It is very commonly believed that until the influence of Cranmer had made itself felt, the ecclesiastical authorities continued to maintain the traditionally hostile attitude of the English Church towards the English Bible. In proof of this, writers point to the condemnation of the translations issued by Tyndale, and the wholesale destruction of all copies of this, the first printed edition of the English New Testament. It is consequently of importance to examine into the extent of the supposed clerical hostility to the vernacular Scriptures, and into the reasons assigned by those having the conduct of ecclesiastical affairs at that period for the prohibition of Tyndale’s Testament.

It may not be without utility to point out that the existence of any determination on the part of the Church to prevent the circulation of vernacular Bibles in the fifteenth century has been hitherto too hastily assumed. Those who were living during that period may be fairly considered the most fitting interpreters of the prohibition of Archbishop Arundel, which has been so frequently adduced as sufficient evidence of this supposed uncompromising hostility to what is now called “the open Bible.” The terms of the archbishop’s monition do not, on examination, bear the meaning usually put upon it; and should the language be considered by some obscure, there is absolute evidence of the possession of vernacular Bibles by Catholics of undoubted orthodoxy with, at the very least, the tacit consent of the ecclesiastical authorities. When to this is added the fact that texts from the then known English Scriptures were painted on the walls of churches, and portions of the various books were used in authorised manuals of prayer, it is impossible to doubt that the hostility of the English Church to the vernacular Bible has been greatly exaggerated, if indeed its attitude has not altogether been misunderstood. This much may, and indeed must, be conceded, wholly apart from the further question whether the particular version now known as the Wycliffite Scriptures is, or is not, the version used in the fifteenth and early sixteenth century by Catholic Englishmen. That a Catholic version, or some version viewed as Catholic and orthodox by those who lived in the sixteenth century, really existed does not admit of any doubt at all on the distinct testimony of Sir Thomas More. It will be readily admitted that he was no ordinary witness. As one eminent in legal matters, he must be supposed to know the value of evidence, and his uncompromising attitude towards all innovators in matters of religion is a sufficient guarantee that he would be no party to the propagation of any unorthodox or unauthorised translations.

Some quotations from Sir Thomas More’s works will illustrate his belief better than any lengthy exposition. It is unnecessary, he says, to defend the law prohibiting any English version of the Bible, “for there is none such, indeed. There is of truth a Constitution which speaks of this matter, but nothing of such fashion. For you shall understand that the great arch-heretic Wycliffe, whereas the whole Bible was long before his days by virtuous and well-learned men translated into the English tongue, and by good and godly people and with devotion and soberness well and reverently read, took upon himself to translate it anew. In this translation he purposely corrupted the holy text, maliciously planting in it such words, as might in the readers’ ears serve to prove such heresies as he ‘went about’ to sow. These he not only set forth with his own translation of the Bible, but also with certain prologues and glosses he made upon it, and he so managed this matter, assigning probable and likely reasons suitable for lay and unlearned people, that he corrupted in his time many folk in this realm.…

“After it was seen what harm the people took from the translation, prologues, and glosses of Wycliffe and also of some others, who after him helped to set forth his sect for that cause, and also for as much as it is dangerous to translate the text of Scripture out of one tongue into another, as St. Jerome testifieth, since in translating it is hard to keep the same sentence whole (i.e. the exact meaning): it was, I say, for these causes at a Council held at Oxford, ordered under great penalties that no one might thenceforth translate (the Scripture) into English, or any other language, on his own authority, in a book, booklet, or tract, and that no one might read openly or secretly any such book, booklet, or treatise newly made in the time of the said John Wycliffe, or since, or should be made any time after, till the same translation had been approved by the diocesan, or, if need should require, by a Provincial Council.

“This is the law that so many have so long spoken about, and so few have all this time sought to look whether they say the truth or not. For I hope you see in this law nothing unreasonable, since it neither forbids good translations to be read that were already made of old before Wycliffe’s time, nor condemns his because it was new, but because it was ‘naught.’ Neither does it prohibit new translations to be made, but provides that if they are badly made they shall not be read till they are thoroughly examined and corrected, unless indeed they are such translations as Wycliffe and Tyndale made, which the malicious mind of the translator has handled in such a way that it were labour lost to try and correct them.”

The “objector,” whom Sir Thomas More was engaged in instructing in the Dialogue, could hardly believe that the formal Provincial Constitution meant nothing more than this, and thereupon, as Sir Thomas says: “I set before him the Constitutions Provincial, with Lyndwood upon it, and directed him to the place under the title De magistris. When he himself had read this, he said he marvelled greatly how it happened that in so plain a matter men were so deceived.” But he thought that even if the law was not as he had supposed, nevertheless the clergy acted as if it were, and always “took all translations out of every man’s hand whether the translation was good or bad, old or new.” To this More replied that to his knowledge this was not correct. “I myself,” he says, “have seen and can show you Bibles, fair and old, written in English, which have been known and seen by the bishop of the diocese, and left in the hands of laymen and women, whom he knew to be good and Catholic people who used the books with devotion and soberness.” He admitted indeed that all Bibles found in the hands of heretics were taken away from them, but none of these, so far as he had ever heard, were burnt, except such as were found to be garbled and false. Such were the Bibles issued with evil prologues or glosses, maliciously made by Wycliffe and other heretics. “Further,” he declared, “no good man would be so mad as to burn a Bible in which they found no fault.” Nor was there any law whatever that prohibited the possession, examination, or reading of the Holy Scripture in English.[232]

