1821.1 



Mr, Lyman on the Political State of Italy. 



441 



approve the candour with which Mr. 

 Lyman speaks of its institutions, it 

 must be allowed that our venerable 

 mother, the Roman church, has exer- 

 cised this- right with a fieedom, that 

 bears hard oil novercal despotism. Tlie 

 Index Expurgatorius has been one of 

 her chief eugiues for this purpose. 

 Tliis is an index of hooks forbidden to 

 be read by the faitliful. It amounts, 

 in t}»e modern editions, to a closely 

 printed small octavo volume; and ap- 

 pendices and additions are published 

 from time to time, containing the dan- 

 gerous works, as they appear from the 

 immoral or heretical presses of the 

 transalpine world. It appears from the 

 authorities collected by Mr. Lyman, 

 that though decrees against suspected 

 books are as old as the fifth century, 

 yet that the compilation of a regular 

 index of them was first ordered by tiie 

 Council of Trent, and published in con- 

 sequence in 1564. The further com- 

 pilation of -the materials for it is en- 

 trusted to a congregation of eleven car- 

 dinals, assisted by counsellors and re- 

 porters. 



Our readers will be assisted in judg- 

 ing of the spirit in which this index is 

 compiled, and we must add, of the 

 government of the Ecclesiastical State 

 — for the Index Expurgatorius is of 

 course a part of the law of the land — 

 by learning from the work of Mr. Ly- 

 man, that the following are of the 

 number of forbidden books, viz. : the 

 tranlatious of Darwin's Zoonomia, Sis- 

 inondi's Italian Republics, the Greek 

 Lexicons of Stephauus and Scapula, 

 Grotius de Jure, Richardson's Pamela, 

 and Copernicus on the Revolutions of 

 the Heavenly Bodies, — for his pertina- 

 rCious adherence to the doctrines of 

 ■which last pestilent work, it is well 

 kaowu that Oaliieo was persecuted even 

 unto recantation. If tliere were any 

 thing more preposterous than the pro- 

 .rfaibition of such works as these, in the 

 iuiuctcenth century or in any century, 

 ik would be the farce, by which dispen- 

 tsaliun is obtained froni it, and license 

 to read prohibited books is granted. 



Among the works prohibited by the 

 Index Expurgatorius are the Reports 

 of the British and Foreign Bible Soci- 

 ety. The fate which attended theeftbrts 

 i«if this Swiiety toditt'use the scriptures 

 in the ecclesiasticiil state, may be 

 l^med from the following passage. 

 -i 'About two years ago, Mr. Hartford, an 

 iiPnglishmau, employed by the British Bible 

 ^cktx.^.o&i'.ed to give a number ef Italian 



bibles to the Papal goveruraent for distri* 

 bution, provided he was allowed to print 

 thera at Rome. The government refused 

 this offer, except upon condition that ha 

 printed the edition of the bible translated 

 into Italian by Martini, Archbishop of Flo- 

 rence, and published in 1803, in thirty-six 

 Tolumes, 8vo. It is a fable that the Pope 

 excommunicated the Bible Society, though 

 he has caused their proceedings to be 

 placed on the lijdex, and the Papal govern- 

 ment has declared that all Bibles, not ap- 

 proved of by the church, will be coufisca- 

 ted when found within the ecclesiastical 

 doraiuious. The Bible was printed iu 

 Italian in the time of Sixtus V. in the year 

 1589. The edition of Martini, and another 

 of an Archbishop of Turin, in 23 large vo- 

 lumes, are the only ones tolerated, and even 

 those instantly subjected to the Index, if 

 printed without a Latin text and ample 

 notes and illustrations. Such are the op 

 portunities that the poor classes, and in- 

 deed, one may say, any classes have ia 

 Italy of instructing themselves in the Holy 

 Scriptures. Again, so much is knowledge 

 denied to the Italian people, that all the 

 offices in the Romish Church are in Latin, 

 and mass said in the Italian tongue is abso- 

 lutely illegal, though Scipio Ricii, Bishop 

 of Pistoja, introduced, under the protection 

 of the Grand Duke, the use of the vulgar 

 tongue iu divine service in his diocese in 

 1786. Tliis has since been discontinued.' 

 pp. 7-9. 



It is strictly the pontifical govern- 

 ment of the ecclesiastical state, to 

 which the stigma of a policy like this 

 applies. It would be the height of in- 

 justice to apply it to the catholic church 

 at large. The Gallican church, one of 

 the noblest bodies in Christendom, has 

 ever resisted the interferences of the 

 Roman court ; and although we know 

 not whether an exemption from the 

 Index Expurgatorius forms a stipula- 

 tion in any of the Concordats, yet 

 France, of all the countries in the 

 world, is that where it is practically 

 least heeded. In Catholic Germany, 

 the clergy have furnished some of the 

 most enlightened theologians of the 

 present day, men who must smile or 

 weep at the sight of an Index. 



Looking therefore on the Index, 

 though originally ordered by the last 

 general council of the church, to be in 

 reality a feature of the modern Roman 

 government, the description of it is 

 pertinently followed in Mr. Lyman's 

 work, by the account of the heads of 

 that government, the Pope and car- 

 dinals, in the second chapter. The de- 

 tail.s of the government and of the con- 

 dition of the people in the ecclesiastical 



state. 



