The Traditional Text of the Holy Gospels

by John William Burgon

1. Publishing separately according to the Dean's instructions such papers as were judged to be fit for publication, and leaving the rest:—

2. To put together a Work on the Principles of Textual Criticism out of the MSS., as far as they would go:—

3. To make up what was ready and fit into a Book, supplying from the rest of the materials and from elsewhere what was wanting besides filling up gaps as well as I could, and out of the rest (as well as from the Dean's published works) to construct brief notes on the Text which we had to publish.

This report was sent to Dr. Scrivener, Dean Goulburn, Sir Edward Maunde Thompson, and other distinguished scholars, and the unanimous opinion was expressed that the third of these plans should be adopted.

Not liking to encounter

Tot et tanta negotia solus,

I invited at the opening of 1890 the Rev. G. H. Gwilliam, Fellow of Hertford College, and the Rev. Dr. Waller, Principal of St. John's Hall, Highbury—a man of mathematical accuracy—to read over at my house the first draft of a large portion of Volume I. To my loss, Dr. Waller has been too busy since that time to afford me any help, except what may be found in his valuable [pg viii] comparison of the texts of the Peshitto and Curetonian printed in [Appendix VI]: but Mr. Gwilliam has been ready with advice and help all along which have been of the greatest advantage to me especially on the Syriac part of the subject, and has looked through all the first proofs of this volume.

It was afterwards forced upon my mind that if possible the Indexes to the Fathers ought to be included in the work. Indeed no book could adequately represent Dean Burgon's labours which did not include his apparatus criticus in that province of Textual Criticism, in which he has shewn himself so facile princeps, that no one in England, or Germany, or elsewhere, has been as yet able to come near him. With Sir E. Maunde Thompson's kind help, I have been able to get the part of the Indexes which relates to the Gospels copied in type-writing, and they will be published in course of time, God willing, if the learned world evinces sufficient interest in the publication of them.

Unfortunately, when in 1890 I had completed a first arrangement of Volume II, my health gave way; and after vainly endeavouring for a year to combine this severe toil with the conduct of a living, I resigned the latter, and moved into Oxford to devote myself exclusively to the important work of turning the unpublished results of the skilful faithfulness and the indefatigable learning of that “grand scholar”—to use Dr. Scrivener's phrase—towards the settlement of the principles that should regulate the ascertainment of the Divine Words constituting the New Testament.

The difficulty to be surmounted lay in the fact that after all was gathered out of the Dean's remains that was suitable for the purpose, and when gaps of smaller or greater size were filled, as has been done throughout the series of unfinished and unconnected MSS., there was still a large space to cover without the Master's help in covering it.