The Eve of the Reformation

To take some instances of the false translations to which More reasonably objects: First, Tyndale substitutes for Church the word Congregation, “a word with no more signification in Christendom than among the Jews or Turks.” After protesting that Tyndale has no right to change the signification of a word, as, for example, to speak of “a football,” and to mean “the world,” More continues: “Most certainly the word Congregation, taken in conjunction with the text, would not, when he translated it first, have served to make the English reader understand by it the Church any more than when he uses the word idols for images, or images for idols, or the word repenting for doing penance, which he also does. And indeed he has since added to his translation certain notes, viz., that the order of the priesthood is really nothing, but that every man, woman, and child is a priest as much as a real priest, and that every man and woman may consecrate the body of Christ, and say mass as well as a priest, and hear confessions and absolve as well as a priest can; and that there is no difference between priests and other folks, but that all are one congregation and company without any difference, save appointment to preach.”

This enables men to understand “what Tyndale means by using the word Congregation in his translation in place of Church. They also see clearly by these circumstances that he purposely changed the word to set forth these his heresies, though he will say he takes them for no heresies. But, on the other hand, all good and faithful people do, and therefore they call the Church the Church still, and will not agree to change the old Church for his new Congregation.”263

In reply to Tyndale’s claim to be able to use the word Congregation to signify the Church, More declares that words must be used in their ordinary signification. “I say,” he writes, “that this is true of the usual signification of these words in the English tongue, by the common custom of us English people that now use these words in our language, or have used them before our days. And I say that this common custom and usage of speech is the only way by which we know the right and proper signification of any word. So much so that if a word were taken from Latin, French, or Spanish, and from lack of understanding the tongue from which it came, was used in English for something else than it signified in the other tongue; then in England, whatsoever it meant anywhere else, it means only what we understand it. Then, I say, that in England this word Congregation never did signify the body of Christian people … any more than the word assembly, which has been taken from French … as congregation is from the Latin… I say now that the word Church never has been used to signify in the ordinary speech of this realm, any other than the body of all those that are christened. For this reason, and more especially because of Tyndale’s evil intent, I said, and still say, that he did wrong to change Church for Congregation; a holy word for a profane one, so far as they have signification in our English tongue, into which Tyndale made his translation…264

“If Tyndale had done it either accidentally, or purposely merely for pleasure, and not with an evil intent, I would never have said a word against it. But inasmuch as I perceive that he has been with Luther, and was there at the time when he so translated it, and because I knew well the malicious heresies that Luther had begun to bring forth, I must needs mistrust him in this change. And now I say that even from his own words here spoken, you may perceive his cankered mind in his translation, for he says that Demetrius had gathered a company against Paul for preaching against images. Here the Christian reader may easily perceive the poison of this serpent. Every one knows that all good Christian people abhor the idols of the false pagan gods, and also honour the images of Christ and our Lady, and other holy saints. And as they call the one sort images, so they call the other sort idols. Now, whereas St. Paul preached against idols, this good man comes and says he preached against images. And as he here speaks, even so he translates, for in the 15th chapter of St. Paul to the Corinthians, where St. Paul says, ‘I have written to you that ye company not together … if any that is called a brother be … a worshipper of idols’– there Tyndale translates worshipper of images. Because he would have it seem that the Apostle had in that place forbidden Christian men to worship images… Here you may see the sincerity and plain meaning of this man’s translation.”265…

“As he falsely translated Ecclesia into the unknown word congregation, in places where he should have translated it into the known word of holy Church, and this with a malicious purpose to set forth his heresy of the secret and unknown church wherein is neither good works nor sacraments, in like manner is it now proved, in the same way and with like malice, he has translated idols into images … to make it seem that Scripture reprobates the goodly images of our Saviour Himself and His holy saints… Then he asks me why I have not contended with Erasmus whom he calls my darling, for translating this word Ecclesia into the word congregatio… I have not contended with Erasmus, my darling, because I found no such malicious intent with Erasmus, my darling, as I found with Tyndale; for had I found with Erasmus, my darling, the cunning intent and purpose that I found with Tyndale, Erasmus, my darling, should be no more ‘my darling.’ But I find in Erasmus, my darling, that he detests and abhors the errors and heresies that Tyndale plainly teaches and abides by, and therefore Erasmus, my darling, shall be my darling still… For his translation of Ecclesia by congregatio is nothing like Tyndale’s, for the Latin tongue had no Latin word used for Church, but the Greek word, Ecclesia, therefore Erasmus, in his new translation gave it a Latin word. But we in our English had a proper English word for it, and therefore there was no cause for Tyndale to translate it into a worse. Erasmus, moreover, meant therein no heresy, as appears by his writings against heretics, but Tyndale, intended nothing else thereby, as appears by the heresies that he himself teaches and abides by. Therefore, there was in this matter no cause for me to contend with Erasmus, as there was to contend with Tyndale, with whom I contended for putting ‘congregation’ instead of ‘Church.’”266

