Now though the Church were thus furnished with Greek and Latin translations, even before the faith of CHRIST was generally embraced in the Empire: (for the learned know that even in S. Hierome's time the Consul of Rome and his wife were both Ethnicks, and about the same time the greatest part of the Senate also) yet for all that the godly-learned were not content to have the Scriptures in the language which themselves understood, Greek and Latin, (as the good lepers were not content to fare well themselves, but acquainted their neighbors with the store that God had sent, that they also might provide for themselves) but also for the behoof and edifying of the unlearned which hungered and thirsted after righteousness, and had souls to be saved as well as they, they provided translations into the vulgar For their countrymen, insomuch that most nations under heaven did shortly after their conversion hear CHRIST speaking unto them in their mother tongue, not by the voice of their minister only, but also by the written word translated. If any doubt hereof, he may be satisfied by examples enough, if enough will serve the turn. First, S. Hierome saith, Multarum gentium linguis Scriptura ante translata, docet falsa esse quce addita sunt, &c., i.e. The Scripture being translated before in the languages of many nations, doth show that those things that were added (by Lucian or Hesychius) are false. So S. Hierome in that place. The same Hierome elsewhere affirmeth that he, the time was, had set forth the translation of the Seventy, su hominibus, i.e. for his countrymen of Dalmatia. Which words not only Erasmus doth understand to purport, that S. Hierome translated the Scripture into the Dalmatian tongue, but also Sixtus Senensis, and Alphonsus a Castro, (that we speak of no more) men not to be excepted against by them of Rome, do ingenuously confess as much. So S. Chrysostome, that lived in S. Hierome's time, giveth evidence with him: The doctrine of S. John (saith he) did not in such sort (as the philosophers did) vanish away: but the Syrians, Egyptians, Indians, Persians, Ethiopians, and infinite other nations, being barbarous people, translated it into their (mother) tongue, and have learned to be (true) philosophers, he meaneth Christians. To this may be added Theodorit, as next unto him both for antiquity, and for learning. His words be these, Every country that is under the sun is full of these words (of the Apostles and Prophets) and the Hebrew tongue (he meaneth the Scriptures in the Hebrew tongue) is turned not only into the language of the Grecians, but also of the Romans, and Egyptians, and Persians, and Indians, and Armenians, and Scythians, and Sauromatians, and briefly into all the languages that any nation useth. So he. In like manner, Ulpilas is reported by Paulus Diaconue and Isidor (and before them by Sozomen) to have translated the Scriptures into the Gothic tongue: John Bishop of Seville by Vasseus, to have turned them into Arabic about the year of our Lord 717: Beda by Cistertiensis, to have turned a great part of them into Saxon: Efnard by Trithemius, to have abridged the French Psalter, as Beda had done the Hebrew, about the year 800: King Alured by the said Cistertiensis, to have turned the Psalter into Saxon: Methodius by wentius (printed at Ingolstad) to have turned the Scriptures into Sclavonian: Valdo, Bishop of Frising, by Beatus Rhenanus,*67 to have caused about that time the Gospels to be translated into Dutch rhythm, yet extant in the library of Corbinian: Valdus, by divers, to have turned them himself, or to have gotten them turned, into French about the year 1160: Charles, the fifth of that name, surnamed The wise, to have caused them to be turned into French, about 200 years after Valdus's time, of which translation there be many copies yet extant, as witnesseth Beroaldus.*68 Much about that time, even in our King Richard the Second's days, John
Trevisa translated them into English, and many English Bibles in written hand are yet to be seen with divers, translated, as it is very probable, in that age. So the Syrian translation of the New Testament is in most learned men's libraries, of Widminstadius's setting forth; and the Psalter in Arabic is with many, of Augustinus Nebiensis's setting forth. So Postel affirmeth, that in his travel he saw the Gospels in the Ethiopian tongue; and Ambrose Thesius allegeth the Psalter of the Indians which he testifieth to have been set forth by Potken in Syrian characters. So that to have the Scriptures in the mother tongue is not a quaint conceit lately taken up, either by the Lord Cromwell in England, or by the Lord Radevil in Polonie, or by the Lord Ungnadius in the Emperor's dominion, but hath been thought upon, and put in practice of old, even from the first times of the conversion of any nation; no doubt because it was esteemed most profitable to cause faith to grow in men's hearts the sooner, and to make them to be able to say with the words of the Psalm, As we have heard, so we have seen.
(67* B. Rhenan. rerum German. lib. 2.)