_THE SCHOLAR WHO OUTSTRIPPED HIS TEACHER._
“Meek souls there are who little deem
Their daily strife an Angel’s theme,
Or that the rod they take so calm
Shall prove in heaven a martyr’s palm.”
--KEBLE.
“The voice of Nature never goes to the _heart_ until it blend with
the voice of Scripture.”--PHILIP.
“It is by celestial observation alone that terrestrial charts can be
constructed.”--COLERIDGE.
HARD FARE MAKES FIRM MEN--WHAT ERASMUS WISHED, AND TYNDALE
ACCOMPLISHED--WEALTH MADE THE TEST OF TRUTH--A MAN OF PUTTY HELPING
A MAN OF IRON--DRIVEN AWAY, BUT NOT CONQUERED.
At an early age William Tyndale was sent to Oxford, where he was
entered at Magdalen Hall. Here we can perhaps picture him from the
words of Thomas Lever, who in a sermon which was preached later
describes the University life of his day. With some modifications, it
may perhaps stand for Tyndale’s experience:--
“There are divers there which rise daily between four and five o’clock
in the morning, and from five until six o’clock use common prayer,
with an exhortation of God, and in a common chapel. From six until ten
o’clock they use either private study or common lectures. At ten of the
clock they go to dinner, whereat they be content with a greasy piece
of beef amongst four, having a few pottage made of the broth of the
same beef, with salt and oatmeal, and nothing else. After this slender
dinner, they be either teaching or learning until five of the clock in
the evening, when they have a supper not much better than their dinner.
Immediately after which they go either to reasoning in problems or unto
some other study, until it be nine or ten of the clock, and then, being
without fire, are fain to walk or run up and down half an hour, to get
a heat in their feet, when they go to bed.”
With some few modifications, this description may stand for the
student life of Tyndale, and it is certainly a picture of hard living
and of stern training. In the year 1512 William Tyndale received his
degree of B.A., and in 1515 he was licensed M.A. For some reason which
cannot very clearly be discovered, Tyndale afterwards left Oxford for
Cambridge, where Erasmus was at that time lecturing.
It has been pointed out by Demaus, in his admirable and exhaustive
biography, that Tyndale’s famous sentence was merely a re-echo of what
Erasmus had said long before. In the exhortation prefixed to one of his
works Erasmus wrote: “I totally dissent from those who are unwilling
that the Sacred Scriptures, translated into the vulgar tongue, should
be read by private individuals, as if Christ had taught such subtle
doctrines that they can with difficulty be understood by a very few
theologians, or as if the strength of the Christian religion lay in
men’s ignorance of it. The mysteries of kings it were perhaps better
to conceal, but Christ wishes His mysteries to be published as widely
as possible. I would wish even all women to read the Gospels and
the Epistles of St. Paul. And I wish they were translated into _all
languages of all people, that they might be read and known, not merely
by the Scotch and the Irish, but even by the Turks and the Saracens.
I wish that the husbandman may sing parts of them at his plough, that
the weaver may warble them at his shuttle, that the traveller may with
their narratives beguile the weariness of the way._”
These are indeed noble words, and one wishes that Erasmus had possessed
the courage of his convictions, but his selfishness, weakness, and love
of ease prevented him from braving the risks that Luther and Tyndale
incurred. He was like the courtier who advised Latimer to remain a
papist until “it pleased God to add to Latimer’s opinions converts
in such honest number” as to make profession of his belief safe and
respectable. Tyndale was of other and of harder material than Erasmus,
and therefore he obtained the success that he did. Withes may be useful
for making baskets, but heart of oak and iron are required for the
construction of warships. “In almost all plans of great enterprise,”
says John Foster, “a man must systematically dismiss at the entrance
every wish to stipulate with his destiny for his safety. He voluntarily
treads within the precincts of danger; and though it be possible he may
escape, _he ought to be prepared_ with the fortitude of _a self-devoted
victim_. This is the inevitable condition on which ... Reformers must
commence their career. Either they must allay their fire of enterprise,
or abide the liability to be exploded by it from the world.” Such was
William Tyndale; while the character of Erasmus is sketched in the
words in which the same writer describes the man without decision of
character: “He belongs to whatever can make capture of him. One thing
after another vindicates its right to him while he is trying to go on,
as twigs and chips floating near the edge of a river are intercepted by
every weed and whirled in every little eddy.”
