WeTried Translations

Translator/Editor: Ceaseless

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◈ The Medieval Heretic King is Too Good at Developing ◈

Chapter 66: The German Bible

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A small reception room in the Prague Royal Palace.

The same three theologians I had entrusted with the great task of translating the Bible had gathered there once again.

Jan Rokycana, leader of Bohemia's moderate Hussites.

Jan Želivský, an agitator who spoke for Prague's poor and radical factions.

And Jan Příbram, a conservative, scholarly theologian.

Under normal circumstances, they would have been grabbing one another by the collar over differences in doctrine. Yet now, they stared reverently at the object on the table, united in purpose.

They looked awful.

Dark shadows hung beneath their eyes, and ink stains covered every joint of their fingers.

They were glorious medals, proof of how fiercely they had fought their translation war over the past few months.

The moment I entered, all three rose as if on cue.

"Your Majesty."

I raised a hand, dispensing with the formalities.

My eyes were fixed solely on the thick object at the center of the table.

"Is this it?"

"Yes. We have finally completed the sacred task Your Majesty commanded."

Rokycana drew back the red velvet cloth.

Flap.

A thick, leather-bound book.

Its cover bore neither decoration nor gold leaf.

Only a title, pressed into it by a crude pen nib, stood out clearly.

[Das Neue Testament (New Testament)]

It was neither Latin nor Czech.

It was the language of the Holy Roman Empire, their mother tongue.

German.

I carefully turned the pages. The rich scent of ink rose from the densely packed German sentences.

This was something that should have been born from Martin Luther's hand a hundred years later, yet Bohemian heretics had brought it into the world a century early.

A forbidden key that would return God's words, monopolized by the Papacy, to ordinary farmers and merchants.

Considering the shockwaves this single book would send through history, the stack of paper in my hands possessed power beyond comparison with the Emperor's army of one hundred thousand.

I closed the book with a smile.

"Remarkable. Truly excellent. The people who hate Germans more than anyone have created such a perfect German Bible."

My gaze turned to Jan Želivský.

The First Defenestration of Prague. The mad agitator who had thrown German city councillors loyal to Sigismund from a Prague window.

The fact that a man who hated Germans to the bone had joined this work was, in itself, a great irony of history.

"I hate them. I hate them to the marrow of my bones. But Your Majesty was right. To destroy an enemy, one must first stab their heart with their own language."

Želivský's eyes were bloodshot, yet an indescribable joy glimmered within them.

"The moment the people of the Empire read this book and realize how Rome's Antichrist has deceived them... their rage will become the flames of hell that burn the Emperor and the Pope alike."

Příbram added calmly, "We also worked with Jewish scholars to ensure its linguistic quality. We used the chancery German of Saxony as our standard, but chose the simplest words possible so even commoners in the marketplace could understand it at once."

"You've all worked hard."

I turned to János Hunyadi.

"János Hunyadi."

"Yes, my lord."

"Take the manuscript. You know where it needs to go, don't you?"

A cold smile touched János Hunyadi's lips.

"Should I deliver it to Gutenberg at the Sternberg Royal Printing House?"

"Yes. Tell him to use every printing press for the time being and print as many copies as possible."

I looked at the three theologians again.

"Once the printing presses begin running, hundreds of Bibles will pour out every day. But something is more important than producing them."

"Distribution... is that what you mean?"

I nodded at Rokycana's question.

Bibles piled in a warehouse were no better than scraps of paper. They had to be spread deep within the Empire, secretly and lethally, beyond the Papacy's eyes.

The distributors would have to get them past strict border inspections and the surveillance of heresy inquisitors, then release the poison of ideas in the heart of enemy territory.

Ordinary merchants or a conventional army could not do it.

I needed martyrs who would risk their lives, fear no death, and move for nothing but their faith.

"I'll ask you. Who will go?"

The first to speak was, as expected, the one with the hottest blood.

"My disciples and I will go."

Jan Želivský stepped forward.

"In Prague's slums and the wheat fields of the countryside, there are those who have awakened to the truth. They speak German, they are well practiced at looking like beggars, and above all..."

Flames burned in Želivský's eyes.

"They are prepared to smile and sing hymns even at the stake for the sake of truth."

Želivský and his followers.

Taborite zealots and radical preachers, they were like uncontrollable time bombs.

Yet there were no better bombs to throw into enemy territory.

"It will be dangerous. You may not return alive."

"What is there to fear in spreading the Lord's word? Even martyrdom would be glorious."

Želivský made the sign of the cross and spoke firmly.

"We will seep into the taverns, markets, and farmhouses of the Empire. We will become traveling performers, wandering peddlers, blind beggars... and read this book to them in their own language."

I nodded with a satisfied smile.

"Good. Do as you wish. I will give you, Želivský, every copy from Gutenberg's first printing."

"It is an honor, Your Majesty."

I reached out and pointed to the Bible on the table.

"Go and tell them. This is a gift from the King of Bohemia to the people of the Empire, and..."

My voice grew cold.

"The sweetest and most deadly fruit of wisdom that the Roman Catholic Church tried so desperately to hide."

* * *

Some time later.

Pirna, a border town in the Duchy of Saxony.

The November wind blowing along the Elbe River chilled people to the bone.

Beneath a sky heavy with low gray clouds, the marketplace bustled with the weary energy of people preparing for winter.

Murmur, murmur.

In one corner of the market, where the smells of salted herring, animals, and dried sweat mingled, a man in a shabby sheepskin cloak had set up a stall.

At first glance, he looked like any wandering peddler selling crude wooden dolls and pouches of medicinal herbs.

"Come now, take a look. Nothing works better than dried mugwort for easing children's convulsions."

