APPENDIX.
(A.)
PURVEY’S PROLOGUE TO THE WYCLIFFITE BIBLE (1388?)
CHAPTER XV.
[130] For as much as Christ saith that the gospel shall be preached in all the world, and David saith of the Apostles and their preaching, “the sound of them went out into each land, and the words of them went out into the ends of the world;” and again David saith, “The Lord shall tell in the Scriptures of peoples and of these princes that were in it;”[131] that is, in holy Church, as Jerome saith on that verse, “Holy writ is the Scripture of peoples, for it is made that all peoples should know it;” and the princes of the Church that were therein be the apostles that had authority to write holy writ; for by that same that the Apostles wrote their Scriptures by authority and confirming of the Holy Ghost, it is holy Scripture and faith of Christian men, and this dignity hath no man after them, be he never so holy, never so cunning, as Jerome witnesseth on that verse. Also Christ saith of the Jews that cried Hosanna to Him in the temple, that though they were still stones should cry; and by stones He understandeth heathen men that worshipped stones for their gods. And we Englishmen be come of heathen men, therefore we be understood by these stones that should cry holy writ; and as Jews, interpreted acknowledging[132], signify clerks that should make acknowledgment to God by repentance of sins and by voice of God’s praise, so our lewd (lay, or unlearned) men, suing (following) the corner-stone Christ, may be signified by stones that be hard and abiding in the foundation; for though covetous clerks be wood (wild, or mad), by simony, heresy, and many other sins, and despise and stop holy writ as much as they can, yet the lewd people cry after holy writ to ken it and keep it with great cost and peril of their life.
For these reasons and other, with common charity to save all men in our realm which God would have saved, a simple creature hath translated the Bible out of Latin into English. First this simple creature had much travail, with divers fellows and helpers, to gather many old Bibles, and other doctors and common glosses, and to make one Latin Bible some deal true; and then to study it anew, the text with the gloss and other doctors as he might get, and especially Lyra on the Old Testament, that helped full much in this work; the third time to counsel with old grammarians and old divines of hard words and hard sentences, how they might best be understood and translated; the fourth time to translate as clearly as he could to the sentence,[133] and to have many good fellows and cunning at the correcting of the translation. First it is to know that the best translating out of Latin into English is to translate after the sentence, and not only after the words, so that the sentence be as open, either opener, in English as in Latin, and go not far from the letter; and if the letter may not be sued (followed) in the translating, let the sentence be ever whole and open, for the words ought to serve to the intent and sentence, and else the words be superfluous or false. In translating into English many resolutions may make the sentence open, as an ablative case absolute may be resolved into these three words, with convenable (suitable) verb, the while, for if, as grammarians say, as thus: the master reading, I stand, may be resolved thus, while the master readeth I stand, or, if the master readeth, &c., or, for the master, &c.; and sometime it would accord well with the sentence to be resolved into when or into afterward, thus, when the master read I stood, or, after the master read I stood; and sometime it may well be resolved into a verb of the same tense as others be in the same clause, and into this word et; that is, and in English, as thus, arescentibus hominibus prae timore; that is, and men should wax dry for dread. Also a participle of a present tense or preterite of active voice or passive may be resolved into a verb of the same tense and a conjunction copulative, as thus, dicens; that is, saying may be resolved thus, and saith, or, that saith; and this will in many places make the sentence open, where to English it, after the verb, would be dark and doubtful. Also a relative, which may be resolved into his antecedent with a conjunction copulative, as thus, which runneth, and he runneth. Also when one word is once set in a clause it may be set forth as often as it is understood, or as often as reason and need ask. And this word autem, or vero, may stand for forsooth, or for but, and thus I use commonly; and sometime it may stand for and, as old grammarians say. Also when rightful construction is let (prevented) by relation, I resolve it openly; thus where this clause Dominum formidabunt adversarii ejus should be Englished thus by the letter, the Lord His adversaries shall dread, I English it thus by resolution, the adversaries of the Lord shall dread Him; and so of other clauses that be like.
At the beginning I purposed, with God’s help, to make the sentence as true and open in English as it is in Latin, or more true and more open than it is in Latin; and I pray for charity and for common profit of Christian souls, that if any wise man find any default of the truth of translation, let him set in the true sentence and open of holy writ, but look that he examine truly his Latin Bible; for no doubt he shall find full many Bibles in Latin full false, if he look many, namely, new;[134] and the common Latin Bibles have more need to be corrected, as many as I have seen in my life than the English Bible late translated. And where the Hebrew, by witness of Jerome, of Lyra, and other expositors discordeth from our Latin Bibles, I have set in the margin, by manner of a gloss, what the Hebrew hath, and how it is understood in some place; and I did this most in the Psalter, that of all our books discordeth most from the Hebrew; for the church readeth not the Psalter by the last translation of Jerome, out of Hebrew into Latin, but another translation by other men, that had much less cunning and holiness than Jerome had; and in full few books the church readeth the translation of Jerome, as it may be proved by the proper originals of Jerome which he glossed. And where I have translated as openly or openlier in English as in Latin, let wise men deme (judge) that know well both languages, and know well the sentence of holy Scripture. And whether I have done thus or not, no doubt they that ken well the sentence of holy writ and English together, and will travail with God’s grace thereabout, may make the Bible as true and as open, yea, and openlier, in English as in Latin. And no doubt to a simple man, with God’s grace and great travail, men might expound much openlier and shortlier the Bible in English, than the old great doctors have expounded it in Latin, and much sharplier and groundlier than many late postillators, or expositors have done. But God of His great mercy, give us grace to live well, and to see the truth in convenable manner, and acceptable to God and His people, and to spell out our time, be it short, be it long, at God’s ordinance.