"God suffers in the multitude of souls whom His word cannot reach. Religious truth is imprisoned in a small number of manuscript books which confine instead of spread the public treasure."
— Johannes Gutenberg
God Suffers In The Multitude Of
God suffers in the multitude of souls whom His word cannot reach. Religious truth is imprisoned in a small number of manuscript books which confine instead of spread the public treasure.
About this quote
This passage is attributed to Johannes Gutenberg in early biographical accounts, but like virtually all Gutenberg quotes, no primary source in his own hand survives. The sentiment captures an argument made by later Protestant reformers and humanists: that the manuscript tradition had made Scripture and classical learning the preserve of a literate elite, while printing could democratize access to texts. Martin Luther explicitly credited the press with enabling the Reformation, and Gutenberg's Bible (the 42-line Bible, c. 1455) was among the first large-scale products of movable type in Europe.
Source
Attributed, from early biographical accounts
