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CHAPTER I.

SAXON AND ENGLISH TRANSLATIONS OF THE SCRIPTURES, BEFORE THE TIME OF WYCLIFFE. A. D. 597-1324.

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|HRISTIANITY was first introduced among the AngloSaxons by Roman missionaries in the year 597.1 These strangers from Rome" landed on the island of Thanet. They immediately sent word to King Ethelbert that they came to declare the glad tidings of the Gospel. The king, through his Christian wife, Bertha, and Bishop Luidhard, the precursor of Augustine, had heard of the Gospel, yet, being suspicious of strangers, he met them in the open air, lest they should impose upon him by their magic. At his bidding, they approached in an orderly procession, bearing a silver cross, also an image of the Saviour painted on a board, and singing the litany. After listening to the address of Augustine, the king answered: "Your words and promises are very fair, but as they are new to us, and of uncertain import, I cannot approve of them so far as to forsake that which I have so long followed with the whole English nation. But because you are come from far into my kingdom, and, as I conceive, are desirous to impart to us those things which you believe to be true, and most beneficial, we will not molest you, but give you favorable entertainment, and take care to supply you with

1 The date of the first introduction of Christianity into Britain is quite another question. The general impression prevails that it was planted as early as the first century. But Thomas Wright, in his Celt, Roman and Saxon, asserts that Christianity could not have been established at so early a period, since " among such an immense number of altars and inscriptions of temples, and with so many hundreds of Roman sepulchres and graves as have been opened in this country, (England), we find not a single trace of the religion of the Gospel,” p. 353.

your necessary sustenance; nor do we forbid you to preach and gain as many as you can to your religion."1

Augustine brought with him a Latin Bible, in two volumes, which is said to have been extant in the time of James I.; a Psalter with the creed and several Latin hymns; two copies of the Gospels; another Psalter with hymns; a book of Legends of the Sufferings of the Apostles; another volume of Martyrology; an Exposition of the Gospels and Epistles; and Gregory's Pastoral Care. Bede, in enumerating a variety of articles sent by Pope Gregory to his missionaries in Britain, mentions: "many books." 3 But, however well Augustine may have been furnished for his enterprise, and however fair may have been his promises, the Christianity planted by him. and his followers among the Saxons, was a Latin Christianity. "It was a compound," says Sharon Turner, "of doctrines, ritual, discipline, and polity, derived partly from the Scriptures, partly from tradition, partly from the decisions and orders of former councils and popes, and partly from popular customs and superstitions, which had been permitted to intermix themselves."4 It was a Christianity that, from the first, was marked by pious frauds and feigned miracles. It is related of Laurentius, the successor of Augustine, when he was about to quit Britain on account of the Saxons relapsing into idolatry, that "in the dead of night, the blessed Prince of the Apostles appeared to him, and scourging him a long time with apostolical severity, asked of him, 'why he should forsake the flock which he had committed to him?'.

. Laurentius, the servant of Christ, being excited by these words and stripes, the very next morning repaired to the king, and taking off his garment, showed the scars of the stripes which he had received. The king, astonished, asked, 'Who had presumed to give such stripes to so great a man?' And was

1 Bede's Ecclesiastical History, p. 38, Bohn's ed. Sharon Turner gives this in the original Saxon. See Hist. Anglo-Saxons, I., 330, note.

2 Ibid, p. 38, note.

3 Ibid, p. 54.

See also Turner, Hist. A. S., I., 332, note.

4 History of the Anglo-Saxons, I., 331. London, 1823.

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ROME AS YET NOT OPPOSED TO THE BIBLE.

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much frightened when he heard that the bishop had suffered so much at the hands of the Apostle of Christ for his salvation."1 This pious fraud was successful. King Eadbald was converted and baptized. He renounced his idolatry, and sought in every way to promote the interests of the Church.

