THE SCHOLAR WHO OUTSTRIPPED HIS TEACHER.
"Meek souls there are who little deem
Their daily strife an Angel's theme,
Or that the rod they take so calm
Shall prove in heaven a martyr's palm.”
—KEBLE.
“The voice of Nature never goes to the heart until it blend with the voice of Scripture."—PHILIP.
“It is by celestial observation alone that terrestrial charts can be Constructed."—COLERIDGE.
HARD FARE MAKES FIRM MEN—WHAT ERASMUS WISHED, AND TYNDALE ACCOMPLISHED—WEALTH MADE THE TEST OF TRUTH—A MAN OF PUTTY HELPING A MAN OF IRON—DRIVEN AWAY, BUT NOT CONQUERED.
AT an early age William Tyndale was sent to Oxford, where he was entered at Magdalen Hall. Here we can perhaps picture him from the words of Thomas Lever, who in a sermon which was preached later describes the University life of his day. With some modifications, it may perhaps stand for Tyndale's experience:— “There are divers there which rise daily between four and five o'clock in the morning, and from five II until six o'clock use common prayer, with an exhortation of God, and in a common chapel. From six until ten o'clock they use either private study or common lectures. At ten of the clock they go to dinner, whereat they be content with a greasy piece of beef amongst four, having a few pottage made of the broth of the same beef, with salt and oatmeal, and nothing else. After this slender dinner, they be either teaching or learning until five of the clock in the evening, when they have a supper not much better than their dinner. Immediately after which they go either to reasoning in problems or unto some other study, until it be nine or ten of the clock, and then, being without fire, are fain to walk or run up and down half an hour, to get a heat in their feet, when they go to bed.”
With some few modifications, this description may stand for the student life of Tyndale, and it is certainly a picture of hard living and of stern training. In the year 1512 William Tyndale received his degree of B.A., and in 1515 he was licensed M.A. For some reason which cannot very clearly be discovered, Tyndale afterward left Oxford for Cambridge, where Erasmus was at that time lecturing.
It has been pointed out by Demaus, in his admirable and exhaustive biography, that Tyndale's famous sentence was merely a re-echo of what Erasmus had said long before. In the exhortation prefixed to one of his works Erasmus wrote: "I totally dissent from those who are unwilling that the Sacred Scriptures, translated into the vulgar tongue, should be read by private individuals, as if Christ had taught such subtle doctrines that they can with difficulty be understood by a very few theologians, or as if the strength of the Christian religion lay in men's ignorance of it. The mysteries of kings it were perhaps better to conceal, hut Christ wishes His mysteries to be published as widely as possible. I would wish even all women to read the Gospels and the Epistles of St. Paul. And I wish they were translated into all languages of all people, that they /night be read and known, not merely by the Scotch and the Irish, but even by the Turks and the Saracens. I wish that the husbandman may sing parts of them, at his plow, that the weaver may warble them at his shuttle, that the traveler may with their narratives beguile the weariness of the way.”
These are indeed noble words, and one wishes that Erasmus had possessed the courage of his convictions, but his selfishness, weakness, and love of ease prevented him from braving the risks that Luther and Tyndale incurred. He was like the courtier who advised Latimer to remain a papist until "it pleased God to add to Latimer's opinions converts in such honest number" as to make profession of his belief safe and respectable. Tyndale was of other and of harder material than Erasmus, and therefore he obtained the success that he did. Withes may be useful for making baskets, but heart of oak and iron are required for the construction of warships. "In almost all plans of great enterprise," says John Foster, "a man must systematically dismiss at the entrance every wish to stipulate with his destiny for his safety. He voluntarily treads within the precincts of danger; and though it be possible he may escape, he ought to be prepared with the fortitude of a self-devoted victim. This is the inevitable condition on which... Reformers must commence their career. Either they must allay their fire of enterprise, or abide the liability to be exploded by it from the world." Such was William Tyndale; while the character of Erasmus is sketched in the words in which the same writer describes the man without decision of character: "He belongs to whatever can make capture of him. One thing after another vindicates its right to him while he is trying to go on, as twigs and chips floating near the edge of a river are intercepted by every weed and whirled in every little eddy.”
