[AN ancient edition of the following exposition is preserved in the
library of St Paul's Cathedral, and has been collated for the present
editor by George Offor, Esq. Its peculiar readings will be distinguished
by the letters P. C. L.; whilst those found in Day's less ancient
edition of Tyndale's works will be denoted by the letter D. In the
former, Tyndale is found to have systematically avoided giving the
Roman pontiff the title of pope; but in Day's reprint his editor John
Foxe has with like regularity substituted pope for the words 'bishop
of Rome,' or for any other periphrasis to the same purport. Another
difference is, that in the older copy the relative pronoun which is fre-
quently found with the prefixed; whilst Day has modernised this idiom
by omitting the. In the present edition Tyndale's manner of desig-
nating the pope will be restored; but the obsolete idiom connected
with which will be relinquished, after Day's example; and these two
repeatedly recurring variations will not be farther noticed at the foot
of the page.

But, besides these unimportant differences, the volume in the
cathedral library contains an exposition of the second and third
epistles of St John, printed on the same paper and in the same type,
and followed by a table, or index, with references to the expositions of
all the three, as to one work; whilst the want of a title-page prevents
us from knowing whether its editor announced the whole as Tyndale's,
or informed the public that the exposition of the two less epistles had
been 'added by another hand.' Tyndale himself has said in his pro-
logue, 'I have taken in hand to interpret this epistle,' as though he
was not intending to expound the other two; and Sir Thomas More,
in the preface to his 'Confutacyon' (date 1532), has said, 'Then have
we from Tyndale the first epistle of St John, in such wise expounded
that I dare say that blessed apostle, rather than his holy words were
in such a sense believed of all Christian people, had lever his epistle
had never been put in writing.' Day's edition of Tyndale was com-
piled rather more than 40 years after he and More had spoken thus;
and in it the reprint of the exposition of the first epistle is unac-
companied by any notice of the existence of an exposition of the other
two by Tyndale: so that Foxe either did not know of its existence,
or did not believe it to be Tyndale's. Indeed every known averment
of his having composed an exposition of all St John's epistles is
traceable to bishop Bale's introducing the words In epistolas Joannis
into his enumeration of Tyndale's works, in the Scriptorum illustr. Maj.
Britanniœ Catalogus.

As however Tyndale might have composed a continuation of his
exposition of the first epistle, between 1531 and his death, though he
had not contemplated so doing; and as Bale's frequent inaccuracy

-134-