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William Tyndale studied at Oxford and Cambridge. He could speak seven languages and was proficient in Hebrew and Greek. He was a priest whose intellectual gifts and disciplined life could have taken him a long way in the church, had he not had one compulsion: to teach English men and women the good news of justification by faith.

Tyndale had discovered the freedom and joy of this doctrine when he read Erasmus’s Greek edition of the New Testament. What better way to share this message with English men and women than to put an English copy of the New Testament into their hands? This was not a passing fancy but became Tyndale’s life passion, aptly expressed by his mentor, Erasmus, in the preface to his Greek New Testament: “Christ desires his mysteries to be published abroad as widely as possible. I would that [the Gospels and the epistles of Paul] were translated into all languages, of all Christian people, and that they might be read and known.”

It would be a passion, though, for which Tyndale would pay dearly.

He began decently and in order: in 1523, he sought permission and funds from the bishop of London to translate the New Testament. The bishop’s answer was no, a telling no. Further queries in England convinced Tyndale that the project would not be welcomed by authorities anywhere in his land. So he left England for the free cities of Europe—Hamburg, Wittenberg, Cologne, Worms, and Antwerp—some place where he could translate and publish an English Bible.

From the Lutheran city of Worms, in 1525, his New Testament emerged—the first translation from Greek into English. It was quickly smuggled into England, where it received a less-than-enthusiastic response from the authorities. King Henry VIII, Cardinal Wolsey, and Sir Thomas More, among others, were furious. It was, said More, “not worthy to be called Christ’s testament, but either Tyndale’s own testament or the testament of his master Antichrist.”

Copies of his translation were bought up and burned, and plans were hatched to silence the troublesome translator.

Tyndale soon moved to Antwerp, a city in which he was relatively free from both English agents and those of the Holy Roman (and Catholic) Empire. For nine years he managed, with the help of friends, to evade authorities as he revised his New Testament and began translating the Old.

He also gave himself methodically to good works because, as he said, “My part be not in Christ if mine heart be not to follow and live according as I teach.” On Mondays he visited others who had fled England because of religious persecution. On Saturdays he walked the streets, seeking in Antwerp’s nooks and crannies poor people he could minister to. On Sundays he would dine in a merchant’s home, reading Scripture before and after dinner. The rest of the week was devoted to writing tracts and books and translating the Bible.

We do not know who exactly planned and financed the plot that interrupted this routine—probably high-ranking English bishops. We do know it was carried out by Henry Phillips, a man who had been accused of robbing his father and of gambling himself into poverty.

Phillips managed to pick up Tyndale’s trail in Antwerp and wormed his way into Tyndale’s life. Thomas Poyntz, Tyndale’s associate and close friend, distrusted Phillips but could not convince Tyndale to avoid him. Phillips became Tyndale’s guest at meals. Soon he was one of the few privileged to look at Tyndale’s books and papers.

In May 1535, Phillips found a way to lure Tyndale away from the safety of his quarters at the English House of Antwerp, a house set aside for traveling English merchants. While slipping through a narrow alley, Tyndale walked into the arms of a band of soldiers whom Phillips had posted. He was immediately taken to the Castle of Vilvorde, the great state prison of the Low Countries, and accused of heresy.

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