The Morning Star of The English Reformation

"Holy Scripture is the faultless, most true, most perfect, and most holy law of God, which it is the duty of all men to know, to defend, and to observe, inasmuch as they are bound to serve the Lord in accordance with it, under the promise of an eternal reward." John Wycliffe

       No name in all the long history of the English Bible occupies a more honorable place than that of John Wycliffe. To him belongs the unique honor of being the first to give the English peoples the whole Bible in their own tongue. He was a great pioneer of freedom alike in Church and State. A scholar and a thinker, he had great influence in all the upheavals of his time; but above all else, he was a Christian patriot who wished all men to hear the Word of God for themselves and to be free in Christ. It is hardly possible to overrate the significance of his work, at once for the English people and for the English language. More than aught else, it kept alive in the hearts of the people that irrepressible spirit of free inquiry which led to the Reformation in the sixteenth century. Many are of opinion that Chaucer's 'parsoun of a toune,' so winsome and faithful, was no other than Wycliffe, whose teaching the great poet had embraced; and from many points of view there are few, if any, English workers and writers who more deserve the gratitude of the whole nation.

       Wycliffe was a great scholar and an ardent patriot, a lover of the Gospel and intensely brave; but most of all he was a loyal, growing, Christian man. He was a true statesman and man of affairs, wise and conciliatory in all his ways. But he was altogether unyielding where principle and truth were involved; and modern historical research is showing that his work was vastly more fruitful than has sometimes been supposed. Lollardy never died out, either in England or Scotland; and Lollardy was simply the English form of the passive protest against the Mediaeval Church, which under various names maintained itself in France, Germany, and Bohemia, for centuries, in spite of persecution. As late as 1521, the Bishop of London arrested five hundred Lollards; while in 1533, we find Sir Thomas More, in a letter to Erasmus, describing Tyndale and his sympathizers as Wycliffe-ites.

"I believe that in the end truth will conquer."
John Wycliffe. portrait from
https://christianclipartreview.blogspot.com

       Writers like Professor Pollard and Dr. Rashdall go so far as to say that the English Reformation was native to the soil, and that it borrowed little or nothing from Luther. They point out that in many particulars it followed the lines laid down by Wycliffe long before. When, therefore, it is said that Wycliffe lived before his time, that does not mean that he was as one born out of due season or that he sowed his seed in vain; but only that in his case the interval between the sowing and the reaping was longer than usual. "It is certain," says Dr. Rashdall, "that the Reformation had virtually broken out in the secret Bible-readings of the Cambridge Reformers before either the trumpet - call of Luther or the exigencies of Henry VIII.'s personal and political position set men free once more to talk openly against the Pope and the monks, and to teach a simpler and more spiritual Gospel than the system against which Wycliffe had striven."

       Even as regards his version of the Bible, his work was far more influential than has often been asserted. Professor Plumptre, writing some fifty years ago, said: "The work of Wycliffe stands by itself. Whatever power it exercised in preparing the way for the Reformation of the sixteenth century, it had no perceptible influence on later translations." But Dr. Moulton has since shown that there is so much in common in language and expression between Wycliffe and Tyndale, that it is probable that the earlier Wycliffe renderings had passed into general currency and become almost proverbial phrases. The truth is, as Forshall and Madden, the editors of The Wycliffe Versions, put it, that in the Reformation era these versions supplied an example and a model to those excellent men, who in like manner devoted themselves at the hazard of their lives to the translation of Scripture, and to its publication among the people of the land. Even yet there are at least one hundred and fifty manuscripts extant containing the whole or part of Purvey 's Bible, the majority of which were written within the space of forty years from its being finished. And many of these are full of interest and must have exerted a great influence. If some of them could tell the story of their wanderings and their work it would be a fascinating tale. One belonged to Edward VI. Another was a birthday present to Queen Elizabeth from her chaplain. Another belonged to Henry VI. ; and yet another to Richard, Duke of Gloucester.

