Index Librorum Prohibitorum ("List of Prohibited Books")

The Index Librorum Prohibitorum ("List of Prohibited Books") was a list of publications prohibited by the Catholic Church. The final (20th) edition appeared in 1948, and it was formally abolished on 14 June 1966 by Pope Paul VI

Some of the Books, you should not read according to the Catholic Church :

 Libri Carolini, supposedly by Charlemagne
 Dante Alighieri (only his Monarchia)
 Montaigne (Essais)3
 Descartes (Méditations Métaphysiques et 6 autres livres, 1948)3
 La Fontaine (Contes et Nouvelles)3
 Pascal (Pensées)3
 Montesquieu (Lettres Persanes, 1948)3
 Voltaire (Lettres philosophiques; Histoire des croisades; Cantiques des Cantiques)3
 Jean-Jacques Rousseau (Du Contrat Social; La Nouvelle Héloïse)3
 Helvétius (De l'Esprit; De l'homme, de ses facultés intellectuelles et de son éducation)3
 Casanova (Mémoires)3
 Sade (Justine, Juliette)3
 Madame de Staël (Corinne ou l'Italie)3
 Stendhal (Le Rouge et le noir, 1948)3
 Victor Hugo (Notre Dame de Paris; Les Misérables until 1959)3
 Gustave Flaubert (Madame Bovary; Salammbô)3
 Alexandre Dumas (various novels)3
 Pierre Larousse (Grand Dictionnaire Universel)3

For a full list see:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_authors_and_works_on_the_Index_Librorum_Pro...

I have always avoided the church for its blatant "backwardisme"

Wow, the Catholic Church thought you should not read the dictionary? (If you are french, that is?)

Why were other dictionaries not on the list?

I would agree with Les Lettres Persanes, though. It was perfectly dreadful and students of french have been tortured much too long by this yawner.

> Larousse illustrée ; that is with pictures

Oh, OK, an illustrated dictionary, whatever will they think of next.

>4 RidgewayGirl: I enjoyed it. Persian Letters

Any book banned by the Catholic Church immediately puts it on a list of books YOU MUST READ ASAP.

Nope. A lot of heresy is tedious. A book on the history of heresy might prove more interesting and more readable than what's on the prohibited list.

Robert

heresy is in the mind of the beholder, robert, no?

most of the books mentioned above are literary masterpieces. bugger heresy.

Heresy is in the eyes of the church. Those books are masterpieces or important or somesuch; they are not at all representative of the index. And importance notwithstanding, who wants to read most of Kant -- well, I do, but mostly hypothetically. I think I dipped into Kepler once; reports about him are far more interesting than what he wrote.

The church was wrong and many of the ideas they opposed had substance. They should have been allowed to play out in serious discourse, but that is no guarantee that the discourse would be interesting.

Robert

There is a history of Christian Heresy. I read it once, but I don't remember its name. It may be this book: Heresies. That sounds like it.

I find heresies to be an interesting topic. Some of the early heresies are not so heretical. They were mostly the thought of the losers in power struggles for control of the early church. (There's that violation of the third temptation, again). Some are deeply ingrained in Christianity today: The one that comes immediately to mind, and I can't think of its name to save me, is the idea that God created both good and evil and set them warring one against the other. It originates in Zoroastrianism. That God created both the light and the darkness. Many Christians believe this without realizing it is heresy. God cannot create evil, only good. How that good is used can create evil. God does not create the evil, the creature in whom the evil resides is responsible for it. Lucifer's jealousy was not created by God, but by Lucifer himself. We humans are co-creators of our world with God. As co-creators any evil that is created stems from our misuse of what God has given us. Dostoyevsky in BK understands this. God did not create suffering, man did. That's a fallacy he explores in another of Ivan's prose poems, as he puts it.

Consider the Catholic Church's teaching until recently on guilt. (Benedict XVI would like to return the Church to this). We are sinners not worthy of the sacrifice of Jesus. Thus, we are scum and should be treated as such. This denies the entire Gospel which is that through and because of Jesus' sacrifice on the cross our sins are immediately washed away, no sin, no reason for guilt. In the secular world one may be called upon to answer for this sin (armed robbery, murder, etc.) but in terms of ones relationship with God, if you reach for the grace, your sins are no more, as if they never were. Well, if the laity believed that, the Church would have no hold on one's immortal soul, thus the power of the Church would be broken. Can't have that, now can we.

consider the Catholic Church's teaching until recently on guilt

oh heck, i'd really rather not.

The Manichean heresy?

And still prefer guilt than the prevalent view here, which is that Christians are better and always right 'cause God loves 'em more. The rest of y'all are scum. Also, not real Americans.

Scratch me and the bitterness floods out.

Manichaeism came to my mind too. Augustine was one until he decided that he wasn't.

Robert

I personally always liked the Arian heresy. I wish he had triumphed at Nicea.

I've always been fond, intellectually if not spiritually, of Pelagianism, mostly because it is a heresy subscribed to by most American Catholics today. Yes, I've called more than one intellectual sparring partner a "damned Pelagian" before, usually to a blank stare.

It's also highly relevant to our Dusty read, since Pope Zosimus was caught up in the dispute between Pelagius and Augustine, likely siding with Pelagius and the free-willers against the grace-filled Augustinians more than he should have. While it's not entirely clear historically, quasi-historical legend has it that Zosimus would not use the power of the Church to crush Pelagianism, and Augustine instead had to apply the power of his wit and the Roman state to really crush those persistent buggers. He'd likely have a heart attack if he saw how they ultimately prevailed in practice.

Hm, I just looked it up. Total depravity is a bit easier to understand, but then again I was raised nominally protestant.

Just think of the Pelagians as the ultimate free-willers. It's all our choice. Stuff about original sin meaning that mankind falls from grace - hogwash! Stuff about Christ redeeming mankind - rubbish! All Jesus did was give us a good role model, and there's nothing magical about it. All the mumbo jumbo about redemption and dying for our sins - just a literary metaphor.

Pelagians say we choose our own destiny, and are always free to choose or evil, and God really doesn't interfere with the process by bestowing "grace" or some such. It's really pretty simple - Augustine is the complex one. Augustine's letters on Pelagianism make a good read, and don't take that long.

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Just to be on the safe side, I would avoid anything written by those horrible, wicked Frenchies.

Regarding heresies: A fun book concerning heresies, particularly those pertaining to Gnostic beliefs, is Fragments of a Faith Forgotten by G.R.S. Mead. This book was written ages ago, before the Nag Hammadi discoveries and the current scholarship, but then, if one regards theological studies as essentially an elaboration of fictions, what difference does it make?

(BTW, I've always had a soft spot for the Albigensians/Cathars. It's curious to me why the Church, which did nothing if not encourage fecundity, got so panicky about a sect which taught that marriage was abhorrent and sex even worse. I suppose population dynamics was not their strong suit.)

Here is a link to a 1917 book 'splaining all about the Index:

http://www.archive.org/details/romanindexforbi00goog

I particularly like the chapter heading wishfully entitled "The Index Does Not Advertise Bad Books"

Theology: A pome by Murr

How many elves does Santa have
Are they many or few?
What do they wear upon their feet?
Are their hats green or blue?

Yes, Manichaeism, that's the one I was after. Most Christians, whether they know it or not, are guilty of this heresy.

I did wonder if an ILP read would be viable... probably ranges from the sublime to the ridiculous...

Any takers?

The more I think about this the more I like it. Yeah.