Forever Settled
Part Five  : A Survey of English Bible History

Compiled by Jack Moorman

Contents of Part Five : First Section - Page 129 to 185

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The ten early versions listed above [in Part 4] will give you a good picture of how God dispersed His word to the population centers of that day. But the most important later developments in Bible History center in England and the Continent. The following pages survey the major epochs in England and Europe leading up to the translation of the Authorized Version of 1611.

XXVII - A HISTORICAL OUTLINE OF THE ENGLISH PEOPLE AND THERE LANGUAGE

In order to trace the history of the English Scriptures, it is necessary to remember a little of the history of the English people and their language.

1. THE EARLY SETTLERS

In the millenniums BC, people from Spain and Brittany in north western France settled on hilltops in southern England. These were followed by settlers from the Rhine and Danube river regions of mainland Europe. This latter group built large circular monuments with stones, of which Stonehenge is an example.

2. THE FIRST INVADERS

The first invaders of England were the Celts. They began crossing the English Channel in the 700's BC. The Celts, a warlike people, were divided into various tribes, and invaded in several waves. The earliest invading tribe, the Gaels, settled in the western and northern areas of tire island. The second wave the Britons, or Brythons, occupied most of what is now England and Wales. The Celts worshipped native gods through priests known as Druids. They used iron and mined tin. They traded with the Gauls in what is now France.

3. THE ROMAN CONQUEST

In 55 BC Julius Caesar conquered the Gauls in France and then a year later invaded Britain and defeated some of the Celts. He withdrew after forcing the Celts to give him money.

In AD 43 Claudius conquered Britannia (as the island was then called). The Celtic tribes were easily defeated, and Rome ruled England for 400 years. History records how England prospered under Roman rule. It was a Roman province and protected from tile warlike peoples of Scotland by forts and wails.

4. THE GERMANIC INVASIONS

The Roman soldiers left England in the early 400's to help defend Rome against barbarian invaders. With the Romans gone, the Britons could not protect themselves against invasion by tribesmen from Scotland called Picts and people from Ireland called Scots. But the greatest danger came from seafaring

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Germanic tribes, especially the Angles, Saxons and Jutes. They first raided the coast. In the mid 400's, they began to establish permanent settlements. The Jutes settled in south eastern England. The Angles and Saxons set up kingdoms throughout southern and eastern England. The whole country became known as Angle-land. The native Britons held only the mountain areas of extreme western and northern England.

In 596 Pope Gregory I sent Augustine to Kent, thousands were "converted", including Ethelbert, King of the Jutes. Augustine built a monastery near Canterbury, and became the first archbishop of Canterbury - the religious center of England. The Picts and Scots in the north were also converted to this Roman type of Christianity. The Latin Vulgate became their Bible. From this point onward until 1534, England was officially a Catholic nation.

However, as we saw earlier, the native Britons (Celts) had had a different and truer form of Christianity and purer Bible - the Old Latin. Stanley in "Historic Memorials of Canterbury" records on pp. 33, 34 how Augustine treated with contempt the early Christian Britons and connived with the Angles and Saxons in their frightful extermination. However, after Augustine's death, when these same Anglo-Saxons began to terrify the papal leaders in England to the extent that they fled back to Rome, it was the British or Celtic Christians of Scotland who occupied the forsaken fields. It is evident from this that the original roots of British Christianity was not Rome but the missionaries who came into that land in the early centuries from Judea or Asia Minor.

5. ANGLO-SAXON PERIOD

The Saxons occupied four separate "nations" in the south, and the Angles three in the north and east. These seven kingdoms became known as the "Heptarchy". From 500 to 800 in successive stages, one of the seven would rule the other six.

King Egbert of Wessex (West Saxon), the last "nation" to control the Heptarchy, is often considered to be the first king of England.

During the 800's, Danish raiders attacked England and easily conquered all the Angles- Saxon kingdoms except Wessex. 'Their King Alfred the Great resisted and then in 886 defeated the Danes and forced them to withdraw to the northeastern third of England. This became known and Danelaw. However, in the 100 years after Alfred's death in 899, Danish power increased. In 1016 Canute, a brother of the King of Denmark defeated the king of Wessex (Ethelred II) and became king of England. Danish rule collapsed though after his death in 1035.

Under Edward the Confessor, the son of Ethelred II the Saxons again came to power, but it was to be short-lived. He built the first church building on the site of what is now Westminster Abbey.

6. THE NORMAN CONQUEST

Edward the Confessor died without a direct heir to the throne. The English nobles chose Harold of Wessex as king. But a French nobleman, William Duke of Normandy, claimed that Edward had promised him the throne. William awarded England and defeated the forces of Harold in the Historic Battle of Hastings. On Christmas Day, 1066, William the Conqueror was crowned king of England.

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He divided England among the Normans and forced most of the Anglo-Saxons to become serfs. His survey of land and property owners to determine taxes is known as the Domesday Book.

The Normans spoke French at first, but gradually their language blended with that of the Anglo-Saxons. In time they became a united people.

This brings us to the matter of the English language itself.

7. THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE

The history of the English language is divided into three periods.

(1) OLD ENGLISH OR ANGLO-SAXON UNTIL C.1100

As we have seen, until about AD 450, England was not called England, nor was english spoken there. Before that time, the country was called Britain, and the people were known as Britons. Most of these spoke Celtic. The Celtic dialects include Breton, Irish, Scottish Gaelic, and Welsh. Being under Roman rule for 400 years, Latin was also spoken.

The basis and origin of the actual English language is to be found with the Germanic invaders - Angles, Saxons and Jutes. As we have seen, the very word England is from Angle. The language developed with many words evolving from Latin but few from Celtic. The Danish invaders also contributed to the language's development. Also through Latin, many Greek words have come into English.

(2) MIDDLE ENGLISH C.1100 TO 1450

With William the Conqueror, almost overnight Normans replaced Englishmen as the chief landowners and church leaders. The Norman dialect of French became the language of tile ruling class, and the literary language, whereas English continued as the language of the common people.

Three hundred years later, during the mid-1300's, English again became the chief literary language and the usual language of the ruling class. But by that time, it had changed greatly, thousands of French words had conic into the English language. This transference of French into English continued into the 1400’s.

(3) MODERN ENGLISH C. 1450 TO PRESENT

Words still were and are borrowed from other languages. But with the advent of so-called Modern English, the period of rapid change and development had ended and the language had stabilized into the basic form that we know it today.

The believer should also see the hand of God in this development of the English language, for beside being the most prominent form of Communication in the world, it has been he foremost vehicle of God spreading His Word.

With this summery of the origins of the English peoples and language it will only be necessary to list the further important dates of English History.

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8. FURTHER IMPORTANT DATES OF ENGLISH HISTORY

(The above is taken mainly from the world Book Encyclopedia.)

XXVIII - IMPORTANT DATES IN. THE HISTORY OF BIBLE TRANSLATION

(From "Which Bible")

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XXIX - IMPORTANT EVENTS IN ENGLISH AND EUROPEAN BIBLE TRANSLATION HISTORY

1. EARLY VERSIONS

Ungers Bible Dictionary says, "There were portions of the Bible, and possibly the entire work, rendered into the English vernacular very early in the history of the language. Gildas states that 'When the English martyrs gave up their lives in the 4th century, all the copies of the Holy Scriptures which could be found were burned in the street."

Now, in view of what we have seen above, that English was not spoken on the island of Britain until the arrival of the Germanic tribes in the mid-5th century, these Bibles most certainly were copies of the Old Latin in the hands of the Celts.

With this assessment Bruce agrees:

Christianity was planted in Britain by the beginning of the 4th century at the latest. In A.D. 314, we have the record of three British bishops (those of York, London and Lincoln) attending the Council of Arles. The earliest British writer was one of the outstanding figures in early Christian literature - Pelagius (c. 370-450), who in the first decade of the 5th century produced at Rome commentaries on the thirteen epistles of Paul. About the end of the 4th century Ninian, appointed bishop of the district now known as Galloway and Dumfries, evangelised the southern Picts, and established a monastery at Whithorn (Ad Candidam Casam) from which the Gospel was carried farther afield, in particular to Northern Ireland. [This view is not discerning enough! See XXVI.1.(3) in Part 4 Section 2.]

But there is no evidence of Bible translation having been carried out at this time in the languages of Britain and Ireland. Pelagius wrote in Latin, as did all the other churchmen of Western Europe. And even if the Bible had been translated into the native languages in those days, such translations would have had no place in the history of the English Bible. That history has as its starting point the arrival in Britain of the Germanic-speaking Angles and Saxons and Jutes in the course of the 5th century and their evangelisation in the 6th and 7th centuries.

The following are the earliest known portions of the Scripture in the Angle Saxon vernacular (from Unger).

