Addresses on the Revised Version of Holy Scripture, by C. J. Ellicott

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Title: Addresses on the Revised Version of Holy Scripture


Author: C. J. Ellicott



Release Date: May 9, 2008  [eBook #25412]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ISO-646-US (US-ASCII)


***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ADDRESSES ON THE REVISED VERSION
OF HOLY SCRIPTURE***

Transcribed from the 1901 Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge edition by David Price, email [email protected]

Addresses on the Revised
Version of Holy
Scripture.

by
C. J. ELLICOTT, D.D.,

bishop of gloucester,
and hon. fellow of st. john’s college, cambridge.

published under the direction of the tract committee.

LONDON:
SOCIETY FOR PROMOTING CHRISTIAN KNOWLEDGE,
northumberland avenue, w.c.; 43 queen victoria street, e.c.
Brighton: 129 North Street.
New York: E. & J. B. YOUNG & CO.
1901.

p. 3PREFATORY NOTE.

The following Addresses form the Charge to the Archdeaconry of Cirencester at the Visitation held at the close of October in the present year.  The object of the Charge, as the opening words and the tenor of the whole will abundantly indicate, is seriously to suggest the question, whether the time has not now arrived for the more general use of the Revised Version at the lectern in the public service of the Church.

C. J. Gloucester.

October, 1901.

p. 4CONTENTS.

p. 5ADDRESS I.
Early History of Revision.

As there now seem to be sufficient grounds for thinking that ere long the Revised Version of Holy Scripture will obtain a wider circulation and more general use than has hitherto been accorded to it, it seems desirable that the whole subject of the Revised Version, and its use in the public services of the Church, should at last be brought formally before the clergy and laity, not only of this province, but of the whole English Church.

Twenty years have passed away since the appearance of the Revised Version of the New Testament, and the presentation of it by the writer of these pages to the Convocation of Canterbury on May 17, 1881.  Just four more years afterwards, viz. on April 30, 1885, the Revised Version of the Old Testament p. 6was laid before the same venerable body by the then Bishop of Winchester (Bp. Harold Browne), and, similarly to the Revised Version of the New Testament, was published simultaneously in this country and America.  It was followed, after a somewhat long interval, by the Revised Version of the Apocrypha, which was laid before Convocation by the writer of these pages on February 12, 1896.

The revision of the Authorised Version has thus been in the hands of the English-speaking reader sixteen years, in the case of the Canonical Scriptures, and five years in the case of the Apocrypha—periods of time that can hardly be considered insufficient for deciding generally, whether, and to what extent, the Revised Version should be used in the public services of the Church.

I have thus thought it well, especially after the unanimous resolution of the Upper House of the Convocation of Canterbury, three years ago [6], and the very recent resolution of the House of Laymen, to place before you the question p. 7of the use of the Revised Version in the public services of the Church, as the ultimate subject of this charge.  I repeat, as the ultimate subject, for no sound opinion on the public use of this version can possibly be formed unless some general knowledge be acquired, not only of the circumstances which paved the way for the revision of the time-honoured version of 1611, but also of the manner in which the revision was finally carried out.  We cannot properly deal with a question so momentous as that of introducing a revised version of God’s Holy Word into the services of the Church, without knowing, at least in outline, the whole history of the version which we are proposing to introduce.  This history then I must now place before you from its very commencement, so far as memory and a nearly life-long connexion with the subject enable me to speak.

The true, though remote fountain-head of revision, and, more particularly, of the revision p. 8of the New Testament, must be regarded as the grammar written by a young academic teacher, George Benedict Winer, as far back as 1822, bearing the title of a Grammar of the Language of the New Testament.  It was a vigorous protest against the arbitrary, and indeed monstrous licence of interpretation which prevailed in commentaries on Holy Scripture of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.  It met with at first the fate of all assaults on prevailing unscientific procedures, but its value and its truth were soon recognized.  The volume passed through several successively improved editions, until in 1855 the sixth edition was reached, and issued with a new and interesting preface by the then distinguished and veteran writer.  This edition formed the basis of the admirable and admirably supplemented translation of my lamented and highly esteemed friend Dr. Moulton, which was published in 1870, passed through a second edition six years afterwards, and has, since that time, continued to be a standard grammar, in an English dress, of the Greek Testament down to this day.

The claim that I have put forward for this remarkable book as the fountain-head of p. 9revision can easily be justified when we call to memory how very patently the volume, in one or another of its earlier editions, formed the grammatical basis of the commentaries of De Wette and Meyer, and, here in England, of the commentary of Alford, and of critical and grammatical commentaries on some of St. Paul’s Epistles with which my own name was connected.  It was to Winer that we were all indebted for that greater accuracy of interpretation of the Greek Testament which was recognized and welcomed by readers of the New Testament at the time I mention, and produced effects which had a considerable share in the gradual bringing about of important movements that almost naturally followed.

What came home to a large and increasing number of earnest and truth-seeking readers of the New Testament was this—that there were inaccuracies and errors in the current version of the Holy Scriptures, and especially of the New Testament, which plainly called for consideration and correction, and further brought home to very many of us that this could never be brought about except by an authoritative revision.

This general impression spread somewhat p. 10rapidly; and soon after the middle of the last century it began to take definite shape.  The subject of the revision of the Authorised Version of the New Testament found a place in the religious and other periodicals of the day [10a], and as the time went on was the subject of numerous pamphlets, and was alluded to even in Convocation [10b] and Parliament [10c].  As yet however there had been no indication of the sort of revision that was desired by its numerous advocates, and fears were not unnaturally p. 11entertained as to the form that a revision might ultimately take.  It was feared by many that any authoritative revision might seriously impair the acceptance and influence of the existing and deeply reverenced version of Holy Scripture, and, to use language which expressed apprehensions that were prevailing at the time, might seriously endanger the cause of sound religion in our Church and in our nation.

There was thus a real danger, unless some forward step was quickly and prudently taken, that the excitement might gradually evaporate, and the movement for revision might die out, as has often been the case in regard of the Prayer Book, into the old and wonted acquiescence of the past.

It was just at this critical time that an honoured and influential churchman, who was then the popular and successful secretary of the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel, Rev. Ernest Hawkins, afterwards Canon of Westminster, came forward and persuaded a few of us, who had the happiness of being his friends, to combine and publish a version of one of the books of the New Testament which might practically demonstrate to friends and to opponents what sort of a revision p. 12seemed desirable under existing circumstances.  After it had been completed we described it “as a tentamen, a careful endeavour, claiming no finality, inviting, rather than desiring to exclude, other attempts of the same kind, calling the attention of the Church to the many and anxious questions involved in rendering the Holy Scriptures into the vernacular language, and offering some help towards the settlement of those questions [12].”

The portion of Scripture selected was the Gospel according to St. John.  Those who undertook the revision were five in number:—Dr. Barrow, the then Principal of St. Edmund’s Hall, Oxford; Dr. Moberly, afterwards Bishop of Salisbury; Rev. Henry Alford, afterwards Dean of Canterbury; Rev. W. G. Humphry, Vicar of St. Martin’s in the Fields; and lastly, the writer of this charge.  Mr. Ernest Hawkins, busy as he was, acted to a great extent as our secretary, superintended arrangements, p. 13and encouraged and assisted us in every possible manner.  Our place of meeting was the library of our hospitable colleague Mr. Humphry.  We worked in the greatest possible harmony, and happily and hopefully concluded our Revision of the Authorised Version of the Gospel of St. John in the month of March, 1857.

Our labours were introduced by a wise and attractive preface, written mainly by Dr. Moberly, in the lucid, reverent, and dignified language that marked everything that came from the pen of the late Bishop of Salisbury.

The effect produced by this tentamen was indisputably great.  The work itself was of course widely criticized, but for the most part favourably [13].  The principles laid down in the preface were generally considered reasonable, and the possibilities of an authoritative revision distinctly increased.  The work in fact became a kind of object lesson.

It showed plainly that there were errors in the Authorised Version that needed correction.  It further showed that their removal and the introduction of improvements in regard of accuracy did not involve, either in quantity p. 14or quality, the changes that were generally apprehended.  And lastly, it showed in its results that scholars of different habits of thought could combine in the execution of such a work without friction or difficulty.

In regard of the Greek text but little change was introduced.  The basis of our translation was the third edition of Stephens, from which we only departed when the amount of external evidence in favour of a different reading was plainly overwhelming.  As we ourselves state in the preface, “our object was to revise a version, not to frame a text.”  We should have obscured this one purpose if we had entered into textual criticism.

Such was the tentative version which prepared the way for authoritative revision.

More need not be said on this early effort.  The version of the Gospel of St. John passed through three editions.  The Epistles to the Romans and Corinthians appeared in 1858, and the first three of the remaining Epistles (Galatians, Ephesians, and Philippians) in 1861.  The third edition of the Revision of the Authorised Version of St. John was issued in 1863, with a preface in which the general estimate of the revision was discussed, and the probability indicated of some authoritative p. 15procedure in reference to the whole question.  As our little band had now been reduced to four, and its general aim and object had been realized, we did not deem it necessary to proceed with a work which had certainly helped to remove most of the serious objections to authoritative revision.  Our efforts were helped by many treatises on the subject which were then appearing from time to time, and, to a considerable extent, by the important work of Professor, afterwards Archbishop, Trench, entitled “On the Authorised Version of the New Testament in connexion with some recent proposals for its revision.”  This appeared in 1858.  After the close of our tentative revision in 1863, the active friends (as they may be termed) of the movement did but little except, from time to time, confer with one another on the now yearly improving prospects of authoritative revision.  In 1869 Dean Alford published a small handy revised version of the whole of the Greek Testament, and, a short time afterwards, I published a small volume on the “Revision of the English Version,” in which I sought to show how large an amount of the fresh and vigorous translation of Tyndale was present in the Authorised Version, and how little of this p. 16would ever be likely to disappear in any authoritatively revised version of the future.  Some estimate also was made of the amount of changes likely to be introduced in a sample portion of the Gospels.  A few months later, a very valuable volume (“On a Fresh Revision of the New Testament”) was published by Professor, afterwards Bishop, Lightfoot, which appeared most seasonably, just as the long-looked-for hope of a revision of the Authorised Version of God’s Holy Word was about to be realized.

All now was ready for a definite and authoritative commencement.  Of this, and of the later history of Revision, a brief account will be given in the succeeding Address.

p. 17ADDRESS II.
Later History of Revision.

We are now arrived at the time when what was simple tentative and preparatory passed into definite and authoritative realization.

The initial step was taken on February 10, 1870, in the Upper House of the Convocation of Canterbury.  The Bishop of Oxford, seconded by the Bishop of Gloucester, proposed the subjoined resolution, which it may be desirable to give in the exact words in which it was presented to the House, as indicating the caution with which it was framed, and also the indirectly expressed hope (unfortunately not realized) of the concurrence of the Northern Convocation.  The resolution was as follows:

“That a committee of both Houses be appointed, with power to confer with any committee that may be appointed by the Convocation of the Northern Province, to report upon the desirableness of a revision of the Authorised Version of the New Testament, p. 18whether by marginal notes or otherwise, in those passages where plain and clear errors, whether in the Hebrew or Greek text originally adopted by the translators, or in the translations made from the same, shall on due investigation be found to exist.”

In the course of the debate that followed the resolution was amended by the insertion of the words “Old and,” so as to include both Testaments, and, so amended, was unanimously accepted by the Upper House, and at once sent down to the Lower House.  After debate it was accepted by them, and, having been thus accepted by both Houses, formed the basis of all the arrangements, rules, and regulations which speedily followed.

Into all of these it is not necessary for me to enter except so far as plainly to demonstrate that the Convocation of Canterbury, on thus undertaking one of the greatest works ever attempted by Convocation during its long and eventful history, followed every course, adopted every expedient, and carefully took every precaution to bring the great work it was preparing to undertake to a worthy and a successful issue.

It may be well, then, here briefly to notice, p. 19that in accordance with the primary resolution which I have specified, a committee was appointed of eight members of the Upper House, and, in accordance with the regular rule, sixteen members of the Lower House, with power, as specified, to confer with the Convocation of York.  The members of the Upper House were as follows: the Bishops of Winchester (Wilberforce), St. Davids (Thirlwall), Llandaff (Ollivant), Salisbury (Moberly), Ely (Harold Browne, afterwards of Winchester), Lincoln (Wordsworth; who soon after withdrew), Bath and Wells (Lord Arthur Hervey), and myself.

The members of the Lower House were the Prolocutor (Dr. Bickersteth, Dean of Lichfield), the Deans of Canterbury (Alford), Westminster (Stanley), and Lincoln (Jeremie); the Archdeacons of Bedford (Rose), Exeter (Freeman), and Rochester (Grant); Chancellor Massingberd; Canons Blakesley, How, Selwyn, Swainson, Woodgate; Dr. Jebb, Dr. Kay, and Mr. De Winton.

Before, however, this committee reported, at the next meeting of Convocation in May, and on May 3 and May 5, the following five resolutions, which have the whole authority of Convocation behind them, were accepted p. 20unanimously by the Upper House, and by large majorities in the Lower House:

“1.  That it is desirable that a revision of the Authorised Version of the Holy Scriptures be undertaken.

2.  That the revision be so conducted as to comprise both marginal renderings and such emendations as it may be found necessary to insert in the text of the Authorised Version.

3.  That in the above resolutions we do not contemplate any new translation of the Bible, nor any alteration of the language, except where, in the judgement of the most competent scholars, such change is necessary.

4.  That in such necessary changes, the style of the language employed in the existing version be closely followed.

5.  That it is desirable that Convocation should nominate a body of its own members to undertake the work of revision, who shall be at liberty to invite the co-operation of any eminent for scholarship, to whatever nation or religious body they may belong.”

These are the fundamental rules of Convocation, as formally expressed by the Upper and Lower Houses of this venerable body.  The second and third rules deserve our especial attention in reference to the amount of the emendations and alterations which p. 21have been introduced during the work of revision.  This amount, it is now constantly said, is not only excessive, but in distinct contravention of the rules which were laid down by Convocation.  A responsible and deeply respected writer, the late Bishop of Wakefield, only a few years ago plainly stated in a well-known periodical [21] that the revisers “largely exceeded their instructions, and did not adhere to the principles they were commissioned to follow.”  This is a very grave charge, but can it be substantiated?  The second and third rules, taken together, refer change to consciously felt necessity on the part of “the most competent scholars,” and these last-mentioned must surely be understood to be those who were deliberately chosen for the work.  In the subsequently adopted rule of the committee of Convocation the criterion of this consciously felt necessity was to be faithfulness to the original.  All then that can justly be said in reference to the Revisers is this,—not that they exceeded their instructions (a very serious charge), but that their estimate of what constituted p. 22faithfulness, and involved the necessity of change, was, from time to time, in the judgement of their critic, mistaken or exaggerated.  Such language however as that used in reference to the changes made by the Revisers as “unnecessary and uninstructive alterations,” and “irritating trivialities,” was a somewhat harsh form of expressing the judgement arrived at.

But to proceed.  On the presentation of the Report it was stated that the committee had not been able to confer with the Northern Convocation, as no committee had been appointed by them.  It was commonly supposed that the Northern President (Abp. of York) was favourable to revision, but the two Houses, who at that time sat together, had taken a very different view [22], as our President informed us that he had received a communication from the Convocation of York to the effect that—“The Authorised Version of the English Bible is accepted, not only by the p. 23Established Church, but also by the Dissenters and by the whole of the English-speaking people of the world, as their standard of faith; and that although blemishes existed in its text such as had, from time to time, been pointed out, yet they would deplore any recasting of its text.  That Convocation accordingly did not think it necessary to appoint a committee to co-operate with the committee appointed by the Convocation of Canterbury, though favourable to the errors being rectified.”

