The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Revision Revised by John William Burgon

This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at http://www.gutenberg.org/license

Title: The Revision Revised

Author: John William Burgon

Release Date: July 13, 2011 [Ebook #36722]

Language: English

***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE REVISION REVISED***

The Revision Revised.

Three Articles

Reprinted From The “Quarterly Review.”

I. The New Greek Text.

II. The New English Version.

III. Westcott and Hort's New Textual Theory.

To Which is Added A

Reply to Bishop Ellicott's Pamphlet

In Defence Of

The Revisers and Their Greek Text of the New Testament:

Including a Vindication of the Traditional Reading of 1 Timothy III. 16.

By John William Burgon, B.D.

Dean of Chichester.

“Little children,—Keep yourselves from idols.”—1 John v. 21.

Dover Publications, Inc.

New York

1971

Contents

• Dedication.
• Preface.
• Article I. The New Greek Text.
• Article II. The New English Version.
• Article III. Westcott And Hort's New Textual Theory.
• Letter To Bishop Ellicott, In Reply To His Pamphlet.
• Appendix Of Sacred Codices.
• Index I, of Texts of Scripture,—quoted, discussed, or only referred to in this volume.
• Index II, of Fathers.
• Index III, Persons, Places, and Subjects.
• Footnotes

[pg iv]

[Transcriber's Note: This book contains much Greek text, which will not be well-rendered in plain text versions of this E-book. Also, there is much use of Greek characters with a vertical bar across the tops of the letters to indicate abbreviations; because the coding system used in this e-book does not have such an “overline”, they are rendered here with underlines. It also contains some text in Syriac, which is written right-to-left; for the sake of different transcription methods, it is transcribed here in both right-to-left and left-to-rights, so that regardless of the medium of this E-book, one or the other should be readable.]

The following is Prebendary Scrivener's recently published estimate of the System on which Drs. Westcott and Hort have constructed their “Revised Greek Text of the New Testament” (1881).—That System, the Chairman of the Revising Body (Bishop Ellicott) has entirely adopted (see below, pp. 391 to 397), and made the basis of his Defence of The Revisers and their “New Greek Text.”

(1.) “There is little hope for the stability of their imposing structure, if its foundations have been laid on the sandy ground of ingenious conjecture. And, since barely the smallest vestige of historical evidence has ever been alleged in support of the views of these accomplished Editors, their teaching must either be received as intuitively true, or dismissed from our consideration as precarious and even visionary.”

(2.) “Dr. Hort's System is entirely destitute of historical foundation.”

(3.) “We are compelled to repeat as emphatically as ever our strong conviction that the Hypothesis to whose proof he has devoted so many laborious years, is destitute not only of historical foundation, but of all probability, resulting from the internal goodness of the Text which its adoption would force upon us.”

(4.) “ ‘We cannot doubt’ (says Dr. Hort) ‘that S. Luke xxiii. 34 comes from an extraneous source.’ [Notes, p. 68.]—Nor can we, on our part, doubt,” (rejoins Dr. Scrivener,) “that the System which entails such consequences is hopelessly self-condemned.”

Scrivener's “Plain Introduction,” &c. [ed. 1883]: pp. 531, 537, 542, 604.

[pg v]

Dedication.

To The
Right Hon. Viscount Cranbrook, G.C.S.I.,
&c., &c., &c.

My dear Lord Cranbrook,

Allow me the gratification of dedicating the present Volume to yourself; but for whom—(I reserve the explanation for another day)—it would never have been written.

This is not, (as you will perceive at a glance,) the Treatise which a few years ago I told you I had in hand; and which, but for the present hindrance, might by this time have been completed. It has however grown out of that other work in the manner explained at the beginning of my Preface. Moreover it contains not a few specimens of the argumentation of which the work in question, when at last it sees the light, will be discovered to be full.

My one object has been to defeat the mischievous attempt which was made in 1881 to thrust upon this Church and Realm a Revision of the Sacred Text, which—recommended though it be by eminent names—I am thoroughly convinced, and am able to prove, is untrustworthy from beginning to end.

[pg vi]

The reason is plain. It has been constructed throughout on an utterly erroneous hypothesis. And I inscribe this Volume to you, my friend, as a conspicuous member of that body of faithful and learned Laity by whose deliberate verdict, when the whole of the evidence has been produced and the case has been fully argued out, I shall be quite willing that my contention may stand or fall.

The English (as well as the Greek) of the newly “Revised Version” is hopelessly at fault. It is to me simply unintelligible how a company of Scholars can have spent ten years in elaborating such a very unsatisfactory production. Their uncouth phraseology and their jerky sentences, their pedantic obscurity and their unidiomatic English, contrast painfully with “the happy turns of expression, the music of the cadences, the felicities of the rhythm” of our Authorized Version. The transition from one to the other, as the Bishop of Lincoln remarks, is like exchanging a well-built carriage for a vehicle without springs, in which you get jolted to death on a newly-mended and rarely-traversed road. But the “Revised Version”is inaccurate as well; exhibits defective scholarship, I mean, in countless places.

It is, however, the systematic depravation of the underlying Greek which does so grievously offend me: for this is nothing else but a poisoning of the River of Life at its sacred source. Our Revisers, (with the best and purest intentions, no doubt,) stand convicted of having deliberately rejected the words of [pg vii]Inspiration in every page, and of having substituted for them fabricated Readings which the Church has long since refused to acknowledge, or else has rejected with abhorrence; and which only survive at this time in a little handful of documents of the most depraved type.

As Critics they have had abundant warning. Twelve years ago (1871) a volume appeared on the “last Twelve Verses of the Gospel according to S. Mark,”—of which the declared object was to vindicate those Verses against certain critical objectors, and to establish them by an exhaustive argumentative process. Up to this hour, for a very obvious reason, no answer to that volume has been attempted. And yet, at the end of ten years (1881),—not only in the Revised English but also in the volume which professes to exhibit the underlying Greek, (which at least is indefensible,)—the Revisers are observed to separate off those Twelve precious Verses from their context, in token that they are no part of the genuine Gospel. Such a deliberate preference of “mumpsimus” to “sumpsimus” is by no means calculated to conciliate favour, or even to win respect. The Revisers have in fact been the dupes of an ingenious Theorist, concerning whose extraordinary views you are invited to read what Dr. Scrivener has recently put forth. The words of the last-named writer (who is facile princeps in Textual Criticism) will be found facing the beginning of the present Dedication.

If, therefore, any do complain that I have sometimes hit my opponents rather hard, I take leave to point out that “to everything [pg viii]there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the sun”: “a time to embrace, and a time to be far from embracing”: a time for speaking smoothly, and a time for speaking sharply. And that when the words of Inspiration are seriously imperilled, as now they are, it is scarcely possible for one who is determined effectually to preserve the Deposit in its integrity, to hit either too straight or too hard. In handling certain recent utterances of Bishop Ellicott, I considered throughout that it was the “Textual Critic”—not the Successor of the Apostles,—with whom I had to do.

And thus I commend my Volume, the fruit of many years of incessant anxious toil, to your indulgence: requesting that you will receive it as a token of my sincere respect and admiration; and desiring to be remembered, my dear Lord Cranbrook, as

Your grateful and affectionate Friend and Servant, John W. Burgon.

Deanery, Chichester,
All Saints' Day., 1883.

[pg ix]

Preface.

The ensuing three Articles from the “Quarterly Review,”—(wrung out of me by the publication [May 17th, 1881] of the “Revision” of our “Authorized Version of the New Testament,”)—appear in their present form in compliance with an amount of continuous solicitation that they should be separately published, which it would have been alike unreasonable and ungracious to disregard. I was not prepared for it. It has caused me—as letter after letter has reached my hands—mixed feelings; has revived all my original disinclination and regret. For, gratified as I cannot but feel by the reception my labours have met with,—(and only the Author of my being knows what an amount of antecedent toil is represented by the ensuing pages,)—I yet deplore more heartily than I am able to express, the injustice done to the cause of Truth by handling the subject in this fragmentary way, and by exhibiting the evidence for what is most certainly true, in such a very incomplete form. A systematic Treatise is the indispensable condition for securing cordial assent to the view for which I mainly contend. The cogency of the argument lies entirely in the cumulative character of the proof. It requires to be demonstrated by induction from a large collection of particular instances, as well as by the complex exhibition of many converging lines of evidence, that the testimony of one small group of documents, or rather, of one particular manuscript,—(namely [pg x] the Vatican Codex b, which, for some unexplained reason, it is just now the fashion to regard with superstitious deference,)—is the reverse of trustworthy. Nothing in fact but a considerable Treatise will ever effectually break the yoke of that iron tyranny to which the excellent Bishop of Gloucester and Bristol and his colleagues have recently bowed their necks; and are now for imposing on all English-speaking men. In brief, if I were not, on the one hand, thoroughly convinced of the strength of my position,—(and I know it to be absolutely impregnable);—yet more, if on the other hand, I did not cherish entire confidence in the practical good sense and fairness of the English mind;—I could not have brought myself to come before the public in the unsystematic way which alone is possible in the pages of a Review. I must have waited, at all hazards, till I had finished “my Book.”

But then, delay would have been fatal. I saw plainly that unless a sharp blow was delivered immediately, the Citadel would be in the enemy's hands. I knew also that it was just possible to condense into 60 or 70 closely-printed pages what must logically prove fatal to the “Revision.” So I set to work; and during the long summer days of 1881 (June to September) the foremost of these three Articles was elaborated. When the October number of “the Quarterly” appeared, I comforted myself with the secret consciousness that enough was by this time on record, even had my life been suddenly brought to a close, to secure the ultimate rejection of the “Revision” of 1881. I knew that the “New Greek Text,” (and therefore the “New English Version”), [pg xi] had received its death-blow. It might for a few years drag out a maimed existence; eagerly defended by some,—timidly pleaded for by others. But such efforts could be of no avail. Its days were already numbered. The effect of more and yet more learned investigation,—of more elaborate and more extended inquiry,—must be to convince mankind more and yet more thoroughly that the principles on which it had been constructed were radically unsound. In the end, when partisanship had cooled down, and passion had evaporated, and prejudice had ceased to find an auditory, the “Revision” of 1881 must come to be universally regarded as—what it most certainly is,—the most astonishing, as well as the most calamitous literary blunder of the Age.

I. I pointed out that “the New Greek Text,”—which, in defiance of their instructions,1 the Revisionists of “the Authorized English Version” had been so ill-advised as to spend ten years in elaborating,—was a wholly untrustworthy performance: was full of the gravest errors from beginning to end: had been constructed throughout on an entirely mistaken Theory. Availing myself of the published confession of one of the Revisionists,2 I explained the nature of the calamity which had befallen the Revision. I traced the mischief home to its true authors,—Drs. Westcott and Hort; a copy of whose unpublished Text of the N. T. (the most vicious in existence) had been confidentially, and under pledges of the strictest secrecy, placed in the hands of every [pg xii] member of the revising Body.3 I called attention to the fact that, unacquainted with the difficult and delicate science of Textual Criticism, the Revisionists had, in an evil hour, surrendered themselves to Dr. Hort's guidance: had preferred his counsels to those of Prebendary Scrivener, (an infinitely more trustworthy guide): and that the work before the public was the piteous—but inevitable—result. All this I explained in the October number of the “Quarterly Review” for 1881.4

II. In thus demonstrating the worthlessness of the “New Greek Text” of the Revisionists, I considered that I had destroyed the key of their position. And so perforce I had: for if the underlying Greek Text be mistaken, what else but incorrect must the English Translation be? But on examining the so-called “Revision of the Authorized Version,” I speedily made the further discovery that the Revised English would have been in itself intolerable, even had the Greek been let alone. In the first place, to my surprise and annoyance, it proved to be a New Translation (rather than a Revision of the Old) which had been attempted. Painfully apparent were the tokens which met me on every side that the Revisionists had been supremely eager not so much to correct none but “plain and clear errors,”—as to introduce as many changes into the English of the New Testament Scriptures as they conveniently could.5 A skittish impatience of the admirable work before them, and a strange inability [pg xiii] to appreciate its manifold excellences:—a singular imagination on the part of the promiscuous Company which met in the Jerusalem Chamber that they were competent to improve the Authorized Version in every part, and an unaccountable forgetfulness that the fundamental condition under which the task of Revision had been by themselves undertaken, was that they should abstain from all but “necessary” changes:—this proved to be only part of the offence which the Revisionists had committed. It was found that they had erred through defective Scholarship to an extent, and with a frequency, which to me is simply inexplicable. I accordingly made it my business to demonstrate all this in a second Article which appeared in the next (the January) number of the “Quarterly Review,” and was entitled “The New English Translation.”6

III. Thereupon, a pretence was set up in many quarters, (but only by the Revisionists and their friends,) that all my labour hitherto had been thrown away, because I had omitted to disprove the principles on which this “New Greek Text” is founded. I flattered myself indeed that quite enough had been said to make it logically certain that the underlying “Textual Theory” must be worthless. But I was not suffered to cherish this conviction in quiet. It was again and again cast in my teeth that I had not yet grappled with Drs. Westcott and Hort's “arguments.” “Instead of condemning their Text, why do you not disprove their Theory?” It was tauntingly insinuated that I knew better than to cross swords [pg xiv] with the two Cambridge Professors. This reduced me to the necessity of either leaving it to be inferred from my silence that I had found Drs. Westcott and Hort's “arguments” unanswerable; or else of coming forward with their book in my hand, and demonstrating that in their solemn pages an attentive reader finds himself encountered by nothing but a series of unsupported assumptions: that their (so called) “Theory” is in reality nothing else but a weak effort of the Imagination: that the tissue which these accomplished scholars have been thirty years in elaborating, proves on inspection to be as flimsy and as worthless as any spider's web.

I made it my business in consequence to expose, somewhat in detail, (in a third Article, which appeared in the “Quarterly Review” for April 1882), the absolute absurdity,—(I use the word advisedly)—of “Westcott and Hort's New Textual Theory;”7 and I now respectfully commend those 130 pages to the attention of candid and unprejudiced readers. It were idle to expect to convince any others. We have it on good authority (Dr. Westcott's) that “he who has long pondered over a train of Reasoning, becomes unable to detect its weak points.”8 A yet stranger phenomenon is, that those who have once committed themselves to an erroneous Theory, seem to be incapable of opening their eyes to the untrustworthiness of the fabric they have erected, even when it comes down in their sight, like a child's house built with playing-cards,—and presents to every eye but their own the appearance of a shapeless ruin.

[pg xv]

§ 1. Two full years have elapsed since the first of these Essays was published; and my Criticism—for the best of reasons—remains to this hour unanswered. The public has been assured indeed, (in the course of some hysterical remarks by Canon Farrar9), that “the ‘Quarterly Reviewer’ can be refuted as fully as he desires as soon as any scholar has the leisure to answer him.” The “Quarterly Reviewer” can afford to wait,—if the Revisers can. But they are reminded that it is no answer to one who has demolished their master's “Theory,” for the pupils to keep on reproducing fragments of it; and by their mistakes and exaggerations, to make both themselves and him, ridiculous.

[pg xvi]

§ 2. Thus, a writer in the “Church Quarterly” for January 1882, (whose knowledge of the subject is entirely derived from what Dr. Hort has taught him,)—being evidently much exercised by the first of my three Articles in the “Quarterly Review,”—gravely informs the public that “it is useless to parade such an array of venerable witnesses,” (meaning the enumerations of Fathers of the iiird, ivth, and vth centuries which are given below, at pp. 42-4: 80-1: 84: 133: 212-3: 359-60: 421: 423: 486-90:)—“for they have absolutely nothing to say which deserves a moment's hearing.”10—What a pity it is, (while he was about it), that the learned gentleman did not go on to explain that the moon is made of green cheese!

§ 3. Dr. Sanday,11 in a kindred spirit, delivers it as his opinion, that “the one thing” I lack “is a grasp on the central condition of the problem:”—that I do “not seem to have the faintest glimmering of the principle of ‘Genealogy:’ ”—that I am “all at sea:”—that my “heaviest batteries are discharged at random:”—and a great deal more to the same effect. The learned Professor is quite welcome to think such things of me, if he pleases. Οὐ φροντὶς Ἱπποκλείδῃ.

§ 4. At the end of a year, a Reviewer of quite a different calibre made his appearance in the January number (1883) of the “Church Quarterly:” in return for whose not very [pg xvii] encouraging estimate of my labours, I gladly record my conviction that if he will seriously apply his powerful and accurate mind to the department of Textual Criticism, he will probably produce a work which will help materially to establish the study in which he takes such an intelligent interest, on a scientific basis. But then, he is invited to accept the friendly assurance that the indispensable condition of success in this department is, that a man should give to the subject, (which is a very intricate one and abounds in unexplored problems), his undivided attention for an extended period. I trust there is nothing unreasonable in the suggestion that one who has not done this, should be very circumspect when he sits in judgment on a neighbour of his who, for very many years past, has given to Textual Criticism the whole of his time;—has freely sacrificed health, ease, relaxation, even necessary rest, to this one object;—has made it his one business to acquire such an independent mastery of the subject as shall qualify him to do battle successfully for the imperilled letter of God's Word. My friend however thinks differently. He says of me,—

“In his first Article there was something amusing in the simplicity with which ‘Lloyd's Greek Testament’ (which is only a convenient little Oxford edition of the ordinary kind) was put forth as the final standard of appeal. It recalled to our recollection Bentley's sarcasm upon the text of Stephanus, which ‘your learned Whitbyus’ takes for the sacred original in every syllable.” (P. 354.)

§ 5. On referring to the passage where my “simplicity” has afforded amusement to a friend whose brilliant conversation is always a delight to me, I read as follows,—

[pg xviii]

“It is discovered that in the 111 (out of 320) pages of a copy of Lloyd's Greek Testament, in which alone these five manuscripts are collectively available for comparison in the Gospels,—the serious deflections of a from the Textus Receptus amount in all to only 842: whereas in c they amount to 1798: in b, to 2370: in א, to 3392: in d, to 4697. The readings peculiar to awithin the same limits are 133: those peculiar to c are 170. But those of b amount to 197: while א exhibits 443: and the readings peculiar to d (within the same limits), are no fewer than 1829.... We submit that these facts are not altogether calculated to inspire confidence in codices b א c d.”12

§ 6. But how (let me ask) does it appear from this, that I have “put forth Lloyd's Greek Testament as the final standard of Appeal”? True, that, in order to exhibit clearly their respective divergences, I have referred five famous codices (a b א c d)—certain of which are found to have turned the brain of Critics of the new school—to one and the same familiar exhibition of the commonly received Text of the New Testament: but by so doing I have not by any means assumed the Textual purity of that common standard. In other words I have not made it “the final standard of Appeal.” All Critics,—wherever found,—at all times, have collated with the commonly received Text: but only as the most convenient standard of Comparison; not, surely, as the [pg xix] absolute standard of Excellence. The result of the experiment already referred to,—(and, I beg to say, it was an exceedingly laborious experiment,)—has been, to demonstrate that the five Manuscripts in question stand apart from one another in the following proportions:—

842 (a) : 1798 (c) : 2370 (b) : 3392 (א) : 4697 (d).

But would not the same result have been obtained if the “five old uncials” had been referred to any other common standard which can be named? In the meantime, what else is the inevitable inference from this phenomenon but that four out of the five must be—while all the five may be—outrageously depraved documents? instead of being fit to be made our exclusive guides to the Truth of Scripture,—as Critics of the school of Tischendorf and Tregelles would have us believe that they are?

§ 7. I cited a book which is in the hands of every schoolboy, (Lloyd's “Greek Testament,”) only in order to facilitate reference, and to make sure that my statements would be at once understood by the least learned person who could be supposed to have access to the “Quarterly.” I presumed every scholar to be aware that Bp. Lloyd (1827) professes to reproduce Mill's text; and that Mill (1707) reproduces the text of Stephens;13 and that Stephens (1550) exhibits with sufficient accuracy the Traditional text,—which is confessedly [pg xx] at least 1530 years old.14 Now, if a tolerable approximation to the text of a.d. 350 may not be accepted as a standard of Comparison,—will the writer in the “Church Quarterly” be so obliging as to inform us which exhibition of the sacred Text may?

§ 8. A pamphlet by the Bishop of Gloucester and Bristol,15 which appeared in April 1882, remains to be considered. Written expressly in defence of the Revisers and their New Greek Text, this composition displays a slenderness of acquaintance with the subject now under discussion, for which I was little prepared. Inasmuch however as it is the production of the Chairman of the Revisionist body, and professes to be a reply to my first two Articles, I have bestowed upon it an elaborate and particular rejoinder extending to an hundred-and-fifty pages.16 I shall in consequence be very brief concerning it in this place.

§ 9. The respected writer does nothing else but reproduce Westcott and Hort's theory in Westcott and Hort's words. He contributes nothing of his own. The singular infelicity which attended his complaint that the “Quarterly Reviewer” “censures their [Westcott and Hort's] Text,” but, “has not attempted a serious examination of the arguments which they allege in its support,” I have sufficiently dwelt upon elsewhere.17 The rest of the Bishop's contention may be summed [pg xxi] up in two propositions:—The first, (I.) That if the Revisionists are wrong in their “New Greek Text,” then (not only Westcott and Hort, but) Lachmann, Tischendorf and Tregelles must be wrong also,—a statement which I hold to be incontrovertible.—The Bishop's other position is also undeniable: viz. (II.) That in order to pass an equitable judgment on ancient documents, they are to be carefully studied, closely compared, and tested by a more scientific process than rough comparison with the Textus Receptus.18... Thus, on both heads, I find myself entirely at one with Bp. Ellicott.

§ 10. And yet,—as the last 150 pages of the present volume show,—I have the misfortune to be at issue with the learned writer on almost every particular which he proposes for discussion. Thus,

§ 11. At page 64 of his pamphlet, he fastens resolutely upon the famous problem whether “God” (Θεός), or “who” (ὅς), is to be read in 1 Timothy iii. 16. I had upheld the former reading in eight pages. He contends for the latter, with something like acrimony, in twelve.19 I have been at the pains, in consequence, to write a “Dissertation” of seventy-six pages on this important subject,20—the preparation of which (may I be allowed to record the circumstance in passing?) occupied me closely for six months,21 and taxed me severely. Thus, the only point which Bishop Ellicott has condescended to discuss argumentatively with me, will be found to enjoy full half of my letter to him in reply.

[pg xxii]

The “Dissertation” referred to, I submit with humble confidence to the judgment of educated Englishmen. It requires no learning to understand the case. And I have particularly to request that those who will be at the pains to look into this question, will remember,—(1) That the place of Scripture discussed (viz. 1 Tim. iii. 16) was deliberately selected for a trial of strength by the Bishop: (I should not have chosen it myself):—(2) That on the issue of the contention which he has thus himself invited, we have respectively staked our critical reputation. The discussion exhibits very fairly our two methods,—his and mine; and “is of great importance as an example,” “illustrating in a striking manner” our respective positions,—as the Bishop himself has been careful to remind his readers.22

§ 12. One merely desirous of taking a general survey of this question, is invited to read from page 485 to 496 of the present volume. To understand the case thoroughly, he must submit to the labour of beginning at p. 424 and reading down to p. 501.

§ 13. A thoughtful person who has been at the pains to do this, will be apt on laying down the book to ask,—“But is it not very remarkable that so many as five of the ancient Versions should favour the reading ‘which,’ (μυστήριον; ὃ ἐφανερώθη,) instead of ‘God’ (Θεός)”?—“Yes, it is very remarkable,” I answer. “For though the Old Latin and the two Egyptian Versions are constantly observed to conspire [pg xxiii] in error, they rarely find allies in the Peschito and the Æthiopic. On the other hand, you are to remember that besides Versions, the Fathers have to be inquired after: while more important than either is the testimony of the Copies. Now, the combined witness to ‘God’ (Θεός),—so multitudinous, so respectable, so varied, so unequivocal,—of the Copies and of the Fathers (in addition to three of the Versions) is simply overwhelming. It becomes undeniable that Θεός is by far the best supported reading of the present place.”

§ 14. When, however, such an one as Tischendorf or Tregelles,—Hort or Ellicott,—would put me down by reminding me that half-a-dozen of the oldest Versions are against me,—“That argument” (I reply) “is not allowable on your lips. For if the united testimony of five of the Versions really be, in your account, decisive,—Why do you deny the genuineness of the last Twelve Verses of S. Mark's Gospel, which are recognized by every one of the Versions? Those Verses are besides attested by every known Copy, except two of bad character: by a mighty chorus of Fathers: by the unfaltering Tradition of the Church universal. First remove from S. Mark xvi. 20, your brand of suspicion, and then come back to me in order that we may discuss together how 1 Tim. iii. 16 is to be read. And yet, when you come back, it must not be to plead in favour of ‘who’ (ὅσ), in place of ‘God’ (Θεός). For not ‘who’ (ὅς), remember, but ‘which’ (ὅ) is the reading advocated by those five earliest Versions.” ... In other words,—the reading of 1 Tim. iii. 16, which the Revisers have adopted, enjoys, (as I have shown from page 428 to page 501), the feeblest attestation of any; besides [pg xxiv] being condemned by internal considerations and the universal Tradition of the Eastern Church.

§ 15. I pass on, after modestly asking,—Is it too much to hope, (I covet no other guerdon for my labour!) that we shall hear no more about substituting “who” for “God” in 1 Tim. iii. 16? We may not go on disputing for ever: and surely, until men are able to produce some more cogent evidence than has yet come to light in support of “the mystery of godliness, who” (τὸ τῆς εὐσβείας μυστήριον: ὅς),—all sincere inquirers after Truth are bound to accept that reading which has been demonstrated to be by far the best attested. Enough however on this head.

§ 16. It was said just now that I cordially concur with Bp. Ellicott in the second of his two propositions,—viz. That “no equitable judgment can be passed on ancient documents until they are carefully studied, and closely compared with each other, and tested by a more scientific process than rough comparison with” the Textus Receptus. I wish to add a few words on this subject: the rather, because what I am about to say will be found as applicable to my Reviewer in the “Church Quarterly” as to the Bishop. Both have misapprehended this matter, and in exactly the same way. Where such accomplished Scholars have erred, what wonder if ordinary readers should find themselves all a-field?

§ 17. In Textual Criticism then, “rough comparison” can seldom, if ever, be of any real use. On the other hand, the exact Collation of documents whether ancient or modern with [pg xxv] the received Text, is the necessary foundation of all scientific Criticism. I employ that Text,—(as Mill, Bentley, Wetstein; Griesbach, Matthæi, Scholz; Tischendorf, Tregelles, Scrivener, employed it before me,)—not as a criterion of Excellence, but as a standard of Comparison. All this will be found fully explained below, from page 383 to page 391. Whenever I would judge of the authenticity of any particular reading, I insist on bringing it, wherever found,—whether in Justin Martyr and Irenæus, on the one hand; or in Stephens and Elzevir, on the other;—to the test of Catholic Antiquity. If that witness is consentient, or very nearly so, whether for or against any given reading, I hold it to be decisive. To no other system of arbitration will I submit myself. I decline to recognise any other criterion of Truth.

