ART. IV.-1. Novum Testamentum Græcè: antiquissimorum Codicum Textus in ordine parallelo dispositi: accedit Collatio Codicis Sinaitici. Edidit EDVARDUS H. HANSELL, S. T.B., Lector Theologiæ in Collegio S. Magdalenæ Oxon. Vol. III. Oxonii e Typographio Clarendoniano, 1865. Londini apud Alexandrum Macmillan. 2. Discussions on the Gospels, in Two Parts. Part I. On the Language employed by our Lord and His Disciples; Part II. On the Original Language of St. Matthew's Gospel, and on the Origin and Authenticity of the Gospels. By ALEXANDER ROBERTS, D.D. Second edition, revised and enlarged. Cambridge and London: 1864. 3. Novum Testamentum Græcè ex Sinaitico Codice omnium antiquissimo, Vaticanâ itemque Elzeviraná Lectione notatâ. Edidit NOTH. FRID. CONST. TISCHENDORF. Cum Tabulâ. Lipsiæ: 1865. 4. The New Testament of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, illustrated by a plain Explanatory Comment, and by Authentic Views of Places mentioned in the Sacred Text from Sketches and Photographs taken on the spot. Edited by EDWARD CHURTON, M.A., Archdeacon of Cleveland and Prebendary of York; and WILLIAM BASIL JONES, M. A., Prebendary of York and of St. David's. In two vols. London: 1865. AT T no time since the promulgation of the Christian religion has the prophecy of Daniel, that many should run to and fro, and knowledge should be increased, appeared nearer its fulfilment than at the present moment. If we withdraw our gaze from secular and confine it to theological matters, we find it still the same; new manuscripts have year after year been discovered or collated, new editions of the whole or portions of the Scriptures are put forth, fresh explanations of old difficulties are proposed, in some cases ancient statements and views have received remarkable confirmation, while in others rude and unceremonious assaults have been made upon cherished theories of the most venerable antiquity. All betokens life, energy, and movement, both in the world of sense and in the world of intellect; and it is but those who live in and for the past only who will look, on the whole, otherwise than with hope upon the phenomena that are so freely and vigorously developing themselves around them. Yet, when we come to inquire what practical use has been or is being made by the Church of England, in her official capacity, of all that has been or is being done in theology, we are shocked to find it absolutely nothing. In former days a translation of the Scriptures, intended and authorised to be read in churches, was considered a thing to be amended and improved with the increase of knowledge and materials; nor was it otherwise even with the Liturgy and Articles. But a spirit of finality-a kind of water-colour copy, on a small scale of that infallibility claimed by the Church of Rome-appears for the last two hundred years or thereabouts to have taken possession of the dominant party in the Church of England, and to have caused it to stop its ears altogether to the voice of Truth, lest haply the siren Falsehood should prove too attractive to the unstable, the froward, or the unlearned. A writer in one of our most orthodox contemporaries* has counted up no less than 1,237 places in the single Gospel of St. Matthew, and 1,089 in that of St. Mark, in which the Authorised Version falls short of the original. Yet the same writer at the same time endeavours to stem the current which is setting with more or less of steadiness in the direction of demanding a new or revised translation of the Scriptures corresponding to the present accumulation of materials and increase of knowledge, in the first place by adding the very partially applicable limitation: as every translation must do;' and in the second place by inquiring whether the time has yet arrived when we can venture to undertake the work; whether sufficient materials have been accumulated; whether any one of the three sources from which the Greek text of the New Testament must be derived-manuscripts, versions, and quotations--has been adequately examined, and so forth. But the fact is, that these pseudo-conservative theologians always take good care never to admit that the time has come and the labourers are prepared for such a work, and to place every obstacle in the way of its ever being accomplished. There will always be some unhappy' book or writer to render the present moment unfit in the eyes of many for even the most urgent and necessary corrections or improvements. 6 It would be very easy to bring forward a considerable list of important passages with regard to the true meaning of which adhuc sub judice lis est,' and for the satisfactory solution of which divines of the stationary school will profess themselves desirous to wait. They find themselves too busily engaged in crying up the wisdom of our reformers, our translators, or our forefathers, to take practical example by it. Yet the existence Quarterly Review for Jan. 1863, p. 90. of such difficulties cannot but be felt by them as a most grievous slur upon the finality which they to all intents and purposes demand for both the Authorised Version and the existing Prayer-book, which is to a certain extent dependent upon it, though not so much so as many people appear to imagine. The fact of the existence of such questions as the old and undecided strife between the words covenant' and 'testament' for the post of honour on the title-page of the Christian Scriptures; the dispute whether the Last Supper was or was not a strictly Paschal meal, and if so, of what nature; the controversy whether our Lord and His disciples habitually conversed in Greek or Aramaic, or used either language indifferently, which Dr. Roberts has discussed at great length and with great learning in one of the works which we have placed at the head of this article *-questions which may some day be decided, and towards the solution of some of which it may possibly be given to our own times to make a nearer approach-is decisive at once, we freely admit, against the finality of a revision of the present Authorised Version, while it is no argument whatever against such a revision itself. Indeed, no revision and no translation, in our present state of imperfection and change on earth, can ever be more than provisional, or can have a right to claim more for itself than to be and to be considered a So far as Dr. Roberts maintains in general that the inhabitants of Palestine were bilingual, using Greek and Aramaic more or less indifferently, we consider that his reasoning is satisfactory. We are not, however, prepared to put entirely aside the statements of ancient writers as to the existence of an original Aramaic Gospel. If St. Paul addressed the Jews at Jerusalem (Acts xxi. 40) év 'Eßpaidi diaXEKT, in order to gain their ear, it would have been but ordinary prudence in the disciples to put forth as soon as possible a Gospel in the same language. The Aramaic would have occupied the position of a translation as regards what passed between our Lord and His disciples in Greek, and the Greek as regards what passed between them in Aramaic. In Acts xxii. 1-21, we have an undoubted specimen of a translation from Aramaic into Greek, which does not present phenomena greatly differing from the records of what unquestionably passed in the Greek language. Dr. Roberts vouchsafes but little notice to the fact of our Lord's quotation from the Psalms being made in Aramaic (Matt. xxvii. 46), Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani.' And the suggestion that a 'rude Egyptian' might possibly have been unable to speak Greek, by no means meets the difficulties of Acts xxi. 37-39; for Egypt was undoubtedly the stronghold of Hellenism, and if an Egyptian Jew could not speak Greek, it is difficult to imagine what language he could have spoken. practical improvement for the present, and a satisfactory basis for future improvements to be made in future generations. But how can the half-hearted finality of the dominant factions in the Church of England contrast otherwise than unfavourably, in the eyes of waverers, with the daring infallibility of the Church of Rome, even as a blushing prevarication wins far less confidence and is far less likely to attain its end than a brazen and unblushing falsehood? Indeed, it is most lamentable to hear the same persons loudly maintaining the plenary or rather verbal inspiration of the Scriptures, and yet opposing themselves to all proposals for making endeavours to place a less corrupted and more faithful Bible in the hands of those students of God's Word who are dependent upon the learned to place that word before them in their native language. It matters little that, as Satan assumes the garb of an angel of light, so does the evil spirit of finality apparel itself in the garb of that truly and peculiarly Christian virtue, humility. We are unfit,' say these men, in ❝ our divided and distracted state to enter upon such a work; there are no giants of learning now in the land as there were in the days of our forefathers; it is rather ours humbly and 'meekly to make use of what they have handed down to us, 'than to set ourselves up for wiser and better than they were.' But how much more faithful, if not more humble, and how much more consistent with our position as God's ovvepyoi,* to make use of the accumulated materials of above two centuries, and humbly and honestly endeavour to improve and complete the structure, as our forefathers would doubtless have improved and completed it, had they possessed even a portion of our means and opportunities! Is there And, as there are said to have been giants of scholarship, learning, and intellect in the land in the days of our forefathers, so, too, upon consideration, we shall perhaps find that there are giants of very tolerable stature even now. not Wordsworth, Archdeacon and Canon of Westminster, who has discovered in the Apocalypse a new grammar-a grammar unknown to Greek and Hellenist, and apparently to the other writers of the New Testament, and even to St. John himself in his Gospel and Epistles, The Grammar of Inspiration? '† Is there not Ellicott, Bishop of Gloucester and Bristol, whom all with one voice acknowledge to have done good service in * 1 Cor. iii. 9. † On Rev. i. 4 and 5. Dr. Wordsworth must forgive us for drawing attention to this singular flight of rhetoric. bringing together in an available form, and with great judgment, nearly all the grammatical and exegetical materials that the industry of ancient and modern times has accumulated on such of St. Paul's Epistles as he has edited? Is there not Alford, Dean of Canterbury, who has accomplished one of the most Herculean tasks of modern days in furnishing the English student with the only complete edition of the Christian Scriptures which is provided with critical apparatus and an exegetical commentary in his native tongue? Is there not Jowett, Regius Professor of Greek in the University of Oxford, whose magnitude may be estimated by the fact that the authorities of his University long conspired to keep him poor and grievously pinch him in pocket, in order to restrain the pride and presumption of his heterodoxy? Is there notbut, so far at least as the question of New Testament revision is concerned, we have now named a number of fairly representative men sufficient for our purpose. We have Wordsworth as the representative of the extreme Right, Jowett as that of the extreme Left, and Ellicott and Alford representing respectively the Right and Left Centre. Even excluding, in spite of their acknowledged learning and ability, the extreme Right and Left, as unlikely to command the confidence of those who differ from them respectively, there are unquestionably men enough of reasonable minds, moderate views, and unimpeachable scholarship, who could be grouped round Ellicott and Alford for such a work as the revision of the English version of the Scriptures of the New Covenant. And if the men themselves, after all, are pigmies, have they not the shoulders of the giants of former days to mount upon? Is there not the existing Authorised Version to serve as a basis for their labours? We must not forget, either, that, just when we were threatened with the utter and entire decay and degeneration of our race in a physical point of view, it occurred to a sporting nobleman to revive the ancient tournament, and when the combatants proceeded to arm themselves for the fray, the plate and mail of olden heroes were found too small for the pheasant-slayers and foxhunters of modern days. Something of the kind, mutatis mutandis, may possibly be true with regard to the field of selection that would be open to Queen Victoria for the formation of a body of commissioners for the purpose above mentioned, as compared with that which was open to his most sacred Majesty James I. In the critical knowledge of the Greek tongue, in the science of language, in familiarity with the Eastern languages, and in the accuracy of our historical and topographical researches, the men of our |