CHAPTER V. THE only Bible of the English people had been for a century and upwards the written translation of Wycliffe and Purvey. The Lollards, as a distinct party in the realm, had fallen from a conspicuous position, but "the word of the Lord endureth for ever," and in many homes their Book must have been a light, and in many hearts the hidden spring of comfort and power. The Wycliffe Bible was, however, only a version from a version, yet, as Latin was the language of the church, a translation from the Vulgate was made from a recognized source, and the correctness of any rendering could, therefore, be easily ascertained. And why should not a plain rustic or a tradesman have his English Bible, and be put into the same position as a gentleman of education who can read and understand the Latin one? Any attempt to translate from a Greek original at that period, had it been practicable, might have led to confusion and misunderstanding; for ignorance would have branded such a book as heretical and misleading, if it was found to differ in any way from the ecclesiastical text. The common people could not have appreciated these variations, and such prejudices would have been created against the new version as the priesthood could easily foster and spread. Yet the translation of the Latin Scriptures had been a first step to something higher, an intermediate gift to the nation. The effect had been like the first touch of the Blessed Hand upon its vision-"it saw men as trees walking;" and when at length the second touch passed over it, it looked up, and then it "saw every man clearly." As early as the seventh century some knowledge of Greek must have been diffused in the island, through the influence of Archbishop Theodore of Tarsus,1 who brought with him some Greek manuscripts; and such scholarship might be feebly preserved for a period in a few monastic establishments. Petrarch had received a slight initiation into Greek from Barlaam, but he could not read Homer without a Latin gloss, and Boccaccio supplied him with such a guide in 1361. Both Alcuin and Bede understood Greek; and it was taught from about the year 1395 by Emmanuel Chrysoloras, in Venice, Milan, Florence, and Genoa. Alexander V, chosen Pope in 1409, and a Greek by birth, patronized the revived study of his mother tongue. A few scholars had some acquaintance with· it, such as Roger Bacon, John of Basingstoke, Archdeacon of Leicester, and Grosseteste, one of the most illustrious men of his age, who influenced English thought and literature in a remarkable degree, and advocated translations of Scripture, though he set his seal to two worthless spurious productions, the Testament of the Twelve Patriarchs, and the works of Dionysius the Areopagite. Another eminent scholar, Richard Aungervylle or De Bury tutor to Edward III, then Bishop of Durham and for a few months Chancellor of England, has left us his Philobiblon, a species of autobiography, in which, while showing the many means eagerly employed by him to add to his library, he deplores the common ignorance of Greek, and intimates that he had taken care that all "our scholars should possess" a Greek as well as a Hebrew grammar. But Greek was really unknown for a century afterwards, or until the period of what is commonly called the revival of letters; the nearer causes of that resuscitation being the fall of Constantinople in 1453, and the flight of learned Greeks into Europe, when five boats laden with them and their literary treasures crossed over to Italy. Among those exiles, Argyropylus and Chalcondyles, Andronicus Callistus and Constantine Lascaris occupy an honoured place. The early disputes excited by the renewed study of Plato, under the influence of Ficini and others, indicate the spreading love and acquirement of Greek. Greek chairs were founded in the universities, and filled by enthusi 1 See page 4. v.] THE EARLY STUDY OF GREEK. 103 astic teachers. In 1472, George Hermonymus, a Spartan, settled in Paris, and became the Greek teacher of Budæus and Reuchlin; and Gregory Typhernas also taught in the same city. Vitellius, an Italian, taught Greek at Oxford, having Grocyn as one of his pupils. Croke followed Erasmus, in 1522, as Greek professor at Cambridge. Calphurnius was first Greek teacher in Wolsey's new college, his successor being Lupset, who had been tutor to the cardinal's son commonly known by the name of Dr. Wynter.1 Grocyn, a Wykamist, eulogized by Erasmus as his "patron and preceptor," and in whom he admired a "universal compass' of learning, had, in 1491, begun to teach Greek at Oxford, after having been for some time in Italy. Colet, on returning from Italy to the same university in 1496, commenced a series of lectures on St. Paul's Epistles, though he had not yet taken deacon's orders. He was the sole survivor of a family of twentyone brothers and sisters, and heir to a fortune left by his father, who had been Lord Mayor of London, and he yet lives in his noble foundation of St. Paul's School.2 When Dean of St. Paul's, he was suspected of being a reformer, and persecuted by his diocesan, Bishop Fitzjames, who had been chaplain to Edward IV, and Lord High Almoner to Henry VII. Tyndale mentions it as a well-known fact, that Fitzjames would have made Dean Colet a heretic for translating the paternoster into English, had Charles V bought one hundred Greek books, and that Francis I hired a Greek secretary, while Matthias Corvinus purchased an immense quantity of MSS. from Greek fugitives, his librarian at Buda being Bartholomew Frontinus, who had been a professor of Greek at Florence. 