Born, in Gloucestershire, about 1484. Educated at Magdalen Hall, Oxford (possibly also at Cambridge). B.A., Oxford, 1512; M.A., 1515. Tutor in household of Sir John Welch, at Little Sodbury, 1521–23; in household of Humphrey Monmouth, in London, 1523–24. To Germany, 1524; occupied himself with his translation of New Testament into English. In consequence of this was arrested as a heretic, 1535; imprisoned in Vilvorde Castle; executed there, 6 Oct. 1536. Works: “The New Testament translated into English,” 1525; “A Treatyse of Justificacyon by Faith only,” 1528; “The Obēdiece of a Christen Man,” 1528; “The Parable of the Wycked Mammon,” 1528; “Exposition on I Cor. vii.” (anon.), 1529; “Translation of the Book of Moses called Genesis,” 1530; “An Answere unto Sir T. More’s Dialoge” (1530); “The Practice of Prelates,” 1530; “The prophetic Jonas” (under initials W. T.), (1531?); “The Exposition of the fyrste Epistle of seynt Jhon” (under initials W. T.), 1531; “The Supper of the Lorde” (anon.), 1533; “The Pentateuch, newly corrected and amended,” 1534; “An Exposicion upon the v., vi., vii., chapters of Matthew,” 1548; “A Briefe Declaration of the Sacraments” (1550?). Posthumous: “A fruitefull Exposition…. upon the Epistle of Saint Paul to the Romans,” 1642. Collected Works: in 2 vols., 1572–73.

Personal

  So skilled in seven languages, Hebrew, Greek, Latin, Italian, Spanish, English, French, that whichever he spoke you would suppose it his native tongue.

  Upon four years and a half past and more, I heard the foresaid Sir William preach two or three sermons at St. Dunstan’s-in-the-West, in London; and after that I chanced to meet with him, and with communication I examined what living he had. He said, “he had none at all; but he trusted to be with my Lord of London, in his service.” And therefore I had the better phantasy to him. Afterward he went to my lord and spake to him, as he told me, and my lord answered him. “That he had chaplains enough;” and he said to him, “That he would have no more at that time.” And so the priest came to me again, and besought me to help him, and so I took him into my house half a year; and there he lived like a good priest, as methought. He studied most part of the day and of the night at his book; and he would eat but sodden meat by his goodwill, nor drink but small single beer. I never saw him wear linen about him, in the space he was with me. I did promise him ten pounds sterling, to pray for my father and mother, their souls, and all Christian souls. I did pay it him, when he made his exchange to Hamborough, and thither I sent it him by one Hans Collenbeke. And since I have never sent him the value of one penny, nor never will.

  He was a man without any spot or blemish of rancour or malice, full of mercy and compassion, so that no man living was able to reprove him of any sin or crime; although his righteousness and justification depended not thereupon before God; but only upon the blood of Christ and his faith upon the same. In this faith he died, with constancy, at Vilvorde, and now resteth with the glorious company of Christ’s martyrs, blessedly in the Lord.—And thus much of the life and story of the true servant and martyr of God, William Tyndale, who for his notable pains and travail, may well be called the Apostle of England, in this our latter age.

  To those who have never before been aware of the fact, it must appear extraordinary, that the Martyrdom of Tyndale, the first translator of our Bible into English, should stand so emphatically by itself. There was no other, with which the Councils of England, and of a Continental kingdom, were both concerned; no other, in the guilt of which, both our own country, and a foreign power, were alike involved. The eyes of Henry the Eighth, and those of his Ministers, were wide open, when the martyr fell under a decree of the Emperor Charles V. Considered as an event, amidst all the widespread and long-continued violence of the times, his martyrdom rises up to view, and appears like a conspicuous solitary column. If there be any memento inscribed, it is a double one—German on one side, but English on the other…. He had engaged attention not only abroad, but especially at home, and that of public men, both dead and still alive. But then, besides, he was not merely the only conspicuous Englishman thus slain, with the full cognition of this country and the Continent; but the only translator of the Sacred Volume in Europe, so put to death. The moral crime attached itself, at once, to home and foreign authorities.

