The true, though remote fountain-head of revision, and, more particularly, of the revision
of 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
revision 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
rapidly; 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
entertained 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