Publisher's Synopsis
This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1853 Excerpt: ...A few years after, a constitution of Archbishop Arundel declares that "it is a perilous thing, as St. Jerome testifieth, to translate the text of holy Scripture from one idiom into another; since it is no easy matter to retain in every version an identity of sense; and the same blessed Jerome, even though he were inspired, confesseth that herein he had himself been frequently mistaken." It was therefore enacted and ordained, that "henceforth no one should translate any text of sacred Scripture, by his own authority, into the English or any other tongue, in the way of book, tract, or treatise; and that no publication of this sort, composed in the time of John Wiclif, or since, or thereafter to be composed, should be read, either in part or in whole, either in public or in private, under the pain of the greater excommunication, until such translation should be approved by the diocesan of the place; or, if the matter should require it, by a provincial council; every one who should act in contradiction to this order, to be punished as an abettor of heresy and error." Wiclif, in his defence of the translation, says: " They who call it heresy to speak of the Holy Scriptures in English must he prepared to condemn the Holy Ghost, that gave it in tongues to the apostles of Christ, to speak the word of God in all languages that were ordained of God under heaven." In defiance of all obstructions, however, copies of the translation were circulated with astonishing rapidity among all classes of people. In 1429 the cost of a Testament of Wiclif's version was no less than 2 16s. 8d., a sum probably equal to.30 of present money, and considerably more than half the annual income which was then considered adequate to the maintenance ...
