68   EARLY THEORIES OF TRANSLATION

THE TRANSLATION OF THE BIBLE   69

their germane and native meaning and for the majesty of their matter might be retained as far as possible in their own nature or be turned into English speech as closely as possible." 1 It goes so far as to include words like Pontifex, Ancilla, Lites, Egenus, Zizania. This theory was largely put into practice by the translators of the Rhemish New Testament, who say, "We are very precise and religious in following our copy, the old vulgar approved Latin: not only in sense, which we hope we always do, but sometimes in the very words also and phrases," 2 and give as illustrations of their usage the retention of Corbana, Parasceve, Pasche, Azymes, and similar words. Between the two extreme positions represented by Tyndale on the one hand and the Rhemish translators on the other, is the attitude of Grindal, who thus advises Foxe in the case previously mentioned: "In all these matters, as also in most others, it will be safe to hold a middle course. My judgment is the same with regard to style. For neither is the ecclesiastical style to be fastidiously neglected, as it is by some, especially when the heads of controversies cannot sometimes be perspicuously explained without it, nor, on the other hand, is it to be so superstitiously followed as to prevent us sometimes from sprinkling it with the ornaments of language." 3 The Authorized Version, following its custom, approves the middle course: "We have on the one side avoided the scrupulosity of the Puritans, who leave the old Ecclesiastical words, and betake themselves to other, as when they put washing for Baptism, and Congregation instead of Church : as also on the other side we have shunned the obscurity of the Papists, in their Azimes, Tunike, Rational, Holocausts, Praepuce, Pasche, and a number of such like." 4

In the interval between Tyndale's translation and the

1 Pollard, p. 274.   2 Ibid., p. 305. Translated in Remains of Archbishop Grindal, Parker Society, 1843,

p. 234.   4 Pollard, pp. 375-6.

appearance of the Authorized Version the two parties shifted their ground rather amusingly. More accuses Tyndale of taking liberties with the prevailing English usage, especially when he substitutes congregation for church, and insists that the people understand by church what they ought to understand. "This is true," he says, "of the usual signification of these words themselves in the English tongue, by the common custom of us English people, that either now do use these words in our language, or that have used before our days. And I say that this common custom and usage of speech is the only thing by which we know the right and proper signification of any word, in so much that if a word were taken out of Latin, French, or Spanish, and were for lack of understanding of the tongue from whence it came, used for another thing in English than it was in the former tongue: then signifieth it in England none other thing than as we use it and understand thereby, whatsoever it signify anywhere else. Then say I now that in England this word congregation did never signify the number of Christian people with a connotation or consideration of their faith or christendom, no more than this word assemble, which hath been taken out of the French, and now is by custom become English, as congregation is out of the Latin." Later he returns to the charge with the words, "And then must he with his translation make us an English vocabulary too." 2 In the later period, however, the positions are reversed. The conservative party, represented by the Rhemish translators, admit that they are employing unfamiliar words, but say that it is a question of faithfulness to originals, and that the new words "will easily grow to be current and familiar," 3 a contention not without basis when one considers how much acceptance or rejection by the English Bible could affect the status of a word. Moreover the introduction of

1 More, Confutation of Tyndale, Works, p. 417.

2 Ibid., p. 427.   3 Pollard, p. 307.