Censorship of the Bible

Censorship of the Bible includes restrictions and prohibition of possessing, reading, or using the Bible in general or any particular translation of it. Violators of those Bible prohibitions have been punished by killing, imprisonment, forced labor, and banishment, as well as by burning or confiscating the Bible or Bibles used or distributed. Censorship of the Bible occurred in the past and is still going on today.

In the 20th century, Christian resistance to the Soviet Union's policy of state atheism occurred through Bible-smuggling. The People's Republic of China, officially an atheist state, engages in Bible burning as a part of antireligious campaigns there.

The '' Index Librorum Prohibitorum'' of the Catholic Church included various translations of the Bible. In most cases, the bans on pious lay people possessing or using Bibles were related to vernacular Bible editions. Clerics were never forbidden to possess the Vulgate Bible translation in the Latin language. From the point of view of most Protestants, the topic mostly refers to historical prohibitions of the Catholic Church against reading or possessing Bibles, not of the Latin Vulgate translation, or in the case of the laity, possessing any Bibles at all, including the Vulgate. From a Catholic point of view, the censorship of the Bible was done both by restricting Bibles from those lacking instruction and by censoring translations thought to encourage deviations from official Catholic doctrines.
Ludwig Friedrich Otto Baumgarten-Crusius: ''Lehrbuch der christlichen Dogmengeschichte. Zweite Abtheilung.'' Verlage der Crökerschen Buchhandlung, Jena 1832; ''Zweiter Theil: Spezielle Dogmengeschichte. 21: Angelegenheit des Schriftgebrauchs.'' pp. 901–911
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Background

The Old Testament was written mostly in Hebrew and partly in Aramaic. The New Testament was written in Koine Greek, a form of ancient Greek. The books were translated into several other languages, including Latin. From about AD 300 onward, Latin began to assert itself as the language of worship in Western Christianity. This was aided by the fact many European languages, called the Romance languages, are all descended from Latin. In contrast the earliest written Western Germanic languages date only from the 6th century. From AD 382-420, a new translation was made into the Latin vernacular, the Vulgate, which became the dominant translation for Western Christianity in the 7th-9th centuries. From about the 9th century it was regarded as the only valid Bible translation. In Eastern Christianity, on the other hand, Greek remained dominant.

Bible smugglers

Modern censorship of the Bible has met with resistance from groups such as Open Doors, Voice of the Martyrs, and World Help, which supply Bibles for smuggling or directly smuggle the Bibles themselves into lands where the Bibles or their distribution are prohibited.

Individual Bible smugglers include Andrew van der Bijl, David Hathaway, and John White.

Diocletianic Persecution

During the Diocletianic Persecution, Bibles were targeted as part of a larger program intended to wipe out Christianity. On February 24, 303, Diocletian's first "Edict against the Christians" was published. Among other persecutions against Christians, Diocletian ordered the destruction of their scriptures and liturgical books across the entire Roman empire.

During the Middle Ages

There were some controversies whether the translation in Old Church Slavonic was permissible. According to St. Methodius, he was officially allowed to use it by John VIII in 880. Yet Christians were forbidden to use the Old Church Slavonic translation by John X in 920 and by the Lateran Synod of 1059, with the synod being confirmed by Nicholas II and Alexander II. In a letter to Vratislav II of Bohemia dated 2 January 1080, Pope Gregory VII revoked his predecessors' permission to use the Slavonic language. The reason he gave was that "Not without reason has it pleased Almighty God that Holy Scripture should be a secret in certain places, lost, if it were plainly apparent to all men, perchance it would be little esteemed and be subject to disrespect; or it might be falsely understood by those of mediocre learning, and lead to error."
Adolf Adam (German article): ''Deutsch oder Latein?'' In: Adolf Adam: ''Erneuerte Liturgie – Eine Orientierung über den Gottesdienst heute.'' Herder-Verlag, 1972; abgedruckt in: ''KIBA – Kirchenmusik im Bistum Aachen'', August 2007, p. 16

Between 1170–80, Peter Waldo commissioned a cleric from Lyon to translate the New Testament into the vernacular "Romance" (Franco-Provençal). He is credited with providing Western Europe the first translation of the Bible in a 'modern tongue' outside of Latin.

