“‘The generality of mankind is wholly and absolutely governed by words and names; [without, nay, for the most part, even against the knowledge men have of things. The multitude or common route, like a drove of sheep, or an herd of oxen, may be managed by any noise, or cry, which their drivers shall accustom them to.
“‘And] he who will set up for a skilful manager of the rabble, so long as they have but ears to hear, needs never enquire whether they have any understanding whereby to judge: but with two or three popular, empty words,’ ‘well-tuned and humoured, may whistle them backwards and forwards, upwards and downwards, till he is weary; and get upon their backs when he is so.’”[[418]]
And now, may I not ask, what does the reader think of Archbishop Magee? Mr. Aspland indignantly CONDEMNS the “imposture” practised by false names; and, by a garbled quotation he is held up as RESORTING to it. He really says to his opponents, “Call us Socinians no more, for you must know it is unjust;” he is represented as saying to his friends, “We will never cease to call ourselves Unitarians, for it is a capital trick.” And thus, by scoring out and interlining, his own expostulation against a base policy is metamorphosed into an indictment, charging him with the very same. Mr. Byrth and Mr. M‘Neile are men, as I believe, of honourable minds: and the latter has rebuked, as they deserve, “garbled quotations.” I ask them to acquit me of “outraging the memory of departed greatness.”
“My respected opponents know as well as I do,” “that dishonest criticism, as well as dishonesty of every kind, consists not in the number of the acts which are perpetrated, but in the unprincipled disposition which led to the perpetration.”[[419]] I might therefore be content with the example of “misrepresentation the most black” which I have given. But from the list which lies before me, I think it right to take one or two instances more, admitting of brief exposure.
In the Authorized Version, 1 Cor. xv. 47, stands thus; “The first man is of the earth, earthy: the second man is the Lord from heaven;” the substantive verb in both parts of the verse having nothing, as the Italics indicate, to correspond with it in the original; but being inserted at the discretion of the translators to complete the sense. From the second clause Trinitarians usually derive an argument for the pre-existence of Christ, conceiving that it teaches the origin of our Lord from heaven. Some of their best commentators, however, understand the clause as referring not to Christ’s past entrance into this world, but to his future coming to judgment. Thus Archbishop Newcome renders, “The second man will be [the Lord] from heaven.” And Dr. Whitby paraphrases, ”The second man is the Lord [descending] from heaven [to raise our bodies, and advance them to that place];” and he defends this interpretation in a note.[[420]] Mr. Belsham adopts this rendering, both in the “Improved Version” and in his “Calm Enquiry,” giving, with the sanction of the authorities I have cited, a past verb to the first clause, a future verb to the second. The admirable Newcome and Whitby, then, must share the Archbishop’s rebuke, for “the total inadmissibility of this arbitrary rendering of the Unitarians, and the grossness of their endeavour to pervert the sense of Scripture.” “Here,” he observes, “we have a change of tense, which not only has no foundation in either the Greek or Latin text, but is in direct opposition to both; since in both the perfect sameness of the corresponding clauses obviously determines the sameness of the tense.”[[421]] Of the “unscholarlike exaggeration” of this criticism I say nothing, merely wishing it to be observed in passing, that Mr. Belsham’s version is not of Unitarian origin, and proves no doctrinal bias, much less any “dishonesty.”
But a question arises respecting the text, as well as the translation, of this verse; the phrase “the Lord,” in the second clause, being marked by Griesbach as probably to be omitted; and the word “heavenly” to be appended at the close. The original of the common translation stands thus: Ὁ πρῶτος ἄνθρωπος, ἐκ γῆς χοϊκός· ὁ δεύτερος ἄνθρωπος, ὁ κύριος ἐξ οὐρανοῦ. With the probable emendations the latter clause would read thus: ὁ δεύτερος ἄνθρωπος ἐξ οὐρανοῦ ὁ οὐράνιος: and Archbishop Newcome’s translation, conformed to this text, becomes that of Mr. Belsham; “The first man was from the ground, earthy: the second man will be from heaven, heavenly.”
