I mentioned earlier about the reading of scripture being driven from the church. From the time of the apostles, the Bible was freely read by anyone who desired. During the Middle Ages, the Council of Toulouse (1229) and Tarragona (1234), under Pope Pius IV, denied lay persons the right to read even Catholic versions of Scripture unless the lay person obtained permission from their parish priests. The Council of Trent (1564) stated that anyone caught reading a Bible without written permission, would not receive absolution from their sins until they had surrendered their Bible.
Here are three things to note:
- 1) the Council of Toulouse in 1229 was a local council (like Tours 813), and Toulouse was in the turmoil of Albigensian heresy, and they pointed to some of the words of Jesus for some of their errors. This doesn't mean laymen in Scotland or Germany were barred from reading the Bible;
- 2) the same thing is true for the Council of Tarragona in 1234;
- 3) for the Council of Trent, I would like to see how this rule was decided by the Council, but if it had been, it certainly included the possibility for laymen actually getting such a written permission.
Now, there could be a certain confusion between reading and interpreting in print the Bible. In order to get a book printed that does involve exegesis, the permission needs to be given in writing, and this is true not just for laymen but also for priests - the Catholic priest Jean Colson in 1968 needed an imprimatur (written permission) to publish l'Énigme du disciple que Jésus aimait, which pushes (I think credibly) the thesis that John the Gospeller was not identic to the Son of Zebedee, not one of the twelve, but a Cohen.
Here is the rule, from session IV:
And wishing, as is just, to impose a restraint, in this matter, also on printers, who now without restraint,--thinking, that is, that whatsoever they please is allowed them,--print, without the license of ecclesiastical superiors, the said books of sacred Scripture, and the notes and comments upon them of all persons indifferently, with the press ofttimes unnamed, often even fictitious, and what is more grievous still, without the author's name; and also keep for indiscriminate sale books of this kind printed elsewhere; (this Synod) ordains and decrees, that, henceforth, the sacred Scripture, and especially the said old and vulgate edition, be printed in the most correct manner possible; and that it shall not be lawful for any one to print, or cause to be printed, any books whatever, on sacred matters, without the name of the author; nor to sell them in future, or even to keep them, unless they shall have been first examined, and approved of, by the Ordinary; under pain of the anathema and fine imposed in a canon of the last Council of Lateran: and, if they be Regulars, besides this examination and approval, they shall be bound to obtain a license also from their own superiors, who shall have examined the books according to the form of their own statutes. As to those who lend, or circulate them in manuscript, without their having been first examined, and approved of, they shall be subjected to the same penalties as printers: and they who shall have them in their possession or shall read them, shall, unless they discover the authors, be themselves regarded as the authors. And the said approbation of books of this kind shall be given in writing; and for this end it shall appear authentically at the beginning of the book, whether the book be written, or printed; and all this, that is, both the approbation and the examination, shall be done gratis, that so what ought to be approved, may be approved, and what ought to be condemned, may be condemned.
I note a little item of relevance to Pope Michael, who pretended to be so busy, he'd need to be paid by me to make examination and imprimatur for something by me ... "and all this, that is, both the approbation and the examination, shall be done gratis, that so what ought to be approved, may be approved, and what ought to be condemned, may be condemned."
Hans Georg Lundahl
Paris
St. Paul the First Hermit
15.I.2022
The site I cited was this one, I may continue to comment more on it, since it contains more errors:
https://www.addeigloriam.org/reformed/luke-private-interpretation.htm
Council of Trent quoted from here:
http://www.thecounciloftrent.com/ch4.htm
One true word from the Protestant site:
We may wonder today how the leaders of the RCC could torture and even kill people for the horrific crime of daring to read their Bible (many more actually died in England under the reign of Bloody Mary than in central Europe),
Why? Bc Mary Tudor (whose victims were not more numerous than Catholic victims of the Reformers) was not united to Rome, she was, like her father Henry VIII, personally head of the Church of England, which she proceeded to Catholicise back again by appealing to national laws, like notably the 1401 act of parliament De heretico comburendo (arguably the act under which St. Joan of Arc was tried), which made it so much easier to get burned as a heretic in England than it was on the continent. If Tyndale had been burned in England, it might have been for translating the Bible. In Wilvoorde, he was actually burned after spurning the admonitions of James Latomus on how to properly understand Romans chapter 3./HGL