But though it was a Latin Christianity introduced among the Anglo-Saxons, it was not the thoroughly Romanized Christianity of later times. There was as yet no claim by the papacy to infallibility; nor was there any prohibition on the part of either pope or council against the right of the people to have the Holy Scriptures in their own language. Not until the Council of Thoulouse, 1229, was there any such restraint, when it was shamefully enacted: "We forbid that Laymen be permitted to have the books of the Old and New Testaments; unless some out of Devotion desire to have the Psalter or Breviary for Divine Offices, and the Hours of the Blessed Virgin; but even these, they may not have in the Vulgar Tongue." The Roman hierarchy, up to the time of Innocent III., the beginning of the thirteenth century, entertained no serious designs against the Scriptures translated into the language of the people. "It is remarkable," says Neander, "that Pope Innocent the Third was originally inclined rather to encourage than to suppress the reading of the Bible by the laity, till, influenced by the principles of the church theocracy, of which he was the representative, he was led, by the consequences growing out of that tendency, to contend against it." There was a lurking danger in Vernacular versions of the Scriptures which the hierarchy did not at first apprehend. But from the time of Innocent III. its Romish policy was settled. The enactment of the Council of Thoulouse shall henceforth be rigidly enforced. As yet, however, the Bible was regarded "as furnishing the best means of nourishment for the soul, and the surest remedy for all the disorders of the soul."4

1 Bede's Ecclesiastical History, p. 79, Bohn's ed., London, 1871.
2 Neander's Church History, IV., 324, note.
8 Ibid, p. 321.

Boston, 1853. 4 Ibid, p. 322.

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At this time even popes rejoiced that the Bible, by means of translations, found its way among the people. This was especially true of Gregory the Great, who was so zealous in the conversion of the Anglo-Saxons. "THE SCRIPTURES," said he, are infinitely elevated above all other instructions; they instruct us in the truth; they call us to heaven; they change the heart of him who reads them.....The sweetness and condescension of the Holy Scriptures comfort the weak and imperfect; their obscurity exercises the strong.....They seem to expand and rise in proportion as those who read them rise and increase in knowledge. Understood by the most illiterate, they are always new to the most learned."1 It was this same Gregory who compared the Scriptures "to a river, in some places so shallow, that a lamb might easily pass through them; in others so deep, that an elephant might be drowned in them."2 To hearty eulogy, Gregory added exhortation to the reading and study of the Scriptures. To a physician he wrote: "Study, meditate, the words of your Creator, that from them you may learn what is in the heart of God towards you, and that your soul may be inflamed with the most ardent desires after celestial and eternal good."3 Such sentiments, however, could not have been shared by his missionaries in Britain, otherwise they would have translated, at least, portions of the Bible into the Saxon language. But they depended more upon rites and ceremonies, than upon the Bible, for success in converting the Saxons.

But to understand the relation of Christianity to the unconverted Saxons, we must take into the account the influences brought to bear upon them by the Irish Church. Previous to the conquest of Britain by the Saxons, Christianity had been carried into Ireland, where it was received with enthusiasm. "The science and Biblical knowledge which fled from the Continent took refuge in famous schools which made Durrow and Armagh the universities of the West..... Patrick, the first

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THE WHITBY COUNCIL.

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missionary of the island, had not been half a century dead when Irish Christianity flung itself with a fiery zeal into battle with the mass of heathenism which was rolling in upon the Christian world..... For a time it seemed as if the course of the world's history was to be changed, as if the older Celtic race that Roman and German had swept before them had turned to the moral conquest of their conquerors, as if Celtic and not Latin Christianity was to mould the destinies of the Churches of the West."1 In the year 565, Columba, a native of Ireland, founded the monastery of Iona, on an island of the same name,2 off the west coast of Scotland. In this abbey Oswald, king of the Northumbrians, was educated; and through his influence Culdee missionaries were sent to preach among the Saxons. Bishop Aidan was the most noted of these missionaries. He founded the monastery of Lindisfarne, or Holy Island, off the northeast coast of Northumbria, about the year 636. Aidan, according to Bede, was "a man of singular meekness, piety, and moderation." He was zealous in preaching the Gospel, and for this purpose traveled on foot from place to place. Even before he had learned the language, "it was most delightful," says Bede, "to see the king interpreting for him when he spake publicly to the people."

Besides Lindisfarne other monasteries were founded. Among these was Streaneshalch, afterwards called Whitby, founded by Abbess Hilda on the east coast of Deira. This monastery is celebrated as the place where the synod was held to decide the vexed questions of the tonsure, and the time of Easter. Hitherto the monks of Lindisfarne, and other religious houses whose ecclesiastical relations were with Iona,

1 Green's Short History of the English People, p. 58. New York, 1877. 2 The ancient name was Hi, or I, or Aoi, which was Latinized into Hyona, or Iona. Compare Bede's Ecclesiastical History, p. 113, note. Bohn's edition.

3 The Romans shaved the crown of the head and considered the circle of hair left as a figure of the crown of thorns worn by the Saviour. The Scots shaved only the front of the head in the form of a crescent. Compare Lingard's History of England, I., 100. Boston, 1853.

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