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THE HISTORY OF THE ENGLISH BIBLE

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C. F. CLAY, 1'IANAGER

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Reprinted (91

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With the exception of tlte coat of arms at
tlte flðl, the design on the litle page is a
reproduction if one used by the earliest Rnown
Cambridge printer John Siberch I 52 I

PREFAOE

T HE celebration of the Tercentenary of the
Authorised Version of the Englisll Bible of
1611 has called into existence the little book here
presented to the reader's notice. It is the brief
repetition of a story beginning in 670 A.D. and
reaching on for twelve hundred years to 1870. It
takes us back to the Monastery of Whitby where
Cædmon the monk paraphrased Scripture story in
Saxon song, and brings us through the centuries to
the Abbey of Westminster where a distinguished
body of English scholars met in 1870 and commenced
that Revision of the Scriptures which first saw the
light in 1881. The History of the English Bible,
like the Records of Bunyan's House Beautiful, is
"the history of many famous tllings, as of things
both Ancient and Modern." It is a tale of devoted
service rendered often by men in loneliness and
exile; of faithfulness even to martyrdom and death
on the part of those who counted not their lives dear
unto them, if only they could serve the great cause
of spiritual enlightenment; it tells of great gifts of

vi

PREFACE

mind and great attainments in scholarship conse-
crated to the sacred cause of truth and the elevation
of mankind. It will be found that our Greatest Book
has a great history of its own, apart from the nature
of its contents. It is not too much to say that to the
men who have rendered such high service to the
English-speaking people here at home and in our
wide-spread Empire abroad, we o\ve it that their
memory shall not perish, or their names be forgotten.

J. B.

HAMPSTEAD
11 . March 1911

CONTENTS
PAGX
Preface . . v
I. Anglo-Saxon Versions . . 1
II. W ycliffe's Manuscript Bible 15
III. Tyndale's Printed Translation . 35
IV. Coverdale's and the Great Bible 53
v. Three Rival Versions 70
VI. The Authorised Version of 1611 98
VII. The Revised Version of 1881 . 115
Bibliography . . 132
Index . . . 134

LIST OF PLATES

to face page
1. The first verses of St John in Anglo-Saxon. 6
2. A MS. of tile later version of W ycliffe's Bible: end
of the 14th century. 16
3. Tyndale's Pentateuch, 1530. 46
4- Coverdale's Bible. 54
5. The Great Bible, 1539. 62
6. The Geneva Bible, 1560. 74
7. The Bishops' Bible, 1568. 86
8. Original title-page of the Authorised Version, 1611. 100
9. The Authorised Version, 1611. 106
10. The first Bible printed at Cambridge, 1629. 110

.

CHAPTER I

ANGLO-SAXON VERSIONS

LoOKED at from the human side the Christian
religion was established at first, and made permanent
in history afterwards, by means of two institutions-
the Church and the Bible. The Church came before
the Bible, for the simple reason that life must exist
before there can be any description of it, but the
Bible was indispensable to the true development of
the Church. The witness borne by the Apostles to
the Life, Death and Resurrection of their Lord was
the appointed human means of creating the Church:
"the Life was manifested," said they, "and we have
seen and bear witness and declare unto you the Life,
the Eternal Life." So far as men received this witness
and believed, the Church of God became a great fact
and took its place in history. Then came the question
of its perpetuation and permanent direction. Even
Apostles could not always live and bear their testi-
mony, and if that testimony were committed solely to
the keeping of mere tradition it would be changed
R 1

2 HISTORY OF THE ENGLISH BIBLE [CH.

and weakened as it passed from lip to lip. Thus
arose the need for the Bible as ,veIl as tIle Church.
By way of repeating and perpetuating the witness of
the Apostles the Church spreads the Bible, and in
return the Bible builds up the Church, preventing
false developments, guarding against erroneous bye-
paths, and bringing Christian life and practice ever
and again to the test of a divine standard. In short,
the Bible is for the men of all the centuries what the
personal witness of the Apostles was to the men of
the first-the proclamation of the great creative acts
of God for man's salvation.
And to be effective it must be, as at Pentecost,
a proclamation to every man in his own language
wherein he ,vas born. Both the personal testimony
and the written word, both the missionary and the
Bible must speak to men in their own tongue. This
was felt from the first in the Christiauisation of our
own land. When in the spring of 597 A.D. Augustine
and hIs forty companions came from Rome as mis-
sionaries and landed on the coast of Kent, it was
through their Frankish interpreters they made known
to King and people the purpose of their con1ing. And
as they needed an interpreter so did the Bible they
brought with them, for that Bible was the Latin
Vulgate of Jerome, to all intents and purposes a
sealed book to our Saxon forefathers. Thus arose
the need and also the fact of an Ellglish Bible, the

I]

ANGLO-SAXON VERSIONS

3

rise and development of which it is the purpose of
these pages to narrate.
The political constitution under which we live, it
has often been said, was not made but grew, that it
is what it is as the outcome of a process of develop-
ment, the result of many a struggle with adverse
forces, and so has become in itself the record as it is
the result of the historic past. Now that which is
true of the English constitution is true also of the
English Bible. It has arrived at its present form
through many successive stages of growth, and eac}}
of these stages presents its own features of historic
interest, and its own record of self-sacrificing zeal
and devotion.
As we might expect it is not easy to speak both
with certainty and fulness as to the beginnings of
our English Bible in Anglo-Saxon times. For they
belong to a dim and distant past and there are but
scanty records to light us on our way. More than
that they had their rise in days of invasion and wild
confusion, days when the Danes, in successive raids
which recur with melancholy monotony through a
whole generation, ravaged the land from east to west
and from north to south. They not only desolated
the l\lidland shires and stormed and looted the cities
of the West, but also plundered the monasteries of
N orthumbria, those homes of learning, the manuscripts
they found there being of small account in the eyes
1-2

4 HISTORY OF THE ENGLISH BIBLE [CR.

of these rovers from across the sea. There was also
another agency at work almost equally disastrous to
the cause of sacred learning. 'Vitl1in less than seventy
years of the landing of Augustine, as Bede tells us, the
terrible plague of 664 A.D. raged with especial severity
in the monasteries both of men and women. At
Lindisfarne, at Ely, at Wearmouth and Jarrow, at
Carlisle, at Barking, and at Lastingham in the North
Riding of York, tllis pestilence carried off nearly all
the inn1ates. The effect of this on Scripture learning
could not but be most disas;trous.
Yet, after all, it is to this very period that scholars
llave assigned the first rude beginnings of what may
perhaps be called a Saxon version of the Scriptures,
simple metrical paraphrases, rather than ordered
translation. These were the work of Cædn1on, the
monk of Whitby, whose date lies between 658 and
680 A.D., and whose active period may be assigned to
about 670 A.D. He has been called the first Saxon
poet, though he cannot no'v be credited with all that
was once claimed for him. A clue discovered by a
German professor in 1857, being followed up, led to
other discoveries, with the result that now, by the
general consent of scholars, many poems formerly
attributed to Cædmon are reclaÏ1ned for his fellow-
Northunlbrian, Cynewulf, who belonged to the century
after him. Still it was Cædmon who began to set
forth Scripture paraphrases in the Saxon tongue. All

I]

ANGLO-SAXON VERSIONS

5

we know of his personal history we get from a single
chapter of Bede's Ecclesiastical History (iv. 24),
where he is described as an unlearned man of great
piety and humility who had received by divine grace
such a gift of sacred poetry that he was able after
short meditation to render into English verse what-
ever passage was translated to him out of the Latin
Scriptures. This unlettered peasant, being taken as
a monk into the monastery at Whitby, under the
rule of the Abbess Hilda, was there instructed in the
history of the Old and New Testaments, with the
result that what was translated to him out of the
Vulgate he reproduced from time to time in beautiful
and touching verse: "so that his teachers were glad
to become his hearers." We are told that he sang of
the creation of the world and the origin of mankind,
of the departure of Israel from Egypt and their
entrance into Canaan, and also of many other parts
of the older Scriptures. It is said that he also para-
phrased portions of the New Testament, singing of
the Lord's incarnation, passion, resurrection and as-
cension; of the coming of the Holy Spirit, and the
teaching of the Apostles of our Lord. So far as
these metrical versions of the Scriptures are known
to us we owe that knowledge to a tenth century
manuscript in the Bodleian, bequeathed to that
library by the Earl of A.rundel. The first part of
tllis manuscript is in one handwriting, and contains

6 HISTORY OF THE ENGLISH BIBLE [CH.

paraphrases of portions of the books of Genesis,
Exodus and Daniel; the second part consists of
three poems, the first relating to the Fall of the
Angels and the Temptation of l\fan-a daring and
original product of his genius which has led to Ilis
being described as "the Milton of our forefathers."
These paraphrases being in the native tongue of the ·
people were learnt alld sung by them alld thus
became their sole source of Bible knowledge. Bede,
who told us about Cædmon, relates also that he
himself translated the Creed and the Lord's Prayer
into the Saxon tongue; and we cannot forget the
pathetic story of his dictating to a scribe, in the
last hours of his life, a translation of the closing
chapter of the Gospel of John.
From Anglo-Saxon times there have come down
to us versions of the Psalter, the Four Gospels and
the Pentateuch. The Psalter is thought to have been
translated about the end of the seventh century or
the beginning of the eighth, and to be the work of
Aldheln1, Bishop of Sherborne some time before
709 A.D. This versiol1 survives in a single MS.
preserved in the National Library in Paris, Psalms
i.-Ii. being rendered in prose, the remainder in
verse. There have been three reprints in modern
times of this complete Psalter.
Next to this comes the important question of the
Four Gospels existing in Anglo-Saxon, N orthumbrian

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THE FIRST VERSES OF ST JOHN IN OLD ENGLISH
From the MS. in the University Library, Cambridge

I]

ANGLO-SAXON VERSIONS

'I

and Old Mercian versions. Professor Skeat is of
opinion that there was but one Anglo-Saxon version
and that five out of the six l\fSS.ofthe Gospels now left
to us, though written in different places, are intimately
connected with each other, and derived from that
original, now lost. The six referred to are (1) the
Oorpus 1\IS. preserved in the library of Corpus Christi
College, Cambridge; (2) the Oambridge MS. pre-
sented to the University Library by Archbishop
Parker in 1574; (3) the Bodley
IS. in the Bodleian
Library; of tllis there is an exact duplicate in the
British Museum, both agreeing closely with the
Corpus MS.; (4) the Ootton MS. written early in the
11th century. This suffered serious injury in the fire
which in 1731 partially destroyed the Cotton Library,
then deposited at Ashburnham House, Westminster.
(5) The Hatton MS. in the Bodleian, which gives the
Gospels in the following order-Mark, Luke, l\Iatthew,
John; (6) the Royal MS. now in the Royal Library
in the British Museum. The handwriting of this
copy is bold, hasty and rough, ,vhile that of the
Hatton MS., which seenlS to have been copied from
it, is in an exceedingly uniform, upright and clear
hand. The Cotton MS. again, exhibits the text in its
earliest, and the Hatton MS. in its latest form.
Besides these six Anglo-Saxon versions of the
Four Gospels, two Anglo-Saxon Glosses to the Latin
text have come do\vn to us-the Lindisfarne Gospels

8 HISTORY OF THE ENGLISH BIBLE [CH.

and the Rushworth Gospels. It may be explained
that a gloss differs from a translation in that it con-
strues the text word for word, between the lines,
without much regard to the grammatical arrange-
ment. It simply suppJies a clue to the meaning of
the words of the original separately. The Lindiifarne
Gospels, also known as the Durham Book, is one of
the most valued treasures in our national collection,
being one of the Cotton MSS. in the British Museum.
It consists of 258 leaves of thick vellum, and con-
tains the Four Gospels in Latin with an interlinear
Northum brian gloss. The Latin text was written in
the island of Lindisfarne by Eadfrith the bishop,
about 700 A.D. in honour of his predecessor 8t
Cuthbert, and so is sometimes known as 8t Cuth-
bert's Gospels. The interlinear gloss in the N orthum-
berland dialect is probably more than two centuries
later, and was the work of a monk named Aldred.
This
S. is elaborately ornamented with paintings of
the Evangelists; and with full-page cruciform designs,
borders and initial letters, in the style introduced
from Ireland. It was kept at Lindisfarne, the Holy
Isle of Northumberland, until the Danish invasion of
N orthumbria, when it was carried away for safety.
It after,vards remained for a long time at Durham,
and then was restored to the Priory of Lindisfarne,
where it was preserved until the Dissolution of the
Monasteries. Purchased by Sir Robert Cotton in the

I]

ANGLO-SAXON VERSIONS

9

17th century, it passed through him to the keeping
of the British Museum.
The Rushworth Gospels was so named because
presented to the Bodleian Library by John Rushworth
of Lincoln's Inn, who was deputy clerk to the House
of Commons during the Long Parliament. It was
originally copied from the V ulgate by Mac Regol, an
Irish priest, about 820 A.D. The interlinear gloss
was added about a century later by two men, a
scribe named Owun and Farman a priest of Hare-
wood on the river Wharfe. It may be mentioned
that the gloss in this MS., but throughout the first
Gospel only, is in the Old Mercian dialect, and there-
fore of peculiar interest as giving us an example of
a dialect, of which the specimens are extremely
Bcarce, and yet which is closely related to the modern
literary language.
It may be well at this point to emphasise the fact
that the time when the Psalter and the Four Gospels
were given to the people in their own Saxon tongue
was the 7th century-the century described as the
time of greatest advance previous to the Norman
Conquest. Between the coming of Augustine in
597 A.D. and t.he conversion of the people of Sussex
under Wilfrid in 686 A.D. lies the long spiritual
campaign for tbe conversion of the entire people
from heathenism to Christianity. It was the century
of Paulinus, of the great and good missionary bishop

10 HISTORY OF THE ENGLISH BIBLE [CR.

Aidan, who founded the monastery of Lindisfarne ;
and of Cuthhert who fills so large a space in the
n1emories of the people of England, especially of
northern England, the region wllere Christianity
won some of its greatest victories. It was the
century, too, in which the great churchman, Theo-
dore of Tarsus, came to this island where, as we
are told, he made his copious stores of learning,
both sacred and secular, available for the people.
We read of the multitude of disciples who flocked
to his daily lectures and of the knowledge, along
with that of the sacred Scriptures, which he imparted
to his hearers. "Nor in fact," we are told, "were
there ever happier times since the days ,vhen the
English first landed in Britain... the desires of men
were strongly directed to,vards the new-found joys
of the heavenly kingdom; and all who desired to
be instructed in the sacred Scriptures had teachers
near at hand who could impart to them that know-
ledge. "
Unfortunately the flood tide of that century was
followed by the ebb tide of the next. There is no
mistaking the fact that in the period between the
death of the Venerable Bede in 735 A.D. and the birth
of King Alfred in 848 A.D. the intellect and heart of
England had suffered a sad relapse into ignorance
and barbarism. There was a general decline of
civilisation and learning, the light becoming obscured

I]

ANGLO-SAXON VERSIONS

11

by the superstitions and impious fabrications which
began to prevail.
Various causes may be assigned for so disastrous
a decline. Under the ravages of the great plague
n1any of the East Saxons relapsed for a time into
idolatry; again, later there was a further outbreak
from which Bede's o\vn monastery of Jarrow suffered
severely, the pestilence carrying off all the monks
who could read or preach or sing the antiphons. It
was also a time of discord and revolution in the
government. In the course of that century fifteen
kings of Northumbria swayed the sceptre, and of
these, five were deposed, five murdered, and two
voluntarily abdicated the throne. Then too there
were the persistent inroads of the Danes followed
by the destruction of the monasteries and of the
MSS. they contained. A monk of Peterborough
pathetically relates that when Inguar and Ubba
came to his abbey "they burned and brake, slew
abbot and monks, and so dealt with what they
found there, which was erewbile full rich, that they
brought it to nothing." But \vorst of all there
follo\ved a general debasement of morals. One
serious sign of this was the founding by ,vealthy
laymen of pseudo-monasteries, unholy convents, in
which freed from the restraints of law they lived
their lives of licentious ease, and under the pretence
of a religious life, evaded the duties of tIle public

12 HISTORY OF THE ENGLISII BIBLE [CR.

service. Such was the state of things when King
Alfred came to the throne in 871. It is not sur-
prising that in such a time of reaction the work of
Bible translation made no advance beyond the ver-
sion of the Psalter and of the Lindisfarne Gospels of
the century before. We have now to notice that the
next step forward was taken by King Alfred himself.
To his enlightened mind it was an unspeakable
sorrow that the nation had so seriously sunk back-
ward. He says: "Formerly rnen came from beyond
our borders, seeking wisdom in our own land; now,
if we are to have it at all, we must look for it
abroad. So great was the decay of learning among
Englishmen that there were very few on this side
Humber, and I ween not many north of it, who
could understand the ritual, or translate a letter
from Latin into English. No, I cannot remember
one such, south of the Thames, ,vhen I came to the
throne."
King Alfred did not, as some men do, content
himself with mourning the degeneracy of the days.
He resolutely set out to bring about a better time.
He aimed at the creation of a native literature and
for this purpose sought the aid of learned eccle-
siastics beyolld his own borders. From Wales he
invited Asser, his future biographer; from Mercia
he imported Plegmund and Werferth; from Orner
came Grimbald, and from the lands near the mouth

I]

ANGLO-SAXON VERSIONS

13

of the Elbe came John the Old Saxon, whose an-
cestors were heathen, but who was himself a learned
ecclesiastic. With the aid of these men he enriched
his people with translations of some of the great
works which Rome had given to the world. He
himself translated Gregory's Regula Pastoralis,
setting forth the character, duties and special tempta-
tions of the Christian pastor. He describes the mode
of translation-"sometimes word for word, and some-
times meaning for meaning, as I learned the sense."
Bede's Ecclesiastical History also was translated
from Latin into Saxon, either by Alfred's own hand
or under his supervision. But what we are most
concerned with now is the fact that he translated for
his people certain chapters from the Old Testa-
ment and a passage from the New. In publishing
his Laws, called "Alfred's Dooms," he appended to
them almost the whole of four chapters of the book of
Exodus (xx.-xxiii.) containing the Ten Comn1and-
ments and the Mosaic code of civil law in all its
archaic simplicity. Following this came a reference
to the mission of "the Lord's Son, our God, who is
Jesus Christ, who came into the world, not to destroy
the law but to fulfil it, and to increase it with all
good things." Then came a description of the Council
of Jerusalem as given in the fifteenth chapter of the
Acts of the Apostles and a rehearsal of its decrees.
The acts of this Council end with the Golden Rule as
inserted in Oodex Bezae-" And that which ye will

14 HISTORY OF THE ENGLISH BIBLE [CH.I

that other men should not do to you, do ye not to
other men." He then proceeds to set before his
people what he considers the source of all legislation,
the divine ordinances given amidst the thunders of
Sinai, and shows how that law was modified by the
teaching of Christ.
Before leaving the Anglo-Saxon period of our
history mention must be made of one other work
which belongs to it, a metrical version of the Penta-
teuch and the Book of Joshua, partly translated and
partly epitomised by Ælfric Abbot of Peterborougn
in 1004, and Archbishop of York in 1023. It is some-
times known as ".Ælfric's Heptateuch" and it has
been suggested that it is probably part only of a
much larger work, inasmuch as there are translations
of the Books of Kings, Esther, Job, Judith, the
Maccabees and of the Four Gospels in existence
which appear to be of the same date, and are
supposed to be from the same pen. A copy of
Ælfric's version in the British Museum is illustrated
with numerous dra,vings in body-colour and outline
lightly tinted. It is in vellum, in folio, and is an
early 11th century MS. The story of Joseph is
given ,vith illustrations depicting his entertainment
of his brethren in Egypt, and the putting of the
cup into Benjamin's sack. So far did Bible ver-
sions and Bible reading go in Anglo-Saxon days
before the Norman conquerors reached our shores.

CHAPTER II

WYCLIFFE'S MANUSCRIPT BIBLE

WITH the Conquest of England by the Normans
there arose, of necessity, urgent problems for the
conquered land to deal ,vith. Not the least was the
question as to what should be the language of
the future: Should it be that of the conquered or
the conqueror
Before the powerful forces wielded
by King and Court, and by the incoming social
elements of Norman society, the English language
had to fight for its very existence. But it fought
strenuously and its sturdy character stood it in good
stead And so it came to pass that while N orman-
French became the language of the Court, the School
and the Bar, the Saxon tongue held its place tena-
ciously in farm-house and cottage, in the transactions
of the market-place and in the every-day proceedings
of common life.
But ,vhile this is true it will be seen that but
little could be done in the way uf translating into
English the Scriptures of the Latin Vulgate. The

16 HISTORY OF THE ENGLISH BIBLE [cn.

Anglo-Saxon version of the Four Gospels continued
to be written as late as the 12th century. In the
British Museum there is a copy which was evidently
written towards the end of that century. There are
other copies also in existence at Oxford, Cambridge
and elsewhere, showing that the more ancient form of
the English language continued to be in use long after
the Conquest. Still, up to the year 1360 only one
book of Scripture had been entirely rendered into
English since the Conquest. This was the Psalter,
which about the year 1320 appeared ill two forms.
The first was a translation by William de Schorham,
vicar of Chart Sutton in the county of Kent. It was
followed nearly about the same time by a translation
of the Book of Psalms into the Saxon dialect of North
Yorkshire, which was accon1panied by an English
commentary, the work of Richard Rolle, a chantry
priest and hermit, of Hampole, near Doncaster. This
man, a native of Thornton, near Pickering, was one of
the mystics of his time, a deeply spiritual soul of
whom we read that he turned great numbers to God
by his exhortations, and comforted many by his
advice and writings and by the special efficacy of his
prayers. This Psalter of his, with its commentary,
appears to have been written for the benefit of
Margaret Kirkby, a devout recluse at Anderby, and
came to be held in high esteem by others, being
widely diffused in the century after it was written.