This obviously closed the question of co-operation with the Northern Convocation.  We sincerely regretted the decision, as there were many able and learned men in the York Convocation whose co-operation we should have heartily welcomed.  Delay, however, was now out of the question.  The working out of the scheme therefore had now become the duty of the Convocation that had adopted, and in part formulated, the proposed revision.

The course of our proceedings was then as follows:

After the Report of the committee had been accepted by the Upper House, and communicated to the Lower House, the following resolution was unanimously adopted by the p. 24Upper House (May 3, 1870), and in due course sent down to the Lower House:

“That a committee be now appointed to consider and report to Convocation a scheme of revision on the principles laid down in the Report now adopted.  That the Bishops of Winchester, St. Davids, Llandaff, Gloucester and Bristol, Ely, Salisbury, Lincoln, Bath and Wells, be members of the committee.  That the committee be empowered to invite the co-operation of those whom they may judge fit from their biblical scholarship to aid them in their work.”

This resolution was followed by a request from the Archbishop that as this was a committee of an exceptional character, being in fact an executive committee, the Lower House would not appoint, as in ordinary committees, twice the number of the members appointed by the Upper House, but simply an equal number.  This request, though obviously a very reasonable request under the particular circumstances, was not acceded to without some debate and even remonstrance.  This, however, was overcome and quieted by the conciliatory good sense and firmness of the Prolocutor; and, on the following day, the resolution was accepted by the Lower House, and the Prolocutor (Bickersteth) with p. 25the Deans of Canterbury (Alford) and Westminster (Stanley), the Archdeacon of Bedford (Rose), Canons Blakesley and Selwyn, Dr. Jebb and Dr. Kay, were appointed as members of what now may be called the Permanent Committee.

This Committee had to undertake the responsible duty of choosing experts, and, out of them and their own members, forming two Companies, the one for the revision of the Authorised Version of the Old Testament, the other for the revision of the Authorised Version of the New Testament.  Rules had to be drawn up, and a general scheme formed for the carrying out in detail of the whole of the proposed work.  In this work it may be supposed that considerable difficulty would have been found in the choice of biblical scholars in addition to those already appointed by Convocation.  This, however, did not prove to be the case.  I was at that time acting as a kind of informal secretary, and by the friendly help of Dr. Moulton and Dr. Gotch of Bristol had secured the names of distinguished biblical scholars from the leading Christian bodies in England and in Scotland from whom choice would naturally have to be made.  When we met together p. 26finally to choose, there was thus no lack of suitable names.

In regard of the many rules that had to be made for the orderly carrying out of the work I prepared, after careful conference with the Bishop of Winchester, a draft scheme which, so far as I remember, was in the sequel substantially adopted by what I have termed the Permanent Committee of Convocation.  When, then, this Committee formally met on May 25, 1870, the names of those to whom we were empowered to apply were agreed upon, and invitations at once sent out.  The members of the Committee had already been assigned to their special companies; viz. to the Old Testament Company, the Bishops of St. Davids, Llandaff, Ely, Lincoln (who soon after resigned), and Bath and Wells; and from the Lower House, Archdeacon Rose, Canon Selwyn, Dr. Jebb, and Dr. Kay: to the New Testament Company, the Bishops of Winchester, Gloucester and Bristol, and Salisbury; and from the Lower House, the Prolocutor, the Deans of Canterbury and Westminster, and Canon Blakesley.

Those invited to join the Old Testament were as follows:—Dr. W. L. Alexander, Professor Chenery, Canon Cook, Professor A. B. Davidson, Dr. B. Davies, Professor Fairbairn, p. 27Rev. F. Field, Dr. Gensburg, Dr. Gotch, Archdeacon Harrison, Professor Leathes, Professor McGill, Canon Payne Smith, Professor J. J. S. Perowne, Professor Plumptre, Canon Pusey, Dr. Wright (British Museum), Mr. W. A. Wright of Cambridge, the active and valuable secretary of the Company.

Of these Dr. Pusey and Canon Cook declined the invitation.

Those invited to join the New Testament Company were as follows:—Dr. Angus, Dr. David Brown, the Archbishop of Dublin (Trench), Dr. Eadie, Rev. F. J. A. Hort, Rev. W. G. Humphry, Canon Kennedy, Archdeacon Lee, Dr. Lightfoot, Professor Milligan, Professor Moulton, Dr. J. H. Newman, Professor Newth, Dr. A. Roberts, Rev. G. Vance Smith, Dr. Scott (Balliol College), Rev. F. H. Scrivener, the Bishop of St. Andrews (Wordsworth), Dr. Tregelles, Dr. Vaughan, Canon Westcott.

Of these Dr. J. H. Newman declined, and Dr. Tregelles, from feeble health and preoccupation on his great work, the critical edition of the New Testament, was unable to attend.  It should be here mentioned that soon after the formation of the company, Rev. John Troutbeck, Minor Canon of Westminster, afterwards Doctor of Divinity, was appointed p. 28by the Company as their secretary.  A more accurate, punctual, and indefatigable secretary it would have been impossible for us to have selected for the great and responsible work.

On the same day (May 25, 1870,) the rules for the carrying out of the revision, which, as I have mentioned, had been drawn up in draft were all duly considered by the committee and carried, and the way left clear and open for the commencement of the work.  These rules (copies of which will be found in nearly all the prefaces to the Revised Version hitherto issued by the Universities) were only the necessary amplifications of the fundamental rules passed by the two Houses of Convocation which have been already specified.

The first of these subsidiary rules was as follows:—“To introduce as few alterations as possible in the text of the Authorised Version consistently with faithfulness.”  This rule must be read in connexion with the first and third fundamental rules and the comments I have already made on those rules.

The second of the rules of the committee was as follows:—“To limit, as far as possible, the expression of such alterations to the language of the Authorised and earlier English versions.”  This rule was carefully attended to p. 29in its reference to the Authorised Version.  I do not however remember, in the revision of the version of the New Testament, that we often fell back on the renderings of the earlier English versions.  They were always before us: but, in reference to other versions where there were differences of rendering, we frequently considered the renderings of the ancient versions, especially of the Vulgate, Syriac, and Coptic, and occasionally of the Gothic and Armenian.  To these, however, the rule makes no allusion.

The third rule speaks for itself:—“Each Company to go twice over the portion to be revised, once provisionally, the second time finally, and on principles of voting as hereinafter is provided.”

The fourth rule refers to the very important subject of the text, and is an amplification of the last part of the third fundamental rule.  The rule of the committee is 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 Authorised Version was made, the alteration be indicated in the margin.”  The subject of the text is continued in the fifth rule, which is as follows:—“To make or retain no change in the text on the second final revision p. 30by the Company except two-thirds of those present approve of the same, but on the first revision to decide by simple majorities.”

The sixth rule is of importance, but in the New Testament Company (I do not know how it may have been in the Old Testament Company) was very rarely acted upon:—“In every case of proposed alteration that may have given rise to discussion, to defer the voting thereupon till the next meeting, whensoever the same shall be required by one-third of those present at the meeting, such intended vote to be announced in the notice for the next meeting.”  The only occasion on which I can remember this rule being called into action was a comparatively unimportant one.  At the close of a long day’s work we found ourselves differing on the renderings of “tomb” or “sepulchre” in one of the narratives of the Resurrection.  This was easily and speedily settled the following morning.

The seventh rule was as follows:—“To revise the headings of chapters and pages, paragraphs, italics, and punctuation.”  This rule was very carefully attended to except as regards headings of chapters and pages.  These were soon found to involve so much of indirect, if not even of direct interpretation, that p. 31both Companies agreed to leave this portion of the work to some committee of the two University Presses that they might afterwards think fit to appoint.  Small as the work might seem to be if only confined to the simple revision of the existing headings, the time it would have taken up, if undertaken by the Companies, would certainly have been considerable.  I revised, on my own account, the headings of the chapters in St. Matthew, and was surprised to find how much time was required to do accurately and consistently what might have seemed a very easy and inconsiderable work.

The eighth rule was of some importance, though, I think, very rarely acted upon: “To refer, on the part of each Company, when considered desirable, to divines, scholars, and literary men, whether at home or abroad, for their opinions.”  How far this was acted on by the Old Testament Company I do not know.  In regard of the New Testament Company the only instance I can remember, when we availed ourselves of the rule, was in reference to our renderings of portions of the twenty-seventh chapter of the Acts of the Apostles.  In this particular case we sent our sheets to the Admiralty, and asked the First p. 32Sea Lord (whom some of us knew) kindly to tell us if the expressions we had adopted were nautically correct.  I believe this friendly and competent authority did not find anything amiss.  It has sometimes been said that it would have been better, especially in reference to the New Testament, if this rule had been more frequently acted on, and if matters connected with English and alterations of rhythm had been brought before a few of our more distinguished literary men.  It may be so; though I much doubt whether in matters of English the Greek would not always have proved the dominant arbiter.  In matters of rhythm it is equally doubtful whether much could have been effected by appealing to the ears of others.  At any rate we preferred trusting to our own, and adopted, as I shall afterwards mention, a mode of testing rhythmical cadence that could hardly have been improved upon.

The concluding rule was one of convenience and common sense: “That the work of each Company be communicated to the other, as it is completed, in order that there may be as little deviation from uniformity in language as possible.”

All preliminaries were now settled.  The p. 33invitations were issued, and, with the exceptions of Canon Cook, Dr. Pusey, and Dr. Newman, were readily accepted.  Three or four names (Principal Douglas, Professor Geden, Dr. Weir, and, I think, Mr. Bensley), were shortly added to those already mentioned as invited to join the Old Testament Company, and, in less than a month after the meeting of the committee on May 25, both Companies had entered upon their responsible work.  On June 22, 1870, both Companies, after a celebration of the Holy Communion, previously announced by Dean Stanley as intended to be administered by him in Westminster Abbey, in the Chapel of Henry VII, commenced the long-looked-for revision of the Authorised Version of God’s Holy Word.  The Old Testament Company commenced their work in the Chapter Library; the New Testament Company in the Jerusalem Chamber.

The number of the members in each Company was very nearly the same, viz. twenty-seven in the Old Testament Company, and, in nominal attendance, twenty-six in the New Testament Company.  In the former Company, owing to the longer time found necessary for the work (fourteen years), there were more changes in the composition of the Company p. 34than in the case of the latter Company, which completed its work three years and a half before its sister Company.  At the close of the work on the New Testament (1880), the numbers in each Company were twenty-six and twenty-five; but owing to various reasons, and especially the distance of many of the members from London, the number in actual and regular attendance was somewhat reduced as the years went onward.  How it fared with the Old Testament Company I cannot precisely state.  Bishop Harold Browne, after his accession to the See of Winchester, was only able to attend twice or three times after the year 1875.  In that year Bishop Thirlwall died, and Bishop Ollivant ceased to attend, but remained a corresponding member till his death in 1882.  Vacancies, I am informed, were filled up till October 1875, after which date no new members were added.  The Company, however, worked to the very end with great devotion and assiduity.  The revision occupied 794 days, and was completed in eighty-five sessions, the greater part of which were for ten days each, at about six hours a day.

I can speak a little more exactly in reference to the New Testament Company.  The time was shorter, and the changes in the composition p. 35of the Company were fewer.  At the end of the work a record was made out of the attendances of the individual members [35], from which it was easy to arrive at the average attendance, which for the whole time was found to be as much as sixteen each day.  The number of sessions was 101 of four days each, and one of three days, making a total of 407 days in all.  More than 1,200 days were thus devoted to the work of the revision of the Authorised Versions of both Testaments.  The first revision, in the case of the New Testament lasted about six years; the second, two years and a half.  The remaining two years were spent in the consideration of p. 36various details and reserved questions, and especially the consideration of the suggestions, on our second revision, of the American Revisers, of whose work and connexion with the English Revisers it will now be convenient to speak.

* * * * *

The idea of a connexion with America in the great work of revision was nearly as early as the movements in Convocation of which an account has been given.  It appears that, in the session of Convocation in July, 1870, it was moved in the Lower House by Lord Alwyne Compton (afterwards and now Bishop of Ely) that the committee of Convocation should be instructed to invite the co-operation of some American divines.  This was at once agreed to by both Houses, and measures were taken to open communications with America.  The correspondence was opened by the acting Chairman of the New Testament Company (the present writer) in a letter to Dr. Angus (dated July 20, 1870 [36]) who was about to visit p. 37the United States, empowering him to prepare the way for definite action on the part of American scholars and divines.  This he did in a letter (“Historical Account,” p. 31) sent round to American scholars, and especially by communication with Dr. Philip Schaff of the Bible House at New York, who, from the first, had taken the deepest interest in the movement.  This active and enterprising scholar at once took up the matter, and operated so successfully that, as he himself tells us in his valuable and accurate “Companion to the Greek Testament and the English Version” (New York, 1883), a committee of about thirty members was formally organized Dec. 7, 1871, and entered upon active work on Oct. 4, 1872, after the first revision of the Synoptical Gospels had been forwarded by the New Testament Company.

Our Old Testament Company was no less active and co-operative.  As they tell us in p. 38the Preface prefixed to their revision, “the first revision of the several books of the Old Testament was submitted to the consideration of the American Revisers, and, except in the case of the Pentateuch (which had been twice gone through prior to co-operation) the English Company had the benefit of their criticisms and suggestions before they proceeded to the second revision.  The second revision was in like manner forwarded to America, and the latest thoughts of the American Revisers were in the hands of the English Company at their final review.”  Both our English Companies bear hearty testimony to the value derived from the co-operation.  In the case of the New Testament Company, the “care, vigilance, and accuracy” which marked the work of their American brethren is distinctly specified.

But little more need be said of the American Companies.  They were soon fully organized, and, so far as can be judged by the results of their work, carefully and judiciously chosen.  The Old Testament Company consisted of fifteen members, Dr. Green, Professor in Princeton, being Chairman: the New Testament Committee consisted of sixteen members, three of those who had at first accepted p. 39having been obliged, from ill-health and stress of local duties, to resign.  Dr. Woolsey, Ex-President of Yale College, was Chairman, and Bishop Lee, of the Diocese of Delaware, one of the most faithful and valuable participators in the work, a member of the Company.  Dr. Philip Schaff, Professor of Sacred Literature in the Union Theological Seminary, New York, was also a member, and was President of the whole undertaking, Dr. George Day of Yale College, a member of the Old Testament Company, being the general secretary.  The two Companies met every month (except July and August) in two rooms in the Bible House, New York, but without any connexion with the Bible Society, which, as in England, could only circulate the Authorised Version.

The American Committee, Dr. Schaff tells us, included representatives of nine different denominations, viz. Episcopalians, Presbyterians, Congregationalists, Baptists, Methodists and, to the extent of one member, Lutherans, Unitarians, and Society of Friends.  The Episcopal Church of America was applied to by Bishop Wilberforce with the request that they would take part in the revision: this was declined.  The American Church however, p. 40as we have already shown, was not wholly unrepresented in the work.  The whole Committee was obviously much more mixed than the English Committee; but it must not be forgotten that though the English Companies were chosen by Episcopalians, and Episcopalians, as was natural, greatly preponderated, nearly one-third of the two Companies were not members of the Church of England.  If we assume that each Company consisted at any given time of twenty-five members, which, as we have seen, would be approximately correct, the non-Episcopal members will be found to have been not less than sixteen, viz. seven Presbyterians, four Independents or Congregationalists, two Baptists, two Wesleyans, and one Unitarian.  Be this however as it may, it is certain that by the great blessing, we may humbly say, of God the Holy Ghost, the greatest possible harmony prevailed in the work both here and in America.  Here, as is well known, this was the case; and in America, to quote one only out of many similar witnesses, one who was himself a reviser, and the only pastor in the Company (the Old Testament Company), thus gives his experience, “Never, even once, did the odium theologicum appear.  Nothing was p. 41said at any time that required retraction or apology [41].”

