(2) Why should the “indisputable antiquity” of a document be supposed to disqualify it from being measured by the same standard to which (but only for convenience) documents of whatever date,—by common consent of scholars, at home and abroad,—are invariably referred? And next,
(3) Surely, you cannot require to have it explained to you that a standard of comparison, is not therefore of necessity a standard of excellence. Did you ever take the trouble to collate a sacred manuscript? If you ever did, pray with what did you make your collation? In other words, what “standard” did you employ?... Like Walton and Ussher,—like Fell and Mill,—like Bentley, and Bengel, and Wetstein,—like Birch, and Matthæi, and Griesbach, and Scholz,—like Lachmann, and Tregelles, and Tischendorf, and Scrivener,—I venture to assume that you collated your manuscript,—whether it was of “disputable” or of “indisputable antiquity,”—with an ordinary copy of the Received Text. If you did not, your collation is of no manner of use. But, above all,
(4) How does it come to pass that you speak so scornfully of the Received Text, seeing that (at p. 12 of your pamphlet) you assure your readers that its pedigree may be traced back to a period perhaps antecedent to the oldest of our extant manuscripts? Surely, a traditional Text which (according to you) dates from about a.d. 300, is good enough for the purpose of Collation!
(5) At last you say,—
“If there were reason to suppose that the Received Text represented verbatim et literatim the text which was current at Antioch in the days of Chrysostom, it would still be impossible to regard it as a standard from which there was no appeal.”[872]
Really, my lord Bishop, you must excuse me if I declare plainly that the more I attend to your critical utterances, the more I am astonished. From the confident style in which you deliver yourself upon such matters, and especially from your having undertaken to preside over a Revision of the Sacred Text, one would suppose that at some period of your life you must have given the subject a considerable amount of time and attention. But indeed the foregoing sentence virtually contains two propositions neither of which could possibly have been penned by one even moderately acquainted with the facts of Textual Criticism. For first,
(a) You speak of “representing verbatim et literatim the Text which was current at Antioch in the days of Chrysostom.” Do you then really suppose that there existed at Antioch, at any period between a.d. 354 and a.d. 407, some one definite Text of the N. T. capable of being so represented?—If you do, pray will you indulge us with the grounds for such an extraordinary supposition? Your “acquaintance” (Dr. Tregelles) will tell you that such a fancy has long since been swept away “at once and for ever.” And secondly,
(b) You say that, even if there were reason to suppose that the “Received Text” were such-and-such a thing,—“it would still be impossible to regard it as a standard from which there was no appeal.”
But pray, who in his senses,—what sane man in Great Britain,—ever dreamed of regarding the “Received,”—aye, or any other known “Text,”—as “a standard from which there shall be no appeal”? Have I ever done so? Have I ever implied as much? If I have, show me where. You refer your readers to the following passage in my first Article:—
“What precedes admits to some extent of further numerical illustration. It is discovered that, in 111 pages, ... the serious [pg 386] deflections of a from the Textus Receptus amount in all to only 842: whereas in c they amount to 1798: in b, to 2370: in א, to 3392: in d, to 4697. The readings peculiar to a within the same limits are 133: those peculiar to c are 170. But those of b amount to 197: while א exhibits 443: and the readings peculiar to d (within the same limits), are no fewer than 1829.... We submit that these facts are not altogether calculated to inspire confidence in codices b א c d.”—p. 14.