Chap. ii. Influence of Greek in the 16th century. But meanwhile a momentous change had passed over Western Europe. 'Greece,' in the striking lanthe study guage of an English scholar, 'had risen from the grave 'with the New Testament in her hand;' and the Teutonic nations had welcomed the gift. It had been long felt on all sides that the Latin Bible of the mediaval Church could no longer satisfy the wants of the many nations of a divided world. Before the end of the 15th century Bibles were printed in Spanish, Italian, French, Dutch, German and Bohemian; while England as yet had only the few manuscripts of the Wycliffite versions. But, like Wycliffe's, these were only secondary versions from the Vulgate. The Hebrew text of the Old Testament was published as early as 1488, though very few except Jews could use it; but the Greek text of the New Testament was not yet printed. Scholars however were being duly trained for the work of direct translation. The passionate declamation then current against Hebrew and Greek shew that the study of both was popular and advancing1. And England, though late to begin, eagerly followed up the new learning From 1509 to 1514 Erasmus was Professor of Greek at Cambridge, and, as appears probable, it was the fame of his lectures which drew there William Tyndale about the year 1510, to whom it has been allowed more than to any other man to give its characteristic shape to our English Bible. And the man, as we shall see, was not unworthy of the glorious honour for the attainment of which indeed he lived equally and died. 1 See Chap. III. 2 According to Erasmus England was second only to Italy and in advance of France and Germany. Erasmus himself studied Greek at Oxford. Compare Hallam, Introduction to Lit. of Europe, 1. pp. 269 f. § I. TYNDALE. With Tyndale the history of our present English Bible begins'; and for fifteen years the history of the Bible is almost identical with the history of Tyndale. The fortunes of both if followed out in detail are even of romantic interest. Of the early life of Tyndale we know nothing. He was born about 1484, at an obscure village in Gloucestershire', and 'brought up from a 'child,' as Foxe says, in the University of Oxford, where he was singularly addicted to the study of the Scrip'tures.' From Oxford he went to Cambridge, and after spending some time there, as we have noticed, he returned about 1520 to his native county as tutor in the family of Sir John Walsh of Little Sodbury. Here he spent two years, not without many controversies, in one of which he made his memorable declaration 1 See Appendix VIII. It may be remarked that the dates in Tyndale's life up to his coming to London in 1522-3 are fixed only approximately and by con. jecture. There is no adequate external evidence to determine them exactly, but the amount of error cannot be great. I may refer by anticipation to a promised Life of Tyndale by the Rev. R. Demaus, as certain to exhaust all the information on the subject which is left to us. 3 The exact place is uncertain, but it was near Nibley Knoll, one of the Cotswold hills, on which a monument has lately been erected to his memory. Mr F. Fry informs me that "there are Tyndales now in "those parts;" and further that "Hunt's Court, where Tyndale is "said to have been born, did not "come into the possession of the "Tyndale family till later." Tyn dale was known also by the name 4 He studied in Magdalene Hall Mr Fry informs me that the MS. quoted in the Historical Account, p. 41 n., purporting to contain translations by Tyndale ( W. T.') from the New Testament and dated 1502, was unquestionably a forgery. The MS. was afterwards burnt; but the facsimile of a single page, for the sight of which I am indebted to Mr Fry, seems absolutely conclusive as to its spuriousness. Chap. ii. 1. TYNDALE. Chap. ii. External History. His failure with the bishop of London. to 'a learned man' who 'said we were better be without 'God's law than the Pope's:' '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'.' The boast was not an idle phrase. Erasmus had published the Greek Testament for the first time, with a new Latin version, in 1516, before Tyndale left Cambridge; and Tyndale must have been acquainted with the effect which its introduction there had immediately produced. At the same time, as he tells us, he 'perceived by experience, 'how that it was impossible to establish the lay people in any truth except the Scripture were plainly laid 'before their eyes in their mother tongue, that they might see the process, order and meaning of the text.' ...This thing only,' he says, 'moved me to translate 'the New Testament".' When his enemies grew so powerful as to endanger his patron, 'I gat me,' he says, to 'London.' 'If I might 'come to the bishop of London's service'-Tunstall's, of whose love of scholarship Erasmus had spoken highly— 'thought I, I were happy.' By this time he knew what his work was, and he was resolutely set to accomplish 1 This passage is given according to the first edition (1563), p. 514. In the later editions the form of the last sentence is turned into the oblique: Acts and Monuments, V. 117. 2 One memorable instance of its influence is seen in the narrative of Bilney, afterwards martyred in 1531, who was first roused to a lively faith by reading in Erasmus' edition, I Tim. i. 15, as he narrates in touching words in a letter addressed to Tunstal: Foxe, Acts and Monuments, IV. 635. Bilney's Latin Bible is still preserved with many passages marked, and among them the one on which he dwelt most in the night before his death. Anderson, I. p. 301. It is not indeed unlikely, as has been pointed out by the author of the Historical Account (p. 34), that the saying of Tyndale given above was suggested by a phrase in the Exhortation of Erasmus. 'I would,' he writes, 'that the husbandman at the plough should sing something from hence [the Gospels and Epi'stles].' Preface to Genesis [Pentateuch], p. 396 (Park. Soc.). it'. At the same time he was prepared to furnish the bishop for whose countenance he looked with an adequate test of his competency. The claim which he preferred was supported by a translation of a speech of Isocrates from the Greek. 'But God,' he continues, and the story can only be given fitly in his own words, 'saw 'that I was beguiled, and that that counsel was not the 'next way to my purpose'-to translate the Scripturesand therefore He gat me no favour in my lord's sight. 'Whereupon my lord answered me, his house was full: 'he had more than he could well find; and advised me 'to seek in London, where he said I could not lack a 'service.' Chap. ii. by H. Mun The bishop's prediction was fulfilled in a way which he could not have anticipated. Tyndale had indeed already found a friend ready to help him in an alderman of London, Humphrey Munmouth. Munmouth, who was Entertained afterwards (1528) thrown into the Tower for the favour mouth. which he had shewn Tyndale and other reformers, has left an interesting account of his acquaintance with him. in a petition which he addressed to Wolsey to obtain his release. 'I heard [Tyndale]' he writes 'preach two or ⚫ three sermons at St Dunstan's-in-the-West in London2, 1 No phrase could more completely misrepresent Tyndale's character than that by which Mr Froude has thought right to describe him at this time-the young dreamer' (IL 30). Tyndale could not have been much less than forty years old at the time, and he was less of a 'dreamer' even than Luther. From the first he had exactly measured the cost of his work; and when he had once made his resolve to translate the Scriptures, he never afterwards lost sight of it, and never failed in doing what he proposed to do. [I do not think that the phrase 'fiery young enthusiast,' which Mr Froude has substituted for young 2 It is not known when Tyndale Chap. ii. His retirement to the Continent. He begins to print his New Testa ment. 1525. 'and after that I chanced to meet with him, and with This time of waiting was not lost upon Tyndale. In So he left his native country for ever, to suffer, as he elsewhere says, 'poverty, exile, bitter absence from 'friends, hunger and thirst and cold, great dangers and 'innumerable other hard and sharp fightings,' but yet to achieve his work and after death to force even Tunstall to set his name upon it. Tyndale's first place of refuge was Hamburgh. This 1 Foxe, IV. 617, App. to Strype, Eccles. Mem. No. 89. 2 Preface, 1. c. Report of Vaughan to Henry VIII., quoted by Anderson, I. 272. |