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Title: The Life and Work of William Tindale

Author: William Barrett Cooper

Release date: February 23, 2022 [eBook #67483]

Language: English

Original publication: Canada: Longmans, Green and Co, 1924

Credits: The Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images generously made available by The Internet Archive).


*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE LIFE AND WORK OF WILLIAM TINDALE ***





Transcriber's Note:

The "Tindale" of this book is usually rendered as "Tyndale".

Entries in the Index to words and names mentioned in the Introduction
(pp xvii-xxi) are mostly incorrect.




 [Illustration: The Window of Thanksgiving in the Bible House,
 London]


 THE LIFE AND WORK
 OF
 WILLIAM TINDALE

 BY

 REV. W. B. COOPER, M.A., D.D.,
 TORONTO

 _2nd Edition_

 [Printer's mark]

 LONGMANS, GREEN AND CO.

 210 VICTORIA STREET, TORONTO
 55 FIFTH AVENUE, NEW YORK
 39 PATERNOSTER ROW, LONDON

 1925


 Copyright, Canada, 1924
 By CANADIAN BIBLE SOCIETY
 TORONTO


 _1st Edition, September, 1924._
 _2nd Edition, May, 1925._


 PRINTED IN CANADA
 T. H. BEST PRINTING CO. LIMITED. TORONTO


 _To
 A. M. C.
 and
 C. C. C._


 "A seed is sown in Britain and whether men wait
 for a hundred or a thousand years they will find
 it flowering."

 (King Arthur).


PREFACE TO SECOND EDITION


The author is gratified at the cordial reception which the first edition
of his work has met with. The issue of a second edition has given the
opportunity of making some minor corrections, and of including in the
closing paragraphs an appreciative reference to the work of the American
Bible Society.

Contemplation of the published work has suggested to the author that
greater significance might have been attributed to the background and
environment of Tindale's early manhood. The breaking up of the social
and religious structure of his time, and the spread of the New Learning
over Western Europe were events profoundly affecting the character and
career of contemporary English youth. Thus, the disintegration and
dissolution of the overawing authority of the Church, though she
retained for decades sufficient power to strike down her foes; the
splintered social unity which resulted from the decadence of the Feudal
Order, with class suspicion and hatred ensuing, combined to throw men
off their moral balance: and then into this moral confusion came rumours
of literatures, unknown and ancient, which opened to the startled minds
of teachers and students knowledge that at once widened and made more
wondrous the world which men thought they knew. The discovery of the
Greek and Latin literatures excited the imaginations of the younger men.
Oxford and Cambridge students in groups crossed the English Channel and
enrolled themselves in the Continental Universities that they might gain
at first hand the knowledge they desired. Grocyn, Linacre, and Colet
came back eager to teach and guide. But most significant of all was
this, that Erasmus landed in England.

Romantic stories were in the air of a New World beyond the seas.

Now the reaction of all this on the nation at large was a disquietude
and disturbance that led confusion towards fear and panic.

Such was the atmosphere which as a youth Tindale breathed. Not the least
of his claims to greatness are his deep insight into that disturbance of
the national soul, and the adventurous confidence with which he entered
on that long self-discipline which fitted him for the enterprise he so
brilliantly fulfilled.

When four hundred years ago the Low Countries of Europe, Holland and
Belgium, passed by inheritance to the reigning Spanish Sovereign,
Charles I, these lands became the theatre of long and devastating
warfare. Siege and sally, slaughter and suffering brought misery on the
people like a flood.

Yet it was in that distracted country, amid suffering almost universal,
that there came into being the unrivalled sweetness of belfry music.
Singing towers all over the Netherlands sprang into the air. Carillons
by the score were hung, and have been the delight and pride of the
people for a dozen generations or more.

To much the same effect, we may say, out of the disquietude and
suffering of those early years of the Sixteenth Century there came in
our English tongue a work which has proved to be "the most majestical
thing in our literature, the most living spiritual thing in our
tradition"; and we owe it to this high-hearted Apostle of our Faith,
William Tindale.

APRIL, 1925.




PREFACE


With the approach of the Fourth Centenary there is a demand for a memoir
of Tindale, less detailed than the standard biography, yet preserving
the perspective of history. To meet this demand this miniature has been
prepared. It sets forth especially the ardent force of vision which
sustained the exile in the depth and tumult of his toil.

Diligent use has been made of recognized authorities on the subject
treated; and it is hoped the little volume may make room for itself in
this busy age. For helpful suggestions, the author is indebted to Mr. A.
M. Denovan and Mr. B. R. Brooker; and to the Religious Tract Society for
kind permission to reproduce illustrations from their standard Biography
of Tindale.

It is offered to the public under the tolerant aphorism: "So long as a
man says sincerely what he thinks, he tells us something worth while."

 [Illustration: WILLIAM TINDALE]




CONTENTS


                                                                    Page
 Introduction                                                       xvii
 Conditions in England                                                 1
 The Making of Tindale                                                11
 At Little Sodbury                                                    15
 In London                                                            19
 In Exile (1) Intercourse with Luther                                 24
 In Exile (2) Translating the New Test.                               29
 Personality                                                          46
 Conclusion                                                           50




ILLUSTRATIONS


 Tindale Memorial Window in Bible House London            _Frontispiece_

                                                             Facing Page

 William Tindale. Drawn by I. H. Lynch from an old portrait
 by Pass                                                            xiii

 Erasmus: 1526, after Dürer                                            2

 Printing Press, 1511. The earliest known representation
 of a Printing Press, from the title page of Hegesippus' Hist.
 de Bello Judaico, printed by Jodocus Badius Ascensius, Paris 1511    30

 [1]Page of Octavo New Testament, 1525                                33

 [1]Page of Octavo New Testament, Revised, 1534-6                     36

 [1]Facsimile of the only known letter of Tindale                     48

 Tindale's Monument at North Nibley, near Little Sodbury              50


 [1] By kind permission of the Religious Tract Society.




INTRODUCTION


"The first scholar and the first divine of his epoch"—the words stand
true of William Tindale; but his personality is even more arresting, for
only a man richly endowed with courage, sincerity, uprightness, the
sense of duty and the love of country, could have served England so
nobly as he did: yet England knows not the man.

Fifteen years, or sixteen at most, early in the Sixteenth Century,
1520-1536, enclose the immemorial labors of William Tindale. During that
decade and a half there were for him experiences and enterprises which
went to the making of the man, and show what manner of man he was: but
which also set him forth as one of the greatest of his race.

