Even the continental libraries retain many Scriptural monuments of the Irish Church, though the designation of Anglo-Saxon MSS. commonly given to them, has withdrawn them from that careful investigation which they otherwise would have obtained from our antiquarians: such are, for instance, the Psalter of St. Ouen, at Rouen; the Gospels of St. Gatien, at Tours; of Mac Regol, at Oxford; of St. Germain de Pres; besides the Book of St. Chad, and many others mentioned by Westwood in his Palaeographia Sacra (London, 1845). The Gospels of St. Boniface, in Fulda, are now generally supposed to have come from the Irish school: and equally venerable are the Evangelia of St. Kilian, still preserved in Würzburg. The last page of this precious text is tinged with the blood of this great Irish martyr, and on his festival (8th July) it is still solemnly exposed upon the altar during the celebration of the Holy Mysteries (See Appendix A to Report on the Foedera, published by the Record Commission, for a long notice and fac-simile of the writing of this MS.). In Italy, the Book of St. Silas is preserved in his tomb at Lucca; a fragment of St. Caimin's Psalter may be seen in Rome; and St. Cathaldus's Gospels are enclosed in his shrine at Tarento. The library of St. Gall, in Switzerland, possessed for centuries many old Irish manuscripts, amongst which are mentioned by Von Arx, "Quatuor Evangelia; Evang. S. Joannis; Epistolae S. Pauli; liber Prophetarum; et plura fragmenta", all which are styled Codicis Scottici in a catalogue of the ninth century (Monumenta Germ. Historica. tom. 2, pag. 66 et 78). The monastery of Bobbio, however, was distinguished above all others for the richness of its store of manuscripts: it was founded by Irish Religious in the seventh century, and for a long subsequent period was the great literary mart of North Italy, and a cherished resort of Irish pilgrims. From the present of books made to this monastery by an Irish ecclesiastic named Dungall, we may judge how abundant were the Biblical treasures of our island before the tenth century. The ancient list of these books is published by Muratori, and it comprises not only the Evangelium plenarium, and Psalterium, and other Books of Scripture, but also the commentaries of Origen, St. Jerome, St. Augustine, St. Gregory the Great, St. Ambrose, Bede, Cassiodorus, and Albinus; the poems of Fortunatus, Paulinus, Arator, Prudentius, and Juvencus; the Ecclesiastical History of Hegesippus; and one work with the curious title, "librum quendam Latine Scotaicae linguae", which probably means a treatise in Latin on the Irish language (See Muratori, Antiqq. Ital., iii. 818). Such collections of books, once so abundant in our island, were deliberately pillaged and destroyed, first by the pagan Danes, and again by the Protestant maligners of our country, under Henry VIII. and Elizabeth. In a preceding article, "The See of Cork", we have given a specimen of the Scriptural books preserved in an humble Franciscan convent in Youghal in 1490; and Dr. Reeves, in his Essay on the Culdees, gives us a short notice of another Irish library in the twelfth century, in which the Gospels and copies of other portions of the Sacred Scripture hold their usual place (Transact. of R. I. A., Dublin, 1864, pag. 249). Even during the sad era of the desolation of our island, from the twelfth to the sixteenth century, the labours of Irishmen on the continent in illustrating the sacred text, won for them a distinguished fame; whilst the testimonies collected by Boerner (Le Long, ii. 369) further prove that at home a version of the Sacred Scripture into the Irish language was achieved long before the so called Reformation, being generally attributed to Richard Fitzralph, Archbishop of Armagh, who died in 1360. We must be pardoned, if, as we fear, we dwelt too long on the venerable monuments of our early Church.
