CATHOLIC CHURCH.

£2,250 · Offered by Sokol Books

.An extremely rare and very nice copy of this set of decrees of the Council of Trent, held between 1545 and 1563, the fundamental event in the Catholic Church s fight against the Protestant Reformation, issued with the Index Librorum Prohibitorum, the catalogue of books banned by the Church, greatly expanded by Clement VIII in 1596. It was first published in this format by Rouillius in 1604. Divided according to the sessions in which they were decided, the decrees of the council include rulings on the doctrines of marriage, purgatory, the veneration of saints and holy images, indulgences, the Eucharistic rite and transubstantiation, confession and penitence, etc., with a particularly virulent attack on the reformed doctrine of justification through faith alone. Also included is the decree establishing an index of prohibited books. . . ..The second part is the expanded index itself, the classic example of censorship (PMM, p. 49), which runs to thousands of authors. Included are the additional decrees issued by Popes Pius IV and Clement VIII, and the ten rules of the Index. These set out the arch-heretics of the Reformation, including Luther, Calvin, Zwingli, etc., the prohibitions against Hebrew books, magical books, etc. However, a later observation on the prohibition of Hebrew books notes that printing of the Talmud and Hebrew scriptural books that are not inimical to Christian religion are allowed. There is also a specific observation on the books of Jean Bodin, noting that

• Binding: Hardcover

Found via Rare Books Intel, a search across rare-book dealers, auction houses and marketplaces worldwide.