THE PRINTED ENGLISH BIBLE
It is very commonly believed that until the influence of Cranmer had
made itself felt, the ecclesiastical authorities continued to maintain
the traditionally hostile attitude of the English Church towards the
English Bible. In proof of this, writers point to the condemnation
of the translations issued by Tyndale, and the wholesale destruction
of all copies of this, the first printed edition of the English New
Testament. It is consequently of importance to examine into the extent
of the supposed clerical hostility to the vernacular Scriptures, and
into the reasons assigned by those having the conduct of ecclesiastical
affairs at that period for the prohibition of Tyndale’s Testament.
It may not be without utility to point out that the existence of any
determination on the part of the Church to prevent the circulation
of vernacular Bibles in the fifteenth century has been hitherto too
hastily assumed. Those who were living during that period may be
fairly considered the most fitting interpreters of the prohibition
of Archbishop Arundel, which has been so frequently adduced as
sufficient evidence of this supposed uncompromising hostility to
what is now called “the open Bible.” The terms of the archbishop’s
monition do not, on examination, bear the meaning usually put upon
it; and should the language be considered by some obscure, there is
absolute evidence of the possession of vernacular Bibles by Catholics
of undoubted orthodoxy with, at the very least, the tacit consent of
the ecclesiastical authorities. When to this is added the fact that
texts from the then known English Scriptures were painted on the walls
of churches, and portions of the various books were used in authorised
manuals of prayer, it is impossible to doubt that the hostility of the
English Church to the vernacular Bible has been greatly exaggerated,
if indeed its attitude has not altogether been misunderstood. This
much may, and indeed must, be conceded, wholly apart from the further
question whether the particular version now known as the Wycliffite
Scriptures is, or is not, the version used in the fifteenth and early
sixteenth century by Catholic Englishmen. That a Catholic version, or
some version viewed as Catholic and orthodox by those who lived in
the sixteenth century, really existed does not admit of any doubt at
all on the distinct testimony of Sir Thomas More. It will be readily
admitted that he was no ordinary witness. As one eminent in legal
matters, he must be supposed to know the value of evidence, and his
uncompromising attitude towards all innovators in matters of religion
is a sufficient guarantee that he would be no party to the propagation
of any unorthodox or unauthorised translations.
Some quotations from Sir Thomas More’s works will illustrate his belief
better than any lengthy exposition. It is unnecessary, he says, to
defend the law prohibiting any English version of the Bible, “for there
is none such, indeed. There is of truth a Constitution which speaks
of this matter, but nothing of such fashion. For you shall understand
that the great arch-heretic Wycliffe, whereas the whole Bible was
long before his days by virtuous and well-learned men translated into
the English tongue, and by good and godly people and with devotion and
soberness well and reverently read, took upon himself to translate
it anew. In this translation he purposely corrupted the holy text,
maliciously planting in it such words, as might in the readers’ ears
serve to prove such heresies as he ‘went about’ to sow. These he not
only set forth with his own translation of the Bible, but also with
certain prologues and glosses he made upon it, and he so managed this
matter, assigning probable and likely reasons suitable for lay and
unlearned people, that he corrupted in his time many folk in this
realm.…
“After it was seen what harm the people took from the translation,
prologues, and glosses of Wycliffe and also of some others, who after
him helped to set forth his sect for that cause, and also for as much
as it is dangerous to translate the text of Scripture out of one tongue
into another, as St. Jerome testifieth, since in translating it is
hard to keep the same sentence whole (i.e. the exact meaning): it was,
I say, for these causes at a Council held at Oxford, ordered under
great penalties that no one might thenceforth translate (the Scripture)
into English, or any other language, on his own authority, in a book,
booklet, or tract, and that no one might read openly or secretly any
such book, booklet, or treatise newly made in the time of the said
John Wycliffe, or since, or should be made any time after, till the
same translation had been approved by the diocesan, or, if need should
require, by a Provincial Council.
“This is the law that so many have so long spoken about, and so few
have all this time sought to look whether they say the truth or not.
For I hope you see in this law nothing unreasonable, since it neither
forbids good translations to be read that were already made of old
before Wycliffe’s time, nor condemns his because it was new, but
because it was ‘naught.’ Neither does it prohibit new translations to
be made, but provides that if they are badly made they shall not be
read till they are thoroughly examined and corrected, unless indeed
they are such translations as Wycliffe and Tyndale made, which the
malicious mind of the translator has handled in such a way that it were
labour lost to try and correct them.”
The “objector,” whom Sir Thomas More was engaged in instructing in
the _Dialogue_, could hardly believe that the formal Provincial
Constitution meant nothing more than this, and thereupon, as Sir Thomas
says: “I set before him the Constitutions Provincial, with Lyndwood
upon it, and directed him to the place under the title _De magistris_.
When he himself had read this, he said he marvelled greatly how it
happened that in so plain a matter men were so deceived.” But he
thought that even if the law was not as he had supposed, nevertheless
the clergy acted as if it were, and always “took all translations out
of every man’s hand whether the translation was good or bad, old or
new.” To this More replied that to his knowledge this was not correct.
