Still further, there
declaration that the Scriptures were translated for "the several nations as
were converted" must refer to the Catholic Church, though protestants did
not tell there congregation that historic truth. This declaration of mine is
based upon the historic fact that every nation converted to Christianity was
converted by the Catholic Church. To say, as protestants did in the above
quote, that "the early church," assuming it not to be the Catholic Church,
kept the Scriptures from the people, and then to name Eusebius and Theodoret
as having declared the Scriptures to have been translated into the language
"of every nation under heaven" is a half truth. It kept there congregation
from knowing the Eusebius was the Catholic Church Bishop of Caesarea; and
Theodoret was the Catholic Church Bishop of Cyprus.
protestants also inadvertently
paid honor to the Catholic Church, though the members of there congregation
did not realize it, when protestants declared that Theophilus, Irenaeus, and
Clement used "the Scripture writings that are in the Old and New Testaments
during the Apostolic age," while refraining from naming the religious status
of those historic personages. Perhaps this was due to fear lest the
knowledge that they were members of the hierarchy of the Church protestants
assume to have kept the Scriptures from the people, might obliterate the
anti-Catholic animus protestants instill into the hearts of the members of
there congregation. protestants surely know that Theophilus was Bishop of
the Catholic Church in Antioch; Irenaeus was Bishop of the Catholic Church
in Lyons; and that Clement was Bishop of Rome, occupant of the Chair of
Peter, the third Pope.
there question, "Who Gave Us
Our Bible?" necessitated an explanation of the canon of sacred Scripture,
which protestants did, though in adequately. protestants declared that "the
universal church called the Council of Carthage in the Year 397 under the
influence of Augustine," whom protestants designated "the most Protestant
bishop of pre-Reformation days; (which Council) settled the New Testament
canon of 27 books." What, save there anti-Catholic mentality, prompted
protestants to hide the identity of the Church that gave the Christian Bible
to the world, by forming its canon of Scripture? Surely no Church could
rightly be called "the universal church," even without the capitals U and C,
during the days of the Council of Carthage, save the Church under the world
jurisdiction of the occupant of the Chair of Peter. Remember, my Dear
Protestant , that a half-truth is not the truth. there oratorical
legerdemain beats the pulling of a rabbit out of an empty hat. This was
evidenced in conjuring up in there cranium the declaration that Augustine,
who was canonized by the Catholic Church for his sublime Catholicity, was
"the most Protestant bishop of pre-Reformation days." If the fathers of the
so-called "Reformation" were as opposite to Protestantism in principle and
religious affiliation as was St. Augustine, rest assured there would never
have been a German or an English "Reformation," with the resultant echoing
and re-echoing of false and contradictory Bible concepts.
St. Augustine was most
competently and ardently Catholic in every sense of the term. Therefore he
recognized the bishop of Rome, the Pope, as supreme in Christian religious
authority by virtue of the "keys" given to Peter and his successors, along
with the authority to "bind and loose" in matters of faith and morals (St.
Mat. 16:17-20). Surely there was no Protestantism in the declaration of St.
Augustine, that "For my part, I would not have believed the Gospel if I had
not been influenced by the authority of the Catholic Church" (Contra Epist.
Fund.).
there acceptance of the New
Testament Council of Carthage canon of 27 New Testament books, means the
acceptance of the authority of the Catholic Church, deny it as vigorously as
protestants are able. That Council, called by Bishop Aurelius of the
Catholic See of Carthage, made up of 43 Catholic Church bishops, including
St. Augustine, Bishop of Hippo, recognized the supreme authority of the
occupant of the Chair of Peter, Pope St. Siricius, in determining the
authenticity of its canon of Scripture. Therefore the Council of Carthage
voted to "let the Church beyond the sea (Rome) be consulted before
confirming the canon."
