COMPARISONS TO SHOW HOW THE JESUIT BIBLE
REAPPEARS IN THE AMERICAN
REVISED VERSION
We continue with chapters taken from "OUR AUTHORISED BIBLE
VINDICATED" by Benjamin Wilkinson, PhD
"I have been surprised, in comparing the Revised Testament with
other versions, to find how many of the changes, which are
important and valuable, have been anticipated by the Rhemish
translation, which now forms a part of what is known as the Douay
Bible. . . And yet a careful comparison of these new translations
with the Rhemish Testament, shows them, in many instances, to be
simply a return to this old version, and leads us to think that
possibly there were as finished scholars three hundred years ago
as now, and nearly as good apparatus for the proper rendering of
the original text" (Dr. B. Warfield's Collection of Opinions,
Vol.2, pp, 52,53).
The modern Bible we have selected to compare with the Jesuit
Bible of 1582, is the REVISED VERSION. t led the way and laid the
basis for all Modern speech Bibles to secure a large place. On
the following passages from the Scriptures, we have examined The
Twentieth Century, Fenton, Goodspeed, Moffat, Moulton, Noyes,
Rotherham, Weymouth, and Douay. With two exceptions, these all in
the main agree with the change of thought in the REVISED; and the
other two agree to a considerable extent. They all, with other
modern Bibles not mentioned, represent a family largely built on
the Revised Greek New Testament, or one greatly similar, or were
products of a common influence. Therefore, marshalling together a
number of recent New Testaments by different editors to support a
changed passage in the REVISED, proves nothing: perhaps they all
have followed the same Greek New Testament reading.
1. MATTHEW 6:13
(1) KING JAMES BIBLE of 1611. "And lead us not into temptation,
but deliver us from evil: For thine is the kingdom, and the
power, and the glory, for ever, Amen."
(2) JESUIT VERSION of 1582. "And lead us not into temptation.
But deliver us from evil, Amen."
(3) AMERICAN REVISED VERSION of 1901. "And bring us not into
temptation, but deliver us from the evil one."
The Reformers protested against this mutilation of
the Lord's prayer. The Jesuits and Revisers accepted the
mutilation.
2. Matthew 5:44
(1) KING JAMES BIBLE. "But I say unto you, Love your enemies,
bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and
pray for them which despitefully use you, sad persecute you."
(2) JESUIT VERSION. "But I say to you, love your enemies, do good
to them that hate you: and pray for them that persecute and abuse
you."
(3) AMERICAN REVISED. "But I say unto you. Love your enemies, and
pray for them that persecute you."
The phrase "bless them that curse you" is omitted from both
the Revised and the Jesuit. On this Canon Cook says, "Yet this
enormous omission rests on the sole authority of $ and B." (Cook,
Revised version, p.51) [That is, on the Vatican Manuscript and
the one found in 1859 in a Catholic monastery.] Thus we see that
the Revised Version is not a revision in any sense whatever, but
a new Bible based on different manuscripts from the King James,
on Catholic manuscripts in fact.
3. Luke 2:33
(1) KING JAMES BIBLE. "And Joseph and His mother marvelled at
those things which were spoken of Him."
(2) JESUIT VERSION. "And His father and mother were marvelling
upon those things which were spoken concerning Him."
(3) AMERICAN REVISED: "And His father and His mother were
marvelling at the things which were spoken concerning Him."
Note that the Jesuit and American Revised Versions give
Jesus a human father, or at least failed to make the distinction.
Helvidius, the devout scholar of northern Italy (400 A.D.), who
had the pure manuscripts, accused Jerome of using corrupt
manuscripts on this text (Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers
[Christian Lit. Ed.], Vol.6, p.338). These corrupt manuscripts
are represented in the Jesuit Version of 1582 and are followed by
the Revised Version of 1901.
4. Luke 4:8
(1) KING JAMES BIBLE. "And Jesus answered and said unto him, Get
behind me, Satan; for it is written, Thou shalt worship the Lord
thy God, and Him only shalt thou serve."
(2) JESUIT VERSION. "And Jesus answering, said to him, It is
written, Thou shall adore the Lord thy God and Him only shalt
thou serve."
(3) AMERICAN REVISED. "And Jesus answered and said unto him, It
is written, Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, and Him only
shall thou serve."
The expression, "get thee behind me, Satan," was early
omitted because Jesus used the same expression later to Peter (in
Matt. 16:23) to rebuke the apostle. The Papal corrupters of the
manuscripts did not wish Peter and Satan to stand on the same
basis. Note again the fatal parallel between the Jesuit and
Revised Versions. We were revised backwards.
5. Luke 11:2-4
(1) KING JAMES BIBLE. "And He said unto them, When ye pray, say,
Our Father which art in heaven, Hallowed be Thy name. Thy kingdom
come. Thy will be done, as in heaven, so in earth. Give us day by
day our daily bread. And forgive us our sins; for we also forgive
every one that is indebted to us. And lead us not into
temptation; but deliver us from evil."
(2) JESUIT VERSION. "And He said to them, When you pray, say,
Father, sanctified be Thy name. Thy kingdom come. Our daily bread
give us this day. And forgive us our sins, for because ourselves
also do forgive every one that is in debt to us, And lead us not
into temptation."
(3) AMERICAN REVISED. "And He said unto them, When ye pray, say,
Father, Hallowed be Thy name. Thy kingdom come. Give us day by
day our daily bread. And forgive us our sins; for we ourselves
also forgive every one that is indebted to us. And bring us not
into temptation."
This mutilation of the secondary account of the Lord's
prayer needs no comment, except to say again that the Jesuit
Version and the American Revised agree.
6. Acts 13:42
(1) KING JAMES "And when the Jews were gone out of the synagogue,
the Gentiles besought that these words might be preached to them
the next Sabbath."
(2) JESUIT VERSION. "And as they were going forth, they desired
them that the Sabbath following they would speak unto them these
words."
(3) AMERICAN REVISED. "And as they went out, they besought that
these words might be spoken to them the next Sabbath."
From the King James, it is clear that the Sabbath was
the day on which the Jews worshipped.
7. Acts 15:23
(1) KING JAMES BIBLE. "And they wrote letters by them after this
manner: The apostles and elders and brethren send greeting unto
the brethren which are of the Gentiles in Antioch and Syria and
Cilicia."
(2) JESUIT VERSION. "Writing by their hands. The Apostles and
Ancients, brethren, to the brethren of the Gentiles that are at
Antioch and in Syria and Cilicia, greeting."
(3) AMERICAN REVISED. "And they wrote thus by them, The apostles
and the elders, brethren, unto the brethren who are of the
Gentiles in Antioch and Syria and Cilicia, greeting."
Notice in the Jesuit Bible and Revised how the clergy
is set off from the laity. Not so in the King James.
8. Acts 16:7
(1) KING JAMBS BIBLE. "After they were come to Mysia, they
assayed to go into Bithynia: but the Spirit suffered them not."
(2) JESUIT VERSION. "And when they were come into Mysia, they
attempted to go into Bithynia: and the Spirit of Jesus suffered
them not."
(3) AMERICAN REVISED. "And when they were come over against
Mysia, they assayed to go into Bithynia; and the Spirit of Jesus
suffered them not."
Milligan, who echoed the theology of the Revisers, says:
"Acts 16:7, where the striking reading 'the Spirit of Jesus' (not
simply, as in the Authorized Version, "the Spirit") implies that
the Holy Spirit had so taken possession of the Person of the
Exalted Jesus that He could be spoken of as 'the Spirit of
Jesus.' (George Milligan, The Expository Value of Revised
Version, p.99).
(This is a mute point, which only "Trinitarians" would argue
over, as 2 Corinthians 8 26-34 with 1 Timothy 2:5 shows that the
Spirit and Christ are the same. The Holy Spirit NOT being a
bodily third person of the Trinity Godhead, is a possession of
both the Father and the Son - Keith Hunt).
9. Romans 5:1
(1) KING JAMES BIBLE. "Therefore being justified by faith, we
have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ."
(2) JESUIT VERSION. "Being justified therefore by faith, let us
have peace toward God by our Lord Jesus Christ."
(3) AMERICAN REVISED. "Being therefore justified by faith, let us
(margin) have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ."
" 'Beginning in the Spirit' is another way of saying 'being
justified by faith.' " (Benjamin Jowett, Interpretation of the
Scriptures, p.454).
If, therefore, the phrase, "Being justified by faith," is
simply a beginning, as the Catholics think, they feel justified
in finishing with "let us have peace." The Reformers saw that
"let us have peace" is a serious error of doctrine, so
Dr.Robinson testifies (Dr.G.L.Robinson, Where Did We Get Our
Bible? p.182
10. I Cor.5:7
(1) KING JAMES BIBLE. "Purge out therefore the old leaven, that
ye may be a new lump, as ye are unleavened. For even Christ our
Passover is sacrificed for us."
(2) JESUIT VERSION. "Purge the old leaven that you may be a new
paste, as you are azymas. For our Pasch, Christ is immolated."
(3) AMERICAN REVISED. "Purge out the old leaven, that ye may be a
new lump, even as ye are unleavened. For our passover also hath
been sacrificed, even Christ."
By leaving out "for us," the Jesuit Bible and Revised
Version strike at the doctrine of the atonement. People are
sometimes sacrificed for naught; sacrificed "for us," which is
omitted in the Revised, is the center of the whole gospel.
11. I Cor.15:47
(1) KING JAMES BIBLE. "The first man is of the earth, earthy; the
second man is the Lord from heaven."
(2) JESUIT VERSION. "The first man of earth, earthly; the second
man from heaven, heavenly."
(3; AMERICAN REVISED. "The first man is of the earth, earthy: the
second man is of heaven."
The word "Lord" is omitted in the Jesuit and Revised
Versions. The Authorized tells specifically who is that Man from
heaven.
12. Ephesians 3:9
(1) KING JAMES BIBLE. "And to make all men see what is the
fellowship of the mystery, which from the beginning of the world
bath been hid in God, who created all things by Jesus Christ."
(2) JESUIT VERSION. "And to illuminate all men what is the
dispensation of the Sacrament hidden from worlds in God, who
created all things."
(3) AMERICAN REVISED. "And to make all men see what is the
dispensation of the mystery which for ages hath been hid in God
who created all things."
The great truth that Jesus is Creator is omitted in
both the Jesuit and the Revised.
13. Col.1:14
(1) KING JAMES BIBLE. "In whom we have redemption through His
blood, even the forgiveness of sins."
(2) JESUIT VERSION. "In whom we have redemption the remission of
sins."
(3) AMERICAN REVISED. "In whom we have our redemption, the
forgiveness of our sins."
The phrase "through His blood" is not found in either the
Jesuit or American Revised Versions; its omission can be traced
to Origen (200 A.D.), who expressly denies that either the body
or soul of our Lord was offered as the price of our redemption.
Eusebius was a devoted follower of Origen; and Eusebius
edited the Vatican Manuscript. The omission is in that MS. and
hence in the American Revised Version. Moreover, Jerome was a
devoted follower of both Origen and Eusebius. The phrase "through
His blood" is not in the Vulgate and hence not in the Jesuit
Bible.
Here is the fatal parallel between the Jesuit Version and
the American Revised Version. This omission of the atonement
through blood is in full accord with modern liberalism, and
strikes at the very heart of the gospel.
14. 1 Timothy 3:16
(1) KING JAMES BIBLE. "And without controversy great is the
mystery of godliness: God was manifest in the flesh, justified in
the Spirit, seen of angels, preached unto the Gentiles, believed
on in the world, received up into glory."
(2) JESUIT VERSION. "And manifestly it is a great Sacrament of
piety, which was manifested in flesh, was justified in spirit,
appeared to Angels, hath been preached to Gentiles, is believed
in the world, is assumpted in glory."
(3) AMERICAN REVISED. "And without controversy great is the
mystery of godliness; He who was manifested in the flesh,
Justified in the spirit, Seen of angels, Preached among the
nations, Believed on in the world, Received up in glory."
