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DIOCESAN*

FRQM THE LIBRARY OF

TR^ITY COLLEGE

MAR 1 1 1995

ON THE

AUTHORIZED VERSION

OF THE

NEW TESTAMENT.

Works by R. C. TRENCH, D. D., Dean of Westminster.

IN UNIFORM STYLE WITH THIS VOLUME. I.

ON THE STUDY OF WORDS.

1 vol. 12mo. Price 75 cent*. II.

ON THE LESSONS IN PROVERBS.

1 vol. 12rao. Price 50 crnta. III.

SYNONYMS OF THE NEW TESTAMENT.

1 vol. ]2mo. Price 75 c^nts.

IV.

ON THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE,

PAST AND PRESENT. 1 vol. 12mo. Price 75 cents.

V.

POEM S.

1 vol. 12mo. Price one dollar.

VI. CALDERON, HIS LIFE AND GENIUS,

WITH SPECIMENS OF HIS PLAT 8.

1 vol. 12mo. Price 75 cents.

VII. SERMONS ON THE DIVINITY OF CHRIST.

1 vol. 12mo. Price 50 c^nts.

VIII.

ON THE AUTHORIZED VERSION OF THE NEW TESTAMENT,

IN CONNECTION WITH RKCENT PROPOSALS FOR ITS REVISION

1 vol 12mo. Pric- 75 cent*.

PUBLISHED BY J. S. HEDFIELD, NEW YORK.

ON THE

NEW TESTAMENT

IN CONNECTION WITH SOME RECENT PROPOSALS FOR ITS REVISION

RICHARD CHKNEVIX TRENCH, D. D.

DEAN OF WESTMINSTER

AUTHOR OF " SYNONYMS OF THE NEW TESTAMENT" — " THE STI7DY OF WORDS1'

" THK ENGLISH LANGUAGE PAST AND PRESENT" — 'THE LESSONS IN

PROVRRBS" — " SEBMONS" — " POEMS" — " CALDERON," ETC.

REDFIELD

34 BEEKMAN STREET, NEW YORK

1858

PEEFACE.

A WORD or two, which is all that I have to say by way of preface, will not refer so much to the book as to the form of the book. Were the materials of this little volume to be disposed over again, I should cer tainly prefer to follow in their disposition that sim pler arrangement which Professor Scholefield adopted in his Hints for an Improved Translation of the New Testament. He has there followed throughout the order of the books of Scripture ; and, as these passed in succession under his review, he has made such ob servations as seemed to him desirable, without at tempting any more ambitious arrangement. After I had advanced so far as to make it almost impossible to recede, I found continual reason to regret that I had chosen any other plan. I am not, indeed, with out the strongest conviction that a book, well and happily arranged on the scheme of rather bringing

6 PREFACE.

subjects to a point, and considering together matters which have a certain unity in themselves, both ought to be, and would be, more interesting and instructive than one in which the same materials were disposed in such a merely fortuitous sequence. But this ar rangement is very difficult to attain. I can not charge myself with having spared either thought or pains in striving after it ; but am painfully conscious how little has been my success, and how unsatisfactory the re sult. Some things, indeed, already, as they escape the confusion of MS., and assume the painful clear ness of print, I see might be in fitter place than they are ; but much refuses still to group itself in any sat isfying combination. This acknowledgment is not made with the desire to anticipate and avert the cen sure which this fault in the composition of the book, to speak nothing of other more serious faults, may deserve ; but only to suggest that a better and happier distribution, though doubtless possible, was yet not so easy and obvious as one who had never made the endeavor to attain it might perhaps take for granted.

WESTMINSTER, June 24, 1858.

TABLE OF CONTENTS.

CHAPTER I. INTRODUCTORY REMARKS PAGE 9

CHAPTER II. ON THE ENGLISH OF THE AUTHORIZED VERSION 19

CHAPTER III.

ON SOME QUES IONS OF TRANSLATION 49

CHAPTER IV. ON SOME UNNECESSARY DISTINCTIONS INTRODUCED 65

CHAPTER V. ON SOME REAL DISTINCTIONS EFFACED 84

CHAPTER VI.

ON SOME BETTER RENDERINGS FOHSAKEN, OR PLACED ix THE

MARGIN 97

CHAPTER VII. ON SOME ERRORS OF GREKK GRAMMAR IN ouit VERSION . . . .113

8 CONTENTS.

CHAPTER VIII. ON SOME QUESTIONABLE RENDERINGS or WORDS... PAGE 135

CHAPTER IX.

ON SOME WORDS WHOLLY OR PARTIALLY MISTRANSLATED.. 148

CHAPTER X.

ON SOME CHARGES UNJUSTLY BROUGHT AGAINST OUR VER SION 164

CHAPTER XI. ON THE BEST MEANS OF CARRYING OUT A REVISION... . 173

CHAPTER I.

INTRODUCTORY REMARKS.

IT is clear that the question, « Are we, or are we not, to have a new translation of Scripture ?" or ra ther—since few would propose this who did not wish to loosen from its anchors the whole religious life of the English people—" Shall we, or shall we not, have a new revision of the Authorized Version ?" is one which is presenting itself more and more familiarly to the minds of men. This, indeed, is not by any means the first time that this question has been ear nestly discussed ; but that which differences the pres ent agitation of the matter from preceding ones is, that on all former occasions the subject was only de bated among scholars and divines, and awoke no in terest in circles beyond them. The present is appa rently the first occasion on which it has taken the slightest hold of the popular mind. But now indica tions of the interest which it is awakening reach us from every side. America is sending us the instal-

1*

10 INTRODUCTORY REMARKS.

ments — it must be owned not very encouraging ones — of a New Version, as fast as she can. The wish for a revision has for a considerable time been work ing among Dissenters here ; by the voice of one of these it has lately made itself heard in Parliament, and by the mouth of a Regius Professor in Convoca tion. Our Reviews, and not those only which are specially dedicated to religious subjects, begin to deal with the question of revision. There are, or a little while since there were, frequent letters in the news papers, urging, or remonstrating against, such a step — few of them, it is true, of much value, yet at the same time showing how many minds are now occupied with the subject.

It is manifestly a question of such immense impor tance, the issues depending on a right solution of it are so vast and solemn, that it may well claim a tem perate and wise discussion. Nothing is gained on the one hand by vague and general charges of inaccuracy brought against our Version ; they require to be sup ported by detailed proofs. Nothing, on the other hand, is gained by charges and insinuations against those who urge a revision, as though they desired to undermine the foundations of the religious life and faith of England ; were Socinians in disguise, or Pa pists — Socinians who hoped that, in another transla tion, the witness to the divinity of the Son and of the Spirit might prove less clear than in the present — Papists who desired that the authority of the English

INTRODUCTORY REMARKS. 11

X

Scripture, the only Scripture accessible to the great body of the people, might be so shaken and rendered so doubtful, that men would be driven to their Church, and to its authority, as the only authority that re mained. As little is the matter advantaged, or in any way brought nearer to a settlement, by sentimen tal appeals to the fact that this, which it is now pro posed to alter, has been the . Scripture of our child hood, in which we and so many generations before us first received the tidings of everlasting life. All this, well as it may deserve to be considered, yet as argu ment at all deciding the question, will sooner or later have to be cleared away ; and the facts of the case, apart from cries, and insinuations, and suggestions of evil motives and appeals to the religious passions and prejudices of the day — apart, too, from feelings which in themselves demand the highest respect — will have to be dealt with in that spirit of seriousness and ear nestness which a matter affecting so profoundly the whole moral and spiritual life of the English people, not to speak of nations which are yet unborn, abun dantly deserves.

In the pages which follow, I propose not mainly to advocate a revision, nor mainly to dissuade one, but to consider rather the actual worth of our present Translation — -its strength, and also any weaknesses which may affect that strength — its beauty, arid also the blemishes which impair that beauty in part — the grounds on which a new revision of it may be do-

12 INTRODUCTORY REMARKS.

manded — the inconveniences, difficulties, the dangers it may be, which would attend such a revision ; and thus, so far as this lies in my power, to assist others, who may not have been able to give special attention to this subject, to form a decision for themselves. I will not, in so doing, pretend that my own mind is entirely in equilibrium on the subject. On the whole, I am persuaded that a revision ought to come ; I am convinced that it will come. Not, however, I would trust, as yet ; for we are not as yet in any respect prepared for it; the Greek and the English which should enable us to bring this to a successful end might, it is to be feared, be wanting alike. Nor cer tainly do I underrate the other difficulties which would beset such an enterprise ; they look, some of them, the more serious to me the more I contemplate them: and yet, believing that this mountain of difficulty will have to be surmounted, I can only trust and believe that it, like so many other mountains, will not on nearer approach prove so formidable as at a distance it appears. Only let the Church, when the due time shall arrive, address herself to this work with earnest prayer for the Divine guidance, her conscience bear ing her witness that in no spirit of idle innovation, that only out of dear love to her Lord and his truth, and out of an allegiance to that truth which overbears every other consideration, witli an earnest longing to present his Word, whereof she is. the guardian, in all its sincerity to her children, she has undertaken this

INTRODUCTORY REMARKS. 13

hard and most perilous task, and in some way or other every difficulty will be overcome. Whatever pains and anxieties the work may cost her, she will feel herself abundantly rewarded if only she is able to offer God's Word to her children, not indeed free from all marks of human infirmity clinging to its out ward form — for we shall have God's treasure in earthen vessels still — but with some of these blem ishes which she now knows of removed, and altogether approaching nearer to that which she desires to see it — namely, a work without spot or wrinkle, or any such thing ; a perfect copy of an archetype that is perfect.

In the meantime, while the matter is still in sus pense and debate — while it occupies, as it needs must, the anxious thoughts of many — it can not misbecome those who have been specially led by their duties or their inclinations to a more close comparison of the English Version with the original Greek, to offer whatever they have to offer, be that little or much, for the helping of others toward a just and dispas sionate judgment, and one founded upon evidence, in regard to the question at issue. And if they consider that a revision ought to come, or, whether desirable or not, that it will come, they must wish to throw in any contribution which they have to make toward the better accomplishment of this object. Assuming that they have any right to mingle in the controversy at all, they may reasonably hope, that even if much which

14 INTRODUCTORY REMARKS.

they bring has long ago been brought forward by others, or must be set aside from one cause or an other, yet that something will remain, and will sur vive that rigid proof to which every suggestion of change should be submitted. And in a matter of such high concernment as this the least is much. To have cast in even a mite into this treasury of the Lord, to have brought one smallest stone which it is permitted to build into the walls of his house, to have detected one smallest blemish that would not otherwise have been removed, to have made in any way whatever a single suggestion of lasting value toward the end here in view, is something for which to be for ever thank ful. It is in that intention, with this hope, that I have ventured to publish these pages.

The work, indeed, which I thus undertake, can not be regarded as a welcome one. There is often a sense of something ungenerous, if not actually unjust, in passing over large portions of our Version, where all is clear, correct, lucid, happy, awaking continual admiration by the rhythmic beauty of the periods, the instinctive art with which the style rises and falls with the subject, the skilful surmounting of difficulties the most real, the diligence with which almost all which was happiest in preceding translations has been retained and embodied in the present ; the constant solemnity and seriousness which, by some nameless skill, is made to rest upon all ; in passing over all this arid much more with a few general words of rec-

INTRODUCTORY RBMARKS. 15

ognition, and then stopping short and urging some single blemish or inconsistency, and dwelling upon and seeming to make much of this, which often in itself is so little. For the flaws pointed out are fre quently so small and so slight, that it might almost seem as if the objector had armed his eye with a mi croscope for the purpose of detecting that which oth erwise would have escaped notice, and which, even if it were faulty, might well have been suffered to pass by, unchallenged and lost sight of in the general beauty of the whole. The work of Momus is never, or at least never ought to be, other than an unwel come one.

Still less do we like the office of faultfinder, when that whose occasional petty flaws we are pointing out, has claims of special gratitude and reverence from us. It seems at once an unthankfulness and almost an im piety to dwell on errors in that to which we for our selves owe so much ; to which the whole religious life of our native land owes so much ; which has been the nurse and fosterer of our national piety for hundreds of years ; which, associated with so much that is sad and joyful, sweet and solemn, in the heart of every one, appeals as much to our affections as to our reason.

But admitting all this, we may still reconcile our selves to this course by such considerations as the fol lowing : and first, that a passing by of the very much which is excellent, with a dwelling on the very little

16 INTRODUCTORY REMARKS.

which is otherwise, lies in the necessity of the task undertaken. What is good, what is perfect, may have, and ought to have, its goodness freely and thankfully acknowledged ; but it offers comparatively little mat ter for observation. It is easy to exhaust the lan guage of admiration, even when that admiration is intelligently and thoughtfully rendered. We are not tempted to pause till we meet with something which challenges dissent, nor can we avoid being mainly occupied with this.

Then, too, if it be urged that many of the objec tions made are small and trivial, it can only be replied that nothing is really small or trivial which has to do with the Word of God, which helps or hinders the exactest setting forth of that Word. That Word lends an importance and a dignity to everything con nected with it. The more deeply we are persuaded of the inspiration of Holy Scripture, the more intol erant we shall be of any lets and hinderances to the arriving at a perfect understanding of that which the mouth of God has spoken. In setting forth his Word in another language from that in which it was first uttered, we may justly desire such an approximation to perfection as the instrument of language — to which, marvellous organ of "mind as it is, there yet cleaves so much of human imperfection — will allow; and this not merely in greatest things, but in smallest.

Nor yet need the occasional shortcomings of our Translators be noted in any spirit of irreverence or

INTRODUCTORY REMARKS. 17

lisparagement. Some of the errors into which they fell were inevitable, and belonged in no proper sense to them more than to the whole age in which they lived — as, for instance, in the matter of the Greek article. Unless we were to demand a miracle, and that their scholarship should have been altogether on a different level from that of their age, this could not have been otherwise. We may reasonably require of such a company of men, undertaking so great a work, that their knowledge should approve itself on a level with the very best which their age could sup ply ; even as it was ; but more than this it would be absurd and unfair to demand. If other of their mis takes might have been avoided, as is plain from the fact that predecessors or contemporaries did avoid them, and yet were not avoided by them, this only shows that the marks of human weakness and infirm ity, which cleave to every work of men, cleave also to theirs. Let me also observe, further, that he who may undertake in any matter to correct them does not in this presumptuously affirm himself a better scholar than they were. He for the most part only draws on the accumulated stores of the knowledge of Greek which have been laboriously got together in the two hundred and fifty years that have elapsed since their work was done ; he only claims to be an inheritor in some sort of the cares specially devoted to the eluci dation of the meaning of Holy Scripture during this period. It would be little to the honor of these ages

18 INTRODUCTORY REMARKS.

if they had made no advances herein ; little to our honor, if we did not profit by their acquisitions. This much premised, I shall proceed to consider our Au thorized Version of the New Testament under certain successive aspects, devoting a chapter to each.

ON THE ENGLISH OF OUR VERSION. 19

CHAPTER II.

ON THE ENGLISH OF THE AUTHORIZED VERSION.

THE first point which I propose to consider is the English in which our Translation is composed. This has been very often, and very justly, the subject of highest commendation ; and if I do not reiterate in words of my own or of others these commendations, it is only because they have been uttered so often and so fully, that it has become a sort of commonplace to repeat them ; one fears to encounter the rebuke which befell the rhetorician of old, who, having made a long and elaborate oration in praise of the strength of Her cules, was asked, " Who has denied it ?" at the close. Omitting, then, to praise in general terms what all must praise, it may yet be worth while to consider a very little in what those high merits, which by the confession of all it possesses, mainly consist ; nor shall I shrink from pointing out what appear to me its oc casional weaknesses and blemishes, the spots upon the sun's face, which impair its perfect beauty. When

20 ON THE ENGLISH OP OUR VERSION.

we seek to measure the value of any style, there are two points which claim to be considered : first, the words themselves ; and then, secondly, the words in their relations to one another, and as modified by those relations ; in brief, the dictionary and the gram mar. Now, I should not hesitate in expressing my conviction that the dictionary of our English Version is superior to the grammar. The first seems to me nearly as perfect as possible, the other not altogether faultless.

In respect of words, we recognise the true delectus verborum on which Cicero* insists so earnestly, and in which so much of the charm of style consists. All the words used are of the noblest stamp, alike re moved from vulgarity and pedantry ; they are neither too familiar, nor on the other side not familiar enough ; they never crawl on the ground, as little are they stilted and far-fetched. And then how happily mixed and tempered are the Anglo-Saxon and Latin voca bles ! No undue preponderance of the latter makes the language remote from the understanding of sim ple and unlearned men. Thus, we do not find in our Version, as in the Rheims, whose authors seem to have put off their loyalty to the English language with their loyalty to the English crown, ' odible' (Rom. i. 30), nor ' impudicity' (Gal. v. 19), nor * longanimity' (2 Tim. iii. 10), nor ' co-inquinations' (2 Pet. ii. 13, 20), nor ' comessations' (Gal. v. 21),

* De Oral., 3, 37.

ON THE ENGLISH OF OUR VERSION. 21

nor ' contristate' (Ephes. iv. 30), nor ' zealatours' (Acts xxi. 20), nor * agnition' (Philem. 6), nor * suasible' (Jam. iii. 17), nor ' domesticals' (1 Tim. v. 8), nor ' rcpropitiate' (Heb. ii. 17).* And yet, while it is thus, there is no extravagant attempt on the other side to put under ban words of Latin or Greek deri vation, where there are not, as very often there could not be, sufficient equivalents for them in the homelier portion of our language ; no affectation of excluding these, which in their measure and degree have as good a right to admission as the most Saxon vocable of them all ; no attempt, like that of Sir John Cheke, who in his version of St. Matthew — in many respects a valuable monument of English — substituted ' hun- dreder' for ' centurion,' ' freshman' for ' proselyte,' 4 gainbirth' (that is, againbirth) for ' regeneration,' with much else of the same kind. The fault, it must be owned, was in the right extreme, but was a fault and affectation no less.

One of the most effectual means by which our Trans lators have attained their happy felicity in diction, while it must diminish to a certain extent their claims

* Where tho word itself which the Rheims translators employ is a perfectly good one, it is yet curious and instructive to observe how often they have drawn on the Latin portion of the language, where we have drawn on the Saxon ; thus, they use ' corporal' where we have 'bodily' (1 Tim. iv. 8), 'incredulity' where we have 'unbelief (Heb. iii. 19, and often), 'precursor' where we have 'forerunner' i/Heb. vi. 20), 'dominator' where we have 'Lord' (Jude 4), 'cogita tion' where we have 'thought' (Luke ix. 46), 'fraternity' where we have 'brotherhood' (1 Pet. ii. 17).

22 ON THE ENGLISH OP OUR VERSION.

to absolute originality, enhances in a far higher de gree their good sense, moderation, and wisdom. I allude to the extent to which they have availed them selves of the work of those who went before them, and incorporated this work into their own, everywhere building, if possible, on the old foundations, and dis placing nothing for the mere sake of change. It has thus come to pass that our Version, besides having its own felicities, is the inheritor of the felicities in language of all the translations which went before. Tyndale's was singularly rich in these, which is the more remarkable, as his other writings do not surpass in beauty or charm of language the average merit of his contemporaries ; and though much of his work has been removed in the successive revisions which our Bible has undergone, very much of it still remains : the alterations are for the most part verbal, while the forms and moulds into which he cast the sentences have been to a wonderful extent* retained by all who succeeded him. And even of his Xs'fig very much sur vives. To him we owe such phrases as " turned to flight the armies of the aliens,"* " the author and fin isher of our faith ;" to him, generally, we owe more than to any single laborer in this field — as, indeed, may be explained partly, though not wholly, from the fact that he was the first to thrust in his sickle into this harvest. Still, while King James's Translators

* It may be said that this is obvious ; yet not so. The Rheims does not get nearer to it than " turned away the camp of foreigners."

