, . BS :lIOO I D D? ~ ~ COnlrOy'ersg on Ih'e Bible Dg fillher LClmbtrl . I PA RT I - ~~ .• ~ - ~, PIUCr: - 10 Cr:NT~ I " , ... , ,.. """'III C4 THOLIC TRUTH ~OClfTl' . flood 6uilding ~an franci~co , .90S I11III.. ~ . \ I V AEO 0 1 2-1 Controversy On Questions of tbe Bible BEING FRIENDLY TALKS ·WITII AN INTELLIGENT PRO- TE STANT ON MANY POINTS OF DIFFE RENCE BEl'\\, :EEN CATHOLICITY AND PROTE STANTISM BY REV . L. A. LAMBERT , LL.D . . Author or "Notes on Inger soll ," " T a cti cs of Infidels," etc., a nd E diior of th e New York " Freem an 's J ournnl. " CATHOLIC TRUTH SOCIET Y FLOOD BUILDING SAN FRANC I SCO 1905 INTRODUCTORY. By p ermission of the author, Rev . L . A. Lamb ert, LL.D., the following con l roversy i s republished from th e editorial column s of the New York Freeman's Journa l. The original t itle of the a rticles was "Versi on s of the Bible," the sub ject und eI' discu ssion being the relative merits of the Catholic and Protestant Versions. As the controversy progressed, man y other important question>! were treat ed. To m eet a gen eral dema nd for these articl es in hook f orm , the Catholic Truth Society issu es the first part of the controversy. The Soci ety desires to acknowl edge its thanks to Rev. Dr. Lam- bert and the Freeman's Journal for kind p ermi ss ion to re- l' ublish. It is deemed a dvi sabl e to give a brief expl a n ation of t h e more important Catholic and Protestant Versions whooe m erits nre discusscd. The Latin VUlgate. This is the L atin Version of !.h.~ Sacred Scriptures a uth orized by the Catholic Church. It wns prepa red by St. J er ome, the most celebrated Biblica l ~eholar of his age. IVestcott, a Protestant schol a r , says of him that " J erom e proba bly a lone for 1,5 00 years possessed t he qu a lification s n ecessary for producing an orig inal V cr- sion of the Script ures for the u se of the Latin Church es ." An ancient Latin Version, known as t h e "Vetus Itala," WU3 in existen ce from the 'second century. Through m istak es of tra n scriber s it h a d become un satisfactOl'Y, a nd Pope IJ a- ITInsus r eq ues ted St .. J erom e to und erta k e its revi sion. He uega n w ith t h e New Testament, whi ch was r evised with ti ,e aid of the best Gr eek manuscripts in existen ce. The revis ion of ihe Four Gos pel s was fini sh ed A. D. 383, and the rem ai n - der of the N e\Y Testam ent followed. Next h e undertook t he r evis ion of the Book of P salms, correcting the old L atin version by th e best Greek texts . Then h e began a n ew trans- lation of the Old Testament directly from the Hebrew, at which he labored f ur fifteen yea r s, fr om 391 to 406. The Books of Tobias and Judith were tran slated from t h e Ara- maic. A few books of the Old Testam ent were n ot trallslaterl by St. Jerome, but were embo di ed in the Latin Vul gate as t.hey had been prese rv ed in th e old L at in V er s ion . The Douay V ersion. Th e English Catholic Bibl e i s gen- era lly kn own as the Douay Version. A Catholi c semina ry was establish ed at Douay, in 1571 , by Dr. Allen, who hacl r en ounced hi s di gu ities at Oxfo rd Univ er sity in 1559 ' and betaken himself to Louvain. Th e priesth ood in England was. t hreatened with ex lin ction, and Dr. Allen sta rted t he Douay seminary to su pply pri ests fo r t h e E ngli sh mission. 0 11' aecount of p olitical iroubles in Flanders, t h e seminary was. moved to Fren ch territory at Rhe illl s in 1578, where the· work of t r ans lati ng the Bible was beg un by Dr. Allen and hi s f ellow professo r s . The entire Bible was fini sh ed in 1582, [l lld the New T estam ent wns publi s hed at R h eim s in that yen l'. " Lack of good means" 'lI)d "our poor estate in ban- j ~hment" del aye d t.he publieatiO'll of th e Old Testamen t. In 150:~ t h e seminary was moved b,tc k t o Dou ay, wh er e t h e Old Testament was publi sh ed, lOOtl- lO. The translation was m ade f r om the Latin Vulgate. It was rev ised in 1749 by Dr. Challoner , V icar-Apostoli c of London, wh o substituted modern words and con stru ction s for t h e old and ob sol ete. :Many revi sions h ave since been made. The Protestant Authorized Version. At a conferencil h eld at Hampton Court, in 1604, presided over by King Jam es I of England, a n ew translation of the Bibl e was su ggested, as the "ver si on s a ll owed in the r eigns of H enr y VnI and Edward VI were corr upt and not an swe r abl e t o t he t ruth of the original." The K ing announced, in the same year , th a t h e h a d chosen fi fty-four sch ol a rs for the purpose. The actu a l list of r evise r s numb er ed forty-sev en, wh o formed six comp ani es. The 11 ishop's Bihle (a r evision of the Great Bible which was trans l ated by Coverd al e, an apostate monk, who "was n o Gr eek or H ebrew s(;ho1 3 r," and who translated fr om t h e Ge rl1l an an d Latin), was to be follow ed. The first r evi si on occ up ied two years, and the fin a l revi s ion nine lllonths. F ina Uy, t h e Authorized, or King James', Bibl e wa~ publi sh ed in 16 11. Its m erits a r e examined in t hi s contro- H'r sy. The Revised Version ( 1881 -85 ) . Constant demallds wer e ml),de for !l. r evi sion of the Authori zed V ersion. Aft er long discussion t h e Convocation of Canterbury appointed a ('ommittee in 1870 to r eport upon t h e desirability of a r evis- ion and to co-operate wit h a similar committee of th e Co n - vocati on of York. The l atter conv ocat ion, however , declined to co-operate. The committee of Canterbury r esolved in favor of revis ion flnd of the a ppoin t ment of two bodies of r evi sers, and American sch olars were invited to co-operate, ,m d consented to act. The Rev ised New T estam ent was pub - l ished in 188 1, a nd was r eceived with consternation. Over 3G,OOO dep a rtures from the King J am es' V er si on occurred ill th e New Testam ent. The Revised Old T estament wae pub- lished in 1885. Controversy On Questions of the Bible By REV. L. A. L AMBER T , LL.D. CHAPTER 1. 'rIfE CHALI.ENGE OF THE IDEAL AMERICA N. " One hundred dollars will be for the person who can prove that the Bible's Roman Catholic trans lation is better than the translation from originals."-Ideal American. FATHER LAMBERT: The opportunity to pocket a hun- dred dollars is too r are to let this liberal offer pafls by with impunity. The proof required is the fact that there are no Eng- lish translations from the original and a transl ation from copies of the originals is better than no translation. Any English translation claiming to be made from the originals is ipso facto a fraud, for the originals had ceased to exist over a thousand years before the Protestant Authorized Translation was made. And when it was made, it was from copies of the originals, copies that we owe to the ca ligraphic industry of the so-called "lazy monks." All the English translations of the Bible, Catholic as well as "Protestant, were made from copies or copies of copies. The superiority, then, of the Catholic or Protestant Bible Version must consist in correctness of translation from copies in the Greek and other languages, and not that either was made from the originals. The question then comes to this: Which is the better Translation, the Catholi c or the Protestant? We hold that the Catholic is the better, and in proof of it we will confine ourselves to two or three texts, though we might point out others. 6 l!' ATilER LAUBERT ' S CONTROVERSY The first text is found in Matthew vi., 13. It is the con- clusion of the Lord's Prayer. In the King James or Author- ized Version-the one used by English-speaking Protestants for nearly 300 years-the t ext referred to is: "Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil; for Thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, forever. Amen." In the Catholic Bible the words, "For Thine is the kingdom, etc.," are not fOlmd, making the text read, "Lead us not into temptation. But deliver us from evil. Amen." Now it is evident that the Protestant translators of the Authorized Version weregllilty of interpolating the words, "For Thine is the kingdom, etc.," or the Catholic transla- tors were guilty of omitting a part of the Bible; for those words belong to th e Lord's Prayer or they do not. If they are a part of the Prayer as our Lord uttered it, the Prot- estant Version is the more correct. If they do not belong to the Prayer, the Catholic Version is the more correct. How -is it to be determined? We shall leave it to recog- nized Protestant scholars to determine, to the learned com - pilers of the Revised Version, which was published in 1885. These learned revisers omitted the words, "For Thine is the kingdom, etc.," from their Version of Matthew vi., 13, lea.ving the text just as it is found in the Catholic Version. They thus showed their conviction that the words, "For Thine is the kingdom, etc.," are an interpolation, and that the Catholic rendering of the verse is the correct one. Let us take two other texts. In the King James Bible, Matthew xxvii., 5, speaking of Judas, says "And he cast down the pieces of silver in the temple, and departed, and went and hanged him self." Compare this with Acts i., 18. \ "Now this man (Judas) purchased a field with the reward of his iniquity; and falling headlong, he burst asunder in the midst, and all his bowels gushed out." Now, these two verses are evidently contradictory. The first says Judas hanged himself. The second says he fell headlong and was killed. ON QUESTIONS OF THE BIBLE 7 In the Catholic Version there is no such contradiction found. The text is: "And he indeed hath possessed a fi eld of the reward of his iniquity, and, being hanged, burst asunder in the midst ; and all his bowels gushed out." Here there is no contradiction, and, therefore, we must conclude that the Catholic Translation of the texts is t h e better, or it was made from a more correct copy of the original. As we are not in any grievous need of money, the I deal American may send his hundred dollar check to the New York Catholic Truth Society with our compliments. CHAPTER II. MR. JONES 0];' PITTSBURG ENTERS THE CONTROVElRS'Y. Editor Freeman's Journal-Dear Sir: In your editorial of January 30th, headed "About Translations of the Bible," you state that the Roman Catholic translation of the Bible is better than the Protestant translation, or Authorized Version. The omission you speak of in the Revised Version of "Thine is the Kingdom, the power," etc., is altogether in favor of the "Revised" and "American Revised," which is now the standard edition. As to the hanging of Judas, there is no contradiction whatever in the chapters and verses referred to. There is individual liberty exercised by Mat- thew and Luke in relating events. The -occurrence is r e- co rded all right by ~oth, though dressed in different terms. F ATHEH LAMBERT: The omission, or more cor- rectly the rejection, from the Lord's Prayer, of the words "For Thine is the Kingdom, etc.," is certainly altogether in favor of the Revised Version as compared with the Authorized Version that h as been the Protestant standard for nearly three hundred years. III admitting this you admit that the Authorized and Stand- ard Version h as for three hundred years been m isleading Protestant readers by giving them as the words of God 8 J!'ATHER LAMBERT'S CONTROVERSY what the Revised Version now rejects as not His words; thus recognizing the superior correctness of the Catholic Version over the King James' or Authorized Version, which we claimed. For in reJecting the words "For Thine is the Kingdom, etc.," the Revised follows the Catholic or Doua,. Version, :1S it does in most of its corrections. It is a notable fact that the King James' Version, in im· proving on former translations, approached nearer to the Catholic text; and the Revised, in improving on the King Jam es', a pproach es still n ear er to the Catholic t ext. Ward, in his "Errata," points out no less than thirty texts which, in correcting the King J ames' Bible, follow the Catholic Version, and many other texts wh erein it app ro aches nearer to the Catholic translation. This fact tells its own story. You say the "American Revised" is now the "Standard Edition." By whom has it been recognized as such! We are not aware that any denomin ation h as g iven it officia l recognition as the standard, and your calling it so commits nobody but yourself. The admittedly erroneous King's or Authorized Version , ha s bcen the Standard Version for three hundred years. It is the version which the Bible Societies sent out to the h eathen. Who deposed it? The fa ct- that it is acknowledged to be erroneous does not relegate it to "innocuous desuetude" as long as it is rea d from the pulpit and issued by the Bible Societies as the Word of God. MR. JONES: "According to the original Greek text, your translation of Acts, i, 18, in the Catholic Version, is incorrect." FATHER LAMBERT: You speak of the original Greek text as if there were any such t ext. You know, or ought to know, that there is no original t ext in existence; that all the manuscripts a re copies, or copies of copies, all varying more or less in their readings, and the most of which are of comparatively modern .date. AU you could therefore say i! that the the manuscript copy from which the printed Greek copies were mad e, was different from the manuscript copy used by St. Jerome when he made the Vulgate Trans· ON QUESTIONS OF THE BIBLE 9 lation. The manuscript copies of the fourth century- when St. Jerome wl'ote--were purer, more free from the errors, intentional and otherwise, of copyists than those of a later date. There were variant copies in his time. St. J 'erome translates Acts i., 18, thus, from the Greek manu· script used by him: "Et hic quidem possedit agrum de mercede iniquitatis, et suspensus crepuit medius et diffusa sunt omnia viscera ejus," which the Catholic Version translates thus: "And he indeed hath possessed a field of the reward of iniquity, and being hanged burst asunder in the midst and all his bowels gushed out." The correctness of this English translation will not be disputed. The question then comes to this: Was the manuscript copy from which St. Jerome translated more correct than the copy used by the translators of the King James' Bible 1 The presumption is in favor of the former for two reasons: first, it was an earlier copy and .nearer the autograph orig· inals; second, it avoids the contradiction which is found in the King James' Bible. You tell us there is no contradiction between Matt., L'{vii. , 5, and Acts i, 18, as found in King James' Bible . .Let the reader judge. Matthew says: "He cast down the pieces of silver in the temple, and departed and went and hanged himself." In the Acts of the Apostles, the aeCOl/nt of Judas' death is this: "Now this man purchased 3. field with the reward of iniquity, and falling headlong, he burst asunder in the midst," etc. According to the fir st account Judas committed suicide by hanging. Acording to the sec· ond, so far as the text throws any light upon it, his death was accidental, not suicide at the end of a rope. The "individual libert;y" you speak of does not justify such contradictions in historical documents, whether made by copyists or translators. It must be assumed that thi~ con · tradiction did not appear in the original inspired writiD~'S, Itnd it does not appear