SCRIPTURES, ROMAN CATHOLIC TRANSLATIONS OF, LUTHER'S FAMILIARITY WITH.
The replies I have gained to previous Queries encourage me to trouble you with the following:—
1. Has the Roman Catholic Church ever published a translation of the Scriptures, or any part of them, into the vernacular Irish? Have their missionaries in China ever translated anything beyond the Epistles and Gospels of the Missal? Or, is there any Roman Catholic translation into any of the vernacular languages of India? Or, are there any versions in any of the American dialects by Roman Catholic authors, besides those mentioned by Le Long in his Bibliotheca Sacra. And is there any continuation of his work up to the present day? I am acquainted with Bishop Marsh's volume, but he seems ill-informed and speaks vaguely about Roman Catholic versions.
2. What is the authority for the familiar story of a bill being brought into parliament for the suppression of all vernacular translations in Richard II.'s reign, and of its being stoutly opposed by John of Gaunt? "What, are we the dregs of the earth not to hear the Scriptures in our own tongue?" Usher mentions the circumstance (Historia Dogmatica, &c.), and it is borrowed from him by Fox. But I am so ignorant as not to know the original and cotemporary authority.
3. Your learned correspondent, DR. MAITLAND, in his Dark Ages, snubs D'Aubigné most unmercifully for repeating an old story about Luther's stumbling upon a Bible, and pooh-pooh's D'Aubigné's authority, Mathesius, as no better than a goose. May I ask whether it is possible to discover the probable foundation of such a story, and whether Luther has left us in his writings any account of his early familiarity with Scripture, that would bear upon the alleged incident, and show how much of it may be true?
C.F.S.