ON THE ENGLISH OF OUR VERSION. 23

were thus indebted to those who went before them in the same sacred office, to Tyndale above all, for innu merable turns of successful translation, which they have not failed to adopt and to make their own, it must not be supposed that very many of these were not of their own introduction. A multitude of phrases which, even more than the rest of Scripture, have be come, on account of their beauty and fitness, " house hold words" and fixed utterances of the religious life of the English people, we owe to them, and they first appear in the Version of 1611 ; such, for instance, as "the Captain of our salvation" (Heb. ii. 10), "the sin which doth so easily beset us" (Heb. xii. 1), " the Prince of life" (Acts iii. 15).

But in passing, as I now propose to do, from gen erals to particulars, it is needful to make one prelimi nary observation. He who passes judgment on the English of our Version, he, above all, who finds fault with it, should be fairly acquainted with the English of that age in which this Version appeared. Else he may be very unjust to that which he is judging, and charge it with inexactness of rendering, where indeed it was perfectly exact according to the English of the time, and has only ceased to be so now through sub sequent changes or modifications in the meaning of words. Few, I am persuaded, who have studied our Translation, and tried how far it will bear a strict comparison with the original which it undertakes to represent, but have at times been tempted to make

24 ON THE ENGLISH OF OUR VERSION.

hasty judgments here, and to pass sentences of con demnation which they have afterward, on better knowl edge, seen reason to recall. Certainly, in many places where I once thought our Translators had been want ing in precision of rendering, I now perceive that, according to the English of their own day, their Ver sion is exempt from the faintest shadow of blame. It is quite true that their rendering has become in a certain measure inexact for us, but this from circum stances quite beyond their control — namely, through those mutations of language which never cease, and which cause words innumerable to drift imperceptibly away from those meanings which once they owned. In many cases, no doubt, our Authorized Version, by its recognised authority, by an influence working si lently, but not the less profoundly felt, has given fixity to the meaning of words, which otherwise they would not have possessed, has kept them in their places ; but the currents at work in language have been some times so strong as to overbear even this influence. The most notable examples of the kind which occur to me are the following : —

Matt. vi. 25. — " Take no thought for your life, what ye shall eat, or what ye shall drink." This " take no thought" is certainly an inadequate transla tion in our present English of w ^spi^vSLrs. The words seem to exclude and to condemn that just, forward- looking care which belongs to man, and differences him from the beasts which live only in the present ;

ON THE ENGLISH OF OUR VERSION. 25

and " most English critics have lamented the inadver tence of our Authorized Version, which, in bidding us * take no thought' for the necessaries of life, prescribes to us what is impracticable in itself, and would be a breach of Christian duty even were it possible."* But there is no ' inadvertence' here. When our Transla tion was made, " take no thought" was a perfectly correct rendering of w fxepi/xvar?. ' Thought' was then constantly used as equivalent to anxiety or solicitous care ; as let witness this passage from Bacon :f " Har ris, an alderman in London, was put in trouble, and died with thought and anxiety before his business came to an end ;" or still better, this from one of the Somers Tracts (its date is of the reign of Elizabeth) : " In five hundred years only two queens have died in childbirth. Queen Catherine Parr died rather of thought "$ A better example even than either of these is that occurring in Shakespeare's Julius Ccssar\\ ("take thought and die for Ca3sar"), where " to take thought" is to take a matter so seriously to heart that death ensues.

Luke xiii. 7. — " Why cumbereth it the ground?" ' Cumbereth' seems here too weak and too negative a rendering of xarap/t-r, which is a word implying active, positive mischief; and so no doubt it is in the present acceptation of " to cumber ;" which means no more

* SCRIVENER, Notes on the New Testament, vol. i., p. 162; and cf. Alford, in loco.

t Bistort/ of Henry VI 1. J Vol. i., p. 172. || Act. ii., sc. 1. 9

26 ON THE ENGLISH OF OUR VERSION.

than " to burden." But it was not so always. " To cumber" meant once to vex, annoy, injure, trouble ; Spenser speaks of " cumbrous gnats." It follows that when Bishop Andrews quotes the present passage,* " Why troubleth it the ground ?" (I do not know from whence he derived this ' troubleth,' which is not in any of our translations), and when Coverdale renders it, " Why hindereth it the ground ?" they seem, but are not really, more accurate than our own Transla tors were. The employment by these last of ' cum ber,' at Luke x. 40 (the only other place in the Au thorized Version where the word occurs), is itself decisive of the sense they ascribed to it. nspisovaro (literally " was distracted") is there rendered by them, " was cumbered."!

Acts xvii. 23. — ' Devotions.'' This was a perfectly correct rendering of rf£/3a<j>am at the time our Trans lation was made, although as much can scarcely be affirmed of it now. ' Devotions' is now abstract, and means the mental offerings of the devout worshipper ; it was once concrete, and meant the outward objects

* Works, vol. ii., p. 40.

t I have no doubt that most readers of that magnificent passage in Julius Caesar, where Antony prophesies over the dead body of Caesar the ills of which that murder shall be the cause, give to ' cumber' a wrong sense in the following lines : —

" Domestic fury and fierce civil strife Shall cumber all the parts of Italy."

They understand, shall load with corpses of the slain, or, as we say, ' encumber' — so at least I understood it long. A good, even a grand sense, but it is not Shakespeare's. lie means, shall trouble or .mis chief.

ON THE ENGLISH OP OUR VERSION. 27

to which these were rendered, as temples, altars, im ages, shrines, and the like ; ' Heiligthiimer' De "Wette has very happily rendered it ; cf. 2 Thess. ii. 4, the only other passage in the New Testament where the word occurs, and where we have rendered -ravra Xsyc'fxsvov ©cov t) ctfiatfpa, " all that is called God or that is worshipped." It is such — not the ' devotions' of the Athenians worshipping, but the objects which the Athenians devoutly worshipped — which St. Paul affirms that he ' beheld,' or, as it would be better, " accurately considered" (avadswpuv) : yet the follow ing passage in Sidney's Arcadia will bear out our Translators, and justify their use of ' devotions,' as accurate in their time, though no longer accurate in ours : " Dametas began to look big, to march up and down, swearing by no mean devotions that the walls should not keep the coward from him."

Acts xix. 37. — "Ye have brought hither these men, who are neither robbers of churches, nor blas phemers of your goddess." I long counted this " rob bers of churches," as a rendering of ispo^'Xou^, if not positively incorrect, yet a slovenly and indefensible transfer of Christian language to heathen objects. But it is not so. * Church' is in constant use in early English for heathen and Jewish temples as well as for Christian places of worship. I might quote a large array of proofs, but two will suffice. In the first, which is from Holland's Pliny* the term is ap-

* Vol. ii., p. 502.

28 ON THE ENGLISH OF OUR VERSION.

plied to a heathen temple: "This is that Latona which you see in the Church of Concordia in Rome ;" while in the second, from Sir John Cheke's transla tion of St. Matthew, it is a name given to the temple at Jerusalem : " And lo the veil of the Church was torn into two parts from the top downwards" (Matt. xxvii. 51).

Acts xxi. 15. — " After three days we took up our carriages and went up to Jerusalem." A critic of the early part of this century makes himself merry with these words, and their inaccurate rendering of the original : " It is not probable that the Cilician tent-maker was either so rich or so lazy." And a more modern objector to the truthfulness of the Acts asks, " How could they have taken up their carriages, when there is no road for wheels, nothing but a mountain-track, between Caesarea and Jerusalem ?" But ' carriage' is a constant word in the English of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries* for baggage, being that which men carry, and not, as now, that which carries them. Nor can there be any doubt that it is employed by our Translators here, as also in one or two other passages where it occurs, in this sense (Judg. xviii. 21 ; 1 Sam. xvii. 22) ; and while so understood, the words " took up our carriages" are a very sufficient rendering of the ecirfxEuarfaiiAsvoi of the original. The Geneva has it correctly, though some what quaintly, " trussed up our fardels."

* Set- NORTH'S Plutarch, passim.

ON THE ENGLISH OF OUR VERSION. 29

Ephes. iv. 3. — "Endeavoring- to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace." Passages like this, in which the verb ' endeavor' occurs, will some times seem to have been carelessly and loosely trans lated ; when, indeed, they were rendered with perfect accuracy according to the English of that day. " En deavor," it has been well said, " once denoted all possible tension, the highest energy that could be directed to an object. With us it means the last, feeble, hopeless attempt of a person who knows that he can not accomplish his aim, but makes a conscience of going through some formalities for the purpose of showing that the failure is not his fault."* More than one passage suffers from this change in the force of ' endeavor ;' as 2 Pet. i. 15, and this from the Ephe- sians still more. If we attach to ' endeavor' its pres ent meaning, we may too easily persuade ourselves that the Apostle does no more than bid us to attempt to preserve this unity, and that he quite recognises the possibility of our being defeated in the attempt. He does no such thing ; he assumes success. 2ffou<5a- %ovrss means " giving all diligence," and ' endeavoring* meant no less two centuries and a half ago.

1 Tim. v. 4. — "If any widow have children or nephews." But why, it has been asked, are Ixyova, or descendants, translated ' nephews' here ? and why should ' nephews' be -special-Jy charged with this duty of supporting their relatives ? The answer is that

* Lincoln's Inn Sermons, by F. P. MAURICE, p. 156.

-4

30 ON THE ENGLISH OF OUR VERSION.

* nephews' (= ' nepotes') was the constant word for grandchildren and other lineal descendants, as wit ness the following passages ; this from Hooker : " With what intent they [the apocryphal books] were first published, those words of the nephew of Jesus do plainly signify: 'After that my grandfather Jesus had given himself to the reading of the Law and of the Prophets, he purposed also to write something pertaining to learning and wisdom ;' "* and this from Holland : " The warts, black moles, spots, and freck les of fathers, not appearing at all upon their own children's skin, begin afterward to put forth and show themselves in their nephews, to wit, the children of their sons and daughters."! There is no doubt that ' nephews' is so used here, as also at Judg. xii. 14. Words which, like this, have imperceptibly shifted their meaning, are peculiarly liable to mislead ; though by no fault of the Translators. This one has misled a scholar so accurate as the late Professor Blunt ; who, in his Church of the First Three Centuries, p. 27, has urged the circumstance that in the apos tolic times the duties of piety extended so far, that i children only, but even nephews, were expected to support their aged relations. Words of this character differ from words which have become wholly obsolete. These are like rocks which stand out from the sea ; we are warned of their presence, and there is little danger of our making shipwreck upon them. But

* Ecclesiastical Polity, b. v , c. xx. t Plutarch's Morals, p. 555

ON THE ENGLISH OP OUR VERSION. 31

words like those which have been just cited, as famil iar now as when our Version was made, but employed in quite different meanings from those which they then possessed, are like hidden rocks, which give no notice of their presence, and on which we may be ship wrecked, if I may so say, without so much as being avare of it. It would be manifestly desirable that tbese unnoticed obstacles to our seizing the exact sense of Scripture, obstacles which no carelessness of oir Translators, but which Time in its onward course, hits placed in our way, should, in case of any revision, be removed. " Res fvglunt, vocabvla manent" — tlis is the law of things in their relation to words, and it renders necessary at certain intervals a read justment of the two.

In thus changing that which by the silent changes of time has become liable to mislead, we should only be working in the spirit, and according to the evident intention, which in their time guided the Translators of 1611. They evidently contemplated, as part of their task, the removing from their revision of such words as in the lapse of years had become to their contemporaries unintelligible or misleading. For in stance, ' to depart' no longer meant to separate ; and just as at a later day, in 1661, " till death us depart" was changed in the Marriage Service for that which now stands there, " till death us do part" so in their revision ' separate' was substituted for ' depart* (" depart us from the love of God") at Rom. viii. 39.

32 ON THE ENGLISH OF OUR VERSION.

At Matt, xxiii. 25, we have another example of the same. The words stood there up to the time of the Geneva version, " Ye make clean the outer side of the cup and of the platter ; but within they are full of bribery and excess." ' Bribery,' however, about their time was losing, or had lost, its meaning of rapine or extortion — was, therefore, no longer a fit rendering of Ofifa-yr, ; the ' bribour' or ' briber' was not equivi- lent to the robber : they, therefore, did wisely and well in exchanging ' bribery' for ' extortion' here. They dealt in the same spirit with ' noisome' at 1 Tin. vi. 9. In the earlier versions of the English Churci, and up to their revision, it stood, " They that will IB rich fall into temptation and snares, and into manj foolish and noisome (/3Xa/3sp<x.c) lusts." ' Noisome,' that is, when those translations were made, was sim ply equivalent to noxious or hurtful ;* but in the be ginning of the seventeenth century it was acquiring a new meaning, the same which it now retains, namely, that of exciting disgust rather than that of doing act ual hurt or harm. Thus, a tiger would have been ' noisome' in old English, a skunk or a polecat would be ' noisome' in modern. Here was reason enough for the change which they made.

Indeed, our only complaint against them in this matter is, that they did not carry out this side of

* " He [the superstitious person] is persuaded that they be gods indeed, but such as be noisome, hurtful, and doing mischief unto men." — HOLLAND, Plutarch's Morals, p. 260.

ON THE ENGLISH OF OUR VERSION. 33

their revision consistently and to the full. For in stance, in respect of this very word, they have suffered it to remain in some other passages, from which, also, it should have disappeared. Three or four of these occur in the Old Testament, as Job xxxi. 40 ; Ps. xci. 3 ; Ezek. xiv. 21 ; only one in the New, Rev. xvi. 2 ; where xaxov eXxo? is certainly not " a noisome sore" in our sense of ' noisome,' that is, offensive or disgusting, but an ' evil,' or, as the Rheims has it, " a cruel sore." It is the same with ' by-and-by.' This, when they wrote, was ceasing to mean immediately. The inveterate procrastination of men had caused it to designate a remoter term ; even as ' presently' does not any longer mean, at this present, but, in a little while ; and " to intend anything" is not now, to do it, but to mean to do it. They did well, therefore, that in many cases, as at Mark ii. 12, they did not leave ' by-and-by' as a rendering of tittus and sl6(/s ; but they would have done still better if they had removed it in every case. In four places (Matt. xiii. 21 ; Mark vi. 25 ; Luke xvii. 7 ; xxi. 9) they have suffered it to remain. Again, ' to grudge' was ceasing in their time to have the sense of, to murmur openly, and was already signifying to repine inwardly ; a ' grudge' was no longer an open utterance of discontent and displeasure at the dealings of another,* but a secret resentment

* " Yea, without grudging Christ suffered the cruel Jews to crown Him with most sharp thorns, and to strike him with a reed." — Ex amination of William Thorpe, in Fox's Book of Martyrs.

9*

34 ON THE ENGLISH OP OUR VERSION.

thereupon entertained. It was only proper, therefore, that they should replace ' to grudge' by ' to murmur,' and a ' grudge' by-a ' murmuring,' in such passages as Mark xiv. 5 ; Acts vi. 1. On two occasions, however, they have, suffered ' grudge' to stand, where it no longer conveys to us with accuracy the meaning of the origi nal, and even in their time must have failed to do so. These are 1 Pet. iv. 9, where they render avs " without grudging ;" and Jam. v. 9, where is rendered " Grudge not." These renderings were inherited from their predecessors, but the retention of them was an oversight.

On another occasion, our Translators have failed to carry out to the full the substitution of a more appro priate phrase for one which, indeed, in the present instance, could have been at no time worthy of praise, or other than more or less misleading ; I allude to Acts xii. 4 : " Intending after Easter to bring him forth to the people." They plainly felt that ' Easter,' which had designated first a heathen, and then a Chris tian festival, was not happily used to set forth a Jew ish feast, even though that might occupy the same place in the Jewish calendar which Easter occupied in the Christian ; and they therefore removed ' Easter' from places out of number, where in the earlier ver sion it had stood as the rendering of nu<r^«, substitu ting ' passover' in its room. With all this they have suffered ' Easter' to remain in this single passage — sometimes, I am sure, to the perplexity of the English

ON THE ENGLISH OP OUR VERSION. 35

reader. * Jewry' in like manner, which lias been re placed by ' Judaea' almost everywhere, has yet been allowed, I must needs believe by the same oversight, twice to remain (Luke xxiii. 5 ; John vii. 1).

In dealing with obsolete words, the case is not by any means so plain. And yet it does not seem diffi cult to lay down a rule here ; the difficulties would mainly attend its application. The rule would seem to me to be this : Where words have become perfectly unintelligible to the great body of those for whom the translation is made, the ISi^rai of the Church, they ought clearly to be exchanged for others ; for the Bible works not as a charm, but as reaching the heart and conscience through the intelligent faculties of its hearers and readers. Thus it is with ' taches,' ' ouches,' * boiled,' * ear' (arare), ' daysman,' in the Old Testa ment, words dark even to scholars, where their schol arship is rather in Latin and Greek than in early English. Of these, however, there is hardly one in the New Testament. There is, indeed, in it no incon siderable amount of archaism, but standing on a quite different footing ; words which, while they are felt by our people to be old and unusual, are yet, if I do not deceive myself, perfectly understood by them, by wise and simple, educated and uneducated alike. These, shedding round the sacred volume tho rever ence of age, removing it from the ignoble associations which will often cleave to the language of the day, should on no account be touched, but rather thank-

36 ON THE ENGLISH OF OUR VERSION.

fully accepted and carefully preserved. For, indeed, it is good that the phraseology of Scripture should not be exactly that of our common life ; should be re moved from the vulgarities, and even the familiarities, of this ; just as there is a sense of fitness which dic tates that the architecture of a church should be dif ferent from that of a house.

It might seem superfluous to urge this ; yet it is far from being so. It is well-nigh incredible what words it has been sometimes proposed to dismiss from our Version, on the ground that they " are now almost or entirely obsolete." Symonds thinks " clean escaped" (2 Pet. ii. 18) " a very low expression ;" and, on the plea of obsoleteness, Wemyss proposed to get rid of ' straightway,' ' haply,' ' twain,' * athirst,' ' wax,' 'lack,' ' ensample,' 'jeopardy,' 'garner,' 'passion,' with a multitude of other words not a whit more apart from our ordinary use. Purver, whose New and Literal Translation of the Old and New Testa ment appeared in 1764, has an enormous list of ex pressions that are " clownish, barbarous, base, hard, technical, misapplied, or new coined ;" and among these are * beguile,' ' boisterous,' ' lineage,' ' perse verance,' ' potentate,' ' remit,' ' seducers,' ' shorn,' ' swerved,' ' vigilant,' ' unloose,' ' unction,' ' vocation.' For each of these (many hundreds in number) he pro poses to substitute some other.

