In English Bible translation the next great name after John Wycliffe's is that of William Tyndale. And when we are told that the later version entirely supplanted the earlier, the question arises--Why was this? We have seen that through more than a hundred years Wycliffe's translation rendered noble service to English Christianity--Why then was it superseded? The answer to this question lies on the surface. For one thing, through those hundred years the language had been undergoing a process of serious change, as may be seen at once when Wycliffe's version and Tyndale's are placed side by side. It had come about that the earlier could only with difficulty be understood by the men of the later generation. Then, too, Wycliffe's version had been translated, not from the original Greek in which the New Testament was first written, but from the Latin Vulgate. In other words it was merely a translation from a translation. Wycliffe had no alternative, for even if he had had the necessary Greek learning, which he had not, there were no Greek manuscripts of the New Testament to be had in England at the time. For centuries the only available text of the Scriptures for Europe was the recension, made by Jerome, of the New Testament largely taken from the Old Latin, and of the Old Testament from the Greek Septuagint, the one completed in A.D. 385 and the other in A.D. 405. Gradually this gained ground through the growing influence of the Church of Rome and came to be called the Vulgate or common translation.
But while this was practically the only available book from which Wycliffe could derive his translation, within seventy years of his death the situation was greatly changed. In 1453 the Greek city of Constantinople was besieged and taken by the Turks. It is difficult for us at this distance of time to realise the terror with which this calamity struck the heart of Europe. It seemed like the death-knell of Christendom. Yet to the Christian Scriptures it worked unexpected gain. For it brought to Italy the literary wealth of Greece. Greek exiles fleeing from Constantinople brought their Greek MSS. and learning with them. Nicholas V, thoroughly penetrated with the spirit of the new learning, seized the opportunity thus presented. He eagerly gathered MSS. and employed numerous transcribers and translators within the Vatican, so that when he died in 1455 he left behind him a library of 5000 volumes, which before the days of printing was reckoned a vast collection. Twenty-six years later that which is the glory of that great Vatican Library--the Codex Vaticanus of the fourth century, the oldest vellum MS. of the Scriptures in existence--was added. Thus MSS. to work from, some of them very ancient, were available for translation as never before.
Then, too, the very year after the Fall of Constantinople the Printing Press with all its possibilities came into existence. That year it passed beyond block-books to movable types, the earliest specimen of printing in this way known being an Indulgence of Nicholas V bearing date November 15, 1454.
The next step in the process of consequence to us now, was the use of MSS. and printing press for the production of the New Testament in Greek. This was the work of Erasmus of Rotterdam, and was produced in 1516 at Basle in connection with Froben, the celebrated printer in that city, a second edition being issued a year or two later. The text of this first printed Greek Testament is of no great critical value, as a text, but it brought to light the important fact that the Vulgate, the Bible of the Church, was not only a translation of a translation, but that in places it was an erroneous document. On this a recent writer has said that "a shock was thus given to the credit of the clergy in the province of literature equal to that which was given in the province of science by the astronomical discoveries of the seventeenth century."
Thus, by successive stages, steps had been taken towards the production of a better Bible, and a Bible in greater numbers than was ever possible by mere hand-writing in the generations before.
Thus the hour had come for a new translation of the Scriptures into the English tongue of the sixteenth century. And with the hour came also the man. That man was William Tyndale. Of his early life we know but little beyond the fact that the evidence is in favour of Melksham Court in the parish of Stinchcombe, in Gloucestershire, being the home of his family, and that he was educated at Oxford where Greek had first begun to be publicly taught in the University by Grocyn and Linacre, on their return from Italy. From 1509 to 1514 Erasmus was Professor of Greek at Cambridge and it has been thought that the fame of his lectures drew Tyndale to that University also about the year 1510. This, however, as Dr Aldis Wright has pointed out, is not now so probable since the discovery of an entry in the Oxford Register which seems to indicate that Tyndale took his M.A. degree in that University in 1515.