In 1199, Pope Innocent III, writing in a letter to the bishop of Metz, banned the reading the Bible in private meetings (which he labeled as '' occultis conventiculis'', or "hidden assemblies"). However, he noted that the desire to read and study the divine scriptures, was not to blame, but rather it was a recommended disposition. Since, however, the individual by himself apart from private meetings could hardly procure Bible texts, this ban was practically equivalent to a Bible ban for lay people.
Horst Robert Balz, Gerhard Krause, Gerhard Müller, Siegfried M. Schwertner, Claus-Jürgen Thornton, Matthias Glockner: ''Theologische Realenzyklopädie.'' Walter de Gruyter, 1977, , p. 66

After the end of the Albigensian Crusade, the Council of Toulouse tightened the provisions against the heretics in this ecclesiastical province. The Inquisition was the first to work nationwide, and the University of Toulouse was founded, to which the Catholic Institute of Toulouse is also called. At the synod a general Bible ban was pronounced for lay people of this ecclesiastical province, only Psalterium and Brevier in Latin were allowed.
Realenzyklopädie für protestantische Theologie und Kirche, 2, p. 703

This quote was not repeated in 1233 at the Council held in Bréziers. Although sections of the Council Toulouse were used, this statement was omitted. In the course of a confirmation of the writings in 1215 at Fourth Council of the Lateran's condemnation of the writings of David of Dinant ordered Gregory IX. in 1231, to hand over all the theological books written in Latin to the diocesan bishops. At the Second Council of Tarragona (''Conventus Tarraconensis'') in 1234, the Spanish bishops, according to a decree of King James I of Aragon, declared that it was forbidden to anyone, to own a translation of the Bible. They had to be burned within eight days, otherwise, they were considered heretics.
Carl Mirbt (Ed.): ''Quellen zur Geschichte des Papsttums und des römischen Katholizismus'', 3. Auflage, J.C.B. Mohr (Paul Siebeck), Tübingen 1911, p. 155–156
Online bei Archive.org
;
298. 3., Synode zu Tarragona (1234): Bibelverbot; Mansi XXIII 329. – Heferle V 1037.
301. Konzil von Béziers (August 19, 1246): Verbot von Übersetzungen theologischer Bücher; Mansi XXIII 724. – Heferle V p. 1145 ff.

D. Lotsch: ''Histoire de la Bible en France'', 1910, p. 14

At the diocesan synod of Trier (''Synodus Dioecesana Trevirensis'') convened by Archbishop Theodoric II in 1231, alleged heretics called Euchites were described as having translated the scriptures into German:
August Heinrich Hoffmann von Fallersleben: ''Geschichte der deutschen Kirchenliedes bis auf Luthers Zeit.'' 3. Ausgabe, Carl Rümpler, Hannover 1861, p. 52 ff.
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At the synod of Béziers (''Concilium Biterrense'') in 1246 it was also decided that the laity should have no Latin and vernacular and the clergy no vernacular theological books.
August Hahn: ''Lehrbuch des christlichen Glaubens. First part. 2nd Ed.'', Friedrich Christian Wilhelm Vogel, Leipzig 1857, p. 202-
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(berichtet fälschlicherweise von einer Wiederholung des hier 1229 zitierten Canons auf der Synode von Béziers 1233, ebenso wie Hegelmaier; andere Teile von Toulouse kamen sehr wohl 1233 vor nur nicht dieser.)

Charles IV, Holy Roman Emperor issued an edict against German interpretations of Scripture at the request of Pope Urban V 1369 in Lucca, This was in order that such interpreters would not seduce laymen and malevolent spirits to heresy or error.
Martin Leutzsch (article in German): ''Bibelübersetzung als Skandal und Verbrechen''. In: Rainer Dillmann: ''Bibel-Impulse: Film − Kunst − Literatur − Musik − Theater − Theologie''. Lit Verlag, Berlin 2006, , pp. 42–57, here pp. 46–48.
Nevertheless, his son started the handwritten Wenceslas Bible in 1385.

