(c) The simplicity of its structure, which
requires
little
more from the translator than that he shall render with fidelity
one brief clause at a time, and follow it by the next.
more from the translator than that he shall render with fidelity
one brief clause at a time, and follow it by the next.
Cambridge History of English Literature - 1908 - v04
“Virgill extolled Aeneas to please Augustus; Ariosto
prayseth Rogero to the honour of the house of Este. ' And does
not Alcina beguile Rogero, as Dido beguiled Aeneas? It is clear,
therefore, that Ariosto should share the common eulogy of Vergil,
Indeed, he may claim a higher praise, because there may be found
in his many writings passages of which Vergil was incapable—such
as the Christian demeanour of Charlemagne in the 14th book, and
the conversion of Rogero to the Christian faith in the 41st. Briefly,
Harington treats Vergil as Golding treated Ovid, and reproves
him, in sorrow rather than in anger, for his inevitable paganism.
As for the mention of himself and his kinsmen in his notes, to
which Harington pleads guilty, he made them because Plutarch
blamed Homer for nowhere explaining of what stock he was, of
what town, or of what country. 'Excuse me, then,' says he, 'if I in
a work that may perhaps last longer than a better thing, and being
not ashamed of my kindred, name them here and there to no
man's offence. No excuse is necessary. Who would blame a
whimsical scholar for chattering of himself and for interrupting
a serious work with amiable anecdotage?
Besides the translations openly made and avowed, there are
others which masquerade as fresh, unborrowed works. In his
Elizabethan Sonnets, Sidney Lee has traced to their origin in
France or Italy a vast number of English sonnets. He has proved
the debt which the poets of the sixteenth century owed to their
predecessors. He has set side by side in a close parallel the
sonnets of Lodge and Ronsard, of Daniel and Desportes. He
has shown most clearly what Wyatt and many others took from
Petrarch. He has illustrated the 'influence' of Marot, du Bellay,
de Pontoux, Jacques de Billy and Durant upon our bards, great
and small. As an episode in the history of translation this
'influence' is of the greatest interest. We should not consider
its moral aspect too censoriously. In Puttenham's despite, the
Elizabethans do not seem to have regarded plagiarism as a heinous
sin. If they had, who would have escaped condemnation ? No
doubt Southern, who pilfered from Ronsard, and spoiled what he
pilfered, deserved all the censure which the critic heaped upon
him. But there are indications not merely that plagiarism was
thought respectable, but that a translator might claim as his own
that which he had put into English. 'I call it mine,' says Nicholas
Grimald of his translation of Cicero's De Officiis, 'as Plautus
and Terence called the comedies theirs which they made out of
>
## p. 25 (#47) ##############################################
The Charge of Plagiarism
25
Greek’; and, doubtless, Wyatt, Daniel, Lodge, Spenser and the rest
called the sonnets theirs which they had made out of French and
Italian, because they had made them. Ben Jonson did not think it
worth while to give Philostratus credit for his ‘Drink to me only
with thine eyes,' and he left it for the critics of a later age to track
every chapter of his Discoveries to its lair. In neither case need
.
the morality of his method be discussed, and Dryden's defence of him
may stand as a defence for all save for such burglars as Southern:
He has done his robberies so openly, that we may see that he
fears not to be taxed by any law. He invades authors like a
monarch; and what would be theft in other poets, is only victory
in him. '
## p. 26 (#48) ##############################################
CHAPTER II
THE AUTHORISED VERSION AND ITS INFLUENCE
1
IF the Authorised Version of the Bible be the first English
classic, as seems by all competent authorities to be allowed, two
enquiries suggest themselves: first, what is meant when it is
called a classic, and, secondly, what are the qualities that entitle
it to be ranked as the first classic in English? In other words,
it will be necessary first to examine the Bible as literature, irre-
spective of any translation whatever; and, secondly, to examine
its diction in the standard English translation, in order to see
whether the choice of words, the mould of sentences and the
harmonious disposition of sounds are such as deserve the highest
praise, in comparison with the choicest productions of native
English genius.
These two enquiries, however—the one into the nature of the
Bible considered as literature, and the other into the nature of
the English in which our standard version is written—will, of ne-
cessity, imply some consideration of the successive stages by which
what we call the Bible grew into being, and of the successive stages
by which the English of our Bible was gradually selected, imbued
with the proper meanings and associations, and ordered into a fit
medium for the conveyance of the high thoughts and noble
emotions in which the original abounds. Especially is it true of
our second enquiry that no adequate conception of the language
employed in the Jacobean version can be formed, save through
at least a brief survey of the series of English translations which
led
up to it. Their indebtedness to their predecessors is recognised
most clearly by the translators of the Authorised Version, who
say in their preface:
Truly, good Christian reader, we never thought, from the beginning, that
we should need to make a new translation, nor yet to make of a bad one
a good one; . . . but to make a good one better, or out of many good ones one
principal good one, not justly to be excepted against—that hath been our
endeavour, that our mark.
1 Notwithstanding the current use of this term, the Jacobean revision was never
publicly authorised by parliament or convocation, privy council or king. The accept-
ance which it has enjoyed has been won chiefly on its merits.
а
## p. 27 (#49) ##############################################
Character of the
of the Bible
27
The Bible either proceeds from divine inspiration, as some will
have it, or, according to others, is the fruit of the religious genius of
the Hebrew race. From either point of view, the authors are highly
gifted individuals, who, notwithstanding their diversities, and the
progressiveness observable in their representations of the nature of
God, are wonderfully consistent in the main tenor of their writings,
and serve, in general, for mutual confirmation and illustration.
In some cases, this may be due to the revision of earlier pro-
ductions by later writers, which has thus brought more primitive
conceptions into a degree of conformity with maturer and pro-
founder views; but, even in such cases, the earlier conception
often lends itself, without wrenching, to the deeper interpretation
and the completer exposition.
The Bible is not distinctively an intellectual achievement. Like
all other great works of literature, it springs from, and addresses,
human nature as a whole. It has no more to do with intellect
than with sensibility, imagination, or will. In fact, if it be more
concerned with one of these faculties than another, sensibility,
the sphere of the emotions, is the one that has pre-eminence
over the rest.
The character of the Bible as a whole is best understood by
regarding the Old Testament as its representative, and devoting
attention primarily to that. It is the Hebraic temper, and
the achievements of the Hebrew genius, that give the Bible a
unique place among books; and these racial traits were much
less subject to modification by alien influences—such as that of
Greek culture-in the period covered by the Old Testament, than
during the epoch in which the composition of the New Testament
was effected.
Much of the difficulty, for example, encountered
in the adequate rendering of St Paul's epistles into another tongue
is due to elements in his writing which are not common to him
and the writers of the Old Testament, but belong specifically to
him as one who had received a tincture of Greek learning, which,
in modifying his thought, had also modified his speech. The tone
of the Bible, then, is given to it by the Old Testament, which,
therefore, may be considered as the type of the whole.
Its themes are the greatest that literature can treat. They
may be reduced to three-God, man and the physical universe.
The physical universe is regarded as subordinate, and even sub-
ject, to man, within the measure of his capacity and needs, while
man, in his turn, is subject to God. The visible creation reveals
the wisdom, power and skill of its Maker. Man's constitution
## p. 28 (#50) ##############################################
28 The Authorised Version and its Influence
being related to that of the world about him, he finds in the
latter provision for his physical wants, and a certain satisfaction,
falling, however, short of the highest, for his spiritual cravings.
The relations of one human being to another, and of all spiritual
existences among themselves, are partly matters of positive or-
dinance, and partly to be inferred from their relations to God.
Thus, if God is the Father of all, all men are brethren. God is
represented as desiring to draw man into closer and closer union
with Himself, or as restoring man to his original condition of
friend and trustful child. Such eventual and complete restoration
is to be effected through the agency of the Hebrew people, but
particularly of certain leaders—patriarchs, prophets and others-
who, accordingly, are made the subjects of more or less extended
biographies.
Speaking generally, the three species of literature in the Old
Testament, succeeding one another in the order of time, are:
narrative, poetry-chiefly lyrical—and prophecy. In the New
Testament, the epistles may be said to represent prophecy, and
the Revelation to be partly of a prophetic, and partly of a poetical,
character, so far as these two can be distinguished.
Narrative, then, comes first in order of time, as in order of
books. It deals with the early history of mankind, and the great
epochs, especially the earlier, in the history of the Hebrew race.
As suggested above, it delineates history largely under the form
of biography, its most universally interesting form, and these
biographies are full of ups and downs, of lights and shadows,
both in characters and events. Conceived as affecting the ulti-
mate destinies of all mankind, and, indeed, of every individual
soul, these lives, presented in bold and picturesque outlines, are
among the most enthralling of stories.
Next in order to the narrative books, thus filled with matter of
deepest import and overwhelming interest to the race, come the
poetic books, of which the Psalter is the chief. Some of the
psalms are founded upon chapters of the national history, and all
presuppose an acquaintance with the national religion. In turn,
the psalms of an earlier period are subject to reworking at a later
epoch, to express more perfectly the sentiments of the individual
or the religious community. The same staple of matter thus re-
appears in a variety of forms, all of them charged with sincerity,
fervour, or even passion.
The prophetic books form the third main division. After story
and song come monition and reproof, mingled with predictions of
a
## p. 29 (#51) ##############################################
Character of the Bible
29
a better time. The prophet has much in common with the poet,
but is more didactic, and is concerned with the national life rather
than with the individual. Like the poet, the prophet rehearses
or alludes to God's dealings with His people, so that continuity
of motive is maintained throughout. A projection into the future
opens up occasional vistas of limitless range and surpassing beauty,
which give scope and direction to such hopes as men are prone to
conceive for themselves or their descendants.
The first condition of great literature is a unity of theme and
concept that shall give coherence and organisation to all detail,
however varied. By this test the Bible is great literature.
One increasing purpose runs through the whole, and is reflected
in the widening and deepening thought of the writers; yet it is a
purpose which exists germinally at the beginning, and unfolds
like a bud. Thus, all the principal books are linked and even
welded together, and to the common consciousness form, as it
were, but a single book, rather tò ßißríov than tà Bibría.
By far the greater part of the books which the world has
agreed to call classic—that is, permanently enjoyable and per-
manently helpful—are marked by dignity of theme and earnestness
of treatment. The theme or themes of the Bible are of the utmost
comprehensiveness, depth and poignancy of appeal. In the treat-
ment there is nowhere a trace of levity or insincerity to be
detected. The heart of a man is felt to be pulsating behind every
line. There is no straining for effect, no obtrusive ornament, no
complacent parading of the devices of art. Great matters are
presented with warmth of sentiment, in a simple style; and nothing
is more likely to render literature enduring.
Another trait of good literature exemplified by the Bible is
breadth. Take, for example, the story of Jacob, the parable of
the Prodigal Son, or St Paul's speech on Mars' hill. Only the
essentials are given. There is no petty and befogging detail.
The characters, the events, or the arguments stand out with clear-
ness, even with boldness, An inclusive and central effect is
produced with a few masterly strokes, so that the resulting im-
pression is one of conciseness and economy.
Closely associated with this quality of breadth is that of vigour.