What we next know of him is that in 1521 he became tutor in the family of Sir John Walsh at the Manor-house of Old Sodbury in Gloucestershire. At Sir John's table there went forward many a brisk argument between the tutor and "divers great beneficed men, as abbots, deans, archdeacons and other divers doctors and learned men." As they varied in opinion and judgment Tyndale would show them on the book the places by open and manifest Scripture, a process which to them proved distasteful, and "in the continuance thereof these beneficed doctors waxed weary and bare a secret grudge in their hearts against Master Tyndale." On a day long remembered, one of them being sore pressed in argument said--"We were better without God's law than the Pope's." Whereupon Tyndale defied the Pope and all his works, and, looking earnestly at his opponent, went on to say--"If God spare my life, ere many years I will cause a boy that driveth the plough shall know more of the Scriptures than thou doest." It may be that in this utterance of his Tyndale had in mind the vivid words which Erasmus had written in the preface to that Greek Testament of 1516 he had come to know. "I would," said Erasmus, "that all private women should read the Gospel and Paul's Epistles. And I wish that they were translated into all languages that they may be read and known, not only by the Scotch and Irish, but also by the Turks and Saracens. Let it be that many would smile, yet some would receive it. I would that the husband man at the plough should sing something from hence, that the weaver at his loom should sing something from hence, that the traveller might beguile the weariness of his journey by narrations of this kind." Thus one living word spoken leads to another, and living words to living deeds. Tyndale had come to think that there is no security for the permanent spiritual enlightenment of a people except their natural intelligence is guided by the revealed truth of God. "Which thing," says he, "only moved me to translate the New Testament. Because I had perceived by experience how it was impossible to establish the lay people in any truth except the Scriptures were plainly laid before them in their mother tongue, that they might see the process, order and meaning of the text; for else, whatsoever truth is taught them, these enemies of all truth quench it again."
It is clear that the production of a Bible in the changed English of his time had become something of a purpose in Tyndale's mind. But he soon found that in Gloucestershire there was neither the necessary quiet nor freedom and he determined to make his way to London and secure the help of Tonstal the bishop, for he had heard Erasmus praise him exceedingly for his great learning. But he met with but a cold reception when he applied for a place in his lordship's service. The bishop had more he said than he could well sustain and he advised Tyndale to seek somewhere else in London. So he lingered on with hope deferred nearly a year but "understood at the last not only that there was no room in my Lord of London's palace, to translate the New Testament, but also that there was no place to do it in all England, as experience doth now openly declare." This was written in a preface to the book of Genesis which he issued in 1530 and describes his state of mind in 1524.
Resolving to leave England Tyndale sailed over to Hamburg in the month of May, and appears to have been in the same city in the early spring of the following year, during which time he was engaged in the work of translation. Later, in 1525, we find him in Cologne where his New Testament was being secretly printed at the press of Peter Quentel. Three thousand copies of the first ten sheets (A--K) had been printed off when the secret oozed out through the intervention of Johann Dobneck, better known as Cochlaeus. This man was living in exile in Cologne and being engaged in literary labours he became intimate with the printers of the city, and learnt from them in their cups that there was something going on, of which they knew, which would soon turn England Lutheran. The expense, they said, was being met by English merchants who had engaged to convey the work over into England and spread it widely in the country. On finding out this secret Cochlaeus lost no time in revealing the plot to Hermann Rinck, a nobleman of Cologne, well known to Henry VIII and the Emperor Charles V, and he having satisfied himself of the truth of this report applied to the senate and obtained an interdict of the work. Finding that their secret was out Tyndale and his assistant, William Roye, fled up the Rhine, with all the haste they could, to the city of Worms, carrying the 3000 copies of the first ten sheets of the book with them. What became of that first edition, printed in quarto, whether it was completed or not, is not quite clear. The probability is that it was, 3000 copies being printed at Worms by Peter Schoeffer in 1525. But before it was completed Tyndale changed his plan and commenced to print an octavo edition of his New Testament, the quarto edition being completed after the printing of this. Of that first quarto edition a precious fragment was discovered in 1834, containing the prologue and the Gospel of Matthew as far as the 22nd chapter. It is now in the Grenville Library of the British Museum, No. 12,179, and consists of 21 leaves going to the end of sheet H, and ending with the words, "Friend, how earnest thou in hither, and" (Matt. xxii. 12). It has been photo-lithographed with an introduction by Mr Arber. Of the octavo edition printed at Worms by Peter Schoeffer (1525-6) only two copies are known to be in existence. One of these is preserved in the library of the Baptist College at Bristol; it wants the title-page and prologue, probably about eight leaves. The other is in St Paul's Cathedral Library, wanting probably 78 leaves. There is a lithographed reproduction in the Ryland's Library, one of six copies printed on vellum, made from the Bristol copy by Francis Fry in 1862. The Cathedral copy, lent by the Dean and Chapter for the purpose, was shown in the Caxton Exhibition of 1877.
