apostle Paul identifies us in Ephesians 2:10, and, from the Tyndale version
again,‘created in Christ Jesu vnto good works’.^45
Tyndale was himself an essential example of Christian humanism during
the Reformation. John Foxe narrates Tyndale’s background:‘Brought up from
a child at the University of Oxford where he by long continuance increased as
well in the knowledge of tongues and other liberal arts as especially in the
knowledge of the scriptures, where-unto his mind was singularly addicted.’^46
Few today are accused of being a Scripture addict, but Tyndale apparently was.
Erasmus, at the end of his handbook for the Christian soldier, theEnchiridion,
says that he wishes to cleanse the Lord’s temple of barbarous ignorance, in
order to‘inspire even in men of superior intellect to love the scriptures’.^47
Tyndale likewise can take a special pride in rendering the New Testament into
English, which made possible for readers‘to have all the scriptures unlocked
and opened before thee’, as he says in an expanded prologue known as
‘A Pathway to Holy Scripture’.^48 He goes further in a 1534 prologue: linguistic
and hermeneutical skills are not enough, but‘we must also desire God, day
and night instantly, to open our eyes, and to make us understand and feel
wherefore the scripture was given, that we may apply the medicine of the
scripture, every man to his own sores’.^49 So we see that humanist intensities of
study may provide kindled hearts andfiery minds, but Tyndale’s receptive
position of entreaty makes clear that we must also hope for visitation, for the
fiery tongue, or the mighty wind of the spirit to awaken understanding and
feeling. It is a necessary eye-opening, to use Tyndale’sfigure, for reader and
writer both.
CONCLUDING REFLECTIONS: HUMANISM,
POETRY, AND EDUCATIONSo let me conclude with that promised brief survey of where the identity and
applications of humanism stand today with regard to poetry and other areas.
First of all, it encourages me to see that humanism and Renaissance humanist(^45) Tyndale,New Testament.
(^46) ‘The Life and Story of the True Servant and Martyr of God, William Tyndale’,inFoxe’s
Book of Martyrs, Christian Classics Ethereal Library, http://www.ccel.org/f/foxe/martyrs/fox112.
htm, accessed 17 February 2016.
(^47) Desiderius Erasmus,The Handbook of the Christian Soldier (Enchiridion Militis Chris-
tiani), in John W. O’Malley (ed.),The Collected Works of Erasmus, vol. 116 (Toronto, Buffalo,
NY, and London: University of Toronto Press, 1988), 127.
(^48) William Tyndale,‘A Pathway into Holy Scripture’, in Henry Walter (ed.),Doctrinal
Treatises and Introductions to Different Portions of the Holy Scriptures(Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 1848), 27.
(^49) William Tyndale,‘The Use of the Scripture’,inDoctrinal Treatises and Introductions, 398.
Christian Humanism’s Legacy in Renaissance Poetry 187