What a piece of revision this is! The teaching of the
divinity of our Lord Jesus Christ upheld by the King James Bible
in this text is destroyed in both the other versions. The King
James says, "God" was manifest in the flesh; the Revised says,
"He who." "He who" might have been an angel or even a good man
like Elijah. It would not have been a great mystery for a man to
be manifest in the flesh.
15. 2 Timothy 4:1
(1) KING JAMES BIBLE. "I charge thee therefore before God, and
the Lord Jesus Christ, who shall judge the quick and the dead at
His appearing and His Kingdom."
(2) JESUIT VERSION. "I testify before God and Jesus Christ who
shall judge the living and the dead, and by His advent and His
kingdom."
(3) AMERICAN REVISED. "I charge those in the sight of God, and of
Christ Jesus, who shall judge the living and the dead, and by His
appearing and His kingdom."
The King James in this text fixes the great day of judgment
as occurring at the time of His appearing, and His kingdom. The
Jesuit and Revised place it in the indefinite future.
16. Hebrews 7:21
(1) KING JAMES BIBLE. "(For those priests were made without an
oath; but this with an oath by him that said unto him, The Lord
sware and will not repent, Thou art a priest for ever after the
order of Melchisedec)."
(2) JESUIT VERSION. "But this with an oath, by him that said unto
him: Our Lord hath sworn, and it shall not repent Him: Thou art a
Priest forever."
(3) AMERICAN REVISED. "(For they indeed have been made priest,
without an oath; but he with an oath by him that saith of him,
The Lord swore and will not repent Himself, Thou art a priest
forever)."
The phrase "after the order of Melchisedec" found in
the King James Bible is omitted in the other two versions.
17. Rev.22:14
(1) KING JAMES BIBLE. "Blessed are they that do His
commandments, that they may have right to the tree of life, and
may enter in through the gates into the city."
(2) JESUIT VERSION. "Blessed are they that wash their stoles:
that their power may be in the tree of life, and they may enter
by the gates into the city."
(3) AMERICAN REVISED. "Blessed are they that wash their robes,
that they may have the right to come to the tree of life, and may
enter in by the gates into the city."
This passage, in the King James, gives us the right to
the tree of life by keeping the commandments. The passage was
changed in the Rheims New Testament. It was restored by the
Authorized, and changed back to the Rheims (Jesuit Bible) by the
Revised.
We might continue these comparisons by using other passages
not here given. We prefer to invite the reader to notice other
instances as they present themselves in later chapters.
NOTE - The heat of the fierce battle over the Jesuit Bible in
1582 had not yet died down when thirty years later the King James
of 1611 appeared. Both versions were in English. This latter
volume was beneficiary of the long and minute searchings which
the truth of the day underwent.
Any thought that Catholicism had any influence over the King
James Bible must be banished not only upon remembering the
circumstances of its birth but also by the plea from its
translators to King James for protection from a Papish
retaliation.
We find in the Preface to the King James Bible the following
words:
"So that if, on the one side, we shall be traduced by Popish
Persons at home or abroad, who therefore will malign us .... we
may rest secure .... sustained without by the powerful protection
of Your Majesty's grace and favor."
........................
I will give a few more important passages where most modern
translations have followed the corrupt Vaticanus and Sinaiticus
MSS - Keith Hunt.
Acts 8:37
(1) KING JAMES BIBLE records, "Philip said, 'If you believe with
all your heart, you may.' And he answered, 'I believe that Jesus
Christ is the Son of God'."
(2) The NIV translation leaves it out, but in one edition I have
they do give it as a footnote, saying some MSS contain it.
(3) Many modern translation just simply leave it out period.
Acts 18:21
(1) KING JAMES BIBLE reads, "But bade them farewell, saying, 'I
must by all means keep this feast that cometh in Jerusalem, but I
will return unto you, if God will.' And he sailed from Ephesus."
(2)NIV and others modern Bibles read, "But as he left, he
promised, 'I will come back to you if it is God's will.' Then he
set sail from Ephesus."
The moderns would not like you to know that Paul (who to
many of them "did away" with Sabbaths and Festivals) was going to
Jerusalem to keep and observe a Festival, and in the first
century A.D. that was not Easter or Christmas, Halloween or
Valentines Day).
Mark 16:9-20
(1) I have given a separate study to this on the Website. Proving
the truth of the matter.
(2) Most modern Bibles will either simply leave it out period, or
leave it out and put some kind of a footnote stating (as the NIV
does) "The most reliable and early manuscripts omit Mark 16:9-
20."
There are DOZENS MORE passages that the modern Bibles (using
the corrupt Vanticanus and Sinaiticus MSS as their foundation)
DIFFER in small or LARGE ways from the RECEIVED TEXT that the KJV
was based upon.
I refer the read at this point to read the studies on this
Website as the Preface to the NEW KJV and to Green's preface or
Introduction to his Greek/English Interlinear, and the MAJORITY
Greek Text, which is just about the very same as the so-called
"Received Text."
I would also like to note here that though I have put on
this Website Richard Nichol's "Errors of the King James Bible" I
do want to state that many of what Nichol's thinks are errors are
not errors at all, and some are just a matter of semantics - the
meaning of words changing over a period of time. But, yes, there
are some legitimate "errors" in the KJV. The KJV was not
"perfect" The NEW KJV has in the most part corrected the errors
of the old original KJV.
I recommend that your daily English reading and study Bible
be the NEW KING JAMES VERSION - Keith Hunt
..................
Entered on this Website February 2007
300 Years AttackThe Textus Receptus under fire! AUTHORIZED BIBLE VINDICATED #13
CHAPTER VII
Three Hundred Years of Attack on the King Janes Bible
"Wherever the so-called Counter-Reformation, started by the
Jesuits, gained hold of the people, the vernacular was suppressed
and the Bible kept from the laity. So eager were the Jesuits to
destroy the authority of the Bible - the paper pope of the
Protestants as they contemptuously called it - that they even did
not refain from criticizing its genuineness and historical value"
(Debschutz "The Influence of the Bible," p.136).
THE opponents of the noble work of 1611 like to tell the
story of how the great printing plants which publish the King
James Bible have been obliged to go over it repeatedly to
eliminate flaws of printing, to eliminate words which in time
have changed in their meaning, or errors which have crept in
through the years because of careless editing by different
printing houses. They offer this as an evidence of the
fallibility of the Authorized Version. They seem to overlook the
fact that this labor of necessity is an argument for, rather than
against the dependability of the translations. Had each word
of the Bible been set in a cement cast incapable of the slightest
flexibility and been kept so throughout the ages, there could
have been no adaptability to the ever-changing structure of human
language. The artificiality of such a plan would have eliminated
the living action of the Holy Spirit and would accuse both man
and the Holy Spirit of being without an intelligent care for the
divine treasure.
On this point the scholars of the Reformation made their
position clear under three different aspects.
First, they claimed that the Holy Scriptures had come down
to them unimpaired throughout the centuries.
Second, they recognized that to reform any manifest
oversight was not placing human hands on a divine work and was
not contrary to the mind of the Lord. Dr.Fulke says
"Nevertheless, whereinsoever Luther, Beza, or the English
translators, have reformed any of their former oversights, the
matter is not so great, that it can make an heresy."
And lastly, they contended that the Received Text, both in
Hebrew and in Greek, as they had it in their day would so
continue unto the end of time.
In fact, a testimony no less can be drawn from the opponents
of the Received Text. The higher critics, who have constructed
such elaborate scaffolding, and who have built such great engines
of war as their apparatus criticus, are obliged to describe the
greatness and strength of the walls they are attacking in order
to justify their war machine. On the Hebrew Old Testament, one of
a group of the latest and most radical critics says:
"DeLagarde would trace all manuscripts back to a single archetype
which he attributed to Rabbi Aquiba, who died in A.D.135. Whether
this hypothesis is a true one or not will probably never be
known; it certainly represents the fact that from about his
day variations of the consonantal text ceased almost entirely."
While of the Greek New Testament, Dr.Hort, who was an
opponent of the Received Text and who dominated the English New
Testament Revision Committee, says:
"An overwhelming proportion of the text in all known cursive
manuscripts except a few is, as a matter of fact, identical."
Thus strong testimonies can be given not only to the
Received Text, but also to the phenomenal ability of the
manuscript scribes writing in different countries and in
different ages to preserve an identical Bible in the overwhelming
mass of manuscripts.
The large number of conflicting readings which higher
critics have gathered must come from only a few manuscripts,
since the overwhelming mass of manuscripts is identical.
The phenomenon presented by this situation is so striking
that we are pressed in spirit to inquire, Who are these who are
so interested in urging on the world the finds of their
criticism? All lawyers understand how necessary for a lawsuit it
is to find some one "to press the case." Thousands of wills
bequeath property which is distributed in a way different from
the wishes of the testator because there are none interested
enough to "press the case." The King James Bible had hardly begun
its career before enemies commenced to fall upon it. Though it
has been with us for three hundred years in splendid leadership -
a striking phenomenon - nevertheless, as the years increase, the
attacks become more furious. If the book were a dangerous
document, a source of corrupting influence and a nuisance, we
would wonder why it has been necessary to assail it since it
would naturally die of its own weakness. But when it is a divine
blessing of great worth, a faultless power of transforming
influence, who can it be who are so stirred up as to deliver
against it one assault after another? Great theological
seminaries, in many lands, led by accepted teachers of learning,
are laboring constantly to tear it to pieces. Point us out
anywhere, any situation similar concerning the sacred books of
any other religion, or even of Shakespeare, or of any other work
of literature. Especially since 1814 when the Jesuits were
restored by the order of the Pope - if they needed restoration -
have the attacks by Catholic scholars on the Bible, and by other
scholars who are Protestants in name, become bitter.
"For it must be said that the Roman Catholic or the Jesuitical
system of argument - the work of the Jesuits from the sixteenth
century to the present day - evinces an amount of learning and
dexterity, a subtility of reasoning, a sophistry, a plausibility
combined, of which ordinary Christians have but little idea. .
Those who do so (tale the trouble to investigating) find that, if
tried by the rules of right reasoning, the argument is
defective, assuming points which should be proved; that it is
logically false, being grounded in sophisms; that it rests in
many cases on guotations which are not genuine ... on passages
which, when collated with the original, are proved to be wholly
inefficacious as proofs."
As time went on, this wave of higher criticism mounted
higher and higher until it became an ocean surge inundating
France, Germany, England, Scotland, the Scandinavian nations, and
even Russia. When the Privy Council of England handed down in
1864 its decision, breathlessly awaited everywhere, permitting
those seven Church of England clergymen to retain their
positions, who had ruthlessly attached the inspiration of the
Bible, a cry of horror went up from Protestant England; but "the
whole Catholic Church," said Dean Stanley, "is: as we have seen,
with the Privy Council and against the modern dogmatists." By
modern dogmatists, he meant those who believe "the Bible and the
Bible only."
The tide of higher criticism was soon seen to change its
appearance and to menace the whole framework of fundamentalist
thinking. The demand for revision became the order of the day.
The crest was seen about 1470 in France, Germany, England, mid
the Scandinavian countries. Time-honored Bibles in these
countries were radically overhauled and a new meaning was read
into words of Inspiration.
Three lines of results are strongly discernible as features
ofthe movement.
First, "collation" became the watchward. Manuscripts were
laid alongside of manuscripts to detect various readings and to
justify that reading which the critic chose as the right one.
With the majority of workers, especially those whose ideas have
stamped the revision, it was astonishing to see how they turned
away from the overwhelming mass of MSS and invested with
tyrannical superiority a certain few documents, some of them
of a questionable character.
Second, this wave of revision was soon seen to be hostile to
the Reformation. There is something startlingly in common to be
found in the modernist who denies the element of the miraculous
in the Scriptures, and the Catholic Church which invests
tradition with an inspiration equal to the Bible. As a result, it
seems a desperately hard task to get justice done to the
Reformers or their product. As Dr.Demaus says:
"For many of the facts of Tyndale's life have been disputed or
distorted, through carelessness, through prejudice, and through
the malice of that school of writers in whose eyes the
Reformation was a mistake, if not a crime, and who conceive it to
be their mission to revive all the old calumnies that have ever
been circulated against the Reformers, supplementing them by new
accusations of their own invention."
