Theology Today - Vol 17, No. 3 - October 1960 - ARTICLE

339 - The Geneva Bible Of 1560

The Geneva Bible Of 1560
By Bruce M. Metzger

THE year 1960 marks the four hundredth anniversary of the publication of the of the most influential of the many English translations of the Scriptures. This was the Geneva Bible of 1560, produced by a group of English scholars Who, fleeing from the reign of Queen Mary, had found refuge on the Continent. During the Roman Catholic regime of Mary Tudor no Bibles were printed in England, the English Bible was no longer used in church services, and Bibles placed in churches were removed and burned. In 1554 even the painting of Scriptural quotations on the walls of church buildings was forbidden. Among those who had previously dared to translate the Bible into the language of the people, the roll of martyrs began with William Tyndale, who, on October 6, 1536, was strangled and his body burned. The first British Protestant to die during Mary's turbulent rule was John Rogers, the editor of a revision of Tyndale's Bible, who was burned at Smithfield in London on February 4, 1555. About this time several hundred Protestants left England, going first to Frankfurt, and then to Geneva, a city which, under the leadership of Farel, Froment, and finally Calvin, had become the intellectual and spiritual center of one-half of European Protestantism.

One of the most talented of these exiles was William Whittingham, a fellow of All Souls and senior student of Christ Church, Oxford, a courtier and diplomat, much travelled, skilled in many languages, including Hebrew and Greek. Eventually he succeeded John Knox as minister of the English congregation in Geneva. He married Catherine Jaquemayne, the sister of John Calvin's wife.¹

As a preliminary step to the publication of the entire Bible, in 1557 Whittingharn issued at Geneva a new English translation of the New Testament. It contained as preface an "Epistle" of sixteen pages composed by Calvin on the subject "Christ is the end of the

¹ Curiously enough, the inscription on Whittingliam's tomb in Durham Cathedral describes him as "the husband of the sister of John Calvin the theologian" (maritus sororis Johannis Calvini theologi). For adequate reasons for thinking that the inscription is in error, see William Aldis Wright's note in B. F. Westcott, General View of the History of the English Bible (New York, 1912), p. 90.

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Lawe." To the Four Gospels was prefixed a summary of their teaching entitled, "The Argument of the Gospel writ by the foure Euangelists," and similar summaries were prefixed to the Acts, to each of the Epistles (except II and III John), and to the book of Revelation.

With the help of other Protestant scholars, Whittingham then set about making a translation of the complete Bible, revising at the same time the wording of his version of the New Testament. Since the veteran Bible translator, Miles Goverdale, was in Geneva in 1558 (he left early in 1559), it may be presumed that he was consulted in the preparation of the new rendering, though various indications suggest that his influence was not great. For example, in his English Bible of 1535 Coverdale had translated the word ºº»·¯± by "congregacion," as did Whittingham in his 1557 New Testament. But in the Bible of 1560 "congregacion" is dropped and "church" is substituted. Moreover, since Coverdale knew no Hebrew, his help with the Old Testament would have been limited to assistance based on the Greek, Latin, and German versions.

Another of the translators of the Geneva Bible was Christopher Goodman. Like Whittingham, he too had been a senior student of Christ Church; later lie was appointed Lady Margaret Professor of Divinity. On the accession of Mary, he fled to the Continent, joining himself with the other English exiles at Geneva. While there he published all attack against the Queen entitled. How superior powers ought to be obeyd of their subjects: and wherin they may lawfully be by God's Worde disobeyed and resisted. Wherin also is declared the cause of all the Present miserie in England, and the onely way to remedy the same. The preface to this tractate was written by Whittingham. Goodman also published a commentary on Amos, in which he likened Mary to Proserpine, Queen of Hades.

