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AEO 0 12-1 

Controversy On Questions 

of tbe Bible 

BEING FRIENDLY TALKS ·WITII AN INTELLIGENT PRO-

TESTANT ON MANY POINTS OF DIFFE RENCE 

BEl'\\, :EEN CATHOLICITY AND PROTESTANTISM 

BY 

REV . L. A. LAMBERT , LL.D . 

. Author or "Notes on Ingersoll ," " Tactics of Infidels," etc., 

and E diior of th e New York "Freem an 's J ournnl." 

CATHOLIC TRUTH SOCIET Y 

FLOOD BUILDING SAN FRANCISCO 

1905 





INTRODUCTORY. 

By permission of the author, Rev. L . A. Lambert, LL.D., 
the following con lroversy is republished from the editorial 
columns of the New York Freeman's Journal. The original 
t itle of the articles was "Versions of the Bible," the subject 
undeI' discussion being the relative merits of the Catholic 
and Protestant Versions. As the controversy progressed, 
many other important question>! were treat ed. To meet a 
general demand for these articles in hook form , the Catholic 
Truth Society issues the first part of the controversy. The 
Society desires to acknowledge its thanks to Rev. Dr. Lam-
bert and the Freeman's Journal for kind permission to re-
l'ublish. 

It is deemed advi sabl e to give a brief explanation of the 
more important Catholic and Protestant Versions whooe 
merits nre discusscd. 

The Latin VUlgate. This is the Latin Version of !.h.~ 
Sacred Scriptures a uth orized by the Catholic Church. It 
wns prepared by St. J erome, the most celebrated Biblica l 
~eholar of his age. IVestcott, a Protestant scholar , says of 
him that " J erome probably a lone for 1,500 years possessed 
t he qualifications necessary for producing an original V cr-
sion of the Script ures for the use of the Latin Churches." 
An ancient Latin Version, known as t he "Vetus Itala," WU3 
in existence from the 'second century. Through mistakes of 
transcribers it had become unsatisfactOl'Y, and Pope IJa-
ITInsus requested St .. Jerom e to undertake its revi sion. He 
uega n w ith t he New Testament, which was r evised with ti ,e 
aid of the best Greek manuscripts in existence. The revision 
of ihe Four Gospels was finished A. D. 383, and the remain-
der of the Ne\Y Testament followed. Next he undertook the 
r evision of the Book of P salms, correcting the old Latin 
version by the best Greek texts. Then he began a new trans-
lation of the Old Testament directly from the Hebrew, at 
which he labored f ur fifteen yea rs, from 391 to 406. The 
Books of Tobias and Judith were translated from t he Ara-
maic. A few books of the Old Testam ent were not trallslaterl 
by St. Jerome, but were embodied in the Latin Vulgate as 
t.hey had been preserved in th e old Lat in Version . 

The Douay V ersion. The English Catholic Bible is gen-
era lly known as the Douay Version. A Catholic semina ry 
was established at Douay, in 1571, by Dr. Allen, who hacl 



r enounced hi s diguities at Oxford University in 1559 ' and 
betaken himself to Louvain. The priesthood in England was. 
t hreatened with exlinction, and Dr. Allen started t he Douay 
seminary to supply priests fo r t he E ngli sh mission. 0 11' 
aecount of political iroubles in Flanders, the seminary was. 
moved to French territory at Rheilll s in 1578, where the· 
work of t ranslati ng the Bible was begun by Dr. Allen and 
hi s fellow professors. The entire Bible was finished in 1582, 
[l lld the New Testament wns published at Rheims in that 
yen l'. "Lack of good means" 'lI)d "our poor estate in ban-
j ~hment" delayed t.he publieatiO'll of th e Old Testamen t. In 
150:~ the seminary was moved b,tck to Douay, where t he Old 
Testament was published, lOOtl-lO. The translation was 
made from the Latin Vulgate. It was revised in 1749 by 
Dr. Challoner , Vicar-Apostoli c of London, who substituted 
modern words and constru ctions for the old and obsolete. 
:Many revisions have since been made. 

The Protestant Authorized Version. At a conferencil 
held at Hampton Court, in 1604, presided over by King 
James I of England, a new translation of the Bible was 
suggested, as the "versions allowed in the r eigns of H enry 
VnI and Edward VI were corrupt and not answerable t o t he 
t ruth of the original." The K ing announced, in the same 
year , th at he had chosen fifty-four scholars for the purpose. 
The actual list of revisers numbered forty-seven, who formed 
six compani es. The 11ishop's Bihle (a r evision of the Great 
Bible which was translated by Coverdale, an apostate monk, 
who "was no Greek or H ebrew s(;ho13r," and who translated 
from the Gerl1lan and Latin), was to be followed. The first 
r evision occupied two years, and the final revision nine 
lllonths. F ina Uy, t he Authorized, or King James', Bible wa~ 
published in 1611. Its merits ar e examined in this contro-
H'rsy. 

The Revised Version ( 1881-85 ) . Constant demallds 
were ml),de for !l. revision of the Authorized Version. After 
long discussion t he Convocation of Canterbury appointed a 
('ommittee in 1870 to report upon the desirability of a r evis-
ion and to co-operate with a similar committee of the Con-
vocation of York. The latter convocat ion, however , declined 
to co-operate. The committee of Canterbury resolved in 
favor of revis ion flnd of the appoin tment of two bodies of 
revi sers, and American scholars were invited to co-operate, 
,md consented to act. The Revised New Testament was pub-
lished in 1881, and was received with consternation. Over 
3G,OOO depa rtures from the King J ames' Ver sion occurred ill 
the New Testament. The Revised Old Testament wae pub-
lished in 1885. 



Controversy On Questions 
of the Bible 

By REV. L. A. LAMBERT, LL.D. 

CHAPTER 1. 

'rIfE CHALI.ENGE OF THE IDEAL AMERICAN. 

" One hundred dollars will be for the person who can 
prove that the Bible's Roman Catholic translation is better 
than the translation from originals."-Ideal American. 

FATHER LAMBERT: The opportunity to pocket a hun-

dred dollars is too rare to let this liberal offer pafls by with 

impunity. 

The proof required is the fact that there are no Eng-

lish translations from the original and a translation from 

copies of the originals is better than no translation. Any 

English translation claiming to be made from the originals 

is ipso facto a fraud, for the originals had ceased to exist 

over a thousand years before the Protestant Authorized 

Translation was made. And when it was made, it was 

from copies of the originals, copies that we owe to the 

caligraphic industry of the so-called "lazy monks." All 

the English translations of the Bible, Catholic as well as 

"Protestant, were made from copies or copies of copies. 

The superiority, then, of the Catholic or Protestant 

Bible Version must consist in correctness of translation 

from copies in the Greek and other languages, and not 

that either was made from the originals. 

The question then comes to this: Which is the better 

Translation, the Catholic or the Protestant? We hold that 

the Catholic is the better, and in proof of it we will confine 

ourselves to two or three texts, though we might point out 

others. 



6 l!' ATilER LAUBERT' S CONTROVERSY 

The first text is found in Matthew vi., 13. It is the con-

clusion of the Lord's Prayer. In the King James or Author-

ized Version-the one used by English-speaking Protestants 

for nearly 300 years-the text referred to is: "Lead us 

not into temptation, but deliver us from evil; for Thine is 

the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, forever. Amen." 

In the Catholic Bible the words, "For Thine is 

the kingdom, etc.," are not fOlmd, making the text read, 

"Lead us not into temptation. But deliver us from evil. 

Amen." 
Now it is evident that the Protestant translators of the 

Authorized Version weregllilty of interpolating the words, 

"For Thine is the kingdom, etc.," or the Catholic transla-

tors were guilty of omitting a part of the Bible; for those 

words belong to the Lord's Prayer or they do not. If they 

are a part of the Prayer as our Lord uttered it, the Prot-

estant Version is the more correct. If they do not belong to 

the Prayer, the Catholic Version is the more correct. 

How -is it to be determined? We shall leave it to recog-

nized Protestant scholars to determine, to the learned com-

pilers of the Revised Version, which was published in 1885. 

These learned revisers omitted the words, "For Thine is 

the kingdom, etc.," from their Version of Matthew vi., 13, 

lea.ving the text just as it is found in the Catholic Version. 

They thus showed their conviction that the words, "For 

Thine is the kingdom, etc.," are an interpolation, and that 

the Catholic rendering of the verse is the correct one. 

Let us take two other texts. In the King James Bible, 

Matthew xxvii., 5, speaking of Judas, says "And he cast 

down the pieces of silver in the temple, and departed, and 

went and hanged himself." Compare this with Acts i., 18. 

\ "Now this man (Judas) purchased a field with the reward 

of his iniquity; and falling headlong, he burst asunder in 

the midst, and all his bowels gushed out." 

Now, these two verses are evidently contradictory. The 

first says Judas hanged himself. The second says he fell 

headlong and was killed. 



ON QUESTIONS OF THE BIBLE 7 

In the Catholic Version there is no such contradiction 

found. The text is: "And he indeed hath possessed a field 

of the reward of his iniquity, and, being hanged, burst 

asunder in the midst ; and all his bowels gushed out." 

Here there is no contradiction, and, therefore, we must 

conclude that the Catholic Translation of the texts is t he 

better, or it was made from a more correct copy of the 

original. 

As we are not in any grievous need of money, the I deal 

American may send his hundred dollar check to the New 

York Catholic Truth Society with our compliments. 

CHAPTER II. 

MR. JONES 0];' PITTSBURG ENTERS THE CONTROVElRS'Y. 

Editor Freeman's Journal-Dear Sir: In your editorial 
of January 30th, headed "About Translations of the Bible," 
you state that the Roman Catholic translation of the Bible 
is better than the Protestant translation, or Authorized 
Version. 

The omission you speak of in the Revised Version of 
"Thine is the Kingdom, the power," etc., is altogether in 
favor of the "Revised" and "American Revised," which is 
now the standard edition. As to the hanging of Judas, 
there is no contradiction whatever in the chapters and verses 
referred to. There is individual liberty exercised by Mat-
thew and Luke in relating events. The -occurrence is re-
corded all right by ~oth, though dressed in different terms. 

F ATHEH LAMBERT: The omission, or more cor-

rectly the rejection, from the Lord's Prayer, of 

the words "For Thine is the Kingdom, etc.," is 

certainly altogether in favor of the Revised Version 

as compared with the Authorized Version that has been the 

Protestant standard for nearly three hundred years. III 

admitting this you admit that the Authorized and Stand-

ard Version has for three hundred years been misleading 

Protestant readers by giving them as the words of God 



8 J!'ATHER LAMBERT'S CONTROVERSY 

what the Revised Version now rejects as not His words; 

thus recognizing the superior correctness of the Catholic 

Version over the King James' or Authorized Version, which 

we claimed. For in reJecting the words "For Thine is the 

Kingdom, etc.," the Revised follows the Catholic or Doua,. 

Version, :1S it does in most of its corrections. 

It is a notable fact that the King James' Version, in im· 

proving on former translations, approached nearer to the 
Catholic text; and the Revised, in improving on the King 

James', approaches still nearer to the Catholic t ext. Ward, 

in his "Errata," points out no less than thirty texts which, 

in correcting the King J ames' Bible, follow the Catholic 

Version, and many other texts wherein it approaches nearer 

to the Catholic translation. This fact tells its own story. 

You say the "American Revised" is now the "Standard 

Edition." By whom has it been recognized as such! We 

are not aware that any denomination has given it official 

recognition as the standard, and your calling it so commits 

nobody but yourself. The admittedly erroneous King's or 

Authorized Version, ha s bcen the Standard Version for three 

hundred years. It is the version which the Bible Societies 

sent out to the heathen. Who deposed it? The fact- that 

it is acknowledged to be erroneous does not relegate it to 

"innocuous desuetude" as long as it is read from the pulpit 

and issued by the Bible Societies as the Word of God. 

MR. JONES: "According to the original Greek text, 
your translation of Acts, i, 18, in the Catholic Version, is 
incorrect." 

FATHER LAMBERT: You speak of the original Greek 

text as if there were any such t ext. You know, or ought to 

know, that there is no original t ext in existence; that all 

the manuscripts a re copies, or copies of copies, all varying 

more or less in their readings, and the most of which are 

of comparatively modern .date. AU you could therefore say 

i! that the the manuscript copy from which the printed 

Greek copies were made, was different from the manuscript 

copy used by St. Jerome when he made the Vulgate Trans· 



ON QUESTIONS OF THE BIBLE 9 

lation. The manuscript copies of the fourth century-

when St. Jerome wl'ote--were purer, more free from the 

errors, intentional and otherwise, of copyists than those of 

a later date. There were variant copies in his time. St. 

J 'erome translates Acts i., 18, thus, from the Greek manu· 

script used by him: "Et hic quidem possedit agrum de 

mercede iniquitatis, et suspensus crepuit medius et diffusa 

sunt omnia viscera ejus," which the Catholic Version 

translates thus: "And he indeed hath possessed a field of 

the reward of iniquity, and being hanged burst asunder in 

the midst and all his bowels gushed out." The correctness 

of this English translation will not be disputed. 

The question then comes to this: Was the manuscript 

copy from which St. Jerome translated more correct than 

the copy used by the translators of the King James' Bible 1 

The presumption is in favor of the former for two reasons: 

first, it was an earlier copy and .nearer the autograph orig· 

inals; second, it avoids the contradiction which is found 

in the King James' Bible. 

You tell us there is no contradiction between Matt., 

L'{vii. , 5, and Acts i, 18, as found in King James' Bible . 

.Let the reader judge. Matthew says: "He cast down the 

pieces of silver in the temple, and departed and went and 

hanged himself." In the Acts of the Apostles, the aeCOl/nt 

of Judas' death is this: "Now this man purchased 3. field 

with the reward of iniquity, and falling headlong, he burst 

asunder in the midst," etc. According to the first account 

Judas committed suicide by hanging. Acording to the sec· 

ond, so far as the text throws any light upon it, his death 

was accidental, not suicide at the end of a rope. The 

"individual libert;y" you speak of does not justify such 

contradictions in historical documents, whether made by 

copyists or translators. It must be assumed that thi~ con · 

tradiction did not appear in the original inspired writiD~'S, 

Itnd it does not appear in St. Jerome's Vulgate, nor in its 

Catholic Translation. 

MR. JONES: "If the Protestant version of to·day, that 



10 FATHER LAMBERT'S CONTROVERSY 

is, the American Revised Version, l!JOl, has been made from 
copies duly authenticated of the original manuscripts in 
Hebrew and Greek it certainly ought to be more correct than 
a version made from copies of copies of versions insteitd of 
original copies of manuscripts." 