§ 18. What compels me to repeat this so often, is the impatient self-sufficiency of these last days, which is for breaking away from the old restraints; and for erecting the individual conscience into an authority from which there shall be no appeal. I know but too well how laborious is the scientific method which I advocate. A long summer day disappears, while the student—with all his appliances about him—is resolutely threshing out some minute textual problem. Another, and yet another bright day vanishes. Comes Saturday evening at last, and a page of illegible manuscript is all that he has to show for a week's heavy toil. Quousque tandem? And yet, it is the indispensable condition of progress in an unexplored region, that a few should thus labour, until a path has been cut through the forest,—a road laid down,—huts built,—a modus vivendi established. In this department [pg xxvi] of sacred Science, men have been going on too long inventing their facts, and delivering themselves of oracular decrees, on the sole responsibility of their own inner consciousness. There is great convenience in such a method certainly,—a charming simplicity which is in a high degree attractive to flesh and blood. It dispenses with proof. It furnishes no evidence. It asserts when it ought to argue.23 It reiterates when it is called upon to explain.24 “I am sir Oracle.” ... This,—which I venture to style the unscientific method,—reached its culminating point when Professors Westcott and Hort recently put forth their Recension of the Greek Text. Their work is indeed quite a psychological curiosity. Incomprehensible to me is it how two able men of disciplined understandings can have seriously put forth the volume which they call “Introduction—Appendix.” It is the very Reductio ad absurdum of the uncritical method of the last fifty years. And it is especially in opposition to this new method of theirs that I so strenuously insist that the consentient voice of Catholic Antiquity is to be diligently inquired after and submissively listened to; for that this, in the end, will prove our only safe guide.

§ 19. Let this be a sufficient reply to my Reviewer in the “Church Quarterly”—who, I observe, notes, as a fundamental defect in my Articles, “the want of a consistent working Theory, such as would enable us to weigh, as well as count, the suffrages of MSS., Versions, and Fathers.”25 He is reminded that it was no part of my business to propound a [pg xxvii] “Theory.” My method I have explained often and fully enough. My business was to prove that the theory of Drs. Westcott and Hort,—which (as Bp. Ellicott's pamphlet proves) has been mainly adopted by the Revisionists,—is not only a worthless, but an utterly absurd one. And I have proved it. The method I persistently advocate in every case of a supposed doubtful Reading, (I say it for the last time, and request that I may be no more misrepresented,) is, that an appeal shall be unreservedly made to Catholic Antiquity; and that the combined verdict of Manuscripts, Versions, Fathers, shall be regarded as decisive.

§ 20. I find myself, in the mean time, met by the scoffs, jeers, misrepresentations of the disciples of this new School; who, instead of producing historical facts and intelligible arguments, appeal to the decrees of their teachers,—which I disallow, and which they are unable to substantiate. They delight in announcing that Textual Criticism made “a fresh departure” with the edition of Drs. Westcott and Hort: that the work of those scholars “marks an era,” and is spoken of in Germany as “epoch-making.” My own belief is, that the Edition in question, if it be epoch-making at all, marks that epoch at which the current of critical thought, reversing its wayward course, began once more to flow in its ancient healthy channel. “Cloud-land” having been duly sighted on the 14th September 1881,26 “a fresh departure” was insisted upon by public opinion,—and a deliberate return was made,—to terra firma, and terra cognita, and common sense. So [pg xxviii] far from “its paramount claim to the respect of future generations,” being “the restitution of a more ancient and a purer Text,”—I venture to predict that the edition of the two Cambridge Professors will be hereafter remembered as indicating the furthest point ever reached by the self-evolved imaginations of English disciples of the school of Lachmann, Tischendorf, Tregelles. The recoil promises to be complete. English good sense is ever observed to prevail in the long run; although for a few years a foreign fashion may acquire the ascendant, and beguile a few unstable wits.

§ 21. It only remains to state that in republishing these Essays I have availed myself of the opportunity to make several corrections and additions; as well as here and there to expand what before had been too briefly delivered. My learned friend and kind neighbour, the Rev. R. Cowley Powles, has ably helped me to correct the sheets. Much valuable assistance has been zealously rendered me throughout by my nephew, the Rev. William F. Rose, Vicar of Worle, Somersetshire. But the unwearied patience and consummate skill of my Secretary (M. W.) passes praise. Every syllable of the present volume has been transcribed by her for the press; and to her I am indebted for two of my Indices.—The obligations under which many learned men, both at home and abroad, have laid me, will be found faithfully acknowledged, in the proper place, at the foot of the page. I am sincerely grateful to them all.

§ 22. It will be readily believed that I have been sorely tempted to recast the whole and to strengthen my position [pg xxix] in every part: but then, the work would have no longer been,—“Three Articles reprinted from the Quarterly Review.” Earnestly have I desired, for many years past, to produce a systematic Treatise on this great subject. My aspiration all along has been, and still is, in place of the absolute Empiricism which has hitherto prevailed in Textual inquiry to exhibit the logical outlines of what, I am persuaded, is destined to become a truly delightful Science. But I more than long,—I fairly ache to have done with Controversy, and to be free to devote myself to the work of Interpretation. My apology for bestowing so large a portion of my time on Textual Criticism, is David's when he was reproached by his brethren for appearing on the field of battle,—“Is there not a cause?”

§ 23. For,—let it clearly be noted,—it is no longer the case that critical doubts concerning the sacred Text are confined to critical Editions of the Greek. So long as scholars were content to ventilate their crotchets in a little arena of their own,—however mistaken they might be, and even though they changed their opinions once in every ten years,—no great harm was likely to come of it. Students of the Greek Testament were sure to have their attention called to the subject,—which must always be in the highest degree desirable; and it was to be expected that in this, as in every other department of learning, the progress of Inquiry would result in gradual accessions of certain Knowledge. After many years it might be found practicable to put forth by authority a carefully considered Revision of the commonly received Greek Text.

[pg xxx]

§ 24. But instead of all this, a Revision of the English Authorised Version having been sanctioned by the Convocation of the Southern Province in 1871, the opportunity was eagerly snatched at by two irresponsible scholars of the University of Cambridge for obtaining the general sanction of the Revising body, and thus indirectly of Convocation, for a private venture of their own,—their own privately devised Revision of the Greek Text. On that Greek Text of theirs, (which I hold to be the most depraved which has ever appeared in print), with some slight modifications, our Authorised English Version has been silently revised: silently, I say, for in the margin of the English no record is preserved of the underlying Textual changes which have been introduced by the Revisionists. On the contrary. Use has been made of that margin to insinuate suspicion and distrust in countless particulars as to the authenticity of the Text which has been suffered to remain unaltered. In the meantime, the country has been flooded with two editions of the New Greek Text; and thus the door has been set wide open for universal mistrust of the Truth of Scripture to enter.

§ 25. Even schoolboys, it seems, are to have these crude views thrust upon them. Witness the “Cambridge Greek Testament for Schools,” edited by Dean Perowne,—who informs us at the outset that “the Syndics of the Cambridge University Press have not thought it desirable to reprint the text in common use.” A consensus of Drs. Tischendorf and Tregelles,—who confessedly employed the self-same mistaken major premiss in remodelling the Sacred Text,—seems, in a general way, to represent those Syndics' notion of Textual [pg xxxi] purity. By this means every most serious deformity in the edition of Drs. Westcott and Hort, becomes promoted to honour, and is being thrust on the unsuspecting youth of England as the genuine utterance of the Holy Ghost. Would it not have been the fairer, the more faithful as well as the more judicious course,—seeing that in respect of this abstruse and important question adhuc sub judice lis est,—to wait patiently awhile? Certainly not to snatch an opportunity “while men slept,” and in this way indirectly to prejudge the solemn issue! Not by such methods is the cause of God's Truth on earth to be promoted. Even this however is not all. Bishop Lightfoot has been informed that “the Bible Society has permitted its Translators to adopt the Text of the Revised Version where it commends itself to their judgment.”27 In other words, persons wholly unacquainted with the dangers which beset this delicate and difficult problem are invited to determine, by the light of Nature and on the “solvere ambulando” principle, what is inspired Scripture, what not: and as a necessary consequence are encouraged to disseminate in heathen lands Readings which, a few years hence,—(so at least I venture to predict,)—will be universally recognized as worthless.

§ 26. If all this does not constitute a valid reason for descending into the arena of controversy, it would in my judgment be impossible to indicate an occasion when the Christian soldier is called upon to do so:—the rather, because certain of those who, from their rank and station in the [pg xxxii] Church, ought to be the champions of the Truth, are at this time found to be among its most vigorous assailants.

§ 27. Let me,—(and with this I conclude),—in giving the present Volume to the world, be allowed to request that it may be accepted as a sample of how Deans employ their time,—the use they make of their opportunities. Nowhere but under the shadow of a Cathedral, (or in a College,) can such laborious endeavours as the present pro Ecclesiâ Dei be successfully prosecuted.

J. W. B.

Deanery, Chichester, All Saints' Day, 1883.

[pg 001]

Article I. The New Greek Text.

“One question in connexion with the Authorized Version I have purposely neglected. It seemed useless to discuss its Revision. The Revision of the original Texts must precede the Revision of the Translation: and the time for this, even in the New Testament, has not yet fully come.”—Dr. Westcott.28

“It is my honest conviction that for any authoritative Revision, we are not yet mature; either in Biblical learning or Hellenistic scholarship. There is good scholarship in this country, ... but it has certainly not yet been sufficiently directed to the study of the New Testament ... to render any national attempt at Revision either hopeful or lastingly profitable.”—Bishop Ellicott.29

“I am persuaded that a Revision ought to come: I am convinced that it will come. Not however, I would trust, as yet; for we are not as yet in any respect prepared for it. The Greek and the English which should enable us to bring this to a successful end, might, it is feared, be wanting alike.”—Archbishop Trench.30

“It is happened unto them according to the true proverb, Κύων ἐπιστρέψας ἐπὶ τὸ ἴδιον ἐξέραμα; and Ὕς λουσαμένη εἰς κύλισμα βορβόρου.”—2 Peter ii. 22.

“Little children,—Keep yourselves from idols.”—1 John v. 21.

At a period of extraordinary intellectual activity like the present, it can occasion no surprise—although it may reasonably create anxiety—if the most sacred and cherished of our Institutions are constrained each in turn to submit to the ordeal of hostile scrutiny; sometimes even to bear the brunt of actual attack. When however at last the very citadel of revealed Truth is observed to have been reached, and to be undergoing systematic assault and battery, lookers-on may be excused if they show themselves more than usually solicitous, “ne quid detrimenti Civitas DEI capiat.” A Revision of the Authorized Version of the New Testament,31 purporting to have been executed by authority of the Convocation of the Southern Province, and declaring itself the exclusive property of our two ancient Universities, has recently (17th May, 1881) appeared; of which the essential feature proves to be, that it is founded on an [pg 002] entirely New Recension of the Greek Text.32 A claim is at the same time set up on behalf of the last-named production that it exhibits a closer approximation to the inspired Autographs than the world has hitherto seen. Not unreasonable therefore is the expectation entertained by its Authors that the “New English Version” founded on this “New Greek Text” is destined to supersede the “Authorized Version” of 1611. Quæ cum ita sint, it is clearly high time that every faithful man among us should bestir himself: and in particular that such as have made Greek Textual Criticism in any degree their study should address themselves to the investigation of the claims of this, the latest product of the combined Biblical learning of the Church and of the sects.

For it must be plain to all, that the issue which has been thus at last raised, is of the most serious character. The Authors of this new Revision of the Greek have either entitled themselves to the Church's profound reverence and abiding gratitude; or else they have laid themselves open to her gravest censure, and must experience at her hands nothing short of stern and well-merited rebuke. No middle course presents itself; since assuredly to construct a new Greek Text formed no part of the Instructions which the Revisionists received at the hands of the Convocation of the Southern Province. Rather were they warned against venturing on such an experiment; the fundamental principle of the entire undertaking having been declared at the outset to be—That [pg 003] “a Revision of the Authorized Version” is desirable; and the terms of the original Resolution of Feb. 10th, 1870, being, that the removal of “plain and clear errors” was alone contemplated,—“whether in the Greek Text originally adopted by the Translators, or in the Translation made from the same.” Such were in fact the limits formally imposed by Convocation, (10th Feb. and 3rd, 5th May, 1870,) on the work of Revision. Only necessary changes were to be made. The first Rule of the Committee (25th May) was similar in character: viz.—“To introduce as few alterations as possible into the Text of the Authorized Version, consistently with faithfulness.”

But further, we were reconciled to the prospect of a Revised Greek Text, by noting that a limit was prescribed to the amount of licence which could by possibility result, by the insertion of a proviso, which however is now discovered to have been entirely disregarded by the Revisionists. The condition was enjoined upon them that whenever “decidedly preponderating evidence” constrained their adoption of some change in “the Text from which the Authorized Version was made,” they should indicate such alteration in the margin. Will it be believed that, this notwithstanding, not one of the many alterations which have been introduced into the original Text is so commemorated? On the contrary: singular to relate, the Margin is disfigured throughout with ominous hints that, had “Some ancient authorities,” “Many ancient authorities,” “Many very ancient authorities,” been attended to, a vast many more changes might, could, would, or should have been introduced into the Greek Text than have been actually adopted. And yet, this is precisely the kind of record which we ought to have been spared:—

(1) First,—Because it was plainly external to the province of the Revisionists to introduce any such details into their margin at all: their very function being, on the contrary, to [pg 004] investigate Textual questions in conclave, and to present the ordinary Reader with the result of their deliberations. Their business was to correct “plain and clear errors;” not, certainly, to invent a fresh crop of unheard-of doubts and difficulties. This first.—Now,

(2) That a diversity of opinion would sometimes be found to exist in the revising body was to have been expected, but when once two-thirds of their number had finally “settled” any question, it is plainly unreasonable that the discomfited minority should claim the privilege of evermore parading their grievance before the public; and in effect should be allowed to represent that as a corporate doubt, which was in reality the result of individual idiosyncrasy. It is not reasonable that the echoes of a forgotten strife should be thus prolonged for ever; least of all in the margin of “the Gospel of peace.”

(3) In fact, the privilege of figuring in the margin of the N. T., (instead of standing in the Text,) is even attended by a fatal result: for, (as Bp. Ellicott remarks,) “the judgment commonly entertained in reference to our present margin,” (i.e. the margin of the A. V.) is, that its contents are “exegetically or critically superior to the Text.”33 It will certainly be long before this popular estimate is unconditionally abandoned. But,

(4) Especially do we deprecate the introduction into the margin of all this strange lore, because we insist on behalf of unlearned persons that they ought not to be molested with information which cannot, by possibility, be of the slightest service to them: with vague statements about “ancient authorities,”—of the importance, or unimportance, of which they know absolutely nothing, nor indeed ever can know. Unlearned readers on taking the Revision into their hands, (i.e. at least 999 readers out of 1000,) will never be [pg 005] aware whether these (so-called) “Various Readings” are to be scornfully scouted, as nothing else but ancient perversions of the Truth; or else are to be lovingly cherished, as “alternative” [see the Revisers' Preface (iii. 1.)] exhibitions of the inspired Verity,—to their own abiding perplexity and infinite distress.

Undeniable at all events it is, that the effect which these ever-recurring announcements produce on the devout reader of Scripture is the reverse of edifying: is never helpful: is always bewildering. A man of ordinary acuteness can but exclaim,—“Yes, very likely. But what of it? My eye happens to alight on ‘Bethesda’ (in S. John v. 2); against which I find in the margin,—‘Some ancient authorities read Bethsaida, others Bethzatha.’ Am I then to understand that in the judgment of the Revisionists it is uncertain which of those three names is right?”... Not so the expert, who is overheard to moralize concerning the phenomena of the case after a less ceremonious fashion:—“ ‘Bethsaida’! Yes, the old Latin34 and the Vulgate,35 countenanced by one manuscript of bad character, so reads. ‘Bethzatha’! Yes, the blunder is found in two manuscripts, both of bad character. Why do you not go on to tell us that another manuscript exhibits ‘Belzetha’?—another (supported by Eusebius36 and [in one place] by Cyril37), ‘Bezatha’? Nay, why not say plainly that there are found to exist upwards of thirty blundering representations of this same word; but that ‘Bethesda’—(the reading of sixteen uncials and the whole body of the cursives, besides the Peschito and Cureton's Syriac, the Armenian, Georgian and Slavonic Versions,—Didymus,38 Chrysostom,39 and Cyril40),—is the only reasonable way of exhibiting it? To [pg 006] speak plainly, Why encumber your margin with such a note at all?”... But we are moving forward too fast.

It can never be any question among scholars, that a fatal error was committed when a body of Divines, appointed to revise the Authorized English Version of the New Testament Scriptures, addressed themselves to the solution of an entirely different and far more intricate problem, namely the re-construction of the Greek Text. We are content to pass over much that is distressing in the antecedent history of their enterprise. We forbear at this time of day to investigate, by an appeal to documents and dates, certain proceedings in and out of Convocation, on which it is known that the gravest diversity of sentiment still prevails among Churchmen.41 This we do, not by any means as ourselves “halting between two opinions,” but only as sincerely desirous that the work before us may stand or fall, judged by its own intrinsic merits. Whether or no Convocation,—when it “nominated certain of its own members to undertake the work of Revision,” and authorized them “to refer when they considered it desirable to Divines, Scholars, and Literary men, at home or abroad, for their opinion;”—whether Convocation intended thereby to sanction the actual co-optation into the Company appointed by themselves, of members of the Presbyterian, the Wesleyan, the Baptist, the Congregationalist, the Socinian body; this we venture to think may fairly be doubted.—Whether again Convocation can have foreseen that of the ninety-nine Scholars in all who have taken part in this work of Revision, only forty-nine would be Churchmen, while the remaining fifty would belong to the sects:42—this also we [pg 007] venture to think may be reasonably called in question.—Whether lastly, the Canterbury Convocation, had it been appealed to with reference to “the Westminster-Abbey scandal” (June 22nd, 1870), would not have cleared itself of the suspicion of complicity, by an unequivocal resolution,—we entertain no manner of doubt.—But we decline to enter upon these, or any other like matters. Our business is exclusively with the result at which the Revisionists of the New Testament have arrived: and it is to this that we now address ourselves; with the mere avowal of our grave anxiety at the spectacle of an assembly of scholars, appointed to revise an English Translation, finding themselves called upon, as every fresh difficulty emerged, to develop the skill requisite for critically revising the original Greek Text. What else is implied by the very endeavour, but a singular expectation that experts in one Science may, at a moment's notice, show themselves proficients in another,—and that one of the most difficult and delicate imaginable?

Enough has been said to make it plain why, in the ensuing pages, we propose to pursue a different course from that which has been adopted by Reviewers generally, since the memorable day (May 17th, 1881) when the work of the Revisionists was for the first time submitted to public scrutiny. The one point which, with rare exceptions, has ever since monopolized attention, has been the merits or demerits of their English rendering of certain Greek words and expressions. But there is clearly a question of prior interest and infinitely greater importance, which has to be settled first: namely, the merits or demerits of the changes which the same Scholars have taken upon themselves to introduce into the Greek Text. Until it has been ascertained that the result of their labours exhibits a decided improvement upon what before was read, it is clearly a mere waste of time to enquire into the merits of their work as Revisers of a [pg 008]Translation. But in fact it has to be proved that the Revisionists have restricted themselves to the removal of “plain and clear errors” from the commonly received Text. We are distressed to discover that, on the contrary, they have done something quite different. The treatment which the N. T. has experienced at the hands of the Revisionists recals the fate of some ancient edifice which confessedly required to be painted, papered, scoured,—with a minimum of masons' and carpenters' work,—in order to be inhabited with comfort for the next hundred years: but those entrusted with the job were so ill-advised as to persuade themselves that it required to be to a great extent rebuilt. Accordingly, in an evil hour they set about removing foundations, and did so much structural mischief that in the end it became necessary to proceed against them for damages.

Without the remotest intention of imposing views of our own on the general Reader, but only to enable him to give his intelligent assent to much that is to follow, we find ourselves constrained in the first instance,—before conducting him over any part of the domain which the Revisionists have ventured uninvited to occupy,—to premise a few ordinary facts which lie on the threshold of the science of Textual Criticism. Until these have been clearly apprehended, no progress whatever is possible.

(1) The provision, then, which the Divine Author of Scripture is found to have made for the preservation in its integrity of His written Word, is of a peculiarly varied and highly complex description. First,—By causing that a vast multiplication of Copies should be required all down the ages,—beginning at the earliest period, and continuing in an ever-increasing ratio until the actual invention of Printing,—He provided the most effectual security imaginable against fraud. True, that millions of the copies so produced have long since [pg 009] perished: but it is nevertheless a plain fact that there survive of the Gospels alone upwards of one thousand copies to the present day.

(2) Next, Versions. The necessity of translating the Scriptures into divers languages for the use of different branches of the early Church, procured that many an authentic record has been preserved of the New Testament as it existed in the first few centuries of the Christian era. Thus, the Peschito Syriac and the old Latin version are believed to have been executed in the IInd century. “It is no stretch of imagination” (wrote Bp. Ellicott in 1870,) “to suppose that portions of the Peschito might have been in the hands of S. John, or that the Old Latin represented the current views of the Roman Christians of the IInd century.”43 The two Egyptian translations are referred to the IIIrd and IVth. The Vulgate (or revised Latin) and the Gothic are also claimed for the IVth: the Armenian, and possibly the Æthiopic, belong to the Vth.

(3) Lastly, the requirements of assailants and apologists alike, the business of Commentators, the needs of controversialists and teachers in every age, have resulted in a vast accumulation of additional evidence, of which it is scarcely possible to over-estimate the importance. For in this way it has come to pass that every famous Doctor of the Church in turn has quoted more or less largely from the sacred writings, and thus has borne testimony to the contents of the codices with which he was individually familiar. Patristic Citations accordingly are a third mighty safeguard of the integrity of the deposit.

To weigh these three instruments of Criticism—Copies, Versions, Fathers—one against another, is obviously impossible [pg 010] on the present occasion. Such a discussion would grow at once into a treatise.44 Certain explanatory details, together with a few words of caution, are as much as may be attempted.

I. And, first of all, the reader has need to be apprised (with reference to the first-named class of evidence) that most of our extant copies of the N. T. Scriptures are comparatively of recent date, ranging from the Xth to the XIVth century of our era. That these are in every instance copies of yet older manuscripts, is self-evident; and that in the main they represent faithfully the sacred autographs themselves, no reasonable person doubts.45 Still, it is undeniable that [pg 011] they are thus separated by about a thousand years from their inspired archetypes. Readers are reminded, in passing, that the little handful of copies on which we rely for the texts of Herodotus and Thucydides, of Æschylus and Sophocles, are removed from their originals by full 500 years more: and that, instead of a thousand, or half a thousand copies, we are dependent for the text of certain of these authors on as many copies as may be counted on the fingers of one hand. In truth, the security which the Text of the New Testament enjoys is altogether unique and extraordinary. To specify one single consideration, which has never yet attracted nearly the amount of attention it deserves,—“Lectionaries” abound, which establish the Text which has been publicly read in the churches of the East, from at least a.d. 400 until the time of the invention of printing.

But here an important consideration claims special attention. We allude to the result of increased acquaintance with certain of the oldest extant codices of the N. T. Two of these,—viz. a copy in the Vatican technically indicated by the letter b, and the recently-discovered Sinaitic codex, styled after the first letter of the Hebrew alphabet א,—are thought to belong to the IVth century. Two are assigned to the Vth, viz. the Alexandrian (a) in the British Museum, and the rescript codex preserved at Paris, designated c. One is probably of the VIth, viz. the codex Bezæ (d) preserved at Cambridge. Singular to relate, the first, second, fourth, and fifth of these codices (b א c d), but especially b and א, have within the last twenty years established a tyrannical ascendency over the imagination of the Critics, which can only be fitly spoken of as a blind superstition. It matters nothing that all four are discovered on careful scrutiny to differ essentially, not only from ninety-nine out of a hundred of [pg 012] the whole body of extant MSS. besides, but even from one another. This last circumstance, obviously fatal to their corporate pretensions, is unaccountably overlooked. And yet it admits of only one satisfactory explanation: viz. that in different degrees they all five exhibit a fabricated text. Between the first two (b and א) there subsists an amount of sinister resemblance, which proves that they must have been derived at no very remote period from the same corrupt original. Tischendorf insists that they were partly written by the same scribe. Yet do they stand asunder in every page; as well as differ widely from the commonly received Text, with which they have been carefully collated. On being referred to this standard, in the Gospels alone, b is found to omit at least 2877 words: to add, 536: to substitute, 935: to transpose, 2098: to modify, 1132 (in all 7578):—the corresponding figures for א being severally 3455, 839, 1114, 2299, 1265 (in all 8972). And be it remembered that the omissions, additions, substitutions, transpositions, and modifications, are by no means the same in both. It is in fact easier to find two consecutive verses in which these two MSS. differ the one from the other, than two consecutive verses in which they entirely agree.

But by far the most depraved text is that exhibited by codex d. “No known manuscript contains so many bold and extensive interpolations. Its variations from the sacred Text are beyond all other example.”46 This, however, is not the result of its being the most recent of the five, but (singular to relate) is due to quite an opposite cause. It is thought (not without reason) to exhibit a IInd-century text. “When we turn to the Acts of the [pg 013] Apostles,” (says the learned editor of the codex in question, Dr. Scrivener,47)—

“We find ourselves confronted with a text, the like to which we have no experience of elsewhere. It is hardly an exaggeration to assert that codex d reproduces the Textus receptus much in the same way that one of the best Chaldee Targums does the Hebrew of the Old Testament: so wide are the variations in the diction, so constant and inveterate the practice of expounding the narrative by means of interpolations which seldom recommend themselves as genuine by even a semblance of internal probability.”

“Vix dici potest” (says Mill) “quam supra omnem modum licenter se gesserit, ac plane lasciverit Interpolator.” Though a large portion of the Gospels is missing, in what remains (tested by the same standard) we find 3704 words omitted: no less than 2213 added, and 2121 substituted. The words transposed amount to 3471: and 1772 have been modified: the deflections from the Received Text thus amounting in all to 13,281.—Next to d, the most untrustworthy codex is א, which bears on its front a memorable note of the evil repute under which it has always laboured: viz. it is found that at least ten revisers between the IVth and the XIIth centuries busied themselves with the task of correcting its many and extraordinary perversions of the truth of Scripture.48—Next in [pg 014] impurity comes b:—then, the fragmentary codex c: our own a being, beyond all doubt, disfigured by the fewest blemishes of any.

What precedes admits to some extent of further numerical illustration. It is discovered that in the 111 (out of 320) pages of an ordinary copy of the Greek Testament, in which alone these five manuscripts are collectively available for comparison in the Gospels,—the serious deflections of a from the Textus receptus amount in all to only 842: whereas in c they amount to 1798: in b, to 2370: in א, to 3392: in d, to 4697. The readings peculiar to a within the same limits are 133: those peculiar to c are 170. But those of b amount to 197: while א exhibits 443: and the readings peculiar to d (within the same limits), are no fewer than 1829.... We submit that these facts—which result from merely referring five manuscripts to one and the same common standard—are by no means calculated to inspire confidence in codices b א c d:—codices, be it remembered, which come to us without a character, without a history, in fact without antecedents of any kind.

But let the learned chairman of the New Testament company of Revisionists (Bp. Ellicott) be heard on this subject. He is characterizing these same “old uncials,” which it is just now the fashion—or rather, the craze—to hold up as oracular, and to which his lordship is as devotedly and blindly attached as any of his neighbours:—

“The simplicity and dignified conciseness” (he says) “of the Vatican manuscript (b): the greater expansiveness of our own Alexandrian (a): the partially mixed characteristics of the Sinaitic (א): the paraphrastic tone of the singular codex Bezæ (d), are now brought home to the student.”49

Could ingenuity have devised severer satire than such a [pg 015] description of four professing transcripts of a book; and that book, the everlasting Gospel itself?—transcripts, be it observed in passing, on which it is just now the fashion to rely implicitly for the very orthography of proper names,—the spelling of common words,—the minutiæ of grammar. What (we ask) would be thought of four such “copies” of Thucydides or of Shakspeare? Imagine it gravely proposed, by the aid of four such conflicting documents, to re-adjust the text of the funeral oration of Pericles, or to re-edit “Hamlet.” Risum teneatis amici? Why, some of the poet's most familiar lines would cease to be recognizable: e.g. a,—“Toby or not Toby; that is the question:” b,—“Tob or not, is the question:” א,—“To be a tub, or not to be a tub; the question is that:” c,—“The question is, to beat, or not to beat Toby?”: d (the “singular codex”),—“The only question is this: to beat that Toby, or to be a tub?”

