WITH A PREFACE
Lord Bishop of Gloucester^ Bristol
LIBRARY
TORONTO
Shelf No.
Register No.
33.0- JL/3
19.
A1ST INTRODUCTION
TO THE
iRelii Ctstauunt*
AN INTRODUCTION
TO THE
Cestametu.
BY
THE VERY REV. E. H. PLUMPTRE, D.D.,
Dean of Well*.
WITH A PREFACE BY
THE RIGHT REV. 0. J. ELLICOTT, D.D..
Lord Bishop of Gloucester and Bristol.
OASSELL & COMPANY, LIMITED:
LONDON, PARIS <0 NEW YORK.
[ALL RIG1IT8 RESERVED. 1
CONTENTS.
PAGE
PREFACE 1
THE BOOKS OF THE NEW TESTAMENT .... 23
THE TEXT OF THE NEW TESTAMENT .... 48
THE ENGLISH VERSIONS OF THE NEW TESTAMENT . 73
THE ORIGIN OF THE FIRST THREE GOSPELS . . 119
THE HARMONY OF THE GOSPELS ..... 161
CHRONOLOGICAL HARMONY OP THE GOSPELS. . . 171
APPENDIX 184
this volume consist of the
Preface and general Introduction prepared for the
New Testament Commentary, and standing at the
commencement of that work. As it is felt that they
have an independent interest and value of their own
as aids to the intelligent study of the New Testament,
it has been decided to publish them in their present
form.
PREFACE.
THE present Commentary may in many respects
claim to be considered as new in its design and
construction, and as an attempt to supply a need
which has been long and seriously felt by medita
tive readers of God s Holy Word.
We have at present no Commentary of the New
Testament which addresses itself especially to that
large and increasing class of cultivated English
readers who, believing the Holy Scriptures to be
what an ancient writer has denned them to be
e the true sayings of the Holy Ghost " and
knowing and feeling them to be living and abiding
words, desire to realise them, and to be able intel
ligently to apply them to their daily wants and to
the general context of life around them. This
class largely includes those who are unable to read
the Holy Scriptures in their original languages,
and to whom the many valuable commentaries,
B
2 PREFACE.
based on the original text, which this country and
Germany now freely supply, are unavailing and
inaccessible. And yet, even i they could read
them, they would hardly find in them all they
want. They might find lucid explanations of
difficulties, well-chosen historical illustrations,
judicial discussion of disputed interpretations,
candid investigation of real or supposed discre
pancies ; still there would be something yet want
ing which, after all, they would feel was that
which they most needed, and for which, even amid
all this affluence of exegetical detail, they were to
some extent looking in vain. This something, this
lacking element, even in commentaries of this
higher class, it is the especial object and design of
our present Commentary at any rate to attempt to
supply ; and it may briefly be defined to be this
the setting forth of the inner life of Scripture, and
that, too, not without reference to the hopes, fears,
needs, aspirations, and distinctive characteristics of
the restless age in which we are now living.
No class feels more sensibly the need of this
vital element in the interpretation of Holy Scrip
ture than the large and intelligent body of
thoughtful men and women to which we are
especially addressing ourselves. They feel the
PREFACE. 3
storm and stress of intellectual difficulties ; they
realise, often vividly and acutely, the trials to
which the childlike faith of early days is now
being increasingly subjected; they see old land
marks disappearing, old truths undergoing modi
fication and change, and, in their deepening
anxiety, they turn, with the true instinct of the
Christian soul, to that which they inwardly feel
changes not the enduring and abiding Word of
God. They turn to it ; and it speaks to them, for
it is a living Word ; but its consolations are often
only imperfectly appreciated, its truths far from
fully realised, its promises very inadequately recog
nised to be the true moving principles of a pure,
chivalrous, self-denying, and holy life. They need
the sympathetic interpreter. They need one to
guide them, who has thought as they think, who
feels as they feel one who, from no mere eccle
siastical standpoint, or the supposed vantage-
ground of some half -selfish theological adjustment,
but simply from the reverent, loving, and prayerful
study of the Book of Life, sets forth to them
its ever fresh truths, its ever new aspects, its ever
pertinent and timely consolations. Such is the
commentator and such the commentary that is now
more than ever needed by the earnest general
B 2
4 PREFACE.
reader in these closing 1 years of a progressive and
eventful century.
That these high aims have been realised in this
present volume is more than any editor, however
hopeful, and however confident in the ability of
those with whom he is working, could by any
means with propriety assert. Yet this may be
said that the attempt has been made with the
full recognition, not only of the importance of the
work, but of the peculiar aspects it must neces
sarily assume, and also of the general spiritual
characteristics of those for whom it is chiefly
designed thoughtful English readers who desire
to understand the written Word, feel its power,
realise its message, estimate its difficulties, and
recognise its living adaptation to all the complex
relations and problems of modern religious life.
If the New Testament is truly what we believe it
to be, it must have a message to every age and
generation; this message, especially as concerns
our own times, is what we are now endeavouring
to set forth fully, candidly, and unreservedly to
the Christian reader.
It would be too much to say that this has never
been attempted before. Works like those of
Bengel may remind us that men to whom the
PREFACE. 5
Holy Spirit has vouchsafed a singular inter
pretative faculty, and, with it, that almost greater
gift of bringing its results home alike to the heart
and to the perceptions of the reader works such
as these, as marvellous in the fruitful brevity of
their comments as profound in their spiritual
power, may well remind us that He who inspired
the Word has never left Himself without clear
and faithful interpreters of it. This we fully
believe and recognise ; still we may also express
our belief that it is more particularly in our own
times that the need for such an attempt as the
present has distinctly emerged, and so that any
thing novel which it may involve is due to the
circumstances of the case, and to the plain fact
that, as the needs are new, so that which attempts
to meet the needs must have some elements which
are new also. Thus far our work may be con
sidered to occupy new ground, and in many re
spects to be considered a new Commentary : new,
because it includes new elements ; new, because it
meets new needs.
But what are these new needs ? What is it
that has really called into existence such attempts
as this present Commentary may in some degree
represent ? The answer is not far to seek.
6 PREFACE.
Modern criticism has made it in many minds
doubtful whether Scripture is what it declares
itself to be living- and enduring, not only a
record of salvation, but a bearer of it to the soul ;
not only, as the early writers commonly regarded
it, a source of illumination to the mind, but a life-
influencing and life-modifying power, as fresh and
as potent now as when its words were first heard
in the Christian Church. Modern criticism has
declared all such views to be dreams and enthu
siasms, perhaps harmless, but certainly illusory;
enthusiasms which may be regarded by the calm
student of history as either the not unnatural
results of traditional reverence, or the sequences of
that great movement in the religious life of Wes
tern Europe that transferred infallibility from a
Church to a Book, and invested with supernatural
attributes the documents of an early Christianity
which, it is asserted, itself never so regarded them.
And these chilling doubts have crept into the souls
of thousands. The early love and reverence for
the blessed Book, and especially for the New Tes
tament, has become silently transmuted into a
calm and cold acceptance of it as the record of
a wondrous era in this poor world s changing his
tory; as a group of documents setting forth a
PREFACE. 7
morality purer than the mind o man had ever
realised; as the sad, strange story of a blessed
life, half real, half ideal, to which eighteen cen
turies have tendered their irrepressible homage ;
as this, and perhaps as all this, and yet as no
thing beyond it history, and nothing more.
Many and many a weary soul, and those not
the least noble among us, are at this very hour
feeling all this, and feeling it too with the sad
inward consciousness that the soul remains un
satisfied ; that the dew of early belief has dried
up, and that nothing has ever supplied its place ;
and that if only it were possible that that dew
could rise again all yet might be well : that the
lost might yet be found, and a hope in some
thing higher than the mere development of our
humanity might again take its leading place
among the lights and forces of the soul. Many
a one would give half a life if only it could be
made certain that the New Testament might be
completely accepted as true, and that its words
once more might be heard as the voice of God
speaking through the lips and with the utterance
of mortal man.
These are some of the needs of the present time,
and it is to meet them, and to show that God s
8 PREFACE.
word is really what it claims to be ; that it is
truth vivid, fresh,, and enduring truth ; that it is
light, and not light only but life, life speaking to
life to show this, and to meet these needs is one
of the chief purposes of our present Commentary.
It is under these aspects that it may lay claim to
the title of a new Commentary new, as thus
meeting new needs; new, as seeking to supply
guidance amid newly developing difficulties and
perplexities.
But this as, indeed, we have already implied
is very far from being our only purpose. There
are, thank God, thousands and tens of thousands
to whom this Book of Life is what it ever was,
and who perhaps feel themselves more potently
drawn to it than ever. Numbers of quiet and
godly souls there now are, weary with the contro
versies of the times, who are turning now, as men
turned in stirring days gone by, to the Holy
Scriptures, and are making them their ultimate
Book of appeal ultimate whether in regard of
the homely needs of daily Christian life, or of
those blessed hopes and promises that bring nearer
the unfolding future. And these, too, are seeking
for a Commentary that may really meet and sym
pathise with their aspirations a Commentary that
PREFACE. 9
may help them to realise the blessed story, to see
things as with modern, and yet as with reverential
and believing- eyes, and to hear with the ears of
to-day the message, the great life-giving message,
that is now just as pertinent and applicable to
all the varying circumstances of modern life as it
was when to listening disciples and thronging
multitudes it was declared that God s kingdom
was nigh at hand. Everything that thus brings
back the past and places it, as it were, among the
realities of the present, is what the modern re
ligious mind is now consciously or unconsciously
seeking. Its chief care is to make its own what
it knows was destined to be its own; and it
welcomes readily and gladly any or every form
of interpretation that seems to have this purpose
or object in view.
It is for these for this large and increasing
class of really earnest readers of God s Holy Word
that this Commentary has been more especially
composed. Though, as has been already said, the
deep needs of those who have not yet realised the
Book to be what it is have ever been present to
our minds ; and though every effort has been made
indirectly to set forth that greatest of all evidential
arguments, the deep life of the written Word, to
10 PREFACE.
each truth-seeking and unbiassed reader; yet our
chief thought has been for those who desire more
fully to realise that which, by the mercy of God,
they have never been tempted to doubt. How
many there are who are now earnestly seeking for
that which we are here endeavouring to present to
them ! The student of Holy Scripture, the Chris
tian father of the family where God s Word is
loved and reverenced, the up-growing children, the
teacher in the Sunday-school or the instructor of
the Bible class, and, last and chief of all, that large
class of English readers who feel themselves more
and more drawn to God s Word by the very rest
lessness of the times in which they are living. All
these, and such as these, are now earnestly craving
to have Scripture brought home to their hearts,
and that too not merely by interpretation of diffi
culties, but by meditative comments comments of
our time and age, comments that help to make the
Book not only better understood, not only more
reverenced, but more and more loved, more and
more felt to be life to the inner soul as well as
light to the appreciative mind.
These, then, are the two broad classes of readers
those who doubt the full authority of Scripture,
but who would rejoice to have those doubts dissi-
PREFACE. 11
pated, and that much larger class that (by God s
blessing) doubt not, but desire more fully to realise
and to understand : these are the two classes who
have been ever present to the thoughts of the
writers of this Commentary, and for whom es
pecially they have undertaken this work. May
the favour and grace of God the Holy Ghost rest
upon it, and bless it both to the writers and to the
readers.
Thus far our thoughts have been directed to our
readers. Let a few words be added in reference to
the writers who are associated together in this
responsible work. They are men of different minds
and of different modes of individual thought, but
all have one common purpose all are animated by
one common feeling of love and reverence for God s
Holy Word, all have for it that sympathy which
shows itself most clearly and most truly when it
tries to impart that feeling to others, and to share
with them a common love. Free and candid
thoughts will be found in these pages ; difficulties
will not be passed over ; if they cannot, as yet, be
explained, the avowal will be made with all Chris
tian simplicity, and the direction in which the
solution appears to lie, pointed out by way of
suggestion and reasonable inference suggestion
12 PREFACE.
and inference, bat nothing more. No attempt
will be made merely to rehabilitate what may have
the sanction of honoured names or ancient autho
rity ; still less merely to reproduce some current
and conventional explanation, which is not only
felt to be what it is by every intelligent reader,
but is even distinctly harmful and repellent to the
reverential searcher. The truth is very dear to
the writers of this Commentary, and their rever
ence for it is too great to allow them ever to set
forth as truth any explanations in which they
themselves have not the fullest and completest
confidence. Yet let no one for a moment suppose
that in these pages he will find traces of unfixed
opinions or of fluctuating and half-persuaded sen
timents as to the real nature of God s Holy Word.
No : each one of our little company knows in
Whom and in What he has trusted knows and
believes that truth, heavenly truth, is present in
every verse, even though he may not be able to see
it in its clearness, or set it forth in its fulness ;
and knows it, too, by that best and truest of all
teachings the silent witness of Scripture to the
inward soul, deepened by life s experiences that
testimonium animce, which bears the conviction no
arguments can supply, no merely outward reasoning
PREFACE. 13
can do more than passingly substantiate. Candour,
and candid seeking after truth, the reader will
find ; and with it that sympathy of spirit in
difficulties which alone makes the writer and the
reader truly to be at one. This, we humbly
believe, each one who may read these pages will
find legibly traced on them ; but on the one great
truth that Holy Scripture alike is God s Word and
contains God s Word, there will be found no hesi
tancy or fluctuation. Let this be called an assump
tion at the very outset which perfect impartiality
ought never to make let it be called prejudice,
inherited bias, or bear whatever other name our
own unstable age may think fit to apply to it ;
such, at any rate, is the conviction of the writers
of this Commentary, and such the general attitude
of mind under which they have addressed them
selves to their responsible work.
And now, lastly, a few comments on the details
of this work, as regards both the matter and
manner of interpretation.
In the first place, the Authorised version is that
on which the Commentary is formed ; and this for
obvious reasons. This is a work for general readers,
to whom the Authorised version will for years to
come be the form in which God s Word is presented
14 PREFACE.
to them. As such it stands as our text, and as
that which the notes are designed to illustrate.
But while it rightly occupies that place, care has
been taken never to fail to indicate whensoever and
wheresoever there is sound reason for believing that
the words do not reflect the true text or the true
meaning of the original. Mere minutiae of textual
criticism, are not enumerated ; mere shades of
interpretation which leave the real meaning sub
stantially the same are not specified. The reader,
however, may in all cases feel confident that nothing
in this department of the work is passed over which it
is proper for the faithful student of Holy Scripture
to have presented to his consideration. The notes
will remind him that there is real need for a
revision of our Authorised version, perhaps more
even in its textual than in its grammatical aspects ;
but at the same time he will not fail to observe
how comparatively few the passages are in which
the true meaning of the original is entirely obscured.
There are many in which its full meaning is very
inadequately expressed; but, by the overruling
mercy and providence of God, distinctly erroneous
forms of words appear very rarely either in the
text or in the translation.
The Notes, as already has been to some extent
PREFACE. 15
implied, are designed for earnest searchers and
earnest readers who have either no knowledge of
O
the original language, or only such a knowledge
as may be at best but a precarious guide. Hence
the references in the Notes are in all cases to works
accessible by means of translation to English
readers. Such references are not numerous,, but,
wherever they appear, they will be found to direct
the reader to illustrative matter, which will much
help its true appreciation of the passage under
consideration. The effect, not only on the general
power of rightly apprehending the meaning of a
passage, but on the memory, and, if we may so
speak, on the spiritual interest in the inspired
words under consideration, will be found greatly
enhanced by an attention to a well-chosen refer
ence, and by an honest perusal of the source of
illustration, or of further information to which the
reader may be directed. References, whether to
Scripture or to works that illustrate it, are of the
greatest and most real importance. If thought
fully and conscientiously made, and as thought
fully and conscientiously referred to by the reader,
they are of lasting profit. But the choice must be
i well considered and well tested, and the number of
references carefully limited. Full confidence must
16 PREFACE.
exist in this matter between the commentator and
his reader ; and such confidence we trust and
believe will be found to arise between the writers
and readers of this Commentary.
But the broad purpose of the Notes not only
to explain and to illustrate, but to bring home to
the heart of the reader the sacred text to which
the Notes are appended has never been lost sight
of or merged in mere exegetical detail. On the
one hand all real or seeming difficulties have been
candidly set forth, and the inferences which may
be thought to flow from them discussed and
analysed. Nothing has been kept back from the
reader. The truth, so far as a knowledge of it
has been vouchsafed to the interpreter, has been
stated fully and unreservedly ; and where difficulty
yet remains, no attempt has been made to hide it
by any of the plausibilities of a mere conventional
or traditional exegesis. If that which lies before
us is God s Word, revealed to man through the
instrumentality of man, then difficulties there
must be ; yet difficulties of such a nature as, if
rightly and reverently discussed, will, in the
sequel, only still more clearly and convincingly
display the blessed fulness of the manifold and
multiform wisdom of God. On the other hand,
PREFACE. 17
where the meaning is plain, and the inferences
from it presumably certain, there, with equal free
dom and unreserve, these inferences have been
drawn, and the results results often in contrast
with the current superficial estimates of a mere
popular theology laid seriously before the reader.
Our work is for the thoughtful and earnest, for
those who seek truth and love truth, for those
who desire to be guided by God s Word, and to
realise its message in days of doubt and transi
tion ; and to withhold from such what would seem
to be the full counsel of God, would be to miss
the first great duty of a conscientious interpreter.
Such, in broad and general terms, is the prevail
ing aspect of the notes and exegesis of this
Commentary.
Two useful supplements to these Notes will be
found in the case of the sacred books here com
mented upon. In the first place, an Introduction
is prefixed to each portion of Scripture ; in which
everything that is judged to be likely to illustrate
the scope, circumstances, or general details of the
inspired writing, is placed succinctly but yet, it
is hoped, with no want of completeness before
the general reader. In the second place, wherever
it may have seemed necessary, an Excursus has
c
18 PREFACE.
been appended to the Notes, for the benefit of the
student who might desire a fuller and more tech
nical treatment of the subject than would be con
sistent with the general scope of the Commentary.
By this means the many points which require a
separate consideration will be found so far critically,
as well as fully, discussed, as to leave no reader,
to whatever class he may belong, uninformed in
regard of the last and best results, in each parti
cular, of modern interpretation.
To the whole work an Introduction is prefixed,
from which it is hoped that both the general and
the critical reader will derive trustworthy infor
mation both as to the literary history of the sacred
documents, and the deeply-interesting story of the
noble English version which is the text of this
Commentary. Such information will be found
useful to the reader at every step of his progress.
He will practically see and realise that the outward
elements of God s inspired Word have had a great
and even mysterious history, and that if we may
humbly see His blessed inspiration in the written
words, no less clearly may we trace His providence
in the outward manner in which those words have
come down to us. No really faithful student of
God s Holy Word will do well to pass over this
PREFACE. 19
portion of the work. No reader, however mode
rately versed in knowledge of this kind, will fail
to derive from these pages information which he
will readily comprehend, and at once find to
interest him still more deeply in the sacred words
which form the subject of the providential history.
One brief and closing paragraph may allude to
the work of the Editor, and, if I may here speak
in the first person, the aspects under \vhich I have
regarded the responsible office, and the manner in
which I have endeavoured to perform the duties
allotted to me. My care has simply been to help
each writer, wheresoever it might seem necessary,
to set forth his own views with clearness and
cogency. Without perfect independence on the
part of the writers and such writers, let me add,
as we have had the good fortune to secure for this
Commentary no good results could be looked for,
no realisation of our great and common objects
could ever be attained. Where it has seemed
necessary, I have used an Editor s freedom in
suggesting partial reconsideration; but I have
deemed it right to leave the writer wholly free to
maintain that line of interpretation which, after
such reconsideration, he still felt it his duty to
take. All I have asked is that he should make it
c 2
20 PREFACE.
plain that it was a view for which he was indi
vidually responsible. Where I have simply dif
fered from the writer in points on which inter
preters of different minds have differed and will
differ to the end, there I have in no way sought
to indicate my own opinion,, feeling sure that the
writer had considered this opinion (for I lay claim
to no originality) among those which had passed
in review before him. Each writer, in a word, is
responsible for his own commentary and his own
interpretations. It has been my care only to see,
by close and careful reading, that the writer did
not fail, from any oversight, to set forth these
interpretations fully and clearly. To express here
any opinion on what is now submitted to the
reader would be indecorous and unusual ; yet this
I must ask leave to say that I can wish no
better wish to any reader, than that he may derive
the same interest and advantage that I have
derived from the perusal of this volume of our
Commentary.
I return now to the company and brotherhood
of those with whom I am associated, and with
them pray to our merciful God and Father that
this our work may be blessed by His divine favour,
and that His heavenly truth may be brought
PREFACE. 21
more or more home to the hearts of the readers of
His Holy Word. We have striven, at a critical
time in the history of religious opinion, to show
forth the fulness of that Word, its light and its
life ; and we now commend these results of our
labours to all who love Him of whom the Scrip
tures speak from the beginning to the end Jesus
Christ, our Lord, our Saviour, our King, and our
God; to whom, with the Father and the eternal
Spirit, be all honour and glory, for the ages of
eternity.
C. J. GLOUCESTER AND BRISTOL.
INTRODUCTION
TO
THE NEW TESTAMENT.
I. THE BOOKS OF THE NEW
TESTAMENT.
I. The language in which we commonly speak
of the volume which all Christians accept as being,
in some sense, their rule of faith and life, presents
many terms more or less technical in character,
each of which has a distinct history of its own,
not without interest. The whole volume for us
is the BIBLE, or more fully, the HOLY BIBLE,
containing the OLD AND NEW TESTAMENTS. Some
times we use the SCRIPTURE, or the SCRIPTURES,
or the HOLY SCRIPTURES, as a synonym for the
Bible. With these we sometimes find, bound up
in the same volume, "the books called APO
CRYPHA/ which are distinguished in the Sixth of
the Thirty-nine Articles of the Church of Eng
land from the " CANONICAL BOOKS of the Old and
New Testament/ . It is desirable that the stu
dent of the New Testament should know, at least
24 THE BOOKS OF
in outline, something- as to the meaning and his
tory of each of these terms.
II. Of all the words so used, SCRIPTURE, or
THE SCRIPTURES, is that which stands highest,
as far as the claims of antiquity and authority
affect our estimate. It had come to he used by
the Jews before our Lord s time as contrasting
as the Moslem now contrasts, in reference to the
Koran those who had a written rule, or book,
as the rule of faith and life, with those who had
not. The books that had been written in "sundry
times and divers manners (see Note to Heb. i. 1,
for the true meaning of the words), and which,
after various processes of sifting, editing, and re
vising, were then received as authoritative, were
known as " the Writings/ " the Scriptures/ as
in Matt. xxi. 42, Luke xxiv. 27, John viii. 39,
sometimes with the addition of the term <( holy,
or "sacred" (2 Tim. iii. 5). It was because they
studied this literature (grammata), that the inter
preters of the law were known as " scribes" (gram-
mateis). When these books were quoted, it was
enough to say, tc It is written " (e.g., Matt. iv.
4, 6; xxi. 13 ; xxvi. 21), or, with more emphasis,
"the Scripture saith " (e.g., Rom. iv. 7; ix. 17),
or to cite this or that " Scripture " (Mark xii. 10).
THE NEW TESTAMENT. 25
It may be noted, however, that the later ter
minology of the Jews in their classification of the
Sacred Books differed from this. They applied
the term "Writings" (Kethubim), or "Holy
Writings " (from which we get the Greek Hagio-
grapha, with the same meaning) to one portion
only of the collection, and that, in some sense,
the one which they reckoned as the lowest. First
came the LAW, including the Five Books of Moses,
whence the term Pentateuch ( = the five-volumed
Writing) ; (2) the earlier Prophets, including
under that head Joshua, Judges, 1 and 2 Samuel,
1 and 2 Kings; and (3) the later Prophets, in
cluding (a) the three Greater Prophets, Isaiah,
Jeremiah, and Ezekiel, and (b) the twelve Minor
Prophets, as we have them. ; (4) the Kethubim, or
" Writings/ including the following groups of
books : (a) Psalms, Proverbs, Job ; (b) the five
Megillothj or Rolls, the Song of Songs, Ruth,
Lamentations, Ecclesiastes, Esther; (c) Daniel,
Ezra, Nehemiah, 1 and 2 Chronicles. So far as
the later Jews wanted one word for the whole of
what we call the Old Testament, they used the
term Mikra (=" what is read or recited "), a word
which has the interest of being connected with the
Koran, or sacred book, of Islam.
26 THE BOOKS OF
III. The Greek word for BIBLE (Billion) occurs
in our version as " book/ in 2 Tim. iv. 13, Rev.
x. 3,, v. 1, but not apparently with any specially
distinctive sense. It is just possible that in the
first of these passages St. Paul may refer to what
he elsewhere calls the Scriptures. (See Note on
2 Tim. iv. 13.) This sense, however, did not
begin to attach to the word by itself till the
twelfth or thirteenth century. Greek writers
indeed, talked, as was natural, of the sacred or
holy " books " on which their faith rested ; and,
as in the Council of Laodicea, drew up catalogues
of such books, or spoke of the whole universe as
a book, or " bible," in which men might read the
wisdom and the love of the Creator. It was
natural, as the word came to be used, like other
Greek terms, in the Western churches, that tran
scribers, or binders, of the sacred books " should
label them as Biblia Sacra. As the centuries
passed on, however, men forgot the origin of the
word, and took Biblia, not for a neuter plural,
as it really was, but for a feminine singular;
and so we get the origin of the " Holy Bible/ be
traying itself in most European languages, as,
e.g., in La Bible, La Biblia, die Bibel, by the
feminine form of the noun. We are able to fix,
THE NEW TESTAMENT. 27
within comparatively narrow limits, the date of
the introduction of the word so used into our
English language. It was unknown to our Saxon
fathers. They used ge-writ, the "Writing/ or
following Jerome s felicitous phrase, Bibliotheke,
the <( library" or collection of books. " Bible"
came into use through the Norman Conquest and
the prevalence of French. Chaucer uses it in his
earlier poems (House of Fame, Book iii., 1. 244)
as applicable to any book. In the Prologue to
the Canterbury Tales, 1. 437, his latest work, it
stands as " the Bible/ with its new distinctive
honours, Wy cliff e s translation of what was
headed as the Holy Bible, and the frequent use
of the term in the Preface to this translation,
probably gained for it a wide acceptance, and all
idea of its plural meaning having dropped out of
sight, the definite article acquired a new signifi
cance, and it was received, as ninety-nine readers
out of a hundred receive it now, as the Bible, the
Book above all other books.
IV. The history of the terms the OLD and the
NEW TESTAMENT leads us into a region of yet
higher interest. They have their starting-point
in the memorable distinction drawn between the
Covenant that had been made with Israel through
28 THE BOOKS OF
Moses, and the New Covenant, with its better
promises, which was proclaimed for the future,
in Jer. xxxi. 31. That promise received a fresh
significance, and was stamped for ever on the
minds of the followers of Christ, by the words
which were spoken on the night of the Last
Supper, when He told the Apostles that it was
ratified by his own blood. (See Note on Matt,
xxvi. 28, where Covenant, and not (l Testament,"
is the right rendering.) The stress laid on the
distinction between the two Covenants in the
Epistle to the Hebrews (chaps, vii. x.) was, as
it were, the natural development of that thought ;
and the repetition of the words of institution, as
we find them in 1 Cor. xi. 25, at every celebration
of the Supper of the Lord, secured for it a uni
versal acceptance in all the churches. For a time,
the essential outlines of the New Covenant the
terms, as it were, of the New Contract were con
veyed chiefly or exclusively by the oral teaching
of the Apostles and their immediate followers.
