The History of Prohibition and Censorship

Books prohibited in the first age of the Church

2. 1. Relying on the example of St. Paul himself, under whose eyes at Ephesus books of superstitions were burned by fire,¹ the Holy Fathers strove with every effort to deter the faithful from keeping or reading the writings of heretics. And in the very first ecumenical Council, that of Nicaea, in the year 325, a decree was issued against the book Thalia of Arius, which Constantine the Great completed by severe enforcement. Several later decrees concerning the books of Pelagius, of the Manichaeans, and so forth, imitated that example.

Gelasian decree

Moreover, the first catalogue of prohibited books is found in the decree which, under the name of Gelasius (496), was received into the Gratian collection of law.² It is sometimes celebrated as the first Roman Index.

Besides the works of heretics, the forged Acts of the Martyrs and apocryphal penitential books were then condemned.

¹ Acts of the Apostles, 19:19.

² Canon Sancta Romana, 3, D. 15.

Prohibited books in the Middle Ages

3. 2. In the Middle Ages also severity was used against the works of heretics and treatises on the magical arts.

Precautions concerning the Sacred Bibles, thirteenth century

4. 3. From the end of the thirteenth century (1299), on account of the abuses of heretics, precautions began to be taken lest the Sacred Bibles be read imprudently by the people, especially in the vernacular tongue.¹

¹ Hilgers, Der Index, p. 5.

After the spread of the typographical art

5. In the sixteenth century, after the typographical art had spread, there was need to take sharper measures against evil books. Therefore several particular Indexes of dioceses¹ or kingdoms appeared.

Index of Paul IV

Paul IV first published a Roman Index in the year 1559, to the moderation of which that Holy Pontiff himself already applied his labor.²

Of Pius IV

But in the year 1564 there appeared the Index of Pius IV, called the Tridentine Index, because that sacred synod had committed to the Supreme Pontiff the care of publishing an Index and of arranging that subject. The so-called Tridentine rules, or ten general decrees concerning the proscription of books, are placed before the catalogue itself. The catalogue, however, borrowed from Paul IV the division of books into three classes: 1. of heretical authors; 2. of Catholic works; 3. of anonymous works. Moreover, all the works of authors of the first class were prohibited. This Index, as far as substance is concerned, remained up to Leo XIII.

Of Sixtus V and Clement VIII

Nevertheless, Sixtus V prepared a new edition of the Index, which, with certain books removed, especially the Controversies of Cardinal Bellarmine and the Relectiones of Francis de Vitoria, Clement VIII completed in the year 1596. The first class scarcely appears there to have been increased by any name; but in place of insertion into the first class there succeeded the clause Opera omnia, by which a writer was marked who seemed worthy of universal proscription.

Of Alexander VII

Then, in the edition of Alexander VII (1664), the division into three classes was formally suppressed, since the books were arranged in alphabetical order.

Of Benedict XIV

Benedict XIV deservedly gave an excellent edition (1758), after first prescribing the most wise Constitution Sollicita ac provida, July 9, 1753, concerning the method to be observed in the examination and proscription of books.

Of Leo XIII

And thus one comes to the Index which, under the auspices of Leo XIII, was promulgated to the whole world in the year 1900.

¹ It would be wholly alien from the mind of the Holy See to publish particular Indexes of this kind today. Thus, on August 17 of the year 1892, to the Archbishop of Valladolid, who had asked the Holy See certain things concerning the Spanish Index, the response was: One must stand solely by the Roman Index and its rules, and new editions of the Spanish Index are to be prohibited.

² Cf. Hilgers, Der Index, p. 7.

Origin of the Sacred Congregation of the Index

6. Concerning the Sacred Congregation of the Index itself, it will be useful to recall that it is contained seminally in the Motu Proprio of St. Pius V, November 19, 1570, by which he gave to the Master of the Sacred Palace a most full faculty of correcting books. Then, as the Congregation for Reforming the Index and Correcting Books, it was brought to light in the month of March 1571; which institution the Bull of Gregory XIII, September 13, 1572, solemnly promulgated, so that Sixtus V, by the Constitution Immensa aeterni Patris, January 22, 1588, by which he instituted or confirmed fifteen Congregations, had only to ratify the already existing Congregation.

