Lastly (4thly),—The doctrine that Creation is the work of the Divine Word, all Scripture attests. “All things were made by Him” (S. Jo. i. 3):—“the world was made by Him” (ver. 10).—Why then, in Col. i. 16, where the same statement is repeated,—(“all things were created by Him and for Him,”)—do we find “through” substituted for “by”? And why is the same offence repeated in 1 Cor. vii. 6,—(where we ought to read,—“one God, the Father, of whom are all things ... and one Lord Jesus Christ, by whom are all things”)?—Why, especially, in Heb. i. 2, in place of “by whom also [viz. by the Son] He made the worlds,” do we find substituted “through whom”?... And why add to this glaring inconsistency the wretched vacillation of giving us the choice of “through” (in place of “by”) in the margin of S. John i. 3 and 10, and not even offering us the alternative of “by” (in place of “through”) in any of the other places,—although the preposition is διά on every occasion?
And thus much for the Revisers' handling of the Prepositions. We shall have said all that we can find room for, when we have further directed attention to the uncritical and unscholarlike Note with which they have disfigured the margin of S. Mark i. 9. We are there informed that, according to the Greek, our Saviour “was baptized into the Jordan,”—an unintelligible statement to English readers, as well as a misleading one. Especially on their guard should the Revisers have been hereabouts,—seeing that, in a place of vital importance on the opposite side of the open page (viz. in S. Matth. xxviii. 19), they had already substituted “into” for “in.” This latter alteration, one of the Revisers (Dr. Vance Smith) rejoices over, because it obliterates (in his account) the evidence for Trinitarian doctrine. That the [pg 175] Revisionists, as a body, intended nothing less,—who can doubt? But then, if they really deemed it necessary to append a note to S. Mark i. 9 in order to explain to the public that the preposition εἰς signifies “into” rather than “in,”—why did they not at least go on to record the elementary fact that εἰς has here (what grammarians call) a “pregnant signification”? that it implies—(every schoolboy knows it!)—and that it is used in order to imply—that the Holy One “went down into,” and so, “was baptized in the Jordan”?[550]... But why, in the name of common sense, did not the Revisionists let the Preposition alone?
IX. The Margin of the Revision is the last point to which our attention is invited, and in the following terms:—
“The subject of the Marginal Notes deserves special attention. They represent the results of a large amount of careful and elaborate discussion, and will, perhaps, by their very presence, indicate to some extent the intricacy of many of the questions that have almost daily come before us for decision. These Notes fall into four main groups:—First, Notes specifying such differences of reading as were judged to be of sufficient importance to require a particular notice;—Secondly, Notes indicating the exact rendering of words to which, for the sake of English idiom, we were obliged to give a less exact rendering in the text;—Thirdly, Notes, very few in number, affording some explanation which the original appeared to require;—Fourthly, Alternative Renderings in difficult or debateable passages. The Notes of this last group are numerous, and largely in excess of those which were admitted by our predecessors. In the 270 years that have passed away since their labours were concluded, the Sacred Text has been minutely examined, discussed in every detail, and analysed with a grammatical precision unknown in the days of the last Revision. There has thus been accumulated [pg 176] a large amount of materials that have prepared the way for different renderings, which necessarily came under discussion.”—(Preface, iii. 4.)