“I myself,” he says, “have seen and can show you Bibles, fair and old,
written in English, which have been known and seen by the bishop of
the diocese, and left in the hands of laymen and women, whom he knew
to be good and Catholic people who used the books with devotion and
soberness.” He admitted indeed that all Bibles found in the hands
of heretics were taken away from them, but none of these, so far
as he had ever heard, were burnt, except such as were found to be
garbled and false. Such were the Bibles issued with evil prologues or
glosses, maliciously made by Wycliffe and other heretics. “Further,”
he declared, “no good man would be so mad as to burn a Bible in which
they found no fault.” Nor was there any law whatever that prohibited
the possession, examination, or reading of the Holy Scripture in
English.[232]
In reply to the case of Richard Hunn, who, according to the story set
about by the religious innovators, had been condemned and his dead body
burnt “only because they found English Bibles in his house, in which
they never found other fault than because they were in English,” Sir
Thomas More, professedly, and with full knowledge of the circumstances,
absolutely denies, as he says, “from top to toe,” the truth of this
story.[233] He shows at great length that the whole tale of Hunn’s
death was carefully examined into by the king’s officials, and declares
that at many of the examinations he himself had been present and heard
the witnesses, and that in the end it had been fully shown that Hunn
was in reality a heretic and a teacher of heresy. “But,” urged his
objector, “though Hunn were himself a heretic, yet might the book (of
the English Bible) be good enough; and there is no good reason why a
good book should be burnt.” The copy of this Bible, replied More, was
of great use in showing the kind of man Hunn really was, “for at the
time he was denounced as a heretic, there lay his English Bible open,
and some other English books of his, so that every one could see the
places noted with his own hand, such words and in such a way that no
wise and good man could, after seeing them, doubt what ‘naughty minds’
the men had, both he that so noted them and he that so made them. I
do not remember the particulars,” he continued, “nor the formal words
as they were written, but this I do remember well, that besides other
things found to support divers other heresies, there were in the
prologue of that Bible such words touching the Blessed Sacrament as
good Christian men did much abhor to hear, and which gave the readers
undoubted occasion to think that the book was written after Wycliffe’s
copy, and by him translated into our tongue.”[234]
More then goes on to state his own mind as to the utility of
vernacular Scriptures. And, in the first place, he utterly denies
again that the Church, or any ecclesiastical authority, ever kept the
Bible in English from the people, except “such translations as were
either not approved as good translations, or such as had already been
condemned as false, such as Wycliffe’s and Tyndale’s were. For, as for
other old ones that were before Wycliffe’s days, they remain lawful,
and are in the possession of some people, and are read.” To this
assertion of a plain fact Sir Thomas More’s opponent did not dissent,
but frankly admitted that this was certainly the case,[235] although he
still thought that the English Bible might be in greater circulation
than it was.[236] Sir Thomas More considered that the clergy really had
good grounds not to encourage the spread of the vernacular Scriptures
at that time, inasmuch as those who were most urgent in the matter were
precisely those whose orthodoxy was reasonably suspected. It made men
fear, he says, “that seditious people would do more harm with it than
good and honest folk would derive benefit.” This, however, he declared
was not his own personal view.[237] “I would not,” he writes, “for my
part, withhold the profit that one good, devout, unlearned man might
get by the reading, for fear of the harm a hundred heretics might
take by their own wilful abuse.… Finally, I think that the Provincial
Constitution (already spoken of) has long ago determined the question.
For when the clergy in that synod agreed that the English Bibles
should remain which were translated before Wycliffe’s days, they, as
a necessary consequence, agreed that it was no harm to have the Bible
in English. And when they forbade any new translation to be read till
it were approved by the bishops, it appears clearly that they intended
that the bishop should approve it, if he found it to be faultless, and
also to amend it where it was found faulty, unless the man who made it
was a heretic, or the faults were so many and of such a character that
it would be easier to retranslate it than to mend it.”[238]
This absolute denial of any attitude of hostility on the part of
the Church to the translated Bible is reiterated in many parts of
Sir Thomas More’s English works. When, upon the condemnation of
Tyndale’s Testament, the author pointed to this fact as proof of the
determination of the clergy to keep the Word of God from the people,
More replied at considerable length. He showed how the ground of the
condemnation had nothing whatever to do with any anxiety upon the
part of ecclesiastics to keep the Scriptures from lay people, but was
entirely based upon the complete falsity of Tyndale’s translation
itself. “He pretends,” says Sir Thomas More, “that the Church makes
some (statutes) openly and directly against the Word of God, as in that
statute whereby they have condemned the New Testament. Now, in truth,
there is no such statute made. For as for the New Testament, if he mean
the Testament of Christ, it is not condemned nor forbidden. But there
is forbidden a false English translation of the New Testament newly
forged by Tyndale, altered and changed in matters of great weight, in
order maliciously to set forth against Christ’s true doctrine Tyndale’s
anti-Christian heresies. Therefore that book is condemned, as it is
well worthy to be, and the condemnation thereof is neither openly nor
privily, directly nor indirectly, against the word of God.”[239]
Again, in another place, More replies to what he calls Tyndale’s
“railing” against the clergy, and in particular his saying that they
keep the Scripture from lay people in order that they may not see how
they “juggle with it.” “I have,” he says, “in the book of my _Dyalogue_
proved already that Tyndale in this point falsely belies the clergy,
and that in truth Wycliffe, and Tyndale, and Friar Barnes, and such
others, have been the original cause why the Scripture has been of
necessity kept out of lay people’s hands. And of late, specially, by
the politic provision and ordinance of our most excellent sovereign
the king’s noble grace, not without great and urgent causes manifestly
rising from the false malicious means of Wycliffe and Tyndale,” this
has been prevented. “For this (attempt of Tyndale) all the lay people
of this realm, both the evil folk who take harm from him, and the good
folk that lose their profit by him, have great cause to lament that
ever the man was born.”[240]
The same view is taken by Roger Edgworth, a popular preacher in the
reign of Henry VIII. After describing what he considered to be the
evils which had resulted from the spread of Lutheran literature in
England, he says: “By this effect you may judge the cause. The effect
was evil, therefore there must needs be some fault in the cause. But
what sayest thou? Is not the study of Scripture good? Is not the
knowledge of the Gospels and of the New Testament godly, good, and
profitable for a Christian man or woman? I shall tell you what I think
in this matter. I have ever been in this mind, that I have thought it
no harm, but rather good and profitable, that Holy Scripture should be
had in the mother tongue, and withheld from no man that was apt and
meet to take it in hand, specially if we could get it well and truly
translated, which will be very hard to be had.”[241]
There is, it is true, no doubt, that the destruction of Tyndale’s
Testaments and the increasing number of those who favoured the new
religious opinions, caused people to spread all manner of stories
abroad as to the attitude of the Church authorities in England towards
the vernacular Scriptures. Probably the declaration of the friend,
against whom Sir Thomas More, then Chancellor, in 1530, wrote his
_Dyalogue_, “that great murmurs were heard against the clergy on this
score,” is not far from the truth. Ecclesiastics, he said, in the
opinion of the common people, would not tolerate criticism of their
lives or words, and desired to keep laymen ignorant. “And they” (the
people) “think,” he adds, “that for no other cause was there burned at
St. Paul’s Cross the New Testament, late translated by Master William
Huchin, otherwise called Tyndale, who was (as men say) well known,
before he went over the sea, as a man of right good life, studious and
well learned in the Scriptures. And men mutter among themselves that
the book was not only faultless, but also very well translated, and was
ordered to be burned, because men should not be able to prove that such
faults (as were at Paul’s Cross declared to have been found in it) were
never in fact found there at all; but untruly surmised, in order to
have some just cause to burn it, and that for no other reason than to
keep out of the people’s hands all knowledge of Christ’s Gospel and of
God’s law, except so much as the clergy themselves please now and then
to tell them. Further, that little as this is, it is seldom expounded.
