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 English Versions 
 
 Prior to 
 
 King James 
 
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 ENGLISH VERSIONS 
 Prior to King James 
 
 (From the "Bible Society Record") 
 
 Tercentenary Leaflet 2 
 
William Tindale, Translator 
 and Martyr 
 
 'I call God to recorde, against y^ day we 
 ' shall appeare before our Lord lesus, to geue 
 'a recknyng of our doings, that I neuer al- 
 ' tered one sillable of Gods word agaynst my 
 'coscience, nor would this day, if all that is 
 'in the earth, whether it be pleasure, honour 
 'or riches, might be geuen me.' 
 
 'I assure you,' he said to a royal envoy, 
 ' if it would stand with the king's most gra- 
 ' cious pleasure to grant only a bare text of 
 'the Scripture to be put forth among his 
 ' people, like as is put forth among the subjects 
 ' of the emperor in these parts [the Nether- 
 ' lands], and of other Christian princes, be it 
 ' of the translation of what person soever 
 'shall please his majesty, I shall immediately 
 ' make faithful promise never to write more, 
 'nor abide two days in these parts, after the 
 ' same ; but immediately repair into his realm , 
 ' and there most humbly submit myself at the 
 ' feet of his royal majesty, offering my body, 
 'to suffer what pain or torture, yea, what 
 'death his grace will, so that this be ob- 
 ' tained.^ 
 
FOREWORD 
 
 The Tercentenary of the Eng- 
 lish Bible 
 
 FOR nearly three hundred years Anglo- 
 Saxon Christendom has been mainly nour- 
 ished on that translation of the Holy Scrips 
 tures generally known as the King James or 
 Authorized Version. 
 
 The year 1911 will complete the third cen- 
 tury of the prosperous reign of King James, 
 a veritable monarch in versions whose scepter 
 is universally acknowledged. 
 
 It is the desire and purpose of the Ameri- 
 can Bible Society to aid and help toward a 
 worthy commemoration of this great event. 
 The Churches generally will no doubt recog- 
 nize it, and in some cases appoint formal cel- 
 ebrations. A committee of scholars of various 
 churches sitting during the summer at Prince- 
 ton, N. J., has been busily at work preparing 
 a new commemorative edition. The British 
 and Foreign Bible Society, as well as our own, 
 is laying plans for an appropriate recognition 
 of what so vitally concerns all Bible Societies. 
 The National Bible Society of Scotland is 
 also taking similar steps. 
 
 The constitution of the British and the 
 American Societies has been in recent years 
 altered to permit the publication of the Re- 
 vised Version in English. 
 1 
 
The amended Constitution of the American 
 Bible Society now reads (Article I) : 
 
 "The only copies in the English language, 
 to be circulated by the Society, shall be of the 
 version set forth in 1611, and commonly 
 known as the King James Version, whether 
 in its original form as published in the afore- 
 said year or as revised, the New Testament 
 in 1881 and the Old Testament in 1885, and 
 published in these years under the supervision 
 of the Committee of Revision, or as further 
 revised and edited by the American Commit- 
 tee of Revision and printed under its super- 
 vision in 1901." 
 
 The Revised Version is thus classified prop- 
 erly as a variant from the original version of 
 1611, so that the preferences of Christian peo- 
 ple for either the earlier or the latter form of 
 King James should not hinder them from 
 heartily co-operating in a great Festival of 
 Commemoration of this the chief classic of 
 our English language and literature, and 
 probably the finest reproduction in another 
 tongue of the original Greek and Hebrew 
 Scriptures. 
 
 This leaflet furnishes some brief memoranda 
 relating to the history of the English Bible and 
 the chief personages connected with its pro- 
 duction, beginning with Wy cliff e and including 
 the Versions prior to King James. It will be 
 followed by another dealing with the Author- 
 ized Version itself, including its later revision. 
 The facts have often enough been stated, and 
 in the limits of our space can only be very 
 briefly touched on. It may be useful for us to 
 2 
 
give some hints as to the best books on the sub- 
 ject, that pastors, Sunday-school superintend- 
 ents, and others may know where to turn. 
 
 Every church, every family, every school, 
 and especially every Sunday-school, might 
 wisely make some special effort to awaken 
 the minds and hearts of the people, and es- 
 pecially of children and young people, to the 
 history of this the best English book for child- 
 hood, youth and age alike. 
 
 In tracing this history we can scarcely do 
 more than mention those fragmentary and al- 
 most prehistoric beginnings that fall in the 
 matin prime of English letters and English 
 religious life. 
 
 First comes Caedmon the Benedictine monk 
 in the seventh century, who paraphrased in 
 Anglo-Saxon verse portions of Scripture, and 
 a little. later Aldhelm and Guthlac, each of 
 whom translated the Psalms into Anglo- 
 Saxon. Then came the Venerable Bede 
 (born 675, died 735). His scholar, Cuthbert, 
 who was an eye witness, has left for us the 
 touching picture of his last day on earth when, 
 as he finished his life, he finished his transla- 
 tion of the Gospel of John, chanting the 
 Gloria Patria as he expired with the name of 
 the Holy Spirit on his lips, — a fit foreshadow- 
 ing of what was to come. 
 
 After him in the ninth century Alfred the 
 Great prefixed to his laws a paraphrase of the 
 Ten Commandments, and he too was engaged 
 in making a version of the Psalms at the time 
 of his death (901).. 
 
 Eadfrith, Bishop of Lindisfame (680), and 
 3 
 
Aelfric in the tenth century, and the author 
 of the Ormulum, a paraphrase of the Gospels 
 and the Acts, followed, and others also. These 
 were all of good use in that early period, 
 the darkest hour just before the dawn of the 
 Reformation, until John Wycliffe, its morn- 
 ing star, shone in England and the day was 
 at hand. 
 
John Wycliffe and his Work 
 
 WYCLIFFE'S "Apology" puts into the 
 clearest light his attitude toward the 
 Bible. He was truly the John Baptist of the 
 English Bible — vox clamantis in deserto. 
 
 ''Oh Lord God ! sithin at the beginning of faith, so 
 many men translated into Latin to great profit of 
 Latin men ; let one simple creature of God translate 
 into English for profit of Englishmen. For if world- 
 ly clerks look well their chronicles and books they 
 shoulden find that Bede translated the Bible and ex- 
 pounded much in Saxon, that was English either 
 common language of this land in his time. And not 
 only Bede, but King Alfred that founded Oxenford, 
 translated so his last days the beginning of the Psalter 
 in Saxon and would more if he had lived longer. 
 Also Frenchmen Beemers and Britons han the Bible 
 and other books of devotion and exposition trans- 
 lated into their mother language. Why shoulden 
 not Englishmen have the same in their mother lan- 
 guage ? I cannot wit." 
 
 The date of his birth is not certain, though 
 it is ordinarily fixed in 1324. He synchro- 
 nizes with " Dan Chaucer, well of English 
 undefiled." The facts of his early life are not 
 much known, but he was a student of Oxford, 
 beginning his academic career very early and 
 holding during his lifetime high university 
 offices and dignities, chiefly as Master of 
 Balliol. He was also one of the chaplains of 
 Edward IIL, and in 1374 one of the commis- 
 sioners sent by that monarch to confer with 
 delegates appointed by Pope Gregory 11., as 
 to ecclesiastical authority in England. Al- 
 though a priest in orders, he was, throughout 
 his life, and increasingly as he grew older, a 
 5 
 
Protestant, disputing against transubstantia- 
 tion and rejecting with great boldness papal 
 usurpation. This brought him into disfavor 
 and he was tried for heresy, but escaped by 
 the intervention of the Queen Mother. Being 
 brought to account again he was finally com- 
 pelled to retire from more public positions to 
 his little village rectory of Lutterworth, of 
 which Tennyson so beautifully sings : 
 
 " Not least art thou, thou little Bethlehem 
 In Judah, for in thee the Lord was born; 
 Nor thou in Britain, little Lutterworth, 
 Least, for in thee the Word was born again." 
 