There are then two points to be determined respecting this passage—the reading, and the rendering, which, in this case, is equivalent to the interpretation also. Mr. Belsham, in his Calm Inquiry, treats of both; and is accused by the Archbishop, in the following passage, of discussing the “unimportant matter” of the text with great pomp; while adducing, in favour of his translation and the future tense, no authority except the Vulgate: “primus homo de terra, terrenus: secundus homo de cœlo, cælestis.” The indictment and argument run thus:—“The grand point to be established for the Unitarians is, as we have seen, the use of the future in the second clause of the text:—‘the second man WILL BE from heaven:’—for, if we read ‘WAS from heaven,’ actum est! it is all over with the Unitarians; inasmuch as, in this passage, the origin of the BEING, without any possible pretence as to the doctrines, is unequivocally the subject. How does Mr. Belsham proceed? Having made a good deal of flourish, as the Improved Version had also done before him, about the words κύριος and οὐράνιος; having also lumped together some irrelevant matter about the Polish Socinians and Dr. Price; and having observed somewhat upon the interpretation of Newcome, Whitby, and Alexander; having, in short, appeared to say a good deal, whilst he took care to preserve a profound silence throughout (as the Improved Version also has done,) respecting any arguments in favour of the future tense in the second clause—the single point on which the entire question rests,—he all of a sudden, very calmly and composedly asserts, ‘The Vulgate renders the text, “The first man was of the earth, earthy. The second man will be from heaven, heavenly.”’ (Calm Inq. p. 121.[[422]]) He then triumphantly concludes, and all is settled. In this manner, one text after another, of those that proclaim our Lord’s pre-existence, is extinguished by the Calm Inquirer and his coadjutors. And so the cause of Socinian expurgation goes forward.
“Perhaps, in the annals of dishonest controversy, another instance like this is not to be found. A discussion of unimportant matter is busily kept up: the main point of difference, and in truth the only one deserving of attention, the change of tense, is passed over, as if it were a thing not at all in dispute: the Vulgate is then quoted, in direct opposition to the truth, as reading the words ‘WAS’ and ‘WILL BE’ in the two corresponding clauses: and thus, indirectly, the false rendering of the text by the Unitarians is sustained by a false quotation from the Vulgate; and by a quotation which the author, if his memory had lasted from one page to the other, must have known to be false; since, in the preceding page, he had himself cited the very words of the Vulgate:—‘Primus homo de terra, terrenus; secundus homo de cœlo, cælestis:’—in which, words there is not only no justification of the change from WAS to WILL BE; but there is, on the contrary, as in the original Greek, a declaration, as strong as the analogies of language will admit, that the tense employed in the first clause must pass unchanged into the second. In a word, there is given by the Vulgate itself a direct contradiction to the report which is made of it by the Calm Inquirer. The man of ‘sound understanding,’ however, whom he addressed in English on the one page, being possibly not exactly acquainted with what was contained in the Latin on the other, and being consequently unaware that his author was imposing on him a false translation, would of course be fully satisfied on the authority of the Vulgate (more especially as so much had been said to leave the general impression of uncertainty as to the true reading of the Greek text, and the consequent opinion, that the Vulgate was the only ancient authority to be relied on,) that in this passage could be found no proof of our Lord’s pre-existence! What are we to think of the cause that needs such support; and what of the interests that can attract such supporters?”[[423]]
We are to understand, then, that Mr. Belsham’s only authority for the tenses of his version is a wilful mistranslation of the Vulgate; and that he cunningly conceals from the mere English reader the circumstance that the Vulgate, having no verb, has no tenses. Now, as to the last point, he distinctly informs his reader that there is no verb in the Latin; and as to the former, he never appeals to the RENDERING of the Vulgate at all but to the READING only. “How can this be?” I shall be asked; “for the Archbishop cites his words, ‘The Vulgate RENDERS the text,’ &c.” True, but the Archbishop quotes him falsely; and the real words are, “The Vulgate READS the text,” &c. Let the original and the citation appear side by side.
| Mr. Belsham’s words. | Archbishop Magee’s quotation. |
| “The Vulgate READS the text, ‘The first man was of the earth, earthly. The second man will be from heaven, heavenly.’ | “The Vulgate RENDERS the text, ‘The first man was of the earth, earthy. The second man will be from heaven, heavenly,’”[[424]] |
| “This is not improbably the TRUE READING.” |