And, as it is feared, even this is not well and truly told; but watered
with false glosses and altered from the truth of the words and meaning
of Scripture, only to maintain the clerical authority. And the fear
lest this should appear evident to the people, if they were suffered to
read the Scripture themselves in their own tongue, was (it is thought)
the very cause, not only for which the New Testament translated by
Tyndale was burned, but also why the clergy of this realm have before
this time, by a Constitution Provincial, prohibited any book of
Scripture to be translated into the English tongue, and threaten with
fire men who should presume to keep them, as heretics; as though it
were heresy for a Christian man to read Christ’s Gospel.”[242]
It has been already pointed out how Sir Thomas More completely disposed
of this assertion as to the hostility of the clergy to “the open
Bible.” In his position of Chancellor of England, More could hardly
have been able to speak with so much certainty about the real attitude
of the Church, had not the true facts been at the same time well
understood and commonly acknowledged. The words of the “objector,”
however, not only express the murmurs of those who were at that
period discontented with the ecclesiastical system; but they voice
the accusations which have been so frequently made from that day to
this, by those who do not as a fact look at the other side. Sir Thomas
More’s testimony proves absolutely that no such hostility to the
English Bible as is so generally assumed of the pre-Reformation Church
did, in fact, exist. Most certainly there never was any ecclesiastical
prohibition against vernacular versions as such, and the most
orthodox sons of the Church did in fact possess copies of the English
Scriptures, which they read openly and devoutly. This much seems
certain.
Moreover, Sir Thomas More’s contention that there was no prohibition is
borne out by other evidence. The great canonist Lyndwood undoubtedly
understood the Constitution of Oxford on the Scriptures in the same
sense as Sir Thomas More. In fact, as it has been pointed out already,
to his explanation Sir Thomas More successfully appealed in proof
of his assertion that there was no such condemnation of the English
Scriptures, as had been, and is still, asserted by some. It has, of
course, been often said that Sir Thomas More, and of course Lyndwood,
were wrong in supposing that there were any translations previous to
that of the version now known as Wycliffite. This is by no means so
clear; and even supposing they were in error as to the date of the
version, it is impossible that they could have been wrong as to the
meaning and interpretation of the law itself, and as to the fact that
versions were certainly in circulation which were presumed by those who
used them to be Catholic and orthodox. Archbishop Cranmer himself may
also be cited as a witness to the free circulation of manuscript copies
of the English Scriptures in pre-Reformation times, since the whole of
his argument for allowing a new version, in the preface to the Bishops’
Bible, rests on the well-known custom of the Church to allow vernacular
versions, and on the fact that copies of the English Scriptures had
previously been in daily use with ecclesiastical sanction.
The same conclusion must be deduced from books printed by men of
authority and unquestionable piety. In them we find the reading of the
Scriptures strongly recommended. To take an example: Thomas Lupset, the
friend and protégé of Colet and Lilly, gives the following advice to
his sisters, two of whom were nuns: “Give thee much to reading; take
heed in meditation of the Scripture, busy thee in the law of God; have
a customable use in divine books.”[243] The same pious scholar has much
the same advice for a youth in the world who had been his pupil. After
urging him to avoid “meddling in any point of faith otherwise than as
the Church shall instruct and teach,” he adds, “more particularly in
writings you shall learn this lesson, if you would sometimes take in
your hand the New Testament and read it with a due reverence”; and
again: “in reading the Gospels, I would you had at hand Chrysostom and
Jerome, by whom you might surely be brought to a perfect understanding
of the text.”[244]
Moreover, the testimony of Sir Thomas More that translations were
allowed by the Church, and that these, men considered rightly or
wrongly, had been made prior to the time of Wycliffe, is confirmed
by Archdeacon John Standish in Queen Mary’s reign. When the question
of the advisability of a vernacular translation was then seriously
debated, he says: “To the intent that none should have occasion to
misconstrue the true meaning thereof, it is to be thought that, if
all men were good and Catholic, then were it lawful, yea, and very
profitable also, that the Scripture should be in English, as long as
the translations were true and faithful.… And that is the cause that
the clergy did agree (as it is in the Constitution Provincial) that the
Bibles that were translated into English before Wycliffe’s days might
be suffered; so that only such as had them in handling were allowed by
the ordinary and approved as proper to read them, and so that their
reading should be only for the setting forth of God’s glory.”[245]
Sir Thomas More, in his _Apology_, points out that although, in his
opinion, it would be a good thing to have a proper English translation,
still it was obviously not necessary for the salvation of man’s soul.
“If the having of the Scripture in English,” he writes, “be a thing
so requisite of precise necessity, that the people’s souls must needs
perish unless they have it translated into their own tongue, then the
greater part of them must indeed perish, unless the preacher further
provide that all people shall be able to read it when they have it. For
of the whole people, far more than four-tenths could never read English
yet, and many are now too old to begin to go to school.… Many, indeed,
have thought it a good and profitable thing to have the Scripture well
and truly translated into English, and although many equally wise
and learned and also very virtuous folk have been and are of a very
different mind; yet, for my own part, I have been and am still of the
same opinion as I expressed in my Dyalogue, if the people were amended,
and the time meet for it.”[246]
The truth is, that there was then no such clamour for the translated
Bible as it has suited the purposes of some writers to represent. In
view of all that is known about the circumstances of those times, it
does not appear at all likely that the popular mind would be really
stirred by any desire for Bible reading. The late Mr. Brewer may be
allowed to speak with authority on this matter when he writes: “Nor,
indeed, is it possible that Tyndale’s writings and translations could
at this early period have produced any such impressions as is generally
surmised, or have fallen into the hands of many readers. His works were
printed abroad; their circulation was strictly forbidden; the price
of them was beyond the means of the poorer classes, even supposing
that the knowledge of letters at that time was more generally diffused
than it was for centuries afterwards. To imagine that ploughmen and
shepherds in the country read the New Testament in English by stealth,
or that smiths and carpenters in towns pored over its pages in the
corners of their masters’ workshops, is to mistake the character and
acquirements of the age.”[247]
“So far from England then being a ‘Bible-thirsty land,’” says a
well-informed writer, “there was no anxiety whatever for an English
version at that time, excepting among a small minority of the
people,”[248] and these desired it not for the thing in itself so much
as a means of bringing about the changes in doctrine and practice
which they desired. “Who is there among us,” says one preacher of the
period, “that will have a Bible, but he must be compelled thereto.” And
the single fact that the same edition of the Bible was often reissued
with new titles, &c., is sufficient proof that there was no such
general demand for Bibles as is pretended by Foxe when he writes: “It
was wonderful to see with what joy this book of God was received, not
only among the learneder sort, and those that were noted for lovers of
the Reformation, but generally all England over among all the vulgar
common people.” “For,” says the writer above quoted, “if the people all
England over were so anxious to possess the new translation, what need
was there of so many penal enactments to force it into circulation, and
of royal proclamations threatening with the king’s displeasure those
who neglected to purchase copies.”[249]
There can be little doubt that the condemnation of the first printed
English Testament, and the destruction, by order of the ecclesiastical
authority, of all copies which Tyndale had sent over to England for
sale, have tended, more than anything else, to confirm in their opinion
those who held that the Church in pre-Reformation England would
not tolerate the vernacular Scriptures at all. It is of interest,
therefore, and importance, if we would determine the real attitude of
churchmen in the sixteenth century to the English Bible, to understand
the grounds of this condemnation. As the question was keenly debated at
the time, there is little need to seek for information beyond the pages
of Sir Thomas More’s works.
