I question if his motion will find a seconder. You yourself lay it down magisterially that ὅς “is not emphatic (‘He who,’ &c.): nor, by a constructio ad sensum, is it the relative to μυστήριον; but is a relative to an omitted though easily recognized antecedent, viz. Christ.” You add that it is not improbable “that the words are quoted from some known hymn, or probably from some familiar Confession of Faith.” Accordingly, in your Commentary you venture to exhibit the words within inverted commas as a quotation:—“And confessedly great is the mystery of godliness: ‘who [pg 499] was manifested in the flesh, justified in the spirit,’ ” &c.,[1115]—for which you are without warrant of any kind, and which you have no right to do. Westcott and Hort (the “chartered libertines”) are even more licentious. Acting on their own suggestion that these clauses are “a quotation from an early Christian hymn,” they proceed to print the conclusion of 1 Tim. iii. 16 stichometrically, as if it were a six-line stanza.
This notwithstanding, the Revising body have adopted “He who,” as the rendering of ὅς; a mistaken rendering as it seems to me, and (I am glad to learn) to yourself also. Their translation is quite a curiosity in its way. I proceed to transcribe it:—
“He who was manifested in the flesh, justified in the spirit, seen of angels, preached among the nations, believed on in the world, received up in glory.”
But this does not even pretend to be a sentence: nor do I understand what the proposed construction is. Any arrangement which results in making the six clauses last quoted part of the subject, and “great” the predicate of one long proposition,—is unworthy.—Bentley's wild remedy testifies far more eloquently to his distress than to his aptitude for revising the text of Scripture. He suggests,—“Christ was put to death in the flesh, justified in the spirit, ... seen by Apostles.”[1116]—“According to the ancient view,” (says the Rev. T. S. Green,) “the sense would be: ‘and confessedly great is the mystery of godliness [in the person of him], who [mystery notwithstanding] was manifested in the flesh, &c.’ ”[1117]... But, with submission, “the ancient view” was not this. The Latins,—calamitously shut up within the [pg 500] limits of their “pietatis sacramentum, quod,”—are found to have habitually broken away from that iron bondage, and to have discoursed of our Saviour Christ, as being Himself the “sacramentum” spoken of. The “sacramentum,” in their view, was the incarnate Word.[1118]—Not so the Greek Fathers. These all, without exception, understood S. Paul to say,—what Ecclesiastical Tradition hath all down the ages faithfully attested, and what to this hour the copies of his Epistles prove that he actually wrote,—viz. “And confessedly great is the mystery of godliness:—God was manifested in the flesh, justified in the spirit,” and so on. Moreover this is the view of the matter in which all the learning and all the piety of the English Church has thankfully acquiesced for the last 350 years. It has commended itself to Andrewes and Pearson, Bull and Hammond, Hall and Stillingfleet, Ussher and Beveridge, Mill and Bengel, Waterland and Berriman. The enumeration of names is easily brought down to our own times. Dr. Henderson, (the learned non-conformist commentator,) in 1830 published a volume with the following title:—
“The great mystery of godliness incontrovertible: or, Sir Isaac Newton and the Socinians foiled in the attempt to prove a corruption in the text 1 Tim. iii. 16: containing a review of the [pg 501] charges brought against the passage; an examination of the various readings; and a confirmation of that in the received text on principles of general and biblical criticism.”
And,—to turn one's eyes in quite a different direction,—“Veruntamen,” wrote venerable President Routh, at the end of a life-long critical study of Holy Writ,—(and his days were prolonged till he reached his hundredth year,)—
“Veruntamen, quidquid ex sacri textûs historia, illud vero haud certum, critici collegerunt, me tamen interna cogunt argumenta præferre lectionem Θεός, quem quidem agnoscunt veteres interpretes, Theodoretus cæterique, duabus alteris ὅς et ὅ.”[1119]
And here I bring my Dissertation on 1 Tim. iii. 16 to a close. It began at p. [424], and I little thought would extend to seventy-six pages. Let it be clearly understood that I rest my contention not at all on Internal, but entirely on External Evidence; although, to the best of my judgment, they are alike conclusive as to the matter in debate.—Having now incontrovertibly, as I believe, established ΘΕΌΣ as the best attested Reading of the place,—I shall conclude the present Letter as speedily as I can.
(1) “Composition of the Body which is responsible for the ‘New Greek Text.’ ”
There remains, I believe, but one head of discourse into which I have not yet followed you. I allude to your “few words about the composition of the body which is responsible for the ‘New Greek Text,’ ”[1120]—which extend from the latter part of p. 29 to the beginning of p. 32 of your pamphlet. “Among the sixteen most regular attendants at your meetings,” (you say) “were to be found most of those persons who [pg 502] were presumably best acquainted with the subject of Textual Criticism.”[1121] And with this insinuation that you had “all the talents” with you, you seek to put me down.