The English Bible and the English language

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[From the Nkw En(*lander and Yal.e Review for October, 1887. J

THE ENGLISH BIBLE AND THE ENGLISH
LANGUAGE.

By Professor T. W. Hunt.

JIJi. ' ' 1912

[From the New Englander and Yale Review for October, 1887.

THE ENGLISH BIBLE AND THE ENGLISH
LANGUAGE.

By Professor T. W. Hunt,

246 English Bible a/rid English Language. [Oct.,

Article II.— THE ENGLISH BIBLE AND THE ENGLISH
LANGUAGE.

The two greatest treasures in the possession of any Christian
nation are the Bible in the vernacular and the vernacular itself.
Though it is true, as Archbishop Trench has stated,^ " that a
language is more and miglitier in every way than any one of
the works composed in it," this advantage in favor of the lan-
guage is reduced to a minimum if not indeed rendered doubtful,
when we come to compare it with its expresssion in the Holy
Scriptures. Of no nation of modern times is this assertion
truer than of English-speaking peoples. Germany excepted,
there is no civilized country where the Bible and the language
alike have done more for the best interests of the population,
and moi^ in which the mutual relations of these two great
educational and moral agencies have been closer and more
marked. Among the English, as elsewhere, no sooner did
Christianity enter and obtain a foothold than the necessity was
felt of having the Word of God translated into the home-
speech. It w^as so in the days of Uliilas, Bishop of the Goths.
As soon as his countrymen along the Bl^ck Sea became con-
verts to Christianity, in the early part of the fourth century,
it was their earnest desire to possess the Bible in their own
tongue. To this work the learned and holy bishop was compe-
tent and inclined. About 300, A. D., he completed the trans-
lation of the New Testament from the original Greek and a
p^irtion of the Old Testament from the Septuagint version into
the Moeso-Gothic. It was in a true sense about the first written
example of a Germanic language.

It was tlms with the old Syriac, Latin, Armenian, and Slav-
onic versions, all of them being prepared at the demand of the
people, upon the introduction of Christianity. It was so in the
case of the Old Saxon metrical version of the continental
tribes — the TIeliand of the ninth century, in which the un-
known author, at the supposed recpiest of Louis, the Pious,
* Trench's Study of Words, p. 29.

1887.] Eiujlhh Bible and Kngli^h Laiujnage. 247

soiiglit to ]);ir;n)lira8e in verse tlie sacred work for the use of the
people. This was prepared after that a rude form of Chris-
tian faith liad been bronglit to them by the a<^ency of Charle-
magne and his followers.

Precisely thus the English llible finds its historical origin on
English soil just after Gregory of Rome sent forth Augustine,
A. D. 597, to carry Christianity to Kent. Shortly before this,
Ethelbert, King of Kent, by his marriage with Bertha, a Frank-
ish Christian queen, had become favorably disposed to the new
doctrine and worship, so that he received the Romish mission-
aries with kindness, in the province of Canterbury. Intellectual
and literary activity was at once awakened. Schools were
established and worship observed. Among the books and
treasures sent to Canterbury by Gregory, the most valuable by
far were two copies of the gospels in the Latin language, one
of which is still in the library of Corpus Christi, Cambridge,
and the other, in the Bodleian, Oxford. The people were now
more than eager for the vernacular scriptures. The establish-
ment of Christianity had made this need imperative, and it was
on the basis of the Oxford copy of the Latin Gospels — the
Yetus Italica — that the first copies of the Scriptures were pre-
pared in the native language and circulated throughout the
center and north of England. Hence, as early as the eighth
century, A. D., Bede, of Durham, and Boniface, of Devon-
sliire, were engaged, respectively, in the further translation of
the Bible and in preaching the gospel to the kindred tribes be-
yond the sea. The contemporaneous history of the English
Bible, and the English language may be said to have begun at
this early period, and has so continued with but little deviation
to the Westminster version of our day. It will be our pleasing
purpose in the discussion before us to trace this progressive his-
tory as it moves along the successive centuries, and thus to
evince the large indebtedness of our English speech to our
English Bible.

I. — English Versions and Translations of the Bible.

As to the exact date of the earliest translations of the Bible
into English, tradition and history are so mingled that it is quite
impossible to be accurate. As Bosworth suggests, the tranfilators

248 English Bible and English Language. [Oct.,

and translations are alike a matter of doubt. It is, however,
safe to say that leaving out of view the discursive work that
was done by unknown scholars and copyists in the seventh
century, a more specific work of translation began about the
eighth century in the persons of Aldhelm, Guthlac, Egbert, and
Bede. This was continued in the ninth and tenth centuries
by Alfred and Aelfric. We learn authoritatively from Cuth-
bert, a pupil of Bede's, that his venerable teacher, who died in
735, A. D., was closing his translation of St. John's Gospel into
English, as his life was ending. This, in all probability, was
but the last of a series of gospel versions, inasmuch as we know
that in the line of commentary work Bede gave special study
to the four evangelists. In fact, other translations of the gos-
pels may have existed before this. It is well authenticated,
indeed, that in the early part of the same century (706) a trans-
lation of the Gospels was made by Egbert, as also of the Psalms,
by Aldhelm. In the two following centuries, Alfred, and
Aelfrie, the Grammarian, carried on the same useful work.
The illustrious king is supposed to have prepared a partial ver-
sion of the Psalms and Gospels. Aelfrie, who died in 1006,
completed the translation of the Heptateuch — the first seven
books of the Bible, together with a portion of Job. lie is thus
mentioned by Morley *'as the first man who translated into
English prose any considerable portion of the Bible."* In
addition to this prose rendering, it is not to be forgotten that
as far back as the middle of the seventh century the para-
phrase of Caedmon gives us a metrical version of a large
portion of the Christian scriptures, the poem, as now extant,
containing substantial parts of Genesis, Exodus, Daniel and
of The Life of Christ.

