Note 309 — Chapter IX · POLICY OF THE POPES OF THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY

In execution of a decree of the council of Trent, a decree pronounced in 1546, Sixtus published in 1590, an official edition of the Vulgate; and, in a bull which served as a preface, he declares of his personal knowledge, and with the plenitude of his power, that this was the version consecrated by the holy council, commanding every old edition to be corrected by it, forbidding all persons from publishing any not exactly copied from this model, under penalty of the greater excomunication by the act alone. Who would believe that after such a sentence, this edition, which had been waited for forty and four years, should have been suppressed immediately after the death of Sixtus, and replaced, in 1592, by that which bears the name of Clement VIII. Between these two editions they reckon about two thousand variations, the most of which, however, are trifling. But the edition of Clement has prevailed in the catholic church; it is recognised and revered by it as the true Vulgate. We make this remark as one of those tending to prove, that even in matters of doctrine, the general consent of the churches abrogates, or confirms, the decisions of the popes. “We must admit, says Dumarsais, either that Clement was wrong in revising the Bible of Sixtus V.; or, that Sixtus erred in declaring by his bull, that the edition published by his order was very correct and in its purity.” Exposition of the doctrine of the Gallican church, pa. 163 of the 7 vol. of Dumarais works.