       The exact date of Wycliffe's birth is unknown; but it was somewhere about 1324; perhaps a few years earlier. He grew up in his native county of Yorkshire, and studied at Oxford, where he distinguished himself greatly alike as a scholar and as an administrator. He took an active part in guiding Edward III. and the English people to reject the Papal claim to feudatory tribute; and for a time had much influence in public affairs. He incurred the deep enmity of the Romish hierarchy, but there were always friends who saved him from the consequences of its wrath. He advanced step by step in his opposition to formalism and priestism in religion, and to the prevalent corruption in morals. He wrote tracts in English for the common people; and organized a band of preachers, called the Poor Priests, who went through the country preaching his doctrines of grace. And so he was led on to the great work of translation which occupied his later years. He had laid it down as fundamental that God's Word must be taught because it is the indispensable bread of life, the seed of regeneration and conversion. The next step was to see and determine that the Bible must be rendered into the language of the people, so that it might be known everywhere as God's good news of salvation. That was the next step, the natural and obvious step when once it had been taken; but it had never been taken before, and all honor to the heroic man who took it, as Wycliffe did, in loyalty to the logic of the soul.

       It is probable that parts of Wycliffe's Bible were issued earlier than 1382; but that was the year in which the whole book was finished two years before his death. It was translated from the Vulgate, the Latin version that is, which had been in use since the time of Jerome in the beginning of the fifth century. The time had not yet come for a rendering from the original Hebrew and Greek. Neither of these languages was at that time taught in the West. Of the actual work of translation, only the New Testament can be assigned with certainty to Wycliffe himself; his friend Nicholas of Hereford being responsible for most of the Old Testament and of the Apocrypha. What is believed to be the original MS. of his translation is in the Bodleian Library and breaks off at Baruch 3. 20; while in a second MS., copied from it, it is. noted that the translation of Nicholas ended there. It is generally supposed that Wycliffe himself did the remainder, and that the work of revising the whole, to which he set himself at once thereafter, occupied the rest of his lifetime.

        This revision, however, was a work of time, especially the revision of what Nicholas had done, and Wycliffe was not spared to see it completed. The revised Wycliffe Bible, which is the standard, appeared in 1388, four years after his death. The improvements in it, which were very real, were essentially the work of one man, the trusted friend of the Reformer and in later years his fellow worker, John Purvey, whose name will never be forgotten while that of Wycliffe survives which will surely be as long as the English Bible has its place in our land. When their translation appeared, it was most eagerly received and widely read. Although it cost a sum equal to forty pounds of our money, many copies of it were soon in circulation. Many, of course, had to be content with small portions of it; as, for instance, those who gave a load of hay for a few chapters of an epistle. Touching stories are told of how the people used to gather to hear someone read or even repeat the Word of God in their own speech; and it is not possible to estimate how much this first English Bible must have done to keep the fire burning on the altar in these dark, and in some respects darkening, ages. It had been written for the common people, and they heard it gladly ; and with the spelling modernized it can still be read with ease. It is said that not many years ago long passages from it were read aloud in Yorkshire, when it was found, not only that they were understood by the hearers but that almost every word employed is still in use there.

        It was, of course, a great drawback that Wycliffe's translation was from the Latin and not from the original tongues . But nothing else was possible then; and while there is much even in his English which is now archaic, it was the English in which all future English literature was to be written. Just as Luther's Bible stands at the head of the New High German, Wycliffe's opens the period of Middle English. Chaucer is usually taken as representative of the Middle English literature; but although he is the father of English poetry and has some rare features of superiority, the tendency among philologists now is to recognize Wycliffe's prose as the earliest classic Middle English. Chaucer and he stand side by side; and it has been remarked that Wycliffe rises to an uncommon pitch of perspicuity, force, and beauty, in his Bible translation as compared with his other English writings. Doubtless the greatness of his theme inspired and ennobled him all round, just as it was with Tyndale when, a century and a half later, he took up the same great work . Of the later translator it has been remarked that the exquisite grace and melody of the language of his New Testament has been a matter of surprise to those who are familiar with his other writings, which have no qualities that raise them above the ordinary level of the time. Both men made this their life-work, and threw themselves into it, body, soul, and spirit; and the glory of their work and theme pervaded their whole being.

