246
Three other points require elucidation: the meaning of the capital letters I. R. subscribed to the ‘Exhortacyon,’ of W. T. at the end of the Old Testament, and of the name Thomas Matthew on the title-page. The initials may be taken, with all but absolute certainty, to denote John Rogers and William Tindale. Rogers, a native of Deritend, near Birmingham, where he was born about 1500, after graduating from Pembroke Hall, Cambridge, the college of Whitgift, Bradford, and Ridley, had gone out, at the end of 1534, to be chaplain to the English factory at Antwerp. There, according to Foxe (Acts and Mon. vi. 591), he came under the influence of Tindale and Ooverdale to such an extent as to join them ‘in that painful and most profitable labour of translating the Bible into the English tongue, which is entitled ‘‘ The Translation of Thomas Matthew.”’ As Rogers moved on to Wittenberg soon after 1536, it is doubt- ful whether he could have had much personal intercourse at Antwerp with Coverdale ; but itis highly probable that Tindale, who suffered October 6th, 1536, may have given his manuscript versions and the like into the hands of Rogers at his first arrest. John Rogers, it may be added, was the first to suffer in Le Marian persecution, being burnt at Smithfield, February
555.
Why, assuming that the Bible before us was edited by John Rogers, it should have been put forth under the name of Thomas Matthew, is not easy to explain. Some have supposed it to bea disguise for William Tindale, whose name, if openly given asthe author of the greater part of the version, would have roused opposition in high quarters. Others, that it was the real name ot a sharer in the work. Both suppositions seem negatived by the fact that, in the register recording the arrest of John Rogers later on, he is described as John Rogers alias Matthew. The same motive that made him veil the name of Tindale under initials, might lead him to suppress his own.
An examination of the contents of the book shows that the Pentateuch and NT are certainly Tindale’s, with slight variations, the latter having been taken, as Westcott has shown (pp. 183, 184), from the revised ed. of 1535. With equal certainty the books from Ezra to Malachi inclusive, and the Apocrypha (excepting the Prayer of Manasses), may be assigned to Coverdale.’ The books from Joshua to 2 Chronicles inclusive present a difficulty. It might have been expected that they would be taken from Coverdale’s version, that being the only English version as yet extant in print. Ag a matter of fact, however, they are evidently not so taken. And it has been shown, by a com- parison of renderings of identical words found in Tindale’s Pentatench and < Epistles,’ as well as in
* Note in the Brit. Mus. Catalogue. Mr. Sidney Lee (art. ‘John Rogers’ in Dict. of Nat. Biogr.) assigns the work to the press of Jacob van Meteren,
tJenkyns, Remains, vol. i. p. 197.
t An edition of Coverdale’s Bible in 4to (the first printed in that size), by James Nycolson, of Southwark, which appeared in this same year, 1537, had also the notification : ‘Set forth with the Kynges most gracious licence,’
VERSIONS (ENGLISH)
these historical books, that the version must almost certainly be Tindale’s. It has already been men- tioned as probable that Tindale, at or before his arrest, would consign his unfinished translations, and the like, to the care of John Rogers.
As to the Prayer of Manasses, which was omitted by Coverdale, the translation may very well be set down to Rogers himself. It owes much to Olivetan’s rendering in the French Bible of 1535. Rogers executed his task of general super- vision as editor well and carefully.* But the controversial character of his annotations, and his inclusion, almost unaltered, of Tindale’s Prologue to Romans, were probably among the causes which led to the production of the ‘Great’ Bible.
Tavyerner’s Bible.—In the same year as the Great Bible, 1539, appeared a new edition, which, from its close relation to Matthew’s, it will be con- venient to examine first. Its title runs: + ‘The most | sacred Bible, | whiche is the holy scripture, con|teyning the old and new testament, | translated in to English and newly | recognised with great diligence | after most faythful exempplars by Rychard Taverner. | Harken thou heuen... Esaiei. | Prynted at London in Fletestrete at | the sygne of the sonne by John Bydjdell for Thomas Barthlet. | Cum privilegio . . | M-D-xxxIx.’
The title is followed by 15 leaves, not num- bered, of which the first’ has on the recto an Address to Henry vVur., on the verso ‘an Exhor- tacion’; the next ‘the Contentes of the Scripture,’ and the remainder ‘The names of the Bokes,’ ete., followed by ‘A Table of the principall maters con- teyned in the Byble.’ From Gn 1 the numeration of leaves begins, ending with ‘Salomons Ballet’ at eexxx. The prophets are numbered afresh, to the end of Malachi, at lxxxxi. The Apocrypha and NT have each a separate title-page, and number Ixxv and ci leaves respectively ; three unnumbered leaves of ‘Table’ completing the work.
In the Address to Henry vi. the king is described as ‘in erth supreme heed immediately vnder Chryst of the churche of England’; and among all his services to religion it is declared that none is greater than his sanction of the English Bible. Being essentially a ‘new recognition’ of Matthew’s Bible, we do not look for much originality in Taverner’s work. But he gives himself a much freer hand than some suppose. The more violent con- troversial remarks in his predecessor’s notes are softened down, or omitted. Thus, in the ‘Table of the principall maters,’ Matthew began his sec- tion on Altars with the words, ‘An aulter was neuer commaunded to be made, but only to God,’ and ended with, ‘So we have no aulter but Christ.’ Taverner begins, ‘An aulter was commaunded to be made to God,’ and leaves out the concluding sentence. Under ‘Purgatorye’ Matthew wrote, ‘He then that wyl pourge hys synnes through fyer or by any other meanes then ‘by the passyon of Christ, denyeth hys sayd passyon . . . and shal be greuously punyshed, because he hath despysed. so greate a grace.’ ‘Taverner omits the section alto- gether. The last chapter of Acts ends on leaf liiii ; Romans begins on lxi. The inference natu-- rally is that an intermediate sheet of six leaves had been meant to contain Tindale’s Prologue to Romans, but had been cancelled.