88 JOURNAL AND PROCEEDINGvS 



lyUther to public discussion of the doctrines at issue betwixt 

 them, on condition that the disputant worsted in the con- 

 troversy should be burnt. Arber says that during these 

 eleven months some unknown printer printed for Tyndale an 

 English version of the gospels of Matthew and Mark, If 

 that conclusion be true, these were the first portions of an 

 English Bible ever printed. But though the evidence that 

 these gospels existed at one time is strong, no copies of them 

 are now extant. 



In the summer of 1525 Tyndale was at Cologne, where 

 Peter Quentel began to print for him an edition of three 

 thousand copies of his English New Testament. The edition 

 was in quarto format, and had here and there short marginal 

 glosses, nearly half of which were literally translated from 

 those by Martin lyUther in his German Testament. When 

 Tyndale's edition had gone tlirough the press to the signature 

 K, about forty folios, the work came to a sudden stop. For 

 one night, over their wine cups, some of Quentel's men 

 boasted that England would soon be lyUtheran, as the New 

 Testament they were printing was being paid for by English 

 merchants, who would scatter it throughout England before 

 king or cardinal could stop them. Cochlaeus, as soon as he 

 knew this, procured from the senate an interdict against all 

 concerned, and Tyndale and his companion, seizing what 

 printed sheets they could lay hands on, hurriedly fled up the 

 Rhine to Worms for safety. 



Tyndale next printed an English translation of all the 

 New Testament. It is of octavo size, and without prefaces, 

 notes or comment. The translator's name is omitted, 

 conformably with the command that men should do their good 

 deeds secretly. It bears no date nor printer's name, nor place 

 where it was printed, though beyond reasonable doubt it was 

 printed at Worms by Peter Schoeffer, near the close of the 

 year 1525. The printer was the second son of that earlier 

 Peter Schoefler, who, with Guttenberg and Fust, share 

 between them the honor of being the inventors of modern 

 printing, and of being the three men who worked the first 



