Context

Censorship in the Christian faith has been occurring since the early beginnings of the religion. An early moment of censorship is documented in the Bible from Acts 19:19. In this passage, the author St. Paul describes how a group of recent converts at Ephesus publicly burned a collection of books that was worth 50,000 pieces of silver. Another instance of attempted censorship in the Christian faith occurred in 170 A.D. when the church issued the Mutatorian Canon. It listed the books that were considered the authentic books of the New Testament, including some books that were not considered authentic. The First Council of Nicaea in 325 A.D. also conducted an act of censorship by condemning the Priest Arius and his book Thalia, which denied the divinity of Christ. Throughout the centuries, more books were condemned, however, no work came close to the likings of a list like the Index. The only work that does come close is the Decretrum Gelasianum, a work that listed multiple works that were acceptable and unacceptable to the Catholic Church. The only reason why the Decretrum is not seen as the first official index of forbidden books is because it was most likely the work of a private person, not a public list for Catholic’s to adhere to. Some reasons for a books condemnation were the arguing that Christ had both divine and human natures that were not able to be combined into one person, arguing that Christ only had will, books that did not deem the confession of sins as necessary, and that when Jesus descented into Hell had freed all the souls that were there. All these resions for the censorship of books all went against the teachings of the Catholic church in some way, whether it being theological reasons or reasons to believe that the Catholic church was not as important and powerful as was. Later in 1487 Pope Innocent VIII declared that books censored in the Christendom were to be enforced by bishops. This decree did not get obeyed by the bishops. In 1517 Pope Leo X issued a similar issue and that time the decree was obeyed. The decree was enforced by the bishops by having them review all books, and excommunicating printers that published prohibited books. The most famous instance in the condemnation was when all works by Martin Luther, including his future works, were held as prohibited books. As the Protestant Reformation grew and the printing press became more popular, the church had to figure out a way to keep their control over their political and spiritual authority. It was at the Council of Trent that the beginnings of the Index Librorum Prohibitorum started to take shape.