03.15. Chapter 15 - CAEDMON'S POEM

CAEDMON’S POEM

"Go thou, with utmost haste, Abraham, journeying set thy steps, and with thee lead thine own child. Thou shalt Isaac to me sacrifice, thy son, thyself as an offering, after thou mountest the steep downs (the ring of the high land which I from hence will show thee) up with thine own feet: there thou shalt prepare a pile, a bale-fire for thy child, and thyself sacrifice thy son, with the sword’s edge, and then with swart flame burn the beloved’s body, and offer it to me as a gift."

Soon the controversy between the Romish mission and the Evangelicals became acute. It was no longer merely the time of keeping Easter or the shape of the tonsure that was at issue. What Rome demanded now was subjection to the fiction of the "Supremacy of Peter," or in other words, to the authority of the Pope, apostolic succession, and the adoption of all her other rites and ceremonies. So King Oswy summoned the famous "Synod of Whitby" in 664 to settle their differences. Colman of Lindisfarne, successor to Aidan, with Hilda and others, supported the cause of the Gospel. They held that every Christian ought to be a preacher according to his ability. The Romish doctors declared that Peter was the "prince of the Apostles," that all authority must come from him, and that to him all must submit. We have met this word — submit — before. It is Rome’s only argument. Now King Oswy had married the "little girl who had been baptized as a Christian," and, unfortunately, Queen Eanflaed was in the Roman interest. She persuaded her husband to submit. He submitted and declared himself on the side of the Pope. Colman and the others refused. Leaving their all in Lindisfarne they went back to Scotland, and the "Romans" took possession.

We may sum up in a few words the results of the last hundred years by saying that Scottish missionaries Christianised England. Augustine and his followers Romanised it.

We come now to the second event we purposed to notice, and that is the birth of Baeda, or the Venerable Bede, as he came to be called later in life. And this brings us back to the Book, for Bede was the first who endeavoured to translate a portion of Scripture into the native tongue. He had spent his life in the monastery of Jarrow, and was one of the most accomplished men of the age. Six hundred scholars attended his lectures, and his last days were occupied in translating the Gospel of John. Some say he died when he had reached the ninth verse of chapter six, others that he completed the book; then, with the words "Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Ghost" on his lips, passed to his rest. Anyhow, we know that he was the first Englishman who really set himself to this good work.

Let us now, in a single step, pass to the year 848, when Alfred the Great was born. In him we again find a man fitted for the great work that lay before him. Just as the heathen Anglo-Saxons in the fifth century swept away nearly every vestige of Christianity, so the Danish Invasion seemed to threaten a like result in the ninth. It was the last effort of the Prince of Darkness to heathenise England and it failed. Everywhere the Scriptures were destroyed. Great monasteries, such as Croyland and Peterborough, with all their books, treasures, and manuscripts, were given to the flames, while hundreds of priests were massacred in cold blood. But Alfred contended unflinchingly and successfully with all his foes. He not only delivered his kingdom from foreign invasion, but he set himself to rule his subjects in the fear of God. Not content with having learned men among the clergy, he endeavoured to teach the people also to read, and many of the nobles, encouraged by his example, were to be seen conning their alphabet. He founded schools, both for English and Latin, and books of various kinds were translated into the language of the people. But valuable as all these things were, we may well conclude that his greatest work was the translation of some parts of the Bible. He is said to have died while engaged on an English version of the Psalms.

Let us now pass on to the year 1324. Many things have taken place in that long interval. One of these things has been the steadily rising power of the popes, who were seeking to bring all the nations of Europe under their sway, and drain the wealth of the people into the coffers of the Church. Another has been the Norman Conquest, and with it has come a race of Kings who offered unvarying opposition to papal encroachments. When Gregory VII. wrote to Norman William to "do him fealty" for the realm of England, the King replied, "Fealty I have never willed to do to thee, neither do I will to do it now." It required a strong man to speak thus to the greatest of the popes, but William was strong. The people of England, too, were beginning to resent the frequent visits of Roman tax-gatherers. One such was told, "If you stay three days longer, you and your company shall be cut to pieces." A papal legate was hunted out of Oxford amid cries of "Usurer" and "Simoniac." "Where is the gaper for money who enriches foreigners with our spoils?" And so legate Otho "is fain to put off his official robes and escape in the night as best he may." An anti-Roman spirit was rising in the nation, and even bishops of the Church, such as Robert Grosseteste, were among the leaders. When two friars came from Rome to demand from him 6,000 merks, he refused to accede to their extortionate demands. In the end the Pope excommunicated the bishop, and the bishop excommunicated the Pope. Then the bishop appealed from the tribunal of the Pope to the tribunal of Christ. "After which he troubled himself no more about the matter, but died quietly in his bed."

