Chap. i.

'Latin into English. First this simple creature had
'much travail with divers fellows and helpers to gather
'many old bibles and other doctors and common glosses,
and to make a Latin bible sumdel [somewhat] true1;
'and then to study it of the new, the text with the
'gloss...; the third time to counsel with old gramma-
'rians...; the fourth time to translate as clearly as he
'could to the sentence [sense], and to have many good
'fellows and cunning at the correcting of the translation.
'First it is to know that the best translating is...to trans-
late after the sentence and not only after the words, so
'that the sentence be as open, either opener, in English
'as in Latin, and go not far from the letter...In trans-
'lating into English many resolutions moun [can] make
'the sentence open, as an ablative case absolute may be
'resolved into these three words with convenable [suit-
'able] verb, the while, for, if...and when...Also a parti-
'ciple of a present tense...may be resolved into a verb.
'of the same tense and a conjunction copulative...Also a
'relative, which may be resolved into his antecedent with
'a conjunction copulative...And when rightful construc-
'tion is letted [hindered] by relation I resolve it openly:
'thus where....Dominum formidabunt adversarii ejus
'should be Englished thus by the letter the Lord his
adversaries should dread, I English it thus by resolu-
'tion, the adversaries of the Lord should dread Him...At
'the beginning I purposed with God's help to make the
'sentence as true and open in English as it is in Latin,
'either more true and more open than it is in Latin;
and I pray for charity and for common profit of Chris-

1 The collation of manuscripts must have been very partial and scanty. Thus in 1 John ii. 14 all the copies of Purvey's translation read 'brithren, i.e. fratres for patres, a

blunder of which I can find no trace in Bentley's collations of English MSS. of the Vulgate. The clause is omitted by Wycliffe, as by many Latin MSS.

⚫tian souls that if any wise man find any default of the 'truth of translation, let him set in the true sentence and 'open of holy writ...for...the common Latin Bibles have more need to be corrected, as many as I have seen in 'my life, than hath the English Bible late translated'.'... As might be expected the revised text displaced the original version, and in spite of its stern proscription in a convocation in 1408 under the influence of Archbishop Arundel, it was widely circulated through all classes till it was at last superseded by the printed versions of the 16th century3.

Chap. i.

the work.

But this first triumph of the English Bible was not won without a perilous struggle. One or two contemporary notices of the state of feeling over which it was achieved and of that again out of which it sprung are of deep interest. Thus a scholar writes when asked to Dangers of teach the ignorant the contents of the Gospel: 'Brother, 'I know well that I am holden by Christ's law to per'form thy asking, but natheless we are now so far fallen away from Christ's law, that if I would answer to thy askings I must in case undergo the death; and thou 'wottest well that a man is beholden to keep his life as

1 Prologue, c. xv. p. 57. Mr Froude's statement (which is retained in his last edition, 1870) that the second version, based upon Wycliffe's, was 'tinted more strongly with the ⚫ peculiar opinions of the Lollards,' is, as far as I have compared the two, wholly without foundation. The differences are exactly those which the Prologue describes. It need not be said that it was not made at the 'beginning of the fifteenth century' (History of England, 111. p. 77).

2 See p. 17.

The translation included all the Apocryphal Books except 2 Esdras. The Epistle to the Laodicenes was not included in Wycliffe's or Purvey's

translation, but was added afterwards
in some MSS. The texts of the ori-
ginal translation and of the revision
are generally uniform.

་

It is scarcely necessary to add that Sir T. More's statement that the Holy Bible was translated [into English] long before Wycliffe's days' is not supported by the least independ ent evidence. He may have seen a MS. of Wycliffe's version, and (like Lambert, see p. 23) have miscalculated the date. Bp. Bonner (for in stance) had a copy, and there was a fine one at the Charterhouse. See p. 19. Compare Tyndale's Answer to More, III. p. 168.

Chap. i.

'long as he may'.' 'Many think it amiss,' says Wycliffe, 'that men should know Christ's life, for then 'priests should be shamed of their lives, and specially 'these high priests, for they contradict Christ both in 'word and deed.' Yet there was a vigorous party to Supporters. which the reformers could trust. One comfort,' he adds,

Spirit of reader and writer.

'is of knights, that they savour [understand] much the 'Gospel, and have will to read in English the Gospel of 'Christ's life. But the fear of death and the power of enemies could not prevail against the Spirit in which the work was wrought.