       The peculiar glory of Wycliffe, however, in this work of translation is not his style or his services to the English language; but that for high and holy ends he set himself to render the whole Bible into the vernacular. Special portions of it had been already translated for special purposes; but he was the first whose whole being thrilled with the great conception of the Bible for the people, and for the people's use in their own homes. The special merit of His translation is that at the time it was not only the one translation of the whole of the Scriptures into English which had ever been made, but actually by a hundred years the first translation into a European tongue. It is absurd either for Sir Thomas More in his day, or for Father Gasquet in ours, to deny this. What meaning could there have been in the attack on Wycliffe by his contemporaries, had he not been a pioneer?

       One Kneighton, a chronicler of the time, writing in all probability before the year 1400, openly laments the translation of the Bible into English, and ascribes the guilt categorically to Wycliffe. He maintained that Christ gave His Gospel, not to the Church, but only to the clergy and doctors of the Church, that they might communicate it to the weaker brethren and the laity according to their need; and he angrily complains that Wycliffe had made the Scriptures common and more open to laymen and to women than it was wont to be to clerks well -learned and of good understanding, so that the pearl of the Gospel is trodden under foot of swine.

       The theory of the Mediaeval Church, that any knowledge of the Scriptures which was necessary for the laity should come to them through the clergy, was all the more intolerable in that, as corruptions increased, the clergy did not know the Scriptures themselves so as to be able to break the bread of life to the hungry multitudes who looked up to them to be fed; and so often looked in vain. There were only too many ecclesiastics, like the Bishop of Dunkeld, who thanked God that he knew neither the Old Testament nor the New. In England in the year 1551, out of 311 clerics in the diocese of Gloucester, all incumbents of parishes, who were examined as to their knowledge of the Ten Commandments, the Apostles' Creed, and the Lord's Prayer, only 90 passed well or fairly well. No fewer  than 171 of them could not repeat the Commandments, 10 could not repeat the Lord's Prayer, and 9 could not repeat the Creed. Manifestly such spiritual guides were not qualified to be the Scriptures for the people, nor were they entitled to offer their teaching as a substitute for the written oracles of God, as they presumed to do.

       That Wycliffe was the first who ever set himself to give the whole Bible to the people, or who had in view the needs of the whole community and not merely the convenience of the clergy, is borne out both by friends and foes. In the year 1412, Archbishop Arundel of Canterbury and his suffragan bishops petitioned the Pope to pronounce sentence of condemnation on the heresy of Wycliffe and those who adhered to him. In this document, among other charges brought against the Reformer, one was that he had contended with all his power against the faith and doctrine of the Church, and that in order to make his malice complete he had devised and carried out the plan of a translation of the Holy Scriptures into the mother tongue. In the previous year, too, one of Wycliffe's admirers, John Huss, in a pamphlet against John Stokes, said: "It is plain from his writings that Wycliffe was not a German, but an Englishman ; . . . for the English say he translated the whole Bible from Latin into English."

       This, then, is the great and assured place which Wycliffe occupies in the annals of the English Bible; and even if what he gave the people was only a translation of a translation, and perpetuated the errors which had crept into the Vulgate, it was a great gift of God to his age and his land. In some respects, the measure of its worth and influence as it shed light all round the circle of life, and roused men both to their duties and their rights is the greatness of the anger and malice of his foes. But most of all, the measure of its worth is the work it did, and which culminated in the sixteenth century, when the truths for which he had contended proved victorious in so many lands. Wycliffe's Bible began a new era in England and for many beyond it, in things political and social as well as in things spiritual and religious.

Professor Ryan M. Reeves lecture

Translations of Psalter and Other Portions of Scripture

"Apart from their own transcendent beauty and universal truth, the Psalms have enriched the world by the creation of a literature which, century after century, has not only commanded the admiration of skeptics, but elevated the characters of innumerable believers, encouraged their weariness, consoled their sorrows, lifted their doubts, and guided their wandering footsteps." Prothero, The Psalms in Human Life.

