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 Presented by Dr. T, L .Po\^^oin . 
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 OUR BIBLE 
 
 HOW IT HAS COME TO US 
 
OUR BIBLE 
 
 HOW IT HAS COME TO US 
 
 BY 
 
 THE REV. R. T. TALBOT M.A. 
 
 HONORARY CANON OF DURHAM CATHEDRAL AND LECTURER 
 
 IN CHURCH HISTORY AND DOCTRINE IN THE DIOCESES 
 
 OF DURHAM, RIPON, AND NEWCASTLE 
 
 NEW YORK 
 THOMAS WHITTAKER 
 
 2 & 3 BIBLE HOUSE 
 1894 
 
PREFACE 
 
 The following papers were originally contributed 
 
 to the ''Sunday Magazine.'' The author has 
 
 simply sought to make some of the facts in the 
 
 history of the descent of the Bible accessible to 
 
 those who have more desire to know than leisure 
 
 to read; and if the book can make no pretence 
 
 to original research, it may at least claim the merit 
 
 of fairly representing the conclusions of the latest 
 
 scholarship. 
 
 R. T. r. 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 CHAP. PAGE 
 
 I. THE BIBLE BEFORE THE DAYS OF PRINTING ... 9 
 
 II. ENGLISH TRANSLATORS UP TO THE TIME OF WYCLIFFE 35 
 
 III. ENGLISH TRANSLATORS UP TO THE SEVENTEENTH 
 
 CENTURY 57 
 
 IV. THE LAST TRANSLATION 8l 
 
 V. THE COLLECTION OF THE BOOKS OF THE BIBLE . . 103 
 
THE BIBLE BEFORE THE DAYS 
 OF PRINTING 
 
THE BIBLE BEFORE THE DAYS 
 OF PRINTING 
 
 x^M HE subject of our first paper is the history 
 Lm\ of the manuscripts of the Bible. As 
 it is always well to begin quite at the 
 beginning of a subject, we will ask — What does 
 the word ** manuscript " mean? It means that 
 which is written by hand. The word manuscript 
 refers us back beyond the fifteenth century, 
 and introduces us to the region of time wherein 
 the printer and his art were unknown. It is 
 only 450 years ago that printing with movable 
 types was discovered. The Dutch claim the 
 honour of discovery for their countryman Lau- 
 rens Coster, and the Germans for their own 
 Johann Gutenberg. The question may be 
 
OUR BIBLE 
 
 amicably settled by allowing a simultaneous 
 discovery on the part of the Dutchman and 
 the German. At all events, it was just about 
 the middle of the fifteenth century that what an 
 old German writer calls the " almost divine 
 benefit " of the printing-press was conferred 
 upon mankind. A generation later, in 1476, 
 our own William Caxton set up his press, 
 under the patronage of the Abbot Esteney, in 
 the almonry of Westminster Abbey. 
 
 The invention of printing brought about a 
 peaceful, but complete revolution. Knowledge 
 stepped forth from the cloister and entered into 
 the market-place. Manuscripts had been for the 
 few, the printed page would be for the many. 
 No Franchise Bill has ever placed so much 
 power in the hands of the many as did the 
 invention of printing. For knowledge is power, 
 and the pathway to knowledge, which hitherto in 
 the days of manuscripts had been open only to 
 the few, was now by printing being opened to 
 all alike. 
 
 The Bible, like all other ancient books, was 
 transmitted in manuscripts until the age of 
 printing. Let us try and gather together a 
 
HOW IF HAS COME TO US 13 
 
 few facts which will help us to understand how 
 it fared with the Bible in the days of manu- 
 scripts. 
 
 First as to the Old Testament Hebrew 
 manuscripts. It is a strange fact that none of 
 those which have come into our hands are very 
 ancient. The bulk of those we have are not 
 much older than the date of our Norman 
 Conquest, and there are only a few which are a 
 little older still. Various explanations have been 
 given to account for the comparatively modern 
 date of the manuscripts which we possess. 
 
 One of these is as follows. The Hebrew 
 manuscripts had become faulty in the lapse of 
 centuries, and various attempts were made to 
 correct the text. The most famous revision 
 of the text was executed in the Jewish schools 
 at Tiberias, on the Lake of Galilee, at some time 
 subsequent to the sixth Christian century. 
 The various existing types of text were then 
 collected and compared by Jewish scholars. A 
 corrected text was issued which, under the name 
 of the Massoretic text, became the standard 
 authoritative text. It is probable that the earlier 
 and less correct copies passed out of use and 
 
14 
 
 OUR BIBLE 
 
 were destroyed. When a corrected text had 
 been given to the world, there was no use in 
 preserving an imperfect text ; indeed, the sooner 
 the latter was put out of the way the better for 
 everybody. 
 
 Another explanation is that the Hebrew 
 manuscripts of the Old Testament were never 
 in circulation as were the manuscripts of the 
 New Testament. There were pubHc copies in 
 use in the synagogues and elsewhere, but few 
 were in private hands. Moreover, owing to the 
 peculiar reverence of the Jews for the written 
 word of Scripture, when a public copy could no 
 longer be used, it was solemnly immured in the 
 synagogue wall. Manuscripts of the Old Testa- 
 ment were, therefore, always few in number, 
 and of those few as each in turn became past 
 service, it was put beyond the reach of any 
 subsequent antiquarian research. Nobody, of 
 course, ever doubts that there must have been 
 manuscripts of the Old Testament existing in 
 each century before the eleventh century a.d. ; 
 and stretching backwards in a long chain to our 
 Lord's day, and further backwards again. In 
 support of this we may call to remembrance 
 
HOW IT HAS COME TO US 
 
 the interesting history of a translation of the 
 Old Testament which was made about two 
 centuries before the Christian era. This was 
 the translation into Greek called the Septuagint 
 translation or translation of the Seventy. 
 
 The way the name arose was as follows. 
 Long after the translation became current, a 
 story of its origin was invented to give it an 
 added renown. It was said that one of the 
 Ptolemies who reigned in Egypt was anxious 
 to have a copy of the Old Testament in Greek, 
 the language chiefly spoken in his capital city, 
 Alexandria. This book was destined for a 
 place in the great library of the Alexandrian 
 Museum, of which the Ptolemies were munificent 
 patrons. Seventy men were sent from Jerusalem 
 to Alexandria, and provided with all the requisite 
 materials. The scholars were shut up in seventy 
 separate cells on the island of Pharos in the 
 Alexandrian harbour, under the shadow of the 
 famous old-world lighthouse. Their labours 
 over, the Jewish doctors were Hberated, and it 
 was then discovered that each translator, although 
 he had worked independently, had used the very 
 same words as the rest of his fellows, and that 
 
1 6 OUR BIBLE 
 
 a perfect unanimity of expression ran through 
 the work of all. Such is the legend which, in 
 spite of its unhistorical character, we must needs 
 remember, because it accounts for the name 
 Septuagint (meaning ^' seventy "), the name of 
 the earliest translation of the Old Testament. 
 
 The real facts of the case are these. When 
 Alexandria, the memorial city of Alexander the 
 Great, was founded about three centuries before 
 the time of Christ a determined effort was made, 
 in pursuance of the policy of Alexander, to 
 bring representatives of various nationalities 
 together into one cosmopolitan city. Hither 
 came a considerable colony of Jews, who took 
 firm root and found, as elsewhere, among a 
 Gentile population, a magnificent field for the 
 exercise of their peculiar commercial genius. 
 Living in a city where Greek was generally 
 spoken, they would perforce come to use Greek 
 in their dealings with their neighbours, and 
 their native tongue would fall into disuse. Liv- 
 ing also among idolaters, the Jews would find 
 themselves often called upon to give a reason 
 for their abstinence from idolatry. 'What more 
 natural than that a translation of the Hebrew 
 
HOW IT HAS COME TO US 17 
 
 Scripture into their adopted language, Greek, 
 should have been called for by this colony of 
 Israelites ? The translation appears to have 
 been done bit by bit between the third and 
 second century. Some parts of the work are 
 better done than others. The best translated 
 portion is the Pentateuch. 
 
 It must of course be remembered that we 
 have no manuscripts of the Septuagint existing 
 now older than the fourth century A.d. ; but 
 there is every reason to believe the statement 
 that the original manuscripts belonged to a 
 period not earlier than the second century b.c, 
 and we may believe that the text of the Septua- 
 gint has not undergone any substantial alteration 
 between that time and the time of the earliest 
 existing copy. If we look for a moment at the 
 text of the Septuagint, it does not present us 
 with a narrative precisely the same as that 
 which we have in our existing Hebrew manu- 
 script, but it is sufficiently like to make us feel 
 that there must have been Hebrew manuscripts 
 at least two centuries before the time of Christ, 
 of the same general character and telling the 
 same history in substance as do those Hebrew 
 
 B 
 
i8 OUR BIBLE 
 
 manuscripts of a much later date which are 
 in our possession. 
 
 Thus it will appear that the Septuagint 
 enables us to build a bridge from the eleventh 
 century a.d. to the second century b.c, across 
 which the substance of Old Testament history 
 travels safely. If the manuscripts of the 
 Old Testament have not been corrupted in 
 any really important degree during that long 
 period, we may reasonably suppose that the 
 Old Testament manuscripts prior to the second 
 century B.C. enjoyed a similar immunity. How 
 much farther back we may place the first 
 manuscripts of the Old Testament we can- 
 not say with certainty. The question is too 
 intricate and too technical for us to deal with 
 here. 
 
 It is, however, worth recording that the 
 accuracy of the historical statements of the 
 Old Testament receive a great deal of confirma- 
 tion from the independent witness of heathen 
 monuments. Professor Say ce has said, **Where- 
 ever the Biblical history comes into contact with 
 that of its powerful neighbours, and this can 
 be tested by contemporaneous monuments of 
 
HOW IT HAS COME TO US 19 
 
 Egypt and Assyria-Babylonia, it is confirmed 
 even in the smallest details." 
 
 Let us turn now to the manuscripts of the 
 New Testament — i.e., copies of the New Testa- 
 ment in the original tongue — viz., Greek. There 
 are already discovered close upon eighteen 
 hundred manuscripts of the New Testament, 
 in whole or part. This large mass of manuscript 
 evidence is assigned to very various dates. 
 Some of it is as old as the fourth century 
 of our era, and some of it as late as the 
 time of printing. The older manuscripts are 
 called Uncials, and the more modern, Cursives. 
 The Uncials get their name from the style of 
 lettering in vogue up to about the eighth 
 century. This lettering was of a large kind, 
 and all the letters were formed the same in 
 size ; as the letters were about an inch long 
 (in Latin, icncia = inch), the manuscripts in which 
 this lettering is found are called Uncials. The 
 more modern manuscripts exhibit a different 
 kind of lettering which goes by the name of 
 cursive, or running-hand writing, and the manu- 
 scripts themselves take the generic name of 
 Cursives. 
 
OUR BIBLE 
 
 The manuscripts most sought after and most 
 highly valued are those copied nearest to the 
 Apostohc period. These are Uncial manuscripts, 
 and the three most important belong to the 
 fourth and fifth centuries. But sometimes a 
 comparatively modern Cursive, which nevertheless 
 may have been copied from an early Uncial now 
 lost, ranks equal in value with an old Uncial. 
 The three oldest Uncials, curiously enough, 
 belong to the three great divisions of Christendom, 
 — viz., Anglican, Roman and Greek. The youngest 
 of these three seniors is Codex A, commonly 
 called the Alexandrian manuscript. It was 
 copied by some scribe in the fifth century. In 
 the year 1628, it was presented by Cyril Lucar, 
 the patriarch of Constantinople, to Charles I. 
 It is now the property of the British nation, 
 and reposes in the home of many national 
 treasures, the British Museum. Along with 
 the New Testament is bound up the Greek 
 translation of the Old Testament, the famous 
 Septuagint. The manuscript is not complete ; 
 there are ten leaves missing from the Old, and 
 thirty from the New Testament. Codex B, a 
 manuscript of the New Testament, belonging 
 
/ 
 
 7/0 1 r IT HAS COME TO US 21 
 
 to the fourth century, has lain for the last five 
 hundred years in the Papal residence at Rome, 
 called the Vatican Palace, and hence is known 
 as the Vatican manuscript. It is a volume of 
 over seven hundred leaves of the finest vellum, 
 about a foot square. Part of the Greek trans- 
 lation of the Old Testament has been lost, and 
 there is none of the New Testament left after 
 Hebrews ix. 14. 
 
 Codex Aleph, called the Sinaitic manu- 
 script, was discovered in 1859 by the Ger- 
 man scholar. Dr. Tischendorf, in the neigh- 
 bourhood of Mount Sinai. The story of its 
 finding is a veritable romance of history. In 
 1844, Dr Tischendorf was travelling in the 
 East, on the look out for rare and precious 
 manuscripts. In the May of that year, he 
 c^me to the convent of St. Catherine, at the 
 foot of Mount Sinai. Here at the foot of 
 that mountain, so intimately connected with 
 the Old Testament, he was to find the most 
 complete copy of the New Testament. The 
 convent was inhabited by monks belonging 
 to the Greek Church. These monks were 
 the degenerate descendants of that noble race 
 
22 OUR BIBLE 
 
 of monks of an earlier date, who had rendered 
 such signal service to Biblical knowledge. 
 Tischendorf noticed in the convent hall a 
 basket of parchments, and he was told that 
 two heaps of similar old manuscripts had 
 already fed the fire. Looking into the basket 
 the German scholar discovered several sheets 
 of a copy of the Septuagint of an extremely 
 ancient character. He was allowed to take 
 forty sheets, but when he unwarily expressed 
 his delight, and pressed for more material 
 of the same kind, he aroused the envious 
 suspicions of the monks, and met with a 
 stubborn refusal. Tischendorf came home to 
 Germany, and acquainted the literary world 
 with his *' find." He spoke only in a 
 general way about the whereabouts of the 
 place where he had found so much, and 
 hoped some day to find still more. He 
 wished to keep his secret to himself, and so 
 he said vaguely that "somewhere in the 
 East " was the scene of his discovery. There- 
 upon the English Government sent out experts 
 to search in the East for manuscripts, but at 
 length they returned home empty-handed, and 
 
HOW IT HAS COME TO US 23 
 
 Tischendorf was relieved to think that no 
 one had forestalled him. For fifteen long 
 years the German scholar tried to put himself 
 into a position from which he could success- 
 fully assail the selfish cupidity of the monks 
 of Mount Sinai. At length, in 1859, having 
 obtained the patronage of the Czar Alexander, 
 he revisited the monastery. He came, armed 
 with an imperial order from the temporal 
 head of the Greek Church, which the 
 Doctor thought would carry weight with the 
 Greek monks. But he was mistaken. The 
 monks remained unmoved, and Tischendorf 
 seemed still far enough off from the attainment 
 of his cherished hope. It was the evening 
 before his departure, and he walked with the 
 steward of the convent in the grounds. The 
 monk called him into his cell to partake of 
 some refreshment. When the two were 
 together and the door was closed — ^^ I, too," 
 said the steward, ^'have read a copy of that 
 Septuagint." With these words he took down 
 a bundle wrapped in red cloth and laid it upon 
 the table. When the parcel was uncovered, 
 lo ! and behold, there were the very frag- 
 
24 OUR BIBLE 
 
 ments that he had only seen for a moment 
 fifteen years before, other parts of the Old 
 Testament in the Greek translation, some of 
 the Apocryphal books, and the whole New 
 Testament. This time the doctor carefully 
 concealed his intense interest and excite- 
 ment. He carelessly asked that he might 
 inspect the volume more at leisure in his 
 bedroom. '' There, by myself," says Tischen- 
 dorf, " I gave way to transports of joy. I 
 knew that I had in my hand one of the 
 most precious Biblical treasures in existence, 
 a document whose age and importance ex- 
 ceeded that of any I had ever seen, after 
 twenty years' study of the subject." At last, 
 by the Emperor of Russia's influence, the 
 manuscript was brought to the Imperial 
 Library at St. Petersburg. Facsimiles of it 
 can be seen in all the chief libraries of 
 Europe. The age of this manuscript is 
 generally supposed to be about the same as 
 that of the Vatican — i.e., about the fourth 
 century. 
 
