What is the Catholic Bible?

The Roman Catholic Church receives as canonical, certain books which are rejected by the Reformers, and called by them The Apocrypha. This word signifies what is concealed, and seems originally to have been applied to those books which were not published and universally known as canonical Scriptures; but were confined to some few heretical congregations, known only to them, and concealed except from the initiated. And then it came to mean, as with us, specially those books sometimes classed as belonging to the Old Testament, but never received by the Jews as such. These books were appended to the ancient Greek translation of the Old Testament, called the Septuagint, and thence transferred to the Vulgate or Latin translation made from the Septuagint. Some of these books, as Wisdom and Ecclesiasticus, are in every way to be recommended, as containing wise and pious precepts, though not directly sanctioned by Divine authority. The books of Maccabees are good and reliable history. While others are mere extravagant romances, of no value whatever.

Let it be observed that the Roman Church does not deny the fact upon which the Reformers proceeded — viz., that these Apocryphal books were never received as canonical by the Jews. It will be seen, on reference to the preface of the Douay Bible — i.e., the English version of the Bible sanctioned by the Roman Church — that the canonicity of the Apocrypha is made to rest, solely on the dogmatic authority of the Church.

The Roman Catholics include within the covers of their Bible the books commonly known as "The Apocrypha." These books were never received as canonical by the Jews; they do not afford the internal evidences of divine inspiration as do the books of "the Law, the Psalms, and the Prophets"; they are never quoted either by the Lord Himself or the apostles: so that we have very good reasons for not regarding them as divinely given, however authentic as histories some of them may be.

The Apocrypha was first received as canonical by the Council of Trent, 1545, and is highly regarded by Roman Catholics throughout the world.

The following statements are important to remember: No portion of the Apocrypha was written in Hebrew, but all in Greek, although by Jews, and never formed part of the Hebrew canon. It was written more than a century after the completion of the Old Testament. It was never regarded by the Jews or their writers as possessing the slightest claim to inspiration. Neither the Lord nor Apostles ever cited from, or referred to, the Apocrypha.

Parts of the “Apocrypha” were first put in with the Scriptures by order of the Pope, when Jerome translated the Scriptures into Latin, called the “Vulgate.” Jerome protested against it, but the Pope prevailed, and some of the Apocrypha in consequence were put at the end, and separate from the Bible books. They were afterwards incorporated in the Roman Catholic Bibles by the Council of Trent in 1563.

In the first place, the Church of Rome boldly declared that it was only 'the church' that could decide what books were canonical: as early as the Council of Carthage (about A.D. 400) lists of the books were made out, and at the Council of Trent they dogmatically settled what books constituted the scripture. They decided to include the books now known as the APOCRYPHA (q.v.), as may be seen in the Latin Vulgate, which is the version used by that church. Now the scripture informs us that to the Jews were committed the oracles of God, Rom. 3:2, and as is well known they most carefully guarded the O.T. scriptures for centuries before there was any christian church. The books were written in the Jews' language — the Hebrew — with which the Apocrypha never had a place. They were written in Greek, and were first added to the LXX. The above principle — that the scriptures require to be accredited by the church — is false. Surely God could make a revelation that would in no wise need to have the seal of a body of men placed upon it, be they ever so holy. But the Church of Rome was not holy, nor was it universal, so that even if the alleged principle were correct, that corrupt section of the church would be the last to be taken as an authoritative guide.

The Vulgate is Jerome's version, called by this name from the days of Gregory (the Great), 200 years after its author. Cutts well says ('Jerome,' p.168): 'The Latin Bible which passed gradually into use under the name of Jerome was a strangely composite work. The Books of the Old Testament, with one exception (the Psalter), were certainly taken from his version from the Hebrew but this had not only been variously corrupted, but was in many particulars, especially in the Pentateuch, at variance with his later judgment.' It has been altered from time to time down to the end of the sixteenth century, when the Clementine Vulgate, which is the 'authorised' edition, first appeared. It is to this edition De Rossi refers when speaking of the Vulgate in the body of his book. — The Concordance of Dutripon would be of service in the use of the Vulgate.

The 'authorised' edition contains the Tridentine Canon, Jerome's Prefaces, Index of proper names and their meanings, &c.

After the Book of Nehemiah come Tobit and Judith, then Esther, &c.; after the Canticles, Wisdom, followed by Ecclesiasticus; next Isaiah; Baruch follows Lamentations; and after Malachi come the books of the Maccabees; finally, at the end of the New Testament, the Prayer of Manasseh, with 2 and 3 Esdras, as a supplement, reference being made to their exclusion from the Tridentine Canon. — The Preface to the Clementine edition was written by the celebrated Bellarmine.