At Cambridge, therefore, Tyndale remained, and there he not only began
“to smell the Word of God,” but he also made choice of his future
profession. During his course at the Universities, Tyndale had at least
one pupil to whom he made reference in his last letter to Fryth the
martyr. In the year 1521 Tyndale left Cambridge and went to live as
chaplain and tutor at the house of Sir John Walsh in Little Sodbury,
Gloucestershire. The mansion of this local magnate “is charmingly
situated on the south-western slope of the Cotswolds, and enjoys a
magnificent prospect over the richly wooded vale of the Severn, to the
distant hills of Wales. Though somewhat shorn of its former dignity,
and only in part inhabited, the house is still, in the main, intact;
time indeed has dealt gently with it, and has added to the beauties
of its graceful and varied architecture those mellowing touches which
delight the eye of the lover of the picturesque.”[2]
Here Tyndale lived for years, and in this quiet seclusion he had
sufficient leisure to reflect upon the matters which had previously
engaged his attention; it was here that he fully resolved to devote
himself to the great enterprise with which his name is inseparably
associated. For the intellectual revival that had set in all through
Europe had reached England also; and men no longer cared to waste their
time in discussing such puerilities as Erasmus states that in the
solemn disputations of the scholars were discussed. As, for example,
such questions as--“Whether the Pope can command angels?” “Whether he
be a mere man, or, as God, participates in both natures with Christ?”
“And whether he be not more merciful than Christ was, since we do not
read that Christ ever recalled any from the pains of purgatory?”
Old Foxe who obtained his information from an eye-witness, who is
believed by Demaus to have been Richard Webb, who was afterwards
servant to Latimer, speaks thus of Tyndale’s life in the old
manor-house: “Master Tyndale being in service with one Master Walsh, a
knight, who married a daughter of Sir Robert Poyntz, a knight dwelling
in Gloucestershire. The said Tyndale being school-master to the said
Master Walsh’s children, and being in good favour with his master,
sat most commonly at his own table. Which Master Walsh kept a good
ordinary commonly at his table, and there resorted unto him many times
sundry abbots, deans, archdeacons, with divers other doctors, and
great beneficed men; who there, together with Master Tyndale sitting
at the same table, did use many times to enter communication, and talk
of learned men, as of Luther and of Erasmus; also of divers other
controversies and questions upon the Scripture. Then Master Tyndale, as
he was learned and well practised in God’s matters, so he spared not
to show unto them simply and plainly his judgment in matters, as he
thought; and when they at any time did vary from Tyndale in opinions
and judgment, he would show them in the book, and lay plainly before
them the open and manifest places of the Scriptures, to confute their
errors and confirm his sayings. And thus continued they for a certain
season, reasoning and contending together divers and sundry times, till
at length they waxed weary, and bare a secret grudge in their hearts
against him.
“So upon a time,” continues Foxe, “some of these beneficed doctors
bid Master Walsh and the lady his wife at a supper or banquet, there
having among them talk at will without any gainsaying. The supper or
banquet being done, and Master Walsh and his lady being come home, they
called for Master Tyndale, and talked with him of such communication
as had been where they came from and of their opinions. Master Tyndale
thereunto made answer agreeable to the truth of God’s Word, and in
reproving of their false opinions. The Lady Walsh, being a stout woman,
and as Master Tyndale did report her to be wise, there being no more
but they three, Master Walsh, his wife, and Master Tyndale: ‘Well,’
said she, ‘there was such a doctor he may dispend two hundred pound by
the year; another one hundred pound; and another three hundred pound;
and what think ye, _were it reason that we should believe you before
them so great, learned, and beneficed men_?’ Master Tyndale, hearing
her, gave her no answer; nor after that had but small arguments against
such, for he perceived it would not help, in effect to the contrary.”
The character of the disputes may be inferred from the following
paragraph which has been compiled by D’Aubigné from Tyndale’s
writings:--
“In the dining-room of the old hall a varied group was assembled
round the hospitable table. There were Sir John and Lady Walsh, a few
gentlemen of the neighbourhood, with several abbots, deans, monks, and
doctors in their respective costumes. Tyndale occupied the humblest
place, and generally kept Erasmus’ New Testament within reach, in
order to prove what he advanced. Numerous domestics were moving about
engaged in waiting on the guests; and at length the conversation, after
wandering a little, took a more precise direction. The priests grew
impatient when they saw the terrible volume appear. ‘Your Scriptures
only seem to make heretics,’ they exclaimed. ‘On the contrary,’ replied
Tyndale, ‘the source of heresies is pride; now, the Word of God strips
man of everything, and leaves him as bare as Job.’ ‘The Word of God!
