THE OTAGO DAILY TIMES SATURDAY, June 18, 1938. A NOTABLE QUATERCENTENARY

Otago Daily Times, Issue 23529, 18 June 1938, Page 14

THE OTAGO DAILY TIMES SATURDAY, June 18, 1938. A NOTABLE QUATERCENTENARY

In the annals of the English Bible no incident is more momentous than the decree issued by King Henry VIII which directed that the largest copy of the sacred volume available should be placed in every church in the kingdom. That royal decision reversed the policy of all previous reigns. For many centuries the Scriptures had been the peculiar possession of scholars and the clergy, and the version which they regarded with the utmost veneration was the Latin Vulgate which Jerome had made from the original Hebrew and Greek. Any attempt to translate it into the mother tongue of the English people was viewed with suspicion and displeasure. Wycliffe’s version of 1382 existed only in manuscript, and it was 500 years before it was committed to the press. Tyndale, Coverdale, Taverner and Matthew, who employed their linguistic skill in producing as perfect a version as possible in the English language, were regarded as heretics and their versions when printed were denounced and as far as possible destroyed. Tyndale’s unsurpassed translation of the New Testament, which forms three parts of the present Authorised Version, had to be smuggled into England in bales of merchandise and circulated with the utmost caution and secrecy. The ecclesiastical authorities were determined, if possible, to seize the proscribed volume and consign it to the flames. So complete was this policy of destruction that only scanty relics of the work now remain; and the eminent translator paid with his life for his audacity in daring to give Englishmen the Gospels in their mother tongue. It was considered sacrilegious to make the sacred records available to the common people. Coverdale, to whom fell the honour of being the first to provide for the people the complete printed Bible in English, began his work on the Continent, but was so hampered and hindered by the hostility of the Inquisition that he had to transfer presses, type and sheets to England in order tq finish his great undertaking. It was only the break of Henry VIII with Rome that changed the atmosphere. He resented the Pope’s unwillingness to sanction his divorce from Queen Catherine and his marriage with Anne Boleyn. He denied the right of any foreign Power to interfere with British political affairs and proclaimed himself supreme head of Church and State alike. He maintained the independence and integrity of the Realm over which it was his privilege to reign, and although he greatly disliked Luther and Tyndale and the whole Reformation movement, he yet aided that cause by his definite disavowal of foreign supremacy. No act of his favoured the Reformation in England more effectively than his injunction, issued in September, 1538, that a copy of the Bible in English of the largest size should be placed in every parish church throughout the kingdom. He was largely influenced in this momentous decision by his imperious Chancellor, Thomas Cromwell, and by Archbishop Cranmer. However his altered attitude to the Scriptures may be explained, his royal decree was fraught with stupendous consequences. Bishop Coverdale and Richard Grafton were authorised to revise the “Matthew Bible,” and in 1539 they produced what has since been known as the Great Bible or the Cranmer Bible, an elaborate introduction to the second and later editions being provided by the Archbishop. It was not until 1540 or 1541 that this superb specimen of the art of printing was ready for circulation among the eleven thousand parishes of the nation. But it was no sooner made accessible than crowds flocked eagerly to read it or hear it read. Strype, the historian of the Reformation, says “it was wonderful to see with what joy this Book of God was received not only among the learned sort, but generally, all England over, among all the vulgar and common people, and with what greediness God’s Word was read.” Seven editions of this sumptuous volume, a veritable triumph of the printer’s art, were issued in two years, and for thirty years the Great Bible remained the authorised and popular version. It was followed in 1560 by the Genevan Bible, in 1568 by the Bishop’s Bible, and in 1611 by the Authorised Version, which still remains unsuperseded and unexcelled. It is no cause for surprise, therefore, that the Christian churches wherever English is spoken should celebrate—as they will to-morrow —the 400th anniversary of the royal decree which lifted the ban from the free circulation of the Scriptures and made them accessible to all.