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KEY Commentary Side Textual Bibliographic Scriptural
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they gatt the vpperhand.
And therto the fyrst that were christened and all the
offycers and bisshopes of the church / euen so moch as the
greate God of Rome
were Iewes for the most parte a greate season.
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118/3–6
I maruell . . .
agayne. Cf. 1 Thess. 4.14–15. While More understands
the sleep of death figuratively, Tyndale (here
and 1 John E3) follows Luther in taking it
literally. Tyndale very likely knew Luther's 1522 sermon on the rich man
and Lazarus (Luke 16.19–31), which circulated widely in German and came
out in Latin in 1526. Luther explains that the soul of the departed
believer rests in the word of God, as represented first by
"Abraham's bosom" (Luke 16.22) and then by Christ's bosom, until the
last day (WA 10/3.176–200; not in LW). Luther's postil for the fifth
Sunday of Lent, published in 1525, gives a model homily on John 8.46–59.
Regarding John 8.52, "yf a man kepe my sayinge, he shall never taste of
deeth" (Wallis 206/15–16; TNT 146G), he explains that the believer does
not feel death but instead sleeps in peace until being awakened in
resurrection (WA 17/2.231–37; not in LW). Paul Althaus sets forth
Luther's teaching on death and resurrection in The Theology of Martin Luther (Philadelphia:
Fortress, 1966) 410–16. Gerhard Ebeling discusses Luther's views of the
soul and human mortality, offering comparisons with Aristotle, Aquinas,
Gabriel Biel, Lateran V, and Johann Eck. Cf. Lutherstudien 2/2, Disputatio de homine: Die
philosophische Definition des Menschen (Tübingen: Mohr/Siebeck,
1982) 60–186.
Heinrich Bullinger (1504–75), reformed pastor of Zurich, attacked the
doctrine of the soul's sleep in 1531 and John Calvin (1509–64) wrote
against it in his first Reformation writing, Psychopannychia (composed 1534, published 1542), which
ascribes the belief to certain unnamed Anabaptists. Calvin
holds that the immortality of the soul rests on a densely woven complex
of biblical and patristic texts. This work of Calvin has been edited by
Walter Zimmerli (Leipzig: Deichert, 1927). An abridged version in
English appeared in 1549 and a full translation in 1581. See the modern
edition in Calvin's Tracts 3, ed. Henry Beveridge
(Edinburgh, 1851), rpt. as Tracts and Treatises: In
Defense of the Reformed Faith (Grand Rapids, MI:Eerdmans, 1958)
413–90.
The course of early-modern English opinion on the soul's condition after death has been charted in Norman T. Burns, Christian Mortalism from Tyndale to Milton
(Cambridge: Harvard UP, 1972), beginning with the More-Tyndale argument
(98–116). The doctrine of soul-sleep, seen as heretical by
the established church, was transmitted in 16c radical conventicles. In
the 17c the soul's
annihilation between death and the Second
Coming was held as Christian doctrine by the young Sir Thomas Browne
(149–54), John Milton (164–83), and Thomas Hobbes (183–87), a tradition
continued in present-day Jehovah's Witnesses and Seventh-day Adventists.
(JW)
118/5–6
resurreccion . . .
agayne. Cf. 1 Thess. 4.16.
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And Morouer / as paul saith .Ro. ix. not al that came of Israel
are ryght Israelites nether are al they Abrahams sonnes that are
Abrahams seed. Whi so? because they folowed not the steppes of
the
fayth of their graundfathers. Even so / not all they
that were called and also came vnto the mariage whych god the
father made betwene
christ hys sonne and all sinners / brought their
maryage garment
wyth them / that is to wete / true faith wherwyth we
be maryed vnto chryste and made his flesh and hys bloude and
one spirite with hym / his brethern and heyres with him and the
sonnes of god also. But many of them (to fulfyll the sayenge of
christ / that the kyngdome of heuen / which is the gospell / is
like a net that ketcheth good
and bad) were dreuen in to the net and compelled to
confesse that Iesus was christ and that seed that was promised
Abraham and Messias that shuld come: not off any inward
fealinge that the spirite of god gaue them / nether of any
louely consent that they had vnto the law of god that it was
good / mornynge / both because they had
broken it and because also they had no power to
fulfill it and therfore to obtayne mercie and power came to
christ and vnto the father thorow him / with the hert of
naturall childern which receaue all thinge frely of their
fathers bounteous lyberalitie and of loue become saruauntes
vnto theyr brethern for theyr fathers sake: But were compelled
only
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118/9–10
whether . . .
holpe. Cf. CWM 6/1.212/24–28.
118/12
praye vn to the
deuell. In Dialogue Bk. 2, Ch. 11, the
Messenger , not More as Mentor, tells a merry tale of a
Lombard who prayed to God, Mary and all angels and saints for his gout,
but without relief. He then horrified his wife and friends by praying to
the devil (CWM 6/1.233/31–234/4).
118/17–18
we praye . . .
helpe vs. Cf. CWM 6/1.214/14–19.
118/22–23
And where ... in
him. Cf. 1 Cor. 10.13.
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