England next claims our attention. Forty years ago a member of its Established Church did not hesitate to write that during the Catholic ages, "the Bible was a sealed Book ... there is good reason for believing that the great mass of men never heard that such a book was in existence" (Soames' Hist. of Reformation in England). Yet surely it was not so in the ages of Bede and Alcuin. The holy Caedmon presented to his contemporaries an Anglo-Saxon metrical paraphrase of the Bible, a portion of which we have seen translated into English and re-issued from the press in our own days. Fragments of many other Anglo-Saxon versions have also been preserved, some of which bear the classic names of Bede, Athelstan, Aeldred, Aelfric, and King Alfred. The publication of these works has long engaged the attention of our antiquarians, from the early edition by Marshall, in 1665, to that of Dr. Thorpe, in 1842. After the Norman Conquest, French and Latin were for three centuries the literary languages of England; no sooner, however, was the English language formed, than we find it employed in presenting to the faithful the teaching of the inspired volume. An old MS. in the Imperial Library of Vienna commemorates an exposition of the Gospels in the writer's possession, "in vetustissimo Anglico, quod vix aliquis hominum jam viventium sufficienter intelligeret" (Appendix A to Record Commission Report, pag. 232). Usher in his day referred the first English version to the year 1290. Trevisa, who died before 1360, also translated "Biblia Sacra in vernaculam", as Anthony Wood informs us (Antiq. Oxon., ii. 95). It was only some years later that Wicleff's version appeared; and though some English writers refer it to 1367, the German Rationalist, Reuss, marks its date as 1380 (Die Gesch. der Heilig. Schriften, Brunswick, 1853). For an interesting and detailed account of the more recent Catholic translations in English, we must refer to the learned General Introduction to the Sacred Scriptures (Dublin, 1852) by our venerated Primate. At present it will suffice to mention one which is but little known to English biblical readers. It was the work of an Irish Priest, the Rev. Cornelius Nary, who, whilst administering the Parish of St. Michan's in the city of Dublin, found leisure to compose several valuable treatises, and especially to translate the New Testament from the Latin Vulgate, comparing it with the original Greek, and with several ancient translations into other languages. This version was printed in 1718: a few years later the author's name was on the list of those presented to the Holy See by the chapter of Dublin, when soliciting a successor to their deceased Bishop, Dr. Edward Murphy; he died full of years, deeply lamented by his spiritual children, in 1738.
Much might be said on the many versions which were made throughout the continent during the ante-Reformation period. In the French language there is extant a version of the books of Kings and Maccabees, which is referred by Le Long to the eleventh century. Several MSS. of the Psalms are also still preserved, which are placed by Wharton as early as the twelfth century, and Hallam in express terms attests that "we find translations of the Psalms, Job, Kings, and the Maccabees, into French, in the eleventh or twelfth century". Guyars de Moulins, a priest and canon of St. Pierre d'Aire, about the year 1290, translated into French and completed the Historia Sacra of Peter Comestor. This work is not, as Horne describes it, "a popular abstract of sacred history", but comprises the historical and moral books of the Old and New Testament; and we have said that de Moulins completed the work of Comestor, because his version embraces the whole of the sacred writings of the Old and New Testament. It was not, however, a mere translation of the Sacred Scripture; here and there notes and commentaries are added, and these are found to vary in several MSS., as if they were inserted to suit the various controversies which arose in the French Church. The first printed text was the New Testament, which was published in folio, in Lyons, in 1478, being translated into French by two Augustinian friars, Julian Macho and Pierre Farget. A copy of this edition is still preserved in the public library of Leipsic (Reuss, pag. 446). The version of de Moulins was very soon after also printed in a quarto edition, whilst its Editio Princeps, carefully revised by Jean de Rely, afterwards Bishop of Angers, was published in Paris under the auspices of Charles VIII., in 1487. It passed through fourteen other editions in Paris and Lyons alone, before the year 1546. We may also refer to this ante-Reformation period the version of James Le Fevre, of Estables, who is better known by his Latin name of Faber Hapulensis, and who undertook a new translation of the Bible in 1512. This work, especially with the corrections of the Louvain divines, acquired considerable popularity, and more than forty different editions of it appeared before the year 1700. Even before any French Protestant version of the Sacred Scripture appeared, another French Catholic translation was made by Nicholas de Leuse, a doctor of Louvain, and was printed at Antwerp in 1534. The first Protestant version was published at Neufchatel in the following year.