Thus early was the Word of God vemacularized. As soon,
in fact, as the English nation and church began their existence ;
as soon as education entered and the English people started on
their great work of evangelization, their bible was accessible
in their own tongue. It at once began to exercise its infiuence
in the native language in all those beneficent forms in which it
is still at work. It is most suggestive to note that the two great
agencies started historically together at the call of Christianity.
* Morley'8 Evglish Writers, vol. i., part I.

1887.] KiKjlifili BlhU and hnylmh Language. 249

Fragmentary and tentative ixa many of tlioir first versions are,
60 that there is now extant of tliat time hut litth? wive the
Gospels, Pentateuch, and IVahns, what does remain in all the
more valuahlo and is (|uito enoui^h to estahlish that connection
of close dependence of which wo are speaking. Imperfect as
these translations arc, there is no suhsequcnt period in which
the secular and the inspired arc so intimately hlendcd. With
Bede and Aclfric, Eni^dish was cinincntly hil»li<'al. All the lead-
ing authors of the time were lioly men. Homilies, Christian
biogra])hies, and church histories were tho staple form of proee
production. AVherc actual hihic translation w;is not done, they
did the very next thing to it, in furnishing complete paraphrases
of the Bible for the schools and tho common people. In theee
iirst English times (■44t)-l(M;()) the language was in a marked
degree the medium of scripture and scriptural ideas. **In the
latent spirit of this," writes Morley, "will be found the soul of
all that is Saxon in our literature. The Bible was the main
book in the languiige and controlled the character of all other
books." *

In what may be called the second or intermediate period of
our language and our versions (1U66-1550), attention should be
called, as before, to the translations in metre. The most
prominent of these is. The Ormulum (1215), by Orm. It is a
metrical paraphrase of those portions of the gospels arranged
for the respective days of church service, and as tho author
states in various forms, is designed to secure practical religious
ends. What is known as the Surtees Metriciil Pwilter, j)roba-
bly, belongs to the early ])art of the fourteenth century. About
1340, Richard Rolle de Ilampole translated the Psalter and Job
into Northumbrian English to give to those people the same
privileges that the people of Kent had earlier received in proee
versions. As to these prose versions, wo notice a proso Psalter
by William of Shoreham as early as 1327, prepared esjwcially
for the Englishmen of Kent. Of the English Bible of Jolin
of Trevisa, to which Ca.xton refers and whioh is placed at 1880,
no reliable record is found. This tra«lition is perchance tho
origin «)f Sir Thomas More's belief that the Bible was rendered
complete into English long before the time of Wycliffe.
♦Morley's English Writers, vol. i.. I'art I., p. 2W.
VOL. XI. 18

250 English Bible and English Language. [Oct.,

The first translation of the entire Bible into English is that
of Wiclif, assisted by Nicholas de Hereford. It was based on
the Vulgate, and issued (N. T.) in 1380. As it was prepared
nearly a century before the introduction of printing into Eng-
land (1^74) it was circulated in manuscript only, as the ver-
sions preceding it had been, and was not finally committed to
print till several centuries later (K T. 1Y31, O. T. 1850). For
about a century and a half, however, up to the time of the
next and greater version (1526), it was the Bible of England
and the basis of English. Its revision by Purvey in 1388 was
a revision only, and made a good translation a better one.
Connected, as Wiclif was, with the university of Oxford for
nearly half a century, and versed, as he was, in the divinities,
no one was better qualified to do that great initial work that
was then needed, to embody the Scriptures permanently in the
English tongue, and through them to open the way for the
English Reformation. English education as well as Protestant
English Christianity owes him a debt that can never be repaid.
His work was philological and literary as well as biblical and
moral.* Although in a council at Oxford, in 1408, it was
decreed " that no man hereafter read any such book now
lately composed in the time of John Wiclif or since," this first
great version could not be thus suppressed. The Lollards
were persecuted and scattered but the Bible remained, and
Foxe was able to write ''that in 1520 great multitudes tasted
and followed the sweetness of God's Holy Word."t

In 1525-32 appeared Tyndale's Version, containing the ISTew
Testament with the Pentateuch and historical books of the
Old Testament. As the first lyrinted English translation it
stands conspicuously superior to all that had preceded it.
From the additional fact, that it was not based on the Vulgate
as was Wiclif s, but on the original text of the Hebrew and
Greek, it was commended with increasing emj)hasis to the
biblical student and reader. It is eminently natural, therefore,
to hold with the great majority of C.hristian scholars that the
history of our present English Bible practically begins with
Tyndale's. It has been accepted as the basis of all later ver-

* See Dr. StorrH on Wiclif.

t Westcott's lliHtory of the Enylish Bible, i)p. 17, 18, 20.

