P047 The Rheims and Douay Version.

P047 The Rheims and Douay Version. This version was prepared to check the influence of the English versions then in use, especially the Genevan. In the preface the translators avow, among other reasons, that they have done their work, not because they believe, "1 of necessitie, that the holy Scriptures should alwaies be in our mother tongue, or 2 that they ought, or were ordained by God, to be read indifferently of al, or 3 could be easily vnderstood of euery one, that readeth or heareth them in a knowen language."

They admit that their work is a special one, forced upon them by "the present time, state and condition of our countrie, vnto which, diuers things are either necessarie, or profitable, or medicinable now, that otherwise in the peace of the Church were neither much requisite, nor perchance wholy tolerable."(1) They further speak of the other English versions as "heretical translations of the Scriptures, poisoning the people vnder color of diuine authoritie." The New Testament was published at Rheims in 1582, in one volume, 4to., with the following title:— The New Testament of Jesus Christ, translated faithfully into English out of the Authentical Latin, according to the best corrected copies of the same, diligently conferred with the Greek and other editions in diuers languages, with Argvments of bookes and chapters, Annotations and other necessarie helpes, for the better vnderstanding of the text, and specially for the discoverie of the Corruptions of diuers late translations, and for cleering the controuersies in religion of these daies: In the English College of Rhemes. [A verse from the Psalms, and a long quotation from Augustine, each of them in both Latin and in English, follow.] Printed at Rhemes, by John Fogny, 1582, Cvm Privlegio. The Old Testament was afterward published at Douay, in two volumes, 4to., but not until 1609, about thirty years after it was translated.

Want of means is assigned by the editors, who were not the translators, for this long delay. The title is similar to that of the New Testament. The complete work was reprinted at Rouen in 1635, and then not again for one hundred and fifteen years, when Dr. Challoner, in 1750, published in London a revised edition in four octavo volumes.

------------ (FN1)Cited by Eadie, vol. ii, p. 118, where see long and interesting extracts from this Preface.

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