The authors of the Bible have no time nor mind to spend upon
the elaboration of curiosities, or upon minute and trifling points.
Every sentence, nay, every word, must count. The spirit which
animates the whole must inform every particle. There is no room
for delicate shadings; the issues are too momentous, the concerns
## p. 30 (#52) ##############################################
30 The Authorised Version and its Influence
too pressing, to admit of introducing anything that can be spared.
A volume is compressed into a page, a page into a line.
And God said, Let there be light, and there was light.
Jesus wept.
It would not be difficult to show how all these qualities flow
necessarily from the intense preoccupation of the Biblical authors
with matters affecting all they held dear, all their hopes and fears
with respect to their country, their family and themselves, at the
present and in a boundless future. Even when the phrases em-
ployed seem cool and measured, they represent a compressed
energy like that of a tightly coiled spring, tending to actuate
effort and struggle of many kinds, and to open out into arts and
civilisations of which the Hebrew never dreamed.
In a sense, then, it is the lyrical faculty that distinguishes the
Hebrew author. Yet he is not an Aeolian harp, delicately re-
sponsive to every zephyr of sentiment. His passions are few and
elemental, and, as we have seen, are prone to utter themselves
energetically. One is tempted to compare the great lyric, as it
has been called, of the Hebrew, with the effusions, or rather the
creations, of Sappho and Pindar. Yet Sappho and Pindar must
suffer in the comparison. Addison speaks of Horace and Pindar
as showing, when confronted with the Psalms, 'an absurdity and
confusion of style,' and 'a comparative poverty of imagination. '
As for Sappho, her longest extant production, while intense,
shows, in conjunction with the shorter fragments, that her deeper
emotion is limited in range, and, because of this limitation, and
the tropical fervour displayed, is less universal in its appeal than
the best lyrical outpourings of the Hebrew genius. These include,
not only the Psalms, but much of Job, the best of the prophets,
a good deal of the Apocalypse, occasional passages of St Paul,
and even parts of the narrative books, especially those which
report the utterances of notable persons.
It has been asserted that the Hebrews of the Old Testament
were incapable of producing either drama or fiction, and, one
might add, the leisurely developments of the epic. This is only
another way of affirming their lyrical intensity and preoccupation.
The destruction of Sennacherib's host is related with exultation,
and the historian of Exodus rejoices over the destruction of the
Egyptians in the Red sea. He is no more dispassionate than Tacitus
in excoriating Nero, or Joinville in his devotion to St Louis. Events
are never displayed in that 'dry light' so dear, as they supposed,
6
## p. 31 (#53) ##############################################
Character of the Bible
31
to Heraclitus and Francis Bacon. There are always postulates
which nothing could induce the writer to discard. There is always
a presumption in favour of monotheism, of God's protecting
or punitive care for the people of Israel, of their eventual de-
liverance and full entrance upon their divinely ordained mission.
The poet or prophet could never be brought to admit that there
might be gods many, nor that the Hebrew people were not fore-
ordained to pre-eminence over Philistines and Assyrians.
But this egoism, this racial pride, which manifest themselves
by a strong colouring and a decided tone, and which are at the
furthest possible remove from scientific indifferentism, do not
prevent the Bible from possessing a universality which has placed
it at the foundation, or the head, or both, of all modern literatures.
There are several reasons for this. Every one is interested in the
origin of the world and of man. It may be urged that no other
literature gives so plain and coherent an account of these origins,
and of the early history of mankind, as the book of Genesis. Next,
the Bible emphasises the conception that all nations are of one
blood, and that all men are brethren, since their Father is one.
This, in satisfying the social instinct, has tended more and more
to draw tribe to tribe, and kingdom to kingdom, as well as
individual to individual, and, indirectly, has appealed to national
and personal ambition. Thirdly, the morality of the Bible, even
where it takes the form of statutory enactments, keeps in view the
interests of individual happiness and social well-being. Fourthly,
the Hebrew race is presented as, in some sort, the prototype, or
the beneficent elder brother, of all other races and nationalities,
so that any of its experiences are likely to find a parallel in
subsequent history, or even to help in making subsequent history.
Fifthly, the future of mankind is regarded in the Bible as bound
up with the general acceptance of Hebrew principles and ideals.
Sixthly, the utmost fulness of individual life is represented as
conditional upon the acceptance of that God who first distinctly
revealed Himself to the Hebrews, upon obedience to Him and
upon spiritual union with Him. With this is associated the
Messianic hope of a Deliverer, who, greater than His brethren,
yet even as they, should serve to bring God down to man, and
lift man up to God. These, perhaps, are reasons enough why,
notwithstanding the lyric note which is everywhere heard through-
out the Bible, it possesses also a character of universality, and,
one might also say, of impersonality. Thus, the Psalter, the most
lyrical part of the Bible, is perhaps the widest in its appeal of
## p. 32 (#54) ##############################################
32 The Authorised Version and its Influence
any, simply because the cry of the individual believer, however
impassioned, finds an echo in every other believing soul, and is not
without some response from the most apathetic.
As to form, in the sense of order and proportion, it is often
assumed that the Greeks alone possessed its secret in antiquity,
and bequeathed some hint of it to the modern world. Perhaps,
in an endeavour to vindicate for the Hebrews a sense of form,
we may best appeal to authority; and, if so, we can hardly decline
to accept the judgment of a man who, classically educated, and
possessed of a Frenchman's love of order and beauty, was a
Semitic scholar of unusual scope and insight. It was Renan
who said :
Israel had, like Greece, the gift of disengaging its idea perfectly, and of
expressing it in a concise and finished outline; proportion, measure, taste
were, in the Orient, the exclusive privilege of the Hebrew people, and because
of this they succeeded in imparting to thought and feeling a form general
and acceptable to all mankind.
It is true that, if we regard the technicalities of literary con-
struction, a book of the Bible will not infrequently seem to fall
short; but this is because the author is not intent upon structure
of a patent and easily definable sort. If he secures unity of im-
pression with variety in detail, it is often by the use of other
means, and especially through an intrinsic and enthralling power
which pervades his whole composition. Structure in the more
usual sense is, however, to be found in limited portions, such
as the story of Joseph, a single prophecy, or a speech from the
Acts of the Apostles.
An attempt has been made above to show what there is in
the constitution and qualities of the Bible entitling it to be
called a classic. In what follows, the aim will be to consider
the process by which it became an English classic, and the
influence it has exerted, and continues to exert, in that
capacity. Before attempting this directly, however, we shall
need briefly to examine the problem which it presents to the
translator.
The nature of the Hebrew language first demands considera-
tion. Its most noticeable feature is its deficiency in abstract and
general terms. It has no philosophical or scientific vocabulary.
Nearly every word presents a concrete meaning, clearly visible
even through a figurative use. Many of its roots are verbal, and
the physical activity underlying each word is felt through all its
special applications. Thus, to take a single example, there is
## p. 33 (#55) ##############################################
Biblical Language
33
a Hebrew word variously rendered in the following passages by
bud, east, spring, outgoing, going out :
Job xxxviii, 27: To cause the bud of the tender herb to spring forth.
Psalm lxxv, 6: For promotion cometh neither from the east nor from the
west.
2 Kings ii, 21: And he went forth unto the spring of the waters.
Psalm lxv, 8: Thou makest the outgoings of the morning and evening to
rejoice.
2 Sam. ii, 25: Thou knowest . . . that he came to deceive thee, and to
know thy going out and thy coming in, and to know all that thou doest.
6
In every one of these cases the Hebrew word means 'going out'
or 'going forth,' and the Hebrew so understands it; but the 'going
forth' of the sun is one thing, and that of the waters another.
Now, if we could suppose the word “bud' or 'east' in English to
present to the imagination, as transparently as 'spring' does, the
original activity which the word records, we should better under-
stand what is true of practically all Hebrew words. Everywhere
we are face to face with motion, activity, life. Of the Hebrew
words for pride, one presents the notion of mounting up, one of
strutting, and one of seething, as a boiling pot. What funda-
mental idea of similar concreteness does the English word 'pride'
suggest ?
There were not many abstract ideas to be conveyed in Biblical
Hebrew; the absence of the words is a sign of the absence of the
ideas. Such a sentence as 'The problem of external perception
is a problem in metaphysics,' or, 'The modifications produced
within our nervous system are the only states of which we can
have a direct consciousness,' would be untranslatable into ancient
Hebrew. It is hardly too much to say that every generalisation-
or, better, every general truth-expressed by the Hebrew is
rendered with the utmost directness, and in phraseology as
pictorial, as elemental, as transparent, as stimulative to imagi-
nation and feeling, as could possibly be. Such a language is the
very language of poetry. The medium through which poetry
works is the world of sensible objects—wine and oil, the cedar
of Lebanon, the young lion, the moon, the cloud, the smoking
hills, the wild goat, the coney and the stork; or, if we turn to
Homer rather than the Psalmist, a plane-tree, the bright water
of a spring, a snake blood-red on the back, the cheeping brood of
a sparrow, or beaked ships and well-greaved Achaians. What is
necessary in order to make poetry out of such materials is in-
tensity of feeling, with elevation and coherence of thought. These,
we have seen, were the endowment of the Hebrews. On the one
a
E. L. IY.
CH. II.
3
## p. 34 (#56) ##############################################
34 The Authorised Version and its Influence
hand, they were close to nature; they had not parcelled out
their human constitution into separate and independent faculties;
they had not interposed a cloud and hubbub of words between
themselves and things; they had not so dissipated their powers
in minute and laborious analysis that they were incapable of naïve
views, powerful sensations and vigorous convictions. On the other
hand, they had, as tending to coherence and elevation of thought,
what to them was a sufficient explanation of all the wonders of
the universe, and a sufficient impulse to lift up their hearts :
these they found in their overmastering belief in God the Creator,
God the Maintainer, and, for those who trust and love Him, God
the Deliverer.
But not only were their words concrete—the structure of their
sentences was simple, while of the paragraph, in the Greek
sense, they had hardly any conception, until, in the New Testa-
ment, we find their diction fallen under Greek influence. Their
chief connective was 'and'-hence the periodic sentence was,
virtually, beyond their scope. The verse was their stylistic unit; and
a sequence of verses, or of sentences about the length of what we
understand by the average Biblical verse, was all that they aimed
at achieving in composition.
Their poetry was measured, not by feet, as in ancient Latin
and Greek, but by word-accents, as in the most ancient poetry of
many nations, including that of our English ancestors. Moreover,
Hebrew poetry was dominated by the principle of parallelism of
members. Often these members are arranged in couplets, but
sometimes they include several lines. The three primary forms
of parallelism are the synonymous, the synthetic and the anti-
thetic. Thus, synonymous :
Psalm xv, 1: (a) Lord, who shall abide in thy tabernacle? (6) Who shall
dwell in thy holy hill?
Synthetic (a succeeding line or lines supplementing or com-
pleting the first):
Psalm xiv, 2: (a) The Lord looked down from heaven upon the children
of men, (b) to see if there were any that did understand, and seek God.
Antithetic:
Prov. x, 1: (a) A wise son maketh a glad father, (6) but a foolish son is
the heaviness of his mother.