It will be best in this place to speak of the Douay Version, in use amongst our Roman Catholic countrymen. The Douay Old Testament was taken from the Vulgate and has very much, from the time of its first publication, served as an accompaniment to the Rhemes (or Rheims) Version of the New Testament. A modern representative of the two combined is the following book: 'The Holy Bible, translated from the Latin Vulgate; diligently compared with the Hebrew, Greek, and other Editions, in divers Languages. The Old Testament, first published by the English College at Douay, A.D. 1609 and the New Testament, first published by the English College at Rheims, A.D. 1582, with annotations, &c. The whole revised and diligently compared with the Latin Vulgate.' The 'Approbation' of the authorities, dated 4th May, 1857, comes on the second page. This work is published in Dublin and London (Duffy). As will have appeared earlier in these pages, the notes of the original editions are toned down. There is much one is thankful to see in this book; several renderings in the Old Testament of which the student can avail himself; much besides to deplore.

The council commenced its deliberations-though only a few Spanish and Italian bishops had arrived-with examining the first and chief point in controversy between the church of Rome and the Reformers, concerning the rule which should be held as supreme and decisive in matters of faith; and, by its infallible authority, determined, "That the books to which the designation of Apocryphal hath been given, are of equal authority with those which were received by the Jews and Primitive Christians into the sacred canon; that the traditions handed down from the apostolic age, and preserved in the church, are entitled to as much regard as the doctrines and precepts which the inspired authors have committed to writing; that the Latin translation of the scriptures, made or revised by Jerome, and known by the name of the Vulgate translation, should be read in churches, and appealed to in the schools as authentic and canonical."

The Reformers did not hesitate to prefer the Hebrew of the Old, and the Greek of the New Testament, to any translation however venerable; but the Church of Rome, after a little delay, decided to adhere to what had existed for 1000 years. The Council of Trent, in 1546, took the subject of the scriptures into consideration, and finally determined that the Vulgate was the only authentic Bible, to which all other translations, and even the original itself, must conform. Still it was necessary to decide what was the Vulgate; and, after a great deal of discussion, the Popes undertook to produce a correct and an infallible, edition of the Vulgate, which should have the sanction of the church. In 1570, Sixtus V. issued this authorised Bible, forbidding, under an anathema, any further disturbing of the text. But the errors of this edition, called the Sixtine Bible, were too glaring to be passed over; and, consequently, in 1593, Clement VIII suppressed the work of his predecessor, and published a second infallible edition, known as the Clementine Bible, which is the edition now meant by the Vulgate, the only one appointed to be read. All subsequent Vulgates are nothing but reprints of the edition of 1593, with all its mistakes reproduced and perpetuated.

The Church of Rome did great injury to the cause of biblical knowledge by forbidding any improvement of the text of the Vulgate. By preferring a translation of a translation to the original itself, she has committed an absurdity (especially as Jerome, the author of the Vulgate, wished to go back to the Hebrew; and by pronouncing both the Sixtine and the Clementine editions, each in succession, infallibly true, she herself teaches men to question the dogmatic authority upon which alone she recommends the Vulgate to the people. The consequence of this lofty opinion of the Vulgate is, that no translation can be tolerated which is not made from it. Our own common version, for example, is repudiated by English Roman Catholics, and the Douay Bible and the Rheims New Testament are sanctioned, because they have been rendered from the Clementine edition of the Vulgate.

What says Popery here? That Christ and the apostles could not safely give God's mind and will, without a living judge of controversy now to make their sense clear! Did God and His servants need the Pope and his vassals to do what they failed to do? Such is the arrogance of Romanist unbelief that confronts us habitually. Therefore do they enlarge like Donatists and other heretics of old, on the obscurity of scripture. Do they not show their hostility to it by forbidding a Romanist to read even their own version without a permission in writing from his parish priest or his confessor on pain of being refused absolution? So any one can see in the last Session of the Council of Trent (rule 4).

But their irreverent enmity to scripture goes farther still. For to embarrass the Protestant and to exalt what they call the church (in reality their own Romish sect), they take infidel ground and deny the authority of the scriptures without the sanction of the church. You cannot, say they, know them to be God's word unless the church declares them so. But this, far from being true, is blasphemous. The O.T. derived no authority from Israel, but gave divine authority to all their institutions, rites, and statutes; while it convicted them of continual transgression in violating the law. Just so it is the N.T. which reveals the Lord's building His church, His order, gifts of ministry, worship, and will generally. In both Testaments it is God's word which will judge man, instead of sanctioning Christendom's sin in pretending to judge what is of God. Israel transmitted the O.T., as Christendom the New as well as Old. And the Jew, of the two, was more faithful than Romanism and other sects; for these dared to add books, which their own favourite father, St. Jerome, confessed to be uncanonical, the Apocrypha, which books are not in Hebrew.

Moreover, this brings us to the second part of our allegations, viz., Ritualism which really spells Romanism. It is known that the Church of Rome includes the Apocrypha in the Iouay Bibles which she authorizes, but does not encourage its lay members to read.