Preview: St. Thomas More on "Every good gift" and Grace

As promised, we'll continue our discussion of Saint Thomas More's Treatise to Receive the Blessed Body of Our Lord on Monday, October 24 on the Son Rise Morning Show. 

So I'll be on about 6:50 a.m. Central/7:50 a.m. Eastern in the last segment of the second EWTN hour (there's a local hour after that just on Sacred Heart Radio). You may listen live here.

Saint Thomas More read and knew the Holy Bible very well. In his introduction to the Yale University volume of More's complete works that includes this treatise, Garry E. Haupt believes that More quoted Bible verses from memory (in Latin). Haupt also suggests that in 1534 More had two books with him in the Tower: the Catena Aurea of Saint Thomas Aquinas and the Monotesseron of Jean Gerson, which provided him with passages from the Fathers of the Church and a harmony of the Gospels.

Furthermore, Haupt notes that More, like the other Christian Humanists of his time (John Colet, Erasmus, St. John Fisher, and others), while being most concerned about the literal meaning of Sacred Scripture, did not ignore the spiritual and moral applications of that meaning to the reader. In the three paragraphs we'll examine Monday on the Son Rise Morning Show, these concerns of More are readily displayed.

For example, More applies this verse from the Letter of St. James (1:17) to how Catholics should consider the gift of Holy Communion as one of the Father's good and perfect gifts, and how we should respond to that good and perfect gift with prayer and intention:

But for-as-much (good Christian readers) as we neither can attain this great point of Faith, nor any other virtue, but by the Special Grace of God of whose high goodness every good thing cometh, (for as St. James saith: "Omne datum optimum et omne donum perfectum, desursum est descendens a Patre luminum: Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above descending from the Father of Lights"), let us therefore pray for His gracious help in the attaining of His Faith, and for His help in the cleansing of our soul against His coming, that He may make us worthy to receive Him worthily. 

Saint Thomas More balances God's Grace and our response to it in the best Catholic tradition:

And ever let us of our own part, fear our unworthiness, and on His part, trust boldly upon His goodness, if we are slow not to work with him for our own part. For if we willingly upon the trust and comfort of His goodness leave our own endeavour undone, then is our hope, no hope, but a very foul presumption.

More stated before that we cannot achieve any worthiness to receive Holy Communion on our own, but here he reminds us that we must cooperate with God's goodness, and that there is merit in doing so.

He further gives some instruction on what to do even as we go to receive the Eucharist with thoughts that certainly echo St. Thomas Aquinas' Adore Te Devote:

Then, when we come unto His Holy Board, into the Presence of His Blessed Body, let us consider His high glorious Majesty) which His high goodness there hideth from us, and the proper form of His holy Flesh covereth under the form of bread, both to keep us from abashment, such as we could not peradventure abide if we (such as we yet be) should see and receive Him in His own Form, such as He is, and also for the increase of the merit of our Faith in the obedient belief of that thing at His commandment, whereof our eyes and our reason seem to show us the contrary.

As Gerard Manley Hopkins, SJ translated two verses of Aquinas's hymn:

Godhead here in hiding
Whom I do adore
Masked by these bare shadows,
Shape and nothing more,
See, Lord, at Thy service
Low lies here a heart
Lost, all lost in wonder
At the God Thou art.

Seeing, touching, tasting
Are in Thee deceived;
How says trusty hearing?
That shall be believed;
What God’s Son has told me,
Take for truth I do;
Truth Himself speaks truly
Or there’s nothing true.

Remember that Pope Urban IV had added the feast of Corpus Christi to the universal Church’s liturgical calendar in 1264 and that this feast was celebrated with great devotion in England before the Reformation, with processions comparable to those on Holy Thursday and the performance of the Mystery Plays, which enacted salvation history from Creation to the Second Coming.

Finally, More strings together passages from the Gospels, like pearls of prayer for an increase of faith:

And yet, for-as-much as although we believe it, yet is there therein many of us) that believe very faint, and far from the point of such vigour and strength, as would God it had, let us say unto Him with the father that had the dumb son: "Credo, Domine, adjuva incredulitatem meam--I believe, Lord, but help thou my lack of belief" (Mark 9:24), and with His blessed Apostles, "Domine, adauge nobis fidem: Lord increase Faith in us" (Luke 17:5). Let us also with the poor publican in knowledge of our own unworthiness say with all meekness of heart, "Deus propitius esto mihi peccatori: Lord God be merciful to me, sinner that I am." (Luke 18:13) And with the Centurion, "Domine non sum dignus ut intres sub tectum meum (Matt. 8), Lord I am not worthy, that thou shouldst come into my house." (Matt. 8:8)

We'll conclude this series next week, on All Hallows' Eve (Halloween) on October 31, with the end of St. Thomas More's brief treatise on how to receive the Holy Eucharist as worthily as possible.

