More's English Works (as Principal Lindsay writes on p. 17 of the third volume of the Cambridge History of English Literature) "deserve more consideration than they usually receive." Yet he vouchsafes them no further consideration; and later on Mr Routh mentions one of them only to disparage it (p. 80). Since they are practically inaccessible to the general reader (for the folio costs from L25 to L50 according to its condition) I give in these volumes some stories which show him at his best as a raconteur, and of which no. 61 in vol. iv is doubly interesting for the use that Shakespeare made of it. In the Dialogue More is arguing in his own person against a disputant of quasi-heretical leanings, generally alluded to as the Messenger or your Friend. The following extract, from Dialogue (bk III, chap. xvi), should be studied by all who have read those portions of The Eve of the Reformation in which Abbot Gasquet, after making free quotations from this chapter of Mores, asserts: "This absolute denial of any attitude of hostility on the part of the Church to the translated Bible is reiterated in many parts of Sir Thomas Mores English works... It has been already pointed out how Sir Thomas More completely disposed of this assertion as to the hostility of the Clergy to the open Bible" (pp. 243, 246). The extract will, I cannot help thinking, bring fresh light even to readers of Dr Gairdner's Lollardy and the Reformation. It must be remembered that More's view (like Busch's already quoted in Extract 55) represents that of the most liberal and enlightened party among the orthodox.

THE HALF-CLOSED BIBLE (p.240)

