CHAPTER XI.

SEVENTEENTH CENTURY CONTINUED.

Italy. Italian Version. Congregation De Propagandá Fide. Arabic Bible. Venetian Editions of the Scriptures. Spain and Portugal. Spanish Version. French Translations. Parisian Polyglott. Dutch Bible. Oriental Versions. German Translations. German Princes. Oriental Scholars. Learned Jews. Antitrinitarian German Translations. Swiss-German Bible.

Sorabic, Carniolan, Croatian, Wallachian, Hungarian, and Bohemian Versions. Philobiblical College. Danish, Icelandic, Swedish, Finnish, Livonian, Esthonian, Lapponese, Polish, Lithuanian, Russian, Armenian, Ethiopic, and Turkish Versions.

ITALY, to which our attention is next directed, exbi

bited, during the Seventeenth Century, an extraordinary and deplorable instance of the inhibitory principles of the Romish church. Not a single edition of the BIBLE in the Italian language is mentioned by Le Long, Adler, or Haym, as being published by the Catholic party during the whole of this period; and the only portions of the Scriptures noticed as printed by them, in the vernacular tongue, are the re-impression of Remigius Florentinus's translation of the EPISTLES and GosPELS, appointed to be read in the ecclesiastical services, printed at Venice, 1627, 4to. where it had been first published, in 1584; and the books of Joв, PSALMS, PROVERBS, and ECCLESIASTES, with the Apocryphal WisDOM OF SOLOMON, and ECCLESIASTICUS, printed in 1601 !' (1) Le Long, I. p. 338. Paris, 1723, fol.

Adleri Bibliotheca Biblica, pt. i. p. 361.

This deficiency in the communication of Biblical knowledge was partially supplied by an excellent version of the whole BIBLE by GIOVANNI DIODATI, a native of Lucca, published with notes, at Geneva, 1607, 4to. A second, and considerably improved edition, was printed at the same place, in 1641, fol. with the addition of a metrical version of the PSALMS. Editions of the NEW TESTAMENT were published at Amsterdam and Haerlem, 1665, 8vo. and at Geneva, 1608, 12mo. Nic. Haym adds an edition in 4to. Geneva, 1609, but it seems to have been merely certain copies of a former impression, to which some printer had prefixed a new title page.

GIOVANNI (JOHN) DIODATI, descended from a noble family of Lucca, was born June 6th, 1576, and at an early age made such progress in learning, that when only nineteen years old, he was appointed professor of Hebrew at Geneva. In 1619, he was sent to the synod of Dort, where he gained so much reputation, that he was chosen, with five other divines, to prepare the Belgic confession of faith. His Italian translation of the Bible is said to have been printed at his own charge, and to have occasioned him great pecuniary embarrassment. His Annotations on the Bible were translated into English, the third and best edition of which is that of 1651, fol. Many of the notes in the "Annotations of the Assembly of Divines," were taken from those of Diodati. He translated the Bible into French, printed at Geneva, 1664, fol.; and also Father Paul's "History of the Council of Trent," and other works. He was at one time in Eng. land, where he became acquainted with Bishop Bedell, and other celebrated characters; he was also favoured with the friendship of Milton, who had known him when on his travels. His death happened, October

(2) Nic. Haym, Notizia de' Libri rari, p. 224. Venezia, 1728, 4to. Clement, Bibliotheque Curieuse, IV. p. 60.

Le Long, L. pp. 35, 360.

3rd, 1649, and was considered as a public loss." But whilst the church of Rome was careful not to permit among its members, the free circulation of the Scriptures in the vernacular dialects, it was not inattentive to those measures, which, it was supposed, would advance its general interests. The institution of the Congregation and College for the Propagation of the Faith, (De Propagandâ Fide,) was one of the most honourable and most successful. This was begun by GREGORY XV., who, by the advice of his confessor Narni, founded the Congregation, at Rome, in 1622, consisting of 13 cardinals, 2 priests, 1 monk, and a secretary, for the express purpose of propagating and maintaining the faith of the Romish church, in all parts of the world. This congregation he endowed with ample revenues. The College of the Propaganda was commenced in 1627, by JOHN BAPTIST VIVES,* of Valencia, in Spain, referendary and domestic prelate of Urban VIII. and resident at the court of Rome, from the Infanta Isabella of Austria, governess of the Netherlands. This generous ecclesiastic, who had been nominated one of the Congregation De Propaganda, at its first institution, formed the idea of founding a College, or seminary, for the education of those who were designed for foreign missions, and for this purpose offered his own palace, and all his property, to URBAN VIII.; who, foreseeing the advantages to be derived from such an establishment, praised the zeal of Vives, accepted his proposition, and carried his project into execution, by instituting the Apostolic College, or seminary. Cardinal Anthony Barberini, librarian of the Vatican, and brother of the popé, considerably augmented the revenues of the college; and, in 1637, founded

(3) Chalmers, XII. p. 105.