 Dr. John Eadie, the Scotch historian of the 
 English Bible, whose treatise (Macmillan & 
 Co., London) no one wishing to understand 
 the subject can ignore, ranks Wy cliff e as *'one 
 of the quaternion of great schoolmen," along 
 with Bradwardine, Occam, and Duns Scotus. 
 The catalogue of his works in both Latin and 
 English, though not complete, covers more 
 than sixty octavo pages, and he was accord- 
 ing to Dr. Eadie the most popular writer in 
 Europe. 
 
 His interest in Bible translation, however, 
 was not scholastic or academic, but evidently 
 grew out of a deep heart-experience of Divine 
 grace. Here are two quotations which are 
 sufficient to show this: "Christ and his Apos- 
 tles converted the world by making known 
 the truths of Scripture in a form* familiar to 
 them." ** Christian men and women, young 
 and old, should study first in the New Testa- 
 ment, should cleave to the study of it; and 
 no simple man of wit, no man of small knowl- 
 6 
 
Preface to Wycliffe^s Harmony of the 
 Gospels: 
 
 *I besek and with alle my hert pray them that 
 'this werk redyn, that 
 
 'for me thci pray the mercy of God, that I may 
 'fulfylle that is set in the draghing of this 
 'boke; and that he at whos sttggestyon I this 
 'werkc began, and thei that (this) werk redyn, 
 'and alle cristen men with me, thurgh doynge 
 'of that this is wrytyn in this bok, may com 
 •'to geder to that blisse that netier salle ende.* 
 
 From the Sermon on the Mount, Wyclif fe 
 version : 
 
 'And Jhesus seynge the peple went up into 
 an hil, and whanne he was set his desciples 
 camen to him. And he openyed his mouthc 
 and taught hem; and seide, 
 
 'Blessid ben pore men in spirit, for the Kyng- 
 dom of hevenes is herun. 
 
 'Blessed ben mylde men: for thei schal be 
 comfortid* 
 
 ' Blessed ben thei that hungren rightwisnesse ; 
 for thei schal be fulfilled^ 
 
 ' Blessed ben mercef ul men ; for thci schal gete 
 mercy* 
 
 ' Blessed ben thei that ben of dene herte ; for 
 thei schalen se God* 
 
 ' Blessed ben pesible men ; for thei schalen be 
 clepid Goddes children/ 
 
edge, should be afraid to study immeasurably 
 in the sacred text." 
 
 With this in mind he began, strangely 
 enough, with the Apocalypse, and by 1381 
 appears to have finished the New Testament, 
 translating wholly from the Latin Vulgate. 
 He only translated part of the Old Testament 
 before his death in 1384, but his friend and 
 follower, Nicholas de Hereford, and still more 
 fully his "continuator," John Purvey, revised 
 and completed what Wycliffe had left partly 
 done, and it may be that he himself added 
 finishing touches. At all events, the manu- 
 script versions, which for the next one hundred 
 or one hundred and fifty years of persecution 
 were circulated all over England, are rightly 
 called "the Wycliffe Versions," and the 
 "poor Priests" whom he sent out to read 
 them to the people and make them known 
 were the first colporteurs, heralds of the 
 larger company in these happier days who 
 follow in their footsteps as itinerant distrib- 
 uters. 
 
 The influence of the Wycliffe versions not 
 only upon his own immediate supporters, the 
 Lollards, but upon the masses of the English 
 people, can hardly be estimated. Whether or 
 not his successors in Bible translation, William 
 Tindale and the rest, borrowed very much 
 from his diction, yet Bible language became 
 increasingly familiar to English folk. 
 
 There is some difference among critics as 
 to the precise relation that the Wycliffe Ver- 
 sion sustains to Tindale. In general the atti- 
 tude of later scholars may be summed up in 
 8 
 
the following sentence from the Historical 
 Catalogue of the British and Foreign Bible 
 Society: "The Wyckliffite Versions seem to 
 have exercised no considerable influence on 
 Tind^le or succeeding translators." 
 
 This is based on Tindale's own words ad- 
 dressed to the reader : ** I had no man to 
 counterfet, nether was holpe with englysshe 
 of eny that had interpreted the same, or soche 
 lyke thige i the scripture beforetyme." 
 
 On the other hand, however, must be set 
 the judgment of so great an authority as Prof. 
 George P. Marsh, in his admirable lectures on 
 the English language, who says, " Tindale is 
 merely a full grown Wycliff e ; ' ' and adds , ' ' The 
 influence of Wycliffe upon Tindale is too pal- 
 pable to be mistaken, and it cannot be dis- 
 guised by the grammatical differences, which 
 are the- most important points of discrepancy 
 between them."" Wycliffe he considers as 
 having originated *' the diction and phraseol- 
 ogy which for five centuries has constituted 
 the consecrated dialect of the English speech; 
 and Tindale as having given to it that finish 
 and perfection which have so admirably 
 adapted it to the expression of religious doc- 
 trine and sentiment, and to the narration of 
 the remarkable series of historical facts which 
 are recorded in the Christian Scriptures." 
 
 For the guidance of those who wish to ex- 
 amine more carefully the sources of knowl- 
 edge, not only as to the Wycliffe versions, but 
 the others which succeed them, a convenient 
 Bibliography can be found in the volume 
 entitled "Roman Catholic and Protestant Bi- 
 9 
 
bles Compared," these being the Gould Prize 
 Essays, edited by the very competent hand 
 of Prof. M. W. Jacobus of the Hartford The- 
 ological Seminary, and published by Scribner 
 & Sons. 
 
 On this list, among English versions ante- 
 dating the Authorized Version, will be found 
 Wyclifife's New Testament, dated 1380, and 
 his Old Testament, 1382— the whole Bible 
 1388; and to these is added in a footnote the 
 '* New Testament in Scots," being Purvey's 
 Revision of Wycliffe. Wycliffe's translations, 
 being made before the invention of printing, 
 were, of course, in manuscript. They never 
 were printed until 1731, when his New Testa- 
 ment was published, and again in 1848, but 
 not until 1850 was his whole Bible published 
 by the Rev. J. Forshall and Sir F. Madden. 
 
 The last edition of Bishop Westcott's Re- 
 vision of his " General View of the History 
 of the English Bible," revised by William 
 Aldis Wright, of Cambridge University (pub- 
 lished by Macmillan & Co.), is of the utmost 
 value. 
 
 Those who wish to pursue the subject more 
 widely would do well to turn to Milman's 
 " Latin Christianity," book xiii, chapter vi, 
 for a brilliant description of Wycliffe and his 
 times, and also to an illuminating passage in 
 John Richard Green's " History of the Eng- 
 lish People," pages 228-37. Wycliffe es- 
 caped the stake, but the indignity done his 
 remains half a century later is perhaps more 
 widely known than any other fact about him 
 —how his remains were "ungraved," and, 
 10 
 
as Thomas Fuller tells, '* they took what was 
 left of his bones and burned them to ashes 
 and cast them into the Swift, a neighboring 
 brook running hard by. Thus this brook hath 
 conveyed his ashes into Avon, Avon into 
 Severn, Severn into the narrow seas, they 
 into the main ocean. And thus the ashes of 
 Wycliffe are the emblem of his doctrine, 
 which now is dispersed all the world over." 
 