"Sir," quoth your Friend [the messenger], "yet for all this can I see no cause why the clergy should keep the Bible out of laymen's hands that can no more but their mothertongue." "I had weened," quoth I, "that I had proved you plainly that they keep it not from them; for I have showed you that they keep none from them, but such translation as be either not yet approved for good or such as be already reproved for naught, as Wycliffe's was and Tyndale's; for as for other old ones that were before Wycliffe's days, [they] remain lawful, and be in some folk's hands had and read." "Ye say well," quoth he, "but yet, as women say, somewhat it was alway that the cat winked when her eye was out. Surely it is not for naught that the English Bible is in so few men's hands when so many would so fain have it." "That is very
truth," quoth I, "for I think that, though the favourers of a sect of heretics be so fervent in the setting forth of their sect, that they let not to lay their money together and make a purse among them for the printing of an evil-made, or evil-translated book (which though it hap to be forbidden and burned, yet some be sold ere they be spied, and each of them lose but their part) yet I think there will no printer lightly be so hot to put any Bible in print at his own charge, whereof the loss should lie whole in his own neck, and then hang upon a doubtful trial, whether the first copy of his translation was made before Wycliffe's days or since. For, if it were made since, it must be approved before the printing. And surely how it hath happed that in all this while God hath either not suffered, or not provided, that any good virtuous man hath had the mind in faithful wise to translate it, and thereupon either the clergy, or at the leastwise some one bishop, to approve it, this can I nothing tell..." "I am sure," quoth your Friend, "ye doubt not but that I am full and whole of your mind in this matter, that the Bible should be in our English tongue. But yet that the clergy is of the contrary, and would not have it so, that appeareth well, in that they suffer it not to be so. And, over that I hear, in every place almost where I find any learned man of them, their minds [are] all set thereon to keep the scripture from us; and they seek out for that part every rotten reason that they can find, and set them forth solemnly to the shew, though five of those reasons be not worth a fig. For they begin as far as our first father Adam, and shew us that his wife and he fell out of Paradise with desire of knowledge and cunning. Now if this would serve, it must from the knowledge and study of scripture drive every man, priest and other, lest it drive all out of Paradise. Then say they that God taught His disciples many things apart, because the people should not hear it, and therefore they would the people should not now be suffered to read all. Yet they say further that it is hard to translate the scripture out of one tongue into another, and specially, they say, into ours, which they call a tongue vulgar and barbarous. But of all things specially they say that scripture is the food of the soul, and that the common people be as infants that must be fed but with milk and pap; and if we have any stronger meat it must be champed afore by the nurse, and so put into the babe's mouth. But methinks, though they make us all infants, they shall find many a shrewd brain among us that can perceive chalk from cheese well enough, and if they would once take us our meat in our own hand we be not so evil toothed but that within a while they shall see us champ it ourselves as well as they. For let them call us young babes an they will, yet by God they shall, for all that, well find in some of us that an old knave is no child." "Surely," quoth I, "such things as ye speak is the thing that, as I somewhat said before, putteth good folk in fear to suffer the scripture in our English tongue; not for the reading and receiving, but for the busy champing thereof, and for much meddling with such parts thereof as least will agree with their capacities... Finally methinketh that the Constitution Provincial (1), of which we spake right now, hath determined this question already; for when the clergy therein agreed that the English Bibles should remain which were translated before Wycliffe's days, they consequently did agree that to have the Bible in English was none hurt. And in that they forbade any new translation to be read till it were approved by the bishops, it appeareth well thereby that their intent was that the bishop should approve it if he found it faultless, and also of reason amend it where it were faulty; but if [i.e. unless] the man were an heretic that made it, or the faults such and so many as it were more easy to make it all new than mend it, as it happed for both points in the translation of Tyndale. Now, if so be that it would haply be thought not a thing meetly to be adventured to set all on a flush at once, and dash rashly out Holy Scripture in every lewd fellow's teeth, yet thinketh me there might such a moderation be taken therein, as neither good virtuous lay folk should lack it, nor rude and rash brains abuse it. For it might be with diligence well and truly translated by some good catholic and well-learned man, or by diners dividing the labour among them, and after conferring their several parties together each with other. And after that might the work be allowed and approved by the Ordinaries, and by their authorities so put into print, as all the copies should come whole unto the bishop's hand; which he may after his discretion and wisdom deliver to such as he perceiveth honest, sad, and virtuous, with a good monition and fatherly counsel to use it reverently with humble heart and lowly mind, rather seeking therein occasion of devotion than of despicion; and providing as much as may be, that the book be after the decease of the party brought again and reverently restored unto the Ordinary; so that, as near as may be devised, no man have it but of the Ordinary's hand, and by him thought and reputed for such as shall be likely to use it to God's honour and merit of his own soul. Among whom if any be proved after to have abused it, then the use thereof to be forbidden him, either for ever or till he be waxen wiser... We find also among the Jews, though all their whole Bible was written in their vulgar tongue, and those books thereof wherein their laws were written were usual in every man's hands, as things that God would have commonly known, repeated, and kept in remembrance; yet were there again certain parts thereof which the common people of the Jews of old time, both of reverence and for the difficulty, did forbear to meddle with. But now, sith the veil of the temple is broken asunder that divided among the Jews the people from the sight of the secrets, and that God had sent His Holy Spirit to be assistant with His whole church to teach all necessary truth, though it may therefore be the better suffered that no part of Holy Scripture were kept out of honest laymen's hands, yet would I that no part thereof should come in theirs which to their own harm (and haply their neighbour's too) would handle it over-homely, and be too bold and busy therewith. And also though Holy Scripture be, as ye said whilere, a medicine for him that is sick and food for him that is whole, yet (sith there is many a body sore soul-sick that taketh himself for whole, and in Holy Scripture is an whole feast of so much divers viand, that, after the affection and state of sundry stomachs, one may take harm by the selfsame that shall do another good, and sick folk often have such a corrupt tallage in their taste that they most like the meat that is most unwholesome for them,) it were not therefore, as methinketh, unreasonable that the Ordinary, whom God hath in the diocese appointed for the chief physician, to discern between the whole and the sick and between disease and disease, should after his wisdom and discretion appoint everybody their part as he should perceive to be good and wholesome for them. And therefore, as he should not fail to find many a man to whom he might commit all the whole, so (to say the truth) I can see none harm therein, though he should commit unto some man the gospel of Matthew, Mark, or Luke, whom he should yet forbid the gospel of St John, and suffer some to read the Acts of the Apostles, whom he would not suffer to meddle with the Apocalypse. Many were there, I think, that should take much profit by St Paul's Epistle ad Ephesios, wherein he giveth good counsel to every kind of people, and yet should find little fruit for their understanding in his Epistle ad Romanos, containing such high difficulties as very few learned men can very well attain. And in like wise would it be in divers other parts of the Bible, as well in the Old Testament as the New; so that, as I say, though the bishop might unto some layman betake and commit with good advice and instruction the whole Bible to read, yet might he to some man well and with reason restrain the reading of some part, and from some busybody the meddling with any part at all, more than he shall hear in sermons set out and declared unto him, and in like wise to take the Bible away from such folk again, as be proved by their blind presumption to abuse the occasion of their profit unto their own hurt and harm. And thus may the bishop order the scripture in our hands, with as good reason as the father doth by his discretion appoint which of his children may for his sadness keep a knife to cut his meat, and which shall for his wantonness have his knife taken from him for cutting of his fingers. And thus am I bold, without prejudice of other men's judgment, to show you my mind in this matter, how the Scripture might without great peril and not without great profit be brought into our tongue and taken to laymen and women both, not yet meaning thereby but that the whole Bible might for my mind be suffered to be spread abroad in English; but, if that were so much doubted that perchance all might thereby be letted, then would I rather have used such moderation as I speak of, or some such other as wiser men can better devise. Howbeit, upon that I read late in the Epistle that the King's Highness translated into English of his own, which His Grace made in Latin, answering to the letter of Luther, my mind giveth me that His Majesty is of his blessed zeal so minded to move this matter unto the prelates of the clergy, among whom I have perceived some of the greatest and of the best of their own minds well inclinable thereto already, that we lay-people shall in this matter, ere long time pass, except the fault be found in ourselves, be well and fully satisfied and content." "In good faith," quoth he, "that will in my mind be very well done; and now am I for my mind in all this matter fully content and satisfied." "Well," quoth I, "then will we to dinner, and the remnant will we finish after dinner." And therewith we went to meat.

(1) Abp Arundel's constitution of 1408, forbidding as heretical all unauthorized translations or portions of the Bible, but making no provision for any authorized translation.

(Coulton II, p.142-147)