Even this however is not all. The 7th of the Rules under which you undertook the work of Revision, was, that “the Headings of Chapters should be revised.” This Rule you have not only failed to comply with; but you have actually deprived us of those headings entirely. You have thereby done us a grievous wrong. We demand to have the headings of our chapters back.
You have further, without warrant of any sort, deprived us of our Marginal References. These we cannot afford to be without. We claim that they also may be restored. The very best Commentary on Holy Scripture are they, with which I am acquainted. They call for learned and judicious Revision, certainly; and they might be profitably enlarged. But they may never be taken away.
And now, my lord Bishop, if I have not succeeded in convincing you that the Revisers not only “exceeded their Instructions in the course which they adopted with regard to the Greek Text,” but even acted in open defiance of their Instructions; did both a vast deal more than they were authorized to do, and also a vast deal less;—it has certainly been no fault of mine. As for your original contention[913] that [pg 413] “nothing can be more unjust” than the charge brought against the Revisers of having exceeded their Instructions,—I venture to ask, on the contrary, whether anything can be more unreasonable (to give it no harsher name) than the denial?
[16] The calamity of the “New Greek Text” traced to its source.
There is no difficulty in accounting for the most serious of the foregoing phenomena. They are the inevitable consequence of your having so far succumbed at the outset to Drs. Westcott and Hort as to permit them to communicate bit by bit, under promise of secrecy, their own outrageous Revised Text of the N. T. to their colleagues, accompanied by a printed disquisition in advocacy of their own peculiar critical views. One would have expected in the Chairman of the Revising body, that the instant he became aware of any such manœuvre on the part of two of the society, he would have remonstrated with them somewhat as follows, or at least to this effect:—
“This cannot be permitted, Gentlemen, on any terms. We have not been appointed to revise the Greek Text of the N. T. Our one business is to revise the Authorized English Version,—introducing such changes only as are absolutely necessary. The Resolutions of Convocation are express on this head: and it is my duty to see that they are faithfully carried out. True, that we shall be obliged to avail ourselves of our skill in Textual Criticism—(such as it is)—to correct ‘plain and clear errors’ in the Greek: but there we shall be obliged to stop. I stand pledged to Convocation on this point by my own recent utterances. That two of our members should be solicitous (by a side-wind) to obtain for their own singular Revision of the Greek Text the sanction of our united body,—is [pg 414] intelligible enough: but I should consider myself guilty of a breach of Trust were I to lend myself to the promotion of their object. Let me hope that I have you all with me when I point out that on every occasion when Dr. Scrivener, on the one hand, (who in matters of Textual Criticism is facile princeps among us,) and Drs. Westcott and Hort on the other, prove to be irreconcileably opposed in their views,—there the Received Greek Text must by all means be let alone. We have agreed, you will remember, to ‘make the current Textus Receptus the standard; departing from it only when critical or grammatical considerations show that it is clearly necessary.’[914] It would be unreasonable, in my judgment, that anything in the Received Text should be claimed to be ‘a clear and plain error,’ on which those who represent the two antagonistic schools of Criticism find themselves utterly unable to come to any accord. In the meantime, Drs. Westcott and Hort are earnestly recommended to submit to public inspection that Text which they have been for twenty years elaborating, and which for some time past has been in print. Their labours cannot be too freely ventilated, too searchingly examined, too generally known: but I strongly deprecate their furtive production here. All too eager advocacy of the novel Theory of the two accomplished Professors, I shall think it my duty to discourage, and if need be to repress. A printed volume, enforced by the suasive rhetoric of its two producers, gives to one side an unfair advantage. But indeed I must end as I began, by respectfully inviting Drs. Westcott and Hort to remember that we meet here, not in order to fabricate a new Greek Text, but in order to revise our ‘Authorized English Version.’”... Such, in substance, is the kind of Allocution which it was to have been expected that the Episcopal Chairman of a Revising body would address to [pg 415] his fellow-labourers the first time he saw them enter the Jerusalem chamber furnished with the sheets of Westcott and Hort's N. T.; especially if he was aware that those Revisers had been individually talked over by the Editors of the work in question, (themselves Revisionists); and perceived that the result of the deliberations of the entire body was in consequence, in a fair way of becoming a foregone conclusion,—unless indeed, by earnest remonstrance, he might be yet in time to stave off the threatened danger.
But instead of saying anything of this kind, my lord Bishop, it is clear from your pamphlet that you made the Theory of Drs. Westcott and Hort your own Theory; and their Text, by necessary consequence, in the main your own Text. You lost sight of all the pledges you had given in Convocation. You suddenly became a partizan. Having secured the precious advocacy of Bp. Wilberforce,—whose sentiments on the subject you had before adopted,—you at once threw him and them overboard.[915]... I can scarcely imagine, in a good man like yourself, conduct more reckless,—more disappointing,—more unintelligible. But I must hasten on.
[17] Bp. Ellicott's defence of the “New Greek Text,” in sixteen particulars, examined.
It follows to consider the strangest feature of your pamphlet: viz. those two-and-thirty pages (p. 43 to p. 75) in which, descending from generals, you venture to dispute in sixteen particulars the sentence passed upon your new Greek Text by the Quarterly Review. I call this part of your pamphlet “strange,” because it displays such singular inaptitude to appreciate the force of Evidence. But in fact, (sit venia verbo) your entire method is quite unworthy of you. Whereas I appeal throughout to Ancient Testimony, you seek [pg 416] to put me down by flaunting in my face Modern Opinion. This, with a great deal of Reiteration, proves to be literally the sum of your contention. Thus, concerning S. Matth. i. 25, the Quarterly Reviewer pointed out (suprà pp. [123-4]) that the testimony of b א, together with that of the VIth-century fragment z, and two cursive copies of bad character,—cannot possibly stand against the testimony of all other copies. You plead in reply that on “those two oldest manuscripts the vast majority of Critics set a high value.” Very likely: but for all that, you are I suppose aware that b and א are two of the most corrupt documents in existence? And, inasmuch as they are confessedly derived from one and the same depraved original, you will I presume allow that they may not be adduced as two independent authorities? At all events, when I further show you that almost all the Versions, and literally every one of the Fathers who quote the place, (they are eighteen in number,) are against you,—how can you possibly think there is any force or relevancy whatever in your self-complacent announcement,—“We cannot hesitate to express our agreement with Tischendorf and Tregelles who see in these words an interpolation derived from S. Luke. The same appears to have been the judgment of Lachmann.” Do you desire that that should pass for argument?
To prolong a discussion of this nature with you, were plainly futile. Instead of repeating what I have already delivered—briefly indeed, yet sufficiently in detail,—I will content myself with humbly imitating what, if I remember rightly, was Nelson's plan when he fought the battle of the Nile. He brought his frigates, one by one, alongside those of the enemy;—lashed himself to the foe;—and poured in his broadsides. We remember with what result. The sixteen instances which you have yourself selected, shall now be indicated. First, on every occasion, reference shall be [pg 417] made to the place in the present volume where my own Criticism on your Greek Text is to be found in detail. Readers of your pamphlet are invited next to refer to your own several attempts at refutation, which shall also be indicated by a reference to your pages. I am quite contented to abide by the verdict of any unprejudiced person of average understanding and fair education:—