Formative years preceded these; some thirty of them one conjectures; of
which, however, we can discover little. We get glimpses of him and his
doings; but they are like flashes of lightning in a dark sky. A
narrative of this man's life would seem forever impossible: what letters
there were, or other documents, disappeared long ago: and the path he
trod with unfaltering step we can trace in patches only.

For all that it is possible to set out the features of the man, realize
the massive qualities he possessed, recall his surroundings, the
atmosphere he breathed, the hostility he aroused, the victory he won at
the cost of his life; and so to recognize the valor, the magnanimity,
and in a word the greatness of this too little known English worthy.

A biographic blank like this, where incidents of consequence must have
transpired, is not altogether unknown in history.

History encounters the same difficulty in the life of Wyclif. The
character of his parents is unknown. Not an anecdote of his boyhood
remains. His life at Oxford, extending over forty years, yields but a
single incident.

In one of Tindale's younger contemporaries in the northern kingdom,
there occurs a similar desert stretch, where the silence is even more
profound; and which the most diligent research has failed to break. John
Knox was born in 1505; and of his inner life for the first forty years
we know absolutely nothing. Then suddenly, against a background darker
in Scotland than that in England, he emerges holding George Wishart's
two-edged sword in his hand.

Of the crisis which lay behind, which changed him from a priest before
the altar to the beloved disciple of this early martyr, we hear not a
word. "In the solemn days of early faith", wrote the late Taylor Innes,
"not a few men like him were in the desert until the time of their
showing unto Israel. Not the polished shaft only, but the rough
spear-head too was in the shadow of a mighty hand until the day when it
was launched."

If ever Papini's paradoxical dictum be credible, it is in a life like
this: "The most highly educational biographies are those of men of whom
little or nothing is known. Those are the books that set forth the human
ideal, that tell us what a man ought to be." The paradox is elsewhere
resolved by him when he says: "I care less for the whole course of a
man's life than for his own distilling of its essence."

The distilled essence of Tindale's life comes to view again and again
during these brief years; which were crowded with events, dramatic and
of age-long significance, and which passed from drama to tragedy in the
martyr fires he had long foreseen.

Centenaries are apt to miscarry. If such occasions serve only for the
display of erudition and platform vanity, and fail to lead us to seek
the essential message and the continuing inspiration of the great men
they celebrate, what riches of the past remain sealed to us! There have
been celebrations loudly acclaimed by men who would have bayed at the
heels of the brave revolutionary whom they now eloquently praise. They
simulate seeing he is no longer alive and dangerous, but a hero dead:
and they join the chorus of universal praise. The effect is to emphasize
the deadness of the past, not to rekindle glorious life—this is
rekindled only where there is eagerness to be in or near the succession
of the great, where there is sympathy with admiration, where there is in
fine some kinship of spirit.

The true aim of Centennials is more psychological than historical. Not
so much the magnification of the subject as the discovery of what was
his lofty purpose, his high endurance, his nobility of spirit: not even
his success, but his endeavor; and this in order that in our admiration
we may draw inspiration for ourselves and emulate his spirit in the
altered circumstances of the time. That resolve to recapture for the
world of to-day a courage and a consecration of which the world of his
day was contemptuous, and to devote these invaluable virtues to the
opportunities of our time—that is the soul-stirring aim in revivifying
the past; and is not that the true heritage of all the ages?




CHAPTER I.

CONDITIONS IN ENGLAND


Can we picture to ourselves the world in which Tindale gradually came
into public view, made his voice heard in palaces, manor houses and
homes of the common people; making enemies rage, but winning friends
innumerable, until finally a price was set on his head: and there were
Englishmen eager to entrap him to his death?

What was the condition of England then? What figures stand out
conspicuous in the life of the nation? In whose hands did administrative
power lie? In what directions were events moving? In the forefront of
the nation strode Wolsey, clothed with power, dominating every avenue of
corporate action, the master of church and state, and irresistible so
long as he could retain the indulgence of the king. It was the time when
Wolsey had succeeded in substituting royal despotism for
quasi-representative government, and had himself risen to giddy heights
of power and affluence, only to fall headlong in infamy and remorse. His
sovereign had at length turned with Tudor frenzy against his minister.
The king's marriage projects, his impatience with the Cardinal's vanity,
as extravagant as it was grotesque, were not the only cause for
dishonor; the King had purposes which called for servants of another
type, and Henry was resolved to wield the royal power alone.

 [Illustration: DESIDERIUS ERASMUS.
 After Albert Durer.]

Erasmus, More and Colet were the men of letters conspicuous in ability
and influence during Tindale's boyhood. The three men were in intimate
sympathy with one another; and each in his own fashion, exponents of the
new learning, gave the country whole-hearted service. All were men of
outstanding talent, and labored unceasingly for the ends they had in
view. Colet was the preacher of renown. His University lectures on St.
Paul's Epistles were scarcely less notable than his sermons in London.
Sir Thomas More was witty, intense, versatile, broad-minded, gifted with
imagination and courage; but when he encountered the violence of Luther
suddenly changed to the recusancy of the bigots and the bishops.
Erasmus, the greatest of the three, never altered his plans. He held on
his way alike in all weathers undeterred, enlightening his time with the
treasures he had found in the New Testament. It was in the year 1516 he
issued his Greek Testament, with a Latin version alongside, correcting
errors in the Vulgate; and that issue was a landmark in the history of
the whole of Europe.

These three men incensed the conservatism of the Church. They refused to
shut their eyes to the prevalent ignorance and unworthiness of the
priesthood. They laid bare the open sores in the body ecclesiastic.
Their irony and satire played about abbots, bishops and curés; but in
all the castigation inflicted, there was no sign given by the priesthood
of change or desire for reformation; only rancour and rage. As the truth
got utterance given to it, the people took sides slowly, and the tides
of feeling rose and spread. Listen to one voice from the multitude:

 Men hurt their souls,
 Alas! for Goddes will;
 Why sit ye Prelates still
 And suffer all this ill?
 Ye Bishops of estates
 Should open broad the gates
 Of your spiritual charge
 And come forth at large
 Like lanterns of light
 In the peoples' sight
 In pulpits awtentike
 For the weal publyke
 Of priesthood in this case.

—John Skelton.