in St. Jerome's Vulgate, nor in its Catholic Translation. MR. JONES: "If the Protestant version of to·day, that 10 FATHER LAMBERT'S CO NTROVERSY is, the American Revised Version, l!JOl, has been made from copies duly authenticated of the original manuscripts in Hebrew and Greek it certainly ought to be more correct than a version made from copies of co pi es of versions insteitd of original copies of manuscripts." FATIIER LAMBERT: If! A conclusion based on an "if" i.s a very lame conclusion. There is not a manuscript (Opy in existcnce that has been duly authenticated as a correct and complete copy of the originals. There are a number of variant and fragmentary copies. The oldest extant Hebrew manuscript is not older than the tenth eenLury. The oldest Greek manuscripts of the New Testament are not earlier than the fourth century. And, Mr. Jones, you will please remember that these manuscripts are the work of what you and Protestants generally call the lazy, igno- rant, dissolute Monks. The Protestant Harman, in his "Introduction to the Holy Scriptures," page 48, says: "The convents of the Christians, existing from the early centuries of the Church to the present day, have been safe depositories of Christian Scriptures. The convent has p r oved the ark for the transmission of the ancient maim- scripts to us." Now, Mr. Jones, after the manuscripts were made by the Monks and in their possession to alter and interpolate, for a thousand yea rs before Protestantism came into exist- ence, how can you aSBume, even with an "if," that the American Revised edition has been made from duly authen- ticated copies of the original manuscripts. You still harp on "the original manuscripts in Hebrew and Greek," know· ing, as you should know, that there are no original manu- scripts in existence in Hebrew, or Greek, or in any other language. There is not even a manuscript known to be a flrst or immediate copy from the originals. ON QUESTIONS OF THE BIBLE 11 CHAPTER III. P ,EDIGREE OF THE PROTES'l.' AN'.r VERSION, MR,' JONES: "But the Protestant Version lived in the time of Christ and His Apostles, not only in original manu- script copies, but in the autographs, and for over 1,000 years after, continued said existence by copying a nd recopying original copies. Those whose Bible lived thus were in the minority, and the Bible of the majority was the manuscript Bibles of Ita lic and Vulgate." FATHER LAMBERT: This is a vain and puerile begging of the whole question, assuming as proved or admitted what is neither proved nor a dmitted. As such it docs not d .'·;erve a serious reply. A version, as Mr. Jones SllOUld know, is a translation, and as a matter of history he should know that there was no Protesta nt translation until made by Protestants. The copying and r ecopy ing of m a nu sc rip ts was done by the monks, as Dr. Harman testifies. Needless to say th at t.hese monks were not Protestants. The autographs ca.Imot be tra.ced further than the third century, and the oldest copies go ba.ck only to the fourth century. It is not improbable that there were mOl'll copjes of versions or translations than there were copies of the originals, but to say that any of these copies or versions were Protestant is too a.bsurd for refutation. The luean- iug of words should not be ta.mpered with. It is not at all improbable that those who used copies in the origiuu.l lan- guages of the Scriptures were in th e minority, and that those who u sed translations were in the majority. )~ut Ii is not true to say that the majority used the Italic OJ' the . Vul gate. for t h e great m a jority of early Christians were as Ignorant of t h e Italic or Latin as they were of the Greci<. They, like the people of this age, used translations. Thus ther e were translations into the Ethiopic, th e .Armenian, the R ashmuric, the Coptic, the Slavonic, the Gothic, th e Syriac a ud other lang uages, and doubtl ess those who u sed these various versions were more numerous than those who 12 FATHER LAMBERT'S CONTROVERSY used the original Greek, or even the Latin, just as a major- i ty use translations now. Consequently, when you say the majority used the Italic or Vulgate, you forget the exist- ence of the translations in many other languages. All these translations, as well as the Italic and Vulgate, were made to meet the needs of those early Christians who did not understand the language of the originals. Among these Ch r istians, and the Greeks, the Latins were not in the majority. Those Christians, except the Greeks, acquired their knowledge of Christianity from speeches in their various languages or from translations of the New Testa- ment, just as modern people acquire it . MR. JONES: "As the Protestant Bible emerged froill' the age of manuscri-pts to that of print, the famous Wm. Tyn- dale went back to these same original manuscripts, not in Latin, but in the more original, Hebrew and Greek." FATHER LAMBERT: The Protestant Version of the Bible had no existence in the age of manuscripts. It emerged into existence in the shape of translations, recog- nized by critics and scholars as corrupt .translations, at t he time of the Western revolt against the Catholic Church. B:fore that time there was no such thing known to the Ch ristian world as the "Protestant Bible." Luther's trans·· lation in German and Tyndale's in English were the first specimens of the Protestant Bible. Sir Thomas More exposerl t he corru ptions of Tynclale's translation. In the New 'l'es- tament part of it Bishop Tunstal discovered no less than 2,00 0 corruptions. You say Tyndale translates from original H ebrew and Greek. The originals do not seem to have been able to prevent him from corrupting the text. The character of the English Protestant Bibles, prior t o the Authorized Version of King James, may be learned from the protests against them made by those who urged t h e King to authorize a new translation. One of these pro- tests says tha t "Our translation of the psalms, comprised in t.h e B00k of Comm0n Prayer, doth, in addition, subtrac- ON QUESTIONS OF THE BIBLE tion and a itei'ation differ from the truth of the lip-brew in at l east two hundred places." If two h ul1llrcd corruptions were found in the 1'5a 1mB alunc, huw many mur il must h'll'e r..een ill th e whol e B ible ? " Th e 1';lJglish trnnsiato r s ," says Cm'l isle, " hav e dq)nLved [h e se nse, obs(Ju r rd Lh,· truth , and dC( 'eived th e ign, )r aut; in many places th ey di stor t [I,e Scriptur'es from their right Sf·nse ami show theru",e}ves to loye darkness r a th er than l ight, fal sehood more t han truth ." The ministers of the Diocese of Lincoln, in their appeal, said to the King that the English translation of the Bible "is a translation that tak es away from the text, that adds to the text, and that sometim es to the cha ng in g or obscur- ing of the meaning of the Holy Ghost." Another zeal ous Protestant, Broughton, declared to the Bishops that "the ir translations of the Scriptures into }]nglish (Bishop's Bibl e) is such that it perverts the text of the Oltl Testammt in cight hundred and forty-eight piaces." Sl~ch as they we r e, l,owel'er, they were not the first that appeared in the vulgar tongues of Europe. Th er e were many Catholic translations in print before that of Luther or Tyndale. MR. JONES: "Now a translation of the 'Authorized Version (which is the ed ition you referred to), which i5 but an offspring of the scholarship of Tyndale and fellow- 'students, hus come to us from the original manuscripts, is more correct than that of the Roman Catholic Version, be- 'cause the former i s fifteen steps, at least, nearer the hand- writing of the blessed Apostles." FATHER LAMBERT: 'iI,le ·have seen the character of the s chola r ship or honesty o(Tyndale's translation. To call the A uth orized V er sion an offspring of it is not saying much for it. By "origina.l manuscripts" we suppose you mean man- uscripts in the original langua.ges of the Scriptures. YOIl speak of these manuscripts as if Protestant transrators alone had r cco urs e to them. Tlwse manuscripts were ill the hands of Catholics before Protestantism had existence, 14 FATHER LAMBERT;S CONTROVERSY and Catholic translators had recourse to them. There wer~ two Greek printed editions of the New Testament, one by -Erasmus, a Catholic, in 1516, and the other by Cardinal Ximines, in 1514, at· Alcala in Spain, twelve years before Tyudale made his corrupt English translation. The Old 'Testament was printed in Hebrew in 1488 by a Hebrew ;Printer at Soncino in Lombardy. So there was no lack of ~Jrinteu Bibles in the original languages before Tyndale pub - ~ished his translation in 1526. That the Douay translators madc a faithful version into English is shown by the fact that King James' Authorized Version approaches nearer tv it than any former Protest- an t version did, and that the r ecent Revised Version ap- proaches nearer still. Take, for example, the Lord's I'rayer in Matthew vi " 9-13. In the last verse the King's Authorized Version has "For Thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, forever. Amen." The recent Hev ised Version omits these words entirely, and in doing so makes the Prayer (,OJ'respond with the Catholic transla- tion. Jnst how this crroneous translation "comes fifteen steps, at least n carer the handwritings of the blessed Apostles" we l eave Mr. Jones to explain. We do not say that King James' translators added the above words to the Lord's Prayer intentionally. It ean be explained by sup- posing that they had hefor e them an incorrect copy of the original. So doubtless thought the editors of the R€vised 'Version, on comparison with other copies of the originals- and with the Catholic Translation . At any rate they made the text coincide with the latter. MR. JONES: "If you can show me that it is not, and that the Catholic is more correct, I am willing to bow down and a l so make a subscription to the benefit of the Catholic Truth Society of New York." What we have said above goes to show that the Catho- lic Version is, on the authority of Protestant translators, the more correct version. Whether their authority will con- -vince you or not is another story. ON QUESTIONS OF THE BIBLE 15 CHAPTER IV. ORIGINAL MANUSCRIPTS AND COPIE'S. MR. JON E S : "Certainly 'we have original manuscripts of the Bible." FATHER LAMBERT: Certainly we have not. We have remote copies of the origina l manuscripts, but they are not original manuscripts, for the simple reason that they are copies. MR. JONES: "The duly 3,uthenticated copies made fr om duly authenticated copies of the autographs are properly called origina ls." F ATIIER L AMBERT: They a r c n ot origina ls, and cannot be properly called so, Th ey began a s copies and th ey r ema iu copies or transcripts. You speak of a uthenticated copies of authenticated copies. Where a re these copies, and who authenticated th em? And who authenticated the no longer existing copies from which your "auth enticated" copies were copied ? All this t a lk of authenticated copies comes with bad logic from a Protestant who by hi s rule of faith- the Bible alone-must r eject tradition and the authority of the Church. Aside from Church authority and tradition where is there any proof that the now non·existent copies were correct copies of the originals ; or where is your evi· dence that tbe existing copies are correct copies of the non· existent ones? MR. JONES: "Extant legal docum ents and medical pa· pel's are eorrectly called original documents, though it be known th at they a re but copies of authenti cated (?) copies of the first origin a ls which have been long since worn out a lld disappeared." FATHER LAMBERT: How ca n they be correctly called original documents when it is known that they a re but copies of the ori ginals? MR. JI) NE!3 : "Th e form er-that is, the copies-are r ec- ogn.ized as ol'igin al, anti so honored by th e highest courts of the l and, " FATHER LAMBERT: When a copy of an original ' docu- 10 FATHER LAMBERT'S CONTROVERSY ment-in the absence of that original-is duly proved to the satisfaction of the co urt to be a correct copy, the court ac- cepts it as a copy, not as an original document, which the court knows to be lo ot_ MR. JONES: " You certainly know this, and, knowing it, you are too broad a man a nd ripe scholar not to consider it." FATHER LAMBERT : vVe are broad enough to know that no court ever knowingl y r eceived a copy of a document as the original document. It receives the copy only when it is duly verified, not as the original, but as a true copy of it. The court always distinguishes between similarity and iden- tity. MR. J Ol'{ES : " The old axiom still lives: 'Things that are equal to the same thing are equal to each other.' Our oldest manu5cripts are therefore equal to the first originals, and are themselves original." FATHER LAMBERT: Even if we were to grant you- which we do not-that the copies were complete and cor- rect, they would sii1l be copies, and not the originals. You confound similarity with identity. The old axiom is true, ' but your a.pplication of it is incorrect. Let you mu.ke a perfect copy of your' neighbor's draft for a thousand dol- lars, signature and all, and present it to the bank_ When your neighbor di scovers it he will soon teach you that things that are like the same thing are not the same ",Ling. There is a. weight, an authority attached to the l,hrase "original docum ent" that is not attached to a copy or tran- script_ You seem to desire to give the latter the full weight of the former by miscalling it the former. It is to pre- vent this abuse of terms th at we insist on the distinction hetween a n original document a nd a copy of it. MR. ,TONES: "I dispute the correctness of your tramla- Hon of Acts,i, 18, as given by Jerome: 'Et hic quidem possedit agrum de mercede iniquitatis et suspensus,' etc. If you h ad used the word 'praecipitatus,' instead of 'suspensus,' I would not so much object. But, pray, from what original mource did Jerome draw 'suspensus'? There is nothing in ON QUESTIONS OF THE BIBLE 17 any of the accepted original Greek texts that I 'nave exam- ined to warrant it. From what Greek manuscript did Je- rome receive it 1" FATHER LAMBERT: St. Jerome answers your ques- tion by stating in his "De Viris Illustribus," "I brought t he New Testamcnt (of the V ctllS Itala) into accord with the original Greek." And in his dedication to Pope Damasus, prefixed to the Four Gospels, "The Foul' Gospels have been revised by collating 01 i Greek manuscripts." Here it must be noted that in the year of our Lord, 382, St. Jerome, in his letter to Pope Damasus, calls the Greek manuscripts which he issued "old." Those manuscripts therefore dated not only beyond the fourth century, but beyond any manuscript of the Greek Testament now exist- ing. St. Jerome, therefore, had an advantage over you in having more ancient · Greek manuscripts to consult than are within yo ur r each. The Vetus Itala which he was revising was older than any Greek manuscript known to us of to-day. Dr. Westcott, an em inent Protestant authority, says of it: "This translation (the Vetus Itala) \I'a s fixed and currcn t more than a cen- tury before the trallscription of the oldest Greek manu- script. Thus it is a witness to a text more ancient and caoteris pa:ribtt8 more "aluable than is represented by any other authority, unless the F'eshito in its present form be excepted." Hence we con clude that, as St. Jerome's honesty and Greek scholarship have not been questioned, he found before him in those old Greek manuscripts valid reasons for the word, "suspensns"-hanged-in reference to Judas, found in Acts i, 18. It is a word that clears Matthew and Luke of contradiction. 