In reply to the case of Richard Hunn, who, according to the story set about by the religious innovators, had been condemned and his dead body burnt “only because they found English Bibles in his house, in which they never found other fault than because they were in English,” Sir Thomas More, professedly, and with full knowledge of the circumstances, absolutely denies, as he says, “from top to toe,” the truth of this story.[233] He shows at great length that the whole tale of Hunn’s death was carefully examined into by the king’s officials, and declares that at many of the examinations he himself had been present and heard the witnesses, and that in the end it had been fully shown that Hunn was in reality a heretic and a teacher of heresy. “But,” urged his objector, “though Hunn were himself a heretic, yet might the book (of the English Bible) be good enough; and there is no good reason why a good book should be burnt.” The copy of this Bible, replied More, was of great use in showing the kind of man Hunn really was, “for at the time he was denounced as a heretic, there lay his English Bible open, and some other English books of his, so that every one could see the places noted with his own hand, such words and in such a way that no wise and good man could, after seeing them, doubt what ‘naughty minds’ the men had, both he that so noted them and he that so made them. I do not remember the particulars,” he continued, “nor the formal words as they were written, but this I do remember well, that besides other things found to support divers other heresies, there were in the prologue of that Bible such words touching the Blessed Sacrament as good Christian men did much abhor to hear, and which gave the readers undoubted occasion to think that the book was written after Wycliffe’s copy, and by him translated into our tongue.”[234]

More then goes on to state his own mind as to the utility of vernacular Scriptures. And, in the first place, he utterly denies again that the Church, or any ecclesiastical authority, ever kept the Bible in English from the people, except “such translations as were either not approved as good translations, or such as had already been condemned as false, such as Wycliffe’s and Tyndale’s were. For, as for other old ones that were before Wycliffe’s days, they remain lawful, and are in the possession of some people, and are read.” To this assertion of a plain fact Sir Thomas More’s opponent did not dissent, but frankly admitted that this was certainly the case,[235] although he still thought that the English Bible might be in greater circulation than it was.[236] Sir Thomas More considered that the clergy really had good grounds not to encourage the spread of the vernacular Scriptures at that time, inasmuch as those who were most urgent in the matter were precisely those whose orthodoxy was reasonably suspected. It made men fear, he says, “that seditious people would do more harm with it than good and honest folk would derive benefit.” This, however, he declared was not his own personal view.[237] “I would not,” he writes, “for my part, withhold the profit that one good, devout, unlearned man might get by the reading, for fear of the harm a hundred heretics might take by their own wilful abuse.… Finally, I think that the Provincial Constitution (already spoken of) has long ago determined the question. For when the clergy in that synod agreed that the English Bibles should remain which were translated before Wycliffe’s days, they, as a necessary consequence, agreed that it was no harm to have the Bible in English. And when they forbade any new translation to be read till it were approved by the bishops, it appears clearly that they intended that the bishop should approve it, if he found it to be faultless, and also to amend it where it was found faulty, unless the man who made it was a heretic, or the faults were so many and of such a character that it would be easier to retranslate it than to mend it.”[238]

This absolute denial of any attitude of hostility on the part of the Church to the translated Bible is reiterated in many parts of Sir Thomas More’s English works. When, upon the condemnation of Tyndale’s Testament, the author pointed to this fact as proof of the determination of the clergy to keep the Word of God from the people, More replied at considerable length. He showed how the ground of the condemnation had nothing whatever to do with any anxiety upon the part of ecclesiastics to keep the Scriptures from lay people, but was entirely based upon the complete falsity of Tyndale’s translation itself. “He pretends,” says Sir Thomas More, “that the Church makes some (statutes) openly and directly against the Word of God, as in that statute whereby they have condemned the New Testament. Now, in truth, there is no such statute made. For as for the New Testament, if he mean the Testament of Christ, it is not condemned nor forbidden. But there is forbidden a false English translation of the New Testament newly forged by Tyndale, altered and changed in matters of great weight, in order maliciously to set forth against Christ’s true doctrine Tyndale’s anti-Christian heresies. Therefore that book is condemned, as it is well worthy to be, and the condemnation thereof is neither openly nor privily, directly nor indirectly, against the word of God.”[239]

Again, in another place, More replies to what he calls Tyndale’s “railing” against the clergy, and in particular his saying that they keep the Scripture from lay people in order that they may not see how they “juggle with it.” “I have,” he says, “in the book of my Dyalogue proved already that Tyndale in this point falsely belies the clergy, and that in truth Wycliffe, and Tyndale, and Friar Barnes, and such others, have been the original cause why the Scripture has been of necessity kept out of lay people’s hands. And of late, specially, by the politic provision and ordinance of our most excellent sovereign the king’s noble grace, not without great and urgent causes manifestly rising from the false malicious means of Wycliffe and Tyndale,” this has been prevented. “For this (attempt of Tyndale) all the lay people of this realm, both the evil folk who take harm from him, and the good folk that lose their profit by him, have great cause to lament that ever the man was born.”[240]

The same view is taken by Roger Edgworth, a popular preacher in the reign of Henry VIII. After describing what he considered to be the evils which had resulted from the spread of Lutheran literature in England, he says: “By this effect you may judge the cause. The effect was evil, therefore there must needs be some fault in the cause. But what sayest thou? Is not the study of Scripture good? Is not the knowledge of the Gospels and of the New Testament godly, good, and profitable for a Christian man or woman? I shall tell you what I think in this matter. I have ever been in this mind, that I have thought it no harm, but rather good and profitable, that Holy Scripture should be had in the mother tongue, and withheld from no man that was apt and meet to take it in hand, specially if we could get it well and truly translated, which will be very hard to be had.”[241]