Gloucestershire was a stronghold of the Church. The proverb "As sure as
God is in Gloucester" gave point to it. Only a few of the clergy
understood the Latin services they read or sang. None of them knew the
contents of the Bible; and many were outspoken in their disparagement of
it. When argument arose and some rare voice made reference to the Bible,
they thought to silence him by saying the Pope, or this or that, was
above the Bible. It was in the course of conversation and debate that a
certain man ejaculated to Tindale "We were better be without God's laws
than the Pope's". The attitude is the more to be remarked because as a
consequence of the new learning there had been a wide diffusion of the
Bible in the Latin language (the Vulgate) since the invention of
printing. No fewer than eighty editions, although one cannot ascertain
what was the size of the editions, had been issued between 1462 and
1500.

As a sign of the times, this diffusion of the Latin Bible was curiously
significant. Significant it was indeed in more ways than one. It showed
(1) that the scholars of the church were being influenced by the new
learning; but also (2) that a strict reservation was to be enforced in
confining it to scholars. The Bible was for scholars, not for others. A
fine instance is in the case of the Complutensian Polyglot. Complutum
was the Latin name of Alcala. In 1502 Cardinal Ximenes, the founder of
Alcala University, decided on the issue of a Polyglot edition of the
Bible wherein the Vulgate should be placed alongside of the best Hebrew
and the best Greek manuscripts. "Every theologian", he said, "should
also be able to drink of that water which springeth up to eternal life
at the fountain head itself.... Our object is to revive the hitherto
dormant study of the Sacred Scriptures". The very men who thus engaged
in the publication of the Bible, denounced with the direst of penalties
its distribution outside the charmed circle of the learned.

Freedom of conscience there was none. Tolerance was proclaimed as an
emanation of Hell. Difference of opinion was deadly. To acknowledge
misgiving or doubt or dissent was incontinently to be rated as a rebel
and exposed to the truculency of a pitiless hierarchy.

There is a companion picture of the English world at that time, lurid
and indeed sickening. The bishops sank their humanity in frenzied
partisanship, gave rein to cruel and monstrous passion, aided and
abetted therein by More as Lord Chancellor. They lit the fires of
Smithfield, and the spectacle of Englishmen perishing at the stake for
honesty of thought and sincerity of life, became so familiar as to
case-harden the people at the scenes. One story, typical of scores of
others, may be given.

The story has reference to Bainham's execution: "Among the lay officials
present at the stake, was 'one Pavier', town clerk of London. This
Pavier was a Catholic fanatic, and as the flames were about to be
kindled he burst out into violent and abusive language. The fire blazed
up, and the dying sufferer, as the red flickering tongues licked the
flesh from off his bones, turned to him and said, 'May God forgive thee
and shew more mercy than thou, angry reviler, shewest to me.' The scene
was soon over: the town clerk went home. A week after, one morning when
his wife had gone to mass, he sent all his servants out of the house on
one pretext or another, a single girl only being left, and he withdrew
to a garret at the top of the house, which he used as an oratory. A
large crucifix was on the wall; and the girl, having some question to
ask, went to the room, and found him standing before it, 'bitterly
weeping'. He told her to take his sword, which was rusty, and clean it.
She went away and left him; when she returned, a little time after, he
was hanging from a beam, dead. He was a singular person. Edward Hall,
the historian, knew him, and had heard him say, that, 'if the king put
forth the New Testament in English, he would not live to bear it.' And
yet he could not bear to see a heretic die. What was it? Had the meaning
of that awful figure hanging on the torturing cross suddenly revealed
itself? Had some inner voice asked him whether, in the prayer for his
persecutors with which Christ had parted out of life, there might be
some affinity with words which had lately sounded in his own ears? God,
into whose hands he threw himself, self-condemned in his wretchedness,
only knows the agony of that hour. Let the secret rest where it lies,
and let us be thankful for ourselves that we live in a changed world."

(_Froude, Henry VIII._)

When the mind pauses to reflect on this doing to death of men because
their faith did not square with that of those in high places, and
succeeds in freeing itself from the numbing influence which its very
familiarity causes, the amazement and horror of the practice help us to
measure the criminal folly of it. One must make an effort indeed to
shake off that deadening influence; and then, and only then, the
arrogance and impiety of claiming injustice, torture, judicial murder,
as a service to God, make one shudder as at blasphemy. Yet what awful
pages of history in every part of Christendom record the deeds of this
sanguinary orthodoxy. How hard has mankind found it to learn that
persuasion and forbearance are the real solvents of dissent; for the
faith in force is hardly shaken to this day. Forcible suppression is in
high favor still. It may not, dare not, perhaps, work by the same crude
and sanguinary tools, although the disclosures of the Great War, or of
Soviet Russia, may give the lie to that caveat: but little observation
is needed to show how in subtler forms, alike in politics and in
religion, there is the same impatience with disagreeing opinion, and the
same self-assurance that does not hesitate to silence a disputant by
death or shame. Wherever it lifts its head, it is the head of
Anti-Christ.




CHAPTER II.

THE MAKING OF TINDALE


In such an atmosphere the formative years of Tindale's life were spent.
So much can be said: but little more than that is known with any
certainty. Indeed the story of his youth can be put in a single
paragraph. He was a native of Gloucestershire. He was sent very young to
Oxford. There he entered Magdalen Hall, attached to Magdalen College,
the College of Wolsey and Lily. After graduation he went for a period to
Cambridge, attracted there probably by Erasmus, who had occupied the
Greek chair.

It was about the time when Erasmus gave his Greek Testament to the
world. He was fulfilling his own daring ideal, very daring in those
days. "I totally dissent", Erasmus said in his Exhortation, "from those
who are unwilling that the Sacred Scriptures, translated into the vulgar
tongue, should be read by private individuals, as if Christ had taught
such subtle doctrines that they can with difficulty be understood by a
very few theologians or as if the strength of the Christian religion lay
in men's ignorance of it. The mysteries of kings it were perhaps better
to conceal, but Christ wishes His mysteries to be published as widely as
possible. I would wish even all women to read the Gospel and the
Epistles of St. Paul. And I wish they were translated into all languages
of all people, that they might be read and known, not merely by the
Scotch and the Irish, but even by the Turks and the Saracens. I wish
that the husbandman may sing parts of them at his plough, that the
weaver may warble them at his shuttle, that the traveller may with their
narratives beguile the weariness of the way."