FATIIER LAMBERT: If! A conclusion based on an "if" 

i.s a very lame conclusion. There is not a manuscript (Opy 

in existcnce that has been duly authenticated as a correct 

and complete copy of the originals. There are a number 

of variant and fragmentary copies. The oldest extant 

Hebrew manuscript is not older than the tenth eenLury. 

The oldest Greek manuscripts of the New Testament are 

not earlier than the fourth century. And, Mr. Jones, you 

will please remember that these manuscripts are the work 

of what you and Protestants generally call the lazy, igno-

rant, dissolute Monks. The Protestant Harman, in his 

"Introduction to the Holy Scriptures," page 48, says: 

"The convents of the Christians, existing from the early 

centuries of the Church to the present day, have been safe 

depositories of Christian Scriptures. The convent has 

proved the ark for the transmission of the ancient maim-

scripts to us." 

Now, Mr. Jones, after the manuscripts were made by 

the Monks and in their possession to alter and interpolate, 

for a thousand years before Protestantism came into exist-

ence, how can you aSBume, even with an "if," that the 
American Revised edition has been made from duly authen-

ticated copies of the original manuscripts. You still harp 

on "the original manuscripts in Hebrew and Greek," know· 

ing, as you should know, that there are no original manu-

scripts in existence in Hebrew, or Greek, or in any other 

language. There is not even a manuscript known to be a 

flrst or immediate copy from the originals. 



ON QUESTIONS OF THE BIBLE 11 

CHAPTER III. 

P ,EDIGREE OF THE PROTES'l.' AN'.r VERSION, 

MR,' JONES: "But the Protestant Version lived in the 
time of Christ and His Apostles, not only in original manu-
script copies, but in the autographs, and for over 1,000 years 
after, continued said existence by copying and recopying 
original copies. Those whose Bible lived thus were in the 
minority, and the Bible of the majority was the manuscript 
Bibles of Ita lic and Vulgate." 

FATHER LAMBERT: This is a vain and puerile begging 

of the whole question, assuming as proved or admitted what 

is neither proved nor admitted. As such it docs not d .'·;erve 

a serious reply. 

A version, as Mr. Jones SllOUld know, is a translation, 

and as a matter of history he should know that there was 

no Protestant translation until made by Protestants. The 

copying and recopying of m anuscrip ts was done by the 

monks, as Dr. Harman testifies. Needless to say that t.hese 

monks were not Protestants. 

The autographs ca.Imot be tra.ced further than the third 

century, and the oldest copies go ba.ck only to the fourth 

century. It is not improbable that there were mOl'll copjes 

of versions or translations than there were copies of the 

originals, but to say that any of these copies or versions 

were Protestant is too a.bsurd for refutation. The luean-

iug of words should not be ta.mpered with. It is not at all 

improbable that those who used copies in the origiuu.l lan-

guages of the Scriptures were in th e minority, and that 

those who used translations were in the majority. )~ut Ii is 

not true to say that the majority used the Italic OJ' the 

. Vulgate. for the great majority of early Christians were as 

Ignorant of th e Italic or Latin as they were of the Greci<. 

They, like the people of this age, used translations. Thus 

ther e were translations into the Ethiopic, th e .Armenian, the 

Rashmuric, the Coptic, the Slavonic, the Gothic, th e 

Syriac aud other languages, and doubtl ess those who used 

these various versions were more numerous than those who 



12 FATHER LAMBERT'S CONTROVERSY 

used the original Greek, or even the Latin, just as a major-

ity use translations now. Consequently, when you say the 

majority used the Italic or Vulgate, you forget the exist-

ence of the translations in many other languages. All these 

translations, as well as the Italic and Vulgate, were made 

to meet the needs of those early Christians who did not 

understand the language of the originals. Among these 

Christians, and the Greeks, the Latins were not in the 

majority. Those Christians, except the Greeks, acquired 

their knowledge of Christianity from speeches in their 

various languages or from translations of the New Testa-

ment, just as modern people acquire it . 

MR. JONES: "As the Protestant Bible emerged froill' the 
age of manuscri-pts to that of print, the famous Wm. Tyn-
dale went back to these same original manuscripts, not in 
Latin, but in the more original, Hebrew and Greek." 

FATHER LAMBERT: The Protestant Version of the 

Bible had no existence in the age of manuscripts. It 

emerged into existence in the shape of translations, recog-

nized by critics and scholars as corrupt .translations, at 

t he time of the Western revolt against the Catholic Church. 

B:fore that time there was no such thing known to the 

Christian world as the "Protestant Bible." Luther's trans·· 

lation in German and Tyndale's in English were the first 

specimens of the Protestant Bible. Sir Thomas More exposerl 

t he corruptions of Tynclale's translation. In the New 'l'es-

tament part of it Bishop Tunstal discovered no less than 

2,000 corruptions. You say Tyndale translates from original 

H ebrew and Greek. The originals do not seem to have been 

able to prevent him from corrupting the text. 

The character of the English Protestant Bibles, prior 

t o the Authorized Version of King James, may be learned 

from the protests against them made by those who urged 

t he King to authorize a new translation. One of these pro-

tests says tha t "Our translation of the psalms, comprised 

in t.he B00k of Comm0n Prayer, doth, in addition, subtrac-



ON QUESTIONS OF THE BIBLE 

tion and a itei'ation differ from the truth of the lip-brew 

in at least two hundred places." 

If two h ul1llrcd corruptions were found in the 1'5a 1mB 

alunc, huw many muril must h'll'e r..een ill th e whol e Bible ? 

"Th e 1';lJglish trnnsiators," says Cm'l isle, " hav e dq)nLved 

[h e sense, obs(Ju rrd Lh,· truth , and dC('eived th e ign, )raut; 

in many places th ey di stort [I,e Scriptur'es from their right 

Sf·nse ami show theru",e}ves to loye darkness r ath er than 

l ight, falsehood more t han truth." 

The ministers of the Diocese of Lincoln, in their appeal, 

said to the King that the English translation of the Bible 

"is a translation that takes away from the text, that adds 

to the text, and that sometim es to the changing or obscur-

ing of the meaning of the Holy Ghost." 

Another zealous Protestant, Broughton, declared to 

the Bishops that "their translations of the Scriptures into 

}]nglish (Bishop's Bible) is such that it perverts the text 

of the Oltl Testammt in cight hundred and forty-eight 

piaces." Sl~ch as they were, l,owel'er, they were not the first 

that appeared in the vulgar tongues of Europe. There were 

many Catholic translations in print before that of Luther 

or Tyndale. 

MR. JONES: "Now a translation of the 'Authorized 
Version (which is the edition you referred to), which i5 
but an offspring of the scholarship of Tyndale and fellow-

'students, hus come to us from the original manuscripts, is 
more correct than that of the Roman Catholic Version, be-
'cause the former is fifteen steps, at least, nearer the hand-
writing of the blessed Apostles." 

FATHER LAMBERT: 'iI,le ·have seen the character of the 

s chola rship or honesty o(Tyndale's translation. To call the 

Auth orized Ver sion an offspring of it is not saying 

much for it. 

By "origina.l manuscripts" we suppose you mean man-

uscripts in the original langua.ges of the Scriptures. YOIl 

speak of these manuscripts as if Protestant transrators 

alone had rcco urse to them. Tlwse manuscripts were ill 

the hands of Catholics before Protestantism had existence, 



14 FATHER LAMBERT;S CONTROVERSY 

and Catholic translators had recourse to them. There wer~ 
two Greek printed editions of the New Testament, one by 

-Erasmus, a Catholic, in 1516, and the other by Cardinal 

Ximines, in 1514, at· Alcala in Spain, twelve years before 

Tyudale made his corrupt English translation. The Old 

'Testament was printed in Hebrew in 1488 by a Hebrew 

;Printer at Soncino in Lombardy. So there was no lack of 

~Jrinteu Bibles in the original languages before Tyndale pub-

~ished his translation in 1526. 
That the Douay translators madc a faithful version into 

English is shown by the fact that King James' Authorized 

Version approaches nearer tv it than any former Protest-

ant version did, and that the r ecent Revised Version ap-

proaches nearer still. Take, for example, the Lord's 

I'rayer in Matthew vi " 9-13. In the last verse the King's 

Authorized Version has "For Thine is the kingdom, and 

the power, and the glory, forever. Amen." The recent 

Hevised Version omits these words entirely, and in doing 

so makes the Prayer (,OJ'respond with the Catholic transla-

tion. Jnst how this crroneous translation "comes fifteen 

steps, at least n carer the handwritings of the blessed 

Apostles" we leave Mr. Jones to explain. We do not say 

that King James' translators added the above words to the 

Lord's Prayer intentionally. It ean be explained by sup-

posing that they had hefore them an incorrect copy of the 

original. So doubtless thought the editors of the R€vised 

'Version, on comparison with other copies of the originals-

and with the Catholic Translation . At any rate they made 

the text coincide with the latter. 

MR. JONES: "If you can show me that it is not, and 
that the Catholic is more correct, I am willing to bow down 
and also make a subscription to the benefit of the Catholic 
Truth Society of New York." 

What we have said above goes to show that the Catho-

lic Version is, on the authority of Protestant translators, 

the more correct version. Whether their authority will con-

-vince you or not is another story. 



ON QUESTIONS OF THE BIBLE 15 

CHAPTER IV. 

ORIGINAL MANUSCRIPTS AND COPIE'S. 

MR. JONE S : "Certainly 'we have original manuscripts 
of the Bible." 

FATHER LAMBERT: Certainly we have not. We have 

remote copies of the original manuscripts, but they are not 

original manuscripts, for the simple reason that they are 

copies. 

MR. JONES: "The duly 3,uthenticated copies made from 
duly authenticated copies of the autographs are properly 
called originals." 

F ATIIER L AMBERT: They a rc not originals, and cannot 

be properly called so, Th ey began as copies and th ey remaiu 

copies or transcripts. You speak of authenticated copies 

of authenticated copies. Where a re these copies, and who 

authenticated them? And who authenticated the no longer 

existing copies from which your "authenticated" copies 

were copied ? All this t a lk of authenticated copies comes 

with bad logic from a Protestant who by his rule of faith-

the Bible alone-must reject tradition and the authority 

of the Church. Aside from Church authority and tradition 

where is there any proof that the now non·existent copies 

were correct copies of the originals ; or where is your evi· 

dence that tbe existing copies are correct copies of the non· 

existent ones? 

MR. JONES: "Extant legal documents and medical pa· 
pel's are eorrectly called original documents, though it be 
known that they a re but copies of authenticated (?) copies 
of the first originals which have been long since worn out 
alld disappeared." 

FATHER LAMBERT: How can they be correctly called 

original documents when it is known that they a re but 

copies of the originals? 

MR. JI) NE!3 : "The form er-that is, the copies-are rec-
ogn.ized as ol'igin al, anti so honored by the highest courts of 
the land," 

FATHER LAMBERT: When a copy of an original ' docu-



10 FATHER LAMBERT'S CONTROVERSY 

ment-in the absence of that original-is duly proved to the 

satisfaction of the co urt to be a correct copy, the court ac-

cepts it as a copy, not as an original document, which the 

court knows to be loot_ 

MR. JONES: "You certainly know this, and, knowing 
it, you are too broad a man and ripe scholar not to consider 
it." 

FATHER LAMBERT : vVe are broad enough to know that 

no court ever knowingly r eceived a copy of a document as 

the original document. It receives the copy only when it 

is duly verified, not as the original, but as a true copy of it. 

The court always distinguishes between similarity and iden-

tity. 

MR. J Ol'{ES : "The old axiom still lives: 'Things that 
are equal to the same thing are equal to each other.' Our 
oldest manu5cripts are therefore equal to the first originals, 
and are themselves original." 

FATHER LAMBERT: Even if we were to grant you-

which we do not-that the copies were complete and cor-

rect, they would sii1l be copies, and not the originals. You 

confound similarity with identity. The old axiom is true, ' 

but your a.pplication of it is incorrect. Let you mu.ke a 

perfect copy of your' neighbor's draft for a thousand dol-

lars, signature and all, and present it to the bank_ When 

your neighbor discovers it he will soon teach you that 

things that are like the same thing are not the same ",Ling. 

There is a. weight, an authority attached to the l,hrase 

"original docum ent" that is not attached to a copy or tran-

script_ You seem to desire to give the latter the full weight 

of the former by miscalling it the former. It is to pre-

vent this abuse of terms that we insist on the distinction 

hetween an original document and a copy of it. 

MR. ,TONES: "I dispute the correctness of your tramla-
Hon of Acts,i, 18, as given by Jerome: 'Et hic quidem 
possedit agrum de mercede iniquitatis et suspensus,' etc. If 
you had used the word 'praecipitatus,' instead of 'suspensus,' 
I would not so much object. But, pray, from what original 
mource did Jerome draw 'suspensus'? There is nothing in 



ON QUESTIONS OF THE BIBLE 17 

any of the accepted original Greek texts that I 'nave exam-
ined to warrant it. From what Greek manuscript did Je-
rome receive it 1" 

FATHER LAMBERT: St. Jerome answers your ques-

tion by stating in his "De Viris Illustribus," "I brought 

t he New Testamcnt (of the V ctllS Itala) into accord 

with the original Greek." And in his dedication to Pope 

Damasus, prefixed to the Four Gospels, "The Foul' Gospels 

have been revised by collating 01 i Greek manuscripts." 

Here it must be noted that in the year of our Lord, 382, 

St. Jerome, in his letter to Pope Damasus, calls the Greek 

manuscripts which he issued "old." Those manuscripts 

therefore dated not only beyond the fourth century, but 

beyond any manuscript of the Greek Testament now exist-

ing. St. Jerome, therefore, had an advantage over you in 

having more ancient · Greek manuscripts to consult 

than are within your r each. The Vetus Itala 

which he was revising was older than any Greek 

manuscript known to us of to-day. Dr. Westcott, an 

eminent Protestant authority, says of it: "This translation 

(the Vetus Itala) \I'a s fixed and currcnt more than a cen-

tury before the trallscription of the oldest Greek manu-

script. Thus it is a witness to a text more ancient and 

caoteris pa:ribtt8 more "aluable than is represented by any 
other authority, unless the F'eshito in its present form be 

excepted." 

Hence we conclude that, as St. Jerome's honesty and 

Greek scholarship have not been questioned, he found before 

him in those old Greek manuscripts valid reasons for the 

word, "suspensns"-hanged-in reference to Judas, found in 

Acts i, 18. It is a word that clears Matthew and Luke of 

contradiction. 



18 FATHER LAMBERT'S CONTROVERsy 

CHAPTER V. 

GLARING OONTRADICT ION IN THE PROTElSTANT VERSION. 

MR JONES: "You suy thcre is nothing in the text to 
justify your insertion of 'suspensus.''' 