There is, it is true, no doubt, that the destruction of Tyndale’s Testaments and the increasing number of those who favoured the new religious opinions, caused people to spread all manner of stories abroad as to the attitude of the Church authorities in England towards the vernacular Scriptures. Probably the declaration of the friend, against whom Sir Thomas More, then Chancellor, in 1530, wrote his Dyalogue, “that great murmurs were heard against the clergy on this score,” is not far from the truth. Ecclesiastics, he said, in the opinion of the common people, would not tolerate criticism of their lives or words, and desired to keep laymen ignorant. “And they” (the people) “think,” he adds, “that for no other cause was there burned at St. Paul’s Cross the New Testament, late translated by Master William Huchin, otherwise called Tyndale, who was (as men say) well known, before he went over the sea, as a man of right good life, studious and well learned in the Scriptures. And men mutter among themselves that the book was not only faultless, but also very well translated, and was ordered to be burned, because men should not be able to prove that such faults (as were at Paul’s Cross declared to have been found in it) were never in fact found there at all; but untruly surmised, in order to have some just cause to burn it, and that for no other reason than to keep out of the people’s hands all knowledge of Christ’s Gospel and of God’s law, except so much as the clergy themselves please now and then to tell them. Further, that little as this is, it is seldom expounded. And, as it is feared, even this is not well and truly told; but watered with false glosses and altered from the truth of the words and meaning of Scripture, only to maintain the clerical authority. And the fear lest this should appear evident to the people, if they were suffered to read the Scripture themselves in their own tongue, was (it is thought) the very cause, not only for which the New Testament translated by Tyndale was burned, but also why the clergy of this realm have before this time, by a Constitution Provincial, prohibited any book of Scripture to be translated into the English tongue, and threaten with fire men who should presume to keep them, as heretics; as though it were heresy for a Christian man to read Christ’s Gospel.”[242]

It has been already pointed out how Sir Thomas More completely disposed of this assertion as to the hostility of the clergy to “the open Bible.” In his position of Chancellor of England, More could hardly have been able to speak with so much certainty about the real attitude of the Church, had not the true facts been at the same time well understood and commonly acknowledged. The words of the “objector,” however, not only express the murmurs of those who were at that period discontented with the ecclesiastical system; but they voice the accusations which have been so frequently made from that day to this, by those who do not as a fact look at the other side. Sir Thomas More’s testimony proves absolutely that no such hostility to the English Bible as is so generally assumed of the pre-Reformation Church did, in fact, exist. Most certainly there never was any ecclesiastical prohibition against vernacular versions as such, and the most orthodox sons of the Church did in fact possess copies of the English Scriptures, which they read openly and devoutly. This much seems certain.

Moreover, Sir Thomas More’s contention that there was no prohibition is borne out by other evidence. The great canonist Lyndwood undoubtedly understood the Constitution of Oxford on the Scriptures in the same sense as Sir Thomas More. In fact, as it has been pointed out already, to his explanation Sir Thomas More successfully appealed in proof of his assertion that there was no such condemnation of the English Scriptures, as had been, and is still, asserted by some. It has, of course, been often said that Sir Thomas More, and of course Lyndwood, were wrong in supposing that there were any translations previous to that of the version now known as Wycliffite. This is by no means so clear; and even supposing they were in error as to the date of the version, it is impossible that they could have been wrong as to the meaning and interpretation of the law itself, and as to the fact that versions were certainly in circulation which were presumed by those who used them to be Catholic and orthodox. Archbishop Cranmer himself may also be cited as a witness to the free circulation of manuscript copies of the English Scriptures in pre-Reformation times, since the whole of his argument for allowing a new version, in the preface to the Bishops’ Bible, rests on the well-known custom of the Church to allow vernacular versions, and on the fact that copies of the English Scriptures had previously been in daily use with ecclesiastical sanction.

The same conclusion must be deduced from books printed by men of authority and unquestionable piety. In them we find the reading of the Scriptures strongly recommended. To take an example: Thomas Lupset, the friend and protÉgÉ of Colet and Lilly, gives the following advice to his sisters, two of whom were nuns: “Give thee much to reading; take heed in meditation of the Scripture, busy thee in the law of God; have a customable use in divine books.”[243] The same pious scholar has much the same advice for a youth in the world who had been his pupil. After urging him to avoid “meddling in any point of faith otherwise than as the Church shall instruct and teach,” he adds, “more particularly in writings you shall learn this lesson, if you would sometimes take in your hand the New Testament and read it with a due reverence”; and again: “in reading the Gospels, I would you had at hand Chrysostom and Jerome, by whom you might surely be brought to a perfect understanding of the text.”[244]

Moreover, the testimony of Sir Thomas More that translations were allowed by the Church, and that these, men considered rightly or wrongly, had been made prior to the time of Wycliffe, is confirmed by Archdeacon John Standish in Queen Mary’s reign. When the question of the advisability of a vernacular translation was then seriously debated, he says: “To the intent that none should have occasion to misconstrue the true meaning thereof, it is to be thought that, if all men were good and Catholic, then were it lawful, yea, and very profitable also, that the Scripture should be in English, as long as the translations were true and faithful.… And that is the cause that the clergy did agree (as it is in the Constitution Provincial) that the Bibles that were translated into English before Wycliffe’s days might be suffered; so that only such as had them in handling were allowed by the ordinary and approved as proper to read them, and so that their reading should be only for the setting forth of God’s glory.”[245]