The peddler called out to passersby in a hoarse voice.

But whenever a farmer approached with shoulders drooping beneath the weight of life, his eyes turned secretive and sharp.

"Brother."

The peddler lowered his voice and stopped the farmer.

"Would you like something that heals the soul, not just herbs?"

"Heals the soul? Are you selling indulgences?"

The farmer snorted. He was sick of indulgence sellers from Rome.

"No. Not worthless scraps of paper you buy with coin. This is... a treasure that should have been yours, but was stolen from you."

From deep within his clothes, beneath layer after layer of cloth, the peddler drew out a thin booklet and held it before the farmer's eyes.

"What is this?"

"Read it."

The farmer frowned.

He was a tenant farmer who had learned a little writing by watching the village clerk. Latin prayers were as incomprehensible to him as scribbles, but he could manage simple accounts.

He casually opened the cover and looked at the first page.

[Im Anfang war das Wort...]

(In the beginning was the Word...)

The farmer's eyes shook violently, as if an earthquake had struck.

"Th-this is...?!"

It was the Bible. But it was not in Latin.

There was no need to decipher it or ask someone to translate it.

The moment his eyes fell upon it, the meaning pierced his mind.

It felt as though God, who had existed only beyond high, massive walls, had suddenly descended into the muddy marketplace and taken his rough hand.

"Isn't this... German? How can God's words be...?"

"Shh."

The peddler placed a finger over his lips.

"God did not come only for Romans. He came for you as well. The King of Bohemia has freed the words the priests imprisoned in the jail of Latin."

The farmer's hand trembled.

Fear and joy.

The terror of breaking a taboo and the thrill of encountering truth for the first time raced through his veins together.

"Can I... truly keep this? If the priests find out, they'll kill us."

"Brother, if lighting a candle is a sin, then aren't those who force people to live in darkness the Devil?"

The peddler pressed the book into the farmer's rough hand.

"Take it. Lock your door at night and read it to your children. Read what God truly said."

Such secret exchanges did not happen only in Pirna.

In Dresden's back alleys, Leipzig's taverns, and before the gates of Nuremberg.

Želivský's disciples spread deep through the veins of the Empire like invisible poison.

They took no money. Sometimes they gave away a book for a piece of bread, sometimes for a night's lodging, and sometimes for nothing more than a glance.

Thousands of German Bibles printed in Sternberg slowly but surely seeped into the lowest reaches of Saxony.

A few days later, the inevitable reaction erupted.

* * *

"Heresy! Cursed heretical books!"

Altmarkt Square in Dresden, the center of the Duchy of Saxony.

The shout of Johann IV von Kirchberg, Bishop of Meißen, thundered across the square.

He was known as a mild-tempered clergyman, but his face was flushed red and twisted like a demon's.

At his feet lay a mountain of confiscated books.

They were the "seditious" materials that heresy inquisitors and Saxon soldiers had found after searching the city and raiding farmhouses day and night.

"Look! This is the tongue of a demon wearing human skin!"

The bishop seized a book from the pile and shook it wildly from the platform.

It was the very German Bible that Želivský's disciples had spread at the risk of their lives.

"That cursed Bohemian heretic Ulrich has released poison to corrupt your souls! He dares to defile sacred and noble words... with vulgar, filthy German!"

The bishop spat as he ranted.

"God's truth can only be held in the sacred vessel of Latin! How dare they stain the Lord's Gospel with the coarse language used to haggle in the streets!"

The crowd in the square held its breath.

Soldiers carrying torches approached a pile of oil-soaked firewood.

The instant the crimson flames were cast upon it, the fire devoured the books like a starving beast.

Whoosh!

The paper turned to black ash and rose into the air, while the acrid smell of burning ink filled the square.

Watching the flames blaze, the bishop thought:

'This is dangerous. More dangerous than a sword.'

He showed anger outwardly, but deep within, a chilling fear slowly rose.

'Why are priests needed? To convey God's will to ignorant people who do not know Latin! But what if the people read the Bible with their own hands and interpret God with their own minds? What use would the Pope, cardinals, and priests be then?'

He saw a vision of the Church's hierarchy, which had endured for a thousand years, collapsing completely.

That was why he shouted even harder.

"Anyone who reads this book will be excommunicated at once and cast into the eternal fires of hell after death! I will forgive no one in my diocese who possesses this devil's book!"

But.

The eyes of the crowd watching the flames beneath the platform were moving in a direction far different from the bishop's threats.

A scribe among the crowd clenched his fist.

The night before, he had read the book his wife had secretly brought home.

'Vulgar? Why?'

The scribe asked himself. The sentences he had read were not vulgar at all.

They had pierced his heart more beautifully and clearly than any Latin sermon he had heard in his life.

'The language my mother spoke, the language my children speak... is that truly so filthy in God's eyes?'

The baker standing beside him bit his lip. He had devoted his entire life to the Church and paid tithes.

He had never understood a single sentence of the Latin sermons the priests recited, yet he had bowed his head, believing that was the path to salvation.

But now he knew. The words he could understand were poison, while only the priests' incomprehensible words were truth. What a bizarre contradiction.

'Why?'

Dangerous sparks began to kindle in people's minds.

The more fiercely the firewood in the square burned, the larger the questions in their hearts grew.

'If that truly is the Devil's book, why do the priests not explain its contents and simply burn it?'

'God gave us His words, so why would we go to hell for reading them in our own language?'

'What could be written inside that they are so afraid of, so desperate to hide?'

The books vanished into the flames, but their ash rode the wind and settled over the crowd's heads.

That black ash left an indelible dark doubt in their minds.

The louder the bishop shouted, the heavier and colder the silence in the square became.

It was the stillness before an explosion.

Footnotes:

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