Besides these, there are variations, such as climactic parallelism,
where an expression in the first line is repeated in one or more
that follow :
Psalm xxiv, 8: (a) The Lord strong and mighty, (6) the Lord mighty in
battle.
:
## p. 35 (#57) ##############################################
The Rhythm of Hebrew Poetry 35
The formation of the strophe, and devices such as the refrain,
are less important. What is chiefly to be noted is, first, that
Hebrew poetry has a decided accentual rhythm, and, secondly, that
the dominant principle in the union of lines into larger groups
is that of parallelism. The controlling rhythm is, therefore, the
rhythm of meaning, what Watts-Dunton has called 'sense-rhythm,'
this, as he observes, being the rhythm of nature. Stanley
eloquently says:
The rapid stroke as of alternate wings,” the heaving and sinking as of
the troubled heart,' which have been beautifully described as the essence of
the parallel structure of Hebrew verse, are exactly suited for the endless play
of human feeling, and for the understanding of every age and nation.
Much of Hebrew prose was poetical, in the sense that it em-
ployed these devices to a greater or less extent, and all of it was
poetical in the sense described above in the discussion of the
Hebrew vocabulary. The prophets, in particular, frequently rise
into a strain which is hardly distinguishable from poetry.
The qualities, then, which fitted the Bible, beyond any other
book of the world, for translation, are, among others, these :
(a) Universality of interest. There is much in it for the
meanest and most illiterate, and its treasures are not to be
exhausted by the wisest. It touches every person at more
points than any other book that can be named.
(6) The concreteness and picturesqueness of its language,
appealing alike to the child and the poet, while suggesting
abundant reflection to the philosopher.
(c) The simplicity of its structure, which requires little
more from the translator than that he shall render with fidelity
one brief clause at a time, and follow it by the next.
(d) A rhythm largely independent of the features, prosodical
or other, of any individual language—a rhythm free, varied
and indeterminate, or, rather, determinate only by what has
been called “the energy of the spirit which sings within the
bosom of him who speaks,' and therefore adaptable to every
emotion, from the most delicate to the most energetic.
It follows that the sway of the original is so powerful that
hardly any translation will be devoid of merit, while infinite room
is still left for felicities of detail, according to the character of the
medium and the skill and taste of the translator.
Among the qualifications of a good translator, the first, un-
doubtedly, is that he shall be penetrated by a sense of the
surpassing value of his original, and a corresponding sense of
342
## p. 36 (#58) ##############################################
36 The Authorised Version and its Influence
-
the importance of his task. This will preserve him from flippancy
and meanness, by imbuing him with earnestness and humility. It
will make him ready to follow wherever he is led by the text,
and will prevent him from pluming himself upon prettiness of
phrase, or any fancies of his own. Such a translator will strive
with all his might after fidelity to word and sense, and after the
utmost clearness and simplicity of rendering, avoiding, on the one
hand, the trivial, and, on the other, the ornate or pompous. He
will conform to the genius of his own tongue while endeavouring
to transfer to it the treasures of another; and, besides possessing
naturally, he will cultivate, in every proper way, a sensitiveness
to that music of the phrase, which, in the case of the Bible, is but
another name for the music of the heart. Only a few translators
have united these endowments in a just proportion, but among
them must be counted Jerome, the first of the great translators
whom we know by name, the author-though he called himself
rather the reviser
of the Latin Vulgate.
Of Jerome's fitness for his task the following illustration will
serve. It is worthy of attention, moreover, as presenting the verses
contained in the various English specimens which follow :
Exod. xix, 16, 18, 19: Jamque advenerat tertius dies, et mane inclar.
uerat, et ecce coeperunt audiri tonitrua, et micare fulgura, et nubes densis-
sima operire montem, clangorque buccinae vehementius perstrepebat, et
timuit populus qui erat in castris. . . . Totus autem mons Sinai fumabat, eo
quod descendisset Dominus super eum in igne, et ascenderet fumus ex eo
quasi de fornace; eratque omnis mons terribilis. Et sonitus buccinae
paulatim crescebat in majus, et prolixius tendebatur.
The language into which the Bible can be most perfectly
rendered will, in the first place, be popular, in distinction from
artificial or scholastic. Its vocabulary will consist of such words
as ordinary people would naturally use to describe objects or
utter their emotions. It will abound in concrete expressions, and
need but few learned or recondite terms. The words should, if
possible, exhibit their primitive meaning on their face, or, at least,
suggest immediately a single central meaning which can be ac-
cepted as radical and primary. They must, in general, while racy
and vernacular, be free from degrading or belittling associations,
so that they may be equally suitable for the middle or ordinary
style and for passages of any degree of elevation up to the highest.
A considerable proportion of them must possess sonority, or con-
tain such admixtures of vowels and musical consonants as will
ensure, according to the need, a scale of melodious effects ranging
from serene and quiet harmonies to rich and rolling crescendos-
## p. 37 (#59) ##############################################
Old English Versions
37
but all without appearance of effort, instinctively responsive to
the situation, and to the feeling which the situation evokes. If
the rhythmical effects of a language are attained through the
alternation of stressed and unstressed syllables, such a language
will so far resemble the Hebrew, and serve as a natural medium
for the transmission of the original effects.
The influences which moulded the English language into a
proper vehicle for so stupendous a literary creation as the Bible
must next be briefly considered. Early in the eighth century,
Bede was making a translation into Old English of the Gospel of
John, and, about the year 800 A. D. , the language was already
capable of such poetry as this from the Christ of Cynewulf1:
Thereupon from the four corners of the world, from the uttermost regions
of earth, angels all-shining shall with one accord blow their crashing
trampets; the earth shall tremble under men. Glorious and steadfast they
shall sound together over against the course of the stars, chanting in harmony
and making melody from south and from north, from east and from west,
throughout the whole creation. All mankind shall they wake from the dead
onto the Last Judgment; they shall rouse the sons of men all aghast from
the ancient earth, bidding them straightway arise from their deep sleep.
Throughout the Old English period, most of the literature
produced was strongly coloured by Biblical diction. Even a work
like Bede's Ecclesiastical History of the English People was under
this influence. By about the year 1000, the language was able
to render the Latin of Jerome, as given above, in the following
form? (Exod. xix, 16, 18, 19):
Fã cõm se brydda dæg, and ligetta and punor and picce genip oferwrēh
þone munt, and bỹman swêg wæs gehired, and eall þæt folo him ondrőd þe
wæs on þām fyrdwicon. . . . And eall Sinai munt smēac, forpampe Drihten wæs
uppan him on fyre; and se smic ārās of him, and eall se munt wæs egeslic.
And þære bỹman swēg wĒox swā leng swā swīdor3.
Before we leave this part of the subject, it may be added that,
according to the computations of Marsh, about 93 per cent. of
the words of the Authorised Version, counting repetitions of the
same word, are native English.
Ormulum and Piers Plowman will suggest the influence ex-
erted by the Bible on English diction during the period between
A. D. 1000 and 1400—roughly speaking, between the age of Aelfric and
1 Ll. 878–889, Whitman's translation.
9 The vowel-sounds of either Italian, French, or German will be sufficiently close,
The characters 8 and þ represent th; g before or after e or i is usually like y. Finale
is pronounced somewhat like that in liveth, or the final e of German. The maoron
indicates length of vowel.
3 Aelfric's versions of the same passage may be found in his Homilies, ed. Thorpe,
1, 312; 11, 196, 202.
## p. 38 (#60) ##############################################
38 The Authorised Version and its Influence
that of Wyclif. The poetry near the end of this period is better
able than prose to cope with the difficulties of translation. Thus,
Chaucer has :
Caste alle awey the werkes of derkpesse,
And armeth you in armure of brightnesse;
where the second Wyclifite version reads :
Rom. xiii, 12: Therfor caste we awei the werkis of derknessis, and be we
clothid in the armeris of lizt.
Though this second version, that of Purvey (1388), is, in general,
much less pedantically literal than the first, made some eight or
nine years earlier, yet such words as derknessis and armeris, for
the Latin plurals tenebrae and arma, illustrate the chief defect
of both the Wyclifite translations, namely, a failure to attain
perfect English idiom.
Purvey seems to have been quite conscious of the excessive
literalness of the earlier version (1380), and of the awkwardness
due to the close following of Latin idiom. In his prologue, after
describing how he had toiled, in association with others, to obtain
a true Latin text, and to elucidate its difficulties, he proceeds to
lay down important principles of Biblical translation, which have
never been superseded. Among them are :
First, to translate as clearly as possible according to the sense,
and not merely according to the words.
Secondly, to make the sentence at least as 'open' in English as
in Latin, that is, to have due regard to English idiom.
Nevertheless, it may be affirmed that both Wyclifite versions
are far inferior in ease and idiomatic character to the Old English.
It cannot be said that scholars are agreed as to the influence of
the Wyclifite versions upon Tindale and the Authorised Version;
but it is pretty clear that Tindale was influenced by them to a
moderate extent, and that expressions of great force and beauty
have, occasionally, been appropriated from Wyclif by the Autho-
rised Version, either mediately or directly. One or two instances
may suffice : John iv, 14, ‘a well of water springing up into ever-
lasting life' comes, through Tindale, from both the Wyclifite
versions; 1 Cor. ii, 10, 'the deep things of God,' which Tindale
renders, 'the bottom of God's secrets,' and the Rheims version,
'the profundities of God. '. How easy it is to go stylistically astray
in such matters is shown by the fact that two versions, both
published within the last ten years, have, respectively, for the first
passage above, ‘a spring of water . . . welling up for enduring life,'
i Second Nun's Tale, 384-5.
.
## p. 39 (#61) ##############################################
Caxton's Golden Legend
39
and 'a fountain . . . of water springing up for the Life of the ages”;
and, for the second, 'the profoundest secrets of God,' and 'the
depths of the divine nature. '
The Wyclifite version of Exod. xix, 16, 18, 19 is subjoined,
the spelling being modernised, and modern renderings being indi-
cated :
WYCLIF (earlier).
And now the third day was come, and the morning (morewe, morrow) tide
was full cleared ; and lo! thunders began to be heard and lightnings (leytes,
from the Old English word above] to shine, and the most thick cloud to cover
the hill; and the cry of the trump more hideously made noise, and the people
dreaded that was in the tents. . . . And all the hill of Sinai smoked, because
(for thi that] the Lord descended upon it in fire; and the smoke rose (steyde]
up of it as of a furnace, and all the bill was full fearful; and the sound of the
trump little by little [litil mele) sprang into more, and longer was stretched. '
A hundred years later than the Wiclifite versions (20 November,
1483), Caxton published his Golden Legend, in which he had
inserted considerable portions of the Pentateuch and the Gospels,
on the basis, probably, of Peter Comestor's Historia Scholastica.
Caxton's theory of translation, if we may judge from the preface
to his Eneydos, was to seek a mean between 'fair and strange
terms,” by some regarded as “over curious,' and such 'old and
homely terms' as were now strange and almost disused. His aim
lay in the wish to be generally understood. The clearness and
beauty of the passage from Exodus will be readily seen.
Caxton's Golden Legend (spelling modernised).
