The question is one that, after all, can be settled only by an induction of passages on a sufficiently large scale. For that there is no room here. We give a few, taken almost at hap- hazard from the NT; some of which will show Tindale’s obvious indebtedness to previous versions. But the general impression conveyed by them will be, we think, that he used these elps as a master, and not as a servant.$
Lk 249 An nesciebatis, quod in his que patris mei sunt, oportet me esse?
i te ir nit, das ich seyn muss in dem das meins yatters is
Wist ye not that I must goo aboute my fathers busines? (Compare, as showing Tindale’s freedom, the Rhemish of 1582, closely following the Latin, ‘I must be about those things which are my father’s’),
Ac 915 Vade, quoniam organum electum est mihi iste.
Gang hyn, deni diser ist mir ein ausserwelet rustzetig.
Goo thy wayes : for he is a chosen vessell vnto me (‘vessell’ representing the Greek zevios more closely than the Latin or German).
Ac 2730.31 Nautis uero querentibus fugere e naui.. . sub pretextu uelut e prora ancoras extensuri, dixit Paulus centurioni ...
Da aber die schiffleutt die flucht suchten . . . ynd gaben fur, sy wolten ancker auss dem hinder schiff auss strecken, sprach Paulus zu dem vnderhauptman . . .
As the shipmen were about to fle out of the ship . . . vnder a coloure as though they wolde have cast ancres out of the forshippe: Paul sayd vnto the vnder captayne... (Compare ‘hinder schiff’ with ‘forshippe.’ The term ‘vynder captayne,’ for centurion, seems clearly due to the German).
Ro 218 . . . institutus ex lege; ynd weyl du auss dem gesetz vnderricht bist; in that thou arte informed by the lawe
(arnxobpsves tz rod vouov. Note ‘by’ instead of ‘out
of’).
1Co 919. . . quo plures lucrifaciam; auff das ich ir vil (=ihrer viel) gewinne; that I myght wynne the moo (more). (The comparative is rightly kept, with the Greek and Latin, against the German). '
* The English version of these nine books in ‘ Matthew’s’ Bible is not Coverdale’s, and reasons are given to show that it was by Tindale. See Moulton, p. 127.
t The reviewer in the Atheneum before referred to (May 2nd, 1885) holds very strongly that he did both, Admitting that Tindale possessed a fair knowledge of Greek, he yet insists that the wholesale borrowing of Luther’s prologues and marginal notes, in the first Cologne fragment, justifies the charge that the work was adapted from Luther. If this was done with a Greek original, and with Erasmus’ Latin rendering as an assistance, what would be done with a Hebrew original? Where could Tindale, travelling about from place to place, and busy with the publication of his treatises, find opportunities of ac- quiring a sound knowledge of so difficult a language? The reader will find in Eadie, i. pp. 143, 209, a collection of passages from various writers, conveying this imputation more or less directly.
f For this writer, sometimes latinized as Dumeus, see the ‘Index Biographicus’ to Bécking’s edition of the Epistolw Obscurorum Virorum, to which he was one of the contributors. His biographer, Hermann Hamelmann, speaks of him as the friend of Colet, More, and Fisher. Erasmus was one of his correspondents. : ¢
§ The editions used for this comparison are the third of Erasmus’ Novwm Testamentum, Basle, 1522; Luther’s Das newe Testament, ‘zu Basel, durch Adam Petri,’ 1522 (the first edition of all came out, we believe, in September 1522, at. Wittenberg) ; and Tindale’s New Testament of 1534, as reprinted in Bagster's Heaxapla.
244 VERSIONS (ENGLISH)
VERSIONS (ENGLISH)
2Co 47 Habemus autem thesaurum huncin testaceis uasculis ; in irdischen gefessen ; in erthen vessels. (Probably Tindale took ‘erthen,’ that is, of earthenware, from the German. Wyclif’s ‘ britil’ preserves one side of the Latin testacets, éorpaxivois, as referring to Gideon’s pitchers).
Vh 120 secundum expectationem; wie ich endlich wartte ; as I hertely loke for. (Tindale seems to catch the force of droxepedoxiayv, the ‘earnest expectation’ of one looking out eagerly for news). :
Phi27.. . adiuuantes decertantem fidem euangelij; vnnd sampt (sammt) vns kempfft (kimpfet) tiber dem glauben des Euangeli; labouringe as we do, to mayntayne the fayth of the gospell. iy
Ph 27. . . semetipsum inaniuit; hat sich selbs geetissert ; made him silfe of no reputacion (literally ‘emptied him- self.’ Note the freedom of the rendering). .
Ph 4°... compar germana; mein artiger geferte (mein trewer geselle, 15384); faythfull yockfelowe. (Wyclif has: ‘Also I preie & the german felowe’).
Ph 45... modestia uestra ; euwere lindigkeit ; youre softenes. (Here probably the term used is suggested by the Ger- man).
Ph 410, : . quod iam tandem reuiguit uestra pro me sollici- tudo; das ir der mals eyns wider ergrunet seyt von mir zu halten (das ir widder wacker worden seid, fur mich zu sorgen, 1534); that now at the last ye are revived agayne to care for me.
Jail... faciem natiuitatis sue; sein leiplich angesicht ; his bodyly face.
Ja 3° Ecce, exiguus ignis quantam materiam incendit; Sihe, ein klein fetir, welch einen walt ztindet es an; Beholde how gret a thinge a lyttell fyre kyndleth.
When we turn to the Old Testament there is, so far as the present writer can pretend to judge, less evidence of originality in Tindale’s translation ; but instances are not wanting to show that he did not follow blindly either Luther or the Vulgate. Sometimes he differs from both. In many cases he sides with one as against the other; sometimes mistakenly, but quite as often, we think, taking the right side. A few examples will suffice :*—