CHAPTER V
CHAPTER V.
TYNDALE'S FIRST NEW TESTAMENT
; DESCRIPTION OF THE
BOOK IN ITS TWO FORMS
; TYNDALE'S QUALIFICATIONS
AS A TRANSLATOR; SPECIMENS OF HIS WORK.
The issue of the first New Testament forms too important an event in the life of Tyndale to be passed over with the mere historical narrative of its occurrence ; the reader may reasonably expect to be supplied with detailed information as to the exact nature and merits of that work, which constitutes Tyndale's claim on the gratitude of all Englishspeaking people.
And it is the more necessary to present these details, because an enormous amount of misconception has long prevailed on the subject, which it is desirable, not for Tyndale's sake merely, but also, in some measure, for that of the English New Testament, if possible, effectually to remove.
Without, therefore, entering minutely into questions that belong more appropriately to the province of the antiquarian and the bibliographer, we shall endeavour clearly and succinctly to present in this chapter such information concerning Tyndale^s first New Testament as, it may be presumed, must be of interest to all intelligent readers.
According to the statement of Buschius, already quoted from Spalatin's journal, six thousand copies of the New Testament were printed at Worms ; that is, as has been generally understood, three thousand in octavo, and as
/ Description of the quarto Fragment.
many in quarto. And the reader, pei'liaps, takes for granted, that of this large number, some considerable fraction has been preserved intact through the changes of three centuries and a half.
Had the ravages of time alone been directed against the book, no doubt not a few might still be found safe in the shelter of our older libraries ; but the New Testaments ^were for many yearsrigorously prohibited,, they were eagerly sought for by the, officers of the Church and publicly burned whenever they were discovered.
Thus it has happened that of the three thousand quarto New Testaments, only a single copy remains, and that in a most imperfect state : and of the octavo, only two are known to exist ; one, incomplete, in the libraiy of St. Paul's Cathedral, and the' other, wanting only the title-page, in the Baptist College, at Bristol.
A brief description of the fragmentary quarto, an^d the nearly perfect octavo, will not be unacceptable to the reader,,and cannot be thought out of place in a life^ of Tyndale.
The qu8,rto fragment is justly esteemed the chief treasure of the Grenville Library in the British Museum.
So completely, indeed, had this New Testament begun at Cologne disappeared from view, that its very existence.had been ignored and even, denied; and eminent authorities had maintained that no New.. Testament was printed in English, before that which was issued surreptitiously at Antwerp towards the close of 1526; . Some fiva and thirty years ago, however, a London bookseller, in examining a volume which contained a treatise by the Swiss reformer, Oecolampadius, found that there was bound up with it a fragment of the Gospel of St. Matthew in English.
There was no title-page, nor anything to indicate the name of the translator, or the time or place of its publication.
It was evident, however, that the leaves had
Description of Tyndale's New Testament. originally formed part of what was intended to be a complete version of the whole New Testament ; for the fragment contained a list of all the books in its Table of Contents.
But notwithstanding the absence of all the ordinary indications of printer or authorship, there were not wanting certain clues by the help of .which ingenious scholars were able to solve those obscure questions.
Thus it was observed that the prologue, with which the fragment began, commenced with an elegant ornamental Y
(used for I), which on further investigation was found to occur in several books that were undoubtedly productions of Quentel's press. ^ Still further, there was prefixed to the translation a large bold woodcut of Saint Matthew, represented as busily engaged writing his Gospel, and in the act of dipping his pen into an inkstand held for him by an angel.
This very same woodcut is also used, curiously enough, in one of the volumes edited by Tyndale's enemy
Cochloeus during his exile at Cologne, viz., a commentary on St. Matthew by Eupert, Abbot of Deutz.
In this latter work, however, in order to accommodate it to the smaller space available, the woodcut has been slightly reduced in size; and we have thus ocular demonstration that the fragment of the New Testament must have preceded the Commentary of Eupert ; as the entire block must, of necessity, have preceded the reduced one.