 11 
 
William Tindale and his Trans- 
 lation 
 
 i^N eventful century and a half passed 
 Jr\^ between the death of Wycliffe (1384) 
 and the next great landmark in English Bible 
 history, the publication of William Tindale' s 
 translation. Mighty forces were astir, world- 
 shaking events were transpiring; the Papacy 
 was rent by a schism, two rivals, and in one 
 case three, claiming the right to Peter's 
 throne. The Council of Constance, 1414-18, 
 condemned John Huss and Jerome of Prague 
 to be burned to death. The collapse of the 
 Eastern Empire in 1453 scattered the scholars 
 of Greece through Europe, especially in Italy. 
 These became the pioneers of the New Learn- 
 ing. In 1492 Christopher Columbus opened the 
 ocean gates into the New World. Synchro- 
 nizing with these signs of manifest destiny, the 
 printing press was invented, and, according to 
 the oft-quoted saying, Europe awoke with the 
 New Testament in her hand, for the publica- 
 tion of the Greek New Testament by the great 
 humanist, Erasmus, began a new and glorious 
 chapter in the history of western Christen- 
 dom. One of the monks exclaimed with pro- 
 phetic foresight, "We must root out printing 
 or printing will root us out." Kings and pre- 
 lates and popes joined hands in vain to shut 
 the light out of England. The kingdom was 
 drenched over and again with the blood of 
 martyrs, martyrs now for the translation and 
 reading of the Bible, whose blessed memory 
 12 
 
it should be ours to revive for this genera- 
 tion. The authors of our English translation, 
 scarcely less than the authors of the original 
 Scriptures, were tortured, not accepting de- 
 liverance. Their work comes to lis attested 
 with the precious blood which they shed 
 willingly for the truth's sake. 
 
 Of no one is this more true than of William 
 Tindale, whose life story was a tragedy far 
 more worthy of perpetual remembrance than 
 many a famous recital which has been em- 
 balmed in our literature by the masters of 
 poetic or dramatic art. 
 
 The genius of Shakespeare might well have 
 seized on the moving tale of this sixteenth 
 century hero. Almost as little is known of 
 the circumstances of his life as of Shakes- 
 peare's, own. The approximate date of his 
 birth was 1484 and his death 1536, but the 
 place of his birth is uncertain save that it 
 was in Gloucestershire. The first clear in- 
 dication of what he was to be was his uni- 
 versity course at Oxford, where it is said 
 by John Foxe, in his "Book of Martyrs," 
 that he "was closely addicted to the study of 
 the Scriptures." Thence he went to Cambridge 
 and afterward (about 1500) became a tutor in 
 the family of Sir John Walsh of Little Sod- 
 bury. Here his controversies began, one with 
 a learned man, who said, "We were better 
 to be without God's laws than the Pope's." 
 "I defy the Pope and all his laws," Tindale 
 replied, and added: "if God spare my life, 
 I will cause a boy that driveth a plow shall 
 know more of the Scriptures than thou dost." 
 13 
 
This promise was abundantly fulfilled. He 
 wrought without ceasing throughout his life 
 to give England a translation not like Wy- 
 cliffe's from the Vulgate, but from the Greek 
 and Hebrew, and he finished his work so well 
 that to this day when we read King James 
 we read largely William Tindale. 
 
 At first his hope was that he might enter 
 the service of Tunstall, Bishop of London; 
 but alas ! the Bishop was not after his man- 
 ner, and with cold courtesy dismissed him. 
 God, however, raised up a friend for him in 
 Humphrey Monmouth, a London alderman, 
 who by his befriending of Tindale has earned 
 for himself more of fame than he has received. 
 He had heard him preach and was evidently 
 drawn to him, and took him to his house. 
 Afterward he was himself arrested and thrown 
 into the Tower for what he had done, and to 
 defend himself has given in evident sincerity 
 a touching picture of what manner of man 
 Tindale was: "Afterward (when this hope 
 failed), he . . . came to me again, and 
 besought me to help him ; and so I took him 
 into my house half a year ; and there he lived 
 like a good priest as methought. He studied 
 most part of the day and of the night at his 
 book ; and he would eat but sodden meat by 
 his good will, nor drink but small single beer. 
 I never saw him wear linen about him in the 
 space he was with me. I did promise him 
 ten pounds sterling to pray for my father and 
 mother their souls and all Christian souls." 
 
 He never ceased to love England, but see- 
 ing that his life purpose could not be accom- 
 14 
 
plished there, after a year he turned his back 
 on his native land to suffer as he says " pov- 
 erty, exile, absence from friends, hunger and 
 thirst, with very great dangers — sharp and 
 hard fightings." By faith he foresook Eng- 
 land, not fearing the wrath of King or Pope — 
 desiring a better country, that is an heavenly. 
 And who can measure the marvelous fruit of 
 his faith? 
 
 It is difficult to trace his course exactly dur- 
 ing the next few years on the Continent. He 
 was first in Hamburg, then probably in Witten- 
 berg and with Martin Luther — certainly he 
 was credited with this added reproach. Such 
 work as his needs leisure and to be done with- 
 out distraction. A scholar in every fiber of 
 his mind, as his work shows when judged by 
 the keenest modern criticism, well able to 
 reach a critical judgment on the Scripture 
 originals or the relative value of the Vulgate, 
 Luther's version, and the other accessories of 
 his toil, he might have fitly spent his days in 
 the cloistered shades of Oxford or Cambridge. 
 But his life was rather that of a criminal, his 
 footsteps dogged by Roman spies, notably 
 one Cochlaeus, who hunted him out at last 
 in Cologne, so that he had to flee for his life. 
 One reads the touching story and thinks of 
 David pursued by Saul — chased like a flea — a 
 partridge. *' There is but a step between me 
 and death !" He was driven to Worms with the 
 three thousand sheets of an octavo Testament. 
 These had already been printed in Cologne. 
 In Worms he completed the edition and added 
 to the octavo a quarto, and then managed to 
 15 
 
smuggle them both into England in 1526, in 
 spite of the vigilant watch that King Henry 
 VIII. and the others kept to prevent it. These 
 six thousand copies of the English Testament 
 revolutionized England. They were thun- 
 dered against in sermons ; it was a criminal 
 offense to be found possessing one, much 
 less to spread it. Men and women were 
 burned for it; but the leaven was in the 
 meal and it was too late to get it out. Sub- 
 sequent editions were printed and the Bible 
 was finally completed, though probably not 
 all by Tindale himself. Edition succeeded 
 edition from Marburg and elsewhere, and 
 though many of these were burned, enough 
 were left to serve the purpose. In 1530 the 
 Pentateuch was issued in English, and the 
 rest of the Old Testament later (made di- 
 rectly from the Hebrew). In 1535 he was 
 betrayed by a false friend, cast into Vilvorde 
 Castle near Brussels, and there on October 6, 
 1536, he was strangled and his corpse burned. 
 His last words, a prayer — " Lord open the 
 eyes of the King of England," brought a 
 speedy answer. In 1536 there were eight 
 editions of his New Testament printed on 
 English soil, and nineteen editions were issued 
 between 1544 and 1566. Forty editions, it is 
 said, were published in all, and few copies 
 survive. He rests from his labors and his 
 works do follow him. 
 
 Bishop Westcott, in his history of the Eng- 
 lish Bible, makes clear beyond peradventure 
 Tindale 's extraordinary qualification for his 
 task. He was an independent and original 
 16 
 
translator from the original text, able to use 
 with critical judgment the Latin Vulgate, 
 the Latin translations of Erasmus, and the 
 German of Luther. The Historical Cata- 
 logue of the British and Foreign Bible Society 
 confirms this judgment. 
 
 He made two revisions of his New Testa- 
 ment after the first issue, all of which show, 
 according to Bishop Lightfoot, his complete 
 independence and at the same time his skill 
 in using other men's translations to the best 
 purpose. 
 
 The extracts here given will give some 
 slight impression of what this first master- 
 piece of Bible translation in English was like, 
 and how much like it is to our own King 
 James. 
 
