Ecclesia Militans: Where we got the Bible

Bible-Reading in the ‘Dark Ages’

But perhaps some objector may say: ‘Yes, they copied the Scripture, these monks and priests, but that was all; they did not know anything really about it, did not understand it; their work was merely mechanical.’ Now, I shall show that the very contrary was the fact; they had a profound knowledge and understanding of the Bible, and it was their constant companion. (1) IN the first place, the Bishops and Abbots required all their priests to know the Scriptures. We find constantly in the old Constitutions and Canons of different dioceses that the clergy were bound to know the Psalms, the Epistles, and Gospels, besides, of course, the Missal and other Church service books, (take for example, the Constitutions of Belfric or of Soissons). And these rules were effective; they had to be observed, for we find Councils like that of Toledo, for instance (in 835), issuing decrees that Bishops were bound to inquire throughout their dioceses whether the clergy were sufficiently instructed in the Scripture. In some cases they were obliged to know by heart not only the whole Psalter, but (as under the rule of St. Pachomius) the New Testament as well. I suppose most ministers of the Kirk could stand this test quite easily.

Then the clergy were continually meditating on various portions of the Scriptures, and writing about them in homilies and commentaries, and ever reciting them in their services, so they could not help but know them well. Some of the saints of those days, like St. Anselm and St. Hubert, actually knew them off by heart, and could answer every question, however difficult, about the meaning of them. And not only saints, but multitudes of ordinary priests and Bishops constantly had the Scriptures on their lips. Wulstan, Bishop of Worcester, for example, had a custom, which would be decidedly trying to most clergy in our days, of repeating the whole Psalter along with his attendant priests when journeying; and we are told that ‘lying, standing, walking, sitting, he had always a Psalm on his lips, always Christ in his heart.’ Again, we know Abbots (like him of Cologne) who ‘caused the whole of the Old and the New Testaments to be read through every year.’ Besides, the Scriptures were read daily during meals in monasteries. And if further proof were require that the clergy were intimately familiar, not only with the words, but with the meaning and teaching of Holy Scripture, we have only to dip into the sermons, happily preserved, which these men preached to their flocks, and we shall find them simply full to overflowing with quotations from every part of the Bible, far fuller, indeed, than the sermons of Protestant clergy in the twentieth century. I shall give only one example, and we have no reason to think that it is at all exceptional.

It is the sermon of a monk called Bardo in Germany, who was about to be appointed Archbishop of Mentz. He preached, however, first before a great multitude at Christmas about the year 1000, the Emperor being present. His text was Psalm xvii, 13. I have not seen the whole of his sermon, but only about eight printed pages of it. I have counted the references and quotations from the Old and New Testaments, and I find there are exactly 73. The audience enjoyed the sermon, understood the references, and the monk was made Archbishop. I hope I have shown now how really preposterous is the idea that the monks did not know the Bible. What man in his senses can have patience to listen to the silly legend that Martin Luther first discovered by accident the Scriptures – a book which, as a friar, he was bound to have known and studied and learned and recited for years? The simple fact, as is now proved by irrefutable evidence, is that the clergy of those ‘dark ages’ had a knowledge of and familiarity with the written Word of God which modern ministers cannot equal; and what is no less important, together with their knowledge they had a deep veneration and love for it, guarding it jealously from corruption and error, believing what they taught, humbly accepting its Divine authorship and authority – an attitude in striking contrast to present day critics, who treat the bible like a common book, and pick holes in it and impugn its genuineness and its accuracy, and in general attempt to eliminate the supernatural element from it altogether.

(2) But, again, I think I hear the voice of the objector, who will not believe all this if he can possibly help it – ‘Yes; well, perhaps the clergy did know the Bible, but nobody else did; it was a closed and sealed volume to the poor lay people, because, of course, it was all in Latin.’ Now, leaving aside the question of Latin for a moment (for I shall come back to that immediately), it is utterly false to say or suppose that the lay folks were ignorant of the Scriptures. They were thoroughly well-acquainted with them so far as they required to be in their state of life. It is true, of course – and how could it be otherwise? – that ecclesiastics being th reading and writing men, in short, the only well-educated persons of those days, naturally have left behind them more evidence than most lay people could do of their familiarity with the Sacred Word; but it is yet the fact that the literature of those ages, outside clerical documents altogether, which has come down to us, is steeped and permeated through and through with Scripture. Conversations, for example, correspondence, law deeds, household books, legal documents, historical narratives – all are full of it; full not only of the ideas, but often of the very words of Scripture. How many lawyers and doctors and professors and ordinary lay folks nowadays, I wonder, would be found quoting from the Bible in their writings? The reason, of course, was that books were scarce in those days, and expensive, and the Bible was the most common and popular and accessible; it was the most familiar to kings and princes, to soldiers and lawyers, to business men and tradesmen, laborers and artisans. They all knew it and understood it, and enjoyed the numberless quotations and references to it in sermons and addresses, and could often repeat portions of it from memory. ‘The writings of the dark ages’ – says Dr. Maitland in chapter 27 of his most valuable and entertaining book, The Dark Ages – ‘the writings of the dark ages are, if I may use the expression, made of the Scriptures. I do not merely mean that the writers constantly quoted the Scriptures, and appealed to them as authorities on all occasions as other writers have done since their day; but I mean that they thought and poke and wrote the thoughts and words and phrases of the Bible, and that they did this constantly and habitually as the natural mode of expressing themselves. They did it, too, not exclusively in theological or ecclesiastical matters, but in histories, biographies, familiar letters, legal instruments, and documents of every description. I do not know that I can fully express my meaning, but perhaps I may render it more clear if I repeat that I do not so much refer to direct quotations of Scripture as to the fact that their ideas seem to have fallen so naturally into the words of Scripture that they were constantly referring to them in a way of passing allusion which is now very puzzling to those who are unacquainted with the phraseology of the Vulgate.’ We can thus see form the testimony of such a student of that period as Rev. Dr. Maitland how the language and ideas of the Bible had passed into the current language of the people. Sometimes persons carried copies of the Gospels about with them, just as Catholics today carry about them a Gospel of St. John, out of veneration.

