Traces the life of William Tyndale, the first person to translate the Bible into English from the original Greek and Hebrew and discusses the social, literary, religious, and intellectual implications of his work.

William Tyndale is one of the most important of the early reformers, and particularly through his translation of the New Testament, has had a formative influence on the development of the English language and religious thought. The sources of his theology are, however, not immediately clear, and historians have often seen him as being influenced chiefly by continental, and in particular Lutheran, ideas. In his important new book, Ralph Werrell shows that the most important influences were to befound closer to home, and that the home-grown Wycliffite tradition was of far greater importance. In doing so, Werrell shows that the apparent differences between Tyndale's writings from the period before 1530 and his later writings, in the period leading up to his arrest and martyrdom in 1526, are spurious, and that a simpler explanation is that his ideas were formed as a result of an upbringing in a household in which Wycliffite ideas were accepted. Werrell explores the impact of humanist writers, and above all Erasmus, on the development of Tyndale's thought. He also shows how far Tyndale's theology, fully developed by 1525, was from that of the continental reformers. He then examines in detail some of the main strands of Tyndale's thought - and in particular, doctrines such as the Fall, Salvation, the Sacraments and the Blood of Christ - showing how different they are from Luther and most other contemporary reformers. While Tyndale, in his early writings, used some of Luther's writings, he made theological changes and additions to Luther's text. The influences of John Trevisa, Wyclif and the later Wycliffite writers were far more important. Werrell shows that without accepting the huge influence of the Wycliffite ideas, Tyndale's significance as a theologian, and the development of the English Reformation cannot be fully understood.

Reprint of the original, first published in 1871. The publishing house Anatiposi publishes historical books as reprints. Due to their age, these books may have missing pages or inferior quality. Our aim is to preserve these books and make them available to the public so that they do not get lost.

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1886 edition. Excerpt: ... CHAPTER VII. TYNDALE AT MARBURG; PUBLISHES "THE WICKED MAMMON," AND "THE OBEDIENCE OF A CHRISTIAN MAN." A.D. 1528. SOME fifty miles north of Frankfort, in the beautiful valley of the Lahn, that tributary which pours its waters into Father Rhine opposite Coblentz, the picturesque city of Marburg fringes the foot of an eminence whose summit is crowned by a venerable castle, the residence in Tyndale's time of the Landgrave of Hesse-Cassel. Philip the Magnanimous, the Landgrave of that day, had been among the first of the German potentates to espouse the cause of the Reformation; and having thrown the whole vigour of his nature into the movement, he had acquired a position of great prominence amongst the Reformers, and might in 1528 almost be looked upon as sharing the responsibility of the leadership with Luther himself. The Landgrave was commonly styled "the disciple of Melanchthon," that gentle Reformer having been mainly instrumental in inducing him to adopt the doctrines of the Reformation; but Philip the Magnanimous of Hesse-Cassel had not very much in common with Philip the Scholar of Wittemberg. He had already diverged from the opinions of Luther and Melanchthon, and had exhibited a very decided preference for the bolder and more sweeping views of Zwingle and the Swiss and French Reformers. In 1527, inspired with an eager desire to promote learning in his dominions, he founded a University in his quiet and somewhat secluded capital, the earliest of the Universities to which the Reformation gave birth, and which, in spite of many vicissitudes, still continues to flourish. At the same period, also, and probably in consequence of the Landgrave's patronage, Hans Luft established a printingpress in Marburg, whose productions, albeit by no...