  Tyndale indulged in his pleasant dreams no longer. He saw that he was on the point of being arrested, condemned, and interrupted in his great work. He must seek a retreat where he can discharge in peace the task God has allotted him. “You cannot save me from the hands of the priests,” said he to Sir John, “and God knows to what troubles you would expose yourself by keeping me in your family. Permit me to leave you.” Having said this, he gathered up his papers, took his Testament, pressed the hands of his benefactors, kissed the children, and then descending the hill, bade farewell to the smiling banks of the Severn, and departed alone, alone with his faith. What shall he do? What will become of him? Where shall he go? He went forth like Abraham, one thing alone engrossing his mind: the Scriptures shall be translated into the vulgar tongue, and he will deposit the oracles of God in the midst of his countrymen.

  In character, Tyndale was one of those fearless, simple-minded men whose heroism would be bound to show itself in times of peril. There was little of the worldly element in his nature; he lived for higher aims. To curry favour with the great, or to whittle down his opinions merely to please the higher powers in the State, was utterly repugnant to him. Morally, he was a high type of man; there is nothing to extenuate, and nothing to apologise for, as regards his personal character; for even his chief prosecutor, the Procureur-General, described him as “a learned, good, and godly man.”

Bible

  Them that are learned christenly, I beseche for as moche as I am sure and my concience beareth me recorde, that of a pure entent, singilly and faythfully, I have interpreted itt as farre forth as god gave me the gyfte of knowledge and understandynge: that the rudeness off this worke nowe at the fyrst tyme offende them not: but that they consyder howe that I had no man to counterfeit, nether was holpe with englysshe of eny that had interpreted the same or soche lyke thinge in scripture before tyme.

  Yet none will deny, but that many faults, needing amendment, are found in his translation; which is no wonder to those who consider: First. Such an undertaking was not the task for a man, but men. Secondly. No great design is invented and perfected at once. Thirdly. Tyndal, being an exile, wanted many necessary accommodations. Fourthly. His skill in Hebrew was not considerable; yea, generally, learning in languages was then but in the infancy thereof. Fifthly. Our English tongue was not improved to that expressiveness whereat at this day it is arrived. However, what he undertook was to be admired as glorious; what he performed, to be commended as profitable; wherein he failed, is to be excused as pardonable, and to be scored on the account rather of that age, than of the author himself. Yea, Tyndal’s pains were useful, had his translation done no other good than to help toward the making of a better; our last translators having in express charge, for king James, to consult the translation of Tyndal.

  The book that had the greatest authority and influence, was Tindal’s translation of the New Testament, of which the bishops made great complaints, and said, it was full of errors. But Tonstal, then Bishop of London, being a man of invincible moderation, would do nobody hurt, yet endeavoured as he could to get their books into his hands: so being at Antwerp in the year 1529, as he returned from his embassy at the treaty of Cambray, he sent for one Packington, an English merchant there, and desired him to see how many New Testaments of Tindal’s translation he might have for money. Packington, who was a secret favourer of Tindal, told him what the Bishop proposed. Tindal was very glad of it; for, being convinced of some faults in his work, he was designing a new and more correct edition; but he was poor, and the former impression not being sold off, he could not go about it; so he gave Packington all the copies that lay in his hands, for which the Bishop paid the price, and brought them over, and burnt them publicly in Cheapside. This had such an hateful appearance in it, being generally called a burning of the word of God, that people from thence concluded there must be a visible contrariety, between that book and the doctrines of those who so handled it; by which both their prejudice against the clergy, and their desire of reading the New Testament was increased.

  Though it is far from a perfect translation, yet few first translations will be found preferable to it. It is astonishing 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 approached it.

  While the voices of antiquarians and critics unite in the highest eulogiums on the version itself, it is not to be disguised that, as to its mechanical part, every page is enstamped with marks of haste. The harrassed life of its unfortunate author is made present to our thought; and fancy paints, without effort, the bloodhounds of a merciless church tracking his footsteps. Broken in upon in the midst of the drudgery of the press in one city, he gathers up his fragments in what condition he may, and flees to another to complete his interrupted labors. With this in full remembrance, the orthography so curiously varying, even in the same paragraph or sentence, the confounding of distinct words through a single misplaced letter, the withholding or bestowment of capitals ad libitum as it were, the unsightly exchange of the leading vowels as initial letters,—as “o” for “a,” &c.,—the seeming disdain of rule throughout, all find a prompt solution.