The very centre of the excitement it created was in Cambridge when
Tindale enrolled. Many minds hungrily devoured the work. The story of
Bilney, "Little Bilney" as he was affectionately called, (captivated by
the Greek Testament, a fervent disciple of the Gospel, intimidated by
the terrors of the persecutor, on recantation set free, and to his honor
recovering himself and courageously confessing his new faith with
martyrdom before his eyes, he gave his life as a brave man should)
indicated what happened to many others.

To no Cambridge student of the time had the book come more opportunely
and more appropriately than to the ex-Oxford student, whose classical
attainments fitted him to take from it the very fullest advantage. One
of Tindale's sayings amid these surroundings was, "he had perceived by
experience how that it was impossible to establish the lay people in any
truth unless the Scriptures were plainly laid before their eyes in the
mother tongue, that they see the process, the order, and the meaning of
the text: which things only", he says, "moved me to translate the New
Testament."

Known in both colleges as an able scholar, excelling in languages,
Tindale left Cambridge and became Chaplain-Tutor in the family of Sir
John Walsh in his native county. There he continued his studies,
preached frequently, and met on equal terms with the Society of the
shire.




CHAPTER III.

AT LITTLE SODBURY


Churchmen and gentry were frequent guests at the hospitable board. The
topics agitating men's minds were often mentioned. Sometimes the
conversation waxed warm. The chaplain rarely spoke, though nothing
escaped his attention. It was impossible always to forbear. A question
or a reflection was at times enough to draw opposition. Indeed the
relevancy and significance of his words challenged his listener.

Tindale felt himself alone. He was not sure of the sympathies of his
host: his hostess thought him presumptuous in holding his opinion
against the company. The atmosphere was often unfriendly.

In Foxe's "Acts and Monuments" we have recorded the testimony of one who
probably got the facts from Tindale himself. Describing such table talk,
he adds: "Wherein as those men and Master Tindale did vary in opinions
and judgments, then Master Tindale would shew them on the book the
places by open and manifest Scripture; the which continued for a certain
season divers and sundry times, until in the continuance thereof those
great beneficed doctors waxed weary and bore a secret grudge in their
hearts against Master Tindale".

(Demaus' "Life of Tindale" page 67.)

It was in the course of a conversation of the kind that Tindale drove
one of those learned men to exclaim that the Pope's laws were above all
other authority; to which came Tindale's reply, impetuous and defiant:
"I defy the Pope and his laws. If God spare my life, ere many years I
shall cause a boy that driveth the plow shall know more of the
Scriptures than thou doest." (page 86 ib.)

Students of that age have been struck by the co-incidence of this
anticipation of Tindale's and the prediction of Erasmus in the passage
where the latter records his emphatic dissent from those who were
unwilling to have the Scriptures translated into the vulgar tongue and
read by private individuals.

       *       *       *       *       *

The coincidence is a striking one. It may well be that the daring of the
Dutch man of letters smote a responsive chord in the breast of the brave
Englishman. If the younger catches the torch from the hand of his
precursor, must we disparage the courage with which the torch is carried
forward and kept ablaze?

From Foxe again we take the picture of a little domestic scene, very
realistic, wherein the lady of the house occupies the centre. "So upon a
time some of those beneficed doctors had Master Walsh and the lady his
wife, at a supper or banquet, there having among them talk at will
without any gainsaying: and the supper or banquet being done, and Master
Walsh and the lady his wife come home, they called for Master Tindale,
and talked with him of such communication as had been, where they come
fro (from), and of their opinions. Master Tindale there-unto made answer
agreeable to the truth of God's word, and in reproving of their false
opinions. The Lady Walsh, being a stout woman, and as Master Tindale did
report her to be wise, being there no more but they three, Master Walsh,
his wife and Master Tindale; 'Well,' said she, 'there was such a doctor,
he may dispend (spend) two hundred pounds by the year, another one
hundred pound, and another three hundred pound; and what think ye, were
it reason that we should believe you before them so great, learned and
beneficed men?' Master Tindale, hearing her, gave her no answer; nor
after that had but small arguments against such, for he perceived it
would not help in effect to the contrary."

Tindale had the good sense to know how vain would be argument with his
disputant. He found another way. Ere long both Sir John and his lady
took their stand firmly by his side.




CHAPTER IV.

IN LONDON


Tindale's residence at Little Sodbury ended when he saw that his
remaining there must bring trouble upon the inmates of the Manor House.
He resolved to move to London, and hoped that he might be enabled there
to accomplish the task he had set himself as his life work. His hopes
were centred on the then Bishop of London. Tunstal was a friend of the
new learning. He was able, ambitious, liberal, and a Prelate of rising
power. If he gave his countenance to Tindale's enterprise, its
completion and publication were assured.

Even with introductions it was not easy to gain an audience. An unknown
university man was easily overlooked by this busy man of the world. At
length, however, an interview took place. It was constrained. The
polished ecclesiastic was frigid and reserved. He did nothing to put his
visitor at ease. Tindale's request for Episcopal countenance received no
encouragement.

That interview was one of the great moments of history nevertheless. It
proved a turning point in the life of the ardent student. It might have
been the dawn of a splendid era in the history of England.

His failure with the Prelate, however, was really his good fortune. It
strengthened for him the friendship of one of the most notable men in
London. Mr. Humphrey Monmouth was a wealthy wool merchant, an alderman
of the city, of liberal mind and cultured taste and generous
disposition. An extensive traveller, personally acquainted with parts of
the world rarely visited at that time, and having business connections
with many lands, he enriched the scholar by a friendship that was beyond
price. Tindale became a member of the merchant's family for six months,
enjoyed the varied intercourse which the hospitable table of the house
afforded, and pursued his studies with characteristic industry. It is
very probable that his host's knowledge and acquaintance with the
continental countries, and particularly with the Low Countries, helped
to determine Tindale's departure from London when it seemed plain that
there was no place in all England where he could be sure he could carry
out the great work his heart was set on doing.

This friendship brought down upon Monmouth the wrath of the authorities.
He was thrown into the Tower. To obtain his release he made an appeal to
Wolsey. That appeal has been preserved. In simple matter of fact terms
it narrates his intercourse with his whilom guest. It enables us to see
the reformer through another's eyes. "I heard (Tindale) preach," he
writes, "two or three sermons in St. Dunstan's in the West in London,
and after that I chanced to meet him, and with communication I learned
what living he had. He said he had none at all, but he trusted to be
with My Lord of London in his service; and therefore I had the better
fantasy (fancy) to him. Afterward (when this hope failed him) he came to
me again and besought me to help him; and so I took him into my
household and there he lived like a good priest as methought. He studied
most part of the day and 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. I did pay him when he made his exchange to
Hamburg."