1. Caedmon's versifications (689).
2. Cuthbert's Evangelistarium (689). A portion of the Latin Vulgate with an interlinear English translation.
3. Aldhelms translation of the Psalms (early 8th century).
4. Eadfurths translation of the Gospels (720).
5. The Venerable Bedes translation of John (735).
6. King Alfred's translation of the Psalms (901).
7. Archbishop Aelfric and others endeavoured to provide translations which could be read in churches (late 10th century).

Each of the above translations were apparently based on the Latin Vulgate.

The Venerable Bede spoke of the heavenly endowment granted to the herdsman Caedman in the latter part of the 7th century, which enabled him to sing in English verse the substance and themes of Scripture.

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"He sang the creation of the wolrd, the origin of man, and all the history of Genesis, and made many verses on the departure of the children of Israel out of Egypt, and their entering into the promised land, with many other histories from Holy Writ; the Incarnation, Passion and Resurrection of our Lord, and His ascending into heaven; the coming of the Holy Ghost, and the preaching of the apostles; also the terror of judgement to come, the horror of the pains of hell, and the joys of heaven" (Bruce).

Of the venerable Bede himself, Terrence Brown records:

In A.D. 735, Bede laboured at Jarrow on his translation of the Gospel. A letter written by one of his pupils decribes how the aged scholar pressed on with his work of translating the Scriptures up to the last moment of his life. Early in the morning of "Ascension Day" in A.D. 735, he summoned his helpers to continue with the task and dictated to them the translation of John's Gospel from the words, "What are they among so many?" As the sun was setting, one of the scribes told him there was only one more chapter, but it seemed hard for Bede to speak. He replied, "Nay, it is easy, take up thy pen and write quickly."

The young scribe wrote on until he could tell his master that only one sentence was wanting, when Bede dictated it the young man exclaimed, "It is finished, master!" Bede replied, "Aye, it is finished! lift me up and place me by the window where I have so often prayed to God." Then with the Name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit upon his lips, he passed into the presence of the Lord.

[graphic -The Rushworth Gospels - eighth century, with tenth century Interlinear Gloss]
the above Interlinear English is based on Cuthbert's version

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2. WYCLIFFE'S BIBLE

The next four hundred years were an important period in the development of the English language. It is not possible to give precise dates but from A.D. 1066 to about 1150 Saxon and Norman French were in use side by side. From about 1150 the gradual fusion of the two peoples caused their languages to mingle and merge with one another, producing what has been described as "semi-Saxon." The old Saxon and the Norman French fell into disuse, and from about 1250 "English" emerges to pass through a century or more of development before being used as the vehicle of Wycliffe's English Bible of A.D. 1382 (Brown).

Leading up to Wycliffe, about 1300, a metrical version of the Psalms was made. It was followed by several prose translations, one of which was by Richard Rolle. Portions of the New Testament were also translated (New Bible Dictionary).

The crowning achievement of the latter part of the Middle English period was the translation associated with John Wycliffe. (See also above in the section dealing with the Latin Vulgate, page 113,114).

John Wycliffe is justly styled the Morning Star of the Reformation. In Roman Catholic England he spoke out forcibly on the use of Scripture. He constantly appealed to Holy Scripture as the primary and absolute authority in matters of faith and morals, and maintained the desirability of its being made generally accessible to Christians. The idea that Wycliffe himself translated the Bible into English rests on a statement of his great Czech disciple, Jan Hus; it is certain, at any rate, that the Wycliffite versions are rightly so called, whether he actually did much translation himself or not, as the work was carried out under his influence and in accordance with his policy. Whatever be the final verdict on the subject, Wycliffe's Biblical scholarship cannot be gainsaid.

There are two Wycliffite versions of the Bible which must be distinguished from each other. One of these was the work of Nicholas of Hereford, a follower of Wycliffe, so far as the Old Testament translation as far as Baruch 3:20 is concerned, (thus unfortunately it had the Apocrypha); the rest of that version is the work of another, who may have been Wycliffe. This version followed the Latin very literally. A more idiomatic 'Wycliffite' version, a revision of the earlier one, was produced towards the end of the 14th century by John Flurvey, another associate of Wycliffe (who himself was dead by now). Purvey's prologue to his version is interesting and part of it is worth quoting:

"A simple creature hath translated the Bible out of 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 one Latin Bible some deal true…

A translator hath great need to study well the sense both before and after, and then also 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 all wisdom and cunning and truth, dress him for his work and suffer him not to err.

God grant to us all grace to know well and to keep well Holy Writ, and to suffer joyfully some pain for it at the last" (Bruce).

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The following will give you an idea of the late Middle English of Wycliffe's Bible. The portion is John 11.

"The disciplis scien to hum, Maister now the Jewis soughten for to stoone thee, and est goist thou thidir? Jheus answered whether ther ben not twelve ouris of the dai? If any man wandre in the night he stomlish, for light is not in him. He saith these thigis and aftir these thingis he seith to hem Lazarus oure freene slepith but Y do to reise hym fro sleep therfor hise disciplis seiden: Lord if he slepith he schal be saaf."

[graphic of The Later Wycliffite Bible - early fifteenth century
British Museum - Actual Size 15in. x 10in.]

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Millers Church History gives us a challenging summary of Wycliffe and his great work:

Without following more minutely the general labours of Wycliffe, or the plottings of his enemies to interrupt him, we will now notice that which was the great work of his useful life - the complete English Version of the Holy Scriptures. We have seen him boldly and fearlessly assailing and exposing the countless abuses of Popery, unfolding the truth to the students, and zealously preaching the Gospel to the poor; but he is now engaged in a work which will a thousand times more enrich his own soul. He is yet more exclusively engaged with the Sacred Writings. It was not until he became more fully acquainted with the Bible that he rejected the false doctrines of the Church of Rome. It is one thing to see the outward abuses of the hierarchy, it is quite another to see the mind of God in the doctrines of His Word.

As soon as the translation of a portion was finished, the labour of the copyists began, and the Bible was ere long widely circulated either wholly or in parts. The effect of thus bringing home the Word of God to the unlearned to citizens, soldiers, and the lower classes - is beyond human power to estimate.

Minds were enlightened, souls were saved and God was glorified. "Wycliffe," said one of his adversaries, "has made the Gospel common, and more open to laymen and to women who can read than it is wont to be to clerks well learned and of good understanding; so that the pearl of the Gospel is scattered and is trodden under foot of swine." In the year 1380 the English Bible was complete. In 1390 the bishops attempted to get the version condemned by Parliament, lest it should become an occasion of heresies; but John of Gaunt declared that the English would not submit to the degradation of being denied a vernacular Bible. "The Word of God is the faith of His people," it was said, "and though the Pope and all his clerks should disappear from the face of the earth, our faith would not fail, for it is founded on Jesus alone, our Master and our God." The attempt at prohibition having failed, the English Bible spread far and wide, being diffused chiefly through the exertions of the "poor priests," like "the poor men of Lyons" at an earlier period.

The Christian reader will not fail to trace the hand of the Lord in this great work. The grand, the Divine, instrument was now ready and in the hands of the people, by means of which the Reformation in the sixteenth century was to be accomplished. The Word of God which liveth and abideth for ever is rescued from the dark mysteries of scholasticism, from the dust-covered shelves of the cloister, from the obscurity of ages, and given to the English people in their own mother-tongue. Who can estimate the blessing? Let the ten thousand times ten thousand tongues which shall praise the Lord for ever give the answer. But, oh! the wickedness - the soul-murdering wickedness of the Romish priesthood in keeping the Word of Life from the laity! Is the glorious truth of God's love to the world in the gift of His Son - of the efficacy of the blood of Christ to cleanse from all sin - to be concealed from the perishing multitude, and seen only by a privileged few? There is no refinement in cruelty on the face of the whole earth to compare with this. It is the ruin of both soul and body in Hell forever.

Having received many warnings, many threatenings, and experienced some narrow escapes from the loathsome dungeon and the burning pile, Wycliffe was allowed to close his days in peace, in the midst of his flock and his pastoral labours at Lutterworth. After a forty-eight hours' illness from a stroke of paralysis, he died on the last day of the year 1384.

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The humble Christian, the bold witness, the faithful preacher, the able professor, and the great reformer has passed off the scene. He has gone to his rest and his reward is on high. But the doctrines which he propagated with so much zeal can never die. His name in his followers continued formidable to the false priests of Rome. "Every second man you meet in the way," said a bitter adversary, "is a Wycliffite." He was used of God to give an impulse to Christian inquiry which was felt in the most distant corners of Europe.

3. THE INVENTION OF PRINTING

About twenty years after Wycliffe's death, a boy named Gensfeisch ("Gooseflesh") was amusing himself cutting out the letters of his name from a piece of bark. He dropped one of these accidentally in a pot of hot dye, snatched it out and dropped it on a piece of white skin on a bench near the fire and was intrigued to see the pattern of the letter was impressed on the skin. It is possible that this experience lingered in his mind and suggested the idea of printing. Thirty years afterwards he set up his famous press at Menz under the name of Gutenberg, his mother's family name. This was an epoch-making invention and was to contribute greatly towards the rapid reproduction of the Scriptures and the establishment of the Reformation in Europe (Brown).