Sir Thomas More, in his Apology, points out that although, in his opinion, it would be a good thing to have a proper English translation, still it was obviously not necessary for the salvation of man’s soul. “If the having of the Scripture in English,” he writes, “be a thing so requisite of precise necessity, that the people’s souls must needs perish unless they have it translated into their own tongue, then the greater part of them must indeed perish, unless the preacher further provide that all people shall be able to read it when they have it. For of the whole people, far more than four-tenths could never read English yet, and many are now too old to begin to go to school.… Many, indeed, have thought it a good and profitable thing to have the Scripture well and truly translated into English, and although many equally wise and learned and also very virtuous folk have been and are of a very different mind; yet, for my own part, I have been and am still of the same opinion as I expressed in my Dyalogue, if the people were amended, and the time meet for it.”[246]

The truth is, that there was then no such clamour for the translated Bible as it has suited the purposes of some writers to represent. In view of all that is known about the circumstances of those times, it does not appear at all likely that the popular mind would be really stirred by any desire for Bible reading. The late Mr. Brewer may be allowed to speak with authority on this matter when he writes: “Nor, indeed, is it possible that Tyndale’s writings and translations could at this early period have produced any such impressions as is generally surmised, or have fallen into the hands of many readers. His works were printed abroad; their circulation was strictly forbidden; the price of them was beyond the means of the poorer classes, even supposing that the knowledge of letters at that time was more generally diffused than it was for centuries afterwards. To imagine that ploughmen and shepherds in the country read the New Testament in English by stealth, or that smiths and carpenters in towns pored over its pages in the corners of their masters’ workshops, is to mistake the character and acquirements of the age.”[247]

“So far from England then being a ‘Bible-thirsty land,’” says a well-informed writer, “there was no anxiety whatever for an English version at that time, excepting among a small minority of the people,”[248] and these desired it not for the thing in itself so much as a means of bringing about the changes in doctrine and practice which they desired. “Who is there among us,” says one preacher of the period, “that will have a Bible, but he must be compelled thereto.” And the single fact that the same edition of the Bible was often reissued with new titles, &c., is sufficient proof that there was no such general demand for Bibles as is pretended by Foxe when he writes: “It was wonderful to see with what joy this book of God was received, not only among the learneder sort, and those that were noted for lovers of the Reformation, but generally all England over among all the vulgar common people.” “For,” says the writer above quoted, “if the people all England over were so anxious to possess the new translation, what need was there of so many penal enactments to force it into circulation, and of royal proclamations threatening with the king’s displeasure those who neglected to purchase copies.”[249]

There can be little doubt that the condemnation of the first printed English Testament, and the destruction, by order of the ecclesiastical authority, of all copies which Tyndale had sent over to England for sale, have tended, more than anything else, to confirm in their opinion those who held that the Church in pre-Reformation England would not tolerate the vernacular Scriptures at all. It is of interest, therefore, and importance, if we would determine the real attitude of churchmen in the sixteenth century to the English Bible, to understand the grounds of this condemnation. As the question was keenly debated at the time, there is little need to seek for information beyond the pages of Sir Thomas More’s works.

The history of Tyndale’s translation is not of such importance in this respect, as a knowledge of the chief points objected against it. Some brief account of this history, however, is almost necessary if we would fully understand the character and purpose of the translation. William Tyndale was born about the year 1484, and was in turn at Oxford and Cambridge Universities, and professed among the Friars Observant at Greenwich. In 1524 he passed over to Hamburg, and then, about the middle of the year, to Wittenberg, where he attached himself to Luther. Under the direction at least, of the German reformer, and very possibly also with his actual assistance, he commenced his translation of the New Testament. The royal almoner, Edward Lee, afterwards Archbishop of York, being on a journey to Spain, wrote on December 2, 1525, from Bordeaux, warning Henry VIII. of the preparation of this book. “I am certainly informed,” he says, “that an Englishman, your subject, at the solicitation and instance of Luther, with whom he is, hath translated the New Testament into English; and within a few days intendeth to return with the same imprinted into England. I need not to advertise your Grace what infection and danger may ensue hereby if it be not withstanded. This is the way to fill your realm with Lutherans. For all Luther’s perverse opinions be grounded upon bare words of Scripture not well taken nor understood, which your Grace hath opened (i.e. pointed out) in sundry places of your royal book.”[250]

Luther’s direct influence may be detected on almost every page of the printed edition issued by Tyndale, and there can be no doubt that it was prepared with Luther’s version of 1522 as a guide. From the general introduction of this German Bible, nearly half, or some sixty lines, are transferred by Tyndale almost bodily to his prologue, whilst he adopted and printed over against the same chapters and verses, placing them in the same position in the inner margins, some 190 of the German reformer’s marginal references. Besides this, the marginal notes on the outer margin of the English Testament are all Luther’s glosses, translated from the German. In view of this, it can hardly be a matter of surprise that Tyndale’s Testament was very commonly known at the time as “Luther’s Testament in English.”