1887.] English Bihle and Kngluh Language, 251

sions, and gatliers in its prcpanition new interest fnmi tlio cir-
cinnstanco that Lntlier was at work at about tlie Baiiie period
(1532-84) oil that transhition of the Scriptures into (German
whicli marks the settlement of standard (lernian prose. The
siin])licity of Tyndale's Bi])le is a sutHcieiit continuation of liis
prophecy, that the plough-boys of En<^land would know more
of the Word of God than the Pope himself did. Its plain,
concise, and telling English is just what might have been
expected from a man of his learning, character, and spirit.
Yersed as he was in the original tongues of the Bible, and
thoroughly devoted to the needs of the common people of
England, he succeeded alike in his fidelity to the ancient text
and in preparing a version for the use of all classes of the
country. lie was especially careful to reject the " ink-horn
phrases" of the schoolmen and the schools. His method is
natural, facile, terse, and vigorous, and affords the best example
extant of tlie precise status of the English tongue at that par-
ticular stage of its historic development. It became substan-
tially the basis of that later and still ])etter version whicli for
more than two centuries and a half has been accepted on all
sides as the best prose specimen of standard English, while it
is through this version that Tyndale's translation becomes
vitally connected with the Westminster Version of the present
era. Following Tyndale in this intervening period between
First and Modern English, are three or four versions simply
needing mention. Coverdale^s translation (1535), from the
Dutch (German), and Latin, completed what Tyndale had left
incomplete at his death. It was, in a true sense, the tirst
entire printed English Bible.

Matthew's or Roger's Version (1537), was based on the two
preceding, and revised by Taverner's in 1539. It is supposed
to have been the first version in English that was formally
sanctioned by royal authority, — the first really authorized ver-
sion.

Cranmer's or the Great Bible, (1539-40), was on to 1568 the
accepted Bible of the English church, and especially notable as
the version from which most of the Scriptures of the English
Prayer-Book were taken. From this time, the preparation of
Ehglish versions ceased for a while. Not only so, but new

252 English Bible and English Language. [Oct.,

animosity seemed to arise from royal and subordinate sources
looking to the prohibition and permanent suspension of such
endeavors. The accession of Edward YI. however, changed the
condition of things ; Bible work was resumed, so that at the
close of the short reign of Bloody Mary, hostile as she was to
the Protestant Scriptures, other versions were in preparation,
and a new and wider era was opened both for the Bible and
the language. In this Middle English Period, therefore, as in
the First, the connection of these translations with the pro-
gressive development of English speech is everywhere visible.
In tine, the main work was either in Scripture itself or along
the lines of scriptural teaching. Whatever the literary ex-
pression of the language in prose and poetry may have been
or whatever the separate study of the language on purely
secular methods, the Word of God in English was the book by
way of distinction and was engaging the best thought of the
time.*

In the Modern English Period (1550-188-), three or four
new versions appear.

The Genevan version (1557-60), was prepared by Protestant
refugees in the city of Geneva. It was based on Tyn dale's
translation, was far less costly and bulky than the Great Folio
Bible, and in connection with the version that followed it, was
the Bible of England for more than half a century. It is of
special biblical interest in that it was the first translation using
verses and notes, and of special philological interest as being
the first in which the old 1)1 ack letter type was abandoned
for the common Eoman type of modern time. In this partic-
ular, it clearly marks the introduction of the modern English
Bible and modern Bible-English. It might be called the
Bible of the Presbyterians, as most of the Genevan refugees
from the Marian persecutions were of that order, and as the
occasion of its preparation was partly found in a protest
against the extreme Anglicanism of Cranmer's version pre-
ceding it. It was notable for its homely diction and so
commended itself to the middle classes of the people as to
hold its ground far into the reign of James.

♦ For specimens of the texts of these earlier versions, the reader may
be referred to Mombert's Hand-Book of English Versions.

1887.] Jinglish Bible and Knglish Lain/ u age. 253

The Bishop's l>ihle of 15G8 was made on the basis of Craii-
mer's and under the supervision of Arehhishop Parker.
Most of tlie schohirs at work upon it were bishops of tlie
Entjjlisli churcli. It is sometinies called *'The Translation of
the Church of England." Whatever its merits, it never super-
seded the Genevan version. It is supposed that its circulation
was scarcely one-fourth that (jf its competitors, while it was
largely due to the unseemly contest for supremacy between
these two versions — the ]^resbyterian and the Anglican — that
the pre])aration of the great version of U»l 1 was suggested and
hastened.

King James' version (1007-11), may be said to have ongin-
ated in a conference at Hampton Court between the King and
certain others, Pres])yterians and Episco])alians — with reference
to promoting ecclesiastical unity in the kingdom. It was sug-
gested l)y Dr. Rainolds of Oxford that such a version be
prepared, based on the Bisho})'s Bible of lofiS ; it was thus
connected, through Cranmer's, Matthew's, and Coverdale's ver-
sions, with that of Tyndale, so that it may be said to rest on
that foundation.

