VOLUME 3

AN ANSWERE VNTO SIR THOMAS MORES DIALOGE

LOCATION
KEY Commentary Side Textual Bibliographic Scriptural

all most all consciences be captiue ther to. And it foloweth in the texte / as the sorserers of Egipte resisted Moses / so resisted they the trueth. They must be therefore mightie iugulars. And to poynte the popish with the fingre he saith / men ar they with corrupte mindes and castawayes concerninge faith / that is they be so fleshly minded / so croked so stoborn and so monstrouse shapen / that they can receaue no facion to stonde in any buyldynge that is grounded vppon faith / but when thou hast turned them al wayes and done thy best to hew them and to make them frame / thou must be fayne to cast them out with the turkes and Iewes / to serue god with the imageseruice of their awne false werkes. Of these and like textes and of the similitudes that christ maketh in the Gospell of the kingdome of heuen it appereth / that though the holy gost be in the chosen and teacheth them all trueth in Christe / to put their trust in him / so that they can not erre therin / yet while the world stondeth / God shall neuer haue a church that shall eyther persecute or be vnpersecuted them selues any season / aftir the fassion of the pope. But there shalbe in the church a fleshly seed of Abraham and a spirituall / a Caim and an Abel / an Ismaell and an Isaac / an Esau and a Iacob / as I have sayde / a worker and a beleuer / a greate multitude of them that be called and a small flocke of them that be electe and chosen. And the fleshlye shall persecute the spirituall / as Caim did Abel and Ismaell Isaac & soforth / and the greate multitude the smal litle flocke and antichrist wilbe euer the best christen man.

EXODUS: 7.11–12, 22: 104/20

153/21–22 Paules lernynge . . . loue his neyboure as him selfe. Cf. Rom. 13.9–10, Gal. 5.14.

2 TIMOTHY: 3.8:104/22–23

2 TIMOTHY: 3.9:104/27–29

153/29–30 if I be made prest. Perhaps because he was a fugitive in a foreign country, Tyndale himself never married, although More taunts him with such an intention, cf. CWM 8/1.191/28–33. Mozley (21n) discovered the record of Tyndale's ordination as a subdeacon on 10 June 1514 in Hereford. Andrew J. Brown discovered the records of Tyndale's ordination as a deacon on 24 March 1515 in St. Paul's, London, and as a priest on Holy Saturday, 7 April 1515, in the hospital of St. Thomas Acon, London. Cf. William Tyndale on Priests and Preachers (London: Inscriptor Imprints, 1996) 16–17.

[Hand] [1531]

like] such like 1573

153/30 aftir burne. Cf. 1 Cor. 7.9.

JOHN: 16.13: 7/32–33, 104/31–32, 135/25–26

ROMANS: 4.1: 105/4

GALATIANS: 3.7:105/4

154/4 dyspensacyons. In canon law, a dispensation is an administrative act suspending an obligation or prohibition laid down by church law. The law is not revoked, but for the good of the subject permission is given to act contrary to the law, cf. 38/20n. Late medieval church authorities, both in Rome and in many dioceses, gained part of their income from fees for the dispensations they gave. The most widely discussed dispensation in Tyndale's day had been granted in 1509 when Julius II (pope, 1503–13) suspended the marriage impediment existing between Prince Henry and Catherine, the widow of Henry's brother Arthur. (JW)

GENESIS: 21.9–13: 52/31–53/1, 105/5

MATTHEW: 22.14: 101/17–18, 105/6–7, 107/24

JEREMIAH: 23.3: 52/16,100/27, 105/7, 105/9, 106/19, 107/2, 107/27, 107/29, 108/28, 109/3, 122/2

154/8–9 misteries . . . congregacion. Cf. Eph. 5.32. Answer has "misteries or secret properties" (154/8); NT has "great secrete" (Wallis 407/21; TNT 286G).

JEREMIAH: 23.3: 52/16,100/27, 105/7, 105/9, 106/19, 107/2, 107/27, 107/29, 108/28, 109/3, 122/2

multitude] multitude shall persecute] 1573

1 JOHN: 2.22:100/6, 105/10

154/10–28 That is . . . mariage. Luther had described the union realized in justification between Christ and the believer as the mutual sharing, by exchanging title, goods, and possessions, much as in matrimony, Sermo de duplici iustitia, 1519 (WA 2.145; not in LW); Freedom of a Christian, 1520 (WA 7.25f; LW 31.351f). (JW)