A HISTORICAL SKETCH THE EVOLUTION OF THE ENGLISH BIBLE A HISTORICAL SKETCH OF THE SUCCESSIVE VERSIONS FROM 1382 TO BY H. W. HOARE LATE OF BALLIOL COLLEGE, OXFORD PREFACE I WISH to thank the readers of my “historical sketch,” both English and American, for a reception which has been by far more cordial than an unknown author, writing on a somewhat well-worn theme, could reasonably have anticipated.

My acknowledgments are also due to all who, whether by reviews or otherwise, have enabled me to correct errors of fact, or type, or grammar.

A critic here and there has laid it to my charge that I have added nothing to the sum of human knowledge. My ambition did not soar so high. What I tried to do was to give a new presentment to an old subject, to rearrange familiar material into something of a fresh pattern, to enlist the interest of a yet wider public in a tale which could well afford to be told once again, “proprie,” as Horace pithily puts it, “communia dicere.” My treatment of the subject-may I repeat-is in the main uncontroversial, popular, and historical. It is concerned rather with the external than with the internal aspect of the successive versions. Its aim is to give to each version its appropriate historical setting, and by so doing, to develop, in an unbroken narrative, the story of our national Bible in close association with the story of our national life.

The internal history has not been overlooked, but it occupies only a subordinate place. To deal with it as it ought to be dealt with, to examine the process of translation critically at each stage of its progress, to exhibit, by a detailed collation, the literary interdependence and independence of the versions, all this is a task worthy indeed of long and patient labor, but one quite beyond my own powers. I have not the leisure which it demands, nor have I the requisite ability and training.

One point more. I am advised that it is better for an author to add a bibliography of his subject to a volume like the present, than to take for granted that it can be dispensed with. In deference therefore to those who are in a position to know, I have now thrown into an appendix a list of the best-known works in this country on the history of the English Bible. To this I have added the names of various authorities, historical and other, to whom, in one way or another, I am indebted. The literature of the subject, I need hardly say, is very far too extensive to admit of anything more than a restricted selection.

H. W. H.

LONDON, February, 1902.

THE sketch which has been attempted in the following pages, a sketch which is drawn on historical rather than on critical lines, was originally suggested by two articles which were contributed to the Nineteenth Century Review in 1898-9, and I am glad to avail myself of this opportunity of thanking Mr Knowles for allowing me to make use of them.

No handbook seems hitherto to have been published which sought to combine, within modest limits, some general account of the successive versions of our national Bible with their historical setting.

Accordingly, in designing such a handbook, an endeavor has been made so to bring the history of the versions into relation with the main current of events as to associate the story of the national Bible with the story of the national life.

No formal list of authorities is appended. It was felt that such a list might appear a little out of keeping with the unpretentious and popular character of this sketch. But at the same time I desire gratefully to acknowledge my debt to Bishop Westcott and the late Dr Eadie, among other well-known writers on the subject, as well as to the custodians of our rich collections of old Bibles. I have tried to secure accuracy in matters of fact, but where, as in official life, literary work can only be done in brief and broken intervals of leisure, mistakes will be likely to creep in, and it would be a kindness to me if any such might in due course be pointed out for future correction.

H.W.H.