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LETTER
TO
THE RIGHT REVEREND
HERBERT,
LORD BISHOP OF PETERBOROUGH,
LADY MARGARET'S PROFESSOR OF DIVINITY IN THE
UNIVERSITY OF CAMBRIDGE,
<aem'0n of tje $ib\x.
BY
HENRY WALTER, B. D. AND F. R. S.
FELLOW OF ST. JOHN'S COLLEGE, CAMBRIDGE; PROFESSOR IN THE EAST
INDIA COLLEGE, HERTS; AND CHAPLAIN TO HIS GRACE
THE DUKE OF NORTHUMBERLAND.
LONDON :
PRINTED FOR J. HATCHARD AND SON,
187, PICCADILLY;
AND J. NICHOLSON, CAMBRIDGE.
1823.
Printed by S. Gosnell, Little Queen Street, London.
ERRATA.
Page 6, line 10, 11 1 for collection, read, collation.
13, Note, line 4 from bottom, for which from, read, from wbicli.
14, Note, for Lect. XIX. read, Lect. XIV.
15, line 3, for eye, read, eyes.
4 from bottom, for maning, read, meaning.
58, Note, line 1 2, for Marsh's, read, Masch's.
77, line 19,/br E ?o, read,
1081657
LETTER,
MY LORD,
WHILST I enjoyed the advantage
of attending your Lectures, a painful impres-
sion was forced upon me ; that I must, for the
future, cease to view the authorized Version of
the Bible in a higher light than as a secondary
translation. Perhaps, however, that impres-
sion (heightened as it was by a peculiar and
very skilful adjustment of emphasis, adding
force to the arguments which your words con-
vey) might be stronger than your Lordship in-
tended. It was the combined effect of your
language and manner, which induced me to be-
lieve, that Tyndal, our earliest translator in
Henry VIII. 's time,- instead of translating di-
rectly from the original Scriptures, did but
compile a version from the Latin Vulgate, and
the German of Luther's Bible; and that our
present authorized Version had not been suffi-
ciently purified, from the effect of this trans-
mission of the original through Luther, to de-
serve the character of an independent transla-
tion.
This prejudice adhered to me, with all the
weight of your authority, till the practice of
reading the Hebrew Pentateuch with Luther's
translation, the Vulgate and the Septuagint in
adjoining columns, and with the English Bible,
of course, at band, forced upon my attention
the fact, that almost every verse afforded sa-
tisfactory proof of the independence of the
authorized Version. I became, therefore, an-
xious to know what ground your Lordship had
for adopting the depreciatory view, which I
supposed you to entertain, of a translation,
whose admirable fidelity was daily gaining upon
my esteem, whilst I thus continued to compare
it with the original and with other versions.
As far as I have been able to collect those
grounds, they do not appear to afford a suf-
3
ficient foundation for that opinion of our trans-
lation, which your fourteenth Lecture seems
but too likely to diffuse and establish. Al-
low ine, therefore, my Lord, to recall the
following passage in that Lecture to your recol-
lection, and respectfully to solicit your atten-
tion to my reasons for doubting its accuracy
if I rightly understand its scope. Should I be
found to have taken a wrong view of your
meaning, I shall scarcely regret my mistake,
if it induces you to warn those, who will look
up to your Lectures for guidance in their stu-
dies, against falling into my error.
* " Here the subject requires a few observa-
" tions on our own authorized Version. It was
" published by royal authority in the reign of
" James I. having been then compiled out of
" various English Bibles which had been
" printed since the time of the Reformation.
" To judge therefore of our authorized Version,
" we should have some knowledge of those
" previous English Bibles. The first of them
- Lecture XIV.
B2
" was a translation made abroad, partly by
" Tyndal, and partly by Rogers, but chiefly by
" the former. It was undertaken soon after
" the Reformation commenced in Germany,
" and therefore several years before the Re-
" formation was introduced into England.
" What knowledge Tyndal had of Hebrew is
" unknown; but he of course understood the
" Latin Vulgate, and he was likewise acquaint-
" ed with German. Indeed he passed some
" time with Luther at Wittenberg; and the
" books which Tyndal selected for translation
" into English, were always those which Lu-
" ther had already translated into German.
" Now Luther did not translate according to
" the order in which the several books follow
" each other in the Bible: he translated in an
" order of his own, and the -same order was ob-
" served also by Tyndal, who translated after
" Luther. We may conclude therefore, that
" TyndaVs translation was taken at least in part
" frpm Luther's : and this conclusion is further
" confirmed by the Germanisms which it con-
" tains, some of which are still preserved in
" our- authorized Version. Further, when Ro-
" gers had completed what Tyndal left unfi-
" nished, he added notes and prefaces from
" Luther. The translation of the whole Bible,
" thus made by Tyndal and Rogers, was pub-
" lished at Hamburg under the feigned name
" of Matthewe ; and hence it has been called
" Matthewe's Bible. Subsequent English edi-
" tions were Coverdale's Bible, Cranmer's Bible
" (called also the great Bible, and sometimes
" by the names of the printers, Grafton and
" Whitchurch), the Geneva Bible, and Parker's
" or the Bishops' Bible, which last was pub-
" lished in 1568, and from that time was used
" in our Churches till the introduction of our
" present Version. Now the Bishops' Bible, as
" appears from Archbishop Parker's instruc-
" tions, was only a revision of Cranmer's Bible:
" and Cranmer's Bible was only a correction
* c (in some places for the worse) of Matthewe's
" Bible, that is, of the translation made by
" Tyndal and Rogers. We see therefore the
" genealogy of the Bishops' Bible ; and the
" Bishops' Bible was made the basis of our pre-
" sent authorized Version. For the first rule,
" given by James the First to the compilers of
B3
" it, was this, * The ordinary Bible, read in
" Church, commonly called the Bishops' Bible,
" to be followed, and as little altered as the
" original would permit.' But whenever Mat-
" thewe's Bible, or Coverdale's, or Whitchurch's,
" or the Geneva Bible, came nearer to the
" original (that is, to the editions of the He-
" brew Bible and Greek Testament then in use),
" the text of these other English Bibles was
" ordered to be adopted. Now, as this coller-
'i.tion was made by some of the most distin-
" guished scholars in the age of James the First,
" it is probable, that our authorized Version
il is as faithful a representation of the original
" Scriptures as could have been formed at that
" period. But when we consider the immense
" accession which has been since made, both to
" our critical and to our philological apparatus ;
" when we consider, that the whole mass of
" literature, commencing with the London
" Polyglot and continued to Griesbach's Greek
" Testament, was collected subsequently to that
" period ; when we consider that the most im-
" portant sources of intelligence for the inter-
" pretation of the original Scriptures were like-
" wise opened after that period, we cannot pos-
" sibly pretend that our authorized Version does
" not require amendment. On this subject we
" need only refer to the work of Archbishop
" Newcome, entitled, l An Historical View of
" the English Biblical Translations ; the Ex-
" pediency of revising by Authority our present
" English Translation, and the Means of ex-
" ecuting such a Revision.' Indeed Dr. Mac-
" knight, in the second section of his general
" Preface, goes so far as to say of our autho-
" rized Version, * It is by no means such a just
" representation of the inspired originals, as
" merits to be implicitly relied on, for deter-
" mining the controverted articles of the Chris-
" tian faith, and for quieting the dissensions
" which have rent the Church.'"
Now, my Lord, I am by no means disposed
to pretend that our authorized Version might
not be improved ; nor am I inclined to assert
that it is "such a just representation of the in-
" spired originals as merits to be implicitly re-
" lied on for determining any controverted
" articles of the Christian faith." No reason-
u4
8
able inquirer would rely implicitly even on a
perfect translation, in examining controverted
points, if he could consult the originals ; be-
cause, though a certain English word may be
an accurate representative of a certain Greek
word, in the sense in which it is employed in
a particular text, yet that English word will
also have other meanings, some of which will
not, in all probability, be synonimous with the
Greek. He, therefore, who can look into the
original, will sometimes learn that precise
meaning which the English word must be con_
fined to in the text under examination. It is
almost certain that he will be able to reject
some of the meanings which might have at-
tached to the word, had it been found in an
original English author. Persons very mode-
rately skilled in criticism are yet capable of per-
ceiving, that a Greek or Hebrew word, and
its English representative, are not synonimous
in all their bearings ; and it is the power of
ascertaining this limitation to their resem-
blance, which constitutes the chief value and
utility of such a knowledge of the original lan-
guages employed by the inspired writers, as
ninety-nine students in divinity out of the hun-
dred are, with respectable industry, enabled to
obtain. Few will have a right to feel confident,
that they can ascertain, with perfect precision,
the accuracy with which our English Version
renders difficult passages; still fewer can hope,
without presuming too much, that they shall
be able to form a more correct view than our
learned and industrious translators did, of the
meaning of obscure texts ; yet there will be no
improper presumption in any person's suppos-
ing, that if he compares the original with an
excellent translation, so as to make each throw
a light upon the other, he will take a more
reasonable course than by stopping short in his
search, and relying implicitly on the perusal
of the translation alone.
But however nugatory I may consider Dr.
Macknight's conclusion, I might well be con-
tented to leave the world impressed with that
favourable opinion of our English Bible, which
your Lordship has given ; where you say, " It
" is probable that our authorized Version is as
" faithful a representation of the original Scrip-
10
" tures as could have been formed at that
" period." But my fear is, that your readers will
not think such a compliment deserved ; coming,
as it does, immediately after a statement which
seemed a fit foundation for a very different con-
clusion. Details, derogating from the charac-
ter of that translation, which the English
Church has so long sanctioned and employed,
will have double weight as coming from a Di-
vine who is known to have paid particular at-
tention to biblical criticism ; and from a Prelate
whose zeal for the Establishment no one will
venture to dispute. It will, not unreasonably,
be supposed that your account of the origin of
our English Bible, is one which it must have
been so painful to your Lordship to proclaim,
that the conviction of its correctness must have
been forced upon you by the most indisputable
evidence; whilst it will be thought no more
than natural that your wish to speak favour-
ably of the authorized Version should have led
you to close that account with more com-
mendatory language than a less friendly critic
would have employed. I am seriously afraid,
that too many readers will rise from the perusal
of your statement with an opinion that our
English Bible is nothing better than a compila-
tion of a series of second-hand translations.
Yet I shall hope to prove that the earliest of the
translators referred to produced no second-hand
version ; but I first wish to remark, that the de-
preciatory tone in which the words compiled, re-
vision and correction, are all evidently used by
your Lordship, is not calculated to give so cre-
ditable an opinion of the result of these revisions
as it might well deserve; particularly as no
person can imagine that these revisions were
so many examinations as to its consistency with
the German or Vulgate only, even if the accu-
racy of that genealogy which you have traced
out for succeeding translations was conceded.
You say, " the Bishops' Bible was only a revi-
" sioii of Cranmer's;" and the latter " only a
" correction of Matthewe's Bible;" the revision
might have been conducted with more critical
skill, and the corrections might have been more
numerous; but is it quite certain, my Lord,
that it would have been better to translate en-
tirely de novo than to correct and revise the
previous translations? If any person wished to
12
give the public as correct a translation as pos-
sible of Pliny's Letters, I do not see any me-
thod by which he would be so likely to attain
that end, as by taking Mel moth's translation
for a basis; revising it; and correcting every
expression which did not give the precise mean-
ing- of the original. Such a method is not or-
dinarily pursued, because even translators wish,
in general, to make a reputation for them-
selves r or they fancy that they can put the
translation into better language than their pre-
decessors have done. But if a person had no
other object than to produce an accurate trans-
lation, I do not see how he could proceed with
more likelihood of success, than by limiting his
alterations to the correction of a previous
translator; supposing that translator's general
style to be such as could not reasonably be ex-
cepted against. He would be free from an
author's predilection for his own modes of ex-
pression; he would merely consider how far
any sentence 'did accurately represent the
meaning of the original; and he would leave it
undisturbed, or correct it accordingly.
13
This method would evidently be still more
judicious, where an old translation had become
popular; and particularly if it was wished that
those who were intimate with the old should
readily comprehend, and have no needless pre-
text allowed them for rejecting, any reference
to the new translation. If our present Version
had a hundred errors, where it has one, who
would not prefer having those errors care-
fully corrected to having the language entirely
recast*?
Indeed of what is it that your Lordship
speaks at the conclusion of this very Lec-
* I am happy to be able to quote, on this topic, the au-
thority of the late learned and excellent Bishop of Calcutta;
who has said, " The general fidelity of our English transla-
" tion has never been questioned, and its style is incompa-
" rably superior to any thing which might be expected from
" the finical and perverted taste of our own age. It is
" simple i it is harmonious; it is energetic; and, which is
" of no small importance, use has made it familiar, and time
" has rendered it sacred." Middleton on the Gr. Art.
p. 318.
\ t * *'
Let it be remembered too, that this evidence is given in
7 /
favour of a version, which from Dr. Middleton's anxiety to
build important arguments on certain apparently minute va-
riations in the language of the original, does not receive the
sanction that he must have wished it should.
14
ture, as a thing that may be desirable, but of
" again revising by authority our English Ver-
" sion*?" And if, in the course of such a revi-
sion, it received every correction which the ad-
ditions made in modern times " to our critical
" and philological apparatus" could suggest;
would you not think it hypercriticism to object
to this improved translation, that was only a re-
vision, or only a correction, of the present English
Bible? To all useful ends this would be a new
translation; its authority would depend upon
the opinion which the public might form of the
learning and judgment with which the correc-
tions were made; but the serious evil would be
avoided, of deranging all the early religious
impressions of the lower class of readers or
hearers by a total change of language.
'
I must beg leave, therefore, my Lord, to
contend that our present authorized Version,
as made under the auspices of King James, was
a new translation ; new to as great an extent as
improvement was desirable and practicable ; yet
.
V
* Leet. X1&. p. 41.
15
free from all ambitious and useless novelty;
being composed by scholars, ripe and good
ones; who " were greater in other men's eye*
" than in their owne, and that sought the trueth
" rather then their owne prayse." They were
called together by the King not to act the part
of mere compilers; but " for the translation of
" the Bible *." The directions or restrictions
imposed upon them amounted to nothing more
than the establishment of this very excellent
principle; that, as the language of the transla-
tions already in use was become familiar to the
people, that language should be preserved as
far as it could with propriety; but certainly no
farther than might be compatible with a cor-
rect representation of the inspired original.
The preservation of the old English text was
not to interfere with their task of ascertaining,
and expressing, the maning of the original as
accurately as they could.
In the translators' prefatory address to the
readers, drawn up by one of their body (Dr.
* See the King's letter to Archbishop Bancroft. Whit-
taker's Enquiry, p. 70,
16
Miles Smith, afterwards Bishop of Gloucester),
they say, " His Majesty having- bethought hiin-
" self of the good that might ensue by a new
^
"translation, presently after gave order for this
" translation, which is now presented unto thee."
In this same preface it is objected to the Italic
versions, made before Jerome's time, that
" they were not out of the Hebrew fountain
" (we speak of the Latin translations of the
" Old Testament), but out of the Greek stream;
" therefore, the Greek being not altogether
" clear, the Latin derived from it must needs be
" muddy." Now, it would have been indeed
carping at the mote in their brother's eye,
whilst they perceived not the beam in their own,
had they made this objection, when conscious
that the work, which they themselves were now
sending out to the world as the new translation
required by their Sovereign, was but a collation
from derived streams; that they had stopped
short of the fountain-head. And yet we find
them saying soon after, " Truly, good Christian
" reader, we never thought from the beginning,
" that we should need to make a new transla-
" tlori, nor yet to make of a bad one a good one ;
4
17
" but to make a good one better, or out of many
" good ones one principal good one, not justly
" to be excepted against ; that hath been our
" endeavour, that our mark. To that purpose
" there were many chosen, that were greater in
" other men's eyes then in their owne, and that
" sought the trueth rather then their owne
" prayse." Now, if they meant by this lan-
guage to announce, that they had done no more
than select a good translation from the versions
of Tyndal, Coverdale, Cranmer, and others,
their objection to the old Italic translation was
extremely hypocritical ; and the title-page of
their own Bible bore upon its face a most dis-
graceful falsehood *.
I am sure your Lordship believes them to
have been truly honest and pious men. We
must not, therefore, attach any such meaning
to the above quotation. The passage in ques-
tion can only be explained, consistently with
other parts of the preface, by supposing it to
* The Holy Bible containing the Old Testament and the
New : newly translated out of the original Tongues : and
with the former Translations diligently compared and revised.
mean, that the previous translations were not
so bad as to require that every text should be
rendered anew; that, on the contrary, they
were so good that the present translators began
their work with the expectation that they should
have but little to add to what had been already
done, by some one or other of their predecessors ;
and as it was probable, that any great changes
of language would not be found necessary ; and
desirable, that they should not be made if un-
necessary; such persons had been selected as
were unambitious of praise ; in order, that if
they found any passage correctly translated al-
ready, they might not be tempted to alter the
words merely for the sake of appropriating to
themselves the credit which would otherwise at-
tach to former translators.
But if there is good ground for arguing a
priori, that such is the real meaning of the mo-
dest language used by King James's translators ;
and that we should construe it too unfavourably,
if we accepted it as a confession, that they had
acted the part of mere compilers from other
rersions; this argument is most decisively con-
firmed by the concluding portion of the same
paragraph of the preface. " If you ask," says
Dr. Smith, speaking of himself and his col-
leagues, " what they had before them, truly it
" was the Hebrew text of the Old Testament,
" the Greeke of the New. These are the two
" golden pipes, or rather conduits, where-
" through the olive branches emptie themselves
" into the golde. Saint Augustine calleth them
(( precedent, or originall tongues ; Saint Hie-
w rome, fountaines. The same Saint Hierome
" affirmeth, and Gratian hath not spared to put
" it into his decree, That as the credite of the
" Olde Bookes (he meaneth of the Old Testa-
" ment) is to bee tryed by the Hebrewe volumes,
" so of the New by the Greeke tongue, he
" meaneth by the originall Greeke. If trueth
" be to be tried by these tongues, then whence
" should a translation be made, but out of them ?
" These tongues, therefore, the Scriptures, wee
" say, in those tongues, we set before us to trans-
" late, being the tongues wherein GOD was
" pleased to speake to his Church by his Pro-
" phets and Apostles. Neither did we run over
c2
20
"the worke with that posting haste that the
" Septuagint did, if that be true which is re-
" ported of them, that they finished U in
" seventy-two dayes ; neither were we barred or
" hindered from going over it againe, having
" once done it, like St. Hierome, if that be true
" which himself reporteth, that he could no
" sooner write any thing but it was presently
" caught from him, and published, and he
*- f could not have leave to mend it ; neither, to
"be short, were we the first that fell in hand
" with translating the Scripture into English,
" and consequently destitute of former helpes,
"as it is written of Origen, that he was the
" first in a manner, that put his hand to write
" commentaries upon the Scriptures, and there-
" fore no marvaile if he overshot himselfe many
" times. Neither did we thinke much * to con-
* An old English expression for thinking it too great a
burden more than could be required.
Heclad
Their nakedness with skins of beasts, or slain ;
Or as the snake with youthful coat repaid,
And thought not much to clothe his enemies.
Paradise Lost, book x. 216.
21
" suit the translators or commentators, Chaldee>
" Hebrew, Syrian, Greeke, or Latine ; no, nor
" the Spanish, French, Italian, or Dutch ; nei-
" ther did we disdaine to revise that which we
" had done, and to bring back toi the anvill that
" which wee had hammered ; but having and
" using as great helpes as were needful, and
" fearing no reproch for slownesse, nor covet-
" ing praise for expedition, we have at the
" length, through the good hand of the Lord
" upon us, brought the worke to that passe that
" you see."