At Cambridge, therefore, Tyndale remained, and there he not only began "to smell the Word of God," but he also made choice of his future profession. During his course at the Universities, Tyndale had at least one pupil to whom he made reference in his last letter to Fryth the martyr. In the year 1521 Tyndale left Cambridge and went to live as chaplain and tutor at the house of Sir John Walsh in Little Sodbury, Gloucestershire. The mansion of this local magnate "is charmingly situated on the south-western slope of the Cotswolds, and enjoys a magnificent prospect over the richly wooded vale of the Severn, to the distant hills of Wales. Though somewhat shorn of its former dignity, and only in part inhabited, the house is still, in the main, intact; time indeed has dealt gently with it, and has added to the beauties of its graceful and varied architecture those mellowing touches which delight the eye of the lover of the picturesque.”
Here Tyndale lived for years, and in this quiet seclusion he had sufficient leisure to reflect upon the matters which had previously engaged his attention; it was here that he fully resolved to devote himself to the great enterprise with which his name is inseparably associated. For the intellectual revival that had set in all through Europe had reached England also; and men no longer cared to waste their time in discussing such puerilities as Erasmus states that in the solemn disputations of the scholars were discussed. As, for example, such questions as—"Whether the Pope can command angels?" "Whether he be a mere man, or, as God, participates in both natures with Christ?" "And whether he be not more merciful than Christ was, since we do not read that Christ ever recalled any from the pains of purgatory?”
Old Foxe who obtained his information from an eye-witness, who is believed by Demaus to have been Richard Webb, who was afterward servant to Latimer, speaks thus of Tyndale's life in the old manor-house: "Master Tyndale being in service with one Master Walsh, a knight, who married a daughter of Sir Robert Poyntz, a knight dwelling in Gloucestershire. The said Tyndale being schoolmaster to the said Master Walsh's children, and being in good favor with his master, sat most commonly at his own table. Which Master Walsh kept a good ordinary commonly at his table, and there resorted unto him many times sundry abbots, deans, archdeacons, with divers other doctors, and great beneficed men; who there, together with Master-Tyndale sitting at the same table, did use many times to enter communication, and talk of learned men, as of Luther and of Erasmus; also of divers other controversies and questions upon the Scripture. Then Master Tyndale, as he was learned and well practiced in God's matters, so he spared not to show unto them simply and plainly his judgment in matters, as he thought; and when they at any time did vary from Tyndale in opinions and judgment, he would show them in the book, and lay plainly before them the open and manifest places of the Scriptures, to confute their errors and confirm his sayings. And thus continued they for a certain season, reasoning and contending together divers and sundry times, till at length they waxed weary, and bare a secret grudge in their hearts against him.
“So upon a time," continues Foxe," some of these beneficed doctors bid Master Walsh and the lady his wife at a supper or banquet, there having among them talk at will without any gainsaying. The supper or banquet being done, and Master Walsh and his lady being come home, they called for Master Tyndale, and talked with him of such communication as had been where they came from and of their opinions. Master Tyndale thereunto made answer agreeable to the truth of God's Word, and in reproving of their false opinions. The Lady Walsh, being a stout woman, and as Master Tyndale did report her to be wise, there being no more but they three, Master Walsh, his wife, and Master Tyndale: ‘Well,' said she, ' there was such a doctor he may dispend two hundred pound by the year; another one hundred pound; and another three hundred pound; and what think ye, were it reason that we should believe you before them so great, learned, and beneficed men?' Master Tyndale, hearing her, gave her no answer; nor after that had but small arguments against such, for he perceived it would not help, in effect to the contrary.”
The character of the disputes may be inferred from the following paragraph which has been compiled by D'Aubigné from Tyndale's writings:— “In the dining-room of the old hall a varied group was assembled round the hospitable table. There were Sir John and Lady Walsh, a few gentlemen of the neighborhood, with several abbots, deans, monks, and doctors in their respective costumes. Tyndale occupied the humblest place, and generally kept Erasmus' New Testament within reach, in order to prove what he advanced. Numerous domestics were moving about engaged in waiting on the guests; and at length the conversation, after wandering a little, took a more precise direction. The priests grew impatient when they saw the terrible volume appear. 'Your Scriptures only seem to make heretics,' they exclaimed. On the contrary,' replied Tyndale, ' the source of heresies is pride; now, the Word of God strips man of everything, and leaves him as bare as Job.' ‘The Word of God! Why, even we don't understand your Word; how can the vulgar understand it? “You don't understand it,' rejoined Tyndale, because you look into it only for foolish questions. Now, the Scriptures are a clue, which we must follow without turning aside until we arrive at Christ, for Christ is the end." And I tell you,' shouted out another priest, that the Scriptures are a Dædalian labyrinth—a conjuring-book wherein everybody finds what he wants.' Alas!' replied Tyndale, ' you read them without Jesus Christ; that's why they are an obscure book to you. What do I say? A grave of briars; if thou loose thyself in one place thou art caught in another.' No; it is we who give the Scriptures, and we who explain them to you.' You set candles before images,' replied Tyndale; and since you give them light, why don't you give them food? Why don't you make their bellies hollow, and put victuals and drink inside? To serve God by such mummeries is treating Him like a spoiled child, whom you pacify with a toy, or you make him a horse out of a stick.'”
