Tabular Douay Rheims

Having recently undergone the Rite of Initiation, I fear if I didn't make an effort to read the Bible now I would only find more excuses in the future. I wanted a way to read sacred scripture and commentaries without having multiple PDF's open side by side and having to scroll back and forth between them¹.

Necessity being the mother of invention is a bit of a misnomer here. I want to clarify that nothing original has been added or subtracted. Whatever techniques used to get the text into a hyperlinked table format is nothing compared to the efforts of copyists and scribes beforehand². I hope this formatting proves to be of use to more than myself.

Dedicated to my Godfather Mark and the parish of St. Patricks',

• Ben

The direct source for this work is GitHub - cmahte/ENG-B-Haydock1883-pd-PSFM.

Michael H's work is based on previous work by an unknown transcriber, whose base text was the 1859 edition of Haydock's Catholic Family Bible and Commentary printed by Edward Dunigan and Brother, New York, New York. It is thanks to the work of archivists that the 1852, 1855 and 1883 editions of Haydock's Bible have been digitized and made publicly available. The links to the digitized originals – and other mediums – can be found at the Catholic eBooks Project.

The source code for the web application is open-source. If you would like to strip out the personal content and host just the Tabular Douay Rheims on a different web domain, you have my blessing. In fact, contact me if there are any questions. Ditto if you encounter long response times due to traffic.

My fellow converts (and reverts), admirers of C.S. Lewis and those curious about Christianity hopefully can sympathize with me when I say that once we have returned upon those familiar shores with fresh eyes a couple of pressing questions avail themselves,

1. "Which denomination is the true one?" I believe you don't need schooling to recognize – on some intuitive level – unity as one of the five transcendentals.
2. "Which version of the Bible should I read?"

For the first, I can only rely on John Henry Newman's recommendation to steep ourselves in history and to ask for a steady helping of grace.

As for the second, an apologia for the Douay Rheims can be found from TAN publishing [nelsonWhichBibleShould2001]. I feel the need to clear myself of my imaginary accuser from being a 'KJV-onlyist' or 'Douay Rheims-onlyist'. After all the very same council which sanctioned the Vulgate also ordered for its revision,

It decides and declares that the old well known Latin Vulgate edition [ipsa vetus et vulgata editio] which has been tested in the church by long use over so many centuries should be kept as the authentic text in public readings, debates, sermons and explanations; and no one is to dare or presume on any pretext to reject it. […T]he council decrees and determines that hereafter the sacred scriptures, particularly in this ancient Vulgate edition, shall be printed after a thorough revision…

– from Trans. from Decrees of the Ecumenical Councils, 2:664. Accessed at Calvin, Trent, and the Vulgate: Misinterpreting the Fourth Session | Called t…

I believe for those seeking a literal translation that is close to the Vulgate (i.e. those who lack the privilege of a classical education in Greek and Latin), the closest that exists in english to the best of my knowledge is the Douay. I find the commentary definitely helps.

Divino afflante Spiritu authorizes translations based on textual sources other than the Vulgate. The very same encyclical is very careful not to demote the juridicial basis of the Vulgate. It is worthy to note that the Clementine Vulgate / Nova Vulgata remains the official Bible of the church. 1943 was not that long ago in the whole scheme of things, and these things take time. It is very much an ongoing work: Professor Robert Miller at the Catholic University of America states "In a couple of years there will be another bible, so if somebody buys a bible now, I'm going to tell him to go back to the store in a couple of years and buy it again,".

Therefore to better understand the whole, it is necessary to look at the history of English Bibles. For brevity's sake, we skip over the early Church and its use of the Old Latin Bible (Vetus Itala). Even as I gloss over this period of history, I want to give no quarter to the pernicious falsehoods of "the anonymous Gospels" or Bart Ehrman's "time gap" between Jesus and the Gospels. As with the rest of this essay, I will rely on the authority of others to address this, namely Dr. Brant Pitre's exposition for us laymen in [thecaseforejesus].

