The Challoner Revision of the Douay Bible

Richard Challoner, ed. The Holy Bible, translated from the Latin Vulgat: diligently compared with the Hebrew, Greek, and other editions in divers languages, and first published by the English College at Doway, Anno 1609 : newly revised, and corrected, according to the Clementin edition of the scriptures : with annotations for clearing up the principal difficulties of Holy Writ. [Dublin?], 1750.

Richard Challoner (1691-1781) was a Roman Catholic Bishop in England who prepared several extensive revisions of the Rheims and Douai Bible between 1749 and 1777. Challoner's edition of 1763-1764 became the basis of nearly all subsequent Roman Catholic editions of the Bible which appeared under the titles "Douay Bible," "Rheims-Douay Bible" or "Douay-Rheims Bible," and these editions are often referred to by Roman Catholics as "reprints of the Douai Bible." But this terminology is quite misleading, because Challoner's version differs very substantially from the Rheims and Douai Bible of 1582-1606. Most of the polemical annotations have been eliminated, and the text resembles the original version no more than it resembles the King James Version. And so Cardinal Wiseman has said, "To call it any longer the Doway or Rhemish version is an abuse of terms. It has been altered and modified till scarce any verse remains as it was originally published." ⁽¹⁾ The "Challoner-Rheims" remained the standard Catholic English Bible until the publication of the Confraternity version in 1941.

A comparison of the Challoner-Rheims with the original Rheims and the King James Version shows how much influence the latter had in Challoner's revision:

The annotations of the Challoner-Reims version were very mild by comparison with the original Rheims New Testament, but they did serve to defend Roman Catholic doctrine. Below is a sample "problem passage" with its notes: ⁽²⁾

  Romans 11: 4-6. But what saith the divine answer to him? I have left me seven thousand men, that have not bowed their knees to Baal. 5 Even so then at this present time also, there is a remnant saved according to the election of grace. 6 And if by grace, it is not now by works: otherwise grace is no more grace.

  Ver. 4. Seven thousand, &c. This is very ill alleged by some, against the perpetual visibility of the church of Christ: the more, because, however the number of the faithful might be abridged by the persecution of Jezabel in the kingdom of the ten tribes, the church was at the same time in a most flourishing condition (under Asa and Josaphat) in the kingdom of Judah.
  Ver. 6. It is not now by works, &c. If salvation were to come by works, done by nature, without faith and grace, salvation would not be a grace or favour, but a debt; but such dead works are indeed of no value in the sight of God towards salvation. It is not the same with regard to works done with, and by, God's grace; for to such works as these, he has promised eternal salvation.

Click here to see the entire Epistle to the Romans from the Challoner-Rheims version.

The following description of Challoner's revision is adapted from the lengthy article by John Henry Newman (a notable Roman Catholic apologist), which appeared as The History of the Text of the Rheims and Douay Version of Holy Scripture in the "Rambler" of July, 1859. ⁽³⁾

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The first edition of Dr. Challoner's revision was published in 1749. It consisted of the New Testament only, and professed in the title-page to be "newly revised and corrected according to the Clementine edition of the Scriptures" (the standard Vulgate). The approbation of two English divines is prefixed to the volume, but of no Bishop, which perhaps was unnecessary, considering he was a co-adjutor Bishop himself. In the next year, 1750, he published an edition of the whole Bible, including, therefore, a second edition of the New Testament. In 1752 he published a third edition of the New Testament; in 1763-4, a second edition of both Testaments, which included a fourth edition of the New.

As to the alterations of text which he introduced, he has given us no preface or other notice which would serve as our informant of the principle, the source, or the extent of them. On an inspection of the text itself, we find them to be very considerable. The principle of the alterations seems to be, that of making the text more intelligible to the reader; and, with this object, old words and old collocations are superseded by modern, and less usual ones are exchanged for those which are more in use and even familiar.

Looking at Dr. Challoner's labours as a whole, we may pronounce that they issue in little short of a new translation. They can as little be said to be made on the basis of the Douay as on the basis of the Protestant version. Of course there must be a certain resemblance between any two Catholic versions whatever, because they are both translations of the same Vulgate; but, this connection between the Douay and Challoner being allowed for, Challoner's version is even nearer to the Protestant than it is to the Douay; nearer, that is, not in grammatical structure, but in phraseology and diction.

We have already implied that Dr. Challoner made corrections of his own editions of the New Testament as they successively issued from the press. The second edition (1750) differs from the first, according to the collations which Dr. Cotton has printed, in about 124 passages; the third (1752) in more than 2000. These alterations, Dr. Cotton tells us, are all in the direction of the Protestant version.

¹ Quoted in Marion Simms, The Bible in America (New York, 1936), page 102.

² From the Challoner-Rheims edition, The Holy Bible, Translated from the Latin Vulgate, Diligently Compared with the Hebrew, Greek, and Other Editions in Divers Languages ... with Annotations, References, and an Historical and Chronological Table, published with the Approbation of His Eminence James Cardinal Gibbons, Archbishop of Baltimore. New York: P.J. Kenedy & Sons, 1914.

³ The full text of Newman's article is online at www.newmanreader.org/works/tracts/douayrheims.html