And yet—without by any means subscribing to the precise terms in which the judicious Prelate characterizes those ignes fatui which have so persistently and egregiously led his lordship and his colleagues astray—(for indeed one seems rather to be reading a description of four styles of composition, or of as many fashions in ladies' dress, than of four copies of the Gospel)—we have already furnished indirect proof that his estimate of the codices in question is in the main correct. Further acquaintance with them does but intensify the bad character which he has given them. Let no one suppose that we deny their extraordinary value,—their unrivalled critical interest,—nay, their actual use in helping to settle the truth of Scripture. What we are just now insisting upon is only the depraved text of codices א a b c d,—especially of א b d. And because this is a matter which lies at the root of the whole controversy, and because we cannot afford that there shall exist in our reader's mind the slightest doubt on [pg 016] this part of the subject, we shall be constrained once and again to trouble him with detailed specimens of the contents of א b, &c., in proof of the justice of what we have been alleging. We venture to assure him, without a particle of hesitation, that א b d are three of the most scandalously corrupt copies extant:—exhibit the most shamefully mutilated texts which are anywhere to be met with:—have become, by whatever process (for their history is wholly unknown), the depositories of the largest amount of fabricated readings, ancient blunders, and intentional perversions of Truth,—which are discoverable in any known copies of the Word of God.

But in fact take a single page of any ordinary copy of the Greek Testament,—Bp. Lloyd's edition, suppose. Turn to page 184. It contains ten verses of S. Luke's Gospel, ch. viii. 35 to 44. Now, proceed to collate those ten verses. You will make the notable discovery that, within those narrow limits, by codex d alone the text has been depraved 53 times, resulting in no less than 103 corrupt readings, 93 of which are found only in d. The words omitted by d are 40: the words added are 4. Twenty-five words have been substituted for others, and 14 transposed. Variations of case, tense, &c., amount to 16; and the phrase of the Evangelist has been departed from 11 times. Happily, the other four “old uncials” are here available. And it is found that (within the same limits, and referred to the same test,) a exhibits 3 omissions, 2 of which are peculiar to a.—b omits 12 words, 6 of which are peculiar to b: substitutes 3 words: transposes 4: and exhibits 6 lesser changes—2 of them being its own peculiar property.—א has 5 readings (affecting 8 words) peculiar to itself. Its omissions are 7: its additions, 2: its substitutions, 4: 2 words are transposed; and it exhibits 4 lesser discrepancies.—c has 7 readings (affecting 15 words) peculiar to itself. Its omissions are 4: [pg 017] its additions, 7: its substitutions, 7: its words transposed, 7. It has 2 lesser discrepancies, and it alters the Evangelist's phrase 4 times.

But (we shall be asked) what amount of agreement, in respect of “Various Readings,” is discovered to subsist between these 5 codices? for that, after all, is the practical question. We answer,—a has been already shown to stand alone twice: b, 6 times: א, 8 times: c, 15 times; d, 93 times.—We have further to state that a b stand together by themselves once: b א, 4 times: b c, 1: b d, 1: א c, 1: c d, 1.—a א c conspire 1: b א c, 1: b א d, 1: a b א c, once (viz. in reading ἐρώτησεν, which Tischendorf admits to be a corrupt reading): b א c d, also once.—The 5 “old uncials” therefore (a b א c d) combine, and again stand apart, with singular impartiality.—Lastly, they are never once found to be in accord in respect of any single “various Reading”.—Will any one, after a candid survey of the premisses, deem us unreasonable, if we avow that such a specimen of the concordia discors which everywhere prevails between the oldest uncials, but which especially characterizes א b d, indisposes us greatly to suffer their unsupported authority to determine for us the Text of Scripture?

Let no one at all events obscure the one question at issue, by asking,—“Whether we consider the Textus Receptus infallible?” The merit or demerit of the Received Text has absolutely nothing whatever to do with the question. We care nothing about it. Any Text would equally suit our present purpose. Any Text would show the “old uncials” perpetually at discord among themselves. To raise an irrelevant discussion, at the outset, concerning the Textus Receptus:—to describe the haste with which Erasmus produced the first published edition of the N. T.:—to make sport about the [pg 018] copies which he employed:—all this kind of thing is the proceeding of one who seeks to mislead his readers:—to throw dust into their eyes:—to divert their attention from the problem actually before them:—not—(as we confidently expect when we have to do with such writers as these)—the method of a sincere lover of Truth. To proceed, however.

II. and III. Nothing has been said as yet concerning the Text exhibited by the earliest of the Versions and by the most ancient of the Fathers. But, for the purpose we have just now in hand, neither are such details necessary. We desire to hasten forward. A somewhat fuller review of certain of our oldest available materials might prove even more discouraging. But that would only be because it is impossible, within such narrow limits as the present, to give the reader any idea at all of the wealth of our actual resources; and to convince him of the extent to which the least trustworthy of our guides prove in turn invaluable helps in correcting the exorbitances of their fellows. The practical result in fact of what has been hitherto offered is after all but this, that we have to be on our guard against pinning our faith exclusively on two or three,—least of all on one or two ancient documents; and of adopting them exclusively for our guides. We are shown, in other words, that it is utterly out of the question to rely on any single set or group of authorities, much less on any single document, for the determination of the Text of Scripture. Happily, our Manuscripts are numerous: most of them are in the main trustworthy: all of them represent far older documents than themselves. Our Versions (two of which are more ancient by a couple of centuries than any sacred codex extant) severally correct and check one another. Lastly, in the writings of a host of Fathers,—the principal being Eusebius, Athanasius, Basil, the Gregories, Didymus, [pg 019] Epiphanius, Chrysostom, the Cyrils, Theodoret,—we are provided with contemporaneous evidence which, whenever it can be had, becomes an effectual safeguard against the unsupported decrees of our oldest codices, a b א c d, as well as the occasional vagaries of the Versions. In the writings of Irenæus, Clemens Alex., Origen, Dionysius Alex., Hippolytus, we meet with older evidence still. No more precarious foundation for a reading, in fact, can be named, than the unsupported advocacy of a single Manuscript, or Version, or Father; or even of two or three of these combined.

But indeed the principle involved in the foregoing remarks admits of being far more broadly stated. It even stands to reason that we may safely reject any reading which, out of the whole body of available authorities,—Manuscripts, Versions, Fathers,—finds support nowhere save in one and the same little handful of suspicious documents. For we resolutely maintain, that external Evidence must after all be our best, our only safe guide; and (to come to the point) we refuse to throw in our lot with those who, disregarding the witness of every other known Codex—every other Version—every other available Ecclesiastical Writer,—insist on following the dictates of a little group of authorities, of which nothing whatever is known with so much certainty as that often, when they concur exclusively, it is to mislead. We speak of codices b or א or d; the IXth-century codex l, and such cursives50 as 13 or 33; a few copies of the old Latin and one of the Egyptian versions: perhaps Origen.—Not theory [pg 020] therefore:—not prejudice:—not conjecture:—not unproved assertion:—not any single codex, and certainly not codex b:—not an imaginary “Antiochene Recension” of another imaginary “Pre-Syrian Text:”—not antecedent fancies about the affinity of documents:—neither “the [purely arbitrary] method of genealogy,”—nor one man's notions (which may be reversed by another man's notions) of “Transcriptional Probability:”—not “instinctive processes of Criticism,”—least of all “the individual mind,” with its “supposed power of divining the Original Text”—of which no intelligible account can be rendered:—nothing of this sort,—(however specious and plausible it may sound, especially when set forth in confident language; advocated with a great show of unintelligible learning; supported by a formidable array of cabalistic symbols and mysterious contractions; above all when recommended by justly respected names,)—nothing of this sort, we say, must be allowed to determine for us the Text of Scripture. The very proposal should set us on our guard against the certainty of imposition.

We deem it even axiomatic, that, in every case of doubt or difficulty—supposed or real—our critical method must be the same: namely, after patiently collecting all the available evidence, then, without partiality or prejudice, to adjudicate between the conflicting authorities, and loyally to accept that verdict for which there is clearly the preponderating evidence. The best supported Reading, in other words, must always be held to be the true Reading: and nothing may be rejected from the commonly received Text, except on evidence which shall clearly outweigh the evidence for retaining it. We are glad to know that, so far at least, we once had Bp. Ellicott with us. He announced (in 1870) that the best way of proceeding with the work of Revision is, “to make the Textus Receptus the standard,—departing from it [pg 021] only when critical or grammatical considerations show that it is clearly necessary.”51 We ourselves mean no more. Whenever the evidence is about evenly balanced, few it is hoped will deny that the Text which has been “in possession” for three centuries and a half, and which rests on infinitely better manuscript evidence than that of any ancient work which can be named,—should, for every reason, be let alone.52

But, (we shall perhaps be asked,) has any critical Editor of the N. T. seriously taught the reverse of all this? Yes indeed, we answer. Lachmann, Tregelles, Tischendorf,—the most recent and most famous of modern editors,—have all three adopted a directly opposite theory of textual revision. With the first-named, fifty years ago (1831), virtually originated the principle of recurring exclusively to a few ancient documents to the exclusion of the many. “Lachmann's text seldom rests on more than four Greek codices, very often on three, not unfrequently on two, sometimes on only one.”53 Bishop Ellicott speaks of it as “a text composed on the narrowest and most exclusive principles.”54 Of the Greek [pg 022] Fathers (Lachmann says) he employed only Origen.55 Paying extraordinary deference to the Latin Version, he entirely disregarded the coëval Syriac translation. The result of such a system must needs prove satisfactory to no one except its author.

Lachmann's leading fallacy has perforce proved fatal to the value of the text put forth by Dr. Tregelles. Of the scrupulous accuracy, the indefatigable industry, the pious zeal of that estimable and devoted scholar, we speak not. All honour to his memory! As a specimen of conscientious labour, his edition of the N. T. (1857-72) passes praise, and will never lose its value. But it has only to be stated, that Tregelles effectually persuaded himself that “eighty-nine ninetieths” of our extant manuscripts and other authorities may safely be rejected and lost sight of when we come to amend the text and try to restore it to its primitive purity,56—to make it plain that in Textual Criticism he must needs be regarded as an untrustworthy teacher. Why he should have condescended to employ no patristic authority later than Eusebius [fl. a.d. 320], he does not explain. “His critical principles,” (says Bishop Ellicott,) “especially his general principles of estimating and regarding modern manuscripts, are now perhaps justly called in question.”57

“The case of Dr. Tischendorf” (proceeds Bp. Ellicott) “is still more easily disposed of. Which of this most inconstant Critic's texts are we to select? Surely not the last, in which an exaggerated preference for a single Manuscript which he has had the good fortune to discover, has betrayed him into [pg 023] an almost child-like infirmity of critical judgment. Surely also not his seventh edition, which ... exhibits all the instability which a comparatively recent recognition of the authority of cursive manuscripts might be supposed likely to introduce.”58 With Dr. Tischendorf,—(whom one vastly his superior in learning, accuracy, and judgment, has generously styled “the first Biblical Critic in Europe”59)—“the evidence of codex א, supported or even unsupported by one or two other authorities of any description, is sufficient to outweigh any other witnesses,—whether Manuscripts, Versions, or ecclesiastical Writers.”60 We need say no more. Until the foregoing charge has been disproved, Dr. Tischendorf's last edition of the N. T., however precious as a vast storehouse of materials for criticism,—however admirable as a specimen of unwearied labour, critical learning, and first-rate ability,—must be admitted to be an utterly unsatisfactory exhibition of the inspired Text. It has been ascertained that his discovery of codex א caused his 8th edition (1865-72) to differ from his 7th in no less than 3505 places,—“to the scandal of the science of Comparative Criticism, as well as to his own grave discredit for discernment and consistency.”61 But, in fact, what is to be thought of a Critic who,—because the last verse of S. John's Gospel, in א, seemed to himself to be written with a different pen from the rest,—has actually omitted that verse (xxi. 25) entirely, in defiance of every known Copy, every known Version, and the explicit testimony of a host of Fathers? Such are Origen (in 11 places),—Eusebius (in 3),—Gregory Nyss. (in 2),—Gregory Nazian.,—ps.-Dionys. Alex.,62—Nonnus,—Chrysostom (in 6 places),—Theodoras Mops. (in 2),—Isidorus,—Cyril Alex. (in 2),—Victor Ant.,—Ammonius,—Severus,—Maximus,—Andreas [pg 024] Cretensis,—Ambrose,—Gaudentius,—Philastrius,— Sedulius,—Jerome,—Augustine (in 6 places). That Tischendorf was a critic of amazing research, singular shrewdness, indefatigable industry; and that he enjoyed an unrivalled familiarity with ancient documents; no fair person will deny. But (in the words of Bishop Ellicott,63 whom we quote so perseveringly for a reason not hard to divine,) his “great inconstancy,”—his “natural want of sobriety of critical judgment,”—and his “unreasonable deference to the readings found in his own codex Sinaiticus;”—to which should be added “the utter absence in him of any intelligible fixed critical principles;”—all this makes Tischendorf one of the worst of guides to the true Text of Scripture.

The last to enter the field are Drs. Westcott and Hort, whose beautifully-printed edition of “the New Testament in the original Greek”64 was published within five days of the “Revised Authorized Version” itself; a “confidential” copy of their work having been already entrusted to every member of the New Test. company of Revisionists to guide them in their labours,—under pledge that they should neither show nor communicate its contents to any one else.—The learned Editors candidly avow, that they “have deliberately chosen on the whole to rely for documentary evidence on the stores accumulated by their predecessors, and to confine themselves to their proper work of editing the text itself.”65 Nothing therefore has to be enquired after, except the critical principles on which they have proceeded. And, after assuring [pg 025] us that “the study of Grouping is the foundation of all enduring Criticism,”66 they produce their secret: viz. That in “every one of our witnesses” except codex b, the “corruptions are innumerable;”67 and that, in the Gospels, the one “group of witnesses” of “incomparable value”, is codex b in “combination with another primary Greek manuscript, as א b, b l, b c, b t, b d, b Ξ, a b, b z, b 33, and in S. Mark b Δ.”68 This is “Textual Criticism made easy,” certainly. Well aware of the preposterous results to which such a major premiss must inevitably lead, we are not surprised to find a plea straightway put in for “instinctive processes of Criticism” of which the foundation “needs perpetual correction and recorrection”. But our confidence fairly gives way when, in the same breath, the accomplished Editors proceed as follows:—“But we are obliged to come to the individual mind at last; and canons of Criticism are useful only as warnings against natural illusions, and aids to circumspect consideration, not as absolute rules to prescribe the final decision. It is true that no individual mind can ever work with perfect uniformity, or free itself completely from its own idiosyncrasies. Yet a clear sense of the danger of unconscious caprice may do much towards excluding it. We trust also that the present Text has escaped some risks of this kind by being the joint production of two Editors of different habits of mind”69 ... A somewhat insecure safeguard surely! May we be permitted without offence to point out that the “idiosyncrasies” of an “individual mind” (to which we learn with astonishment “we are obliged to come at last”) are probably the very worst foundation possible on which to build the recension of an inspired writing? With regret we record our conviction, that these accomplished scholars have succeeded in producing a Text vastly more remote from the inspired autographs of [pg 026] the Evangelists than any which has appeared since the invention of printing. When full Prolegomena have been furnished we shall know more about the matter;70 but to [pg 027] judge from the Remarks (in pp. 541-62) which the learned Editors (Revisionists themselves) have subjoined to their elegantly-printed volume, it is to be feared that the fabric [pg 028] will be found to rest too exclusively on vague assumption and unproved hypothesis. In other words, a painful apprehension is created that their edition of “The New Testament in the original Greek” will be found to partake inconveniently [pg 029] of the nature of a work of the Imagination. As codex א proved fatal to Dr. Tischendorf, so is codex b evidently the rock on which Drs. Westcott and Hort have split. Did it ever occur to those learned men to enquire how the Septuagint Version of the Old Testament has fared at the hands of codex b? They are respectfully invited to address themselves to this very damaging enquiry.

But surely (rejoins the intelligent Reader, coming fresh to these studies), the oldest extant Manuscripts (b א a c d) must exhibit the purest text! Is it not so?

It ought to be so, no doubt (we answer); but it certainly need not be the case.

We know that Origen in Palestine, Lucian at Antioch, Hesychius in Egypt, “revised” the text of the N. T. Unfortunately, they did their work in an age when such fatal misapprehension prevailed on the subject, that each in turn will have inevitably imported a fresh assortment of monstra into the sacred writings. Add, the baneful influence of such spirits as Theophilus (sixth Bishop of Antioch, a.d. 168), Tatian, Ammonius, &c., of whom we know there were very many in the primitive age,—some of whose productions, we further know, were freely multiplied in every quarter of ancient Christendom:—add, the fabricated Gospels which anciently abounded; notably the Gospel of the Hebrews, about which Jerome is so communicative, and which (he says) he had translated into Greek and Latin:—lastly, freely grant that here and there, with well-meant assiduity, the orthodox themselves may have sought to prop up truths which the early heretics (Basilides, a.d. 134, Valentinus, a.d. 140, with his disciple Heracleon, Marcion, a.d. 150, and the rest,) most perseveringly assailed;—and we have sufficiently explained how it comes to pass that not a few of the codices of primitive Christendom must have exhibited Texts which [pg 030] were even scandalously corrupt. “It is no less true to fact than paradoxical in sound,” writes the most learned of the Revisionist body,

“that the worst corruptions, to which the New Testament has ever been subjected, originated within a hundred years after it was composed: that Irenæus [a.d. 150] and the African Fathers, and the whole Western, with a portion of the Syrian Church, used far inferior manuscripts to those employed by Stunica, or Erasmus, or Stephens thirteen centuries later, when moulding the Textus Receptus.”71

And what else are codices א b c d but specimens—in vastly different degrees—of the class thus characterized by Prebendary Scrivener? Nay, who will venture to deny that those codices are indebted for their preservation solely to the circumstance, that they were long since recognized as the depositories of Readings which rendered them utterly untrustworthy?

Only by singling out some definite portion of the Gospels, and attending closely to the handling it has experienced at the hands of a א b c d,—to the last four of which it is just now the fashion to bow down as to an oracular voice from which there shall be no appeal,—can the student become aware of the hopelessness of any attempt to construct the Text of the N. T. out of the materials which those codices exclusively supply. Let us this time take S. Mark's account of the healing of “the paralytic borne of four” (ch. ii. 1-12),—and confront their exhibition of it, with that of the commonly received Text. In the course of those 12 verses, (not reckoning 4 blunders and certain peculiarities of spelling,) there will be found to be 60 variations of reading,—of which [pg 031] 55 are nothing else but depravations of the text, the result of inattention or licentiousness. Westcott and Hort adopt 23 of these:—(18, in which א b conspire to vouch for a reading: 2, where א is unsupported by b: 2, where b is unsupported by א: 1, where c d are supported by neither א nor b). Now, in the present instance, the “five old uncials” cannot be the depositories of a tradition,—whether Western or Eastern,—because they render inconsistent testimony in every verse. It must further be admitted, (for this is really not a question of opinion, but a plain matter of fact,) that it is unreasonable to place confidence in such documents. What would be thought in a Court of Law of five witnesses, called up 47 times for examination, who should be observed to bear contradictory testimony every time?

But the whole of the problem does not by any means lie on the surface. All that appears is that the five oldest uncials are not trustworthy witnesses; which singly, in the course of 12 verses separate themselves from their fellows 33 times: viz. a, twice;—א, 5 times;—b, 6 times;—c, thrice;—d, 17 times: and which also enter into the 11 following combinations with one another in opposition to the ordinary Text:—a c, twice;—א b, 10 times;—א d, once;—c d, 3 times;—א b c, once;—א b d, 5 times;—א c d, once;—b c d, once;—a א c d, once;—a b c d, once;—a א b c d, once. (Note, that on this last occasion, which is the only time when they all 5 agree, they are certainly all 5 wrong.) But this, as was observed before, lies on the surface. On closer critical inspection, it is further discovered that their testimony betrays the baseness of their origin by its intrinsic worthlessness. Thus, in Mk. ii, 1, the delicate precision of the announcement ἠκούσθη ὅτι ΕἸΣ ΟἾΚΟΝ ἘΣΤΙ (that “He has gone in”), disappears from א b d:—as well as (in ver. 2) the circumstance that it became the signal for many “immediately” (א b) to assemble about the door.—In ver. 4, S. Mark explains his predecessor's concise [pg 032] statement that the paralytic was “brought to” our Saviour,72 by remarking that the thing was “impossible” by the ordinary method of approach. Accordingly, his account of the expedient resorted to by the bearers fills one entire verse (ver. 4) of his Gospel. In the mean time, א b by exhibiting (in S. Mark ii. 3,) “bringing unto Him one sick of the palsy” (φέροντες πρὸς αὐτὸν παραλυτικόν,—which is but a senseless transposition of πρὸς αὐτόν, παραλυτικὸν φέροντες), do their best to obliterate the exquisite significance of the second Evangelist's method.—In the next verse, the perplexity of the bearers, who, because they could not “come nigh Him” (προσεγγίσαι αὐτῷ), unroofed the house, is lost in א b,—whose προσενέγκαι has been obtained either from Matt. ix. 2, or else from Luke v. 18, 19 (εἰσενεγκεῖν, εἰσενέγκωσιν). “The bed where was the paralytic” (τὸν κράββατον ὍΠΟΥ ἮΝ ὁ παραλυτικός), in imitation of “the roof where was” Jesus (τὴν στέγην ὍΠΟΥ ἮΝ [ὁ Ἰησοῦς], which had immediately preceded), is just one of those tasteless depravations, for which א b, and especially d, are conspicuous among manuscripts.—In the last verse, the instantaneous rising of the paralytic, noticed by S. Mark (ἠγέρθη εὐθέως), and insisted upon by S. Luke (“and immediately he rose up before them,”—καὶ παραχρῆμα ἀναστὰς ἐνώπιον αὐτῶν), is obliterated by shifting εὐθέως in א b and c to a place where εὐθέως is not wanted, and where its significancy disappears.

Other instances of Assimilation are conspicuous. All must see that, in ver. 5, καὶ ἰδών (א b c) is derived from Matt. ix. 2 and Luke v. 20: as well as that “Son, be of good cheer” (c) is imported hither from Matt. ix. 2. “My son,” on the other hand (א), is a mere effort of the imagination. In the same verse, σου αἱ ἁμαρτίαι (א b d) is either from Matt. ix. 5 (sic); or [pg 033] else from ver. 9, lower down in S. Mark's narrative. Λέγοντες, in ver. 6 (d), is from S. Luke v. 21. Ὕπαγε (א) in ver. 9, and ὕπαγε εἰς τὸν οἶκόν σου (d), are clearly importations from ver 11. The strange confusion in ver. 7,—“Because this man thus speaketh, he blasphemeth” (b),—and “Why doth this man thus speak? He blasphemeth” (א d),—is due solely to Mtt. ix. 3:—while the appendix proposed by א as a substitute for “We never saw it on this fashion” (οὐδέποτε οὕτως εἴδομεν), in ver 12 (viz. “It was never so seen in Israel,” οὐδέποτε οὕτως ἐφάνη ἐν τῷ Ἰσραήλ), has been transplanted hither from S. Matt. ix. 33.

We shall perhaps be told that, scandalously corrupt as the text of א b c d hereabouts may be, no reason has been shown as yet for suspecting that heretical depravation ever had anything to do with such phenomena. That (we answer) is only because the writings of the early depravers and fabricators of Gospels have universally perished. From the slender relics of their iniquitous performances which have survived to our time, we are sometimes able to lay our finger on a foul blot and to say, “This came from Tatian's Diatessaron; and that from Marcion's mutilated recension of the Gospel according to S. Luke.” The piercing of our Saviour's side, transplanted by codices א b c from S. John xix. 34 into S. Matt, xxvii. 49, is an instance of the former,—which it may reasonably create astonishment to find that Drs. Westcott and Hort (alone among Editors) have nevertheless admitted into their text, as equally trustworthy with the last 12 verses of S. Mark's Gospel. But it occasions a stronger sentiment than surprise to discover that this, “the gravest interpolation yet laid to the charge of b,”—this “sentence which neither they nor any other competent scholar can possibly believe that the Evangelist ever wrote,”73—has been [pg 034] actually foisted into the margin of the Revised Version of S. Matthew xxvii. 49. Were not the Revisionists aware that such a disfigurement must prove fatal to their work? For whose benefit is the information volunteered that “many ancient authorities” are thus grossly interpolated?

An instructive specimen of depravation follows, which can be traced to Marcion's mutilated recension of S. Luke's Gospel. We venture to entreat the favour of the reader's sustained attention to the license with which the Lord's Prayer as given in S. Luke's Gospel (xi. 2-4), is exhibited by codices א a b c d. For every reason one would have expected that so precious a formula would have been found enshrined in the “old uncials” in peculiar safety; handled by copyists of the IVth, Vth, and VIth centuries with peculiar reverence. Let us ascertain exactly what has befallen it:—

(a) d introduces the Lord's Prayer by interpolating the following paraphrase of S. Matt. vi. 7:—“Use not vain repetitions as the rest: for some suppose that they shall be heard by their much speaking. But when ye pray” ... After which portentous exordium,

(b) b א omit the 5 words, “Our” “which art in heaven,” Then,

(c) d omits the article (τό) before “name:” and supplements the first petition with the words “upon us” (ἐφ᾽ ἡμᾶς). It must needs also transpose the words “Thy Kingdom” (ἡ βασιλεία σου).

(d) b in turn omits the third petition,—“Thy will be done, as in heaven, also on the earth;” which 11 words א retains, but adds “so” before “also,” and omits the article (τῆς); finding for once an ally in a c d.

(e) א d for δίδου write δός (from Matt.).

(f) א omits the article (τό) before “day by day.” And,

(g) d, instead of the 3 last-named words, writes “this day” (from Matt.): substitutes “debts” (τὰ ὀφειλήματα) for “sins” (τὰ [pg 035] ἁμαρτήματα,—also from Matt.): and in place of “for [we] ourselves” (καὶ γὰρ αὐτοί) writes “as also we” (ὡς καὶ ἡμεῖς, again from Matt.).—But,

(h) א shows its sympathy with d by accepting two-thirds of this last blunder: exhibiting “as also [we] ourselves” (ὡς καὶ αὐτοί).

(i) d consistently reads “our debtors” (τοῖς ὀφειλέταις ἡμῶν) in place of “every one that is indebted to us” (παντὶ ὀφείλοντι ἡμῖν).—Finally,

(j) b א omit the last petition,—“but deliver us from evil” (ἀλλὰ ῥῦσαι ἡμᾶς ἀπὸ τοῦ πονηροῦ)—unsupported by a c or d. Of lesser discrepancies we decline to take account.

