The Revision Revised

Letter to Bishop Ellicott, in Reply to His Pamphlet

“Nothing is more satisfactory at the present time than the evident feelings of veneration for our Authorized Version, and the very generally-felt desire for as little change as possible.”—Bishop Ellicott.839

“We may be satisfied with the attempt to correct plain and clear errors, but there it is our duty to stop.”—Bishop Ellicott.840

“We have now, at all events, no fear of an over-corrected Version.”—Bishop Ellicott.841

“I fear we must say in candour that in the Revised Version we meet in every page with small changes, which are vexatious, teasing, and irritating, even the more so because they are small; which seem almost to be made for the sake of change.”—Bishop Wordsworth.842

[The question arises,]—“Whether the Church of England,—which in her Synod, so far as this Province is concerned, sanctioned a Revision of her Authorized Version under the express condition, which she most wisely imposed, that no Changes should be made in it except what were absolutely necessary,—could consistently accept a Version in which 36,000 changes have been made; not a fiftieth of which can be shown to be needed, or even desirable.”—Bishop Wordsworth.843

Letter To
The Right Rev. Charles John Ellicott, D.D.,
Bishop Of Gloucester And Bristol,
In Reply To His Pamphlet In Defence Of
The Revisers And Their Greek Text Of
The New Testament.

“What course would Revisers have us to follow?... Would it be well for them to agree on a Critical Greek Text? To this question we venture to answer very unhesitatingly in the negative.

“Though we have much critical material, and a very fair amount of critical knowledge, we have certainly not yet acquired sufficient Critical Judgment for any body of Revisers hopefully to undertake such a work as this.”

Bishop Ellicott.844

My Lord Bishop,

Last May, you published a pamphlet of seventy-nine pages845 in vindication of the Greek Text recently put forth by the New Testament Company of Revisers. It was (you said) your Answer to the first and second of my Articles in the Quarterly Review:846—all three of which, corrected and enlarged, are now submitted to the public for the second time. See above, from page 1 to page 367.

[1] Preliminary Statement.

You may be quite sure that I examined your pamphlet as soon as it appeared, with attention. I have since read it through several times: and—I must add—with ever-increasing astonishment. First, because it is so evidently the production of one who has never made Textual Criticism seriously his study. Next, because your pamphlet is no refutation whatever of my two Articles. You flout me: you scold me: you lecture me. But I do not find that you ever answer me. You reproduce the theory of Drs. Westcott and Hort,—which I claim to have demolished.847 You seek to put me down by flourishing in my face the decrees of Lachmann, Tischendorf and Tregelles,—which, as you are well aware, I entirely disallow. Denunciation, my lord Bishop, is not Argument; neither is Reiteration, Proof. And then,—Why do you impute to me opinions which I do not hold? and charge me with a method of procedure of which I have never been guilty? Above all, why do you seek to prejudice the question at issue between us by importing irrelevant matter which can only impose upon the ignorant and mislead the unwary? Forgive my plainness, but really you are so conspicuously unfair,—and at the same time so manifestly unacquainted, (except at second-hand and only in an elementary way,) with the points actually under discussion,—that, were it not for the adventitious importance attaching to any utterance of yours, deliberately put forth at this time as Chairman of the New Testament body of Revisers, I should have taken no notice of your pamphlet.

[2] The Bishop’s pamphlet was anticipated and effectually disposed of, three weeks before it appeared, by the Reviewer’s Third Article.

I am bound, at the same time, to acknowledge that you have been singularly unlucky. While you were penning your Defence, (namely, throughout the first four months of 1882,) I was making a fatal inroad into your position, by showing how utterly without foundation is the “Textual Theory” to which you and your co-Revisers have been so rash as to commit yourselves.848 This fact I find duly recognized in your “Postscript.” “Since the foregoing pages were in print” (you say,) “a third article has appeared in the Quarterly Review, entitled ‘Westcott and Hort’s Textual Theory.’”849 Yes. I came before the public on the 16th of April; you on the 4th of May, 1882. In this way, your pamphlet was anticipated,—had in fact been fully disposed of, three weeks before it appeared. “The Reviewer,” (you complain at page 4,) “censures their [Westcott and Hort’s] Text: in neither Article has he attempted a serious examination of the arguments which they allege in its support.” But, (as explained,) the “serious examination” which you reproach me with having hitherto failed to produce,—had been already three weeks in the hands of readers of the Quarterly before your pamphlet saw the light. You would, in consequence, have best consulted your own reputation, I am persuaded, had you instantly recalled and suppressed your printed sheets. What, at all events, you can have possibly meant, while publishing them, by adding (in your “Postscript” at page 79,)—“In this controversy it is not for us to interpose:” and again,—“We find nothing in the Reviewer’s third article to require further answer from us:”—passes my comprehension; seeing that your pamphlet (page 11 to page 29) is an elaborate avowal that you have made Westcott and Hort’s theory entirely your own. The Editor of the Speaker’s Commentary, I observe, takes precisely the same view of your position. “The two Revisers” (says Canon Cook) “actually add a Postscript to their pamphlet of a single short page noticing their unexpected anticipation by the third Quarterly Review article; with the remark that ’in this controversy (between Westcott and Hort and the Reviewer) it is not for us to interfere:’—as if Westcott and Hort’s theory of Greek Revision could be refuted, or seriously damaged, without cutting the ground from under the Committee of Revisers on the whole of this subject.”850

[3] Bp. Ellicott remonstrated with for his unfair method of procedure.

I should enter at once on an examination of your Reply, but that I am constrained at the outset to remonstrate with you on the exceeding unfairness of your entire method of procedure. Your business was to make it plain to the public that you have dealt faithfully with the Deposit: have strictly fulfilled the covenant into which you entered twelve years ago with the Convocation of the Southern Province: have corrected only “plain and clear errors.” Instead of this, you labour to enlist vulgar prejudice against me:—partly, by insisting that I am for determining disputed Readings by an appeal to the “Textus Receptus,”—which (according to you) I look upon as faultless:—partly, by exhibiting me in disagreement with Lachmann, Tischendorf and Tregelles. The irrelevancy of this latter contention,—the groundlessness of the former,—may not be passed over without a few words of serious remonstrance. For I claim that, in discussing the Greek Text, I have invariably filled my pages as full of Authorities for the opinions I advocate, as the limits of the page would allow. I may have been tediously demonstrative sometimes: but no one can fairly tax me with having shrunk from the severest method of evidential proof. To find myself therefore charged with “mere denunciation,”851—with substituting “strong expressions of individual opinion” for “arguments,”852—and with “attempting to cut the cord by reckless and unverified assertions,” (p. 25,)—astonishes me. Such language is in fact even ridiculously unfair.

The misrepresentation of which I complain is not only conspicuous, but systematic. It runs through your whole pamphlet: is admitted by yourself at the close,—(viz. at p. 77,)—to be half the sum of your entire contention. Besides cropping up repeatedly,853 it finds deliberate and detailed expression when you reach the middle of your essay,—viz. at p. 41: where, with reference to certain charges which I not only bring against codices א b c l, but laboriously substantiate by a free appeal to the contemporary evidence of Copies, Versions, and Fathers,—you venture to express yourself concerning me as follows:—

“To attempt to sustain such charges by a rough comparison of these ancient authorities with the Textus Receptus, and to measure the degree of their depravation by the amount of their divergence from such a text as we have shown this Received Text really to be, is to trifle with the subject of sacred Criticism.”—p. 41.

You add:—

“Until the depravation of these ancient Manuscripts has been demonstrated in a manner more consistent with the recognized principles of Criticism, such charges as those to which we allude must be regarded as expressions of passion, or prejudice, and set aside by every impartial reader as assertions for which no adequate evidence has yet been produced.”—pp. 41-2.

[4] (Which be “the recognized principles of Textual Criticism”?—a question asked in passing.)

But give me leave to ask in passing,—Which, pray, are “the recognized principles of Criticism” to which you refer? I profess I have never met with them yet; and I am sure it has not been for want of diligent enquiry. You have publicly charged me before your Diocese with being “innocently ignorant of the now established principles of Textual Criticism.”854 But why do you not state which those principles are? I am surprised. You are for ever vaunting “principles which have been established by the investigations and reasonings” of Lachmann, Tischendorf and Tregelles:855—“the principles of Textual Criticism which are accepted and recognized by the great majority of modern Textual Critics:”856—“the principles on which the Textual Criticism of the last fifty years has been based:”857—but you never condescend to explain which be the “principles” you refer to. For the last time,—Who established those “Principles”? and, Where are they to be seen “established”?

I will be so candid with you as frankly to avow that the only two “principles” with which I am acquainted as held, with anything like consent, by “the modern Textual Critics” to whom you have surrendered your judgment, are—(1st) A robust confidence in the revelations of their own inner consciousness: and (2ndly) A superstitious partiality for two codices written in the uncial character,—for which partiality they are able to assign no intelligible reason. You put the matter as neatly as I could desire at page 19 of your Essay,—where you condemn, with excusable warmth, “those who adopt the easy method of using some favourite Manuscript,”—or of exercising “some supposed power of divining the original Text;”—as if those were “the only necessary agents for correcting the Received Text.” Why the evidence of codices b and א,—and perhaps the evidence of the VIth-century codex d,—(“the singular codex” as you call it; and it is certainly a very singular codex indeed:)—why, I say, the evidence of these two or three codices should be thought to outweigh the evidence of all other documents in existence,—whether Copies, Versions, or Fathers,—I have never been able to discover, nor have their admirers ever been able to tell me.

[5] Bp. Ellicott’s and the Reviewer’s respective methods, contrasted.

Waiving this however, (for it is beside the point,) I venture to ask,—With what show of reason can you pretend that I “sustain my charges” against codices א b c l, “by a rough comparison of these ancient authorities with the Textus Receptus”?858... Will you deny that it is a mere misrepresentation of the plain facts of the case, to say so? Have I not, on the contrary, on every occasion referred Readings in dispute,—the reading of א b c l on the one hand, the reading of the Textus Receptus on the other,—simultaneously to one and the same external standard? Have I not persistently enquired for the verdict—so far as it has been obtainable—of consentient Antiquity? If I have sometimes spoken of certain famous manuscripts (א b c d namely,) as exhibiting fabricated Texts, have I not been at the pains to establish the reasonableness of my assertion by showing that they yield divergent,—that is contradictory, testimony?

The task of laboriously collating the five “old uncials” throughout the Gospels, occupied me for five-and-a-half years, and taxed me severely. But I was rewarded. I rose from the investigation profoundly convinced that, however important they may be as instruments of Criticism, codices א b c d are among the most corrupt documents extant. It was a conviction derived from exact Knowledge and based on solid grounds of Reason. You, my lord Bishop, who have never gone deeply into the subject, repose simply on Prejudice. Never having at any time collated codices א a b c d for yourself, you are unable to gainsay a single statement of mine by a counter-appeal to facts. Your textual learning proves to have been all obtained at second-hand,—taken on trust. And so, instead of marshalling against me a corresponding array of Ancient Authorities,—you invariably attempt to put me down by an appeal to Modern Opinion. “The majority of modern Critics” (you say) have declared the manuscripts in question “not only to be wholly undeserving of such charges, but, on the contrary, to exhibit a text of comparative purity.”859

The sum of the difference therefore between our respective methods, my lord Bishop, proves to be this:—that whereas I endeavour by a laborious accumulation of ancient Evidence to demonstrate that the decrees of Lachmann, of Tischendorf and of Tregelles, are untrustworthy; your way of reducing me to silence, is to cast Lachmann, Tregelles and Tischendorf at every instant in my teeth. You make your appeal exclusively to them. “It would be difficult” (you say) “to find a recent English Commentator of any considerable reputation who has not been influenced, more or less consistently, by one or the other of these three Editors:”860 (as if that were any reason why I should do the same!) Because I pronounce the Revised reading of S. Luke ii. 14, “a grievous perversion of the truth of Scripture,” you bid me consider “that in so speaking I am censuring Lachmann, Tischendorf and Tregelles.” You seem in fact to have utterly missed the point of my contention: which is, that the ancient Fathers collectively (a.d. 150 to a.d. 450),—inasmuch as they must needs have known far better than Lachmann, Tregelles, or Tischendorf, (a.d. 1830 to a.d. 1880,) what was the Text of the New Testament in the earliest ages,—are perforce far more trustworthy guides than they. And further, that whenever it can be clearly shown that the Ancients as a body say one thing, and the Moderns another, the opinion of the Moderns may be safely disregarded.

When therefore I open your pamphlet at the first page, and read as follows:—“A bold assault has been made in recent numbers of the Quarterly Review upon the whole fabric of Criticism which has been built up during the last fifty years by the patient labour of successive editors of the New Testament,”861—I fail to discover that any practical inconvenience results to myself from your announcement. The same plaintive strain reappears at p. 39; where, having pointed out “that the text of the Revisers is, in all essential features, the same as that text in which the best critical editors, during the past fifty years, are generally agreed,”—you insist “that thus, any attack made on the text of the Revisers is really an attack on the critical principles that have been carefully and laboriously established during the last half-century.” With the self-same pathetic remonstrance you conclude your labours. “If,” (you say) “the Revisers are wrong in the principles which they have applied to the determination of the Text, the principles on which the Textual Criticism of the last fifty years has been based, are wrong also.”862... Are you then not yet aware that the alternative which seems to you so alarming is in fact my whole contention? What else do you imagine it is that I am proposing to myself throughout, but effectually to dispel the vulgar prejudice,—say rather, to plant my heel upon the weak superstition,—which “for the last fifty years” has proved fatal to progress in this department of learning; and which, if it be suffered to prevail, will make a science of Textual Criticism impossible? A shallow empiricism has been the prevailing result, up to this hour, of the teaching of Lachmann, and Tischendorf, and Tregelles.

[6] Bp. Ellicott in May 1870, and in May 1882.

A word in your private ear, (by your leave) in passing. You seem to have forgotten that, at the time when you entered on the work of Revision, your own estimate of the Texts put forth by these Editors was the reverse of favourable; i.e. was scarcely distinguishable from that of your present correspondent. Lachmann’s you described as “a text composed on the narrowest and most exclusive principles,”—“really based on little more than four manuscripts.”—“The case of Tischendorf” (you said) “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 has betrayed him into an almost childlike infirmity of judgment. Surely also not the seventh edition, which exhibits all the instability which a comparatively recent recognition of the authority of cursive manuscripts might be supposed likely to introduce.”—As for poor Tregelles, you said:—“His critical principles... are now, perhaps justly, called in question.” His text “is rigid and mechanical, and sometimes fails to disclose that critical instinct and peculiar scholarly sagacity which”863 have since evidently disclosed themselves in perfection in those Members of the Revising body who, with Bp. Ellicott at their head, systematically outvoted Prebendary Scrivener in the Jerusalem Chamber. But with what consistency, my lord Bishop, do you to-day vaunt “the principles” of the very men whom yesterday you vilipended precisely because their “principles” then seemed to yourself so utterly unsatisfactory?

[7] “The fabric of modern Textual Criticism” (1831-81) rests on an insecure basis.

I have been guilty of little else than sacrilege, it seems, because I have ventured to send a shower of shot and shell into the flimsy decrees of these three Critics which now you are pleased grandiloquently to designate and describe as “the whole fabric of Criticism which has been built up within the last fifty years.” Permit me to remind you that the “fabric” you speak of,—(confessedly a creation of yesterday,)—rests upon a foundation of sand; and has been already so formidably assailed, or else so gravely condemned by a succession of famous Critics, that as “a fabric,” its very existence may be reasonably called in question. Tischendorf insists on the general depravity (“universa vitiositas”) of codex b; on which codex nevertheless Drs. Westcott and Hort chiefly rely,—regarding it as unique in its pre-eminent purity. The same pair of Critics depreciate the Traditional Text as “beyond all question identical with the dominant [Greek] Text of the second half of the fourth century:”—whereas, “to bring the sacred text back to the condition in which it existed during the fourth century,”864 was Lachmann’s one object; the sum and substance of his striving. “The fancy of a Constantinopolitan text, and every inference that has been grounded on its presumed existence,”865 Tregelles declares to have been “swept away at once and for ever,” by Scrivener’s published Collations. And yet, what else but this is “the fancy,” (as already explained,) on which Drs. Westcott and Hort have been for thirty years building up their visionary Theory of Textual Criticism?—What Griesbach attempted [1774-1805], was denounced [1782-1805] by C. F. Matthæi;—disapproved by Scholz;—demonstrated to be untenable by Abp. Laurence. Finally, in 1847, the learned J. G. Reiche, in some Observations prefixed to his Collations of MSS. in the Paris Library, eloquently and ably exposed the unreasonableness of any theory of “Recension,”—properly so called;866 thereby effectually anticipating Westcott and Hort’s weak imagination of a “Syrian Text,” while he was demolishing the airy speculations of Griesbach and Hug. “There is no royal road” (he said) “to the Criticism of the N. T.: no plain and easy method, at once reposing on a firm foundation, and conducting securely to the wished for goal.”867... Scarcely therefore in Germany had the basement-story been laid of that “fabric of Criticism which has been built up during the last fifty years,” and which you superstitiously admire,—when a famous German scholar was heard denouncing the fabric as insecure. He foretold that the “regia via” of codices b and א would prove a deceit and a snare: which thing, at the end of four-and-thirty years, has punctually come to pass.

Seven years after, Lachmann’s method was solemnly appealed from by the same J. G. Reiche:868 whose words of warning to his countrymen deserve the attention of every thoughtful scholar among ourselves at this day. Of the same general tenor and purport as Reiche’s, are the utterances of those giants in Textual Criticism, Vercellone of Rome and Ceriani of Milan. Quite unmistakable is the verdict of our own Scrivener concerning the views of Lachmann, Tischendorf and Tregelles, and the results to which their system has severally conducted them.—If Alford adopted the prejudices of his three immediate predecessors, his authority has been neutralized by the far different teaching of one infinitely his superior in judgment and learning,—the present illustrious Bishop of Lincoln.—On the same side with the last named are found the late Philip E. Pusey and Archd. Lee,—Canon Cook and Dr. Field,—the Bishop of S. Andrews and Dr. S. C. Malan. Lastly, at the end of fifty-one years, (viz. in 1881,) Drs. Westcott and Hort have revived Lachmann’s unsatisfactory method,—superadding thereto not a few extravagances of their own. That their views have been received with expressions of the gravest disapprobation, no one will deny. Indispensable to their contention is the grossly improbable hypothesis that the Peschito is to be regarded as the “Vulgate” (i.e. the Revised) Syriac; Cureton’s, as the “Vetus” or original Syriac version. And yet, while I write, the Abbé Martin at Paris is giving it as the result of his labours on this subject, that Cureton’s Version cannot be anything of the sort.869 Whether Westcott and Hort’s theory of a “Syrian” Text has not received an effectual quietus, let posterity decide. Ἁμέραι δ᾽ ἐπίλοιποι μάρτυρες σοφώτατοι.

From which it becomes apparent that, at all events, “the fabric of Criticism which has been built up within the last fifty years” has not arisen without solemn and repeated protest,—as well from within as from without. It may not therefore be spoken of by you as something which men are bound to maintain inviolate,—like an Article of the Creed. It is quite competent, I mean, for any one to denounce the entire system of Lachmann, Tischendorf and Tregelles,—as I do now,—as an egregious blunder; if he will but be at the pains to establish on a severe logical basis the contradictory of not a few of their most important decrees. And you, my lord Bishop, are respectfully reminded that your defence of their system,—if you must needs defend what I deem worthless,—must be conducted, not by sneers and an affectation of superior enlightenment; still less by intimidation, scornful language, and all those other bad methods whereby it has been the way of Superstition in every age to rivet the fetters of intellectual bondage: but by severe reasoning, and calm discussion, and a free appeal to ancient Authority, and a patient investigation of all the external evidence accessible. I request therefore that we may hear no more of this form of argument. The Text of Lachmann and Tischendorf and Tregelles,—of Westcott and Hort and Ellicott, (i.e. of the Revisers,)—is just now on its trial before the world.870

[8] Bp. Ellicott’s strange notions about the “Textus Receptus.”

Your strangest mistakes and misrepresentations however are connected with the “Textus Receptus.” It evidently exercises you sorely that “with the Quarterly Reviewer, the Received Text is a standard, by comparison with which all extant documents, however indisputable their antiquity, are measured.”871 But pray,—

(1) By comparison with what other standard, if not by the Received Text, would you yourself obtain the measure of “all extant documents,” however ancient?... This first. And next,

(2) Why should the “indisputable antiquity” of a document be supposed to disqualify it from being measured by the same standard to which (but only for convenience) documents of whatever date,—by common consent of scholars, at home and abroad,—are invariably referred? And next,

(3) Surely, you cannot require to have it explained to you that a standard of comparison, is not therefore of necessity a standard of excellence. Did you ever take the trouble to collate a sacred manuscript? If you ever did, pray with what did you make your collation? In other words, what “standard” did you employ?... Like Walton and Ussher,—like Fell and Mill,—like Bentley, and Bengel, and Wetstein,—like Birch, and Matthæi, and Griesbach, and Scholz,—like Lachmann, and Tregelles, and Tischendorf, and Scrivener,—I venture to assume that you collated your manuscript,—whether it was of “disputable” or of “indisputable antiquity,”—with an ordinary copy of the Received Text. If you did not, your collation is of no manner of use. But, above all,

(4) How does it come to pass that you speak so scornfully of the Received Text, seeing that (at p. 12 of your pamphlet) you assure your readers that its pedigree may be traced back to a period perhaps antecedent to the oldest of our extant manuscripts? Surely, a traditional Text which (according to you) dates from about a.d. 300, is good enough for the purpose of Collation!

(5) At last you say,—

“If there were reason to suppose that the Received Text represented verbatim et literatim the text which was current at Antioch in the days of Chrysostom, it would still be impossible to regard it as a standard from which there was no appeal.”872

Really, my lord Bishop, you must excuse me if I declare plainly that the more I attend to your critical utterances, the more I am astonished. From the confident style in which you deliver yourself upon such matters, and especially from your having undertaken to preside over a Revision of the Sacred Text, one would suppose that at some period of your life you must have given the subject a considerable amount of time and attention. But indeed the foregoing sentence virtually contains two propositions neither of which could possibly have been penned by one even moderately acquainted with the facts of Textual Criticism. For first,

(a) You speak of “representing verbatim et literatim the Text which was current at Antioch in the days of Chrysostom.” Do you then really suppose that there existed at Antioch, at any period between a.d. 354 and a.d. 407, some one definite Text of the N. T. capable of being so represented?—If you do, pray will you indulge us with the grounds for such an extraordinary supposition? Your “acquaintance” (Dr. Tregelles) will tell you that such a fancy has long since been swept away “at once and for ever.” And secondly,

(b) You say that, even if there were reason to suppose that the “Received Text” were such-and-such a thing,—“it would still be impossible to regard it as a standard from which there was no appeal.”

But pray, who in his senses,—what sane man in Great Britain,—ever dreamed of regarding the “Received,”—aye, or any other known “Text,”—as “a standard from which there shall be no appeal”? Have I ever done so? Have I ever implied as much? If I have, show me where. You refer your readers to the following passage in my first Article:—

“What precedes admits to some extent of further numerical illustration. It is discovered that, in 111 pages,... 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 are not altogether calculated to inspire confidence in codices b א c d.”—p. 14.

But, do you really require to have it explained to you that it is entirely to misunderstand the question to object to such a comparison of codices as is found above, (viz. in pages 14 and 17,) on the ground that it was made with the text of Stephanus lying open before me? Would not the self-same phenomenon have been evolved by collation with any other text? If you doubt it, sit down and try the experiment for yourself. Believe me, Robert Etienne in the XVIth century was not the cause why cod. b in the IVth and cod. d in the VIth are so widely discordant and divergent from one another: a and c so utterly at variance with both.873 We must have some standard whereby to test,—wherewith to compare,—Manuscripts. What is more, (give me leave to assure you,) to the end of time it will probably be the practice of scholars to compare MSS. of the N. T. with the “Received Text.” The hopeless discrepancies between our five “old uncials,” can in no more convenient way be exhibited, than by referring each of them in turn to one and the same common standard. And,—What standard more reasonable and more convenient than the Text which, by the good Providence of God, was universally employed throughout Europe for the first 300 years after the invention of printing? being practically identical with the Text which (as you yourself admit) was in popular use at the end of three centuries from the date of the sacred autographs themselves: in other word, being more than 1500 years old.

[9] The Reviewer vindicates himself against Bp. Ellicott’s misconceptions.

But you are quite determined that I shall mean something essentially different. The Quarterly Reviewer, (you say,) is one who “contends that the Received Text needs but little emendation; and may be used without emendation as a standard.”874 I am, (you say,) one of “those who adopt the easy method of making the Received Text a standard.”875 My “Criticism,” (it seems,) “often rests ultimately upon the notion that it is little else but sacrilege to impugn the tradition of the last three hundred years.”876 (“The last three hundred years:” as if the Traditional Text of the N. Testament dated from the 25th of Queen Elizabeth!)—I regard the “Textus Receptus” therefore, according to you, as the Ephesians regarded the image of the great goddess Diana; namely, as a thing which, one fine morning, “fell down from Jupiter.”877 I mistake the Received Text, (you imply,) for the Divine Original, the Sacred Autographs,—and erect it into “a standard from which there shall be no appeal,”—“a tradition which it is little else but sacrilege to impugn.” That is how you state my case and condition: hopelessly confusing the standard of Comparison with the standard of Excellence.