We are to remember that in 1384, a hundred and fifty years before the
time of which we are speaking, Wyclif had translated the Bible into
English. It was not until 1477 that the invention of printing was
introduced into England: but manuscript copies were made in considerable
numbers. There were many willing copyists. Nearly two hundred copies
survived in the middle of the Nineteenth Century. Yet in Tindale's time
there is not a sign that any such translation was in existence. Many
English people must have had them in possession; but contemporary life
and records rarely show a trace of them, or of any readers turning over
their pages in secret.

So complete had been the reaction from the joys of first possession; so
complete had been the success of the prelates' policy in silencing the
Lollard preaching, and in putting out of sight their Bible in the mother
tongue.

It is almost certain that Tindale had a copy of Wyclif's version: if so,
it is certain he would use it for comparison, as he used every text
within his reach. Some have overstated this debt to Wyclif. Tindale's
own words are emphatic, that his translation is his own. There was no
version he could take as model.




CHAPTER V.

IN EXILE; (1) INTERCOURSE WITH LUTHER


Exile by force of circumstance is a sorrow many have endured. To the
ardent patriot who sees with far-seeing eye his country's destiny, and
who feels he could and will make some contribution to the general good,
it is an endless sorrow. Tindale's intense love of country, his high
fortitude in the mission he had accepted for himself, his clear vision
of the blessing to England the Bible in the native tongue must bring,
the unintelligent opposition and hostility obstructing and thwarting his
work, in the end menacing his life, made existence for him a prolonged
martyrdom. The pathos of his last words echoes all that he endured:
"Lord open the King of England's eyes."

Tindale and Luther were contemporaries. Their resemblances were as
pronounced as their contrasts. Both were apostles of the Word of God.
Their own discoveries of its experimental power made reserve or silence
impossible. Of their native speech they had so perfect a mastery that it
is not too much to say of each of them that their translations were the
moulds which determined the ultimate development of their native
tongues; and each felt so powerfully the vital value of the revelation
as to stamp their translations indelibly with the fire of their own
faith. Life-blood flowed in their versions. It was the surge of this
personal emotion in their versions which made them the possession not
merely of their own generations, but of the four centuries that have
followed.

They differed in manner more than in spirit or in purpose. There was a
violence in Luther uncontrolled, whose outbursts gave such mortal
offence to Sir Thomas More as to swing him from his humanistic
broad-mindedness to a spirit of intolerance hardly less fiery than
Luther's violence. Fires probably of equal intensity burned in Tindale:
he could say things that scarified—many of his "pestilent glosses" stung
and burned beyond endurance; but Tindale was always master of his
powers.

Controversy in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries was carried on in
language laden with poison. The fumes of it got into the heads of all
protagonists, the noblest not excepted. Humor, the best of antidotes,
did not completely save Erasmus from its venom. The ink of Luther's pen
often spluttered with it. Tindale himself was not immune. In some of his
glosses there are phrases that burn and blister.

The reader of these modern times cannot help feeling that this flaws
noble character; but judgment cannot overlook the manner of the times,
nor demand that Tindale be unaffected by a malady that was then
everywhere endemic.

The tempestuous soul of the German could not fail to influence the more
phlegmatic Englishman. Traces of Luther's influence abound in Tindale's
work; but have never overlain the independence and original energy of
the latter. It is one of the great merits of the English reformer, that,
man of original power as he was, he laid under contribution all
available knowledge and experience in Hebrew, Greek, Latin, German,
Spanish, Italian, in determining what his own translation must be.

That these outstanding reformers met together, more than once, is duly
recorded; but descriptive account of their intercourse there is none. So
far as their history is concerned, they are to us like "Ships that pass
in the night." They speak one another and pass in the dark.

If we could recover their table talk, we should prize it, not only for
its own sake, but for the revelation it must make of both men. One
wonders whether it was to Tindale that Luther, realizing sadly how each
of them had been forced by circumstances to do his work in lonely peril,
declared "Interpreters and translators should not work alone, for good
et propria verba do not always occur to one mind:"—or again: "My counsel
is that we draw water from the true source and fountain, that is, that
we diligently search the Scriptures ... one single verse, one sentence
of the text, is of far more instruction than a whole host of glosses and
commentaries, which are neither strongly penetrating nor armour of
proof."

Luther's country had proved a safe asylum for the English translator.
Cochlaeus was one of many of their enemies in common; but his battery
had been unmasked. The friends surely drew together as they found
themselves facing similar dangers day by day, and both of them rode on
those tossing seas confidently anchored in the promises of God.




CHAPTER VI.

IN EXILE: (2) TRANSLATING THE NEW TESTAMENT


Tindale's life upon the Continent of Europe can be traced in no more
than broken outline. Gaps of space and time are frequent; for, as
already indicated, whatever letters or other documents there may have
been have long ago disappeared, and we have little more than knowledge
of extended residence at certain important points, Hamburg, Cologne,
Worms, and shorter visits to the Wartburg, Wittenberg, Antwerp, etc. As
Froude aptly says: "His history is the history of his work, and his
epitaph is the Reformation."

It was in Worms that the famous diet had been held at which Luther
braved the Empire in its assembled might, and here it is that
Rietschel's monument to the Reformation stands in bronze and granite.
Colossal figures, Waldo and Wyclif, Huss and Savonarola, have towering
above them the figure of Luther, his right hand clenched and resting on
the Bible. Bas-reliefs and medallions carry select details. Where
selection was imperative, there could not fail to be regrettable
omissions; but one misses also forces that were vital. Gutenberg is not
there; nor any symbol of his craft.

Without the service rendered by the printing press of recent invention,
it is almost inconceivable that there could have been any such
world-shaking event as the Reformation proved. Not only was the burning
eloquence of the preacher carried by this means far and wide, but the
Scriptures themselves in the language of the people were thrown off from
scores of presses in the Rhine Valley and dispersed to many lands. Like
wildfire knowledge ran.

Gutenberg, and Fust with Schoeffer in Maintz, Quentel and Bryckmann in
Cologne, were the names most frequent on the title pages of the Bible;
and their fame has proved enduring.

 [Illustration: PRINTING PRESS, 1511.
 Title page of "Hegesippus", printed by Jodocus Badius
 Ascensius, Paris, 1511.]

