Part 1 (1/2)
The Revision Revised.
by John William Burgon.
DEDICATION.
To The Right Hon. Viscount Cranbrook, G.C.S.I., &c., &c., &c.
MY DEAR LORD CRANBROOK,
_Allow me the gratification of dedicating the present Volume to yourself; but for whom-(I reserve the explanation for another day)-it would never have been written._
_This is not, (as you will perceive at a glance,) the Treatise which a few years ago I told you I had in hand; and which, but for the present hindrance, might by this time have been completed. It has however_ grown out _of that other work in the manner explained at the beginning of my Preface. Moreover it contains not a few specimens of the argumentation of which the work in question, when at last it sees the light, will be discovered to be full._
_My one object has been to defeat the mischievous attempt which was made in 1881 to thrust upon this Church and Realm a Revision of the Sacred Text, which-recommended though it be by eminent names-I am thoroughly convinced, and am able to prove, is untrustworthy from beginning to end._
_The reason is plain. It has been constructed throughout on an utterly erroneous hypothesis. And I inscribe this Volume to you, my friend, as a conspicuous member of that body of faithful and learned Laity by whose deliberate verdict, when the whole of the evidence has been produced and the case has been fully argued out, I shall be quite willing that my contention may stand or fall._
_The_ English _(as well as the Greek) of the newly __”__Revised Version__”__ is hopelessly at fault. It is to me simply unintelligible how a company of Scholars can have spent ten years in elaborating such a very unsatisfactory production. Their uncouth phraseology and their jerky sentences, their pedantic obscurity and their unidiomatic English, contrast painfully with __”__the happy turns of expression, the music of the cadences, the felicities of the rhythm__”__ of our Authorized Version.
The transition from one to the other, as the Bishop of Lincoln remarks, is like exchanging a well-built carriage for a vehicle without springs, in which you get jolted to death on a newly-mended and rarely-traversed road.
But the __”__Revised Version__”__ is inaccurate as well; exhibits defective scholars.h.i.+p, I mean, in countless places._
_It is, however, the_ systematic depravation of the underlying Greek _which does so grievously offend me: for this is nothing else but a poisoning of the River of Life at its sacred source. Our Revisers, (with the best and purest intentions, no doubt,) stand convicted of having deliberately rejected the words of __ Inspiration in every page, and of having subst.i.tuted for them fabricated Readings which the Church has long since refused to acknowledge, or else has rejected with abhorrence; and which only survive at this time in a little handful of doc.u.ments of the most depraved type._
_As Critics they have had abundant warning. Twelve years ago (1871) a volume appeared on_ the ”last Twelve Verses of the Gospel according to S.
Mark,”-_of which the declared object was to vindicate those Verses against certain critical objectors, and to establish them by an exhaustive argumentative process. Up to this hour, for a very obvious reason, no answer to that volume has been attempted. And yet, at the end of ten years (1881),-not only in the Revised English but also in the volume which professes to exhibit the underlying Greek, (which at least is indefensible,)-the Revisers are observed to separate off those Twelve precious Verses from their context, in token that they are no part of the genuine Gospel. Such a deliberate preference of_ ”mumpsimus” _to_ ”sumpsimus” _is by no means calculated to conciliate favour, or even to win respect. The Revisers have in fact been the dupes of an ingenious Theorist, concerning whose extraordinary views you are invited to read what Dr. Scrivener has recently put forth. The words of the last-named writer (who is_ facile princeps _in Textual Criticism) will be found facing the beginning of the present Dedication._
_If, therefore, any do complain that I have sometimes. .h.i.t my opponents rather hard, I take leave to point out that __”__to everything __ there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the sun__”__: __”__a time to embrace, and a time to be far from embracing__”__: a time for speaking smoothly, and a time for speaking sharply. And that when the words of Inspiration are seriously imperilled, as now they are, it is scarcely possible for one who is determined effectually to preserve the Deposit in its integrity, to hit either too straight or too hard. In handling certain recent utterances of Bishop Ellicott, I considered throughout that it was the_ ”Textual Critic”-_not the Successor of the Apostles,-with whom I had to do._
_And thus I commend my Volume, the fruit of many years of incessant anxious toil, to your indulgence: requesting that you will receive it as a token of my sincere respect and admiration; and desiring to be remembered, my dear Lord Cranbrook, as_
_Your grateful and affectionate_ _ Friend and Servant,_ _ John W. Burgon._
DEANERY, CHICHESTER, All Saints' Day., 1883.