'' AVe never thought," said the translators, " that we should
need to make a new translation, nor yet to make of a bad one
a good one ; but to make a good one better, or, out of many
good ones, one principal good one, not to be excepted against."*
Of this translation, little need be said. Though the Genevan
version continued to be prized and used, this superior one
soon succeeded in displacing it. Nearly all of those engaged
in its preparation were university men, so that its scholarly
character is of the first order, while its eminently English
spirit has ever elicited the highest praise. As a version, it has
had no superior in any language ; of its literary and linguistic
merits, Protestants and Romanists, Christian and unchristian
alike speak.

The best example extant of Elizabethan English, it is more
than remarkable tliat through the inevitable changes of such a
composite language as the English, it has held its linguistic
place as no secular w^ork of that date has held it, and in so far
as its English is concerned, has no aj^proximate rival. Mr.
* Translator's Preface, King James' Version.

254 English Bihle and English Language. [Oct.,

Froude is but one of millions as lie speaks of " its peculiar
genius and Saxon simplicity."*

*' "Who will say," writes Faber {Duhlin Review^ 1853), that
the marvelous English of the Protestant Bible is not one of
the strongholds of heresy [Protestantism] in this country !"
Romanists at the Reformation and since have been keen-
sighted enough to see that the " heresy " of the Protestants is
immediately imbedded in the English of the Protestant Bible.
It is on this account that Pope Leo XIII. would close if he
could, the evangelical schools and churches at Rome. It was
in fact by reason of the increasing circulation of these Protest-
ant Scriptures that Romish scholars deemed it necessary to pre-
pare what is known as, the Rheims-Douay Version of 1582,
"for the more speedy abolishing of a number of false and
impious translations put forth by sundry sects."f It was not
the Bible but the Bible in English that they desired to abolish.

The latest revision of the Scriptures (k T. 1881, O. T.
1885) is based, as we know, on this Authorized Yersion of 1611,
as this in turn looks back to Tyndale and back to Wiclif, so
that it may be sufiei^d to mark the highest result of scholar-
ship and practical adaptation to popular needs. As to whether
the English of this version is equal or superior to that of the
preceding, is a question that may judiciously rest until the
full revision has been longer before us. It is in point here to
add, that even in this modern period the metrical renderings
of Ca^dmon and Orm are continued in the paraphrases of
Longfellow and of Coles.

In our discussion of the relations of the English Bible to
the English language we are now at a point, where, in the
light of the brief survey already made of the various vernacular
versions, we may state a fact of prime importance, that the
historical development of the English Bible as a book has
been from the beginning substantially parallel with that of the
English language. " The history of our Bible," as Dr.
Westcott remarks, " is a type of the history of our church, and
both histories have sullered the same fate.":]: So as to our Bible

* Froude's History of England, III., 84.

f Preface to Rhemish Text.

X Preface to Westcott'H History of tJie English Bible.

1887.] EnrjUsh B'lhle and Kmjlish Langnacje. 255

and our speech. They have heen liistorically correspondent.
They have " suffered the same fate/' i)rosperou8 and adverse,
and this to such a marked degree that the record of the one is
essentially embodied in that of the other.

** It is a noteworthy circumstance,''"**" writes Mr. ALirnh, " in the
history of the literature of Protestant countries, that in every
one of them the creation or revival of a national literature has
coincided with a translation of the Scrij)ture8 into the vernac-
ular, which has been remarkable, both iis an accurate repre-
sentative of the original text and as an exhibition of the best
power of expression possessed ])y the language of that stage of
its development." This closeness of progressive expansion is
clearly seen in each of the three periods we have examined.
Of the five or six most prominent authors of First Knglish,
nearly every one was more or less engaged in developing the
language through its application to Scripture, while such a
writer as Cynewulf, in his poem on Christ, verges as closely
as possible on specific biblical paraphrase. The Saxon Bible
was thus not only a church book for certain days and cere-
monies, but was the book of the home, the school, and the
shop, the people's hand-book of their vernacular.

So in the Middle English era on to the time of Elizabeth,
Shoreham, Orm, and Ilampolc had done their initial work prior
to Wiclif, who, with his manuscript Bible containing over
ninety-five per cent, of native English, did more to maintain
and diffuse the language in its purity than all other agencies
combined. "It is a version," says Shepherd, ''entitled to-
special consideration in a history that treats of the origin and
formation of the English tongue. "f

After the invention of printing and the work of Caxton, the
golden age of English versions began with Tyndale and others,
reaching the high -water mark just at the time when the Eng-
lish language on its secular side was freeing itself from the
fetters of the old inflectional system, and preparing for its great
mission among the nations. The English Bible was there most
opportunely to guide and measure that ever enlarging growth
which it wjis assuming, and which, had it not been there, might

* Marsh's English Lang, and Lit., p. 344.

f Shepherd's History of the Eng. Lan., p. 84.

