Chap. ii. History. Thus the first battle for the Bible was being fought in England. Meanwhile the work had advanced one step further abroad. Very early in the same year it is Progress of likely that Tyndale continued his work by publishing separately translations of Genesis and Deuteronomy. Tyndale. The mar ginal glosses of Pentateuch It is not known when the other books of the Pentateuch Pentateuch. were printed. The earliest copy which contains the five books has at the end of Genesis the date '1530, the 17th 'of January.' Perhaps however this may indicate according to our style, 'Jan. 1531;' and there is no evidence to shew when the whole collection was issued, or indeed whether it was issued as a whole. The marginal glosses with which these translations are annotated are full of interest and strongly controversial. The spirit and even the style of Luther is distinctly visible in them. In the directness and persistency of their polemics against Rome they differ much from the glosses in the quarto Testament. Thus Tyndale finds in the ceremonies of the Jewish Church the origin of the Romish rites (note on Ex. xxviii). For example, on Ex. xxix. 37, he adds, 'Touch not the chalice nor the altar-stone, 'nor holy oil, and hold your hand out of the font.' On Ex. xxxvi. 5, he writes: 'When will the Pope say Hoo '(hold!) and forbid to offer for the building of St Peter's 'church? And when will our spirituality say Hoo! 'and forbid to give them more land, and to make 'more foundations? Never until they have all.' Even Tyndale too could descend to a pleasantry like Luther. Thus on Ex. xxxii. 35, he remarks, 'The Pope's 'Bull slayeth more than Aaron's calf...' The tonsure is criticized Levit. xxi. 5, 'Of the heathen priests 'then took our prelates the ensample of their bald 'pates.' One grim touch of satire may be added, Deut. xi. 19, 'Talk of them [the Lord's words] when Chap. ii. The Trans lation of 'thou sittest in thine house.' 'Talk of Robin Hood, 'say our prelates.' In the same year (1531), in all probability, the book of Jonah, 1534. Jonah' with an important Prologue appeared, but no more of Tyndale's work on the Old Testament was published during his lifetime, except the 'Epistles from the Old Testament,' which were added to the revised edition of his New Testament. For in the midst of his constant perils and anxieties from within and from without Tyndale found time to revise his New Testament carefully. The immediate occasion for the publication of his work was the appearance of an unauthorised revision in August 1534, Joye's New by George Joye. The demand for the New Testaments which appears to have slackened since 1530, was again so great that three surreptitious editions were printed at Antwerp in that year; and Joye undertook to revise the sheets of a fourth edition. In doing this he made use as he says, of the Latin text, and aimed at giving 'many 'words their pure and native signification.' The title of the book is singularly affected, and the alterations were Testament. 1 Of this a single copy was found in 1861 by Lord A. Hervey, which was reproduced in facsimile by Mr F. Fry, 1863. For a comparison of the version with that of Coverdale, see p. 64. The book was denounced by Stokesley, Dec. 3, 1531, and in 1532 Sir T. More speaks of 'Jonas made 'out of Tyndale.' Mr Fry has called my attention to these references. 2 The New Testament as it was written and caused to be written by them which herde yt, whom also oure Saueoure Christ Jesus commaunded that they shulde preach it vnto al creatures. At the end of the New Testament is this colophon: Here endeth the New Testament, diligently ouersene and corrected, and prynted now agayn at Antwerpe by me wydowe of Christoffel of Endoue. In the yere of oure Lorde M.CCCCC and XXXIIII, in August. One copy only of this edition is known, which is in the Grenville Library in the British Museum. It is not true, as is commonly said, that Joye expunged' the word 'resurrection' from his New Testament. It stands in such critical passages as Acts xvii. 18, 32; i. 22; iv. 2, &c.; 1 Cor. xv. 12, &c.; nor did Tyndale bring this charge against him, but that 'throughout Matthew, Mark and 'Luke perpetually, and often in the Acts, and sometimes in John, and 'also in the Hebrews, where he find'eth this word "Resurrection," he changeth it into the "life after this 'life," or 'very life," and such like, 'as one that abhorred the name of 66 such as to arouse the just indignation of Tyndale, whose name however is nowhere connected with the version. Among other new renderings Tyndale specially notices that of 'the life after this' for 'resurrection.' Still Joye does not avoid the word 'resurrection;' and if this were the only change, the particular substitution would be of little moment in the connexion where it occurs; but comparatively few paragraphs are left wholly untouched. as far as I have examined the book. One continuous passage will exhibit Joye's mode of dealing with the text. The words in italics are variations from Tyndale: 'That thing (om. T.) which was from the beginning 'declare we unto you, (add. concerning T. 1st ed.) which 'we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which 'we have looked upon, and our hands have handled; 'even that same thing which is (of the word of T.) life. 'For that (the T.) life appeared, and we have seen it (om. 