In the early decades of the Sixteenth Century, even in Germany printing
was still regarded as one of the marvels of the time. But in England,
the first quarter of the century had just ended when the authorities
took alarm at its power and sought to curb it. They instituted a
censorship to kill it. Its development was persistently thwarted for
many years.

Well did Tindale understand that the English government not merely
forbade the translation of the Bible into the native tongue, but were
trying to strangle the printing craft in its infancy.

Out of England the trade was prospering at many centres.

He landed at Hamburg. Even then the city was a busy commercial centre
with business and shipping interests linking it with every part of the
commercial world. Among the inhabitants were men who welcomed Tindale
and who gave him assistance in various ways. But he was soon aware that
for his work one essential was lacking. Not a single printing press had
been set up in Hamburg as yet. His acquaintance with Hamburg, however,
was of enduring value. The friends he made there he retained, and later
visits were a solace and encouragement in days when friends were friends
indeed.

He proceeded to Cologne, where there was every facility for printing. He
had the first parts of the New Testament in 4to. ready for the press.
Enemies, however, were around and alert. Circumspection and secrecy were
essential. The work progressed. The printer had got as far as the first
ten sheets when a restless and resolute enemy, Cochlaeus, having
ferreted the secret from one of the workmen in his cups, obtained
authority to put a stop to the work. Tindale managed to secure his
property and left the city. He escaped up the Rhine to safety in the
city of Worms; where reformation was in power, and where he could
continue his work with new feelings of security.

Here, then, he lost no time in resuming his work.

 [Illustration: PAGE OF 1525 OCTAVO.
 New Testament.]

He found a sympathetic printer in P. Schoeffer. Tindale appears to have
rearranged his plans. Possibly he had ascertained that Cochlaeus, balked
of victory at the very last, had with vindictive cunning sent letters to
England giving full particulars of the kind of volume that was in the
making: (It was to be a 4to. with notes and comments) and urging the
authorities to guard against its being smuggled into the country.
Tindale forestalled that enemy. It was not a 4to. volume which he now
designed at Worms, but an 8vo. volume; and this had neither note nor
gloss. It would seem that alongside of this, but at more leisurely pace,
the 4to. also was completed, very likely in the same printing house.
Both volumes bear the stamp of the same year of issue, 1525. The two
editions were successfully conveyed to England; so that the immediate
effect of the attack was to issue two editions instead of one—6,000
volumes instead of 3,000. A skilful system of Colportage carried these
books all over England. Before the books arrived, the King had a second
warning. Edward Lee, afterwards Archbishop of York, was then on the
Continent, and dating his letter from Bordeaux, December 2nd, 1525, he
says: "Please it Your Highness to understand that I am certainly
informed as I passed in this country that an Englishman, your subject,
at the solicitation and instance of Luther with whom he is, hath
translated the New Testament into English, and within a few days
intendeth to arrive with the same imprinted in England. I need not to
advertize Your Grace what infection and danger may ensue hereby if he be
not withstanded. This is the next way to fulfil your realm with
Lutherians." Then he adds: "All our forefathers, Governors of the Church
of England, hath with all diligence, forbid and eschewed publication of
English Bibles, as appeareth in Constitutions Provincial of the Church
of England."

The news had travelled far before reaching Lee, and was inaccurate at
that: but the swiftness with which it reached him was proof of the
excitement which Cochlaeus' discovery had created.

More interesting and more accurate is a notice which occurs in the diary
of a German scholar,[2] some four months earlier in time. He says: "One
told us at the dinner table that 6,000 copies of the English Testament
had been printed at Worms: that it was translated by an Englishman who
lived there with two of his countrymen. He was so complete a master of
seven languages—Hebrew, Greek, Latin, Italian, Spanish, English and
French—that you would fancy whichever one he spoke was his mother
tongue." He adds that the English, in spite of the opposition of the
King, were so eager for the Gospel, as to affirm they would buy a New
Testament even if they had to give a hundred thousand pieces of money
for it.

While the enemy raged, the presses abroad were not idle. Additional
editions were printed to take the place of those destroyed. They were
conveyed with the same success to English ports. In less than five years
six editions had been published, three of them surreptitiously. They
numbered perhaps fifteen thousand copies in all, and were distributed to
eager purchasers by the same formidable organization of colportage.

Nor was Tindale idle. He had foreseen the tactics of his foes. He kept
steadfastly at work. He revised his translation of the New Testament,
and he proceeded to turn the Old Testament into the English speech; the
Pentateuch, the historical books as far as Chronicles, the book of Jonah
he completed. In 1536 he was able to send the manuscript of his revised
New Testament to England, and there it was put upon the press. That was
the first volume of Holy Scripture to be printed on English soil.

It was, however, the closing year of Tindale's life. Before the book
came off the press he may have sealed his testimony; but at least he
would be cheered by tidings of its progress, and the knowledge that the
work had found its proper home in his own land. "For this end", says
Westcott, "he had constantly striven; for this he had been prepared to
sacrifice everything else; and the end was gained only when he was
called to die."

 [Illustration: PAGE FROM TINDALE'S 1536 REVISED NEW TESTAMENT.]

Some time elapsed before the discovery of the contraband Testament was
made by the ecclesiastical authorities, who then instituted a search so
bitterly persistent and so pervasive in its continuance, that, of these
editions, there survive in our time only a couple of 8vo. copies, one of
these incomplete; and only a fragmentary copy of the 4to. The eventual
destruction, however, did not prevent the Testament meanwhile having its
own influence and bringing comfort and hope to thousands of English
homes.

Not only so,—and this is the tribute that is due to Tindale's
translation,—the translation as Tindale made it is in substance and form
the English New Testament as we have it to-day. Notwithstanding the
numberless revisions that have taken place, it is substantially
Tindale's translation still; for the revisers have always, unconsciously
perhaps, done their revising in the spirit and manner of Tindale. Of all
that have worked upon the English Bible, no other single man has left
his mark on this book; the version in our hands to-day bears the
unmistakable stamp of its first translator.

"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 Tindale. Lying, while engaged in that great
office, under the shadow of death, the sword above his head and ready at
any moment to fall, he worked, under circumstances alone perhaps truly
worthy of the task which was laid upon him,—his spirit, as it were
divorced from the world, moved in a purer element than common air."

(_Froude, Henry Eighth, Vol. II_).

