Was the Roman Church right to suppress access to the scriptures?

Question

People were beaten, tortured and assassinated for creating vernacular translations of the Bible the people could read for themselves. The English "Suppression of Heresy Act of 1414" was to punish the Lollards for disseminating an English Bible by Wycliffe. One of Luther's crimes for which the Roman church wanted his blood was creating a German Bible. Tyndale was in fact hunted down and killed by a Papal assassin for printing an English translation.

Most Roman priests didn't even know the scriptures not part of ritual. The notion was that the scriptures were likely to be misunderstood and mishandled by amateurs and so only the "doctors of the church" should interpret them. Given all the divisions that have occurred since vernacular translations became available you have to admit that the Roman Church's fear that individual interpretation would lead to schism seem justified. So has all the fractured faithful been worth personal access to scripture? How so?

To the fellow who assumed I'm reading from a Chick tract, just demonstrates you're a historical illiterate. Look it up. It's history. In fact the Roman Church only started encouraging indivdual Bible study in my lifetime. I'm not assuming evil intent on their part as some are here. Given the ignorance with which most people approach the scriptures and the weird way they interpret them (ever read a Dake's Annotated anyone?) I think the fears of the church leaders were well founded. In fact I don't think there's been a time before now where enough exegetical information was broadly available for Christians who apply themselves to master the scriptures to even a limited degree. Even so most don't bother and still have crazy ideas about what they read in scripture and private interpretation and denominationalism continue to spread. Am I wrong about that?

Some of you are really disappointing me. My daughter is probably a more devout Catholic than any of you deniers but she isn't ignorant of Church history. Not that I expect you to know an ecumenical council from an SUV console, but come on. At least look it up before you assume it's bigoted propaganda. you can be a good Catholic without denying historical facts. Good Catholics do it every day.

Blessing is doing some good thinking there. There is no doubt that by making Christianity a state religion both the state and Christianity were damaged. Whay do you expect from a man that muders his own family like Constantine the Great. By having these goverenmental rulers personally oversee the ecumenical councils it was certain that doctrine and dogma would be influenced as those who gained the emperors support prevailed, so those that toed the emperor's line prevailed.

Butthemost interesting point you make is that reelation may be reaching a critical mass as in the days of Pentecost. I know many believers, mostly Pentecostals with an apocalyptic leaning that firmly believe they are seeing this all around and see it as a sign of the second coming. I personally think that's selective observation encouraged by a constant barage of emotional end times preaching, but I accept they think it's the case.

Julia and Tebone, your answers are self-evidently false. The scriptures were not written in Latin. They were written in Hebrew, Koine Greek and Aramaic with bits of Syriac. When Jerome created the Latin version the Vulgate (making some glaring mistakes here and there, but mosty doig a pretty good job of it), he created a vernacular translation for the Latin speaking Romans, just as the Alexandrian Jews centuries before translated the Old Tetament from Hebrew into Koine Greek and created a vernacular translation for the Greek speakers. The church didn't simply have Latin versions laying around for everyone. The church strictly controlled access to the oldest manuscripts and those who tried to improve on Jeroe's work were not appreciated. Those that translated the Latin into more modern languages were tried and in cases killed and their works burned. They even went so far as to have manuscript variants they didn't like destroyed and some addtions and redactions they did like included.

Answer 1

It's a complex thing to analyze. In a way the Roman Catholic Church was correct that the average, uneducated lay person couldn't understand the biblical books. On the other hand, how the books were to be understood is a whole question in itself.

Catholics and Protestants will typically take different sides on this question obediently siding with their official church positions. But really the heart of this complicated question comes down to power, authority, and legitimacy. The Roman Catholic Church's power partly lay in their claim to be the only institution who was qualified by God to understand and interpret the Bible. The Protestants sought to justify the legitimacy of their own positions and churches. To do that, they had to establish an alternate basis of authority. They chose the Bible. They argued that the Bible is the authority of Christianity where the only legitimate Christianity comes from, and that the Roman Catholic Church misinterpreted the Bible, because it had become corrupt and erred.

The whole issue is a power struggle between competing factions. Both sides have their own narratives, and both sides are primarily interested in maintaining their own social and political power. Whether or not the Roman Church was right in suppressing access to the scriptures depends entirely on whether or not you think it was a good thing for the Roman Church hierarchy to maintain power over the common person by telling them that they alone were the guardians of "truth".

Answer 2

In my history class we just covered a unit on this. The Roman Church was all about power and money and how much of it they had. So by keeeping the people from scriptures, the people thought their salvation depended on a priest. But with the Bible it states that your salvation is a matter between you and God. When people like Wycliffe translated the Bible the only thing the Roman Church had against it was the power and money they were losing. So personaly I believe the Roman Church was wrong to keep the scripture from the people. Hope I answered your question.

Answer 3

I haven't studied this, so these are just slight thoughts from what I've heard...

I think we are gradually working up to the level of revelation the original church had. Constantine created real problems by making the church official as then all the worldly types joined, then the revelation as preached got mixed up with worldly thinking. The presence of unrepentant worldly types in the Church grieved the Holy Spirit. (They had the scriptures but no longer understood the revelation in them.)