Now, surely, my Lord, no reader of your
Lectures would be led by them to imagine, that
the persons, who formed our authorized Version,
could justly give such an account as this of their
labours. Either this statement is untrue, or so
excellent and judicious a mode of proceeding is
not described in terms calculated to give a cor-
rect notion of it, where you say, " The au-
" thorized Version was published by royal au-
" thority in the reign of James the First, hav-
" ing been then compiled out of various English
c3
22
" Bibles which had been printed since the time
" of the Reformation *."
If your Lordship feels inclined to suspect
that the statement, contained in the translators'
preface, gives too high an account of the pains
taken with the authorized Version, it has in its
favour the most unexceptionable testimony that
can well be imagined, in the following remarks
of Selden : " The English translation of the
" Bible is the best translation in the world, arid
" renders the sense of the original best, taking
" in for the English translation, the Bishops'
" Bible, as well as King James'. The transla-
" tors in King James's time took an excellent
" way. That part of the Bible was given to
" him who was most excellent in such a tongue
" (as the Apocrypha to Andrew Downs), and
"then they met together, and one read the
" translation, the rest holding in their hands
" some Bible, either of the learned tongues, or
" French, Spanish, Italian, &c. ; if they found
" any fault, they spoke; if not, he read on.
* Lect. XIV. p. 33.
23
" There is no book so translated as the Bible
" for the purpose. If I translate a French
" book into English, I turn it into English
" phrase, not into French English. II fait froid,
" I say, 'T is cold, not It makes cold ; but the
" Bible is rather translated into English words
" than into English phrase. The Hebraisms
" are kept, and the phrase of that language is
"kept*."
Now these remarks do not appear to have
been made under the bias of a man controverting
any disputed point. They are given incidentally
in his Table Talk, amongst a variety of other to-
pics. I need not tell your Lordship that this is
the testimony of a most learned and laborious
man, who had paid distinguished attention to
Hebrew literature ; who, from the time when he
lived, and the course of his studies, must have
had opportunities of questioning King James's
translators as to the way in which they had pro-
ceeded with their great work ; and who was no-
toriously but little disposed to give unmerited
* -Selden's Table Talk, art. Bible.
c4
24
praise, or to acquiesce in any doubtful claim
for reputation set up by the Church of England.
My friend Mr. Whittaker's evidence, as to
the method pursued by King James's translators,
cannot be cited as equally clear from all suspi-
cion of partiality, because his object in writing
was something like my own ; yet what he has
said on this question is the evident result of
extensive research after such scattered details as
can now be collected, with regard to the history
of the persons employed, and their manner of
proceeding *.
" According to these regulations," says he,
speaking of the King's instructions, " each book
" passed the scrutiny of all the translators suc-
" cessively. In the first instance, each indivi-
" dual translated every book which was allotted
* See page 78 of An historical and critical Enquiry into
the Interpretation of the Hebrew Scriptures, by J. W.
Whittaker, M. A.
Besides the advantage which I derive from the information
that Mr. W. has placed at length before his readers, his re-
ferences have served me as a clue to several facts, the au-
thority for which I should otherwise have found it very difficult
to discover,
25
" to his division. Secondly, the readings to be
" adopted were agreed upon by the whole of
" that company assembled together, at which
" meeting each translator must have been solely
" occupied by his own version. The book thus
" finished was sent to each of the other compa-
" nies to be again examined, and at these meet-
" ings it probably was, that, as Selden informs
" us, one read the translation, the rest holding in
" their hands some Bible, either of the learned
" tongues, or French, &c. They also had the
" power of calling in to their assistance any
" learned men, whose studies enabled them to
" be serviceable, when an urgent occasion of
" difficulty presented itself. At the expiration
" of three years, copies of the whole Bible thus
" translated and revised were sent to London ;
" one from Oxford, one from Cambridge, and
" a third from Westminster. Here a committee,
" consisting of six, two being deputed by the
" companies at Oxford, two by those at Cam-
" bridge, and two coming from Westminster,
" revised and polished the whole work. Lastly*
" Dr. Smith, the author of the preface, and Dr.
" Bilson, Bishop of Winchester, revised it
" afresh."
26
Our translators then profess, and were be-
lieved by Selden, to have gone through nearly
the whole range of biblical criticism, such as it
then existed, in order to make their version,
what it would not otherwise have deserved to
be called, " as faithful a representation of the
" original Scriptures as could have been formed
" at that period." But if your Lordship should
still doubt, notwithstanding these professions,
and Mr. Whittaker's account of their admirable
arrangements, whether all this criticism went
farther than forming a compilation out of the
<s various English Bibles" which existed before,
it is fortunate that some papers left by one of
your learned predecessors, still remain as in-
contestable evidence, that the critical inquiries
of King James's translators were not conducted
on so limited a scale. Samuel Ward, of Em-
manuel College, afterwards Master of Sidney,
and Lady Margaret's Professor of Divinity, had
for his own share in forming the authorized
Version, the comparatively unimportant task of
translating the Apocrypha, or a portion of it,
with Downs, above mentioned, and others. A
very creditable specimen of the pains he took to
27
i
translate his own share accurately has lately
been given to the puhlic*. But, besides his
peculiar share, it was incumbent on each trans-
lator, as Mr. Whittaker observes, to look care-
fully over the whole ; and amongst Dr. Ward's
remaining papers is a collation of the following
versions of the six first chapters of the book of
Genesis, viz. the Chaldee, the Greek, the Vul-
gate, Pagninus and Tremellius in Latin; an
English, a French, and an Italian trans-
lation -f-.
I am sure you will allow, that this was an
excellent preparation for revising what his col-
leagues were to lay before him ; and that it was
infinitely better than merely collating the pre-
vious English translations. Yet I do still
hope to convince your Lordship, that even
those translations were not of that inferior, se-
condary class to which your Lectures taught
me to consider them as belonging.
* In Mr. Todd's Life of Brian Walton, vol. i. note to
page 120. I am indebted to the same source for the fact
which follows.
t Note to page 121.
it
This is the point to which I now wish to
come ; for, since you may be understood to
mean, that as the older English versions were
derived from Luther and the Vulgate, instead
of being made from the Hebrew, the whole
turn of their style must have been so deflected
by this double transmission, that no revision or
correction could mould such materials into as
close a copy as would be desirable of the sacred
original; I think it important to the character
of our present translation to show, that there
existed no such objection to incorporating the
language of the older versions. Besides, if it
can be proved, as I trust it may, independent^
of their own assertions, that Tyndal and most
of his successors examined the Hebrew text for
themselves, instead of being obliged to receive
it through the medium of others, it is but due
to their characters to show, that their positive
assertions were neither false nor exaggerated.
Indeed, except for the necessity of defending
themselves by a reference to the very words of
the inspired writers, if any should object to
them, that their translations differed from what
they read in the Vulgate, these fathers of the
Reformation were not desirous to say much of
the closeness with which they had endeavoured
to copy the sacred original ; for they knew that
the people had been taught by their priests, to
consider the Vulgate as better authority than
either the Hebrew or the Greek. The Romish
clergy, at that time particularly, depreciated
the Hebrew text as written in the language,
and deserted to the care of enemies ; and the
Greek, as the text and language of schis-
matics ; whilst they held out that the purity of
the Latin text was ensured by the sanction of
an infallible church. The dread of alarming
their readers, and of rendering their transla-
tions unpopular, by mentioning how much
they had been obliged to differ from the Vul-
gate*, inclined the old English translators to
* When Coverdale wishes to defend the deviations of
himself and Tyndal from the Vulgate, he cautiously throws
the blame upon the defects of modern editions of the
Vulgate, as distinct from the question of its original merits.
" For inasmuch as in our other translations we do not follow
" this old Latin text word for word, they cry out upon us; as.
" though all were not as nigh to translate the Scripture out
" of other languages, as to turn it out of the Latin ; or as
" though the Holy Ghost were not the author of his Scripture
" as well in the Hebrew, Greek, French, Dutch, as in
" Latin. Now, as concerning this present text in Latin.
30
undervalue their own labours rather than draw
too much attention to the improvements for
which they deserved credit. Had they claimed
that credit to any thing like the extent to which
it was due, I should not have needed now to
prove, that they formed a thoroughly inde-
pendent judgment of the true meaning of the
original text, taking other translators as their
guides, even in the most difficult passages, only
when after inquiry they were induced to form,
in fact, the same opinion as the translators
whom they may appear to copy. The pru-
dence of not vaunting how much nearer they
had come to the original than the Vulgate
did, was strongly felt by persons who desired
rather to lead their countrymen to study the
Scriptures, in any form that was intelligible
and palatable to them, than to make a great
reputation to themselves as learned men. It
" forasmuch as it hath been, and is yet so greatly corrupt,
" as I think none other translation is, it were a godly and
" a gracious deed, if they that have authority, knowledge,
" and time, would examine it better after the most antient
" interpreters, and most true texts of other languages."
Coverdale's Dedication of Hollybushe's New Testament,
from a copy in Trin. Coll. Library, Cambridge.
31
was with this feeling that Coverdale published
in 1538, an English translation of the New
Testament professedly made from the Vul-
gate *. He did this three years after he had
* " The Newe Testament both in Latine and Englishe,
" eche correspondent to the other after the vulgare Text com-
" moHely called St. Jerome's. Faithfully translated by Johan
" Hollybushe."
I do not quite understand the object of Coverdale in
placing the name of Hollybushe on the title-page of this
Testament, and prefixing that of Thomas Mathewe to the
Bible. Those title-pages are immediately followed by de-
dications and prefaces signed Myles Coverdale, in which he
does not affect to conceal that the works are his ; for example,
in the dedication of Hollybushe's New Testament to Henry
VIII. Coverdale says, in his own name, " To come now to
" the original and first occasion of this my most humble la-
" bour, and to declare how little I have, or do intend to
" despise this present translation in Latin, I have set it
" forth and the English also thereof, I mean the text which
" commonly is called St. Hierome's, and is costumably read
" in the Church. And this (my most gracious Sovereign)
" have I done not so much for the clamorous importunity of
" evil speakers, as to satisfy the just request of certain Your
" Grace's faithful subjects : and especially to induce and
" instruct such as can but English, and are not learned in
" the Latin, that in comparing these two texts together they
*' may the better understand the one by the other. And I
" doubt not but such ignorant bodies as (having cure and
*' charge of souls) are very unlearned in the Latin tongue,
" shall through this small labour be occasioned to attain unto
" more knowledge, and at the least be constrained to say
" well of the thing which heretofore they have blasphemed."
32
compiled (for I have no objection to the appli-
cation of the term compiler to Coverdale) a
much better translation, which stands in the
Bible that goes by his name ; and a year after
he had published Tyndal's translation of the
New Testament, made immediately from the
Greek; so truly was Coverdale " willing and
" ready," as he tells the King in the dedication
just quoted, to do his best to serve the cause
of religion, " as well in one translation as in
" another." Persons who disliked, or scrupled
to read the previous and more accurate ver-
sions which he had published, might yet, he
thought, be induced to look into the Scrip-
tures, when presented to them in a shape at
which their priests could scarcely cavil; and
might thus receive that salutary instruction,
which they would otherwise have shrunk from
accepting.
But however useful Coverdale's translations
might be, and doubtless were, in alluring our
forefathers to the study of the Scriptures, they
had been gradually, but almost entirely re-
moved from the English Bible, before King
33
James's translators commenced their task. It
is with Tyndal that the genealogy of our autho-
rized Version begins. Coverdale's name stands
on the roll much like that of a person who,
dying childless, is counted in the list of prede-
cessors, but not properly amongst the ancestors,
of those who in the course of time inherit his
title. The description, however, and the fate
of Coverdale's Bible will be mentioned with
more propriety after some farther notice of
Tyndal. My present inquiry shall be, there-
fore, whether Tyndal was capable of translating
immediately from the Hebrew. If I can prove
that he was ; and that he actually did employ
himself in proceeding with a translation from
the Hebrew, till his persecutors imprisoned
and put him to death ; few will think it likely,
that, professing to translate the New Testament
from the Greek, he was in reality obliged to
do it through the medium of the German and
Latin Vulgate. For though the knowledge of
Hebrew was not then so much more rare than
the knowledge of Greek, as it has since become,
yet no Christian, probably, attempted to learn
D
34
Hebrew, without having previously studied the
language of the New Testament *.
Your Lordship has consulted Macknight ;
and he says, " It is generally believed, that
" neither Tyndal nor Coverdale understood
" Hebrew*}-." If you had thought with him,
that such a belief was general, you would not,
* Dr. Macknight having persuaded himself, upon the
most erroneous grounds, that Tyndal translated even the
New Testament from the Latin only, has yet felt obliged to
concede, that " if, as Lewis informs us, Tyndal translated
" an oration from Isocrates, he must have had some know-
" ledge of Greek." General Preface to translation of
Epistles, 2. Note.
The accuracy of Lewis's information is not mere matter of
conjecture. In one of Tyndal's prefaces he tells his readers,
that his love of study and anxiety for information were so un-
popular with the ignorant Romish clergy of the country, that
having read^ Erasmus's flattering description of Bishop Ton-
stal, he determined to seek for a protector in that prelate.
" So I gate me to London, and thorowe the accoyntaunce of
" my master came to Sir Harry Gilford, and brought him an
" oration of Isocrates, which I had translated out of Greke
" into English, and desired him to speak unto my Lord of
" London, which he also did." Tyndal's Pref. to Penta-
teuch. Edition 1530.
I have verified many of the references and quotations
in Lewis's History of the English Translations of the Bible,
and in one trifling instance only have \ found him incorrect.
f Gen. Pref. 2, note, p. 15, 2d edit, vol. i.
35
I should suppose, have taken pains, by an in-
genious arrangement of circumstantial evidence,
to establish a conclusion which, after all, ra-
ther expresses a doubt whether Tyndal knew
Hebrew, than a belief that he did not. But
leniently as that conclusion is expressed, "that
" Tyndal's translation was taken at least in
"part from Luther's," your Lordship is too
skilful a writer not to be aware, that you have
combined circumstances enough to convince
any person, who does not dispute your state-
ment of facts, that Tyndal could only venture
to desert the Vulgate when he followed the
steps of Luther; and that his translation be-
longs, therefore, to that class usually called
secondary.
But let me not misrepresent your Lordship.
The passage of which I speak is this:
"To judge, therefore, of our authorized
" Version, we should have some knowledge of
" those previous English Bibles. The first of
" them was a translation made abroad, partly
" by Tyndal, and partly by Rogers, but chiefly
D2
" by the former. It was undertaken soon after
" the Reformation commenced in Germany t and
" therefore several years before the Reformation
" was introduced into England. What know-
" ledge Tyndal had of Hebrew is unknown;
" but he of course understood the Latin Vul-
." gate ; and he was likewise acquainted with
" German. Indeed he passed some time with
" Luther at Wittenberg ; and the books, which
" Tyndal selected for translation into English
" were always those, which Luther had already
" translated into German. Now Luther did
"not translate according to the order in which
" the several books follow each other in the
" Bible ; he translated in an order of his own t
" and the same order was observed also by
" Tyndal, who translated after Luther. We
" may conclude therefore that TyndaVs trans-
" lation was taken at least in part from Lu-
" ther's : and this conclusion is further con-
" firmed by the Germanisms which it contains,
" some of which are still preserved in our au-
" thorized Version. Further, when Rogers had
" completed what Tyndal left unfinished, he
" added notes and prefaces from Luther. The
37
" translation of the whole Bible, thus made by
" Tyndab and Rogers, was published at Ham-
" burg under the feigned name of Matthewe ;
" and hence it has been called Matthewe's
" Bible. Subsequent English editions were Co-
" verdale's Bible," &c.
Now, my Lord, it would be only cavilling to
observe, that Coverdale's was the first of these
previous English Bibles ; because, though it un-
doubtedly was so, yet Tyndal led the way
amongst these translators, beginning with the
New Testament, which he published in 1526.
Yet I was exceedingly perplexed to ascertain,
what could have led you to speak of Coverdale's
Bible, which was printed in 1535, as subse-
quent to Matthewes's, which was published in
1537, till I accidentally learnt, from another
work of your Lordship's, that you had consulted
Johnson on these topics*. On looking into
his tract, I found, in p. 72, a paragraph com-
mencing as follows : " Anno 1537, the Bible
-n\3
* Anthony Johnson, M. A. His " Historical Accoun
of the several English Translations of the Bible," has been
reprinted in the third volume of Bishop Watson's Collection.
38
" containing the Old and New Testament,
" called Matthewes's Bible, of Tyndal's and
" Rogers's translation, came forth. It was
" printed by Grafton and Whitchurch, at Ham-
<4 borough."
Here Matthewes's Bible is the first an-
nounced; whilst the mention of Coverdale's
Bible conies in afterwards, parenthetically as it
were, in the middle of the paragraph, and was
easily overlooked. He .has there said, " Wil-
" liam Tyffldal, with the help of Miles Cover-
" dale, had translated part of the Bible, and
" what they did had been printed anno 1532.
" The whole was finished and printed anno
" 1585, with a dedication to King Henry VIII.
"by Miles Coverdale (Tyndal being then in
" prison), and was called Coverdale's Bible."
b'xJ
Perhaps the more formal and regular an-
nouncement of Matthewes's Bible may have
arisen from its being, sometimes, considered as
the first authorized Bible. Cranmer had, with
the help of Lord Cromwell, obtained permis-
sion to have the words, " Set forth with the
39
" King's most gracious lycence," inserted in
the title-page. Coverdale's Bible was not sanc-
tioned in the same manner on its first appear-
ance; yet he had ventured to dedicate it to the
King; and, in 1536, Lord Cromwell's seventh
injunction to the clergy, issued by him as the
King's Vicegerent, required, " That every per-
" son or proprietary of any parish churche
" within this realme, shall on this side the feast
" of St. Peter ad Vincula next comming, pro-
" vide a boke of the whole Bible, both in Laten
" and also in English, and lay the same in the
" quire for every man that will to loke and read
" thereon *." There was then no other Eng-
lish Bible but Coverdale's, which was therefore
hereby authorized in fact, if not by name.
I have some fears that this misapprehension,
as to which was the first English Bible, may
occasion my being mistaken with regard to the
translation which you intend to assign to Tyn-
dal and Rogers. If I am, your Lordship will
pardon me: but, indeed whereas you say, " The
* Tux's Acts, p. 524, col. 1. ed. 1.
D4
40
" fit-st of the previous English Bibles was a
" translation made abroad, partly by Tyndal
" and partly by Rogers, but chiefly by the
" former*;*' I cannot think that Rogers has
any right to share so largely with Tyndal the
honour of being one of the first translators.
Johnson, in the passage quoted above, has cer-
tainly called Matthewes's Bible, the translation
of Tyndal and Rogers; but in almost the next
sentence he lowers Rogers's claims very consi-
derably, merely saying, " The corrector of the
" press was John Rogers, a learned divine." Of
this I shall, however, beg leave to say more
presently.
Your next words are, " It was undertaken
" soon after the Reformation commenced in
" Germany, and therefore several years before
"the Reformation was introduced into Eng-
"landf."
I don't understand your Lordship's inten-
tion in observing that the translation, to which
*' Lct. XIV. p. 33. t Ibid.
41
you allude, was undertaken " several years be-
" fore the Reformation was introduced into
" England;" unless you mean that the state of
religious knowledge amongst the English was
so backward compared with Germany, that our
translators were scarcely competent to form
a correct view of the meaning of the inspired
writers without the aid of Luther. It was
certainly several years before the Reformation
was established in England; but if we are con-
sidering the effect produced in the way of re-
moving ignorance and prejudices, it may
surely be said that the Reformation was intro-
duced into England nearly one hundred and
fifty years before, when Wickliife began the
restoration of the primitive doctrines of Chris-
tianity. At any rate it appears that some of
our countrymen, who were examined before
Archbishop Warham at Knole in 1511, had
already advanced beyond Luther in correctness
of opinion on some religious questions *.
* See the Articles which they were required to abjure, in
Burnet's History of the Reformation, B. 1. p. 27. 1. Fol.
Edition.
