The central Presbyterian. [volume] (Richmond, Va.) 1856-1908, 1882-11-29


the alleged doct1inaL conflict between the
standard Version of King James and the
competing Version of the men of Canter
bury. After considering what has been
said and written on this branch of the
subject, Notwithstanding the series of able
and impressive articles under this head
in the Christian Observer, your present
critic is not prepared to affirm that the
diversity that has been pointed out is,
for the most part at least, one of interior
substance rather than one of exterior
form. All the doctrines, and nearly all
the proofs of the doctrines, are in the
newer version no less than in the older
one. The vast majority of the differences
will be found to be due either to siren
uous effort on the part of the modern
translators to keep closer to the Greek,
that is the common basis of both versions,
than was done by the translators of King
James, or else to the endeavor to conform
The Revision to the text that is now most
in vogue amongst the critical experts
AS examples of the tendency to insist on
a nicer correspondence between the Eng
lish and the Greek, may be instanced the
preference of the adjective eternal to
the adjective everlasting" as the rem
dering of the word aionio8, and the en-
ployment of the noun "HodeS," rather
than the noun Hell, where the refer
ence is to the invisible world rather than
to the scene of final punishment. 1t is
not forgotten that such Broadchurch
scholars as Canon Farrar and Canon
Plumptre might favor these and similar
changes on other, and partly even on
dogmatic grounds.
The most famous instance of the ten
dency to adopt the critical in preference
to the traditional text is furnished by
John V: and s, often referred to as the
Testimony of the Three Heavenly Wit
nesses. The opinion has already been
expressed in these numbers that it would
probably have been wiser, and safer, to
have given some explanatory statements
IN the margin setting forth the drift of
the evidence pro and con, and assigning
reasons for the rejection of the passage
Plain readers are sure to miss it from
their Bibles, and are more likely to be
scandalized at what they will be apt to
regard as an act of unwarrantable mutt
lation, than they woul / be by a simple
exhibition of the facts. There were, as =
matter of course, Broadchurch men APP
pointed on the committees, inasmuch a,
the Broadchurch division is very i'm
portant section of the English Church
and the entire Broadchurch party, to-
gether with certain extreme men in the
Highchurch party, are said to deny the
eternity of future punishments. The
writer of these essays is not by any means
so clear that there is either among High
church or Broadchurch any considerable
body of Sabellians, Patripassians, Arians,
or Socinians: nor is he advised of the
fact if there is a single individual of
prominence and influence in the English
communion who holds the tenets of any
one of these heretical sects, The over
whelming majority in the Convocatiop
would of course be Trinitarian. High
church and Lowchurch, and certainly a
wide segment of Broadchurch, would
unite to sustain Athanasius and the
Council of Mecca. The omission of this
one celebrated (but controverted) proof
text for the doctrine of the Trinity leaves
the other proofs of that fundamental doc
trine uninjured, and may be accounted
for much more readily than by the gra-
tuitous assumption of heresy. The OBJ
lection to the new version on the ground
that it omits this passage resolves itself
into the objection that the revisers have
accepted the principles and results of
textual criticism as maintained with sin
gularly few exceptions) by all the ex-
perts from Erasmus to Gebhart. The |
question Of the propriety of such a course
IN general on the part of the revisers is |
one Of our moot points. The propriety
of such a course in the present instance
can hardly be denied by any one &C.
quainted with the subject and who should
be willing to allow any departure what
ever from the recepta-or at all events |
any departure affecting locus paJmariu8
ia exagetical and polemical divinity |
For, as is well known the only MSS I
which contain the passage in any form
are the Codex Monfortianus at Dublin, |
where it is transparently Of Latin origin
the Codex of Ravianus at Berlin, which |
is transcript from the Comprehension
Polyglott-eyen copying its misprints
a MS. at Naples, where it has been added |
by a recent hand in the margin; and the
Codex Ottobonianus, 298, in the Vatican
" a Greek and Latin MS of the 18th cen
fury, in which the Greek is a mere &C.
compartment Of the Latin and in which !
the words are quite peculiar lama tom