 As to this nothing more authoritative can 
 be quoted than this from Bishop Lightfoot : 
 
 ** From first to last his style and his inter- 
 pretation are his own, and in the originality 
 of Tindale is included in a large measure the 
 originality of our English Version. For not 
 only did Tindale contribute to it directly the 
 substantial basis of half of the Old Testament 
 (in all probability) and of the whole of the 
 New, but he established a standard of biblical 
 translation which others followed. It is even 
 of less moment that by far the greater part 
 of his translation remains intact in our pres- 
 ent Bibles, than that his spirit animates the 
 whole. He toiled faithfully himself, and 
 where he failed he left to those who should 
 come after the secret of success. The achieve- 
 ment was not for one but for many; but he 
 17 
 
Tindale's New Testament (1525): 
 Ephesians ii, 13-22. 
 
 (The Italics mark what is preserved in the Authorized Version.) 
 
 13 But nowe in Christ lesu , ye whych a whyle agoo 
 were farre off, are made neye by the bloude off Christ. 
 
 14 For he is oure peace, whych hath made off both 
 wone dd hath broken doune the wall i the myddes, that 
 was a stoppe bitwene vs, 
 
 15 and hath also put awaye thorowe his flesshe, the 
 cause of hatred (thatt is to saye, the lawe of comaun- 
 demente contayned in the lawe writte) 
 
 16 for to make of twayne wone newe ma in hym silfe, 
 so makynge peace: and to reconcile bothe vnto god in 
 one body throwe his crosse, ad slewe hattred therby : 
 
 17 and cam and preached peace to you which were 
 a farre of, afid to them that were neye. 
 
 18 For thorowe hym. we bothe have an open waye in, 
 in one sprete vnto the father. 
 
 19 Nowe t her fore ye are no m.oare strangers ddforeners: 
 but citesyns with the saynctes, and of the housholde of 
 god: 
 
 20 and are bill apo the foundacion of the apostles dd 
 prophetes, lesus Christ beynge the heed corner stone, 
 
 21 t whom, every bildynge coupled togedder, groweth 
 vnto a holy tepie in the lorde, 
 
 22 i who ye also are bill togedder, and made an hab- 
 it acion for god I the sprete. 
 
 —From Bishop JVestcotfs "History of the English Bib le,'^ page 133. 
 
fixed the type according to which the later 
 laborers worked. His influence decided that 
 our Bible should be popular and not literary, 
 speaking in a simple dialect, and that so by 
 its simplicity it should be endowed with per- 
 manence. He felt by a happy instinct the 
 potential affinity between Hebrew and Eng- 
 lish idioms, and enriched our language and 
 thought forever with the characteristics of the 
 Semitic mind." 
 
 To this may be added Dr. Eadie's estimate: 
 ** The translation, as a first and individual 
 effort, is wonderful in many points of view. 
 Tindale had few appliances in the shape of 
 grammars and lexicons ; but he devoted him- 
 self to his daily work with singular earnest- 
 ness and assiduity. He often keeps the 
 proper translation of the aorist, where suc- 
 ceeding translators have given it the sense of 
 the perfect. The English is racy Saxon, and 
 much of it, sometimes clause after clause, 
 with no change save in spelling, is yet pre- 
 served in our common version. It has a noble, 
 unaffected simplicity, and the ring of genuine 
 English idiom. It is more definite and con- 
 cise than the current style of his day, and 
 even of his own polemical writings. He may 
 run that reads, and he that reads may un- 
 derstand, and the typical * ploughboy ' may 
 gather the sense so given in his own tongue. 
 The eulogy of Fuller is not overdrawn: 
 ' What he undertook was to be admired as 
 glorious; what he performed to be com- 
 mended as profitable; wherein he failed is 
 to be excused as pardonable, and to be scored 
 19 
 
on the account rather of that age than of the 
 author himself.' " 
 
 In addition to the general treatises already 
 mentioned in this and in the preceding article, 
 readers will find it profitable to look at Vol- 
 ume ii, Chapter vi, of Froude's History of 
 England, who characterizes Tindale as " a man 
 whose history is lost in his work, and whose 
 epitaph is the Reformation." 
 
 20 
 
English Versions after Tindale's : 
 Coverdale's, >Iatthew's, Tav- 
 erner's. The Great Bible 
 
 SEVENTY-FIVE years, following the death 
 of Tindale in 1536, were necessary to 
 ripen and bring to perfection the fruit of his 
 labors in the Authorized Version. 
 
 Between Tindale's and King James there 
 stretches an historical succession of eight Ver- 
 sions— Coverdale's (1535), Matthew's (1537), 
 Taverner's (1539), the Great Bible (1539-40), 
 Whittingham's New Testament (1557), the 
 Genevan Bible (1560), the Bishops' Bible 
 (1568), Rheims and Douay Version (1582- 
 1609), then our own (1611), the last link in 
 the series — the bright, consummate flower of 
 them all. There are two groups of four 
 each. The last chiefly belongs under Queen 
 Elizabeth (1558-1603), though Whittingham's 
 New Testament appeared in the last year of 
 Queen Mary. No other new ones appeared 
 either under Edward VI. the Protestant 
 (1547-53), or under Mary the Catholic 
 (1553-58). The publication of the Douay 
 Old Testament was deferred until 1609 under 
 King James. The present article deals with 
 the four succeeding Tindale's and during the 
 reign of Henry VIII. 
 
 These were times of travail, filled with a 
 dramatic succession of extraordinary changes 
 both in Church and State. The future of the 
 English Reformation, and with it of vernacu- 
 lar Bibles, often seemed precarious in the ex- 
 21 
 
THE STATUE OF TINDALE ON THE THAMES EM- 
 BANKMENT, LONDON 
 
treme. The outline of these events can only 
 be hinted at here, but the Divine purpose in 
 the making of the English Bible is writ large 
 over them all. 
 
 The England of Henry VIII. was surely 
 not a Merrie England. The public execution- 
 er was always busy beheading or burning 
 the noblest and best in the land. The bril- 
 liant promise of Henry's early youth, who 
 came to the throne at eighteen, was soon 
 quenched in the horror of his violent and 
 capricious tyranny, and England was drenched 
 in blood and tears. The very year that Tin- 
 dale was finally strangled at Vilvorde Castle, 
 near Brussels, Anne Boleyn was beheaded on 
 Tower Hill. The scandalous tale of Henry's 
 six wives, to whom he was by turns a lover, 
 a divorcer, and a Bluebeard, reads like an 
 excerpt from Persian or Turkish annals. He 
 had as little compunction in turning the 
 edge of the ax toward his most faithful 
 ministers — Wolsey, notably, the '* King Cardi- 
 nal," as Shakespeare calls him, who had 
 served his King so much better than he 
 served his God, and who only escaped the 
 block by an opportune natural death, hastened 
 no doubt by his disgrace. Still worse was 
 the judicial murder of the great and virtuous 
 Sir Thomas More, whose gray hairs and long 
 service could not save him. 
 
 Cardinal Wolsey's successor in office as 
 the King's favorite, Sir Thomas Cromwell, 
 did not *' fling away ambition," but held one 
 after another the highest offices of state — 
 Chancellor of the Exchequer, Secretary of 
 23 
 
State, Great Chamberlain, and especially Vice- 
 gerent in ecclesiastical affairs. J. R. Greene 
 calls his regime the English Terror, and reck- 
 ons the first ten years of his ascendency as 
 among the most momentous in English his- 
 tory. But he notes one further fact, pro- 
 foundly significant of the great change for 
 good which, in spite of all the evil of the 
 time, was passing over England— that there 
 were, it is said, more Grammar Schools 
 founded during the latter years of Henry's 
 reign than in three centuries before. This 
 change meant popular education and the cre- 
 ation of the intelligent middle-class, and this 
 continued and increased. So likewise did 
 University reform. This was due to the fact 
 no doubt that, with all his faults and crimes, 
 Henry loved learning, and was proud, with 
 good reason, that he possessed enough him- 
 self to dispute now with Luther, now with the 
 Pope. His Court was naturally dominated 
 therefore by men of the highest gifts and 
 graces like Sir Thomas More and Cromwell, 
 who were alive to intellectual progress. Then 
 Henry's breach with the Pope — anent the 
 divorce of Catharine of Aragon — whatever his 
 motive, inured to the benefit of the Reform- 
 ing party, whose revolt from Rome had its 
 inevitable sequence in an English Bible. To 
 this grand finale kingly tyranny and the heroic 
 patience of his victims both converged. 
 