 It is a natural question to ask. What has 
 become of the manuscripts of the New Tes- 
 
HOW IT HAS COME TO US 25 
 
 tament before the fourth century ? There is 
 every reason to suppose that the Vatican 
 and Sinaitic manuscripts are only descendants 
 of a considerable line of New Testament 
 manuscripts stretching back to Apostolic times. 
 But at present we do not know of any 
 manuscript which represents the text of the 
 New Testament in the intervening period 
 between the first and the fourth century. 
 It may at first sight seem very strange that 
 the manuscripts of the earlier period have 
 not been preserved. But we must take some 
 things into account. Probably the earlier 
 copies of the New Testament were written 
 upon papyrus, a material notoriously liable to 
 fall to pieces in course of time, unless 
 preserved with extraordinary care. There is 
 no reason to suppose that the earlier generations 
 of Christians looked upon their manuscripts in 
 the light of possible evidences and witnesses 
 to the truth of Christianity to be used by a 
 later generation. As soon as copies had had 
 their day they were recopied, and then the 
 older copy naturally disappeared. It would 
 not be out of place to recall the fact that the 
 
26 OUR BIBLE 
 
 first three centuries being centuries during 
 which the Church was persecuted were not well 
 calculated to preserve such perishable material 
 as manuscripts. One of the objects of the 
 persecutors was to burn up Christian manu- 
 scripts. Gildas, a British historian, talks 
 about the piles of manuscripts which were 
 burned in British towns during persecutions 
 of the third century, and one who was in 
 another part of the world, living at the very 
 time in question, the historian Eusebius, bears 
 witness from his own observation of this very 
 practice. We know that weak and cowardly 
 Christians earned the title of traditores — 
 traitors — because they gave up the manu- 
 scripts which their brethen used in order to 
 gain exemption from punishment. This must 
 be taken into account along with other facts 
 as helping to supply a reason for what at first 
 sight seems a strange lack of manuscripts of 
 the New Testament earlier than the fourth 
 century. By comparison with other ancient 
 books the wealth of manuscript evidence for 
 the New Testament is stupendous. The great 
 histories of antiquity have their text founded 
 
HOW IT HAS COME TO US 27 
 
 upon such few and such late manuscripts that 
 we may fairly say that, in comparison with 
 them, the Bible is founded upon a rock. Of 
 Herodotus there are only fifteen manuscripts 
 and none older than the tenth century a.d. 
 The oldest manuscript of Thucydides is of the 
 eleventh century. The first six books of the 
 Annals of Tacitus are only known to us 
 through a single manuscript which came to 
 light in the fifteenth century, and which is 
 far removed from the days of Tacitus. Thus 
 has time dealt with the precious works of 
 Greece and Rome ; who will not regard with 
 wonder and thankfulness the sight of one 
 work of a remote antiquity which has escaped 
 the destroyer's hand to such a marvellous 
 extent, and has witnesses to its text very 
 many, and not a few very ancient ? 
 
 But to the foregoing something further may 
 be added. It may be said, "Well, the case for 
 the New Testament may not be so desperate 
 as for some of the classical histories, but we 
 want some more definite assurance about the 
 text of the New Testament than this. Is 
 there any indication of manuscripts similar in 
 
OUR BIBLE 
 
 general character to those which we possess of 
 the fourth century, existing in previous 
 centuries nearer the ApostoHc period ? The 
 answer is, " Yes, there are indications." In 
 the second century translations of the New 
 Testament were made into Latin, Coptic, and 
 Syriac. No doubt the text of these versions 
 has suffered a little by transcription, but we 
 may take them in their present form as fairly 
 representing the original Latin and other 
 versions which were undoubtedly made in the 
 second century. These versions tell us sub- 
 stantially the same story as our manuscripts 
 of the fourth century ; and, therefore, they carry 
 us back two centuries behind our Sinaitic and 
 Vatican texts to a time when translations were 
 made from manuscripts of a generally similar 
 character. Indications, moreover, are not want- 
 ing which reveal to a trained eye that the 
 second century versions must have been trans- 
 lated from manuscripts which even at that 
 early time were not new. but had come of 
 a line of manuscripts of which they may 
 well have been descendants, with an ancestry 
 of three generations back, making them 
 
HOW IT HAS COME TO US 29 
 
 representative of the text of the Apostolic 
 age. 
 
 Apart from this line of evidence is another 
 which makes use of the frequent Scriptural 
 quotations in the early Christian Fathers. The 
 quotations of the Fathers of the second and 
 third centuries from manuscripts extant in their 
 days though not in ours, often supply us with 
 valuable confirmatory evidence as to the ex- 
 istence in a previous period of a type of text 
 substantially like that of the fourth century. 
 
 The Bible as we hold it in our hand to-day 
 is a book that we know has come down to us 
 through ages in which we find it at first hard 
 to believe that it can have remained uncorrupted. 
 We look more carefully and we find springing 
 up on all sides in remote centuries witnesses 
 direct and indirect to its freedom from textual 
 error in any point of real importance. It has, 
 of course, suffered in some minor and un- 
 important details ; but even here very often a 
 skilled workman can see what the original 
 pattern was and restore it. The book comes 
 to us through the centuries Hke some knight 
 of old making his way through the fight. His 
 
OUR BIBLE 
 
 y 
 
 shield is dinted, his sword notched, his breast- 
 plate beaten, his helmet scarred, but the man 
 within is as full of life as when he went into 
 the battle. 
 
 So it is with the Bible. It bears upon it the 
 marks of the relentless hand of Time and of 
 his ministers. But those marks are upon the 
 outside casque, not upon the inward spiritual 
 being. The life of the book is still unimpaired, 
 and it is still instinct with a ^' quickening 
 spirit." 
 
 There are two points about manuscript work 
 which we ought to notice : (i) the slowness of it 
 and (2) the necessary inaccuracy of it. The first 
 point will be well understood by taking an illus- 
 tration. At Ferrara, a town in the north of Italy, 
 there is a manuscript copy of the Old Testament. 
 A note at the close proclaims the copyist to 
 have been one ** Nicodemus the stranger." It 
 is he himself who informs us that he began 
 his task on June 8, 1334, and finished it in 
 the same year, July 15, "working very hard." 
 Nicodemus evidently felt proud of his work. 
 To copy the whole Old Testament in five weeks 
 was indeed a tour de force. But how painfully 
 
HOW IT HAS COME TO US 
 
 slow is the quickest piece of handwriting 
 compared with the performances of the printing- 
 press. And now we may notice the second 
 point. Not only is printing a much quicker, 
 but it is also a much more accurate method 
 of reproducing written matter. The press is 
 certainly capable of mistakes, and there are 
 printer's errors as well as clerical errors. For 
 instance, a printed Bible has a curious error in 
 Psalm cxix., which makes the writer exclaim : 
 '* Printers have persecuted me without a cause " ; 
 and, again, it is in a printed Bible of 1653 that 
 the omission of a small but important word 
 causes us to read the startling statement : 
 *' Know ye not that the unrighteous shall inherit 
 the Kingdom 01 God ? " Yet, in carefully edited 
 books, printer's errors are the exception, and 
 not the rule ; and, moreover, there is no chance 
 of fresh errors coming in by the multiplication of 
 copies. But the method of making manuscripts 
 opens the door to many kinds of errors, and the 
 oftener copies are made, the greater is the 
 chance of the multiplication of errors. 
 
 Before we consider this point farther, let 
 us say something about the human instrument 
 
 V 
 
32 OUR BIBLE 
 
 who is responsible for the Bible manuscripts. 
 The Old Testament was copied by a pro- 
 fessional copyist, known as a Scribe. In 
 the time of Hezekiah a great impetus seems 
 to have been given to the dihgent copying of 
 the Law, and it would appear that from this 
 period dates the institution of the Scribes as 
 guardians, expounders, and copyists of the 
 Law of Moses. As to the first copies of 
 the Gospels, and other books of the New 
 Testament, we do not know by whose hand 
 they were done. But such ancient copies of 
 the New Testament as have survived the lapse 
 of centuries were the handiwork of a public 
 servant, sometimes not fully appreciated — the 
 monk. Writing materials of many different 
 kinds have been in use in various ages and 
 countries — such as stone, clay cylinders, tree- 
 bark, and waxed tablets. But the most widely 
 used writing material for several centuries 
 before the time of Christ was papyrus. This 
 distant precursor of paper was made by the 
 Egyptians, first of all, out of the pith of the 
 papyrus reed. It is this plant which, under the 
 name of bulrush, appears in the story of the 
 
HOW IT HAS COME TO US 
 
 infancy of Moses, as told in our English 
 Bible. 
 
 It is very likely that the earhest copies of the 
 Gospels and Epistles were made on this papyrus. 
 We cannot say this with certainty, for such 
 ancient copies of the New Testament as we 
 possess come to us from the fourth century, 
 when another material was used. This, when 
 made from the skin of young calves, was called 
 vellum ; and when made from the skin of sheep 
 or goats, parchment. The ink used for the 
 New Testament manuscripts was made of soot 
 or lampblack mixed with either wine-lees or 
 gum. The pen which was used upon the 
 softer papyrus was a reed, but the harder 
 vellum or parchment required a metal pen or 
 stylus. Nothing is more wonderful than the 
 way in which the oldest copies of the New 
 Testament have borne the test of time. There 
 are, for instance, two over which not much less 
 than 1500 years have passed, and yet they are 
 still clear, fresh, and legible. The original 
 copyist must have worked well to execute such 
 enduring work. The first word in speaking 
 about manuscripts of the Bible must be a word 
 
 c 
 
34 OUR BIBLE 
 
 of unstinted praise for the copyist. But, at 
 the same time, there is no use in denying 
 that he often made errors in his work. The 
 copyist was not infallible, and his work was not, 
 in the order of divine providence, exempted 
 from the chances of corruption which attend 
 upon all such work as his. The copyist was 
 human, and could not but fail now and again. 
 His eye grew wearied, his mind wandered, the 
 manuscript from which he copied puzzled 
 him ; " the spirit, indeed," was " willing, but 
 the flesh " was " weak." But, happily for us, 
 although the Bible did undoubtedly suffer a good 
 deal in the puriiy of its text before the days of 
 printing, it has not suffered in such a way as to 
 put the meaning of the original writers in any 
 serious jeopardy. The variations in the different 
 manuscripts do not as a rule affect the sense of 
 the passages in which they occur. They do not 
 '' extinguish the light of any one chapter, nor so 
 disguise Christianity, but that every feature of 
 it will be still the same." 
 
ENGLISH TRANSLATORS UP TO THE 
 TIME OF WYCLIFFE 
 
ENGLISH TRANSLATORS UP TO THE 
 TIME OF WYCLIFFE 
 
 /^te'N our previous paper we said something 
 ^1 about the Bible before the days of 
 printing, and were chiefly concerned 
 with it in its original languages of Hebrew and 
 Greek. Now we shall say a little about some of 
 the steps in the history of the translation of the 
 Bible into our own tongue. The word transla- 
 tion means the act of carrying across. Between 
 us and a book written in a foreign tongue there 
 is an impassable gulf fixed. We want some one 
 to whom the gulf is not impassable, who will do 
 a translation, a carrying across, of the meaning 
 for us. Such a person is called a translator. 
 The history of the translation of the Bible into 
 English is a long and interesting record which 
 carries us from the fountain-head right away 
 down the broadening stream of English national 
 life to the present time. 
 
38 OUR BIBLE 
 
 The first inhabitants of our country belonged 
 to the great Celtic nation. Among the Celtic 
 population, dominated by the Roman army of 
 occupation, the Church of Christ was founded in 
 the close of the second century. For two 
 centuries and a half the British Church con- 
 tinued to increase, and before long it came to 
 occupy an honoured position amongst the 
 national Churches of the West. There is a faint 
 tradition of a version of the Scriptures among 
 the Celts in the vernacular; but the report is too 
 uncertain to command much attention. 
 
 At the commencement of the fifth century the 
 Roman garrison was withdrawn in order to prop 
 up the tottering throne of Honorius. Then 
 began the troubles of Britain. Old enemies 
 reappeared and ravaged the coast line. These 
 came from Schleswig, Jutland, and Holstein, 
 from the region at the mouth of the Elbe, and 
 from the Baltic shores. The people were Angles, 
 Jutes, and Saxons, who either found their own 
 homes too strait, or were simply led by the love 
 of adventure and conquest. The Romans had 
 managed to keep them from doing much harm in 
 their piratical expeditions. But now the Romans 
 
HOW IT HAS COME TO US 39 
 
 were gone and there was no more a Count of the 
 Saxon shore guarding the seaboard from the 
 Wash to Southampton Water. We all re- 
 member how, in the middle of the fifth century, 
 the Angles and Saxons became, for the moment, 
 allies of the Britons against the Picts, who lived 
 in the Scotch Highlands. But soon the allies 
 were on the offensive against their former 
 friends. Slowly and doggedly the fight was 
 fought out. What though Arthur and his 
 Knights of the Round Table did great feats of 
 arms, and though the Britons fought bravely for 
 hearth and home, they were in the end thoroughly 
 defeated, and only kept a foothold in Wales and 
 Cornwall. To these retreats the Christian 
 religion and the Christian church was relegated 
 for a century and a half. The gods which are 
 commemorated in the names of our days of the 
 week — these gods alone were worshipped for 
 many generations in England. But towards the 
 close of the sixth century, partly by the agency 
 of British evangelists from the north and partly 
 by the agency of Italian missionaries who worked 
 in the south-east of England, the heathen Angles 
 and Saxons embraced Christianity. By the 
 
40 OUR BIBLE 
 
 middle of the seventh century the Church had 
 attained to uniformity, and thus, prior to the 
 unity of the kingdom, for as yet England was 
 politically a divided house, we get sight of a 
 pattern of unity in the Church of England. 
 Churches, like individuals, follow somewhat the 
 fashion of the day. And, if these fashions are 
 harmless, there is no reason why they should 
 not. In the seventh century the fashion was to 
 preserve the Bible in Latin. This was the 
 language of the educated world. To put so 
 difficult a book as the Bible into the hands of 
 the uneducated seemed unwise. If the people 
 were taught the chief contents of the Bible that 
 was considered enough. The unlearned must 
 take those things from the lips of the learned, 
 and must not cause themselves to "stumble at 
 the word." And yet in Old England before 
 the Conquest there was a longing in some 
 quarters to have at least portions of the Bible in 
 the popular tongue, and this was answered, by 
 some notable attempts at translation. 
 