  Tyndale’s translation of the New Testament is the most important philological monument of the first half of the sixteenth century, perhaps I should say of the whole period between Chaucer and Shakespeare, both as a historical relic, and as having more than any thing else contributed to shape and fix the sacred dialect, and establish the form which the Bible must permanently assume in an English dress.

  The peculiar genius—if such a word may be permitted—which breathes through it—the mingled tenderness and majesty—the Saxon simplicity—the preternatural grandeur—unequalled, unapproached, in the attempted improvements of modern scholars—all are here, and bear the impress of the mind of one man—William Tyndal.

  This patience of laborious emendation completes the picture of the great translator. In the conception and style of his renderings, he had nothing to modify or amend. Throughout all his revisions he preserved intact the characteristics of his own great work. Before he began, he had prepared himself for a task of which he could comprehend the full difficulty. He had rightly measured the momentous issues of a vernacular version of the Holy Scriptures, and determined once for all the principles on which it must be made. His later efforts were directed simply to the nearer attainment of his ideal. To gain this end he availed himself of the best help which lay within his reach; but he used it as a master, not as a disciple. In this work alone, he felt that substantial independence was essential to success. In exposition or exhortation he might borrow freely the language or the thought which seemed suited to his purpose, but in rendering the sacred text he remained throughout faithful to the instincts of a scholar. From first to last, his style and his interpretation are his own; and in the originality of Tyndale is included, in a great measure, the originality of our English version.

  I have before me one of these old square folios, in black letter, in which the pages, worn by horny fingers, have been patched together, in which an old engraving figures forth to the poor folk the deeds and menaces of the God of Israel, in which the preface and table of contents point out to simple people the moral which is to be drawn from each tragic history, and the application which is to be made of each venerable precept. Hence have sprung much of the English language, and half of the English manners; to this day the country is biblical; it was these big books which had transformed Shakspeare’s England. To understand this great change, try to picture these yeomen, these shopkeepers, who in the evening placed this Bible on their table, and bareheaded, with veneration, heard or read one of its chapters. Think that they have no other books, that theirs was a virgin mind, that every impression would make a furrow, that the monotony of mechanical existence rendered them entirely open to new emotions, that they opened this book not for amusement, but to discover in it their doom of life and death; in brief, that the sombre and impassioned imagination of the race raised them to the level of the grandeurs and terrors which were to pass before their eyes.

  Had the ravages of time alone been directed against the book, no doubt not a few might still be found safe in the shelter of our older libraries; but the New Testaments were for many years rigorously prohibited, they were eagerly sought for by the officers of the Church, and publicly burned whenever they were discovered. Thus it has happened that of the three thousand quarto New Testaments, only a single copy remains, and that in a most imperfect state: and of the octavo only two are known to exist; one, incomplete, in the library of St. Paul’s Cathedral, and the other wanting only the title-page, in the Baptist College at Bristol…. The history of the one perfect copy of the octavo Testament of Worms can be traced back for upwards of a century. Somewhere about the year 1740, the Earl of Oxford, the collector of the famous Harleian Library, secured it through one of his numerous agents, whom he rewarded for the discovery with a payment of ten pounds, and an annuity of twenty. At the death of Lord Oxford his library was purchased by Osborne, the famous London bookseller, who, in complete ignorance of the value of the work, sold it to the great bibliographer, Joseph Ames, for fifteen shillings. After passing through the hands of another bookseller, it came into the possession of the Rev. Dr. Gifford, one of the Assistant Librarians of the British Museum, who gave twenty guineas for it. Dying in 1784, he bequeathed the precious treasure, with the rest of his valuable collection of Bibles and rare books, to the Baptist College in his native city of Bristol; and there the volume rests in a fire-proof safe, secure, it is to be hoped, against all further vicissitudes of time.

  That Tyndale’s English is decidedly superior to the writings of his time which have come down to us, cannot be disputed; it is a noble translation, the basis of every subsequent English version (the Rhemish is not English), and on several accounts better than all subsequent versions; it has an individuality as pronounced as Luther’s, its Saxon is racy and strong, sometimes majestic, and above all things, it is hearty and true, the reader feels that the translator felt what he wrote, that his heart was in his work, and that he strove in prayer to reproduce in his own mother-tongue to the very best of his ability what he believed to be the true sense of the word of God, as he understood it.