 These facts throw a flood of light upon the 
 succession of Versions which we are now con- 
 sidering — Coverdale's, Matthew's, Taverner's, 
 and the Great Bible, all of which, as will be 
 24 
 
seen, appeared within four years after the 
 death of the proto-martyr of Bible translation. 
 The more minutely this high literary suc- 
 cession is scrutinized the more wonderful ap- 
 pears the transcendent influence of Tindale 
 himself. Never was the power of one man 
 to affect not only his own age, but ages to 
 come, more clearly manifest. Our Bible is in 
 a true sense a one-man version, but not in any 
 bad sense ; for even before Tindale finished his 
 work. Miles Coverdale had begun his, and he 
 was to Tindale somewhat as Barnabas was to 
 Paul. 
 
 Coverdale and his Version 
 
 Born about the year 1488 in the ** North 
 Riding" of Yorkshire, Coverdale was edu- 
 cated at Cambridge under the Augustinian 
 monks there, and admitted to priests' orders 
 in 1514. He came early under the influence 
 of the Reformation, especially as an inquirer- 
 at certain religious meetings held near St. 
 John's College. 
 
 About 1529 he seems to have gone to 
 the Continent to escape persecution, and it is 
 possible that while there he helped Tindale 
 translate the Pentateuch. However this may 
 be, he began work as a translator himself 
 early enough to publish his own Version in 
 1535 — probably in Antwerp. This was the 
 first complete printed English Bible. 
 
 Linked thus with Tindale from the begin- 
 ning, the contrast between the two men is 
 very marked, both in their external circum- 
 stances and their inward characters. Unlike 
 his predecessor, Coverdale enjoyed the favor 
 25 
 
of the great and powerful, notably that of 
 Sir Thomas Cromwell, and as the King's 
 favorite his patronage made Coverdale's task 
 far easier. 
 
 In 1527 he was in intimate touch with the 
 two great men of the day — Cromwell and the 
 famous and brilliant Sir Thomas More, and 
 it is now thought that under their patronage he 
 was then preparing to translate the Scriptures. 
 About 1534 a Convocation under the presi- 
 dency of Cromwell petitioned the King to de- 
 cree a translation; so that when his book was 
 issued, though it was not explicitly under 
 royal authority, it was evidently with a virtual 
 consent. This was an immense step in ad- 
 vance and a marvelous answer to Tindale's 
 dying prayer. In 1536 the Convocation again 
 petitioned, and although nothing was done, 
 ere long what had been forbidden became the 
 accepted order of the day. 
 
 Dr. Eadie says of Coverdale, ''He liked to 
 lean on someone." Yet his leaning was not 
 a burden but a help to Tindale, for he was a 
 good second where he could not have been an 
 adequate first. This appears very clearly in 
 his Version itself. Tindale's is the creative 
 mind, virile and masculine. Coverdale sup- 
 plies, if we may say so, the feminine quality : 
 the one fortiter in re; the other suaviter in 
 modo. Gentle, humble, and tender by nature, 
 Coverdale's style as a translator reflects these 
 qualities. The majesty of Tindale was ex- 
 quisitely supplemented by his delicacy and 
 gentleness. '* His speech was always with 
 grace." 
 
 26 
 
It seems clear now, though there has been 
 some dispute as to the fact, that Coverdale 
 did not and probably could not translate from 
 the original languages. His own words would 
 seem to settle the point. '' To helpe me 
 herein, I haue sondrye translacions, not onely 
 in latyn, but also of the ' Douche ' (German) 
 interpreters: whom (because of theyr syngu- 
 ler gyftes & speciall diligence in the Bible) I 
 haue ben the more glad to folowe for the 
 most parte, accordynge as I was requyred. 
 Lowly & faythfully haue I folowed myne in- 
 terpreters, & that vnder correcyon." 
 
 The '* Douche " (German) to which he re- 
 fers, Bishop Westcott thinks beyond all doubt 
 was the Zurich Bible so far as the Old Testa- 
 ment was concerned, though he made use 
 of Luther and also of the Vulgate. His New 
 Testament, according to Bishop Westcott, has 
 for its base Tindale's first edition, but care- 
 fully revised from the second and still more 
 by the aid of the German versions. In the 
 Old Testament he followed the German rather 
 than the English, though with aid from Tin- 
 dale and with constant reference also to the 
 Latin versions. His phrasing **is nearly al- 
 ways rich and melodious and his work smooth 
 rather than literal." 
 
 Dr. Eadie thus characterizes it: ''Though 
 Coverdale's version was only secondary, yet 
 it possessed merits of its own. The gen- 
 tle flow of its English is idiomatic and 
 fresh, though many words and phrases are 
 now antiquated, and it may still be read 
 with pleasure in the Psalms of the English 
 27 
 
Book of Common Prayer, of which it is the 
 basis." . . . •* No little of that inde- 
 finable quality that gives popular charm to 
 our English Bible, and has endeared it to 
 so many generations, is owing to Coverdale. 
 The semitones in the music of the style are 
 his gift. Tindale gave us the first great 
 outline distinctly and wonderfully etched, but 
 Coverdale added those minuter touches which 
 soften and harmonize it. The characteristic 
 features are Tindale 's in all their boldness of 
 form and expression ; the more delicate lines 
 and shadings are the contribution of his suc- 
 cessor, both in his own vei-sion and in the 
 Great Bible, revised and edited by him." 
 
 Matthew's Bible 
 
 Next came Matthew's Bible, as it must be 
 called, though it is generally believed that in 
 some strange way John Rogers, also at first a 
 priest of the Roman Church, preferred to use 
 this pseudonym. His Bible was simply a re- 
 production for the most part of Tindale and 
 Coverdale combined, the masculine and the 
 feminine thus happily blended— Tindale still 
 remaining Tindale in substance, but brought 
 into a little closer relationship with Coverdale 
 under the hand of Rogers. The Pentateuch 
 and the New Testament are Tindale with very 
 slight change. The Old Testament from Ezra 
 to Malachi are Coverdale. The remaining 
 books of the Old Testament, Joshua to Sec- 
 ond Chronicles, are a new translation. John 
 Foxe, in his ''Acts and Monuments," says: 
 ** In the translation of this Bible the greatest 
 28 
 
doer was indeed William Tindale, who with 
 the help of Miles Coverdale had translated all 
 the books thereof except only the Apocrypha 
 and certain notes in the margin which were 
 added after. But because the said William 
 Tindale in the meantime was apprehended 
 before this Bible was fully perfected, it was 
 
 ,k>.liLi.,l„. ULVNVL . .,.-,L.l \N HENRY Vin. 
 
 THE BAPTISM OF PRINCESS (AFTERWARD QUEEN) ELIZABETH 
 (From an old volume ot Shakespeare's Henry VUL) 
 
 thought good ... to father it by a strange 
 name of Thomas Matthewe ; John Rogers at 
 the same time being corrector to the print, 
 who had then translated the residue of the 
 Apocrypha and added also certain notes there- 
 29 
 
to in the margin, and therefore came it to be 
 called 'Thomas Matthewe's Bible.'" Bishop 
 Westcott quotes this passage not to indorse 
 its minutiae, but to indicate how the labors of 
 these three men were interlaced. It was a 
 weaving process, or rather the twisting of the 
 strands of a cord, at first loosely and then a 
 little more closely, until the finished product 
 is reached. 
 
