The Bible Unveiled

by M. M. Mangasarian

Now if any one reading over these books in all their parts, as they are usually read in the Catholic Church... does not hold them sacred and canonical... and does industriously contemn them let him be anathema.

To be anathema means to be accursed. In other words, there is no choice; it is the Catholic bible or a curse. No man has any right to choose for himself, or decide according to his own conscience and knowledge, which is the "Word of God," or how much in the various bibles is actually "the Word of God." He must, then, choose between the priest's bible or—his curse. To try to prove a book "inspired" by threatening to curse all those who may tell the truth about it, is a sure sign that the makers of the bible themselves do not believe in its inspiration. It is impossible to think that if the priests really believed the bible to be "divine," they would have undertaken to hedge it about with anathemas. But they curse to conceal their own unbelief. There is not another book that had to curse its readers to make them believe in it.

The most effective argument against the bible is furnished by the church itself. For nearly fifteen hundred years it hanged and burned people alive to make them believe in the bible. That is a good way to prove one's unbelief, not one's faith. It shows what little confidence the Catholics had in the ability of "the Word of God" to defend itself against a Giordano Bruno, when they burned him at the stake; and how dubious the Protestants were of their bible, when they burned Michael Servetus at the stake. The long list of terrible crimes committed in defense of the bible is a conclusive proof, first, of the unbelief of the Christians themselves in the ability of the bible to win men by the beauty and truth of its teachings; and, second, of the evil influence of the book upon those who accepted its authority.

The preface to the Catholic bible offers a further proof of the lack of confidence of Christians in "the Word of God." It forbids people, as already shown, to read the Word of God without first securing the consent of a priest. It is a heinous thing, according to the church authorities, to undertake to read the bible on one's own responsibility. "To prevent and remedy this abuse" (namely, that of reading the bible, and interpreting it for one's self), says this same preface, "it was judged necessary to forbid the reading of the scriptures in the vulgar tongues." Of course, ''there is no prohibition against reading it in Latin, or Hebrew, or Greek, or in any language that one does not understand, but it is forbidden to read it in the vulgar, that is to say, in any language that the reader is familiar with, "without the advice and permission of the pastors and spiritual guides whom God has appointed to govern his church." To prove this authority of the priest to forbid the reading of the bible, the following text is quoted: "He that will not hear the church, let him be to thee as the heathen and the publican." *

* Matthew xviii, 17, Catholic Bible.

The church must be obeyed. The commandment says nothing about obeying the church only when she is in the right, or only when she is reasonable, or even only when she is scriptural—she must be obeyed because she is the church. And this, too, is quite consistent with the claims of an infallible revelation. If everybody is to be given the liberty to decide when the church is right, reasonable, or scriptural, and when she is not, then it is not the church, but the individual, who is infallible. If the bible is "inspired," there is no escape from the conclusions of the Catholic church. Did not Jesus say to the Apostles, and, therefore, to the priests: "Whatsoever ye shall bind on earth shall be bound in heaven; and whatsoever ye shall loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven"? * Does not this make everybody the slave of the church?

* Matthew xviii, 18, Catholic Bible.

The Catholic bible contains nearly a dozen more "inspired" books than the Protestant bible, and many of the texts in the books which are common to both are differently translated. By comparing the list of books in the Catholic bible with the books in the Protestant bible, we find that the Protestants are "accursed" by the decision of the Council of Trent, inasmuch as they deny the inspiration of, and exclude from their bible, about twelve of the books in the Catholic bible. Now, what is a layman to do when infallible churches disagree? We are commanded by the bible to hear the church, but which church? If we could decide ourselves which is the true church, we would then be greater than the church, as it would need our approval before it could exercise any authority over us. But if we can not decide which is the true church, what are we going to do? This is an important question, because unless we belong to the true church we can not have the true bible.

The Catholics "curse" the Protestant bible. This is the literal truth. The Protestants, on the other hand, call the Catholic bible "a popish imposture." While they are wrangling about it, what becomes of the Word of God?

But the most interesting part in the preface to the Catholic bible is the warning which the church gives to the reader of the bible, not to be shocked, or scandalized, by the immoral and impossible stories contained therein. The reader is cautioned against applying to the bible the standard of morality by which other books are judged. To scare the reader into praising in the bible what he would unreservedly and sweepingly condemn in other books, the following biblical text is quoted: