Compiled from A Dialogue of Comfort Against Tribulation (Tower of London, 1534); The Confutation of Tyndale’s Answer, Books 1–4; and The Confutation of Tyndale’s Answer, Books 5–9. All passages are direct quotations from the scanned texts. Modernised readings are provided immediately after each Early Modern English original. Line numbers refer to the source files linked in the Sources section below.
Preface: The Shape of the Corpus
Sir Thomas More (1478–1535), Lord Chancellor of England under Henry VIII, humanist scholar, and Catholic martyr, is best known in the popular imagination as a man of conscience who died for the unity of the Church against the King’s supremacy. His extensive polemical writings — which together run to several million words — are by contrast almost wholly unknown outside specialist circles. The two texts most richly represented in this compilation, The Confutation of Tyndale’s Answer (1532–1533) and A Dialogue of Comfort Against Tribulation (1534, composed in the Tower while awaiting execution), are the largest and the last of his major works respectively.
The Confutation is a book-by-book refutation of the Protestant reformer William Tyndale’s Answer unto Sir Thomas More’s Dialogue (1531). It is a polemical treatise of enormous length and forensic ferocity, concerned primarily with ecclesiology — the nature, authority, and continuity of the Church. Because Tyndale repeatedly draws analogies between the corrupt Catholic clergy and the scribes and Pharisees of Christ’s time, and because he argues that the Protestant departure from Rome is analogous to Christ’s departure from the Synagogue, More is compelled throughout the work to define the theological relationship between the Synagogue of Israel and the Church of Christ. The result is one of the most sustained treatments of supersessionism in Tudor English prose, embedded within what is ostensibly a debate about Church authority. The adversus Judaeos content is not incidental to More’s argument; it is structurally necessary to it. His case against Tyndale depends on establishing that (a) the Jewish church was ordained to end, and the Catholic Church is ordained never to end; (b) the Jews‘ rejection of Christ was the paradigmatic act of faithless departure from the true religion; and (c) the Talmud, the Pharisees’ false glosses, and the corruption of Scripture are the Jewish precedents that Tyndale’s heresy now reenacts.
A Dialogue of Comfort, by contrast, is a meditation on suffering, persecution, and hope, cast as a conversation between two Hungarian noblemen facing the Turkish conquest of their country. Its adversus Judaeos passages are fewer and more incidental, arising from scriptural exposition rather than sustained polemic, but they are no less explicit when they appear.
The adversus Judaeos passages in these works operate in eight registers:
- Deicide and collective guilt — the crucifixion as the defining crime of the Jewish people, brought about by the devil’s instigation of the Jews, and constituting the central act of human history.
- Supersessionism — the explicit declaration that the Synagogue of Moses was ordained by God to end, that it has ended, and that the Scriptures now belong not to the Jews but to the Catholic Church.
- Corruption of Scripture — the charge that the Jews actively miswrite and corrupt the biblical text in passages that support Christ, and that no book of Scripture coming from their hands can be trusted.
- The Talmud as destroyer of Scripture’s meaning — the Talmud characterised as a device set up to supplant the plain sense of Scripture with false traditions, in exact parallel with what More accuses Tyndale of doing.
- The Pharisees’ false doctrine — the scribes and Pharisees described as having corrupted the religion of Moses from within, replacing true faith with vain traditions and outward works, and thereby providing the template for Protestant heresy.
- Jewish obstinacy — the Jews‘ continuing refusal of Christianity presented as a wilful blindness maintained by the same reasoning that sustains Protestant heresy, and equally incapable of rational resolution.
- Jewish superstition — Saturday observance, circumcision, and other Mosaic practices described as superstitions from which Christians must carefully distinguish themselves.
- Jews as enemies to the faith — the Jews ranked alongside Saracens and Turks as those who are, in their present condition, enemies to the Christian faith and outside the Church.
Thirty-eight verified passages are presented below, ordered thematically. Each entry includes the original Early Modern English text, a modernised reading for clarity, and an analytical note.
I. “By the sin that the devil caused the Jews to commit in putting our Savior unjustly to death” — Deicide
Source: The Confutation of Tyndale’s Answer, Books 5–9 (ll. 6715–6730)
Original Text
…in that he vouchsafed himself to come into the world in his own person, in the very nature of man and similitude of a sinner, and suffering here his painful Passion, thereby to damn and destroy the sin that the devil caused Adam to commit against God; to damn it, I say, and destroy it, by the sin that the devil caused the Jews to commit in putting our Savior unjustly to death.
Modernised Reading
…in that He deigned to come into the world in His own person, in the very nature of man and likeness of a sinner, and suffering here His painful Passion, thereby to condemn and destroy the sin that the devil caused Adam to commit against God; to condemn it, I say, and destroy it, by the sin that the devil caused the Jews to commit in putting our Saviour unjustly to death.
Note
The structure of this sentence is theologically precise and characteristic of More’s scholastic formation. The Passion is presented as a divine act of juridical condemnation: God destroys sin by means of the Jews‘ commission of the supreme sin. The devil is the instigator in both cases — of Adam’s fall and of the crucifixion — but the Jews are the proximate agents, and More attributes to them full moral responsibility by the word unjustly. The passage does not distribute agency across Pilate, the Roman soldiers, or providential design; the Jews are named as the actors. The theological irony — that the greatest sin becomes the instrument of redemption — does not in More’s treatment mitigate the guilt of the perpetrators.
II. “Jerusalem, Jerusalem, that killest the prophets” — Christ’s Lament Over the Killing City
Source: A Dialogue of Comfort Against Tribulation (ll. 5103–5114)
Original Text
And of this defence and protection our Saviour spake himself unto the Jews (as mention is made in the Gospel of St. Matthew), to whom he said in this wise: Hierusalem, Hierusalem, quæ occidis prophetas, et lapidas eos qui ad te missi sunt, quoties volui congregare te sicut gallina congregat pullos suos sub alas, et noluisti? — That is to say, — Jerusalem, Jerusalem, that killest the prophets, and stonest to death them that are sent unto thee, how often would I have gathered thee together, as the hen gathereth her chickens under her wings, and thou wouldest not?
Modernised Reading
And of this defence and protection our Saviour spoke Himself unto the Jews (as is recorded in the Gospel of St. Matthew), to whom He said in this manner: Jerusalem, Jerusalem, that killest the prophets, and stonest to death them that are sent unto thee, how often would I have gathered thee together, as the hen gathereth her chickens under her wings, and thou wouldest not?
Note
More quotes Matthew 23:37 in its Latin Vulgate form before rendering it in English, a procedure that signals both the scriptural authority of the charge and his own bilingual scholarly audience. The passage is introduced in the Dialogue of Comfort not primarily as a polemic against Jews but as a text of consolation for Christians facing persecution — an index of how thoroughly the adversus Judaeos tradition had been absorbed into More’s devotional as well as polemical writing. The identification of Jerusalem as the paradigmatic killer of prophets and of the Jews as those who repeatedly refused divine protection is presented as an established datum of Scripture, requiring no argument.
III. “As they slew the true interpreters and preachers of it” — The Jews Destroy Those Who Rightly Expound Scripture
Source: The Confutation of Tyndale’s Answer, Books 5–9 (ll. 4890–4898)
Original Text
No thanks unto the heads of that church that the Scripture was kept, but unto the mercy of God. For as they had destroyed the right sense of it for their lucre sake… even so would they have destroyed it also, had they could, rather than the people should have come unto the right understanding of it… as they slew the true interpreters and preachers of it.
Modernised Reading
No credit is owed to the heads of that church that the Scripture was preserved, but rather to the mercy of God. For just as they had destroyed its right meaning for the sake of profit… so would they have destroyed the Scripture itself, had they been able, rather than allow the people to come to the right understanding of it… just as they slew the true interpreters and preachers of it.
Note
This passage occurs in More’s reproduction of a Tyndale argument — a Protestant charge that the Jewish leadership destroyed right scriptural interpretation — which More then turns back against the Protestants. The rhetorical context is significant: More does not dispute the characterisation of the Jewish leadership as destroyers of the true sense of Scripture and murderers of its faithful expounders. He accepts it as a premise and uses it polemically. The Jewish precedent of killing the prophets and their interpreters becomes a stick with which to beat the heretics: Tyndale’s party now does what the Pharisees did.
IV. “He joined the Jews with the devil… and have bound all three in a bundle” — Jews, the Devil, and the Heretic Ranked Together
Source: The Confutation of Tyndale’s Answer, Books 1–4 (ll. 5687–5700)
Original Text
What availeth [saith he] to teach folk this [that the very body and blood of our Lord is in that sacrament]? The devil knoweth that Christ died on a Friday, and the Jews too… and what are they the better?
…Surely because himself believeth that the devil knoweth it not at all, nor God neither. And for because he would not yet have us therein perceive his mind to the uttermost, he joined the Jews with the devil to flee from the sacrament to the Friday, whereas he might have severed them and spoken of both… or else with the Jews and the devil he might have joined himself, and have bound all three in a bundle. For he believeth less than the one… and is as malicious as any of them both.
Modernised Reading
What does it avail to teach people this [that the very body and blood of our Lord is in that sacrament]? The devil knows that Christ died on a Friday, and the Jews too — and what are they the better for it?
…Surely because he himself believes the devil does not know it at all, nor God either. And because he did not yet want us to perceive his full meaning, he joined the Jews with the devil — fleeing from the sacrament to the Friday — when he might have separated them and spoken of both… or else with the Jews and the devil he might have joined himself, and bound all three in a bundle. For he believes less than the one… and is as malicious as either of them.
Note
More constructs a tripartite grouping — the devil, the Jews, and Tyndale — as three parties who share, in descending order, a correct factual knowledge of the crucifixion but derive no spiritual benefit from it. The Jews occupy the middle position: they know more than nothing (they know Christ died) but refuse the salvific conclusions that knowledge demands. More then completes the syllogism with characteristic savagery: Tyndale “believes less than the one” (i.e., less than the devil) and is “as malicious as any of them both.” The bundle of three is rhetorically explosive because it places the English Protestant reformer in explicit moral equivalence with the devil and the Jews.
V. “The church or Synagogue of the Jews was not ordained to last forever” — The Divine Decree Ending the Synagogue
Source: The Confutation of Tyndale’s Answer, Books 5–9 (ll. 1199–1216)
Original Text
For I think that no man will desire to have it proved that the church or Synagogue of the Jews was not ordained to last forever… but to cease and give place unto Christ at his coming… and that he should then instead of the Synagogue of the Jews, begin and continue his church both of Jews and Gentiles… and that then should be of the Jews‘ peculiar church and peculiar laws and sacraments and ceremonies an end… and that the church of Christ, as long as the world should last, should never have end.
…Christ and his apostles and Saint John the Baptist went out of the church or Synagogue of the Jews… because the time was come in which, by God’s own ordinance, the Jews‘ church or Synagogue should have an end.
Modernised Reading
For I think no one will require proof that the church or Synagogue of the Jews was not ordained to last forever — but to cease and give place to Christ at His coming — and that He should then, in place of the Synagogue of the Jews, begin and continue His church of both Jews and Gentiles — and that then the Jews‘ own particular church, its particular laws, sacraments, and ceremonies, should come to an end — and that the Church of Christ, for as long as the world should last, should never end.
…Christ and His apostles and Saint John the Baptist departed from the church or Synagogue of the Jews… because the time had come in which, by God’s own ordinance, the Jews‘ church or Synagogue should have an end.
Note
This is the cornerstone of More’s supersessionist argument in the Confutation. He presents these propositions not as contentious theological claims requiring proof but as axioms — things “no man will desire to have proved” — so universally acknowledged among Christians as to be beneath demonstration. The key structural move is the contrast between the Synagogue (ordained to end) and the Church (ordained never to end). This asymmetry is the entire basis of More’s refutation of Tyndale’s analogy between the Protestant departure from Rome and Christ’s departure from the Synagogue: the two departures are not alike because the institutions departed from are constitutively different in their God-ordained duration.
VI. “The Synagogue of Moses, which was, while it lasted, the church of God, is now ended and is his church no longer” — Formal Supersessionism
Source: The Confutation of Tyndale’s Answer, Books 5–9 (ll. 3978–3985)
Original Text
For the Synagogue of Moses, which was, while it lasted, the church of God, is now ended and is his church no longer; but our Savior Christ hath begun and continued his church — this known Catholic church, gathered of Jews and Gentiles both, together. And he took not the old scriptures of you… nor of you, neither, learned to know them, nor of you to understand them… but he made them all, and by the writers thereof himself indited them.
Modernised Reading
For the Synagogue of Moses, which was, while it lasted, the church of God, is now ended and is His church no longer; but our Saviour Christ has begun and continued His church — this known Catholic Church, gathered of both Jews and Gentiles together. And He took not the old scriptures from you… nor from you did He learn to know them, nor from you to understand them… but He made them all, and by the writers thereof Himself dictated them.
Note
The theological precision of while it lasted is the hinge of the sentence. More does not deny that the Synagogue was once the true church of God — a concession that makes his supersessionism structurally generous in historical terms. But the termination clause is absolute and in the present tense: is now ended and is his church no longer. The Catholic Church has not superseded the Synagogue as one empire supersedes another; the Synagogue‘s charter has simply expired, by divine design, and a new institution of a different and permanent kind has been founded in its place. The further claim — that Christ did not receive the Scriptures from the Jews but authored them through their writers — strips the Jews of any mediatory role in the transmission of revelation.
VII. “Which scriptures, ye Jews, nothing now belong unto you” — The Scriptures Formally Dispossessed from the Jews
Source: The Confutation of Tyndale’s Answer, Books 5–9 (ll. 4002–4006)
Original Text
Which scriptures, ye Jews, nothing now belong unto you, since ye be no longer the church for whom they serve… and as much of them as ye can catch in your hands, ye use to miswrite and corrupt, and change the very text in such places as the true text maketh for our Savior Christ, and for the Catholic faith taught by himself and his Holy Spirit unto his Catholic church.
Modernised Reading
These scriptures, O Jews, no longer belong to you in any way, since you are no longer the church for whose use they were given — and as much of them as you are able to lay your hands on, you use to miswrite and corrupt, changing the very text in those places where the true text supports our Saviour Christ, and the Catholic faith taught by Himself and His Holy Spirit unto His Catholic Church.
Note
More here speaks directly to “the Jews” in the second person — a classical rhetorical move of the adversus Judaeos tradition going back at least to John Chrysostom. The theological dispossession is stated with maximal bluntness: the Scriptures “nothing now belong” to the Jews. They have not merely lost the living meaning of their own texts; they have forfeited legal title to the texts themselves. The accusation of active textual corruption — miswriting and changing the very text — is an ancient charge (found in Justin Martyr and Origen) here reproduced by More as established fact, without qualification or mitigation.
VIII. “We know never a book of Scripture by your teaching, but mistrust every book that cometh out of your hands” — Jewish Scriptural Transmission Declared Untrustworthy
Source: The Confutation of Tyndale’s Answer, Books 5–9 (ll. 3970–3982)
Original Text
Christian people might answer the Jew and say, “We neither receive the Scripture of you nor know the Scripture by you, nor yet believe you, neither, in the declaration thereof. For if we did… then must we grant the Gospel were no Scripture; nor nothing that any of Christ’s apostles wrote; nor some books, neither, which were taken out of your own Hebrew tongue. And therefore we know never a book of Scripture by your teaching, but mistrust, rather, every book of Scripture that cometh out of your hands.”
