nned the obscurity of the Papists, in their _Azimes_, _Tunike_,
_Rational_, _Holocausts_, _Praepuce_, _Pasche_, and a number of such
like."[216]

In the interval between Tyndale's translation and the appearance of the
Authorized Version the two parties shifted their ground rather
amusingly. More accuses Tyndale of taking liberties with the prevailing
English usage, especially when he substitutes congregation for church,
and insists that the people understand by _church_ what they ought to
understand. "This is true," he says, "of the usual signification of
these words themselves in the English tongue, by the common custom of us
English people, that either now do use these words in our language, or
that have used before our days. And I say that this common custom and
usage of speech is the only thing by which we know the right and proper
signification of any word, in so much that if a word were taken out of
Latin, French, or Spanish, and were for lack of understanding of the
tongue from whence it came, used for another thing in English than it
was in the former tongue: then signifieth it in England none other thing
than as we use it and understand thereby, whatsoever it signify anywhere
else. Then say I now that in England this word congregation did never
signify the number of Christian people with a connotation or
consideration of their faith or christendom, no more than this word
assemble, which hath been taken out of the French, and now is by custom
become English, as congregation is out of the Latin."[217] Later he
returns to the charge with the words, "And then must he with his
translation make us an English vocabulary too."[218] In the later
period, however, the positions are reversed. The conservative party,
represented by the Rhemish translators, admit that they are employing
unfamiliar words, but say that it is a question of faithfulness to
originals, and that the new words "will easily grow to be current and
familiar,"[219] a contention not without basis when one considers how
much acceptance or rejection by the English Bible could affect the
status of a word. Moreover the introduction of new words into the
Scriptures had its parallel in the efforts being made elsewhere to
enrich the language. The Rhemish preface, published in 1582, almost
contemporaneously with Lyly's _Euphues_ and Sidney's _Arcadia_,
justifies its practice thus: "And why should we be squamish at new words
or phrases in the Scripture, which are