When the third day came, and the morning waxed clear, they heard
thunder and lightning, and saw a great cloud cover the mount; and the cry
of the trump was so shrill that the people were sore afraid. . . . All the mount
of Sinai smoked, for so much as our Lord descended on it in fire; and the
smoke ascended from the hill as it had been from a furnace. The mount was
terrible and dreadful, and the sound of the trump grew a little more, and
continued longer.
It will be evident that the vocabulary of Caxton is drawn from
the same sources as Tindale's, while it does not greatly differ from
Wyclif's, these sources being native English and Old French, with
a very slight admixture of words coming directly from the Latin.
It is agreed on all hands that the English of the Authorised
Version is, in essentials, that of Tindale. Minor modifications were
made by translators and revisers for the next eighty years or so;
but, speaking broadly, the Authorised Version is Tindale's. The
spirit of the man passed into his work, and therefore it is of
moment to ascertain what that spirit was.
He himself may
tell us :
## p. 40 (#62) ##############################################
40 The Authorised Version and its Influence
(a) His version was to be made for all the people, even the
humblest:
If God spare me life, ere many years I will cause the boy that driveth the
plow to know more of the Scriptures than you [a theologian] do.
To the same effect is his preference of favour to grace, love to
charity, health to salvation.
(6) His surrender of himself to God. Writing to a friend and
fellow-labourer, Frith, he says:
:
The wisdom and the spirit of Stephen be with your heart and with your
mouth, and teach your lips what they shall say, and how to answer to all
things. He is our God if we despair in ourselves, and trust in him; and his is
the glory. Amen.
(c) His theory regarding the meaning to be conveyed:
Believing that every part of Scripture had one sense and one only, the
sense in the mind of the writer.
(d) On Greek and Hebrew with reference to English:
The Greek tongue agreeth more with the English than with the Latin.
And the properties of the Hebrew tongue agreeth a thousand times more
with the English than with the Latin. The manner of speaking is both one,
so that in a thousand places thou needest not but to translate it into the
English word for word, when thou must seek a compass in the Latin, and yet
shalt have much work to translate it well-favouredly, so that it have the same
grace and sweetness, sense and pure understanding with it in the Latin as it
hath in the Hebrew. A thousand parts better may it be translated into the
English than into the Latin.
(e) His scrupulous fidelity:
I call God to record against the day we shall appear before our Lord
Jesus Christ to give reckoning of our doings that I never altered one syllable
of God's word against my conscience, nor would to this day, if all that is in
earth-whether it be honour, pleasure, or riches—might be given me.
The observation of Augustus Hare, in speaking of the Jacobean
revisers, is applicable to Tindale: 'They were far more studious of
the matter than of the manner; and there is no surer preservative
against writing ill, or more potent charm for writing well. ' And so
Goldsmith: 'To feel your subject thoroughly, and to speak without
fear, are the only rules of eloquence. ' Elsewhere he says: 'Elo-
quence is not in the words, but in the subject; and in great
concerns, the more simply anything is expressed, it is generally the
more sublime.
(f) His humility:
And if they perceive in any places that I have not attained the very sense
of the tongue, or meaning of the Scripture, or have not given the right
English word, that they put to their hand to amend it, remembering that so
is their duty to do.
Again, he speaks of himself as 'evil-favoured in this world, and
## p. 41 (#63) ##############################################
Coverdale's Translation
41
without grace in the sight of men, speechless and rude, dull and
slow-witted. '
If we add that he was an assiduous and minute student, went
directly to the originals, and employed the best helps attainable,
all that is needful will have been said.
TINDALE.
And the third day in the morning there was thunder and lightning, and
a thick cloud upon the mount, and the voice of the horn waxed exceeding
lond, and all the people that was in the host was afraid. . . . And Mount Sinai
was altogether on a smoke, because the Lord descended down upon it in fire;
and the smoke thereof ascended up, as it had been the smoke of a kiln, and
all the mount was exceeding fearful. And the voice of the horn blew, and
waxed louder and louder.
Before we pass from Tindale to the Authorised Version, three
other translations must be mentioned. Coverdale's nature may be
indicated by the fact that it is he who introduced into the language
the expressions 'loving kindness' and 'tender mercy. Tindale's
nature was masculine, Coverdale’s of a more feminine cast. His
translations, of which the Prayer Book' version of the Psalter is
the most generally known-possess a more flexible and musical
rhythm than Tindale's. Tindale wrote (Luke ii, 12): 'And take
this for a sign; ye shall find the child swaddled, and laid in a
manger. ' When this has passed under Coverdale’s revising hand,
it stands : ‘And take this for a sign; ye shall find the child
wrapped in swaddling clothes, and laid in a manger. ' Westcott
has truly said of Coverdale that he
allowed himself considerable freedom in dealing with the shape of the
original sentences. . . . There is in every part an endeavour to transfuse the
spirit as well as the letter into the English rendering.
A peculiarity of the Genevan version is that it attains a
special accuracy. One example will suffice. Tindale translates
Lrike xi, 17: 'One house shall fall upon another. ' The Genevan
Bible has: ‘A house divided against itself, falleth. '
The Rheims and Douay versions inclined to Latinise, whereas
earlier versions had sought to employ simpler words, generally of
· The Prayer Book excels in the music of its phrasing. One of Cranmer's collects,
that for the first Sunday in Advent, will serve as a specimen (c. A. D. 1546): Almighty
God, give us grace that we may cast away the works of darkness, and put upon us the
armour of light, now in the time of this mortal life, in which Thy Son Jesus Christ
came to visit us in great humility; that in the last day, when He shall come again in
His glorious majesty to judge both the quick and the dead, we may rise to the life
immortal, through Him who liveth and reigneth with Thee and the Holy Ghost, now
and ever. '
Coverdale has been regarded by some as the originator of the tendency to translate
the same word in different ways at different times; but this tendenoy existed as far
back as the Old English period.
>
## p. 42 (#64) ##############################################
42 The Authorised Version and its Influence
j
native origin. Thus, Tindale had written (Rom. x, 10): “To know-
ledge [i. e. acknowledge) with the mouth maketh a man safe. ' The
Rheims version has: "With the mouth confession is made to salva-
tion’; the second Wyclifite version had rendered the same Latin
by: ‘By mouth knowledging is made to health. ' The trans-
lators of the Authorised Version endeavoured, out of the English
renderings with which they were acquainted, compared with the
originals and the principal versions into other tongues, ancient
and modern, to frame one which should surpass them all, by
appropriating the chief excellences of each—so far, at least, as
these excellences could be harmonised with one another. In so
far as it did thus reconcile pre-existing differences, it became a
powerful agent in establishing unity throughout the English nation,
for, to borrow the words of Gardiner: 'In its production all
sectarian influences were banished, and all hostilities were mute. '
Whereas previously, one Bible had been read in church, and
another at home, now, all parties and classes turned with one
accord to the new version, and adopted it as their very own. It
thus became bound up with the life of the nation. Since it stilled
all controversy over the best rendering, it gradually came to be
accepted as so far absolute that, in the minds of myriads, there
was no distinction between this version and the original texts, and
they may almost be said to have believed in the literal inspiration
of the very words which composed it.
It must not be overlooked that the Authorised Version profited
by all the controversy regarding previous translations. Practically
every word that could be challenged had been challenged. The
fate of a doctrine, even the fate of a party, had, at times, seemed to
depend upon a phrase. The whole ground had been fought over so
long that great intimacy with the Bible had resulted. Not only
did the mind take cognisance of it, but the emotions seized upon
it; much of it was literally learned by heart by great numbers of
the English people. Thus, it grew to be a national possession;
and literature which is a national possession, and by its very
nature appeals to the poor and lowly, is, in truth, a national
classic. No other book has so penetrated and permeated the
hearts and speech of the English race as has the Bible. What
Homer was to the Greeks, and the Koran to the Arabs, that, or
something not unlike it, the Bible has become to the English.
Huxley writes:
Consider the great historical fact that, for three centuries, this book has
been woven into the life of all that is best and noblest in English history;
## p. 43 (#65) ##############################################
Biblical and Classical Prose
43
a
that it has become the national epic of Britain, and is as familiar to poble and
simple, from John-o'-Groat's House to Land's End, as Dante and Tasso once
were to the Italians; that it is written in the noblest and purest English, and
abounds in exquisite beauties of pure literary form; and finally, that it
forbids the veriest hind who never left his village to be ignorant of the
existence of other countries and other civilizations, and of a great past
stretching back to the furthest limits of the oldest civilizations of the world.
The classical, yet popular, character of the Bible has been
already insisted on. Two or three comparisons will further illus-
trate this. Chateaubriand, rendering the pathetic address of Ruth
to Naomi in the Homeric manner, shows how prolix and com-
paratively languid Homer can be. It might be objected that
Chateaubriand has travestied Homer, but it cannot be said that
Thucydides, the consummate Greek historian, travesties himself.
Compare the close of a Thucydidean speech, being about one-sixth
of the harangue of Brasidas to his soldiers before their engage-
ment with the Illyrians (Thuc. iv, 126), with the whole of Gideon's
address to his men before their encounter with the Midianites
(Judges vii, 17, 18):
If you repel their tumultuous onset, and, when opportunity offers, with-
draw again in good order, keeping your ranks, you will sooner arrive at a
place of safety, and will also learn the lesson that mobs like these, if an
adversary withstand their first attack, do but threaten at a distance and make
a flourish of valour, although if he yields to them they are quick enough to
show their courage in following at his heels when there is no danger.
Look on me, and do likewise; and behold, when I come to the outside of
the camp, it shall be that, as I do, so shall ye do. When I blow with a
trumpet, I and all that are with me, then blow ye the trumpets also on every
side of all the camp, and say, The sword of the Lord, and of Gideon.
The speech of Jahaziel (2 Chron. xx, 15–17) seems real. It is
thus that an energetic man would speak. It runs (with modernised
punctuation):
Hearken ye, al Judab, and ye inhabitants of Jerusalem, and thou king
Jehoshaphat. Thus saith the Lord unto you: Be not afraid nor dismayed by
reason of this great multitude, for the battle is not yours, but God's. To-
morrow go ye down against them. Behold, they come up by the cliff of Ziz,
and ye shall find them at the end of the brook, before the wilderness of
Jeruel. Ye shall not need to fight in this battle. Set yourselves, stand ye
still, and see the salvation of the Lord with you, 0 Judah and Jerusalem.
Fear not, nor be dismayed. To-morrow go ont against them, for the Lord
will be with you.
Coleridge was so impressed with the vigour of Biblical style as
to affirm:
After reading Isaiah, or St Paul's Epistle to the Hebrews, Homer and
Virgil are disgustingly tame to me, and Milton himself barely tolerable.
Shakespeare, by common consent, is the first name in English
literature. Of Shakespeare's prose, Churton Collins makes five
## p. 44 (#66) ##############################################
44 The Authorised Version and its Influence
classes, the last being what he calls highly wrought poetical prose.
