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Updated: May 9, 2025
It will be remembered that all the English versions of the Bible thus far mentioned were the work of men either already out of favor with the Roman pontiff, or speedily put out of favor on that account. Thirty years after his death; Wiclif's bones were taken up and burned; Tindale was burned. Coverdale's version and the Great Bible were the product of the period when Henry VIII. was under the ban.
When a synod would condemn Wiclif's writings in May, 1382, an earthquake delayed the decision, and when the Council on June 7, 1415, would condemn Hus, a total eclipse of the sun delayed the proceeding. At one o'clock the sky was clear and Hus was again brought in, again in chains, and under guard. He was accused of denying the presence of Christ's body in the sacrament.
Lit. vol. i. p. 90; and what Ruskin, Modern Painters part 3, Section 2, ch. 3, has said since. Thus in Wiclif's time and long after, there seems to have been no difference recognized between a 'famine' and a 'hunger'; they both expressed the outward fact of a scarcity of food.
Later translators, like Tyndale and the makers of the Authorized Version, or "King James's Bible" , followed Wiclif's language in many instances; so that he was, in truth, the first author of our biblical dialect and the founder of that great monument of noble English which has been the main conservative influence in the mother-tongue, holding it fast to many strong, pithy words and idioms that would else have been lost.
For one thing, it was the first translation into English from the original Hebrew and Greek. Wiclif's had been from the Latin. For Tindale there were available two new and critical Greek Testaments, that of Erasmus and the so-called Complutensian, though he used that of Erasmus chiefly. There was also available a carefully prepared Hebrew Old Testament.
The fourth reads in his version, "Blessed are they which hunger and thirst for righteousness"; the seventh, "Blessed are the maintainers of peace"; the eighth, "Blessed are they which suffer persecution for righteousness' sake." History of England, end of chap. xii. We said a moment ago that Wiclif's translation was the standard of Middle English.
Hus could not with a good conscience condemn all of Wiclif's writings until they were proven against Holy Scriptures, and such was his admiration of the stainless life of the man, that he wished his soul might be where Wiclif's was. Renewed jeers and derision.
Purvey's revision was somewhat freer and more idiomatic. In the reigns of Henry IV. and V. it was forbidden to read or to have any of Wiclif's writings. Such of them as could be seized were publicly burned. In spite of this, copies of his Bible circulated secretly in great numbers. Forshall and Madden, in their great edition , enumerate one hundred and fifty MSS. which had been consulted by them.
One hundred and fifty manuscripts, in whole or in part, are extant still, a score of them of the original version, the others of the revision at once undertaken by John Purvey, Wiclif's disciple. The copies belonging to Edward VI. and Queen Elizabeth are both still in existence, and both show much use.
On May 4, Wiclif's writings were ordered to be burnt as heretical; his memory was condemned, and it was decreed to dig out his bones and cast them out of consecrated ground. It does not need a prophet to foretell the end of Hus. It needed only to show Hus was a follower of Wiclif, and he would be burned also. Hus Before the Council.
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