But soon the New Covenant, like the Old,
gathered round it a literature of its own. With
out anticipating what will have to be said here
after as to the history of individual books, it lies
on the surface that within sixty or seventy years
THE NEW TESTAMENT. 29
after the Death and Resurrection of the Lord
Jesus, there were written records of His words
and deeds, Epistles purporting to be written by
His Apostles and disciples, revelations of the
future of His kingdom. In course of time, but
probably not till the fourth century, the books so
received came naturally enough to be known as
the Books of the New Covenant (diatheJce), as
distinguished from those of the Old ; and so in
the Council of Laodicea, in A.D. 320, we have lists
of the books which were recognised as belonging
to each (Can. 59). The Greek word for Covenant
was never naturalised, however, in the Latin of
the Western and African churches, and the writers
of those churches were for a time undecided as to
what equivalent they should use for it, and
wavered between fcedus, a " covenant " ; instru-
mentum, a " deed " ; and testamentum, a " will."
The earlier Latin writers, such as Tertullian (adv.
Marcion, vi. 1), use both the two latter words, but
state that the last was the more generally accepted
term. As such, it passed first into the early Latin
versions of the Scriptures, and then into St.
Jerome s Vulgate, and so became familiar through
the whole of Latin Christendom. If we confine
its meaning to its strict legal sense of <( will,"
30 THE BOOKS OF
it must be admitted to be a less accurate render
ing ih&nfcechts of the general sense of the Greek
diatheke (Heb. ix. 16 is, of course, an exception;
see Note there), and the latter word has accord
ingly been adopted by some of the more scholarly
Protestant theologians, such as Beza, as part of
their terminology. So in the writings of the
French Reformed Church, the New Testament
appears as La Nouvelle Alliance. Luther, with
a certain characteristic love for time-honoured
words, used Testament throughout, and though
some recent German writers have used Bund, it
does not seem likely to gain general acceptance.
In the history of the English versions we find
Wy cliff e, as was natural in a translation from the
Yulgate, using " Testament " uniformly. Tyn-
dale, in spite of his usual tendency to change the
familiar terms of Latin theology, was probably
in part influenced by Luther s example, and re
tained " Testament " throughout. He was fol
lowed in the other English translations, till we
come to that known as the Geneva version, where
it is replaced by " Covenant " in most passages,
still retaining, so to speak, its place of honour in
Matt. xxvi. 28, Luke xxii. 20, and Heb. ix. 16 ;
and it has thus secured a position from which
THE NEW TESTAMENT. 31
it will not be easy to dislodge it. In strict
accuracy, we ought to speak, as the title-page of
our Bible does, of the Books of the New Testa
ment, but the natural tendency of popular speech
to economy of utterance leads men to speak of the
" New Testament " as including the books.
V. In the Sixth of the Thirty-nine Articles of
the English Church, we find the phrase CANONICAL
SCRIPTURES, and that term also has a noteworthy
history of its own. We start from the Greek
word Jcanon, connected with " canna/ ee cane/
"canalis/ "channel/ " canal," " cannon "all
the words implying the idea of straightness and
find its primary meaning to be that of a e( reed/
or rather (for that belongs to the earlier form,
kane) , of a rod j then of a rod used as a carpenter s
rule ; thence, by a natural use of metaphors, it was
employed, chiefly by Alexandrian critics and gram
marians, for a ( rule " in ethics, or rhetoric, or
grammar. So the great writers of Greece were
referred to as being the Canon or standard of ac
curacy. In the LXX. version of the Old Testa
ment, the word is found only once, in Mic. vii. 10.
The passage is very obscure, but it is apparently
used in the sense of a column or bar of some sort,
as it is also in Judith xiii. 8. The figurative sense
32 THE BOOKS OF
had become dominant in the time of the New Tes
tament, and so we find St. Paul using it in Gal.
vi. 16, Phil. iii. 16, for a "rule" of faith and life,
and in 2 Cor. x. 13, 16, for one which marked out
a man s appointed line of work. So Councils made
Canons, or Rules, for the churches. So those who
were bound by the rules of cathedrals and col
legiate churches were called Canonici, or Canons.
So the fixed invariable part of the Roman liturgy
was known as the Canon of the Mass.
At even an earlier period than that to which
these later illustrations refer, the word had come
into use as belonging to the language of theology.
Clement of Alexandria speaks of the Canon of the
Church being found in the agreement of the Law
and the Prophets with the traditional teaching of
the New Covenant (Strom, vi., p. 676). Chry-
sostom and other commentators find the Canon, or
Rule, of Faith in Scripture. Tertullian, obviously
Latinising the same word, speaks of the doctrine
which the Church had received from the Apostles
or embodied in a creed, as the regula fidei. Alex
andria appears in this, as in other instances, to
have been the main source of ecclesiastical ter
minology. In Origen we find the next applica
tion of the word, and he speaks (in books of which
THE NEW TESTAMENT. 33
we have only the Latin version) of the Scripture
Canonictv, the libri regulares, the libri canonizati
of books that are "in the Canon. 33 Here there is
a slight change of meaning. The books are not
only the rale of the Church s faith ; they are
themselves in conformity with a standard. They
find their place in a list which is accepted by the
Church as the rule of what is or is not Scripture.
So Athanasius speaks of books that are in this
sense " canonised/ and the Council of Laodicea
(Can. 39) of those that are not so. Amphilochius
(circ. A.D. 380) takes up the language of the Latin
translator of Origen, and uses it for the actual
Catalogue of Books. With Jerome the term is in
frequent use in this sense, and from his writings it
passed into the common language of Latin Chris
tendom, and so into that of modern Europe, and
men spoke of the Canonical Scriptures as those
which were in the Canon.
VI. The history of the word has to be followed
by the history of the origin and growth of the
thing. Without anticipating what will find a
more fitting place in the Introduction to each
several book, viz., the traces which each has left
of itself in early ecclesiastical writings, and the
evidence which we have in those traces of its
D
34 THE BOOKS OF
genuineness, it lies on the surface that the Chris
tian Society had a literature of some kind at a
very early period. There were the " Words of the
Lord Jesus/ quoted by St. Paul as known (Acts
xx. oo), and quoted as Scripture (1 Tim. v. 18).
There were Epistles that were cited in the same
way (2 Pet. iii. 16). There were "many" records
of the life and teaching of Christ (Luke i. 1).
The " memoirs " of the Apostles were read publicly
in Christian assemblies, and these were known as
Gospels (Justin, Apol. c. 66). Besides these books,
which are now in the Canon, \ve find a Gospel of
the Hebrews, and of St. Peter, a Revelation bear
ing the name of the same Apostle, an Epistle to
the Laodiceans, and so on. It was obvious that
men would want some standard by which to dis
cern the genuine from the spurious ; and as lists
of the Old Testament had been drawn up at an
early period of the Church, by Melito of Sardis
(A.D. 180) and others, so, as we have seen, the
Church of Alexandria, the centre of the criticism
of early Christendom, supplied the thing, as it had
supplied the word. The process by which such a
list was drawn up must be left, in part, to imagina
tion, but it is not difficult to picture to ourselves,
with little risk of error, what it must almost neces-
THE NEW TESTAMENT. 35
sarily have been. A man of culture and great
industry, imbued with the critical habits of his
time, such, e.g., as was Origen, finds a multitude
of books before him professing to have come down
from the time of the Apostles. He takes them
one by one, and examines the claims of each.
Has it been read in church at all, and if so, where,
and in how many churches ? Has it been quoted
by earlier writers ? Has it been one of a group
assigned to the same writer, with the same charac
teristics of style as the other books so assigned ?
Whence has it come ? Who can report its history?
It is obvious that the answer to these questions
was to be found in a process of essentially personal
inquiry, of the exercise of private judgment, of the
critical reason working upon history. And so, to
take the earliest instance of such a list which we
can connect with a name, we find Origen giving
one which includes the four Gospels by name, the
Epistles of St. Paul (the names of the Epistles,
however, are not given, nor even the total number
of them), the two Epistles of St. Peter, the second
being noted as open to question, the Revelation,
and one " acknowledged " Epistle by St. John.
Elsewhere he mentions the Epistle to the Hebrews,
and the traditions which assigned it to St. Paul,
D 2
36 THE BOOKS OF
St. Luke, and Clement of Rome respectively.
Another, without a name, but commonly known as
the Muratorian Canon, from that of the scholar
who first found it among the MSS. of the Am-
brosian Library at Milan, is assigned, on internal
grounds, to a period about A.D. 170. It is imper
fect both in the beginning and the end, and though
in Latin, bears every mark of having been trans
lated from the Greek. It had obviously mentioned
the Gospels of St. Matthew and St. Mark, for it
begins "in the third place, Luke the physician
wrote a Gospel/ It then names St. John, the
Acts, the Epistles of St. Paul, enumerating nine
Epistles to seven churches ; the three Epistles now
known as Pastoral, and that to Philemon. It re
jects two, to the Laodiceans and Alexandrians, as
spurious; recognises a Revelation of St. Peter,
two Epistles and the Revelation of St. John ; and
strangely enough, for a list of books of the New
Testament, includes the Wisdom of Solomon,* and
* The facts connected with this remarkable book are briefly
(1) That it is not named by any pre-Christian writer; (2)
that it is not quoted by any writer before Clement of Rome ;
(3) that it presents innumerable points of resemblance in
phraseology and style to the Epistle to the Hebrews. These
facts have led the present writer to the conviction that they
are both by the same author, the one written before, and tb^
THE NEW TESTAMENT. 37
the Pastor , or Shepherd of Hernias. The whole
fragment is of extreme interest, as representing a
transition stage in the formation of the Canon,
exhibiting at once the spirit of critical investiga
tion which was at work, and the uncertainty which
more or less attended the process of inquiry. A
nearly contemporaneous version of the New Testa
ment writings in the Syriac, known as the Peschito
( = the " simple " or " true " version), exhibits
nearly the same results. It includes fourteen
Epistles by St. Paul, that to the Hebrews being
assigned to his authorship, but omits 2 Peter, 2
and 3 John, Jude, and the Apocalypse. A like
catalogue is given in the fourth century (circ.
A.D. 330), by Eusebius, Bishop of Csesarea in
Palestine, and Amphilochius of Asia Minor (circ.
A.D. 380). The former divides the books into two
classes, the one those which are generally recog
nised, and the other those that were still open to
question (Antilegomend) ; and the latter list in
cludes 2 Peter, 2 and 3 John, Jude, and the Apoca
lypse. This may be taken, though not exhaustive,
as a sufficient account of the evidence supplied by
other after, his conversion to the faith in Christ. (See two
papers " On the Writings of Apollos," in the Expositor,
Vol. I.)
33 THE BOOKS OF
individual writers, and as they include representa
tives of Alexandria, Palestine, Syria, Asia Minor,
and Rome, it may fairly be considered as embody
ing the general consent of the Christian Church in
the fourth century.
These individual testimonies were confirmed
about the same period by the authority of two
local Councils of the Church. That held at
Laodicea in A.D. 363 (?) gives a list of the " Books
of the Old Testament" that ought to be read,
agreeing with the Hebrew Canon, except that it
inserts Baruch and the Epistle of Jeremiah ; and in
its catalogue of the "Books of the New Testament/
gives a complete list of those now received, without
noting, as Eusebius notes, any difference between
them, vvith the one exception that it makes no
mention of the Apocalypse, and that it assigns the
Epistle to the Hebrews to St. Paul. That known
as the third Council of Carthage (A.D. 397),
enumerates among the " Canonical Scriptures of
the Old Testament/ Tobias ( = Tobit), Judith,
and the two books of Maccabees, and in its list of
those of the New, includes, without any exception,
all the books that are now recognised, and does so
on the ground that this was what had been received
from " the Fathers."
THE NEW TESTAMENT. 39
The history of this growth of the Canon of the
New Testament is in many ways instructive. It
has been often thrown in the teeth of those who
urge the right of private judgment as against the
authority of the Church of Rome, or of the Church
in her Councils generally, that we have no ground
for our acceptance of the Scriptures themselves,
and especially for that of the Scriptures of the
New Testament, but that authority. The facts
that have been stated exhibit a process which leads
naturally and necessarily to the very opposite con
clusion. What we have traced is the exercise, at
every stage, of private judgment, of criticism
working upon history ; and it is not till this has
done its work that Councils step in to recognise
and accept the results that have been thus obtained.
And when this is done, be it observed, it is not by
any (Ecumenical or General Council, nor by the
Church which claims to have been founded by
St. Peter, nor by the Bishop who claims to be his
successor, but by two Synods, in comparatively
remote provinces, who confine themselves to testi-
f} r ing what the} actually found. Other men had
laboured, and they entered into their labours.
The authority of the Church, so far as it was
asserted, rested on the previous exercise of free
40 THE BOOKS OF
inquiry and private judgment. How far later
inquiry may have modified the results of the earlier,
throwing doubt on what was then accepted as
certain, or establishing the genuineness of what was
then looked upon as doubtful, compensating for
its remoteness by its wider range and manifold
materials, by its skill in following up hints and
tracing coincidences designed or undesigned this
is a question which in its bearing on individual
books of the New Testament will be best discussed
in the Introduction to each of those Books.
VII. Side by side with the Books as belonging
to the Old or New Testament thus recognised as
Canonical, there were those which had been
weighed in the balance and found wanting.
These were known either as being simply "un-
canonised " or " un-canonical/ as not being in
the list which formed the standard of acceptance.
Such as continued, from their having formed part
of the generally accepted Greek version of the Old,
to be read in churches or quoted by devout scholars,
were described by a term which had already become
conspicuous as applied to the Wisdom of the
Son of Sirach, the book Ecclesiasticus, and were
known as " ecclesiastical/ and these included all,
or nearly all, the books which we commonly know
THE NEW TESTAMENT. 41
as the APOCRYPHA. Later writers,, especially
among the more liberal or critical Roman Catholic
writers since the Council of Trent, have invented
and applied the term D enter o -canonical to those
books, as recognising that they do not stand on the
same level as those included in the older Canons
of Laodicea and Carthage. The Council itself
(Sess. 4), however, had the courage of its con
victions, and setting aside the authority of earlier
councils, and of the great Father to whom it owed
its Vulgate, drew no such distinction. It added
to the Canon of Scripture, not, indeed, all the
books that we know as the Apocrypha, but the
greater part of them : Tobit, Judith, Wisdom,
Ecclesiasticus, Baruch, the additions to Esther and
Daniel, and the two books of Maccabees. It
declared that all these books were to be received
with the same reverence as the other sacred
writings. It placed the traditions of the Church
on the same level with the sacred books thus defined.
It pronounced its anathema on all who did not accept
its Canon of Scripture, or despised its traditions.
It deliberately proclaimed to all men that this
was the foundation of its faith.
The history of the word APOCRYPHA exhibits a
curious instance of a change from honour to dis-
42 THE BOOKS OF
honour. Primarily it simply meant " hidden " or
" secret. " In this sense we find it in Luke viii.
17 ; Col. ii. 13 ; Ecclus. xxiii. 19. It was used
accordingly by teachers who claimed a higher
esoteric wisdom which they embodied in secret, i.e.,
in this sense,, apocryphal,, writings. Traces of such
a boast, even among Jews and Christians, are
found in 2 Esdr. (obviously a post-Christian book),
where the scribe is instructed to reserve seventy
books for " such only as be wise among the
people " (2 Esdr. xiv. 46), in distinction from the
twenty-four (this, and not two hundred and four,
is probably the right reading) of the Hebrew
Canon. The books thus circulated, with their
mysterious pretensions, imposing on the credulity
of their readers, were (< hidden " in another sense.
No man knew their history or their authorship.
They were not read in the synagogues of the Jews,
or, for the most part, in the churches of Christians.
They deserved to be hid, and not read. And so
the word sank rapidly in its connotation, and
became a term of reproach. Already, in the time
of Tertullian (de Animd, c. 12) and Clement of
Alexandria (Strom, i. 19, 69), it is used in the
sense which has ever since attached to it, of
spurious and unauthentic. Its present popular
THE NEW TESTAMENT. 43
application dates from the time of St. Jerome.
In Greek churches and Latin churches that used a
version based upon that of the LXX., the position
occupied by many of the books now included under
that word secured for them the same respect as the
other books ; they were quoted as " Scripture/ as
"inspired/ as "prophecy/ Where, on the contrary,
men were brought into contact with Judaism, and
so with the Hebrew Canon, they were led to draw
the distinction which has since obtained. So
Melito of Sardis (A.D. 180), in his Canon of the
Old Testament, follows that of the Jews, and
Cyril of Jerusalem (A.D. 315 386) adds only
Baruch and the later Esther. Jerome, bent upon
a new version from the Hebrew, and with the
natural instincts of a scholar, looked on the Greek
version of the LXX. as being faulty, not only in
its translation, but in its text. For him the
Hebrew Canon was the standard of authority,
and he applied without hesitation the term Apo
crypha, as equivalent to spurious, to all that
were not included in it (Prol. Gal.). Augustine
shrank from so bold an application of the word.
Western Christendom, as a whole, followed his
lead, rather than that of Jerome. The doubtful
books kept their ground in the MSS. of the
44 THE BOOKS OF
Latin Vulgate, and were read and quoted freely
as Scripture. It was not till the revival of the
study of Hebrew in Western Europe in the fif
teenth and sixteenth centuries, warmly pursued as
it was by Luther and his fellow-workers, that the
old line of demarcation was drawn more boldly
than ever. Luther, following the example of the
LXX. that had been printed at Strasburg in 152t>,
when he published his complete German Bible, in
1534, placed all the books that Jerome had not
received together, with the title of t( Apocrypha
i.e., books which are not of like worth with Holy
Scripture, but are good and useful to be read/ 7
His example was followed by Cranmer in the
English Bible of 1539, and has obtained in all
later versions and editions. The effect of this has
been, to some extent, that the word has risen a
little in its meaning. While the adjective is used
as equivalent to " spurious/ and therefore as a term
of opprobrium, we use the substantive with a
certain measure of respect. The "Apocrypha"
are not necessarily thought of as " apocryphal."
Among the books that are now so named, one,
Esdras, is certainly of pro-Christian origin, and
some critics have ascribed the same date to the
Wisdom of Solomon, and Judith. These, how-
THE NEW TESTAMENT. 45
ever, either in the circumstances of the history
they contain, or by their pseudonymous author
ship, obviously claim attention as belonging to
the Old Testament, and are therefore rightly
classed among its Apocrypha. The New Testa
ment, however, was not without an apocryphal
literature of its own spurious Gospels of Peter,
of the infancy of Jesus, of Nicodemus, of Matthew,
of James ; spurious Acts of Philip, of Andrew, of
Matthew, of Thomas, of Pilate, of Bartholomew,
of John; spurious Epistles of St. Paul to the
Laodiceans and to Seneca; spurious Revelations
of St. Peter. None of these, however, ever at
tained to the respectable position occupied by most
of the Apocrypha of the Old Testament. They
met a vulgar curiosity as to the unrecorded facts
of the childhood of Jesus, as to the work that He
had done behind the veil in the Descent into
Hades. They were read more or less widely, and
formed the nucleus of a popular Christian mytho
logy which has left its traces in literature and
art. The legends as to the childhood of the
Virgin, her betrothal to Joseph when his rod alone
budded, and those of all her other suitors remained
as they had been before ; as to her physical vir
ginity, that remained unaltered after the birth of
46 THE BOOKS OF
the Divine Child ; the fantastic notions that the
gold which the Magi brought was the same as
that which the Queen of Sheha had brought to
Solomon; that the wood of the Cross had been
grown in Paradise as the tree of life ; that Calvary
was named from the skull of Adam, and that it
received the first drops of the blood by which the
children of Adam were redeemed ; the release of
the souls of the Patriarchs from the limbo (limbus,
the " outer fringe ") of Hades into Paradise all
these had their origin in the Apocryphal Gospels ;
and their appearance in the art of the Renaissance
period, as, e.g., in the paintings of Raffaelle and
others, is a proof of the hold they had taken upon
the imagination one can hardly say, the mind
of Christendom. But from first to last, happily,
they were not received by a single teacher with
the slightest claim to authority, nor included in
any list of books that ought to be read by Chris
tians publicly or privately. Here and there, as
we have seen, books that we now receive were for
a time questioned. Here and there, other books
might be quoted as Scripture, or bound up with
the sacred volume, as the Epistle of Clement is
with the Alexandrian MS., or the " Shepherd"" of
Hernias with the Sinaitic ; but none of these
THE NEW TESTAMENT. 47
spurious Gospels, Acts, or Epistles were ever
raised for a moment to the level of the Canonical
Scriptures. They remained in the worst sense of
the word as Apocrypha. The Canon of the New
Testament has never varied since the third Council
of Carthage. If we have to receive the statement
that there was "never any douht in the Church"
about any one of them, with some slight modifica
tion, it is yet true that that doubt was never
embodied in the decrees of any Synod, and extended
no further than the hesitation of individual critics.
48 THE TEXT OF
II. THE TEXT OF THE NEW
TESTAMENT.
I. Introductory. We might have expected,
had we been framing the history of a Revealed
Religion according to our wishes or a priori
assumptions, that, so far as it depended on written
records, those records would be preserved through
successive ages as an authentic standard of appeal.
Facts are, however, against all such theories of
what ought to have been. Not a single auto
graph original of any book is known to exist now,
nor does any writer of the second or third century
say that he had seen such an original. Failing
this, we might have fallen back on the notion that
each transcriber of the books would be guarded by
a supernatural guidance against the usual chances
of transcription ; that each translator would be
taught how to convey the meaning of the original
without error in the language of his version.
Here also we have to accept facts as we find them.
There has been no such perpetual miracle as this
theory would require, extending, as it does extend
THE NEW TESTAMENT. 49
when pushed to its logical conclusions, to the in
fallibility of every compositor in a printer s office
who had to set the type of a Bible in any lan
guage. Manuscripts vary, versions differ, printed
Bibles are not always free from error. Here also
we trace the law in things spiritual which we
recognise in things natural.
" Pater ipse colendi
Hand facilem esse viam voluit."
[" The Father from whose gift all good things flow,
No easy path hath oped His truth to know."]
Here also the absence of any immunity from error
has tried men s faith and roused them to labour,
and labour has received its reward. Accepting
probability as the only attainable result, the prob
ability which they have actually attained is
scarcely distinguishable from certainty. Expe
rience shows that, had they begun with postulat
ing infallibility somewhere, and accepting its sup
posed results, inquiry would have ceased, criticism
would have slumbered, and errors would have
crept in and multiplied without restraint.
II. The Process of Transcription. Dealing,
then, with facts, we have to realise to ourselves
E
50 THE TEXT OF
in what way copies of the books of the New Tes
tament were multiplied. It is obvious that prior
to the invention of printing, two methods of such
multiplication were possible. A man might place
a MS. before him, and copy it with his own hand,
or he might dictate it to one or more writers.
The former was probably the natural process when
Christians were few and poor, when it was a labour
of love to transcribe a Gospel or an Epistle for a
friend or a Church. The latter became natural,
in its turn, when the books were in sufficient
demand to be sold by booksellers, or when Chris
tian societies were sufficiently organised, as, e.g.,
in monasteries, to adopt the methods of the trade.
Each process had its own special forms of liability
to error. Any one who has corrected a proof-sheet
will be able to take a measure of what they are in
the former. Any one who has had experience of the
results of a dictation lesson can judge what they are
in the latter. We may assume that in most cases,
where the work was done systematically, there
would be a process for correcting the errors of
transcription, analogous to that of correcting the
errors of the press now. MSS. of the New Tes
tament, as a matter of fact, often bear traces of
such correction by one or more hands.
THE NEW TESTAMENT. 51
III. The Sources of Variation. Experience
shows that in such a process as that described,
various readings, more or less of the nature of
errors, may arise in many different ways. In
some cases they may be entirely involuntary.
The eye may mistake what it reads, or pass over a
word, or, misled by two lines that end with the
same word or syllable, omit even a whole line (as
in the omission in many MSS. of "He that ac-
knowledgeth the Son hath the Father also/ in
1 John ii. 23) ; or, where contractions are employed
freely, as they were by most Greek writers, might
omit or insert the mark that indicated contraction.
Thus in the famous passage of 1 Tim. iii. 16, the
two rendering s, " God was manifested in the
flesh/ and " Who was manifested/ represent
respectively the readings Q2 (<9eo?, God) and O2
(o?, Who]. Or the ear might mistake the sound
of vowels, and so we find Ckristos for Chrestos
( = " gracious ") in 1 Pet. ii. 3, or Hetairoi
( = (( companions ") for Heteroi ( = " others ") in
Matt. xi. 16, or Kamilon ( = " a rope") for
Kamelon ( = "a camel") in Luke xviii. 25. In
not a few cases, however, the element of will
came in, and the variation was made deliberately
as an improvement on what the transcriber had
52 THE TEXT OF
before him. Taste, grammatical accuracy, the
desire to confirm a doctrine, or to point a moral,
or to soften down a hard saying, or avoid a mis
construction, or bring about a closer agreement
between one book and another in passages where
they were more or less parallel all these might
come into play, according to the temperament and
character of the transcribers. Thus, e.g., one set of
MSS. gives in Luke xv. 16, would fain have
filed his belly ; and another, aiming apparently
at greater refinement, would have been satisfied,
or filled. Some, as has been said, give " God
was manifested in the flesh / in 1 Tim. iii. 16,
and some " Who was manifested." So, we find
"the only begotten Son "" and " the only begotten
God" in John i. 18. Some in Acts xx. 28 give
"the Church of God, which He hath purchased
with His own blood, " and some (t the Church of
Christ" or " the Church of the Lord." 1 John v.
7, which speaks of the " three that bear record in
heaven/"* and which is not found in any Greek
MS. earlier than the thirteenth century, is mani
festly an interpolation of this nature. So some
give and some omit the italicised words in the
following passages :
"Whosoever is angry with his brother without a
cause," Matt. v. 22.
THE NEW TESTAMENT. 53
"Thy Father which seeth in secret shall reward
thee openly," Matt. vi. 4, 6.
" When men speak all manner of evil against you
falsely," Matt. v. 11.
" This kind goeth not out but by prayer and fast
ing," Mark ix. 29.
" That ye may give yourselves to fasting and
prayer," 1 Cor. vii. 5.
Or the alteration might be made to avoid a diffi
culty, as when we find " I go not yet up to this
feast" for "I go not up/ in John vii. 8, or
" Joseph and His mother " for " His father and
His mother/ in Luke ii. 33; or to make one
Gospel correspond with another, as when we find
"Whycallest thou Me good? 3 for ( ^N\ij askest
thou concerning that which is good ? " in Matt. xix.