The history of Tyndale’s translation is not of such importance in
this respect, as a knowledge of the chief points objected against it.
Some brief account of this history, however, is almost necessary if we
would fully understand the character and purpose of the translation.
William Tyndale was born about the year 1484, and was in turn at Oxford
and Cambridge Universities, and professed among the Friars Observant
at Greenwich. In 1524 he passed over to Hamburg, and then, about the
middle of the year, to Wittenberg, where he attached himself to Luther.
Under the direction at least, of the German reformer, and very possibly
also with his actual assistance, he commenced his translation of the
New Testament. The royal almoner, Edward Lee, afterwards Archbishop
of York, being on a journey to Spain, wrote on December 2, 1525, from
Bordeaux, warning Henry VIII. of the preparation of this book. “I am
certainly informed,” he says, “that an Englishman, your subject, at the
solicitation and instance of Luther, with whom he is, hath translated
the New Testament into English; and within a few days intendeth to
return with the same imprinted into England. I need not to advertise
your Grace what infection and danger may ensue hereby if it be not
withstanded. This is the way to fill your realm with Lutherans. For all
Luther’s perverse opinions be grounded upon bare words of Scripture not
well taken nor understood, which your Grace hath opened (_i.e._ pointed
out) in sundry places of your royal book.”[250]
Luther’s direct influence may be detected on almost every page of the
printed edition issued by Tyndale, and there can be no doubt that
it was prepared with Luther’s version of 1522 as a guide. From the
general introduction of this German Bible, nearly half, or some sixty
lines, are transferred by Tyndale almost bodily to his prologue, whilst
he adopted and printed over against the same chapters and verses,
placing them in the same position in the inner margins, some 190 of the
German reformer’s marginal references. Besides this, the marginal notes
on the outer margin of the English Testament are all Luther’s glosses,
translated from the German. In view of this, it can hardly be a matter
of surprise that Tyndale’s Testament was very commonly known at the
time as “Luther’s Testament in English.”
In this work of translation or adaptation, Tyndale was assisted by
another ex-friar, named Joye, with whom, however, he subsequently
quarrelled, and about whom he then spoke in abusive and violent
terms. At first it was intended to print the edition at Cologne, but
being disturbed by the authorities there, Tyndale fled to Worms,
and at once commenced printing at the press of Peter Schœffer, the
octavo volume which is known as the first edition of Tyndale’s New
Testament. Although the author is supposed to have been a good Greek
scholar, there is evidence to show that the copy he used for the work
of translation was the Latin version of Erasmus, printed by Fisher in
1519, with some alterations taken from the edition of 1522, and some
other corrections from the Vulgate.
John Cochlæus, who had a full and personal knowledge of all the
Lutheran movements at the time, writing in 1533, says: “Eight years
previously, two apostates from England, knowing the German language,
came to Wittenberg, and translated Luther’s New Testament into English.
They then came to Cologne, as to a city nearer to England, with a more
established trade, and more adapted for the despatch of merchandise.
Here … they secretly agreed with printers to print at first three
thousand copies, and printers and publishers pushed on the work with
the firm expectation of success, boasting that whether the king and
cardinal liked it or not, England would shortly ‘be Lutheran.’”[251]
It was this scheme that Cochlæus was instrumental in frustrating, his
representations forcing Tyndale to remove the centre of his operations
to Worms. For the benefit of the Scotch king, to whom his account was
addressed, Cochlæus adds, that Luther’s German translation of the
New Testament was intended of set purpose to spread his errors; that
the people had bought up thousands, and that thereby “they have not
been made better but rather the worse, artificers who were able to
read neglecting their shops and the work by which they ought to gain
the bread of their wives and children.” For this reason, he says,
magistrates in Germany have had to forbid the reading of Luther’s
Testament, and many have been put in prison for reading it. In his
opinion the translation of the Testament into the vernacular had become
an idol and a fetish to the German Lutherans, although in Germany
there were many vernacular translations of both the Old and the New
Testaments, before the rise of Lutheranism.[252]
With a full understanding of the purpose and tendency of Tyndale’s
translation and of the evils which at least some hard-headed men had
attributed to the spread of Luther’s German version, upon which almost
admittedly the English was modelled, the ecclesiastical authorities of
England approached the practical question--what was to be done in the
matter? Copies of the printed edition must have reached England some
time in 1526, for in October of that year Bishop Tunstall of London
addressed a monition to the archdeacons on the subject. “Many children
of iniquity,” he says, “maintainers of Luther’s sect, blinded through
extreme wickedness, wandering from the way of truth and the Catholic
faith, have craftily translated the New Testament into our English
tongue, intermeddling therewith many heretical articles and erroneous
opinions, pernicious and offensive, seducing the simple people;
attempting by their wicked and perverse interpretations to profane
the majesty of Scripture, which hitherto hath remained undefiled,
and craftily to abuse the most holy Word of God, and the true sense
of the same. Of this translation there are many books printed, some
with glosses and some without, containing in the English tongue that
pestiferous and pernicious poison, (and these are) dispersed in our
diocese of London.” He consequently orders all such copies of the New
Testament to be delivered up to his offices within thirty days.[253]
This was the first action of the English ecclesiastical authorities,
and it was clearly taken not from distrust of what the same bishop
calls “the most holy Word of God,” but because they looked on the
version sent forth by Tyndale as a profanation of the Bible, and as
intended to disseminate the errors of Lutheranism.
