As a sign of the times, this diffusion of the Latin Bible was curiously significant. Significant it was indeed in more ways than one. It showed (1) that the scholars of the church were being influenced by the new learning; but also (2) that a strict reservation was to be enforced in confining it to scholars. The Bible was for scholars, not for others. A fine instance is in the case of the Complutensian Polyglot. Complutum was the Latin name of Alcala. In 1502 Cardinal Ximenes, the founder of Alcala University, decided on the issue of a Polyglot edition of the Bible wherein the Vulgate should be placed alongside of the best Hebrew and the best Greek manuscripts. "Every theologian", he said, "should also be able to drink of that water which springeth up to eternal life at the fountain head itself.... Our object is to revive the hitherto dormant study of the Sacred Scriptures". The very men who thus engaged in the publication of the Bible, denounced with the direst of penalties its distribution outside the charmed circle of the learned. Freedom of conscience there was none. Tolerance was proclaimed as an emanation of Hell. Difference of opinion was deadly. To acknowledge misgiving or doubt or dissent was incontinently to be rated as a rebel and exposed to the truculency of a pitiless hierarchy. There is a companion picture of the English world at that time, lurid and indeed sickening. The bishops sank their humanity in frenzied partisanship, gave rein to cruel and monstrous passion, aided and abetted therein by More as Lord Chancellor. They lit the fires of Smithfield, and the spectacle of Englishmen perishing at the stake for honesty of thought and sincerity of life, became so familiar as to case-harden the people at the scenes. One story, typical of scores of others, may be given.