Eupert's work on St. Matthew was finished June 12th, 1526; the fragment, therefore, belongs to an earlier date.
The prologue, moreover, contains those very assertions for which Tyndale's New Testament, on its first appearance, was held up to public reprobation.
Thus every step in the identification is complete ^ Mr. Offor takes the credit of having first suggested these points of resemblance; I do not presume to determine whether he does so on Bufficient grounds.
See his MS. Notes on Anderson's Annals in the Museum.
The Octavo at Bristol College.
and by internal evidence which it is impossible to dispute, the leaves are demonstrated to belong to that first edition of the New Testament whose history we have just read, which was begun under such favourable auspices at Cologne, and was so unexpectedly interrupted by the vindictive energy of Cochloeus.
The precious fragment came subsequently into the possession of the Right Hon. Thomas Grenville, and was bequeathed by him to the British Museum.
It consists of only thirty-one leaves, and finishes abruptly with the words, " Friend, how camest thou in hitherward," in the twenty-second chapter of St.
Matthew.
The inner margin contains a few references to parallel passages, such as are commonly printed in modern Bibles ; while in the outer margin are placed notes of various kinds, doctrinal, explanatory, and polemic, which are, in fact, the pestilent glosses so repeatedly denounced by the English authorities.^
The history of the one perfect copy of the octavo Testament of Worms can be traced back for upwards of a century.
Somewhere about the year 1740, the Earl of Oxford, the collector of the famous Harleian Library, secured it through one of his numerous agents, whom ho rewarded for the discovery wth a payment of ten pounds, and an annuity of twenty.
At the death of Lord Oxford his library was purchased by Osborne, the famous London bookseller, who, in complete ignorance of the value of the work, sold it to the great bibliographer, Joseph Ames, for fifteen shillings.
After passing through the hands of another bookseller, it came into the possession of the Rev. Dr.
Gifibrd, one of ^ The preoious volume is numbered 12,179 in the Grenville Library in the Museum : it has been bound in blue morocco, and leaves have been inserted to make the book as near as can be calculated to the original size.
The prologue has been printed in the Parker Society Edition of Tyndale's TTorfcs.
The whole has been photo-lithographed by Mr. Arber, and issued with a valuable preface.
No Biblical scholar can consider his libratry complete without a copy of this work.
Description of Tyndale's New Testament. the Assistant Librarians of the British Museum, who gave twenty guineas for it.
Dying in 1784 he bequeathed the precious treasure, with the rest of his valuable collection of Bibles and rare books, to the Baptist College in his native city of Bristol ; and there the volume rests in a fireproof safe, secure, it is to be hoped, against all further vicissitudes ofNtime.
The book, as has already been stated, wants, the title-page,^ andr contains na date nor name of printer or translator ; but the proof of its identity with the New Testament printed at Worms, as described in the previous chapter, is complete.
It . has been demonstrated by the most unquestionable of all evidence, the juxta-position of fac-similes,r that the same, type is used in the Bristol New Testament as in .other works of Schoeffer's printing preserved in the royal libraries at Stuttgard and Munich; that the water-marks are of similar design; and that some of the illustrative vignettes are identical.
In short, no possible doubt remains oUr the identity of the book.
Unlike tlie workbegun^ at Cologne, this octavo New Testament -contains neither prologue nor marginal glosses, nor anything in addition to the sacred text, except a very brief ''Epistle to the Eeader," subjoined to the book, mainly by way of apologising for the haste and consequent imperfection with which the volume had been finished.
The copy which has actually . been preserved at Bristol seems to have belonged to some person of wealth ; as all the capitals, vignettes,., and paragraphs are illuminated, the pages are neatly enclosed with .red lines, and references to parallel passages are inserted in ink in the margin, evidently by a contemporary hand.^ 1 The title-page that used to be shown, one of MV. Offer's manufacture, has very properly been takfen out.'
'^ I have examined the volume myself; but in my details I have preferred to rely on Mr. Fty's Introduction to his admirable fac-simile of
The Two Editions of the New Testament.