By this time, however, enough has been said to convince any fair person that you are without warrant in your present contention. Let any candid scholar cast an impartial eye over the preceding three hundred and fifty pages,—open the volume where he will, and read steadily on to the end of any textual discussion,—and then say whether, on the contrary, my criticism does not invariably rest on the principle that the Truth of Scripture is to be sought in that form of the Sacred Text which has the fullest, the widest, and the most varied attestation.878 Do I not invariably make the consentient voice of Antiquity my standard? If I do not,—if, on the contrary, I have ever once appealed to the “Received Text,” and made it my standard,—why do you not prove the truth of your allegation by adducing in evidence that one particular instance? instead of bringing against me a charge which is utterly without foundation, and which can have no other effect but to impose upon the ignorant; to mislead the unwary; and to prejudice the great Textual question which hopelessly divides you and me?... I trust that at least you will not again confound the standard of Comparison with the standard of Truth.

[10] Analysis of contents of Bp. Ellicott’s pamphlet.

You state at page 6, that what you propose to yourself by your pamphlet, is,—

“First, to supply accurate information, in a popular form, concerning the Greek text of the Now Testament:

“Secondly, to establish, by means of the information so supplied, the soundness of the principles on which the Revisers have acted in their choice of readings; and by consequence, the importance of the ‘New Greek Text:’”—[or, as you phrase it at p. 29,]—“to enable the reader to form a fair judgment on the question of the trustworthiness of the readings adopted by the Revisers.”

To the former of these endeavours you devote twenty-three pages: (viz. p. 7 to p. 29):—to the latter, you devote forty-two; (viz. p. 37 to p. 78). The intervening eight pages are dedicated,—(a) To the constitution of the Revisionist body: and next, (b) To the amount of good faith with which you and your colleagues observed the conditions imposed upon you by the Southern Houses of Convocation. I propose to follow you over the ground in which you have thus entrenched yourself, and to drive you out of every position in turn.

[11] Bp. Ellicott’s account of the “Textus Receptus.”

First then, for your strenuous endeavour (pp. 7-10) to prejudice the question by pouring contempt on the humblest ancestor of the Textus Receptus—namely, the first edition of Erasmus. You know very well that the “Textus Receptus” is not the first edition of Erasmus. Why then do you so describe its origin as to imply that it is? You ridicule the circumstances under which a certain ancestor of the family first saw the light. You reproduce with evident satisfaction a silly witticism of Michaelis, viz. that, in his judgment, the Evangelium on which Erasmus chiefly relied was not worth the two florins which the monks of Basle gave for it. Equally contemptible (according to you) were the copies of the Acts, the Epistles, and the Apocalypse which the same scholar employed for the rest of his first edition. Having in this way done your best to blacken a noble house by dilating on the low ebb to which its fortunes were reduced at a critical period of its history, some three centuries and a half ago,—you pause to make your own comment on the spectacle thus exhibited to the eyes of unlearned readers, lest any should fail to draw therefrom the injurious inference which is indispensable for your argument:—

“We have entered into these details, because we desire that the general reader should know fully the true pedigree of that printed text of the Greek Testament which has been in common use for the last three centuries. It will be observed that its documentary origin is not calculated to inspire any great confidence. Its parents, as we have seen, were two or three late manuscripts of little critical value, which accident seems to have brought into the hands of their first editor.”—p. 10.

Now, your account of the origin of the “Textus Receptus” shall be suffered to stand uncontradicted. But the important inference, which you intend that inattentive or incompetent readers should draw therefrom, shall be scattered to the winds by the unequivocal testimony of no less distinguished a witness than yourself. Notwithstanding all that has gone before, you are constrained to confess in the very next page that:—

“The manuscripts which Erasmus used differ, for the most part, only in small and insignificant details from the bulk of the cursive manuscripts. The general character of their text is the same. By this observation the pedigree of the Received Text is carried up beyond the individual manuscripts used by Erasmus.... That pedigree stretches back to a remote antiquity. The first ancestor of the Received Text was at least contemporary with the oldest of our extant manuscripts, if not older than any one of them.”—pp. 11, 12.

By your own showing therefore, the Textus Receptus is, “at least,” 1550 years old. Nay, we will have the fact over again, in words which you adopt from p. 92 of Westcott and Hort’s Introduction [see above, p. 257], and clearly make your own:—

“The fundamental text of late extant Greek MSS. generally is beyond all question identical with the dominant Antiochian or Græco-Syrian Text of the second half of the fourth century.”—p. 12.

But, if this be so,—(and I am not concerned to dispute your statement in a single particular,)—of what possible significancy can it be to your present contention, that the ancestry of the written Word (like the ancestors of the Word incarnate) had at one time declined to the wondrous low estate on which you enlarged at first with such evident satisfaction? Though the fact be admitted that Joseph “the carpenter” was “the husband of Mary, of whom was born Jesus, who is called Christ,”—what possible inconvenience results from that circumstance so long as the only thing contended for be loyally conceded,—namely, that the descent of Messiah is lineally traceable back to the patriarch Abraham, through David the King? And the genealogy of the written, no less than the genealogy of the Incarnate Word, is traceable back by two distinct lines of descent, remember: for the “Complutensian,” which was printed in 1514, exhibits the “Traditional Text” with the same general fidelity as the “Erasmian,” which did not see the light till two years later.

[12] Bp. Ellicott derives his estimate of the “Textus Receptus” from Westcott and Hart’s fable of a “Syrian Text.”

Let us hear what comes next:—

“At this point a question suggests itself which we cannot refuse to consider. If the pedigree of the Received Text may be traced back to so early a period, does it not deserve the honour which is given to it by the Quarterly Reviewer?”—p. 12.

A very pertinent question truly. We are made attentive: the more so, because you announce that your reply to this question shall “go to the bottom of the controversy with which we are concerned.”879 That reply is as follows:—

“If there were reason to suppose that the Received Text represented verbatim et literatim the text which was current at Antioch in the days of Chrysostom, it would still be impossible to regard it as a standard from which there was no appeal. The reason why this would be impossible may be stated briefly as follows. In the ancient documents which have come down to us,—amongst which, as is well known, are manuscripts written in the fourth century,—we possess evidence that other texts of the Greek Testament existed in the age of Chrysostom, materially different from the text which he and the Antiochian writers generally employed. Moreover, a rigorous examination of extant documents shows that the Antiochian or (as we shall henceforth call it with Dr. Hort) the Syrian text did not represent an earlier tradition than those other texts, but was in fact of later origin than the rest. We cannot accept it therefore as a final standard.”—pp. 13, 14.

“A final standard”!... Nay but, why do you suddenly introduce this unheard-of characteristic? Who, pray, since the invention of Printing was ever known to put forward any existing Text as “a final standard”? Not the Quarterly Reviewer certainly. “The honour which is given to the Textus Receptus by the Quarterly Reviewer” is no other than the honour which it has enjoyed at the hands of scholars, by universal consent, for the last three centuries. That is to say, he uses it as a standard of comparison, and employs it for habitual reference. So do you. You did so, at least, in the year 1870. You did more; for you proposed “to proceed with the work of Revision, whether of text or translation, making the current ‘Textus Receptus’ the standard.”880 We are perfectly agreed therefore. For my own part, being fully convinced, like yourself, that essentially the Received Text is full 1550 years old,—(yes, and a vast deal older,)—I esteem it quite good enough for all ordinary purposes. And yet, so far am I from pinning my faith to it, that I eagerly make my appeal from it to the threefold witness of Copies, Versions, Fathers, whenever I find its testimony challenged.—And with this renewed explanation of my sentiments,—(which one would have thought that no competent person could require,)—I proceed to consider the reply which you promise shall “go to the bottom of the controversy with which we are concerned.” I beg that you will not again seek to divert attention from that which is the real matter of dispute betwixt you and me.

What kind of argumentation then is this before us? You assure us that,—

(a) “A rigorous examination of extant documents,”—“shows” Dr. Hort—“that the Syrian text”—[which for all practical purposes may be considered as only another name for the “Textus Receptus”]—was of later origin than “other texts of the Greek Testament” which “existed in the age of Chrysostom.”

(b) “We cannot accept it therefore as a final standard.”

But,—Of what nature is the logical process by which you have succeeded in convincing yourself that this consequent can be got out of that antecedent? Put a parallel case:—“A careful analysis of herbs ‘shows’ Dr. Short that the only safe diet for Man is a particular kind of rank grass which grows in the Ely fens. We must therefore leave off eating butcher’s meat.”—Does that seem to you altogether a satisfactory argument? To me, it is a mere non sequitur. Do but consider the matter for a moment. “A rigorous examination of extant documents shows” Dr. Hort—such and such things. “A rigorous examination of the” same “documents shows” me—that Dr. Hort is mistaken. A careful study of his book convinces me that his theory of a Syrian Recension, manufactured between a.d. 250 and a.d. 350, is a dream, pure and simple—a mere phantom of the brain. Dr. Hort’s course is obvious. Let him first make his processes of proof intelligible, and then public. You cannot possibly suppose that the fable of “a Syrian text,” though it has evidently satisfied you, will be accepted by thoughtful Englishmen without proof. What prospect do you suppose you have of convincing the world that Dr. Hort is competent to assign a date to this creature of his own imagination; of which he has hitherto failed to demonstrate so much as the probable existence?

I have, for my own part, established by abundant references to his writings that he is one of those who, (through some intellectual peculiarity,) are for ever mistaking conjectures for facts,—assertions for arguments,—and reiterated asseveration for accumulated proof. He deserves sympathy, certainly: for,—(like the man who passed his life in trying to count how many grains of sand will exactly fill a quart pot;—or like his unfortunate brother, who made it his business to prove that nothing, multiplied by a sufficient number of figures, amounts to something;)—he has evidently taken a prodigious deal of useless trouble. The spectacle of an able and estimable man exhibiting such singular inaptitude for a province of study which, beyond all others, demands a clear head and a calm, dispassionate judgment,—creates distress.

[13] Bp. Ellicott has completely adopted Westcott and Hort’s Theory.

But in the meantime, so confident are you of the existence of a “Syrian text,”—(only however because Dr. Hort is,)—that you inflict upon your readers all the consequences which “the Syrian text” is supposed to carry with it. Your method is certainly characterized by humility: for it consists in merely serving up to the British public a réchauffé of Westcott and Hort’s Textual Theory. I cannot discover that you contribute anything of your own to the meagre outline you furnish of it. Everything is assumed—as before. Nothing is proved—as before. And we are referred to Dr. Hort for the resolution of every difficulty which Dr. Hort has created. “According to Dr. Hort,”—“as Dr. Hort observes,”—“to use Dr. Hort’s language,”—“stated by Dr. Hort,”—“as Dr. Hort notices,”—“says Dr. Hort:” yes, from p. 14 of your pamphlet to p. 29 you do nothing else but reproduce—Dr. Hort!

First comes the fabulous account of the contents of the bulk of the cursives:881—then, the imaginary history of the “Syriac Vulgate;” which (it seems) bears “indisputable traces” of being a revision, of which you have learned from Dr. Hort the date:882—then comes the same disparagement of the ancient Greek Fathers,—“for reasons which have been stated by Dr. Hort with great clearness and cogency:”883—then, the same depreciatory estimate of writers subsequent to Eusebius,—whose evidence is declared to “stand at best on no higher level than the evidence of inferior manuscripts in the uncial class:”884 but only because it is discovered to be destructive of the theory of Dr. Hort.

Next comes “the Method of Genealogy,”—which you declare is the result of “vast research, unwearied patience, great critical sagacity;”885 but which I am prepared to prove is, on the contrary, a shallow expedient for dispensing with scientific Induction and the laborious accumulation of evidence. This same “Method of Genealogy,” you are not ashamed to announce as “the great contribution of our own times to a mastery over materials.” “For the full explanation of it, you must refer your reader to Dr. Hort’s Introduction.”886 Can you be serious?

Then come the results to which “the application of this method has conducted Drs. Westcott and Hort.”887 And first, the fable of the “Syrian Text”—which “Dr. Hort considers to have been the result of a deliberate Recension,” conducted on erroneous principles. This fabricated product of the IIIrd and IVth centuries, (you say,) rose to supremacy,—became dominant at Antioch,—passed thence to Constantinople,—and once established there, soon vindicated its claim to be the N. T. of the East: whence it overran the West, and for 300 years as the “Textus Receptus,” has held undisputed sway.888 Really, my lord Bishop, you describe imaginary events in truly Oriental style. One seems to be reading not so much of the “Syrian Text” as of the Syrian Impostor. One expects every moment to hear of some feat of this fabulous Recension corresponding with the surrender of the British troops and Arabi’s triumphant entry into Cairo with the head of Sir Beauchamp Seymour in his hand!

All this is followed, of course, by the weak fable of the “Neutral” Text, and of the absolute supremacy of Codex b,—which is “stated in Dr. Hort’s own words:”889—viz. “b very far exceeds all other documents in neutrality of text, being in fact always, or nearly always, neutral.” (The fact being that codex b is demonstrably one of the most corrupt documents in existence.) The posteriority of the (imaginary) “Syrian,” to the (imaginary) “Neutral,” is insisted upon next in order, as a matter of course: and declared to rest upon three other considerations,—each one of which is found to be pure fable: viz. (1) On the fable of “Conflation,” which “seems to supply a proof” that Syrian readings are posterior both to Western and to Neutral readings—but, (as I have elsewhere890 shown, at considerable length,) most certainly does not:—(2) On Ante-Nicene Patristic evidence,—of which however not a syllable is produced:—(3) On “Transcriptional probability”—which is about as useful a substitute for proof as a sweet-pea for a walking-stick.

Widely dissimilar of course is your own view of the importance of the foregoing instruments of conviction. To you, “these three reasons taken together seem to make up an argument for the posteriority of the Syrian Text, which it is impossible to resist. They form” (you say) “a threefold cord of evidence which [you] believe will bear any amount of argumentative strain.” You rise with your subject, and at last break out into eloquence and vituperation:—“Writers like the Reviewer may attempt to cut the cord by reckless and unverified assertions: but the knife has not yet been fabricated that can equitably separate any one of its strands.”891... So effectually, as well as so deliberately, have you lashed yourself—for better or for worse—to Westcott and Hort’s New Textual Theory, that you must now of necessity either share its future triumphs, or else be a partaker in its coming humiliation. Am I to congratulate you on your prospects?

For my part, I make no secret of the fact that I look upon the entire speculation about which you are so enthusiastic, as an excursion into cloud-land: a dream and nothing more. My contention is,—not that the Theory of Drs. Westcott and Hort rests on an insecure foundation, but, that it rests on no foundation at all. Moreover, I am greatly mistaken if this has not been demonstrated in the foregoing pages.892 On one point, at all events, there cannot exist a particle of doubt; namely, that so far from its “not being for you to interpose in this controversy”—you are without alternative. You must either come forward at once, and bring it to a successful issue: or else, you must submit to be told that you have suffered defeat, inasmuch as you are inextricably involved in Westcott and Hort’s discomfiture. You are simply without remedy. You may “find nothing in the Reviewer’s third article to require a further answer:” but readers of intelligence will tell you that your finding, since it does not proceed from stupidity, can only result from your consciousness that you have made a serious blunder: and that now, the less you say about “Westcott and Hort’s new textual Theory,” the better.

[14] The Question modestly proposed,—Whether Bp. Ellicott’s adoption of Westcott and Hort’s “new Textual Theory” does not amount to (what lawyers call) “Conspiracy”?

But, my lord Bishop, when I reach the end of your laborious avowal that you entirely accept “Westcott and Hort’s new Textual Theory,”—I find it impossible to withhold the respectful enquiry,—Is such a proceeding on your part altogether allowable? I frankly confess that to me the wholesale adoption by the Chairman of the Revising body, of the theory of two of the Revisers,—and then, his exclusive reproduction and vindication of that theory, when he undertakes,

“to supply the reader with a few broad outlines of Textual Criticism, so as to enable him to form a fair judgment on the question of the trustworthiness of the readings adopted by the Revisers,”—p. 29, all this, my lord Bishop, I frankly avow, to me, looks very much indeed like what, in the language of lawyers, is called “Conspiracy.” It appears then that instead of presiding over the deliberations of the Revisionists as an impartial arbiter, you have been throughout, heart and soul, an eager partizan. You have learned to employ freely Drs. Westcott and Hort’s peculiar terminology. You adopt their scarcely-intelligible phrases: their wild hypotheses: their arbitrary notions about “Intrinsic” and “Transcriptional Probability:” their baseless theory of “Conflation:” their shallow “Method of Genealogy.” You have, in short, evidently swallowed their novel invention whole. I can no longer wonder at the result arrived at by the body of Revisionists. Well may Dr. Scrivener have pleaded in vain! He found Drs. Ellicott and Westcott and Hort too many for him.... But it is high time that I should pass on.

[15] Proofs that the Revisers have outrageously exceeded the Instructions they received from the Convocation of the Southern Province.

It follows next to enquire whether your work as Revisers was conducted in conformity with the conditions imposed upon you by the Southern House of Convocation, or not. “Nothing” (you say)—

“can be more unjust on the part of the Reviewer than to suggest, as he has suggested in more than one passage,893 that the Revisers exceeded their Instructions in the course which they adopted with regard to the Greek Text. On the contrary, as we shall show, they adhered most closely to their Instructions; and did neither more nor less than they were required to do.”—(p. 32.)

“The Reviewer,” my lord Bishop, proceeds to demonstrate that you “exceeded your Instructions,” even to an extraordinary extent. But it will be convenient first to hear you out. You proceed,—

“Let us turn to the Rule. It is simply as follows:—‘That the text to be adopted be that for which the Evidence is decidedly preponderating: and that when the text so adopted differs from that from which the Authorized Version was made, the alteration be indicated in the margin.’”—(Ibid.)

But you seem to have forgotten that the “Rule” which you quote formed no part of the “Instructions” which were imposed upon you by Convocation. It was one of the “Principles agreed to by the Committee” (25 May, 1870),—a Rule of your own making therefore,—for which Convocation neither was nor is responsible. The “fundamental Resolutions adopted by the Convocation of Canterbury” (3rd and 5th May, 1870), five in number, contain no authorization whatever for making changes in the Greek Text. They have reference only to the work of revising “the Authorized Version:” an undertaking which the first Resolution declares to be “desirable.” “In order to ascertain what were the Revisers’ Instructions with regard to the Greek Text,” we must refer to the original Resolution of Feb. 10th, 1870: in which the removal of “plain and clear errors, whether in the Greek Text originally adopted by the Translators, or in the Translation made from the same,”—is for the first and last time mentioned. That you yourself accepted this as the limit of your authority, is proved by your Speech in Convocation. “We may be satisfied” (you said) “with the attempt to correct plain and clear errors: but there, it is our duty to stop.”894

Now I venture to assert that not one in a hundred of the alterations you have actually made, “whether in the Greek Text originally adopted by the Translators, or in the Translation made from the same,” are corrections of “plain and clear errors.” Rather,—(to adopt the words of the learned Bishop of Lincoln,)—“I fear we must say in candour that in the Revised Version we meet in every page with changes which seem almost to be made for the sake of change.”895 May I trouble you to refer back to p. 112 of the present volume for a few words more on this subject from the pen of the same judicious Prelate?

(a) And first,—In respect of the New English Version.

For my own part, (see above, pp. 171-2,) I thought the best thing I could do would be to illustrate the nature of my complaint, by citing and commenting on an actual instance of your method. I showed how, in revising eight-and-thirty words (2 Pet. i. 5-7), you had contrived to introduce no fewer than thirty changes,—every one of them being clearly a change for the worse. You will perhaps say,—Find me another such case! I find it, my lord Bishop, in S. Luke viii. 45, 46,—where you have made nineteen changes in revising the translation of four-and-thirty words. I proceed to transcribe the passage; requesting you to bear in mind your own emphatic protestation,—“We made no change if the meaning was fairly expressed by the word or phrase before us.”

A.V.	R.V.
“Peter and they that were with him said, Master, the multitude throng thee and press thee, and sayest thou, Who touched me? And Jesus said, Somebody hath touched me: for I perceive that virtue is gone out of me.”	“Peter said [1], and they that were with him, Master the multitudes [2] press [3] thee and crush thee [5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10.] But [11] Jesus said, Some one [12] did touch [14] me: for I perceived [15] that power16 had17 gone forth18 from19 me.”

Now pray,—Was not “the meaning fairly expressed” before? Will you tell me that in revising S. Luke viii. 45-6, you “made as few alterations as possible”? or will you venture to assert that you have removed none but “plain and clear errors”? On the contrary. I challenge any competent scholar in Great Britain to say whether every one of these changes be not either absolutely useless, or else decidedly a change for the worse: six of them being downright errors.

The transposition in the opening sentence is infelicitous, to say the least. (The English language will not bear such handling. Literally, no doubt, the words mean, “said Peter, and they that were with him.” But you may not so translate.)—The omission of the six interesting words, indicated within square brackets, is a serious blunder.896 The words are undoubtedly genuine. I wonder how you can have ventured thus to mutilate the Book of Life. And why did you not, out of common decency and reverence, at least in the margin, preserve a record of the striking clause which you thus,—with well-meant assiduity, but certainly with deplorable rashness,—forcibly ejected from the text? To proceed however.—“Multitudes,”—“but,”—“one,”—“did,”— “power,”—“forth,”—“from:”—are all seven either needless changes, or improper, or undesirable. “Did touch,”—“perceived,”—“had gone forth,”—are unidiomatic and incorrect expressions. I have already explained this elsewhere.897 The aorist (ἥψατο) has here a perfect signification, as in countless other places:—ἔγνων, (like “novi,”) is frequently (as here) to be Englished by the present (“I perceive”): and “is gone out of me” is the nearest rendering of ἐξελθοῦσαν898 ἀπ᾽ ἐμοῦ which our language will bear.—Lastly, “press” and “crush,” as renderings of συνέχουσι and ἀποθλίβουσι, are inexact and unscholarlike. Συνέχειν, (literally “to encompass” or “hem in,”) is here to “throng” or “crowd:” ἀποθλίβειν, (literally “to squeeze,”) is here to “press.” But in fact the words were perfectly well rendered by our Translators of 1611, and ought to have been let alone.—This specimen may suffice, (and it is a very fair specimen,) of what has been your calamitous method of revising the A. V. throughout.

So much then for the Revised English. The fate of the Revised Greek is even more extraordinary. I proceed to explain myself by instancing what has happened in respect of the Gospel according to S. Luke.

(b) Next,—In respect of the New Greek Text.

On examining the 836899 Greek Textual corrections which you have introduced into those 1151 verses, I find that at least 356 of them do not affect the English rendering at all. I mean to say that those 356 (supposed) emendations are either incapable of being represented in a Translation, or at least are not represented. Thus, in S. Luke iv. 3, whether εἶπε δέ or καὶ εἶπεν is read:—in ver. 7, whether ἐμοῦ or μου:—in ver. 8, whether Κύριον τὸν Θεόν σου προσκυνήσες, or Προσκυνήσεις Κ. τὸν Θ. σου; whether ἤγαγε δέ or καὶ ἤγαγεν; whether υἱός or ὁ υἱός:—in ver. 17, whether τοῦ προφήτου Ἡσαïου or Ἡ. τοῦ προφήτου; whether ἀνοίξας or ἀναπτύξας:—in ver. 18, whether εὐαγγελίσασθαι or εὐαγγελίζεσθαι:—in ver. 20, whether οἱ ὀφθαλμοὶ ἐν τῇ συναγωγῇ or ἐν τῇ συναγωγῇ οἱ ὀφθαλμοί:—in ver. 23, whether εἰς τήν or ἐν τῇ:—in ver. 27, whether ἐν τῷ Ἰσραὴλ ἐπὶ Ἐλισσαίου τοῦ προφήτου or ἐπὶ Ἐλισσ., τοῦ π. ἐν τῷ Ἰ.:—in ver. 29, whether ὀφρύος or τῆς ὀφρύος; whether ὥστε or εἰς τό:—in ver. 35, whether ἀπ᾽ or ἐξ:—in ver. 38, whether ἀπό or ἐκ; whether πενθερά or ἡ πενθερά:—in ver. 43, whether ἐπί or εἰς; whether ἀπεστάλην or ἀπέσταλμαι:—in ver. 44, whether εἰς τὰς συναγωγάς or ἐν ταῖς συναγωγαῖς:—in every one of these cases, the English remains the same, whichever of the alternative readings is adopted. At least 19 therefore out of the 33 changes which you introduced into the Greek Text of S. Luke iv. are plainly gratuitous.

Thirteen of those 19, (or about two-thirds,) are also in my opinion changes for the worse: are nothing else, I mean, but substitutions of wrong for right Readings. But that is not my present contention. The point I am just now contending for is this:—That, since it certainly was no part of your “Instructions,” “Rules,” or “Principles” to invent a new Greek Text,—or indeed to meddle with the original Greek at all, except so far as was absolutely necessary for the Revision of the English Version,—it is surely a very grave form of inaccuracy to assert (as you now do) that you “adhered most closely to your Instructions, and did neither more nor less than you were required.”—You know that you did a vast deal more than you had any authority or right to do: a vast deal more than you had the shadow of a pretext for doing. Worse than that. You deliberately forsook the province to which you had been exclusively appointed by the Southern Convocation,—and you ostentatiously invaded another and a distinct province; viz. That of the critical Editorship of the Greek Text: for which, by your own confession,—(I take leave to remind you of your own honest avowal, quoted above at page 369,)—you and your colleagues knew yourselves to be incompetent.

For, when those 356 wholly gratuitous and uncalled-for changes in the Greek of S. Luke’s Gospel come to be examined in detail, they are found to affect far more than 356 words. By the result, 92 words have been omitted; and 33 added. No less than 129 words have been substituted for others which stood in the text before; and there are 66 instances of Transposition, involving the dislocation of 185 words. The changes of case, mood, tense, &c., amount in addition to 123.900 The sum of the words which you have needlessly meddled with in the Greek Text of the third Gospel proves therefore to be 562.

At this rate,—(since, [excluding marginal notes and variations in stops,] Scrivener901 counts 5337 various readings in his Notes,)—the number of alterations gratuitously and uselessly introduced by you into the Greek Text of the entire N. T., is to be estimated at 3590.