A third result of this tide of revision is that when our
time-honored Bibles are revised, the changes are generally in
favor of Rome. We are told that Bible revision is a step forward;
that new MSS have been made available and advance has been made
in archaeology, philology, geography, and the apparatus of
criticism. How does it come then that we have been revised back
into the arms of Rome? If my conclusion is true, this so-called
Bible revision has become one of the deadliest of weapons in the
hands of those who glorify the Dark Ages and who seek to bring
western nations back to the theological thinking which prevailed
before the Reformation.
THE FOUNDERS OF TEXTUAL CRITICISM
The founders of this critical movement were Catholics. One
authority pointing out two Catholic schorars, says:
"Meanwhile two great contributions to criticism and knowledge
were made in France: Richard Simon, the Oratorian, published
between 1689 and 1695 a series of four books on the text, the
versions, and the principal commentators of the New Testament,
which may be said to have laid the foundation of modern critical
inquiry: Pierre Sabatier, the Benedictine, collected the whole of
the pre-Vulgate Latin evidence for the text of the Bible."
So says a modernist of the latest type and held in high
repute as a scholar.
Dr.Hort tells us that the writings of Simon had a large
share in the movement to discredit the Textus Receptus class of
MSS and Bibles. While of him and other outstanding Catholic
scholars in this field, the Catholic Encyclopedia says:
"A French priest, Richard Simon (1638-1712), was the first who
subjected the general questions concerning the Bible to a
treatment which was at once comprehensive in scope and
scientific in method. Simon is the forerunner of modern
Biblical criticism ... The use of internal evidence by which
Simon arrived at it entitles him to be called the father of
Biblical criticism."
"In 1753 Jean Astruc, a French Catholic physician of considerable
note, published a little book, 'Conjectures sur les memoires
originaux dont il parait quo Mosee s'est servi pour composer le
livre de la Genese,' in which he conjectured, from the
alternating use of two names of God in the Hebrew Genesis, that
Moses had incorporated therein two pre-existing documents, one of
which employed Elohim and the other Jehovah. The idea attracted
little attention till it was taken up by a German scholar, who,
however, claims to have made the discovery independently. This
was Johann Gottfried Eichhorn ... Eichhorn greatly developed
Astruc's hypothesis."
"Yet it was a Catholic priest of Scottish origin, Alexander
Geddes (1737-1802), who broached a theory of the origin of the
Five Books (to which he attached Josue) exceeding in boldness
either Simon's or Eichhorn's. This was the well-known
'Fragment' hypothesis, which reduced the Pentateuch to a
collection of fragmentary sections partly of Mosaicc origin, but
put together in the reign of Solomon. Geddes' opinion was
introduced into Germany in 1805 by Vater."
Some of the earliest critics in the field of collecting
variant readings of the New Testament in Greek, were Mill and
Bengel. We have Dr.Kenrick, Catholic Bishop of Philadelphia in
1849, as authority that they and others had examined these
manuscripts recently exalted as superior, such as the Vaticanus,
Alexandrinus, Beza, and Ephraem, and had pronounced in favor of
the Vulgate, the Catholic Bible.
Simon, Astruc, and Geddes, with those German critics,
Eichhorn, Semler, and DeWitte, who carried their work on further
and deeper, stand forth as leaders and representatives in the
period which stretches from the date of the King James (1611) to
the outbreak of the French Revolution (1789). Simon and Eichhorn
were co-authors of a Hebrew Dictionary. These outstanding six, -
two French, one Scotch, and three German, with others of perhaps
not equal prominence, began the work of discrediting the Received
Text, both in the Hebrew and in the Greek, and of calling in
question the generally accepted beliefs respecting the Bible
which had prevailed in Protestant countries since the birth of
the Reformation. There was not much to do in France, since it was
not a Protestant country and the majority had not far to go to
change their belief; there was not much done in England or
Scotland because there a contrary mentality prevailed. The
greatest inroads were made in Germany. Thus matters stood when in
1773, European nations arose and demanded that the Pope suppress
the order of the Jesuits. It was too late, however, to smother
the fury which sixteen years later broke forth in the French
Revolution.
The upheaval which followed engaged the attention of all
mankind for a quarter of a century. It was the period of
indignation foreseen by the prophet Daniel. As the armies of
the Revolution and of Napoleon marched and counter-marched over
the territories of Continental Europe, the foundations of the
ancient regime were broken up. Even from the Vatican the cry
arose, "Religion is destroyed." And when in 1812 Napoleon was
taken prisoner, and the deluge had passed, men looked out upon a
changed Europe. England had escaped invasion, although she had
taken a leading part in the overthrow of Napoleon. France
restored her Catholic monarchs, the Bourbons who "never learned
anything and never forgot anything." In 1814 the Pope promptly
restored the Jesuits.
Then followed in the Protestant world two outstanding
currents of thought: first, on the part of many, a stronger
expression of faith in the Holy Scriptures, especially in the
great prophecies which seemed to be on the eve of fulfillment
where they predict the coming of a new dispensation. The other
current took the form of a reaction, a growing disbelief in the
leadership of accepted Bible doctrines whose uselessness seemed
proved by their apparent impotence in not preventing the French
Revolution. And, as in the days before that outbreak. Germany,
which had suffered the most, seemed to be fertile soil for a
strong and rapid growth of higher criticism.
GRIESBACH AND MOHLER
Among the foremost of those who tore the Received Text to
pieces in the Old Testament stand the Hollander, Kuehnen, and the
German scholars; Ewald and Wellhausen. Their findings, however,
were confined to scholarly circles. The public were not moved by
them, as their work appeared to be only negative. The two German
critics who brought the hour of revision much nearer were the
Protestant Griesbach, and the Catholic Mohler. Mohler (1796-1838)
did not spend his efforts on the text as did Griesbach, but he
handled the points of difference in doctrine between the
Protestants and the Catholics in such a way as to win over the
Catholic mind to higher criticism, and to throw open the door for
Protestants who either loved higher criticism, or who, being
disturbed by it, found in Catholicism, a haven of refuge. Of him
Hagenbach says:
"Whatever vigorous vitality is possessed by the most recent
Catholic theological science is due to the labors of this man."
While Kurtz says:
"He sent rays of his spirit deep into the hearts and minds of
hundreds of his enthusiastic pupils by his writings, addresses,
and by his intercourses with them; and what the Roman Catholic
Church of the present possesses of living scientific impulse and
feeling was implanted, or at least revived and excited by him.
... In fact, long as was the opposition which existed between
both churches, no work from the camp of the Roman Catholics
produced as much agitation and excitement in the camp of the
Protestants as this."
Or, as Maurice writes concerning Ward, one of the powerful
leaders of the Oxford Movement:
"Ward's notion of Lutheranism is taken, I feel pretty sure, from
Mohler's very gross misrepresentations."
Griesbach (1745-1812) attacked the Received Text of the New
Testament in a new way. He did not stop at bringing to light and
emphasizing the variant readings of the Greek manuscripts; he
classified readings into three groups, and put all manuscripts
under these groupings, giving them the names of
"Constantinopolitan," or those of the "Received Text," the
"Alexandrian," and the "Western." While Griesbach used the
Received Text as his measuring rod, nevertheless, the new Greek
New Testament he brought forth by this measuring rod followed the
Alexandrian manuscripts or, - Origen. His classification of the
manuscripts was so novel and the result of such prodigious
labors, that critics everywhere hailed his Greek New Testament as
the final word. It was not long, however, before other scholars
took Griesbach's own theory of classification and proved him
wrong.
ROMANTICISM AND SIR WALTER SCOTT
The effective manner in which other currents appeared during
this period, which, working together, contributed toward one
central point, may be seen in the unusual factors which arose to
call the thoughts of men back to the Middle Ages. All that
contributed to the glamour and the romanticism of the ages of
chivalry seemed to start forth with a new freshness of life. The
Gothic architecture, which may be seen in the cathedrals erected
while St.Louis of France and Thomas A.Beckett of England were
medieval heroes, again became the fashion. Religious works
appeared whose authors glorified the saints and the princes of
the days of the crusades. Sir Walter Scott is generally esteemed
by everyone as being the outstanding force which led the minds of
fiction readers to the highest enthusiasm over the exploits of
Catholic heroes and papal armies.
Many forces were at work, mysterious in the unexpected way
they appeared and arousing public interest in the years which
preceded the Reformation. Painters of England, France, and
Germany, there were, who gave to Medieval scenes a romance, and
so aroused in them new interest.
WINER
Winer (1789-1858), a brilliant student in theology, but
especially in Biblical Greek, was destined to transmit through
modern rules affecting New Testament Greek, the results of the
research and speculations produced by the higher critics,and
German theologians who had gone before him and were working
contemporaneously with him. Dean Farrar calls Winer, "The highest
authority in Hellenistic Grammar." Griesbach had blazed a new
trail, when by his classification of manuscripts, he cast
reflection upon the authority of the Received Text. Mohler and
Gorres had so revivified and exalted Catholic theology that the
world of scholars was prepared to receive some new devices which
they called rules, in handling the grammatical elements of the
New Testament Greek. These rules differed greatly in viewpoint
from those of the scholars of the Reformation. Winer was that man
who provided such rules.
In order to understand what Winer did, we must ask ourselves
the question: In the Bible, is the Greek New Testament joined to
a Hebrew Old Testament, or to a group of Greek writings? Or in
other words: Will the language of the Greek New Testament be
influenced by the molds of pagan thought coming from the Greek
world into the books of the New Testament, or will it be molded
by the Hebrew idioms and phrases of the Old Testament directly
inspired of God? The Reformers said that the Greek of the New Te
stament was cast in Hebrew forms of thought, and translated
freely; the Revisers literally. The Revisers followed Winer. We
see the results of their decision in the Revised New Testament.
To understand this a little more clearly, we need to remember
that the Hebrew language was either deficient in adjectives, or
dearly liked to make a noun serve in place of an adjective. The
Hebrews often did not say a "strong man;" they said a "man of
strength." They did not always say an "old woman;" they said
a "woman of age." In English we would use the latter expression
only about once where we would use the former many times.
Finding these Hebrew methods of handling New Testament
Greek, the Reformers translated them into the idiom of the
English language, understanding that that was what the Lord
intended. Those who differed from the Reformers claimed that
these expressions should be carried over literally, or what is
known as transliteration.
Therefore the Revisers did not translate; they
transliterated and gloried in their extreme literalism. Let us
illustrate the results of this new method.
HEBRAISMS
King James (Reformers)
Matt.5:22 "hell fire"
Revised (Winer) "hell of fire"
Titus 2:13 "the glorious appearing"
Revised
"the appearing of the glory"
Phil. 3:21 "His glorious body"
Revised
"the body of His glory"
The first means Christ's glorified body, the second might
mean good deeds.
Dr. Vance Smith, Unitarian scholar on the Revision
Committee, said that "hell of fire" opened the way for the other
hells of pagan mythology.
THE ARTICLE (ITS NEW RULES)
Matt.11:2 "Christ" ....................."the Christ"
Heb. 9:27 "the judgment"............... "judgment"
Dean Farrar in his defense of the Revised Version says that,
in omitting the article in Hebrews 9:27, the Revisers changed the
meaning from the great and final judgment, to judgments in the
intermediate state (such as purgatory, limbo, etc.), thus proving
the intermediate state. From the growing favor in which the
doctrine of purgatory is held, we believe the learned Dean had
this in mind. Pages of other examples could be given of how the
new rules can be used as a weapon against the King James.
So the modern rules which they apparently followed when it
suited their theology, on the "article," the "tenses," - aorists
and perfect, - the "pronoun," the "preposition," the "intensive,"
"Hebraisms," and "parallelisms," pave the way for new and
anti-Protestant doctrines concerning the "Person of Christ,"
"Satan," "Inspiration of the Bible," "The Second Coming of
Christ," and other topics dealt with later.
On this point the Edinburgh Review, July, 1881, says:
"Our Revisers have subjected their original to the most
exhaustive grammatical analysis, every chapter testifies
to the fear of Winer that was before their eyes, and their
familiarity with the intricacies of modern verbal crititicism"
THE MOULTON FAMILY
Let me now introduce Professor W.F.Moulton of Cambridge,
England; his brother, Professor R.G.Moulton, of Chicago
University; and his son, Dr.J.H.Moulton of several colleges
and universities.