Such are the two remaining specimens of Tyndale's earliest labours in the translation of the New Testament and a collation of the fragment of the quarto with the complete octavo, makes it qnite certain that they contain one and the same version.
There are, indeed, several differences in the spelling of the two ; but these are sufficiently accounted for by the supposition, obviously an exceedingly reasonable one, that in reprinting the text at Worms, Tyndale took the opportunity of correcting any mistakes in the orthography which had crept into the quarto at Cologne.
The question, occasionally asked, whether the quarto or the octavo was first finished and sent to England, we do not pretend to answer, The fragment of the quarto that has been preserved, beyond all question preceded anything that was printed at Worms, for the evidence of Cochloeus is conclusive on this point; but whether the quarto, already begun, was at once completed, or whether its publication was delayed till the smaller issue was finished, is a point on which, in the total absence of all authentic evidence, any decision must be mere idle conjectured
All that can be affirmed with certainty is, that the very earliest official notice of Tyndale's New Testament in England, distinctly specifies both the edition tvith glosses (the quarto), and that without glosses (the octavo), as dispersed in great numbers throughout the diocese of London.
Passing, however, from these details which are only of the book : if any admirer of Tyndale wishes an appropriate memento of the illustrious translator let him procure Mr. Fry's beautiful work.
^ Anderson, and even Westcott, seem to suppose that some inference may be drawn as to the priority of the quarto from the greater faultiness of its spelling.
Such an inference would bo legitimate enough if wo could compare the octavo with that portion of the quarto which was not printed at Cologne : but of this not a line has been preserved, and the priority of Quentel's part of the work is established beyond all question by the history of Cochloeus.
Desaiption of Tyndale's New Testament. minor moment, a far more important question demands om* consideration.
It may be asked, " Was Tyndale properly qualified to translate the New Testament, and what is the real literary value of his translation ? "
These questions are of prime importance, and they demand a plain and satisfactory reply.
It has been customaiy to speak of Tyndale as an indifferent scholar, ignorant of Hebrew, imperfectly acquainted with Greek, knowing only Latin and perhaps German, and making his versions of Scripture from the Vulgate and from Luther. Even Fuller takes for granted that he ** rendered the Old Testament out of the Latin, his best friends not entitling him to any skill at all in the Hebrew." ^
Fuller, to be sure, is no very great authority, and would have been sadly at a loss to name any of the best friends of Tyndale who had thus acknowledged his total ignorance of Hebrew; but other writers who profess to have made elaborate inquiry speak in the same contemptuous style of Tyndale's meagre scholarship.
Hallam, '* classic Hallam, much renowned for Greek," informs his readers, in a sentence replete with errors, that Tyndale's New Testament, was "published in
or 1536!" and was *' avowedly taken from the German of Luther and from the Latin Vulgate."
Bishop Marsh in his " Theological Lectures," considers himself to have proved by copious induction, that Tyndale's version was taken from that of Luther, and that, in fact, Tyndale knew nothing beyond Latin and German.
And in more recent times. Dean Hook, without entering into any examination of the subject, asserts incidentally, that Tyndale's translation was only doing into English the Septuagint and the Vulgate ; ^ '
Fuller's Church History, Vol. iii., p. 162.
Brewer's edition.
2 LiAies of the Archbishops of Canterbury, Vol. vi. p. 233.
The Dean igf
Tyndale's Scholarship.
forgetting, apparently, that the man who could " do the Septuagint into English" needed not to rely upon the Vulgate.
Minor writers have, of course, followed in the wake of these authorities, and without ever having studied or even seen Tyndale's work presume to indulge in ill-natured sneers against Tyndale's supposed ignorance.
Questions of fact can only be determined by testimony and investigation ; and, fortunately, Tyndale's scholarship can be sufficiently established by an overwhelming array of evidence both external and internal.
Sir Thomas More, a thoroughly competent judge, perfectly free from all prepossession in Tyndale's favour, admits that Tyndale " before he fell into these frenzies [of Luther's opinions] was taken for full prettily learned."
