FOURTH CENTURY

Auckland Star, Volume LXIX, Issue 139, 15 June 1938, Page 10

FOURTH CENTURY

BIBLE IN ENGLISH. SUNDAY'S CELEBRATIONS. STOST OP BITTER STRUGGLE Climax of three years of planning- will come Sunday with the celebration throughout the English-speaking world of the 400 th anniversary of the momentous occasion on which the English Bible, by Royal injunction, was set up in every church throughout the land o; England that all might have liberty to read it for themselves or to hear it read. Worldwide celebrations have been arranged by a. national council set Up in England ia 1935, and the work of the council will culminate on Sunday, which is to be celebrated as a day of thanksgiving for the gift of the English Bible. Here in Xew Zealand the British and Foreign Bible Society haa taken its share of the work by arranging for the rebroadcast on the four Sunday afternoons of the month of recent 8.8.C. addresses on the Bible. In Auckland the Council of Christian Congregations, in co-operation with various Bible societies, is arranging for a great thanksgiving rally next Sunday afternoon, when Archbishop Averill will preside and speak. Addresees will be given by the Rev. J. W. Shaw on the influence of the Bible on national literature, and by the Rev. A. C. Nelson on its influence on the national character. In additior, special references will be made to the occasion from all Protestant pulpite. In further commemoration of the anniversary an exhibition of rare Biblical treasures, arranged by the chief librarian, Mr. John Barr, is also being held in the Grey-Sliaw room at the Auckland Public Librarr.

Not Easily Secured. The liberty of access to the English BTble, granted by Henry VTII. in 1338, v was not easily secured. Men faced danger of persecution, exile and worse that the people might have the ScripttirSs in their own tongue. Before 1538 those who translated, copied, printed, .iisiiibuted, or even read the English Bll>ie did so under the displeasure of tiVif and ecclesiastic authorities, and were in danger of incurring severe punishment if they were discovered. It is Leldi fitting that at this time thoughts should turn with gratitude to the men who by their devotion secured* the open Bibje. ~ Oj»e of the great company of men | whd from the fifth century to the sixteenth laboured and suffered towards this; aim was William Tyndale, whose! a:ubition was to make the Scriptures j available even to "the boy that driveth | a plough." At length, however, he fell intd the hands of hie> enemies, and in Octtber, 1a36, he tftns strangled at the staUe and -his body burnt. Iti was *ths privilege of Miles Ooverdaki a contemporary of Tyndale, to see the jfujflbneat jtf towJfcUli ship ofthe Chief 1 homas Cromwell, at whlbe* sugjjWtKia he published ln flrst>«mpjete' printed EngHshMhla. Cromwell sought Royal sanetioa for tha hook—in Tain at first, bat when Henry fill, understood that Cromwell < passing to hhn a popular demand, he yielded and granted the : Kqral lieenae.

The sanction wu not, however, to Coverdale's version, bat to a translation compiled from bis and Tvndale's work by John Sogers and known as Matthew's Bible. This was taken as the basis of a further revision by Coverdale in 1338, and this revision is known as the Great Bible. It was of this form that copies were to be set np in the parish churches. The great mass of the people, who previously had listened v ithout understanding to the Latin version, took immediate and enthusiastic Advantage of their new liberty. The Book of God was received with unbounded joy. Exhibits at Library. The exhibits arranged by Mr. Barr at the Public Library illustrate the history of the Bible, the first being a facsimile of a small portion of the Codex Sinaiticus, the earliest known mamssc-ipt of the Bible, recently pur- j chased for .the British Museum. Next I are facsimiles of a later Greek manuscript. the Codex Alexandrinua, and of I the famous first Latift Vulgate, printed by Gutenberg in 1456. Then there are the Complutenaiax. Polyglott, 1522 (the earliest printed- Greek" Bible), and the Antwerp Polvglott (1569-72.) The Great Bible of 1541 is the central feature of the exhibition, for it was to this that King Henry's injunction referred. It is said that six copies were placed in "St. Paul's Cathedral, but so many people gathered to hear them read aloud that aervices were interrupted. Other exhibits in the collection illustrate the Genevan, Or "Breeches" Bible —so called because of. a- reference to breeches made from fig leaves —the liheims Itouai Bible , (1582-1609), the "■Bishop's" Bible (15133), the Authorised Version of 1811, said to be James !.'« one good deed, and the Revised Version (1881 and 1885.) * Among the remaining exhibits are the "Vinegar" Bible, given its name from a misprint of "vinegar" for "vineyard," the Bible in French illustrated by Dore, *nd the Bible in Dutch, Spanish and Maori. See picture on illustrations page.