This brief notice of our American brethren may close with one further comment.  Their work began, like ours, with reliance on financial aid from the many who would be sure to be interested in such an important and long-desired work.  Help in our case was at once readily proffered, but very soon was found not to be necessary, owing to our disposal of copyright to the Presses of the two Universities.  With the American Revisers it was otherwise.  During the whole twelve years all the necessary expenses of travelling, printing, room-rent, and other accessories were, as Dr. Schaff mentions, cheerfully contributed by liberal donors from among the friends of biblical revision.  There remained, however, a grave difficulty.  It was plainly impossible that such distinguished men as those who formed the two American Companies could simply act the part of friendly critics of what was sent over to them without being recognized as fellow revisers in the full sense of the words.  How, however, formally to p. 42establish this parity of position was found to be very difficult, owing to our connexion with the Presses, who had trade rights which had properly to be guarded.  The result was much friendly negotiation for several months, but without any definite adjustment [42a].  At last, by the wise and conciliatory action of the Presses an agreement was arrived at in August, 1877 [42b], by which we on this side of the Atlantic were bound not only to send over the various stages of our work to our American brethren and carefully to consider all their suggestions, but also to sanction the publication in every copy of the revision of a list of all the important passages, in regard of text and renderings, upon which the English and American Revisers could not finally agree.  The American Revisers on their part undertook not to publish any edition of their own for fourteen years.

The fourteen years have now passed away, p. 43but prior to the expiration of the time the long-needed marginal references were completed, and in September, 1898, were attached to the pages of all the larger English copies of the Revised Version of the Holy Scripture, with a short account of the sources from which they were derived, and of the circumstances of their delayed publication.  As they were somewhat closely connected with the labours of two of the members of the New Testament Company, and had received the general approval of that Company, I had real pleasure in presenting to both Houses of Convocation on Feb. 10, 1899, the completed body of references, and, in them, the very last portion of every part of the work of the Company with which I had so long been connected.

The appearance of the references was very seasonable, as it enabled the Universities to acquire copyright for any of the editions with these references which they might publish, or cause to be published in America.  The University Press of Oxford has, I know, acted on this right, but whether in conjunction with the Cambridge University Press or independently I am not able to say.  The right at any rate remains, and in the sequel may be of greater importance in America than we may p. 44now suppose, as it may tend to discourage the spread of altered editions of the revision, which from time to time might be brought forward by irresponsible publishers [44].

p. 45One subject still remains to be noticed in this portion of my address which cannot be passed over—the revision of the Apocrypha.  This the English revisers were pledged to the University Presses to complete, before our connexion with them could be rightfully concluded.  This revision, as we know, has been completed, though perhaps not in a manner that can be considered as completely satisfactory, owing to the want of a co-ordinating authority.  The arrangement, of which a full and clear account will be found in the preface to the published volume, was briefly as follows.  On March 21, 1879, as the New Testament Company was fast approaching the completion of its labours, it was agreed that the Company should be divided into three portions, each consisting of eight members, to which the names of the London, Westminster, and Cambridge Companies were to be respectively assigned.  The portion of the work that each of the three Companies was to take was settled by lot.  To the London Company, of which I was a member, p. 46the book of Ecclesiasticus was assigned; to the Westminster Company, the first book of Maccabees, and subsequently the books Tobit and Judith; and to the Cambridge Company, the second book of Maccabees and the Wisdom of Solomon.

On the completion of their work, the Old Testament Company assigned to a special committee chosen out of their number the remaining books of the Apocrypha, viz. 1 and 2 Esdras, the remainder of Esther, Baruch, Song of the Three Children, Susanna, Bel and the Dragon, and the Prayer of Manasses.

It was agreed that each Company and the above-named committee should go through their work twice, but without the two-thirds condition, and that each body should send its work when completed round to the rest.  The times, however, at which the portions were completed were by no means, even approximately, the same.  The London Company completed its work in May, 1883.  The Westminster Company finished the first book of Maccabees in November, 1881, and the books of Tobit and Judith in October, 1882.  The Cambridge Company completed its revision of the second book of Maccabees in December, 1889, and of the Book of Wisdom, which underwent p. 47three revisions, in November, 1891.  The revision of the remaining books, undertaken by the Old Testament Company, does not seem to have been completed till even two or three years later.  This interval of ten or twelve years involved in some of the books, especially in reference to Ecclesiasticus, the clear necessity for further revision.  This compelled me, with the help of my valued friend Dr. Moulton, to go over the work of my former Company on my own responsibility, my coadjutors in the work having been either called away by death or too seriously ill to help me.

It was thus with some sense of relief that, on the request of those connected with the publication of the volume, I presented the Revised Version of the Apocrypha to the two Houses of Convocation on February 12, 1896.

The rise and progress of the desire for a revision of the Authorised Version of Holy Scripture has now been set forth as fully as the limits of these Addresses permit.  What now remains to be specified is what may be called the internal history of this Revision, or, in other words, the nature and procedure of the work, with such concluding comments as the circumstances of the present may appear to suggest.

p. 48ADDRESS III.
Hebrew and Greek Text.

We now pass from what may be called the outward history of the Revision to the inward nature and character of the work of the Revisers, and may naturally divide that work into two portions—their labours as regards the original text, and their labours in regard of rendering and translation.

I.  First, then, as regards the original text of the Old Testament.

Here the work of the Old Testament Company was very slight as compared with that of the New Testament Company.  The latter Company had, almost in every other verse, to settle upon a text—often involving much that was doubtful and debatable—before they proceeded to the further work of translating.  The Old Testament Company, on the contrary, had ready to hand a textus receptus which really deserved the title, and on which, in their preface, they write as follows: “The received, or, as it is commonly called, the Massoretic p. 49text of the Old Testament Scriptures has come down to us in manuscripts which are of no very great antiquity, and which all belong to the same family or recension.  That other recensions were at one time in existence is probable from the variations in the Ancient Versions, the oldest of which, namely, the Greek or Septuagint, was made, at least in part, some two centuries before the Christian era.  But as the date of knowledge on the subject is not at present such as to justify any attempt at an entire reconstruction of the text on the authority of the Versions, the Revisers have thought it most prudent to adopt the Massoretic text as the basis of their work, and to depart from it, as the Authorised Translators had done, only in exceptional cases.”

That in this decision the Revisers had exercised the sound judgement which marks every part of their work cannot possibly be doubted by any competent reader.  The Massoretic text has a long and interesting history.  Its name is derived from a word, Massora (tradition), that reminds us of the accumulated traditions and criticisms relating to numerous passages of the text, and of the manner in which it was to be read, all which were finally committed to writing, and the ultimate result of which p. 50is the text of which we have been speaking.  That the formation of the written Massora was a work of time seems a probable and reasonable supposition.  A very competent writer [50] tells us that this formation may have extended from the sixth or seventh to the tenth or eleventh century.  From the end of this Massoretic period onward the same writer tells us that the Massora became the great authority by which the text given in all the Jewish manuscripts was settled.  All our manuscripts, in a word, are Massoretic.  Any that were not so were not used, and allowed to perish, or, as it has been thought, were destroyed as not being in strict accordance with the recognized standards.  Whether we have sustained any real critical loss by the disappearance of the rejected manuscripts it is impossible to say.  The fact only remains that we have no manuscript of any portion of the Old Testament certainly known to be of a date prior to a.d. 916.  The Massora, it may be mentioned, appears in two forms—the Massora parva and the Massora magna.  The former contains the really valuable portion of the great work, viz., the variation technically named K’ri (read), and placed p. 51in the margin of the Hebrew Bibles.  This was to be substituted for the corresponding portion in the text technically named C’thib (written), and was regarded by the Massoretes themselves as the true reading.  The Massora magna contained the above, and other matter deemed to be of importance in reference to the interpretation of the text.

The Revisers inform us that they have generally, though not uniformly, rendered the C’thib in the text, and left the K’ri in the margin, with the introductory note, “Or, according to another reading,” or, “Another reading is.”  When they adopted the K’ri in the text of their rendering, they placed the C’thib in the margin if it represented a variation of importance.

These things, and others specified in the preface, should be carefully attended to by the reader as enabling him to distinguish between the different characters of the alternative renderings as specified in the margin.  Those due to the Massoretes, or, in other words, the K’ris, will naturally deserve attention from their antiquity.  They are not, however, when estimated with reference to the whole of the sacred volume, very numerous.  In the earliest printed bible they were 1,171 in number, but p. 52this is generally considered erroneous in excess, 900 being probably much nearer the true estimate.

We cannot leave the subject of the Hebrew text without some reference to the emendation of it suggested by the Ancient Versions.  But little, I believe, of a systematic character has, as yet, been accomplished.  The Revisers mention that they have been obliged, in some few cases of extreme difficulty, to depart from the Massoretic text and adopt a reading from the Ancient Versions.  I regret to observe that it is stated by one of those connected with the forthcoming American revision of the Old Testament version that in nearly one hundred cases the marginal references to the Ancient Versions will be omitted.  Reasons are given, but these could hardly have escaped the knowledge and observation of the learned men by whom the references were inserted.  The Revisers also mention that where the Versions appeared to supply a very probable, though not so absolutely necessary, correction as displacement of the Massoretic text, they have still felt it proper to place the reading in the margin.

This recognition of the critical importance of the Ancient Versions by the Revisers, though p. 53obviously in only a limited number of cases, seems to indicate the great good that may be expected from a more complete and systematic use of these ancient authorities in reference to the current text of the Old Testament.  At present the texts implied in them have, I believe, never yet been so closely analysed as to enable us to form any just estimate of their real critical value.  They have been used by editors, as in the case of Houbigant, but only in a limited and partial manner.  Lists, I believe, are accessible of all the more important readings suggested or implied by the Versions; but what is needed is far more than this.  In the first place we require much more trustworthy texts of the Versions themselves than are at present at our disposal.  In the case of the Septuagint we may very shortly look forward to a thoroughly revised text; and a similar remark may probably be made in reference to the Vulgate, but I am not aware that much has been done in the case of the Syriac [53], and of other versions to which reference would have to be made in any great p. 54critical attempt, such as a revision of the textus receptus of the Old Testament.

If, however, a first need is trustworthy editions of the Versions, a second need appears to be a fuller knowledge of the Hebrew material, late in regard of antiquity though it may be, than was, at any rate, available till very recently.  The new edition of the text of the Hebrew Bible by Dr. Ginsburg, with its learned and voluminous introduction, may, and probably does, supply this fuller knowledge; but as in regard of these matters I can speak only as a novice, I can only reproduce the statement commonly made by those who have a right to speak on such subjects, that the collation of the Hebrew manuscripts that we already possess has been far from complete.  There appears to have been the feeling that they all lead up to the Massoretic text, and that any particular variations from it need not be treated over-seriously; and yet surely we must regard it as possible that some of these negligible variations might concur with, and by their concurrence add weight to, readings already rendered probable by the suggestive testimony of the Ancient Versions.  It may be right for me to add that the whole question was raised in 1886 by p. 55Dr. Green and Dr. Schaff in a circular letter addressed to distinguished Hebrews in Germany and elsewhere.  The answers are returned in German [55], and are translated.  They are most of them interesting, though not very encouraging.  The best of them seems to be the answer of Professor Strack, of Berlin.

But here I must pause.  The use made by the Revisers of these ancient documents has called out the foregoing comments, and has awakened the hope, which I now venture to express, that the critical use of the Versions may be expanded, and form a part of that systematic revision of the text of the Old Testament which will not improbably form part of the critical labours of the present century.

II.  We may now turn to the New Testament, and to the revision of the textus receptus of the New Testament which our rules necessitated, and which formed a very important and, it may be added, a very anxious part of our revision.

And here, at the very outset, one general observation is absolutely necessary.

p. 56It is very commonly said, and I fear believed by many to be true, that the text adopted by the Revisers and afterwards published (in different forms) by the two University Presses, hardly differs at all from the afterwards published text of the two distinguished scholars and critics, one of whom was called from us a few years ago, and the other of whom has, to our great sorrow, only recently left us.  I allude, of course, to the Greek Testament, now of world-wide reputation, of Westcott and Hort.  What has been often asserted, and is still repeated, is this, that the text had been in print for some time before it was finally published, and was in the hands of the Revisers almost, if not quite, from the very first.  It was this, so the statement runs, that they really worked upon, and this that they assimilated.

Now this I unhesitatingly declare, as I shall subsequently be able to prove, is contrary to the facts of the case.  It is perfectly true that our two eminent colleagues gave, I believe, to each one of us, from time to time, little booklets of their text as it then stood in print, but which we were always warned were not considered by the editors themselves as final.  These portions of their text were given to us, p. 57not to win us over to adopt it, but to enable us to see each proposed reading in its continuity.  How these booklets were used by the members of the Company generally, I know not.  I can only speak for myself; but I cannot suppress the conviction that I was acting unconsciously in the same manner as the great majority of the Company.  I only used the booklets for occasional reference.  In preparing the portion of the sacred volume on which we were to be engaged in the next session of the Company, I took due note of the readings as well as of the renderings, but I formed my judgement independently on the evidence supplied to me by the notes of the critical edition, whether that of Tischendorf or Tregelles, which I then was in the habit of using.  This evidence was always fully stated to the Company, nearly always by Dr. Scrivener, and it was upon the discussion of this evidence, and not on the reading of any particular editor, on which the decision of the Company was ultimately formed.  We paid in all cases great attention to the arguments of our two eminent colleagues and our experienced colleague, Dr. Scrivener; but each question of reading, as it arose, was settled by the votes of the Company.  The resulting text, as afterwards p. 58published by the Oxford University Press, and edited by Archdeacon Palmer, was thus the direct work of the Company, and may be rightly designated, as it will be in these pages, as the Revisers’ text.

It is of considerable importance that this should be borne in mind; for, in the angry vituperation which was directed against the Revisers’ text, it was tacitly assumed that this text was practically identical with that of Westcott and Hort, and that the difficulties which are to be found in this latter text (and some there certainly are) are all to be found in the text of the Revisers.  How very far such an assumption is from the true state of the case can easily be shown by a simple comparison of one text with the other.  Let us take an example.  I suppose there are very few who can entertain the slightest doubt that in Acts xii. 35, St. Luke tells us that Barnabas and Saul returned from Jerusalem after their mission was over, and took with them (from Jerusalem) St. Mark.  Now what is the reading of Westcott and Hort?—“to Jerusalem” with the Vatican Manuscript, and a fair amount of external support.  We then turn at once to the Revisers’ text and find that from (εξ) is maintained, in spite of the clever arguments p. 59which, in this case, can be urged for an intrinsically improbable reading, and, most likely, were urged at the time, as I observe that the Revisers have allowed the “to” to appear in a margin.