18 FATHER LAMBERT'S CO NTROVERsy CHAPTER V. GLARING OONTRADICT ION IN THE PROTElSTANT VERSION. MR JONES : "You suy thcre is nothing in the text to justify your insertion of 'suspensus.''' FATHER LAMBERT : Nothing in what text? The Greek text before you, or the ea rli er Greek text that was before St. Jerome? His being the earlier, nearer to the originals of the sacred writers, is by all the rules of critical judg· me nt, more r eliable than yours. MR J ONES : "You say, 'Let t he r eader judge.' That is just what I want the read er to do. You an d I cannot be good judges in our own casc o L et the Biblical scholarship of the country pass judgnlent thereon. I will abide by its dccision. If you can satisfactorily prove your translation to be the more correct I am ready to put as ide that of the American Revised and accept that of the Vulgate." FATHER LAMBERT: That is very well, but your propo- sition involves what logicians call an " ignoratio el en chi ," you mistake t h c r eal question . You want u s to . prove that St. Jerome's is a correct translation of a manuscript which he never saw. He tra nslated from a copy much more an- cient, nea r er the Apostles, than any manuscripts existing now, or t h an any from which modern translations have been made; manuscripts that he called "olel" in his time, n amely, in the fourtll century. His translation was ac- cepted by the Biblica l scholarship of his time, when Greek was better known than now, and when m anuscript eopies were purer and fr eer from errors incident to transcdption than later copies. The question t h en is not wheth er St. Jerome's is a correct translation of the more modern manuscript, which he never saw, and which you admit t.o have been vitiated by the in- terpolation of "For th ine is the Kingdom, etc.," in the I.ord's Prayer, but whether his is 11 correct translaLion of the. more ancient manuscript used by him. The 'luestion raised by you r proposal is this, which manuscript was the purer and fre er from errors, the ancient ON QUESTIONS OF THE BIBLE 19 "Ile use d. I)y t:l t. Jerome, or the more modern one used by t.1,e translators of the version authorized by King James! jICcording to the rules of sOWld criticis m, the more ancient copies are prefen ed as 1:eing more free from errors or t r ans- cription, or errors of malice, or of defective j uugme11L. That the more modern manuscript u sed by t h e English l'rotestant translator~ was yit iated by interpolation you a dmit and try to explain away. A witness who is convicted of having falsified in m att er;; yu u know of is not to be trusted in matters you knOYl not of. What is true of a witness is equally true of a manu script claimed to be ~. cor- rect copy ()f the originaL If found false in one case, its cla im to be a correct copy is no longer valid. Such, aecord· illg to your own alimission, was the copy used by the Eng· lish translators. After such admission, is it not absurd in you to ask us to prove that St. Jerome's translation of an anc ient copy harmonizes with an admitted incorrect copy of the origin al? MR. JONES : "Allow me to repeat tbat there is no con · tradiction between Matthew and Luke in their rendering of the hanging of Judas a s described in Matthew, xxvii, 5, amI Acts, i, 18 ." FATHER LAMBEHT: We certainly a llow you to r epeat that there is no contrad iction, but at the same time we r eo serve to ourselves tb e right to repeat that there is a con· t ra di ction in the t exts as given in both the Authorized and the R evised Protestant versions of the Bible. Certainl y Ma.ttbew and Luke did not contradict each other, buL your Protestant v ersion ma k es th em do so. In St. Jerome's tra n slation of a more ancient copy of the original tha.n that used by th e English translators t h ere is no ('ontradiction, a proof of its great er reliability . MH. JONES: "Each of tbe writers described a differ ent pbase of the occurrence, and each gave truly the facts of th e particular impressions made." FATHER LA1>{BEHT: Each of the writers desc ribed the fact and manner of .Tudas' deatb , and we who believe in the 20 FATHER LA~mERT'S CONTROVERSY inspiration of the Scriptures must assume that they did not contradic t each other. Assuming this, we are for ced to the conclusion t hat the Protestant translation of the two texts referred to is erroneOllS, or that the manuscript from which it was m a de was defective, and that the anc ient ruanu8cript which St. J erome translated was a correct copy, for in the former there i s a co ntradiction, in the l atte r there is not. MR. JONES: "Matthew emphasi:ted the hanging; Luke the effect, the falling forward from the end of a rope and 'bursting as under.' H ow make this out a contradiction 1" F A'rHER LAMBERT: The question i s as to the words of the two texts, and not as to your interpretation and ex- planation of them. In the texts, as found in your version of the Bible, Matthew tells u s that Judas h a nged himself; Luke tells u s that he f ell in a field and burst asunder. In the latter text there is no s uggestion of a rop e or of hang- ing. The contradiction in the t exts of your version is evi- dent. According to Matthew, Judas was a s ui cide; accord- ing to Luke, he was the vi ctim of a n accident. As th ere is no such contradiction in St. J er om e's translation of these texts, .we must conclude that the ancient copy of the original which he translated was more reli a.ble than the copy used by your English translators. MR. JONES: . "In order to make it a contradiction these writers would have to contradict thems elves on the same point mentioned by each." FATHER L AMBERT: ' iVell, the point m entioned by each was the ueath of .lud~s . One gives h an ging as the C:1Use of llis death , the other gives fallin g in a field and hursting asunder as the canse of his death, one makes him a suicide; the other a victim of fe n accident . We do not say MaLthew nnd Luke did this. E ut they are m a de to do it b'S 'the Protestant Translation of the Scriptures. You say there i s no cont.radiction . Suppose Matthew l,ad said nothing a bout the death of Judas, what ill1pres· 8ion would you get from th e worels in Acts i .. 18. "This man (Judas) purch ase d a fi eld with the rewa rd of his ON QUESTIONS OF THE BIBLE 2i iniquity and falling headlong he burst asunder and all hi" bowels gus hed out." W ould you not conclude that h e died by accident or by a p tUJitiv" vis itation of God ? TtJ e idea of suicide at th e cnd vf a rop e would not have occurred to you . Suppose fur t h er that J osephus or some contemporary historian had written, wha t Ma UII "w did, that Judas hanged himself, \\"ould yo u not deem it nec essary to r ej ect hi s au· t ho rity an,.l prefer that of the inspired writer of the Acts, who said that Judas fell and burst asunder and all his bowels gushed out? MR. JONES: "If Luke stated that Judas burst asunder, and Matth ew had deni ed that b e did burst asund er; then, and only then, would there be a contradiction, and your argument would be entitled to consideration. But this n ei· ther Matthew nor Luke h a s done, namely, contradict each othe r on same point." FATHER LAMBERT: The "same point" is the death of J udas aml the manner of it: Now, a man who comes to his death \;y hanging, cannot truthfully be said to ccme to his death by fa lling anf]. bursting a sunder . These bvo man· ners of death exchlde each other. If one be true the other must be false, hence a contradiction. CHAPTER VI. A QUElSTION OF LOGIC. MR .• TONES: "You seem to not take well to an 'if.' But you need not shy at it, for reasoning based on an 'if' leads t o valid conclusions when the antecedent is adm itted in the mi nor premise. Let it come out to the light. " Major Premise: If th e Am erican Revis ed V ersion h as been made from duly authenticated copies of original manu- scripts, it is mor e correct than a vers ion made from copies of ver sions " Minor Premise: But the American Revised Version has been made from duly authenticated copies of original manuscripts. " Conclusion: Therefore the American Revised Version is more correct than a version made from copies of ver- lions. " This conclusion j g bas ed on an 'if,' and seems to m e not lame in the least." 22 FATHER LAMBERT'S CONTROVERSY FATHER LAMBEl{T: It is, nevertheless, lame, lmt it seems like a loss of time to s pend any of it in following your dialectic excursion. But we have no choice but to go where you lead. Well, then, your conclusion does not rest on all " if," as you think. It rests on the minor premise; if the minor be true the conclusion is- true, if the minor be false, or not proved, or not admitted, the conclusion is false, or not proved, or not admitted. Again, if the minor be affirm- ative the conclusio"l must be affirmative; if negative the conclusion must be negative. A short reflection on these principles of the syllogism will make it clear to you, or ought to, that in your syllogism t he nature of your conclu- sion depends on the nature of th e minor, and not on t he "if." To make this still more clear, we will show that your conclusion may be as logically deduced from your premises after we have changed your hypothetical major to the categorical form. Using the symbols to save space, your syllogism stands thus: "If the American Revised Version is A it is B. But t he American Revised Version is A. Therefore it is B." Changing the major from the hypothetical to the cate· gorical form the syllogism stands thus and r eaches the same conclusion: "Every version that is A is B. But the American Re- vised Version is A. Therefore the American Revised Ver- sion is B." Here the conclusion is arrived at without the "if," and therefore it in no way depends on it. But why this dry digressi0n ahout so little a word as "if?" W'elJ, we took your hint and thought it well not to shy at it, hut to show that it is not of the fundamental im- portance you thought it was. We have said that your conclusion is lame. To show this we must consider your syllogism as a whole. Therc is a defect in the major which finds its way through the minor into tIle conclusion, violating and rendering it lame. It is ON QUESTIONS OF THE BUlLE (\Je fa ilure in your major to make a very important dis- tin ction and limi tation _ Yo u say, "If the American Revi sed Version has been Jo Rde from dilly authenticated copies of original manu- scripts-" Here you d? not distingllish between correct and incorrect versions or translati ons, a nd you do not limit yo u r statement to correct translation s. Owing to this lack of necessary syllogistic explicitness you make the mere fact of tran slation from authenticat.ed copies of the original s th e ground of sup eriority over other translations made from copies of versions. Now "correctness" of translation is a necessary element of yo ur r easonin g, if you would nave you r conclusion go with out crutches. Owing to this de- fect-failure to say "correct translation or version"-your conclusion proves that even a n incorrect or false translation of a n original i s superior io a correct t r ans lation of a cor- rect t r a n slation fr om a n auth entic copy of the original man- uscripts simply because the incorrect transl ation is made fr om duly a uthenti cated copies of t h e origina ls . Now we have enough confidence in your judgment to beli eve yo u did not intend to make so absurd a conclusion. But, neverthe- less, this absurd conclusion is the l ogical deduction from you r prem i ses, and is all sufficient to prove that you r wh ole syllogism i s vitiated by t h e defrct in your m ajo r , a defect that passes to the minor and lurks in the conclusion. Your syllogism, as worded, is illegitim ate-a log ical monstrosity. You will say you meant "corr ect version or translation." Doubtless you did, but we a r e n ow criticising your syllo- g ism as you made it, n ot as you may h a ve intend ed to ma ke it. It is the business of a syll ogism to say a ll a nd no mor e than its m aker intends. Having done with you r syllog is m as to its form , we w ill now con sider the matter of it. Overlooking th e vitiating defec t in yOUl' m a jor .and assumin g it to be a U that it ought to b e, we pa ss to the minor. This minor says that th e American R evised V er sion is made from duly authenti- cated copies of th e originals. Holding you to your Protest , 24 FATHER LAMBERT'S CONTROVERSY ant Rule of Faith-the Bible and the Bible alone-we d your minor. There are but two ways conceivable to auth ticate a copy of an original. First, by comparison with original; second, by some competent authority declar ' that it contains the true sense of the original. The fl way is practically impossible, since the originals no Ion exist. The second way is impossible to tlie Protestant, sin he recognizes no competEnt authority to determine the t sense of the non-existent originals. Now, inasmuch as the originals no longer exist, we alSlt you who authenticated the manuscript copies used by the translators of the ~'linerican Revised Version? On what authority do you say they were "duly authenticated 1" Au. thenticated by whom? The fact is you have in the last analysis no competent authority for saying those manuscript copies are duly au. thenticated, either as correct reproductions of the words ot of the sense of the originals. We, therefore, reject y OUl' minor, and with it the conclusion must fall. This is why we have called it lame. On reflection we must candidly admit that the word "lame" is not strong enough. We sho uld have said it had no legs on which to even limp. But you will ask, Does not all you have said as to the authentication of copies bear equally against all cnpies ill existence or that existed since the originals were lost 1 It certainly does, so far as copies claiming to be verbal reproductions of t.he originals are concerned, and it Is equally against all copies claiming to reproduce the h ue sense of the originals, unless there is on earth an authority competent t.o determine the identity of sense in the existent copy and the non-existent origin;],l. For you, with y OUl' Bible alone, there is no such unthority, and consequently the authentication of copies of any or all the sacred origi- nals is impossible .. not only as to words but as to sense as well. It is different with the Catholic. He holds that Our Divine J,ord, before departing from this world, establiebe4 ON QU!];S' I'IONS OF THE BIET,!]; 2:) gis Church to continue His work of teaching and governing gis flock for all time. He promised to be with it for all time and commanded His followers to hear it under pain of bei ng looked upon as heathens and publicans. According to His promise the Holy Ghost is with it to direct its teach- ing and guard it from error and from all danger of leading into error those whom it was commissioned to teach and lead to salvation. 'rhis Church St. Paul calls "The House of God, the Church of the living God, the pillar and ground of t ruth."