       With the exception of the merest anonymous fragments, the appearance of translations into the

vernacular of portions of the Bible is coincident with the beginnings of English literature. Caedmon was the first Englishman it may be the first individual of  Gothic race who exchanged the gorgeous images of the old mythology for the chaste beauties of Christian poetry. He was a servant in the monastery at Whitby, and was an old man who knew nothing of the art of verse when the gift of song came to him. He had the care of the cattle; and one evening after he had gone to the stable, he fell asleep, with his mind full of the songs he had heard the others sing, and with his heart sore because he could not sing as they could. As he slept, One came to him who said: "Caedmon, sing me some song." But he could only reply sadly, as he had so often done to his fellow servants, that he could not sing. The Heavenly Visitor, however, assured him that he would sing, and told him to sing of the beginning of created things. Whereupon he began to recite verses to God's praise; and when he awoke, he found that he could not only remember them, but could add to their number. More than that; those in authority who heard his songs declared that heavenly grace had been granted to him, a verdict which won the approval of succeeding ages.

       These songs of Caedmon were sung before the year 680, that being the year of his death; and Bede tells that he sang the story of Genesis and Exodus and many other tales in the Sacred Scriptures. He sang, too, the story of Christ and the Apostles, and about heaven and hell. Others after him tried to make religious poems, but none could compare with him; for he learned the art of song not from men, but, Divinely aided, received that gift. His poems are paraphrases rather than translations; but as we read his earnest, passionate words, twice God-given, we cannot but feel something of the awe which fills the heart as we stand at the headwaters of some great history making river. We can only see him now through the mists of the ages, a dim figure indeed. But his work abides; and who can doubt that as he sang of the Creation and of Christ, of the joys of heaven and the woes of hell, to the simple folk of his time, his message was owned by. Him who gave it, and that many a burden was made lighter and many a yearning met; that eyes were filled with the love light, and weary, aspiring hearts drawn upwards to God?

       Not long after Caedmon's time we find others working in the field of actual translation. Early in the eighth century, the Psalter was rendered into Anglo-Saxon by Ealdhelm, Abbot of Malmesbury and Bishop of Sherborne, who died in the year 709; and by Guthlac, a hermit of Crowland, near Peterborough. Three copies of the former translation, belonging to the ninth and tenth centuries, still survive. At Ealdhelm's request, it is said, Egbert, Bishop of Holy Island, about the same time completed a version of the Gospels in Anglo-Saxon. A copy of this work is still preserved in the British Museum. The records also make mention of Aelfric, Archbishop of Canterbury, of whose translation of the greater part of the historical books of the Old Testament two copies, of date about 1000 A.D., are extant. There were probably others who did work of the same sort which has not survived, but which all went to make the grand result grander and richer in the ages to come. The stream was still very tiny; but it was of pure water, and it must have refreshed many a thirsty soul. It is significant, too, that then, as now, when the Word was precious to men's souls, they sought to share their joy and their treasure with others, and to let them know the good news at first-hand in the records of Divine grace.

       The great name, however, in these early ages is that of the Venerable Bede, with whom English prose may fairly be said to begin. He was a contemporary of the others who have just been named; and it shows how men's minds were being turned towards God, that go many workers were now busy in the field of translation. The story of how he finished his translation into English of the Gospel of St. John has often been told, and will never be forgotten. When the last day of his life had come, the dying man called his scholars to him, that he might dictate more of his translation to them. "There is still a chapter wanting," he was told, "and it is hard for thee to question thyself longer."

       "It is easily done," replied the dying scholar and saint; "take thy pen and write swiftly."

       Throughout the day they wrote, and when evening fell, "There is yet another sentence unwritten, dear master," said the scribe.

       "Write it quickly," said the master.

       "It is finished now."

       "Thou sayest true," was the reply, "all is finished for now."

       He sang glory to God, and passed to be with his Lord. He was a great scholar, and had brought honor to the monastery at Jarrow-on-Tyne; and he lives for ever in the story of the English Bible. Nor in presence of his love for the Scripture and his yearning that others also should know and love it, can it be too strongly insisted on that a monastery like his had little or nothing in common with the institutions which overshadowed the land seven centuries later. At its best the early monastery was not a place to which men fled from duty, but a place to which they turned that they might be fitted to follow wherever duty led. It was a Mission Institute, a Training College, a Bible Society, all in one. It was there that the literary treasures which have come down to us from these early ages were lovingly penned, and that the love of letters was kept alive in times of ignorance and continuous warfare.

