TYNDALE's fideliITY 49 purchasers. It was read in all sorts of places and under all kinds of circumstances; read by merchants, workmen, and scholars. Copies were bought up by its enemies, in the hope that the whole impression might be destroyed; but the effect of that was that Tyndale was enabled to print further improved copies, and to encourage him to go on with the translation of the Old Testament. In the year 1530, his New Testament was publicly burned in St. Paul's Churchyard, after it had been condemned at a Council summoned by King Henry VIII. Sir Thomas More, with extreme bitterness, attacked it as misleading and inaccurate; not, however, in reality, because the work had not been well done, but because to him the rendering of certain words and phrases with scholarly exactness seemed a mischievous perversion ' of those writings intended to advance heretical opinions.' Tyndale's fidelity, however, alike to scholarship and truth was not only vindicated at the time by himself, but has been still more amply vindicated throughout the ages; and the survival of the fittest has ensured the survival of what he did so nobly, so devotedly, and so prayerfully. In doing his work he made use of every available help; the Vulgate, the new Latin Version of Erasmus, and Luther's German Bible. But he translated directly from the text of the Greek Version of Erasmus. As regards his work in the Old Testament, it has been denied that he was a Hebrew scholar; but in his last days we find him writing from prison pleading to be allowed to have his Hebrew Bible, grammar, and dictionary, that he might spend his time in that study. An eminent German scholar, too, Herman Buschius by name, described him as so skilled in seven languages, Hebrew, Greek, 'Latin, Italian, Spanish, English, French, that which'ever he spoke you would suppose it his native 'tongue'; and this testimony does not stand alone. In the year 1534, Tyndale published a revised version of his New Testament with marginal notes; and two later editions are thought to bear traces of further revision by himself. Before he died, seven editions E each representing several thousand copies-had been issued; and there were 'pirated' editions besides. At least thirty-three editions, practically reprints of his, are known to have appeared before 1560. He was not, however, spared to translate and issue the whole Bible. The Pentateuch was issued by him in 1530, and before he died he had got as far as Chronicles with his work. Two years after his death, there appeared what was called Matthew's Bible, but which was in reality Tyndale's. It contained his New Testament revised, and his translation of the Old Testament so far as he had carried it. The remainder of the Old Testament was taken from Coverdale's Bible, which had appeared shortly before, and was actually the first printed version of the whole Bible in English. It, however, was not a translation from the Hebrew and Greek, like Tyndale's; but from the Latin and German. In Matthew's Bible the Apocrypha was taken from a French translation; and as that was the Bible which was by and by sanctioned by the King, it may be described as the first Authorized Version. That it did not appear under his name, although so much of it was his work, would nowise have distressed Tyndale. It was not his own glory he sought, but the glory of his Saviour and the well-being of men; and it was enough for him that the ploughboy and all others who cared to read it had now the Word of God in their own tongue and in their own hands. 'But whosoever thou be that readest Scripture, let the Holy Ghost be thy teacher, and let one text expound another unto thee. As for such dreams, visions, and dark sentences as be hid from thy understanding, commit them unto God, and make no articles of them; but let the plain text be thy guide, and the Spirit of God (which is the author thereof) shall lead thee in all truth.'-MILES COVERDALE. CHAPTER V A RUSH OF TRANSLATIONS F England in Spenser's days was a nest of singing 'birds'; in the days of Tyndale it was the home of scholars who laid their gifts and graces on the altar for the translation and dissemination of the Holy Scriptures. In the years after Tyndale led the way so splendidly, translations came in like a flood. Almost all of them, however, as we have seen, were based on his work-all of them, indeed, which were of real importance-and they are often closely connected with each other; being for the most part revisions rather than distinct translations. In the year 1534, Archbishop Cranmer, a true friend of the Evangel, persuaded Convocation to petition for an English version of the Bible; and in the following year, Thomas Cromwell, likewise a true friend of faith and freedom, persuaded Miles Coverdale to undertake the work. The outcome was what is usually called Coverdale's Bible, and sometimes also the Treacle Bible, because of its translation of Jeremiah 8. 22, Is there no 'triacle in Gilead?' It was issued on October 4, 1535, with a dedication to King Henry and Queen Anne, which was afterwards changed as the royal consorts changed. Important as it is, however, as the first complete Bible printed in the English language, it can hardly be admitted to be in the full line of the true apostolic succession. It was not based on a study of the originals, but on the Vulgate and on Luther's German Bible, three volumes of which were printed in 1524 and the remain |