 The story of the English Bible begins with 
 Caedmon of Whitby in 670. More than twelve 
 centuries ago a lady of royal blood and truly 
 
HOW IT HAS COME TO US 41 
 
 royal spirit reared an abbey on the dark clifl's 
 of Whitby, in Yorkshire. She had built before 
 this a similar house at Hartlepool, on the Tees. 
 The lady's name was Hilda. Of her the 
 historian Bede says : *' Her prudence was so 
 great that not only did ordinary persons, but 
 even sometimes kings and princes, seek and 
 receive counsel of her in their necessities." We 
 are also told that " she made those who were 
 under her direction give much time to the read- 
 ing of the divine Scriptures ; " and this encour- 
 agement of Biblical stud}^ had its far-reaching 
 results by which she "being dead yet speaketh." 
 For — and now we shall use the exact words of 
 Bede — " in the monastery of this abbess was a 
 certain brother especially marked by divine grace, 
 since he was wont to make songs suited to 
 religion and piety, so that whatever he had 
 learnt from the divine writings through inter- 
 preters, this he in a little while produced in 
 poetical expressions composed with the greatest 
 harmony and accuracy, in his own tongue, that 
 is, in that of the Angles. By his songs the 
 minds of many were excited to contemn the 
 world and desire the celestial life. And, indeed, 
 
42 OUR BIBLE 
 
 others also after him, in the nation of the Angles, 
 attempted to compose religious poems, but none 
 could ever equal him. For he himself did not 
 learn the art of poetry from man, or by being 
 instructed by man, but, being divinely assisted, 
 received gratuitously the gift of singing, on 
 which account he never could compose any 
 frivolous or idle poem, but those only Avhich 
 pertain to religion suited his religious tongue. 
 For having lived in the secular habit unto the 
 time of advanced age, he had never learned 
 anything of singing. Whence, sometimes at an 
 entertainment, when it was determined for the 
 sake of mirth that all should sing in order, he, 
 when he saw the harp approaching him, used to 
 rise in the midst of the supper, and, having gone 
 out, walk back to his home. Which when he 
 was doing on a time, and, having left the house 
 of entertainment, had gone out to the stables of 
 the beasts of burden, the care of which was 
 entrusted to him on that night, and then at the 
 proper hour had resigned his limbs to sleep, a 
 certain one stood by him in a dream, who, 
 saluting him and calling him by his name, said, 
 * Caedmon, sing me something.' Then he 
 
HOW IT HAS COME TO US 43 
 
 answering said, ' I know not how to sing ; and 
 for that reason I went out from the entertain- 
 ment and retired hither because I could not 
 sing.' Again he who was talking with him 
 said, ' Yet you have something to sing to me.' 
 ' What/ said he, ' must I sing ? ' The other 
 said, ' Sing me the beginning of created things.' 
 Having received this reply he immediately began 
 to sing verses in praise of God the Creator, 
 which he had never heard. . . . On his rising up 
 from sleep he retained in memory all that he had 
 sung in his dream, and presently added to it 
 more words of song worthy of God, and after the 
 same fashion." 
 
 The matter came to the ears of Hilda through 
 the convent steward. The cowherd was accord- 
 ingly received in audience of many learned men, 
 and, after hearing him, all concluded '' that a 
 celestial gift had been granted him by the Lord." 
 Csedmon now left the secular habit and took the 
 monastic vow, and was instructed by the brethren 
 in the whole course of sacred history. '' And 
 he converted into most sweet song whatever he 
 could learn from hearing, by thinking it over by 
 himself, and as, though a clean animal, by 
 
44 OUR BIBLE 
 
 ruminating ; and by making it resound more 
 sweetly, made his teachers in turn his hearers." 
 Caedmon seems to have ranged all over the 
 Bible for his subject-matter, casting the stories 
 of Scripture into a rough verse form. No doubt 
 the poetry of Caedmon seems very rugged and 
 uncouth to our ears, which are familiar with the 
 latest development of the poet's art ; but, at 
 least, we know that Caedmon was an acceptable 
 singer to his own generation. And so in the 
 seventh century, on the great rock above the 
 little harbour of Whitby, Bible translation and 
 EngHsh poetry both took their rise. 
 
 But one, far better known than Caedmon, 
 laboured as a translator, and died in his labours, 
 some sixty-five years later, namely, the Venerable 
 Bede, the great Northumbrian scholar. When 
 he was seven years old he was placed in the 
 monastery on the north bank of the Wear, where 
 now Monkwearmouth stands, and a little later, 
 when Benedict Biscop had built the sister 
 monastery at Jarrow, Bede left Wearside for 
 Tyneside. At Jarrow, Bede lived a happy and 
 useful life. He never ventured far from his 
 home on the Tyne, but he travelled far and wide 
 
HOW IT HAS COME TO US 45 
 
 in the world of literature and science. " The 
 whole learning of the time," says the historian 
 Green, ''seemed to be summed up in him." 
 " He was the father," said Edmund Burke, " of 
 English learning." His " Ecclesiastical History 
 of the English Nation," from which I quoted the 
 story of Csedmon, is a unique authority. One 
 of our latest historians, speaking of our earliest 
 annalist, says, '' All that we really know of the 
 century and a half that follows the landing of 
 Augustine we know from him." The dearest 
 work he undertook was commenting upon and 
 preaching from the Holy Scriptures. The last 
 offering of his powers which he made to God was 
 a translation of the Gospel of St. John. Death 
 summoned him before his work was well done, 
 but he would not heed the summons until he had 
 quite finished his task. '' I don't want my boys 
 to read a lie," he said, alluding to his young 
 pupils and his unfinished work, '' or to work to 
 no purpose after I am gone." It is one of 
 Bede's dear '' boys " who tells us of the closing 
 scene, with many tender touches. ''Our father 
 and master, whom God loved, had translated the 
 Gospel of St. John as far as 'what are these 
 
46 OUR BIBLE 
 
 among so many,' when the day came before our 
 Lord's Ascension." It was the year 735. " He 
 then began to suffer much in his breath and a 
 swelling came in his feet, but he went on 
 dictating to his scribe. ' Go on quickly,' he 
 said ; * I know not how long I shall hold out, or 
 how soon my Master will call me hence.' All 
 night long he lay awake in thanksgiving, and 
 when the Ascension day dawned he commanded 
 us to write with all speed what he had begun." 
 Working and resting, the precious moments sped 
 on till the setting sun gilded the floor of Bedels 
 cell. "'There remains but one chapter, master,' 
 said the scribe, ' but it seems very hard for you 
 to speak.' ^ Nay, it is easy,' said the brave old 
 man, ' take up thy pen and write quickly.' " The 
 boy's bitter tears dropped upon the page as he 
 wrote. The time wore on. " And now, father," 
 said the lad, ''only one sentence remains." The 
 dying man uttered it. " It is finished, master," 
 said the youth, raising his sorrowful face, as he 
 penned the last word. " Ay, it is finished ! " 
 echoed the old scholar. " Lift me up, place me 
 at that window^ of my cell where I have so often 
 prayed to God. Now, glory be to the Father, 
 
HOW IT HAS COME TO US 47 
 
 and to the Son, and to the Holy Ghost." And 
 with these words Bede breathed out his life 
 Manufacture has changed the aspect of Bede's 
 Jarrow. But there is something still remaining 
 which connects the present and the past — that is, 
 the chancel of the present parish church, whose 
 fabric is as old as the time of Bede himself. The 
 body of the saint rested for a long while at 
 Jarrow, but in the eleventh century the bones 
 were removed to Durham Cathedral, and now 
 they lie in the Galilee Chapel at the west end of 
 the great pile. In life translated from Wearside 
 to Tyneside ; in death he is brought back again 
 to lie beside the river of his earliest remembrance. 
 If Caedmon is the father of English poetry, we 
 may revere in Bede the father of English 
 prose. 
 
 It is difficult to gain a certain knowledge of 
 the doings of King Alfred, Tradition has been 
 busy with the character and achievements of the 
 great patriot king. But perhaps we shall not be 
 wrong in claiming Alfred as one in the great 
 company of English translators of the Bible. At 
 least it is well ascertained that Alfred •' took the 
 English tongue, and made it the tongue in which 
 
48 OUR BIBLE 
 
 history, philosophy, law, and religion spoke to 
 the English people." Two contributions to Bible 
 translation are claimed for Alfred, (i) A trans- 
 lation of the Ten Commandments attached to the 
 statutes of the time. (2) A translation of some 
 of the Psalms. Alfred's admiration for the 
 Psalms is worth remembering. In the early 
 days of outlawry it is said that he would read 
 the Psalms in a Latin manuscript which he car- 
 ried with him over the camp fire when the toils 
 of the day were done. When at length he came 
 to an established throne he did not forget those 
 earlier days or the words which had come home 
 to him in the time of trouble and rebuke. The 
 result was a translation of some of the Psalms. 
 It is touching to think of those Psalms which 
 have ministered to the joys and pains of so many 
 millions in England alone, not to speak of other 
 countries, as having been the cordial which 
 revived the drooping spirits of one of our earliest 
 and greatest kings. 
 
 And ere we leave the old Saxon England 
 there is yet one more translator over whose 
 work we may pause a moment. ^Elfric the 
 grammarian, a monk of Winchester, translated 
 
HOW IT HAS COME TO US 49 
 
 portions of the Bible, about the year 1023, 
 into English. The work was animated by a 
 patriotic purpose. Of his version of Joshua 
 the grammarian says : " This book I turned into 
 English for Ealdorman Ethelward, a book that 
 a prince might study in times of invasion 
 and turbulence." Of the Book of Judith, which 
 he also translated, he says: ''Englished according 
 to my skill, for your example, that you may 
 also defend your country by force of arms 
 against the outrage of foreign hosts." 
 
 The previous period closed, in the foreboding 
 words of iElfric, ominous of blood and battle. 
 This our second period fulfils the monk's presage 
 of " invasion and turbulence and the outrage 
 of foreign hosts." Just as six hundred years 
 before Saxons, Jutes and Angles, with their 
 strange tongue, had come in upon the then 
 inhabitants of Britain, so now the Normans 
 came down upon the country where Briton, 
 Saxon, Angle, and Dane were struggling to- 
 gether, and added one more element which 
 would contribute, when the process of fusion 
 was over, its own peculiar flavour and colour 
 to the resultant of all these forces — the English 
 
 p 
 
so OUR BIBLE 
 
 kingdom, the English people, the Enghsh tongue. 
 Once again, in the case of the Norman invasion 
 as in the case of the previous invasions of 
 Roman, Saxon, Dane, the pains of death and 
 of birth racked the land. What was customary 
 and familiar and established died, and a new 
 order struggled painfully, with sharp crying, 
 into Hfe. But death-throes and birth-pangs 
 were but the prelude to what now we see 
 was the divine event — the welding of the peoples 
 into a homogeneous whole, bringing with it a 
 national consciousness, a national speech, and 
 a national ideal. But to all human seeming 
 heavy and fatal was the blow of the Conqueror's 
 successful invasion. To use the apt language 
 of Isaiah, it was the inroad of " a fierce people, 
 a people of a deep speech that thou canst not 
 perceive, of a strange tongue that thou canst 
 not understand." 
 
 The Normans came speaking French. They 
 flooded town and court and castle with their 
 own people ; the bishoprics of the Church were 
 filled by French-speaking ecclesiastics, who did 
 not sympathise with the conquered people. 
 
 But the strength of England lay not in its 
 
HOW IT HAS COME TO US 51 
 
 towns, but in its villages. To them we owe it 
 that in the end French became incorporated with 
 Saxon, and not Saxon with French. At the 
 first moment of defeat daring spirits like Hereward 
 rose in armed revolt among the fens of Lincoln- 
 shire ; others of similar disposition wandered as 
 far as Constantinople, and served as mercenaries 
 of the Eastern empire ; and a fraction of the 
 more reckless, of whom Robin Hood is the 
 representative, fled to forests, like that of 
 Sherwood, and lived an outlaw life under 
 the greenwood tree. 
 
 But the people (who numbered not more 
 than two millions) as a whole submitted to the 
 Normans. They had never been " more than 
 hewers of wood and drawers of water" under 
 their own native rulers, and to obey the Norman 
 made Httle or no difference to their condition. 
 But while the}^ had no objection to changing 
 one master for another, they would not change 
 one tongue for another. Norman French was 
 the language of the invading army, and therefore 
 of the ruling class ; it was used in the courts 
 of justice and in all matters of state ; but the 
 people still held to the tongue wherein they 
 
OUR BIBLE 
 
 were born. In 1204, one hundred and thirty- 
 eight years after the Conquest, Normandy was 
 lost for ever as a permanent appendage to 
 England, and one result was that this island 
 became more and more a home to the Normans, 
 and French became more and more of a foreign 
 tongue to them. ''EngUsh had not only survived, 
 but was spreading itself through the upper classes. 
 Norman children could not be kept from learning 
 it ; and the higher ranks, being a minority, felt 
 the necessity of acquiring it. By the end of the 
 thirteenth century English seems to have become 
 the mother tongue of the aristocracy, their chil- 
 dren being taught French as a foreign language, 
 and as an accomplishment befitting their rank." 
 