I regret that I have never gone through the somewhat laborious process of minutely comparing the Revisers’ text with the text of Westcott and Hort, but I cannot help thinking that the example I have chosen is a typical one, and does show the sort of relations between the two texts, when what a recent and competent writer (Dr. Salmon, of Trinity College, Dublin) considers to be the difficulties and anomalies and apparent perversities in the text of Westcott and Hort are compared with the decisions of the Revisers [59].  There are, I believe, only sixty-four passages in the whole revision, in which the text of the Revisers, when agreeing with the text of Westcott and Hort, has not also the support of Lachmann, or Tischendorf, or Tregelles.

I observe that the above-named writer expresses his satisfaction that the Revised Version has not superseded the Authorised Version in p. 60our Churches [60a], and that things which were read at Rome in the second century may still be read in our own Churches in the nineteenth century.  This, perhaps, is a strong way of expressing his aversion to the text of Westcott and Hort, but it is not perfectly clear that the Revisers’ text has “so closely” followed the authority of these two eminent critics as to be open, on Dr. Salmon’s part, to the same measure of aversion.  Until more accurate evidence is forthcoming that the Revisers have shown in their text the same sort of studied disregard of Western variations as is plainly to be recognized in the text of Westcott and Hort, I can only fall back on my persuasion, as one who has put to the vote these critical questions very many times, that systematic neglect of Western authority cannot fairly be brought home to the Revisers.  It is much to be regretted then, that in the very opening chapter of his interesting volume, Dr. Salmon roundly states that Westcott and Hort exercised a “predominating influence” on their colleagues in the revision on the question of various readings [60b], and that “more than half of their brother members of the Committee had given no special attention to the subject.”  Now, p. 61assuming that the word “Committee” has been here accidentally used for the more usual term Company, I am forced to say that both statements are really incorrect.  I was permitted by God’s mercy to be present at every meeting of the Company except two, and I can distinctly say that I never observed any indication of this predominating influence.  We knew well that our two eminent colleagues had devoted many years of their lives to the great work on which they were engaged; and we paid full deference to what they urged on each reading as it came before us, but in the end we decided for ourselves.  For it must not be forgotten that we had an eminent colleague (absent only eight times from our 407 meetings) who took a very different view of the critical evidence to that of Westcott and Hort, and never failed very fully, and often very persuasively, to express it.  I am of course alluding to my old friend Dr. Scrivener.  It was often a kind of critical duel between Dr. Hort and Dr. Scrivener, in which everything that could be urged on either side was placed before the Company, and the Company enabled to decide on a full knowledge of the critical facts and reasonings in reference to the reading under consideration.

p. 62Now it is also not correct to say of the Company that finally decided the question, that more than half “had given no special attention to the subject.”  If this refers to the matter subsequently put forward by Dr. Hort in the introductory volume to Westcott and Hort’s Greek Testament, to the clever and instructive genealogical method, and to the numberless applications of it that have given their Greek Testament the pre-eminence it deservedly holds—if this be the meaning of the Provost’s estimate of the critical knowledge of the Company, I should not have taken any exception to the words.  But if “the subject” refers to the general critical knowledge at the time when the Company came together, then I must gently protest against an estimate of the general critical capabilities of the Company that is, really and truly, incorrect.  All but three or four are now resting with God, and among these twenty they were not few who had a good and full knowledge of the New Testament textual criticism of the generation that had just passed away.  Among them were not only the three experts whom I have mentioned, but editors of portions of the New Testament such as Bishop Lightfoot and others, principals of large p. 63educational colleges both in England and Scotland, and scholars like Dean Scott, who were known to take great interest in questions of textual criticism.  A few of these might almost be considered as definitely experts, but all taken together certainly made a very competent body to whose independent judgement the settlement of difficult critical questions could be safely committed.

And, as I venture to think, the text which has been constructed from their decisions, their resultant text as it might be called, will show that the Revisers’ text is an independent text on which great reliance can be placed.  It is the text which I always use myself in my general reading of the New Testament, and I deliberately regard it as one of the two best texts of the New Testament at present extant; the other being the cheap and convenient edition of Professor Nestle, bearing the title “Novum Testamentum Græce, cum apparatu critico ex editionibus et libris manu scriptis collecto.  Stuttgart, 1898.”  This edition is issued by the Würtemberg Bible Society, and will, as I hear, not improbably be adopted by our own Bible Society as their Greek Testament of the future.

The reason why I prefer these two texts p. 64for the general reading of the sacred volume is this, that they both have much in common with the text of Westcott and Hort, but are free from those peculiarities and, I fear I must add, perversities, which do here and there mark the text of that justly celebrated edition.  To Doctors Westcott and Hort all faithful students of the New Testament owe a debt of lasting gratitude which it is impossible to overestimate.  Still, in the introductory volume by Dr. Hort, assumptions have been made, and principles laid down, which in several places have plainly affected the text, and led to the maintenance of readings which, to many minds, it will seem really impossible to accept.  An instance has been given above on page 58, and this is by no means a solitary instance.

Having now shown fairly, I hope, and clearly the thoroughly independent character of the text which I have called the Revisers’ text, I will pass onward, and show the careful manner in which it was constructed, and the circumstances under which we have it in the continuous form in which it has been published by the Press of the University of Oxford.

To do this, it will be necessary to refer p. 65to the rule under which we were directed to carry out this portion of our responsible work.  We had two things to do—to revise the Authorised Version, and also to revise under certain specified limitations the Greek text from which the Authorised Version was made; or, in other words, the fifth edition of Beza’s Greek Testament, published in the year 1698.  The rule under which this second portion of our work was to be performed was as follows: “That the text to be adopted be that for which the evidence is decidedly preponderating; and [let this be noted] that when the text so adopted differs from that from which the Authorised Version was made, the alteration be indicated in the margin.”  Such was the rule in regard of the text, and such was the instruction as to the mode of notifying any alterations that it might have been found necessary to make.

Let us deal first with the direction as to notifying the alterations.  Now as it was soon found practically impossible to place all the alterations in a margin which would certainly be needed for alternative renderings, and for such matters as usually appear in a margin, we left the University Presses to publish, in such manner as they might think p. 66most convenient, the deviations from the Greek text presumed to underlie the Authorised Version.  The Cambridge University Press entrusted to Dr. Scrivener the publication of the Received Text with the alterations of the Revisers placed at the foot of the page.  The Oxford University Press adopted the more convenient method of letting the alterations form part of the continuous text (the readings they displaced being at the foot of the page), and entrusted the editing of the volume to Archdeacon Palmer (one of our Company) who, as we know, performed the duty with great care and accuracy.  Hence the existence of what I term throughout this address as the Revisers’ text.

We can now turn to the first part of the rule and describe in general terms the mode of our procedure.  It differs very slightly from the mode described in the preface of the Revisers of the Old Testament.  The verse on which we were engaged was read by the Chairman.  The first question asked was, whether there was any difference of reading in the Greek text which required our consideration.  If there was none, we proceeded with the second part of our work, the consideration of the rendering.  If there was p. 67a reading in the Greek text that demanded our consideration it was at once discussed, and commonly in the following manner.  Dr. Scrivener stated briefly the authorities, whether manuscripts, ancient versions, or patristic citations, of which details most of us were already aware.  If the alteration was one for which the evidence was patently and decidedly preponderating, it was at once adopted, and the work went onward.  If, however, it was a case where it was doubtful whether the evidence for the alteration was thus decidedly preponderating, then a discussion, often long, interesting, and instructive, followed.  Dr. Hort, if present (and he was seldom absent; only forty-five times out of the 407 meetings) always took part, and finally the vote was taken, and the suggested alteration either adopted or rejected.  If adopted, due note was taken by the secretary, and, if it was thought a case for a margin, the competing reading was therein specified.  If there was a plain difficulty at coming to a decision, and the passage was one of real importance, the decision was not uncommonly postponed to a subsequent meeting, and notice duly given to all the members of the Company.  And so the great work went on to the end p. 68of the first revision; the members of the Company acquiring more and more knowledge and experience, and their decisions becoming more and more judicial and trustworthy.

Few, I think, on reading this simple and truthful description, could fail to place some confidence in results thus patiently and laboriously arrived at.  Few, I think, could forbear a smile when they call to mind the passionate vituperation which at first was lavished on the critical efforts of the Revisers of the text that bears the scarcely correct name of the textus ab omnibus receptus.

But what I have specified was only the first part of our responsible work.  By the memoranda of agreement between the English Companies and the American Committee, it had to be communicated to the American Company of the Revisers of the Authorised Version of the New Testament, among whom were some whose names were well and honorably known in connexion with textual criticism.  Our work, with the American criticisms and suggestions, had then to undergo the second revision.  The greater part of the decisions relating to the text that were arrived at in the first revision were accepted as final; but many were reopened at the p. 69second revision, and the critical experience of the Company, necessarily improved as it had been by the first revision, finally tested by the two-thirds majority the reopened decisions which at the first revision had been carried by simple majorities.  The results of this second revision were then, in accordance with the agreement, communicated to the American Company; but, in the sequel, as will be seen in the lists of the final differences between ourselves and the American Company, the critical differences were but few, and, so far as I can remember, of no serious importance.

The critical labours of the Revisers did not however terminate with the second revision.  The cases were many where the evidence for the readings either adopted or retained in the text was only slightly stronger than that of readings which were in competition with it.  Of this it was obviously necessary that some final intimation should be given to the reader, as the subsequent discovery of additional evidence might be held by a competent critic to invalidate the right of the adopted reading to hold its place in the text.  This intimation could only be given by a final marginal note, for which, as we know, by the arrangement of p. 70the University Presses (see p. 66), our page was now available.

These notes were objected to by one of our critics as quite unprecedented additions; but it will be remembered that there are such notes in the margin of the Authorised Version, though of course few in number (thirty-five, according to Dr. Scrivener), textual criticism in 1611 being only in its infancy.

The necessity for the insertion of such notes was clearly shown in a pamphlet that appeared shortly after the publication of the Revised Version, and was written by two members of the Company.  The three cases in which these notes appeared certainly to be required were thus stated by the two writers: “First, when the text which seemed to underlie the Authorised Version was condemned by a decided preponderance of evidence, but yet was ancient in its character, and belonged to an early line of transmission.  Secondly, when there were such clear tokens of corruption in the reading on which the Authorised Version was based, or such a consent of authority against it, that no one could seriously argue for its retention, but it was not equally clear which of the other competing readings had the best claim to occupy the p. 71vacant place.  In such a case there was not, in truth, decidedly preponderant evidence, except against the text of Beza, and some notice of this fact seemed to be required by critical equity.  The third and last case was when the text which, as represented in the Authorised Version, was retained because the competing reading had not decidedly preponderant evidence (though the balance of evidence was in its favour), and so could not under the rule be admitted.  In such a case again critical equity required a notice of the facts in the margin.”

This quotation, I may remark in passing, is not only useful in explaining when and where marginal notes were demonstrably needed, but also in showing how carefully such questions were considered, and how conscientiously the rules were observed under which our work was to be carried out.

Such were the textual labours of the Company.  They were based on, and were the results of, the critical knowledge that had been slowly acquired during the 115 years that separated the early suggestions of Bentley from the pioneer text of Lachmann in 1831; and, in another generation, had become expanded and matured in the later texts of p. 72Tischendorf, and still more so in the trustworthy and consistent text of our countryman Tregelles.  The labours of these three editors were well known to the greater part of the Revisers and generally known to all; and it was on these labours, and on the critical methods adopted by these great editors, that our own text was principally formed.  We of course owed much to the long labours of our two eminent colleagues, Dr. Westcott and Dr. Hort.  Some of us know generally the principles on which they had based their yet unpublished text, and were to some extent aware of the manner in which they had grouped their critical authorities, and of the genealogical method, which, under their expansion of it, has secured for their text the widespread acceptance it has met with both at home and abroad.

Of these things some of us had a competent knowledge, but the majority had no special knowledge of the genealogical method.  They did know the facts on which it was based—the ascertained trustworthiness of the ancient authorities as compared with the later uncial, and the cursive manuscripts, the general characteristics of these ancient authorities, the alliances that were to be traced between p. 73some of them, and the countries with which they were particularly connected.  This the majority knew generally as a part of the largely increased knowledge which the preceding forty or fifty years, and the labours of Lachmann, Tischendorf, and (so far as he had then published) Tregelles, had placed at the disposal of students of the Greek Testament.  It was on this general knowledge, and not on any portions of a partly printed text, that the decisions of the Company were based; these decisions, however, by the very nature of the case and the use of common authorities, were constantly in accordance with the texts of Lachmann, Tischendorf, and Tregelles, and so with the subsequently printed text of Westcott and Hort.

Such a text, thus independently formed, and yet thus in harmony with the results of the most tested critical researches of our times, has surely great claims on our unreserved acceptance, and does justify us in strongly pleading that a version of such a text, if faithfully executed, should, for the very truth’s sake, be publicly read in our Churches.

That the Revised Version has been faithfully executed, will I hope be shown fully p. 74and clearly in the succeeding chapter.  For the present my care has been to show that the text of which it is a version, and which I have called the Revisers’ Text because it underlies their revision, and, as such, has been published by the Oxford University Press, is in my judgement the best balanced text that has appeared in this country.  I have mentioned with it (p. 63) the closely similar text of the well-known Professor Nestle, but as I have not gone through the laborious task of comparing the text, verse by verse, with that of the Revisers, I speak only in reference to our own country.  I have compared the two texts in several crucial and important passages—such for example as St. John i. 18—and have found them identical.  Bishop Westcott, I know, a short time before his lamented death, expressed to the Committee of the Bible Society his distinct approval of their adopting for future copies of the Society’s Greek Testament Professor Nestle’s text, as published by the Würtemberg Bible Society.

I have now, I trust, fairly shown the independence of the Revisers’ Text, and have, not without reason, complained of my friend Provost Salmon’s estimate of its dependence p. 75on the text and earnestly exerted influence of Dr. Hort and Dr. Westcott.  Of course, as I have shown, there is, and must be, much that is identical in the two texts; but, to fall back on statistics, there are, I believe, more than two hundred places in which the two texts differ, and in nearly all of them—if I may venture to express my own personal opinion—the reading of the Revisers’ Text is critically to be preferred.  Most of these two hundred places seem to be precisely places in which the principles adopted by Westcott and Hort need some corrective modifications.  Greatly as I reverence the unwearied patience, the exhaustive research, and the critical sagacity of these two eminent, and now lamented, members of our former Company, I yet cannot resist the conviction that Dr. Salmon in his interesting Criticism of the Text of the New Testament has successfully indicated three or more particulars which must cause some arrest in our final judgement on the text of Westcott and Hort.

In the first case it cannot be denied that, in the introductory volume, Dr. Hort has shown too distinct a tendency to elevate probable hypotheses into the realm of established facts.  Dr. Salmon specifies one, and that a very far-reaching p. 76instance, in which, in the debatable question whether there really was an authoritative revision of the so-called Syrian text at about a.d. 350, Dr. Hort speaks of this Syrian revision as a vera causa, as opposed to a hypothetical possibility.  This tendency in a subject so complicated as that of textual criticism must be taken note of by the student, and must introduce some element of hesitation in the acceptance of confidently expressed decisions when the subject-matter may still be very plainly debatable.