Of the Lutheran character of the translation the authorities, whether
in Church or State, do not seem to have had from the first the least
doubt. The king himself, in a rejoinder to Luther’s letter of apology,
says that the German reformer “fell in device with one or two lewd
persons, born in this our realm, for the translating of the New
Testament into English, as well with many corruptions of that holy
text, as certain prefaces and other pestilent glosses in the margins,
for the advancement and setting forth of his abominable heresies,
intending to abuse the good minds and devotion that you, our dearly
beloved people, bear toward the Holy Scripture and infect you with the
deadly corruption and contagious odour of his pestilent errors.”[254]
Bishop Tunstall, in 1529, whilst returning from an embassy abroad,
purchased at Antwerp through one Packington, all copies of the English
printed New Testament that were for sale, and, according to the
chronicler Hall, burned them publicly at St. Paul’s in May 1530. For
the same reason the confiscated volumes of the edition first sent
over were committed to the flames some time in 1527,[255] and Bishop
Tunstall explained to the people at Paul’s Cross that the book was
destroyed because in more than two thousand places wrong translations
and corruptions had been detected. Tyndale made a great outcry at
the iniquity of burning the Word of God; but in _The Wicked Mammon_
he declares that, “in burning the New Testament they did none other
thynge than I looked for.” Moreover, as he sold the books knowing the
purpose for which they were purchased, he may be said to have been
a participator in the act he blames. “The fact is,” says a modern
authority, “the books were full of errors and unsaleable, and Tyndale
wanted money to pay the expense of a revised version and to purchase
Vastermann’s old Dutch blocks to illustrate his Pentateuch, and was
glad to make capital in more ways than one by the translation. ‘I am
glad,’ said he, ‘for these two benefits shall come thereof: I shall get
money to bring myself out of debt, and the whole world will cry out
against the burning of God’s Word, and the overplus of the money that
shall remain to me shall make me more studious to correct the said New
Testament, and so newly to imprint the same once again, and I trust the
second you will much better like than you ever did the first.’”[256]
Tyndale allowed nine years to elapse before issuing a second edition
of his Testament. Meantime, as his former assistant, Joye, says,
foreigners looking upon the English Testament as a good commercial
speculation, and seeing that the ecclesiastical authorities in England
had given orders to purchase the entire first issue of Tyndale’s
print, set to work to produce other reprints. Through ignorance of
the language, the various editions they issued were naturally full of
typographical errors, and, as Joye declared, “England hath enough and
too many false Testaments, and is now likely to have many more.” He
consequently set to work himself to see an edition through the press,
in which, without Tyndale’s leave, he made substantial alterations
in his translation. Joye’s version appeared in 1534, and immediately
Tyndale attacked its editor in the most bitter, reproachful terms.
In George Joye’s _Apology_, which appeared in 1535, he tried, as he
says, “to defend himself against so many slanderous lies upon him in
Tyndale’s uncharitable and unsober epistle.” In the course of the
tract, Joye charges Tyndale with claiming as his own what in reality
was Luther’s. “I have never,” he says, “heard a sober, wise man praise
his own works as I have heard him praise his exposition of the fifth,
sixth, and seventh chapters of St. Matthew, insomuch that mine ears
glowed for shame to hear him; and yet it was Luther that made it,
Tyndale only translating it and powdering it here and there with his
own fantasies.”
In a second publication Joye declares Tyndale’s incompetence to judge
of the original Greek. “I wonder,” he says, “how he could compare it
with the Greek, since he himself is not so exquisitely seen therein.…
I know well (he) was not able to do it without such a helper as he
hath ever had hitherto.”[257] Tyndale, however, continued his work of
revision in spite of opposition, and further, with the aid of Miles
Coverdale, issued translations of various portions of the Old Testament.
Shortly after the public burning of the copies of the translated
Testament by Bishop Tunstall, on May 24, 1530, an assembly was called
together by Archbishop Warham to formally condemn these and other books
then being circulated with the intention of undermining the religion
of the country. The king was present in person, and a list of errors
was drawn up and condemned “with all the books containing the same,
with the translation also of Scripture corrupted by William Tyndale,
as well in the Old Testament as in the New.” After this meeting, a
document was issued with the king’s authority, which preachers were
required to read to their people. After speaking of the books condemned
for teaching error, the paper takes notice of an opinion “in some of
his subjects” that the Scripture should be allowed in English. The king
declares that it is a good thing the Scriptures should be circulated
at certain times, but that there are others when they should not be
generally allowed, and taking into consideration all the then existing
circumstances, he “thinketh in his conscience that the divulging of the
Scripture at this time in the English tongue to be committed to the
people … would rather be to their further confusion and destruction
than for the edification of their souls.”
In this opinion, we are told, all in the assembly concurred. At the
same time, however, the king promised that he would have the New
Testament “faithfully and purely translated by the most learned men,”
ready to be distributed when circumstances might allow.
Sir Thomas More plainly states the reason for this prohibition. “In
these days, in which Tyndale (God amend him) has so sore poisoned
malicious and new-fangled folk with the infectious contagion of his
heresies, the king’s highness, and not without the counsel and advice,
not only of his nobles with his other counsellors attending upon his
Grace’s person, but also of the most virtuous and learned men of both
universities and other parts of the realm, specially called thereto,
has been obliged for the time to prohibit the Scriptures of God to be
allowed in the English tongue in the hands of the people, lest evil
folk … may turn all the honey into poison, and do hurt unto themselves,
and spread also the infection further abroad … and by their own fault
misconstrue and take harm from the very Scripture of God.”[258]
Early in 1534 Tyndale took up his abode once more in Antwerp at the
house of an English merchant, and busied himself in passing his
revised New Testament through the press. This was published in the
following November. To it he prefixed a second prologue dealing with
the edition just published by George Joye. This he declares was no
true translation, and charges his former assistant with deliberate
falsification of the text of Holy Scripture in order to support his
errors and false opinions. The edition itself manifests many changes
in the text caused by the criticism to which the former impression had
been subjected, whilst many of the marginal notes “exhibit the great
change that had taken place in Tyndale’s religious opinions, and show
that he had ceased to be an Episcopalian.”[259]
Having given a brief outline of the history of Tyndale’s Testament,
we are now in a position to examine into the grounds upon which the
ecclesiastical authorities of England condemned it. For this purpose,
we need again hardly go beyond the works of Sir Thomas More, who in
several of his tracts deals specifically with this subject. “Tyndale’s
false translation of the New Testament,” he says, “was, as he himself
confesses, translated with such changes as he has made in it purposely,
to the intent that by those changed words the people should be led into
the opinions which he himself calls true Catholic faith, but which all
true Catholic people call very false and pestilent heresies.” After
saying that for this reason this translation was rightly condemned
by the clergy and openly burnt at Paul’s Cross, he continues: “The
faults are so many in Tyndale’s translation of the New Testament, and
so spread throughout the whole book, that it were as easy to weave a
new web of cloth or to sew up every hole in a net, so would it be less
labour to translate the whole book anew than to make in his translation
as many changes as there needs must be before it were made a good
translation. Besides this, no wise man, I fancy, would take bread which
he well knew had once been poisoned by his enemy’s hand, even though he
saw his friend afterwards sweep it ever so clean.… For when it had been
examined, considered, and condemned by those to whom the judgment and
ordering of the thing belonged, and that false poisoned translation had
been forbidden to the people,” it would be the height of presumption
for any one to encourage the people boldly to resist their prince and
disobey their prelates, and give them, as some indeed have, such a poor
reason as this, “that poisoned bread is better than no bread.”[260]
Further, in speaking with sorrow of the flood of heretical literature
which seemed ever growing in volume, Sir Thomas More writes: “Besides
the works in Latin, French, and German, there are made in the English
tongue, first, Tyndale’s New Testament, father of them all, because
of his false translations, and after that the five books of Moses,
translated by the same man, we need not doubt in what manner, when we
know by whom and for what purpose. Then you have his introduction to
St. Paul’s Epistle, with which he introduces his readers to a false
understanding of St. Paul, making them, among many other heresies,
believe that St. Paul held that faith alone was sufficient for
salvation, and that men’s good works were worth nothing and could
deserve no reward in heaven, though they were done in grace.”[261]
Again, he says: “In the beginning of my _Dyalogue_, I have shown that
Tyndale’s translation of the New Testament deserved to be burnt,
because itself showed that he had translated it with an evil mind, and
in such a way that it might serve him as the best means of teaching
such heresies as he had learnt from Luther, and intended to send
over hither and spread abroad within this realm. To the truth of my
assertion, Tyndale and his fellows have so openly testified that I need
in this matter no further defence. For every man sees that there was
never any English heretical book sent here since, in which one item
of their complaint has not been the burning of Tyndale’s Testament.
