The Revision Revised Part 25

[8] Bp. Ellicott's strange notions about the "Textus Receptus."

Your strangest mistakes and misrepresentations however are connected with the "Textus Receptus." It evidently exercises you sorely that "with the Quarterly Reviewer, the Received Text is a standard, by comparison with which all extant doc.u.ments, _however indisputable their antiquity,_ are measured."(871) But pray,-

(1) By comparison with what _other_ standard, if not by the Received Text, would you yourself obtain the measure of "all extant doc.u.ments," however ancient?... This first. And next,

(2) Why should the "_indisputable antiquity_" of a doc.u.ment be supposed to disqualify it from being measured by the same standard to which (_but only for convenience_) doc.u.ments of whatever date,-by common consent of scholars, at home and abroad,-are invariably referred? And next,

(3) Surely, you cannot require to have it explained to you that a standard _of _COMPARISON, is not _therefore_ of necessity a standard _of _EXCELLENCE. Did you ever take the trouble to collate a sacred ma.n.u.script?

If you ever did, pray with _what_ did you make your collation? In other words, what "standard" did you employ?... Like Walton and Ussher,-like Fell and Mill,-like Bentley, and Bengel, and Wetstein,-like Birch, and Matthaei, and Griesbach, and Scholz,-like Lachmann, and Tregelles, and Tischendorf, and Scrivener,-I venture to a.s.sume that you collated your ma.n.u.script,-whether it was of "disputable" or of "indisputable antiquity,"-with _an ordinary copy of the Received Text_. If you did not, your collation is of no manner of use. But, above all,

(4) How does it come to pa.s.s that you speak so scornfully of the Received Text, seeing that (at p. 12 of your pamphlet) you a.s.sure your readers that _its pedigree may be traced back to a period perhaps antecedent to the oldest of our extant ma.n.u.scripts_? Surely, a traditional Text which (_according to you_) dates from about A.D. 300, is good enough for the purpose of _Collation_!

(5) At last you say,-

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

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

(_a_) You speak of "representing _verbatim et literatim_ THE Text which was current at Antioch in the days of Chrysostom." Do you then really suppose that there existed at Antioch, at any period between A.D. 354 and A.D. 407, _some one definite Text of the N. T. _CAPABLE_ of being so represented_?-If you do, pray will you indulge us with the grounds for such an extraordinary supposition? Your "acquaintance" (Dr. Tregelles) will tell you that such a fancy has long since been swept away "at once and for ever." And secondly,

(_b_) You say that, even if there were reason to suppose that the "Received Text" were such-and-such a thing,-"it would still be impossible to regard it as _a standard from which there was no appeal_."

But pray, who in his senses,-what sane man in Great Britain,-ever dreamed of regarding the "Received,"-aye, _or any other known _"Text,"-as "a standard _from which there shall be no appeal_"? Have I ever done so? Have I ever _implied_ as much? If I have, show me _where_. You refer your readers to the following pa.s.sage in my first Article:-

"What precedes admits to some extent of further numerical ill.u.s.tration. It is discovered that, in 111 pages, ... the serious deflections of A from the _Textus Receptus_ amount in all to only 842: whereas in C they amount to 1798: in B, to 2370: in ?, to 3392: in D, to 4697. The readings _peculiar to_ A within the same limits are 133: those peculiar to C are 170. But those of B amount to 197: while ? exhibits 443: and the readings peculiar to D (within the same limits), are no fewer than 1829.... We submit that these facts are not altogether calculated to inspire confidence in codices B ? C D."-p. 14.