Perhaps in Germany at least, the native land of Protestantism, the holy Bible was a sealed book to the children of the Catholic Church? No, it was far otherwise. As early as the tenth century Notker Albulus, abbot of the monastery of St. Gallus, translated into German the book of Psalms; and a century later most of the other inspired books were translated by William of Ebersberg, in Bavaria, and other religious whose names have not been handed down to us (Reuss, pag. 439). In the succeeding centuries several other translations appeared, so much so, that the author of the Cologne version, printed in 1480, was able to affirm in his preface that he availed himself "of a variety of different versions, which were made and circulated both in Lower and Upper Germany, before printing came into use". The first printed German Bible issued from the Mentz press in two volumes in folio about 1462. Other editions seem to have followed soon after; for, in the next earliest edition which is now known, viz., that of Augsburg, in 1477, the editor was able to commend the accuracy of his version, and eulogize it "prae omnibus aliis antea impressis Bibliis Germanicis". So rapid was the diffusion of the printed text, that from 1477 to 1490, this city of Augsburg alone gave five different editions. The city of Nuremberg gave proofs of equal fecundity, having published distinct editions in 1477, 1480, and 1483. The editor of this last edition laid claim to special elegance of type and accuracy of text, "prae omnibus antea impressis Germanicis purius, clarius, et verius"; and, it would seem, justly, for David Clement, who examined the edition, thus describes it: "I saw that magnificent edition in the library of the Duchess of Nuremberg; the paper, the ornamented letters, the illuminated figures so well drawn and engraved around, all so delightful to behold, giving a most pleasing idea of the degree of perfection to which the art of printing had already arrived, and this only thirty years after the invention of movable types". The other chief cities of Germany, Cologne, Lubeck, Halberstadt, Strasburg, and Mentz, had also their distinct editions; and before the year 1500—that is to say, many years before the appearance of Lutheranism—thirty editions of the entire Scriptures were in circulation in the vernacular language of Germany.
We will give but a rapid glance at the versions of Poland, Spain, and Bohemia, that we may be able to devote more space to one country which is especially dear to every Catholic heart. The first Polish version was made about 1390, by order of St. Hedwige, wife of the famous Duke of Lithuania who was chosen king under the name of Ladislaus IV. About the same time a second translation is said to have been made by Andrew Jassowitz. Another version of the Psalter, and a fragment of a translation of the Old Testament made in 1455, are commemorated by Graesse in his Litter. Hist., v. 484. Translations of the Bible into Spanish are spoken of by the national writers, during the reign of James I. of Arragon, in the thirteenth century, and again under John II. of Leon, about 1440. The first printed edition appeared in 1478, and another edition, of 1515, is referred by Graesse (loc. cit.) to a Carthusian monk, named Boniface Ferrer. As regards Bohemia, MM. Schaffarik and Palacky commemorate a translation of the Gospel of St. John, made as early as the tenth century (Böhm. Denkm., an. 1840). A Bohemian Psalter bears date 1396. Huss in one of his controversial tracts speaks of the New Testament as already extant in the Bohemian language. The translation of the whole Bible into Bohemian was achieved at Dresden in 1410, as Dobrowsky proves (Slovanka, Th. 2), and we find printed editions at Prague in 1488, at Cutna in 1498, and at Venice in 1506 and 1511. Even Denmark had its translation of the Sacred Scriptures, and a version of the historical books of the Old Testament was made in 1470, as Molbek and Grimm inform us.
If, however, the Catholic Church were hostile to the sacred Scriptures, we should naturally suppose that in Italy, at least, little enthusiasm should have been displayed in the diffusion of the Bible in the vulgar tongue; for Italy was more immediately subject to the influence of the Holy See; in its centre stood the capital of the universal Catholic world—the new Jerusalem of the Church—the See of Peter. Nevertheless, of all European countries, Italy was, perhaps, the most remarkable for the diffusion of the sacred text during the ante-Reformation period. Jacopo de Voragine, Bishop of Genoa, who died in 1298, was the first to translate the Scriptures into the Italian tongue, and thus his version dates before Dante and the other great masters of the language. New translations by Nicholas de Neritono, of the Dominican Order, Pietro Arighetto, Cavalca, and others, followed soon after; and so rapid was the diffusion of the sacred text, that, as Lamy informs us, the archives of Florence alone contain forty manuscripts belonging to the fourteenth century, all presenting various portions of the Bible in the Italian tongue (De Eruditione App., page 308, seqq.). The discovery of the art of printing was hailed in Italy with special delight. Sweynheyne and Paunartz, under the auspices of Cardinal Cusa, hastened thither with the newly-found treasure, and Rome was the first city that welcomed them within its walls. Various editions of the Bible, the classics, and the Fathers, soon appeared; indeed, before the year 1500, almost every city of Italy had one or more printing presses in operation, but, above all, the names of the great Benedictine monastery of Subiaco, and the "Palazzo Massimi" in Rome, record to posterity the religious patronage and princely munificence which welcomed the German artists to the divinely favoured patrimony of the successors of St. Peter.