 And year by year the English tongue developed 
 and enriched on this hand and on that, drew on 
 to its golden age to be the high instrument for 
 high thoughts. One great stage in its growth 
 is marked by Geoffrey Chaucer, at the close of 
 the fourteenth century, and his *' Canterbury 
 Tales." The latent powers of English ^* pure 
 and undefiled " are manifested as the vehicle of 
 a most exquisite power of story-telling, and we 
 feel that this is the earnest of greater things to 
 
HOW IT HAS COME TO US 53 
 
 come. But we cannot tarry to link our subject 
 further with its contemporary literature. For 
 we have come now to the age of Wycliffe and 
 his Bible. The events which lead to Chaucer's 
 English lead also to that of Wycliffe, and in all 
 probability by a few years Wycliffe's Bible can 
 claim priority over Chaucer's work as the first 
 great monument of really English literature. 
 
 John Wycliffe was born near Richmond, in 
 Yorkshire — the exact date is not known, but in 
 1 361, he was Master of Balliol Hall, in Oxford, 
 and from then till his death in 1384, his doings 
 are writ large in history. The times were stir- 
 ring. Edward III. ascended the throne in 1327, 
 and ten years later began the Hundred Years' 
 War with France. These were the days of 
 Crepy and Poitiers and the Black Prince. In 
 1 348 the Black Death reached England, and in 
 the course of several separate outbreaks halved 
 the population, which then amounted to three or 
 four milHons. Labour was disarranged ; wages 
 rose ; the serf began to beat off his shackles. 
 Under Wat Tyler and John Ball, " the mad 
 priest," in 1381, the peasants revolted against 
 the oppressive restrictions imposed by landlords 
 
54 OUR BIBLE 
 
 and lawyers upon their new spirit of independence. 
 Abroad also the system of mediaeval feudalism 
 was breaking up, and time-honoured landmarks 
 were perishing. The Papacy had been removed 
 to Avignon and was now transparently no more 
 a spiritual force, but a kingdom of this world 
 and the tool of a French king. But Rome still 
 claimed huge money payments from England, 
 and still thrust foreign priests into Enghsh 
 livings. People muttered under their breath — 
 and men ^'despised the offering of the Lord," 
 This state of things could not last long. The 
 English clerg}' were severed in sympathy from 
 Rome, but they severed themselves from the 
 respect and love of the people by their own 
 corruption. The Friars and their noble work 
 were things of the past ; like the lees of a rich 
 wine the impudent mendicant alone remained to 
 witness to what had been. The Baronage, 
 with John of Gaunt at their head, denied all the 
 duties of their station. They were jealous of 
 the priests, jealous of Parliament, jealous of the 
 people — they loved themselves alone. In this 
 world Wyclifife struggled and strove ; into the 
 midst of this distracted age he cast the pearl of 
 
HOW IT HAS COME TO US c,s 
 
 great price, the first complete English Bible. 
 He did it by design. He advocated as the cure 
 for the distemper of his age the freedom of the 
 Church, the kingdom, and the conscience from 
 all foreign control. He believed that an open 
 Bible would in the long run teach men the ideal 
 of authority and government, and the ideal of 
 independence and self-control. 
 
 In 1384, while hearing mass in his parish 
 church at Lutterworth, he was seized with 
 paralysis and died quietly on the next day, 
 Wycliflfe's Bible was the work of his later days ; 
 it was pubHshed in 1383. About half the Old 
 Testament is the work of Nicholas of Hereford, 
 the other half and the whole of the New Testa- 
 ment are Wyclifife's own. Its chief defect is that 
 it is only a translation of a translation. W3^cliffe 
 knew neither Greek nor Hebrew, nor did any one 
 else in England at that time. Its chief merit 
 is its vigorous and forcible Enghsh, combined 
 with great dignity. Eight years after his death, 
 Richard Purvey, his curate, revised the whole, 
 and his MS. is still in Trinity College, Dublin. 
 
 The book had a wide circulation. Parliament 
 was appealed to to stop it. The Duke of 
 
56 OUR BIBLE 
 
 Lancaster answered right sharply, *' We will 
 not be the refuse of all other nations, for since 
 they have God's law in their own language we 
 will have ours in English, whoever say nay ; " 
 and this he affirmed with a great oath. Never- 
 theless, Convocation condemned the reading of 
 the book under pains and penalties. And yet 
 it was still popular among the rich and the poor. 
 A large sum was paid for even a few sheets of 
 the manuscript ; a load of hay was given for 
 permission to read it for a certain period one 
 hour a day. Those who could not afford the 
 book would get some one who knew a portion by 
 heart to come and repeat it. We are told of 
 one Alice Collins, sent for " to recite the Ten 
 Commandments and parts of the Epistles of 
 Saints Paul and Peter, which she knew by 
 heart." 
 
 '' Certes/' says John Foxe, " the zeal of those 
 Christian days seems much superior to this of 
 our day, and to see the travail of them may well 
 shame our careless times." 
 
ENGLISH TRANSLATORS UP TO THE 
 SEVENTEENTH CENTURY 
 
ENGLISH TRANSLATORS UP TO THE 
 SEVENTEENTH CENTURY 
 
 €ONTiNUiNG our history from the era of 
 Wycliffe, we must pass from the four- 
 teenth to the fifteenth century. Great 
 events happened in the latter century with far- 
 reaching consequences. In 1453 Constantinople 
 fell before the Ottoman Turks. The Greek 
 Empire, the eastern division of the Roman 
 Empire, had run its course. Five boats laden 
 with Greeks and their books touched the coast of 
 Italy. This was only the vanguard of a great 
 argosy. Greek literature, Greek art, Greek 
 culture, came westward before the Mahometan 
 destroyer. The refugees from the East were 
 the heralds of a forward movement. The Greek 
 language was now widely studied in the West. 
 The result was two-fold — a greater freedom of 
 thought and a revived interest in the New 
 Testament. *' Greece arose from the dead with / 
 
6o OUR BIBLE 
 
 the New Testament in her hand." This saying 
 belongs to the period we are speaking about. 
 Manuscripts of the New Testament in its original 
 Greek and a more general knowledge of the 
 language came together into the West, and thus 
 the great groundwork of theology became once 
 more a subject of investigation. And the key 
 which opened one treasure-chamber opened 
 others also. The study of the great masters 
 of Greek literature and philosophy had a widen- 
 ing effect upon men's minds. Thought and 
 inquiry, narrowed and straitened by ecclesi- 
 astical considerations, became emboldened to 
 occupy a larger room. The questioning, 
 inquiring spirit, never, of course, dead, 
 now renewed its impaired energies, and with 
 a burst of noble enthusiasm pressed forward 
 in the search for truth. This movement of 
 the human mind, according as it is viewed 
 from within or without, is called either the 
 Renaissance, the New Birth, or the Revival of 
 Learning. 
 
 Simultaneously with the great revival came 
 the mechanical contrivance of the printing-press, 
 destined to make knowledge, once the heritage 
 
HOW IT HAS COME TO US 6i 
 
 of the elect, the common property of all. A 
 new world was made in the end of the century 
 still newer by the discovery of America and the 
 revelations of the daring school of navigators, 
 of whom Columbus is the chief. Suddenly 
 Europeans realised that the earth had incredibly 
 widened, and the fabled Atlantis became a sober 
 fact. Again a few erratic men, mere " bookish 
 theorists," might have maintained the rotundity 
 of the earth, yet tradition was against them ; 
 but now the navigator has proved the tradition 
 wrong and the theor}^ right — the earth is round 
 and not flat. A few years more and a German 
 canon, Copernicus, will give the world the 
 results of laborious days and nights spent in 
 the lonely tower at Frauenburg. There will be 
 a new heaven as well as a new earth, and the 
 former things will have passed away. A little 
 while, too, and a Luther will lead the way in an 
 exodus from the realm of mediaeval theology 
 and ecclesiasticism, and the Reformation will 
 have taken place in Northern Europe. 
 
 Everywhere men are called to readjust their 
 thoughts about many things, to look out on an 
 altered world, to fit themselves into a new social. 
 
62 OUR BIBLE 
 
 philosophical, or religious framework, and this 
 necessary work will only be done slowly, and 
 will doubtless involve some temporary loss and 
 disadvantage. 
 
 The years at the end of the fifteenth and at 
 the beginning of the sixteenth century witnessed 
 in many parts of Europe much licence. " When 
 the stream is troubled the mud comes to the 
 top," says the proverb. Periods of change are 
 always periods of moral danger. The reason is 
 not far to seek. The latent beast within us is 
 only repulsed and kept down by an effort. 
 Great changes unhinge us by reason of the 
 tremendous excitement they involve. We are 
 weak and off our guard, and then the beast 
 within us rises up and is rampant. In such 
 times we have need of strong men whose heads 
 have not been turned. They are convinced that, 
 while much changes on the surface, beneath the 
 surface things are unmoved. Earth and heaven 
 may pass away, and yet in spite of shifting 
 scenes and changed appearances the words of 
 One shall not pass away. It is the task of the 
 strong man who ministers in a shaken age to 
 testify of those things which cannot be shaken. 
 
HOW IT HAS COME TO US 63 
 
 And this was the work of the next great trans- 
 lator of the Bible on whom the mantle of 
 Wyclifte fell — viz., William Tyndale. 
 
 Born in 1484, Tyndale drew in the new 
 atmosphere of the new world. When he went 
 to Oxford and Cambridge he learnt Hebrew and 
 Greek, and thus was equipped for the task 
 which fell to him at a later time. At Cambridge 
 Tyndale was a hearer of the Greek professor, 
 the great Erasmus; and when, in 1526, he 
 translated the New Testament, it was from a 
 printed Greek Text edited by Erasmus. When 
 Tyndale left the universities he became a tutor 
 to a Gloucestershire knight's children near 
 Chipping Sodbury. Here it was that the first 
 thought came to him to minister to his age and 
 its infirmities by retranslating from the original 
 tongues that great vehicle of spiritual edification, 
 the Bible. He resolved, " if God spared his 
 life, ere many years he would cause a boy that 
 driveth the plough to know more of the ', 
 Scriptures than the Pope did." The resolve \ 
 was one easily made, but only painfully carried 
 out. In 1524 he appHed to Cuthbert Tonstal, 
 then Bishop of London, to be taken into his 
 
64 OUR BIBLE 
 
 lordship's household. It was the custom in 
 those days for a man to seek such succour. 
 One needed a patron while pursuing the thorny 
 paths of literature and scholarship. But the 
 request was refused. In melancholy mood he 
 writes to his friend Fryth, giving a despondent 
 picture of himself, as '^evil favoured in this 
 world, and without grace in the sight of men, 
 speechless and rude, dull and slow-witted." 
 Still he tarried in the great wilderness of 
 London, and fell into the kind hands of 
 Humphrey Monmouth, a merchant. But plainer 
 and ever plainer it became that he could not 
 safely carry out his work of translation in 
 England. In 1524 he left his native land for 
 Hamburg. '' For," says he ^' I perceive that 
 not only in my lord of London's palace but in 
 all England there was no room for attempting 
 a translation of the Scriptures." Henceforward, 
 until his martyrdom in 1536, he worked at his 
 translation. Now he is at Worms, now at 
 Cologne, now at Marburg, now at Antwerp ; 
 fresh and fresh editions, from 1525 and onwards, 
 of the New Testament issuing from his flying 
 press, and the Books of Moses and the Book of 
 
HOIV IT HAS COME TO US 65 
 
 Jonah as well. Like Wycliffe, he was a vigor- 
 ous pamphleteer, only he had the advantage 
 over his predecessors of the rapid multiplica- 
 tion of copies which the printing-press implies. 
 Time will not allow us to dwell at length 
 on the chequered life and adventures of him, 
 who, more than any other man, is the hero 
 of the national Reformation. There is in him 
 something of the apostolic spirit, and certainly 
 something of the apostolic experience. " In 
 journeyings often, in perils of robbers, in perils 
 by mine own countr3^men, in perils by strangers, 
 in perils in the city, in perils in the wilderness, 
 in perils among false brethren ; in weariness and 
 painfulness, in watchings often, in hunger and 
 thirst, in fastings often, in cold and nakedness." 
 All this is literally true of William Tyndale, and 
 yet, exiled and mostly alone, he worked on 
 unmoved, and translated with such felicity and 
 power that his version, after all this lapse of 
 time, is still the foundation and the base of the 
 translation which we read to-day. There is a 
 humorous side, too, to Tyndale's life to which 1 
 should like to introduce the reader. Tyndale's 
 Testaments poured into England in a flood ; 
 
 E 
 
66 OUR BIBLE 
 
 sometimes they were packed in cases, sometimes 
 they were hid in barrels, in bales of cloth, or in 
 sacks of flour. Fast as they came they were 
 bought up by Cardinal Wolsey and the authorities, 
 and burned at St. Paul's Cross '* as a burnt offer- 
 ing," so said Campeggio, the Legate, "most 
 pleasing to Almighty God." But the printing- 
 press printed quicker than the fire burned. A 
 brilliant scheme flashed into the mind of Tonstal, 
 Bishop of London. He sought out an Antwerp 
 merchant, Pakington, and asked his opinion 
 about the buying up of all the copies across 
 the water. '' My lord," said Pakington, who 
 was a secret friend to Tyndale, *' if it be your 
 pleasure I could do in this matter probably more 
 than any merchant in England ; so if it be your 
 lordship's pleasure to pay for them I will ensure 
 you to have every book that remains unsold." 
 '• Gentle master Pakington," said the Bishop, 
 deeming that '' he hadde an angel by the toe 
 whanne in truth he hadde, as after he thought, 
 the devyl by the fiste," '' do your dihgence and 
 get them for me, and I will gladly give you 
 whatever they may cost, for the books are 
 naughty, and I intend surely to destroy them all 
 
HOW IT HAS COME TO US 67 
 
 and to burn them at Paul's Cross." The scene 
 changes, and we see Pakington and Tyndale in 
 conference. '' Master Tyndale/' said Pakington, 
 " I have found you a good purchaser for your 
 books." '' Who is he ?" '' My lord of London." 
 " But if the Bishop wants the books, it must 
 only be to burn them." '' Well, what of that ? 
 The Bishop will burn them anyhow, and it is 
 best that you should have the money for the 
 enabling you to print others instead." *^ And 
 so," says Hall, the chronicler, '' the bargain was 
 made. The Bishop had the books, Pakington 
 had the thanks, and Tyndale had the money." 
 Naturally enough copies multiplied, and the 
 Bishop sent for Pakington to know why and 
 wherefore. " My lord, it were best for your 
 lordship to buy up the stamps, too, by the which 
 they are imprinted." And now for the still more 
 amusing sequel. A few months later a prisoner 
 named Constantine was before the Chancellor 
 Sir Thomas More, on charge of heresy. " Now 
 Constantine," said Sir Thomas, '^ I would have 
 thee to be plain with me in one thing that I 
 shall ask, and I promise I will shew thee favour 
 in all other things whereof thou art accused. 
 