PREFACE.
The ensuing three Articles from the ”Quarterly Review,”-(wrung out of me by the publication [May 17th, 1881] of the ”Revision” of our ”Authorized Version of the New Testament,”)-appear in their present form in compliance with an amount of continuous solicitation that they should be separately published, which it would have been alike unreasonable and ungracious to disregard. I was not prepared for it. It has caused me-as letter after letter has reached my hands-mixed feelings; has revived all my original disinclination and regret. For, gratified as I cannot but feel by the reception my labours have met with,-(and only the Author of my being knows what an amount of antecedent toil is represented by the ensuing pages,)-I yet deplore more heartily than I am able to express, the injustice done to the cause of Truth by handling the subject in this fragmentary way, and by exhibiting the evidence for what is most certainly true, in such a very incomplete form. A systematic Treatise is the indispensable condition for securing cordial a.s.sent to the view for which I mainly contend. The cogency of the argument lies entirely in the c.u.mulative character of the proof. It requires to be demonstrated by induction from a large collection of particular instances, as well as by the complex exhibition of many converging lines of evidence, that the testimony of one small group of doc.u.ments, or rather, of one particular ma.n.u.script,-(namely the Vatican Codex B, which, for some unexplained reason, it is just now the fas.h.i.+on to regard with superst.i.tious deference,)-is the reverse of trustworthy.
Nothing in fact but a considerable Treatise will ever effectually break the yoke of that iron tyranny to which the excellent Bishop of Gloucester and Bristol and his colleagues have recently bowed their necks; and are now for imposing on all English-speaking men. In brief, if I were not, on the one hand, thoroughly convinced of the strength of my position,-(and I know it to be absolutely impregnable);-yet more, if on the other hand, I did not cherish entire confidence in the practical good sense and fairness of the English mind;-I could not have brought myself to come before the public in the unsystematic way which alone is possible in the pages of a Review. I must have waited, at all hazards, till I had finished ”my Book.”
But then, delay would have been fatal. I saw plainly that unless a sharp blow was delivered immediately, the Citadel would be in the enemy's hands.
I knew also that it was just possible to condense into 60 or 70 closely-printed pages what must _logically_ prove fatal to the ”Revision.”
So I set to work; and during the long summer days of 1881 (June to September) the foremost of these three Articles was elaborated. When the October number of ”the Quarterly” appeared, I comforted myself with the secret consciousness that enough was by this time on record, even had my life been suddenly brought to a close, to secure the ultimate rejection of the ”Revision” of 1881. I knew that the ”New Greek Text,” (and therefore the ”New English Version”), had received its death-blow. It might for a few years drag out a maimed existence; eagerly defended by some,-timidly pleaded for by others. But such efforts could be of no avail. Its days were already numbered. The effect of more and yet more learned investigation,-of more elaborate and more extended inquiry,-_must_ be to convince mankind more and yet more thoroughly that the principles on which it had been constructed were radically unsound. In the end, when partisans.h.i.+p had cooled down, and pa.s.sion had evaporated, and prejudice had ceased to find an auditory, the ”Revision” of 1881 must come to be universally regarded as-what it most certainly is,-_the most astonis.h.i.+ng, as well as the most calamitous literary blunder of the Age_.
I. I pointed out that ”the NEW GREEK TEXT,”-which, in defiance of their instructions,(1) the Revisionists of ”the Authorized English Version” had been so ill-advised as to spend ten years in elaborating,-was a wholly untrustworthy performance: was full of the gravest errors from beginning to end: had been constructed throughout on an entirely mistaken Theory.