“This,' he says, “is the style where Shakespeare has raised prose
to the sublimest pitch of verse. ' As the first illustration of it
he chooses Hamlet, act II, sc. 2, 310—321:
This goodly frame, the earth, seems to me a sterile promontory, this most
excellent canopy, the air, look you, this brave o’erhanging firmament, this
majestical roof fretted with golden fire, why, it appears no other thing to me
than a foul and pestilent congregation of vapours. What a piece of work is
a man! how noble in reason! how infinite in faculty!
prayseth Rogero to the honour of the house of Este. ' And does
not Alcina beguile Rogero, as Dido beguiled Aeneas? It is clear,
therefore, that Ariosto should share the common eulogy of Vergil,
Indeed, he may claim a higher praise, because there may be found
in his many writings passages of which Vergil was incapable—such
as the Christian demeanour of Charlemagne in the 14th book, and
the conversion of Rogero to the Christian faith in the 41st. Briefly,
Harington treats Vergil as Golding treated Ovid, and reproves
him, in sorrow rather than in anger, for his inevitable paganism.
As for the mention of himself and his kinsmen in his notes, to
which Harington pleads guilty, he made them because Plutarch
blamed Homer for nowhere explaining of what stock he was, of
what town, or of what country. 'Excuse me, then,' says he, 'if I in
a work that may perhaps last longer than a better thing, and being
not ashamed of my kindred, name them here and there to no
man's offence. No excuse is necessary. Who would blame a
whimsical scholar for chattering of himself and for interrupting
a serious work with amiable anecdotage?
Besides the translations openly made and avowed, there are
others which masquerade as fresh, unborrowed works. In his
Elizabethan Sonnets, Sidney Lee has traced to their origin in
France or Italy a vast number of English sonnets. He has proved
the debt which the poets of the sixteenth century owed to their
predecessors. He has set side by side in a close parallel the
sonnets of Lodge and Ronsard, of Daniel and Desportes. He
has shown most clearly what Wyatt and many others took from
Petrarch. He has illustrated the 'influence' of Marot, du Bellay,
de Pontoux, Jacques de Billy and Durant upon our bards, great
and small. As an episode in the history of translation this
'influence' is of the greatest interest. We should not consider
its moral aspect too censoriously. In Puttenham's despite, the
Elizabethans do not seem to have regarded plagiarism as a heinous
sin. If they had, who would have escaped condemnation ? No
doubt Southern, who pilfered from Ronsard, and spoiled what he
pilfered, deserved all the censure which the critic heaped upon
him. But there are indications not merely that plagiarism was
thought respectable, but that a translator might claim as his own
that which he had put into English. 'I call it mine,' says Nicholas
Grimald of his translation of Cicero's De Officiis, 'as Plautus
and Terence called the comedies theirs which they made out of
>
## p. 25 (#47) ##############################################
The Charge of Plagiarism
25
Greek’; and, doubtless, Wyatt, Daniel, Lodge, Spenser and the rest
called the sonnets theirs which they had made out of French and
Italian, because they had made them. Ben Jonson did not think it
worth while to give Philostratus credit for his ‘Drink to me only
with thine eyes,' and he left it for the critics of a later age to track
every chapter of his Discoveries to its lair. In neither case need
.
the morality of his method be discussed, and Dryden's defence of him
may stand as a defence for all save for such burglars as Southern:
He has done his robberies so openly, that we may see that he
fears not to be taxed by any law. He invades authors like a
monarch; and what would be theft in other poets, is only victory
in him. '
## p. 26 (#48) ##############################################
CHAPTER II
THE AUTHORISED VERSION AND ITS INFLUENCE
1
IF the Authorised Version of the Bible be the first English
classic, as seems by all competent authorities to be allowed, two
enquiries suggest themselves: first, what is meant when it is
called a classic, and, secondly, what are the qualities that entitle
it to be ranked as the first classic in English? In other words,
it will be necessary first to examine the Bible as literature, irre-
spective of any translation whatever; and, secondly, to examine
its diction in the standard English translation, in order to see
whether the choice of words, the mould of sentences and the
harmonious disposition of sounds are such as deserve the highest
praise, in comparison with the choicest productions of native
English genius.
These two enquiries, however—the one into the nature of the
Bible considered as literature, and the other into the nature of
the English in which our standard version is written—will, of ne-
cessity, imply some consideration of the successive stages by which
what we call the Bible grew into being, and of the successive stages
by which the English of our Bible was gradually selected, imbued
with the proper meanings and associations, and ordered into a fit
medium for the conveyance of the high thoughts and noble
emotions in which the original abounds. Especially is it true of
our second enquiry that no adequate conception of the language
employed in the Jacobean version can be formed, save through
at least a brief survey of the series of English translations which
led
up to it. Their indebtedness to their predecessors is recognised
most clearly by the translators of the Authorised Version, who
say in their preface:
Truly, good Christian reader, we never thought, from the beginning, that
we should need to make a new translation, nor yet to make of a bad one
a good one; . . . but to make a good one better, or out of many good ones one
principal good one, not justly to be excepted against—that hath been our
endeavour, that our mark.
1 Notwithstanding the current use of this term, the Jacobean revision was never
publicly authorised by parliament or convocation, privy council or king. The accept-
ance which it has enjoyed has been won chiefly on its merits.
а
## p. 27 (#49) ##############################################
Character of the
of the Bible
27
The Bible either proceeds from divine inspiration, as some will
have it, or, according to others, is the fruit of the religious genius of
the Hebrew race. From either point of view, the authors are highly
gifted individuals, who, notwithstanding their diversities, and the
progressiveness observable in their representations of the nature of
God, are wonderfully consistent in the main tenor of their writings,
and serve, in general, for mutual confirmation and illustration.
In some cases, this may be due to the revision of earlier pro-
ductions by later writers, which has thus brought more primitive
conceptions into a degree of conformity with maturer and pro-
founder views; but, even in such cases, the earlier conception
often lends itself, without wrenching, to the deeper interpretation
and the completer exposition.
The Bible is not distinctively an intellectual achievement. Like
all other great works of literature, it springs from, and addresses,
human nature as a whole. It has no more to do with intellect
than with sensibility, imagination, or will. In fact, if it be more
concerned with one of these faculties than another, sensibility,
the sphere of the emotions, is the one that has pre-eminence
over the rest.
The character of the Bible as a whole is best understood by
regarding the Old Testament as its representative, and devoting
attention primarily to that. It is the Hebraic temper, and
the achievements of the Hebrew genius, that give the Bible a
unique place among books; and these racial traits were much
less subject to modification by alien influences—such as that of
Greek culture-in the period covered by the Old Testament, than
during the epoch in which the composition of the New Testament
was effected.
Much of the difficulty, for example, encountered
in the adequate rendering of St Paul's epistles into another tongue
is due to elements in his writing which are not common to him
and the writers of the Old Testament, but belong specifically to
him as one who had received a tincture of Greek learning, which,
in modifying his thought, had also modified his speech. The tone
of the Bible, then, is given to it by the Old Testament, which,
therefore, may be considered as the type of the whole.
Its themes are the greatest that literature can treat. They
may be reduced to three-God, man and the physical universe.
The physical universe is regarded as subordinate, and even sub-
ject, to man, within the measure of his capacity and needs, while
man, in his turn, is subject to God. The visible creation reveals
the wisdom, power and skill of its Maker. Man's constitution
## p. 28 (#50) ##############################################
28 The Authorised Version and its Influence
being related to that of the world about him, he finds in the
latter provision for his physical wants, and a certain satisfaction,
falling, however, short of the highest, for his spiritual cravings.
The relations of one human being to another, and of all spiritual
existences among themselves, are partly matters of positive or-
dinance, and partly to be inferred from their relations to God.
Thus, if God is the Father of all, all men are brethren. God is
represented as desiring to draw man into closer and closer union
with Himself, or as restoring man to his original condition of
friend and trustful child. Such eventual and complete restoration
is to be effected through the agency of the Hebrew people, but
particularly of certain leaders—patriarchs, prophets and others-
who, accordingly, are made the subjects of more or less extended
biographies.
Speaking generally, the three species of literature in the Old
Testament, succeeding one another in the order of time, are:
narrative, poetry-chiefly lyrical—and prophecy. In the New
Testament, the epistles may be said to represent prophecy, and
the Revelation to be partly of a prophetic, and partly of a poetical,
character, so far as these two can be distinguished.
Narrative, then, comes first in order of time, as in order of
books. It deals with the early history of mankind, and the great
epochs, especially the earlier, in the history of the Hebrew race.
As suggested above, it delineates history largely under the form
of biography, its most universally interesting form, and these
biographies are full of ups and downs, of lights and shadows,
both in characters and events. Conceived as affecting the ulti-
mate destinies of all mankind, and, indeed, of every individual
soul, these lives, presented in bold and picturesque outlines, are
among the most enthralling of stories.
Next in order to the narrative books, thus filled with matter of
deepest import and overwhelming interest to the race, come the
poetic books, of which the Psalter is the chief. Some of the
psalms are founded upon chapters of the national history, and all
presuppose an acquaintance with the national religion. In turn,
the psalms of an earlier period are subject to reworking at a later
epoch, to express more perfectly the sentiments of the individual
or the religious community. The same staple of matter thus re-
appears in a variety of forms, all of them charged with sincerity,
fervour, or even passion.
The prophetic books form the third main division. After story
and song come monition and reproof, mingled with predictions of
a
## p. 29 (#51) ##############################################
Character of the Bible
29
a better time. The prophet has much in common with the poet,
but is more didactic, and is concerned with the national life rather
than with the individual. Like the poet, the prophet rehearses
or alludes to God's dealings with His people, so that continuity
of motive is maintained throughout. A projection into the future
opens up occasional vistas of limitless range and surpassing beauty,
which give scope and direction to such hopes as men are prone to
conceive for themselves or their descendants.
The first condition of great literature is a unity of theme and
concept that shall give coherence and organisation to all detail,
however varied. By this test the Bible is great literature.
One increasing purpose runs through the whole, and is reflected
in the widening and deepening thought of the writers; yet it is a
purpose which exists germinally at the beginning, and unfolds
like a bud. Thus, all the principal books are linked and even
welded together, and to the common consciousness form, as it
were, but a single book, rather tò ßißríov than tà Bibría.
By far the greater part of the books which the world has
agreed to call classic—that is, permanently enjoyable and per-
manently helpful—are marked by dignity of theme and earnestness
of treatment. The theme or themes of the Bible are of the utmost
comprehensiveness, depth and poignancy of appeal. In the treat-
ment there is nowhere a trace of levity or insincerity to be
detected. The heart of a man is felt to be pulsating behind every
line. There is no straining for effect, no obtrusive ornament, no
complacent parading of the devices of art. Great matters are
presented with warmth of sentiment, in a simple style; and nothing
is more likely to render literature enduring.
Another trait of good literature exemplified by the Bible is
breadth. Take, for example, the story of Jacob, the parable of
the Prodigal Son, or St Paul's speech on Mars' hill. Only the
essentials are given. There is no petty and befogging detail.
The characters, the events, or the arguments stand out with clear-
ness, even with boldness, An inclusive and central effect is
produced with a few masterly strokes, so that the resulting im-
pression is one of conciseness and economy.
Closely associated with this quality of breadth is that of vigour.
The authors of the Bible have no time nor mind to spend upon
the elaboration of curiosities, or upon minute and trifling points.
