Index Librorum Prohibitorum
Related: Christianity - banned books - censorship
Almost every modern Western philosopher was, or is, included on the list--even those that believed in God, such as Descartes, Kant, Berkeley, Malebranche, Lamennais and Gioberti. That some atheists, such as Schopenhauer and Nietzsche, are not included is due to the general (Tridentine) rule that heretical works (i.e., works that criticize or condemn any element of the Catholic faith) are ipso facto forbidden. That some important works are absent is due to the fact that nobody bothered to denounce them. [Jun 2006]
Description
The Index Librorum Prohibitorum (Index of Prohibited Books)—also called Index Expurgatorius—is a list of publications which Roman Catholics were banned from reading, "pernicious books", and also the rules of the Church relating to books. The aim of the list was to prevent the reading of immoral books or works containing theological errors and so prevent the corruption of the faithful.
It was created in 1559 by the Sacred Congregation of the Inquisition of the Roman Catholic Church (later the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith). The index was regularly updated until the 1948 edition, with materials being added by either the Congregation or the Pope. The list was not simply a reactive work; the authors were encouraged to defend their works, they could re-publish with elisions if they wished to avoid a ban, and pre-publication censorship was encouraged.
The 32nd edition, published in 1948, contained 4,000 titles censored for various reasons: heresy, moral deficiency, sexual explicitness, political incorrectness, and so on. Notable novelists on the list were Laurence Sterne, Voltaire, Daniel Defoe, Honoré de Balzac, Jean-Paul Sartre, as well as the Dutch sexologist Theodor Hendrik van de Velde, author of the sex manual The Perfect Marriage.
Some of the Index's actions were of a definite political content: in 1926, the Action Française magazine, espousing far-right French causes, was put in the Index.
The Index's effects were felt throughout much of the Catholic world. For many years in areas as diverse as Quebec and Poland it was very difficult to find copies of indexed works, especially outside of major cities. The index as an official list was relaxed in 1966 under Pope Paul VI following the end of the Second Vatican Council and largely due to practical considerations. It remains a sin for Catholics to read books which are injurous to faith and/or morals. --http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Index_Librorum_Prohibitorum [Sept 2004]
Gelasius I
Gelasius I was Pope (492 - 496). Gelasius had been closely employed by his predecessor Felix, especially in drafting papal documents, and his election, March 1, 492, was a gesture for continuity: Gelasius inherited Felix's struggles with the emperor and the patriarch of Constantinople and exacerbated them by insisting on the removal of the name of the late Acacius, patriarch of Constantinople, from the diptychs, in spite of every ecumenical gesture by the current, otherwise quite orthodox patriarch Euphemius (q.v. for details of the Acacian schism).
The split with the emperor and the patriarch of Constantinople was inevitable, from the western point of view, because they had embraced a view of a single, Divine ('Monophysite') nature of Christ, which the papal party viewed as heresy. Galasius' book De duabus in Christo naturis ('On the dual nature of Christ') delineated the western view. --http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pope_Gelasius_I [Feb 2005]
Index Librorum Prohibitorum (1877) - Pisanus Fraxi
Ashbee, Henry S. , "Forbidden Books of the Victorians", Index Liborum Prohibitorum, pp. 239, Odyssey Press, London, 1970.List of authors on the index
In chronological order of the books, here is a list of French language writers
having the honor of being put on the index.
CW = complete works
1948 = was in the edition of 1948
Rabelais (CW)
Montaigne (Essais)
Descartes (Méditations Métaphysiques et 6 autres livres, 1948)
La Fontaine (Contes et Nouvelles)
Pascal (Pensées)
Montesquieu (Lettres Persanes, 1948)
Voltaire (Lettres philosophiques; Histoire des croisades; Cantiques des Cantiques),
Jean-Jacques Rousseau (Du Contrat Social; La Nouvelle Héloïse)
Denis Diderot (CW, Encyclopédie)
Helvétius (De l'Esprit; De l'homme, de ses facultés intellectuelles et de son
éducation )
Casanova (Mémoires)
Sade (Justine, Juliette)
Mme De Stael (Corinne ou l'Italie)
Stendhal (Le Rouge et le noir, 1948),
Balzac (CW)
Victor Hugo (Notre Dame de Paris; Les misérables jusqu'en 1959)
Gustave Flaubert (Mme Bovary; Salammbô)
Alexandre Dumas (divers romans)
Emile Zola (CW)
Maeterlinck (CW)
Pierre Larousse (Grand Dictionnaire Universel),
Anatole France (prix Nobel en 1921, CW à l'Index en 1922),
Andre Gide (prix Nobel, CW à l'Index en 1952)
Jean Paul Sartre (Prix Nobel (refusé), CW à l'Index en 1959).