Again to quote the stirring words of Andrew Miller.

Just at this period the Lord was making "all things work together for good," in a most remarkable way. Two silent agents of immense influence and power were ordained to precede the living voices of His Gospel preachers - the invention of printing and the manufacture of paper. These harmonious inventions were brought to great perfection during the latter half of the 15th century, for which we can lift up our hearts in praise and thanksgiving to God.

We have now reached a turning point in our history; and not only in the history of the Church, but of civilisation, of the social condition of the European states, and of the human family. It is well to pause on such an eminence and look around us for a moment. We see a Divine hand for the good of all gathering things together, though apparently unconnected. The falling of an empire, the flight of a few Greeks, with their literary treasures, the awakening of the long dormant mind of the western world, the invention of printing from movable types, and the discovery of making fine white paper from linen rags. Incongruous as "linen rags" may sound with the literature of the Greeks, and the skill of Gutenberg, both would have proved of little avail without the improved paper. Means, the most insignificant in man's account, when used of God, are all sufficient. By miraculous power, a dry rod in the hand of Moses shakes Egypt from centre to circumference, divides the Red Sea, and gives living water from the flinty rock; a smooth pebble from the brook, or an empty ram's horn, accomplishes great deliverances in Israel. The power is of God, and faith looks only to Him.

It is a deeply interesting fact to the Christian, that the first complete book which Gutenberg printed with his cut metal types was a folio edition of the Bible in the Latin Vulgate, consisting of six hundred and forty-one leaves. Hallam, in his Literary History beautifully observes: "It is a very striking circumstance, that the high-minded investors of the great art tried at the very outset so bold a flight as the printing of an entire Bible, and executed it with great success…We may see in imagination this venerable and splended volume leading up the crowded myriads of its followers, and imploring, as it were, a blessing on the new art, by dedicating its firstfruits to the service of heaven."

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From an early period the mode of printing from blocks of wood had been practised. Sometimes the engravings, or impressions, were accompanied by a few lines of letters cut in the block. Gradually these were extended to a few leaves and called blockbooks. An ingenius blacksmith, it is said, invented in the 11th century separate letters made of wood. The celebrated John Gutenberg, who was born at a village near Mentz, in the year 1397, substituted metal for the wooden letters; his associate, Schoeffer, cut the characters in a matrix, after which the types were cast, and thus completed the art of printing as it now remains.

Parchment, preparations of straw, the bark of trees, papyrus, and cotton had sufficed for the printer and transcriber till the 14th century. But these preparations would have been utterly inadequate to supply the demand of the new process. Happily, however, the discovery of making paper from rags coincided with the discovery of letterpress printing. The first paper-mill in England was erected at Dartmouth, by a German named Spielmann, in 1588.

(1) THE FIRST PRINTED BIBLE

All historians seem to agree, that Gutenberg, having spent nearly ten years in bringing his experiments to perfection, had so impoverished himself that he found it necessary to invite some capitalist to join him. John Faust, the wealthy goldsmith of Mentz, to whom he made known his secret, agreed to go into partnership with him, and to supply the means for carrying out the design. But it does not appear that Gutenberg and his associates, Schoeffer and Faust, were actuated by any loftier motive in executing this glorious work, than that of realising a large sum of money by the enterprise. The letters were such an exact imitation of the best copyists, that they intended to pass them off as fine manuscript copies, and thus to obtain the usual high prices. Those employed in the work were bound to the strictest secrecy. The first edition appears to have been sold at manuscript prices without the secret having transpired. A second edition was brought out about 1462, when John Faust went to Paris with a number of copies. He sold one to the king for seven hundred crowns and another to the archbishop for four hundred crowns. The prelate, delighted with such a beautiful copy at so low a price, showed it to the king. His majesty produced his, for which he had paid nearly double the money; but what was their astonishment on finding they were identical even in the most minute strokes and dots. They became alarmed, and concluded they must be produced by magic, and the capital letters being in red ink, they supposed that it was blood, and no longer doubted that he was in league with the Devil and assisted by him in his magical art.

Information was forthwith given to the police against John Faust. His lodgings were searched, and his Bibles seized. Other copies which he had sold were collected and compared; and finding they were all precisely alike, he was pronounced a magician. The king ordered him to be thrown into prison, and he would soon have been thrown into the flames, but he saved himself by confessing to the deceit, and by making a full revelation of the secret of his art. The mystery was now revealed, the workmen were no longer bound to secrecy, printers were dispersed abroad, carrying the secret of their art wherever they found a welcome, and the sounds of printing presses were soon heard in many lands. About 1474, the art was introduced into England by William Caxton; and in 1508 it was introduced into Scotland by Walter Chepman.

Before the days of printing, many valuable books existed in manuscript, and seminaries of learning flourished in all civilised countries, but knowledge was necessarily confined to a comparatively small number of people. The manuscripts were so scarce and dear that they could only be purchased by kings and nobles, by collegiate and ecclesiastical establishments. A copy of the Bible cost from forty to fifty pounds for the writing only, for it took an

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expert copyist about ten months labour to make one. Although several other books issued from the new presses, the Latin Bible was the favourite book with all the printers. They usually commenced operations, wherever they went, by issuing an edition of the Latin Bible. It was most in demand, and brought high prices. In this way Latin Bibles multiplied rapidly. Translators now began their work; and by individual reformers in different countries, the Word of God was translated into various languages in the course of a few years. Thus an Italian version appeared in 1474, a Bohemian in 1475, a Dutch in 1477, a French in 1477, and a Spanish in 1478; as if heralding the approach of the coming Reformation.

(2) ROME'S OPPOSITION TO THE RAPIDLY SPREADING WORD

But, as usual, the great enemies of truth and light and liberty took the alarm. The Archbishop of Mentz placed the printers of the city under strict censorship. Pope Alexander VI issued a Bill prohibiting the printers of Mentz, Cologne, Treves and Magdeburg from publishing any books without the express licence of their archbishops. Finding that the reading of the Bible was extending, the priests began to preach against it from their pulpits. "They had found out," said a French monk, "a new language called Greek: we must carefully guard ourselves against it. That language will be the mother of all sorts of heresies. I see in the hands of a great nunber of persons a book written in this language called, 'The New Testament'; it is a book full of brambles, with vipers in them. As to the Hebrew, whoever learns that becomes a Jew at once." Bibles and Testaments were seized wherever found, and burnt; But more Bibles and Testaments seemed to rise as if by magic from their ashes. The printers also were seized and burnt. "We must root out printing, or printing will root out us," said the Vicar of Croydon in a sermon preached at Paul's Cross. And the university of Paris, panic-stricken, declared before the Parliament: "There is an end of religion if the study of Greek and Hebrew is permitted."

The great success of the new translations spread alarm throughout the Romish Church. She trembled for the supremacy of her own favourite Vulgate. The fears of the priests and monks were increased when they saw the people reading the Scriptures in their own mother tongue, and observed a growing disposition to call in question the value of attending mass, and the authority of the priesthood. Instead of saying their prayers through the priests in Latin, they began to pray to God direct in their native tongue. The clergy, finding their revenues diminishing, appealed to the Sorbonne, the most renowned theological school in Europe. The Sorbonne called upon Parliament to interfere with a strong hand. War was immediately proclaimed against books, and the printers of them. Printers who were convicted of having printed Bibles were burnt. In the year 1534, about twenty men and one woman were burnt alive in Paris. In 1535 the Sorbonne obtained an ordinance from the King for the suppression of printing. "But it was too late," as an able writer observes; "the art was now full born, and could no more be suppressed than light, or air, or life. Books had become a public necessity, and supplied a great public want; and every year saw them multiplying more abundantly."

While Rome was thus thundering her awful prohibitions against the liberty of thought, and lengthening her arm to persecute wherever the Bible had penetrated and found followers, at least all over France, God was hastening by means of His own Word and the printing press, that mighty revolution which was so soon to change the destinies of both Church and State.

The darkness of the middle ages is rapidly passing away. The rising sun of the Reformation will ere long dispel the gloom of Jezebel's long reign of a thousand years.

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4. THE RECEIVED TEXT IS PRINTED

(1) THE MAN ERASMUS

Quoting Mlller.

Reuchlin and Erasmus - these famous names - may be conveniently and appropriately introduced here. Although not reformers, they contributed much to the success of the Reformation. They were called "Humanists" - men eminent for human learning. The revival of literature, but especially the critical study of the languages in which the Holy Scriptures were written Hebrew, Greek and Latin - rendered the highest service to the first reformers. As in the days of Josiah, Ezra and Nehemiah, the great Reformation was an immediate connection with the recovery and study of the written Word of God. The Bible, which had lain so long silent in manuscript beneath the dust of old libraries, was now printed, and laid before the people in their own tongue. This was light from God, and that which armed the reformers with invincible power. Down to the days of Reuchlin and Erasmus the Vulgate was the received text. Greek and Hebrew were almost unknown in the West.

