William Whittingham - at Geneva

At Geneva

For more details on this topic, see Geneva Bible.

On 16 December 1555, and again in December 1556, Whittingham was elected an elder of the church at Geneva; on 16 December 1558 he was appointed deacon, and in 1559 he succeeded Knox as minister. He had received no ordination but his reluctance was overcome by Calvin's insistence. On Queen Mary's death most of the exiles at Geneva returned to England, but Whittingham remained to complete the translation of the Geneva Bible. He had already produced a version of the New Testament, which was issued at Geneva in 12mo by Conrad Badius on 10 June 1557, but this differs from the version included in the Geneva or ‘Breeches’ bible, for which Whittingham is generally held to be mainly responsible. He also took part in the revision of the Old Testament. The critical and explanatory notes were of a Calvinist character. It was printed at Geneva by Rowland Hall in 1560; after 1611 its vogue was not exhausted, ten editions appearing between that date and 1640.

Besides the translation of the Bible, Whittingham while at Geneva turned into metrical versions some of the Psalms. Seven of these were included among the fifty-one psalms published at Geneva in 1556 as part of the service-book which Whittingham and his colleagues had been appointed to draw up at Frankfort; the others were revised versions of Thomas Sternhold's psalms. A metrical rendering of the Ten Commandments by Whittingham is appended. Another edition in 1558, now lost, is believed to have contained nine fresh psalms by Whittingham; these were reprinted in the edition of 1561, to which Whittingham also contributed a version of the ‘Song of Simeon’ and two of the Lord's Prayer. Besides these Whittingham translated four psalms in the Scottish psalter, which do not appear in any English edition. Whittingham also wrote a preface to Nicholas Ridley's ‘Brief Declaration of the Lord's Supper’ (Geneva? 1555), revised for press Knox's work on predestination, which was published at Geneva in 1560, and contributed a dedicatory epistle to Christopher Goodman's ‘How Superior Powers ought to be obeyed’ (Geneva, 1558), in which views similar to Knox's were adopted with regard to the ‘regiment of women.’