- I. Tim., iii, 15. This Church , visible now as always, taught and governed th e flock of Christ in obedience to His command before one word of the New Testament was written. He made it the guardian of His revelation of all that He revealed, it lmew th e sense of the original Scriptures and knows it tlii1'lugh all the centuries. It was this Church that in the post- apos tolic age taught the people what Books were inspired and what were not. It was this Church that, in the General Council of Trent, orda ined and declared that " the old and vulgate edition, which, by the lengthened usage of so many ages, has been approved of in the Church, be . held as authentic," that is, that the Vulgate repr oduces the true sense of the original Scriptures. This is the only authentication that is needed by those who seek the truth. For the Catholic it, and it a lone, is all sufficient. It is a sense authentication, not a verbal one, for the Church does not depend 011 the fallibility of transcribers or copyists fOl the truth she teaches, but on the promise of its Divine Founder, Who builded it on a rock and made it the Pillar and Ground 'of Truth. MR. JONES: ''Your entire argument that Jerome u!!ed a more correct copy than the translators of the Authorized Version is based on a presumption." FATHER LAMBERT: We stated that the copy used by St. Jerome was more anc icnt than any used by the transla- tors of the English King' s Bible known as the Authorized 26 FATHER LAMBERT'S CONTROVERSY Version. Now, it is a principle recognized by you and Bi~ lical scholars that the more ancient the copy, the nearer th8' Apostolic times, the more correct and r eliable it is. H€incJ! if you admit the fact that St. Jerome's copy was mOll ancient you mu st admit, according to the above rule, t he. it is better than more modern copies. The presumption st a nds valid until you prove that St. Jerome's copy was not more ancient, a t hing yon cannot do. But we h ave positive proof of the superiority of St. J erome's cepy over tha t of the translators of the Authorized Version . Th e copy used by those translators h ad the interpol ation , "For Thine is the Kingdom, etc." in the Our Fath er (Matth. vi, 5-9 . ) It was translated and believed by Protestants to be the Word of God since 1611 , that is, for nearly three hundred yea rs. The "authors of your Revised Vernion r ecognized the words as an interpolation and h ave thrown th em out. Some old Greek copyist with more piety than judgment forgot his rol e of translator an d thought the Lord's Prayer would be im· proved by the a ddition of a doxology which, t bough beautiful in iteelf, when out of place-as it is in the Sacred TeJ>.'t- destroys the claim of the copy to correctness and purity. The translators of t h e Authorized Versi on were misled by the unfaithfulness of the copy and they in turn misled the Protestant English - speaking people for nearly three hundred years. Now this interpolation was not in the copy u sea by St. Jerome, for it is not found in his translation-the Vul· gate. Therefore, we mu st conclude that the copy used by St. J erome is better, because more faithful to the originals. Tl~is conclusion is more than a presumpfion; it is a demon- stration. CHAPTER VII. ADDING TO THE BIBLE . . MR. JONES: "You ask 'by whom has it (the American Revis ed Version) been r ecognized as the standard edition?' I would r eply, by the denomination to which I belong, and by every other Evangelical denomination in this country, as far as I know. If you investigate a little in New York, yo~ ON QUU;STIONS OF THE BIBLE 2i will find it accepted and put above all former editions in th e churches by leading scholars and published and taught in the Sabbath school l essons side by side with those of the Aut horized edition. But, remember, it is yet but young, and cannot be expected to have the circulation that has been accorded to the Authorized Version." FATHEn LAMBEnT: We spoke of an official authorita- tive act of some church or denomination giving its official sanction to the American Revi sed Version as the Standard. All tbat you say only shows that the Protestant denomina- ti ons merely tolerate the use of it by fueir silence, not that tb ey have given it official sanction. If any such official rec- ognition has been given the Revis ed Version we are not aware of it, and we would be obliged to you if you would tell us when, where and by what denomination it has been done. As for your scholars, they r ecognized for three-lmn· dred years a version that is now admitted to be incorect, interpolated and, therefore, not represent.ative of the ori.gi- uals. After so protracted an error of judgment their sanc~ tiOD of a new version is not of sufficient weight to be au- tho ritative. MR. JONES: "As to the insertion of 'Thine is tbe King- dom, the power,' etc., to the end of the Lord's Prayer, in the Authorized Version, I believe it has been merely added as doxology, the revisers, I presume, believing that too much praise and 'amens' could not be added to the I,ord's Prayer. I don't see how this would 'mi slcad' or injure Protestants if they used it 'for three hundreCl yen 1'S.' Since not addeCl to the Lord's Prayer as Scripture, it could not mislead as Scripture." FATHER LAMBERT: You are douhfless right in believ- ing that those words, "For Thine is the Kingdom, etc," were added as a doxology, added by the Greek copyist and turned into English by the translators of the Authorized Version of King James. vVhatevpr motive the copyist had in view- and we need not suppose a bad one-he corrupted t.he origi- nal text, and t.he English translators, followin g him, misl ed E nglish-speaking people into using a form of prayer as fle- livered by our I,ord that was not d elivered by Him; made t hem victims of a decer>tion, whether pious or otherwiRe does not concern us. The p eo ple wantcd the prayer as dl!' livered, and they did not get it. If ihis be not misleadi ng a nd an injust ice to the too confidin g Frotesi a nt reader we know not the mcaning of those words. You say the words, "For Thine is thc K ingdom, etc.," wer e not added to the Lord's Prayer "as Scripture." We do not see what possessed you to ma k e that stat ement. Look at Matthew vi , 13, and see if it be not added as Scripture. It is preci se ly b ecause it is g iven in the t ext as if spoken by our Lord that we object to it. W e remember the time when as a boy it Wlj,S poin ted out to u s' as an evidence of the supe· riority of the Protestant Bible ove r tbe Catholic, with t h e hint that dishonest Cath olic tran slators h a d wickedly sup· pressed it. Now, h owever, the revisers of the America n Ver sion have, a ft er lhree hundred years, vindicated the sup eriority of the Catholic Version. . MR. JONES : "And by adding it Protestants imagined that there was nothing wrong in it any more than Roman Cath olics would think it wrong to add to the 'Hail fu ll of Grace,' gathered from the Scriptures, the following wor ds : 'Hol y Mary, Mother of God, pray fo r u s sinners now and at t he hour of our death . Amen.''' FATHER LAMBERT : Catholi cs h ave no more right to pLlt words or sentences into th e wr it i ngs of th e author of the Sacred Text, and make t h em say what they did n ot say, than unfa ithful copyists or Protestant t ranslators have. You do n ot deny that a n unfaithful copyist or the transl a- tors of th e A.uthorized Version h ave don e this t hing i n Matthew vi, 13. You cannot deny it, s in ce th e revisers of t h e American Ver sion , whom you approve, h ave thrown out as spurious the words, "For T hine is tn e Kin gdom, etc. ," fr om t h at verse. The Protestn,nt who imagines there is nothin g w r on g in fa lsifyin g by interpolation or otherwise, the Sacred T ext , sadly llPcds primary instructions in th e first prin ciples of mora l r ectitud e. But the ques tion ie n ot what Protestants may imagin e not to be wrong, but is verse 13 of ch a pter v i in the A.uthorized Version a true re- production of the original? You adm it it is not, and you r ON QUESTIONS OF THE BIBLE excllse that " Protestants imagi n ed that t here was nothing wrong in it" is to no purpose. The question is as to cor- rectncss of translation, or copy. To mitigate the offense of interpolating, and t h ereby cor- rupting the Script ures, you say, first, "Protestants imagined there was noth ing wrong in it ." A stran ge confession, in- lieed, an acknowl edgment of mora l imb ecility, of ignoran ce of the first principles of morals. And, second, you r esort to t h e boy's argument of "you're anoth er," and insinuate that Catholics h ave clone the same thing, in terp olated wo rds in the sacred t ext-added to "H:lil fu ll of Grace," in Luke i, 28, the prayer, "Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for li S, sinners, now und at the hour of our death. Amen." It is very vexatiou s to have to meet a statement like that. It is so diffi cult to be polite in sta mpin g it as it de- serves to he stamped. Look in the Cath olic Version at Luke .i, 28, and you will find n o such add ition or interp olation as tha t you in sinuate is there. MR. JONES : " If it ha s been wrong for Protestants to a dd a doxology which h as n ever been consider ed on a level with thc Word of God--" FA'I'HER LAMBERT: ' Ve must interrupt you to say that it is wrong to add or interpolate into t h e Sacred ' Text of St. Luke a sentence that does not belong th er e. Do that sa me with thc teJ..;; of a will and you render YOllrself li ab le to prosccution and punishment. If it be a crime to corrupt by interp olationrJ t he will of a dead man, is it not a gr eater crime to corrupt by the sa me means the Written Word of God ? On what authority do you say it was never consid- ered on a l evel wilh 1-hc ' Vord of God? If it was n eve r co n· sidered on a level with the 'Word of God wh y was it put in the Authorized Ver s ion as a part of th e Word of God? From the time the interpol ation was pu bli shed in the "A u· t horized" V ersi on, Protestants have con sidered it as the Word of God, and have b een taught so to con sider it. Now y ou can proceed. 30 FATHER LAMBER~I"S CONTROVERSY . MR. JONES: "Sur ely it would not have been less crim- inal for the Roman Catholic Church to add a prayer to the 'Hai l full of Grace.''' FATHER LA1>1BEHT: It would not have been less criminal for a ny church or an y person to incorporate into the Scriptures things not written there by the sacred au - thors. You snreiy know that the Catholic Church or Catl,· olic t r a n slators have not done this . If you do not know it, then look at the text, Luke i, 28, as we have before adviseu. you. MR. JONES: "Besides, the a ddition to the Lord's Prayer in the Authorized Version is conceded to be consistent with the Sacr ed Writings." FATHER LAMBERT: The consistency vf the addition, or interpolation, is not t h e question between you and us, but the corr ectness and puri ty of the Sacred T"xt. Any inter- polation, consistent or otherwise, makes the text spurious, and misrep rescnts the origin 'LI author. It is inconsistent with the moral (Jode of the Scriptures. CHAPTER VIII. FALLIBLE) COPIES AND THE INFALLIBLE CHURCH. MR. JONES: "You state that we have not the originals of the Scriptur es, even t hough we h ave t rue copies thcreof. I am con.fiilent that we have. W ho is to decide 1" FATHER LAMBERT: You can decide it. if you can pro- duce or locate a sin gle manuscript wr itten by a nyone of t he authors of the books of the Bible. A, long as you can - not do this-find you know you cannot-you should not l) e so "confident" that we have them. That is· the only way to decide. Copies -even true copies-are noth ing more than copies. They are no more originals t h an a .photo· graph of Mr. Jones is the original of M r. Jones. We simply insist on th·~ correct u se of words. T he incorrect use, or abuse of wo rd s, is, of a ll the sources of error, the most prolifi c; it should be avoided with strenuous care. If you sold a copy of t.he Transfiguration :ts th e· original of R aphael you coul d be prosecuted for it, a nd no court would ON QUESTIONS Oll' THE BIBLE 31 let you oft on the plea that it was a correct copy of the original. The very plea would be taken by the court as i1 confession of fraud, and it would punish you accordingly for representing a thing to be wbat you knew it was not-thus t aking advantage of your dupe's ignorance. MR. JONES: "You don't seem to accept original for the Bible in any sense." FATHER .LAMBERT: vVe are not talking about the Bible; we are talking of manuscripts, and no copy of a manuscript is the original manuscript. This is so plain a fact that it is su.rprising tbat anyone is fotmd-even in so smoky a place as Pittsburg-to deny it. MR. JONES: "Then why does the Douay Bible in its preface say that it is made 'from the Latin Vulgate and diligently compared with the original Mss.?' " .FATHER LAMBERT: vVe do not know why the writer of t hat preface said that. We can only surmise that if h e said it, he fell into the same error you did, and said " original manuscripts" when he m eant manuscript copies in the language of the original manuscripts. In the Douay Bible before us we do not find the quotation you give. But we find on its title page the following: "Holy Bible, trans· lated from the Latin Vulgate. Diligently compared with t he Hebrew, Greek and other editions, in divers languages." There is nothing here about "original manuscripts." MR. JONES: "If we have no true copies of the originals, n either Protestants nor Catholics have the true Word of God at all." FATHER LAMBEUT: If our Lord left no means to know the Word of God, but through the fallibility of trans- scribers we would be in a bad way, indeed. This fallible medium is no t- a secure enough basis to rest our faith upon, a nd we could never be certain that we knew the revealed trnth a nd will of God. But the fallibility of transcribers was not the means left us by our Lord to arrive with certainty at a knowl- edge of the truths He revealed. He established His Church 32 FATHER LAMBERT'S CONTROVERSY as the Supreme teacher and guide of His flock in all things whatsoever He commanded. He said: "Thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build My Church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it." (Matth. xvi, 18.) To this Church He intrusted the whole deposit of revealed truth-the Word of God-when He said to it in the person of its first ministers, "All power is given to Me in Heaven and on earth; going, therefore, teach ye all nations. * Teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have com- manded you; and, 10, I am with you all days, even to the consummation of the world." (Matth. xxviii, 18-20.) To enable the teaching body of His Church to fulfill this great commission, and forget nothing, He said: "I will ask the Father, and He shall give you another Paraclete, that he may abide with you forever, the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive because it seeth him not nor knoweth him; but you shall know him, because he shall abide with you, and shall be in you . " * * The Para- clete, the Holy Ghost whom the Farner will send in My name, He will teach you all things, and bring all things to your mind, whatsoever I shall have said to you." "(John xiv, 16-26.) This teaching body thus commissioned and animated by the Holy