Further, More blames Tyndale’s translation in its substitution of senior or elder for the old-established word priest. This word, presbyter, in the Greek, he says, “as it signifies the thing that men call priest in English, was sometimes called senior in Latin. But the thing that Englishmen call a priest, and the Greek church called presbyter, and the Latin church also sometimes called senior, was never called elder either in the Greek church, or the Latin or the English.”267 He considers, therefore, the change made by Tyndale, in the second edition of his translation, from senior into elder was not only no improvement, but a distinct and reiterated rejection of the well-understood word of priest… “I said and say,” he continues, “that Tyndale changed the word priest into senior with the heretical mind and intent to set forth his heresy, in which he teaches that the priesthood is no sacrament … for else I would not call it heresy if any one would translate presbyteros a block, but I would say he was a blockhead. And as great a blockhead were he that would translate presbyteros into an elder instead of a priest, for this English word no more signifies an elder than the Greek word presbyteros signifies an elderstick.”268 “For the same reason he might change bishop into overseer, and deacon into server, both of which he might as well do, as priest into elder; and then with his English translation he must make us an English vocabulary of his own device, and so with such provision he may change chin into cheek, and belly into back, and every word into every other at his own pleasure, if all England like to go to school with Tyndale to learn English – but else, not so.”269

In the same way More condemns Tyndale for deliberately changing the word “Grace,” the meaning of which was fully understood by Catholic Englishmen, into “favour,” “thinking that his own scoffing is sufficient reason to change the known holy name of virtue through all Scripture into such words as he himself liketh.”270 He says the same of the change of the old familiar words Confession into knowledge, and penance into repentance. “This is what Tyndale means: he would have all willing confession quite cast away and all penance doing too.”271 And “as for the word penance, whatsoever the Greek word be, it ever was, and still is, lawful enough (if Tyndale give us leave) to call anything in English by whatever word Englishmen by common custom agree upon… Now, the matter does not rest in this at all. For Tyndale is not angry with the word, but with the matter. For this grieves Luther and him that by penance we understand, when we speak of it … not mere repenting … but also every part of the Sacrament of Penance; oral confession, contrition of heart, and satisfaction by good deeds. For if we called it the Sacrament of repentance, and by that word would understand what we now do by the word penance, Tyndale would then be as angry with repentance as he is now with penance.”272

Speaking specially in another place about the change of the old word charity into love in Tyndale’s translation, More declared that he would not much mind which word was used were it not for the evident intention to change the teaching. When it is done consistently through the whole book “no man could deem but that the man meant mischievously. If he called charity sometimes by the bare name love, I would not stick at that. But since charity signifies in Englishmen’s ears not every common love, but a good virtuous and well-ordered love, he that will studiously flee from the name of good love, and always speak of ‘love,’ and always leave out ‘good,’ I would surely say he meant evil. And it is much more than likely. For it is to be remembered that at the time of this translation Huchins (or Tyndale) was with Luther in Wittenberg, and put certain glosses in the margins, made to uphold the ungracious sect.”… And “the reason why he changed the name of charity and of the church and of priesthood is no very great difficulty to perceive. For since Luther and his fellows amongst their other damnable heresies have one that all salvation rests on Faith alone – therefore he purposely works to diminish the reverent mind that men have to charity, and for this reason changes the name of holy virtuous affection into the bare name of love.”

In concluding his justification of the condemnation of Tyndale’s Testament and his criticism of the translator’s Defence, Sir Thomas More says: “Every man knows well that the intent and purpose of my Dyalogue was to make men see that Tyndale in his translation changed the common known words in order to make a change in the faith. As for example: he changed the word Church into this word congregation, because he would raise the question which the church was, and set forth Luther’s heresy that the church which we should believe and obey is not the common known body of all Christian realms remaining in the faith of Christ and not fallen away or cut off with heresies… But the church we should believe and obey was some secret unknown kind of evil living and worse believing heretics. And he changed priest into senior, because he intended to set forth Luther’s heresy teaching that priesthood is no sacrament, but the office of a layman or laywoman appointed by the people to preach. And he changed Penance into repenting, because he would set forth Luther’s heresy teaching that penance is no sacrament. This being the only purpose of my Dyalogue, Tyndale now comes and expressly confesses what I proposed to show. For he indeed teaches and writes openly these false heresies so that he himself shows now that I then told the people the truth … his own writing shows that he made his translation to the intent to set forth such heresies as I said he did.”273