Modernised Reading
Christian people may answer the Jew and say: “We neither receive the Scripture from you, nor know the Scripture through you, nor yet believe you in the interpretation of it. For if we did… then we must grant that the Gospel is no Scripture; nor anything that any of Christ’s apostles wrote; nor even some books taken out of your own Hebrew tongue. And therefore we know no book of Scripture by your instruction, but rather mistrust every book of Scripture that comes out of your hands.”
Note
This passage belongs to More’s extended demonstration that Christians have no epistemological obligation to accept Jewish testimony about which books constitute sacred Scripture. The argument is structurally decisive: since the Jews reject the New Testament and deny the apostolic writings, their canonical authority cannot be accepted in any consistent way. To trust the Jews as transmitters of the Old Testament while rejecting their testimony about the New would be incoherent. More then extends this distrust to the text of the Hebrew Bible itself, since he has already charged (passage VII above) that the Jews corrupt the text where it supports Christ. The complete result is a principled rejection of Jewish textual authority in toto.
IX. “As the Jews have set up a book of traditions, called Talmud, to destroy the sense of the Scripture” — The Talmud as Destroyer of Scripture’s Meaning
Source: The Confutation of Tyndale’s Answer, Books 5–9 (ll. 4914–4917)
Original Text
As the Jews have set up a book of traditions, called Talmud, to destroy the sense of the Scripture… unto which they give faith, and unto the Scripture none at all, be it never so plain, but say it cannot be understood save by the Talmud: even so have ours set up their dunce their Thomas, and a thousand like draff, to establish their lies through falsifying the Scripture.
Modernised Reading
Just as the Jews have set up a book of traditions, called the Talmud, to destroy the meaning of the Scripture — giving faith to it, and to the Scripture none at all, however plain it may be, saying it cannot be understood except through the Talmud — even so our opponents have set up their Duns Scotus and their Thomas, and a thousand like worthless authorities, to establish their lies through falsifying the Scripture.
Note
The passage is formally Tyndale’s — reproduced by More before his refutation — but More does not dispute the characterisation of the Talmud. He accepts unreservedly that the Talmud was designed to destroy the sense of Scripture and that the Jews give to it a faith they withhold from the plain text. What he disputes is the second half of Tyndale’s analogy: that Catholic scholastic theology does the same. The Talmud thus functions in More’s argument as an established negative standard — an agreed-upon example of false tradition used to subordinate Scripture — against which he measures, and finds wanting, the Protestant charge against Catholic tradition.
X. “Their Talmud in that it gave false exposition was a late thing at the coming of Christ” — The Talmud as a Late Corruption
Source: The Confutation of Tyndale’s Answer, Books 5–9 (ll. 5141–5149)
Original Text
Now, where he raileth on and saith that likewise as the Jews had “set up” a book, of their Talmud, “to destroy the sense of the Scripture”… I can no skill of the Jews‘ Talmud… but one thing I doubt not of, but that their Talmud in that it gave false exposition was a late thing at the coming of Christ, if they had then any such book. And I doubt not but that the things that were false therein varied from the consent of their old expositors, by which the falsehood of it might be spied and controlled and be believed the less.
Modernised Reading
Now, where he rails and says that just as the Jews “set up” a book — their Talmud — “to destroy the meaning of the Scripture”… I have no expertise in the Jews‘ Talmud… but of one thing I have no doubt: that their Talmud, in giving false exposition, was a late thing at the coming of Christ, if they had any such book at that time. And I do not doubt that the things which were false in it departed from the agreement of their ancient expositors, by which its falsehood could be detected, checked, and the less believed.
Note
More is one of the few places in his writings where More expresses any qualification of his own knowledge — I can no skill of the Jews‘ Talmud — before proceeding to make confident claims about it nonetheless. The argumentative move is to date the Talmud‘s false expositions as late, meaning they represent a departure from the older tradition of Jewish scriptural interpretation, and therefore could in principle be tested against that older tradition and found false. This is structurally analogous to More’s argument against Tyndale throughout the Confutation: the test of any doctrine is its antiquity, and late innovations — whether Talmudic or Protestant — are suspect on that ground alone.
XI. “As the Jews in their Talmud or the Turks in their Koran are deceived in the believing of their elders” — The Talmud Ranked with the Koran
Source: The Confutation of Tyndale’s Answer, Books 5–9 (ll. 7222–7227)
Original Text
…Tyndale in bringing forth for his part the Jews and the Turks to make us believe that we may be as well deceived in believing the Catholic Church (since Christ’s days hitherto!) that the books of the New Testament be the true scripture of God, as the Jews in their Talmud or the Turks in their Koran are deceived in the believing of their elders — is a very frantic blindness.
Modernised Reading
…Tyndale, in bringing forward the Jews and the Turks to persuade us that we may be as easily deceived in believing the Catholic Church — from Christ’s days to now! — that the books of the New Testament are the true Scripture of God, just as the Jews in their Talmud or the Turks in their Koran are deceived in following their elders — is a very frantic blindness.
Note
More here places the Talmud and the Koran in explicit parallel as the great monuments of non-Christian religious error: both are collections of tradition substituted for, and used to overrule, a more original revelation. The equation assimilates Judaism and Islam as variants of the same fundamental error — the subordination of divine revelation to human tradition — and then deploys this equation to reverse Tyndale’s argument. Tyndale claimed that Catholic tradition does what the Talmud and Koran do; More counters that it is precisely because the Talmud and Koran represent this error that the Catholic tradition, which does not, is vindicated by contrast.
XII. “With some new Talmud of the devil’s device and theirs, do corrupt and falsify the very, true gospel of God” — Protestant Heresy as a New Talmud
Source: The Confutation of Tyndale’s Answer, Books 5–9 (ll. 5296–5302)
Original Text
…let him then for very shame confess that in this one point at the least, both Luther and himself, and all the shameless harlots of their sect, do shamefully misconstrue the Scripture… and with some new Talmud of the devil’s device and theirs, do corrupt and falsify the very, true gospel of God.
Modernised Reading
…let him then for very shame confess that in this one point at least, both Luther and himself, and all the shameless followers of their sect, do shamefully misconstrue the Scripture… and with some new Talmud of the devil’s devising and their own, do corrupt and falsify the very true gospel of God.
Note
The phrase new Talmud of the devil’s device is More’s most compressed formulation of the parallel between Jewish and Protestant corruption of Scripture. More does not write “like the Talmud” but “a new Talmud” — the Protestant tradition of scriptural interpretation is not merely analogous to the Talmud but is a continuation of the same satanic enterprise in a new form. The possessive construction — of the devil’s device and theirs — assigns joint authorship to the devil and to Luther and Tyndale, with the devil listed first. This places Protestant biblical scholarship in exact structural equivalence with the adversus Judaeos charge against rabbinical tradition.
XIII. “The scribes, Pharisees, Caiaphas, Annas, and the elders were crept up into the seat of Moses… to make merchandise of it” — The Jewish Leadership at Christ’s Coming
Source: The Confutation of Tyndale’s Answer, Books 5–9 (ll. 1313–1335)
Original Text
Against the coming of Christ, the scribes, Pharisees, Caiaphas, Annas, and the elders were crept up into the seat of Moses, Aaron, and the holy prophets and patriarchs, and succeeded them lineally, and had the scripture of God, but even in captivity — to make merchandise of it, and to abuse it unto their own glory and profit.
And though they kept the people from outward idolatry of worshipping of images with the heathen — yet they brought them into a worse inward idolatry of a false faith and trust in their own deeds, and in vain traditions of their own feigning. And they had put out the significations of all the ceremonies and sacraments of the Old Testament, and taught the people to believe in the works themselves… and had corrupted the Scripture with false glosses.
