MARTIN,

41.

The divers shifts and

flights that the protestants are driven unto by the

catholics, as it were the jumps and turnings of

an hare before the hounds.

FULKE,

41.

mine own simple labours, who being one of the meanest, having confuted ten or twelve of your popish treatises, can receive no reply of any man, but only of poor Bristow, to whom in this respect I confess myself more beholding than to all the papists beside, saving that I have rejoined to him almost two years ago, and yet I hear not of his answer.

Martin. First, we are wont to make this offer (as we think) most reasonable and indifferent: that forasmuch as the scriptures are diversely expounded of us and of them, they neither be tied to our interpretation, nor we to theirs; but to put it to the arbitrement and judgment of the ancient fathers, of general councils, of universal custom of times and places in the catholic church. No, say they, we will be our own judges and interpreters, or follow Luther, if we be Lutherans; Calvin, if we be Calvinists; and so forth.

Fulke. For expounding of the scriptures, we will not refuse the arbitrement and judgment of the ancient fathers, of general councils, of universal custom of times and places in the catholic church; for this you say is your offer, which was never refused of us, though you most falsely affirm, that we say we will be our own judges and interpreters, or follow Luther, if we be Lutherans; Calvin, if we be Calvinists, &c. Who ever said so, you shameless slanderer? What have you differing from us, wherein you have the judgment of the ancient fathers, of general councils, of universal custom of times and places in the catholic church? Unless perhaps you mean some wretched sophistry, by disjoining these that you here seem to join together. And if you so do, we must first ask you, whether you yourselves in all expositions of the scriptures will stand to the arbitrement of every ancient father, or of every general council, or of any custom in any time or place? I know, and you cannot deny it, that you will stand to nothing, that is not allowed by your pope, though fathers, councils, custom, time or place, or all the world be against it, yea, the manifest scripture, which is so plain that it needeth no exposition: as the commandment against images in religion, Theodoret, Gelasius, Vigilius, Chrysostom against transubstantiation, Epiphanius against images, the sixth council of Constantinople for condemning the pope of heresy, the councils of Constance and Basil for deposing the popes, and decreeing that the council is above the pope, and many other like

matters beside, in which you go clearly from the consent of all antiquity for 600 years, as the bishop of Sarum hath made plain demonstration, and you are not able to reply.

42.

Martin. This being of itself a shameless shift, unless it be better MARTIN, coloured, the next is to say, that the scriptures are easy and plain, and sufficient of themselves to determine every matter, and therefore they will be tried by the scriptures only. We are content, because they will needs have it so, and we allege unto them the books of Tobit, Ecclesiasticus, Machabees. No, say they; we admit none of these for scripture. Why so? Are they not approved canonical by the same authority of the church, of ancient councils and fathers, that the other books are? No matter, say they, Luther admitteth them not; Calvin doth not allow them.

42.

Fulke. That the scriptures are plain and easy to be FULKE, understood, of them that use the ordinary means to come to it, for all doctrine necessary to be known, and sufficient to determine every matter, the Holy Ghost himself doth testify, 2 Tim. iii. and some of the ancient fathers also do bear witness, as Augustine, de Doct. Christ. lib. 2, Chrysostom, in Gen. hom. 13, de verb. Esai. Vidi dominum, &c. hom. 2.

If therefore you had the spirit of the ancient fathers, you would be content to be tried by the scriptures, for reverence you owed to God's most holy and perfect writings; and not because we will have it so, who are content in many controversies to be tried by the judgment of the ancient fathers, or general councils, or universal custom of times and places; and in all controversies, wherein all the ancient fathers, all councils, and universal custom of all times and places do consent, if any think such things can be brought against us, as it is falsely and sophistically bragged. But whereas we refuse the books of Tobit, Ecclesiasticus, Machabees, for canonical scripture, it is not (as you say ridiculously) because Luther and Calvin admitted them not, but because they are contrary to the canonical scriptures, and were never received of the church of Israel for canonical, nor of the catholic church of Christ for more than 400 years after Christ, as I have shewed before.

43

Martin. Well, let us go forward in their own dance. You allow at MARTIN, the least the Jews' canonical books of the Old Testament, that is, all that are extant in the Hebrew bible, and all of the New Testament without exception. Yea, that we do. In these books then,

will

you be

FULKE, 43.

MARTIN,

44.

כארי

tried by the vulgar ancient Latin bible, only used in all the west church above a thousand years? No. Will you be tried by the Greek bible of the Septuagint interpreters, so renowned and authorised in our Saviour's own speeches, in the evangelists' and apostles' writings, in the whole Greek church evermore? No. How then will you be tried? They answer, only by the Hebrew bible that now is, and as now it is pointed with vowels. Will you so? and do you think that only the true authentical Hebrew, which the Holy Ghost did first put into the pens of those sacred writers? We do think it (say they), and esteem it the only authentical and true scripture of the Old Testament.

