For the proclamation was not allowed to remain idle. The party of the 'old learning' even outran the letter of the edict. This had enjoined 'the burning of certain 'translations of the New Testament,' but, 'they were so 'bold as to burn the whole Bible, because they were of 'those men's, Tindale's or Coverdale's, translation; and 'not the New Testament only.' Nay more, they were anxious to escape from the responsibility which they had incurred by sanctioning the Great Bible. Tunstall and Heath, who had been 'appointed to overlook the trans'lation' at the time of Crumwell's execution, and had 'set their names thereunto, when they saw the world 'somewhat like to wring on the other side denied it; and 'said they never meddled therewith'.'

But in the midst of this reaction Henry died (Jan. 28, 1547). The accession of Edward restored the reforming party to power, and the young king himself is said to have shewn a singular devotion to the Bible. According to some the English Bible was first used at his coronation. When three swords were brought,' so Strype writes', 'signs of his being king of three kingdoms, he 'said, there was one yet wanting. And when the nobles ' about him asked him what that was, he answered, The 'Bible. "That book," added he, "is the Sword of the 'Spirit, and to be preferred before these swords..." And 'when the pious young king had said this, and some other 'like words, he commanded the Bible with the greatest ' reverence to be brought and carried before him.' However this may have been, the work of printing the English Scriptures was carried on during his reign with great activity. Thirty-five Testaments and thirteen' Bibles were published in England in the six years and a half for which he occupied the throne. The public use of them was made

1 A Supplication of the poor Commons, printed in Strype's Eccles. Memorials, 1. 608 ff.

2 The fact is not mentioned in the order of the Coronation printed by Burnet, and in part by Strype, Cran

mer, I. 202 ff.

3 Eccles. Mem. 11. 35, on the authority of Bale de Viris Illustr. [See Camden's Remaines (ed. 1614), p. 294.]

4

[Fourteen in Anderson's list.]

the subject of special admonition and inquiry. Among the injunctions issued by the king (1547) on his accession was one requiring that all beneficed persons 'shall provide 'within three months next after this visitation, one book of the whole Bible of the largest volume in English; and 'within one twelve months next after the said visitation, 'the Paraphrasis of Erasmus also in English upon the 'Gospels, and the same set up in some convenient place 'within the...Church..., whereas their parishioners may 'most commodiously resort unto the same and read the 'same.' And again, 'that they shall discourage no man '(authorized and licensed thereto) from the reading any 'part of the Bible, either in Latin or in English, but shall 'rather comfort and exhort every person to read the same, as the very lively word of God, and the special 'food of man's soul that all Christian persons are bound 'to embrace, believe and follow, if they look to be saved?' In the next year Cranmer instituted inquiries into the fulfilment of these injunctions in his articles for the visitation of the diocese of Canterbury3, further asking 'whether '...priests being under the degree of a bachelor of divinity 'have of their own the New Testament both in Latin 'and English and the Paraphrase of Erasmus upon the 'same.'

But beyond this nothing of moment was actually achieved with regard to the English Version of the Scriptures. At this crisis the constitution of the English Church and the remoulding of the Service-books were of more urgent importance than the revision of the Bible; but Cranmer did not overlook this work. In 1549 Fagius and Bucer were appointed by his influence to professorships at Cambridge, and during their stay with him at Lambeth, before they entered on their work there, 'the ' archbishop himself directed of what subject matter their 'lectures should be. As it had been a great while his pious

1 [So Cardwell, Doc. Ann. (ed. 1); 'conform' ed. 2.]

" Cardwell's Doc. Ann. [ed. 2] I.

9. Comp. p. 25.

$ Cranmer's Works, 11. p. 155. Compare pp. 161; 81.

' and most earnest desire that the Holy Bible should come 'abroad in the greatest exactness and true agreement with 'the original text, so he laid this work upon these two 'learned men. First that they should give a clear plain 'and succinct interpretation of the Scripture according to 'the propriety of the language; and secondly illustrate 'difficult and obscure places and reconcile those that 'seemed repugnant to one another. And it was his will ' and his advice that to this end and purpose their public 'readings should tend... Fagius, because his talent lay in 'the Hebrew learning, was to undertake the Old Testa'ment; and Bucer the New... Fagius entered upon the 'Evangelical prophet Esaias and Bucer upon the gospel 'of the Evangelist John, and some chapters in each book 'were dispatched by them. But it was not long but both 'of them fell sick, which gave a very unhappy stop to 'their studies'. Nothing indeed is here said of an immediate revision of the authorised Bible, but the instructions point to the direction in which the great archbishop's thoughts were turned.

