To some, it may perhaps seem unreasonable that so many words should be devoted to the establishment of the text of a single place of Scripture,—depending, as that text does, on the insertion or the omission of a single letter. I am content to ask in reply,—What is important, if not the utterance of Heaven, when, at the laying of the corner-stone of the New Creation, “the Morning Stars sang together, and all the Sons of God shouted for joy?”
IV. Only one word in conclusion.
Whenever the time comes for the Church of England to revise her Authorized Version (1611), it will become necessary that she should in the first instance instruct some of the more judicious and learned of her sons carefully to revise the Greek Text of Stephens (1550). Men require to know precisely what it is they have to translate before they can pretend to translate it. As for supposing that Scholars who have been appointed to revise a Translation are competent at a moment's notice, as every fresh difficulty presents itself, to develop the skill requisite for revising the original Text,—it is clearly nothing else but supposing that experts in one Science can at pleasure shew themselves proficients in another.
But it so happens that, on the present occasion, that other [pg 264] Science is one of exceeding difficulty. Revisionists here will find it necessary altogether to disabuse their minds of the Theory of Textual Criticism which is at present the dominant and the popular one,—and of which I have made it my business to expose the fallaciousness, in respect of several crucial texts, in the course of the present work.
I cannot so far forget the unhappy circumstances of the times as to close this note without the further suggestion, (sure therein of the approval of our trans-Atlantic brethren,) that, for a Revision of the Authorized Version to enjoy the confidence of the Nation, and to procure for itself acceptance at the hands of the Church,—it will be found necessary that the work should be confided to Churchmen. The Church may never abdicate her function of being “a Witness and a Keeper of Holy Writ.” Neither can she, without flagrant inconsistency and scandalous consequence, ally herself in the work of Revision with the Sects. Least of all may she associate with herself in the sacred undertaking an Unitarian Teacher,—one who avowedly [see the letter of “One of the Revisionists, G. V. S.,” in the “Times” of July 11, 1870] denies the eternal Godhead of her Lord. That the individual alluded to has shewn any peculiar aptitude for the work of a Revisionist; or that he is a famous Scholar; or that he can boast of acquaintance with any of the less familiar departments of Sacred Learning; is not even pretended. (It would matter nothing if the reverse were the case.) What else, then, is this but to offer a deliberate insult to the Majesty of Heaven in the Divine Person of Him who is alike the Object of the Everlasting Gospel, and its Author?
APPENDIX (B).
Eusebius “ad Marinum” concerning the reconcilement of S. Mark xvi. 9 with S. Matthew xxviii. 1.
(Referred to at pp. [46], [47], [54], and [233].)
Subjoined is the original text of Eusebius, taken from the “Quæstiones ad Marinum” published by Card. Mai, in his “Nova Patrum Bibliotheca” (Romae, 1847,) vol. iv. pp. 255-7.