Note 283 — Chapter VIII · THE PRINTED ENGLISH BIBLE
Reading edition
As an example of the open way in which the reading of the Bible was advocated, take the following instance. Caxton’s translation of the Vitæ Patrum, published by Wynkyn de Worde in 1495, contained an exhortation to all his readers to study the Holy Scripture. “To read them is in part to know the felicity eternal, for in them a man may see what he ought to do in conversation … oft to read purgeth the soul from sin, it engendereth dread of God, and it keeps the soul from eternal damnation.” As food nourishes the body, “in like wise as touching the soul we be nourished by the lecture and reading of Scripture.… Be diligent and busy to read the Scriptures, for in reading them the natural wit and understanding are augmented in so much that men find that which ought to be left (undone) and take that whereof may ensue profit infinite” (p. 345).