The contents of this book as it passed into the hands of the nation,
printed not in the language of the court, nor in that of either the
statesman or the scholar, but in the language of the common people,
finding them, as it did, more especially at critical times when events
seemed to be threatening the overthrow of the nation as much as of the
individual, stole into the imagination of the people, and by degrees
gave form and life to those great virtues, justice, freedom, truth,
tolerance and self-sacrifice, which have become the vivid traditions
that govern in the main the English-speaking people. Here was the
fountain head from which the main stream of their literature,
legislation, public policy, and national character derives its flow and
power.

For it is admitted that the distinction of this great people from other
nations in a certain generosity, patience, integrity and courage, rests
remotely on their silent appropriation of the vital forces released in
this book of God.

Such far-reaching consequences afford the best measure of the immense
significance—much greater than he could foresee—of Tindale's toil that
he might open the eyes of England to the message he succeeded in turning
into imperishable language under-standed of the people.

No phase of Tindale's work intrigues the student so much as his perfect
command of his native tongue. Where and how did he acquire this mastery
of pure sonorous English, whose rhythmic prose is like stately music to
the most cultured ear? Study of the Vulgate and of the originals he
worked on has not indeed to be overlooked as a possible source; but
there is a gift, native-born, or acquired in secret toil, which, with
those tides of devout feeling we find swelling in the man himself,
stamps the style as the organ utterance of his consecrated manhood.

Tindale's rendering of 1 Cor. 13, with the parallels for comparison of
Wyclif and the Authorized Version of 1611, illustrates both the style of
the great translator and the permanence of his translation in the
version current for four hundred years.


WYCLIF—1380

If I speke with tungis of men and of aungels, and I haue not charite, I
am made as bras sownynge or a cymbal tinkynge, and if I haue profecie,
and knowe alle mysteries, and al kynnynge, and if I haue al feith so
that I meue hillis fro her place and I haue not charite I am nouzt, and
if I departe alle my godis in to metis of pore men, and if I bitake my
bodi so that I brenne, and I haue not charite if profetith to me no
thing, charite is pacient, it is benyngne.

charite enuyeth not, it doth not wickidli it is not blowun it is not
coueitous, it sekith not the thingis that ben his owne, it is not stired
to wraththe, it thenkith not yuel, it ioieth not on wickidnesse, but it
ioieth to gidre to truthe, it suffrith alle thingis: it beleueth alle
thingis, it hopith alle thingis it susteyneth alle thingis, charite
fallith neuer doun, whether profecies schuln be voidid, ether langagis
schulen cease: ether science schal be distried,

for aparti we knowen and aparti we profecien, but whanne that schal come
that is perfizt, that thing that is of parti schal be avoidid, whanne I
was a litil child, I thouzt as a litil child, but whanne I was made a
man I voidid tho thingis that weren of a litil child, and we seen now bi
a myrrour in derknesse: but thanne face to face, now I knowe of parti,
but thanne I schal knowe as I am knowen, and now dwellen feith hope and
charite these thre: but the moost of thes is charite.


TYNDALE—1536

Though I spake with the tonges of men and angels, and yet had no love, I
were even as soundings brasse: or as a tynklynge Cymball. And though I
coulde prophesy, and vnderstode all secretes, and all knowledge: yee, yf
I had all fayth so that I coulde move mountayns oute of ther places, and
yet had no love, I were nothynge. And though I bestowed all my gooddes
to fede the poore, and though I gave my body even that I burned, and yet
had no love, it profeteth me nothinge. Love suffreth longe, and is
cirteous. Love envieth not. Love doth nor frowardly, swelleth not
dealeth not dishonestly, seeketh not her awne is not provoked to anger,
thynketh not evyll, reioyseth not in iniquite: but reioyseth in the
trueth, suffreth all thynge, beleveth all thynges, hopeth all thynges,
endureth in all thynges. Though that prophesyinge fayle, other tonges
shall cease, or knowledge vanysshe awaye, yet love falleth never awaye.

For oure knowledge is vnparfect, and oure prophesyinge is vnperfect. But
when that which is parfect is come, than that which is vnparfect shall
be done awaye.

When I was a chylde, I spake as a chylde, I vnderstode as a chylde I
ymagened as a chylde. But assone as I was a man, I put awaye
childesshnes. Now we se in a glasse even in a darke speakynge: but then
shall we se face to face. Now I knowe unparfectly: but then shall I
knowe even as I am knowen. Now abideth fayth, hope, and love, even these
thre: but the chief of these is love.


AUTHORIZED—1611

Though I speake with the tongues of men and of Angels, and haue not
charity, I am become as sounding brasse or a tinkling cymbal. And though
I haue the gift of prophesie, and vnderstand all mysteries and all
knowledge: and though I haue all faith, so that I could remooue
mountains, and haue no charitie, I am nothing. And though I bestowe all
my goods to feede the poore, and though I giue my body to bee burned,
and haue not charitie, it profiteth me nothing. Charitie suffereth long,
and is kinde: charitie enuieth not: charitie vaunteth not it selfe, is
not puffed vp, Doeth not behaue it selfe unseemly, seeketh not her owne,
is not easily prouoked, thinketh no euill, Reioyceth not in iniquitie,
but reioyceth in the trueth: Beareth all things, beleeueth all things,
hopeth all things, endureth all things. Charitie neuer faileth: but
whether there be prophesies, they shall faile; whether there bee
tongues, they shall cease; whether there bee knowledge, it shall vanish
away. For we know in part, and we prophesie in part. But when that which
is perfect is come, then that which is in part, shall be done away. When
I was a childe, I spake as a childe, I vnderstood as a childe, I thought
as a childe: but when I became a man, I put away childish things. For
now we see through a glasse darkely: but then face to face: now I know
in part, but then shall I know euen as also I am knowen. And now abideth
faith, hope, charitie, these three, but the greatest of these is
charitie.

 [2] Buschius (Herman von dem Busche).


CHAPTER VII.

PERSONALITY


We have cited the happy epigram of the historian that Tindale's work is
his history and his epitaph is the Reformation. This is just and
felicitous. When he seeks a telling phrase to set forth the personality
of Tindale, however, he is not happy.

He calls him "a young dreamer". As if he were dissatisfied with this, he
calls him elsewhere "a fiery young enthusiast." The second is no truer
than the first.

Tindale had the dream of England's greatness if her people had the Bible
in their mother tongue: and to use his own words, "he encountered
poverty, exile, bitter absence from friends, hunger, thirst and cold,
great dangers and innumerable, hard and sharp fightings, to make his
dream come true."

