he presented his translation of an oration of Isocrates, to use his good offices in his behalf with the bishop, the latter gave him no encouragement whatever, convincing him, to use his own words, that "not only there was no room in my Lord of London's palace to translate the New Testament, but also that there was no place to do it in all England, as experience doth now openly declare." According to Foxe (Life of Frith, prefixed to his works), his acquaintance with Frith, whose spiritual life was quickened by Tyndale, began at that time. Frith fell a martyr to his convictions at the early age of twentysix, and was at that time not more than seventeen. With him he conferred upon the subject of an English version as the only means of bringing the truth to the people. In London he had been kindly entertained by Mr. Humphry Monmouth, a wealthy citizen, who favored the Reformation, and enabled him, by the promise of an exhibition of ten pounds a year (which Parker, Constit., 1571, says was then a sufficient maintenance for a single man), to set out for the continent in the spring of 1524, not improbably accompanied by Frith, who is supposed to be the "faithful companion" to whom he refers in his preface to the Parable of the Wicked Mammon, as having left him before he became acquainted with Roye. Tyndale's manner of life in London may be gathered from the testimony of Mr. Humphry Monmouth in answer to the charge of having rendered pecuniary aid to him while abroad, he said (in his memorial to the Privy Council, May, 1528): "I took him into my house half a year; and there he lived as a good priest, as me thought. He studied most part of the day and of the night at his book; and he would eat but sodden meat, by his good will; and drink but single small beer. I never saw him wear linen about him, in the time 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. F Afterward he got of some other men, ten pounds sterling more, the which he left with me. And within a year after, he sent for his ten pounds to me from 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. I have given more exhibitions to scholars in my days than to that priest. Mr. Doctor Royston, chaplain to my lord of London, hath cost me more than forty or fifty pounds sterling. The foresaid sir William left me an English book, called Enchiridion. Also I had a little treatise that the priest sent me, when he sent for his money. When I heard my lord of London preach at St. Paul's Cross, that sir William Tyndale had translated the New Testament in English, and was naughtily translated, that was the first time that ever I suspected or knew any evil of him.” * Tyndale sailed direct for Hamburg, and from there he paid a visit to Luther at Wittenberg. Some say that he went to Luther at once, in order to make out that his translation was merely a translation of Luther's version; others, and especially Anderson, maintain the opposite, for the purpose of making out that he was not at all indebted that way to the German reformer. In the absence of positive historical data it is impossible to make a reliable positive statement. It is probable that Tyndale did meet Luther; it is clear that he used Luther's version, as I expect to prove; the rest is utterly immaterial, and may be appropriately left in the vast wilderness of historical conjecture, for the benefit of those inclined to explore that region. I may pause here for a moment to show how utterly unreliable even so-called authorities are on such simple matters as these. Lewis (Complete History, etc., p. 59) states that Tyndale went to Antwerp (which he did not), Anderson (Annals, * App. to Strype, Eccl. Mem., No. 89, vol. ii. p. 363. etc., p. 47) says that Tyndale could not have met Luther at Wittenberg in 1524 (which is absurd and a gratuitous assumption), and the author of the Introduction to the English Hexapla asserts that Luther had in that year just completed his German Bible (which he did not do until 1534). The preponderance of evidence points unmistakably to Tyndale's visit to Wittenberg. Foxe states that Tyndale "took his journey into Germany and into Saxony, where he had conference with Luther, and other learned men in those quarters. Cochlaeus mentioning the presence of Tyndale and Roye at Cologne, describes them as "duo Angli apostatæ qui aliquamdiu fuerant Wittemberga."