And if,—(as seems probable,)—the same general proportion prevails throughout your entire work,—it will appear that the words which, without a shadow of excuse, you have omitted from the Greek Text of the N. T., must amount to about 590: while you have added in the same gratuitous way about 210; and have needlessly substituted about 820. Your instances of uncalled-for transposition, (about 420 in number,) will have involved the gratuitous dislocation of full 1190 words:—while the occasions on which, at the bidding of Drs. Westcott and Hort, you have altered case, mood, tense, &c., must amount to about 780. In this way, the sum of the changes you have effected in the Greek Text of the N. T. in clear defiance of your Instructions,—would amount, as already stated, to 3590.

Now, when it is considered that not one of those 3590 changes in the least degree affects the English Revision,—it is undeniable, not only that you and your friends did what you were without authority for doing:—but also that you violated as well the spirit as the letter of your Instructions. As for your present assertion (at p. 32) that you “adhered most closely to the Instructions you received, and did neither more nor less than you were required to do,”—you must submit to be reminded that it savours strongly of the nature of pure fable. The history of the new Greek Text is briefly this:—A majority of the Revisers—including yourself, their Chairman,—are found to have put yourselves almost unreservedly into the hands of Drs. Westcott and Hort. The result was obvious. When the minority, headed by Dr. Scrivener, appealed to the chair, they found themselves confronted by a prejudiced Advocate. They ought to have been listened to by an impartial Judge. You, my lord Bishop, are in consequence (I regret to say) responsible for all the mischief which has occurred. The blame of it rests at your door.

And pray disabuse yourself of the imagination that in what precedes I have been stretching the numbers in order to make out a case against you. It would be easy to show that in estimating the amount of needless changes at 356 out of 836, I am greatly under the mark. I have not included such cases, for instance, as your substitution of ἡ μνᾶ σου, Κύριε for Κύριε, ἡ μνᾶ σου (in xix. 18), and of Τοίνυν ἀπόδοτε for Ἀπόδοτε τοίνυν (in xx. 25),902—only lest you should pretend that the transposition affects the English, and therefore was necessary. Had I desired to swell the number I could have easily shown that fully half the changes you effected in the Greek Text were wholly superfluous for the Revision of the English Translation, and therefore were entirely without excuse.

This, in fact,—(give me leave to remind you in passing,)—is the true reason why, at an early stage of your proceedings, you resolved that none of the changes you introduced into the Greek Text should find a record in your English margin. Had any been recorded, all must have appeared. And had this been done, you would have stood openly convicted of having utterly disregarded the “Instructions” you had received from Convocation. With what face, for example, could you, (in the margin of S. Luke xv. 17,) against the words “he said,”—have printed “ἔφη not εἶπε”? or, (at xxiv. 44,) against the words “unto them,”—must you not have been ashamed to encumber the already overcrowded margin with such an irrelevant statement as,—“πρὸς αὐτούς not αὐτοῖς”?

Now, if this were all, you might reply that by my own showing the Textual changes complained of, if they do no good, at least do no harm. But then, unhappily, you and your friends have not confined yourselves to colourless readings, when silently up and down every part of the N. T. you have introduced innovations. I open your New English Version at random (S. John iv. 15), and invite your attention to the first instance which catches my eye.

You have made the Woman of Samaria complain of the length of the walk from Sychar to Jacob’s well:—“Sir, give me this water, that I thirst not, neither come all the way hither to draw.”—What has happened? For ἔρχωμαι, I discover that you have silently substituted ΔΙέρχωμαι. (Even διέρχωμαι has no such meaning: but let that pass.) What then was your authority for thrusting διέρχωμαι (which by the way is a patent absurdity) into the Text? The word is found (I discover) in only two Greek MSS. of had character903 (b א), which, being derived from a common corrupt original, can only reckon for one: and the reasoning which is supposed to justify this change is thus supplied by Tischendorf:—“If the Evangelist had written ἔρχ-, who would ever have dreamed of turning it into δι-έρχωμαι?”... No one, of course, (is the obvious answer,) except the inveterate blunderer who, some 1700 years ago, seeing ΜΗΔΕΕΡΧΩΜΑΙ before him, reduplicated the antecedent ΔΕ. The sum of the matter is that!... Pass 1700 years, and the long-since-forgotten blunder is furbished up afresh by Drs. Westcott and Hort,—is urged upon the wondering body of Revisers as the undoubted utterance of the Spirit,—is accepted by yourself;—finally, (in spite of many a remonstrance from Dr. Scrivener and his friends,) is thrust upon the acceptance of 90 millions of English-speaking men throughout the world, as the long-lost-sight-of, but at last happily recovered, utterance of the “Woman of Samaria!”... Ἄπαγε.

Ordinary readers, in the meantime, will of course assume that the change results from the Revisers’ skill in translating,—the advances which have been made in the study of Greek; for no trace of the textual vagary before us survives in the English margin.

And thus I am reminded of what I hold to be your gravest fault of all. The rule of Committee subject to which you commenced operations,—the Rule which re-assured the public and reconciled the Church to the prospect of a Revised New Testament,—expressly provided that, whenever the underlying Greek Text was altered, such alteration should be indicated in the margin. This provision you entirely set at defiance from the very first. You have never indicated in the margin the alterations you introduced into the Greek Text. In fact, you made so many changes,—in other words, you seem to have so entirely lost sight of your pledge and your compact,—that compliance with this condition would have been simply impossible. I see not how your body is to be acquitted of a deliberate breach of faith.

(c) Fatal consequences of this mistaken officiousness.

How serious, in the meantime, the consequences have been, they only know who have been at the pains to examine your work with close attention. Not only have you, on countless occasions, thrust out words, clauses, entire sentences of genuine Scripture,—but you have been careful that no trace shall survive of the fatal injury which you have inflicted. I wonder you were not afraid. Can I be wrong in deeming such a proceeding in a high degree sinful? Has not the Spirit pronounced a tremendous doom904 against those who do such things? Were you not afraid, for instance, to leave out (from S. Mark vi. 11) those solemn words of our Saviour,—“Verily I say unto you, It shall be more tolerable for Sodom and Gomorrha in the day of judgment, than for that city”? Surely you will not pretend to tell me that those fifteen precious words, witnessed to as they are by all the known copies but nine,—by the Old Latin, the Peschito and the Philoxenian Syriac, the Coptic, the Gothic and the Æthiopic Versions,—besides Irenæus905 and Victor906 of Antioch:—you will not venture to say (will you?) that words so attested are so evidently a “plain and clear error,” as not to deserve even a marginal note to attest to posterity “that such things were”! I say nothing of the witness of the Liturgical usage of the Eastern Church,—which appointed these verses to be read on S. Mark’s Day:907 nor of Theophylact,908 nor of Euthymius.909 I appeal to the consentient testimony of Catholic antiquity. Find me older witnesses, if you can, than the “Elders” with whom Irenæus held converse,—men who must have been contemporaries of S. John the Divine: or again, than the old Latin, the Peschito, and the Coptic Versions. Then, for the MSS.,—Have you studied S. Mark’s Text to so little purpose as not to have discovered that the six uncials on which you rely are the depositories of an abominably corrupt Recension of the second Gospel?

But you committed a yet more deplorable error when,—without leaving behind either note or comment of any sort,—you obliterated from S. Matth. v. 44, the solemn words which I proceed to underline:—“Bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you and persecute you.” You relied almost exclusively on those two false witnesses, of which you are so superstitiously fond, b and א: regardless of the testimony of almost all the other Copies besides:—of almost all the Versions:—and of a host of primitive Fathers: for the missing clauses are more or less recognized by Justin Mart. (a.d. 140),—by Theophilus Ant. (a.d. 168),—by Athenagoras (a.d. 177),—by Clemens Alexan. (a.d. 192),—by Origen (a.d. 210),—by the Apostolic Constt. (IIIrd cent.),—by Eusebius,—by Gregory Nyss.,—by Chrysostom,—by Isidorus,—by Nilus,—by Cyril,—by Theodoret, and certain others. Besides, of the Latins, by Tertullian,—by Lucifer,—by Ambrose,—by Hilary,—by Pacian,—by Augustine,—by Cassian, and many more.... Verily, my lord Bishop, your notion of what constitutes “clearly preponderating Evidence” must be freely admitted to be at once original and peculiar. I will but respectfully declare that if it be indeed one of “the now established Principles of Textual Criticism” that a bishop is at liberty to blot out from the Gospel such precepts of the Incarnate Word, as these: to reject, on the plea that they are “plain and clear errors,” sayings attested by twelve primitive Fathers,—half of whom lived and died before our two oldest manuscripts (b and א) came into being:—If all this be so indeed, permit me to declare that I would not exchange my “innocent ignorance”910 of those “Principles” for your guilty knowledge of them,—no, not for anything in the wide world which yonder sun shines down upon.

As if what goes before had not been injury enough, you are found to have adopted the extraordinary practice of encumbering your margin with doubts as to the Readings which after due deliberation you had, as a body, retained. Strange perversity! You could not find room to retain a record in your margin of the many genuine words of our Divine Lord,—His Evangelists and Apostles,—to which Copies, Versions, Fathers lend the fullest attestation; but you could find room for an insinuation that His “Agony and bloody sweat,”—together with His “Prayer on behalf of His murderers,”—may after all prove to be nothing else but spurious accretions to the Text. And yet, the pretence for so regarding either S. Luke xxii. 43, 44, or xxiii. 34, is confessedly founded on a minimum of documentary evidence: while, as has been already shown elsewhere,911 an overwhelming amount of ancient testimony renders it certain that not a particle of doubt attaches to the Divine record of either of those stupendous incidents.... Room could not be found, it seems, for a hint in the margin that such ghastly wounds as those above specified had been inflicted on S. Mark vi. 11 and S. Matth. v. 44;912 but twenty-two lines could be spared against Rom. ix. 5 for the free ventilation of the vile Socinian gloss with which unbelievers in every age have sought to evacuate one of the grandest assertions of our Saviour’s Godhead. May I be permitted, without offence, to avow myself utterly astonished?

Even this however is not all. The 7th of the Rules under which you undertook the work of Revision, was, that “the Headings of Chapters should be revised.” This Rule you have not only failed to comply with; but you have actually deprived us of those headings entirely. You have thereby done us a grievous wrong. We demand to have the headings of our chapters back.

You have further, without warrant of any sort, deprived us of our Marginal References. These we cannot afford to be without. We claim that they also may be restored. The very best Commentary on Holy Scripture are they, with which I am acquainted. They call for learned and judicious Revision, certainly; and they might be profitably enlarged. But they may never be taken away.

And now, my lord Bishop, if I have not succeeded in convincing you that the Revisers not only “exceeded their Instructions in the course which they adopted with regard to the Greek Text,” but even acted in open defiance of their Instructions; did both a vast deal more than they were authorized to do, and also a vast deal less;—it has certainly been no fault of mine. As for your original contention913 that “nothing can be more unjust” than the charge brought against the Revisers of having exceeded their Instructions,—I venture to ask, on the contrary, whether anything can be more unreasonable (to give it no harsher name) than the denial?

There is no difficulty in accounting for the most serious of the foregoing phenomena. They are the inevitable consequence of your having so far succumbed at the outset to Drs. Westcott and Hort as to permit them to communicate bit by bit, under promise of secrecy, their own outrageous Revised Text of the N. T. to their colleagues, accompanied by a printed disquisition in advocacy of their own peculiar critical views. One would have expected in the Chairman of the Revising body, that the instant he became aware of any such manœuvre on the part of two of the society, he would have remonstrated with them somewhat as follows, or at least to this effect:—

“This cannot be permitted, Gentlemen, on any terms. We have not been appointed to revise the Greek Text of the N. T. Our one business is to revise the Authorized English Version,—introducing such changes only as are absolutely necessary. The Resolutions of Convocation are express on this head: and it is my duty to see that they are faithfully carried out. True, that we shall be obliged to avail ourselves of our skill in Textual Criticism—(such as it is)—to correct ‘plain and clear errors’ in the Greek: but there we shall be obliged to stop. I stand pledged to Convocation on this point by my own recent utterances. That two of our members should be solicitous (by a side-wind) to obtain for their own singular Revision of the Greek Text the sanction of our united body,—is intelligible enough: but I should consider myself guilty of a breach of Trust were I to lend myself to the promotion of their object. Let me hope that I have you all with me when I point out that on every occasion when Dr. Scrivener, on the one hand, (who in matters of Textual Criticism is facile princeps among us,) and Drs. Westcott and Hort on the other, prove to be irreconcileably opposed in their views,—there the Received Greek Text must by all means be let alone. We have agreed, you will remember, to ’make the current Textus Receptus the standard; departing from it only when critical or grammatical considerations show that it is clearly necessary.’914 It would be unreasonable, in my judgment, that anything in the Received Text should be claimed to be ’a clear and plain error,’ on which those who represent the two antagonistic schools of Criticism find themselves utterly unable to come to any accord. In the meantime, Drs. Westcott and Hort are earnestly recommended to submit to public inspection that Text which they have been for twenty years elaborating, and which for some time past has been in print. Their labours cannot be too freely ventilated, too searchingly examined, too generally known: but I strongly deprecate their furtive production here. All too eager advocacy of the novel Theory of the two accomplished Professors, I shall think it my duty to discourage, and if need be to repress. A printed volume, enforced by the suasive rhetoric of its two producers, gives to one side an unfair advantage. But indeed I must end as I began, by respectfully inviting Drs. Westcott and Hort to remember that we meet here, not in order to fabricate a new Greek Text, but in order to revise our ‘Authorized English Version.’”... Such, in substance, is the kind of Allocution which it was to have been expected that the Episcopal Chairman of a Revising body would address to his fellow-labourers the first time he saw them enter the Jerusalem chamber furnished with the sheets of Westcott and Hort’s N. T.; especially if he was aware that those Revisers had been individually talked over by the Editors of the work in question, (themselves Revisionists); and perceived that the result of the deliberations of the entire body was in consequence, in a fair way of becoming a foregone conclusion,—unless indeed, by earnest remonstrance, he might be yet in time to stave off the threatened danger.

But instead of saying anything of this kind, my lord Bishop, it is clear from your pamphlet that you made the Theory of Drs. Westcott and Hort your own Theory; and their Text, by necessary consequence, in the main your own Text. You lost sight of all the pledges you had given in Convocation. You suddenly became a partizan. Having secured the precious advocacy of Bp. Wilberforce,—whose sentiments on the subject you had before adopted,—you at once threw him and them overboard.915... I can scarcely imagine, in a good man like yourself, conduct more reckless,—more disappointing,—more unintelligible. But I must hasten on.

It follows to consider the strangest feature of your pamphlet: viz. those two-and-thirty pages (p. 43 to p. 75) in which, descending from generals, you venture to dispute in sixteen particulars the sentence passed upon your new Greek Text by the Quarterly Review. I call this part of your pamphlet “strange,” because it displays such singular inaptitude to appreciate the force of Evidence. But in fact, (sit venia verbo) your entire method is quite unworthy of you. Whereas I appeal throughout to Ancient Testimony, you seek to put me down by flaunting in my face Modern Opinion. This, with a great deal of Reiteration, proves to be literally the sum of your contention. Thus, concerning S. Matth. i. 25, the Quarterly Reviewer pointed out (suprà pp. 123-4) that the testimony of b א, together with that of the VIth-century fragment z, and two cursive copies of bad character,—cannot possibly stand against the testimony of all other copies. You plead in reply that on “those two oldest manuscripts the vast majority of Critics set a high value.” Very likely: but for all that, you are I suppose aware that b and א are two of the most corrupt documents in existence? And, inasmuch as they are confessedly derived from one and the same depraved original, you will I presume allow that they may not be adduced as two independent authorities? At all events, when I further show you that almost all the Versions, and literally every one of the Fathers who quote the place, (they are eighteen in number,) are against you,—how can you possibly think there is any force or relevancy whatever in your self-complacent announcement,—“We cannot hesitate to express our agreement with Tischendorf and Tregelles who see in these words an interpolation derived from S. Luke. The same appears to have been the judgment of Lachmann.” Do you desire that that should pass for argument?

To prolong a discussion of this nature with you, were plainly futile. Instead of repeating what I have already delivered—briefly indeed, yet sufficiently in detail,—I will content myself with humbly imitating what, if I remember rightly, was Nelson’s plan when he fought the battle of the Nile. He brought his frigates, one by one, alongside those of the enemy;—lashed himself to the foe;—and poured in his broadsides. We remember with what result. The sixteen instances which you have yourself selected, shall now be indicated. First, on every occasion, reference shall be made to the place in the present volume where my own Criticism on your Greek Text is to be found in detail. Readers of your pamphlet are invited next to refer to your own several attempts at refutation, which shall also be indicated by a reference to your pages. I am quite contented to abide by the verdict of any unprejudiced person of average understanding and fair education:—

(1) Four words omitted in S. Matth. i. 25,—complained of, above, pp. 122-4.—You defend the omission in your pamphlet at pages 43-4,—falling back on Tischendorf, Tregelles and Lachmann, as explained on the opposite page. (p. 416.)

(2) The omission of S. Matth. xvii. 21,—proved to be indefensible, above, pp. 91-2.—The omission is defended by you at pp. 44-5,—on the ground, that although Lachmann retains the verse, and Tregelles only places it in brackets, (Tischendorf alone of the three omitting it entirely,)—“it must be remembered that here Lachmann and Tregelles were not acquainted with א.”

(3) The omission of S. Matth. xviii. 11,—shown to be unreasonable, above, p. 92.—You defend the omission in your pp. 45-7,—remarking that “here there is even less room for doubt than in the preceding cases. The three critical editors are all agreed in rejecting this verse.”

(4) The substitution of ἠπόρει for ἐποίει, in S. Mark vi. 20,—strongly complained of, above, pp. 66-9.—Your defence is at pp. 47-8. You urge that “in this case again the Revisers have Tischendorf only on their side, and not Lachmann nor Tregelles: but it must be remembered that these critics had not the reading of א before them.”

(5) The thrusting of πάλιν (after ἀποστελεῖ) into S. Mark xi. 3,—objected against, above, pp. 56-8.—You defend yourself at pp. 48-9,—and “cannot doubt that the Revisers were perfectly justified” in doing “as Tischendorf and Tregelles had done before them,”—viz. inventing a new Gospel incident.

(6) The mess you have made of S. Mark xi. 8,—exposed by the Quarterly Reviewer, above, pp. 58-61,—you defend at pp. 49-52. You have “preferred to read with Tischendorf and Tregelles.” About,

(7) S. Mark xvi. 9-20,—and (8) S. Luke ii. 14,—I shall have a few serious words to say immediately. About,

(9) the 20 certainly genuine words you have omitted from S. Luke ix. 55, 56,—I promise to give you at no distant date an elaborate lecture. “Are we to understand” (you ask) “that the Reviewer honestly believes the added words to have formed part of the Sacred Autograph?” (“The omitted words,” you mean.) To be sure you are!—I answer.

(10) The amazing blunder endorsed by the Revisers in S. Luke x. 15; which I have exposed above, at pp. 54-6.—You defend the blunder (as usual) at pp. 55-6, remarking that the Revisers, “with Lachmann, Tischendorf, and Tregelles, adopt the interrogative form.” (This seems to be a part of your style.)

(11) The depraved exhibition of the Lord’s Prayer (S. Luke xi. 2-4) which I have commented on above, at pp. 34-6,—you applaud (as usual) at pp. 56-8 of your pamphlet, “with Tischendorf and Tregelles.”

(12) The omission of 7 important words in S. Luke xxiii. 38, I have commented on, above, at pp. 85-8.—You defend the omission, and “the texts of Tischendorf and Tregelles,” at pp. 58-9.

(13) The gross fabrication in S. Luke xxiii. 45, I have exposed, above, at pp. 61-5.—You defend it, at pp. 59-61.

(14) A plain omission in S. John xiv. 4, I have pointed out, above, at pp. 72-3.—You defend it, at pp. 61-2 of your pamphlet.

(15) “Titus Justus,” thrust by the Revisers into Acts xviii. 7, I have shown to be an imaginary personage, above, at pp. 53-4.—You stand up for the interesting stranger at pp. 62-4 of your pamphlet. Lastly,

(16) My discussion of 1 Tim. iii. 16 (suprà pp. 98-106),—you contend against from p. 64 to p. 76.—The true reading of this important place, (which is not your reading,) you will find fully discussed from p. 424 to p. 501.

I have already stated why I dismiss thirteen out of your sixteen instances in this summary manner. The remaining three I have reserved for further discussion for a reason I proceed to explain.

You labour hard throughout your pamphlet to make it appear that the point at which our methods, (yours and mine,) respectively diverge,—is, that I insist on making my appeal to the “Textus Receptus;” you, to Ancient Authority. But happily, my lord Bishop, this is a point which admits of being brought to issue by an appeal to fact. You shall first be heard: and you are observed to express yourself on behalf of the Revising body, as follows:

“It was impossible to mistake the conviction upon which its Textual decisions were based.

“It was a conviction that (1) The true Text was not to be sought in the Textus Receptus; or (2) In the bulk of the Cursive Manuscripts; or (3) In the Uncials (with or without the support of the Codex Alexandrinus;) or (4) In the Fathers who lived after Chrysostom; or (5) In Chrysostom himself and his contemporaries; but (6) In the consentient testimony of the most ancient authorities.”—(p. 28.)

In such terms you venture to contrast our respective methods. You want the public to believe that I make the “Textus Receptus” “a standard from which there shall be no appeal,”—entertain “the notion that it is little else than sacrilege to impugn the tradition of the last 300 years,”916—and so forth;—while you and your colleagues act upon the conviction that the Truth is rather to be sought “in the consentient testimony of the most ancient Authorities.” I proceed to show you, by appealing to an actual instance, that neither of these statements is correct.

(a) And first, permit me to speak for myself. Finding that you challenge the Received reading of S. Luke ii. 14, (“good will towards men”);—and that, (on the authority of 4 Greek Codices [א a b d], all Latin documents, and the Gothic Version,) you contend that “peace among men in whom he is well pleased” ought to be read, instead;—I make my appeal unreservedly to Antiquity.917 I request the Ancients to adjudicate between you and me by favouring us with their verdict. Accordingly, I find as follows:

That, in the IInd century,—the Syriac Versions and Irenæus support the Received Text:

That, in the IIIrd century,—the Coptic Version,—Origen in 3 places, and—the Apostolical Constitutions in 2, do the same:

That, in the IVth century, (to which century, you are invited to remember, codices b and א belong,)—Eusebius,—Aphraates the Persian,—Titus of Bostra,—each in 2 places:—Didymus in 3:—Gregory of Nazianzus,—Cyril of Jer.,—Epiphanius 2—and Gregory of Nyssa—4 times: Ephraem Syr.,—Philo bp. of Carpasus,—Chrysostom 9 times,—and an unknown Antiochian contemporary of his:—these eleven, I once more find, are every one against you:

That, in the Vth century,—besides the Armenian Version, Cyril of Alex. in 14 places:—Theodoret in 4:—Theodotus of Ancyra in 5:—Proclus:—Paulus of Emesa:—the Eastern bishops of Ephesus collectively, a.d. 431;—and Basil of Seleucia:—these contemporaries of cod. a I find are all eight against you:

That, in the VIth century,—besides the Georgian—and Æthiopic Versions,—Cosmas, 5 times:—Anastasius Sinait. and Eulogius, (contemporaries of cod. d,) are all three with the Traditional Text:

That, in the VIIth and VIIIth centuries,—Andreas of Crete, 2:—pope Martinus at the Lat. Council:—Cosmas, bp. of Maiume near Gaza,—and his pupil John Damascene;—together with Germanus, abp. of Constantinople:—are again all five with the Traditional Text.

To these 35, must be added 18 other ancient authorities with which the reader has been already made acquainted (viz. at pp. 44-5): all of which bear the self-same evidence.

Thus I have enumerated fifty-three ancient Greek authorities,—of which sixteen belong to the IInd, IIIrd, and IVth centuries: and thirty-seven to the Vth, VIth, VIIth, and VIIIth.

And now, which of us two is found to have made the fairer and the fuller appeal to “the consentient testimony of the most ancient authorities:” you or I?... This first.

And next, since the foregoing 53 names belong to some of the most famous personages in Ecclesiastical antiquity: are dotted over every region of ancient Christendom: in many instances are far more ancient than codices b and א:—with what show of reason will you pretend that the evidence concerning S. Luke ii. 14 “clearly preponderates” in favour of the reading which you and your friends prefer?

I claim at all events to have demonstrated that both your statements are unfounded: viz. (1) That I seek for the truth of Scripture in the “Textus Receptus:” and (2) That you seek it in “the consentient testimony of the most ancient authorities.”—(Why not frankly avow that you believe the Truth of Scripture is to be sought for, and found, in “the consentient testimony of codices א and b”?)

(b) Similarly, concerning the last 12 Verses of S. Mark, which you brand with suspicion and separate off from the rest of the Gospel, in token that, in your opinion, there is “a breach of continuity” (p. 53), (whatever that may mean,) between verses 8 and 9. Your ground for thus disallowing the last 12 Verses of the second Gospel, is, that b and א omit them:—that a few late MSS. exhibit a wretched alternative for them:—and that Eusebius says they were often away. Now, my method on the contrary is to refer all such questions to “the consentient testimony of the most ancient authorities.” And I invite you to note the result of such an appeal in the present instance. The Verses in question I find are recognized,

In the IInd century,—By the Old Latin—and Syriac Verss.:—by Papias;—Justin M.;—Irenæus;—Tertullian.

In the IIIrd century,—By the Coptic—and the Sahidic Versions:—by Hippolytus;—by Vincentius at the seventh Council of Carthage;—by the “Acta Pilati;”—and by the “Apostolical Constitutions” in two places.

In the IVth century,—By Cureton’s Syr. and the Gothic Verss.:—besides the Syriac Table of Canons;—Eusebius;—Macarius Magnes;—Aphraates;—Didymus;—the Syriac “Acts of the Ap.;”—Epiphanius;—Leontius;—ps.-Ephraem;—Ambrose;—Chrysostom;—Jerome;—Augustine.