Whilst criticising and condemning his translation on account of its countenancing Lutheran doctrines, he never denies Tyndale's competent scholarship ; nay, he even goes so far as to suggest that a certain book which he bitterly opposed, could not possibly have been written by Tyndale on account of its lack of learning.^ Cochloeus, whose determined hostility we have already noticed, speaks of Tyndale and his associate at Cologne as "learned, skilful inlanguages, and eloquent."
George Joye, an English Protestant refugee, who quarrelled with Tyndale and writes with most extravagant vehemence against him, is, indeed, spiteful very nnfortunate in his statements on the history ofthe English Bible. He asserts for example, that in 1526 Tunstal bought up the whole of WicUffe's translation of the New Testament and burned them
What ho meant to say being evidently this, that in 1529 Tnnstal bought up a considerable number of Tyndale's New Testaments and other prohibited Works, and burned them in 1530.
' The words cited are from Sir Thomas More's Answer to the first part of a poisoned hook which a nameless heretic hath named " The Supper of the Lord," Works, pp. 1035-1138; Sir Thomas often repeats the same opinion.
Tyndale's SvJiolarshvp^ enough to inBinuate in one part of his furious tirade that he " wondered how Tyndale could compare his translation with Greek sith himself is not so exquisitely seen therein ;" yet in another place he speaks freely of Tyndale's " high learning in his Hebrew, Greek, Latin, etc." ^ The testimony of Foxe and other admirers may, perhaps, be undervalued as prejudiced, but we have the authority of an eminent German scholar who had met Tyndale at Worms in 1526, and who subsequently stated to Spalatin that the Englishman who translated the New Testament into English was " so skilled in seven languages, Hebrew, Greek,
Latin, Italian, Spanish, English, French, that whichever he spoke you would suppose it his native tongue.'"^ The scholar who has in such emphatic terms vouched for Tyndale's learning was Herman Buschius,' the friend of Erasmus and Reuchlin, one of the leaders in the revival of letters, one of the conjoint authors of the Epistolce obscurorum virorum, a critic, in short, whose verdict can only be questioned by one who is entirely ignorant of the literary history of the sixteenth century.
" But," it may be asked, " admitting that Tyndale was sufficiently acquainted with Greek to be able to translate from the original, did he in fact translate from the original? and if so, what is meant by the accusation so frequently brought against him by his contemporaries, that he trans- * Soye' s Apology ; tlie passages quoted occur in C. iii. and E. ii. reverse the book is not paged, and is extremely rare.
I quote from a MS. copy of it kindly lent me by Mr. Try.
^ Schelhom, Amcenitates literariw.
Vol. iv. p.
431 ; under the day after St. Lawrence's day, 1526, i.e., August 11.
3 On Buschius, and his position in the respullica literarum, points which have been singularly neglected in histories of the Bible, see Sir William Hamilton's Discussions, p. 327, etc.
Some of our English literary critics ought to ask the literati of the Continent what they think of men who dispute Buschius's testimony.
Tyndale's Glosses taken from Luther.
lated Luther's New Testament ?"
To this last question no satisfactory answer has yet been attempted in any history of the English Bible ; it has been in general ridiculed as an idle and ignorant slander, and yet an explanation, complete and unanswerable, can readily enough be given.
To anyone who has enjoyed the opportunity of placing side by side the folio of Luther's German Testament, printed in September, 1522, and the quarto of Tyndale, printed in September, 1525, the whole matter is clear at a glance.
Tyndale's New Testament is Luther's in miniature ; the general appearance of the page is the same ; the arrangement of the text is the same ; and the appropriation of the margins, the inner one for parallel passages, and the outer for glosses, is also the same.
Still further, what is of far more importance, although it is now for the first time indicated,^ the marginal notes, those "pestilent glosses," against which the indignation of the clergy was especially excited, have been to a large extent translated by Tyndale from those of Luther.