Saint Thomas Aquinas, pray for us!

Saint Thomas More, pray for us!

Top Image Credit (Public Domain): Lord, I Am Not Worthy (Domine Non Sum Dignus) - James Tissot

Lower Image Credit (Public Domain): The parable of the Pharisee and the tax collector, presented in three scenes. Middle: the Pharisee kneels before the altar; Left: the proud Pharisee leaves with a devil; Right: the tax collector leaves with an angel. (Barent Fabritius, 1661)

Two Presidents' Bibles; Pope Francis on St. Jerome and the Bible

This can't be a coincidence: Pope Francis issues an Apostolic Letter, Scripturae Sacrae Affectus (Devotion to Sacred Scripture) on September 30, 2020, the 1600th anniversary of the death of St. Jerome, the great biblical scholar, hermit, and translator of the Holy Bible. Then on October 1, I see two Bible related items in the Wall Street Journal: a review of The Jefferson Bible, a book about President Thomas Jefferson's editing of the four Gospels, by Peter Manseau, senior curator of the Smithsonian Institution's National Museum of American History and an advertisement for a new edition of the Protestant version of the New Revised Standard Version of the Holy Bible, annotated by President Jimmy Carter, titled the Simple Faith Bible!

First, a few excerpts from Pope Francis's letter:

Devotion to sacred Scripture, a “living and tender love” for the written word of God: this is the legacy that Saint Jerome bequeathed to the Church by his life and labours. Now, on the sixteen hundredth anniversary of his death, those words taken from the opening prayer of his liturgical Memorial[1] give us an essential insight into this outstanding figure in the Church’s history and his immense love for Christ. That “living and tender love” flowed, like a great river feeding countless streams, into his tireless activity as a scholar, translator and exegete. Jerome’s profound knowledge of the Scriptures, his zeal for making their teaching known, his skill as an interpreter of texts, his ardent and at times impetuous defence of Christian truth, his asceticism and harsh eremitical discipline, his expertise as a generous and sensitive spiritual guide – all these make him, sixteen centuries after his death, a figure of enduring relevance for us, the Christians of the twenty-first century.

From the section "Love for Sacred Scripture":

The distinctive feature of Saint Jerome’s spirituality was undoubtedly his passionate love for the word of God entrusted to the Church in sacred Scripture. All the Doctors of the Church – particularly those of the early Christian era – drew the content of their teaching explicitly from the Bible. Yet Jerome did so in a more systematic and distinctive way.

Exegetes in recent times have come to appreciate the narrative and poetic genius of the Bible and its great expressive quality. Jerome instead emphasized in sacred Scripture the humble character of God’s revelation, set down in the rough and almost primitive cadences of the Hebrew language in comparison to the refinement of Ciceronian Latin. He devoted himself to the study of sacred Scripture not for aesthetic reasons, but – as is well known – only because Scripture had led him to know Christ. Indeed, ignorance of Scripture is ignorance of Christ.[28]

Jerome teaches us that not only should the Gospels and the apostolic Tradition present in the Acts of the Apostles and in the Letters be studied and commented on, but that the entire Old Testament is indispensable for understanding the truth and the riches of Christ.[29]The Gospel itself gives evidence of this: it speaks to us of Jesus as the Teacher who appeals to Moses, the Prophets and the Psalms (cf. Lk 4:16-21; 24:27.44-47) in order to explain his own mystery. The preaching of Peter and Paul in the Acts of the Apostles is likewise rooted in the Old Testament, apart from which we cannot fully understand the figure of the Son of God, the Messiah and Saviour. Nor should the Old Testament be thought of merely as a vast repertoire of citations that prove the fulfilment of the ancient prophecies in the person of Jesus of Nazareth. Rather, only in light of the Old Testament prefigurements is it possible to know more profoundly the meaning of the Christ event as revealed in his death and resurrection. Today we need to rediscover, in catechesis and preaching, as well as in theological exposition, the indispensable contribution of the Old Testament, which should be read and digested as a priceless source of spiritual nourishment (cf. Ez 3:1-11; Rev 10:8-11).[30]

And finally, from the section "The Study of Sacred Scripture":