For of a surety they thought in the first place that his translation,
with their further false construction, would be the bass and the tenor
wherever they would sing the treble with much false descant.”[262]
To take some instances of the false translations to which More
reasonably objects: First, Tyndale substitutes for _Church_ the word
_Congregation_, “a word with no more signification in Christendom than
among the Jews or Turks.” After protesting that Tyndale has no right
to change the signification of a word, as, for example, to speak of “a
football,” and to mean “the world,” More continues: “Most certainly
the word _Congregation_, taken in conjunction with the text, would not,
when he translated it first, have served to make the English reader
understand by it the Church any more than when he uses the word _idols_
for _images_, or _images_ for _idols_, or the word _repenting_ for
_doing penance_, which he also does. And indeed he has since added to
his translation certain notes, viz., that the order of the priesthood
is really nothing, but that every man, woman, and child is a priest as
much as a real priest, and that every man and woman may consecrate the
body of Christ, and say mass as well as a priest, and hear confessions
and absolve as well as a priest can; and that there is no difference
between priests and other folks, but that all are one congregation and
company without any difference, save appointment to preach.”
This enables men to understand “what Tyndale means by using the word
_Congregation_ in his translation in place of _Church_. They also see
clearly by these circumstances that he purposely changed the word to
set forth these his heresies, though he will say he takes them for no
heresies. But, on the other hand, all good and faithful people do, and
therefore they call the Church the Church still, and will not agree to
change the old _Church_ for his new _Congregation_.”[263]
In reply to Tyndale’s claim to be able to use the word _Congregation_
to signify the _Church_, More declares that words must be used in their
ordinary signification. “I say,” he writes, “that this is true of the
usual signification of these words in the English tongue, by the common
custom of us English people that now use these words in our language,
or have used them before our days. And I say that this common custom
and usage of speech is the only way by which we know the right and
proper signification of any word. So much so that if a word were taken
from Latin, French, or Spanish, and from lack of understanding the
tongue from which it came, was used in English for something else than
it signified in the other tongue; then in England, whatsoever it meant
anywhere else, it means only what we understand it. Then, I say, that
in England this word _Congregation_ never did signify the body of
Christian people … any more than the word _assembly_, which has been
taken from French … as _congregation_ is from the Latin.… I say now
that the word Church never has been used to signify in the ordinary
speech of this realm, any other than the body of all those that are
christened. For this reason, and more especially because of Tyndale’s
evil intent, I said, and still say, that he did wrong to change
_Church_ for _Congregation_; a holy word for a profane one, so far as
they have signification in our English tongue, into which Tyndale made
his translation.…[264]
“If Tyndale had done it either accidentally, or purposely merely for
pleasure, and not with an evil intent, I would never have said a word
against it. But inasmuch as I perceive that he has been with Luther,
and was there at the time when he so translated it, and because I knew
well the malicious heresies that Luther had begun to bring forth, I
must needs mistrust him in this change. And now I say that even from
his own words here spoken, you may perceive his cankered mind in his
translation, for he says that Demetrius had gathered a company against
Paul for preaching against _images_. Here the Christian reader may
easily perceive the poison of this serpent. Every one knows that all
good Christian people abhor the idols of the false pagan gods, and also
honour the images of Christ and our Lady, and other holy saints. And
as they call the one sort images, so they call the other sort idols.
Now, whereas St. Paul preached against idols, this good man comes and
says he preached against images. And as he here speaks, even so he
translates, for in the 15th chapter of St. Paul to the Corinthians,
where St. Paul says, ‘I have written to you that ye company not
together … if any that is called a brother be … a worshipper of
_idols’_--there Tyndale translates worshipper of _images_. Because
he would have it seem that the Apostle had in that place forbidden
Christian men to worship images.… Here you may see the sincerity and
plain meaning of this man’s translation.”[265]…
“As he falsely translated _Ecclesia_ into the unknown word
_congregation_, in places where he should have translated it into the
known word of _holy Church_, and this with a malicious purpose to set
forth his heresy of the secret and unknown church wherein is neither
good works nor sacraments, in like manner is it now proved, in the
same way and with like malice, he has translated _idols_ into _images_
… to make it seem that Scripture reprobates the goodly images of our
Saviour Himself and His holy saints.… Then he asks me why I have not
contended with Erasmus whom he calls my darling, for translating this
word _Ecclesia_ into the word _congregatio_.… I have not contended
with Erasmus, my darling, because I found no such malicious intent
with Erasmus, my darling, as I found with Tyndale; for had I found
with Erasmus, my darling, the cunning intent and purpose that I found
with Tyndale, Erasmus, my darling, should be no more ‘my darling.’ But
I find in Erasmus, my darling, that he detests and abhors the errors
and heresies that Tyndale plainly teaches and abides by, and therefore
Erasmus, my darling, shall be my darling still.… For his translation of
_Ecclesia_ by _congregatio_ is nothing like Tyndale’s, for the Latin
tongue had no Latin word used for Church, but the Greek word, Ecclesia,
therefore Erasmus, in his new translation gave it a Latin word. But
we in our English had a proper English word for it, and therefore
there was no cause for Tyndale to translate it into a worse. Erasmus,
moreover, meant therein no heresy, as appears by his writings against
heretics, but Tyndale, intended nothing else thereby, as appears by the
heresies that he himself teaches and abides by. Therefore, there was in
this matter no cause for me to contend with Erasmus, as there was to
contend with Tyndale, with whom I contended for putting ‘congregation’
instead of ‘Church.’”[266]
Further, More blames Tyndale’s translation in its substitution of
_senior_ or _elder_ for the old-established word _priest_. This word,
presbyter, in the Greek, he says, “as it signifies the thing that men
call priest in English, was sometimes called _senior_ in Latin. But
the thing that Englishmen call a priest, and the Greek church called
_presbyter_, and the Latin church also sometimes called _senior_, was
never called elder either in the Greek church, or the Latin or the
English.”[267] He considers, therefore, the change made by Tyndale,
in the second edition of his translation, from senior into elder was
not only no improvement, but a distinct and reiterated rejection of
the well-understood word of priest.… “I said and say,” he continues,
“that Tyndale changed the word priest into senior with the heretical
mind and intent to set forth his heresy, in which he teaches that the
priesthood is no sacrament … for else I would not call it heresy if
any one would translate _presbyteros_ a block, but I would say he was
