William Tyndale on the Trinity
One substance, three persons, co-equal and co-eternal
THE POSITION
He takes the Trinity as given and never argues it in what was read. The texts that touch it do so in passing: on 1 John he argues from "that which was from the beginning" that Christ is very God, and eternal life with the Father; he calls the Holy Ghost "no dumb God" in the Leviticus prologue; and he closes the Jonas prologue with praise to God the Father, through Christ, and to his holy Spirit. Those passages fit the Nicene stance and nothing in them strains it, but none states three persons in one substance, so the tier is established rather than researched.
WHY THERE IS NO QUOTATIONFifteen of the nineteen positions carry a quotation. Four do not, for two reasons: on the canon and the millennium nothing was found in the three volumes searched, and on the Trinity and the final state he assumes the answer in passing rather than arguing it. Every quotation is read from the Parker Society edition through its scanned text, not a print copy. Four come from his 1534 prologue to Romans, which follows Luther's preface closely and says so in each cell.
1 That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our own eyes, which we have gazed upon and touched with our own hands—this is the Word of life. 2 And this is the life that was revealed; we have seen it and testified to it, and we proclaim to you the eternal life that was with the Father and was revealed to us.
25 OTHERS HOLD THIS
ABOUT THIS FIGURE
English translator of the New Testament from Greek and of the Pentateuch from Hebrew, working in exile in the Low Countries, whose wording runs through the King James Version. He was strangled and burned at Vilvoorde in 1536. He was also the first English Protestant theologian of weight, defending justification by faith, the authority of Scripture over the church, and the obedience owed to kings. This entry rests on the Obedience of a Christian Man, the Answer to Sir Thomas More, the Brief Declaration of the Sacraments, the exposition of 1 John and his biblical prologues, all in the Parker Society edition (1848–1850).
Cite this page
"William Tyndale on the Trinity", Examined Doctrine, July 2026 edition, https://examineddoctrine.com/position/tyndale/trinity (archived at https://examineddoctrine.com/editions/2026-07/position/tyndale/trinity).