Not that Tyndale translated like a servile imitator, whose intellect was too barren to be capable of originality ; everywhere he uses his own judgment ; sometimes he curtails Luther's notes ; sometimes he omits them ; often he inserts notes of his own, and these of various kinds, explanatory and doctrinal.
Some of the longest of these marginal glosses, as well as some of those which most emphatically propound the doctrine of justification by faith, are original to Tyndale ; in other cases the words of Luther have been expanded, and have formed not so much the source of Tyndale's note as the nucleus out of which it has grown.
Of the whole number of ninety marginal glosses which occur in the fragment of Tyndale's '
I leave those words in the text, because, although Mr. Arber has anticipated me in print, my researches were completed long buibre hia book appeared.
Tyndale's First New Testament. quarto that has come down to us, fifty-two have been more or less literally taken from Luther, and thirty-eight are original; and, if we suppose that the same proportion existed throughout the whole of the work, then it may be admitted, that the customary allegation that he
** translated Luther's New Testament," while intended doubtless to attach opprobrium to the book, has also a sufficiently specious foundation to rest upon.^
Enough has been said on this point to show that in thus dealing with Luther's glosses, Tyndale acted not as a mere feeble copyist, unable to walk alone, but as an independent scholar, thinking and judging for himself, even when borrowing from another.
It were alike base and foolish to defend his originality at the expense of truth ; and those who impartially weigh all the circumstances of the case, will probably not think it any serious derogation from Tyndale's merits to believe, that living at Wittemberg, and following in the footsteps of Luther as a translator, he had come largely under the influence of that great master-mind of the age.
The same explanation may be applied with equal justice to the prologue which Tyndale has prefixed to his translation, and in which many passages have been boiTOwed from Luther, as the reader speedily begins to suspect from the characteristic ring of the sentences.
When, however, we pass from these, which are mere appendages to the work, to the text of the translation, then the genuine originality and independence of Tyndale at once become conspicuous.
In the very first verse of his translation he varies from that predecessor whom he is said to have implicitly followed ; and he manifests the same independence throughout.
Not that he translates '
I need not point out liow completely what has been said disposes of tlie assertion of Anderson, that Tyndale did not know German.
Tyndale's Obligation to previous Writers.
without any regard to the labours of those who had preceded him in the work; it would be a small compliment to his good sense to believe that he undertook a labour of so much importance without availing himself of all materials, that could in any way contribute to the successful completion of his task.
Indeed, it is obvious to any one, who has sufficient scholarship to compare the various works, that, as he proceeded in his undertaking, Tyndale had before him the Vulgate, the Latin version of Erasmus, and the German of Luther, and that in rendering from the original Greek he carefully consulted all these aids ; but he did so not with the helpless imbecility of a mere tyro, but with the conscious independence of an accomplished scholar.
He consulted those who had preceded him, as a modern classical critic consults the scholiasts and commentators who have laboured on the same work : and the imputation of servility or ignorance is as baseless in the one case as in the other.
It is no derogation from the originality of any modern German editor of Virgil or Sophocles that we can trace in his writings the influence of previous editors ; and equally it is no derogation from the independence of Tyndale's version, that we can trace in it the influence of previous translators.
To a scholar, the most convincing proof of what has now been asserted is that which arises from the actual comparison of Tyndale's work with the original Greek, and with the versions which unquestionably lay open before him as he proceeded in his work ; ^ but to the general reader, perhaps, the most satisfactory demonstration that can be given of the superlative merit of Tyndale's work, is the fact that the English New Testament, as we now have it, is, in its sub- * On this point it may suffice to refer the reader to the excellent summary of Westcott, in his History of the English Bible, pp. 172—212.
K 2
Tyndale's First New Testament. stance, the unchanged language of Tyndale's first version.
The English Bible has been subjected to repeated revisions; the scholarship of generations, better provided than Tyndale was with critical apparatus, has been brought to bear upon it ; writers, by no means over-friendly to the original translator, have had it in their power to disparage and displace his work
; yet in spite of all these influences, that Book, to which all Englishmen turn as the source, and the guide, and the stay of their spiritual life, is still substantially the translation of Tyndale.