Every sentence, nay, every word, must count. The spirit which
animates the whole must inform every particle. There is no room
for delicate shadings; the issues are too momentous, the concerns
## p. 30 (#52) ##############################################
30 The Authorised Version and its Influence
too pressing, to admit of introducing anything that can be spared.
A volume is compressed into a page, a page into a line.
And God said, Let there be light, and there was light.
Jesus wept.
It would not be difficult to show how all these qualities flow
necessarily from the intense preoccupation of the Biblical authors
with matters affecting all they held dear, all their hopes and fears
with respect to their country, their family and themselves, at the
present and in a boundless future. Even when the phrases em-
ployed seem cool and measured, they represent a compressed
energy like that of a tightly coiled spring, tending to actuate
effort and struggle of many kinds, and to open out into arts and
civilisations of which the Hebrew never dreamed.
In a sense, then, it is the lyrical faculty that distinguishes the
Hebrew author. Yet he is not an Aeolian harp, delicately re-
sponsive to every zephyr of sentiment. His passions are few and
elemental, and, as we have seen, are prone to utter themselves
energetically. One is tempted to compare the great lyric, as it
has been called, of the Hebrew, with the effusions, or rather the
creations, of Sappho and Pindar. Yet Sappho and Pindar must
suffer in the comparison. Addison speaks of Horace and Pindar
as showing, when confronted with the Psalms, 'an absurdity and
confusion of style,' and 'a comparative poverty of imagination. '
As for Sappho, her longest extant production, while intense,
shows, in conjunction with the shorter fragments, that her deeper
emotion is limited in range, and, because of this limitation, and
the tropical fervour displayed, is less universal in its appeal than
the best lyrical outpourings of the Hebrew genius. These include,
not only the Psalms, but much of Job, the best of the prophets,
a good deal of the Apocalypse, occasional passages of St Paul,
and even parts of the narrative books, especially those which
report the utterances of notable persons.
It has been asserted that the Hebrews of the Old Testament
were incapable of producing either drama or fiction, and, one
might add, the leisurely developments of the epic. This is only
another way of affirming their lyrical intensity and preoccupation.
The destruction of Sennacherib's host is related with exultation,
and the historian of Exodus rejoices over the destruction of the
Egyptians in the Red sea. He is no more dispassionate than Tacitus
in excoriating Nero, or Joinville in his devotion to St Louis. Events
are never displayed in that 'dry light' so dear, as they supposed,
6
## p. 31 (#53) ##############################################
Character of the Bible
31
to Heraclitus and Francis Bacon. There are always postulates
which nothing could induce the writer to discard. There is always
a presumption in favour of monotheism, of God's protecting
or punitive care for the people of Israel, of their eventual de-
liverance and full entrance upon their divinely ordained mission.
The poet or prophet could never be brought to admit that there
might be gods many, nor that the Hebrew people were not fore-
ordained to pre-eminence over Philistines and Assyrians.
But this egoism, this racial pride, which manifest themselves
by a strong colouring and a decided tone, and which are at the
furthest possible remove from scientific indifferentism, do not
prevent the Bible from possessing a universality which has placed
it at the foundation, or the head, or both, of all modern literatures.
There are several reasons for this. Every one is interested in the
origin of the world and of man. It may be urged that no other
literature gives so plain and coherent an account of these origins,
and of the early history of mankind, as the book of Genesis. Next,
the Bible emphasises the conception that all nations are of one
blood, and that all men are brethren, since their Father is one.
This, in satisfying the social instinct, has tended more and more
to draw tribe to tribe, and kingdom to kingdom, as well as
individual to individual, and, indirectly, has appealed to national
and personal ambition. Thirdly, the morality of the Bible, even
where it takes the form of statutory enactments, keeps in view the
interests of individual happiness and social well-being. Fourthly,
the Hebrew race is presented as, in some sort, the prototype, or
the beneficent elder brother, of all other races and nationalities,
so that any of its experiences are likely to find a parallel in
subsequent history, or even to help in making subsequent history.
Fifthly, the future of mankind is regarded in the Bible as bound
up with the general acceptance of Hebrew principles and ideals.
Sixthly, the utmost fulness of individual life is represented as
conditional upon the acceptance of that God who first distinctly
revealed Himself to the Hebrews, upon obedience to Him and
upon spiritual union with Him. With this is associated the
Messianic hope of a Deliverer, who, greater than His brethren,
yet even as they, should serve to bring God down to man, and
lift man up to God. These, perhaps, are reasons enough why,
notwithstanding the lyric note which is everywhere heard through-
out the Bible, it possesses also a character of universality, and,
one might also say, of impersonality. Thus, the Psalter, the most
lyrical part of the Bible, is perhaps the widest in its appeal of
## p. 32 (#54) ##############################################
32 The Authorised Version and its Influence
any, simply because the cry of the individual believer, however
impassioned, finds an echo in every other believing soul, and is not
without some response from the most apathetic.
As to form, in the sense of order and proportion, it is often
assumed that the Greeks alone possessed its secret in antiquity,
and bequeathed some hint of it to the modern world. Perhaps,
in an endeavour to vindicate for the Hebrews a sense of form,
we may best appeal to authority; and, if so, we can hardly decline
to accept the judgment of a man who, classically educated, and
possessed of a Frenchman's love of order and beauty, was a
Semitic scholar of unusual scope and insight. It was Renan
who said :
Israel had, like Greece, the gift of disengaging its idea perfectly, and of
expressing it in a concise and finished outline; proportion, measure, taste
were, in the Orient, the exclusive privilege of the Hebrew people, and because
of this they succeeded in imparting to thought and feeling a form general
and acceptable to all mankind.
It is true that, if we regard the technicalities of literary con-
struction, a book of the Bible will not infrequently seem to fall
short; but this is because the author is not intent upon structure
of a patent and easily definable sort. If he secures unity of im-
pression with variety in detail, it is often by the use of other
means, and especially through an intrinsic and enthralling power
which pervades his whole composition. Structure in the more
usual sense is, however, to be found in limited portions, such
as the story of Joseph, a single prophecy, or a speech from the
Acts of the Apostles.
An attempt has been made above to show what there is in
the constitution and qualities of the Bible entitling it to be
called a classic. In what follows, the aim will be to consider
the process by which it became an English classic, and the
influence it has exerted, and continues to exert, in that
capacity. Before attempting this directly, however, we shall
need briefly to examine the problem which it presents to the
translator.
The nature of the Hebrew language first demands considera-
tion. Its most noticeable feature is its deficiency in abstract and
general terms. It has no philosophical or scientific vocabulary.
Nearly every word presents a concrete meaning, clearly visible
even through a figurative use. Many of its roots are verbal, and
the physical activity underlying each word is felt through all its
special applications. Thus, to take a single example, there is
## p. 33 (#55) ##############################################
Biblical Language
33
a Hebrew word variously rendered in the following passages by
bud, east, spring, outgoing, going out :
Job xxxviii, 27: To cause the bud of the tender herb to spring forth.
Psalm lxxv, 6: For promotion cometh neither from the east nor from the
west.
2 Kings ii, 21: And he went forth unto the spring of the waters.
Psalm lxv, 8: Thou makest the outgoings of the morning and evening to
rejoice.
2 Sam. ii, 25: Thou knowest . . . that he came to deceive thee, and to
know thy going out and thy coming in, and to know all that thou doest.
6
In every one of these cases the Hebrew word means 'going out'
or 'going forth,' and the Hebrew so understands it; but the 'going
forth' of the sun is one thing, and that of the waters another.
Now, if we could suppose the word “bud' or 'east' in English to
present to the imagination, as transparently as 'spring' does, the
original activity which the word records, we should better under-
stand what is true of practically all Hebrew words. Everywhere
we are face to face with motion, activity, life. Of the Hebrew
words for pride, one presents the notion of mounting up, one of
strutting, and one of seething, as a boiling pot. What funda-
mental idea of similar concreteness does the English word 'pride'
suggest ?
There were not many abstract ideas to be conveyed in Biblical
Hebrew; the absence of the words is a sign of the absence of the
ideas. Such a sentence as 'The problem of external perception
is a problem in metaphysics,' or, 'The modifications produced
within our nervous system are the only states of which we can
have a direct consciousness,' would be untranslatable into ancient
Hebrew. It is hardly too much to say that every generalisation-
or, better, every general truth-expressed by the Hebrew is
rendered with the utmost directness, and in phraseology as
pictorial, as elemental, as transparent, as stimulative to imagi-
nation and feeling, as could possibly be. Such a language is the
very language of poetry. The medium through which poetry
works is the world of sensible objects—wine and oil, the cedar
of Lebanon, the young lion, the moon, the cloud, the smoking
hills, the wild goat, the coney and the stork; or, if we turn to
Homer rather than the Psalmist, a plane-tree, the bright water
of a spring, a snake blood-red on the back, the cheeping brood of
a sparrow, or beaked ships and well-greaved Achaians. What is
necessary in order to make poetry out of such materials is in-
tensity of feeling, with elevation and coherence of thought. These,
we have seen, were the endowment of the Hebrews. On the one
a
E. L. IY.
CH. II.
3
## p. 34 (#56) ##############################################
34 The Authorised Version and its Influence
hand, they were close to nature; they had not parcelled out
their human constitution into separate and independent faculties;
they had not interposed a cloud and hubbub of words between
themselves and things; they had not so dissipated their powers
in minute and laborious analysis that they were incapable of naïve
views, powerful sensations and vigorous convictions. On the other
hand, they had, as tending to coherence and elevation of thought,
what to them was a sufficient explanation of all the wonders of
the universe, and a sufficient impulse to lift up their hearts :
these they found in their overmastering belief in God the Creator,
God the Maintainer, and, for those who trust and love Him, God
the Deliverer.
But not only were their words concrete—the structure of their
sentences was simple, while of the paragraph, in the Greek
sense, they had hardly any conception, until, in the New Testa-
ment, we find their diction fallen under Greek influence. Their
chief connective was 'and'-hence the periodic sentence was,
virtually, beyond their scope. The verse was their stylistic unit; and
a sequence of verses, or of sentences about the length of what we
understand by the average Biblical verse, was all that they aimed
at achieving in composition.
Their poetry was measured, not by feet, as in ancient Latin
and Greek, but by word-accents, as in the most ancient poetry of
many nations, including that of our English ancestors. Moreover,
Hebrew poetry was dominated by the principle of parallelism of
members. Often these members are arranged in couplets, but
sometimes they include several lines. The three primary forms
of parallelism are the synonymous, the synthetic and the anti-
thetic. Thus, synonymous :
Psalm xv, 1: (a) Lord, who shall abide in thy tabernacle? (6) Who shall
dwell in thy holy hill?
Synthetic (a succeeding line or lines supplementing or com-
pleting the first):
Psalm xiv, 2: (a) The Lord looked down from heaven upon the children
of men, (b) to see if there were any that did understand, and seek God.
Antithetic:
Prov. x, 1: (a) A wise son maketh a glad father, (6) but a foolish son is
the heaviness of his mother.
Besides these, there are variations, such as climactic parallelism,
where an expression in the first line is repeated in one or more
that follow :
Psalm xxiv, 8: (a) The Lord strong and mighty, (6) the Lord mighty in
battle.
