15th May

Your promise preserves my life. Psalm 119, 50

The Bible at the Middle Age

The Middle Age was from the religious point of vue a period of great ignorance. The Bible existed only in the form of manuscripts written in Latin, expensive and rare, and the population in its great mass was illiterate.

However, even in so dark times, there were men and women who received salvation by faith. They endured persecutions because they made it known to others. In the agreement of the pope Innocent III, one finds this complaint going back to 1180: "a multitude of laymen and women pulled by an immoderate desire to know the Holy Scripture translated the gospels, the letters of Paul, moralities on Job and several other books into the French language. They had a guilty and foolish aim to meet, men and women, in secret meetings in which they did not fear to preach to each other".

When one thinks of work that a translation represents and of time that was necessary to recopy the texts by hand, one is filled with wonder at the love for the Word of God and their devotion to Christ of these believing Christians.

Today like yesterday, only the Bible can lead men to salvation. How do we appreciate the privilege of being able to buy the Bible for a moderate sum, of having received the instruction to read it and of being free to make known it around us?