Less is known of the others who participated in preparing the Geneva version. Thomas Sampson, who had studied law at one of the Inns of Court, became convinced of the error of Romanist doctrines, and began collecting money during Mary's reign for the support of poor students who were opposed to Roman Catholicism. Anthony Gilby, educated at Christ's College, Cambridge, "was a learned man, a good classical scholar, and a student of Hebrew" (Dictionary of National Biography). In addition to working on the Geneva Bible, he helped to compile the "Form of Common Order," used by the English congregation at Geneva.

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The news of Queen Mary's death on November 17, 1558, and of Elizabeth's accession to the throne occasioned much joy and thankfulness. Almost three hundred Protestants had lost their lives at Smithfield and elsewhere during the reign of "Bloody" Mary. Many of the exiles at Geneva returned to England, but Whittingham and several of his collaborators remained another year and a half to colnplete their work of revision.

In 1560 the complete Geneva Bible was published, largely at the expense of John Bodley, the father of the founder of the Bodleian Library in Oxford. The title page reads :² "The Bible and Holy Scriptvres conteyned in the Olde and Newe Testament. Translated according to the Ebrue and Greke, and conferred With the best translations in diuers langages. With moste profitable annota tions vpon all the hard places, and other things of great importance as may appeare in the Epistle to the Reader.

"Feare ye not, stand stil, and beholde the saluacion of the Lord, which he wiil shewe to you this day. Exod. 14, 13."

[A woodcut of the passage of the Red Sea. On each side of the woodcut, in vertical lines, is the quotation, "Great are the troubles of the righteous: but the Lord deliuereth them out of all, Psal. 34.19." Underneath the woodcut is the quotation, "The Lord shal fight for you: therefore holde you your peace, Exod 14, vers.14."]

"At Geneva Printed by Rouland Hall M.D.LX."

After a list of the books of the Old Testament, of the Apocrypha, and of the New Testament, comes a dedication in simple, dignified language, "To the moste vertvovs and noble Qvene Elisebet, Quene of England, France, and Ireland, &c. Your humble sublects of the English Churche at Geneua, wish grace and peace from God the Father through Christ Iesus our Lord." The address speaks of "the enemies which labour to stay religion," such as "Papistes," "worldlings," and "ambicious prelats," and refers to "the necessitie of gods worde for the reforming of religion." "Wherefore great wvisdome, not worldelie, but heauenly, is here required, which your

² The archaic spelling of the 1560 edition is retained in the quotations given in this article. (In subsequent editions printers introduced not a few modifications in both spelling and punctuation.) Regarding the curious vacillation in the use of "u" and "v," the Oxford New English Dictionary (s.v. "u") says: "In Mliddle English, after continental usage, the two symbols u and v were employed, but without clear distinction in value, each of them being used to denote either the vowel u or the consonant v. The practice with regard to the employment of the two forms varied considerably, but the general tendency was to write v initially and u in other positions, regardless of phonetic considerations, e.g., vnder, vpon, vse, but cure, full, huge, and vain, vice, vile but saue, ever, giuen. For the sake of clearness, however, v was frequently preferred to u, especially in conjunction with n and m, as in tvne, rovnd, mvse."

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grace must earnestly craue of the Lord, as did Salomon, to whom God gaue an understanding heart to judge his people aright...." This dedicatory epistle fills nearly four pages, and is dated, "From Geneua. 10. April 1560."

Then comes the Preface to the version:

"To ovr beloved in the Lord, the brethren of England, Scotland, Ireland, &c. Grace, mercie and peace, through Christ Jesus.

"Besides the manifolde and continual benefites which almightie God bestoweth upon vs, bothe corporal and spiritual, we are especially bounde (deare brethren) to give him thankes without ceasing for his great grace and vnspeakable mercies, in that it hath pleased him to call vs vnto this meruelous light of his Gospel, & mercifully to regarde vs after so horrible backesliding and falling away, from Christ to Antichrist, from light to darcknes, from the liuing God to dumme and dead idoles, & that after so cruel murther of Gods Saintes, as alas, hathe bene among vs, we are not altogether cast of, as were the Israelites, and many others for the like, or not so manifest wickednes, but receyued agayne to grace with moste euident signes and tokens of Gods especial loue and fauour."

