The controversies that plagued the Critica sacra described in Chapter 3 took place while it was in manuscript. Chapter 4 shows what happened when it finally found its way into print, prompting considerable debate in both Catholic and Protestant Europe. In the former, it focuses on how the work was received in Rome, tracking the lengthy investigation it was subject to at the Congregation of the Index and then the Holy Office. In the latter, it charts the wide-ranging public disputes the work elicited, paying particular attention to reconstructing the scholarly views and methods that underpinned Johann Buxtorf II and Archbishop James Ussher’s engagement with Cappel’s work.

Where Chapter 2 assessed the origin and content of Morin and Cappel’s works, Chapter 3 shifts to consider aspects of their reception, tracing both the debates prompted by Morin’s publications and the difficulties Cappel faced in publishing the Critica sacra. These, it shows, were interlinked, as many of the problems Cappel encountered stemmed from the way in which his Protestant contemporaries learned about Morin’s claims and followed the disputes he provoked. It draws particular attention to how scholars in Switzerland came to oppose Cappel’s work, showing how this was shaped by a conjunction of differing views about the practice of biblical scholarship and how Protestant scholars ought to conduct themselves in the Republic of Letters.