FATHER LAMBERT : Nothing in what text? The Greek 

text before you, or the earlier Greek text that was before 

St. Jerome? His being the earlier, nearer to the originals 

of the sacred writers, is by all the rules of critical judg· 

ment, more reliable than yours. 

MR J ONES : "You say, 'Let t he r eader judge.' That is 
just what I want the reader to do. You and I cannot be 
good judges in our own casco Let the Biblical scholarship 
of the country pass judgnlent thereon. I will abide by its 
dccision. If you can satisfactorily prove your translation 
to be the more correct I am ready to put aside that of the 
American Revised and accept that of the Vulgate." 

FATHER LAMBERT: That is very well, but your propo-

sition involves what logicians call an " ignoratio elenchi ," 

you mistake t hc real question. You want us to . prove that 

St. Jerome's is a correct translation of a manuscript which 

he never saw. He translated from a copy much more an-

cient, near er the Apostles, than any manuscripts existing 

now, or than any from which modern translations have 

been made; manuscripts that he called "olel" in his time, 

namely, in the fourtll century. His translation was ac-

cepted by the Biblica l scholarship of his time, when Greek 

was better known than now, and when manuscript eopies 

were purer and freer from errors incident to transcdption 

than later copies. 

The question t hen is not whether St. Jerome's is a correct 

translation of the more modern manuscript, which he never 

saw, and which you admit t.o have been vitiated by the in-

terpolation of "For th ine is the Kingdom, etc.," in the 

I.ord's Prayer, but whether his is 11 correct translaLion of 

the. more ancient manuscript used by him. 

The 'luestion raised by your proposal is this, which 

manuscript was the purer and freer from errors, the ancient 



ON QUESTIONS OF THE BIBLE 19 

"Ile used. I)y t:l t. Jerome, or the more modern one used by 

t.1,e translators of the version authorized by King James! 

jICcording to the rules of sOWld criticism, the more ancient 

copies are prefen ed as 1:eing more free from errors or t rans-

cription, or errors of malice, or of defective j uugme11L. 

That the more modern manuscript used by t he English 

l'rotestant translator~ was yit iated by interpolation you 
admit and try to explain away. A witness who is convicted 

of having falsified in matter;; yuu know of is not to be 

trusted in matters you knOYl not of. What is true of a 

witness is equally true of a manuscript claimed to be ~. cor-

rect copy ()f the originaL If found false in one case, its 

cla im to be a correct copy is no longer valid. Such, aecord· 

illg to your own alimission, was the copy used by the Eng· 

lish translators. After such admission, is it not absurd in 

you to ask us to prove that St. Jerome's translation of an 

ancient copy harmonizes with an admitted incorrect copy 

of the original? 

MR. JONES : "Allow me to repeat tbat there is no con· 
tradiction between Matthew and Luke in their rendering of 
the hanging of Judas as described in Matthew, xxvii, 5, amI 
Acts, i, 18." 

FATHER LAMBEHT: We certainly allow you to repeat 

that there is no contradiction, but at the same time we r eo 

serve to ourselves tbe right to repeat that there is a con· 

t ra diction in the t exts as given in both the Authorized and 

the R evised Protestant versions of the Bible. Certainly 

Ma.ttbew and Luke did not contradict each other, buL your 

Protestant version makes them do so. In St. Jerome's 

translation of a more ancient copy of the original tha.n that 

used by th e English translators t here is no ('ontradiction, a 

proof of its great er reliability . 

MH. JONES: "Each of tbe writers described a differ ent 
pbase of the occurrence, and each gave truly the facts of the 
particular impressions made." 

FATHER LA1>{BEHT: Each of the writers described the 

fact and manner of .Tudas' deatb, and we who believe in the 



20 FATHER LA~mERT'S CONTROVERSY 

inspiration of the Scriptures must assume that they did not 

contradict each other. Assuming this, we are forced to the 

conclusion t hat the Protestant translation of the two texts 

referred to is erroneOllS, or that the manuscript from which 

it was ma de was defective, and that the ancient ruanu8cript 

which St. J erome translated was a correct copy, for in the 

former there is a contradiction, in the latter there is not. 

MR. JONES: "Matthew emphasi:ted the hanging; Luke 
the effect, the falling forward from the end of a rope and 
'bursting asunder.' H ow make this out a contradiction 1" 

F A'rHER LAMBERT: The question is as to the words of 

the two texts, and not as to your interpretation and ex-

planation of them. In the texts, as found in your version 

of the Bible, Matthew tells us that Judas hanged himself; 

Luke tells us that he fell in a field and burst asunder. In 

the latter text there is no suggestion of a rope or of hang-

ing. The contradiction in the t exts of your version is evi-

dent. According to Matthew, Judas was a suicide; accord-

ing to Luke, he was the victim of an accident. As there is 

no such contradiction in St. J erome's translation of these 

texts, .we must conclude that the ancient copy of the original 

which he translated was more reli a.ble than the copy used 

by your English translators. 

MR. JONES: . "In order to make it a contradiction these 
writers would have to contradict themselves on the same 
point mentioned by each." 

FATHER LAMBERT: ' iVell, the point mentioned by each 

was the ueath of .lud~s . One gives hanging as the C:1Use of 

llis death, the other gives falling in a field and hursting 

asunder as the canse of his death, one makes him a suicide; 

the other a victim of fen accident. We do not say MaLthew 

nnd Luke did this. Eut they are made to do it b'S 'the 

Protestant Translation of the Scriptures. 

You say there is no cont.radiction . Suppose Matthew 

l,ad said nothing about the death of Judas, what ill1pres· 

8ion would you get from th e worels in Acts i .. 18. "This 

man (Judas) purch ased a fi eld with the reward of his 



ON QUESTIONS OF THE BIBLE 2i 

iniquity and falling headlong he burst asunder and all hi" 

bowels gushed out." Would you not conclude that he died 

by accident or by a ptUJitiv" visitation of God ? TtJ e idea 

of suicide at th e cnd vf a rope would not have occurred to 

you . Suppose further that J osephus or some contemporary 

historian had written, what MaUII "w did, that Judas hanged 

himself, \\"ould you not deem it necessary to reject hi s au· 

thority an,.l prefer that of the inspired writer of the Acts, 

who said that Judas fell and burst asunder and all his 

bowels gushed out? 

MR. JONES: "If Luke stated that Judas burst asunder, 
and Matthew had deni ed that be did burst asunder; then, 
and only then, would there be a contradiction, and your 
argument would be entitled to consideration. But this nei· 
ther Matthew nor Luke has done, namely, contradict each 
other on same point." 

FATHER LAMBERT: The "same point" is the death of 

J udas aml the manner of it: Now, a man who comes to 

his death \;y hanging, cannot truthfully be said to ccme to 

his death by falling anf]. bursting asunder. These bvo man· 

ners of death exchlde each other. If one be true the other 

must be false, hence a contradiction. 

CHAPTER VI. 

A QUElSTION OF LOGIC. 

MR .• TONES: "You seem to not take well to an 'if.' But 
you need not shy at it, for reasoning based on an 'if' leads 
to valid conclusions when the antecedent is admitted in the 
minor premise. Let it come out to the light. 

"Major Premise: If th e American Revised Version has 
been made from duly authenticated copies of original manu-
scripts, it is more correct than a version made from copies 
of ver sions 

"Minor Premise: But the American Revised Version 
has been made from duly authenticated copies of original 
manuscripts. 

" Conclusion: Therefore the American Revised Version 
is more correct than a version made from copies of ver-
lions. 

"This conclusion j g based on an 'if,' and seems to me 
not lame in the least." 



22 FATHER LAMBERT'S CONTROVERSY 

FATHER LAMBEl{T: It is, nevertheless, lame, lmt it 

seems like a loss of time to spend any of it in following your 

dialectic excursion. But we have no choice but to go where 

you lead. Well, then, your conclusion does not rest on all 

" if," as you think. It rests on the minor premise; if the 

minor be true the conclusion is- true, if the minor be false, 

or not proved, or not admitted, the conclusion is false, or 

not proved, or not admitted. Again, if the minor be affirm-

ative the conclusio"l must be affirmative; if negative the 

conclusion must be negative. A short reflection on these 

principles of the syllogism will make it clear to you, or 

ought to, that in your syllogism t he nature of your conclu-

sion depends on the nature of th e minor, and not on t he 

"if." To make this still more clear, we will show that 

your conclusion may be as logically deduced from your 

premises after we have changed your hypothetical major 

to the categorical form. 

Using the symbols to save space, your syllogism stands 

thus: 

"If the American Revised Version is A it is B. But t he 

American Revised Version is A. Therefore it is B." 

Changing the major from the hypothetical to the cate· 

gorical form the syllogism stands thus and reaches the 

same conclusion: 

"Every version that is A is B. But the American Re-

vised Version is A. Therefore the American Revised Ver-

sion is B." 

Here the conclusion is arrived at without the "if," and 

therefore it in no way depends on it. 

But why this dry digressi0n ahout so little a word as 

"if?" W'elJ, we took your hint and thought it well not to 

shy at it, hut to show that it is not of the fundamental im-

portance you thought it was. 

We have said that your conclusion is lame. To show 

this we must consider your syllogism as a whole. Therc is a 

defect in the major which finds its way through the minor 

into tIle conclusion, violating and rendering it lame. It is 



ON QUESTIONS OF THE BUlLE 

(\Je fa ilure in your major to make a very important dis-

tinction and limi tation_ 

You say, "If the American Revised Version has been 

JoRde from dilly authenticated copies of original manu-

scripts-" Here you d? not distingllish between correct and 

incorrect versions or translations, and you do not limit 

your statement to correct translations. Owing to this lack 

of necessary syllogistic explicitness you make the mere fact 

of translation from authenticat.ed copies of the originals 

the ground of superiority over other translations made 

from copies of versions. Now "correctness" of translation 

is a necessary element of your reasoning, if you would nave 

your conclusion go without crutches. Owing to this de-

fect-failure to say "correct translation or version"-your 

conclusion proves that even an incorrect or false translation 

of an original is superior io a correct t ranslation of a cor-

rect t r anslation fr om an authentic copy of the original man-

uscripts simply because the incorrect translation is made 

from duly authenticated copies of t he originals. Now we 

have enough confidence in your judgment to believe you did 

not intend to make so absurd a conclusion. But, neverthe-

less, this absurd conclusion is the logical deduction from 

your premises, and is all sufficient to prove that your wh ole 

syllogism is vitiated by t he defrct in your major , a defect 

that passes to the minor and lurks in the conclusion. Your 

syllogism, as worded, is illegitimate-a logical monstrosity. 

You will say you meant "correct version or translation." 

Doubtless you did, but we a r e n ow criticising your syllo-

gism as you made it, not as you may h ave intended to 

make it. It is the business of a syllogism to say a ll and no 

more than its maker intends. 

Having done with you r syllogism as to its form , we will 

now consider the matter of it. Overlooking th e vitiating 

defect in yOUl' major .and assuming it to be aU that it 

ought to be, we pa ss to the minor. This minor says that 

the American Revised Version is made from duly authenti-

cated copies of th e originals. Holding you to your Protest , 



24 FATHER LAMBERT'S CONTROVERSY 

ant Rule of Faith-the Bible and the Bible alone-we d 

your minor. There are but two ways conceivable to auth 

ticate a copy of an original. First, by comparison with 

original; second, by some competent authority declar ' 

that it contains the true sense of the original. The fl 

way is practically impossible, since the originals no Ion 

exist. The second way is impossible to tlie Protestant, sin 

he recognizes no competEnt authority to determine the t 

sense of the non-existent originals. 

Now, inasmuch as the originals no longer exist, we alSlt 

you who authenticated the manuscript copies used by the 

translators of the ~'linerican Revised Version? On what 

authority do you say they were "duly authenticated 1" Au. 

thenticated by whom? 

The fact is you have in the last analysis no competent 

authority for saying those manuscript copies are duly au. 
thenticated, either as correct reproductions of the words ot 

of the sense of the originals. We, therefore, reject yOUl' 

minor, and with it the conclusion must fall. This is why we 
have called it lame. On reflection we must candidly admit 

that the word "lame" is not strong enough. We should 

have said it had no legs on which to even limp. 

But you will ask, Does not all you have said as to the 

authentication of copies bear equally against all cnpies ill 
existence or that existed since the originals were lost 1 

It certainly does, so far as copies claiming to be verbal 

reproductions of t.he originals are concerned, and it Is 
equally against all copies claiming to reproduce the h ue 

sense of the originals, unless there is on earth an authority 

competent t.o determine the identity of sense in the existent 

copy and the non-existent origin;],l. For you, with yOUl' 

Bible alone, there is no such unthority, and consequently 

the authentication of copies of any or all the sacred origi-

nals is impossible .. not only as to words but as to sense as 
well. 

It is different with the Catholic. He holds that Our 

Divine J,ord, before departing from this world, establiebe4 



ON QU!];S' I'IONS OF THE BIET,!]; 2:) 

gis Church to continue His work of teaching and governing 

gis flock for all time. He promised to be with it for all 

time and commanded His followers to hear it under pain of 

being looked upon as heathens and publicans. According 

to His promise the Holy Ghost is with it to direct its teach-

ing and guard it from error and from all danger of leading 

into error those whom it was commissioned to teach and 

lead to salvation. 'rhis Church St. Paul calls "The House 

of God, the Church of the living God, the pillar and ground 

of t ruth."- I. Tim., iii, 15. 

This Church, visible now as always, taught and governed 

the flock of Christ in obedience to His command before one 

word of the New Testament was written. He made it the 

guardian of His revelation of all that He revealed, it lmew 

the sense of the original Scriptures and knows it tlii1'lugh 

all the centuries. It was this Church that in the post-

apostolic age taught the people what Books were inspired 

and what were not. 

It was this Church that, in the General Council of Trent, 

ordained and declared that " the old and vulgate edition, 

which, by the lengthened usage of so many ages, has been 

approved of in the Church, be . held as authentic," 

that is, that the Vulgate reproduces the true sense of the 

original Scriptures. This is the only authentication that is 

needed by those who seek the truth. For the Catholic it, 

and it a lone, is all sufficient. It is a sense authentication, 

not a verbal one, for the Church does not depend 011 the 

fallibility of transcribers or copyists fOl the truth she 

teaches, but on the promise of its Divine Founder, Who 

builded it on a rock and made it the Pillar and Ground 'of 

Truth. 

MR. JONES: ''Your entire argument that Jerome u!!ed 
a more correct copy than the translators of the Authorized 
Version is based on a presumption." 