In this work of translation or adaptation, Tyndale was assisted by another ex-friar, named Joye, with whom, however, he subsequently quarrelled, and about whom he then spoke in abusive and violent terms. At first it was intended to print the edition at Cologne, but being disturbed by the authorities there, Tyndale fled to Worms, and at once commenced printing at the press of Peter Schoeffer, the octavo volume which is known as the first edition of Tyndale’s New Testament. Although the author is supposed to have been a good Greek scholar, there is evidence to show that the copy he used for the work of translation was the Latin version of Erasmus, printed by Fisher in 1519, with some alterations taken from the edition of 1522, and some other corrections from the Vulgate.

John CochlÆus, who had a full and personal knowledge of all the Lutheran movements at the time, writing in 1533, says: “Eight years previously, two apostates from England, knowing the German language, came to Wittenberg, and translated Luther’s New Testament into English. They then came to Cologne, as to a city nearer to England, with a more established trade, and more adapted for the despatch of merchandise. Here … they secretly agreed with printers to print at first three thousand copies, and printers and publishers pushed on the work with the firm expectation of success, boasting that whether the king and cardinal liked it or not, England would shortly ‘be Lutheran.’”[251]

It was this scheme that CochlÆus was instrumental in frustrating, his representations forcing Tyndale to remove the centre of his operations to Worms. For the benefit of the Scotch king, to whom his account was addressed, CochlÆus adds, that Luther’s German translation of the New Testament was intended of set purpose to spread his errors; that the people had bought up thousands, and that thereby “they have not been made better but rather the worse, artificers who were able to read neglecting their shops and the work by which they ought to gain the bread of their wives and children.” For this reason, he says, magistrates in Germany have had to forbid the reading of Luther’s Testament, and many have been put in prison for reading it. In his opinion the translation of the Testament into the vernacular had become an idol and a fetish to the German Lutherans, although in Germany there were many vernacular translations of both the Old and the New Testaments, before the rise of Lutheranism.[252]

With a full understanding of the purpose and tendency of Tyndale’s translation and of the evils which at least some hard-headed men had attributed to the spread of Luther’s German version, upon which almost admittedly the English was modelled, the ecclesiastical authorities of England approached the practical question—what was to be done in the matter? Copies of the printed edition must have reached England some time in 1526, for in October of that year Bishop Tunstall of London addressed a monition to the archdeacons on the subject. “Many children of iniquity,” he says, “maintainers of Luther’s sect, blinded through extreme wickedness, wandering from the way of truth and the Catholic faith, have craftily translated the New Testament into our English tongue, intermeddling therewith many heretical articles and erroneous opinions, pernicious and offensive, seducing the simple people; attempting by their wicked and perverse interpretations to profane the majesty of Scripture, which hitherto hath remained undefiled, and craftily to abuse the most holy Word of God, and the true sense of the same. Of this translation there are many books printed, some with glosses and some without, containing in the English tongue that pestiferous and pernicious poison, (and these are) dispersed in our diocese of London.” He consequently orders all such copies of the New Testament to be delivered up to his offices within thirty days.[253]

This was the first action of the English ecclesiastical authorities, and it was clearly taken not from distrust of what the same bishop calls “the most holy Word of God,” but because they looked on the version sent forth by Tyndale as a profanation of the Bible, and as intended to disseminate the errors of Lutheranism.

Of the Lutheran character of the translation the authorities, whether in Church or State, do not seem to have had from the first the least doubt. The king himself, in a rejoinder to Luther’s letter of apology, says that the German reformer “fell in device with one or two lewd persons, born in this our realm, for the translating of the New Testament into English, as well with many corruptions of that holy text, as certain prefaces and other pestilent glosses in the margins, for the advancement and setting forth of his abominable heresies, intending to abuse the good minds and devotion that you, our dearly beloved people, bear toward the Holy Scripture and infect you with the deadly corruption and contagious odour of his pestilent errors.”[254]

Bishop Tunstall, in 1529, whilst returning from an embassy abroad, purchased at Antwerp through one Packington, all copies of the English printed New Testament that were for sale, and, according to the chronicler Hall, burned them publicly at St. Paul’s in May 1530. For the same reason the confiscated volumes of the edition first sent over were committed to the flames some time in 1527,[255] and Bishop Tunstall explained to the people at Paul’s Cross that the book was destroyed because in more than two thousand places wrong translations and corruptions had been detected. Tyndale made a great outcry at the iniquity of burning the Word of God; but in The Wicked Mammon he declares that, “in burning the New Testament they did none other thynge than I looked for.” Moreover, as he sold the books knowing the purpose for which they were purchased, he may be said to have been a participator in the act he blames. “The fact is,” says a modern authority, “the books were full of errors and unsaleable, and Tyndale wanted money to pay the expense of a revised version and to purchase Vastermann’s old Dutch blocks to illustrate his Pentateuch, and was glad to make capital in more ways than one by the translation. ‘I am glad,’ said he, ‘for these two benefits shall come thereof: I shall get money to bring myself out of debt, and the whole world will cry out against the burning of God’s Word, and the overplus of the money that shall remain to me shall make me more studious to correct the said New Testament, and so newly to imprint the same once again, and I trust the second you will much better like than you ever did the first.’”[256]

Tyndale allowed nine years to elapse before issuing a second edition of his Testament. Meantime, as his former assistant, Joye, says, foreigners looking upon the English Testament as a good commercial speculation, and seeing that the ecclesiastical authorities in England had given orders to purchase the entire first issue of Tyndale’s print, set to work to produce other reprints. Through ignorance of the language, the various editions they issued were naturally full of typographical errors, and, as Joye declared, “England hath enough and too many false Testaments, and is now likely to have many more.” He consequently set to work himself to see an edition through the press, in which, without Tyndale’s leave, he made substantial alterations in his translation. Joye’s version appeared in 1534, and immediately Tyndale attacked its editor in the most bitter, reproachful terms. In George Joye’s Apology, which appeared in 1535, he tried, as he says, “to defend himself against so many slanderous lies upon him in Tyndale’s uncharitable and unsober epistle.” In the course of the tract, Joye charges Tyndale with claiming as his own what in reality was Luther’s. “I have never,” he says, “heard a sober, wise man praise his own works as I have heard him praise his exposition of the fifth, sixth, and seventh chapters of St. Matthew, insomuch that mine ears glowed for shame to hear him; and yet it was Luther that made it, Tyndale only translating it and powdering it here and there with his own fantasies.”