After describing the several kinds of helps for the reader and other features of the version, the Preface concludes:

"Therefore, as brethren that are partakers of the same hope and saluation with vs, we beseche you, that this riche perle and inestimable treasure may not be offered in vayne, but as sent from God to the people of God, for the increase of his kingdome, the comfort of his Churche, and discharge of our conscience, whome it hath pleased him to raise vp for this purpose, so you wolde willingly receyue the worde of God, earnestly studie it and in all your life practise it, that you may now appeare in dede to be the people of God, not walking any more according to this worlde, but in the frutes of the Spirit, that God in vs may be fully glorified through Christ Iesus our Lord, who lyueth and reigneth for euer. Amen.
10.April. 1560." From Geneua

NOTEWORTHY FEATURES

In several important respects the 1560 version marked a new departure in Bible printing. It was a "first" in at least three note-worthy features. Instead of the heavy and clumsy-looking Gothic or black-letter type, which had always been used previously for

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Bibles, the 1560 version was printed with Roman type. (Evidently some regarded this as too daring an innovation, for in many of the subsequent printings of the Geneva Bible the black-letter type was once again utilized, just as it was chosen for the King James Bible in 1611.) It was the first English Bible to introduce numbered verses, each set off as a separate paragraph. It was also the first Bible to use italics to mark those words which the translators added because of English idiom, but which are not represented verbatim in the original.

Unlike the format of previous English versions, published as huge, unwieldy folios and suited only for liturgical use in church, most printings of the Geneva version were issued in small, conveniently-sized quarto editions (6 1/2 X 9 3/4 inches) and were sold at a moderate price.

Furthermore, this Bible was furnished with a number of helps for the reader not previously available in English Bibles. The margins contain numerous explanatory comments on difficult passages. These are described as "brief annotations vpon all the hard places, aswel for the vnderstanding of suche wordes as are obscure, and for the declaration of the text, as for the application of the same as may moste apperteine to Gods glorie and the edification of his Churche." As a typical example of the first type of comment, one may cite the explanation offered on the phrase, "newe cloth" in Matt. 9: 16. In the margin one is told, "Or, rawe and vndressed." A typical example of the second type of comment is that given in the margin opposite Jesus' words, "Ye also oght to wash one anothers fete" (John 13: 14), namely, "To serue one another." Occasionally the same verse is supplied with both kinds of comments. The word "vessels" in the statement, "Neither do they put newe wine into olde vessels" (Matt. 9: 17), is described as, "Bottels or bagges of ledder or skinne, wherein wine was caried on asses or camels." The word "olde" is explained by the comment, "The minde which is infected with the dreggs of superstitious ceremonies, is not mete to receiue the pleasant wine of the Gospel." (For other annotations, see the section "Anti-Papal Annotations" below.)

There arc also "certeyne mappes of Cosmographie" scattered throughout the edition. For example, at Numbers 33 a map of the journey of the Israelites to the Promised Land; at Joshua 15 a map of the division of the land of Canaan for the twelve tribes;

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at the end of Ezekiel a map of the Temple and the City of Jerusalem restored; and before the Acts of the Apostles a map of the places mentioned in that book.

At the close of the New Testament is a dictionary entitled, "A brief table of the in-terpretation of the propre names which are chiefly founde in the olde Testament." In it are listed about nine hundred and fifty proper names, mostly from the Old Testament but including some also from the Apocrypha and the New Testament, giving what was thought to be their meanings. A preface exhorts the readers to choose names for their children from this list:³ "Whereas the wickednes of time, and the blindnes of the former age bathe bene suche that all things altogether haue bene abused and corrupted, so that the very right names of diuerse of the holie men named in the Scriptures haue bene forgotten, and now seme strange vnto vs, and the names of infants that shulde euer haue some godlie aduertisements in them, and shuld be memorials and markes of the children of God receiued into his householde, hathe bene hereby also changed and made the signes and badges of idolatrie and heathenish impietie, we haue now set forthe this table of the names that be most vsed in the olde Testament with their interpretations, as the Ebrewe importeth, partly to call backe the godlie from that abuse, when they shal know the true names of the godlie fathers, & what they signifie, that their children now named after them may haue testimonies by their very names, that they are within that faithful famlie that in all their doings had euer God before their eyes, and that they are bounde by these their names to serue God from their infancie & haue occasion to praise him for his workes wroght in them & their fathers: but chiefly to restore the names to their integritie, whereby many places of the Scriptures and secret mysteries of the holie Gost shal better be vnderstand. We haue medled rarely with the Greke names, because their interpretation is vncerteine, & many of them are corrupted from their original........."