But, do you really require to have it explained to you that it is entirely to misunderstand the question to object to such a comparison of codices as is found above, (viz. in pages 14 and 17,) on the ground that it was made with the text of Stepha.n.u.s lying open before me? Would not _the self-same phenomenon_ have been evolved by collation with _any other_ text? If you doubt it, sit down and try the experiment for yourself. Believe me, Robert Etienne in the XVIth century was not _the cause_ why cod. B in the IVth and cod. D in the VIth are so widely discordant and divergent from one another: A and C so utterly at variance with both.(873) We _must_ have _some_ standard whereby to test,-wherewith to compare,-Ma.n.u.scripts. What is more, (give me leave to a.s.sure you,) _to the end of time_ it will probably be the practice of scholars to compare MSS. of the N. T. with the "Received Text." The hopeless discrepancies between our five "old uncials," can in no more convenient way be exhibited, than by referring each of them in turn to one and the same common standard. And,-_What_ standard more reasonable and more convenient than the Text which, by the good Providence of G.o.d, was universally employed throughout Europe for the first 300 years after the invention of printing? being practically _identical_ with the Text which (as you yourself admit) was in popular use at the end of three centuries from the date of the sacred autographs themselves: in other word, being more than 1500 years old.

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

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

That is how you state my case and condition: hopelessly _confusing_ the standard of _Comparison_ with the standard of _Excellence_.

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

[10] a.n.a.lysis of contents of Bp. Ellicott's pamphlet.

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

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

"_Secondly_, to establish, by means of the information so supplied, the soundness of the principles on which the Revisers have acted in their choice of readings; and by consequence, the importance of the 'New Greek Text:' "-[or, as you phrase it at p.

29,]-"to enable the reader to form a fair judgment on the question of _the trustworthiness of the readings adopted by the Revisers_."

To the former of these endeavours you devote twenty-three pages: (viz. p.

7 to p. 29):-to the latter, you devote forty-two; (viz. p. 37 to p. 78).

The intervening eight pages are dedicated,-(_a_) To the const.i.tution of the Revisionist body: and next, (_b_) To the amount of good faith with which you and your colleagues observed the conditions imposed upon you by the Southern Houses of Convocation. I propose to follow you over the ground in which you have thus entrenched yourself, and to drive you out of every position in turn.

[11] Bp. Ellicott's account of the "TEXTUS RECEPTUS."

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

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

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

"The ma.n.u.scripts which Erasmus used differ, for the most part, _only in small and insignificant details from the bulk of the cursive ma.n.u.scripts_. The general character of their text is the same. By this observation the pedigree of the Received Text is carried up beyond the individual ma.n.u.scripts used by Erasmus....

_That_ pedigree stretches back to a remote antiquity. _The first ancestor of the Received Text was at least contemporary with the oldest of our extant ma.n.u.scripts, if not older than any one of them._"-pp. 11, 12.

By your own showing therefore, the Textus Receptus is, "_at least_," 1550 years old. Nay, we will have the fact over again, in words which you adopt from p. 92 of Westcott and Hort's _Introduction_ [see above, p. 257], and clearly make your own:-

"The fundamental text of late extant Greek MSS. generally is _beyond all question identical_ with the dominant Antiochian or Graeco-Syrian _Text of the second half of the fourth century_."-p.

12.

But, if this be so,-(and I am not concerned to dispute your statement in a single particular,)-of what possible significancy can it be to your present contention, that the ancestry of the WRITTEN WORD (like the ancestors of the WORD INCARNATE) had at one time declined to the wondrous low estate on which you enlarged at first with such evident satisfaction?

Though the fact be admitted that Joseph "the carpenter" was "the husband of Mary, of whom was born JESUS, who is called CHRIST,"-what possible inconvenience results from that circ.u.mstance so long as the only thing contended for be loyally conceded,-namely, that the descent of MESSIAH is lineally traceable back to the patriarch Abraham, through David the King?

And the genealogy of the written, no less than the genealogy of the Incarnate WORD, is traceable back by _two distinct lines of descent_, remember: for the "Complutensian," which was printed in 1514, exhibits the "Traditional Text" with the same general fidelity as the "Erasmian," which did not see the light till two years later.

[12] Bp. Ellicott derives his estimate of the "TEXTUS RECEPTUS" from Westcott and Hart's fable of a "SYRIAN TEXT."