256 English Bihh and English Language, [Oct.,

have become an xVnglo-Latin dialect of the Romish church,
or a confused compound of earlier and later English. So as to
the modern period from the Genevan version to King James,
when the work of bible translation seemed to rest conjointly
with the establishment of the language substantially in its
present standard forms. Whatever may be the differences of
phraseology, idiom, and structure between what is known as
Elizab3than English, and the English of to-day, it is conceded
by all scholars that modern English as such began at that date,
and was most purely expressed in the version of 1611. Xot
only did this version mark the highest point reached in the use
of theological and religious English, but practically so in
the use of common English. It expressed the sum total
of those different elements of good that existed in the
language as the result of its successive centuries of develop-
ment, and added to them all the new element of Christian
liberty. In the revision of the Scriptures now neai4y com-
pleted, there is seen but another confirmation of the fact — that
the growth of the Bible as a book is coterminous with that of
the language. Though during the intervening two hundred
and seventy years (1611-1881) this historical parallelism has
been at times interrupted, as in the days of the Stuarts, still the
correspondence has not been altogether lost, but providentially
or otherwise, there has been a harmony of procession here quite
without precedent in any other sphere. In fine, the necessities
of a spoken language in constant process of change, demand
such occasional revisions in order to keep abreast of the secular
growth of the vernacular and to guard it. Hence it is, that the
Scriptures are a philological factor in a language as no merely
literary production can possibly be. Hence it is, that the Eng-
lish Bible in every new revision of it may be viewed as marking
the limit up to which the language has come at the date of such
revision. Tiiere is here, on tlie one hand, a convenient test of
the purely philological progress of our language, and also a
test of the success of those scliolars who engage in the difficult
and delicate work of scri|)tural revision. The language and
the Bible act and react upon each other as great educational
agents. Linguistically, they are the two great cooperative fac-
tors in modern progress. They cannot exist and act separately.

1887.] English Bible and Kiujlish Language. 257

The Englisli language is wliat it is, and will be what it will be
mainly by reason of its vital relation to the English Scriptures.

It is now in place to call attention to some of those special
forms of indebtedness under which the l']nglish language
rests to the English Bible.

1. As to Diction and Vocabulary. What may be called the
verbal jpuriiy of English, is founded on the vernacular bible as
on nothing else. This is seen to ]>e true in all the historical eras
mentioned. It was so in the earliest days of the partial Saxon
versions, when, for the very purpose of preserving the language
from the corrupting influence of foreign tongues, the Scriptures
were translated into it. It was this very object that Aelfric
had in view when in the preparation of manuals for the schools
he was especially careful to translate a j^ortion of the l>il)le for
daily use. In what are known as the Wicklif versions of Scrip-
ture, we are told ^'that they exerted a decided influence in
develoi3ing that particular dialect of English — the East-mid-
land— which became the literary form of the language ; that
they tended to prepare the way for Chaucer, who was person-
ally indebted to these translations for much of the wealth and
beauty of his diction.''* When we come to the sixteenth cen-
tury and to the practical completion of Bible versions in the
seventeenth, this debt of our diction to om* Bible is all the
more striking. Elizabethan English, as a period of the lan-
guage by itself, is enough to confirm this. It was right at the
height and under the central influence of these versions that
this form of English was developed. It was saturated with
Bible teaching and spirit. Special emphasis is to be given to
the fact that a distinctive religious diction was then established,
from which no material dejiartnre has since been made. What-
ever the changes in the strictly secular speech have l)een, this
devotional phraseology then formed has remained substantially
the same.

When it is remembered that the version of King James, as
that of Tyndale, has, as a mere fact of numerical estimate, over
ninety -five per cent, of native words, and that, as the Bible, it
has a circulation accorded to no work of merely human origin,
some idea may be formed of the indebtedness of our vocabulary
* Shepherd's History of Eng. Lang., p. 85.

258 English Bible and English Language. [Oct.,

to this printed Word of God. Quite apart from that specially bib-
lical phraseology which it has inwroiiij^ht into the very heart
of our common speech, tliere are a tliousand forms of general
influence which flow from it to purify the native tongue. The
siirpernatural character of our Bible aside, the English element
in it is the best specimen extant of plain, idiomatic and trench-
ant English. Merely as a book among books, it has gathered
up and embodied in its verbal forms more of the pith and
marrow of the vernacular than an}^ otlier book has done. Hence
it is, that there is no other channel through which a natural
English diction is to be so fully and safely perpetuated. Elim-
inate the Bible merely as a manual of verbal usage from the
books that guide and govern us, and we remove at once the
main safeguard of the purity and popularity of the language.
Irrespective of the specifically moral aspects of the question,
there is here a strong philological argument for the preserva-
tion of our Bible in its present position of authority among us.
2. As to Structure. George P. Marsh, in his admirable disser-
tations on our language, seems never weary of calling the atten-
tion of the student to this point and insisting upon its great
importance in any comprehensive study either of the Scriptures
or of the speech. After dwelling at length upon the grammat-
ical framework of English, he devotes a separate chapter to the
English Bible simply in its linguistic relations to the vernacular.
The argument, of course, is, that the relation is such as to make
the language a constant debtor. Here again, the progress of the
language is coterminous with that of the versions of Scripture.
In earliest English times under the old inflectional system, the
structure was synthetic and inflexible. It w^as so both inside
and outside of the Bible. In the transitional period under
Wiclif and Tyndale, the inflections were breaking away, so that
to whatever use the language was applied, there was greater pli-
ancy of form and syntactical arrangement. There was a good
degree of that flexibility belonging to a tongue analytic in its
structure. When, in the time of King James, the inflectional sys-
temhad wholly disa])peare(l, the English Bible most decidedly of
all books embodied and expressed that increasing freedom of
adjustment which was the result of so great a linguistic change.
The English of tlie Bible was now supple and elastic in a sense

