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of the Scriptures, and a constant upholder of the right of the people to possess and read the Bible in their own tongue; and last, but first of all, Archbishop Cranmer, whose name is most intimately connected with the Reformation and the English Bible.

There was no special legislation against the English Bible during this reign, neither was there any occasion, since the constitution of Arundle, against the reading of Wycliffe's translation or that of any other person after his time, was in full force. There were, however, royal proclamations issued commanding the searching for and delivering up of heretical books that they might be burned. Heresy and the English Bible were supposed to walk hand in hand; hence, to be a friend of the English Scriptures was, in the estimation of papists, to be an enemy of the queen's laws.1 The queen's council was altogether popish, consequently Protestants were dealt with as the worst sort of malefactors. "And things were carried in that severity," says Strype, "as though it were resolved utterly to extinguish the religion for ever in England; for, besides the exquisite pain of burning to death, which some hundreds underwent, 'some of the professors were thrown into dungeons, ugsome holes, dark, loathsome, and stinking corners; other some lying in fetters and chains, and loaded with so many irons, that they could scarcely stir. Some tyed in the stocks with their heels upwards; some having their legs in stocks, and their necks chained to the wall with gorgets of iron;.... some standing in Skevington's gives, which were most painful engines of iron, with their bodies doubled; some whipped and scourged, beaten with rods and buffeted with fists; some having their hands burned with a candle to try their patience, or force them to relent; some hunger-pined, and some miserably famished and starved. All these torments and many more, even such as cruel Phalaris could not devise worse, were practised by papists, the stout, sturdy soldiers of Satan, thus delighting in variety of tyranny and torments upon the saints

1 Foxe's Acts and Monuments, p. 1713.

1553-58.]

POPISH PERSECUTION.

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of God."1 From such horrors hundreds took refuge abroad, and formed Christian congregations in various cities on the continent. And so it came to pass that to this Marian persecution we are indebted indirectly for one of the most noted and best English translations of the Bible. A translation made by English exiles at Geneva, and known as the Genevan Bible, an account of which will be given in the next chapter.

1 Strype's Ecclesiastical Memorials, IV., 415, 416. London, 1816.

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wutions Whittingham. Having

Marian persecution was William Whittingham. Having escaped from England, he first took refuge in Frankfort. This was in June, 1554; but on account of the troubles there, he, with other Non-conformists, removed to Geneva, which at that time was the center of Protestantism and the home of Calvin and Beza. When John Knox left Geneva for his own country, Whittingham, by the advice of Calvin, took orders in the Genevan form and became Knox's successor. By common consent Whittingham bore the palm for scholarship among his brethren; and by their counsel he undertook and completed the translation of the New Testament of 1557. This work, like that of Tyndale, was by a single hand, and done in exile, but in circumstances very different, since Whittingham was surrounded by friends ready to extend sympathy and practical aid. In the work of revision Whittingham availed himself of the learning of his brethren as well as of the most approved Greek helps and of translations in other tongues, "as the learned may easily iudge, both by the faithful rendering of the sentence, and also by the proprietie of the wordes, and perspecuite of the phrase."1 The edition was in small octavo or duodecimo size, and printed by Conrad Badius, at Geneva, in Roman type, with the following title: "The New Testament of our Lorde Jesus Christ, conferred diligently with the Greke and best approved Translations. With the arguments, as wel before the chapters as for every Boke and Epistle, also diversities of readings and most profitable annotations of all

1 Whittingham's Address to the Reader. Eadie's Eng. Bible, II., 6.

1557.]

VERSE DIVISIONS OF N. T.

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hard places; Whereunto is added a copious Table. Printed by Conrad Badius. M.D.LVII." The prefatory matter is made up of an" Epistle by John Calvin," and an "Address to the Reader" by William Whittingham. At the end there is an" Alphabetical Index to the New Testament," and a "Perfect supputation of the Yeres and Time from Adam unto Christ."

The revision of 1557 was the first English New Testament that divided the text into verses, with breaks according to our present manner, and marked them with figures. In this division, Whittingham followed Robert Stevens' Greek Testament of 1551, but improved upon it, in that he attached the numbers to each subdivision or verse, while the Greek Testament simply placed them in the margin.1 The familiar story of Robert Stephens dividing the Greek text of the New Testament into verses, while journeying on horseback from Paris to Lyons, is founded on the statement of his son Henry in the preface to his "Concordance," published in 1594. "His father," he says, "finding the books of the New Testament already divided into chapters, proceeded to a further subdivision into verses. .... The whole work was accomplished inter equitandum on his journey from Paris to Lyons."? Probably he means not literally while on horseback, but at the several inns where he stopped in making this journey. At first this labor seemed of doubtful success, but soon it met with universal acceptance.

There are some who attribute the invention of dividing the Scriptures, that is the Latin Bible, into sections and subsections, to Steven Langton, archbishop of Canterbury, about the year 1220. But Prideaux insists that the honor belongs to Cardinal Hugo de St. Cher, who flourished about the year 1240. According to Prideaux, the chapters of our present Bibles correspond to the sections made by Hugo. These sections he divided into subsections and marked them by capital

1 Townley's Literature of the Bible, III., 130.
2 Smith's Bible Dictionary, Art. Bible..

letters. These divisions were designed for convenient reference by his new "Concordance," which was the first made for the Latin Bible. The verse divisions, however, were not made till about 1438-1445, when they were introduced by a Jewish Rabbi named Isaac Nathan. Rabbi Nathan being familiar with Hugo's "Latin Concordance," determined to prepare one for the Hebrew Bible. He began his work in 1438, and was some seven years in completing it. He followed Hugo in his sectional divisions, but improved upon him in the subsections, by introducing the verse divisions of the oldest Masoretic Hebrew Bibles.1 He says in his preface: "As I observed that the Latin translation has each book divided into a certain number of sections and chapters, which are not in our (Hebrew) Bibles, I have therefore marked all the verses, according to their numbers, together with the number of each chapter; I have also marked the numbers of the verses, as they exist in our (Hebrew) Bibles, for the greater facility of finding each passage referred to." This mode of indicating the verses as well as chapters was followed by Sanctes Pagninus in 1528, when he made his Latin translation of the Bible from the original Hebrew and Greek. Pagninus was followed in turn by Stevens, at least in part, in 1551.2 And as Whittingham professedly followed these authorities, it would seem from the above statements, that while the Jews are indebted to Christians for the division of the text of their Bibles into chapters, Christians are indebted to the Jews for the subdivision of the chapters into verses.

It has been quite common of late years to rail against the verse divisions of the Holy Scriptures. Doubtless the sense of the text has sometimes been interrupted by this artificial

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These sections or verses were called by the Jews Pesukim. They are marked out in the Hebrew Bibles by two great points at the end of them, called from hence Soph-Pasuk, i. e. the end of the verse." Prideaux' Connection, I., 273.

2 Compare Ibid, I., 273, 278. Horne's Introduction, II., Ch. IV, pp. 169-173. Smith's Bible Dictionary, Art. Bible. Kitto's Cyclopedia, Art. Scripture, Holy.

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