17 ; or to bring the Gospel into closer accord with
liturgical usage, as when the doxology was in
serted in the Lord s Prayer, in Matt. vi. 13, or the
full confession of faith, / believe that Jesus Christ
is the Son of God, put into the mouth of the
Ethiopian eunuch, in Acts viii. 37; or to insert
introductory words, f( the Lord said/ " Jesus said
unto His disciples/ as in some of the Gospels in
our Prayer Book; or mere grammatical accuracy
might lead the transcriber to reject forms and
54 THE TEXT OF
modes of spelling which the grammarians pro
nounced inaccurate. The last class,, however,
affecting form only, does not come under the
notice of the student of a translation, nor need it
be much dwelt on even by those who study the
original.
IV. Canons of Criticism. Men who gave
themselves to the work of classifying phenomena
such as these, soon found that they had a suffi
cient basis for the results of an induction. It
was easy to note the causes of error, and to frame
canons, or rules, by which, in addition to the
weight of evidence drawn from the number or
antiquity of MSS. and the like, to judge of the
authority of this or that reading. Thus, e.g., it
has been laid down (1) that, costeris paribus, the
shorter of two various readings is more likely to
be the true one; (2) that the same holds good of
the more difficult of two readings; or, (3), of one
that agrees less closely with another parallel pas
sage. In each case there was a probable motive
for the alteration which made the text easier or
more complete, while no such motive was likely
to work in the opposite direction. Other rules,
not resting, as these do, on antecedent probability,
THE NEW TESTAMENT. 55
but on the nature of the materials with which
criticism has to deal, will follow on a survey of
those materials.
V. Manuscripts. The extant MSS. of the
New Testament are classed roughly in two great
divisions, determined by their style of writing.
Down to the ninth or tenth century the common
usage was to write in capital letters, which, as
having been originally of a bold and large type,
like those which we use for the title-page of a
folio Bible, were spoken of as liters unciales
( (< letters an inch big ") . The word is thus applied
by St. Jerome, and from this use of it the whole
class of MSS. so written are known as Uncials.
Somewhat later a smaller running-hand came to
be employed, and the later MSS. are accordingly
known as Cursive. They begin to appear in the
tenth century, and extend to the sixteenth. The
invention of printing did away with the demand
for copies multiplied by transcription, and with
the exception of one or two conspicuous instances
of spurious MSS. of parts of the New Testament
palmed off upon the unwary as genuine antiquities,
none are extant of a later date. Experts in such
matters acquire the power of judging, by the style
56 THE TEXT OF
of writingv, or the material employed, of the date
of a MS. belonging to either class, and in their
judgment there are no extant MSS. of any part
of the New Testament earlier than the fourth
century. Most critics, however, are agreed in
assigning- a date as early as A.D. 350 to the two
known respectively as the Sinaitic, as having been
discovered by Tischendorf in the monastery of St.
Catherine, on Mount Sinai, and the Vatican, so
named as being the great treasure of the library
of the Papal palace. Two others, the Alexandrian
sent by Cyril Lucaris, Patriarch of Constan
tinople, to Charles I., as a precious Codex, or MS.,
that had been brought from Alexandria and the
Codex Ephraem so called from its having been
found underneath the text of the works of
Ephraem, a Syrian Father of the fourth century
are ascribed to the middle of the fifth century."*
The Cambridge MS., or Codex Bezse, so called
because it was given by Theodore Beza, the
French Reformer, to the University of Cambridge
* This way of using up old MSS. by partially effacing what
had first been written with pumice stone, and then writing
what was thought of more importance, was a common practice
in monasteries. The works of many ancient authors have
probably fallen a sacrifice to this economy. MSS. so used are
known &s palimpsests, literally, "re-scraped."
THE NEW TESTAMENT. 57
in 1562, belongs probably to the latter part of
the fifth or the beginning of the sixth century.
Others some complete, and some existing only in
fragments, either as originals, or as palimpsests
came later, in the seventh or eighth, or even as
low as the eleventh century.
As a matter of convenience, to avoid the con
stant repetition of the names of these and other
MSS., a notation has been adopted by which
letters of the alphabet stand for them, as
follows :
K (Aleph) for the Sinaitic. This contains the
whole of the Greek version of the Old
Testament, as well as the New, and the
Shepherd of Hermas, an allegorical book
more or less of the Pilgrim s Progress type,
ascribed to the second century. It repre
sents the early text that was received at
Alexandria.
A. The Alexandrian, containing the Old and
New Testaments, a Greek Evening Hymn,
a Psalm ascribed to David after the
slaughter of Goliath, some Psalms ascribed
to Solomon, and the Epistle of Clement
to the Corinthians. It is mutilated in
parts of St. Matthew and St. John. It
58 THE TEXT OF
represents the text received at Constanti
nople.
B. The Vatican, containing the Old and New
Testaments. This agrees generally with
N, as representing the Alexandrian text
of the fourth century.
C. The Codex Ephraem; contains portions of
most of the Old and New Testaments, 2
Thess. and 2 John having disappeared in
the process of cutting up and re-making.
It agrees generally with K and B, but has
been corrected at Constantinople, and so
gives later readings in the margin.
D. The Codex Bezse ; contains the Gospels and
Acts only, with a Latin version. The
presence of the latter shows a Western
origin, and the Greek seems to have been
copied by an ill-instructed scribe. The
Greek text is peculiar, and has more in
terpolations than any other MS. The
Latin represents the version that preceded
the Vulgate.
L. The Paris Codex, containing the Gospels
only, and with several gaps. It agrees
generally with N and B.
The MSS. that come between D and L, and
THE NEW TESTAMENT. 59
others, are not of sufficient importance to claim
mention here. It is obvious, as every transcrip
tion involves the risk of fresh errors,, that the
later MSS. must be primd facie of less authority
than the more ancient, and hence it is not thought
necessary to give in this place any detailed account
of the cursive MSS. It is, of course, possible, as
some have urged, that they may represent a text
more ancient than that of any uncial ; but it is
clearly against common sense and the laws of
evidence to accept a bare possibility on one side
against a strong probability on the other, and all
that can be allowed in their favour is that where
the uncials differ they may come in and help, so
far as they can be shown to give an independent
testimony, to turn the scale in favour of this or
that reading. MSS. that are manifestly copied
from the same original, or come from the same
school of transcribers, are obviously not inde
pendent, and their value is proportionately di
minished.
The following Table of New Testament MSS.,
from Dr. Scrivener s Introduction, p. 225, will
show the range of materials with which criticism
has to deal, and the relative proportions of the
two classes :
60 THE TEXT OF
Uncial. Cursive.
Gospels ... ... ... ... 34 601
Acts and Catholic Epistles ... ... 10 229
St. Paul s Epistles 14 283
Revelation 4 102
Evangelistaria (Service Books con- ) ^ .
taining Gospels for the year)
Apostles (do. containing Epistles
fordo.) f 7
127 1,463
Many of these, however, are imperfect, some con
taining only a few chapters or even verses.
VI. Versions. Over and above MSS. of the
actual text of the Greek Testament, we have an
important subsidiary help in the translations which
were made as soon as the Canon was more or less
complete, into this or that language. If we know
when a translation was made, we can infer, in
most cases with very little room for doubt, what
Greek text it was made from ; and so can, in some
cases, arrive at that which represents an earlier
text than any existing MS. Of these versions
the most important are
(1) The Syriac, commonly known as the rt Pe-
schito," i.e., the "simple" or "accurate" version,
made in the second century. Later Syriac ver
sions were made in the fifth and sixth centuries.
THE NEW TESTAMENT. 61
(2) The early Latin version, before Jerome, com
monly known as the Italian version. Most of the
MSS. belong to the fourth, fifth, or sixth centuries.
(3) Jerome s Latin version, known as the Vul
gate (i.e., made in the common or vulgar tongue),
represents, of course, the Greek text received in
the churches of Palestine, perhaps also in that of
Rome, in the fourth century. The most ancient
MSS. of this version are of the sixth century.
(4) The Gothic, made by Ulphilas, the Apostle
of the Goths, when they settled on the Danube in
the fourth century.
(5) The ^Ethiopic, in the fourth century.
(6) The Armenian, in the fifth century.
VII. Quotations in the Fathers. One other
element of evidence, often of considerable import
ance, comes to the help of the textual critic. The
early writers of the Christian Church, of whom we
speak commonly as the Fathers, read Scripture,
studied it sometimes very carefully, and almost in
the modern spirit of critical accuracy, lived in it,
and quoted it perpetually in their writings. In
some cases, of course, they might quote from
memory, subject to the risks incident to such
quotations; but as soon as they felt that they
62 THE TEXT OF
were writing for educated men, in the presence
of adversaries who would easily fasten upon a
blunder or misquotation, they would naturally
strive after accuracy, and verify their quotations
as they proceeded. The Greek Fathers occupy
obviously the first place as giving the words of
the text of the Greek Testament, and of these
the most important are Clement of Rome (circ.
A.D. 91101), Justin Martyr (A.D. 140164),
Clement of Alexandria (ob. A.D. 220), Origen (ob.
A.D. 254), Irenseus, where we have the Greek text
of his works (ob. A.D. 200), Athanasius (ob.
A.D. 373), Eusebius (ob. A.D. 338), Chrysostorn
(ob. A.D. 407). The earlier writers are obviously
of more authority than the later. That of
Origen, on account of his indefatigable labours,
and the critical character of his mind, stands as
the highest authority of all. Alone, or almost
alone, among the early Fathers, he notes, again
and again, the various readings which he found
even then existing, as for example C( Gadarenes "
and " Gerasenes " in Matt. viii. 28 ; " Bethabara "
and "Bethany" in John i. 28; " Barabbas "
alone, and " Jesus Barabbas," in Matt, xxvii. 17.
Of the Latin Fathers, Tertullian (ob. A.D. 240),
Cyprian (ob. A.D. 257), Ambrose (ob. A.D. 397),
THE NEW TESTAMENT. G3
Augustine (ob. A.D. 430), Jerome (ob. A.D. 420),
are trie most important, as giving in their quota
tions the text of the earlier Latin versions, and so
enabling us to judge upon what Greek text they
had been based.
VIII. Results. As a rule it is found that the
lines of evidence from these classes of materials
tend to converge. The oldest MSS., the oldest
versions, the quotations from the earlier Fathers
present, though not a universal, yet a general
agreement. Where differences arise the judg
ment of one editor may differ from that of
another, as to the weight of conflicting wit
nesses or internal probability; but as correcting
the text upon which the Authorised version was
based, there is now something like a concensus of
editors on most important passages. It has not
been thought desirable in this Commentary to
bring the evidence in detail before the reader in
each individual case ; but, as a rule, the readings
which are named as (< better " than those of our
printed Bibles, are such as are supported by con
vergent evidence as above described, and adopted
by one or more of the most eminent scholars in
New Testament criticism.
C4 THE TEXT OF
IX. Printed Text of the Greek Testament.
It may seem strange at first that tlie Hebrew text
of the Old Testament should have been printed
for European use, at Soncino, in 148 S, thirty-three
years before the Greek text of the New. In the
one case, however, we must remember that there
was a large Jewish population in almost every
great city in Germany, Italy, and France, want
ing copies for their synagogues and for private
use. In the other, the Latin of the Vulgate
satisfied ecclesiastics, and as yet there was not
a sufficient number of Greek students even in
the Universities of Europe to create a demand for
books in that language. During the last quarter
of the fifteenth century, however, the knowledge
of Greek spread rapidly. When Constantinople
was taken by the Turks, refugees fled to Italy and
other parts of Western Europe, bringing with
them Greek MSS. and offering themselves as
instructors. In 1481 a Greek Psalter was printed
at Milan, and in a reprint at Venice in 1486 the
hymns of Zacharias and the Virgin were added as
an appendix, being thus the first portions of the
New Testament to which the new art was applied.
In 1504 the first six chapters of St. John were ap
pended tentatively to an edition of the poems of
THE NEW TESTAMENT, 65
Gregory of Nazianzus, published at Venice. About
the same time (1502) under Ferdinand and Isabella
of Spain, the great Cardinal Ximenes, who had
founded a University at Alcala, began a grand
work on a princely scale. It was by far the
noblest task to which the art of printing had as
yet been applied. It was to give the Hebrew of
the Old Testament, with the Chaldee Targum, or
Paraphrase, and the LXX. or Greek version, and
the Vulgate. Hebrew and Greek lexicons were
appended, and something like a dictionary of
proper names. MSS. were borrowed from several
quarters, chiefly from the Vatican Library at
Home. The work went on slowly; and was not
completed till 1517, four months before the Car
dinal s death; nor published till 1522, after it
had received the approval of Leo X. in 1520. The
edition is commonly known as the Complutensian
from Complutum, the Latin name of Alcala.
Meantime Erasmus, the head of the Humanists,
or Greek scholars of Germany, had been em
ployed in 1515 by Froben, the head of an enter
prising publishing house at Basle, to bring out
a Greek Testament, which was to get the start
of the Complutensian. The work was done
hurriedly in less than a year, and the book
66 THJ; TEXT OF
appeared in February, 151G. But little care
had been taken in collecting MSS., and in some
cases we find somewhat bold conjectural inter
polations. The omission of 1 John v. 7 was,
however, a sign that a spirit of honest criticism
was at work. Erasmus had not found it in any
Greek MS., and therefore he would not insert it.
A second edition appeared in 1519, and in 1522
a third, in which, through fear of giving offence,
he had restored the disputed text on the strength
of a single MS. of the thirteenth century, now
in the library of Trinity College, Dublin, and
known as the Codex Montforkianus. Later
editions followed in 1527 and 1535.
Paris, however, soon took the lead in meeting
the demand, now rapidly increasing, partly
through the labours of Erasmus, and partly
through the theological excitement of the time,
for copies of the Greek Testament. After an
edition by Simon de Colines (Colinseus), in 1543,
of no great importance, the foremost place was
taken by Robert Etienne (or Stephanus), and
maintained afterwards by his son Henry. His
first edition, based upon collations of MSS. in
the Royal Library at Paris with the Compluten-
sian text, appeared in 15-1-6; another in 1549. A
THE NEW TESTAMENT. 07
third, in 1550, was on a larger scale, and gave for
the first time thus marking an epoch in the pro
gress of textual criticism a systematic collection
of various-readings to the number of 2,194. A
fourth edition, published in 1557 at Geneva, and
therefore intended primarily, we may believe, for
the use of the pastors and students of the Re
formed Church there, is remarkable as giving for
the first time the present division into verses. The
w^orkof Henri Etienne went on, guided in 1556 by
Beza, and the text, as revised by him (not very
critically), was printed in successive editions in
1565, 1576, 1582, and 1598. The name of the
great Reformer stamped the work with a sanction
which most Protestant students recognised. The
editions were widely circulated in England, where
as yet no Greek Testament had issued from the
press; and this and the earlier text of Etienne
were probably in the hands of the translators of
the Authorised version.
The house of Elzevir, at Leyden, famous for the
beauty of type and the " diamond " editions which
we now associate with the name, took up the work
at the beginning of the seventeenth century, and a
Greek Testament, almost perfect in typography,
was issued in 1624, and another in 16;33. Both
F 2
68 THE TEXT OF
were based, as far as the text was concerned, upon
the later editions of Etienne and Beza, and in the
Preface to the latter the editor assured the reader
that he could now rely on having an undisputed
text (text urn ab omni bus recep turn] . The boast was
not without foundation, and it tended, for a time
at least, to secure its own fulfilment. Most
English editions in the seventeenth century re
produced it with hardly any variation, and the
Textus receptus, though no critic now receives it
as a whole, still keeps its ground as a standard of
comparison. We measure the value of MSS., for
the most part, by the extent to which they differ
from or agree with it.
The spirit that craves for accuracy as an element
of truth, was, however, still active in England, as
elsewhere. The arrival of the Alexandrian MS.
(see above) attracted the notice of scholars. They
began to feel the importance of versions as bearing
on the text, and in Bishop Walton^s famous Poly
glot Bible, the Syriac, Arabic, Persian, and
^Ethiopic versions were printed side by side
with the text of Etienne, and various-readings
were given, though not very fully, from the
Alexandrian, the Cambridge, and fourteen other
MSS. The work of collecting and comparing
THE NEW TESTAMENT. 69
these and other materials was carried on for thirty
years with unremitting industry by Dr. John Mill,
Professor of Divinity at Oxford,, and in 1706 the
labours of his life were crowned, just before his
death, by the publication of an edition of the
Greek Testament in two folio volumes, which,
while practically retaining- the text of Etienne
i.e., the Texfus receptus contained a far larger
mass of materials, and a more thorough examina
tion of their relative value than had ever been be
fore attempted. The Prolegomena extended over
180 pages ; the various-readings were reckoned at
30,000. The shallow scepticism of the Free
thinkers of the time assumed that all grounds
for certainty as to the contents of the New
Testament writings had vanished. Timid and
prejudiced theologians took up the cry that text
ual criticism was dangerous. It found, however,
a sufficiently able apologist in Richard Bentley,
Master of Trinity College, Cambridge. He urged
with great power and success, in a pamphlet
published under the pseudonym of Phileleutherus
Lipsienns, in 1714, that truth has no need to fear
truth ; that if the existence of the various-readings
is compatible with the Christian faith, the know
ledge of their existence cannot be fatal to it ; that
70 THE TEXT OF
it was with the New Testament, as with other
ancient books, a help and not a hindrance, to have
to edit from many MSS., and not from one only,
which might chance to be defective ; that every
fresh discovery of variations was, therefore, a step
to certainty; and that the result had been to fix
the range of possible uncertainty within such
narrow limits that no single fact or doctrine of
the religion of Christ was imperilled by it.
Bentley himself aspired to take a high place
among the workers whom he thus defended,
and, in 1716, sketched out a plan for printing
a revised Greek text, on principles which pre
sented a singular approximation to those that
have since been acted on by Lachmann and
Tregelles. He believed that it was possible to
ascertain from the uncial MSS., the early ver
sions, and the early Fathers, what text was re
ceived in the fifth century, and was prepared to
reject all later variations. Acting on those prin
ciples, he proposed to use the materials which
Mil Ps indefatigable labours had collected.
Bentley was, however, involved in personal
troubles and disputes which hindered the accom
plishment of his purpose, and for a long series of
years the work was left to be carried on by the
THE NEW TESTAMENT. 71
scholars of Germany, while English students were
content to accept, with scarcely any inquiry,, the
text which was known as Mill s, but which prac
tically hardly differed at all from the TeMus re-
ceptus. Among the former the most conspicuous
was Bengel (1734), whose essentially devout Com
mentary bore witness that criticism did not neces
sarily lead to scepticism, that he was a verbal
critic mainly because he believed in verbal in
spiration. He was followed byGriesbach (1774
1806), Scholz (183036), and by Lachmann
(1831), who avowedly looked on himself as
Bentley s disciple, working on his lines, and com
pleting the work which he had left unfinished.
The list culminates in Tischendorf, the labours of
whose life in collating and publishing, often in
fac simile, MSS. of the highest value (amongst
others the Codex Ephraem) were crowned by the
discovery, in 1859, of the Sinaitic MS. Two
countrymen of our own Dr. S. P. Tregelles (d.
1876), and the Rev. Dr. Scrivener may claim a
high place in the list of those who, with unshaken
faith, have consecrated their lives to the work of
bringing the printed text of the Greek Testament
to the greatest possible accuracy. Alford and
Wordsworth, in their editions of the Greek Testa-
72 THE TEXT OF THE NEW TESTAMENT.
mentj though not professing to do more than use
the materials collected by others, have yet done
much to bring within the reach of all students
the results of textual criticism. In Dr. Tregelles s
Introduction to the New Testament, Dr. Scrivener s
Introduction to New Testament Criticism, and Mr.
Hammond s Outlines of New Testament Criticism,
in the Clarendon Press Series, the student who
wishes to go more fully into the subject will find
ample information. Of these Lachmann and
Tregelles are, perhaps, the boldest in setting aside
the Textus receptus in deference to the authority
of the uncial MSS. and the early Fathers; Scrivener
and Wordsworth, and more recently Mr. Maclellan,
in maintaining the probability that the cursive
MSS., upon which the Textus receptus was mainly
based, though themselves of late date, may repre
sent an ancient text of higher authority than that
of the oldest existing uncials.
THE ENGLISH VEESIONS. 73
III. THE ENGLISH VERSIONS OF THE
NEW TESTAMENT.
I. The Earlier Versions. Wherever men have
believed in earnest that they had the ground
work of their faith in God mainly or wholly in a
written record, it is natural that they should
desire., if their religion has any life and energy,
to have that book in the speech to which they
were born, and in which they think. The re
ligious life of our early English, or Anglo-Saxon,
forefathers, after their conversion by Augustine,
was a deep and earnest life ; and as soon as
schools and monasteries gave men the power to
study the Scriptures in the Latin of the Vulgate
translation, portions of them were translated into
Anglo-Saxon. There were versions of the Psalms
in the eighth century. Bede, as in the well-
known narrative of his scholar Cuthbert, died
(A..D. 735) in the act of finishing the last chapter
of St. John s Gospel. Alfred prefixed a trans
lation of the Ten Commandments, and some other
74 THE ENGLISH VERSIONS OF
portions of Exodus,, to his Code of Laws (A.D.
901). The Homilies of ^Elfrie (06. A.D. 1005)
must have made many passages of Scripture
familiar to lay as well as clerical readers. In the
tenth century the four Gospels were translated ;
a little later, the Pentateuch, and other portions
of the Old Testament. Most of these were made
of necessity from the Vulgate, without reference
to the originals. Hebrew was utterly unknown,
and the knowledge of Greek, which Theodore of
Tarsus (od. A.D. 690) brought with him to the
See of Canterbury, did not spread. Here and
there only, as in the case of Bede, who spent his
life in the Monastery of Jarrow, founded by
Benedict Biscop, do we find any traces of it, and
even in him it hardly goes beyond the explanation
here and there of a few isolated terms. There are
no signs that he had studied a single chapter of a
Gospel in the Greek. It was natural, when the
Norman rule, introducing a higher culture through
the medium of two languages, one of which was
dead, and the other foreign, repressed the spon
taneous development of that which it had found in
existence, that these versions should drop into dis
use, and be forgotten. At the best they were but
tentative steps to a goal which was never reached.
THE NEW TESTAMENT. 75
II. Wycliffe. The stirrings of spiritual and
intellectual life in the thirteenth century, mainly
under the influence of the Franciscan and Domini
can Orders in the Universities of Europe, led, in
the first instance, to the development of a logical
and metaphysical system of theology, of which
the works of the great schoolmen, Peter Lombard
(06. A.D. 1164*) and Thomas Aquinas (06. A.D.
1274), furnish the most complete examples. This
was, for the most part, subservient to the great
scheme of a spiritual universal monarchy on the
part of the Bishop of Rome, which found its most,
prominent representatives in Innocent III. (ol. A.D.
1216) and Boniface VIII. (ob. A.D. 1303). The
teaching of Scripture was still formally the basis
of that of the schoolmen, but it was Scripture as
found in the Vulgate and commented on by the
Fathers; and, practically, the comments and
glosses of the doctors took the place of the text.
Against this, whenever men found themselves on
any ground, political or theological, opposed to
Rome, there was, in due course, a natural reaction.
Roger Bacon (ob. A.D. 1292), who certainly knew
some Greek and a little Hebrew, is loud in his
complaints of the corrupt state of the current text
of the Vulgate, and of its defects as a translation.
70 THE ENGLISH VERSIONS OF
Devotional minds turned then, as always, to the
Psalms, as giving utterance at once to the pas
sionate complaints and the fervent hopes of men
in dark and troublous times; and three English
versions of them belong 1 to the first half of the
fourteenth century. It was significant, as an
indication of what was ripening for the future,
that the first book of the New Testament to be
translated into English should have been the Re
velation of St. John. The evils of the time were
great. Men s minds were agitated by wild com
munistic dreams of a new social order, and by the
false revelation of a so-called Everlasting Gospel,
ascribed to the Abbot Joachim of Calabria (ob.
A.D. 1202). It seemed to John Wycliffe, in A.D.
1356, that men would find the guidance which
they needed in the Apocalypse, and with this
accordingly he began. He soon formed, however,
the wider plan of making the whole Bible acces
sible to his countrymen. It seemed to him, as
John of Gaunt put it in a speech before the
King s Council, a shameful thing that other
nations, French, Gascons, and the Bohemians,
who, in the person of the wife of Richard II.
had supplied England with a queen, should have
the Scriptures in their own tongue, and that
THE NEW TESTAMENT. 77
Englishmen should not. The next step accord
ingly was a translation of the Gospels, with a
commentary ; and by 1380 there was a complete
English New Testament. A version of the Old
Testament was begun by Nicholas de Hereford,
and carried on to the middle of the Book of
Baruch, which then stood after Jeremiah, when,
as is seen in the original MS. in the Bodleian
Library at Oxford, his work was interrupted,
probably by an ecclesiastical prosecution, which
first summoned him to London, and then drove
him into exile. Wycliffe, or some fellow-worker,
finished it before his death, in 1384. A few years
afterwards it was carefully revised throughout
by another disciple, John Purvey, whose text is
that commonly printed (as in Forshall and
Madden s edition) as WyclinVs version.
There is much that is touching in the history
of the work thus accomplished, as Purvey de
scribes it in his Preface. It was hard to get at
o
the true text of the Vulgate ; harder often to
understand it. He felt that it was a task that
required the consecration of all powers, (i to live
a clean life, and be full devout in prayer ; " but
he laboured on in the belief that his toil would
not be fruitless. " By this manner, with good
78 THE ENGLISH VERSIONS OF
living and great travail, men may come to clear
and true translating, and true understanding of
Holy Writ, seem it never so hard at the begin
ning." A work so begun and completed could
hardly fail of success. It met a great want, and
in spite of all the difficulty and cost of multiply
ing books by hand, and the active measures taken
by Archbishop ArundeL, under Henry V. (ob. A.D.
1413), not fewer than 170 copies of the whole,
or part, of one or other of the versions, most of
them of the Revised text, are still extant. The
greater part appear to have been made between
1420 and 1450 ; nearly half of them being of a
portable size, as if men desired to have them in
daily use. The book was clearly in great de
mand, and though the " Lollardie," with which
it was identified, was suppressed by the strong
arm of persecution, it doubtless helped to keep
alive the spirit of religious freedom.
Wy cliff e s version did not profess to have been
made from the original, and it had, therefore,
against it all the chances of error that belong to
the translation of a translation. Thus, to confine
ourselves to a few instances from the New Testa
ment, the " Pontifex," which stands for High
Priest in Heb. ix. 11, 25, and elsewhere, is ren-
THE NEW TESTAMENT. 79
dered by " Bishop " ; the " knowledge of salva
tion," in Luke i. 77 , appears, as from the scientia
saint is of the Vulgate, transformed into the
" science of health " ; for " repent," in Matt,
iii. 2, we have u do ye penance " ; for "mystery/"
inEph. v. 32, " sacrament/ The "villages" of
the Gospels are turned into " castles " (Luke x.
38); the "soldiers" into "knights"; "pearls"
into " margarites " ; " unlearned men " into
" idiots."