So then, these five “first-class authorities” are found to throw themselves into six different combinations in their departures from S. Luke's way of exhibiting the Lord's Prayer,—which, among them, they contrive to falsify in respect of no less than 45 words; and yet they are never able to agree among themselves as to any single various reading: while only once are more than two of them observed to stand together,—viz. in the unauthorized omission of the article. In respect of 32 (out of the 45) words, they bear in turn solitary evidence. What need to declare that it is certainly false in every instance? Such however is the infatuation of the Critics, that the vagaries of bare all taken for gospel. Besides omitting the 11 words which b omits jointly with א, Drs. Westcott and Hort erase from the Book of Life those other 11 precious words which are omitted by b only. And in this way it comes to pass that the mutilated condition to which the scalpel of Marcion the heretic reduced the Lord's Prayer some 1730 years ago,74 (for the mischief can all be traced back [pg 036] to him!), is palmed off on the Church of England by the Revisionists as the work of the Holy Ghost!

(a) We may now proceed with our examination of their work, beginning—as Dr. Roberts (one of the Revisionists) does, when explaining the method and results of their labours—with what we hold to be the gravest blot of all, viz. the marks of serious suspicion which we find set against the last Twelve verses of S. Mark's Gospel. Well may the learned Presbyterian anticipate that—

“The reader will be struck by the appearance which this long paragraph presents in the Revised Version. Although inserted, it is marked off by a considerable space from the rest of the Gospel. A note is also placed in the margin containing a brief explanation of this.”75

A very brief “explanation” certainly: for the note explains nothing. Allusion is made to the following words—

“The two oldest Greek manuscripts, and some other authorities, omit from ver. 9 to the end. Some other authorities have a different ending to the Gospel.”

But now,—For the use of whom has this piece of information been volunteered? Not for learned readers certainly: it being familiarly known to all, that codices b and א alone of manuscripts (to their own effectual condemnation) omit these 12 verses. But then scholars know something more about the matter. They also know that these 12 verses have been made the subject of a separate treatise extending to upwards of 300 pages,—which treatise has now been before the world for a full decade of years, and for the best of reasons has never yet been answered. Its object, stated on its title-page, was to vindicate against recent critical objectors, and to [pg 037] establish “the last Twelve Verses” of S. Mark's Gospel.76 Moreover, competent judges at once admitted that the author had succeeded in doing what he undertook to do.77 Can it then be right (we respectfully enquire) still to insinuate into unlearned minds distrust of twelve consecutive verses of the everlasting Gospel, which yet have been demonstrated to be as trustworthy as any other verses which can be named?

The question arises,—But how did it come to pass that such evil counsels were allowed to prevail in the Jerusalem Chamber? Light has been thrown on the subject by two of the New Test. company. And first by the learned Congregationalist, Dr. Newth, who has been at the pains to describe the method which was pursued on every occasion. The practice (he informs us) was as follows. The Bishop of Gloucester and Bristol, as chairman, asks—

“Whether any Textual Changes are proposed? The evidence for and against is briefly stated, and the proposal considered. The duty of stating this evidence is by tacit consent devolved upon (sic) two members of the Company, who from their previous studies are specially entitled to speak with authority upon such questions,—Dr. Scrivener and Dr. Hort,—and who come prepared to enumerate particularly the authorities on either side. Dr. Scrivener opens up the matter by stating the facts of the case, and by giving his judgment on the bearings of the evidence. Dr. Hort follows, and mentions any additional matters that may call for notice; and, if differing from Dr. Scrivener's estimate of the weight of the evidence, gives his [pg 038]reasons and states his own view. After discussion, the vote of the Company is taken, and the proposed Reading accepted or rejected. The Text being thus settled, the Chairman asks for proposals on the Rendering.”78

And thus, the men who were appointed to improve the English Translation are exhibited to us remodelling the original Greek. At a moment's notice, as if by intuition,—by an act which can only be described as the exercise of instinct,—these eminent Divines undertake to decide which shall be deemed the genuine utterances of the Holy Ghost,79—which not. Each is called upon to give his vote, and he gives it. “The Text being thus settled” they proceed to do the only thing they were originally appointed to do; viz. to try their hands at improving our Authorized Version. But we venture respectfully to suggest, that by no such “rough and ready” process is that most delicate and difficult of all critical problems—the truth of Scripture—to be “settled.”

Sir Edmund Beckett remarks that if the description above given “of the process by which the Revisionists ‘settled’ the Greek alterations, is not a kind of joke, it is quite enough to ‘settle’ this Revised Greek Testament in a very different sense.”80 And so, in truth, it clearly is.—“Such a proceeding appeared to me so strange,” (writes the learned and judicious Editor of the Speaker's Commentary,) “that I fully expected that the account would be corrected, or that some explanation would be given which might remove the very unpleasant impression.”81 We have since heard on the best authority, [pg 039] that namely of Bishop Ellicott himself,82 that Dr. Newth's account of the method of “settling” the text of the N. T., pursued in the Jerusalem Chamber, is correct.

But in fact, it proves to have been, from the very first, a definite part of the Programme. The chairman of the Revisionist body, Bishop Ellicott,—when he had “to consider the practical question,”—whether “(1), to construct a critical Text first: or (2), to use preferentially, though not exclusively, some current Text: or (3), simply to proceed onward with the work of Revision, whether of Text or Translation, making the current Textus Receptus the standard, and departing from it only when critical or grammatical considerations show that it is clearly necessary,—in fact, solvere ambulando;” announces, at the end of 19 pages,—“We are driven then to the third alternative.”83

We naturally cast about for some evidence that the members of the New Testament company possess that mastery of the subject which alone could justify one of their number (Dr. Milligan) in asserting roundly that these 12 verses are “not from the pen of S. Mark himself;”84 and another (Dr. Roberts) in maintaining that “the passage is not the immediate production of S. Mark.”85 Dr. Roberts assures us that—

“Eusebius, Gregory of Nyssa, Victor of Antioch, Severus of Antioch, Jerome, as well as other writers, especially Greeks, testify that these verses were not written by S. Mark, or not found in the best copies.”86

Will the learned writer permit us to assure him in return that he is entirely mistaken? He is requested to believe that Gregory of Nyssa says nothing of the sort—says [pg 040]nothing at all concerning these verses: that Victor of Antioch vouches emphatically for their genuineness: that Severus does but copy, while Jerome does but translate, a few random expressions of Eusebius: and that Eusebius himself nowhere “testifies that these verses were not written by S. Mark.” So far from it, Eusebius actually quotes the verses, quotes them as genuine. Dr. Roberts is further assured that there are no “other writers” whether Greek or Latin, who insinuate doubt concerning these verses. On the contrary, besides both the Latin and all the Syriac—besides the Gothic and the two Egyptian versions—there exist four authorities of the IInd century;—as many of the IIIrd;—five of the Vth;—four of the VIth;—as many of the VIIth;—together with at least ten of the IVth87 (contemporaries therefore of codices b and א);—which actually recognize the verses in question. Now, when to every known Manuscript but two of bad character, besides every ancient Version, some one-and-thirty Fathers have been added, 18 of whom must have used copies at least as old as either b or א,—Dr. Roberts is assured that an amount of external authority has been accumulated which is simply overwhelming in discussions of this nature.

But the significance of a single feature of the Lectionary, of which up to this point nothing has been said, is alone sufficient to determine the controversy. We refer to the fact that in every part of Eastern Christendom these same 12 verses—neither more nor less—have been from the earliest recorded period, and still are, a proper lesson both for the Easter season and for Ascension Day.

[pg 041]

We pass on.

(b) A more grievous perversion of the truth of Scripture is scarcely to be found than occurs in the proposed revised exhibition of S. Luke ii. 14, in the Greek and English alike; for indeed not only is the proposed Greek text (ἐν ἀνθρώποις εὐδοκίας) impossible, but the English of the Revisionists (“peace among men in whom he is well pleased”) “can be arrived at” (as one of themselves has justly remarked) “only through some process which would make any phrase bear almost any meaning the translator might like to put upon it.”88 More than that: the harmony of the exquisite three-part hymn, which the Angels sang on the night of the Nativity, becomes hopelessly marred, and its structural symmetry destroyed, by the welding of the second and third members of the sentence into one. Singular to relate, the addition of a single final letter (ς) has done all this mischief. Quite as singular is it that we should be able at the end of upwards of 1700 years to discover what occasioned its calamitous insertion. From the archetypal copy, by the aid of which the old Latin translation was made, (for the Latin copies all read “pax hominibus bonæ voluntatis,”) the preposition ἐν was evidently away,—absorbed apparently by the ἀν which immediately follows. In order therefore to make a sentence of some sort out of words which, without ἐν, are simply unintelligible, εὐδοκία was turned into εὐδοκίας. It is accordingly a significant circumstance that, whereas there exists no Greek copy of the Gospels which omits the ἐν, there is scarcely a Latin exhibition of the place to be found which contains it.89 To return however to the genuine clause,—“Good-will towards men” (ἐν ἀνθρώποις εὐδοκία).

[pg 042]

Absolutely decisive of the true reading of the passage—irrespectively of internal considerations—ought to be the consideration that it is vouched for by every known copy of the Gospels of whatever sort, excepting only א a b d: the first and third of which, however, were anciently corrected and brought into conformity with the Received Text; while the second (a) is observed to be so inconstant in its testimony, that in the primitive “Morning-hymn” (given in another page of the same codex, and containing a quotation of S. Luke ii. 14), the correct reading of the place is found. d's complicity in error is the less important, because of the ascertained sympathy between that codex and the Latin. In the meantime the two Syriac Versions are a full set-off against the Latin copies; while the hostile evidence of the Gothic (which this time sides with the Latin) is more than neutralized by the unexpected desertion of the Coptic version from the opposite camp. The Armenian, Georgian, Æthiopic, Slavonic and Arabian versions, are besides all with the Received Text. It therefore comes to this:—We are invited to make our election between every other copy of the Gospels,—every known Lectionary,—and (not least of all) the ascertained ecclesiastical usage of the Eastern Church from the beginning,—on the one hand: and the testimony of four Codices without a history or a character, which concur in upholding a patent mistake, on the other. Will any one hesitate as to which of these two parties has the stronger claim on his allegiance?

Could doubt be supposed to be entertained in any quarter, it must at all events be borne away by the torrent of Patristic authority which is available on the present occasion:—

In the IInd century,—we have the testimony of (1) Irenæus.90

[pg 043]

In the IIIrd,—that of (2) Origen91 in 3 places,—and of (3) the Apostolical Constitutions92 in 2.

In the IVth,—(4) Eusebius,93—(5) Aphraates the Persian,94—(6) Titus of Bostra,95 each twice;—(7) Didymus96 in 3 places;—(8) Gregory of Nazianzus,97—(9) Cyril of Jerusalem,98—(10) Epiphanius99 twice;—(11) Gregory of Nyssa100 4 times,—(12) Ephraem Syrus,101—(13) Philo bishop of Carpasus,102—(14) Chrysostom,103 in 9 places,—and (15) a nameless preacher at Antioch,104—all these, contemporaries (be it remembered) of b and א, are found to bear concurrent testimony in favour of the commonly received text.

In the Vth century,—(16) Cyril of Alexandria,105 on no less than 14 occasions, vouches for it also;—(17) Theodoret106 on 4;—(18) Theodotus of Ancyra107 on 5 (once108 in a homily preached before the Council of Ephesus on Christmas-day, a.d. 431);—(19) Proclus109 archbishop of Constantinople;—(20) Paulus110 bishop of Emesa (in a sermon preached before Cyril of Alexandria on Christmas-day, a.d. 431);—(21) the Eastern bishops111 at Ephesus collectively, a.d. 431 (an unusually weighty piece of evidence);—and lastly, (22) Basil [pg 044] of Seleucia.112 Now, let it be remarked that these were contemporaries of codex a.

In the VIth century,—the Patristic witnesses are (23) Cosmas, the voyager,113 5 times,—(24) Anastasius Sinaita,114—(25) Eulogius115 archbishop of Alexandria: contemporaries, be it remembered, of codex d.

In the VIIth,—(26) Andreas of Crete116 twice.

And in the VIIIth,—(27) Cosmas117 bishop of Maiuma near Gaza,—and his pupil (28) John Damascene,118—and (29) Germanus119 archbishop of Constantinople.

To these 29 illustrious names are to be added unknown writers of uncertain date, but all of considerable antiquity; and some120 are proved by internal evidence to belong to the IVth or Vth century,—in short, to be of the date of the Fathers whose names 16 of them severally bear, but among whose genuine works their productions are probably not to be reckoned. One of these was anciently mistaken for (30) Gregory Thaumaturgus:121 a second, for (31) Methodius:122 a third, for (32) Basil.123 Three others, with different degrees of reasonableness, have been supposed to be (33, 34, 35) Athanasius.124 One has passed for (36) Gregory of Nyssa;125 another for (37) Epiphanius;126 while no less than eight (38 to 45) have been mistaken for Chrysostom,127 some of them being certainly his contemporaries. Add (46) one anonymous Father,128 and (47) the author of the apocryphal [pg 045] Acta Pilati,—and it will be perceived that 18 ancient authorities have been added to the list, every whit as competent to witness what was the text of S. Luke ii. 14 at the time when a b א d were written, as Basil or Athanasius, Epiphanius or Chrysostom themselves.129 For our present purpose they are Codices of the IVth, Vth, and VIth centuries. In this way then, far more than forty-seven ancient witnesses have come back to testify to the men of this generation that the commonly received reading of S. Luke ii. 14 is the true reading, and that the text which the Revisionists are seeking to palm off upon us is a fabrication and a blunder. Will any one be found to maintain that the authority of b and א is appreciable, when confronted by the first 15 contemporary Ecclesiastical Writers above enumerated? or that a can stand against the 7 which follow?

This is not all however. Survey the preceding enumeration geographically, and note that, besides 1 name from Gaul,—at least 2 stand for Constantinople,—while 5 are dotted over Asia Minor:—10 at least represent Antioch; and—6, other parts of Syria:—3 stand for Palestine, and 12 for other Churches of the East:—at least 5 are Alexandrian,—2 are men of Cyprus, and—1 is from Crete. If the articulate voices of so many illustrious Bishops, coming back to us in this way from every part of ancient Christendom and all delivering the same unfaltering message,—if this be not allowed to be decisive on a point of the kind just now before us, then pray let us have it explained to us,—What amount of evidence will men accept as final? It is high time that this were known.... The plain truth is, that a case has [pg 046] been established against א a b d and the Latin version, which amounts to proof that those documents, even when they conspire to yield the self-same evidence, are not to be depended on as witnesses to the text of Scripture. The history of the reading advocated by the Revisionists is briefly this:—It emerges into notice in the IInd century; and in the Vth, disappears from sight entirely.

Enough and to spare has now been offered concerning the true reading of S. Luke ii. 14. But because we propose to ourselves that no uncertainty whatever shall remain on this subject, it will not be wasted labour if at parting we pour into the ruined citadel just enough of shot and shell to leave no dark corner standing for the ghost of a respectable doubt hereafter to hide in. Now, it is confessedly nothing else but the high estimate which Critics have conceived of the value of the testimony of the old uncials (א a b c d), which has occasioned any doubt at all to exist in this behalf. Let the learned Reader then ascertain for himself the character of codices א a b c d hereabouts, by collating the context in which S. Luke ii. 14 is found, viz. the 13 verses which precede and the one verse (ver. 15) which immediately follows. If the old uncials are observed all to sing in tune throughout, hereabouts, well and good: but if on the contrary, their voices prove utterly discordant, who sees not that the last pretence has been taken away for placing any confidence at all in their testimony concerning the text of ver. 14, turning as it does on the presence or absence of a single letter?... He will find, as the result of his analysis, that within the space of those 14 verses, the old uncials are responsible for 56 “various readings” (so-called): singly, for 41; in combination with one another, for 15. So diverse, however, is the testimony they respectively render, that they are found severally to differ from the Text of the cursives no [pg 047] less than 70 times. Among them, besides twice varying the phrase,—they contrive to omit 19 words:—to add 4:—to substitute 17:—to alter 10:—to transpose 24.—Lastly, these five codices are observed (within the same narrow limits) to fall into ten different combinations: viz. b א, for 5 readings;—b d, for 2;—א c, א d, a c, א b d, a א d, a b א d, b א c d, a b א c d, for 1 each. a therefore, which stands alone twice, is found in combination 4 times;—c, which stands alone once, is found in combination 4 times;130—b, which stands alone 5 times, is found in combination 6 times;—א, which stands alone 11 times, is found in combination 8 times;—d, which stands alone 22 times, is found in combination 7 times.... And now,—for the last time we ask the question,—With what show of reason can the unintelligible εὐδοκίας (of א a b d) be upheld as genuine, in defiance of the whole body of Manuscripts, uncial and cursive,—the great bulk of the Versions,—and the mighty array of (upwards of fifty) Fathers exhibited above?

(c) We are at last able to proceed, with a promise that we shall rarely prove so tedious again. But it is absolutely necessary to begin by clearing the ground. We may not go on doubting for ever. The “Angelic hymn” and “The last 12 Verses” of S. Mark's Gospel, are convenient places for a trial of strength. It has now been proved that the commonly received text of S. Luke ii. 14 is the true text,—the Revisionists' emendation of the place, a palpable mistake. On behalf of the second Gospel, we claim to have also established that an important portion of the sacred narrative has been unjustly branded with a note of ignominy; from which we solemnly call upon the Revisionists to set the Evangelist free. The pretence that no harm has been done [pg 048] him by the mere statement of what is an undeniable fact,—(viz. that “the two oldest Greek manuscripts, and some other authorities, omit from verse 9 to the end;” and that “some other authorities have a different ending to the Gospel,”)—will not stand examination. Pin to the shoulder of an honourable man a hearsay libel on his character, and see what he will have to say to you! Besides,—Why have the 12 verses been further separated off from the rest of the Gospel? This at least is unjustifiable.

Those who, with Drs. Roberts and Milligan,131 have been taught to maintain “that the passage is not the immediate production of S. Mark,”—“can hardly be regarded as a part of the original Gospel; but is rather an addition made to it at a very early age, whether in the lifetime of the Evangelist or not, it is impossible to say:”—such Critics are informed that they stultify themselves when they proceed in the same breath to assure the offended reader that the passage “is nevertheless possessed of full canonical authority.”132 Men who so write show that they do not understand the question. For if these 12 verses are “canonical Scripture,”—as much inspired as the 12 verses which precede them, and as worthy of undoubting confidence,—then, whether they be “the production of S. Mark,” or of some other, is a purely irrelevant circumstance. The Authorship of the passage, as every one must see, is not the question. The last 12 verses of Deuteronomy, for instance, were probably not written by Moses. Do we therefore separate them off from the rest of Deuteronomy, and encumber the margin with a note expressive of our opinion? Our Revisionists, so far from holding what follows to be “canonical Scripture,” are careful to state that a rival ending to be found elsewhere merits serious attention. S. Mark xvi. 9-20, therefore (according to them), [pg 049] is not certainly a genuine part of the Gospel; may, after all, be nothing else but a spurious accretion to the text. And as long as such doubts are put forth by our Revisionists, they publish to the world that, in their account at all events, these verses are not “possessed of full canonical authority.” If “the two oldest Greek manuscripts” justly “omit from verse 9 to the end” (as stated in the margin), will any one deny that our printed Text ought to omit them also?133 On the other hand, if the circumstance is a mere literary curiosity, will any one maintain that it is entitled to abiding record in the margin of the English Version of the everlasting page?—affords any warrant whatever for separating “the last Twelve Verses” from their context?

(d) We can probably render ordinary readers no more effectual service, than by offering now to guide them over a few select places, concerning the true reading of which the Revisionists either entertain such serious doubts that they have recorded their uncertainty in the margin of their work; or else, entertaining no doubts at all, have deliberately thrust a new reading into the body of their text, and that, without explanation, apology, or indeed record of any kind.134 One remark should be premised, viz. that “various [pg 050] Readings” as they are (often most unreasonably) called, are seldom if ever the result of conscious fraud. An immense number are to be ascribed to sheer accident. It was through erroneous judgment, we repeat, not with evil intent, that men took liberties with the deposit. They imported into their copies whatever readings they considered highly recommended. By some of these ancient Critics it seems to have been thought allowable to abbreviate, by simply leaving out whatever did not appear to themselves strictly necessary: by others, to transpose the words—even the members—of a sentence, almost to any extent: by others, to substitute easy expressions for difficult ones. In this way it comes to pass that we are often presented, and in the oldest documents of all, with Readings which stand self-condemned; are clearly fabrications. That it was held allowable to assimilate one Gospel to another, is quite certain. Add, that as early as the IInd century there abounded in the Church documents,—“Diatessarons” they were sometimes called,—of which the avowed object was to weave one continuous and connected narrative “out of the four;”—and we shall find that as many heads have been provided, as will suffice for the classification of almost every various reading which we are likely to encounter in our study of the Gospels.

I. To accidental causes then we give the foremost place, [pg 051] and of these we have already furnished the reader with two notable and altogether dissimilar specimens. The first (viz. the omission of S. Mark xvi. 9-20 from certain ancient copies of the Gospel) seems to have originated in an unique circumstance. According to the Western order of the four, S. Mark occupies the last place. From the earliest period it had been customary to write τέλος (“end”) after the 8th verse of his last chapter, in token that there a famous ecclesiastical lection comes to a close. Let the last leaf of one very ancient archetypal copy have begun at ver. 9; and let that last leaf have perished;—and all is plain. A faithful copyist will have ended the Gospel perforce—as b and א have done—at S. Mark xvi. 8.... Our other example (S. Luke ii. 14) will have resulted from an accident of the most ordinary description,—as was explained at the outset.—To the foregoing, a few other specimens of erroneous readings resulting from Accident shall now be added.

(a) Always instructive, it is sometimes even entertaining to trace the history of a mistake which, dating from the IInd or IIIrd century, has remained without a patron all down the subsequent ages, until at last it has been suddenly taken up in our own times by an Editor of the sacred Text, and straightway palmed off upon an unlearned generation as the genuine work of the Holy Ghost. Thus, whereas the Church has hitherto supposed that S. Paul's company “were in all in the ship two hundred threescore and sixteen souls” (Acts xxvii. 37), Drs. Westcott and Hort (relying on the authority of b and the Sahidic version) insist that what S. Luke actually wrote was “about seventy-six.” In other words, instead of διακόσιαι ἑβδομηκονταέξ, we are invited henceforth to read ὩΣ ἑβδομηκονταέξ. What can have given rise to so formidable a discrepancy? Mere accident, we answer. First, whereas S. Luke certainly wrote ἦμεν δὲ ἐν τῷ πλοίῳ [pg 052] αἱ πᾶσαι ψυχαί, his last six words at some very early period underwent the familiar process of Transposition, and became, αἱ πᾶσαι ψυχαὶ ἐν τῷ πλοίῳ; whereby the word πλοίῳ and the numbers διακόσιαι ἑβδομηκονταέξ were brought into close proximity. (It is thus that Lachmann, Tischendorf, Tregelles, &c., wrongly exhibit the place.) But since “276” when represented in Greek numerals is ΣΟΣ, the inevitable consequence was that the words (written in uncials) ran thus: ΨΥΧΑΙΕΝΤΩΠΛΟΙΩΣΟΣ. Behold, the secret is out! Who sees not what has happened? There has been no intentional falsification of the text. There has been no critical disinclination to believe that “a corn-ship, presumably heavily laden, would contain so many souls,”—as an excellent judge supposes.135 The discrepancy has been the result of sheer accident: is the merest blunder. Some IInd-century copyist connected the last letter of ΠΛΟΙΩ with the next ensuing numeral, which stands for 200 (viz. Σ); and made an independent word of it, viz. ὡς—i.e. “about.” But when Σ (i.e. 200) has been taken away from ΣΟΣ (i.e. 276), 76 is perforce all that remains. In other words, the result of so slight a blunder has been that instead of “two hundred and seventy-six” (ΣΟΣ), some one wrote ὡς ος´—i.e. “about seventy-six.” His blunder would have been diverting had it been confined to the pages of a codex which is full of blunders. When however it is adopted by the latest Editors of the N. T. (Drs. Westcott and Hort),—and by their influence has been foisted into the margin of our revised English Version—it becomes high time that we should reclaim against such a gratuitous depravation of Scripture.

All this ought not to have required explaining: the blunder is so gross,—its history so patent. But surely, had [pg 053] its origin been ever so obscure, the most elementary critical knowledge joined to a little mother-wit ought to convince a man that the reading ὡς ἑβδομηκονταέξ cannot be trustworthy. A reading discoverable only in codex b and one Egyptian version (which was evidently executed from codices of the same corrupt type as codex b) may always be dismissed as certainly spurious. But further,—Although a man might of course say “about seventy” or “about eighty,” (which is how Epiphanius136 quotes the place,) who sees not that “about seventy-six” is an impossible expression? Lastly, the two false witnesses give divergent testimony even while they seem to be at one: for the Sahidic (or Thebaic) version arranges the words in an order peculiar to itself.

(b) Another corruption of the text, with which it is proposed henceforth to disfigure our Authorized Version, (originating like the last in sheer accident,) occurs in Acts xviii. 7. It is related concerning S. Paul, at Corinth, that having forsaken the synagogue of the Jews, “he entered into a certain man's house named Justus” (ὀνόματι Ἰούστου). That this is what S. Luke wrote, is to be inferred from the fact that it is found in almost every known copy of the Acts, beginning with a d g h l p. Chrysostom—the only ancient Greek Father who quotes the place—so quotes it. This is, in consequence, the reading of Lachmann, Tregelles, and Tischendorf in his 7th edition. But then, the last syllable of “name” (ΟΝΟΜΑΤΙ) and the first three letters of “Justus” (ΙΟΥΣΤΟΥ), in an uncial copy, may easily get mistaken for an independent word. Indeed it only wants a horizontal stroke (at the summit of the second Ι in ΤΙΙΟΥ) to produce “Titus” (ΤΙΤΟΥ). In the Syriac and Sahidic versions accordingly, “Titus” actually stands in place of “Justus,”—a reading [pg 054] no longer discoverable in any extant codex. As a matter of fact, the error resulted not in the substitution of “Titus” for “Justus,” but in the introduction of both names where S. Luke wrote but one. א and e, the Vulgate, and the Coptic version, exhibit “Titus Justus.” And that the foregoing is a true account of the birth and parentage of “Titus” is proved by the tell-tale circumstance, that in b the letters ΤΙ and ΙΟΥ are all religiously retained, and a supernumerary letter (Τ) has been thrust in between,—the result of which is to give us one more imaginary gentleman, viz. “Titius Justus;” with whose appearance,—(and he is found nowhere but in codex b,)—Tischendorf in his 8th ed., with Westcott and Hort in theirs, are so captivated, that they actually give him a place in their text. It was out of compassion (we presume) for the friendless stranger “Titus Justus” that our Revisionists have, in preference, promoted him to honour: in which act of humanity they stand alone. Their “new Greek Text” is the only one in existence in which the imaginary foreigner has been advanced to citizenship, and assigned “a local habitation and a name.” ... Those must have been wondrous drowsy days in the Jerusalem Chamber when such manipulations of the inspired text were possible!