In a second publication Joye declares Tyndale’s incompetence to judge of the original Greek. “I wonder,” he says, “how he could compare it with the Greek, since he himself is not so exquisitely seen therein.… I know well (he) was not able to do it without such a helper as he hath ever had hitherto.”[257] Tyndale, however, continued his work of revision in spite of opposition, and further, with the aid of Miles Coverdale, issued translations of various portions of the Old Testament.

Shortly after the public burning of the copies of the translated Testament by Bishop Tunstall, on May 24, 1530, an assembly was called together by Archbishop Warham to formally condemn these and other books then being circulated with the intention of undermining the religion of the country. The king was present in person, and a list of errors was drawn up and condemned “with all the books containing the same, with the translation also of Scripture corrupted by William Tyndale, as well in the Old Testament as in the New.” After this meeting, a document was issued with the king’s authority, which preachers were required to read to their people. After speaking of the books condemned for teaching error, the paper takes notice of an opinion “in some of his subjects” that the Scripture should be allowed in English. The king declares that it is a good thing the Scriptures should be circulated at certain times, but that there are others when they should not be generally allowed, and taking into consideration all the then existing circumstances, he “thinketh in his conscience that the divulging of the Scripture at this time in the English tongue to be committed to the people … would rather be to their further confusion and destruction than for the edification of their souls.”

In this opinion, we are told, all in the assembly concurred. At the same time, however, the king promised that he would have the New Testament “faithfully and purely translated by the most learned men,” ready to be distributed when circumstances might allow.

Sir Thomas More plainly states the reason for this prohibition. “In these days, in which Tyndale (God amend him) has so sore poisoned malicious and new-fangled folk with the infectious contagion of his heresies, the king’s highness, and not without the counsel and advice, not only of his nobles with his other counsellors attending upon his Grace’s person, but also of the most virtuous and learned men of both universities and other parts of the realm, specially called thereto, has been obliged for the time to prohibit the Scriptures of God to be allowed in the English tongue in the hands of the people, lest evil folk … may turn all the honey into poison, and do hurt unto themselves, and spread also the infection further abroad … and by their own fault misconstrue and take harm from the very Scripture of God.”[258]

Early in 1534 Tyndale took up his abode once more in Antwerp at the house of an English merchant, and busied himself in passing his revised New Testament through the press. This was published in the following November. To it he prefixed a second prologue dealing with the edition just published by George Joye. This he declares was no true translation, and charges his former assistant with deliberate falsification of the text of Holy Scripture in order to support his errors and false opinions. The edition itself manifests many changes in the text caused by the criticism to which the former impression had been subjected, whilst many of the marginal notes “exhibit the great change that had taken place in Tyndale’s religious opinions, and show that he had ceased to be an Episcopalian.”[259]

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]

Further, More blames Tyndale’s translation in its substitution of senior or elder for the old-established word priest. This word, presbyter, in the Greek, he says, “as it signifies the thing that men call priest in English, was sometimes called senior in Latin. But the thing that Englishmen call a priest, and the Greek church called presbyter, and the Latin church also sometimes called senior, was never called elder either in the Greek church, or the Latin or the English.”[267] He considers, therefore, the change made by Tyndale, in the second edition of his translation, from senior into elder was not only no improvement, but a distinct and reiterated rejection of the well-understood word of priest.… “I said and say,” he continues, “that Tyndale changed the word priest into senior with the heretical mind and intent to set forth his heresy, in which he teaches that the priesthood is no sacrament … for else I would not call it heresy if any one would translate presbyteros a block, but I would say he was a blockhead. And as great a blockhead were he that would translate presbyteros into an elder instead of a priest, for this English word no more signifies an elder than the Greek word presbyteros signifies an elderstick.”[268] “For the same reason he might change bishop into overseer, and deacon into server, both of which he might as well do, as priest into elder; and then with his English translation he must make us an English vocabulary of his own device, and so with such provision he may change chin into cheek, and belly into back, and every word into every other at his own pleasure, if all England like to go to school with Tyndale to learn English—but else, not so.”[269]

In the same way More condemns Tyndale for deliberately changing the word “Grace,” the meaning of which was fully understood by Catholic Englishmen, into “favour,” “thinking that his own scoffing is sufficient reason to change the known holy name of virtue through all Scripture into such words as he himself liketh.”[270] He says the same of the change of the old familiar words Confession into knowledge, and penance into repentance. “This is what Tyndale means: he would have all willing confession quite cast away and all penance doing too.”[271] And “as for the word penance, whatsoever the Greek word be, it ever was, and still is, lawful enough (if Tyndale give us leave) to call anything in English by whatever word Englishmen by common custom agree upon.… Now, the matter does not rest in this at all. For Tyndale is not angry with the word, but with the matter. For this grieves Luther and him that by penance we understand, when we speak of it … not mere repenting … but also every part of the Sacrament of Penance; oral confession, contrition of heart, and satisfaction by good deeds. For if we called it the Sacrament of repentance, and by that word would understand what we now do by the word penance, Tyndale would then be as angry with repentance as he is now with penance.”[272]