Biblical passages are not always immediately accessible. As Isaiah said (29:11), even for those who know how to “read” – that is, those who have had a sufficient intellectual training – the sacred book appears “sealed”, hermetically closed to interpretation. A witness is needed to intervene and provide the key to its liberating message, which is Christ the Lord. He alone is able to break the seal and open the book (cf. Rev 5:1-10) and in this way unveil its wondrous outpouring of grace (Lk 4:17-21). Many, even among practising Christians, say openly that they are not able to read it (cf. Is 29:12), not because of illiteracy, but because they are unprepared for the biblical language, its modes of expression and its ancient cultural traditions. As a result the biblical text becomes indecipherable, as if it were written in an unknown alphabet and an esoteric tongue.

This shows the need for the mediation of an interpreter, who can exercise a “diaconal” function on behalf of the person who cannot understand the meaning of the prophetic message. Here we think of the deacon Philip, sent by the Lord to approach the chariot of the eunuch who was reading a passage from Isaiah (53:7-8), without being able to unlock its meaning. “Do you understand what you are reading?” asked Philip, and the eunuch replied: “How can I, unless someone guides me?” (Acts 8:30-31).[32]

Jerome can serve as our guide because, like Philip (cf. Acts 8:35), he leads every reader to the mystery of Jesus, while responsibly and systematically providing the exegetical and cultural information needed for a correct and fruitful reading of the Scriptures.[33] In an integrated and skilful way he employed all the methodological resources available in his day – competence in the languages in which the word of God was handed down, careful analysis and examination of manuscripts, detailed archeological research, as well as knowledge of the history of interpretation – in order to point to a correct understanding of the inspired Scriptures.

I certainly recommend you read the entire letter.

So we might say that The Jefferson Bible and Jimmy Carter's annotation of the Simple Faith Bible propose two Presidents of the United States of America as guides to interpreting the Sacred Scriptures.

In Crawford Cribben's WSJ review of Peter Manseau's The Jefferson Bible, Cribben suggests that Jefferson may not be a reliable guide as he notes that Jefferson not only removed all the miraculous healings from his version of the four Gospels, but he excised "any discussion of repentance and forgiveness". Thus, Jefferson proposes a moral standard without any recourse once one fails to live up to it--which Cribben notes Jefferson needed himself, given "his relationship with his slave Sally Hemmings" and "the paternity of her children." (Jefferson's hairs found in the original volume provided conclusive DNA evidence.)

Cribben further cites Manseau's comment that "Jefferson's Jesus stories are all set up with no pay off." . . . "Time and again, Jesus indicates that he might be able to perform a miracle of some kind, and then does nothing." Not to mention that His Passion and Resurrection could not be part of The Jefferson Bible, and thus not part of Thomas Jefferson's (hidden) message to the new Republic and its citizens. And St. Paul told us what that means to Christians: “If Christ has not been raised, then empty [too] is our preaching; empty, too, your faith ... you are still in your sins” (1 Corinthians 15:14-17), as Pope Benedict XVI reminded us in 2008.

This excerpt from Manseau's The Jefferson Bible was published on the Smithsonian Magazine website, describing the rediscovery of Jefferson's work. The Jefferson Bible by Peter Manseau is part of the Princeton University Press Lives of Great Religious Book series.

As to President Jimmy Carter, we know that he has taught Sunday School for decades and meditated upon the meaning of Sacred Scripture and its application to Christian life. You may look inside the Zondervan Simple Faith Bible here. I presume that in many ways, Carter will emphasis the moral standard that Jesus did proclaim but also reflect on Jesus as Our Savior and Resurrected Redeemer, as this passage indicates reflecting on Matthew 3:1–2:

Pause for a moment and consider what John [the Baptist] meant by the words kingdom of heaven. The Pharisees and Sadducees distinguished God’s kingdom as something far in the distance or something with elements of punishment for sins. So here John the Baptist uses kingdom of heaven as a phrase designed to alert the people. He wanted them to see that they needed to repent in the present because the kingdom of heaven was already in their midst.

We live in the midst of the kingdom of heaven now, just as John did in the time of Christ. The kingdom of heaven is a continuing history of human beings and our relationship and reconciliation with God through faith in Jesus Christ. Everything now and in days past and in years ahead is under the sovereignty of God. Human beings are designed to live in God’s kingdom. And we can be part of the kingdom of heaven if we separate ourselves from the morals and customs and demands of the secular world and align ourselves with God through faith in Jesus.

