The top translator and overseer of the KJV translation, Lancelot Andrewes was perhaps the most brilliant man of his age, and one of the most pious. A man of high ecclesiastical office during both Elizabeth\u2019s and James\u2019s reigns, bishop in three different cities under James, Andrewes is still highly enough regarded in the Church of England to merit his own minor feast on the church calendar.<\/p>\n
Though Andrewes never wrote \u201cliterature,\u201d modern writers as diverse as T. S. Eliot and Kurt Vonnegut Jr. have called him one of the great literary writers in English. His sermons feel too stiff and artificial and are clotted with too many Latin phrases to appeal to most today, but they are also filled with strikingly beautiful passages. Eliot, a great modern poet in his own right, took a section of an Andrewes sermon and started one of his own poems with it (\u201cThe Journey of the Magi\u201d):<\/p>\n
A cold coming we had of it,
\nJust the worst time of the year for a journey,
\nand such a long journey:
\nThe ways deep and the weather sharp,
\nThe very dead of winter.<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\nAndrewes served not only as the leader of the First Westminster Company of Translators, which translated Genesis \u2013 2 Kings, but also as general editor of the whole project. He very likely, as Benson Bobrick suggests, drafted the final form of \u201csuch celebrated passages as the Creation and Fall; Abraham and Isaac; the Exodus; David\u2019s laments for Saul, Jonathan, and Absalom; and Elijah\u2019s encounter with the \u2018still small voice.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n
Read it all<\/a>.<\/p>\n
\nToday the Church of England celebrates Lancelot Andrewes, Bishop of Winchester, Spiritual Writer, 1626
He oversaw the King James Bible translation & is personally credited for his translation of the Pentateuch
Image: Window in St Giles-without-Cripplegate (Ndoduc, CC BY-SA 4.0) pic.twitter.com\/jhZFkQw7Qt<\/a><\/p>\n— The Anglican Church in St Petersburg (@anglicanspb) September 25, 2023<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n