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TIBOR FABINY
Tyndale’s writings are in a way all hermeneutical treatises, and I am suggest¬
ing that he raises modern questions concerning the nature of the literal sense.
In the following paper I wish to show (1) what Tyndale means by the literal
sense when he radically rejects allegory, permitting at the same time certain
forms of it; (2) how frequently Tyndale and his colleague John Frith (1503-1533)
use the modern-sounding term “process of the text” in their writings; (3) how
their ideas conform both to the Fathers of the Church, and to some modern
views of textuality.
TYNDALE’S LITERAL SENSE
The Prologue to the 1525 Cologne Fragment’ and its expanded edition A Path¬
way into Holy Scripture (1531)*° might be considered as the first documents of
Lutheran-type hermeneutics in English. Nevertheless I would propose “The
Four Senses of Scripture”, the last long section of The Obedience of a Christian
Man (1528), as the first par excellence hermeneutical treatise in English. It is
here that Tyndale gives a definition of the literal sense:
“... the scripture hath but one sense, which is the literal sense. And that literal sense
is the root and ground of all, and the anchor that never faileth, whereunto if thou
cleave, thou canst never err or go out of the way. And if thou leave the literal sense,
thou canst not but go out of the way.””
Tyndale rejects the medieval Quadriga, or, “Four senses of Scripture” the idea
of which goes back to John Cassian (c365-c435) a contemporary of Augustine.
Tyndale emphasized “the one sense” which is the “root”, the “ground” and the
“anchor” of every signification.
Tyndale shared the Lutheran and Reformation principle of sacra scriptura
sui ipsius interpres when he said:
Hermeneutics, New Haven — London, Yale University Press, 1974.
7 POLLARD, Alfred W. (ed.), Tyndale, William, The Beginning of the New Testament. Translated by
William Tyndale 1525. Facsimile of the Unique Fragmenmt of the Uncompleted Cologne Edition,
Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1926.
WALTER, Henry (ed.), Tyndale, William, A Pathway into the Holy Scripture, in, Doctrinal Trea¬
tises and Introductions to Different Portions of the Holy Scripture by William Tyndale, The Parker
Society 42, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1848, 1-28.
* DANIELL, David, (ed.), Tyndale, William, The Obedience of a Christian Man, London, Penguin
Books, 2000, 56.