The dictionary of proper names is followed by several other aids for the Biblical student (comprising in all about forty pages), namely, "A table of the principal things that are conteined in the Bible, af-

³ For an interesting discussion of the popularity of Old Testament names among Puritans, see Charles W. Bardsley, Curiosities of Puritan Nomenclature (London, 1880), pp. 38-116. Though it is obviously anl exaggeration, a remark by an earlier historian, quoted by Bardsley (p. 59), suggests something of the affection which the Puritans felt for the Old Testament: "Cromwell hath beat up his drums cleane through the Old Testament-you may learn the genealogy of our Saviour by the names of his regiment. The muster-master uses no other list than the first chapter of Matthew."

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ter the ordre of the alphabet," and a chronological chart entitled, "A perfite svppvtation of the yeres and times from Adam vnto | Christ, proued by the Scriptures, after the collection of | diuers autors." The last leaf contains "The order of the yeres from Pauls conuersion | shewing the time of his peregrination, & of | his Epistles writen to the Churches." Many of the later editions of the Geneva Bible include also the metrical Psalms "with apt Notes to sing them with all." These were prepared by Thomas Sternhold, John Hopkins, and others, including Whittingham himself.

THE SCHOLARSHIP OF THE GENEVA BIBLE

The scholarship which the 1560 Bible reflects is of the highest. According to the judgment of H. W. Hoare (an anti-Calvinist who cannot be charged with bias in favor of the Geneva version), this version was "terse and vigorous in style, literal and yet boldly idiomatic; [it] was at once a conspicuous advance on all the Biblical labours that had preceded it, and an edition which could fairly claim to be well abreast of the soundest contemporary scholarship."⁴ In order to ensure the accuracy of the rendering, the congregation of exiles at Geneva requested two of their brethren, John Calvin and Theodore Beza, to check Whittingham's rendering of the New Testament. In the Old Testament a special point-reflecting the scholar's instinct-was made in returning to a more precise spelling of proper names, and even in accenting them in accordance with the original Hebrew; for example, Heu�h, H�bel, Izh�k, Iaak�b, Iosh�a, lpht�h, for Eve, Abel, Isaac, Jacob, Joshua, Jephthah. (It is often forgotten that the traditional English pronunciation has frequently introduced a fundamental distortion in the representation of Semitic names.) With commendable candor, when the translators were unable to understand the Hebrew, they said as much. For example, several of the names of the clean and unclean animals in the dietary lists in Leviticus have given trouble to translators of all times. The Genevan scholars, instead of indulging in guesses at the exact meanings, contented themselves with transliterating the Hebrew words; e.g. "the grashoper after his kinde, and the solean after his kinde, the hargol after his kinde, and the hagab after his kinde" (Lev. 11:

⁴ The Evolution of the English Bible (London, 1901), p. 197. Even the Dominican, Hugh Pope, acknowledges that "there can be no two opinions about the excellence of the translation," English Versions of the Bible (St. Louis, 1952), p. 229.

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22). In the margin a note declares, "These were ccrteine kindes of grashopers, which are not now proprely knowen."

