608
account of digresslonal instances of, other blunders, made by th »forty-seven translators 250
years ago ; although these are numerous, they are thrown in to make weight. The whole
are taken, almost promiscuously, from our biblical portfolio, referred to years gone by.(126)
You may now begin to think that we may be serious, when we affirm that our theological
armory contains hundreds more, to prove that king James’s translators were not “ inspired;”
and that, whatever may be the faot as regards the “ original tongues,” the English version
cannot be accepted by science as a criterion in matters concerning anthropology.
The ladder of time has been ascended to the year 1600, when our “ authorized version ”
was not; but when many English translations, some in MSS., others in print, required hut
an act of Parliament to make them orthodox. With the former, chiefly Saxon versions,
from Alfred the Great down to John Wycliff, our inquiries do not; meddle ; none of them ;
having been seen by us: nor, indeed, do we take intense interest in the latter, save to
remember how William Tyndal, “ homo doctus, plus, et bonus,” for printing the earliest
English translation of the New Testament, in 1526, and of 'parts of the Old, was rewarded
by strangulation and cineration in the year 1536. Copies of his work, together with that i
of Myles Coverdale, 1535, have been before us for examination ; and it is a singular fact I
that in the majority of cases, where king James’s translators departed from the version of
Tyndal, or more particularly from that of Coverdale, they commenced floundering ■ the
mire • and that where they have appropriated the readings of either, it has been done,
without acknowledgment. Fuller, the Church Historian of those times,_ says of Tyndal
that “ his skille in Hebrew was not considerable: yea, generally, learning in languages ™
then in ye infancie thereof” — and we have shown {ubi supra) that Hebrew scholarship
was all but unknown in England until the generation of Walton ; that is, half a cento;
later than the emission of king James’s standard version.
The period of English history embraced within the sixteenth century is distinguished m.
the one hand by the successive intellectual upheavals of the educated classes, each surge
towering higher and higher ; and on the other by the mind-compressing enactments of the
“ Lords Spiritual and Temporal ” in the repeated erection of barriers that gradually sun!
lower and lower. TyndaPs.body was burnt; that of Grafton, (126) guilty of printirç
“ Matthew’s Bible,” was incarcerated; the Inquisition at Paris merely confiscated 2500i
copies of the edition afterwards known as '“ Cranmer’s ; ” in 1546, an act .of Parliament
only forbade the possession and reading of either “ Tyndal’s ” or “ Coverdale’s.” Til
reaction now began to feel its weakness, the progressives their strength: and so long»
the sacerdotal caste could keep before the popular mind a parliamentary ldea «
Tyndal’s version was “ crafty, false, and untrue,” its sages; satisfied that resistance hit
begun to endanger the “ Establishment,” as it is still called, were preparing to give Kg
Unhappy Tyndal, as the first Englishman to trample upon theological impediments throng
publication, has ever remained the “ bête noire” of High Church orthodoxy; nor,o«!
to the obfuscations of history by ecclesiastical writers, has his memory yet received M|
posterity the justice that it merits.
About 1542, an act permitting certain persons to possess the “ Word of God, as
' term it now, “ not being of Tyndal’s translation,” was graciously issued. It provides -
“ That no manner .of person or persons after the first day of October, the next eMui»S|
should take upon him or them to read openly to others m any church or open a ssert
within any of the king’s dominions, the Bible or any part of the Scripture m EnjM
unless he was so appointed thereunto by the king, or any ordmarie, on pain of suffentS
month’s imprisonment. Provided, that the Chancellor of England, captaines of the wan
the king’s justices, the recorders of any city, borough, or town, the speaker of parhame»
&c which heretofore had been accustomed to declare or teach any good, virtuous, or go
exhortations in anie assemblies, may use any part of the Bible or holie Scriptures as
have been wont ; and that every nobleman and gentleman, being a householder, may |
(125) Nott: Bibl. and Phys. Hist. ;1&49; p. 135. _
(126) See Hunt, History of Journalism, 1850, for the legal barbarities then perpetrated upon Printers g
hanainas. drawings and quartervngs, gibbets, and fagots 1
or cause to .be read by any of his familie servants in his house, orchards; or garden, and
to his own familie, anie text of the Bible or New Testament, and also every merchant-man,
being a householder, and any other persons other than women, prentises, See., might read
to themselves privately the Bible. But no woman [except noble-women and genile-women,
who might read to themselves alone, and not to others, any texts of the Bible], nor artificers,
prentises, journeymen, serving-men of the degrees of yomen or under, husband-men,
or laborers, were to read the Bible or New Testament in Englishe to himself; or any other
privately or openly, upon paine-of one month’s imprisonment.”
