The Catholic World, Vol. 15, Nos. 85-90, April 1872-September 1872: A Monthly MagazineVarious
Religion
The Catholic World, Vol. 15, Nos. 85-90, April 1872-September 1872: A Monthly Magazine
Various
Catholic Church -- Periodicals
In default of types and power-presses, volumes of the Scriptures
were multiplied by copying, and every talent and gift of man was
enlisted to preserve, beautify, and bring them within the reach
and comprehension of the great body of the people. Its light was
not hidden in the obscurity of an unfamiliar tongue. In the fourth
century, on the banks of the Danube, Ulphilas had translated the
entire Scriptures into the then barbarous Mœso-Gothic. In England,
Cædmon had sung the Scripture story of God’s power and mercy, and
put into verse all of Genesis and Exodus, with other portions of
the Old Testament, besides the life and passion of our Lord and
the Acts of the Apostles. The Venerable Bede had translated St.
John’s Gospel, and written numerous expositions of the Old and New
Testaments. Aldhelm had translated the Psalms. The entire four
Gospels have come down to us in the Anglo-Saxon of King Alfred’s
day. Ælfric translated the whole of the Pentateuch and the Book of
Job. The Normans in England had various translations besides their
metrical romance, and a verse translation of the Bible. In 1327,
William of Shoreham translated the Psalter into English. A few
years later, Richard Rolle translated the Psalms and part of the
Book of Job into the dialect of Northumberland. The four Gospels
issued in 1571 by Parker, with a dedication to Queen Elizabeth by
Foxe, the martyrologist, _are copied from two Anglo-Saxon versions
of the tenth and eleventh centuries_. From the original copy, _Tha
Halgan Godspel on Englisc_, they appear to have been divided and
arranged for reading aloud to the people. Many of these, it will
be noticed, are versions adorned and heightened by literary labor
and poetic inspiration. Plain prose Bible translations existed
in large numbers, which, as being more exposed, were the first
to perish from the effects of time, the elements, and the wilful
destruction of bigotry. The metrical versions were generally better
bound and better cared for in special libraries, and in the hands
of the wealthy. And yet of these how few copies survive! And who
shall tell us of scores of hundreds more of which we have never
heard? An immense body of Anglo-Saxon Scriptural literature has
perished and left no trace.
But M. Taine, it may be objected, was surely under no obligation
to write the history of your Anglo-Saxon monks! Certainly not. But
he was under some sort of obligation not to represent the product
of Christianity, viz., the Anglo-Saxon man, as the product of pure
paganism. That he has done so, we have shown from the remarkable
manner in which he has spoken of the products of Anglo-Saxon
literature, and we have not taken into account the full and
rich material at command, written in the Latin language by the
Anglo-Saxons.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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