"Ignorance of Scripture is ignorance of Christ."--St. Jerome

Image Credit (public domain) Pinturicchio's St. Jerome in the desert

The Holy Bible in England Before and After the Reformation

Interesting that History Today has presented online two stories about the Holy Bible and how it was produced in England before and after the Reformation: illumination by monks in monasteries and on the printing press after Gutenberg:

"Secrets of Scriptoria" by Kate Wiles from June of 2014 begins:

The commonly accepted idea of a medieval scriptorium is of a low dark room dedicated to the purpose of producing manuscripts, with rows of highly trained scribes hunched over desks in alcoves working in serious silence. But the reality is that, while that set-up might be true of later medieval Britain, there is little evidence to support such a picture in the Anglo-Saxon or early post-Conquest period.

Instead the term ‘scriptorium’ encompassed a variety of situations, of which no two are the same. An early medieval scriptorium could be anything from a room or building in which scribes worked, a collection of scribes with a co-ordinated, organised structure or, more loosely, a general location where manuscripts were produced. At its most basic it might amount to two scribes working together on more than one manuscript. Very often this is the most we can confidently show to have existed at any so-called scriptorium.

And later states:

A different kind of scriptorium emerges from studying a group of manuscripts from 12th-century Malmesbury, produced by up to 54 different scribes, including the historian and chronicler William of Malmesbury (1115-c.1140). These manuscripts were made as part of a drive by Malmesbury’s abbot, Godfrey of Jumièges (1090-1105), to produce a complete library containing all the most important texts the abbey should own. While William himself started many of the books and evidently co-ordinated their production, the bulk of the work was by an array of different scribes. The ability of these men varies. William had three assistants who stand out as being well-trained, but most of them had limited skills and were probably not dedicated scribes. They worked in short stints, sometimes writing a few pages, sometimes only a few lines, occasionally coming back later to do more. It seems likely that William called on whichever monks he could find who were capable of copying a section of text and willing to do so in between carrying out other duties, but few stuck at it for long.

Please read the rest there. (Image credit: Saint Matthew in a mediæval scriptorium (Book of Prayers, 15th century)

The other article, "Gutenberg’s Bible: The Real Information Revolution" by Justin Champion, discusses the issues of authority and interpretation that arose after the Latin (Vulgate) version of the Holy Bible was printed by Johannes Gutenberg in 1454:

The Catholic Church saw an opportunity in applying their textual erudition to claim that the written word of God might be fallible, without the supporting buttress of papal tradition. From the mid-16th century onwards a battle of Bibles was in full swing. The oppressed Protestants who fled the Marian persecutions produced a handbook of resistance in the form of the Geneva Bible of 1560. Replete with a full apparatus, especially an embedded marginal commentary, the godly were guided to a proper account of their duties as Christians. The Geneva Bible, itself a triumph of typological design, continued to be published into the late 17th century. James I and VI despised the ‘marginal notes that slight the text’ and encouraged the production of a ‘safe’ version, which instructed the laity to listen to their parish clergy rather than interpret revelation for themselves.

Alongside the authorised Bibles grew an increasingly sophisticated and profitable market in ancillary works: concordances, commentaries and annotations, which aided the reader’s encounter with the words of God. English Bibles came complete with instructions on how, when and why specific chapters and verses ought to be read. The printed format (the introduction of page numbers, chapter and verse divisions) enabled even the less learned to make sense of scripture. With this literary technology, readers could exchange and share their views of specific passages.

For those who could not read, domestic spirituality enabled collective understandings. Harnessing those encounters with the word of God enabled ministers, MPs and magistrates to justify their governments and rule. Oliver Cromwell ensured that his armies were sustained by a Souldier’s Pocket Bible(1642), legitimising their role in fighting ‘God’s Battles’.

The legacy of the Gutenberg Bible was a revolution in the relationship between reading and authority in the early modern period. This encompassed the practices of lowly men like Nehemiah Wallington, who experienced their world through the providential lens of the Bible, or at the other extreme, scholars such as Isaac Newton and John Locke, who owned multiple copies for forensic textual comparison and exchanged commentaries on their findings.