Three hundred years have effaced even the remembrance of such legislative prohibitions.
The “ general reader ” of our day never dreams that “ my Bible ” was once forbidden to
his plebeian use. He claps his hands at Missionary Meetings when it is triumphantly
announced, that myriads of translations of the Scriptures are yearly diffused among the
Muslims, the Pagans, and other “ heathen,” printed in more languages than are spoken, in
more alphabets than there are readers. Has it never struck him to inquire, when the
clamor of gratulation has subsided, whether these myrionymed versions are correct ? If
they are, what is commonly the case, mere servile paraphrases of king James’s English
translation, as we have proven the letter’s woeful corruptions (ubi supra), must not the
mistranslations of that text be perpetuated and increased by transfer into another tongue ?
and if so, is not that one of the providential reasons why the spiritual effect of these
versions among the “ heathen ” falls below that material one produced by drops of rain
on the Atlantic ’ Or, if the Missionary translators of the Scriptures into Eeejee, Kamtcha-
dale, or Patagonian, possess (what is so rare, as to be a pleasant proverb) sufficient Hebrai-
cal erudition to translate into the above, or any other tongue, direct from the Text, do not
these excellent men “ ipso facto” confirm all we have asserted in regard to our “ authorized”
version, by leaving its interpretations aside ?
There are (although few Anglo-Saxons know it) human dialects, orally extant, wherein
there is no name for “ God,” no appellative for “ Heaven,” because such ideas never entered
| the brain of those low “ Types of Mankind ” for which a Missionary version has been manu-
f factured. The highly-cultivated Chinese remained impenetrable to the disputes, sustained j by the learned Jesuits and the evangelical Dominicans with the quintessence of “ odium
; theologicum,” on the following heads
■ if’ tlle worlis and Chang-ti, the Chinese understand but the material sky
or if they understand the Lord of HeaVen? — 2d., if the ceremonies made by the Chinese
( in honor of their ancestors or of their national philosopher KAoung-tseu, are religious ob-
t servances or eml and political practices ?” (127)
Unable to settle the first problem by reference to Chinese lexicons, those Catholic Mission-
[anes submitted it to the decision of the Emperor Khang-hi; and the solution of the
I second dilemma was referred to the Pope!
r Regarding this “ Foreign Missionary” discussion from the same point of view, as here
lin th e United States we should look upon a dispute between Chinese Bonzes as to what we
I mean by “ Providence,” or in what light we celebrate the “ Anniversary of Washington” ;
I and feeling the same sort of astonishment that would fill ourselves were we told, that by
I one Chinaman the first doubt had been submitted to His Excellency the President, and that
I e settlement of the latter had been left by the other Chinaman to His Holiness the Dalai-
I amu of Thibet: — the wise and jocular Emperor wrote'in autograph beneath the Pope’s
K Constitution ; — .
I anontbe td.eore® c“n0®ns none but vile Europeans: how can it decide anything
| even the l!ngUage°! ”1D6 °f Wh°m these Pe0Ple “ Europe do not understand
¡And then enforced his jest by banishing both Jesuits and Dominicans, about 1721, to Macao
^obst an^fSUCCessors *n Celestial Empire are still perplexed with the same linguistic
C6’ or a^ou^ 1844, it was proposed to invent a new name for Deity, (that is, neither
(127) P a u t h i e r : Chine; pp. 446—448.