In the Vth century,—Besides the Armenian Vers.,—by codices a and c;—by Leo;—Nestorius;—Cyril of Alexandria;—Victor of Antioch;—Patricius;—Marius Mercator.

In the VIth and VIIth centuries,—Besides cod. d,—the Georgian and Æthiopic Verss.:—by Hesychius;—Gregentius;—Prosper;—John, abp. of Thessalonica;—and Modestus, bishop of Jerusalem.... (See above, pages 36-40.)

And now, once more, my lord Bishop,—Pray which of us is it,—you or I,—who seeks for the truth of Scripture “in the consentient testimony of the most ancient authorities”? On my side there have been adduced in evidence six witnesses of the IInd century:—six of the IIIrd:—fifteen of the IVth:—nine of the Vth:—eight of the VIth and VIIth,—(44 in all): while you are found to rely on codices b and א (as before), supported by a single obiter dictum of Eusebius. I have said nothing as yet about the whole body of the Copies: nothing about universal, immemorial, Liturgical use. Do you seriously imagine that the testimony on your side is “decidedly preponderating”? Above all, will you venture again to exhibit our respective methods as in your pamphlet you have done? I protest solemnly that, in your pages, I recognize neither myself nor you.

Permit me to declare that I hold your disallowance of S. Mark xvi. 9-20 to be the gravest and most damaging of all the many mistakes which you and your friends have committed. “The textual facts,” (say you, speaking of the last 12 Verses,)—“have been placed before the reader, because Truth itself demanded it.” This (with Canon Cook918) I entirely deny. It is because “the textual facts have” not “been placed before the reader,” that I am offended. As usual, you present your readers with a one-sided statement,—a partial, and therefore inadmissible, exhibition of the facts,—facts which, fully stated and fairly explained, would, (as you cannot fail to be aware,) be fatal to your contention.

But, I forbear to state so much as one of them. The evidence has already filled a volume.919 Even if I were to allow that in your marginal note, “the textual facts have been [fully and fairly] placed before the reader”—what possible pretence do you suppose they afford for severing the last 12 Verses from the rest of S. Mark, in token that they form no part of the genuine Gospel?... This, however, is only by the way. I have proved to you that it is I—not you—who rest my case on an appeal to Catholic Antiquity: and this is the only thing I am concerned just now to establish.

I proceed to contribute something to the Textual Criticism of a famous place in S. Paul’s first Epistle to Timothy,—on which you have challenged me to a trial of strength.

A Dissertation.

In conclusion, you insist on ripping up the discussion concerning 1 Tim. iii. 16. I had already devoted eight pages to this subject.920 You reply in twelve.921 That I may not be thought wanting in courtesy, the present rejoinder shall extend to seventy-six. I propose, without repeating myself, to follow you over the ground you have re-opened. But it will be convenient that I should define at the outset what is precisely the point in dispute between you and me. I presume it to be undeniably this:—That whereas the Easterns from time immemorial, (and we with them, since Tyndale in 1534 gave us our English Version of the N. T.,) have read the place thus:—(I set the words down in plain English, because the issue admits of being every bit as clearly exhibited in the vernacular, as in Greek: and because I am determined that all who are at the pains to read the present Dissertation shall understand it also:)—Whereas, I say, we have hitherto read the place thus,

“Great is the mystery of godliness:—God was manifest in the flesh, justified in the Spirit, seen of Angels, preached unto the Gentiles, believed on in the world, received up into glory:”

You insist that this is a “plain and clear error.” You contend that there is “decidedly preponderating evidence” for reading instead,

“Great Is the mystery of godliness, who was manifested in the flesh, justified in the Spirit,” &c.:

Which contention of yours I hold to be demonstrably incorrect, and proceed to prove is a complete misconception.

(A) Preliminary explanations and cautions.

But English readers will require to have it explained to them at the outset, that inasmuch as ΘΕΟΣ (God) is invariably written ΘΣ in manuscripts, the only difference between the word “God” and the word “who” (ΟΣ) consists of two horizontal strokes,—one, which distinguishes Θ from Ο; and another similar stroke (above the letters ΘΣ) which indicates that a word has been contracted. And further, that it was the custom to trace these two horizontal lines so wondrous faintly that they sometimes actually elude observation. Throughout cod. a, in fact, the letter Θ is often scarcely distinguishable from the letter Ο.

It requires also to be explained for the benefit of the same English reader,—(and it will do learned readers no harm to be reminded,)—that “mystery” (μυστήριον) being a neuter noun, cannot be followed by the masculine pronoun (ὅς),—“who.” Such an expression is abhorrent alike to Grammar and to Logic,—is intolerable, in Greek as in English. By consequence, ὅς (“who”) is found to have been early exchanged for ὅ (“which”). From a copy so depraved, the Latin Version was executed in the second century. Accordingly, every known copy or quotation922 of the Latin exhibits “quod.” Greek authorities for this reading (ὅ) are few enough. They have been specified already, viz. at page 100. And with this brief statement, the reading in question might have been dismissed, seeing that it has found no patron since Griesbach declared against it. It was however very hotly contended for during the last century,—Sir Isaac Newton and Wetstein being its most strenuous advocates; and it would be unfair entirely to lose sight of it now.

The two rival readings, however, in 1 Tim. iii. 16, are,—Θεὸς ἐφανερώθη (“God was manifested”), on the one hand; and τὸ τῆς εὐσεβείας μυστήριον, ὅς (“the mystery of godliness, who”), on the other. These are the two readings, I say, between whose conflicting claims we are to adjudicate. For I request that it may be loyally admitted at the outset,—(though it has been conveniently overlooked by the Critics whom you follow,)—that the expression ὂς ἐφανερώθη in Patristic quotations, unless it be immediately preceded by the word μυστήριον, is nothing to the purpose; at all events, does not prove the thing which you are bent on proving. English readers will see this at a glance. An Anglican divine,—with reference to 1 Timothy iii. 16,—may surely speak of our Saviour as One “who was manifested in the flesh,”—without risk of being straightway suspected of employing a copy of the English Version which exhibits “the mystery of godliness who.” “Ex hujusmodi locis” (as Matthæi truly remarks) “nemo, nisi mente captus, in contextu sacro probabit ὅς.”923

When Epiphanius therefore,—professing to transcribe924 from an earlier treatise of his own925 where ἐφανερώθη stands without a nominative,926 writes (if he really does write) ὂς ἐφανερώθη,927—we are not at liberty to infer therefrom that Epiphanius is opposed to the reading Θεός.—Still less is it lawful to draw the same inference from the Latin Version of a letter of Eutherius [a.d. 431] in which the expression “qui manifestatus est in carne,”928 occurs.—Least of all should we be warranted in citing Jerome as a witness for reading ὅς in this place, because (in his Commentary on Isaiah) he speaks of our Saviour as One who “was manifested in the flesh, justified in the Spirit.”929

As for reasoning thus concerning Cyril of Alexandria, it is demonstrably inadmissible: seeing that at the least on two distinct occasions, this Father exhibits Θεὸς ἐφανερώθη. I am not unaware that in a certain place, apostrophizing the Docetæ, he says,—“Ye do err, not knowing the Scriptures, nor indeed the great mystery of godliness, that is Christ, who (ὅς) was manifested in the flesh, justified in the Spirit,”930 &c. &c. And presently, “I consider the mystery of godliness to be no other thing but the Word of God the Father, who (ὅς) Himself was manifested in the flesh.”931 But there is nothing whatever in this to invalidate the testimony of those other places in which Θεός actually occurs. It is logically inadmissible, I mean, to set aside the places where Cyril is found actually to write Θεὸς ἐφανερώθη, because in other places he employs 1 Tim. iii. 16 less precisely; leaving it to be inferred—(which indeed is abundantly plain)—that Θεός is always his reading, from the course of his argument and from the nature of the matter in hand. But to proceed.

(B) Bp. Ellicott invited to state the evidence for reading ὅς in 1 Tim. iii. 16.

[a] “The state of the evidence,” as declared by Bp. Ellicott.

When last the evidence for this question came before us, I introduced it by inviting a member of the Revising body (Dr. Roberts) to be spokesman on behalf of his brethren.932 This time, I shall call upon a more distinguished, a wholly unexceptionable witness, viz. yourself,—who are, of course, greatly in advance of your fellow-Revisers in respect of critical attainments. The extent of your individual familiarity with the subject when (in 1870 namely) you proposed to revise the Greek Text of the N. T. for the Church of England on the solvere-ambulando principle,—may I presume be lawfully inferred from the following annotation in your “Critical and Grammatical Commentary on the Pastoral Epistles.” I quote from the last Edition of 1869; only taking the liberty—(1) To break it up into short paragraphs: and—(2) To give in extenso the proper names which you abbreviate. Thus, instead of “Theod.” (which I take leave to point out to you might mean either Theodore of Heraclea or his namesake of Mopsuestia,—either Theodotus the Gnostic or his namesake of Ancyra,) “Euthal.,” I write “Theodoret, Euthalius.” And now for the external testimony, as you give it, concerning 1 Timothy iii. 16. You inform your readers that,—

“The state of the evidence is briefly as follows:—

(1) Ὅς is read with a1 [indisputably; after minute personal inspection; see note, p. 104.] c1 [Tischendorf Prol. Cod. Ephraemi, § 7, p. 39.] F G א (see below); 17, 73, 181; Syr.-Philoxenian, Coptic, Sahidic, Gothic; also (ὅς or ὅ) Syriac, Arabic (Erpenius), Æthiopic, Armenian; Cyril, Theodorus Mopsuest., Epiphanius, Gelasius, Hieronymus in Esaiam liii. 11.

(2) ὅ, with d1 (Claromontanus), Vulgate; nearly all Latin Fathers.

(3) Θεός, with d3 k l; nearly all MSS.; Arabic (Polyglott), Slavonic; Didymus, Chrysostom (? see Tregelles, p. 227 note), Theodoret, Euthalius, Damascene, Theophylact, Œcumenius,—Ignatius Ephes. 29, (but very doubtful). A hand of the 12th century has prefixed θε to ος, the reading of א; see Tischendorf edit. major, Plate xvii. of Scrivener’s Collation of א, facsimile (13).

On reviewing this evidence, as not only the most important uncial MSS., but all the Versions older than the 7th century are distinctly in favour of a relative,—as ὅ seems only a Latinizing variation of ὅς,—and lastly, as ὅς is the more difficult, though really the more intelligible, reading (Hofmann, Schriftb. Vol. I. p. 143), and on every reason more likely to have been changed into Θεός (Macedonius is actually said to have been expelled for making the change, Liberati Diaconi Breviarium cap. 19) than vice versâ, we unhesitatingly decide in favour of ὅς.”—(Pastoral Epistles, ed. 1869, pp. 51-2.)

Such then is your own statement of the evidence on this subject. I proceed to demonstrate to you that you are completely mistaken:—mistaken as to what you say about ὅς,—mistaken as to ὅ,—mistaken as to Θεός:—mistaken in respect of Codices,—mistaken in respect of Versions,—mistaken in respect of Fathers. Your slipshod, inaccurate statements, (all obtained at second-hand,) will occasion me, I foresee, a vast deal of trouble; but I am determined, now at last, if the thing be possible, to set this question at rest. And that I may not be misunderstood, I beg to repeat that all I propose to myself is to prove—beyond the possibility of denial—that the evidence for Θεός (in 1 Timothy iii. 16) vastly preponderates over the evidence for either ὅς or ὅ. It will be for you, afterwards, to come forward and prove that, on the contrary, Θεός is a “plain and clear error:” so plain and so clear that you and your fellow-Revisers felt yourselves constrained to thrust it out from the place it has confessedly occupied in the New Testament for at least 1530 years.

You are further reminded, my lord Bishop, that unless you do this, you will be considered by the whole Church to have dealt unfaithfully with the Word of God. For, (as I shall remind you in the sequel,) it is yourself who have invited and provoked this enquiry. You devote twelve pages to it (pp. 64 to 76),—“compelled to do so by the Reviewer.” “Moreover” (you announce) “this case is of great importance as an example. It illustrates in a striking manner the complete isolation of the Reviewer’s position. If he is right all other Critics are wrong,” &c., &c., &c.—Permit me to remind you of the warning—“Let not him that girdeth on his harness boast himself as he that putteth it off.”

[b] Testimony of the Manuscripts concerning 1 Tim. iii. 16: and first as to the testimony of Codex a.

You begin then with the Manuscript evidence; and you venture to assert that ΟΣ is “indisputably” the reading of Codex a. I am at a loss to understand how a “professed Critic,”—(who must be presumed to be acquainted with the facts of the case, and who is a lover of Truth,)—can permit himself to make such an assertion. Your certainty is based, you say, on “minute personal inspection.” In other words, you are so good as to explain that you once tried a coarse experiment,933 by which you succeeded in convincing yourself that the suspected diameter of the Ο is exactly coincident with the sagitta of an epsilon (Ε) which happens to stand on the back of the page. But do you not see that unless you start with this for your major premiss,—“Theta cannot exist on one side of a page if epsilon stands immediately behind it on the other side,”—your experiment is nihil ad rem, and proves absolutely nothing?

Your “inspection” happens however to be inaccurate besides. You performed your experiment unskilfully. A man need only hold up the leaf to the light on a very brilliant day,—as Tregelles, Scrivener, and many besides (including your present correspondent) have done,—to be aware that the sagitta of the epsilon on fol. 145b does not cover much more than a third of the area of the theta on fol. 145a. Dr. Scrivener further points out that it cuts the circle too high to have been reasonably mistaken by a careful observer for the diameter of the theta (Θ). The experiment which you describe with such circumstantial gravity was simply nugatory therefore.

How is it, my lord Bishop, that you do not perceive that the way to ascertain the reading of Codex a at 1 Tim. iii. 16, is,—(1) To investigate not what is found at the back of the leaf, but what is written on the front of it? and (2), Not so much to enquire what can be deciphered of the original writing by the aid of a powerful lens now, as to ascertain what was apparent to the eye of competent observers when the Codex was first brought into this country, viz. 250 years ago? That Patrick Young, the first custodian and collator of the Codex [1628-1652], read ΘΣ, is certain.—Young communicated the “various Readings” of a to Abp. Ussher:—and the latter, prior to 1653, communicated them to Hammond, who clearly knew nothing of ΟΣ.—It is plain that ΘΣ was the reading seen by Huish—when he sent his collation of the Codex (made, according to Bentley, with great exactness,934) to Brian Walton, who published the fifth volume of his Polyglott in 1657.—Bp. Pearson, who was very curious in such matters, says “we find not ὅς in any copy,”—a sufficient proof how he read the place in 1659.—Bp. Fell, who published an edition of the N. T. in 1675, certainly considered ΘΣ the reading of Cod. a.—Mill, who was at work on the Text of the N. T. from 1677 to 1707, expressly declares that he saw the remains of ΘΣ in this place.935 Bentley, who had himself (1716) collated the MS. with the utmost accuracy (“accuratissime ipse contuli”), knew nothing of any other reading.—Emphatic testimony on the subject is borne by Wotton in 1718:—“There can be no doubt” (he says) “that this MS. always exhibited ΘΣ. Of this, any one may easily convince himself who will be at the pains to examine the place with attention.”936—Two years earlier,—(we have it on the testimony of Mr. John Creyk, of S. John’s Coll., Cambridge,)—“the old line in the letter θ was plainly to be seen.”937—It was “much about the same time,” also, (viz. about 1716) that Wetstein acknowledged to the Rev. John Kippax,—“who took it down in writing from his own mouth,—that though the middle stroke of the θ has been evidently retouched, yet the fine stroke which was originally in the body of the θ is discoverable at each end of the fuller stroke of the corrector.”938—And Berriman himself, (who delivered a course of Lectures on the true reading of 1 Tim. iii. 16, in 1737-8,) attests emphatically that he had seen it also. “If therefore” (he adds) “at any time hereafter the old line should become altogether undiscoverable, there will never be just cause to doubt but that the genuine, and original reading of the MS. was ΘΣ: and that the new strokes, added at the top and in the middle by the corrector were not designed to corrupt and falsify, but to preserve and perpetuate the true reading, which was in danger of being lost by the decay of Time.”939—Those memorable words (which I respectfully commend to your notice) were written in a.d. 1741. How you (a.d. 1882), after surveying all this accumulated and consistent testimony (borne a.d. 1628 to a.d. 1741) by eye-witnesses as competent to observe a fact of this kind as yourself; and fully as deserving of credit, when they solemnly declare what they have seen:—how you, I say, after a survey of this evidence, can gravely sit down and inform the world that “there is no sufficient evidence that there was ever a time when this reading was patent as the reading which came from the original scribe” (p. 72):—this passes my comprehension.—It shall only be added that Bengel, who was a very careful enquirer, had already cited the Codex Alexandrinus as a witness for Θεός in 1734:940—and that Woide, the learned and conscientious editor of the Codex, declares that so late as 1765 he had seen traces of the θ which twenty years later (viz. in 1785) were visible to him no longer.941

That Wetstein subsequently changed his mind, I am not unaware. He was one of those miserable men whose visual organs return a false report to their possessor whenever they are shown a text which witnesses inconveniently to the God-head of Jesus Christ.942 I know too that Griesbach in 1785 announced himself of Wetstein’s opinion. It is suggestive however that ten years before, (N. T. ed. 1775,) he had rested the fact not on the testimony borne by the MS. itself, but on “the consent of Versions, Copies, and Fathers which exhibit the Alexandrian Recension.”943—Since Griesbach’s time, Davidson, Tregelles, Tischendorf, Westcott and Hort, and Ellicott have announced their opinion that ΘΣ was never written at 1 Tim. iii. 16: confessedly only because ΘΣ is to them invisible one hundred years after ΘΣ has disappeared from sight. The fact remains for all that, that the original reading of a is attested so amply, that no sincere lover of Truth can ever hereafter pretend to doubt it. “Omnia testimonia,” (my lord Bishop,) “omnemque historicam veritatem in suspicionem adducere non licet; nec mirum est nos ea nunc non discernere, quæ, antequam nos Codicem vidissemus, evanuerant.”944

The sum of the matter, (as I pointed out to you on a former occasion,945) is this,—That it is too late by 150 years to contend on the negative side of this question. Nay, a famous living Critic (long may he live!) assures us that when his eyes were 20 years younger (Feb. 7, 1861) he actually discerned, still lingering, a faint trace of the diameter of the Θ which Berriman in 1741 had seen so plainly. “I have examined Codex a at least twenty times within as many years” (wrote Prebendary Scrivener in 1874946), “and... seeing (as every one must) with my own eyes, I have always felt convinced that it reads ΘΣ”.... For you to assert, in reply to all this mass of positive evidence, that the reading is “indisputably” ΟΣ,—and to contend that what makes this indisputable, is the fact that behind part of the theta (Θ), [but too high to mislead a skilful observer,] an epsilon stands on the reverse side of the page;—strikes me as bordering inconveniently on the ridiculous. If this be your notion of what does constitute “sufficient evidence,” well may the testimony of so many testes oculati seem to you to lack sufficiency. Your notions on these subjects are, I should think, peculiar to yourself. You even fail to see that your statement (in Scrivener’s words) is “not relevant to the point at issue.”947 The plain fact concerning cod. a is this:—That at 1 Tim. iii. 16, two delicate horizontal strokes in ΘΣ which were thoroughly patent in 1628,—which could be seen plainly down to 1737,—and which were discernible by an expert (Dr. Woide) so late as A.D. 1765,948—have for the last hundred years entirely disappeared; which is precisely what Berriman (in 1741) predicted would be the case. Moreover, he solemnly warned men against drawing from this circumstance the mistaken inference which you, my lord Bishop, nevertheless insist on drawing, and representing as an “indisputable” fact.

I have treated so largely of the reading of the Codex Alexandrinus, not because I consider the testimony of a solitary copy, whether uncial or cursive, a matter of much importance,—certainly not the testimony of Codex a, which (in defiance of every other authority extant) exhibits “the body of God” in S. John xix. 40:—but because you insist that a is a witness on your side: whereas it is demonstrable, (and I claim to have demonstrated,) that you cannot honestly do so; and (I trust) you will never do so any more.

[c] Testimony of Codices א and c concerning 1 Tim. iii. 16.

That א reads ΟΣ is admitted.—Not so Codex c, which the excessive application of chemicals has rendered no longer decipherable in this place. Tischendorf (of course) insists, that the original reading was ΟΣ.949 Wetstein and Griesbach (just as we should expect,) avow the same opinion,—Woide, Mill, Weber and Parquoi being just as confident that the original reading was ΘΣ. As in the case of cod. a, it is too late by full 100 years to re-open this question. Observable it is that the witnesses yield contradictory evidence. Wetstein, writing 150 years ago, before the original writing had become so greatly defaced,—(and Wetstein, inasmuch as he collated the MS. for Bentley [1716], must have been thoroughly familiar with its contents,)—only “thought” that he read ΟΣ; “because the delicate horizontal stroke which makes Θ out of Ο,” was to him “not apparent.”950 Woide on the contrary was convinced that ΘΣ had been written by the first hand: “for” (said he) “though there exists no vestige of the delicate stroke which out of Ο makes Θ, the stroke written above the letters is by the first hand.” What however to Wetstein and to Woide was not apparent, was visible enough to Weber, Wetstein’s contemporary. And Tischendorf, so late as 1843, expressed his astonishment that the stroke in question had hitherto escaped the eyes of every one; “having been repeatedly seen by himself.”951 He attributes it, (just as we should expect) to a corrector of the MS.; partly, because of its colour, (“subnigra”); partly, because of its inclining upwards to the right. And yet, who sees not that an argument derived from the colour of a line which is already well-nigh invisible, must needs be in a high degree precarious? while Scrivener aptly points out that the cross line in Θ,—the ninth letter further on, (which has never been questioned,)—also “ascends towards the right.” The hostile evidence collapses therefore. In the meantime, what at least is certain is, that the subscribed musical notation indicates that a thousand years ago, a word of two syllables was read here. From a review of all of which, it is clear that the utmost which can be pretended is that some degree of uncertainty attaches to the testimony of cod. c. Yet, why such a plea should be either set up or allowed, I really see not—except indeed by men who have made up their minds beforehand that ΟΣ shall be the reading of 1 Tim. iii. 16. Let the sign of uncertainty however follow the notation of c for this text, if you will. That cod. c is an indubitable witness for ΟΣ, I venture at least to think that no fair person will ever any more pretend.

[d] Testimony of Codices F and G of S. Paul, concerning 1 Tim. iii. 16.

The next dispute is about the reading of the two IXth-century codices, f and g,—concerning which I propose to trouble you with a few words in addition to what has been already offered on this subject at pp. 100-1: the rather, because you have yourself devoted one entire page of your pamphlet to the testimony yielded by these two codices; and because you therein have recourse to what (if it proceeded from any one but a Bishop,) I should designate the insolent method of trying to put me down by authority,—instead of seeking to convince me of my error by producing some good reasons for your opinion. You seem to think it enough to hurl Wetstein, Griesbach, Lachmann, Tregelles, Tischendorf, and (cruellest of all) my friend Scrivener, at my head. Permit me to point out that this, as an argument, is the feeblest to which a Critic can have recourse. He shouts so lustily for help only because he is unable to take care of himself.

f and g then are confessedly independent copies of one and the same archetype: and “both f and g” (you say) “exhibit ΟΣ.”952 Be it so. The question arises,—What does the stroke above the ΟΣ signify? I venture to believe that these two codices represent a copy which originally exhibited ΘΣ, but from which the diameter of the Θ had disappeared—(as very often is the case in codex a)—through tract of time. The effect of this would be that f and g are in reality witnesses for Θεός. Not so, you say. That slanting stroke represents the aspirate, and proves that these two codices are witnesses for ὅς.953 Let us look a little more closely into this matter.

Here are two documents, of which it has been said that they “were separately derived from some early codex, in which there was probably no interval between the words.”954 They were not immediately derived from such a codex, I remark: it being quite incredible that two independent copyists could have hit on the same extravagantly absurd way of dividing the uncial letters.955 The common archetype which both employed must have been the work of a late Western scribe every bit as licentious and as unacquainted with Greek as themselves.956 That archetype however may very well have been obtained from a primitive codex of the kind first supposed, in which the words were written continuously, as in codex b. Such Manuscripts were furnished with neither breathings nor accents: accordingly, “of the ordinary breathings or accents there are no traces”957 in either f or g.

But then, cod. f occasionally,—g much oftener,—exhibits a little straight stroke, nearly horizontal, over the initial vowel of certain words. Some have supposed that this was designed to represent the aspirate: but it is not so. The proof is, that it is found consistently introduced over the same vowels in the interlinear Latin. Thus, the Latin preposition “a” always has the slanting stroke above it:958 and the Latin interjection “o” is furnished with the same appendage,—alike in the Gospels and in the Epistles.959 This observation evacuates the supposed significance of the few instances where ἃ is written Α:960 as well as of the much fewer places where ὁ or ὃ are written Ο:961 especially when account is taken of the many hundred occasions, (often in rapid succession,) when nothing at all is to be seen above the “ο.”962 As for the fact that ἵνα is always written ΙΝΑ (or ΪΝΑ),—let it only be noted that besides ιδωμεν, ιχθυς, ισχυρος, &c., Ιακωβος, Ιωαννης, Ιουδας, &c., (which are all distinguished in the same way,)—Latin words also beginning with an “I” are similarly adorned,—and we become convinced that the little stroke in question is to be explained on some entirely different principle. At last, we discover (from the example of “sī,” “sīc,” “etsī,” “servītus,” “saeculīs,” “idolīs,” &c.) that the supposed sign of the rough breathing is nothing else but an ancient substitute for the modern dot over the “I.”—We may now return to the case actually before us.