Misunderstanding or deliberate
misrepresentation only can account for there failure to credit the origin of
the Bible to the Catholic Church. Even one of her most bitter enemies, the
Father of Protestanism, acknowledged that historic fact. Martin Luther said
condescendingly and offensively in his Commentary on St. John chapter XIV,
that "We are compelled to concede to the papists that they have the Word of
God; that we received it from them, and that without them we should have had
no knowledge of it at all." A Christian Bible must be made up of the books
in the Old Testament, as well as the books in the New Testament. Hence the
Council of Carthage included the Septuagint version of 46 Old Testament
books in its canon of sacred Scripture. protestants hold, as do all
Protestant ministers, that 7 of these 46 books are "apocrypha" (spurious).
This was denied by St. Cyril, Bishop of Alexandria, eleven centuries before
Protestantism began to inflict the religious world with its counterfeit
editions of the Bible.
The Septuagint translation was made during the
third century before the Christian era, at "a time when the Jews were no
longer able to understand Aramaic, nor, for that matter, read Hebrew. That
is why the Hebrew Bible had to be translated into Greek, the well known
Septuagint version," as was declared in The Pictorial History of the Jewish
People" (N.Y; 1953). Theological Seminary of America says, "one of the most
important translations ever made" (The Jews: Their History, Culture and
Religion, vol.3, p.748).
The Septuagint version of Sacred Scripture,
which the Jewish Encyclopedia declares to be "the most important of all
versions made by the Jews" (vol.3, p. 186), was made by 72 official
translators, 'six learned, wise and saintly scribes from each of the twelve
tribes of Israel," selected by High Priest Eleazar of Jerusalem, the world's
supreme religious authority of his time. Eleazar furnished the translators
with his most precious manuscripts of 46 books of sacred Jewish Scripture
for translation. That translation included the 7 books Protestantism
rejects, the translation that Vallentine's Encyclopedia of Jewish knowledge
says "was greeted with enthusiasm by the Jews everywhere upon its
appearance" (p.592)
there cocksure declarations regarding the
Bible, that are not so, are simply amazing. For instance, protestants set
forth the Protestant used canon of 39 books, against the Catholic used
Septuagint canon of 46 books, declaring that the Septuagint was rejected by
the Palestine Jews, without designating which Palestine Jews. Surely it was
not rejected by the Jews who were religiously under the jurisdiction of the
High Priests during the years when Judaism functioned as the religion of
Almighty God; when the Jews had a priesthood, and a Temple with the one
Altar divinely permitted for the offering of the Mosaic sacrifices. It was
the Jews in Jabneh, the port city of Palestine, who rejected the Septuagint
during the days after the Veil in the Temple was rent; when the Mosaic
regulations were divinely a thing of the historic past; after Judaism had
full-blossomed into Christianity. Vallentine's Encyclopedia of Jewish
Knowledge says that the making of the 39 book canon "took place at the synod
of Jabneh, in 90 A.D. (note the date), soon after the destruction of the
Temple, at the instigation of Rabbi Akiba" (p.94).
Evidently protestants know not
Rabbi Akiba who instigated the 39 book canon, which protestants, and all
other Protestant ministers, have embraced. In the first place, Rabbi Akiba
had no legitimate authority to form a canon of Scripture, such as the Jews
had during the days of High Priest Eleazar; and the Catholics in the Council
of Carthage had during the days of Pope St. Siricius. Secondly, Rabbi Akiba
was a deadly enemy of our Messianic Lord. St. Justin (100-165 A.D.) said
that Akiba "persecuted the Jewish Christians, and gave orders that if they
would not deny Jesus and execrate His name, they would be tortured" (1st
Apology XXXL). Akiba proclaimed a bold, fighting individual, named Simeon,
the Messiah, giving him the name Bar Kochba, "Son of the Star." He led the
futile revolt against the forces of Hadrian for the recapture of Jerusalem,
at the cost of the lives of over half a million misled Jews.
protestants fail to realize
that it was the anti-Christianism in Jewry that prompted the rejection of
the Septuagint; and the making of the Akiba-instigated canon of Scripture
which Protestantism embraced. Vallentine's Encyclopedia of Jewish Knowledge
says, that "the appearance of the Septuagint was greeted with enthusiasm by
the Jews everywhere, but with the rise of the Christian sect and its
adoption of this version of its Bible, the Jews began to denounce it
vehemently, accusing the Christians of falsifying the Greek text here and
there" (London, 1938, p.592). the rejection of the Septuagint" was partly
due because it had become accepted as sacred by another faith."