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I

.i
...

I
\

A MS. OF THE LATER VERSION OF WYCLIFFE'S BIBLE:
END OF THE 14TH CENTURY
In the Library of Emmanuel College, Cambridge

II]

WYCLIFFE'S MANUSORIPT BIBLE

17

His works exhibit the more spiritual side of one of
those movements which led up to the Reformation.
Beyond the versions of portions of Scripture
already mentioned nothing was done in the way of
giving a complete Bible to the English people until
Wycliffe's time. Indeed we may say that nothing
could be done until the language itself had taken
something more nearly approaching a permanent
form. Up to the tilne of the Conquest, and since the
days of King Alfred and the learned men he had
gathered to his Court, the West Saxon dia]ect had
been gradually winning for itself more and more of
literary forIn. But with the Oonquest that came to
an end. The contest for supremacy between French
and English led to wide separations, and there were
almost as many English dialects as there were
counties. The centrifugal force always going on in
language brought it about that in process of time the
northern counties could not understalld the southern,
or the southern the northern. Before there cou]d be
a common English Bible there must be somethin ó
approachil1g to a common English speech. A unifying
centre must someho,v be found, and frOln the nature
of the case could only be found in central England, .
which was in touch both with north and south, and
to a considerable extent could understand both.
Oircumstances from which there could be no appeal
rendered it imperative, therefore, that the Bible for
B. 2

18 HISTORY OF THE ENGLISH BIBLE [CH.

all must be a Bible in the Middle England speech,
the speech slowly taking definite literary form as the
English of Chaucer and Wycliffe. In this way it came
about that John Wycliffe was the man, and Lutter-
worth near Leicester was the place, and the second
half of the fourteenth century was the time, to give
to the English people the first complete Bible in the
English tongue.
Born in the little village of Wycliffe-on-Tees, near
Richmond in Yorkshire, W yclifle went as a student
to Oxford where, by learning and ability, he obtained
a Fellowship at Merton, the Mastership of Balliol and
in 1365 the Wardenship of Archbishop Islip's new
foundation in Canterbury Hall. The first half of the
fourteenth century was a time of seething opinion in
the Church. It was the time of the renloval of the
Papacy to A vignon and when it advanced claims and
exercised powers which plunged Italy and Gerlnany
into
iscord. In opposition to these, John Marsiglio
of Padua, in his Defensor Pacis, proclaimed ideas
which, as time has shown, were to regulate the future
progress of Europe. He gave expression to concep-
tions of the sovereignty of the people and of the
official position of the ruler which mark the develop-
ment of European politics down to our own day.
Indeed he defined the lin1its of ecclesiastical authority
and asserted the dignity of the indi vidual believer in
advance of what has yet been realised. Whether

II]

WYCLIFFE'S MANUSCRIPT BIBLE

19

Wycliffe came under this man's influence, or worked
his way independently to similar conclusions, we may
not decisively determil1e, but in the letter of Pope
Gregory XI to Archbishop Sudbury and the Bishop
of London, of May 1377, directing proceedings against
"\Vycliffe, he writes as follows: "We have heard for-
sooth with much grief by the intimation of many
credible persons that John Wycliffe, rector of the
church of Lutterworth in the diocese of Lincoln,
professor of the sacred page...does not fear to assert,
profess and publicly proclaim certain propositions
and conclusions which (albeit with certain change of
terms) appear to breathe the perverse opinions and
the unlearned doctrine of Marsilius of Padua and
John of J andun, of condemned men1ory." Before the
arri val of this Bull ordering W ycliffe' s trial Edward III
died; the prelates could not take action thereon
before the end of 1377, and when Wycliffe was sum-
Inoned before the Archbishop and Courtney, Bishop
of London, the Council did not think it wise that
the trial should proceed.
This Papal prosecution, however, and still more
the Great Schism in the Papacy of 1378, produced a
very powerful effect upon the mind of W ycliffe. The
sight of two Popes each claiming to be Head of the
Church, and each devoting his entire energies to the
destruction of his rival, shocked his soul, and dealt
a heavy blow at that idea of the Unity of the Church
2-2

20 HISTORY OF THE ENGLISH BIBLE l CR.

which had exercised so powerful an influence on the
imagination of the Middle Ages. We should be quite
within the truth if we said that the Great Schism of
1378 in the Roman Church had a direct and powerful
effect in the production of the complete English Bible
of 1382. For while it led Wycliffe, more energetically
than before, to denounce a corrupt hierarchy, and the
enslavement of the Church by an antichristian Pope,
it also led him and his followers to set about trans-
lating the Bible into English that all men might be
supplied with the means of judging on these questions
for themselves. He held that before all things God's
Word must be taught in its own simplicity. He
taught that Christ and His Apostles converted the
world by making known the truths of Scripture in a
form familiar to them. There ought, he said, to be a full
and literal translation of the sacred text, for that the
friars were guilty of "docking and clipping the Word
of God, and tattering it by their rime." To move the
English there must be an English Bible. That which
is every man's guide ought to be in every man's hand.
It is a book for all. Besides setting forth the great
seminal truths of theology it takes up the relations,
duties and trials of social and public life. It is a
wise word for the parent and another for the child;
it gives directions, too, to master and servant. It
breathes promises of special tenderness to what must
al,,"ays be a very large class-the people in trouble,

II]

WYCLIFFE'S MANUSCRIPT BIBLE

21

the widow, the fatherless, the suffering, the bereaved.
It exhorts to those Christian graces without which
life ,vould go on heavily-patience and humility, con-
descension and self-denial, disinterested love and un-
wearied beneficence. The Bible is thus a people's book,
overshadowing with its authority individuals, house-
holds, churches and kingdoms; including in itsjurisdic-
tion persons of every rank, age and calling, from birth to
death, telling all men what to believe, what to obey, and
how to suffer. Since then the Bible was for all, Wycliffe
resolved that, as far as in him lay, all should have it.
We do not know at what precise time he began
the work of translation, but "Te know that by 1380 he
was busy upon the New Testament while his friend
Nicholas of Hereford was engaged upon the Old.
He probably knew nothing of Greek and therefore
his translation was of necessity from the Latin Vulgate.
Hereford's work breaks off abruptly in the middle of
a verse (Baruch iii. 20), it has been conjectured be-
cause of his arrest and trial at Canterbury where he
was excommunicated. It should be mentioned here
that in the Vulgate Baruch follows the book of
Jeremiah and is not relegated to the Apocrypha.
The original manuscript of Hereford's translation
with his alterations and corrections is preserved in
the Bodleian Library. The remaining books of the
Old Testament, Ezekiel, Daniel, the twelve Minor
Prophets and the two books of the Maccabees were

22 HISTORY OF THE ENGLISH BIBLE [CH.

translated by another hand, probably by Wycliffe
hin1self after he had finished the New Testament.
The work was completed by tbe cud of the year 1382,
two years before the death of Wyclitre, which took
place in 1384. It was circulated in various forms
and, to render the work more practically useful,
tables of the Lessons and of the Epistles and Gospels
for Sundays were added to many of the copies. Also
some portions of the Bible were transcribed and
issued in separate form.
The first Wycliffite version was no sooner com-
pleted than its many imperfections became manifest.
The desire to be faithful in the rendering of the exact
words led the translators into Latinisills having their
source in the Vulgate version, so that some parts can
scarcely be called English at all. There seems to
have been little or no consideration of the idiomatic
differences between the Latin and tIle English tongues.
Wycliffe's own part was less defective in this respect
than that of Hereford his co-worker, who was more
painfully literal in his rendering than his master. The
result was that no sooner was the work completed than
it was felt it must be done over again, and the work of
revision was begun under Wycliffe's own guidance
but was not completed till 1388, or four years after
his death. Of Wycliffe's Bible, therefore, there are
thus all earlier and a later version. This later revision,
while directed at the outset by Wycliffe hin1sel
was

II]

WYCLIFFE'S MANUSCRIPT BIBLE

23

really the work of a friend and disciple, John Purvey.
This man was a native of Lathbury, a village near
Newport Pagnell, ,vho during the closing years of
'Yycliffe's life came to live with him at Lutterworth.
This revision of the earlier version, while instigated by
Wycliffe, came to be Purvey's great life-work, and in
his" General Prologue" he tells us how he set about
it. First, he says he had much travail, with divers
fellows and helpers, to gather many old Bibles and
other doctors and common glosses and to make Otle
Latin Bible "somedeal" true. In other words he
sOllght to get the best form of the Latin text, to
begin with. Then next, to study that text anew, the
text with the gloss and such other doctors as he
might get, and especially Lyra on the Old Testament,
that helped him full much in his ,york. The third
thing ,vas to take counsel with old grammarians and old
divines concerning hard words and lIard sentences, how
they might best be understood and translated. The
fourth step was to translate as he could according to the
meaning and to have many good fellows and cunning
at the correcting of the translation. These are his
memorable concluding words: "By this manner with
good living and great travail men can come to true and
clear trallslating, and true understanding of Holy Writ,
seem it never so hard at the beginning. God grant
to us all grace to know well and keep well Holy Writ,
and suffer joyfully some pain for it at the last! Amen."

24 HISTORY OF THE ENGLISH BIBLE [CR.

Of course it need hardly be said that before the
invention of printing both the earlier and the later
versions were accessible only in manuscript; and
neither of them appeared in print in complete form
till 1850. The New Testament in the later version
was published by Lewis in 1731, by Baber in 1810,
and by Bagster in Ilis English Hexapla in 1841. Of
the early version the Song of Solomon was given ill a
commentary of 1823; and the New Testament of the
same version was published by Pickering in 1848.
TheIl in 1850 the Oxford University Press published
a con1plete edition of both versions in parallel columns
under the title: "The Holy Bible, containing the Old
and New Testaments with the Apocryphal Books in
the earliest English versions made from the Latin
Vulgate by John Wycliffe and his followers; Edited
by the Rev. J. Forshall and Sir F. Madden." This is
truly a noble ,york in four volumes, royal quarto, and
beautifully printed. It is the fruit of twenty-two
years
f labour, as many as 170 MSS. being examined
by the editors, and the various readings of some 60
MSS. being given throughout. Obsolete or obscure
words are explained in a glossary appended to the
fourth volume.
From the time of Purvey's Revision in 1388 to the
time of the first printed New Testament by William
Tyndale in 1525, or for a period of 137 years, tllis
translation of the Scriptures, known as Wyclifte's

II]

'VYCLIFFE'S MANUSCRIPT BIBLE

25

version, though really a joint work by him and his
followers, continued to be copied by professional
scribes, or by private persons for their own use,
either wholly or in portions. Many of these bave
come down to us from the 14th and 15th centuries.
Forshall and Madden counted no fewer than 165
copies, 42 of them giving the earlier version; and
since this enumeration was made in 1850 several more
have come to light. It was a costly work to produce
in its entirety, having to be copied by hand; but its
multiplication must have been continuous and fairly
rapid. The copies, the numbers of which have just
been given, must have been made within forty or
fifty years of the completion of the revision; others
have at various times been. discovered, but how many
have perished during the process of the ceIlturies it
is impossible to say. Of those that remain nearly
half are of small size, such as could be made the daily
companions of their owners. They were found in the
high places of the land as well as among the common
people. A folio copy of two volumes on vellum, in
the earlier version, which is preserved in the British
Museum, shows painted in the upper part of the illum-
inated border of the first page the armorial shield
of Thomas of Woodstock, Duke of Gloucester, the
youngest son of Edward III. There is also a copy of
the later version, with illuminated initials and borders,
which belonged to the library of Henry VII, the

26 HISTORY OF THE ENGLISH BIBLE [CH.

initial letter being a red rose, and the ornamental
border containing the royal arms and a portcullis.
Another copy was presented to Queen Elizabeth as a
birthday gift by her chaplain.
It was, however, among the commons of England
that the new translation of the Bible in whole or in
portions found readiest and most responsive welcome.
Leicester is but a walk of a few miles from Lutter-
worth, and the work of Bible translation in the one
town soon made itself felt in the other. Leicester
became conspicuous for its sympathy with the opinions
and writings of Wycliffe, so much so that Archbishop
Courtney came down in 1389 and on the 2nd of
November celebrated high mass at the high altar of
the monastery in full pontificals. In the course of
this celebration, "in solemn wise, by ringing the bells,
lighting the candles and putting out the same again,
and throwing them down to the ground," he denounced
those who favoured the vie,vs of Wycliffe. The next
day, being All-Souls-day, he made inquiry from eccle-
siastics. and laymen, when the names of eight persons
were laid before him, all of whom he denounced by
name as excommunicate and accursed, and ordered
this excommunication to be proclaimed in divers
parish churches in Leicester. The whole town also
was placed under interdict so long as the guilty
persons were among its inhabitants, and on the 7th of
November the Sherifi' was ordered to arrest them

II]

WYCLIFFE'S MANUSCRIPT BIBLE

27

under the King's Writ. Three out of the eight
recanted their opinions and were absolved, but before
absolution there was to be lIard penance. This
penance was that on the next Sunday they were to
go before the Cross three times during the procession
at the Cathedral Church of our Lady of Leicester.
They were to do this "in their shirts, having no other
apparel upon them," holding a crucifix in one hand
and a taper of wax half a pound weight in the other.
The procession being ended they were to stand
before the Cross during the whole time of mass with
their tapers and crosses in their hands. As if this
were not humiliation enough they were further ordered
to stand the following Saturday in the full and public
market in the town of Leicester, standing in like
manner in their shirts, without any more clothes
upon their bodies, holding the aforesaid crosses in
their right hands. Having submitted to all this in
the cold November days of 1389 Roger Dexter and
William Smith and Alice his wife were finally absolved
as stated in letters dated November 17 in the year of
our Lord God 1389. Such were the proceedings
which within a twelvemonth signalised the completion
and final revision of the Wycliffe Bible.
Passing now over some nineteen years we come to
measures more directly assailing the version of the
Scriptures with which we are now concerned. Arch-
bishop Courtney having been succeeded by Archbishop

28 HISTORY OF THE ENGLISH BIBLE [CH.

Arundel, the latter caused certain Constitutions to
be enacted in a Convocation of the province of
Canterbury held at Oxford in 1408. These Consti-
tutions of Arundel consisted of thirteen Articles, the
sixth of which reads as follows: " We will and
command that no book or treatise made by John
W ycliffe. . . be from henceforth read in schools, halls,
hospitals or other places whatsoever, within our
province of Canterbury." This article was suppl('-
mented by a seventh which was directly aimed at
Wycliffe's Bible. It reads thus: "Item, It is a
dangerous tbing as witnesseth blessed St Jerome, to
translate the text of the Holy Scripture out of the
tongue into another; for in the translation the same
sense is not always easily kept, as the same St Jerome
confesseth, that although he were inspired, yet often-
times in this he erred: we therefore decree and
ordain that no man, hereafter, by his own authority
translate any text of the Scripture into English or
any other tongue, by way of a book, libel or treatise;
and that no man read any such book, libel or treatise,
now lately set forth in the time of John Wycliffe, or
since, or hereafter to be set forth, in part or in whole,
privily or apertly, upon pain of greater excommuni-
cation, until the said translation be allo"red by the
ordinary of the place, or, if the case so require, by
the Council provincia!."
For more than a century, that is from the time of

II]

WYCLIFFE'S MANUSCRIPT BIBLE
.

29

these Constitutions of Arundel in 1408 to that of the
Reformation under Henry VIII in 1534, the English
Bible given by Wycliffe and his followers remained
under interdict, to be read only in secret and with an
abiding sense of danger. Most of our knowledge of
what took place in those years, especially the latter
portion of them, that is, from 1509 to 1521, comes to
us from an unimpeachable source-the registers kept
by the bishops themselves. Two of these stand out
prominently, namely, the register of Richard Fitz-
james, Bishop of London, and that of John Longland,
Bishop of Lincoln. These records present a curious
picture of religious life during the days of our fore-
fathers, as well as of the fortunes of the English
Bible itself. This is especially true of the county
of Buckingham in which Protestant opinions were
rife long before the Reformation. In the days re-
i ferred to the diocese of Lincoln extended from the
Humber to the Thalnes; Buckinghamshire therefore
was included, and John Longland, the bishop, was
especially active in repressing the reading of the
Bible in the mother tongue. Numerous indeed were
the indictments for possessing alld reading together
the Sacred Scriptures with which he dealt. For
example we find that John Higgs was summoned
because" he had in his custody a book of the Four
Evangelists in English and did often read therein";
and Richard Hun because "he hath in his keeping

30 HISTORY OF THE ENGLISH BIBLE [CH.

divers English books prohibited and damned by law:
as the Apocalypse in English, the Epistles and the
Gospels in English, Wycliffe's damnable books, and
other books containing infinite errors, in which he
bath been a long time accustomed to read, teach,
and study daily." James Brewster was charged with
having" a certain little book of Scripture in English,
of an old writing almost worn for age, whose name
is not there expresse1." Richard Collins, also, for
"having certain English books, as the Gospel of
St Luke, the Epistles of St Paul, James and Peter in
English, a book of Solomon's in English, and a book
called 'The Prick of Conscience.'"
But if it was an ecclesiastical offence to be possessed
of a Bible in English or any part thereot: it was a still
greater offence for men to meet to read it with their
neighbours. The charges under this head are frequent
during the years referred to. We read, for example,
that Durdant of Iver-court "sitting at dinner with his
sons and their wives, after bidding a boy there stand.-
ing to depart out of the house, that he should not
hear and tell, did recite certain places unto them out
of the Gospels and the Epistles of St Paul." Ten
persons were accused "because that at the marriage
of Durdant's daughter they assembled together in
a barn and heard a certain Epistle of St Paul read,
which reading they well liked" John Butler was
compelled because of his oath to detect his three

II]

WYCLIFFE'S MANUSCRIPT BIBLE

31

brothers and the mother of Richard Ashford "partly
because they were reading two hours togetl1er in a
certain book of the Acts of the Apostles in English,
in Ashford's house." Ricllard Collins also was de-
tected "who among them was a great reader and had
a book of Wycliffe's Wicket, and a book of Luke and
one of Paul and a gloss of the Apocalypse." Robert
Pope of Amersham "did detect Benet Ward of
Beaconsfield because he had given him a book of the
Ten Commandments, also the Gospels of Matthew
and Mark. Of the same Ward he learned his Christ-
cross row and five parts of the eight beatitudes."
Certain other persons also were detected for "read-
ing together in the book of the Expositions of the
Apocalypse, and communing concerning the matter
of the opening of the book with seven clasps."
Manuscript Bibles being scarce and costly, some
people exercised their gifts in committing large
portions of the Scriptures to memory and reciting
tl1em to others. Thomas Chase was detected because
James Morden "heard him twice recite the Epistle of
St James and the first chapter of St Luke." Agnes
Ashford also was charged with teaching this man
part of the Sermon on the Mount. "Five times
he went to the aforesaid Agnes to learn this lesson...
These lessons the said Agnes was bid to recite
before six bishops, who straightway enjoined and
commanded her that she should teach those lessons

32 HISTORY OF THE ENGLISH BIBLE [CR.

no more to any man, and especially not to her children."
There is a similar record concerning Alice Collins the
wife of Richard Collins. "This Alice was a famous
,voman among them, and had a good memory, could
recite much of the Scriptures and other good books;
and therefore when any conventicle of these men did
meet at Burford, commonly she was sent for, to
recite unto them the declaration of the Ten Com-
mandments, and the Epistles of Peter and James."
Her daughter Joan seems to have been quite as
remarkable, "for that she had learned with her father
and mother the Ten Commandments, the seven deadly
sins, the seven works of mercy, the five wits bodily
and ghostly, the eight blessings, and five chapters of
St James's Epistle."
As we go through these records year after year
we find that things which are counted as Christian
excellences now were regarded as ecclesiastical
offences by John Longland, Bishop of Lincoln, and
the penances he enjoined were almost uniform and
all after one condition. Some of the culprits were
sent by him as prisoners to certain abbeys, there to
be kept in perpetual penance and not suffered to pass
the precincts of the monastery. Others were ordered
to stand upon the highest step of the market-cross
on market-days bearing a faggot of wood upon their
shoulder; and on Sunday to stand in the church from
the choir-door going out to the choir-door going in,

II]

WYCLIFFE'S MANUSCRIPT BIBLE

33

and all the time of high mass to hold a faggot of wood
upon their shoulders. Also on every Friday during
their life to fast on bread and ale only, and on every
evening of Corpus Christi during their life to fast on
bread and water. As for James Morden and others
of the abjurers they were enjoined that for seven
years they were to visit the church of Lincoln twice
a year from Amersham. But as a pilgrimage from
Buckinghamshire to Lincoln cathedral was indeed a
serious journey in those days, the sentence was miti-
gated for some, and they were mercifully permitted
to visit the image of our Lady of l\iissenden for the
space of five years instead
Such was the struggle for light in those far-off
days and such the hardships endured by those who
went forth in search of the truth of God. Well might
John Foxe bear testimony and say that the Church
of God in England" hath not lacked great multitudes
who tasted and followed the sweetness of God's holy
Word almost in as ample manner, for the number of
well-disposed hearts as now....Certes the fervent zeal
of those Cllristian days seemed much superior to these
our days and times; as manifestly may appear by
their sitting up all night in reading and hearing; also
by their expenses and charges in buying of books in
English, of whom some gave five marks [equal to
about f40 in our money], some more, some less, for a
book: some gave a load of hay for a few chapters of
& 3

34 HISTORY OF THE ENGLISH BIBIJE [CH. II

St James, or of St Paul in English... .To see their
travails, their earnest seekings, their burning zeal,
their readings, their watchings, their sweet assemblies,
their love and concord, their godly living, their faith-
ful demeaning with the faithful, may make us now, in
these our daJs of free profession, to blush for shame."