FATHER LAMBERT: We stated that the copy used by 

St. Jerome was more ancicnt than any used by the transla-

tors of the English King's Bible known as the Authorized 



26 FATHER LAMBERT'S CONTROVERSY 

Version. Now, it is a principle recognized by you and Bi~ 

lical scholars that the more ancient the copy, the nearer th8' 

Apostolic times, the more correct and reliable it is. H€incJ! 

if you admit the fact that St. Jerome's copy was mOll 

ancient you must admit, according to the above rule, t he. 

it is better than more modern copies. The presumption 

st ands valid until you prove that St. Jerome's copy was not 

more ancient, a thing yon cannot do. But we have positive 

proof of the superiority of St. J erome's cepy over that of 

the translators of the Authorized Version . The copy used 

by those translators had the interpolation, "For Thine is 

the Kingdom, etc." in the Our Father (Matth. vi, 5-9. ) It 

was translated and believed by Protestants to be the Word 

of God since 1611, that is, for nearly three hundred years. 

The "authors of your Revised Vernion recognized the words 

as an interpolation and have thrown them out. Some old 

Greek copyist with more piety than judgment forgot his role 

of translator and thought the Lord's Prayer would be im· 

proved by the addition of a doxology which, tbough beautiful 

in iteelf, when out of place-as it is in the Sacred TeJ>.'t-

destroys the claim of the copy to correctness and purity. 

The translators of t he Authorized Version were misled by 

the unfaithfulness of the copy and they in turn misled the 

Protestant English-speaking people for nearly three hundred 

years. Now this interpolation was not in the copy u sea by 

St. Jerome, for it is not found in his translation-the Vul· 

gate. Therefore, we must conclude that the copy used by 

St. J erome is better, because more faithful to the originals. 

Tl~is conclusion is more than a presumpfion; it is a demon-

stration. 

CHAPTER VII. 

ADDING TO THE BIBLE . 

. MR. JONES: "You ask 'by whom has it (the American 
Revised Version) been r ecognized as the standard edition?' 
I would r eply, by the denomination to which I belong, and 
by every other Evangelical denomination in this country, as 
far as I know. If you investigate a little in New York, yo~ 



ON QUU;STIONS OF THE BIBLE 2i 

will find it accepted and put above all former editions in 
the churches by leading scholars and published and taught 
in the Sabbath school lessons side by side with those of the 
Aut horized edition. But, remember, it is yet but young, 
and cannot be expected to have the circulation that has 
been accorded to the Authorized Version." 

FATHEn LAMBEnT: We spoke of an official authorita-

tive act of some church or denomination giving its official 

sanction to the American Revised Version as the Standard. 

All tbat you say only shows that the Protestant denomina-

tions merely tolerate the use of it by fueir silence, not that 

tbey have given it official sanction. If any such official rec-

ognition has been given the Revised Version we are not 

aware of it, and we would be obliged to you if you would 

tell us when, where and by what denomination it has been 

done. As for your scholars, they recognized for three-lmn· 

dred years a version that is now admitted to be incorect, 

interpolated and, therefore, not represent.ative of the ori.gi-

uals. After so protracted an error of judgment their sanc~ 
tiOD of a new version is not of sufficient weight to be au-

thoritative. 

MR. JONES: "As to the insertion of 'Thine is tbe King-
dom, the power,' etc., to the end of the Lord's Prayer, in 
the Authorized Version, I believe it has been merely added 
as doxology, the revisers, I presume, believing that too much 
praise and 'amens' could not be added to the I,ord's Prayer. 
I don't see how this would 'mislcad' or injure Protestants 
if they used it 'for three hundreCl yen 1'S.' Since not addeCl to 
the Lord's Prayer as Scripture, it could not mislead as 
Scripture." 

FATHER LAMBERT: You are douhfless right in believ-

ing that those words, "For Thine is the Kingdom, etc," were 

added as a doxology, added by the Greek copyist and turned 

into English by the translators of the Authorized Version 

of King James. vVhatevpr motive the copyist had in view-

and we need not suppose a bad one-he corrupted t.he origi-

nal text, and t.he English translators, following him, misl ed 

English-speaking people into using a form of prayer as fle-

livered by our I,ord that was not delivered by Him; made 

them victims of a decer>tion, whether pious or otherwiRe 



does not concern us. The people wantcd the prayer as dl!' 

livered, and they did not get it. If ihis be not misleading 

and an injust ice to the too confiding Frotesiant reader we 

know not the mcaning of those words. 

You say the words, "For Thine is thc K ingdom, etc.," 

were not added to the Lord's Prayer "as Scripture." We do 

not see what possessed you to make that stat ement. Look 

at Matthew vi , 13, and see if it be not added as Scripture. 

It is preci sely because it is g iven in the t ext as if spoken by 

our Lord that we object to it. We remember the time when 

as a boy it Wlj,S poin ted out to us' as an evidence of the supe· 

riority of the Protestant Bible over tbe Catholic, with t he 

hint that dishonest Catholic translators had wickedly sup· 

pressed it. Now, however, the revisers of the American 

Version have, after lhree hundred years, vindicated the 

superiority of the Catholic Version. 

. MR. JONES : "And by adding it Protestants imagined 
that there was nothing wrong in it any more than Roman 
Catholics would think it wrong to add to the 'Hail full of 
Grace,' gathered from the Scriptures, the following words : 
'Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners now and at 
the hour of our death. Amen.''' 

FATHER LAMBERT : Catholics have no more right to 

pLlt words or sentences into th e writ ings of the author of 

the Sacred Text, and make them say what they did not say, 

than unfa ithful copyists or Protestant t ranslators have. 

You do not deny that an unfaithful copyist or the transla-

tors of th e A.uthorized Version have done this t hing in 

Matthew vi, 13. You cannot deny it, since the revisers of 

the American Version , whom you approve, have thrown out 

as spurious the words, "For Thine is tne Kingdom, etc. ," 

from t hat verse. The Protestn,nt who imagines there is 

nothing wrong in falsifying by interpolation or otherwise, 

the Sacred Text , sadly llPcds primary instructions in th e 

first principles of moral r ectitude. But the question ie 

not what Protestants may imagine not to be wrong, but is 

verse 13 of chapter vi in the A.uthorized Version a true re-

production of the original? You admit it is not, and your 



ON QUESTIONS OF THE BIBLE 

excllse that " Protestants imagined that t here was nothing 

wrong in it" is to no purpose. The question is as to cor-

rectncss of translation, or copy. 

To mitigate the offense of interpolating, and t hereby cor-

rupting the Scriptures, you say, first, "Protestants imagined 

there was nothing wrong in it ." A strange confession, in-

lieed, an acknowledgment of moral imbecility, of ignorance 

of the first principles of morals. 

And, second, you r esort to the boy's argument of "you're 

another," and insinuate that Catholics have clone the same 

thing, interpolated words in the sacred t ext-added to "H:lil 

full of Grace," in Luke i, 28, the prayer, "Holy Mary, 

Mother of God, pray for li S, sinners, now und at the hour of 

our death. Amen." 

It is very vexatious to have to meet a statement like 

that. It is so difficult to be polite in sta mping it as it de-

serves to he stamped. Look in the Catholic Version at Luke 

.i, 28, and you will find no such addition or interpolation as 

that you insinuate is there. 

MR. JONES : " If it ha s been wrong for Protestants to 
add a doxology which has never been considered on a level 
with thc Word of God--" 

FA'I'HER LAMBERT: ' Ve must interrupt you to say that 

it is wrong to add or interpolate into the Sacred ' Text of 

St. Luke a sentence that does not belong ther e. Do that 

sa me with thc teJ..;; of a will and you render YOllrself liable 

to prosccution and punishment. If it be a crime to corrupt 

by interpolationrJ the will of a dead man, is it not a gr eater 

crime to corrupt by the same means the Written Word of 

God ? On what authority do you say it was never consid-

ered on a level wilh 1-hc ' Vord of God? If it was never con· 

sidered on a level with the 'Word of God why was it put in 

the Authorized Version as a part of th e Word of God? 

From the time the interpol ation was published in the "Au· 

t horized" Version, Protestants have considered it as the 

Word of God, and have been taught so to consider it. Now 

you can proceed. 



30 FATHER LAMBER~I"S CONTROVERSY 

. MR. JONES: "Surely it would not have been less crim-
inal for the Roman Catholic Church to add a prayer to the 
'Hail full of Grace.''' 

FATHER LA1>1BEHT: It would not have been less 

criminal for any church or any person to incorporate into 

the Scriptures things not written there by the sacred au -

thors. You snreiy know that the Catholic Church or Catl,· 

olic t ranslators have not done this. If you do not know it, 

then look at the text, Luke i, 28, as we have before adviseu. 

you. 

MR. JONES: "Besides, the addition to the Lord's Prayer 
in the Authorized Version is conceded to be consistent with 
the Sacr ed Writings." 

FATHER LAMBERT: The consistency vf the addition, or 

interpolation, is not the question between you and us, but 

the corr ectness and puri ty of the Sacred T"xt. Any inter-

polation, consistent or otherwise, makes the text spurious, 

and misreprescnts the origin 'LI author. It is inconsistent 

with the moral (Jode of the Scriptures. 

CHAPTER VIII. 

FALLIBLE) COPIES AND THE INFALLIBLE CHURCH. 

MR. JONES: "You state that we have not the originals 
of the Scriptures, even t hough we have t rue copies thcreof. 
I am con.fiilent that we have. Who is to decide 1" 

FATHER LAMBERT: You can decide it. if you can pro-

duce or locate a single manuscript written by anyone of 

t he authors of the books of the Bible. A, long as you can -

not do this-find you know you cannot-you should not l)e 

so "confident" that we have them. That is· the only way 

to decide. Copies -even true copies-are nothing more 

than copies. They are no more originals t han a .photo· 

graph of Mr. Jones is the original of Mr. Jones. We 

simply insist on th·~ correct use of words. The incorrect 

use, or abuse of words, is, of a ll the sources of error, the 

most prolific; it should be avoided with strenuous care. If 
you sold a copy of t.he Transfiguration :ts the· original of 

Raphael you could be prosecuted for it, and no court would 



ON QUESTIONS Oll' THE BIBLE 31 

let you oft on the plea that it was a correct copy of the 

original. The very plea would be taken by the court as i1 

confession of fraud, and it would punish you accordingly for 

representing a thing to be wbat you knew it was not-thus 

t aking advantage of your dupe's ignorance. 

MR. JONES: "You don't seem to accept original for the 
Bible in any sense." 

FATHER .LAMBERT: vVe are not talking about the 

Bible; we are talking of manuscripts, and no copy of a 

manuscript is the original manuscript. This is so plain 

a fact that it is su.rprising tbat anyone is fotmd-even 

in so smoky a place as Pittsburg-to deny it. 

MR. JONES: "Then why does the Douay Bible in its 
preface say that it is made 'from the Latin Vulgate and 
diligently compared with the original Mss.?' " 

.FATHER LAMBERT: vVe do not know why the writer of 

that preface said that. We can only surmise that if he 

said it, he fell into the same error you did, and said 

"original manuscripts" when he meant manuscript copies in 

the language of the original manuscripts. In the Douay 

Bible before us we do not find the quotation you give. But 

we find on its title page the following: "Holy Bible, trans· 

lated from the Latin Vulgate. Diligently compared with 

the Hebrew, Greek and other editions, in divers languages." 

There is nothing here about "original manuscripts." 

MR. JONES: "If we have no true copies of the originals, 
neither Protestants nor Catholics have the true Word of 
God at all." 

FATHER LAMBEUT: If our Lord left no means to 

know the Word of God, but through the fallibility of trans-

scribers we would be in a bad way, indeed. This fallible 

medium is not- a secure enough basis to rest our faith upon, 

and we could never be certain that we knew the revealed 

trnth and will of God. 

But the fallibility of transcribers was not the means 

left us by our Lord to arrive with certainty at a knowl-

edge of the truths He revealed. He established His Church 



32 FATHER LAMBERT'S CONTROVERSY 

as the Supreme teacher and guide of His flock in all things 

whatsoever He commanded. He said: "Thou art Peter, 

and upon this rock I will build My Church, and the gates 

of hell shall not prevail against it." (Matth. xvi, 18.) To 

this Church He intrusted the whole deposit of revealed 

truth-the Word of God-when He said to it in the person 

of its first ministers, "All power is given to Me in Heaven 

and on earth; going, therefore, teach ye all nations. * 
Teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have com-

manded you; and, 10, I am with you all days, even to the 

consummation of the world." (Matth. xxviii, 18-20.) 

To enable the teaching body of His Church to fulfill this 

great commission, and forget nothing, He said: "I will 

ask the Father, and He shall give you another Paraclete, 

that he may abide with you forever, the Spirit of truth, 

whom the world cannot receive because it seeth him not nor 

knoweth him; but you shall know him, because he shall 

abide with you, and shall be in you. " * * The Para-
clete, the Holy Ghost whom the Farner will send in My 

name, He will teach you all things, and bring all things 

to your mind, whatsoever I shall have said to you." "(John 

xiv, 16-26.) 

This teaching body thus commissioned and animated by 

the Holy Ghost, St. Paul calls "The Church of the living 

God the pillar and ground of truth.'; (I Tim. iii, 15.) 

This Church is the divinely ordained medium through which 

men can arrive at a knowledge of the revealed truth-the 

Word of God. This Church taught the revealed truth in-

trusted to her before a word of the New Testament was 

put in writing, and would continue to teach it if no 

original writinge or copies of them had come down to us. 

To say she would not is the same as to say_ that Christ's 

promises have failed, and that He was therefore a false 

prophet. 

This Church of His, the Pillar and Ground of Truth, has 

existed through the ages, and still exists on earth, still con-

tinuee to be the guardian and exponent of revealed truth, 



ON QUESTIONS OF TlIl~ BIBLE 33 

whether written or unwritten. And if we have the written 

word to-day, after two thousand years, it is because of her 

guardianship of it. It does not then follow, as you think, 

that if we had no correct copies of the original manu-

scripts we would not have the 'Word of God at all. It is 

true that you who disregard our Lord's command to hear 

the Church, have no better basis for your knowledge cif the 

Word of God than the fallibility of transcribers; but not 

so with those who obey His command and hear His ChUrch 

whom He commissioned to teach all things whatsoever He 

commanded. 

MR. JONES: "Whom. then, am I .to believe?" 

FATHER LAMBERT: You are to believe the Church 

which Christ established and commissioned to teach you, 

and commanded you to hear under pain of being considered 

as a heathen or a publican. 

MR. JONES: "How find the truth of divine revelation?" 

FATHER LAMBERT: As above. 

MR. JONES: "Must I got to the visllJle, natural uni-
verse to n.nd out God's will and ways and nature, and my 
relation to Him?" 

