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Illuminations and Epiphanies
Banned Books
A Chronological Collection of
Banned Books
The 1500s
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Works of
Luther. In 1517, the
popularity of Martin Luther surged through out Europe after he nailed
his 95 Theses,
arguments against the selling of indulgences, to the door of the Castle
Church in Wittenburg and challenged the Archbishop of Mainz and
Magdeburg to a public disputation about the practice. Although
the
Church was initially slow to react, it did respond forcefully in
time. In 1520,
Pope Leo X issued a papal bull, Exsurge
Domine, in which he threatened
Luther with excommunication if he did not recant 41 specific sentences
drawn from his writings. Not only did Luther refuse, but he
publicly burned the bull. After he was officially
excommunicated in 1521, the pope insisted that Emperor Charles V
formally enforce the sentence. After a hearing in which Luther
again refused to recant, the emperor declared him an outlaw, banned all
of his writings, and announced that ""We want him to be apprehended and
punished as a notorious heretic."
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The
Tyndale Bible. William Tyndale was an English theologian who,
by 1522, had come to the conclusion that the way
only way to find God was directly through His word, The Bible. Tyndale further
reasoned that for the common man to study God's word, God's word must
be printed in the vernacular. So, Tyndale began to translate The Bible into common English,
fully
expecting monetary support from the Church. Instead, Tyndale soon
found himself so threatened that he fled to the European continent in
order to finish his translation. His Bibles were printed in
Antwerp and then smuggled into England and Scotland. This
disturbed King Henry VIII, who although he had declared himself to be
the
head of the Church of England and had his own marital differences with
the Rome, was still a Catholic at heart and agreed with the papal
position that the only way for the common man to find God was through
the intercession of priests. Worse for Tyndale, while in
exile, he also published a treatise on divorce that infuriated Henry as
it seemed to side with the Church. Henry could stand no more and
contacted Emperor Charles V and requested he locate and apprehend
Tyndale. Tyndale was found and captured in Antwerp in 1535. The
following year, he was tried for heresy and found guilty. His Bibles were banned, and Tyndale
was executed by a combination of
hanging and burning. Interestingly, Tyndale's translation was
later used as the basis for much of the King
James
Version of The Bible.
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Gargantua and Pantagruel. The
first
book in Francois Rabelais Gargantua
and Pantagruel fantasy was censored by the Parlement of
Paris almost from the date of its first publication in 1533. It
is a ribald story of two giants, Gargantua (the father) and
Pantagruel (his son), filled with crudity, scatological humor,
excessive violence, earthy descriptions of sex, and satirical comments
about religion. It is also a comic masterpiece. In truth,
most of today's translations shy away from current idiomatic speech to
relate the tales, opting instead for less graphic and more polite
language.
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Matthew's Bible. The Matthew's Bible, the second English
language Bible, was first
published in 1537 under the pseudonym of Thomas Matthew. It was,
however, the combined work of three translators; William Tyndale, Roger
Coverdale, and John Rogers. Rogers, who had worked with Tyndale
in Belgium before his execution, served as the editor. Although
first published in Antwerp and Paris, Rogers had later editions
published in London after Henry VIII changed his position on vernacular
Bibles.
When Queen Mary I ascended the throne in 1554 following the death of
her half- brother, Edward, she began to reinstitute Catholicism as the
state religion and banned all English language editions of the
Bible. Almost immediately, Rogers preached a sermon at St.
Paul's Preaching Cross in the Cathedral Churchyard, in which he
railed against the "pestilent Popery, idolatry and superstition" of the
Catholic Church. Within days, Mary had Rogers arrested and tossed
into prison until he was sentenced to death for denying the Christian
character of the Catholic Church and denying the physical presence of
the body of Jesus in the sacrament of communion. Rogers was the
first of three hundred of Protestants to be burned at the stake by
"Bloody Mary."
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Librorum Prohibitorum. Between 1557 and 1559, Pope Paul
IV issued the Index Librorum
Prohibitorum, the first official listing of books prohibited by
the Catholic Church. The list was regularly updated until 1948
and not officially abolished until 1966. Authors whose works,
including their Bible
translations, were banned on the initial list, of course included
Martin Luther, William Tyndale, and John Rogers. Among the many
others
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John Calvin.
Calvin was the second most influential religious reformer following
Martin Luther and the founder of the Reformed and Presbyterian
denominations.
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Thomas
Cranmer. Cranmer was the Archbishop of Canterbury during the
reigns of the English kings Henry VIII and Edward VI. He was
imprisoned by Queen Mary I for two years and then burned at the stake.
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Desiderius
Erasmus. Although Erasmus remained a devoted Catholic for his
entire life and even defended some Church doctine against attacks by
Martin Luther, he still fell from favor for the satirical and humanist
nature of his writing, especially The
Praise of Folly, a satirical work
that lampooned the then superstitious and corrupt character of the Church.
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John
Foxe. With the ascension of Queen Mary I, Foxe--who had become a
Protestant in 1545--found himself threatened and left England to join
other religious exiles on the continent. There he began to write
a series of essays describing the often grisly persecution of
Christians. Later, he began to concentrate on documenting the
martyrdom of Luther's followers, and when "Bloody Mary" began to
execute his friends as well, Foxe chronicled their demise.
Although his original works--the ones banned in the first Index
Librorum Prohibitorum--were in Latin, his Book of Martyrs was
published
in London and in English in 1560 following Mary's death in 1558.
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Niccolo
Machiavelli. Machiavelli became an administrator and diplomat
in republican Florence following the fall of the Medicis.
When the Medicis, cousins and allies of the pope, regained control of
the city, Machiavelli was ousted from his position and forced into
exile. During his exile, he wrote the classic handbook on
political intrigue and manipulation, The
Prince. Although he dedicated it to Lorenzo de' Medici,
Machiavelli never was able to earn his favor, much less return to
prominence in Florence. His pragmatic political and religious
indifference alienated both Protestant and Catholic hierarchies
alike. He was branded as an atheist at the Council of Trent and
his works placed on the first Index
Librorum Prohibitorum.
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Maya Codices. The Maya
Codices were pre-Columbian books made of bark paper or thinned
animal
skin that documented all aspects of Mayan civilization. They were
written in extraordinarily colorful and ornate hieroglyphics.
Thousands of them existed before the Spanish Conquisition of Mexico in
the 16th century, however all but three or four were intentionally
destroyed as the religious "missionaries" that accompanied the more
mercenary conquistadors attempted to forcibly convert the Mayans to
Catholicism. As noted by the Bishop of Yucatan, Diego de Landa,
"There were many beautiful books, however as they contained nothing but
superstitions and falsehoods from the Devil, we burned
them."
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To 100 - 1500 A.D. To The 1600s
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