CHAPTER III

TYNDALE'S PRINTED TRANSLATION

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 tilen 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 seell 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 under-
stood by the men of the later generation. Then, too,
Wycliffe's version had been translated, not from the
original Greek in which the N e\v Testament was first
written, but from the Latin Vulgate. In other
words it was merely a translation from a translation.
Wycliffe bad no alternative, for even if he had had
3-2

36 HISTORY OF THE ENGLISH BIBLE [CH.

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 Testa-
ment 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 Con-
stantinople was besieged and taken by the Turks. It
is difficult for us at this distance of time to realise
the terror ,vith which this calamity struck the heart
of EQ.rope. It seemed like the death-knell of Christen-
dom. Yet to the Christian Scriptures it worked un-
expected gain. For it brought to Italy the literary
wealth of Greece. Greek exiles fleeing from Con-
stantinople 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 em-
ployed numerous transcribers and translators within
the Vatican, so that when he died in 1455 he left

III] TYNDALE'S PRINTED TRANSLATION 37

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 Oodex Vaticanus of the
fourth century, the oldest vellum MS. of the Scrip-
tures 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 Constan-
tinople 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 litera-

38 HISTORY OF THE ENGLISH BIBLE [CH.

ture equal to that w11ich 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 Stinch-
cOll1be, 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 Erasmús was Pro-
fessor of Greek at Cambridge and it has been thought
that the fame of his lectures drew Tyndale to that
University a1so about the year 1510. This, ho'\vever,
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 hiIn is that in 1521 he
became tutor in the family of Sir J ohn Walsh at the
Manor-house of Old Sodbury in Gloucestershire. At .

nI] TYNDALE'S PRINTED TRANSLATION 39

Sir John's table there went forward many a brisk
argument between the tutor and" divers great bene-
ficed men, as abbots, deans, arc11deacons and other
divers doctors and learned men." As they varied in
opinion and judglnent 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 remem-
bered, one of them being sore pressed in argument
said-" We were better without God's la,v 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 ,vomen 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
OIlly by the Scotch and Irish, but also by the Turks
and Saracens. Let it be that many would smile, yet
80me would receive it. I would that the husband-
man at the plough should sing something from hence,

40 HISTORY OF THE ENGLISH BIBLE [CH.

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."
TIlus 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 trans-
late the New Testan1ent. Because I had perceived
by experiellce how it ,vas in1possible 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 neces-
sary quiet nor freedom and he determined to make his
way to London and secure tl1e help of Tonstal the
bishop, for he had heard Erasmus praise him exceed-
ingly for his great learning. But he met with but a
cold reception when he applied for a place in his
lordship's service. Tbe bishop had more he said
than he could well sustain and he advised Tyndale to
seek some,vhere else in London. So he lingered on

8 S

0}

m II RARY
.

8' \j
::L/

III] TYNDALE'S PRINTED TRANSLATION 41
.

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
wbich 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 lVlay, 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, wllicb would S0011 turn
England Lutheran. The expense, they said, was being
met by English merchants who had engaged to con-
vey 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 Hernlann Rinck,

42 HISTORY OF THE ENGLISH BIBLE [CH.

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 ,vas 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 con1pleted Tyndale changed his plan
and conln1enced to print an octavo edition of his
Ne\v Testament, the quarto edition being completed
after the printing of this. Of that first quarto edition
a precious fragment was discovered in 1834, COI1-
taining 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 con-
sists of 21 leaves going to the end of sheet H, and
ending with the words, " Friend, how earnest thou in
11ither, and" (Matt. xxii. 12). It 11as been photo-litho-
graphed ,vith an introduction by Mr Arber. Of the
octavo edition printed at Worms by Peter Schoeffer
(1525-6) only two copies are kno,,"n to be in exist-
ence. One of these is preserved in the library of the
Baptist College at Bristol; it wants the title-page and

III] TYNDALE'S PRINTED TRANSLATION 43

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 some time 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
Englalld 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 distri-
bution 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

44 HISTORY OF THE ENGLISH BIBLE [OH.

Bisbop 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 al-
ready 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 plat-
form over the north door was the far-famed Rood of
N orthen, 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

III] TYNDALE'S PRINTED TRANSLATION 4Ð

troubled days, as Foxe, in vivid narrative, has told us.
Among those who received Tyndale's Testalnents in
England was Thomas Garret, Curate of All Hallows,
Cheapside. Wolsey searched for him "ill 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 com-
mit unto God our dearly beloved brother Garret, and
also that he would endue his tender and lately born

46 HISTORY OF THE ENGLISH BIBLE [CH.

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 W o!sey'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 ,yere 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 Ne,vTestaments 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 pro-
ducing 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 tJ1e 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 Testa-

Tnc Artt Cñ
Pttr o fDtuttrc.nomyt, FOð tø
-:---.---

.
--: . Here b= the
orde$'
: . . ,:

I!>.. < n:hichMofes fpake '0 it .
, ' .. 'St
. to alllfrat'I, on the:
"
'I1f. -
,^,,-J. ther fyde Iorda1ne ui
t . -' <. .
f the roildund'k: and in
'I :
the feldcs b, the rfd
. -'"'.
t fee, bd:fene Pharã ãd
. - - . 1 TophC:A,Laban,Haz.:

and Uiíahab."ij.da)fS iume, from Ho

teb:on 0 Cades bernta ., by the toaJc that tt'a,
h \into mount Seir.And it fortuned the fl,
tl! dayc>ofthe.xi.moneth in the fortieth yere,
that Mofès fpake Dnto the childcm of llfac!
. acordingt 1'nto all th
t the Lorde had gruen
him in commaundment Dnto them, 3firr that
:; hêhadfmotè Sihon the kyngcof tile AmoIÎ*
Its mhich dwelt in Hc(bon,and Og kinge of
&tan tohich dwelt at Afiaroth in Edrei.
On the other Gdc Iord2)ne in the Iondc of
Moab,Mof('S begane to dtclare this Iawe fat'
.
. :
he tarde oure God fp2ke Dnto us j

rt.'b fayrnge: Ye naue dwelt Iongc j'nougn
, this mount:drpartc thttf
re aod t2ke YOUf'
.eiurnc)' and g
o vnto the hillcs of the An10
rites and Dnto 211 places nyc there vnto: bod"
feld(
,hiJ(es 2nd dalt's :3nd v.nto the foutb
nd
} 1'tlto the kCS fycle in the londc of (';1na3
dnd'
- me l.ibznen: rum vnto the gre2tc ryucr E U1
B 'Phratci
ob

TYNDALE'S PENTATEUCH: 1530

From a copy in the University Library, Cambridge

III] TYNDALE'S PRINTED TRANSLATION 47

ment of 1525, and is no less important as a monu-
ment 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 [Anglicé
MarburgJ in the lande of Hesse by me Hans Luft,
the yere of oure Lorde Mcccccxxx the xvij dayes
of Januarij." On the margin of Numbers xxxii. 18
-" How shall I curse whom God cllrsed 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 no\v in
the British J\tluseum. 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 Ronlans
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

48 HISTORY OF THE ENGLISH BIBLE [CH.

of the octavo edition of his Testament were made in
1535 and 1536 by Tyndale hilTIselt: The first of these
is entitled-" The N ewe Testament dylygently cor-
rected and compared with the Greke by Willyanl
Tindale and ti.nesshed 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 Rurenlonde at Ant\verp. The last revision
is also in octavo and bears as a printer's mark the
two letters G H, which the late Henry Bradshaw
recognised as the initials of the Ant\verp publisher
Godfried van der Haghen. The printer he frequently
employed was Martin Emperour [= de Keyser], who
was probably therefore the printer of this last re-
vision.
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 tIle fortress of Vilvorde, which commenced
in May 1535, he was by no means idle. In a touch-
ing letter to the Governor, the Marquis of Bergen-
op-Zoom, in \vhich he petitioned for warmer cloth-
ing, he asked also for a Hebrew Bible, grammar
and dictionary. It is conjectured also that during
this same imprisonment he finished a tral1slatioIl of
the books of the Old Testament from Joshua to

III] TYNDALE'S PRINTED TRANSLATION 49

Second Chronicles inclusive. There is good reason
also for thinking that this part of his work re-
appeared in " l\Iatthew'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 lOth
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 Testamellt 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
B. 4

50 HISTORY OF THE ENGLISH BIBLE [CR.

to the Hebrews there are not n10re than eighty words
which are not found in tl1e Authorised Version of
1611, that is, there are not more than four strangers
in every thousand ,vords. Sometimes a chauge made
frOlll 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
wllich has been set right in the Revised Version of
1881. No doubt changes which have been improve-
ments have been made by those who followed Tyn-
dale; 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 arlnies 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 tl
aIlslation 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
nlay be permitted-which breathes through it-the
mingled tenderness and majesty-the Saxon sim-
plicity-the preternatural grandeur-unequalled, un-
approached in the atten1pted improvements of modern

III] TYNDALE'S PRINTED TRANSLATION 51

scholars-all are here, and bear the impress of the
mind of one man- 'Villiam Tyndale. Lying, while
engaged in that great office, under the shadow of
death, the sword above his head and ready at any
mome11t to fall, be 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."
'Vhile 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
TyndaJe'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 halt: Then
in the October of 1536 his case came up for judg-
ment 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
4-2

52 HISTORY OF THE ENGLISH BIBLE [CH. III

these: "My pains therein taken, my poverty, my
exile out of mine own natural country, aud bitter
absence from IllY friends; Iny hunger, my thirst, my
cold, the great danger ,vherewith I am everywhere
encompassed, and finally, other hard and sharp fight-
ing, 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 thoug'ht was for the fatherland he had left so
long and loved so well. " Lord! " cried he, "open
the King of England's eyes."

CHAPTER IV

COVERDALE'S BIBLE AND THE GREAT BIBLE

DURING the seventy-five years between the last
issue of Tyndale's Testaments and the publication of
the Authorised Version of 1611, six different versions
of the English Bible issued from the press, and in
saying this we are not taking account of the Rheims-
Douai Bible, the Roman Catholic English Versioll
dating between 1582 and 1610. These six versions
were: Coverdale's Bible of 1535; "Matthew's" Bible
of 1537; Taverner's Bible of 1539; the Great Bible,
also of 1539; the Geneva Bible of 1560; and the
Bishops' Bible of 1568. It will be in the memory of
our readers that when Coverdale appeared upon the
scene Tyndale's Bible was far from complete. The
New Testament had been finished and several times
revised; the book of Jonah had been translated
separately; and the Pentateuch had been issued in
a revised second edition. Probably also a transla-
tion of the Old Testamellt from Joshua to Second
Chronicles llad been Inade by Tyndale and left in

54 HISTORY OF THE ENGLISH BIBLE [OR.

manuscript. This being the extent to which his work
had gone it will be seen at once that a large portion
of Scripture, including the Psalter and the Propheti-
cal Books, still remained untranslated
It is here that Miles Coverdale's work comes in
and fills an important place. This man was a native
of the North Riding of Yorkshire, where he was born
in 1488, and we know of him further that he was
Bishop of Exeter in 1551. Foxe tells us that Cover-
dale met Tyndale by appointment at Hamburg in
1529, and from Easter till December in that year
helped him in translàting the five books of Moses,
so that there was so far a close and friendly relation
existing between them.
It would seem that he set about completing
Tyndale's work, being urged thereto and commissioned
by others. These are bis words: "To say the truth
before God, it was neither my labour nor desire to
have this work put in my hand, nevertheless it grieved
me that other nations should be more plenteously
provided for with the Scripture in their mother-
tongue than we; therefore when I was instantly
required, though I could not do so well as I would,
I tllOUght it yet my duty to do my best and that with
a good wil!."
Coverdale made no claim to be a direct translator
frolD the original Hebrew, but to have made his
version from German and Latin sources. He trans-

.,

COVERDALE'S BIBLE

From Mr W, Aldis Wright's copy

IV]

COVERDALE'S BIBLE

55

lated he says out of "five interpreters." He had some
knowledge of Hebrew to help him to discriminate
between various renderings, but in the main his ver-
sion is based Qn the Swiss-German version of Z,vingli
and Leo Juda (1542-9), known as the Zurich Bible,
and on the Latin of Pagninus. So far as the Penta-
teuch is concerned, his translation has been described
as the Zurich translation rendered into English by
the help of Tyndale with constant reference to Luther,
Pagninus and the Vulgate. It will be seen that
Tyndale was a great resource to him when we find
that in the whole Epistle of St James containing
108 verses, there is only a difference of three words
between them.
Still, notwithstanding this dependence upon others,
the value of Coverdale's version will be felt at once
when we consider that for three-fourths of the Old
Testament this is the first printed English Bible, and
as such still stands alone, inasmuch as it had great
influence in the shaping of the Authorised Version
of 1611. His Bible is divided into six parts, the fifth
part containing the Apocryphal books arranged in
the same order as that of the Authorised Version;
and tIle sixth part consisting of the books of the New
Testament arranged in the same order as in Luther
and Tyndale's version, that is, the Epistles of St
Peter and St John come in before and not after the
Epistle to the Hebre,vs. The most characteristic

56 HISTORY OF THE ENGLISH BIBLE [CR.

portion of Coverdale's translation is that of the
Psalter, and this still remains in use as being the one
printed in the Book of Common Prayer. While in
the revision of this book in 1662 the Gospels, Epistles
and other portions of Scripture were taken from the
Authorised Version, the Psalms as translated by
Coverdale were retained as being smoother and more
amenable to musical treatment. In the Authorised
Version, too, many of the renderings most valued for
their beauty and tenderness are his; such as: "My
heart and flesh faileth, but God is the strength of my
heart, and my portion for ever"; "Enter not into
judglnent with thy servallt, for in thy sight shall no
man living be justified"; "Cast me not away from
thy presence, and take not thy Holy Spirit from me";
"For thy loving-kindness is better than life; my lips
shall praise thee"; "Thou Lord in the beginning
hast laid the foundation of the earth, and the heavens
are the work of thy hands. They shall perish but
thou shalt endure: they shall all wax old as doth a
garment; and as a vesture shalt thou change them,
and they shall be changed. But thou art the same and
thy years shall not fail." We feel there is a certain
majesty about these passages entitling Coverdale to a
high place in our literature.
The relation of this Bible of his to the civil power
seems fitful and uncertain. In 1535 it was printed
out of the country by Froschover of Zurich and was

IV]

COVERDALE'S BIBLE

57

dedicated to the King, but appeared without express
license. The follo\ving year it was printed at home
by NycoIson of Southwark but again without royal
license. Then again in 1538 another editioll was
printed by Nycolson and this time the title-page
proclaims the fact that it was "Set forth wyth the
Kynges moost gracious licence." The explanation of
the difference is to be found in the fact that during
these years the rupture with Rome had become an
accomplished fact. Wolsey had fallen and Thomas
Cromwell had become the King's Vicegerent in all
causes ecclesiastical, with precedence over all prelates
and peers. In the issue of the First Royal Injunctions
of 1536 we have the first act of pure supremacy on
the part of the King in the affairs of the Church,
and in them we find him urging the clergy to give
themselves to the study of Holy Scripture. But
the changing attitude of the Crowll to the Bible is
brought out more clearly in the scene which took
place at a Council of Convocation held in 1537. Foxe,
making use of a narrative given to him by Alesius, or
Hales, has described it for us. As Cromwell entered,
the bishops and prelates rose up and did obeisance to
him as their Vicar-General, he in tllrn saluting them,
and then seating himself in the highest place at the
table. Presently he proceeded to address them, set-
ting forth the purpose for wllich they were met,
and telling them that the King's desire was that

58 HISTORY OF THE ENGLISH BIBLE [CR.
they would conclude all things by the Word of God.
His Majesty, he said, would Ilot suffer the Scriptures
to be wrested or defaced by any papistical laws, or
any authority of doctors or counciJs, much less would
he admit any articles or doctrines not contained in
the Scrîptures. In reply the bishops gave thanks
unto the King's Majesty for his zeal and his most
godly exhortation. But controversy arose at once
when Stokesley, Bishop of London, maintained the
validity of the Seven Sacraments, the Archbishop of
Canterbury going one way with his followers, and
the Archbishop of York another, with those who
agreed with him. The question was really one of
final authority; where does it rest, with the Church
or the Bible
Foxe, the Bishop of Hereford, con-
tended for the Bible, for the light of the Gospel
hath put to flight all misty darkness, and it will be
supreme "though we resist in vain ever so much."
In spite of opposition that book was making its
way, he said. "The lay people do now know the
Holy Scripture better than many of us; and the
Germans have made the text of the Bible so plain
and easy, by the Hebrew and Greek tongues, that
now many things may be better understood without
any glosses at all, than by all the commentaries of
the doctors." He urged them not to deceive them-
selves by the hope that there was nothing ,vhich
the power and authority of the pope could not

IV]

COVERDALE'S BIBLE

59

quench in process of time, but rather to take the
other view "that there is nothing so feeble and weak,
80 that it be true but it shall find place, and be able
to stand against all falsehood." He concluded with
these eloquent words: "Truth is the daughter of
Time and Time is the mother of Truth; and what-
soever is besieged pf Truth cannot long continue;
and upon whose side Truth doth stand, that ought
not to be thought transitory or that it will ever fall.
All things consist not in painted eloquence, and
strength or authority: for the Truth is of so great
power, strength and efficacy that it can neither be
defended with words, nor be overcome with any
strength, but after she hath hidden herself long, at
length she putteth up her head and appeareth."
This noble utterance may well coincide with the ap-
pearance of that first completed and printed English
Bible which Coverdale sent forth; and it may well
stand as fitting watch,vord at the opening of that
new era in the history of that Bible which was even
now at the doors.
The year 1537 ,vhich sa,v a ne,v edition of Cover-
dale's Bible" overseen and corrected," saw also the
issue of another Bible described as "Matthew's,"
about which there is a certain air of mystery. It
was printed in black letter, in double columns, the
title-page sets forth that it was "truly and purely
translated into English by Thonlas Matthew," and at

60 HISTORY OF THE ENGLISH BIBLE [CH.

foot of that page it was said to be set forth "with
the Kynge's most gracious lycence." It seems to be
generally agreed that the name of Matthew was
assumed by John Rogers, an intimate friend of
Tyndale, an earnest Protestant and one of the
martyrs of Mary's time. The version bearing this
name is of a composite character and comprised a
reprint of Tyndale's New Testament and his Penta-
teuch. From Ezra to the end of the Apocrypha,
not excluding Jonah, it is substantially Coverdale's
version; but from Joshua to Chronicles the text
differs so widely from Coverdale, that it is supposed
to be from the translations left behind him by
Tyndale. It was furnished with a dedication to the
King and Queen, and the expense of the work,
probably printed at Antwerp, was defrayed by two
London citizens, R. Grafton and E. Whitchurch. The
first news of its appearance in England is contained
in a letter from Cranmer to Crom,vell. "My especial
good lord," he writes, "these shall be to signify unto
the same that you shall receive by the bringer thereof
a bible in English, bot.h of a new translation and of
a new print...which in mine opinion is very well
done, and therefore I pray your lordship to read
the same. And as for the translation, so far as I
have read thereof, I like it better than any other
translation heretofore n1ade....1 pray you, my Lord,
that you will exhibit the book unto the King's high-

IV]

COVERDALE'S BIBLE

61

ness, and to obtain of his grace, if you can, a license
tl1at the same may be sold and read of every person,
without danger of any act, proclamation or ordinance
to tIle contrary, until such time that we bishops shall
set forth a better translation which I think will not
be till a day after doomsday." Cron1well did as
Crann1er desired and presently informed him that he
had not only shown the Bible to the King but had
also "obtained of his grace that the same shall be
allowed by his authority to be bought alld read
within this nation." Dr Westcott points out the
deep significance of what had thus been accom-
plished: "By Cranmer's petition, by Cromwell's
influence and by Henry's authority, without any
formal ecclesiastical decision, the book was given to
the English people, which is the foundation of the
text of our present Bible. From Matthew's Bible-
itself a combination of the labours of Tyndale and
Coverdale-all later revisions have been successively
formed. In that the general character and mould of
our whole version was definitely fixed. The labours
of the next seventy-five years were devoted to im-
proving it in detail."
It may now be mentioned in passing, though the
matter is of small importance, that the successful
sale of Matthew's Bible led in 1539 to the issuing
of a rival edition, as a private venture, by" John
ByddeII for Thomas Barthlet "with Richard Taverner

62 HISTORY OF THE ENGLISH BIBLE [CH.

as editor. From the nan1e of the editor it is known
as Tavernerr's Bible. He "ras a Cambridge man and
was also for a year and a half a student at Oxford.
About 1530 he became a member of the Inner Temple;
he afterwards went to Court and through Cromwell's
influence became one of the Clerks of the Signet. In
1539 his version of the Bible was printed at the Sign
of the SUIl in Fleet Street, London, and was allowed
to be publicly read in churches. The influence of
the Vulgate is clearly traceable in what changes he
made, which were but small in the Old Testanlent,
but more numerous in the New. Those who have
examined the book report that it is evidently the
work of a scholar, but of a scholar of capricious and
uncertain cast of mind. His version was once after-
wards reprinted in its entirety but had little influence
in after years.
We come now to the important version known as
The Great Bible-" the hole byble of the largyest
volume," which came out in 1539. This is the book
referred to in the Second Royal Injunctions of 1538,
sent to Cranmer by Cromwell under date September
30. In section 2 the follo,ving order was issued to
the clergy: " You shall provide on this side the feast
of Easter next conling, one book of the whole Bible
of the ]argest volume, in English, and the same set
IIp in some convenient place within the said church
that you have cure of, whereat YOllr parishioners may