More than once the Geneva Bible contributed to the excellence of the King James version. In fact, according to Charles C. Butterworth, "in the lineage of the King James Bible this volume [the 1560 Bible] is by all means the most important single volume."⁵ Time and again the 1611 translators reproduced a felicitous expression which Whittingham and his fellow exiles had struck off first. Examples include: "He smote them hippe and thigh" (Judg. 15: 8; Coverdale had "both upon the shulders and loynes"); "Remember now thy Creator in the daies of thy youth.... Vanitie of vanities, saith the Preacher" (Eccl. 12: 1 and 8); "This is my beloued Sonne, in whome I am wel pleased" (Matt. 3: 17); "Except a man be borne againe" (Jn. 3: 3); "a cloude of witnesses" (Heb. 12: 1).

In several respects the Geneva scholars were ahead of their times; occasionally they adopted readings which the King James translators declined to follow but which the Revised Standard Version of 1946-52 re-adopted. For example, in I Cor. 13 the Geneva Bible uses "loue" to translate ¬³¬À·, whereas the King James reverts to the traditional rendering "charity."⁶ Again, Whittingham observed that the Epistle to the Hebrews is anonymous, and refused to follow the less defensible tradition which attributed it to Paul. He therefore gave its title simply as "The Epistle to the Ebrewes," explaining in the introduction to this letter that, "Forasmuche as diuers, bothe of the Greke writers and Latines witnesse, that the writer of this Epistle for iuste causes wold not haue his name knowen, it were curiositie of our parte to labour muche therein. For seing the Spirit of God is the autor thereof, it diminisheth nothing the authoritie although we knowe not with what penne he wrote it. Whether it were Paul (as it is not like) or Luke, or Barnabas, or Clement, or some other, his chiefe purpose is to persuade vnto the Ebrewes...." With this judgment most Protestant scholars of today would concur.

⁵ The Literary Lineage of the King James Bible (Philadelphia, 1941), p. 163.
⁶ See NV. F. Moulton, The History of the English Bible, p. 165. Moulton observes, regarding the vocabulary of the Geneva Bible, that "sometimes we find words which have a more modern look than those of the Authorised Version, as excommunicate, amity, burly-burly , surgeon, empire; [on the other hand] several other words are strange, or are used in a peculiar sense, as quadrin (Mark xii.42), chapman, improve (reprove), frail (basket), grenne (gin), commodity (Rom. xiv.16), grieces (Acts xxi.40). On this subject the reader will find much interesting information in a little book entitled, English Retraced (Cambridge, 1862)" (ibid.).

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The scholarly interests of the translators are shown also in the identification of several quotations in the New Testament from pagan authors. In the margin opposite the statement attributed to Paul in Acts 17: 28, "As also certeine of your owne Poetes haue sayde, For we are also his generacion," there is the note, "As Aratus & others." In the margin opposite Paul's moralizing in I Cor. 15: 33, "Be not deceiued: euil speakings corrupt good maners," there is the identification, "Menander in Thaidi" [later editions of the Geneva Bible spell it "Thaide"]. The marginal comment on Tit. 1: 12 is more elaborate. The translation of the verse is, "One of their owne prophetes said, The Cretians are alwaies lyars, euil beastcs, slowe belyes." The comment is, "He calleth Epimenides the Philosopher, or Poet, whose verse he here reciteth, a Prophet, because the Cretians so estemed him: & as Laertius writeth, thei sacrificed vnto him as to a God, forasmuche as he had a marueilous gift to vnderstande things to come: which thing Satan by the permission of God hathe opened to the infideles from time to time, but it turneth to their greater condemnacion." It may be mentioned that the Revised Standard Version also identifies the origin of these three quotations.

