Whether Tyndale had in this wa}' gained any knowledge of Hebrew before he left England in 1524 may be uncertain. The fact that in 1530-31 he pub- lished a translation of Genesis, Deuteronomy, and Jo- nah (see a letter by the ven. lord Arthur Hervey to the Bury Pod of Feb. 3, 1862, transferred shortly after- wards to the Afhenceum), may be looked on as the first- fruits of his labors, the work of a man who was giving this proof of his power to translate from the original (Anderson, Annals, i, 209-288). We may perhaps trace, among other motives for the manj' wanderings of his exile, a desire to visit the cities Worms, Cologne, Hamburg, Antwerp (Anderson, p. 48-64), where the Jews lived in greatest numbers, and some of which were famous for their Hebrew learning. Of at least a fair acquaintance with that language we have, a few years later, abundant evidence in the table of Hebrew words prefixed to his translation of the five books of Moses, and in casual etymologies scattered through his other works, e. g. " INIammon" (^Parable of [Vicked Mammon, p. 68), "Cohen" {Obedience, p. 255), "Abel Mizraim" (p. 347), " Pesah" (p. 353). A remark (Pref- ace to Obedvmcs, p. 148) shows how well he had en- tei'ed into the general spirit of the language. '" The properties of the Hebrew tongue agreeth a thousand times more with the Englishe than with the Latine. The manner of speaking is in both one, so that in a thousand places thou needest not but to translate it into Enc^lishe word for word." When Spalatin de- scribes him in 1534, it is as one well-skilled in seven languages, and one of these is Hebrew (Anderson, i, 3D7).
The N. T. was, however, the great object of his care. First the gospels of Matthew and Mark were published tentatively, then in 1525 the whole of the N. T. was printed in 4to at Cologne, and in small 8vo at Worms (reproduced in fac-simile in 1862 by Mr. Francis Fry, Bristol). The work was the fruit of a self-sacrificing zeal, and the zeal was its own reward. In England it was received with denunciations. Tonstal, liishop of London, preaching at Paul's Cross, assorted that there were at least 2000 errors in it, and ordered all copies of it to be bought up and l)urnt. An act of Parliament (35 Hen. VIII, cap. 1) forbade the use of all copies of Tyndale's "false translation." Sir T. More {Dialogues, 1. c. Supplication of Souls, Confutation of TindaTs Answer) entered the lists against it, and accused the translator of heresy, bad scholarship, and dishonesty, of " corrupting Scripture after Luther's counsel." The treatment which it received from pro- fessed friends was hardly less annoying. Piratical editions were printed, often carelessly, by trading pub-
lishers at Antwerp. One of his own pupils, George Joj'e, undertook (in 1534) to improve the version by bringing it into closer conformitj' with the Vulgate, and made it the vehicle of peculiar opinions of his own, substituting " life after this life," or " verie life," for "resurrection," as the translation of dvcifrracnc. (Comp. Tyndale's indignant protest in Pref. to edition of 1534.) Even the most zealous reformers in FZng- land seemed disposed to throw his translation over- board, and encouraged Coverdale (see below) in under- taking another. In the mean time the work went on. Editions were printed one after another, namely, at Hamburg, Cologne, Worms, in 1525 ; Antwerp in 1526, '27, '28; Marlborow ( = Marburg) in 1529; Strasburg (Joj'e's edition) in 1531 ; Bergen-op-Zoom in 1533 (Joj'e's) ; John vi at Nuremberg in 1533 ; Antwerp in 1534 (Cotton, Printed Editions, p. 4-6). The last ap- peared in 1535, just before his death, " diligently com- pared with the Greek," presenting for the first time systematic chapter-headings, and with some peculiar- ities in spelling specially intended for the pronuncia- tion of the peasantry' (OflTor, Life, p. 82). His heroic life was brought to a close in 1536. We may cast one look on its sad end — the treacherous betrayal, the Ju- das-kiss of the false friend, the imprisonment at Vil- vorden, the last prayer, " Lord, open the king of Eng- land's eyes." He was tied to the stake, then stran- gled to death, and finally burnt. (See Offor's memoir prefixed to his edition of Tyndale's New Testament.)
The work to which a life was thus nobly devoted was as nobly done. To Tyndale belongs the honor of having given the first example of a translation based on true principles, and the excellence of later versions has been almost in exact proportion as they followed his. Believing that ever3' part of Scripture had one sense and one only, the sense in the mind of the writer (Obedience, p. 304), he made it his work, using all philological helps that were accessible to at- tain that sense. Believing that the duty of a transla- tor was to place his readers as nearly as possible on a level with those for whom the books were originally written, he looked on all the later theological associa- tions that had gathered :-ound the words of the N. T. as hindrances rather than helps, and sought, as far as possible, to get rid of them. Not "grace," but "fa- vor," even in John 1, 17 (in edition of 1525); not "charity," but "love;" not "confessing," but "ac- knowledging;" not "penance," but "repentance;" not "priests," but "seniors" or "elders;" not "sal- vation," but "health;" not "church," but "congre- gation," are instances of the changes Mhich were then looked on as startling and heretical innovations (Sir T. More, /. c). Some of them we are now familiar with. In others the later versions bear traces ora re- action in favor of the older phraseolog}'. In this, as in other things, Tyndale was in advance, not only of his own age, but of the age that followed him. To him, however, it is owing that the versions of the English Church have throughout been popular, and not scholastic. All the exquisite grace and simplicity which have endeared the A. V. to men of the most op- posite tempers and contrasted opinions — to J. H. New- man (Dublin Review, June, 1853) and J. A. Froudc — is due mainly to his clear-sighted truthfulness. The testimony of a Eoman Catholic scholar is worth quot- ing: "In point of ]ierspicacity and noble simplicity, propriety of idiom and purity of style, no English ver- sion has as yet surpassed it" (Geddes, Prospectus for a new Translation, p. 89). The desire to make the Bible a people's book led Tyndale in one edition to something like a provincial rather than a national translation ; but, on the whole, it kept him free from the besetting danger of the ti\ne, that of writing for scholars, not for the people ; of a version full of " ink- horn" phrases, not in the spoken language of the Eng- lish nation. And throughout there is the pervading stamp, so often wanting in other like works, of the