FATHER LAMBERT: As long as you persist in disre-

garding the will of your Redeemer and refuse to hear the 

Church-that agency He appointed to teach you-it makes 

little difference 'where you go to; you will not learn "he 

th ings He requires you to know, and to believe uno. .. -

penalty Qf damnation. "He that believeth not shall bb 

"ondemned." (Mark xvi, 16.) 

MR. JONES: "It seems to me that the translators of 
the Douay Bible, or the ecclesiastical authoriti es superin-
tending the work, didn't value the original manuscripts as 
much as they did the Vulgate Version." 

FATHER LAMBERT: They did not value the original 

manuscripts as much ap they did the VUlgate Version for 

the very good rea,sol't that the original manuscripts had 

ceased to I'xist many centuri es before they began their 

work. They preferred the Latin Vulgate to corrupted 



34 FATHEH LAMllERT'S OONTUOVEUSY 

copies of the original manuscripts, and it appears tfiey 

had good reason for it. The Rev. Thomas H artwell Horne, 

no friend of the Catholic Church, says in his "Introduction 

to the Critical Study and Knowledge of the Holy Scrip-

tures," vol. I, page 277: "The Latin Vulgate preserves 

many true readings where the modern Hebrew copies are 

corrupted." It is to these corrupted copies that the Cath-

olic translators preferred the Latin Vulgate. This you 

call preferring the Vulgate to the "original manuscripts." 

MR. JONES: "Why, pray, did the Fathers of the Coun-
cil of Trent declare that the Vulgate of St. Jerome 'was 
superior to the Hebrew or Greek texts' 1" 

FATHEU LAMBERT: If they did so-and we will have 

something to say about that in a moment-they doubtless 

did it because they considered a correct translation of !l 

document to be superior to a corrupted copy of it, such 

corrupted copies, for instance, as Horne, the well-known 

Protestant Biblical scholar, speaks of. 

MR. JONES: "The belief by a general council speaking 
on a matter of the highest importance for all Christendom, 
and r endering 'de fide' that a Latin version is superior to 
the original text in Hebrew and Greek, discourages further 
inquiry into the relative merits of our English translations." 

FATHER LAMBERT: Some one has been playing on your 

abso:rptive credulity. The Council of Trent made no such 

declaration as that which you attribute to it. The decree 

of the Council concerning the Vulgate was passed in the 

fourth session. Read it and you will wonder how you could 

have been so misled as to make so egregious a blunder. 

There is not one word or sentence in it that could suggest 

the statement you make; not one word about "the original 

(-ext in Hebrew and Greek," no comparison whatever made. 

It would be inter esting to know how you were seduced into 

making so serious a blunder. Whoever did it ought to ask 

:vour pardon for h!tving fooled you into committing your-

self so badly. 



ON QUESTIONS OF THE BIBLE 35 

CHAPTER IX. 

PROTESTANTS IN THE EARLY AGES. 

MR. JONES : "What you call 'Protestants' were called 
Christians in the early ages of the Church." 

FATHER LAMBERT: If you prove that Protestants of 

to·day belong to the same Church that the early Christians 

belonged to-that is, to the Church of ,Christ builded on a 

rock and commissioned to preach what he commanded the 

early Christians and His follower s in all time to hear, we 

will concede what you say. Those who do not belong to 

that divinely established Church and do not hear and accept 

its teaching as the J~ord commanded, are not Christians, 

whatever they may call themselves, whether in ancient or 

modern times. Assuming, as we must , that our Lord was 

not a false prophet, that Church which was to exist for all 

t ime exists to-day. If you belong to it and accept its teach-

ing you can truly say you believe as the early Christians 

believed, but if you do not belong to it and do not h ear it, 

that is, accept its t each ing, you are, according to the com-

mand of our I ,ord, to be considered as a heathen or a pub-

hCRn. 

You may say. this seems severe. It undoubtedly does, 

but you must observe that it is the severity of our Lord 

H imself, and from it you can judge with what aversion He 

looks upon those who hea r not Hi s Church, but prefer their 

own private judgment to its t eaching and revolt against it~ 

authority. 

MR. .TONES: "Tlwre is no evidence that I know of th at 
any other church than that of Christians existed during the 
first centuries of our er a ." 

F Nl'HER LAMBERT: The Church established by our 

I ,nrd and bllilt Oil Peter was the only true Christian Church 

in the parly Christian ages, and is the only true Church in 

all ages Rinee our Lord said to its ministry: "He th at 

hears you hears Me." 

There were, however, in the early centuries s.ome people 



36 FATHER· L AMBER'r'S CONTROVERSY 

who did not obey the command of Christ to hear Hig 

Church, who set their private judgment against the divine:y 

eo:nmissiored teacher. But such people were universlllly 

known ..is l .el'ctics. They were condemned by th~ Church of 

Chri st and pxpeJled from the household of t he faith as un· 

worthy lilemhers. and fn obedience to the command of 

Christ they wel'e considered as heathens and publicans. II 

you wish to idmtify Protestants of to-day with those a n-

cient hereties, you are free t o do so. You would have guori 

ground for such identiflcation in the fac t that they, like 

you, disregarded the command of our Lord to hear this 

Church, and preferred t o its infallible authority their own 

fallible judgment. 

You may ask, I s not a man justified, nay, bound, in the 

last resort, to follow his own private jurigment, his reason! 

Yes, reason is a gift of God, and every oeing endowed with 

it sl-jould fol low it until it leads him into the presence of 

the Supreme Wisdom, the divine reason Once there, the 

finite reason should yield absolutely to the divine and infal-

lible judgment anri teaching. 

You, as a Chri stian, believing in the divinity of Chri st, 

have come face to fRce with the supreme and infallible rea-

son, the divine teacher who .. your private judgment tells 

you , is its superior- infinitely so. Once havin g recogni7.ed 

this infallible teacher, your judgment must yield to Him 

in every thing He deigns to teach you. This, you will ad-

mit, is the highest dict ate of human r eason and logic. 

If you are bound by reason and conscience to yield your I 

private judgment to this recognized infallible teacher you 

are equ ally bound to submit in like manner to an agent that 

H e has apnointecl to ten.ch you . an agent so com netcnt th·, t 

H e h a.s sa id of it: "H e th at hears you hear s Me." Thi s 

agent-His t eaching Ohurch-is, as your teacher , H is 

"Alter Ego," His Other Self. To despise it-to reject its 

authority-i s to despise Him, and to despise Him is to de-

"pise the F ather who sent Him . H e has said it. 

Thm, when your privatE; judgment leads you to recogni;;e 



ON QUESTIONS OF THE BIBLE 37 

Christ a, God, it binds itself to accept the teaching of ihll 

I'ppointed ~gent, His Church, His Other Selt 

The radical difference between you and the Catholtc j~ 

this. The Catholic, believing in the divinity of Christ, 1(,'>' 

ogni21es the above conclusion as logically necessary, and 

complies with it ; you recognize its logical necessity !Jut f[,il 

to comply with it. Just herein is the incon~istency of Prot· 

estantism, an inconsistency that amounts to a revolt 

against the authority of Christ Himself, a refusal to obey 

His command to "hear the Church." 

MR. JONES: "These churches (the early) had the same 
Gospel, the same doctrines and same order of worship as 
that of the Christian churches of to·day." 

FATHER LAMBERT: This is too indefinite. To make it 

intelligible a.nd definite you must say, first, what you mean 

by " these churches," whether you mean those churches 

known in the early ages a's heretical bodies, or whether you 

mean those people who were members and hearers of the 

one and only Church which was established by Christ and 

which He 'commanded all to hear. Second, you must ex· 

plain what you mean by "the Christian churches of to·day." 

Until you explain these two things your statement has no 

definite sense. If by "these churches" you mea,n the heretics 

of the early ages, and by "the Christian churches of to· day" 

you mea,n the aggrega,te of all the Protesta,nt sects of the 

present, we are not disposed to dispute wha,t you s~y. In 

fact, so far as principles a,re concerned, we will admit that 

those u,ncient heretics a,nd Protestants of to·day are a,s alike 

a,s two eggs of the sa,me hen. 

CHAPTER X. 

DID THE CHURCH OPPOSE THE TRANSLATION OF TF,E 

SCRIPTURES ? 

MR. JONES: "Yon very truly say that there were many 
Catholic translations in print before tha,t of Luther or Tyn· 
dale. Yes, but not in th e English language." 



38 FATHER LAMBERT'S CONTROVERSY 

FATHER LAMBERT: The fact that there were many 

translations in the languages of the people of Europe before 

that of Luther or Tyndale ought to convlIlce you that all the 

talk about the Catholic Church being opposed to transla-

tions is a groundless calumny. It is strange that this neces-

sary inference did not attract your attention. 

You would have th e impression th at Tyndale's was t he 

first translation of the Bible into English. This is a very 

erroneous impression. Foxe, the author of Foxe's "Book of 

Martyrs," and a hot-headed antI-Catholic zealot, in a letter 

to Archbishop Parker, wrote: "If histories will be exam-

ined, we will find, both before the Conquest and after, as 

well as before John vVycliffe was born, as since, the whole 

body of the Scriptures was by sundry men translated into 

our country tongue." 

Thomas Cranmer, the first Protestant Archbishop of 

vVestminster, in his prologue to - a Bible published in his 

time, :wrote: "If the matter should be tried by custome, 

wee might also all edge custome ' for the reading of the 

Scripture in the vulgar tongue, and prescribe the more an-

cient custome. For it is not much above one hundred years 

&ince Scripture hath not been accustomed to be r ead in the 

vulgar tongue within this r eal me, and many hundred years 

before that, it was translated and read in the Saxon tongue, 

which at that tyme was our mother tongue * * * and 
when the language waxed olde and out of common usage, 

bycause folke should not lack the fruit of reading, it was 

again translated into the newer language, whereof yet also 

many copies remayne and be daily founde." 

Sir Thomas More, T~ord Chancellor, and one of England's 

worthiest sons .. says: "The whole Byble was long before 

his (vVycliff's) days, by virtuous and well learned men, 

translated into the English tongue and by good and godly 

people with devotion and soberness, well and reverently 

red." 

These witnesses put an end not only to the claim of Tyn-

da le, but also to that of iVycliff, as being the first transla-



ON QUESTIONS OF THE BIBLE 3!J 

tors of the Bible into English. We will now quote a wit-

ness to show that these various translations were · read and 

were familiar to the people. 

Dr. Maitland, a learned English Protestant writer, says 

in his "The Dark Ages": 

"The fact to which I have repeatedly alluded is this: 
the writings of the Dark Ages are, if I may use the expres-
sion, made of the :Scriptures. I do not merely mean tha.t the 
writers constantly quoted the Scriptures and appealed to 
them as authority on all occasions, as other writers have 
done since their day-though they did this, and it is a 
sirong. proof of their familiarity with them-but I mean 
that they thought, and spoke, and wrote the thoughts and 
words and phrases of the Bible, and that they did this con-
stantly and habitually as the natural mode of expressing 
themselves. They did it, too, not exclusively in theological 
or ecclesiastical matters, but in histories, biographies, fa-
miliar letters, legal instruments, and in documents of every 
descri ption." 

Meditate on the words of these witnesses-all Protestant 

except one--and you will see that the people of Europe were 

not at all depending on such translators as Luther and 

Tyndale for their knowledge of th e Bible. 

MR. JONES: "You know, as well as I do, that the 
Ohurch (Oatholic) was against the translation of the 
Scriptures into llJnglish at that tim e (Tyndale's tim e-,-

1526) ." 

FATHER LAMBERT: We do not know anything of the 

kind. Nor do you; you only think you do. We have al-

ready shown, on the authority of Foxe, Oranmer and Sir 

Thomas More, that the Scriptures were translated into 

English long befor e Tyndale's time, long before the so-call ed 

Reformation, and, as More says, "rea.d by godly people with 

soberness and devotion." Why should the Ohurch be op-

posed to the Scriptures in English when she was not opposed 

to them in all the languages of Oontinenfal Europe? 

The English Oatholics were opposed to Tyndale's transla-
tion doubtless for the same reason that Sir Thomas More 

was opposed to it, because, as it proved, it wa.s a false trans-

lation. And for the further reason given by the Protestant 



40 FATHER LAMBERT'S OONTROVERSY 

Canon Dixon, in his "History of the Church of England." 

Th·is dignitary of the Church of England says: 

"Everyone of the little volumes containing portions of 
the Sacred Text, th at was issuec.l by Tyn aalc, contained also 
a prologue and notes written with snch hot fury of vituper-
ation against the prelates and clergy, the monks and friars, 
the rites and ceremonies of the Church, as, though an ex-
tensive circulation was secured to the work thereby, was 
hardly likely to commend it to the favor of those who were 
attacked. Moreoyer, the. versions themselves were held to 
be hostile to the Catholic faith, as it was then understood, 
and to convey the sense unfaithfully or maliciously. The 
venerable words were ignored in them, and every variation 
that indicated opposition to the standing system was in-
troduced." 

Here is certainly a good and sufficient reason to account 

far Catholic, and Protestant opposition as well, to Tynda Ie's 

translation, without supposing it arose from opposition to 

the Word of God in English. 

MR. JONES: "If the Church was not opposed to the 
translation of the Bible into English, for what cause was 
VVycliffe excommunicated 1" 

FATHER LAMBERT: .As he was not excommunicated, 

we certainly have no idea of the cause of his excommunica-

tion. Certain of his doctrines were condemned as false and 

hereticaL There were many charges brought against Jiim, 

but the charge of having translated the Bible into English 

was not among them. Though twenty-four of his proposi-

tions were condemned as false, he was, strange to say, not 

deprived of his rectory of the parish of Lutterworth. He 

died holding that charge in 1384. 

W'e will give a few of the doctrines of Wycliffe that were 

condemned and ask what your decision would be if you were 

called upon to pass a judgment on them: 

1. Everything that is, is God. (This, you will observe, 
is pantheism. ) 2. God can produce nothing besides what 
He does produce. 3. He cannot increase or diminish the 
universe; nor can he create souls beyond a certain num-
ber. 4 . .All things happen from absolute necessity. 5. God 
necessitates every creature to its every act. 6 . .All the sins 



ON QUESTIONS OF THE BIBLE 41 

committed in the world are necessary and inevitable. 7. 
Nothing is possible to God save that which actually occurs. 

Do you consider these propositions orthodox? Is it not 

the duty of the Church to warn its members against them 

by condemning them as errors? 

You excuse the mistranslations of Tyn<.lale by attributing 
them to. the imperfection of the English language in his 

time. This excuse is grQundless. If Sir Thomas More could 

eXPQse the mistransLl tions of Tyndale in the time Qf Tyndale, 
it was equally possible fQr Tyndale to. have aVQided those 
mistranslations. MQre at that time wrQte his famous 

"Utopia," and his daughter wrQte her charming and pathetic 

"Diary." The English language was the language of Par-

liament and of the courLs in TYlldal e's time. 

