First Approved, Then Banned

Meanwhile, in France the well-known Catholic humanist Jacques Lefèvre d’Étaples was busy translating the Bible from Latin into French, although he also consulted the original Greek text. D’Étaples wanted to make the Bible available to the common man. He wrote: “The time is coming when Christ will be preached in a pure way and not mixed with human traditions, which is not yet the case.” In 1523 he published a French translation of the “New Testament” in Paris. The theologians of the prestigious Sorbonne University disapproved of his translation because it was in the vernacular. In the face of their attack, D’Étaples fled Paris and went to Strasbourg in northeast France.

As a result of this opposition, printers in France no longer dared to print the Bible in French. Where, then, could D’Étaples print his Bible? Antwerp was the logical choice. D’Étaples’ Bible edition of 1530, printed in Antwerp by Merten de Keyser, was the first French translation of the Bible in one volume. Interestingly, De Keyser printed this translation with the approval of the Catholic University of Louvain, Belgium’s oldest university, and the approval of the Holy Roman Emperor Charles V himself! Nonetheless, in 1546 the translation of D’Étaples was added to a list of books banned for Catholic readers.

[Pictures on page 21]

Jacques Lefèvre d’Étaples and the title page of his Bible edition of 1530, printed in Antwerp