† Mr. Humphrey Monmouth, who was charged in 1528 that "with his knowledge, William Hutchin, otherwise called Tyndale, and friar Roye, or either of them went into Almayne to Luther, there to learn his sect," does not deny the charge or plead ignorance. Sir Thomas More affirms that at the time of his translation of the New Testament "Tyndale was with Luther at Wittenberg, and the confederacy between him and Luther was well known." Tyndale did not deny the visit, but the confederacy. § (The argument of Anderson on this latter point is twisted). Lee, the king's almoner, wrote from Bordeaux, Dec. 2, 1525: "Please it your Highness to understand that I am certainly informed, as I passed in this country, than an Englishman, your subject, at the solicitation and instance of Luther, with whom he is, hath translated the New Testament into English, and within few days intendeth to arrive with the same imprinted in England." || Ridley writes: "As concerning this common and vulgare translation of the * Acts and Monuments, iv. 119. London, 1838. ↑ De Actis et Scriptis M. Lutheri, p. 132. Dialogue, iii. 8, p. 221; iv. 17, p. 283. London, 1557. § Answer to More, 147. Works, Parker Soc., ed., vol. iii. New Testament into English, done by Mr. William Hichyns, otherwise called Mr. William Tyndale, and Friar William Roye, manifest Lutheran hereticks and apostates, as doth openly appear by their daily company and familiarity with Luther and his disciples Paul Freherus also af firms the visit of Luther.† Add to this the established fact that Tyndale never printed anything at Marburg, and that the printer Hans Luft, if he did print his works, must have printed them at Wittenberg, the only place where he had a printing-press, as will be more fully stated farther on, and it seems to follow that all this concurrent testimony, contemporary, friendly, and inimical, tacitly admitted, and uncontradicted, renders the visit to Wittenberg highly probable, and may be regarded as proven until these facts are set aside by something more substantial than the absurd reasoning of Mr. Anderson, and the rash assertions of Mr. Green and Mr. Froude, and their repetition by numerous writers. In Hamburg, where we may suppose him to have temporarily fixed his abode, which, of course, did not exclude occasional journeys-or wherever he lived that year he was busily engaged on his great work of translating the Scripture, employing as amanuensis, first, Frith (see above), and, after he had left him, William Roye, a friar observant of the Franciscan order at Greenwich. How much of the work was done there cannot be determined; nor have I been able to discover any positive data, beyond bare assertions, as to how he translated—that is, what helps he had in the way of books, and from what text he translated. The case seems to stand thus: He had before him the Greek Testament of Erasmus (Erasmus, folio, 2d ed., 1519, and the 3d ed., 1522), the Vulgate (edition unknown), and Luther's New Testament, 1522. Available helps then extant were *Cotton MSS., Cleopatra, E. V., p. 362. ↑ Theatrum Virorum Eruditione Clarorum, p. 109. 1688, Lascaris' Greek Grammar, Milan, 1476; Craston, Greek Dictionary, 1478; Grammar, 1497; Dictionarium Græcum (Aldus), 1497, Suidas, Lexicon, Milan, 1499; Aleander, Lexicon GræcoLatinum, Paris, 1512; and Budæus, Institutiones Grammatica, 1513 (Aldus). Anderson is positive that he translated and had printed at Hamburg the Gospels of St. Matthew and St. Mark, but although no copy of these has been preserved, there is little doubt that they had been read and bitterly denounced in the beginning of 1527, “and as a publication, not only separate from the New Testament with its prologue, but as printed previously" (Annals, p. 48). But he appears to have done that first year, wherever he spent it, a great deal more, for in April or May, 1525, we find him at Cologne, accompanied by Roye, engaged in commencing to print his quarto edition of the New Testament, after the whole of it, the prologue included, had been prepared for the press; this is evident, not merely from the language of the prologue, but also from the order of the typographical signs. There was at that time at Cologne one of the most bitter enemies to the translation of the Word of God into any vernacular tongue that ever lived. That was John Cochlaeus, a violent and virulent opponent of Luther, who, on account of his fanatical sentiments, had been obliged to leave Frankfort, and was at the time living as an exile at Cologne, where, while carrying the work of Rupert * through the press, he Rupert, i. e., Rupertus Tuitiensis, or Ruprecht of Deutz, opposite to Cologne, a Benedictine, and Abbot of Deutz, who died in 1135, was a mystic and an exegete, noted for two things: 1st, He recommended the study of the Scripture; 2d, He rejected the doctrine of transubstantiation without maintaining the merely spiritual participation of the Body and Blood of Christ, teaching that the bread and wine partook in an invisible manner of the truth of the immortal substance of the divine and human nature of Christ. It was a kind of impanation doctrine admitting the Real Presence. His views, though assailed, did not expose him to persecution. One of his tracts, Of the Victory of the Word of God, had been edited by Osiander, and Cochlaeus, determining to prevent the remainder of his works, supposed to favor the Reformation, |