THE GREAT BIBLE: 1539
From Mr W. Aldis Wright's copy

IV]

THE GREAT BIBLE

63

most commodiously resort to the same and read it;
the charges of which book shall be rateably borne
between you, the parson, and the parishioners afore-
said." In section 3 the clergy are charged-" Yon
shall discourage no man privily or apertly from the
reading or hearing of the said Bible, but shall ex-
pressly provoke, stir, and exhort every person to read
the same, as that ,vhich is the very lively word of God,
that -every Christian man is bound to embrace, believe
and follow, if he look to be saved."
The Bible, thus for the first time in English history
to be openly placed in the churches for any man to
read who could, was practically a revision of Matthew's
Bible carried out by Coverdale himself. About the
same time that Coverdale's own Bible of 1535 was
going through the press there was being prepared
a new Latin version of the Old Testament, giving
also the Hebrew text and a commentary chiefly from
Hebrew sources, the work of Sebastian Münster of
Basle. It was, of course, not available at the time
Coverdale ,vas at work and he had to content himself
with the Zurich version, but when he came afterwards
to compare the two he felt at once that Münster's
versioIl was greatly superior as a text to work from.
It was therefore adopted and the Great Bible is really
the text of lVlatthew taken as a basis and revised by
the help of Münster. This refers to the Old Testa-
ment only, but a revision of the New Testament

64 HISTORY OF THE ENGLISH BIBLE [CH.

was carried out also on similar principles and what
Münster's version, as a text, was for the Old Testa-
ment that of Erasll1us was for the New. But next to
Erasmus the Complutensian edition was most largely
made use of in what changes were made in the
. .
reVISIon.
The Great Bible thus constituted was arranged
in the first instance to be printed in Paris, that city
taking precedence at that time in the matters of
paper, types and workmanship. Throllgh Cromwell's
influence a licence was obtained from Francis I, the
King of France, by which Coverdale and Grafton
were authorised to print and transmit to England the
Latin or the English Bible, it being a condition that
no private or unla,vful opinions should be introduced,
and that all dues and obligations should be properly
discharged. So the execution of the work was en-
trusted to Francis Regnault, a Paris printer of high
rep
tation, and commenced on a splendid scale;
Coverdale and Grafton going over to superintend.
By September Cromwell was informed by Coverdale
that in about four months he hoped the printing
would be complete. Still they were not without mis-
givings as to possible interference and in December
their fears were verified, for in that montll an Order
came from the Inquisitor General for France, for-
bidding further progress and ordering the removal of
the sheets. Fortunately some of the sheets had been

IV]

THE GREAT BIBLE

65

sent on to England and so ,yere safe. And even those
that were seized by the authorities, "four great dry
vats-full," were afterwards re-purchased from a haber-
dasher, to whom they had been sold as wastepaper.
And the work was not really stopped but only delayed.
For Cromwell, a man of executive ability, at once
arranged that both types and presses and printers
should be broug11t over to England and the work
completed there. In this way the Great Bible wl1ich
Cromwell in the Injunctions of 1538 bad ordered
beforellalld to be placed in the churches by Easter,
was really issued in April 1539. TIle title-page
describes it as "The Byble in Englysh, that is to
say the content of all the holy scrypture both of y8
Olde and Newe testamente truly translated after the
veryte of the Hebrue and Greke textes by ye dylygent
studye of dyverse excellent, learned men expert in
the forsayde tonges. Prynted by Rycllard Grafton
and Edward Whitchurch. 1539." A fine copy printed
on vellum and illuminated, which was originally pre-
pared for Thomas Cromwell himsel
as the great
promoter of the enterprise, is preserved in tIle
Library of St John's College, Cambridge.
The Great Bible is sometimes called Cranmer's
Bible; this is a mistake, ho,vever, as he seems to have
had no connection with the enterprise till the appear-
ance of the second edition in April 1540. For this
he wrote a prologue wl1ich appeared in subsequent
B. 5

66 HISTORY OF THE ENGLISH BIBLE [CH.

editions. The first title has these words: "This is the
Bybleapoynted to the use of the Churches." Of this edi-
tion the British l\1:useum possesses a fine copy, printed
on vellum and illuminated, which ,vas presented to
Henry VIII by Anthony Marler, of London, haber-
dasher, who is said to llave borne the expense of
these editions. The tltird Great Bible came out in
July 1540, and tIle fou'rth in November of the same
year. In April 1541 Anthony Marler received per-
mission to sell copies of the Great Bible unbound for
ten shillings sterling, and bound, "being trimmed
with bullyons," for twelve shillings, equivalent, it has
been calculated, to about f6 and f7. 58. Ode of present
value. The following n10nth appeared the fiftlt Great
Bible; in November of the same year the sixtlt; and
in December the seventh and last of the 1539-41
series, being the sixth with Crann1er's prologue.
All these editions, though appointed to be read in
churches, unlike the Authorised Version of 1611 have
no dedication. The title-page takes a pictorial form
said to have been designed by Hans Holbein, in the
upper part of which the Lord Christ is represented in
the clouds of heaven; lower down the King appears
on his throne banding the Word of God to tIle bishops
and clergy on the right and to Cromwell and others
of the laity on his left. There was no mere courtly
flattery in thus representing the Bible as being now
accessible to the people. For copies were now

IV]

THE GREAT BIBLE

67

actually within reach in their cllurches. Even
Bishop Bonner, unhappily so pron1inent in the perse-
cution of Bible-reading men in the days of Mary,
actually "set up Six Bibles in certain convenient
places of St Paul's Church," after the proclamation
of May 1540; adding a pious admonition to the
readers to bring with them " discretion, honest
intent, charity, reverence and quiet behaviour." So
far as the facts have come down to us, it is clear the
people were not slow to take advantage of the oppor-
tunity thus afforded to them. Strype, the historian,
making use of a manuscript of Foxe tells us: "It
was wonderful to see with what joy the book of God
was received not only among the learneder sort and
those that were noted for lovers of the reformation,
but generally all England over among all the vulgar
and common people; and with what greediness God's
word was read and what resort to places where the
reading of it was. Everybody that could bought the
book or busily read it or got others to read it to
them if they could not themselves, and divers more
elderly people learned to read on purpose." Foxe
further relates how at the beginning of the reign of
Elizabeth he met a certain William Maldon who
could remember that "when the King had allo\ved
the Bible to be set forth to be read in all the churches
immediately several poor men in the town of ChellTIs-
ford in Essex, where his father lived and where he
5-2

68 HISTORY OF THE ENGLISH BIBLE l CH.

was born, bought the New Testanlent and on Sundays
sat reading of it in the lower end of the church: many
would flock about them to hear their reading; and
he among the rest, being then but fifteen years old,
came every Sunday to hear the glad tidings of the
Gospel. "
It is strange to find that this flood-tide of interest
in the Scripture should so soon have been followed
by a time of suspense and reaction as we find it was.
The explanation is to be found in the political changes
of the time. After a period of lnasterful power Thomas
Cromwell had fallen from the royal favour as Cardinal
Wolsey had fallen before him. He was assailed by
his opponents, an Act of Attainder passed against
him without a dissentient, and on the 28th of July
1540 he was beheaded on Tower Hill. Those who
had been ill opposition before, now came into power
and .favour in the Council with Gardiner at their
head. These were conservatives of the Old Roman
faith and hostile to the Reformation. They were,
therefore, not slo,v to take advantage of the change.
In 1543 an Act was passed prohibiting the use of
Tyndale's translation, and ordering that all notes and
marginal commentaries in other copies should be
obliterated. It further provided that no woman
(unless she be a noble or gentlewoman), and that no
artificer, journeyman, servant husbandman or labourer
under the degree of yeolnan should read or use any

IV]

THE GREAT BIBLE

69

part of the Bible under pain of fines and imprison-
ment. Further, in 1546 a proclamation was issued
by which Coverdale's version as well as Tyndale's
was expressly prohibited, the effect being that the
Great Bible was now the only translation not inter-
dicted On all sides the Bibles proscribed were
sought out and destroyed. Thus this tilDe of reaction
brought sorrow to many. But it was not to be for
long. It came to an end with the King's life, and the
year after his proclamation of prohibition, on the
28th of January 1547, Henry VIII passed out of this
,vorld, leaving otber actors to come on to the stage,
and other scenes to follow.

CHAPTER V

THREE RIVAL VERSIONS

, WITH the Accession of Edward VI in January
1547 a change for tbe better came over the fortunes
of the English Bible. The restrictions placed upon
the printing and reading of the Scriptures were at
once removed, and in the first year of the new reign
an Injunction was issued requiring every beneficed
person to provide within three months a copy of the
English Bible" of the largest volume "
; and within
twelve months a copy of the "Paraphrase on the
Gospels" by Erasmus, these to be set up in some
convenient place in the church where they might be
read by the parishioners. This English version of
tbe Latin paraphrase or commentary of Erasmus was
"Enprinted at London in Flete-strete at the signe of
the Sunne, by Edward 'Vhitchurche the last day of
Januarie 1548." Several translators were employed
in its preparation, Miles Coverdale, John Olde,
Nicbolas Udall and others; and curious to relate,
the Princess Mary, after\vards Queen Mary, herself

CR. V]

THREE RIVAL VERSIONS

71

translated the greater part of the paraphrase upon
St John's Gospel. As this work was required to be
placed in the churches within a twelvemonth, several
presses were engaged upon it, with the result that
Dr W. Aldis Wright found no fewer than six
varieties of the Paraphrase in existence. Among
the incidents of the time it is mentioned that in 1548
the churchwardens of St Margaret's, Westminster,
paid five shillings for the half-part of the work; and
in 1549 those of Wigtoft in Lincolnshire seven shillings
for the whole, and for a chain to fasten it, fourpence.
From tb.e same printing office in Fleet Street there
had been issued the previous year the earliest edition
of the Scriptures in Edward's reign, the only issue in
1547. It bore the title, "The Newe Testament in
Englyshe according to the translacion of the Great
Byble." It was followed by many more. Short as
Edward's reign was no fewer thall forty editions
either of the whole Bible or of the New Testanlent
issued from the press.
During this reign also there was produced a frag-
ment of a version of the New Testament containing
the Gospel of Matthew and the first chapter of Mark,
which may be mentioned in passing as one of the
curiosities of the time. It was the work of Sir Jobn
Cheke, Professor of Greek in the University of Cam-
bridge, who had been also tutor to the King when
Prince Edward l\lilton says he "taught Cambridge

72 HISTORY OF THE ENGLISH BIBLE [CR.

and King Edward Greek." The manuscript, which
has unfortunately lost a leaf, is preserved in the
Library of Corpus Christi College, Can1bridge. It is in
Cheke's beautiful handwriting, and though probably
made in 1550 was not published till it \vas edited
by the Rev. James Goodwin in 1843. Its special
characteristic seems to have been an attempt to
express the ideas of the original in home-born words
and the language of the common people rather than
in the semi-Latin then much in vogue. It may perhaps
be described as an anticipation in the 16th century
of what is known as the "Twentieth Century Bible"
of our own times. One or two extracts may sho\v the
kind of thing aimed at: "When Jesus was born in
Bethlehem, a city of Jewry in King Herod's days, 10,
then the wizards camefrom the East parts to Jerusalem,
and asked where the King of Jews was that was new
born"; "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 an1 mild and of a lo,vly heart. And ye
shall find quietness for yourselves" ; "And his dis-
ciples seeing him walking on the sea were troubled,
saying that it was a phantasm, and they cried out for
fear. Jesus bye and bye spake to them and said, Be
of good cheer. It is I, fear not. Peter answered
U11to him, Sir, saith he, If it be thou, bid me come on
the water unto tllee. And lie said, Come on. And
Peter came down out of the boat and walked on the

v]

THREE RIVAL VERSIONS

73

waters to come to Jesus. And seeing the wind strong,
was afeard, and when he began to sink he cri
d
out."
With the death of Edward VI, and the Accession
of Queen Mary, came change amounting to revolu-
tion. At once tIle public reading of the Scriptllre
was prohibited, a proclamation of June 1555 de-
nounced the writings of Tyndale, Frith, Cranmer and
Coverdale, and during these five years there was
neither Bible nor Testan1ent published in the realm.
But Mary's policy of repression led indirectly to
the production of that Geneva'J
version of tIle
Scriptures which Dr Westcott describes as the most
important revision the English Bible ullderwent be-
fore the final settlement of the Received Text. This
was the work of some of those Protestant exiles who
fled from the fires of persecution in their own land
to the friendly shelter of the Reformed Churches
abroad. They were scattered in various cities, in
Frankfort, Strasburg, Basle, Zurich and Geneva. It
is with those who settled in Gelleva ,ve are now
concerned. John Knox the Scottish reformer was
there; Miles Coverdale; Thomas Cole, once Dean of
Salisbury; ChristopIler Goodman, formerly Divinity
Professor at Oxford; John Pullain, a translator of
Ecclesiastes, Esther and other books of Scripture
into English verse; Anthony Gilby, Thomas Sampson
and vVilliam Whittingham. Sampson had been Dean

74 HISTORY OF THE ENGLISH BIBLE [CR.

of Chichester in Edward's tin1e and afterwards became
Dean of Christ Church in Elizabeth's reign, and
Whittingham was afterwards Dean of Durham.
William Whittingham ,vas the first among these
exiles to take action in the matter of Bible trans-
lation. Born at Chester in 1524, at 16 he entered
Brasenose College, graduating B.A. in 1540 and M.A.
in 1547-8, having been elected Fello,v of All Souls in
1545.' In 1550 he ,vent abroad for three years,
spending his time chiefly at the University of Orleans,
after,vards visiting the Universities of Germany and
Geneva in 1552 and returning to England in 1553.
Then came the time of exile when he went first to
Frankfort and afterwards to Geneva, where he suc-
ceeded Knox as minister of tIle English congregation
there. In 1557 he published, anonymously, a revised
translation of the English New Testan1ent. It is thus
described: "The Newe Testament of Our Lord Jesus
Christ. Conferred diligently with the Greke, and
best approved translations. With the arguments as
wel before the chapters, as for every Boke. At
Geneva: Printed by Conrad Badius. MDLVII." The
text of this version is based upon Tyndale's, compared
with the Great Bible, and influenced by Beza's Latill
translation. It formed the ground-work of the New
Testament printed in the complete Genevan Bible of
1560, but is distinct from it. It was the first Testa-
ment to be printed in Roman type and also the first

'

Thc\võinãn feduced.

1.(" IIJ. II Th<:n rlJt m3n (aid," This now is bont
of mv bonc$, and tlelh of my fidh. Shc
...., )/......, lhalbé called woman,becauCc'lbc was (01-
f,r
r. ". .1- ktn our of man.
';.';,/ :;:";;, 14 .. T htreforc {h
1 man Inuc phis fiuner
.M, .J. / f/>'b
,.iw.........
.)I.,.,.I,.$'.
, _JlTJoj.
J cw.'
JI.
r!',f;,}', I
, w.\ot _.
.

r . r;:W:;;cr
,!VtfW or
,
te

c t .i..:
.u. ûi .other..;
...f. .e ,,

...-.It .0 /Lt.,
'WCfO _r fa.
, '''I.
i
I

Cenefis.

2;
and his mothct,
nd thaI cleautto hiuvife
o1od they fijalbe one fitCh. J
zs
nd tbc)' wert bothe nake.t, the nun &
11,$ wlf"Jand werf not fj afho1mfd.

THR
tTVACIO"ll OF THE GAI\t>EN OF J!DIiN.

I 2.
'
=

.n ct.,",. wt.
..I",.. n .....
elm.tI,. I

'Jtt""P_IltÌ01f il7IUUÚ 'If thr I"," "lJ,'pr øflhil PmI/Ú tbttptc,. -f rhi riUlf' 1114' "PIQ""J. II:, r,.nl,n.
""m",...,,,bJttE"Fhr.r
IVAd)]'lrilC'.lId.,, Ebrtw
"'Pra,h"nd J{,Mt4!I",,/ttr, 'itU.i [.", - ri,," t
'JIIb".,."c"yio,...titf[,.r'-.,[1 Iht'Jhlôdf...".,
t.s
tI"hllf u,r.,..,,1-m fpf'Î"J/, & I.... v1ITu/,,:.,jil '11/.
flu 'P
fic" file 1" rb,It,flJltr'j...:1 "..
tlr flnlifaJ lA1Id .Ai,/m 4tr'ù.ø4 ,b.. ,.., c.f/,fd 'Pc'Ad.j',';"d oJ r 11'1'.71 1. I
is"LM/ÚII,/pú.r""t.6,t.t./#.j,
frfl"f..l"u....d.
,."J.cllCllhtrl.f. ..A"Il "",.rt"s:'u [.',J r.íc' i d ,_., It s.-

"m,4ahlln 141Al.f }{...il.íh,a it
ø/'J7?t:m.1IOhitb ir. ('1OVplC''I,.uÌ1 I IIJ!ètl6ytli..m till, ;:;:'h
;
<

"",'lMJc.Ud by fllfd" -'A {",." II...'l>'r,lirr.,i",rlur plllul7'.jí'rjI.t'IJ,& 1 1'>"" "'hc}i# or 7'i. o"r. ..,,,,,,, ro
p.... lA.!""fr f..phY41CI '.7NNdlJu_ry./C tip. Of' t'lhIør'c,,,,..A '"bi. "'",C"a,. gihM. S.,b4t . (tv, c;,,
..
r'l"iJ A1IIl e..,hrc'''(7fII,icl'"1'IIr,''''',,,,, ri..".,.."., J-
.""If ,,
. '/ ,

if.''''. "l.rtlHI'.7'". tllilJ f
b
':
:;

.
"'[',r.... __ )n',rr .....r:/11I1 I. tb,,", pl41fJ u/ie/ ", rJ".lcf''''
r..c.
I,J' ,b.u lb.] ""lht Ji- I. h".., ,,,,..I.. f.,.
."'{OIfT,di/UNr;..."t. ,

,
"::
. . C HAP, III. -4 T.hrn..tllefcrpC'nd:!ldtorhcwomJn'Y9::'(.:':;'
":;
., TIH"PN_ifltl..uJ by ,IJlf..-pil. , Elltifir/'htr bfto/- . {ha} not d dye at all, 1",,,",,,,1> INe

.iJt.ß_, J,. Tbl]thr""'j",,;p..4. 11 Cimft S But God <lotch k
, thar wnt'n yr {ljal of"". n,,,ide
. .... ",.r
JJ oM . d .#' oM' ,II III h f. 1 1- d
.'" Ih..."r.
lJ'i'Zl. J.JJ "c-'
" J 111111 1I,..,zJ iUfIlÇ.J"
at r creo ,yourtycs rn:opcnc '&.i).C,r....1h
IQ. 1>.

.. i ofpJJrillÚfe. {halbe as g ods e kno"'Jt1 g pood and fuil. lob." bun
· A.S...... 0 h r. Ii ' '
p êt<'.(._; JI
tOOl! bUD 1 N W.t e JerptDt was more. ubtil IS So the womJn (fcing that the trt W:I! ,... '
;':'
t\
;.o I.i:. th
n anie beaR of the lield,wbicb t ! good for meat,and tl1;t it
vas plcarJn
ro.. ('
':;;;
-:.:

f,. 4.4 t. 0"- Lord God had made'and he .. (aid to the I thcr y es &,1
rtto beddìrcd ro r er k n ow- "'''0. pl..f..
alc tbe WI.- do. .. ) - . "..I,. ",,'o.:t.
- ot .h, ",, woman. Y c:1)hathe God in dede raid, Y e ledge) toke of (he frure ,hffeo ,;mJ did """,.J", am-

'::. 4,.... fua} not tar of currie tre of the g arJen' If e3t,an,J gallt' :1)fo to her houfband with
;

6:',!o'"

'd(;;o
.
u"

And the woman faid vmo the Cerpét, '1\' e lier,:md he f did eat.
o
(
, bZ:
..h ,be (n. cat of the hutc
f tbrtrecs of the {;nden, 7 Then theeyC's of them botl:c weft' ope- ...1..... "...
::.'::,h
:
a: I But of the (rutcofrhurc,which i. in the ned,& they c kncwe
h3tth
}' wC'fenaked. :
1.:

:
;".i:;
.:"" mll.ides of the garden, God hatht fJíd,
e ! anJ they fewed (jgt.
e Ieauu togcther.and

'
;.f.JN
'" CJ....; Ib.
fual not car of it,nether ilia! yt: rouche It, m:uJe them (ducs brcedu:s, """...& .. ...1
:":
;'t
=1- < ldl )'ed)'C', I "'Afterw
d
tbe)' heard
he
oycc of;::;:;
'"
a.lI.

