THE UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS LIBRARY 220 . 5 ^ TOD3a cop. 2. : 1 4 o i y LIBRARY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS TRINITY METHODIST EPISCOPAL CHURCH, UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS. TO THE ERECTION OF WHICH THE PROCEEDS OF THE SALE OF THIS LITTLE BOOK ARE DEVOTED Our English Bible How We Got It WILLARD N. TOBIE Urbana, Illinois, 1905. / Contents. Chapter I.—General Character of the Bible. A Book of Books. Chap. II—Manuscripts. Ancient Writing Material. Origin of the word Bible. How Ancient Books were Multiplied. Chap. Ill—Ancient Versions. The Septuagint. Other Greek Versions—Origen’s Hexapla. Syriac. Egyptian. Old Latin. Chap. IV.—The Vulgate. Jerome. Chap. V.—The Roman Catholic Bible. History of its Canon. Its Text. The Douay Version. ENGLISH PROTESTANT VERSION. Chap. VI.—Wycliffe, the “First Protestant.” Chap. VII.—Tyndale. Events between Wycliffe and Tyndale. The First Printed English Bible. Martyrdom of Tyndale. Chap. VIII.—From Tyndale to King James. Coverdale’s Version. Matthews’ Bible. The “GreatBible.” The Geneva Bible. The Bishops’ Bible. Douay Bible—Koman Catholic. Chap. IX.—King James, or Authorized Version. Why and How it Was Made. Chap. X.—The Revised Version. How it Was Made. Why it Was Necessary. American Standard Edition of 1901. appendix ami ^Btbltagraphp- / 22 0.52 f5&* COif ' PREFACE f V ? * J T td Of* J J v This book is for busy people who run while they read. Histories of the English Bible abound; but most of them are too voluminous to be popular. This little volume was written to be read, and by as many people as possible: hence its brevity and popular style. But though brief and popular in style, it was not prepared in haste. The desire for historical accuracy has necessitated a year’s study and rummaging among the authorities. After the material was gathered, I was still doubt¬ ful about adding to the deluge of books. But having given the substance of this book in a series of ad¬ dresses to my own congregation, I was asked by sev¬ eral University students if it were possible to secure this matter in printed form. Their interest in the subject suggested that perhaps other young peo¬ ple would be interested in such a publication. The book has a double mission. Whether these pages in themselves are worth publication, the reader must judge. But no one can doubt the worthiness of the design to build Trinity Church as a religious home for hundreds of students at the University of Illinois, the sole purpose to which the proceeds of the sale of the little book are devoted. W. N. TOBIE, Pastor Trinity M. E. Church. Urbana, Illinois, June 27, 1905. Copyright, 1905, by Willard N. Tobie Published by the Epworth league of Trinity Church. Cjraptw: I. QJlwrarter nf the ?JtbT t. “None like it!” said Joseph Parker of London. He meant the Bible. Book of Books, or The Book we call it—and rightly. Of all books there is none other like it in character, history, richness, and power. “The word of God is living, and active, and sharp¬ er than any two-edged sword, and piercing even to the dividing of soul and spirit, of joints and marrow, and quick to discern the thoughts and intents of the heart. 5 ’ This is the Scripture’s characterization of itself. The Bible is a very old book, but none other is so much alive. It is active, or powerful , as the King James Version has it. What other book has such power? It has rent kingdoms, overthrown tyr- ranny, built civilizations. Earth has trembled with the tread of armies marching in defense of its prin¬ ciples or for their overthrow. In these milder times the roar [of battle has lulled, but the war of words goes on. It is still the most discussed literary pro¬ duction in the world. Its principles as never before agitate the nations. It is the inspiration of the high¬ est genius. It belongs to the literature of power. It is sharp, piercing, and quick to discern the thoughts and intents of the heart. No other book gets so close to us. “None like it.” The Bible is called The Book; but for many rea¬ sons it is important to keep in mind that it is also a 5 6 Book of books—a library. Though usually bound in a single cover, the Bible is a rich and varied library of sixty-six books according to Protestants, and of seventy-three according to Roman Catholics. In this library are found books of history, law, poetry, phi¬ losophy, and sermons. It contains the finest hymn- book in the world—the Psalter. Ruth is the sweet¬ est little idyl in existence. Two books are semi- dramatic—Job and Song of Songs. The New Testa¬ ment contains the most important collection of letters ever written. These books are not only diverse in character, but very different in age and authorship. The youngest book in the collection is a little more than eighteen hundred years old, while some of the Old Testament Scriptures were written considerably more than three thousand years ago. Moses, the author of the oldest, and John, author of the latest book, are separated by about fourteen centuries. A collection of books written during so long a period would of course be the work of many authors of vari¬ ous temperaments, education, occupations, and sur¬ roundings. Shepherds and kings, fishermen and scholars, servants and priests made contributions to this wonderful library. It is necessary to keep in mind this collective character of the Bible. If critics should prove that Esther is uninspired, or that Jonah is a fiction; that the history of the kings is unreliable, or a whole col¬ lection of Old Testament books apocryphal, in no way would this affect the reliability of any book except the ones in question. The Bible, besides being diverse in the character, 7 age, and authorship of its books, 1 was originally writ- ten in languages no longer spoken in their ancient forms. 2 Except for some Aramaic in the late books, the Old Testament was written in Hebrew, and the New Testament in Greek. Translations have there¬ fore been necessary, or the written word of God would long ago have been forgotten. As our personal spirit never loses its identity, though the body almost completely changes its substance oftener than every decade, so the spirit of the Bible is living today in all its ancient vigor, though the languages which first embodied it have been displaced by new and living tongues. # 1 Hebrews 1:1. 2 See App. 8 Cjrapitr II. ItfcmxTsrrTpts. The books of the Bible were first written on parchment or on papyrus. 1 Papyrus is a kind of reed now nearly extinct. Thin strips of the tissue of this reed were laid side by side with edges overlapping; another series was laid transversely to the first layer, and then the whole was subjected to pressure. When the tissue was fresh it contained a gum which stuck the edges together. The result was a fairly good pa¬ per, although we should now consider it a very poor writing material. Our word payer is derived from the Greek name for this reed— papyros , and this in turn came from its Egyptian name, papu. The Greeks also called it iyblos , and they called the books made of it, biblia , from which the word Bible is derived. We call those old parchments and papyrus rolls manu- seripts because they were all written by hand. A single word often contains a great deal of history. The original manuscripts of Bible writers long ago perished. Papyrus could not endure much hand¬ ling and would soon wear out. Parchment, though more durable, would also wear out or be lost. Many of the original New Testament manuscripts, it is sup¬ posed, perished in the early persecutions of Christ¬ ians ; for we know that special efforts were made to destroy their sacred writings. But from the very first copies of these autograph manuscripts were made; and since printing by movable type was not 1 2 Tim. 4*13. 2 John 12. 9 invented until the middle of the fifteenth century, all copies of the Scriptures up to that time were made by hand. Hand work is not only very laborious and expensive, but it is more or less inaccurate. How¬ ever careful a copyist might be, mistakes would oc¬ cur. Here a line was omitted, there one word mis¬ taken for another. Sometimes a comment written by a former copyist on the margin of a manuscript was taken for part of the original and was incorpo¬ rated into the text. The next scribe who copied this first imperfect copy would preserve all its errors and perhaps add others. As a general rule, therefore, the older a manuscript the more likely it is to be cor¬ rect. But the reader must not conclude that the text of our Bible is hopelessly corrupt. Many copies of these original writings were made by different scribes; and since no two copyists are likely to make the same mistakes, one copy acts as a corrective to another. If a teacher should ask ten boys to copy a certain para¬ graph from the blackboard, the copies would proba¬ bly not all be alike. But no two boys would be like¬ ly to make the same errors. By comparing the ten copies it would be easy to reproduce the original text even if it had been erased; for in any given variation of the copies, the majority would probably be correct. Up to about 900 A. D. Greek manuscripts were in capital letters writ large and separate from one an¬ other. Such manuscripts are called uncials . Those written in the running hand used after that time are called cursives or minuscules . Now we have, in¬ cluding small fragments, about one hundred and twelve uncial copies of the Greek New Testament, 10 only two of which, however, contain all the books, while two more contain most of the New Testament. Altogether both of uncials and cursives, including quotations found in ancient church reading books, we have two or three thousand manuscript copies of all or part of the New Testament. Besides all these, we have versions of the Bible which were made earli¬ er than any existing Greek or Hebrew manuscript. Quotations from the Bible found in the works of an¬ cient Christian authors are numerous. So there is abundant material from which to ascertain very near¬ ly what the original text was. Two existing Greek manuscripts of the Bible date from about the year 350 A. D.; but no Hebrew manuscript of the Old Testament is older than the first part of the tenth century, A. D. 1 Yery few early Hebrew manuscripts exist. The chief cause of this is that the Christian church never made much use of the Hebrew Old Testament until the Protest¬ ant Reformation. Its transmission was therefore left to Jewish rabbis whose writings had no such means of being preserved as the monasteries afforded the Christian Scriptures. Besides this it was cus¬ tomary among the Jews to bury manuscripts that showed the least imperfection, either through age or error. More will be said about ancient Greek manu¬ scripts when we discuss the sources of our late Re¬ vised Versions. 1 Preface to R. V. of 1885. 11 Chapter III, Jtnrtent ^terstous. Owing to the wide dispersion of Jews and Chris¬ tians, it became necessary at a very early date to translate the Bible. The most ancient version of the Old Testament is a Greek version called the Septua¬ gint, which means seventy , from the tradition that it was the work of seventy or seventy-two men. The Pentateuch was translated at Alexandria about 285 B. C., and the other books during the next century and a half. This version was in common use in Pal¬ estine in the time of Christ, and from it the New Testament writers almost invariably make their quo¬ tations. This often explains why the New Testa¬ ment quotations do not always agree with our Old Testament; for the Old Testament of all English versions is derived directly or indirectly from the Hebrew Scriptures—not the Septuagint. 1 As time went on the text of the Septuagint be¬ came very uncertain, and other Greek translations were made—the most important being that of Aquila, of Theodotion, and of Symmachus. Finally Origen, who shared with Jerome the honor of being the greatest scholar among the early Christian fathers, arranged the Hebrew text and the Greek translations side by side in a work mostly of six col¬ umns, called the Hexapla. The earliest known version of both Old and New 1 This does not apply to the Apocrypha of course, as we shall understand later. 