Whilst alluding to Luther, as having failed to correct his
42
Now this was six years before Luther began the
Reformation in Germany; fifteen years before
Tyndal translated the New Testament, and twen-
ty-four years before Coverdale's Bible came out.
early creed so thoroughly as the English Reformers did on the
subject of the sacrament of the Lord's Supper, I cannot help
expressing my surprise at the language used by a most respect-
able scholar in a late publication, which is very likely to be-
come popular in places of education. I mean a Sketch of an-
cient and modern Geography, by Dr. Butler of Shrewsbury; in
which the Section on the Religions of Europe begins with
these words, " The Church of England is commonly called
" a Lutheran Church ; but whoever compares it with the Lu-
" theran churches on the continent, will have reason to con-
" gratulate himself on its superiority." And soon after fol-
lows, " other Lutheran Churches are those of Norway, &c."
Now, the great division of the Protestant churches of Eu-
rope is into the Lutheran and the Reformed churches. Dr.
Butler's scholars, when they consult ecclesiastical historians,
will search in vain for the Church of England under the
former denomination : and they would be surprised at read-
ing what Mosheim, himself a Lutheran divine, mentions as
a proof of moderation in the seventeenth century : " It is
" also known, that in several places where Lutheranism was
" established, the French, German, and British members of
" the Reformed Church were allowed the free exercise of
" their religion." Eccles. Hist. vol. v. Part ii. chap. 2.
1.
There may be many points of doctrine on which we
agree more nearly with Luther than with other Reformers of
a different school; but it is the acceptance or rejection of
the doctrine of consubstantiation, which is mainly decisive as
to the designation of Lutheran or Reformed.
a
" What knowledge Tyndal had of Hebrew
is unknown ; but he of course understood the
"Latin Vulgate, and he was likewise ac-
" quainted with German*."
I should have thought, my Lord, that
Tyndal's translation of so much of the Old
Testament, afforded proofs enough that he
was no indifferent Hebrew scholar. But you
would probably say, that I begged the question
in assuming that Tyndal made his translation
from the Hebrew. And, yet, he himself appeals
to the correspondence of his version with the
Hebrew as the fair test of its merit. " I submit
" this book," says he, " to be disallowed and
" also burnt if it seem worthy, when they have
" examined it with the Hebrew -f-." But, per-
haps, the evidence of his knowledge of He-
brew, which arises incidentally, may be con-
sidered as less liable to suspicion, than a chal-
lenge, which it may be thought he knew his
adversaries to be incapable of accepting. Now,
* Lect. XIV. p. 33.
t Tyndal's Preface to the Pentateuch, date 1530.
From a copy in the British Museum.
D6
44
in the same preface .Tyndal has this passage:
f (t The Prophet sayth, Psaltne cxviii. Thou hast
<f commanded thy laws to be kept meod ; that
"is, in Hebrew, exceedyngly, with ail dili-
" gence, might, and power." This quotation
is, as might be expected*, from the cxixth
Psalm, and is the fourth verse,
"iDa6'TTp9 nrm
* " The Psalms proceed in the same order, both in the
" Hebrew and LXX; but the two Psalms which are called
" the 9th and 10th in the Hebrew, are joined together and
" make but one Psalm in the LXX. Hereby it comes to pass,
" that, what is called the llth Psalm in the Heb. and our
" English Bibles, is but the 10th in the LXX. And so they
" proceed, the LXX still numbering every Psalm one less
" than the Hebrew, until you come to the 113th according to
" the LXX, or 114th according to the Hebrew; and there
" the LXX again join that and the next Psalm also into
" one; whereby the 116th, according to the Hebrew, is but
" the 114th according to the LXX. But the LXX ends
"that 114th or 116th Psalm with the ninth verse; and the
" tenth verse, according to the Hebrew, begins 115th
" Psalm according to the LXX. So that from thenceforth
"the Hebrew numbers are but one more than those of the
" LXX as they were before, and in that manner they con-
" tinue to proceed to Psalm 14C5 according to the LXX, 147
" according to the Hebrew. Theie the LXX conclude the
" Psalm with the twelfth verse, and begin their 147th Psalm
" with what is the 13th verse in the Hebrew; and so the
" three last Psalms as well as the eight first are numbered
" alike in both. The division of the Psalms also in the La-
45
Septuagint, t> evslefaw rag
Vulgate, Tu mandasti mandata tua custo-
diri nimis.
Luther, Du hast geboten fleissig zu halten
deine befehle.
It is obvious from inspection that Tyndal
has here neither followed the Vulgate nor
Luther; the former employing the improper
word nimis for meod, and the latter using a
word which your Lordship will not, perhaps,
" tin Vulgate is the same as in the LXX. So that all
' Christian authors, from the beginning to the Reformation,
*' when they have quoted any Psalm by its number, have quot-
" ed it according to the division of the LXX. Therefore, the
" English editors of the Septuagint did not rightly consider
" the matter, when in their edition of the LXX, they di-
" vided the Psalms according to the Hebrew. For by this
" I doubt not but they have puzzled some young divines, who
*' finding a text, as quoted by some ancient author from a
*' particular Psalm, have looked in vain for it there, as
" numbered in either the London or Cambridge editions."
Dr. Brett, On the ancient Versions; published in Bishop
Watson's Tracts, vol. iii.
Tyndal would in the same manner have perplexed his
readers if he had not adhered to the old mode of quotation,
as neither he nor his brother Reformers had yet circulated a
new translation of the Psalms.
46
think sufficiently expressive of earnestness ; but
keeping closer to the Hebrew than Tyndal has
done in another respect by preserving the ac-
tive signification of 1026. The accurate con-
ception which Tyndal had formed of the force
of TND is, however, very creditable to him.
Buxtorf merely explains it by valde; but in
Simon's later Lexicon, enriched with references
to the Arabic, it is assigned to a root signify-
ing, curvato corpore connisus est, incurvavit
ilium res aliqua, et totum occupavit. Proprie
igitur nomen est substantivum, nisum, inten-
tionem virium significans, quod vero frequentius
in adverbium intendendi abiit: valde, vehe-
menter, omnino penitus, q. d. TNQI cum inten-
sione, cum nisu, h. e. intensius, enirius. J. Si-
monis Lex. sub rad. *m.
Should it be objected that Tyndal has here
followed the LXX altogether, his intimacy with
the Hebrew is still equally proved by his know-
ing that of three words <r$o$pce, fleissig, and
nimis, which do not represent the same ideas,
was that which answered most closely to
; and his language decidedly proves, that,
47
if he had to make his selection from these
three translations, his choice was not the result
of a mere guess.
Tyndal was much more zealous as a divine
than as a critic. His prologues or prefaces,
therefore, are principally filled with summaries
of the doctrines to be deduced from the Scrip-
tures, and with impressive exhortations.
Points of criticism are only mentioned once or
twice incidentally; or else we should have
known a great deal more of his intimacy with
Hebrew. His prologue to the Gospel of St.
Matthew begins as follows: " Here hast thou,
" most dere reader, the New Testament, or
" Covenaunt made with us of God in Christe's
" bloud. Which I have looked over agayne
" (now at the last) with all diligence, and
" compared it with the Greke, and have
" weeded out of it many fautes which lacke of
" help at the beginning and oversight did sow
" therein. If ought seme chaunged, or not
" altogether agreyinge with the Greke, let the
" finder of the faute consider the Hebrue phrase
" or manner of speache left in the Greeke
48
" words, whose preterperfectense and presen-
" tence is oft both one, and the future tense is
" the optative mode also, and the. future tense
" oft the imperative mode in the active voyce,
" and in the passive ever. Likewise person for
" person, number for number, and interroga-
" tion for a conditional, and such like is with
" the Hebrues a common usage*." Mr. Whit-
taker, after quoting this passage, has very sen-
sibly remarked, " That a person who could
" thus write of St. Matthew's hebraisms
" should be compelled by ignorance to translate
" from the Septuagint or the Latin Vulgate"
(and I will venture to add, or from Luther),
" is perfectly incredible; and that he would
" use the latter from choice is inconceivable -f-."
But besides his prologues as he calls them,
Tyndal has added, in his Pentateuch, tables
expounding certain words. The very first
word explained in his table for Genesis is
* The New Testament imprinted at Antwerp by Marten
Emperour, MDXXXIIII. British Museum.
f Whittaker's History and Critical Enquiry, p. 46.
49
Abrech. This word occurs in Gen. xli. 43;
where we are told that Pharaoh's officers cried
before Joseph Abrech, which our present trans-
lation renders Bow the knee. Tyndal's table
has " Abrech, Tender father, or (as some
" will) Bow the knee" Now, at any rate, this
is not copied from Luther, who has translated
it Der ist des landes vater. Nor did he derive
his explanation from the Septuagint, which
merely says K/ sKypv^sv ejwipw&y <w7 x.>/pu. The
Vulgate has " Clamante pracone, ut omnes
" coram eo genu flecterent;" but though this
translation comes near to one of the alter-
natives which Tyndal has offered, he could not
have learnt from it, what he has so accurately
expressed, that the word must be in the impe-
rative, if its construction is to be derived from
"]"Q, to bow the knee.
The word TON thus put into the mouth of
the Egyptian heralds, may very naturally be
suspected of being an Egyptian word expressed
in Hebrew letters, and not translated into
Hebrew. If, however, we are to consider the
sacred historian as having given the meaning,
50
rather than merely expressed the sound of the
Egyptian cry or proclamation, these letters
may be considered as forming either two He-
brew words "p IK, or the imperative hiphil of
"I'D, with the not very unusual substitution of
the servile tf for n *. In the first case it would
mean A tender father ; in the second, Bow the
knee.
The LXX probably considered the word as
Egyptian ; and omitted it as unintelligible and
unimportant. The Vulgate expresses one of
the supposed meanings but rather loosely. It
is difficult to say on what supposition Luther
founded his interpretation; unless we refer it
to a mistake similar to the one noticed below *f-.
* Tyndal is not likely to have considered this as one of
the cases where the future is used for the imperative; be-
cause, independent of the vowel points which belong to the
imperative hiphil, it would be the first person if it was re-
feired to the future active ; as one of the critics noticed in
Pole's Synopsis, renders it genu Jlectam, which makes non-
sense of the passage.
f The Chaldee paraphrast has rendered it, Ml p
H3iDb, This is the father of the kiny. Hence the Geneva Bible,
which uses Abrech in the text, has in the margin, " Which
" word some expound Tender father, or Father of iltt king,
4
51
Tyndal has not blindly submitted to these
authorities; but has, without any parade of
learning, copied the word -piN into English
letters, thus tacitly marking one opinion enter-
tained respecting the word ; and has then sub-
joined two other explanations, the best which
any Hebrew scholar could give*. That he de-
" or Kneel down" The paraphrast's explanation cannot be
considered as a very plausible one ; but is founded on the
Chaldee word Mil a king; non communiter, says Buxtorf,
hoc sensu usitatum, sed certo modo et eerta locutione. Eo
alludit et paraphrastes Chaldaeus ibi dum vocem "plK para-
phrastice reddit, Hie est pater regni. Lexicon Chaldaeam
et Talmudicum. Buxtorf seems to have forgotten, that
he had himself, under the article "J^D, stated that to^n was
Chaldee for king, lita for kingdom; and that the pafst-
phrast's words should therefore be rendered, hie est pater
regis, not regni.
* I find in Seb. Miinster, who published his translation
of the Bible four years after Tyndal's Pentateuch came out,
the following remark in defence of rendering Abreck by
genuflectite. Kimhi, quern hie sequutus sum, putat scrip-
turn Y^N pro "pin, ut sit imperativus hiphil a verbo YIS genu-
flexit. In all probability Tyndal must have derived his know^
ledge of this word from Kimhi, or some other Rabbinical
writer. The translators noticed in Pole's Synopsis, as giving
this explanation of Abrech, all wrote after Tyndal; and
Jerome, from whose Qusestiones seu Traditiones Hebraicae in
Genesim I expected to find that Tyndal had drawn all the
materials for his tables, has not noticed the imperative form
of the word. He says, " Et clamavit ante cum prceco. Pro
" quo Aquila transtulit, et clamavit in conspectu ejus ad-
52
rived his interpretation of Abrech from the
study of the Rabbinical commentators, is made
still more probable by the explanation which he
has given of mya /wsst, the Egyptian title be-
stowed on Joseph in ver. 45 of the same forty-
first chapter, for his explanation is one un-
known to the LXX, the Vulgate, and Luther.
One or two specimens are sufficient to show,
that, in the solution of particular difficulties,
Tyndal judged for himself, without any blind
deference to his predecessors. But, when I
have occasion to point out the very different
character of Tyndal's translation from that of
Coverdale, I shall collate part of the chapter,
to which these words have drawn our attention,
" geniculationem. Symmachus ipsum Hebraicum sermonem
" interpretans ait, Et clamamt ante eum Abrech. Unde
** mihi videtur non tarn prceco sive adgeniculatio, quze in sa-
" lutando vel adorando Joseph accipi potest, intelligenda :
*' quam id quod Hebraei tradunt, dicentes patrem tenerum
" ex hoc sermone transferri. IN quippe dicitur pater, 71 deli-
" catug sive tenerrimus; significante scriptura, quod juxta
" prudentiam quidem^ter omnium fuerit: sed juxta rctatem
"tenerrimus adolescens et puer." D. Hieronymi Opera,
torn. iii. p. 223. Basle, 1553. In adopting, "Bow the
" knee," King James's translators preferred a very reason-
able to a very fanciful Rabbinical gloss.
53
with the LXX, the Vulgate, and Luther's trans-
lation. If it then appears, that in several in-
stances, where the Hebrew idiom has been
dropped by one or two of those previous trans-
lators, Tyndal has closely followed that idiom,
your Lordship will surely allow, that he must
have translated from the Hebrew, in the fair
and reasonable meaning of that expression;
for he could only know, by his acquaintance
with and reference to the original, which of
the previous translators kept most closely
to the Hebrew, on the supposition that he
worked with the Vulgate and Luther constantly
before him. Indeed he would not have been
the judicious person that I cannot help think-
ing him, had he neglected to consult any trans-
lation of good character which was within his
reach ; and he might reasonably have expected
to derive such help from the light which Lu-
ther's genius, learning, and industry were
likely to throw upon the Scriptures, that it
would not have implied any discreditable con-
sciousness of ignorance on his part, had he ar-
ranged his own order of translation, so as to
be able to take advantage of Luther's previous
B3
labours. But I do not see that any peculiar
arrangement could have been necessary for that
purpose. On this subject your Lordship has
said, " He passed some time with Luther at
" Wittenberg, and the books which Tyndal se-
" lected for translation into English were al-
" ways those which Luther had already trans-
" lated into German. Now Luther did not
" translate according to the order in which the
" several books follow each other in the Bible:
" he translated in an order of his own, and
" the same order was observed also by Tyndal,
" who translated after Luther. We may con-
<f elude, therefore, that Tyndal's translation
" was taken at least in part from Luther's *."
Let us consider what Tyndal's order was.
In the first place, he and Luther both be-
gan with the New Testament -f- : but each had,
* Lect. XIV. p. 33.
t I think it unnecessary to notice Luther's translation of
the seven penitential Psalms from the Latin of Reuchlin,
published in 1517, about five years before his version of the
New Testament. Nobody has charged Tyndal with copying
Luther in this trifling task. The selection was a popular one,
and an English translation of them had been printed by
Pynson in 1505.
in his character of a Reformer, the same good
reason for taking this portion of the Bible first.
The object of each was, to induce his country-
men to throw off those abuses which the Ro-
mish clergy had engrafted on primitive Chris-
tianity; for this purpose they appealed to and
laid before their countrymen the language
of our Lord and his Apostles, that they might
see how widely the superstructure had spread
beyond its plain and simple foundations. They
had no important battles to wage against the
ordinarily received opinions of Christians, as
to the interpretation of the Old Testament;
yet they naturally would exert themselves not
to leave it a sealed book, in an unknown
tongue, after the perusal of the New Testament
had begun to produce its desired effect, by
exciting an increased veneration for the oracles
of God, as compared with the foolish and
frequently mischievous traditions of men. Ac-
cordingly, when they had provided their coun-
*
trymen with the New Testament in their re-
spective native languages, each began upon the
Old. Luther went straight forward in the re-
gular order of the books to the end of Solo-
F.4
56
mon's Song. Having advanced thus far, there
seems to have been a considerable interruption
of his labours as a translator. Indeed we know
that he was, at this time, engaged in drawing
up regulations for the churches under his su-
perintendence, correcting or forming liturgies,
and composing homilies *.
At length he published Jonah -f- and Ha-
bakkuk, as if he wished to show the Christian
world, that he still intended to complete his
version; but had not leisure for the important
and considerable task of translating Isaiah,
whose prophecy would have come the next in
order.
We need follow him no farther, since we
have already advanced higher up the catalogue
than Tyndal lived to reach.
* Milner's Hist, of the Church, vol. vi. chap. 14.
t It is very probable, that, amongst the minor Pro-
phets, he was induced to select Jonah, by the circumstance
of Sebastian Miinster's publishing an edition of Jonah, at
Basle, in 1524, with the Greek, Latin, Hebrew, and
Chaldee in corresponding columns. This would have reached
Wittenberg in the interval since Luther made his last pre-
vious translation from the Scriptures.
After publishing his English Pentateuch in
1530, it is said that Tyndal translated the pro-
phet Jonah in 1531. I should imagine that
this irregularity in his course of translating
caught your Lordship's eye, as a proof of co-
incidence with Luther's order. But had he been
guided by Luther's arrangement, he should
have gone on regularly from the Pentateuch to
Canticles before coming to Jonah. Whereas he
never advanced through the many intervening
books beyond Chronicles, or Neherniah at the
farthest ; and what he did translate of this por-
tion of the Scriptures was done subsequent to
1531. . The truth is, that his publication of
Jonah must have been a mere vehicle for a
strong diatribe against the Romish Church,
which fills seventeen closely printed folio co-
lumns. That this prologe to Jonah was not
translated from any foreign writer, is evident
from a single extract: "The lives, stories, and
" gifts of men, which are contained in the
" Bible, they read as things no more pertaining
" unto them than a tale of Robin Hood." Jo-
nas, a solitary preacher, was ordered to call the
people of a great city to repent of their sins
58
and to reform ; and Tyndal, a persecuted in-
dividual, obliged to fly from his country, and
shipwrecked* whilst preparing the means for
instructing and reforming a whole nation, had
inducement enough to digress for a while, with
Jonah and reformation for his theme.
The comparison of Mathewe's and Cover-
dale's Bibles has, however, led me to suspect,
that Tyndal published this declamatory thesis
(which was afterwards inserted in the English
Bible of 1549 -f), either without any translation
* " In the mean time Tyndal was busy in translating fr6m
" the Hebrew into English the five books of Moses ; but
" having finished his translation, and going to Hamburgh to
" print it, the vessel in which he went was shipwrecked, and
" his papers lost, so that he was forced to begin all anew,
*' by which means it was not printed till 1530." Lewis's
Hist, of English Translations, p. 70, 3d Edition.
It is only from the connexion between the mission
of Jonah, and endeavours to reform the religion of states,
that I can account for the long list of separate editions of
this Prophet published in the sixteenth and seventeeth cen-
turies. In Ma/sn's Le Long twenty-two editions with Latin
versions, or paraphrases, are enumerated, besides the ver-
nacular translations.
f From a copy, with a manuscript title-page, in St.
John's Coll. Libr. Cambridge, 4. T. 21.
The prologe to Jonah may also be aeen in the Whole
of Jonah annexed to it, or with one struck off
at a heat, and afterwards rejected as unfit to
rank with his other translations. If Tyndal
did not translate Jonah, he followed altogether,
what I must take leave to call, the natural
order in which any judicious Reformer would
proceed. If he did translate Jonah, an acci-
dental combination of circumstances plausibly
and sufficiently accounts for this irregularity.
His order would still be by no means precisely
that of Luther.