When a body of distinguished Scholars bespeak attention to a certain part of their work in such terms as these, it is painful for a Critic to be obliged to declare that he has surveyed this department of their undertaking with even less satisfaction than any other. So long, however, as he assigns the grounds of his dissatisfaction, the Reviewed cannot complain. The Reviewer puts himself into their power. If he is mistaken in his censure, his credit is gone. Let us take the groups in order:—
(1) Having already stated our objections against the many Notes which specify Textual errors which the Revisionists declined to adopt,—we shall here furnish only two instances of the mischief we deplore:—
(a) Against the words, “And while they abode in Galilee” (S. Matthew xvii. 22), we find it stated,—“Some ancient authorities read were gathering themselves together.” The plain English of which queer piece of information is that א and b exhibit in this place an impossible and untranslatable Reading,—the substitution of which for ἀναστρεφομένων δὲ ἀυτῶν can only have proceeded from some Western critic, who was sufficiently unacquainted with the Greek language to suppose that ΣΥΝ-στρεφομένων δὲ αὐτῶν, might possibly be the exact equivalent for Con-versantibus autem illis. This is not the place for discussing a kind of hallucination which prevailed largely in the earliest age, especially in regions where Greek was habitually read through Latin spectacles. (Thus it was, obviously, that the preposterous substitution of Euraquilo for “Euroclydon,” in Acts xxvii. 14, took its rise.) Such blunders would be laughable if encountered anywhere except on holy ground. Apart, however, from the lamentable lack [pg 177] of critical judgment which a marginal note like the present displays, what is to be thought of the scholarship which elicits “While they were gathering themselves together” out of συστρεφομένων δὲ αὐτῶν? Are we to suppose that the clue to the Revisers' rendering is to be found in (συστρέψαντος) Acts xxviii. 3? We should be sorry to think it. They are assured that the source of the Textual blunder which they mistranslate is to be found, instead, in Baruch iii. 38.[551]
(b) For what conceivable reason is the world now informed that, instead of Melita,—“some ancient authorities read Melitene,” in Acts xxviii. 1? Is every pitiful blunder of cod. b to live on in the margin of every Englishman's copy of the New Testament, for ever? Why, all other MSS.—the Syriac and the Latin versions,—Pamphilus of Cæsarea[552] (a.d. 294), the friend of Eusebius,—Cyril of Jerusalem,[553]—Chrysostom,[554]—John Damascene,[555]—all the Fathers in short who quote the place;—the coins, the ancient geographers;—all read Μελίτη; which has also been acquiesced in by every critical Editor of the N. T.—(excepting always Drs. Westcott and Hort), from the invention of Printing till now. But because these two misguided men, without apology, explanation, note or comment of any kind, have adopted “Melitene” into their text, is the Church of England to be dragged through the mire also, and made ridiculous in the eyes of Christendom? This blunder moreover is “gross as a mountain, open, palpable.” One glance at the place, written in uncials, explains how it arose:—ΜελιτηΗΝΗσοσκαλειται. Some stupid scribe (as the reader sees) has connected the first syllable of νῆσος with the last syllable of Μελίτη.[556] That [pg 178] is all! The blunder—(for a blunder it most certainly is)—belongs to the age and country in which “Melitene” was by far the more familiar word, being the name of the metropolitan see of Armenia;[557] mention of which crops up in the Concilia repeatedly.[558]
(2) and (4) The second and the fourth group may be considered together. The former comprises those words of which the less exact rendering finds place in the Text:—the latter, “Alternative renderings in difficult and debateable passages.”
We presume that here our attention is specially invited to such notes as the following. Against 1 Cor. xv. 34,—“Awake out of drunkenness righteously”:—against S. John i. 14,—“an only begotten from a father”:—against 1 Pet. iii. 20,—“into which few, that is, eight souls, were brought safely through water”:—against 2 Pet. iii. 7,—“stored with fire”:—against S. John xviii. 37,—“Thou sayest it, because I am a king”:—against Ephes. iii. 21,—“All the generations of the age of the ages”:—against Jude ver. 14,—“His holy myriads”:—against Heb. xii. 18,—“a palpable and kindled fire”:—against Lu. xv. 31,—“Child, thou art ever with me”:—against Matth. xxi. 28,—“Child, go work to-day in my vineyard”:—against xxiv. 3,—“What shall be the sign of Thy presence, and of the consummation of the age?”—against Tit. i. 2,—“before times eternal”: against Mk. iv. 29,—“When the fruit alloweth [and why not ‘yieldeth itself’?], straightway he sendeth forth the sickle”:—against Ephes. iv. 17,—“through every joint of the supply”:—against ver. 29,—“the building up of the need”:—against Lu. ii. 29,—“Master, now lettest thou Thy bondservant depart in peace”:—against Acts iv. 24,—“O Master, thou that didst make the heaven and the earth”:—against [pg 179] Lu. i. 78,—“Because of the heart of mercy of our God.” Concerning all such renderings we will but say, that although they are unquestionably better in the Margin than in the Text; it also admits no manner of doubt that they would have been best of all in neither. Were the Revisionists serious when they suggested as the more “exact” rendering of 2 Pet. i. 20,—“No prophecy of Scripture is of special interpretation”? And what did they mean (1 Pet. ii. 2) by “the spiritual milk which is without guile”?