Modernised Reading
At the coming of Christ, the scribes, Pharisees, Caiaphas, Annas, and the elders had crept into the seat of Moses, Aaron, and the holy prophets and patriarchs, succeeded them in lineal succession, and held the Scripture of God as a captive prize — to make merchandise of it and abuse it for their own glory and profit.
And though they kept the people from the outward idolatry of worshipping images alongside the pagans — yet they brought them into a worse, inward idolatry of false faith and trust in their own deeds, and in the vain traditions of their own invention. And they had extinguished the spiritual meanings of all the ceremonies and sacraments of the Old Testament, and taught the people to believe in the works themselves… and had corrupted the Scripture with false glosses.
Note
The phrase crept up into the seat of Moses implies illegitimacy, usurpation, and a kind of verminous infiltration. The double indictment — external legal authority combined with internal doctrinal corruption — is the template More uses throughout the Confutation: the Pharisees held the chair of Moses while corrupting everything Moses stood for, just as More argues Tyndale holds the name of Scripture while destroying its meaning. More here reproduces Tyndale’s own characterisation of the Pharisaic leadership in order to compare it to the Catholic clergy — but his reproduction is so full and unqualified that it stands on its own as a comprehensive adversus Judaeos portrait.
XIV. “Christ calleth them hypocrites, dissemblers, blind guides, and painted sepulchres. And John called them the generation of vipers and serpents” — Christ and John Name the Pharisees
Source: The Confutation of Tyndale’s Answer, Books 5–9 (ll. 2769–2773)
Original Text
As thou seest how Christ calleth them hypocrites, dissemblers, blind guides, and painted sepulchres. And John called them the generation of vipers and serpents.
Modernised Reading
As you can see how Christ calls them hypocrites, dissemblers, blind guides, and painted sepulchres. And John called them the generation of vipers and serpents.
Note
More uses this catalogue of names — drawn from Matthew 23 and Matthew 3:7 — as a known quantity, a shared rhetorical treasury from which he draws in order to characterise Protestant reformers. The Pharisees are the gold standard of religious hypocrisy in his polemical universe, and every pejorative in this list is available for deployment against contemporary opponents precisely because it has been divinely applied to the original Jewish leadership by Christ and John the Baptist themselves. The passage is presented as self-evident and requiring no commentary — the names simply are what they are.
XV. “The generation of vipers can neither understand nor know” — The Generation of Vipers Applied to Those Outside Grace
Source: The Confutation of Tyndale’s Answer, Books 5–9 (ll. 5716–5720)
Original Text
…that the Lord of Hosts hath saved him seed, and hath gathered him a flock to whom he hath given ears to hear… and eyes to see that the blind leaders of the blind cannot see… and a heart to understand that the generation of vipers can neither understand nor know.
Modernised Reading
…that the Lord of Hosts has preserved Himself a remnant, and gathered Himself a flock to whom He has given ears to hear… and eyes to see what the blind leaders of the blind cannot see… and a heart to understand what the generation of vipers can neither understand nor know.
Note
More takes the Matthean epithet generation of vipers — applied by John the Baptist to the Pharisees — and uses it, via Tyndale’s own words, as a living designation for those constitutionally incapable of the understanding that the remnant flock has received by grace. The blindness of the vipers is constitutive, not circumstantial: they are not merely uninformed but incapable of the understanding that grace alone can supply. More’s refutation turns the application of the epithet back on Tyndale: it is the Protestant heretics, not the Catholic clergy, who are the true generation of vipers.
XVI. “Those scribes and Pharisees did by their false doctrine labor to destroy the very, true doctrine of the Synagogue, whereof they were engendered” — The Vipers Gnaw Their Mother’s Belly
Source: The Confutation of Tyndale’s Answer, Books 5–9 (ll. 3662–3668)
Original Text
…likewise do all these sects of heretics, which in that point do more than verily represent the scribes and Pharisees whom Saint John called the “generation of vipers.” For as the young viper serpents gnaw out their mother’s belly, and those scribes and Pharisees did by their false doctrine labor to destroy the very, true doctrine of the Synagogue, whereof they were engendered.
Modernised Reading
…just so do all these sects of heretics, who in that regard do more than truly represent the scribes and Pharisees whom Saint John called the “generation of vipers.” For as young viper serpents gnaw out their mother’s belly, so those scribes and Pharisees did by their false doctrine labour to destroy the very true doctrine of the Synagogue, from which they had been engendered.
Note
The natural history detail — that young vipers were believed to gnaw through their mother’s body to be born — was a commonplace of medieval bestiaries and gives the Johannine epithet a specific biological content: these offspring destroy the parent that bore them. More uses this to establish a structural homology between the Pharisees’ relationship to the Synagogue and the Protestant reformers’ relationship to the Catholic Church: both are internal destroyers, parasites that kill the body from within. The phrase do more than verily represent is a rhetorical intensification — the heretics are not merely like the Pharisees but exceed them in this particular quality.
XVII. “This reason doth chiefly blind them, and hold them still in obstinacy” — Jewish Obstinacy and Its Cause
Source: The Confutation of Tyndale’s Answer, Books 5–9 (ll. 3943–3952)
Original Text
And this reason do the Jews lay unto our charge this day. And this reason doth chiefly blind them, and hold them still in obstinacy.
…it was no better for the Church against heretics than for the Jews against Christendom… but even the selfsame reason that maintaineth them in their obstinacy and keepeth them from Christendom!
Modernised Reading
And this argument the Jews bring against us to this day. And this argument chiefly blinds them, and holds them still in obstinacy.
…it served the Church against heretics no better than it served the Jews against Christendom — it is the very same reasoning that maintains them in their obstinacy and keeps them from Christendom!
Note
More makes a structurally precise observation: the same logical move that Tyndale uses to argue against the Catholic Church is the same move that the Jews use to argue against Christianity. He identifies this as the mechanism of Jewish obstinacy: not a different argument, not a more sophisticated counter-theology, but the same circular appeal to tradition against which no external authority can prevail. The phrase hold them still in obstinacy is present tense — this is More’s characterisation of the Jews of his own day, not merely of those who rejected Christ in the first century. Their obstinacy is a continuing condition, maintained by the ongoing application of a structurally defective form of reasoning.
XVIII. “The Jews, which people most believed the Scripture — of them, I say, fewest believed in Christ” — The Paradox of Jewish Unbelief
Source: The Confutation of Tyndale’s Answer, Books 1–4 (ll. 14011–14016)
Original Text
Every fool knoweth that all the world save the Jews, in their turning to Christ’s belief, were not led by the Scripture, but by the miracles… and believed not Christ for the Scripture, but believed the Scripture for Christ, and Christ for the miracles. And the Jews, which people most believed the Scripture — of them, I say, fewest believed in Christ.
Modernised Reading
Every fool knows that all the world except the Jews, in their conversion to belief in Christ, were led not by the Scripture but by the miracles — they believed not in Christ because of the Scripture, but believed the Scripture because of Christ, and believed in Christ because of the miracles. And the Jews, who were the people that most believed the Scripture — of them, I say, the fewest believed in Christ.
Note
More presents this as an obvious fact — “every fool knoweth” — and the theological point it contains is pointed: the possession of Scripture does not guarantee recognition of its fulfilment. More inverts the expected order: those who most valued the Scripture were least receptive to the One to whom it pointed. This defeats any argument that the Jews should be regarded as privileged guardians of revelation by virtue of their scriptural devotion. More uses this to defeat Tyndale’s contention that Scripture alone is sufficient to generate faith: the Jewish example proves that Scripture, held without the interpretive tradition of the Church, does not lead to Christ but away from Him.
XIX. “He ceased not to walk with the Jews by miracles… till he quite forsook them” — God’s Final Abandonment of the Jews
Source: The Confutation of Tyndale’s Answer, Books 1–4 (ll. 13588–13594)
Original Text
…as he ceased not to walk with the Jews by miracles although there were many naught, till he quite forsook them — which by his promise he shall never do Christ’s Catholic Church.