Some people have suggested that the strong adoration for the Virgin Mary in the Catholic church may come from
Constantine just making former priests of a female Egyptian deity who gave birth to another male god into christian priests ... so those weird ideas slipped into Catholic doctrine. Constantine does seem to have been really bad for the church !!

The church establishment got so worldly that at one point it was thinking that crusades and persecution of unbelievers was Gods will - seriously wrong. I bet many of those medieval popes weren't real believers.

Witholding reading the bible from ordinary believers was part of this wrong thinking.

Luther uncovered justification by faith. People were not deluded that they could purchase heaven.

The puritans brought back the idea that God really wants good behaviour (but pushed it on the World so got rejected), although they look priggish now.

Wesley revived a dead formalistic church to a deeper understanding of the salvation message.

The British evangelicals brought the Protestant churches back into social action for the weak and afflicted

The Welsh revival and Azusa street in 20C revival brought miracles, and power of the Holy Spirit back into the church in a way that hadn't been seen since pre-Constantine times.

In the 2nd half of the 20C these began to spread back into other denominations

Recently the Toronto blessing has seen a revelation of the love of God the Father.

Answer 4

It depends on your viewpoint. I think that what was spoken to the masses many years ago should be public knowledge today. Jesus and his disciples didn't speak just to doctors of the Church, and scripture should be accessible to all, just as it was 2000+ years ago.

Still, the church somewhat fell apart afterward, so had they been able to limit the spread of the vernacular, there would have been more control; but the level of control was such that heresey was a crime punishable by death. Had the Church maintained control, I wouldn't be able to practice my own non-Christian religion. Today, the Church no longer has the power to kill people for practicing non-Christian faiths, and I think this is a good thing.

Answer 5

Read in Dostoyevski's , The Brothers Karamazov, the famous passage where Jesus comes to a village in the Spain of the Inquisition. The chief priest recognizes him and basically tells him to get lost and that it took the Church 1500 years to calm the expectations Jesus had raised. So maybe the Church was right in suppressing what it saw as a socially inflammatory document. Mind you, the Church carried this too far. Did you know that in the Canadian province of Quebec, the Bible was on the list of that province's forbidden books until the 1960's (yes, also incredible to think there existed such a list)?

Answer 6

Interesting as I've just been reading the Bible in the original Aramaic which was the language of Jesus. It's available on line if you want to read it. I wouldn't trust the Catholic church with my dog's training. I get so tickled at people who think the ONLY translation worth reading is the King James. Who says he walked on water? Amazingly, he left out gobs of stuff that was there in the first place. The Catholics have several books that are not in the King James or any after that. I just thank God for those you mention in your question and for those who have worked so hard to update the word to make it so easy to read now. Leaving out the "thees and thous" isn't a bit less holy.

Answer 7

Most of what you wrote just isn't true.

It's just the same tired old anti-Catholic rhetoric that's been handed down from one generation of fundamentalist Christians to the next for years.

The Church has never suppressed access to bona fide versions of the Bible -- it has only suppressed access to heretical versions of it, which no one can reasonably blame it for.

.

Answer 8

Good historical points. Up until Luther, the Bible had been only in latin and up until Vatican II (purporated by a lowly shepard boy that became one of the greatest popes), the priest was seperated from the congregation; had his back to them as he performed mass behind a waist high fence.

Reason, take a look nowadays. You have so many secular and non-secular Christian groups, splinters of one way of thinking and another, all empowered due to the ability to read the scriptures.

It's power and the church held onto it tightly.

Answer 9

The Catholic Church teaches the Dogma of the Immaculate Conception. But what does that mean? Well first, here’s what it doesn’t mean. It’s not the conception of Christ in Mary’s womb. That happen at the Annunciation, The Dogma of the Immaculate Conception, defined by Pope Pius 1X in 1854, teaches that Mary was conceived in her mother’s womb without the stain of the original sin. The Catechism of the Catholic Church, number 491, states: “The most Blessed Virgin Mary was, from the first moment of her conception, by a singular grace and privilege of almighty God and by virtue of the merits of Jesus Christ, Savior for the human race, preserved immune from all stain of original sin.” Notice that this was in no way the work of Mary herself, but a “singular grace” from God. But, where is the Scripture evidence for this doctrine? We get a glimpse of this in the angel’s greeting to Mary in Luke 1:28. “Hail Mary full of grace..” think of this notion of something being full. Now, picture a glass, full. Just full as it can get. No room for anything else. I Mary was full of God’s grace, could there be any room for sin? Absolutely not. And the doctrine of the immaculate Conception answers this question perfectly.

Answer 10

Were you around when the Catholic Church did those things? What is your source for making those accusations?

Jesus said the Church he will found in Peter will be a persecuted Church. So thank you!

Happy are those who work for peace; God will call them his children! Happy are those who are persecuted because they do what God requires; the Kingdom of heaven belongs to them! Happy are you when people insult you and persecute you and tell all kinds of evil lies against you because you are my followers. Be happy and glad, for a great reward is kept for you in heaven. This is how the prophets who lived before you were persecuted. (Matthew 5, 9-12, GNB)

May the Lord's peace be with you!