       King Alfred the Great has also a place in this Anglo-Saxon legion of honor; for when the document entitled Alfred's Dooms was prepared, he put as the first of the laws of ancient England a translation of the Ten Commandments in forcible, simple Anglo-Saxon. He seems also to have set himself to translate the Psalter, which, with the Gospels, was the favored portion of Scripture then as it is now; but, between the Danes and other cares of the State, he was never able to finish that work. An interesting insight into the spirit of these old Anglo-Saxon translators is afforded in a homily which has come down to us on Reading the Scriptures; the work of Aelfric, himself a translator. "Whoever," he says, "would be one with God, must often pray, and often read the Holy Scriptures. For when we pray, we speak to God; and when we read the Bible, God speaks to us. ... The whole of the Scriptures are written for our salvation, and by them we obtain the knowledge of the truth." If such views were at all common, it is no wonder that so many set themselves to make it possible for others, who were able to read, to study the Scriptures for themselves. There is a simple directness about these words, too, which shows that the Mystery of Iniquity had not yet attained the predominance.

       The work of these Anglo-Saxon translators, and of others like them who live only in the grand result, was doubtless meant principally for use in the Church service, there being no reading public then; and they must have cheered and guided many in these early ages. The light would be all the brighter because the surrounding darkness was so dense. The Norman Conquest, however, wrought a great change. The Saxon manuscripts were despised by the new rulers in Church and State; and by-and-by they became unintelligible to the common people themselves. In little more than a century after the Invasion, in addition to the Latin Church hymns the Norman population had a prose translation of the Psalms in their own Anglo-Norman, and the French mediaeval literature was rich in translations of portions of the Bible. But that, of course, meant nothing for the masses of the English people. Meanwhile, however, the fusion was gradually going on which led to the supremacy of the English language; and, in spite of all that Bible translation has done to guide and fix the language at every stage in its development, it is probable that Wycliffe's Bible in 1382 appeared almost as early as any version could which was to be the Bible of the whole nation, and to retain its place among the English people.

       Another influence was likewise at work which may also have had something to do with the cessation of Bible translation among the Anglo-Saxons. Increasingly as Romanism developed on the lines which it still unhappily follows, and sacerdotalism was casting its baleful shadow all over the land, a knowledge of the vernacular Scriptures was regarded with suspicion by the ecclesiastical authorities. As mutterings of dissatisfaction, too, began to be heard among the awakening nations, the influence of the Bible was felt to be hostile alike to the tyrant and the priest. It cannot be claimed for the Mediaeval Church that she ever encouraged a knowledge of the vernacular Scriptures. The utmost she ever did was to tolerate a knowledge of the Psalter, of Service Books, and, in the fifteenth century, of the Plenaria. These were little books with translations of some paragraphs from the Gospels and Epistles read in the Church service, accompanied by legends and popular tales. It is quite beyond dispute that a knowledge of the Bible in the vernacular, especially by the uneducated, was almost always regarded as a sign of heretical tendencies. In the year 1229, a Council at Toulouse had decreed: "We also forbid the laity to possess any of the books of the Old or New Testaments, except perhaps the Psalter, or Breviary for the offices, or the hours of the Blessed Virgin, which some out of devotion wish to have; but having any of these books translated into the vulgar tongue we strictly forbid.

       During the period usually described as that of Old English, from 1250 to 1350, in spite of all the reactionary forces at work, portions of Scripture continued to be rendered into the vernacular by zealous Christian men eager that their countrymen should hear the voice of God for themselves. That it was so often the Psalter which was thus translated may indicate that this was deemed the line of least resistance. Towards the end of the thirteenth century an author, now unknown, made a translation of the Psalms into verse; the language being simple and full of expression. Then, about the year 1325, two translations of the Psalter into English prose appeared almost simultaneously. The one was by William of Shoreham, a country parish priest in the county of Kent; the other was the work of Richard Rolle, known as the hermit of Hampole. The former wrote the Psalms verse by verse in Latin and English; the translation being generally verbal and faithful. The latter had in the first instance written a commentary on the Psalms. This led him afterwards to translate and publish it with an English commentary. In his ' Psalms in Human Life,' Mr. Prothero says that Rolle's work on its spiritual side illustrates one of the movements which led up to the Reformation.