a blockhead. And as great a blockhead were he that would translate
_presbyteros_ into an elder instead of a priest, for this English word
no more signifies an elder than the Greek word _presbyteros_ signifies
an elderstick.”[268] “For the same reason he might change bishop into
overseer, and deacon into server, both of which he might as well do, as
priest into elder; and then with his English translation he must make
us an English vocabulary of his own device, and so with such provision
he may change chin into cheek, and belly into back, and every word into
every other at his own pleasure, if all England like to go to school
with Tyndale to learn English--but else, not so.”[269]
In the same way More condemns Tyndale for deliberately changing the
word “Grace,” the meaning of which was fully understood by Catholic
Englishmen, into “favour,” “thinking that his own scoffing is
sufficient reason to change the known holy name of virtue through all
Scripture into such words as he himself liketh.”[270] He says the same
of the change of the old familiar words _Confession_ into _knowledge_,
and _penance_ into _repentance_. “This is what Tyndale means: he would
have all willing confession quite cast away and all penance doing
too.”[271] And “as for the word _penance_, whatsoever the Greek word
be, it ever was, and still is, lawful enough (if Tyndale give us leave)
to call anything in English by whatever word Englishmen by common
custom agree upon.… Now, the matter does not rest in this at all. For
Tyndale is not angry with the word, but with the matter. For this
grieves Luther and him that by _penance_ we understand, when we speak
of it … not mere repenting … but also every part of the Sacrament of
Penance; oral confession, contrition of heart, and satisfaction by good
deeds. For if we called it the Sacrament of repentance, and by that
word would understand what we now do by the word penance, Tyndale would
then be as angry with repentance as he is now with penance.”[272]
Speaking specially in another place about the change of the old
word _charity_ into _love_ in Tyndale’s translation, More declared
that he would not much mind which word was used were it not for the
evident intention to change the teaching. When it is done consistently
through the whole book “no man could deem but that the man meant
mischievously. If he called _charity_ sometimes by the bare name
_love_, I would not stick at that. But since charity signifies in
Englishmen’s ears not every common love, but a good virtuous and
well-ordered love, he that will studiously flee from the name of good
love, and always speak of ‘love,’ and always leave out ‘good,’ I would
surely say he meant evil. And it is much more than likely. For it is to
be remembered that at the time of this translation Huchins (or Tyndale)
was with Luther in Wittenberg, and put certain glosses in the margins,
made to uphold the ungracious sect.”… And “the reason why he changed
the name of _charity_ and of the _church_ and of _priesthood_ is no
very great difficulty to perceive. For since Luther and his fellows
amongst their other damnable heresies have one that all salvation rests
on Faith alone--therefore he purposely works to diminish the reverent
mind that men have to charity, and for this reason changes the name of
holy virtuous affection into the bare name of love.”
In concluding his justification of the condemnation of Tyndale’s
Testament and his criticism of the translator’s _Defence_, Sir Thomas
More says: “Every man knows well that the intent and purpose of my
_Dyalogue_ was to make men see that Tyndale in his translation changed
the common known words in order to make a change in the faith. As for
example: he changed the word _Church_ into this word _congregation_,
because he would raise the question which the church was, and set forth
Luther’s heresy that the church which we should believe and obey is
not the common known body of all Christian realms remaining in the
faith of Christ and not fallen away or cut off with heresies.… But
the church we should believe and obey was some secret unknown kind of
evil living and worse believing heretics. And he changed _priest_ into
_senior_, because he intended to set forth Luther’s heresy teaching
that priesthood is no sacrament, but the office of a layman or laywoman
appointed by the people to preach. And he changed _Penance_ into
_repenting_, because he would set forth Luther’s heresy teaching that
penance is no sacrament. This being the only purpose of my _Dyalogue_,
Tyndale now comes and expressly confesses what I proposed to show.
For he indeed teaches and writes openly these false heresies so that
he himself shows now that I then told the people the truth … his own
writing shows that he made his translation to the intent to set forth
such heresies as I said he did.”[273]
John Standish in the tract on the vernacular Scriptures, published
in Queen Mary’s reign, uses in some places the same language as Sir
Thomas More in condemning the translations which had been later in
vogue. “At all times,” he writes, “heretics have laboured to corrupt
the Scriptures that they might serve for their naughty purposes and
to confirm their errors therewith, but especially now in our time. O
good Lord, how have the translators of the Bible into English purposely
corrupted the texts, oft maliciously putting in such words as in the
readers’ ears might serve for the proof of such heresies as they
went about to sow. These are not only set forth in the translations,
but also in certain prologues and glosses added thereunto, and
these things they have so handled (as indeed it is no great mastery
to do) with probable reasons very apparent to the simple and
unlearned, that an infinite number of innocents they have spiritually
poisoned and corrupted within this realm, and caused them to perish
obstinately.”[274]
If further proof were wanting that the New Testament as set forth
by Tyndale was purposely designed to overthrow the then existing
religious principles held by English churchmen, it is furnished by
works subsequently published by the English Lutherans abroad. The tract
named _The Burying of the Mass_, printed in Germany shortly after the
burning of Tyndale’s Testament, was, as Sir Thomas More points out,
intended as a direct attack upon the Sacrifice of the Mass and the
Sacramental system. In it the author poured out the vials of his wrath
upon all those who caused Tyndale’s translation of the New Testament
to be destroyed, saying that they burned it because it destroyed the
Mass. “By this,” adds More, “you may see that the author accounted
the translation very good for the destruction of the Mass.”[275]
Moreover, in a book called _The Wicked Mammon_, published by Tyndale
himself shortly after this, although he blames the style of the author
of _The Burying of the Mass_, he tacitly accepts his assertion that
his translation of the New Testament was intended to bring about the
abolition of the Sacrifice of the Mass.[276]
In later times, after the experience of the religious changes in the
reign of Edward VI., some writers pointed to the evils, religious and
social, as evidence of the harm done by the promiscuous reading of
the Scriptures. In their opinion, what More had feared and foretold
had come to pass. “In these miserable years now past,” says Standish
of Mary’s reign, in this tract on the vernacular Scriptures: “In
these miserable years now past, what mystery is so hard that the
ignorant with the Bible in English durst not set upon, yea and say they
understood it: all was light! They desired no explanation but their
own, even in the highest mysteries.… Alas! experience shows that our
own men through having the Bible in English have walked far above their
reach, being sundry ways killed and utterly poisoned with the letter of
the English Bible.”[277]