John Standish in the tract on the vernacular Scriptures, published in Queen Mary’s reign, uses in some places the same language as Sir Thomas More in condemning the translations which had been later in vogue. “At all times,” he writes, “heretics have laboured to corrupt the Scriptures that they might serve for their naughty purposes and to confirm their errors therewith, but especially now in our time. O good Lord, how have the translators of the Bible into English purposely corrupted the texts, oft maliciously putting in such words as in the readers’ ears might serve for the proof of such heresies as they went about to sow. These are not only set forth in the translations, but also in certain prologues and glosses added thereunto, and these things they have so handled (as indeed it is no great mastery to do) with probable reasons very apparent to the simple and unlearned, that an infinite number of innocents they have spiritually poisoned and corrupted within this realm, and caused them to perish obstinately.”274

If further proof were wanting that the New Testament as set forth by Tyndale was purposely designed to overthrow the then existing religious principles held by English churchmen, it is furnished by works subsequently published by the English Lutherans abroad. The tract named The Burying of the Mass, printed in Germany shortly after the burning of Tyndale’s Testament, was, as Sir Thomas More points out, intended as a direct attack upon the Sacrifice of the Mass and the Sacramental system. In it the author poured out the vials of his wrath upon all those who caused Tyndale’s translation of the New Testament to be destroyed, saying that they burned it because it destroyed the Mass. “By this,” adds More, “you may see that the author accounted the translation very good for the destruction of the Mass.”275 Moreover, in a book called The Wicked Mammon, published by Tyndale himself shortly after this, although he blames the style of the author of The Burying of the Mass, he tacitly accepts his assertion that his translation of the New Testament was intended to bring about the abolition of the Sacrifice of the Mass.276

In later times, after the experience of the religious changes in the reign of Edward VI., some writers pointed to the evils, religious and social, as evidence of the harm done by the promiscuous reading of the Scriptures. In their opinion, what More had feared and foretold had come to pass. “In these miserable years now past,” says Standish of Mary’s reign, in this tract on the vernacular Scriptures: “In these miserable years now past, what mystery is so hard that the ignorant with the Bible in English durst not set upon, yea and say they understood it: all was light! They desired no explanation but their own, even in the highest mysteries… Alas! experience shows that our own men through having the Bible in English have walked far above their reach, being sundry ways killed and utterly poisoned with the letter of the English Bible.”277

The spirit in which the study of Sacred Scripture was taken up by many in those days is described by the Marian preacher, Roger Edgworth, already referred to. “Scripture,” he says, “is in worse case than any other faculty: for where other faculties take upon them no more than pertaineth to their own science, as (for example) the physician of what pertains to the health of man’s body, and the carpenter and smith of their own tools and workmanship – the faculty of Sacred Scripture alone is the knowledge which all men and women challenge and claim to themselves and for their own. Here and there the chattering old wife, the doting old man, the babbling sophister, and all others presume upon this faculty, and tear it and teach it before they learn it. Of all such green divines as I have spoken of, it appeareth full well what learning they have by this, that when they teach any of their disciples, and when they give any of their books to other men to read, the first suggestion why he should labour (at) such books is ‘because of this,’ say they, ‘thou shalt be able to oppose the best priest in the parish, and tell him he lies.’”278

The result is patent in the history of the religious confusions which followed, for this much must be allowed, whatever view may be taken of the good or evil which ultimately resulted. Dr. Richard Smith, in 1546, then states the position as he saw it: “In old times the faith was respected, but in our days not a few things, and not of small importance, but (alack the more the pity) even the chiefest and most weighty matters of religion and faith, are called in question, babbled about, talked and jangled upon (reasoned, I cannot and ought not to call it).”279

Although the cry for the open Bible which had been raised by Tyndale and the other early English reformers generally assumed the right to free and personal interpretation of its meaning, no sooner was the English Scripture put into circulation than its advocates proclaimed the need of expositions to teach people the meaning they should attach to it. In fact, the marginal notes and glosses, furnished by Tyndale chiefly from Lutheran sources, are evidence that even he had no wish that the people should understand or interpret the sacred text otherwise than according to his peculiar views. Very quickly after the permission of Henry VIII. had allowed the circulation of the printed English Bible, commentators came forward to explain their views. Lancelot Ridley, for example, issued many such explanations of portions of the Sacred Text with the object, as he explains, of enabling “the unlearned to declare the Holy Scriptures now suffered to all people of this realm to read and study at their pleasure.” For the Bible, “which is now undeclared (i. e. unexplained) to them, and only had in the bare letter, appears to many rather death than life, rather (calculated) to bring many to errors and heresies than into the truth and verity of God’s Word. For this, when unexplained, does not bring the simple, rude, and ignorant people from their ignorant blindness, from their corrupt and backward judgments, false trusts, evil beliefs, vain superstitions, and feigned holiness, in which the people have long been in blindness, for lack of a knowledge of Holy Scripture which the man of Rome kept under latch and would not suffer to come to light, that his usurped power should not have been espied, his worldly glory diminished, and his profit decayed.”280