12 Testaments is the Peshitto, a Syriac version made in the second or third century directly from the Hebrew and the Greek. Some of the books of our New Tes¬ tament, however, are not found in this version, viz: 2 Peter, 2 and 3 John, Jude, and Revelation. This important work became known to Europe about 1652. Three years later it was printed at royal expense in Vienna from two rather late manuscripts. Since that time many fragmentary manuscripts of this version have been found,—two of them dating back to the fifth, and about a dozen to the sixth century. This version, made so near the apostolic age, is valu¬ able in determining the original form of the New Testament. Another valuable Syriac version of the New Testament was found by Cureton in a collection of manuscripts brought from Egypt in 1842, and another by Mrs. Lewis in 1892, 1 which date back to a still earlier period than the Peshitto. Then there are two Egyptian versions, the Bohairic and the Sahidic, both nearly as old as the Peshitto. Fragments exist also in other Egyptian dialects. Abyssinia had a version called the Aethiopic, dating from the fourth or fifth century. Of about the same date is the Armenian version made directly from the Greek, and the Gothic by Bishop Ulfilas of the fourth century. These versions are all valuable in deter¬ mining the original from which they are taken. Christianity spread quickly to Latin countries. Accordingly we find a very early Latin version of the Bible made about 150 A. D. Its origin is not known; but it is thought to be the work of several hands, and to have originated in Northern Africa. Its text va- 1 See How the Codex ivas Found , by Mrs. Gibson. ried greatly in different manuscripts and in different localities. Scholars generally think that some of the variations were due to revisions. It seems probable that what Augustine called the Itala was a revision of the Old Latin made in Italy. This Old Latin ver¬ sion continued to be more or less used in the Latin Church until about 800, when it was superseded ev¬ erywhere by the great version of Jerome called the Vulgate. This version deserves a chapter by itself. 14 <%pter IV. Th* HInTgat*. For a thousand years the Latin Vulgate was the Bible of Western Europe. It was virtually without a rival from the seventh century until the Protestant Reformation. It is still the authorized Bible of the Roman Catholic Church. Jerome was the greatest scholar of his age. He was born about 340 A. D. and died at Bethlehem in 420. His parents were Christians, but he wai not baptized in the faith until he went to Rome to study. Here he mastered Greek and Latin literature and made extensive study of philosophy. After residing in Gaul, Aquileia, and Syria, he went to Chalcis and spent four years in ascetic life and study—particu¬ larly of the Hebrew language. Then he was ordained priest at Antioch, and later went to Constantinople where he spent three years in close intimacy with the bishop, Gregory Nazianzen. In 382 he was sent on a mission to Rome, where he became secretary to Pope Damasus, under whose auspices he began re¬ vision of the Old Latin version of the New Testament. In 386 he became head of a monastery at Bethlehem. Here the fiery old saint spent the rest of his days pouring out vials of wrath on heretics, writing com¬ mentaries on the Bible, and completing his famous version of the Bible into Latin which, because of its wide acceptance, became known as the Vulgate, that is, the version in common use. Jerome’s New Testament can hardly be called an 15 independent translation, for it is merely the corrected text of the Old Latin version of which we have learn¬ ed. Jerome made only such changes as he thought to be absolutely necessary. Yet of course he referred to Greek manuscripts of his day in order to decide what changes were required. His work on the Old Testament was not pursued with a steady purpose from the beginning to the end of his labors. He began by revising the Psalms on the basis of the Septuagint making as few changes as possible. This Roman Psalter, as it was called, was used in Italian churches until the fifteenth century. But so carelessly was it handled by copyists that Je¬ rome was requested to make a second revision, which he did on the basis of Origen’s Hexapla. This be¬ came known as the Gallican Psalter because of its early popularity in Gaul. It eventually came into general use in the Latin Church; and although Je¬ rome afterwards made a translation of the Psalms directly from the Hebrew, it is this Gallican Psalter which is still found in the ordinary Vulgate. It is hard to wean people from familiar Bible language even though it is wrong. After translating the Old Testament books from the Septuagint he became disgusted with the bad state of that text and resolved to go to the original Hebrew. Another reason for abandoning the Sep¬ tuagint text was that the Jews in controversies with the Christians refused to acknowledge it as the au¬ thoritative Scripture. He translated all the books of the Hebrew Old Testament—the books now found in the Protestant Bibles. Later he revised a part of the 16 Apocrypha 1 , but most of it he passed over because he did not believe the Apocrypha belonged to the true Scriptures. 2 Jerome’s work was the best of all ancient trans¬ lations ; but like most revised versions, it aroused the most violent opposition. It was at least two hundred years before it became the commonly re¬ ceived version; and even after that, the Old Latin version continued more or less to be used. In fact, as already said, Jerome’s translation from the He¬ brew was never adopted in its entirety. St. Peter’s Church in Rome still uses his old Roman Psalter, and the rest of the Roman Catholic Church, the Gallican. So great were the discrepancies between Jerome’s version and the Old Latin that Rufinus, a former friend, openly charged him with deliberate falsifica¬ tion of Scriptures, Other prominent churchmen looked on the new version with suspicion. Neverthe¬ less, by its merits it won the day and finally became the universally accepted version of the Western Church. 1 See p. 17. 2 Jerome’s Prologus Galeatus. 17 (%i}jtcr V. Tfe %nrcm GJathnlit %bk. 1 . ITalin. It was said above that the Vulgate is today the authorized Bible of the Roman Catholic Church. It was made such by act of the famous Council of Trent held with several suspensions between the years 1545 and 1563 at Trent in the Tyrol. This council was called by Pope Paul III to correct certain moral abuses in the Church, to reform discipline, and to check heresy. This last object required a definite statement of the doctrine of the Roman Catholic Church. Protestantism had been sweeping over Europe, and its doctrines found advocates even in the old Church itself. Protestantism denied the authority of the pope in many important matters. It asserted that men were made just before God by faith, not by works. It declared the Scriptures to be the sole rule of faith and practice. It repudiated the tradi¬ tions of the Church and the decrees of councils and popes as in any sense equal to the Scriptures in au¬ thority. A strong evangelical party had arisen among the Catholic clergy, and between these pro¬ gressives and the conservatives a continuous battle went on. To restore peace the council was called. It was evident, however, almost at the opening that the pope, through three papal legates who presided, had control of affairs. Consequently the reactionary 18 party had its own way in all the proceedings of the assembly. Among the very first discussions of the council was that concerning the source of Christian faith. Is it Scripture alone, as the Protestants affirmed? To admit that would have undermined the whole ecclesiastical system of Rome. And so they decreed, It is both Scripture and Tradition; but more—they are of equal authority. 1 What the traditions included was not accurately defined. Pallavicini, one of the Catholic historians of the council, says that on this point there were almost as many opinions as heads. 2 In general it means all the teaching of the Church in matters of faith and practice not contained in Scripture. Tra¬ dition is designated by Roman Catholics as the “un¬ written word of God” contained in the “depository of the church.” The interesting preface to a recent American edition of the Roman Catholic English Bible sum¬ mons Paul as an upholder of this position of the Church. “Wherefore, brethren, stand fast, and hold the traditions which you have learned, whether by word or by our Epistle.” 2 Thess. 2:14. 3 “The Apostle of the Gentiles,” says the author of the pre¬ face, “thus gives precedence to the unwritten word of God presented to man by the Church,”—a state¬ ment which seems to claim more for tradition than did the decree of the Council of Trent. There is certainly no precedence expressed in this text. Any- 1 Ranke’s Hist, of the Popes, p. 57. 2 Istoria del Condlio di Trento, Bk. VI, Chap. XL t 3 2 Thess. 2:15 in Prot. versions. See App. 19 how, the oral teaching of an Apostle who had seen Jesus and conversed with other Apostles is one thing, and that of ecclesiastics separated from the apostolic age by two milleniums is another. This is a slight digression, but it partly explains the indifference of the Roman Church to the results of modern Biblical scholarship, and her lack of zeal in Bible distribution. But what is Scripture? What books compose it? To this inquiry the council next addressed itself. The reader probably knows that even in the Pro¬ testant Bibles printed a few years ago, several books called the Apocrypha were bound between the Old and the New Testaments. They comprise the books of I and II Esdras, Tobit, Judith, Wisdom of Solo¬ mon, Ecclesiasticus, Baruch, The Prayer of Manas- ses, I and II Maccabees, besides some additions not found in the Hebrew text of Esther and of Daniel. Palestinian Jews and their successors never esteem¬ ed these books as canonical, that is, divinely inspired, and authoritative for belief and conduct. Protest- ents everywhere have adopted the Jewish canon. The Alexandrian Jews, with whom originated the Septuagint, were less cautious in admitting these late and doubtful books and we find them attached to that version. All these except I and II Esdras (III and IV Esdras according to Roman Catholics) and The Prayer of Manasses were declared by the Council of Trent to be equal in sacredness and au¬ thority to the rest of the Old Testament . 1 Thus it happens that the Protestant Old Testament has 1 De Canonicis Scripturis, decretum ex Concilio Tridentino, Sec. IV, Loch’s edition of the Vulgate, p. XIV. See Appendix. 20 thirty-nine books, while that of the Roman Church has forty-six. The decision is very strange in view of the fact that the testimony of most of the early Fathers who had the best means of knowing the common opinion concerning these books is against their equality with other Old Testament writings. The earliest catalogue of Old Testament books we know is that of Melito, Bishop of Sardis, in the last half of the second century. A quotation from a letter of his is preserved in the Church History of Eusebius (about 324 A. D). 1 He says: “Accordingly, when I went to the East and came to the place where these things were preached and done, I learned accurately the books of the Old Testament. I send them as written below.” Then fol¬ lows the list, identical with that of the Protestant version except Esther. This omission might be an oversight. Eusebius 2 also preserves a statement of Origen of Alexandria who lived between the years 186 and 253. “There are twenty-two books’ 5 , says Origen, “accord¬ ing to the Hebrews, corresponding to the number of the letters of their alphabet.” In the list with which he follows this statement are found all the books of the Protestant canon except the twelve minor proph¬ ets, an omission which is clearly an accidental over¬ sight either by Origen, Eusebius, or a later copyist, for we know that Origen wrote a commentary on the Twelve Prophets. 3 In addition to these he includes 1 Eccl. Hist. 26:13, 14. 2 Eccl. Hist, bk VI. 25. 3 Euseb. Eccl. Hist. VI.:36. 21 the Epistle of Jeremiah (that is, the sixth chapter of Baruch), and the two books of Maccabees. Hilary, 1 bishop of Poictiers, France, about 365 A. D. gives the same list as Origen including the Twelve Minor Prophets, but omits Maccabees. 2 He remarks, somewhat doubtfully, “Some add Tobias and Judith. 55 Athanasius (373) rejects Esther, and adds Baruch and Epistle of Jeremiah. 3 Cyril, bishop of Jerusalem (386) gives the same as Athanasius, except that he includes Esther. Gregory Nazianzen (380), Bishop of Constantinople, gives a list identical with the Protestant canon, except that he omits Esther. 4 He adds, however, that some include it in the canon. With the exception of Esther, these wit¬ nesses agree on all the books of the Protestant canon, and disagree on the apocryphal books of Maccabees, and Baruch; while, except the doubtful reference of Hilary to Tobit and Judith, no other apocryphal book is mentioned. Besides these, we have the somewhat vague tes¬ timony of Josephus. 