II. EXTERNAL CHAP. bishop himself directed of what subject matter 'their lectures should be. As it had been a great 'while his pious and most earnest desire that the 'Holy Bible should come abroad in the greatest 'exactness and true agreement with the original 'text, so he laid this work upon these two learned 'men. First that they should give a clear plain ' and succinct interpretation of the Scripture accord'ing to the propriety of the language; and secondly 'illustrate difficult and obscure places and reconcile those that seemed repugnant to one another. 'And it was his will and his advice that to this end 'and purpose their public readings should tend..... 'Fagius, because his talent lay in the Hebrew 'learning, was to undertake the Old Testament; 'and Bucer the New...Fagius entered upon the 'Evangelical prophet Esaias and Bucer upon the 'gospel of the Evangelist John, and some chapters 'in each book were dispatched by them. But it 'was not long but both of them fell sick, which 'gave a very unhappy stop to their studies.' Nothing indeed is here said of an immediate revision of the authorised Bible, but the instructions point to the direction in which the great archbishop's thoughts were turned. 1 Strype's Cranmer, 1. 281. II. HISTORY. Sir J. translation of St Matthew. Meanwhile a fragment of a version of the New CHAP. Testament-the Gospel of St Matthew and the EXTERNAL beginning of St Mark—was completed by Sir John Cheke, at one time professor of Greek at Cam- Cheke's bridge and tutor to Edward VI. He seems to have aimed at giving a thoroughly English rendering of the text, and in this endeavour he went to far greater lengths of quaintness than Taverner. Thus he coins new words to represent the old 'ecclesiastical' terms for which More and Gardiner contended most earnestly: frosent (apostle): biword (parable): gainbirth (regeneration): uprising or gainrising (resurrection): tablers (money-changers): tollers (publicans): freshmen (proselytes): and uses strange participial forms: gospeld (xi. 5): devild (viii. 28): moond (iv. 24); and even crossed for crucified. The fragment remained in manuscript till quite lately', and it is not certain that it was designed for publication. As it will not be necessary to revert to it again, a specimen may be given to shew its general style: At that time Jesus answered and said: I must 'needs O Father acknowledge thanks unto Thee, O Lord of heaven and earth, which hast hidden 'these things from wise and witty men, and hast 1 By Mr Goodwin, London, 1843. CHAP. 'disclosed the same to babes; yea and that, Father, II. EXTERNAL The English Bible 'for such was thy good pleasure herein. All things In the reign of Mary no English Bible was in Mary's printed. Rogers and Cranmer were martyred: reign. Pro Coverdale with difficulty escaped to the Continent: Co i II. EXTERNAL HISTORY. in the mean time though the English press was CHAP. inactive the exiles abroad were busy, and at the close of Mary's reign a New Testament was printed at Geneva, which was the first step towards a work destined to influence very powerfully our authorised Version. The origin of this must now be traced. § 7. THE GENEVAN BIBLE. June 1557. van Testa 1557. It is unnecessary to dwell upon the disastrous The Genediscussions at Frankfurt which divided the English ment of exiles of Mary's reign. The task of continuing the revision of the Bible fell naturally to the non-conforming party who retired to Geneva, the active centre of the labours of Calvin and Beza. Among them was W. Whittingham, who married Calvin's sister; and it is to him in all probability that we owe the Genevan Testament, which appeared in 1557 with an Introductory Epistle by Calvin. The reviser's own address to the reader is anonymous, but it is definitely personal, and claims the work for a single man, and no one seems more likely than Whittingham to have undertaken it. ser's ac 'As touching the perusing of the text,' he The revi writes, 'it was diligently revised by the most ap 'proved Greek examples, and conference of trans count of his work. II. CHAP. 'lations in other tongues, as the learned may easily EXTERNAL 'judge both by the faithful rendering of the sentence, HISTORY. 'and also by the propriety of the words and per 'spicuity of the phrase. Furthermore that the 'reader might be by all means profited, I have 'divided the text into verses and sections' accord'ing to the best editions in other languages.....And 'because the Hebrew and Greek phrases, which 'are strange to render in other tongues and also 'short, should not be too hard, I have sometime 'interpreted them, without any whit diminishing. 'the grace of the sense, as our language doth use them, and sometime have put to [added] that 'word which lacking made the sentence obscure, 'but have set it in such letters as may easily be 'discerned from the common text.' The attractiveness of the book was enhanced by a marginal commentary, in which the author boasts that 'to his knowledge he has omitted no'thing unexpounded, whereby he that is anything 'exercised in the Scriptures of God might justly 1 The division into verses is marked on the margin of Stephens' Gr. Test. of 1551; but in this edition the text was broken up into verses. The use of italic supplemental words is found in Munster's O.T. 1534, but is said to have been borrowed by the reviser from Beza's Testament of 1556, which I have been unable to see. A different type was employed in the Great Bible to mark various readings. |