Please read the rest there. Image credit: (Early wooden printing press, depicted in 1568)

Bishop Fox's Corpus Christi in Washington

(Image Credit)

The Wall Street Journal has a well-illustrated review of an upcoming exhibition of manuscripts and artifacts from the Corpus Christi Library in Oxford set to open at the Folger Library on February 4 (subscription required). The Folger Library website has this announcement:

Founded 500 years ago in 1517, Corpus Christi College, one of the oldest of the 38 self-governing colleges at the modern University of Oxford, is a repository of extraordinary treasures, few of which have ever been seen by the public. To mark its 500th anniversary, a selection of fifty manuscripts and early printed books from its celebrated Library, ranging in date from the 10th to the 17th centuries, is being brought to America for the first time.

Focusing on the first hundred years of the College’s existence, the exhibition introduces its Founder, Richard Fox, powerful Bishop of Winchester and adviser to Henry VII and Henry VIII, and its first President, John Claymond, who laid the foundations of the Library’s great collection. From the start, Corpus—the first Renaissance college at Oxford—was to pursue Humanist ideals of scholarship in three languages: not just Latin, but also Greek and Hebrew, the original languages of the Bible, along with such other subjects as Astronomy, Mathematics, Medicine, and Philosophy.

A series of display-cases present books in each of these languages, including a number that are bilingual and even trilingual. Most notable among them are a group that has been called "the most important collection of Anglo-Jewish manuscripts in the world"; these works of the 12th and 13th centuries include a series of volumes apparently commissioned by Christians from Jews, from which to learn Hebrew and study biblical texts in their original language, as well as the commentaries of Rashi and what is thought to be the oldest surviving Ashkenazi prayer book.

Highlighting Corpus’ role in the development of science and medicine at Oxford, the exhibition finishes with a series of ground-breaking works, from Galileo’s first observation of the moon using a telescope and Sir Isaac Newton’s autograph observations of Halley’s comet to Hooke’s observations of insects using a microscope and Vesalius’ studies of the human body.

Among the items on display will be Bishop Fox's crozier, shown in the photograph above in situ at Corpus Christi. Bishop Fox may have been more statesman than bishop, however, according to the Encyclopedia Britannica:

After receiving ordination into the priesthood Foxe became secretary in Paris to Henry Tudor, Earl of Richmond, an exiled claimant to the throne. On Richmond’s accession as King Henry VII, Foxe was made principal secretary of state and lord privy seal. He later became bishop of Exeter (1487–91), Bath and Wells (1491–94), Durham (1494–1501), and Winchester (1501–28).

Nevertheless, he neglected his ecclesiastical duties to concentrate on diplomacy. He negotiated the treaties and directed the diplomatic maneuvers that minimized the aid given by the Scots, the French, and the Dutch to rival claimants to Henry’s throne. In addition, he helped formulate and execute Henry’s ruthlessly efficient financial policies.

After Henry VII’s death in 1509 Foxe for a time remained in favour with the new ruler, Henry VIII. By 1511 he was, however, losing influence to Thomas Wolsey, who became Henry’s chief minister. Foxe resigned from the government in 1516 and—by then nearly blind—spent the last years of his life administering his diocese. His tomb in Winchester Cathedral, showing him as a wasted cadaver, is one of the most extraordinary of the period.

But The Wall Street Journal article's comments about Fox's intellectual vision for Corpus Christi, tied as it was to understanding the Holy Bible better through language arts, might indicate there was something more to Bishop Fox than politics:

Corpus Christi’s founder, Bishop Richard Fox, was a political fixture in Tudor-era England. (He served as a chief adviser to Henry VII and Henry VIII.) Part of the Renaissance spirit he envisioned for the college included a commitment to reading ancient texts, especially the Bible, in their original languages.

“There was this idea that the college would be a trilingual college, where Greek and Hebrew would be taught alongside Latin,” says the show’s curator, Peter Kidd. English scholars “realized that the only way to get back to the true meaning of the Bible was to find out what it said in Hebrew.”

Accordingly, the collection contains 13 rare Hebrew manuscripts, an extraordinary number for one library. A 12th-century prayer book once owned by a Sephardic Jew who traveled to England contains notes that use Hebrew characters to write Arabic words on the fly-leaves—the only such example from medieval England. A 13th-century book of psalms includes side-by-side Latin and Hebrew versions. The college’s scholars likely would have used these works, which will be part of the tour, to learn Hebrew.

This juxtaposition of judgments reminds me again how complex the past is and how careful we have to be in "labeling" a person (in the past or present).

Side-by-Side-by-Side Catholic Bibles

Matthew Schmitz praises Baronius Press for their Catholic Bible Online resource in this post on the First Things blog. The Catholic Bible Online features the Latin Vulgate, the Douay-Rheims translation, and the Ronald Knox translation, side-by-side-by-side, or you may read each one separately.