General

  Now when Tyndale calleth his heresies by the name of faith, and maketh men to serve the devil while they wene to serve God, what abominable idolatry is this! If it be idolatry to put trust in the devil, and serve the devil with faith, it is worse than idolatry to make men wene they serve God with faith, whilst they despite him with a false belief. And if it be very infidelity to do as the Turks do,—bid men believe in Mahomet’s Alchoran, it is more infidelity to do as Tyndale hath done,—purposely mistranslate Christ’s holy gospel to set forth heresies as evil as the Alchoran…. These pestilent infidelities, and these abominable kinds of idolatries, far exceed and pass and incomparably more offend the majesty of our Lord God, than all the setting up of Bel, and Baal and Beelzebub and all the devils in hell.

  It has been much the custom to speak of Sir Thomas More as the first great master of English prose-writing. Sir James Mackintosh, by some strange forgetfulness, even goes so far as to call him “the first writer of a prose which is still intelligible.” More’s “History of Richard III.” was written some years before Tyndale began to write; but neither this, nor any other of his works, can be compared with those of Tyndale in excellence of style. The choice of words and the arrangement of sentences are less according to modern usage; and in place of the concise point and eloquent earnestness of Tyndale’s pages, there is a heavy diffuseness, an inelegant strength, pervading those of the chancellor. But Tyndale’s liberality of sentiment has prevented even the style of his works from being generally appreciated in England.

  His principal works were the “Practice of Prelates,” the “Obedience of a Christian Man,” the “Parable of the Wicked Mammon,” a book on the Sacraments, and his prologues, or prefaces, to the several books of the Pentateuch, the prophet Jonah, and the books of the New Testament. These works all show the marks of a keen and clever, but extremely self-sufficient man, with enough knowledge of languages to make such a man suppose himself learned, but without any real depth of learning, and with enough facility of expression to lead him to argue, but without any argumentative power. He was also of a very cankered and bitter temper, which led him to fill his pages with abusive language, even when writing of the most sacred subjects. His language respecting the latter was often so shocking, and at the same time so utterly illogical, that it led Sir Thomas More to stigmatize him as a “blasphemous fool.” It is certainly a strong evidence of the extent to which party feeling will lead that Tyndale should ever have been respected as a theological writer.

  Tyndale, whose monument is the Reformation.

  The medium between the fifteenth century and all after time. In him the best powers of the ripened language are harvested, recapitulated, and transmitted in a consecrated vessel to all posterity.

  In judging of Tindale as an author he must not be compared with Luther. The concise brevity, the striking logic, the genial flashes of intellect, which characterize the writings of the German Reformer, will be looked for in vain in the Englishman. The breadth of Tindale’s presentation, his various digressions, render it difficult for the reader to concentrate his attention upon the subject: whereas in Luther one argument follows the other in the simplest manner; each succeeding one strengthening the last, and placing it in a new light; all is unexpected, surprising, and, taken as a whole, a powerfully riveted chain which holds the reader’s attention and keeps him to the subject. Tindale does not lay hold of his reader like Luther, time and inclination are needed to enjoy him. But, on the other hand, the reader is powerfully affected by the depth of his convictions, the fullness of his arguments, the force of his descriptions, and many good ideas—and, above all, affected by the sincerity of the man.

  As an original author he is distinguished for the humble yet not too ordinary virtues of clearness and directness. He had a complete command of the language for the purposes of theological argument and controversy. His meaning is always plain, and if his treatises are not now popular, that comes from loss of general interest in his matter, and not from any deterrent or wearisome qualities in his style. Lofty and eloquent passages are hardly to be found in him, but his views are stated concisely and effectively. His phrases are generally short and free from encumbrance. There is little colour or imagination in his discourse, but it is not laboured or clumsy.

  Though not perhaps the foremost figure of the English reformation, Tyndale was one of the most remarkable of its leaders. He left his country an unknown exile; he lived abroad in poverty, obscurity, and danger; and yet before his death he had made his name a household word in England. His original writings bear the impress of sound scholarship and of the highest literary power. They are unquestionably the ablest expositions of the views of the more advanced English reformers who triumphed under Edward VI, and developed into the Puritan party under Elizabeth.