IV. Next, the Revisionists invite attention to certain points of detail: and first, to their rendering of the Tenses of the Verb. They begin with the Greek Aorist,—(in their account) “perhaps the most important” detail of all:—
“We have not attempted to violate the idiom of our language by forms of expression which it would not bear. But we have often ventured to represent the Greek aorist by the English preterite, even when the reader may find some passing difficulty in such a rendering, because we have felt convinced that the true meaning of the original was obscured by the presence of the familiar auxiliary. A remarkable illustration may be found in the seventeenth chapter of S. John's Gospel.”—Preface, iii. 2,—(latter part).
(a) We turn to the place indicated, and are constrained to assure these well-intentioned men, that the phenomenon we there witness is absolutely fatal to their pretensions as “Revisers” of our Authorized Version. Were it only “some passing difficulty” which their method occasions us, we might have hoped that time would enable us to overcome it. But since it is the genius of the English language to which we find they have offered violence; the fixed and universally-understood idiom of our native tongue which they have systematically set at defiance; the matter is absolutely without remedy. The difference between the A. V. and the R. V. seems to ourselves to be simply this,—that [pg 158] the renderings in the former are the idiomatic English representations of certain well-understood Greek tenses: while the proposed substitutes are nothing else but the pedantic efforts of mere grammarians to reproduce in another language idioms which it abhors. But the Reader shall judge for himself: for this at least is a point on which every educated Englishman is fully competent to pass sentence.
When our Divine Lord, at the close of His Ministry,—(He had in fact reached the very last night of His earthly life, and it wanted but a few hours of His Passion,)—when He, at such a moment, addressing the Eternal Father, says, ἐγώ σε ἐδόξασα ἐπὶ τῆς γῆς; τὸ ἔργον ἐτελείωσα ... ἐφανέρωσά σου τὸ ὄνομα τοῖς ἀνθρώποις, &c. [Jo. xvii. 4, 6], there can be no doubt whatever that, had He pronounced those words in English, He would have said (with our A. V.) “I have glorified Thee on the earth: I have finished the work:” “I have manifested Thy Name.” The pedantry which (on the plea that the Evangelist employs the aorist, not the perfect tense,) would twist all this into the indefinite past,—“I glorified” ... “I finished” ... “I manifested,”—we pronounce altogether insufferable. We absolutely refuse it a hearing. Presently (in ver. 14) He says,—“I have given them Thy word; and the world hath hated them.” And in ver. 25,—“O righteous Father, the world hath not known Thee; but I have known Thee, and these have known that Thou hast sent Me.” Who would consent to substitute for these expressions,—“the world hated them:” and “the world knew Thee not, but I knew Thee; and these knew that Thou didst send Me”?—Or turn to another Gospel. Which is better,—“Some one hath touched Me: for I perceive that virtue is gone out of Me,” (S. Lu. viii. 46):—or,—“Some one did touch Me: for I perceived that power had gone forth from Me”?
When the reference is to an act so extremely recent, who is not aware that the second of these renderings is abhorrent to the genius of the English language? As for ἔγνων, it is (like novi in Latin) present in sense though past in form,—here as in S. Lu. xvi. 3.—But turn to yet another Gospel. Which is better in S. Matth. xvi. 7:—“we took no bread,” or “It is because we have taken no bread”?—Again. When Simon Peter (in reply to the command that he should thrust out into deep water and let down his net for a draught,) is heard to exclaim,—“Master, we have toiled all the night, and have taken nothing: nevertheless at Thy word I will let down the net” (Lu. v. 5),—who would tolerate the proposal to put in the place of it,—“Master, we toiled all night, and took nothing: but at Thy word,” &c. It is not too much to declare that the idiom of the English language refuses peremptorily to submit to such handling. Quite in vain is it to encounter us with reminder that κοπιάσαντες and ἐλάβομεν are aorists. The answer is,—We know it: but we deny that it follows that the words are to be rendered “we toiled all night, and took nothing.” There are laws of English Idiom as well as laws of Greek Grammar: and when these clash in what is meant to be a translation into English out of Greek, the latter must perforce give way to the former,—or we make ourselves ridiculous, and misrepresent what we propose to translate.
All this is so undeniable that it ought not to require to be insisted upon. But in fact our Revisionists by their occasional practice show that they fully admit the Principle we are contending for. Thus, ἧραν (in S. Jo. xx. 2 and 13) is by them translated “they have taken:”—ἱνατί με ἐγκατέλιπες; (S. Matt. xxvii. 46) “Why hast Thou forsaken Me?”[498]:—ἔδειξα [pg 160] (S. Jo. x. 32) “have I showed:”—ἀπέστειλε (vi. 29) “He hath sent:”—ἠτιμάσατε (James ii. 6) “ye have dishonoured:”—ἐκαθάρισε (Acts x. 15) “hath cleansed:”—ἔστησεν (xvii. 31) “He hath appointed.” But indeed instances abound everywhere. In fact, the requirements of the case are often observed to force them to be idiomatic. Τί ἐποίησας; (in Jo. xviii. 35), they rightly render “What hast thou done?”:—and ἔγραψα (in 1 Jo. ii. 14, 21), “I have written;”—and ἤκουσα (in Acts ix. 13), “I have heard.”—On the other hand, by translating οὐκ εἴασεν (in Acts xxviii. 4), “hath not suffered,” they may be thought to have overshot the mark. They seem to have overlooked the fact that, when once S. Paul had been bitten by the viper, “the barbarians” looked upon him as a dead man; and therefore discoursed about what Justice “did not suffer,” as about an entirely past transaction.