Reuchlin studied at the University of Paris. Happily for him, the celebrated Wesselus was then teaching Hebrew at that renowned school of theology. There he received, not only the first rudiments of the language, but a knowledge of the Gospel of the grace of God. He also studied Greek, and learned to speak Latin with great purity. At the early age of twenty he began to teach philosophy, Greek and Latin at Basle; "and," says D'Aubigne "What then passed for a miracle, a German was heard speaking Greek." He afterwards settled at Wittenberg - the cradle of the Reformation - instructed the young Melanchthon in Hebrew and prepared for publication the first Hebrew and German grammar and lexicon. Who can estimate all that the Reformation owes to Reuchlin, though he remained in the communion of the Romish Church!

Erasmus, who was about twelve years younger than Reuchlin, pursued the same line of study, but with still higher powers and greater celebrity. From about 1500 to 1518, when Luther rose into notice, Erasmus was the most distinguished literary person in Christendom. He was born at Rotterdam, in 1465; was left an orphan at the age of thirteen; was robbed by his guardians, who, to cover their dishonesty, persuaded him to enter a monastery. In 1492, he was ordained a priest, but he always entertained the greatest dislike for a monastic life, and embraced the first opportunity to regain his liberty. After leaving the Augustinian convent at Stein, he went to pursue his favourite studies at the University of Paris.

With the most indefatigable industry he devoted himself entirely to literature and soon acquired a great reputation among the learned. The society of the poor student was courted by the varied talent of the time. Lord Mountjoy, whom he met as a pupil at Paris, invited him to England. His first visit to this country, in 1498, was followed by several others, down to the year 1515, during which he became acquainted with many eminent men, received many honours, formed some warm friendships, and spent most of his brightest days. He resided at both the Universities, and, during his third and longest visit, was professor of Greek at Cambridge. All acknowledged his supremacy in the world of letters, and for a long time he reigned without a rival. But our object at present is rather to inquire, "What was his influence on the Reformation?"

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Under the gracious, guiding hand of Him who sees the end from the beginning, Erasmus bent all his great mental powers, and all his laborious studies to the preparation of a critical edition of the Greek Testament. This work appeared at Basle in 1516, one year before the Reformation, accompanied by a Latin translation in which he corrected the errors of the Vulgate. This was daring work in those days. There was a great outcry from many quarters against this dangerous novelty. "His New Testament was attached," says Robertson; "why should the language of the schismatic Greeks interfere with the sacred and traditional Latin? How could any improvement be made on the Vulgate translation?" There was a college at Cambridge, especially proud of its theological character, which would not admit a copy within its gates. But the editor was able to shelter himself under the name of Pope Leo, who had accepted the dedication of the volume.

To question the fidelity of the Vulgate, was a crime of the greatest magnitude in the eyes of the Roman Catholic Church. The Vulgate could no longer be of absolute exclusive authority; the Greek was its superior not only in antiquity, but yet more as the original text. At this time Erasmus stood at the head of scholars and men of letters. He was patronised by the Pope, many prelates, and by the chief princes of Europe. Sheltered behind such an ample shield, he was perfectly secure, and, knowing this, fearlessly went on with his great work.

To give the reader some idea of the popularity of this singularly great, yet in some respects weak man, we may just notice that his book, entitled "Praise of Folly," went through twenty-seven editions during his lifetime; and his "Colloquies" were so eagerly received that in one year, twenty-four thousand copies were sold. In these books, he assailed with great power, and the most bitter satire, the inconsistencies of the monks - their intrusiveness and rapacity in connection with deathbeds, wills and funerals - and thus indirectly served the cause of the Reformation.

Erasmus had many tempting offers as to pensions and promotion, but his love for his learned labours led him to prefer comparative poverty with perfect liberty. In 1516, he took up his abode at Basle, where his works were printed by Froben, and he diligently laboured in correcting proofs, and otherwise assisting that learned printer with his fine editions of classical works.

But the great work for which he seems to have been specially fitted by God was his Greek New Testament. "Erasmus," says D'Aubigne, "thus did for the New Testament what Reuchlin had done for the Old. Henceforward divines were able to read the Word of God in the original languages, and at a later period to recognise the purity of the reformed doctrines. Reuchlin and Erasmus gave the Bible to the learned; Luther gave it to the people."

The chain of witnesses was now complete. Wesselus, Reuchlin, Erasmus and Luther were linked together.

We allow Wilkinson to describe further this man God used at this most important epoch:

The Revival of Learning produced that giant intellect and scholar, Erasmus. It is a common proverb that "Erasmus laid the egg and Luther hatched it." The streams of Grecian learning were again flowing into the European plains, and a man of calibre was needed to draw from their best and bestow it upon the needy nations of the West. Endowed by nature with a mind that could do ten hours

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work in one, Erasmus, during his mature years in the earlier part of the 16th century, was the intellectual giant of Europe. He was ever at work, visiting libraries, searching in every nook and corner for the profitable. He was ever collecting, comparing, writing and publishing. Europe was rocked from end to end by his books which exposed the ignorance of the monks, the superstitions of the priesthood, the bigotry and the childish and coarse religion of the day. He classified the Greek Manuscripts and read the Fathers.

It is customary even today with those who are bitter against the pure teachings of the Received Text, to sneer at Erasmus. No perversion of facts is too great to belittle his work. Yet while he lived, Europe was at his feet. Several times the King of England offered him any position in the kingdom, at his own price; the Emperor of Germany did the same. The Pope offered to make him a cardinal. This he steadfastly refused, as he would not compromise his conscience. In fact, had he been so minded, he perhaps could have made himself Pope. France and Spain sought him to become a dweller in their realm; while Holland prepared to claim him as her most distinguished citizen.

[graphic - Erasmus’ New Testament - 1516
Actual size as reproduced, without margins 9 ½ in. x 6 ½ in.]

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Book after book came from his hand. Faster and faster came the demands for his publications. But his crowning work was the New Testament in Greek. At last after one thousand years, the New Testament was printed (1516 A.D.) in the original tongue. Astonished and confounded, the world, deluged by superstitions, coarse traditions, and monkeries, read the pure story of the Gospels. The effect was marvellous. At once, all recognized the great value of this work which for over four hundred years (1516 to 1931) was to hold the dominant place in an era of Bibles. Translation after translation has been taken from it, such as the German, and the English and others. Critics have tried to belittle the Greek manuscripts he used, but the enemies of Erasmus, or rather the enemies of the Received Text, have found insuperable difficulties maintained their attacks. Writing to Peter Baberius August 13, 1521, Erasmus says:

"I did my best with the New Testament, but it provoked endless quarrels. Edward Lee pretended to have discovered 300 errors. They appointed a commission, which professed to have found bushels of them. Every dinner table rang with the blunders of Erasmus. I required particulars, and could not have them."

There were hundreds of manuscripts for Erasmus to examine, and he did; but he used only a few. What matters? The vast bulk of manuscripts in Greek are practically all the Received Text. If the few Erasmus used were typical, that is, after he had thoroughly balanced the evidence of many and used a few which displayed that balance, did he not, with all the problems before him, arrive at practically the same result which only could be arrived at today by a fair and comprehensive investigation?

Moreover, the text he chose had such an outstanding history in the Greek, the Syrian, and the Waldensian Churches, that it constituted an irresistible argument for and proof of God's providence. God did not write a hundred Bibles; there is only one Bible, the others at best are only approximations. In other words the Greek New Testament of Erasmus, known as the Received Text, is none other than the Greek New Testament which successfully met the rage of its pagan and papal enemies.

We are told that testimony from the ranks of our enemies constitutes the highest kind of evidence. The following statement which I now submit, is taken from the defense of their doings by two members of that body so hostile to the Greek New Testament of Erasmus - the Revisers of 1870-1881. This quotation shows that the manuscripts of Erasmus coincide with the great bulk of manuscripts.

"The manuscripts which Erasmus used, differ, for the most part, only in small and insignificant details from the bulk of the cursive manuscripts. The general character of their text is the same. By this observation the pedigree of the Received Text is carried up beyond the individual manuscripts used by Erasmus to a great body of manuscripts of which the earliest are assigned to the 9th century."

Then after quoting Doctor Hort, they draw this conclusion on his statement: "This remarkable statement completes the pedigree of the Received Text. That pedigree stretches back to a remote antiquity. The first ancestor of the Received Text was, as Dr. Hort is careful to remind us, at least contemporary with the oldest of our extant manuscripts, if not older than any one of them."

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(2) PARTICULARS OF THE GREEK TEXT EDITED BY ERASMUS

Strouse states that Erasmus primarily used the following five MSS in the first edition (1516).