Three editions of the Bible in the Italian tongue appeared in the year 1471. The first bears the name of Nicholas Malermi, a religious of the Order of Camaldoli. The closing words of the Second volume fix its precise date: "Impresso fu questo volume nel l'alma patria de Venetia nell' anno de la salutifera incarnatione del Figliolo de l'eterno et omnipotente Dio, MCCCCLXXI, in Kalende di Augusto per Vendelino Spira". This version was subsequently repeated in new editions, and is still esteemed for the purity of its language, being described by the latest writer on this subject as written. "vel miglior secolo della nostra lingua" (Vercellone, Dissert. Roma, 1864, pag. 100). The Second Venetian edition of 1471, was printed "per Nicolo Jenson in calende di Ottobre", and by some inexperienced modern observers was supposed to be merely a reprint of the former text: it is, however, quite distinct, and the best judges of the present day are of opinion that this version is from the pen of Cavalca, a Tuscan writer of the golden age, who flourished in the fourteenth century. It is cited 160 times in the last edition of the Crusca (Florence, 1843), under the title Volgarizzamento di Pistole e di Vangeli, and some manuscripts of it are extant, which date back to the close of the fourteenth century (Curioni, "Sui due Primi Volgarizzamenti", etc., Milan, 1847; and Sorio in Archiv. Eccles. Firenze, 1864, vol. i. pag. 297). A. third Italian version appeared in Rome in the same month of October, 1471, in two volumes folio: many writers have described it as the version of Malermi; but Maffei, who diligently compared both texts, pronounced it to be a distinct and independent version. No fewer than eleven complete editions of these several versions appeared before the year 1500, and more than forty editions are reckoned before the appearance of the first Protestant edition of the Bible in the Italian language. Some of these editions, too, deserve the name of distinct versions, on account of various alterations and improvements made in the text, and all appeared under ecclesiastical sanction; thus, for instance, an edition of Venice, in 1477, bears the name of "Fratre Marino del Ordine di Predicatori, de la sacra pagina professore umile".
An entirely new translation from the original text was made by Sanctes Marmoschini in 1538, and was reprinted in 1546. Another translation, which appeared in 1547, was remarkable for its poetical version of Job and the Psalms. The translation of Antonio Bruccioli attracted still more attention. It was made "de la Hebraica veritá", and was ushered in under the patronage of the French monarch, Francis I., in the month of May 1532.
From that date to 1552, twelve editions of this version appeared; but, though, remarkable for its Tuscan dialect, it was inaccurate in many passages, for which reason it was condemned by the Council of Trent. The first Protestant Italian Bible was printed in Geneva as late as 1562, and was little more than a reprint of Bruccioli's version. About fifty years later Diodati's Bible appeared, which is rather a Calvinistic paraphrase than a version; nevertheless, this corruption of Holy Writ has for two centuries held its place as the great Protestant standard of orthodoxy. Even in later times the Catholic Church has presented a new and accurate Italian version to her children, and Anthony Martini, Archbishop of Florence, by the accuracy of his translation, the purity of his style, and his admirable explanatory notes, merited the congratulations and approval of the illustrious Pontiff Pius VI.: "Beloved Son", writes this great Pope, "at a time when vast numbers of bad books are being circulated, most grossly attacking the Catholic Church, to the great destruction of souls, you have judged exceeding well in exhorting the faithful to the reading of the Holy Scriptures; for these are most abundant sources, whence every one ought to be in a position to draw purity of morals and of doctrine, and to eradicate the errors which are so widely disseminated in these corrupt times. This you have seasonably accomplished, publishing the sacred writing in the language of your country, to be understood by all, especially as you declare that you have added explanatory notes, which, being extracted from the Holy Fathers, preclude every possible danger of abuse, etc. Given at Rome on the calends of April, 1778".
Thus, then, so far from the Church being the enemy of the Bible, she was its watchful guardian, and ever cherished it as a sacred treasure. When heresy introduced corruption into the inspired volume, and substituted the word of man for the Word of God, the pastors of the Catholic fold fearlessly raised their voice, and warned the faithful of the snares which were laid for them. When enemies had poisoned the life-giving stream, the Church permitted not her children to drink the deadly draught. But in no country, and at no period, was the Catholic Church the enemy of the Bible; never was its sacred text a sealed book to the faithful; but, on the contrary, the pastors of the Church, the divinely constituted guardians of the inspired writings, were ever zealous in promoting the study of their sacred truths, and in "disseminating the knowledge of God's written word".