Wycliffe's influence on the Authorised

Version

between the two have been greatly exaggerated. The following passage will afford the means of comparison:

HEREFORD.

And the Lord seide to Abram, after that Loth was divyded from him, Heave up thine eyes ever ryght, and se for the place in the which thou art now to the north and south, to the est and west; al the lande that thou beholdest I shall give to thee and to thi seede, for to evermore. And I shall make thi seede as poudir of the erthe, if the men myght en noumbre the poudir of the erthe, and thi seede too shall men noumbre. Aryse thanne and overgo the lond in lengthe and in brede, for I am to gyve it to thee. Abram thanne, mouyng his tabernacle, cam and dwellide biside the valey of Mambre, the which is in Ebron, and bildide there an auter to the Lord.

PURVEY.

And the Lord seide to Abram, after that Loth was departed from him: Reise thine eyen forth right, and se from the place in which thou art now, to the north and south, to the east and west; Y schal gyve al the lond which thou seest to thee and to thi seid, til in to with outen ende. And Y schal make thi seid as the dust of erthe; if any man may noumbre the dust of erthe, also he schal now noumbre thi seid. Therfor rise thee, and passe thoroe the lond in his length and breede, for Y schal gyve it to thee. Therfor Abram, mouynge his tabernacle, cam and dwellide bisidis the vallei of Mambre, which is in Ebron, and he bildede there an auter to the Lord.

A comparison with the Authorised Version will be found instructive as showing how little the language has changed, and to how great an extent Wycliffe's is the basis of our modern English Bible.

And the Lord said unto Abram, after that Lot was separated from him, Lift up now thine eyes, and look from the place where thou art northward, and southward, and eastward, and westward. For all the land which thou seest, to thee will I give it, and to thy seed for ever. And I will make thy seed as the dust of the earth: so that if a man can number the dust of the earth, then shall thy seed also be numbered. Arise, walk through the land in the length of it and the breadth of it; for I will give it unto thee. Then Abram removed his tent, and came and dwelt in the plain of Mamre, which is in Hebron, and built there an altar unto the Lord.

Cranmer's secretary, Ralph Morice, tells us that when the new version of the Bible was undertaken in the reign of Henry VIII., “ an old English translation" of the New Testament, unquestionably Wycliffe's, was copied and sent in portions to the bishops and other divines engaged, with directions "to send back their parts corrected." Cranmer's New Testament, then, was not regarded as an entirely new translation, and the similarity of the versions of the Old Testament throughout proves that they were treated in the same manner. When the Authorised Version was undertaken under James I., the first injunction to the translators was "The ordinary Bible read in the church, commonly called the Bishops' Bible, to be followed, and as little altered as the truth of the original will permit." It is hence sufficiently clear that, although the influence of Wycliffe and his coadjutors on the doctrinal controversies which chiefly interested them was small, their labours produced an effect of which they never dreamed in moulding the language. Had their version perished, the English speech it has so largely fashioned would have been a different thing. Left to themselves, Cranmer and his associates would have produced a noble

WYCLIFFE AS CONTROVERSIALIST

219 rendering indeed, but in all probability more ornate and more remote from the simplicity of the Saxon. Wycliffe, therefore, though he wrote in large. measure by proxy, deserves a high place among the masters and moulders of English. A recent attempt to deprive him of the honour hardly merits refutation, any more than the extraordinary discovery that the Wycliffe Bible was authorised by the Church. The translators would have been only too happy to cite such a licence; but the attitude of the writer of Purvey's Prologue is that of one deprecating censure and dreading persecution.

The most important of Wycliffe's numerous writings are in Latin, and the Wycliffe's theological principal among these are so linked together as to form a coherent system of writings theology. The English writings are of more temporary and occasional character. Many of them are, no doubt, the work of disciples, scarcely distinguishable in style, and still less in tendency, from Wycliffe's own. The influence of Wycliffe on the English language and literature was most salutary, and it is deeply to be regretted that it did not extend much farther. He could not, like Luther, create a literature, but he could and did prove the fitness of English prose for rendering the noblest works from other languages, and for the discussion of whatever interests mankind. Had an epoch of active literary production followed, English literature would have attained perfection and exerted an European influence much sooner than was the case. triumph of the hierarchy under the Lancastrian kings, reinforced by the general intellectual stagnation which unaccountably crept all over Europe, destroyed all such anticipations. Wycliffe himself may be blamed for having lent strength to the reaction by the violence and fanaticism of his views on politics and property and other matters outside his proper sphere, but all causes may be summed in one," the fulness of time was not yet."

