Уильям Тиндел. Слово, церковь и государство в раннем английском протестантизме - Татьяна Георгиевна Чугунова

man in the study of Holy Scripture, on the other — that is peculiar of restoration of the human values, trampled by the medieval Catholic Church, was fully implemented by Tyndale. The English reformer continued to cultivate fruits of interest to the Bible which have sown J. Wyclif and the Lollards and then representatives of the Renaissance philology. Spiritual searches of the humanists were interesting to the author for a deeper and more comprehensive understanding of the many ecclesiological problems.

Despite some dependence of view sand doctrines of the English reformer from those of his colleagues, Tyndale should not be blamed for imitation and consider his teaching only as a derivative. None of the existing Western and Russian historiography reformer images (Tyndale-Lutheran, Tyndale-humanist, Tyndale-Wyclifit) is not completely reliable and truly. William Tyndale has managed to connect Protestant doctrines with interests of absolutism, the concept of continental reformers with national tradition and to create the doctrine which has proved popular in England in XVI-th century.

Doctrines of the reformer, despite their initial rejection, directly have influenced on the policy of the royal court. Tyndale’s religious-political program of the Reformation, where the central place has engaged the critic of Catholicism in all its manifestations, has been directed on a dethronement of papal domination and promoted abolition of the England’s dependence from Rome. The reformer has subjected to the most severe conviction defects of Catholic clergy, the moral decadence of contemporary church, has rejected a role of the priest as a mediator between God and people. The initial idea of the reformer about two independent inherently rights — secular and religious — has evolved in the Tyndale’ teaching into the doctrine about one order that proved the right of the king to rule not only social, economic and political, but also religious sphere in the state, which found further reflection in the Act of Supremacy in 1534.

We should not think that a reformer wanted to spend the transformation with the help of violent measures. To carry out the church reform, according to his plan, owed secular authorities led by the King. Unlike the Swiss reformers (U. Zwingli and J. Calvin) who supposed and even approved the right to resistance of subjects to monarchs if those broke principles of evangelism, Tyndale rejected the right to resistance even if the monarch behaved like a despot, considering that the punishment belongs only to God. The reformer at all did not suppose mutiny against the mighty of this world and did not encroach at all on an existing system, on the contrary, William Tyndale was an ardent supporter and defender of property and hierarchical base of feudal society and private property.

The ideal he saw in the peaceful Reformation undertaken by the secular authorities with the necessary for that time reforms. Having rejected all attempts of revolutionary transformation, Tyndale has created the doctrine about implicit submission to the citizens of the state to the secular authorities headed by the king, all the works of the reformer have been devoted active apologetics of the monarchic power. The sad result of the Peasant War in Germany showed him that the violent assertion of evangelical truths dangerously of serious social and political consequences.

W. Tyndale as the person talented, well educated, knowing several languages in many respects has become an example and the sample for imitation, his influence is not limited to one epoch. The results of his scientific researchers have served as starting points for formation of the views of the subsequent English thinkers. The literary English language created by W. Tyndale in XVI-th century, has been improved and polished in XVII-th century by another master of the word — W. Shakespeare. Problems of formation of a national language on the basis of the English Bible, the creation a strong secular state, mentioned in writings of the reformer, have found reflection in the works of many Anglican and later Puritan divines (T. Kranmer, J. Rogers, H. Latimer, etc.).

Summing up the analysis of multifaceted activities of the English reformer, his religious and political aspects of the doctrine, it is necessary to say a few words about W. Tyndale simply as a person. Uncompromising honesty, decency, kindness, mercy, unselfishness, absence of vanity — such is an incomplete set of those qualities, which it is possible to characterise the English theologian. In a letter to his pupil and accomplice John Frith, who was martyred little earlier his teacher, he wrote: “Neither in the past nor now I have not renounced my conscience and have not changed a single syllable in the word of God, though to me promised for this all earthly blessings, honors, and wealth”[1530]. In lips of a man who all his life, despite of need and deprivations, dedicated to translating the Bible into the native language, these words sounds especially sincerely and touchingly.

The process of creating out of model of the church organization in England, initiated by W. Tyndale and his associates, was completed in the XVII-th century, consolidating the political system political system of the English monarchy and having transformed it into the state independent of papal Rome led by the king.

Издательские данные

Примечания

1

Лихачева Е.О. Европейские реформаторы. Гус, Лютер, Цвингли, Кальвин. СПб., 1872. С. I.

2

В 2016 г. вышла в свет монография известного отечественного англоведа В.Н. Ерохина, где автор весьма справедливо замечает, что «религиозные проблемы в стране в XVI — первой половине XVII вв. вышли на первый план в общественной жизни, при этом превратившись в существенный фактор развития политической истории Англии» (см.: Ерохин В.Н. Становление нации. Религиозно-политическая история Англии XVI — первой половины XVII в. в современной британской исторической науке. М.;СПб., 2016. С. 7). Вместе с тем исследователь подчеркивает, что «религиозно-политическая история Англии в XVI–XVII вв. в отечественной