Ghost, St. Paul calls "The Church of the living God the pillar and ground of truth.'; (I Tim. iii, 15.) This Church is the divinely ordained medium through which men can arrive at a knowledge of the revealed truth-the Word of God. This Church taught the revealed truth in- trusted to her before a word of the New Testament was put in writing, and would continue to teach it if no original writinge or copies of them had come down to us. To say she would not is the same as to say_ that Christ's promises h ave failed, and that He was therefore a false prophet. This Church of His, the Pillar and Ground of Truth, has existed through the ages, and still exists on earth, still con- tinuee to be the guardian and exponent of revealed truth, ON QUESTIONS OF TlIl~ BIBLE 33 whether written or unwritten. And if we have the written word to-day, after two thousand years, it is because of her guardianship of it. It does not then follow, as you think, that if we had no correct copies of the original manu- scripts we would not have the 'Word of God at all. It is true that you who disregard our Lord's command to hear the Church, have no better basis for your knowledge cif the Word of God than the fallibility of transcribers; but not so with those who obey His command and h ear His ChUrch whom He commissioned to teach all things whatsoever He commanded. MR. JONES: "Whom. then, am I .to believe?" FATHER LAMBERT: You are to believe the Church which Christ established and commissioned to teach you, and commanded you to hear under pain of being considered as a heathen or a publican. MR. JONES: "How find the truth of divine revelation?" FATHER LAMBERT: As above. MR. JONES: "Must I got to the visllJle, natural uni- verse to n.nd out God's will and ways and n ature, and my re lation to Him?" FATHER LAMBERT: As long as you persist in disre- garding the will of your Redeemer and refuse to hear the Church-that agency He appointed to teach you-it makes little difference 'where you go to; you will not l earn "he th ings He requires you to know, and to believe uno. .. - penalty Qf damnation. "He that believeth not shall bb "ondemned." (Mark xvi, 16.) MR. JONES: "It seems to me that the translators of the Douay Bible, or the ecclesiastical a uthoriti es superin- tend ing the work, didn't value the original manuscripts as much as they did the Vulgate Version." FATHER LAMBERT: They did not value the original ma nuscripts as much ap they did the VUlgate Version for the very good rea,sol't that the original manuscripts had ceased to I'xist many centuri es before they began their work. They preferred the Latin Vulgate to corrupted 34 FATHEH LAMllERT'S OONTUOVEUSY copies of the original manuscripts, and it appears tfiey had good reason for it. The Rev. Thomas H a rtwell Horne, no friend of the Catholic Church, says in his "Introduction to the Critical Study and Knowledge of the Holy Scrip- tures," vo l. I, page 277: "The Latin Vulgate preserves many true readings where the modern Hebrew copies are corrupted." It is to these corrupted copies that the Cath- olic translators preferred the Latin Vulgate. This you call preferring the Vulgate to the "original manuscripts." MR. JONES: "Why, pray, did the Fathers of the Coun- cil of Trent declare that the Vulgate of St. Jerome 'was superior to the Hebrew or Greek texts' 1" FATHEU LAMBERT: If they did so-and we will have something to say about that in a moment-they doubtless did it because they considered a correct translation of !l document to be superior to a corrupted copy of it, such corrupted copies, for instance, as Horne, the well-known Protestant Biblical scholar, speaks of. MR. JONES: "The belief by a general council speaking on a matter of the highest importance for all Christendom, and r endering 'de fide' that a Latin version is superior to the original text in Hebrew and Greek, discourages further inquiry into the relative merits of our English translations." FATHER LAMBERT: Some one has been playing on your ab so:rptive credulity. The Council of Trent made no such declaration as that which you attribute to it. The decree of the Council concerning the Vulgate was passed in the fourth session. Read it and you will wonder how you could have been so misled as to make so egregious a blunder. There is not one word or sentence in it that could suggest the statement you make; not one word about "the original (-ext in Hebrew and Greek," no comparison whatever made. It would be inter esting to know how you were seduced into making so serious a blunder. Whoever did it ought to ask :vour pardon for h!tving fool ed you into committing your- self so badly. ON QUESTIONS OF THE BIBLE 35 CHAPTER IX. PROTESTANTS IN THE EARLY AGES. MR. JONES : " What you call ' Protestants' were called Christia ns in the early ages of the Church ." FATHER LAMBERT: If you prove that Protestants of to·day belong to the same Church that the early Christians belonged to-that is, to the Church of ,Christ builded on a rock and commission ed to preach what h e commanded the early Christians and His follow er s in all time to h ear, we will concede what you say. Those who do not b elong to that divinely established Church and do not hear and accept its teaching as the J~ord commanded, are not Christians, whatever they may call themselves, whether in a ncient or modern times. Assuming, as we must , that our Lord was not a false proph et, that Church which was to exist for all t ime exists to-day. If you belong to it and accept its teach- ing you can truly say you believe as the early Christians believed, but if you do not belong to it and do not h ea r it, that is, accept its t each ing, you a re, according to the com- mand of our I ,ord, to b e con sidered as a heathen or a pub- hCRn. You may say. this seems sev ere. It undoubtedly does, but you must observe that it is the severity of our Lord H imself, and fr om it you can judge with what aversion He looks upon those who h ea r not Hi s Church, but prefer their own private judgment to its t eaching and revolt against it~ authority. MR. .TONES: "Tlwre is no evidence that I kn ow of th at any other church than that of Christians existed during the first centuri es of our er a ." F Nl'HER LAMBERT: Th e Church establi shed by our I ,nrd and bllilt Oil Peter was the only true Christian Church in the parly Christian ages, and is the only true Church in a ll ages Rinee our Lord said to its ministry: "He th at hears you hears Me ." There were, however, in the early centuries s.ome people 36 FATHER · L AMBER'r'S CONTROVERSY who did not obey the command of Christ to hear Hig Church, who set their private judgment against the divin e:y eo:nmissiored teacher. But such p eo ple were universlllly known ..is l .el'ctics . They were condemned by th~ Church of Chri st and pxpeJled from the household of t he faith as un· worthy lilemhe r s . and fn obedience to the command of Ch rist they wel'e considered as heathens and publicans. II yo u wish to id mtify Protestants of to-day w ith those a n- cient hereties, you are free t o do so. You would h ave guori ground for such identiflcation in th e fac t that they, like you, disregarded the command of ou r Lord to hear this Church, an d preferred t o its infa llible authority th eir own fallible judgment. You m ay ask, I s not a man justified, n ay, b ound, in the la st resort, to follow his own private jurigment, his reason! Yes, reason i s a g ift of God, and every oeing endowed with it sl-jould fol low it until it l eads him into the presence of the Suprem e Wisdom, the divine r easo n Once there, the finit e reason should yield absolutely to the divin e a nd infal- libl e judg ment anri teaching. You, as a Chri stia n , believing in the divinity of Chri st, h av e come face to fRc e with th e supreme and infallible rea- son , the divin e teach er who .. your private judgment tells you , is its sup erior- infinitely so. Once h av in g recogni7.ed this infallible teacher, your judgm ent mu st yield to Him in every thing He deign s to teach you. This, y ou will ad- mit, is the hi gh est di ct ate of huma n r eason and logic. If you are bound by r eason and conscience to y ield your I private judgment to this r ecognized infallible teacher you are equ ally bound to submit in like m ann er to an agent that H e h as a pnoint ecl to ten.ch you . an agent so com netcn t th·, t H e h a.s sa id of it: " H e th at h ear s you h ear s Me." Thi s agent-His t eaching Ohurch-is, as your teacher , H is "Alter Ego," Hi s Oth er Self. To des pise it-to rej ect its authority-i s to despi se Him , and to despise Him is to de- "pise the F ath er who sent Him . H e h as sai d it. Thm , when your privatE; judgment leads you to recogni;;e ON QUESTIONS OF THE BIBLE 37 Christ a, God, it binds itself to accept the teaching of ihll I'p pointed ~gent, His Church, His Other Selt The radical difference between you and the Catholtc j~ this. The Catholic, believing in the divinity of Christ, 1(,' >' ogn i21es the above conclusion as logically necessary, and complies with it ; you r ecognize its logical necess ity !Jut f[,il to comply with it. Just herein is the incon~istency of Prot· estantism, an inconsistency th a t amounts to a r evolt against the authority of Chri st Himself, a refus al to obey His command to "hear the Church." MR. JONES: "These churches (the early) had the same Gospel, the same do ctrines and same order of worship as that of the Christian churches of to·day." FATHER LAMBERT: This is too indefinite. To make it intelligible a.nd definite you must say, first, what you mean by " these churches," whether you mean those churches known in the early ages a's heretical bodies, or whether you mean those people who were members and hearers of the one and only Church which was established by Christ and which He 'commanded all to hear. Second, you must ex· plain what you mean by "the Christian churches of to·day." Until you explain these two things your statement has no definite sense . If by "these churches" you mea,n the heretics of the early ages, and by "the Christian churches of to· day" you mea,n the aggrega,te of all the Protesta,nt sects of the present, we are not disposed to dispute wha,t you s~y. In fact, so far as principles a,re concerned, we will admit that thos e u,ncient heretics a,nd Protestants of to·day are a,s alike a,s two eggs of the sa,me hen. CHAPTER X. DID THE CHURCH OPPOSE THE TRANSLATION OF TF,E SCRIPTURES ? MR. JONES: "Yon very truly say that there were many Catholic translations in print b efore tha,t of Luther or Tyn· dale. Yes, but not in th e English language." 38 FATHER LAMBERT'S CONTROVERSY FATHER LAMBERT: The fact that there were many translations in the languages of the people of Europe before that of Luth er or Tynda le ought to convlIlce you that all the talk about the Catholic Church being opposed to transla- tions is a groundless calumny. It is strange that this neces- sary inference did not attract your attention. You would h ave th e impression th at Tyndale's was t he first translation of the Bible into English. This is a very erroneous impression. Foxe, the author of Foxe's "Book of Martyrs," and a hot-headed antI-Catholic zealot, in a letter to Archbishop Parker, wrote: "If histories will be exam- ined, we will find, both b efore the Conquest and after, as well as before John vVycliffe was born, as since, the whole body of th e Scriptures was by sundry men translated into our country tongue." Thomas Cranmer, the first Protestant Archbishop of vVestminster, in his prologue to - a Bible published in his time, :wrote: "If the matter should be tried by custome, wee might also all edge custome ' for the reading of the Scripture in the vulgar tongue, and prescribe the more an- cient custome. For it is not much above one hundred years &ince Scripture hath not been accustomed to be r ead in the vulgar tongu e within this r eal me, and many hundred years before that, it was translated and read in the Saxon tongu e, which at that tyme was our mother tongue * * * and when the l anguage waxed olde and out of common usage, bycause folke should not lack the fruit of reading, it was again translated into the new er l anguage, whereof yet also many copies remayne and be daily founde." Sir Thomas More, T~ord Chancellor, and one of England's worthiest sons .. says: "The whole Byble was l ong before his (vVycliff's) days, by virtuous and well learned men, translated into the English tongue and by good a nd godly people with devotion and soberness, well and reverently red." These witn esses put an end not only to the claim of Tyn- da l e, but also to that of i Vycliff, as bein g the first transla- ON QUESTIONS OF THE BIBLE 3!J tors of the Bible into English. We will now quote a wit- ness to show that these various translations were · read and were familiar to the people. Dr. Maitland, a learned English Protestant writer, says in his " The Dark Ages": " The fact to which I have repeatedly alluded is this: the writings of the Dark Ages are, if I may use the expres- sion, made of the :Scriptures. I do not merely mean tha.t the writers constantly quoted the Scriptures and appealed to them as authority on all occasions, as other writers have done since their day-though th ey did this, and it is a sirong. proof of their familiarity with them-but I mean that they thought, and spoke, and wrote the thoughts and words and phrases of the Bible, and that they did this con- stantly and habitually as the natural mode of expressing themselves. They did it, too, not exclusively in theological or ecclesiastical matters, but in histories, biographies, fa- miliar letters, legal instruments, and in documents of every descri ption." Meditate on the words of these witnesses-all Protestant except one--and you will see that the people of Europe were not at all depending on such translators as Luther and Tyndale for their knowledge of th e Bible. MR. JO NES: "You know, as well as I do, that the Ohurch (Oatholic) was against the translation of the Sc riptures into llJnglish at that tim e (Tyndale's tim e-,- 1526) ." FATHER LAMBERT: We do not know anything of the kind. Nor do you; you only think you do. We have a l- rea dy shown, on the authority of Foxe, Oranmer and Sir Thomas More, that the Scriptures were translated into Engli sh lon g befor e Tyndale's time, long befo r e the so-call ed Reformation , and, as More says, "rea.d by godly people with soberness and devotion." Why should the Ohurch be op- posed to the Scriptures in English when she was not opposed to them in all the languages of Oontinenfal Europe? The English Oatholics were oppo sed to Tyndale's transl a- tion doubtless for the same reason that Sir Thomas More was opposed to it, because, as it proved, it wa.s a false trans- lation. And for the further reason given by the Protestant 40 FATHER LAMBERT'S OONTROVERSY Canon Dixon, in his "History of the Church of E ngland." Th·is dignitary of the Church of England says: "Everyone of the little volumes containing portions of the Sacred Text, th at wa s issu ec.l by Tyn aa lc, contained also a prologue and notes written with snch hot fury of vituper- ation against the prel ates and clergy, the monks and friars, the rites and ceremonies of the Church, as, though an ex- tensive circulation was secured to the work thereby, was hardly likely to commend it to the favor of those who were attacked. Moreoyer, the. versions themselves were h eld to be hostile to the Catholic faith, as it wa s then understood, and to convey the sense unfaithf ull y or maliciously. The venerable words were igno r ed in them, and every variation that indicated opposition to the standing system was in- troduced." Here is certainly a good and sufficient reason to account far Catholic, and Protestant opposition as well, to Tynda Ie's translation, without supposing it arose from opposition to the Word of God in English. MR. JONES: "If the Church was not opposed to the translation of the Bible into English, for what cause was VVycliffe excommunicated 1" FATHER LAMBERT: .As he was not excommunicated, we certainly have no idea of the cause of his excommunica- tion. Certain of his doctrines were condemned as false and hereticaL There were many charges brought against Jiim, but the charge of having translated the Bible into English was not among them. Though twenty-four of his proposi- tions were condemned as false, he was, strange to say, not deprived of his rectory of the parish of Lutterworth. He died holding that charge in 1384. W'e will giv e a few of the doctrines of Wycliffe that were condemned and ask what your decision would be if you were called upon to pass a judgment on them: 1. Everything that is, is God. (This, you will observe, is pantheism . ) 2. God can produce nothing besides what He does produce. 