text of his translation for this edition and was the more annoyed at the appearance in August of George Joye's unauthorized version of it. In a supplementary preface, headed Willyam Tyndale yet once more to the christen reader', Tyndale expresses his opinion of Joye's conduct very plainly, more particularly as to the substitution in certain places of the life after this' and similar phrases for the word 'Resurrection'. 42^. Another copy of Tyndale's revised New Testament of November, 1534, printed on vellum, with the arms of Anne Boleyn as Queen of England emblazoned on the second title-page and the words 'Anna Regina Angliæ' painted on the gilt edges of the leaves. This vellum copy is usually assumed to have been presented to the Queen by some friend of Tyndale, if not by Tyndale himself. The Old Royal Library, however, contains two copies of a French folio Bible printed by the same printer and published in the same year, 1534. One of these copies is on vellum, the other bears on its covers the initials of Henry VIII and Anne. There is no ground for saying that these French Bibles were presented to the King and Queen by Tyndale or his friends, and in whatever way these were acquired the English New Testament may have been acquired also. Possibly all three were presented by the printer. 43. George Joye's second unauthorized edition of Tyndale's New Testament. Printed at Antwerp by the Widow of Christopher of Endhoven, January 9, 1535. In this reprint Joye appended an address 'Vnto the Reader' beginning ‘Thus endeth the new Testament prynted after the copye corrected by George Joye: wherin for englisshyng thys worde Resurrectio the lyfe after this W. Tindale was so sore offended that he wrote hys vncharitable pistle agenst me prefixed [to] his newe corrected testament, prynted 1534. in Nouember, entytled .W. T. yet once more to the Christen redere. which pistle W. T. hath promysed before certayne men & me (or els I wolde my selfe haue defended my name & clered myselfe of those lyes and sclaunders there writen of me) that he wolde calle agene his Pystle and so correcte yt, redresse yt, and reforme yt accordinge to my mynde that I shulde be there wyth contented, and vs bothe (as agreed) to salute the readers withe one salutacion in the same reformed pistle to be set before his testament now in printing. After Joye's interpolation of this reference to 'lyes and sclaunders' it is not surprising to find that the efforts of the peacemakers failed, Tyndale refusing to carry out the agreement. Joye defended himself more fully the next month in a separate tract entitled An apology to W. Tindale'. The only copy known of this edition. 44. The last New Testament revised by Tyndale. Printed by G. H., i.e. Godfried van der Haghen at Antwerp, 1535. The title reads: "The newe Testament yet once agayne corrected by Willyam Tindale: Where vnto is added a Kalendar and a necessarye Table. Wherein easely and lightelye maye be founde any storye contayned in the foure Euangelistes and in the Actes of the Apostles. A second title-page immediately preceding the text of the New Testament is dated 'Anno M. D. xxxiiii,' denoting probably that printing was begun shortly before Ladyday, 1535. In the following May Tyndale was arrested. 45. Erasmus's Edition of the New Testament in Greek, with a Latin translation. Used by Tyndale for his English version. First edition. Published at Basel in 1516. Erasmus seems to have been first led to contemplate an edition of the New Testament in Greek by a suggestion of Johann Froben, at that time the best-known publisher in Basel. The scope of the work was afterwards extended by the addition of a Latin version (written independently of the Vulgate) and of a body of annotations, the whole being issued by Froben in one folio volume, February, 1516; the first part consists of the Greek and Latin text printed in parallel columns, the second part comprises the notes. In preparing the Greek text, Erasmus took as his basis a collation of several manuscripts which he found at Basel, besides incorporating variant readings from a number of others which he had examined in the course of his travels, in England and elsewhere. I have revised the New Testament', he writes in the introduction to the annotations, with all possible diligence and faithfulness, first and foremost according to the Greek originals, to which, if any difficulty arise, we should fly as to the fountain head (so the example of famous divines urges us, the decrees of the Roman pontiffs even command us)-secondly, according to the most ancient MSS. of the Latin language, two of which that most worthy adept of divine philosophy, John Colet, Dean of St. Paul's at London, has shown to me, written in so archaic a letter that I had to begin my reading lessons afresh over it and hark back to my schoolboy days-lastly, according to the quotations or emendations of the most approved authors, Origen, Chrysostom, etc.' Erasmus's work thus constitutes the first attempt at producing a scientifically correct text of the Greek New Testament, although the materials at his disposal were very defective. Its success among Biblical scholars was immediate and great; a second revised edition, which Luther took as the basis of his translation, appeared in 1519, and Erasmus himself estimated that 3300 copies of both editions together were in circulation. 