'T.), wherefore we (and T.) bear witness and shew unto 'you that eternal life, which was with the Father and 'appeared unto us. That same thing (om. T.) which we ‘have seen and heard declare we unto you, that ye may 'have fellowship with us, and that our fellowship may be 'with the Father and His Son Jesus Christ'. (1 John i. I-3.) 'the resurrection.' (W. T. yet once more to the Christian reader, in the N.T. of 1534.) Thus in Matt. xxii. 23, 30, we read 'life after this;' xxii. 31, the life of them that be dead.' So also Luke xx. 27, 33, 36 (children of that life). John v. 29 is translated and shall come forth, they that 'have done good unto the very life, 'and they that have done evil into 'the life of damnation.' In John xi. 24, 25 the word 'resurrection' is retained. From these examples it is obvious that Joye's object was simply 1 In John i. 1-18 the following I that Word: and God was that Word. 4 life (om. the). 5 darkness (om. the). 10 and the world (om. yet). 11 into his own and his (om. Chap. ii Chap. ii. Tyndale's Several of the changes noticed are suggested by the Vulgate; others are due apparently only to a mistaken effort to obtain clearness: none mark a critical examination of the original. But Joye knew that Tyndale was studying the Greek afresh for his revised edition, which he had had some time in hand, and so he might well be said not to have used the office of an honest man.' However Tyndale's own work was ready in the Norevised edi-vember of the same year. The text was not only revised, but furnished also with short marginal notes. Prologues were added to the several books'; the beginnings and endings of the lessons read in Church were marked; and a translation of 'the Epistles taken out of 'the Old Testament, which are read in the Church after 'the Use of Salisbury upon certain days of the year,' which include a large number of fragments from the Old Testament and the Apocrypha, classed together by Tyndale under one head'. tion, 1534. own) received. 15 bare witness of In Ephes. i. again these are found: i On the relation of these Prologues to Luther's, see Chap. III. 2 The relation of the 'Epistles' containing translations of the Old Testament to the text of Tyndale's continuous translation will be noticed afterwards. The following is (I hope) an accurate list of them. Gen. xxxvii. 6-22; Ex. xii. 111; XX. 12-24; xxiv. 12-18; Lev. xix. 1-18; Num. xx. 2-13; 1 Kings xvii. 17-24; xix. 2-8; Prov. xxxi. 10-31; Cant. ii. 1-14; Is. i. 16-19; ii. 1-5; vii. 10-15; xi. 1-5; xii. 1—6; xlix. 1—7; li. I -8; liii. 1—12; lviii. 1–9; lx. 1— 6; lxii. 6-12; Jerem. xvii. 13-18; xxiii. 6-8 (wrongly given xxxiii.); Ezech. i. 10-13; xviii. 20-28; xxxvi. 23-28; Joel ii. 12-19; 23—27; iii. 17-21; Hos. xiv. 1-9 (wrongly given xiii.); Amos ix. 13-15; Zech. ii. 10-13; viii. 3-8; Mal. iii. 1—4. From the Apocrypha, Esther xiii. 8 -18; Wisd. v. 1-5; Ecclus. xv. I -6; xxiv. 7-15; 17-22; xliv. 17; xlv. 4 (part); li. 9-12. In his reference to these, Mr Anderson is singularly unhappy. He omits six of the chapters from which the passages are taken (he does not give the verses), and of those which he gives, six are wrong, from a confusion of x and v. He suppresses all the passages from the Apocrypha and converts Esther xiii. (apocryphal) into Esther viii. (canonical). He argues from the publication of these passages, 'that there were other chapters in Chap. ii. leyn's copy. One of the few copies of this edition which have been preserved is of touching interest. Among the men who had suffered for aiding in the circulation of the Anne Boearlier editions of the Testament was a merchant-adventurer of Antwerp, Mr Harman, who seems to have applied to Queen Anne Boleyn for redress. The Queen listened to the plea which was urged in his favour, and by her intervention he was restored to the freedom and privileges of which he had been deprived. Tyndale could not fail to hear of her good offices, and he acknowledged them by a royal gift. He was at the time engaged in superintending the printing of his revised New Testament, and of this he caused one copy to be struck off on vellum and beautifully illuminated. No preface or dedication or name mars the simple integrity of this copy. Only on the gilded edges in faded red letters runs the simple title Anna Regina Angliæ1. The interest of the Queen in the work of Tyndale appears to have extended yet further2: an edition of his revised New Testament, the first volume of Holy Scripture printed in England, appeared in the year in which she was put to death (1536), and from the press of a 'manuscript' (I. p. 570), wholly neglecting to notice that these lessons were a definite collection from the service book. It is not generally worth while to note mistakes, but this error deserves to be signalized, because it does not spring from inaccuracy, but apparently in some degree from want of candour, for Mr Anderson labours to shew that Tyndale would not have translated the Apocrypha. The copy was bequeathed to the British Museum by the Rev. C. M. Cracherode in 1799, but I have been unable to learn its previous history. It may have been bound in blue morocco' when it was presented to 6 Anne Boleyn, as Mr Anderson says The shield on the title-page is filled 2 The lady Anne' had at an earlier time had a perilous adventure from lending to one of her ladies a copy of Tyndale's Obedience of a Christian Man. The narrative is quoted in Tyndale's Works, I. p. 130. E |