The spirit in which the study of Sacred Scripture was taken up by many
in those days is described by the Marian preacher, Roger Edgworth,
already referred to. “Scripture,” he says, “is in worse case than any
other faculty: for where other faculties take upon them no more than
pertaineth to their own science, as (for example) the physician of
what pertains to the health of man’s body, and the carpenter and smith
of their own tools and workmanship--the faculty of Sacred Scripture
alone is the knowledge which all men and women challenge and claim to
themselves and for their own. Here and there the chattering old wife,
the doting old man, the babbling sophister, and all others presume
upon this faculty, and tear it and teach it before they learn it. Of
all such green divines as I have spoken of, it appeareth full well
what learning they have by this, that when they teach any of their
disciples, and when they give any of their books to other men to read,
the first suggestion why he should labour (at) such books is ‘because
of this,’ say they, ‘thou shalt be able to oppose the best priest in
the parish, and tell him he lies.’”[278]
The result is patent in the history of the religious confusions which
followed, for this much must be allowed, whatever view may be taken
of the good or evil which ultimately resulted. Dr. Richard Smith, in
1546, then states the position as he saw it: “In old times the faith
was respected, but in our days not a few things, and not of small
importance, but (alack the more the pity) even the chiefest and most
weighty matters of religion and faith, are called in question, babbled
about, talked and jangled upon (reasoned, I cannot and ought not to
call it).”[279]
Although the cry for the open Bible which had been raised by Tyndale
and the other early English reformers generally assumed the right to
free and personal interpretation of its meaning, no sooner was the
English Scripture put into circulation than its advocates proclaimed
the need of expositions to teach people the meaning they should attach
to it. In fact, the marginal notes and glosses, furnished by Tyndale
chiefly from Lutheran sources, are evidence that even he had no
wish that the people should understand or interpret the sacred text
otherwise than according to his peculiar views. Very quickly after the
permission of Henry VIII. had allowed the circulation of the printed
English Bible, commentators came forward to explain their views.
Lancelot Ridley, for example, issued many such explanations of portions
of the Sacred Text with the object, as he explains, of enabling “the
unlearned to declare the Holy Scriptures now suffered to all people
of this realm to read and study at their pleasure.” For the Bible,
“which is now undeclared (_i.e._ unexplained) to them, and only had
in the bare letter, appears to many rather death than life, rather
(calculated) to bring many to errors and heresies than into the truth
and verity of God’s Word. For this, when unexplained, does not bring
the simple, rude, and ignorant people from their ignorant blindness,
from their corrupt and backward judgments, false trusts, evil beliefs,
vain superstitions, and feigned holiness, in which the people have long
been in blindness, for lack of a knowledge of Holy Scripture which the
man of Rome kept under latch and would not suffer to come to light,
that his usurped power should not have been espied, his worldly glory
diminished, and his profit decayed.”[280]
Again, in another exposition made eight years later, the same writer
complains that still, for lack of teaching what he considers the true
meaning of Scripture, the views of the people are still turned towards
the “old superstitions” in spite of “the open Bible.” “Although the
Bible be in English,” he says, “and be suffered to every man and
woman to read at their pleasures, and commanded to be read every day
at Matins, Mass, and Evensong, yet there remain great ignorance and
corrupt judgments … and these will remain still, except the Holy
Scriptures be made more plain to the lay people who are unlearned by
some commentary or annotation, so that lay people may understand the
Holy Scripture better.”[281] Commentaries would help much, he says in
another place, “to deliver the people from ignorance, darkness, errors,
heresy, superstitions, false trusts, and from evil opinions fixed and
rooted in the hearts of many for lack of true knowledge of God’s Holy
Word, and expel the usurped power of the bishop of Rome and all Romish
dregs.”[282]
It is interesting to find that from the first, whilst objecting to the
interpretation of the old teachers of the Church, and claiming that the
plain text of Scripture was a sufficient antidote and complete answer
to them and their traditional deductions, the “new teachers” found that
without teaching and exposition on their part, the open Bible was by
no means sufficient to wean the popular mind from what they regarded
as superstitious and erroneous ways. Their attitude in the matter is
at least a confirmation of the contention of Sir Thomas More and other
contemporary Catholic writers, that the vernacular Scriptures would be
useless without a teaching authority to interpret their meaning.
A brief word may now be said as a summary of the attitude towards the
vernacular Bible taken up by the ecclesiastical authorities on the eve
of the Reformation. The passages quoted from Sir Thomas More make it
evident that no such hostility on the part of the Church, as writers of
all shades of opinion have too hastily assumed, really existed.[283]
In fact, though those responsible for the conduct of affairs, both
ecclesiastical and lay, at this period objected to the circulation
of Tyndale’s printed New Testament, this objection was based, not on
any dread of allowing the English Bible as such, but on the natural
objection to an obviously incorrect translation. It is difficult to see
how those in authority could have permitted a version with traditional
words changed for the hardly concealed purpose of supporting Lutheran
tenets, with texts garbled and marginal explanations inserted for the
same end. Those who hold that Tyndale’s views were right, and even that
his attempt to enforce them in this way was justifiable, can hardly,
however, blame the authorities at that time in England, secular or lay,
who did not think so, from doing all they could to prevent what they
regarded as the circulation of a book calculated to do great harm if
no means were taken to prevent it. Men’s actions must be judged by the
circumstances under which they acted, and it would be altogether unjust
to regard the prohibition of the Tyndale Scriptures as a final attempt
on the part of the English Church to prevent the circulation of the
vernacular Scriptures. To the authorities in those days at least, the
book in question did not represent the Sacred Text at all. That it was
full of errors, to say the least, is confessed by Tyndale himself; and
as to the chief points in his translation which he defended and which
Sir Thomas More so roundly condemned, posterity has sided with More
and not with Tyndale, for not one of these special characteristics of
the translation in which so much of Tyndale’s Lutheran teaching was
allowed to appear, was suffered to remain in subsequent revisions.
From this point of view alone, those who examine the question with an
unbiassed mind must admit that there was ample justification for the
prohibition of Tyndale’s printed Testament. If this be so, the further
point may equally well be conceded, namely, that the Church on the eve
of the Reformation did not prohibit the vernacular Scriptures as such
at all, and that many churchmen in common with the king, Sir Thomas
More, and other laymen, would, under happier circumstances, have been
glad to see a properly translated English Bible.