There is another noteworthy feature of the Geneva Bible which has not hitherto received the attention that it deserves. Here and there in the New Testament the margins contain the translation of certain variant readings found in Codex Bezae, that unusual Graeco-Latin manuscript of the Gospels and Acts dating from the fifth or sixth century. For example, opposite Acts 15: 29 the Geneva Bible prints the negative Golden Rule, "And whatsoeuer ye wolde not that men shulde do vnto you, do not to others." Opposite Acts 19: 9, where reference is made to Paul's preaching in the lecture hall of Tyrannus at Ephesus, the margin adds the information that this was "From fiue a clocke vnto ten" (this translates the Greek of Codex Bezae, which reads literally, "from the fifth hour unto the tenth [hour]," or, according to our custom of reckoning time, "from 11 a.m. until 4 p.m."). More than a dozen other alternative readings appear in the margins of the Geneva Bible. What Whittingham's source of information was for these variants poses a problem. Since Theodore Beza did not acquire the famous codex which today bears his name until 1562, it is probable that the Geneva translators secured information about its readings from the margins of the 1550

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edition of the Greek New Testament published at Paris by Robert Estienne.⁷

CALVINISM IN THE GENEVA BIBLE

The Geneva Bible presented Calvinism in three ways.

(1) The marginal notes, already referred to, contain here and there comments of a definitely Calvinistic flavor. Thus, the note on Rom. 9: 15 reads, "As the onelie wil and purpose of God is the chief cause of election, and reprobacion: so his fre mercie in Christ is an inferiour cause of saluation, and the hardening of the heart an inferiour cause of damnacion." On the whole, however, the number of such pure Calvinistic annotations in the 1560 Bible is not so great as one might suppose would have been the case.⁸ Copies of the Geneva Bible printed after 1587 generally contain a form of the New Testament revised in 1576 by Laurence Tomson (1539-1608), a one-time lecturer in Hebrew at Geneva. Besides making slight changes here and there in the text,⁹ Tomson increased the number of notes betraying a pronounced Calvinistic flavor. For example, in the 1560 edition the marginal comment on the words "that thy faith faile not" (Luke 22: 32) reads, 'It was sore shaken, but yet not ouerthrowen." Tomson replaced it with the following: "It is through the prayers of Christ, that the elect doe neuer vtterly fall away from the faith: and that for this cause, that they should stirre vp one another."

(2) Editions of the Geneva Bible printed between 1568-1570 contain an English translation of Calvin's Catechism, consisting of 373 questions and answers and occupying 34 pages of closely printed material. These were arranged in 55 sections, one to be used each Sunday. The topical headings of the questions are: Of the Articles of Faith, Q. 1-130; Of the Law of God, Q. 131-232; Of prayer, Q. 233-308; Of the Sacraments, Q. 309-373.¹⁰

⁷ For further information about these variants, reference may be made to an article by the present writer which is shortly to appear in the journal, New Testament Studies.
⁸ Eadie, for example, estimates that of the approximately 250 explanatory notes to the Epistle to the Romans, "not more than ten of them are unmistakable Calvinistic utterances" (John Eadie, The English Bible ... , vol. 11 [London, 187G], p. 28).
⁹ One of Tomson's idiosyncrasies was his occasionally altering the into this or that, particularly where Beza's Latin version had the pronoun ille as a rendering of the Greek article �. The effect is almost grotesque; for example, in the first verse of the Gospel of John, where Beza's version reads, "In principio erat Sermo ille, et Sermo ille erat apud Deum, eratque ille Sermo Deus," Tomson rendered it, "In the beginning was that Word, & that Word was with God, and that Word was God."
¹⁰ For a convenient modern edition of Calvin's Catechism, see T. F. Torrance, ed., The School of Faith; The Catechisms of the Reformed Faith (New York, 1959).

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(3)Many quarto editions of the Geneva Bible published between 1579 and 1615 include between the Old and New Testaments "Certaine questions and answeres touching the doctrine of Predestination, the vse of Gods word and Sacraments." This "catechism" of only twenty-three questions and answers has been justly described as "the most clear and naked exposition of Calvinistic doctrine that can be compressed into a small space." One sample will suffice: "Question. Are all ordained vnto eternall life?" "Answere. Some are vessels of wrath ordained vnto destruction, as others are vessels of mercie prepared to glory."