This retaining of the old diction in all places where a higher interest, tljat? namely, of being understood

ON THE ENGLISH OF OUR VERSION. 37

by all, did not imperatively require the substitution of another phrase, would be most needful, not merely for the reverence which attaches to it, and for the avoiding every unnecessary disturbance in the minds of the people, but for the shunning of another and not a trivial harm. Were the substitution of new for old carried out to any large extent, this most injurious consequence would follow, that our Translation would be no longer of a piece, not any more one web and woof, but in part English of the seventeenth century, in part English of the nineteenth. Now, granting that nineteenth-century English is as good as seventeenth, of which there may be very serious doubts, still they are not the same ; the differences between them are considerable : some of these we can explain, others we must be content only to feel. But even those who could not explain any part of them would yet be con scious of them, would be pained by a sense of incon gruity, of new patches on an old garment, and the one failing to agree with the other. Now, all will admit that it is of vast importance that the Bible of the nation should be a book capable of being read with delight — I mean quite apart from its higher claim as God's Word to be read with devoutest rev erence and honor. It can be so read now. But the sense of pleasure in it, I mean merely as the first English classic, would be greatly impaired by any alterations which seriously affected the homogeneous- ness of its style. And this, it must be remembered,

38 ON THE ENGLISH OP OUR VERSION.

is a danger altogether new, one which did not at all beset the former revisions. From Tyndale's first edi tion of his New Testament in 1526 to the Authorized Version there elapsed in all but eighty-five years, and this period was divided into four or five briefer por tions by Cranmer's, Coverdale's, the Geneva, the Bish ops' Bible, which were published in the interval be tween one date and the other. But from the date of King James's Translation (1611) to the present day nearly two hundred and fifty years have elapsed ; and more than this time, it is to be hoped, will have elapsed before any steps are actually taken in this matter. When we argue for the facilities of revision now from the facilities of revision on previous occasions, we must not forget that the long period of time which has elapsed since our last revision, so very much longer than lay between any of the preceding, has in many ways immensely complicated the problem, has made many precautions necessary now which would have been superfluous then.*

* It is an eminent merit in the Revision of the Authorized Version by Five Clergymen, of which the Gospel of St. John and the Epistle to the Romans have already appeared, that they have not merely urged by precept, but shown by proof, that it is possible to revise our Ver sion, and at the same time to preserve unimpaired the character of the English in whieh it is composed. Nor is it only on this account that we may accept this work as by far the most hopeful contribution which we have yet had to the solution of a great and difficult problem ; but also as showing that where reverent hands touch that building, which some would have wholly pulled down that it might be wholly bui t up again, these find only the need of here and there replacing a stonj which had been incautiously built into the wall, or which, trust- v/u; thy material once, has now yielded to t!ic lap.se and injury of time,

ON THE ENGLISH OF OUR VERSION. 39

Certainly, too, when we read what manner of stuff is offered to us in exchange for the language of our Authorized Version, we learn to prize it more highly than ever. Indeed, we hardly know the immeasura ble worth of its religious diction till we set this side by side with what oftentimes is proffered in its room. Thus, not to speak of some suggested changes which would be positively offensive, we should scarcely be gainers in perspicuity or accuracy, if for James i. 8, which now stands, " A double-minded man is unstable in all his ways," we were to read, " A man unsteady in his opinions is unconstant in all his actions" (We- myss). Neither would the gain be very evident, if, " I have a baptism to be baptized with" (Luke xii. 50) gave place to, "I have an immersion to undergo." — " Wrath to come" we may well be contented to re tain, though we are offered " impending vengeance" in its place. " In chambering and wantonness" would not be improved, even though we were to substitute for it " in unchaste and immodest gratifications." Dr. Campbell's work " On the Four Gospels" contains dis sertations which have their value ; yet the advantage would not be great of superseding Mark vi. 19, 20, as it now stands, by the following : " This roused Hero- while they leave the building itself in its main features and framework untouched. Differing as the Revisers occasionally do even among themselves, they will not wonder that others sometimes differ from the conclusions at which they have arrived; but there can, I think, be no difference upon this point, namely, that their work deserves the most grateful recognition of the Church.

40 ON THE ENGLISH OF OUJi VERSION.

dias' resentment, who would have killed John ; but could not, because Herod respected him, and, know ing him to be a just and holy man, protected him, and did many things recommended by him, and heard him with pleasure." I have only seen quoted in a news paper, and, therefore, it may possibly be a jest, that in the American Bible Union's Improved Version such improvements as the following occur : " That in the name of Jesus, every knee should bend of heaveulies, and of earthlies, and of infernals" (Phil. ii. 4) ; " Ye have put on the young man" (Col. iii. 10). Of Har- wood's Literal Translation of the New Testament (London, 1768) and the follies of it, not far from blasphemous, it is unnecessary to give any example.

When we consider, not the words of our Version one by one, but the words in combination, as they are linked to one another, and by their position influence and modify one another ; in short, the accidence and the syntax, this, being good, is yet not so good as the selection of the words themselves. There are, un doubtedly, inaccuracies and negligences here. Bishop Lowth long ago pointed out several faults in the gram matical construction of sentences ;* and although it must be confessed that now and then he is hypercriti cal, and that his objections will not stand, yet others which he has not pressed would be found to supply the place of those which must therefore be withdrawn.

* In his Sliurt Introduction to English Grammar.

ON THE ENGLISH OF OUR VERSION. 41

But here, too, and before entering on this matter, there is room for the same observation which was made in respect of the words of our Translation. Many charges have here also been lightly, some igno- rantly, made. Our Translators now and then appear ungrammatical, because they give us, as they needs must, the grammar of their own day, and not the grammar of ours. It is curious to find Bishop New- come* taking them to task for using ' his' or ' her,' where they ought to have used l its ;' as in such pas sages as the following : " But if the salt have lost his savor, wherewith shall it be salted ?" (Matt. v. 13.) " Charity doth not behave itself unseemly, seeketh not her own." (1 Cor. xiii. 5 ; cf. Rev. xxii. 2.) " This sometimes," he says, " introduces strange confusion." But this confusion, as he calls it, when they wrote was inevitable, or at least could only be avoided by cir cumlocutions, as by the use of ' thereof.' Nor, more over, did this usage present itself as any confusion of masculine and neuter, or of personal and impersonal, at the time when our Translators wrote ; for then that very serviceable, but often very inharmonious, little word, ' its,' as a genitive of ' it,' had not appeared, or had only just appeared, timidly and rarely, in the language,! and ' his' was quite as much a neuter as a masculine.

* Historical View of the English Biblical Translations. Dublin, 1792, p. 289.

t I have elsewhere entered on this matter somewhat more fully (English Past and Present, 3d ed., p. 124 sqq.), and have there ob-

42 ON THE ENGLISH OF OUIt VERSION.

Others have in other points found fault with the grammar of our Version, where, in like manner, they " have condemned the guiltless," their objections fre quently serving only to reveal their own unacquaint- ance with the history and past evolution of their na tive tongue — an unacquaintance excusable enough in others, yet hardly in those who set themselves up as critics and judges in so serious and solemn a matter as is here brought into judgment. This ignorance is, indeed, sometimes surprising. Thus. Wemyss* com plains of a false concord at Rev. xviii. 17 : " For in one hour so great riches is come to nought." He did not know that ' riches' is properly no plural at all, and the final 's' in it no sign of a plural, but belong ing to the word, in its French form, 'richesse,' and that ' riches' has only become a plural, as ' alms' and 1 eaves' are becoming such, through our forgetfulness of this fact. When Wiclif wants a plural, lie adds another ' s,' and writes ' richessis' (Rom. ii. 4 ; Jam. v. 2). It is true that at the time when our Version

served that ' its' nowhere occurs in our Authorized Version. Lev. xx. 5 ("of its own accord") has been since urged as invalidating mv assertion ; but does not do so really : for reference to the first, or in deed to any of the early editions, will show that in them the passage stood " of it own accord." Nor is 'it' here a misprint for ' its ;' for we have exactly the same " by it own accord" in the Geneva Version, Acts xii. 10; and in other English books of the beginning of the sev enteenth century, which never employ ' its.' There is a fuller treat ment of this word and the first appearance of it, in Mr. Craik's very valuable work, On the English of Shakespeare, p. 91, and I should desire what I have written on the matter to be read with the correc-. tions which he supplies. * Biblical, Gleaningt, p. 212.

ON THE ENGLISH OF OUR VERSION. 43

was made, ' riches' was already commonly regarded and dealt with as a plural ; it is there generally so used, and therefore it would have been better if, for consistency's sake, they had so used it here ; but there is no grammatical error in the case, any more than when Shakespeare writes, " The riches of the ship is come to shore." The same objector finds fault with " asked an alms" (Acts iii. 8), and suggests, " asked some alms" in its room, evidently on the same as sumption that ' alms' is a plural. Neither can he tolerate our rendering of 1 Tim. v. 23 : " Use a little wine for thine often infirmities ;" but complains of ' often,' an adverb, here used as though it were an adjective, while, indeed, the adjectival use of ' oft,' ' often,' surviving still in ' q/Ktimes,' ' oftentimes,' is the primary, the adverbial merely secondary.

But all frivolous, ungrounded objections set aside, there will still remain a certain number of passages where the grammatical construction is capable of im provement. In general the very smallest alteration will set everything right. These are some : —

Heb. v. 8. — " Though He were a Son, yet learned He obedience by the things which He suffered." If the Apostle had been putting a possible hypothetical case, this would be correct ; for example, " Though He slay me, yet will I trust in Him" (Job xiii. 15), is without fault. But here, on the contrary, he is assuming a certain conceded fact, that Christ was a Son, and though He i''as such, yet in this way of suf-

44 ON THE ENGLISH OF OUR VERSION.

fering He learned obedience. ' Though' is here a concessive, conditional particle, the Latin ' etsi' or ' etiamsi' as followed by an indicative, and should have itself been followed by such in our Version. It ought to be, " Though He was a Son," <fec.

John ix. 31. — "If any man be a worshipper of God, and doeth his will, him He heareth." As in the passage just noted, we have a subjunctive instead of an indicative, an actual objective fact dealt with as though it were only a possible subjective conception, so here we have just the converse, an indicative in stead of a subjunctive. It is true that in modern English the subjunctive is so rapidly disappearing, that " If any man doeth his will" might very well pass. Still it was an error when our Translators wrote ; and there is, at any rate, an inconcinnity in allowing the indicative ' doeth,' in the second clause of the sentence, to follow the subjunctive ' be' in the first, both equally depending upon 'if;' one would gladly, therefore, see a return to "do his will/' which stood in Tyndale's version.

Matt. xvi. 15. — " Whom say ye that I am ?" The English is faulty here. It ought plainly to be, " Who say ye that I am ?" as is evident if only ; who' be put last : " Ye say that I am who ?" The Latin idiom, " Quern me esse dicitis ?" probably led our Transla tors, and all who went before them, astray. Yet the cases are not in the least parallel. If the English idiom had allowed the question to assume this shape,

ON THE ENGLISH OF OUR VERSION. 45

" Whom say ye me to be ?" then the Latin form would have been a true parallel, and also a safe guide ; the accusative ' whom,"1 not, indeed, as governed by ' say,' but as corresponding to the accusative ' mej being then the only correct case, as the nominative * who,' to answer to the nominative ' I,' is the only correct one in the passage as it now stands. The mistake repeats itself on several occasions : thus, at Matt, xvi. 13 ; Mark viii. 27, 29 ; Luke ix. 18, 20 ; Acts xiii. 25.

Heb. ix. 5. — " And over it the Cherubims of glory." But ' Cherubim' being already plural, it is excess of expression to add another, an English plural, to the Hebrew, which our Translators on this one occasion of the word's occurrence in the New Testament, and constantly in the Old. have done. " Cherubiws of glory," as it is in the Geneva and Rheims versions, is intelligible and quite unobjectionable. The Hebrew singular is then dealt with as a naturalized English word, forming an English plural ; just as there would be nothing to object to ' automatons' or ' terminuses,' which ultimately, no doubt, will be the plurals of ' automaton' and ' terminus ;' but there would be much to ' automatas' or ' terminis,' or to ' erratas,' though, strangely enough, we find this in Jeremy Taylor, as we do * synonymas' in Mede. It might be free to use either ' geniuses' or ' genii' as the plural of ' genius' (we do, in fact, employ both, though in different senses), but not ' gcniis ;' and it is exactly this sort of error into which our Translators have here fillen.

46 ON THE ENGLISH OF OUR VERSION.

Rev. xxi. 12. — " And had a wall great and high." The verb ' had' is here without a nominative. All that is necessary is to return to Wiclif ' s translation : " And it had a wall great and high."

Again, we much regret the frequent use of adjec tives ending in ' ly,' as though they were adverbs. This termination, being that of so great a number of our adverbs, easily lends itself to the mistake, and at the same time often serves to conceal it. Thus, our Translators at 1 Cor. xiii. 5 say of charity, that it " doth not behave itself unseemly" Now this, at first hearing, does not sound to many as an error, because the final ' ly' of the adjective ' unseemly' causes it to pass with them as though it were an adverb. But substitute another equivalent adjective ; say, " doth not behave itself improper" or " doth not behavo itself unbefitting" and the violation of the laws of grammar makes itself felt at once. Compare Tit. ii. 12 : " soberly, righteously, and godly in this present world." It ought to be ' godlily' here, as ' unseem- lily' in the other passage ; or if this repetition of the final ' ly' is unpleasing to the ear, as indeed it is, then some other word should be sought. The error recurs in 2 Tim. iii. 12 ; Jude 15 ; and is not unfrequent in the Prayer Book. Thus, we find it in the thirty-sixth Article : " We decree all such to be rightly, orderly, and lawfully consecrated."*

* It is curious to note how frequent the errors are arising from the same cause. Thus, I remember meeting in Fox's Book of Mar-

ON THE ENGLISH OF OUR VERSION. 47

Should a revision of our Version ever be attempted, it seems to me that the same principle should rule in dealing with archaic forms as I have sought to lay down in respect of archaic words. Nothing but ne cessity should provoke alteration. Thus, there can be no question that our old English preterites, ' clave,' 1 drave,' ' sware,' ' brake,' ' strake,' should stand. They are as good English now as they were two centuries and a half ago : they create no perplexity in the minds of any ; while at the same time they profitably differ ence the language of Scripture from the language of common and every-day life. But it is otherwise, as it seems to me, with archaisms which are in positive opposition to the present usage of the English tongue. Thus, ' his' and ' her' should be replaced by ' its,' at such passages as Matt. v. 13 ; Mark ix. 50 ; Luke xiv. 34 ; Rev. xxii. 2 ; 1 Cor. xiii. 5 ; which might be done almost without exciting the least observation ; so also ' which' by ' who,' wherever a person and not a thing is referred to. This, too, might be easily done, for

tyrs (I have not the exact reference) the words, "if this be perpend." Here it is clear that Fox was for the mpment deceived by the termi nation of 'perpend,' so like the usual t2rmination of the past parti ciple; and did not observe that he ought to have written, "if this be perpended." In our own day Tennyson treats 'eaves' as if the final 's' were the sign of the*plural, which being dismissed, one might have 'cave' for a singular; and he writes the " cottage eave." But 'eaves' ('efese' in the Anglo-Saxon) is itself the singular. With the same momentary inadvertence Lord Macaulay deals with the final ' s' in ' Cyclops' as though it were the plural sign, and speaks in one of the late volumes of his history of a 'Cyclop;' and pages might be filled with mistakes which have their origin in similar causes.

48 ON THE ENGLISH OF OUR VERSION.

our Translators have no certain law here ; for instance, in the last chapter of the Romans, ' which' occurs seven times, referring to a person or persons, ' who' exactly as often. The only temptation to retain this use of ' which' would be to mark by its aid the distinction between S<fn$ and 5.c, so hard to seize in English. At the same time a retention with this view would itself involve many changes, seeing that our Translators did not turn ' which' to this special service, but for oV and o'ovis employed ' who' and * which' quite promiscuously. But upon this part of my subject that which has been said must suffice.

ON SOME QUESTIONS OF TRANSLATION. 49

CHAPTER III.

ON SOME QUESTIONS OF TRANSLATION.

How many questions at once present themselves, many among them of an almost insuperable difficulty in their solution, so soon as it is attempted to transfer any great work from one language into another ! Let it be only some high and original work of human ge nius, the Divina Commedia, for instance, and how many problems, at first sight seeming insoluble, and which only genius can solve, even it being often con tent to do so imperfectly, to evade rather than to solve them, at once offer themselves to the translator !* The loftier and deeper, the more original a poem or other composition may be, the more novel and unusual the sphere in which it moves, by so much the more these difficulties will multiply. They can therefore nowhere be so many and so great as in the rendering

* Only to few translators, and to them only on rare occasions, is it given to deserve the magnificent pniise which Jerome gives to Hilary, and to his translations from the Greek (Ep., 33) : " Quasi captivos sensus in suam linguam victoris jure transposuit."

3

50 ON SOME QUESTIONS OF TRANSLATION.

of that Book which is sole of its kind ; which reaches far higher heights and far deeper depths than any other ; which has words of God and not of man for its substance ; while the importance of success or fail ure, with the far-reaching issues which will follow on the one or the other, sinks in each other case into ab solute insignificance as compared with their impor tance here.

Thus, the missionary translator, if he be at all aware of the awful implement which he is wielding, of the tremendous crisis in a people's spiritual life which has arrived, when their language is first made the vehicle of revealed truths, will often tremble at the work he has in hand ; tremble lest he should be permanently lowering or confusing the whole religious life of a people, by choosing a meaner and letting go a nobler word for the setting forth of some leading truth of redemption. Even those who are wholly ignorant of Chinese can yet perceive how vast the spiritual inter ests which are at stake in China, how much will be won, or how much lost, for the whole spiritual life of that people, it may be for ages to come, according as the right or the wrong word is selected by the trans lators of the Scriptures into Chinese for expressing the true and the living God.* As many of us as are igno rant of the language can be no judges in the contro versy which on this matter is being carried on, but

* See the Rev. S. C. Malan's Who is God in China, Shin or Shang- tet

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we can all feel how enormous the interests which are at stake.

And even where the issues are not so vast and awful as in this case, how much may turn on having or not having the appropriate word ! Very often there is none such ; and some common, some profane word has to be seized, and set apart, and sanctified, and gradually to be impregnated with a higher and ho lier meaning than any which, before its adoption into this sacred service, it knew. Sometimes, when the trans fer is being made into a language which has already received a high development, the embarrassment will not be this, but the opposite to this. Two, or it may be more, words will present themselves — each inade quate, yet each with its own advantages, so that it shall be exceedingly difficult for the most skilful mas ter of language to determine which ought to be pre ferred. Thus, it was not indifferent whether Adyof should be rendered in ecclesiastical Latin ' Sermo' or ' Verbum.' The fact that ' Verbum' has from the be ginning been the predominant rendering, and that ' Verbum' is a neuter impersonal, possessing no such mysterious duplicity of meaning as Adyos, which is at once the ' Word' and the ' Reason,' has, I do not hesi tate to affirm, modified the whole development of Latin theology in respect of the personal " Word of God." I do not, indeed, believe that the advantages which in ' Verbum' are lost, would have been secured by the choosing of ' Sermo' rather ; any gains from this would

52 ON SOME QUESTIONS OP TRANSLATION.

have been accompanied by more than countervailing losses. I can not, therefore, doubt that the Latin Church did wisely and well in preferring ' Verbum' to ' Sermo ;' indeed, it ultimately quite disallowed the latter ; but still the doubts and hesitation which ex isted for some time upon this point* illustrate well the difficulty of which I am speaking.

Or take another question, not altogether unlike this. Was the old ' pcenitentia,' or the ' resipiscen- tia,' which some of the Reformers sought to introduce in its room, the better rendering of fxeravoia ? should fASTavosirs be rendered ' poenitete' or ' resipiscite' ?f The Roman Catholic theologians found great fault with Beza, that instead of the ' prenitentia,' hallowed by long ecclesiastical usage, and having acquired a certain prescriptive right by its long employment in the Vulgate, he, in his translation of Scripture, sub stituted ' resipiscentia.' Now Beza, and those who stood with him in this controversy, were assuredly right in replying, that while a serious displeasure on the sinner's part at his past life is an important ele ment in all true /xfravoia or repentance, still ' poeniten- tia' is at fault, in that it brings out nothing but this, leaves the changed mind for the time to come, which is the central idea of the original word, altogether unexpressed and untouched ; that, moreover, ' resipi-

* See Petavius, De Trin., vi., 1. 4.

t See Fred. Spanheim's Dub. Evangelica, pars 3% dub. vii. ; Camp bell, On the Four Gospels, vol. i., p. 292, sqq.

