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 VERSIONS

376

VERSIONS

at most only the portion ending with Bar., iii, 19. Beside.s, the magnitude of the work renders it most probable that other translators beside Wyclif and Nicholas took part in the work, and that already existing versions were incorporated or utiUzed by the translators.

(b) Later Edition. — The Early Edition was com- plete indeed, as far as the translators considered the books canonical, but it was soon found lacking in the necessary qualities of style and English idiom. It is at times unintelligible and even nonsensical from a too close adherence to the Latin text. A revision was, therefore, found necessary and taken in hand shortly after the completion of the Early Version. The prin- ciples of the work are laid down in the prologue of the so-called Later Version. We do not know either the revisers or the exact date of the revision. John Pur- vey, the leader of the Lollard party, is generally as- sumed to have taken a large part in the work. The style and idiom of the Later Version are far superior to those of the Early, and there can be httle doubt as to its popularity among the WycUfites. But the Lollards soon introduced interpolations of a virulent character into their sacred texts; violence and anarchy set in, and the party came to be regarded as enemies of order and disturbers of society. It is small wonder that the ecclesiastical authorities soon convened in the Synod of Oxford (1408) and forbade the publica- tion and reading of unauthorized vernacular versions of the Scriptures, restricting the permission to read the Bible in the vernacular to versions approved by the ordinary of the place, or, if the case so require, by the provincial council.

(3) Printed English Bibles. — We are now entering the period of printed English Scriptures. France, Spain, Italy, Bohemia, and Holland possessed the Bible in the vernacular before the accession of Henry VIII; in Germany the Scriptures were printed in 1466, and seventeen editions had left the press before the apostasy of Luther. No part of the English Bible was printed before 1.525, no complete Bible before 1.5.3.5, and none in England before 1538.

(a) William Tyndale was the first to avail himself of the new opportunities furnished by the press and the new learning. Tyndale went early to Oxford, thence to Cambridge; he was ordained priest, and professed among the Franciscan Fathers at Green- wich. In 1524 he went to Hamburg and from there to Wittenberg to visit Luther. Assisted by William Roye, like himself an apostate Franciscan from the monastery at Greenwich, he translated the New Tes- tament, and began to have it printed in Cologne in 1525. Driven from Cologne, he went to \Vorms where he printed 3000 copies, and sent them to Eng- land in the early summer of 1526. The fourth edition was printed at Antwerp (1534). In 1530 Tyndale's Pentateuch was printed, in 1531 his Book of Jonas. Between the date of Tyndale's execution, 6 Oct., 1536, and the year 1550 numerous editions of the New Testament were reprinted, twenty-one of which Francis Fry (Biographical Descriptions of the Edi- tions of the New Testament, 1878) enumerates and describes (see Westcott, "Hist, of the English Bible", London, 1905).

(b) Miles Coverdale, born about 1488, educated at the Augustinian monastery at Cambridge, was or- dained priest in that order about 1514. After 1528 we find him on the Continent in Tyndale's society. He was favoured by Edward VI, Init was imi)risoned under Queen Mary in 1553; after obtaining liis free- dom, he remained on tlie Continent till the di'atli of Mary, after which he returned to England, and died in February, 1.569. He prepared a complete Englisli Bible, the printing of which was finished 4 Oct .. 1.535. He was the first to omit the deuterocanonical books in the body of the Old Testament, adding them at the end as "apocryplia". His work is a second-hand

eclectic translation, based on the Latin and the German versions.

(c) The London booksellers now became alive to the ready .sale of the Bible in English; Grafton and Whitchurch were the fiist to avail themselves of this business opportunity, bringing out in 1537 the so- called Matthew's Bible. Thomas Matthew is an alias for John Rogers, a friend and fellow-worker of Tyndale. The Matthew's Bible is only a compilation of the renderings of Tyndale and Coverdale.

(d) In 1539 the Matthew's Bible was followed by Taverner's edition of the Bible, a work which in our day would be considered a literary "piracy", being nothing more than a revision of the Matthew text. Though Taverner was an accomplished Greek scholar and somewhat of an English purist, his edition had no influence on the subsequent translations.

(e) About 1536 Cromwell had placed Coverdale at the head of theenterpri.se for bringing out an approved version of the EngUsh Bible. The new version was based on the Matthew's Bible. Coverdale consulted in his revision the Latin Version of the Old Testament with the Hebrew text by Sebastian Miinster, the Vul- gate, and Erasmus's edition of the Greek text for the New Testament. The work was ready for the press in 1538, and the printing was begun at Paris, but had to be transferred to London on 17 December of the same year. In April of the following year the edition was finished, and owing to its size the version was called the Great Bible. Before 1541 six other editions issued from the press.

(f) During the reign of Mary a number of EngUsh reformers withdrew to Geneva, the town of Calvin and Beza, and here they issued in 1557 a New Testa- ment with an introduction by Calvin. It was prob- ably the work of William ^^'hittingham, and it was the first English Bible which had its text divided into "verses and sections according to the best editions in other languages".

(g) Whittingham's work was soon superseded by an issue of the whole Bible, which appeared in 1560, the so-called Genevan Bible, also known as the Breeches Bible from its rendering of Gen., iii, 7, "they sewed fig leaves together and made themselve.s breeches". The Old Testament represented the text of the Great Bible thoroughly revised with the help of the Hebrew original and other sources, while the New Testament consisted of Tyndale's latest text revised in accordance with Beza's translation and commen- tary. The handy form and other attractive features of the work rendered it so popular that between 1560 and 1644 at least 140 editions were pubhshed.

(h) After the accession of Elizabeth an attempt was made to improve the authorized Cireat Bible and thus to counteract the growing popularity of the Cal- vinistic Genevan Bible. Bishop Parker divided the whole Bible into parcels, and distributed them among bishops and other learned men for revision. The re- sultant version was ready for publication on 5 Octo- ber, 1568, and became generally known as the Bishops' Bible. Several editions were afterwards published, and the Great Bible ceased to be reprinted in 1569, excepting its P.salter which was introduced into the Bishops' Bible in 1572, and admitted exclu- sively in 1.585. The Bishops' Bible is noted for its inecpiality in style and general merit ; it could not re- place the Genevan Bible in the Enghsh home.

(i) In October, 157S, Gregory Martin, assisted <'hic>fly by William (later Cardinal) Allen, Richard Brislow, "Thomas Wort liington, and William Rey- iiiilds began the work of preparing an English transla- tion of the Bible for Catholic rea<lers. Dr. Martin rendered into Englisli one or two chapters every day; the others then revised, criticised, and corrected the translation. Thus tlie New Testament was pub- lished at Reims in 1.5S2 with a preface and explanatory notes. TIic notes were written chiefly by Bristow,