medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture
It occurs to me that a very similar thing happens today amongst the monks of
the Ethiopian Church, who have a hyper-possessive attitude towards their
holy books (whether you subjectively characterise this as "maintaining
power" or "preserving sanctitiy" is the problem).
Rob Howe.
----- Original Message -----
From: "Dennis Martin" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Friday, April 11, 2003 2:17 PM
Subject: Re: [M-R] translations and heresy
medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture
Richard, why don't you stop beating so subtly and nuancedly around the bush
and tell us what you really think?
Anyone who has spent much time in the major manuscript collections in
Munich, London, Paris, Vienna, Rome etc. knows that vernacular translations
of the Bible were common in monastery libraries. A German Lutheran
bibliographer compiled a list of vernacular Bible translations before Luther
sometime in the 1950s, as I recall (Volz?). It's a long list.
Vernacular translations intended for circulation among the populace were a
different matter--for the very reason raised by the Waldensian refusal to
submit their preaching to episcopal oversight: the Church _did_ insist on
"control" of what was preached (and all preaching in the vernacular was a
form of "translation" and interpretation of the Scriptures) because (1)
controversies over the interpretation of Scripture (= over doctrinal
matters) would lead to schism and division, hence needed to be resolved and
(2) the manner of resolving them since the very early days of the Church had
been apostles (later bishops) meeting in council, apostles writing letters
(SS. Paul, John etc.) etc.
If unity matters, then some means of maintaining is essential and
ultimately, since even bishops meeting in council can end up hopelessly
deadlocked, some means of resoloving those sorts of disagreements is
necessary.
Those who claim to be pluralistic and to have given up on the possibliity of
unity (although more subtle means of Inquisition survive in our day--tenure
review committess, peer reviews to decide whose work gets the stamp of
approval and whose does not, shifting hegemonic consensus about what is
"sexy" and "groundbreaking" and "prizewinning" scholarship, journalism,
political parties etc.) and who believe that beliefs have no eternal
consequences have little standing to dismiss reductively as merely being
efforts to suppress political challenges to power the work of those who
understood themselves to be preserving the faith handed to the apostles
intact and in unity. That for some of them it may have been about nothing
but power and political suppression is likely. But that for all of that
that's all it was is prima facie doubtful
Of course, behind this, as I have pointed out on this list before, lies
one's worldview--is life (and politics, and history) all, in the end, about
power or not?
Dennis Martin
>>> [log in to unmask] 04/11/03 07:04AM >>>
medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture
At 07:22 AM 4/11/2003, you wrote:
>medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture
>That sounds rather like typical modern spin on the issue, which would much
>rather portray the medieval Catholic Church as an than the complex
>organisation it actually was.
this reaction sounds like it has taken a more subtle approach to the
complexity of the high and late medieval church as license to dismiss that
aspect of the Catholic Church (which gained increasing dominance from the
late 12th cn onwards) -- what i wd call inquisitorial xnty -- as a
myth. certainly there were all kinds of currents within the church, but
that doesn't mean that, for example, translations of the bible were
considered heresy by the inquisitorial courts established in the wake of
the albigensian crusade and that suspicion of translations as major spurs
to heresy were not widespread in clerical circles. to say that waldo was
in trouble for disobeying orders not to preach without permission and
ignore the reaction of someone like Walter Map about vernacular
translations as pearls before swine is like saying Priscillian was executed
as for witchcraft and not for heresy.
virtually every time that the bible gets into the hands of lay commoners
thru translations in the HMA and the early modern period, it results in
serious political unrest. if the church wasn't the autocratic,
controlling, monolithic, freedom-sapping monster of legend, it was not for
lack of effort.
rl
>>medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture
>>I'm afraid this is rather an idiot question, but I hope you will bear with
me.
>>
>>I've just watched the tape of a recent tv programme on Tyndale and his
>>translation of the Bible into English. The implication was that the
>>translation itself was considered heresy - I was under the impression
>>that it was the interpretations of the Bible a translation could lead to
>>and the consequent challenges to the authority of the Church that were
>>the real cause of concern? Hadn't large parts of the Bible been
>>translated into Old English under King Alfred? I know Waldes got into
>>trouble - but wasn't that because of unauthorised preaching based on the
>>translations of the Bible he commissioned? Did attitudes towards
>>translating the Bible harden over the Middle Ages?
>>Any clarification, or suggestions for beginners' reading, much
appreciated.
>>with thanks
>>Cate Gunn
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