A pause followed. earlier date, into other English dialects, are preserved in Latin Manuscripts, which shew at least individual zeal'. Of the Old Testament, the Pentateuch, Joshua, Judges, Esther, and parts of other books were translated about the tenth century. All these translations, with the possible exception of Bede's, were only secondary translations from the Latin, but none the less they reveal the thoughts with which men's hearts were stirred. And there was no hindrance to their execution. On the contrary, the number of the labourers who took part in the work shews that it was of wide popularity. But the effort was as yet premature. England had still to receive a new element of her future strength; and for her the time of discipline was not over. The Norman invasion, which brought with it the fruits of Romanic thought and culture, checked for a while the spontaneous development of religious life. Nevertheless fragmentary trans 1 One of these noble MSS. is in the British Museum (the Lindisfarne (St Cuthbert's) Gospels, Cotton, Nero, D. Iv.); and the other is in the Bodleian (the Rushworth (Mac Regol's) Gospels, Bodl. D. 24). I am not acquainted with any satisfactory description of the MSS. of the common Anglo-Saxon Version; nor yet with any general account of the relation in which the several copies stand to one another. In this respect Thorpe's edition is most unsatisfactory. lations of Scripture into Norman-French shew that the Bible was popularly studied, and in the end the nation was richer by the delay. Nor may it be forgotten even in this relation that the insularity of the people furthered its characteristic growth; for while it remained outside the Roman empire yet it shared in the spiritual strength which came at that time from an intimate union with the Roman See. Thus the nation preserved throughout its progress the features of its peculiar constitution, and at the same time was brought within the influence of Catholic discipline and sympathy. It would be out of place to follow out here the action and reaction of these special and general powers upon the English type of medieval Christianity; but the recognition of their simultaneous working is necessary for the understanding of the history of the English Bible. For three centuries they acted with various and beneficent results. At length in the 14th century the preparatory work The Papal discipline of the Papacy was ended and its dissolution com- of Europe menced. The many nations and the many churches in 14th began from that time to define their separate peculiarities and functions. The time of maturity was now ready to follow on the time of tutelage: a free completed century. 1. external: development was sufficiently prepared by a long discipline'. The history It is then at this point that the history of the of the English Bible English Bible properly commences, a history which 2.internal. is absolutely unique in its course and in its issue. And this history is twofold. There is the external history of the different versions, as to when and by whom and under what circumstances they were made; and there is the internal history which deals with their relation to other texts, with their filiation one on another, and with the principles by which they have been successively modified. The external history is a stirring record of faithful and victorious courage: the internal history is not less remarkable from the enduring witness which it bears to that noble catholicity which is the glory of the English Church. 1 No notice has been taken of the metrical paraphrases and summaries of parts of Scripture, as that of Cadmon († c. 680) on parts of Genesis, Exodus, and Daniel; of Orm (c. 1150) on the Gospels and the Acts; and the 'Sowlehele' (c. 1250). These, though they paved the way for translations of the Bible, cannot be reckoned among them. |