5 This famous Jewish historian was born four years after the ascension of Christ, and belonged to a priestly family. He says the Jews had only twenty-two books which were justly believed to be divine, and that the canon closed in the time of Artaxerxes in the fifth century B. C. He gives no enumeration, but a description by which we can iden¬ tify most of the books. Whatever his statement may 1 Prologue to the Book of Psalms 2 Epistle 39, on the Feast of. the Passover. 3 Catechesis IV, de Decern Dogmatibus, cap. 35. 4 Carminum bk. II. 6 Contra Apion bk. 1:8. 22 prove in favor of the Protestant canon, it is strongly against the declaration of the Council of Trent. But what says Jerome himself? We must re¬ member that a majority of witnesses does not consti¬ tute a preponderaice of evidence. Being the best Hebrew scholar of his day, in close touch with prom¬ inent Jewish scholars of Palestine his testimony weighs heavy. He openly opposed the canonicity of these books. In one of the prefaces to his transla¬ tion he gives a list of books found in the Hebrew canon. 1 This list contains exactly the same books as the Protestant Bible. “Whatever is outside of these,” he adds, “must be put among the Apocrypha.” In his letter to Paulinus On the Study of the Scripture, Jerome enumerates the books of the Bible, but makes no reference to any apocryphal book. The sweeping decision of the Council of Trent is scarcely intelligible, unless, indeed, it was on the ground that in 393 the Council of Hippo, and in 397 the Council of Carthage, both under the influence of Augustine, had approved the most of the Apocrypha, and later Pope Innocent had approved their decision, If, as Romanists assert, the deliverances of even a provincial council when ratified by a pope became in¬ fallible, how could the Council of Trent reverse a former finding? That would imply that these earlier councils and a pope had made a mistake. A queer defense of this generous canon is found in the preface to the edition of the English Catholic Bible before referred to: “As to the first part, or Old Testament, the version always recognized by the 1 Prologue Galeatus. See also Preface to Books of Solomon. 23 Church contains many more books than that used by other than Catholics. The reason of this discrep¬ ancy is that the Church’s version, the Septuagint, the Greek translation from the original Hebrew, and which contained all the writings now found in the Douay Version, as it is called, was the version used by the Saviour and his Apostles, and by the Church from her infancy, and translated into Latin, known under the title of Latin Vulgate, and ever recognized as the true version of the written word of God.” As if the fact that the Saviour and the Apostles quoted from the Septuagint forever settled all questions of genuineness and authenticity of every book found in the Septuagint! This is a mode of reasoning not confined to Roman Catholics. If Christ should come today and walk among us, he would certainly quote the version in common use among the people to whom he might be talking; but this would in no way settle questions of translation, or the canonicity of any book not quoted as Scripture. In fact it is a ques¬ tion whether any book of the Apocrypha was ever quoted as Scripture by Christ or the Apostles. 1 But to come back to the decree of Trent, right or wrong, it fixed the Roman Catholic canon. The third question was: What text of these books is the authentic word of God? The answer of the council was—The Vulgate. Thus a Latin translation mostly the work of one man, some of it very hastily done in the first place, 2 some of it a translation from a transla¬ tion, and at the time of the council incurably cor- 1 For a different opinion see Ency. Biblica., Vol. I, p. 673, sec. 57. 2 See App. 24 rupted in text, was put on a par with the original Greek and Hebrew. It was then decreed that no private interpreta¬ tion of Scripture be permitted—that the Church is the sole judge of its meaning. Seventeen years later the Council finally adjourns. It writes at the end of its decrees, “Anathema to all heretics, anathema, anathema.’ 7 The delegates subscribe their names and return home, having pronounced this three-fold curse on those who deny the validity of their de¬ cisions. Before leaving the subject of the Vulgate it is but fair to speak of its history after the Council of Trent. Publication of the book without authority was prohibited under penalty. It was, therefore, left to the pope to prepare an authorized edition. Pope Sixtus V (1585-1590) entrusted a commission of cardinals and scholars with the task of examining the best manuscripts of the Vulgate. Great labor was spent in the preparation of a text. The pope himself worked at it diligently. In 1590 appeared the Sixtine edition, which was declared by the pope to be U true, lawful, authentic, and unquestioned. 77 It was, indeed, a good text. But alas! “ The best laid schemes o’ mice and men Gang aft agley.” Bellarmine, a Jesuit, an enemy of Sixtus, induced Pope Clement VII to interdict the edition of Sixtus and issue another. The Clementine edition of 1592 with a few subsequent changes made before 1598 is still the standard edition of the Roman Catholic Church. 25 For the sake of clearness it will be helpful to re¬ view the character of the Vulgate as we have it to¬ day: (1) The New Testament is Jerome’s revision of the Italian form of the Old Latin version. (2) The Psalms are the Gallican Psalter of Jerome, which is a revision of the Old Latin on the basis of Origen’s Hexapla with chief reference to the Sep- tuagint form of that text. (3) Judith and Tobit were first translated by a friend of Jerome from the Aramaic into Hebrew which Jerome then hurriedly turned into a free Latin version. 1 The rest of the Apocrypha is Old Latin unrevised. (4) The other books of the Old Testament are fundamentally Je¬ rome’s translation from the same Hebrew text we have today. (5) Because of contemporaneous use with the Old Latin for more than two hundred years much of the phraseology of the older version crept back into Jerome’s text and hopelessly corrupted it. From all this it is evident what a composite pro¬ duction the modern Vulgate is. The best existing manuscript of the Latin Vul¬ gate dates from 716 and is known as the Oodex Ami- atinus. It was copied from Italian manuscripts in Northumberland, England, by command of Abbot Oeolfrid, who started to Rome with it as a votive of¬ fering to the pope. But Ceolfrid died on his way to Rome and the fortunes of his gift are not fully known after that time, but it probably reached its intended destination. It is now in Florence. There are some older manuscripts of the Vulgate but none are con¬ sidered by scholars very important in determining the text of Jerome. 1 Preface to Judith and Tobit. 26 We shall see that the oldest Greek manuscripts used by the late revisers of the English Bible are old¬ er by at least 350 years than the best manuscripts of the Roman Catholic Bible. 2 . But what Bible is used by English Roman Cath¬ olics who cannot read Latin? The English Catholic Bible is known as the Douay version. The New Testament was translated at Rheims in 1582, the Old Testament at Douay in 1609. It was the work of some English scholars who fled from their native land during the persecution of non-conformists under Queen Elizabeth. They used as a basis not the orig¬ inal Greek and Hebrew, but the Latin Yulgate, which they declared to be superior to the original. The text was accompanied by savage notes against heretics. Modern editions modify the tone of their notes, but at every point uphold the doctrine and usages of the Roman Church. An amazing example of this is found in Dr. Challoner’s notes now com¬ monly appended to the Douay Bible. The comment on I. Cor. 14:16, a passage which certainly seems to be opposed to the use in church services of tongues not understood by the congregation, reads thus : u The use or abuse of strange tongues, of which the apostle here speaks, does not regard the public liturgy of the church, (in which strange tongues were never used ,). .. Where also note, that the Latin used in our liturgy, is so far from being a strange or unknown tongue, that it is perhaps the best known tongue in the world,"' (The See also p. 48. 27 Italics are mine). Some of the renderings also are evidently affected by the views of the Church. For instance, where in the Protestant version the words repentance and repent are used, the Douay has penance and do penance —a very different thing from that ex¬ pressed in the Greek word metanoeo , which signifies change of mind or motive, and consequently a change of life. 1 Although this Bible was put out as an antidote to the Protestant versions then in use, it was plainly influenced by the Geneva, Bishops’, and Wycliffe versions. 2 Subsequent revisions, of which there have been many, show very decided deference to the King James version. The English of the Douay Bible has the merit of a rather free, running style; but, while many of the ridiculous phrases of the first editions have been culled out, it is still marred by many un- English and painfully literal expressions. For ex¬ ample, I Pet. 5 :5, “And do you all insinuate humility one to another;” Mat. 6:11, “Give us this day our supersubstantial bread”; Mat. 18:6, “But he that shall scandalize one of these little ones that believe in me,” etc.; Gen. 1:3, “Be light made” ; James 5 :17, “Elias was a man passible like unto us: and with prayer he prayed that,” etc. This is due to the translator’s worship of the Latin. We have now traced the origin and history of the Bible authorized by the Roman Catholic Church. We have seen how its canon is derived not from the most 1 Tyndale’s Answer to More-Parker Society, p. 22. 2 See The Part of Rheims in the Making of the New Testament , p. 15-16. 28 ancient authorities, but from the Septuagint; that the u authentic’ ’ text is not that of the oldest Greek and Hebrew sources,—a fact which will appear more forcibly as we proceed,—but of the Latin Vulgate and a degenerate text of that; and that the Douay Version is based on the Vulgate. 29 gnfflish protestant Ttersimts* Chapter VI, Mgdiffe. On a warm May day in 1382 in Blackfriar’s Monas¬ tery, London, an assembly of monks and begging Fri¬ ars, doctors of the Church and prelates dressed in gor¬ geous robes had gathered at the call of Courtenay, Archbishop of Canterbury. Excitement was intense. What was it all about? Why, a pale, spare man weakened by study and abstemious habits, had lately been shaking the very foundations of the Church. He was professor at Oxford and parish priest at Lut¬ terworth. Those were days when it made a difference what a man believed; and so this council had been called to try this troublesome man for heresy. Twice before he had stood on trial before a similar council and had been saved by friends who violently broke up the assembly. But on this third summons, be¬ cause of sickness it is supposed, he did not come. So the trial proceeded without the defendant. Who was he? None other than John Wycliffe, a devout Cath¬ olic, yet truly called “The First Protestant”. For what fearful heresy or crime had he been arraigned? For drunkenness, or lust, or treason to the king? No. Church dignitaries in those days would hardly have noticed these. But he had attacked the pretensions of the Church to the supreme power in the State. He had denounced indulgences, pilgrimages, worship of relics and images of saints, and adoration of the saints themselves. He had denied the power of the Church to excommunicate one from the kingdom of God un- 30 less he had first excommunicated himself. Worse yet, he had denied that the bread and wine of the Lord’s Supper are really the body and blood of Christ. Then, too, this arch-heretic had appealed to the Bi¬ ble as the one ground of faith, 1 and had asserted the right of every man to examine the Bible for himself. He was at that very time engaged-in a translation of the Scripture into the English tongue, although this does not appear as a formal charge against him. A third time violence was to mar the proceedings of a council called to consider the case of this pale little man, but this time it was the violence of nature. In the midst of their deliberations, suddenly London was shaken by an earthquake violent enough to over¬ turn steeples and shake stones out of castle walls. England had seldom felt the like before. Every one in the great hall was dumfounded except the hardy Primate, who exclaimed that the expulsion of noxious vapors from the earth was of good omen for the ex¬ pulsion of ill-humors from the Church. Fear was allayed, the council proceeded, and Wycliffe’s doc¬ trines were condemned. Shortly afterward he was expelled from Oxford, and Lollardry—as his system was called—was finally suppressed. But quietly at his little parsonage at Lutterworth Wycliffe continued to forge his mightiest weapon against the abuses of the Church—the Bible in the English tongue. Nicholas Hereford, his Oxford friend, assisted him in the task. It is generally thought that the most of the Old Testament was Hereford’s work. But when he had proceeded as far 1 Select Works of John Wycliffe. Arnold, Vol. 111-495. 