In the second place, in the really important matter of the nomenclature of the ancient types of text which, since the days of Griesbach, and to some extent before him, have been recognized by all critical scholars, it does not seem possible to accept the titles of the fourfold division of these families of manuscripts which have been adopted by Westcott and Hort.  Griesbach, as is well known, adopted the terms Western, Alexandrian, and Constantinopolitan, for which there is much to be said.  Westcott and Hort recognize four groups.  To the first and considerably the largest they give the title of Syrian, answering to some extent to the Constantinopolitan of Griesbach; to the p. 77second they continue the title of Western; to the third they give the title of Alexandrian, though of a numerically more restricted character than the Alexandrian of Griesbach; to the fourth, an exceedingly small group, apparently consisting of practically not more than two members, they give the title of Neutral, as being free alike from Syrian, Western, and Alexandrian characteristics.  On this Neutral family or group Westcott and Hort lay the greatest critical stress, and in it they place the greatest reliance.  Such is their distribution, and such the names they give to the families into which manuscripts are to be divided and grouped.

The objections to this arrangement and to this nomenclature are, as Dr. Salmon very clearly shows, both reasonable and serious.  In the first place, the title Syrian, though Dr. Salmon allows it to pass, is very misleading, especially to the student.  It is liable to be confounded with the term Syriac, with which it has not and is not intended to have any special connexion, and it fails to convey the amplitude of the family it designates.  If it is to be retained at all, it must be with the prefix suggested by Dr. Schaff—the group being styled as the Graeco-Syrian.  But this p. 78is of slight moment when compared with the serious objections to the term Neutral, as this term certainly tends in practice to give to two manuscripts or even, in some cases, to one of them (the Codex Vaticanus), a preponderating supremacy which cannot be properly conceded when authorities of a high character are found to be ranged on the other side.  There are also other grave objections which are convincingly put forward by Dr. Salmon in the chapter he has devoted to the subject of the nomenclature of the two editors.

We shall be wise therefore if we cancel the term Neutral and use the term Older Alexandrian, as distinguished from the later Alexandrian, and so fall back on the threefold division of Alexandrian (earlier and later), Graeco-Syrian, and Western, though for this last-mentioned term a more expressive designation may perhaps hereafter be found.

The third drawback to the unqualified acceptance of the text of Westcott and Hort is their continuous and studied disregard of Western authorities; and this, notwithstanding that among these authorities are included the singular and not unfrequently suggestive Codex Bezae—of which Dr. Blass has lately p. 79made so remarkable a use—the Old Latin Version, the Graeco-Latin manuscripts, and, to some extent, the Old Syriac Version, all of them authorities to which the designation of Western is commonly applied.  To this grave drawback Dr. Salmon has devoted a chapter to which the attention of the student may very profitably be directed.  Here I cannot enter into details, but of this I am persuaded, that if there should be any fresh discovery of textual authorities, it is by no means unlikely that they may be of a Western character, and if so, that many decisions in the text of Westcott and Hort will have to be modified by some editor of the future.  At any rate, taking the critical evidence as now we find it, we cannot but feel that Dr. Salmon has made out his case, and that in the edition of which now we are speaking there has been an undue, and even a contemptuous, disregard of Western authorities.

Here I must close this address, yet not without expressing the hope that I may have induced some of you, my Reverend Brethren, to look into these things for yourselves.  Do not be deterred by the thought that to do so you must read widely and consult many p. 80authorities.  This is really not necessary for the acquiring of an intelligent interest in the text of the Greek Testament.  With a good edition (with appended critical authorities), whether that of Tischendorf or of Tregelles, and with guidance such as that which you will find in the compendious Companion to the Greek Testament of Dr. Schaff, you will be able to begin, and when you have seriously begun, you will not be, I am persuaded, very likely to leave off.

p. 81ADDRESS IV
Nature of the Renderings

From the text we now turn to the renderings, and to the general principles that were followed, both in the Old and in the New Testament.  The revision of the English text was in each case subject to the same general rule, viz. “To introduce as few alterations as possible into the Text of the Authorised Version consistently with faithfulness”; but, owing to the great difference between the two languages, the Hebrew and the Greek, the application of the rule was necessarily different, and the results not easily comparable the one with the other.

It will be best then to consider the renderings in the two Testaments separately, and to form the best estimate we can of their character and of their subordination to the general rule, with due regard to the widely different nature of the structure and grammatical principles of the two languages through which p. 82God has been pleased to reveal His truth to the children of men.

I.  We begin then with the Revised Version of the Old Testament, and naturally turn for general guidance to the Preface of those who were engaged in the long, diversified, and responsible work.  Their general principles as to departures from the Authorised Version would appear to be included in the following clearly-specified particulars.  They departed from the Authorised Version (a) where they did not agree with it as to the meaning or construction of a word or sentence; (b) where it was necessary, for the sake of uniformity, to render such parallel passages as were identical in Hebrew by the same English words; (c) where the English of the Authorised Version was liable to be misunderstood by reason of its being archaic or obscure; (d) where the rendering of an earlier English version seemed preferable; and (e) where, by an apparently slight change, it was possible to bring out more fully the meaning of a passage of which the translation was substantially accurate.

These principles, which I have been careful to specify in the exact words of the Revisers, will appear to every impartial reader to be p. 83fully in harmony with the principle of faithfulness; and will be found—if an outsider may presume to make a passing comment—to have been carried out with pervasive consistency and uniformity.

The Revisers further notice certain particulars of which the general reader should take full note, so much of the random criticisms of the revised text (especially in the New Testament) having been due to a complete disregard in each case of the Preface, and of the reasons given for changes which long experience had shown to be both reasonable and necessary.

The first particular is the important question of the rendering of the word “Jehovah.”  Here the Revisers have thought it advisable to follow the usage of the Authorised Version, and not to insert the word uniformly in place of “Lord” or “God,” which words when printed in small capitals represent the words substituted by Jewish custom for the ineffable Name according to the vowel points by which it is distinguished.  To this usage the Revisers have steadily adhered with the exception of a very few passages in which the introduction of a proper name seemed to be required.  In this grave matter, as we all probably know, the American Company has expressed its dissent p. 84from the decision of the English Company, and has adopted the proper name wherever it occurs in the Hebrew text for “the Lord” and “God.”  Most English readers will agree with our Revisers.  It may indeed be said, now that we can read the American text continuously, that there certainly are many passages in which the proper name seems to come upon eye or ear with a serious and appropriate force; still the reverence with which we are accustomed to treat what the Revisers speak of as “the ineffable Name” will lead most of us to sacrifice the passages, where the blessed name may have an impressive force, to the reverential uniformity of our Authorised Version, and to the latent fear that frequent iteration might derogate from the solemnity with which we instinctively clothe the ever-blessed name of Almighty God.

The next particular relates to terms of natural history.  Here changes have only been made where it was certain that the Authorised Version was incorrect, and highly probable that the word substituted was right.  Where doubt existed, the text was left unchanged, but the alternative word was placed in the margin.  In regard of other terms, of which the old rendering was certainly wrong, p. 85as in the case of the Hebrew term Ashêrah (probably the wooden symbol of a goddess), the Revisers have used the word, whether in the singular or plural, as a proper name.  In the case of the Hebrew term “Sheôl” (corresponding to the Greek term “Hades”), variously rendered in the Authorised Version by the words “grave,” “pit,” and “hell,” the Revisers have adopted in the historical books the first or second words with a marginal note, “Heb. Sheol,” but in the poetical books they have reversed this arrangement.  The American Revisers, on the contrary, specify that in all cases where the word occurs in the Hebrew text they place it unchanged in the English text, and without any margin.  The case is a difficult one, but the English arrangement is to be preferred, as the reader would not so plainly need a preliminary explanation.

The last case that it here seems necessary to allude to is the change everywhere of the words “the tabernacle of the congregation” into “the tent of meeting,” as the former words convey an entirely wrong sense.  These and the use of several other terms are carefully noted and explained by the Revisers, and will, I hope, induce every careful reader of their revision to make it his duty to study their p. 86prefatory words.  The almost unavoidable differences between them and the American Revisers, as to our own language, are alluded to by them in terms both friendly and wise, and may be considered fully to express the sentiments of the New Testament Company, by whom the subject is less precisely alluded to.

In passing from the Preface to the great work which it introduces, I feel the greatest difficulty, as a member of a different Company, in making more than a few very general comments.  In fact, I should scarcely have ventured to do even this, had I not met with a small but very instructive volume on the revision of the Authorised Version of the Old Testament written by one of the American Revisers, and published at New York some fifteen or sixteen years ago.  The volume is entitled—perhaps with excusable brevity—A Companion to the Revised Old Testament.  The writer was Rev. Dr. Talbot W. Chambers, of the Collegiate Reformed Dutch Church of New York, from whose preface I learn that he was the only pastor in the Company, the others being professors in theological seminaries, and representing seven different denominations and nine different institutions.  The book is written with great modesty, and as far as p. 87I can judge, with a good working knowledge of Hebrew.  The writer disclaims in it the position of speaking in any degree for the Company of which he was a member, but mentions that his undertaking was approved of by his colleagues, and received the assistance, more or less, of all of them.  He was a member of the Company during the last ten years of its labours.

I can recommend this useful volume to any student of the Old Testament who is desirous to see a selected list of the changes made by the Revisers in the Pentateuch, Historical Books, Poetical Books, and Prophetical Books.  These changes are given in four chapters, and in most cases are accompanied by explanatory comments, which from their tenor often seem to be reminiscences of corporate discussion.  I mention these particulars as I am not aware of any similar book on the Old Testament written by any one of the English Company.  If there is such a book, I do sincerely hope the writer will forgive me for not having been so fortunate as to meet with it.

The remaining comments I shall venture to make on the rendering of the Old Testament will rest on the general knowledge I have acquired of this carefully-executed and conservative p. 88revision, and on some consideration of the many illustrations which Dr. Chambers has selected in his interesting manual.  The impression that has long been left on my mind by the serious reading of the Old Testament in the Revised Version is that not nearly enough has been said of the value of the changes that have been made, and of the strong argument they furnish for the reading of the Revision in the public services of the Church.  Let any serious person read the Book of Job with the two English versions in parallel columns, and form a sober opinion on the comparison—his judgement I am confident will be, that if the Revision of this Book be a fair sample of the Revision generally, our congregations have a just right to claim that the Revised Version of the Old Testament should be publicly read in their churches.  Ours is a Bible-loving country, and the English Bible in its most correct form can never be rightly withheld from our public ministrations.

I shall now close this portion of the present Address with a few comments on the four parts of the Revision to which I have already alluded—the Pentateuch, and the Historical, Poetical, and Prophetical Books of the Old Testament.

p. 89What the careful reader of Genesis will not fail to observe is the number of passages in which comparatively small alterations give a new light to details of the sacred narrative which, in general reading, are commonly completely overlooked.  A new colouring, so to speak, is given to the whole, and rectifications of prevailing conceptions not unfrequently introduced, either in the text or, as often happens, by means of the margin, where they could hardly have been anticipated.  The prophecy of Jacob as to the future of his children (chap. xlix) will supply an instance.  In the character of Reuben few of us would understand more than general unsteadiness and changefulness in purpose and in act, but a glance at the margin will show that impulse and excitability were plainly elements in his nature which led him into the grievous and hateful sin for which his father deposed him from the excellency of a first-born.

What has been said of the Book of Genesis is equally applicable to the remainder of the Pentateuch.  The object throughout is elucidation, not simply correction of errors but removal of obscurity, if not by changes introduced into the printed text, yet certainly always by the aid of the margin; as, for p. 90example, in the somewhat difficult passage of Exodus xvii. 16, where really, it would seem, that the margin might rightly have had its place in the text.  Sometimes the correction of what might seem trivial error, as in Exodus xxxiv. 33, gives an intelligible view of the whole details of the circumstance specified.  Moses put on the veil after he had ceased speaking with them.  While he was speaking to them he was speaking as God’s representative.  In Numbers xi. 25 the correction of a mistranslation removes what might otherwise lead to a very grave misconception, viz. that the gift of prophecy was continuous in the case of the whole elderhood.  In the chapters relating to Balaam, independently of the alterations that are made in the language of his remarkable utterances, the mere fact of their being arranged rhythmically could not fail to cause the public reader, almost unconsciously, to change his tone of voice, and to make the reading of the prophecy more distinct and impressive.  Among many useful changes in Deuteronomy one may certainly be noticed (chap. xx. 19), in which the obscure and difficult clause in regard of the tree in the neighbourhood of the besieged city is made at any rate intelligible.

p. 91In the historical books attention may be particularly called to the Song of Deborah and Barak, in which there are several important and elucidatory corrections, and in which the rhythmic arrangement will be felt to bear force and impressiveness both to reader and to hearer.  In the remaining Books changes will be found fewer in number and less striking; but occasionally, as for example in 1 Kings xx. 27, we come across changes that startle us by their unlooked-for character, but which, if correct, add a deeper degradation to the outpoured blood of Ahab in the pool of Samaria.

Of the poetical Books, I have already alluded to the Book of Job and to the high character of the Revision.  The changes in this noble poem are many, and were especially needed, for the rendering of the Book of Job has always been felt to be one of the weakest portions of the great work of the Revisers of 1611.  Illustrations I am unable to give, in a cursory notice like the present, but I may again press the Revisers’ version of this deeply interesting Book on the serious attention of every earnest student of the Old Testament.

It is difficult to say much on the Revised Version of the Book of Psalms, as Coverdale’s p. 92Version, as we have it in our Prayer Book, so completely occupies the foreground of memory and devotional interest, that I fear comparatively few study the Bible Version or the careful and conservative work of the Revisers.  This Revision, however, of the version of the Book of Psalms deserves more attention than it appears to have received.  Not only will the faithful reader find in it the necessary corrections of the version of 1611, but clear guidance as to the meaning of the sometimes utterly unintelligible renderings of the version of the Great Bible which still holds its place in our Prayer Books.  To take two examples: let the reader look at the Authorised Version and Prayer Book Version of Psalm lxviii. 16, and of lxxxiv. 5, 6, and contrast with both the rendering of the Revised Version.  This last-mentioned rendering will be found, as I have said, to correct the Authorised Version, and (especially in the second passage) to remove what is unintelligible in the Prayer Book version.  It may thus be used by the Prayer Book reader of the Psalms as a ready and easily accessible means of arriving at the real meaning of the many ambiguities and obscurities which long familiarity with the Prayer Book Version has led him to pass over without p. 93any particular notice.  The revision of the Prayer Book Version has been long felt to be a very real necessity.  To read and to hear read in the daily services of the Church what, in parts, cannot be understood can never be spiritually good for reader or hearer.  And yet, such is the really devout conservatism of the bulk of our congregations, that though a careful revision, sympathetically executed, has been strongly urged by some of our most earnest scholars and divines, it is more than doubtful whether such a revision ever will be carried out.  If this be so, it only remains for us so to encourage, in our schools and in our Bible classes, the efficient explanatory help of the Revised Version.  If this is steadily done, nearly all that is at present obscure or unintelligible in the Prayer Book Version will no longer remain so to the greater part of our worshippers.

Of the remaining Poetical Books the revision of the Authorised Version of the Song of Solomon must be specially noticed.  In the common version the dramatic element is almost entirely lost, the paragraphs are imperfectly noted, and obscurities not a few the inevitable consequence.  In a large degree these serious imperfections are removed, and p. 94the whole tenor of this exquisite poem made clear to the general reader.  The margin will show the great care bestowed on the poem by the Revisers; and the fewness and trifling nature of the changes maintained by the American Company will also show, in a confessedly difficult Book, the somewhat remarkable amount of the agreement between the two Companies.  On the Prophetical Books I do not feel qualified to speak except in very general terms; and for illustrations must refer the reader to the large list of the corrected renderings, especially of the prophecy of Isaiah, in the useful work of Dr. Chambers, who has devoted at least eleven pages to the details of the Revisers’ work on the Evangelist of the Old Covenant.  The impression which the consideration of these details leaves on the mind of the reader will be, I am confident, the same as that which is I believe felt by all professed Hebrew scholars who have examined the version, viz. that it is not only faithful and thorough, but often rises to a very high level of poetic utterance.  Let any one read aloud in the Revised Version the well-known passage, chap. xiv. 12-23, already nobly rendered in the Old Version, and ask himself if the seemingly slight and trivial p. 95changes have not maintained this splendid utterance at a uniform height of sustained and eloquent vigour.