3. He cannot increase or diminish the universe; nor can he create souls beyond a certain num- ber. 4 . .All things happen from absolute necessity. 5. God n ecessitates every creature to its every act. 6 . .All the sins ON QUESTIONS OF THE BIBLE 41 committed in the world are necessary and inevitable. 7. Nothing is possible to God save that which actually occurs. Do you consider these propositions orthodox? Is it not the duty of the Church to warn its members against them by condemning them as errors? You excuse the mistranslations of Tyn<.lale by attributing them to. the imperfection of the English language in his time. This excuse is grQundless. If Sir Thomas More could eXPQse the mistran sLl tions of Tyndale in the time Qf Tyndale, it was equally possible fQr Tyndale to. h ave aVQided those mistranslations. MQre at that time wrQte his famous "Utopia," and his daughter wrQte her charming and pathetic "Diary." The English language was the language of Par- liam ent and of the co urLs in TYlldal e's tim e. MR. .JONES: "The translatQrs Qf that time had but one or two original manuscripts to fQllQw." FATHER LAMBERT: They had no. Qriginal manuscript~ to. fQllQw, fQr they were nQt in existence. YQU meant to say that they had but Qne or two copies Qf the original manu- scripts. But, letting that pass, the cQpies they used were correct Qr erroneQUs. If correct, no. number Qf newly fQund cQpies CQuld improve on them; if incQrrect, th en the hans- latiQn cQrrectly made frQm them WQuld give an erroneQUS Bible. An erroneous Bible is a fallible Bible-that is, not the INQrd Qf God. And yet, accQrding to. you , T'ynd a Ie's was the only Bible the English PrQtestants had as their sQle Rule Qf Faith. AccQrding to your admission, Protestants h ave never had, since Protestantism began, some four hun- <.lred years ago., a correct, that is, a true Bible in the Eng- lish Janguage until the "American Revised EditiQn" ap- peared. CHAPTER XI. A NElW METHOD OF BIBLE-MAKING. MR .• JONES: "YQU ask, 'Where are thQse copies (of the Bible), and who authenticated them l' YQU will find hun- FATHER LAMBERT'S CONTROVERSY dreds of them in London, Paris, St. Petersburg, Rome, etc." FATHER LAMBERT: This is too off-hand, too liberal, in a word, too easy. Our question referred to ancient copies, the only ones we have been considering. Our request is very modest. We will be satisfied if you produce or locate, not hundreds, but one single, complete manuscript copy of the Bible duly authenticated as a correct reproduction or the original manuscripts. In a loose, general, indefinite way, you have offered hundreds, but not a single one have you n amed, located or indicated. This wholesale method will Hot do. You must come down to particulars. We, ther e- for e, must request you again to name and locate One single manuscript such as you have described. The oldest manuscript of the Hebrew part of the Bihle iII existence is not older than the eleventh century. Who is to duly authenticate it; that is to say, who can supply you with evidence sufficient to build your faith upon, that t.his manuscript is a correct reproduction of the original writings of Moses and the other authors, writings that no longer exist? MR. JONES: " Jewish rabbis. Christian churches and noted scholars throughout the world." FATHER LAMBERT: How can the Jewish rabbis prove to you that a manuscript of the eleventh century of the Christian era is a correct reproduction of a non-existent manuscript written by Moses fifteen hundred yea r s before the Christian era? How can they say any - thing is like anoth er thing if they never saw and cannot see the other thing? Then what better authority are the .Tewish rabbis to authenticate the eleventh century copy, or supposed copy, than you are yourself, in the absence of H.e original? Even if the rabbis agreed it would not help you . But they do not agree. The Hebrew copies of the Spanish Jews differ from the copies of the French, Italian and GE'r- man Jews, and it is a question with Biblical critics which a r e the more correct .or less correct. The sa.me difficulty confronts your other authenticator s; ON QVESTIONS OF THE illllLE 43 tilat is, the impossibility of comparing two documents to- gether when one of them no longer exists. But enough until you have named or located the one .ingle manuscript copy of the Bible we have asked for, one only of 'the hundreds you have all over Europe. MR. JONES: "You ask, 'Where is your evidence that the existing copies are correct copies of the non -existent origi- nals 1'" , FATHER LAMBERT: Yes, we want your evidence that any existent copy is a correct reproduction of the non-exist- ent originals. You have not yet answered, as we shall see. MR. JONES: " The evidence is found by comparison of all extant manuscripts, young and old, of various tongue$ and of every nation, with their resp ective attestation." FATHER LAMBERT: How can any number of extant copies, whose correctness is the very point at issue, provl', that anyone of them is a correct copy of the non-existent originals 1 How can one document whose character is in doubt be evidence of the correctness of another document whose character is equally in doubt? But go on. MR. JONES: "These (manuscripts) are then compared with the oldest Yersions, the Vulgate included, some of which bring us back to a time whose people could have readily walked and talked with the Apo~tles." FATHER LAMBERT: At first you made it a , specia l bon,:;;t that the Protestant translatorH went directly to the originals. Now you think that it is necessary to have r e- course to old versions or translations in various languages in order to construct a correct t ext. These ancient version s or translations have suddenly acquired a great value in your estimation when you have to have recourse to them for evi- dence of the correctness of manuscript copies in the original languages. As the oldest manuscript copies of those ancient version s do not go back farther than the fourth century, those people at that time who talked with the Apostles, who were dead some centuries before, must have used some Bort of a chronophon e. B ut, granting them the extr aor din ary p ower , 44 l!' ATHER LAMBERT'S CONTHOYEHSY how could they know that a particular manuscript was a correct reproduction of all the original manuscripts of the sLxty-six books of your Bible ? We will be a s liberal as pos- sible and suppose that the fourth century people could ha vo known and testified that a particular manuscript was really an exact reproduction of those sixty-six non-existent manu- scripts, did they as a matter of fact know that any existing manuscript was such a correct reproduction of the non- existent originals? And if they did know, have they any testimony to that effect? If you think they have, try to produce it, and then you will learn the full import of our request for evidence, which you thought so easy to comply with_ But suppose those old fourth century manuscript copies and fragments of copies are found not to agree, what then f MR JONES: "Well, then, they are marked with a 'cave,' until original docum ents are exhausted, for something to support their claim_" FATHER LAMBERT: But suppose all the known exist- ing copies are found to vary and the originals are non- existent. what then T MR JONES: "If nothing anywhere can be found to sus- tain a word or a translation of a word, it is suspected and left out of the bunch!' , FATHER LA~{]lER'.r: It is not only a word or many words, but th e whole manuscript that is to be sustained_ How, in the absence of any known correct copy, can you know which, if any, of the varying copies is a correct re- production of the original? Among any number of varying copies it is impossible for 'you to know which of them, or if any of them, is correct, unless you have a known correct copy, as a criterion, rule or measure, with which to com- pare them_ But you must acknowledge that you have no such known correct ' copy_ Consequently, all the varying copies are unverifiable; and as long as they are all unveri- 1'ied they are to you all equally erroneous_ As all vary from each other all cannot be true, and as you know not which ON QUESTioNS OF TilE BlBLE .:i~ one, if any, is true, they a r e all to yo u equ a lly unreliable, not compet ent II itnesses eith er to the veri ly or failacy oi each other. Just h er e we request you to r ecall our qu estion. It was this: Wh er e is your evidence that the existing copies, or a ny of them, are correct copies of the non·existing originals? If you will r e:llect a moment, you will see that you h ave not an swer ed it or got anywhere n ea r it. Instead of producing the ev idence demanded to prove and identify any existing ('o rrect copy-whi ch you undertook so willingly-you h ave ~ i l'l1ply tried to show how a correct text might be constructed by bunching togeth er the variatiQns and errors of existing copies; that is, you would get at the t ruth by a combina- tion of errors. Now, even if we were to admit-as we do not-that you could construct a true text in this way, you would still not have compli ed with our demand for evidence to prove that. any existing copy is ' a correct copy of the originals. MR. JONES: " The quotations fr om the ancient Fath er~ are also called in evidence to warrant the accuracy of our manuscripts and true r endering." FATHER LAMBERT: . As the ancient F athers did not in· di cate from what ma nuscript they quoted, their quotations a r e not evidence for any p articul a r m anuscript a mong th e varying manuscripts. But you are skating on thin ice when you appeal to the Fathers, for they will leave you in a bad way. If you grant that their quotations prove the correctness of the transla- tion from which they quoted, you must rej ect your "Ameri - can R~vised Version" of the Bible as imperf ect. For not only th e Fathers, but our Lord and His Apostles, quoted from the Septuagint. Then, according to your reasoning, the Septuagint is a true copy of the ora Testament. But the Septuagint has in it all those books which the Ameri- can R evised r ejects as apocryphal. Consequently the rejec- tion of these books leaves your American Revised imperfect, mi nus habens. 46 FATHER LA~iBERT'S CONTROVERSY Again, St. Augustine quoted from .the Vetus !tala, yet you say that version was incorrect, and St. Jerome, at the request of Pope Damasus, revised and corrected it in nis Vulgate. The Vetus !tala, being a translation from t he Septuagint, had in it from the Septuagint the books which your American Revised Version rejects as apocryphal ; so, if Augustine's quoting from the Vetus !tala proves that ver- sion to be correct, it proves at the same time on his autho r- ity that the American Revised is erroneous or defective in that it does not contain the apocryphal books. The Fathers of the Church are not safe witnesses for a Protestant to appeal to. They generally give him away badly, as they do in the present case. MR. JONES: "We should not rely too much on anyon e version, or on anyone manuscript!' FATHER LAMBERT: Right. But if you cannot rely on anyone version or manuscript you cannot rely on all of them taken together, for no number of unreliable version s can give you a reliable one. Truth is not begotten of error. Or, to give an illustration in keeping with the business in - stincts of the times, you cannot from any number of fa lse dollar bills extract a genuine bill; ' at least you cannot do it without recourse to practices that are likely to land one . in jail. Without a genuine bill as a rule to judge by, you can not tell either a true or a false bill when you see it. This is precisely your situation with regard to existing and differing manuscripts, and as you say we must not rel y on anyone manuscript or version there is none that you can consider as genuine. Hence, the originals being non - existent, you have no rule or criterion by which to Judge of thc reli ability or genuineness of any existing manuscript or ve·rsion. ON QUESTIONS OF THE BIBLE 47 CHAPTER XII. THE VULGA'l'E VERSION OF ST. JEROME. MR. JONES: " The Greek manuscript to which you say St. Jerome had access is unknown to you and me. There is no time or place or date given." FATHER LAMBERT: Yes, to our great disadvantage, it is not known to you and me, but it was known to St. Je· rome, one of the Fathers of the Church, whose integrity and scholarship are known to the world, and recognized. A few moments ago you appealed to quotations from the Fathers to prove the correctness of copies and versions. Ana now when one of those Fathers, one of the most celebrated among them, indicates a . preference for a particular manuscript or wrsion by selecting it to translate, you attempt to throw doubt on that manuscript by implying a lack of knowledge or judgm ent or honesty on the part of that most famous Father of the Church, the most celebrated Scripture scholar of any age. MR. JONES: "But there is n o time or place or date given (of Jerome's copy)." FATHER LAMBERT: Not givEll to u s sixteen hundred years after St. Jerome u sed it, hut it does not follow that he did not know the time, place and date, and other infor· mation about the copy he u sed sufficient to determine his selection of it ip. preference to other then extant copies. As to date, we know it was older than any manuscript now a'[isting, for he called it old in his time; t hat is, in the fourth century-sixteen hundred years ago. And no exist· ing manuscript can be traced with any certainty beyond the fourth century. But if absence of time, place or date rlestroys the value of the copy used by St. Jerome, it equa lly destroys th e value of all ancient nianuscripts now in existence, for the time, place or date of none of them is known. MR. JONES: "We can't classify it (Jerome's copy) with genuine since we have no history of it." 48 )j' ATHER LAMBERT'S CONTROVERSY FATHER LAMBERT: You cannot classify it with genu- ine