Professor W.F.Moulton of Leys College, Cambridge, England,
was a member of the English New Testament Revision Committee. To
him we owe, because of his great admiration for it, the
translation into English of Winer's Grammar of New Testament
Greek. It went through a number of editions, had a wide
circulation, and exercised a dominant influence upon the thinking
of modern Greek scholars.
Professor W.F.Moulton had a very strong part in the
selecting of the members who should serve on the English New
Testament Revision Committee. Of this, his son, Professor James
H.Moulton says regarding Bishop Ellicott, leading promoter of
revision, and chairman of the New Testament Revision Committee
"Doctor Ellicott had been in correspondence on Biblical
matters with the young Assistant Tutor ... His estimate of his
powers was shown first by the proposal as to Winer, and not long
after by the Bishop's large use of my father's advice in
selecting new members of the Revision Company. Mr.Moulton took
his place in the Jerusalem Clamber in 1870, the youngest member
of the Company: and in the same year his edition of Winer
ap-peared."
Of Professor Moulton's work, Bishop Ellicott writes:
"Their (the Revisers') knowledge of New Testament Greek was
distinctly influenced by the grammatical views of Professor
Winer, of whose valuable grammar of the Greek Testament one of
our company ... had been a well-known and successful
translator."
Professor W.F.Moulton, a Revisionist, also wrote a book on
the "History of the Bible." In this book he glorifies the Jesuit
Bible of 1582 as agreeing "with the best critical editions of the
present day." "Hence," he says, "we may expect to find that the
Rhemish New Testament (Jesuit Bible of 1582) frequently
anticipates the judgment of later scholars as to the presence or
absence of certain words, clauses, or even verses." And again,
"On the whole, the influence of the use of the Vulgate would, in
the New Testament, be more frequently for good than for harm in
respect of text." With respect to the use of the article, he
says, "As the Latin language has no definite article, it might
well be supposed that of all English versions, the Rhemish would
be least accurate in this point of translation. The very reverse
is actually the case. There are many instances (a comparatively
hasty search has discovered more than forty) in which, of all
versions, from Tyndale's to the Authorized inclusive, this alone
is correct in regard to the article." All this tended to
belittle the King James and create a demand for a different
English Bible.
You will be interested to know that his brother, Professor
R.G.Moulton, believes the book of Job to be a drama. He says
"But the great majority of readers will take these chapters to be
part of the parable into which the history of Job has been worked
up. The incidents in heaven, like the incidents of the prodigal
son, they will understand to be spiritually imagined, not
historically narrated."
Since "Get thee behind me, Satan" has been struck out in the
Revised in Luke 4:8, and the same phrase now applied only to
Peter (Matt.16:23), it is necessary, since Peter is called Satan
by Christ, to use modern rules and exalt Satan.
"Among the sons of God," R.G.Moulton further tells us, "it is
said comes from 'theSatan' It is best to use the artile and speak
of 'the satan'; or as the margin gives it, 'the Adversary': that
is, the Adversary of THE saints ... Here (as in the similar
passage of Zechariah) the Satan is an official in the Court of
Heaven ... The Roman Church has exactly caught this conceotion in
its 'Advocatus Diaboli': such an advocate may be in fact a pious
and kindly ecclesiastic, but he has the function assigned him of
searching out all possible evil that can be alleged against a
candidate for canonization, lest the honors of the church might
be given without due enquiry."
From the study which you have had of Winer and the Moultons,
I think it will be easy to see the trend of German higher
criticism as it has been translated into English literature and
into the revised edition of the Bible.
CARDINAL WISEMAN (1802-1865)
The new birth of Catholicism in the English world can be
credited to no one more than to that English youth later to
become a cardinal - who pursued at Rome his Oriental studies.
There under the trained eye of Cardinal Mai, the editor of the
Vatican Manuscript, Wiseman early secured an influential
leadership among higher critics by his researches and theories on
the earliest texts. "Without this training," he said later, "I
should not have thrown myself into the Puseyite controversy at a
later period." He was thrilled over the Cathohc reaction taking
place everywhere on the Continent, and, being English, he longed
to have a share in bringing about the same in England. He was
visited in Rome by Gladstone, by Archbishop Trench, a promoter of
revision and later a member of the English New Testament Revision
Committee; also by Newman, Froude, and Manning;" by the leaders
of the Catholic reaction in Germany,-- Bunsen, Gorres, and
Overbeck; and by the leaders of the same in France,--
Montalembert, Lacordaire, and Lamennais.
Wiseman's theories on the Old Latin Manuscripts - later to
be disproved - gave a decided impetus to the campaign against the
Received Text. Scrivener, generally well-balanced, was affected
by his conclusions "Even in our day such writers as Mr.
Scrivener; Bishop Westcott, and Tregelles, as well as German and
Italian scholars, have made liberal use of his arguments and
researches." "Wiseman has made out a case," says Scrivener,
"which all who have followed him, Lachmann, Tischendorf,
Davidson, and Tregelles, accept as irresistible." Some of the
most distinguished men of Europe attended his lectures upon the
reconciliation of science and religion. The story of how he was
sent to England, founded the Dublin Review, and working on the
outside of Oxford with the remnants of Catholicism in England
and with the Catholics of the Continent, while Newman on the
inside of Oxford, as a Church of England clergyman, worked to
Romanize that University and that Church; of how Wiseman
organized again the Catholic hierarchy in Great Britain, a step
which convulsed England from end to end, will be subjects for
later consideration. Suffice it now to say that Wiseman lived
long enough to exult openly that the King James Version had been
thrust aside and the preeminence of the Vulgate reestablished by
the influence of his attacks and those of other textual critics.
THE GNOSTICISM OF GERMAN THEOLOGY INVADES ENGLAND
COLERIDGE, THIRWALL, STANLEY, WESTCOTT
By 1833 the issue was becoming clearly defined. It was
Premillenarianism, that is, belief in the return of Christ before
the millennium, or Liberalism; it was with regard to the
Scriptures, literalism or allegorism. As Cadman says of the
Evangelicals of that day:
"Their fatalism inclined many of them to Premillenarianism as a
refuge from the approaching catastrophes of the present
dispensation ... Famous divines strengthened and adorned the
wider ranks of Evangelicalism, but few such were found within the
pale of the Establishment. Robert Hall, John Foster. William Jay
of Bath, Edward Irving, the eccentric genius, and in Scotland,
Thomas Chalmer, represented the vigor and fearlessness of an
earlier day and maintained the excellence of Evangelical
preaching."
How deeply the conviction, that the great prophecies which
predicted the approaching end of the ago, had gripped the public
mind can be seen in the great crowds which assembled to hear
Edward Irvine. They were so immense that he was constantly
compelled to secure larger auditoriums. Even Carlyle could
relate of his own father in 1832:
"I have heard him say in late years with an impressiveness
which all his perceptions carried with them, that the lot of a
poor man was growing worse and worse; that the world would not
and could not last as it was; that mighty changes of which none
saw the end were on the way. To him, as one about to take his
departure, the whole was but of secondary moment. He was looking
toward 'a city that had foundations.'"
Here was a faith in the Second Coming of Christ, at once
Protestant and evangelical, which would resist any effort so to
revue the Scriptures as to rendor them colorless, giving to them
nothing more than a literary endorsement of plans of betterment,
merely social or political. This faith was soon to be called upon
to face a theology of an entirely different spirit. German
religious thinkingg at that moment was taking on an aggressive
attitude. Schleiermacher had captured the imagination of the age
and would soon mold the theology of Oxford and Cambridge.
Though he openly confessed himself a Protestant, nevertheless,
like Origen of old, he sat at the feet of Clement, the old
Alexandrian teacher of 190 A.D. Clement's passion for
allegorizing Scripture offered an easy escape from
those obligations imposed upon the soul by a plain message of the
Bible. Schleiermacher modernized Clement's philosophy and made it
beautiful to the parlor philosophers of the day by imaginary
analysis of the realm of spirit.
It was the old Gnosticism revived, and would surely dissolve
Protestantism wherever accepted and would introduce such terms
into the Bible, if revision could be secured, as to rob the
trumpet of a certain sound. The great prophecies of the Bible
would become mere literary addresses to the people of bygone
days, and unless counter-checked by the noble Scriptures of the
Reformers, the result would be either atheism or papal
infallibility.
If Schleiermacher did more to captivate and enthrall the
religious thinking of the nineteenth century than any other one
scholar, Coleridge, his contemporary, did as much to give
aggressive motion to the thinking of England's youth of his day,
who, hardly without exception, drank enthusiastically of his
teachings. He had been to Germany and returned a ferven devotee
of its theology and textual criticism. At Cambridge University he
became the star around which grouped a constellation of leaders
in thought. Thirwall, Westcott, Hort, Moulton, Milligan, who were
all later members of the English Revision Committees and whose
writings betray the voice of the master, felt the impact of his
doctrines.
"His influence upon his own age, and especially upon its younger
men of genius, was greater than that of any other Englishman ...
Coleridgeans may be found now among every class of English
divines, from the Broad Church to the highest Puseyites," says
McClintock and Strong's Encyclopedia.
The same article speaks of Coleridge as "Unitarian,"
"Metaphysical," a "Theologian," "Pantheistic," and says that "he
identifies reason with the divine Logos," and that he holds
"views of inspiration as low as the rationalists," and also holds
views of the Trinity "no better than a refined, Platonized
Sabellianism."
LACHMANN, TISCHENDORF, AND TREGELLES
We have seen above how Lachmann, Tischendorf, and Tregelles
fell under the influence of Cardinal Wiseman's theories. There
are more recent scholars of textual criticism who pass over these
three and leap from Griesbach to Westcott and Hort, claiming that
the two latter simply carried out the beginnings of
classification made by the former. Nevertheless, since many
writers bid us over and over again to look to Lachmann,
Tischendorf, and Tregelles.--until we hear of them morning, noon,
and night, we would seek to give these laborious scholars all
the praise justly due them, while we remember that there is a
limit to all good things.
Lachmann's (1793-1851) bold determination to throw aside the
Received Text and to construct a new Greek Testament from such
manuscripts as he endorsed according to his own rules, has been
the thing which endeared him to all who give no weight to the
tremendous testimony of 1500 years of use of the Received Text.
Yet Lachmann's canon of criticism has been deserted both by
Bishop Ellicott, and by Dr.Hort. Ellicott says, "Lachmann's text
is really one based on little more than four manuscripts, and so
is really more of a critical recension than a critical text." And
again, "A text composed on the narrowest and most exclusive
principles." While Dr.Hort says:
"Not again, in dealing with so various and complex a body of
documentary attestation, is there any real advantage in
attempting, with Lachmann, to allow the distributions of a very
small number of the most ancient existing documents to construct
for themselves a provisional text."
Tischendorf's (1815-1874) outstanding claim upon history is
his discovery of the Sinaitic Manuscript in the convent
at the foot of Mt. Sinai. Mankind is indebted to this prodigious
worker for having published manuscripts not accessible to the
average reader. Nevertheless, his discovery of Codex Aleph
toppled over his judgment. Previous to that he had brought out
seven different Greek New Testaments, declaring that the seventh
was perfect and could not be superseded. Then, to the scandal of
textual criticism, after he had found the Sinaitic Manuscript, he
brought out his eighth Greek New Testament, which was different
from his seventh in 3572 places. Moreover, he demonstrated how
textual critics can artificially bring out Greek New Testaments
when, at the request of a French Publishing house, Firmin Didot,
he edited an edition of the Greek Testament for Catholics,
conforming it to the Latin Vulgate.
Tregelles (1813-1875) followed Lachmann's principles by
going back to what he considered the ancient manuscripts and,
like him, he ignored the Received Text and the great mass of
cursive manuscripts. Of him, Ellicott says, "His critical
principles, especially his general principles of estimating and
regarding modern manuscripts, are now, perhaps justly, called in
question by many competent scholars," and that his text "is rigid
and mechanical, and sometimes fails to disclose that critical
instinct and peculiar scholarly sagacity which is so much needed
in the great and responsible work of constructing a critical text
of the Greek Testament."