*He is thus called by Cherubini, in Bullarium Roman. III. p. 422, but Helyot, Hist. des Ordres Monastiques, calls him VIRES; and Mosheim, who writes the name VILES, Eccles, Hist. V. p. 3, blames Urb. Cerri for calling him VIRES.

12 scholarships, with power to increase them to 18, for young scholars between 15 and 21 years of age, to be taught the Latin and Italian languages, being natives of the East, viz. Georgians, Persians, Nestorians, Jacobites, Melchites, and Copts; or, in defect of any of these, Armenians. In the year following, the cardinal, founded 13 other scholarships, for 7 Ethiopians, or Abyssinians, and 6 Indians, the deficiencies to be filled up with Armenians, preferring those from Russia or Poland, and successively those from Constantinople, Tartary, Georgia, Armenia, or Persia. This College was, in 1641, subjected by the pope to the Congregation of cardinals, and from this union the institution is sometimes called the Congregation, and sometimes the College De Propaganda. Urban VIII. also granted the privilege to the rector of conferring degrees, with similar privileges to those received at an university. When the students have finished their education, they are employed either as missionaries, or as bishops, or vicars-apostolic, in foreign parts, according to the exigency of the occasion, or the abilities of the students. Able professors in the languages and sciences, divinity, philosophy, and other branches of learning, are supported by the institution, which has also an extensive printing-office furnished with characters in almost all languages, and in which the most skilful printers and correctors are employed. During the first fifty years of its establishment, this society printed works in forty-eight different languages, among which were DICTIONARIUM Malaico-Latinum, et Latino-Malaicum, or Malay Lexicon, by DAVID HEX, 1631, 4to.; ARTEM GRAMMATICAM lingua Japonica, or Japanese Grammar, by DIDACUS COLLADUS, 1631, 4to.; GRAMMATICAM ARABICAM, cum versione Latina, ac delucida expositione, or Arabic Grammar, by THOMAS OBICINUS, 1631, 8vo.; and DICTIONARIUm AnaMETICUM, or Lexicon of the Anam language, spoken in Cochin-China and Tonkin, by ALEXANDER DE Rhodes,

1651. The troubles of the French revolution almost annihilated this noble institution, which, among other losses, sustained that of the whole of the printing matrices, which were taken to Paris; but these have since been restored, and the Congregation have resumed their functions.*

The translation and circulation of the Sacred Writings did not, however, form any part of the original design of the Congregation De Propaganda ;* and any editions of the whole, or parts, of the Scriptures, which may have been printed at the press, or at the expense, of that institution, have been undertaken with a view to promote the other views of the society, and not with the sole intention of dispersing copies of the Divine Volume among the people The slow and wary procedure of the Congrega

(4) Helyot, Hist. des Ordres Monastiques, VIII. ch. xii. pp, 77–81. Paris, 1719, 4to.

Yeates' Indian Church History, p. 204, note, Lond. 1818, 8vo. Allatii (Leonis) Apes Urbanæ, pp. 79. 81. 233. 244. Romæ, 1633, 8vo.

Asiatic Researches, X. pp. 185. 261.

Cherubini Bullar. Roman. III. pp. 221, 222.

*On this subject I have been favoured with the following important information by the Rt. Rev. Dr. MILNER, Vicar Apostolic of the Midland District:

"Wolverhampton, Dec. 10th, 1819.

"Rev. Sir, It does not fall within the province of the Congregation De Propaganda Fide to give translations or editions of the Holy Scriptures, nor does the apostolic see of Rome itself give any vulgar translations of the Scriptures, (though it permits them with due precautions for their fidelity,) nor does she vouch for the authenticity and purity of the Bible in any form, except the Latin Vulgate, which having constantly held in her hands and read for so many centuries, she pronounces free from all material errors. In this decree she by no means condemns the Hebrew and Greek originals; but, as these were not familiar to her, and of course not in her safe custody for the centuries in question, she pronounces nothing about them, Neither does she vouch that there are no verbal or other unimportant errors in the Vulgate; hence different popes, and particularly Sixtus V. and Clement VIII. have caused the text of it to be revised and confronted with other copies, and with the originals themselves, in order to render it more and more perfect. The only English versions used by Catholics in latter ages are, the › Rheims Testament, published in 1582, and the Douay Bible, edited in