Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 8.djvu/402

Rh 382 EN-GLISH BIBLE Aid- helm s Psalter. The Lin disfarne Gospels. The Rush- worth Gospels. jElfrie s Hepta teuch. the first fifty Psalms of which are in prose and the rest in verse, which was translated by St Aklhelm, long abbot of Malmesbury, and at his death (709) bishop of Sherborne, and of which a copy is preserved in the National Library at Paris. This Psalter was printed at Oxford, under the editorship of Thorpe, in 1835, and is one of the earliest monuments of the English language. Next in date comes a volume known as the Lindisfarne or St Cuthbert s Evangelistarium. This beautiful volume, which formerly belonged to the dean and chapter of Durham, but is now preserved in the British Museum (Nero D. iv.), was written in Latin by Eadfrith about 680, and illuminated by Ethelwold, afterwards (724--740) bishop of Lindisfarne. At a later date an interlinear English trans lation was added by Ealdred, probably the monk who afterwards became (957-9G8) bishop of Chester-le-Street. The Lindisfarne Gospels were edited, with a learned intro duction, by Bouterwek in 1857, and also by Stevenson and Waring for the Surtees Society in 1854-65. Of a little later date is a similar volume, known as the Puishworth Gospels, which is preserved in the Bodleian Library (Auct. D. 2, 19). This manuscript was originally written in Latin by MacBegol, an Irish scribe, about 820, and the interlinear English version was added about 80 or 100 years afterwards by a scribe named Owen and a priest of Harewood named Fasrinan. The three later gospels are so nearly identical with those of the Lindisfarne book as to show that the translation contained in the latter represents a publicly circulated version. The Rnshworth Gospels have also been printed by the Surtees Society. There was in circulation, too, in the 10th century, a translation of the first seven books of the Old Testament, which had been made by ^Elfric, who was during the later part of his life (994-1005), archbishop of Canterbury. These seven books were probably, however, part only of a much larger work, for translations of the books of Kings, Esther, Job, Judith, the Maccabees, and of the four gospels, also exist, which are of the same date, and are supposed to be from the same pen. Copies of the Heptateuch exist in the British Museum (Claud. B. iv.), aud in the Bodleian Library (Laud 509), a copy of the gospels being preserved in the Library of Corpus Christi College, Cambridge. The Heptateuch was printed by Edward Thwaites in 1G98. In addition to the above, there are also many copies of the &quot; Anglo-Saxon &quot; Psalter and of the Gospels in the British Museum, in the libraries of Oxford and Cambridge, and elsewhere, some of which are written in between the lines of the Latin, and others of which are, like ^Elfric s Heptateuch, &c., independent works. Such manuscripts are found of as late a date as the end of the 12th century, showing that the more ancient form of the English language was in use long after the Norman Conquest, and even when the transition was far advanced from &quot; Anglo-Saxon &quot; to the medieval English of Chaucer. The general character of the older English may be seen by the following specimen, taken from ^Elfric s Heptateuch, the comparison with modern English being made eisy by a parallel version : GEN. xxxvii. 5-11 TENTH CENTURY . hinc liatcdon tlie swithor & he cwseth to him, Gehirath min swefeu the me moette. Me thuhte tht we bundon sceafas on secere, A tht min sceaf arist, &amp;lt;fe stode uprihte omiddan euwrrum sceaf um. &amp;lt;fc eowre gilmas stodon ymbulan &amp;lt;fc abugon to minum soeafe. Tha cwtedrm his gebrothru, Cwist thu ? hist thu ure eyning, oththe booth we thine hyr men ? Witodlice tliurh this swefn &amp;lt;fe thuih thsis sprrcca hip: hine hatedon, &. hrefdon andan to him. Other swefen hine mcette & he rehte tht his brothrum, &amp;lt;6 cwth, Ic geseah on swefne swtco MODERN . him hated the more. And he quorh to them. Hear my dream that me met. Me thought that we bounden sheaves in the acre and that mine sheaf aiised, and stood upright amid your sheaves, and your yelms [bundles] stood about and bowed to mine sheaf. Then said his brethren, Sayest thuu? beest thou our king, either be we thine hire-men? Wherefore through his dream and throug-i his speeches they h:m bated and had anger to him. Other dream him met, and