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Appendix
371
739; J. G. Lorimer, An Historical Sketch of the Protestant Church
in France, ch. 8, pars. 6, 7.
Page 167. Prophetic Dates. See note for page 35.
Page 167. Efforts to Suppress and Destroy the Bible. The
Council of Toulouse ruled: “We prohibit laymen possessing copies
of the Old and New Testament. ... We forbid them most severely to
have the above books in the popular vernacular.” “The dwellings,
the humblest hovels, and even the underground retreats of the men
convicted of having the Scriptures shall be entirely wiped out. These
men shall be hunted for in the woods and caverns and any who shall
give them shelter shall be severely punished.”—Concil. Tolosanum,
Pope Gregory IX, Anno chr. 1229. Canons 14, 2. This council sat at
the time of the crusade against the Albigenses.
“This pest [the Bible] had taken such an extension that some
people had appointed priests of their own, and even some evange-
lists who distorted and destroyed the truth of the gospel and made
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new gospels for their own purpose ... [they know that] the preach-
ing and explanation of the Bible is absolutely forbidden to the lay
members.”—Acts of Inquisition, Philip van Limborch, History of
the Inquisition, ch. 8.
At the Council of Constance in 1415, Wycliffe was posthumously
condemned as “that pestilent wretch of damnable heresy who in-
vented a new translation of the Scriptures in his mother tongue.”
Opposition to the Bible by the Roman Catholic Church increased
because of the success of the Bible societies. On December 8, 1866,
Pope Pius IX, in his encyclical Quanta cura, issued a syllabus of
eighty errors under ten different headings. Under heading IV we
find listed: “Socialism, communism, clandestine societies, Bible
societies. ... Pests of this sort must be destroyed by all possible
means.”
In recent years a dramatic and positive change has occurred in the
Roman Catholic Church. On the one hand, the church has approved
several versions prepared on the basis of the original language;
on the other, it has promoted the study of the Holy Scriptures by
means of free distribution and Bible institutes. The church, however,
continues to reserve for herself the exclusive right to interpret the
Bible in the light of her own tradition, thus justifying those doctrines
that do not harmonize with biblical teachings.