11^th Century MS of the Gospels, Acts and Epistles
15th, Century MS of the Gospels
12th-14th MS of Acts and Epistles
15^th Century MS of Acts and Epistles
12^th Century MS of Revelation

Erasmus had translated the Greek into a Latin Version in 1505-6 and presumably had other MSS than these five.

These are the manuscripts to which F.J.A. Hort referred when he wrote to a friend, "Think of that vile Textus Receptus leaning entirely on late MSS." But as shown above, Erasmus knew that they were representative of the overwhelming majority of MSS. Subsequent investigation since has shown that Erasmus' judgement was correct. The Bible believer resting on the promises of Christ to preserve His Word can see the guiding hand of God in the choice of these MSS.

Erasmus produced five editions in which there were a number of refinements and corrections.

(3) THE ANALYSIS BY EDWARD F. HILLS

Possibly the most penetrating analysis ever written on the early publication of the Received Text is the following by Edward F. Hills:

One of the leading principles of the Protestant Reformation was the sole and absolute authority of the holy Scriptures. The New Testament text in which early Protestants placed such implicit confidence was the Textus Receptus (Received Text) which was first printed in 1516 under the editorship of Erasmus and only slightly modified in subsequent editions during the 16th and 17th centuries. The more important of these later editions of the Textus Receptus include the second edition of Erasmus (1519), which formed the basis of Luther's German Version, the third edition of Stephanus (1550), which is that form of the Textus Receptus generally preferred by English scholars, the fifth edition of Beza (1598), on which the King James Version was mainly based, and the second Elzevir edition (1633), which was generally adopted on the European Continent and in which the term Textus Receptus first appeared.

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The Textus Receptus is virtually identical with the Traditional text found in the majority of the Greek New Testament manuscripts. Kirsopp Lake and his associates (1928) demonstrated this fact in their intensive researches in the Traditional (Byzantine) text. Using their collations, they came to the conclusion that in the eleventh chapter of Mark "the most popular text in manuscripts of the 10th to 14th century" differed from the Textus Receptus only four times. This small number of differences seems almost negligible in view of the fact that in this same chapter Aleph, B, and D differ from the Textus Receptus 69, 71 and 95 times respectively. Also add to this the fact that in this same chapter B differs from Aleph 34 times and from D 102 times and that Aleph differs from D 100 times.

(a) The Received Text and the Providence of God

The Textus Receptus, then, is that form of the Greek New Testament text which God in His providence provided for His people during the days of the Protestant Reformation and which still remains, in spite of the detractions of naturalistic critics, the best printed text of the Greek New Testament that has yet been produced. Back of the labours of Erasmus and the other early editors who brought the Textus Receptus into being stood the guiding providence of God. The more we consider the factors involved in this process, the more we see that this is so.

The Greek Manuscripts used by Erasmus
When Erasmus came to Basle in July, 1515, to begin work on the first edition of his printed Greek New Testament, he found five Greek New Testament manuscripts ready for his use. These are now designated by the following numbers: 1 (an llth century manuscript of the Gospels, Acts and Epistles); 2 (a 15th century manuscript of the Gospels); 2ap (a 12-14th century manuscript of Acts and the Epistles); 4ap (a 15th century manuscript of Acts and the Epistles); and 1r (a 12th century manuscript of Revelation). Of these manuscripts Erasmus used 1 and 4ap only occasionally. In the Gospels, Acts and Epistles, his main reliance was on 2 and 2ap.

The fact that the Textus Receptus was based only on the few late manuscript which Erasmus found at Basle is usually held against it. In the opinion of naturalistic critics this was just an unhappy accident. "Erasmus used only a handful of manuscripts, which happened to be at Basle." So Kenyon (1937) observes. But those that take this attitude do not reckon sufficiently with the providence of God. When we view this circumstance in its proper perspective, we see the divine plan behind it all. The text which Erasmus published was not his own but was taken, virtually without change, from the few manuscripts which God, working providentially, had placed at his disposal. These manuscripts were of the Traditional type, and thus in the providence of God it came about that during the Protestant Reformation and ever since, God's people have been provided with the Traditional (true) New Testament text found in the vast majority of the New Testament manuscripts.

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The Human Aspects of the Received Text
God works providentially through sinful and fallible human beings, and therefore His providential guidance has its human as well as its divine side. And these human elements were very evident in the first edition (1516) of the Textus Receptus. For one thing, the work was performed so hastily that the text was disfigured with a great number of typographical errors. These misprints, however, were soon eliminated by Erasmus himself in his later editions and by other early editors and hence are not a factor which need be taken into account in any estimation of the abiding value of the Textus Receptus.

But the thing for which Erasmus has been most severely criticized is his handling of the book of Revelation. His manuscript of Revelation (1r) had been mutilated at the end with the consequent loss of verses 16-21 of chapter 22, and its text in other places was sometimes hard to distinguish from the commentary of Andreas of Caesarea in which it was embedded. Erasmus endeavoured to supply these dificiencies in his manuscript by retranslating the Latin Vulgate into Greek. In his fourth edition of his Greek New Testament (1527), Erasmus corrected much of this translation Greek on the basis of a comparison with the Complutensian Polyglot (1522), but he overlooked some of it, and this still remains in the Textus Receptus. (Did Stephanus or Beza make changes here?)

It is customary for naturalistic critics to make the most of these and to sneer at it as a mean and almost sordid thing. These critics picture the Textus Receptus merely as a money-making venture on the part of Froben the publisher. Froben, they say, heard that the Spanish Cardinal Ximenes was about to publish a printed Greek New Testament as part of his great Complutensian Polyglot Bible. In order, therefore, to get something on the market first, it is said, Froben hired Erasmus, at a good salary, as his editor and rushed a Greek New Testament through his press in less than a year's time. But those who concentrate in this way on the human factors involved in the production of the Textus Receptus are utterly unmindful of the providence of God. God had a deadline to meet as well as Froben. For in the very next year the Reformation was to break out in Wittenberg, and it was important that the Greek New Testament should be published first in one of the future strongholds of Protestantism rather than in Spain, the land of the Inquisition.

Latin Vulgate Readings in the Received Text
The God who brought the New Testament text safely through the ancient and medieval manuscript period did not fumble when it came time to transfer this text to the modern printed page. This is the conviction which guides the believing Bible student as he considers the relationship of the printed Textus Receptus to the Traditional New Testament text found in the majority of the Greek manuscripts. As has been stated, these two texts are virtually identical. There are a few places, however, in which they differ, though not seriously. The most important of these differences are due to the fact that Erasmus, influenced by the usage of the Latin-speaking Church in which he was reared, sometimes followed the Latin Vulgate rather than the Traditional Greek text that lay before him.

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Are the readings which Erasmus thus introduced into the Textus Receptus necessarily erroneous? To the believing Bible student this is a most unlikely supposition. It is hardly possible that the divine providence which had preserved the New Testament text during the long ages of the manuscript period would blunder when at last this text was committed to the printing press. Surely it is much more probable that the Textus Receptus was a further step in God's providential preservation of the New Testament text and that these few Latin Vulgate readings which were incorporated into the Textus Receptus were genuine readings which had been preserved in the usage of the Latin-speaking Church. Erasmus, we may well believe, was guided providentially by the usage of the Latin Church to include these readings in this printed Greek New Testament text. In the Textus Receptus God corrected the few mistakes of any consequence which yet remained in the Traditional New Testament text of the majority of the Greek manuscripts.

Hence, we may conclude, it was in the special providence of God that the text of the Greek New Testament was first printed and published not in the East but in Western Europe where the influence of the Latin usage and of the Latin Vulgate was very strong. Through the influence of the usage of the Latin-speaking Church Erasmus was providentially guided to follow the Latin Vulgate here and there in those few places in which the Latin Church usage rather than the Greek Church usage had preserved the genuine reading. Thus the Textus Receptus was not a blunder or a setback but a further step in the providential preservation of the New Testament text. In it the few errors of any consequence which yet remained in the Traditional Greek text were corrected by the providence of God operating through the usage of the Latin-speaking Church of Western Europe.

The following are the most familiar and important of those relatively few Latin Vulgate readings which, though not part of the Traditional Greek text, seem to have been placed in the Textus Receptus by the direction of God's special providence and therefore are to be retained. The reader will note that these Latin Vulgate readings are also found in other ancient witnesses, namely, old Greek manuscripts, versions and Fathers.

Matthew 10:8, raise the dead, is omitted by the majority of the Greek manuscripts. This reading is present, however, in B, Aleph, C, D, 1, the Latin Vulgate, and the Textus Receptus.

Matthew 27:35, that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by the prophet, They parted my garments among them, and upon my vesture did they cast lots: present in Eusebius (c. 325), 1 and other "Caesarean" manuscripts, the Harelean Syriac, the Old Latin, the Vulgate, and the Textus Receptus; omitted by the majority of the Greek manuscripts.