III. Tyndale. The work of giving an English
Bible to the English people had to be done over
again, in one sense, under happier conditions.
Under the influence of the great Renaissance
movement, Greece " had risen from the grave,"
to modify a well-known saying, " with Plato in
one hand for the scholars of Italy, but with the
New Testament in the other for those of Germany
and England." The printing-presses of all coun
tries were at work to multiply and transmit
the labours of all scholars from, one country to
another. The results, as far as the printed text
of the Greek Testament is concerned, have already
been described above. An impulse had been given
to the study of Greek at Oxford by Grocyn (ob.
80 THE ENGLISH VERSIONS OF
A.D. 1519) and Linacre (ol. A.D. 1524), who went
to Italy to learn what was almost as a newly-
discovered language, and was carried forward by
Colet, the founder of St. Paul s School (oh. A.D.
1519), and Sir Thomas More (o&. A.D. 1525),
who, as a layman, gave lectures in one of the city
churches on the Epistle to the Romans. Lexicons
and grammars began to issue from the press.
Erasmus, the great scholar of the age, studied
Greek at Oxford, and taught it at Cambridge from
1509 to 1524. It was in vain that the adherents
of the old scholastic methods urged that the study
of Greek would probably make men Pagan, and
that those who read Hebrew were in danger of
becoming Jews ; in vain that the editors of the
Complutensian Bible compared the position of the
Vulgate version of the Old Testament with the
Hebrew text on one side, and the LXX. version
on the other, to that of Christ crucified between
the two thieves. Culture asserted the claim of
classical studies to be the liter a humaniores of
education, and men were not slow to discover that
without a true and thorough " humanity/ in that
sense of the word, there could be no true theology.
Eoremost in the great work which, carried on
step by step through nearly a century, ended in
THE NEW TESTAMENT. 81
1611 in what is known as the Authorised version/*
stands the name of William Tyndale. Born in
1484,, studying at Oxford under Grocyn and Lin-
acre, carrying on his Greek studies under Erasmus
at Cambridge in 1510,, attracted by the new theo
logy of Luther,, as he had been before by the new
learning of his great rival, he formed the purpose
of turning laymen into theologians. Himself a
"priest/ and more devout and thoughtful than
his fellows, he was among the first perhaps in
England quite the first to realise the truth, that
the work of the ministers of the Church was to be
not priests,, in the scholastic and mediaeval sense,
but preachers of the Word. At the age of thirty-
six he declared his purpose, " if God spared his
life, to make a boy that driveth a plough to know
* The name seems to have been attached to it from the
fact that it was undertaken at James I. s command, and
dedicated to him, and that the title-page spoke of it as
"appointed to be read in churches." Historians have, how
ever, sought in vain for any Act of Parliament, Vote of Con
vocation, Order in Council, or other official document so
appointing it. Practically, it has tacitly received its sanction
frum being exclusively printed by the King s printers and
the University presses ; but simply as a matter of strict law,
the Act of Parliament which authorised the Great Bible
remains unrepealed, and that is, therefore, still the only
version authorised by law.
82 THE ENGLISH VERSIONS OF
more of Scripture than the Pope ; " and from that
purpose, through all the changes and chances of
his life, he never swerved, even for a single hour.
The main features of that life can be stated here
but very briefly. Bent upon his work, and know
ing that Tunstal, Bishop of London, stood high in
repute among the scholars and humanists of the
time, he came up to London, in 1522, in the hope
of enlisting- his support, and presented himself
with a translation of one of the Orations of Iso-
crates as a proof of his competency. He was met
with delays and rebuffs, and found that he was
not likely to gain help from him or any other pre
late. He was forced to the conclusion that, " not
only was there no room in my Lord of London s
palace to translate the New Testament, but also
there was no place to do it in all England/
He accordingly went abroad, first to Hamburg,
and began with versions of St. Matthew and St.
Mark with marginal notes; thence to Cologne,
where his work was interrupted by one of Luther s
bitterest opponents, Cochlaeus ; thence, with his
printed sheets, to Worms, four years after Luther s
famous entry into that city. From its presses came
two editions one in octavo, the other in quarto
in 1525. They appeared without his name.
THE NEW TESTAMENT. 83
Six thousand copies were struck off. They soon
found their way to England. Their arrival had
been preceded by rumours which roused an eager
desire in some, fear and a hot enmity in others.
The King and the Bishops ordered it to be seized,
or bought up, and burnt. Tunstal preached
against it at St. PauFs Cross, declaring that he
had found 2,000 errors in it. Sir T. More
wrote against it as being both heretical and un-
scholarly. The Reforming spirit was, however,
gaining ground. Tyndale defended himself suc
cessfully against Morels criticisms. The books
were eagerly read by students and tutors at
Oxford and Cambridge. They were given by
friend to friend as precious treasures. The very
process of buying up created a demand which was
met by a fresh supply. The work of destruction
was, however, thorough. Of six editions, three
genuine, three surreptitious, there were probably
15,000 copies printed. Of these, in strange con
trast to the 170 MS. copies of WyclifiVs version,
some four or five only, the greater part incom
plete and mutilated, have come down to our own
time.
Meanwhile Tyndale went on with his work.
The prominence of the Jewish element at Worms,
G 2
84 THE ENGLISH VERSIONS OF
the synagogue of which is said to be one of the
oldest in Western Europe, may have helped him to
a more accurate knowledge of Hebrew. Jewish
editions of the Old Testament had been published
by Bomberg in 1518 and 1523. A new Latin
translation from the Hebrew text was published
by Pagninus in 1527. Luther s Pentateuch had
appeared in 1523 ; the Historical Books and
Hagiographa in 1524*. A like work was carried
on simultaneously by Zwingli and other scholars
at Zurich. Tyndale was not slow to follow, and
the Pentateuch appeared in 1530; Jonah in
1534. The latter year witnessed the publication
of a revised edition of his New Testament, of
three unauthorised editions at Antwerp, with many
alterations of which Tyndale did not approve,
by George Joye, an over-zealous and not very
scrupulous disciple. In Tyndale s own edition,
short marginal notes were added, the beginnings
and endings of the lessons read in church were
marked, and prologues prefixed to the several books.
The state of things in England had been altered
by the king s divorce, and marriage with Anne
Boleyn, and in return for her good offices on
behalf of an Antwerp merchant who had suffered
in his cause, Tyndale presented her with a copy
THE NEW TESTAMENT. 85
(now in the British Museum) printed upon vellum,
and illuminated. The inscription Anna Regina
AnglicR, in faded red letters, may still be traced
on the gilded edges. So far, Tyndale lived to see
of the travail of his soul ; but his work was nearly
over. The enemies of the Reformation in Flanders
hunted him down under the persecuting edicts of
Charles V., and in October, 1536, he suffered at
the stake at Vilvorde, near Brussels, breathing the
prayer of longing hope, as seeing far off the Pisgah
vision of a good land on which he was not himself
to enter, " Lord, open the King of England s
eyes/ So passed to his rest the truest and noblest
worker in the English Reformation.
The labours of Tyndale as a translator of the
New Testament were important, not only because
he prepared the way as a pioneer for those who
were to follow him, but because, to a great extent,
he left a mark upon the work which endures to
this day. The feeling that his task was to make
a Bible for the English people kept him from
the use of pedantic " ink-horn " terms belonging
to the vocabulary of scholars, and varying with
their fashions, and gave him an almost instinctive
tact in choosing the phrases and turn of speech,
which happily have not yet disappeared, and we
86 THE ENGLISH VERSIONS OF
may add, are not likely to disappear,, in any
process of revision. And this, we must remem
ber, required at the time a courage which we
cannot easily estimate. The dominant feeling of
ecclesiastics was against translating the Bible at
all. Those who did not openly oppose it, such
as Gardiner and those who acted with him,
surrounded their consent with reservations of
all kinds. The dignity of Scripture was to be
secured by keeping its language as distinct as
possible from that of the common people. Time-
honoured and ecclesiastical words, on which the
Church had, as it were, stamped its seal, were to
be used as largely as possible. Tyndale s leading
idea was precisely the opposite of this. He felt
that the scholastic theology of the time had so
surrounded the language of Christ and His
Apostles with new associations, that their mean
ing, or what has been called their connotation,
was practically altered for the worse ; and it
seemed to him that the time was come for lay
ing the axe to the root of the tree by the exclusion
of the terms which had thus been spoilt for
common use. And at first the work was done
with a thoroughness in which subsequent revisers
have not had the courage to follow him. " Con-
THE NEW TESTAMENT. 87
gregation " uniformly instead of " church/
" favour " often instead of grace/ mystery "
instead of ee sacrament," " overseer " instead
of (( bishop/"* repentance " instead of " pen
ance/ ff elder " instead of " priest/ " love }
instead of " charity/ ee acknowledge " instead of
" confess/"* It was just this feature in Tyndale s
work that roused the keenest indignation on the
part of the Bishops of the English Church, and
even of scholars like Sir Thomas More; and
made Ridley (the uncle of the martyr) say of
it, not untruly as appearances went, that his
translation was " accursed and damned (con
demned) by the consent of the prelates and
learned men." If we wish to picture to our
selves what might have been the result had Tyn-
dale acted as the " prelates and learned men "
would have had him act, we may see it in the
Rhemish New Testament. If we ask what shape
his translation might have taken had he been only
a scholar and a critic, we may find the answer in
the fragments of a translation left by Sir John
Cheke, the great scholar
" Who first taught Cambridge and King Edward Greek."
The first process would have given us azymes "
88 THE ENGLISH VERSIONS OF
for " unleavened bread " ; (f evacuated from
Christ" (Gal. v. 4); ""the justifications of our
Lord " (Luke i. 6) ; " longanimity " (Rom. ii. 4) ;
"sicer/ for "strong drink" (Luke i. 15); "re
plenished with fear " (Luke v. 26) ; " the specious
gate of the Temple " (Acts iii, 2) ; "a greater
host" (Heb. xi. 4); {( contemning confusion 1 "
(Heb. xii. 2) ; the ee consummator, Jesus" (Ibid.)
and so on through a thousand instances. The
second,, with a pedantry of a different kind,, would
have given et biword " for " parable," " frosent "
for " apostle/"* te freshmen " for <l proselytes/
" uprising " for te resurrection," ee gainbirth " For
" regeneration," and the like. Instead of such
monstrosities, we have a version which represents
as accurate a scholarship as was possible under
the then conditions of culture, and the faithfulness
of one who felt that what he was dealing with con
tained God s message to mankind,, and never
consciously tampered with its meaning. Two
testimonies to its value may well close this brief
account of it. One is from the pen of the most
eminent of modern English historians. " The
peculiar genius if such a word may be per
mitted which breathes through it, the mingled
tenderness and simplicity, the Saxon simplicity,
THE NEW TESTAMENT. 89
the preternatural grandeur, unequalled, unap-
proached, in the attempted improvements of
modern scholars all are here and bear the im
press of the mind of one man, William Tyndale "
(Froude, History of England, iii. p. 84). The
other comes from, one who seems to have felt
keenly the change which he found when he had
to quote the phrases of the Rhemish version,
almost, as it were, to think in it, instead of those
with which his youth and manhood had been
familiar, and after which he now sighs with the
vain wish that, being what it is, it was with Rome
and not against her. "It was surely a most
lucky accident for the young religion that, while
the English language was coming to the birth
with its special attributes of nerve, simplicity, and
vigour, at its very first breathings Protestantism
was at hand to form it upon its own theological
patois, and to educate it as the mouth-piece of its
tradition. So, however, it was to be ; and soon,
As in this bad world below
Holiest things find vilest using,
the new religion employed the new language for
its purposes, in a great undertaking the transla
tion of its own Bible; a work which, by the
90 THE ENGLISH VERSIONS OF
purity of its diction and the strength and har
mony of its style, has deservedly become the very
model of good English, and the standard of the
language to all future times (J. H. Newman,
Lectures on the Present Position of Catholics,
p. 66).
IV. Tyndale s successors. In this, as in the
history of most great enterprises, it was true that
" one soweth, and another reapeth. " Other men,
with less heroism and less genius, entered into the
labours of the martyr of Yilvorde. The limits of
this Introduction exclude a full account of the
work of his successors. It will be enough to note
briefly the stages through which it passed till it
reached what was to be its close and consummation
for more than two centuries and a half.
(1) First in order came COVERDALE (born, 1485 ;
died, 1565), afterwards, under Elizabeth, Bishop of
Exeter. In him we find a diligent and faithful
worker, and we owe to him the first complete
translation of the whole Bible, published in 1535.
Partly, perhaps, from his inferior scholarship,
partly from a wish to conciliate at once the
followers of Luther and those who had been accus
tomed to the Vulgate, he did not even profess to
THE NEW TESTAMENT. 91
have had recourse to the original text, but was
content with announcing 1 on his title-page that it
was " truly translated out of the Douche " (i.e.,
German) " and Latyn." Tyndale for the New
Testament, Luther s version and the Zurich Bible
of Zwingli for the Old, were his chief authorities ;
but he was less consistent than Tyndale, and
deliberately defends his inconsistency, in not ex
cluding the words that had become associated with
scholastic definitions. He uses, e.g., " penance"
as well as " repentance/ " priest " as well as
" elder/ " charity " as well as " love/ " Congre
gation/ however, keeps its ground as against
"church." Reprints of this version appeared in
1536 and 15-37, and even in 1550 and 1553.
Among smaller facts connected with this version
we may note that the Latin BiMia, and not Bible,
appears on the title-page ; that the Hebrew letters
forming the name of Jehovah are also there; and
that the alphabetic elegies of the Book of Lamen
tations have the Hebrew letters attached to their
respective verses. There are no notes, no chapter
headings, nor division into verses.
(2) MATTHEW S BIBLE appeared in 1537, and is
memorable as having been dedicated to Henry
VIII. and his Uueen, Jane Seymour, and set forth
92 THE ENGLISH VERSIONS OF
" with the kinge s most gracyous license/ Who
the Thomas Matthew was by whom the book
purports to be translated, no one knows. There
was no scholar of repute of that name ; and
though his name is attached to the dedication, the
exhortation to the study of Scripture has the
initials J. R. as a signature. Possibly,, Thomas
Matthew was, as some have supposed, a simple
alias assumed by John Rogers, afterwards the
proto-martyr of the Marian persecution, in order
that the name of one who was known to have
been a friend of Tyndale s might not appear with
an undue prominence on the title-page. Possibly
he was a layman, who made himself responsible
for the cost of printing. The book was printed in
large folio. Through Cromwell s influence, which
was then in the ascendant, backed by Cranmer s
partly, also, we may conjecture, through Matthew s
name appearing as the translator instead of Rogers s
the king s license was obtained without difficulty.
The publishers (Graf ton and Whitchurch) were
bold enough to ask for a monopoly for five years ;
to suggest that {( every curate " (i.e., parish priest)
should be compelled to buy one copy, and every
abbey six. As a literary work, Rogers s transla
tion is of a composite character. The Pentateuch
THE NEW TESTAMENT. 93
and New Testament are reprinted from Tyndale,
the Books of the Old Testament, from Ezra to
Malachi, from Coverdale. From Joshua to 2
Chronicles we have a new translation. The most
noticeable feature of the book was found in the
marginal notes, which made a kind of running-
commentary on the text, and which were, for the
most part, of a strong Lutheran character. It is
scarcely conceivable that the king could have read,
with any care, the book to which he thus gave his
sanction. As it was, a copy w r as ordered to be set
up in every parish church, and Matthew s Bible
was the first Authorised version.
(3) It was, perhaps, in part, owing to the anta
gonism which Rogers s notes naturally roused, that
it was scarcely published before another version
was begun under Cromwell s authority. Cover-
dale was called 011 to undertake the task of revision,
and he and Bonner (names strangely joined) were
for a time acting together in getting it printed at
Paris, and transmitting the sheets to London.
The notes disappeared, and a marginal hand took
their place, indicating the " dark places " that
required the comment which Coverdale was not
allowed to write. This also came out in an extra-
sized folio, and is known, therefore, as the GREAT
94 THE ENGLISH VERSIONS OF
BIBLE. It had no dedication, but there was an
elaborate frontispiece title-page, engraved, prob
ably, from Holbein s designs, representing the
king on his throne, giving the Verbum Dei to
Cromwell and Cranmer, while they in their turn
distribute it to clergy and laity. It appeared
with a preface by Cranmer in 1540, and a copy of
it was ordered to be set up in every church. Other
editions followed, two in the same year, and three
in 1541. In the third and fifth of these two new
names appear on the title-page (the first two
editions having been issued without the name of
any translator) as having revised the work
Tunstal, then Bishop of Durham, and Heath,
Bishop of Rochester. The impulse which Tyndale
had given had told even on the man to whom he
had applied in vain for support at the outset of
his career, and as by the strange irony of history,
he who had been foremost in condemning Tyndale s
version as dangerous, full of errors, and heretical,
was now found giving the sanction of his name to
a translation which Avas, at least, largely based on
that version. It is significant that under this
editorship even the marginal " hands >} of Cover-
dale s unfulfilled intentions disappeared, and the
Bishops were thus committed to what twenty
THE NEW TESTAMENT. 95
years before they had shrunk from and denounced:
the policy of giving to the English people a Bible
in their own tongue without note or comment. It
was well that all this was done when it was.
Cromwell s fall, in July, 1540,, was followed by a
time of reaction, in which Gardiner and Bonner
gained the ascendant. They did not, however,
venture to recall the step that had thus been
taken, and the Great Bible, chained to its desk in
every church, and allowed, for some years, at least,
to be read out of service-time to any who chose to
listen, did a work which not even the king s pro
clamations against discussing its teaching, nor
Bonner s threats to withdraw the Bibles unless the
discussions were suppressed, were able to undo.
It remained the Authorised version, recognised in
the Liturgical Reforms under Edward VI., and
from it accordingly were taken the Psalms, which
appeared in the Prayer Books of that reign, and
have kept their place through all revisions to the
present day. The version, as a whole, was based
upon Coverdale and Tyndale, with alterations
made more or less under the influence of the Latin
versions of Erasmus for the New Testament, and
the Vulgate for the Old. All readers of the
English Prayer Book Psalms have accordingly the
06 THE ENGLISH VERSIONS OF
means of comparing this translation with that of
the Authorised version ; * and, probably, the general
impression is in favour of the Prayer Book version
as being, though less accurate, more rhythmical
and harmonious in its turns of phraseology ; often
with a felicitous ring in its cadences, that seems,
even when the Psalms are read, to carry with it a
music of its own. A certain ostentation of learn
ing is seen in the appearance of the Hebrew names
of books, such, e.g., as Beresckith (Genesis), Veils
Shemotk (Exodus) . On the other hand, by what
was obviously the hasty substitution of what was
thought a more respectful term than Apocrypha,
the books which are now classed under that head
are said to be cc called HagiograpJia " (i.e., "sacred
writings "), because they u were read in secret and
apart."
(4) Nearly contemporaneous with the great
Bible issuing from the press, indeed, before it
* The use of the " Morians land" (i.e., the land of the
Moors), in the Prayer Book, where the Bihle version has
"Ethiopia" (Pss. Ixviii. 31, Ixxxvii. 4), may he noted as a promi
nent instance of the influence of Luther s version, which gives
Mohrenland, working through Coverdale. Besides the Psalms
we find traces of this version in the Sentences of the Com
munion Service, and in phrases such as " worthy fruits of
penance " and the like. From it, too, come the quotations in
the Homilies.
THE NEW TESTAMENT. 97
another translation was published in London
(1539),, by RICHARD TAVERNER, who had been a
student at Cardinal College, afterwards Christ
Church, at Oxford. It affords the attraction of
the running commentary on the text,, which the
editors of the Great Bible had deliberately omitted,
and on this ground found the acceptance which
is indicated by two editions,, folio and quarto, of
the whole Bible, and two, quarto and octavo, of
the New Testament, in the same year,, followed
by a subsequent reprint. It never occupied, how
ever, any position of authority, nor had it any
traceable influence on subsequent versions. It
deserves to be noted, however as if each trans
lation was to have something specially memorable
connected with it as an instance of a layman s
scholarship and devotion, of the assertion of a
layman s right to translate, publish, comment on,
the Sacred Books. The work which Tavern er had
done in this way was so far recognised, that in the
reign of Edward VI. he received a special license
to preach, and performed his office with an almost
ostentatious disregard of conventional rules of
costume, preaching, not in the dress of his uni
versity degree, but in velvet hat, damask gown,
gold chain, and sword.
H
98 THE ENGLISH VERSIONS OF
(5) THE GENEVA BIBLE. The last five years
of the reign of Henry VIII. were conspicuously a
time of reaction, but it kept,, as has been said,
within limits. The old horror of Tyndale s name
revived, and all books bearing his name were
ordered to be destroyed. The notes in all editions
that had them i.e., Matthew s and Taverner s
were to be erased. No women, except those of
noble and gentle birth, no men below what we
should call the upper middle-class, were to read
the Bible, publicly or privately, to others, or by
themselves. Coverdale s New Testament was pro
scribed, as well as Tyndale s, and this involved in
most instances the destruction of the whole Bible
that bore his name. Gardiner proposed that a
translation should be made by the Bishops
(Tunstal and Heath now disavowing the work
of revision, for which the title-page of the Great
Bible made them responsible), and urged the
retention in the original Latin of every ecclesias
tical or theological term, and even of others, such
as orienSj simplex, (yrannus, in which he seemed
to see a peculiar and untranslatable force. That
project happily fell through. The matter was
discussed in Convocation, and referred to the
universities, but nothing more was done. The
THE NEW TESTAMENT. 99
Great Bible kept its position as the Authorised
translation.
Under Edward VI. the attention of Cranmer
and the other reforming bishops was occupied
with the more urgent work of liturgical reforma
tion, and though many reprints of both Bibles
and New Testaments issued from the press, and
were eagerly purchased, nothing was done towards
a new revision, beyond the appointment of two
foreign reformers, Fagius and Bucer, to profes
sorships at Cambridge, with a view to their
undertaking such a work. The former was to
take the Old Testament, the latter the New.
They were to write notes on dark and obscure
places, and reconcile those that seemed repugnant
to each other. Their work was hindered by ill
ness, and the accession of Mary, in 1553, put a
stop to this or any like enterprise.
The work was, however, done for England,
though not in England, and in 1557, the last
year of Mary s reign, a New Testament, with
copious notes, was printed at Geneva, with an
introductory epistle by Calvin. The work ap
peared anonymously, but it was probably by
Whittingham, one of the English refugees, who had
married Calvin s sister. For the first time in the
u 2
100 THE ENGLISH VERSIONS OF
history of the English Bible the chapters were
divided into verses, after the manner with which
we are familiar, and so the facility of reference
and verifying- quotations was enormously in
creased. The example of such a division had
been set, as stated above (TJie Text of the New
Testament, p. 67), in the Greek Testament pub
lished by Stephens (or Etienne) in 1551 ; but
there the verses were only noted in the margin,
as is done, for example, in the Oxford reprint of
Mill s Greek Testament. It was also the first
translation printed in Roman type, and so pre
senting a clearer and easier page to the reader.
The work was carried on by Whittingham, Cover-
dale, and others, after the accession of Elizabeth,
for two years, and the whole Bible was published
in 1560. Of all English versions before that of
1611, it was by far the most popular. Size, price,
type, notes, division into verses, made it for more
than half a century the household Bible of the
English people. In most of the editions after
1578 it was accompanied by a useful Bible Dic
tionary. It was found in every family. It was
the text-book of every student. It came in
opportunely to fill up the gap which had been
caused by the wholesale destruction of Bibles in the
THE NEW TESTAMENT. 101
latter years of Henry VIII., and during the whole
reign of Mary. It was only slowly displaced by
that which we now know as the Authorised ver
sion several editions being printed after 1611
and from one point of view it may be questioned
whether there was not loss as well as gain in the
displacement. The presence of notes, even if they
were,, like those of the Geneva Bible, somewhat
over-dogmatic and controversial in their tone, was
yet at once an incentive and a help to a thought
ful study of Scripture. The reader could find
some answer often a clear and intelligent answer
to the questions that perplexed him, and was
not tempted, as a Bible without note or comment
tempts men, to a mechanical and perfunctory
perusal. For good or for evil, and it is believed
that the former greatly predominated, it was the
Geneva version that gave birth to the great
Puritan party, and sustained it through its long
conflict in the reigns of Elizabeth and James.
So far as the religion of the peasantry of Scotland
has been stamped with a more intelligent and
thoughtful character than that of the same class
in England, the secret may be found in the more
enduring influence of this version among them.
Among its other distinctive features it may be
102 THE ENGLISH VERSIONS OF
noted (1) that it omitted the name of St. Paul
in the title of the Epistle to the Hebrews, and
left the authorship an open question, and (2) that
it avowed the principle of putting words not in
the original in italics. One of the English editions
of this version is that commonly known as the
" Breeches Bible/ from its use of that word
instead of " aprons " in Gen. iii. 7.
As compared with the Great Bible, the Geneva
version shows a careful work of comparison and
revision. In the Old Testament the revisers were
helped both by the Latin and the French transla
tions of foreign Protestant scholars, especially by
the Latin New Testament of Theodore Beza, and
by the notes attached to it. Beza s scholarship
was above the level of that of most of his con
temporaries, and in many instances the corrections
which were introduced on his authority in the
Geneva version have been recognised by later
revisers, and have found their place in the
Authorised version. On the other hand, he was
somewhat over-bold in dealing with the Greek
text of the New Testament, substituting con
jecture for the patient work of laborious criticism ;
and in this respect his influence was mischievous.
On the whole, however, the work was well and
THE NEW TESTAMENT. 103
faithfully done, and was so far a great step for
ward to the consummation in which the English
O
people were to rest for more than two centuries
and a half.
(6) The BISHOPS BIBLE. The popularity of
the Geneva version, its acknowledged superiority
to the Great Bible which was then the Authorised
version of the Church of England, coupled, per
haps, with a slight feeling of alarm at the bold
ness of the marginal notes, led Archbishop Parker,
about 15G3 though he had forwarded the re-
publication of that version in England to
undertake the work of revision, by committing
the several books of Scripture to individual
scholars, or groups of scholars. Many of these
(Sandys, Guest, Home, Grindal, and others)
were bishops, and when the book appeared, in
]563, it soon became known by the title which
now attaches to it, of the Bishops Bible. It was
published, like most of the Bibles intended for
use in church, in a stately folio. It has no
dedication, but a portrait of Elizabeth appears on
the engraved title-page, and others of Leicester
and Burleigh appear, with strange, almost
ludicrous, inappropriateness, before the Book of
Joshua and the Psalms. It does not appear to
104 THE ENGLISH VERSIONS OF
have distinctly received the queen s sanction, but
a vote of Convocation ordered copies to be bought
by every archbishop and bishop, and placed in his
hall or dining-room, for the convenience of
strangers, by all cathedrals, and, as far as possible,
by all churches. Fresh issues, more or less re
vised, appeared in 1572 and 1578. The Bishops
Bible is memorable, as to a certain extent fulfill
ing Coverdale s intention, which had been ad
journed sine die by the successive editors of the
Great Bible, and for the first and last time there
was thus a quasi-authorised commentary on the
whole Bible. It aimed, too, more than most
previous versions, at reproducing the exact spell
ing of Hebrew names, as, e.g., in giving Izhak
for Isaac, and affixing the final u to names like
Hezekiahu, Josiahu, and the like. It classified
the books both of the Old and New Testament
as legal, historical, sapiential, and prophetic.