Modernised Reading
…as He never ceased to walk with the Jews by means of miracles, even though many among them were wicked, until He utterly forsook them — which, by His promise, He shall never do to Christ’s Catholic Church.
Note
The word quite in Early Modern English means entirely or utterly — this is an absolute, complete, and final forsaking. More does not soften the assertion or qualify it with an eschatological reservation about future Jewish conversion: the forsaking is stated as a completed fact, contrasted with the permanent divine companionship promised to the Catholic Church. The historical experience of the Jews — miraculous attestation followed by total divine abandonment — is thus the negative template against which the Church’s permanence is defined. God’s relationship to the Synagogue was conditional and finite; His relationship to the Church is unconditional and eternal.
XX. “But are yet enemies thereunto — as Jews, Saracens, or Turks, not yet converted unto the faith” — Jews Classified as Enemies of the Faith
Source: The Confutation of Tyndale’s Answer, Books 1–4 (ll. 19564–19566)
Original Text
Yet are there also in this church of elects many that never came to the faith, but are yet enemies thereunto — as Jews, Saracens, or Turks, not yet converted unto the faith.
Modernised Reading
Yet there are also in this church of the elect many who have never come to the faith, but are still enemies to it — as Jews, Saracens, or Turks, not yet converted to the faith.
Note
The theological context is More’s discussion of the ecclesia praedestinata — the Church of the predestined — a concept broad enough to include those currently outside the visible Church who will eventually be saved. More’s point is that such people are, in their present condition, not merely outside the faith but enemies to it. The three categories — Jews, Saracens, Turks — form the standard medieval taxonomy of non-Christian religious opposition. More’s ordering places the Jews first, as the foundational and most theologically significant instance of enmity to the faith. Their enmity is not merely passive but active and present-tense.
XXI. “Neither was there any cause to change it from the Saturday, than to put difference between us and the Jews… after their superstition” — Jewish Sabbath Observance as Superstition
Source: The Confutation of Tyndale’s Answer, Books 1–4 (ll. 16022–16035)
Original Text
Neither was there any cause to change it from the Saturday, than to put difference between us and the Jews… and lest we should become servants unto the day, after their superstition.
…Christian men both might have kept the same day that the Jews kept and yet have left the superstition thereof that the Jews use… and may now also (as haply some do) keep the Sunday with like superstition as the Jews do the Saturday.
Modernised Reading
Nor was there any cause to change it from Saturday except to put a distinction between us and the Jews — and lest we should become enslaved to the day, in the manner of their superstition.
…Christian men might well have kept the same day that the Jews kept and yet have left behind the superstitious observance that the Jews practise — and some may now (as perhaps some do) keep Sunday with the same superstition with which the Jews keep Saturday.
Note
More is here reproducing Tyndale’s argument about the Sabbath before criticising it — but on the specific characterisation of Jewish Sabbath observance as superstition, More does not object. The word superstition in this period carried a precise theological meaning: a religious practice that attributes to an external observance a spiritual power or necessity it does not have. More accepts this as a standing characterisation of Jewish Saturday observance, and the implicit warning at the end — that Christians might fall into the same superstition with their Sunday — treats Jewish practice as the paradigm of excessive religious externalism.
XXII. “Among other the coming of the Jews, and the dilating of Christendom again before the world come to that straight” — The Eschatological Conversion of the Jews
Source: A Dialogue of Comfort Against Tribulation (ll. 8923–8930)
Original Text
And among other the coming of the Jews, and the dilating of Christendom again before the world come to that straight. So that, I say, for mine own mind, I little doubt, but that this ungracious sect of Mahomet shall have a foul fall, Christendom shall have a spring and spread, flower, and increase again, at last.
Modernised Reading
And among other signs, the conversion of the Jews, and the spreading of Christendom again before the world comes to that extremity. So that it is my own conviction, I say, that I have little doubt but that this wicked sect of Mahomet shall have a foul fall, and Christendom shall have a revival and spread, and flower and increase again, at last.
Note
This passage from the Dialogue of Comfort is one of the few places in the three texts where More looks forward to a future Jewish conversion. The eschatological framework is Pauline (Romans 11): the Jews‘ eventual conversion is a sign of the end times, one of the prophetic indicators that must precede the final consummation. It is significant that More places this hope in the same breath as the predicted fall of Islam — both are end-times events, not near-term possibilities. There is no pastoral urgency here, no suggestion of active mission to contemporary Jews. The “coming of the Jews” is a cosmic event in God’s calendar. In the meantime, the Jews remain in the condition of enmity and obstinacy described elsewhere in these texts.
XXIII. “A heretic is worse than a Turk. Jews, or Saracens, or, that worse were than all three, very stark heretics” — The Hierarchy of Religious Error
Source: The Confutation of Tyndale’s Answer, Books 1–4 (ll. 4601–4603)
Original Text
A heretic is worse than a Turk. Jews, or Saracens, or, that worse were than all three, very stark heretics — yet so that in the baptizing they purpose to make the child Christian, and therein do as the Church doth… all their lack cannot make the baptism lose its fruit.
Modernised Reading
A heretic is worse than a Turk. Jews, or Saracens, or, worst of all three, outright heretics — yet provided that in baptising they intend to make the child a Christian, and in doing so act as the Church acts… all their deficiency cannot cause the baptism to lose its effect.
Note
This marginal gloss — A heretic is worse than a Turk — is one of the most quotable lines in More’s vast polemical output. It establishes an explicit hierarchy of religious error in which Jews, Saracens, and Turks occupy the middle positions and Protestant heretics occupy the worst. The logic is theological rather than merely polemical: the heretic is worse because he sins against a light he has received, whereas the Jew and the Muslim sin in ignorance of the Gospel. This hierarchy simultaneously condemns Protestants more harshly than Jews and establishes Jews as a baseline of religious error against which Protestants can be measured.
XXIV. “Doing now as the Jews did of old… ascribing the miracles wrought by the goodness of God to be done in God’s church by the power of the devil” — Tyndale Reenacts the Jews‘ Blasphemy Against Miracles
Source: The Confutation of Tyndale’s Answer, Books 1–4 (ll. 12148–12152)
Original Text
…so strong is the devil in their obstinate malice… doing now as the Jews did of old and as Tyndale now doth of new… ascribing the miracles wrought by the goodness of God to be done in God’s church by the power of the devil.
Modernised Reading
…so strong is the devil in their obstinate malice… acting now as the Jews acted in former times and as Tyndale now acts afresh — attributing the miracles worked by the goodness of God in God’s Church to the power of the devil.
Note
More links Protestant denial of Catholic miracles to the Gospel episode (Matthew 12:24) in which the Pharisees attribute Christ’s miracles to Beelzebub. The comparison is structurally exact: both the Pharisees and Tyndale are confronted with undeniable miraculous evidence of God’s presence in the true church and both respond by attributing these works to diabolic agency. The phrase doing now as the Jews did of old establishes a typological relationship between the two: Tyndale is not merely like the Pharisees, he does what they did. More uses this parallel not merely rhetorically but as evidence of a structural identity between Pharisaic Judaism and Protestant heresy.
XXV. “Of the Jews had I five times forty stripes save one… in perils by the Jews“ — St. Paul’s Sufferings at Jewish Hands
Source: A Dialogue of Comfort Against Tribulation (ll. 13905–13910)
Original Text
Of the Jews had I five times forty stripes save one: thrice have I been beaten with rods, once was I stoned: thrice have I been in shipwreck: a day and a night was I in the depth of the sea: in my journies oft have I been in peril of floods, in peril of thieves, in perils by the Jews, in perils by the Paynims, in perils in the city, in perils in desert, in perils in the sea, in perils by false brethren.