John 3:25, Then there arose a questioning between some of John's disciples and the Jews about purifying: Papyrus 66, Aleph, 1 and the other "Caesarean" manuscripts, the Old Latin, the Vulgate, and the Textus Receptus read the Jews; Papyrus 75, B, the Peshitta, and the majority of the Greek manuscripts read a Jew.

Acts 8:37, And Philip said, If thou believest with all thine heart, thou mayest. And he answered and said, I believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God. This reading is absent from the majority of the Greek manuscripts, but it is present in some of them, including E (6th or 7th century). It is cited by Irenacus (c. 180) and Cyprian (c. 250) and is found in the Old Latin and the Vulgate. In his notes Erasmus says that he took this reading from the margin of 4ap and incorporated it into the Textus Receptus.

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Acts 9:5, it is hard for thee to kick against the pricks: This reading is absent here from the Greek manuscripts but present in Old Latin manuscripts and in the Latin Vulgate known to Erasmus. It is present also at the end of Acts 9:4 in E, 431, the Peshitta, and certain manuscripts of the Latin Vulgate. In Acts 26:14, however, this reading is present in all the Greek manuscripts. In his notes Erasmus indicates that he took this reading from Acts 26.14 and inserted it here.

Acts 9:6, And he trembling and astonished said, Lord, what wilt Thou have me to do? and the Lord said unto him: this reading is found in the Latin Vulgate and in other ancient witnesses. It is absent, however, from the Greek manuscripts, due, according to Lake and Cadbury (1933), "to the paucity of Western Greek texts and the absence of D at this point." In his notes Erasmus indicates that this reading is a translation made by him from the Vulgate into Greek.

Acts 20:28, Church of God: Here the majority of the manuscripts read, Church of the Lord and God. The Latin Vulgate, however, and the Textus Receptus read, Church of God, which is also the reading of B, Aleph, and other ancient witnesses.Romans 16:25-27: In the majority of the manuscripts this doxology is placed at the end of chapter 14. In the Latin Vulgate and the Textus Receptus it is placed at the end of chapter 16, and this is also the position it occupies in B, Aleph, C, and D.

(b) Should 1 John 5:7 be in our Bible?

In the Textus Receptus 1 John 5:78 reads as follows:

7 For there are three that bear witness IN HEAVEN, THE FATHFR, THE WORD, AND THE HOLY SPIRIT; AND THESE THREE ARE ONE.

8 AND THERE ARE THREE THAT BEAR WITNESS IN EARTH, the spirit, and the water, and the blood: and these three agree in one.

The words printed in capital letters constitute the so-called Johannine comma, the best known of the Latin Vulgate readings of the Textus Receptus, a reading which, on believing principles, must also be regarded as possibly genuine. This comma has been the occasion of much controversy and is still an object of interest to textual critics. One of the more recent discussions of it is found in Windisch's Katholischen Briefe (revised by Preisker, 1951); a more accessible treatment of it in English is that provided by A.E. Brooke (1912) in the International Critical Commentary. Metzger (1964) also deals with this passage in his handbook, but briefly.

How 1 John 5:7 entered the Received Text
As has been observed above, the Textus Receptus has both its human aspect and its divine aspect, like the Protestant Reformation itself or any other work of God's providence. And when we consider the manner in which the Johannine comma entered the Textus Receptus, we see this human element at work. Erasmus omitted the Johannine comma from the first edition (1516) of his printed Greek New Testament on the ground that it occurred only in

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the Latin version and not in any Greek manuscript. To quiet the outcry which arose, he agreed to restore it if but one Greek manuscript could be found which contained it. When one such manuscript was discovered soon afterwards, bound by his promise, he included the disputed reading in his third edition (1522), and thus it gained a permanent place in the Textus Receptus. The manuscript which forced Erasmus to reverse his stand seems to have been 61, a 15th or 16th century manuscript now kept at Trinity College, Dublin. Many critics believe that this manuscript was written at Oxford about 1520 for the special purpose of refuting Erasmus, and this is what Erasmus himself suggested in his notes.

The Johannine Comma is also found in Codex Ravianus, in the margin of 88, and in 629. The evidence of these three manuscripts, however, is not regarded as very weighty, since the first two are thought to have taken this disputed reading from early printed Greek texts and the latter (like 61) from the Vulgate. (Since Hills wrote this, the latest United Bible Society Greek Testament lists six Greek cursive MSS which contain it - 61, 88 mg, 429 mg, 629, 636 mg, 918. Moreover D.A. Waite cites evidence of some fourteen others containing it. Tom Strouse, from whom this information is taken was able to confirm in addition to the above - 634 mg, omega 110, 221 and 2318; along with two lectionaries - 60, 173; and four Fathers - Tertullian, Cyprian, Augustine and Jerome).

But whatever may have been the immediate cause, still, in the last analysis, it was not trickery which was responsible for the inclusion of the Johannine comma in the Textus Receptus but the usage of the Latin-speaking Church. It was this usage which made men feel that this reading ought to be included in the Greek text and eager to keep it there after its inclusion had been accomplished. Back of this usage, we may well believe, was the guiding providence of God, and therefore the Johannine comma ought to be retained as genuine.

The Early Existence of 1 John 5:7
Evidence for the early existence of the Johannine Comma is found in the Latin versions and in the writings of the Latin Church Fathers. For example, it seems to have been quoted at Carthage by Cyprian (c. 250), who writes as follows: "And again concerning the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit it is written: and the Three are One." It is true that Facundus, a 6th century African bishop, interpreted Cyprian as referring to the following verse, but, as Scrivener (1883) remarks, it is "surely safer and more candid" to admit that Cyprian read the Johannine comma in his New Testament manuscript "than to resort to the explanation of Facundus."

The first undisputed citations of the Johannine comma occur in the writings of two 4th century Spanish bishops, Priscillian, who in 385 was beheaded by the Emperor Maximus on the charge of sorcery and heresy, and Idacius Clarus, Priscillian's principal adversary and accuser. In the 5th century the Johannine comma was quoted by several orthodox African writers to defend the doctrine of the Trinity against the gainsaying of the Vandals, who ruled North Africa from 439 to 534 and were fanatically attached to the Arian heresy. And about the same time it was cited by Cassiodorus (480-570) in Italy. The comma is also found in r, an Old Latin manuscript of the 5th or 6th century, and in the Speculum, a treatise which contains an Old Latin text. It was not included in Jerome's original

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edition of the Latin Vulgate, but around the year 800 it was taken into the text of the Vulgate from the Old Latin manuscripts. It was found in the great mass of the later Vulgate manuscripts and in the Clementine edition of the Vulgate, the official Bible of the Roman Catholic Church.

Is 1 John 5:7 an Interpolation?

Thus on the basis of the external evidence it is at least possible that the Johannine comma is a reading that somehow dropped out of the Greek New Testament text but was preserved in the Latin text through the usage of the Latin-speaking Church, and this possibility grows more and more toward probability as we consider the internal evidence.

In the first place, how did the Johannine comma originate if it be not genuine, and how did it come to be interpolated into the Latin New Testament text? To this question modern scholars have a ready answer. It arose, they say, as a trinitarian interpretation of 1 John 5:8, which originally read as follows: For there are three that bear witness, the spirit, and the water, and the blood: and these three agree in one. Augustine was one of those who interpreted 1 John 5:8 as referring to the Trinity. "If we wish to inquire about these things, what they signify, not absurdly does the Trinity suggest Itself, who is the one, only, true, and highest God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, concerning whom it could most truly be said, Three are Witnesses, and the Three are One. By the word spirit we consider God the Father to be signified, concerning the worship of whom the Lord spoke, when He said, God is a spirit. By the word blood the Son is signified, because the Word was made flesh. And by the word water we understand the Holy Spirit. For when Jesus spoke concerning the water which He was about to give the thirsty, the evangelist says, This He spoke concerning the Spirit, whom those that believed in Him would receive."

Thus, according to the critical theory, there grew up in the Latin-speaking regions of ancient Christendom a trinitarian interpretation of the spirit, the water, and the blood mentioned in 1 John 5:8, the spirit signifying the Father, the blood the Son, and the water the Holy Spirit. And out of this trinitarian interpretation of 1 John 5:8 developed the Johannine comma, which contrasts the witness of the Holy Trinity in heaven with the witness of the spirit, the water, and the blood on earth.

But just at this point the critical theory encounters a serious difficulty. If the comma originated in a trinitarian interpretation of 1 John 5:8, why does it not contain the usual trinitarian formula the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit? Why does it exhibit the singular combination, never met with elsewhere, the Father, The Word, and the Holy Spirit? According to some critics, this unusual phraseology was due to the efforts of the interpolator who first inserted the Johannine comma into the New Testament Text. In a mistaken attempt to imitate the style of the Apostle John he changed the term Son to the term Word. But this is to attribute to the interpolator a craftiness which thwarted his own purpose in making this interpolation, which was surely to uphold the doctrine of the Trinity, including the eternal generation of the Son. With this as his main concern it is very unlikely that he would abandon the time-honoured formula, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, and devise an altogether new one, Father, Word, and Holy Spirit.