31 as the middle of Baruch, he too received a summons to London for heresy. He was excommunicated and in 1382 he left England. Wycliffe then revised Hereford’s work and translated the rest of the Bible. But the reformer was not to be left in peace. A summons came from the pope himself to come to Rome to answer the charge of heresy. Wycliffe knew perfectly what that meant. The indomitable spirit of the old reformer is shown in his sarcastic refusal to obey. Wycliffe was the braver because he knew his departure could not in any event be long delayed. On the last Sunday of the year 1384 while hearing mass with his flock at Lutterworth, he was suddenly stricken with paralysis, and the tongue which had shaken the foundations of the throne of “Anti- Christ 3 ’, as he had dubbed the pope, never spoke again. The next day, the last of the year, he died. Thus passed away one of God’s noblemen, a man valiant for the truth. A petition was sent to the pope asking that Wycliffe’s body be exhumed and buried in a dunghill. To his everlasting honor, he refused it. But years afterward, by order of the Council of Constance, the reformer’s remains were dug up, burned, and hurled into the river Swift. The Bible of Wycliffe and Hereford was the first complete translation of the Scriptures in the English tongue. Other partial translations had been made in the old Anglo-Saxon days, but not for general use. Wycliffe may properly be called the John Baptist of a new dispensation in English Bible translation. This version was made from the Vulgate; for the translators had no access to original Greek and He¬ brew sources, and could not have read them if they 32 had. The English of Hereford and of Wycliffe exhibits a great difference in style. Hereford was somewhat pedantic and over-literal; Wycliffe used the homely language of the common man. This discrepancy was so noticeable that Purvey, a close friend of Wycliffe, made a revision which appeared in 1388, and gener¬ ally displaced the earlier version. The strong and symple style of this English Bible influenced every later version ; and many of the felicitous expressions of even our latest version can be traced directly to the Wycliffe Bible. Two things, however, conspired to limit the cir¬ culation of this first complete English Bible. It ap¬ peared about seventy years before printing was in¬ vented, and was consequently a manuscript Bible, too expensive for people of ordinary means. A charge which has come down to us made against Nicolas Belward, a heretic, was that he had bought a New Testament for four marks and forty pence, a sum now equal to more than $200. 1 Foxe, who lived a hundred years after Wycliffe, says: “After Wyc- liffe’s time some gave a load of hay for a few chap¬ ters of St. James or St. Paul.” Secondly, except to those who “had license there¬ to,” the reading of this Bible was prohibited by the Church under severe penalties. The bishops and the friars made strong efforts to stamp out this version as if it were the plague, and unlicensed possessors of a copy were not safe from the vigilance of the au¬ thorities. 2 But in spite of these restrictions it se- 1 See Trevelyan’s England in the Age of Wycliffe , p. 342. Introduction to Bagster’s English Hexapla. 2 Trevelyan, pp. 130, 342, 361. 33 cured considerable circulation. People gathered in little meetings to hear it read or recited by one who knew it by heart, or to listen to one of Wycliffe’s u poor priests’ 5 expound it. Such meetings of course were often held at the peril of being burned at the stake, for the spies of the Church were alert. Surely the kingdom is coming, for today the Bible is the cheapest of books, and great organized agencies exist solely to teach it or to send it to the ends of the earth in the language of the common people. 34 Cjrepier VII. Tgitdale. Wycliffe’s work was only a prophecy of greater things to be done—the “Morning Star” that heralded the coming day. He had given the English people a taste for the word of God, and henceforth all the pow¬ er of Ohnrch and State could not keep it from them. A hundred years pass by, and another valiant man champions the cause of truth,—William Tyndale, dis¬ tinguished scholar of Oxford and of Cambridge. In that hundred years two momentous events had happened. The first was the invention of printing, which had made a hand-written book a curious relic of the past. It had taken almost a year to make a single copy of Wycliffe’s Bible. Today a single Lon¬ don firm can make Bibles at the rate of two a minute. Even by the slow hand presses of Tyndale ? s time thousands of copies were made while one had been made before. If the powers of Church and State could not exterminate the handwritten Bibles, what could they do with a printed Bible? Nevertheless they tried. The second important occurrence was the capture in 1453 of Constantinople by the Turks. From that city, the home of Greek learning, scholars fled to western Europe, especially to Italy, where already a there was a keen interest in Greek studies, and there¬ fore these teachers were welcomed. With them came a better knowledge of the Greek language. With them they brought the classic literature of 35 ancient Greece, the works of the early church Fathers who wrote in Greek, and—more important than all— the Greek New Testament and the ability to read it. “ Greece rose from the grave with the New Testament in her hand.” In this way came to western universities a knowledge of Greek New Testament manuscripts so long forgotten and unread. Erasmus, one of the most learned men of the sixteenth century, having gone to Italy in 1506 where he perfected his knowl¬ edge of Greek, came to Cambridge University, where from about 1511 to 1514 he was professor in theology and Greek. During his stay at Cambridge he was at work on his famous edition of the Greek New Testa¬ ment which he published at Basel in 1516. As a work of scholarship it is not remarkable, but judged by its influence it is one of the most noteworthy books ever published. A writer in the Encyclopedia Britannica says: “It contributed more to the liberation of the human mind from the thraldom of the clergy than all the uproar and rage of Luther’s many pamphlets.” In view of the profound influence of this Greek New Testament in advancing the Protestant Reformation, it is not strange that Thomas Gardiner, Bishop of Winchester, called Erasmus “the odious bird” which laid the egg hatched by Luther. Erasmus did little to solve the problem of what the original text of the New Testament was: he merely raised the question. The same can be said of the Complutensian Polyglot, a Greek New Testament by Cardinal Ximenes which appeared soon after. Erasmus’ first edition contained a Greek text founded on two late Basel manuscripts collated with two oth- 36 ers, and along side of it, a Latin translation. Re¬ prints of this work were made in 1519, 1522, 1527, and 1535, in which many changes were made. In the edi¬ tion of 1522 the spurious passage in I John 5 :7 was admitted on the evidence of a single manuscript. These editions had little critical value, but one thing they did: they brought scholars back to original sources for the word of God, and emphasized the fact that the Vulgate was not only a second hand docu¬ ment, but that it was in many particulars erroneous. At the same time came renewed interest in He¬ brew. For centuries this noble language had been neglected. Even as far back as Christ’s day, the Sep- tuagint, or Greek Old Testament, was used by all Jews except Palestinian rabbis. The conflict of the early Christian Church with Judaism intensified the dislike of the Church toward anything Jewish; and so Hebrew manuscripts were often regarded with suspicion. Thus Hebrew even more than Greek was a forgotten language. We have spoken of Jerome as a notable exception to this rule. But Hebrew shared in the revival of classical studies, and the Old Testa¬ ment was in a sense rediscovered. Johann Reuchlin, who learned Hebrew in Italy, published in 1506 a Hebrew grammar; and with this began the study of Hebrew in Germany. For the first time, therefore, original sources for an English translation of the Scriptures and the means of rapidly diffusing them were at hand, await¬ ing only the man with sufficient courage and ability to use them. That man was William Tyndale. One hundred years after the death of Wycliffe and one year after the birth of Luther, Tyndale was 37 born. After graduating at Oxford he went to Cam¬ bridge where he remained until 1521. He had al¬ ways been fond of the study of the Scriptures, but during these years at Cambridge his spirit was deep¬ ly moved by the New Testament of Erasmus. From the time when he began to study the Scriptures in the original, his enthusiasm would not let him keep to himself his newly found treasure. He debated with priests and scholars urging them to study the Bible. “If God spare my life,” he exclaimed to an opponent in debate, whose words had stung him, U I will cause a boy that driveth the plow shall know more of the Scripture than thou dost.” It was no idle boast. To this great purpose he gave his work and his life at last. But the plow-boy to know the Scripture must have it in his own tongue. Tyndale applied to Tuns- tall, Bishop of London, who was reputed to be a pat¬ ron of the new learning, for permission to translate the Bible at the Bishop’s residence and under his supervision. He was refused. But he found shelter with a merchant-alderman, and quietly for half a year worked away at his English translation. But danger threatened. King Henry VIII and his ecclesiastical supporters were making havoc with Lutheran sympathizers. Tyndale saw men led to death for denouncing either the errors of the Church or the crimes of the king. People were imprisoned or killed merely for reading the works of Luther: how then could a translator of the Bible be safe? U I understood at the last,” says Tyndale, “not only that there was no room in my lord of London’s palace to translate the New Testament, but also that there was 38 no place to do it in all England.” 1 And so, assisted by Monmouth, his alderman patron, with an annual gift of ten pounds, he left England for Hamburg and never again saw his native land. In constant danger he pursued his work of trans¬ lation, until at last his manuscript was in the hands of a printer in Cologne. But trouble ever dogged his heels. Well had the secret been kept from the spies of the Church, of Henry VIII, and of the Con¬ tinental authorities, who were all working to com¬ pass the destruction of the zealous translator. But Cochlaeus, a priest, overhearing the conversation of some printers which aroused his suspicion, invited them to his quarters, got them drunk, and learned that the English New Testament was being printed in their shop. He quickly took means to have the authorities arrest Tyndale and seize his manuscript and the printed sheets. 2 A hurried warning reaches Tyndale. He rushes to the printer’s, seizes his pre¬ cious work of years, and escapes to Worms, a Prot¬ estant city. Here he accomplished his design. Six thousand copies of the New Testament were pub¬ lished in 1525, the first edition—that begun at Co¬ logne—with notes, and the second without, in order that the books might not be recognized by means of the description Cochlaeus had sent to England. Early in 1526, thanks to the generosity of English mer¬ chants who kept Tyndale supplied with funds, copies of this first printed English New Testament began iTynd ale’s Preface to “ The fyrst boke of Moses called Gene¬ sis ” 1531. 2 Cochlaeus’ Be Actis et Scriptis Martini I/utheri, quoted in Arber’s preface to The First English New Testament. 