In 1376, Pope Gregory XI ordered that all literature on the Bible should be placed under ecclesiastical direction. As a result, only the Vulgate and a few poor quality translations in national languages were tolerated.Das Neue Testament deutsch
Ökumenisches Heiligenlexikon

John Wycliffe (1330–1384), a theologian with pre-Reformation views, finished the first authoritative translation of the Bible from Latin into English in 1383. His teachings were rejected in 1381 by Oxford University and in 1382 by the church. For fear of a popular uprising Wycliffe was not charged. The translation of the Bible caused great unrest among the clergy, and for their sake, several defensive provincial synods were convened, such as the 3rd Council of Oxford (ended in 1408). Under the chairmanship of Archbishop Thomas Arundel, official positions against Wycliffe were written in the '' Oxford Constitution'' and ''Arundel Constitution''. The latter reads as follows:

Unlike before, translations of liturgical readings and preaching texts (psalms, pericopes from the Gospels and Epistles) were now bound to an examination by church authorities. Individuals like William Butler wanted to go even further and also limit Bible translations to the Latin language alone. In 1401, Parliament passed the ''De heretico comburendo'' law in order to suppress Wycliffe's followers and censor their books, including the Bible translation. At the Council of Constance in 1415, Wycliffe was finally proclaimed a heretic and condemned as "that pestilent wretch of damnable memory, yea, the forerunner and disciple of anti-christ who, as the complement of his wickedness, invented a new translation of the Scriptures into his mother-tongue." His helpers Nicholas Hereford and John Purvey were forced to recant their teachings, and his bones, as determined by the council were finally burned in 1428. However, his translation of the Bible along with 200 manuscripts were secretly preserved and read by followers, and have survived to the present day. However, Wycliffe's Bible was not printed until 1731, when Wycliffe was historically conceived as the forefather of the English Reformation.
Eberhard Zwink
Verwirrspiel um eine Bibel
Württembergische Landesbibliothek Stuttgart, 1999
The next English Bible translation was that of William Tyndale, whose Tyndale Bible had to be printed from 1525 outside England in areas of Germany sympathetic to Protestantism. Tyndale himself was sentenced to death at the stake because of his translation work. He was strangled in 1536 near Brussels and then burned.

From the printing press until the Reformation

Around 1440–1450 Johannes Gutenberg invented a printing press with movable type, with which he produced the Gutenberg Bible. His invention quickly spread throughout Europe. In 1466 the Mentelin Bible was the first vernacular language Bible to be printed. It was a word-for-word translation from the Latin Vulgate.
Friedrich Kapp: '' Geschichte des Deutschen Buchhandels Volume 1 (Geschichte des Deutschen Buchhandels bis in das siebzehnte Jahrhundert)'', Published by Börsenvereins der Deutschen Buchhändler, Leipzig 1886; Kapitel 9: Die Büchercensur und die Preßverfolgungen, pp. 527–535

Pope Paul II (pontificate 1464–1471) confirmed the decree of James I of Aragon on the prohibition of Bibles in vernacular languages.
Herbert Marsh; Johann Christoph Schreiter (Übers.): ''Vergleichende Darstellung der protestantisch-englischen und römisch-katholischen Kirche, oder, Prüfung des Protestantismus und Katholicismus: nach dem gegenseitigen Gewicht der Grundsätze und Lehren dieser beyden Systeme'', J.E. Seidel, Sulzbach im Regenkreis Baierns 1821, p. 319 (Google-OCR: p. 519)
Online-Version

Under Isabella I of Castile and her husband Ferdinand II of Aragon, the printing of vernacular Bibles was prohibited in Spanish state law. The Spanish Inquisition which they instituted ordered the destruction of all Hebrew books and all vernacular Bibles in 1497. This was five years after the expulsion of the Jews from Spain. In 1498, the Inquisition stated that it was impossible to translate the Bible into a modern language without making mistakes that would plunge unskilled and especially new converts into doubts about faith.
Gebrüder Reichenbach (Ed.): ''Allgemeines deutsches Conversations-Lexicon für die Gebildeten eines jeden Standes. Volume 2. Begl-Eiv. 2. Ausgabe'', Gebrüder Reichenbach, Leipzig 1840, p. 124 „Bibelverbot“
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The complete translation of the Bible into a Romance language, a transfer of the Vulgate into Valencian, was made by the Carthusian order general Bonifaci Ferrer (1355-1417) and was printed in 1478.