(c) The two foregoing depravations grew out of the ancient practice of writing the Scriptures in uncial characters (i.e. in capital letters), no space being interposed between the words. Another striking instance is supplied by S. Matthew xi. 23 and S. Luke x. 15, where however the error is so transparent that the wonder is how it can ever have imposed upon any one. What makes the matter serious is, that it gives a turn to a certain Divine saying, of which it is incredible that either our Saviour or His Evangelists knew anything. We have hitherto believed that the solemn words ran as follows:—“And thou, Capernaum, [pg 055] which art exalted (ἡ ... ὑψωθεῖσα) unto heaven, shalt be brought down (καταβιβασθήσῃ) to hell.” For this, our Revisionists invite us to substitute, in S. Luke as well as in S. Matthew,—“And thou, Capernaum, shalt thou be exalted (μὴ ... ὑψωθήσῃ;) unto heaven?” And then, in S. Matthew, (but not in S. Luke,)—“Thou shalt go down (καταβήσῃ) into Hades.” Now, what can have happened to occasion such a curious perversion of our Lord's true utterance, and to cause Him to ask an unmeaning question about the future, when He was clearly announcing a fact, founded on the history of the past?

A stupid blunder has been made (we answer), of which traces survive (as usual) only in the same little handful of suspicious documents. The final letter of Capernaum (Μ) by cleaving to the next ensuing letter (Η) has made an independent word (ΜΗ); which new word necessitates a change in the construction, and causes the sentence to become interrogative. And yet, fourteen of the uncial manuscripts and the whole body of the cursives know nothing of this: neither does the Peschito—nor the Gothic version: no,—nor Chrysostom,—nor Cyril,—nor ps.-Cæsarius,—nor Theodoret,—the only Fathers who quote either place. The sole witnesses for μὴ ... ὑψωθήσῃ in both Gospels are א b, copies of the old Latin, Cureton's Syriac, the Coptic, and the Æthiopic versions,—a consensus of authorities which ought to be held fatal to any reading. c joins the conspiracy in Matthew xi. 23, but not in Luke x. 15: d l consent in Luke, but not in Matthew. The Vulgate, which sided with א b in S. Matthew, forsakes them in S. Luke. In writing both times καταβήσῃ (“thou shalt go down”), codex b (forsaken this time by א) is supported by a single manuscript, viz. d. But because, in Matthew xi. 23, b obtains the sanction of the Latin copies, καταβήσῃ is actually introduced into the Revised Text, and we are quietly informed in the margin that “Many ancient [pg 056] authorities read be brought down:” the truth being (as the reader has been made aware) that there are only two manuscripts in existence which read anything else. And (what deserves attention) those two manuscripts are convicted of having borrowed their quotation from the Septuagint,137 and therefore stand self-condemned.... Were the occupants of the Jerusalem Chamber all—saving the two who in their published edition insist on reading (with b and d) καταβήσῃ in both places—all fast asleep when they became consenting parties to this sad mistake?

II. It is time to explain that, if the most serious depravations of Scripture are due to Accident, a vast number are unmistakably the result of Design, and are very clumsily executed too. The enumeration of a few of these may prove instructive: and we shall begin with something which is found in S. Mark xi. 3. With nothing perhaps will each several instance so much impress the devout student of Scripture, as with the exquisite structure of a narrative in which corrupt readings stand self-revealed and self-condemned, the instant they are ordered to come to the front and show themselves. But the point to which we especially invite his attention is, the sufficiency of the external evidence which Divine Wisdom is observed to have invariably provided for the establishment of the truth of His written Word.

(a) When our Lord was about to enter His capital in lowly triumph, He is observed to have given to “two of His disciples” directions well calculated to suggest the mysterious nature of the incident which was to follow. They were commanded to proceed to the entrance of a certain village,—to unloose a certain colt which they would find [pg 057] tied there,—and to bring the creature straightway to Jesus. Any obstacle which they might encounter would at once disappear before the simple announcement that “the Lord hath need of him.”138 But, singular to relate, this transaction is found to have struck some third-rate IIIrd-century Critic as not altogether correct. The good man was evidently of opinion that the colt,—as soon as the purpose had been accomplished for which it had been obtained,—ought in common fairness to have been returned to “the owners thereof.” (S. Luke xix. 33.) Availing himself therefore of there being no nominative before “will send” (in S. Mark xi. 3), he assumed that it was of Himself that our Lord was still speaking: feigned that the sentence is to be explained thus:—“say ye, ‘that the Lord hath need of him and will straightway send him hither.’ ” According to this view of the case, our Saviour instructed His two Disciples to convey to the owner of the colt an undertaking from Himself that He would send the creature back as soon as He had done with it: would treat the colt, in short, as a loan. A more stupid imagination one has seldom had to deal with. But in the meantime, by way of clenching the matter, the Critic proceeded on his own responsibility to thrust into the text the word “again” (πάλιν). The fate of such an unauthorized accretion might have been confidently predicted. After skipping about in quest of a fixed resting-place for a few centuries (see the note at foot139), πάλιν has shared the invariable fate of all such spurious adjuncts to the truth of Scripture, viz.: It has been effectually eliminated from the copies. Traces of it linger on only in those untrustworthy witnesses א b c d L Δ, and about twice as many cursive [pg 058] copies, also of depraved type. So transparent a fabrication ought in fact to have been long since forgotten. Yet have our Revisionists not been afraid to revive it. In S. Mark xi. 3, they invite us henceforth to read, “And if any one say unto you, Why do ye this? say ye, The Lord hath need of him, and straightway He (i.e. the Lord) will send him back hither.” ... Of what can they have been dreaming? They cannot pretend that they have Antiquity on their side: for, besides the whole mass of copies with a at their head, both the Syriac, both the Latin, and both the Egyptian versions, the Gothic, the Armenian,—all in fact except the Æthiopic,—are against them. Even Origen, who twice inserts πάλιν,140 twice leaves it out.141 Quid plura?

(b) No need to look elsewhere for our next instance. A novel statement arrests attention five verses lower down: viz. that “Many spread their garments upon the way” [and why not “in the way”? εἰς does not mean “upon”]; “and others, branches which they had cut from the fields” (S. Mark xi. 8). But how in the world could they have done that? They must have been clever people certainly if they “cut branches from” anything except trees. Was it because our Revisionists felt this, that in the margin they volunteer the information, that the Greek for “branches” is in strictness “layers of leaves”? But what are “layers of leaves”? and what proof is there that στοιβάδες has that meaning? and how could “layers of leaves” have been suddenly procured from such a quarter? We turn to our Authorized Version, and are refreshed by the familiar and intelligible words: “And others cut down branches off the trees and strawed them in the way.” Why then has this been changed? In an ordinary sentence, consisting of 12 words, we find that 2 [pg 059] words have been substituted for other 2; that 1 has undergone modification; that 5 have been ejected. Why is all this? asks the unlearned Reader. He shall be told.

An instance is furnished us of the perplexity which a difficult word sometimes occasioned the ancients, as well as of the serious consequences which have sometimes resulted therefrom to the text of Scripture itself. S. Matthew, after narrating that “a very great multitude spread their garments in the way,” adds, “others cut branches (κλάδους) from the trees and strawed them in the way.”142 But would not branches of any considerable size have impeded progress, inconveniently encumbering the road? No doubt they would. Accordingly, as S. Mark (with S. Matthew's Gospel before him) is careful to explain, they were not “branches of any considerable size,” but “leafy twigs”—“foliage,” in fact it was—“cut from the trees and strawed in the way.” The word, however, which he employs (στοιβάδας) is an unique word—very like another of similar sound (στιβάδας), yet distinct from it in sense, if not in origin. Unfortunately, all this was not understood in a highly uncritical and most licentious age. With the best intentions, (for the good man was only seeking to reconcile two inconvenient parallel statements,) some Revisionist of the IInd century, having convinced himself that the latter word (στιβάδας) might with advantage take the place of S. Mark's word (στοιβάδας), substituted this for that. In consequence, it survives to this day in nine uncial copies headed by א b. But then, στιβάς does not mean “a branch” at all; no, nor a “layer of leaves” either; but a pallet—a floor-bed, in fact, of the humblest type, constructed of grass, rushes, straw, brushwood, leaves, or any similar substance. On the other hand, because such materials are not obtainable from trees exactly, the ancient [pg 060] Critic judged it expedient further to change δένδρων into ἀγρῶν (“fields”). Even this was not altogether satisfactory. Στιβάς, as explained already, in strictness means a “bed.” Only by a certain amount of license can it be supposed to denote the materials of which a bed is composed; whereas the Evangelist speaks of something “strawn.” The self-same copies, therefore, which exhibit “fields” (in lieu of “trees”), by introducing a slight change in the construction (κόψαντες for ἔκοπτον), and omitting the words “and strawed them in the way,” are observed—after a summary fashion of their own, (with which, however, readers of b א d are only too familiar)—to dispose of this difficulty by putting it nearly out of sight. The only result of all this misplaced officiousness is a miserable travestie of the sacred words:—ἄλλοι δὲ στιβάδας, κόψαντες ἐκ τῶν ἀγρῶν: 7 words in place of 12!

But the calamitous circumstance is that the Critics have all to a man fallen into the trap. True, that Origen (who once writes στοιβάδας and once στιβάδας), as well as the two Egyptian versions, side with א b c l Δ in reading ἐκ τῶν ἀγρῶν: but then both versions (with c) decline to alter the construction of the sentence; and (with Origen) decline to omit the clause ἐστρώννυον εἰς τὴν ὁδόν: while, against this little band of disunited witnesses, are marshalled all the remaining fourteen uncials, headed by a d—the Peschito and the Philoxenian Syriac; the Italic, the Vulgate, the Gothic, the Armenian, the Georgian, and the Æthiopic as well as the Slavonic versions, besides the whole body of the cursives. Whether therefore Antiquity, Variety, Respectability of witnesses, numbers, or the reason of the thing be appealed to, the case of our opponents breaks hopelessly down. Does any one seriously suppose that, if S. Mark had written the common word στΙβάδας, so vast a majority of the copies at this day would exhibit the improbable στΟΙβάδας? Had the same S. Mark expressed nothing else but ΚΌΨΑΝΤΕΣ ἐκ τῶν [pg 061] ἈΓΡΩ´Ν, will any one persuade us that every copy in existence but five would present us with ἜΚΟΠΤΟΝ ἐκ τῶν ΔΈΝΔΡΩΝ, καὶ ἘΣΤΡΏΝΝΥΟΝ ἘΙΣ ΤῊΝ ὉΔΌΝ? And let us not be told that there has been Assimilation here. There has been none. S. Matthew (xxi. 8) writes ἈΠῸ τῶν δένδρον ... ἘΝ τῇ ὡδῷ: S. Mark (xi. 8), ἘΚ τῶν δένδρων ... ἘΙΣ τὴν ὁδόν. The types are distinct, and have been faithfully retained all down the ages. The common reading is certainly correct. The Critics are certainly in error. And we exclaim (surely not without good reason) against the hardship of thus having an exploded corruption of the text of Scripture furbished up afresh and thrust upon us, after lying deservedly forgotten for upwards of a thousand years.

(c) Take a yet grosser specimen, which has nevertheless imposed just as completely upon our Revisionists. It is found in S. Luke's Gospel (xxiii. 45), and belongs to the history of the Crucifixion. All are aware that as, at the typical redemption out of Egypt, there had been a preternatural darkness over the land for three days,143 so, preliminary to the actual Exodus of “the Israel of God,” “there was darkness over all the land” for three hours.144 S. Luke adds the further statement,—“And the sun was darkened” (καὶ ἐσκοτίσθη ὁ ἥλιος). Now the proof that this is what S. Luke actually wrote, is the most obvious and conclusive possible. Ἐσκοτίσθη is found in all the most ancient documents. Marcion145 (whose date is a.d. 130-50) so exhibits the place:—besides the old Latin146 and the Vulgate:—the Peschito, Cureton's, and the Philoxenian Syriac versions:—the Armenian,—the Æthiopic,—the Georgian,—and the [pg 062] Slavonic.—Hippolytus147 (a.d. 190-227),—Athanasius,148—Ephraem Syr.,149—Theodore Mops.,150—Nilus the monk,151—Severianus, (in a homily preserved in Armenian, p. 439,)—Cyril of Alexandria,152—the apocryphal Gospel of Nicodemus—and the Anaphora Pilati,153—are all witnesses to the same effect. Add the Acta Pilati154—and the Syriac Acts of the Apostles.155—Let it suffice of the Latins to quote Tertullian.156—But the most striking evidence is the consentient testimony of the manuscripts, viz. all the uncials but 3 and-a-half, and every known Evangelium.

That the darkness spoken of was a divine portent—not an eclipse of the sun, but an incident wholly out of the course of nature—the ancients clearly recognize. Origen,157—Julius Africanus158 (a.d. 220),—Macarius Magnes159 (a.d. 330),—are even eloquent on the subject. Chrysostom's evidence is unequivocal.160 It is, nevertheless, well known that this place of S. Luke's Gospel was tampered with from a very early period; and that Origen161 (a.d. 186-253), and perhaps Eusebius,162 [pg 063] employed copies which had been depraved. In some copies, writes Origen, instead of “and the sun was darkened” (καὶ ἐσκοτίσθη ὁ ἥλιος), is found “the sun having become eclipsed” (τοῦ ἡλίου ἐκλιπόντος). He points out with truth that the thing spoken of is a physical impossibility, and delivers it as his opinion that the corruption of the text was due either to some friendly hand in order to account for the darkness; or else, (which he,163 and Jerome164 after him, thought more likely,) to the enemies of Revelation, who sought in this way to provide themselves with a pretext for cavil. Either way, Origen and Jerome elaborately assert that ἐσκοτίσθη is the only true reading of S. Luke xxiii. 45. Will it be believed that this gross fabrication—for no other reason but because it is found in א b l, and probably once existed in c165—has been resuscitated in 1881, and foisted into the sacred Text by our Revisionists?

It would be interesting to have this proceeding of theirs explained. Why should the truth dwell exclusively166 with א b l? It cannot be pretended that between the IVth and Vth centuries, when the copies א b were made, and the Vth and VIth centuries, when the copies a q d r were executed, this [pg 064] corruption of the text arose: for (as was explained at the outset) the reading in question (καὶ ἐσκοτίσθη ὁ ἥλιος) is found in all the oldest and most famous documents. Our Revisionists cannot take their stand on “Antiquity,”—for as we have seen, all the Versions (with the single exception of the Coptic167),—and the oldest Church writers, (Marcion, Origen, Julius Africanus, Hippolytus, Athanasius, Gregory Naz., Ephraem, &c.,) are all against them.—They cannot advance the claim of “clearly preponderating evidence;” for they have but a single Version,—not a single Father,—and but three-and-a-half Evangelia to appeal to, out of perhaps three hundred and fifty times that number.—They cannot pretend that essential probability is in favour of the reading of א b; seeing that the thing stated is astronomically impossible.—They will not tell us that critical opinion is with them: for their judgment is opposed to that of every Critic ancient and modern, except Tischendorf since his discovery of codex א.—Of what nature then will be their proof?... Nothing results from the discovery that א reads τοῦ ἡλίου ἐκλιπόντος, b ἐκλείποντος,—except that those two codices are of the same corrupt type as those which Origen deliberately condemned 1650 years ago. In the meantime, with more of ingenuity than of ingenuousness, our Revisionists attempt to conceal the foolishness of the text of their choice by translating it [pg 065] unfairly. They present us with, “the sun's light failing.” But this is a gloss of their own. There is no mention of “the sun's light” in the Greek. Nor perhaps, if the rationale of the original expression were accurately ascertained, would such a paraphrase of it prove correct168. But, in fact, the phrase ἔκλειψις ἡλίου means “an eclipse of the sun” and no other thing. In like manner, τοῦ ἡλίου ἐκλείποντος169 (as our Revisionists are perfectly well aware) means “the sun becoming eclipsed,” or “suffering eclipse.” It is easy for Revisionists to “emphatically deny that there is anything in the Greek word ἐκλείπειν, when associated with the sun, which involves necessarily the notion of an eclipse.”170 The fact referred to may not be so disposed of. It lies outside the province of “emphatic denial.” Let them ask any Scholar in Europe what τοῦ ἡλίου ἐκλιπόντος means; and see if he does not tell them that it can only mean, “the sun having become eclipsed”! They know this every bit as well as their Reviewer. And they ought either to have had the manliness to render the words faithfully, or else the good sense to let the Greek alone,—which they are respectfully assured was their only proper course. Καί ἐσκοτίσθη ὁ ἥλιος is, in fact, clearly above suspicion. Τοῦ ἡλίου ἐκλείποντος, which these learned men (with the best intentions) have put in its place, is, to speak plainly, a transparent fabrication. That it enjoys “clearly preponderating evidence,” is what no person, fair or unfair, will for an instant venture to pretend.

III. Next, let us produce an instance of depravation of Scripture resulting from the practice of Assimilation, which [pg 066] prevailed anciently to an extent which baffles arithmetic. We choose the most famous instance that presents itself.

(a) It occurs in S. Mark vi. 20, and is more than unsuspected. The substitution (on the authority of א b l and the Coptic) of ἠπόρει for ἐποίει in that verse, (i.e. the statement that Herod “was much perplexed,”—instead of Herod “did many things,”) is even vaunted by the Critics as the recovery of the true reading of the place—long obscured by the “very singular expression” ἐποίει. To ourselves the only “very singular” thing is, how men of first-rate ability can fail to see that, on the contrary, the proposed substitute is simply fatal to the Spirit's teaching in this place. “Common sense is staggered by such a rendering,” (remarks the learned Bishop of Lincoln). “People are not wont to hear gladly those by whom they are much perplexed.”171 But in fact, the sacred writer's object clearly is, to record the striking circumstance that Herod was so moved by the discourses of John, (whom he used to “listen to with pleasure,”) that he even “did many things” (πολλὰ ἐποίει) in conformity with the Baptist's teaching.172... And yet, if this be so, how (we shall be asked) has “he was much perplexed” (πολλὰ ἠπόρει) contrived to effect a lodgment in so many as three copies of the second Gospel?

It has resulted from nothing else, we reply, but the determination to assimilate a statement of S. Mark (vi. 20) concerning Herod and John the Baptist, with another and a distinct statement of S. Luke (ix. 7), having reference to Herod [pg 067] and our Lord. S. Luke, speaking of the fame of our Saviour's miracles at a period subsequent to the Baptist's murder, declares that when Herod “heard all things that were done by Him” (ἤκουσε τὰ γινόμενα ὑπ᾽ αὐτοῦ πάντα), “he was much perplexed” (διηπόρει).—Statements so entirely distinct and diverse from one another as this of S. Luke, and that (given above) of S. Mark, might surely (one would think) have been let alone. On the contrary. A glance at the foot of the page will show that in the IInd century S. Mark's words were solicited in all sorts of ways. A persistent determination existed to make him say that Herod having “heard of many things which the Baptist did,” &c.173—a strange perversion of the Evangelist's meaning, truly, and only to be accounted for in one way.174

[pg 068]

Had this been all, however, the matter would have attracted no attention. One such fabrication more or less in the Latin version, which abounds in fabricated readings, is of little moment. But then, the Greek scribes had recourse to a more subtle device for assimilating Mark vi. 20 to Luke ix. 7. They perceived that S. Mark's ἐποίει might be almost identified with S. Luke's διηπόρει, by merely changing two of the letters, viz. by substituting η for ε and ρ for ι. From this, there results in S. Mk. vi. 20: “and having heard many things of him, he was perplexed;” which is very nearly identical [pg 069] with what is found in S. Lu. ix. 7. This fatal substitution (of ἠπόρει for ἐποίει) survives happily only in codices א b l and the Coptic version—all of bad character. But (calamitous to relate) the Critics, having disinterred this long-since-forgotten fabrication, are making vigorous efforts to galvanize it, at the end of fifteen centuries, into ghastly life and activity. We venture to assure them that they will not succeed. Herod's “perplexity” did not begin until John had been beheaded, and the fame reached Herod of the miracles which our Saviour wrought. The apocryphal statement, now for the first time thrust into an English copy of the New Testament, may be summarily dismissed. But the marvel will for ever remain that a company of distinguished Scholars (a.d. 1881) could so effectually persuade themselves that ἐποίει (in S. Mark vi. 20) is a “plain and clear error,” and that there is “decidedly preponderating evidence” in favour of ἠπόρει,—as to venture to substitute the latter word for the former. This will for ever remain a marvel, we say; seeing that all the uncials except three of bad character, together with every known cursive without exception;—the old Latin and the Vulgate, the Peschito and the Philoxenian Syriac, the Armenian, Æthiopic, Slavonian and Georgian versions,—are with the traditional Text. (The Thebaic, the Gothic, and Cureton's Syriac are defective here. The ancient Fathers are silent.)

IV. More serious in its consequences, however, than any other source of mischief which can be named, is the process of Mutilation, to which, from the beginning, the Text of Scripture has been subjected. By the “Mutilation” of Scripture we do but mean the intentional Omission—from whatever cause proceeding—of genuine portions. And the causes of it have been numerous as well as diverse. Often, indeed, there seems to have been at work nothing else but a strange passion for getting rid of whatever portions of the [pg 070] inspired Text have seemed to anybody superfluous,—or at all events have appeared capable of being removed without manifest injury to the sense. But the estimate of the tasteless IInd-century Critic will never be that of the well-informed Reader, furnished with the ordinary instincts of piety and reverence. This barbarous mutilation of the Gospel, by the unceremonious excision of a multitude of little words, is often attended by no worse consequence than that thereby an extraordinary baldness is imparted to the Evangelical narrative. The removal of so many of the coupling-hooks is apt to cause the curtains of the Tabernacle to hang wondrous ungracefully; but often that is all. Sometimes, however, (as might have been confidently anticipated,) the result is calamitous in a high degree. Not only is the beauty of the narrative effectually marred, (as e.g. by the barbarous excision of καί—εὐθέως—μετὰ δακρύων—Κύριε, from S. Mark ix. 24):175—the doctrinal teaching of our Saviour's discourses in countless places, damaged, (as e.g. by the omission of καὶ νηστείᾳ from verse 29):—absurd expressions attributed to the Holy One which He certainly never uttered, (as e.g. by truncating of its last word the phrase τό, Εἰ δύνασαι πιστεῦσαι in verse 23):—but (i.) The narrative is often rendered in a manner unintelligible; or else (ii.), The entire point of a precious incident is made to disappear from sight; or else (iii.), An imaginary incident is fabricated: or lastly (iv.), Some precious saying of our Divine Lord is turned into absolute nonsense. Take a [pg 071] single short example of what has last been offered, from each of the Gospels in turn.

(i.) In S. Matthew xiv. 30, we are invited henceforth to submit to the information concerning Simon Peter, that “when he saw the wind, he was afraid.” The sight must have been peculiar, certainly. So, indeed, is the expression. But Simon Peter was as unconscious of the one as S. Matthew of the other. Such curiosities are the peculiar property of codices א b—the Coptic version—and the Revisionists. The predicate of the proposition (viz. “that it was strong,” contained in the single word ἰσχυρόν) has been wantonly excised. That is all!—although Dr. Hort succeeded in persuading his colleagues to the contrary. A more solemn—a far sadder instance, awaits us in the next Gospel.

(ii.) The first three Evangelists are careful to note “the loud cry” with which the Redeemer of the World expired. But it was reserved for S. Mark (as Chrysostom pointed out long since) to record (xv. 39) the memorable circumstance that this particular portent it was, which wrought conviction in the soul of the Roman soldier whose office it was to be present on that terrible occasion. The man had often witnessed death by Crucifixion, and must have been well acquainted with its ordinary phenomena. Never before had he witnessed anything like this. He was stationed where he could see and hear all that happened: “standing” (S. Mark says) “near” our Saviour,—“over against Him.” “Now, when the Centurion saw that it was after so crying out (κράξας), that He expired” (xv. 39) he uttered the memorable words, “Truly this man was the Son of God!” “What chiefly moved him to make that confession of his faith was that our Saviour evidently died with power.”176 “The miracle” (says Bp. Pearson) “was not in the death, but in the voice. The [pg 072] strangeness was not that He should die, but that at the point of death He should cry out so loud. He died not by, but with a Miracle.”177 ... All this however is lost in א b l, which literally stand alone178 in leaving out the central and only important word, κράξας. Calamitous to relate, they are followed herein by our Revisionists: who (misled by Dr. Hort) invite us henceforth to read,—“Now when the Centurion saw that He so gave up the ghost.”

(iii.) In S. Luke xxiii. 42, by leaving out two little words (τω and κε), the same blind guides, under the same blind guidance, effectually misrepresent the record concerning the repentant malefactor. Henceforth they would have us believe that “he said, ‘Jesus, remember me when thou comest in thy Kingdom.’ ” (Dr. Hort was fortunately unable to persuade the Revisionists to follow him in further substituting “into thy kingdom” for “in thy kingdom;” and so converting what, in the A. V., is nothing worse than a palpable mistranslation,179 into what would have been an indelible blot. The record of his discomfiture survives in the margin). Whereas none of the Churches of Christendom have ever yet doubted that S. Luke's record is, that the dying man “said unto Jesus, Lord, remember me,” &c.

(iv.) In S. John xiv. 4, by eliminating the second καί and the second οἴδατε, our Saviour is now made to say, “And whither I go, ye know the way;” which is really almost nonsense. What He actually said was, “And whither I go ye know, and the way ye know;” in consequence of which (as we all remember) “Thomas saith unto Him, Lord, we know [pg 073] not ‘whither’ Thou goest, and how can we know ‘the way’?” ... Let these four samples suffice of a style of depravation with which, at the end of 1800 years, it is deliberately proposed to disfigure every page of the everlasting Gospel; and for which, were it tolerated, the Church would have to thank no one so much as Drs. Westcott and Hort.

We cannot afford, however, so to dismiss the phenomena already opened up to the Reader's notice. For indeed, this astonishing taste for mutilating and maiming the Sacred Deposit, is perhaps the strangest phenomenon in the history of Textual Criticism.

It is in this way that a famous expression in S. Luke vi. 1 has disappeared from codices א b l. The reader may not be displeased to listen to an anecdote which has hitherto escaped the vigilance of the Critics:—

“I once asked my teacher, Gregory of Nazianzus,”—(the words are Jerome's in a letter to Nepotianus),—“to explain to me the meaning of S. Luke's expression σάββατον δευτερόπρωτον, literally the ‘second-first sabbath.’ ‘I will tell you all about it in church,’ he replied. ‘The congregation shall shout applause, and you shall have your choice,—either to stand silent and look like a fool, or else to pretend you understand what you do not.’ ” But “eleganter lusit,” says Jerome180. The point of the joke was this: Gregory, being a great rhetorician and orator, would have descanted so elegantly on the signification of the word δευτερόπρωτον that the congregation would have been borne away by his mellifluous periods, quite regardless of the sense. In other words, Gregory of Nazianzus [a.d. 360] is found to have no more understood the word than Jerome did [370].

Ambrose181 of Milan [370] attempts to explain the difficult [pg 074] expression, but with indifferent success. Epiphanius182 of Cyprus [370] does the same;—and so, Isidorus183 [400] called “Pelusiota” after the place of his residence in Lower Egypt.—Ps.-Cæsarius184 also volunteers remarks on the word [a.d. 400?].—It is further explained in the Paschal Chronicle,185—and by Chrysostom186 [370] at Antioch.—“Sabbatum secundo-primum” is found in the old Latin, and is retained by the Vulgate. Earlier evidence on the subject does not exist. We venture to assume that a word so attested must at least be entitled to its place in the Gospel. Such a body of first-rate positive IVth-century testimony, coming from every part of ancient Christendom, added to the significant fact that δευτερόπρωτον is found in every codex extant except א b l, and half a dozen cursives of suspicious character, ought surely to be regarded as decisive. That an unintelligible word should have got omitted from a few copies, requires no explanation. Every one who has attended to the matter is aware that the negative evidence of certain of the Versions also is of little weight on such occasions as the present. They are observed constantly to leave out what they either failed quite to understand, or else found untranslateable. On the other hand, it would be inexplicable indeed, that an unique expression like the present should have established itself universally, if it were actually spurious. This is precisely an occasion for calling to mind the precept proclivi scriptioni præstat ardua. Apart from external evidence, it is a thousand times more likely that such a peculiar word as this should be genuine, than the reverse. Tischendorf accordingly retains it, moved by this very consideration.187 It got excised, however, here and there from manuscripts at a very early date. And, incredible as it may appear, it is a fact, that in consequence of its absence from [pg 075] the mutilated codices above referred to, S. Luke's famous “second-first Sabbath” has been thrust out of his Gospel by our Revisionists.