39 to flow into England, and by being smuggled in bar¬ rels and boxes of other goods were soon scattered through the country. Tunstall, Bishop of London, backed by royal au¬ thority, determined to stop this importation. Find¬ ing that seizing copies and solemnly burning them with public denunciation was useless, he sent a mer¬ chant by the name of Pakington, a secret friend of Tyndale, to Germany to buy of Tyndale all his Bibles. Tyndale was glad of the chance, for his funds were low, and but for some such luck as this he must needs go out of the Bible business. u And so,” re¬ marks the old chronicler Halle, who tells this story, “the bishop had the Bibles, Pakington had the thanks, and Tyndale had the money.” These “naughty books,” nevertheless, came into England faster than ever. Tyndale continued to revise and improve his work and used his funds in issuing other editions—one in 1529 and the last in 1534. Mean¬ while his translation of the Pentateuch appeared in 1530, and Jonah in 1531. Tyndale never made a complete translation of the Old Testament. It is not strange that the authorities of the Church should violently oppose the circulation of this trans¬ lation, for the first or quarto edition of 1525 was ac¬ companied with notes, some of which were vigorous¬ ly anti-papal. When, for example, these notes ex¬ plain that the pope’s bull has slain more than Aaron’s calf, it is not strange that loyal Papists should ob¬ ject. Yet these notes alone do not account for the opposition of the Bishops. They opposed Bible translation as a principle: if not, why did not Tunstall permit Tyndale to work in the Bishop’s 40 palace and under his supervision? He might have prevented the anti-papal notes and had an English Bible to his own liking. The only adequate expla¬ nation is that he did not want an English Bible at all. What of the translation itself? Well, it was the first printed English Bible, and the very first English version to be made from the Greek and Hebrew. Wycliffe’s Bible and the fragmentary versions made in Anglo-Saxon days had been made from the Vul- gate. Tyndale’s Greek sources, however, were neither abundant nor critically valuable, for he used the Greek text of Erasmus. For the Old Testament he used the same text we have today—the Massoretic, as it is called. Except for some renderings into local or provincial terms, the work was admirably done. Instances of local coloring are the following: Luke 2 :3 And every man wente in to his owne shire toune there to be taxed. ” I Cor. 16 :8 “I will tarry at Ephesus til Whitsun¬ tide.” 1 Pet. 5:3 u Be not as lordes over the parishes” But such local coloring was hardly a fault. To the common people it helped to make the Bible a liv¬ ing book. In fact so admirable was Tyndale’s lan¬ guage for strength and purity, that it became the foun¬ dation of all subsequent English versions. Much of the King James version follows it word for word. Even the Douay version shows the powerful influence of Tyndale’s rich and striking English. For the pure and beautiful English of our latest version we are in¬ debted to this heroic man of learning who seems in¬ deed to have kept in mind the “boy that driveth the 41 plough” rather than the pedants of the Church and Universities. The oft-quoted tribute of Mr. Froude is not exaggerated, ‘The peculiar genius which breathes through the English Bible, the mingled ten¬ derness and majesty, the Saxon simplicity, the gran¬ deur, unequaled, unapproached in the attempted improvements of modern scholars, all are here, and bear the impress of the mind of one man, and that man, William Tyndale.” Tyndale himself hardly lived to seethe first fruits of his labor. Henry VIII and the Continental author¬ ities had pursued him with unceasing malignity. Vaughan, envoy of the king, had been sent with smooth speech to urge him to return, but failed. Treachery was then resorted to. A priest by the name of Phillips, polite in manner, but a villain at heart, secured Tyndale’s confidence, decoyed him away from home, and had him seized and thrown into prison where for months he suffered agonies of cold and sickness. His enemies were relentless. The end of his persecutions for righteousness’ sake came at Vilvorde near Brussels on October 6, 1536. “Lord, open the King of England’s eyes!” he prayed. After this last prayer for his enemy, he was strangled and his body burned at the stake. And so was added an¬ other name to the list of martyrs of faith of whom the world was not worthy. 42 Copter YIII. From Tgxukrte to tire hi \rtg ^knurs Aleman. 153146U. Cover dale. Finding it impossible to stop the flood of Tyndale Bibles, Henry YIII finally promised that if the peo¬ ple would leave off reading “heretical” Bibles, he would see that they had a “more correct” version made by “learned and Catholic persons” under super¬ vision of the authorities of Church and State. In 1534 Henry formally severed the English Church from the papacy, and from that time there was less motive for suppressing the English Bible; for the ecclesiasti- cism that formerly objected to a vernacular Bible had received a blow which paralyzed its power. The promise, however, had been given before the formal breach, and the task of making the translation had been committed to the bishops, who of course delayed it as long as possible. At last Miles Coverdale, a friend of Tyndale and of Archbishop Cranmer, was di¬ rected hy Thomas Cromwell, Henry’s Prime Minister to prepare a version. He did so—using as a basis not the Greek and Hebrew, but, as his preface stated, the “Douche and Latin” with the help of “sundry interpreters”. The “Douche” is the version of Zwin- gli and Juda of 1524-1529; the Latin is the Vulgate. Of the “sundry interpreters” it is plain that Tyn¬ dale is most important. The New Testament is merely a revision of Tyndale. Coverdale’s transla¬ tion appeared in 1535. Although not formally sane- 43 0 tioned by the king it was dedicated to him and circu¬ lated freely. It has the distinction of being the first complete Bible printed in the English language. For such a task Coverdale was unfit both in spir¬ it and scholarship. His eye was open to the favor of the king and the approval of Church dignitaries. Tyn- dale had used the terms “congregation”, “senior”, “love”; but Coverdale put back the more ecclesias¬ tical words “church”, “priest”, and “charity”. Who¬ ever has not an eye single to the truth, regardless of party or sect, is unfit to handle the word of God who is no respector of persons. This time-serving spirit of Coverdale together with his acknowledged lack of scholarship made his work unsatisfactory, and left the way open for other efforts at Bible revision. Matthews ’ Bible . In 1537 appeared a revision called Matthews’ Bi¬ ble. It was put out by John Rogers, who because of his known intimacy with Tyndale and other reform¬ ers, assumed the name of Matthews in order not to prevent the success of his publication. It is sub¬ stantially Tyndale’s version of the Old Testament from Genesis to the close of II Chronicles and of all the New Testament. Besides the New Testament Tyndale had only published the Pentateuch and Jo¬ nah ; but he left manuscript translations of the Old Testament, as far as II Chronicles. For the rest of the Old Testament, including the Apocrypha, Rog¬ ers revised Ooverdale’s version. It is funny to hear Archbishop Cranmer say, 1 a year after Tyndale’s death, that he liked Matthews’ Bible 1 Cranmer’s Remains and Letters edited by Parker Society (1846) p. 344. 44 “better than any translation hitherto made;” that if they waited till the bishops should set forth a better translation they would wait till “a day after dooms¬ day” ; and that he would rather see it licensed by the king than receive 1000 pounds. 1 The Archbishop seemed to be unaware that it was really Tyndale’s Bible. How the brave old martyr, if he knew what was going on in England, must have chuckled with pleasure at this approval of his work by the highest Church dignitary in the land; and his merriment must have exceeded all bounds when the king who had hunted him and his Bibles like the plague actu¬ ally sanctioned Rogers 5 publication. The obvious reason for all this is that a king and an archbishop were ridiculously deceived. The Great Bible . By the irony of Divine Providence a greater won¬ der was yet to come. Could Tyndale have believed it? Three years from the day in October, 1536, when he prayed that the Lord would open the king of Eng¬ land’s eyes, a big English Bible lay upon the desk of almost every church in the realm. It was really Tyn¬ dale’s version, as we shall see, and withal so preten¬ tious in size that it seemed calculated to emphasize the greatness of his triumph. For that reason it was called the “Great Bible”. It all came about in this way—and the story is so funny that it almost seems that the Lord loves a joke now and then. Matthews’ Bible was favored by Cranmer and licensed by the king; but many of the clergy were either hostile or luke-warm towards it. 1 Cranmer’s Letters, p. 346. 45 Cromwell strongly favored it, but yielded to the de mand for a more elaborate edition free from the con¬ troversial notes of Rogers’ publication, and according¬ ly employed Coverdale—who was really a good editor —to revise Matthews’ Bible. Using Munster’s Latin version as a basis for the Old Testament, and for the New, the Latin version of Erasmus, Coverdale soon had his work ready for the press. Paris offered bet¬ ter facilities for fine printing than London, and so the new edition was launched in France. But when part of the printing had been done, the Inquisition alighted upon it like a harpy and much of what had been done was destroyed. But Grafton, the printer, and Coverdale, managed to convey types, presses and expert French printers into England, where, early in 1539, the first edition of the Great Bible appeared. Henry VIII had formally given his authorization, and the Great Bible continued to be the authorized version until 1568. The clergy were nevertheless greatly dissatisfied with the translation and were about to proceed to revise it when the king headed them off. The frontispiece to this Bible was an elaborate design representing, among other things, the king on his throne with a copy of the “Word of God” in each hand. On one side he is presenting the book to Cran- mer and another bishop while a group of priests stand by. On the other side he is giving the book to Crom¬ well and the lay peers. Thus the king—not the ec¬ clesiastical powers—is represented as the dispenser and authorizer of the word of God. Surely things had been changing rapidly in Eng¬ land. In 1521 the pope had conferred upon Henry 46 the title of “Defender of the Faith” because of a de¬ fense of Romanism Henry had written against Luther. But thirteen years later Parliament had {massed the Act of Supremacy making the king the head of the English Church, thus wrenching England from the hand of the pope. Henry had married as his first wife Catharine of Aragon, widow of his brother Ar¬ thur. Several years after this marriage Henry con¬ ceived a passion for his wife’s maid, Anne Boleyn. This quickened his conscience that his marriage to his sister-in-law was illegal according to Scripture and the canons of the Church. Consequently he asked the pope for a divorce. Fearing to offend Henry by refusing the divorce, and Emperor Charles of Spain by granting it, the pope delayed and vacillated. 1 Henry maneuvered industriously for several years to get the consent of the Church to his scandalous con¬ duct, but failed. While negotiations were going on, he secretly married Anne Boleyn and at last had her proclaimed queen. The pope, as he ought, exGom- municated Henry, who in passionate defiance ordered Parliament to pass an Act of Supremacy. And this is how it came about that in the frontispiece of the Great Bible the king is the dispenser of Holy Writ. As intimated before, this notable production was Coverdale’s revision of Matthews’ Bible—that is, of his own and Tyndale’s. Thus by a curious turn of affairs, Henry was posing as the dispenser of sub¬ stantially the very translation he had prohibited, and whose author he had hunted to death. But the cli¬ max of this curious story was reached, when, on the t Ranke’s Hist . of England —Yol. I, p. 147. 