But, in the second place, the relative dates
of Luther's and Tyndal's versions are such, that
even supposing the latter obliged to confine his
labours to what had been already done by the
former, that necessity would by no means have
Workes of W. Tyndal, John Frith, and Dr. Barnes. Printed
by John Daye, 1573. But I have never been able to meet
with any translation of Jonah by Tyndal. It is not in Arch-
bishop Newcome's careful list of the English translations.
Mathewe's Bible, which contains all Tyndal's other transla-
tions, appears not to contain this. From Lewis's language
I should think he had never seen any thing more than the
prologue. His quotation from Sir Thomas More's pamphlet
of 1532 may as well refer to a commentary on Jonas as to
a translation.
60
limited him to the adoption of Luther's order
of translation. So that unless it was evident,
that he had followed Luther entirely, and that
in some very capricious arrangement, we should
have, I think, but weak ground for assuming
that some similarity in their order of proceed-
ing was founded on the inability of the later
writer to proceed without the help of his pre-
decessor, as long as any other motive for that
similarity could be suggested.
To make this clearer I will subjoin the dates
of publication.
LUTHER. TYNDAL.
New Testament 1522
JThe Pentateuch 1523
I
Joshua, Judges, -
and other historical
books as far as Job
{
1524
/ Job, Psalms, Pro-
3d Part. J verbs, Ecclesiastes,
I Canticles
Jonah and Ha-
bakkuk 5 1526 New Testament -
Zechariah -i
Isaiah J 1528 ^ Repeated edi-
The Wisdom ofi ?tions of the New
Solomon
i ?ons o e
J 1&29 -' Testament.
61
LUTHER.
Daniel
Remainder of the
Apocryphal Books
A second trans-
lation of the Psalms
Remainder of the
,,
Prophets
The Bible com-
plete
1530
1531
1532
TYNDAL.
The Pentateuch.
? r
3 1 ' 1 T.
Repeated editions of N.
and Pentateuch.
1 Joshua and historical
books to Chronicles, in-
clusive, published after
his death *.
Now, if any person felt inclined to suppose
that Tyndal, had he been obliged to look out
for assistance from Luther's translations, would
have begun with Genesis instead of the New
Testament, he may see at once from this table,
that even if Tyndal had been unable to do more
than copy Luther word for word, this would
not have made it at all necessary for him to
take up Luther's New Testament rather than
* I have extracted the dates of Luther's translations from
the Bibliotheca Theologica of Walchius, torn. iv. p. 82.
They may be seen, also, in Le Long, Bibliotheca Sacra, cap.
iv. Pars II. Art. xiv. 3. For these references I was in-
debted to the note on Michaelis, p. 620, vol. ii. ed. 2d.
The dates of Tyndal's translations are from Lewis's and
Archbishop Newcome's list of English versions.
2
his Genesis, in order to bring out a translation
of some portion of Scripture in 1526: still less
will he imagine, that Tyndal's selection of
Jonah for publication in 1531, was influenced
by Luther's having translated that Prophet
earlier than Isaiah, which yet came out in
1528; especially as Tyndal had not yet fol-
lowed Luther in translating Joshua, &c.
In fact, the long intervals which appear
between Tyndal's publication of those portions
of Scripture which he did translate, seem much
more suited to a man slowly working his way
through the Hebrew text, and consulting Rab-
binical glosses* as he proceeded, than to a
person living in Germany, there translating
from the language of persons with whom he
conversed, and assisted by reference to the
Latin.
I cannot, therefore, perceive that your Lord-
ship's premises, as far as they are drawn from
the order of Tyndal's translation, afford ground
'
* See Appendix, Art. A.
63
firm enough for building 1 any conclusion on
them whatever.
But you add, that your " conclusion is fur-
" ther confirmed by the Germanisms which it
" contains, some of which are still preserved
" in our authorized Version*."
i
Now, your Lordship is so well known to be
thoroughly master of the German language,
that were you to point out any expression in
our English Bible as a Germanism, I should
not feel the least doubt but that the peculiar
turn of its arrangement corresponded exactly
with the German idiom ; and yet it seems that
even a native of Germany might be mistaken
in supposing any particular form of expression,
used in Luther's Bible, to be a genuine in-
stance of German idiom ; for Wolder, speak-
ing on this very subject, has said, " Saxonis-
" mos certe ego infinites non nisi Hebraismos
" esse comperi *}-." I should suppose that it
* Lect. XIV. p. 33.
f Biblia Sacra, Graece, Latine, et Germanice, oper&
Davidis Wolderi, Hamburgh, 1596, Praefatio ad Lectorem.
The
64
must require an intimate knowledge of the
German language, as it existed before Luther's
time, as well as of its present state, to be able
to separate the idiomatic expressions of genuine
German origin from those idioms, which, being
originally Hebrew, have been introduced into
the German language, and rendered popular
by the use of Luther's version. Yet the latter
would find their place as naturally in an English
Bible translated from the Hebrew, as in one
translated from Luther; indeed their frequency
would be just in proportion to the fidelity of
these translations to their common original.
But even supposing that sort of anomalous
construction, which properly constitutes an
idiomatic expression, to be observed in corre-
sponding passages of the English and Luther's
Bible, and to be, in each, an adequate repre-
The Latin of Welder's Bible is Pagninus's translation ; but
he has himself added, in the margin, corrections, bringing
the Latin still closer to the Hebrew idiom. It seems quite
impossible to represent in one language the idiom of a very
different tongue with more closeness than Wolder has done.
He has, also, given Luther's German in a parallel column,
so that a more competent witness to the point for which I
have quoted him could not well be imagined,
65
i
sentative, but not a close copy of the Hebrew
phrase ; these similar idioms in English and
German might be equally genuine in each lan-
guage. It would frequently be very rash to
assert that they were not so. When we con-
sider the original affinity between the German
language and our own, we shall feel, that a
person ought to have devoted very great at-
tention to our early English literature, to be
able to say of any expression, found in an old
writer, that it is a Germanism. The recollec-
tion of a single passage, from some old chro-
nicler, might enable any one to vindicate the
English origin of a suspected Germanism in
our Bible ; whilst habits of very extensive black-
letter reading might leave a critic in doubt as
to the propriety of positively asserting, that it
could not be of English origin. It would some-
times require all Mr. Sharon Turner's know-
ledge of Saxon and of the mixed language
which succeeded it, added to Mr. Todd's fa-
miliarity with the style in use from Chaucer to
Milton, to qualify a person to decide with cer-
tainty, that an idiom resembling the German
and used by some Elizabethan writer, must
F
66
have been a recent importation from Germany,
and could not have grown up with the growth
of our English tongue.
Such, my Lord, were my reflections, whilst
I imagined that you had in your view certain
expressions in our authorized Version, which
you considered as Germanisms. But when I,
afterwards, read your translation of Michaelis,
I found that he said, " The translation of Lu-
" ther has had material influence on those,
" which were made by his followers in the Re-
" formation, not excepting even the English,
" where examples might be produced of Ger-
" inanisms, that to every Englishman must
" appear obscure *." Now, he has given no
example of these Germanisms ; and I cannot
consider the authority of a foreigner as of the
least weight in this question ; because, though
he might perceive the similarity, or, if you
please, the identity of an idiom in our Bible with
the German, he could not be at all competent to
assert of any such idiom, that it then appeared
* Michaelia's Introduction to the New Testament, vol. ii.
chap. vii. ^ 21.
67
in the English language for the first time. As
a commentator on Michaelis you have, in your
note on this passage *, partly anticipated my
objection. But you have left it unanswered,
and contented yourself with observing, that
Michaelis's assertion was not likely to be wrong,
because Rogers certainly, and Tyndal probably,
made use of Luther's version. As you have
perceived the difficulty that might be started,
and have chosen rather to argue for the pro-
bable truth of what Michaelis has said, than to
give satisfactory specimens of these German-
isms, I cannot help thinking myself entitled to
conclude, that the proof of their existence in
our Bible rests, after all, solely on Michaelis's
authority ; for your Lordship would not choose
to ground an argument far their existence on
the probability that Tyndal used Luther's trans-
lation, whilst you are endeavouring to prove,
from their existence, that Tyndal did use that
translation.
At the same time that I venture to argue
thus, allow me to add, that either I am wrong,
-
* See Appendix, Art. B.
68
and there are some phrases in the Bible which
you have been in the habit of considering as
Germanisms ; or it certainly did not occur to
you how little weight would attach to a fo-
reigner's opinion, as to the genuineness of idiom-
atic expressions in the English Bible. For,
though such a course of Lectures as yours,
comprehends the result of too much reading to
allow of giving references in proof of every
assertion, yet I am sure your Lordship would
have been quite incapable of allowing your
hearers to consider the existence of these Ger-
manisms as verified by your observation, whilst
it really depended upon the assertion of a very
ihcpmpetent witness ; had you thought the dis-
tinction between your own authority and his,
so material towards gaining the assent of your
audience to the conclusion which you were
proceeding to establish.
Having said thus much on the presumptive
evidence offered against the independence of
Tyndal's translation, I shall now proceed to
give some account of Coverdale's Bible, prepa-
ratory to that collation of his and Tyndal's ver-
69
sion with the Hebrew, which I proposed, as
affording direct proof that the latter made his
translation immediately from the original.
After Tyndal had published his English Pen-
tateuch, in 1530, he continued, in Antwerp,
labouring at his work of translation; being
assisted by Coverdale and by Rogers, who was
chaplain there to the merchants adventurers * ;
but, in 1534, he was seized as a heretic, and
carried off to the castle of Vilvorde. His papers
seem to have remained in the hands of his
friends ; at least so much of them as contained
translations of the Old Testament from Joshua
to Chronicles inclusive, with prefaces to several
different books of the Scriptures. He was de-
tained a prisoner for about a year and a half,
before the atrocity of his persecutors was com-
pleted, by bringing him to the stake.
* From what will afterwards appear with respect to the
attainments of Coverdale, I should imagine, that whilst
Tyndal translated from the Hebrew, and consulted the works
of the Rabbis, Coverdale and Rogers collated for him the
Latin and other recent versions. Rogers was so well skilled
in German, that he was held qualified to take the charge of a
congregation in Saxony.
F3
70
During this interval, exertions were made
by the English merchants, and by the Lord
Cromwell, to procure his liberty. He was in
the hands of the Emperor's officers ; and the po-
licy of that sovereign sometimes prevented him
from proceeding to those extreme severities, to
which his haughty impatience of any opposition
to the Imperial decrees naturally inclined him ;
so that Coverdale and Tyndal's other friends
were not without hopes, that the time might yet
come when he would be able to complete that
important work in which he had now so far
advanced.
What Tyndal had already done had been
received with great avidity in England; and
had increased the appetite of still greater num-
bers, for more of those Scriptures which had so
long been kept out of their reach. This feeling
was so strongly excited and so evident, that
the Dutch booksellers and a person named
Joye had taken advantage of it, and endea-
voured to supply the market with surreptitious
and ill-corrected editions of Tyndal's transla-
71
tions, whilst he was slowly proceeding with his
labours. In order, therefore, that the people
might be fed with instruction, before their zeal
was chilled by any long delay, Coverdale im-
mediately prepared a translation from such
materials as were most accessible to him *.
* In the prologe prefixed to his translation, he gives the
following account of his view in making it, and of the
sources from which he drew.
" Myles Coverdale unto the Chrysten reader."
" Considering how excellent knowledge and lernynge an
" interpreter of Scripture ought to have in the tongues, and
" pondering also mine own insufficiency therein, and how
" weak I am to perform the office of a translatour, I was the
" more lothe to meddle with this worke. Notwithstanding
" when I considerd how great pity it was that we should
" want it so long, and called to my remembrance the adver-
" sity of them which were not only of rype knowledge, but
" wolde also with all their hertes have performed that they
" began, if they had not had impediment, considering I say
" that by reason of their adversity it could not so soon have
" been brought to an end, as our most prosperous nation would
" fayiie have had it, these and other reasonable causes con-
" sidered, I was the more bolde to take it in hand. And to
" helpe me herein I have had sondrye translacyons, not only in
" Latyn but also of the Douche interpreters, whom (because
" of their singular gyftes and speciall diligence in the Bible)
" / have been the more glad to follow for the most part, ac-
" cording as I was requyred."
F 4
72
We have already* elsewhere seen him de-
claring, that he was as ready to serve the cause
of religion " in one translation as in another;"
and the one which he now presented to his
countrymen was avowedly made from the La-
tin and German }-.
The time must have been too short, I
should imagine, for translating the whole Bible
from any sources ; since Tyndal, who suffered in
1536, was certainly at large in 1533; and Co-
verdale's Bible, though not published till
1536, bears the date of 1535 J. It is most pro-
* Page 32.
t The tide of Coverdale's Bible is :
The Bible, that is the Holy Scripture of the Olde and
Newe Testament, faithfully and truly translated out of
Douche and Latyn into Englishe. MDXXXV.
From a copy in the British Museum. 10 N N e.
A letter to the King follows; in which he says, " I faith-
" fully translated this out of five sundry interpreters."
I The interval between the date on the title-page and the
actual publication is clearly marked by a curious alteration
in the dedicatory letter to Henry VIII. which contains these
words, " your dearest just wife, and most vertuous pryn-
" cesse Qu. JAne." This is not as it was printed; for Anne
has been altered into JAne by the pen. The epithetjusf proved
the party of the dedicator, who held the marriage with Anne
73
bable, therefore, that Coverdale had begun this
translation before he became connected with
Tyndal; that he desisted from completing or
from publishing it, when he found that Tyndal,
whose superior skill " in the tongues " he de-
cidedly acknowledges, was employed in pre-
paring a translation ; and that he resumed the
office of translator, as soon as he saw that the
interruption to Tyndal's labours was not likely
to terminate speedily. That he did not rather
content himself with beginning his own trans-
lation from the point where Tyndal left off,
may easily be accounted for; because, how-
ever indifferent he himself might be to the re-
putation of authorship, the irritability which
Tyndal had evinced on the occasion of Joye's in-
terference with his translations, must have made
Coverdale aware that his imprisoned and perse-
cuted friend would feel impatient at having the
productions of a less skilful hand engrafted on
his own*. As soon, however, as Tyndal's
Boleyne to be legal, notwithstanding the Pope's refusal to
declare the former marriage null; when applied to Jane
Seymour this word lost its force.
* I have already mentioned the grounds which Cover-
dale might have for hoping that Tyndal would yet live to re-
74
death removed all hopes of seeing him finish
his work, and all fears of breaking in upon
" the last infirmity of a noble mind/' Cover-
dale, with a most exemplary rejection of all
personal vanity, undertook the publication of
Mathewe's Bible; from which he has thrown
out every particle of his own translation, that
could be replaced by Ty n dal's.
Coverdale's Bible then is confessedly a
secondary version; and is entirely unconnected
with Tyndal's translations.
Let us proceed to ascertain how far this as-
sertion is confirmed by the result of an actual
comparison. I will take for this purpose the
first ten verses of Gen. xli. a chapter to which
my attention has been already drawn by the
word Abrech. By bringing under your Lord-
sume his task. In the prologe lately quoted he alludes to the
possibility of this : " Though it be not worthily ministered
" unto thee in this translation, (by reason of my rudeness),
" yet ifthou be fervent in thy prayer, God shall not only send
" it thee in a better shape, by the ministration of other that
" began it afore, but shall also move the hertes of them
" which as yet medled not withal, to take it in hand^."
75
ship's view at the same time our authorized
Version, I hope farther to show, that King
James's translators did not sacrifice any oppor-
tunities of copying the Hebrew more closely,
to the rules which required them to employ
the language of their predecessors wherever
they could. I shall also subjoin Diodati's ver-
sion, which our authorized traaslators have
never been accused of copying; yet, they pro-
bably consulted *, and will be found to agree
with it, perhaps^ more often than with any
other. This may serve to show how little
proof of the dependence of one translator upon
another can properly be deduced from coinci-
dences of expression, where they are also coin-
cidences in correct rendering. Following the
Hebrew so wonderfully closely as King James's
translator* have done, they are naturally found
nearest in language to that translator who is
nearest to the original.
Gen. xli. vn, literally, " And it was." An
introductory expression at the beginning of a
* See quotation from Selden, page 22.
76
narrative; fairly represented by thfr Greek
E.y^o &.
Tyndal. And it fortuned.
Diodati. Ed awenne.
Auth. V. And it came to pass.
Omitted by Luther, Coverdale, and the
Vulgate.
mm. Lit. And behold.
LXX. Qs]o.
Vulg. Putabat.
Tyndal. And thought.
Luther. Wie.
Cov. How that. -
Diod. E gli pareva.
Auth. V. And behold.
The Greek idiom corresponds ex-
actly with the Hebrew.
LXX. ETT/ 7 7ro7/x*.
Vulg. Super fluvium.
Tynd. By a river's side.
Luth. Am wasser.
Cov. By a water side.
- t -
77
Diod. Presso al mime.
Auth. V. By the river.
Tyndal loses the force of the emphatic ar-
ticle which pointed to the Nile. The Latin
could not well express it. Coverdale, as in the
preceding instance, copied Luther's vague ex-
pression. The authorized Version exactly cor-
responds to Diodati's, and could not be im-
proved.
Verse 2d begins with " And behold."
LXX. Kct/ i$ov.
Vulg. Omits it, and alters the construction.
Tynd. And that.
Luth. Und sahe.
Cov. And behold.
Diod. Ed ecco.
Auth. V. And behold.
p. Lit. Out of the river ascending.
LXX. E*7* TTOJ&pX OiVsfSc&lVOV.
Vulg. De quo ascendebant.
Tynd. There came out of the river.
Luth. Aus dem wasser steigen.
78
Cov. Out of the water there came.
Diod. Dal fiume salivano.
Auth. V. There came up out of the
river.
Tyndal lost nothing but the expression of
ascent; and the Auth. V. has restored it.
JWDl. Tyndal, Coverdale, and the
authorized Version have here preserved the
Hebrew exactly and fat-fleshed.
Diod. E carnose.
LXX. K#< SKhSKJOit TMig (TCip^t.
Vulg. Et crassee nimis.
Luther combines it with the preceding epi-
thet schone fette.
Unimportant as the expression is, we have
here a decided instance, in which both Tyndal
and Coverdale have come closer to the Hebrew
than their supposed guides.
Ver. 3.
. Lit. And stood.
LXX. Ko fvejptfk
Vulg. Et pascebantur.
79
Tynd. And stode.
Luth. Und traten.
Cov. And went.
Diod. E si fermarono. ; j-j $fij
Auth. V. And stood.
Here Tyndal selected the correct word,
where his predecessors had wandered consider-
ably.
Ver. 4. Here the epithets are a little va-
ried ; the word flesh comes after lean in the
Hebrew, but not after fat.
The Latin is very vague; Quorum mira
species, et habitudo corporum.
Luther is not close.
Tyndal has followed the LXX in marking
the variation of the epithets; but his well-
chosen words, The evyll favoured and leane
fleshed wel favoured and fatte are much
closer imitations of ninon minntton npn &c.
than either the Greek, Latin, or German.
>Ue Diod. observes the variation, but breaks up
lean-fleshed into two epithets, e magre, e scarne.
The authorized Version follows Tyndal, only
changing evyll into ill.
80
Ver. 5. I will only remark here, that
whilst all the other translations have deviated
slightly, at the beginning of this verse, from
the Hebrew, by using some distinct expression
of repetition with slept, as well as with dreamt,
King James's translators have corrected even
this trifling inaccuracy, and keeping close to
the Hebrew, say, And he slept and dreamed the
second time.
Ver. 6. DHp
Lit. Turned black by the East wind.
LXX. AvspotyQopoi.
Vulg. Percussse uredine.
Luth. Versengete.
Cov. And blasted.
Tynd. Blasted with the wind.
Diod. Arse dal vento orientale.
Auth. V. Blasted with the East wind.
Minister has Oriental! vento percussae ; and
Pagninus caught the full force of DHp. Tyndal
is at least as correct as the LXX, and more so
than Luther and the Vulgate.
81
Ver. 7. Gbn mm
Lit. And behold a dream.
