In this edition of her dissertation, Agten begins with two questions: “Were Catholics in the Low Countries allowed to read the Bible in the vernacular in the broad seventeenth century? And if so, what Bibles did they read?” In her third sentence, Agten answers the first question: as to whether reading the Bible in a native language was allowed, opinions differed. The elaboration of this answer and the answer to the second question form the content of the book.

In the introduction, Agten outlines the Catholic reform that took shape in various ways in the Northern Low Countries dominated by Protestants and the Southern Low Countries, which remained Catholic. In the next chapter, she deals with the regulations of the Council of Trent (60–96) and their promulgation, in particular the Regula Quarta on translations into the mother tongue in the various dioceses (96–146). In the same chapter, she then focuses on the so-called translation of Mons from 1667, which was considered Jansenist (146–167).

Chapters 3, 4, and 5 form the main part of this study. In chapter 3, Agten discusses the works of three anti-Jansenist opponents of native Bible reading: Cornelius Hazart, Martinus Harney, and Martinus Steyaert. During their polemic activity, the year 1685 proves to be of great significance. Humbert-Guillaume de Precipiano—then still bishop of Brugge, but from 1691 archbishop of Mechelen—published the first in a series of decrees that year in which he interpreted the Regula Quarta so restrictively that he practically prohibited reading the Bible in the mother tongue. His colleague—bishop apostolic vicar Joannes van Neercassel from the Northern Netherlands—published a tract in that same year in which he recommended reading the Bible to all believers, men and women. Chapter 4 is devoted to “Three Bible Translators with Jansenist Sympathies”: Egidius de Witte, Andreas van der Schuur, and Philippus Laurentius Verhulst. Agten outlines their careers, gives a general characterization of their translations, and discusses their polemical publications regarding the reading of the Bible. In chapter 5, Agten examines the Jansenist character of the three translations in more detail. On the basis of a few examples, she first shows—as if there were doubts about their catholicity—that the three translators did not go with Protestant translators, but largely adhered to the Vulgate. Subsequently, the translations are tested against the French translation of Mons, whereby Agten takes two anti-Jansenist writings against Mons as criterion. Indeed, it turns out that De Witte takes over traces of the translation from Mons, while Van der Schuur does that much less and Verhulst remains closest to the Vulgate. In the epilogue, Agten briefly discusses a translation project that was started at the instigation of the fiercely anti-Jansenist archbishop of Mechelen d'Alsace. The project barely got off the ground.

This summary of the study shows that Agten's study actually addresses two topics. It provides an overview of the regulations of the Council of Trent regarding the reading and translating of the Bible into the vernacular and the reception of these regulations in the Low Countries. She then connects these regulations with the various polemics between Jansenists and anti-Jansenists surrounding this topic. Two main critical comments can be placed on these themes.

Although Agten argues in discussing the term “Jansenist” (in section 1.3) that this is a polemic epithet with which anti-Jansenists denounced their opponents in order to gain influence at the theological faculty of Louvain University, she herself uses it repeatedly alongside the term “Roman Catholics,” for example in the title of her first chapter. She thus suggests that Jansenists are to be distinguished from Roman Catholics and that Roman Catholics are no Jansenists, and she looks surprised when the anti-Jansenist Harney does regard them as his fellow believers (220). Only at the very end of her study does Agten conclude that the terms “Jansenist” and “anti-Jansenist” are inadequate and can better be replaced by supporters and opponents of reading the Bible in the native language (390). The question is whether this could not have been stated more clearly in the introduction already, the result of which would be that the use of the ambiguous terms during the study could have been avoided.

The second comment concerns the time span Agten's study tries to cover. She starts her study in the sixteenth century with the Council of Trent and ends it in 1733, the year in which Archbishop d'Alsace commissioned a new Bible translation. As the project of d'Alsace largely failed, Agten should better have ended her study with the publication of the edition of Van der Schuur's translation in 1732. Despite the accusation of Jansenism, this translation was never condemned and can be seen as the most successful Catholic Bible translation of the eighteenth century. The long time span from Trent to 1733 also has consequences for the space Agten's study covers. She mentions the distinction between Protestant dominance in the Northern Low Countries and the Catholic Counter-Reformation in the Southern Netherlands, but does not seem to take into account the political and religious development of the separate areas and the consequences thereof for their respective Catholic inhabitants. The position of apostolic vicar bishop Van Neercassel with regard to Bible reading thus loses out to the strict interpretation of the rules of Trent promulgated by his counterpart the archbishop of Mechelen for the Southern Netherlands. Agten also mentions the anti-Jansenist agitation that led to the suspension of Van Neercassel's successor, Petrus Codde, and the prelude to the schism between Rome and Utrecht (34), but places the events in a wrong order, making it seem as if the measures against Codde were justified.

As she states at the start of her conclusion, Agten has mainly provided a philological analysis of pamphlets and tracts of three Jansenist Bible translators and three anti-Jansenist opponents of reading the Bible in the mother tongue, and of the Jansenist Bibles from the Northern Netherlands in the period 1667–1733 (385). Despite the critical remarks made above, her study provides a good overview of the Catholic Bible translations and the controversies they gave rise to. From the specific angle of Bible translations, this study contributes to the elucidation of the divergent strategies with which the Catholic theology reformed itself at the beginning of the modern era.