47 title-page of an edition in 1540, appeared the formal sanction of Tunstall, the very bishop who had sol¬ emnly burned Tyndale’s New Testament at Paul’s Cross, London. At last the martyr of Yilvorde had triumphed. Was it not, indeed, the irony of Divine Providence that Tyndale’s bitter foes were scatter¬ ing broadcast under their own names almost the very same Bible which they had tried to extirpate and for which he had laid down his life? They were de¬ ceived of course. Instead of opening the king of England’s eyes, God had apparently shut them. Thus strangely does God sometimes answer our prayers. Surely the Lord maketh the wrath of man to praise him. The Geneva Bible . Henry died in 1547. His numerous marriages had so complicated the matter of the succession that Parliament seeing trouble ahead, requested him to settle the matter in his will. He did so. Edward, son of Jane Seymour, Henry’s third wife, was first to have the throne. If he should die without heirs, Mary, Henry’s only surviving child by his first wife, should follow. If Mary should leave no heirs, Elizabeth, daughter of Anne Boleyn, should wear the crown. Strangely enough all three became monarchs of Eng¬ land. Edward was a boy nine years old when he came to the throne. During the six years of his reign many important changes were made in the creed of the English Church which separated it still farther from the Church of Rome. A Book of Common Praver «• was issued which, with some changes, is still used in the Church of England. The Psalms still used in this book are from the Great Bible; and many of us 48 are still praying, “Forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive them that trespass against us”, because it was thus found in the Book of Common Prayer ac¬ cording to the Great Bible. Other innovations were ordered; and those who would not submit to them were severely punished. The early death of Edward brought Mary to the throne. Being a stanch Catholic, she endeavored to force England back to the Roman faith and to alle¬ giance to the pope. Then it was the turn of Protest¬ ants to be persecuted. Two or three hundred per¬ sons were put to death for their refusal to accept the Roman worship. John Rogers, editor of the Matthews Bible, was the first victim. He was burned alive. Cranmer suffered the same fate. Because of her fanatical zeal this queen is known as “Bloody Mary.” To escape her furious bigotry many earnest people fled over the sea. Certain prominent scholars—Cov- erdale among them—took refuge at Geneva, where lived Beza, the best Biblical scholar of the time, a collector of manuscripts and editor of a Greek New Testament, and Calvin, the great theologian. At this city these exiles made a translation of the Scrip¬ tures which appeared in England in 1560, two years after the ascension of Elizabeth, and is called the Geneva Bible. The Great Bible was unsatisfactory for several reasons—one being its bigness. The Geneva Bible was handier and cheaper, and better adapted to popu¬ lar use. Furthermore, new manuscripts had been collected since Coverdale had produced the Great Bible, and this made revision desirable on the basis of this new critical material. In addition to the 49 Greek text published by Erasmus, by Cardinal Ximenes, and by Robert Stephens, or Stephan us (1546-1551), the translators of Geneva had access to manuscripts collected by Beza and other Genevan scholars. Advance also had been made in Hebrew studies since Tyndale’s time, and the improvement of the Genevan Old Testament over earlier versions is very marked. This version was a thorough revision of the Old Testament as found in the Great Bible and of Tyn¬ dale’s last revision of the New Testament. It was the first English Bible printed in Roman type and without the Apocrypha. It recognized not only the chapter divisions of early translations—originally the the work of Stephen Langton, 1 a professor in the Uni¬ versity of Baris, afterward Archbishop of Canterbury —but also the unfortunate verse system used by Ste¬ phens in his Greek Testament of 1551, a device which has marred every later version and the only justifi¬ cation for which is easy reference. By omitting Paul’s name in the superscription to the Epistle to the He¬ brews, it recognized the ancient doubt of his author¬ ship. The latest revisers approve the omission. It was the first version to use different type to denote words not found in the original. The Genevan Bible, therefore, has a considerable relation to later versions. While the Great Bible was still generally used in the churches for several years after 1560, the Ge¬ nevan version became the family Bible of England. One fact, however, prevented its universal use. All recognized its merits; but it contained marginal 1 Our Bible and the Ancient Mss., p. 186. 50 notes which were Oalvinistic in theology and in views of church and civil government—a fact which made it very popular among Scotch Presbyterians and English Puritans. But it made it the Bible of a party, as all notes tend to do. It is not strange that the Anglican party viewed it with disfavor when they found such comments as this on Rev. 9:3, where H is explained that the “locusts that came out of the bottomless pit” are “false teachers, heretics, and worldly subtil prelates, with Monks, Friars, Cardi¬ nals, Patriarch, Archbishops, Bishops, Doctors, Bach¬ elors and Masters of Artes, which forsake Christ to maintain false doctrine.” These notes are historic¬ ally important, because to them we are indebted for the King James or Authorized version. But in spite of these notes so objectionable to High Churchmen, the Geneva version was the popular Bible of England for about sixty years, and for a long time disputed supremacy with the Authorized Version of 1611. The Bishops' Bible . Little need be said about the Bishops’ Bible which came out in 1568 under the auspices of Arch¬ bishop Parker. It received its name from being the work of nine bishops of the Church of England assist¬ ed by a few other clergymen. It was put out as an antidote to the Geneva Bible. Parker being desirous of uniformity in religious matters, and very jealous for the prestige of the episcopacy, deemed it proper for the people to have a Bible translated under di¬ rection of the Church authorities. Accordingly in his choice of translators he was less careful about their scholarship than their position in the Church. The Bishops’ Bible was a work of very unequal merit, some parts being meritorious, others very in¬ ferior. This was due to the fact that the work was parceled out among the translators, who worked sep¬ arately, with no general supervision except that of Parker himself. 1 Hence in u divers portions 55 there were “divers manners 55 of work. Both the Great Bible and the Genevan exerted great influence, though unequally in different parts. A fondness for pompous expressions is noticeable in places. In 1572 the New Testament was revised and considerably im¬ proved. Douay Bible . In order of time the next version was the Rheims- Douay Bible of the Roman Catholics, the history of which has already given and to which the reader should now refer. As in most cases of vernacular translations by Romanists, this version was not the result of any recognized need of an English Bible, but of the popular demand created by Protestant principles. If the people would have English ver¬ sions, it was desirable, according to Romanists, that they have a Bible translated from official Roman Catholic sources, and annotated agreeably to Roman Catholic doctrine and practice—not by Puritans and heretical English bishops. Accordingly, instead of using the Greek and Hebrew, which these translators maintained had been corrupted by heretics, they made a very literal, and consequently a very awk¬ ward, translation of the Latin Yulgate, and annotated it with fiercely Catholic notes. 1 Correspondence of Archbishop Parker (Parker Society) p. 52 This version at first had a very small circulation and hardly attracted notice. Had not a Protestant^ Fulke, printed the Rheims and Bishops’ New Testa ment side by side in a work calculated to cast dis¬ credit on the former, the translators of 1611 would hardly have recognized its existence. As it was, this Roman Catholic version exerted great influence on the King James Version. At last England was well supplied with versions. Occasionallv an old Great Bible could be seen in the desk of an out-of-the-way church; the common peo¬ ple continued to use the handy Genevan in their pri¬ vate and family devotions, and in gatherings of Dis¬ senters; and the High Church sympathizers had their official Bishops’ Bible. Surely everybody ought to have been satisfied. But there were too many versions—the very reason why another should come. And it did come—the noblest of all—the King James or Authorized Version. 53 I Chapter IX. Tht ming Ifantes ur ^utharizrd HJfersiou. u Lord, open the King of England’s eyes.” So prayed Tyndale in 1536. Seventy years later an English king is himself directing a translation of the Bible for universal use in his realm. This is how it- happened. On the death of Elizabeth, James VI of Scotland came to the English throne as James I. The strife between High Church Episcopalians and Puritans, which had lulled in the last years of Elizabeth, re¬ vived at the accession of a new monarch. Each party tried to secure his favor. James had been educated among the Presbyterians and had often expressed himself as an admirer of the Scotch kirk; and this encouraged the hopes of the Puritans. But James’s religious scruples were nothing as compared with his notions of kingly prerogative. It did not take long for the Puritans to observe that the High Church party had the king’s best ear. “ No bishop, no king,” said James at the Hampton Court Conference 1 —an ejaculation which explains his change of heart from Presbyterianism; for he saw in the ecclesiasticism of the High Church party a bulwark to his kingly assumptions. To secure harmony, or at least uniformity in re¬ ligious matters, James in 1604 called a conference at Hampton Court. There was little conference, for the king brow-beat and insulted the Puritans, and taker’s Chronicles of the Kings of England, pp. 444-446. 54 favored the High Church representatives in all the proceedings—except in one important matter. It had been difficult for the Puritans to get a word in edgewise; but one of their suggestions stuck fast in the mind of the king. Dr. Reynolds, a prominent Puritan, President of Corpus Christi College, Oxford, proposed a new translation of the Scriptures. The king favored the proposal—not because he liked the Puritans, mind you, but because he did not like the political sentiments of the Geneva notes. He was a stickler for the Divine Right of kings; and he did not relish his people having on their Bible margins such comments as this on Exodus 1:17-19: “Their disobedience to the king was lawful, though their dis¬ sembling was evil.” This would never do. He char¬ acterized the notes of the popular version as “par¬ tial, untrue, seditious, and savoring too much of dan¬ gerous and traitorous conceits.” In this suggestion he saw also a fine occasion to display his prerogative; while his vanity of learning suggested that to be the patron of an English Bible for all the people would enhance the glory of his reign. In this conceit he was right; it was the best thing he ever did; for the King James Version has been the Bible of all Eng¬ lish Protestants for nearly three hundred years. The king had nothing to do directly with trans¬ lating; yet the work is justly called by his name, for he set the machinery in motion, supervising the appointment of revisers and laying down rules for their guidance. The board of revisers consisted of about forty-seven men chosen from both High Church an I Puritan divines, and also from the Greek and Hebrew professors in the universities not notoriously 55 connected with either party. The eleventh rule for the guidance of translators provided also that u when any place of special obscurity is doubted of” letters were to be “directed by authority, to send to any learned in the land for his judgment in such a place.” In this way the combined scholarship of England was invited to produce this version. The committee’s method of work shows the thor¬ oughness with which the translation was made. The whole board of revisers was divided into six compan¬ ies, two of them stationed at Oxford, two at Cam¬ bridge, and two at Westminster. To each of these sub-committees was assigned a certain portion of the Bible to translate. Each member first made an inde¬ pendent revision of the portion assigned to his com¬ pany. Then all the members of a company met, and by consultation agreed on a copy 5 which was sent to all the other companies for examination and criti¬ cism. If these criticisms were approved by the first company the revised text passed as final so far as the board was concerned ; if not approved, the points of disagreement were settled by the final revisers. “Neither did we disdain,” says Dr. Miles Smith in his preface, “to revise that which we had done and to bring back to the anvil that which we had ham¬ mered, fearing no reproach for slowness, nor covet¬ ing praise for expedition.” When the whole Bible was thus revised, three copies were made—one at each place—and delivered to a committee of twelve chosen from the whole board. 1 After their examina¬ tion it was passed on to Bilson, Bishop of Winches- 1 Or, Six. See Preface to R. V. of 1881. Also, Mrs. Conant’s Pop. Hist, of Eng. Bible Translation. 