In the prophecies of Jeremiah and Ezekiel the changes are less striking and noticeable, not however from any diminished care in the work of revision, but from the tenor of the prophecies being less familiar to the general reader.  Four pages of instructive illustrations are supplied by Dr. Chambers in the case of each of the two prophecies.  The more noticeable changes in Daniel and Hosea are also specified by Dr. Chambers, but the remainder of the minor prophets, with perhaps the exception of Habakkuk, are passed over with but little illustrative notice.  A very slight inspection however of these difficult prophecies will certainly show two things—first, that the Revisers of 1611 did their work in this portion of Holy Scripture less successfully than elsewhere; secondly, that the English and American Revisers—between whom the differences are here noticeably very few—laboured unitedly and successfully in keeping their revision of the preceding version of these prophecies fully up to the high level of the rest of their work.

II.  I now pass onward to the consideration p. 96of the renderings in the Revised Version of the New Testament.

The object and purpose of the consideration will be exactly the same, as in the foregoing pages, to show the faithful thoroughness of the Revision, but the manner of showing this will be somewhat different to the method I have adopted in the foregoing portion of this Address.  I shall not now bring before you examples of the faithful and suggestive accuracy of the revision, for to do this adequately would far exceed the limits of these Addresses; and further, if done would far fall short of the instructive volume of varied and admirably arranged illustrations written only four years ago by a member of the Company [96], now, alas, no longer with us, of which I shall speak fully in my next Address.

What I shall now do will be to show that the principles on which the version of the New Testament was based have been in no degree affected by the copious literature connected with the language of the Greek Testament and its historical position which has appeared since the Revision was completed.  It is only quite lately that the Revisers have been represented as being insufficiently acquainted, p. 97in several particulars, with the Greek of the New Testament, and in a word, being twenty years behind what is now known on the subject [97].  Such charges are easily made, and may at first sight seem very plausible, as the last fifteen or twenty years have brought with them an amount of research in the language of the Greek Testament which might be thought to antiquate some results of the Revision, and to affect to some extent the long labours of those who took part in it.  The whole subject then must be fairly considered, especially in such an Address as the present, in which the object is to set forth the desirableness and rightfulness of using the version in the public services of the Church.

But first a few preliminary comments must be made on the manner and principles in which the changes of rendering have been introduced into the venerable Version which was intrusted to us to be revised.

The foremost principle to be alluded to is the one to which we adhered steadily and persistently during the whole ten years of our labour—the principle of faithfulness to the original language in which it pleased p. 98Almighty God that His saving truth should be revealed to the children of men.  As the lamented Bishop of Durham says most truly and forcibly in his instructive “Lessons on the Revised Version of the New Testament [98a];” “Faithfulness, the most candid and the most scrupulous, was the central aim of the Revisers [98b].”  Faithfulness, but to what?  Certainly not to “the sense and spirit of the original, ” as our critics contended must have been meant by the rule,—but to the original in its plain grammatical meaning as elicited by accurate interpretation.  This I can confidently state was the intended meaning of the word when it appeared in the draft rule that was submitted to the Committee of Convocation.  So it was understood by them; and so, I may add, it was understood by the Company, because I can clearly remember a very full discussion on the true meaning of the word at one of the early meetings of the Company.  Some alteration had been proposed in the rendering of the Greek to which objection was made that it did not come under the rule and principle of faithfulness.  This led to a general, and, as it proved, a final p. 99discussion.  Bishop Lightfoot, I remember, took an earnest part in it.  He contended that our revision must be a true and thorough one; that such a meeting as ours could not be assembled for many years to come, and that if the rendering was plainly more accurate and more true to the original, it ought not to be put aside as incompatible with some supposed aspect of the rule of faithfulness.  Proposals were often set aside without the vote being taken, on the ground that it was not “worth while” to make them, and in a trivial matter to disturb recollection of a familiar text; but the non-voting resulted from the proposal being withdrawn owing to the mind of the Company being plainly against it, and not from any direct appeal to the principle of faithfulness.  If the proposal was pressed, the vote of the Company was always taken, and the matter authoritatively settled.

The contention, often very recklessly urged, that the Revisers deliberately violated the principles under which the work was committed to them is thus, to use the kindest form of expression, entirely erroneous.  I have dwelt upon this matter because when properly understood it clears away more than half of the objections that have been urged p. 100against our Revision.  Of the remainder I cannot but agree with good Bishop Westcott that no criticism of the Revision—and the criticisms were of every form and kind “pedantry, spiritless literality, irritating triviality, destroyed rhythm,” and so forth—no criticism ever came upon us by surprise.  The Revisers, as the Bishop truly says, heard in the Jerusalem Chamber all the arguments against their conclusions they have heard since; and he goes on to say that no restatement of old arguments had in the least degree shaken his confidence in the general results.  Such words from one now, alas, no longer with us, but whose memory we cherish as one of the most wide-minded as well as truth-seeking of the biblical scholars of our own times, may well serve to reassure the partially hesitating reader of the Revised Version of its real trustworthiness and fidelity.  But we must not confine our attention simply to the renderings that hold a place in the text of the Revised Version.  We must take into our consideration a very instructive portion of the work of the Revisers which is, I fear, utterly neglected by the general reader—the alternative readings and renderings that hold a place in the margin, and p. 101form an integral portion of the Revision.  Though we are now more particularly considering the renderings, I include here the marginal readings, as the relation of the margins to the Version could hardly be fully specified without taking into consideration the margin in its entirety.  As readers of the Preface to the New Testament (very few, I fear, to judge by current criticisms) will possibly remember, alternative readings and renderings were prohibited in the case of the Authorised Version, but, as we know, the prohibition was completely disregarded, some thirty-five notes referring to readings, and probably more than five hundred to alternative renderings.  In the fundamental rules of Convocation for the Revision just the opposite course was prescribed, and, as we know, freely acted on.

These alternative readings and renderings must be carefully considered, as in the case of renderings much light is often thrown on the true interpretation of the passage, especially in the more difficult portions of the New Testament.  Their relation however to the actually accepted Version must not be exaggerated, either in reference to readings or renderings.  I will make plain what I mean p. 102by an example.  Dr. Westcott specifies a reading of importance in John i. 18 where he states that the reading in the margin (“God only begotten”) did in point of fact express the opinion of the majority of the Company, but did not appear in the text of the Version because it failed to secure the two-thirds majority of those present at the final revision.  This, perhaps, makes a little too much of an acceptance at a somewhat early period of the labours of the Company.  So far as I remember the case, the somewhat startling alteration was accepted at the first revision (when the decision was to be by simple majorities), but a margin was granted, which of course continued up to the second revision.  At that revision the then text and the then margin changed places.  Dr. Hort, I am well aware, published an important pamphlet on the subject, but I have no remembrance that the first decision on the reading was alluded to, either at the second revision or afterwards, in any exceptional manner.  It did but share the fate of numberless alterations at the first revision that were not finally confirmed.

The American Revisers, it will be observed, agree as to the reading in question with their English brethren; and the same too is the p. 103judgement of Professor Nestle in his carefully edited Greek Testament to which I have already referred.

I have dwelt upon this particular case, because though I am especially desirous to encourage a far greater attention to the margin than it has hitherto received, I am equally desirous that the margin should not be elevated above its real position.  That position is one of subordination to the version actually adopted, whether when maintaining the older form or changing it.  It expresses the judgement of a legal, if not also of a numerical, minority, and, in the case of difficult passages (as in Rom. ix. 4), the judgement of groups which the Company, as a whole, deemed worthy of being recorded.  But, not only should the margin thus be considered, but the readings and renderings preferred by the American Committee, which will often be found suggestive and helpful.  These, as we know, are now incorporated in the American Standard Edition of the Revised Bible; and the result, I fear, will be that the hitherto familiar Appendix will disappear from the smaller English editions of the Revised Version of the Old and New Testament.  It is perhaps inevitable, but it will be a real loss.  All p. 104I can hope is that in some specified English editions of the Old and New Testament each Appendix will regularly be maintained, and that this token of the happy union of England and America in the blessed work of revising their common version of God’s holy Word will thus be preserved to the end.

But we must now pass onward to considerations very closely affecting the renderings of the Revised Version of the Greek Testament.

I have already said that very recently a new and unexpected charge has been brought against the Revisers of the Authorised Version.  And the charge is no less than this, that the Revisers were ignorant in several important particulars of the language from which the version was originally made that they were appointed to revise.

Now in meeting a charge of this nature, in which we may certainly notice that want of considerate intelligence which marks much of the criticism that has been directed against our revision, it seems always best when dealing with a competent scholar who does not give in detail examples on which the criticism rests, to try and understand his point of view and the general reasons for his unfavourable pronouncement.  And in this case I do not think p. 105it difficult to perceive that the imputation of ignorance on the part of the Revisers has arisen from an exaggerated estimate of the additions to our knowledge of New Testament Greek which have accumulated during the twenty years that have passed away since the Revision was completed.  If this be a correct, as it is certainly a charitable, estimate of the circumstances under which ignorance has been imputed to us in respect of several matters relating to the Greek on which we were engaged, let us now leave our critics, and deal with these reasonable questions.  First, what was the general knowledge, on the part of the Revisers, of the character and peculiarities of New Testament Greek?  Secondly, what is the amount of the knowledge relative to New Testament Greek that has been acquired since the publication of the revision? and thirdly, to what extent does this recently acquired knowledge affect the correctness and fidelity of the renderings that have been adopted by the Revisers?  If these three questions are plainly answered we shall have dealt fully and fairly with the doubts that have been expressed or implied as to the correctness of the revision.

First, then, as to the general knowledge p. 106which the revisers had of the character and peculiarities of the Greek of the New Testament.

This question could not perhaps be more fairly and correctly dealt with than by Bishop Westcott in the opening words of his chapter on Exactness in Grammatical Detail, in the valuable work to which I have already referred.  What he states probably expresses very exactly the general view taken by the great majority, if not by all, of the Revisers in regard of the Greek of the New Testament.  What the Bishop says of the language is this: “that it is marked by unique characteristics.  It is separated very clearly, both in general vocabulary and in construction, from the language of the LXX, the Greek Version of the Old Testament, which was its preparation, and from the Greek of the Fathers which was its development [106].”

If we accept this as a correct statement of the general knowledge of the Revisers as to the language of the Greek Testament, we naturally ask further, on what did they rely for the correct interpretation of it.  The answer can readily be given, and it is this: Besides their general knowledge of Greek which, in p. 107the case of the large majority, was very great, their knowledge of New Testament Greek was distinctly influenced by the grammatical views of Professor Winer, of whose valuable grammar of the Greek Testament one of our Company, as I have mentioned in my first Address, had been a well-known and successful translator.  Though his name was not very frequently brought up in our discussions, the influence his grammar exerted among us, directly and indirectly, was certainly great; but it went no further than grammatical details.  His obvious gravitation to the idea of New Testament Greek forming a sort of separate department of its own probably never was shared, to any perceptible extent, by any one of us.  We did not enter very far into these matters.  We knew by every day’s working experience that New Testament Greek differed to some extent from the Greek to which we had been accustomed, and from the Septuagint Greek to which from time to time we referred.  But further than this we did not go, nor care to go.  We had quite enough on our hands.  We had a very difficult task to perform, we had to revise under prescribed conditions a version which needed revision almost in every verse, and we had no time to p. 108enter into questions that did not then appear to bear directly on our engrossing and responsible work.

But now it must be distinctly admitted that recent investigation and, to a certain extent, recent discoveries have cast so much new light on New Testament Greek that it becomes a positive duty to take into consideration what has been disclosed to us by the labours of the last fifteen years as to New Testament Greek, and then fairly to face the question whether the particular labours of the Revisers have been seriously affected by it.  Let us bear in mind, however, that it may be quite possible that a largely increased knowledge of the position which what used to be called Biblical Greek now occupies may be clearly recognized, and yet only comparatively few changes necessitated by it in syntactic details and renderings.  But let us not anticipate.  What we have now to do is to ascertain the nature and amount of the disclosures and new knowledge to which I have alluded.

This may be briefly stated as emanating from a very large amount of recent literature on post-classical Greek, and from a careful and scientific investigation of the transition from the earlier post-classical to the later, p. 109and thence to the modern Greek of the present time.  Such an investigation, illustrated as it has been by the voluminous collection of the Inscriptions, and the already large and growing collection of the Papyri, has thrown indirectly considerable light on New Testament Greek, and has also called out three works, each of a very important character, and posterior to the completion of the Revision, which deal directly with the Greek of the New Testament.  These three works I will now specify.

The first, which is still in progress, and has not, I think, yet received a translator, is the singularly accurate, and in parts corrective, edition of Winer’s “Grammar” by Prof. Schmiedel.  The portion on the article is generally recognized as of great value and importance.

The second work is the now well-translated “Bible Studies” of Dr. Deissmann of Heidelberg [109].  This remarkable work, of which the full title is “Contributions, chiefly from Papyri and Inscriptions, to the History of the Language, the Literature, and the Religion of Hellenistic Judaism, and Primitive Christianity,” p. 110contains not only a clear estimate of the nature of New Testament Greek, but also a large and instructive vocabulary of about 160 words and expressions in the New Testament, most of which receive in varying degrees illustration from the Papyri, and other approximately contemporary sources.  It must be noted, however, that the writer himself specifies that his investigations “have been, in part, arranged on a plan which is polemical [110a].”  This avowal must, to some extent, affect our full acceptance of all the results arrived at in this striking and laborious work.

The third work is a “Grammar of New Testament Greek” by the well-known and distinguished scholar, Dr. Blass, and is deserving of the fullest attention from every earnest student of the Greek Testament.  It has been excellently translated by Mr. St. John Thackeray, of the Education Department [110b].  It is really hardly possible to speak too highly of this helpful and valuable work.  Its value consists in this—that it has been written, on the one hand, by an accomplished classical scholar, and, on the other hand, by one who is thoroughly acquainted with the investigations of the last fifteen p. 111years.  As his Introduction clearly shows, he fully accepts the estimate that is now generally entertained of the Greek of the New Testament, viz. that it is no isolated production, as regards language, that had no historic relation to the Greek of the past or of the future.  It was not, to any great extent, derived from the Greek translations of the Old Testament—often, as Dr. Blass says, slavishly literal—nor from the literary language of the time, but was the spoken Greek of the age to which it belonged, modified by the position and education of the speaker, and also to some extent, though by no means to any large extent, by the Semitic element which, from time to time, discloses itself in the language of the inspired writers.  This last-written epithet, which I wittingly introduce, must not be lost sight of by the Christian student.

