A PROLOGUE

by

WILLIAM TYNDALE,

SHEWING THE USE OF THE SCRIPTURE WHICH

HE WROTE BEFORE THE FIVE

BOOKS OF MOSES.

THE PREFACE OF MASTER WILLIAM TYNDALE,

THAT HE MADE BEFORE THE FIVE BOOKS OF

MOSES, CALLED GENESIS.

ann. i530. jan. 17.

that the Papists make against the

translation of the Scripture into

WHEN I had translated the New Testament, I added an Epistle unto the latter end, in which I desired them that were learned to amend if ought were found amiss. But our malicious and wily hypocrites, which are so stubborn, and hard hearted in their wicked abominations, that it is not The reason possible for them to amend any thing at all (as we see by daily experience, when both their lyings and doings are rebuked with the truth) say, some of them, that it is impossible to translate the Scripture into English; some that it is not lawful for the lay people to have it in their mother tongue; some that it would make them all heretics; as it would no doubt from many things which they of long time have falsely taught; and that is the whole cause wherefore they forbid it, though they other cloaks pretend. And some, or rather every one, say that it would make them rise against the king, whom they themselves (unto their damnation) never yet obeyed. And lest the temporal rulers should see their falsehood, if the Scripture came to light, causeth them so to lie.

And as for my translation, in which they affirm unto the lay people, (as I have heard say) to be I wot not how many thousand heresies, so that it cannot be mended or

English.

A subtle

shift of the

Pope's clergy to cover

their evil.

How the

Papists were vexed