Censorship from the first centuries of Christ down to the modern age

7. 1. For a long time, before any law concerning previous censorship existed, there were holy and learned men who either handed suspect works over to the Supreme Pontiff to be judged, or sought his judgment and counsels concerning their own writings. Thus in the fifth century a certain Gennadius sent his work On Ecclesiastical Writers to Pope Gelasius, just as in the year 1198 Godfrey of Viterbo offered to Urban III his book whose title is Pantheon, to be approved and corrected.¹

A certain previous censorship was imposed by particular law, for example, by the University of Paris (June 5, 1366), for masters.

After books began to be printed with type, the University of Cologne went before others by example in requiring previous censorship; Sixtus IV praised its zeal and approved its service, March 18, 1479.²

¹ Hilgers, Der Index, p. 403.

² Ibid., p. 407.

In the modern age

8. 2. But the first pontifical Constitution concerning the previous censorship of books has as its author Innocent VIII, November 17, 1487. Although it has universal force, it was sent to the Archbishop of Cologne. Alexander VI, by the Constitution Inter multiplices, June 1, 1501, issued for the four ecclesiastical provinces of Germany a general prohibition that books should not be printed unless the Archbishops or competent Officials had first been consulted.

Then, in the Lateran Council (1515), Leo X, by the Constitution Inter sollicitudines, May 4, 1515, enacted a general law by which, under grave penalties and even excommunication itself, he prohibited anyone from presuming to publish any writing whatever without the previous review of the Bishop, or, in the City, of the Vicar and the Master of the Sacred Palace.

At the present age

That decree was confirmed in the Tridentine Index; afterwards it was increased by the rules of Clement VIII concerning the printing of books, until the rigor of the former law was mitigated by an express law of Pius IX in the year 1848 for the Pontifical State, and elsewhere also by the custom of places. Leo XIII sanctioned and more fully defined that benignity.

Particular laws

Meanwhile, particular provisions were also made concerning liturgical books, and concerning books written on a certain subject matter in places which are governed by the spiritual jurisdiction of the Sacred Congregation of Propaganda Fide. Cf. Collectanea, n. 1866 ff.

Censorships and proscriptions among non-Catholics and political men

9. At the end of this very brief exposition, these things must not be passed over: the pseudo-reformers of the modern age were most severe censors and proscribers of books; and political men, in order to attain their own ends, framed similar laws, which not even today have been entirely suppressed. One must by all means compare the things which are learnedly set forth concerning the censorship and prohibition of books in England, Holland, Scandinavia, Switzerland, Germany, and concerning royal and imperial censorship in France, in the work of Father Hilgers, S.J., Der Index.

1. The whole of the Church’s organization against pernicious literature is generally called the Index. In this organization there are three principal parts—(a) the laws governing the censorship and prohibition of books, as set forth in the preceding two Sections, (b) the Congregation of the Index, which has lately been combined with the Congregation of the Holy Office, and (c) the Index of Forbidden Books, i. e., a list or catalogue of books which are expressly forbidden to Catholics. This list forms the second and larger part of the volume entitled “Index Librorum Prohibitorum,” which, up to the publication of the new Code, contained the entire ecclesiastical legislation relating to books. The general laws have now been superseded by the respective canons of the Code, but the list or catalogue remains in force, as revised under Leo XIII and re-edited under Pius X, and is being added to at irregular intervals.

2. The Church has always exercised the greatest vigilance in protecting her children against the dangers that lurk in unregulated reading. Lists of dangerous and therefore forbidden books were drawn up in various dioceses or provinces at a very early date. Pope Pontianus condemned the heretical writings of Origen. Leo the Great suppressed the books of the Priscillianists. Leo IX condemned the writings of Scotus Eriugena and Berengarius on the Holy Eucharist. The Council of Constance ordered all the books of John Hus to be publicly burnt. Leo X, in the Bull “Exsurge” (1520), condemned the earlier heretical writings of Luther.