In his splendid work which convinced Gladstone that the
Revised Version was a failure, Sir Edmund Beckett says of the
principles which controlled such men as Lachmann, Tischendorf,
Tregelles, Westcott, and Hort in their modern canons of criticism
"If two, or two-thirds of two dozen men steeped in Greek declare
that they believe that he (John) ever wrote that he saw in a
vision seven angels clothed in stone with golden girdles, which
is the only honest translation of their Greek, and defend it with
such arguments as these, I ... distrust their judgment on the
'prepon-derance of evidence' for new readings altogether, and all
their modern canons of criticism, which profess to settle the
relative value of manuscripts, with such results as this and many
others."
Such were the antecedent conditions preparing the way to
draw England into entangling alliances, to de-Protestantize her
national church and to advocate at a dangerous hour the necessity
of revising the King James Bible. The Earl of Shaftesbury,
foreseeing the dark future of such an attempt, said in May, 1856:
"When you are confused or perplexed by a variety of versions, you
would be obliged to go to some learned pundit in whom you reposed
confidence, and ask him which version he recommended; and when
you had taken his version, you must be bound by his opinion. I
hold this to be the greatest danger that now threatens us. It is
a danger pressed upon us from Germany, and pressed upon us by the
neogolical spirit of the age. I hold it to be far more dangerous
than Tractarianism or Popery, both of which I abhor from the
bottom of my heart. This evil is tenfold more dangerous, tenfold
more subtle than either of these, because you would be ten times
more incapable of dealing with the gigantic mischief that would
stand before you,"
THE POLYCHROME BIBLE AND THE SHORTER BIBLE
The results of this rising tide of higher criticism were the
rejection of the Received Text and the mania for revision. It
gave us, among other bizarre versions, the "Polychrome" and also
the "Shorter Bible." The Polychome Bible is generally an edition
of the separate books of the Scriptures, each book having every
page colored many times to represent the different writers.
Any one who will take the pains to secure a copy of the "Shorter
Bible" in the New Testament, will recognize that about four
thousand of the nearly eight thousand verses in that Scripture
have been entirely blotted out. We offer the following quotation
from the United Presbyterian of December 22, 1921, as a
description of the "Shorter Bible."
"The preface further informs us that only about onethird of the
Old Testament and two-thirds of the New Testament are possessed
of this 'vital interest and practical value.' The Old Testament
ritual and sacrificial system, with their deep lessons and their
forward look to the atonement through the death of Christ are
gone. As a result of this, the New Testament references to Christ
as the fulfillment of the Old Testament sacrifices are omitted.
Such verses as, 'Behold the Lamb of God which taketh away the sin
of the world,' are gone. Whole books of the Old Testament are
gone. Some of the richest portions of the books of the prophets
are missing. From the New Testament they have omitted 4,000
verses. Other verses are cut in two, and a fragment left us, for
which we are duly thankful. The great commission recorded in
Matthew; the epistles of Titus, Jude, First and Second John, are
entirely omitted, and but twenty-five verses of the second
epistle of Timothy remain. The part of the third chapter of
Romans which treats of human depravity, being 'of no practical
value to the present age,' is omitted. Only one verse remains
from the fourth chapter. The twenty-fourth chapter of Matthew and
other passages upon which the premillenarians base their theory,
are missing. All the passages which teach the atonement through
the death of Christ are gone."
The campaigns of nearly three centuries against the Received
Text did their work. The Greek New Testament of the Reformation
was dethroned and with it the Versions translated from it,
whether English, German, French, or of any other language. It had
been predicted that if the Revised Version were not of sufficient
merit to be authorized and so displace the King James, confusion
and division would be multiplied by a crop of unauthorized and
sectarian translations. The Polychrome, the Shorter Bible, and a
large output of hetero-geneous Bibles verify the prediction. No
competitor has yet appeared able to create a standard comparable
to the text which has held sway for 1800 years in the original
tongue, and for 300 years in its Engiish translation, the King
James.
........................
To be continued
Rome in Oxford UniversityThe plan to move towards Rome! AUTHORIZED BIBLE VINDICATED
by
Benjamin Wilkinson PhD
CHAPTER VIII
How the Jesuits Captured Oxford University
BEFORE the English people could go the way of the Continent
and be brought to question their great English Bible, the course
of their thinking must be changed. Much had to be done to
discredit, in their eyes, the Reformation - its history,
doctrines, and documents - which they looked upon as a great work
of God. This task was accomplished by those who, while working
under cover, passed as friends. In what numbers the Jesuits were
at hand to bring this about, the following words, from one
qualified to know, will reveal:
"Despite all the persecution they (the Jesuits) have met with,
they have not abandoned England, where there are a greater number
of Jesuits than in Italy; there are Jesuits in all classes of
society; in Parliament; among the English clergy; among the
Protestant laity, even in the higher stations. I could not
comprehend how a Jesuit could be a Protestant priest, or how a
Protestant priest could be a Jesuit; but my Confessor silenced my
scruples by telling me, omnia munda mundis, and that St.Paul
became as a Jew that he might save the Jews; it was no wonder,
therefore, if a Jesuit should feign himself a Protestant, for the
conversion of Protestants. But pay attention, I entreat you, to
my discoveries concerning the nature of the religious movement in
England termed Puseyism.
"The English clergy were formerly too much attached to their
Articles of Faith to be shaken from them. You might have employed
in vain all the machines set in motion by Bossuet and the
Jansenists of France to reunite them to the Romish Church; and so
the Jesuits of England tried another plan. This was to
demonstrate from history and ecclesiastical antiquity the
legitimacy of the usages of the English Church, whence, through
the exertion; of the Jesuits concealed among its clergy, might
arise a studious attention to Christian antiquity. This was
designed to occupy the clergy in long, laborious, and abstruse
investigation, and to alienate them from their Bibles."
(Desanctis, "Popery and Jesuitism in Rome" p.128,134, quoted in
Walsh, "Secret History of Oxford Movement," p.33).
So reported Dr.Desanctis, who for many years was a priest at
Rome, Professor of Theology, Official Theological Censor of the
Inquisition, and who later became a Protestant, as he told of his
interview with the Secretary of the French Father Assistant of
the Jesuit Order.
Why is it that in 1833, England believed that the
Reformation was the work of God, but in 1883 it believed that the
Reformation was a rebellion? In 1833, England believed that the
Pope was Antichrist; in 1883, that the Pope was the successor of
the apostles. And further, in 1833, any clergyman who would have
used Mass, confession, holy water, etc., in the Church of
England, would have been immediately dismissed, if he would not
have undergone violent treatment at the hands of the people. In
1883, thousands of Masses, confessions, and other ritualistic
practices of Romanism were carried on in services held in the
Church of England. The historian Froude says:
"In my first term at the University (Oxford), the controversial
fires were beginning to blaze ... I had learnt, like other
Protestant children, that the Pope was Antichrist, and that
Gregory VII had been a special revelation of that being. I was
now taught that Gregory VII was a saint. I had been told to honor
the Reformers. The Reformation became a great schism, Cranmer a
traitor and Latimer a vulgar ranter. Milton was a name of horror"
(J.A.Froude, Short Studies on Great Subjects, pp.101,107).
The beginning and center of this work was at Oxford
University. The movement is known as the Oxford Movement. The
movement also involved the revision of the Authorized Version.
Kempson indicates the deep background and far-reaching effects of
the movement in the following words:
"Whoever, therefore, desires to get really to the bottom of what
is commonly called the Catholic Revival in England is involved in
a deep and far-reaching study of events: a study which includes
not merely events of ecclesiastical history - some of which must
be traced back to sources in the dawn of the Middle Ages or even
in Apostolic times - but also the movements of secular politics."
In order rightly to understand the immensity of what was
done, the position at this time of the Church of England and of
the University of Oxford must be understood. By the victory in
1588 of England over the Spanish Armada, England became the
champion and defender of Protestantism. She became the impassable
wall of defense which confined Catholicism to Europe, and by her
possessions committed the continent of North America to a
Protestant future. Whatever may be the defects in the doctrines
and organization of the Church of England in the eyes of the
large dissenting Protestant Churches, nevertheless, at the time
when the Oxford Movement began, she was without question the
strongest Protestant organization in the world. It was the Church
of England, assisted by many Puritan divines, which gave us the
Protestant Bible. The center of the Church of England was Oxford
University. Mr.Palmer claims that half the rising clergymen of
England were instructed in this seat of education. This same
writer speaks of Oxford as, "The great intellectual center of
England, famed for its intellectual ascendency among all the
churches of the world." Catholics on the continent of Europe also
recognized that Oxford was the heart of the Anglican Church!
At the time the Oxford Movement began, a growing tide of
Catholic reaction was running in Germany and France. Every turn
of events in these two nations profited for the Church of Rome.
The strong influence in Germany of the Catholic writer, Mohler,
and of Windhorst was carrying that erstwhile Protestant people
toward the papal throne. The theories of Mohler on the
Development of Doctrine became the basis on which the leaders of
the movement toward Rome, in England, built.
At this same time in France, Lamennais, Lacordaire, and
Montalembert were electrifying the youth of France with their
brilliant and stirring leadership. The voice of Lacordaire was
heard by enraptured audiences in the national Cathedral of Notre
Dame. Montalembert, in his seat among the lawmakers of the French
Legislature, was exercising an influence in favor of Catholic
legislation. At the same time, Lamennais, with his pen, was
idealizing the doctrines and plans of Rome, in the minds of
fervent youth. The Jesuits had been restored in 1814. Was it
possible that England could withstand this flood of Catholic
advance which was devitalizing Protestantism on the Continent?
THE OXFORD MOVEMENT
All are agreed that the year 1833 marked the beginning of
the Oxford Movement. The outstanding leader is generally
recognized to have been J.H.Newman, who later went over to the
Church of Rome, and who was the writer of the famous hymn, "Lead
Kindly Light, Amid the Encircling Gloom."
Until the year 1833 there was no outward evidence other than
that Newman belonged to the Evangelical party of the Church of
England. We are told how he read those serious books which led
him to make a profession of conversion and to look upon the Pope
as Anti-christ. He became a diligent student of the prophecies,
and even participated, in some measure, in the current preaching
and belief of the time in the soon return of Christ. From the
moment, however, that he entered Oxford University, his earlier
Evangelical beliefs passed under adverse influences. Hawkins, the
Provost of Oriel College, taught him that the Bible must be
interpreted in the light of tradition. Whately led him to
understand that the church, as an institution, was of God's
appointment, independent of the State, and having rights which
were the direct gift of heaven. Newman was led to investigate the
creed of the Church of England, which was the Thirty-nine
Articles. Of these Cadman says:
"They constituted an authoritative standard against the inroads
of the Jesuit controversialists, and instilled those religious
and political convictions which protected the integrity of the
nation and of the Church against the intrigues of the Papacy."
Shortly after Newman had taken his A.B. degree at Oxford, he
was elected, in 1823, to a fellowship in Oriel College. This
threw him into intimate touch with those eminent men of the day
who were drinking in, and being molded by the intellectual
influences coming from Germany.
As an illustration to show how agents from Germany and
France were instrumental in changing thoughts and tastes of
Oxford students, Mozley, the brother-in-law of Newman, tells us:
"In 1829 German agents, one of them with a special introduction
to Robert Wilberforce, filled Oxford with very beautiful and
interesting tinted lithographs of medieval paintings." And,
"about the same time - that is, in 1829--there came an agent from
Cologne with very large and beautiful reproductions of the
original design for the cathedral, which it was proposed to set
work on, with a faint hope of completing it before the end of the
century. Froude gave thirty guineas for a set of drawings, went
over them, and infected not a few of his friends with medieval
architecture."
The following year Newman became curate of a nearby church.
It was while in the exercise of his duties there, he tells us,
that he became convinced that the Evangelical principles would
not work. By far the greatest influence of the moment, however,
in his life was the acguaintanceship which he formed in 1826 with
Herrell Froude. Froude was the son of a High Churchman, "who
loathed Protestantism, denounced the Evangelicals, and brought up
his sons to do the same." His attachment to Froude was so great
that following the early death of this friend, he wrote endearing
verses to his memory.