he told that his brethren, nnd quoth, I saw in a dream as it were sunne A mona &amp;lt;fe endleofun steorran. & ealle abugon me. Tha he tht his fasder & his brothrnm rehte, tha threatode se fieder hine, &amp;lt;fc cwieth, Hwat sceal this swefen beon the thu gesawe? Sccolon we abugan the, ic & thin modur & thine gebrothru ? Witodlice his gebrothru yrsodon swithe. . sun and moon and eleven stars, and all bowed to me. When he that his father and his brethren told, then threatened his father him, and quoth, What shall this dream be that thou sawest ? Shall we bow to thee, I and thine mother and thine brethren ? Wherefore his brethren were angry with The English which was spoken before the Conquest un derwent much change, however, during the reigns of the Norman and Angevin kings ; and although the reproduc tion of the older translations shows that there were some Englishmen who still used their language in its ancient form, yet there can be no doubt that many of the old words had become obsolete by the time of the Plantagenets, and that the vernacular tongue of the country had been so altered by its contact with the French spoken by the upper classes as to make new translations of the Scriptures necessary. Of such new translations Archbishop Cranmer writes in his preface to the authorized version of 1540. The Holy Bible was, he says, &quot; translated and read in the Saxons tongue, which at that time was our mother tongue,&quot; many hundred years before the date at which he was writ ing, &quot; whereof there remaineth yet divers copies, found in old abbeys, of sitch antique manner of writing and speaking that few men now been able to read and understand them. And when this language waxed old and out of common usage, because folk should not lack the fruit of reading it was again translated into the newer language, whereof yet .also many copies remain, and be daily found.&quot; Sir Thomas More also wrote that &quot;the whole Bible was, long before Wickliffe sdays, by virtuous and well-learned men, translated into the English tongue, and by good and godly people with devotion and soberness well and reverently read &quot; (More s Dial., iii. 14). Similar evidence is given by Foxe. the martyrologist, who says in his dedication to an edition of the Anglo-Saxon gospels, &quot; If histories be well examined, we shall find both before the Conquest and after, as well before John Wickliffe was born as since, the whole body of the Scriptures by sundry men translated into our country tongue.&quot; Bat as of the earlier period so of this, there are none but fragmentary remains, the &quot; many copies &quot; which remained when Cranmer wrote in 1540 having doubtless disappeared in the vast and ruthless destruction of libraries which took place within a few years after that date. 1 There are, however, two English versions of the Psalter still remaining which were made early in the 14-th century, together with many abstracts and metrical paraphrases ot particular books of the Bible, translations of the epistles and gospels used in divine service, paraphrases of gospel lessons, narratives of the Passion and Resurrection of our Lord, and other means for familiarizing the people with Holy Scripture. It was also the custom of mediaeval preachers and writers to give their own English version of any text which they quoted, not resorting as in later times to a commonly received translation ; and a very curious illustration of this fact is found in the prologue to the Wickliffite Bible, where, of the many quotations made from the Scriptures, none are taken from the English version to which it forms the preface, but all are translated directly from the Vulgate. The same fact is observable in the works of Chaucer and of Wickliffe himself, neither of them using the Wickliffite version, though their &amp;gt;*orks con tain numerous quotations from Scripture translated into English. 1 Bale writes in 1549, &quot; I judge this to be true, and utter it with heaviness, that neither the Britons under the Romans and Saxons, nor yet the English people under the Danes and Normans, had ever such damage of their learned monuments as we have seen in our time&quot; (Bale s Declaration upon Leland s Journal). About that time, among hundreds of other libraries, those of the city of London and of the iini- versity of Oxford entirely disappeared, the very book shelves of the latter being sold for firewood.