1887.] English Bihie and Kn/jliah Ln)>(jnafj€, 259

unknown and impossible before. There was the utter absence
of that rigidity which attends •rraminatical prescriptions. Bible
Englisli became, as Mr. AVhite wouhl say, " Grammarless Eng-
lish," in the sense that it was liberated from the bondage of form-
alism and traditional statutes. There are two special elements
of structure which our F>il)le have confirmed in our language.
They are simplicity and strength. Each of these may be said
to have existed in marked degree from the very beginning of
Bible versions in the days of l^>gbert and Bede. If First Eng-
lish is notable for anything of excellence, it is for the presence
of clearness and vigor. Nothing in the line of connected
human speech could be more direct and true than the original
Saxon in which our ancestors wrote and into which they ren-
dered the Scriptures from tlie Latin. The element of simplic-
ity of structure may be said to be secured by the monosyllabic
character of the earliest English. The verbal and syllabic
brevity is noteworthy while the cpiality of strength is a neces-
sary consequence of that old Teutonic vigor of spirit lying
back of all external expression. Prominent, however, as these
two phases of structure are in strictly secular English, they are
still more marked in religious English, and, most of all, in the
Bible versions. Bunyan and Baxter were more notable for
these qualities than were such secular authors as Tem])le and
Clarendon, but not so conspicuous for them as was King
James' version. No English philologist studying the lan-
guage from the scientific side only can possibly account for
its marvelous possession of these qualities at the present day.
Ilad it not been for the conservative influence of these suc-
cessive versions, English would have been far more complex
than it is and, to that degree, less forcible. In answering the
question, as to what has been the main safeguard of the lan-
guage at these points, the impartial min<l nmst turn to the Scrip-
tures in English. There is nothing inherent in the English
speech fully to explain it. There is nothing inherent in the
English people fully to account for it. No study of merely
historical and philosophical i)h('nomena will satisfy. These
are but partial solutions. The great bulwark Jigainst ever in-
creasing complexity from foreign influence has been the Bible,
so that, at this day, more than fourteen centuries since the Saxons

260 English Bible and English Language. [Oct.,

landed in Britain, the speech maintains its substantial character
and bids fair to do so in the future. It has lost little op noth-
ing of value. This ])rinciple holds, to some extent, in the
Bibles of all nations relative to their respective tongues. Most
especially is this true of the Danes and Germans, but in no
case as marked as in the English. Macaulay asserts, that had not
the English been victorious at Crecj and Agincourt, they would
have become a dependency of France. Had it not been for
the English Bible, the simplicity and strength of our speech
would have been excessively corrupted by foreign agencies,
if not indeed, obliged to yield entirely to such agencies.

3. As to Spirit. There is an inner life within every lan-
guage characteristic and active in proportion to the excellence
of the language. This in English is potent and pervasive and
is mainly of biblical origin. Says a modern author in speaking
of the English Bible : " This for four hundred years has given
the language, words, phrases, sentiments, figures and eloquence
to all classes. It has been the source of the motives, acts, liter-
ature, and studies. It has filled the memory, stirred the feel-
ings, and roused the ideas which are ruling the world."* Mr.
Brookes, in his "• Theology of the English Poets," has called
attention to that distinctively moral element in our language
which every deserving mind must have somewhat noticed.
Its main source has been the English Scriptures pervading in
their spirit every phase of English intellectual life. Writers
have called attention to the ethics of our language and have
done rightly in referring it mainly to the same source. We
speak of the genius of our speech as Teutonic and Saxon. More
than this, it is ethical and sober. It is not surprising that even
so partial a critic of English as Mr. Taine is obliged to digress
at frequent intervals along the line of his narrative to note this
significant fact as to the scriptural spirit of our language. " I
have before me," he says, "one of those old square folios [Tyn-
dale.] Hence have sprung much of the English language and half
of the English manners. To this day, the country is biblical. It
was these big books which transformed SIiakes])eare's England.
Never has a people been so deeply imbued by a foreign book ;
has let it penetrate so far into its manners and writings, its
♦ i7ciiica<io«, May-June, 1882.

1887.] EiKjlwh Bihle and Knyiis/i Laiujnage. 261

imaginations and its language."* This is a testimony from tlie
side of French materialism as to the relation of the EngHsh
Bible to the inner spirit of our language and nothing more
could be desired. This influence is ingrained. It lias so be-
come a part of our vernacular that no line of demarcaticjn
can be safely drawn between the secular and the scriptural
Enough has been said to show that the historical develupment
of English speech has run parallel to that of our English Bible,
that the language in its vocabulary, structure, and spirit is whar
it is in purity, simplicity, strength, and ethical character mainly
because of its biblical basis and elements. Whatever our debt
may be to onr standard English writers or to the English Prayer-
book of early Elizabethan days, our greatest indebtedness is to
that long succession of English versions of God's Word which
began with Bede and ends in Victorian days. We read in our
studies as to the origin of language that some have traced it to
the gods, regarding it as a divine gift or continuous miracle.
The Brahmins so conceived it. Plato viewed it as inspired
from above. At the other extreme, we are told that language is
purely material and earthly; that it has no higher source than
in the imitation of the cries of animals. Between these two
extremes of superstition and infidelity, there lies the safeguard
of language-origin in the divine-human element. It is the
gift of God for man's development and use— a divine ability to
be humanly applied. There is a spiritual element in all speech,
rising in its expression, as man rises in the scale of moral being.
It is one of the factors in Max M tiller's large influence in mod-
ern philology that he has seen fit to assume this high ground.
He goes so far as to say that the science of language is due to
Christianity and that its most valuable materials in every age
have been the translations of the Scriptures. It is at this point
that the subject before us assumes new interest. Whatever the
supernatural or spiritual element in any speech may be, it finds
its best expression in the sacred books of that language. What-
ever this element in English may be, its home is the English
Bible, from which as a spiritual centre issue those influences
which are to hold the language loyally to its high^ origin
and to be a constant protest against undue secularization.
* Taine's Ei\g. Literature, p. 176.