Another friendship formed in these Oxford days which equaled
Froude's in its influence on Newman, was that of the gifted
Keble, the author of the "Christian Year." In this book of
beautiful poetry, according to Mr.Lock, will be found all the
truths and tone, which came to the front in the movement. Keble's
parentage, like Froude's, was of the High Church party, strongly
anti-Protestant, anti-Evangelical, which early turned the
thoughts of Keble to those ideas and principles later to become
outstanding features of the Oxford Movement. These three, Froude,
Keble, and Newman, shared one another's isolation amid the
dominant Protestantism of the hour, and encouraged one another in
their longings for the sacraments and ritualism of the Papacy.
Newman, himself, early chose the celibate life, and no doubt
Froude's passionate tendency toward Romanism answered in Newman's
breast those social yearnings which men usually satisfy in
married life. Thus, step by step, in a way most strange and
mysterious, Newman, whom Cadman calls "the most brilliant and
gifted son of the Church of England" was carried fast and early
into that tide of Catholic enthusiasm which was running
throughout the Continent.
Under these circumstances and in this frame of mind, he and
Froude set out for a tour of the European countries in 1833, the
principal point of their visit being the city of Rome. His mind
had been prepared for sympathetic participation in the scenes of
Rome by the years he previously had spent in reading the writings
of the Fathers. From them he had derived a philosophy which would
invest him with feelings of rapture as he viewed the historical
spots and ancient ruins of the Catholic metropolis.
"Eventually," said Dr.Cadman, "the place of celestial
traditions subdued his questionings; the superstitions of his
youth that Rome was the 'Beast' which stamped its image on
mankind, the 'Great Harlot' who made drunk the kings of the
earth, were dispelled."
Twice he and Froude sought an interview with Nicholas
Wiseman, who later as Cardinal Wiseman, was to exercise such a
telling influence upon the revision of the Bible, and the
Romarizing of the English Church. We are not informed of every
thing which passed between them, but the question was submitted
to the Papacy by these two Oxford professors, to learn upon what
terms the Church of Rome would receive back into her bosom the
Church of England. The answer came straight, clear, without any
equivocation, the Church of England must accept the Council of
Trent. The future now lay plain before Newman. He left the city
of Rome hastily, saying, "I have a work to do in England."
The man who was destined to bring forward successfully the
greatest religio-political movement among the children of men,
since the Reformation, stood on the deck of the vessel as it
plowed its way through the Mediterranean waters toward the shores
of England, and wrote the hymn which more than any other thing in
his life has made him famous:
"Lead Kindly Light, amid the encircling gloom, Lead thou me on!
The night is dark and I am far from home; Lead thou me on!
Keep thou my feet; I do not ask to see The distant scene;
One step's enough for me."
Or, as the scholarly secretary of the French Academy says
"Newman landed in England, July 9, 1833. Some days afterwards
what is called 'The Oxford Movement' began."
TRACTARIANISM (1833-1841)
What the Movement meant the following will show: "Romanism
is known to have recently entered the Church of England in the
disguise of Oxford Tractarianism; to have drawn off no
inconsiderable number of her clergy and members; and to have
gained a footing on British soil, from which the government and
public opinion together are unable to eject her" (New Brunswick
Review, Aug.1854).
Newman wrote in 1841 to a Roman Catholic, "Only through the
English Church can you act upon the English nation. I wish, of
course, our Church should be consolidated, with and through and
in your communion, for its sake, and your sake, and for the sake
of unity." He and his associates believed that Protestantism was
Antichrist. Faber, one of the associates of Newman in the Oxford
Movement, himself a brilliant writer, said:
"Protestantism is perishing: what is good in it is by God's mercy
being gathered into the garners of Rome ... My whole life, God
willing, shall be one crusade against the detestable and
diabolical heresy of Protestantism."
Pusey, the well-known author of "Minor Prophets" and of
"Daniel the Prophet," another member of the movement, and a
fervent Romanizing apostle within the Protestant fold, said:
"I believe Antichrist will be infidel, and arise out of what
calls itself Protestantism, and then Rome and England will be
united in one to oppose it."
Of the movement, Pusey was the moral, as Keble was the
poetic, and Newman the intellectual leader. Like the Methodist
movement, it sprang from the University of Oxford, with this
difference, that Wesleyanism strengthened the cause of
Protestantism, while Tractarianism undermined it.
Newman ever gave the date of July 14, 1833, five days after
he returned from Rome, as the beginning of the movement. From the
very first, secrecy veiled a large measure of its activities. Its
promoters at the beginning grouped themselves into a society
called, "The Association of the Friends of the Church." All that
went on under cover will never be known until the judgment day.
The immense transformation, which was wrought in the Church of
England, enables us to single out certain prominent activities as
its cause. The leaders banded themselves together with aggressive
determination to attack weak points wherever they could make
their presence felt, by precipitating crises in the control of
the University, and by challenging fundamental relationships
between church and state. Further, they grouped around them the
students of the University and changed the course of Oxford
thinking. They published a series of tracts which threw a flood
of fermenting thought upon the English mentality. Amid all their
varied and powerful engines of attack, possibly no one thing
exercised a greater influence than the sermons Newman himself
delivered weekly in the church of St.Mary's at Oxford.
By voice and pen, the teaching of Newman changed in the
minds of many their attitude toward the Bible. Stanley shows us
that the allegorizing of German theology, under whose influence
Newman and the leaders of the movement were, was Origen's method
of allegorizing. Newman contended that God never intended the
Bible to teach doctrines. Much of the church history read, was on
the Waldenses and how they had, through the centuries from the
days of the apostles, transmitted to us the true faith. The
Tractarians determined that the credit of handing down truth
through the centuries, should be turned from the Waldenses to the
Papacy.
Answering the general stir upon the question of Antichrist,
Newman declared that the city of Rome must fall before Antichrist
rises, that which saved Rome from falling, he averred, was the
saving grace of the Catholic Church, the salt of the earth.
Those who were promoting the movement seemed at times
uncontrolled in their love for Romanism. Dr.Pusey, whose standing
has given the name of "Puseyism" to this Tractarian Movement,
scandalized some of the less ardent spirits by visiting the
Catholic monasteries in Ireland to study monastic life, with a
view to introducing it into England. Whenever any of the
Tractarians went abroad, they revelled in the scenes of Catholic
ritualism as if they were starved. Dr.Faber, a talented and
outstanding leader among them, gives a lengthy description of his
experiences in Rome, in 1843. His visit to the church of St.John
Lateran on Holy Thursday, he describes as follows:
"I got close to the altar, inside the Swiss Guards, and when Pope
Gregory descended from his throne, and knelt at the foot of the
altar, and we all knelt with him, it was a scene more touching
than I had ever seen before.... That old man in white, prostrate
before the uplifted Body of the Lord, and the dead, dead silence
- Oh, what a sight it was! ... On leaving St.John's by the great
western door, the immense piazza was full of people ... and in
spite of the noonday sun, I bared my head and knelt with the
poople, and received with joy the Holy Father's blessing, until
he fell back on his throne and was borne away."
Two of the Tracts especially created a public stir, Tract 80
and Tract 90. Tract 80, written by Isaac Williams on "Reserve in
Communicating Knowledge," developed Newman's ideas of mental
reservation, which he took from Clement of Alexandria. To Newman,
the Fathers were everything; he studied them day and night; he
translated them into English, lived with them, and in this
Gnostic atmosphere of the early Christian centuries, he viewed
all questions. Clement (about 200 A.D.), speaking of the rules
which should guide the Christian, says, "He (the Christian) both
thinks and speaks the truth; except when consideration is
necessary, and then, as a physician for the good of his patient,
he will be false, or utter a falsehood ... He gives himself up
for the church." On this point Mr.Ward, another prominent leader
in the movement, is represented by his son as saying, "Make
yourself clear that you are justified in deception and then lie
like a trooper." Newman himself put this principle into
practice, and was guilty of deception when he wrote against
Popery, saying things as bitter against the Roman system as
Protestants ever said, for the sole purpose of warding off
suspicion that he was turning to Rome.
"If you ask me," he says, "how an individual could venture, not
simply to hold, but to publish such views of a communion (i.e.
the Church of Rome) so ancient, so wide-spreading, so fruitful in
Saints, I answer that I said to myself, 'I am not speaking my own
words, I am but following almost a consensus of the divines of my
own church.' ... Yet I have reason to fear still, that such
language is to be ascribed, in no small measure, to an impetuous
temper, a hope of approving myself to persons I respect, and a
wish to repel the charge of Romanism."
Tract 80 created a widespread stir. The term "Jesuitical"
might have been heard on the lips of Protestant England
everywhere to express what they considered to be the source of
such arguments. But that stir was insignificant compared with
what was produced when Newman wrote Tract 90. In fact, if we were
to single out any one outstanding event in the history of this
Romanizing Movement prior to the Revision of the Bible in 1870,
we would point to Tract 90 as that event. The three great
obstacles which stood in the way of Catholicism's crumpling up
the mental defenses of English Protestantism, were: the King
James Bible, the Prayer Book, and the Thirty-nine Articles. The
Thirty-nine Articles stood for the Creed of the Church of
England. These Articles were born in the days when English
scholars were being burned at the stake for their adherence to
Protestantism. They represented the questions which might be put
to an adult before he received baptism or to a candidate for
ministerial ordination. With Tract 90, Newman leveled his blow at
the Thirty-nine Articles. With a surpassing skill which the
Church of England never satisfactorily met, he, point by point,
contended that Roman Catholicism could be taught in the Church of
England under the Thirty-nine Articles.
The hostility aroused by the appearance of this Tract forced
the Puseyites to a period of silence. The writing of tracts
ceased. From 1841, the year in which Newman wrote Tract 90, until
1845, when he left the Church of England for Rome, his public
activities were greatly lessened. Newman was exultant: "No
stopping of, the tracts," he said, "can, humanly speaking, stop
the spread of, the opinions which they have inculcated." Even
Pusey, besides praising Newman's "touching simplicity and
humility," writes hopefully on the general prospects
"You will be glad to hear that the immediate excitement about
Tract 90 seems subsiding, although I fear (in the minds of many)
into a lasting impression of our Jesuitism."
The effect, however, upon the world, through Oxford was
tremendous. Newman, from the beginning, saw the value of Oxford
as a base. Some of his associates wanted to make London the
center of the movement. Newman opposed the plan. He wished the
tracts known as the "Oxford Tracts."
THE GORHAM CASE
Previous to this, Dr.Wiseman, who subsequently became
Cardinal, had left Rome for England and had founded the Dublin
Review in 1836, for the express purpose of influencing the
Tractarians of Oxford and leading them on to Rome. He said in
his Essays:
"I have already alluded, in the preface of the first volume, as
well as in the body of this, to the first circumstance which
turned my attention to the wonderful movement then commenced in
England - the visit which is recorded in Froude's 'Remains.' From
that moment it took the uppermost place in my thoughts, and
became the object of their intensest interest."
Dr.Wiseman, when studying at Rome, had devoted himself to
Oriental studies and investigations of the manuscripts. His books
brought him into prominence, and in 1828, when he was only
twenty-six years of age, he was elected Rector of the College in
Rome for Catholic youth of the English language. His appearance
in England in the midst of the violent excitement occasioned by
Tract 90, is described thus by Palm:
"Wiseman saw that there was an opening for the circulation of
that false and plausible reasoning of Jesuitism in which he was
an adept; skillful to put a plausible face upon the worst
corruptions, and to instill doubt where there was no real doubt.
He was instantly dispatched to England as Vicar Apostolic, to
follow up the clue thus presented to him. He forthwith set on
foot the Dublin Review as a means for reaching the class of minds
at Oxford with which he had come in contact."
Dr.Wiseman found on his hands the task of welding together
the Catholics of England, the Catholics of Ireland, so unlike
them, influential Protestants of Catholic sympathies like
Macaulay, Stanley, etc., as well as the Romanizing Movement in
Oxford University. He was a textual critic of the first rank, and
assisted by the information seemingly passed to him from Jesuits,
he was able to furnish the facts well calculated to combat
confidence in the Protestant Bible. Skillfully step by step, we
are told, he led the Tractarian Movement toward Rome.
