|
|
KEY Commentary Side Textual Bibliographic Scriptural
|
|
of their hertes. For as they write / so they beleue. Other felynge of the lawes of god and feyth of chryst haue they none / then
that theyr God the pope so sayth. And therfore as the pope
preacheth with hys mouth only / even soo beleue they wyth theyr
mouth only what soeuer he preacheth / with out moare a doo / be
it neuer so abhominable / and in theyr hertes consent vnto all
their
fathers wekednesse and folow hym in theyr dedes as
fast as they can runne.
|
As the Pope teacheth with the mouth onely, so the Papistes beleue with theyr mouth onely.[[1573]
For if . . . can
runne. To exemplify the two kinds of faith, Tyndale alleges the
empty teaching by pope and hierarchy on the sinfulness of lechery and
avarice. Papal connivance in sexual
immorality is shown by the Roman bordello
established under Sixtus IV (pope, 1471–84), from which
annual taxes were said to bring in some 80,000 ducats for the papal
treasury. Cf. G. Denzler,
Das Papstum und der Amtszölibat, 2 vols.
(Stuttgart: Hiersemann , 1973–76) 1.134. On the "licence to
kepe euery man his whore" [D6v], cf. [C7, “forboden lawfull wedlocke” and commentary note].
|
|
The turkes beinge in numbre. v. tymes mo then we
knowlege one God and beleue many thynges of God moued only by
the auctoryte of theyr elders and presume that God wyll not let
so greate a multitude erre so longe tyme. And yet they haue
erred and bene faythlesse
thys .viij. hundred yeres. And the Iewes beleue
thys daye / as moch
as the carnall sorte of them euer beleued / moued
also by the auctoryte
of theyr elders only / and thynke that yt ys
impossyble for them to erre / beynge Abrahams seed and the
chyldern of them to whom the promysses of all that we beleue
were made. And yet they haue
erred and bene faythlesse thys .xv. hundred yeres.
And we of lyke
blyndnesse beleue only by the auctoryte of our elders
and of lyke pryde thynke that we can not erre / beynge soch a
multytude. And yet we se how God in the olde testament did lett
the greate multitude erre / reseruynge al waye a litle flocke
to call the other backe agayne
and to testifie vnto them the right waye.
|
Turkes [1531]
we] we are [1573]
.v. tymes mo then
we. Based on the estimates for 1500 given at [D6v, “.xl. or .l. hundred thousand” and commentary note], 45.3
million Catholic plus 8.25 million Orthodox would give a total of 53.55
million Christians compared to 16.25 million Muslims in the Ottoman
Empire (i.e., excluding Northern India and Indonesia). Thus
Christians could outnumber Muslims about three to one. The
number of sixteen million approximates the ten to fifteen
million people in the Ottoman Empire suggested for the beginning of the
16c by Albert Hourani, A History of the
Arab Peoples, Belknap (Cambridge: Harvard UP, 1991) 232.
Perhaps Tyndale's sense of Christians as a minority beseiged by Muslims
stems from the conquests in the Middle East and North Africa in the 7c
and 8c and in Greece and the Balkans in the 15c and 16c. Confutation accepts Answer's ratio of five Muslims to one Christian (CWM
8/2.770/35–771/1).
thys .viij.] these eight
[1573]
Iewes [1531]
Abrahams seed.
Cf. John 8.33.
John 8.33
beynge . . .
made. Cf. Rom. 9.7–8.
Romans 9.7–8
The Turkes and Iewes beleue that they can not erre because they beleue as ther Elders dyd.[[1573]
And we . . .
multytude. Cf. CWM 8/1.252/9–10.
litle flocke.
Cf. Jer. 23.3 KJV, "the renmant [sic] of my flocke," paraphrased by Luke
12.32. Tyndale echoes Luther in the latter's
Responsio of 1521 to Ambrosius Catharinus: indicat paucos servare ab eorum perditione (WA
7.727/6; not in LW). Tyndale uses variations on this name in Obedience C6v and eleven times in Answer.
Jeremiah 23.3
God reserued a little flocke.[[1573]
The turkes . . .
waye. CWM 8/2.767/15–29.
|
|
¶How this word church hath a double
interpretacyon
|
|
|
This ys therfore a sure conclusyon / as paul sayth
.Ro. ix. that not
all they that are of Israel are Israelites /
neyther because they
|
|