68 OUR BIBLE 
 
 There are beyond the sea Tyndale, Joye, and a 
 great many of you ; I know they cannot live 
 without money. There must be some that help 
 and succour them. I pray thee tell me who be 
 they that help them thus." " My lord," said 
 Constantine, '' I will tell thee truly. It is the 
 Bishop of London that hath holpen us, for he 
 hath bestowed among us a great deal of money 
 upon New Testaments to burn them, and that 
 hath been our chief succour and comfort." "Now, 
 by my troth," replied Sir Thomas, ^' I think even 
 the same, for I told the Bishop thus much before 
 he went about it." 
 
 I must say a word about Sir Thomas More. 
 Sir Thomas was the fiercest of Tyndale's critics. 
 He did his best to write his translation down. 
 He was vigorous in punishing all who expressed 
 discontent with the then Church order. It 
 would be quite possible for an unscrupulous 
 person to represent him as an enemy of God 
 and a persecutor of the faithful — the champion 
 and the defender of a worldly and unspiritual 
 policy. But, though this might be done, it 
 would be a gross caricature. More was a man 
 in whom almost every grace and virtue met ; a 
 
HOW ir HAS COME TO US 69 
 
 finished scholar, a charming friend, an upright 
 statesman, a devoted father, truly religious, 
 deeply devout. He went to the block without a 
 murmur because he could not see his way to 
 concurring in Henry's divorce. From the point 
 of view of character he was every whit as great 
 and good a man as Tyndale. But the two men 
 belonged to two different schools of thought. 
 More was a Churchman, Tyndale was not. More 
 was a philosopher who had grasped the idea of 
 the Church as a society in which obedience to 
 authority, and a waiting upon authority, was the 
 first duty. Tyndale's action in issuing an un- 
 authorised translation was a breach of this first 
 principle. Tyndale's mind, if it had ever per- 
 ceived More's point of view, was much more 
 dominated by a sense of the responsibility of 
 the individual to God, and the liberty of the 
 individual to act according to his own sense of 
 right without tarrying for the consent of others. 
 More was probably willing to wait upon occasion. 
 Tyndale was inchned to make the occasion. He 
 would be a bold man who would say that either 
 one or the other was absolutely right. Some- 
 where midway the truth lies. Happily, we are 
 
70 OUR BIBLE 
 
 not called upon to judge either More or Tyndale. 
 But we ought to be able to admire both men, 
 and to learn the lesson which is taught us by 
 the fact that neither of these great and good 
 men understood the other. 
 
 The end of this painful life came to Tyndale 
 in 1536. He was entrapped at Antwerp by 
 one whom he trusted as a friend, and hurried 
 to the dungeons of the Castle of Vilvorden, 
 near Brussels. The English authorities allowed 
 him a while to languish in the prison, where, 
 in much bodily discomfort, he still worked on 
 at his translation. On Friday, October 6, he 
 was led out, not to be set at liberty, but to die. 
 He was to be burned, but, according to the 
 more merciful fashion of the Low Countries, 
 he was first strangled. His last words were, 
 " Lord, open the King of England's eyes." 
 
 We have said something about the worth 
 of Tyndale's version as English, and we must 
 not forget that Tyndale used what no other 
 translator had ever used before — Hebrew and 
 Greek MSS. The MSS. then discovered were 
 not anything like in value to what we now 
 possess, but, still, Tyndale's work is not like 
 
HOW IT HAS COME TO US 71 
 
 Wycliffe's, a translation of a translation, but 
 a translation of the original. 
 
 ''Lord; open the King of England's eyes." 
 Such was the prayer of Tyndale in 1536. In 
 1539 that prayer was granted. In every parish 
 church stood an EngHsh Bible, and its pictured 
 title-page tells its own story of opened eyes. 
 The design is by Hans Holbein. " In the first 
 compartment the Almighty is seen in the clouds 
 with outstretched arms. Two scrolls proceed 
 out of His mouth to the right and to the left. 
 On the former is the phrase, ' The word which 
 goeth forth from Me shall not return to Me 
 empty, but shall accomplish whatsoever I will 
 have done.' The other is addressed to King 
 Henry, who is kneeling in the distance bare- 
 headed, with his crown lying at his feet, * I 
 have found Me a man after Mine own heart, 
 who shall fulfil all My will.' Henry answers, 
 * Thy word is a lantern unto my feet.' Imme- 
 diately below is the King, seated on his throne, 
 holding in each hand a book, on which is 
 written, 'The Word of God.' This he is 
 giving to Cranmer and another bishop who, 
 with a group of priests, are on the right of 
 
OUR BIBLE 
 
 the picture, with the words, * Take this and 
 teach ' ; the other, on the opposite side, he 
 holds out to Thomas Cromwell and the lay 
 peers, and the words are, ' I make a decree 
 that, in all my kingdom, men shall tremble 
 and fear before the living God,' while a third 
 scroll, falling downwards over his feet, speaks 
 alike to peer and prelate, 'Judge righteous 
 judgment : turn not away your ear from the 
 prayer of any poor man.' In the third com- 
 partment Cranmer and Cromwell are distributing 
 the Bibles to kneeling priests and laymen, and 
 at the bottom a preacher, with a benevolent 
 and beautiful face, is addressing a crowd from 
 a pulpit in the open air. He is apparently 
 commencing his sermon with the words, ' I 
 exhort therefore, that first of all supplications, 
 prayers, thanksgiving, be made for all men, 
 for kings — ' and at the word * kings ' the people 
 are shouting, ' Vivat Rex,' children who knew 
 no Latin lisping ' God save the King,' while 
 at the extreme left a prisoner at a jail window 
 is joining in the cry of delight as if he too were 
 delivered from a worse bondage." 
 
 We may well ask how had all this come 
 
HO]V IT HAS COME TO US 
 
 about. The frantic fury of the authorities at 
 the incoming of an English Bible, which we 
 saw a few years back, was the sign really of 
 a weakening opposition. Men argue most dog- 
 matically when they are least sure. They do 
 it to fortify themselves. So with the con- 
 servative party in the Church ; they stormed 
 and they protested, and almost instantly they 
 yielded when their wrath seemed at the highest. 
 The steps were these. The very year after 
 Tyndale's imprisonment Miles Coverdale brought 
 out the Bible which bears his name. This was 
 largely indebted to Tyndale. The times were 
 altering. Thomas Cromwell was now, upon 
 the fall of Wolsey, the King's guiding spirit. 
 Cromwell, the vicar-general, was a mighty 
 master of diplomacy, and could use any tool 
 to serve his end. He threw himself upon the 
 side which was against the Church, and became 
 the patron of Coverdale that, through him, he 
 might wound the Roman Church, with which 
 Henry had resolved to quarrel. Neither the 
 motives of Cromwell nor those of his master 
 will bear much examination. Our only duty is 
 to relate facts. In 1537 appeared Matthews's 
 
74 OUR BIBLE 
 
 Bible, the work of John Rogers in all pro- 
 bability, who was martyred in the reign of 
 Mary. This again was Tyndale's work revised 
 by another hand. In 1540, Cranmer, now 
 Archbishop of Canterbur}^ had set his heart 
 on having a translation for the nation at large. 
 Coverdale was again charged by Cromwell to 
 see to the work. When Henry was asked to 
 authorise it, "Well," said he, "but are there 
 any heresies maintained thereby ? " ^' No," 
 replied the promoters. "Then, in God's name," 
 said the King, "let it go forth among our 
 people." This Bible was in fact a revision of 
 Matthews's Bible by Coverdale, and as Matthews's 
 Bible was really based upon Tyndale's, this, 
 "the Great Bible" of 1540, was substantially 
 our hero Tyndale's once proscribed work. The 
 martyr had triumphed. His dearest wish was 
 granted. On the title-page, as having "over- 
 seen " the work, stands the name of Cuthbert, 
 Bishop of Durham. Strange irony ! Who 
 was he ^ Cuthbert Tonstal who, erewhile 
 Bishop of London, had laboured so hard to 
 destroy what now he was promoting. 
 
 In the following year, 1541, came the fall 
 
HOW IT HAS COME TO US 75 
 
 of Henry's great minister, Cromwell. As his 
 scheming head fell from his shoulders the 
 pendulum swung back again towards the Roman 
 and conservative party. Until Henry's death, 
 in 1547, there was a time of suspense. Gardiner 
 and Bonner looked sourly upon the Bible, and 
 Tonstal and Heath shuftled out of the fact 
 of their names standing upon the title-page 
 of the Great Bible. When the boy Edward VI. 
 came to the throne, the six years of his reign 
 were occupied with Prayer Book revision and 
 ecclesiastical legislation. The Great Bible was 
 still the authorised Bible. The Prayer Book 
 version of the Psalms, with its attention to 
 rhythm rather than accuracy of expression, is 
 an abiding specimen of what the Great Bible 
 achieved. On Edward's death, in 1553, the 
 reading of the Bible was discouraged by Mary, 
 though the books were not destroyed. Cranmer 
 and John Rogers, both intimately connected with 
 the Enghsh Bible, suffered martyrdom. 
 
 In 1558 Elizabeth began her reign, and 
 brighter days dawned. The Protestant exiles 
 came back from Geneva with a translation, 
 the fruit of their sojourn, which became ex- 
 
76 OUR BIBLE 
 
 ceedingly popular, and superseded the Great 
 Bible. The Geneva Bible again was more a 
 revision than a re-translation, being chiefly 
 based on Tyndale. 
 
 One more stage. In 1604, King James, 
 lately called from Scotland to fill the throne 
 upon the death of Elizabeth, summoned the 
 bishops and clergy to meet him at his drawing- 
 room in Hampton Court. The question of 
 Bible translation was brought up and par- 
 ticularly pressed by the Puritan party. The 
 bishops and the High Church party were not 
 so eager. '' If every man had his humour," 
 said Bancroft, Bishop of London, " about new 
 versions there would be no end of translating." 
 But the King had made up his own mind, and 
 he was not the man to let his wish go un- 
 satisfied. At that time three different versions 
 were in use. The Great Bible of Henry VIII. 
 might still be found chained to a stone or 
 wooden desk in many country churches. The 
 Bishops' Bible had appeared in 1568, and was 
 supported by ecclesiastical authority, while the 
 Geneva Bible was the favourite of the people 
 at large. There were objections to all three. 
 
HOW ir HAS COME TO US 77 
 
 The Great Bible was becoming obsolete. The 
 Bishops' Bible commended itself neither to 
 the learned nor the unlearned. The Geneva 
 Bible, through the Puritan bias of its notes, 
 had become the Bible of a party. To James, 
 with his " high " views both of Church and 
 Monarchy, the Calvinistic and democratic 
 marginal comments of the Geneva Bible were 
 particularly odious. The work of revision was 
 set about in a most thorough and business-like 
 way. Fifty-four learned men from both the 
 High Church and Puritan party formed the 
 revision company. The services of the most 
 competent scholars in the country were put at 
 their disposal. The Greek and Hebrew were 
 carefully studied ; Bibles in Spanish, Italian, 
 French, and German were examined to ascertain 
 their point of view in different places. All the 
 previous EngHsh translations were made use of, 
 and the expressions therein which were correct 
 as well as forcible English were incorporated. 
 Even the Rheimish translation — a translation 
 made at Rheims from the Latin version, for 
 the use of English Roman Catholics, in 1582 
 — which contained some happy expressions, 
 
78 OUR BIBLE 
 
 was laid under contribution. The work was 
 finished in i6ii. Its style, its excellences, 
 its demerits need not be commented upon now 
 — it is the version which we are all familiar 
 with from our childhood, the so-called Autho- 
 rised Version. I say so-called, for there is no 
 proof that it was ever authorised either by 
 ecclesiastical or lay authority. But that is a 
 small matter. It was evidently intended to 
 take the place of all other translations, and by 
 common consent and usage it has received its 
 authorisation. Besides its intrinsic merits it 
 has a merit which helped much to its general 
 reception — the absence of doctrinal notes. In 
 previous versions, from Wycliffe downwards, 
 the passing views of the day on various mattei\s 
 of importance in the interpretation of the Word 
 had been inserted in marginal notes. The after- 
 thoughts of theology were obtruded into the 
 Bible, and the Gospel of Peace was interlarded 
 with polemics. The Authorised Version presents 
 the Word without a comment, except such as 
 are purely grammatical. 
 
 Troubled times were ahead. " Between 1640 
 and 1650 came the terrible shaking of the 
 
HOW IT HAS COME TO US 79 
 
 Civil War, the execution of the King, the 
 removing of the Church's candlestick. But in 
 that time the Authorised Version had won its 
 way to the acceptance of Puritan and Royalist, 
 and was one bond of peace when all else had 
 gone. King and Church, the time-honoured 
 symbols of order and catholicity, seemed to 
 have passed beyond recall. But the acceptance 
 of the new Bible gave a spontaneous testimony 
 to the principle of order and catholicity," with- 
 out w^hich social life were but like the " idiot's 
 tale. 
 
 Full of sound and fury, 
 Signifying nothing." 
 
THE LAST TRANSLATION 
 
THE LAST TRANSLATION 
 
 tHE whole history of the EngHsh Bible is a 
 history of revision, and improvement by 
 revision. Every fresh translator looked 
 over again, or revised, the work of a predecessor. 
 New helps to a better translation appeared from 
 time to time, and each new help was turned to 
 account. The Old English and Wycliffe's ver- 
 sions were translations, not from the Hebrew or 
 the Greek, but from that Latin translation called 
 the Vulgate. Now the history of this Latin Vul- 
 gate is so interesting, and bears such a close 
 parallel in its circumstances to those of our re- 
 vision of 1885, that we may well say something 
 about it. A translation of the Scriptures into 
 Latin was made during the second century. 
 After the lapse of two centuries the variations 
 and errors of the text began to attract the atten- 
 tion of students, and there was a call for revision. 
 