CURIOSA

The Geneva version is sometimes dubbed "the Breeches Bible" because of the rendering of Gen. 3: 7. Instead of the word "aprons" used in other English versions at this verse, the 1560 Bible reads, "and they sewed fig tre leaues together, and made them selues breeches." (It should be mentioned, however, that Wycliffe's version also had the rendering "brechis" here.)

The heading at the top of the page which contains Mark's account of Herodias' and Salome's part in the murder of John the Baptist reads, "The inconuenience of dauncing"! (This is explained at somewhat greater length in the marginal note opposite NIL 6: 22, "What inconuenience cometh by wanton dauncing.") The expression, "Selling one's birthright for a mess of pottage," referring originally to Esau's short-sighted agreement which he made with his crafty brother, Jacob, may be thought by some to be a Scriptural expression, but they will hunt in vain to find it in the Biblical text. In actual fact the phrase "mess of pottage" occurs first at the bead of chapter 25 of Genesis in the Geneva Bible, among the phrases which summarize the contents of that chapter; from here it passed into common parlance.

Like other Protestant versions of the Bible, the Geneva Bible segregated the books of the Apocrypha, placing them in a section by themselves between the Old mid New Testaments. Strangely enough, however, it alone of all English versions includes the Prayer of Manasseh after II Chronicles and before Ezra. In the margin the reader is informed, "This prayer is not in the Ebrewe, but is translated out of the Greke," and in later editions in the Table of Contents it is designated as "apocryphe"-but there it stands, an

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apocryphal intruder among the Biblical books. Even when in later printings of the Geneva Bible the section of the Apocrypha was omitted altogether,¹¹ this short devotional piece continued to enjoy its unusual preferential status among the canonical books.

ANTI-PAPAL ANNOTATIONS

Here and there among the marginal notes a definitely anti-papal comment is to be found. Thus, in the Book of Revelation "the beast that made war with the saints" (Rev. 11: 7) is explained as the Pope, which hath his power out of hell, and commeth thence." The marginal note on Rev. 13: 11 declares that "the Popes kingdome is of the earth & leadeth to perdition, & is begone, & established by ambition, couetousnes, beastelines, craft, treason & tyranic." It is perhaps not surprising that the comments identify the scarlet woman of Revelation (Rev. 17: 4) as "the Antichrist, that is, the Pope with the whole bodie of his filthie creatures."

Laurence Tomson, whose revision of the Geneva New Testament was referred to above, added still more notes to the Book of Revelation which reflect an anti-Romanist position. For example, on Rev. 9: 6 Tomson's note reads, "The Popes arrogated vnto themselues license to kill whome they would, whiles other were vnwares.... [Pope] Gregory the seuenth .... being made altogether of impiety and wickednesse, as a slaue of the deuil, whom he serued, was the most wicked firebrand of the world...." Though the language of these annotations may appear to some today to be extreme, the Marian persecution, followed on the Continent by such atrocities as the Massacre on St. Bartholomew's Day (1572), was still fresh in the memory of Protestants.

THE INFLUENCE OF THE GENEVA BIBLE

For about three-quarters of a century the Geneva version was the household Bible of a large section of English-speaking Protestantism. During the reign of Queen Elizabeth I alone, seventy editions of it were published. About 150 editions, either of the whole Bible or of the New Testament alone, were printed between 1560 and 1644.

¹¹ In 1599, for the first time since the Bible had been printed in English, the books of the Apocrypha were omitted in fourteen editions of the Geneva version, though the table of contents continued to list tile titles of these books. In 1615 George Abbot, Archbishop of Canterbury, who had been one of the strongly Calvinistic members of the committee that prepared the King James Version, directed public notice to be given that no Bibles were to be bound up and sold without the Apocrypha on pain of a whole year's imprisonment. Despite the threat of this penalty, however, an increasing number of editions of the Bible appeared without the Apocrypha.