Dr. Blass quite admits that the language of the Greek Testament may be rightly treated in connexion with the discoveries in Egypt furnished by the Papyri; but he has also properly maintained elsewhere [111] that the books of the New Testament form a special group to be primarily explained by itself.  Greatly p. 112as we are indebted to Dr. Deissmann for his illustrations, especially in regard of vocabulary, we must read with serious caution, and watch all attempts to make Inscriptions or Papyri do the work of an interpretation of the inner meaning of God’s Holy Word which belongs to another realm, and to the self-explanations which are vouchsafed to us in the reverent study of the Book—not of Humanity (as Deissmann speaks of the New Testament) [112] but of—Life.

I have now probably dealt sufficiently with the second of the three questions which I have put forward for our consideration.  I have stated the general substance of the knowledge which has been permitted to come to us since the revision was completed.  I now pass onward to the third and most difficult question equitably to answer, “To what extent does this newly-acquired knowledge affect the correctness and fidelity of the revision of the Authorised Version of the New Testament?”  It is easy enough to speak of “ignorance” on the part of the Revisers, especially after what I have specified in the answer to the question on which we have just been meditating; but p. 113the real and practical question is this, “If the Revisers had all this knowledge when they were engaged on their work, would it have materially affected their revision?”

To this more limited form of the question I feel no difficulty in replying, that I am fully and firmly persuaded that it would not have materially affected the revision; and my grounds for returning this answer depend on these two considerations: first, that the full knowledge which some of us had of Winer’s Grammar, and the general knowledge that was possessed of it by the majority, certainly enabled us to realize that the Greek on which we were engaged, while retaining very many elements of what was classical, had in it also not only many signs of post-classical Greek, but even of usages which we now know belong to later developments.  These later developments, all of which are, to some extent, to be recognized in the Greek Testament, such as the disappearance of the optative, the use of ίνα with the subjunctive in the place of the infinitive, the displacement of μετά by συν, the interchange of εις and εν, of περί and υπέρ, the use of compound forms without any corresponding increase of meaning, the extended usage of the aorist, the wider sphere p. 114of the accusative, and many similar indications of later Greek—all these were so far known to us as to exercise a cautionary influence on our revision, and to prevent us overpressing the meaning of words and forms that had lost their original definiteness.

My second reason for the answer I have given to the question is based on the accumulating experience we were acquiring in our ten years of labour, and our instinctive avoidance of renderings which in appearance might be precise, but did in reality exaggerate the plain meaning intended by the Greek that we were rendering.  Sometimes, but only rarely, we fell into this excusable form of over-rendering.  Perhaps the concluding words of Mark xiv. 65 will supply an example.  At any rate, the view taken by Blass [114] would seem to suggest a less literal form of translation.

When I leave the limited form of answer, and face the broad and general question of the extent to which our recently-acquired knowledge affects the correctness and fidelity of the revision, I can only give an answer founded on an examination of numerous passages in which I have compared the comments of Dr. Blass in his Grammar, and p. 115of Dr. Deissmann in his “Bible Studies with the renderings of the Revisers.”  And the answer is this, that the number of cases in which any change could reasonably be required has been so small, so very small, that the charge of any real ignorance, on the part of the Revisers, of the Greek on which they were engaged, must be dismissed as utterly and entirely exaggerated.  We have now acquired an increased knowledge of the character of the Greek of the New Testament, and of the place it holds in the historical transition of the language from the earlier post-classical to the later developments of the language, but this knowledge, interesting and instructive as it may be, leaves the principles of correctly translating it practically intact.  In this latter process we must deal with the language of the Greek Testament as we would deal with the language of any other Greek book, and make the book, as far as we have the means of doing so, its own interpreter.

Having thus shown in broad and general terms, as far as I have been able to do so, that we may still, notwithstanding the twenty years that have passed away, regard the Revised Version of the Greek Testament as p. 116a faithfully executed revision, and its renderings such as may be accepted with full Christian confidence, I now turn to the easier, but not less necessary, duty of bringing before you some considerations why this Version and, with it, the Revised Version of the Old Testament, should be regularly used in the public services of our Mother Church.

p. 117ADDRESS V.
Public use of the Version.

We have now traced the external, and to some extent the internal history of Revision from the time, some fifty years ago, when it began to occupy the thoughts of scholars and divines, down to the present day.

We have seen the steady advance in Church opinion as to its necessity; its earliest manifestations, and the silent progress from what was tentative and provisional to authoritative recognition, and to carefully formulated procedures under the high and venerable sanction of the two Houses of the Convocation of Canterbury.  We have further seen how the movement extended to America, and how some of the best scholars and divines of that Christian country co-operated with those of our own country in the arduous and responsible work of revising their common heritage, the Version of God’s most Holy Word, as set forth by authority 290 years ago.  We have noted p. 118too, that in this work not less than one hundred scholars and divines were engaged—for fourteen years in the case of the Old Testament, and for ten years in the case of the New Testament—and that this long period of labour and study was marked by regularly appointed and faithfully kept times of meeting, and by the interchange with the Revisers on the other side of the Atlantic of successive portions of the work, until the whole was completed.

And this Revision, as we have seen, has included a full consideration of the text of the original languages as well as of the renderings.  In the Old Testament, adherence to the Massorite Text has left only a very limited number of passages in which consideration of the ancient Version was deemed to be necessary; but, in the New Testament, as we well know, questions of textual criticism occupied a large portion of the time and attention of the Revisers, both here and in America.  In regard of the renderings, we have seen the care and thoroughness with which the Revision was carried out, the marginal notes in both Testaments showing convincingly, especially on the more difficult passages, how every rendering that could be regarded as in any degree probable received its full share of p. 119consideration.  Finally, it must not be forgotten that, in the case of the New Testament, the serious question whether the research in New Testament Greek since the Revision was completed has, to any appreciable extent, affected the suggestive light and truth of really innumerable corrections and changes—this too has been faced, and the charge fairly met, that just conclusions drawn from the true nature of the Greek, gravely affecting interpretation, have been ignored by the Revisers.

So much of the latter part of the last Address has been taken up with this necessary duty of showing that the changes in renderings cannot be invalidated by a priori considerations founded on the alleged insufficient knowledge, on the part of the Revisers, of the nature of the Greek they were translating, that I have not cited examples of the light-giving and often serious nature of the changes made in the Authorised Version.  This I regretted at the time; but a little consideration showed me that it was much better for the cause in which I am engaged that I should refer you for illustrations of the nature and value of the renderings in the Revised Version of the New Testament to p. 120a singularly fruitful and helpful volume, published only four years ago, and so subsequently to the researches in New Testament Greek of which I have spoken.  This volume was written by a member of our Company—now, alas, no longer with us—whose knowledge of the Greek language, whether of earlier or of later date, no one could possibly doubt.  I allude to the “Lessons of the Revised Version of the New Testament,” by Dr. Westcott, a volume that has not yet received the full attention which its remarkable merits abundantly claim, for it.

Of this volume I shall speak more fully later on in this Address, my object now being to set forth the desirableness, I might even say the duty, of using the Revised Version in the Public Services of the Church.

After the summary I have just given of the external history of this great movement, does not the question come home to us, Why has all this been done?  For what have the hundred labourers in the great work freely given their time and their energies during the four and twenty years (speaking collectively) that were spent on the work?  For what did the venerable Convocation of our Province give the weight of its sanction and authority p. 121when it drew up the fundamental rules in accordance with which all has been done?  Can there be any other answer than this?  All has been done to bring the truth of God’s most Holy Word more faithfully and more freshly home to the hearts and consciences of our English-speaking people.  And if this be so, how are ministers of this Holy Word to answer the further question, When we are met together in the House of God to hear His word and His message of salvation to mankind, how hear we it?  In the traditional form in which it has been heard for wellnigh three hundred years, or in a form on which, to ensure faithfulness and accuracy, such labour has been bestowed as that which we are now considering?  It seems impossible to hesitate as to our answer.  And yet numbers do hesitate; and partly from indifference, partly from a vague fear of disquieting a congregation, partly, and probably chiefly, from a sense of difficulty as to the rightful mode of introducing the change, the old Version is still read, albeit with an uneasy feeling on the part of the public reader; the uneasy feeling being this, that errors in regard of Holy Scripture ought not to remain uncorrected nor obscurities left to cloud the meaning of p. 122God’s Word when there is a current Version from which errors are removed, and in which obscurities are dissipated.  Why should not such a Version be read in the ears of our people?

This is the question which I am confident many a one of you, my dear friends, when you have been reading in your church—say the Epistles—have often felt very distinctly come home to you.  Why should such a Version not be read in the ears of our people?  Has it been forbidden?  No, thank God; full liberty, on the contrary, has been left to us by the living voice of the synod of this Province that it may be read, subject to one reasonable limitation.  Was it not the unanimous judgement of the Upper House of the Convocation of our Province, confirmed by the voice of the Lower House [122]—“That the use of the Revised Version of the Bible at the lectern in the public services of the Church, where this is desired by clergy and people, is not open to any well-founded objection, and will tend to promote a more intelligent knowledge of Holy Scripture”?  And further, was not this adopted by the Lay House of our Province, p. 123even when a few doubting voices were heard [123], and an interpretation given to the word “use,” in the form of a rider, which, I can confidently say, never entered into the minds or thoughts of the members of the Upper House?  Indeed, though I do not wish to criticise the decision of the House of Laymen, their appended words of interpretation fall to the ground.  If “use” is to mean “occasional employment of Lessons from the Revised Version, where, in the interest of more accurate translation, it is desirable,” can any Lessons be found where the interest of more accurate translation is not patently concerned?  If this be so, what meaning can we assign to “occasional employment”?

We see then plainly, if we are to be guided by the judgement of the venerable body to whom the authoritative inception of Revision is alone to be assigned, that the way to its use in the Public Services of the Church is open to us all—where such use is desired by clergy and people.  Now let us take these words seriously into our consideration.  They clearly mean, however good the Version may be, that there is to be no sudden and precipitate use of the Revised Version in the p. 124appointed Lessons for the day on the part of the minister of any of our parishes.  If introduced, its introduction must not be simply when it is desired by the clergyman, but when it is also desired by his people.  So great a change as the displacement of the old and familiar Authorised Version—for it amounts to this—in the public reading of Holy Scripture in the Services of the Church, in favour of an altered form of the old Version (though confessedly so altered that the general hearer would hardly ever recognize the displacement)—so great a change ought not to be made without the knowledge, and further, the desire of the congregation.

But how is the desire for the change to be ascertained?  So far as I can see, there can be only one real and rightful way of bringing about the desire and the manifestation of it, and that is by first of all showing simply and plainly how, especially in the New Testament, the alterations give life, colouring and reality to the narratives of Evangelists, force and lucidity to the reasonings of Apostles, and, what is of still more vital importance, deeper insight into our relations to our saving Lord, clearer knowledge of His blessed life and work here on earth, and quickened perceptions p. 125of our present and our future, and, to a very real extent, of the holy mysteries of the life of the world to come.  When changes of text and of renderings are shown, and they can be shown, to bear with them these fuller revelations of God’s Holy Word, there will be no lack of desire, and of the manifestation of it, in any congregation, for the public use of a Version through which such disclosures as I have specified can be brought home to the truth-seeking believer.

My fixed opinion therefore is this, that though, after a long and careful consideration of the subject, I do sincerely desire that the Revised Version should be introduced into the churches of this diocese, I do also sincerely desire that it should not be introduced without a due preparation of the congregation for the change, and some manifestation of their desire for the change.  There will probably be a few churches in our diocese in which the Revised Version is used already, and in regard of them nothing more will be necessary than, from time to time, in occasional addresses, to allude to any important changes that may have appeared in the Lessons and recent readings of Holy Scripture, and thus to keep alive the thoughtful study of that which will be more and more p. 126felt to be, in the truest sense of the words, the Book of Life.  But, in the great majority of our churches—though in many cases there may have been passing desires to read and to hear God’s Word in its most truthful form—no forward steps will have been taken.  It is in reference then to this great majority of cases that I have broken my long silence, and, before my ministry closes, have resolved to bring before you the whole history of the greatest spiritual movement that has taken place since the Reformation; and also to indicate the untold blessings the Revision will bear to those who avail themselves of it in all reverent earnestness and devotion.

Thus far I hope I have made it plain that any forward steps that may be taken can only hopefully be taken when, both in the case of pastor and people, due preparation shall have been made for what, in the sequel, will be found to be an enduring spiritual change in the relation of the soul of the devout hearer or reader to the Book of Life.  He will learn not only faithfully to read the inspired Word, but inwardly to love it.

But what shall we regard as due preparation in the case of pastor and people?  This question, I can well believe, has already risen p. 127in the hearts of many who are now hearing these words, and to the best answer to it that I am able to give you I will gladly devote the remainder of this present Address.  Let us first consider how any one of you really and truly desirous to prepare his congregation for the hearing of God’s Word in the form known as the Revised Version—how such a one should prepare himself for the responsible duty.  Prayer for himself and his congregation in this great spiritual matter should ever be his first preparation.  After this his next care should be to provide himself with such books as will be indispensable for faithful preparation.  First and foremost, let him provide himself with a copy of what is called the Parallel Bible, the Authorised Version being on the left-hand side of the page, and the Revised Version on the right.  Next let it be his duty to read closely and carefully the Preface to the Old Testament and the Preface to the New Testament.  Had this been done years ago, how much of unfair criticism should we all have been spared?  The next step will be to obtain some competent guide-book to explain the meaning of the different changes of rendering, the alterations due to readings having been separately noted.  The guide-book, p. 128whether in the case of the Old or of the New Testament, should, in my judgement, be a volume written by a Reviser, as he would have a knowledge, far beyond what could be obtained by an outsider, of the reasons for many of the departures from the Authorised Version.

In regard of the Old Testament I have said in my last Address that I do not myself know of any guide-book, written by a Reviser, save the interesting volume by Dr. Talbot Chambers, to which I have been indebted for much that, being a member of another Company, I could not have brought forward without his assistance.  In regard of the New Testament, however, it is otherwise.  There is a useful volume by my old friend and former colleague the late Prebendary Humphry; but the volume which I most earnestly desire to name is the volume already mentioned, and entitled “Some Lessons of the Revised Version of the New Testament,” by the late Bishop of Durham.  This book is simply indispensable for any one desirous of preparing himself for the duty of introducing the Revised Version of the New Testament into the Public Services of his parish.  It is one of those rare and remarkable books that not only give the p. 129needed explanation, but also cast a light on the whole spiritual results of the change, and constantly awaken in the reader some portion of the enthusiasm with which the Bishop records changes that many an earnest and devout reader might think belonged only to the details of grammatical accuracy.  I thus cannot forbear quoting a few lines in which the Bishop, after alluding to the change in Matt. xxviii. 19, into (not in) the name of the Father and of the Holy Ghost, and the change in Rom. vi. 23, eternal life in (not through) Christ Jesus our Lord, thus speaks from his inmost soul: “Am I wrong in saying that he who has mastered the meaning of those two prepositions now truly rendered—‘into the name,’ ‘in Christ’—has found the central truth of Christianity?  Certainly I would gladly have given the ten years of my life spent on the Revision to bring only these two phrases of the New Testament to the heart of Englishmen.”  Is it too much to say that a volume written by a guide such as this is simply indispensable for any one who prepares himself for introducing to his people—the government of whose souls has been committed to him—the Revised Version of the New Testament of our Lord and Master Jesus Christ.

p. 130With the help that I have specified any one of you, my dear friends, might adequately prepare himself for the duty and responsibility of taking the next step, the preparation of his congregation for hearing the Word of God in the form that most nearly approaches in our own language what prophets, evangelists, and apostles have written for our learning under the inspiration of God.  This preparation may be carried on in many forms, by pastoral visitations, through our Bible classes, through the efforts of our mission preachers in the holy seasons, but obviously most hopefully and persuasively by the living voice of the faithful pastor in his public ministrations in the pulpit of his church.  Parishes differ so much in spiritual culture that probably no method of preparation could be specified that would be equally applicable to all.  Still in the case of our country parishes I am persuaded our preparation must come from the pulpit and in a manner carefully thought out and prearranged.  Let me give some indication of a mode of bringing the subject forward in a country parish that would call out the desire for the regular use of the Revised Version in the reading of the Lessons for the day.

p. 131Let us suppose a month set apart for the preparation.  On the first Sunday let an account be given of the circumstances, and especially the authority under which the Revision came into existence.  On the second Sunday let illustrations be given of the nature of the Revision from those parts in Bishop Westcott’s “Lessons of the Revised Version of the New Testament” which made the deepest impression during the study of that suggestive and spiritual volume.  On the third Sunday let comments be made on the most striking of the changes in the two appointed Lessons for the day from the Old Testament.  Here the preacher may find some difficulty, as want of knowledge of Hebrew or of the right interpretation of the passage in which the alteration is made might prevent his clearly stating the reasons for it.  In such cases a good modern Commentary on the Old Testament would probably supply the needed assistance.  The most available Commentary I know of for the purpose is the one published by Messrs. Cassells, and now sold at the low price—for both Testaments—of thirty-five shillings.  On the fourth Sunday, the preacher’s subject should be the most striking of the changes in the two appointed Lessons from p. 132the New Testament.  For this there would be abundant help supplied by the volume of Bishop Westcott, and, if needed, by the Commentary on the New Testament to which I have alluded.

