Even after the Bible had been corrected, in the eleventh and
twelfth centuries, by Lanfranc, Archbishop of Canterbury, and by
Nicholas, cardinal and librarian of the Roman Church, "in
accordance with the orthodox faith," the passage was still wanting
in the more authoritative Latin manuscripts. There was not the
slightest tenable ground for believing in the authenticity of the
text; on the contrary, it has been demonstrated that, after a
universal silence of the orthodox fathers of the Church, of the
ancient versions of the Scriptures, and of all really important
manuscripts, the verse first appeared in a Confession of Faith
drawn up by an obscure zealot toward the end of the fifth century.
In a very mild exercise, then, of critical judgment, Erasmus
omitted this text from the first two editions of his Greek Testament
as evidently spurious. A storm arose at once. In England, Lee,
afterward Archbishop of York; in Spain, Stunica, one of the editors
of the Complutensian Polyglot; and in France, Bude, Syndic of the
Sorbonne, together with a vast army of monks in England and on the
Continent, attacked him ferociously.
Pages:
1229
1230
1231
1232
1233
1234
1235
1236
1237
1238
1239
1240
1241
1242
1243
1244
1245
1246
1247
1248
1249
1250
1251
1252
1253