Their own policy tended to stifle knowledge and suppress criticism.

The scholars whom they chose as champions of the faith worked with tied hands.

Baronio knew no Greek; Latini knew hardly any; Bellarmino is thought to have known but little.

And yet these were the apostles of Catholic enlightenment, the defenders of the infallible Church against students of the caliber of Erasmus, Casaubon, Sarpi! An insuperable obstacle to sacred studies of a permanently useful kind was the Tridentine decree which had declared the Vulgate inviolable.

No codex of age or authority which displayed a reading at variance with the inspired Latin version might be cited.