THE GENEVA BIBLE: 1560

Called the Breeches Bible from the translation of verse 7 on this page
From the University Library, Cambridge

v]

THREE RIVAL VERSIONS

75

English version to adopt the division into verses
made by Robert Estienne, the French printer, in his
Greek Testament published at Geneva in 1551. With
its elaborate apparatus it forms the first critical
edition of the New Testament in English. The title-
page of this work contains a Cllrious WOOdCllt repre-
senting Time raising Truth out of ller grave, with
this motto appended-"God by Tyme restoreth Truth,
and maketh her victorious." There is an address to
the reader giving some account of the work, and
stating that the text has been "di1igently revised by
the most approved Greek examples and conference
of translations in other tongues"; and for the profit
of the reader the text has been "divided into verses
and sections, according to the best editions in other
languages. "
It was not till three years later that this Genevan
Testament of Whittingham's was followed by the
complete Genevan Bible of 1560. The latter, unlike
the forlner, was the joint production of several
scholarly men, acting together for the attainment
of one common end. In their preface they speak of
the eminently favourable conditions under which they
were able to work. And when we recall the circum-
stallces of the time we can feel the force of what
they say. As translators they were fortunate in the
place ,vhere their work was done. For Geneva under
the influence of Calvin had become the centre to

76 HISTORY OF THE ENGLISH BIBLE [CB.

which were gathered sonle of the most eminent
Biblical scholars of the tinle. And apart from their
fellow-countrymen, exiles like themselves, there was
at that time in Geneva a group of scholars who
were engaged in the 'fork of correcting the French
version of Olivetan; they therefore found themselves
in the company of men who though "
orking in another
language were engaged in a task similar to their
o,vn. Then again they had the advantage of some
new Latin versions not accessible to previous trans-
lators. Leo Juda had laboured for many years at
a new Latin version of the Old Testament, which
though left unfinished at his death was completed
by others; and the Latin New Testament of Erasmus
having been revised by R. Gualther, the whole Bible
thus finished, was printed in 1544. These Latin
versions and especially Beza's New Testament fur-
nished important belp to the English scholars in
what they regarded as their sacred task, and they
of course inherited also the result of the labours of
the English translators at home who had preceded
them. In preparing the historical books they kept
in tIle main to the old renderings, merely altering
awkward or antiquated phrases here and there.
In tIle other parts of the ,york the changes were
more numerous. Taking a passa.ge from the 19th
chapter of Job Dr Westcott points out that there
is considerable originality in the version they gave.

v]

THREE RIVAL VERSIONS

77

Throughout the verses mentiolled-" I am sure that
my Redeemer liveth," &c.-he finds the French render-
ing widely different; of the ten changes introduced
into the text of the Great Bible three of consider-
able importance are apparently original (7, 8, 10);
and of the remainder one perhaps comes from Leo
Juda (2), three from Pagninus (1, 5, 6), and two
from Münster (4, 9). The Prophetical Books are
revised after the manner adopted in the Historical
Books, but with more numerous changes; the in-
fluence of the French translation being most marked
in the Apocryphal Books. In all parts they appear
to have taken the Great Bible as their basis, cor-
recting its text without substituting for it a new
translation. Dr Westcott concludes his examination
of the Genevan Old Testament by saying-" there is
abundant evidence to shew that they were perfectly
competent to deal independently with points of
Hebrew scholarship; and minute changes in expres-
sion shew that they were not indifferent to style."
This Genevan Bible, completed three years after
the publication of the Genevan Testament, went
forth to the world under the title: "The Bible and
Holy Scriptures Conteyned in the Olde and N ewe
Testament. Translated According to the Ebrue and
Greke, and conferred with the best translations in
divers langages. With Moste Profitable Anno-
tations . . . At Geneva. Printed by Rouland Ilall.

78 HISTORY OF THE ENGLISH BIBLE [CR.

M.D. LX. 4to." Below these words there is a wood-
cut representing the Israelites crossing the Red Sea,
and on the reverse of the title is a list of the books
of the Bible, including the Apocrypha. Then follows
a Dedication "to the moste vertuous and noble
Quene Elizabeth" from her "humble subjects of
the English Churche at Geneva"; and after this an
Address "to our Beloved in the Lord, the Brethren
of England, Scotland, Ireland etc.," dated "from
Geneva, 10 April, 1560." In this Address, after
pointing out that the former translations required
greatly to be reformed, the translators went on to
say, "N ot that we vindicate anything to ourselves
above the rest of our brethren (for G-od knoweth
with what fear and trembling we have been for the
space of two years and more, day and night, occu-
pied herein), but being earnestly desired, and by
divers, "Those learning and godliness we reverence,
exho
ted . . . we undertook this great and wonderful
work (,vith all reverence, as in the presence of God,
as entreating the Word of God, whereunto we think
ourselves insufficient), which now God, according to
his Divine providence and mercy hath directed to
a most prosperous end...God is our witness that we
have by all means endeavoured to set forth the
purity of the Word and right sense of the Holy
Ghost, for the edifyin
of the brethren in faith and
charity."

v]

THREE RIVAL VERSIONS

79

Contrary to what we should have expected the
Testament included in the complete Bible of 1560
differs from the Testamellt of 1557 in nearly forty
places. In thirty-three of these the rendering is
new, and in sixteen the alteration still maintains
its ground. Recognising these facts Dr W. F. Moulton
concluded that the Testament is a careful revision
of Tyndale, and that the Bible is again a careful
revision of the Testament; on the ,vhole, too, Beza's
influence tended greatly to the inlprovement of the
work, for by this mistakes were removed which had
disfigured all preceding versions. Very many of the
changes in the English-Genevan New Testament have
passed from that into our own Bible. Archbishop
Trench in his work on tIle Authorised Version
quoted five passages to show "the very good and
careful scholarship brought to bear upon the Genevan
revision," in which "it is the first to seize the exact
meaning. . . which all tIle preceding versions had
missed." These are all derived from Beza. One
other point should be noticed to which Professor
Plumptre called attentioll-the Genevan version (in
both fornls) "omits the name of 8t Paul from the
title to the Epistle to the Hebrews, and, in a short
preface, leaves the authorship an open question."
The explanatory notes in this version were prepared
by the Genevan translators, and with considerable
care. In the Epistle to the Romans, for exampie"

80 HISTORY OF THE ENGLISH BIBLE [CH.

there are about 220 of these, and many also else-
where, forming a kind of condensed cOlllmentary,
supplying historical and geographical information
and clearing up obscure texts, but nlore often
giving pithy observations on the narrative, as when
we are told that "Lot, thinking to get paradise
found a hel!." "r e can ,veIl believe what we have
been told that its phrases found echo in Scripture
quotation fron1 Shakespeare to Bunyan.
The expense connected lvith the production of
this version of 1560, which nlust have been con-
siderable, was deti'ayed by the English community in
Geneva, "\vhose hearts," as the translators then1selves
tell us, "God touched to encourage the revisers not
to spare any charges for the furtherance of such a
benefit and f
vour of God." Among the contributors
was J OIlll Bodley the father of the founder of the
great Bodleian Library. Possibly for prolninent
service in this way rendered he received from Queen
Elizabeth a patent dated January 8, 1561, securing to
llim for seven years the exclusive right to print in
England the version which first came out in Geneva.
The second edition of this version, the first in folio,
published in 1562, appears to have been sent forth by
him though no printer's name is attached to the
work.
As already stated the complete Genevan Bible,
unlike the Genevan Testan1ent of William Whittil1g-

v]

THREE RIVAL VERSIONS

81

ham by which it ,vas preceded, was the joint pro-
duction of several ,yorkers. Lelong says that the
chief of those employed upon it were Coverdale,
Whittingham and Gilby, but he mentions also Good-
mall, Sampson, Cole, "and certain others" as sharing
in it. The completion of the work, however, seems
to have fallen finally into the hands of Whittillgham,
Gilby and Sampson alOlle. Anthony à Wood gives
the same six names as those mentioned by Lelong,
but goes on to say that" before the greater part ,vas
finished, Queen l\iary died. So that the Protestant
religion appearing again in England, the exiled
divines left Frankfort and Geneva, and returned into
England. Howbeit, Whittingham with one or two
more, being resolved to go through ,vith the work,
did tarry at Geneva a year and a half after Queen
Elizabeth came to the Orown."
The work thus produced by Englishmen in exile
found truest ,velcome among Ellglishmen at home.
For nearly a hundred years the Genevan Bible ,vas
the favourite version of the common people. Several
reasons would account for this. For Otle thing, being
in quarto shape, it was more easy to handle than the
big folios ,vhich went before it. It was also easier to
read, the type beiug ill Roman and Italic, not Gothic;
and easier for reference, retaining as it did the
divisions into chapters aIld verses made by Estienne
for the New Testament and by others for the Old
B. 6

82 HISTORY OF THE ENGLISH BIBLE [CH.

Testan1ent. It retained also the marginal notes of
1557; indicated by accentual n1arks the pronunciation
of proper names; and in addition had ,voodcuts and
convenient maps and tables. But most of all, next
to the Bible itsel
its notes and comments made it
a welcome book to tIle devout men and women of
Puritan days. Bet\veen its publication in 1560 and
the appearance of the Authorised Version of 1611 it
went through sixty editions; and even after the
Åuthorised Version had appeared, ten ll10re editions
,vere added to the sixty which went before. Right
on to the days of the Civil War it continued to be
the Bible of the Puritan 11ousehold
In 1576 a revised edition of the book was brought
out by Laurence Tomson, private secretary to Sir
Francis Walsingham, which while leaving the Old
Testalnent unchanged, made alterations in the Ne\v.
He entitled it "The New Testament, translated from
the .Greek by Theodore Beza." It was dedicated to
F. Walsingham and F. Hastings and became so popular
that it was frequently substituted for the Genevan
Testanlent in the Genevan Bible. The text is not much
altered but the conl111entary in the margin received
enlargement. One of the peculiarities of this version
is that Tomson closely followed Beza, putting "that;"
or "this" for the ille by which Beza had rendered
the en1phatic force of the Greek article, as for exalnple
in John i. 1 "In the beginning \vas that Word." The

v]

THREE RIVAL VERSIONS

83

grotesque effect of this is seen in Tomsoll's rendering
of 1 John v. 12 "He that hath that Son bath that
life: and he that hath not that Son of God hath not
that life." With his commentary he seems to have
been hinlself well pleased, for he says of it, "I dare
avouch it, and whoso readeth it shall so find it, that
there is not one hard sentence nor dark speech nor
doubtful word, but is so opened and hath such light
given to it, that children may go througl1 with it, and
the simplest that are may walk ,vithout any guide,
without wandering and going astray."
In 1576, the same year tllis revision by Tomson
appeared, there appeared also the first English Bible
printed in Scotland. It is the Genevan version, the
title expressed in the same words, with the difference
that it is stated to be "Printed In Edinbrugh Be
Alexander Arbuthnet, Printer to the Kingis Maiestie,
dwelling at ye Kirk of feild. 1579." The title of the
New Testament portion is in this form: "At Edinburgh,
Printed by Thomas Bassandyne M.D.LXXVI FoI." It is
an exact reprint of the first folio edition of 1561-2.
Bassandyne's name does not appear on the title of
the Old Testament, which was the last to be printed,
being completed by his colleague Alexander Arbuthnet
in 1579, Bassandyne dying in the interval. By order
of the General Assembly every parish in Scotland
subscribed a fixed amOllnt before the work was
undertaken, the price being .f4. 138. 4d. Scots
6--2

84 HISTORY OF THE ENGLISH BIBLE [CR.

currency. So firm was the hold this book gained in
the country that as late as the close of the 18th
century a Genevan Bible was still in use in the
church of Crail in Fifeshire.
Though in the earlier years of Elizabeth's reign
four editions of Tyndale's Testament are assigned to
the years 1561, 1566, 1570, it does not appear that
the Bibles of Coverdale, Taverner or Matthew were
ever reprinted after 1553. The only two versions,
therefore, which were Pllblicly prominent were the
Great Bible and the Genevan version. And as be-
tween these two, the superiority of the text and
translation of the latter and its increasing popularity
made it very unlikely that it would ever be superseded
by the forn1er. Yet the Genevan Bible could never
with the Bishops' consent become the only Bible of
the nation. Not because it was Calvinistic in doctrine
in its notes and commentary, for the bishops them-
selves were Calvinistic in those days, but because in
its general trend it was hostile to the episcopal church
system. Not only did it again and again translate
the word "ecclesia" not by "church," but by "con-
gregation "; bIlt in its exposition of the meaning of
"locusts" in Revelation ix. 3, for example, we come
upon such a passage as this: "Locusts are false
teachers, heretics, and "rorldly subtle prelates, with
monks, friars, cardinals, patriarchs, archbishops,
bishops, doctors, bachelors and masters, which for-

v]

THREE RIVAL VERSIONS

85

sake Christ to maintain false doctrine." Clearly this
kind of teacl}ing must not be permitted to go forth
tacked on to the Bible and unchallenged. Archbishop
Parker, therefore, who had been consecrated in 1559,
took the matter in hand somewhere about 1563-4.
Strype tells us that he "took upon him the labour to
contrive and set the whole work agoing in a proper
method by sorting out tIle wllole Bible into parcels...
and distributing those parcels to able bishops and
learned men, to peruse and collate each the book or
books allotted them: sending withal his instructions
for the method tlley should observe." In a letter pre-
served under date 1566 among the State Papers, though
probably belonging to an earlier year, Parker ,vrites to
Sir William Cecil, telling him how he has "distributed
the Bible in parts to divers men," and even going
so far in courtliness to that great statesman as to
express the hope that he will undertake the revision
of some" one epistle of St Paul, or Peter or James."
Another letter from Parker to Cecil gives the
facts concerning the separate distribution of the
work. He himself, in addition to prefaces and other
introductory matter, undertook to translate Genesis
and Exodus in the Old Testament, and Matthew and
Mark, then from 2 Corinthians to Hebrews inclusive,
in the New Testament. Richard Davies, the Bishop
of St David's, a man who had laboured zealously for
the spiritual good of his native country of Wales, took

86 HIS1'ORY OF THE ENGLISH BIBLE [CH.

the translation fromJ oshua to 2 Kings, that is, 2 San1uel,
,vhile Sandys, Bishop of Worcester, continued the
work on to the end of Chronicles. William Alley,
who had succeeded Coverdale as Bishop of Exeter,
translated DeuterononlY. Miles Coverdale, though still
living after his resignation of his See, took no part
in the ,vork, he being now an old man over eighty.
Parkhurst, Bisllop of Norwich, along with Barlow,
Bishop of Chichester, made himself responsible for
the Apocryphal books; Andrew Perne, Master of
Peterhouse and Dean of Ely, translated Ecclesiastes
and Canticles. The Bishop of Winchester was the
translator from Isaiah to Lamentations, and the
Bishop of Lichfield and Coventry of the rest of the
Greater Prophets, while Grindal, Bishop of London,
took the Minor Prophets. CODling again to the New
Testament, the Bishop of Peterborough translated
the Gospels according to Luke and John, the Bishop
of Ely the Acts and the Romans, the Dean of West-
nlinster the 1st Epistle to the Corinthians, and tIle
Bishop of Lincoln the General Epistles to the book
of Revelation. Altogether there were eight of the
bishops concerned in the undertaking, a fact \vhich
gave the name to the book of "The Bishops' Bible."
It was published in folio in 1568, the colophon in-
timating that it was "Imprinted at London in povvles
Churchyarde by Richard J ugge." A splended copy
was presented to the Queen, the accompanying letter

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THE BISHOPS' BIBLE: 1568
From Mr W. Aldis Wright's copy

v]

THREE RIVAL VERSIONS

87

bearing date October 5, 1568. The BibJe itself has
no dedication, but in the centre of the title is a
portrait of the Queen; and at the beginning of
Joshua and the Psalter portra.its of the Earl of
Leicester and Cecil are introduc
d. It was furnished
also ,vith a table of the books of the Old Testament
with tables of lessons and p
111ns, all almanac and
calendar, two prologues, a chronological table and
table of contents; woodcuts, maps and other tables
,vere also introduced.
When the book was ready for publication, the
Archbisllop through Oecil endeavoured to obtain the
Queen's recognition on its behal
with what result
does not appear. Eventually Convocation in the
"Constitutions and Canons Ecclesiastical," of April
1571, ordered that every archbishop and bishop should
have at his house a copy of the Holy Bible of the
largest volume, as lately printed at London; and that
it shou]d be placed in tIle hall or large dining-room,
that it might be useful to their servants or strangers.
Each cathedral also should have a copy, and "as far
as it could be conveniently done," all the churches.
Later on, ill the Articles issued by Archbishop Whit-
gift ill 1583, the loth ordered "that one kind of
translation of the Bible be only used in public service,
as well in churches as chapels, and that to be the
same \vhich is now autllorized by the consent of the
bishops." The adoption of the Bible thus authorized,

8H HISTORY OF THE ENGLISH BIBLE [CH.

if 110t by the Crown, by Canons Ecclesiastical, and
by the Archbishop, does not seem to have been
readily or universally made. One reason may have
been its costliness. The price at ,vhich the first
edition was sold in 1571 was 278. 8d. or about Æ16 in
present value. Still a second edition, in a small
quarto volume, was issued in 1569, a third of the
Bible, and an edition of the New Testament only,
followed in 1570, 1571. III all about forty editions
of this version appear to have been published, Olle
half of these containing the ,vhole Bible. It seems
certain that while the Genevan held its own the
Great Bible was entirely displaced by the Bishops';
no edition of it appearing to be printed after 1569.
It is ho"\vever not to be forgottell that the Book of
Psalms in the new revisioll had to yield ill the elld
to that in the Great Bible. The edition of 1572 prints
both in parallel columns-one properly belonging
to the. version, the other taken from the Great Bible.
That there were defects in this version we might
expect from the way in which it was brought about.
The work was, as we have seen, given out in parcels
to different mell; each man acted independently, and
there was no common meeting for the purpose of
discussing the various renderings. The final revision
was left in the hands of Parker himsel
who, as
Archbishop, was a very busy man, and not con-
spicuously eminent as a scholar; and one at least of

v]

THREE RIVAL VERSIONS

89

the others did not give very much time to his task.
It is said that the revision of the books of Kings and
Chronicles was despatched in about sevell weeks by
Bishop Sandys. As to the comparative value of the
version as a whole we are fortllnate in possessing
the deliberate judgment of two eminent members of
the Revision Company who brought out the Revised
Version of 1881-Bishop 'Vestcott and Dr W. F.
Moulton. They are agreed in the opinion that the
Greek scholarship of the revisers of the Bishops'
Bible is superior to their Hebrew scholarship.
Dr Westcott says that in the Historical Books of the
Old Testament tlley followed the text of the Great
Bible very closely. They were lacking in independ-
ence : "The influence of the Genevan revision is
perceptible throughollt, but it is more obvious in the
Prophets than elsewhere." He concludes by saying,
"There is but little to recommend the original render-
ings of the Bishops' Bible in the Old Testament. As
a general rule they appear to be arbitrary and at
variance with the exact sense of the Hebrew text."
In like manner Dr Moulton, after exan1ining the
passage in 2 Samuel xxiii. 1-7, where in seven
verses the Great Bible and the Bishops' differ about
18 times, finds that 15 of the new renderings in the
latter are taken from the Genevan version. Of the
18 changes 13 may be called improvements; with
one exception they are derived from the Genevan

90 HISTORY OF THE ENGLISH BIBLE [CH.

Bible, from which also come t,vo changes which are
clearly for the worse. About 12 better renderings
found in the Genevan Bible are at the same time
here neglected. After examining one or two other
passages Dr MOlllton gives judglnent by saying: "The
conclusion from this investigation is not very favour-
able to the Bishops' Bible. III the Old Testament
Cranmer's Bible was too closely followed and im-
provements which were ready to the hand of the
translators were not appreciated. What is original
in this version does not often possess any great
merit."
So far as the New Testament is concerned, the
second edition ,vas carefully revised. Dr Westcott
takes the passage in Ephesians iv. 7-16 as an illus-
tration of ho,v much merit is due to this part of the
work. Having sho,vn that in this passage the Great
Bible and the Bishops' differ in 26 places, he adds:
" Of these 26 variations no less than 16 are new, while
only 10 are due to the Genevan version, and the cha-
racter of the original corrections marks a very close
and thoughtful revision, based faithfully upon the
Greek." He further sho,vs that throughout the entire
epistle tIle changes amount to nearly 50, alld among
the new readings are SOlne pllrases which have be-
come very familiar to us, as " less tha/J
the least
of all saints'1; "middle wall of partition"; "fellofw-
citize1
S with the saiuts."

v]

THREE RIVAL VERSIONS

91

It may be mentioned that copies of the chief
editions of the Bishops' Bible are preserved in the
British Museunl, in the Universities of Oxford and
Cambridge, in the Rylands' Library, and in that of
the British and Foreign Bible Society.
And now at this point a notable fact occurred
As the Genevan version of 1560 was followed in the
way of correction by the Bishops' Bible of 1568, so
this again was follo,ved with the same purpose by the
Ronlan Catholic version of the New Testament in
English, known as the Rhei'lns-Douai Bible of 1582.
It was printed abroad and appeared in England
bearing the follo,ving elaborate title: " The New
Testament of Jesus Christ, Translated Faithfully into
English, out of the authentical Latin, according to
the best corrected copies of the same, diligently con-
ferred with the Greeke and other editions in divers
languages: With ...'-\.rguments of bookes and chapters,
Annotations and other necessarie helps, for the better
understanding of the text, and specially for the dis-
coverie of the Corruptions of divers late translations,
and for cleering the Controversies in religion in these
daies; in the English College of Rhemes. Ps. lIB,
, Give me 11nderstanding, alld I will search Thy law.