But indeed, Mutilation has been practised throughout. By codex b (collated with the traditional Text), no less than 2877 words have been excised from the four Gospels alone: by codex א,—3455 words: by codex d,—3704 words.188

As interesting a set of instances of this, as are to be anywhere met with, occurs within the compass of the last three chapters of S. Luke's Gospel, from which about 200 words have been either forcibly ejected by our Revisionists, or else served with “notice to quit.” We proceed to specify the chief of these:—

(1) S. Luke xxii. 19, 20. (Account of the Institution of the Sacrament of the Lord's Supper,—from “which is given for you” to the end,—32 words.)

(2) ibid. 43, 44. (Our Saviour's Agony in the garden,—26 words.)

(3) xxiii. 17. (The custom of releasing one at the Passover,—8 words.)

(4) ibid. 34. (Our Lord's prayer on behalf of His murderers,—12 words.)

(5) ibid. 38. (The record that the title on the Cross was written in Greek, Latin, and Hebrew,—7 words.)

[pg 076]

(6) xxiv. 1. (“and certain with them,”—4 words.)

(7) ibid. 3. (“of the Lord Jesus,”—3 words.)

(8) ibid. 6. (“He is not here, but He is risen,”—5 words.)

(9) ibid. 9. (“from the sepulchre,”—3 words.)

(10) ibid. 12. (The mention of S. Peter's visit to the sepulchre,—22 words.)

(11) ibid. 36. (“and saith unto them, Peace be unto you!”—5 words.)

(12) ibid. 40. (“and when He had thus spoken, He showed them His hands and His feet,”—10 words.)

(13) ibid. 42. (“and of an honeycomb,”—4 words.)

(14) ibid. 51. (“and was carried up into Heaven,”—5.)

(15) ibid. 52. (“worshipped Him,”—2 words.)

(16) ibid. 53. (“praising and,”—2 words.)

On an attentive survey of the foregoing sixteen instances of unauthorized Omission, it will be perceived that the 1st passage (S. Luke xxii. 19, 20) must have been eliminated from the Text because the mention of two Cups seemed to create a difficulty.—The 2nd has been suppressed because (see p. 82) the incident was deemed derogatory to the majesty of God Incarnate.—The 3rd and 5th were held to be superfluous, because the information which they contain has been already conveyed by the parallel passages.—The 10th will have been omitted as apparently inconsistent with the strict letter of S. John xx. 1-10.—The 6th and 13th are certainly instances of enforced Harmony.—Most of the others (the 4th, 7th, 8th, 9th, 11th, 12th, 14th, 15th, 16th) seem to have been excised through mere wantonness,—the veriest licentiousness.—In the meantime, so far are Drs. Westcott and Hort from accepting the foregoing account of the matter, that they even style the 1st “a perverse interpolation:” in which view of the subject, however, they enjoy the distinction of standing entirely alone. With the same “moral certainty,” they further proceed to shut up within double [pg 077] brackets the 2nd, 4th, 7th, 10th, 11th, 12th, 14th, 15th: while the 3rd, 5th, 6th, 13th, and 16th, they exclude from their Text as indisputably spurious matter.

Now, we are not about to abuse our Readers' patience by an investigation of the several points raised by the foregoing statement. In fact, all should have been passed by in silence, but that unhappily the “Revision” of our Authorized Version is touched thereby very nearly indeed. So intimate (may we not say, so fatal?) proves to be the sympathy between the labours of Drs. Westcott and Hort and those of our Revisionists, that whatever the former have shut up within double brackets, the latter are discovered to have branded with a note of suspicion, conceived invariably in the same terms: viz., “Some ancient authorities omit.” And further, whatever those Editors have rejected from their Text, these Revisionists have rejected also. It becomes necessary, therefore, briefly to enquire after the precise amount of manuscript authority which underlies certain of the foregoing changes. And happily this may be done in a few words.

The sole authority for just half of the places above enumerated189 is a single Greek codex,—and that, the most depraved of all,—viz. Beza's d.190 It should further be stated that the only allies discoverable for d are a few copies of the old Latin. What we are saying will seem scarcely credible: but it is a plain fact, of which any one may convince himself who will be at the pains to inspect the critical apparatus at the foot of the pages of Tischendorf's last (8th) edition. Our Revisionists' notion, therefore, of what constitutes “weighty evidence” is now before the Reader. If, in his judgment, the testimony of one single manuscript, (and that manuscript the [pg 078] Codex Bezæ (d),)—does really invalidate that of all other Manuscripts and all other Versions in the world,—then of course, the Greek Text of the Revisionists will in his judgment be a thing to be rejoiced over. But what if he should be of opinion that such testimony, in and by itself, is simply worthless? We shrewdly suspect that the Revisionists' view of what constitutes “weighty Evidence” will be found to end where it began, viz. in the Jerusalem Chamber.

For, when we reach down codex d from the shelf, we are reminded that, within the space of the three chapters of S. Luke's Gospel now under consideration, there are in all no less than 354 words omitted; of which, 250 are omitted by d alone. May we have it explained to us why, of those 354 words, only 25 are singled out by Drs. Westcott and Hort for permanent excision from the sacred Text? Within the same compass, no less than 173 words have been added by d to the commonly Received Text,—146, substituted,—243, transposed. May we ask how it comes to pass that of those 562 words not one has been promoted to their margin by the Revisionists?... Return we, however, to our list of the changes which they actually have effected.

(1) Now, that ecclesiastical usage and the parallel places would seriously affect such precious words as are found in S. Luke xxii. 19, 20,—was to have been expected. Yet has the type been preserved all along, from the beginning, with singular exactness; except in one little handful of singularly licentious documents, viz. in d a ff2 i l, which leave all out;—in b e, which substitute verses 17 and 18;—and in “the singular and sometimes rather wild Curetonian Syriac Version,”191 which, retaining the 10 words of ver. 19, substitutes [pg 079] verses 17, 18 for ver. 20. Enough for the condemnation of d survives in Justin,192—Basil,193—Epiphanius,194—Theodoret,195—Cyril,196—Maximus,197—Jerome.198 But why delay ourselves concerning a place vouched for by every known copy of the Gospels except d? Drs. Westcott and Hort entertain “no moral doubt that the [32] words [given at foot199] were absent from the original text of S. Luke;” in which opinion, happily, they stand alone. But why did our Revisionists suffer themselves to be led astray by such blind guidance?

The next place is entitled to far graver attention, and may on no account be lightly dismissed, seeing that these two verses contain the sole record of that “Agony in the Garden” which the universal Church has almost erected into an article of the Faith.

(2) That the incident of the ministering Angel, the Agony and bloody sweat of the world's Redeemer (S. Luke xxii. 43, 44), was anciently absent from certain copies of the Gospels, is expressly recorded by Hilary,200 by Jerome,201 and others. Only necessary is it to read the apologetic remarks which Ambrose introduces when he reaches S. Luke xxii. 43,202 to understand what has evidently led to this serious mutilation of Scripture,—traces of which survive at this day exclusively in four codices, viz. a b r t. Singular to relate, in the Gospel which was read on Maundy-Thursday these two verses of S. Luke's Gospel are thrust in between the 39th [pg 080] and the 40th verses of S. Matthew xxvi. Hence, 4 cursive copies, viz. 13-69-124-346—(confessedly derived from a common ancient archetype,203 and therefore not four witnesses but only one),—actually exhibit these two Verses in that place. But will any unprejudiced person of sound mind entertain a doubt concerning the genuineness of these two verses, witnessed to as they are by the whole body of the Manuscripts, uncial as well as cursive, and by every ancient Version?... If such a thing were possible, it is hoped that the following enumeration of ancient Fathers, who distinctly recognize the place under discussion, must at least be held to be decisive:—viz.

Justin M.,204—Irenæus205 in the IInd century:—

Hippolytus,206—Dionysius Alex.,207—ps. Tatian,208 in the IIIrd.—

Arius,209—Eusebius,210—Athanasius,211—Ephraem Syr.,212—Didymus,213—Gregory Naz.,214—Epiphanius,215—Chrysostom,216—ps.-Dionysius Areop.,217 in the IVth:—

Julian the heretic,218—Theodoras Mops.,219—Nestorius,220—Cyril Alex.,221—Paulus, bishop of Emesa,222—Gennadius,223—Theodoret,224—and several Oriental Bishops (a.d. 431),225 in the Vth:—besides [pg 081] Ps.-Cæsarius,226—Theodosius Alex.,227—John Damascene,228—Maximus,229—Theodorus hæret.,230—Leontius Byz.,231—Anastasius Sin.,232—Photius:233 and of the Latins, Hilary,234—Jerome,235—Augustine,236—Cassian,237—Paulinus,238—Facundus.239

It will be seen that we have been enumerating upwards of forty famous personages from every part of ancient Christendom, who recognize these verses as genuine; fourteen of them being as old,—some of them, a great deal older,—than our oldest MSS.—Why therefore Drs. Westcott and Hort should insist on shutting up these 26 precious words—this article of the Faith—in double brackets, in token that it is “morally certain” that verses 43 and 44 are of spurious origin, we are at a loss to divine.240 We can but ejaculate (in the very words they proceed to disallow),—“Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do.” But our especial concern is with our Revisionists; and we do not exceed our province when we come forward to reproach them sternly for having succumbed to such evil counsels, and deliberately branded these Verses with their own corporate expression of doubt. For unless that be the purpose of the marginal Note which they have set against these verses, we fail to understand the Revisers' language and are wholly at a loss to divine what purpose that note of theirs can be meant to serve. It is prefaced [pg 082] by a formula which, (as we learn from their own Preface,) offers to the reader the “alternative” of omitting the Verses in question: implies that “it would not be safe” any longer to accept them,—as the Church has hitherto done,—with undoubting confidence. In a word,—it brands them with suspicion.... We have been so full on this subject,—(not half of our references were known to Tischendorf,)—because of the unspeakable preciousness of the record; and because we desire to see an end at last to expressions of doubt and uncertainty on points which really afford not a shadow of pretence for either. These two Verses were excised through mistaken piety by certain of the orthodox,—jealous for the honour of their Lord, and alarmed by the use which the impugners of His Godhead freely made of them.241 Hence Ephraem [Carmina Nisibena, p. 145] puts the following words into the mouth of Satan, addressing the host of Hell:—“One thing I witnessed in Him which especially comforts me. I saw Him praying; and I rejoiced, for His countenance changed and He was afraid. His sweat was drops of blood, for He had a presentiment that His day had come. This was the fairest sight of all,—unless, to be sure, He was practising deception on me. For verily if He hath deceived me, then it is all over,—both with me, and with you, my servants!”

(4) Next in importance after the preceding, comes the Prayer which the Saviour of the World breathed from the Cross on behalf of His murderers (S. Luke xxiii. 34). These twelve precious words,—(“Then said Jesus, Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do,”)—like those twenty-six words in S. Luke xxii. 43, 44 which we have been considering already, Drs. Westcott and Hort enclose within double brackets in token of the “moral certainty” they entertain [pg 083] that the words are spurious.242 And yet these words are found in every known uncial and in every known cursive Copy, except four; besides being found in every ancient Version. And what,—(we ask the question with sincere simplicity,)—what amount of evidence is calculated to inspire undoubting confidence in any existing Reading, if not such a concurrence of Authorities as this?... We forbear to insist upon the probabilities of the case. The Divine power and sweetness of the incident shall not be enlarged upon. We introduce no considerations resulting from Internal Evidence. True, that “few verses of the Gospels bear in themselves a surer witness to the Truth of what they record, than this.” (It is the admission of the very man243 who has nevertheless dared to brand it with suspicion.) But we reject his loathsome patronage with indignation. “Internal Evidence,”—“Transcriptional Probability,”—and all such “chaff and draff,” with which he fills his pages ad nauseam, and mystifies nobody but himself,—shall be allowed no place in the present discussion. Let this verse of Scripture stand or fall as it meets with sufficient external testimony, or is forsaken thereby. How then about the Patristic evidence,—for this is all that remains unexplored?

Only a fraction of it was known to Tischendorf. We find our Saviour's Prayer attested,—

[pg 084]

In the IInd century by Hegesippus,244—and by Irenæus:245—

In the IIIrd, by Hippolytus,246—by Origen,247—by the Apostolic Constitutions,248—by the Clementine Homilies,249—by ps.-Tatian,250—and by the disputation of Archelaus with Manes:251—

In the IVth, by Eusebius,252—by Athanasius,253—by Gregory Nyss.,254—by Theodoras Herac.,255—by Basil,256—by Chrysostom,257—by Ephraem Syr.,258—by ps.-Ephraim,259—by ps.-Dionysius Areop.,260—by the Apocryphal Acta Pilati,261—by the Acta Philippi,262—and by the Syriac Acts of the App.,263—by ps.-Ignatius,264—and ps.-Justin:265—

In the Vth, by Theodoret,266—by Cyril,267—by Eutherius:268

In the VIth, by Anastasius Sin.,269—by Hesychius:270—

In the VIIth, by Antiochus mon.,271—by Maximus,272—by Andreas Cret.:273—

[pg 085]

In the VIIIth, by John Damascene,274—besides ps.-Chrysostom,275—ps. Amphilochius,276—and the Opus imperf.277

Add to this, (since Latin authorities have been brought to the front),—Ambrose,278—Hilary,279—Jerome,280—Augustine,281—and other earlier writers.282

We have thus again enumerated upwards of forty ancient Fathers. And again we ask, With what show of reason is the brand set upon these 12 words? Gravely to cite, as if there were anything in it, such counter-evidence as the following, to the foregoing torrent of Testimony from every part of ancient Christendom:—viz: “b d, 38, 435, a b d and one Egyptian version”—might really have been mistaken for a mauvaise plaisanterie, were it not that the gravity of the occasion effectually precludes the supposition. How could our Revisionists dare to insinuate doubts into wavering hearts and unlearned heads, where (as here) they were bound to know, there exists no manner of doubt at all?

(5) The record of the same Evangelist (S. Luke xxiii. 38) that the Inscription over our Saviour's Cross was “written ... in letters of Greek, and Latin, and Hebrew,” disappears entirely from our “Revised” version; and this, for no other reason, but because the incident is omitted by b c l, the corrupt Egyptian versions, and Cureton's depraved Syriac: the text of which (according to Bp. Ellicott283) “is of a very composite nature,—sometimes inclining to the shortness and simplicity of the Vatican manuscript” (b): e.g. on the present occasion. But surely the negative testimony of this little band of disreputable witnesses is entirely outweighed by the positive evidence of א a d q r with 13 other uncials,—the [pg 086] evidence of the entire body of the cursives,—the sanction of the Latin,—the Peschito and Philoxenian Syriac,—the Armenian,—Æthiopic,—and Georgian versions; besides Eusebius—whose testimony (which is express) has been hitherto strangely overlooked284—and Cyril.285 Against the threefold plea of Antiquity, Respectability of witnesses, Universality of testimony,—what have our Revisionists to show? (a) They cannot pretend that there has been Assimilation here; for the type of S. John xix. 20 is essentially different, and has retained its distinctive character all down the ages. (b) Nor can they pretend that the condition of the Text hereabouts bears traces of having been jealously guarded. We ask the Reader's attention to this matter just for a moment. There may be some of the occupants of the Jerusalem Chamber even, to whom what we are about to offer may not be altogether without the grace of novelty:—

That the Title on the Cross is diversely set down by each of the four Evangelists,—all men are aware. But perhaps all are not aware that S. Luke's record of the Title (in ch. xxiii. 38) is exhibited in four different ways by codices a b c d:—

a exhibits—ΟΥΤΟΣ ΕΣΤΙΝ Ο ΒΑΣΙΛΕΥΣ ΤΩΝ ΙΟΥΔΑΙΩΝ

b (with א L and a) exhibits—Ο ΒΑΣΙΛΕΥΣ ΤΩΝ ΙΟΥΔΑΙΩΝ ΟΥΤΟΣ

c exhibits—Ο ΒΑΣΙΛΕΥΣ ΤΩΝ ΙΟΥΔΑΙΩΝ (which is Mk. xv. 26).

d (with e and ff2) exhibits—Ο ΒΑΣΙΛΕΥΣ ΤΩΝ ΙΟΥΔΑΙΩΝ ΟΥΤΟΣ ΕΣΤΙΝ (which is the words of the Evangelist transposed).

We propose to recur to the foregoing specimens of licentiousness by-and-by.286 For the moment, let it be added that [pg 087] codex x and the Sahidic version conspire in a fifth variety, viz., ΟΥΤΟΣ ΕΣΤΙΝ ΙΗΣΟΥΣ Ο ΒΑΣΙΛΕΥΣ ΤΩΝ ΙΟΥΔΑΙΩΝ (which is S. Matt. xxvii. 37); while Ambrose287 is found to have used a Latin copy which represented ΙΗΣΟΥΣ Ο ΝΑΖΩΡΑΙΟΣ Ο ΒΑΣΙΛΕΥΣ ΤΩΝ ΙΟΥΔΑΙΩΝ (which is S. John xix. 18). We spare the reader any remarks of our own on all this. He is competent to draw his own painful inferences, and will not fail to make his own damaging reflections. He shall only be further informed that 14 uncials and the whole body of the cursive copies side with codex a in upholding the Traditional Text; that the Vulgate,288—the Peschito,—Cureton's Syriac,—the Philoxenian;—besides the Coptic,—Armenian,—and Æthiopic versions—are all on the same side: lastly, that Origen,289—Eusebius,—and Gregory of Nyssa290 are in addition consentient witnesses;—and we can hardly be mistaken if we venture to anticipate (1st),—That the Reader will agree with us that the Text with which we are best acquainted (as usual) is here deserving of all confidence; and (2ndly),—That the Revisionists who assure us “that they did not esteem it within their province to construct a continuous and complete Greek Text;” (and who were never authorized to construct a new Greek Text at all;) were not justified in the course they have pursued with regard to S. Luke xxiii. 38. “This is the King of the Jews” is the only idiomatic way of rendering into English the title according to S. Luke, whether the reading of a or of b be adopted; but, in order to make it plain that they reject the Greek of a in favour of b, the Revisionists have gone out of their way. They have instructed the two Editors of “The Greek Testament with the [pg 088]Readings adopted by the Revisers of the Authorized Version”291 to exhibit S. Luke xxiii. 38 as it stands in the mutilated recension of Drs. Westcott and Hort.292 And if this procedure, repeated many hundreds of times, be not constructing a “new Greek Text” of the N. T., we have yet to learn what is.

(6) From the first verse of the concluding chapter of S. Luke's Gospel, is excluded the familiar clause—“and certain others with them” (καί τινες σὺν αὐταῖς). And pray, why? For no other reason but because א b c l, with some Latin authorities, omit the clause;—and our Revisionists do the like, on the plea that they have only been getting rid of a “harmonistic insertion.”293 But it is nothing of the sort, as we proceed to explain.

Ammonius, or some predecessor of his early in the IInd century, saw fit (with perverse ingenuity) to seek to force S. Luke xxiii. 55 into agreement with S. Matt. xxvii. 61 and S. Mark xv. 47, by turning κατακολουθήσασαι δὲ καὶ γυναῖκες,—into κατηκολούθησαν δὲ ΔΎΟ γυναῖκες. This done, in order to produce “harmonistic” agreement and to be thorough, the same misguided individual proceeded to run his pen through the words “and certain with them” (καί τινες σὺν αὐταῖς) as inopportune; and his work was ended. 1750 years have rolled by since then, and—What traces remain of the man's foolishness? Of his first feat (we answer), Eusebius,294 d and Evan. 29, besides five copies of the old Latin (a b e ff2 q), are [pg 089] the sole surviving Witnesses. Of his second achievement, א b c l, 33, 124, have preserved a record; besides seven copies of the old Latin (a b c e ff2 g-1 1), together with the Vulgate, the Coptic, and Eusebius in one place295 though not in another.296 The Reader is therefore invited to notice that the tables have been unexpectedly turned upon our opponents. S. Luke introduced the words “and certain with them,” in order to prepare us for what he will have to say in xxiv. 10,—viz. “It was Mary Magdalene, and Joanna, and Mary the mother of James, and other women with them, which told these things unto the Apostles.” Some stupid harmonizer in the IInd century omitted the words, because they were in his way. Calamitous however it is that a clause which the Church has long since deliberately reinstated should, in the year 1881, be as deliberately banished for the second time from the sacred page by our Revisionists; who under the plea of amending our English Authorized Version have (with the best intentions) falsified the Greek Text of the Gospels in countless places,—often, as here, without notice and without apology.

(10) We find it impossible to pass by in silence the treatment which S. Luke xxiv. 12 has experienced at their hands. They have branded with doubt S. Luke's memorable account of S. Peter's visit to the sepulchre. And why? Let the evidence for this precious portion of the narrative be first rehearsed. Nineteen uncials then, with א a b at their head, supported by every known cursive copy,—all these vouch for the genuineness of the verse in question. The Latin,—the Syriac,—and the Egyptian versions also contain it. Eusebius,297—Gregory of Nyssa,298—Cyril,299—Severus,300—Ammonius,301 [pg 090] and others302 refer to it: while no ancient writer is found to impugn it. Then, why the double brackets of Drs. Westcott and Hort? and why the correlative marginal note of our Revisionists?—Simply because d and 5 copies of the old Latin (a b e l fu) leave these 22 words out.

(11) On the same sorry evidence—(viz. d and 5 copies of the old Latin)—it is proposed henceforth to omit our Saviour's greeting to His disciples when He appeared among them in the upper chamber on the evening of the first Easter Day. And yet the precious words (“and saith unto them, Peace be unto you” [Lu. xxiv. 36],) are vouched for by 18 uncials (with א a b at their head), and every known cursive copy of the Gospels: by all the Versions: and (as before) by Eusebius,303—and Ambrose,304—by Chrysostom,305—and Cyril,306—and Augustine.307

(12) The same remarks suggest themselves on a survey of the evidence for S. Luke xxiv. 40:—“And when He had thus spoken, He showed them His hands and His feet.” The words are found in 18 uncials (beginning with א a b), and in every known cursive: in the Latin,308—the Syriac,—the Egyptian,—in short, in all the ancient Versions. Besides these, ps.-Justin,309—Eusebius,310—Athanasius,311—Ambrose (in Greek),312—Epiphanius,313—Chrysostom,314—Cyril,315—Theodoret,316—Ammonius,317—and [pg 091] John Damascene318—quote them. What but the veriest trifling is it, in the face of such a body of evidence, to bring forward the fact that d and 5 copies of the old Latin, with Cureton's Syriac (of which we have had the character already319), omit the words in question?

The foregoing enumeration of instances of Mutilation might be enlarged to almost any extent. Take only three more short but striking specimens, before we pass on:—

(a) Thus, the precious verse (S. Matthew xvii. 21) which declares that “this kind [of evil spirit] goeth not out but by prayer and fasting,” is expunged by our Revisionists; although it is vouched for by every known uncial but two (b א), every known cursive but one (Evan. 33); is witnessed to by the Old Latin and the Vulgate,—the Syriac, Coptic, Armenian, Georgian, Æthiopic, and Slavonic versions; by Origen,320—Athanasius,321—Basil,322—Chrysostom,323—the Opus imperf.,324—the Syriac Clement,325—and John Damascene;326—by Tertullian,—Ambrose,—Hilary,—Juvencus,—Augustine,—Maximus Taur.,—and by the Syriac version of the Canons of Eusebius: above all by the Universal East,—having been read in all the churches of Oriental Christendom on the 10th Sunday after Pentecost, from the earliest period. Why, in the world, then (our readers will ask) have the Revisionists left those words out?... For no other reason, we answer, but because Drs. Westcott and Hort place them among the interpolations which they consider unworthy of being even [pg 092] “exceptionally retained in association with the true Text.”327 “Western and Syrian” is their oracular sentence.328

(b) The blessed declaration, “The Son of Man is come to save that which was lost,”—has in like manner been expunged by our Revisionists from S. Matth. xviii. 11; although it is attested by every known uncial except b א l, and every known cursive except three: by the old Latin and the Vulgate: by the Peschito, Cureton's and the Philoxenian Syriac: by the Coptic, Armenian, Æthiopic, Georgian and Slavonic versions:329—by Origen,330—Theodoras Heracl.,331—Chrysostom332—and Jovius333 the monk;—by Tertullian,334—Ambrose,335—Hilary,336—Jerome,337—pope Damasus338—and Augustine:339—above all, by the Universal Eastern Church,—for it has been read in all assemblies of the faithful on the morrow of Pentecost, from the beginning. Why then (the reader will again ask) have the Revisionists expunged this verse? We can only answer as before,—because Drs. Westcott and Hort consign it to the limbus of their Appendix; class it among their “Rejected Readings” of the most hopeless type.340 As before, all their sentence is “Western and Syrian.” They add, “Interpolated either from Lu. xix. 10, or from an independent source, written or oral.”341... Will the English Church suffer herself to be in this way defrauded of her priceless inheritance,—through the irreverent bungling of well-intentioned, but utterly misguided men?

[pg 093]

(c) In the same way, our Lord's important saying,—“Ye know not what manner of spirit ye are of: for the Son of man is not come to destroy men's lives, but to save them” (S. Luke ix. 55, 56), has disappeared from our “Revised” Version; although Manuscripts, Versions, Fathers from the second century downwards, (as Tischendorf admits,) witness eloquently in its favour.

V. In conclusion, we propose to advert, just for a moment, to those five several mis-representations of S. Luke's “Title on the Cross,” which were rehearsed above, viz. in page 86. At so gross an exhibition of licentiousness, it is the mere instinct of Natural Piety to exclaim,—But then, could not those men even set down so sacred a record as that, correctly? They could, had they been so minded, no doubt, (we answer): but, marvellous to relate, the Transposition of words,—no matter how significant, sacred, solemn;—of short clauses,—even of whole sentences of Scripture;—was anciently accounted an allowable, even a graceful exercise of the critical faculty.

The thing alluded to is incredible at first sight; being so often done, apparently, without any reason whatever,—or rather in defiance of all reason. Let candidus lector be the judge whether we speak truly or not. Whereas S. Luke (xxiv. 41) says, “And while they yet believed not for joy, and wondered,” the scribe of codex a (by way of improving upon the Evangelist) transposes his sentence into this, “And while they yet disbelieved Him, and wondered for joy:”342 which is almost nonsense, or quite.

But take a less solemn example. Instead of,—“And His [pg 094] disciples plucked the ears of corn, and ate them, (τοὺς στάχυας, καὶ ἤσθιον,) rubbing them in their hands” (S. Luke vi. 1),—b c l r, by transposing four Greek words, present us with, “And His disciples plucked, and ate the ears of corn, (καὶ ἤσθιον τοὺς στάχυας,) rubbing them,” &c. Now this might have been an agreeable occupation for horses and for another quadruped, no doubt; but hardly for men. This curiosity, which (happily) proved indigestible to our Revisionists, is nevertheless swallowed whole by Drs. Westcott and Hort as genuine and wholesome Gospel. (O dura Doctorum ilia!)—But to proceed.