By letter of March 17, 1479, Sixtus IV authorized the rector and dean of the University of Cologne to intervene with ecclesiastical censors against printers, buyers and readers of heretical books. This authorization was approved by Pope Alexander VI. In several theological and non-theological books from this period a printing patent is included in the publications. From this time also printing patents of the Patriarch of Venice can be found. With the censorship of January 4, 1486 and an executive order of January 10, the Elector-Archbishop Berthold von Henneberg of Mainz can be considered a pioneer in censorship regulation in the German-speaking countries for Mainz, Erfurt, and Frankfurt. His censorship decisions did not concern secular topics, but instead targeted specific religious texts, especially translations from Latin and Greek into the German. Berthold was of the opinion that the German language was too poor to reproduce the precise and well-formulated Latin and Greek texts. Up to this time, no heretical writings had appeared printed in German, but since 1466 about ten relatively identical German Bible translations were completed. He commented:

In 1490 a number of Hebrew Bibles and other Jewish books were burned in Andalucía at the behest of the Spanish Inquisition.

16th century

From 1516 to 1535, Erasmus of Rotterdam published several editions of his ''Novum Instrumentum omne''. It was a double edition with both a new Latin version as well as the first print of the Greek text, which was reconstructed in a few places by back-translating Latin into Greek. In 1517 Luther published his '' Ninety-five Theses''. In 1521 he was excommunicated with the bull ''Decet Romanum Pontificem'', declared a heretic, and issued the Edict of Worms. In 1522, the first translation of Luther's New Testament was published. It was translated on the basis of the Greek text of Erasmus. In 1534 the entire Holy Scripture was printed, completing the ''Luther Bible''.

At the Council of Trent, both Luther's and Erasmus's writings were put on the '' Index Librorum Prohibitorum''. Later printed copies of the index explicitly banned their Bibles as well as any prior editions and in general all similar Bible editions:Testaments Index Librorum Prohibitorum – NOV. TEST.
1559

The Edict of Worms against Luther was not enforced throughout the empire. In 1523, at the Reichstag in Nuremberg the papal nuncio Francesco Chieregati asked for the Holy Roman Empire to enforce the clause of the Lateran Council against printing any book without the permission of the local bishop or his representative. He also wanted the Edict of Worms to be enforced. Instead, on March 6, 1523, it was decreed that until the demanded church council could be held, local rulers themselves should ensure that no new writings were printed or sold in their territories unless they had been approved by reasonable men. Other writings, especially those of an insulting nature, were to be banned under severe punishment.

The 1529 Diet of Speyer limited its decrees essentially to repeating the resolutions of 1523 Diet of Augsburg. On May 13, 1530, the papal nuncio gave the Emperor a memorandum which recommended that the Edict of Worms and the bull of Leo X was to be implemented by imperial decree and on pain of punishment. Following the Protestation at Speyer at the conclusion of the Reichstag on November 19, 1530, it was decided that nothing should be printed without specifying the printer and the printing location. The nuncio's request had failed.

As part of the 1541 Diet of Regensburg which set the terms of the Regensburg Interim, the rule against publishing insults was repeated.

England

In 1534, the Canterbury Convocation requested that the king commission a new translation of the Bible by suitable persons and authorize the reading of the new translation. Although the king did not designate translators, new translations appeared from 1535 and afterwards. In 1536 and 1538 Thomas Cromwell prescribed that Coverdale's translation of the Bible was to be placed in every church. These Bibles were to be printed in a large size and chained to prevent theft. This translation came to be called the "Great Bible" or "Chained Bible."

''Index Librorum Prohibitorum''

Around this time, the papal ''Index Librorum Prohibitorum'' began to be developed. At the 1548 Diet of Augsburg, which pronounced the terms of the Augsburg Interim, the ordinance against insults was repeated and the previous provisions were extended to include the name of the author or poet. In addition, books were to be checked before printing by the "ordinary authority of every place." There was a sentiment against that which was "rebellious and ignominious or unruly or obnoxious to the Catholic Doctrine of the Holy Christian Church." The already printed books of Luther were to be suppressed. The Holy Roman Imperial Fiscal official was to intervene against the offending authorities. After the 1555 Peace of Augsburg ended the Augsburg Interim and increased religious freedom by declaring ''cuius regio, eius religio'', the papal ''Index Librorum Prohibitorum'' was only observed as law in Catholic territories.

