Heritage Column for July 28, 2005
By Fred Anderson
ROME, Italy – Before we left for the sabbatical, I mentioned to a Baptist friend that I wanted a tour of the Vatican library, one of the world's largest-if not the largest-religious archives. My friend has a priest friend who knows the Roman Catholic bishop of Richmond.
One day a telephone call came from the bishop's secretary, who was excited because such requests are “seldom granted.” Indeed the library is open “exclusively for university professors and researchers.” A letter arrived from the prefect of the Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, explaining that they receive “hundreds of requests and most often decline due to efforts to maintain an ambient appropriate for study.” But at the bishop's request and “under the circumstances,” the keeper of the archives for Virginia Baptists and the keeper's wife were granted an after-hours behind-the-scenes tour.
We arrived at the Vatican gate and the spiffy Swiss guards directed us to the passport office. After all, we were entering a small country. There was some checking and a passport was issued. We walked inside a massive fortress, past another guard, through an archway and into a huge interior courtyard. We headed for a door, where we were met by Massimo Ceresa, reference librarian, who has worked with the collection since 1976.
He shared the history of the collection, which dates to Pope Nicholas V in the mid-1400s. It has grown to some 1.6 million volumes, 8,300 handwritten manuscript books and thousands of other documents. In a room full of indexes to the manuscripts, he pulled one handwritten volume and ran his finger to a certain notation. It was an index entry made by a monk in 1627 in anticipation that someday in some far off century someone might want to look at that particular item.
The librarian took us into the holy of holies, where exact facsimiles of certain treasured books are kept. The originals are secured in a vault. He pulled off the Codex, a third-century manuscript as close as possible to the original Scriptures. It was at that point that I remembered a story which I once found in an old issue of the Religious Herald.
In 1882 a seminary professor from the United States was visiting Rome and persuaded George Boardman Taylor, the Baptist missionary, to help him gain admission to the Vatican library. Armed with letters of introduction, the Baptists passed the Swiss guard to the monsignor's apartments. None of the higher-ups were available so the Baptists kept walking through the apostolic palace until they reached the library and asked to see the assistant librarian, “a fat old fellow with genial and intelligent features.” The librarian was engaged with a tour for young student priests and the Baptists tagged along.
“The books and manuscripts are jealously hidden from sight in closed wooden cupboards,” reported the visitors. “We saw several beautifully illuminated missals.” Willingly, the assistant librarian allowed the visitors to examine the Codex, which “always has been most jealously guarded by the powers of the Vatican.” Taylor explained, “Almost every government in Europe has been refused a free study of its pages.” The Baptists felt that it was providential that the monsignor was unavailable and the librarian was friendly enough to permit reading the Codex, the Greek manuscript of the Bible.
It was this same treasured book that the two Baptists saw in 1882 which today's librarian at his own selection had randomly pulled off the shelf for me to see. I was amazed that out of the million and more books in the library the librarian just happened to pull the same prized book which I had read about in the old copy of the Herald. We remained with the librarian until he locked the doors and headed home.
For a fellow librarian of a religious archive, albeit smaller and narrower of field, it was a thrill beyond description to have spent a few moments in the rarefied atmosphere of the Vatican library.
There was another surprise invitation which came with the Bishop's inquiry. We were extended an invitation for a general audience with the Pope. When Jeremiah Bell Jeter, the Virginia Baptist leader of the 19th-century, visited Rome in 1872 someone asked why he had not called upon the Pope. He replied that it was simple: “The Pope has not called upon me!”
We arrived with ticket in hand for the audience and got within a few feet of the Pope as he whisked by in his Popemobile while the crowd cheered as if he were some rock star. There must have been 15,000 present at the general audience to hear his homily. Groups were recognized from all over the world. We also toured the vast Vatican museum with its huge collection of art works and of course we twisted our necks in the Sistine Chapel.
Virginia Baptists should not worry that their historian has defected! We appreciated the Vatican experiences but realized anew why we are Baptists. We hold to the free church concept, the priesthood of all believers, the right to read and interpret Scripture for oneself and the absence of any hierarchy. Despite the opulence and grandeur of St. Peter's, we prefer the simplicity of Baptist meetinghouses.
Fred Anderson is executive director of the Virginia Baptist Historical Society.