I received a private message over on the Catholic Answers forum informing me William Webster was being accused of lying about the edition of the Bible called the Biblia Complutensia which contains a statement from Ximenes, Archbishop of Toledo, against the canonicity of the apocrypha. This Bible was published by the authority and consent of Pope Leo X. The assertion of Webster’s lack of truthfulness reads:

   “I hate to admit this but I think Webster’s assertions are wrong. I found a book about Cardinal Ximenes, Pope Leo X and the Complutensian Polygot. It was on Questia com. From what I read there is no preface condemning the Apocrypha books. What Pope Leo does condemn are pseudo-Apocrypha books. But who really knows… perhaps the Vatican isn’t telling the truth (maybe they fudged the real documents). After all the Vatican has all of these secret documents (I tried to check some of them out on the Vatican web-site) that the average person isn’t permitted to read.”

   This was the first time I’ve come across such as assertion. If this is indeed the case, I would have to ask this person to explain this statement from the preface of Ximenes:

   “The books which are without the Canon, which the Canon receives rather for the edification of the people than for the establishment of ecclesiastical doctrines, are given only, in Greek, but with a double translation.”

   If pseudo-Apocryphal books are meant, this is equally as awful for the Roman Catholic dealing with the historical record. Well, this is not what is meant. Ximenes meant the apocryphal books.

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