Now I sincerely believe that if this very simple and feasible plan were carried out in any parish, two results would certainly follow: first, that the Revised Version would be desired and welcomed; secondly, that an interest in God’s Holy Word would be called out in the parish and its Bible classes that would make a lasting impression on the whole spiritual life of the place.  We have many faults, but we are a Bible-loving nation, and we have shown it in many crises of our history; and thus, I am persuaded, in a change such as I have suggested, the old love would be called out afresh, and would display itself in a manner we might never have expected.

I feel now that I have said all that it may be well for me to have laid before you.  I have used no tone of authority; I have not urged in any way the introduction of the Revised Version, or that the plan of introducing it should be adopted by any one among you.  I have contented myself with having shown that it is feasible; and I have definitely stated p. 133my opinion that, if it were to be adopted, it is in a high degree probable that a fresh interest in the Holy Scriptures would be awakened, and the love of God’s Holy Word again found to be a living reality.

Perhaps the present time may be of greater moment in regard of the study of Holy Scripture, and especially of the language of the Greek Testament, than we may now be able distinctly to foresee.  I mentioned in my last Address the large amount of research, during the last fifteen years, in reference to the Greek of the New Testament and the position which the sacred volume, considered simply historically and as a collection of writings in the Greek language of the first century after Christ, really does hold in the general history of a language which, in its latest form, is widely spoken to this very day.  I mentioned also what seemed to be the most reasonable opinion, viz. that the Greek of the New Testament was the spoken Greek of the time, neither literary Greek nor the Greek of the lower class, but Greek such as men would use at that time when they had to place in the definiteness of writing the language which passed from their lips in their converse with their fellow-men.  Now, that advantage will p. 134be taken of this, and that it will be used to show that the spiritual deductions that we draw from the written words cannot be fully relied on, because old distinctions have been obscured or obliterated, is what I fear, in days such as these, will often be used against the faithful reading, marking, and learning of the Written Word.  But we shall hear them, I hope, with the two true conclusive answers ever present in the soul, the answer of plain human reasoning, and the deeper answer which revelation brings seriously home to us.  In regard of the first answer, does not plain common sense justify us in maintaining that the writers meant what they wrote, and that when they used certain Greek words in the mighty message they were delivering to their fellow-men and to all who should hereafter receive it, they did mean that those words were to be understood in the plain and simple meaning that every plain reader would assign to them.  They were not speaking; they were writing; and they were writing what they knew was to be for all time.  Thus to take an example from the passages above referred to of which Bishop Westcott makes such impressive use, who can doubt, with any fair show of reason—however frequent may be the interchange of the particular prepositions p. 135in the first century—that, in those passages, when St. Matthew wrote εις he did mean into; and that when St. Paul used εν, he did mean in, in the simplest sense of the word?

But to the devout Christian we have a far deeper answer than the answer we have just considered.

In the first place, does not the manifold wisdom of God reveal itself to our poor human thoughts in His choice of a widespread spoken language, just by its very diffusion readily lending itself to the reception of new words and new thoughts as the medium by which the Gospel message was communicated to the children of men?  Just as the particular period of Christ’s manifestation has ever been reverently regarded as a revelation of the manifold nature of the eternal wisdom, so may we not see the same in the choice of a language, at a particular period of its development, as the bearer of the message of salvation to mankind?  Surely this is a manifestation of the Divine wisdom which must ever be seen and felt whenever the outward character of the Greek of the New Testament is dwelt upon by the truth-seeking spirit of the reverent believer.

p. 136And is there not a second thought, far too much lost sight of in our investigation of the written word of the New Testament—that just as the writers had their human powers quickened and strengthened by the Holy Ghost for the full setting forth of the Gospel message by their spoken words, so in regard of their written words would the same blessed guidance be vouchsafed to them?  And if so, is it not right for us, not only to draw from their words all that by the plain laws of language they can be understood to convey to us, but also to do what has been done in the Revised Version, and to find the nearest equivalent our language supplies for the words in the original?

These thoughts might be carried much further, but enough has been said to justify the minute care that has been taken in the renderings of the written word of the New Testament by the Revisers, and further, the validity of the deductions that may be drawn from their use of one word rather than another, especially in the case of words that might seem to be practically synonymous.  It may be quite true that, in the current Greek of the time, many of the distinctions that were valid in an earlier period of the p. 137language were no longer observed; and of this we find many indications in the Greek Testament.  But it must be remembered that we also find in the Greek Testament a vastly preponderating portion of what is grammatically correct according to the earlier standard, and often clear indications that what was so written must have been definitely meant by the writer.  Is it not then our clearest duty, remembering always that what we are translating is the Gospel message, to do what the Revisers did, to render each passage in accordance with the recognized meaning of the words, and in harmony with the plain tenor of the context?

I now close these words and these Addresses with the solemn prayer to Almighty God that in this great matter, and in the use of that which the living voice of our synod permits us to use, we may be guided by God the Holy Ghost, through Jesus Christ, our ever-blessed and redeeming Lord and God.

* * * * *

[As the use at the lectern of the Revised Version in the Public Service of the Church may be thought likely to involve expense, I may mention that the small pica edition of the Bible, at 10s. 6d. net, and of the Apocrypha p. 138separately, at 7s. 6d., will be found sufficient in most churches.  The folio edition in buckram of the Bible with Apocrypha will, I understand, be two guineas, net.  Application however should be made to the University Press of Oxford or of Cambridge, or to the Christian Knowledge Society.]

oxford: horace hart
printer to the university

p. 139Works by the same Author.

ARE WE TO MODIFY FUNDAMENTAL DOCTRINE?  Small post 8vo, cloth boards, 1s.

CHRISTUS COMPROBATOR; or, The Testimony of Christ to the Old Testament.  Small post 8vo, cloth boards, 2s.

FOUNDATIONS OF SACRED STUDY.  Part I.  Small post 8vo, cloth boards, 2s.; Part II, 2s. 6d.

MODERN UNBELIEF: its Principles and Characteristics.  Small post 8vo, cloth boards, 1s. 6d.

OUR REFORMED CHURCH AND ITS PRESENT TROUBLES.  Small post 8vo, cloth boards, 6d.

SALUTARY DOCTRINE.  Small post 8vo, cloth boards, 1s. 6d.

SPIRITUAL NEEDS IN COUNTRY PARISHES.  Small post 8vo, cloth boards, 1s.

THE BEING OF GOD (Six Addresses on).  Small post 8vo, cloth boards, 1s. 6d.

SOCIETY FOR PROMOTING CHRISTIAN KNOWLEDGE.
London: Northumberland Avenue, W.C.

Footnotes:

[6]  The following Resolution was passed unanimously by the Upper House of the Convocation of Canterbury on Feb. 10, 1899, after the presentation of the Report of the Committee (well worthy of being read) by the Bishop of Rochester.  The Report is numbered 329, and, with other Reports of Convocation, is sold by the National Society:—

“That in the opinion of this House the use of the Revised Version at the lectern in the public service of the Church, where this is desired by clergy and people, is not open to any well-founded objection, and will tend to promote a more intelligent knowledge of Holy Scripture.”

[10a]  Among others may be named the Edinburgh Review for 1855 on Paragraph Bibles, in which it was said that it was now high time for another revision (p. 429); the Christian Remembrancer for 1856 on the Revision of the Authorised Version (an interesting article); the Quarterly Review for 1863, intimating that as yet we were not ripe for any authorised text or translation; the Edinburgh Review for 1865; and the Contemporary Review for 1868, a careful and elaborate article, contending that the work must be done by a Commission.

[10b]  In February, 1856, when Canon Selwyn gave notice of proposing a petition on the subject to the Upper House.  The proposal in a somewhat different form a year afterwards was disposed of by a characteristic amendment of Archdeacon Denison.

[10c]  On July 22, 1856, Mr. Heywood, one of the members, I think, for North Lancashire, in rather an interesting speech, moved for an Address to the Crown to issue a Royal Commission on the subject.  The motion was rejected, Sir George Grey expressing his conviction that the feeling of the country was not in accordance with the motion.

[12]  Preface to the Revision of the Authorised Version of the Gospel according to St. John by Five Clergymen, p. xii.  As I remark afterwards, this preface proved to be very attractive, and by its moderation greatly helped the cause.  The book has long since gone out of print, but if any reader of this note should come across it, this preface will be found well worth reading, as it will show what was in the minds of many beside the Five Clergymen five and forty years ago.

[13]  See Schaff, Companion to Greek Testament and English version, p. 367, note (New York, 1883).

[21]  The Expositor for October, 1892, pp. 241-255.  The article was answered by me in the same periodical two months later.

[22]  The account of the discussion in the Convocation of York (Feb. 23, 1870) will be found in The Guardian of March 2, 1870.  In the comments of this paper on the action or rather inaction of the Northern Convocation a very unfavourable opinion was expressed, in reference to the manner in which the Southern Convocation had been treated.  But these things have long since been forgotten.

[35]  It may be interesting to give this list, as it slightly affects matter that will be alluded to afterwards in reference to the Greek text.  The attendances were as follows: The Chairman, 405; Dr. Scrivener, 399; Prebendary Humphry, 385; Principal Newth, 373; Prof. Hort, 362; Dean Bickersteth (Prolocutor), 352; Dean Scott, 337; Prof. Westcott, 304; Dean Vaughan, 302; Dean Blakesley, 297; Bishop Lightfoot, 290; Archdeacon Lee, 283; Dr. Moulton, 275; Archdeacon Palmer, 255; Dean Stanley, 253; Dr. Vance Smith, 245; Principal Brown, 209; Principal Angus, 199; Prof. Milligan, 182; Prof. Kennedy, 165; Dr. Eadie, 135; Bishop Moberly, 121; Bishop Wordsworth (St. Andrews), 109; Dr. Roberts, 94; Archbishop Trench, 63; Dean Merivale (resigned early), 19; Dean Alford (died soon after commencement), 16; Bishop Wilberforce, 1.

[36]  This letter will be found in a very valuable Historical Account of the Work of the American Committee of Revision (New York, 1885), p. 30.  This Historical Account was prepared by a special Committee appointed for the purpose in May, 1884, and was based on documents and papers arranged with great care by Dr. Philip Schaff, the President of the American Committee, and printed privately.  These two volumes, the Historical Account and the Documentary History, contain the fullest details of the whole transactions between the American Committee and the English Companies and also the University Presses.

[41]  Talbot W. Chambers, Companion to the Revised Old Testament (Funk and Wagnalls, New York and London, 1885), Preface, p. ix.

[42a]  A full account of the negotiation and copies of the letters which passed between the American Revisers and our own Revisers will be found in Part 2, p. 81 sqq. of the Documentary History, above referred to in the note at p. 36.

[42b]  A full account of this agreement and copies of the correspondence with the Universities of Oxford and Cambridge will be found in Part 3, p. 91 sqq. of the Documentary History.

[44]  Since the above was written, information reaches me that an American Standard Revision of the Bible either just has been, or shortly will be, published, which though not simply an incorporation of the recorded American preferences, as long specified in our copies of the Revision, is a publication resting on authority, and likely to put a stop to what is unauthorised.  As the reader may like to know a little about this American Standard Revision of the Bible, I will, at the risk of a long note, mention what I have ascertained up to the present time.  The survivors of the Old Testament Company (Dr. Osgood and others) with the three surviving members of the New Testament Company (Dr. Dwight, Dr. Riddle, and Dr. Thayer—very powerful helpers) have co-operated in bringing out a new edition of the Revision as it has been hitherto current in America.  It will contain about twice as many deviations from the English Revised Version as appear in the original Appendices; but, in regard of them, the survivors give this important assurance, that “the survivors have not felt at liberty to make new changes of moment which were not favourably passed upon (sic) by their associates, at one stage or another of the original preparation of the work.”  They specify that the original Appendix was prepared in haste and did not, in a satisfactory manner, express the real views of the Committee.  They claim to have drawn up a body of improved marginal references, to have wholly removed archaisms, to have supplied running headings, to have modified what they consider unwieldy paragraphs, to have lightened what they regard as clumsy punctuation, and by typographical arrangements, such as by leaving a line blank, to have indicated the main transitions of thought in the Epistles and Apocalypse.  These and other characteristics will be found specified in the American Sunday School Times for August 11, 1901, in an article apparently derived from those interested.  Till we see the book we must suspend our judgement.

[50]  See an article by Rev. J. F. Thrupp in Smith’s Dictionary of the Bible, vol. ii. art. Old Testament.

[53]  Since the above was written a critical edition of the four Peshitto Gospels has been published by the Oxford University Press, based on the labours of the late Philip Edward Pusey, and Rev. G. H. Gwilliam, of Hertford College.

[55]  The title of the pamphlet, which contains twelve letters from distinguished German Professors, with translations, is The Revision of the Old Testament (New York, Scribner’s Sons, 1886).

[59]  The title of Dr. Salmon’s interesting volume is Some Thoughts on the Textual Criticism of the New Testament (Murray, London, 1897).

[60a]  Salmon, p. 157.

[60b]  Ibid., p. 12.

[96]  See below, pp. 98, 120.

[97]  See the Preface to Dr. Rutherford’s Translation of the Epistle to the Romans, p. xi sq. (Lond. 1900).

[98a]  Hodder & Stoughton (Lond. 1897).

[98b]  Page 18.

[106]  See page 32.

[109]  Bible Studies, by Dr. G. Adolf Deissmann, Authorised Translation (Clark, Edinburgh, 1901).

[110a]  Page 175.

[110b]  London, Macmillan, 1898.

[111]  Theologische Literaturzeitung, xix (vol. for 1894), p. 338.

[112]  Bible Studies, p. 84 Transl.  See, however, the translator’s note, p. 173, where the use of the term is explained.

[114]  Grammar of New Testament Greek, § 38. 5, p. 118 (Transl.).

[122]  See Chronicle of Convocation for February 10, 1899, p. 71 sqq.

[123]  At the May Meeting of the present year.

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