Internal History. Chap. iii. completeness. Each part can be examined as it was first planned and executed, and not only as it was finally incorporated into a more complex whole. We can even determine the materials out of which it was raised, and the various resources of which its authors could avail themselves at each point of their task. For us the result stands now amidst the accumulated treasures of later researches. But if we would appreciate it rightly in itself we must once again surround it by the conditions under which it was obtained. Problems involved in history of Bible. The close of the 15th century sealed a revolution the internal in Europe. The ecclesiastical language of the West the English had given place to or at least admitted into fellowship the sacred languages of the East. It was in vain that the more ignorant of the clergy denounced Greek and Hebrew as the fatal sources of heathenism and Judaism: it was vain that they could be popularly represented as emblems of apostate peoples of GOD while the Latin symbolized the faithful: the noblest and most far-seeing scholars, lay or cleric, recognized in the new learning a handmaid of religion, and took measures for its honourable admission into the circle of liberal education. In his University at Alcala the great Cardinal Ximenes made provision for the teaching of Hebrew and Greek with Latin, and consecrated the study in his noble Polyglott. At Louvain a foundation for the like purpose was added to the University about 1516 by Busleiden. Wolsey appears to have contemplated a similar course in his College at Oxford, where he founded in 1519 a chair of Greek'. When complaints were made, Henry, acting no doubt under his inspiration, enjoined that 'the study of the Scriptures in 'their original languages should not only be permitted 2 Bp. Fox had founded one two years earlier, in 1517. Alcala. Louvain. Oxford. 2 'for the future, but received as a branch of the academical institution'. The work of Wolsey was left unfinished, but it is not without interest to find among his canons two, John Fryth and Richard Taverner, who became afterwards distinguished for their labours in the translation of Scripture, and at least seven others who were sufferers by the first persecution which followed after the introduction of Tyndale's New Testament. Thus everywhere men were being disciplined for the rendering the original text of the Bible into the living languages of Europe, and at the end of the first quarter of the 16th century sufficient materials were gathered for the accomplishment of their office. The appliances for the independent study of the Greek of the New Testament and the Septuagint Version of the Old were fairly adequate. Grammars were in wide circulation, of which the earliest was that of Lascaris (Milan, 1476) and the most enduring that of Clenardus (Louvain, 1530). In the interval between the appearance of these, numerous others were published in Italy, France, and Germany3. The first lexicon of Craston (1480) was republished in a more convenient form by Aldus (1497) and supplemented by the important collections of Guarino (Phavorinus) in his Etymologicum Magnum. But these and all other earlier lexicons were eclipsed by the so-called Commentaries of Budæus (Paris 1529), a true Thesaurus of Greek, which still remains a vast monument and storehouse of learning. The very names of many of the great German scholars shew the passion with which the study was pursued. Melanchthon (Schwarzerd), Ecolampadius (Hausschein), Capnio (Reuchlin), Erasmus (Gerhard), Ceratinus (Horn), 1 Anderson, I. 24. derson, I, pp. 86, 95. 3 One at Wittenberg in 1561. Chap. iii. Helps to the study of Greek. Chap. iii. Helps to the study of Hebrew. Publications of the Latin, Hebrew, are memorable instances to prove the power of Greek to furnish home names to the Teutonic nations. And though England can boast of no original Greek works till a later time, yet Croke, a scholar of Grocyn, first introduced a thorough knowledge of the language into northern Germany, where, it is said, he was received like a heavenly messenger'.' The pursuit of Hebrew was not less flourishing in the North. In Italy Greek had been welcomed at first as a new spring of culture. Beyond the Alps Greek and Hebrew were looked upon as the keys to Divine Truth. So it was that while Greek languished in Italy and Hebrew scarcely gained a firm footing among the mass of students; in Germany both were followed up with an ardent zeal which for good alike and for evil is yet fruitful in great issues. An Italian of the early part of the 16th century instinctively marked the spiritual difference of the North and South when he observed that in Germany Hebrew was prized in the same manner as Latin in Italy. Thus the early translators. of the Old Testament found materials already fitted for their use. The first Hebrew Grammar was composed by Pellican (1503). This was followed by that of Reuchlin, with a dictionary, in 1506. Another by S. Münster appeared in 1525, who published also a Chaldee grammar in 1527. Pagninus, the translator of the Bible, added a new dictionary in 1529. The great Complutensian Polyglott (published 1520, finished 1517) contained a Latin translation of the Targum of Onkelos and a complete Lexicon to the Hebrew and Chaldee texts, with a Hebrew grammar. In the meantime, while all the chief classical authors had been published, the original texts and some of the 1 Hallam, Introd. to Literature, I. 268 n. have Chap. iii. ancient versions of Holy Scripture had also become accessible. The Latin Vulgate is supposed to been the first book printed (c. 1455), and this first and Greek edition was followed by a multitude of others, in some of which, and notably in the Latin text of the Complutensian Polyglott, old manuscripts were used. The Hebrew of the Old Testament was first published completely at Soncino in 1488. Many other editions followed, which were crowned by the great Rabbinical Bibles of Bomberg in 1518 and 1525: these were furnished with the Targums and the commentaries of the greatest early Jewish scholars. Complete Latin translations from the Hebrew were made by Sanctes Pagninus (1527), and by Sebast. Münster (1534—5). Considerable portions were rendered afresh in Latin by Zwingli and Ecolampadius; and single books by many writers before 1535. The Septuagint was contained in the Complutensian Polyglott, and in a distinct text in the edition of Aldus 1518. The Greek Testament appeared for the first time many years after the Latin and Hebrew texts edited by Erasmus with a new Latin Translation in 15161. A second edition followed in 1519: a third, which may be considered his standard edition, in 1522; and others in 1527, and 1535. An edition from the press of Aldus with some variations appeared together with the Septuagint in 1518. The Complutensian Polyglott printed in 1514, in which there is an independent text of the New Testament, was not published till 1520. Other editions followed soon after which have little or no independent value. It remains only to characterize generally the critical value of these editions. The Hebrew text of the Old 1 In the same year appeared his edition of St Jerome, the most im portant of the Fathers for a transla- texts of the Scriptures. Chap. iii. Testament edited by Ben Chayim (1525) is substantiHistory. ally good. Indeed as Hebrew Manuscripts all belong The first independent German Versions. Luther. Zurich Bible. to a comparatively late recension the extent of real variation between them is limited. The Latin texts accessible in the first half of the 16th century were indifferent. The Greek texts of the New Testament, and this is most important, were without exception based on scanty and late manuscripts, without the help of the oriental versions and the precious relics of the Old Latin. As a necessary consequence they are far from correct, and if the variations are essentially unimportant as a whole, yet the errors in the text of our English Testament inherited from them are considerably more important than the existing errors of translation. Such were the materials which the first great Reformers found to help them in their work of rendering the original Scriptures into their own languages. Before the English labourers entered the field it was already occupied. Numerous students in Germany had translated separate books when Luther commenced the work which he was enabled to carry to a successful end. Luther's New Testament appeared in 1522 as the fruit of his seclusion in the Wartburg, and, like Tyndale's, anonymously. The Pentateuch followed in 1523. The Historical books and the Hagiographa in 1524. The Prophets at various intervals (Jonah in 1526) afterwards; and the whole work in 1534. The second revised edition did not appear till 1541. But in the meanwhile a band of scholars at Zurich, including Zwingli, Pellican and Leo Juda, had taken Luther's work as the basis of a new translation up to the end of the Hagiographa, and completed it by an original translation of the Prophets and the Apocrypha. This was published |