ON SOME QUESTIONS OF TRANSLATION. 53

scentia' was no such novelty, Lactantius having al ready shown the way in a rendering with which now so much fault was found. Taking his ground rigidly on etymology, Beza was quite right ; but it was also true, which he did not take account of, that /xeravoia, even before it had been assumed into scriptural usage, and much more after, had acquired a superadded sense of regret for the past, or ' hadiwist' (had-I-wist), as our ancestors called it ; which, if ' prenitentia' seemed to embody too exclusively, his ' resipiscentia,' making at least as serious an omission, hardly embod ied at all. On the whole, I can not but think that it would have been better to leave ' pcenitentia' undis turbed, while yet how much on either side there was here to be urged !

It may be worth while to consider a little in what ways our own Translators have sought to overcome some of these difficulties of translation, which have met them, as they have met all others, so to speak, on the threshold of their work. Of course, wherever they acquiesced in preceding solutions of these diffi culties, they adopted and made them their own ; and we have a right to deal with them as responsible for such.

Let us take, first, a question which in all transla tion is constantly recurring — this, namely: In what manner ought technical words of the one language, which have no exact equivalents in the other, to be rendered ; measures, for instance, of wet and dry, as

54 ON SOME QUESTIONS OP TRANSLATION.

the /3<x<ro£ and wpo; of Luke xvi. 6, 7 ; the p&rpirfa of John ii. 6 ; coins, such as the Mdpaxpw of Matt. xvii. 24 ; the orar^ of Matt. xvii. 27 ; the &pa.w*> °f Luke xv. 8 ; titles of honor and authority which have long since ceased to be, and to which, at best, only remote resemblances now exist, as the ygawa.rsjs and vjwxo'poj of Acts xix. 35 ; the 'Acriap^ai of the same chapter, ver. 31 ; the d.v6(iirctro$ of Acts xiii. 7 ?

The ways in which such words may be dealt with reduce themselves to four, and our Translators, by turns, have recourse to them all. The first, which is only possible when the etymology of the word is clear and transparent, is to seize this, and to produce a new technical word which shall utter over again in the language of the translation what the original word uttered to its own. This course was chosen when they rendered i'Aps.os irayos, " Mars-hill" (Acts xvii. 22), AiOdflv^urov, ' the Pavement' (John xix. 13) ; when Sir John Cheke rendered Ixowdvrot^os, ' hundreder' (Matt. viii. 5), rfeXrivia^ofu'voj, 'mooned' (Matt. iv. 24). But the number of words which allow of this repro duction is comparatively small. Of many the etymol ogy is lost ; many others do not admit the formation of a corresponding word in another language. This scheme, therefore, whatever advantages it may possess, can of necessity be very sparingly applied.

Another method, then, is to choose some generic word, such as must needs exist in both languages, the genus of which the word to be rendered is the species,

ON SOME QUESTIONS OF TRANSLATION. 55

and, without attempting any more accurate designa tion, to employ this. Our Translators have frequently taken this course ; they have done so, rendering /3a«ro£, xdpocr, x&""£. alike by ' measure' (Luke xvi. 6, 7 ; Rev. vi. 6), with no endeavors to mark the capacity of the measure ; fya^u*) by " piece of silver" (Luke xv. 8), <fTarr,p by " piece of money" (Matt. xvii. 27), dvMrtaros by 'deputy' (Acts xiii. 8), <f<rga.<rr)yoi by 'magistrates' (Acts xvi. 2^), fjt^oj by "wise men" (Matt. ii. 1). A manifest disadvantage which attends this course is the want of a close correspondence between the origi nal and the copy, a certain vagueness which is given to the latter, with the obliteration of strongly-marked lines.

Or, thirdly, they may seek out some special word in the language into which the translation is being made, which shall be more or less an approximative equivalent for that in whose place it stands. We have two not very happy illustrations of this scheme in ' town-clerk,' as the rendering of /pa/A^are^ (Acts xix. 35), ' Easter' as that of nitf^a (Acts xii. 4). The turning of ~ Agrees into 'Diana' (Acts xix. 24), of 'Epfjujc; into ' Mercurius' (Acts xiv. 12), are, in fact, other examples of the same, although our Translators themselves, no doubt, were not aware of it, seeing that in their time the essential distinction between the Greek and the Italian mythologies, and the fact that the names of the deities in the former were only adapted with more or less fitness to the deities of the

56 ON SOME QUESTIONS OF TRANSLATION.

latter, was unknown even to scholars. This method of translating has its own serious drawback, that, al though it often gives a distinct and vigorous, yet it runs the danger of conveying a more or less false, impression. Except by a very singular felicity, and one which will not often occur, the word selected, while it conveys some truth, must also convey some error bound up with the truth. Thus, xo5pavrrlS is not a ' farthing' (Mark xii. 42), nor drivapm a ' penny* (Matt. xx. 2), nor ^srpr^s a 'firkin' (John ii. 6); not, I mean, our farthing, or penny, or firkin. So, too, if " piece of money" is a vague translation of Spy.^^ (Luke xv. 8), Wiclif 's ' bezant' and Tyndale's ' grote' involve absolute error. Add to this the dan ger that the tone and coloring of one time and age may thus be substituted for that of another, of the modern world for the ancient, as when Holland, in his translation of Livy, constantly renders " Pontifex Maximus" by ' Archbishop,' and it will be seen that the inconveniences attending this course are not small. There remains only one other way possible : To take the actual word of the original, and to transplant it unchanged, or at most with a slight change in the termination, into the other tongue, in the trust that time and use will, little by little, cause the strange ness of it to disappear, and that its meaning will grad ually be acquired even by the unlearned reader. We have done this in respect of many Hebrew words in the Old Testament, as ' Urim,' ' Thummim,' ' ephod,'

ON SOME QUESTIONS OF TRANSLATION. 57

' shekel,' ' cherub,' ' seraphim,' ' cor,' ' bath,' ' ephah ;' and with some Greek in the New, as ' tetrarch,' ' prose lyte,' 'Paradise,' 'pentecost,' 'Messias;' or, by adopting these words from preceding translations have acqui esced in the fitness of this course. The disadvantage of it evidently is, that in many cases the adopted word continues always an exotic for the mass of the people : it never tells its own story to them, nor be comes, so to speak, transparent with its own meaning.

It is impossible to adhere rigidly and constantly to any one of these devices for representing the things of one condition of society by the words of another ; they must all in their turn be appealed to, even as they all will be found barely sufficient. Our Trans lators have employed them all. Their inclination, as compared with others, is perhaps toward the second, the least ambitious, but at the same time the safest, of these courses. Once or twice they have chosen it when one of the other ways appears manifestly pref erable, as in their rendering of dv^Varo? by ' deputy' (Acts xiii. 7, 8, 12), ' proconsul' being ready made to their hands, with Wiclif 's authority for its use.

There is another question, doubtless a perplexing one, which our Translators had to solve ; I confess that I much regret the solution at which they have arrived. It was this : how should they deal with the Hebrew proper names of the Old Testament, which had gradually assumed a form somewhat different from their original on the lips of Greek-speaking Jews, and

3*

58 ON SOME QUESTIONS OF TRANSLATION.

which appeared in these their later Hellenistic forms in the New Testament ? Should they bring them back to their original shapes ? or suffer them to stand in their later deflections ? Thus, meeting 'HXi'of in the Greek text, should they render it ' Elias' or ' Elijah' ? I am persuaded that for the purpose of keeping vivid and strong the relations between the Old and New Testament in the minds of the great body of English hearers and readers of Scripture, they should have recurred to the Old Testament names ; which are not merely the Hebrew, but also the English names, and which, therefore, had their right to a place in the English text ; that 'HXi'aj, for instance, should have been translated into that which is not merely its He brew, but also its English equivalent, ' Elijah,' and so ' with the others. Let us just seek to realize to our selves the difference in the amount of awakened atten tion among a country congregation, which Matt. xvii. 10 would create, if it were read thus, " And his dis ciples asked him, saying, Why then say the Scribes that Elijah must first come ?" as compared with what it now is likely to create. As it is, we have a double nomenclature, and as respects the unlearned members of the Church, a sufficiently perplexing one, for a large number of the kings and prophets, and other personages, of the earlier Covenant. Not to speak of ' Elijah' and ' Elias,' we have ' Elisha' and ' Eliseus,' ' Hosea' and ' Osee,' ' Isaiah' and ' Esaias,' ' Uzziah' and ' Ozias,' ' Hezekiah' and ' Ezechias,' ' Korah' and

ON SOME QUESTIONS OP TRANSLATION. 59

' Core' (commonly pronounced as a monosyllable in our National Schools), ' Rahab' and ' Rachab,' and (most unfortunate of all) ' Joshua' and ' Jesus.'

It is, indeed, hardly possible to exaggerate the con fusion of which the ' Jesus' of Heb. iv. 8 must be the occasion to the great body of unlearned English read ers and hearers, not to speak of a slight perplexity arising from the same cause at Acts vii. 45. The fourth chapter of the Hebrews is anyhow hard enough ; it is only with strained attention that we follow the Apostle's argument. But when to its own difficulty is added for many the confusion arising from the fact that ' Jesus' is here used, not of Him whose name is above every name, but of the son of Nun, known ev erywhere in the Old Testament by the name of ' Josh ua,' the perplexity to many becomes hopeless. It is in vain that our Translators have added in the mar gin, " that is Joshua ;" for all practical purposes of avoiding misconception the note, in most of our Bibles omitted, is useless. In putting ' Jesus' here they have departed from all our preceding Versions, and from many foreign. Even if they had counted that the letter of their obligation as Translators, which yet I can not think, bound them to this, one would willingly have here seen a breach of the letter, that so they might better keep the spirit.

There is another difficulty, entailing, however, no such serious consequences, even if the best way of meeting it is not chosen : how, namely, to deal with

60 ON SOME QUESTIONS OF TRANSLATION.

Greek and Latin proper names? to make them in their terminations English, or to leave them as we find them ? Our Translators in this matter adhere to no constant rule. It is not merely that some proper names drop their classical terminations, as ' Paul,' and ' Saul,' and ' Urban,'* while others, as ' Sylvanus,' which by the same rule should be ' Sylvan,' and ' Mer- curius,' retain it. This inconsistency is prevalent in all books which have to do with classical antiquity. There is almost no Roman history in which ' Pompey' and 'Antony' do not stand side by side with 'Augus tus' and ' Tiberius.' Merivale's, who always writes ' Pompeius' and ' Antonius,' is almost the only excep tion which I know. If this were all, there would be little to find fault with in an irregularity almost, if not quite, universal, and scarcely to be avoided with out so much violence done to usage as to make it doubtful whether the gain exceeded the loss.f But in our Version the same name occurs now with a Latin ending, now with an English ; as though it were now * Pompeius' and now ' Pompey,' now 'Antonius' and now ' Antony,' in the same volume, or even the same page, of some Roman history. Consistency in such details is avowedly difficult ; and the difficulty of attaining it

* So it ought to be printed in our modern Bibles, not ' Urbane,' which is now deceptive, though it was not so according to the orthog raphy of 1611 ; it suggests a trisyllable, and the termination of a female name. It is Qioll<iv6v in the original.

t See an article with the title, Orthographic Mutineers, in the Mis- cellgneous Egsays of De Quincey.

ON SOME QUESTIONS OP TRANSLATION. 61

must have been much enhanced by the many hands that were engaged in our Version. But it is strange that not in different parts of the New Testament only, which proceeded from different hands, we have now « Marcus' (Col. iv. 10 ; Philem. 24 ; 1 Pet. v. 13), and now ' Mark' (Acts xii. 12, 25 ; 2 Tim. iv. 11) ; now ' Jeremias' (Matt. xvi. 14), and now ' Jeremy' (Matt, ii. 17) ; now 'Apollos' (Acts xviii. 24; xix. 1), now * Apollo'* (1 Cor. iii. 22 ; iv. 6) ; now " Simon, son of Jona" (John i. 42), and now " Simon, son of Jonas" (John xxi. 15, 16, 17) ; now ' Timotheus' (Acts xvi. 1), and now ' Timothy' (Heb. xiii. 21) ; but in the same chapter we have TipMeos rendered first ' Timothy' (2 Cor. i. 1), and then 'Timotheus' (ib., ver. 19). In like manner the inhabitants of Crete (Kprjrs?) are now ' Cretes' (Acts ii. 11), which can not be right, and now ' Cretians' (Tit. i. 12).

There are other inconsistencies in the manner of dealing with proper names. Thus, i'Apgiocr n<xyo£ is ' Areopagus' at Acts xvii. 19, while three verses fur ther on the same is rendered ' Mars-hill.' In which of these ways it ought to have been translated may very fairly be a question ; but one way or other, once chosen, should have been adhered to. Then, again, if our Translators gave, as they properly did, the Latin termination to the names of cities, ' Ephesws,' ' Mile-

* This latter form, which was manifestly inconvenient, as confound ing the name of an eminent Christian teacher with that of a heathen deity, has been tacitly removed from later editions of our Bible, but existed in all the earlier.

62 ON SOME QUESTIONS OF TRANSLATION.

tws,'* not ' Ephesos,' ' Miletos,' they should have done this throughout, and written ' Assws' (Acts xx. 13, 14), and ' Pergamws' (Rev. i. 11 ; ii. 12), not ' Assos' and ' Pergamos.' In regard of this last, it would have been better still if they had employed the form ' Per- garnttw ;' for while no doubt there are examples of the feminine lis^a^os in Greek authors,! they are excessively rare, and the city's name is almost always written Higya.^ in Greek, and ' Pergamum' in Latin. J It is the carrying of one rule through which one desires in these matters, and this is not seldom ex actly what we miss. Thus, seeing that in the enu meration of the precious stones which constitute the foundations of the New Jerusalem (Rev. xxi. 19, 20), all with the exception of two, which are capable of receiving an English termination, do receive it, ' beryl' and not ' beryllus,' ' chrysolite' || and not ' chrysolithus,' 'jacinth' and not ' jacinthus,' we might fairly ask that these should not be exceptionally treated. It should therefore be ' chrysoprase,' and not ' chrysoprasus.'

* A singular mistake, the use of 'Miletum' at 2 Tim. iv. 20, has been often noted. This is one of the errors into which our Transla tors would probably not have fallen themselves, but have inherited it from the Versions preceding, all which have it. Yet it is strange that they did not correct it here, seeing that it, or a similar error, ' Mileton,' had at Acts xx. 15, 17, been by them discovered and removed, and the city's name rightly given, 'Miletus.'

t Ptol., v. 2, cf. Lobeck^s Phrynichus, p. 422.

J Xenophon, Anal., vii. 8, 8 ; Strabo, xiii. 4 ; Pliny, H. N.t xxxv. 46.

|| Mi-s-spelt ' chrysolite,' and the etymology obscured, in all our modern editions, but correctly given in the exemplar edition of 1611.

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2a£<5io£ is somewhat more difficult to deal with ; but the word is as much an adjective here as rfap&vos at Rev. iv. 3, X/dos, which is there expressed, being here understood (we have " Sardius lapis" in Tertullian), and it would have been better to translate " a sardine stone" here as has been done there ; <r<xp&ov, not tfapoVc. is the Greek name of this stone, and ' sarda' the Latin, which last Holland has naturalized in English, and written ' sard.' The choice lay between " sardine stone" and ' sard ;' unless, indeed, they had boldly ventured upon ' ruby.' ' Sardius,' which they have employed, as it seems to me, is anyhow incorrect, though the Vulgate may be quoted in its favor.

Hammond affirms, and I must needs consider with reason, that " Tres Tabernae" should have been left in its Latin form (Acts xxviii. 15), and not rendered " The Three Taverns." It is a proper name, just as much as "Appii Forum," which occurs in the same verse, and which rightly we have not resolved into " The Market of Appius." Had we left " Tres Ta- bernse" untouched (I observe De Wette does so), we should then have only dealt as the sacred historian himself has dealt with it, who has merely written it in Greek letters, not turned into equivalent Greek words. As little should we have turned it into English.

Sometimes our Translators have carried too far, as I can not but think, the turning of qualitative geni tives into adjectives. Oftentimes it is prudently done, and with a due recognition of the Hebrew idiom which

64 ON SOME QUESTIONS OP TRANSLATION.

has moulded the Greek phrase with which they have to deal. Thus, " forgetful hearer" is unquestionably better than " hearer of forgetfulness" (Jam. i. 25) ; " his natural face" than " face of his nature," or " of his generation" (ib.) ; " unjust steward" than " stew ard of injustice" (Luke xvi. 8). Yet at other times they have done this without necessity, and occasion ally with manifest loss. " Son of his love," which the Rheims version has, would have been better than "beloved son"* (Col. i. 13), and certainly "the body of our vileness," or " of our humiliation," bet ter than " our vile body ;" " the body of his glory" than " his glorious body" (Phil. iii. 21). " The un certainty of riches" would be better than " uncer tain riches" (1 Tim. vi. 17), " children of the curse" than " cursed children" (2 Pet. ii. 14). " The glo rious liberty of the children of God" (Rom. viii. 21), not merely comes short of, but expresses something very different from, " the liberty of the glory of the children of God" (see Alford, in loco). Doubtless the accumulated genitives are here awkward to deal with ; it was probably to avoid them that the transla tion assumed its present shape ; but still, when higher interests are at stake, such awkwardness must be en dured, and elsewhere our Translators have not shrunk from it, as at Rev. xvi. 19 : " The cup of the wine of the fierceness of his wrath."

* Augustine (De Trin., xv. 19) lays a dogmatic stress on the geni tive C" Filius caritatis ejus nullus est alias, quam qui de substantid Ejns est yenitns"), but this may be questioned.

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CHAPTER IV.

ON SOME UNNECESSARY DISTINCTIONS INTRODUCED.

LET me here, before entering on this subject, make one remark, which, having an especial reference to the subject-matter of this and the following chapter, more or less bears upon all. It has been already ob served that the advantages doubtless were great, of coming, as our Translators did, in the rear of other translators, of inheriting from those who went before them so large a stock of work well done, of successful renderings, of phrases consecrated already by long usage in the Church. It was a signal gain that they had not, in the fabric which they were constructing, to make a new framework throughout, but needed only here and there to insert new materials where the old from any cause were faulty or out of date ; that of them it was not demanded that they should make a translation where none existed before ; nor yet that they should bring a good translation out of a bad or an indifferent one ; but only a best, and that not out

66 UNNECESSARY DISTINCTIONS INTRODUCED.

of one, but out of many good ones, preceding. None who have ever engaged in the work of translating but will freely acknowledge that in this their gain was most real ; and they well understood how to turn these advantages to account.

Yet vast as these doubtless were, they were not without certain accompanying drawbacks. He who revises, especially when he comes to the task of revis ion with a confidence, here abundantly justified, in the general excellency of that which he is revising, is in constant danger of allowing his vigilance to sleep, and of thus passing over errors, which he would not him self have originated, had he been thrown altogether on his own resources. I can not but think that in this way the watchfulness of our Translators, or revi sers rather, has been sometimes remitted ; and that errors and inaccuracies, which they would not them selves have introduced, they have yet passed by and allowed. A large proportion of the errors in our Translation are thus an inheritance from former ver sions. This is not, indeed, any excuse, for they who passed them by became responsible for them ; but is merely mentioned as accounting for the existence of many. With this much of introduction, I will pass on to the proper subject of this chapter.