Why, even we don’t understand your Word; how can the vulgar understand
it?’ ‘You don’t understand it,’ rejoined Tyndale, ‘because you look
into it only for foolish questions. Now, the Scriptures are a clue,
which we must follow without turning aside until we arrive at Christ,
for Christ is the end.’ ‘And I tell you,’ shouted out another priest,
‘that the Scriptures are a Dædalian labyrinth--a conjuring-book wherein
everybody finds what he wants.’ ‘Alas!’ replied Tyndale, ‘you read them
without Jesus Christ; that’s why they are an obscure book to you. What
do I say? A grave of briars; if thou loose thyself in one place thou
art caught in another.’ ‘No; it is we who give the Scriptures, and we
who explain them to you.’ ‘You set candles before images,’ replied
Tyndale; ‘and since you give them light, why don’t you give them food?
Why don’t you make their bellies hollow, and put victuals and drink
inside? To serve God by such mummeries is treating Him like a spoilt
child, whom you pacify with a toy, or you make him a horse out of a
stick.’”
It is no wonder that such discussions (for this picture is probably
a fair sample of many, that took place both in the hall of the
manor-house, and in the houses of the neighbouring clergy and gentry)
disturbed the minds of the knight and of his wife. As Tyndale could not
reply to the argument from wealth, he called in the aid of Erasmus, who
was then at the zenith of his fame. Some eleven years before, Erasmus
had written a book entitled “The Manual of a Christian Soldier.” This
work Tyndale translated and placed in the hands of Lady Walsh. The
opinions of Tyndale were, of course, despicable because he was poor,
but Erasmus was the pet of princes, and his words could not well be
disregarded. Erasmus in this book had condemned the follies of the
Church teachers of his day, and demanded, concerning those things
which pertain to faith, “Why, let them be expressed in the fewest
possible articles; those which pertain to good living, let them also be
expressed in few words, and so expressed that men may understand that
the yoke of Christ is easy and light, and not harsh; that they may see
that in the clergy they have found fathers and not tyrants; pastors,
not robbers; that they are invited to salvation, and not dragged to
slavery.”
“After they had read this book,” says Foxe, “these great prelates were
no more so often called to the house, nor when they came had the cheer
and countenance as they were wont to have, the which they did well
perceive, and also that it was by the means and incensing of Master
Tyndale, and at last they came no more there.”
Tyndale had converted the knight and his wife, but he had also made
for himself some implacable and restless enemies. He further increased
their hatred by preaching in the villages round about, and, as one
tradition asserts, even in Bristol. The priests inflamed one another
with hatred against him, and at length Tyndale was summoned before the
Chancellor of the diocese to answer for his conduct.
“When I came before the Chancellor, he threatened me grievously, and
reviled me, and rated me as though I had been a dog; and laid to my
charge whereof there could be none accused brought forth,” says Tyndale
himself of this trial.
But Tyndale was not the man to desist when once he had learned what
his duty was. He has chronicled the workings of his mind at this
period thus: “A thousand books had they lever (rather) to be put forth
against their abominable doings and doctrines than that the Scripture
should come to light ... which thing only moved me to translate the
New Testament. Because _I had perceived by experience_ how it was
impossible to establish the lay-people in any truth, except the
Scriptures were plainly laid before their eyes in their mother-tongue,
that they might see the process, order, and meaning of the text: for
else, whatsoever truth is taught them these enemies of all truth quench
it again.”
In his perplexity Tyndale sought for counsel and sympathy from “a
certain doctor that dwelt not far off, and had been an old Chancellor
before to a bishop. ‘Do you not know,’ said the ex-Chancellor, ‘that
the Pope is very antichrist, whom the Scripture speaketh of? But beware
what you say; for if you shall be perceived to be of that opinion, it
will cost you your life. I have been an officer of his, but I have
given it up, and I defy him and all his works.’”
Soon after this visit “Master Tyndale happened to be in the company of
a learned man, and in communing and disputing with him, drove him to
that issue that the learned man said, ‘We had better be without God’s
laws than the Pope’s.’ Master Tyndale hearing that, answered him, ‘I
defy the Pope and all his laws;’ and said, ‘IF GOD SPARE MY LIFE, ERE
MANY YEARS I WILL CAUSE A BOY THAT DRIVETH THE PLOUGH SHALL KNOW MORE
OF THE SCRIPTURE THAN THOU DOEST.’”
These noble words were, of course, soon published through the district,
and they intensified the hatred of the priests still more against him.
Tyndale was quite willing to leave the neighbourhood, and he even
offered to settle in any English county if they would but permit
him to teach the children and to preach there. But seeing the peril
to which he had exposed his friends, and perhaps still more acutely
realising that his work could not be accomplished in Sodbury, Tyndale
took leave of his patron, and came up to London.