Commissioned by Pope St. Damasus for a translation to replace to Vetus Itala, St. Jerome completed the Latin Vulgate in A.D. 405. From there it remained in use for roughly a millennium until the Council of Trent who, in fighting the Protestant heresy, gave the solemn decree quoted above. Indeed it was in this climate, in this baptism of fire, that the original Douay Rheims (A.D. NT 1582, OT 1610) was born.

"diverse learned Catholics, for the more speedy abolishing of a number of false and impious translations put forth by sundry sects, and for the better preservation or reclaim of many good souls endangered thereby, have published the Bible in the several languages of almost all the principal provinces of the Latin Church, no other books in the world being so pernicious as heretical translations {408} of the Scriptures, poisoning the people under colour of divine authority, and not many other remedies being more sovereign against the same (if it be used in order, discretion, and humility) than the true, faithful, and sincere interpretation opposed thereunto … We, therefore, having compassion to see our beloved countrymen, with extreme danger of their souls, to use only such profane translations and erroneous men's mere fantasies, for the pure and blessed word of truth, much also moved thereunto by the desires of many devout persons, have set forth for you, benign readers, the New Testament to begin withal, trusting that it may give occasion to you, after diligent perusal thereof, to lay away at least such their impure versions as hitherto you have been forced to occupy."

Whew. And I was told my run-on sentences were bad. Joking aside, we again turn to Cardinal Newman for his analysis on the evolution of the Douay Rheims. Whereby one can conclude that the 1899 DRA commonly used in our time ought to be called not the Douay Rheims; it is more aptly described as the Douay Rheims-Challoner-Troy with annotations by Fr. George Leo Haydock. As an aside, Newman had praise for the 1852 edition of Haydock's Bible, calling it 'splendid'. I just think it's cool that anybody with internet today can view the original 1852 edition. What was in the past the privilege of an educated select few with access to Universities and Libraries is now public domain. But I digress. We can look at the 1582 Douay Rheims and agree that while not complete gibberish, it is in need of a revision; a horizontal analogy to the state of the 19th century Douay Rheims editions and our modern translations. N.B. It would also be historically and intellectually dishonest to ignore looming example of "impious translations put forth by sundry sects" in the form of the King James Version (KJV) Bible commissioned by the Church of England. As noted by Cardinal Newman, there was a fair amount of "cross-pollination" and borrowing between the two.

And so the Douay Rheims takes us to 20th and 21st century. The New Testament of the Confraternity Bible was in fact completed in 1941, right before Pope Pius XII penned Divino afflante Spiritu in 1943. It was destined to be replaced by the New American Bible (NAB), itself replaced by the New American Bible Revised Edition (NABRE). There is the Knox Bible, the New Jersualem, the modernizing of the KJV in the form of the Revised Standard Version (RSV, RSV-CE, NRSV, NRSV-CE) etc. It does seem to the English speaking Faithful that there is a veritable Cambrian explosion of translations, change, generation and corruption.

Fr. Wilfrid Harrignton notes with a hint of irony how "the disparate Protestant groups unite around their one common touchstone, that is, unity against the Catholic Church and so followed the Jewish tradition [in the canonicity of the Old Testament]". But with that obvious example aside, more importantly he states that like the Incarnation the Bible is exactly the same: fully the word of God, and fully the work of human languages.

But in order to achieve this desired result it is necessary that the scholar should be guided not only by his scholarship, not only by his faith in the divine origin of Scripture, but also by the teaching office of the Church.

-Fr. Wilfrid Harrington "Key to the Bible"

And with such a supernatural end necessitates supernatural help; the revelation of the Most Holy Trinity as Father, Son and Spirit. The corruption is that of "inclusive language"; to corrupt Sons of God and yet (rightfully) retain Daughters of Jerusalem; to fight the patriarchy through removal of photos, soviet style. Male and female He made them, and I hope those who treat this not as a reality carved in stone but as a line drawn – and to be redrawn – in sand will agree me with me when I say the end goal of such forward thinkers is to erase any distinctions, to tear down the Chestertonian fence and remake themselves in their own image.