(3) But how, it may be asked, could the people who were unable to read (and they were admittedly a large number) become acquainted with the Bible? The answer is simple. They were taught by monk and priest, both in church and school, through sermon and instruction. They were taught by sacred plays or dramas, which represented visibly to them the principle facts of sacred history, like the Passion Play of today at Oberammergau. They were taught through paintings and statuary and frescoes in the churches, which portrayed before their eyes the doctrines of the Faith and the truths of Scripture: and hence it is that in Catholic countries the walls of Churches and monasteries and convents, and even cemeteries, are covered with pictures representing Scriptural scenes.

‘Painting is the book of the ignorant.’ Stained glass windows may be mentioned in the same category; and so may popular hymns, and poetry, and simple devotional books for the poor, all of which, along with the ceremonies and functions of the Church, served to imprint on people’s memories and understandings the great events in God’s dealings with His creatures since the beginning of the world. We must remember, too, that, for those who could not afford to purchase a Bible or a copy of the Gospels, the Sacred Volume was often chained to a stone in some public place about the church for everyone to study; and wealthy persons in their wills were known to leave money enough to provide for such a thing. The simple truth is that the Catholic Church adopted every means at her disposal in these old days to bring a knowledge of God’s Word to those who could not read, as well as to those who could. Bibles were not printed because there was no printing press; but whose fault was that? Is the Church to blame for not inventing the printing press sooner? But why did God not invent printing Himself if He wished the Bible to be in everybody’s hand? Nero had no motor car, nor had Julius Caesar a maxim gun, nor William Wallace a flying machine – were these men consequently ignorant and behind the times and worthy of contempt? There were no railway trains in Luther’s day; nor did John Knox invent chloroform, or Oliver Cromwell electricity – are these men in consequence to be considered as illiterate, stupid, barbarous, sunk in mental degradation? The Catholic Church, then, had to do the best she could in the circumstances; and I submit she did all that any organization on earth could possibly have done for the spread of Scripture knowledge among her children. Vast numbers could not read; I admit it; the Church was not to blame for that. Latin was the universe tongue, and you had to be rather scholarly to read it. But I protest against the outrageous notion that a man cannot know the Bible unless he can read it. Can he not see it represented before his eyes? Can he not hear it? Do you not know and understand one of Shakespeare’s plays much better by seeing it acted on the stage than by reading it out of a book? Do the visitors to Oberammergau, witnessing the ‘Passion Play’, not come to understand and realize the story of the Passion and Death of Our Lord more vividly by seeing it enacted before their eyes than if they read the cold print out of a New Testament? You hear a Board School child rattling off the ten plagues of Egypt and the names of all the Kings of Israel and Judah, and divers chapters of the Bible: but does that child necessarily know what it is reciting? Does it understand and appreciate and realize? It may or it may not; there is no necessary connection between the two things.

There is such a thing as literal idolatry, worshiping the letter and neglecting the spirit; a superstitious, groveling or subserviency to the mere text of the Bible. A boy or girl might know whole passages of the Bible by heart, and only use them for their own moral ruin. I am contending for the genuine, real, practical working knowledge of the Bible among the generality of Catholics in the Middle Ages: and, whether htey could read or not, I do not hesitate to assert that, with few exceptions, they had a personal and intelligent knowledge and a vivid realization of the most necessary facts in the Sacred Scripture and in the life of Our Divine Lord to an extent which is simply not to be found among the millions of our nominal Christians in these islands today. Whatever ignorance there was – this at least all impartial scholars must concede – the Church was in no way to blame for it. Where, I ask, is the proof of the Church’s hatred of the Bible, of any attempt to hide it to destroy it, to dishonor and belittle it? I cannot do better than give you here two or three sentences from the work of the learned and honest Protestant student, some of whose words I have quoted before: ‘I must add that I have not found anything about the arts and engines of hostility, the blind hatred of half-barbarian kings, the fanatical fury of their subjects, or the reckless antipathy of the Popes (in regard to the Bible). I do not recollect any instance in which it is recorded that the Scriptures, or any part of them, were treated with indignity, or with less than profound respect. I know of no case in which they were intentionally defaced or destroyed (except as I have just stated for their rich covers), though I have met with, and hope to produce several instances, in some of which they were the only, and in others almost he only, books which were preserved through the revolutions of the monasteries to which they belonged, and all the ravage of fire, pillage, carelessness, or whatever else had swept away all the others. I know of nothing which should lead me to suppose that any human craft or power was exercised to prevent the reading, the multiplication, the diffusion of the Word of God.’ We may fittingly conclude this part of our papers with the words of the Quarterly Review, October, 1879: ‘The notion that people in the Middle Ages did not read their Bibles is probably exploded except among the more ignorant of controversialists. The notion is not simply a mistake; it is one of the most ludicrous and grotesque blunders.’

Chapter Nine