LXX. Ka/ yv SVU7TVIOV.
Vulg. Post quietem.
Tynd. And see, here is his dream.
Luth. Und merckte dass es ein traum
war.
Cov. And saw that it was a dream.
Diod. is precise : Ed ecco un sogno.
Auth. V. And behold it was a dream.
The Vulgate is a mere paraphrase. Tyndal
is quite independent, and comes closer to the
original than any of the translators, from
whom he has been supposed to be obliged to
borrow his knowledge.
Ver. 8. Of this verse I will only remark,
that though the word ID 1 ??! his dream, is in the
singular, it is followed by DJTIN them in the plu-
ral. This peculiarity is copied by Luther and
King James's translators, but all the others
have overlooked it; or thought proper to cor-
rect it. This does not prove the exactness of
either Tyndal or Coverdale as translators. But
it is another instance, that they were neither of
G
82
them afraid of quitting Luther. The Greek
has 70 svwviov and erfo. The Vulgate; Nee erat
qui interpretaretur; a neutral expression in this
case.
Ver. 10. Begins in the Hebrew exactly as
in our authorized Version. " Pharaoh was
" wroth."
LXX. <Pap<xu W(ryi<r9vi.
Vulg. Iratus rex.
Luth. Da Pharao zornig ward.
Cov. Whan Pharao was angrie.
Diod. Faraone si crucci6.
l^ndal begins abruptly like the original,
Pharao was angrie. Where the ideas expressed
are so much the same, how could he know
which mode of translation was closest to the
original but by referring to the original ? The
slightest distinction will often show most de-
cidedly that the translation has been made im-
mediately from the Hebrew.
LXX.
Vulg. Princeps militum.
83
Luth. Hofmeister.
Tynd. and Coverdale; Chefe marshall
Diod. Capitan delle guardie.
Auth. V. Captain of the guard.
Tyndal has specified his reasons under the
article Marshall, in his " Table expounding
" certain Wordes in the first Booke of Moses."
" Marshall. In Hebrue he is called Sarta-
" bairn, as thou wouldest say, Lord of the
" Slaughtermen. And though that Tabaim
<e be taken for cookes in many places, (for the
<e cookes did slay the beastes themselves in those
" days), yet it may be taken for them that put
" men to execution also; and that I thought
" it should here best signify, inasmuch as he
" had the oversight of the kynge's prison, and
" the kynge's prisoners, were they never so
" greate men, were under his custodie; and,
" therefore, I call him Chief Marshall, an of-
" ficer as it were the Lieutenant of the Tower
" or Maister of the Marshalsey *."
* The existence of this article in Tyndal's table suffi-
ciently accounts for Coverdale's agreeing with him here ; for
though he did not choose to form his translation on Tyndal's,
sentence by sentence; but to give what he 'had already pre-
84
This specimen of criticism on the correct
meaning of a Hebrew word not bearing, as he
observes, its usual signification here, might be
reasonably accepted as sufficiently proving his
intimacy with the Hebrew language. It shows
an extent of knowledge beyond the information
actually conveyed by it ; for he says, Tabaim is
used for cooks in many places, because the
cooks killed the animals which they afterwards
dressed. Why should he consider this as a rea-
son for calling cooks Tabaim? He felt that
in stating this he had a sufficient reason, and
he was aware that some reason might fairly be
required, because he knew, though he has not
formally expressed it, that the root niD means
to slay, and never to cook.
If, instead of examining the accuracy with
which an ordinary passage has been rendered
pared, or at any rate something so distinct that it could not be
considered by Tyndal as a piracy of his work; yet Cover-
dale might be expected to acquiesce in his friend's criticisms
on particular words where given at length ; and to form or
alter his own translation accordingly.
85
by these different translators, we refer to more
disputable texts, we may chance to find Cover-
dale misled by Luther, but shall always observe
Tyndal judging for himself; and generally
forming a correct decision.
For example, in Exodus, xi. 3. it may be
doubted whether the i in }rv>) is conversive or
not. If it is, the word jrv> will of course have a
preterite ; and if not, its future signification which
naturally belongs to it. The whole verse has
so much the tone of a parenthesis, that the
majority of translators .have preferred consi-
dering the Vau as conversive; yet there is rea-
sonable ground for differing. Ex. xi. 3.
is accordingly rendered by
The LXX. Kup/og- & sprite*
Pagninus. Et dedit Dominus.
Tyndal. And the Lord gatt.
Diodati. E'l Signore rendette.
Auth. V. And the Lord gave.
Vulg. Dabit autem Dominus.
Miinster. Dabitque Dominus.
86
Luther. Denn der herr wird geben.
Cov. For the Lord shall give.
Again in Ex. xiv. 25. miDl irurtfl are
words whose import may admit of much dif-
ference of opinion.
LXX. K/ Yiy&yzV avlug y\ct, (Stag.
Vulg. Ferebanturque in profundum.
Miinster. Atque violenter duxit eum.
Luther. Sturzete sie mit ungestiim *.
Cov. And overthrew them with a storm.
Tynd. And cast them down to the ground.
Diod. Gli conduceva pesantemente.
Auth. V. That they drave them heavily.
Margin. And made them to go heavily.
Of the intermediate English Bibles.
Mathewe's Bible has, as usual, the words of
Tyndal.
Cranmer's. And carried them away vio-
lently.
* Ungestiimm. adv. irapetueusement, avec vehemence.
Of the corresponding adjective it is observed, II se dit du
temps, des vents, de la mer. (Diet, des deux Nations.)
This idea of the meaning seems to have suggested to Cover-
dale his expression, with a storm.
3
87
The Geneva. And they drave them with
much ado.
Margin. Heavily.
The Bishops' Bible, as is frequently the
case, restores Cranmer's words.
Olivetan's French Bible has, Et les renversa
impetueusement *.
Exod. xv. 1. 113")! DID As far as appears
from the punctuation it could not be decided,
with certainty, whether topi belongs to 2DT a
chariot, or 22T\ a rider. The affix i his, how-
ever, leaves no doubt, but that it should be
rendered his rider. Accordingly, I do not find
that any translator thought otherwise, till Lu-
ther rendered these words, Ross und wagen.
Coverdale, misled by him, has, Horse and charet;
which mistake is not made by Tyndal, and has
not been followed in any other English Bible.
I will notice but one passage more; it in-
volves considerable difficulty; and Tyndal has
* Fol. Edition, 1535. I notice this because it has been
said, that the English Geneva Bible was translated verbatim
from Olivetan's French one.
o4
88
made so bold, and apparently unprecedented a
conjecture in a veiy ingenious solution of it,
that none of his successors have ventured on its
adoption. The question is, whether the word
nttfp has or has not its ordinary and only known
meaning of a bow in II. Samuel, i. 18.
rwp mur-on
In our present version these words and the
context stand as follows.
V. 17. And David lamented with this la-
mentation over Saul and Jonathan his son :
V. 18. (Also he bade them teach the chil-
dren of Judah the use of the bow : behold it
is written in the Book of Jasher *.)
V. 19. The beauty of Israel is slain upon
thy high places: how are the mighty fallen.
Translated in this manner, a very awkward
and strange parenthetical remark of the histo-
rian is thrown in between the announcement of
* In the margin, Tlte upright. It is a doubt, whether
this word is to be considered as a proper name, or ought to be
translated : this doubt is not connected with any difficulty in
the passage.
, 89
David's lamentation, and the words of the la-
mentation itself. In the LXX it stands thus :
Kent sfyvjwitrs AaviS TOV fyyvov 77 OJ/ 7n 2A xcti
ITTl IwV(z9<%V TOV VIOV CCVJS. K/ /7T Tfc? Sl^&^Ctl TSf
VMS HxStx, (Var. Lect*7^ov). I^ yyp7r7#/. K. T. A.
Vulgate. Planxit autem David planctum
hujusve modi super Saul, et super Jonathan
filium ejus. (Et prsecepit ut docerent filios Juda
arcum, sicut scriptum est in Libro justorum.)
Et ait *, &c.
Luther. Und befahl, man solte die kinder
Juda den bogen lehren.
Coverdale. And David mourned this la-
mentation over Saul and Jonathan his son, and
commanded to teach the children of Judah
the bowe, &c.
But in Mathewes's Bible, in which this por-
tion of Tyndal's labours, as a translator, first
appeared, we have, "And David sang this song
" of mourning over Saul and over Jonathan
" his son, and bade to teach the children of
" Israel the staves thereof; and behold it is
" written in the book of the righteous."
* Old copies of the Vulgate are said, however, to have
planctum instead of arcum.
90
By translating r\vp " the staves thereof,"
Tyndal has given clearness and consistency to
the passage. I cannot find that any previous,
or any succeeding translator *, has ventured to
render it thus. John Gregorie, M. A. of Oxford, a
learned orientalist, who published notes and ob-
servations upon some difficulties in Scripture*)-,
refers to Tyndal's as the best translation of this
passage, and apparently means to defend it by
arguments calculated to prove, that the bow
was the title of this elegiac psalm J. But had
* It was altered in Cranmer's (the next) Bible to, " The
" use of the bowe," where, as in our authorized Version,
. the words, the use of, are supplied to fill out the supposed
meaning.
t Mr. Todd has noticed a fourth edition of this tract,
published 1684. The copy in the British Museum is of an
earlier date.
J This opinion has since been adopted by several com-
mentators. In Pole's Synopsis, the following are the best
arguments given for its adoption. Arcus hie est titulus se-
quentis cantilena.
1 . Quia de hoc arcu dicitur, Ecce scriptus est.
2. LXX. Dicunt David edidisse threnum hunc; nee
ullum aliud nomen habent quod arcui respondet.
4. Sic aliqui Davidis psalmi a titulo died sunt, ut Fsal.
xxi. A cerva matutina. Psal. xliv. A liliis.
The second argument however fails if we accept the
-- various reading.
91
Tyndal thought so, he would probably have ren-
dered .nttfp this psalm, or this song. His version,
the staves thereof, seems to me only defensible
on the ground, that from awp collegit, a word
might have been formed, agreeably with the
analogy of many other Hebrew derivatives,
which should signify something like the Latin
word fasciculus ; in which case, though the
punctuation is rather against the supposition,
fittfp would be fascicules, the staves, or separate
divisions of the song. Now, whether Tyndal
was right or mistaken, in thinking that TWp
might properly be here assumed to have been
formed in some such manner, and consequently
not to be identical with the word which is pro-
perly a bow, he is generally a cautious transla-
tor, and must, therefore, have felt himself very
much at home in Hebrew to have proceeded on
such a conjecture.
If any person still feels inclined to suspect,
that there must, after all, be some very strong
authority for Tyndal's ignorance of Hebrew, to
have induced one writer of reputation after an-
92
other to speak of him as unable to translate
from the original, whilst such clear evidence
to the contrary might be had from inspecting
his translations, I can only say, that I have
not been able to discover any such authority.
Mr. Whittaker traces the opinion to Fuller,
who has said of Tyndal, " I presume he trans-
" lated from the Latin." Now Fuller is well
known to have been a much more fanciful than
accurate writer ; and Mr. W. has justly re-
marked on this expression, that " the very
" manner in which it is said, shows that the
" historian had no authority for the fact*."
Yet Fuller's conjecture seems to me to have
been the only ground for Johnson's saying,
" Probably Tyndal rendered the Old Testa-
" ment out of the Latin, having little or no
" skill in the Hebrew *)-." After him follows
Dr. Macknight, who, with a most improper
exaggeration of the last quoted words, says,
" These translations, according to Johnson, he
" made not from the Hebrew, but from the
* Whittaker's Hist, and Crit. Inquiry, p. 47.
t Bishop Watson's Tracts, vol. iii. p. 70.
" Vulgate Latin, or, as the Popish writers af-
" firm, from Luther's German translation*."
Foxe, the martyrologist, who saw in Tyndal
" the faithful servant of Christ and his con-
" stant martyr," has rather hinted at, than de-
scribed, his great learning and " knowledge of
" tongues." But to the surmises of Fuller and
Johnson I beg leave to oppose the direct evi-
dence, which a foreigner has accidentally sup-
plied, with regard to the extent of Tyndal's
attainments. It is taken from the journal of
a person whose name is familiar to your Lord-
ship, as that of a very judicious man, who took
a deep interest in all questions connected with
the great contest against the Church of Rome.
" Dixit nobis, Buschius, Wormatise sex
" mille exemplaria Novi Testament! Anglice
" excusa. Id operis versum esse ab Anglo,
" illic cum duobus Britannis divertente, ita
" septem linguarum perito, Hebraicse, Grsecae,
" Latinae, Italicse, Hispanicae, Britannicae,
* Macknight, General Preface to Translation of Epistles,
sect. 2.
94
" Gallicae, ut, quamcunque loquatur, in ea
" natum putes *."
Mr. Whittaker thought that Coverdale, as
well as Tyndal, translated from the Hebrew.
He had not seen, as he acknowledges, Cover-
dale's title-page, in which it is expressly de-
clared, that his Bible is translated from the
Dutch and Latin. But independent of Cover-
dale's declaration, your Lordship cannot have
failed to observe, in the collation made above,
evident marks of his translating from Luther ;
yet not without occasionally preferring other
authorities. Of four passages which Mr. Whit-
taker has quoted, to show that Coverdale could
venture to differ both from the Septuagint and
Vulgate, two are instances in which he has
copied Luther, a third is from Dan. iii. 25.
* Schellhoruii Amoenitates literariae, torn. iv. p. 431.
Excerpta qusedam e Diario Geor. Spalatini. The immediately
preceding date is in August 1526, at the beginning of which
year Tyndal seems to have been driven by Cochlaeus from
Cologne to Worms (see Art. ,B. in Appendix), and at the
close of it his New Testament was published. Cochlaeus's
account of the number which the English translators had
wished to print at Cologne, tallies with what Buschius men-
tioned as printed at Worms.
95
HDI N>y:n n m-n
LXX. Ka/ 17 opcto-tg TOV IsTctftTX c^u-o/a u/w
Vulgate. Et species quart! similis filio Dei.
Luther. Und der vierte ist gleich, als ware
er em sohn der gotter.
Coverdale. And the fourth was like an
angel to look upon.
This mistranslation of Coverdale's is so ex-
traordinary, that, unless it be considered as a
mere oversight, it would go far to prove, that
he could not read the Chaldee. I am certainly
inclined to think that he examined the passage
as a person who could not refer to the original,
and that observing in ver. 28 these words of
Nebuchadnezzar, "Blessed be God who has
" sent his angel and delivered his servants,"
he thought the texts ought to be made consist-
ent, by using the word angel in both. But in
the Chaldee, as in our authorized Version, the
words are different; in ver. 25 it is }v6N"il
and in ver. 28, naste
The fourth instance is one in which Mr.
Whittaker considers Coverdale's translation as
96
better than the LXX, Vulgate, Luther's, or
our own authorized Version. It is from Isaiah,
Ivii. 5.
nnn oa oaron
O/ TTO&pOiKOiXoVVJSg* ll^wfoi V7TO
Vulgate. Qui consolamini in diis subter
omne lignum frondosum.
Luther. Die ihr in der brunst zu den
gotzen laufFet, unter alle graiine baume.
Authorized Version. Inflaming yourselves
with idols under every green tree.
Pagninus. Incalescentes cum diis sub omni
ligno viridi.
Munster. Calefacitis vos apud quercus
sub omni ligno frondoso, et immolatis pueros
in convallibus subter prominentes petras.
Coverdale. Ye take your pleasure under
the okes and under all grene trees, the childe
being slaine in the vallies and dennes of stones.
Diodati. Voi, che vi riscaldate dietro alle
querce, sott' ogni albero verdeggiante.
* Var. Lect. IT<.
9?
The question is, whether O^N is to be con-
sidered as the plural of bti, fortis, Deus, for
which it would ordinarily be taken ; or as an
irregular plural for the name of an oak, de-
rived, if such, from V% and spelt in a preced-
ing passage of this same prophet, i. 29,
I have given Coverdale's translation of the
whole verse, because the expression, " the child
" being slaine," seems to me to show, that he
was translating here from some Latin version,
as the idiom is, evidently, that of a Latin ab-
lative absolute*. Now, Mr. Whittaker believes,
that Coverdale's Bible was printed at Zurich ;,
and at Zurich a Latin translation of Isaiah,
by Zuinglius, had been published in 1529.
CEcolampadius, too, had published a Latin
version of Isaiah in the neighbourhood (at
Basle) in 1525 *f- ; and though I have not been
able to meet with either of these translations,
it cannot be unreasonable to conjecture, that
* A similar instance of Coverdale's harsh way of ren-
dering this Latin idiom, may be seen in the Appendix,
Art. & d
f Le Long, ed. Masch. vol. ii. p. 553.
H
98
the source of Coverdale's version of this pas-
sage might be found in them, particularly as the
Latin Zurich Bible of 1543, formed by the
disciples of these men, contains the elements
of two peculiar turns of expression in Cover-
dale's text, rendering the verse as follows:
Incalescitis apud quercus sub omni ligno fron-
dosOy jugulantes liberos in vallibus, subtus
in cavernis petrarum. I need not tell your
Lordship, that Coverdale had notoriously a
greater respect for the opinions of the Helvetic
divines, than for those of Luther*. The pre-
* It appears too, that the clergy of Zurich published
a vernacular translation of the Prophets from the Hebrew in
1529; and that they had been accustomed to read lectures'
on them. Le Long, Par. ed. 1723, vol. i. p. 399. So that,
if Coverdale was at Zurich about that time, he might have
had his attention directed to this explanation of a difficult
text.
If the above conjecture be thought groundless, Coverdale
might still have borrowed his view of the meaning of D^t*
from Miinster. Mr. Whittaker indeed has remarked, that
the second part of Miinster's Bible, which contains Isaiah,
did not come out till 1535. But Miinster, who published
a polyglot Jonah in 1524, afterwards gave the world an
edition of Isaiah in Hebrew, Greek, and Latin. Le Long,
ed. Masch. vol. i. p. 398. The date is uncertain, but it most
likely was formed, like his Jonah, as part of a preparation
for going through the task of making a complete version,
and therefore earlier than that version.
99
sumption, therefore,, that Coverdale might and
did form his translation of this text from one of
the five Dutch or Latin interpreters, whom he
has spoken of as his guides, is surely too strong
to allowits supposed peculiarity to be accepted
as a proof that he translated from the Hebrew.
But as I cannot allow that Coverdale's Bible
deserves the credit of being a primary transla-
tion, so neither can I concede to Mr. Whitta-
ker, that it is entitled to be regarded as the
joint production of Coverdale and Tyndal.
The latter would never have allowed any trans-
lator, whose work passed under his correction,
to wander from the Hebrew to the idiom of in-
termediate translations, in the way in which we
have seen Coverdale doing. Your Lordship
may, also, recollect the observation which I
quoted from Tyndal on the force of the word
TND in Ps. cxix. ver. 4. With such an opinion
of that text, he would never have sanctioned
Coverdale's rendering it, " Thou hast geven
" stray te charge to kepe thy commandments."
And Coverdale has expressed his conviction of
Tyndal's superior knowledge so candidly and
it 2
100
decidedly *, that he was not likely to have re-
sisted Tyndal's correct notion of this verse.
We have, besides, seen*J~ Coverdale mention-
ing Tyndal's adversity, as that which made
him determine to take his translation in hand ;
which either implies, that he did not begin it
till Tyndal's imprisonment, or, as I have stated
to be more probable, that he then resumed
a task which had lain neglected from the time
that he found an abler scholar devoting all his
powers to the gradual production of a com-
plete English Bible.
Coverdale's Bible, then, was altogether a
secondary translation, yet neither built entirely
on the Vulgate nor on Luther's version, nor yet
solely compiled from them both; but formed
upon as careful a comparison as he could in-
stitute of the probable accuracy of different
previous translators, in rendering each particu-
lar phrase or text. But I expect to find no dif-
ficulty in convincing your Lordship, that the
English Bible was most thoroughly purged of
* Preface to Coverdale's Bible, already quoted-
f See note, p. 74.
