William Tyndale: A Biography

Rev. K.D. Macleod

This is a review article on WILLIAM TYNDALE: A BIOGRAPHY by David Daniell. Published by Yale University Press, 439 pages, £19.95.

ENGLISH-SPEAKING Christians owe an enormous debt to many of the great men of the past, but perhaps to no one more than to William Tyndale. It was he who first translated a great part of the Scriptures from the original Hebrew and Greek into English. Only his martyrdom in 1536 prevented him finishing the task he set himself — which he thus expressed to an ignorant cleric: “If God spare my life, ere many years I will cause a boy that driveth the plough shall know more of the Scripture than thou doest.”

Some 150 years before Tyndale’s day, John Wycliffe had published the Scriptures in English, but his translation was not from the original languages; he went no farther back than the Latin Vulgate, with all its imperfections. It served a useful purpose however, in the absence of anything better, and devoted scribes painstakingly wrote out copies of it by hand which were sent out throughout the length and breadth of the land. Tyndale had the enormous advantage of the invention of printing, and he used the presses of Europe to pour out copies of his English translations, which then flooded into the kingdoms of England and Scotland through the various ports on the east coast.

Daniell does not write from Tyndale’s doctrinal perspective; rather, as a Professor of English in the University of London, he focuses more on the literary achievements of his subject. Yet he is remarkably sympathetic to Tyndale’s position; though a passage beginning, “The fault of Adam hath made us heirs of the vengeance and wrath of God, and heirs of eternal damnation. And hath brought us into captivity and bondage under the devil”, is too much for him. For Daniell the Bible is an important volume with much to teach us, but unlike Tyndale he does not accept the inspiration of Scripture. Tyndale had found life for his soul in these Scriptures and it was his earnest desire that multitudes of his fellow-countrymen would find that same life also. Not surprisingly he writes thus in his To the Reader which he appended to his 1526 edition of the English New Testament: “Give diligence Reader (I exhort thee) that thou come with a pure mind, and as the scripture saith with a single eye, unto the words of health, and of eternal life: by the which (if we repent and believe them) we are born anew, created afresh, and enjoy the fruits of the blood of Christ. Which blood crieth not for vengeance, as the blood of Abel: but hath purchased life, love, favour, grace, blessing and whatever is promised in the scriptures.” (Daniell has also produced editions in modern

spelling of both Tyndale’s New Testament and Tyndale’s Old Testament).

The author follows Tyndale from his birth, probably in 1494, in Gloucestershire, through his university career, his time at Little Sodbury manor as tutor to the family of Sir John Walsh — where he uttered his famous words about the ploughboy and also preached in the neighbourhood. Then on to London, where he hoped to begin translation work under the auspices of Bishop Tunstall, but, as Tyndale himself put it, he “understood at the last not only that there was no room in my lord of London’s palace to translate the New Testament, but also that there was no place to do it in all England”.

After Tyndale’s flight from London we next find him in Cologne. From there he had again to flee to escape arrest, just as the sheets of the Gospel of Matthew in English were passing through the press. From then on he had no settled dwelling place but, in spite of so many adverse circumstances during these last ten years of freedom, he completed his New Testament translation, went on to produce a revision of it (“the glory of his life’s work”, Daniell calls it) and proceeded with his translation of the Old Testament as far as Nehemiah, with Jonah besides, before he was betrayed by Henry Phillips, a spy sent by the authorities in England.

After a 15-month imprisonment Tyndale was condemned as a heretic and handed over to be burnt at the stake. Says John Foxe the martyrologist, “Such was the power of his doctrine and the sincerity of his life that during the time of his imprisonment . . . it is said he converted the keeper, the keeper’s daughter and others of his household. Also the rest that were conversant with Tyndale in the castle reported of him that, if he were not a good Christian man, they could not tell whom to trust.” So lived and so died one of England’s greatest sons. His words at the stake have often been quoted: “Lord, open the King of England’s eyes.”

Perhaps the most important feature of the book is Daniell’s high praise for the quality of Tyndale’s translation work. “The impact of this New Testament”, Daniell tells us, “was, and is still, so splendid in its accuracy and its clear, memorable English.” Much of Tyndale’s version survives today in our Authorised Version, such was the excellence of his work. Listen, for instance, to part of Tyndale’s version of John 10 (in modern spelling): “I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd giveth his life for the sheep. An hired servant, which is not the shepherd, neither the sheep are his own, seeth the wolf coming, and leaveth the sheep, and flyeth, and the wolf catcheth them, and scattereth the sheep.” This passage illustrates Tyndale’s capacity to give rhythm to his translation, a point which Daniell makes again and again. Daniell’s tendency to criticise the changes which the AV translators made to Tyndale’s version reflects his enthusiasm for Tyndale’s use of English, but he underrates the

greater accuracy of the AV. Daniell’s analysis of the literary qualities of Tyndale’s translation, and of such of his writings as The Obedience of a Christian Man may at times become somewhat tedious, but it is good to have a tribute of this kind to a man who, because he had such a single-eyed desire for the glory of God, endured so many hardships to carry out his life’s work.