262 English Bible and English Language. [Oct.,

Tlie attitude of modern English philology to the Bible as an
English-Language book must in all justice be a deferential one.
The effort to reduce such a speech to a purely physiological
basis so as to make its study merely that of the vocal organs, is
as unscientific as it is immoral. In the face of the history of
our Bible and our tongue, such a procedure must be condemned.
Essential factors cannot thus be omitted. It has been the
pleasant duty of such English scholars as Miiller, Bosworth,
Angus, and Marsh to emphasize this inter-dependence. It is a
matter of no small moment that while in many of the schools
of modern Europe, the current philosophy of materialism has
succeeded in controlling the study of language, English phi-
lology is still studied by the great body of English scholars as
biblical and ethical in its groundwork.

From this fruitful topic, as discussed, two or three sugges-
tions of interest arise :

1. English and American literature, as they stand related to
the English Bible, may justly be expected to be biblical in
basis and spirit. The student who for the first time approaches
these literatures, should approach them with such an expecta-
tion. Such an element is to be sought as naturally in Eng-
lish letters as its absence is to be anticipated in French and
Spanish letters. English literature is written in a language
saturated with Bible terms, Bible ideas and sentiments, and
must partake of such characteristics. Nor are we to be dis-
appointed. Despite the immoral excesses of the Restoration
Period, and the skeptical teachings of later times, the underly-
ing tone has been evangelic and healthful. No school of
merely literary criticism, at the present day, can rationally
ignore this element. Tlujugh we are told that literature
" should teach nothing and believe in nothing,"* this book of
books has been so impressed upon the national speech, and life,
that when our writers have written they have voluntarily, or per-
force, taught something and believed in something distinctively
germane to morality. It is true that the language of our Bible
is not meant to be, and is not the strictly literaiy language of
English. It is a sacred dialect, covering an area of its own.
Nevertheless, its literary intiuence is a j^otent one, so that no
* Shakesjjcariana, Feb., 1885.

1887.] EmjVush Blhh <uul I'jujiish Lnngwtge. 263

writer, from Bacon to Carlyle, li;us failed to feel the force and
ro^^traint of it. The best of our authors have been the tii*8t to
acknowledge and utilize it. It is only in the face of history,
an<l with the same promise of failure, that Bomeof our existing
schools of letters are aiming to i-nore it. He who now writes
on '^ Literature and Dogma," must also write on— (Jod and The
Bible. They must be conjointly viewed by the English critic.
Tn a former article (/^m Ihv., July, '81) we have sho^^^l the
presence of this scriptural element in our earliest literature,
from Bede to Bacon. '' Shakespeare and tlie Bible," said Dr.
Sharp, 'Miave made me Archbishop of York.''* Who can
compute the influence of the Knglish P>ible of Elizabethan
times upon England's greatest dramatist! A recent writer—
in the nineteenth century— has written ably on the Bible and
Elizabethan poets. In Shakespeare, most of all, is this influ-
ence visible. "He treats the Scriptures," says the writer,
" as if they belonged to him. He is steeped in the language
and spirit of the Bible."t All students of English are familiar
with the results reached in this direction by Bishop Words-
worth, in his suggestive volume, Shal'eqieare and The Bihh,
where the contents of a separate treatise are required to con-
tain the large variety of references which the illustrious poet
makes to the English Bible. Dr. Wordsworth writes, of " more
than five hundred and fifty biblical allusions, and not one of
his thirtv-seven plays is without a scriptural reference." It is,
indeed, diflicult to explain, in the light of such facts, how the
poet's religious beliefs could have been any other than evan-
gelical. A recent article {Prcs. Rev., July, '84) on the Re-
ligious Behefs of Shakespeare fully substantiates this view.
The dramatist's writings, containing as they do, eighty-five per
cent, of English words, are a striking testimony to the influ-
ence of the Elizabethan versions. So, to a marked degree,
this l)il)lical bias of English authorship is noticeable all ahmg
the line of development, in prose and poetry ; in fiction and
journalism ; in song and satire, there is this same pervading
presence of the "big book" to which the cynical Frenchman
refers. That vast body of distinctively religious literature

♦ Education, May, June, 1882.

t Quoted in Shakespcariana, Feb., 1885.

264 English Bible and English Language. [Oct.,

whicli is found in English in the form of sacred poetry and of
moral and devotional treatises, is based directly on the English
Bible, while in the broader domain of secular letters, from
Sj3enser to Tennyson, English literary art has been puritied and
sweetened by the same holy influence.