Such a man was no unworthy forerunner to John Wycliffe, who may well be called the "Morning Star of the Reformation." Seventy years after Grosseteste died, Wycliffe was born. To him belongs the honour of producing the first complete translation of the Bible into our language. To Rome belongs the shame of ordering — after that noble work was issued — that "all who read the Scriptures in their mother tongue shall forfeit lands, cattle, life, and goods from their heirs forever." Rome’s vengeance stayed not even at death. She dared to prejudge the cause of her victims and consign their souls to Satan. And now we reach the time when we can look into the quiet little study at Lutterworth and see Wycliffe and his helpers busy in penning the Words of Life in language understandable by the people. Busy and willing must have been the many hands at work, for it requires sixty hours even to read through the Bible. How many it would take to write it we do not know. Earnest and faithful, too, must have been these helpers, for Rome was determined the people should not read the Book, and soon was coming that dreadful statute condemning men and women to the flames for daring to read the Word of God. But the good work went on. Neither the labour of production nor the cost of purchase hindered it. Latin had been a dead language in Europe since the break up of the. Empire, but all MSS. of the Scriptures had been copied in that language ever since Jerome’s Latin Vulgate had been issued nearly eight centuries before. Now, clothed in the language of the people, it came home to the hearts of the people. Men were so eager for the Words of Life that they risked their lives to procure them. Soon it could be said that every third person in England was a Lollard.

Here is a sample of Wycliffe’s translation. Can you read it?

"Yan whan He was borne in bethleem of Jude, in ye dais of Herod kinge: Se ye maistres come from ye est to jerusalem, and saiden, Where is he yat is born ye kinge of Jues, For whi we sen his sterre in ye est and we come to adore him: And Herod ye kinge whan he herd yis is greteliche troubled, and al ierlm wiy hi. And he gadred alle princes of prestes and maisters of ye folk, and asked of hem where yt crist was borne: And hy saide to him In bethleem of Jude: For so is it writen yom ye prophete. And you bethleem lond of jude you nart nouzt lest in ye princes of Jude: For of ye schal corn out aduk yat gouerney mi puple of isrl." The Pope summoned Wycliffe to Rome to answer for his errors, but Wycliffe replied by "giving the Pope some good advice." With the completion of his English Bible, Wycliffe’s work was done. He was stricken down with paralysis on the last Lord’s Day of 1384, and on 31st December passed home to his reward.

Let us take another short step, this time of forty years only, and again we are back at Lutterworth. Is it a public holiday, or have all these churchmen come out to do honour to the memory of Wycliffe? Archbishop Chichele is here, dressed up in all the gaudy show of Romish pomp, with many other priests and bishops as well. And all are marching to the grave of Wycliffe, but, alas! it is not to do honour to the Reformer. They have come to burn his bones. And yet may it not be that Rome, in basely desecrating the grave of the dead, has done him more honour than she intended. She was unable to reply to him when in life. She now shows her fear of his work by revenging herself on his body when dead. Many of the inhabitants of the village would be able to remember the good old man who had counselled them, and preached to them, and pointed them to the One Way of Salvation. Now they are silent but not indifferent witnesses to the ceremony of to-day. A bonfire is lighted near the bridge, the grave forced open, and with childish spite the bones are flung into the fire, burned to ashes, and the ashes cast into the river. The spectators that day received a lesson as to what Rome is. But Wycliffe had done a work Romish intolerance, spite of its utmost efforts, has never since been able to undo. She hates, and also fears, an Open Bible. He was a sage counsellor who said to the priests later, when Tyndale’s printed Testament appeared, "We must get rid of printing, or printing will get rid of us." So far Rome has not "got rid of printing," but in every place where the Bible is read and believed men are "getting rid of Rome." And to-day there are more Bibles than ever before. It has been estimated, from the records of the three great Bible Societies, that over six hundred millions of Bibles have been produced since the art of printing was discovered. The Bible has been translated into over eight hundred different languages, and in embossed printing it can be read even by the blind. To all it brings the true light; to all it offers life and salvation through the finished work of the Lord Jesus Christ alone.

We may well say with the Psalmist, "The entrance of thy word giveth light, it giveth understanding to the simple."

THANK GOD FOR THE BIBLE, THE BEST BOOK OF ALL.