Modernised Reading
From the Jews I received five times forty stripes less one: three times I was beaten with rods, once I was stoned: three times I was shipwrecked: a day and a night I spent in the deep sea: in my journeys I have often been in danger from floods, in danger from thieves, in dangers from the Jews, in dangers from the pagans, in dangers in the city, in dangers in the desert, in dangers at sea, in dangers from false brethren.
Note
More quotes 2 Corinthians 11:24–27 verbatim as part of a meditation on apostolic suffering used to console those facing persecution. The passage has a simple but significant function in More’s adversus Judaeos framework: it presents the suffering of the Church’s founding apostle as having been inflicted in significant part by the Jews. Paul’s catalogue of persecutions names the Jews as a specific category of peril, distinct from pagans and false brethren, and places them among the standing dangers of apostolic life. More’s devotional use of this text normalises the Jews‘ persecutory role as part of the canonical narrative of Christian suffering.
XXVI. “These hundred sundry sects… be very false heretics all the whole rabble, and Synagogues of Satan, and very churches of the devil” — Synagogues of Satan
Source: The Confutation of Tyndale’s Answer, Books 5–9 (ll. 3709–3718)
Original Text
…these hundred sundry sects which Tyndale would have taken for the very church of Christ be very false heretics all the whole rabble, and Synagogues of Satan, and very churches of the devil, already dead and utterly destroyed in spirit… and but if they return to the Catholic Church again, will else with Judas be buried and burn in hell.
Modernised Reading
…these hundred diverse sects which Tyndale would have accepted as the very Church of Christ are in fact false heretics every one, the whole rabble of them — Synagogues of Satan and very churches of the devil, already spiritually dead and utterly destroyed… and unless they return to the Catholic Church, they will, like Judas, be buried and burn in hell.
Note
The phrase Synagogues of Satan is drawn from Revelation 2:9 and 3:9, where it refers to those who claim to be Jews but are not. More deploys it against the Protestant sects with full awareness of its biblical resonance: the Protestant assemblies are not merely wrong or schismatic but satanic, and their very form of organisation — a congregation claiming divine authority — is a diabolical imitation of the true Church. The word Synagogue carries its full adversus Judaeos weight: the sects are like the Jewish Synagogue not only in being rejected of God but in being actively possessed by the enemy of God. The concluding comparison with Judas closes the circle: the worst enemies of the Church are those produced within it who have turned against it, as Judas turned against Christ and as the Pharisees turned against the Synagogue.
XXVII. “Neither deceiveth them with false traditions, as do the Synagogues of Jews“ — The Church Contrasted With the Synagogue of the Jews
Source: The Confutation of Tyndale’s Answer, Books 1–4 (ll. 12140–12143)
Original Text
…and neither deceiveth them with false scripture (as doth the congregation of Turks) nor with false traditions (as do the Synagogues of Jews), nor with false expositions (as do the false churches of heretics): he causeth his church to do miracles still in every age, and to be discerned and known by the plenteous working of God’s wonders by himself wrought therein.
Modernised Reading
…and [the Catholic Church] neither deceives its members with false Scripture (as does the congregation of the Turks) nor with false traditions (as do the Synagogues of the Jews), nor with false expositions (as do the false churches of heretics): He causes His church to continue performing miracles in every age, and to be discerned and known by the abundant working of God’s wonders wrought within it.
Note
This passage constructs a threefold taxonomy of non-Catholic religious error, with each category identified by its characteristic mode of corruption: the Turks corrupt through false Scripture (the Koran substituted for the Bible), the Jews through false traditions (the Talmud substituted for the plain text of Scripture), and the Protestant heretics through false expositions (private interpretation substituted for the Church’s authoritative reading). The Jews occupy the middle position in this schema, their error defined specifically by the substitution of tradition for Scripture — an ironic inversion of the Protestant charge against Catholicism, and one that More deploys deliberately. The three errors are presented as exhaustive alternatives to the Catholic way; the Church is defined in part by what it is not, and what it is not includes specifically Jewish corruptions.
XXVIII. “They fell to idolatry immediately… for they never bode any space in the right faith” — Israel‘s Cyclic Apostasy as Its Defining Pattern
Source: The Confutation of Tyndale’s Answer, Books 5–9 (ll. 1307–1325)
Original Text
Under Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob was the church great in faith and small in number. And as it increased in number, so it decreased in faith, until the time of Moses. And out of those unbelievers God stirred up Moses, and brought them unto the right faith again. And Moses left a glorious church, and in faith and cleaving unto the word of God… and delivered them unto Joshua, Eleazar, Phinehas, and Caleb. But as soon as the generation of them that saw the miracles of God were dead… they fell to idolatry immediately, as thou seest in the Bible. And God, when he had delivered them into captivity for to chastise their wickedness… stirred them up a prophet evermore, to call them unto his testament again. And so he did well nigh a hundred times, I suppose, ere Christ came… for they never bode any space in the right faith.
Modernised Reading
Under Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob the church was great in faith and small in number. And as it increased in number, so it decreased in faith, until the time of Moses. And out of those unbelievers God raised up Moses, and brought them back to the right faith. And Moses left a glorious church, cleaving in faith to the word of God — and delivered them to Joshua, Eleazar, Phinehas, and Caleb. But as soon as the generation of those who had seen the miracles of God were dead, they fell to idolatry immediately, as you see in the Bible. And God, when He had delivered them into captivity to chastise their wickedness, always raised up a prophet to call them back to His covenant. And so He did well nigh a hundred times, I suppose, before Christ came — for they never remained any space of time in the right faith.
Note
This passage is formally Tyndale’s words — part of a historical sketch of Israel‘s ecclesiastical continuity — which More reproduces before building upon it. The fact that More does not contest the characterisation is significant: the pattern of cyclic apostasy is accepted as the established history of the Jewish people, with no qualification or mitigation. The phrase they never bode any space in the right faith is a sweeping verdict on Israel‘s entire history between Moses and Christ: a people constitutionally incapable of sustained fidelity. This sets up More’s structural contrast between the Synagogue (an institution perpetually relapsing into error, requiring a hundred prophetic corrections) and the Catholic Church (sustained by a divine promise of permanence that the Synagogue never possessed).
XXIX. “The Jews are yet in the right way, and we in error” — The Jewish Argument Against Christians Stated and Dismissed
Source: The Confutation of Tyndale’s Answer, Books 5–9 (ll. 1019–1030)
Original Text
…the scribes, Pharisees, and high priests were the right church, and Christ and his apostles and disciples heretics and a damnable sect. And so the Jews are yet in the right way, and we in error. And of truth, if their blind reason be good, then is this argument so too. For they be like, and are both one thing.
Modernised Reading
…the scribes, Pharisees, and high priests were the right church, and Christ and His apostles and disciples heretics and a damnable sect. And so the Jews are yet in the right way, and we in error. And of truth, if their blind reason be good, then this argument is good too. For they are alike, and both the same thing.
Note
More here demonstrates, by reductio ad absurdum, the logical consequence of Tyndale’s ecclesiological argument: if Tyndale’s claim — that departure from a corrupt institutional church is justified — is accepted, then the Jews who rejected Christ were right to do so. More attributes the Jewish position to blind reason and treats it with the same contempt he gives Tyndale’s argument, precisely because he regards the two positions as structurally identical. The epithet blind reason is More’s standard designation for argumentation that proceeds correctly from false premises: the Jews reason correctly from their false starting point, but the starting point is itself the product of a constitutive moral and spiritual incapacity.