Passages were marked to be omitted when the
chapters were read as the lessons for the day. In
the edition of 1572 there was, for the first time,
a map of Palestine, with degrees of latitude and
longitude; and elaborate genealogical tables were
prefixed to it. The judgment of most scholars
is unfavourable to this version in the Old Testa-
THE NEW TESTAMENT. 103
ment, but the New shows considerable scholarship,
carrying on its work of revision at each successive
issue.
(7) The RHEMISH VERSION of the New Testa
ment, followed by the DOUAY VERSION of the Old,
was intended partly to refute the charge that the
Church of Rome was opposed altogether to the
work of translation ; partly to show that she had
scholars who were not afraid to challenge com
parison with those of the Reformed Churches.
It appeared at Rheims in 1582, and had copious
notes, mostly of a controversial character. It
was just such a version as Gardiner would have
welcomed, based avowedly on the Vulgate as
more authoritative than the Greek, and on the
text of the Vulgate that had been stamped by
Clement VIII. with Papal sanction, retaining, as
far as possible, all technical and theological terms,
such as depositum (1 Tim. vi. 20), exinanited
(Phil. ii. 7), penance, chalice, priest (for " elder "),
host (for " sacrifice ") advent (for " coming ), co-
inquination (2 Pet. ii. 13), peregrination (1 Pet. i.
1 7) , prepuce, azymes, and the like. In many cases,
but naturally more in the Old Testament than the
New, they were content to rest in a rendering
which had simply no meaning at all. Two speci-
106 THE ENGLISH VERSIONS OF
mens may be sufficient to show to what extent
stones were thus offered to English Catholics
instead of bread.
Eph. vi. 12. Our wrestling is ... against
princes and potentates, against the rectors
of the world of this darkness, against the
spirituals of wickedness in the celestials.
Heb. xiii. 16. Beneficence and communication
do not forget, for with such hosts God is
premerited.
In not a few cases, however, the words of Latin
use which were thus introduced had become cur
rent in the language of English religious writers,
and a list of considerable length might be made of
words which the revisers under James I. were not
afraid to take from the Rhemish Testament in place
of those which were found in the Bishops Bible or
the Geneva version. Among these we may note
charity" for love " in 1 Cor. xiii., "church"
for (i congregation " in Matt. xvi. 18, xviii. 17.
V. The Authorised Version. The position of
the Church of England on the accession of James I.
in 1603, in relation to the translations of Scripture
then current, presented two conflicting currents of
feeling. On the one hand, the Bishops 1 Bible occu-
THE NEW TESTAMENT. 107
pied the position of authority. On the other, that
of Geneva had gained a stronger hold on the affec
tions of the English people,"* and to a large extent
of the English clergy also. The Puritan party
wished to dislodge the Bishops Bible from its pre
eminence, and to make way for one more after the
pattern of Geneva. The king and the court divines
disliked the bolder tone of many of the notes of the
latter version. Some few, perhaps, of the school
afterwards developed by Laud and Montagu on the
one side, by Falkland and Chillingworth on the
other, fretted under the yoke of the Calvinistic
dogmatism which pervaded both. Accordingly,
when the Puritan petition, known, from the sup
posed number of signatures, as " millenary," led to
the Hampton Court Conference, the campaign was
opened by Dr. Reynolds, President of Corpus Christ!
College, Oxford, who, urging some special faults in
the Bishops Bible (the passages selected, Gal. iv.
25, Pss. cv. 28, cvi. 30, were, it must be said,
singularly unimportant) pleaded for a new re
vision. Bancroft, Bishop of London, made the
* Of the Bishops Bible there were thirteen editions in
folio, six in quarto, and only one in octavo. Of the Geneva
version, 1568 and 1611, there were sixteen in octavo, fifty-two
in quarto, eighteen in folio. Westcott, History of the English
Bible, p. 140.
108 THE ENGLISH V Eli XI ON X OF
somewhat peevish answer, "that if every man s
humour were to be followed, there would be no
end of translating/ The king, however, inter
posed. He saw in the task of revision just the
kind of work which met his tastes as a scholar.
He saw in it also an opportunity for getting rid of
the obnoxious Geneva Commentary. It was settled
then and there, Bancroft withdrawing his oppo
sition on this concession,, that the forthcoming
version should be issued without note or com
ment. Fifty-four scholars were selected (only
forty-seven, however, are named) probably by the
bishops who had most influence with the king,
and arranged in six groups, to each of which a
given portion of the Bible was assigned. Com
paratively few of the names on this list have now
any special interest for the general English reader.
Of those who are still remembered, we may name
Andrewes, afterwards Bishop of Winchester ;
Abbot, afterwards Archbishop of Canterbury;
Overall, the author of the latter part of the
Church Catechism ; Saravia, the friend of Hooker ;
Sir Henry Savile, famous as the editor of Chrysos-
tom ; Reynolds, who had, as we have seen, been
the first to urge revision. The king recommended
the translators to the patronage of the bishops, and
THE NEW TESTAMENT. 109
invited cathedrals to contribute to the expenses of
the work. As far as can be traced, the labour was,
from first to last, like that of the present revisers
of the Authorised version,, a labour of love, with
out payment, or hope of payment, beyond the
occasional hospitality of this or that college, which
might, perhaps, offer free quarters to a company
that included one of its own members. After
nearly three years of labour the new Bible ap
peared in 1611. It bore, as our Bibles still bear,
on its title-page, the claim to be " newly translated
out of the original tongue ; and with the former
translations diligently compared and revised, " and
to be te appointed to be read in churches." The
latter announcement, confirmed as it has been by
general acceptance, has led to the title of the
" Authorised version/ which has since com
monly attached to it. Singularly enough, how
ever, there is nothing, as has been said above
(note, p. 81), but the printer s title-page as
the warrant for this assumption of authority.
A fresh revision was talked of under the Long
Parliament in 1653, and a committee of scholars
appointed in 1656. They met at the hou^e
of Lord Keeper Whitelock, and the list in
cluded the names of Walton, the editor of the
110 THE ENGLISH VERSIONS OF
great Polyglot Bible, and Cudworth, the famous
metaphysician, but nothing came of the Con
ference.
The principles on which the translators were to
act were definitely laid down for them in fifteen
rules, probably drawn up under Bancroft s direc
tion : (1) The Bishops Bible was to be taken as a
basis, and altered as little as possible. (2) Names
of prophets and others were to be retained in their
common form. This was directed against the plan
which had been adopted in the Bishops Bible.
(3) The old ecclesiastical words were to be kept.
" Church " was to be used instead of ic congrega
tion." This was against Tyndale and the versions
i hat had followed him, with special reference to the
Genevan. (4) Weight was to be given, where a
word had different senses, to the authority of the
ancient Fathers. (5) The received division of
chapters was to be altered not at all, or as little
as might be. (6) There were to be no marginal
notes, except such as were purely verbal, alter
native renderings, and the like. (7) Marginal re
ferences should be given at discretion. The next
six rules prescribed the details of the work : the
revision by one company of the work of another,
and the like. The llth pointed to Tyndale s
THE NEW TESTAMENT. Ill
translation, Matthew s, Coverdale s, Whitchureh s
(the Great Bible),, and the Geneva version, as to
be followed where it was thought desirable.
In their preface, written by Dr. Miles Smith- a
far more interesting document than the dedication
which we find in all our Bibles some further
rules of action are stated as having guided them.
They contrast their careful work, extending
through three years or more, with the seventy-
two days of the legend of the Septuagint. They
speak respectfully of previous English versions.
They profess to have consulted both ancient and
modern translations : Chaldee, Hebrew, Syrian,
Greek, Latin, Spanish, French (probably the
Geneva version), Italian (probably Diodati s),
Dutch (certainly Luther s). They defend their
practice of varying the renderings of Hebrew or
Greek words, partly on the legitimate ground that
one English word will not always express the dif
ferent meanings of the same word in the original,
partly on the somewhat fantastic plea of fairness,
that as many English words as possible might have
the honour of being admitted to the sacred volume.
A careful comparison shows that in the New Tes
tament their chief standards of comparison were
Beza s, the German, and even the Rhemish ver-
112 THE ENGLISH VERSIONS OF
sion, from the last of which, as stated above, they
adopted many words and phrases,* and with which
the direction to retain the old ecclesiastical terms
at times brought them into close agreement. The
general acceptance which the Authorised version
met with, both from scholars and the great mass
of readers, may fairly be admitted as evidence
that the work was done carefully and well. The
revisers were never satisfied, as those of Rheims or
Douay sometimes were, with an absolutely un
meaning translation. They avoided archaisms to
the best of their power, and with equal care
avoided the " ink-horn terms " of a pedantic
scholarship. They followed the earlier English
versions in the majestic simplicity which, as a
rule, had characterised them from Tyndale on
wards, and aimed, not unsuccessfully, at greater
accuracy. Where they failed, it was chiefly
through the circumstances under which they
worked. In one respect, their deliberate choice
of a wrong method, in seeking to vary the
renderings of Greek or Hebrew words as much,
instead of as little, as possible, has involved them
in many mistakes, leading to a false emphasis or a
false antithesis, hindering the English reader from
* See Westcott s History p. 352.
THE NEW TESTAMENT. 113
seeing- how one passage throws light upon another,
and making the use o an English concordance of
little or no value as a help to interpretation. For
other defects they were, perhaps, less responsible.
The text of the New Testament was as yet in
an unsettled state, and Stephens s (or Etienne s)
edition, which they took as their standard, was
based on the later, not the earlier MSS. They
had learnt Greek through Latin, and were thus
led (1) through the comparative incompleteness of
the Latin conjugation to confound tenses of the
Greek verbs, imperfect, aorist, perfect, pluperfect,
which were really distinct; (2) through the ab
sence of a Latin definite article, to pass over the
force of the Greek article, or to exaggerate it into
a demonstrative pronoun ; (3) through the imper
fect analysis of the use of the Greek prepositions
to give not unfrequently a sense, when the prepo
sition is used with one case, which rightlv belongs
to it only when it is used with another. (4) The
two centuries and a half which have passed since
have naturally rendered some words obsolete or
obsolescent, have lowered or altered the meanings
of others, and have enlarged the range of the
English vocabulary so as to take in words which
would be as legitimately at the disposal of the
I
114 THE ENGLISH VERSIONS OF
revisers now as any which were then in use were
at the command of the revisers of 1611. Mr. Aldis
Wright s Bible Word-Book, and the papers by
Canon Venables in the Bible Educator, on " Bible
Words/ may be consulted as authorities on the
subjects of which they treat.
A few of the minor, but not unimportant,
details of the Authorised version still remain to be
noticed. (1) The two editions printed in 1611
were both in the Old English black letter.
Roman type was used in the reprint of 1612.
(2) All the editions contained the Apocrypha till
1629. (3) Printers, or the editors employed by
printers, have from time to time modified, though
without authority, the spelling of the edition of
1611, so as to keep pace with the real or supposed
improvements of later usage. (4) The careful use
of italics to indicate the use of words which,
though not expressed in the original, were yet
essential to the meaning, was, from the outset,
a special characteristic of the Authorised version.
This, too, has, from time to time, been modified by
successive editors. The text printed in the present
volume represents, in this respect, that of 1611,
but the Cambridge edition of 1638 is said, in this
respect, to be more carefully edited. (5) The
THE NEW TESTAMENT. 115
marginal readings and references of the edition of
1611 have in like manner been largely added to or
varied by subsequent editors, notably by Dr. Paris
in the Cambridge edition of 1762, and Dr. Blayney,
who superintended the Oxford edition of 1769.
Useful as these are as suggesting possible alterna
tive translations or the comparison of really parallel
passages, they cannot be regarded as having the
slightest claim to authority, properly so called.
Some few corrections of the version itself were also
made by these or other editors, on their own
responsibility, as, e.g., <c about " for " above " in
2 Cor. xii. 12, " unto me for "under me " in
Ps. xviii. 47. Mistakes in printing have made
some editions memorable " vinegar " for {f vine
yard " in Matt. xxi. 28; "not 1 " omitted from the
Seventh Commandment, in 1632; "righteous
ness" for "unrighteousness" (Rom. vi. 13), in
1653. (6) The marginal dates of the common
English Bibles, which first appear in Bishop
Lloyd s Bible, in 1701, are also, it should be
noted, though often helpful, altogether without
authority. They represent, as now printed, the
chronology adopted by Archbishop Ussher, and
are, like all such systems, open to correction, as
research brings to light fuller or more authentic
i 2
110 THE ENGLISH VERSIONS OF
materials, or criticism corrects the conclusions of
earlier scholars. In some cases, as, e.g., in assign
ing A.D. 60 to the Epistle of St. James, A.D. 96 to
the Revelation of St. John, A.D. 58 to the Epistle
to the Galatians, the dates assigned assume
theories which many recent scholars have re
jected. (7) The chapter-headings of our printed
Bibles have remained with but little alteration, but
they, too, will call for a careful revision. That the
right of revision has been exercised, however,
appears from the changes that have taken place
in the heading of Ps. cxlix. from the form which
it presented in 1611, "The Psalmist exhorteth to
praise God ... for that power which he hath
given to the Church to bind the consciences of
men/ to its present text, which omits the last six
words. In many instances the headings assume,
somewhat too decisively, the character of a com
mentary, rather than a summary. Thus, while
Pss. xvi., xxii., and Ixix. are dealt with in their
primary historical aspect, Pss. ii., xlv., xlvii., Ixxii.,
and ex. are referred explicitly to " Christ s king
dom/ " The Church " appears as the subject of
Pss. Ixxvi., Ixxx., and Ixxxvii., where it would
have been historically truer to say Israel. Ps. cix.
is referred to Judas as the object of its impreca-
THE NEW TESTAMENT. 117
tions. The Song of Solomon receives throughout
an elaborate allegorical interpretation. Isa. liii. is
referred specifically to " the scandal of the Cross/
Isa. Ixi. to "the office of Christ," Mic. v. to "the
birth and kingdom of Christ/ and so on. Luke vii.
assumes the identity of the " woman that was a
sinner"" with Mary Magdalene. In Acts vi. the
Apostles are said to " appoint the office of deacon-
ship to seven chosen men/ In Acts xx. Paul is
said to " celebrate the Lord s Supper/ Apart
altogether from the question whether the inter
pretation in these and other like cases is or is not
correct, it is clear that the headings go beyond the
function which properly belongs to them, and
trench upon the work of the commentator, which
the revisers of 1611 deliberately renounced. That
there was an element of loss in that renunciation
has been already stated, but we may well believe
that on the whole it has been well that we haw
the Bible in its completeness, without the addition
of any comments reflecting the passing ecclesias
tical or Calvinistic dogmatism characteristic of the
early part of the seventeenth century, which would
in all probability have been clothed, sooner or later,
by popular and clerical feeling, with a fictitious
authority, or even been invested by legal decisions,
118 THE ENGLISH VERSIONS.
or Acts of Parliament, with a real one. It is well,
in the long run, that every commentary on the
whole or any part of Scripture should be submitted
freely to the right and the duty of private
judgment.
U The Eevised Version of the New Testament had not been
issued when this Introduction was originally written. I have
given in an Appendix at the end of this volume a brief account
of its preparation, and a notice of the more important altera
tions which appear in it.
THE FIRST THREE GOSPELS. 119
IV. THE ORIGIN OF THE FIRST
THREE GOSPELS.
I. It is, of course, an important question whether
we have in the four Gospels received by the
Church as canonical,, the evidence of contemporary
writers two of them claiming to be eye-witnesses
or writings of a generation, or two generations,
later, the after-growth of the second century,
fathered upon authors whose names belonged to
the first. The question when the Gospels were
written is, it may be admitted, one which cannot
be answered precisely within a decade or so of
years ; nor would it be right to overstate the
argument by asserting that we have any evidence
external to the New Testament of the existence of
the Gospels in their present form earlier than
Papias (ob. A.D. 170), who names St. Matthew
and St. Mark, and Irenseus (A.D. 130200) and
Tertullian (A.D. 160 240), who name all four.
The existence in A.D. 170 of a harmonised narra
tive of the Gospel history by Tatian, known as
120 THE ORIGIN OF
the Diatessaron (i.e., the Gospel as stated by the
Four), and the mention of St. Luke in the MS. in
the Ambrosian Library at Milan, known from the
name of its first editor as the Muratorian Frag
ment (A.D. 150 190?),, point to the conclusion
that four Gospels bearing 1 the same names as those
now received, and presumably, till proof is given
of the contrary, identical with them, were recog
nised and read publicly as authoritative documents
in the middle of the second century. And,
obviously, they occupied at that time a position
of acknowledged superiority to all other like docu
ments. Men invent reasons, more or less fantastic,
such as those which Irenseus gives (Contr. Hares.
iii. 11) the analogy of the four elements, or the
four winds why there should be neither more nor
less than four. It is scarcely too much to say that
this reputation could hardly have been gained in
less than half a century from the time when they
first came to be generally known ; and so we are
led to the conclusion that they must have been in
existence at a date not later than A.D. 100 120.
II. An examination of the earliest Christian
writing s outside the canon of the New Testament
O
is to some extent disappointing. There are very
few references to the Gospel narratives in the
THE FIRST THREE GOSPELS. 121
Epistles that bear the name of Clement,, or Ignatius,
or Barnabas. They assume the broad outlines of
the Gospel history, the Crucifixion and Resurrection
of Jesus as the Christ. They contain echoes and
fragmentary citations from the Sermon on the
Mount, and other portions of our Lord s ethical
teaching which had most impressed themselves on
the mind and conscience of His disciples ; but it
must be admitted that we could not infer from
them that the writers had in their hands the
Gospels as we have them. We may go further,
and say that it is antecedently probable that their
knowledge was more or less traditional, and that
the general acceptance of the Gospels, and there
fore, so far as their writings are concerned, even
the existence of the Gospels, may have been of
later date. On the other hand, it must be remem
bered that these letters are, in the strictest sense
of the word, occasional, and not systematic. They
are directed, each of them, to a special purpose,
under circumstances that did not naturally lead
the writers to speak of the facts of the Gospel
record even of those of which, on any assumption,
they must have had, at least, a traditional know
ledge.
III. When we come to the writings of Justin
122 THE ORIGIN OF
Martyr (A.D. 103167), the case is altered. He,
as having passed into the Church of Christ from
the schools of philosophy, was a man of wider
culture than any Christian writer since St. Paul.
The circumstances of his life led him into contro
versy with Jews who questioned the claim of
Jesus to be the Christ, and in his argument with
them his references to the acts and words of
Christ are numerous and often of great length.
It is true that he does not cite any Gospel by
name, but mentions them generally as " the
memoirs " or (e records )} that are (< known as
Gospels/" and are read in the weekly meetings of
the churches (Apol. i. 66), and that where he
quotes from these " memoirs " it is at times with
such considerable variations of detail as regards
their facts, and of expression as regards their
teaching, that it has been urged by some writers
notably by the unknown author of " Super
natural Religion " that he probably had in his
hands some book other than any of the four
which we now acknowledge. Against this it may
be pleaded, however, that the habits of the age,
and the special circumstances of Christian writers,
were unfavourable to accurate quotation. The
Jewish Scriptures, in their Greek form, were
THE FIRST THREE GOSPELS. 123
collected into a volume, and could be bought at
Alexandria, or perhaps in any great city, without
difficulty ; but such Apostolical writings as those
of which Justin speaks were scarcely likely to be
multiplied by either the Jews or heathen scribes
who supplied the stalls or shops of booksellers;
nor is it probable that the Christian Church was
at that time sufficiently organised to command
booksellers of its own. A treasured copy, in the
hands of the bishop or elder of each Christian
community, read publicly at its meetings, was, we
may well believe, in that early stage of the growth
of the new society, enough to meet its wants.
The members of that society listened, and remem
bered and reproduced what they had heard with
the variations which, under such conditions, were
inevitable. And even if we were to admit, hypo
thetical^, the conclusion which has thus been
drawn, the result would, after all, be neither more
nor less than this that there was in Justin s time
a fifth Gospel in existence, agreeing in all material
points with the four, or, at least, with three out of
the four. To most men it would seem improbable
that such a Gospel should have left no traces of its
existence outside the quotations or references from
which that existence has been thus inferred, that
124 THE ORIGIN OF
it should have supplied the most scholarly of the
early Christian writers with all his knowledge of
the life and teaching of the Christ, and then have
vanished like a meteor. But if it did exist, then
it would simply follow that we have, in the un
known Gospel supposed to be quoted by Justin, a
fifth independent witness confirming, at least in
substance, the records of the other four.
IV. There are, however, writings which even
the most sceptical critics allow to be earlier than
the Epistles of Clement and Ignatius The
Epistles of the New Testament are excluding for
the present the so-called Antilegomena (2 Pet. ii.
and iii., John, Jude) documents of an antiquity
that may well be called primitive. They did not
come together into a volume till perhaps the middle
of the second century, or later. The letters of
each writer may be cited accordingly, as giving a
perfectly independent testimony. Let us ask,
therefore, what evidence they supply as to the
existence, either of the first three Gospels, or of
a common narrative, written or oral, which they
embody, each with variations of its own. For the
present we limit the inquiry to these three. The
fourth Gospel stands apart from them in a distinct
position of its own, and the evidence in favour of
THE FIRST THREE GOSPELS. 125
its having come from the Apostle whose name it
bears will be found in the Introduction to it.
Take, then, (1) the EPISTLE OF ST. JAMES. Its
contents point to its being, perhaps, the very
earliest document in the New Testament. The
absence of any reference to the controversy between
the Judaisers and the followers of St. Paul, leads
naturally to the conclusion that it was written
before that controversy prior, i.e., to the Council
of Jerusalem of Acts xv. There is absolutely no
ground for thinking, as men have thought, that
he writes either against St. Paul s doctrine that
a man is justified by faith, or against the perver
sion of that doctrine by St. Paul s followers. The
dead faith which he condemns is not a faith in
Christ, as having atoned for sin, but the mere
confession of the primary article of Jewish mono
theism (( Thou believest that there is one God "
(Jas. ii. 19). Taking the EPISTLE OF ST. JAMES,
therefore, as the earliest witness, what do we find
there ? Not, we must freely admit, any reference
to the Gospel narrative ; but, on the other hand,
a mind whose thoughts and mode of teaching had
been manifestly formed on the model of the
Sermon on the Mount. He, too, teaches by
beatitudes (Jas. i. 12; Matt. v. 10, 11), and the
126 THE ORIGIN OF
one beatitude is an echo of the other. To him,
also,, God is emphatically the giver of all good
things (Jas. i. 17; Matt. vii. 11). He, too,
dwells on the danger of hearing without doing
(Jas. i. 22; Matt. vii. 24). To him the grass
withering before the scorching sun and the hot
wind of the desert, is the type of all that is most
fleeting in fortune or in character (Jas. i. 11;
Matt. vi. 30; xiii. 6). He, too, connects the
name of our Lord Jesus Christ with that freedom
from " respect of persons/ which even the scribes
acknowledged to be a leading feature in His
character, and which, therefore, He would condemn
in those who professed to be His disciples (Jas. ii.
1; Matt. xxii. 16). He shares his Master s
implied condemnation of the " gorgeous raiment "
of those whom the world honours (Jas. ii. 2 ;
Matt. xi. 8). To him, as to Christ, to keep the
law, " Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself/
is the condition of entering into life (Jas. ii. 8;
Matt. xix. 19 ; xxii. 40), and that law, as having
been thus confirmed by the great King, is for him
the royal, the kingly law. He re-states the law
that the merciful, and they alone, will obtain
mercy (Jas. ii. 13; Matt. v. 7; vii. 1). He
warns men against the risks of claiming without
THE FIRST THREE GOSPELS. 127
authority the function of teachers, and forgetting
that we all need the guidance of the one divine
Teacher (Jas. iii. 1 ; Matt, xxiii. 8) . The same
familiar illustration of the tree and its fruits is
used by him to set forth the relation of character
and acts (Jas. iii. 12; Matt. vii. 16). To clothe
the naked and to feed the hungry are with him, as
with the Christ, elements of the perfect life (Jas.
ii. 15; Matt. xxv. 35, 36). He has the same
word of stern reproof for the " adulterous genera
tion " in which he lived (Jas. iv. 4; Matt. xii. 39),
and which he reminds of the truth that they can
not be the friends at once of God and of the
world (Jas. iv. 4; Matt. vi. 2-1). He knows that
humility is the condition of true exaltation (Jas.
iv. 10; Matt, xxiii. 12). He, too, speaks of the
Father as One who, though willing to save, is able
also to destroy (Jas. iv. 12; Matt. x. 28), and
protests, in words that are almost an echo of our
Lord s, against the far-reaching schemes of man s
covetousness (Jas. iv. 13 16; Luke xii. 16 20).
To him the coming of the Lord is the goal to
which all things tend (Jas. v. 8; Matt. xxiv. 27).
It is nigh, even at the doors (Jas. v. 9 ; Matt.
xxiv. 33) . He condemns, as his Lord had done,
the rash use of oaths, and te^s men, in the very
128 THE ORIGIN OF
words used by Christ, that their speech should be
Yea,, yea, and Nay, nay (Jas. v. 12 ; Matt. v. 34
36). He prescribes anointing with oil as a
means of healing the sick,, even as our Lord had
done (Jas. v. 14; Mark vi. 13). With him, as
in our Lord s miracles,, the healing of the sick is
associated with the forgiveness of their sins (Jas.
v. 15 ; Matt. ix. 2). It will hardly be contended
that so continuous a series of parallelisms between
the Epistle of St. James and the Gospel of St.
Matthew is purely accidental. But if it is not so,
if there is evidence of a connection of some kind
between them, then we have to choose between
the hypotheses (1) of both drawing from the
common source of the current traditional know
ledge of our Lord s teaching; or (2) of the Evan
gelist incorporating into his report of that teaching
what he had learnt from St. James; or (3) of St.
James being a reader of a book containing the
whole, or part, of what we now find in St.
Matthew s Gospel. (See Introduction to St.
Matthew.)
I turn to the FIRST EPISTLE OF ST. PETER. The
opening words attach to the " blood of Christ " the
same importance which He Himself had attached
to it (1 Pet. i. 2; Mark xiv. 24). Ee takes up
THE FIRST THREE GOSPELS. 129
the words in which his Lord had bidden men
watch with their loins girded (1 Pet. i. 13; Luke
xii. 35). He points the contrast between seeing
and believing, even as Christ had pointed it
(1 Pet. i. 8; John xx. 19). He has learnt to
interpret the prophets as his Lord had taught him,
as foretelling the sufferings that were appointed
unto Christ (1 Pet. i. 2 ; Luke xxiv. 44, 45). He
sees in the blood of Christ a ransom for many
(1 Pet. i. 18 ; Mark x. 45), and knows that God
has raised Him from the dead (1 Pet. i. 3). He
teaches that there must be a new birth wrought in
men by the divine word (1 Pet. ii. 23 ; John iii.