Since I'm going to Mass this morning at Blessed Sacrament and Father Jirak is offering Low Mass for the First Saturday of the month in the Extraordinary Form of the Latin Rite, I've linked the beginning of the eighth chapter of St. John's Gospel. Verses 1 through 11 are today's Gospel.

Baronius also publishes a hardcover edition of The Holy Bible with the Vulgate and Douay-Rheims side-by-side.

The Clementine Vulgate was proclaimed the official Latin Bible of the Church after the Reformation. From St. Jerome's time, through the Middle Ages, until vernacular editions were introduced, educated Catholics throughout the world were familiar with the Vulgate.

Those familiar with the Douay Rheims Bible will know that it is one of the most beautiful and accurate Bible translations available today – a word for word translation of the Clementine Vulgate.

Having both Bibles side by side allows us to see exactly where the vernacular translation came from. Even those with limited Latin skills will be able to follow along, using the Douay Rheims translation as an aid. You'll see how the Douay Rheims is a literal translation of the classic Vulgate.

It is a beautiful, captivating read. The Biblia Sacra is not difficult to understand and it doesn't take much study of Latin to be able to get through the texts passably.

Included in this Bible are Challoner's notes, and the texts found in the appendix to the Vulgate, namely 3 and 4 Esdras and the prayer of Manasses (in Latin with an English translation). This makes the Bible totally comprehensive and ideal for theology students.

And Baronius publishes the Ronald Knox translation in a separate volume, so this free resource gives us the opportunity to see how his translation compares with Vulgate and the Douay-Rheims. Baronius describes the history of Knox's translation:

The translation of the Bible by Ronald Knox was officially made at the request of the Bishops of England and Wales, although Knox had wanted to try his hand at updating the language of the Bible for some time.

It had been the desire of a succession of bishops for almost a 100 years to create a new Bible translation to replace the Douay Rheims edition. This Bible which had served English speaking Catholics since the time of the reformation had undergone several revisions, but was filled with archaic language, making it incomprehensible in a few places.

Originally, it was hoped that Blessed Cardinal John Henry Newman, the most famous convert to Catholicism of the 19th Century would translate the Bible, but this project was never begun. In his book, The Idea of a University, Blessed John Henry Newman pointed out the “great difficulty in combining the two necessary qualities, fidelity to the original and purity in the adopted vernacular.”

I reviewed the Knox translation several years ago.

Something More and Tyndale Would Agree Upon!

As you might know, St. Thomas More and William Tyndale exchanged sometimes rather vituperative arguments and personal attacks on the relationship between the Church and the Holy Bible. More defended the consistent Catholic view that the Church preceded the Bible, teaching according to the oral tradition of Jesus Christ and the Apostles, and that the Church was therefore most qualified to interpret the Bible; after all, she wrote it, she canonized its contents, she read it and taught it. As this Christianity Today posts notes, Tyndale argued the opposite:

Sir Thomas More, who had been commissioned by the Church to refute Tyndale, had published his Dialogue Concerning Heresies in 1529. Tyndale’s Practice of Prelates includes brief rebuttals of More’s assertions in this book, and his Answer to Sir Thomas More’s Dialogue, published in 1531, was a fuller response. One man was staunchly Catholic, the other staunchly Protestant and, indicative of the vicissitudes of chameleon-like Henry, both would be executed within five years for their differing views of the faith.

Their debate centered on the relation of the church, or Church, and Scripture. Tyndale argues that the gospel preceded the church, formed the church, and now provides the test for discerning the true church—made up of those people who read the Scriptures with eyes of faith. “For the whole Scripture and all believing hearts testify that we are begotten through the Word.”

Viewed from the 20th-century perspective, Tyndale’s polemics might seem harsh, full of personal attacks, occasionally illogical, and at times almost paranoid. His language is frequently rough, and he often abuses his opponents in personal-attack terms.

He calls Wolsey “Cardinal Wolfsee” because the cleric occupied more than one church office at the same time; he baits Sir Thomas More for his friendship with the Dutch scholar Erasmus (“His darling Erasmus” is Tyndale’s mocking phrase). He begs the question, assuming as true the point he is trying to prove. When the histories do not record clerical intrigue, he assumes that the writers, clergymen themselves, have covered their own tracks.

Yet this was the prevailing style of religious argumentation during the 16th century.

If you want to read Tyndale's work answering More's Dialogue, it's wonderful and ironic to note that the Catholic University of America Press is the publisher! Scepter Publishers provides a modernized version of More's Dialogue.