It was that desire which made him attack the ecclesiastical abuses of the time. He complained about the Pope making seven years in purgatory the penalty for every deadly sin and then selling relief from it for money: “Thus is sin become the profitablest merchandise in the world”! And “all the promises of God have they either wiped clean out or thus leavened with open lies to establish their confession withal. And to keep us from the knowledge of the truth, they do all thing in latin . . . only curse they in the English tongue.” There is wit in Tyndale’s attack and it is devastating, but if he opposes abuses and false doctrines such as “that cankered heresy of justifying of works” it is so that he may direct his readers to a better way, the way of Scripture: “And when the gospel is preached unto us we believe the mercy of God, and in believing we receive the spirit of God, which is the earnest of eternal life, and we are in eternal life already, and feel already in our hearts the sweetness thereof, and are overcome with the kindness of God and Christ and therefore love the will of God, and of love are ready to work freely, and not to obtain that which is given us freely and whereof we are heirs already.”

Daniell also makes useful historical points. For instance: “Modern champions of the Catholic position like to support a view of the Reformation, that it was entirely a political imposition by a ruthless minority in power against both the traditions and the wishes of the pious lay people of England, with its claim that, if matters had not been interfered with, the Church in its reforming wisdom would have got round to issuing a vernacular Bible in its own time.” He goes on to show in detail how weak is the evidence for such a position and concludes, “Only when the whole Bible . . . was printed in English could it be seen that the Bible preceded the Church and gave it all its authority.” Which was Tyndale’s position; writing against Sir Thomas More (who became Lord Chancellor of England and was a vicious enemy of Tyndale) he declared, “Judge therefore reader whether the pope with his be the church, whether their authority be above scripture, whether all they teach without scripture be equal with the scripture, whether they have erred and not only whether they can”, for the Church must be judged by Scripture — a doctrine which made Tyndale even more dangerous to Rome.

John Frith, who himself suffered martyrdom three years before Tyndale, is quoted bearing witness to Tyndale’s learning: “For his learning and judgement

in Scripture he were more worthy to be promoted than all the bishops in England.” Daniell pays special tribute to Tyndale’s Hebrew learning: “There can be no doubt at all that Tyndale was a remarkable Hebrew scholar, and, by the standards of Englishmen of the 1520s, astonishing.” It was a learning which he consecrated to the great purpose of giving the Scriptures to his countrymen in the only language which they could understand.

Daniell’s book is one more stone added to Tyndale’s memorial, but would-be readers should have a serious interest in Reformation history. Were it written from a perspective closer to Tyndale’s understanding of the Scriptures and illuminated by his faith in a living Saviour, it would be an even more worthy contribution. Yet everyone who comes to a living faith in Christ through the English Scriptures is a more lasting memorial to this godly man to whom all succeeding generations in the English-speaking world owe so much.

Charity Towards the Ignorant

From an old author

Extracted from The Alarm (No. 11, 1855), which was published for some time by the Rev. Jonathan Rankin Anderson (1803-59), minister of Kirkfield Chapel and then of John Knox Church, both in Glasgow, and author of Sermons on Sacramental Occasions.

I WOULD therefore have much charity exercised towards such persons as are going ignorantly on with a course of defection, even although they should live and die so, without making any public acknowledgement of the same; providing they are:

1. Sound in their judgement with respect to all the fundamental articles of the true Christian faith, which are necessary to be believed and practised, in order to glorify God and obtain salvation, in the way that it is offered to sinners in the gospel.

2. Of a tender conversation, and exercised unto godliness, and students of holiness.

3. Tender, careful, and honest, in holding fast such truths as they know to be truths; by opposing and refusing to comply with such things as they know to be sinful; or to give themselves away to neutrality and indifference.

And I would have this a rule to be well observed by all who are professing the name of Jesus in sincerity and in truth: to love all who, in the judgement of charity, seem to have anything of the likeness and image of God restored unto them. For to whom God shows mercy, His people should show love and charity; not by joining with such as are going on in courses of defection, in church communion, either in public congregations or private fellowship meetings, for that I hold to be sinful; but, by praying for, sympathising with, and administering comfort to them, either in their inward or outward distresses, and bearing love and affection to them.