A church dictionary

by Walter Farquhar Hook

The first edition of the New Testament in Greek was the Complutensian, 1514–1517, though not published till 1522. Next that of Erasmus, in 1516. The editions of the Stephenses (1546–1550) are admirable for their beauty. The editions of Beza, 1565–1598, and Elzevir, 1624, are also to be noticed. The celebrated edition, with various readings, of the Rev. John Mill, was published at Oxford in 1707, after the labour of thirty years, and the readings amounted to 30,000! That of Wetstein, at Amsterdam, in 1751, with a far greater number; and that of Griesbach, at Halle, in 1775–1777, with a select collection of these readings.

With this great number of various readings may be mentioned the increase of parallel passages, in the English editions of the Bible; being, from the edition 1611, when they were first introduced, to Bishop Wilson’s Bible, A. D. 1785, from 8980 to 66,955. And these in the “Concordance of Parallels,” published afterwards by the Rev. C. Cruttwell, the editor of this last Bible, are probably three or four times the number.

SCRIPTURE, CANON OF. The present canon of the Roman Church was made in the fourth session of the Council of Trent, at which, besides cardinals, there were present no more than four archbishops and thirty-three bishops; of which number all but eight were Italians.

These men, who were as ill qualified by their learning as by their numbers to rule so great a question, were not even unanimous in the conclusion which they adopted. Some contended that the books ought to be placed in separate classes, the one to be used for piety, the other for the establishment of doctrine, which is the rule of the English Church. Seripando, the most learned of the cardinals present, even wrote a book to maintain this view; while nearly half the members of the council were opposed to the anathema by which the decree is enforced.

The main authority which has been urged in favour of the Roman canon, is that of the Council of Carthage. It is not however agreed when this synod was held; and, whatever date may be assigned, its decrees have no authority beyond the province of Africa, having never been incorporated in the universal code. To use the words of Bishop Cosin, “the question is, whether ever any Church or ancient author, during these first ages, can be showed to have professedly made such a catalogue of the true and authentic books of Scripture, as the Council of Trent hath lately addressed and obtruded upon the world: which will never be done. In the mean while they all speak so perspicuously for our Church canon, that there can be no denial of their agreement herein with us.”

The Apostolical Constitutions, which some writers assign to Clement, bishop of Rome, and which were undoubtedly written very early, do not admit in the canon those books which we call apocryphal. In the second century we find that Justin Martyr never cites them for Scripture. Origen and Tertullian, in the third, agree in rejecting them. In the fourth, we have a multitude of the greatest writers, who are clearly against the Church of Rome on this point; such as Athanasius, Cyril of Jerusalem, Hilary, Epiphanius, Basil, Gregory Nazianzen, Chrysostom, and Jerome; besides the Council of Nice at the beginning of the century, and towards the close of it the Council of Laodicea, whose canons were incorporated among those of the universal Church. The great Churches of Jerusalem and Alexandria, of Antioch and Constantinople, pronounced on the same side; and even in the Roman Church itself we have the same testimony from Gregory I., as well as of many others who are held to be its chief authorities. Cardinal Caietan, who died only a few years before the meeting of the council, following St. Jerome, maintained the distinction between the canonical and apocryphal books, and the influence of his opinion was very considerable, even at Trent. But the use of the Apocrypha was well known to be indispensable to Roman theologians, and if it were not admitted to form part of Scripture, no Divine sanction could be pleaded for purgatory, the canonization of saints, or the worship of images and relics. In this, as well as many other instances, the Roman Church has not scrupled to violate primitive tradition, in order to maintain its uncatholic doctrines and practices.

SCRIPTURES, INSPIRATION OF. (See Bible, Revelation.) “All Scripture,” we are told, “is given by inspiration of God.” To understand which expression we would remark, that Divine inspiration, or the supernatural influence of God upon the mind, to form it for intellectual improvement, may be, 1. An inspiration of superintendency, by which God preserves a writer commissioned by him to communicate his will, from error in those points which relate to his commission. It does not follow that the writer shall be preserved from error in what relates to grammar, or natural philosophy; but he is preserved from error in all that God has commissioned him to reveal. 2. An inspiration of suggestion, which precedes the former, and takes place when God doth, as it were, speak directly to the mind of the inspired person, making such discoveries to it as it could not but by miracle obtain. This has been done in various ways, by immediate impression on the mind, by dreams and visions represented to the imagination; at other times by sounds formed in the air, or by visible appearances.

The New Testament was written by a superintendent inspiration. The apostles were, according to Christ’s promise, furnished with all necessary powers for the discharge of their office, by an extraordinary effusion of the Holy Spirit upon them at the day of Pentecost (Acts ii. 4, &c.); and a second time (Acts iv. 31).

We may assure ourselves that they were hereby competently furnished for all those services which were of great importance for the spread and edification of the Church, and of so great difficulty as to need supernatural assistance.

Considering how uncertain a thing oral tradition is, and how soon the most public and notorious facts are corrupted by it, it was impossible that the Christian religion could be preserved in any tolerable degree of purity, without a written account of the facts and doctrines preached, by the apostles; and yet, on the other hand, we can hardly suppose that God would suffer a doctrine introduced in so extraordinary a manner to be corrupted and lost.