or correct manuscripts for the very simple reason that no manuscripts known to be correct exist. The fact that it was selected by Jerome is a higher guarantee of its correct- ness than is possessed by any existing manuscript copy, and if it were in exis.tence to-day it would for that reason take a lligher place than any existing copy. Try to produce, if you think you can, a fourth-century witness as authoritative as St. Jerome to the correctness of any manuscript extant, any witness who giyes so positive and direct testimony as St. Jerome gave to hi s manuscript by selecting it to trans- late, from among the many manuscripts existing at his time. Just try it. MR .. JONES : "We h ave Greek manuscripts now that bring us far beyond the days of St. Jerome." FATHER LAMBERT: You will do us a real service if you will name just one of those Greek manuscripts that goes " far beyond the days of St. Jerome," that is, beyond the fourth century. We refer, of course, to Greek manuscript copies of the Bible. MR. JONES: " You can't r ely on age of m.anuscripts." FATHER LAMBERT: Here you attempt to saw off the limb on which you sit. For, if we cannot rely on the age or a ntiquity of the early manuscripts, we can much less rely on later manuscripts transcribed from those a ncient ones . On what does your American Revised Version of the Bible rest, if not on the relia.bility of those ancient manuscripts or later copies made from them? Thus you see in discredit· ing the ancient manuscripts you discredit your own favorite Bible, you knock your own feet from under you, and leave the ground to t.he infidel and the higher critic. MR. JONES: "Ma.ny spurious and defective manuscripts wr re let loose in the third and fourth centuries." FATHER LAMBERT: Yes, even earlier. We have before u s a li st of no less than thirty-two books that were in use among the Christians of the fourth and earlier centuries. It. is not necessary to suppose that an these books were ON QUESTIONS OF 'J'HE BIBLE 4!l spurious or fraudulent. Many of them, indeed most of them, were doubtless written in good faitli as histories of partic· ular Apostles, and making no claim to inspiration. The Catholic Church in the fourth century, in fi xing the Canon of Inspired Books, left them out of the list as not being inspired. This omitting of them is not equivalent tu "- condemnation of them as spurious and fraudulent. If by "spurious and def ective manuscripts'''' you meant manuscript copies of the Bible, then the same difficulty con- fronts you that we have noted above. As long as you can not prove that the later manuscripts were not copied from so.me of those spurious and defective anc ient manuscripts, you have no security for the reliability of your favorite American Revised Bible. Ref erring again to those thirty-two books rejected by the Catholic Church in the fourth century, suppose you had lived at that tim e, how could you, with ,\,our private judg· ment, have sifted those thirty-two books irom the twenty- seven books that now constitute the New Testament, giving a speci a l reason why each of those thfrty -two books sllould be rej ected as not inspired, and why the other twenty-seven should he received as inspired? You would not have at- tempted it; you would have seen, as those early Christians saw, that private judgment was not competent for the task, and, like them, you would have left the matter to the Church , and h ave, like them, abided by her decision. You will remember that some books and parts of books now in your New Testament were not considered as inspired by "ome of the ea rly Christians until the Cliur.::h, by her deci- sion, placed them in the Canon. All d.oubts about them were destroyed by the action of the Cliurch, not by private judgment. MR. ,TONES: "A modern manuscript may transmit a trner text than an older and more remote manuscript." FATHER LAMBERT : It is equally true to say that an older and more remote manuscript may transmit a truer text than a modern manuscript. Both these statements arc true, but neither is of any practical use in solving the ques- 50 FATHER LAMBERT'S CONTROVERSY tion before us. As both are too indefinite to be made t.be basis of a definite conclusion, we may put them together face to face and throw them both out as so much waste of energy. The value of a modern manuscript depends on whether it is a true copy of a correct ancient manuscript. If you throw doubt on the ancient ones, the same doubt throws its ugly shadow on all modern copies. MR. JONES: "Manuscripts and versions and va rious texts thereof were in a terrible muddle in the good saint's (J erome's) time." FATHER LAMBERT: Yes, there were at that time heret i· cal translators and transcl'loers, who, like heretics of later days, did their work to favor the doctrines of their sects. But there were watchmen on the ramparts of Isr ael then as there have been at all times. The Catholic Church stood guard over the Scriptures then as she doeR now, and among the many books then in circulation among Christians sllE' dist,inguished and determined the inspired frem the Ull - in spired. And were it not for her care and guardian ship you WG. appreciation of St. Jerome is the manner in which she has treated him. He was held in the highest esteem by Pope Damasus, and it was by request of that Pope that he unCleI' took his Translation of the Scriptures into Latin. You ought to meditate on this fact. It has a valuable lesson in it for all those who think or pretend to think that the Church is opposed to the Bible in t h e common speech of the people. It shows that Pope Damasus, in the fourth century, was anxious to have tbe best possible translation of tbe Bible in tbe language of tbe people, wnich at that time was Latin. His appointment of St. Jerome for the work shows his high appreciation of tbe saint's great learning and abil· ity. Tbe work when completed was received with applau~e, and Pope Gregory the Great, a successor of Damasus, pl:~· ferred it to all other Latin translations. For his holy work and holy life St. Jerome was canonized by the Church and ON QUES'rIONS OF THE BIBLE 53 held in ven eration by Catho lic peoples throughout the world as one of the immortal champions of the Catholic Faith against the heretics of his time. For his zeal in defens e of the true Faith he was made to suffer, as many have been made to suffer during the many ages since from the fury of h eretics and lJagans. The Pelagian heretics, the know· nothings and A. P. A.'s of that day, sent a troop of seditious banditti to Bethlehem to assault the holy monks and nun3 who lived there under the direction of St. J erome. These heretics set fire to the monasteries and reduced them to ashes, just as their successors in iniquity, some years ago. fired the convent in Boston over the heads of helpless nuns and burned them out in the night. St . .J erom e, with great difficulty, escaped their fury by flight. Aft.er this storm and riot of heretical malilJllity St. Jerome continued his labor~, hated by all enemies of the Church, but heloved and revel" enced by all good men, as St. Augustine testifies. Having triumphed over the heresies of his time, h e passed away nt a good old age in the year 420. He was buried in a vault near the ruins of his monastery at Bethlehem. But his re- mains did not long remain there. They were brought with loving care and veneration to Rome, and now rest in the Church of St. Mary . Major, on the Esquiline Hill. The Church established a festival to commemorate his death on the 30th of September, and on that day in every year of the many centuries that have gone into the past she h as hon- ored him and held him up before her children as an exam- ple of Christian life to b.e imitated. And yet you tell UR that the Church has not appreciated the labors of St. Je- rom e! It was the heretics of his time, the enemies of the Church he loved so well, that did not appreciate him, and mobbed him, and burned his monastery. MR. JONES: "Repeatedly before the Council of Trent the Church r evised his (Jerome's) Vulgate, and then in the sixteenth century saw fit to pronounce it defective in some passages, and, besides, to push in several unin spired books among the inspired books of Jerome's Bible. The Council of Trent went farther, for it put these spurious books on a 54 FATHER LAMBERT'S CONTROVERSY level with the Word of God to be believed in by members of the Church sub poena an-athemae." l·'ATHER LAMBERT: You should have been more careful with the Graeco-Latin genitives, and, instead 'of saYing poena anathemae, you should have said poena anathematis. It would have looked better. But as you put it it is a ver~· good illustration of how errors creep into manuscripts through carelessness or ignorance. But your carefully sewn piece which we have quoted must be ripped out and each stitch examined under a suu" glass. 1. "Before the Council of Trent the Church repeatedly revised the Vulgate." This is not true. Your error arose from your confounding the official, magisterial action of the Church with the labors of Catholic Bibli:Jal scholars. For "more than a thousand years before the Council of Trent the Church used the Vulgate, or St. Jerome's Version. But in doing this she did not scrutinize every maJluscript copy as it came from the hands of the copyists and give a decision as to its correctness or fidelity to the original of St. J eromn. It was natural and practically inevItable that errors of copyists, intentional or otherwise, should during the ages creep iIi, just as the error of poena anathemap crept into your letter to us. It was the duty of the Biblical scholars to scrutinize these manuscript copies; an d such vigilant watchmen as Alcuin, Lanfranc and others during the M!ltdlc itges were as industrious in keeping the original versionR free from the vermin of mis-transcription as the strenuou.s mother with a fine tooth-comb. It was a work that r equired constant and vigilant attention as long as the Scriptures "'ere handed down by transcription. You erred, therefore, when you said "the Church repeat- edly revised," instead of saying the Biblical scholars repeat- edly revised, to keep the manuscript copies as true as possi- ble to the original Vulgate Version. 2. "Then in the sixteentli century it (the Church) saw fit to pronounce it (the Latin Vulgate) defective in some passages." ON QUESTIONS OF THE BIBLE This is >t very strange statement from one who pretends to know anything about the Council of Trcnt and its canons and decrees. In one of your letters you refer'to a passage ill the " Hist.ory of the Council of Trent" wherein is given an account of the action of one of the co mmittees of that Coun- cil. This committee reported as follows concerning the Vulgate : "The great variety of translations current in the Church was an evil to be remedied ; and it was accordingly advised t.hat one translation on ly should be regarded as authorized; and for this purpose St. Jerome's Version, or the Vulgate, was selected and proposed, as being the most ancient, the most used, as representing more correctly the state of the a,ncient copies of the Greek and H eb r ew Scriptures than any other Latin version, or even, probably, than any other then or now existing Greek or Hebrew edition; and finally, as having been prepared ages before the modern disputes, and therefore unbiased by them." There is nothing here about " defects in some passages." ]~ut this, you may say, was not the action or decision of the Church. True, it was only the action of a Committee of the Council, not the aci of the Council. But it shows the mind of those learned Biblical scholars, members of the commit · tee, as to the correctness of the Vulgate. Now let us see what the Council saih on the subj ect; and remember that what it said is the official act of the Church. In its fourth session, on the Canonical Scriptures, it decreed as follows, after giving the list of canonical hooks: "But if anyone r eceive not as sacred anl1 canonical the said books entire with all their parts, as they have been used to be read in the Catholic Church, and as they are contained in the old Latin Vulgate edition, and knowingly and deliber- ately contemn the traditions aforesaid, let them be a nath- ema." The Council decreed further as follows: "Consirlering that no small utility mn,y accrue to the Church of God if it be made known which out of all the La£in editions now in circulation of thp sacred books is to be held as Ruthentic, ordaiDR and declares that the sai d ol d 51) l!'ATHER LAMBERT'S CONTROVERSY and Vulgate edition, which by the lengthened u se of so many ages has been approved of in the Church, be, in public l ec- ';ures, disputations, sermons a nd expositions, held as auth en- ;:ic; and that no one is to dare or presum e to reject it under any pretext whatever. The Synod ordains and decrees that henceforth the Sacred Scriptures, and especia lly the said old and Vulgate edition, be printed in the most correct manner possible." Now, 1\11'. Jones, in view of these OftiCiitl pronouncemenb of the Church on the Vulgate, can you, with your hand on your h eart and with a conscience duly awake, say that you knew what you were talking about wh en you said, "The Chu r ch pronounced it (the Vu lgate) defe ctive in some pas- sages"? VVe thin.k somebody has fooled ; TOU again, becau~e we do not assume that you would knowingly tell an untruth . ]3.ut you Bhould be more careful · in making statements ou unverified hearsay. CHAPTER XIII. THE CANON OF SCRIPTURE. MR. JONES: "The Church saw fit to push in several uninspired books ' among the inspired books of Jerome's Bible." FATHER LA 11B E HT : You talk of inspired and uninspired boo ks as if you had a private key or touchstone by which to distinguish the one kind of books from the other, as you wou ld distinguish chalk from cheese, by the taste. If from your Protestant position you examine and carefull y investi- gate the gro unds for you r belief in the inspiration of any book of the Bible, you will discover tIiat you have no touch- stone or key to help you in the least. Try to answer the following questIon, and you will see the difficulty of your Protestant position, resting as it 10es on Bible alone and private judgm ent: Why do you believe that any book in the American Revised V ersion of the Bible is inspired? Ponder this question carefully, and then pro- ON QUESTIONS OF THE BIBLE 57 ceed to give, on Protestant prin ciples, an account of the fa ith that- is in you. . Do you believe in the inspiration of th ose books because they say they are inspired? If so, tbat is not a solid and r ea sonabl e ground of b elief, first, because they do nbt say they are inspired, and, second, if they said it their a uthority would be insufficient as a ground of belief until their in· spira tion was proved, for until known to be inspired their claim to inspiration is equivalent to an uninspired claim like tbat made by the Book of Mormon or the Koran. Then their own statement a lone-even if such statement had been made-must be rejected as a reasonable ground nl belief in their inspiration. What further reason have you? The Jewish Church ? There are two or more reasons why this is not sufficient for you. :First, the Jewish Church says notliing about the New Testament. Second, that church is fallible or infalTible. If fallible, it is no better authority on inspiration than your own private judgment, which is equally fallible. If in fallible, you cannot accept it, because you reject a ll in- fallible authority except the very books whose inspiration you have not as yet ascertained. What further reason have you? The helief of the Chri;; · tian world? Such belief cannot be of any authority to you, as a Protestant, wh o r eject a ll autbority but your Bibl e and private judgment. Now, if you have no way of telling what books are ill- spired, you have no way of telling what books are unin- spired. Why, then, do you talk with such assurance about the Church putting uninspired books in the Canon? The on ly way to know what books are inspired is St. August- ine's way, namely, that the Church of Christ puts them in the Canon, or li st of inspired books. This is the way our I ,ord indicated wh en He commanded us to hear the Church . MR. JONES: "The Council of Trent put these spurious books on a level with the Word of God. to be believed in by members of the Church sub poena a,natllemae." 