The Middle English Bible. Henry Ansgar Kelly
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the New Testament, looking only at the Gospels, we observe that EV Matthew, Mark, and John, like the Old Testament books, favor or, but Luke favors either, though there is much variation evident.48 It turns out that EEV Luke prefers or, meaning that an either-speaking scholar like Simple Creature meddled with EEV to produce the EV mixed bag.49 The striking thing is that all EEV Gospels use only or, and the same is true of all LV Gospels.50
Lindberg observes that all EV manuscripts show signs of revision.51 But let us note Fristedt’s view that some new readings are systematic changes to EEV made by the First Revision team (instructed by the postulated Latin Bible annotated by Wyclif), whereas other manuscripts “were tampered with by men of small learning who for reasons unknown sporadically and at random corrected texts from other manuscripts.”52 One typical First Revision characteristic is the introduction of glosses after or or ether.53
Let us now see what the rest of the New Testament shows us on or and either. First of all, we can say that there is a preference for or in the Pauline Epistles of both EV and LV.54 Moreover, like the whole of EV, the rest of the LV is equally sparing in its use of either, with the notable exception of four books, namely, Acts, James, 1 Peter, and the Apocalypse.55 Here at last, then, we may speculate that Simple Creature may have at least participated in a later phase of the Bible-translation project: but it is a far cry from his having done the whole thing.
There is another use of either in GP and the LV Old Testament that may indicate Simple Creature’s participation in the LV Old Testament: namely, the phrase ever-either to mean “each of two.”56
To summarize, we see that EV favors or in both the Old Testament and the New Testament. LV favors either in the Old Testament and or in the New Testament, except that four of the later books of LV (Acts, James, 1 Peter, and the Apocalypse) favor either. The phrase ever-either is also favored by GP and the LV Old Testament.
By the either criterion alone, therefore, we might conclude that Simple Creature, the author of GP, was the translator of the LV Old Testament and the four either-favoring books of the LV New Testament. But now we will look at some peculiarities that will tend to exclude the LV Old Testament from Simple Creature’s handiwork.
Forsooth Shunned in GP and LV New Testament, but Not in LV Old Testament
At one point in his discussion of translation principles, Simple Creature takes up the frequent Vulgate use of the postpositive narrative particles autem and vero (which translate the still more frequent Greek postpositive de), saying that they can mean either “forsooth” or “but,” and that he himself in his Bible translation commonly renders them as “but”; but he adds that the Latin particles can also mean “and,” according to the grammarians.57 In the sixty pages of Five and Twenty Books (GP), he never uses forsooth in these ways. Let us see what the practice is of our versions.
In the Old Testament, LV consistently continues the EV style of translating autem and vero as forsooth or, less frequently, soothly, in Genesis, 1 Samuel, Job, and 1 Maccabees. LV, however, invariably changes the postpositive position to initial.58
This usage would indicate that Simple Creature is not the translator of the LV Old Testament, in spite of LV’s preference for either.
As for the New Testament, forsooth and soothly are favorite words for this context in the EV New Testament, but not in LV, where they were actively boycotted.59
Now let us look at a different stylistic use of forsooth. At the end of his treatise, as an afterthought, Simple Creature returns to translational style with three notes, all of which are relevant for our discussion. We will begin with the second, since it deals with forsooth. He says that the conjunction enim commonly means “forsooth,” but, as Jerome warns, it can also signify cause, “forwhy.”60 It turns out, however, that out of the more than eight hundred uses of enim in the Vulgate New Testament, LV translates it as forsooth only once (Romans 9.28). LV does translate enim as forwhy twenty-six times, but this can hardly be interpreted as meaning that it was an important principle to the translator.61 Rather, it is more likely that Simple Creature noticed this use in LV and turned it into a principle.
Simple Creature’s Declarations on the Latin Prepositions Ex and Secundum
The other notes that Simple Creature adds at the end of his treatise deal with two prepositions.
Ex to Be Rendered as Of or By (According to SC)
First, he says that the Latin preposition ex can mean sometimes “of” and at other times “by,” according to Jerome.62 Jerome obviously knew nothing of English, of course, so Simple Creature is probably saying merely that ex often signifies agency, which he assumes would be rendered by by. In so saying, however, he shows how out of touch he is with the realities of EV and LV. It is obvious that ex is usually translated as of, but it is also translated in several other ways, among which by is very infrequent. LV never changes an alternative translation of ex in EV to by, except as part of a policy of changing every after to by.63
The fact that by is hardly used for ex in LV is all the more striking when we consider the explosion of uses of by elsewhere in LV. For instance, there are three times as many bys in LV Genesis as there are in EV Genesis.64
Secundum to Be Translated as After, or By, or Up (So Says SC)
The final note that Simple Creature makes at the end of his treatise concerns the Latin preposition secundum, which commonly means “after,” but it may also mean “by” or “up,” so either “by your word” or “up your word.”65 Actually, even though Simple Creature allows the use of up as a preposition, he himself does not use it in this way when the sense calls for it (which occurs only in chapter 15); for instance, he says: “aftir the sentence, and not onely aftir the wordis.”66 His translation note would seem to indicate that “after” is the usual meaning of secundum, but that on occasion by or up would better give the sense.
This opens up a very interesting set of questions. It turns out that after is by far the favored translation of secundum in EV, in both Old Testament and New Testament, but in the Old Testament LV it is replaced almost always with by.
But let us first deal with the unusual preposition up. First of all, we note that there is no use of up as a preposition in three of our four sample books of the Old Testament in EV, but EV 1 Maccabees has added some (Table 2.2).
Table 2.2. UP as Preposition in EV Old Testament
This calls for a closer look, since Forshall and Madden list what they consider the “very frequent” use of up for “after” as one of the characteristics of the translator who takes over EV after the middle of Baruch, continuing through the end of the Old Testament all the way to the end of the New Testament;67 and Fristedt considers use of the preposition up to be a characteristic of Purvey (as author of GP and translator of LV), taking it as an innovation introduced into post-Baruch EV by later correctors.68 Let me state right away that I find a few signs of a stylistic break in Baruch itself.69
I have surveyed the use of the preposition secundum from the Prophets to the end of the Old Testament, and also the preposition juxta when it means the same thing.70 What we see is no change immediately after Baruch in the large book of Ezekiel, but then a sudden intrusion of ups into Daniel, complete dominance in the