101
such unnecessary deviations from the Hebrew
idiom, as this secondary translation might have
been thought likely to have transmitted into
the subsequent versions.
And, first, Coverdale himself in 1537, with-
in two years after publishing his own, edited
what is called Mathewe's Bible. In this he
entirely rejected as much of his own version
as could be replaced from Tyndal's published
or unpublished translations. The chroniclers
of those times, and subsequent writers, have
been very inaccurate in their statements of
Tyndal's share. But the test, which ascertains
how much of the -Bible of 1537 should be as-
signed to Tyndal, is a comparison of Cover-
dale's and Mathewe's Bibles. Now the text of
the latter is altogether different from that of the
former in the Pentateuch, but agrees with Tyn-
dal's published version of that part of Scripture :
it continues to differ from Coverdale through
Joshua, &c. to the end of Chronicles ; it then
becomes a mere copy of Coverdale's Bible, with
a few corrections, and continues so to the end
of Apocrypha. After this, it again becomes a
H 3
102
transcript of Tyndal's version, as contained in
his last published edition of the New Testa-
ment.
So that, whilst the Old Testament of Ma-
thewe's Bible is Tyndal's to the end of the se-
cond Book of Chronicles, the New Testament
is his entirely; and the only part of Cover-
dale's translation, incorporated in Mathewe's
Bible, is from Ezra to the end of the Apo-
crypha, both inclusive *.
I am sorry to observe that your Lordship
has thought fit to sanction much of Johnson's
* It has been a common opinion, that the Nehemiah and
Jonah of Mathewe's Bible were of Tyndal's translation.
But on applying our test, we shall be convinced that they
were not so. For they are verbatim the same in Coverdale's
and in Mathewe's Bible ; and there is no likelihood that Co-
verdale should have inserted Tyndal's translation of these
two portions of Scripture alone in the Bible of 1535, with-
out some notice, at least, of his reasons for this exception.
In the prophet Jonah too, it is observable that JVj^p is
rendered in Mathewe's Bible wild vine; a translation which
is not likely to have proceeded from so good an Hebraist as
Tyndal. Luther has translated it kiirbis. It is now, gene-
rally, supposed from what Jerome has said, and on some
other grounds, to mean the plant called at present by botanists
Ricinus or Palma-Christi.
103
inaccurate account of Mathewe's Bible *, in
the words which follow: " Further, when
* " Anno 1537, the Bible, containing the Old and
" New Testament, called Matthew's Bible, of Tyndal's
" and Rogers's translation, came forth. It was printed by
" Grafton and Whitchurch at Hamborough. The corrector
" of the press was John Rogers, a learned divine. William
" Tyndal, with the help of Miles Coverdale, had translated
" part of it (as I before noted), and what they did had been
" printed anno 1532. The whole was finished and printed
" anno 1535, with a dedication to King Henry VIII. by
" Miles Coverdale (Tyndal being then in prison), and was
" called Coverdale's Bible. After this a second impression
" was designed, but before it could be finished, Tyndal was
" put to death in Flanders for his religion; and his name then
" growing into ignominy, as one burnt for a heretic, they
" thought it might prejudice the book if he should be named
" for the translator thereof, and so they used a feigned name,
" calling it Thomas Matthew's Bible, though Tyndal before
" his death, some say, had finished all but the Apocrypha,
" which was translated by Rogers, but others say he had
" gone no farther than the end of Nehemiah. Bale says
" Rogers translated the Bible into English, from Genesis to
" the end of the Revelations, making use of the Hebrew,
" Greek, Latin, German, and English (i. e. Tyndal's) copies.
" He added prefaces and marginal notes out of Luther, and
" dedicated the whole book to King Henry VIII. under the
" name of Thomas Matthews, by an epistle prefixed, mind-
*' ing to conceal his own name." Johnson's Historical Ac-
count of English Translations, in Bishop Watson's Tracts,
p. 72, 73. Vol. iii.
The inaccuracy of mentioning Coverdale's Bible, as if it
was the completion of what Tyndal had begun, is obvious
from what I have said already. It is equally incorrect to
H 4
104
" Rogers had completed what Tyndal left un-
" finished, he added notes and prefaces from
" Luther. The translation of the whole
" Bible, thus made by Tyndal and Rogers, was
speak of Mathewe's Bible, as a second edition of Cover-
dale's, when so great a part of the former does not contain
a word of Coverdale's version. The Apocrypha, in Ma-
thewe's Bible, was not translated by Rogers; and Tyndal
had neither proceeded so far as Apocrypha, nor yet to the
end of Nehemiah.
Lewis has made an odd remark on Mathewe's Bible,
where he says, " The curators of this edition, among whom
" I reckon Archbishop Cranmer, paid an equal respect to the
" labours of both these translators by printing the translation
" of Tyndal so far as he went, and supplying what he had
" left undone with the translation made by Coverdale. As to
" the name of Thomas Matthews, it seems a fictitious one;
" since the translation, according to this edition, was made
" by several hands, therefore seems this name to have been
" thought of as being the name of neither, and under which
" the editor chose to appear." Lewis's History of English
Translations, 3d Edit. p. 111.
It is surely very inconsistent to observe, that equal re-
spect was paid to the labours of each of these translators, in
the same sentence in which he tells us with great truth, that
no portion of Coverdale's translation was retained, where
Tyndal's came into competition with it. His account of the
reason for affixing the imaginary name of Mathewe is pro-
bably true. When Coverdale escaped from Mary's persecu-
tion, and Rogers fell into her hands, the Papists affected to
consider. the latter as the real Mathewe; and condemned him
to the flames with that name as an aliai> added to his proper
appellation.
105
" published at Hamburg under the feigned
" name of Matthew: and hence it has been
" called Matthew's Bible *." If I remark here,
that Mathewe's Bible is not certainly known
to have been printed at Hamburgh, I merely
do it to point out to your Lordship how care-
less a guide you have condescended to accept.
Lewis says, " Mr. Strype guessed that this Bible
"was printed at Hamburgh-)". But the late
" Mr. Wanley thought it was more probable that
" it was printed at Paris. Though it is very
" plain that the types are German ; and very
et probable it was printed where the Pentateuch
" and Practice of Prelates were printed, viz.
" Marborch or Malborow ."
* Lecture XIV. p. 34.
f I do not, however, mean to insinuate that Johnson's
was a mere guess, or that he had no better authority than
Strype's conjecture. Oa the contrary, from the rest of John-
son's account I am convinced that he had before him, Foxe's
Acts and Mon. vol. ii. p. 1087 ; but, as Foxe says, it was
" printed at Hamborough about the year of our Lord 1532,"
his ignorance of the date, and many other mistakes in the
same passage, should have taught Johnson not to give credit
to Foxe's statement on this head, except on such points as he
might be able to verify by some other means.
t Lewis, Edit. 3, p. 107. He then adds, that this may
106
But that part of Johnson's statement in
which he has referred to Bale is the most mate-
rial to our present question ; as connecting the
name and labours of Luther with those of our
early translators. I will, therefore, give the
passage referred to as it is quoted by Lewis,
subjoining his remarks on what Bale has said.
Bishop Bale tells us, that, " Rogers having
"followed Tyndal, very faithfully translated
" into the vulgar tongue the great work of
" the Bible from the beginning to the end,
" from the first of Genesis to the last of the
" Revelations, having recourse to the He-
" brew, Greek, Latin, German, and English
" copies: and that this laborious work, with
" the addition of very useful prefaces and
"annotations from Martin Luther, he dedi-
" cated to K. Henry VIII. in an epistle pre-
" fixed in the name of Thomas Matthew. But
" it is plain, that in this account there are the
mean either Marburg in Hesse, or Marbeck in the dutchy of
Wittemburgh, where Rogers was superintendent. In making
this last conjecture he seems to have forgot that the words in
the Land of Hesse are adjoined to MaUtorow in the Penta-
teuch of 1530.
107
"following mistakes: I. The Bible called
" Matthew's is not a new translation, but made
" up of Tyndal's and Coverdale's, as has been
" said already *, improved with some amend-
" ments. II. The prefaces and notes are not
" Luther's but Tyndal's f."
If Lewis had not so positively asserted,
that the prefaces and notes in Mathewe's
Bible were not Luther's, I should have sus-
pected, that though they differed in every in-
stance but one from any thing of Luther's that
I could meet with, this might be explained by
supposing, that they were borrowed from ar-
ticles changed or suppressed in such editions
of Luther's Bible as had fallen within my no-
* Lewis had before remarked, that the opinion which gave
Rogers credit for the translation of the Apocrypha was in-
correct. " It commonly passes for current," says he, " that
" the O. and N. Test, were translated by Tyndal and
" Coverdale, and the Apocrypha by John Rogers. But it is
" plain that the Apocrypha in Matthew's Bible is of the same
" translation with that in Coverdale's, and that Coverdale
" gives not the least hint of any one's assisting him hi this
" translation, but always speaks of it as entirely his own."
P. 223.
t Lewis, page 224.
108
tice. The result of my own examination has
not, indeed, led me to confirm the truth of
Lewis's assertion in its full extent.
The exception to which I allude is the long
and remarkable " prologe " to the Epistle to
the Romans. Lewis has said the truth, in as-
serting, that it was not added in Mathewe's
Bible by Rogers, because it may be seen in
Tyndal's New Testament of 1534; but he has
not stated the whole truth, for the greater part
of this preface appears to have been translated
by Tyndal from Luther. It was no doubt con-
sidered as a valuable theological tract; as a
translation of it was inserted in the Witten-
berg New Testament, c. of 1529 *.
* Biblia Latina ad Hebraicam Veritatem emendate;
Pentateuchus, Libri Josuae, Judicum, Ruth et Regum;
Nov. Test, cum Praefatione M. Lutheri. Fol. Wittembergae,
1529.
The use of the Preface to Ep. to Romans, in this Latin
version, is mentioned as a proof of the attention it met with
from the divines of that day; on the supposition that the
above version is not Luther's own work. Walchius thought
it probably was ; but he refers for arguments on the contrary
side to Walteri Erorterung der streitigkeit von der lateinischen
bibel des jahrs 1529, worinnen bewiesen wird, dass sie
109
It is so difficult to meet with perfect copies
of Tyndal's New Testament of an earlier date
than 1530; that I am not able to say whether
Tyndal had made use of this preface before
it was translated into Latin. If he did, we
may add German to the list of tongues in
which he was skilled; yet, when Buschius de-
scribed him as master of seven languages (of
which number German was not one), he
seemed to have gone as far as he could with
truth; since, to swell out the catalogue, he
gave Tyndal credit for knowing English,
his native tongue. But, in whatever manner
Tyndal may have got access to this " prologe,"
nicht, der lateinischen version nach, eine wahre schrift D.
Luthers sey. Jenae, 1749. And to the same writer's Be-
starckter beweis, dass die zu Wittenberg 1529 herausge-
kommene bibel neder von D. Luthero selbst; noch unter
seiner aufsicht verfertiget und herausgegeben worden sey.
Jenae, 1752.
This work may have assisted Coverdale; his transla-
tions of Numb. x. 31, and Exod. xxxiv. 30, might have been
made either from the Wittenberg Latin or from Luther's Ger-
man. If the Wittenberg Pentateuch was then thought inde-
pendent of Luther's version, their coincidence in any doubtful or
difficult passages, would be an argument with Coverdale for
the correctness of their mode of rendering the text.
110
it forms the only exception to the truth of
Lewis's assertion about the prefaces, which
I have been able to detect. As to the notes
in Mathewe's Bible, the first books of Scrip-
ture to which there are appended annotations
of any length are Job and the Psalms, and
they do not resemble any of Luther's notes
that I have seen; but as these portions of
Scripture were not of Tyndal's translation, it
is immaterial to the question which I have be-
fore me, whether the notes to them are original,
or from what quarter they are drawn *.
Having shown, that above half the Bible
was cleared in its very next edition of any
deviations from the original which the se-
condary description of Coverdale's version
* In pages 445 et seq. of Tyndal's works, published by
John Daye, London, 1573 (being part of a treatise, " Upon
" Signes and Sacraments"), the doctrines of transubstantiation
and consubstantiation, and the opinions [since sanctioned by
the reformed Churches, are so clearly and fairly stated, and
Luther's errors on the subject are pointed out by Tyndal so ju-
diciously, that no person who looks at the passage, will suspect
Tyndal of servilely copying Luther's notes on the New Tes-
tament, or of following him on any subject, with the blind-
ness of a partisan.
Ill
might have introduced, we have now to inquire
whether its infection continued so strong in the
remainder of the Bible up to the time when
King James's translators began their work,, as
to make it likely, that its influence was inju-
rious to their clear view of that portion of
their labours which extends from Ezra to the
end of Apocrypha #.
Of the intermediate Bibles, then, which
next require our attention, I have no objection
to calling Cranmer's, with your Lordship,
a correction only of Mathewe's; which it fol-
lowed in two years; and perhaps where the
editors of Cranmer's Bible attempted to
correct what Tyndal had done, their altera-
tions might, in such places, be " for the worse.'*
As far as I have observed, the greatest im-
provements were made in the Psalms; the
apocryphal books seem to have been passed
over, as scarcely deserving the labour of a
careful revision. To give some notion of the
pains taken to form a correct translation of
* See Appendix, Art. C.
2
112
the Psalms, I will subjoin a few verses as they
stand in Coverdale's, Cranmer's, and the au-
thorized Version.
Ps. i. 1.
Coverdale. Blessed is the man that goeth
not in the council of the ungodly : that abydeth
not in the way of sinners, and sitteth not in
the seat of the scornful.
Cranmer. Blessed is the man, that hath
not walked in the counsel of the ungodly, nor
stood in the way of sinners, and hath not sat
in the seat of the scornful.
Auth. V. Blessed is the man, that walketh
not in the counsel of the ungodly, nor standeth
in the way of sinners, nor sitteth in the seat of
the scornful.
Ps. ii. 1.
Coverdale. Why do the heathen grudge?
Why do the people imagine a vain thing?
Cranmer. Why do the heathen so furiously
rage together ; and why do the people imagine
a vain thing?
Auth. V. Why do the heathen rage, and
the people imagine a vain thing?
113
Ps. Hi. 1.
Coverdale. Why are they so many, O Lord,
that trouble me? A great multitude are they
that rise against me.
Cranmer. Lord, how are they increased
that trouble me? Many are they that rise
against me.
Auth. V. that rise up against me.
Some alterations are more considerable ; for
instance, Ps. Ixxi. ver. 22, 23.
Coverdale. Therefore will I praise thee
and thy faithfulness, O GOD, playing upon the
lute: unto thee will I sing upon the harp, O
thou Holy One of Israel.
My lips would fayne sing praises unto thee;
and so would my soul whom thou hast deli-
vered.
Cranmer. playing upon an instru-
ment of musick
My lips will be fain when I sing unto
thee: and so will my soul
Auth. V. I will also praise thee with the
psaltery, even thy truth, O my GOD: unto thee
will I sing with the harp
i
114
My lips shall greatly rejoice when I sing
unto thee; and my soul, which thou hast re-
deemed.
It is obvious from the above examples, that
the correction, by Cranmer's editors, of Mathewe's
translation (i. e. of Coverdale's, for the Psalms
formed part of his share of that Bible) was not
sufficient ; but then neither was it accepted as
such by King James's translators. The Psalms
of Cranmer's Bible are, in fact, those inserted in
our books of Common Prayer; a.nd the differ-
ence between that translation and the one in
our present Bible falls under every body's no-
tice. The changes made in the language are
so great,, and afford evidence of such close at-
tention to minute deviations from the sacred
text, that any reader may satisfy himself, that
the King's, rules about following previous trans-
lations can have had no effect in checking any
correction, that was desirable, however slight
it might be ; they only prevented the careless
exchange of words, which already corresponded
admirably wfth the Hebrew, for others as good,
but no better than the terms for which they
115
might, without those rules, have been caprici-
ously substituted.
If Cranmer's or Taverner's Bibles were only
so many new editions of Mathewe's Bible, they
were followed by a thoroughly new and inde-
pendent translation, which was published com*
plete in 1561. This was the Geneva Bible, so
called from its being the work of such of our
Reformers, as, having fled from Mary's perse-
cution, had assembled about Geneva*. Pere
* The usual title of the Geneva Bibles, of which there
were many editions, is,, The Bible ; that is, the Holy Scriptures
conteined in the Olde and Newe Testament. Translated ac-
cording to the Ebrew and Greke, and conferred with the
best Translations in divers Languages, with most profitable
Annotations upon all the harde Places, and other Thinges
of great Importance.
Many of these " profitable annotations" were such as the
sounder and milder divines of the English Church at home
could not approve of. In a marginal note on II. Chron.
xv. 16, Asa is reproved for having only deposed, and not
put to death, the Queen Maachah his mother, for her idolatry.
I have seen an edition of 1610, in which she is called his
grandmother; as if in order to make the remark less noto-
riously applicable to King James, then the reigning monarch.
But this and some other notes of what he thought a democra-
tical tendency, naturally gave him a personal dislike to this
Bible, and led him to underrate very much its merits as a
translation.
i2
116
Simon has said of this Bible, " Ilia vero Gene-
" vensium (versio) quam omnium pessimani
" Rex Jacobus appellat, eadem est atque Ge-
" nevensis Gallica quse in sermonem Anglicum
" conversa fuerat, legebaturque in Anglia a
" nonnullis protestantibus qui ritus Geneven-
" sium profitebantur." Disquisit. Criticse. I
have already given an instance of disagreement
between the English Geneva and Olivetan's Bible
in the translation of a difficult text; but I have
not felt it necessary to look out for numerous
discrepancies; because, any person who con-
siders how exceedingly idiomatic the French
language is, will not want many arguments
to convince him, that, if our Geneva Bible keeps,
in general, very close to the Hebrew idiom, it
is quite impossible that the authors of it should
have been able to pursue the peculiar turn of
the Hebrew, through the medium of a French
translation.
To show how distinct the translation in the
Geneva Bible is from the preceding English
ones, I will now proceed to collate the twelve
117
first verses, and one or two other texts in Jere-
miah.
I. 1. nn Literally, The words of.
Cov.
. These are the sermons.
Cran.
Gen.
The words of.
Auth.V.
Ver. 2. rt> mrmn JTH "W Lit. As was
the word of the Lord to him ; or, who, the
word of the Lord was to him.
Cov.
When the Lord had first spoken.
Cran.
Gen. 1 To whom the word of the Lord
Auth. V. J came.
Ver. 3. ^l vm Lit. And it was in the
days.
Cov.
And so during unto the time.
Cran.
Gen. And also in the days.
Auth. V. It came also in the days.
DfrttTP Jrfany Lit. Unto the carrying away
captive Jerusalem.
i3
118
Cov.
, When Jerusalem was taken.
Cran.
Gen. "I Unto the carrying away of Jeru-
Auth. V. J salem captive.
Ver. 4. -)Di6 ^** mmm vm Lit. And
there was the word of the Lord to me, saying.
Cov. "1 The word of the Lord spake thus
Cran. J unto me.
Gen. "I Then the word of the Lord came
Auth. V.J unto me, saying.
In this verse Coverdale had followed Luther's
form, und sprach ; but in the next verse, where
Luther has translated
pWpTT Ich sonderte dich aus, Coverdale,
as well as the later English Bibles, has " I sanc-
" tified thee."
Ver. 6. in 'ny-p-N 1 ? ron Lit. Behold, I
have not knowledge to speak.
Cov. I am unmete.
Cran. I cannot speak.
Gen.
Auth.
I
. > Behold. I cannot speak.
. V.J
119
Lit. For a child, I.
Cov. I
> For I am yet but young.
Cran. J
Gen. 1
> For I am a child.
Auth.V.
Ver. 8. >3N "JJW3 Lit. For with thee, I.
Cov. For I will be with thee.
Cran. ^
Gen. > For I am with thee.