XXX. “The scarcity either of faith or virtue that the Synagogue of the Jews was at Christ’s coming” — The Synagogue at Christ’s Coming as the Nadir of Ecclesiastical Degradation
Source: The Confutation of Tyndale’s Answer, Books 5–9 (ll. 1601–1610)
Original Text
…yet shall he never neither suffer it to be destroyed… nor the flock that remaineth, how many branches soever the devil blow off, to be brought unto the scarcity either of faith or virtue that the Synagogue of the Jews was at Christ’s coming. Though there never was any time long together, nor never shall there be, but that in Christ’s church, as long as it dwelleth in earth, there shall be many naught, yet shall always the doctrine of his church… be so good, and so sure, that unto those that shall be well willing to learn the truth, it shall always be known where they may learn it.
Modernised Reading
…yet shall He never suffer it to be destroyed — nor the remaining flock, however many branches the devil may blow off, to be reduced to the poverty of faith and virtue that the Synagogue of the Jews had reached at Christ’s coming. Though there shall never be any long period without many wicked people in Christ’s Church on earth, yet the doctrine of His Church shall always be so good and so sure that those willing to learn the truth shall always find where they may learn it.
Note
More uses the state of the Jewish Synagogue at Christ’s coming as the calibration point for the worst possible condition a true church can reach. The Synagogue at Christ’s coming represents the nadir of ecclesiastical degeneration — the condition of minimal faith and virtue — and More asserts that the Catholic Church, even in its most corrupt moments, has never fallen to that level and, by divine promise, never will. This simultaneously absolves the Church of Protestant charges of total apostasy (it has not fallen as low as the Synagogue did) and confirms the adversus Judaeos verdict: the Synagogue at Christ’s coming was maximally degenerate, a calibration point for the lowest degree of religious failure.
XXXI. “The Jews believe this day as much as the carnal sort of them ever believed… and yet they have erred and been faithless this fifteen hundred years” — Jewish Faithlessness Diagnosed as Constitutive and Perpetual
Source: The Confutation of Tyndale’s Answer, Books 5–9 (ll. 7167–7175)
Original Text
And the Jews believe this day as much as the carnal sort of them ever believed, moved also by the authority of their elders only… and think that it is impossible for them to err, being “Abraham’s seed, and the children of them to whom the promises of all that we believe were made.” And yet they have erred and been faithless this fifteen hundred years.
Modernised Reading
And the Jews believe this day as much as the carnal sort of them ever believed, moved solely by the authority of their elders — and think it impossible for them to err, being “Abraham’s seed, and the children of those to whom the promises of all that we believe were made.” And yet they have erred and been faithless for these fifteen hundred years.
Note
This is Tyndale’s wording, reproduced by More in the course of refuting an argument about the Catholic Church’s reliability. The characterisation of contemporary Jewish belief as carnal — a religion of the letter, the flesh, and external observance rather than the spirit — is the Pauline category applied here to describe the total Jewish community in More’s own day. The phrase fifteen hundred years of error gives the Jewish rejection of Christ a specific duration reaching to the present moment: it is not a historical event that receded into the past but an ongoing condition still operative in 1532. More’s refutation does not dispute this characterisation of the Jews; he accepts it as a premise for his counter-argument about the Catholic Church.
XXXII. “Which the Jews reproved and rejected… and yet was he laid for the very angle- and corner-stone” — Christ the Cornerstone Rejected by the Jews
Source: The Confutation of Tyndale’s Answer, Books 5–9 (ll. 16138–16142)
Original Text
…and began his own, new church of Jews and Gentiles both, and was himself the head cornerstone—which the Jews reproved and rejected, and would not be built upon it… and yet was he laid, for all that, for the very angle- and corner-stone upon which both the side walls, of the Jews and of the paynims, were joined in one together, as it was by David prophesied: “The stone which they that were in building have reproved, here is it made for that head of the angle.”
Modernised Reading
…and began His own, new church of both Jews and Gentiles, and was Himself the head cornerstone — which the Jews reproved and rejected, and would not be built upon — and yet He was laid, for all that, as the very cornerstone upon which both walls, of Jews and of pagans, were joined in one together, as David prophesied: “The stone which those who were building have rejected — here it is made the head of the corner.”
Note
The quotation from Psalm 118:22 is one of the foundational adversus Judaeos proof-texts, deployed from the New Testament itself (Matthew 21:42, Acts 4:11) to indict the Jewish leadership’s rejection of Christ as the fulfilment of their own Scripture. More’s deployment is precise: the Jews who rejected the cornerstone represent Israel‘s definitive act of corporate refusal. The architectural metaphor reinforces the supersessionist point: the Church is built from those Jews and Gentiles who accepted the cornerstone; those who rejected it — the Jewish people as an institution — are simply absent from the structure. Their rejection did not impede the building; it merely excluded them from it.
XXXIII. “In respect of our state, the Jews were but in fear and bondage” — The Jewish Covenant Characterised as Servitude
Source: The Confutation of Tyndale’s Answer, Books 5–9 (ll. 6766–6770)
Original Text
…since Christian people receive the spirit of filial love, and are in such wise ascribed for the sons of God that our Savior hath himself taught us to call God our Father; so that in respect of our state, the Jews were but in fear and bondage—therefore saith Saint Paul farther unto the christened that were among the Romans, “Ye have not received again the spirit of bondage, in dread, but the Spirit by which ye be adopted and chosen into the sons of God.”
Modernised Reading
…since Christian people receive the spirit of filial love, and are in such manner counted as sons of God that our Saviour Himself has taught us to call God our Father — so that in comparison with our condition, the Jews were merely in fear and bondage — therefore Saint Paul says further to the baptised among the Romans: “You have not received again the spirit of bondage in dread, but the Spirit by which you are adopted and chosen as sons of God.”
Note
The distinction between the Jewish covenant (servitude and fear) and the Christian covenant (adoptive sonship and love) is Pauline in origin (Galatians 4:1–7, Romans 8:15) and here given its clearest expression in More’s writings. The phrase in respect of our state is a comparative formulation: it does not deny that the Jews had a real covenant with God, but firmly establishes that covenant as constitutively inferior — a relation of fear between slave and master rather than love between child and father. The entire Old Testament dispensation is thereby subordinated to and superseded by the New, not merely historically but in terms of the quality of the religious relationship it enabled. Jewish religion, even at its most legitimate, is characterised as a form of spiritual servitude.
XXXIV. “The Jews look for it yet” — The Jews Still Awaiting a Messiah They Have Already Refused
Source: The Confutation of Tyndale’s Answer, Books 1–4 (ll. 14953–14957)
Original Text
…the truth is that the Jews had necessary things taught them beside the writing… and had an expectation of Christ, and of redemption by him, before the Law written… and in that time, and after, and the Jews look for it yet… and they know that without him all their sacraments could not for their final salvation serve them. But when they began little and little to fall from that faith… and began to trust in the Law, and the works of the Law, alone… leaving off this point of faith which was of the Law, sacraments, and ceremonies, and all their bodily works of the soul—then went they wrong.
Modernised Reading
…the truth is that the Jews had necessary things taught them beyond writing — they had an expectation of Christ, and of redemption through Him, before the written Law — and in that time, and after, and the Jews look for Him yet — and they know that without Him all their sacraments cannot serve them toward their final salvation. But when they began little by little to fall from that faith, and began to trust in the Law and the works of the Law alone — setting aside the faith that animated the Law, the sacraments and ceremonies, and all their spiritual works — then they went wrong.
Note
The present tense of the Jews look for it yet is one of More’s most pointed charges against contemporary Jews: they are still waiting for a Messiah who has already come, still anticipating a redemption that has already been accomplished, and still treating their sacramental system as if it retained its pre-Christian salvific efficacy. More identifies the precise moment of Jewish apostasy not as the rejection of Christ at the crucifixion but as the earlier shift in which trust in the Law and its works displaced faith in the promised Redeemer to whom the Law pointed. The Jews who “look for it yet” are thus in a worse condition than simple ignorance: they possess the expectation of Christ but refuse the Christ who has fulfilled it.