MR. .JONES: "The translatQrs Qf that time had but one 
or two original manuscripts to fQllQw." 

FATHER LAMBERT: They had no. Qriginal manuscript~ 

to. fQllQw, fQr they were nQt in existence. YQU meant to say 

that they had but Qne or two copies Qf the original manu-

scripts. But, letting that pass, the cQpies they used were 

correct Qr erroneQUs. If correct, no. number Qf newly fQund 

cQpies CQuld improve on them; if incQrrect, th en the hans-

latiQn cQrrectly made frQm them WQuld give an erroneQUS 

Bible. An erroneous Bible is a fallible Bible-that is, not 

the INQrd Qf God. And yet, accQrding to. you, T'ynd a Ie's was 
the only Bible the English PrQtestants had as their sQle 

Rule Qf Faith. AccQrding to your admission, Protestants 

have never had, since Protestantism began, some four hun-

<.lred years ago., a correct, that is, a true Bible in the Eng-

lish Janguage until the "American Revised EditiQn" ap-

peared. 

CHAPTER XI. 

A NElW METHOD OF BIBLE-MAKING. 

MR .• JONES: "YQU ask, 'Where are thQse copies (of the 
Bible), and who authenticated them l' YQU will find hun-



FATHER LAMBERT'S CONTROVERSY 

dreds of them in London, Paris, St. Petersburg, Rome, etc." 

FATHER LAMBERT: This is too off-hand, too liberal, in 

a word, too easy. Our question referred to ancient copies, 

the only ones we have been considering. Our request is very 

modest. We will be satisfied if you produce or locate, not 

hundreds, but one single, complete manuscript copy of the 

Bible duly authenticated as a correct reproduction or the 

original manuscripts. In a loose, general, indefinite way, 

you have offered hundreds, but not a single one have you 

named, located or indicated. This wholesale method will 

Hot do. You must come down to particulars. We, there-

fore, must request you again to name and locate One single 

manuscript such as you have described. 

The oldest manuscript of the Hebrew part of the Bihle 

iII existence is not older than the eleventh century. Who 

is to duly authenticate it; that is to say, who can supply 

you with evidence sufficient to build your faith upon, that 

t.his manuscript is a correct reproduction of the original 

writings of Moses and the other authors, writings that no 

longer exist? 

MR. JONES: " Jewish rabbis. Christian churches and 
noted scholars throughout the world." 

FATHER LAMBERT: How can the Jewish rabbis prove 

to you that a manuscript of the eleventh century of the 

Christian era is a correct reproduction of a non-existent 

manuscript written by Moses fifteen hundred years 

before the Christian era? How can they say any -

thing is like another thing if they never saw and cannot 

see the other thing? Then what better authority are the 

.Tewish rabbis to authenticate the eleventh century copy, or 

supposed copy, than you are yourself, in the absence of H.e 

original? Even if the rabbis agreed it would not help you . 

But they do not agree. The Hebrew copies of the Spanish 

Jews differ from the copies of the French, Italian and GE'r-

man Jews, and it is a question with Biblical critics which 

are the more correct .or less correct. 

The sa.me difficulty confronts your other authenticator s; 



ON QVESTIONS OF THE illllLE 43 

tilat is, the impossibility of comparing two documents to-

gether when one of them no longer exists. 

But enough until you have named or located the one 

.ingle manuscript copy of the Bible we have asked for, one 

only of 'the hundreds you have all over Europe. 

MR. JONES: "You ask, 'Where is your evidence that the 
existing copies are correct copies of the non -existent origi-
nals 1'" , 

FATHER LAMBERT: Yes, we want your evidence that 

any existent copy is a correct reproduction of the non-exist-

ent originals. You have not yet answered, as we shall see. 

MR. JONES: "The evidence is found by comparison of 
all extant manuscripts, young and old, of various tongue$ 
and of every nation, with their respective attestation." 

FATHER LAMBERT: How can any number of extant 

copies, whose correctness is the very point at issue, provl', 

that anyone of them is a correct copy of the non-existent 

originals 1 How can one document whose character is in 

doubt be evidence of the correctness of another document 

whose character is equally in doubt? But go on. 

MR. JONES: "These (manuscripts) are then compared 
with the oldest Yersions, the Vulgate included, some of 
which bring us back to a time whose people could have 
readily walked and talked with the Apo~tles." 

FATHER LAMBERT: At first you made it a , special 

bon,:;;t that the Protestant translatorH went directly to the 

originals. Now you think that it is necessary to have r e-

course to old versions or translations in various languages 

in order to construct a correct t ext. These ancient versions 

or translations have suddenly acquired a great value in your 

estimation when you have to have recourse to them for evi-

dence of the correctness of manuscript copies in the original 

languages. 

As the oldest manuscript copies of those ancient versions 

do not go back farther than the fourth century, those people 

at that time who talked with the Apostles, who were dead 

some centuries before, must have used some Bort of a 

chronophone. But, granting them the extr aor dinary power, 



44 l!' ATHER LAMBERT'S CONTHOYEHSY 

how could they know that a particular manuscript was a 

correct reproduction of all the original manuscripts of the 

sLxty-six books of your Bible ? We will be as liberal as pos-

sible and suppose that the fourth century people could ha vo 

known and testified that a particular manuscript was really 

an exact reproduction of those sixty-six non-existent manu-

scripts, did they as a matter of fact know that any existing 

manuscript was such a correct reproduction of the non-

existent originals? And if they did know, have they any 

testimony to that effect? If you think they have, try to 

produce it, and then you will learn the full import of our 

request for evidence, which you thought so easy to comply 

with_ 

But suppose those old fourth century manuscript copies 

and fragments of copies are found not to agree, what then f 

MR JONES: "Well, then, they are marked with a 'cave,' 
until original documents are exhausted, for something to 
support their claim_" 

FATHER LAMBERT: But suppose all the known exist-

ing copies are found to vary and the originals are non-

existent. what then T 

MR JONES: "If nothing anywhere can be found to sus-
tain a word or a translation of a word, it is suspected and 
left out of the bunch!' , 

FATHER LA~{]lER'.r: It is not only a word or many 

words, but th e whole manuscript that is to be sustained_ 

How, in the absence of any known correct copy, can you 

know which, if any, of the varying copies is a correct re-

production of the original? Among any number of varying 

copies it is impossible for 'you to know which of them, or 

if any of them, is correct, unless you have a known correct 

copy, as a criterion, rule or measure, with which to com-

pare them_ But you must acknowledge that you have no 

such known correct ' copy_ Consequently, all the varying 

copies are unverifiable; and as long as they are all unveri-

1'ied they are to you all equally erroneous_ As all vary from 

each other all cannot be true, and as you know not which 



ON QUESTioNS OF TilE BlBLE .:i~ 

one, if any, is true, they a re all to you equally unreliable, 

not compet ent II itnesses either to the veri ly or failacy oi 

each other. 

Just here we request you to recall our question. It was 

this: Wher e is your evidence that the existing copies, or 

any of them, are correct copies of the non·existing originals? 

If you will r e:llect a moment, you will see that you have not 

answered it or got anywhere near it. Instead of producing 

the ev idence demanded to prove and identify any existing 

('o rrect copy-whi ch you undertook so willingly-you have 

~ i l'l1ply tried to show how a correct text might be constructed 

by bunching together the variatiQns and errors of existing 

copies; that is, you would get at the t ruth by a combina-

tion of errors. 

Now, even if we were to admit-as we do not-that you 

could construct a true text in this way, you would still not 

have complied with our demand for evidence to prove that. 

any existing copy is ' a correct copy of the originals. 

MR. JONES: "The quotations from the ancient Fath er~ 
are also called in evidence to warrant the accuracy of our 

manuscripts and true r endering." 

FATHER LAMBERT: . As the ancient F athers did not in· 

dicate from what manuscript they quoted, their quotations 

ar e not evidence for any particular manuscript among the 

varying manuscripts. 

But you are skating on thin ice when you appeal to the 

Fathers, for they will leave you in a bad way. If you grant 

that their quotations prove the correctness of the transla-

tion from which they quoted, you must rej ect your "Ameri-

can R~vised Version" of the Bible as imperfect. For not 
only th e Fathers, but our Lord and His Apostles, quoted 

from the Septuagint. Then, according to your reasoning, 

the Septuagint is a true copy of the ora Testament. But 
the Septuagint has in it all those books which the Ameri-

can R evised rejects as apocryphal. Consequently the rejec-

tion of these books leaves your American Revised imperfect, 

minus habens. 



46 FATHER LA~iBERT'S CONTROVERSY 

Again, St. Augustine quoted from .the Vetus !tala, yet 

you say that version was incorrect, and St. Jerome, at the 

request of Pope Damasus, revised and corrected it in nis 
Vulgate. The Vetus !tala, being a translation from t he 

Septuagint, had in it from the Septuagint the books which 

your American Revised Version rejects as apocryphal ; so, 

if Augustine's quoting from the Vetus !tala proves that ver-

sion to be correct, it proves at the same time on his author-

ity that the American Revised is erroneous or defective in 

that it does not contain the apocryphal books. 

The Fathers of the Church are not safe witnesses for a 

Protestant to appeal to. They generally give him away 

badly, as they do in the present case. 

MR. JONES: "We should not rely too much on anyone 
version, or on anyone manuscript!' 

FATHER LAMBERT: Right. But if you cannot rely on 

anyone version or manuscript you cannot rely on all of 

them taken together, for no number of unreliable versions 

can give you a reliable one. Truth is not begotten of error. 

Or, to give an illustration in keeping with the business in-

stincts of the times, you cannot from any number of false 

dollar bills extract a genuine bill; ' at least you cannot do it 

without recourse to practices that are likely to land one . in 

jail. Without a genuine bill as a rule to judge by, you can 

not tell either a true or a false bill when you see it. 

This is precisely your situation with regard to existing 

and differing manuscripts, and as you say we must not rely 

on anyone manuscript or version there is none that you 

can consider as genuine. Hence, the originals being non-

existent, you have no rule or criterion by which to Judge of 

thc reliability or genuineness of any existing manuscript or 

ve·rsion. 



ON QUESTIONS OF THE BIBLE 47 

CHAPTER XII. 

THE VULGA'l'E VERSION OF ST. JEROME. 

MR. JONES: "The Greek manuscript to which you say 
St. Jerome had access is unknown to you and me. There is 
no time or place or date given." 

FATHER LAMBERT: Yes, to our great disadvantage, it 

is not known to you and me, but it was known to St. Je· 

rome, one of the Fathers of the Church, whose integrity and 

scholarship are known to the world, and recognized. A few 

moments ago you appealed to quotations from the Fathers 

to prove the correctness of copies and versions. Ana now 
when one of those Fathers, one of the most celebrated among 

them, indicates a . preference for a particular manuscript or 

wrsion by selecting it to translate, you attempt to throw 

doubt on that manuscript by implying a lack of knowledge 

or judgment or honesty on the part of that most famous 

Father of the Church, the most celebrated Scripture scholar 

of any age. 

MR. JONES: "But there is no time or place or date 
given (of Jerome's copy)." 

FATHER LAMBERT: Not givEll to us sixteen hundred 

years after St. Jerome used it, hut it does not follow that 

he did not know the time, place and date, and other infor· 

mation about the copy he used sufficient to determine his 

selection of it ip. preference to other then extant copies. As 

to date, we know it was older than any manuscript now 

a'[isting, for he called it old in his time; t hat is, in the 

fourth century-sixteen hundred years ago. And no exist· 

ing manuscript can be traced with any certainty beyond the 

fourth century. 

But if absence of time, place or date rlestroys the value 

of the copy used by St. Jerome, it equally destroys th e value 

of all ancient nianuscripts now in existence, for the time, 

place or date of none of them is known. 

MR. JONES: "We can't classify it (Jerome's copy) 
with genuine since we have no history of it." 



48 )j' ATHER LAMBERT'S CONTROVERSY 

FATHER LAMBERT: You cannot classify it with genu-

ine or correct manuscripts for the very simple reason that 

no manuscripts known to be correct exist. The fact that it 

was selected by Jerome is a higher guarantee of its correct-

ness than is possessed by any existing manuscript copy, and 

if it were in exis.tence to-day it would for that reason take a 

lligher place than any existing copy. Try to produce, if 

you think you can, a fourth-century witness as authoritative 

as St. Jerome to the correctness of any manuscript extant, 

any witness who giyes so positive and direct testimony as 

St. Jerome gave to his manuscript by selecting it to trans-

late, from among the many manuscripts existing at his time. 

Just try it. 

MR .. JONES : "We have Greek manuscripts now that 
bring us far beyond the days of St. Jerome." 

FATHER LAMBERT: You will do us a real service if you 

will name just one of those Greek manuscripts that goes 

" far beyond the days of St. Jerome," that is, beyond the 

fourth century. We refer, of course, to Greek manuscript 

copies of the Bible. 

MR. JONES: "You can't r ely on age of m.anuscripts." 

FATHER LAMBERT: Here you attempt to saw off the 

limb on which you sit. For, if we cannot rely on the age or 

antiquity of the early manuscripts, we can much less rely 

on later manuscripts transcribed from those ancient ones. 

On what does your American Revised Version of the Bible 

rest, if not on the relia.bility of those ancient manuscripts 

or later copies made from them? Thus you see in discredit· 

ing the ancient manuscripts you discredit your own favorite 

Bible, you knock your own feet from under you, and leave 

the ground to t.he infidel and the higher critic. 

MR. JONES: "Ma.ny spurious and defective manuscripts 
wrre let loose in the third and fourth centuries." 

FATHER LAMBERT: Yes, even earlier. We have before 

us a list of no less than thirty-two books that were in use 

among the Christians of the fourth and earlier centuries. 

It. is not necessary to suppose that an these books were 



ON QUESTIONS OF 'J'HE BIBLE 4!l 

spurious or fraudulent. Many of them, indeed most of them, 

were doubtless written in good faitli as histories of partic· 

ular Apostles, and making no claim to inspiration. The 

Catholic Church in the fourth century, in fixing the Canon 

of Inspired Books, left them out of the list as not being 

inspired. This omitting of them is not equivalent tu "-

condemnation of them as spurious and fraudulent. 

If by "spurious and defective manuscripts'''' you meant 

manuscript copies of the Bible, then the same difficulty con-

fronts you that we have noted above. As long as you can 

not prove that the later manuscripts were not copied from 

so.me of those spurious and defective ancient manuscripts, 

you have no security for the reliability of your favorite 

American Revised Bible. 