"One could ask what did the study of literature look like in religious schools?"
Other Authors Listed
Peter Abelard,
Erasmus
Nicholas. Machiavelli
John Calvin
John Milton
Malebranche
Baruch Spinoza
John. Locke
Bishop Berkeley
David Hume
Condillac
d'Holbach
d'Alembert
La Mettrie
Condorcet
Daniel. Defoe
Jonathan. Swift
Swedenborg
Laurence. Sterne
Emmanuek. Kant
H. Heine
J. S. Mill
G. D'Annunzio
H. Bergson.
"Without any surprise, the Index also containe many theologians and
translators of the Bible, and historians of religion. For example:
Richard Simon (17-ième siècle) whose Histoire critique du Vieux Testament
inaugured the critical study of sacred texts (taken up by E. Renan and many others) and A. Loisy, (excommunicated in 1908).
Another list on the net includes the following:
"In 1966 the Sacred Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith ceased publication
of the INDEX but claimed that it still served as a "moral guide in so far as it
reminds the conscience of the faithful they must avoid writings which can be dangerous to
faith & morals." Today the Church may issue an "admonitum," a warning
to the faithful, that a book might be dangerous. It is only a moral guide, however,
without the force of ecclesiastical law."
The following have been condemned in the INDEX for being immoral or heretical or both.
SOME NOVELISTS IN THE INDEX
| AUTHOR Samuel Richardson (ENG) Laurence Stern (ENG) Stendhal (FR) Victor Hugo (FR) George Sand (FR) Honore de Balzac (FR) Eugene Sue (FR) A. Dumas pere (FR) A. Dumas fil (FR) Gustave Flaubert (FR) Gabriele D'Annunzio (IT) Alberto Morovia (IT) |
YEAR 1744 1819 1828 1834-1869 1840 1841-1864 1852 1863 1963 1864 1911 1952 |
WORK BANNED PAMELA A SENTIMENTAL JOURNEY THROUGH FRANCE & ITALY All his love stories LES MISERABLES NOTRE DAME DE PARIS All her love stories All his love stories All his love stories All his love stories All his love stories MADAME BOVARY SALAMMBO All his loves stories WOMAN OF ROME |
SOME NON-FICTION WRITERS IN THE INDEX
| Thomas Hobbes (ENG) Rene Descartes (FR) Francis Bacon (ENG) Michel de Montaigne(FR) Benedict Spinoza(NETH) John Milton (ENG) Joseph Addison (ENG) Richard Steel (ENG) John Locke (ENG) Emanuel Swedenborg (SW) Daniel Defoe (ENG) David Hume (SCOT) Jean-Jacques Rousseau (FR) Edward Gibbon (ENG) Blaise Pascal (FR) Oliver Goldsmith (ENG) Immanual Kant (GER) Giovanni Casanova (FR) John Stuart Mill (ENG) Ernest Renan (FR) Emile Zola (FR) Andrew Lang (ENG) Henri Bergson (FR) Benedetto Croce (IT) Jean-paul Sartre (FR) |
1649-1703 1663 1668 1676 1690 1694 1729 unk 1734-1737 1738 1743 1761-1872 1762-1806 1783 1789 1823 1827 1834 1856 1889-1892 1894-1898 1896 1914 1934 1948 |
All works All philosophical works The ARRANGMENT & GENERAL SURVEY OF KNOWLEDGE LES ESSAIES All posthumous work THE STATE PAPERS REMARKS ON SEV. PARTS OF ITALY ACCOUNT OF THE STATE OF THE ROMAN CATHOLIC RELIGION ESSAY CONCERNING HUMAN UNDERSTANDING THE PRINCIPIA HISTORY OF THE DEVIL All the works THE SOCIAL CONTRACT DECLINE & FALL OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE THE PROVINCIAL LETTERS AN ABRIDGED HISTORY OF ENGLAND CRITIQUE OF PURE REASON MEMOIRS PRINCIPLES OF POLITICAL LIFE OF JESUS, etc.. All works MYTH, RITUAL & RELIGION CREATIVE EVOLUTION Philosophy/History All works |
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