56 ter, and Dr. Miles Smith—both Anglicans—who wrote little introductions to each book, and the latter of whom wrote the preface to the whole work. Last of all, the Bishop of London gave it a touch here and there. Then in 1611 it was published with a fulsome dedication to the king, having been done, as the title page declares, “by his majesty’s special command¬ ment.” Thus was made the Authorized or King James Version, so long the beloved text of English Protestantism. Some of the rules laid down for the guidance of the committee throw light on the relation this ver¬ sion bears to its predecessors. The first rule directed that the ordinary Bible read in the church, commonly called the Bishops’ Bible, was to be followed as far as consistent with the original. But another rule directed that when they agreed better with the text than the Bishops’ Bible did, Tyndale’s, Matthews’, Coverdale’s, Whitchurch’s, 1 and the Genevan might be used. Tyndale, therefore, was still the ground¬ work of the English Bible. The Bishops’ and Gene¬ van exerted the most powerful influence, but the influence of the Rheims New Testament was consid¬ erable. 2 Other rules forbade the use of marginal notes except cross-references and explanations of Greek and Hebrew words—a wise provision which had much to do with making this the common ver¬ sion of English Protestants everywhere. Until the American Revised Version of 1901 appeared, no better translation has ever been made. 1 That is, the Great Bible. 2 The Part of Rheims in the Making of the English Bible. Also preface to R. V. 1881. 57 In simple dignity, and melody, its English is still without rival. Its literary merits can hardly be exaggerated. Dr. Kenyon says: “In the New Testa¬ ment, in particular, it is the simple truth that the English version is a far greater literary work than the original Greek.” 1 Not slavishly tied to the letter of the original, it is nevertheless true to its spirit; for it was not mere verbal accuracy the trans¬ lators were careful of, but the sense and the spirit. Fearing that its literary merits would be sacrificed, the Seventh Earl of Shaftsbury in opposing revision speaks of its “racy old language, which is music to everybody’s ears, and which, like Handel’s music, carries divine truth and comfort to the soul.” No higher tribute has been given to the King James Version than this of Faber, a convert to Romanism: u Who will say that the uncommon beauty and mar¬ velous English of the Protestant Bible is not one of the great strongholds of heresy in this country? It lives on the ear like a music that can never be for¬ gotten, like the sound of church bells, which the con¬ vert scarcely knows how he can forego. Its felicities seem often to be almost things rather than words.... The memory of dead passes into it. The potent tra¬ ditions of childhood are stereotyped in its verses. It is the representative of a man’s best moments; all that there has been about him of soft, and gentle, and pure, and penitent, and good, speaks to him for¬ ever out of his English Bible. It is his sacred thing, which doubt never dimmed and controversy never soiled; and in the length and breadth of the land there is not a Protestant with one spark of religious- 1 Our Bible and the Ancient i/ss., p. 133. 58 ness about him whose spiritual biography is not in his Saxon Bible. 1 1 See Froude’s tribute p. 41. 59 Chapter X. Tbs Unused Herstim. ge*. 1. gitiglo-gimencan of 1881-1885. The King James Version was completed in 1611. On its merits alone, in a few years it displaced all other Protestant versions, and at last all English Protestants were reading the same Bible. Scholars continued to point out its defects, and to discuss re¬ vision ; but practically nothing was done for more than two centuries and a half. Meanwhile people learned to love the '‘Common Version” so ardently that the very suggestion of a new version seemed to verge on sacrilege. Nevertheless in 1881 appeared the Revised Ver¬ sion of the New Testament; and in 1885, the whole Bible, the title page of which proclaimed that it was u the version set forth in 1611, compared with the most ancient authorities and revised.” At the Southern Convocation of the Church of England held at Can¬ terbury in 1870, a report was adopted that the conven¬ tion should nominate a body of its own members to undertake the work of revising the Bible, who should be at liberty to invite the cooperation of any emi¬ nent for scholarship to whatever nation or religious body they might belong. 1 Accordingly two companies were constituted— one of twenty-seven members for the Old Testament, and one of twenty-five for the New. Two American companies of fourteen and thirteen members respect- i Preface to R. V. of 1881 . 60 ively cooperated with those in England and under the same rules. These rules specified, among other things, that the fewest possible changes were to be made consistently with fidelity to the original; that the language of the King James Version (or earlier versions) should be closely followed; and that each company should go twice over its work and at the second revision no change should stand unless ap¬ proved by a two-thirds majority of those present. Care was taken to exclude theological or ecclesiasti¬ cal bias in the translation; for almost every impor¬ tant Protestant Church in England and America had representatives in the committees. The eminent Ro¬ man Catholic scholar, Cardinal Newman, was invited to cooperate, but he refused. Presbyterian, Method¬ ist, Baptist, and Anglican worked side by side. There could be no sectarianism in the result. The English Committees, however, were less impartial in their denominational make-up than the American, for more than two-thirds of the former belonged to the Church of England. The reader may ask, Why, if the King James Version was so nobly done, was a revised Bible desi¬ rable? For severable weighty reasons: (1) . Since 1611 the four oldest and most import¬ ant Greek manuscripts have become accessible, copies of very ancient translations have been found, and writings of early Christian fathers have been col¬ lected and used as never before. 1 (2) . Modern scholars know how to use these sources as seventeenth century men did not. The 1 Preface to R. V. of 1881. 61 science of textual criticism was merely in its infancy in 1611. (3) . Greek and Hebrew are much better under¬ stood now. Because of imperfect knowledge of these languages the King James Version contains many obscure and incorrect renderings. (4) . The English language has changed, many words used three hundred years ago being obsolete. There are other less important reasons, but these alone justify revision. Revision of the Old Testament was a much easier task than that of the New, for the reason that He¬ brew manuscripts are so nearly alike that little re¬ construction of the text is required. But because of the advance of the knowledge of Hebrew since 1611, the revisers have given us a much clearer trans¬ lation. Many passages, particularly in Job 1 and the Prophets, that are unintelligible in the old versions are full of meaning in the new. But with the New Testament the case was dif¬ ferent. Older manuscripts and versions than the translators of the King James version ever dreamed of securing were in the hands of the New Testament revision committees. First, there is the Codex Sina- iticus, discovered in the Convent of St. Catharine on Mt. Sinai in 1859 by Tischendorf, a German scholar. Its discovery is one of the romances of scholarship. Tischendorf, in searching for Bible manuscripts, vis¬ ited every old library in the Orient he could get into. At the convent on Sinai he made the great discovery of his life. One day he noticed some old parchments in the waste basket in the library. He was told that 1 See App. 62 these parchments were to be used for making fires and that two such basketfuls had already been burned. Examining the pile he found several leaves of the Septuagint written in a style that showed that the manuscript was very old—the oldest he had ever seen. His pleasure was so great that the monks became suspicious that the basket contained some very valuable fuel, and Tischendorf was permitted to carry away only forty-three sheets. He returned to Germany and startled the world with his announce¬ ment. But fearing that some other scholar might find his pearl of great price, he concealed the place of his discovery. Tischendorf then made efforts to secure the remainder of the work, but failed. Fi¬ nally, having secured the interest of the Czar, in 1859 he went again to Sinai. He was about to depart again without success, when the steward invited him to his cell, and showed him the treasure he had sought—a large part of the Old Testament in Greek and all of the New. Imagine the joy of the patient Tischendorf! For there lay before him one of the oldest, if not the oldest, Bible manuscript known to men. Fifteen hundred years it had survived to tell as best it could what the Apostles had written only about two hundred and seventy-five years before. By means well known to scholars, Tischendorf knew it was written about 350 A. D. At last the Czar bought it and put it in the library of St. Petersburg. Photographs have been made of every page, and fac¬ similes are in many of the great libraries. Even more important than this is the Vatican Codex kept in the Vatican library at Rome. For some reason, until a few years ago scholars were 63 hardly permitted to see it. Dr. Tregelles, one of the late revisers, was permitted to see it, but his pockets were first searched by the attendants for pencil or paper lest he should do any copying. If he looked too long at any passage the book was snatched away from him! It was thus inaccessible until 1868 when Pius IX permitted its publication. 1 Finally Leo XIII in 1889 permitted photographic fac-similes to be made for general distribution. The manuscript contains nearly all of the Greek Old Testament, and all of the New to Eteb. 9 :14. It is probably a little older than the Sinaitic Codex. The third most ancient manuscript, and a very important one, is in the keeping of Protestantism at the British Museum. It formerly belonged to Cyril Lucas, Patriarch of Alexandria, afterward of Con¬ stantinople, who in 1627, presented to Charles I. of England. It belongs probably to the first part of the fifth century. Codex Ephraemi, now in the National Library of Paris, was unknown to English scholars of 1611. Its date is about 450. Scrivener, one of the late revisers, describes it as a “most valuable palimpsest containing portions of the Septuagint version of the Old Testa¬ ment on 64 leaves, and fragments of every part of the New on 143 leaves. A palimpsest is a manu¬ script which has been used twice, the first copy hav¬ ing been erased to receive other writing. About the twelfth century some stupid fellow tried to rub out the original Bible text, and wrote over it a work of St. Ephraem. The original text was for the most 1 See App. 64 part illegible until in 1834 the manuscript was sub¬ jected to a chemical process which brought out a large part of the erased writing. Besides these four oldest manuscripts, 1 and many others of which space forbids mention, some very an¬ cient translations have become accessible since 1611. The Peshitto, * 3 although published before that date, was not used by the translators of the King James Version, except in a Latin translation. Another im¬ portant version for critical purposes is that of Ulfilas, Bishop among the Goths, who sometime before 360 translated part of the Old and all of the New Testa¬ ment from Greek into Gothic. The principal manu¬ script of this version is the Codex Argenteus, or Sil¬ ver Codex, containing fragments of the four gospels, made in Italy about 500 A. D . The first printed copy of this version mas not made until 1665. 3 Other important versions mentioned in Chapter III have in recent years added their testimony in the deter¬ mination of the original text. Scholars of our time also know the great value of Scripture references found in the writings of the Fathers of the first four or five centuries. This can be shown by a single text, I John 5 :7-8.— “For there are three that bear record [in heaven, the Father, the Word, and the Holy Ghost: and these three are one. And there are three that bear witness in earth,] the spirit, and the water, and the blood: and these three agree in one”. The Revised Versions omit the words 1 See p. 9 for value of old mss. 3 See p. 12. * See Gothic , Ang.-Sax ., Wy cliffe & Tyndale Gospels —Bosworth. 