Our Translators sometimes create distinctions such as have no counterparts in their original, by using two or more words to render at different places, or it may be at the same place, a single word in the Greek

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text. I would not by any means affirm that such va rieties of rendering are not sometimes, nay frequently, inevitable. It manifestly would not be possible to represent constantly one word in one language by one in another. If this has ever been proposed as an in flexible rule, it must have been on the assumption that words in one language cover exactly the same spaces of meaning which other words do in another, that they have exactly the same many-sidedness, the same elas ticity, the same power of being applied, it may be, now in a good sense, now in a bad. But nothing is further from the case. "Words are enclosures from the great outfield of meanings ; but different languages have enclosed on different schemes, and words in different languages which are precisely co-extensive with one another, are much rarer than we incuriously assume.

It is easy to illustrate this, the superior elasticity of a word in one language to that of one which is in part its equivalent in another. Thus, we have no word in English which at once means heavenly mes sengers and earthly, with only the context determin ing which is intended. There was no choice, there fore, but to render ayysku by ' messengers' at Luke vii. 24 ; ix. 52 ; Jam. ii. 25 ; however it was translated ' angels' in each other passage of the New Testament where it occurs. Again, no word in English has the power which fxayoc; has in Greek, of being used at will in an honorable sense or a dishonorable. There was

68 UNNECESSARY DISTINCTIONS INTRODUCED

no help, therefore, but to render jxayci by ' wise men,'* or some such honorable designation, Matt. ii. 1 ; and jxayo? by ' sorcerer,' Acts xiii. 6.

Thus, again, it would have been difficult to repre sent napaxX?)TO£, applied now to the Holy Spirit (John xiv. 16, 26), and now to Christ (1 John i. 21), by any single word. ' Paraclete' would alone have been pos sible ; and such uniformity of rendering, if indeed it could be called rendering at all, would have been dearly purchased by the loss of ' Comforter' and ' Ad vocate' — both of them Latin words, it is true, but much nearer to the heart and understanding of Eng lishmen than the Greek ' Paraclete' could ever have become.f

So, too, it would have been unadvisable to render xjpis as the compellation of one person by another, al ways * Sir/ or always ' Lord.' The word has a wider range than either of these two ; it is only the two to gether which cover an equal extent. ' Sir,' in many cases, would not be respectful enough ; ' Lord' in some

* Milton, indeed, speaks of these wise men as the " star-led wiz ards," and ' wizard' is the word which Sir John Cheke employs in his translation of St. Matthew ; but the word is scarcely honorable enough for the /iuyc< of this place, nor opprobrious enough for the payo; of the Acts.

t We should not forget, in measuring the fitness of ' Comforter,' that the fundamental idea of ' Comforter,' according to its etymology and its early use, is that of ' Strengthener,' and not ' Consoler ;' even a-< the 7rapa<Aijro$ is one who, being summoned to the fide of the ac cused or imperilled man Cadvocatus), stands by to aid and to encour age. See the admirable note in Hare's Mission of the Comforter, pp. 521-527.

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would be too respectful (John xx. 15). Our Trans lators have prudently employed both ; and in most cases have shown a fine tact in their selection of one or the other. My only doubt is, whether, in the con versation of our Lord with the Samaritan woman (John iv.), they should not have changed the ' Sir,' which is perfectly in its place at ver. 11, where she is barely respectful to her unknown interrogator, into ' Lord' at ver. 15, or, if not there, yet certainly at ver. 19. The Rheims version, beginning, as we do, with * Sir,' already has exchanged this for ' Lord' at ver. 15 ; and thus delicately indicates the growing reverence of the woman for the mysterious stranger whom she has met beside Jacob's well.

We do not, then, make a general complaint against our Translators that they have varied their words where the original does not vary ; oftentimes this va riation was inevitable ; or, if not inevitable, yet was certainly the more excellent way ; but that they have done this where it was wholly gratuitous, and where sometimes the force, vigor, and precision of the origi nal have consequently suffered not a little. It is true that the adoption of this course was not on their parts altogether of oversight ; and it will be only fair to hear what they, in an "Address to the Reader," now seldom or never reprinted, but, on many accounts, well worthy of being so,* say upon this matter ; and

* Their "pedantic and uncouth preface" Symonds calls it. There would certainly be pedantry in any one now writing with such rich-

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how they defend what they have done. "Another thing," they say, " we think good to admonish thee of (gentle reader), that we have not tied ourselves to an uniformity of phrasing, or to an identity of words, as some peradventure would wish that we had done, because they observe, that some learned men some where have been as exact as they could that way. Truly, that we might not vary from the sense of that which we had translated before, if the word signified the same in both places (for there be some words be not of the same sense everywhere), we were especially careful, and made a conscience according to our duty. But that we should express the same notion in the same particular word ; as, for example, if we translate the Hebrew or Greek word once by purpose, never to call it intent; if one where journeying, never travel ling ; if one where think, never suppose ; if one where pain, never ache ; if one where joy, never gladness, &c., thus to mince the matter, we thought to savor more of curiosity than wisdom, and that rather it would breed scorn in the atheist, than bring profit to

ness and fullness of learned allusion, a pedantry from which our com paratively scanty stores of classical and ecclesiastical learning would effectually preserve most among us. But this preface is, on many grounds, a most interesting study, as giving at considerable length, and in various aspects, the view of our Translators themselves in regard of the work which they had undertaken ; and ' uncouth' as this objector calls it, every true knower of our language will acknowledge it a masterpiece of English. Certainly it would not be easy to find a more beautiful or affecting piece of writing than the twenty or thirty lines with which the fourth paragraph, " On the praise of the Holy Scriptures," concludes.

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the godly reader. For is the kingdom of God become words or syllables ? why should we be in bondage to them, if we may be free, use one precisely when we may use another no less fit, as commodiously ? We might also be charged (by scoffers) with some unequal dealing toward a great number of good English words. For as it is written of a certain great philosopher, that he should say, that those logs were happy that were made images to be worshipped ; for their fellows, as good as they, lay for blocks behind the fire : so if we should say, as it were, unto certain words, ' Stand up higher, have a place in the Bible always,' and to others of like quality, ' Get ye hence, be banished for ever,' we might be taxed peradventure with St. James's words, namely, ' To be partial in our selves and judges of evil thoughts.' '

This is their explanation — to me, I confess, an in sufficient one, whatever ingenuity may be ascribed to it ; and for these reasons. It is clearly the office of translators to put the reader of the translation, as nearly as may be, on the same vantage-ground as the reader of the original ; to give him, so far as this is attainable, the same assistances for understanding his author's meaning. Now, every exact and laborious student of his Greek Testament knows that there is almost no such help in some passage of difficulty, doc trinal or other, as to turn to his Greek Concordance, to search out every other passage in which the word or words wherein the difficulty seems chiefly to reside,

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occur, and closely to observe their usage there. It is manifestly desirable that the reader of the English Bible should have, as nearly as possible, the same re source. But if, where there is one and the same word in the original, there are two, three, half a dozen, in the version, he is in the main deprived of it. Thus, he hears the doctrine of the atonement discussed ; he would fain turn to all the passages where ' atonement' occurs ; he finds only one (Rom. v. 11), and of course is unaware that in other passages where he meets ' rec onciling,' and ' reconciliation' (Rom. xi. 15 ; 2 Cor. v. 18, 19), it is the same word in the original. In words like this, which are, so to speak, sedes doctrines, one regrets, above all, variation and uncertainty in rendering.

Thus, it will sometimes happen, that when St. Paul is pursuing a close train of reasoning, and one which demands severest attention, the difficulties of his ar gument, not small in themselves, are aggravated by the use of different words where he has used the same ; the word being sometimes the very key of the whole ; as, for instance, in the fourth chapter of the Romans. AO/I'^OJUUXI occurs eleven times in this chap ter. We may say that it is the key-word to St. Paul's argument throughout, being everywhere employed most strictly in the same sense, and that a technical and theological. But our Translators have no fixed rule of rendering it. Twice they render it ' count' (ver. 3, 5) ; six times ' impute' (ver. 6, 8, 11, 22, 23, 24) ;

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and three times ' reckon' (ver. 4, 9, 10) ; while at Gal. iii. 6, they introduce a fourth rendering, ' ac count.' Let the student read this chapter, employing everywhere ' reckon,' or, which would be better, ev erywhere ' impute,' and observe .how much of clearness and precision St. Paul's argument would in this way acquire.

In other places no doctrine is in danger of being obscured, but still the change is uncalled for and in jurious. Take, for instance, Rev. iv. 4 : " And round about the throne (dpovou) were four-and-twenty seats" (fyovoi). It is easy to see the motive of this variation ; and yet if the inspired Apostle was visited with no misgivings, lest the creature should seem to be en croaching on the dignity of the Creator, and it is clear that he was not — on the contrary, he has, in the most marked manner, brought the throne of God and the thrones of the elders together — certainly the Trans lators need not have been more careful than he had been, nor made the elders to sit on ' seats,' and only God on a ' throne.' This august company of the four- and-twenty elders represents the Church of the Old and the New Testament, each in its twelve heads ; but how much is lost by turning their ' thrones' into ' seats ;' for example, the connection of this Scripture with Matt. xix. 28 ; and with all the promises that Christ's servants should not merely see his glory, but share it, that they should be trovfyovoi with Him (Rev. iii. 21), this little change obscuring the truth that

4

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they are here set before us as tvpflagtitfame (1 Cor. iv. 8 ; 2 Tim. ii. 12), as kings reigning with Him ! This truth is saved, indeed, by the mention of the golden crowns on their heads, but is implied also in their sitting, as they do in the Greek but not in the English, on seats of equal dignity with his, on ' thrones.' The same scruple which dictated this change makes itself felt through the whole translation of the Apoca lypse, and to a manifest loss. In that book is set forth, as nowhere else in Scripture, the hellish parody of the heavenly kingdom ; the conflict between the true King of the earth and the usurping king ; the loss, therefore, is evident, when for " Satan's throne" is substituted " Satan's seat" (ii. 13) ; for " the throne of the beast," " the seat of the beast" (xvi. 10).

A great master of language will often implicitly refer in some word which he uses to the same word, or, it may be, to another of the same group or family, which he or some one else has just used before ; and where there is evidently intended such an allusion, it should, wherever this is possible, be reproduced in the translation. There are two examples of this in St. Paul's discourse at Athens, both of which have been effaced in our Version. Of those who encoun tered Paul in the market at Athens, some said, " He seemeth to be a setter forth of strange gods" (Acts xvii. 18). They use the word xarayysXs^ ; and he, remembering and taking up this word, retorts it upon them : " Whom, therefore, ye ignorantly worship, Him

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set I forth (xaray/s'XXw) unto you" (ver. 23). He has their charge present in his mind, and this is his an swer to their charge. It would more plainly appear such to the English reader, if the Translators, having used " setter forth" before, had thus returned upon the word, instead of substituting, as they have done, * declare' for it. The Rheims version, which has ' preacher' and ' preach,' after the Vulgate ' annuntia- tor' and ' annuntio,' has been careful to retain and indicate the connection.

But the finer and more delicate turns of the divine rhetoric of St. Paul are more seriously affected by another oversight in the same verse. We make him there say, "As I passed by, and beheld your devo tions, I found an altar with this inscription, To the Unknown God (dyvwovw ©sy). Whom, therefore, ye ignorantly (d/voouvrsc;) worship, Him declare I unto you." But if anything is clear, it is that St. Paul in dyvooOWes intends to take up the preceding dyvwrfrw; the chime of the words, and also, probably, the fact of their etymological connection, leading him to this. He has spoken of their altar to an " Unknown God," and he proceeds, " whom, therefore, ye worship un knowing, Him declare I unto you." ' Ignorantly' has the further objection that it conveys more of rebuke than St. Paul, who is sparing his hearers to the utter most, intended.

In other passages also the point of a sentence lies in the recurrence and repetition of the same word,

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which yet they have failed to repeat ; as in these which follow : —

1 Cor. iii. 17. — "If any man defile (qjdefpei) the temple of God, him shall God destroy ((pdspsr)." It is the fearful law of retaliation which is here pro claimed. He who ruins shall himself be ruined in turn. It shall be done to him, as he has done to the temple of God. Undoubtedly it is hard to get the right word, which will suit in both places. ' Corrupt' is the first which suggests itself; yet it would not do to say " If any man corrupt the temple of God, him shall God corrupt" The difficulty which our Trans lators felt, it is evident that the Vulgate felt the same, which, in like manner, has changed its word : " Si quis autem templum Dei violaverit, disperdet ilium Deus." Yet why should not the verse be rendered, " If any man destroy the temple of God, him shall God destroy" ?

Matt. xxi. 41. — A difficulty of exactly the same kind exists here ; where yet the xaxoO<r xaxu? of the original ought, in some way or other, to have been preserved ; as in this way it might very sufficiently be : " He will miserably destroy those miserable men." — Neither would it have been hard at 2 Thess. i. 6, to retain the play upon words, and to have rendered ToTs dxi/3outfiv ufjiag dxr^iv, " affliction to them that afflict you," instead of " tribulation to them that trouble you," there being no connection in English between the words ' tribulation' and ' trouble,' though some-

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thing of a likeness in sound : while yet the very pur pose of the passage is to show that what wicked men have measured to others shall be measured to them again.

Let me indicate other examples of the same kind, where the loss is manifest. Thus, if at Gal. iii. 22, cWxXsKTsv is translated ' hath concluded,' tfuyxXsio'fxsvoi in the next verse, which takes it up, should not be rendered ' shut up.' The Vulgate has well, ' conclu- sit' and ' conclusi.' Let the reader substitute ' hath shut up' for ' hath concluded' in ver. 22, and then read the passage. He will be at once aware of the gain. In like manner, let him take Rom. vii. 7, and read " I had not known lust (jVitapu'av) except the law had said, Thou shalt not lust (oJx jTr^ufjujtfsis) ;" or Phil. ii. 13 : " It is God which worketh (6 evspyuv) in you both to will and to work (TO evspysn/) ;" and the passages will come out with a strength and clearness which they have not now. So, too, if at 2 Thess. ii. 6, TO xa-c'^ov is rendered " what withholdeth" o XKT^WV in the verse following should not be " he who letleth" While, undoubtedly, there is significance in the imper sonal TO xa-rs'^ov exchanged for the personal o XCCTS'^WV, there can be no doubt that they refer to one and the same person or institution ; but this is obscured by the change of the word. So, too, I would have gladly seen the connection between XHITO'/XSVOI and XsiVsTai at Jam. i. 4, 5, reproduced in our Version. ' Lacking' and ' lack,' which our previous versions had, would

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have done it. The " patience and comfort of the Scriptures" (Rom. xv. 4) is derived from " the God of patience and comfort" (ver. 5) ; this St. Paul would teach, who uses both times vapaxXyffis : but there is a slight obscuration of the connection between the ' com fort' and the Author of the ' comfort' in our Version, which, on the second occasion, has for ' comfort' need lessly substituted ' consolation.'

How many readers have read in the English the third chapter of St. John, and missed the remarkable connection between our Lord's words at ver. 11, and the Baptist's taking up of those words at ver. 32 ; and this because ^aprup/a is translated ' witness' on the former occasion, and ' testimony' on the latter ! — Why, again, we may ask, should C/3pi£ xai ^.a/a be " hurt and damage" at Acts xxvii. 10 ; and " harm and loss," at their recurrence, ver. 21 ? Both ren derings are good, and it would not much import which had been selected ; but whichever had been employed on the first occasion ought also to have been employed on the second. St. Paul, repeating in the midst of the danger the very words which he had used when counselling his fellow-voyagers how they might avoid that danger, would remind them, that so he might obtain a readier hearing now, of that neglected warn ing of his, which the sequel had only justified too well.

These are less important, and might well be passed by, if anything could be counted unimportant which helps or hinders ever so little the more exact setting

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forth of the Word of God. Thus, in the parable of the Laborers in the Vineyard (Matt. xx. 1), <»Wsoyorij£ is ' householder,' ver. 1 ; it should scarcely be " good man of the house" at ver. 11.* As little should the "governor of the feast" of John ii. 8, be " the ruler of the feast" in the v-ery next verse ; or the " goodly apparel," of Jam. ii. 2, be the " gay clothing" of the verse following, the words of the original in each case remaining unchanged.

Again, it would have been clearly desirable that where in two or even three Gospels exactly the same words, recording the same event or the same conver sation, occur in the original, the identity should have been expressed by the use of exactly the same words in the English. This continually is not the case. Thus, Matt. xxvi. 41, and Mark xiv. 38, exactly cor respond in the Greek, while in the translation the words appear in St. Matthew : " Watch and pray, that ye enter not into temptation ; the spirit indeed is wil ling, but the flesh is weak ;" in St. Mark : " Watch ye and pray, lest ye enter into temptation ; the spirit truly is ready, but the flesh is weak." So, too, in a quotation from the Old Testament, where two or more sacred writers cite it in identical words, this fact

* Scholefield (Hints, p. 8) further objects to this last rendering as having "a quaintness in it not calculated to recommend it." But it had nothing of the kind at the time our Translation was made. Com pare Spenser, Fairy Queen, iv. 5, 34 : —

" There entering in, they found the goodman self Full busily upon his work ybent."

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ought to be reproduced in the version. It is not so in respect of the important quotation from Gen. xv. 6 ; but on the three occasions that it is quoted (Rom. iv. 3 ; Gal. iii. 6 ; Jam. ii. 23) it appears with variations, slight, indeed, and not in the least affecting the sense, but yet which would better have been avoided. Again, the phrase Itpy evuStcts, occurring twice in the New Testament, has so fixed, and, I may say, so technical a significance, referring as it does to a continually- recurring phrase of the Old Testament, that it should not be rendered on one occasion, " a sweet-smelling savor" (Eph. v. 2), on the other, " an odor of a sweet smell" (Phil. iv. 18).

Sometimes interesting and important relations be tween different parts of Scripture would come out more strongly, if what is precisely similar in the ori ginal had reappeared as precisely similar in the trans lation. The Epistles to the Ephesians and to the Co- lossians profess to have been sent from Rome to the East by the same messenger (cf. Eph. vi. 21,22; Col. iv, 7, 8) ; they were written, therefore, we may confidently conclude, about the same time. When we come to examine their internal structure, this ex actly bears out what under such circumstances we should expect in letters proceeding from the pen of St. Paul — great differences, but at the same time re markable points of contact and resemblance, both in the thoughts and in the words which are the garment of the thoughts. Paley has urged this as an internal

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evidence for the truth of those statements which these Epistles make about themselves. This internal evi dence doubtless exists even now for the English read er ; but it would press itself on his attention much more strongly, if the exact resemblances in the origi nals had been represented by exact resemblances in the copies. This oftentimes has not been the case. Striking coincidences in language between one Epistle and the other, which exist in the Greek, do not exist in the English. For example, Mpyeia is * working,' Eph. i. 19 ; it is ' operation,' Col. ii. 12 ; raireivo<ppoo'uv*i is ' lowliness,' Eph. iv. 2 ; " humbleness of mind," Col. iii. 12 ; tfufx/Si^a^o/jisvov is ' compacted,' Eph. iv. 16 ; ' knit together,' Col. ii. 19, with much more of the same kind ; as is accurately brought out by the late Professor Blunt,* who draws one of the chief motives why the Clergy should study the Scriptures in the original languages, from the shortcomings which exist in the translations of them.

It may be interesting, before leaving this branch of the subject, to take a few words, and to note the variety of rendering to which they are submitted in our Version. I have not taken them altogether at random, yet some of these are by no means the most remarkable instances in their kind. They will, how ever, sufficiently illustrate the matter in hand.

•A6srsu, ' to reject' (Mark vi. 26) ; ' to despise' (Luke

* Duties of the Parish Priest, p. 71. The whole section (pp. 47- 76) is eminently instructive.

