The faith of our fathers - Carmel Apologetics

"114 THE FAITH OF OUR FATHERS.that account was called the Vulgate, or populaiedition.In the sixth and seventh centuries, the modernlanguages of Europe began to spring up like somany shoots from the parent Latin stock. TheScriptures soon also found their way into theselanguages. The venerable Bede, who lived inEngland in the eighth century, and whose name isprofoundly reverenced in that country, translatedthe Sacred Scriptures into Saxon, which was thenthe language of England. He died while dictatingthe last verses of St. John s Gospel.Thomas Arundel, Archbishop of Canterbury, ina funeral discourse on Queen Anne, consort ofRichard II., pronounced in 1394, praises her forher diligence in reading the four Gospels. TheHead of the Church in England could not condemnin others what he commended in the queen.Sir Thomas More affirms that before the days ofWycliffe there was an English version of the Scriptures, by good and godly people with devotionand soberness well and reverentlyred."If partial restrictions began to be placed on thecirculation of the Bible in England in the fifteenthcentury, these restrictions were occasioned by theconduct of Wycliffe and his followers, who not onlyissued a new translation, on which they engrafted1Dialog. 3, 14.