Meanwhile a fragment of a version of the New Testament-the Gospel of St Matthew and the beginning of St Mark-was completed by Sir John Cheke—at one time professor of Greek at Cambridge and tutor to Edward VI. He seems to have aimed at giving a thoroughly English rendering of the text, and in this endeavour he went to far greater lengths of quaintness than Taverner. Thus he coins new words to represent the old 'ecclesiastical' terms for which More and Gardiner contended most earnestly: frosent (apostle): biword (parable): gainbirth (regeneration): uprising or gainrising (resurrection): tablers (moneychangers): tollers (publicans): freshman (proselyte): and uses strange participial forms: gospeld (xi. 5): devild (viii. 28): moond (iv. 24); and even crossed for crucified. The fragment remained in manuscript till quite lately, and it is not certain that it was designed for publication. As it will 1 Strype's Cranmer, 1. 281.

2 Edited by the Rev. James Goodwin, Cambridge, 1843.

not be necessary to revert to it again, a specimen may given to shew its general style:

be

'At that time Jesus answered and said: I must needs, 'O Father, acknowledge thanks unto Thee, O Lord of 'heaven and earth, which hast hidden these things from 'wise and witty men, and hast disclosed the same to babes; 'yea and that, Father, for such was thy good pleasure 'herein. All things be delivered me of my Father. And 'no man knoweth the Son but the Father, and he to whom 'the Son will disclose it. Come to me all that labour ' and be burdened and I will ease you. Take my yoke on 'you and learn of me, for I am mild and of a lowly heart. 'And ye shall find quietness for yourselves. For my yoke 'is profitable (xpησtós) and my burden light.' (Matt. xi. 25-30.)

In the reign of Mary no English Bible was printed. Rogers and Cranmer were martyred: Coverdale with difficulty escaped to the Continent: the bones of Fagius and Bucer were burnt; but no special measures appear to have been taken for the destruction of the English Scriptures, or for the restriction of their private use. The public use of them in churches was necessarily forbidden. Proclamations against certain books and authors were issued, but no translations of the Old or New Testament were (as before) mentioned by name. Copies of the Bible which had been set up in churches were burnt; but they were not sought out or confiscated. Evidently a great change had come over the country since the time of Henry VIII. And in the mean time though the English press was inactive the exiles abroad were busy, and at the close of Mary's reign a New Testament was printed at Geneva, which was the first step towards a work destined to influence very powerfully our Authorised Version. The origin of this must now be traced.

§ 7. THE GENEVAN BIBLE.

It is unnecessary to dwell upon the disastrous discussions at Frankfurt which divided the English exiles of Mary's reign. The task of continuing the revision of the Bible fell naturally to the non-conforming party who retired to Geneva, the active centre of the labours of Calvin and Beza. Among them was W. Whittingham, who married Calvin's [wife's] sister1; and it is to him in all probability that we owe the Genevan Testament, which appeared in 1557 [in Roman type], with an Introductory Epistle by Calvin. The reviser's own address to the reader is anonymous, but it is definitely personal, and claims the work for a single man, and no one seems more likely than Whittingham to have undertaken it.

'As touchig the perusing of the text,' he writes, 'it was 'diligently reuised by the moste approued Greke examples, ' and conference of translations in other tonges, as the 'learned may easely iudge, both by the faithful rendering of 'the sentence, and also by the proprietie of the wordes, and 'perspicuitie of the phrase. Forthermore that the Reader 'might be by all meanes proffited, I haue deuided the text 'into verses and sectios, according to the best editions in 'other langages.... And because the Hebrewe and Greke ' phrases, which are strange to rendre in other tongues, and 'also short, shulde not be to harde, I haue sometyme interpreted them, without any whit diminishing the grace of

1 [The inscription on Whittingham's tomb in Durham Cathedral described him as 'maritus sororis Johannis 'Calvini theologi.' But it is clear that his wife was not Calvin's sister, for in her will 'Loys Jaqueeman' is mentioned as her father. She must therefore in all probability have been his wife's sister. Calvin married a widow, Idelette de Buren, and her maiden name is not recorded. But the inscription which was contemporary admits of no other interpretation.]

2 [Printed in 1841 in Bagster's

Hexapla, and again separately in 1842.]

3 The diyision into verses was first given in Stephens' Gr. Lat. Test. of 1551. See Tregelles, An Account of the Printed Text... p. 33. The use of supplemental words is found in Münster's O.T. 1534, but the italics are said to have been borrowed by the reviser of 1557 from Beza's Testament of 1556. A different type was employed in the Great Bible to mark readings borrowed from the Vulgate, e.g. I John v 7.