against the scriptures, to deceive the ignorant readers withal, (which tics' dissen their trans Dial. cont. St Paul calleth "the secret things of dishonesty and adulterating of the 2 Cor. iv. word of God," as it were mingling water with wine, like false vintners,) when they give them for God's word, and under the name of God's word, their own words, and not God's, forged and framed, altered and changed, according to differences of times, and variety of new opinions, and diversity of humours and spirits, diversely and differently, one heretic not only correcting his fellow every day, but one eagerly re- The herefuting and refelling another: Bucer and the Osiandrians and Sacra- sion about mentaries against Luther for false translations; Luther against Munster, lations. Beza against Castalio, Castalio against Beza, Calvin against Servetus, Melan. Illyricus both against Calvin and Beza. The puritans control the Lind. dubit. grosser Calvinists of our country; yea, the later translations of the See Zuing. selfsame heretics control the former exceedingly, not only of over- Confess. sights but of wilful falsifications; as is notorious in the later editions rum. of Luther and Beza, and in our English bibles set forth in divers 97. years, from Tindal their first translator until this day: yea (which is Testament more) the English translators of Beza's New Testament control him of the year and his translation, which they protest to follow, being afraid some- Luke iii. 36. times and ashamed to express in English his false translations in the Latin. p. 84. 96. 98. resp. 1. and Tigurino Ibid. p. 83 1580. 24. Fulke. By false translations wilfully and of purpose to FULKE, falsify the truth of God's word is as gross and as abominable treachery, as to corrupt the very text; although I think St Paul, speaking of the covertures, or cloaks of dishonesty, and adultering of the word of God, 2 Cor. iv. meaneth a further cunning than false translations. That those whom you call heretics find fault with one another's translations, they do none otherwise than you popish heretics. Do not you, Gregory Martin, in the 7th chapter and 33rd section of this book, find fault with all the catholics, as you term them, that translate sheol, sepulchrum, "a sepulchre," and not always ↳ "hell"? If Bucer or Zuinglius do justly observe any error in Luther, or Luther in Munster, or Beza in Castalio, the anabaptist, or Calvin in Servetus, the horrible heretic, yea, and if froward and schismatical Illyricus can discover any error committed by Calvin and Beza, the truth loseth nothing, when the errors of men are found out, by what means soever. That you speak of the puritans controlling the grosser Calvinists of our country, I know not what you mean, neither do I think you can justify your words, for translation of the scriptures. Where you say, the later translations of the selfsame heretics control the former exceedingly, not only of oversights, but of wilful falsifications, it 6. cap. 4. is a wilful and impudent slander; yet you blush not to say, it is notorious. How, I pray you? You answer, In the later editions of Luther and Beza, and in our English bibles set forth in divers years, from Tyndal, their first translator. That Luther, Beza, and the later translators of the English bibles, have corrected some small faults that have escaped in their former editions, it may be granted. But do Luther and Beza therefore accuse themselves, or the later English translators the former, of wilful falsifications? I think those Hexam. lib. brute beasts, to whom Ambrose1 ascribeth the art of making syllogisms (if they could speak), would not conclude thus brutishly. Certain it is that Balaam's ass did reason substantially. But much more, you say, the English translators of Beza's New Testament do control him and his translation, being sometimes afraid and ashamed to express his false translations. If it be so, they are more modest than you, which seem to be afraid or ashamed of nothing so much, as lest you might seem to fail in unshamefacedness. But to the purpose. If they think Beza (as all men may err) hath somewhat trodden awry, is it a fault to avoid his step, or a proud controlling or accusing him of falsification? Nevertheless, whereinsoever Luther, Beza, or the English translators, have reformed any of their former oversights, the matter is not so great, that it can make an heresy. Yea, if you were of St Augustine's judgment, you would acknowledge that the multitude and diversity of translations is for the benefit of them that be ignorant in the tongues, yea, and of them also that be