3, 5). He sees in Christ the stone which the
builders rejected (1 Pet. ii. 4, 7; Mark xii. 10), in
the crisis through which Israel was passing, the
time of its "visitation" (1 Pet. ii. 12; Luke xx.
44) . He remembers using the self-same unusual
word which occurs in almost immediate sequence
in the Gospel record, how the calm recognition of
the claims of civil rulers had "put to silence"
(literally, muzzled) the ignorance of foolish men,
and can therefore call on men to follow their Lord s
example for His sake (1 Pet. ii. 15 ; Matt, xxii.
21, 34). He remembers also the marvellous
silence of his Master at His trial before the San-
j
130 THE ORIGIN OF
hedrin, and the livid scars left by the scourges of
the soldiers (1 Pet. ii. 23, 24; Matt. xiv. 60,
01; xv. 15). Slaves were to recollect, when
they were buffeted, that they were suffering- as
Christ had suffered (1 Pet. ii. 20; Mark xiv. 65).
It was by that suffering that the Good Shepherd,
laying down His life for the sheep (John x. 11),
had drawn to Him the sheep that had gone
astray over whom He had yearned with an
infinite compassion (1 Pet. ii. 25; Matt. ix. 36).
He has learnt the lesson of not returning evil
for evil (1 Pet. iii. 9; Matt. v. 39). He knows
the beatitude that had been pronounced on those
who suffer for righteousness sake (1 Pet. iii.
14; Matt. v. 10). He knows, too, that Jesus
Christ, having preached to the " spirits in prison "
(there is, at least, a possible connection here with
Matt, xxvii. 52, 53), went into heaven, and is at
the right hand of God (1 Pet. iii. 22 ; Mark xvi.
19). As if remembering the sin into which he
fell because he had not watched unto prayer, he
urges others to watch (1 Pet. iv. 7 ; Mark xiv.
37). He had learnt, by a living personal
experience, how man s love, meeting God s, covers
the multitude of sins (1 Pet. iv. 8; John xxi. 15
17). Kevilings do but bring to his memory yet
THE FIRST THREE GOSPELS. 131
another beatitude which he had heard from his
Lord s lips (1 Pet. iv. 14; Matt. v. 10). He
reminds men how his Lord had commended His
spirit to the Father (1 Pet. iv. 19; Luke xxiii.
46). He writes as being- himself a witness of
the sufferings of Christ (1 Pet. v. 1). He
has learnt to see in Him the chief Shepherd,
under whom he himself and all other pastors
are called to serve (1 Pet. v. 4; John x. 14).
His call to others to be " sober and watchful,"
because their adversary, the devil, was " like a
roaring lion, seeking whom he might devour/
speaks of the experience of one who had been
told that Satan desired to have him that he
might " sift him as wheat " (1 Pet. v. 8 j Luke
xxii. 31).
The doubts which have from time to time
been raised as to the SECOND EPISTLE OF ST.
PETER, prevent my laying much stress on the
evidence which it supplies in this matter. My
own belief is that the scale turns in favour of
its genuineness. In any case, it is as early as any
document later than the New Testament writing s.
O
Looking to it, then, we note the recognition of the
distinction between calling and election, which
Peter had himself specially been taught (2 Pet. i.
j 2
132 THE ORIGIN OF
10; Matt. xx. 16). The writer remembers how
the Lord Jesus had shown him that the putting off
of his " tabernacle " should be quick and sudden
(2 Pet. i. 14; John xxi. 18). He uses of his own
" decease " the self-same word which had been
used of that of Christ (2 Pet. i. 15 ; Luke ix. 31).
The vision of the brightness of the Transfiguration,
and the voice from the excellent glory, are still
living in his memory (2 Pet. i. 17, 18; Mark viii.
2 7). In this, as in, the former Epistle, he has
been taught to see lessons connected with the
coming of Christ, which did not lie on the surface,
in the history of Noah and the Flood, to which our
Lord had directed men s attention (1 Pet. iii. 20,
21; 2 Pet. iii. 57; Matt. xxiv. 37). Here
also, then, we have documents, one of which, at
least, is acknowledged as belonging, without the
shadow of a doubt, to the Apostolic age, and which
abound in allusive references to Avhat we find
recorded in the Gospels. In this case it is, of
course, more than probable that the writer spoke
from personal recollection, and that we may have
here the testimony, not of one who had read the
Gospels, but of one from whom the information
which they embody had been in part, at least,
derived. And, assuming the Second Epistle to be
THE FIRST THREE GOSPELS. 133
by him, we have there a direct intimation of his
intention to provide that that information should
be embodied for those for whom he wrote in some
permanent form (2 Pet. i. 15). For the evidence
which leads to the conclusion that the Second
Gospel grew out of that intention, see Introduction
to St. Mark.
V. We pass to the EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS,,
which, whether we assume, as seems to me most
probable, the authorship of Apollos, or that of
St. Paul, or one of his fellow-labourers, Barnabas,
or Luke, or Clement, belongs also to the Apostolic
age. The writer of that Epistle acknowledges the
fact of the Ascension (Heb. i. 3 ; xii. 2). He
distinguishes himself (Heb. ii. 3, 4), just as St.
Luke does, from those who had actually heard the
word of salvation from the lips of the Lord Him
self, but he has heard from them of the Tempta
tion and the Passion of the Christ (Heb. ii. 18), of
His perfect sinlessness (Heb. iv. 15), of His
tolerant sympathy for all forms of ignorance and
error (Heb. v. 2), of the prayers and supplications,
the strong crying and tears, of the garden and the
cross (Heb. v. 7). The Messianic prophecy of
Ps. ex., to which prominence had been given by
our Lord s question in Matt. xxii. 42, becomes the
134 THE ORIGIN OF
centre of his argument. He knows, as one who
had traced the descent from David, as given hy St.
Matthew and St. Luke, that our Lord had sprung
out of Judah (Heb. vi. 14). The New Covenant,
of which Christ had spoken as being ratified by
His blood, fills the next groat place in his
argument (Heb. viii. 8 13; xiii. 24; Luke xxii.
20). He finds a mystical meaning in the fact
that the scene of that blood-shedding was outside
the gate of Jerusalem (Heb. xiii. 12 ; John xix. 20.)
To him, as to St. Peter, the name of Jesus, on
which he most loves to dwell, is that He is, as He
described Himself, the Great Shepherd of the
sheep (Heb. xiii. 20; John x. 14).
VI. We pass, as next in order, to the EPISTLES
OF ST. PAUL, taking them,, as is obviously more
natural in such an inquiry, in their chronological
sequence. It is not without significance that
the earliest of these, the FIRST EPISTLE TO THE
THESSALONIANS, opens with a reference to a Gospel
of which St. Paul speaks as his (1 Thess. i. 5 ; ii.
2). It is, of course, true that he uses that word
in its wider sense, not as a book, but as a message
of glad tidings ; but then that message consisted,
not in a speculative doctrine, but in the record of
what the Lord Jesus had done, and suffered, and
THE FIRST THREE GOSPELS. 135
taught, and how He had been raised from the dead
(1 Cor. xi. 23 ; xv. 1, 3), and so the facts of the
case suggest the conclusion that the name was
given at a later stage later, but how soon we
cannot say to the book, because the book so
called embodied the substance of what had
previously been taught orally. He knows that
those whose faith in God exposes them to per
secution are, in this respect, followers of the Lord,
reproducing the pattern of His sufferings (1 Thess.
i. 6) . He warns men of a " wrath to come/ such
as the Baptist had proclaimed (1 Thess. i. 10 ;
Luke iii. 7), and assumes the Resurrection, the
Ascension, the Second Coming from Heaven
(1 Thess. i. 10; iii. 13), as ideas already familiar.
The key-note of his preaching, as of that of the
Gospel, is that men have been called to a kingdom
of which Christ is the Head (1 Thess. ii. 12;
Luke iv. 43). In words which reproduce the very
accents of our Lord s teaching, he tells men that
" the day of the Lord so cometh as a thief in the
night" (1 Thess. v. 2; Luke xii. 39). For him
also the times of trouble that are to precede that
coming are as the travail-pangs of the world s new
birth (1 Thess. v. 3 ; Matt. xxiv. 8). The echoes
of the voice that calls men, not to sleep, but to
136 THE ORIGIN OF
" watch and be sober," are ringing in his ears, as
they had done in those of St. Peter (1 Thess. v. 6 ;
Luke xxi. 34 36) . In the SECOND EPISTLE the
coming of the Son of Man is painted more fully,
as Christ Himself had painted it. He is to come
with "the sound of a trumpet, and with angels
of His might" (2 Thess. i. 7; Matt. xxiv. 31;
xxv. 31; Luke xxi. 27), and the sentence which
He will then pass on the impenitent is charac
terised as " eternal " (2 Thess. i. 9 ; Matt. xxv.
46) . He, too, has learnt, though as with a fresh
revelation of details, that the day of the Lord is
not, as men dreamt, at hand, that the end is not
" by and by" (2 Thess. ii. 2; Luke xxi. 9). He
appeals to a body of traditions i.e., of oral teach
ing, which certainly included portions of the
Gospel history and of the teaching of Christ
(2 Thess. ii. 15 ; 1 Cor. xi. 23 ; xv. 1, 2).
The EPISTLES TO THE CHUHCH OF CORINTH pre
sent the same general features as to the Coming of
Christ, the revelation of Jesus Christ from Heaven,
the Resurrection, and the Judgment (1 Cor. xv.
20 28). Their greater fulness naturally presents
more points of contact with the Gospel history on
which they rest. "We meet with the names of
Cephas (which we find in that form in John i. 43,
THE FIRST THREE GOSPELS. 137
and not elsewhere in the Gospels) and of the
brethren of the Lord as familiar to that Church
(1 Cor. i. 10 ; iii. 22 ; ix. 5). The command which
Christ had given to His disciples to baptise all
nations is known and acted on (1 Cor. i. 14).
The story of the Cross is the theme of the Apostle s
preaching (1 Cor. i. 18). Christ is to him the im
personation of the Divine Wisdom (1 Cor. i. 30 ;
Luke ii. 40, 52 ; xi. 49) . He employs the imagery,
which Christ had employed, of the Wise Builder
who erects his fabric on a firm foundation (1 Cor.
iii. 10; Luke vi. 48). He knows the lessons
taught by the parable of the Steward (1 Cor.
iv. 2 ; Luke xii. 42), and by that of the Unprofit
able Servant (1 Cor. iv. 7; Luke xvii. 10). The
rule of the Sermon on the Mount for those who
suffer persecution is his rule also (1 Cor. iv. 12, 13;
Luke vi. 27, 28). He illustrates the spread of
spiritual influence for good or evil by the same
image that gives its distinctive character to the
parable of the Leaven (1 Cor. v. 5 ; Gal. v. 9 ;
Luke xiii. 20), and connects this with the sacrifice
of Christ as the true Passover, on the day of that
Feast (1 Cor. v. 7; Luke xxii. 15). He has re
ceived the thought that the saints shall judge the
world (1 Cor. vi. 2 ; Matt. xix. 28), and on that
138 THE ORIGIN OF
ground urges men to submit now to injustice (1
Cor. vi. 6, 7; Luke vi. 29, 30). His thoughts of
the holiness of marriage rest on the same grounds
as those of Jesus (1 Cor. vi. 16; Matt. xix. 5, 6) ;
and he., too,, has learnt to see in man s body a
temple of the Eternal Spirit (1 Cor. vi. 20 ; John
ii. 21). Outward freedom and slavery are looked
on by him as nothing compared with the true
freedom of the spirit (1 Cor. vii. 22, 23 ; John viii.
36). He regards the life of the unmarried, when
the choice is made for the Kingdom of Heaven s
sake, as higher than that of the married (1 Cor.
vii. 32; Matt. xix. 12). The special danger of
over-anxiety about earthly things is to him known
by the same word that our Lord had used (1 Cor.
vii. 32 34; Luke x. 19). The very adverb which
he employs to express freedom from it, is taken
from St. Luke s account of Martha as " cumbered "
about much serving (1 Cor. vii. 35; Luke x. 40).
He too echoes, in view of the troubles that were
coming on the earth, the beatitude pronounced
on the wombs that never bare (1 Cor. vii. 40 ;
Luke xxiii. 29). With him, also, it is not that
which goes into the mouth that affects our accept
ance with God (1 Cor. viii. 8; Mark vii. 18); and
that which he seeks to avoid in eating or drinking
THE FIRST THREE GOSPELS. 139
is the offending others (1 Cor. viii. 13 ; Luke xvii.
1) . His thoughts of the name, the function, the
rights of an Apostle, are based upon our Lord s
commission given to the Twelve and to the
Seventy (1 Cor. ix. 414; Luke ix. 3; x. 7).
He refers the last to the express commandment
of Christ (1 Cor. ix. 14; Luke x. 7), and yet
rises beyond those rights to the higher law of
giving without receiving (1 Cor. ix. 18 ; Matt.
x. 8). He uses the same unusual word for per
sistent " wearying " that St. Luke had used
(1 Cor. ix. 27 ; Luke xviii. 5). The narrative
of the Last Supper, with all the symbolic
significance of its words and acts, with all the
associations of the events that came before and
after it, is assumed as part of the elementary
knowledge of every Christian (1 Cor. x. 16, 17;
xi. 2326; Luke xxii. 1923). His account
of the appearances of our Lord after His resur
rection, though manifestly independent, includes
some of those recorded in the Gospels (1 Cor.
xv. 3 7 ; Luke xxiv. 34 36) ; and his teaching
as to the " spiritual body" of the Resurrection
agrees with the phenomena which they report
(1 Cor. xv. 42 44; Luke xxiv. 36; John xx.
19). His Master s law of veracity in speech is
140 THE ORIGIN OF
his law also (2 Cor. i. 18; Matt, v, 37), as it
had heen that of St. James. Our Lord s formula
of asseveration, Hebrew as it was, is his formula
(2 Cor. i. 20 ; Luke iv. 24, et al.). His thoughts
of his mission as a minister of the New Covenant
are based on our Lord s words (2 Cor. iii. 6 ; Luke
xxii. 20). The words in which he speaks of the
believer as transfigured " from glory to glory, are
manifestly an allusive reference to the history of
Christ s transfiguration (2 Cor. iii. 18; Matt. xvii.
2) . He looks forward to the manifestation of all
secrets before the judgment seat of Christ (2 Cor.
v. 10 ; Rom. xiv. 10; Matt. xxv. 31), and, almost
as in Christ s own language, he states the purpose
of His death (2 Cor. v. 15 ; Gal. i. 4; Mark x.
45). He thinks of Him as being made sin for
us i.e., as being numbered with the transgressors
(2 Cor. v. 21; Mark xv. 28), and dwells on the
outward poverty of His life (2 Cor. viii. 9 ; Luke
ix. 58), and its inward meekness and gentleness
(2 Cor. x. 1; Matt. xi. 29).
We turn to the EPISTLE TO THE GALATIANS.
There the Apostle s knowledge of the higher
truths of the Gospel has come to him, as it
came to Peter, not by flesh and blood, but by
a revelation from the Father (Gal. i. 12, 16;
THE FIRST THREE GOSPELS. 141
Matt. xvi. 17). References to external facts are,
however, not wanting-. The names of James,
Cephas, and John are mentioned as already
familiar to his Galatian converts (Gal. ii. 9). He
echoes the very syllables of the prayer of Geth-
semane (Gal. iv. 6; Rom. viii. 16 ; Markxiv. 36).
He mentions the birth of Christ ("made of a
woman ") in a way which at least suggests an
acquaintance with St. Luke s account of the In
carnation (Gal. iv. 4; Luke i. 31). He sums up
all duties of man to man in the self-same law
which Christ had solemnly affirmed (Gal. v. 14 ;
Rom. xiii. 9 ; Luke x. 27). His list of the works
of the flesh reads like an echo of our Lord s list of
"the things that defile a man" (Gal. v. 1921;
Mark vii. 21, 22).
In the EPISTLE TO THE ROMANS we have com
paratively few of these references, but the great
facts of the birth from the seed of David (Rom.
i. 3), and the Resurrection and Ascension of Christ
are assumed throughout (Rom. viii. 34; Eph. i.
20). The command to meet cursing with blessing
is repeated (Rom. xii. 14; Luke vi. 28), as is also
that of paying tribute to whom tribute is due
(Rom. xiii. 7; Luke xx. 25). He has learnt the
lesson that nothing that goes into the mouth can
142 THE ORIGIN OF
defile a man (Rom. xiv. 14 ; Mark vii. 18). In
Rom. xvi. 25 he seems even to point to the exist
ence of " prophetic writings/ or C( scriptures, as
containing the substance of the gospel which he
preached ; and if we adopt the view that he refers
here, not to the older prophets, but to contemporary
writings (as St. Peter apparently does in the
" prophetic word" of 2 Pet. i. 19), then we have a
coincidence confirming St. Luke s statement that
there were many such writings anterior to his
Gospel (Luke i. l),and explaining St. Paul s use
of the term " scripture," as applied to a quotation
from that Gospel (1 Tim. v. 8 ; Luke x. 7).
The EPISTLES OF THE FIRST IMPRISONMENT
i.e., PHILIPPIANS, EPHESIANS, COLOSSIANS speak
of Christ as " the beloved of the Father (Eph.
i. 6 ; Luke ix. 35). " Apostles and prophets" are
joined together, as Christ had joined them, and in
close connection with the Wisdom of God as send
ing them (Eph. iii. 5, 10; iv. 11; Luke xi. 49).
The parable of the Bridegroom and the Bride is
recognised and developed (Eph. v. 25 ; Matt. xxii.
1 ; xxv. 1 ; Luke xiv. 16), and our Lord s citation
from Gen. ii. 24 re-cited (Eph. v. 31 ; Mark x. 7).
The writer knows that there is no respect of per
sons with the Lord Jesus (Eph. vi. 9 ; Col. iii. 25 ;
THE FIRST THREE GOSPELS. 143
Matt. xxii. 16). He takes up and expands the
thought of the " whole armour/ the " panoply "
of God, which is mightier than the " panoply " of
evil (Eph. vi. 13; Luke xi. 22). He sees that the
true redemption or deliverance of men is found in
the forgiveness of sins (Col. i. 14; Luke i. 77;
iii. 3) . He expresses the perfect law of the be
liever s life in saying that all personal or corporate
acts should be done in the name of the Lord Jesus
(Col. iii. 17 ; 1 Cor. v. 4; Matt, xviii. 20). That
Name is above every name, because He who bore
it, having been in the form of God, had emptied
Himself of that glory, and had come to be in the
likeness of man, and even in His manhood had
humbled Himself still further, and become obe
dient unto death, even the death of the cross
(Phil. ii. 69; Luke i. 32; ii. 51).
The PASTOHAL EPISTLES 1 TIMOTHY, 2 TIMOTHY,
TITUS carry on the evidence. It is with him one
of the faithful sayings, which are as the axioms of
Christian doctrine, that Christ Jesus came into the
world to save sinners (1 Tim. i. 15 ; Luke v. 32), to
give Himself as a ransom for all men (1 Tim. ii. 6;
Matt. xx. 28). The earliest type of the Church s
creed includes the Incarnation, the Visions of
Angels, the Ascension, as they are recorded by
144 THE ORIGIN OF
St. Luke (1 Tim. iii. 16 ; Luke xxii. 43 ; xxiv. 4,
51; Acts i. 10). He lays down as the rule of
discipline for the trial of offenders,, that which,
though previously acknowledged,, had yet, in a
specially solemn manner, been re-affirmed by
Christ (1 Tim. v. 19; Matt, xviii. 16). He dwells
on the good confession which Jesus Christ had
witnessed before Pontius Pilate (1 Tim. vi. 13 ;
Luke xxiii. 3). He speaks of the far-off judgment
in Christ s own words, as simply " that day "
(2 Tim. i. 18; Matt. vii. 22). He refers once
more to his own gospel as witnessing both to
the Resurrection of Christ and His descent from
David (2 Tim. ii. 8). He states again, almost in
the very words of Christ, the law of retribution
according to which He will deny hereafter those
who deny Him now, and will cause those who
endure to be sharers in His kingdom (2 Tim.
ii. 12; Luke ix. 26). Baptism is for him the
washing of a new birth, and that by the working
of the Spirit (Tit. iii. 5; John iii. 5). What has
been said of the Second Epistle of St. Peter holds
good of this last group of the Epistles that bear
St. Paul s name. If they are not actually by him,
they are yet unquestionably documents that carry
us back to a period not later than the close of the
THE FIRST THREE GOSPELS. 145
First Century or the very beginning of the
Second.
VII. The examples that have thus heen col
lected are, it is believed, sufficient to show that
the Epistles of the New Testament abound in
references, not only to the great facts and doc
trines of the Faith,, but to the acts and teaching
of Christ as recorded in the Gospels. And it must
be remembered that there was nothing in the cir
cumstances of the case to lead the writers to more
than these incidental and allusive references.
They were writing, not the Commentaries or the
Sermons which belonged to a later age, but
Epistles called for by special necessities, and not
naturally suggesting, any more than analogous
documents do now, a reference to the details of
the Gospel history ; and therefore the fact that
the allusions are as numerous as they are may
fairly be accepted as a proof that their memories
were saturated, as it were, with the acts and the
words of the life of Jesus. These formed the basis
of the oral instruction given to every convert (Luke
i. 3). They were part of the traditions of every
Church, of the gospel as preached by every Apostle
and Evangelist. I do not say that they prove
the existence of the first three Gospels as written
K
14(5 THE ORIGIN OF
books, but they prepare tlie way for all the special
evidence external and internal which may be
adduced on behalf of each of them,, and show that
they represent what was the current teaching of
the Apostle^ s age. It is probable enough, looking
to the literary activity of that time in all cities of
the empire, that there were, as St. Luke says
(chap. i. 1), and as Papias implies (see Introduc
tion to St. Matt/lew), many writers who undertook
the task of embodying these floating traditions in
writing. If out of these only three have survived,
it is a natural inference that they were recognised
as the most accurate or the most authoritative.
VIII. And it is at least a presumption in favour
of the Gospels with which we are now dealing
that they are ascribed to persons whose names
were not of themselves clothed with any very high
authority. A later writer, compiling a Gospel for
Jewish Christians, would hardly have been likely
to select the publican Apostle, the object of scorn
and hatred alike to his own countrymen and to the
Gentiles, instead of St. Peter or St. Andrew ; or
the subordinate attendant on the Apostles, whose
help St. Paul had rejected because he had shown
himself wavering and faint-hearted (Acts xiii. 13 j
xv. 38); or the physician whose name just occurs
THE FIRST THREE GOSPELS. 147
incidentally in the salutations of three of St. Paul s
later Epistles (Col. iv. 14; Philem. verse 24; 2
Tim. iv. 11). And yet, when we know the names,
and track out the history of the men, we see that
in each case they explain many of the phenomena
of the books to which they are severally attached,
and furnish many coincidences that are both inter
esting and evidential. In the case of one Gospel,
that of St. Luke, there is besides this, as the
Notes on it will show, so. close an agreement
between its vocabulary and that of St. Paul, that
it is scarcely possible to come to any other con
clusion than that the one writer was intimately
acquainted with the other. It may be added that
whether from the sceptical point of view, or that
of those who accept the first three Gospels as a
real record of our Lord s words, there is primd
facie evidence that they took their present form
before the destruction of Jerusalem in A.D. 72.
The warnings of the great prediction of Matt,
xxiii., Mark xiii., Luke xxi., as to "the abomin
ation of desolation," and " Jerusalem compassed
with armies," the counsel that men should "flee
to the mountains " regardless of what they left
behind them, the expectation suggested in them of
the coming of the Son of Man immediately after
148 THE ORIGIN OF
the tribulation of those days, all indicate, on
either hypothesis, a time of anxious and eager
watching a looking-for of those things that were
coming on the earth, which exactly corresponds
with the period between the persecution under
Nero and the invasion of Titus, and does not
correspond to any period either before or after.
There had not been time when the Gospels were
written for men to feel the doubt and disappoint
ment which showed themselves in the question,
" Where then is the promise of His coming ? " (2
Pet. iii. 4) .
IX. The book known as the Acts of the Apostles
is so manifestly the sequel to the Gospel of St.
Luke that it can hardly be put in evidence as an
independent witness. On the other hand, it con
tains elements of evidence, reports of speeches, and
the like, that are independent. It shows (Acts xx.
35) that in the churches of Asia Minor, in the
very region in which Papias afterwards wrote on
the e< sayings " or (i oracles " of the Christ, the
" words of the Lord Jesus " were recognised as at
once familiar and authoritative, and that among
those words were some that are not found in any
of the extant Gospels. A series of coincidences,
obviously undesigned, with the Epistles of St.
THE FIRST THREE GOSPELS. 149
Paul, in regard to facts, as seen, e.g., in Paley s
Ilora Paulina, and yet more in respect of style
and phraseology, as above stated, makes it all but
certain that the two writers were contemporary.
The fact that the last incident recorded in the
Acts is St. PauPs arrival at Rome, makes it, prima
facie, probable that the book was written shortly
after the expiration of the two years of his sojourn
there, with the mention of which the book con
cludes i.e.) about A.D. 65. But if so, then the
Gospel to which it is a sequel could not well have
been later, and thus the former conclusion gains
an additional confirmation.
X. The elements of agreement and of difference
in the first three Gospels fall in, it is obvious,
with the view thus given of their origin and his
tory. It is scarcely probable, though we are not
justified in assuming it to be impossible, that any
notes of our Lord s discourses, or parables, or shorter
sayings, were taken at the time, or that records
of His miracles were then and there reduced to
writing. But in the East, as elsewhere, the
memory of men is often active and retentive in
proportion to the absence of written aid. Men
recite long poems or discourses which they have
learnt orally, or get into the way of repeating
150 THE ORIGIN OF
long narratives with comparatively slight varia
tions. And so, when the Church was enlarged,
first in Palestine and afterwards at Antioch and
the other churches of the Gentiles, new converts
would be instructed freely in the words and acts of
the Master from whom they took the name of
Christians. As the church spread beyond the
limits of Judaea, as it came to include converts of
a higher culture, as it spread to countries where
those who had been eye-witnesses were few and
far between, there would naturally be a demand
for documents which should preserve what had
first been communicated by oral tradition only,
and that demand was certain in its turn to create
the supply. It was natural that each of the three
great sections of the Church that of the Hebrew
section of the circumcision, represented by James
the Bishop of Jerusalem; that of Hellenistic
Judaism mingling with the Gentiles, as repre
sented by St. Peter; that of the more purely
Gentile churches that had been founded by St.