Auth.V. J
Ver. 9. rnir 10^1
This being the second time the word Lord
occurs in this verse, it is omitted by Coverdale,
as it had been by Luther.
Cran. And the same Lord said.
Gen.
,.,}
Which is perfectly literal.
, And the Lord said.
Auth.
10. sn/u^ Buxtorff's Lex. sro Diruit,
:
destruxit,, demolitus est.
Cov.
ov. "I
ran. J
. To break off.
Cran.
i4
120
Gen. To root out.
Auth. V. To pull down.
Ver. 11. ipty VpD LXX.
Vu\g. Virgam vigilantem.
Luther. Einen wackern stab,
Cov. A waking rod.
Cranmer.^
Geneva. > A rod of an almond tree.
Auth. V. J
Here Coverdale would probably feel no he-
sitation about following Luther and the Vul-
gate; as he would observe that those transla-
tions corresponded, and that when the words
were so rendered, they seemed to accord very
well with the context, Bene vidisti, quia vigi-
labo ego. But the editors of Cranmer's Bible,
and the authors of the Geneva and of our pre-
sent Bible, knowing that ipty properly meant,
and had been, in every other instance, rendered
an almond tree, did not feel themselves at
liberty to forsake the Hebrew so widely, for
the sake of making the allusion more clear *.
* Lest any readers should imagine that the original must
be a very uncertain language, indeed, to allow translators to
121
Ver. 12. *3N Tpttf O Lit. For I am hasten-
ing.
Cov. For I will watch diligently.
Cran. For I will make haste speedily.
Gen. I
> For I will hasten.
Auth.V.J
The punctuation is pas-
sive ; perhaps shall be
Ver. 14. nnan \
let loose, would come
- closest to the Hebrew.
Cov.
. Shall come.
Cran.
Gen. Shall be spread.
doubt whether a word means two such different things as
watchful or almond tree, it may be as well to explain here,
that there is no ambiguity at all in the word. It is the usual
difficulty of transferring a paronomasia into any other lan-
guage, which has induced Jerome and Luther to give a sub-
stitute for the word ipttf instead of translating it.
The almond being one of the earliest trees in the produc-
tion of its blossoms, which in the south of Europe attract
the eye by their unrivalled beauty in January, its Hebrew
name is equivalent to hastening tree or early tree. To make
the passage clear, let us suppose that some English plant was
called the hastening tree ; that a branch of it is placed as an
emblem before the prophet's eye ; and that it is said to him,
" What seest thou?" he answers, " I see a branch of an
" hastening tree" The reply made to him is, " Thou hast
" well seen, for I hasten to perform rny word."
122
Auth. V. Shall break forth.
Margin. Shall be opened.
Ver. 17. Dms 1 ? inrwia DiT33S)D
The repetition of similar words here, gives
energy to the expression, and I know not how
to represent the passage better than as follows :
Shrink not thou from their faces, lest I make
thee shrink into nothing before their faces.
Cov. Fear them not, I will not have thee
to be afraid of them.
Cran. Fear them not, lest I destroy thee
before them.
Gen. Be not afraid of their faces, lest I
destroy thee before them.
Auth. V. Be not dismayed at their faces,
lest I confound thee before them.
Margin (a), Break thee to pieces.
Jer. LI. 58, affords an instance of a more
difficult passage ; of which I will only say, that
the change of for to and is evidently correct;
as made in the authorized Version.
layn twrna 0*0*61 pn-ni D>DV wi
LXX. K/ ov K07riourov<ri howi zi$ KSVOV KUI tQvvi
sv
123
Vulg. Et labores populorum ad nihiluin,
et gentium in ignem erunt, et disperibunt.
Luth. Dass der heiden arbeit verloren sey
und verbrant werde, was die volcker mit miihe
erbauet haben *.
Cov. And the thing, that the Gentiles and
the people have wrought with great travail and
labour, shall come to nought, and be consumed
in the fire.
Cran. Same.
Geneva. And the people shall labour in
vain, and the folk in the fire, for they shall be
weary.
Auth. V. and they shall be weary.
The translation of the above texts, which is
printed in Mathewe's Bible, is in each instance
an exact copy of Coverdale's version; and
Cranmer's Bible, as was anticipated, contains
but a few corrections of the translation, as his
* In Noldius' Concordantia Particularum, p. 832, there are
some remarks on this text and on Luther's mistaken vievr of it.
Either the present text of the LXX is erroneous here; or
they must have translated from a very different Hebrew text.
Indeed the arrangement of Jeremiah in the LXX makes the
latter supposition almost a certainty.
124
editors found it in Mathewe's Bible; whilst the
Geneva translators appear, as it was announced
that they would do, to have kept as close as
they could to the Hebrew, without caring how
wide of their English predecessors this might
carry them.
The only Bible which it remains for me to
speak of, is Parker's or the Bishops' Bible. I
have not examined it with any great care, be-
cause, as your Lordship has said, " it appears
" from Archbishop Parker's instructions to have
" been only a revision of Cranmer's Bible*."
As different portions of it were done by differ-
ent hands, it may be supposed to have been a
very unequal revision. In the passages lately
quoted from Jeremiah, Home, Bishop of Win-
chester (to whose share this prophet and
Isaiah fell), has not deviated in a single in-
stance from Cranmer's text; the Geneva ver-
t
sion was unfortunately too much disliked, to
allow its improvements to be fairly received.
But King James's translators were superior to
* Lect. XIV. p. 34.
125
any such prejudices. A glance back at the last
collation will show, that though " the Bishops'
" Bible was made the basis of our present au-
" thorized Version *," our last excellent transla-
tors construed the King's order, of altering it
as little as the original would permit, so libe-
rally, that they did not leave the slightest par-
ticle unchanged, where such change could
bring the English closer to the Hebrew -}-.
I trust then, my Lord, that I am borne out
in saying;
* Lect. XIV, p. 34.
f See particularly ver. 4. " The word of the Lord spake
"thus unto me;" in the Bishops' Bible, changed by K.
James's translators, into " Then the word of the Lord came
" unto me, saying."
V. 6. I cannot speak, into, Behold, I cannot speak.
V. 9. And the same Lord said, into, And the Lord said.
, If this Letter should be perused by any persons, who from
ignorance of Hebrew have been misled by the pretensions
lately put forward by a Mr. Bellamy, they may derive two
valuable observations from the different collations which I
have found it necessary to make. First, That the Hebrew
language is not so vague or uncertain, as to occasion or
admit of any such prodigious variations in the mode of ren-
dering as that gentleman has proposed. The most independ-
ent translators, where they are competent to their task, sel-
dom differing but in very minute points.
And secondly, That wherever any of these nice distinc-
tions do occur, our admirable authorized Version is, almost
invariably, found to be the most accurate.
126
First, That King James's translators did
not feel themselves restrained by any regula-
tions about following the previous Bibles, from
making as close a translation as their industry
and profound skill in the Hebrew language
could enable them to produce; but were merely
prevented from indulging in the capricious in-
terchange of perfectly synonimous terms.
And secondly, That even if they had felt
themselves bound to copy the previous English
Bibles much more closely than I can possibly
think they did; they had, at any rate, the
power of making their selection from two pri-
mary, genuine, and independent translations;
the one of a great portion, the other of the
whole of the Scriptures; viz. Tyndal's versions
and the Geneva Bible.
In evidence of the skill and fidelity with
which they employed their talents and advan-
tages, allow me to produce a testimony which
must be considered as impartial, since it comes
from a foreign divine ; as not given without due
examination and full reflection, since it comes
127
from a person, who seems to have devoted his
life to inquiries of this nature; and which may
well have the more weight in the present ques-
tion, as it comes from a critic, who having
edited Luther's works, would readily have de-
tected any plagiaries from him. Inter inter-
pretationes, quibus Scripturse Sacrse in linguas
nationibus Europse vernaculas translatee sunt,
eniinet omnino Anglica, ac monstrat auctorum
non mediocrem eruditionem, peritiam sermonum
sacrorum, Ebraei ac Greeci, judicium atque in-
dustriam *.
I will put it to your Lordship's candour,
whether a compilation from any set of secondary
translations whatsoever, would have earned
such praise from a laborious biblical scholar
like Walchius.
As to the quotation from Macknight -J-, 1
am sure you cannot consider his authority as
deserving to be put into competition with that
* Walchii Bibliotheca Theologica, cap. viii. $ 13. torn,
iv. p. 124.
f See page 7.
128
of the learned German just referrred to. The
truth is, that Dr. Macknight began his inquiry
with the following object avowedly in view;
" The author supposes the utility of a new Eng-
" lish translation of the apostolical Epistles will
" be sufficiently evinced, if it can be shown that
" the first English translators made their ver-
" sions from the Vulgate, and that the subse-
" quent translators, by copying them, have re-
" tained a number of the errors of that ancient
" version *." I have shown (in Appendix C.)
that his premises were eked out with many
most unfounded assertions. Indeed it seems
as if he himself perceived that the ground
was failing under him, when he drew from all
his statements no stronger conclusion than,
that the authorized Version ought not " to be
" implicitly relied on for determining contro-
" versies."
For Archbishop Newcome's labours in elu-
cidating the Hebrew Scriptures, I feel sincere
* Mackoight's General Preface to his New Translation
of the Apostlolical Epistles, p. 12, 2d Edition.
129
respect; and his rules for improving our pre-
sent translation are most judiciously drawn up.
But he was himself a translator; and in estimat-
ing the result of his own exertions he was very
naturally, though perhaps unconsciously, led to
regard the labours of his predecessors with
somewhat of the feeling which Dr. Macknight
has avowed. The work referred to by your
Lordship * consists principally of extracts,
which he had collected from such writers, as
have held that our English Bible stands very
much indeed in want of improvement and
correction. The greater number of his au-
thorities, to this purpose, are taken from rival
translators. These may have been excellent
men, and several, but by no means all of
them, were very competent judges; yet they
are the last class of writers amongst whom
one would look for unprejudiced and tho-
roughly impartial evidence on this subject *|~.
* Macknight's General Preface to his New Translation
of the Apostolical Epistles, p. 12, 2d Edition.
t Dr. Geddes was a man with so strangely constituted a
mind, that I set no value on his testimony to the positive
merits of Tyndal ; but all his peculiarities were such as would
lead him to dislike a mere copyist from other translations.
K I subjoin,
130
Bat whilst most persons would receive their
opinions with hesitation; and would almost
take for granted, that allowances must be made
for some exaggeration, in their list of objec-
tions to a version, which they wished that their
own productions might supersede ; the sanction
which the Lady Margaret's Professor may think
fit to give to such objections, is heard as if he
had delivered a painful truth, wrested from him
by a strong conviction of its being indisputable.
I have seen Archbishop Newcome's remarks
on this subject, taken advantage of by more
than one enemy; and the fear of a similar
I subjoin, therefore, his favourable opinion of Tyndal, as
1 find it in Abp. Newcome's work, considering it as good
evidence, that he saw in Tyndal no second-hand translator.
" Dr. Geddes thinks, that though Tyndal's is far from
" being a perfect translation, yet few first translations will be
" found preferable to it. It is astonishing," says this wri-
ter, " how little obsolete the language of it is, even at this
" day: and in point of perspicuity and noble simplicity,
" propriety of idiom and purity of style, no English version
" has yet surpassed it." And he elsewhere " declares (Gene-
" ral Answer, &c. p. 4), that if he had been inclined to make
" any prior English version the groundwork of his own, it
" would certainly have been Tyndal's." Abp. Newcome's
Historical View of English Translations, p. 25.
abuse of your Lordship's candid, but, as I
think, mistaken statement, made me wish to
place before the public such arguments against
the correctness of that statement, as had
weight with myself. I have been the more
desirous of doing this from observing, that a
new edition of your translation of Michaelis is
announced; and that each successive edition
hitherto, has contained the note * which de-
grades our authorized Version into little better
than a copy from Luther.
But whilst I have taken the liberty of dis-
puting so decidedly the accuracy of what you
have said on this subject, I am bound to ac-
knowledge, and do it with great pleasure, that
the statements to which I have had occasion to
object, are confined to those which you had
accepted on the authority of Johnson's tract.
The fact is, that our great English divines have
either not liked to employ themselves about
the foundations for ever, or they have gone
deeper in their controversies, and appealed at
* See Appendix to this Letter, Art. B.
132
once to the originals ; so that the question, by
what means our translators were enabled to
present those, who could look no farther, with
so faithful a copy, has not been much examined
till lately. The knowledge of former editions
of vernacular Bibles, and of previous transla-
tions, is what had scarcely been thought of
in this country, when Johnson and Lewis wrote.
The laborious accuracy on such topics of Le
Long, of Masch, or of Walchius, has still had
nothing amongst us resembling it; and by
giving our countryman Johnson credit for the
exactness which you had found in those writers,
your Lordship assigned to him a share of merit
which he by no means deserved ; and allowed
yourself to acquiesce in statements, which he
was not qualified to give without great inaccu-
racy. Perhaps the only person who could
have given the public such information on
these subjects, as might have been referred
to without hesitation, was our truly learned
fellow collegian Mr. Baker, the venerated socius
ejecfus. From him Lewis seems to have de-
rived, in common with so many writers of that
time, such assistance as contributed consider-
133
ably to his general accuracy. But Lewis is a
very indistinct writer. Archbishop Newcome
has provided me with the epithet; and never
was any epithet more fully deserved. His in-
formation about a particular edition is some-
times scattered over a great number of uncon-
nected and widely distant passages; and what
he means is often unintelligible, without looking
carefully over the work which he professes to
describe. This is the best apology that can be
made for Dr. Macknight, who evidently con-
sulted Lewis ; but had, in all probability, no
access to several of the old translations of
which he has spoken.
After having ascertained by personal inspec-
tion the inaccuracy of Johnson's statements,
I might perhaps, by declaring and giving a
very few instances of their incorrectness, have
sufficiently proved some of the points on which
I have dwelt at considerable length. But the
respect due to your Lordship, and the weight of
your authority, made it both improper and
unlikely that I should obtain credit, had I met
any statements which had received your sane-
K 3
134
tion, with direct assertions of an opposite
nature.
Let this be my excuse with such readers
as think that I have unnecessarily protracted
the discussion, in proof of the correctness of
several assertions, which they may have seen
but little reason for disputing.
To your Lordship I have only to add, that,
aware of the responsibility which I incur by
publishing my opinion that you have been
mistaken, my principal anxiety has been to
state the truth in the best manner for securing
its acceptance; and yet, to let no argument
escape my pen of a description inconsistent
with that sincere respect, with which
I have the honour to be,
Your Lordship's obedient
And devoted Servant,
HENRY WALTER.
APPENDIX.
ARTICLE A.
IT would be useless to attempt proving of any ver-
sion, made in the sixteenth century, that it was not a
translation from the Vulgate ; if we were obliged to ac-
cept, in its full rigour, that limitation to the power of
translating the Scriptures, from the Hebrew, which the
Lady Margaret's Professor appears to have adopted from
Michaelis. The passage, to which I allude, is the fol-
lowing:
" The use of the Latin Vulgate, in translating from
" the Hebrew, was at that period not merely matter of
" convenience. It was matter also of necessity. With-
" out the Vulgate Luther would not have possessed the
" means of translating from the Hebrew. The knowledge
" of Hebrew had for ages preceding the period of re-
" formation been confined to the learned among the Jews;
" and when Luther undertook the task of translating
" from the original Scriptures, this knowledge had begun
" only to dawn among Christians. The comprehensive
" grammars and lexicons to which we have now access,
" are sources of intelligence which were not open to our
" early Reformers. The elder Buxtorf, one of the Jh-
" thers of Hebrew learning among Christians, was not
" born till after Luther's death: and Luther's only helps
" in the form of a Hebrew Lexicon, were those of
K 4
136
" Reuchlin and Miinster extracted from the meagre
" glossaries of the Rabbins. Under such circumstances
" a translation from the Hebrew without the intervention
" of the Latin would have been wholly impracticable *."
I have no disposition to decline accepting the Bishop's
account of the extent or sources of Luther's knowledge
of Hebrew, but should be glad to see the broader ques-
tion re-considered, as to the practicability of attaining, at
that time, to a generally correct understanding of the
Hebrew Scriptures, without looking to the Vulgate for
help. If this was " wholly impracticable," I cannot
understand how Pagninus or Miinster became able to
produce translations so superior in fidelity to the Vul-
gate; still less, how they should have been able to throw
so much new light on the obscurities in the Hebrew text.
That the glossaries and the commentaries of the
Rabbins were frequently very fanciful, I learn from
numerous instances which have occasionally fallen under
my notice ; and the facilities which Buxtorf and other
lexicographers have afforded, of knowing something of
Hebrew without wading through long rabbinical scholia
on the Scriptures, prevent my being able to speak very
positively of their merits; yet I do not know that the
Buxtorfs, though they have made the road easier, have
given any information superior to what might have been
obtained by Tyndal, or such of his cotemporaries as
had industry enough to surmount these difficulties,
against which the Buxtorfs, themselves, had to contend.
Besides such perpetual commentaries on the sacred
text as were in the possession of individual Rabbins, the
rabbinical Bibles printed at Venice were accessible at that
* Bishop of Peterborough's Lectures, XIV. p. 32.
137
time to Christians as well as Jews. Will it be denied
that the Rabbins of Luther's day had preserved the
knowledge of the Hebrew text, which had descended
amongst the people of their nation by continued tradition ?
That reading constantly the debased, yet kindred, lan-
guage in which the scholia on their Scriptures were writ-
ten, they needed little help from Christians to under-
stand the grammatical construction, however deplorably
blind they might be to the spirit of their Scriptures? Or
will it be said that they endeavoured to conceal from
Christian readers knowledge, of which they alone pos-
sessed the keys? The publication of those long com-
mentaries, which form a greater part of the rabbinical
Bibles than the text itself is decisive against the last
supposition. But if the language of the Lower Empire
and of the scholiasts, had wandered as far from that of
Plato or Aristotle, as the rabbinical Hebrew from that of
the Pentateuch, would it have been thought reasonable
to say of those scholars who lived in Italy, when the
sacking of Constantinople filled it with learned Greeks,
that they could not have translated Aristotle into Italian
but for the help of some old Latin translation, because
their only helps, in the form of Greek and Italian lexi-
cons, might have been some meagre glossaries? It would,
surely, be said in answer to any such remark, that being
able to read Aristotle and his scholiasts, with the persons
who spoke the language of those scholiasts as their guides
and assistants, they were more competent to correct, than
necessitated to consult, any previous Latin translation.
In one material respect, however, an illustration
drawn from Greek literature, has a tendency to give too
disadvantageous an idea of the skill attainable in Hebrew
in TyndaPs time, as compared with the knowledge which
138
the same industry might now acquire; for, the publica
tion of various excellent Greek lexicons and grammars has
given modern classical scholars much greater advantages
over their predecessors, than the accumulated labours
of any Hebrew lexicographers, can, by any possibility,
effect for those who study Hebrew. This remark may
deserve the attention of such persons as not knowing the
latter language, but perceiving the improvements which
might be made in our Version of the Greek Testament,
feel perhaps inclined to suspect that still greater improve-
ments might be made in our translation of the Hebrew
Scriptures; in proportion to what they imagine the
greater difficulty of mastering the rarer acquisition.