Then further, these preposterous Transpositions are of such perpetual recurrence,—are so utterly useless or else so exceedingly mischievous, always so tasteless,—that familiarity with the phenomenon rather increases than lessens our astonishment. What does astonish us, however, is to find learned men in the year of grace 1881, freely resuscitating these long-since-forgotten bêtises of long-since-forgotten Critics, and seeking to palm them off upon a busy and a careless age, as so many new revelations. That we may not be thought to have shown undue partiality for the xxiind, xxiiird, and xxivth chapters of S. Luke's Gospel by selecting our instances of Mutilation from those three chapters, we will now look for specimens of Transposition in the xixth and xxth chapters of the same Gospel. The reader is invited to collate the Text of the oldest uncials, throughout these two chapters, with the commonly Received Text. He will find that within the compass of 88 consecutive verses,343 codices א a b c d q exhibit no less than 74 instances of Transposition:—for 39 of which, d is responsible:—א b, for 14:—א and א b d, for 4 each:—a b and א a b, for 3 each:—a, for [pg 095] 2:—b, c, q, א A, and a d, each for 1.—In other words, he will find that in no less than 44 of these instances of Transposition, d is implicated:—א, in 26:—b, in 25:—a, in 10:—while c and q are concerned in only one a-piece.... It should be added that Drs. Westcott and Hort have adopted every one of the 25 in which codex b is concerned—a significant indication of the superstitious reverence in which they hold that demonstrably corrupt and most untrustworthy document.344 Every other case of Transposition they have rejected. By their own confession, therefore, 49 out of the 74 (i.e. two-thirds of the entire number) are instances of depravation. We turn with curiosity to the Revised Version; and discover that out of the 25 so retained, the Editors in question were only able to persuade the Revisionists to adopt 8. So that, in the judgment of the Revisionists, 66 out of 74, or eleven-twelfths, [pg 096] are instances of licentious tampering with the deposit.... O to participate in the verifying faculty which guided the teachers to discern in 25 cases of Transposition out of 74, the genuine work of the Holy Ghost! O, far more, to have been born with that loftier instinct which enabled the pupils (Doctors Roberts and Milligan, Newth and Moulton, Vance Smith and Brown, Angus and Eadie) to winnow out from the entire lot exactly 8, and to reject the remaining 66 as nothing worth!

According to our own best judgment, (and we have carefully examined them all,) every one of the 74 is worthless. But then we make it our fundamental rule to reason always from grounds of external Evidence,—never from postulates of the Imagination. Moreover, in the application of our rule, we begrudge no amount of labour: reckoning a long summer's day well spent if it has enabled us to ascertain the truth concerning one single controverted word of Scripture. Thus, when we find that our Revisionists, at the suggestion of Dr. Hort, have transposed the familiar Angelic utterance (in S. Luke xxiv. 7), λέγων ὅτι δεῖ τὸν υἱὸν τοῦ ἀνθρώπου παραδοθῆναι,—into this, λέγων τὸν υἱὸν τοῦ ἀνθρώπου ὅτι δεῖ, &c., we at once enquire for the evidence. And when we find that no single Father, no single Version, and no Codex—except the notorious א b c l—advocates the proposed transposition; but on the contrary that every Father (from a.d. 150 downwards) who quotes the place, quotes it as it stands in the Textus receptus;345—we have no hesitation whatever in rejecting it. It is found in the midst of a very thicket of fabricated readings. It has nothing whatever to recommend it. It is condemned by the consentient voice of Antiquity. [pg 097] It is advocated only by four copies,—which never combine exclusively, except to misrepresent the truth of Scripture and to seduce the simple.

But the foregoing, which is a fair typical sample of countless other instances of unauthorized Transposition, may not be dismissed without a few words of serious remonstrance. Our contention is that, inasmuch as the effect of such transposition is incapable of being idiomatically represented in the English language,—(for, in all such cases, the Revised Version retains the rendering of the Authorized,)—our Revisionists have violated the spirit as well as the letter of their instructions, in putting forth a new Greek Text, and silently introducing into it a countless number of these and similar depravations of Scripture. These Textual curiosities (for they are nothing more) are absolutely out of place in a Revision of the English Version: achieve no lawful purpose: are sure to mislead the unwary. This first.—Secondly, we submit that,—strong as, no doubt, the temptation must have been, to secure the sanction of the N. T. Revisionists for their own private Recension of the Greek, (printed long since, but published simultaneously with the “Revised Version”)—it is to be regretted that Drs. Westcott and Hort should have yielded thereto. Man's impatience never promotes God's Truth. The interests of Textual Criticism would rather have suggested, that the Recension of that accomplished pair of Professors should have been submitted to public inspection in the first instance. The astonishing Text which it advocates might have been left with comparative safety to take its chance in the Jerusalem Chamber, after it had undergone the searching ordeal of competent Criticism, and been freely ventilated at home and abroad for a decade of years. But on the contrary. It was kept close. It might be seen only by the Revisers: and even they were tied down to secrecy as [pg 098] to the letter-press by which it was accompanied.... All this strikes us as painful in a high degree.

VI. Hitherto we have referred almost exclusively to the Gospels. In conclusion, we invite attention to our Revisionists' treatment of 1 Tim. iii. 16—the crux criticorum, as Prebendary Scrivener styles it.346 We cannot act more fairly than by inviting a learned member of the revising body to speak on behalf of his brethren. We shall in this way ascertain the amount of acquaintance with the subject enjoyed by some of those who have been so obliging as to furnish the Church with a new Recension of the Greek of the New Testament. Dr. Roberts says:—

“The English reader will probably be startled to find that the familiar text,—‘And without controversy great is the mystery of godliness: God was manifest in the flesh,’ has been exchanged in the Revised Version for the following,—‘And without controversy great is the mystery of godliness; He who was manifested in the flesh.’ A note on the margin states that ‘the word God, in place of He who, rests on no sufficient ancient evidence;’ and it may be well that, in a passage of so great importance, the reader should be convinced that such is the case.

“What, then, let us enquire, is the amount of evidence which can be produced in support of the reading ‘God’? This is soon stated. Not one of the early Fathers can be certainly quoted for it. None of the very ancient versions support it. No uncial witnesses to it, with the doubtful exception of a.... But even granting that the weighty suffrage of the Alexandrian manuscript is in favour of ‘God,’ far more evidence can be produced in support of ‘who.’ א and probably c witness to this reading, and it has also powerful testimony from the versions and Fathers. Moreover, the relative ‘who’ is a far more difficult reading than ‘God,’ and could hardly have been substituted for the latter. On every ground, therefore, we conclude that [pg 099]this interesting and important passage must stand as it has been given in the Revised Version.”347

And now, having heard the learned Presbyterian on behalf of his brother-Revisionists, we request that we may be ourselves listened to in reply.

The place of Scripture before us, the Reader is assured, presents a memorable instance of the mischief which occasionally resulted to the inspired Text from the ancient practice of executing copies of the Scriptures in uncial characters. S. Paul certainly wrote μέγα ἐστὶ τὸ τῆς εὐσεβείας μυστήριον; Θεὸς ἐφανερώθη ἐν σαρκί, (“Great is the mystery of godliness: God was manifested in the flesh”) But it requires to be explained at the outset, that the holy Name when abbreviated (which it always was), thus,—ΘΣ (“God”), is only distinguishable from the relative pronoun “who” (ΟΣ), by two horizontal strokes,—which, in manuscripts of early date, it was often the practice to trace so faintly that at present they can scarcely be discerned.348 Need we go on? An archetypal copy in which one or both of these slight strokes had vanished from the word ΘΣ (“God”), gave rise to the reading ΟΣ (“who”),—of which nonsensical substitute, traces survive in only two349 manuscripts,—א and 17: not, for certain, in one single ancient Father,—no, nor for certain in one single ancient Version. So transparent, in fact, is the absurdity of writing τὸ μυστέριον ὅς (“the mystery who”), that copyists promptly substituted ὅ (“which”): thus furnishing another illustration of the well-known property of [pg 100] a fabricated reading, viz. sooner or later inevitably to become the parent of a second. Happily, to this second mistake the sole surviving witness is the Codex Claromontanus, of the VIth century (d): the only Patristic evidence in its favour being Gelasius of Cyzicus,350 (whose date is a.d. 476): and the unknown author of a homily in the appendix to Chrysostom.351 The Versions—all but the Georgian and the Slavonic, which agree with the Received Text—favour it unquestionably; for they are observed invariably to make the relative pronoun agree in gender with the word which represents μυστήριον (“mystery”) which immediately precedes it. Thus, in the Syriac Versions, ὅς (“who”) is found,—but only because the Syriac equivalent for μυστήριον is of the masculine gender: in the Latin, quod (“which”)—but only because mysterium in Latin (like μυστήριον in Greek) is neuter. Over this latter reading, however, we need not linger; seeing that ὅ does not find a single patron at the present day. And yet, this was the reading which was eagerly upheld during the last century: Wetstein and Sir Isaac Newton being its most strenuous advocates.

It is time to pass under hasty review the direct evidence for the true reading. a and c exhibited ΘΣ until ink, thumbing, and the injurious use of chemicals, obliterated what once was patent. It is too late, by full 150 years, to contend on the negative side of this question.—f and g, which exhibit ΟΣ and ΟΣ respectively, were confessedly derived from a common archetype: in which archetype, it is evident that the horizontal stroke which distinguishes Θ from Ο must have been so faintly traced as to be scarcely discernible. The supposition that, in this place, the stroke in question represents the aspirate, is scarcely admissible. There is no single example of ὅς written ΟΣ in any part of [pg 101]either Cod. f or Cod. g. On the other hand, in the only place where ΟΣ represents ΘΣ, it is written ΟΣ in both. Prejudice herself may be safely called upon to accept the obvious and only lawful inference.

To come to the point,—Θεός is the reading of all the uncial copies extant but two (viz. א which exhibits ὅς, and d which exhibits ὅ), and of all the cursives but one (viz. 17). The universal consent of the Lectionaries proves that Θεός has been read in all the assemblies of the faithful from the IVth or Vth century of our era. At what earlier period of her existence is it supposed then that the Church (“the witness and keeper of Holy Writ,”) availed herself of her privilege to substitute Θεός for ὅς or ὅ,—whether in error or in fraud? Nothing short of a conspiracy, to which every region of the Eastern Church must have been a party, would account for the phenomenon.

We enquire next for the testimony of the Fathers; and we discover that—(1) Gregory of Nyssa quotes Θεός twenty-two times:352—that Θεός is also recognized by (2) his namesake of Nazianzus in two places;353—as well as by (3) Didymus of Alexandria;354—(4) by ps.-Dionysius Alex.;355—and (5) by Diodorus of Tarsus.356—(6) Chrysostom quotes 1 Tim. iii. 16 in conformity with the received text at least three times;357—and [pg 102] (7) Cyril Al. as often:358—(8) Theodoret, four times:359—(9) an unknown author of the age of Nestorius (a.d. 430), once:360—(10) Severus, Bp. of Antioch (a.d. 512), once.361—(11) Macedonius (a.d. 506) patriarch of CP.,362 of whom it has been absurdly related that he invented the reading, is a witness for Θεός perforce; so is—(12) Euthalius, and—(13) John Damascene on two occasions.363—(14) An unknown writer who has been mistaken for Athanasius,364—(15) besides not a few ancient scholiasts, close the list: for we pass by the testimony of—(16) Epiphanius at the 7th Nicene Council (a.d. 787),—of (17) Œcumenius,—of (18) Theophylact.

It will be observed that neither has anything been said about the many indirect allusions of earlier Fathers to this place of Scripture; and yet some of these are too striking to be overlooked: as when—(19) Basil, writing of our Saviour, says αὐτὸς ἐφανερώθη ἐν σαρκί:365—and (20) Gregory Thaum., καὶ ἔστι Θεὸς ἀληθινὸς ὁ ἄσαρκος ἐν σαρκὶ φανερωθείς:366—and before him, (21) Hippolytus, οὗτος προελθὼν εἰς κόσμον, Θεὸς ἐν σώματι ἐφανερώθη:367—and (22) Theodotus the Gnostic, ὁ Σωτὴρ ὤφθη κατιὼν τοῖς [pg 103] ἀγγέλοις:368—and (23) Barnabas, Ἰησοῦς ... ὁ υἱὸς τοῦ Θεοῦ τύπῳ καὶ ἐν σαρκὶ φανερωθείς:369—and earlier still (24) Ignatius: Θεοῦ ἀνθρωπίνως φανερουμένον:—ἐν σαρκὶ γενόμενος Θεός:—εἶς Θεὸς ἔστιν ὁ φανερώσοας ἑαυτὸν διὰ Ἰησοῦ Χριστοῦ τοῦ υἱοῦ αὐτοῦ.370—Are we to suppose that none of these primitive writers read the place as we do?

Against this array of Testimony, the only evidence which the unwearied industry of 150 years has succeeded in eliciting, is as follows:—(1) The exploded Latin fable that Macedonius (a.d. 506) invented the reading:371—(2) the fact that Epiphanius,—professing to transcribe372 from an earlier treatise of his own373 (in which ἐφανερώθη stands without a nominative), prefixes ὅς:—(3) the statement of an unknown scholiast, that in one particular place of Cyril's writings where the Greek is lost, Cyril wrote ὅς,—(which seems to be an entire mistake; but which, even if it were a fact, would be sufficiently explained by the discovery that in two other places of Cyril's writings the evidence fluctuates between ὅς and Θεός):—(4) a quotation in an epistle of Eutherius of Tyana (it exists only in Latin) where “qui” is found:—(5) a casual reference (in Jerome's commentary on Isaiah) to our Lord, as One “qui apparuit in carne, justificatus est in spiritu,”—which Bp. Pearson might have written.—Lastly, (6) a passage of Theodorus Mopsuest. (quoted at the Council of Constantinople, a.d. 553), where the reading is “qui,”—which is balanced by the discovery that in another place of his writings quoted at the same Council, the original is translated “quod.” And this closes the evidence. Will any unprejudiced person, on reviewing the premisses, seriously declare that ὅς is the better sustained reading of the two?

[pg 104]

For ourselves, we venture to deem it incredible that a Reading which—(a) Is not to be found in more than two copies (א and 17) of S. Paul's Epistles: which—(b) Is not certainly supported by a single Version:—(c) Nor is clearly advocated by a single Father,—can be genuine. It does not at all events admit of question, that until far stronger evidence can be produced in its favour, ὅς (“who”) may on no account be permitted to usurp the place of the commonly received Θεός (“God”) of 1 Tim. iii. 16. But the present exhibits in a striking and instructive way all the characteristic tokens of a depravation of the text. (1st) At an exceedingly early period it resulted in another deflection. (2nd) It is without the note of Continuity; having died out of the Church's memory well-nigh 1400 years ago. (3rd) It is deficient in Universality; having been all along denied the Church's corporate sanction. As a necessary consequence, (4th) It rests at this day on wholly insufficient Evidence: Manuscripts, Versions, Fathers being all against it. (5th) It carries on its front its own refutation. For, as all must see, ΘΣ might easily be mistaken for ΟΣ: but in order to make ΟΣ into ΘΣ, two horizontal lines must of set purpose be added to the copy. It is therefore a vast deal more likely that ΘΣ became ΟΣ, than that ΟΣ became ΘΣ. (6th) Lastly, it is condemned by internal considerations. Ὅς is in truth so grossly improbable—rather, so impossible—a reading, that under any circumstances we must have anxiously enquired whether no escape from it was discoverable: whether there exists no way of explaining how so patent an absurdity as μυστέριον ὅς may have arisen? And on being reminded that the disappearance of two faint horizontal strokes, or even of one, would fully account for the impossible reading,—(and thus much, at least, all admit,)—should we not have felt that it required an overwhelming consensus of authorities in favour of ὅς, to render such an alternative deserving of serious [pg 105] attention? It is a mere abuse of Bengel's famous axiom to recal it on occasions like the present. We shall be landed in a bathos indeed if we allow gross improbability to become a constraining motive with us in revising the sacred Text.

And thus much for the true reading of 1 Tim. iii. 16. We invite the reader to refer back374 to a Reviser's estimate of the evidence in favour of Θεός and ὅς respectively, and to contrast it with our own. If he is impressed with the strength of the cause of our opponents,—their mastery of the subject,—and the reasonableness of their contention,—we shall be surprised. And yet that is not the question just now before us. The only question (be it clearly remembered) which has to be considered, is this:—Can it be said with truth that the “evidence” for ὅς (as against Θεός) in 1 Tim. iii. 16 is “clearly preponderating”? Can it be maintained that Θεός is a “plain and clear error”? Unless this can be affirmed—cadit quæstio. The traditional reading of the place ought to have been let alone. May we be permitted to say without offence that, in our humble judgment, if the Church of England, at the Revisers' bidding, were to adopt this and thousands of other depravations of the sacred page,375—with which the Church Universal was once well acquainted, but which in her corporate character she has long since unconditionally condemned and abandoned,—she would deserve to be pointed at with scorn by the rest of Christendom? Yes, and to have that openly said of her [pg 106] which S. Peter openly said of the false teachers of his day who fell back into the very errors which they had already abjured. The place will be found in 2 S. Peter ii. 22. So singularly applicable is it to the matter in hand, that we can but invite attention to the quotation on our title-page and p. 1.

And here we make an end.

1. Those who may have taken up the present Article in expectation of being entertained with another of those discussions (of which we suspect the public must be already getting somewhat weary), concerning the degree of ability which the New Testament Revisionists have displayed in their rendering into English of the Greek, will at first experience disappointment. Readers of intelligence, however, who have been at the pains to follow us through the foregoing pages, will be constrained to admit that we have done more faithful service to the cause of Sacred Truth by the course we have been pursuing, than if we had merely multiplied instances of incorrect and unsatisfactory Translation. There is (and this we endeavoured to explain at the outset) a question of prior interest and far graver importance which has to be settled first, viz. the degree of confidence which is due to the underlying new Greek text which our Revisionists have constructed. In other words, before discussing their new Renderings, we have to examine their new Readings.376 The silence which Scholars have hitherto maintained on this part [pg 107] of the subject is to ourselves scarcely intelligible. But it makes us the more anxious to invite attention to this neglected aspect of the problem; the rather, because we have thoroughly convinced ourselves that the “new Greek Text” put forth by the Revisionists of our Authorized Version is utterly inadmissible. The traditional Text has been departed from by them nearly 6000 times,—almost invariably for the worse.

2. Fully to dispose of all these multitudinous corruptions would require a bulky Treatise. But the reader is requested to observe that, if we are right in the few instances we have culled out from the mass,—then we are right in all. If we have succeeded in proving that the little handful of authorities on which the “new Greek Text” depends, are the reverse of trustworthy,—are absolutely misleading,—then, we have cut away from under the Revisionists the very ground on which they have hitherto been standing. And in that case, the structure which they have built up throughout a decade of years, with such evident self-complacency, collapses “like the baseless fabric of a vision.”

3. For no one may flatter himself that, by undergoing a further process of “Revision,” the “Revised Version” may after all be rendered trustworthy. The eloquent and excellent Bishop of Derry is “convinced that, with all its undeniable merits, it will have to be somewhat extensively revised.” And so perhaps are we. But (what is a far more important circumstance) we are further convinced that a prior act of penance to be submitted to by the Revisers would be the restoration of the underlying Greek Text to very nearly—not quite—the state in which they found it when they entered upon their ill-advised undertaking. “Very nearly—not quite:” for, in not a few particulars, the “Textus receptus” does call for Revision, certainly; although Revision on entirely different principles from those which are found to have prevailed in the Jerusalem Chamber. To mention a [pg 108] single instance:—When our Lord first sent forth His Twelve Apostles, it was certainly no part of His ministerial commission to them to “raise the dead” (νεκροὺς ἐγείρετε, S. Matthew x. 8). This is easily demonstrable. Yet is the spurious clause retained by our Revisionists; because it is found in those corrupt witnesses—א b c d, and the Latin copies.377 When will men learn unconditionally to put away from themselves the weak superstition which is for investing with oracular authority the foregoing quaternion of demonstrably depraved Codices?

4. “It may be said”—(to quote again from Bp. Alexander's recent Charge),—“that there is a want of modesty in dissenting from the conclusions of a two-thirds majority of a body so learned. But the rough process of counting heads imposes unduly on the imagination. One could easily name eight in that assembly, whose unanimity would be practically almost decisive; but we have no means of knowing that these did not form the minority in resisting the changes which we most regret.” The Bishop is speaking of the English Revision. Having regard to the Greek Text exclusively, we also (strange to relate) had singled out exactly eight from the members of the New Testament company—Divines of undoubted orthodoxy, who for their splendid scholarship and proficiency in the best learning, or else for their refined taste and admirable judgment, might (as we humbly think), under certain safeguards, have been safely entrusted even with the responsibility of revising the Sacred Text. Under the guidance of Prebendary Scrivener (who among living Englishmen is facile princeps in these pursuits) it is scarcely to be anticipated that, when unanimous, such Divines would ever [pg 109] have materially erred. But then, of course, a previous life-long familiarity with the Science of Textual Criticism, or at least leisure for prosecuting it now, for ten or twenty years, with absolutely undivided attention,—would be the indispensable requisite for the success of such an undertaking; and this, undeniably, is a qualification rather to be desiderated than looked for at the hands of English Divines of note at the present day. On the other hand, (loyalty to our Master constrains us to make the avowal,) the motley assortment of names, twenty-eight in all, specified by Dr. Newth, at p. 125 of his interesting little volume, joined to the fact that the average attendance was not so many as sixteen,—concerning whom, moreover, the fact has transpired that some of the most judicious of their number often declined to give any vote at all,—is by no means calculated to inspire any sort of confidence. But, in truth, considerable familiarity with these pursuits may easily co-exist with a natural inaptitude for their successful cultivation, which shall prove simply fatal. In support of this remark, one has but to refer to the instance supplied by Dr. Hort. The Sacred Text has none to fear so much as those who feel rather than think: who imagine rather than reason: who rely on a supposed verifying faculty of their own, of which they are able to render no intelligible account; and who, (to use Bishop Ellicott's phrase,) have the misfortune to conceive themselves possessed of a “power of divining the Original Text,”—which would be even diverting, if the practical result of their self-deception were not so exceedingly serious.

5. In a future number, we may perhaps enquire into the measure of success which has attended the Revisers' Revision of the English of our Authorized Version of 1611. We have occupied ourselves at this time exclusively with a survey of the seriously mutilated and otherwise grossly depraved new Greek text, on which their edifice has been reared. [pg 110] And the circumstance which, in conclusion, we desire to impress upon our Readers, is this,—that the insecurity of that foundation is so alarming, that, except as a concession due to the solemnity of the undertaking just now under review, further Criticism might very well be dispensed with, as a thing superfluous. Even could it be proved concerning the superstructure, that “it had been [ever so] well builded,”378 (to adopt another of our Revisionists' unhappy perversions of Scripture,) the fatal objection would remain, viz. that it is not “founded upon the rock.”379 It has been the ruin of the present undertaking—as far as the Sacred Text is concerned—that the majority of the Revisionist body have been misled throughout by the oracular decrees and impetuous advocacy of Drs. Westcott and Hort; who, with the purest intentions and most laudable industry, have constructed a Text demonstrably more remote from the Evangelic verity, than any which has ever yet seen the light. “The old is good,”380 say the Revisionists: but we venture solemnly to assure them that “the old is better;”381 and that this remark holds every bit as true of their Revision of the Greek throughout, as of their infelicitous exhibition of S. Luke v. 39. To attempt, as they have done, to build the Text of the New Testament on a tissue of unproved assertions and the eccentricities of a single codex of bad character, is about as hopeful a proceeding as would be the attempt to erect an Eddystone lighthouse on the Goodwin Sands.

[pg 112]

Article II. The New English Version.

“Such is the time-honoured Version which we have been called upon to revise! We have had to study this great Version carefully and minutely, line by line; and the longer we have been engaged upon it the more we have learned to admire its simplicity, its dignity, its power, its happy turns of expression, its general accuracy, and we must not fail to add, the music of its cadences, and the felicities of its rhythm. To render a work that had reached this high standard of excellence, still more excellent; to increase its fidelity, without destroying its charm; was the task committed to us.”—Preface To the Revised Version.

“To pass from the one to the other, is, as it were, to alight from a well-built and well-hung carriage which glides easily over a macadamized road,—and to get into one which has bad springs or none at all, and in which you are jolted in ruts with aching bones over the stones of a newly-mended and rarely traversed road, like some of the roads in our North Lincolnshire villages.”—Bishop Wordsworth.382

“No Revision at the present day could hope to meet with an hour's acceptance if it failed to preserve the tone, rhythm, and diction of the present Authorized Version.”—Bishop Ellicott.383

“I testify unto every man that heareth the words of the prophecy of this Book,—If any man shall add unto these things, God shall add unto him the plagues that are written in this Book.

“And if any man shall take away from the words of the Book of this prophecy, GOD shall take away his part out of the Book of Life, and out of the holy City, and from the things which are written in this Book.”—Revelationxxii. 18, 19.

Whatever may be urged in favour of Biblical Revision, it is at least undeniable that the undertaking involves a tremendous risk. Our Authorized Version is the one religious link which at present binds together ninety millions of English-speaking men scattered over the earth's surface. Is it reasonable that so unutterably precious, so sacred a bond should be endangered, for the sake of representing certain words more accurately,—here and there translating a tense with greater precision,—getting rid of a few archaisms? It may be confidently assumed that no “Revision” of our Authorized Version, however judiciously executed, will ever occupy the place in public esteem which is actually enjoyed by the work of the Translators of 1611,—the noblest literary work in the Anglo-Saxon language. We shall in fact never have another “Authorized Version.” And this single consideration may be thought absolutely fatal to the project, except in a greatly modified form. To be brief,—As a companion in the study and for private edification: as a book of reference for critical purposes, especially in respect [pg 114] of difficult and controverted passages:—we hold that a revised edition of the Authorized Version of our English Bible, (if executed with consummate ability and learning,) would at any time be a work of inestimable value. The method of such a performance, whether by marginal Notes or in some other way, we forbear to determine. But certainly only as a handmaid is it to be desired. As something intended to supersede our present English Bible, we are thoroughly convinced that the project of a rival Translation is not to be entertained for a moment. For ourselves, we deprecate it entirely.

On the other hand, who could have possibly foreseen what has actually come to pass since the Convocation of the Southern Province (in Feb. 1870) declared itself favourable to “a Revision of the Authorized Version,” and appointed a Committee of Divines to undertake the work? Who was to suppose that the Instructions given to the Revisionists would be by them systematically disregarded? Who was to imagine that an utterly untrustworthy “new Greek Text,” constructed on mistaken principles,—(say rather, on no principles at all,)—would be the fatal result? To speak more truly,—Who could have anticipated that the opportunity would have been adroitly seized to inflict upon the Church the text of Drs. Westcott and Hort, in all its essential features,—a text which, as will be found elsewhere largely explained, we hold to be the most vicious Recension of the original Greek in existence? Above all,—Who was to foresee that instead of removing “plain and clear errors” from our Version, the Revisionists,—(besides systematically removing out of sight so many of the genuine utterances of the Spirit,)—would themselves introduce a countless number of blemishes, unknown to it before? Lastly, how was it to have been believed that the Revisionists would show themselves [pg 115] industrious in sowing broadcast over four continents doubts as to the Truth of Scripture, which it will never be in their power either to remove or to recal? Nescit vox missa reverti.