 Matthew's, or Rogers' Bible appeared in 
 1537, dedicated to King Henry VIII. Thus 
 slowly the providence of God was shaping 
 events toward the enthronement of His Word 
 in public honor. " For vnto whom," Matthew 
 asks, " or in to whose proteccyon shulde the 
 defence of soche a worck be soner comytted 
 (wherein are contayned the infallyble prom- 
 eses of mercy . . . wyth the whole summe 
 of Christy anitye) then vnto his- Maiestye, 
 which not onely by name and tytle, but most 
 euydently and openly, most Christenly and 
 wyth most Godly pollicye doth profess the 
 defence thereof." Rogers won the martyr's 
 crown, being burned at Smithfield in 1555. 
 Without formal ecclesiastical action the book 
 had now won its place among the English peo- 
 ple. Henceforth Matthew's Bible, the happy 
 marrying of Tindale and Coverdale, furnished 
 the grand basis for the later revisions which 
 were to bring to perfection the great classic 
 translation of 1611. 
 
 Taverner's Version 
 
 In 1539 another Version appeared, made by 
 Richard Taverner. It has this distinction, 
 30 
 
that it was the work of a layman — a learned 
 layman, who 6ad studied law and through 
 the influence of Cromwell in 1534 obtained 
 an official position in the service of the Gov- 
 ernment. 
 
 He was licensed to preach as a layman by 
 Edward VI., but before that issued his Bible 
 under the patronage of Cromwell, dedicated to 
 the King. Like the others it is based on Tin- 
 dale, whose work, however, he handles with 
 distinction, originality, and vigor. Its merits 
 as a version, however, did not procure for it 
 the influence which might have been expected, 
 as, according to Bishop Westcott, it exercised 
 no influence whatever on later revisions. This 
 may have been due to the fact that it was is- 
 sued too near in time to the next version. 
 
 The Great Bible 
 
 This version, " The Great Bible," came the 
 same year ( 1539) , so called from its size, 15 x 9. 
 inches, which gave it its distinction, in which 
 Cranmer, Archbishop of Canterbury, and Tun- 
 stall, Bishop of London (the same 'My Lord 
 of London' who had hounded Tindale to 
 his death) — joined hands with Cromwell and 
 Heath, Bishop of Rochester, afterward Arch- 
 bishop of York, to aid Coverdale in carry- 
 ing forward the great undertaking. The 
 Great Bible is chiefly a revision of Matthew's 
 made by Coverdale ; not a mere superficial 
 revision, but that of a competent editor. 
 Coverdale was prepared by his own prior 
 labors for what he now undertook and carried 
 forward to successful conclusion, and the 
 31 
 
result of his labors appears in successive 
 editions of the Great Bible which are con- 
 nected with the names of his colleagues, 
 Cromwell in 1539 and Cranmer in 1540. Its 
 title-page has a picture of Henry VIII. giv- 
 ing the Bible to Cromwell and Cranmer, 
 who in turn give it to the clergy and laity 
 surrounding them. 
 
 The publication of The Great Bible was ac- 
 companied with an injunction that it should 
 be placed in the Parish churches, and six 
 Bibles were set up in convenient places in St. 
 Paul's Church. The King issued a proclama- 
 tion in May, 1540, to accompany its reading. 
 A public document justifying these measures 
 declares, ** Englishmen have now in hand in 
 every church and place, almost every man, 
 the Holy Bible and New Testament in their 
 mother tongue." 
 
 So, then, within three short years after Tin- 
 dale's death the leaders of Church and State 
 were following in the footsteps of the great 
 path-breaker. 
 
 32 
 
Elizabethan Versions :— The Ge- 
 nevan,— The Bistiops% — The 
 Douay 
 
 THE Great Bible, so called merely from 
 its folio size, was succeededby a greater, 
 not in size, for it was a quarto, but greater in 
 its accuracy and felicity as a translation. The 
 Genevan Version wasbasedonthe Great Bible, 
 but added to it a scholarly fidelity, coupled 
 with a happy grace and vigor of idiomatic 
 English, which made it for many years the 
 Bible of the English people. The circum- 
 stances which led to this result are part of the 
 strange, eventful history of that time of stress 
 and storm. To state even in outline the his- 
 torical causes that lie behind the Genevan Ver- 
 sion would be to picture the civil and religious 
 convulsions which shook not only England 
 but Continental Europe. As in the apocalyptic 
 picture, there were ** voices, thunders and light- 
 nings, and there was a great earthquake." 
 
 The Genevan Version was made by English 
 exiles, companions in tribulation for the Word 
 of God and for the testimony of Jesus Christ. 
 It might be said after the manner of the Acts 
 of the Apostles that, because of great perse- 
 cution against the church, they were scattered 
 abroad and went everywhere preaching the 
 Word — and translating it. 
 
 The name ** Genevan" is profoundly signifi- 
 cant. The school of John Calvin was a natural 
 focus for the learning of the day. Thither the 
 victims of religious persecution in England fled 
 33 
 
for refuge. Henry VIII., though a friend of 
 learning and by no means a foe of moderate 
 reform in'religious life, was at best a fickle and 
 
 JOHN CALVIN 
 
 treacherous friend. The close of his reign 
 
 was marked by what is known as the Catholic 
 
 34 
 
reaction. Although the Great Bible had ap- 
 peared with a picture of him and his Prime 
 Minister, during his later years severe restric- 
 tions were placed upon the use of this or of 
 any vernacular Bible. 
 
 In 1543 Parliament forbade all translations 
 bearing the name of Tindale and forbade, fur- 
 ther, women (except women of rank), artificers, 
 apprentices, journeymen, servants, farmers, 
 and laborers to read, to themselves or others, 
 publicly or privately, any part of the Bible 
 under pain of imprisonment. It was not until 
 Edward VI., Henry's son by Jane Seymour, 
 ascended the throne that the Word in its new 
 English dress had full course and was glorified. 
 
 The story has often been told of how at 
 King Edward's coronation three swords were 
 brought to him as signs of the triple kingdom. 
 He asked for a Bible to be brought, saying 
 that this was the sword of the spirit. Thirty.- 
 five editions of the New Testament and thir- 
 teen of the Bible were published during his 
 reign. The beneficed clergy were commanded 
 to provide large copies for public use. The 
 people could read, with none to molest or 
 make them afraid. It seemed as though the 
 Book had come to its own. 
 
 Under these auspicious circumstances Bible 
 translation might naturally have gone forward, 
 but this was not to be during Edward's brief 
 reign. It was not to Protestant Edward, but 
 to Catholic Mary, who succeededhim — * 'Bloody 
 Mary "— that we are indebted for the Genevan 
 Version. Her fierce wrath drove the choicest 
 spirits in England to the Continent, where 
 35 
 
some of them found their way to that select 
 company of Christian scholars who gathered 
 at Geneva. As soon as Mary came to the 
 throne eight hundred persons crossed the 
 channel, including five bishops, fifty eminent 
 divines, besides titled ladies, among them the 
 Queen's own cousin. They were found in 
 many cities, chiefly perhaps in Frankfort. 
 Here there arose a division of judgment among 
 themselves which led to the secession of a cer- 
 tain party, especially of the scholarly sort, to 
 Geneva. From these came the Genevan Ver- 
 sion. Among the names mentioned in con- 
 nection with it are John Bodley (father of the 
 founder of the Bodleian Library), Myles 
 Coverdale, Thomas Cole, Anthony Gilby, 
 Thomas Sampson, John Knox, and last but 
 not least, William Whittingham. Whitting- 
 ham was married to the sister of John Calvin 
 (or of Idelette DeBeurre, Calvin's wife— it is 
 not quite clear which), and was himself an 
 Oxonian of scholarly accomplishments who 
 had spent many years in foreign travel. 
 
