William Tyndale – his legacy

A talk by Stephen Goodall

I find myself in a similar position to Ulysses when he was trying to steer a course between the two great whirlpools, Scylla and Charybdis. For the history of Tyndale has been covered brilliantly by Eric Carpenter on the one hand and I am not licensed to preach, on the other. So almost anything I say will put me in grave danger of being burnt at the stake. A great friend of mine, who for several years trained the non-stipendiary ordinands in Gloucestershire once said to me, “The hardest thing facing us who profess to be Christians is to lead a truly Christian Life.” I am sure that this is true, but it has always seemed to me that the first step of understanding what true Christianity is can be for many much, much harder.

It is in this context that I am going to approach the task set for me tonight, and that is Tyndale’s legacy to us simple folk of Gloucestershire – a legacy that for many, many years few were prepared to recognise fully. For instance, it was not until 1995 that the Tyndale Society was founded to tell people of his great work – a society that now has members all over the world.

At this point I should like to take us back to the year 1515, the year Tyndale left Oxford University, and imagine that we are in this church for the evening service. Most of us are men of the soil, farmers, craftsmen of those trades associated with the land and people from the simple businesses to do with keeping the community alive. Very few of us can read apart from the clergy, the squire and perhaps a lawyer and the apothecary. Indeed, there was no universal education for another 340 years!

The village and its surround was owned mostly by the Berkeley family and the Church. We were all dependant on these two for our well-being. The church we are in tonight had been in existence for over 200 years, although it was somewhat smaller. There were no pews apart maybe from the squire’s, so people stood or kneeled during the service. There was no heating apart perhaps for a brazier. The old people could "go to the wall" and rest on the niches incorporated there.

But we went to church, no doubt because the squire insisted and the rector said our souls would be in jeopardy if we did not. And, “Oh yes, Mr Smith, your tithes will be increased.” No doubt we were also very superstitious about our potential fate, and we did not.

But the service was in a language we did not understand – Latin and the bible from which the “lessons” came was also in Latin. Imagine today, if that was the case – how many of you understand Latin even though you have all had an education.

How are we understand the true meaning of the “Word of God,” the Ten Commandments, the teachings of the sermon on the mount and the parables?

Tyndale, who was at that service with us was appalled. But why was it so?

In part it was because most of the clergy just did not care. They received their tithes and rents, indeed the bishops, priors and prelates were extremely wealthy. The squires probably thought it was wrong for people to understand too much and the Latin provided a very convenient cloak to hide behind. And the Bible used, the Vulgate Bible, was written very much with the Roman/Papal establishment in mind.

Tyndale came back to Gloucestershire as tutor to a family after his time at the Universities. He disturbed the local divines by routing them with his knowledge of the true meaning of the scripture, indeed the historian of the martyrs, Foxe, records that on one occasion Tyndale said to one man who implied that the Pope was more important than God – “I defy the Pope and all his laws. – 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.”

This was of course heresy in that time, and on this being spread around Tyndale eventually had to move to the continent to carry through his great work.

Tyndale was convinced that Christianity was a Covenant between God and his people – a direct relationship into which the clergy should not interpose themselves – Guidance by the clergy, Yes. But you cannot do that in Latin!

He was an outstanding scholar with a remarkable gift for languages and the true meaning of languages. He saw that the Vulgate Bible did not reflect the true message of the Gospels, Acts and Epistles and that one had to go to the original Greek and Hebrew to translate God’s Word correctly.

One of the most interesting and I would suggest useful things that he incorporated into his New Testament was to write an Introduction at the beginning of his New Testament and to some of the Epistles.

These are most illuminating. For instance his first sentence – “W.T. unto the Reader.” “Here thou hast most dear reader the New Testament or covenant made with us of God in Christ’s blood.”

Again – “The right way: yea and the only way to understand the scripture unto our salvation, is, that we earnestly and above all thing, search for the profession of an baptism or covenants between God and us:

As for an example Christ saith (Matt 5) Happy are the merciful for they shall obtain mercy. Lo, here God has made a covenant with us —”

And again – and this is the very nub of our Christianity – “All the whole law which was given to XXXXX our corrupt nature is comprehended in the Ten Commandments. And the Ten Commandments are comprehended in these two – “Love God and thy neighbour.’”

His words come through so clear and easy to comprehend. His English is brilliant’ perhaps this is demonstrated by the fact that our Authorised Version was taken very largely from his translation, and that attempts to “Latinise” parts failed to hid this –his contribution to our wonderful language is arguably as great as that of Shakespeare.

Just a few examples –

And God said, “Let there be light.”

”Ask, and it shall be given you, seek and ye shall find.”

“In him we live and move and have our being.”

Not a word there with a Latin root!! And his wonderful opening to St John that we all know so well.

Tyndale made his feelings clear about the value of English in his book, The Obedience of a Christian Man, a book that Anne Boleyn gave her royal husband to read and which some contend had a major impact on the Reformation –

“They will say the Bible cannot be translated into our tongue, it is so rude. It is not so rude as they are false liars. For the Greek tongue agreeth more with English than with Latain. And the properties of the Hebrew tongue agreeth a thousand times more with the English than with the Latin.”

And so you and I, simple Gloucestershire folk now have that wonderful legacy of his to guide us to true Christianity. And for those who find that difficult, his fine, pure English language.

It is perhaps typical of this perverse human world in which we live that he was martyred in 1535 and one of his principal accusers, Sir Thomas More, was made a saint by the Roman Church in 1935.