       Somewhat later, too, there was a translator, John of Trevisa in Cornwall, who so far as the history of Scripture is concerned is somewhat elusive. He turned the Polychronicon of Ranulf Higden into English verse about 1387 ; and in the preface to the Authorized Version he is mentioned on behalf of the Translators as one of their forerunners in the good work. Much about that time, even in our King Richard the Second's days, John Trevisa translated them the Gospels, that is into English. The first reference to his work as Bible translator is by Caxton in 1482; but whatever he did, it is not certain that any of his work remains.

       When Sir Thomas More asserted that it was not the case that Wycliffe was the first who carried through a translation of the whole Bible into English for the use of the laity, he added that he himself had seen beautiful manuscripts of the English Bible which belonged to a date long prior to that of Wycliffe. This was not only accepted later by a man so learned as Archbishop Ussher, but Henry Wharton his editor, in turn credited John of Trevisa with having been the translator of one of those pre-Wycliffe manuscripts which they also had both seen. By-and-by, however, Wharton came to see that both he and Ussher, as well as More, had been wrong, and that what they had all seen were nothing more than copies of Wycliffe's version. There is documentary proof that at the time of the Reformation there were several of these Wycliffe manuscripts in the hands of Roman Catholic prelates. Certain it is that neither Wycliffe nor the men of his generation knew anything about any predecessor in this field. Had there been earlier versions of the whole Bible in existence, the wrath of the Reformer's enemies because of what he did would have been altogether unmeaning.

       For the whole period prior to Wycliffe, who first rendered the whole Bible into English and made it the people's book, the state of the case cannot be better summarized than has been done by Professor Lechler of Leipzig, with whose statement this article may be brought to a close. "The whole result for this period, as well of the Anglo-Saxon as of the Norman and Old English tongue, stands as follows:

1.  A translation of the entire Bible was never during this period accomplished in England, and was never even apparently contemplated .
2. The Psalter was the only book of Scripture which was fully and literally translated into all the three languages Anglo-Saxon, Anglo-Norman, and Old English.
3. In addition, several books of Scripture, especially of the Old Testament, were translated partially or in select passages, as by Aelfric, leaving out of view poetical versions, and the translation of the Gospel of John by Bede, which celebrated work has not come down to us.
4. Last of all and this fact is of great importance in none of these translations was it designed to make the Word of God accessible to the mass of the people, and to spread Scriptural knowledge among them. The only object which was kept in view was partly to furnish aid to the clergy and to render service to the educated class.

Light In The Darkness

"Unto the godly there ariseth up light in the darkness." Lyra Apostolica.

Here my empty desk sits, waiting to be filled up with tools of my trade, waiting as I prepare for a special journey.

Light In The Darkness.
Author Unknown, 1848

Lead, Kindly Light, amid the encircling gloom,

Lead Thou me on!

The night is dark, and I am far from home --

Lead Thou me on!

Keep Thou my feet; I do not ask to see

The distant scene, - one step enough for me.

I was not ever thus, nor prayed that Thou

Shouldst lead me on.

I loved to choose and see my path; but now,

Lead Thou me on!

I loved the garish day, and spite of fears,

Pride ruled my will: remember not past years.

So long Thy power hath blest me, sure it still

Will lead me on,

O'er moor and fen, o'er crag and torrent, till

The night is gone;

And with the morn those Angel faces smile

Which I have loved long since, and lost awhile.

• Get Alone with God
• Jesus Teaches Us: Get Alone And Pray 
• Have a Special, Secret Place to Meet With God

Journey through the scriptures with me...

"Come, follow me," Jesus said, "and I will send you out to fish for people." Matthew 4:19 (NIV)

 
   I will be receiving a King James Note Taker's Bible this Christmas in order to journal through the Bible for the year 2018. If you would like to take this journey with me, gather together your supplies and turn your hearts towards the Father of Heaven and Earth.

"Come Follow Me" hymn

 

       "Others might write a Life of Christ without seeing the Holy Land, but I could not. So in October, 1889, I embarked for that sacred country, accompanied by my wife, daughter and my friends Mr. and Mrs. Louis Klopsch, determined to see with my own eyes, and press with my own feet many of the memorable places connected with the life of the patriarchs and the ministrations of our Lord." Rev. Thomas De Witt Talmage. Read more...