And most emphatically may it be said of those passages of the New Testament which are most intimately associated with our deepest religious emotions, that it is the actual unchanged words of the original translator which are treasured up in our hearts, and are so potent in impressing the soul.
Mr. Froude has said, with equal eloquence and truth, " Of the translation itself, though since that time it has been many times revised and altered, we may say that it is substantially the Bible with which we are all familiar.
The peculiar genius—if such a word may be permitted which breathes through it, the mingled tenderness and majesty, the Saxon simplicity, the preternatural grandeur, unequalled, unapproached in the attempted improvements of modern scholars, all are here, and bear the impress of the mind of one man—William Tyndale."^ Of the truth of what may seem an overcharged panegyric, the reader will himself be able to judge from the following specimens, selected, not because in them Tyndale has exhibited any special care, but because they are amongst the most impressive and the most familiar of the words of Holy Writ.
To enable the reader to perceive at a glance how true it is that our present version is substantially that ' Froude's History of England, Vol. iii. p. 84.
Specimens of Tyndale's Translation.
of Tyndale, in the following passages what is still retained of Tyndale's work is printed in Eoman characters, and what has been changed in Italic.^ .
St. Matthew VII. w. 7—20.
7. Ask and it shall be given yoa ; seek and ye shall find ; knock and it shall be opened unto you :
8. For whosoever asketh receiveth ; and he that seeketh findeth ; and to him that knocketh it shall be opened.
Is there any man among you which would proffer his son a stone if he asked him bread ?
10. Or if he asked fish would he 'proffer him a serpent ?
11.
If ye then which are evil, can give to your children good gifts, how much more shall your Father which is in heaven give good things to them that ask of him ?
12. Therefore whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, even so do ye to them : this is the law and the prophets.
13. Enter in at the strait gate, for wide is the gate and broad is the way that leadeth to destruction, and many there be which go in thereat 1^. For sti-ait is the gate, and narrow is the way which leadeth unto life, and few there be that find it.
15. Beware of false prophets which come to you in sheeps' clothing, but inwardly they are ravening wolves.
16. Ye shall know thorn by their fruits.
Do men gather grapes of thorns, or figs of briars ?
17. Even so every good tree bringeth forth good fruit, but a corrupt tree bringeth forth evil fruit.
18. A good tree cannot bring forth had fruit, nor yet a bad tree can bring forth good fruit.
19. Every tree that bringeth not forth good fruit shall he hewn down and cast into the fire.
20. Wherefore by their fruits yo shall know them.
II.— St. John XVII. vv. 1—11.
1. These words spake Jesus and lift up his eyes to heaven, and said.
Father the hour is come, glorify thy Son, that thy Son may glorify thee.
' In these extracts the spelling is reduced to the modem standard, but no word has been otherwise altered ; the first is taken from the Grenville fragment.
TyndaWs First New Testament.
2. As thou hast given him power over all flesh, that he should give eternal life to as many as thou hast given him.
3. This is life eternal, that they might know thee thai only very God, and whom thou hast sent Jesus Christ.
I have glorified thee on the earth ; I have finished the works which thou gavest me to do.
5. And now glorify me thou Father in thine own presence,* with the glor}^ which I had with thee ere the world was.
I have declared thy name unto the men which thou gavest me out of the world : thine they were, and thou hast given them me, and they have kept thy sayings.
7. Now have they known that all things whatsoever thou hast given me are of thee.
8. For I have given unto them the words which thou gavest me, and they have received them, and have known surely that I came out from thee, and have believed that thou didst send me.
I pray for them, I pray not for the world, but for them which thou hast given me, for they are thine.
10. And all mine are thine, and thine are mine, and I am glorified in them.
11. And now am I no more in the world but they are in the world, and I come to thee : Holy Father, keep in thine own name them which thou hast given me that they may be one as we are.