It is no wonder that such discussions (for this picture is probably a fair sample of many, that took place both in the hall of the manor-house, and in the houses of the neighboring clergy and gentry) disturbed the minds of the knight and of his wife. As Tyndale could not reply to the argument from wealth, he called in the aid of Erasmus, who was then at the zenith of his fame. Some eleven years before, Erasmus had written a book entitled "The Manual of a Christian Soldier." This work Tyndale translated and placed in the hands of Lady Walsh. The opinions of Tyndale were, of course, despicable because he was poor, but Erasmus was the pet of princes, and his words could not well be disregarded. Erasmus in this book had condemned the follies of the Church teachers of his day, and demanded, concerning those things which pertain to faith, "Why, let them be expressed in the fewest possible articles; those which pertain to good living, let them also be expressed in few words, and so expressed that men may understand that the yoke of Christ is easy and light, and not harsh; that they may see that in the clergy they have found fathers and not tyrants; pastors, not robbers; that they are invited to salvation, and not dragged to slavery.”
“After they had read this book," says Foxe, "these great prelates were no more so often called to the house, nor when they came had the cheer and countenance as they were wont to have, the which they did well perceive, and also that it was by the means and incensing of Master Tyndale, and at last they came no more there.”
Tyndale had converted the knight and his wife, but he had also made for himself some implacable and restless enemies. He further increased their hatred by preaching in the villages round about, and, as one tradition asserts, even in Bristol. The priests inflamed one another with hatred against him, and at length Tyndale was summoned before the Chancellor of the diocese to answer for his conduct.
“When I came before the Chancellor, he threatened me grievously, and reviled me, and rated me as though I had been a dog; and laid to my charge whereof there could be none accused brought forth," says Tyndale himself of this trial.
But Tyndale was not the man to desist when once he had learned what his duty was. He has chronicled the workings of his mind at this period thus: " A thousand books had they lever (rather) to be put forth against their abominable doings and doctrines than that the Scripture should come to light... which thing only moved me to translate the New Testament. Because I had perceived by experience how it was impossible to establish the lay-people in any truth, except the Scriptures were plainly laid before their eyes in their mother-tongue, that they might see the process, order, and meaning of the text: for else, whatsoever truth is taught them these enemies of all truth quench it again.”
In his perplexity Tyndale sought for counsel and sympathy from “a certain doctor that dwelt not far off, and had been an old Chancellor before to a bishop. Do you not know,' said the ex-Chancellor, that the Pope is very antichrist, whom the Scripture speaketh of? But beware what you say; for if you shall be perceived to be of that opinion, it will cost you your life. I have been an officer of his, but I have given it up, and I defy him and all his works.'
Soon after this visit " Master Tyndale happened to be in the company of a learned man, and in communing and disputing with him, drove him to that issue that the learned man said, 'We had better be without God's laws than the Pope's.' Master Tyndale hearing that, answered him, I defy the Pope and all his laws; ' and said, `IF GOD SPARE MY LIFE, ERE MANY YEARS I WILL CAUSE A BOY THAT DRIVETH THE PLOW SHALL KNOW MORE OF THE SCRIPTURE THAN THOU DOEST.'
These noble words were, of course, soon published through the district, and they intensified the hatred of the priests still more against him. Tyndale was quite willing to leave the neighborhood, and he even offered to settle in any English county if they would but permit him to teach the children and to preach there. But seeing the peril to which he had exposed his friends, and perhaps still more acutely realizing that his work could not be accomplished in Sodbury, Tyndale took leave of his patron, and came up to London.