General Rules in the ''Roman Index''

Pius IV (pontificate 1559–1565) also added general rules to the ''Index Romanus''. In the first printed and published version of 1559, there are 30 Latin editions of Scripture, 10 New Testament editions, and two short general rules for Bibles in foreign languages.

At the 18th meeting of the Council of Trent on 26 February 1562, it was decided to work out general indexing rules. On December 3 or 4th, 1563, the Council decided to submit its proposal, the ''Decretum de indice librorum'', to the Pope for final adaptation. With the bull '' Dominici gregis custodiae'' the ''Index tridentinus'' was published on March 24, 1564 by the Pope. In it all the writings of all heresiarchs (all Reformers) were included on the index, regardless of whether they contained theology, religious words, or descriptions of nature. Especially on Bibles, Rules 3 and 4 came into play:

The rules were reprinted in each version until the reform in 1758. Believers were forbidden to make, read, own, buy, sell or give away these books on the basis of excommunication.
Hubert Wolf: ''Index: der Vatikan und die verbotenen Bücher'', C.H.Beck, 2007, , p. 27–34, 218 pages

With this addition, the rule remained valid until 1758. How it was dealt with in each country was different. In a Catholic country like Bavaria, it was state law. In particular, booksellers had their licenses revoked for violating it. In contrast, in Württemberg, a refuge of Protestantism, the index functioned more like a blacklist. But it also found application in elite Catholic schools in secularized France until the 20th century. In general, secularized France almost never used the ''Roman Index''.
Franz Heinrich Reusch: ''Der Index der verbotenen Bücher. Ein Beitrag zur Kirchen und Literaturgeschichte. Volume 1.'', Max Cohen & Sohn, Bonn 1883,
Online-Version

p. 17, 43, 44, Von Beginn der Buchdruckerkunst bis zur Beginn der Reformation: 53-65, Deutsches Reich: 80-87, England: 87-98, Niederlande: 98-128, Spanien: 131-140, Frankreich 1521–1551: 140-153, Trient 1546: 195-200, Regeln des Index 1564: 330-341, Translated from Alexander VI. 1501: p. 54

Hubert Wolf
Archäologie im Vatikan – Die katholische Buchzensur (1)
( RTF; 39 kB), Sendung: Sonntag, February 10th, 2008, 8.30 Uhr, SWR 2; SWR2 AULA – Manuskriptdienst

17th–18th centuries

''Unigenitus''

In 1713 Clement XI issued the bull ''Unigenitus dei filius'' in order to fight against Jansenism. The bull condemned 101 excerpts from the work ''Réflexions morales'' by Pasquier Quesnel, including the following propositions:
Philip Schaff:
Creeds of Christendom, with a History and Critical notes. Volume I. The History of Creeds.
', 1919

This bull was controversial among the French clergy for various reasons. Among the reasons it was controversial was that it condemned various sentences from the Bible and the Fathers of the Church. But the 1719 bull ''Pastoralis officii'' threatened excommunication on all who did not submit to ''Unigenitus dei filius''. The Lateran Council confirmed Benedict XIII's bull ''Unigenitus dei filius''.

Punishments against violators

As part of a program of persecution against the Salzburg Protestants, in 1731, Leopold Anton von Firmian – Archbishop of Salzburg as well as its temporal ruler as Count, ordered the wholesale seizure and burning of all Protestant books and Bibles.

On May 27, 1747 Jakob Schmidlin ("Sulzijoggi") was hanged as the leading head of a Bible movement in the canton of Lucerne in Galgenwäldli on the Emme. His corpse was burned along with a Luther Bible. He is considered the last Protestant martyr of Switzerland. Where his farm stood, a pillar was erected. Of over 100 co-defendants of this movement (from Ruswil, Wolhusen, Werthenstein, Menznau, Malters, Kriens, and Udligenswil), 82 of them were also punished, mostly with perpetual banishment. Since the Bible was at the center of this movement and violations of censorship rules against the use and possession of Bibles was one of the offenses committed by the convicted, after the trial the authorities issued a decree that included a general prohibition on laymen having Bibles:

19th–20th centuries

In 1816, Pius VII sent two breves concerning the Bible societies. One to the archbishop of Gniezno and Primate of Poland

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