By this time, Stanley informs us, the Tractarians had become
dominant at Oxford. Hort is thankful that the High Church
movement is gaining ground in both Universities - Oxford and
Cambridge. Stopping the Tracts seemed like a blow, but
authorities recognize that it was a contribution to success.
Oxford still retains her Romanizing tendencies, and many bishops
of the Church of England have wholly surrendered to most of the
Catholic positions which gained ground, and some of the bishops
without leaving the Church of England, mentally have gone the
whole way of Rome. Even the Privy Council, the highest court of
appeal in the British Empire, did not pronounce upon a very
important case in a way that would run directly counter to the
Council of Trent.
Public sentiment was again aroused to intensity in 1845 when
Ward, an outstanding Tractarian, published his book which taught
the most offensive Roman views - Mariolatry, and mental
reservation in subscribing to the Thirty-nine Articles. When
Oxford degraded him from his university rights, he went over, in
September, to the Church of Rome. It became very evident that
Newman soon would follow. On the night of October 8, Father
Dominic of the Italian Passionists, arrived at Newman's quarters
in a downpouring rain. After being received, he was standing
before the fire drying his wet garments. He turned around to see
Newman prostrate at his feet, begging his blessing, and asking
him to hear his confession. Thus the author of "Lead Kindly
Light" passed over to Rome, and within one year, 150 clergymen
and eminent laymen also had joined the Catholic Church.
It might be wondered why Newman went over to Rome, if by
remaining at Oxford he would have more greatly advanced his
Catholic project. There is, however, another phase to the
situation.
Cardinal Wiseman found great difficulties in developing
Roman Catholicism in England. He lacked leaders, so he urged
Newman to take his stand publicly that the Oxonian might be made
available for the training of clergymen.
After the passing from Oxford of Newman, the leadership of
the Tractarians devolved upon Dr.Pusey. A change came over the
movement. Oxford ceased to be its home and center. Nevertheless,
Jesuitism had captured it long enough to change fundamentally the
character of the Church of England. In its larger proportions,
Tractarianism passed from the study to the street. The passion to
introduce the Mass, the confession, the burning of candles, holy
water, the blessing of oils, and all the other gorgeous
accompaniments of Catholic ritualism went forward so strongly
that the movement since 1845 is known rather under the name of
Ritualism. It is now more an appeal to the eye, than, as it was
formerly, an appeal to the ear.
In 1850, two events of outstanding importance occurred which
hastened the change of English sentiment. The Bishop of Exeter,
on the point of ordaining a clergyman by the name of Gorham,
demanded that he subscribe to the doctrine of baptismal
regeneration. He refused. The Bishop declined to admit him to the
ministry. Mr.Gorham carried his case to the highest court in the
Church of England, which decided against him. He then appealed to
the Privy Council, which reversed the decision of the
Ecclesiastical Court and virtually decided that no man could be
excluded from the Anglican ministry because he did not believe in
baptismal regeneration. The effect on the country was tremendous.
Even Gladstone, who had been drawn into the Oxford Movement, to
whose thoughts and feelings it gave a new direction, wrote to his
wife that it (the Gorham case) "may impose duties upon me which
will separate forever between my path of life, public or private,
and that of all political parties. The issue is one going to the
very root of all teaching and all life in the Church of England."
Gladstone felt that the bishops were to blame in not
exercising a public influence strong enough to have secured a
different decision. The bishops favored the Romanizing
tendencies, but in order to make them prevalent, they were
unwilling to pay the price, that is, to suffer a separation of
church and state. There were still too many Protestant and
non-religious influences to suffer the civil courts to be
dictated to by the religious. The Privy Council would have been
perfectly willing for the Church of England to have what it
wished, even if it were Catholic ritualism, but was not willing
to endorse such a change as long as the church received its
salaries from the state. Stanley calls the Gorham decision the
"Magna Charta" of the liberties of the English Church.
THE CATHOLIC AGGRESSION
While the mind of England was still being agitated by the
Gorham case, it sustained another shock from an unsuspected
quarter. In October, 1850, the Pope had advanced Dr.Wiseman to
the princely position of Cardinal, at the same time creating him
Archbishop of Westminster, and dividing England into twelve
bishoprics. Cardinal Wiseman stood for hours in Rome receiving
the congratulations of the ambassadors and representatives of
other governments. After the round of ceremonies was over, he
issued a letter to be published in the English newspapers
announcing the establishment of a Catholic hierarchy in Great
Britain. This is known as the famous letter of the Flaminian
Gate. Not even Cardinal Wiseman was prepared to witness the
explosion of wrath which shook the cities of England. Everywhere
was heard the cry, "No Popery!" Press, Anglican clergymen, and
leading statesmen raised indignant protest in terms of
ever-increasing violence. Item by item the papal brief was
analyzed by the press, each topic explained as a fresh insult to
the English people. Some of the scenes in the different cities
are described thus:
"The Church bells rang, the band played the 'Rose March,' and the
procession, lighted by numerous torches, paraded the town.
Placards were carried, inscribed, 'The brutal Haynau,' and 'Down
with tyranny!' 'Down with Popery!' 'No Puseyites!' 'No
Tractarians !' etc. There were several masked characters, and all
made up such a sight as was never witnessed in this ancient
borough before."
The scene in Salisbury is thus described:
"The effigies of his Holiness, the Pope, Cardinal Wiseman, and
the twelve Bishops were completed. Friday evening, about five
p.m., Castle Street was so densely crowded that no one could pass
to the upper part of it. Shortly after, some hundreds of torches
were lighted, which then exhibited a forest of heads.... The
procession having paraded the city, the effigies were taken to
the Green Croft, where, over a large number of fagots and barrels
of tar, a huge platform was erected of timber; the effigies were
placed thereon, and a volley of rockets sent up."
In spite of public opposition, the object of the Catholic
Church was gained. The creation of this hierarchy, with its
titles and magnificent dwellings, pleased the aristocracy, and
brought over to the Church of Rome, many of the wealthy and
cultured, and of the nobility. Simple evangelical Christianity,
as Jesus lived it, is not acceptable to the proud and worldly
heart. The papal aggression of 1850 was another blow in favor of
Rome. As Stanley says of it, "The general reaction of a large
part of the religious sentiment of England and of Europe towards
Rome was undoubted."
THE CASE OF "ESSAYS AND REVIEWS"
Of the problems raised by the famous case, known as "Essays
and Reviews," Westcott wrote: "Of all cares, almost the greatest
which I have had, has been 'Essays and Reviews,' and its
opponents. The controversy is fairly turning me grey. I look on
the assailants of the Essayists, from bishops downwards, as
likely to do far more harm to the Church and the Truth than the
Essayists."
The period from 1850 to 1860 had seen a great forward
movement among the Ritualists, and also considerable growth for
the Catholics. In Cardinal Wiseman's address to the Congress of
Malines in 1863, he reported that in 1830 the number of priests
in England was 434; in 1863 they numbered 1242. The convents in
1830 amounted to only 16; in 1863 there were 162. Parallel with
this, the movement was going forward to introduce into England,
German Biblical criticism. Something occurred in 1860 to test the
inroads which had been made upon the English mind in its belief
in the infallibility and inspiration of the Bible.
An enterprising publishing house put forth a volume
containing seven essays and reviews written by prominent
clergymen of the Church of England, some of whom were university
professors. Dr.Hort was invited to be a contributor, but
declined, fearing that the attempt was premature. These essays
successively attacked such prominent Protestant doctrines as its
position on the "inspiration of the Bible," "justification by
faith," and "purgatory." A cry arose to demand the degradation of
these writers from their positions as clergymen in the Church of
England. A test case was carried before the highest court in the
Church. The accused appealed from the judgment to a higher body.
Although the indignation throughout the country was great, and a
petition so voluminous as to be signed by eleven thousand
clergymen was circulated, nevertheless the public mind was
compelled to submit to this assault upon the beliefs held by
Protestant England for three hundred years. One of these essays
was written by Professor H.B.Wilson, who earlier had denounced
Tract 90 for its views on the Thirty-nine Articles. Twenty years
later, however, he argued in favor of the very views which he had
denounced previously.
The case was carried still higher, to the secular court, the
last court of appeal in the nation, the Privy Council. Here again
the decision let the authors of these advanced views on higher
criticism, go free. Such hostile attacks on inspiration were
detaching the English mentality from its Protestant love of, and
loyalty to, the Holy Scriptures. Now, campaigns favorable to the
other side were needed to attach the English mind to the
doctrines and practices of Rome. An event of this nature soon
occurred.
NEWMAN'S MASTERPIECE
While Ritualism marched forward in the Church of England
through the leadership of Dr.Pusey, Newman was aiding Cardinal
Wiseman to increase the numbers and influence of Catholicism. For
twenty years, apparently to the public, there had been little
contact between him and his former associates. They retained for
Newman, however, their old love and affection. In 1864 occurred
an event which broke down this public distance between them and
restored Newman to aristocratic favor. Charles Kingsley felt
impelled to write upon the growing Catholic mentality throughout
England, and lay the blame of it upon Newman. Newman took the
pen; and master of the English language as he was, wrote the
"Apologia." An able controversialist, he handled Kingsley with a
cruel invective that few can condone. With that subtlety of
argument in which not many were his equal, he further advanced
the cause of Catholic doctrine; while at the same time he placed
himself so ably before the public as a martyr of honest
convictions, that he threw open the door which admitted him, if
it did not restore him, to a large place in public esteem. The
publication of the "Apologia" added one more excitement to the
many which, for a third of a century, had been stirring the
Protestant mind of England.
Of the effect produced by this book in making acceptable the
advance of Romanizing doctrines, Stanley says:
"The Hampdon controversy, the Gorham controversy, the 'Essays and
Reviews' controversy, and the Colenso controversy - all have had
their turn; but none excited such violent passions, and of none
would the ultimate extinction have appeared so strange whilst the
storm was raging, as the extinction of the controversy of Tract
90 ... What has produced the calm? Many causes have
contributed;--the recrudescence of the High Church party; the
charm thrown over the history of that time by the 'Apologia.'"
RITUALISM
By 1864, at the time of the "Apologia," the High Church
party believed the divine authority of tradition, the inspiration
of the Apocrypha, and escape from eternal punishment through
purgatory.
The decision of the Privy Council in 1864, in the case of
"Essays and Reviews," legally declared to all intents and
purposes that these views could be the doctrines of the Church of
England. At the same time, the Protestant doctrine of Imputed
Righteousness was condemned as it had been condemned by the
Council of Trent. With public opinion placated by the "Apologia,"
with the voice of protest in the Church silenced by the judgment
of the Privy Council, ritualism sprung forth with a suddenness
that took the nation and church by surprise.
"At once in a hundred or more churches (so we are told) appeared
colored vestments; candles lighted during the Communion in the
morning. and during the Magnificat in the afternoon; a new
liturgy interpolated into that established by law; prostrations,
genuflections elevations, never before seen; the transformation
of the worship of the Church of England into a likeness of that
of the Church of Rome, so exact as to deceive Roman Catholics
themselves into the momentary belief that they were in their own
places of worship."
In other words, the Tractarianism of Oxford simply changed
its character, and instead of being centered in the hands of
notable scholars, it spread in the form of ritualism to the
country parishes. As another author says:
"In fact, there appeared now a type of clergyman hitherto almost
unknown in the Established Church--one who was less a man of the
world, and less a scholar, but more clerical, more ascetic, more
apostolic, one who came nearer to our ideal of a Catholic priest.
Though seeming to contend about questions of candles and
chasubles, they really began to revive in the Anglican Church the
Sacramental life which had become almost extinct. In many ways
they were truly the successors of the Tractarians, continuing and
completing their work."
Very early in the Tractarian movement, the ritualistic
activities connected with purgatory, pardons, images, relics, and
prayers for the dead; had manifested them selves. But they were
carried on secretly. Self-punishment by a scourge of five lashes
having five knots on the lash was practiced by the most pa-
ssionate Romanists; some had worn the haircloth girdle.
Sisterhoods, embracing girls who had vowed their life to the
Church, as Catholic nuns do, were formed in the Church of
England.