But whilst the nice distinctions, which exist in the
Greek language, between its numerous expressions for
passed, approaching, or passing time, and between com-
pounds expressing every shade of variety in either cause
or effect, can only be properly appreciated by having a
great number of examples collected for comparison ; the
verb in Hebrew has but three tenses, and the language
admits of no compounds. The Hebrew, therefore, ex-
presses the general idea, but leaves the precise modifica-
tion of that idea to be drawn from the context. Thus,
when Buxtorf says that ian signifies, vertit, evertit, con-
vertit, invertit, obvertit, subvertit, mutavit, commutavit,
immutavit, et interdum, convertere se, verti, mutari;
it is plain, that this is no more than saying, that the
general idea of causing a change of position or form
either in one's self, or in other things, is expressed by
prt; but that all those modifications of that idea, for
which the Latin language has so many names, are, in
reality, undistinguished in the Hebrew. Now, as no
English word is equally general in its application, a
139
translator cannot employ any English word as its con-
stant representative; and, therefore, in any particular
passage he must ascertain from the context, what modi-
fication of the idea of changing or turning is to be ex-
pressed in English. If the Latin words, evertit, in-
vertit, subvertit, and obvertit, were employed in any
passage; the accuracy of a translator would depend upon
his just conception of the distinction between these seve-
ral verbs; and for the power of appreciating that distinc-
tion, he must be indebted to the opportunities of com-
paring the force of these words afforded him by the se-
lections and illustrations of lexicographers and critics, or
by his own ready reference to other instances of their
occurrence. This would be a question of scholarship.
But when once a person understands that the verb
1QM means, to cause a change in any manner, ten thou-
sand examples will not teach the Hebrew student to elicit
from the verb itself, in wJiat manner ; because it does
not, in reality, specify the manner in which the change
is made, though the surrounding words may, very likely,
point it out. To detect the manner from the context, is an
effort of ingenuity or of common sense. He who has seen
but one imperfect Hebrew Lexicon, and the most learned
Hebraist living, must alike be guided by their reasoning
powers in deciding what particular mode of change is to
be understood in each particular case.
From the Arabic, indeed, some knowledge has been
obtained since TyndaPs or Luther's time of the verbs
from which certain nouns are derived, whose roots hap-
pened not to occur in the Hebrew Scriptures. But this
knowledge is rarely applicable to any purpose; <except
where a poetical accumulation of nearly synpnimpus
140
words, has carried the writer beyond the language in or-
dinary use.
On the whole I see little reason for thinking, that the
philological apparatus accumulated since King James's
time, has carried the knowledge of Hebrew perceptibly
farther than it was possessed by his translators.
A revision of our authorized Version of the Hebrew
Scriptures might, perhaps, more reasonably be expected
to add beauty than fidelity to the translation; since the
principal advantage which the moderns enjoy consists in
the light that Bishop Lowth has thrown on the arrange-
ment of ideas in the poetry of Scripture. The most
pleasing specimen of sacred criticism I ever read, Bishop
Jebb's work on the Style of the New Testament, has
taught me that the advantage to be derived from at-
tention to this peculiar poetical arrangement, is not con-
fined to the Hebrew portions of Scripture.
ARTICLE B.
" As our present English translation of the Bible
" was made in the time of James I. by a society of
" forty-seven persons appointed for that purpose by royal
" authority, who were divided into six different com-
" panics, which met in Westminster, Oxford, and Cam-
" bridge, and none of them probably were sufficiently
" acquainted with the German to derive any assistance
" from Luther's translation, it may seem difficult to
" comprehend how the Germanisms, of which our author
" speaks, should have been derived from this source;
3
141
" and it may appear more reasonable to conclude that
" those turns of expression, which are no longer current
" in modern writings, were remnants of the Anglo-Saxon
" idiom, of which more traces are visible in the works
" of that age, than in those of the present century. But
" it appears from the following circumstances, that our
" author's assertion is not wholly devoid of foundation.
" 1. Luther published his German translation of the
" New Testament in 1523. 2. A few years previous to
" this publication William Tyndal, who had studied
" both in Oxford and Cambridge, went abroad, spent
" some time in Germany, was personally acquainted with
" Luther, settled afterwards in Antwerp, and published
" an English translation of the N. T. in 1526. 3. John
" Rogers, who studied in Cambridge and spent a consi-
" derable time in Germany, where he became minister
" of a Lutheran congregation, translated that part of the
" Old Testament which Tyndal had left unfinished, re-
" vised his translation of the New, added notes and pre-
" faces from Luther, and published the whole at Ham-
" burg in 1537, which edition is commonly called Ma-
** thewe's Bible, Mathewe being a fictitious name as-
" sumed by Rogers. 4. It is certain, therefore, that
" Rogers made use of Luther's version; and it is highly
" probable that Tyndal did the same, as he first trans-
" lated those books which Luther had first translated,
" and began the translation of the Prophets only a short
" time before his death in 1536, which Luther had not
" finished before 1532. Lastly, it appears from the
*' 14th rule given by James I. to the translators of our
" present English Bible, that where the English transla-
" tions of Tyndal, Mathewe, &c. by which last is
" meant the edition of 1537, came closer to the original
" than the Bishops 1 Bible, their mode of translation
" should be retained.
" See Walchii Bibliotheca Theologica, torn. iv. p. 82,
" and Johnson's Historical Account of the English
" Translations of the Bible, in Bishop Watson's Tracts,
" vol. iii. pp. 6772, 9496. See also p. 309 of
" the preceding work, and vol. i. p. 418, of Le Long,
" Biblioth. Sacra, ed. Paris, 1723." Bishop of Peter-
borough's Note on Michaelis's Introduction to N. T.
chap. vii. sect. 21.
I need not make any remarks here on such parts of
the above note as are incorporated in Lect. XIV. But
there is one farther statement made in the note, which must
have been derived from some inaccurate authority. It
is said, that Tyndal went abroad a few years previous to
Luther's publication of the N. T. in 1523. I have not
been able to ascertain with precision in what year he went
abroad. His biographer, Foxe, scarcely gives a single date
of any event connected with him. But Tyndal says, that
when he had determined to devote himself to translating
the Bible, he left his situation as tutor in the family of a
Gloucestershire gentleman, and went to London with the
hope of finding a protector, during his labours, in Bishop
Tonstall. Now Tonstall, who was previously Dean of
Salisbury and Master of the Rolls, only became Bishop
of London in 1522; and Tyndal, though disappointed,
remained in London nearly a twelvemonth, before he
quitted England for Germany.
As any person who has not access to the authors
referred to in the above note on Michaelis, may imagine
that facts or arguments would be found under the above
references, which might materially alter his view of the
, I will add here,
143
That the reference to Walchius only supplies the or-
der in which Luther made his translations.
That the references to Bishop Watson's collection,
are to Johnson's Tract, the inaccuracy of which I have
had so much occasion to notice; and to a note, attached
to another tract, in which several of Johnson's assertions
are repeated in a more concise form.
That the reference to Le Long is to his account of the
English version *, in which occurs an extract from Coch-
laeus, telling how he drove two English heretics out of
Cologne, who were employed in printing an English
translation of Luther's New Testament.
The story is told by Jodocus Cochlaeus, in Actis Mar-
tini Lutheri, Anno 1526, p. 1 23, and is as follows :
"Duo Angli Apostatae, qui aliquandiu fuerant Wit-
tenbergse cunctos Anglise populos, volente nolente Rege,
brevi per Novum Lutheri Test, quod in Anglicanam
traduxerant linguam, Lutheranos fore sperabant. Vene-
rant jam Coloniam Agrippinam ut Test, sic traductum,
per typographos in multa millia multiplicatum, occulte
sub aliis mercibus deveherent inde in Angliam. Tanta
eis erat rei bene gerendae fiducia ut primo aggressu pete-
rent a typographis, sex millia sub prelum dari. Illi
autem subverentes, ne gravissimo afficerentur damno, si
quid adversi accideret, tantum tria millia sub prelum
miserant.Typographis Coloniensibus notior ac familiarior
factus (Cochlceus,) audivit eos aliquando inter pocula
fiducialiter jactitare, Velint nolint Rex et Cardinalis An-
gliae, totam Angliam brevi fore Lutheranam. Audivit
item, duos ibi latitare Anglos } eruditos, linguarumque
* I suppose that the reference to p. 418 is a misprint for 428 ;
since 4l8 is on the subject of the Swedish Bibles, translated
from Luther's German version.
I These must have been Tyndal and John Fryth.
144
peritos, et disertos, quos tamen videre aut alloqui nun-
quam potuit. Vocatis itaque in hospitium suum qui-
busdam typographis, posteaquam mero incaluissent,
unus eorum in secretiore colloquio revelavit illi arcanum,
quo ad JLutheri partes trahenda esset Anglia. Nempe
versari sub prelo tria millia exemplarium Novi Testa-
menti Lutherani, ac processum esse jam usque ad literam
alphabet! K in ordine quaternionum. Impensas abunde
suppeti a mercatoribus Anglicanis, qui opus excusum
clam invecturi per totam Angliam latenter dispergere
vellent, antequam Rex aut Cardinalis rem scire, aut pro-
hibere possit.
" Cochlaeus intra se metu et admiratione varie affectus
abiit clam ad Hermannum Rinck, eique rem omnem, ut
acceperat vini beneficio, indicavit. Ille, ut certius omnia
constarent, alium misit exploratum in earn domum ubi
opus excudebatur, juxta indicium Cochlaei. Cumque ab
illo accepisset, rem ita se habere, et ingentem papyri co-
piam ibi existere ; adiit Senatum, atque effecit ut typo-
graphis indiceretur, ne ultra progrederentur in eo opere.
Duo Apostatae Angli, arreptis secum quaternionibus im-
pressis, aufugerunt ; navigio per Rhenum ascendentes
Worniatiam ut ibi per alium typographum perficerent
opus caeptum."
But the expression Testamentum Lutheranum, or
even the more definite words, Nov. Lutheri Testamentum,
as used by Cochlaeus, are but weak authority for Le
Long's formally registering, as it were, " Novum Testa-
mentum ex Germanica versione Lutheri in Anglicum
Sermonem a duobus Anglis traductum, et editum Coloniae
usque ad litteram E. impensis mercatorum Anglicanorum."
Le Long, Par. edition, 1723, vol. i. p. 433. The term
145
Lutheran, as then employed by violent Roman Catholics
like Cochlseus, was frequently merely a term of abhor-
rence. All that he has said, was very likely, in his
mind, no more than equivalent to calling it a wretched
heretical translation.
ARTICLE C.
I have already given some extracts from the preface to
another translation of the New Testament, made by
Coverdale, and published under the name of Hollybushe,
in 1538. A more full account of this translation, which
was professedly made " after the vulgare text, com-
" munely called St. Jerome's *," was not necessary in
discussing the origin of such previous Bibles, as King
James's translators were called upon to copy, whenever
they could do it with perfect propriety. But wishing to
show how little value ought to be set on Dr. Mac-
knight's authority regarding the present question, I
shall here subjoin, amongst other proofs of the ground-
less nature of many of his assertions, a quotation from
Hollybushe's New Testament. The account which he
found in Lewis, of this work of Coverdale's, has been
misunderstood and misapplied by him, so as to form the
basis of assumptions, that have no foundation at all in
facts.
* A correct copy of the title may be seen in Lewis, p.
edition 3d.
After giving some disjointed extracts from the pre-
faces of two editions of Hollybushe's New Testament
(which Macknight has filled out with sentences of his
own, containing statements in which he was utterly mis-
taken), he proceeds ; " From these quotations it is evi-
" dent, that the translation of the New Testament which
" Coverdale allowed Hollybushe to print with the Latin
" text, was the one which he had published in his Bible ;
" consequently it was TyndaPs translation *." Now, it
would not be very difficult to prove, that no such results
were properly deducible from his quotations; but it is
simpler to refer at once to the translations themselves;
and, on inspection it appears,
First, " That the translation of the New Testament
" which Coverdale allowed Hollybushe to print -f-, was""
not " the one which he had published in his Bible.' 1
Secondly, " That the one which he had published in
" his Bible, was 1 ' not " Tyndal's translation. 11
Thirdly, " That as the premises on which Macknight
" built his conclusion were false, so also is the conclusion
" itself; since, in point of fact, the translation in Holly-
" bushed New Testament is different from TyndaPs. 11
For a proof of these facts nothing more is necessary
than to look at any verse in these different translations,
that happens not to be of so very simple a construction,
as would admit of no variation in the mode of rendering it.
I have turned to the twelfth Chapter to the Epistle
* Note to Section 2d of Macknight's Gen. Preface to Transla-
tion of Epistles, p. 19, edition 2d.
t Or rather allowed J. Nicholson to print, with the feigned
name of Hollybushe as translator.
147
to the Hebrews ; and find, upon examination, that the
first two verses will suit our purpose.
Totyapot/v x< tfpfif
oyxon .7roSE//voj Tavla, xai 1x
xEV TOV TTpOJCStjUEVOV fcjLUI
sj E{ lov T
V ^^ T T 6(JOM TW EH EX.aG*TEV.
Which, in TyndaPs translation, is as follows:
Wherefore let us also, (seeing that we are compassed
with so great a multitude of witnesses,) lay away all that
presseth down, and the sin that hangeth on, and let us
run with patience unto the battle that is set before us,
looking unto Jesus the auctor and finisher of our faith,
which for the joy that was set before him, abode the
cross, and despised the shame, and is set down on the
right hand of the throne of God.
In Coverdale's Bible it is,
Wherefore seeing we have so great a multitude of
witnesses about us, let us also lay away all that presseth
down, and the sin that hangeth on, and let us run with
patience unto the battle that is set before us, looking
unto Jesus the auctor and finisher of faith ; which, when
the joy was laid before him, abode the cross, and despised
the shame, and is set down on the right hand of the
throne of God.
The next Bible was Mathewe's, in which, as has
been mentioned, Coverdale rejected his own translations
for Tyndal's.
The following year Coverdale published his Holly-
bushe translation from the Vulgate, in which the Latin
idiom plainly appears. He now translated these texts in
this manner.
And therefore we having so great cloud of witnesses
L2
148
laid upon us, laying away all the weight and sin that
standeth by us, let us run by patience unto the strife
that is set before us, looking upon the author and finisher
of faith Jesus, which the joy being set afore him, suf-
fered the cross, shame despised*, and sitteth on the
right hand of the seat of God -f-.
I will add the same passage as it stands in the later
Bibles, by way of elucidating the gradual improvements
made in the translation of the New Testament.
Cranmer's Bible of 1540, copies Mathewe's Bible
(that is, here, TyndaPs translation), as usual, with slight
corrections ; thus, instead of " that hangeth on," Cran-
mer's Bible has " that hangeth so fast on;" and instead
of " the auctor and finisher," it has " the captain and
finisher."
The (Geneva Bible has,
Wherefore, let us also, seeing that we are compassed
with so great a cloud of witnesses, cast away every thing
that presseth down, and the sin that hangeth so fast on :
let us run with patience the race that is set before us,
* In the Vulgate, confusione contempts. : this is a specimen
of the difficulty which Coverdale found in Anglicising the Latin
ablative absolute.
A comparison of Coverdale's translation of the above texts,
as copied from his Bible, with Tyndal's, inclines me to think,
that when Coverdale formed the translation which constitutes
the Bible called after him, he consulted Tyndal's New Testa-
ment (the first edition of which came out in 1526), but had not
the assistance of Tyndal's Pentateuch (published so much later
as 1534), in translating the Hebrew Scriptures ; and that, out of
delicacy to Tyndal, Coverdale made it a point of honour to pub-
lish his Bible in 1535, nearly as it stood before he became ac-
quainted with Tyndal.
t Holly bushc's N. Testament, edition of 1538.
149
'looking unto Jesus the author and finisher of our faith,
who for the joy that was set before him, endured the
cross and despised the shame, and is set at the right
hand of the throne of God.
In the authorized Version it stands thus: Wherefore,
seeing we also are compassed about with so great a cloud
of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, and the sin
which doth so easily beset us, and let us run with pa-
tience the race that is set before us, looking unto Jesus
the author and finisher of our faith, who, for the joy that
was set before him, endured the cross, despising the
shame, and is set down at the right hand of the throne
of God.
It appears, then, that Tyndal's translation, Cover-
dale's Bible, and Hollybushe's New Testament, are three
different versions; and if Dr. Macknight's information
was incorrect, his arguments are strangely illogical, in
the passage which immediately follows the words last
quoted from him. " It is evident likewise," says he,
" that that translation was made from the Vulgate, and
" in so literal a manner, that the reader might make
" plain construction of the Latin by the English. It is
" true, Coverdale in some places corrected the Latin text ;
" but it was only as a grammarian ; and in these correc-
" tions he was careful to swerve as little as possible from
"his text. Wherefore Coverdale having assisted Tyndal
" in making his translation, they followed one and the
" same method; that is, both of them translated the
" Scriptures from the Vulgate; both of them translated
" the Vulgate literally ; and both of them corrected the
" text of the Vulgate as grammarians, making use of
" other translations for that purpose; such as for the
'* Old Testament, the Septuagint, Luther's German
150
" Version, and Munster's Latin translation ; and for the
" New WicMi/e's" (English, observe) " and Eras-
" mils'" Versions, and what others they could find *."
I am sorry to see also that Macknight, in his account
of Coverdale's Bible, inconsiderately charges that truly
humble f translator with a fraud, practised to obtain
credit which he did not deserve. He says, Coverdale,
" by calling his a special translation, wished to have it
" considered as different from TyndaPs. Yet it is well
" known that he adopted all Tyndal's translations, both
" of the O. T. and the New, with some small altera-
" tions." Again, " The Books of the Old Testament
" and of the Apocrypha which Tyndal had not trans-
" lated, are the only translations in Coverdale's Bible,
" which are properly his own J." These statements are
entirely untrue, and are the result of his mistake in
supposing, that Mathewe's Bible was but a second
edition of Coverdale^s.
* Macknight's Gen. Preface, note to 2d, p. 19, edition 2d.
f Literary men will duly appreciate the humility of Cover-
dale; who, after having made the best translation of the whole
Bible which his industry and acquirements could enable him to
produce, was not only content to suppress it, whilst he hoped
that a better might be published ; to print it afterwards, with a
confession of its inferiority to what Tyndal would yet, he hoped,
produce ; to reject again as worthless, all of his own labours
that came in competition with Tyndal's ; but could submit to
become the author of an avowedly worse translation (viz. Holly-
bushe's N. T.), restricted to the Vulgate as its original ; careless
of his character as a writer, provided only he might gain souls
to Christ.
It is painful to find a divine who knew nothing of his works
but by the report of others, charging him with a very pitiful kind
of vanity.
J Macknight's Gen. Preface, p. 16, 17.
151
In another place he says, " It appears likewise, that
" Tyndal and Coverdale's translation, of which the rest
" are copies, was not made from the originals, but from
" the Vulgate Latin *."
Lastly, the conclusion which the Bishop of Peter-
borough has done Dr. Macknight the honour of inserting
in his Lectures, is made by its author to rest on a chain
of mistakes. " If, 1 ' says he, " Tyndal and Coverdale's
" translation was made from the Vulgate Latin ; and if
" the subsequent English translations as they have been
" called, were only corrected editions of their Version;
" and if the corrections made from time to time in the
" different editions, respected the language more than
" the sense, is it to be thought strange, that many of the
" errors of that translation, especially those copied from
" the Vulgate, have been continued ever since in all the
" editions of the English Bible ? Even that which is
" called the King's Translation, though, in general,
" much better than the rest, being radically the same, is
" not a little faulty, as it was not thoroughly and im-
" partially corrected by the revisers. It is, therefore, by
" no means, such a just representation of the inspired
" originals, as merits to be implicitly relied on, for
" determining the controverted articles of the Christian
" faith, and for quieting the dissensions which have
u rent the Church f . "
In reply to this I shall refer to the collations already
given in my Letter, as affording incontestable proofs, that
even Coverdale's translation (speaking of that in his Bible)
was not made from the Vulgate Latin only, and TyndaTs
* Macknigbt's Gen. Preface, p. 28.
f Ibid. p. 29.
15-2
not at all : that of the subsequent English Bibles, the
Geneva, and the authorized Version, are properly called
translations, and very different from mere corrected
editions of Tyndal and Coverdale : that it cannot pro-
perly be said of even the slight corrections which dis-
tinguished Cranmer's or the Bishops' Bible, that " they
" respected the language more than the sense ; " and lastly,
that the King's translation is very far from being " radi-
" cally the same," as any version made from the Vulgate.
THE END.
S. Gosnell, Printer, 8, Little Queen Street, London.