1 Tanner, Bale, and Leland give us incidental notices of a few Greek scholars, as Adam Eston, a Benedictine of Norwich, who died at Rome, 1397; John Bates, a Carmelite of York, 1429; Flemmyng, Dean of Lincoln, 1450; William Gray, Bishop of Ely, 1454; John Phrea, of Bristol (died 1464); William Sellynge, of All Souls, Oxford, 2 Two of Colet's works, the Hierwho studied Greek in Italy, and archies of Dionysius, and Lectures who, as Prior of Christ's Church, on Romans, have been recently pubCanterbury (1460), enriched its lished, appropriately edited by T. library with many MSS.; and H. Lupton, M.A., Surmaster of Lebrix, a professor at Alcala, 1490. St. Paul's School, London, 1869. It may be added that, in 1472, 1873. not Archbishop Warham shielded him. Linacre had enjoyed, along with the children of Lorenzo del' Medici, the instruction of Politian and Chalcondyles, and having taken the degree of M.D. at Padua, he became court physician to Henry VIII, and in 1518 he founded the Royal College of Physicians, being also its first president. Erasmus eulogizes his acuteness, depth, and accuracy. Lilly, whom More calls "his most dear companion," was another of the revivers of Greek learning. He had studied five years at Rhodes, and was the first to teach Greek in the metropolis. He was chosen the first Master of Colet's School of St. Paul's, and his Grammar, published in 1513, has dictated Latin formulæ to many successive generations. William Latimer, Fellow of All Souls, in 1489 went and studied at Padua, and on his return taught Greek at Oxford. He was appointed tutor to Reginald Pole, to whom he owed his preferments in the church. Erasmus describes him as a "true divine, and noted for his integrity." Thomas More, afterwards the famous chancellor, belonged to the same eager band. In 1498, Erasmus came to Oxford with a recommendation to Father Charnock from the Prior and Canons of St. Geneviève, in Paris, and was at once welcomed into the College of St. Mary the Virgin. The thin, pale stranger did not know a word of English; but the object of his toil and travail was to obtain or perfect a knowledge of Greek. Greek literature was thus studied with special keenness and assiduity, and the Scriptures began to be examined without regard to dry and worn-out forms. Cambridge was not behind Oxford; and the witty, vagrant, and laborious Erasmus, on a subsequent visit to England, held for some few years its chair of Greek, and, through the influence of Fisher, Chancellor of the University, was appointed Lady Margaret's Professor of Divinity. The kindness of his patron Archbishop Warham Erasmus heartily repaid by a dedication to him of the Works of St. Jerome, and a long and elaborate eulogy in a note to 1 Thess. i, 7. This intense enthusiasm for the study of the old tongue of Hellas, created and exemplified by those early and devoted scholars, made it possible that the next translation of the New Testament should be from the original Greek; and v.] INVENTION OF PRINTING. 105 there was one ardent soul among them, but unrecognized by them, that was quietly and unconsciously disciplining itself for such a momentous enterprise. Almost contemporaneous with the introduction of Greek learning, was the invention of printing, a mechanical craft, born to minister to intellectual power, at a time when its assistance was specially needed. For the European mind was waking up from the sleep of ages, and new ideas eager for dissemination could not wait the slow, expensive, and uncertain quill of the "brief-men." The press, with its speed of impression and power of multiplication, fitted into the epoch, and gave to thought not only a permanent form, but immediate and wide diffusion. An author became a living centre to an immense circle of readers, and his words flew among them with rapidity and ease. The manufacture of vulgar material into paper had been no less astonishing; and a rag trodden in the wintry mire of the streets might be so transformed as to bear upon it a divine message, or become a portion of that Book "the leaves of which are for the healing of the nations." Gutenberg, or Gensfleisch, had made some experiments in printing with movable metallic types prior to 1439; after some delay and loss of money, Fust, a goldsmith of Mentz, was taken into his confidence, and, by his own genius and his partner's financial help, the Latin Bible was printed towards the close of 1455, in two folios of 1282 pages.3 The world to read one page. Bentley's Cor- 2 He took his mother's name, his 1 The wages of a copyist may be learned from one of the Paston Letters, W. Ebesham sends in his bill in 1468: twopence a leaf" for prose, or in our money about two shillings, and a "penny a leaf," or one shilling, for verses of thirty lines in a page; ornamented letters, or "rub- 3 Called often the Mazarin Bible, risshing" in colour, being charged a copy being discovered by De Bure in addition. But the scribes were in the Cardinal's library. A copy not always well rewarded. Bentley on vellum, sold in 1827, brought gave Wetstein only £50 for collating only £504; another, sold at the sale a manuscript of some size, and Wet- of the Perkins library in 1874, stein tells that it took him two hours realized £3,400. |