The Prophetic Faith of Our Fathers, vol. 2

V. Henry VIII Prohibits English Bibles and Prophetic Expositions

On July 8, 1546, King Henry VIII made a “Proclamation for the Abolishing of English Books,” making it unlawful for anyone to “receive, have, take or keep in his or their possession,” Tyndale’s or Coverdale’s English translation of the New Testament, or any book by Tyndale, Wyclif, Joye, Roy, Basil, Turner, Tracy, Frith, Bale, Barnes, or Coverdale bearing upon the prophetic identification of Antichrist, but were to deliver them over for burning. ³¹ PFF2 363.2

In the forbidden list, significantly enough, is the record of the “Acts of the Disputation in the council of the Empire at Regensburg,” the council where, in 1240, Archbishop Eberhard of Salzburg first applied the Little Horn prophecy to the historical Papacy, coming up among the divisions of the Roman Empire. ³² There was also Joye’s translation of the Exposition of Daniel by Melanchthon and others, A Brief Chronicle concerning the death of Sir John Oldcastle for identifying the Papacy as the Antichrist of prophecy, Bale’s treatises on prophecy, and the Lantern of Light, the old Lollard tract. There was a total of about ninety prohibited works. ³³ PFF2 363.3

It is therefore apparent that this effort was largely directed against prophetic interpretation with the disconcerting pressure that it was exerting in the battle between Protestantism and Catholicism. PFF2 363.4