Scottish Text Society publications > Old series > New Testament in Scots > Volume 1, 1901

INTRODUCTION.
XV
extreme limits of time within which the text (or section
II.) was probably begun and finished. It is not likely,
in any case, that after 1525, when copies of Tyndale’s
version were imported into Scotland, any Reformer
would take a Wyclififite version from the Latin Vulgate,
in preference to Tyndale’s from the original Greek, as
the basis of a Scots New Testament. But when Nisbet,
after finishing his text, was thinking of a Prologue
(section I.), Luther’s version, first printed in 1522, was at
hand—for the Scots prologue is in fact, for the greater
part, a close translation of Luther’s Preface; and this
furnishes a further argument, of some probability at
least, that even Luther’s version was not published
when the transcript of Purvey’s text was begun, for the
writer who could translate the Preface could as well
have translated the text, and it may be presumed that
he would have likewise preferred Luther to Purvey as a
ground-work. It also appears that Tyndale had trans¬
lated the same preface of Luther for the New Testa¬
ment, the printing of which was interrupted in 1525.1 If
this had been known to the Scottish scribe, he would
not have needed to make his own independent trans¬
lation. Consequently we may put the composition of
the Nisbet Preface between 1522 and 1526. At a later
date, 1534 and 1536, appeared editions of Tyndale with
the long prologue to the Epistle to the Romans. This
came too late, apparently, for insertion in its proper
place in the Nisbet MS., but a Scotticised transcript of
it was added at some subsequent period at the end of
the volume. Another trace of Tyndale’s influence on
our volume is perhaps to be found in the crosses and
1 See note, infra, p. x.