The
announcement of this choice was made to Brask on the 11th of June, and
he was asked to forward his translation to Upsala by September 10, when
a congress of the translators should be held to arrange the various
portions into one harmonious whole. This project was not received with
favor by the crafty bishop. He felt it to be the knell of popery, and in
writing to Peder Galle he inveighed against it. "We marvel much," he
wrote, "that the archbishop should enter this labyrinth without
consulting the prelates and chapters of the Church. Every one knows that
translations into the vernacular have already given rise to frequent
heresy.... It is said the Bible is capable of four different
interpretations. Therefore it would imperil many souls were a mere
literal translation made. Moreover, laymen cannot read the Bible even if
it be translated, and the clergy can understand it quite as well in
Latin as in Swedish. We fear that if this translation be published while
the Lutheran heresy is raging, the heresy will become more pestilent,
and, new error springing up, the Church will be accused of fostering
it." This letter was dated on the 9th of August. Clearly Brask's share
of the translation would not be ready by September 10. The fact was,
Brask had no notion of furthering the scheme. At every opportunity he
raised his voice against it, and the weight of his influence was such
that finally the whole project was given up. The Lutherans, however,
were not disheartened. Finding that nothing could be effected through
the Church, they proceeded to make a translation of their own. This was
published, though without the translators' names, in 1526. It did not,
of course, receive the sanction of the archbishop, but it paved the way
for new reforms by checking the Roman Catholics in their scholastic
doctrine and by educating the common people in the Word of God.[135]

Brask was now openly beneath the monarch's frown. The rupture between
them was becoming every day more wide, and both parties gradually grew
conscious it could not be healed. Brask had never forgiven the king for
sanctioning the marriage of Olaus Petri. Some six months after the event
he alluded to it in a letter to Peder Galle. "I am much troubled," he
declared, "that marriage is permitted to the clergy, and that no one
cries out against it. I have urged the king that Petri be excommunicated
for his act, that evil example may not spread, but have had only a
half-hearte