinion of theirs with a twofold argument: (1) from the corruption of the Hebrew and Greek texts; (2) from the commendation of the Latin version. What force both of these have will appear later in its own place.
In De verbo Dei, bk. 2, c. 10, Bellarmine burdens us in this controversy with a double calumny: “(1) That we consider only Luther’s version as authentic; (2) that we disagree not a little bit in choosing an authentic Latin version.” However, we claim the Latin or German version of neither Luther nor anyone else as authentic, but only the Hebrew text in the Old Testament and the Greek in the New.
§ 317. Bellarmine brings out only one argument here that belongs to this point because the rest pertain to the question on the authority of the Latin Vulgate translation. It is fourth in his order and is as follows: “In the general councils of the Church, there are either few or none found to be skilled in the Hebrew language; therefore the Church would be poorly provided for if it could not have confidence in the Latin edition in serious matters but would have to go back to the Hebrew codices and beg for the truth from its foes, the rabbis. We can say the same thing about the Greek language, for even now we somehow find many who know Greek, but this has not always been the case.”
We respond. (1) That which the bishops understand is not the authentic version nor does that edition that the bishops do not understand cease to be the authentic edition. Rather, that which is God-breathed and has come from the prophets, evangelists, and apostles is the one and only authentic edition, whether the bishops understand it or not.
(2) The same thing must be feared in the case of the Latin language, namely, that bishops of other provinces are ignorant of it too.
(3) There was no general council in which there were not found some who understood the Scriptures in their sources. Johannes Dalburgius used to say that the four least-mistrusted judges had to be in charge of a council: “the Hebrew, Greek, Latin, and German Bibles,” as we read in the Paralipom. of Urspergensis. But all those judges—or certainly some of them—would be in vain if the bishops did not understand their language.
(4) We ought rather to commend the study of languages to future bishops than to seek support for their ignorance and laziness.
(5) As a consequence, Clement V decreed in the Council of Vienna that “professors of the Greek and Hebrew languages are to be established in the schools,” namely, so that bishops, who would at times be gathered together in councils, may not be ignorant of those languages.
Related to this argument is that which is added in earlier editions and is sixth in order but which was omitted in later editions. That reads as follows: “If the Hebrew text in the Old Testament and the Greek in the New were authentic, it would follow that all people who are not skilled in Hebrew and Greek must always be doubtful in reading the Scriptures as to whether they are reading genuine Scripture.” We respond. With the same argument, we could succeed in proving that the Latin version also is not “authentic,” something that Bellarmine struggles with great effort to prove. Although people unskilled in languages cannot pass accurate judgment on individual passages of Scripture, which properly pertains to theologians, they nevertheless can learn and approve of doctrine as they are taught and informed by the Holy Spirit through the ministry of the Word.