The spelling of this title is now commonly modernized and abbreviated to The Obedience of a Christian Man.
It was first published by Merten de Keyser in Antwerp, and is best known for advocating Caesaropapism: the ideology that the King of a country was the head of that country's church, rather than the Holy See, and to be the first instance, in the English language at any rate, of advocating the divine right of kings, a concept mistakenly attributed to the Catholic Church.
[1] It is believed that the book greatly influenced Henry VIII's decision in declaring the Act of Supremacy, by which he became Supreme Head of the Church of England, in 1534.
[2] Tyndale's opposition to Henry's divorce from Catherine of Aragon earned him the king's enmity, but when Tyndale was arrested by the Roman Catholic authorities in Antwerp in 1535, Henry's chief minister Thomas Cromwell attempted unsuccessfully to intervene on his behalf.
Despite being officially banned, Obedience was still widely read throughout England and, later on, was even mentioned in the works of Shakespeare (xxvii).
The book proper contains three overall topics: God's laws of obedience, how one should obey and rule in life (addressed to all of English society), and a discussion on the literal interpretation of scripture.
"How can we whet God's Word (that is put into practice, use and exercise) upon our children and household, when we are violently kept from it and know it not?"
He believes that the reading of scripture directly reveals the power of God to the individual, without any need of an intermediary, like a priest.
One of his principal concerns revisited throughout the text is the availability of an English-language Bible for the common people to read.
Tyndale criticizes the church for allowing the English people to be ignorant of the Bible, and replacing the teaching of scripture with ceremonies or ritual superstition.
He states that Jesus had commanded the people to read scripture for themselves so they would know if "false prophets" (22) were trying to deceive them and reminds us that the apostles preached in local languages, and therefore, as a matter of custom, the English people should receive scripture in English.
Tyndale asks if (Saint) Jerome could translate scripture into his own language, why not the English people?
More significantly, in the section titled, "The Obedience of Subjects unto Kings, Princes and Rulers," Tyndale states that the "powers that be" (36) are powers ordained by God, and that resistance to earthly authority is resistance to God's authority, but the bishops have usurped earthly authority from secular rulers, and therefore, they must be resisted, as God has appointed the kings, princes, and other secular leaders as his representatives on earth.
All men, including the king, must perform their earthly duties or answer to God; but the king is controlled by the Pope, creating a situation for like that of living in two nations, not one; that split between church and state has allowed the church to intervene at every level of English society.
In Tyndale's political system, the king is supreme in the state: "To preach God's Word is too much for half a man.
Fear him therefore and look on him as thou wouldest look on a sharp sword that hanged over thy head by an [sic] hair" (54–55).
Tyndale asks the church, "Who gave the Pope the authority to command God to damn people?"
Tyndale accuses the church of being more concerned with performing ceremonies than living by the laws set by Christ in scripture.
Tyndale feels that the church should preach rather than perform superstitious ceremonies, like confession: "Moreover if any man have sinned yet if he repent and believe the promise, we are sure by God's word that he is loosed and forgiven in Christ" (124).
"Paul in every epistle warneth us that we put no trust in works, and to beware of persuasions or arguments of man's wisdom, of superstitiousness, of ceremonies of popeholiness and of all manner disguising.
"They preach it were better for thee to eat flesh on Good Friday than to hate thy neighbor: but let any man eat flesh but on a Sunday or break any other tradition of theirs, and he shall be bound and not loosed, till he have paid the utmost farthing, other with shame most vile or death most cruel, but hate thy neighbor as much as thou wilt and thou shalt have no rebuke of them, yea rob him, murder him, and then come to them and welcome" (99).