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Scotland took up the Geneva Bible as its own peculiar treasure. The first Bible printed in Scotland was a reprint of the 1562 folio edition of the Geneva version. This edition, published at Edinburgh in 1579, was the work of Thomas Bassandyne (who finished printing the New Testament and his successor, Alexander Arbuth-not (who printed the Old Testament and the Apocrypha).¹² By order of the General Assembly every parish in Scotland subscribed the purchase price �4.13s.6d. (Scotch currency =about 7s.6d. in contemporary English coin) before the work was undertaken. In order to insure the distribution of the edition the Scots Parliament passed an Act in 1579 ordering "that each household[er] worth three hundred merks of yearly rent, and all substantious yeomen and burgesses esteemed as worth �5OO in land and goods, should have a Bible and Psalm-book in the vulgar tongue, under the penalty of �1O."¹³ This fine was thus double the price at which the book was authorized to be sold.

In England the Geneva Bible was the version used by Shakespeare, by John Bunyan, by the men of Cromwell's army, and was brought to America by the Pilgrims and other early settlers, many of whom would have nothing to do with the more "modern" King James version of 1611.¹⁴ (It is significant that until as late as 1644 the Geneva Bible contintued to be printed-testifying both to its popularity and, indirectly, to the suspicion with which some regarded the King James version.) Its pervasive influence may be seen in the curious fact that even the Preface to the Reader in the King James Bible contains a quotation (from I Cor. 14: 11) which agrees, not with the rendering of the King James version, but with the Geneva version.

It was, however, the marginal notes,¹⁵ those famous "spectacles for

¹² A curiosity of this Bible is the presence of the following quasi-title at the bottom of the last page of II Maccabees: "The thirde boke of the Maccabees newlie translated out of the original Greke." There is, however, no third book included, nor does it exist in any English Bible excepting Daye's Taverner of 1551 (so J. R. Dore, Old Bibles: An Account of the Early Versions of the English Bible, 2nd ed. [London, 1888], p, 222).
¹³ William T. Dobson, History of the Bassandyne Bible, the First Printed in Scotland (Edinburgh and London, 1887), p. 121.
¹⁴ According to James Baikie, as late as the close of the eighteenth century a Geneva Bible was still in use in the Scottish kirk at Grail in Fifeshire (The English Bible & Its Story [London, 1928], p. 243).
¹⁵ It is noteworthy that between 1642 and 1715 at least five editions of the King James version were supplied with the Genevan notes. The title page of the first such edition (which was published in folio at Amsterdam) reads: "The Holy Bible. With most profitable Annotations ... Which notes have never before been set forth with this new translation: But are now placed in due order with great care and industrie." According to the New Testament title page these were "placed in due order by I.C.," who appears to have been John Canne, the leader of the English Brownists in Amsterdam.

352 - The Geneva Bible Of 1560

weak eyes," which, along with the sacred text itself, exercised a most profound influence on the theological and ecclesiastical history of England and Scotland for the next two or three generations. During this period the middle classes found in their family Bibles a positive and uncompromising statement. of Calvinistic theology. It must be remembered that in 1560 there was very little literature in England, and this was known to only a relatively few. Shakespeare was not yet born, Spenser was but six years old, and Bacon was in his cradle. In such an environment the habit of Bible-reading had been steadily growing among an increasing segment of the population to which the Genevan Bible made its greatest appeal. John Richard Green, the English historian, describes the place held by the Bible in the life of the English people at this time: "No greater moral change ever passed over a nation than passed over England during the years which parted the middle of the reign of Elizabeth from the meeting of the Long Parliament [i.e., about 1580 to about 1640]. England became the people of a book, and that book was the Bible. It was as yet the one English book which was familiar to every Englishman; it was read at churches and read at home, and everywhere its words, as they fell on ears which custom had not deadened, kindled a startling enthusiasm."¹⁶

In short, it was chiefly owing to the dissemination of copies of the Geneva version of 1560 that a sturdy and articulate Protestantism was created in Britain, a Protestantism which made a permanent impact upon Anglo-American culture.

¹⁶ A Short History of the English People, ch. VIII. sect. 1.