 Under Calvin's mighty shadow, if not by 
 his suggestion — who can say ? — he issued his 
 own translation of the New Testament. This 
 was a forerunner of the Genevan Version it- 
 self, and is often, though incorrectly, identified 
 with the Genevan New Testament. First, 
 however, came the independent translation 
 made by Whittingham, but accompanied with 
 a stirring introduction by Calvin himself. 
 While, then, Mary was desolating England, 
 sending three hundred persons to the stake in 
 three years, among them three bishops, and 
 36 
 
Cranmer, Archbishop of Canterbury, himself, 
 this little group of scholar-saints quietly pre- 
 pared the next stage in the history of the 
 English Bible. 
 
 Calvin himself, of course, could not con- 
 tribute anything directly to the English Ver- 
 sion. He was, however, deeply interested in 
 Bible translation, and was indeed himself en- 
 gaged at that very time in perfecting the 
 French version of Olivetan. He revised it 
 three times— in 1545, 1551, and 1558. Whit- 
 tingham's New Testament appeared in 1557, 
 just before the close of Mary's reign in Eng- 
 land, so that we may without much exercise 
 of the historical imagination see these two 
 men, so closely linked, laboring together, the 
 one on the French and the other on the English 
 New Testament. Calvin's revisions were scaf- 
 folding to the final form of the French version, 
 which was issued in 1588 by a company of 
 French Protestants. Though Calvin was deal- 
 ing with another tongue, it could not fail that 
 Whittingham and his confreres should catch 
 somewhat of his spirit. The quickening touch 
 of so penetrating a genius as his musthave been 
 keenly felt in all the intellectual and spiritual 
 life of that high company, of which he was 
 the most distinguished ornament and the most 
 influential member. 
 
 The Genevan Version was based in the Old 
 Testament on the Great Bible, to the text of 
 which it made considerable correction (so 
 Bishop Westcott says), but not so much in its 
 translation. In the New Testament it be- 
 trays the powerful hand of Calvin's associ- 
 37 
 
ate, Theodore de Beza, through his Latin 
 translation. 
 
 The Genevan was the first English Bible 
 printed in Roman type, instead of the usual 
 black letter; the first also to break up the 
 solid paragraphs into verses like our own ; the 
 first to use italics to indicate the word supplied 
 by the translators. It was the first version 
 issued in the reign of Queen Elizabeth, and was 
 dedicated to her in simple language, free from 
 unworthy adulation, coming out in 1560 soon 
 after her coronation. It had marginal notes, 
 a running commentary on the text (Calvin- 
 istic in tone), and was adapted to the needs 
 of the common people, who heard it gladly 
 and cherished it with devout tenderness in 
 life and in death. It was above all others the 
 people's book — the household Bible — not only 
 in England but in Scotland, where it soon 
 came into general use. John Knox took it in 
 place of Tindale's version, which he used up to 
 the time of its appearance, and carried it, so 
 Dr. Eadie relates, to the First General As- 
 sembly of the Presbyterian Kirk in Edinburgh. 
 
 The influence of the English Bible upon 
 English literature cannot here be discussed, 
 but it is of special interest to note that 
 the creative genius of William Shakespeare 
 found in the Genevan Version no little of the 
 most fine gold which furnished him with a fit 
 medium of expression. This has been shown 
 in more than one recent treatise — perhaps as 
 well or better than any other, by Dr. Thomas 
 Carter in his " Shakespeare and Holy Scrip- 
 tures." In this he argues with elaborate care 
 38 
 
and seemingly beyond refutation that Shakes- 
 peare's Bible was the Genevan Version. 
 
 Shakespeare's literary career was finished 
 practically before the publication of King 
 James. Dr. Carter goes through all the 
 plays, showing the marvelous interweaving 
 of Biblical phraseology in the very fiber of 
 his style. It is not so much direct quotation 
 as continual adaptation of Scripture phrase 
 to his thought that betrays so unmistakably 
 his minute familiarity with the text of the 
 version. His use of it is not always reverent. 
 He used Scripture "to dignify the thought 
 of a king, to point the jest of a wit, or to 
 brighten the dullness of a clown." 
 
 It is a striking coincidence surely that the 
 school of Calvin and his "most potent grave 
 and reverend Seignors" in Geneva should 
 have thus potently touched to so fine issues 
 the sublime genius of the myriad-minded 
 master cf the human heart. 
 
 A recent book by Mr. Sidney Lee on "The 
 French Renaissance in England," calls atten- 
 tion to French influence in Elizabethan liter- 
 ature. This, the writer thinks, is much greater 
 than has been ordinarily supposed. The early 
 •translators of the English Bible, according to 
 Mr. Lee, owe to contemporary French efforts 
 of the same kind an appreciable stimulus. 
 He also dwells upon the influence of Cal- 
 vin's style on the English prose writers. This 
 accords in general with the view here sug- 
 gested. 
 
 Dr. Matthew B. Riddle, one of the Ameri- 
 can company of New Testament Revisers, 
 39 
 
calls attention to a curious illustration of the 
 vitality of the Genevan Version and its hold 
 on English-speaking Christians, that at the 
 Westminster Assembly, more than thirty years 
 after the publication of the Authorized Ver- 
 sion, the Genevan Version was still preferred 
 by many members, and several places in the 
 Westminster Confession of Faith framed by 
 that body indicate its influence. He adds that 
 the Bishops' Bible was used in the pulpit of 
 the First Church of Hartford, Conn., forty 
 years after 1611. 
 
 The Bishops* Bible 
 
 This brings us to the Bishops' Bible, the 
 chief distinction of which was that it has made 
 the formally adopted basis for the King James 
 Version. But for this it cannot be said to 
 deserve to rank with its predecessors, and 
 especially with the Genevan, which it was 
 probably intended in some measure to sup- 
 plant, but which it singularly failed to equal 
 in power. It was sometimes called Parker's 
 Bible, since Matthew Parker, Archbishop of 
 Canterbury, was its originator and promoter. 
 
 Strype, the historian of this phase of the 
 subject, describes the method by which it was* 
 done : 
 
 The archbishop took upon him the labour 
 to contrive and set the whole work a going 
 in a proper method, by sorting out the whole 
 Bible into parcels . . . , and distributing 
 those parcels to able bishops and other learned 
 men, to peruse and collate each the book or 
 books allotted them: sending withal his in- 
 40 
 
structions for the method they should observe; 
 and they to add some short marginal notes 
 for the illustration or correction of the text. 
 And all these portions of the Bible being 
 
 L' 
 
 :^ v:;w^,-^te^!^i'® 
 
 ii 
 
 
 
 1 
 
 1 
 
 s 
 
 THE EARL OF LEICESTER 
 
 (Illustration in the Bishops' Bible, 1568) 
 
 finished and sent back to the archbishop, he 
 
 was to add the last hand to them and so to 
 
 41 
 
take care for printing and publishing the 
 whole." 
 
 It was the aim of the bishops to produce a 
 popular rather than a literary version. Like 
 so many other attempts of revision, it proved 
 in the end less conservative than at the begin- 
 ning. Bishop Westcott thinks the work as a 
 whole extremely unequal. The bishops knew 
 more Greek than they did Hebrew. The his- 
 torical books of the Old Testament follow 
 the Great Bible very closely, the others less 
 closely. The Genevan Version had its influ- 
 ence 'throughout, and many of the changes 
 made in the Bishops' are due to it. The first 
 edition appearing in 1568, was followed by 
 another revised edition in 1572. Many phrases 
 and happy turns of expression can be cited for 
 which we are indebted to the Bishops' Bible : 
 "Joint heirs with Christ;" "the glory of his 
 inheritance;" love "worketh no ill to his 
 neighbour," and other like expressions. 
 
 The Bishops', like the Genevan Version, 
 contains explanatory notes which are shorter 
 and deal with the interpretation in the stricter 
 sense of the word. One of them may be 
 quoted as of curious interest to American 
 readers in Psalm 45, 9, on " the gold of 
 Ophir": "Ophir is thought to be the Ilande 
 in the West coast of late found by Chris- 
 topher Columbo: fro whence at this day is 
 brought most fine golde." 
 