But "dreamer" is not the word for a life like that.

"Enthusiasm and fire", yes, these undoubtedly Tindale possessed. When
copies of Tindale's Testament were bought and burnt in Antwerp, London
and Oxford, his remark was: "They did none other than that I looked for;
no more shall they do if they burned me also. If it be God's will it
shall so be."

At one of the burnings, Fisher, Bishop of Rochester, preached against
Luther. Tidings of the scene having reached Tindale, he wrote some time
afterwards: "Mark, I pray you, what an orator he is, and how vehemently
he persuadeth it. Martin Luther burnt the Pope's decretals; 'a manifest
sign', saith he (Fisher) that he would have burned the Pope's Holiness
also if he had had him.

A like argument which I suppose to be rather true, I (Tindale) make: The
Pope and his holy brethren have burned Christ's Testament: an evident
sign verily that they would have burnt Christ Himself if they had had
Him."

But this vehemency was only part of the man. The whole man kept these
inner fires aglow year after year until he had finished the work
assigned to him. Even by an adversary he was called "a learned, pious,
good man": his keeper, and his keeper's daughter, and others of his
keeper's household were won over by him to his belief.

His was a personality rich and brave, capable of great endurance because
aglow with zeal that many waters could not quench, vehement indeed
against the enemy, yet a very perfect knight; with a sympathy and
tenderness and faith that brought him the trust and affectionate esteem
of those who came to know the man himself.

No, neither "dreamer" nor "enthusiast" holds the mirror up to this man.
He was both dreamer and enthusiast, and a great deal besides. He was a
man who loved. He deliberately gave his life to the accomplishing of one
great task. He sacrificed everything to that. That nobleness of purpose,
that fortitude in toil, that undeviating devotion to his single aim
until he triumphed, call for some ampler phrase in bronze:

 Lofty designs must close in like effects
   Loftily lying
 Leave him—still loftier than the world suspects
   Living and dying.

 [Illustration: Reduced Facsimile of the only known letter of
 William Tindale.]




CHAPTER VIII.

CONCLUSION


On issuing his translation, and again when sending forth his translation
revised, Tindale solicited the aid of scholars in amending his version
wherever they could. This was not a mere fashion of speech. It was the
expression of his sincerity and his modesty. This one thing he desired,
as he cared for nothing else, that the Bible in English be as perfect as
possible.

Succeeding generations of scholars responded to his invitation; in a
spirit like his they labored. The Bibles of Coverdale, Matthews, the
Bishops; the Geneva Version and the Authorized Version, are mile-stones
by the way—evidence with what ardor the work of revising and perfecting
the English version was carried on age by age.

 [Illustration: NORTH NIBLEY, TINDALE'S MONUMENT.]

To find on the one hand this devotion in rendering the Bible into
English, it is most strange on the other to find the larger vision
completely disappear, the larger vision of Erasmus that it should be
rendered into every language. It is as if no such ideal had been
conceived.

Now, three hundred years had to pass by before we find it being
recovered, or before men were moved with any degree of sympathy for the
ideal which the Dutch scholar had so bravely ventured to describe.

The universal destiny of the book had stirred his heart and fired his
imagination: but not until the Evangelical Revival had deeply moved the
people of England, and the modern Missionary Movement had come in its
train did any men catch the vision of the Bible for every nation in the
native speech.

"With the vision came the power". A group of men, God-fearing and very
courageous, resolved to enter upon this vast enterprise, and thus in
1804 was born the British and Foreign Bible Society.

The undertaking was greater than they could foresee. It was decried as
chimerical; but month by month, year by year, they pursued their high
purpose: their successors continued it, and now, 1925, when a hundred
and twenty-one years have sped, the Society has published or has had in
circulation the Scriptures translated into five hundred and seventy
distinct languages.

Moreover in other lands the establishment of independent Bible Societies
was encouraged. In the United States of America, soon after the
formation of the British and Foreign Bible Society, in 1816, the
American Bible Society was established. Noble service has been rendered
by it. It has aided in the translation and circulation of the Scriptures
in 175 languages; some of which are included in the total, 570, given
above.

Translation seldom fails to exact great sacrifice. Often life itself
succumbs. The roll of honor is a long one, nearly every language taking
its toll in one form or another. Tindale's was the first English
sacrifice.

But the end, is it not worthy even at so great a price? To spell out, in
the tongue they understand, to those sitting in the land of the shadow
of death the tidings of Truth and Grace; to set men free in the liberty
of Christ; and to widen the bounds of His kingdom so that all nations
may become His inheritance—what mission can be named so worthy of the
uttermost devotion?

Much remains to be done; but if the morale of these men awaken
admiration in us and we share their faith, great as is the undertaking
that remains, it will be overtaken in the good providence of God.




INDEX


A.

Alcala, 5

Authorized Version, 43

American Bible Society, 52


B.

Bainham, 7

Bilney, 12

B. & F. Bible Society, 51

Buschius, 35


C.

Cambridge, 11, 12

Centenaries, xviii.

Cochlaeus, 28, 32

Colet, 2

Cologne, 32

Colportage, 33

Complutensian Polyglot, 5

Controversy, 26


D.

Demaus, 16


E.

Erasmus, 2, 11, 16


F.

Fisher, 47

Foxe, 15, 17

Froude, 29, 38, 46

Fust, 30


G.

Gloucestershire, 4

Gutenberg, 30


H.

Hall, E., 8

Hamburg, 31

Henry VIII, 2

Huss, 30


I.

Innes, xvii.

Influence of English Bible, 38


K.

Knox, John, xvii.


L.

Lee, E., 33

Luther, 25


M.

Monmouth, 20

More, 2, 6, 25


O.

Oxford, 11


P.

Papini, xvii.

Pavier, 7

Printing, 22, 30


R.

Rietschel, 29


S.

St. Dunstan's, 21

Savonarola, 30

Schoeffer, 30, 32

Skelton, 4

Sodbury, 14, 19


T.

Tindale, xv.
  Birth, 11
  College, 11
  Tutor, 13
  Prophecy, 16
  Last Words, 24
  On Continent, 29
  Translation, 29, 32, 37, 40, 42

Tunstal, 19


V. W.

Vulgate, 5

Waldo, 30

Walsh, 14, 18

Westcott, 36

Wishart, xvii.

Wolsey, 1, 11, 21

Worms, 29, 32

Wyclif, xvi., 22, 23, 30, 40


X.

Ximenes, 5




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