Those things specially ll1USt be con1mended to melnorie
which make most against Heretikes: whose deceites
cease not to cirCUlnvent and beguile al the weaker
sort and the more negligent persons. Printed at

92 HISTORY OF THE ENGLISH BIBLE [CR.

Rhemes, by John Fogny. 1582. Cum privilegio."
This version was the work of Roman Catholics who
had fled from persecution in Elizabeth's time and
were connected with the Seminary at Douai and the
English College at Rheims. The translation was
made from the Latin Vulgate by three men-Gregory
Martin, William (afterwards Cardinal) Allen and
Richard Bristow. The first-named was the one most
actively concerned in the work. He had been a
scholar of St John's, Oxford; in 1570, the year of
Elizabeth's excommunication, he went over to Douai
and then became divinity reader at Rheims. Wood
speaks of him as "an excellent linguist, exactly read
and versed in the Sacred Scriptures and went beyond
all of his time in humane literature." He was also the
writer of an appendix to the Testament entitled" Å
Discovery of the Manifold Corruptions of the Holy
Scriptures by the Heretics of our Days," in which he
endeav()ured to overturn all Protestant versions and
so clear the ground for the new version now being
sent forth. He was answered by Dr Fulke, Master
of Pembroke Hall, Cambridge, who published a
"Defence of the sincere and true translation of the
Holy Scriptures into the English tongue, against the
manifold cavils of Gregory Martin." In the preface in
which the translators of the Rheims version state their
object they frankly say that it is not their idea that
the Scriptures should al\vays be printed in the mother

v]

THREE RIVAL VERSIONS

93

tongue and be freely read by all. That was not the
belief of their Church, as was testified by the Consti-
tutions of Arundel alld by that decree of the Council
of Trent which said that the Scriptures "may not be
indifferently read of all men, nor of any other than of
such as have express licence thereunto of their law-
ful ordinaries." Their forefathers did not suffer every
sciolist to. translate, or every husbandman, artificer,
prelltice, maid aIld man to read the Bible, making it
the subject of table-talk for" ale-benches, boats and
barges." They repudiate the idea that it is from
envy that the priests keep the holy book from the
people. The reason is that the Church would have
"the unworthy repelled, the curious repressed, the
simple measured, the learned humbled, and all sorts
so to use them, or to abstain from them, as is most
convenient for everyone's salvation." Their sole
purpose now in sending forth the Bible in the verna-
cular is "for the more speedy abolishing of a number
of false and impious translations put forth by sundry
sectes, and for the better preservation or reclaime of
many good soules endangered thereby."
In choosing the text of Scripture from which to
translate they also frankly admit that they have not
selected the original Greek, but the Latin Vulgate
translation of the Greek. They have done so because
the latter was in use in the Church 1300 years ago;
it is that which 8t Jerome corrected according to the

94 HISTORY OF THE ENGLISH BIBLE [CR.

Greek by appointlnent of Damasus the Pope; it was
cOll1mended by Augustine; has been used in the
Church's service; has been declared of the Council
of Trent of all Latin translations to be only authen-
tical; and it is the gravest, sincerest, of greatest
majesty, least partiality, as being lvithout all respect
of controversies and contentions, especially those of
our time. After giving other reasons they conclude
with one which should have rendered all others un-
necessary ,vhen they say that the Vulgate "is not
only better than all other Latin translations but than
the Greek text itself in those places where they
disagree." For the first heretics were Greeks and
the Greek Scriptures suffered Inuch at their hands.
The Hebrew text was said to have been foully
corrupted by the Jews, and the Greek by heretics.
This apology in effect admits that the Rheims version
has no independent authority as a text. Still it is
to be remembered on the other side that Jerome's
Latin translation ,vas derived from Greek MSS. more
ancient than any ,ve now possess, and is sometimes,
therefore, of great value as giving us in disputed
passages the text current in the earliest times, and its
testilTIOny is in some cases confirmed by MSS. dis-
covered in more recent times. This n1erit is however
minimized by the fact that the common copies of the
Vulgate, of which the Douai Bible is one, have not
always preserved the pure Latin text of Jerome, but

v]

THREE RI\r AL VERSIONS

95

have been deteriorated in the course of constant
copying from one generation to another. The need
of new examination was recognised evell as early as
the Council of Trent.
The Rhemish translators deserve credit for their
treatment of the Greek article.. As the Latin langtlage
has no definite article it lIlight be supposed that this
would be a weak point ,vith them. But it is not so.
Dr Moulton discovered, in a conlparatively hasty
search, more thaI1 forty instances in which, of all
versions from TYlldale to the Autlloriscd Version
included, the Rhen1ish alone is correct in regard to
the Article. Its translators had evidently made use
of the Greek text as well as that of the Vulgate.
They have also preserved significant phrases of the
original and impressive arrangenlent of words such
as "the liberty of the glory of the children of God
" ;
"holiness of trutI1"; "by their fruits ye shall know
them"; "ye are not COllie to a palpable mountain."
Then, too, the translatioll "our lanlps are going out"
is unquestionably correct; alld there are phrases in
the 1st chapter of the Epistle of James, such as "up-
braideth IlOt"; "nothing wavering"; "the engrafted
word"; and" bridleth IlOt," which are effective as
well as correct. It may be added to this that Dr
Westcott has given a list of Latin words from a single
Epistle which King James's translators have taken
from the Rhenlish Testament; separated (Rom. i 1),

96 HISTORY OF THE ENGLISH BIBLE [CH.

impenite1'tt(ii. 5), appro'vest(ii. 18),propitiation (iii. 25),
re1nissio1't (id.), glory in tribulations (v. 3), comme-ndeth
(v. 8), concupiscence (vii. 7), eæpectatio1
(viii. 19),
confession is 'lnade lInto salvation (x. 10), emulation
(xi. 14), cOI}
formed (xii. 2).
As we ll1ight expect, the trend of the translation
in some places is unduly in the direction of Romish
doctrine, as, for example, wIlen we read: "In those
dayes cometh John the Baptist preaching in the
desert of J ewrie, saying, Doe penance." Sinlilarly,
"If you have not pen alIce, you shall all likewise
perish," and "Not willing that any perish, but that
all return to penance J1; "Remember your prelates
which have spoken the word of God to you"; "By
good works make your calling and election sure."
But apart frOlTI this tendency there were renderings
which to Englishnlen IIlust have been as an unknown
tongue and could scarcely be called translations: for
example, instead of "He humbled himself," we read
"he exinanited himself" ; "The passions of this time
arenotcondignetotheglory to come"; "Our wrestling
is against Princes and Potestas, against the rectors of
the world of this darkness, against the spirituals of
wickedness in the celestials"; "Give us today our
supersubstantial bread." An English reader must
have been in sheer despair, when, as a translation of
Psalm lvii. 10, he read the following: "Before your
thorns did ullderstand the old briar: as living so in

v]

THREE RIVAL VERSIONS

97

wrath he swallowetb them." With a similar feeling
he must also have greeted such words as these:
odible, coinquination, correptioll, exprobrate, longa-
nimity,obsecration, and scenopegia. No wonder that
Thomas Fuller called this book "a translation needing
to be translated."
The Old Testament portion of this version was
not published till 1609 and 1610 though it seems to
have be ell ready at the same time as the New
Testament in 1582. The delay arose from lack of
means, or as they express it, from the "one general
cause our poore estate in banishment." It appeared
under tIle title: "The Holie Bible Faithfully Trans-
lated into English Out Of The Authentical Latin.
Diligently conferred with the Hebrew, Greeke, and
other editions in divers languages.. ..By the Englisb
College Of Doway...Printed at Doway by Laurence
Kellam, at the Signe of the holie Lambe. M.DC.IX
(-M.DC.X.) 2 vols. 4to." The complete work was
rcprillted in Rouen in 1635. In 1749-50, and again
in 1763-4, editions of the Douai Old Testament and
the Rheims New Testament were pu blished, each
edition in five volumes. This revised form is sub-
stantially the version used at the present day by
English-speaking Roman Catholics.

B.

7

CIIAPTER VI

THE AUTHORISED VERSION OF 1611

WHEN James I can1e to the English throne in
1603, after the appearance of the Bishops' Bible in
1568, there had been no further revision of the
Scriptures for more than a generation. The Great
Bible of 1539, partly because it was heavy and costly,
and partly also because it had been superseded by
the Bishops' Bible, had long ceased to be reprinted.
Old copies, no doubt, were still to be found here and
there in village churches, but there were no new
issues. And yet that Bible by which it had been
superseded bad not really taken firm and enduring
hold of the popular mind Dean Plumptre said, and
said truly, that "of all the English versions the
Bishops' Bible had probably the least success. It
did not command the respect of scholars, and its size
and cost were far from meeting the wants of the
people. Its circulation appears to have been prac-
tically limited to the churches which were ordered to

CR. VI] THE AUTHORISED VERSION OF 1611 99

be supplied with it." There were only six editions
in quarto and one in octavo; the other thirteen
were in folio. On the other hand, the Genevan
version retained its unrivalled popularity. Between
1568 and 1611 there were no fewer than sixteen
editions in octavo, fifty-two in quarto and eighteen
in folio. Thus there seemed to be little prospect of
unity in the matter of Bible usage. For the Genevan
version was too pronouncedly puritan in its notes
and comments to be acceptable to the authorities of
the Churcll; while the version favoured by the
bishops had too many drawbacks ever to win its way
among the people at large. So matters remained till
the beginning of the reign of King James I, when, as
one may say, in an alnlost accidental way, a new
version was projected and prepared-that of the
Authorised Version of 1611, which ultimately had
the happy effect of uniting the whole nation for more
than two centuries and a half in the use of the same
book as the household Bible of the English people.
J alnes I was proclaimed King on the 24th of
March 1603, and on the 7th of the following May he
entered London to take possession of the throne.
Between these t,vo dates, and while he was the guest
of the CromwelIs of Hinchinbrook, near Huntingdon,
he was approached by certain of the puritan clergy
WIlO presented him with what is known as the
MiUenary Petition. This was a petition for the
7-2

100 IIISTORY OF THE ENGLISH BIBLE [CH.

abolition of certain usages in the Church ,vhich they
regarded as superstitious and savouring of Rome;
also against "longsomeness of service, profanation of
the Lord's Day, and against excommunication by
such lay persons as the archdeacon's commissary, and
witl10ut the consent of pastors." They had "some
good conference with his Majesty and gave him a
book of reasons." Though no definite answer was
given to their plea at the time, it was not altogether
fruitless; for the following October the King ap-
pointed a meeting to be held in January, 1604, for
the hearing and determining "things pretended to
be amiss in the Church." This meeting has taken
its place in history as the Hampton Court Conference,
and it is said that on the second day of this Con-
ference, Dr Reynolds, the leader of the Puritans,
"moved his Majesty that there might be a new
translation of the Bible, because those which were
allowed in the reign of King Henry VIII and
Edward VI were corrupt and not answerable to the
truth of the original" Though this statement is
made in Dr Barlow's "Sum and Substance of the
Conference at Hampton Court," there is reason to
doubt whether it gives a quite accurate account of
what actually took place. The Puritans were some-
what roughly handled at that Conference, and were
there only to plead for concessions to their views
which they knew the bishops were unwilling to grant.

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TITLE PAGE OF THE AUTHORISED VERSION: 1611

From a copy in the Library of Emmanuel College, Cambridge

VI] THE AUTHORISED VERSION OF 1611 101

and that they should, under such circumstances, have
been the originators of the idea of a new Authorised
Version seems somewhat improbable. Moreover, it
is at variance with what the translators of that
version have themselves told us in that preface of
theirs prefixed to the version. What is there said is
as follows :-" The very historical truth is, the Con-
ference having been appointed for hearing the
complaints of the Puritans, alld when by force of
reason they were put from all other grounds, they
had recourse at the last to this shift, that they could
not with good conscience subscribe to the Communion
Book [the Book of Common Prayer] since it main-
tained the Bible as it was there translated, which
was, as they said, a most corrupted translation. And
although this was judged to be but a very poor and
empty shift, yet even hereupon did his Majesty begin
to bethink himself of the good that might ensue by a
new translation, and presently after gave order for
this translatioll which is now presented." This is a
n1uch more probable account, it is the account given
by the translators themselves, and from it we are
entitled to say that the idea of the Authorised
Version of King James was really started by King
James himself. It is clear the King was more in
earnest about the matter then than anyone else.
Some of the bishops, at any rate, looked coldly upon it.
Bancroft, Bishop of London, said at the time that "if

102 HISTORY OF THE ENGLISH BIBLE [CH.

every man's humour was to be followed, there would
be 110 end of translating." The King thought other-
wise, thought that pains ought to be taken to secure
one uniform translation, to be made by the best
learned in both the Universities, reviewed by the
bishops, then presented to the Privy Council and
finally ratified by llis royal authority: "and so this
whole Church to be bound unto it and none other."
Thus in this unexpected, and almost accidental way,
came about the first conception of that Authorised
Version whose Tercentenary we are now celebrating
in 1911.
In the practical carrying out of that conception,
again, the King was most actively concerned. Con-
vocation met shortly after the Conference, but not a
word appears to have been said there on the proposed
revision. The King, however, did not let the matter
fall into forgetfulness. He must have been already
making enquiries at the Universities as to what
learned men there were fit for the enterprise, for on the
22nd of July, 1604, he wrote to the Bishop of London
telling him that he had chosen fifty-four translators
to meet in various companies at \:Vestminster, Oxford
and Cambridge, under the presidency of the Hebrew
professors of the two Universities and the Dean of
Westminster. He further asked him to move the
bishops to inform themselves of all such learned men
within their several dioceses as had especial skill in

VI] THE AUTHORISED VERSION OF 1611 103

the Hebrew and Greek tongues, and to write to them
urging them to send any observations they had made
on previous translations to Mr Lively the Hebrew
reader in Cambridge, or to Dr Harding the Hebrew
reader in Oxford, or to Dr Andrewes, Dean of
Westminster, to be by them imparted to their
several companies.
It is somewhat surprising to find that the scheme
so promptly outlined hung fire for the next three years,
nothing further being done, so far as we know, till
1607. From that point, however, the work proceeded
with vigour. The fifty-four learned men mentioned
by the King, but afterwards, possibly by death, re-
duced to forty-seven, were divided into six companies,
four for the Old Testament and Apocrypha and two for
the New Testament. The company meeting at West-
minster under the presidency of the Dean, the saintly
Lancelot Andrewes, and consisting of ten persons,
were to undertake the revision of Genesis on to
2 Kings inclusive. The company meeting at Can1-
bridge, and consisting of eight persons, were to take
from 1 Chronicles to Ecclesiastes inclusive. The
company meeting at Oxford, consisting of seven
persons, were to make themselves responsible for the
Prophets from Isaiah to Malachi. A separate com-
pany, also meeting at Cambridge, were to undertake
the Apocrypha. Then, as to the New Testament, a
second company meeting at Oxford were charged

104 HISTORY OF THE ENGLISH BIBLE [CR.

with tIle revision of the Four Gospels, the Acts and
the Apocalypse, a second Westminster company
taking from Romans to Jude inclusive.
Rules for the guidance of these different com-
panies were elaborately drawn up beforehand They
were to take the Bishops' Bible as their basis, altering
it as little as the truth of the original would permit;
the names of prophets and writers and also other
names in the text were to be given as commonly
used, and the old ecclesiastical words to be kept, as,
for example, the word church was not to be trans-
lated c01
gregation. The translations by Tyndale,
Matthews, Coverdale, and those of the Great Bible
and the Genevan Version were to be used when
agreeing better with the text than the Bishops'
Bible. Each separate translator was first to go
over the part assigned to him by himself alone, then
aU were to meet together, confer as to what they
had d
ne, and agree as to what should stand.
Selden in his Table Talk tells us further as to their
method of procedure. They took, says he, an ex-
cellent ,vay: "That part of the Bible was given to
him who was most excellent in such a tongue, and
then they met together and one read the translation,
the rest holding in their hands Borne Bible, either of
the learned tongues, or French, Spanish, Italian, &c. :
if they found any fault, they spoke; if not, he read
oa"

VI] THE AUTHORISED VERSION OF 1611 105

When the several compallÎes had completed the
portions assigned to them, there wOllld still be a
necessity for general supervision. So far as we know
the six companies never lnet as one body, but when
three years had been spent in revision, the writer of
the life of John Bois tells us, arrangements were
rnade for a general supervision: "The whole work
being finished, and three copies of the whole Bible
sent from Cambridge, Oxford and W estmillster to
London, a new choice was to be made of six in all,
two out of every con1pany, to review the whole
work, and extract one copy out of all these to be
con1111itted to the press, for the dispatch of which
business Mr Downes and Mr Bois were sel1t for up to
London, where meeting their fellow-labourers, they
,vent daily to Stationers' Hall, and in three-quarters
of a year fulfilled their task, all which time they had
from the Company of Stationers thirty shillings each
per weelr duly paid them. Last of all Bilson, Bishop
of Winchester, and Dr Miles Smith, again reviewed
the whole work, and prefixed arguments to the several
books."
The three years of slow and patient scholarship
spent on the Authorised Version were not completed
without a certain touch of pathos. It has often been
told how the Venerable Bede con1pleted the trans-
lation of John's Gospel in the closing hours of life.
" It is completed now," said the boy scribe. " Thou

106 HISTORY OF THE ENGLISH BIBLE [CH.

hast said the truth," replied the dJing man, "all is
ellded. Take my head in thy hands. I would sit in
the holy place in which I was wont to pray." And
seated there, while he chanted the Gloria, his soul
passed away. A kindred story has come down to us
concerning Dr Reynolds, one of the translators of the
version of 1611, of whom Thomas Fuller says you
could never tell which was greater, his learning or
his goodness. He was one of the conlpany engaged
upon the Books of the Prophets, but in the course of
the work he was seized with consumption, and slowly
faded out of life. Yet as Featley tells us, "for his
great skill in the Originall Languages," the other
members of the company had recourse to him "once
a weeke and in his Lodgings perfected their Notes."
In a great part of the sickness of which he died the
meeting was held in his rooms at Corpus Christi, in
Oxford, "and he, lying on his Pallet, assisted them,
and in a manner, in the very translation of the booke
of life, was translated to a better life."
The striking document which all the revisers
adopted as their preface to the N ew Version was
dra,vn up by Dr Miles Snlith, after,vards Bishop of
Gloucester. As serious-n1inded men they felt, the)T
said, the importance of the work they had taken in
hand. There was need of translation, for translation
it is that openeth the window to let in the light;
that breaketh the shell that we may eat the kernel;

l
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ort)erlbasneC\b' a nbtSaltueè\lILtmc:
bellp UJttt) tl)(' J)Unter.; thL\t thc flUme annU1a.sloO',anblsfonun. , .
mn cLUe: anti no m
111 gc1ue \)nto hun.
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niJl\)hCl1l1recamc tp huufelfe,i C H l\. P. XV I. I
bct tllt1, t)OllJ m.tl1}' lJirtn {truants of
'mpfL1iI)cr5IJc1ue bzecli)}'l1ongl) anb to J ThepJr.1bl.:o(thc\'uìutHb::n,t 14 Clllil1,
(patrJaniJ 'j( penn) 1\l1tl} hunger 1 ,1 fcproout'th the lwpocnG... of th.: (oUt'rolal
I IS 3f 111tU at
fc antl.got to IIIV tt::, PI:.t 1I,'cs, 19 Thçrd1 r,JUltL1.I. .mdLuJ'
t!)cr) al1n llJ:Uf,1l' iJuto I):m, J\UI)Cf,jJ I Iuschcbcggcr. ' "V
I Tl:
'Ei)_

THE AUTHORISED VERSION: 1611
From a copy in the possession of the Cambridge University Press

VI] THE AUTHORISED VERSION OF 1611 107

that putteth aside the curtain that we may look into
the most holy places. By doing the ,vork they had
done they had no thought of disparaging those who
had been in the field before them. Rather they
acknowledged them as having been raised up of God
for the building and furnishing of His Church, and
deserve to be had of posterity in everlasting remem-
brance. If they, building upon their foundation and
being helped by their labourB, are only trying to
make that better which they left so good, no man
would have cause to mislike them; indeed their
predecessors, if they were alive, would thank them.
When they took up the work at first it was no thought
of theirs that they had to make a new translation,
nor yet to make a bad one a good one, but to make
a good one better, or, out of many good ones one
principal good one, not justly to be excepted against.
They felt they had to tread a difficult path, for it is
hard to please all even when we please God best

For he that meddleth with men's religion in any part
meddleth with their custom, nay, with their freehold.
Yet, though difficult, how in1portant the work! For
what is piety without truth
What truth, what
saving truth without the Word of God 1 What
Word of God whereof we may be sure without the
Scriptures
If we are ignorant they will instruct
us; if out of the way they ,viII bring us home; if in
heaviness they will comfort us; if dull quicken lIS;
if cold inflame us. The Bible is not only an armour

108 HISTORY OF THE ENGLISH BIBLE [CH.

but also a whole armoury of weapons both offensive
and defensive; it is not merely a tree but a whole
paradise of trees of life. It is a treasury of most
costly jewels, a fountain of most !)ure water springing
up unto everlasting life. With wise thoughts like
these, thus briefly summarised, the translators com-
mend their readers to God and to the Spirit of His
grace, which is able to build further than we can ask
or think.
In 1611 the book upon which they had laboured
so faithfully appeared from the press of Robert
Barker, Printer to the King's Most Excellent Majesty.
The title occupies the centre of an engraving, on the
right and left of which are the figures of Moses and
Aaron, with the Four Evangelists at the corners. At
the top in Hebrew characters is the sacred name of
God, with the Holy Dove beneath. The New Testa-
ment has a separate title within a woodcut border
representing along one side the badges of the t,velve
tribes of Israel, and along the other the twelve
Apostles; the emblems of the Four Evangelists being
at the corners. The book was issued in folio size,
alld being well printed in fine black Gothic letter
presented a handsome appearance. There seems to
be no authority for calling it the "Authorised Version,"
since, so far as is known, there was no Edict of Con-
vocation, or Act of Parliament, or decision of Privy
Council, or royal proclamation giving it authority.
The words "Appointed to be read in Churclles"

VI] THE AUTHORISED VERSION OF 1611 109

mean not authorised, but, as explained on a page
in the preliminary matter, how the Scriptures ,vere
arranged for public reading. In many editions these
words were omitted Possibly it was described as
"Authorised" as taking the place, and consequently
assuming the privileges, of the Bishops' Bible by which
it was preceded.
There seem to have been two impressions of the
first edition of 1611, probably due to the impossibility
of one printing office being able to supply in the
time allotted the 20,000 copies required. The pair
are distinct throughout every leaf and are the parents
of millions of our Bibles. They are distinguished by
calling the first the GREAT HEE BIBLE, and the other
the GREAT SHE BIBLE, from their respective readings
of Ruth iii. 15, the one reading "he measured six
measures of barley, and laid it on her: and HEE
went into the city." The other has "and SHE went
into tIle city." These two editions, both standard but
varying ill many places, seem to have been deposited
in two different printing houses as standard copy, for
the subsequent editions in quarto and octavo, run in
pairs, he and sIte, and as a rule the faults of each
follow those of its own office-copy. The" She" Bible
has a yet more distillctive mark in translating Matthew
xxvi. 36, "Then conleth Judas [instead of Jesus] unto
a place called Gethsemane." The" He" Bible is by
sonle regarded as the true first edition, and as giving
the true reading, and on this point is sustained by the

110 HISTORY OF THE ENGLISH BIBLE [CH.

Revised Version of 1881. On the other hand the
" She" Bible is in accord with almost every other
edition. In 1612 the original folio was followed by
a quarto edition in Roman type, and also by one in
octavo resen1bling in appearance the octavo copies
of the Genevan Version. In that year also appeared
the first quarto New Testament; it was not however
tbe first separate New Testament of King James's
Version, for a duodecimo editioIl had beel1 published
in 1611.
The two ancient Universities, which in so enter-
prising a manner produced the most recent Revised
Version of 1881, rendered important service also in
reprints of the Authorised Version by which it was
preceded. In 1629 there appeared the first complete
edition of King J ames's Version ever printed at Cam-
bridge. A separate New Testament in 32mo was,
however, printed there the previous year. The 1629
editi
n had undergone very careful revision, great
care also had been exercised in the matter of punctua-
tion and as to the words to be printed in italics. In
1638 appeared the first folio edition of the" Author-
ised Version" printed at Cambridge. This again
gave evidence of careful and extensive revision of the
text, italics, and marginal readings, and it remained
the standard text until the publication of the Cam-
bridge edition of 1762. In this edition, however, in
spite of all the care, appeared the reading in Acts vi. 3
"whom ye may appoint," instead of "whom we" &c.