 The Rheims, or Douay, Version 
 
 A rival translation produced by scholars 
 bitterly antagonistic to those who had thus 
 42 
 
far toiled at the English Version, was not 
 without its value to them. The point of view 
 of the makers of the Rheims, or Douay, Ver- 
 sion was so diverse from the Genevan or the 
 Bishops' Bible that their results make a use- 
 ful foil and occasionally a wholesome correc- 
 tive to both, and to the King James as well. 
 
 The men of Douay were genuine scholars, 
 and though bent on supplanting the Tindale 
 tradition, in spite of themselves the Rheimists 
 profited by the labors of those whom they 
 sought to undo. 
 
 William Allen, Principal of St. Mary's Hall, 
 Oxford, initiated the new translation. Under 
 his inspiration a college was founded at first 
 in Douay in 1568 (the year the Bishops' Bible 
 appeared) for the education of young English- 
 men in the Roman Catholic manner, and the 
 training of priests intended to reconvert 
 England to the Papacy. The college was 
 moved to Rheims ten years later and then 
 back again to Douay. Allen, who was after- 
 ward made Cardinal by Pope Sixtus V., at 
 the request of Philip II. of Spain, was its 
 president, and it is interesting to read that 
 in this Roman Catholic institution the Bible 
 was carefully taught every day. Thus Protes- 
 tantism was already modifying Roman usage. 
 
 Gregory Martin, *' graduate and Licentiate 
 in Theology " (so the official records of Douay 
 read) a brilliant linguist, began the transla- 
 tion in October, 1578, ten years after the 
 Bishops' Bible appeared, and did the most of 
 the work. Associated with him were Cardi- 
 nal Allen, Richard Bristow, Thomas Worth- 
 43 
 
ington, and William Reynolds, all men of 
 learning, but he bore the brunt of it. They 
 adopted a false principle of translation in tak- 
 ing the Latin Vulgate, rather than the Greek 
 
 CARDINAL WILLIAM ALLEN 
 
 or Hebrew originals, as their basis, and ad- 
 hered with courageous consistency to this 
 principle even when their scholarly instincts 
 44 
 
must have revolted from the manifest inaccu- 
 racies of the Vulgate. As a result all the 
 errors of the Vulgate were transferred to 
 their English version, so far as they can be 
 transferred in a Latinized English style, which 
 is at times hardly English at all and scarcely 
 intelligible. " Loaves of proposition," a * 'cur- 
 dled mountain," "cherogrillus," '*ophioma- 
 chus," "sciniph," "charadrion," for instance, 
 are sufficient to indicate to what un-English 
 absurdities these scholarly translators were 
 driven by their theory. 
 
 The value of the Douay thus consists not 
 in its unnatural and un-English style, and cer- 
 tainly not in the anti-Protestant notes accom- 
 panying it, but mainly in its vocabulary, which 
 has forced as it were into the language many 
 Latin words serviceable for the expression of 
 scriptural ideas. Many of these usages the 
 King James revisers subsequently adopted. 
 
 The Douay New Testament appeared in 
 1582 and the Old Testament in 1609-10, just 
 before the King James appeared. 
 
 Two notable articles on the Douay Version 
 are to be found in the Roman Catholic En- 
 cyclopedia from the pen of Monsignor Ward, 
 President of St. Edmond's College, England. 
 This learned writer points out that the Bibles 
 popularly styled "Douay" now "are most 
 improperly so called," being founded on the 
 revisions of Bishop Challoner in 1749-52. 
 The changes which he introduced according to 
 Cardinal Newman, it is further said, "almost 
 amounted to a new translation," and with 
 this judgment Cardinal Wiseman concurs. 
 45 
 
"Scarcely any verse remains as it was origi- 
 nally published." In nearly every case, Mon- 
 signor Ward adds, "these changes took the 
 form of approximating to the Authorized Ver- 
 sion." To this may be added Monsignor 
 Ward's further admission in the article on 
 Gregory Martin, that the Douay "is full of 
 Latinisms, so it has little of the rhythmic 
 harmony of the Anglican Authorized Version, 
 which has become part of the literature of the 
 nation," but in accuracy and scholarship he 
 thinks it " superior to any of the English ver- 
 sions which had preceded it, and it is under- 
 stood to have great influence on the translators 
 of the King James Version." So it appears 
 that these two companies of translators, work- 
 ing from such widely different standpoints, in 
 the end proved each to be useful in varying 
 degrees to the other. 
 
 Thus it came to pass that first by Wycliffe, 
 then by Tindale, in the stormy days of Henry 
 VIII. and on through "the spacious times of 
 Great Elizabeth" — the golden age of English 
 letters — then finally under King James, the 
 English Bible came to its throne of power. 
 
 46 
 
Archbishop Cranmer to Sir Thomas 
 Croni>vell, Concerning Matthew's 
 (Rogers') Bible, 1537 
 
 'My especial good lord . . . , these 
 'shall be to signify unto the same, that you 
 ' shall receive by the bringer thereof a bible 
 'in English, both of a new translation and of 
 *a new print, dedicated unto the king's maj- 
 'esty, as farther appeareth by a pistle unto 
 'his grace in the beginning of the book, 
 'which in mine opinion is very well done, 
 'and therefore I pray your lordship to read 
 'the same. . . . 
 
 * And forasmuch as the book is dedicated 
 'unto the king's grace, and also great pains 
 ' and labour taken in setting forth of the same ; 
 'I pray you, my lord, that you will exhibit 
 'the book unto the king's highness, and to 
 'obtain of his grace, if you can, a license that 
 ' the same may be sold and read of every per- 
 'son, without danger of any act, proclamation, 
 'or ordinance, heretofore granted to the con- 
 * trary, until such time as we the bishops shall 
 ' set forth a better translation, which I think will 
 'not be till a day after doomsday. . . .' 
 
The Dedication of the Genevan Ver- 
 sion to Queen Elizabeth (1560) 
 
 'The eyes of all that feare God in all places 
 beholde your countreyes as an example to all 
 that beleue, and the prayers of all the godly 
 at all tymes are directed to God for the pres- 
 eruatio of your maiestie. For considering 
 Gods wonderful mercies toward you at all 
 seasons, who hath pulled you out of the 
 mouthe of the lyons, and how that from 
 your youth you haue bene broght vp in the 
 holy Scriptures, the hope of all men is so 
 increased, that thei ca not but looke that God 
 shulde bring to passe some woderful worke 
 by your grace to the vniversal comfort of his 
 Churche. Therefore euen aboue stregth you 
 must shewe your selfe strong and bolde in 
 Gods matters. . . This Lord of lordes & 
 King of kings who hath euer defended his, 
 strengthe, cofort and preserue your maiestie, 
 that you may be able to builde vp the mines 
 of Gods house to his glorie, the discharge of 
 your conscience, and to the comfort of all 
 them that loue the comming of Christ lesus 
 our Lord.' 
 
Chronology of the English 
 Printed Bible 
 
 John Wycliffe's translation, circulated 
 in manuscript only, about 1360 to 
 1384. 
 
 William Tindale's New Testament, 
 1525. 
 
 William Tindale's Pentateuch, 1530. 
 
 Miles Coverdale's Bible, 1535. 
 
 Matthew's (John Rogers) Bible, 1537. 
 
 The Great Bible, 1539. 
 
 Taverner's Bible, 1539. 
 
 Whittingham's New Testament, 1557. 
 
 The Genevan Bible, 1560. 
 
 The Bishops' Bible, 1568. 
 
 The Rheims, or Douay, New Testa- 
 ment, 1582; the Old Testament, 
 1609-10. 
 
 Authorized Version (King James), 
 1611. 
 
 The Revised Version of the New 
 Testament, 1881; complete Bible, 
 1885. 
 
 American Standard Revised Version, 
 1901. 
 
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 English versions prior to King James 
 
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