:
## p. 35 (#57) ##############################################
The Rhythm of Hebrew Poetry 35
The formation of the strophe, and devices such as the refrain,
are less important. What is chiefly to be noted is, first, that
Hebrew poetry has a decided accentual rhythm, and, secondly, that
the dominant principle in the union of lines into larger groups
is that of parallelism. The controlling rhythm is, therefore, the
rhythm of meaning, what Watts-Dunton has called 'sense-rhythm,'
this, as he observes, being the rhythm of nature. Stanley
eloquently says:
The rapid stroke as of alternate wings,” the heaving and sinking as of
the troubled heart,' which have been beautifully described as the essence of
the parallel structure of Hebrew verse, are exactly suited for the endless play
of human feeling, and for the understanding of every age and nation.
Much of Hebrew prose was poetical, in the sense that it em-
ployed these devices to a greater or less extent, and all of it was
poetical in the sense described above in the discussion of the
Hebrew vocabulary. The prophets, in particular, frequently rise
into a strain which is hardly distinguishable from poetry.
The qualities, then, which fitted the Bible, beyond any other
book of the world, for translation, are, among others, these :
(a) Universality of interest. There is much in it for the
meanest and most illiterate, and its treasures are not to be
exhausted by the wisest. It touches every person at more
points than any other book that can be named.
(6) The concreteness and picturesqueness of its language,
appealing alike to the child and the poet, while suggesting
abundant reflection to the philosopher.
(c) The simplicity of its structure, which requires little
more from the translator than that he shall render with fidelity
one brief clause at a time, and follow it by the next.
(d) A rhythm largely independent of the features, prosodical
or other, of any individual language—a rhythm free, varied
and indeterminate, or, rather, determinate only by what has
been called “the energy of the spirit which sings within the
bosom of him who speaks,' and therefore adaptable to every
emotion, from the most delicate to the most energetic.
It follows that the sway of the original is so powerful that
hardly any translation will be devoid of merit, while infinite room
is still left for felicities of detail, according to the character of the
medium and the skill and taste of the translator.
Among the qualifications of a good translator, the first, un-
doubtedly, is that he shall be penetrated by a sense of the
surpassing value of his original, and a corresponding sense of
342
## p. 36 (#58) ##############################################
36 The Authorised Version and its Influence
-
the importance of his task. This will preserve him from flippancy
and meanness, by imbuing him with earnestness and humility. It
will make him ready to follow wherever he is led by the text,
and will prevent him from pluming himself upon prettiness of
phrase, or any fancies of his own. Such a translator will strive
with all his might after fidelity to word and sense, and after the
utmost clearness and simplicity of rendering, avoiding, on the one
hand, the trivial, and, on the other, the ornate or pompous. He
will conform to the genius of his own tongue while endeavouring
to transfer to it the treasures of another; and, besides possessing
naturally, he will cultivate, in every proper way, a sensitiveness
to that music of the phrase, which, in the case of the Bible, is but
another name for the music of the heart. Only a few translators
have united these endowments in a just proportion, but among
them must be counted Jerome, the first of the great translators
whom we know by name, the author-though he called himself
rather the reviser
of the Latin Vulgate.
Of Jerome's fitness for his task the following illustration will
serve. It is worthy of attention, moreover, as presenting the verses
contained in the various English specimens which follow :
Exod. xix, 16, 18, 19: Jamque advenerat tertius dies, et mane inclar.
uerat, et ecce coeperunt audiri tonitrua, et micare fulgura, et nubes densis-
sima operire montem, clangorque buccinae vehementius perstrepebat, et
timuit populus qui erat in castris. . . . Totus autem mons Sinai fumabat, eo
quod descendisset Dominus super eum in igne, et ascenderet fumus ex eo
quasi de fornace; eratque omnis mons terribilis. Et sonitus buccinae
paulatim crescebat in majus, et prolixius tendebatur.
The language into which the Bible can be most perfectly
rendered will, in the first place, be popular, in distinction from
artificial or scholastic. Its vocabulary will consist of such words
as ordinary people would naturally use to describe objects or
utter their emotions. It will abound in concrete expressions, and
need but few learned or recondite terms. The words should, if
possible, exhibit their primitive meaning on their face, or, at least,
suggest immediately a single central meaning which can be ac-
cepted as radical and primary. They must, in general, while racy
and vernacular, be free from degrading or belittling associations,
so that they may be equally suitable for the middle or ordinary
style and for passages of any degree of elevation up to the highest.
A considerable proportion of them must possess sonority, or con-
tain such admixtures of vowels and musical consonants as will
ensure, according to the need, a scale of melodious effects ranging
from serene and quiet harmonies to rich and rolling crescendos-
## p. 37 (#59) ##############################################
Old English Versions
37
but all without appearance of effort, instinctively responsive to
the situation, and to the feeling which the situation evokes. If
the rhythmical effects of a language are attained through the
alternation of stressed and unstressed syllables, such a language
will so far resemble the Hebrew, and serve as a natural medium
for the transmission of the original effects.
The influences which moulded the English language into a
proper vehicle for so stupendous a literary creation as the Bible
must next be briefly considered. Early in the eighth century,
Bede was making a translation into Old English of the Gospel of
John, and, about the year 800 A. D. , the language was already
capable of such poetry as this from the Christ of Cynewulf1:
Thereupon from the four corners of the world, from the uttermost regions
of earth, angels all-shining shall with one accord blow their crashing
trampets; the earth shall tremble under men. Glorious and steadfast they
shall sound together over against the course of the stars, chanting in harmony
and making melody from south and from north, from east and from west,
throughout the whole creation. All mankind shall they wake from the dead
onto the Last Judgment; they shall rouse the sons of men all aghast from
the ancient earth, bidding them straightway arise from their deep sleep.
Throughout the Old English period, most of the literature
produced was strongly coloured by Biblical diction. Even a work
like Bede's Ecclesiastical History of the English People was under
this influence. By about the year 1000, the language was able
to render the Latin of Jerome, as given above, in the following
form? (Exod. xix, 16, 18, 19):
Fã cõm se brydda dæg, and ligetta and punor and picce genip oferwrēh
þone munt, and bỹman swêg wæs gehired, and eall þæt folo him ondrőd þe
wæs on þām fyrdwicon. . . . And eall Sinai munt smēac, forpampe Drihten wæs
uppan him on fyre; and se smic ārās of him, and eall se munt wæs egeslic.
And þære bỹman swēg wĒox swā leng swā swīdor3.
Before we leave this part of the subject, it may be added that,
according to the computations of Marsh, about 93 per cent. of
the words of the Authorised Version, counting repetitions of the
same word, are native English.
Ormulum and Piers Plowman will suggest the influence ex-
erted by the Bible on English diction during the period between
A. D. 1000 and 1400—roughly speaking, between the age of Aelfric and
1 Ll. 878–889, Whitman's translation.
9 The vowel-sounds of either Italian, French, or German will be sufficiently close,
The characters 8 and þ represent th; g before or after e or i is usually like y. Finale
is pronounced somewhat like that in liveth, or the final e of German. The maoron
indicates length of vowel.
3 Aelfric's versions of the same passage may be found in his Homilies, ed. Thorpe,
1, 312; 11, 196, 202.
## p. 38 (#60) ##############################################
38 The Authorised Version and its Influence
that of Wyclif. The poetry near the end of this period is better
able than prose to cope with the difficulties of translation. Thus,
Chaucer has :
Caste alle awey the werkes of derkpesse,
And armeth you in armure of brightnesse;
where the second Wyclifite version reads :
Rom. xiii, 12: Therfor caste we awei the werkis of derknessis, and be we
clothid in the armeris of lizt.
Though this second version, that of Purvey (1388), is, in general,
much less pedantically literal than the first, made some eight or
nine years earlier, yet such words as derknessis and armeris, for
the Latin plurals tenebrae and arma, illustrate the chief defect
of both the Wyclifite translations, namely, a failure to attain
perfect English idiom.
Purvey seems to have been quite conscious of the excessive
literalness of the earlier version (1380), and of the awkwardness
due to the close following of Latin idiom. In his prologue, after
describing how he had toiled, in association with others, to obtain
a true Latin text, and to elucidate its difficulties, he proceeds to
lay down important principles of Biblical translation, which have
never been superseded. Among them are :
First, to translate as clearly as possible according to the sense,
and not merely according to the words.
Secondly, to make the sentence at least as 'open' in English as
in Latin, that is, to have due regard to English idiom.
Nevertheless, it may be affirmed that both Wyclifite versions
are far inferior in ease and idiomatic character to the Old English.
It cannot be said that scholars are agreed as to the influence of
the Wyclifite versions upon Tindale and the Authorised Version;
but it is pretty clear that Tindale was influenced by them to a
moderate extent, and that expressions of great force and beauty
have, occasionally, been appropriated from Wyclif by the Autho-
rised Version, either mediately or directly. One or two instances
may suffice : John iv, 14, ‘a well of water springing up into ever-
lasting life' comes, through Tindale, from both the Wyclifite
versions; 1 Cor. ii, 10, 'the deep things of God,' which Tindale
renders, 'the bottom of God's secrets,' and the Rheims version,
'the profundities of God. '. How easy it is to go stylistically astray
in such matters is shown by the fact that two versions, both
published within the last ten years, have, respectively, for the first
passage above, ‘a spring of water . . . welling up for enduring life,'
i Second Nun's Tale, 384-5.
.
## p. 39 (#61) ##############################################
Caxton's Golden Legend
39
and 'a fountain . . . of water springing up for the Life of the ages”;
and, for the second, 'the profoundest secrets of God,' and 'the
depths of the divine nature. '
The Wyclifite version of Exod. xix, 16, 18, 19 is subjoined,
the spelling being modernised, and modern renderings being indi-
cated :
WYCLIF (earlier).
And now the third day was come, and the morning (morewe, morrow) tide
was full cleared ; and lo! thunders began to be heard and lightnings (leytes,
from the Old English word above] to shine, and the most thick cloud to cover
the hill; and the cry of the trump more hideously made noise, and the people
dreaded that was in the tents. . . . And all the hill of Sinai smoked, because
(for thi that] the Lord descended upon it in fire; and the smoke rose (steyde]
up of it as of a furnace, and all the bill was full fearful; and the sound of the
trump little by little [litil mele) sprang into more, and longer was stretched. '
A hundred years later than the Wiclifite versions (20 November,
1483), Caxton published his Golden Legend, in which he had
inserted considerable portions of the Pentateuch and the Gospels,
on the basis, probably, of Peter Comestor's Historia Scholastica.
Caxton's theory of translation, if we may judge from the preface
to his Eneydos, was to seek a mean between 'fair and strange
terms,” by some regarded as “over curious,' and such 'old and
homely terms' as were now strange and almost disused. His aim
lay in the wish to be generally understood. The clearness and
beauty of the passage from Exodus will be readily seen.
Caxton's Golden Legend (spelling modernised).
When the third day came, and the morning waxed clear, they heard
thunder and lightning, and saw a great cloud cover the mount; and the cry
of the trump was so shrill that the people were sore afraid. . . . All the mount
of Sinai smoked, for so much as our Lord descended on it in fire; and the
smoke ascended from the hill as it had been from a furnace. The mount was
terrible and dreadful, and the sound of the trump grew a little more, and
continued longer.