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THE FIRST BIBLE PRINTED AT CAMBRIDGE: 1629

From the copy in the possession of the Cambridge University Press

VI] THE AUTHORISED VERSION OF 1611 III

As this reading gave po,ver of appointn1ent of officers
to the people rather than to the Apostles, the altera-
tion has often been ascribed to the Puritans, and was
reputed to have cost Cromwell a bribe of f1000.
Yet here it was in 1638 and before Long Parliament
days.
The "Standard Edition," as it has been called,
of 1762, prepared by Dr Thomas Paris of Trinity
College, Cambridge, was issued from the University
Press in four volumes, folio. In this, again, a further
serious attempt was made to correct the text, by
amending the spelling and punctuation, regulating
the use of italics and removing printers' errors.
Marginal notes, also, were received into the place
they have since occupied, and were much extended.
The greater part of this impression of 1762 was
destroyed by a fire at Dod's the bookseller. To pass
by intervening editions a high place for care and
laborious exactness must be assigned to the Cam-
bridge Paragraph Bible (in three parts, 1870-3),
edited by Dr Scrivener. This has ever since been
regarded, as for correctness, the standard text of
the Authorised Version. Within the last few years
(1903-1905), also, Dr Scrivener has published an
edition in five volumes, folio, of King James's Version,
"with the Text revised by a Collation of its early and
other principal editions." This work deserves special
mention for several reasons, and certainly not least
for this, that it is a superb piece of typography. It

112 HISTORY OF THE ENGLISH BIBLE [CH.

was edited for the Syndics of the University Press,
Cambridge, and was printed at the press founded by
Mr Cobden Sanderson at Hammersmith. The type
was designed by Mr Enlery Walker in imitation of
the bea11tiful fount of type used by Jenson, the
falnous Venetian printer in 1472. The book has
been well described as one of the most beautiful
Bibles ever printed.
:I\iention may also be made of the fact that, by
way of celebrating the Tercentenary of the Authorised
Version, Dr Aldis Wright, Vice-Master of Trinity
College, Cambridge, has issued an edition in five
volumes, giving an absolutely faithful reproduction
of the original text; the text reprinted being that of
thejirst of the two issues of 1611.
It was not till 1675 that the sister University of
Oxford entered upon the work of Bible publication.
In that year appeared in quarto the Holy Bible,
printed" At the Theater Oxford." A second edition
from the same press came out in 1679, and among
the booksellers' names on the title-page is that of
Thonlas Guy, "at the corner of Little Lunlbard
Street," who had grown rich by the trade in Bibles,
had increased his wealth by successful speculation
in South Sea Stock, and, before his death in 1724,
founded the great Hospital known by his name.
Three years later the Oxford Press sent forth its
first folio reprint of the Authorised Version; this
being followed by an Imperial folio copy printed at

VI] THE AUTHORISED VERSION OF 1611 113

the same press by John Baskett. The latter was a
magnificent edition printed in large type and illus-
trated by many plates engraved on steel. It came
however to be nicknamed the Vinegar Bible, because
the headline of Luke xxii. reads" the parable of the
Vinegar" instead' of the Vi1'
eyard. Of this most
sumptuous of all the Oxford Bib]es three copies at
least were prillted on vellum. Unfortunately its fine
appearance was discounted by so many misprints that
it acquired another nickname and came to be called
from its printer" a Baskett-full of printers' errors."
In 1769 there came out another folio copy known
as the Oxford "Standard Edition," edited and revised
by Dr Benjamin Blayney of Hertford College, who
follo,ved the lines of Dr Paris' Cambridge edition of
1762. This and the quarto edition, commonly called
Dr Blayney's editions, were adopted as standards by
the University Press, Oxford, in 1769, and are still
the Oxford Standard. In 1833, ,vhen Samuel
Collingwood and Co. were the University printers,
there was sent forth in quarto an edition with the
title: "The Holy Bible, an exact reprint, page for
page, of the Authorised Version published in the
year 1611." And now in this Tercentenary year
there has again been issued "a reproduction in
Roman type, page for page, of King James's Bible,
as published in 1611," with a bibliographical intro-
duction by Mr A. W. Pollard.
B. 8

114 HISTORY OF THE ENGLISH BIBLE [OH. VI

Turning back to the past for a moment we find
that ill 1633 there was printed in Scotland by Robert
YOllng, a Londoner, the first edition of l{ing James's
version which then began to supplant the Genevan
version in the north. In 1714 the earliest edition of
the same version was printed in Ireland; and in 1782,
a duodecimo edition of the earliest English Bible,
avowedly printed in America, came from the press of
R. Aitken in Philadelphia. Tllis was follo\ved in 1793
by one printed in Worcester, Massachusetts, by Isaiah
Tholnas, whom Benjalnin Franklin called the" Basker-
vi1le of America."
Beyond such details as these just given it is not
possible to follow all the fortunes of the Great
Version of 1611. The catalogue of the Library of
the British and Foreign Bible Society enumerates
nearly a thousand separate editions of the English
Bible, or of some part of it published before the close
of the 18th century, and this one Society has since
its foundation in 1804, sent out in English alone
no fe\ver than seventy-t,vo millions of copies. The
appearance of this version, therefore, is one of the
great facts in the history of the world. What
it has been in personal life and character, in the
family, in the history of churches and nations can
only be known when the great day of final revelation
shall come.

CHAPTER VII

THE REVISED VERSION OF 1881

THE Authorised Version of 1611, whose history
we have followed, won its way gradually to national
acceptance, and did so not because invested with
royal authority, but by virtue of its own intrinsic
excellence. Its one and only competitor of influential
sort was the Genevan version which was still in great
favour with many. Indeed, the same year in which
the new revision appeared, two other editions of the
Genevan, a folio and a quarto, were published by the
King's printer; and for five years more, further
editions continued to be sent forth. Then, too, even
after 1616, when it ceased to be printed in England,
it continued to be printed abroad and sent over to
this country. But at length this competition came to
an end, the Revision of 1611 obtained wider accept-
ance and soon became without question the Bible of
the English people.
Still, as the book became better known the
question of further revision began to be discussed.
8-2

116 HISTORY OF THE ENGLISH BIBLE [CH.

There is no finality in human affairs, and each genera-
tion has to take its o,vn part and place in the general
advance. Deepening acquaintance led to deeper
certainty that, in spite of all the care which had been
taken, numerous errors, verbal and otherwise, had
been retained in the version so recently revised
And others came to be added from time to time as
new editions, edited with insufficient care, were sent
forth into the world. For example, the edition of
1631 acquired the l1ame of "the wicked Bible," be-
cause it read "thou shalt commit adultery," instead
of "thou shalt not." In editions of 1638 it was stated
that "the fire devoured 2050 men," instead of 250 ;
"He slew two lions like men," instead of "two lion-
like men"; "taught by the people of men," for" by
the precept of men." These are only a few examples
out of many, and the list was made longer by the
importation of Bibles from abroad. The printers of
Amsterdam made the discovery that Bible-printing
might. be developed into a lucrative busines5, and
sent over considerable consignments to this country.
It scarcely needs to be pointed out that English
Bibles set up by Dutch compositors were not likely
to be productions of unfailing accuracy. The process
went on so long and so far that in 1643 the Assembly
of Di vines at Westminster found it necessary to make
a report to Parliament on the subject, giving instances
of Inistakes which had been made, such as "found the

VII] THE REVISED VERSION OF 1881 117

rulers" for "found the mules"; "corruption" for
"conception" ; " condemnation" for "redemption."
It was resolved in consequence that foreign Bibles
should not be sold until they had been "passed and
allowed." It was stated in 1646, at Amsterdam, that
an English printer there had sent out in five years
40,000 copies; that his last edition consisted of
12,000 copies, and that altogether in that Dutch city
150,000 English Bibles had been printed.
In Bibles also produced in this country as well as
in those sent from abroad new errors were made and
old ones copied from one to another. A considerable
sheaf of mistakes, such as the following, came to be
gathered by observant readers: "shall glean" for
"shall not glean"; "in the throne of David" for" in
the room of David"; "shined through darkness" for
"walked through darkness"; "delighted herself" for
"defiled herself"; and "I praise you" for "I praise
you not." This kind of process went on year after
year, repeating itself and extending itself. When
Dr Scrivener set about making the Cambridge Para-
graph Bible of 1873 as strictly accurate as possible,
the changes, most of them trivia], but many not
trivial, which had to be made in the text, were to be
counted by hundreds.
Then too, as another reason for revision, language
itself undergoes change, and words pass out of use or
become unintelligible. So again there are many words

118 HISTORY OF THE ENGLISH BIBLE [CH.

which, while still in use, are understood in a different
sense from that prevailing in 1611. The translators
in writing attached one meaning, we in reading quite
another. So that words which once served as
stepping-stones to the reader become stumbling-
blocks in his path. Instances of this may be found
in such cases as where carriage means baggage (Acts
xxi. 15); careful, anxious (Phil. iv. 6); liberal, noble
and churl, crafty (Isa. xxxii. 5); delicately, luxuri-
ously (Luke vii 25); and publican, a revenue officer.
Then again as to the MSS. of the Greek Text from
which translations had to be made. It stands to reason
that, in the manuscripts from which we translate,
the nearer we get to the time when Gospels and
Epistles were written, the more likely we are to get the
actual words first written. N ow it is well known that
what are regarded as the most authoritative MSS. of
the Greek Text of the New Testament have, with two
exceptions, come to light since the time of the
translators of 1611. Of the Uncial manuscripts the
most ancient and important are: the Sinaitic, written
in the 4th century, and now deposited in the Imperial
Library at St Petersburg; the Vatican, also of the
4th century, and preserved in the Vatican Library at
Rome; the Alexandrine of the 5th century, now in
the British Museum; the Ephraem Oodex of the
5th century, in the National Library at Paris; Beza's
Oodeæ of the 6th century, in the University Library,

VII] THE REVISED VERSION OF 1881 119
Cambridge; and the Olaromontane, also of the 6th
century, which formerly belonged to Beza, but is now
in the National Library at Paris. Yet not one of
these was available at the time when King James's
translation was made. The Vatican 1\IS., one of the
t\VO oldest, though known to be in existence as early
as 1587 was so jealously guarded at the Vatican, so
far as the New Testament was concerned, that not till
the first half of last century could its text be ascer-
tained and then only by a comparison of three n10re
or less imperfect collations. Whereas now we have
a magnificent reproduction in photographic facsimile
of the entire 1\iS. The Sinaitic MS., also of the 4th
century, was discovered by Dr Tischendorf as recently
as Feb. 4th, 1859. The Alexandrine was not brought
to light until 1628 when it was presented to Charles I
by Cyril Lucar, patriarch of Constantinople. And
although the Ephraem Codex ,vas brought to Europe
in the early part of the 16th century, it was not
known to contain a portion of the N e\v Testan1ent
until towards the close of the 17th century, and was
not collated until 1716. Then, too, MSS. are not our
only source of knowledge of the original text of the
Scriptures. rfhere are ancient versions such as the
Old Latin, the Old Syriac and the two Egyptian
versions, all of which came to be accessible to the
scholars of the 19th century as they were not to the
revisers of 1611, and from their early date must have

120 HISTORY OF THE ENGLISH BIBLE [CR.

been made from the earliest manuscripts and were
likely therefore to furnish, in the case of disputed
passages, valuable suggestions as to the actual words
employed at first. Thus the possession of greatly
improved apparatus furnished an additional reason
for undertaking a further revision.
By the time that the Authorised Version was forty
years old men's thoughts began to be turned to the
subject. As early as 1655 the Long Parliament made
an order that a Bill should be brought in for a new
translation of the Bible, and four years later the
House directed "that it be referred to a Committee
to send for and advise with Dr Walton, Dr Cudworth
and others such as tlley should think fit, and to con-
sider of the translations and impressions of the Bible
and to offer their opinions therein." The Committee
met from time to time at tIle house of Bulstrode
Whitelocke, but eventually the death of Cromwell
put an end to all further endeavours in the way of
. .
reVISIon.
Nothing ,vas done, as we n1ight expect, after the
coming in of the Restoration, but in the 18th century
various tentative efforts were made, some of them by
able men. Revised translations of the New Testa-
ment were made by Gilbert Wakefield in 1795; by
Archbishop Newcome in 1796; and by Scarlett in
1798. But then came the French Revolution and
frightened Englishmen. In 1796 the note of alarm

VII] THE REVISED VERSION OF 1881 121

was sounded in a letter to the Bishop of Ely, and,
as Dr Plumptre has said: "from that tin1e conser-
vatism pure and simple was in the ascendant. To
suggest that the Authorised Version might be
inaccurate, was almost as bad as holding 'French
Principles.' "
When we pass into the 19th century the long-
defeated hope was revived by the appearance of
Lectures in 1810 by the Lady Margaret Professor of
Divinity at Cambridge, Dr Marsh, afterwards Bishop
of Peterborough. In his first edition he plainly said:
"It is probable that our Authorised Version is as
faithful a representation of the original Scriptures as
could have been formed at that period. But when
we consider the immense accession that has since
been made, both to our critical and philological
apparatus; when we consider that the most important
sources of intelligence for the interpretation of the
original Scriptures were likewise opened after that
period, we cannot possibly pretend that our Author-
ised Version does not require amendment"; the
italics here given are the Professor's own. Forty-six
years later the Rev. Wm. Selwyn, another Lady
Margaret Professor of Divinity at Cambridge, spoke
out to the same effect. In a work of his entitled
" Notes on the proposed Amendment of the Author-
ised Version of the Holy Scriptures," he said: "I do
not hesitate to avow my firm persuasion that there

122 HISTORY OF THE ENGLISH BIBLE [OH.

are at least one thousand passages of the English
Bible that might be amended without any change in
the general texture and justly reverenced language
of the version." Professor Selwyn also brought the
subject of revision before the Lower House of Con-
vocation of the Province of Canterbury; and that
same year, 1856, Mr Heywood, M.P. for North Lanca-
shire, nloved hI the House of Commons an Address to
the Crown praying that Her Majesty would appoint a
Royal Commission of learned men to consider of such
amendments of the Authorised Version of the Bible
as had been already proposed, and to receive sugges-
tions from all persons who might be willing to offer
them, and to report the amendments which they
might be prepared to recommend.
About the same time also there was published a
translation of "The Gospel of John newly compared
with the original Greek and revised by five clergy-
men." The five clergymen were Dr John Barrow,
George Moberly, D.C.L., Henry Alford, B.D., W. G.
Humphrey, B.D., and Charles J. Ellicott, M.A., their
purpose being to show by exanlple the kind of thing
in the way of revision many were desiring to see.
That same year, also, Dr Trench, then Dean of West-
minster, published bis work "On the Authorised
Version of the New Testament," pleading for move-
ment in the same direction.
The first actual step was taken on February 10,

VII] THE REVISED VERSION OF 1881 123

1870, when a resolution was moved in the Upper
House of Convocation by Bishop Wilberforce and
seconded by Bishop Ellicott, that a committee of
both Houses be appointed to report upon the de-
sirableness of a revision of the Authorised Version
of the New Testament. On the motion of Bishop
Ollivant seconded by Bishop Thirlwall it was agreed
to enlarge this resolution so as to include the Old
Testament also, and the resolution so amended was
ultimately adopted, and comnlunicated to the Lower
House the following day, where it was accepted with-
out a division.
The Committee thus appointed, consisting of seven
Bishops and fourteen members of the Lower House,
met on March 24 and agreed to report: That it was
desirable that a revision be undertaken; that it
should comprise both marginal readings and such
emendations in the text of the Authorised Version
as may be found necessary; that it should not con-
template any new translation of the Bible, or any
alteration of the language except where, in the
judgment of the most competent scholars, such
change is necessary; and that where such change
was made the language of the existing version should
be closely followed; finally that it was desirable
that Convocation should nominate a body of its own
Members to undertake the ,york of revision, who
shall be at liberty to invite the co-operation of any

124 HISTORY OF THE ENGLISH BIBLE [CR.

eminent for scholarship, to whatever nation or re-
ligious body they may belong.
This Report was presented to the Upper House
on May 3rd, where its adoption was carried unani-
mously, and a committee appointed to carry it into
effect. In the Lower House an attempt was made
to confine the revision to scholars in communion
with the Church of England. This however was
unsuccessful and the adoption of the Report was
carried with two dissentients only. The joint Com-
mittee held their first meeting on May 25th and
agreed to separate into two Companies-one for the
revision of the Old Testament and one for that of
the New. They also selected the scholars who should
be invited to join the Companies and decided upon
the genera.l rules which should guide their procedure.
The rules agreed upon were: To introduce as few
alterations as possible consistent with faithfulness;
to keep as far as possible to the language of the
Authorised and earlier versions; each Company to
go twice over the portion to be revised; the Text to
be adopted to be that for which the evidence is
decidedly preponderating; to make or retain no
change in the Text on the second and final revision
by each Company, except two-thirds of those present
approve of the same; to revise the headings of
chapters, pages, paragraphs, italics and punctuation;
and, finally to refer on the part of each Company,

VII] THE REVISED VERSION OF 1881 125

when considered desirable, to divines, scholars and
literary men, whether at home or abroad, for their
opinions.
The Old Testament Company as at first constituted
consisted of twenty-four members; an equal number
acted also for the New Testament. In the course
of the ten years they were at work changes from
various causes had to be made, and ultimately the
revisers consisted of sixty-five English scholars who
took part in the work. Of these forty-one were
members of the Church of England, and twenty-four
members of other chllrches. Of the latter number
two represented the Episcopal Church of Ireland,
one the Episcopal Church of Scotland, four the
Baptists, three the Congregationalists, five the Free
Church of Scotland, five the Established Church of
Scotland, one the United Presbyterians, one the
Unitarians, and two the Wesleyan Methodists.
Varied representation was still further secured
by the co-operation of a number of American scholars,
selected and invited by the Rev. Dr Schaff of New
York, acting on behalf of the English Companies.
Various causes of delay, however, intervened, and it
was not until July 17, 1872, that the communication
was made that the American Companies were duly
constituted. It thus came about that the English
revisers of the Old Testament had already made
some progress, had in fact gone twice through the

126 HISTORY OF THE ENGLISH BIBLE [CH.

Pentateuch before they secured the co-operation of
the Americal1 Old Testament Revision Company.
The English New Testament Company assembled
for the first time on Wednesday, June 22, 1870.
They met in the Chapel of Henry VII, and there
united in the celebration of the Lord's Supper. After
this act of worship they formally entered upon the
task assigned them.
Through the kind arrangement of Dr Stanley, then
Dean of Westminster, the Jerusalem Chamber of the
Abbey was assigned as their place of meeting. This
room, as Dr N ewth one of the revisers reminded us,
is one of more than ordinary interest. Originally the
parlour of the Abbot's palace, it was here the Assembly
of Divines of Commonwealth days, driven by the cold
from Henry VII's Chapel, held its 66th session, on
October 2nd, 1643, and there thenceforward con-
tinued to meet until its closing session on February
22nd, 1649. Here were prepared the Westminster
Confession of Faith and the Longer and Shorter
Catechisms which formerly played so conspicuous
a part in the religious education of the Presbyterians
of Scotland and the Independents of England. And
here, also, just fifty years later, assembled the Com-
mission appointed by William III to devise a basis
for a scheme of comprehension in a revision of the
Prayer Book. It was in this same room the New
Testament Company held their meeting8 for ten