The first Roman “Index of Prohibited Books” was published in 1559, under Paul IV. Each succeeding edition contained new titles. Leo XIII reorganized the ecclesiastical legislation in regard to forbidden books and revised the catalogue known as “Index,” giving it the form it still retains. A few dozen titles have been added since this revision (1900).

3. It is a mistake to assume that all forbidden books are on the Index. In matter of fact only a very small portion of the books proscribed by the natural law and by ecclesiastical decrees are mentioned in that catalogue. Nor does it contain the worst books in their respective classes, as some people imagine, but merely those which were at one time or another reported to the Holy See and formally condemned.

The clause “opera omnia” includes only those books of an author which treat of religious subjects or are forbidden by a general or a special decree of the Holy See, e. g., on account of their obscenity.¹ It does not include books published by the same author after the promulgation of the “opera omnia” decree, though they may justly be regarded as suspect and presumed to fall under some general decree, unless the writer has given signs of a change of mind.²

¹ See the Preface to the Index. If there is question of a Catholic and “it is established concerning some certain book of his that it is prohibited neither by any general decree nor by another special one, you would not rashly judge this book to be exempt from that general prescription.” (Ed. 3a, Rome 1911).

² Ibid.

The clause “donec corrigatur” has reference only to the manner of the prohibition, not to its effect.³

³ Ibid.

4. Laymen should guide themselves by the advice of their confessor in all matters pertaining to dangerous books and newspapers.⁴

⁴ S. C. Inquis., 1832, ad Episc. Helvet. The bishops of Switzerland had inquired: “Whether the faithful, with a safe conscience, can read newspapers or books which have not undergone the censorship of the Ordinary?” The answer was: “Let them have recourse to their confessor.” (Cfr. Ferreres, Compend. Theol. Mor., Vol. I, p. 418).

The confessor himself should follow the directions of the bishop and always remember the admonition of St. Alphonsus that in matters of this kind it is ordinarily safer to follow the stricter in preference to the more lenient opinion.⁵

⁵ “In this matter it is ordinarily expedient to follow the safer opinions.” Cfr. Ferreres, op. cit., Vol. I, p. 418.

READINGS.—J. B. Ferreres, Compendium Theol. Mor., Vol. I, pp. 417 sqq.—G. Péries, L’Index, Paris 1898.—J. Hilgers, S.J., Der Index der verbotenen Bücher, Freiburg i. B. 1904 (the opus classicum on the subject).—F. X. Betten, S.J., The Roman Index of Forbidden Books, 6th ed., St. Louis 1920 (a useful summary in popular style).—J. Hollweck, Das Kirchliche Bücherverbot, 2nd ed., Mayence 1897.

The Fathers of the First Provincial Council of Baltimore, in 1829, petitioned the Holy See for a prolongation of the Paschal season from the first Sunday of Lent to Trinity Sunday, inclusive. The petition was granted by the S. C. de Propaganda Fide, Sept. 26, 1830.¹ The concession reads: “granted the requested faculty,” without a time limit. It entered the Second Plenary Council of Baltimore, in 1866,² and thus became a particular law for the United States. As such it would have to go according to can. 6, n. 1 of the new Code; but as the grant was originally made in the form of a faculty or an indult, and particular privileges and indults remain in force even after the promulgation of the Code, unless expressly revoked, our bishops may, and some of them do, continue to make use of this privilege of extending the Paschal season.

¹ Coll. Lac. Conc., t. III, col. 36.

² Coll. cit., t. VI, col. 464.

1705. - The Index was composed and published by order of Paul IV in the year 1558. - Pius IV perfected it with the Council of Trent, and published it in the year 1564. - Clement VIII enlarged it in the year 1595. - The Congregation of the Index was instituted by St. Pius V.¹

But the Index prohibits books partly by certain classes, as in the ten Rules of the Index, and in the Decrees concerning prohibited books not expressed by name in the Index;² partly by indicating, in alphabetical order, either the titles of books or the names of authors.