But now, Who sees not that the admission, once and again deliberately made, that sometimes it is not only lawful, but even necessary, to accommodate the Greek aorist (when translated into English) with the sign of the perfect,—reduces the whole matter (of the signs of the tenses) to a mere question of Taste? In view of such instances as the foregoing, where severe logical necessity has compelled the Revisionists to abandon their position and fly, it is plain that their contention is at an end,—so far as right and wrong are concerned. They virtually admit that they have been all along unjustly forcing on an independent language an alien yoke.[499] Henceforth, it simply becomes a question to be repeated, as every fresh emergency arises,—Which then is the more idiomatic of these two English renderings?... Conversely, twice at least (Heb. xi. 17 and 28), the Revisionists [pg 161] have represented the Greek perfect by the English indefinite preterite.
(b) Besides this offensive pedantry in respect of the Aorist, we are often annoyed by an unidiomatic rendering of the Imperfect. True enough it is that “the servants and the officers were standing ... and were warming themselves:” Peter also “was standing with them and was warming himself” (S. Jo. xviii. 18). But we do not so express ourselves in English, unless we are about to add something which shall account for our particularity and precision. Any one, for example, desirous of stating what had been for years his daily practice, would say—“I left my house.” Only when he wanted to explain that, on leaving it for the 1000th time, he met a friend coming up the steps to pay him a visit, would an Englishman think of saying, “I was leaving the house.” A Greek writer, on the other hand, would not trust this to the imperfect. He would use the present participle in the dative case, (“To me, leaving my house,”[500] &c.). One is astonished to have to explain such things.... “If therefore thou art offering thy gift at the altar” (Matt. v. 23), may seem to some a clever translation. To ourselves, it reads like a senseless exaggeration of the original.[501] It sounds (and is) as unnatural as to say (in S. Lu. ii. 33) “And His father were marvelling at the things which were spoken concerning Him:”—or (in Heb. xi. 17) “yea, he that had received the promises was offering up his only-begotten son:”—or, of the cripple at Lystra (Acts xiv. 9), “the same heard Paul speaking.”
(c) On the other hand, there are occasions confessedly when the Greek Aorist absolutely demands to be rendered [pg 162] into English by the sign of the Pluperfect. An instance meets us while we write: ὡς δὲ ἐπαύσατο λαλῶν (S. Lu. v. 4),—where our Revisionists are found to retain the idiomatic rendering of our Authorized Version,—“When He had left speaking.” Of what possible avail could it be, on such an occasion, to insist that, because ἐπαύσατο is not in the pluperfect tense, it may not be accommodated with the sign of the pluperfect when it is being translated into English?—The R. V. has shown less consideration in S. Jo. xviii. 24,—where “Now Annas had sent Him bound unto Caiaphas the high priest,” is right, and wanted no revision.—Such places as Matth. xxvii. 60, Jo. xxi. 15, Acts xii. 17, and Heb. iv. 8, on the other hand, simply defy the Revisionists. For perforce Joseph “had hewn out” (ἐλατόμησε) the new tomb which became our Lord's: and the seven Apostles, confessedly, “had dined” (ἠρίστησαν): and S. Peter, of course, “declared unto them how the Lord had brought him out of the prison” (ἐξήγαγεν): and it is impossible to substitute anything for “If Jesus [Joshua] had given them rest” (κατέπαυσεν).—Then of course there are occasions, (not a few,) where the Aorist (often an indefinite present in Greek) claims to be Englished by the sign of the present tense: as where S. John says (Rev. xix. 6), “The Lord God Omnipotent reigneth” (ἐβασίλευσε). There is no striving against such instances. They insist on being rendered according to the genius of the language into which it is proposed to render them:—as when ἔκειτο (in S. Jo. xx. 12) exacts for its rendering “had lain.”
(d) It shall only be pointed out here in addition, for the student's benefit, that there is one highly interesting place (viz. S. Matth. xxviii. 2), which in every age has misled Critics and Divines (as Origen and Eusebius); Poets (as Rogers); Painters (as West);—yes, and will continue to mislead readers for many a year to come:—and all because men [pg 163] have failed to perceive that the aorist is used there for the pluperfect. Translate,—“There had been a great earthquake:” [and so (1611-1881) our margin,—until in short “the Revisionists” interfered:] “for the Angel of the Lord had descended from heaven, and come and rolled away (ἀπεκύλισε) the stone from the door, and sat upon it.” Strange, that for 1800 years Commentators should have failed to perceive that the Evangelist is describing what terrified “the keepers.” “The women” saw no Angel sitting upon the stone!—though Origen,[502]—Dionysius of Alexandria,[503]—Eusebius,[504]—ps.-Gregory Naz.,[505]—Cyril Alex.,[506]—Hesychius,[507]—and so many others—have taken it for granted that they did.