VII] THE REVISED VERSION OF 1881 127

years, except on the few occasions ,vhen it was not
available.
Dr N ewth has further told us of the method of
procedure. The Company assembled at eleven a.m.
and continued in session till six p.m., with an interval
of half an hour. Prayer being offered, and preliminary
matters of correspondence disposed of, the Chairman
read a short passage as given in the Authorised
Version. The question was then asked, first, as to
textual changes; that being settled the Chairnlan
asked for proposals of rendering, and free discussion
having followed, the vote of the Company was taken.
They resolved the work should be thoroughly done, ,
but eventually grew alarmed at the probable length
of time the revision would take.
At the end of the ninth day of meeting, not more
than 153 verses had been revised, an average of
only seventeen verses a day. By and by, however,
progress became more rapid, but even then the
average did not rise above thirty-five verses a day.
The first revision of the Gospel of Matthew was com-
pleted on the 36th day of meeting, May 24th, 1871,
and that of John on the 103rd day, February 19th,
1873. ' The first revision of the Apocalypse, the final
book, was completed on the 273rd meeting, April 20th,
1877. The meetings were held monthly for a session
of four consecutive days, excepting only August and
September. 'rhus the first revision required 24]

128 HISTORY OF THE ENGLISH BIBLE [CR.

meetings, during sixty monthly sessions; the second
revision was completed on December 13th, 1878,
having occupied on the whole 96 meetings or about
two years and a half. Then came the suggestions of
the American Company for consideration, and these,
together with the preparation of the preface, occupied
the Company until November 11th, 1880, on which
day, at five o'clock in the afternoon, after ten years
and five months of labour, the revision of the New
Testament was brought to its close. On the evening
of that same day, being 8t Martin's day, the Com-
pany assembled in the church of 8t Martin's-in-the-
Fields and there united in a special service of prayer
and thanksgiving-Thanksgiving for the happy com-
pletion of their labours, for the spirit of harmony and
brotherly affection that had pervaded their meetings,
and for the Divine goodness which had perluitted so
many to give themselves continuously to this work,
and Prayer that He whose glory they had humbly
striven to promote might graciously accept this their
service, and deign to use it as an instrument for the
good of man and the honour of His holy' name. The
New Testament was published on May 17th, 1881,
and that same day was also presented to the Queen.
The Revision of the Old Testament, being of a
much larger book, took longer time than that of the
New; but in one important respect the work was
much simpler than that which the New Testament

VII] THE REVISED VERSION OF 1881 129

Company had before them. They had no difficulty
in determining the Original Text from which to
translate, whereas in the case of the New Testament
that was often matter for anxious and prolonged
consideration. The Received, or, as it is commonly
called, the Massoretic Text of the Old Testament
Scriptures, has come down to us in manuscripts which
are of no great antiquity. The earliest of which the
age is known is as Jate as A.D. 916, and they all belong
to the same family or recension. That there were
other recensions at one time is probable from the
fact that there are variations in the ancient Versions,
the oldest of which, the Greek Septuagint, was, in
part at least, made over t,vo centuries before the
Christian era. But as the state of our knowledge on
this subject is not at present such as to justify any
attempt at an entire reconstruction of the text on the
authority of these Versions, the revisers felt it most
prudent, as they tell us, simply to adopt the Massoretic
Text as the basis of their work, and, following the ex-
ample of the translators of the Authorised Version, to
depart from it only in exceptional cases. The Revision
of the Old Testament was commenced on the 30th of
June, 1870, and was completed in eighty-five sessions,
occupying 792 days, and ending on 20th June, 1884.
The greater part of the sessions were for ten days
each, and each day the Company generally sat for six
hours. The labour therefore was great, but ungrudg-
B. 9

130 HISTORY OF THE ENGLISH BIBLE [CR.

ingly rendered, and the revisers, like their brethren of
the New Testament Company, brought their long
task to a close with a feeling of deep thankfulness
to Almighty God, and the earnest hope that their
endeavours might with His blessing tend to a clearer
knowledge of the Old Testament Scriptures.
The revision of the Authorised Version of the
Apocrypha was included in the arrangement between
the Companies and the Representatives of the Presses
of Oxford and Cambridge, the publishers and pro-
prietors of the New Version. But this last portion
of the work was not to be undertaken until the other
and greater portions of the ,vork were concluded.
As early, however, as March 21, 1879, it was resolved
that after such conclusion, the Company should be
divided into three Committees, to be called the
London, Westminster and Cambridge Committees,
whose work should be the revision of the Apocrypha
also.. This was done, and thus in 1895 was completed
the work begun in hope and prayer no less than five
and twenty years before. This work in its completed
form as a re
ision of the great version of 1611 has
been spreading more and more widely among the
Christian people of the land. It has not escaped
criticism, no work of man's hand can hope to do that.
In many ways it is open to criticism, but it has made
a new Bible for many, and made plainer to them the
revelation of the Inind of God. What does this

VII] THE REVISED VERSION OF 1881 131

renders effectual service to humanity. The Bible is
the greatest of all great books. "There are many
echoes in the world," said Goethe, "but few voices."
This book is a living voice carrying its own authority
with it. As the Confession of Faith of the Scottish
Church declared: "Amongst the arguments whereby
the Holy Scripture doth abundantly evidence itself
to be the Word of God are the heavenliness of the I
matter, the efficacy of the doctrine, the majesty of
the style, the consent of all the parts, the scope of the
whole."

9-2

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Historical Catalogue of the printed Editions of Holy Scripture
in the Library of the British and Foreign Bible Society.
Compiled by T. H. Darlow and H. F. Moule. Vol. I. English,
1903, 4to.
Catalogue of an Exhibition of Bibles in the John Rylands Library,
Manchester, illustrating' the history of the English versions
from Wiclif to the present time, 1904.
Catalogue of the Caxtoll Celebration of 1877: Class C, Holy
Scriptures and Liturgies.
Description of the Great Bible, 1539, and the six Editions of
Cranmer's Bible, 1540 and 1541, printed by Grafton and
Whitchurch; also of the Editions in large folio of the Author-
ised Version of the Holy Scriptures, printed in the years
1611, 1613, 1617, 1634, 1640. London, 1865, fo1. By Francis
Fry_
Hastings' Dictionary of the Bible-Extra V olume. Versions
(English), by J. H. Lupton.
Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition-The English Bible, by
Anna C. Paues, Ph.D., and H. H. Henson, D.D.
A General View of the history of the English Bible. Third
Bdition, revised by W. Aldis Wright, 1905.
Lectures on Bible Revision, by Samuel Newth, D.D., 1881.
Our English Bible: its Translations and Translators, by John
Stoughton, D.D., 1878.
The History of the English Bible, by W. }( Moulton, D.D. New
Edition.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

133

A Fourteenth Century English Biblical Version. Edited by
Anna C. Paues. Cambridge, 1904.
The Holy Gospels in Anglo-Saxon. Edited by W. W. Skeat,
1871-1877.
The Holy Bible...in the earliest English versions made from the
Latin Vulgate by John Wycliffe and his followers. Edited
by...Josiah Forshall...and Sir Frederick Madden. Oxford,
1850. 4 vols. 4to.
The Cambridge Paragraph Bible, with Revised Text and Critical
Introduction by F. H. Scrivener. Cambridge, 1873.
The part of Rheims in the making of the English Bible, by J. G.
Carleton. Oxford, 1902.
A Century of Bibles of the Authorised Version from 1611 to 1711,
by W. J. Loftie, 1872.
The English Bible, 2 vols., 1876, by J. Eadie.
History of the English Bible, by T. H. Pattison, 1894.
The first printed English New Testament. E. Arber, 1871.
Our Bible and the Ancient Manuscripts, by F. G. Kenyon, 1895.

INDEX

Aelfric's Heptateuch, 14
Aidan, Bishop, 10
Aldhelm, Bishop of Sherborne, 6
Aldred, 8
Alesius, 57
Alfred, King: his court, 17; his
reforms, 12, 13; his Dooms,
13; his translations, 13
Allen, Cardinal, 92
American Company, 125, 128
Amsterdam printers, 116
Andrewes, Lancelot, 103
Anglo-Saxon Versions: Gospels,
6-8; Psalter, 12, 16; Glosses,
7, 8; Manuscripts, 4, 7
Antwerp printers, 43
Apoc
ha,78, 130
Arundel, Archbishop, 28; Con-
stitutions of, 26, 93
Augsburg Assembly, 51
.A uthorised Version: Proposed by
King James, 101; Preface, 101;
arrangements proposed, 102 ;
the three Committees, 103;
rules for guidance, defects of,
116

Bagster's Hexapla, 24
Barker, Robert, 108
Basius, Conrad, 74
Bassendyne, Thomas, 83
Bede's Ecclesiastical History, fi,
10, 13, 105

Beza, 13, 79
Bible translation, development
of, 3
Bibles burnt, 44, 46
" Secret readings of, 31-33
" " Bee" and "She," 109
Bishops' Bible, the, 85; origina-
ted by Archbishop Parker, 85 ;
translators, editions of, 88;
estimate of, 89, 90
Bodley, John, 80
Bonner, Bishop, 67
Bradshaw, Henry, 48
Cædmon of Whitby, 4, 5
Cambridge University Press, 110,
111, 112
Catalogue of Bible Society, 114
Cheke's Version, Sir John, 71
Cochlaeus, 41
Cologne, 41
Constantinople, Fall of, 36
Constitutions and Canons, 87
Convocation of 1537, 57
" of 1870, 123
Cotton MSB., 8
Courtney, Bishop, 19
Ooverdale's Bible, 53, 54, 55, 73
Cranmer, Archbishop, 60, 62, 73
Cromwell, Thomas, 57-65
Cudworth, Dr, 120
Cuthbert, St, 8, 10
Cynewulf, 4

INDEX

Dalaber, Anthony, 45
Danish Invasions, 8, 11
Defensor Pacis, 18
Durham Book, 8
Eadfrith, Bishop, 8
East Saxons, 11
Edward VI, 70
Ellicott, Bishop, 122-3
Erasmus's Greek Testament, 37,
47
Erasmus's Paraphrase, 70
Estienne, Robert, 75

Featley, Dr, 106
Fish, Simon, 43
Forman of Harewood, 9
Foxe, Bishop of Hereford, 58
Froschover of
urich, 56
Fulke, Dr, 92
Garrett, Thomas, 45
Genevan Ver,ion, 73-78, 81-83
Gilby, Anthony, 73, 81
Great Bible, the, 62-67
Great Schism, the, 19
Gregory's, St, Regula Pasto'talis,
13
Grenville Library, 47
Grocyn at Oxford, 38
Guy, Thomas, 112
Haghen, Godfried van der, 48
Han, Rowland, 77
Hampton Court Conference, the,
100
Harding, Dr, 103
Hereford, Nicholas of, 21, 22
Heywood, James, 122
Hilda, the Abbess, 5
Holbein, Hans, 66

Inquar, 11

135

Jarrow, 11
Jerome, St, 28, 36
Jerusalem Chamber, the, 126
John of Jandun, 19
J uda, Leo, 55

Kellam, Laurence, 97

Lathbury, 23
Leicester, 26, 27
Linacre, 38
Lindisfarne Gospels, 8, 12
Lively, Mr, 103
Longland, Bishop, 19-33
Lucar, Cyril, 119
Luther, Martin, 55
Lutterworth, 19, 26
Lyra, 23
Mac Begol, 9
Marburg, 47
Marler, Anthony, 66
Marsh, Bishop, 121
Marsiglio of Padua, IS, 19
Mary, Queen, 70, 73
Matthew's Bible, 49, 59-61
Mercian dialect, the, 7, 9
Middle English, 18
Millenary Petition, the, 99
Monasteries : Whitby, 4, 5; Lin-
disfarne,4; Ely,4; Wearmouth,
4; Jarrow, 4, 11; Barking, 4;
Lsstingham, 4
Moulton, W. F., 79, 89, 90, 95
Münster's Version, 63

Newcome, Archbishop, 120
N ewth, Dr, 126, 127
Nicholas, Pope, 36
Nicholas of Hereford, 21
N orman Conquest, 9, 15, 16
Northumbria, 8, 11
Nycolson of Southwark, 57

136

INDEX

01ivetan, 76
Ollivant, Bishop, 123
Owun, 9
Oxford University Press, 24
Pagninus, 55, 77
Paraphrase of Erasmus, 71
Paris, Dr, 111
Parker, Archbishop, 85
Parliament, the Long, 120
Paulinus, 9
Plegmund, 12
Plumptre, Dr, 79, 99, 121
Pollard, A. W., 114
Prick of Oonscience, 30
Printing, invention of, 37
Purvey, John, 23
Quentel, Peter, 41
Regnault of Paris, 64
Revised Version of 1881, 115,
125-128
Reynolds, Dr, 100, 106
Rheims-Douai Bible, the, 91-96
Rogers, J obn, 60
Rolle, Richard, of Hampole, 16
Royal Injunctions of 1536, 57
Rus hworth Gospels, 8, 9
Rylands Library, 43, 91

Sampson, Thomas, 73, 81
Saxon dialects, 17
Schaff, Dr, 125
Schism, the Great, 19, 20
Schoeffer, Peter, 42
Scottish Assembly, 83
Scrivener, Dr, 111, 117
Selden's Table Talk, 104
Selwyn, Professor, 121

Septuagint VerBion, 129
Smith, Dr Miles, 106
"Standard Edition," the, 111
Stokesley, Bishop, 58
Sudbury, Archbishop, 19

Taverner's Bible, 6
Theodore of Tarsus, 10
Thirlwall, Bishop, 123
Tischendorf, Dr, 119
Tomson, Laurence, 82
Trench, Archbishop, 79, 122
Trent, Council of, 93
Tyndale's Translation, 38-51

Ubba, 11
Uncial MSS., 118
University Press editions, 110,
112

Vatican MS., 37
Versions, Ancient, 119, 129
Vilvorde, 48, 51
Wakefield, Gilbert, 120
Walton, Dr, 120
Westcott, Bishop, 89, 90
Wbitelocke, Bulstrode, 120
Whitgift's Articles, 87
Whittingham, Wm., 73, 74
Wigtoft, 71
Wilberforce, Bishop, 123
William de Schorham, 16
Wolsey, Cardinal, 43, 46, 57, 69
Wright, W. Aldis, 71, 112
Wycli.ffe's Bible, 18-24
Zurich Bible, the, 55
Zwingli, Version by, 55

CAMBRIDGE: PIUNTED BY JOHN CLAY, M.A. AT THE UNIVERSITY PRESS

THE
CAMBRIDGE MANUALS
OF SCIENCE AND LITERATURE

Published by the Cambridge University Press
GENERAL EDITORS
P. GILES, Litt.D.
Master of Emmanuel College
and
A. c. SEWARD, M.A., F.R.S.
Professor of Botany in the University of Cambridge

70 VOLUMES NOW READY
HISTORY AND ARCHAEOLOGY
Ancient Assyria. By Rev. C. H. W. Johns, Litt.D.
Ancient Babylonia. By Rev. C. H. W. Johns, Litt.D.
A History of Civilization in Palestine. By Prof. R. A. S.
Macalister, M.A.) F.S.A.
China and the Manchus. By Prof. H. A. Giles, LL.D.
The Civilization of Ancient Mexico. By Lewis Spence.
The Vikings. By Prof. Allen Mawer, M.A.
New Zealand_ By the Hon. Sir Robert Stout, K.C.M.G., LL.D.,
and J. Logan Stout, LL.B. (N .Z.).
The Ground Plan of the English Parish Church. By A.
Hamilton Thompson, M.A., F.S.A.
The Historical Growth of the English Parish Church. By A.
Hamilton Thompson, M.A., F.S.A.
English Monasteries. By A. H. Thompson, M.A., F.S.A.
Brasses. By J. S. M. Ward, B.A., F.R.Hist.S.
Ancient Stained and Painted Glass. By F. S. Eden.

ECONOMICS
Co-partnership in Industry. By C. R. Fay, M.A.
Cash and Credit. By D. A. Barker.
The Theory of Money. By D. A. Barker.

LITERARY HISTORY
The Early Religious Poetry of the Hebrews. By the Rev.
E, G. King, D.O.
The Early Religious Poetry of Persia. By the Rev. Prof. J.
Hope Moulton, D.O., D.Theol. (Berlin).
The History of the English Bible. By John Brown, D.O.
English Dialects from the Eighth Century to the Present Day.
By W. W. Skeat, Litt.D., D.C,L., F.B.A.
King Arthur in History and Legend. By Prof. W. Lewis
Jones, M.A.
The Icelandic Sagas. By W. A. Craigie, LL.D.
Greek Tragedy. By J. T. Sheppard, M.A.
The Ballad in Literature. By T. F. Henderson.
Goethe and the Twentieth Century. By Prof. J. G. Robertson,
M.A., Ph.D.
The Troubadours, By the Rev. H. J. Chaytor, M.A.
Mysticism in English Literature. By Miss C. F. E. Spurgeon.

PHILOSOPHY AND RELIGION
The Idea of God in Early Religions. By Dr F. B. Jevons.
Comparative Religion. By Dr F. B. J evons.
Plato: Moral and Political Ideals. By Mrs A. M. Adam.
The Moral Life and Moral Worth. By Prof. Sorley, Litt.D.
The English Puritans. By John Brown, D.D.
An Historical Account of the Rise and Development of Presby

terianism in Scotland. By the Rt Hon. the Lord Balfour
of Burleigh, K.T., G.C.M.G.
Methodism. By Rev. H. B. Workman, D.Lit.

EDUCATION
Life in the Medieval University. By R. S. Rait, M.A.

LAW
The Administration of Justice in Criminal Matters (in England
and Wales). By G. Glover Alexander, M.A., LL.M.

BIOLOGY
The COIning of Evolution. By Prof. J. W. Judd, C.B., F.R.S.
Heredity in the Light of Recent Research. By L. Doncaster,
M.A.
Primitive Animals. By Geoffrey Smith, M.A.
The Individual in the Animal Kingdoln. By J. S. Huxley, B.A.
Life in the Sea. By James Johnstone, B.Sc.
The Migration of Birds. By T. A. Coward.

BIOLOGY (continued)
Spiders. By C. \Varburton, M.A.
Bees and Wasps. By O. H. Latter, l\/I.A.
House Flies. By C. G, Hevvitt, D.Sc.
Earthworms and their Allies. By F. E. Beddard, F.R,S.
The Wanderings of Animals. By H. F. Gadow, F.R,S.

ANTHROPOLOGY
The Wanderings of Peoples. By Dr A. C. Haddon, F.R.S.
Prehistoric Man. By Dr W. L. H. Duckworth.

GEOLOGY
Rocks and their Origins. By Prof. Grenville A. J. Cole.
The Work of Rain and Rivers. By T. G. Bonney, Sc.D.
The Natural History of Coal. By Dr E. A. Newell Arber.
The Natural History of Clay. By Alfred B. Searle.
The Origin of Earthquakes. By C. Davison, Sc.D., F.G.S.
Submerged Forests. By Clement Reid, F.R.S.

BOTANY
Plant-Animals: a Study in Symbiosis. By Prof, F. W. Keeble.
Plant-Life on Land. By Prof. F. O. Bower, Sc.D., F.R.S.
Links with the Past in the Plant-World. By Prof. A. C. Seward.

PHYSICS
The Earth. By Prof. J. H. Poynting, F.R.S.
The Atmosphere. By A. J. Berry, M,A.
Beyond the Atom. By John Cox, M.A.
The Physical Basis of Music. By A. Wood, M.A.

PSYCHOLOGY

An Introduction to Experimental Psychology. By Dr C. S.
Myers.
The Psychology of Insanity. By Bernard Hart, M.D.

INDUSTRIAL AND MECHANICAL SCIENCE
The Modern Locomotive. By C. Edgar Allen, A.M.I.Mech.E.
The Modern Warship. By E. L. Attwood.
Aerial Locomotion. By E. H. Harper, M.A., and Allan E.
Ferguson, B.Sc.
Electricity in Locomotion. By A. G. Whyte, B.Se.
Wireless Telegraphy. By Prof. C. L. Fortescue, M.A,
The Story of a Loaf of Bread. By Prof. T. B. Wood, M.A.
Brewing. By A. Chaston Chapman, F.I,C.

SOME VOLUMES IN PREPARATION
HISTORY AND ARCHAEOLOGY

The Aryans. By Prof. M. Winternitz.
Ancient India. By Prof. E. J. Rapson, M.A.
The Peoples of India. By J. D. Anderson, M.A.
The Balkan Peoples. By J. D. Bourchier.
Canada of the present day. By C. G. Hewitt, D,Se.
The Evolution of Japan. By Prof. J. H. Longford.
The West Indies. By Sir Daniel Morris, K.C,M.G.
The Royal Navy. By John Leyland.
Gypsies. By John Sampson.
A Grammar of Heraldry. By W. H. St John Hope, Liu.D.
Celtic Art. By Joseph Anderson, LL.D.
ECONOMICS
Women's Work. By Miss Constance Smith.
LITERARY HISTORY
Early Indian Poetry. By A. A. Macdonell.
The Book. By H. G. Aldis, M.A.
Pantomime. By D. L, l\1urray.
Folk Song and Dance. By Miss Neal and F. Kidson.
PHYSICS
The Natural Sources of Energy. By Prof. A. H. Gibson, D,Sc,
The Sun. By Prof. R. A. Sampson.
Röntgen Rays. By Prof. W. H. Bragg, F.R.S.
BIOLOGY
The' Life
story of Insects. By Prof. G. H. Carpenter.
The Flea. By H. Russell.
Pearls. By Prof. W. J. Dakin.
GEOLOGY
Soil Fertility. By E. J. Russell, D.Se.
Coast Erosion. By Prof. T. J. Jehu.
INDUSTRIAL AND MECHANICAL SCIENCE
Coal Mining. By T. C. Cant rill.
Leather. By Prof. H. R. Procter.

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