The Testaments reached England sometime in the spring of 1526, and everything possible was done to prevent the entrance of the forbidden books and to destroy those which did come in. Many copies were bought up for large sums of money, but this was futile work in the way of destruction for the money thus obtained only set more printers at work, and we find that as many as three pirated editions were issued by Antwerp printers in 1526 and the two following years. This English New Testament was the great event of the time. It found its way into England in corn-ships and bales of merchandise and was mysteriously carried into the country far and near. One of the most active agents in their distribution was Simon Fish, author of the "Supplicacyon for the Beggars," then living near the White Friars. The Bishop of St Asaph seems to have been the first to call Cardinal Wolsey's attention to the contraband trade thus being carried on. The Cardinal, however, was disposed to make light of the matter, but the Bishop of London was urgent that steps should be taken to arrest the movement, and orders were given that the books should be burnt wherever found. To make the condemnation the more impressive it was further ordered that there should be a public burning in St Paul's Cathedral to follow a sermon by the Bishop of Rochester at Paul's Cross. On the 4th of May 1530, accordingly, a procession was formed from the Fleet prison to the Cathedral. The warden of the Fleet was there, and the knight-marshal, and the tipstaffs, and "all the company they could make," with "bills and glaives." In the midst of these officials there marched six men in penitential dresses bearing faggots and lighted tapers. The Cathedral was already crowded when they arrived and Cardinal Wolsey, supported on each side by bishops, priors, abbots, chaplains and spiritual doctors, sat enthroned in the nave on a raised platform. Opposite the platform over the north door was the far-famed Rood of Northen, and at the foot of the rood, inside the rail, a fire was burning, and round the fire were several baskets filled with New Testaments. The signal being given the knight-marshal led the six prisoners three times round the blazing pile, they casting in more faggots as they passed. Then the Testaments were heaped on the top of the faggots and went up in flame.
Nor was this the only scene of the kind in those troubled days, as Foxe, in vivid narrative, has told us. Among those who received Tyndale's Testaments in England was Thomas Garret, Curate of All Hallows, Cheapside. Wolsey searched for him "in all London" but found he had "gone to Oxford to make sale of the books to such as he knew to be lovers of the Gospel." He was apprehended but escaping from custody made his way to his friend Anthony Dalaber who has told us the story. "With deep sighs and plenty of tears he prayed me," Dalaber writes, "to help to convey him away, and so he cast off his hood and his gown wherein he came to me and desired me to give him a coat with sleeves that thus disguised he might make his way to Germany. "Then kneeled we both down together on our knees, lifting up our hearts to God, our heavenly Father, desiring him with plenty of tears so to conduct and prosper him in his journey that he might well escape the danger of his enemies. And then we embraced and kissed one the other ... and so he departed. When he was gone I straightway did shut my chamber-door and went into my study and took the New Testament in my hands, kneeled down on my knees and with many a deep sigh and salt tear, I did with much deliberation read over the tenth chapter of Matthew's Gospel, and when I had so done with fervent prayer I did commit unto God our dearly beloved brother Garret, and also that he would endue his tender and lately born little flock in Oxford with heavenly strength." But Garret was seized and brought back to Oxford. Then search went on and discoveries were made of hidden books even in Cardinal Wolsey's own College. And it turned out that the "lately born flock" was not equal to the strain. The hidden books were collected, a great fire was publicly kindled at Carfax, and Garret and Dalaber with others, who in after-days were to take part in the Reformation, were compelled as part of their penance to cast the gathered books into the fire. Such was the fate of Tyndale's New Testaments when first introduced into his own University of Oxford.
Meantime, while all this was going on at home, Tyndale himself was at work abroad, bent on producing a translation of the Old Testament as well as the New. Devoting himself to the study of Hebrew he went in 1527 to Marburg in Hesse where he published his two most important controversial works, and what more concerns us here is, he also published the first part of the Old Testament in English. Early in 1530 he sent forth his version of the Pentateuch made direct from the original Hebrew with the aid of Luther's German version. Some parts of this work were printed in black letter and others in Roman type, and the book is memorable as being the first part of the Old Testament ever printed in English. It has been said of this little volume that it ranks second only to the New Testament of 1525, and is no less important as a monument of the English language, and as the basis of all subsequent English versions. The colophon at the end of Genesis alone gives name and place of printer, and reads thus: "Emprented at Marlborow [Anglice Marburg] in the lande of Hesse by me Hans Luft, the yere of oure Lorde Mcccccxxx the xvii dayes of January." On the margin of Numbers xxxii. 18--"How shall I curse whom God cursed not," Tyndale printed the well-known comment--"The Pope can tell howe." Several copies of this version of the Pentateuch are in existence, but only one, the one in the Grenville Library, in perfect condition. There was a second edition in 1534. In 1531 Tyndale printed at Antwerp his translation of the book of Jonah to which he appended an interesting prologue. A unique copy of this long-lost work, which was discovered in 1861 by Lord Arthur Hervey, is now in the British Museum. From 1533, if not earlier, till his arrest in 1535, Tyndale resided in Antwerp where in November, 1534, he published the first revision of his Testament in octavo. In this revised edition there is a prologue to the Epistle to the Romans extending to 34 pages, which though only appearing now had been written in 1526 after the issue of the first edition. This prologue was also printed in a separate form, the only surviving copy being found in the Bodleian Library. Two other revisions also of the octavo edition of his Testament were made in 1535 and 1536 by Tyndale himself. The first of these is entitled--"The Newe Testament dylygently corrected and compared with the Greke by Willyam Tindale and finesshed in the yere of our Lord God AMD and xxxv." No mention is made of place or printer, but it is thought to be from the press of Hans van Ruremonde at Antwerp. The last revision is also in octavo and bears as a printer's mark the two letters GH, which the late Henry Bradshaw recognised as the initials of the Antwerp publisher Godtried van der Haghen. The printer he frequently employed was Martin Emperour [= de Keyser], who was probably therefore the printer of this last revision.
