The Middle English Bible. Henry Ansgar Kelly
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be translated into a barbarous tongue seems to be that it is not ruled by grammatical rules and figures, with[out] which Sacred Scripture cannot be preserved from falsity and incongruity. But for this reason, no part of it should be translated, whether concerning things necessary for salvation or otherwise, because these rules, tropes, and figures are equally common in all parts of Sacred Scripture.” To this the opposite should be said.14
His refutation is as follows:
To this I respond by denying that these rules, tropes, and figures are equally common to all parts of Scripture, for some parts are seen to be true without them, and some are not. But the precepts of the law and those things that are necessary to salvation are open and plain. “For my yoke is sweet and my burden light.” And points of morality are, as it were, from natural law and are easy of belief, as the Psalmist says: “Your testimonies have become exceedingly believable.” And therefore there is no need for them to be preserved from falsity and incongruity by means of figures and tropes or other means, as there is for other difficult things contained therein.15
Let us look at his references to the Lollards. The first of the eighteen arguments against translation is that many things in Scripture are inutilia, “because they would harm rather than profit” (“quia nocerent plusquam prodessent”).16 The second is that not every truth should be written in English, because many truths are not useful; but, according to the Lollards, “Every truth is contained in Sacred Scripture, because it contains the First Truth, which contains all other truths.”17 It has been suggested that he is hereby attributing to the Lollards a sola Scriptura doctrine, namely, that all necessary truths are in Scripture and none in tradition.18 This, however, was not a usual Wycliffite view.19 Rather, he must mean that, because the Lollards believe that all truths are somehow contained in Scripture,20 they should all be made available to the general public.
The eighteenth argument against translation is that the Jews killed Jesus because they did not understand the spiritual meaning of his sayings. “How then,” Palmer asks, “would simple uneducated persons not err, if they had it in the vernacular alone? Nowadays do not those who know only grammar, because of the bad understanding of Lollards and simple folk, persecute the disciples of Christ for expounding it spiritually? The answer is clearly yes.”21 We see that Palmer is accusing the Lollards, not of mistranslating Scripture, but of missing its true meaning in being overly literal.
William Butler, OFM: Completely Against
The Franciscan doctor of theology William Butler,22 in his determination against translating Scripture delivered at Oxford in 1401 or early 1402,23 starts out more cleanly, by simply arguing against the proposition that Scripture should be translated. In opposing such translation, he gives a total of six reasons. Because the first part of his treatise is missing, we do not know the exact formulation of the assertion, but it is clear that the positive side was previously defended by others. We also know, however, that Butler was not present at this earlier defense, since at the beginning of his fifth argument he speaks against a point made by “the aforesaid assertors,” which, he says, was related to him.24
Butler sums up his reasons against translation at the end: (1) the allectiva conditio (attractive nature) of Scripture (from which errors of interpretation easily arise); (2) the defective understanding of human nature (caused by original sin); (3) the analogy of the angelic hierarchy; (4) the singular conferral of the law of the Gospel (to be proclaimed rather than written); (5) the subtlety of Scripture’s literal artifice; and (6) the mystical body of Christ (different functions for different members).25 In the course of his third argument, he seems to be asserting that bishops were currently prohibiting their subjects from having the Scriptures in English.26 But, as Jeremy Catto observes, Butler makes no reference to Lollards, and, although the treatise by Palmer does mention Lollard interpretations of the Bible, it does not attribute any translation to them or accuse them of unorthodoxy.27 Kantik Ghosh, however, argues that both Butler and Palmer do show awareness of Wycliffite issues, namely attacks against the prerogatives of the clergy, and he finds Ullerston’s reticence about the Lollards deliberately or indeliberately naive.28
Richard Ullerston: Completely in Favor
Third, we address a Latin treatise preserved in the National Library in Vienna, advocating the translation of the Bible into English. Deanesly had attributed it to Purvey,29 but Anne Hudson discovered from a copy of the end of the text in Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge, that it was by Richard Ullerston, a solidly orthodox and anti-Lollard doctor of theology from Queen’s College, Oxford.30 Ullerston’s arguments were then used in an English tract titled Against Them That Say That Holy Writ Should Not or May Not Be Drawn into English, also attributed by Deanesly to Purvey, which reports Archbishop Thomas Arundel as having approved Queen Anne’s English Gospels.31 Only the third article of Ullerston’s original three-article treatise on Bible translation has survived, having been preserved among the Hussites in Bohemia, and the title that comes at the end of the Caius text, Tractatus de translacione Sacre Scripture in vulgare, may refer only to this part. Hudson deciphers the date as 1401, but she admits that the final digit is not absolutely clear, concluding however that “from the shape of the stroke there seems no possible alternative.”32 To me, however, the last digit does not resemble the first digit at all, and it may well be a “7”.33
Last page of Ullerston’s treatise on translation, Cambridge, Gonville and Caius College MS 803/807, fragment 36 verso detail.
Ullerston’s first two articles (nonextant) dealt with the question of whether Jerome’s translation is “true,” and he concluded that it is. It is puzzling how he could write at great length on this subject without knowing the original languages from which Jerome was translating. The conclusion that he came to is clear from the third article, that it was allowable for Jerome to make his translation; and this remaining article deals with the question of whether it is allowable to translate Scripture into other languages as well, that is, tongues that are “less principal and famous” than Latin.34
He goes on to say that in the times of “our fathers”—it is not clear whether he means this literally, “in the previous generation,” or is referring to earlier times, even the patristic era, or to all times up to now—there was never any question about this matter. He could have added that this was also seemingly still the case outside England, since it is only in England that we find a call for unrestricted access to the Scriptures. In other words, there was no need for such a demand in other countries, where vernacular translations were a matter of course.35
However, nowadays, Ullerston continues, there is great doubt, so much so that two valiant doctors in this cathedra, or seat of learning, spent the whole time of their lectures on much this point; one of them gave several arguments for the negative position, and the other offered scores (vigenarii) of arguments on the affirmative side. But neither of them was judged to have won his case.36 Thus Ullerston resembles Butler, reacting to a debate that he did not personally participate in.
He then describes his plan of procedure: first he will recite some of the negative arguments of the first doctor, and then add some further negative arguments on his own, and finally he will respond to all of these arguments with positive arguments, by which responses his own position will be made clear.37
Ullerston’s gently sarcastic tone in his introduction was missed by Deanesly, who mistranslates “nescio per quot argumentorum vigenarios” as “by I know not how many powerful arguments.”38 Hudson does not translate the passage, but she does identify the second doctor with Ullerston himself, and she thinks that all thirty of the negative arguments he gives are those of the first doctor.39 Dove follows suit, saying that Ullerston’s treatise “is set up as a debate between two doctors.”40 But in fact it is clear from what Ullerston says that he did not even attend the Oxford debate, and that the debate