Fulke. Where so many of your own popish writers do accuse your vulgar Latin text of innumerable corruptions, what reason is there, that we should follow that translation only; especially seeing God hath given us knowledge of the tongues, that we may resort to the fountains themselves, as St Augustine exhorteth? As for the Greek translation of the Septuagint, from which your own vulgar Latin varieth, (although we reverence it for the antiquity, and use it for interpretation of some obscure places in the Hebrew,) why should you require us to be tried thereby, which will not be tried by it yourselves? If I were as captious as you are with John Keltridge about the Greek bible of the Septuagint interpreters, I might make sport with you, as you do with him but I acknowledge your synecdoche, that you mean the Old Testament only, whereas the word bible is commonly taken for both. But to the purpose: we acknowledge the text of the Old Testament in Hebrew and Chaldee, (for in the Chaldee tongue were some parts of it written,) as it is now printed with vowels, to be the only fountain, out of which we must draw the pure truth of the scriptures for the Old Testament, adjoining herewith the testimony of the Mazzoreth, where any diversity of points, letters, or words, is noted to have been in sundry ancient copies, to discern that which is proper to the whole context, from that which by error of the writers or printers hath been brought into any copy, old or new.

Martin. We ask them again, What say you then to that place of the psalm, where in the Hebrew it is thus, "As a lion my hands and my feet," for that which in truth should be thus, "They digged or pierced my hands and my feet;" being an evident prophecy of Christ's nailing to the cross? There indeed (say they) we follow not the Hebrew, but the Greek text. Sometimes then you follow the Greek, and not the Hebrew only. And what if the same Greek text make for the

catholics, as in these places for example, "I have inclined my heart to keep thy justifications for reward," and "Redeem thy sins with alms;" might we not obtain here the like favour at your hands for the Greek text, specially when the Hebrew doth not disagree? No, say they, nor in no other place where the Greek is never so plain, if the Hebrew word at the least may be any otherwise interpreted, and drawn to another signification.

44.

T

Fulke. We say to you first, that you have falsely pointed FULKE, the Hebrew word in the margin; for all the printed books that ever I have seen, as Bomberg, both in folio and quarto, Stephanus, Basil, Plantine, Arias Montanus, Complutensis, all place camets under caph, where you make patach. But perhaps your Hebrew is most out of Munster's dictionary, where it is pointed as you make it. But for answer to your question, we say, that there is a double testimony of the Mazzorites to prove, that in the most ancient and best corrected copies the Hebrew was caru, "they have digged or pierced": this is testified not only by our translators, but also by Johannes Isaac, your own rabbin, against Lindanus, a prelate of yours. And this the authors of the Complutensian edition do acknowledge; for thus they have pointed it, caru, where is nothing but the redundance of aleph (which is understood in every camets) differing from the usual reading and declining of the verb carah, that signifieth "to pierce or dig." Again, where it is read otherwise, if it be rightly pointed, as it is in Arias Montanus, caari, it cannot signify sicut leo, "as a lion," as both the Mazzorites do teach, and Johannes Isaac, a grammarian, out of them by the points and the note over iod doth plainly demonstrate. For what should shurech sound in iod? or if you would contend it should be daghes, to what purpose should it be in iod, if the word should signify "as a lion"? Therefore, howsoever this variety of copies came, either by negligence of some writers, or by corruption of the Jews, we have sufficient warrant for the ancient and true reading, which the Greek translator did follow, which also was in St Jerome's copy; otherwise he would not have translated out of the Hebrew fixerunt, "they have pierced." Therefore Rabbi Joseph, which made the Chaldee paraphrase upon the Psalter, laboured to express both the copies, as well that which hath plainly "they have pierced," as that which hath it corruptly,

כארי

as though it spake of a lion, and yet cannot rightly be so translated, because the points are imperfect even for that reading. Therefore he hath said, nikethin heich cheariah, 'they have indented and pierced like a lion my hands and my feet," as it is in the Venice print of Daniel Bomberg, although Arias Montanus, in his bible, have no more but nachethin, which he translateth, "biting my hands and my feet." I have played the fool to utter these matters in the mother tongue to ignorant men, that can make no trial of them; but you have not only given me example, but also enforced me with your insoluble question (as you thought), by one word somewhat out of frame, to overthrow the whole Hebrew text. But you are to be pardoned, for that you follow your Mr Lindanus herein, who hath nothing else in effect to quarrel against the Hebrew text, but this; and therefore he repeateth it in many places, to make greater shew of it, as you do. In other places, where the Hebrew word hath divers significations, who shall forbid us to choose that which is most agreeable to the circumstance of the text, and to the analogy or rule of faith?

Martin. We reply again and say unto them, Why? Is not the credit of those Septuagint interpreters, who themselves were Jews, and best learned in their own tongue, and (as St Augustine often, and other ancient fathers say) were inspired with the Holy Ghost in translating the Hebrew bible into Greek,-is not their credit, I say, in determining and defining the signification of the Hebrew word, far greater than yours? No. Is not the authority of all the ancient fathers, both Greek and Latin, that followed them, equivalent in this case to your judgment? No, say they; but because we find some ambiguity in the Hebrew, we will take the advantage, and we will determine and limit it to our purpose.

Fulke. St Jerome abundantly answereth this cavil, denying that supposed inspiration, and deriding the fable of their 70 cells', (which yet pleased Augustine greatly,) yea, calling in question, whether any more were translated by them, than the five books of Moses; because Aristæus, a writer in Ptolemy's time, and after him Josephus, make mention of no more. The same cause therefore, that moved St Jerome to translate out of the Hebrew, moveth us: whose translation, if we had it sound and perfect, might [See before, p. 52.]