Let's look at just one more
before ending this lengthy factual indictment. Here it is: "Jesus was a
Palestinian Jew (which He was, hence) He acknowledged the authority of the
Palestinian (Akiba) Scriptures." The facts are these: First, that spurious
Protestant-accepted Old Testament canon of Scripture was non-existent during
the years of our Lord's sojourn in Palestine; Secondly, about 270 quotations
in the New Testament are from the Septuagint version of Old Testament
Scripture, which. was used by Jesus and the Apostles: Third, Peloubet's
(Protestant) Bible Dictionary attests to the fact that the Septuagint "was
the chief storehouse from which both Christ and the Apostles drew their
proofs and precepts" (p. 604).
who Gave Us Our Bible? meaning there Protestant
Bible? The answer is given in this communication. The New Testament part of
it came from the Catholic Church; the Old Testament part of it came from
Rabbi Akiba.
THE APPENDIX
"To refute once more the common fallacy that John Wycliff was the first
to place an English translation of the Scriptures in the hands of the
English people in 1382. To anyone that has investigated the real facts of
the case, this fondly-cherished notion must seem truly ridiculous...To begin
far back, we have a copy of the work of Caedmon, a monk of Whitby, in the
end of the seventh century, consisting of great portions of the Bible in the
common tongue. In the next century we have the well-known translations of
Venerable Bede, a monk of Jarrow, who died whilst busy with the Gospel of
St. John. In the same (eighth) century we have the copies of Eadhelm, Bishop
of Sherborne; of Guthlac, a hermit near Peterborough; and of Egbert, Bishop
of Holy Island; these were all in Saxon, the language understood and spoken
by the Christians of that time. Coming down a little later, we have the free
translations of King Alfred the Great who was working at the Psalms when he
died, and of Aelfric, Archbishop of Canterbury; as well as popular
renderings of Holy Scripture like the Book of Durham, and the Rushworth
Gloss and others that have survived the wreck of ages. After the Norman
conquest in 1066, Anglo-Norman or Middle-English became the language of
England, and consequently the next translations of the Bible we meet with
are in that tongue. There are several specimens still known, such as the
paraphrase of Orm (About 1150) and the Salus Animae (1250), the translations
of William Shoreham and Richard Rolle, hermit of Hampole (died 1349). I say
advisedly ‘specimens' for those that have come down to us are merely
indications of a much greater number that once existed, but afterwards
perished."(Where we got the Bible 1911, )
In the preface of The Coverdale Bible the world was told that "much about
the time (1360), even in King Richard the Second's days, John Trevisa
translated them into English, and many English Bibles in written hand are
yet to be seen that divers translated..., so that to have the Scriptures in
the mother tongue is not a quaint conceit lately taken up and out in
practice of old, even from the first times of the conversion of any nation."
Anglican dignitary, Dean Hook, tells us that "Long before Wycliff’s time
there had been translator’s of the Holy Writ."(Where we got the Bible 1911,
)
The Protestant scholar Mr. Karl Pearson, says: "The Catholic Church has
quite enough to answer for, but in the 15th century it certainly did not
hold back the Bible from the folk: and it gave them in the vernacular (i.e.
their own tongue) a long series of devotional works which for language and
religious sentiment have never been surpassed. Indeed, we are inclined to
think it made a mistake in allowing the masses such ready access to the
Bible. It ought to have recognized the Bible once for all as a work
absolutely unintelligible without a long course of historical study, and, so
far as it was supposed to be inspired, very dangerous in the hands of the
ignorant." (Academy, August, 1885)
The Encyclopedia Britannica declares that: "(In) Eadwine's
Psalterium triplex,(A.D. 1180) which contained the Latin
version accompanied by Anglo-Norman and Anglo-Saxon renderings, appeared...