Paul should have, each of them, in the Gospels
of St. Matthew, St. Mark, and St. Luke respect
ively, that which satisfied its wants. Each of
those Gospels, as will be seen, had its distinctive
features St. Matthew conspicuous for the fullest
THE FIRST THREE GOSPELS. 151
report of discourses, St. Mark for graphic and
vivid detail, St. Luke for a wider range of topic
and of teaching,, as the work of one who had
more the training of a skilled historian, and who,
though not an eye-witness, based his record upon
fuller and more directly personal inquiries. For
the circumstances which led to the composition of
the fourth Gospel, and the position which it occu
pied in relation to the Three, see Introduction to
St. Jo7m:
XL The difference in tone and phraseology be
tween the Gospels and the Epistles may fairly be
urged as evidence of the earlier date, if not of the
books themselves yet of the teaching which they
embody. (1) Throughout the Gospels the term by
which our Lord most commonly describes Himself
is the " Son of Man/- 7 and it occurs not less than
eighty-four times in all. It expressed at once our
Lord s fellowship with our humanity, and His
specially Messianic character as fulfilling the vision
of Dan. vii. 13. The faith of the disciples after
the Resurrection and Ascension naturally fastened,
however, on the higher truth that the Lord Jesus
was the Christ, the Son of God ; and the term so
familiar to us in the records of the Gospels is not
found in one solitary passage through the whole
152 THE ORIGIN OF
body of the Epistles, and the only examples of its
use outside the Gospels are in Acts vii. 56, Rev. i. 13.
In the latter of these two passages, it is doubtful,
from the absence of the article, whether it is used
in the same distinctive sense as in the Gospels, or
as meaning simply "a son of man." The broad dis
tinction thus presented can hardly be explained
except on the hypothesis that the Gospel report of
our Lord s teaching is faithful, and, at least, sub
stantially accurate, unaffected by the phraseology
and theology even of the earliest periods of the
Church s history. (2) Hardly less striking is the
contrast between the two groups of books as
regards the use of another term that of the
Churchy or Ecclesia as describing the society of
Christ s disciples. In the Acts and Epistles it
meets us at every turn, 112 times in all. In the
Gospels we find it in two passages only, Matt,
xvi. 18, xviii. 17. Here also we may point to the
fact as a proof that the reports of our Lord s teach
ing as preserved in the Gospels were entirely un
affected by the thoughts and language of the
Apostolic Church, and bear upon them the face of
originality and genuineness. (3) The absence of
any reference in the Gospels to the controversies of
the first century is another argument of like
THE FIRST THREE GOSPELS. 153
nature. We speak, and within due limits, legiti
mately enough, of the characteristic tendencies
and aims of St. Matthew, St. Mark, and St. Luke,
of their connection with this or that Apostle or
school of thought. But if tendencies and aims
had prevailed over honesty and faithfulness in re
porting, how strong would have been the tempta
tion to put into our Lord s lips words that bore
less or directly on the questions which were agi
tating men s minds on the necessity or the nullity
of circumcision, on justification by faith or works,
on eating things sacrificed to idols, on the reverence
due to bishops and elders ! All these things are,
it need hardly be said, conspicuous by their absence.
They are after- growths, which the teaching of
Christ recorded in the Gospels does not even touch.
The only controversies which it knows are those
with Pharisees and Sadducees. The writers of
the Gospels must have dealt faithfully with the
materials which they found ready to their hands,
and those materials must have been collected while
the words and acts of Jesus were yet fresh in the
memories of those who saw and heard them.
XII. It is indirectly a further argument in
favour of the early date of these three Gospels that
so little has come down to us, outside their contents,
154 THE ORIGIN OF
as to the words and acts of Jesus. It lies in the
nature of the case, as is, in part, seen by the success
which attended the gleaning of which we have
just spoken by St. Luke, in part also by the bold
hyperbole of St. John s language as he dwelt on
the things that Jesus had said or done (John xxi. 25)
that there must have been much that has found no
permanent record. The Apocryphal Gospels few
of them, if any (with the possible exception of the
Acta Pilati and the Descent into Hades, known as
the Gospel of Nicodemus), earlier than the fourth
century give little else but frivolous and fantastic
legends. Here and there only are found fragments
which may be authentic, though they lie outside
the limits of the Canonical Gospels. Such as they
are, it is interesting and may be profitable to
gather up even these fragments so that nothing
may be lost ; but the fact that these are all, may
fairly be ascribed to the prestige and authority
which attached to the Four that we now recognise,
and to these only.
I give accordingly, in conclusion, the following
sayings, reported as having been among the sayings
of the Lord Jesus :
(1) Quoted by St. Paul in Acts xx. 35, " It is
more blessed to give than to receive."
THE FIRST THREE GOSPELS. 155
(2) An addition to Luke vi. 4, in Codex D,
(C And on the same day Jesus saw a man working
at his craft on the Sabbath-day, and He said unto
him,, c Man, if thou knowest what thou doest, then
art thou blessed ; but if thou knowest not, then
art thou accursed, and art a transgressor of the
Law/"" There seems no reason why we should
not receive the saying as authentic. Its teaching
is in harmony with our Lord s reported words and
acts, and it brings out with a marvellous force the
distinction between the conscious transgression of
a law recognised as still binding, and the assertion
of a higher law as superseding the lower.
(3) Quoted by Origen (in Joann. xix.), "Be
ye trustworthy money-changers. " The word is
the same as that used in the parable of the
Talents (Matt. xxv. 27), and may well have been
suggested by it. The saying appears to imply a
twofold parable. The disciples of Christ were to
be as the money-changers (a) in their skill to
distinguish the counterfeit coin from the true to
know, as it were, the ring of what was stamped
with the King s image and superscription from
that which was alloyed and debased; and (I) in
the activity with which they laboured, and the
wisdom which guided their labours, so that their
156 THE ORIGIN OF
Lord, at His coming, might receive His own with
usury.
(4) An addition in Codex D, to Matt. xx. 28,
(( But ye seek (or, perhaps, taking the verb as "in
the imperative, seek ye] to increase from little, and
from greater to be less."
(5) From the Epistle of Barnabas, c. 4, " Let us
resist all iniquity, and hold it in abhorrence."
(6) From the same, c. 7, " They who wish to
see Me, and to lay hold on My kingdom, must
receive Me by affliction and suffering/
(7) From the Gospel of the Hebrews, quoted by
Clement of Alexandria (Strom, ii. 9, 45), "He
that wonders [i.e., apparently, with the wonder of
reverential faith] shall reign, and he that reigns
shall be made to rest."
(8) From Clement of Alexandria (Strom, ii. 9,
45) , Wonder thou at the things that are before
thee." Both this and the preceding passage are
quoted by Clement to show that in the teaching of
Christ, as in that of Plato, wonder is at once the
beginning and the end of knowledge.
(9) From the Ebionite Gospel, quoted by Epi-
phanius (liar, xxx. 16), "1 came to abolish
sacrifices, and unless ye cease from sacrificing, the
wrath (of God) will not cease from you."
THE FIRST THREE GOSPELS. 157
(10) Quoted by Clement of Alexandria (Strom.
iv. 6, 34) and Origen (de Oratione, c. 2), l( Ask
great things, and small shall be added to you :
ask heavenly things, and there shall be added unto
you earthly things/-
(11) Quoted by Justin (Dial. c. TrypL c. 47),
and Clement of Alexandria (Quis dives, c. 40),
" In the things wherein I find you, in them will I
judge you/
(12) From Origen (Co mm. in Jer. iii. p. 778),
" He who is nigh unto Me is nigh unto the fire :
he who is far from Me is far from the kingdom/
Ignatius (ad Smyrn. c. 4) has a like saying, but
not as a quotation. " To be near the sword is to
be near God."
(13) The Pseudo-Clement of Home (Ep. ii. 8),
" If ye keep not that which was little, who will
give you that which is great ? "
(14) From the same (as before), "Keep the
flesh pure, and the seal without stain/ (The
" seal " probably refers to Baptism as the sign of
the Covenant.)
(15) From Clement of Alexandria, as a quota
tion from the Gospel according to the Egyptians
(Strom, iii. 13, 92), and the Pseudo-Clement of
Home (Ep. ii. 12). Salome, it is said, asked our
ir>8 THE ORIGIN OF
Lord when His kingdom should come,, and the
things which He had spoken be accomplished ; and
He answered, ""When the two shall be one, and
that which is without as that which is within,
and the male with the female, neither male nor
female. Another like saying- is given by the
Pseudo- Linus, " Unless ye make the left as the
right, and the right as the left, and that which is
above as that which is below, and that which is
behind as that which is before, ye know not the
kingdom of God.-" In the first of these we may
trace a feeling analogous to that expressed by St.
Paul in Gal. iii. 28; 1 Cor. vii. 29.
(16) Origen (in Matt. xiii. 2), "For them that
are infirm was I infirm, and for them that hunger
did I hunger, and for them that thirst did I
thirst/
(17) Jerome (in Eph. v. 3), " Never be ye joy
ful, except when ye have seen your brother (dwell
ing) in love."
(18) Ignatius (ad Smyrn. c. 3). Our Lord,
after His Resurrection, said to Peter, Take hold,
handle Me, and see that I am not a bodiless
demon/ This is obviously a reproduction of
Luke xxiv. 39 the peculiarity being the use of
the word " demon " for " spirit/
THE FIRST THREE GOSPELS. 159
(19) The Clementine Homilies, xii. 29, "Good
must needs come, but blessed is He through whom
it comes. >y
(20) Clement of Alexandria (Strom, v. 10, 64),
" My mystery is for Me, and for the sons of My
house/ The Clementine Homilies (xix. 20) gives
another version, " Keep My mysteries for Me, and
for the sons of My house. "
(21) Eusebius (Theophania, iv. 13), (< I will
choose these things to Myself. Very excellent are
those whom My Father that is in Heaven hath
given Me."
(22) Papias (quoted by Irenseus, v. 33, 3),
"The Lord said, speaking of His kingdom, The
days will come in which vines shall spring up,
each having ten thousand stocks, and on each
stock ten thousand branches, and on each branch
ten thousand shoots, and on each shoot ten thou
sand bunches, and on each bunch ten thousand
grapes, and each grape when pressed will give
five-and-twenty measures of wine. And when any
saint shall have laid hold on one bunch, another
shall cry, I am a better bunch, take me ; through
me bless the Lord/ This is followed by a like
statement as to the productiveness of ears of corn,
and then by a question from Judas the traitor,
160 THE FIRST THREE GOSPELS.
who asks, " How shall such products come from
the Lord ? * and who receives the answer, " They
shall see who come to Me in these times."
The above extracts are taken from Dr. West-
cott s Introduction to the Gospels, App. C. In
some of them, as has been said above, there is no
internal difficulty in receiving the words as they
stand, as not unworthy of the Teacher to whom
they are ascribed. In others, as notably in (15)
and (22), whatever nucleus of truth there was at
first has been encrusted over with mystic or fan
tastic imaginations. None, of course, can claim
any authority, but some, pre-eminently, perhaps,
(2), (3), and (10), are at least suggestive enough
to be fruitful in deep thoughts and salutary
warnings.
THE HARMONY OF THE GOSPELS. 161
V. THE HARMONY OF THE
GOSPELS.
I. The Christian Church found itself, as we
have seen, in the middle of the second century in
possession of the four Canonical Gospels, and of
these alone, as authentic records of the words and
acts of its Lord. Each was obviously but a frag
mentary memoir. They were almost as obviously,
though in part, derived from common sources,
independent of each other. It was natural, as
soon as they came to be read and studied by men
with anything like the culture of historians, that
they should wish to combine what they found
separate, and to construct, as far as might be, a
continuous narrative. So, as we have seen, Tatian,
of the Syrian Church, compiled his Diatessaron
(circ. A.D. 170), a book which, though now alto
gether lost, was once so popular that Theodoret
(lifer, i. 20) states in the fifth century that he had
found not fewer than 200 copies in the churches
of his own diocese ; and about half a century later,
L
162 THE HARMONY OF
a like work was undertaken by Ammonius of
Alexandria. The historical mode of study fell,
however, for many centuries into disuse, and it
was not till the revival of learning in the fifteenth
and sixteenth centuries that attempts, more or less
elaborate, were made, first by Gerson, the famous
Chancellor of the University of Paris (ob. A.D.
1429), to whom some have attributed the author
ship of the De Imitatione Christi, and Osiander,
the friend of Luther (A.D. 1561), to place all
the facts recorded in the four Gospels in their
order of chronological sequence. Since that
time Harmonies have multiplied, and while,
on the one hand, they have often helped the
student to see facts in their right relation to
each other, they have, on the other, it may
be feared, tended to perplex him by their
divergent methods and consequently discordant
conclusions.
II. It may be admitted that the four Gospels do
not lend themselves very readily to this process.
That of St. John, which is most precise in its
notes of time, as connecting well nigh every
incident which it records with a Jewish feast, is
the one which stands most apart, with only here
and there a connecting-link from the other three,
THE GOSPELS. 163
confining itself almost exclusively to our Lord s
ministry in Judaea, as they confine themselves to
His work in Galilee. The two which have so
much in common, St. Matthew and St. Mark,
that the one has been thought, though wrongly,
to be but an abridgment of the other, differ so
much in their arrangement of the facts which they
record (see Notes on Matt. viii. and ix.) that it is
clear that either one or both must have been led
to adopt an order which was not that of actual
sequence. St. Luke, though aiming, more than
the others, at chronological exactness (Luke i. 3),
was dependent on the reports of others. Probably
the very mode in which facts and sayings were for
several years transmitted orally and separately
made it often difficult to assign to each event its
proper place in the series. The assumption, on
which some have started, that the order in each
Gospel must be accepted as free from the possi
bility of error in the order of its incidents, has led
to an artificial and arbitrary multiplication of similar
events, such as would at once be dismissed as unten
able in dealing with any other histories. Men have
found in the Gospels three blind men at Jericho,
and two anointings at Bethany. The counter-
assumption that no two events, no two discourses in
164 THE H-ARMONY OF
the Gospels could be like each other and yet distinct,
has led to equally arbitrary and fantastic curtail
ment of the facts. Men have assumed the identity
of the feeding of the Five and of the Four Thou
sand ; of the anointing which St. Luke records in
chap. vii., in the house of Simon the Pharisee,
with that which the other Gospels record as taking
place in the house of Simon the leper (Matt. xxvi.
613; Mark xiv. 39; John xii. 111); of
the cleansing of the Temple in John ii., at the
commencement of our Lord s ministry, with that
which the other Gospels relate as occurring at its
close (Matt. xxi. 1217; Mark xi. 1519;
Luke xix. 45 48) .
III. Admitting, however, these elements of
difficulty and uncertainty, it yet remains true that
they are more than balanced by the advantage of
being able to connect one Gospel with another,
and to read the narratives of the first three in their
right relation to those of the fourth. If difficulties
present themselves, so also do coincidences, often
of great significance and interest. It is believed,
therefore, that it will be a gain for the readers of
this Volume to have, ready at hand for reference,
such a harmonised table of its contents. That
which follows is based, though not without variations
THE GOSPELS. 165
here and there, made in the exercise of an inde
pendent judgment, upon the arrangement of the
Synopsis Ev angelica of the great German scholar,
Tischendorf, as that in its turn Avas based upon a
like work of Wieseler s. It has been thought
expedient, as generally in the Notes of this Com
mentary, to give results rather than to discuss the
views which have been maintained on each point
that has been thought open to discussion by this
or that writer. It is not pretended that what
is now presented is throughout free from uncer
tainty, and where the uncertainty exists it will
be indicated in the usual way, by a note of inter
rogation (?) .
IV. It will be expedient, however, to state
briefly what are the chief data for the harmony
that follows, both in relation (A) to external
history, and (B) to the internal arrangement of
the Gospel narrative that follows :
A. (1) Lukeiii. 1 fixes the beginning of John
the Baptist s ministry in the fifteenth year of
Tiberius. This may be reckoned, either from
the death of Augustus (A.U.C. 767), or from
A.U.C. 765, when he associated Tiberius with
himself as sharing the imperial power. The
latter calculation is the one generally adopted.
166 THE HARMONY OF
As our Lord is stated to have been at that time
" about thirty years of age/ this would place His
birth in A.U.C. 752 or 750. (2) The narrative of
Matt. ii. 1 shows the birth of Jesus to have
preceded the death of Herod the Great, which took
place shortly before the Passover of A.U.C. 750 or
B.C. 4. (3) John ii. 20 fixes the first Passover
in our Lord s ministry as forty-six years from
the beginning of Herod s work of reconstruc
tion, on which he entered in A.U.C. 734 i.e., in
A.U.C. 780 ; and this agrees with St. Luke s
statement as to His age at the commencement of
His ministry,
Under (B) the chief points are those which are
common to all four Gospels. (1) The baptism of
Jesus; (2) the imprisonment of the Baptist; (3)
the feeding of the Five Thousand ; (4) the last entry
into Jerusalem, followed by the Crucifixion. In
addition to these, as notes of time peculiar to the
Gospels that contain them, we note (1) St. Luke s
second-first Sabbath (see Note on Luke vi. 1),
which, however, is for us too obscure to be of
much service as a landmark, and the successive
feasts mentioned by St. John, so., (2) the Passover
of chap. ii. 13 ; (3) the unnamed Feast of chap. v.
1 ; (4) the Passover of chap. vi. 4, coinciding with
THE GOSPELS. 167
the feeding of the Five Thousand, and therefore
important in its bearing on the other Gospels;
(5) the Feast of Tabernacles in chap. vii. 2 ; (6)
the Feast of the Dedication in chap. x. 22 ; and,
lastly; (7) the final Passover (chap. xii. 1), in
common with the other three. The last-mentioned
Feast, however, while it serves, on the one hand,
to connect the history with that of the other Gospels,
introduces a new difficulty. It cannot be ques
tioned that the impression naturally left by Matt,
xxvi. 17 19, Mark xiv. 12 16, Luke xxii. 7
13, is that the meal of which our Lord partook
with the disciples was the actual Passover. It can
as little be questioned that the impression naturally
left by John xiii. 1, 29, xviii. 28, is that the
Passover was eaten by the Jews on the evening
after the Crucifixion. The question is hardly
important except as bearing upon the trustworthi
ness or authority of the Gospel narratives, and
a discussion of the various solutions of the problem
will be found in the Notes on the passages of St
John above referred to. The view which com
mends itself to the present writer, as most probable,
is that which assumes our Lord and the disciples
to have eaten the actual Passover at the same hour
as the majority of the other Jews were eating it,
168 THE HARMONY OF
and that the priests and others who took part in
the proceedings against our Lord postponed their
Passover, under the pressure of circumstances, till
the afternoon, not the evening) of Friday (John
xviii. 28). That Friday, it may be noted, was the
Preparation, not for the Passover as such, but for
the great Sabbath of the Paschal week. (See
Excursus F on St. Jo/in.)
A further, but minor, difficulty presents itself as
to the hour of the Crucifixion. Mark xv. 26
names the " third hour i.e., 9 a.m.; and the
" sixth hour/ or noon, is fixed by the first three
Gospels as the time when the mysterious darkness
began to fall upon the scene (Matt, xxvii. 45 ;
Mark xv. 33 ; Luke xxiii. 44) . St. John, on the
other hand, names ""about the sixth hour" (xix.
14) as the time when Jesus was condemned by
Pilate. Here, however, the explanation lies almost
on the surface. St. John used the Roman reckon
ing, and the Three the Jewish ; so that their
(c early in the morning/ and his " about 6 A.M."
came to the same thing. (See, however, Note on
John iv. 6.)
V. A word ought, perhaps, to be said in
explanation of the fact that we place the birth of
Jesus, not as might have been expected, in A.D. 1,
THE GOSPELS. 169
but in B.C. 4. The mode of reckoning by the
" year of our Lord " was first introduced by
Dionysius the Little, a monk of Rome, in his
Cyclus Pasckalis, a treatise on the computation of
Easter, in the first half of the sixth century. Up
to that time the received computation of events
through the western portion of Christendom had
been from the supposed foundation of Rome (B.C.
754), and events were marked accordingly as
happening in this or that year, Anno Urbis Con-
dit<%, or by the initial letters A.TJ.C. In the East
some historians continued to reckon from the era
of Seleucidse, which dated from the accession of
Seleucus Nicator to the monarchy of Syria, in
B.C. 312. The new computation was naturally
received by Christendom (it first appears as a date
for historical events in Italy in the sixth century),
and adopted without adequate inquiry, till the six
teenth century. A more careful examination of
the data presented by the Gospel history, and,
in particular, by the fact that the birth of
Christ preceded the death of Herod, showed that
Dionysius had made a mistake of four years, or
perhaps more, in his calculations. The received
reckoning had, however, taken too firm a root
to be disturbed by re-dating all events in history
170 THE HARMONY OF THE GOSPELS.
since the Christian era; and it was accordingly
thought simpler to accept it, and to rectify the
error, as far as the Gospel history was concerned,
by fixing the birth of Christ at its true date,
B.C. 4.
CHRONOLOGICAL HARMONY. 171
VI. CHRONOLOGICAL HARMONY OF
THE GOSPELS.
B.C.
5. Birth of John the Baptist, June (?), Octo
ber (?) ; birth of Jesus, December (?) .
4. Census under Quirinus, or Cyrenius ; birth o
Jesus, January (?), April (?); Presentation
in the Temple ; Flight into Egypt, March ;
death of Herod, just before the Passover;
return of Joseph and Mary to Nazareth (?),
(Matt. ii. 1923).
3. Augustus assigns Judsea to Archelaus, Galilee
to Antipas; birth of Apollonius of
Tyana (?).
2.
1.
A.D.
1.
2. Birth of John the Apostle (?).
3. Birth of Seneca (/).
4.
5. Birth of St. Paul (?).
172 CHRONOLOGICAL HARMONY OF
A.D.
6. Death of Hillel ; deposition of Archelaus ;
Judaa a Roman province.
7. Insurrection of Judas of Galilee.
8.
9. First visit of Jesus to the Temple (Luke ii. 4 1
52) ; Passover.
10.
11.
12.
13.
14. Death of Augustus ; Tiberius, Emperor.
15.
16.
17.
18. Tiberias built by Antipas ; death of Livy and
Ovid.
19. Jews expelled from Italy.
20. Death of Joseph (?)
21.
22.
23.
24.
25. Pontius Pilate appointed Procurator of Judaea.
26. Preaching of John the Baptist, January (?), or
in the previous Autumn (?), (Matt. iii. 1
12 ; Mark i. 18 ; Luke iii. 118).
THE GOSPELS. 173
AD.
26. Baptism of Jesus (Matt. iii. 1317; Mark i.
911; Luke iii. 21, 22).
The Temptation in the wilderness (Matt. iv.
111; Mark i. 12, 13; Luke iv. 113;
John i. 1934).
Call of Peter, Andrew, John, Philip, and
Nathanael (John i. 3551).
The marriage at Cana (John ii. 1 11).
PASSOVER IN JERUSALEM (John ii. 13 25) ;
Nicodemus (John iii. 1 21) ; Jesus baptises
in Judaea (John iii. 22 36) ; John the
Baptist imprisoned (Matt. xiv. 3 5 ; Mark
vi. 17 20 ; Luke iii. 19, 20) ; Jesus returns
through Samaria (John iv. 1 42) into
Galilee (Matt. iv. 12; Mark i. 14; Luke
iv. 14).
Jesus again at Cana ; healing of the son of
the king s officer of Capernaum (John iv.
4354).
The first sermon at Nazareth; DAY OF
ATONEMENT (?) ; October (?) ; settlement at
Capernaum (Luke iv. 16 30).
27. FEAST OF PASSOVER, March (?) ; PENTECOST,
May, A.D. 26 (?) ; TABERNACLES, October,
A.D. 26 (?) ; or, PURIM, February, A.D.
27 (?), most probably the last, at Jeru-
174 CHRONOLOGICAL HARMONY OF
A.D.
salem; the cripple at Bethesda (John v.
1-9).
27. Jesus begins His public ministry in Galilee
(Matt. iv. 17 ; Mark i. 14, 15).
Call of Peter, Andrew, James, and John
(Matt. iv. 1822; Mark i. 1620; Luke
v. 1-11,?).
Miracles at Capernaum (Matt. viii. 14 17;
Mark i. 2934; Luke iv. 3141).
Mission journey through Galilee, including
Chorazin (?), Bethsaida (?), &c. (Matt. iv.
23; Mark i. 38, 39; Luke iv. 4244).
Leper healed (Matt. viii. 1 4 ; Mark i. 40
45; Luke v. 1215).
Capernaum : paralytic healed (Matt. ix. 1 8;
Mark ii. 112 ; Luke v. 1826).
Capernaum : call of Levi = Matthew (Matt. ix.
917 ; Mark ii. 1322 ; Luke v. 27, 28).
Near Capernaum : second - first Sabbath,
March (?), April (?), (Matt. xii. 18;
Mark ii. 2328 ; Luke vi. 15).
Capernaum : the withered hand healed on
the Sabbath (Matt. xii. 913; Mark iii.
16; Luke vi. 611).
Choice of the twelve Apostles (Matt. x. 2 4;
Mark iii. 1619 ; Luke vi. 1416).
THE GOSPELS. 175
A.D.
27. The Sermons on the Mount (Matt, v., vi.,
vii.) and on the Plain (Luke vi. 26 65).
Capernaum : centurion s servant healed (Matt.
viii. 513; Luke vii. 110).
Nam : widow s son raised to life (Luke vii.
1117).
Messengers sent by John the Baptist (Matt.
xi. 219; Luke vii. 1835).
House of Simon the Pharisee ; the woman that
was a sinner (Luke vii. 36 50).
Journey through Palestine, followed by de
vout women (Luke viii. 1 3).
The charge of casting out devils by Beelzebub
(Matt. xii. 2237; Mark iii. 2230;
Lukexi. 14 26).
Visit of the Mother and Brethren of Jesus
(Matt. xii. 4650; Mark iii. 3135;
Luke viii. 1921).
The first teaching by parables (Matt. xiii. 1
53; Mark iv. 134; Luke viii. 418;
xiii. 1821).
Sea of Galilee : the tempest calmed (Matt.
viii. 23 27 ; Mark iv. 35 41 ; Luke viii.
2225).
The Gadarene demoniac (Matt. viii. 28 34 ;
Mark v. 120; Luke viii. 2639).
176 CHRONOLOGICAL HARMONY OF
A.D.
27. The daughter of Jairus raised to life (Matt. ix.
1826; Mark v. 2243; Luke viii. 40
56).
Nazareth ; second discourse in the synagogue
(Matt. xiii. 5458; Mark vi. 16).
Renewed journey through Galilee (Matt. ix.
35 38 ; Mark vi. 6).
Mission of the Twelve Apostles (Matt. x. 1
42; Mark vi. 713; Luke ix. 16).
Execution of John the Baptist, March (?),
(Matt. xiv. 612; Mark vi. 2129).
Herod the Tetrarch hears of Jesus (Matt. xiv.
1, 2; Markvi. 1416; Luke ix. 79).
Return of the Twelve to Bethsaida ; feeding of
the Five Thousand ; PASSOVER (Matt. xiv.
1321; Mark vi. 30 44; Luke ix. 10
17; John vi. 114).
Sea of Galilee : Jesus walks on the waters
(Matt. xiv. 2233; Mark vi. 4552;
John vi. 1521).
Gennesaret : works of healing (Matt. xiv. 34
36; Mark vi. 5356).
Capernaum : SABBATH AFTER PASSOVER ; dis
course on the Bread of Life (John vi. 22
65).
Pharisees from Jerusalem charge the disciples
THE GOSPELS. 177
A.D
with eating with unwashed hands (Matt.
xv . i_20 ; Mark vii. 123).