For, the ill-advised practice of recording, in the margin of an English Bible, certain of the blunders—(such things cannot by any stretch of courtesy be styled “Various Readings”)—which disfigure “some” or “many” “ancient authorities,” can only result in hopelessly unsettling the faith of millions. It cannot be defended on the plea of candour,—the candour which is determined that men shall “know the worst.” “The worst” has not been told: and it were dishonesty to insinuate that it has. If all the cases were faithfully exhibited where “a few,” “some,” or “many ancient authorities” read differently from what is exhibited in the actual Text, not only would the margin prove insufficient to contain the record, but the very page itself would not nearly suffice. Take a single instance (the first which comes to mind), of the thing referred to. Such illustrations might be multiplied to any extent:—

In S. Luke iii. 22, (in place of “Thou art my beloved Son; in Thee I am well pleased,”) the following authorities of the IInd, IIIrd and IVth centuries, read,—“this day have I begotten Thee:” viz.—codex d and the most ancient copies of the old Latin (a, b, c, ff-2, 1),—Justin Martyr in three places384 (a.d. 140),—Clemens Alex.385 (a.d. 190),—and Methodius386 (a.d. 290) among the Greeks. Lactantius387 (a.d. 300),—Hilary388 (a.d. 350),—Juvencus389 (a.d. 330),—Faustus390 (a.d. 400), [pg 116] and—Augustine391 amongst the Latins. The reading in question was doubtless derived from the Ebionite Gospel392 (IInd cent.). Now, we desire to have it explained to us why an exhibition of the Text supported by such an amount of first-rate primitive testimony as the preceding, obtains no notice whatever in our Revisionists' margin,—if indeed it was the object of their perpetually recurring marginal annotations, to put the unlearned reader on a level with the critical Scholar; to keep nothing back from him; and so forth?... It is the gross one-sidedness, the patent unfairness, in a critical point of view, of this work, (which professes to be nothing else but a Revision of the English Version of 1611,)—which chiefly shocks and offends us.

For, on the other hand, of what possible use can it be to encumber the margin of S. Luke x. 41, 42 (for example), with the announcement that “A few ancient authorities read Martha, Martha, thou art troubled: Mary hath chosen &c.” (the fact being, that d alone of MSS. omits “careful and ... about many things. But one thing is needful, and” ...)? With the record of this circumstance, is it reasonable (we ask) to choke up our English margin,—to create perplexity and to insinuate doubt? The author of the foregoing [pg 117] marginal Annotation was of course aware that the same “singular codex” (as Bp. Ellicott styles cod. d) omits, in S. Luke's Gospel alone, no less than 1552 words: and he will of course have ascertained (by counting) that the words in S. Luke's Gospel amount to 19,941. Why then did he not tell the whole truth; and instead of “&c.,” proceed as follows?—“But inasmuch as cod. d is so scandalously corrupt that about one word in thirteen is missing throughout, the absence of nine words in this place is of no manner of importance or significancy. The precious saying omitted is above suspicion, and the first half of the present Annotation might have been spared.”... We submit that a Note like that, although rather “singular” in style, really would have been to some extent helpful,—if not to the learned, at least to the unlearned reader.

In the meantime, unlearned and learned readers alike are competent to see that the foregoing perturbation of S. Luke x. 41, 42 rests on the same manuscript authority as the perturbation of ch. iii. 22, which immediately preceded it. The Patristic attestation, on the other hand, of the reading which has been promoted to the margin, is almost nil: whereas that of the neglected place has been shown to be considerable, very ancient, and of high respectability.

But in fact,—(let the Truth be plainly stated; for, when God's Word is at stake, circumlocution is contemptible, while concealment would be a crime;)—“Faithfulness” towards the public, a stern resolve that the English reader “shall know the worst,” and all that kind of thing,—such considerations have had nothing whatever to do with the matter. A vastly different principle has prevailed with the Revisionists. Themselves the dupes of an utterly mistaken Theory of Textual Criticism, their supreme solicitude has [pg 118] been to impose that same Theory,—(which is Westcott and Hort's,)—with all its bitter consequences, on the unlearned and unsuspicious public.

We shall of course be indignantly called upon to explain what we mean by so injurious—so damning—an imputation? For all reply, we are content to refer to the sample of our meaning which will be found below, in pp. 137-8. The exposure of what has there been shown to be the method of the Revisionists in respect of S. Mark vi. 11, might be repeated hundreds of times. It would in fact fill a volume. We shall therefore pass on, when we have asked the Revisionists in turn—How they have dared so effectually to blot out those many precious words from the Book of Life, that no mere English reader, depending on the Revised Version for his knowledge of the Gospels, can by possibility suspect their existence?... Supposing even that it was the calamitous result of their mistaken principles that they found themselves constrained on countless occasions, to omit from their Text precious sayings of our Lord and His Apostles,—what possible excuse will they offer for not having preserved a record of words so amply attested, at least in their margin?

Even so, however, the whole amount of the mischief which has been effected by our Revisionists has not been stated. For the Greek Text which they have invented proves to be so hopelessly depraved throughout, that if it were to be thrust upon the Church's acceptance, we should be a thousand times worse off than we were with the Text which Erasmus and the Complutensian,—Stephens, and Beza, and the Elzevirs,—bequeathed to us upwards of three centuries ago. On this part of the subject we have remarked at length already [pp. 1-110]: yet shall we be constrained to recur once and again to the underlying Greek Text of the Revisionists, [pg 119] inasmuch as it is impossible to stir in any direction with the task before us, without being painfully reminded of its existence. Not only do the familiar Parables, Miracles, Discourses of our Lord, trip us up at every step, but we cannot open the first page of the Gospel—no, nor indeed read the first line—without being brought to a standstill. Thus,

1. S. Matthew begins,—“The book of the generation of Jesus Christ” (ver. 1).—Good. But here the margin volunteers two pieces of information: first,—“Or, birth: as in ver. 18.” We refer to ver. 18, and read—“Now the birth of Jesus Christ was on this wise.” Good again; but the margin says,—“Or, generation: as in ver. 1.” Are we then to understand that the same Greek word, diversely rendered in English, occurs in both places? We refer to the “new Greek Text:” and there it stands,—γένεσις in either verse. But if the word be the same, why (on the Revisers' theory) is it diversely rendered?

In the meantime, who knows not that there is all the difference in the world between S. Matthew's γέΝΕσις, in ver. 1,—and the same S. Matthew's γέΝΝΗσις, in ver. 18? The latter, the Evangelist's announcement of the circumstances of the human Nativity of Christ: the former, the Evangelist's unobtrusive way of recalling the Septuagintal rendering of Gen. ii. 4 and v. 1:393 the same Evangelist's calm method of guiding the devout and thoughtful student to discern in the Gospel the History of the “new Creation,”—by thus providing that when first the Gospel opens its lips, it shall syllable the name of the first book of the elder Covenant? We are pointing out that it more than startles—it supremely offends—one who is even slenderly acquainted [pg 120] with the treasures of wisdom hid in the very diction of the N. T. Scriptures, to discover that a deliberate effort has been made to get rid of the very foremost of those notes of Divine intelligence, by confounding two words which all down the ages have been carefully kept distinct; and that this effort is the result of an exaggerated estimate of a few codices which happen to be written in the uncial character, viz. two of the IVth century (b א); one of the Vth (c); two of the VIth (p z); one of the IXth (Δ); one of the Xth (s).

The Versions394—(which are our oldest witnesses)—are perforce only partially helpful here. Note however, that the only one which favours γένεσις is the heretical Harkleian Syriac, executed in the VIIth century. The Peschito and Cureton's Syriac distinguish between γένεσις in ver. 1 and γέννησις in ver. 18: as do the Slavonic and the Arabian Versions. The Egyptian, Armenian, Æthiopic and Georgian, have only one word for both. Let no one suppose however that therefore their testimony is ambiguous. It is γέννησις (not γένεσις) which they exhibit, both in ver. 1 and in ver. 18.395 The Latin (“generatio”) is an equivocal rendering certainly: but the earliest Latin writer who quotes the two places, (viz. Tertullian) employs the word “genitura” in S. Matth. i. 1,—but “nativitas” in ver. 18,—which no one seems to have noticed.396 Now, Tertullian, (as one who sometimes [pg 121] wrote in Greek,) is known to have been conversant with the Greek copies of his day; and “his day,” be it remembered, is a.d. 190. He evidently recognized the parallelism between S. Matt. i. 1 and Gen. ii. 4,—where the old Latin exhibits “liber creaturæ” or “facturæ,” as the rendering of βίβλος γενέσεως. And so much for the testimony of the Versions.

But on reference to Manuscript and to Patristic authority397 we are encountered by an overwhelming amount of testimony for γέννησις in ver. 18: and this, considering the nature of the case, is an extraordinary circumstance. Quite plain is it that the Ancients were wide awake to the difference between spelling the word with one N or with two,—as the little dissertation of the heretic Nestorius398 in itself would be enough to prove. Γέννησις, in the meantime, is the word employed by Justin M.,399—by Clemens Alex.,400—by Athanasius,401—by Gregory of Nazianzus,402—by Cyril Alex.,403—by Nestorius,404—by Chrysostom,405—by Theodorus [pg 122] Mopsuest.,406—and by three other ancients.407 Even more deserving of attention is it that Irenæus408 (a.d. 170)—(whom Germanus409 copies at the end of 550 years)—calls attention to the difference between the spelling of ver. 1 and ver. 18. So does Didymus:410—so does Basil:411—so does Epiphanius.412—Origen413 (a.d. 210) is even eloquent on the subject.—Tertullian (a.d. 190) we have heard already.—It is a significant circumstance, that the only Patristic authorities discoverable on the other side are Eusebius, Theodoret, and the authors of an heretical Creed414—whom Athanasius holds up to scorn.415 ... Will the Revisionists still pretend to tell us that γέννησις in verse 18 is a “plain and clear error”?

2. This, however, is not all. Against the words “of Jesus Christ,” a further critical annotation is volunteered; to the effect that “Some ancient authorities read of the Christ.” In reply to which, we assert that not one single known MS. omits the word “Jesus:” whilst its presence is vouched for by ps.-Tatian,416—Irenæus,—Origen,—Eusebius,—Didymus,— Epiphanius,—Chrysostom,—Cyril,—in addition to every known Greek copy of the Gospels, and not a few of the Versions, including the Peschito and both the Egyptian. What else but nugatory therefore is such a piece of information as this?

3. And so much for the first, second, and third Critical annotations, with which the margin of the revised N. T. is [pg 123] disfigured. Hoping that the worst is now over, we read on till we reach ver. 25, where we encounter a statement which fairly trips us up: viz.,—“And knew her not till she had brought forth a son.” No intimation is afforded of what has been here effected; but in the meantime every one's memory supplies the epithet (“her first-born”) which has been ejected. Whether something very like indignation is not excited by the discovery that these important words have been surreptitiously withdrawn from their place, let others say. For ourselves, when we find that only א b z and two cursive copies can be produced for the omission, we are at a loss to understand of what the Revisionists can have been dreaming. Did they know417 that,—besides the Vulgate, the Peschito and Philoxenian Syriac, the Æthiopic, Armenian, Georgian, and Slavonian Versions,418—a whole torrent of Fathers are at hand to vouch for the genuineness of the epithet they were so unceremoniously excising? They are invited to refer to ps.-Tatian,419—to Athanasius,420—to Didymus,421—to Cyril of Jer.,422—to Basil,423—to Greg. Nyss.,424—to Ephraem Syr.,425—to Epiphanius,426—to Chrysostom,427—to Proclus,428—to Isidorus Pelus.,429—to John Damasc.,430—to Photius,431—to Nicetas:432—besides, of the Latins, Ambrose,433—the Opus imp.,—Augustine,—and not least to Jerome434—eighteen Fathers in all. And how is it possible, (we ask,) [pg 124] that two copies of the IVth century (b א) and one of the VIth (z)—all three without a character—backed by a few copies of the old Latin, should be supposed to be any counterpoise at all for such an array of first-rate contemporary evidence as the foregoing?

Enough has been offered by this time to prove that an authoritative Revision of the Greek Text will have to precede any future Revision of the English of the New Testament. Equally certain is it that for such an undertaking the time has not yet come. “It is my honest conviction,”—(remarks Bp. Ellicott, the Chairman of the Revisionists,)—“that for any authoritative Revision, we are not yet mature: either in Biblical learning or Hellenistic scholarship.”435 The same opinion precisely is found to have been cherished by Dr. Westcott till within about a year-and-a-half436 of the first assembling of the New Testament Company in the Jerusalem Chamber, 22nd June, 1870. True, that we enjoy access to—suppose from 1000 to 2000—more manuscripts than were available when the Textus Recept. was formed. But nineteen-twentieths of those documents, for any use which has been made of them, might just as well be still lying in the monastic libraries from which they were obtained.—True, that four out of our five oldest uncials have come to light since the year 1628; but, who knows how to use them?—True, that we have made acquaintance with certain ancient Versions, about which little or nothing was known 200 years ago: but,—(with the solitary exception of the Rev. Solomon Cæsar Malan, the learned Vicar of Broadwindsor,—who, by the way, is always ready to lend a torch to his benighted brethren,)—what living Englishman is able to tell [pg 125] us what they all contain? A smattering acquaintance with the languages of ancient Egypt,—the Gothic, Æthiopic, Armenian, Georgian and Slavonian Versions,—is of no manner of avail. In no department, probably, is “a little learning” more sure to prove “a dangerous thing.”—True, lastly, that the Fathers have been better edited within the last 250 years: during which period some fresh Patristic writings have also come to light. But, with the exception of Theodoret among the Greeks and Tertullian among the Latins, which of the Fathers has been satisfactorily indexed?

Even what precedes is not nearly all. The fundamental Principles of the Science of Textual Criticism are not yet apprehended. In proof of this assertion, we appeal to the new Greek Text of Drs. Westcott and Hort,—which, beyond all controversy, is more hopelessly remote from the inspired Original than any which has yet appeared. Let a generation of Students give themselves entirely up to this neglected branch of sacred Science. Let 500 more Copies of the Gospels, Acts, and Epistles, be diligently collated. Let at least 100 of the ancient Lectionaries be very exactly collated also. Let the most important of the ancient Versions be edited afresh, and let the languages in which these are written be for the first time really mastered by Englishmen. Above all, let the Fathers he called upon to give up their precious secrets. Let their writings be ransacked and indexed, and (where needful) let the MSS. of their works be diligently inspected, in order that we may know what actually is the evidence which they afford. Only so will it ever be possible to obtain a Greek Text on which absolute reliance may be placed, and which may serve as the basis for a satisfactory Revision of our Authorized Version. Nay, let whatever unpublished works of the ancient Greek Fathers are anywhere known to exist,—(and not a few precious remains [pg 126] of theirs are lying hid in great national libraries, both at home and abroad,)—let these be printed. The men could easily be found: the money, far more easily.—When all this has been done,—not before—then in God's Name, let the Church address herself to the great undertaking. Do but revive the arrangements which were adopted in King James's days: and we venture to predict that less than a third part of ten years will be found abundantly to suffice for the work. How the coming men will smile at the picture Dr. Newth437 has drawn of what was the method of procedure in the reign of Queen Victoria! Will they not peruse with downright merriment Bp. Ellicott's jaunty proposal “simply to proceed onward with the work”—[to wit, of constructing a new Greek Text,]—“in fact, solvere ambulando,” [necnon in laqueum cadendo]?438

I. We cannot, it is presumed, act more fairly by the Revisers' work,439 than by following them over some of the ground which they claim to have made their own, and which, at the conclusion of their labours, their Right [pg 127] Reverend Chairman evidently surveys with self-complacency. First, he invites attention to the Principle and Rule for their guidance agreed to by the Committee of Convocation (25th May, 1870), viz. “To introduce as few alterations as possible into the Text of the Authorized Version, consistently with faithfulness.” Words could not be more emphatic. “Plain and clear errors” were to be corrected. “Necessary emendations” were to be made. But (in the words of the Southern Convocation) “We do not contemplate any new Translation, or any alteration of the language, except where, in the judgment of the most competent Scholars, such change is necessary.” The watchword, therefore, given to the company of Revisionists was,—“Necessity.” Necessity was to determine whether they were to depart from the language of the Authorized Version, or not; for the alterations were to be as few as possible.

(a) Now it is idle to deny that this fundamental Principle has been utterly set at defiance. To such an extent is this the case, that even an unlettered Reader is competent to judge them. When we find “to” substituted for “unto” (passim):—“hereby” for “by this” (1 Jo. v. 2):—“all that are,” for “all that be” (Rom. i. 7):—“alway” for “always” (2 Thess. i. 3):—“we that,” “them that,” for “we which,” “them which” (1 Thess. iv. 15); and yet “every spirit which,” for “every spirit that” (1 Jo. iv. 3), and “he who is not of God,” for “he that is not of God” (ver. 6,—although “he that knoweth God” had preceded, in the same verse):—“my host” for “mine host” (Rom. xvi. 23); and “underneath” for “under” (Rev. vi. 9):—it becomes clear that the Revisers' notion of necessity is not that of the rest of mankind. But let the plain Truth be stated. Certain of them, when remonstrated with by their fellows for the manifest disregard they were showing to the Instructions subject to which they had undertaken the work [pg 128] of Revision, are reported to have even gloried in their shame. The majority, it is clear, have even ostentatiously set those Instructions at defiance.

Was the course they pursued,—(we ask the question respectfully,)—strictly honest? To decline the work entirely under the prescribed Conditions, was always in their power. But, first to accept the Conditions, and straightway to act in defiance of them,—this strikes us as a method of proceeding which it is difficult to reconcile with the high character of the occupants of the Jerusalem Chamber. To proceed however.

“Nevertheless” and “notwithstanding” have had a sad time of it. One or other of them has been turned out in favour of “howbeit” (S. Lu. x. 11, 20),—of “only” (Phil. iii. 16),—of “only that” (i. 18),—of “yet” (S. Matth. xi. 11),—of “but” (xvii. 27),—of “and yet” (James ii. 16).... We find “take heed” substituted for “beware” (Col. ii. 8):—“custom” for “manner” (S. Jo. xix. 40):—“he was amazed,” for “he was astonished:” (S. Lu. v. 9):—“Is it I, Lord?” for “Lord, is it I?” (S. Matth. xxvi. 22):—“straightway the cock crew,” for “immediately the cock crew” (S. Jo. xviii. 27):—“Then therefore he delivered Him,” for “Then delivered he Him therefore” (xix. 16):—“brought it to His mouth,” for “put it to His mouth” (ver. 29):—“He manifested Himself on this wise,” for “on this wise shewed He Himself” (xxi. 1):—“So when they got out upon the land,” for “As soon then as they were come to land” (ver. 9):—“the things concerning,” for “the things pertaining to the kingdom of God” (Acts i. 3):—“as God's steward,” for “as the steward of God” (Tit. i. 7): but “the belly of the whale” for “the whale's belly” (S. Matth. xii. 40), and “device of man” for “man's device” in Acts xvii. 29.—These, and hundreds of similar alterations have been evidently made out of the [pg 129] merest wantonness. After substituting “therefore” for “then” (as the rendering of οὖν) a score of times,—the Revisionists quite needlessly substitute “then” for “therefore” in S. Jo. xix. 42.—And why has the singularly beautiful greeting of “the elder unto the well-beloved Gaius,” been exchanged for “unto Gaius the beloved”? (3 John, ver. 1).

(b) We turn a few pages, and find “he that doeth sin,” substituted for “he that committeth sin;” and “To this end” put in the place of “For this purpose” (1 Jo. iii. 8):—“have beheld” and “bear witness,” for “have seen and do testify” (iv. 14):—“hereby” for “by this” (v. 2):—“Judas” for “Jude” (Jude ver. 1), although “Mark” was substituted for “Marcus” (in 1 Pet. v. 13), and “Timothy” for “Timotheus” (in Phil. i. 1):—“how that they said to you,” for “how that they told you” (Jude ver. 18).—But why go on? The substitution of “exceedingly” for “greatly” in Acts vi. 7:—“the birds” for “the fowls,” in Rev. xix. 21:—“Almighty” for “Omnipotent” in ver. 6:—“throw down” for “cast down,” in S. Luke iv. 29:—“inner chamber” for “closet,” in vi. 6:—these are not “necessary” changes.... We will give but three instances more:—In 1 S. Pet. v. 9, “whom resist, stedfast in the faith,” has been altered into “whom withstand.” But how is “withstand” a better rendering for ἀντίστητε, than “resist”? “Resist,” at all events, was the Revisionists' word in S. Matth. v. 39 and S. James iv. 7.—Why also substitute “the race” (for “the kindred”) “of Joseph” in Acts vii. 13, although γένος was rendered “kindred” in iv. 6?—Do the Revisionists think that “fastening their eyes on him” is a better rendering of ἀτενίσαντες εἰς αὐτόν (Acts vi. 15) than “looking stedfastly on him”? They certainly did not think so when they got to xxiii. 1. There, because they found “earnestly beholding the council,” they must needs alter the phrase into “looking stedfastly.” It is clear therefore that Caprice, not Necessity,—an [pg 130] itching impatience to introduce changes into the A. V., not the discovery of “plain and clear errors”—has determined the great bulk of the alterations which molest us in every part of the present unlearned and tasteless performance.

II. The next point to which the Revisionists direct our attention is their new Greek text,—“the necessary foundation of” their work. And here we must renew our protest against the wrong which has been done to English readers by the Revisionists' disregard of the IVth Rule laid down for their guidance, viz. that, whenever they adopted a new Textual reading, such alteration was to be “indicated in the margin.” This “proved inconvenient,” say the Revisionists. Yes, we reply: but only because you saw fit, in preference, to choke up your margin with a record of the preposterous readings you did not admit. Even so, however, the thing might to some extent have been done, if only by a system of signs in the margin wherever a change in the Text had been by yourselves effected. And, at whatever “inconvenience,” you were bound to do this,—partly because the Rule before you was express: but chiefly in fairness to the English Reader. How comes it to pass that you have never furnished him with the information you stood pledged to furnish; but have instead, volunteered in every page information, worthless in itself, which can only serve to unsettle the faith of unlettered millions, and to suggest unreasonable as well as miserable doubts to the minds of all?

For no one may for an instant imagine that the marginal statements of which we speak are a kind of equivalent for the Apparatus Criticus which is found in every principal edition of the Greek Testament—excepting always that of Drs. Westcott and Hort. So far are we from deprecating (with Daniel Whitby) the multiplication of “Various Readings,” [pg 131] that we rejoice in them exceedingly; knowing that they are the very foundation of our confidence and the secret of our strength. For this reason we consider Dr. Tischendorf's last (8th) edition to be furnished with not nearly enough of them, though he left all his predecessors (and himself in his 7th edition) far behind. Our quarrel with the Revisionists is not by any means that they have commemorated actual “alternative Readings” in their margin: but that, while they have given prominence throughout to patent Errors, they have unfairly excluded all mention of,—have not made the slightest allusion to,—hundreds of Readings which ought in fact rather to have stood in the Text.

The marginal readings, which our Revisers have been so ill-advised as to put prominently forward, and to introduce to the Reader's notice with the vague statement that they are sanctioned by “Some” (or by “Many”) “ancient authorities,”—are specimens arbitrarily selected out of an immense mass; are magisterially recommended to public attention and favour; seem to be invested with the sanction and authority of Convocation itself. And this becomes a very serious matter indeed. No hint is given which be the “ancient Authorities” so referred to:—nor what proportion they bear to the “ancient Authorities” producible on the opposite side:—nor whether they are the most “ancient Authorities” obtainable:—nor what amount of attention their testimony may reasonably claim. But in the meantime a fatal assertion is hazarded in the Preface (iii. 1.), to the effect that in cases where “it would not be safe to accept one Reading to the absolute exclusion of others,” “alternative Readings” have been given “in the margin.” So that the “Agony and bloody sweat” of the World's Redeemer (Lu. xxii. 43, 44),—and His Prayer for His murderers (xxiii. 34),—and much beside of transcendent importance and inestimable value, may, according to our Revisionists, prove to rest upon no foundation whatever. [pg 132] At all events, “it would not be safe,” (i.e. it is not safe) to place absolute reliance on them. Alas, how many a deadly blow at Revealed Truth hath been in this way aimed with fatal adroitness, which no amount of orthodox learning will ever be able hereafter to heal, much less to undo! Thus,—

(a) From the first verse of S. Mark's Gospel we are informed that “Some ancient authorities omit the Son of God.” Why are we not informed that every known uncial Copy except one of bad character,—every cursive but two,—every Version,—and the following Fathers,—all contain the precious clause: viz. Irenæus,—Porphyry,—Severianus of Gabala,—Cyril Alex.,—Victor Ant.,—and others,—besides Ambrose and Augustine among the Latins:—while the supposed adverse testimony of Serapion and Titus, Basil and Victorinus, Cyril of Jer. and Epiphanius, proves to be all a mistake? To speak plainly, since the clause is above suspicion, Why are we not rather told so?

(b) In the 3rd verse of the first chapter of S. John's Gospel, we are left to take our choice between,—“without Him was not anything made that hath been made. In him was life; and the life,” &c.,—and the following absurd alternative,—“Without him was not anything made. That which hath been made was life in him; and the life,” &c. But we are not informed that this latter monstrous figment is known to have been the importation of the Gnostic heretics in the IInd century, and to be as destitute of authority as it is of sense. Why is prominence given only to the lie?

(c) At S. John iii. 13, we are informed that the last clause of that famous verse (“No man hath ascended up to heaven, but He that came down from heaven, even the Son of Man—which is in heaven”), is not found in “many ancient authorities.” [pg 133] But why, in the name of common fairness, are we not also reminded that this, (as will be found more fully explained in the note overleaf,) is a circumstance of no Textual significancy whatever?

Why, above all, are we not assured that the precious clause in question (ὁ ὢν ἐν τῷ οὐρανῷ) is found in every MS. in the world, except five of bad character?—is recognized by all the Latin and all the Syriac versions; as well as by the Coptic,—Æthiopic,—Georgian,—and Armenian?440—is either quoted or insisted upon by Origen,441—Hippolytus,442—Athanasius,443—Didymus,444—Aphraates the Persian,445—Basil the Great,446—Epiphanius,447—Nonnus,—ps.-Dionysius Alex.,448—Eustathius;449—by Chrysostom,450—Theodoret,451—and Cyril,452 each 4 times;—by Paulus, Bishop of Emesa453 (in a sermon on Christmas Day, a.d. 431);—by Theodoras Mops.,454—Amphilochius,455—Severus,456—Theodorus Heracl.,457—Basilius Cil.,458—Cosmas,459—John Damascene, in 3 places,460—and 4 other ancient Greek writers;461—besides Ambrose,462—Novatian,463—Hilary,464—Lucifer,465—Victorinus,—Jerome,466—Cassian,—Vigilius,467—Zeno,468—Marius,469—Maximus Taur.,470—Capreolus,471—Augustine, &c.:—is acknowledged by Lachmann, Tregelles, Tischendorf: in short, is quite above suspicion: why are we not told that? Those 10 Versions, [pg 134] those 38 Fathers, that host of Copies in the proportion of 995 to 5,—why, concerning all these is there not so much as a hint let fall that such a mass of counter-evidence exists?472... Shame,—yes, shame on the learning which comes abroad only to perplex the weak, and to unsettle the [pg 135] doubting, and to mislead the blind! Shame,—yes, shame on that two-thirds majority of well-intentioned but most incompetent men, who,—finding themselves (in an evil hour) appointed to correct “plain and clear errors” in the English “Authorized Version,”—occupied themselves instead with falsifying the inspired Greek Text in countless places, and branding with suspicion some of the most precious utterances of the Spirit! Shame,—yes, shame upon them!