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In the second place, the omission of the Johannine coma seems to leave the passage incomplete. For it is a common scriptural usage to present solemn truths or warnings in groups of three and four, for example, the repeated three things, yea four of Proverbs 30, and the constantly recurring refrain, for three transgressions and for four, of the prophet Amos. In Genesis 40 the butler saw three branches, and the baker saw three baskets. And in Matthew 12:40 Jesus says, As Jonas was three days and three nights in the whale's belly; so shall the Son of man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth. It is in accord with biblical usage, therefore, to expect that in 1 John 5:7-8 the formula, there are three that bear witness, will be repeated at least twice. When the Johannine comma is included the formula is repeated twice. When the comma is omitted, the formula is repeated only once, which seems very strange.

In the third place, the omission of the Johannine comma involves a grammatical difficulty. The words spirit, water, and blood are neuter in gender, but in 1 John 5:8 they are treated as masculine. If the Johannine comma is rejected, it is hard to explain this irregularity. It is usually said that in 1 John 5:8 the spirit, the water, and the blood are personalised and that this is the reason for the adoption of the masculine gender. But it is hard to see how such personalisation would involve the change from the neuter to the masculine. For in verse 6 the word Spirit plainly refers to the Holy Spirit, the Third Person of the Trinity. Surely in this verse the word Spirit is "personalised," and yet the neuter gender is used. Therefore, since personalisation did not bring about a change of gender in verse 6, it cannot fairly be pleaded as the reason for such a change in verse 8. If, however, the Johannine comma is retained, a reason for placing the neuter nouns spirit, water and blood in the masculine gender becomes readily apparent. It was due to the influence of the nouns Father and Word, which are masculine. Thus the hypothesis that the Johannine comma is an interpolation is full of difficulties.

Possible Reasons for the Omission of 1 John 5:7 in Greek MSS

For the absence of the Johannine coma from all New Testament documents save those of the Latin-speaking West the following explanations are possible:

In the first place, it must be remembered that the comma could easily have been omitted accidentally through a common type of error which is called homoioteleuton (similar ending). A scribe copying 1 John 5:7-8 under distracting conditions might have begun to write down these words of verse 7, there are three that bear witness, but have been forced to look up before his pen had completed this task. When he resumed his work, his eye fell by mistake on the identical expression in verse 8. This error would cause him to omit all of the Johannine comma except the words in earth, and these might easily have been dropped later in the copying of this faulty copy. Such an accidental omission might even have occurred several times, and in this way there might have grown up a considerable number of Greek manuscripts which did not contain this reading.

In the second place, it must be remembered that during the second and third centuries (between 220 and 270, according to Harnack) the heresy which orthodox Christians were called upon to combat was not Arianism (since this error had not yet arisen) but Sabellianism (so named after Sabellius, one of its principal promoters), according to which the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit were one in the sense that they were identical. Those that advocated this heretical view were called Patripassians (Father-

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sufferers), because they believed that God the Father, being identical with Christ, suffered and died upon the cross, and Monarchians, because they claimed to uphold the Monarchy (sole government) of God.

It is possible, therefore, that the Sabellian heresy brought the Johannine comma into disfavour with orthodox Christians. The statement, these three are one, no doubt seemed to them to teach the Sabellian view that the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit were identical. And if during the course of the controversy manuscripts were discovered which had lost this reading in the accidental manner described above, it is easy to see how the orthodox party would consider these mutilated manuscripts to represent the true text and regard the Johannine comma as a heretical addition. In the Greek-speaking East especially the comma would be unanimously rejected, for here the struggle against Sabellianism was particularly severe.

Thus it is not impossible that during the 3rd century, amid the stress and strain of the Sabellian controversy, the Johannine comma lost its place in the Greek text but was preserved in the Latin texts of Africa and Spain, where the influence of Sabellianism was probably not so great. To suppose this, at any rate, is strictly in accord with the principles of believing Bible study. For although the Greek New Testament text was the special object of God's providential care, nevertheless, this care also extended, in lesser degree, to the ancient versions and to the usage not only of Greek-speaking Christians but also of the other branches of the Christian Church. Hence, although the Traditional text found in the vast majority of the Greek manuscripts is a fully trustworthy reproduction of the divinely inspired original text, still it is possible that the text of the Latin Vulgate, which really represents the long-established usage of the Latin Church, preserves a few genuine readings not found in the Greek manuscripts. And hence, also, it is possible that the Johannine comma is one of these exceptional readings which, we may well believe, were included in the Textus Receptus under the direction of God's special providence.

(4) ERASMUS REJECTED THE READINGS OF VATICANUS AND SIMILAR

As we have seen Vaticanus is the primary pillar of our modern versions. This is the manuscript that is supposed to be so much better and ancient that those used by Erasmus. However, according to Wilkinson, Erasmus, through a certain Professor Paulus Bombasius at Rome, had access to, and received from his "such variant readings as he wished." And in 1533 a correspondent of Erasmus sent him "a number of selected readings from Codex B as proof of its superiority to the Received Greek Text." Erasmus, however, rejected these varying readings because he considered from the massive evidence of his day that the Received Text was correct. Therefore, modern Bibles are built upon a foundation that Erasmus rejected. And we can see the guiding hand of God in this rejection.

With the Received Text now in print, we come to the next major epoch in the history of the Bible.

LUTHER'S GERMAN BIBLE

Continuing with Miller:

When peace was established he turned to his favourite object - the translation of the New Testament; and after it had undergone the more critical revision of Mlanchthon, he published it in the September of 1522. The appearance of such

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a work, and at a time when the minds of all men were in a most excited condition, produced, as might be supposed, the most extraordinary effects. As if carried on the wings of the wind, it spread from one end of Germany to the other, and to many other countries. "It is written," according to D'Aubigne, "in the very tone of the Holy Writings, in a language yet in its youthful vigour, and which for the first time displayed its great beauties; it interested, charmed, and moved the lowest as well as the highest ranks." Even the Papal historian, Maimbourg, confesses that "Luther's translation was remarkably elegant, and in general so much approved, that it was read by almost everybody throughout Germany. Women of the first distinction studied it with the most industrious and persevering attention, and obstinately defended the tenets of the Reformer against bishops, monks and Catholic doctors." It was a national book. It was the book of the people - the Book of God. This work served more than all Luther's writings to the spread and consolidation of the reformed doctrines. The Reformation was now placed on its own proper foundation - the Word of God, which liveth and abideth forever.

The following statistics show the wonderful success of the work: "A second edition appeared in the month of December; and by 1533 seventeen editions had been printed at Wittemberg, thirteen at Augsburg, twelve at Basle, one at Erfurt, one at Grimma, one at Leipsic, and thirteen at Strasburg."

Meanwhile Luther proceeded in the accomplishment of his great work - the translation of the Old Testament. With the assistance of Melanchthon and other friends, the work was published in parts as they were finished, and wholly completed in the year 1530. Luther's great work was now done. Hitherto he had spoken, but now God Himself was to speak to the hearts and consciences of men. Vast, wonderful, mighty thought! The Divine testimonies of truth presented to a great nation, which had hitherto been "perishing for lack of knowledge." The Divine Word no longer to be concealed under an unknown tongue; the way of peace no longer to be obscured by the traditions of men; and the testimony of God Himself concerning Christ and salvation rescued from the superstitions of the Romish system.

Hills states that Luther's version was based on Erasmus' second edition which appeared in 1519. It is with sadness though that we must inform the reader that Luther "segregated Hebrews, James, Jude and Revelation at the end of his New Testament as books of lesser value." (Kenyon).

We now come to the second mighty translation based upon the Received Text of Erasmus.

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6. THE ENGLISH BIBLE OF WILLIAM TYNDALE

[graphic of Tyndale’s New Testment - 1525
not reduced; actual size of whole page 7 1/2in. x 5 ½ in.]

Benjamin Wilkinson says:

God, who foresaw the coming greatness of the English-speaking world, prepared in advance the agent who early would give direction to the course of its thinking. One man stands out silhouetted against the horizon above all others, as having stamped his genius upon English thought and upon the English language. That man was WiIliam Tyndale.

The Received Text in Greek, having through Erasmus reassumed its ascendancy in the West of Europe as it had always maintained it in the East, bequeathed its indispensable heritage to the English. It meant much that the right genius was engaged to clamp the English future within this heavenly mould. Providence never is wanting when the hour strikes. And the world at last is awakening fully to appreciate that William Tyndale is the true hero of the English Reformation.