4*

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x. 16) ; ' to bring to nothing' (1 Cor. i. 19) ; ' to frus trate' (Gal. ii. 21) ; ' to disannul' (Gal. iii. 15) ; ' to cast off' (1 Tim. v. 12).

'Avarf-arow, ' to turn upside down' (Acts xvii. 6) ; ' to make an uproar' (Acts xxi. 38) ; ' to trouble' (Gal. v. 12).

'A-roxaXu^c, ' revelation' (Rom. ii. 5) ; ' manifesta tion' (Rom. viii. 19) ; ' coming' (1 Cor. i. 7) ; ' ap pearing' (1 Pet. i. 7).

AsXso^w, ' to entice' (Jam. i. 14) ; ' to beguile' (2 Pet. ii. 14) ; ' to allure' (2 Pet. ii. 18).

Zo<po£, ' darkness' (2 Pet. ii. 4) ; ' mist' (2 Pet. ii. 17); 'blackness' (Jude 13).

Karapyt'c.), ' to cumber' (Luke xiii. 7) ; ' to make with out effect' (Rom. iii. 3) ; ' to make void' (Rom. iii. 31) ; ' to make of none effect' (Rom. iv. 14) ; ' to destroy' (Rom. vi. 6) ; 'to loose' (Rom. vii. 2) ; 'to deliver' (Rom. vii. 6) ; ' to bring to nought' (1 Cor. i. 8) ; ' to do away' (1 Cor. xiii. 10) ; ' to put away' (1 Cor. xiii. 11) ; ' to put down' (1 Cor. xv. 24) ; ' to abolish' (2 Cor. iii. 13). Add to these, xa-rapys'ofju*'* ' to come to nought' (1 Cor. ii. 6) ; 'to fail' (1 Cor. xiii. 8) ; 'to vanish away' (ibid.) ; ' to become of none effect' (Gal. v. 4) ; ' to cease' (Gal. v. 11) ; and we have here sev enteen different renderings of this word, occurring in all twenty-seven times in the New Testament.

Kara£ri£w, ' to mend' (Matt. iv. 21) ; ' to perfect' (Matt. xxi. 16) ; ' to fit' (Rom. ix. 22) ; ' to perfectly join together' (1 Cor. i. 10) ; ' to restore' (Gal. vi.

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1) ; ' to prepare' (Heb. x. 5) ; ' to frame' (Heb. xi. 3) ; ' to make perfect' (Heb. xiii. 21).

Kau^ao/xaj, ' to make boast' (Rom. ii. 17) ; i to re joice' (Rom. v. 2) ; ' to glory' (Rom. v. 3) ; ' to joy' (Rom. v. 11) ; ' to boast' (2 Cor. vii. 14).

Kpcw-ew, ' to take' (Matt. ix. 25) ; ' to lay hold on' (Matt. xii. 11) ; l to lay hands on' (Matt, xviii. 28) ; ' to hold fast' (Matt. xxvi. 48) ; ' to hold' (Matt, xxviii. 9) ; ' to keep' (Mark ix. 10) ; ' to retain' (John xx. 23) ; ' to obtain' (Acts xxvii. 13).

llapaxa-Xs'w, < to comfort' (Matt. ii. 18) ; ' to beseech' (Matt. viii. 5) ; < to desire' (Matt, xviii. 32) ; ' to pray' (Matt. xxvi. 53) ; ' to entreat' (Luke xv. 28) ; l to ex hort' (Acts ii. 40) ; ' to call for' (Acts xxviii. 20).

Let me once more observe, in leaving this part of the subject, that I would not for an instant imply that in all these places one and the same English word could have been employed, but only that the variety might have been much smaller than it is.

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CHAPTER V.

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IF it is impossible, as was shown at the beginning of the last chapter, in every case to render one word in the original by one word and no more in the trans lation, equally impossible is it to render in every case different words in the original by different words in the translation. It will continually happen that one language possesses, and fixes in words, distinctions of which another takes no note. The more subtile- thoughted a people are, the finer and more numerous the differences will be which they will thus have seized, and to which they will have given permanence in words. What can an English translator do to ex press the distinction, oftentimes very significant, be tween dvr,£ and avSguvos? — the honor which lies often in the first (Acts xiii. 16 ; xvii. 22), the slight which is intended to be conveyed in the second (Matt. xxvi. 72) ? At this point the Latin language, with ' vir* and ' homo,' is a match for the Greek, but not so our

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own. In like manner the differences, oftentimes in structive, occasionally important, between Ispo'v and

vaoV, /3i'o£ and %ur,, aXXoj and STSgog, vios and xaivo'cr, ccXrjdr;£

and dx-/;0ivo£, (piXs'w and dyavau, mostly disappear, and there seems no help but that they must disappear, in any English translation of the Greek Testament. Such facts remind us that language, divine gift to man as it is, yet working itself out through human faculties and powers, has cleaving to it a thousand marks of weakness, and infirmity, and limitation.

To take an example of this, the obliteration of dis tinctions, which is quite unavoidable, or which could only have been avoided at the cost of greater losses in some other direction, and to deal with it somewhat more in detail — the distinction between "AiSrig, the under-world, the receptacle of the departed, and ye'ewa, the place of torment, quite disappears in our Version. They are both translated ' hell,' a$v\$ being so rendered ten times, and ye'swa twelve ; the only at tempt to give a'dys a word of its own, being at 1 Cor. xv. 55, where it is translated ' grave.' The confusion of which this is the occasion is serious ; though how it could have been avoided, or how it would be pos sible now to get rid of it, I do not in the least per ceive. It would not be possible to render q'Srg, wher ever it occurs, by ' grave,' thus leaving * hell' as the rendering of ys'ewa only ; for see Matt,, xi. 23 ; xvi. 18, the first two places of its occurrence, where this plainly would not suit. On the other hand, the popu-

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lar sense links the name of ' hell' so closely with the place of torment, that it would not answer to keep ' hell' for a6y$, and to look out for some other render ing of /s'swa, to say nothing of the difficulty or impos sibility of finding one ; for certainly l gehenna,' whicli I have seen proposed, would not do. The French have, indeed, adopted the word, though it is only ' gene' to them ; and Milton has once used it in poetry ; but it can not in any sense be said to be an English word. It is much to be regretted that ' hades' has never been thoroughly naturalized among us. The language wants the word, and in it the true solution of the difficulty might have been found.

Yet freely granting all which this example illus trates, it is evident that the forces and capacities of a language should be stretched to the uttermost, the riches of its synonyms thoroughly searched out ; and not till this is done, not till its resources prove plainly inadequate to the task, ought translators to acquiesce in the disappearance from their copy, of distinctions which existed in the original from which that copy was made, or to count that, notwithstanding this dis appearance, they have done all that lay in them to do. More assuredly might have been here accom plished than has by our Translators been attempted, as I will endeavor by a few examples to prove.

Thus, one must always regret, and the regret has been often expressed, that in the Apocalypse our Translators shonld have rendered 6y>iw and £<2ov by

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the same word, ' beast.' Both play important parts in the book ; both belong to its higher symbolism ; but to portions the most different. The £wa or " liv ing creatures," which stand before the throne, in which dwells the fullness of all creaturely life, as it gives praise and glory to God (iv. 6, 7, 8, 9 ; v. 6 ; vi. 1 ; and often) form part of the heavenly symbolism ; the 6v)gia,, the first beast and the second, which rise up, one from the bottomless pit (xi. 7), the other from the sea (xiii. 1), of which the one makes war upon the two Witnesses, the other opens his mouth in blasphe mies, these form part of the hellish symbolism. To confound these and those under a common designa tion, to call those ; beasts' and these ' beasts,' would be an oversight, even granting the name to be suita ble to both ; it is a more serious one, when the word used, bringing out, as this must, the predominance of the lower animal life, is applied to glorious creatures in the very court and presence of Heaven. The error is common to all the translations. That the Rheims should not have escaped it is strange ; for the Vulgate renders £wa by ' animalia' (' aniraantia' would have been still better), and only dygiov by ' bestia.' If £w« had always been rendered •" living creatures," this would have had the additional advantage of setting these symbols of the Apocalypse, even for the English reader, in an unmistakable connection with Ezek. i. 5, 13, 14, and often ; where " living creature" is the rendering in our English Version of rPP[» as £wov is in the Septuagint.

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In like manner, in the parable of the Marriage of the King's Son (Matt. xxii. 1-14), the fouXo; who sum mon the bidden guests (ver. 3, 4), and the 5«<xxovoi who in the end expel the unworthy intruder (ver. 13), should not have been confounded under the common name of ' servants.' A real and important distinction between the several actors in the parable is in this way obliterated. The &wXoi are men, the ambassadors of Christ, those that invite their fellow-men to the blessings of the kingdom of heaven ; but the &axovoi are angels, those that " stand by" (Luke xix. 24), ready to fulfil the Divine judgments, and whom we ever find the executors of these judgments in the day of Christ's appearing. They are as distinct from one another as the " servants of the householder," who in like manner are men, and the ' reapers,' who are an gels, in the parable of the Tares (Matt. xiii. 27, 30). In the Vulgate the distinction which we have lost is preserved ; the oouXoi are ' servi,' the Mxovoi ' ministri ;' and all our>early translations in like manner rendered the words severally by ' servants' and ' ministers ;' the Rheims by ' servants' and ' waiters.'

There is a very real distinction between £wn<r<n'a and a#£»'deia. It is often urged by our elder divines ; I re member more than one passage in Jackson's works where it is so ; but it is not constantly observed by our Translators. 'AvKtrla. is, I believe, always and rightly rendered, ' unbelief,' while dire'dsia is in most cases rendered, and rightly, ' disobedience ;' but on

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two occasions (Heb. iv. 6, 11) it also is translated ' unbelief.' In like manner, dirntreTv is properly " to refuse belief" dnsdew "to refuse obedience;" but dtsdsTv is often in our Translation allowed to run into the sense of d-rritfTsrv, as at John. iii. 36 ; Acts xiv. 2 ; xix. 9 ; Rom. xi. 30 (the right translation in the margin) ; and yet, as I have said, the distinction is real ; difs'dsia. or disobedience is the consequence of a-ifufr'ta. or unbelief; they are not identical with one another.

Again, there was no possible reason why tfoyos and (ppovijAOf should not have been kept asunder, and the real distinction which exists between them in the original maintained also in our Version. We possess ' wise' for tfopocr, and ' prudent' for <ppovifxoj. It is true that tfuvsTo's has taken possession of * prudent,' but might have better been rendered by ' understanding.' Our Translators have thrown away their advantage, rendering, I believe in every case, both tfopo's and •ppo'vijAos by ' wise,' although in no single instance are the words interchangeable. The (ppo'vijxoff is one who dexterously adapts his means to his ends (Luke xvi. 8), the word expressing nothing in respect of the ends themselves, whether they are worthy or not; the rfopo'f is one whose means and ends are alike wor thy. God is rfotpoV (Jude 25) ; wicked men may be <pp6v»,u,oi, while tfovpo.', except in the <fo<pia rou xoV/xou, they could never be. How much would have been gained at Luke xvi. 8, if <pp<w'fj.u£ had been rendered, not

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1 wisely,' but ' prudently :' how much needless offence would have been avoided !

The standing word which St. Paul uses to express the forgiveness of sins is a<psrfi£ apagnuv ; but on one remarkable occasion he changes his word, and instead of ayetfig employs iragstfis (Rom. iii. 25). Our Transla tors take no note of the very noticeable substitution, but render vagstfiv aiutgnZv, or rather here a^a^ri^a.Tuvt " remission of sins," as everywhere else they have rendered the more usual phrase. But it was not for nothing that St. Paul used here quite another word. He is speaking of quite a different thing; he is speaking, not of the ' remission' of sins, or the letting of them quite go, but of the ' praetermission' (xagsifis from ira^Vi), the passing of them by on the part of God for a while, the temporary dissimulation upon his part, which found place under the Old Covenant, in consid eration of the sacrifice which was one day to _be. The passage is further obscured by the fact that our Translators have rendered &a <n}v -ra^etfiv as though it had been Sil <r~riS ta^'asus — "for the remission," that is, with a view to the remission, while the proper ren dering of ha, with an accusative, would, of course, have been " because o/the remission," or rather " the pretermission," or, as Hammond proposes, "because of the passing- by, of past sins." What the Apostle would say is this : " There needed a signal manifesta tion of the righteousness of God on account of the long pretermission, or passing by, of sins in his infi-

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nite forbearance, with no adequate expression of his righteous wrath against them, during all those ages which preceded the revelation of Christ : which mani festation of his righteousness at length found place, when He set forth no other and no less than his own Son to be the propitiatory Sacrifice for sin." But the passage, as we have it now, can not be said to yield this meaning.

There are two occasions on which a multitude is miraculously fed by our Lord ; and it is not a little remarkable that on the first occasion in every narra tive, and there are four records of the miracle, the word xo<pivo£ is used of the baskets in which the frag ments which remain are gathered up (Matt. xiv. 20 ; Mark vi. 43 ; Luke ix. 17 ; John vi. 13) ; while on occasion of the second miracle, in the two records which are all that we have of it, tf-rupfc is used (Matt, xv. 37 ; Mark viii. 8) ; and in proof that this is not accidental see Matt. xvi. 9, 10 ; Mark viii. 19, 20. The fact is a slight, yet not unimportant, testimony to the entire distinctness of the two miracles, and that we have not here, as some of the modern assailants of the historical accuracy of the Gospels assure us, two confused traditions of one and the same event. What the exact distinction between xo'<pjvoj and ovupfc is, may be hard to determine, and it may not be very easy to suggest what second word should have marked this distinction ; yet I can not but think that where, not merely the Evangelists in their narrative, but the

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Lord in his allusion to the event, so distinctly marks a difference, we should have attempted to mark it also, as the Vulgate by ' cophini' and ' spartse' has done.

Again, our Translators obliterate, for the most part, the distinction between -KCUS ©eou and vns ©sou, as ap plied to Christ. There are five passages in the New Testament in which the title *cu$ ©sou is given to the Son of God. In the first of these (Matt. xii. 18) they have rendered #aTs by ' servant ;' and they would have done well if they had abode by this in the other four. These all occur in the Acts, and in every one of them the notion of •' servant' is abandoned, and ' son' (Acts iii. 13, 26), or ' child' (Acts iv. 27, 30), introduced. I am persuaded that in this they were in error. IlaTs ©sou might be rendered " servant of God," and I am persuaded that it ought. It might be, for it needs not to say <xaiis is continually used like the Latin ' puer' in the sense of servant, and in the LXX. *a~£ ©sou as the " servant of God." David calls himself so no less than seven times in 2 Sam. vii. ; cf. Luke i. 69 ; Acts iv. 25; Job i. 8; Ps. xix. 12, 14. But not merely it might have been thus rendered ; it also should have been, as these reasons convince me : Every student of prophecy must have noticed how much there is in Isaiah prophesying of Christ under the aspect of " the servant of the Lord ;" " Israel my servant;" "my servant whom I uphold" (Isai. xlii. 1-7 ; xlix. 1-12 ; Iii. 13 ; liii. 12). I say, prophesy-

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ing of Christ ; for I dismiss, as a baseless dream of those who a priori are determined that there are, and therefore shall be, no prophecies in Scripture, the no tion that " the servant of Jehovah" in Isaiah is Israel according to the flesh, or Isaiah himself, or the body of the prophets collectively considered, or any other except Christ Himself. But it is quite certain, from the inner harmonies of the Old Testament and the New, that wherever there is a large group of prophe cies in the Old, there is some allusion to them in the New. Unless, however, we render -vaTs ©sou by " ser vant of God" in the place where that phrase occurs in the New, there will be no allusion throughout it all to that group of prophecies which designate the Mes siah as the servant of Jehovah, who learned obedience by the things which He suffered. I can not doubt, and, as far as I know, this is the conclusion of all who have considered the subject, that ««•?$ esou should be rendered " servant of God," as often as in the New Testament it is used of Christ. His sonship will re main sufficiently declared in innumerable other pas sages.

Something of precision and beauty is lost at John x. 16, by rendering aJX^ and iroijxvij both by ' fold :' " And other sheep I have, which are not of this fold (auX^c) ; these also I must bring, and they shall hear my voice ; and there shall be one fold (Voi/xvT]), and one shepherd." It is remarkable that in the Vulgate there is the same obliteration of the distinction be-

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tween the two words, ' ovile' standing for both. Sub stitute ' flock' for ' fold' on the second occasion of its occurring (this was Tyndale's rendering, which we should not have forsaken), and it will be at once felt how much the verse will gain. The Jew and the Gentile are the two ' folds,' which Christ, the Good Shepherd, will gather into a single ' flock.'

As a further example, take John xvii. 12 : " While I was with them in the world, I kept them in thy name. Those that Thou gavest me I have kept, and none of them is lost." It is not a great matter, yet who would not gather from this ' kept' recurring twice in this verse, that there must be also in the original some word of the like recurrence ? Yet it is not so ; the first ' kept' is ST^POUV, and the second ^Xaga : nor are T^PSM/ and puXatfrfsiv here such mere synonyms, that the distinction between them may be effaced without loss. The first is ' servare,' or better, ' conservare,' the second ' custodire ;' and the first, the keeping or preserving, is the consequence of the second, the guarding. What the Lord would say is : "I so guard ed, so protected (^>a|a), those whom Thou hast given me, that I kept and preserved them £this the *fyv<*ii) unto the present day." Thus Lampe : "rr,pe~v est generalius, vitasque novae finalem conservationem potest exprimere ; (puXaavsiv vero specialius mediorum praestationem, per quae finis ille obtinetur." He quotes excellently to the point, Prov. xix. 6 : 6$

<p u X a rf (f e i svroX^v, r i\ p s H rrtv lauTou

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Before leaving this branch of the subject, I will give one or two examples more of the way in which a single word in the English does duty for many in the Greek. Thus, take the words ' thought' and * think.' The Biblical psychology is anyhow a sub ject encumbered with most serious perplexities. He finds it so, and often sees his way but obscurely, who has all the helps which the most accurate observation and comparison of the terms actually used by the sa cred writers will afford. Of course, none but the student of the original document can have these helps in their fullness ; at the same time it scarcely needed that ' thought' should be employed as the rendering alike of evduuigrfis (Matt. ix. 4), &aXoyio>os (Matt. xv. 19), 5iavo'*jfxa (Luke xi. 17), eViWa (Acts viii. 22), Xoyio>ocr (Rom. ii. 15), and vo^a (2 Cor. x. 5) ; or that the verb " to think" should in the passages which fol low be the one English representative of a still wider circle of words, of <Ww (Matt. iii. 9), voj*f£u (Matt.

V. 17), «v4u/x£o(jLct» (Matt. IX. 4), <J;aXoyi£o/juxi (Luke Xli. 17), Srtv6vp.eoii.ai (Acts X. 19), turovoe'w (Acts xiii. 25), tysopai (Acts xxvi. 2), x£i'vu (Acts xxvi. 8), ipfcvs'w (Rom. xii. 3), Xoyi^o/xai (2 Cor. iii. 5), vos'w (Ephes. iii. 20), c/Va' (Jam. i. 7).

One example more. The verb " to trouble" is a very favorite one with our Translators. There are no less than ten Greek words or phrases which it is employed by them to render ; these, namely : fyu (Matt. xxvi. lO^tfxjXXw (Markv. 35) , (Jiar

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(Luke i. 29), <rup/3<x£w (Luke x. 41), -rapsvo^Xsw (Acts XV. 19), do£u/3eVa' (Acts XX. 10), raparfrfw (Gal. i. 7), dvatfrarcw (Gal. v. 12), 6\i/3u (2 Thess. i. 6), Ivo^Xg'w (Heb. xii. 15). If we add to these m-apoufrfw, "ex ceedingly to trouble" (Acts xvi. 20), dposVal> " to be troubled"' (Matt. xxiv. 6), the word will do duty for no fewer than twelve Greek words. Now, the Eng lish language may not be so rich in synonyms as the Greek ; but with ' vex,' ' harass,' ' disturb,' ' distress,' ' afflict,' ' disquiet,' ' unsettle,' * burden,' ' terrify ;' al most every one of which would in one of the above places or other seem to me more appropriate than the word actually employed, I can not admit that the pov erty or limited resources of our language left no choice here, but to efface all the distinctions between these words, as by the employment of ' trouble' for them all has, in these cases at least, been done.