Referring again to those thirty-two books rejected by 

the Catholic Church in the fourth century, suppose you had 

lived at that tim e, how could you, with ,\,our private judg· 

ment, have sifted those thirty-two books irom the twenty-

seven books that now constitute the New Testament, giving 

a special reason why each of those thfrty-two books sllould 

be rej ected as not inspired, and why the other twenty-seven 

should he received as inspired? You would not have at-

tempted it; you would have seen, as those early Christians 

saw, that private judgment was not competent for the task, 

and, like them, you would have left the matter to the 

Church, and have, like them, abided by her decision. You 

will remember that some books and parts of books now in 

your New Testament were not considered as inspired by 

"ome of the ea rly Christians until the Cliur.::h, by her deci-

sion, placed them in the Canon. All d.oubts about them 

were destroyed by the action of the Cliurch, not by private 

judgment. 

MR. ,TONES: "A modern manuscript may transmit a 
trner text than an older and more remote manuscript." 

FATHER LAMBERT : It is equally true to say that an 

older and more remote manuscript may transmit a truer 

text than a modern manuscript. Both these statements arc 

true, but neither is of any practical use in solving the ques-



50 FATHER LAMBERT'S CONTROVERSY 

tion before us. As both are too indefinite to be made t.be 

basis of a definite conclusion, we may put them together 

face to face and throw them both out as so much waste of 

energy. The value of a modern manuscript depends on 

whether it is a true copy of a correct ancient manuscript. 

If you throw doubt on the ancient ones, the same doubt 

throws its ugly shadow on all modern copies. 

MR. JONES: "Manuscripts and versions and various 
texts thereof were in a terrible muddle in the good saint's 
(J erome's) time." 

FATHER LAMBERT: Yes, there were at that time heret i· 

cal translators and transcl'loers, who, like heretics of later 

days, did their work to favor the doctrines of their sects. 

But there were watchmen on the ramparts of Isr ael then as 

there have been at all times. The Catholic Church stood 

guard over the Scriptures then as she doeR now, and among 

the many books then in circulation among Christians sllE' 

dist,inguished and determined the inspired frem the Ull -

inspired. And were it not for her care and guardianship 

you WG<lld not know to-day what books constitute the New 

Testament. 

But yom· statement, like others that precede it, sacr ificeH 

your Bible to its infidel and higher critic enemies. For, if 

the scholars of those early days could not and did not dis-

tinguish false from true copies of the Scriptures, you of 

to-day cannot tell whether the copies that now exist are ot' 

are not made from the false copies tnat. made the "ter r ible 

muddle in the good saint's (Jerome's) time." 

It is strange that, with your private judgment and your 

rej ection of tradition and the authority of the Church of 

Christ, you did not ~ee your statement's destructive effec: 

on your American Revised Bible; strang;) that you did not 

, reflect that thcre was and is no way out of the "terrible 

muddle" of manuscripts and versions except througb t he 

authority of that Church which Christ established to guard 

His flock from error. 

MR. JONES: "The Roman Catholic Church accepted fo r 
centuries Jerome's edit ion as the standard, but a thousand 



ON QUESTIONS OF THE BlllLE 51 

veal'S afterward reached the climax by repudiating it and 
giving the world a Latin version, containing not only vari-
ous readings difi"erent from the original Vulgate, but insert-
ing therem uncanonical books, some of whICh Jerome de-
spIsed as fables, and even refused to translate them from 
we i:)eptuagint." 

li'ATHER LAMBERT: First-St. Jerol1le '~ Translation 

was never accepted by the Church as the standard-that is, 

as containing the whole Canon of Inspired Books. Second-

::it. Jerome's Translation of the 'books he translated was 

never repudiated by the Catholic Church. Third-'rhe 

Church did not a thousand years after-that is, at the Coun-

cil of Trent-add a single book to the Bible that was not 

recognized by her as belonging to it during the lifetime of 

St. Jerome. :Fourth-As a matter of fact, St. J erome did 

translate 80me of those books, which are called apocryphal, 

and which you say he "despised as fables and refused to 

translate." True, he did not translate them from the Sep-

tuagint, just as he did not translate any of the books of the 

Old Testament from the Septuagint. The two books---

.Judith and Tobias-which he "despised as fables," he trans-

lated from the original Chaldaic. The other books, which 

he did not translate because they were not extant in the 

original Hebrew or Chaldaic, he left as he found them in 

the Latin version, which was used by the Latins a century 

and a half or two centuries before he was born, a version 

which St. Augustine used in preference to other Latin ver-

sions, that is, the Vetus !tala. 

You will be good enough to remember that St. Jerome, 

whom you would transmogrify into a sneering modern 

higher critic, was a Catholic, a Papist. He was for a time 

Secretary to Pope Damasus, and it was at this Pope's re-

quest that he undertook his great work ot translating the 

Scriptures into Latin. When in the East St. Jerome was 

greatly bothered by the disputes of the Arian and Sabellian 

heretics, and to be secure in the riglit way he wrote a letter 

to Pope Damasus for direction. For the purpose of edifying 

you and showing you how this great saint and 8cholar of 



the fourth century did not trust to private judgment ill 

matters of faith, we will give a portion of his letter, written 

ill the year 37 G. Here it is: 

"I am joined in communioti with your Holiness, that is, 
with the Chair of Peter; upon that Rock I know the Church 
iti built. vVhoever eats the lamb out of that house is a profane 
person. Whoever is not in the ark shall perish in the flood. 
I do not know Vitalis; 1 do not communicate with Mele· 
tius; Paulinus is a stranger to me. Whoever gathereth not 
with you, scatte]·s; that is, he who is not Christ's, belongs 
to Antichrist. * * * Order me, if you please, what I 
shou ld do." 

In a second letter to the same Pope he wrote: 

"On the one side the Arian fury rages, supported by the 
secular power; on the other side the Church (at Antioch) 
being divided into three parts, each would needs draw me 
to itself. .All the time I cease not to cry out: Whoever is 
united to the Chair of Peter is mine." 

This voice of one of the greatest Christians and scholar5 

of the fourth century has the true Catholic ring to it. 

MR JONES: The Church has not appreciated the labors 
of Jerome." 

FATHER LAMBERT: The best evidence of the Church';>. 

appreciation of St. Jerome is the manner in which she has 

treated him. He was held in the highest esteem by Pope 

Damasus, and it was by request of that Pope that he unCleI' 

took his Translation of the Scriptures into Latin. You 

ought to meditate on this fact. It has a valuable lesson in 

it for all those who think or pretend to think that the 

Church is opposed to the Bible in t he common speech of the 

people. It shows that Pope Damasus, in the fourth century, 

was anxious to have tbe best possible translation of tbe 

Bible in tbe language of tbe people, wnich at that time was 

Latin. His appointment of St. Jerome for the work shows 

his high appreciation of tbe saint's great learning and abil· 

ity. Tbe work when completed was received with applau~e, 

and Pope Gregory the Great, a successor of Damasus, pl:~· 

ferred it to all other Latin translations. For his holy work 

and holy life St. Jerome was canonized by the Church and 



ON QUES'rIONS OF THE BIBLE 53 

held in veneration by Catholic peoples throughout the world 

as one of the immortal champions of the Catholic Faith 

against the heretics of his time. For his zeal in defense of 

the true Faith he was made to suffer, as many have been 

made to suffer during the many ages since from the fury of 

heretics and lJagans. The Pelagian heretics, the know· 

nothings and A. P. A.'s of that day, sent a troop of seditious 

banditti to Bethlehem to assault the holy monks and nun3 

who lived there under the direction of St. J erome. These 

heretics set fire to the monasteries and reduced them to 

ashes, just as their successors in iniquity, some years ago. 

fired the convent in Boston over the heads of helpless nuns 

and burned them out in the night. St . .J erome, with great 

difficulty, escaped their fury by flight. Aft.er this storm and 

riot of heretical malilJllity St. Jerome continued his labor~, 

hated by all enemies of the Church, but heloved and revel" 

enced by all good men, as St. Augustine testifies. Having 

triumphed over the heresies of his time, he passed away nt 
a good old age in the year 420. He was buried in a vault 

near the ruins of his monastery at Bethlehem. But his re-

mains did not long remain there. They were brought with 

loving care and veneration to Rome, and now rest in the 

Church of St. Mary . Major, on the Esquiline Hill. The 

Church established a festival to commemorate his death on 

the 30th of September, and on that day in every year of the 

many centuries that have gone into the past she has hon-

ored him and held him up before her children as an exam-

ple of Christian life to b.e imitated. And yet you tell UR 

that the Church has not appreciated the labors of St. Je-

rome! It was the heretics of his time, the enemies of the 

Church he loved so well, that did not appreciate him, and 

mobbed him, and burned his monastery. 

MR. JONES: "Repeatedly before the Council of Trent 
the Church r evised his (Jerome's) Vulgate, and then in the 
sixteenth century saw fit to pronounce it defective in some 
passages, and, besides, to push in several uninspired books 
among the inspired books of Jerome's Bible. The Council of 
Trent went farther, for it put these spurious books on a 



54 FATHER LAMBERT'S CONTROVERSY 

level with the Word of God to be believed in by members of 
the Church sub poena an-athemae." 

l·'ATHER LAMBERT: You should have been more careful 

with the Graeco-Latin genitives, and, instead 'of saYing 

poena anathemae, you should have said poena anathematis. 

It would have looked better. But as you put it it is a ver~· 

good illustration of how errors creep into manuscripts 

through carelessness or ignorance. 

But your carefully sewn piece which we have quoted 

must be ripped out and each stitch examined under a suu" 

glass. 

1. "Before the Council of Trent the Church repeatedly 

revised the Vulgate." This is not true. Your error arose 

from your confounding the official, magisterial action of the 

Church with the labors of Catholic Bibli:Jal scholars. For 

"more than a thousand years before the Council of Trent the 

Church used the Vulgate, or St. Jerome's Version. But in 

doing this she did not scrutinize every maJluscript copy as 

it came from the hands of the copyists and give a decision 

as to its correctness or fidelity to the original of St. J eromn. 

It was natural and practically inevItable that errors of 

copyists, intentional or otherwise, should during the ages 

creep iIi, just as the error of poena anathemap crept into 

your letter to us. It was the duty of the Biblical scholars 

to scrutinize these manuscript copies; and such vigilant 

watchmen as Alcuin, Lanfranc and others during the M!ltdlc 

itges were as industrious in keeping the original versionR 

free from the vermin of mis-transcription as the strenuou.s 

mother with a fine tooth-comb. It was a work that required 

constant and vigilant attention as long as the Scriptures 

"'ere handed down by transcription. 

You erred, therefore, when you said "the Church repeat-

edly revised," instead of saying the Biblical scholars repeat-

edly revised, to keep the manuscript copies as true as possi-

ble to the original Vulgate Version. 

2. "Then in the sixteentli century it (the Church) saw 
fit to pronounce it (the Latin Vulgate) defective in some 
passages." 



ON QUESTIONS OF THE BIBLE 

This is >t very strange statement from one who pretends 

to know anything about the Council of Trcnt and its canons 

and decrees. In one of your letters you refer'to a passage 

ill the "Hist.ory of the Council of Trent" wherein is given an 

account of the action of one of the committees of that Coun-

cil. This committee reported as follows concerning the 

Vulgate : 

"The great variety of translations current in the Church 
was an evil to be remedied ; and it was accordingly advised 
t.hat one translation on ly should be regarded as authorized; 
and for this purpose St. Jerome's Version, or the Vulgate, 
was selected and proposed, as being the most ancient, the 
most used, as representing more correctly the state of the 
a,ncient copies of the Greek and H ebrew Scriptures than any 
other Latin version, or even, probably, than any other then 
or now existing Greek or Hebrew edition; and finally, as 
having been prepared ages before the modern disputes, and 
therefore unbiased by them." 

There is nothing here about " defects in some passages." 

]~ut this, you may say, was not the action or decision of the 

Church. True, it was only the action of a Committee of the 

Council, not the aci of the Council. But it shows the mind 

of those learned Biblical scholars, members of the commit · 

tee, as to the correctness of the Vulgate. 

Now let us see what the Council saih on the subj ect; 

and remember that what it said is the official act of the 

Church. In its fourth session, on the Canonical Scriptures, 

it decreed as follows, after giving the list of canonical 

hooks: 

"But if anyone r eceive not as sacred anl1 canonical the 
said books entire with all their parts, as they have been used 
to be read in the Catholic Church, and as they are contained 
in the old Latin Vulgate edition, and knowingly and deliber-
ately contemn the traditions aforesaid, let them be anath-
ema." 

The Council decreed further as follows: 

"Consirlering that no small utility mn,y accrue to the 
Church of God if it be made known which out of all the 
La£in editions now in circulation of thp sacred books is to 
be held as Ruthentic, ordaiDR and declares that the said old 



51) l!'ATHER LAMBERT'S CONTROVERSY 

and Vulgate edition, which by the lengthened use of so many 
ages has been approved of in the Church, be, in public lec-
';ures, disputations, sermons and expositions, held as authen-
;:ic; and that no one is to dare or presume to reject it under 
any pretext whatever. The Synod ordains and decrees that 
henceforth the Sacred Scriptures, and especia lly the said old 
and Vulgate edition, be printed in the most correct manner 
possible." 

Now, 1\11'. Jones, in view of these OftiCiitl pronouncemenb 

of the Church on the Vulgate, can you, with your hand on 

your heart and with a conscience duly awake, say that you 
knew what you were talking about wh en you said, "The 

Chu rch pronounced it (the Vulgate) defective in some pas-

sages"? VVe thin.k somebody has fooled ;TOU again, becau~e 

we do not assume that you would knowingly tell an untruth. 

]3.ut you Bhould be more careful · in making statements ou 

unverified hearsay. 

CHAPTER XIII. 

THE CANON OF SCRIPTURE. 

MR. JONES: "The Church saw fit to push in several 
uninspired books ' among the inspired books of Jerome's 
Bible." 

FATHER LA 11BE HT : You talk of inspired and uninspired 

books as if you had a private key or touchstone by which 

to distinguish the one kind of books from the other, as you 

would distinguish chalk from cheese, by the taste. If from 

your Protestant position you examine and carefully investi-

gate the grounds for your belief in the inspiration of any 

book of the Bible, you will discover tIiat you have no touch-

stone or key to help you in the least. 

Try to answer the following questIon, and you will see 

the difficulty of your Protestant position, resting as it 10es 

on Bible alone and private judgment: Why do you believe 

that any book in the American Revised Version of the Bible 

is inspired? Ponder this question carefully, and then pro-



ON QUESTIONS OF THE BIBLE 57 

ceed to give, on Protestant principles, an account of the 

faith that- is in you. . 