Again, in another exposition made eight years later, the same writer complains that still, for lack of teaching what he considers the true meaning of Scripture, the views of the people are still turned towards the “old superstitions” in spite of “the open Bible.” “Although the Bible be in English,” he says, “and be suffered to every man and woman to read at their pleasures, and commanded to be read every day at Matins, Mass, and Evensong, yet there remain great ignorance and corrupt judgments … and these will remain still, except the Holy Scriptures be made more plain to the lay people who are unlearned by some commentary or annotation, so that lay people may understand the Holy Scripture better.”281 Commentaries would help much, he says in another place, “to deliver the people from ignorance, darkness, errors, heresy, superstitions, false trusts, and from evil opinions fixed and rooted in the hearts of many for lack of true knowledge of God’s Holy Word, and expel the usurped power of the bishop of Rome and all Romish dregs.”282

It is interesting to find that from the first, whilst objecting to the interpretation of the old teachers of the Church, and claiming that the plain text of Scripture was a sufficient antidote and complete answer to them and their traditional deductions, the “new teachers” found that without teaching and exposition on their part, the open Bible was by no means sufficient to wean the popular mind from what they regarded as superstitious and erroneous ways. Their attitude in the matter is at least a confirmation of the contention of Sir Thomas More and other contemporary Catholic writers, that the vernacular Scriptures would be useless without a teaching authority to interpret their meaning.

A brief word may now be said as a summary of the attitude towards the vernacular Bible taken up by the ecclesiastical authorities on the eve of the Reformation. The passages quoted from Sir Thomas More make it evident that no such hostility on the part of the Church, as writers of all shades of opinion have too hastily assumed, really existed.283 In fact, though those responsible for the conduct of affairs, both ecclesiastical and lay, at this period objected to the circulation of Tyndale’s printed New Testament, this objection was based, not on any dread of allowing the English Bible as such, but on the natural objection to an obviously incorrect translation. It is difficult to see how those in authority could have permitted a version with traditional words changed for the hardly concealed purpose of supporting Lutheran tenets, with texts garbled and marginal explanations inserted for the same end. Those who hold that Tyndale’s views were right, and even that his attempt to enforce them in this way was justifiable, can hardly, however, blame the authorities at that time in England, secular or lay, who did not think so, from doing all they could to prevent what they regarded as the circulation of a book calculated to do great harm if no means were taken to prevent it. Men’s actions must be judged by the circumstances under which they acted, and it would be altogether unjust to regard the prohibition of the Tyndale Scriptures as a final attempt on the part of the English Church to prevent the circulation of the vernacular Scriptures. To the authorities in those days at least, the book in question did not represent the Sacred Text at all. That it was full of errors, to say the least, is confessed by Tyndale himself; and as to the chief points in his translation which he defended and which Sir Thomas More so roundly condemned, posterity has sided with More and not with Tyndale, for not one of these special characteristics of the translation in which so much of Tyndale’s Lutheran teaching was allowed to appear, was suffered to remain in subsequent revisions. From this point of view alone, those who examine the question with an unbiassed mind must admit that there was ample justification for the prohibition of Tyndale’s printed Testament. If this be so, the further point may equally well be conceded, namely, that the Church on the eve of the Reformation did not prohibit the vernacular Scriptures as such at all, and that many churchmen in common with the king, Sir Thomas More, and other laymen, would, under happier circumstances, have been glad to see a properly translated English Bible.

CHAPTER IX

TEACHING AND PREACHING

It is very commonly assumed that on the eve of the Reformation, and for a long period before, there was little in the way of popular religious instruction in England. We are asked to believe that the mass of the people were allowed to grow up in ignorance of the meaning of the faith that was in them, and in a studied neglect of their supposed religious practices. So certain has this view of the pre-Reformation Church seemed to those who have not inquired very deeply into the subject, that more than one writer has been led by this assumption to assert that perhaps the most obvious benefit of the religious upheaval of the sixteenth century was the introduction of some general and systematic teaching of the great truths of religion. Preaching is often considered as characterising the reforming movement, as contrasted with the old ecclesiastical system, which it is assumed certainly admitted, even if it did not positively encourage, ignorance as the surest foundation of its authority. It becomes of importance, therefore, to inquire if such a charge is founded upon fact, and to see how far, if at all, the people in Catholic England were instructed in their religion.