'The advent of the printed word changed everything.'

Matthew Graham continues his look at heretics throughout history with those connected to the letters T, U & V 

The greatest threat to the Church was never going to come from a single individual, no matter how heretical their ideas nor how fervent their supporters.

A millennium and a half had provided the authorities with ample opportunities to refine their methods for containing, countering and even incorporating ideas that relied on word-of-mouth and hand-copied volumes for their dissemination.

The advent of the printed word changed everything. When unsanctioned material could be produced and distributed faster than the Church could respond, trouble was bound to ensue.

William Tyndale (c.1484 – 1536) was an outstanding linguist and singularly addicted to the Scriptures from a young age. His passion was to replace the error-ridden Vulgate and translate the Bible into English from Greek, for which he was denied permission.

In response, he said: “I defy the Pope, and all his laws; and if God spare my life, ere many years I will cause a boy that driveth the plough shall know more of the Scripture than the Pope himself.”

Tyndale fled to Lutheran Germany where he completed and published his translation of the New Testament. Copies were smuggled into England and orders to purchase and burn all of them only served to finance a second edition.

Condemned

Cardinal Wolsey condemned him as a heretic but Tyndale lay low and continued to work on the Old Testament and other treatises, including an opposition to Henry VIII’s divorce.

In 1535, Tyndale was finally betrayed to the authorities in Antwerp, tried and found guilty of heresy. On 6th October 1536, he was strangled and burnt at the stake.

His final words were “Lord! Open the King of England’s eyes.” Three years after his death, Henry VIII and Thomas Cranmer authorised the first English pulpit bible “for the free and liberal use of the Bible in our own maternal English tongue”.

Many scholars regard Tyndale as the greatest of English Bible translators and the King James Version to be just a reworking by a committee of his earlier translations.

Certainly words like Jehovah and Passover and phrases such as “let there be light”, “my brother’s keeper” and “the salt of the earth” which he introduced into the language bear this out.

The clash of literate and illiterate cultures can have powerful consequences.

Noblewoman

Kimpa Vita (c.1684 – 1706) was a Kongolese noblewoman who was raised as a nganga marinda – essentially a medium – but embraced Catholicism in her late teens.

In 1704, she died and St Anthony of Padua entered her body and took over her life. Subsequently she died every Friday, spent the weekend in Heaven talking to God and returned on Mondays.

The developed a Kongolese Catholicism with St Anthony in prime position and taught that all other major figures such as Jesus and Mary were also Kongolese but that the Church in Rome had kept this secret.

Needless to say she attracted a large local following and became a significant political force antagonistic to European interests in the region.

Kimpa Vita was captured and tried under Kongo law as a witch and heretic. On 2 July 1706, she and her unborn child were burnt at the stake in Evululu at the behest of two Capuchin monks.

After her death, her movement continued influencing 18th century Kongo religious art and many see present day Kimbanguism as a successor religion to her Antonianism.

Fathers

We’ll end this time with one of the early Church Fathers who fought heretics, only to become one himself.

Tertullian (c.160 – c.225) was born a pagan but underwent a transformational conversion to Christianity in his late 30s. He wrote much, introducing the terms “Trinity” and “Old” and “New Testament”, but is particularly known for his apologetics.

In later life, he found the Church not to be rigorous or ascetic enough.

He became first a noted exponent of Montanism and then formed his own sect when Montanism proved too lax for his tastes.

One wonders how much of a threat Tertullianism could have become if such a gifted communicator had had access to a printing press.

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