Having given a brief outline of the history of Tyndale’s Testament, we are now in a position to examine into the grounds upon which the ecclesiastical authorities of England condemned it. For this purpose, we need again hardly go beyond the works of Sir Thomas More, who in several of his tracts deals specifically with this subject. “Tyndale’s false translation of the New Testament,” he says, “was, as he himself confesses, translated with such changes as he has made in it purposely, to the intent that by those changed words the people should be led into the opinions which he himself calls true Catholic faith, but which all true Catholic people call very false and pestilent heresies.” After saying that for this reason this translation was rightly condemned by the clergy and openly burnt at Paul’s Cross, he continues: “The faults are so many in Tyndale’s translation of the New Testament, and so spread throughout the whole book, that it were as easy to weave a new web of cloth or to sew up every hole in a net, so would it be less labour to translate the whole book anew than to make in his translation as many changes as there needs must be before it were made a good translation. Besides this, no wise man, I fancy, would take bread which he well knew had once been poisoned by his enemy’s hand, even though he saw his friend afterwards sweep it ever so clean.… For when it had been examined, considered, and condemned by those to whom the judgment and ordering of the thing belonged, and that false poisoned translation had been forbidden to the people,” it would be the height of presumption for any one to encourage the people boldly to resist their prince and disobey their prelates, and give them, as some indeed have, such a poor reason as this, “that poisoned bread is better than no bread.”[260]
Further, in speaking with sorrow of the flood of heretical literature which seemed ever growing in volume, Sir Thomas More writes: “Besides the works in Latin, French, and German, there are made in the English tongue, first, Tyndale’s New Testament, father of them all, because of his false translations, and after that the five books of Moses, translated by the same man, we need not doubt in what manner, when we know by whom and for what purpose. Then you have his introduction to St. Paul’s Epistle, with which he introduces his readers to a false understanding of St. Paul, making them, among many other heresies, believe that St. Paul held that faith alone was sufficient for salvation, and that men’s good works were worth nothing and could deserve no reward in heaven, though they were done in grace.”[261]
Again, he says: “In the beginning of my Dyalogue, I have shown that Tyndale’s translation of the New Testament deserved to be burnt, because itself showed that he had translated it with an evil mind, and in such a way that it might serve him as the best means of teaching such heresies as he had learnt from Luther, and intended to send over hither and spread abroad within this realm. To the truth of my assertion, Tyndale and his fellows have so openly testified that I need in this matter no further defence. For every man sees that there was never any English heretical book sent here since, in which one item of their complaint has not been the burning of Tyndale’s Testament. For of a surety they thought in the first place that his translation, with their further false construction, would be the bass and the tenor wherever they would sing the treble with much false descant.”[262]
To take some instances of the false translations to which More reasonably objects: First, Tyndale substitutes for Church the word Congregation, “a word with no more signification in Christendom than among the Jews or Turks.” After protesting that Tyndale has no right to change the signification of a word, as, for example, to speak of “a football,” and to mean “the world,” More continues: “Most certainly the word Congregation, taken in conjunction with the text, would not, when he translated it first, have served to make the English reader understand by it the Church any more than when he uses the word idols for images, or images for idols, or the word repenting for doing penance, which he also does. And indeed he has since added to his translation certain notes, viz., that the order of the priesthood is really nothing, but that every man, woman, and child is a priest as much as a real priest, and that every man and woman may consecrate the body of Christ, and say mass as well as a priest, and hear confessions and absolve as well as a priest can; and that there is no difference between priests and other folks, but that all are one congregation and company without any difference, save appointment to preach.”
This enables men to understand “what Tyndale means by using the word Congregation in his translation in place of Church. They also see clearly by these circumstances that he purposely changed the word to set forth these his heresies, though he will say he takes them for no heresies. But, on the other hand, all good and faithful people do, and therefore they call the Church the Church still, and will not agree to change the old Church for his new Congregation.”[263]
In reply to Tyndale’s claim to be able to use the word Congregation to signify the Church, More declares that words must be used in their ordinary signification. “I say,” he writes, “that this is true of the usual signification of these words in the English tongue, by the common custom of us English people that now use these words in our language, or have used them before our days. And I say that this common custom and usage of speech is the only way by which we know the right and proper signification of any word. So much so that if a word were taken from Latin, French, or Spanish, and from lack of understanding the tongue from which it came, was used in English for something else than it signified in the other tongue; then in England, whatsoever it meant anywhere else, it means only what we understand it. Then, I say, that in England this word Congregation never did signify the body of Christian people … any more than the word assembly, which has been taken from French … as congregation is from the Latin.… I say now that the word Church never has been used to signify in the ordinary speech of this realm, any other than the body of all those that are christened. For this reason, and more especially because of Tyndale’s evil intent, I said, and still say, that he did wrong to change Church for Congregation; a holy word for a profane one, so far as they have signification in our English tongue, into which Tyndale made his translation.…[264]
“If Tyndale had done it either accidentally, or purposely merely for pleasure, and not with an evil intent, I would never have said a word against it. But inasmuch as I perceive that he has been with Luther, and was there at the time when he so translated it, and because I knew well the malicious heresies that Luther had begun to bring forth, I must needs mistrust him in this change. And now I say that even from his own words here spoken, you may perceive his cankered mind in his translation, for he says that Demetrius had gathered a company against Paul for preaching against images. Here the Christian reader may easily perceive the poison of this serpent. Every one knows that all good Christian people abhor the idols of the false pagan gods, and also honour the images of Christ and our Lady, and other holy saints. And as they call the one sort images, so they call the other sort idols. Now, whereas St. Paul preached against idols, this good man comes and says he preached against images. And as he here speaks, even so he translates, for in the 15th chapter of St. Paul to the Corinthians, where St. Paul says, ‘I have written to you that ye company not together … if any that is called a brother be … a worshipper of idols’—there Tyndale translates worshipper of images. Because he would have it seem that the Apostle had in that place forbidden Christian men to worship images.… Here you may see the sincerity and plain meaning of this man’s translation.”[265]…
“As he falsely translated Ecclesia into the unknown word congregation, in places where he should have translated it into the known word of holy Church, and this with a malicious purpose to set forth his heresy of the secret and unknown church wherein is neither good works nor sacraments, in like manner is it now proved, in the same way and with like malice, he has translated idols into images … to make it seem that Scripture reprobates the goodly images of our Saviour Himself and His holy saints.… Then he asks me why I have not contended with Erasmus whom he calls my darling, for translating this word Ecclesia into the word congregatio.… I have not contended with Erasmus, my darling, because I found no such malicious intent with Erasmus, my darling, as I found with Tyndale; for had I found with Erasmus, my darling, the cunning intent and purpose that I found with Tyndale, Erasmus, my darling, should be no more ‘my darling.’ But I find in Erasmus, my darling, that he detests and abhors the errors and heresies that Tyndale plainly teaches and abides by, and therefore Erasmus, my darling, shall be my darling still.… For his translation of Ecclesia by congregatio is nothing like Tyndale’s, for the Latin tongue had no Latin word used for Church, but the Greek word, Ecclesia, therefore Erasmus, in his new translation gave it a Latin word. But we in our English had a proper English word for it, and therefore there was no cause for Tyndale to translate it into a worse. Erasmus, moreover, meant therein no heresy, as appears by his writings against heretics, but Tyndale, intended nothing else thereby, as appears by the heresies that he himself teaches and abides by. Therefore, there was in this matter no cause for me to contend with Erasmus, as there was to contend with Tyndale, with whom I contended for putting ‘congregation’ instead of ‘Church.’”[266]