III.—St. Luke XV. w. 11—24.
11. A certain man had two sons :
12. And the younger of them said to his father. Father, give me my part of the goods that to me belongeth.
And he divided unto them his substance.
13. And not long after, the younger son gathered all that he had together, and took his journey into a far country, and there he wasted his goods with riotous living.
14. And when he had spent all that he had, there rose a great dearth throughout all that same land : and he began to lack.
15. And he went and clave to a citizen of that same country, which sent him to the field to keep his swine.
16. And he would fain have filled his belly with the codsthat the Bwine ate ; and no man gave him.
' In his subsequent revision of the New Testament, Tyndale altered this into with thine own self, which is the language of our present version.
^ i.e. Shell or hask, as in peascod.
Specimens of TyndaWs Translation.
17. Then he remembered himself' amd said, How many hired servants at my father's have bread enough, and I die for hunger.
18.
I will arise and go to my Father and will say unto him. Father, I have sinned against heaven and before thee.
19. Nor am I not worthy^ to be called thy son, make me as one of thy hired servants.
20. And he arose and came to his father.
When he was yet a great way oflf, his father saw him, and had compassion on Mm, and ran unto him,^ and fell on his neck, and kissed him.
21. And the son said unto him. Father, I have sinned against heaven and in thy sight, neither am I worthy henceforth* to be called thy son.
22. Then said the father to his servants, Bring forth that best garment and put it on him ; and put a ring on his hand and shoes on his feet.
23. And bring hither that fatted calf, and kill him, and let us eat and be merry :
24. For this my son was dead and is alive again ; he was lost and is now found.
These passages, which have been selected exclusively on the ground of their being amongst the most familiar and most beautiful in the New Testament, will suffice to show how true it is that our authorised version is substantially the version of Tyndale.
Larger specimens would only confirm the conclusion : it has been found, for example, by actual examination that nine-tenths of the First Epistle of St. John, as we now have it, are retained from Tyndale, and even in the difficult Epistle to the Ephesians, fivesixths are Tyndale's; and similar proportions obtain throughout the whole volume.
In short, the English New Testament as we now have it, is, in its substance and form, the work of Tyndale ; no other man has left any trace of his individuality upon it.^ ' In Tyndale's later version. Then he came to himself, as in the authorised version.
' In Tyndale's revision, a/nd am no more worthy; so also in verse 21.
' The superfluous words, on him and unto him, were omitted in Tyndale's revision.
* See note sv/pra, ' See Westcott, p. 211, note.
Tyndale's First New Testament.
Even this does not fully represent Tyndale's influence on our present version.
Not only is the great bulk of it still in his own unchanged words, but what changes have been made, have been, perhaps unconsciously, dictated by the spirit of Tyndale.
All subsequent revisions have been made in accordance with that type or standard which Tyndale had fixed, and which three centuries have concurred in unanimously recognising as the true ideal of the language appropriate to that sacred volume in which God speaks to men.
Even as a literary work the issue of Tyndale's translation forms an important era in our history.
At a time when the English language was still unformed when it had not as yet been the vehicle of any great literary undertaking ; when men of learning still looked upon it as an imperfect instrument, fit only for commonplace purposes, Tyndale showed that its capacity was unbounded that in simplicity, majesty, strength, musical flow, ability to relate gracefully and perspicuously, to touch the feelings, to awe by its solemnity, to express the highest truths in the clearest words, it yields to no language ancient or modern.
This is not the place to dilate upon the mere literary merits and benefits of Tyndale's version ; but we may be allowed to remark that, in thus holding up before the nation, in a book which has become sanctified by the reverence of ten generations, a model of the highest literary excellence, simple, honest, and manly ; free alike from the pedantry of the verbal scholar, and the afi^ected point and force of the mere man of letters, he has exercised a permanent influence of the most beneficial kind over the literary taste of the English people.