46. Luther's Translation of the New Testament into German, used by Tyndale for his English version. Printed by Melchior Lotter at Wittenberg in 1522. Luther's first Biblical translation, a version of the Penitential Psalms, was published in 1517, but it was not until 1521 that his enforced stay in the Wartburg castle, near Eisenach, gave him leisure to make more considerable progress. The New Testament first appeared, without date of publication or name of translator or publisher, in the following year, as a handsome folio volume with a woodcut initial prefixed to each book and twenty-one woodcuts illustrating the Apocalypse. There are occasional short comments in the margin of the text, and introductions of some length to the New Testament as a whole and to the Epistle to the Romans, as well as shorter prefaces to the other Epistles. The general introduction lays stress on the fact that the Gospels are to be considered as a whole and on the unity of tradition and prophecy connecting the New Testament with the Old. In an additional section entitled 'Which are the right and most noble books of the New Testament' Luther discusses the comparative value of the various books, and arrives at the conclusion: 'St. John's Gospel and his first Epistle, St. Paul's Epistles, especially those to the Romans, Galatians and Ephesians, and St. Peter's first Epistle-these are the books that show Christ to you and teach you all that is needful and wholesome for you to know, even though you neither read nor hear any other book or teaching. And therefore St. James's Epistle is a right Epistle of straw compared to these, for it has nothing about it of the Gospel fashion.' Luther based his translation on Erasmus's edition of the Greek text, that being the best available, and he also consulted the Vulgate and Erasmus's Latin version for purposes of comparison. COVERDALE AND MATTHEW BIBLES. Miles Coverdale was born in Yorkshire in 1488. After studying at Cambridge he took priest's orders in 1514 and became an Augustinian friar at the convent at Cambridge. Before 1527 he had attracted the notice of both More and Cromwell. When his prior, Robert Barnes, was arrested for heresy in 1526 Coverdale helped in his defence, and subsequently preached on the Protestant side. According to Fox Coverdale stayed at Hamburg with Tyndale from Easter to December, 1529, in the house of a worshipfull widowe, Maistres Margaret van Emmerson,' during a time of greate sweating sicknesse', and helped him in a second translation of the Pentateuch after his first version had been lost at sea. In 1531 he took the degree of Bachelor of Canon Law at Cambridge. During the next four years he must have been mainly occupied in translating the Bible. He was possibly subsidized during this time by an Antwerp merchant, Jacob van Meteren, who also may have defrayed the cost of printing his version; our knowledge of Jacob's intervention, however, is derived solely from the statements of his son Emanuel and Emanuel's biographer, Simeon Ruytinck. The first edition of Coverdale's Bible was published with the date 4 October, 1535, but without any information as to where or by whom it was printed. If it is correctly assigned to Christopher Froschouer at Zurich, the translator, after beginning his task at Antwerp, probably removed to Zurich to see it through the press. The book was allowed to circulate in England, and reprints from the press of James Nycholson at Southwark in 1537 are stated on their title-pages to be set forth with the Kynges moost gracious license'. Nevertheless Convocation had petitioned the King for a new version in June, 1536, and Cranmer and Cromwell in 1537 obtained authority to place these words 'set forth with the Kinges most gracyous lycece' on the Bible which professed to be 'truly and purely translated into English by Thomas Matthew'. This was really a composite edition containing Tyndale's version of Genesis to Chronicles, Coverdale's of the rest of the Old Testament, and Tyndale's of the New, with side-notes and prefaces to the books of the New Testament containing |