The Spirit of God presided over Tyndale's calling and training. He early passed through Oxford and Cambridge Universities. He went from Oxford to Cambridge to learn Greek under Erasmus, who was teaching there from 1510 to 1514. Even after Erasmus returned to the Continent Tyndale kept informed on the revolutionising productions which fell from that master's pen. Tyndale was not one of those students whose appetite for facts is omnivorous but who is unable to look down through a system. Knowledge to him was an organic whole in which, should discords come, created by illogical articulation, he would be able to detect quibblings at once. He had a natural aptitude for languages, but he did not shut himself into an airtight compartment with his results, to issue forth with some great conclusion which would chill the faith of the world. He had a soul. He felt everywhere the sweetness of the life of God, and he offered himself as a martyr, if only the 1Yord of God might live.

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Herman Buschius, a friend of Erasmus and one of the leaders in the revival of letters, spoke of Tyndale as "so skilled in seven languages, Hebrew, Greek, Latin, Italian, Spanish, English, French, that whichever he spoke you would suppose it his native tongue." "Modern Catholic Versions are enormously indebted to Tyndale," says Dr. Jacobus. From the standpoint of English, not from the standpoint of doctrine, much work has been done to approximate the Douay to the King James.

When Tyndale left Cambridge, he accepted a position as tutor in the home of an influential landowner. Here his attacks upon the superstitions of Popery threw him into sharp discussions with a stagnant clergy, and brought down upon his head the wrath of the reactionaries. It was then, in disputing with a learned man who put the Pope's laws above God's laws, that he made his famous vow, "If God spare my life, ere many years, I will cause a boy that driveth a plough shall know more of the Scripture than thou doest."

From that moment until he was burnt at the stake, his life was one of continual sacrifice and persecution. The man who was to charm whole continents and bind them together as one in principle and purpose by his translation of God's Word, was compelled to build his masterpiece in a foreign land amid other tongues than his own. As Luther took the Greek New Testament of Erasmus and made the German language, so Tyndale took the same immortal gift of God and made the English language. Across the sea, he translated the New Testament and a large part of the Old Testament. Two-thirds of the Bible was translated into English by Tyndale, and what he did not translate was finished by those who worked with him and were under the spell of his genius. The Authorised Bible of the English language is Tyndale's after his work passed through two or three revisions (Wilkinson).

Terence Brown gives the following fascinating account of Tyndale and his Bible.Tyndale with the means of giving to English readers for the first time a New Testament translated directly from the Greek, the language in which it was first written. Like Wycliffe, Tyndale was accused of heresy, and was not allowed to pursue his studies in peace. He spent several years on the Continent and was eventually betrayed by a false friend, arrested, imprisoned and burned at the stake at Vilvorde in Belgium in 1536. The place is marked by a memorial erected by the Trinitarian Bible Society and the Belgian Bible Society and the inscriptions include Tyndale's dying prayer "Lord open the eyes of the King of England. " His prayer was answered when in 1538 King Henry VIII gave instructions that a large Bible should be placed in every parish church.

Tyndale published an edition of the New Testament in a conveniently small size and arranged for thousands of copies to be smuggled into England in barrels, bales of cloth, and even in flour sacks. By these means the New Testament was rapidly and widely distributed. Many copies were seized and burned at St. Paul's, as "a burnt offering most pleasing to Almighty God" - as Cardinal Campeggio wrote to Wolsey. Tyndale said that he was not surprised and would not be surprised if later they should burn him also.

The Bishop of London, who was anxious to obstruct the progress of the Reformation, consulted with Pakington a merchant with connections in Antwerp, and asked his advice about buying up all the copies that could be obtained in Europe. He did not know that Pakington was a friend of Tyndale. "Halle's Chronicle" contains a quaint description of the incident. "Gentle Master Pakington," said the Bishop, deeming that he had God by the toe, when in truth he had, as he after thought, the devil by the fist, "do your diligence to get them for me, and I will gladly give you whatever they cost, for the books are

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naughty and I intend to destroy them all, and to burn them at Paul's Cross." The bargain was made, and the story continues, "The Bishop had the Books, Pakington had the thanks, and Tyndale had the money."

Tyndale was quite pleased with the arrangement, as the money relieved him of his debts, the burning of some of the Testaments had the effect of encouraging many people to support the work he was doing, and he now had resources to spend on an improved edition. Some time afterwards a man named Constantine was being tried before Sir Thomas Moore for heresy. He was promised leniency if he would tell where Tyndale and his helpers obtained the money to pay for their editions. Constantine replied - "It is the Bishop of London that hath holpen us, for he bestowed among us a great deal of money upon New Testaments to burn them, and that hath been our chief succour and comfort."

The New Testament was based on the second and third editions of Erasmus' Text (1519 and 1522). The New Testament was finished in 1525-6. A large part of the Old Testament was completed before his martyrdom in 1536 (New Bible Dictionary). Bruce says, "The influence of Luther's work on Tyndale is obvious to anyone who compares the two versions, but Tyndale is far from being a mere echo of Luther." The influence of the wording and structure of Tyndale's New Testament on the Authorised Version is imense, and the latter provides a continuing tribute to the simplicity, freshness, vitality and felicity of his work (NBD).

The following gives a sample of Tyndale's version from Philippians 2:

"Let the same mynde be in you the which was in Christ Jesu. Which beynge in the shape of God, and thought yt not robbery to be equal with God. Neverthelesse, he made hymsilfe of no reputacion, and toke on him the shape of a servaunte, and becam lyke unto men, and was founde in his apparell as a man. He humbled hym sylfe and becam obedient unto the deeth, even the deeth of the crosse. Wherfore God hath exalted hym, and gyven hym a name above all names, that in the name of Jesus shulde every knee bowe, both of thingis in heven and thingis in erth and thingis under erth, and that all tonges shulde confesse that Jesus Christ is the lorde, unto the prayse of God the father. Wherfore, my dearly beloved: as ye I have alwayes obeyed, not when I was present only, but nowe moche more in myne absence, even so performe youre owne health with feare and tremblynge. For yt is God which worketh in you, both the wyll and also the dede, even of good wyll." (Kenyon)

7. ROMAN CATHOLIC EDITIONS OF THE 15TH AND EARLY 16TH CENTURIES

(1) THE COMPLUTENSIAN POLYGLOT - 1522

In 1502 Cardinal Ximenes formed a plan for a printed Bible containing the Hebrew, Greek and Latin texts in parallel columns. Many years were spent in collecting and comparing MSS, with the assistance of several scholars. It was not until 1514 that the New Testainent was printed, and the Old Testament was only completed in 1517. Even then various delays occurred, including the death of Ximenes himself. The actual publication did not take place until 1522 and by that time lost the honour of being the first printed Greek Bible. Only 600 copies were printed [That is of the complete work. Quite a number of editions of the Greek N.T. persions were in later years published at Antwerp and Geneva]. Complutensian is Latin for Alcala, the town in Spain where it was printed (Kenyon).

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[graphic Complutensian Polyglot - 1522
(Actual size 12in. x 9 in.)]

(2) THE RHEIMS-DOUAY ENGLISH VERSION 1582 1610

The New Testament was published at Rheims, France in 1582 and the Old Testament in Douai in 1610. This first Roman Catholic English translation of the Scriptures was based on the Latin Vulgate with some reference to the Greek.Benjamin Wilkinson describes the powers behind this Bible:

So instant and so powerful was the influence of Tyndale's gift upon England, that Catholicism, through those newly formed papal invincibles called the Jesuits, sprang to its feet and brought forth, in the form of a Jesuit New Testament, the most effective instrument of learning the Papacy, up to that time, had produced in the English language. This newly invented rival version advanced to the attack, and we are now called to consider how a crisis in the world's history was met when the Jesuit Bible became a challenge to Tyndale's translation.

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(a) The Jesuits

The Catholic Church has 69 organisations of men, some of which have been in existence for over one thousand years. Of these we might name the Augustinians, the Benedictines, the Capuchins, the Dominicans, and so on. The Benedictines were founded about 540 A.D. Each order has many members, often reaching into the thousands, and tens of thousands. The Augustinians, for example (to which order Martin Luther belonged), numbered 35,000 in his day. The men of these orders never marry but live in communities or large fraternity houses known as monasteries, which are for men what the convents are for women. Each organisation exists for a distinct line of endeavour, and each, in turn, is directly under the order of the Pope. They overrun all countries and constitute the army militant of the Papacy. The monks are called the regular clergy, while the priests, bishops, and others who conduct churches are called the secular clergy. Let us see why the Jesuits stand predominantly above all these, so that the general of the Jesuits has great authority within all the vast ranks of the Catholic clergy, regular and secular.

Within thirty-five years after Luther had nailed his theses upon the door of the Cathedral of Wittenberg, and launched his attacks upon the errors and corrupt practices of Rome, the Protestant Reformation was thoroughly established. The great contributing factor to this spiritual upheaval was the translation by Luther of the Greek New Testament of Erasmus into German. The medieval Papacy awakened from its superstitious lethargy to see that in one-third of a century, the R