84 OUR BIBLE 
 
 '* It happened providentially," says Bishop Light- 
 foot, ''that at the very moment when the need 
 was felt the right man was forthcoming. In 
 the first fifteen centuries of her existence the 
 Western Church produced no Biblical scholar 
 who could compare with St. Jerome." Jerome had 
 just come to Rome from the retirement of his 
 cell at Bethlehem, and at the request of Damasus, 
 Bishop of Rome, he undertook the work of 
 revision. His work of revising the New Testa- 
 ment was finished in 385, and afterwards he 
 revised the Old Testament. The way in which 
 he worked was this. He had before him the 
 various differing readings of the old Latin Bible. 
 He took the oldest Hebrew and Greek MSS. 
 then existing, and by them he corrected the old 
 Latin Bible, and at length produced the revised 
 Latin Bible, which in process of time was called 
 the Vulgata Editio — i.e., the commonly received 
 edition — or, as we phrase it, the Vulgate. But 
 not till more than two hundred years after 
 Jerome's death did it come into general use. 
 The work of Jerome was exceedingly unpopular, 
 even with men as learned as St. Augustine. 
 Why was this ? Because of the strong con- 
 
HOW IT HAS COME TO US 85 
 
 servative bias which exists even in the most 
 radical natures. The new version meant an 
 effort of readjustment in the mind accustomed to 
 the manner and wording of the old version. 
 Many, perhaps, who had no personal objection 
 themselves felt strongly that it was a needless 
 breach in what was customary, and a cause of 
 offence to the " weaker brethren," and would 
 break up with terrible effect memories, hopes, 
 and beliefs which in some minds were bound up 
 with a certain form of words. We are not with- 
 out an instance. St. Augustine wrote to Jerome, 
 and gave the instance himself as a sample of 
 what might be expected to ensue in many other 
 cases. In the Book of Jonah we are told (iv. 6) 
 that the prophet sat down under a gourd. In 
 the old Latin version this word was represented 
 by cucurbita. Jerome thought that the most 
 accurate translation of the Hebrew word was 
 not cucurbita^ but hedera, and so translated it. 
 An African bishop in reading substituted hedera 
 for cucurbita. The surprised and angry congre- 
 gation nearly left their bishop to himself and 
 empty benches, and were only restrained by a 
 promise to keep the wording of the old version. 
 
86 OUR BIBLE 
 
 ^' They would not tolerate a change in an ex- 
 pression," said Augustine, " which had been 
 fixed by time in the feelings and memory of all, 
 and had been repeated through so many ages in 
 succession." 
 
 There can be no question that St. Jerome's 
 version was on the whole a more correct repre- 
 sentation of the original than that which it was 
 meant to replace. Unfortunately, however, 
 human nature is often inclined to think more 
 of words than of things. What Shakespeare 
 calls " the tyrant custom " keeps us very often 
 from acknowledging a really useful change, just 
 because it is a change, and very often not the 
 least a change in matter, but only in form. 
 This little incident is worth remembering, 
 because very much the same unreasonable out- 
 cry was made fifteen hundred years later — per- 
 haps some of us took part in it — when our latest 
 revision saw the light. St. Jerome was very 
 caustic in his comment upon the prejudice stirred 
 up by his noble work. *' In vain," said he, " is 
 a harp played to an ass." But ''truth is the 
 daughter of time." Slowly Jerome's version 
 won its way to the front. Constant use took 
 
HOW IT HAS COME TO US 87 
 
 the place of cold neglect, and admiration the 
 place of derision. Weak human nature even 
 flew into another extreme. People forgot that 
 it was a translation. " It is the version of the 
 Church, and in her own language," they said. 
 '' Why should it yield to Greek and Hebrew 
 MSS., which have been all these years in the 
 hands of Jewish unbelievers and Greek schis- 
 matics ? " And so the Roman Church in the 
 year 1545, at the Council of Trent, decreed the 
 Vulgate authentic. They decreed that it should 
 be considered — albeit a translation, and not a 
 little corrupted by lapse of time — a correct re- 
 presentation of the original. While knowledge 
 has increased and given us means of arriving at 
 a far better text than Jerome's, it is still the only 
 recognised Bible of the Roman Church. This 
 is the history of the Vulgate, which we must 
 remember was the source of all versions in Eng- 
 land up to, and including, that of Wycliflfe. 
 
 And now even, at the risk of being wearied, 
 we must come a step further, and see how in 
 Tyndale's day there was a better foundation for 
 translation than the Vulgate. One of the first 
 
88 OUR BIBLE 
 
 great services of the printing-press was rendered 
 at Alcala, in Spain. Here Cardinal Ximenes 
 published an edition of the whole Bible in three 
 languages — Latin, Greek, and Hebrew. In the 
 Old Testament side by side stood the Hebrew, 
 the Greek Septuagint version, and in the middle 
 Jerome's Latin version, the Vulgate. Those who 
 were prejudiced in favour of the Latin, and had 
 suspicions of the Greek and Hebrew, made the 
 grim joke that the Vulgate in the middle of the 
 page looked like Christ crucified between two 
 thieves. In the New Testament, of course, 
 there were only two columns, the original Greek 
 and the Latin version. Before this work was 
 published a printer at Basle, called Froben, 
 wishing to be first in the field, got Erasmus, the 
 great scholar whom we spoke of in our last 
 chapter, to edit such Greek MSS. of the New 
 Testament as were accessible at that time, and 
 so, in a measure, forestall the work of Ximenes. 
 The news was brought to Alcala, and an angry 
 outburst was expected on the part of the 
 cardinal at the sharp practice of the Swiss prin- 
 ter and the Dutch scholar. But Ximenes was 
 too great to feel jealous. He answered in the 
 
HOW IT HAS COME TO US 
 
 words of the disinterested lawgiver of Israel : 
 " Enviest thou for my sake ? Would God that all 
 the Lord's people were prophets, and that the 
 Lord would put His Spirit upon them ! " (Num. 
 xi. 29.) 
 
 The first edition of Erasmus's Greek Testa- 
 ment appeared in 15 16, and the edition of 
 Ximenes (the Complutensian Polyglott) not till 
 1522. Tyndale, the first to translate into 
 EngHsh straight from the Greek, used in the 
 New Testament the second (15 19) and third 
 (1522) editions of Erasmus's work, which first 
 came out in 15 16. ' 
 
 And now we pass from Tyndale and the 
 provision for his work to the revision of 161 1. 
 Here again the material for forming a correct 
 text has increased very much. Erasmus had 
 only access to a few (four) manuscripts to 
 construct his text upon, and the ones he most 
 followed are of a late type. By the time 
 King James's revisers set to work, not only 
 was Greek and Hebrew scholarship in a much 
 more advanced stage, but more manuscripts 
 were known, notably the Codex Bezae (D), 
 presented by the Swiss reformer Theodore Beza 
 
90 OUR BIBLE 
 
 to the University of Cambridge, and repre- 
 senting a text of the sixth century. 
 
 Now let us come to the year 1870, when 
 the present Revised Version was projected. 
 Materials were then at hand which had been 
 entirely hidden from the revisers of King 
 James's time. The three oldest MSS. of the 
 New Testament — the Sinaitic, the Vatican, the 
 Alexandrine — were ready for use. Translations 
 into Syriac and Egyptian of the second century, 
 and representing a text of the apostolic period, 
 were at the service of Queen Victoria's revisers. 
 The science of textual criticism, which teaches 
 the value and the best methods of dealing 
 with these documents, had entirely sprung up 
 since 161 1 ; and the scholarship, also, of the 
 Victorian revisers was as much ahead of that of 
 King James's revisers as theirs was of their 
 predecessors. 
 
 So we see how the means of getting a 
 thoroughly adequate translation of the Bible 
 have, bit by bit and step by step, been placed 
 within the reach of the English people ; and 
 the very fact of the ever-growing material is 
 
HOW IT HAS COME TO US 91 
 
 one justification for the successive revising of 
 the Scriptures. Perhaps it may be noticed 
 that we have said nothing about Hebrev^r Old 
 Testament MSS., and that our remarks have 
 been confined to the Greek Nev^ Testament 
 MSS. But some of us will remember that 
 for certain reasons the stock of Hebrew MSS. 
 has never increased, and never can ; but our 
 power of interpreting Hebrew with precision has 
 increased enormously, and justifies the attempts 
 at Old Testament revision. 
 
 Before leaving this part of the subject, let 
 us once more make clear, beyond all possibility 
 of mistake, that never at any period has the 
 meaning and import of the Word of God been 
 obscured, at least in its grand outlines, b}^ 
 the most imperfect translation. Successive 
 revisions have not been successive paintings of 
 a picture, but restorations, each more successful 
 than the last, of the original. 
 
 We may examine now, under several head- 
 ings, the principal aims of the revisers of the 
 New Testament in our own time. 
 
 1st Aim. — To estabhsh a correct text. We 
 saw in our first paper that errors found their 
 
92 OUR BIBLE 
 
 way into manuscripts. To ascertain what 
 was probably the original standard text, by 
 forsaking which the various readings have 
 arisen, is a necessary and important work. 
 This work had to be done by a careful and 
 scientific examination of the various manu- 
 scripts, versions, and quoted passages in ancient 
 Christian books. With regard to the state of 
 the text of the New Testament, the words of 
 Bishop Lightfoot are well worth recording: ''No 
 doubt when the subject of various readings is 
 mentioned, grave apprehensions will arise in 
 the minds of some persons. But this is just 
 the case where more light is wanted to allay 
 the fears which a vague imagination excites. 
 .... I can only state my own conviction that 
 a study of the history and condition of the 
 Greek text solves far more difficulties than it 
 creates. Even the variations themselves have 
 the highest value in this respect. Thus, for 
 instance, when we find that soon after the 
 middle of the second century divergent read- 
 ings of a striking kind occur in St John's 
 Gospel — the old Latin in chap. i. verse 1 8, 
 reading, ' the onl}^ begotten Son,' and the 
 
HOW IT HAS COME TO US 93 
 
 Peshito-Syriac reading, ' God only begotten ' 
 — we are led to the conclusion that the text 
 has already a history, and that the Gospel, 
 therefore, cannot have been very recent." 
 
 Let us look at some of the differences in 
 the text used by the last revisers, and that 
 used by the revisers of i6i i. 
 
 If we turn to i St. John v. 7, we shall find 
 in the Authorised Version that passage about 
 "the three that bear record in Heaven, the 
 Father, the Word, and the Holy Ghost." Now, 
 there is no MS. authority of any moment for 
 the words which crept into the text of some 
 old Latin MSS. The words were originally 
 merely a pious comment, a gloss, upon the 
 three witnesses which St. John does really 
 name — the Spirit, the Water, and the Blood. 
 Tyndale, Coverdale, and the Great Bible all 
 place the words in brackets, and mark their 
 peculiarity by a different type. For some 
 reason they are admitted into the Authorised 
 Version as part of the original text. Now, 
 the doctrine of the Holy Trinity is quite 
 independent of the three witnesses of St. John, 
 
94 OUR BIBLE 
 
 and to repudiate, as the Revised Version 
 does by omitting the words, the testimony of 
 three false witnesses, is a real service to the 
 cause of truth. 
 
 Again, the last twelve verses of St. Mark 
 are, in all probability, not by the same hand 
 that wrote the Gospel. In the Vatican MS. 
 a space is left at the end of the Gospel (verse 
 8), as though the scribe knew of the later 
 ending, but was not certain as to whether it 
 had a right to be included. The Revised Ver- 
 sion gives the last twelve verses, but separates 
 them, and thus gives a hint that the verses in 
 question did not originally form an integral 
 part of the Gospel. Likewise the first eleven 
 verses of St. John viii., and verse 53 of chapter 
 vii., are printed in the Revised Version in a 
 ivay which warns us that there is reason to 
 believe that the story of the woman taken in 
 adultery was not originally part of the Gospel. 
 Neither one passage nor the other is without 
 its historical value. Both probably present 
 a true tradition, but a careful examination 
 of MSS. denies them equal manuscript stand- 
 ing with the rest of the narrative. 
 
HOW IT HAS COME TO US 95 
 
 There are, of course, other cases where 
 single words and phrases in the text used by 
 the revisers of 161 1 have to be altered in 
 accordance with the evidence which fresh 
 witnesses since that day have brought to 
 light. But taken altogether, the changes are 
 not very many, and the number of changes of 
 importance is much less. This must be re- 
 assuring. It means that a most searching light 
 has been thrown from many sides ; that the 
 text of the New Testament has been subjected 
 to an extremely critical analysis ; and the result 
 is that we find that the text of the Authorised 
 Version, though incorrect in many particulars, 
 does yet convey most perfectly the spirit of 
 Christ and His apostles, and the outHne of 
 historical fact ; and we know that when we 
 turn to the Revised Version we have as near 
 an approach as it is possible to get in a trans- 
 lation to the very wording of the writers of the 
 New Testament. 
 
 2nd Aim. — To keep one and the same English 
 word as the equivalent of one and the same 
 Greek word. The Revisers of 161 1 often used 
 different English words as translations of the 
 
96 OUR BIBLE 
 
 same Greek word. We may quote an instance, 
 I Cor. xi. 29-34. Ii^ this passage one Greek 
 word, KpijLLa, is translated by no less than three 
 English words — viz., damnation, condemnation, 
 and in the margin, judgment. The Revisers 
 have chosen one word judgment, as their trans- 
 lation, and kept to it. 
 
 Srd Aim. — To translate different Greek words 
 by different Enghsh ones. This was an im- 
 provement suggested by the manner in which 
 the Revisers of 161 1 sometimes gave one 
 English word to translate two different Greek 
 words. In the older version, Hades, the place of 
 departed spirits, and Gehenna, the place of 
 punishment, were both translated Hell. In Acts 
 ii. 27-31, it will be seen how the Victorian 
 Revisers have benefited the reader by an ad- 
 herence to their third aim. 
 
 ^th Aim. — Greater care in bringing out shades 
 of meaning in the original. The translation in 
 the Revised Version of the words in Acts ii. 47, 
 " those that ivere being saved," in place of '' such 
 as should be saved," is a case in point. 
 
 ^th Aim. — The use of current English ex- 
 pressions in place of those which are obsolete. 
 
HOW IT HAS COME TO US 97 
 
 In the course of nearly three centuries it is to 
 be expected that words will change their meaning 
 or go out of use. In Acts xxi. 15, the phrase 
 is used " we took up our carriages." In King 
 James's time carriage meant what you carry, but 
 now it means what carries you. This illustra- 
 tion will show how, in course of time, a word in 
 a living language will quite reverse its meaning. 
 The words of the Authorised Version in St. Matt, 
 vi. 25, ^^Take no thought for your hfe," sound 
 to the ear of a modern most improvident. But 
 in 161 1, to take no thought, meant to abstain 
 from distressing worry. The Revised Version 
 modernises the obsolete expression and gives 
 the sense of the original Greek, which counsels 
 us not to fume and fret and worry about our- 
 selves. " Be not anxious for your life." 
 
 A few words ought to be devoted to the work 
 of the Revisers of the Old Testament. There 
 was no question about textual emendation. To 
 use the words of the Preface to the Revised 
 Bible : *' The task of the Revisers has been 
 much simpler than that which the New Testa- 
 ment Revisers had before them. The received, 
 
 G 
 
98 THE BIBLE 
 
 or as it is commonly called, the Massoretic text 
 of the Old Testament Scripture, has come down 
 to us in manuscripts which are of no great 
 antiquity, and which all belong to the same 
 family." With occasional deviations from this 
 text on the authority of ancient versions, they 
 have followed it in the main. 
 