65 in brackets. Certainly words like these, that come nearer being a formal statement of the doctrine of the Trinity than any others in the New Testament- should not be lightly cast out. But the evidence against the passage is over¬ whelming : (1) No Greek manuscript made before the fif¬ teenth century contains it. (2) The Peshitto, Bohairic, Sahidic, Armenian and Ethiopian versions do not contain it; neither does the Codex Amiatinus of the Vulgate. (3) In all the earnest discussions about the Trinity from the third to the fifth centuries no Greek Father alludes to it, and few of the important Latin Fathers. Advocates of the doctrine would certainly have loaded their theological guns with this text if it had existed. This example shows the value both of ancient versions, and of the writings of the early Christians in determining what the Apostles wrote. It is by this time evident what a rich mine of ancient sources the latest revisers had—treasures undreamed of by all former translators, Protestants and Roman Catholics alike. Every unprejudiced reader must see that the Revised Version of 3881-85 is derived from the best original sources known to exist; and that in this respect neither the Douav nor the King James Version is to be compared to it. Sec. 2. American S^nbarb (gbition of 1901. In spite of the care and scholarship bestowed upon the Revised Version of 1881-85, it was satis¬ factory neither to scholars, who saw evidences on the 66 ^ne hand of excessive conservatism in adhering to antiquated terms, and on the other of a tendency to make unnecessary changes; nor to the common peo¬ ple to whom the new text sounded strange and dis¬ cordant. So closely had the experience of Christians twined about the beloved words of the old version that it was a shock to find many of these familiar texts incorrect. This latter result was of course in¬ evitable ; but the American Revision Committee were themselves dissatisfied. Reference to the Ap¬ pendix in the British Revised Aversion will show that a very large number of American suggestions were not adopted—suggestions, too, which in many cases even a novice can see were preferable. But the Americans had agreed not to sanction, for a pe¬ riod of fourteen years, any edition except those issued by the University Presses of England. They were true to their promise. But during that time it be¬ came more and more evident to scholars generally that the British Revision did not meet the require¬ ment so well as the work of the Americans. Mean¬ while the American committees, expecting that “an American recension of the English revision might eventually be called for,” continued their organiza¬ tion and pursued the work of revising their own sug¬ gestions formerly made to the British committees. 1 The result was “The Holy Bible containing the Old and New Testaments, translated out of the original tongues, being the version set forth A. D. 1611 com¬ pared with the most ancient authorities and revised A. D. 1881-1885, newly edited by the American Re- 1 The entire Preface to the American edition of 1901 should be read. 67 vision Committee A. D. 1901, Standard Edition 55 , published by Thomas Nelson and Sons, New York—a work declared by most American and many British scholars the queen of English versions of the Holy Bible. In America it is rapidly displacing even the King James version, and bids fair to become the com¬ mon version of English Protestants. Comparative study will show that it is the best of all versions in scholarship, in fidelity to the original, and in the pu¬ rity and intelligibility of its English. In the foregoing pages w^e have said much about variations of manuscripts and versions. But in spite of some variations in all these reports of God 5 s w r ord, it is still wonderfully true that in all versions the word of God is substantially the same, 1 and that all Christians—Catholics and Protestants alike—have practically the same sacred writings which are able to make us wise unto salvation through faith which is in Christ Jesus, and which are profitable for teach¬ ing, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness. 2 1 See Appendix. 2 2 Tim. 3:15-16. 68 Jkppmritx. Note p. 7. Ancient Greek is related to modern Greek much as the English of Chaucer is to modern English. With some diffi. culty St. Paul could read a modern Greek newspaper. Note p. 18. Douay Version, John Murphy Company, Balti¬ more and New York, Printers to the Holy See, 1899, with a note of approbation by Cardinal Gibbons. Note 1, p. 19. “Thus,” says Reuss in his History of the Canon, “the council of Trent did not hesitate to place itself in contradiction with the most of the orthodox Greek Fathers and a good number of the most illustrious and esteemed Latin Fathers.” p. 277. Note 2, p. 19. In his book, The Faith of Our Fathers , Cardi¬ nal Gibbons says, “The Catholic Church, in the plentitude of her authority, in the third Council of Carthage (A. D. 397), separated the chaff from the wheat, and declared what Books were canon¬ ical and what were apocryphal.”—p. 104. But that the Church never believed the canon to be fixed until the Council of Trent see the discussion in Reuss’ History of the Canon of Holy Scripture. Furthermore, the Council of Carthage included in its action only the apocryphal books of Wisdom, Ecclesiasticus, Tobit, Judith, and I and II Maccabees. When Protestants are charged with tampering with the books of the Bible, it should be remem¬ bered that there w r as no definitely settled canon in the Roman Church until the Council of Trent; and if Catholics had a right to adopt doubtful books, Protestants had equal right to refuse to adopt them. Note 3, p. 19. The reader should recall what was said in the beginning about the importance of keeping in mind that the Bible is a Book of books. See p. 6. Note p. 20. Origen himself, however, sometimes quotes from Apocryphal books as if they were Scripture. Most of the early Church Fathers had high regard for most of the apocryphal books, and encouraged their reading in the Church. But there is a gen¬ eral agreement among them that these books were uncanonical and consequently inferior to other Old Testament writings. 69 Note p. 23. Jerome himself says (Preface to the Books of Solomon) that Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, and Song of Songs were done in three days, (Pref. to Tobit), Tobit in one day, and (Pref. to Judith) Judith in one lucubratiunculam , or night study, translat" ing rather the sense than word for word— “magis sensum e semis , quam ex verbo verbum transferens. ’ ’ Note p. 26. Dr. Challoner brought out a revised edition of the Douay Bible in 1750. The notes appended to the text of this revision are the ones usually found with modifications in the mod¬ ern Catholic Bibles. The Douay Bible has been considerably revised since its first appearance. Note p. 31. Wycliffe’s reply to the pope’s summons may be found in Arnold’s Select works of Wycliffe, Yol. III., 504-506. Note 2 p. 32. I am aware of the strenuous efforts to prove that English Catholic authorities have not been hostile to the gen¬ eral use of the Bible. Cardinal Gibbons in The Faith of Our Fath¬ ers says that Arundel, Archbishop of Canterbury, at the funeral of Queen Anne in 1394 praised her for diligence in reading the four gospels, (which is all true) and then adds: “The Head of the Church in England could not condemn in others what he com¬ mended in the Queen.’’ This is not necessarily the right conclu¬ sion. But the Cardinal failed to give the whole history of Arundel on the Bible question. In a convocation of the province of Can¬ terbury held at Oxford in 1408 under the presidency of Archbishop Arundel, a decree was passed reading thus: “It is a dangerous thing, as witnesseth St. Jerome, to translate the text of the holy Scripture out of one tongue into another; for in the translation the same sense is not always kept, as the same St. Jerome confesseth, that although he were inspired, yet oftentimes in this he erred; we therefore decree and ordain that no man hereafter by his own authority translate any text of the Scripture into English or any other tongue by way of a book, pamphlet, or treatise; and that no man read any such book, pamphlet, or treatise, now lately com¬ posed in the time of John Wycliffe or since, or hereafter to be set forth in part or in whole, publicly, or privately, upon pain of the greater excommunication, until the said translation be approved by the ordinary of the place, or if the case so require, by the coun¬ cil provincial. He that shall do contrary to this shall likewise be punished as a favourer of heresy and error.” Foxe-Acts & Mon, III., 245. Quoted here from Westcott’s History of the English TO Bible, pp. 22-23. See also Bagster’s English Hexapla—Introduc¬ tion. The justification for such a decree from the Catholic point of view, is found in another statement of the Cardinal’s on p. 115 of his book: “While laboring to diffuse the word of God, it is the duty, as well as the right of the Church, as the guardian of faith, to see that the faithful are not led astray by unsound editions.” But there is no evidence that the Church in Wycliffe’s time was “laboring to diffuse the word of God” by providing any author¬ ized version whatever. The decree amounted therefore to a vir¬ tual prohibition of a vernacular Bible. Yet the Cardinal exclaims a few paragraphs before his reference to Arundel, “The Catholic Church the eneinv of the Bible! Good God!” We wonder where the Cardinal got his authority for swearing—Scripture or Tradition. It was Arundel, by the way, that petitioned the pope to exhume and desecrate the ashes of Wycliffe. On the subject of persecution for reading Wycliffe’s Bible, see Eadie’s “The English Bible,” pp. 89-93. Note p. 35. Authorities differ considerabty on the date of Erasmus’ professorship at Cambridge. The date given is from Dic¬ tionary of National Biography, art. Tyndale. Note p. 40. For influence of Tyndale’s Bible, see Seebohm’s Era of the Protestant Be volution, p. 222. • Note p. 41. It may seem strange that Tyndale should be martyred after Henry had severed England from the papal power. But the Act of Supremacy did not make England a Protestant na¬ tion. Little change of creed was made by Henry’s revolt. He sim¬ ply established an English Catholicism, and heresy was still pun¬ ished. Note p. 44. What is known as Cranmer’s Bible is a slightly revised edition of the Great Bible to which the Archbishop wrote a preface. From the fact that some editions of the Great Bible were printed by Whitchurch, it is sometimes called by his name. Note 2, p. 44. Taverner made a translation in 1539, but it had no influence on any subsequent version. Note p. 49. Whittingham, who was related to Calvin by mar¬ riage, published on the Continent in 1557 his own version of the New Testament. This was really the first English Bible in which verses appear. Being one of the translators of the Geneva Bible, of course he had great influence on that version. 71 Note p. 60. The Baptist, Methodist Episcopal, Congregational, Reformed, Presbyterian, Episcopalian, Lutheran, and Unitarian denominations were represented on the American revision com¬ mittees. Note p. 61. The reader will find it interesting to compare the Douay, King James, British Revised, and American Revised in Job 19:25-27, Note p. 63. Pius IX is the pope who called Bible societies one of the pests of modern times.—Syllabus of Errors, Section IV, 1864. Note 2, p. 63. See marginal note in the Revised Version on Mark 16:9-20. It is the Sinaitic and Vatican Codices that are re¬ ferred to. Note p. 67. For the substantial identity of all manuscript copies of the New Testament see Appendix to Westcott & Iiort’s Greek New Testament, Harper &Bros. 1893, pp. 560-562. “If com¬ parative trivialities, such as changes of order, the insertion or omis¬ sion of the article with proper names, and the like, are set aside, the words in our opinion still subject to doubt can hardly amount to more than a thousandth part of the whole New Testament.’’ 72 ?5ihltugrnp!iy. Those who desire to make a more extensive study of this sub¬ ject will find the following w T orks helpful:— Introduction to Holy Scriptures.—Harmon. The Canon of the Bible.—Samuel Davidson. History of the Canon of Holy Scriptures. - Edward Reuss, 1891. (Hardly excelled on the canon.) Utantrsttipts. How We Got our Bible.—J. Paterson Smyth, 1899. (Not al¬ ways authoritative, but a good popular presentation of the subject of Bible transmission.) Our Bible and the Ancient Manuscripts.—F. G. Kenyon, M.A., Ass’t Keeper of Mss. in the British Museum, 1903. (An excellent work.) (Knglisb Bagster’s English Hexapla. Wycliffe and Purvey’s N. T., Forshall and Madden, 1879. The First Printed English N. T. translated by William Tyn- dale, edited by Ed^ward Arber, 1871. Facsimile Reprint. (Arber’s preface is an interesting and illuminating production.) The History of the English Bible.—W. F. Moulton, 1878. The Evolution of the English Bible.—W. H. Hoare, 1901. The English Bible.—John Eadie, 1876. A General view of the History of the English Bible.—West- cott, 1868. The Part of Rheims in the Making of the English Bible.—J. G. Carlton, 1902. Roman Catholic and Protestant Bibles Compared.—Gould Prize Essays, 1905.