Speaking specially in another place about the change of the old word charity into love in Tyndale’s translation, More declared that he would not much mind which word was used were it not for the evident intention to change the teaching. When it is done consistently through the whole book “no man could deem but that the man meant mischievously. If he called charity sometimes by the bare name love, I would not stick at that. But since charity signifies in Englishmen’s ears not every common love, but a good virtuous and well-ordered love, he that will studiously flee from the name of good love, and always speak of ‘love,’ and always leave out ‘good,’ I would surely say he meant evil. And it is much more than likely. For it is to be remembered that at the time of this translation Huchins (or Tyndale) was with Luther in Wittenberg, and put certain glosses in the margins, made to uphold the ungracious sect.”… And “the reason why he changed the name of charity and of the church and of priesthood is no very great difficulty to perceive. For since Luther and his fellows amongst their other damnable heresies have one that all salvation rests on Faith alone—therefore he purposely works to diminish the reverent mind that men have to charity, and for this reason changes the name of holy virtuous affection into the bare name of love.”

In concluding his justification of the condemnation of Tyndale’s Testament and his criticism of the translator’s Defence, Sir Thomas More says: “Every man knows well that the intent and purpose of my Dyalogue was to make men see that Tyndale in his translation changed the common known words in order to make a change in the faith. As for example: he changed the word Church into this word congregation, because he would raise the question which the church was, and set forth Luther’s heresy that the church which we should believe and obey is not the common known body of all Christian realms remaining in the faith of Christ and not fallen away or cut off with heresies.… But the church we should believe and obey was some secret unknown kind of evil living and worse believing heretics. And he changed priest into senior, because he intended to set forth Luther’s heresy teaching that priesthood is no sacrament, but the office of a layman or laywoman appointed by the people to preach. And he changed Penance into repenting, because he would set forth Luther’s heresy teaching that penance is no sacrament. This being the only purpose of my Dyalogue, Tyndale now comes and expressly confesses what I proposed to show. For he indeed teaches and writes openly these false heresies so that he himself shows now that I then told the people the truth … his own writing shows that he made his translation to the intent to set forth such heresies as I said he did.”[273]

John Standish in the tract on the vernacular Scriptures, published in Queen Mary’s reign, uses in some places the same language as Sir Thomas More in condemning the translations which had been later in vogue. “At all times,” he writes, “heretics have laboured to corrupt the Scriptures that they might serve for their naughty purposes and to confirm their errors therewith, but especially now in our time. O good Lord, how have the translators of the Bible into English purposely corrupted the texts, oft maliciously putting in such words as in the readers’ ears might serve for the proof of such heresies as they went about to sow. These are not only set forth in the translations, but also in certain prologues and glosses added thereunto, and these things they have so handled (as indeed it is no great mastery to do) with probable reasons very apparent to the simple and unlearned, that an infinite number of innocents they have spiritually poisoned and corrupted within this realm, and caused them to perish obstinately.”[274]

If further proof were wanting that the New Testament as set forth by Tyndale was purposely designed to overthrow the then existing religious principles held by English churchmen, it is furnished by works subsequently published by the English Lutherans abroad. The tract named The Burying of the Mass, printed in Germany shortly after the burning of Tyndale’s Testament, was, as Sir Thomas More points out, intended as a direct attack upon the Sacrifice of the Mass and the Sacramental system. In it the author poured out the vials of his wrath upon all those who caused Tyndale’s translation of the New Testament to be destroyed, saying that they burned it because it destroyed the Mass. “By this,” adds More, “you may see that the author accounted the translation very good for the destruction of the Mass.”[275] Moreover, in a book called The Wicked Mammon, published by Tyndale himself shortly after this, although he blames the style of the author of The Burying of the Mass, he tacitly accepts his assertion that his translation of the New Testament was intended to bring about the abolition of the Sacrifice of the Mass.[276]

In later times, after the experience of the religious changes in the reign of Edward VI., some writers pointed to the evils, religious and social, as evidence of the harm done by the promiscuous reading of the Scriptures. In their opinion, what More had feared and foretold had come to pass. “In these miserable years now past,” says Standish of Mary’s reign, in this tract on the vernacular Scriptures: “In these miserable years now past, what mystery is so hard that the ignorant with the Bible in English durst not set upon, yea and say they understood it: all was light! They desired no explanation but their own, even in the highest mysteries.… Alas! experience shows that our own men through having the Bible in English have walked far above their reach, being sundry ways killed and utterly poisoned with the letter of the English Bible.”[277]

The spirit in which the study of Sacred Scripture was taken up by many in those days is described by the Marian preacher, Roger Edgworth, already referred to. “Scripture,” he says, “is in worse case than any other faculty: for where other faculties take upon them no more than pertaineth to their own science, as (for example) the physician of what pertains to the health of man’s body, and the carpenter and smith of their own tools and workmanship—the faculty of Sacred Scripture alone is the knowledge which all men and women challenge and claim to themselves and for their own. Here and there the chattering old wife, the doting old man, the babbling sophister, and all others presume upon this faculty, and tear it and teach it before they learn it. Of all such green divines as I have spoken of, it appeareth full well what learning they have by this, that when they teach any of their disciples, and when they give any of their books to other men to read, the first suggestion why he should labour (at) such books is ‘because of this,’ say they, ‘thou shalt be able to oppose the best priest in the parish, and tell him he lies.’”[278]