Throughout the years that ritualism had been advancing,
different organizations were formed for attaining the different
objectives sought by the Romanizers. The "Confraternity of the
Blessed Sacrament" was formed for the purpose of influencing
others to celebrate the Mass; the "Association for the Promotion
of the Union of Christendom" was organized with the intent to
bring all Christian churches under the leadership of the Pope;
the "Order of Corporate Reunion" was an association created to
bring about the joining of the Church of England with the Papacy;
the "Society of the Sacred Cross" offered an organization into
which clergymen of the Church of England might be enrolled, whose
practices were the fervent performance of Catholic rituals; and
the "English Church Union" was brought into existence to further
the interests of Roman Catholicism in England.
The Movement has also affected other Protestant churches,
and "there are many today who, though themselves rejecting
Catholic belief, recognize that St.Paul's sacramental teaching is
far more like that traditional among Catholics than like that of
the 16th-century Reformers.
Dr.Wylie indicates that these great changes were effected,
not by a stirring message from God, but by indirection, little by
little, as the Jesuits operate:
"Tract 90, where the doctrine of reserves is broached, bears
strong marks of a Jesuit origin. Could we know all the secret
instructions given to the leaders in the Puseyite movement,--the
mental reservations prescribed to them, we might well be
astonished. 'Go gently,' we think we hear the great Roothan say
to them. 'Remember the motto of our dear son, the cidevant Bishop
of Autun, -- "surtout, pas trop de zele," (above all, not too
much zeal). Bring into view, little by little, the authority of
the church. If you can succeed in rendering it equal to that of
the Bible, you have done much. Change the table of the Lord into
an altar; elevate that altar a few inches above the level of the
floor; gradually turn around to it when you read the Liturgy;
place lighted taper upon it: teach the people the virtues of
stained glass, and cause them to feel the majesty of Gothic
basilisques. Introduce first the dogmas, beginning with that of
baptismal regeneration; next the ceremonies and sacraments, as
penance and the confessional; and, lastly, the images of the
Virgin and the saints.'"
It must not be supposed that this advance of ritualism went
forward without opposition. There were riotous disturbances at
Exeter and other places, chiefly directed against the use of the
priestly robe in the pulpit, after a direction for its use had
been given in a charge by the Bishop. The details of furniture
and of Catholic garments worn by the priest, which had long since
been discarded, and now were being used again by ritualistic
priests, aroused great antagonism among the people. On one
occasion in the church of St.Georges-in-the-East, the vast
building was crowded with a furious congregation, trying to shout
down the chanting of the liturgy. Policemen surrounded the clergy
and choristers in their endeavor to carry on the ritualist
services. Anything in the recitation which appeared as a
condemnation of idolatry was met with sounds of approval from the
congregation. Congregations otherwise amiable, sociable, and
friendly, were changed into bodies of wrath and resentment at
Romanizing clergymen who persisted in services of ritualism
repugnant to the worshhipers.
A vast array of arguments, historical, legal, and
ritualistic, were carried on between the clergy and their
congregations. Who was to decide the question? This situation
gave rise to a series of cases which were brought before the
courts, both ecclesiastical and civil, amid tremendous excitement
on part of the people. Aided by the English Church Union, by
eminent scholars of ritualistic sympathies, and by the strong
Romanizing tendency among the bishops, the principal judgments
went against the Protestants. Doctors Westcott and Hort, who come
prominently before us later as leaders in connection with Bible
revision, lent their influence on the side of the ritualists.
"When consulted by a lady, as to the latitude admitted by the
Church of Engiand, which she thought tended towards Catholicism,
Hort did not deny the divergencies, but thought they need not
cause uneasiness."
Dr.King, Bishop of Lincoln, whose influence multiplied
converts to Catholicism, was cited by the Church Association (a
society formed to support congregations imposed upon by the use
of ritualism), before the Archbishop of Canterbury for his
ritualistic enthusiasm. The Archbishop realized that if he
decided in favor of the ritualists, and the case should be
appealed, he risked the opposition of the Privy Council. He
consulted with one of his most intimate friends, his former
teacher, Bishop Westcott, and determined to take the risk. When,
on November 21, 1890, before a numerous and excited throng, he
left ritualism uncondemned and the door wide open for candles,
absolution, eastward position, and other ritualistic activities,
Protestants were greatly disturbed.
"They said that the Lincoln decision was the severest blow
received by the Church of England since the Reformation."
Or to sum the matter up in the words cf another author:
"And so at present the ritualists have pretty nearly all the
liberty of action they could desire."
We are informed that so great was the increase of ritualism
that it had spread from 2054 churches in 1844, to 5964 in 1896,
and to 7044 in 1898.
RELATION OF THE MOVEMENT TO BIBLE REVISION
In the first place, had it not been for Jesuitism, Modernism
might never have been a force in the Protestant Church. As the
historian Froude says: "But for the Oxford Movement, skepticism
might have continued a harmless speculation of a few
philosophers."
The attitude of Roman Catholics to the King James Version
has ever been one of bitter hostility. The Catholic Bishop of
Erie, Pa., calls it that "vile" Protestant Version. This attitude
is further evinced through the feelings expressed by two eminent
characters connected with the Oxford Movement; one who critically
described the Authorized Version before revision was
accomplished; the other, after revision was well under way. Dr.
Faber, the brilliant associate of Newman, and a passionate
Romanizer, called the King James Version, "that stronghold of
heresy in England;" and when revision began to appear as almost
certain, Cardinal Wiseman expressed himself in these words
"When we consider the scorn cast by the Reformers upon the
Vulgate, and their recurrence, in consequence, to the Greek, as
the only accurate standard, we cannot but rejoice at the silent
triumph which truth has at length gained over clamorous error.
For, in fact, the principal writers who have avenged the Vulgate,
and obtained for it its critical preeminence are Protestants."
The famous Tract 90 did not leave this question untouched.
Though Cardinal Newman argued strongly for the orthodox Catholic
position, that tradition is of equal, if not of superior
authority to the Bible, nevertheless, he put a divine stamp on
the Vulgate and a human stamp upon the Authorized Version. These
are his words:
"A further question may be asked, concerning our Received Version
of the Scriptures, whether it is in any sense imposed on us as a
true comment on the original text; as the Vulgate is upon the
Roman Catholics. It would appear not. It was made and authorized
by royal commands, which cannot be supposed to have any claim
upon our interior consent."
Furthermore, in the Dublin Review (June 1883), Newman says
that the Authorized Version "is notoriously unfair where
doctrinal questions are at stake," and speaks of its "dishonest
renderings." This shows the Catholic attitude of mind toward the
King James Version.
Cardinal Newman was invited to sit with the English New
Testament Revision Committee. He refused. Nevertheless, with his
reputation for Biblical knowledge, with the profound admiration
Dr.Hort never failed to express for him, and with his Napoleonic
leadership in breaking down Protestantism, the fact that he was
invited is indicative of the influence which the Oxford Movement
had on Revision.
How anxious Roman Catholicism was to do something to break
the spell which the King James Version held over English speaking
people, and through them over the world, was revealed in what
happened as soon as Cardinal Newman had quit the Church of
England for the Church of Rome. At that time he had been invited
to Rome - which invitation he accepted - to imbibe the atmosphere
of his new affiliations and relate himself to the Papacy in ways
which might be deemed best for future service. How he was
requested at that time to revise the King James, may be seen in a
letter written from Rome to Wiseman by Newman, January 17, 1847.
He says:
"The Superior of the Franciscans, Father Benigno, in the
Trastevere, wishes us out of his own head to engage in an English
Authorized Translation of the Bible. He is a learned man, and on
the Congregation of the Index. What he wished was, that we would
take the Protestant translation, correct it by the Vulgate ...
and get it sanctioned here. This might be our first work if your
Lordship approved of it. If we undertook it, I should try to get
a number of persons at work (not merely our own party). First, it
should be overseen and corrected by ourselves, then it should go
to a few select revisers, e.g., Dr.Tait of Ushaw, Dr.Whitty of
St.Edmunds," (a Jesuit).
It is a remarkabie fact that Newman, now a Catholic once a
Protestant, is seeking for a revision of the King James Bible,
for England, that will conform to the Vulgate, and is suggesting
a well-defined plan to Cardinal Wiseman who rejoices that
Protestant revisers are vindicating the Vulgate, as previously
noted.
We have already spoken of the influence of the movement on
certain Revisers, when we brought forward Doctors Hort and
Westcott, as in sympathy with, and assisting the movement of
ritualism. One need only to scan the list of the men who sat on
the English New Testament Revision Committee, review certain acts
in their history and read their writings, to know all too well
that the majority were actually of the Oxford Movement,
(Tractarians and Ritualists), or in sympathy with the same. Dr.
Thirlwall, who has been pointed out as the leader in introducing
German textual criticism into England, and who has been described
by two authors as a man of princely intellect, came out strongly
in defense of the Tractarians when they were assailed.
When Newman and Froude, in 1833, were in Rome and had
presented their inquiry to the Papacy to learn upon what terms
the Church of England would be received back into the Roman fold,
they had the direct answer, only by accepting the Council of
Trent. Previously, we have shown that the first four resolutions
passed by that Council, settled, first, that no one should say it
is wicked to put tradition on a level with Scripture; second,
that the Apocryphal books were equal to the Canonical; third,
that there were no errors in the Vulgate; and finally, that the
right of interpretation of Holy Writ belonged to the clergy.
Newman left Rome saying, "I have a work to do for England." He
could not bring the Church of England to accept the Council of
Trept without establishing those books of the Catholic Bible
which are rejected by Protestants and without securing
endorsement for those Catholic readings of the accepted books
which had been rejected by the Reformers. Revision became the
inevitable outcome of the Oxford Movement.
That this was so understood by the participants in
Tractarianism, I will now quote from Mozley, the brother-in-law
of Cardinal Newman:
"The Oxford Movement, unforeseen by the chief movers, and to some
extent in spite of them, has produced a generation of
ecclesiologists, ritualists, and religious poets. Whatever may be
said of its priestcraft, it has filled the land with churchcrafts
of all kinds. Has it not had some share in the restoration of
Biblical criticism and in the revision of the Authorized
Version?"
It ought to be further noticed that Dr.Pusey, who succeeded
to the leadership of the Oxford Movement upon the defection of
Newman to Rome, he who pushed forward ritualism, established
nunneries and monasteries, and was passionate in Romanizing, was
also invited to sit on the English New Testament Revision
Committee. The fact that he refused, does not in any way lessen
the mental attitude of sympathy with Tractarianism which
possessed the dominant majority of that committee. And we are
told that so strong were the efforts on the Revision Committee to
revise different passages of the New Testament in favor of Rome,
that on one occasion the Dean of Rochester remarked that it was
time they raised a cry of "No Popery."
The Oxford Movement had created great discontent with
existing theology and had emphasized the apparent contradictions
and inconsistencies of the Bible. At the same time textual
criticism had cast discredit upon the Received Text and the King
James Version translated from it. There had been enough agitation
to arouse an expectancy that some kind of revision would be
attempted. But even then, revision of such a revolutionary
nature, as happened, could never have been brought about, unless
men who long had policies of a nature little suspected, were at
hand to do the deed. These men were Westcott and Hort. Let us now
throw some sidelights upon their surprising beliefs and purposes.
.....................
To be continued
NOTE:
I was raised in a "Church of England" school from grade one to
grade twelve. We opened and read the Bible each school day for
the first half hour. It was only a few times a year that the
whole school was marched away to the actual "church" for services
i.e. Easter and Christmas. I always found the rituals, fancy
dress of the priests, the mumbo-jumbo language (it was Latin),
movements behind the altar to do this and do that, lighting of
candles, prossesions up and down isles, STANGE if not out-and-out
rediculous. It was only years later that reading books like this
one by Wilkinson, I realized the Church of England is very
similar to the Church of Rome, in many ways. Hence today we still
have a movement to bring the Church of England back into the
Church of Rome. We have just read, to a large part, how the
Church of England got all its rituals from, and some of the guys
that helped bring it all to pass, despite the protests from the
public in those early years.
Keith Hunt
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