When to this we add, or endeavour in imagination to add, the thousandfold higher and nobler purposes which his book has so effectually promoted (and what imagination can conceive them,
Tyndale's Address to his Readers.
what pen could worthily describe them ?) shall we hesitate to say that as it was the consciousness of the will of God that prompted him to his noble task, so he was not without the aid of the Spirit of God in its accomplishment.
Tyndale put forward no claim that his work should be considered either infallible or immaculate. He had honestly and diligently striven to do his task as well as he could but the whole had been finished in little more than a single year (for we cannot suppose that he had done much more in London than simply weigh the matter well and decide upon the best form of translation), and he was well aware that his work might be susceptible of improvement.
He himself, in the noble address to the reader, subjoined to his octavo version, promised to revise and amend his translation if opportunity and leisure were vouchsafed to him ; and so far from deprecating criticism he invited the learned to contribute their aid towards improving what was amiss.
At the present time when the question of revision is discussed with, perhaps, somewhat more zeal than discretion, Tyndale's words will be received with hearty approbation by all who have dispassionately considered the subject.
" Them that are learned Christianly, I beseech (for as much as I am sure, and my conscience beareth me record, that of a pure intent, singly and faithfully I have interpreted it, as far forth as God gave me the gift of knowledge and understanding) that the rudeness of the work now at the first time, offend them not ; but that they consider how that I had no man to counterfeit, neither was help with English of any that had interpreted the same, or such like thing in the Scripture before time.
Moreover, even very necessity and cumbrance (God is record) above strength,
Tyndale's First New Testament. which I will not rehearse, lest we should seem to boast ourselves, [alluding, no doubt, to the interruption at Cologne,] caused that many things are lacking, which necessarily are required.
Count it as a thing not having his full shape, but as it were born afore his time, even as a thing begun rather than finished.
In time to come (if God have appointed us thereunto), we will give it his full shape ; and put out, if aught be added superfluously
; and add to, if aught be overseen through negligence ; and will enforce to bring to compendiousness that which is now translated at the length, and to give light where it is required, and to seek in certain places more proper English, and with a table to expound the words which are not commonly used, and show how the Scripture useth many words which are otherwise understood of the common people; and to help with a declaration where one tongue taketh not another ; and will endeavour ourselves, as it were, to seethe it better, and to make it more apt for the weak stomachs desiring them that are learned, and able, to remember their duty, and to help thereunto, and to bestow unto the edifying of Christ's body (which is the congregation of them that believe) those gifts which they have received of God for the same purpose.
The grace that cometh of Christ be with them that love Him.
Pray for us."
^ And even more emphatic is the translator's declaration, in the opening sentences of that prologue which was prefixed to the edition interrupted at Cologne, and which may be supposed to express his more deliberate judgment, as it was written with more care than the short and hurried note which accompanied the octavo printed by Schoefier
" I have here translated, brethren and sisters most dear and tenderly beloved in Christ, the New Testament for ' From Mr. Fry'a fac-simile, the spelling being modernised.
Tyndale's Address to his Readers.
your spiritual edifying, consolation and solace ; exhorting instantly and beseeching those that are better seen in the tongues than I, and that have higher gifts of grace to interpret the sense of the Scripture and meaning of the Spirit than I, to consider and ponder my labour, and that with the spirit of meekness.
And if they perceive in any places that I have not attained the very sense of the tongue, or meaning of the Scripture, or have not given the right English word, that they put to their hands to amend it, remembering that so is their duty to do.
For we have not received the gifts of God for ourselves only, or for to hide them ; but for to bestow them unto the honouring of God and Christ, and edjfying of the congregation, which is the body of Christ." 1
Tyndale's life was not a long one, but he was spared ta accomplish as much, perhaps, as was then possible, of that revision and improvement of his translation, which he so cordially recommends to all men of learning.
From such a revision, conducted in the spirit which the first translator has described, no possible harm, nothing but good can result; and any revision, conducted in a different spirit, animated by the mere love of change, or by the foibles of grammatical pedantry, will meet only with the universal scorn of all English-speaking people.
' Prom the Grenville fragment : spelling modernised.