27. Coasts of Tyre and Sidon : daughter of Syro-
Phcenician woman healed (Matt. xv. 21 28,
Mark vii. 25 30).
Deaf and dumb (Matt, xv. 2931 ; Mark vii.
3137).
Feeding of the Four Thousand (Matt, xv. 32
38 ; Mark viii. 19).
Pharisees and Sadducees demand a sign from
heaven (Matt. xvi. 1 4; Mark viii. 10
12).
Bethsaida : blind man healed (Mark viii. 2-2
26).
Csesarea Philippi : Peter s confession (Matt.
xvi. 1328; Mark viii. 27 ix. 1; Luke
ix. 1827 ; John vi. 6671, ?).
. Hermon (?) ; Tabor (?) : the Transfiguration
(Matt. xvii. 113 ; Markix. 213; Luke
ix. 2836).
Base of Hermon (?) : demoniac healed (Matt.
xvii. 1421; Mark ix. 1429; Luke ix.
3743).
- The Passion foretold (Matt. xvii. 22, 23; Mark
ix. 3032 ; Luke ix. 4345) .
Capernaum (?) : payment of didrachma, or
M
178 CHRONOLOGICAL HARMONY OF
A.D.
Temple-rate, April (?), May (?), (Matt.
xvii. 24 27).
27. Rivalry of disciples, and consequent teaching
(Matt, xviii. 135; Mark ix. 3350;
Luke ix. 4650).
Journey through Samaria; new disciples;
Jerusalem : FEAST OF TABERNACLES,, Octo
ber (Matt. viii. 1922 ; Luke ix. 5162 ;
John vii. 1 53).
Jerusalem : the woman taken in adultery (John
vii. 53 viii. 11).
Jerusalem : discourse in Temple ; blind man
healed at Siloam (John viii. 21 59; John
ix. 141).
Jerusalem : the Good Shepherd (John x. 1
18).
Mission and return of the Seventy (Luke x. 1
-24).
Parable of the Good Samaritan (Luke x. 25
37).
Bethany : Jesus in the house of Martha (Luke
x. 3842).
Disciples taught to pray (Luke xi. 1 13).
- Two blind men healed (Matt. ix. 2731).
Demoniac healed ; subsequent teaching (Matt.
ix. 3234; xii. 3845; Luke xi. 1436).
THE GOSPELS. 179
A.D.
27. Persea (?) ; Galilee (?) : teaching on various
occasions (Luke xi. 37 xiii. 21).
Jerusalem : FEAST OF DEDICATION, December
2027 (John*. 2239).
28. January. Jesus on the east side of Jordan
(Johnx. 4042).
Jesus begins to prepare for the journey to Jeru
salem ; message from Herod (Luke xiii.
2235).
East side of Jordan : teaching, including
parables of the Lost Sheep, the Lost Piece
of Money, Prodigal Son, Unjust Steward,
the Rich Man and Lazarus, &c. (Luke xiv.
1 xvii. 10).
Progress towards Jerusalem (Matt. xix. 1 ;
Mark x. 1 ; Luke xvii. 11).
The ten lepers ; teaching, including parables
of Unjust Judge, Pharisee and Publican
(Luke xvii. 12 xviii. 14).
Teaching as to divorce and infants (Matt. xix.
315; Markx. 2 16; Luke xviii. 15 17,
infants only).
Dialogue with the rich young ruler (?), (Matt.
xix. 1630 ; Mark x. 1731 ; Luke xviii.
1830).
Parable of the Labourers in the Vineyard (Matt.
xx. 116).
180 CHRONOLOGICAL HARMONY OF
A.D.
28. Bethany : raising of Lazarus (John xi. 1 46).
Ephraim: retirement of Jesus (John xi. 47
54).
Request of the sons of Zebedee (Matt. xx.
2028; Markx. 3545).
Jericho: two blind men healed (Matt. xx.
2934; Mark x. 4652; Luke xviii.
3543).
Jericho : Jesus in the house of Zacchaus (Luke
xix. 110).
Parable of the Pounds (Luke xix. 11 28).
Bethany : Jesus anointed by Mary ; EVENING
OF SABBATH BEFORE THE PASSOVER.
Bethany and Jerusalem : FIRST DAY OF THE
WEEK: kingly Entry into the city (Matt.
xxi. 1 11 ; Mark xi. 1 11 ; Luke xix.
2944; John xii. 1219).
SECOND DAY OF THE WEEK : Bethany and Jeru
salem ; the barren fig-tree (Matt. xxi. 18
22; Mark xi. 1214, 2025).
Cleansing of the Temple (Matt. xxi. 1217;
Mark xi. 1519 ; Luke xix. 4548).
Parables; discussions with Pharisees, Herodians,
Sadducees, and lawyers (Matt. xxi. 23
xxii. 46; Mark xi. 27; xii. 40; Luke xx.
144).
THE GOSPELS. 181
A.D.
28. The last discourse against the Pharisees (Matt,
xxiii. 139 ; Mark xii. 3840 ; Luke xx.
4547).
The widow s mite (Mark xii. 41 44; Luke
xxi. 1 4).
The Greeks in Jerusalem (?) ; the voice from
heaven (John xii. 2036).
Prophetic discourse of the destruction of Jeru
salem and of the second Advent (Matt. xxiv.
142 ; Mark xiii. 137 ; Luke xxi. 5
36).
The parables of the Wise and Foolish Virgins
the Talents, the Sheep and the Goats (Matt.
xxv. 1 46).
THIRD DAY OF THE WEEK : passed by Jesus
in Bethany and Gethsemane (?), Jerusalem
(?) ; compact of Judas with the chief
priests (Matt. xxvi. 1 5, 14 16 ; Mark
xiv. 1, 2, 10, 11 ; Lukexxii. 16).
FOURTH DAY OF THE WEEK: nothing re
corded; Bethany (?), Gethsemane (?), Jeru
salem (?).
FIFTH DAY OF THE WEEK : Peter and John
sent from Bethany to Jerusalem; THE
PASSOVER SUPPER; the Feast of the New
Covenant ; dialogue and discourses.
182 CHRONOLOGICAL HARMONY OF
A.D.
28. Gethsemane (Matt. xxvi. 17 46; Mark xiv.
1242; Lukexxii. 746; John xiii. 1
xvii. 26).
SIXTH DAY OF THE WEEK : 3 A.M., Jesus taken
in Gethsemane ; brought before Annas ;
Peter s denial (Matt. xxvi. 47 75 ; Mark
xiii. 4372 ; Luke xxii. 4762 ; John
xviii. 218).
6 A.M. The trial before Caiaphas and the Sanhe-
drin ; their second meeting ; Jesus sent to
Pilate; suicide of Judas.
Jesus before Pilate, Herod, and Pilate again ;
the people demand release of Barabbas ;
Jesus led to Golgotha (Matt. xxvi. 59
xxvii. 34 ; Mark xiv. 55 xv. 23 ; Luke
xxii. 63 xxiii. 33; John xviii. 19 xix.
17).
9 A.M. The Crucifixion (Matt, xxvii. 35 44;
Mark xv. 2432; Luke xxiii. 3343;
John xix. 1827).
Noon to 3 P.M. Darkness over the land;
death of Jesus (Matt, xxvii. 45 56;
Mark xv. 2941 ; Luke xxiii. 44 46 ;
John xix. 2830).
6 P.M. Embalmment and entombment by
Joseph of Arimathsea, Nicodemus, and
TILE GOSPELS. 183
A.D.
devout women ; priests apply for a guard
over the sepulchre (Matt, xxvii. 57 66;
Mark xv. 4247; Luke xxiii. 5056;
John xix. 3842).
28. SABBATH : disciples and women rest (Luke
xxiii. 56).
FIRST DAY OF THE WEEK : the Resurrection
(see notes on Matt, xxviii. for the order of
the manifestations), (Matt, xxviii. 1 20;
Mark xvi. 120; Luke xxiv. 143;
John xx. 1 xxi. 25).
TEN DAYS BEFORE PENTECOST (?) : the Ascen
sion (Mark xvi. 19, 20; Luke xxiv. 44
53).
APPENDIX
ON THE REVISED VERSION.
I. Preparations for Revision. It does not lie
within the scope of the present volume to follow,
step by step, the course of events by which the
opinion of the English public was prepared for the
appointment in 1870, by the Convocation of Can
terbury, of two Committees for revising the Autho
rised Version of the Old and New Testaments
respectively. The eighteenth century produced a
few proposals for revision and a new version, most
of them of little value, some of them conspicuously
bad, defaced by inaccuracies, and vulgarised by
modernisms of language. Archbishop Newcome
and Dr. Geddes, a Roman Catholic scholar, may
be mentioned as the most noticeable advocates of
a new or revised version. In 1818 such a version
was published by Dr. John Bellamy, and severely
criticised by the Quarterly Review (Nos. 37, 38),
while the Authorised Version was vindicated on
APPENDIX. 185
historical and critical grounds by Dr. Whitaker
and Dr. H. J. Todd in 1819. For some years the
discussion slumbered, and a new translation by
Dr. Conquest, advertised as " with 20,000 emen
dations/" invited a contemptuous disregard by the
silly ostentation of its title-page. For some years,
circ. 1848 56, motions in favour of a new version
were brought forward in the House of Commons
by Mr. Hey wood. In 1857, a pamphlet by Dr.
Beard, A revised English Bible the want of the
Church, helped to draw attention to the subject ;
while the Hints for an Improved Translation of
the New Testament, published originally by Pro
fessor Scholeiield in 1832, but re-edited by Pro
fessor Selwyn in 1857, were at once an invitation
and a contribution to the work. The Eevision of
the Authorised Version by live clergymen (Dean
Alford, Dr. Moberly, the present Bishop of Salis
bury, Dr. Barrow, Mr. Humphry, and Dr. Ellicott,
now Bishop of Gloucester and Bristol), which,
however, did not get beyond the Gospel of St.
John and the Epistles to the Romans and Corin
thians, the translations of the Epistles included,
by Messrs. Conybeare and Howson, in their Life
and Epistles of St. Paul, prepared the way for a
fuller consideration of the subject. The strong
186 APPENDIX.
and weighty language used by Bishop Ellicott in
his Preface to the Pastoral Epistles of St. Paul
in which, after having asked the question whether
it was wise to oppose all proposals for revision, and
made answer to himself in the words " God forbid !
... It is vain to cheat our souls with the belief
that these errors " (in the Authorised Version) <( are
either insignificant or imaginary. There are errors,
there are inaccuracies, there are obscurities . . .
and that man, who, after being in any degree
satisfied of this, permits himself to lean to the
counsels of a timid or a popular obstructiveness,
or who, intellectually unable to test the truth of
these allegations, nevertheless permits himself to
denounce or deny them . . . will have to sustain
the tremendous charge of having dealt deceitfully
with the inviolable word of God" naturally told
upon the minds of both laity and clergy, and pre
pared the way for more definite and decisive action.
Instead of the abortive motions in favour of a
revision, which had been brought forward, as
stated above, by Mr. Heywood in the House of
Commons, to discuss, or decide on, such a question,
or the equally unsuccessful motion made by Pro
fessor Selwyn in Convocation in 1856, obviously
the least competent body in the world, action was
APPENDIX. 187
taken in due order,, in the Convocation of the
Province of Canterbury, and with the following
results.
II. The Process of Revision. In February,
1870, the following resolution was passed unani
mously by both Houses : " That a Committee of
both Houses be appointed, with power to confer
with any Committee that may be appointed by
the Convocation of the Northern Province, to
report upon the desirableness of a revision of the
Authorised Version of the Old and New Testa
ments, whether by marginal notes or otherwise, in
all those passages where plain or clear errors,
whether in the Hebrew or Greek text originally
adopted by the translators, or in the translation
made from the same, shall, on due investigation,
be found to exist." In accordance with this reso
lution, eight members of the Upper and sixteen of
the Lower House were appointed the Committee
of the Convocation of Canterbury. That of the
Northern Province, naturally enough perhaps,
leaning more to the counsels of a more cautious
and, as it were, provincial timidity, declined to
co-operate with the Southern in this inquiry, on
the ground that " the time was not favourable to
188 APPENDIX.
revision, that the risk was greater than the probable
gain/ and thus at once excluded itself from the
honour, and shrank from the responsibility, of the
work that followed. Undeterred by this refusal,
however, the Committee of the Southern Pro
vince presented a report recommending that a
revision of the Authorised Version of the Holy
Scriptures should be undertaken,, on the principle
of departing as little as possible from the general
style and language of the existing version, and
" that Convocation should nominate a body of its
own members to undertake the work of revision,
who shall be at liberty to invite the co-operation
of any eminent for scholarship, to whatever nation
or religious body they belong." In accordance
with this report a committee of eight members
of each House was appointed, who, at their first
meeting, divided themselves into two companies
for the revision of the Old and New Testaments
respectively, the first including the Bishops of St.
David s (Thirl wall), Llandaff (Ollivant), Lincoln
(Wordsworth), and Bath and Wells (Lord A.
Hervey), Archdeacon Rose, Professor Selwyn,
Canon Jebb, and Dr. Kay ; and the latter of the
Bishops of Winchester (Wilberforce), Gloucester
and Bristol (Ellicott), Salisbury (Moberly), the
APPENDIX. 189
Prolocutor (Dr. E. H. Bickersteth), the Deans
of Canterbury (Payne Smith), and Westminster
(Stanley)^ and Canon Blakesley.
The following- scholars were subsequently in
vited to join the Old Testament company :
Dr. W. L. Alexander, Professor of Theology,
Congregational Church Hall, Edinburgh ; Mr. T.
Chenery, Lord Almoner s Professor of Arabic,
Oxford; the Rev. F. C. Cook, Canon of Exeter;
Dr. A. B. Davidson, Professor of Hebrew, Free
Church College, Edinburgh ; Dr. B. Davies, Pro
fessor of Hebrew in the Baptist College, Regent s
Park; Dr. P. Fairbairn, Principal of the Free
Church College, Glasgow ; Dr. F. Field (editor of
the Septuagint, Origen s Hexapla, &c.) ; Dr.
Ginsburg (editor of Canticles, Ecclesiastes, &c.) ;
Dr. F. W. Gotch, Principal of the Baptist College,
Bristol ; Rev. B. Harrison, Archdeacon of Maid-
stone; Rev. S. Leathes, Professor of Hebrew,
King s College, London ; Rev. J. McGill, Professor
of Oriental Languages, St. Andrew s; Dr. R.
Payne Smith, Regius Professor of Divinity,
Oxford (now Dean of Canterbury) ; Dr. J. J. S.
Perowne, Canon of Llandafr , and now Hulsean
Professor of Divinity, Cambridge; Dr. E. H.
Plumptre, Professor of the Exegesis of the New
190 APPENDIX.
Testament, King s College, London (now Dean
of Wells); Dr. E. B. Pusey, Regius Professor of
Hebrew, Oxford ; Dr. W. Wright, now Professor
of Arabic, Cambridge; Mr. W. A. Wright,
Librarian (now Bursar) of Trinity College, Cam
bridge.
A like invitation to join the New Testament
Company was addressed to the following :
Dr. R. C. Trench, Archbishop of Dublin ; Dr. J.
Angus, President of the Baptist College, Regent s
Park ; Dr. J. Eadie, Professor of Biblical Literature
and Exegesis to the United Presbyterian Church,
Scotland; Dr. F.J. A. Hort, now Fellow of Emmanuel
College, Cambridge ; Rev. W. G. Humphry,
Prebendary of St. Paul s ; Dr. B. H. Kennedy,
Canon of Ely, and Regius Professor of Greek,
Cambridge ; Dr. W. Lee, Archdeacon of Dublin,
and Lecturer in Divinity ; Dr. J. B. Lightfoot,
now Lady Margaret Professor of Divinity, Cam
bridge, and Canon of St. Paul s ; Dr. W. Milligan,
Professor of Divinity, Aberdeen; Dr. W. F.
Moulton, Professor of Classics, Wesley an College,
Richmond ; Dr. J. H. Newman, formerly Rector
of the Roman Catholic University, Dublin; Dr.
S. Newth, Professor of Classics (now Principal,
New College, London); Dr. A. Roberts, now
APPENDIX. 191
Professor of Humanity,, St. Andrews ; Dr. G.
Vance Smith (joint author of a Revised Translation
of the Scriptures) ; Dr. E. Scott,, then Master of
Balliol College, Oxford, and Professor of Exegesis,
now Dean of Rochester ; Dr. F. H. Scrivener
(editor of the Cambridge Paragraph Bible, Codex
Beza, &c.) ; Dr. S. P. Tregelles (editor of the Greek
Testament) ; Dr. C. J. Vaughan, Master of the
Temple; and Dr. B. F. Westcott, Canon of Peter
borough, now Regius Professor of Divinity, Cam
bridge.
Of the scholars named above, Canon Cook, Dr.
Pusey, and Dr. Newman declined to take part in
the work. Dr. Wright, who at the time was
compelled to decline the invitation, has now joined
the Old Testament Company. The first meeting
of the New Testament Company took place on
June 22, 1870 ; before entering on the work of
revision many members of the Company joined in
the Holy Communion in Henry VII/s Chapel,
Westminster Abbey. The Old Testament Com
pany met for the first time on the 30th of June.
Several changes have taken place in the com
position of the companies. The Old Testament
Company has lost through death Bishop Thirl-
wall, Archdeacon Rose, Canon Selwyn, Professor
192 APPENDIX.
McGill, Professor Fairbairn, Professor Davies, and
Dr. Weir; and by resignation the Bishop of
Lincoln, Professor Plumptre and Canon Jebb.
The following new members have been added :
Mr. R. N. Bensly, Fellow and Hebrew Lecturer,
Cams College, Cambridge ; Rev. J. Birrell, Pro
fessor of Oriental Languages, St. Andrews; Dr.
F. Chance (editor of a Commentary on Job] ;
Rev. T. K. Cheyne, Fellow and Hebrew Lecturer,
Balliol College, Oxford; Mr. S. R. Driver, Tutor
of New College (now Professor of Hebrew),
Oxford ; Dr. G. Douglas, Professor of Hebrew,
Free Church College, Glasgow ; Rev. C. J. Elliott,
late Fellow of St. Catharine s College, Cambridge;
Rev. J. D. Geden, Professor of Hebrew, Wesleyan
College, Didsbury ; Rev. J. R. Lumby, Fellow
of St. Catharine s College, Cambridge ; Rev. A.
H. Sayce, Fellow and Tutor of Queen s College,
Oxford; Rev. W. R. Smith, Professor of Hebrew,
Free Church College, Aberdeen ; Dr. D. H. Weir,
Professor of Oriental Languages, Glasgow.
Four members of the New Testament Company
have been removed by death Dean Alford, the
Bishop of Winchester, Dr. Eadie, and Dr.
Tregelles (who was prevented by ill-health from
taking any part in the work). Three members
APPENDIX. 193
were added shortly after the commencement of the
work Dr. David Brown, Professor of Divinity
and Principal, Free Church College, Aberdeen ;
Dr. C. Merivale, Dean of Ely; and Dr. C. AVords-
worth, Bishop of St. Andrews. Dr. Merivale
resigned his place as a reviser in 1871. In 1873,
the Rev. Edwin Palmer, Professor of Latin,
Oxford, became a member of the company, which
now numbers twenty-four members. The Bishop
of Winchester w r as elected as the chairman of
the Old Testament Company, the Bishop of
Gloucester and Bristol of the New.
The following rules were adopted for the
guidance of both Companies :
I. That the general principles to be followed
by both companies be as follows :
1. To introduce as few alterations as possible
into the text of the Authorised Version consistently
with faithfulness.
2. To limit, as far as possible, the expression
of such alterations to the language of the Author
ised and earlier English Versions.
3. Each company to go twice over the portion
to be revised, once provisionally, the second time
finally, and on principles of voting as hereinafter
is provided.
194 APPENDIX.
4. That the text to be adopted be that for
which the evidence is decidedly preponderating;
and -that when the text so adopted differs from thai
from which the Authorised Version was made, the
alteration be indicated in the margin.
5. To make or retain no change in the text on
the second final revision by each company, except
two-thirds of those present approve of the same,
but on the first revision to decide by simple
majorities.
6. In every case of proposed alteration that
may have given rise to discussion, to defer the
voting thereupon till the next meeting, whensoever
the same shall be required by one-third of those
present at the meeting, such intended vote to be
announced in the notice of the next meeting.
7. To revise the headings of chapters, pages,
paragraphs, italics, and punctuation.
8. To refer, on the part of each company, when
considered desirable, to divines, scholars, and
literary men, whether at home or abroad, for their
opinions.
II. That the work of each company be com
municated to the other as it is completed, in order
that there may be as little deviation from unifor
mity in language as possible.
APPENDIX. 195
III. That the special or bye-rules for each
company be as follows :
1. To make all corrections in writing- previous
to the meeting.
2. To place all the corrections due to textual
considerations on the left-hand margin, and all
other corrections on the right-hand margin.
3. To transmit to the chairman, in case of
being unable to attend, the corrections proposed in
the portion agreed upon for consideration.
At a later period the Companies invited the
co-operation of a band of American scholars, who,
under the guidance of Dr. Philip S chaff, were
engaged in a like task in their own country.
THE OLD TESTAMENT COMPANY.
Dr. T. J. Coiiaiit (Baptist) Brooklyn, New York.
Dr. E. Day (Congregationalist), New Haven, Conn.
Dr. J. Do Witt (Reformed), New Brunswick, New
Jersey.
Dr. W. H. Green (Presbyterian), Princeton, New
Jersey.
Dr. G. E. Hare (Episcopalian), Philadelphia, Penn
sylvania.
Dr. C. P. Krauth (Lutheran), Philadelphia, Pennsyl
vania.
Dr. J. Packard (Episcopalian), Fairfax, Virginia.
Dr. C. E. Stowe (Congregationalist), Cambridge, Mass.
Dr. J. Strong (Methodist), Madison, New Jersey.
N 2
196 APPENDIX.
Dr. C. V. A. Van Dyck* (Missionary), Beyrout, Syria.
Dr. T. Lewis (Reformed), Schenectady, New York.
NEW TESTAMENT COMPANY.
Bishop Lee (Episcopalian), Wilmington, Delaware.
Dr. E. Abbott (Unitarian), Cambridge, Mass.
Dr. G. R. Crooks (Methodist), New York.
Dr. H. B. Hackett (Baptist), Rochester, New York.
Dr. J. Hadley (Congregationalist), New Haven, Conn.
Dr. C. Hodge (Presbyterian), Princeton, New Jersey.
Dr. A. C. Kendrick (Baptist), Rochester, New York.
Dr. M. B. Riddle (Reformed), Hartford, Conn.
Dr. C. Short (Episcopalian), New York.
Dr. H. B. Smith (Presbyterian), New York.
Dr. J. H. Thayer (Congregationalist), Andover, Mass.
Dr. W. F. Warren (Methodist), Boston, Mass.
Dr. E. A. Washbnrn (Episcopalian), New York.
Dr. T. D. Woolsey (Congregationalist), New Haven,
Conn.
Dr. P. Schaff (Presbyterian), New York.
To the Old Testament Company has since been
added Dr. C. A. Aiken, of Princeton,, New Jersey,
Dr. C. M. Mead, Andover, Mass. ; Dr. H. Osgood,
Flushing,, Long Island. To the New Testament
Company (which has lost from its ranks Dr.
Crooks, Dr. Hadley, Dr. Smith, and Dr. Warren)
have been added four members, Dr. J. K. Burr,
Madison, New Jersey ; Professor T. Chase,
* Corresponding member.
APPENDIX. 197
Haverford College, Pennsylvania; Dr. H. Crosby,
New York; and Dr. T. D wight, New Haven,
Connecticut. Dr. Schaff is the president of the
committee,, Dr. Green and Dr. Woolsey the chair
men of the two companies.
III. The Revised New Testament. The New
Testament Company after labouring at their task
for eleven years, during which they held, under
the presidency of Bishop Ellicott, upwards of four
hundred meetings, the work being on the part of
every one concerned as a member of the Company
entirely an unpaid labour of love, published the
result of their labours, with a somewhat elabo
rate vindication of the principles on which they
had acted. The Revised New Testament thus
issued was received, as might be expected, with
eager curiosity, and met with a wide variety of
criticisms, into which it does not fall within the
scope of this volume to enter with any fulness.
On the one side it was contended that the revisers
had based their version on a truer Greek text,
resting on the authority of the great Uncial
MSS., than the Text us Receptnx, which had
formed the basis of the Authorised Version; on
the other, chiefly in two articles in the Quarterly
198 APPENDIX.
Review, that their regard for those MSS. had
been carried to an extravagant excess, and
that those on which they most relied, the
Sinaitic and the Vatican, were the least trust
worthy of all. While many scholars welcomed an
approach to greater exactness in the effort to give
a uniform rendering of the same Greek word by
the equivalent English, to be more grammatically
accurate in regard to the precise force of the
Greek verbs, tenses, articles, and prepositions, it
seemed to others that this had resulted in a
pedantic, paBdagogic version, changing for the sake
of change, faulty in its rhythm, wanting in all
elegance and force of style, promising great things
and accomplishing but little. The most elaborate
attack on the Version, as a whole, is perhaps to be
found in a volume published by Sir Edmund
Beckett, under the title ( Revised New Testament/
which was, in its turn, answered by Canon Farrar
in the Contemporary lieview. The present writer
may venture to refer to a paper read by him at
Newcastle, at the meeting of the Church Congress
of 1881, as being of the nature of an Apologia
for the work of the Revisers. The Rev. W. G.
Humphry has done good service for the English
reader in his Commentary on the Revised Version,
APPENDIX. 199
in which the reasons which weighed with the
revisers in favour of all the material alterations
on which they decided are given with adequate
fulness. Of the many passages which have thus
been brought under discussion one has come into
greater prominence than others, partly from its
intrinsic importance, partly from the masterly
and elaborate treatment of the point at issue,
whether the clause "Deliver us from evil" in
the Lord s Prayer should remain in its familiar
form, or be rendered by " Deliver us from the
evil one," by Canon Cook, who came forward as
the champion of the Authorised Version, and was
answered by Bishop Lightfoot as the apologist
oJ: the Revised.
It would be premature to anticipate the result
of the calmer judgment of the years to come on
the work thus brought to a close. At present it
must be admitted that, while widely welcomed by
students of Scripture as a help to a right under
standing of the Divine Word, there are no signs
that it is likely to supersede the Authorised Version
in public use and favour. The question whether
any version but the Authorised may legally be
used by the clergy of the Established Church of
England in their public ministrations has never
200 APPENDIX.
formally been decided, but the extra-judicial opinion
given by Lord Selborne, in 1881, in a letter to
the Right Hon. J. G. Hubbard (published in the
Times, 1881), as against the legality of such use,
has practically had the effect of a decision ; and,
though the Revised Version is not unfrequently
employed for the text of a sermon, the lessons
of the Church Services still continue, with very
few, if any, exceptions, to be read from the
Authorised. The same statement holds good, it
is believed, of the practice of the great majority
of Nonconformist bodies in England, and of the
Presbyterian Churches in Scotland.
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