XXXV. “Tyndale seemeth to fare as the Jews do… they lose the fruit of that belief because they will not know who is Christ” — Protestant Heresy Diagnosed as Jewish Error Repeated
Source: The Confutation of Tyndale’s Answer, Books 1–4 (ll. 23342–23350)
Original Text
But surely, concerning the belief of God’s promises… Tyndale seemeth to fare as the Jews do. For like as many of them believe that through Christ the world shall be saved, and yet they lose the fruit of that belief because they will not know who is Christ: even so, Tyndale saith that he believeth Christ’s promise made unto his church here in earth, that his Holy Spirit shall be therewith unto the world’s end, and teach it and lead it into every truth; but he loseth yet the fruit of that belief… because that he will not know which is Christ’s church here in earth.
Modernised Reading
But surely, concerning the belief of God’s promises — Tyndale seems to fare as the Jews do. For just as many of them believe that through Christ the world shall be saved, and yet they lose the fruit of that belief because they will not acknowledge who is Christ — even so, Tyndale says he believes Christ’s promise made to His Church here on earth, that His Holy Spirit shall be with it unto the world’s end and teach it into every truth; but he loses the fruit of that belief… because he will not acknowledge which is Christ’s Church here on earth.
Note
This is More’s most structurally elegant identification of Protestant heresy with Jewish error. The parallel is exact: contemporary Jews believe a correct doctrinal proposition (that the world shall be saved through Christ) but render it fruitless by refusing to identify the Christ who has fulfilled it. Tyndale commits the same error at the next level: he believes a correct doctrinal proposition (that the Holy Spirit guides the Church into truth) but renders it fruitless by refusing to identify the Church the Spirit actually guides. In both cases, correct belief in a general promise is made void by wilful refusal to recognise its specific historical fulfilment. More presents this as structural evidence that Tyndale’s heresy is a continuation of the original Jewish error.
XXXVI. “Abraham is our father; we be Moses’ disciples… only the accursed unlearned people that know not the Scripture believe in him” — The Jews‘ Blind Reasons Against Christ as the Template for All Heretical Argument
Source: The Confutation of Tyndale’s Answer, Books 5–9 (ll. 2527–2534)
Original Text
And such blind reasons as ours make against us, made they against Christ, saying, “Abraham is our father; we be Moses’ disciples; how knoweth he the understanding of the Scripture?— he never learned of any of us! Only the accursed unlearned people that know not the Scripture believe in him; look whether any of the rulers or Pharisees do believe in him.”
Modernised Reading
And just such blind reasons as ours make against them, they made against Christ, saying: “Abraham is our father; we are Moses’ disciples; how does he know the meaning of Scripture? — he never learned from any of us! Only the accursed, unlearned people who do not know Scripture believe in him; look whether any of the rulers or Pharisees believe in him.”
Note
More quotes verbatim the arguments the Pharisees made against Christ — drawn from John 7 and 9 — as the definitive template of blind reasons: arguments formally valid but proceeding from corrupt premises. The phrase the accursed unlearned people in the mouth of the Pharisees is particularly charged: the Jewish leadership characterises the common people who followed Christ as literally cursed — am ha-aretz, the people of the land, ignorant of the Law. More reproduces this with full contempt for the arguers: the Pharisees’ appeal to learning, lineage, and institutional authority against the evidence of Christ’s works is the paradigmatic form of self-blinding religious elitism. More uses it against Tyndale’s parallel claim that only his enlightened elect understand Scripture correctly.
XXXVII. “Give the honor of God’s great works unto the devil, as the very worst sort of the Jews did” — The Worst Sort of Jews as the Model of Blasphemy Against Miracles
Source: The Confutation of Tyndale’s Answer, Books 5–9 (ll. 1951–1958)
Original Text
…the devil hath driven them down much further, and made them fall to blaspheme against God’s saints and his miracles, and give the honor of God’s great works unto the devil, as the very worst sort of the Jews did; and unto all their old heresies to link a whole chain of new, such as the worst and the most shameless sort of heretics that ever were of old, would have been yet ashamed to think upon.
Modernised Reading
…the devil has driven them much further down still, and made them fall to blaspheming against God’s saints and His miracles, and giving the glory of God’s great works to the devil, as the very worst sort of the Jews did — and linking to all their old heresies a whole chain of new ones, such as the worst and most shameless heretics of former times would yet have been ashamed to contemplate.
Note
More here introduces a taxonomy of Jewish wickedness: not all Jews are at the worst level, but there is a worst sort — those who, like Tyndale and Luther, attributed Christ’s miracles to the devil (Matthew 12:24, the Beelzebub accusation). By placing the contemporary Protestant reformers at this nadir, More accomplishes two things: he identifies their position as the continuation of the single worst act of the entire Jewish religious tradition, and he establishes that the current heretics have descended to a depth that even former heretics would have found shameful. The phrase the very worst sort of the Jews implies a graduated taxonomy of Jewish wickedness, with the blasphemy against miracles marking its most extreme degree.
XXXVIII. “Saint Paul saith to the Jews, ‘Thou abhorrest idols and robbest God of his honor'” — Paul’s Charge Against the Jews for Dishonoring God Through Evil Living
Source: The Confutation of Tyndale’s Answer, Books 1–4 (ll. 8565–8577)
Original Text
This pageant hath he played also, shamefully falsifying Saint Paul, in the second chapter to the Romans… where Saint Paul saith to the Jews, “Thou abhorrest idols and robbest God of his honor”—meaning that though they abhorred the paynims’ idols, and would not worship their false gods that were devils, yet for all that, they, by the breaking of God’s law with their evil living, they took away the honor from God, in causing him and his law to be dishonorably spoken of among the paynims.
Modernised Reading
He has played this trick also, shamefully falsifying Saint Paul, in the second chapter to the Romans — where Saint Paul says to the Jews: “Thou abhorrest idols and robbest God of his honour” — meaning that though they abhorred the pagans’ idols and would not worship their false gods that were devils, yet for all that, by breaking God’s law through their evil living, they robbed God of His honour, causing Him and His law to be dishonourably spoken of among the pagans.
Note
More cites Romans 2:22 — Paul’s direct charge against the Jews — and explains its precise theological content: the Jews‘ external religiosity (rejection of idolatry, observance of the Law) is nullified by their internal moral corruption. By living wickedly while professing to follow God’s Law, they cause God and His Law to be dishonourably spoken of among the pagans — a form of blasphemy through scandal committed from within the covenant, and therefore worse than simple unbelief. More’s immediate purpose is to catch Tyndale in a mistranslation of this passage, but the passage stands independently as a Pauline adversus Judaeos charge that More presents as the plain sense of Scripture: the Jews‘ combination of formal orthodoxy with practical wickedness constitutes a robbery of God’s honour.
Sources
All passages in this compilation are drawn from the following works, available in full at the links below:
- Sir Thomas More, A Dialogue of Comfort Against Tribulation (Charles Dolman, London, 1847 ed.) https://archive.org/details/dialogueofcomfor00moreuoft/mode/2up
- Sir Thomas More, The Confutation of Tyndale’s Answer, Books 1–4 (Thomas More Studies, 2020 ed.) https://thomasmorestudies.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/Confutation-1-4-9-30-2020.pdf
- Sir Thomas More, The Confutation of Tyndale’s Answer, Books 5–9 (Thomas More Studies, 2014 ed.) https://thomasmorestudies.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/Confutation5-9_2014-etext.pdf
The adversus Judaeos content is most concentrated in The Confutation of Tyndale’s Answer, Books 5–9, particularly in More’s extended arguments about the Synagogue vs. the Church, his treatment of the Talmud, and his typological use of the scribes and Pharisees. No significant Talmud criticism was identified in A Dialogue of Comfort Against Tribulation, which is primarily devotional rather than polemical in character.