The result is patent in the history of the religious confusions which followed, for this much must be allowed, whatever view may be taken of the good or evil which ultimately resulted. Dr. Richard Smith, in 1546, then states the position as he saw it: “In old times the faith was respected, but in our days not a few things, and not of small importance, but (alack the more the pity) even the chiefest and most weighty matters of religion and faith, are called in question, babbled about, talked and jangled upon (reasoned, I cannot and ought not to call it).”[279]

Although the cry for the open Bible which had been raised by Tyndale and the other early English reformers generally assumed the right to free and personal interpretation of its meaning, no sooner was the English Scripture put into circulation than its advocates proclaimed the need of expositions to teach people the meaning they should attach to it. In fact, the marginal notes and glosses, furnished by Tyndale chiefly from Lutheran sources, are evidence that even he had no wish that the people should understand or interpret the sacred text otherwise than according to his peculiar views. Very quickly after the permission of Henry VIII. had allowed the circulation of the printed English Bible, commentators came forward to explain their views. Lancelot Ridley, for example, issued many such explanations of portions of the Sacred Text with the object, as he explains, of enabling “the unlearned to declare the Holy Scriptures now suffered to all people of this realm to read and study at their pleasure.” For the Bible, “which is now undeclared (i.e. unexplained) to them, and only had in the bare letter, appears to many rather death than life, rather (calculated) to bring many to errors and heresies than into the truth and verity of God’s Word. For this, when unexplained, does not bring the simple, rude, and ignorant people from their ignorant blindness, from their corrupt and backward judgments, false trusts, evil beliefs, vain superstitions, and feigned holiness, in which the people have long been in blindness, for lack of a knowledge of Holy Scripture which the man of Rome kept under latch and would not suffer to come to light, that his usurped power should not have been espied, his worldly glory diminished, and his profit decayed.”[280]

Again, in another exposition made eight years later, the same writer complains that still, for lack of teaching what he considers the true meaning of Scripture, the views of the people are still turned towards the “old superstitions” in spite of “the open Bible.” “Although the Bible be in English,” he says, “and be suffered to every man and woman to read at their pleasures, and commanded to be read every day at Matins, Mass, and Evensong, yet there remain great ignorance and corrupt judgments … and these will remain still, except the Holy Scriptures be made more plain to the lay people who are unlearned by some commentary or annotation, so that lay people may understand the Holy Scripture better.”[281] Commentaries would help much, he says in another place, “to deliver the people from ignorance, darkness, errors, heresy, superstitions, false trusts, and from evil opinions fixed and rooted in the hearts of many for lack of true knowledge of God’s Holy Word, and expel the usurped power of the bishop of Rome and all Romish dregs.”[282]

It is interesting to find that from the first, whilst objecting to the interpretation of the old teachers of the Church, and claiming that the plain text of Scripture was a sufficient antidote and complete answer to them and their traditional deductions, the “new teachers” found that without teaching and exposition on their part, the open Bible was by no means sufficient to wean the popular mind from what they regarded as superstitious and erroneous ways. Their attitude in the matter is at least a confirmation of the contention of Sir Thomas More and other contemporary Catholic writers, that the vernacular Scriptures would be useless without a teaching authority to interpret their meaning.

A brief word may now be said as a summary of the attitude towards the vernacular Bible taken up by the ecclesiastical authorities on the eve of the Reformation. The passages quoted from Sir Thomas More make it evident that no such hostility on the part of the Church, as writers of all shades of opinion have too hastily assumed, really existed.[283] In fact, though those responsible for the conduct of affairs, both ecclesiastical and lay, at this period objected to the circulation of Tyndale’s printed New Testament, this objection was based, not on any dread of allowing the English Bible as such, but on the natural objection to an obviously incorrect translation. It is difficult to see how those in authority could have permitted a version with traditional words changed for the hardly concealed purpose of supporting Lutheran tenets, with texts garbled and marginal explanations inserted for the same end. Those who hold that Tyndale’s views were right, and even that his attempt to enforce them in this way was justifiable, can hardly, however, blame the authorities at that time in England, secular or lay, who did not think so, from doing all they could to prevent what they regarded as the circulation of a book calculated to do great harm if no means were taken to prevent it. Men’s actions must be judged by the circumstances under which they acted, and it would be altogether unjust to regard the prohibition of the Tyndale Scriptures as a final attempt on the part of the English Church to prevent the circulation of the vernacular Scriptures. To the authorities in those days at least, the book in question did not represent the Sacred Text at all. That it was full of errors, to say the least, is confessed by Tyndale himself; and as to the chief points in his translation which he defended and which Sir Thomas More so roundly condemned, posterity has sided with More and not with Tyndale, for not one of these special characteristics of the translation in which so much of Tyndale’s Lutheran teaching was allowed to appear, was suffered to remain in subsequent revisions. From this point of view alone, those who examine the question with an unbiassed mind must admit that there was ample justification for the prohibition of Tyndale’s printed Testament. If this be so, the further point may equally well be conceded, namely, that the Church on the eve of the Reformation did not prohibit the vernacular Scriptures as such at all, and that many churchmen in common with the king, Sir Thomas More, and other laymen, would, under happier circumstances, have been glad to see a properly translated English Bible.