It has been pointed out that the line above the ΟΣ in both f and g “is not horizontal, but rises a little towards the right.” I beg to call attention to the fact that there are 38 instances of the slight super-imposed “line” here spoken of, in the page of cod. f where the reading under discussion appears: 7 in the Greek, 31 in the Latin. In the corresponding page of cod. g, the instances are 44: 8 in the Greek, 36 in the Latin.963 These short horizontal strokes (they can hardly be called lines) generally—not by any means always—slant upwards; and they are invariably the sign of contraction.

The problem before us has in this way been divested of a needless encumbrance. The suspicion that the horizontal line above the word ΟΣ may possibly represent the aspirate, has been disposed of. It has been demonstrated that throughout these two codices a horizontal line slanting upwards, set over a vowel, is either—(1) The sign of contraction; or else—(2) A clerical peculiarity. In the place before us, then, which of the two is it?

The sign of contraction, I answer: seeing that whereas there are, in the page before us, 9 aspirated, and (including ΟΣ) 8 contracted Greek words, not one of those nine aspirated words has any mark at all above its initial letter; while every one of the eight contracted words is duly furnished with the symbol of contraction. I further submit that inasmuch as ὅς is nowhere else written ΟΣ in either codex, it is unreasonable to assume that it is so written in this place. Now, that almost every codex in the world reads ΘΣ in 1 Tim. iii. 16,—is a plain fact; and that ΟΣ (in verse 16) would be Θεός if the delicate horizontal stroke which distinguishes Θ from Ο, were not away,—no one denies. Surely, therefore, the only thing which remains to be enquired after, is,—Are there any other such substitutions of one letter for another discoverable in these two codices? And it is notorious that instances of the phenomenon abound. The letters Σ, Ε, Ο, Θ are confused throughout.964 And what else are ΠΕΝΟΟΥΝΤΕΣ for πενθουντες (Matth. v. 4),—ΕΚΡΙΖΩΟΗΤΙ for εκριζωθητι (Luc. xvii. 16),—ΚΑΤΑΒΗΟΙ for καταβηθι (xix. 6),—but instances of the self-same mistake which (as I contend) has in this place turned ΘΣ into ΟΣ?

My lord Bishop, I have submitted to all this painful drudgery, not, you may be sure, without a sufficient reason. Never any more must we hear of “breathings” in connexion with codices f and g. The stroke above the ΟΣ in 1 Tim. iii. 16 has been proved to be probably the sign of contraction. I forbear, of course, to insist that the two codices are witnesses on my side. I require that you, in the same spirit of fairness, will abstain from claiming them as certainly witnessing on yours. The Vth-century codex c, and the IXth-century codex f-g must be regarded as equivocal in the testimony they render, and are therefore not to be reckoned to either of the contending parties.

These are many words about the two singularly corrupt IXth-century documents, concerning which so much has been written already. But I sincerely desire,—(and so I trust do you, as a Christian Bishop,)—to see the end of a controversy which those only have any right to re-open (pace tuâ dixerim) who have something new to offer on the subject: and certain it is that the bearing of f and g on this matter has never before been fully stated. I dismiss those two codices with the trite remark that they are, at all events, but one codex: and that against them are to be set k l p,—the only uncials which remain; for d (of “Paul”) exhibits ὅ, and the Vatican codex b no longer serves us.

[fe] Testimony of the cursive copies: and specially of “Paul 17,” “73” and “181,” concerning 1 Tim. iii. 16.

Next, for the cursive Copies. You claim without enquiry,—and only because you find that men have claimed them before you,—Nos. 17, 73, 181, as witnesses for ὅς. Will you permit me to point out that no progress will ever be made in these studies so long as “professed Critics” will persevere in the evil practice of transcribing one another’s references, and thus appropriating one another’s blunders?

About the reading of “Paul 17,” (the notorious “33” of the Gospels,) there is indeed no doubt.—Mindful however of President Routh’s advice to me always “to verify my references,”—concerning “Paul 73” I wrote a letter of enquiry to Upsala (July 28, 1879), and for all answer (Sept. 6th) received a beautiful tracing of what my correspondent called the “1 Thim. iii. 16 paraphe.” It proved to be an abridged exhibition of 21 lines of Œcumenius. I instantly wrote to enquire whether this was really all that the codex in question has to say to 1 Tim. iii. 16? but to this I received no reply. I presumed therefore that I had got to the bottom of the business. But in July 1882, I addressed a fresh enquiry to Dr. Belsheim of Christiania, and got his answer last October. By that time he had visited Upsala: had verified for me readings in other MSS., and reported that the reading here is ὅς. I instantly wrote to enquire whether he had seen the word with his own eyes? He replied that he desired to look further into this matter on some future occasion,—the MS. in question being (he says) a difficult one to handle. I am still awaiting his final report, which he promises to send me when next he visits Upsala. (“Aurivillius” says nothing about it.) Let “Paul 73” in the meantime stand with a note of interrogation, or how you will.

About “Paul 181,” (which Scholz describes as “vi. 36” in the Laurentian library at Florence,) I take leave to repeat (in a foot-note) what (in a letter to Dr. Scrivener) I explained in the “Guardian” ten years ago.965 In consequence however of your discourteous remarks (which you will be gratified to find quoted at foot,966) I have written (not for the first time) to the learned custos of the Laurentian library on the subject; stating the entire case and reminding him of my pertinacity in 1871. He replies,—“Scholz fallitur huic bibliothecæ tribuendo codicem sign. ‘plut. vi. n. 36.’ Nec est in præsenti, nec fuit antea, neque exstat in aliâ bibliothecâ apud nos.”... On a review of what goes before, I submit that one who has taken so much pains with the subject does not deserve to be flouted as I find myself flouted by the Bp. of Gloucester and Bristol,—who has not been at the pains to verify one single point in this entire controversy for himself.

Every other known copy of S. Paul’s Epistles, (written in the cursive character,) I have ascertained (by laborious correspondence with the chiefs of foreign libraries) concurs in exhibiting Θεὸς ἐφανερώθη ἐν σαρκί. The importance of this testimony ought to be supremely evident to yourself who contend so strenuously for the support of Paul 73 and 181. But because, in my judgment, this practical unanimity of the manuscripts is not only “important” but conclusive, I shall presently recur to it (viz. at pages 494-5,) more in detail. For do but consider that these copies were one and all derived from yet older MSS. than themselves; and that the remote originals of those older MSS. were perforce of higher antiquity still, and were executed in every part of primitive Christendom. How is it credible that they should, one and all, conspire to mislead? I cannot in fact express better than Dr. Berriman did 140 years ago, the logical result of such a concord of the copies:—“From whence can it be supposed that this general, I may say this universal consent of the Greek MSS. should arise, but from hence,—That Θεός is the genuine original reading of this Text?” (p. 325.)

In the meantime, you owe me a debt of gratitude: for, in the course of an enquiry which I have endeavoured to make exhaustive, I have discovered three specimens of the book called “Apostolus,” or “Praxapostolus” (i.e. Lections from the Epistles and Acts) which also exhibit ὅς in this place. One of these is Reg. 375 (our “Apost. 12”) in the French collection, a Western codex, dated a.d. 1022.967 The story of the discovery of the other two (to be numbered “Praxapost.” 85, 86,) is interesting, and will enliven this dull page.

At Tusculum, near Rome,—(the locality which Cicero rendered illustrious, and where he loved to reside surrounded by his books,)—was founded early in the XIth century a Christian library which in process of time became exceedingly famous. It retains, in fact, its ancient reputation to this day. Nilus “Rossanensis” it was, who, driven with his monks from Calabria by invading hordes, established in a.d. 1004 a monastery at Tusculum, to which either he, or his successors, gave the name of “Crypta Ferrata.” It became the headquarters of the Basilian monks in the XVIIth century. Hither habitually resorted those illustrious men, Sirletus, Mabillon, Zacagni, Ciampini, Montfaucon,—and more lately Mai and Dom Pitra. To Signor Cozza-Luzi, the present learned and enlightened chief of the Vatican library, (who is himself “Abbas Monachorum Basiliensium Cryptæ Ferratæ,”) I am indebted for my copy of the Catalogue (now in process of publication968) of the extraordinary collection of MSS. belonging to the society over which he presides.

In consequence of the information which the Abbate Cozza-Luzi sent me, I put myself in communication with the learned librarian of the monastery, the “Hieromonachus” D. Antonio Rocchi, (author of the Catalogue in question,) whom I cannot sufficiently thank for his courtesy and kindness. The sum of the matter is briefly this:—There are still preserved in the library of the Basilian monks of Crypta Ferrata,—(notwithstanding that many of its ancient treasures have found their way into other repositories,969)—4 manuscripts of S. Paul’s Epistles, which I number 290, -1, -2, -3: and 7 copies of the book called “Praxapostolus,” which I number 83, -4, -5, -6, -7, -8, -9. Of these eleven, 3 are defective hereabouts: 5 read Θεός: 2 (Praxapost.) exhibit ὅς; and 1 (Apost. 83) contains an only not unique reading, to be mentioned at p. 478. Hieromonachus Rocchi furnishes me with references besides to 3 Liturgical Codices out of a total of 22, (Ἀποστολοευαγγέλια), which also exhibit Θεός.970 I number them Apost. 106, 108, 110.

And now, we may proceed to consider the Versions.

[f] Testimony of the Versions to the reading of 1 Tim. iii. 16.

“Turning to the ancient Versions” (you assert) “we find them almost unanimous against Θεός” (p. 65). But your business, my lord Bishop, was to show that some of them witness in favour of ὅς. If you cannot show that several ancient Versions,—besides a fair proportion of ancient Fathers,—are clearly on your side, your contention is unreasonable as well as hopeless. What then do the Versions say?

(a) Now, it is allowed on all hands that the Latin Version was made from copies which must have exhibited μυστήριον ὅ ἐφανερώθη. The agreement of the Latin copies is absolute. The Latin Fathers also conspire in reading “mysterium quod:” though some of them seem to have regarded “quod” as a conjunction. Occasionally, (as by the Translator of Origen,971) we even find “quia” substituted for “quod.” Estius conjectures that “quod” is a conjunction in this place. But in fact the reasoning of the Latin Fathers is observed invariably to proceed as if they had found nothing else but “Deus” in the text before them. They bravely assume that the Eternal Word, the second Person in the Trinity, is designated by the expression “magnum pietatis sacramentum.”

(b) It is, I admit, a striking circumstance that such a mistake as this in the old Latin should have been retained in the Vulgate. But if you ever study this subject with attention, you will find that Jerome,—although no doubt he “professedly corrected the old Latin Version by the help of ancient Greek manuscripts,” (p. 69,)—on many occasions retains readings which it is nevertheless demonstrable that he individually disapproved. No certain inference therefore as to what Jerome found in ancient Greek MSS. can be safely drawn from the text of the Vulgate.

(c) Next, for the Syriac (Peschito) Version. I beg to subjoin the view of the late loved and lamented P. E. Pusey,—the editor of Cyril, and who at the time of his death was engaged in re-editing the Peschito. He says,—“In 1 Tim. iii. 16, the Syriac has ‘qui manifestatus est.’ The relative is indeterminate, but the verb is not. In Syriac however μυστήριον is masculine; and thus, the natural way would be to take μυστήριον as the antecedent, and translate ‘quod manifestatum est.’ No one would have thought of any other way of translating the Syriac—but for the existence of the various reading ὅς in the Greek, and the possibility of its affecting the translation into Syriac. But the Peschito is so really a translation into good Syriac, (not into word-for-word Syriac,) that if the translator had wanted to express the Greek ὅς, in so difficult a passage, he would have turned it differently.”972—The Peschito therefore yields the same testimony as the Latin; and may not be declared (as you declare it) to be indeterminate. Still less may it be represented as witnessing to ὅς.

(d) It follows to enquire concerning the rendering of 1 Tim. iii. 16 in the Philoxenian, or rather the Harkleian Version (VIIth cent.), concerning which I have had recourse to the learned Editor of that Version. He writes:—“There can be no doubt that the authors of this Version had either Θεός or Θεοῦ before them: while their marginal note shows that they were aware of the reading ὅς. They exhibit,—‘Great is the mystery of the goodness of the fear (feminine) of God, who-was-manifested (masculine) in the flesh.’ The marginal addition [ܗܘ before ܕܐܬܓܠܝ (or ܘܗ before ܝܠܓܬܐܕ)] makes the reference to God all the plainer.”973 See more below, at p. 489.

Now this introduction of the word Θεός into the text, however inartistic it may seem to you and to me, is a fatal circumstance to those who would contend on your side. It shows translators divided between two rival and conflicting readings: but determined to give prominence to the circumstance which constituted the greatness of the mystery: viz. God incarnate. “May I suggest” (adds the witty scholar in his Post-script) “that there would be no mystery in ‘a man being manifested in the flesh’?”

The facts concerning the Harkleian Version being such, you will not be surprised to hear me say that I am at a loss to understand how, without a syllable expressive of doubt, you should claim this version (the “Philoxenian” you call it—but it is rather the Harkleian), as a witness on your side,—a witness for ὅς.974 It not only witnesses against you, (for the Latin and the Peschito do that,) but, as I have shown you, it is a witness on my side.

(e) and (f). Next, for the Versions of Lower and Upper Egypt.

“We are content” (you say) to “refer our readers to Tischendorf and Tregelles, who unhesitatingly claim the Memphitic [or Coptic] and the Thebaic [or Sahidic] for ὅς.”975 But surely, in a matter of this kind, my lord Bishop—(I mean, when we are discussing some nicety of a language of which personally we know absolutely nothing,)—we may never “be content to refer our readers” to individuals who are every bit as ignorant of the matter as ourselves. Rather should we be at the pains to obtain for those whom we propose to instruct the deliberate verdict of those who have made the subject their special study. Dr. Malan (who must be heartily sick of me by this time), in reply to my repeated enquiries, assures me that in Coptic and in Sahidic alike, “the relative pronoun always takes the gender of the Greek antecedent. But, inasmuch as there is properly speaking no neuter in either language, the masculine does duty for the neuter; the gender of the definite article and relative pronoun being determined by the gender of the word referred to. Thus, in S. John xv. 26, the Coptic ‘pi’ and ‘phè’ respectively represent the definite article and the relative, alike in the expression ὁ Παράκλητος ὅν, and in the expression τὸ Πνεῦμα ὅ: and so throughout. In 1 Tim. iii. 16, therefore, ‘pi mustèrion phè,’ must perforce be rendered, τὸ μυστήριον ὅ:—not, surely, ὁ μυστήριον ὅς. And yet, if the relative may be masculine, why not the article also? But in fact, we have no more right to render the Coptic (or the Sahidic) relative by ὅς in 1 Tim. iii. 16, than in any other similar passage where a neuter noun (e.g. πνεῦμα or σῶμα) has gone before. In this particular case, of course a pretence may be set up that the gender of the relative shall be regarded as an open question: but in strictness of grammar, it is far otherwise. No Coptic or Sahidic scholar, in fact, having to translate the Coptic or Sahidic back into Greek, would ever dream of writing anything else but τὸ μυστήριον ὅ.”976 And now I trust I have made it plain to you that you are mistaken in your statement (p. 69),—that “Ὅς is supported by the two Egyptian Versions.” It is supported by neither. You have been shown that they both witness against you. You will therefore not be astonished to hear me again declare that I am at a loss to understand how you can cite the “Philoxenian, Coptic and Sahidic,”977—as witnesses on your side. It is not in this way, my lord Bishop, that God’s Truth is to be established.

(g) As for the Gothic Version,—dissatisfied with the verdict of De Gabelentz and Loebe,978 I addressed myself to Dr. Ceriani of Milan, the learned and most helpful chief of the Ambrosian Library: in which by the way is preserved the only known copy of Ulphilas for 1 Tim. iii. 16. He inclines to the opinion that “saei” is to be read,—the rather, because Andreas Uppström, the recent editor of the codex, a diligent and able scholar, has decided in favour of that “obscure” reading.979 The Gothic therefore must be considered to witness to the (more than) extraordinary combination;—μέγΑΣ... μυστήριον... ὍΣ. (See the footnote 4 p. 452.)

I obtain at the same time, the same verdict, and on the same grounds, from that distinguished and obliging scholar, Dr. John Belsheim of Christiania. “But” (he adds) “the reading is a little dubious. H. F. Massmann, in the notes to his edition,980 at page 657, says,—‘saei [qui] is altogether obliterated.’”—In claiming the Gothic therefore as a witness for ὅς, you will (I trust) agree with me that a single scarcely legible copy of a Version is not altogether satisfactory testimony:—while certainly “magnus est pietatis sacramentum, qui manifestatus est in corpore”—is not a rendering of 1 Tim. iii. 16 which you are prepared to accept.

(h) For the Æthiopic. Version,—Dr. Hoerning, (of the British Museum,) has at my request consulted six copies of 1 Timothy, and informs me that they present no variety of text. The antecedent, as well as the relative, is masculine in all. The Æthiopic must therefore be considered to favour the reading μυστήριον; ὅ ἐφανερώθη, and to represent the same Greek text which underlies the Latin and the Peschito Versions. The Æthiopic therefore is against you.

(i) “The Armenian Version,” (writes Dr. Malan) “from the very nature of the language, is indeterminate. There is no grammatical distinction of genders in Armenian.”

(j) The Arabic Version, (so Dr. Ch. Rieu981 informs me,) exhibits,—“In truth the mystery of this justice is great. It is that he” (or “it,” for the Arabic has no distinction between masculine and neuter) “was manifested in the body, and was justified in the spirit” &c.—This version therefore witnesses for neither “who,” “which,” nor “God.”

(k) and (l). There only remain the Georgian Version, which is of the VIth century,—and the Slavonic, which is of the IXth. Now, both of these (Dr. Malan informs me) unequivocally witness to Θεός.

Thus far then for the testimony yielded by ancient Manuscripts and Versions of S. Paul’s Epistles.

[g] Review of the progress which has been hitherto made in the present Enquiry.

Up to this point, you must admit that wondrous little sanction has been obtained for the reading for which you contend, (viz. μυστήριον; ὅς ἐφανερώθη,) as the true reading of 1 Tim. iii. 16. Undisturbed in your enjoyment of the testimony borne by Cod. א, you cannot but feel that such testimony is fully counterbalanced by the witness of Cod. a: and further, that the conjoined evidence of the Harkleian, the Georgian, and the Slavonic Versions outweighs the single evidence of the Gothic.

But what is to be said about the consent of the manuscripts of S. Paul’s Epistles for reading Θεός in this place, in the proportion of 125 to 1? You must surely see that, (as I explained above at pp. 445-6,) such multitudinous testimony is absolutely decisive of the question before us. At p. 30 of your pamphlet, you announce it as a “lesson of primary importance, often reiterated but often forgotten, ponderari debere testes, non numerari.” You might have added with advantage,—“and oftenest of all, misunderstood.” For are you not aware that, generally speaking, “Number” constitutes “Weight”? If you have discovered some “regia via” which renders the general consent of Copies,—the general consent of Versions,—the general consent of Fathers, a consideration of secondary importance, why do you not at once communicate the precious secret to mankind, and thereby save us all a world of trouble?

You will perhaps propose to fall back on Hort’s wild theory of a “Syrian Text,”—executed by authority at Antioch somewhere between a.d. 250 and a.d. 350.982 Be it so. Let that fable be argued upon as if it were a fact. And what follows? That at a period antecedent to the date of any existing copy of the Epistle before us, the Church in her corporate capacity declared Θεός (not ὅς) to be the true reading of 1 Tim. iii. 16.

Only one other head of Evidence (the Patristic) remains to be explored; after which, we shall be able to sum up, and to conclude the present Dissertation.

[h] Testimony of the Fathers concerning the true reading of 1 Tim. iii. 16:—Gregory of Nyssa,—Didymus,—Theodoret,—John Damascene,—Chrysostom,—Gregory Naz.,—Severus Of Antioch,—Diodorus of Tarsus.

It only remains to ascertain what the Fathers have to say on this subject. And when we turn our eyes in this direction, we are encountered by a mass of evidence which effectually closes this discussion. You contended just now as eagerly for the Vth-century Codex a, as if its witness were a point of vital importance to you. But I am prepared to show that Gregory of Nyssa (a full century before Codex a was produced), in at least 22 places, knew of no other reading but Θεός.983 Of his weighty testimony you appear to have been wholly unaware in 1869, for you did not even mention Gregory by name (see p. 429). Since however you now admit that his evidence is unequivocally against you, I am willing to hasten forward,—only supplying you (at foot) with the means of verifying what I have stated above concerning the testimony of this illustrious Father.

You are besides aware that Didymus,984 another illustrious witness, is against you; and that he delivers unquestionable testimony.

You are also aware that Theodoret,985 in four places, is certainly to be reckoned on the same side:

And further, that John Damascene986 twice adds his famous evidence to the rest,—and is also against you.

Chrysostom987 again, whose testimony you called in question in 1869, you now admit is another of your opponents. I will not linger over his name therefore,—except to remark, that how you can witness a gathering host of ancient Fathers illustrious as these, without misgiving, passes my comprehension. Chrysostom is three times a witness.

Next come two quotations from Gregory of Nazianzus,—which I observe you treat as “inconclusive.” I retain them all the same.988 You are reminded that this most rhetorical of Fathers is seldom more precise in quoting Scripture.

And to the same century which Gregory of Nazianzus adorned, is probably to be referred,—(it cannot possibly be later than a.d. 350, though it may be a vast deal more ancient,)—the title bestowed, in the way of summary, on that portion of S. Paul’s first Epistle to Timothy which is contained between chap. iii. 16 and chap. iv. 7,—viz., Περὶ ΘΕΊΑΣ ΣΑΡΚώσεως. We commonly speak of this as the seventh of the “Euthalian” κεφάλαια or chapters: but Euthalius himself declares that those 18 titles were “devised by a certain very wise and pious Father;”989 and this particular title (Περὶ θείας σαρκώσεως) is freely employed and discussed in Gregory of Nyssa’s treatise against Apolinaris,990—which latter had, in fact, made it part of the title of his own heretical treatise.991 That the present is a very weighty attestation of the reading, ΘΕῸΣ ἐφανερώθη ἐν ΣΑΡΚΊ no one probably will deny: a memorable proof moreover that Θεός992 must have been universally read in 1 Tim. iii. 16 throughout the century which witnessed the production of codices b and א.

Severus, bp. of Antioch, you also consider a “not unambiguous” witness. I venture to point out to you that when a Father of the Church, who has been already insisting on the Godhead of Christ (καθ᾽ ὅ γὰρ ὑπῆρχε Θεός,) goes on to speak of Him as τὸν ἐν σαρκὶ φανερωθέντα Θεόν, there is no “ambiguity” whatever about the fact that he is quoting from 1 Tim. iii. 16.993

And why are we only “perhaps” to add the testimony of Diodorus of Tarsus; seeing that Diodorus adduces S. Paul’s actual words (Θεὸς ἐφανερώθη ἐν σαρκί), and expressly says that he finds them in S. Paul’s Epistle to Timothy?994 How—may I be permitted to ask—would you have a quotation made plainer?

[i] Bp. Ellicott as a controversialist. The case of Euthalius.

Forgive me, my lord Bishop, if I declare that the animus you display in conducting the present critical disquisition not only astonishes, but even shocks me. You seem to say,—Non persuadebis, etiamsi persuaseris. The plainest testimony you reckon doubtful, if it goes against you: an unsatisfactory quotation, if it makes for your side, you roundly declare to be “evidence” which “stands the test of examination.”995... “We have examined his references carefully” (you say). “Gregory of Nyssa, Didymus of Alexandria, Theodoret and John Damascene (who died severally about 394, 396, 457 and 756a.d.) seem unquestionably to have read Θεός.”996 Excuse me for telling you that this is not the language of a candid enquirer after Truth. Your grudging admission of the unequivocal evidence borne by these four illustrious Fathers:—your attempt to detract from the importance of their testimony by screwing down their date “to the sticking place:”—your assertion that the testimony of a fifth Father “is not unambiguous:”—your insinuation that the emphatic witness of a sixth may “perhaps” be inadmissible:—all this kind of thing is not only quite unworthy of a Bishop when he turns disputant, but effectually indisposes his opponent to receive his argumentation with that respectful deference which else would have been undoubtedly its due.

Need I remind you that men do not write their books when they are in articulo mortis? Didymus died in a.d. 394, to be sure: but he was then 85 years of age. He was therefore born in a.d. 309, and is said to have flourished in 347. How old do you suppose were the sacred codices he had employed till then? See you not that such testimony as his to the Text of Scripture must in fairness be held to belong to the first quarter of the IVth century?—is more ancient in short (and infinitely more important) than that of any written codex with which we are acquainted?

Pressed by my “cloud of witnesses,” you seek to get rid of them by insulting me. “We pass over” (you say) “names brought in to swell the number, such as Euthalius,—for whom no reference is given.”997 Do you then suspect me of the baseness,—nay, do you mean seriously to impute it to me,—of introducing “names” “to swell the number” of witnesses on my side? Do you mean further to insinuate that I prudently gave no reference in the case of “Euthalius,” because I was unable to specify any place where his testimony is found?... I should really pause for an answer, but that a trifling circumstance solicits me, which, if it does not entertain the Bp. of Gloucester and Bristol, will certainly entertain every one else who takes the trouble to read these pages.

