In Chrysostom’s Works printed at Basil, the words, There is no merit, but what is given us by Christ, are commanded to be expunged. Yet these very words occur in his first Homily upon the text of St. John, Ye are my friends.
A similar erasure is enjoined of the clause, The Church is built, not upon the man, but upon the faith. Yet this clause occurs in his Sermonon Pentecost.
The same expurgatory process has been undergone by Chrysostom in many other places: and Ambrose and Augustine and the rest of the old Fathers have been subjected to the like necessary emendations.
In short the curtailments of the ancient writers were carried to so great an extent, that Ludovicus Saurius, the corrector of the press at Lyons, shewed and complained of them to Junius: lamenting, that he was forced to cancel and erase many sayings of Ambrose in that edition of his Works which was printed at Lyons in the year 1559.
(2.) Not content with thus emendating the Fathers, our pains-taking Inquisitors, in order that their editions might throughout be perfectly harmonious and consistent, fell doggedly to work upon the very tables or indexes, which contained any references to the expunged passages: for, of course, it were unseemly, that a reference should appear, indicating the occurrence of a place which itself could no where be found in an improved or expurgated edition.
Thus, out of one of Froben’s indexes, they have directed the erasure of the following references: The use of images forbidden; The Eucharist no sacrifice, but the commemoration of a sacrifice; Works, although they do not justify, yet are necessary to salvation; Marriage is granted to all that will not contain; Venial sins damn; The dead Saints, after this life, cannot help us.
And thus, out of the index of Augustine’s Works by Claudius Chevallonius at Paris in the year 1531, they have commanded a still more extraordinary erasure of a reference: Dele, Solus Deus adorandus; that is, Blot out the words, God alone is to be adored. [71a]
(3.) On such disgraceful practices, Bp. Taylor well remarks: These instances may serve, instead of multitudes which might be brought, of their corrupting the witnesses and razing the records of antiquity, that the errors and novelties of the Church of Rome might not be so easily reproved. Now, if the Fathers were not against them, what need these arts? Why should they use them thus? Their own expurgatory indices me infinite testimony against them, both that they do so, and that they need it. [71b]
III. It were easy to have multiplied specimens of the same description: but these, I apprehend, may well suffice.
Respecting such a topic, any observations of my own are quite superfluous. By some marvellous perversion of the moral sense, Sixtus Senensis, indeed, has even lauded Pope Pius V, because he had taken diligent care, that the writings of all catholic authors, and more especially the writings of the ancient Fathers, should be expurgated and emaculated: but the plain good sense of every upright and honourable man will deem such praise no very flattering compliment. [71c]