Do you believe in the inspiration of th ose books because 

they say they are inspired? If so, tbat is not a solid and 

r easonabl e ground of belief, first, because they do nbt say 

they are inspired, and, second, if they said it their authority 

would be insufficient as a ground of belief until their in· 

spira tion was proved, for until known to be inspired their 

claim to inspiration is equivalent to an uninspired claim 

like tbat made by the Book of Mormon or the Koran. 

Then their own statement alone-even if such statement 

had been made-must be rejected as a reasonable ground nl 

belief in their inspiration. 

What further reason have you? The Jewish Church ? 

There are two or more reasons why this is not sufficient for 

you. :First, the Jewish Church says notliing about the New 

Testament. Second, that church is fallible or infalTible. 

If fallible, it is no better authority on inspiration than 

your own private judgment, which is equally fallible. If 

in fallible, you cannot accept it, because you reject all in-

fallible authority except the very books whose inspiration 

you have not as yet ascertained. 

What further reason have you? The helief of the Chri;;· 

tian world? Such belief cannot be of any authority to you, 

as a Protestant, who r eject a ll autbority but your Bibl e 

and private judgment. 

Now, if you have no way of telling what books are ill-

spired, you have no way of telling what books are unin-

spired. Why, then, do you talk with such assurance about 

the Church putting uninspired books in the Canon? The 

on ly way to know what books are inspired is St. August-

ine's way, namely, that the Church of Christ puts them in 

the Canon, or list of inspired books. This is the way our 

I ,ord indicated when He commanded us to hear the Church . 

MR. JONES: "The Council of Trent put these spurious 
books on a level with the Word of God. to be believed in by 
members of the Church sub poena a,natllemae." 



58 FATHER LAMBEl~T'S CONTROVERSY 

FATHER LAMBERT: By this you mean that the Council 

of Trent added to the Canon of Scriptures certain books 

which were not recognized by the early Church as inspired. 

Now, the obligations imposed on us by the principles of 

veracity require us to inform you that your statement is not 

true. One of the most onerous and irksome duties of the 

Catholic controversialist is to impart this kind of unwel. 

come information when discussing theological questions with 

modern heretics; the same duty was imposed on the early 

(·rthodox Christians by the early heretics. 

Now, the Council of Trent added no hook to the Bible, 

rut no book "on a level with the ';Yord of God" that wa9 

not decbred by the Church twelve hundred years l:>efore to 

be a component part of the Bible; that i9, to be in tlie li.t 

or Canon of inspired Books, and that was not recognized 

aR such by the Church during the intervening centuries. 

This, we hope, is sufficiently clear and explicit to contradict 

yaur groundless statement. Let us then verify it: 

1. The Council of Hippo, held in 393, and the Councils 
of Carthage, held in 397 and 419, declared to be canonical 

the same books given by the Council of Trent. The Council 

of Carthage of 3!l7-that is, twelve hundred years before 

the Council of Trent-gave as the reason of its decision that 

"It is from our fathers that we hold that these books a re 

those which should he read in the Church." 

2. Pope Innocent I, in a letter to EXllperus, Bishop of 

Toulouse in the year 405, gave the same list of books given 

by the Council of Trent. 

3. Pope Gelasius, in the Councll lield in Rome in the 

year 679, declared canonical the same books given by the 

Council of Trent. 

4. The books recognized by the Council of Trent wen~ 
found in the most ancient Latin versIon-that known as the 

Vetus Itala, which was so highly esteemed by St. Augustine, 

and which is attributed by Biblical scholars to the latter 

half of the second century. The Old Testament of tbe Vetns 

Itala was translated from the SeptuagInt, a Greek version 



ON QUESTIONS OF THE BIBLE 51! 

made by the Hellenist Jews in the second century before the 

Ohristian Era. The great authority and use of the Septua-

gint is shown by the frequent quoting of it by our Lord 

Himself, by the writers of the New Testament, and by the 

early Uhristian Fathers of the first four centuries. Out of 

about 350 quotations from the Old Testament in the New, 

a bout 300 are from the Septuagint_ St. Augustine speaks 

of the Septuagint as "approved by the Apostles." 

Now, this Septuagint version of tne Old Testament, from 

which the Veius Itala was made, has the same books of the 

Old Testament which the Council of Trent has giYen. It 

follows from this that the books which you call "spuri"ous'" 

and say were "put on a level with the Word of God," were 

recognized by the Hellenist Jews as on a level with the other 

hooks of the Old Testament-that is, equally inspired. Tliig 

recognition of your "spurious" booRs took place nearly 

eighteen hundred years before the Council of Trent and one 

hundred and thirty years before the birth of Christ. 

5. Some I ' rotestants in the seventeenth century started 

a movement to induce the Greek Church to unite with them. 

The Greeks held a Council at Jerusalem, under the Patri-

areh Dositheus, and, in their reply to the proposal of a 

union, they said concerning the books in the Canon of the 

Council of Trent: "We regard all these books as canonical; 

we recognize them as Holy Scripture, becanse they have beau 

transmitted to us by ancient custom, or, rather, by the Cath-

olic Church." These words a.ttest the tradition of the an-

cient Greek Church relative to the canonical books. 

Thus the Greek Ohurch would not accept the defective 

Protestant Canon, and hence, as you doubtless know, HIe 

proposal of union with Protestantism wa~ rejected. 

Now, in view of all these facts, it seems to us tllat you 

should begin to suspect .. or awake t .o th'3 conviction, that 

some (me. in a spurious book, possibly, has fooled you into 

making an egregious blunder when you said the Council 

Mlclecl those books to the Can0n of Scripture. It seems tb9J. 



60 ]'ATIIER LAMBERT'S CONTHOVERSY 

the books you have been reading have added to your store of 

knowledge a vast amount of misinformation. 

MR. JONES: "Five and forty years after said Oouncil 
(of Trent), the Bishop of Rome, Sixtus V, compla ined of 
errors in the same Vulgate that was accepted by Trent." 

F ATHEU LAMBER'£: The Oouncil, after approving 

of the Vulgate, in preference '1;0 all other Latin 

versions, decreed that an edition be printed " in the 
most correct manner possible." This shows that 

t.he Oouncil did not consider any of the several editions 

oi the Vulgat.e then in print satisfactory. While it ap· 

proved of the Vulgate Version as authentic, it did not ap· 

prove of any of the different and differing editions gotten 

out by private enterprise as authentic. 1'he Oouncil, t1i.ere· 

fore, ordered that as correct an edition o.s possible should 

be produceil. The complaint of Sixtus V shows that up t:l 

his time no satisfactory edition of the Vulgate had been 

produced. lIe ordered an edition to be prepared, but on its 

completion. he was not satis£ed with it, and ordered the 

work to be again submitted to correction, but he diea be-

fore another edition was prepared. Clement VIII took up 

the work, and in 1593 issued the edition which is the model 

of our, present Bibles, from which no publisher is permitted 

to depart. 

OHAPTER XIV. 

THE VULGATE EDITION PREPARED FROM AUTHENTIC MSS, 

MR. JONES: "How am I to know that this Olementine 
ed ition is more in accord with the autographs than that of 
Sixtus V, or that of Jerome in the fourth century 1" 

FATHER LAMBERT: How are you to know that the 

American Revised Version is more in accord with the auto-

gnl!lhs than any other version of the Bihle'l 

As the Ohurch does not claim infallibility in the art c.f 

hook-making, it is not impossible that some differences may 

bl) discovered between the Vulgate and the Clementine :!!li 

tion of it; when discovered, if there be any, they will be 



ON QU ESTIONS Oll' ~'HE BIBLE 61 

corrected by the same authority that makes the Vnlgate the 

8tandard version. 

MR. JONES : "You say 'it is a principle that the more 
ancient the copy, the nearer the Apostolic times, the more 
correct and reliable it is.' " 

}'ATRER T,AMBERT: Yes. Such is the view of Biblical 

scholars, and that is why they all, without exceptioD, seek 

for ancient manuscripts, and prefer them to modern copiPd. 

It is a common sense view, for if the amjent copies are ao. · 

s UIned to be incorreet, the modern transcripts from them 

mllst be assumed to carry the same incorrectness, pIns 

<;i-hers that experience t eaches us creep in in the course of 

many repeated transcriptions. 

MR. JONES: "That is so, provided the (ancient) copy 
be a correct one." 

FATHER L AMBER'£: If either the ancient or the modern 

copy is known to be correct, inquiry need go no further. 

Hut where the question is as to the comparative correctnes~ 

of the two copies, the ancient is to be preferrM, for th e 

simpl e reason t hat it has not been subject to so many tran-

scriptions through which errors are so liable to creep ill, 

through carelessness or ignorance, or even malice. 

MR. JONES: "You might as well say that the Chinese 
plow is superior to our American plow, because the former 
is nearly 3,000 years older." 

l?ATRER LAMBERT: The Chinese plow made 3,000 years 

:Igo is certainly better evidence of what the original CHinese 

plow was t han is the American plow. And if we were called 

upon to det erm ine what the original Chinese plow was like 

\\'0 would prefer the ancient specimen to the modern as the 

hasis of our judgment; anll we think yo u would do the 

same. The American plow is superior as a soil·tiller, but 

not ~s a witness to the ancient form of the Chinese plow. 
n is the same with manuscripts. If asked to determine 
which of two manuscripts is the more correct reproduction 

of the or iginal first manuscript, we would prefer the onc 

made in the first century-if we had it-to one made in the 



62 FATHER LAMBERT'S CONTROVERSY 

tenth or fifteenth century. We think you would do the 

liame. 

Mn. JONES: "I have stated that old manuscripts have 
furnished incorrect texts." 

FATHER LAMBERT: This statement imposes upon you 

the burden of proving that the old manuscripts used in 

making the American Revised Version are not copies from 

some of the older incorrect manuscripts you speak of. Un· 

til you prove they are not, tho) doubt 'as to correctness. which 

you raise as to the old manuscripts throws its shadow 

equally on all modern versions of the Bible. In the absence 

of the original manuscripts, you have no c-riterion by which 

to determine which of the extant ancient copies is a correct 

reproduction of the originals. This is the mesh you, as ..1 

Protestant, are placed in by your statement, b~cause you 

reject the authority of the Church and lier traditions, which 

are the only criterion left to determine which of all thfl 

copies represents truly the thought of the writers of the 

Scriptures. The rejection of this criterion severs you abso· 

lutely from the common Christian faitli of the past, leaves 

you an isolated critic, and places you in precisely the same 

position a Chinese pagan would be in if the ancient Chris, 

tian manuscripts w:ere placed in his hands and he requireJ 

to determine which of them is a correct reproduction of non· 

existent originals. He would throw them down in despair 

of solving the problem. Having rejected the sole criterion-

the Church and her traditions-you are as isolated as he. 

and as helpless to solve the problem. Having rejected this 

criterion-which, as a Protestant, you must-you have 

broken the only link that united you in faith and corporate 

unity with the, early Christians. Having abandoneu the 

divinely built ark, the Church, you float alone, and drift 

with the tide. 

You may say that you are not isolated from the early 

Christians, that the Bible is the link which unites you with 

them. But that begs the question, for until you prove that 

your Bible is a correct reproduction of the original manu-



ON QUESTIONS OF THE BIBLE 63 

scripts it is not the same Bible the early Christians had; 

and you cannot prove it to be a correct reproduction without 

the criterion which you have rejected . . 

You may say you have the same faith the early Chris-

tians had_ This again begs the question, for you elaim to 

get your belief out of the Bible you have. But until you 

prove it is the same Bible the early Christians had, you 

cannot assert that the belief you get out of it is the same 

belief they had. As a matter of fact, the early Christians 

did not get their belief from the Bible. They got it, before 

the New Testament was written, from the oral teaching of 

the Apostles and other ministers of the Church of Christ. 

It was because of their Christian belief thus acquired that 

they believed in the Bible at all. Their Christian faith 

was not drawn from the Bible. On the contrary, their belief 

in the Bible was drawn from their Christian faith. 

Even if we were to grant-which we do 'not-that you 

had the same belief as the early Christians, it would not 

prove that you are a member of the same household of faith, 

that is, a member of the same Church that they were mem-

bers of. A foreigner may believe in the Declaration of Inde-

penc;ience and the Constitution of the United States, but his 

belief does not make him a citizen of the United States. 

Resides his belief he must be naturalized, initiated into the 

corporate unity of the republic by its duly appointed offi-

cers. In the same way, before you can be a member of the 

Church of the early Christians-the Cliurch which Christ 

established for all time-you must be natural ized, initiated 

into that divine corporation by duly appointed officers of it. 

The only duly appointed officers are the legitimate succes-

sors of the original officers. If you have not thus been natu-

ralized, or, more correctly, supernaturalized, into the King-

dom of Christ on Earth, His Church, you are not a citizen 

thereof, whatever you may think about it. 

To come back now to your statement, meant to weaken 

confidence in ancient manuscripts, we agree with you tEat 

there were-as, considering the human frailties of tran-



G4 FATHER LAMBERT'S CONTROVERSY 

scribers, there must have been-incorrect _copies. .And we 

leave you in the position the consequences of that statement 

place you ; you may extricate yourself as best you may._ 

Your position is the logical result of your Protestant princi . 

pies, and it in no way concerns Catholics. 

MR. ,JONES: "Our American Revised Version has had 
access to older and more correct ma.nuscripts tha.n ever t he 
lAltin Vulgate has had." 

FATHER LAMBERT: Before committing yourself to such 

Ii statement, you should be very sure of your ground, be· 

eause if not true, it compels us to place you in a very 

humiliating position. We will now give the facts, and they 

will show where they leave your statement. 

1. There is no Hebrew copy of the Old Testament older 

than the tenth century. As St. Jerome began his transla· 

tion of the Vulgate in the fourth century (380), the Hebrew 

manuscript from which he translated the Old Testament 

must of course have been made prior to that time, probably 

long prior to it, for he would naturally seek the oldest and 

most r eliable copy which he could find among the Jews of 

Palestine, where he made his translation, 

2. Let us now consider the oldest Greek manuscripts 

of the New Testament. The oldest known to exist go back 

only to the fourth century. The two recognized as the most 

ancient are the manuscripts known as the Codex Vaticanus 

and the Codex Sinaiticus. The former is in the celebrated 

Vatican library, the latter in St. Petersburg, the property of 

the Emperor of Russia. The German criti.::, Hug, places the 

Vatican Codex in the first part of the fourth century, and 

Tischendorf refers it to the fourth century, and remark~ 

that "It scarcely differs in age from the Codex Sinaiticus." 
This latter codex was found by Tischendorf in the convent 

OIl Mount Sinai, in 1859. He referred it to the middle of 

the fourth century, t hat is, about the year 350. These two 

manuscripts are the most ancient that the translators of 

the American Revised Version could have had access to. 



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LIBRARY 

OF THE • 
SAN FRANCISCO COLLEGE FOR WUMEN 

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