58 FATHER LAMBEl~T'S CONTROVERSY FATHER LAMBERT: By this you mean that the Council of Trent added to the Canon of Scriptures certain books which were not recognized by the early Church as inspired. Now, the obligations imposed on us by the principles of veracity require us to inform you that your statement is not true. One of the most onerous and irksome duties of the Catholic controversialist is to impart this kind of unwel. come information when discussing theological questions with modern heretics; the same duty was imposed on the early (·rthodox Christians by the ea rly heretics. Now, the Council of Trent added no hook to the Bible, rut no book "on a level with the ';Yord of God" th at wa9 not decbred by the Church twelve hundred years l:>efore to be a component part of the Bible; that i9, to be in tlie li.t or Canon of inspired Books, and that was not recognized aR such by the Church during the intervening centuries. This, we hope, is sufficiently clear and explicit to contradict yaur groundless statement. Let us then verify it: 1. The Council of Hippo, held in 393, and the Councils of Carthage, held in 397 and 419, declared to be canonical the same books given by the Council of Trent. The Council of Carthage of 3!l7-that is, twelve hundred years before the Council of Trent-gave as the reason of its decision that "It is from our fathers that we hold that these books a re thos e which should he read in the Ch urch." 2. Pope Innocent I, in a letter to EXllperus, Bishop of Toulouse in the year 405, gave the same list of books given by the Council of Trent. 3. Pope Gelasius, in the Councll lield in Rome in the year 679, declared canonical the same books given by the Council of Trent. 4. The books recognized by the Council of Trent wen~ found in the most ancient Latin versIon-that known as the Vetus Itala, which was so hi ghly esteemed by St. Augustine, and which is attributed by Biblical scholars to the latter h alf of the second century. The Old Testament of tbe Vetns Itala was translated from the SeptuagInt, a Greek version ON QUESTIONS OF THE BIBLE 51! made by the Hellenist Jews in the second century before the Ohristian Era. The great authority and use of the Septua- gint is shown by the frequent quoting of it by our Lord Himself, by the writers of the New Testament, and by the early Uhristian Fathers of the first four centuries. Out of about 350 quotations from the Old Testament in the New, a bout 300 are from the Septuagint_ St. Augustine speaks of the Septuagint as "approved by the Apostles." Now, this Septuagint version of tne Old Testament, from which the Veius Itala was made, has the sam e books of the Old Testament which the Council of Trent has giYen. It follows from this that the books which you call "spuri"ous'" and say were "put on a level with the Word of God," were recognized by the Hellenist Jews as on a level with the other hooks of the Old Testament-that is, equally inspired. Tliig recognition of your "spurious" booRs took place nearly eighteen hundred years before the Council of Trent and one hundred and thirty years before the birth of Christ. 5. Some I ' rotestants in the seventeenth century started a movement to induce the Greek Church to unite with them. The Greek s held a Council at Jerusalem, under the Patri- areh Dositheus, and, in their reply to the proposal of a union, they said concerning the books in the Canon of the Council of Trent: "We regard all these books as canonical; we recognize them as Holy Scripture, becanse they have beau transmitted to us by ancient custom, or, rather, by the Cath- olic Church." These words a.ttest the tradition of the an- cient Greek Church relative to the canonical books. Thus the Greek Ohurch would not accept the defective Protestant Canon, and hence, as you doubtless know, HIe proposal of union with Protestantism wa~ rejected. Now, in view of all these facts, it seems to us tllat you should begin to suspect .. or awake t .o th'3 conviction, that some (me. in a spurious book, possibly, has fooled you into making an egregious blunder when you said the Council Mlclecl those books to the Can0n of Scripture. It seems tb9J. 60 ]'ATIIER LAMBERT'S CONTHOVERSY the books you have been reading have added to your store of knowledge a vast amount of misinformation. MR. JONES: "Five and forty years after said Oouncil (of Trent), the Bishop of Rome, Sixtus V, compla ined of errors in the same Vulgate that was accepted by Trent." F ATHEU LAMBER'£: The Oouncil, after approving of the Vulgate, in preference '1;0 all other Latin versions, decreed that an edition be printed " in the most correct manner possible." This shows that t.he Oouncil did not consider any of the several editions oi the Vulgat.e then in print satisfactory. While it ap· proved of the Vulgate Version as authentic, it did not ap· prove of any of the different and differing editions gotten out by private enterprise as authentic. 1'he Oouncil, t1i.ere· fore, ordered that as correct an edition o.s possible should be produceil. The complaint of Sixtus V shows that up t:l his time no satisfactory edition of the Vulgate h ad been produced. lIe ordered an edition to be prepared, but on its com pletion. he was not satis£ed with it, and ordered the work to be again submitted to correction, but he diea be- fore another edition was prepared. Clement VIII took up the work, and in 1593 issued the edition which is the model of our, present Bibles, from which no publisher is permitted to depart. OHAPTER XIV. THE VULGATE EDITION PREPARED FROM AUTHENTIC MSS, MR. JONES: "How am I to know that this Olementine ed ition is more in accord with the autographs than that of Sixtus V, or that of Jerome in the fourth century 1" FATHER LAMBERT: How are you to know that the American Revised Version is more in accord with the auto- gnl!lhs than any other version of the Bihle'l As the Ohurch does not claim infallibility in the art c.f hook-making, it is not impossible that some differences ma y bl) discovered between the Vulgate and the Clementine :!!li tion of it; when discovered, if there be any, they will be ON QU ESTIONS Oll' ~'HE BIBLE 61 corrected by the same authority that makes the Vnlgate the 8tandard version. MR. JONES : "You say 'it is a principle th at the more a ncient the copy, the nea rer the Apostolic times, the more correct and r eliable it is.' " }'ATRER T,AMBERT: Yes. Such is the view of Biblic a l scholars, a nd that is why they all, without exceptioD, seek for ancient manuscripts, and prefer th em to modern copiPd . It is a common sense view, for if the amjent copies are ao. · s UIned to be incorreet, the modern transcripts from them mllst b e assumed to carry the same incorrectness, pIns <;i-hers that experience t each es u s creep in in the course of many r epeated transcriptions. MR. JONES: "That is so, provided the (ancient) copy be a correct one." FATHER L AMBER '£: If either the ancient or the modern copy is known to be correct, inquiry n eed go no further. Hut wh ere the question is as to the comparative correctnes~ of the two copies, the ancient is to be preferrM, for th e simpl e reason t h at it h as not been subject to so m any tran- scriptions through which errors are so liable to creep ill, through carelessness or ignorance, or even malice. MR. JONES: "You mi ght as well say that the Chinese plow is sup erior to our American plow, b ecau se the form er is nearly 3,000 year s older." l?ATRER LAMBERT: The Chinese plow ma de 3,000 years :Igo is certainly better evidence of what the origina l CHinese pl ow was t h an is the American plow. And if we were called upon to det erm ine what the original Chinese plow was like \\'0 would prefer the ancient specimen to the modern as the has is of our judgment; anll we think yo u would do the same. The Ameri can plow is sup erior as a soil·tiller, but not ~s a witness to the a ncient form of the Chinese plow. n is the same with manuscripts. If asked to determine which of two manuscripts is the more correct reproduction of the or iginal first manuscript, we would prefer the onc made in the first century-if we had it-to one made in the 62 FATHER LAMBERT'S CONTROVERSY tenth or fifteenth century. We think you would do the liame. Mn. JONES: "I have stated that old manuscripts have furnished incorrect texts." FATHER LAMBERT: This statement imposes upon you the burden of proving that the old manuscripts used in making the American Revised Version are not copies from some of the older incorrect manuscripts you speak of. Un· til you prove they are not, tho) doubt 'as to correctness. which you raise as to the old manuscripts throws its shadow equally on all modern versions of the Bible. In the absence of the original manuscripts, you have no c-riterion by which to determine which of the extant ancient copies is a correct reproduction of the originals. This is the mesh you, as ..1 Protestant, are placed in by your statement, b~cause you reject the authority of the Church and lier traditions, which are the only criterion left to determine which of all thfl copies represents truly the thought of the writers of the Scriptures. The rejection of this criterion severs you abso· lutely from the common Christian faitli of the past, leaves you an isolated critic, and places you in precisely the same position a Chinese pagan would be in if the ancient Chris, tian manuscripts w:ere placed in his hands and he requireJ to determine which of them is a correct reproduction of non· existent originals. He would throw them down in despair of solving the problem. Having rejected the sole criterion- the Church and her traditions-you are as isolated as he. and as helpless to solve the problem. Having rejected this criterion-which, as a Protestant, you must-you have broken the only link that united you in faith and corporate unity with the, early Christians. Having abandoneu the divinely built ark, the Church, you float alone, and drift with the tide. You may say that you are not isolated from the early Christians, that the Bible is the link which unites you with them. But that begs the question, for until you prove that your Bible is a correct reproduction of the original manu- ON QUESTIONS OF THE BIBLE 63 scripts it is not the same Bible the early Christians had; and you cannot prove it to be a correct reproduction without the criterion which you have rejected . . You may say you have the same faith the early Chris- tians had_ This again begs the question, for you elaim to get your belief out of the Bible you have. But until you prove it is the same Bible the early Christians had, you cannot assert that the belief you get out of it is the same belief they had. As a matter of fact, the early Christians did not get their belief from the Bible. They got it, before the New Testament was written, from the oral teaching of t he Apostles and other ministers of the Church of Christ. It was because of their Christian belief thus acquired that they believed in the Bible at all. Their Christian faith was not drawn from the Bible. On the contrary, their belief in the Bible was drawn from their Christian faith. Even if we were to grant-which we do 'not-that you had the same belief as the early Christians, it would not prove that you are a member of the same household of faith, that is, a member of the same Church that they were mem- bers of. A foreigner may believe in the Declaration of Inde- penc;ience and the Constitution of the United States, but his belief does not make him a citizen of the United States. Resides his belief he must be naturalized, initiated into the corporate unity of the republic by its duly appointed offi- cers. In the same way, before you can be a member of the Church of the early Christians-the Cliurch which Christ established for all time-you must be natural ized, initiated into that divine corporation by duly appointed officers of it. The only duly appointed officers are the legitimate succes- sors of the original officers. If you have not thus been natu- ralized, or, more correctly, supernaturalized, into the King- dom of Christ on Earth, His Church, you are not a citizen thereof, whatever you may think about it. To come back now to your statement, meant to weaken confidence in ancient manuscripts, we agree with you tEat there were-as, considering the human frailties of tran- G4 FATHER LAMBERT'S CONTROVERSY scribers, there must have been-incorrect _copies. .And we leave you in the position the consequences of that statement place yo u ; you may extricate yourself as best you may. _ Your position is the log ical result of your Protestant pr inci . pies, and it in no way concerns Catholics. MR. ,JONES: "Our American Revised Version has had access to older and more correct ma.nuscripts tha.n ever t he lAltin Vulgate has had." FATHER LAMBERT: Before committing yourself to such Ii statement, you should be very sure of your ground, be· ea u se if not true, it compels us to place you in a very humiliating position. We will now give the facts, and they will show where they l eave your statement. 1. There is no Hebrew copy of the Old Testament older than the tenth century. As St. Jerome began his transla· tion of the Vulgate in the fourth century (380), the Hebrew manuscript from which he translated the Old Testament must of course h ave been made prior to that time, probably long pri or to it, for he would naturally seek the oldest and most r eliab le copy which he could find among the Jews of Palestine, where he made his translation, 2. Let us now consider the oldest Greek manuscripts of the New Testament. The oldest known to exist go bac k only to the fourth century. The two recognized as the most ancient are the manuscripts known as the Codex Vaticanus and the Codex Sinaiticus. The former is in the celebrated Vatican library, the latter in St. Petersburg, the property of the Emperor of Russia. The German criti.::, Hug, places the Vatican Codex in the first part of the fourth century, a nd Tischendorf refers it to the fourth century, and remark~ that "It scarcel y differs in age from the Codex S in aiticus." This latter codex was found by Tischendorf in the conv ent OIl Mount Sinai, in 1859. He referred it to the middle of the fourth century, t hat is, about the year 350. 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