By 1361 a translation of most of Scripture in this dialect (Anglo-Norman)
had been executed."(© 1999-2000 Britannica) This was 20 years before
Wycliffe "translated" his version "From August 1380 until the summer of
1381, Wycliffe was in his rooms at Queen's College, busy with his plans for
a translation of the Bible" (© 1999-2000 Britannica)
St. Thomas More, Lord Chancellor of England, said in his "Dialogue"
(p.138), that:"the whole Bible was long before Wycliff's day (who lived
during the century before Tyndale) by virtuous and well learned men
translated into the English tongue and by good and godly people with
devotion and soberness, well and reverendly read . . ."
Even Cranner, Henry Viii's Archbishop of Canterbury, said in the preface
of the "Great Bible," that the. Holy Bible: "was translated and read in the
Saxon tongue, which at that time was the mother tongue, whereof there
remaineth yet divers copies. ..; and when this language waxed old and out of
common use, it was translated into the (English) language, whereof yet also
many copies remain and be daily found."
The very Preface of the 1611 Authorized Version says: "Bede by
Cister- tiensis, to have turned a great part of them (the books of scripure)
into Saxon: Efnard by Trithemius, to have abridged the French Psalter,
as Beded had done the Hebrew, about the year 800: King Alfred by the said
Cistertien- sis, to have turned the Psalter into Saxon: [Polydor. Virg. 5
histor.] ...even in our King Richard the second's days , John Trevisa
translated them into English, and many English Bibles in written hand are
yet to be seen with divers, translated as it is very probable, in that age".
Even Foxe, the martyologist, makes the same acknowledgment: "If
history be well examined we shall find both before the conquest and after,
as well before John Wickliffe was born as since, the whole body of the
scriptures was by Sundry men translated into our country tongue." (This was
in 1571, in the declaration to Queen Elizabeth, written by Foxe).
"In England there were current from early times(A.D. 800) vernacular
versions of the Bible, especially of the Gospels, since the Gospel was often
read at Mass in the vernacular after its recitation in Latin" (The
Columbia Encyclopedia, copyright 1958, p. 197)
Archbishop Ussher of Armagh quotes a fragment from the Worcester
Cathedral library, "The Venerable Bede translated the Bible, at least
the greater part of it, into English, in many copies of his version are sill
found in English monasteries." (Historia Dogmatica, 1763, XII, page
356)
"The Latin Vulgate (q.v.), from which a considerable number of versions
were made into that form of English commonly called Anglo-Saxon, the most
noted translators being Aldhelm, Bishop of Sherborn, Bede (8th
c.); Alfred (6th c.); and Aelfric (10th c.)." (The
Imperial Encyclopedia and Dictionary, volume 4, copyright 1902)
unquestionably
contrary to historic fact. Surely the declaration of Blessed Thomas More, to
the contrary of there assertion, ought to convince protestants of the error
of there judgment. There unhistoric assertion was positively denied by this
Lord Chancellor of England, whose sublime devotedness to the principles set
forth in the Bible caused him to submit willingly to decapitation rather
than accept the declaration of the House of Commons, that "the King, (Henry
VIII) is head of the Church immediately under God"; and for taking this
Father of this English Reformation to task for divorcing his wife,
Catharine, and entering into Godless relations with Anne Boleyn. Blessed
Thomas More said, "The whole Bible long before Wyclifi's day (100 years
before Tyndale lived) was translated into the English tongue, and by good
and godly people with devotion and soberness well and reverently read"
(Dialogues, 3). There are many other historic declarations that prove the
error of there assumption that the world had to wait until the two Benedict
Arnolds in the religious world translated the Bible, before the people could
read it in English. Sir Francis Palgrave said, in his History of England,
that "From the Anglo-Saxon age down to Wycliffe, we in England can show such
a succession of Biblical versions in metre and prose, as are not equaled
amongst any other nation in Europe."