 The reader of the Revised Old Testament will 
 find that generally the sense is more clear in the 
 new translation than in the old, and especially 
 he will find this to be the case in the prophetical 
 books. Compare, for instance, the Christmas 
 morning lesson from Isaiah ix. in the two ver- 
 sions, and we shall find much greater clearness in 
 the new translation. Verse 5 is not without its 
 charm in the old version, with its '* For every 
 battle of the warrior is with confused noise and 
 garments rolled in blood, but this shall be with 
 burning and fuel of fire." But it probably 
 conveyed quite a misleading idea to the reader ; 
 and the same verse in the new translation 
 reveals a striking figure which was hitherto con- 
 cealed. " For all the armour of the armed men 
 in the tumult and the garments rolled in blood 
 shall even be for burning, for fuel of fire.'' 
 
HOW IT HAS COME TO US 99 
 
 A remarkable improvement secured by the 
 new version is evident in Dan. iii. 25. Instead 
 of the astonishing remark of Nebuchadnezzar, 
 "and the form of the fourth is like the Son of 
 God," we have, '' and the aspect of the fourth is 
 hke a son of the gods." 
 
 It was on February 10, 1870, that Bishop 
 Samuel Wilberforce rose in the Upper House 
 of the Southern Convocation to move for a 
 Committee of both Houses to consider the 
 whole question of a fresh translation, and to 
 report thereon. In prospect of another revision 
 there was a little stir, both among some of the 
 learned and some of the unlearned. Of the 
 latter class was a young person who advanced 
 the opinion that, if the Authorised Version was 
 good enough for St. Paul, it was certainly good 
 enough for us ! 
 
 The friends of the projected translation 
 witnessed in the opposition raised merely a 
 repetition of past history. The story of 
 previous revisions, from Jerome's days down- 
 wards, led them to expect that their path would 
 not be quite smooth. But in the Midsummer of 
 1870, the Committees appointed by Convocation 
 
100 THE BIBLE 
 
 to undertake the revision began their work. 
 Each Testament was entrusted to the hands of 
 a specially selected company of scholars. The 
 National Church contributed its representative 
 scholars, and the Nonconformists were also duly 
 represented. In America also a company of 
 Revisers went over the same ground, and 
 communications between the two bodies were 
 interchanged. So the Revised Version is a 
 common work, which not only unites English- 
 men to Englishmen, but unites us also to our 
 distinguished kinsmen across the Atlantic. In 
 1 88 1 the New Testament was finished, and four 
 years later the Old Testament Company had 
 concluded their labours. And thus the year 
 1885 marks the appearance of our latest revision. 
 
 It is hardly to be expected that the 
 generation which was bred up upon the old 
 version will, as a whole, be satisfied with the 
 new translation. But the fault may lie not 
 altogether with the Revised Version. In the 
 ^' coming on of time " it may meet with a juster 
 judgment than some of us can give at the 
 hands of those who will make their first 
 
HOW IT HAS COME TO US loi 
 
 acquaiitance with the Scriptures by its means. 
 It is not impossible that with them its obvious 
 advantages in the way of accuracy and clearness 
 may secure it a wide and general use ; and it 
 may well be that to ears not preoccupied with 
 a traditional rhythm and verbal music, the 
 Victorian version will disclose a pleasant 
 cadence and a music of its own. 
 
THE COLLECTION OF THE BOOKS 
 OF THE BIBLE 
 
THE COLLECTION OF THE BOOKS 
 OF THE BIBLE 
 
 fEw subjects can be of greater interest to the 
 student of the Bible than the history of 
 the Canon. The word "Canon" means 
 originally a rule or measuring- rod. " It was 
 applied in the Church to the brief creed or 
 summary of Christian truth, which, in somewhat 
 varying form, as early as the closing period of 
 the second century, was recognised as including 
 the essentials of the common faith — the regula 
 ftdeiy as it was called. The word ' Canon ' was 
 first used to designate the Holy Scriptures, in 
 the fourth century, by the celebrated Alexandrian 
 Father, Athanasius, who speaks of this definite 
 body of writings as ' canonised,' that is, as 
 accepted ; this acceptance being a part of the 
 Canon or rule of faith. Subsequently ' Canon ' 
 acquired the sense which it now holds, and was 
 used by the Latin Fathers to denote the books 
 
io6 OUR BIBLE 
 
 which, to the exclusion of all others, regulate 
 Christian belief and teaching." The question 
 with which we will start is this — What was the 
 principle and what the time of the formation of 
 the Canon of the New Testament ? There is a 
 fantastic mediaeval legend to the effect that the 
 books which now form the New Testament were 
 miraculously sorted out from a considerable 
 number of other similar writings. The scene of 
 the supposed miracle was the church of Nicaea, 
 at the time of the session of the first Ecumenical 
 Council in 325 a.d. It was alleged that a varied 
 assortment of Christian literature lay under the 
 altar until all doubt about the Canon was 
 instantaneously ended by the genuine books 
 leaping of their own accord on to the holy table, 
 leaving the writings now, ipso facto, declared 
 uncanonical, below. 
 
 Most of us will dismiss this account of the 
 formation of the Canon of the New Testament 
 with an incredulous smile. And yet we might 
 not all be able to tell the true story. So let us 
 try to get the right version of the story truly 
 and simply stated. There seems to have been 
 no attempt at a collection of apostolic writings in 
 
HOW IT HAS COME TO US 107 
 
 the apostolic age. While no doubt these 
 writings were highly valued, there was some- 
 thing more highly valued still, and that was 
 the oral teaching of the apostles themselves. 
 While that could still be had the writings of 
 the founders of the Church filled a secondary 
 place. But when the second century began 
 to dawn, and the last of the apostles, St. John, 
 had gone to God, the Church entered into 
 a fresh experience. Upon the Fathers of the 
 sub-apostolic age, holy and spiritual though 
 they were, there rested not the same measure 
 of spiritual power as upon their immediate 
 predecessors. The doctrines of the apostles 
 were called in question by some, and by 
 some explained in a different sense to that 
 which had been given at the first. It is 
 true that this had happened in the apostolic 
 age as well, but then there were the Masters 
 in the New Israel present, who could speak 
 with peculiar authority. Now they were no 
 more, and what had had only a secondary 
 importance in their lifetime, now was felt to 
 have a primary importance. The writings of 
 the apostolic age became of exceeding interest 
 
io8 OUR BIBLE 
 
 and practical value, and in the second century 
 we get the first attempts at forming a col- 
 lection of the writings of the first age. The 
 necessary qualification for any writing which 
 was to go to make up this collection was 
 its apostolicity. Was it written by an apostle 
 or under his direction or his influence ? This 
 seems to have been the nature of the criterion. 
 The use of this criterion did not at once 
 yield quite the same results. There are three 
 collections of apostolic writings, which seem 
 to have been in use at the close of the 
 second century. One was that in use by 
 the Syrian Christians. This seems to have 
 contained what is found in our Canon with 
 the exception of the Second and Third Epistles 
 of St. John, Second Epistle of St. Peter, 
 St. Jude, and Revelations. If we pass to 
 the North African Church of the same period, 
 we find the books of our Canon in use with 
 the exception this time of St. James, and 
 Second St. Peter. The third collection of 
 books, which was in use in the Western 
 portion of the Church, presents us with a 
 similar problem. And what is this problem ? 
 
HOW IT HAS COME TO US 109 
 
 It is this : how is it that in different portions 
 of the Church in the second century opinions 
 differed as to what writings were of apostoHc 
 authority and what were not ? The answer 
 to the problem seems to be this : the proper 
 limitations of the Canon were not arrived 
 at formally by the action of a particular 
 council at one particular time. They were 
 arrived at informally and experimentally at 
 the end of four centuries. Councils may 
 have ratified the New Testament Canon, but 
 they did not form it. It was formed by 
 the judgment of different generations and 
 different portions of the Church interacting 
 upon one another. Hence it is easy to see 
 how, for instance, in the second century, 
 differences of opinion existed about the limita- 
 tions of the New Testament Canon. Now 
 let us pass to the beginning of the fourth 
 century, and hear the interesting information 
 which Eusebius has to give us about the 
 question of the Canon in his day. Eusebius 
 was Bishop of C^sarea, in Palestine, and 
 completed his famous ecclesiastical history just 
 before the meeting of the Nicene Council in 
 
OUR BIBLE 
 
 325 A.D. He divided the books claiming to 
 be authoritative into three classes. The first 
 comprises the universally acknowledged books. 
 These are the four Gospels, the Acts of 
 the Apostles, thirteen Epistles of St. Paul, 
 I St. Peter, and i St. John. The second 
 class comprises what the historian calls dis- 
 puted books — books received by some but not 
 by all. These are the Epistles of St. James, 
 St. Jude, 2 St. Peter, 2 and 3 St. John, 
 Hebrews, and the Revelations. The third 
 class Eusebius calls spurious, and these books 
 he says are not received by the Church at all. 
 Among these books heretical and apocryphal 
 writings are included, such as the Acts of 
 Paul, the Acts of Pilate, the Apocalypse of 
 Peter. Thus far had the question proceeded 
 in the beginning of the fourth century. The 
 apostolic authority and therefore canonicity 
 of two-thirds of our present New Testament 
 was and had been generally acknowledged. 
 About the remaining third differences of opinion 
 existed. At the end of the fourth century 
 St. Jerome and St. Augustine, the two most 
 learned men of their day, accepted as canonical 
 
HO]V IT HAS COME TO US in 
 
 all the books in our New Testament Canon. 
 They reflected the general opinion of the 
 whole Church. Differences of opinion about 
 some, at least, of the disputed books, still 
 existed, and as a matter of fact ever will 
 exist. But there was still a good deal to be 
 said in their favour. The third Council of 
 Carthage, 397 a.d., at which St. Augustine 
 was present, fixed the Canon of the New 
 Testament at its present Hmits. But it must 
 be clearly understood that in so doing it did 
 not anticipate but simply followed after the 
 general opinion of the whole Church. The 
 decision thus slowly and carefully arrived at 
 by the close of the fourth century has been 
 occasionally, as for instance, in the case of 
 Luther, Calvin, and Tyndale, in some points 
 questioned. But this has been only in the case 
 of the disputed books. The judgment of the 
 earl}^ Church we may say has approved itself in 
 the matter of the New Testament Canon to all 
 subsequent ages of the Church. 
 
 There are two points which arise out of the 
 foregoing statements about which a few words 
 should be said. We remarked that the 
 
112 OUR BIBLE 
 
 criterion by which writings which claimed 
 canonicity were tested was their evidence of 
 being written by apostles, or under their 
 direction or influence. The Gospels of St. 
 Matthew and St. John, the letters of St. Paul, 
 St. Peter, St. James, and St. John, among other 
 New Testament scriptures, establish their claim 
 to be written by apostles. But it is not 
 claimed that the Gospels of St. Luke and St. 
 Mark, the Acts of the Apostles, and the Epistle 
 to the Hebrews were written by apostles, but 
 these are admitted as being written by men who 
 were under their immediate direction or 
 influence. Now, this latter test was no doubt 
 difficult to apply. The Epistle of Clement, 
 the Epistle of Barnabas, and the Shepherd of 
 Hermas, were valued not only for their own 
 worth, but because the writers were believed to 
 have been in close touch with the apostles. In 
 the early Church, the author of the Epistle 
 of Clement was often identified with St. Paul's 
 fellow-labourer of that name mentioned in 
 Phil. iv. 3. The writer of the Shepherd was 
 understood to be the Hermas greeted by 
 St. Paul in Romans xvi. 14 ; and the Epistle 
 
HOW IT HAS COME TO US 
 
 of Barnabas was considered to be the work 
 of none other than that native of Cyprus who 
 at one time befriended St. Paul, and at another 
 time quarrelled with him. To all these writings 
 the Fathers of the second and third centuries 
 refer with profound veneration ; and at least we 
 know that the Shepherd of Hermas was 
 regarded by Irenaeus as inspired, and was 
 placed upon the same level as our canonical 
 books. It was evidently customary to read 
 them in public service, for we find them 
 bound up with ancient MSS. of the New 
 Testament. The writings of Hermas and 
 Barnabas, for instance, are found in the 
 Sinaitic MSS. of the fourth century. Now, 
 we know that writers who wrote under apostoHc 
 direction, like St. Mark or St. Luke, or under 
 evident apostolic influence, like the writer of the 
 Hebrews, had their works admitted into the 
 Canon. For some time, at least, it was felt 
 that this principle justified the high place which 
 was given to these three writings of which we 
 are speaking. Clement may have come into 
 contact with the apostles, and it was believed 
 that the Hermas and Barnabas of the apostolic 
 
 H 
 
114 OUR BIBLE 
 
 age were the veritable authors of the works 
 bearing their name. But it was not on this 
 ground alone that the writings in question found 
 such great acceptance. Their intrinsic w^orth, as 
 it seemed to the early Church, quite as much 
 promoted them to honour. But this feehng 
 apparently changed in course of time. Before 
 the fixing of the Canon in the fourth century, 
 both on critical grounds and on spiritual grounds, 
 it seemed that they could hardly aspire so high 
 as had at first been thought, and we do not 
 find them then or later in the position of 
 eminence that they once held. And here, 
 incidentally, we may observe with gratitude the 
 Providence which made the determination of the 
 Canon a work of long deliberation. It is a 
 satisfaction to us to see what we believe to be 
 the wholesome instinct of an early age, which 
 refused to draw the lines of the Canon too 
 rigidly, and the equally wholesome instinct of 
 a somewhat later age, which could discern 
 a much lower degree of edification in St. 
 Clement's letter to Corinth than in St. Paul's 
 letters to that Church ; and which refused 
 the Epistle of Barnabas and the Shepherd 
 
HOW IT HAS COME TO US 115 
 
 of Hermas a permanent place in the New 
 Testament. 
 