“Such as Euthalius”! You had evidently forgotten when you penned that offensive sentence, that Euthalius is one of the few Fathers adduced by yourself998 (but for whom you “gave no reference,”) in 1869,—when you were setting down the Patristic evidence in favour of Θεός.... This little incident is really in a high degree suggestive. Your practice has evidently been to appropriate Patristic references999 without thought or verification,—prudently to abstain from dropping a hint how you came by them,—but to use them like dummies, for show. At the end of a few years, (naturally enough,) you entirely forget the circumstance,—and proceed vigorously to box the ears of the first unlucky Dean who comes in your way, whom you suspect of having come by his learning (such as it is) in the same slovenly manner. Forgive me for declaring (while my ears are yet tingling) that if you were even moderately acquainted with this department of Sacred Science, you would see at a glance that my Patristic references are never obtained at second hand: for the sufficient reason that elsewhere they are not to be met with. But waiving this, you have made it luce clarius to all the world that so late as the year 1882, to you “Euthalius” was nothing else but “a name.” And this really does astonish me: for not only was he a famous Ecclesiastical personage, (a Bishop like yourself,) but his work (the date of which is a.d. 458,) is one with which no Author of a “Critical Commentary” on S. Paul’s Epistles can afford to be unacquainted. Pray read what Berriman has written concerning Euthalius (pp. 217 to 222) in his admirable “Dissertation on 1 Tim. iii. 16.” Turn also, if you please, to the Bibliotheca of Gallandius (vol. x. 197-323), and you will recognize the plain fact that the only reason why, in the “Quarterly Review,” “no reference is given for Euthalius,” is because the only reference possible is—1 Tim. iii. 16.

[j] The testimony of the letter ascribed to Dionysius Of Alexandria. Six other primitive witnesses to 1 Tim. iii. 16, specified.

Then further, you absolutely take no notice of the remarkable testimony which I adduced (p. 101) from a famous Epistle purporting to have been addressed by Dionysius of Alexandria (a.d. 264) to Paul of Samosata. That the long and interesting composition in question1000 was not actually the work of the great Dionysius, is inferred—(whether rightly or wrongly I am not concerned to enquire)—from the fact that the Antiochian Fathers say expressly that Dionysius did not deign to address Paul personally. But you are requested to remember that the epistle must needs have been written by somebody:1001 that it may safely be referred to the IIIrd century; and that it certainly witnesses to Θεὸς ἐφανερώθη,1002—which is the only matter of any real importance to my argument. Its testimony is, in fact, as express and emphatic as words can make it.

And here, let me call your attention to the circumstance that there are at least six other primitive witnesses, some of whom must needs have recognized the reading for which I am here contending, (viz. Θεὸς ἐφανερώθη ἐν σαρκί,) though not one of them quotes the place in extenso, nor indeed refers to it in such a way as effectually to bar the door against reasonable dispute. The present is in fact just the kind of text which, from its undeniable grandeur,—its striking rhythm,—and yet more its dogmatic importance,—was sure to attract the attention of the earliest, no less than the latest of the Fathers. Accordingly, the author of the Epistle ad Diognetum1003 clearly refers to it early in the IInd century; though not in a way to be helpful to us in our present enquiry. I cannot feel surprised at the circumstance.

The yet earlier references in the epistles of (1) Ignatius (three in number) are helpful, and may not be overlooked. They are as follows:—Θεοῦ ἀνθρωπίνως φανερουμένου:—ἐν σαρκὶ γενόμενος Θεός—εἶς Θεός ἐστιν ὁ φανερώσας ἑαυτὸν διὰ Ἰησοῦ Χριστοῦ τοῦ υἱοῦ αὐτοῦ, ὅς ἐστιν αὐτοῦ Λόγος ἀΐδιος.1004 It is to be wished, no doubt, that these references had been a little more full and explicit: but the very early Fathers are ever observed to quote Scripture thus partially,—allusively,—elliptically.

(2) Barnabas has just such another allusive reference to the words in dispute, which seems to show that he must have read Θεὸς ἐφανερώθη ἐν σαρκί: viz. Ἰησοῦς... ὁ υἱὸς τοῦ Θεοῦ τύπῳ καὶ ἐν σαρκὶ φανερωθείς.1005—(3) Hippolytus, on two occasions, even more unequivocally refers to this reading. Once, while engaged in proving that Christ is God, he says:—Οὗτος προελθὼν εἰς κόσμον Θεὸς ἐν σώματι ἐφανερώθη:1006—and again, in a very similar passage which Theodoret quotes from the same Father’s lost work on the Psalms:—Οὗτος ὁ προελθὼν εἰς τὸν κόσμον, Θεὸς καὶ ἄνθρωπος ἐφανερώθη.1007—(4) Gregory Thaumaturgus, (if it really be he,) seems also to refer directly to this place when he says (in a passage quoted by Photius1008),—καὶ ἔστι Θεὸς ἀληθινὸς ὁ ἄσαρκος ἐν σαρκὶ φανερωθείς.—Further, (5) in the Apostolical Constitutions, we meet with the expression,—Θεὸς Κύριος ὁ ἐπιφανεὶς ἡμῖν εν σαρκί.1009

And when (6) Basil the Great [a.d. 377], writing to the men of Sozopolis whose faith the Arians had assailed, remarks that such teaching “subverts the saving Dispensation of our Lord Jesus Christ;” and, blending Rom. xvi. 25, 26 with “the great mystery” of 1 Tim. iii. 16,—(in order to afford himself an opportunity of passing in review our Saviour’s work for His Church in ancient days,)—viz. “After all these, at the end of the day, αὐτὸς ἐφανερώθη ἐν σαρκί, γενόμενος ἐκ γυναικός:”1010—who will deny that such an one probably found neither ὅς nor ὅ, but Θεός, in the copy before him?

I have thought it due to the enquiry I have in hand to give a distinct place to the foregoing evidence—such as it is—of Ignatius, Barnabas, Hippolytus, Gregory Thaumaturgus, the Apostolical Constitutions, and Basil. But I shall not build upon such foundations. Let me go on with what is indisputable.

[k] The testimony of Cyril of Alexandria.

Next, for Cyril of Alexandria, whom you decline to accept as a witness for Θεός. You are prepared, I trust, to submit to the logic of facts?

In a treatise addressed to the Empresses Arcadia and Marina, Cyril is undertaking to prove that our Lord is very and eternal God.1011 His method is to establish several short theses all tending to this one object, by citing from the several books of the N. T., in turn, the principal texts which make for his purpose. Presently, (viz. at page 117,) he announces as his thesis,—“Faith in Christ as God;” and when he comes to 1 Timothy, he quotes iii. 16 at length; reasons upon it, and points out that Θεὸς ἐν σαρκί is here spoken of.1012 There can be no doubt about this quotation, which exhibits no essential variety of reading;—a quotation which Euthymius Zigabenus reproduces in his “Panoplia,”—and which C. F. Matthæi has with painful accuracy edited from that source.1013—Once more. In a newly recovered treatise of Cyril, 1 Tim. iii. 16 is again quoted at length with Θεός,—followed by the remark that “our Nature was justified, by God manifested in Him.”1014 I really see not how you would have Cyril more distinctly recognize Θεὸς ἐφανερώθη ἐν σαρκί as the reading of 1 Tim. iii. 16.1015

You are requested to observe that in order to prevent cavil, I forbear to build on two other famous places in Cyril’s writings where the evidence for reading Θεός is about balanced by a corresponding amount of evidence which has been discovered for reading ὅς. Not but what the context renders it plain that Θεός must have been Cyril’s word on both occasions. Of this let the reader himself be judge:—

(1) In a treatise, addressed to the Empresses Eudocia and Pulcheria, Cyril quotes 1 Tim. iii. 16 in extenso.1016 “If” (he begins)—“the Word, being God, could be said to inhabit Man’s nature (ἐπανθρωπῆσαι) without yet ceasing to be God, but remained for ever what He was before,—then, great indeed is the mystery of Godliness.”1017 He proceeds in the same strain at much length.1018 Next (2) the same place of Timothy is just as fully quoted in Cyril’s Explanatio xii. capitum: where not only the Thesis,1019 but also the context constrains belief that Cyril wrote Θεός:—“What then means ‘was manifested in the flesh’? It means that the Word of God the Father was made flesh.... In this way therefore we say that He was both God and Man.... Thus” (Cyril concludes) “is He God and Lord of all.”1020

But, as aforesaid, I do not propose to rest my case on either of these passages; but on those two other places concerning which there exists no variety of tradition as to the reading. Whether the passages in which the reading is certain ought not to be held to determine the reading of the passages concerning which the evidence is about evenly balanced;—whether in doubtful cases, the requirements of the context should not be allowed to turn the scale;—I forbear to enquire. I take my stand on what is clear and undeniable. On the other hand you are challenged to produce a single instance in Cyril of μυστηριον; ὅς ἐφανερώθη, where the reading is not equally balanced by μυστήριον Θεός. And (as already explained) of course it makes nothing for ὅς that Cyril should sometimes say that “the mystery” here spoken of is Christ who “was manifested in the flesh,” &c. A man with nothing else but the A. V. of the “Textus Receptus” before him might equally well say that. See above, pages 427-8.

Not unaware am I of a certain brief Scholium1021 which the Critics freely allege in proof that Cyril wrote ὅς (not Θεός), and which as they quote it, (viz. so mutilated as effectually to conceal its meaning,) certainly seems to be express in its testimony. But the thing is all a mistake. Rightly understood, the Scholium in question renders no testimony at all;—as I proceed to explain. The only wonder is that such critics as Bentley,1022 Wetstein,1023 Birch,1024 Tischendorf,1025 or even Tregelles,1026 should not have seen this for themselves.

The author, (whether Photius, or some other,) is insisting on our Lord’s absolute exemption from sin, although for our sakes He became very Man. In support of this, he quotes Is. liii. 9, (or rather, 1 Pet. ii. 22)—“Who did no sin, neither was guile found in His mouth.” “S. Cyril” (he proceeds) “in the 12th ch. of his Scholia says,—‘Who was manifested in the flesh, justified in the Spirit;’ for He was in no way subject to our infirmities,” and so on. Now, every one must see at a glance that it is entirely to misapprehend the matter to suppose that it is any part of the Scholiast’s object, in what precedes, to invite attention to so irrelevant a circumstance as that Cyril began his quotation of 1 Tim. iii. 16, with ὅς instead of Θεός.1027 As Waterland remarked to Berriman 150 years ago,1028 the Scholiast’s one object was to show how Cyril interpreted the expression “justified in the Spirit.” Altogether misleading is it to quote only the first line, beginning at ὅς and ending at πνεύματι, as the Critics invariably do. The point to which in this way prominence is exclusively given, was clearly, to the Commentator, a matter of no concern at all. He quotes from Cyril’s “Scholia de Incarnatione Unigeniti,”1029 in preference to any other of Cyril’s writings, for a vastly different reason.1030 And yet this—(viz. Cyril’s supposed substitution of ὅς for Θεός)—is, in the account of the Critics, the one thing which the Scholiast was desirous of putting on record.

In the meanwhile, on referring to the place in Cyril, we make an important discovery. The Greek of the Scholium in question being lost, we depend for our knowledge of its contents on the Latin translation of Marius Mercator, Cyril’s contemporary. And in that translation, no trace is discoverable of either ὅς or ὅ.1031 The quotation from Timothy begins abruptly at ἐφανερώθη. The Latin is as follows:—“Divinus Paulus magnum quidem ait esse mysterium pietatis. Et vere ita se res habet: manifestatus est enim in carne, cum sit Deus Verbum.”1032 The supposed hostile evidence from this quarter proves therefore to be non-existent. I pass on.

[l] The argument e silentio considered.

The argument e silentio,—(of all arguments the most precarious,)—has not been neglected.—“But we cannot stop here,” you say:1033 “Wetstein observed long ago that Cyril does not produce this text when he does produce Rom. ix. 5 in answer to the allegation which he quotes from Julian that S. Paul never employed the word Θεός of our Lord.”1034 Well but, neither does Gregory of Nyssa produce this text when he is writing a Treatise expressly to prove the Godhead of the Son and of the Holy Ghost. “Grave est,”—says Tischendorf.1035 No, not “grave” at all, I answer: but whether “grave” or not, that Gregory of Nyssa read Θεός in this place, is at least certain. As for Wetstein, you have been reminded already, that “ubi de Divinitate Christi agitur, ibi profecto sui dissimilior deprehenditur.”1036 Examine the place in Cyril Alex. for yourself, reading steadily on from p. 327 a to p. 333 b. Better still, read—paying special attention to his Scriptural proofs—Cyril’s two Treatises “De rectâ Fide.”1037 But in fact attend to the method of Athanasius, of Basil, or of whomsoever else you will;1038 and you will speedily convince yourself that the argument e silentio is next to valueless on occasions like the present.

Certain of the Critics have jumped to the conclusion that the other Cyril cannot have been acquainted with S. Mark xvi. 19 (and therefore with the “last Twelve Verses” of his Gospel), because when, in his Catechetical Lectures, he comes to the “Resurrection,” “Ascension,” and “Session at the Right Hand,”—he does not quote S. Mark xvi. 19. And yet,—(as it has been elsewhere1039 fully shown, and in fact the reason is assigned by Cyril himself,)—this is only because, on the previous day, being Sunday, Cyril of Jerusalem had enlarged upon the Scriptural evidence for those august verities, (viz. S. Mark xvi. 19,—S. Luke xxiv. 51,—Acts i. 9); and therefore was unwilling to say over again before the same auditory what he had so recently delivered.

But indeed,—(the remark is worth making in passing,)—many of our modern Critics seem to forget that the heretics with whom Athanasius, Basil, the Gregories, &c., were chiefly in conflict, did not by any means deny the Godhead of our Lord. Arians and Apolinarians alike admitted that Christ was God. This, in fact, has been pointed out already. Very differently indeed would the ancient Fathers have expressed themselves, could they have imagined the calamitous use which, at the end of 1500 years, perverse wits would make of their writings,—the astonishing inferences they would propose to extract from their very silence. I may not go further into the subject in this place.

[m] The story about Macedonius. His testimony.

It follows to say a few words concerning Macedonius II., patriarch of Constantinople [a.d. 496-511], of whom it has been absurdly declared that he was the inventor of the reading for which I contend. I pointed out on a former occasion that it would follow from that very circumstance, (as far as it is true,) that Macedonius “is a witness for Θεός—perforce.”1040

Instead of either assenting to this, (which is surely a self-evident proposition!),—or else disproving it,—you are at the pains to furbish up afresh, as if it were a novelty, the stale and stupid figment propagated by Liberatus of Carthage, that Macedonius was expelled from his see by the Emperor Anastasius for falsifying 1 Timothy iii. 16. This exploded fable you preface by announcing it as “a remarkable fact,” that “it was the distinct belief of Latin writers as early as the VIth century that the reading of this passage had been corrupted by the Greeks.”1041 How you get your “remarkable fact,” out of your premiss,—“the distinct belief of Latin writers,” out of the indistinct rumour [“dicitur”] vouched for by a single individual,—I see not. But let that pass.

“The story shows” (you proceed) “that the Latins in the sixth century believed ὅς to be the reading of the older Greek manuscripts, and regarded Θεός as a false reading made out of it.” (p. 69.)—My lord Bishop, I venture to declare that the story shows nothing of the sort. The Latins in the VIth (and every other) century believed that—not ὅς, but—ὅ, was the right reading of the Greek in this place. Their belief on this subject however has nothing whatever to do with the story before us. Liberatus was not the spokesman of “the Latins of the VIth,” (or any other bygone) “century:” but (as Bp. Pearson points out) a singularly ill-informed Archdeacon of Carthage; who, had he taken ever so little pains with the subject, would have become aware that for no such reason as he assigns was Macedonius [a.d. 511] thrust out of his bishopric. If, however, there were at least thus much of truth in the story,—namely, that one of the charges brought against Macedonius was his having corrupted Scripture, and notably his having altered ὅς into Θεός in 1 Tim. iii. 16;—surely, the most obvious of all inferences would be, that Θεός was found in copies of S. Paul’s epistles put forth at Constantinople by archiepiscopal authority between a.d. 496 and a.d. 511. To say the least,—Macedonius, by his writings or by his discourses, certainly by his influence, must have shown himself favourable to Θεός (not ὅς) ἐφανερώθη. Else, with what show of reason could the charge have been brought against him? “I suppose” (says our learned Dr. John Mill) “that the fable before us arose out of the fact that Macedonius, on hearing that in several MSS. of the Constantinopolitan Church the text of 1 Tim. iii. 16 (which witnesses expressly to the Godhead of Christ) had been depraved, was careful that those copies should be corrected in conformity with the best exemplars.”1042

But, in fact, I suspect you completely misunderstand the whole matter. You speak of “the story.” But pray,—Which “story” do you mean? “The story” which Liberatus told in the VIth century? or the ingenious gloss which Hincmar, Abp. of Rheims, put upon it in the IXth? You mention the first,—you reason from the second. Either will suit me equally well. But—una la volta, per carità!

Hincmar, (whom the critics generally follow,) relates that Macedonius turned ΟΣ into ΘΕΟΣ (i.e. ΘΣ).1043 If Macedonius did, he preferred Θεός to ὅς.... But the story which Liberatus promulgated is quite different.1044 Let him be heard:—

“At this time, Macedonius, bp. of CP., is said to have been deposed by the emperor Anastasius on a charge of having falsified the Gospels, and notably that saying of the Apostle, ‘Quia apparuit in carne, justificatus est in spiritu.’ He was charged with having turned the Greek monosyllable ΟΣ (i.e. ‘qui’), by the change of a single letter (Ω for Ο) into ΩΣ: i.e. ‘ut esset Deus apparuit per carnem.’”

Now, that this is a very lame story, all must see. In reciting the passage in Latin, Liberatus himself exhibits neither “qui,” nor “quod,” nor “Deus,”—but “quia apparuit in carne.” (The translator of Origen, by the way, does the same thing.1045) And yet, Liberatus straightway adds (as the effect of the change) “ut esset Deus apparuit per carnem:” as if that were possible, unless “Deus” stood in the text already! Quite plain in the meantime is it, that, according to Liberatus, ὡς was the word which Macedonius introduced into 1 Tim. iii. 16. And it is worth observing that the scribe who rendered into Greek Pope Martin I.’s fifth Letter (written on the occasion of the Lateran Council a.d. 649),—having to translate the Pope’s quotation from the Vulgate (“quod manifestatus est,”)—exhibits ὡς ἐφανερώθη in this place.1046

High time it becomes that I should offer it as my opinion that those Critics are right (Cornelius à Lapide [1614] and Cotelerius [1681]) who, reasoning from what Liberatus actually says, shrewdly infer that there must have existed codices in the time of Macedonius which exhibited ΟΣ ΘΕΟΣ in this place; and that this must be the reading to which Liberatus refers.1047 Such codices exist still. One, is preserved in the library of the Basilian monks at Crypta Ferrata, already spoken of at pp. 446-8: another, is at Paris. I call them respectively “Apost. 83” and “Paul 282.”1048 This is new.

Enough of all this however. Too much in fact. I must hasten on. The entire fable, by whomsoever fabricated, has been treated with well-merited contempt by a succession of learned men ever since the days of Bp. Pearson.1049 And although during the last century several writers of the unbelieving school (chiefly Socinians1050) revived and embellished the silly story, in order if possible to get rid of a text which witnesses inconveniently to the Godhead of Christ, one would have hoped that, in these enlightened days, a Christian Bishop of the same Church which the learned, pious, and judicious John Berriman adorned a century and a-half ago, would have been ashamed to rekindle the ancient strife and to swell the Socinian chorus. I shall be satisfied if I have at least convinced you that Macedonius is a witness for Θεός in 1 Tim. iii. 16.

[n] The testimony of an Anonymous writer (a.d. 430),—of Epiphanius (a.d. 787),—of Theodorus Studita (a.d. 795?),—of Scholia,—of Œcumenius,—of Theophylact,—of Euthymius.

The evidence of an Anonymous Author who has been mistaken for Athanasius,—you pass by in silence. That this writer lived in the days when the Nestorian Controversy was raging,—namely, in the first half of the Vth century,—is at all events evident. He is therefore at least as ancient a witness for the text of Scripture as codex a itself: and Θεὸς ἐφανερώθη is clearly what he found written in this place.1051 Why do you make such a fuss about Cod. a, and yet ignore this contemporary witness? We do not know who wrote the Epistle in question,—true. Neither do we know who wrote Codex a. What then?

Another eminent witness for Θεός, whom also you do not condescend to notice, is Epiphanius, deacon of Catana in Sicily,—who represented Thomas, Abp. of Sardinia, at the 2nd Nicene Council, a.d. 787. A long discourse of this Ecclesiastic may be seen in the Acts of the Council, translated into Latin,—which makes his testimony so striking. But in fact his words are express,1052 and the more valuable because they come from a region of Western Christendom from which textual utterances are rare.

A far more conspicuous writer of nearly the same date, Theodorus Studita of CP, [a.d. 759-826,] is also a witness for Θεός.1053 How does it happen, my lord Bishop, that you contend so eagerly for the testimony of codices f and g, which are but one IXth-century witness after all,—and yet entirely disregard living utterances like these, of known men,—who belonged to known places,—and wrote at a known time? Is it because they witness unequivocally against you?

Several ancient Scholiasts, expressing themselves diversely, deserve enumeration here, who are all witnesses for Θεός exclusively.1054 Lastly,—

Œcumenius1055 (a.d. 990),—Theophylact1056 (a.d. 1077),—Euthymius1057 (a.d. 1116),—close this enumeration. They are all three clear witnesses for reading not ὅς but Θεός.

[o] The testimony of Ecclesiastical Tradition.

Nothing has been hitherto said concerning the Ecclesiastical usage with respect to this place of Scripture. 1 Tim. iii. 16 occurs in a lection consisting of nine verses (1 Tim. iii. 13-iv. 5), which used to be publicly read in almost all the Churches of Eastern Christendom on the Saturday before Epiphany.1058 It was also read, in not a few Churches, on the 34th Saturday of the year.1059 Unfortunately, the book which contains lections from S. Paul’s Epistles, (“Apostolus” it is technically called,) is of comparatively rare occurrence,—is often found in a mutilated condition,—and (for this and other reasons) is, as often as not, without this particular lesson.1060 Thus, an analysis of 90 copies of the “Apostolus” (No. 1 to 90), is attended by the following result:—10 are found to have been set down in error;1061 while 41 are declared—(sometimes, I fear, through the unskilfulness of those who profess to have examined them),—not to contain 1 Tim. iii. 16.1062 Of 7, I have not been able to obtain tidings.1063 Thus, there are but 32 copies of the book called “Apostolus” available for our present purpose.

But of these thirty-two, twenty-seven exhibit Θεός.1064 You will be interested to hear that one rejoices in the unique reading Θεοῦ:1065 while another Copy of the ‘Apostolus’ keeps “Paul 282” in countenance by reading ὅς Θεός.1066 In other words, “God” is found in 29 copies out of 32: while “who” (ὅς) is observed to survive in only 3,—and they, Western documents of suspicious character. Two of these were produced in one and the same Calabrian monastery; and they still stand, side by side, in the library of Crypta Ferrata:1067 being exclusively in sympathy with the very suspicious Western document at Paris, already described at page 446.

Ecclesiastical Tradition is therefore clearly against you, in respect of the reading of 1 Tim. iii. 16. How you estimate this head of Evidence, I know not. For my own part, I hold it to be of superlative importance. It transports us back, at once, to the primitive age; and is found to be infinitely better deserving of attention than the witness of any extant uncial documents which can be produced. And why? For the plain reason that it must needs have been once attested by an indefinitely large number of codices more ancient by far than any which we now possess. In fact, Ecclesiastical Tradition, when superadded to the testimony of Manuscripts and Fathers, becomes an overwhelming consideration.

And now we may at last proceed to sum up. Let me gather out the result of the foregoing fifty pages; and remind the reader briefly of the amount of external testimony producible in support of each of these rival readings:—ὅ,—ὅς—Θεός.

[I.] Sum of the Evidence of Versions, Copies, Fathers, in favour of reading μυστήριον; ὅ ἐφανερώθη in 1 Tim. iii. 16.

(α) The reading μυστήριον; ὅ ἐφανερώθη,—(which Wetstein strove hard to bring into favour, and which was highly popular with the Socinian party down to the third quarter of the last century,)—enjoys, as we have seen, (pp. 448-53,) the weighty attestation of the Latin and of the Peschito,—of the Coptic, of the Sahidic, and of the Æthiopic Versions.

No one may presume to speak slightingly of such evidence as this. It is the oldest which can be produced for the truth of anything in the inspired Text of the New Testament; and it comes from the East as well as from the West. Yet is it, in and by itself, clearly inadequate. Two characteristics of Truth are wanting to it,—two credentials,—unfurnished with which, it cannot be so much as seriously entertained. It demands Variety as well as Largeness of attestation. It should be able to exhibit in support of its claims the additional witness of Copies and Fathers. But,

(β) On the contrary, ὅ is found besides in only one Greek Manuscript,—viz. the VIth-century codex Claromontanus, D. And further,

(γ) Two ancient writers alone bear witness to this reading, viz. Gelasius of Cyzicus,1068 whose date is a.d. 476;1069 and the Unknown Author of a homily of uncertain date in the Appendix to Chrysostom1070.... It is scarcely intelligible how, on such evidence, the Critics of the last century can have persuaded themselves (with Grotius) that μυστήριον; ὅ ἐφανερώθη is the true reading of 1 Timothy iii. 16. And yet, in order to maintain this thesis, Sir Isaac Newton descended from the starry sphere and tried his hand at Textual Criticism. Wetstein (1752) freely transferred the astronomer’s labours to his own pages, and thus gave renewed currency to an opinion which the labours of the learned Berriman (1741) had already demonstrated to be untenable.