'Christian men,' one says, 'ought to travail night and
day about text of holy writ, and namely the Gospel in
'their mother tongue, since Jesus Christ, very God and
7'very man, taught this Gospel with His own blessed
'mouth and kept it in His life. I beseech and with
'all my heart pray them that this work read,' writes
Wycliffe, in the preface to his Harmony of the Gospels,
'that for me they pray the mercy of God, that I may
'fulfil that is set in the draught [translation] of this
'book, and that he at whose suggestion I this work
'began, and they that this work read, and all Christian.
'men with me, through doing of that that is written in
'this book, may come together to that bliss that never
'shall end".' And Purvey when he revised Wycliffe's
work knew well what was required of the interpreter of
Scripture. He hath need to live a clean life and be
'full devout in prayers, and have not his wit occupied
'about worldly things that the Holy Spirit, Author of
'wisdom and knowledge and truth, dress him in his
'work and suffer him not for to err...By this manner,'
he concludes, 'with good living and great travail men

1 Forshall and Madden, Wycliffe's Bible, Introd. p. xv. n.
2 Wycliffe's Bible, 1. c.
Id. p. xiv. n.

4 Id. p. x. n.

'may come to true and clear translating and true under'standing of Holy Writ, seem it never so hard at the 'beginning. God grant to us all grace to ken well and 'keep well Holy Writ and suffer joyfully some pain for 'it at the last'.'

The last words were not allowed to remain without fulfilment. As long as the immediate influence of Wycliffe lasted the teaching of his followers was restrained within reasonable bounds. Times of anarchy and violence followed, and spiritual reform was confounded with the destruction of society. The preachers of the Bible gave occasion to their enemies to identify them with the enemies of order; and the re-establishment of a strong government led to the enactment of the statute \De hæretico comburendo (2 Hen. IV.), which was soon put in force as a powerful check on heresy. It is impossible to determine whether the Wycliffite Bible was among the books' mentioned in the preamble of the act by which the Lollards were said to excite the people to sedition. Later parallels make it likely that it was so; but it was not long before the Version was directly assailed.

In a convocation of the province of Canterbury held at Oxford under Archbishop Arundel in 1408, several constitutions were enacted against the party of the Reformation. The one on the use of the vernacular Scriptures is important both in form and substance. It is a dangerous thing,' so it runs, 'as witnesseth bless'ed St Jerome, to translate the text of the holy Scripture 'out of one tongue into another; for in the translation 'the same sense is not always easily kept, as the same 'St Jerome confesseth, that although he were inspired 1 Prologue, p. 60.

* The Preamble is quoted by Mr Froude, History of England, 11. 20.

Chap. i.

The act de comburendo.

hæretico

A. D. 1401.

The con

cation of

Oxford,

1408.

C

Chap. i.

The

Wycliffite Bible sur vives the fall of the Lollards.

Manuscripts of Wycliffite

'(etsi inspiratus fuisset), yet oftentimes in this he erred; 'we therefore decree and ordain that no man hereafter 'by his own authority (auctoritate suâ) translate any 'text of the Scripture into English or any other tongue, 'by way of a book, pamphlet, or treatise; and that no 'man read any such book, pamphlet or treatise, now 'lately composed in the time of John Wycliffe or since, 'or hereafter to be set forth in part or in whole, pub'licly or privately, upon pain of greater excommunica'tion, until the said translation be approved by the 'ordinary of the place, or, if the case so require, by the 'council provincial. He that shall do contrary to this 'shall likewise be punished as a favourer of heresy and 'error'.'

Four years after came the insurrection and death of Sir John Oldcastle. A new and more stringent act was passed against heresy (2 Hen. V.), and the Lollards as a party were destroyed. But the English Bible survived their destruction. The terms of the condemnation under Archbishop Arundel were explicit, but it was practically ineffectual. No such approbation as was required, so far as we know, was ever granted, but the work was still transcribed for private use; and the manuscripts are themselves the best records of its history".

Of about one hundred and seventy copies of the Versions. whole or part of the Wycliffite versions which have been

1 Foxe, Acts and Monuments, III. 245 (whose translation I have generally followed). The original Latin is given in Wilkins' Concilia, III. 317.

Two names however are connected too closely with Wycliffe to be omitted altogether. John of Gaunt vigorously supported Wycliffe in his endeavours to circulate an English version of the Bible, and after his death successfully opposed a Bill

brought into the House of Lords, 1390, to forbid the circulation of the Scriptures in English (Hist. Acc. p. 33). Anne of Bohemia also, according to the testimony of Archbishop Arundel, 'constantly studied the four 'Gospels in English' (Foxe, III. 202, ed. Townshend). The subsequent conduct of Arundel is not inconsistent with the belief that this version was Wycliffe's.