learned in them oftentimes, that of divers men's translations they may judge which is the aptest. De Doct. Christ. lib. 2. cap. 11. MARTIN, 25. Martin. But in this catalogue of dissensions, falsifiers, and disagreeing translators, I will not greatly rip up old faults, neither abroad ii. 23. iii. 21. nor at home. I leave Luther's false translations into the German Acts i. 14, The German, French, and tongue to the credit of Staphylus, Apolog., Part. II., and Emserus, ruptions of præf. Annot. in no. Test. Luth., and other German writers of his own English cor [Ursa insidians licet, ut scriptura ait, (est enim plena fraudis fera,) tamen fertur informes utero partus edere, sed natos lingua fingere, atque in speciem sui similitudinemque formare. Non miraris in fera tam pii oris officia, cujus naturam pietas exprimit? Ursa igitur partus suos ad sui effingit similitudinem: tu filios tuos instituere similes tui non potes?-Hexaemeron. Lib. vi. cap. 4. p. 18. Ambrosii Opera, Vol. 1. p. 119.] Testament. Vigor and time, that saw them and read them, and reckoned the number of them, the New in the New Testament only about 1400 heretical corruptions. I leave See Lind. Dubit. p. 84, Calvin's and Beza's French corruptions to so many worthy men as 85, &c. have noted them in their French books against the said heretics: the rest. Tindal's and his companions' corruptions in their first English bible, to our learned countrymen of that age, and namely to the right reverend father and confessor bishop Tonstal, who in a sermon openly protested that he had found in the New Testament only no less than two thousand. If we know it not, or will not believe it, strangers in Lind. Dub. their Latin writings testify it to the world. p. 98. Fulke. We are much beholding to you, that you will not FULKE, rip up old faults abroad, nor at home; and leave Luther's 25. Dutch translation with a 1400 heretical corruptions in the New Testament only, with Calvin's and Beza's French corruptions noted by Vigor, and the rest: also Tyndal's and his companions' corruptions in their first English bible, in whose translation of the New Testament bishop Tonstal professed openly in a sermon, that he found no less than two thousand corruptions. This you know he protested with the same tongue with which he forsware the pope, and sware to the king's supremacy, and with which he preached a solemn sermon, which is in print, before the king, against the pope's usurped tyranny, pride, false doctrine, covetousness, cruelty, treason, perverting of scriptures, as in the same sermon more at large it appeareth; and therefore we need not Lindanus's writing to testify of his credit. But thanks be to God, that when you have scraped all that unto you seemed to have any shew of corruption, you cannot find two hundred faults in the translation of the whole bible, nor in three several translations of the same; which points you are fain to dilate with such vain tautologies and repetitions, that all learned men are ashamed of your tedious writing and yet, to make your book to be of some tolerable length, you had no better shift than to note a sort of Beza's corruptions in his Latin Testament; who, if you would write against him in Latin any thing worth the noting, would thank you for your pains, and reform his errors; but if you brought nothing but cavils, would so shake you up, as you should have small joy of your insolent invective: but you provided well for that, by writing against a Frenchman in English. And as for the number of errors or corruptions that you would have the ignorant believe to be in our English translations, you think : interp. lib. 3. is so great, as must needs make the simple abhor it. But look homeward a little into your authentical vulgar Latin translation, how many faults be in that, which your Tridentine council hath authorised. And here I will not charge it with the adversaries thereof, as you do ours, but with great friends of it and your doctrine; Lindanus, bishop of Ruremond, and Isidorus Clarius', monk of Casine, and bishop Fulginatensis: of De Opt. Gen. which the former writeth a whole book, discussing how he would have the errors, vices, corruptions, additions, detractions, mutations, uncertainties, obscurities, pollutions, barbarisms, and solecisms of the vulgar Latin translation corrected and reformed; bringing many examples of every kind, in several In his epis- chapters and sections: the other, Isidorus Clarius, giving a reason of his purpose, in castigation of the said vulgar Latin Venice apud translation, confesseth that it was full of errors almost innumerable; which if he should have reformed all according to the Hebrew verity, he could not have set forth the vulgar edition, as his purpose was. Therefore in many places he retaineth the accustomed translation, but in his annotations admonisheth the reader, how it is in the Hebrew. And, notwithstanding this moderation, he acknowledgeth that about eight thousand places are by him so noted and corrected. This epistle the deputies tle to the reader printed at Juntas. 