Whether Theodore of Mopsuestia (in his work “de Incarnatione”) wrote ὅς or ὅ, must remain uncertain till a sight has been obtained of his Greek together with its context. I find that he quotes 1 Tim iii. 16 at least three times:—Of the first place, there is only a Latin translation, which begins “Quod justificatus est in spiritu.”1071 The second place comes to us in Latin, Greek, and Syriac: but unsatisfactorily in all three:—(a) The Latin version introduces the quotation thus,—“Consonantia et Apostolus dicit, Et manifeste magnum est pietatis mysterium, qui1072 (or quod1073) manifestatus (or tum) est in carne, justificatus (or tum) est in spiritu:”—(b) The Greek, (for which we are indebted to Leontius Byzantinus, a.d. 610,) reads,—Ὅς ἐφανερώθη ἐν σαρκί, ἐδικαιώθη ἐν πνεύματι1074—divested of all preface.1075 Those seven words, thus isolated from their context, are accordingly printed by Migne as a heading only:—(c) The Syriac translation unmistakably reads, “Et Apostolus dixit, Vere sublime est hoc mysterium, quod,”—omitting τῆς εὐσεβείας.1076 The third quotation, which is found only in Syriac,1077 begins,—“For truly great is the-mystery of-the-fear-of God, who was manifested in-the-flesh and-was-justified in-the-spirit.” This differs from the received text of the Peschito by substituting a different word for εὐσέβεια, and by employing the emphatic state “the-flesh,” “the-spirit” where the Peschito has the absolute state “flesh,” “spirit.” The two later clauses agree with the Harkleian or Philoxenian.1078—I find it difficult from all this to know what precisely to do with Theodore’s evidence. It has a truly oracular ambiguity; wavering between ὅ—ὅς—and even Θεός. You, I observe, (who are only acquainted with the second of the three places above cited, and but imperfectly with that,) do not hesitate to cut the knot by simply claiming the heretic’s authority for the reading you advocate,—viz. ὅς. I have thought it due to my readers to tell them all that is known about the evidence furnished by Theodore of Mopsuestia. At all events, the utmost which can be advanced in favour of reading μυστήριον; ὅ in 1 Timothy iii. 16, has now been freely stated. I am therefore at liberty to pass on to the next opinion.

[II.] Sum of the Evidence of Versions, Copies, Fathers in favour of reading μυστήριον; ὅς ἐφανερώθη in 1 Timothy iii. 16.

Remarkable it is how completely Griesbach succeeded in diverting the current of opinion with respect to the place before us, into a new channel. At first indeed (viz. in 1777) he retained Θεός in his Text, timidly printing ὅς in small type above it; and remarking,—“Judicium de hâc lectionis varietate lectoribus liberum relinquere placuit.” But, at the end of thirty years (viz. in 1806), waxing bolder, Griesbach substituted ὅς for Θεός,—“ut ipsi” (as he says) “nobis constaremus.” Lachmann, Tischendorf, Tregelles, Westcott and Hort, and the Revisers, under your guidance, have followed him: which is to me unaccountable,—seeing that even less authority is producible for ὅς, than for ὅ, in this place. But let the evidence for μυστήριον; ὅς ἐφανερώθη ἐν σαρκί be briefly recapitulated:—

(α) It consists of a single uncial copy, viz. the corrupt cod. א,—(for, as was fully explained above,1079 codd. c and f-g yield uncertain testimony): and perhaps two cursive copies, viz. Paul 17, (the notorious “33” of the Gospels,)—and a copy at Upsala (No. 73), which is held to require further verification.1080 To these, are to be added three other liturgical witnesses in the cursive character—being Western copies of the book called “Apostolus,” which have only recently come to light. Two of the codices in question are of Calabrian origin.1081 A few words more on this subject will be found above, at pages 477 and 478.

(β) The only Version which certainly witnesses in favour of ὅς, is the Gothic: which, (as explained at pp. 452-3) exhibits a hopelessly obscure construction, and rests on the evidence of a single copy in the Ambrosian library.

(γ) Of Patristic testimonies (to μυστήριον; ὅς ἐφανερώθη) there exists not one. That Epiphanius [a.d. 360] professing to transcribe from an early treatise of his own, in which ἐφανερώθη stands without a nominative, should prefix ὅς—proves nothing, as I have fully explained elsewhere.1082—The equivocal testimony rendered by Theodore of Mopsuestia [a.d. 390] is already before the reader.1083

And this exhausts the evidence for a reading which came in,—and (I venture to predict) will go out,—with the present century. My only wonder is, how an exhibition of 1 Tim. iii. 16 so feebly attested,—so almost without attestation,—can have come to be seriously entertained by any. “Si,”—(as Griesbach remarks concerning 1 John v. 7)—“si tam pauci... testes... sufficerent ad demonstrandam lectionis cujusdam γνησιότητα, licet obstent tam multa tamque gravia et testimonia et argumenta; nullum prorsus superesset in re criticâ veri falsique criterium, et textus Novi Testamenti universus plane incertus esset atque dubius.”1084

Yet this is the Reading which you, my lord Bishop, not only stiffly maintain, but which you insist is no longer so much as “open to reconsideration.” You are, it seems, for introducing the clôture into Textual debate. But in fact you are for inflicting pains and penalties as well, on those who have the misfortune to differ in opinion from yourself. You discharge all the vials of the united sees of Gloucester and Bristol on me for my presumption in daring to challenge the verdict of “the Textual Criticism of the last fifty years,”—of the Revisers,—and of yourself;—my folly, in venturing to believe that the traditional reading of 1 Tim. iii. 16, (which you admit is at least 1530 years old,) is the right reading after all. You hold me up to public indignation. “He has made” (you say) “an elaborate effort to shake conclusions about which no professed Scholar has any doubt whatever; but which an ordinary reader (and to such we address ourselves) might regard as still open to reconsideration.”—“Moreover” (you proceed) “this case is of great importance as an example. It illustrates in a striking manner the complete isolation of the Reviewer’s position. If he is right, all other Critics are wrong.”1085

Will you permit me, my lord Bishop, as an ordinary writer, addressing (like yourself) “ordinary readers,”—respectfully to point out that you entirely mistake the problem in hand? The Greek Text of the N. T. is not to be settled by Modern Opinion, but by Ancient Authority.1086 In this department of enquiry therefore, “complete isolation” is his, and his only, who is forsaken by Copies, Versions, Fathers. The man who is able, on the contrary, to point to an overwhelming company of Ancient Witnesses, and is contented modestly to take up his station at their feet,—such an one can afford to disregard “The Textual Criticism of the last fifty years,” if it presumes to contradict their plain decrees; can even afford to smile at the confidence of “professed Scholars” and “Critics,” if they are so ill advised as to set themselves in battle array against that host of ancient men.

To say therefore of such an one, (as you now say of me,) “If he is right, all other Critics are wrong,”—is to present an irrelevant issue, and to perplex a plain question. The business of Textual Criticism (as you state at page 28 of your pamphlet) is nothing else but to ascertain “the consentient testimony of the most ancient Authorities.” The office of the Textual Critic is none other but to interpret rightly the solemn verdict of Antiquity. Do I then interpret that verdict rightly,—or do I not? The whole question resolves itself into that! If I do not,—pray show me wherein I have mistaken the facts of the case. But if I do,—why do you not come over instantly to my side? “Since he is right,” (I shall expect to hear you say,) “it stands to reason that the ‘professed Critics’ whom he has been combating,—myself among the number,—must be wrong.”... I am, you see, loyally accepting the logical issue you have yourself raised. I do but seek to reconcile your dilemma with the actual facts of the problem.

And now, will you listen while I state the grounds on which I am convinced that your substitution of ὅς for Θεός in 1 Tim. iii. 16 is nothing else but a calamitous perversion of the Truth? May I be allowed at least to exhibit, in the same summary way as before, the evidence for reading in this place neither ὅ nor ὅς,—but Θεός?

[III.] Sum of the Evidence of Versions, Copies, Fathers, in favour of reading Θεὸς ἐφανερώθη in 1 Tim. iii 16.

Entirely different,—in respect of variety, of quantity and of quality,—from what has gone before, is the witness of Antiquity to the Received Text of 1 Timothy iii. 16: viz. καὶ ὁμολογουμένως μέγα ἐστὶ τὸ τῆς εὐσεβείας μυστήριον; ΘΕῸΣ ἐφανερώθη ἐν σαρκί, κ.τ.λ.... I proceed to rehearse it in outline, having already dwelt in detail upon so much of it as has been made the subject of controversy.1087 The reader is fully aware1088 that I do not propose to make argumentative use of the first six names in the ensuing enumeration. To those names, [enclosed within square brackets,] I forbear even to assign numbers; not as entertaining doubt concerning the testimony they furnish, but as resolved to build exclusively on facts which are incontrovertible. Yet is it but reasonable that the whole of the Evidence for Θεὸς ἐφανερώθη should be placed before the reader: and he is in my judgment a wondrous unfair disputant who can attentively survey the evidence which I thus forego, without secretly acknowledging that its combined Weight is considerable; while its Antiquity makes it a serious question whether it is not simply contrary to reason that it should be dispensed with in an enquiry like the present.

[(a) In the Ist century then,—it has been already shown (at page 463) that Ignatius (a.d. 90) probably recognized the reading before us in three places.]

[(b) The brief but significant testimony of Barnabas will be found in the same page.]

[(c) In the IInd century,—Hippolytus [a.d. 190] (as was explained at page 463,) twice comes forward as a witness on the same side.]

[(d) In the IIIrd century,—Gregory Thaumaturgus, (if it be indeed he) has been already shown (at page 463) probably to testify to the reading Θεὸς ἐφανερώθη.]

[(e) To the same century is referred the work entitled Constitutiones Apostolicæ: which seems also to witness to the same reading. See above, p. 463.]

[(f) Basil the Great also [a.d. 355], as will be found explained at page 464, must be held to witness to Θεὸς ἐφανερώθη in 1 Tim. iii. 16: though his testimony, like that of the five names which go before, being open to cavil, is not here insisted on.]—And now to get upon terra firma.

(1) To the IIIrd century then [a.d. 264?], belongs the Epistle ascribed to Dionysius of Alexandria, (spoken of above, at pages 461-2,) in which 1 Tim. iii. 16 is distinctly quoted in the same way.

(2) In the next, (the IVth) century, unequivocal Patristic witnesses to Θεὸς ἐφανερώθη abound. Foremost is Didymus, who presided over the Catechetical School of Alexandria,—the teacher of Jerome and Rufinus. Born a.d. 309, and becoming early famous, he clearly witnesses to what was the reading of the first quarter of the IVth century. His testimony has been set forth at page 456.

(3) Gregory, Bishop of Nazianzus [a.d. 355], a contemporary of Basil, in two places is found to bear similar witness. See above page 457.

(4) Diodorus, (or “Theodorus” as Photius writes his name,) the teacher of Chrysostom,—first of Antioch, afterwards the heretical bishop of Tarsus in Cilicia,—is next to be cited [a.d. 370]. His testimony is given above at pages 458-9.

(5) The next is perhaps our most illustrious witness,—viz. Gregory, bishop of Nyssa in Cappadocia [a.d. 370]. References to at least twenty-two places of his writings have been already given at page 456.

(6) Scarcely less important than the last-named Father, is Chrysostom [a.d. 380], first of Antioch,—afterwards Patriarch of Constantinople,—who in three places witnesses plainly to Θεὸς ἐφανερώθη. See above, page 457.

(7) And to this century, (not later certainly than the last half of it,) is to be referred the title of that κεφάλαιον, or chapter, of St. Paul’s First Epistle to Timothy which contains chap. iii. 16,—(indeed, which begins with it,) viz. Περὶ θείας σαρκώσεως. Very eloquently does that title witness to the fact that Θεός was the established reading of the place under discussion, before either cod. b or cod. א was produced. See above, pages 457-8.

(8) In the Vth century,—besides the Codex Alexandrinus (cod. a,) concerning which so much has been said already (page 431 to page 437),—we are able to appeal for the reading Θεὸς ἐφανερώθη, to,

(9) Cyril, Archbishop of Alexandria, [a.d. 410,] who in at least two places witnesses to it unequivocally. See above, pp. 464 to 470. So does,

(10) Theodoret, Bishop of Cyrus in Syria, [a.d. 420]: who, in at least four places, (see above, page 456) renders unequivocal and important witness on the same side.

(11) Next, the Anonymous Author claims notice [a.d. 430], whose composition is found in the Appendix to the works of Athanasius. See above, page 475.

(12) You will be anxious to see your friend Euthalius, bishop of Sulca, duly recognized in this enumeration. He comes next. [a.d. 458.] The discussion concerning him will be found above, at page 459 to page 461.

(13) Macedonius II, Patriarch of CP. [a.d. 496] must of necessity be mentioned here, as I have very fully explained at page 470 to page 474.

(14) To the VIth century belongs the Georgian Version, as already noted at page 454.

(15) And hither is to be referred the testimony of Severus, bishop of Antioch [a.d. 512], which has been already particularly set down at page 458.

(16) To the VIIth century [a.d. 616] belongs the Harkleian (or Philoxenian) Version; concerning which, see above, page 450. “That Θεός was the reading of the manuscripts from which this Version was made, is put beyond reach of doubt by the fact that in twelve of the other places where εὐσέβεια occurs,1089 the words ܩܦܝܕܘܐ ܕܗܬܐ (or ܐܬܗܕ ܐܘܕܝܦܩ) (‘beauty-of-fear’) are found without the addition of ܐܠܚܐ (or ܐܚܠܐ) (‘God’). It is noteworthy, that on the thirteenth occasion (1 Tim. ii. 2), where the Peschito reads ‘fear of God,’ the Harkleian reads ‘fear’ only. On the other hand, the Harkleian margin of Acts iii. 12 expressly states that εὐσέβια is the Greek equivalent of ܩܦܝܕܘܐ ܕܗܬܐ (or ܐܬܗܕ ܐܘܕܝܦܩ) (‘beauty-of-fear’). This effectually establishes the fact that the author of the Harkleian recension found Θεός in his Greek manuscript of 1 Tim. iii. 16.”1090

(17) In the VIIIth century, John Damascene [a.d. 730] pre-eminently claims attention. He is twice a witness for Θεὸς ἐφανερώθη, as was explained at page 457.

(18) Next to be mentioned is Epiphanius, deacon Of Catana; whose memorable testimony at the 2nd Nicene Council [a.d. 787] has been set down above, at page 475. And then,

(19) Theodorus Studita of CP. [a.d. 790],—concerning whom, see above, at pages 475-6.

(20), (21) and (22). To the IXth century belong the three remaining uncial codices, which alike witness to Θεὸς ἐφανερώθη ἐν σαρκί:—viz. the “Cod. Mosquensis” (k); the “Cod. Angelicus” (l); and the “Cod. Porphyrianus” (p).

(23) The Slavonic Version belongs to the same century, and exhibits the same reading.

(24) Hither also may be referred several ancient Scholia which all witness to Θεὸς ἐφανερώθη ἐν σαρκί, as I explained at page 476.

(25) To the Xth century belongs Œcumenius [a.d. 990], who is also a witness on the same side. See page 476.

(26) To the XIth century, Theophylact [a.d. 1077], who bears express testimony to the same reading. See page 476.

(27) To the XIIth century, Euthymius [a.d. 1116], who closes the list with his approving verdict. See page 476.

And thus we reach a period when there awaits us a mass of testimony which transports us back (per saltum) to the Church’s palmiest days; testimony, which rightly understood, is absolutely decisive of the point now under discussion. I allude to the testimony of every known copy of S. Paul’s Epistles except the three, or four, already specified, viz. d of S. Paul; א, 17, and perhaps 73. A few words on this last head of Evidence may not be without the grace of novelty even to yourself. They are supplementary to what has already been offered on the same subject from page 443 to page 446.

The copies of S. Paul’s Epistles (in cursive writing) supposed to exist in European libraries,—not including those in the monasteries of Greece and the Levant,1091—amount to at least 302.1092 Out of this number, 2 are fabulous:1093—1 has been destroyed by fire:1094—and 6 have strayed into unknown localities.1095 Add, that 37 (for various reasons) are said not to contain the verse in question;1096 while of 2, I have been hitherto unsuccessful in obtaining any account:1097—and it will be seen that the sum of the available cursive copies of S. Paul’s Epistles is exactly 254.

Now, that 2 of these 254 cursive copies (viz. Paul 17 and 73)—exhibit ὅς,—you have been so eager (at pp. 71-2 of your pamphlet) to establish, that I am unwilling to do more than refer you back to pages 443, -4, -5, where a few words have been already offered in reply. Permit me, however, to submit to your consideration, as a set-off against those two copies of S. Paul’s Epistles which read ὅς,—the following two-hundred and fifty-two copies which read Θεός.1098 To speak with perfect accuracy,—4 of these (252) exhibit ὁ Θεὸς ἐφανερώθη;1099—1, ὅς Θεός;1100—and 247, Θεός absolutely. The numbers follow:—

1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 9. 10. 11. 12. 13. 14. 16. 18. 19. 20. 21. 22. 23. 24. 25. 26. 27. 28. 29. 30. 31. 32. 33. 34. 35. 36. 37. 38. 39. 40. 41. 43. 44. 45. 46. 47. 48. 49. 52. 55. 56. 57. 59. 62. 63. 65. 67. 68. 69. 70. 71. 72. 74. 75. 77. 78. 79. 80. 81. 83. 84. 85. 86. 87. 88. 90. 91. 92. 93. 94. 95. 96. 97. 98. 99. 100. 101. 102. 103. 104. 105. 106. 107. 108. 109. 110. 111. 112. 113. 114. 115. 116. 117. 120. 121. 122. 123. 125. 126. 128. 129. 130. 131. 132. 133. 134. 135. 136. 137. 138. 139. 140. 141. 142. 143. 144. 145. 149. 150. 151. 153. 154. 155. 156. 157. 158. 159. 164. 165. 166. 167. 168. 169. 170. 171. 173. 174. 175. 176. 177. 178. 179. 180. 182. 183. 184. 185. 186. 188. 189. 190. 192. 193. 194. 195. 196. 197. 198. 199. 200. 201. 203. 204. 205. 206. 207. 208. 211. 212. 213. 215. 216. 217. 218.1101 219. 220. 221. 222. 223. 224. 226. 227. 228. 229. 230. 231. 232. 233. 234. 235. 236. 237. 238. 239. 240. 241. 242. 243. 244. 245. 246. 247. 249. 250. 251. 252. 253. 255. 256. 257. 258. 260. 262. 264. 265. 266. 267. 268. 269. 270. 272. 273. 274. 276. 277. 278. 279. 280. 281. 282.1102 283. 285. 288. 289. 290. 291. 292. 294. 295. 296. 297. 298. 299. 300. 301.

Behold then the provision which the Author of Scripture has made for the effectual conservation in its integrity of this portion of His written Word! Upwards of eighteen hundred years have run their course since the Holy Ghost by His servant, Paul, rehearsed the “mystery of Godliness;” declaring this to be the great foundation-fact,—namely, that “God was manifested in the flesh.” And lo, out of two hundred and fifty-four copies of S. Paul’s Epistles no less than two hundred and fifty-two are discovered to have preserved that expression. Such “Consent” amounts to Unanimity; and, (as I explained at pp. 454-5,) unanimity in this subject-matter, is conclusive.

The copies of which we speak, (you are requested to observe,) were produced in every part of ancient Christendom,—being derived in every instance from copies older than themselves; which again were transcripts of copies older still. They have since found their way, without design or contrivance, into the libraries of every country of Europe,—where, for hundreds of years they have been jealously guarded. And,—(I repeat the question already hazarded at pp. 445-6, and now respectfully propose it to you, my lord Bishop; requesting you at your convenience to favour me publicly with an answer;)—For what conceivable reason can this multitude of witnesses be supposed to have entered into a wicked conspiracy to deceive mankind?

True, that no miracle has guarded the sacred Text in this, or in any other place. On the other hand, for the last 150 years, Unbelief has been carping resolutely at this grand proclamation of the Divinity of Christ,—in order to prove that not this, but some other thing, it must have been, which the Apostle wrote. And yet (as I have fully shown) the result of all the evidence procurable is to establish that the Apostle must be held to have written no other thing but this.

To the overwhelming evidence thus furnished by 252 out of 254 cursive Copies of S. Paul’s Epistles,—is to be added the evidence supplied by the Lectionaries. It has been already explained (viz. at pp. 477-8) that out of 32 copies of the “Apostolus,” 29 concur in witnessing to Θεός. I have just (May 7th) heard of another in the Vatican.1103 To these 30, should be added the 3 Liturgical codices referred to at pp. 448 and 474, note 1. Now this is emphatically the voice of ancient Ecclesiastical Tradition. The numerical result of our entire enquiry, proves therefore to be briefly this:—

(I.) In 1 Timothy iii. 16, the reading Θεὸς ἐφανερώθη ἐν σαρκί, is witnessed to by 289 Manuscripts:1104—by 3 Versions:1105—by upwards of 20 Greek Fathers.1106

(II) The reading ὅ (in place of Θεός) is supported by a single MS. (D):—by 5 ancient Versions:1107—by 2 late Greek Fathers.1108

(III.) The reading ὅς (also in place of Θεός) is countenanced by 6 Manuscripts in all (א, Paul 17, 73: Apost. 12, 85, 86):—by only one Version for certain (viz. the Gothic1109):—not for certain by a single Greek Father.1110

I will not repeat the remarks I made before on a general survey of the evidence in favour of ὅς ἐφανερώθη: but I must request you to refer back to those remarks, now that we have reached the end of the entire discussion. They extend from the middle of p. 483 to the bottom of p. 485.

The unhappy Logic which, on a survey of what goes before, can first persuade itself, and then seek to persuade others, that Θεός is a “plain and clear error;” and that there is “decidedly preponderating evidence,” in favour of reading ὅς in 1 Timothy iii. 16;—must needs be of a sort with which I neither have, nor desire to have, any acquaintance. I commend the case between you and myself to the judgment of Mankind; and trust you are able to await the common verdict with the same serene confidence as I am.

Will you excuse me if I venture, in the homely vernacular, to assure you that in your present contention you “have not a leg to stand upon”? “Moreover” (to quote from your own pamphlet ,) “this case is of great importance as an example.” You made deliberate choice of it in order to convict me of error. I have accepted your challenge, you see. Let the present, by all means, be regarded by the public as a trial-place,—a test of our respective methods, yours and mine. I cheerfully abide the issue,

(p) Internal Evidence for reading Θεὸς ἐφανερώθη in 1 Tim. iii. 16, absolutely overwhelming.

In all that precedes, I have abstained from pleading the probabilities of the case; and for a sufficient reason. Men’s notions of what is “probable” are observed to differ so seriously. “Facile intelligitur” (says Wetstein) “lectiones ὅς et Θεός esse interpretamenta pronominis ὅ: sed nec ὅ nec ὅς posse esse interpretamentum vocis Θεός.” Now, I should have thought that the exact reverse is as clear as the day. What more obvious than that ΘΣ, by exhibiting indistinctly either of its delicate horizontal strokes, (and they were often so traced as to be scarcely discernible,1111) would become mistaken for ΟΣ? What more natural again than that the masculine relative should be forced into agreement with its neuter antecedent? Why, the thing has actually happened at Coloss. i. 27; where ὍΣ ἐστι Χριστός has been altered into ὅ, only because μυστήριον is the antecedent. But waiving this, the internal evidence in favour of Θεός must surely be admitted to be overwhelming, by all save one determined that the reading shall be ὅς or ὅ. I trust we are at least agreed that the maxim “proclivi lectioni præstat ardua,” does not enunciate so foolish a proposition as that in choosing between two or more conflicting readings, we are to prefer that one which has the feeblest external attestation,—provided it be but in itself almost unintelligible?

And yet, in the present instance,—How (give me leave to ask) will you translate? To those who acquiesce in the notion that the μέγα μυστήριον τῆς εὐσεβείας means our Saviour Christ Himself, (consider Coloss. i. 27,) it is obvious to translate “who:” yet how harsh, or rather how intolerable is this! I should have thought that there could be no real doubt that “the mystery” here spoken of must needs be that complex exhibition of Divine condescension which the Apostle proceeds to rehearse in outline: and of which the essence is that it was very and eternal God who was the subject of the transaction. Those who see this, and yet adopt the reading ὅς, are obliged to refer it to the remote antecedent Θεός. You do not advocate this view: neither do I. For reasons of their own, Alford1112 and Lightfoot1113 both translate “who.”

Tregelles (who always shows to least advantage when a point of taste or scholarship is under discussion) proposes to render:—

“He who was manifested in the flesh, (he who) was justified in the spirit, (he who) was seen by angels, (he who) was preached among Gentiles, (he who) was believed on in the world, (he who) was received up in glory.”1114

I question if his motion will find a seconder. You yourself lay it down magisterially that ὅς “is not emphatic (‘He who,’ &c.): nor, by a constructio ad sensum, is it the relative to μυστήριον; but is a relative to an omitted though easily recognized antecedent, viz. Christ.” You add that it is not improbable “that the words are quoted from some known hymn, or probably from some familiar Confession of Faith.” Accordingly, in your Commentary you venture to exhibit the words within inverted commas as a quotation:—“And confessedly great is the mystery of godliness: ‘who was manifested in the flesh, justified in the spirit,’” &c.,1115—for which you are without warrant of any kind, and which you have no right to do. Westcott and Hort (the “chartered libertines”) are even more licentious. Acting on their own suggestion that these clauses are “a quotation from an early Christian hymn,” they proceed to print the conclusion of 1 Tim. iii. 16 stichometrically, as if it were a six-line stanza.

This notwithstanding, the Revising body have adopted “He who,” as the rendering of ὅς; a mistaken rendering as it seems to me, and (I am glad to learn) to yourself also. Their translation is quite a curiosity in its way. I proceed to transcribe it:—

“He who was manifested in the flesh, justified in the spirit, seen of angels, preached among the nations, believed on in the world, received up in glory.”