My background is technical, and not in the liberal arts. So for those who also have been trained to recoil at words like mystical, supernatural, supra-rational, and revelation, let us remind ourselves that our minds are finte, that madmen are mad precisely because they have lost everything but their reason. That there is no contradiction between faith and reason. And that we humble ourselves in gratitude for the grace of conversion being continuously given to those who petition and pray, top down.

But have prophetesses not preached? So says the Bible itself.

Is it not the case that God is not a biological being, but Being itself, possessing no gender? I AM WHO AM?

Why don't we pray "Our Mother who art in Heaven?" Why then do Catholics accord Mary the honor of being the greatest human being who had ever lived, above the angels and saints?

The innovators are really implying that sex is something superficial, irrelevant to the spiritual life. To say that men and women are equally eligible for a certain profession is to say that for the purposes of that profession their sex is irrelevant. We are, within that context, treating both as neuters.

As the State grows more like a hive or an ant-hill it needs an increasing number of workers who can be treated as neuters. This may be inevitable for our secular life. But in our Christian life we must return to reality. There we are not homogeneous units, but different and complementary organs of a mystical body. Lady Nunburnholme has claimed that the equality of men and women is a Christian principle. I do not remember the text in scripture nor the Fathers, nor Hooker, nor the Prayer Book which asserts it; but that is not here my point. The point is that unless "equal" means "interchangeable", equality makes nothing for the priesthood of women. And the kind of equality which implies that the equals are interchangeable (like counters or identical machines) is, among humans, a legal fiction. It may be a useful legal fiction. But in church we turn our back on fictions. One of the ends for which sex was created was to symbolize to us the hidden things of God. One of the functions of human marriage is to express the nature of the union between Christ and the Church. We have no authority to take the living and semitive figures which God has painted on the canvas of our nature and shift them about as if they were mere geometrical figures.

This is what common sense will call "mystical". Exactly. The Church claims to be the bearer of a revelation. If that claim is false then we want not to make priestesses but to abolish priests. If it is true, then we should expect to find in the Church an element which unbelievers will call irrational and which believers will call supra-rational. There ought to be something in it opaque to our reason though not contrary to it - as the facts of sex and sense on the natural level are opaque. And that is the real issue. The Church of England can remain a church only if she retains this opaque element. If we abandon that, if we retain only what can be justified by standards of prudence and convenience at the bar of enlightened common sense, then we exchange revelation for that old wraith Natural Religion.

• C.S Lewis "Notes on the Way", Time and Tide, Vol. XXIX 1948.

It proved to be the Bride of Christ and not the Church of England that would echo the words of Lewis. Roma locuta; causa finita est.

The translation of Scripture should faithfully reflect the Word of God in the original human languages. It must be listened to in its time-conditioned, at times even inelegant, mode of human expression without “correction” or “improvement” in service of modern sensitivities.

-Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, 1997 Vatican Norms for Translation of Biblical Texts.

The addition of gender-inclusive language – where objective evidence and tradition suggests it does not belong – is used as an example of corruption in Bible translations. Newer does not necessarily mean better. I am not privy to the reasons why the Canadian and American Conferences of Bishops decided to adopt the New Revised Standard Version (NRSV) gender-inclusive translation in 1991. Perhaps a decision not to let perfect be the enemy of good? Gender Ideology is the scourge and heresy of our time. The antidote given by no less than a Saint: John Paul II and his Theology of the Body. He Who makes all things anew will draw good out of evil and evil shall not prevail.

If I haven't convinced you to take a look at the Douay Rheims, that's no problem at all. I hope you'll agree with me that it is worth transcribing to an online format, even if only for historical preservation or academic interest. May Mother Mary keep us always in her mantle and free from error. Pie in the sky academic discussion aside, as my old man says: the best tool is the one you have on ya.

Glory to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy spirit, One same Spirit be.

• fix I Kings 1:13 commentary
• Include Bernards introduction to the bible.