Unlike this balanced and scholarly analysis of the More-Tyndale debates/conflict, I have seen some posts, including comments on Wolf Hall stories about St. Thomas More, that offer the ridiculous suggestion that Thomas More, while in the Tower of London, orchestrated the arrest and trial and subsequent execution of William Tyndale. There is no evidence of this and if More had a part in Tyndale's burning at the stake in Vilvoorde, it was from beyond the grave, as Tyndale's execution took place more than a year after More was beheaded. More had resigned all authority in England, had no influence upon Henry VIII, and was not active in any search or arrest of Tyndale on the Continent: his goods and life were forfeit to the king!

All that background aside, I think St. Thomas More would be glad to hear that Tyndale Publishers, named for the reforming translator, has been granted a reprieve from the HHS contraception mandate, according to this CNA story:

A Bible publisher based in Illinois has won its lawsuit against the federal contraception mandate, with a final ruling delivered July 15 by a federal district court.

The ruling means that Tyndale House Publishers cannot be subject to the mandate, which was issued four years ago by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS).

“In America, citizens have always had the freedom to believe, the freedom to express those beliefs, and the freedom to operate their businesses accordingly,” said Matt Bowman, senior legal counsel for Alliance Defending Freedom, which was representing Tyndale House in court.

“The Supreme Court upheld that principle in its Conestoga/Hobby Lobby decision last year, and the district court has rightly done the same,” Bowman said.

Tyndale House is the world’s largest privately-held Christian publisher of books, Bibles, and digital media. It gives more than 95 percent of its profits each year to religious non-profit causes across the globe.

The U.S. Supreme Court will have to defend the religious liberty of the Little Sisters of the Poor, however, since "the Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals rul[ed] against the Little Sisters, saying that they must follow the demands of the contraceptive mandate or else face fines of up to $2.5 million a year, or about 40 percent of the $6 million the Sisters beg for annually to run their ministry."

Two Books by Timothy Larsen: Religion in the Victorian Era

Thanks to a friend, who paid me the undeserved compliment that I know everything about English history and literature, I discovered first, this post about the Victorian autodidact Thomas Cooper and then these two books by Timothy Larsen, who is the Carolyn and Fred McManis Professor of Christian Thought at Wheaton College:

 

Crisis of Doubt: Honest Faith in Nineteenth-Century England

• A revisionist study that challenges the existing, dominant narrative of the Victorian `crisis of faith'
• Significant for literary, historical, and cultural readings of the Victorian era
• Appendix including mini biographies of key personalities in the study for ease of reference

The Victorian crisis of faith has dominated discussions of religion and the Victorians. Stories are frequently told of prominent Victorians such as George Eliot losing their faith. This crisis is presented as demonstrating the intellectual weakness of Christianity as it was assaulted by new lines of thought such as Darwinism and biblical criticism. This study serves as a corrective to that narrative. It focuses on freethinking and Secularist leaders who came to faith. As sceptics, they had imbibed all the latest ideas that seemed to undermine faith; nevertheless, they went on to experience a crisis of doubt, and then to defend in their writings and lectures the intellectual cogency of Christianity. The Victorian crisis of doubt was surprisingly large. Telling this story serves to restore its true proportion and to reveal the intellectual strength of faith in the nineteenth century.

1. Crisis of Faith
2. William Hone
3. Frederic Rowland Young
4. Thomas Cooper
5. John Henry Gordon
6. Joseph Barker
7. John Bagnall Bebbington
8. George Sexton
9. How Many Reconverts Were There?
10. Crisis of Doubt

and

A People of One Book: The Bible and the Victorians

• Presents the use of scripture as a unifying key to Victorian culture.
• Provides an introduction to the diversity of Victorian beliefs including reference to Catholic, Unitarian, Quaker, atheist, agnostic, liberal Anglican, Spiritualist, Salvation Army perspectives.
• Gives in-depth case studies of key figures including Florence Nightingale, T. H. Huxley, C. H. Spurgeon, Catherine Booth, E. B. Pusey, Charles Bradlaugh, Nicholas Wiseman, Grace Aguilar, Annie Besant, and Josephine Butler.

Although the Victorians were awash in texts, the Bible was such a pervasive and dominant presence that they may fittingly be thought of as 'a people of one book'. They habitually read the Bible, quoted it, adopted its phraseology as their own, thought in its categories, and viewed their own lives and experiences through a scriptural lens. This astonishingly deep, relentless, and resonant engagement with the Bible was true across the religious spectrum from Catholics to Unitarians and beyond.

