"The Obedience of a Christian Man" published - October 2, 1528

"The Obedience of a Christian Man," a book by English Protestant author William Tyndale, was published on this day in 1528. 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
This Day in History Class is a production of I
Heart Radio. Hey I'm Eves and you're listening to This
Day in History Class, a podcast that proves history is
always happening. Today it's October two. The day was October two.

(00:28):
The book The Obedience of a Christian Man by English
Protestant author William Tindal, was first printed in Antwerp, Belgium.
In the book, Tindall said that kings were the head
of their country's church and were accountable to God, not
to the Pope. The book is one of the key
texts in the English Reformation of period in the sixteenth

(00:48):
century when reformers challenged the authority of the pope and
the Roman Catholic Church. Tindal was a scholar in theologian.
He was also a linguist who became fluent in several
language is over the years, including French, Greek, Hebrew, and Latin,
but his religious views grew to be radical and controversial.

(01:09):
Influenced by the Reformation, Tindall believed that only the Bible
should determine the doctrine of the Church. He also thought
that translating the New Testament into English would allow people
to have their own understanding of scripture rather than one
determined by the Catholic Church. The translation of the Bible
that the Roman Catholic Church used, the Vulgate, was in Latin,

(01:31):
so the Bible was read in church in Latin, which
few people attending religious services could understand. But the Church,
wary of anyone or anything that may challenge tradition, required
ecclesiastical approval of translations and readings of the Bible in English.
Reformer John Wycliffe and those who promoted his views, known

(01:52):
as Lollards, were persecuted as heretics for their defiance of
the beliefs and practices of the Church and their translations
of the Bible into English. But even though having unauthorized
English translations of the scriptures could result in charges of heresy,
people still read English translations and reformers acknowledged the Bible

(02:13):
as the highest authority of the Biblical word, not the Pope,
and Tendaal was determined to translate the Bible into English,
even after church authorities in England refused his requests. He
left England and by he had completed his translation of
the New Testament, and by the next year printing of

(02:33):
the New Testament was complete. It was the first New
Testament in English to be mass produced with the printing
press rather than being handwritten. Thousands of copies of Tindal's
New Testament were printed by the time he was executed
in fifteen thirty six for heresy, and it influenced later
Bible translations, including the sixteen eleven King James Bible. Tendaal

(02:57):
also published other books in which he could size the
practices of the Catholic Church. One of the most influential
was The Obedience of a Christian Man, though the original
title of it is much longer than that. The book
is divided into three main sections, preceded by two introductions.
The first section discusses God's laws of obedience and the

(03:18):
people bound to obey them. The second express is how
the people who have authority should rule, and the third
affirms that the literal sense of scripture is spiritual. In
the book, he said that worshippers should affirm the authority
of the Bible over any other authority, like the Catholic
Church and the Pope. The book also claimed that God

(03:39):
appointed kings who were authorities of their realms. Anne Boleyn
owned a copy of the book, which, according to anecdotal evidence,
was eventually shown to King Henry the Eighth. It's been
claimed that the king liked the stance on papal authority
expressed in the book, and that the book influenced the
Act of Supremacy, which declared Henry the Eighth and his

(04:00):
successors the supreme head of the Church of England instead
of the Pope. Those claims are unsubstantiated. Other books Tenda
wrote include The Parable of the Wicked Mammon and The
Practice of the Prelates. I'm Eves Jeff Code and hopefully
you know a little more about history today than you
did yesterday. If you'd like to follow us on social media,

(04:22):
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