 But there is another question of interest 
 attached to the subject of ihe collection of the 
 New Testament Books. Occasionally we hear 
 about gospels other than those four which every 
 one knows. What are these other gospels ? 
 Now, we only have to turn to the opening words 
 of St. Luke's Gospel to have the best warrant 
 for believing that our four Gospels are not the 
 only gospels which have ever existed. " Many 
 have taken in hand " — St. Luke tells the " most 
 excellent Theophilus " — " to set forth in order a 
 declaration of those things which are most surely 
 believed among us." One can easily understand 
 how the multiplying of gospels would come 
 about. A great many people would have their 
 story to tell about Jesus at first hand. It was 
 chiefly the story of three years, and not a few 
 would have come into contact with Him, both 
 in Galilee and at Jerusalem, during the feast. 
 Such people one can imagine attending the apos- 
 tolic preachings, and finding their story confirmed, 
 and gleaning information with which they filled 
 in the gaps in their own story. A time came — 
 
ti6 OUR BIBLE 
 
 probably about thirty-five years after the 
 Ascension — when written gospels, under apos- 
 toHc authority, were found advisable. Probably 
 shortly before the fall of Jerusalem (a.d. 70), the 
 original Gospel of St. Matthew, in Aramaic, was 
 issued, and, shortly after the year 70, St. Mark 
 and St. Luke appeared ; and at the close of the 
 first century came St. John's Gospel. It seems 
 probable that these gospels, as they appeared, 
 received a peculiar recognition. And this was 
 the case not because the apostolic gospels were 
 considered inspired, and the others uninspired, 
 but because one had an official sanction which 
 the others had not. What has become of these 
 early unofficial gospels it is impossible to say ; 
 probably no one cared to keep them in memory 
 if they were oral, or in manuscript if they were 
 written. The canonical Gospels went over the 
 same ground, and went over it better. But in 
 the second century, and subsequent centuries, 
 the tendency to write unauthorised gospels had 
 not diminished, while the motive had deteriorated. 
 The result is a great mass of literature which 
 goes by the name of apocryphal gospels. Now, 
 these gospels are based upon, or imply a know- 
 
HOJV IT HAS COME TO US 117 
 
 ledge of, the existence of either the canonical 
 Gospels or some other gospel of the first age. 
 Their object is not to supplant such accounts, 
 but to supplement them, ''to embroider with 
 legend the simpler narrative." 
 
 One of the oldest of the apocryphal gospels 
 which we have in an entire form is that called 
 Protevangehum, or Gospel of St. James, and it 
 seems to belong to the second century, and pro- 
 bably to the middle of that. It is very explicit 
 about those things which the Gospels of the 
 Canon do not touch on. According to this 
 authority Joachim and Anna are the names of 
 the parents of the Virgin Mary. There is a 
 great deal about the early years of the mother of 
 the Lord ; the marriage of the Virgin with 
 Joseph is brought about by a miraculous inter- 
 vention. The story of the birth of Jesus is told 
 as in St. Luke, but with the addition of not a 
 few portents. The document ends with the 
 massacre of the Innocents, from which John the 
 Baptist is delivered by means of a mountain 
 opening and receiving him and his mother. 
 And just as the mystery of Christ's birth and 
 the reserve of the Evangelists stimulated the 
 
OUR BIBLE 
 
 writings of apocryphal gospels of the infancy, so 
 / the mystery of Christ's death and passing into 
 Xthe spirit world, whereon the Gospels leave so 
 ^ much unsaid, tempted the writers of apocryphal 
 gospels into supplementing what was left incom- 
 plete. The Gospel of Nicodemus and the Acts 
 of Pilate, forming one document, tell much about 
 the passion and crucifixion which the Gospels 
 of the Canon tell, and also a good deal which 
 they do not. The latter part of the Gospel 
 of Nicodemus touches upon the details of our 
 Lord's descent to Hades between His death 
 and resurrection ; of His breaking the gates 
 of brass, and releasing and taking up to 
 Paradise the souls of Adam, John the Baptist, 
 and many holy men of the earlier dispensation. 
 Thus we see what the nature is of the apocryphal 
 gospels. 
 
 They really add nothing to the knowledge of 
 Christ's character, teaching, and life, which we 
 gather from the canonical Gospels — save portents 
 and wonders. Taken by themselves they give a 
 misleading picture of Christ : He appears rather 
 as a magician than as a spiritual teacher. The 
 
HOW IT HAS COME TO US 119 
 
 distorted view of our Lord which Moham- 
 med had, he probably owed to the fact of his 
 being acquainted only with an apocryphal gospel, 
 and not the canonical Gospels. 
 
 Most of the apocryphal gospels belong to a 
 later date than that at which the Canon was 
 fixed ; but one, at least — the Gospel of St. 
 James — does probably belong to a period 
 anterior. That such a gospel or gospels were 
 excluded from the Canon we cannot wonder. 
 But though the apocryphal gospels were never 
 admitted to the New Testament collection, their 
 influence was long felt in art. There is a 
 picture of Raphael's which treats of the marriage 
 of the Virgin. There are various suitors pro- 
 vided with a rod. but Joseph is chosen because 
 from his rod alone issues a dove. In Raphael's 
 picture the disappointed suitors are seen break- 
 ing their useless rods. The beasts worshipping 
 the infant Christ in the manger are not infrequent 
 in old pictures. Dante refers more than once to 
 the breaking of the gates of Hades at our Lord's 
 descent, and His bringing into Paradise the 
 patriarchs who had waited for Him. In these 
 
20 OUR BIBLE 
 
 instances, and many others, we see the place in 
 Christian art which the apocryphal gospels made 
 for themselves. 
 
 The history of the Canon of the Old Testa- 
 ment before the Christian era is involved in 
 considerable obscurity. While the books which 
 form the New Testament are of one age only, 
 those which make up the Old Testament belong 
 10 very various periods of time. In so far the 
 two Canons stand on different grounds, but 
 probably the principle which guided the forma- 
 tion was identical in either case. The name of 
 a great teacher attached to a book, or the posses- 
 sion by a book of eminent powers of edification 
 and the ring of a true spiritual tone, gained, in 
 the slow process of lengthened deliberation, the 
 position for the book of canonical authority. 
 The well-known division of the Hebrew Scrip- 
 tures into the Law, the Prophets, and the Holy 
 Writings, help us to understand the strata which 
 were successively laid down, and which ulti- 
 mately formed a solid whole of instruction. The 
 division of the Law corresponds to our first five 
 books of the Bible — the Pentateuch. It is 
 necessary to state the bare fact that competent 
 
HO]V IT HAS COME TO US 121 
 
 scholars differ considerably as to the date at 
 which these books took their present form. 
 Some deem them to have attained their present 
 form immediately after the death of Moses. 
 Others believed them to have assumed their 
 present form as late as the first century after 
 their return from exile — i.e., between 536 b.c. 
 and 436 B.C. Others again look for a midway 
 position in the period of the kings before the 
 Exile. It must, however, be understood that 
 the two latter classes of scholars admit the 
 existence of a nucleus of moral and ceremonial 
 law dating from the Mosaic period, which v/as 
 expanded at a later period. 
 
 One thing, however, is clear — viz., that the 
 foundation of the Canon is to be found in the 
 Law. To this was added a collection of 
 writings, the Prophets. This included (a) four 
 narrative books — Joshua, Judges, Samuel, Kings. 
 (b) Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, and the tw^elve 
 minor prophets united in a single book. The 
 conclusion of this portion of the Canon is thought 
 by some to have been probably between 300- 
 200 B.C. In the prologue to the book of Ecclesi- 
 asticus in the Apocrypha, the writer speaks 
 
122 OUR BIBLE 
 
 thus : — '' My grandfather Jesus had much given 
 himself to the reading of the Law and the 
 Prophets and the other books of the fathers." 
 This prologue dates from about 132 b.c. and 
 was written in Alexandria. Besides the Law 
 and the Prophets there is yet another division 
 of Hebrew Scriptures recognised, vaguely re- 
 ferred to as '' the other books of the fathers." 
 These ''other books" are probably the Holy 
 Writings which form the third division of the 
 Canon. According to the common arrangement 
 in Hebrew Bibles this would include — Psalms, 
 Proverbs, Job, Canticles, Ruth, Lamentations, 
 Ecclesiastes, Esther, Daniel, Ezra, Nehemiah, 
 Chronicles. This part of the Canon is thought 
 to have been concluded about 105 b.c. More 
 than a hundred years, then, before the Christian 
 era the Canon of the Old Testament was practi- 
 cally settled. It only remains to add that the 
 New Testament evidently assumes a definite and 
 compact body of Scriptures, that Josephus (born 
 37 A.D., died after 97 a.d), the Jewish historian, 
 speaks of our Old Testament Canon as an 
 established thing, and that probably the Jewish 
 synod of Jamnia, near Jaffa, about the year 
 
HOW IT HAS COME TO US 123 
 
 90 A.D., gave official sanction to what had 
 already been settled in practice. It is interest- 
 ing to know that the Jewish Canon too had its 
 disputed books — viz., Ecclesiastes, Canticles, and 
 Esther. Ihe pessimistic tone of the first, the 
 sensuous imagery of the second, and the absence 
 of the divine name in the third, were no doubt 
 felt as difficulties, but finally the objections seem 
 to have been overcome. 
 
 There remains one more topic which must be 
 slightly touched upon. So far we have been 
 deahng with the history of the Jewish Canon of 
 the Old Testament. But there is a history of 
 the Christian Canon of the Old Testament also. 
 In the first paper of this series something was 
 said about the origin of that Greek translation of 
 the Old Testament called the Septuagint. In- 
 corporated with this were certain other Greek 
 writings which mostly were penned by members 
 of the Jewish Alexandrian colony, and chiefly in 
 the second and first century befoje the Christian 
 era. The books are familiar to us under the 
 name Apocrypha. The word originally means 
 *' hidden," but acquired a secondary meaning of 
 *' spurious." It is denied on good authority that 
 
124 OUR BIBLE 
 
 there was any question among the Jews of the 
 canonicity of these writings. But " in proportion 
 as the [Christian] Fathers were more or less 
 absolutely dependent on that [i.e. the Greek] 
 version for their knowledge of the Old Testament 
 Scriptures, they gradually lost in common prac- 
 tice the sense of the difference between the 
 books of the Hebrew Canon and the Apocrypha. 
 The custom of individuals grew into the custom 
 of the Church ; but the custom of the Church 
 was not fixed in an absolute judgment." Under 
 the influence of Augustine, the Council of 
 Carthage (397 a.d.) adopted an enlarged Canon 
 which included the Apocrypha, '' though with a 
 reservation," and wholly unsupported by any 
 representation of the Greek portion of the 
 Church. But still up to the Reformation period, 
 distinguished Fathers in succesiiion championed 
 a pure Hebrew Canon, without the Apocrypha. 
 The Romanists at the Council of Trent, in the 
 middle of the sixteenth century, pronounced in 
 favour of the larger Canon, and declared the 
 apocryphal books of the Old Testament to be 
 worthy of " equal veneration " with the Hebrew 
 books. 
 
HO]V IT HAS COME TO US 125 
 
 The reformed Churches — and our own amongst 
 them — decidedly pronounced themselves in 
 favour of the pure Hebrew Canon. But the 
 English Church does not absolutely set aside 
 the apocryphal books. It does not use them 
 for the establishment of doctrine, but reckons 
 them useful *' for example of life and instruction 
 of manners." With this end in view some of 
 the week-day lessons in the Lectionary are 
 chosen from the Apocrypha. 
 
 We have now seen how the books of the 
 Bible were collected and finally fenced round. 
 As one thinks of all that might have happened 
 in so difficult a task, and then looks at what 
 has actually happened, it does surely all bespeak 
 the presence of a guiding Spirit. In the varied 
 components of the divine Library of Scripture, 
 we have indeed a most impressive example of 
 the '' manifold wisdom of God." 
 
INDEX 
 
 ^LFRic of Winchester, 48, 49 
 Alfred, King, as translator, 47, 
 
 48 
 Ancient writing materials, 32, 33 
 Anglo-Saxon Invasion, the, 39 
 
 Bede, Venerable, 44-47 
 Bible, The 1 
 
 Reading of, discouraged in 
 
 England, 56, 75 
 Spread of, in England, 71 
 The "Great Bible" author- , 
 
 ised, 74 
 The " Geneva," 76 
 TheComplutensian Polyglott, ; 
 
 88, 89 
 King James's Revisers, 89 
 The Revised Version, 90-97 
 
 Cj.dmon. 41-44 
 
 Canon, History of the, 105-125 
 
 Carthage, Council of, and the 
 
 Canon, in, 124 
 Chaucer, 52 
 Codex A, 20 
 „ B, 20 
 
 ,, Aleph, Discovery of, 21-24 j 
 Complutensian Polyglott, The, ' 
 
 88, 89 i 
 
 Copernicus, 61 
 Coverdale, 'j^^ 
 Cursive MSS., 19 
 
 Herodotus MSS., 27 
 Hilda, Abbess, 41-43 
 
 James (King), his revisers, 89 
 Jerome, St., 84 
 
 Luther, 61 
 
 Massoretic Text of Old Testa- 
 ment, 13 
 Matthews's Bible, 73 
 MSS. Hebrew Old Testament, 
 
 13. 14 
 Oldest of Septuagint, 17, i8 
 Greek New Testament, 19 
 Cursive and Uncial, 19 
 New Testament, anterior to 
 
 Fourth Century, 25-29 
 of Herodotus, 27 
 of Tacitus, 27 
 Monuments, The, and the Old 
 
 Testament, 18 
 More, Sir Thomas, his opposition 
 to Tyndale's Bible, 68, 69 
 
I2J 
 
 INDEX 
 
 Nicholas of Hereford, 55 
 Nicodemus the Stranger, his 
 
 transcription, 30 
 Norman Invasion, Effects of the, 
 
 ^0-52 
 
 Printing, Invention of, 12, 61 
 Printers' errors, 31 
 Protevangelium, The, 117 
 Purvey, Richard, 56 
 
 Renaissance, The, 60 
 Revised Version, The, 89, 90 
 Aims of the Revisers, 91-97 
 The Old Testament, 97-101 
 The New Testament, 92-97 
 
 Septuagint, The story of the, 
 15. 16 
 Oldest MSS. of, 17 
 
 Tacitus MS. , 27 
 Testament, 
 
 History of the Canon {see 
 
 Canon) 
 Old Testament, modernness of 
 Hebrew MSS., 13, 14 
 and the Monuments, 18 
 Revised Version, 97-101 
 New Testament, Greek MSS., 
 
 19 
 
 MSS. anterior to Fourth 
 Century, 25-29 
 
 Translations of Second 
 Century, 28 
 
 Testament, Transcription of Nico- 
 demus, 30 
 
 Revised Version, 92-97 
 Tischendorf, discovery of Code.x, 
 
 Aleph, 21-24 
 Translations , 
 
 ^Ifric's, 48, 49 
 
 Alfred's, 47, 48 
 
 Bede's, 44-47 
 
 Caedmon's, 41-44 
 
 Celtic, 38 
 
 Coverdale's, 73 
 
 Matthews", 73 
 
 Of the Second Century, 28 
 
 Tyndale's, 63-70 
 
 Wycliffe's, 53-55 
 Trent, Council of, and the Canon 
 
 124 
 Tyndale, life and times, 63 
 
 Martyrdom, 70 
 
 Uncial MSS., 19 
 Oldest, 20 
 
 Vulgate, The, 83 
 Dishke to, 84, 85 
 Declared authentic, 87 
 
 Writing, ancient material 
 
 32, 33 
 Wycliffe, life and times, 53-55 
 
 s for, < 
 
 Ximl:nes, Cardinal, his Polyglott, 
 
Date Due 
 
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