The arguments of the Papists: First, from the history of the Old Testament.
The arguments of the Papists: First, from the history of the Old Testament.
§ 496. The arguments with which Bellarmine tries to prove in the previously cited passages that one must not read the Scriptures in vernacular languages in the public usage of the Church have also been taken from long-standing practice of the Church. (I) “From the time of Ezra, the Hebrew language was not common among the people of God. Rather, the Chaldaic or Syriac became their vernacular.” This he proves from Nehemiah 8, “where Nehemiah, Ezra, and the Levites were interpreting the Law, for otherwise the people would have understood nothing,” and from the Syriac words of the New Testament: “Talitha” (Mark 5[:41]); “Abba, Father” (Mark 14[:36]); “Hakeldama” (Matthew 27[:8]); “Golgotha” [Matt. 27:33]; “Pascha” [Matt. 26:2]; and even from the statement in John 7[:49]: “This crowd that does not know the Law.”
We respond. (1) Why did Bellarmine want to draw his argument from that small interval of time and ignore the passage of many centuries earlier in which the Scriptures were read among the Israelites in their common vernacular language?
(2) Why does he set before us the state of the corrupt church to imitate, rather than the flourishing church? As Moses and the prophets taught in a common language, so also did they write.
(3) When the Chaldaic language began to become common, they also translated the Scriptures into that language. The Targum Jonathan appeared about forty-two years before the birth of Christ.
(4) Although a pure Hebrew language was not the vernacular at the time of Ezra and Christ, yet the people still understood it, as is concluded from Luke 4:17[-20] where Christ read Isaiah in the synagogue and “the eyes of all were fixed on Him.” (Cf. John 5:39; Acts 15:21; 17:11; 21:40; 22:2.) Bellarmine, De verb. Dei, bk. 2, c. 4: “When the Hebrews had been carried off to Babylon, they began to forget their own language and to learn a foreign one, Chaldaic. But because they were unable to pronounce it perfectly and always kept something of their Hebrew, it happened that a sort of third language was born, a mixture of Hebrew and Chaldaic, which is called Syriac.” This, however, differs from the Hebrew not so much in roots or categorically, as in inflection and changes in letters, and is something like a colloquial form of it. So, then, they were not completely ignorant of the Hebrew language.
(5) The history of Ezra conflicts with Bellarmine’s opinion. If Ezra had judged that the people must be kept from reading the sacred books, he certainly would not have read the Book of the Law to them nor would he have added an exposition of it. Also, one cannot prove from the history of Ezra that the people of Israel did not understand the Hebrew Scripture. In Neh. 8:3 we are told: “Ezra read from the Book of the Law from early morning until midday in the presence of the men and the women 
, and those who could understand,” that is, those who listened intelligently, who by virtue of their age could understand. Verse 7: “The Levites were 
causing the people to understand the Law.” Verse 8: “And they read from the book, from the Law of God 
, with interpretation, 
and understanding was given, and they under-stood the reading 
,” that is, “they gave understanding through Scripture.” The meaning, then, is that they stirred the people to attentiveness because they read with explanation and distinctly. If they came across an unclear passage, they explained it by comparing it with other clear passages.
(6) In John 7:49, the Pharisees were not speaking to a people ignorant of the Law nor of the words of the Law, for they heard them every Sabbath. Rather, they were speaking to a people who were ignorant of the true meaning of the Law. Salmeron, tom. 8, treatise 37, p. 295: “Did those who do not know the Law really believe more easily or believe at all? Not at all. Those who know the Law, however, believe more easily. He Himself said, ‘If you believed Moses, you would also believe Me,’ and He acknowledged that the end of the Law is Christ for the righteousness of all who believe.” Rupert, on this passage, and Lucas Brugensis: “Surely, He would have told that crowd, that council of vanity, that church of the wicked, ‘Cursed are they who do not do the Law.’ And this would have been more accurate.”
(7) Others of the Papists try to prove this same thing from the fact that those who heard the words Christ uttered on the cross, “Eli, Eli,” did not understand them, for they said, “He is calling Elijah” [Matt. 27:46-47]. However, it is more accurate to attribute that to the Roman soldiers or to the wicked twisting of the Jews, as we have shown in our Harmon. pass.