But this does not even pretend to be a sentence: nor do I understand what the proposed construction is. Any arrangement which results in making the six clauses last quoted part of the subject, and “great” the predicate of one long proposition,—is unworthy.—Bentley’s wild remedy testifies far more eloquently to his distress than to his aptitude for revising the text of Scripture. He suggests,—“Christ was put to death in the flesh, justified in the spirit,... seen by Apostles.”1116—“According to the ancient view,” (says the Rev. T. S. Green,) “the sense would be: ‘and confessedly great is the mystery of godliness [in the person of him], who [mystery notwithstanding] was manifested in the flesh, &c.’”1117... But, with submission, “the ancient view” was not this. The Latins,—calamitously shut up within the limits of their “pietatis sacramentum, quod,”—are found to have habitually broken away from that iron bondage, and to have discoursed of our Saviour Christ, as being Himself the “sacramentum” spoken of. The “sacramentum,” in their view, was the incarnate Word.1118—Not so the Greek Fathers. These all, without exception, understood S. Paul to say,—what Ecclesiastical Tradition hath all down the ages faithfully attested, and what to this hour the copies of his Epistles prove that he actually wrote,—viz. “And confessedly great is the mystery of godliness:—God was manifested in the flesh, justified in the spirit,” and so on. Moreover this is the view of the matter in which all the learning and all the piety of the English Church has thankfully acquiesced for the last 350 years. It has commended itself to Andrewes and Pearson, Bull and Hammond, Hall and Stillingfleet, Ussher and Beveridge, Mill and Bengel, Waterland and Berriman. The enumeration of names is easily brought down to our own times. Dr. Henderson, (the learned non-conformist commentator,) in 1830 published a volume with the following title:—

“The great mystery of godliness incontrovertible: or, Sir Isaac Newton and the Socinians foiled in the attempt to prove a corruption in the text 1 Tim. iii. 16: containing a review of the charges brought against the passage; an examination of the various readings; and a confirmation of that in the received text on principles of general and biblical criticism.”

And,—to turn one’s eyes in quite a different direction,—“Veruntamen,” wrote venerable President Routh, at the end of a life-long critical study of Holy Writ,—(and his days were prolonged till he reached his hundredth year,)—

“Veruntamen, quidquid ex sacri textûs historia, illud vero haud certum, critici collegerunt, me tamen interna cogunt argumenta præferre lectionem Θεός, quem quidem agnoscunt veteres interpretes, Theodoretus cæterique, duabus alteris ὅς et ὅ.”1119

And here I bring my Dissertation on 1 Tim. iii. 16 to a close. It began at p. 424, and I little thought would extend to seventy-six pages. Let it be clearly understood that I rest my contention not at all on Internal, but entirely on External Evidence; although, to the best of my judgment, they are alike conclusive as to the matter in debate.—Having now incontrovertibly, as I believe, established ΘΕΌΣ as the best attested Reading of the place,—I shall conclude the present Letter as speedily as I can.

(1) “Composition of the Body which is responsible for the ‘New Greek Text.’ ”

There remains, I believe, but one head of discourse into which I have not yet followed you. I allude to your “few words about the composition of the body which is responsible for the ‘New Greek Text,’”1120—which extend from the latter part of p. 29 to the beginning of p. 32 of your pamphlet. “Among the sixteen most regular attendants at your meetings,” (you say) “were to be found most of those persons who were presumably best acquainted with the subject of Textual Criticism.”1121 And with this insinuation that you had “all the talents” with you, you seek to put me down.

But (as you truly say) “the number of living Scholars in England who have connected their names with the study of the Textual Criticism of the New Testament is exceedingly small.”1122 And, “of that exceedingly small number,” you would be puzzled to name so much as one, besides the three you proceed to specify (viz. Dr. Scrivener, Dr. Westcott, and Dr. Hort,)—who were members of the Revision company. On the other hand,—(to quote the words of the most learned of our living Prelates,)—“it is well known that there are two opposite Schools of Biblical Criticism among us, with very different opinions as to the comparative value of our Manuscripts of the Greek Testament.”1123 And in proof of his statement, the Bishop of Lincoln cites “on the one side”—Drs. Westcott and Hort; “and on the other”—Dr. Scrivener.

Now, let the account be read which Dr. Newth gives (and which you admit to be correct) of the extraordinary method by which the “New Greek Text” was “settled,”1124 “for the most part at the First Revision,”1125—and it becomes plain that it was not by any means the product of the independently-formed opinions of 16 experts, (as your words imply); but resulted from the aptitude of 13 of your body to be guided by the sober counsels of Dr. Scrivener on the one hand, or to be carried away by the eager advocacy of Dr. Hort, (supported as he ever was by his respected colleague Dr. Westcott,) on the other. As Canon Cook well puts it,—“The question really is, Were the members competent to form a correct judgment?”1126 “In most cases,” “a simple majority”1127 determined what the text should be. But ponderari debent testes, my lord Bishop, non numerari.1128 The vote of the joint Editors should have been reckoned practically as only one vote. And whenever Dr. Scrivener and they were irreconcilably opposed, the existing Traditional Text ought to have been let alone. All pretence that it was plainly and clearly erroneous was removed, when the only experts present were hopelessly divided in opinion. As for the rest of the Revising Body, inasmuch as they extemporized their opinions, they were scarcely qualified to vote at all. Certainly they were not entitled individually to an equal voice with Dr. Scrivener in determining what the text should be. Caprice or Prejudice, in short, it was, not Deliberation and Learning, which prevailed in the Jerusalem Chamber. A more unscientific,—to speak truly, a coarser and a clumsier way of manipulating the sacred Deposit, than that which you yourself invented, it would be impossible, in my judgment, to devise.

(2) An Unitarian Revisionist intolerable.—The Westminster-Abbey Scandal.

But this is not nearly all. You invite attention to the constituent elements of the Revising body, and congratulate yourself on its miscellaneous character as providing a guarantee that it has been impartial.

I frankly avow, my lord Bishop, that the challenge you thus deliberately offer, surprises me greatly. To have observed severe silence on this part of the subject, would have seemed to me your discreeter course. Moreover, had you not, in this marked way, invited attention to the component elements of the Revising body, I was prepared to give the subject the go-by. The “New Greek Text,” no less than the “New English Version,” must stand or fall on its own merits; and I have no wish to prejudice the discussion by importing into it foreign elements. Of this, you have had some proof already; for, (with the exception of what is offered above, in pages 6 and 7,) the subject has been, by your present correspondent, nowhere brought prominently forward.

Far be it from me, however, to decline the enquiry which you evidently court. And so, I candidly avow that it was in my account a serious breach of Church order that, on engaging in so solemn an undertaking as the Revision of the Authorized Version, a body of Divines professing to act under the authority of the Southern Convocation should spontaneously associate with themselves Ministers of various denominations,1129—Baptists, Congregationalists, Wesleyan Methodists, Independents, and the like: and especially that a successor of the Apostles should have presided over the deliberations of this assemblage of Separatists. In my humble judgment, we shall in vain teach the sinfulness of Schism, if we show ourselves practically indifferent on the subject, and even set an example of irregularity to our flocks. My Divinity may appear unaccommodating and old-fashioned: but I am not prepared to unlearn the lessons long since got by heart in the school of Andrewes and Hooker, of Pearson and Bull, of Hammond and Sanderson, of Beveridge and Bramhall. I am much mistaken, moreover, if I may not claim the authority of a greater doctor than any of these,—I mean S. Paul,—for the fixed views I entertain on this head.

All this, however, is as nothing in comparison of the scandal occasioned by the co-optation into your body of Dr. G. Vance Smith, the Unitarian Minister of S. Saviour’s Gate Chapel, York. That, while engaged in the work of interpreting the everlasting Gospel, you should have knowingly and by choice associated with yourselves one who, not only openly denies the eternal Godhead of our Lord, but in a recent publication is the avowed assailant of that fundamental doctrine of the Christian Religion, as well as of the Inspiration of Holy Scripture itself,1130—filled me (and many besides myself) with astonishment and sorrow. You were respectfully memorialized on the subject;1131 but you treated the representations which reached you with scornful indifference.

Now therefore that you re-open the question, I will not scruple publicly to repeat that it seems to me nothing else but an insult to our Divine Master and a wrong to the Church, that the most precious part of our common Christian heritage, the pure Word of God, should day by day, week by week, month by month, year after year, have been thus handled; for the avowed purpose of producing a Translation which should supersede our Authorized Version. That the individual in question contributed aught to your deliberations has never been pretended. On the contrary. No secret has been made of the fact that he was, (as might have been anticipated from his published writings,) the most unprofitable member of the Revising body. Why then was he at first surreptitiously elected? and why was his election afterwards stiffly maintained? The one purpose achieved by his continued presence among you was that it might be thereby made to appear that the Church of England no longer insists on Belief in the eternal Godhead of our Lord, as essential; but is prepared to surrender her claim to definite and unequivocal dogmatic teaching in respect of Faith in the Blessed Trinity.

But even if this Unitarian had been an eminent Scholar, my objection would remain in full force; for I hold, (and surely so do you!), that the right Interpretation of God’s Word may not be attained without the guidance of the Holy Spirit, whose aid must first be invoked by faithful prayer.

In the meantime, this same person was invited to communicate with his fellow-Revisers in Westminster-Abbey, and did accordingly, on the 22nd of June, 1870, receive the Holy Communion, in Henry VII.’s Chapel, at the hands of Dean Stanley: declaring, next day, that he received the Sacrament on this occasion without “joining in reciting the Nicene Creed” and without “compromise” (as he expressed it,) of his principles as an “Unitarian.”1132 So conspicuous a sacrilege led to a public Protest signed by some thousands of the Clergy.1133 It also resulted, in the next ensuing Session of Convocation, in a Resolution whereby the Upper House cleared itself of complicity in the scandal.1134...

How a good man like you can revive the memory of these many painful incidents without anguish, is to me unintelligible. That no blessing from Him, “sine Quo nihil validum, nihil sanctum,” could be expected to attend an undertaking commenced under such auspices,—was but too plain. The Revision was a foredoomed thing—in the account of many besides myself—from the outset.

(3) The probable Future of the Revision of 1881.

Not unaware am I that it has nevertheless been once and again confidently predicted in public Addresses, Lectures, Pamphlets, that ultimate success is in store for the Revision of 1881. I cannot but regard it as a suspicious circumstance that these vaticinations have hitherto invariably proceeded from members of the Revising body.

It would ill become such an one as myself to pretend to skill in forecasting the future. But of this at least I feel certain:—that if, in an evil hour, (quod absit!), the Church of England shall ever be induced to commit herself to the adoption of the present Revision, she will by so doing expose herself to the ridicule of the rest of Christendom, as well as incur irreparable harm and loss. And such a proceeding on her part will be inexcusable, for she has been at least faithfully forewarned. Moreover, in the end, she will most certainly have to retrace her steps with sorrow and confusion.

Those persons evidently overlook the facts of the problem, who refer to what happened in the case of the Authorized Version when it originally appeared, some 270 years ago; and argue that as the Revision of 1611 at first encountered opposition, which yet it ultimately overcame, so must it fare in the end with the present Revised Version also. Those who so reason forget that the cases are essentially dissimilar.

If the difference between the Authorized Version of 1611 and the Revision of 1881 were only this.—That the latter is characterized by a mechanical, unidiomatic, and even repulsive method of rendering; which was not only unattempted, but repudiated by the Authors of the earlier work;—there would have been something to urge on behalf of the later performance. The plea of zeal for God’s Word,—a determination at all hazards to represent with even servile precision the ipsissima verba of Evangelists and Apostles,—this plea might have been plausibly put forward: and, to some extent, it must have been allowed,—although a grave diversity of opinion might reasonably have been entertained as to what constitutes “accuracy” and “fidelity” of translation.

But when once it has been made plain that the underlying Greek of the Revision of 1881 is an entirely new thing,—is a manufactured article throughout,—all must see that the contention has entirely changed its character. The question immediately arises, (and it is the only question which remains to be asked,)—Were then the Authors of this “New Greek Text” competent to undertake so perilous an enterprise? And when, in the words of the distinguished Chairman of the Revising body—(words quoted above, at page 369,)—“To this question, we venture to answer very unhesitatingly in the negative,”—What remains but, with blank astonishment, not unmingled with disgust, to close the volume? Your own ingenuous admission,—(volunteered by yourself a few days before you and your allies “proceeded to the actual details of the Revision,”)—that “we have certainly not acquired sufficient Critical Judgment for any body of Revisers hopefully to undertake such a work as this,”—is decisive on the subject.

The gravity of the issue thus raised, it is impossible to over-estimate. We find ourselves at once and entirely lifted out of the region originally proposed for investigation. It is no longer a question of the degree of skill which has been exhibited in translating the title-deeds of our heavenly inheritance out of Greek into English. Those title-deeds themselves have been empirically submitted to a process which, rightly or wrongly, seriously affects their integrity. Not only has a fringe of most unreasonable textual mistrust been tacked on to the margin of every inspired page, (as from S. Luke x. 41 to xi. 11):—not only has many a grand doctrinal statement been evacuated of its authority, (as, by the shameful mis-statement found in the margin against S. John iii. 13,1135 and the vile Socinian gloss which disfigures the margin of Rom. ix. 51136):—but we entirely miss many a solemn utterance of the Spirit,—as when we are assured that verses 44 and 46 of S. Mark ix. are omitted by “the best ancient authorities,” (whereas, on the contrary, the MSS. referred to are the worst). Let the thing complained of be illustrated by a few actual examples. Only five shall be subjoined. The words in the first column represent what you are pleased to designate as among “the most certain conclusions of modern Textual Criticism” (p. 78),—but what I assert to be nothing else but mutilated exhibitions of the inspired Text. The second column contains the indubitable Truth of Scripture,—the words which have been read by our Fathers’ Fathers for the last 500 years, and which we propose, (God helping us,) to hand on unimpaired to our Children, and to our Children’s Children, for many a century to come:—

Revised (1881).	Authorized (1611).
“And come, follow me.”	“And come, take up the cross and follow me.”1137
“And they blindfolded him, and asked him, saying, Prophesy.”	“And when they had blindfolded him, they struck him on the face, and asked him, saying, Prophesy.”1138
“And there was also a superscription over him, This is the King of the Jews.”	“And a superscription also was written over him in letters of Greek, and Latin, and Hebrew, This is the King of the Jews.”1139
“And they gave him a piece of a broiled fish.”	“And they gave him a piece of a broiled fish, and of an honeycomb.”1140

But the next (S. Luke ix. 54-6,) is a far more serious loss:—

“‘Lord, wilt thou that we bid fire to come down from heaven, and consume them?’ But he turned and rebuked them. And they went to another village.” “‘Lord, wilt thou that we command fire to come down from heaven, and consume them, even as Elias did?’ But he turned and rebuked them, and said, ‘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’. And they went to another village.”

The unlearned reader sees at a glance that the only difference of Translation here is the substitution of “bid” for “command.”—which by the way, is not only uncalled for, but is a change for the worse.1141 On the other hand, how grievous an injury has been done by the mutilation of the blessed record in respect of those (3 + 5 + 7 + 4 + 24 = ) forty-three (in English fifty-seven) undoubtedly inspired as well as most precious words,—even “ordinary Readers” are competent to discern.

I am saying that the systematic, and sometimes serious,—always inexcusable,—liberties which have been taken with the Greek Text by the Revisionists of 1881, constitute a ground of offence against their work for which no pretext was afforded by the Revision of 1611. To argue therefore from what has been the fate of the one, to what is likely to be the fate of the other, is illogical. The cases are not only not parallel: they are even wholly dissimilar.

The cheapest copies of our Authorized Version at least exhibit the Word of God faithfully and helpfully. Could the same be said of a cheap edition of the work of the Revisionists,—destitute of headings to the Chapters, and containing no record of the extent to which the Sacred Text has undergone depravation throughout?

Let it be further recollected that the greatest Scholars and the most learned Divines of which our Church could boast, conducted the work of Revision in King James’ days; and it will be acknowledged that the promiscuous assemblage which met in the Jerusalem Chamber cannot urge any corresponding claim on public attention. Then, the Bishops of Lincoln of 1611 were Revisers: the Vance Smiths stood without and found fault. But in the affair of 1881, Dr. Vance Smith revises, and ventilates heresy from within:1142 the Bp. of Lincoln stands outside, and is one of the severest Critics of the work.—Disappointed men are said to have been conspicuous among the few assailants of our “Authorized Version,”—Scholars (as Hugh Broughton) who considered themselves unjustly overlooked and excluded. But on the present occasion, among the multitude of hostile voices, there is not a single instance known of a man excluded from the deliberations of the Jerusalem Chamber, who desired to share them.

To argue therefore concerning the prospects of the Revision of 1881 from the known history of our Authorized Version of 1611, is to argue concerning things essentially dissimilar. With every advance made in the knowledge of the subject, it may be confidently predicted that there will spring up increased distrust of the Revision of 1881, and an ever increasing aversion from it.

(4) Review of the entire subject, and of the respective positions of Bp. Ellicott and myself.

Here I lay down my pen,—glad to have completed what (because I have endeavoured to do my work thoroughly) has proved a very laborious task indeed. The present rejoinder to your Pamphlet covers all the ground you have yourself traversed, and will be found to have disposed of your entire contention.

I take leave to point out, in conclusion, that it places you individually in a somewhat embarrassing predicament. For you have now no alternative but to come forward and disprove my statements as well as refute my arguments: or to admit, by your silence, that you have sustained defeat in the cause of which you constituted yourself the champion. You constrained me to reduce you to this alternative when you stood forth on behalf of the Revising body, and saw fit to provoke me to a personal encounter.

But you must come provided with something vastly more formidable, remember, than denunciations,—which are but wind: and vague generalities,—which prove nothing and persuade nobody: and appeals to the authority of “Lachmann, Tischendorf, and Tregelles,”—which I disallow and disregard. You must produce a counter-array of well-ascertained facts; and you must build thereupon irrefragable arguments. In other words, you must conduct your cause with learning and ability. Else, believe me, you will make the painful discovery that “the last error is worse than the first.” You had better a thousand times, even now, ingenuously admit that you made a grievous mistake when you put yourself into the hands of those ingenious theorists, Drs. Westcott and Hort, and embraced their arbitrary decrees,—than persevere in your present downward course, only to sink deeper and deeper in the mire.

(5) Anticipated effect of the present contention on the Text of 1 Timothy iii. 16.

I like to believe, in the meantime, that this passage of arms has resulted in such a vindication1143 of the traditional Reading of 1 Timothy iii. 16, as will effectually secure that famous place of Scripture against further molestation. Faxit Deus!... In the margin of the Revision of 1881, I observe that you have ventured to state as follows,—

“The word God, in place of He who, rests on no sufficient ancient evidence.”

In the words of your Unitarian ally, Dr. Vance Smith,—

“The old reading is pronounced untenable by the Revisers, as it has long been known to be by all careful students of the New Testament.... It is in truth another example of the facility with which ancient copiers could introduce the word God into their manuscripts,—a reading which was the natural result of the growing tendency in early Christian times... to look upon the humble Teacher as the incarnate Word, and therefore as ‘God manifested in the flesh’” (p. 39).

Such remarks proceeding from such a quarter create no surprise. But, pray, my lord Bishop, of what were you thinking when you permitted yourself to make the serious mis-statement which stands in the margin? You must needs have meant thereby that,—“The word He who in place of God, on the contrary, does rest on sufficient ancient evidence.” I solemnly call upon you, in the Name of Him by whose Spirit Holy Scripture was given, to prove the truth of your marginal Note of which the foregoing 70 pages are a refutation.—You add,

“Some ancient authorities read which.”

But why did you suppress the fact, which is undeniable, viz.: that a great many “More ancient authorities” read “which” (ὅ), than read “who” (ὅς)?

(6) The nature of this contention explained.

And yet, it was no isolated place which I was eager to establish, when at first I took up my pen. It was the general trustworthiness of the Traditional Text,—(the Text which you admit to be upwards of 1500 years old,)—which I aimed at illustrating: the essential rottenness of the foundation on which the Greek Text of the Revision of 1881 has been constructed by yourself and your fellow Revisers,—which I was determined to expose. I claim to have proved not only that your entire superstructure is tasteless and unlovely to a degree,—but also that you have reared it up on a foundation of sand. In no vaunting spirit, (God is my witness!), but out of sincere and sober zeal for the truth of Scripture I say it,—your work, whether you know it or not, has been so handled in the course of the present volume of 500 pages that its essential deformity must be apparent to every unprejudiced beholder. It can only be spoken of at this time of day as a shapeless ruin.

A ruin moreover it is which does not admit of being repaired or restored. And why? Because the mischief, which extends to every part of the edifice, takes its beginning, as already explained, in every part of the foundation.

And further, (to speak without a figure,) it cannot be too plainly stated that no compromise is possible between our respective methods,—yours and mine: between the new German system in its most aggravated and in fact intolerable form, to which you have incautiously and unconditionally given in your adhesion; and the old English school of Textual Criticism, of which I humbly avow myself a disciple. Between the theory of Drs. Westcott and Hort (which you have made your own) and the method of your present Correspondent, there can be no compromise, because the two are antagonistic throughout. We have, in fact, nothing in common,—except certain documents; which I insist on interpreting by the humble Inductive process: while you and your friends insist on your right of deducing your estimate of them from certain antecedent imaginations of your own,—every one of which I disallow, and some of which I am able to disprove.

Such, my lord Bishop, is your baseless imagination—(1) That the traditional Greek Text (which, without authority, you style “The Syrian text,”) is the result of a deliberate Recension made at Antioch, a.d. 250 and 350:1144—(2) That the Peschito, in like manner, is the result of a Recension made at Edessa or Nisibis about the same time:1145—(3) That Cureton’s is the Syriac “Vetus,” and the Peschito the Syriac “Vulgate:”1146—(4) That the respective ancestries of our only two IVth-century Codices, b and א, “diverged from a common parent extremely near the apostolic autographs:”1147—(5) That this common original enjoyed a “general immunity from substantive error;” and by consequence—(6) That b and א provide “a safe criterion of genuineness,” so that “no readings of א b can be safely rejected absolutely.”1148—(7) Similar wild imaginations you cherish concerning c and d,—which, together with b and א you assume to be among the most trustworthy guides in existence; whereas I have convinced myself, by laborious collation, that they are the most corrupt of all. We are thus diametrically opposed throughout. Finally,—(8) You assume that you possess a power of divination which enables you to dispense with laborious processes of Induction; while I, on the contrary, insist that the Truth of the Text of Scripture is to be elicited exclusively from the consentient testimony of the largest number of the best Copies, Fathers, Versions.1149 There is, I am persuaded, no royal road to the attainment of Truth in this department of Knowledge. Only through the lowly portal of humility,—only by self-renouncing labour,—may we ever hope to reach the innermost shrine. They do but go astray themselves and hopelessly mislead others, who first invent their facts, and then proceed to build thereupon their premisses.

Such builders are Drs. Westcott and Hort,—with whom (by your own avowal) you stand completely identified.1150 I repeat, (for I wish it to be distinctly understood and remembered,) that what I assert concerning those Critics is,—not that their superstructure rests upon an insecure foundation; but that it rests on no foundation at all. My complaint is,—not that they are somewhat and frequently mistaken; but that they are mistaken entirely, and that they are mistaken throughout. There is no possibility of approximation between their mere assumptions and the results of my humble and laborious method of dealing with the Text of Scripture. We shall only then be able to begin to reason together with the slightest prospect of coming to any agreement, when they have unconditionally abandoned all their preconceived imaginations, and unreservedly scattered every one of their postulates to the four winds.

(7) Parting Counsels.

Let me be allowed, in conclusion, to recommend to your attention and that of your friends,—(I.) “The last Twelve Verses of S. Mark’s Gospel:”—(II.) the Angelic Hymn on the night of the Nativity:—(III.) The text of 1 Timothy iii. 16,—these three,—(in respect of which up to this hour, you and I find ourselves to be hopelessly divided,)—as convenient Test places. When you are prepared frankly to admit,—(I.) That there is no reason whatever for doubting the genuineness of S. Mark xvi. 9-20:1151—(II.) That ἐν ἀνθρώποις εὐδοκία is unquestionably the Evangelical text of S. Luke ii. 14:1152—and (III.) That Θεὸς ἐφανερώθη ἐν σαρκί is what the great Apostle must be held to have written in 1 Timothy iii 16,1153—we shall be in good time to proceed to something else. Until this happy result has been attained, it is a mere waste of time to break up fresh ground, and to extend the area of our differences.

I cannot however disguise from you the fact that such an avowal on your part will amount to an admission that “the whole fabric of Textual Criticism which has been built up during the last fifty years by successive editors of the New Testament,”—Lachmann namely, Tischendorf, and Tregelles,—is worthless. Neither may the inevitable consequence of this admission be concealed: viz. that your own work as Revisionists has been, to speak plainly, one gigantic blunder, from end to end.

(8) The subject dismissed.

The issue of this prolonged contention I now commend, with deep humility, to Almighty God. The Spirit of Truth will, (I know,) take good care of His own masterpiece,—the Written Word. May He have compassion on my ignorance, and graciously forgive me, if, (intending nothing less,) I shall prove to have anywhere erred in my strenuous endeavour to maintain the integrity of Scripture against the rashness of an impatient and unlearned generation.

But if, (as I humbly believe and confidently hope,) my conclusions are sound throughout, then may He enable men freely to recognize the Truth; and thus, effectually avert from our Church the supreme calamity with which, for a few months in 1881, it seemed threatened; namely, of having an utterly depraved Recension of the Greek Text of the New Testament thrust upon it, as the basis of a very questionable ‘Revision’ of the English.

My lord Bishop,—I have the honour to wish you respectfully farewell.

J. W. B.

Deanery, Chichester,
July, 1883.

THE GRASS WITHERETH: THE FLOWER FADETH: BUT THE WORD OF OUR GOD SHALL STAND FOR EVER.

Notes

16 The calamity of the “New Greek Text” traced to its source.

17 Bp. Ellicott’s defence of the “New Greek Text,” in sixteen particulars, examined.

18 Bp. Ellicott’s claim that the Revisers were guided by “the consentient testimony of the most ancient Authorities,”—disproved by an appeal to their handling of S. Luke ii. 14 and of S. Mark xvi. 9-20. The self-same claim,—(namely, of abiding by the verdict of Catholic Antiquity,)—vindicated, on the contrary, for the “Quarterly Reviewer.”

19 “GOD was manifested in the flesh” Shown To Be The True Reading Of 1 Timothy III. 16.