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CHAPTER VI.

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OCCASIONALLY, but rarely, our Translators dismiss a better rendering, which was in one or more of the earlier versions, and replace it with a worse. It may be said of their Version, in regard of those which went before, that it occupies very much the place which the Vulgate did in regard of the Latin versions pre ceding. In the whole, an immense improvement, while yet in some minor details they are more ac curate than it. This is so in the passages which follow.

Matt, xxviii. 14. — "And if this come to the gov ernor's ears, we will persuade him, and secure you." The Geneva version, but that alone among the previ ous ones, had given the passage rightly : " And if this come before Ike governor (xo./ sav dxouo1^ roGVo liel TOU v/J.ucv&g), We will pacify him, and save you harmless." The words of the original have reference to a judicial 5

98

hearing of the matter before the governor (" si res apud ilium judicem agatur," Erasmus), and not to the possibility of its reaching his ears by hearsay, but this our Translation fails to express. In *sVo,asv, I may observe, lies a euphemism by no means rare in Hel lenistic Greek (see Krebs, Obss. e Jnsepho, in loco) : " We will take effectual means to persuade him ;" as, knowing the covetous, greedy character of the man, they were able confidently to promise.

Mark xi. 17. — " Is it not written, My house shall be called, of all nations, the house of prayer ? but ye have made it a den of thieves." In Tyndale's ver sion, in Cranmer's, and the Geneva : " My house shall be called the house of prayer unto all nations; but ye," &c., and rightly. There is no difficulty what ever in giving iratri <ro~s Stivstt, a dative rather than an ablative sense ; while thus the passage is brought into exact agreement with that in Isaiah, to which Christ, in his " it is written," refers, namely, Isai. Ivi. 7 ; and, moreover, the point of his words is preserved, which the present translation misses. Our Lord's in dignation was aroused in part at the profanation of the holy precincts of his Father's house ; but in part, also, by the fact that, the scene of this profanation being the Court of the Gentiles, the Jews have thus managed to testify their contempt for them, and for their share in the blessings of the Covenant. Those parts of the temple which were exclusively their own, the Court of the Priests, and the Court of Israelites,

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they had kept clear of these buyers and sellers ; but that part assigned to the Gentile worshippers, the <tt?/3oa;voi TOV ©sov, they were little concerned about the profanation to which it was exposed, perhaps pleased with it rather. In a righteous indignation Christ quotes the words of the prophet, which they had done all that in them lay to defeat : " My house shall be called the house of prayer unto all nations :" all which intention on his part in the citation of the prophecy our Version fails to preserve. Mede* ascribes to the influence of Beza this alteration, which is certainly one for the worse.

Ephes. iv. 18. — " Because of the blindness of their hearts." The Geneva version had given this rightly, " because of the hardness of their heart ;" which bet ter rendering our Translators forsake, being content to place it in the margin. But there can be no doubt that rtuputfis is from the substantive *upo£, a porous kind of stone, and from xupou, to become callous, hard, or stony (Mark vi. 52 ; John xii. 40 ; Rom. xi. 7 ; 2 Cor. iii. 14) ; not from -rw^dg, blind. How much bet ter, too, this agrees with what follows — " who being past feeling" (that is, having, through their hardness or callousness of heart, arrived at a condition of mis erable ctvaitft^rf/a), " have given themselves over to work all uncleanness with greediness." I may ob serve that at Rom. xi. 7, they have in like manner put ' blinded' in the text, and ' hardened,' the correct

Works, p. 45.

100 ON SOME BETTER RENDERINGS FORSAKEN,

rendering of erfwpwdrjrfav, in the margin ; while at 2 Cor. iii. 16, where they translate dxx' s-ifupudri ra vo^ara CC-JTWV, " but their minds were blinded" the correcter is not even offered as an alternative rendering. Wiclif and the Rheims, which both depend on the Vulgate (" sed obtusi sunt sensus eorum"), are here the only correct versions.

1 Thess. v. 22. — "Abstain from all appearance of evil." An injurious translation of the words, cwro iravros eldovs irov>]pou air^s^s, and a going back from the right translation, "Abstain from all kind of evil," which the Geneva version had. It is from the reality of evil, and s!So$ here means this (see a good note in Hammond), not from the appearance, which God's Word elsewhere commands us to abstain ; nor does it here command anything else. Indeed, there are times when, so far from abstaining from all appearance of evil, it will be a part of Christian courage not to ab stain from such. It was an " appearance of evil" in the eyes of the Pharisees, when our Lord healed on the Sabbath, or showed himself a friend of publicans and sinners ; but Christ did not therefore abstain from this or from that. How many " appearances of evil," which he might have abstained from, yet did not, must St. Paul's own conversation have presented in the eyes of the zealots for the ceremonial law ! I was once inclined to think that our Translators used ' ap pearance' here as we might now use ' form,' and that we therefore had here an obsolete, not an inaccurate,

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rendering ; but I can find no authority for this use of the word.

Heb. xi. 13. — " These all died in faith ; not having received the promises ; but having seen them afar off, and were persuaded of them, and embraced them." But witli all respect be it said, this " embracing the promises" was the very thing which the worthies of the Old Testament did not do ;. and which the sacred writer is urging throughout that they did not do, who only saw them from afar, as things distant and not near. Our present rendering is an unfortunate going back from Tyn dale's and Cranmer's " saluted them," from Wiclif 's " greeted them." The beautiful image of mariners homeward-bound, who recognise from afar the promontories and well-known features of a beloved land, and ' greet' or ' salute' these from a distance, is lost to us. Estius : " Chrysostomus dictum putat ex rnetaphora navigantium qui ex longinquo prospiciunt civitates desideratas, quas antequam ingrediantur et inhabitant, salutatione praeveniunt." Cf. Virgil, jEn.t iii. 524 :—

" Italiam Iceto socii clamore salutant."

In other respects our Version is unsatisfactory. The words, " and were persuaded of them," have no right to a place in the text ; while the " afar off" (<ro££«$s») belongs not to the seeing alone, but to the saluting as well. How beautifully the verse would read thus amended ! " These all died in faith ; not having re ceived the promises, but having seen and saluted them

102 ON SOME BETTER RENDERINGS FORSAKEN,

from afar." We have exactly such a salutation from afar in the words of the dying Jacob : " I have waited for thy salvation, 0 Lord" (Gen. xlix. 18).

1 Pet. i. 17. — "And if ye call on the Father, who without respect of persons judgeth according to every man's work, pass the time of your sojourning here in fear." Here, too, it must be confessed, th'at we have left a better, and chosen a worse, rendering. The Geneva had it, "And if ye call Him Father, who without respect of persons," <fec. ; and this, and this only, is the meaning which the words of the original, xa! si TLarspa. trtixaXsT&As rov u.i(po<fu'!(Q\rl<K-u$ xpi'vovra, x. r.X., will bear.

It must not be supposed from what has been here adduced that our Translators did not exercise a very careful revision of the translations preceding. In ev ery page of their work there is evidence that they did so. Very often our Authorized Version is the first that has seized the true meaning of a passage. It would be easy for me to bring forward many passages in proof, only that my task is here, passing over the hundred excellencies, to fasten rather on the single fault ; and I must therefore content myself with one or two illustrations of this. Thus, at Heb. iv. 1, none of the preceding versions, neither our own, nor the Rheims, had correctly given xa-raXsiTofxs'vr^ s-jra^yeXi'aj : they all translate it " forsaking the promise," or some thing similar, instead of, as we have rightly done,"" a promise being left us." Again, at Acts xii. 19, the

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technical meaning of dira^^vai, that it signifies to be led away to execution, is wholly missed by Tyndale (" he examined the keepers and commanded to de part"), by Cranmer, and the Rheims ; it is only par tially seized by the Geneva version, but perfectly by our Translators. Far more important than this is the clear recognition of the personality of the Word in the prologue of St. John by our Translators : " All things were made by Him;" " In Him was life" (John i. 3, 4) ; while in all our preceding versions it is read, " All things were made by it" and so on. Our Ver sion is the first which gives <JuvaXi£6fji,evo£ (Acts i. 4) rightly.

Improvements are also very frequent in single words and phrases, even where those which were displaced were not absolutely incorrect. Thus, how much bet ter " earnest expectation" (Rom. viii. 19) than " fer vent desire," as a rendering of c«roxapa(Wa ; ' tattlers' instead of ' triflers,' as a rendering of <pXu<xpo< (1 Tim. v. 13 ; indeed, the latter could hardly be said to be correct.* " Whited sepulchres" is an improvement upon "painted sepulchres" («• oo; xexcvi c'vc-i, Matt, xxiii. 27), which all our preceding versions had. " Without distraction" (1 Cor. vii. 35) is a far better rendering of -'•-;. i •' -ZT^S than "without separation" It was slovenly to introduce ' Candy,' the modern

* Unless, indeed, ' trifler' once meant " utterer of trifles," and thus ' tattler ;' which may perlia >s be, as I observe in the fragment of a Nominate published by Wright, National Antiquities, vol. i., p. 216, ' nugigerulus' given as the Latin equivalent of ' trifler.'

104 ON SOME BETTER RENDERINGS FORSAKEN,

name of Crete, which all the Anglican versions before our own had done at Acts xxvii. 7, 12, 21 ; but which in ours is removed. " Profane person" is a singularly successful rendering of /3(c>j o- (Heb. xii. 16). while yet none of our preceding versions had lighted upon it ; at the same time it is possible that we ourselves o\ve it to the Rheims, where it first appears.

But, further, our Translators sometimes put a bet ter rendering in the margin, and retain a worse in the text. It may perhaps be urged that here at least they offer the better to the reader's choice. But practi cally this can not be said to be the case. For, in the first place, the proportion of our Bibles is very small which are printed with these marginal variations, as compared with those in which they are suppressed. They are thus brought under the notice of very few among the readers of Scripture, not to say that by these they are very rarely referred to. How many, for instance, among these even know of the existence of a variation so important as that at John iii. 3 ? And even if they do refer, they commonly attach com paratively little authority, to them. They acquiesce for the most part, and naturally acquiesce, in the ver dict of the Translators about them ; who, by placing them in the margin, and not in the text, evidently declare that they consider them the less probable ren derings. Then, too, of course, they are never heard in the public services of the Church, which must al-

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ways be a chief source of the popular knowledge of Scripture. It is impossible, then, to attach to a right interpretation in the margin any serious value, as re dressing an erroneous or imperfect one in the text. Marginal variations are quite without influence as modifying the view which the body of English readers take of any passages in the English Bible ; and this leads me to observe that the suggestion which has been sometimes made of a large addition to these, as a middle way and compromise between leaving our Version as it is, and introducing actual changes into its text, does not seem to me to contain any real so lution of our difficulties, not to say that it would be attended with many and most serious objections.

But to return. The following are passages in which I can not doubt that we have placed the better ren dering in the margin, the worse in the text: —

Matt. v. 21. — " Ye have heard that it was said by them of old time." This rendering of tylrfa ro~s d^alois is grammatically defensible, while yet there can be no reasonable doubt that " to them of old time," which was in all the preceding versions, but which our Transla tors have dismissed to the margin, ought to resume its place in the text.

Matt. ix. 36. — " They fainted and were scattered abroad, as sheep having no shepherd." But " scat tered abroad" does not exactly express ^i/xjxf'voi, any more than does the ' zerstreut' of Luther's version. It is not their dispersion one from another, but their

106 ON SOME BETTKR RENDERINGS FORSAKEN,

prostration in themselves, which is intended. The J^ifi/xsvoi are the ' prostrati,' ' temere project! ;' those that have cast themselves along for very weariness, unable to travel any farther. The Vulgate had it rightly, ' jacentes,' which Wiclif follows, " lying down." Our present rendering dates as far back as Tyndale, and was retained in the subsequent versions ; while the correct translation is relegated to the mar gin.

Matt. x. 16. — "Be ye therefore wise as serpents, and harmless as doves." Wiclif, following the Vul gate, had "simple as doves." ' Simple' our Transla tors have dismissed to the margin ; they ought to have kept it in the text, as rightly they have done at Rom. xvi. 19. The rendering of dxfyaws by ' harmless' here and at Phil. ii. 15, grows out of wrong etymology, as though it were from d and x^acr, one who had no horn with which to push or otherwise hurt. Thus, Bengel, who falls in with this error, glosses here : " Sine cornu, ungula, dente, aculeo." But this " without horn" would be dx^arog ; while the true derivation of dxsgouos, it needs hardly be said, is from d and xs^avvu/xi, unmingled, sincere, and thus single, guileless, simple, without all folds. How much finer the antithesis in this way becomes ! " Be ye therefore wise (' prudent' would be better) as serpents, and simple as doves" — having care, that is, that this prudence of yours do not degenerate into artifice and guile ; letting the columbine simplicity go hand in hand with the ser-

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pentine prudence. The exact parallel will then be 1 Cor. xiv. 20.

Mark vi. 20. — " For Herod feared John, knowing that he was a just man and an holy, and observed him." This may be after Erasmus, who renders x«.t tfuvsr^psi auro'v, " et magni cum faciebat ;" so, too, Grotius and others. Now, it is undoubtedly true that rfuvngpsn/ TO <$;xaia (Polybius, iv. 60, 10) would be rightly trans lated " to observe things righteous ;" but here it is not things, but a person, and no such rendering is admissible. Translate rather, as in our margin, " kept him or saved him," that is, from the malice of Hero- dias ; she laid plots for the Baptist's life, but up to this time Herod tfuvj^p.-i, sheltered or preserved, him (" custodiebat eum," the Vulgate rightly), so that her malice could not reach him. See Hammond, in loco. It will at once be evident in how much stricter logical sequence the statement of the Evangelist will follow, if this rendering of the passage is admitted.

Mark vii. 4. — ' Tables.' This can not be correct : our Translators have put ' beds' in the margin, against which rendering of xXivwv nothing can be urged, ex cept that the context points clearly here to these in a special aspect, namely, to the ' benches' or ' couches' on which the Jews reclined at their meals.

Luke xvii. 21. — " The kingdom of heaven is within you." Doubtless, the words svroj ufiwv may mean this ; but how could the Lord address this language to the Pharisees ? A very different kingdom from the king-

108 ON SOME BETTER RENDERINGS FORSAKEN,

dom of heaven was within them, not to say that this whole language of the kingdom of heaven being within men, rather than men being within the kingdom of heaven, is, as one has justly observed, modern. Tho marginal reading, " among you," should have been the textual. " He in whom the whole kingdom of heaven is shut up as in a germ, and from whom it will unfold itself, stands in your midst."

Col. ii. 18. — " Let no man beguile you of your re ward." It is evident that this xara/3pa/3suf<rcj ^as seriously perplexed our early translators, and indeed others besides them. Thus, in the earlier Italic we find, " vos superet ;" in the Vulgate, '' vos decipiat ;" Tyndale translates, " make you shoot at a wrong mark ;" the Geneva, " bear rule over you ;" while our Translators have proposed as an alternative reading to that which they admit into the text, "judge against you." The objection to this rendering, which marks more insight into the true character of the word than any which went before, is that it is too obscure, and does not sufficiently tell its own story. The meaning of /Spa/Sa'siv is, to adjudge a reward ; of xaTa/Spa/Ss.'siv, out of a hostile mind (this is implied in the Kara), to adjudge it away from a person, with a subaudition that this is the person to whom it is justly due. Je rome (ad Alga$. Qu. 10) 4oes not quite seize the meaning ; for he regards the. xara/3pa/3?;;ojv as the com petitor who unjustly bears away, not the judge who unjustly ascribes, the revyar4 : otherwise his explana-

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tion is good : " Nemo adversum vos bravium accipiat : hoc enim Grace dicitur xewa/:?pa/3eueVw, quum quis in certamine positus, iniquitate agonothetae, vel insidiis magistrorum, (3pa.(3c~ov et palmam sibi debitam perdit." It is impossible for any English word to express the fullness of allusion contained in the original Greek ; while long circumlocutions, which should turn the version in fact into a commentary, are clearly inad missible. If "judge against you" is too obscure, and too little of an English idiom, and "judge away the reward from you" would underlie the second at least of these objections, the substitution of ' deprive' for ' beguile' (which last has certainly no claim to stand), might, in case of a revision, be desirable.

1 Thess. iv. 6. — " Let no man go beyond or defraud his brother in any matter." But TCJ here is not —f^ — TI'VJ, which would alone justify the rendering of fa rw •ffpttyjj.a-n, " in any matter." A more correct trans lation is in the margin, namely, " in the matter," that is, " in this matter," being the matter with which the Apostle at the moment has to do. The difference may not seem very important, but, indeed, the wholo sense of the passage turns on this word ; and, as we translate in one way or the other, we determine for ourselves whether it is a warning against overreach ing our neighbor, and a too shrewd dealing with him in the business transactions of life, strangely finding place in the midst of warnings against uncleanness and a libertine freedom in the relation of the sexes ;

110 ON SOME BETTER RENDERINGS FORSAKEN,

or whether an unbroken warning against this is con tained through all these verses (3-9). I can not doubt that the latter is the correct view, that ™ Tpa^/xa is an euphemism, and that our marginal ver sion is the right one ; the Apostle warning his Thes- salonian converts that none, in a worse *X£ovegia than that which makes one man covet his neighbor's goods, overstep the limits and fences by which God has hedged round and separated from him his brother's wife. See Bengel, in loco. Accepting this view of the passage, ' overreach,' which the margin suggests instead of * defraud,' as the rendering of vftewexreTv, would also be an undoubted improvement.

1 Tim. vi. 5. — " Supposing that gain iff godliness" It is difficult to connect any meaning whatever with this language. But Coverdale, and he alone of our translators, deals with these words, VO^OVTSS iropicr/xov £jrva« <r>]v sutfs'/Ssiav, rightly — "which think that godli ness is lucre" that is, a means of gain. The want of a thorough mastery of the Greek article and its use, left it possible here to go back from a right rendering once attained.

Heb. v. 2. — "Who can have compassion on the ignorant, and on them that are out of the way, for that he himself also is compassed with infirmity." But is, it may fairly be asked, " who can have com passion," the happiest rendering of M-£!rp'0*a^v duvapevos? and ought ^sTpiofa-^sTv to be thus taken as entirely sy nonymous with rfupratarv ? The words f/.£TpioTa$£<v,

OR PLACED IN THE MARGIN. Ill

, belong to the terminology of the later schools of Greek philosophy, and were formed to express that moderate amount of emotion (the psrpius •mo^iv) which the Peripatetics and others acknowledged as becom ing a wise and good man, contrasted with the cwradsia, or absolute iudolency, which the Stoics required. It seems to me that the Apostle would say that the high priest taken from among men, out of a sense of his own weakness and infirmity was in a condition to estimate mildly and moderately, and not transported with indignation, the sins and errors of his brethren ; and it is this view of the passage which is correctly expressed in the margin : " who can reasonably bear with the ignorant," <fec.