The years of Tyndale's life at Antwerp were years of great literary activity. It was here he published a revision of his translation of the Pentateuch, with a new preface, some changes being made in the book of Genesis. Even during his imprisonment of sixteen months in the fortress of Vilvorde, which commenced in May 1535, he was by no means idle. In a touching letter to the Governor, the Marquis of Bergen-op-Zoom, in which he petitioned for warmer clothing, he asked also for a Hebrew Bible, grammar and dictionary. It is conjectured also that during this same imprisonment he finished a translation of the books of the Old Testament from Joshua to Second Chronicles inclusive. There is good reason also for thinking that this part of his work reappeared in "Matthew's" Bible of 1537; and it has been said that "Matthew" is a pseudonym, and perhaps stands for John Rogers, Tyndale's friend.
So far as the original text was concerned he was limited to the Greek Testament of 1516. The MSS. Erasmus used for that, five in number, are still at Basle, and not one of them is ancient, the most valuable of the five being one written in the 10th century; that followed entirely in the translation of the Gospels was one written as late as the 15th century. But while Tyndale, no more than other men, could go before his time in such matters, to him, as Dr Westcott has truly said, more than to any other man it has been allowed to give its characteristic shape to our English Bible. To the same purport the compilers of the valuable Historical Catalogue of the Bible Society have noted it as "remarkable to what an extent the first printed English Testament fixed the phraseology of all its successors. Even in the Revised Version of 1881 it has been calculated that at least eighty per cent of the words stand precisely as they stood in Tyndale's Testament of 1525." It has also been noted as matter for surprise that there is so little difference between the English of 1525 and that of the ordinary Bibles. For in the Gospel of Mark and the Epistle to the Hebrews there are not more than eighty words which are not found in the Authorised Version of 1611, that is, there are not more than four strangers in every thousand words. Sometimes a change made from Tyndale was a change decidedly for the worse, as in the case of St John x. 16 where "there shall be one flock" was altered to "one fold," a change which has been set right in the Revised Version of 1881. No doubt changes which have been improvements have been made by those who followed Tyndale; but the plan and spirit of the work are his. To him men are indebted more than they realise for melodious phrases and happy turns of expression, such as : "singing and making melody in your hearts"; "in Him we live and move and have our being"; "turned to flight the armies of the aliens." In his account of the production of the English Bible Froude the historian is inaccurate in his details, but he expresses the calm judgment of those who know when he speaks as follows: "Of the translation itself, though since that time it has been many times revised and altered, we may say that it is substantially the Bible with which we are familiar. The peculiar genius--if such a word may be permitted--which breathes through it--the mingled tenderness and majesty--the Saxon simplicity--the preternatural grandeur--unequalled, unapproached in the attempted improvements of modern scholars--all are here, and bear the impress of the mind of one man--William Tyndale. Lying, while engaged in that great office, under the shadow of death, the sword above his head and ready at any moment to fall, he worked under circumstances alone perhaps truly worthy of the task which was laid upon him his spirit, as it were divorced from the world, moved in a purer element than common air."
While living at Antwerp Tyndale lodged in the house of Thomas Poyntz, an Englishman who kept there a house of English merchants. An informer of the name of Philips, having satisfied himself of Tyndale's identity, betrayed him to the authorities at Brussels, and so he came within the jurisdiction of the Emperor Charles V. Arrested in the spring of 1535 and taken to the fortress-prison of Vilvorde he remained in captivity nearly a year and a half. Then in the October of 1536 his case came up for judgment at the Augsburg Assembly, and there by virtue of the Emperor's decree he was condemned to die. On Friday the 6th of October, after seventeen months imprisonment, he was led to the scaffold where he was first strangled and then burnt. Like many who have lived to serve their generation, for sixteen years, during which he had plied his work, he had gone through sorrowful experiences. In modest, manly way, and speaking only in self-defence, he refers to these: "My pains therein taken, my poverty, my exile out of mine own natural country, and bitter absence from my friends; my hunger, my thirst, my cold, the great danger wherewith I am everywhere encompassed, and finally, other hard and sharp fighting, I endured by reason that I hoped with my labours to do honour to God, true service to my Prince, and pleasure to his Commons." But now his via dolorosa had come to its end, and his prayer, like that of his Master, was for those who had wronged him. His last thought was for the fatherland he had left so long and loved so well. "Lord!" cried he, "open the King of England's eyes."