2. The Common Speech of England and America may justly
be expected to be of a comparatively high ethical and verbal
order, to be pure and vigorous in proportion to the circulation
of the Scriptures among the masses. There may be said to ex-
ist in these countries three distinct forms of the language, the
biblical or religious, the literary and professional, and the popu-
lar. In the conjoint action of these forms, the literary will re-
fine the popular just to the degree in which the standard
authors bec(jme current and influential. In a still higher sense,
it is the function and natural effect of the biblical to refine and
strengthen popular English, and this it will do to the degree
in which it has currency and acceptance. As Mr. Marsh has
Btated : " We have had from the very dawn of our literature
a sacred and a profane dialect ; the one native, idiomatic, and
permanent ; the other, composite, irregular, and conventional,"*
to which, it may be added, that from the very beginning this
sacred dialect has been more and more modifying the secular
dialect, the folk speech, until among the middle classes of Eng-
lish-speaking countries its force is widely and deeply felt. No
nation, Germany excepted, has felt such an uplifting influence
more pervasively. It is a matter of no small moment and sur-
prise that despite the large number of influences making
directly toward the corruption of the common speech, popular
English is as good as it is. Were it not for the counter agency
of the lower forms of American and English journalism, it
would be far better than it now is. Next to the influence of
the English Bible on colloquial and industrial diction is that of
the press. There is danger at times, lest the latter supersede
the former. A more distinctive ethical element in modern
journalism would be a blessing to the language, as well as to
the morals of the ])eople. The English of the Bible is not
strictly the popular English of the shop and market and street,
still its effect upon such uses of the language is so vital and
* History of Englinh Language.

1887.] Engllah Bihie and KiKjlhk Lmujnage. 265

coHPtaiit as to iiiake it incumlxMit on every lover of tlie ver-
nacular to l)rin<^ the l)il)U; to bear upon it in all its phases and
functions. Englisli j)hil()loiricMl societies could do no better
work in behalf of the native toiii^ue, in its <]jeneral use, than to
encourage the efforts of English P)ible societies to scatter the
Scriptures broadcast over the land. In America, espcjcially,
where by excessive inmiigration the Bibles of various languages
are brought to counteract in a nieiisure the intluence of the
English Bible, it is especially important that the Word of God
in the vernacular should find a place in every household. If
this be so, no serious alarm need be felt as to the ])urity and
perpetuity of the common speech. The *' profane dialect"
would become scrij^turalized.

3. The Protestant pulpit of England and America may just-
ly be expected to present an exceptionally high ty])eof p]iiglish
speech and style. It is with this " big book," and with this
" good book" that the clergy have specially to do in the secret
meditations of the study and in the public administration of
religion. By daily contact with it as a book, they would
naturally become imbued with its teachings and spirit so as to
avoid " big swelling words " in their preference for " great
plainness of speech." In a sense apj^licable to no other class of
men their professional and daily language should be conspicu-
ously clean and clear, and cogent, because steeped in Bible in-
fluences. They may thus be presumed to be an accepted
standard in the use of the vernacular to all other professions,
and to the public to whom they minister. Certainly, no body
of men are in a more favorable and responsible position rela-
tive to the use of their native tongue. Through the medium
of their academic, collegiate, and theological training they have
learned the distinctively literary use of English. By their
official and personal relations to the public, they must perforce
learn the language of every day life, while, in addition to all this,
they enjoy the peculiar advantages arising from the ministry
of that Word, whose sacred dialect becomes their common
speech. The clerical profession, as any other technical pro-
fession— legal or medical — has a special vocabulary of its own,
with this remarkable anomaly, however, that the Bible as the
basis of that vocabulary has a larger element of idiomatic

VOL. XI. 19

266 English Bible and English Language, [Oct.,

language in it, and a more pronounced native character than
the popular speech itself. Such a fact must be telling in its
influence.

iS'or is it aside from the truth to assert, that our Protestant
English pulpit has, in the main, illustrated and is illustrating
sucli an order of English. The list of English preachers from
old Hugh Latimer on to Jeremy Taylor and Smith and Henry,
and Robert Hall, and on to such American names as Mason,
Nott, Summertield, and Edwards would sul)stantiate such an
a;ssertion. It is gratifying, both in a professional and philologi-
cal point of view, to note that no better English is spoken or
written at the present day than that in use by the educated
clergy of England and America. In accounting for this result
the English Bible may be assigned the first place. So potent,
indeed, is this influence, that many an illiterate evangelist, with
whom the only text-book is the Bible, has by the sheer educa-
tion of the Bible itself as a book developed a plain, terse and
copious vocabulary.

In every course of theological, literary, and linguistic study,
as in every discussion of the popular speech, there should be
included a thorough study of the Christian Scriptures in their
manifold influence on the vernacular. The Bible is the book of
all books.

The English Bible is the book of all English books. What-
ever may be true of merely technical terms, the vernacular of
the English peoples is the language whose best expression is
found in the English Bible versions. The best elements of
our literary and our daily diction are from this sacred source,
and here, as nowhere else, lie the solid basis and the best
guarantee of the permanence of historical English.

It is mainly by reason of the influence of this English Bible
that the language which we love has become the accepted lan-
guage, the world over, of modern progress, of Protestant Chris-
tianity, and of the rights of man. ^

T. W. Hunt.