It is difficult to form any positive opinion as to the genuineness of the works ascribed to Wycliffe, his sermons excepted. "The Grete sentence of Curs explained," from which we are about to give an extract, lacks sufficient external authentication, but breathes the spirit of the Reformer so completely that even if not from his pen, it may fairly represent the spirit of his writings :

Of this may men see how perilous it is to covet prelacy or great benefice in the Church, sith no man almost cometh to them without pride, vain glory, and simony. Therefore said St. Gregory and the common law of the Church, that honour and prelacy should not be given to them that seek and covet it, but to such men as flee honours and dignity; and the same saith St. Austin and Chrysostom, with other doctors. For Christ teacheth us by St. Paul, that no man shall take honour to him but that is cleped of God, as Aaron was. Therefore Moses and the holy prophet Jeremy, hallowed in his mother's womb, excused them meekly when God bid them take the leading and governing of the people, and the holy prophet Ysaye durst not take this office at God's proffer till he was cleansed from sin by the angel's ministration, and inflamed with God's science and charity. Therefore St. Gregory and St. Austin fled at all their power to be bishops, but sought to live in devotion and study of holy writ and in low degree, and coveted not the highness of their states but with sorrow and great dread of God, and for great need of Christian souls, took this state, not of honour, but of travail and business, as Austin and Jerome witness. Lord! what stirreth us fools, full of ignorance and much sin, that cannot govern one soul well, to seek so busily great states where we shall govern many thousand, and for the least of them all answer at doomsday to the blood of Jesus Christ-guilty of shedding thereof if any

perish by our default? Where strong champions and pillars of holy Church dread so sore to govern a few souls, why rotten festues1 seek so much charge? Certes it is full sooth that St. John with the gilden mouth saith, with law canoun, that what clerk seeketh or desireth prelacy or primacy in earth, shall find confusion in heaven.

None of the portraits of Wycliffe are authentic. A single contemporary testimony describes him as spare and ascetic, which may well be believed of one who led the life of a student all his days. He was even more of a scholar than of a popular leader, "in theology more eminent, in philosophy second to none." The purity of his moral character is shown by the absence of any imputations upon it, notwithstanding the number and exasperation of his enemies. His disinterestedness speaks for itself. His leading characteristic is a fervent zeal for righteousness; if this zeal degenerated into fanaticism he had much excuse in the circumstances of his time. He was less of a statesman than Calvin or Cranmer, and more of a prophet. In many respects he may be compared to Luther, but he lacked Luther's vigorous common sense. His relation to the reformers of the sixteenth century may be compared to that of the men of the Long Parliament to the men of the Revolution; the former were the nobler, and the latter the wiser; but the exaggerated idealism of the first was the indispensable preliminary and condition of the latter's durable achievements.

While a handful of persecuted men were thus endeavouring to give the English people the Bible in their own language, a knowledge of Scripture history was maintained and diffused by a totally different process, which had at all events the advantages of being as intelligible to the unlettered as to the educated, and of giving no umbrage to the clergy. This was the exhibition of sacred, including ecclesiastical, history to the eye by means of dramatic representations, which historians of the drama have distinguished, although the distinction is practically unimportant, into mysteries and miracle plays according as the subject was scriptural or derived from the legends of the Saints. To these was in process of time added a third class, moralities, allegorical plays in which the characters were wholly or partly personified vices or virtues. By this imperfect means some knowledge of the Bible was preserved among the mass of the people, and an ember kept alight ready to burst out into flame upon a favourable occasion. Equally remarkable in another point of view was the reappearance, in however disfigured a shape, of public dramatic entertainments at a period when the revival of the secular drama seemed inconceivable to the European mind.

It is needless to retrace the often told story of the suppression of dramatic performances upon the establishment of Christianity. This was even more complete than hitherto believed, for the drama on the sufferings of Christ attributed to St. Gregory of Nazianzus has been snown to be centuries later than his time. Pantomimic entertainments, indeed, of a low and indecent class, seem to have been largely frequented in the days of Justinian, but after a while even they die out, and the dramatic art is only represented by two very different classes of persons: strolling actors scarcely to be distinguished from

1 Straws.