Voluntarily, therefore, in May 1524, Tindale exiled himself, and after a short stay at Hamburg seems to have visited Luther at Wittenberg. In any case, there can be no doubt that in 1525 he was at Cologne, engaged in bringing out a com- plete edition of the NT. His plan was, however, discovered by a certain priest John Cochloeus, and he and his assistant Roye had barely time to secure the precious sheets already printed, and carrj' them otl' to Worms, where either in the same or the following year 3000 copies of the first printed English NT were issued from the press of P. Schoetl'er the younger. The size of the book had been altered from quarto to octavo, probably to escape detection ; but shortly afterwards the original quarto edition, whose printing had been interrupted in Cologne, was also completed. Copies of both editions were immediately despatched to England, where they were eagerly welcomed. But so vigorous were the steps taken against them that of the octavo edition only one complete copy (with the exception of the title-page) remains ;t while the aiiarto is known to exist only in a single fragment [Ut l'-22''^).:;:
After the issue of his Testaments, Tindale quietly continued his work abroad, publishing a translation of The Five Books of Moses at Marburg in 1530, and The Book of Jonah with an interest- ing Prologue in 1531. § An edition of the Book of Genesis ' newly corrected and amended ' appeared in 1534, and in the same year there was published at Antwerp, ' The Newe Testament dyl ygc'ntl3' corrected and compared with theGreek by Willyam Tindale,' in which were included certain 'Epistles,' or extracts, out of the OT, a Table of Epistles and
• See William Tyndale, a Biography, by It Demaus, new ed. bv Lovett, 18S6, p. 24.
t N'ow in the Library of the Baptist College at Bristol, and reproduced in facsimile in 1S62 by Mr. F. Fry. It was pre- vioualy reprinted with an introduction by O. Offor in ISIiC.
I Preserved in the Grenville Kooni of the British Museum, and jjhoto-litho^raphed and published with a valuable intro- auction by E. Arber in 1S71.
$ The former haa been reprinted under the editorship of Dr. tlombert, and the latter in facsimile with an introduction by Ur. Fry.
Gospels for Sundays, and ' some things added ' tt fill up the blank pages at the end. The book wa» thus in .some respects more like a modern Church Seri'ice Book than an ordinary Testaiuent, while the improvements introduced into the text fidly justltied the translator's claim that he had ' weeded out of it many faults which lack of help at the beginning, and oversight, did sow therein.' Thia edition has well been described as Tindale'a ' noblest monument ' ; but not even yet was hia work of revision completed. In 1535 there ap- peared what is often known as ' the G. H. Testa- ment' from the initials attached to the second title-page, and which were first interpreted by Mr. Bradshaw (18S1) as denoting G. van der Haghen, the Antwerp publisher. In this edition the 1534 text was ' yet once agayne corrected by Willyam Tindale,' the corrections (there are said to be about four hundred of them) proving by their very minuteness the translator's fidelity and zeal. Another NT bearing the same date (1535) is re- markable for its peculiar orthography, sometimes thought to have been purposely adapted to the pionunciation of the peasantry (e.i/. 'laether' for ' father,' ' hueme ' or ' hoome ' for ' home '), but in all probability caused by the mistakes of some Flemish printer in setting up a foreign language. As further showing the rapid spread of Tindale'a translations, it may be mentioned that in the fol- lowing year (1536) seven, if not eight, editions of his NT appeared, one of which (in lolio) is believed to have been the first portion of the Holy Scrip- tures jorinicrf in England.*
Tliere was to be no return, however, for Tindale himself to wliat he pathetically calls ' mine natural country,' for, having been betrayed into the hands of his enemies and imprisoned for about a year at Vilvorde, near Brussels, he sufi'ered martyrdom on Friday, 6th Oct. 1536. With his last words he prayed, ' Lord ! open the king of England's eyes.'
It is impossible here to examine in detail Tin- dale's service to the cause of Bible translation, but one or two points may be indicated. (1) Foremost amongst these is the independence of his work. Attempts have been made to under- estimate this, and more particularly to prove him on the one hand ' merely a full-grown Wyclitfe,' and on the other to show how largely he borrowed from the German Testament of Luther. But while Purveys revision undoubtedly inliuenced him indirectly by supplying many proverbial ex- pressions and technical terms which through it had become current, and Lulher'a Testament, more especially in its Prefaces and marginal Notes, was freely consulted and used, Tindale was too good a scholar to be slavishly dependent on any one.t and can justly claim the honour of being the first in England at any rate (with the possible exception of Bede) to go straight to the ilebrew and Greek originals.^ (2) If, however, in his own work he was largely independent of others, his influence on those who followed him was direct and unmistakable. Thus it is to him that we owe in great part our religious vocabulary, § and, what is even more important, that freedom from dog-