1557. [Isidore Clarius, or de Clario, bishop of Foligno, born in 1495, in his youth a Benedictine of the monastery of Mount-Cassin. He distinguished himself greatly by his eloquence and talent on several occasions, principally at the council of Trent, in the disputes upon the authority of the text and versions of scripture. After having discussed the different translations, he decides that none of them are equivalent to the text of the original, though the version of Jerome, having been used for a thousand years in the church, was entitled to preference over the rest. In consequence of his stating in his Preface to an edition of the Vulgate (1542) that he had corrected eight thousand passages in it, his work was put among the prohibited, but subsequently allowed to be sold, with the suppression of the preface and prolegomena. The work to which Fulke here makes allusion is, Vulgata editio Veteris et Novi Testamenti, quorum alterum ad Hebraicam, alterum ad Græcam veritatem emendatum est quam diligentissime, ut nova editio non facile desideretur, et vetus tamen hic agnoscatur. Venetiis. 1542, 1557, and 1564, fol.] [Nam in his horum omnium studiis atque laboribus editio illa, qua totus Christianus orbis utitur, ac semper, ut facile conjecto, usurus est, nondum squalorem suum deposuerat, nec ei quisquam errores, quibus innumeris pene scatebat, adimere adhuc curaverat. * Verum etsi ea, of the council of Trent could not abide; and therefore in the later edition of this bible, set forth with observation of their censure, 1569, it is clean left out; as also a goodly collection of the same Isidorus, of places of scripture, exhorting to the study of holy scripture, and a like sound confession of those things which the scriptures teach, &c. 26. thor's intent Martin. But I omit these, as unknown to our country or to this MARTIN, age, and will deal principally with the English translations of our time, which are in every man's hands within our country; the corruptions The auwhereof, as they are partly touched here and there in the Annotations in this book. upon the late new English Testament catholicly translated and printed at Rheims, so by occasion thereof I will by God's help, to the better commodity of the reader and evidence of the thing, lay them closer together, and more largely display them, not counting the number, because it were hard; but esteeming the weight and importance of so many as I thought good to note, specially in the New Testament. Where I have to advertise the reader of certain special things, which he must observe. Fulke. You should rather omit them as untrue; for albeit FULKE, it cannot be denied but some faults may escape the most 26. faithful and diligent translator, yet so many heretical corruptions, either in the Dutch or English, are incredible, and turn rather to the discredit of the accuser, in all wise men's judgment, than to the parties so charged; in like manner as Surius noteth no less than eleven thousand lies in Sleidan, quam diximus, usi fuerimus moderatione, loca tamen ad octo millia annotata atque emendata a nobis sunt.-Isid. Clarii Præfat. In Vulg. Edit. 1542.] The following passage will enable the reader to estimate the value of the opinion of Surius: Pestis hoc anno multis locis plurimos extinxit, præsertim Argentinæ et in locis Rhenanis, et inter alios etiam Johannem Sleidanum, qui suis commentariis magnam orbi Christiano pestem invexit. Decreverant contra illum scribere viri duo longe clarissimi, Coloniæ Agrippinæ preclara lumina, Johannes Grofferus designatus Cardinalis, et Eberhardus Billicus Carmelitanus Provincialis, si et Sleidano et ipsis vita prolixior contigisset. Nemo me putet hominis illius odio sæpius illum perstringere. Mihi ille nec de facie unquam notus fuit. Mendacia et errores tetros illius detestor. Multi, immo plurimi, norunt Julium Pflugium Numbergensem Episcopum, quo ob multam ætatem nemo fere melius noverat res imperii. Is Sleidani Commentarios volebat sibi a quodam mihi notissimo, qui tum in ejus aula versabatur, legi. Porro vero inter legendum cum advertere res ipsi notas mala fide a Sleidano narrari, sæpius exclamabat, Ibi nebulo ille scelerate |