It will be evident that the vocabulary of Caxton is drawn from
the same sources as Tindale's, while it does not greatly differ from
Wyclif's, these sources being native English and Old French, with
a very slight admixture of words coming directly from the Latin.
It is agreed on all hands that the English of the Authorised
Version is, in essentials, that of Tindale. Minor modifications were
made by translators and revisers for the next eighty years or so;
but, speaking broadly, the Authorised Version is Tindale's. The
spirit of the man passed into his work, and therefore it is of
moment to ascertain what that spirit was.
He himself may
tell us :
## p. 40 (#62) ##############################################
40 The Authorised Version and its Influence
(a) His version was to be made for all the people, even the
humblest:
If God spare me life, ere many years I will cause the boy that driveth the
plow to know more of the Scriptures than you [a theologian] do.
To the same effect is his preference of favour to grace, love to
charity, health to salvation.
(6) His surrender of himself to God. Writing to a friend and
fellow-labourer, Frith, he says:
:
The wisdom and the spirit of Stephen be with your heart and with your
mouth, and teach your lips what they shall say, and how to answer to all
things. He is our God if we despair in ourselves, and trust in him; and his is
the glory. Amen.
(c) His theory regarding the meaning to be conveyed:
Believing that every part of Scripture had one sense and one only, the
sense in the mind of the writer.
(d) On Greek and Hebrew with reference to English:
The Greek tongue agreeth more with the English than with the Latin.
And the properties of the Hebrew tongue agreeth a thousand times more
with the English than with the Latin. The manner of speaking is both one,
so that in a thousand places thou needest not but to translate it into the
English word for word, when thou must seek a compass in the Latin, and yet
shalt have much work to translate it well-favouredly, so that it have the same
grace and sweetness, sense and pure understanding with it in the Latin as it
hath in the Hebrew. A thousand parts better may it be translated into the
English than into the Latin.
(e) His scrupulous fidelity:
I call God to record against the day we shall appear before our Lord
Jesus Christ to give reckoning of our doings that I never altered one syllable
of God's word against my conscience, nor would to this day, if all that is in
earth-whether it be honour, pleasure, or riches—might be given me.
The observation of Augustus Hare, in speaking of the Jacobean
revisers, is applicable to Tindale: 'They were far more studious of
the matter than of the manner; and there is no surer preservative
against writing ill, or more potent charm for writing well. ' And so
Goldsmith: 'To feel your subject thoroughly, and to speak without
fear, are the only rules of eloquence. ' Elsewhere he says: 'Elo-
quence is not in the words, but in the subject; and in great
concerns, the more simply anything is expressed, it is generally the
more sublime.
(f) His humility:
And if they perceive in any places that I have not attained the very sense
of the tongue, or meaning of the Scripture, or have not given the right
English word, that they put to their hand to amend it, remembering that so
is their duty to do.
Again, he speaks of himself as 'evil-favoured in this world, and
## p. 41 (#63) ##############################################
Coverdale's Translation
41
without grace in the sight of men, speechless and rude, dull and
slow-witted. '
If we add that he was an assiduous and minute student, went
directly to the originals, and employed the best helps attainable,
all that is needful will have been said.
TINDALE.
And the third day in the morning there was thunder and lightning, and
a thick cloud upon the mount, and the voice of the horn waxed exceeding
lond, and all the people that was in the host was afraid. . . . And Mount Sinai
was altogether on a smoke, because the Lord descended down upon it in fire;
and the smoke thereof ascended up, as it had been the smoke of a kiln, and
all the mount was exceeding fearful. And the voice of the horn blew, and
waxed louder and louder.
Before we pass from Tindale to the Authorised Version, three
other translations must be mentioned. Coverdale's nature may be
indicated by the fact that it is he who introduced into the language
the expressions 'loving kindness' and 'tender mercy. Tindale's
nature was masculine, Coverdale’s of a more feminine cast. His
translations, of which the Prayer Book' version of the Psalter is
the most generally known-possess a more flexible and musical
rhythm than Tindale's. Tindale wrote (Luke ii, 12): 'And take
this for a sign; ye shall find the child swaddled, and laid in a
manger. ' When this has passed under Coverdale’s revising hand,
it stands : ‘And take this for a sign; ye shall find the child
wrapped in swaddling clothes, and laid in a manger. ' Westcott
has truly said of Coverdale that he
allowed himself considerable freedom in dealing with the shape of the
original sentences. . . . There is in every part an endeavour to transfuse the
spirit as well as the letter into the English rendering.
A peculiarity of the Genevan version is that it attains a
special accuracy. One example will suffice. Tindale translates
Lrike xi, 17: 'One house shall fall upon another. ' The Genevan
Bible has: ‘A house divided against itself, falleth. '
The Rheims and Douay versions inclined to Latinise, whereas
earlier versions had sought to employ simpler words, generally of
· The Prayer Book excels in the music of its phrasing. One of Cranmer's collects,
that for the first Sunday in Advent, will serve as a specimen (c. A. D. 1546): Almighty
God, give us grace that we may cast away the works of darkness, and put upon us the
armour of light, now in the time of this mortal life, in which Thy Son Jesus Christ
came to visit us in great humility; that in the last day, when He shall come again in
His glorious majesty to judge both the quick and the dead, we may rise to the life
immortal, through Him who liveth and reigneth with Thee and the Holy Ghost, now
and ever. '
Coverdale has been regarded by some as the originator of the tendency to translate
the same word in different ways at different times; but this tendenoy existed as far
back as the Old English period.
>
## p. 42 (#64) ##############################################
42 The Authorised Version and its Influence
j
native origin. Thus, Tindale had written (Rom. x, 10): “To know-
ledge [i. e. acknowledge) with the mouth maketh a man safe. ' The
Rheims version has: "With the mouth confession is made to salva-
tion’; the second Wyclifite version had rendered the same Latin
by: ‘By mouth knowledging is made to health. ' The trans-
lators of the Authorised Version endeavoured, out of the English
renderings with which they were acquainted, compared with the
originals and the principal versions into other tongues, ancient
and modern, to frame one which should surpass them all, by
appropriating the chief excellences of each—so far, at least, as
these excellences could be harmonised with one another. In so
far as it did thus reconcile pre-existing differences, it became a
powerful agent in establishing unity throughout the English nation,
for, to borrow the words of Gardiner: 'In its production all
sectarian influences were banished, and all hostilities were mute. '
Whereas previously, one Bible had been read in church, and
another at home, now, all parties and classes turned with one
accord to the new version, and adopted it as their very own. It
thus became bound up with the life of the nation. Since it stilled
all controversy over the best rendering, it gradually came to be
accepted as so far absolute that, in the minds of myriads, there
was no distinction between this version and the original texts, and
they may almost be said to have believed in the literal inspiration
of the very words which composed it.
It must not be overlooked that the Authorised Version profited
by all the controversy regarding previous translations. Practically
every word that could be challenged had been challenged. The
fate of a doctrine, even the fate of a party, had, at times, seemed to
depend upon a phrase. The whole ground had been fought over so
long that great intimacy with the Bible had resulted. Not only
did the mind take cognisance of it, but the emotions seized upon
it; much of it was literally learned by heart by great numbers of
the English people. Thus, it grew to be a national possession;
and literature which is a national possession, and by its very
nature appeals to the poor and lowly, is, in truth, a national
classic. No other book has so penetrated and permeated the
hearts and speech of the English race as has the Bible. What
Homer was to the Greeks, and the Koran to the Arabs, that, or
something not unlike it, the Bible has become to the English.
Huxley writes:
Consider the great historical fact that, for three centuries, this book has
been woven into the life of all that is best and noblest in English history;
## p. 43 (#65) ##############################################
Biblical and Classical Prose
43
a
that it has become the national epic of Britain, and is as familiar to poble and
simple, from John-o'-Groat's House to Land's End, as Dante and Tasso once
were to the Italians; that it is written in the noblest and purest English, and
abounds in exquisite beauties of pure literary form; and finally, that it
forbids the veriest hind who never left his village to be ignorant of the
existence of other countries and other civilizations, and of a great past
stretching back to the furthest limits of the oldest civilizations of the world.
The classical, yet popular, character of the Bible has been
already insisted on. Two or three comparisons will further illus-
trate this. Chateaubriand, rendering the pathetic address of Ruth
to Naomi in the Homeric manner, shows how prolix and com-
paratively languid Homer can be. It might be objected that
Chateaubriand has travestied Homer, but it cannot be said that
Thucydides, the consummate Greek historian, travesties himself.
Compare the close of a Thucydidean speech, being about one-sixth
of the harangue of Brasidas to his soldiers before their engage-
ment with the Illyrians (Thuc. iv, 126), with the whole of Gideon's
address to his men before their encounter with the Midianites
(Judges vii, 17, 18):
If you repel their tumultuous onset, and, when opportunity offers, with-
draw again in good order, keeping your ranks, you will sooner arrive at a
place of safety, and will also learn the lesson that mobs like these, if an
adversary withstand their first attack, do but threaten at a distance and make
a flourish of valour, although if he yields to them they are quick enough to
show their courage in following at his heels when there is no danger.
Look on me, and do likewise; and behold, when I come to the outside of
the camp, it shall be that, as I do, so shall ye do. When I blow with a
trumpet, I and all that are with me, then blow ye the trumpets also on every
side of all the camp, and say, The sword of the Lord, and of Gideon.
The speech of Jahaziel (2 Chron. xx, 15–17) seems real. It is
thus that an energetic man would speak. It runs (with modernised
punctuation):
Hearken ye, al Judab, and ye inhabitants of Jerusalem, and thou king
Jehoshaphat. Thus saith the Lord unto you: Be not afraid nor dismayed by
reason of this great multitude, for the battle is not yours, but God's. To-
morrow go ye down against them. Behold, they come up by the cliff of Ziz,
and ye shall find them at the end of the brook, before the wilderness of
Jeruel. Ye shall not need to fight in this battle. Set yourselves, stand ye
still, and see the salvation of the Lord with you, 0 Judah and Jerusalem.
Fear not, nor be dismayed. To-morrow go ont against them, for the Lord
will be with you.
Coleridge was so impressed with the vigour of Biblical style as
to affirm:
After reading Isaiah, or St Paul's Epistle to the Hebrews, Homer and
Virgil are disgustingly tame to me, and Milton himself barely tolerable.
Shakespeare, by common consent, is the first name in English
literature. Of Shakespeare's prose, Churton Collins makes five
## p. 44 (#66) ##############################################
44 The Authorised Version and its Influence
classes, the last being what he calls highly wrought poetical prose.
“This,' he says, “is the style where Shakespeare has raised prose
to the sublimest pitch of verse. ' As the first illustration of it
he chooses Hamlet, act II, sc. 2, 310—321:
This goodly frame, the earth, seems to me a sterile promontory, this most
excellent canopy, the air, look you, this brave o’erhanging firmament, this
majestical roof fretted with golden fire, why, it appears no other thing to me
than a foul and pestilent congregation of vapours. What a piece of work is
a man! how noble in reason! how infinite in faculty!