The scripture-saturated culture of nineteenth-century England is displayed by Timothy Larsen in a series of lively case studies of representative figures ranging from the Quaker prison reformer Elizabeth Fry to the liberal Anglican pioneer of nursing Florence Nightingale to the Baptist preacher C. H. Spurgeon to the Jewish author Grace Aguilar. Even the agnostic man of science T. H. Huxley and the atheist leaders Charles Bradlaugh and Annie Besant were thoroughly and profoundly preoccupied with the Bible.

Serving as a tour of the diversity and variety of nineteenth-century views, Larsen's study presents the distinctive beliefs and practices of all the major Victorian religious and sceptical traditions from Anglo-Catholics to the Salvation Army to Spiritualism, while simultaneously drawing out their common, shared culture as a people of one book.

Introduction
1. Anglo-Catholics: E. B. Pusey and Holy Scripture
2. Roman Catholics: Nicholas Wiseman and Sacred Scripture
3. Atheists: Charles Bradlaugh, Annie Besant, and 'this indictable book'
4. Methodist and Holiness: Catherine Booth, William Cooke, and the Scriptures
5. Liberal Anglicans: Florence Nightingale and the Bible
6. Unitarians: Mary Carpenter and the Sacred Writings
7. Quakers: Elizabeth Fry and 'Reading'
8. Agnostics: T. H.Huxley and Bibliolatry
9. Evangelical Anglicans: Josephine Butler and the Word of God
10. Orthodox Old Dissent: C. H. Spurgeon and 'the Book'
Conclusion: Spiritualism, Judaism, and the Brethren - A People of One Book

You may read samples from the first book here and of the second, here Both look absolutely fascinating!

Book Review: The Holy Bible, Knox Version

Baronius Press contacted me and asked me to review their new edition of The Holy Bible in the Knox Translation:

The Knox Bible is the ideal translation for those looking to deepen their understanding of the Holy Scriptures. It was hailed as the finest translation of the 20th Century, approved for liturgical use and was endorsed by Pope Pius XII, Archbishop Fulton Sheen and many more.

In the early 20th century, Msgr. Ronald Knox embarked on an entirely new English Bible. He wanted a Bible that did not merely translate the original but made it read as if an Englishman had written it. His translation is spiritual and literary, graceful and lyrical, making it one of the most beautiful vernacular versions of the Holy Bible.

The unique features of the Knox Bible are:

~Translated from the Latin Vulgate and compared with the Greek and Hebrew texts single handedly by Ronald Knox over nine years.
~Uses timeless English, which is both sacral and reverent.
~Set in a single-column format with verse references placed at the side of the text in order to provide a clear and easily readable Bible.
~The full Bible is now available again for the first time in over 50 years, in an edition from Baronius Press, beautifully bound in leather with gilt edges.
~Included with this new edition is a paperback edition of On Englishing the Bible (5.5" x 8", 72 pages) in which Msgr. Knox describes his account of the ordeal, which manages to be both illuminating and full of his wit. Anyone wishing to know more about Knox's translation – and the problems involved in rendering the sacred Scriptures into the vernacular – will be fascinated to hear from the translator himself how he tackled this mammoth project.

So, it's another mammoth project for me to review this Knox version of The Holy Bible--how do I review The Holy Bible? To start, some comments on the quality of the published book produced by Baronius Press. The book as an object is beautiful: from the elegant endpapers to the weight of the paper and its gilt edges, well-bound and pleasing to hold and read. I have had to get used to the single-column format. In the Book of Psalms, I missed the poetic formatting of centered, broken lines.

As to the Knox version and translation, I sampled several favorite passages: The Twenty-Third Psalm, the Suffering Servant verses in Isaiah, the Book of Job, the infancy narrative of St. Luke's Gospel, the Passion narrative in St. John's, and many passages in the Epistles of St. Paul. And I read his book On Englishing the Bible--I liked his comment about the King James Version of The Holy Bible: "The Authorized Version is good English only because English writers, for centuries, have treated it as the standard of good English. Of itself, it is no better English than the Douay . . ." ("Some New Testament Problems", p. 21).

I think Knox achieved what he set as his goal in the Epistles; he comments on the length of St. Paul's sentences and he manages that length well, bringing clarity to some difficult passage of the Epistles. This is beautiful edition of The Holy Bible and one I look forward to using in my devotions for the Year of Faith!