Heb. ix. 23. — " It was therefore necessary that the patterns of things in the heavens should be purified with these, but the heavenly things themselves with better sacrifices than these." The employment of ' patterns' introduces some confusion here, and is not justified by the use of the word in the time of our Translators, any more than in our own. It is, of course, quite true that i^ofe^a may mean, and, in deed, often does mean, ' pattern' or ' exemplar' (John xiii. 15). But here, as at viii. 5 (utfo^ei/fx-a xa/ cfxi'a), it can only mean the copy drawn from this exemplar. The heavenly things are themselves " the patterns" or archetypes, the ' Urbilden ;' the earthly, the Levitical tabernacle, with its priests and sacrifices, are the copies, the similitudes, the ' Abbilden,' which, as such,

112 ON SOME BETTER RENDERINGS FORSAKEN.

are partakers not of a real but a typical purification. This is, indeed, the very point which the Apostle is urging, and his whole antithesis is confused by calling the earthly things themselves " the patterns." The earlier translators, Tyndale, Cranmer, and the Gene va, had ' similitudes,' which was correct, though it seems to me that ' copies' would be preferable.*

2 Pet. iii. 12. — "Hasting- unto the coming of the day of God." The Vulgate had in like manner ren dered the t-reJSovris T-^V crapourfiav, " properantes in ad- ventum ;" and this use of rfrsJosiv may be abundantly justified, although " hasting toward the coming" seems to me to express more accurately what our Transla tors probably intended, and what the word allows. This will then be pretty nearly Do Wette's ' ersehn- end.' Yet the marginal version, " hasting- the com ing" (accelerantes adventum," Erasmus), seems bet ter. The faithful, that is, shall seek to cause the day of the Lord to come the more quickly by helping to fulfil those conditions, without which it can not come — that day being no day inexorably fixed, but one, the arrival of which it is free to the Church to help and hasten on by faith and by prayer, and through a more rapid accomplishing of the number of the elect.

* It is familiarly known to all students of English that ' pattern' is originally only another spelling of ' patron' (the client imitates his patron ; the copy takes after its pattern), however they may have now separated oft' into two words. But it is interesting to notice the word when as yet this separation of one into two had not uttered itself in different orthography. We do this Heb. viii. 5 (Geneva Version) : " which priestes serve unto the patrone and shadow of heavenly things."

ERRORS OF GREEK GRAMMAR IN OUR VERSION. 113

CHAPTER VII.

ON SOME ERRORS OP GREEK GRAMMAR IN OUR VERSION.

I HAVE already spoken of the English Grammar of our Translators ; but the Greek Grammar is also oc casionally at fault. The most recurring blemishes which have been noted here, are these : 1. A failing to give due heed to the presence or absence of the article ; they omit it sometimes, when it is present in their original, and when, according to the rules of the language, it ought to be preserved in the transla tion ; they insert it, when it is absent there, and has no claim to have found admission from them. 2. A certain laxity in the rendering of prepositions ; for example, sv is rendered as if it was si;, and vice versa ; the different forces of &i, as it governs a genitive or an accusative, are disregarded, with other inaccura cies of the same kind. 3. Tenses are not always ac curately discriminated ; aorists are dealt with as per fects, perfects as aorists ; the force of the imperfect is not always given. Moods, too, and voices, are oc-

114 ON SOME ERRORS OF GREEK GRAMMAR

casionally confounded. 4. Other grammatical lapses, which can not be included in any of these divisions, are noticeable. These, however, are the most seri ous and most recurring. I will give examples of them all.

I. In regard of the Greek article, our Translators err in both excess and defect, but oftenast in the lat ter. They omit it, and sometimes not without serious loss, in passages where it ought to find place. Such a passage is Rev. xvii. 14 : " These are they which came out of great tribulation." Rather, " out of the great tribulation" (sx <r~is 6\l^,sug r^; (xsyaX^). The leaving out of the article, so emphatically repeated, causes us to miss the connection between this passage and Matt. xxiv. 22, 29 ; Dan. xii. 1. It is the char acter of the Apocalypse, the crowning book of the Canon, that it abounds with allusions to preceding Scriptures ; and, numerous as are those that appear on the surface, those which lie a little below the sur face are more numerous still. Thus, there can be no doubt that allusion is here to " the great tribula tion" (the same phrase, dXuJ^c jas/aXr,) of the last days, the birth-pangs of the new creation, which our Lord in his prophecy from the Mount had foretold.

Heb. xi. 10. — "He looked for a city which hath foundations." Not so ; the language is singularly emphatic. " He looked for the city which hath the foundations" (*ov roue: OgjxsXiouf; l^outfav -ro'Xiv), that is, the well-known and often-alluded-to foundations — in

IN OUR VERSION. 115

other words, he looked for the New Jerusalem, of which it had been already said, " Her foundations are in the holy mountains" (Ps. Ixxxvii. 1 ; cf. Isai. xxviii. 16) ; even as in the Apocalypse great things are spoken of these glorious foundations of the Heav enly City (Rev. xxi. 14, 19, 20). Let me here ob serve that those expositors seem to me to be wholly astray who make the Apostle to say that Abraham looked forward to a period when the nomad life which he was now leading should cease, and his descendants be established in a well-ordered city, the earthly Je rusalem. He may, indeed, have looked on to that as a pledge of better things to come ; but never to that as " the City having the foundations ;" nor do I sup pose for an instant that our Translators at all intended this ; but still, if they had reproduced the force of the article, they would, in giving the passage its true emphasis, have rendered such a misapprehension on the part of their readers well-nigh impossible.

John iii. 10. — "Art thou a teacher of Israel, and knowest not these things ?" Middleton may perhaps make too much of 5 (WarfxaXog- here, as though it singled out Nicodemus from among all the Jewish doctors as the one supcreminent. Yet it is equally incorrect to deny it all force. It is, as Erasmus gives it, " ille magister ;" " Art thou that teacher, that famed teacher of Israel, and yet art ignorant of these things ?" and the question loses an emphasis, which I can not but believe, with Winer and many more, it was intended

116 ON SOME ERRORS OF GREEK GRAMMAR

to have, by the obliteration in our Version of the force of the article.

In other passages it is plain that a more complete mastery of the use of the article would have modified the rendering of a passage which our Translators have given. It would have done so, I am persuaded, at 1 Tira. vi. 2 : " And they that have believing masters, let them not despise them, because they are brethren, but rather do them service, because they are faithful and beloved, partakers of the benefit" (o>( ciovoi g/rfi

xx/ dya-rr,=roi, oi T~,CT elspyesicts dv-nXafji/3avo'|X£voi). It is

clear that for them "partakers of the benefit" is but a further unfolding of " faithful and beloved," the 1 benefit' being the grace and gift of eternal life, com mon to master and slave alike. But so the article in this last clause has not its rights, and the only correct translation of the passage will make *i<f<roi xai dyaifri<roi the predicate, and &< r~f,$ svegysgias avnXaix/Javofjuevoi the subject. St. Paul reminds the slaves that they shall serve believing masters the more cheerfully out of the consideration that they do not bestow their service on unconverted, unthankful lords, but rather that they who are " partakers of the benefit," that is, the benefit of their service, they to whom this service is rendered, are brethren in Christ. The Vulgate lightly: " quia fideles sunt et dilecti, qui beneficii ]>articipes sunt." It needs only to insert the words " who are" before ' partakers,' to make our Version correct.

IN OUR VERSION. 117

But more important than in any of these passages, as rendering serious doctrinal misunderstandings pos sible, is the neglect of the article at Rom. v. 15, 17. In place of any observations of my own, I will here quote Bentley's criticism on our Version. Having found fault with the rendering of oi <roXXo(, Rom. xii. 5, he proceeds : " This will enable us to clear up another place of much greater consequence, Rom. v .; where after the Apostle had said, ver. 12, l that by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin, and so death passed upon all men (sl$ iravracr avfywirous), for that all have sinned,' in the rendition of this sentence, ver. 15, he says, ' for if through the offence of one (TOU sv6-) many (oi -roXXoi) be dead' (so our Transla tors), ' much more the grace of God by one man (TOU Jesus Christ hath abounded unto many* (els TW$ . Now, who would not wish that they had kept the articles in the version which they saw in the original ? ; If through the offence of the one' (that is, Adam) ' the many have died, much more the grace of God by the one man hath abounded unto the many? By this accurate version some hurtful mistakes about partial redemption and absolute reprobation had been happily prevented. Our English readers had then seen, what several of the Fathers saw and testified, that oi co\Xo;, the many, in an antithesis to the one, are equivalent to ifMrs$, all, in ver. 12, and compre hend the whole multitude, the entire species of man kind, exclusive only of the one. So, again, ver. 18

118 ON SOME ERRORS OF GREEK GRAMMAR

and 19 of the same chapter, our Translators have repeated the like mistake ; where, when the Apostle had said ' that as the offence of one was upon all men (si's Totvras dvfywtfoif) to condemnation, so the righ teousness of one was upon all men to justification ; for,' adds he, ' as by the one man's (VoiJ |voV) disobedi ence the many (o! ToXXci) were made sinners ; so by the obedience of the one (TO? jvo?) the many (oi -roXXo;) shall be made righteous.' By this version the reader is admonished and guided to remark that the many, in ver. 19, are the same as -ravre^, all, in the 18th. But our Translators, when they render it, ' many were made sinners, many were made righteous,' what do they do less than lead and draw their unwary readers into error?"*

By far the most frequent fault with our Translators is the omission of the article in the translation when it stands in the original ; yet sometimes they fall into the converse error, and insert an article in the Eng lish where it does not stand in the Greek ; and this, too, it may be, not without injury to the sense and intention of the sacred writer. It is so at Rom. ii. 14, where we make St. Paul to say, " For when the Gen tiles, which have not the law, do by nature the things contained in the law, these, having not the law, are a law unto themselves." One might conclude from this, that the Apostle regarded such a fulfilling of the law on the part of the Gentiles, as ordinary and normal.

* A Sermon upon Popery. Works, vol. iii., p. 245; cf. p. 129.

IN OUR VERSION. 119

Yet it is not ra i't'vr, but t^, and the passage must be rendered, " For when Gentiles, which have not the law," &c., the Apostle having in these words his eye on the small election of heathendom, the exceptions, and not the rule.

St. Paul has been sometimes charged with exag geration in declaring that " the love of money is the root of all evil" (1 Tim vi. 10) ; and there have been attempts to mitigate the strength of the assertion, as that when he said "• a/I. evil," lie only meant " much evil." The help, however, does not lie here ; but in more strictly observing what he does say. " The love of money," he declares, "is" — not "the root," but — "a root, of all evil." He does not affirm that this is the bitter root from which all evil springs, but a bitter root from which all evil may spring ; there is no sin of which it may not be, as of which it has not been, the impulsive motive.

But perhaps at another place, Acts xxvi. 2, the insertion of the article in the English, where there is no article in the Greek, works still more injuriously. St. Paul would by no means have affirmed or admit ted that " the Jews" accused him ; all true Jews, all who held fast the promises made to the Fathers, and now fulfilled in Christ, were on his side. He is ac cused " of Jews" unfaithful members of the house of Abraham, by no means " of the Jews." The force of ver. 7 is still more seriously impaired. In that verse St. Paul puts before Agrippa, a Jewish prose-

120 ON SOME ERRORS OF GREEK GRAMMAR

lyte, and therefore capable of understanding him, the monstrous, self-contradicting absurdity, that for cher ishing arid asserting the Messias-hope of his nation, he should now be accused — not of heathens, that would have been nothing strange — but "of Jews" when that hope was indeed the central treasure of the whole Jewish nation. — Before leaving this point, I may observe that " a Hebrew of Hebrews" (Phil. iii. 5), one, namely, of pure Hebrew blood and language ('Empales sg 'E/3pa~wv), while it is more accurate, would tell also its own story much better than " a Hebrew of the Hebrews," as we have it now.

II. Our Translators do not always seize the precise force of the prepositions. They have not done so in the passages which follow : —

John iv. 6. — "Jesus therefore being wearied with his journey, sat thus on the well." It should be ra ther, "by the well" Q«l vy -r>jy»j), in its immediate neighborhood. On two other occasions, namely, Mark xiii. 29 ; John v. 2, they have rightly gone back from the more rigorous rendering of e-ri with a dative, to which they have here adhered : cf. Exod. ii. 15, LXX.* ,

Heb. vi. 7. — " Herbs meet for them by whom it is dressed." The Translators give in the margin as an alternative, "/or whom." But it is no mere alterna tive ; of <$r o:J<; (not &' div), it is the only rendering

* Yet it ought to be said that Winer (Gramm., § 52, c.) is on the side of our Version as it stands.

IN OUR VERSION. 121

which can be admitted. The rendering which has been preferred, besides being faulty in grammar, dis turbs the spiritual image which underlies the passage. The heart of man is here the earth ; man is the dres ser ; but the spiritual culture goes forward, not that the earth may bring forth that which is meet for him, the dresser by whom, but for God, the owner of the soil, for whom, it is dressed. The plural oY oU?, instead of <v ov, need not trouble us, nor remove us from this, the only right interpretation. The earlier Latin ver sion had it rightly ; see Tertullian, De Pudic., c. 20 :

" Terra enim quse peperit herbam aptam his,

propter quos et colitur," &c. ; but the Vulgate, " a quibus" anticipates our mistake, in which we only follow the English translations preceding.

Luke xxiii. 42. — "And he said unto Him, Lord, remember me when Thou coinest into thy kingdom" But how could Christ come into his kingdom, when He is Himself the centre of the kingdom, and brings the kingdom with Him ? The passage will gain im mensely when, leaving that strange and utterly un warranted assumption that si?, a preposition of motion, is convertible with ev, a preposition of rest ; and thus that £v rrj jSarfiXsiot, which stands here, is the same as sis *^v jSarfiXsiav, we translate, " Lord, remember me when Thou comest in thy kingdom" that is, " with all thy glorious kingdom about Thee," as is so sub limely set forth, Rev. xix. 14 ; cf. Jude 14 ; 2 Thess. i. 7; Matt. xxv. 31 (%'v *y <^t?0- ^ *s tne stranger

6

122 ON SOME ERRORS OF GREEK GRAMMAR

that our Translators should have fallen into this er ror, seeing that they have translated spx^vcv ^ *? /SarfjXei'a aCrou (Matt. xvi. 28) quite correctly, " com ing in his kingdom" The Vulgate has " in regno tuo1' there, although it shares the error of our Trans lation, and has "in regnum tuum" here. The exe- getical tact of Maldonatus overcomes on this, as on many other occasions, his respect for his authentic Vulgate, and he comments thus : " Itaque non est sensus, Cum veneris ad regnandum, sed, Cum veneris jam regnans, cum veneris non ad acquirenduin reg num, sed regno jam acquisito, quemadmodum venturus ad judicium est." The same faulty rendering of £v, and assumption that it may have the force of e/s, oc curs, Gal. i. 6 ; and indeed this, or the converse, in too many other passages as "well.*

2 Cor. xi. 3. — "But I fear lest .... your minds should be corrupted from the simplicity that is in Christ" (dtfo rr,g airXoViiTog <r% ei$ rov Xpjtf-ro'v). Here, again, the injurious supposition that sis and sv may be confounded, has been at work, and to serious loss in the bringing out of the meaning of the passage. The owrXoV*)^ here is the simple, undivided affection, the sin gleness of heart, of the Bride, the Church, sis Xpufrov, toward Christ. It is not their " simplicity in Christ" or Christian simplicity, which the Apostle fears lest

* See Winer's Gramm., § 54, 4, where he enters at length into the question whether el; is ever used for iv, or iv for ds, in the New Tes tament. He denies both.

IN OUR VERSION. 123

they may through addiction to worldly wisdom forfeit and let go ; but, still moving in the images of espousals and marriage, that they may not bring a simple, undi vided heart to Christ. If after «xtfXoVy)rog we should also read xou T^S ayvorrirof, which seems probable, it will then be clearer still what St. Paul's intention was. 2 Pet. i. 5-7. — " Add to your faith virtue, and to virtue knowledge, and to knowledge temperance, and to temperance patience, and to patience godliness,"

&C. (zti'X.op'nj'ytfa-'re sv <rj] itltfTSi u(j«2v <n}v ap£T-/;v, x. <r. X.)

Tyndale had rendered the passage: "In your faith minister virtue, and in your virtue knowledge," &c., and all translations up to the Authorized had followed him. Henry More (On Godliness, b. 8, c. 3) has well expressed the objection to the present version : " Grotius would have sv to be redundant here ; so that his suffrage is for the English translation. But, for my own part, I think that ev is so far from being re dundant that it is essential to the sentence, and inter posed that we might understand a greater mystery than the mere adding of so many virtues one to an other, which would be all that could be expressly signified if sv were left out. But the preposition here signifying causality, there is more than a mere enu meration of those divine graces. For there is also implied how naturally they rise one out of another, and that they have a causal dependence one of anoth er." See this same thought beautifully carried out in detail by Bengel, in loco.

124 ON SOME ERRORS OF GREEK GRAMMAR

III. Our Translators do not always give the true force of tenses, moods, and voices.

Oftentimes the present tense is used in the New Testament, especially by St. John in the Apocalypse, to express the eternal Now of Him for whom there can be no past and no future. It must be consid ered a fault, when this is let go, and exchanged for a past tense in our Version. Take, for instance, Rev. iv. 5 : " Out of the throne proceeded lightnings, and thunderings, and voices." But it is much more than this ; not merely at that one moment when St. John beheld, but evermore out of his throne proceed (ixiro- ^sJovrai) these symbols of the presence and of the ter rible majesty of God. Throughout this chapter, and at chapter i. 14-16, there is often a needless, and sometimes an absolutely incorrect, turning of the pres ent of eternity into the past of time.

Elsewhere a past is turned without cause into a present. It is so at Acts xxviii. 4 : " No doubt this man is a murderer, whom, though he hath escaped the sea, yet Vengeance suffereth not to live." A fine turn in the words of these barbarous islanders has been missed in our Version, and in all the English versions except the Geneva. The /3<xp/3apoi, the ' na tives,' as I think the word might have been fairly translated, who must have best known the qualities of the vipers on the island, are so confident of the deadly character of that one which has fastened itself on Paul's hand, that they regard and speak of him as

IN OUR VERSION. 125

one already dead, and in this sense use a past tense ; he is one whom " Vengeance suffered not (oOx s'/arfsv) to live." Bengel : " Non sivit; jam nullum putant esse Paulum ;" De Wette : " nicht habt leben lassen." Let me observe here, by-the-way, that our modern editions of the Bible should not have dropped the capital V with which ' Vengeance' was spelt in the exemplar edition of 1611. These islanders, in their simple but most truthful moral instincts, did not con template ' Vengeance' or AIXTJ. in the abstract ; but personified her as a goddess ; and our Translators, who are by no means prodigal of their capitals, in their manner of spelling the word, did their best to mark and reproduce this personification of the divine Justice, although the carelessness of printers has since let it go.

Elsewhere there is confusion between the uses of the present and the perfect. There is such, for ex ample, at Luke xviii. 12 : "I give tithes of all that I possess." But o'<ra x-rwfjLai is not " all that I possess," but " all that I acquire" (" quae mihi acquire, quae mihi redeunt"). The Vulgate which has ' possideo,' shares, perhaps suggested, our error. In the perfect xe'xTrjfiai the word first obtains the force of " I possess," or, in other words, " I have acquired."* The Phari see would boast himself to be, so to say, another Jacob, such another as he who had said, " Of all that Thou shilt give me, I will surely give the tenth unto

* See Winer's Gramm., j 41, 4.

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Thee" (Gen. xxviii. 22; cf. xiv. 20), a careful per former of that precept of the law, which said, " Thou shalt truly tithe all the increase of thy seed, that the field bringeth forth year by year" (Deut. xiv. 22) ; but change ' acquire' into ' possess,' and how much of this we lose !

We must associate with this passage another, name ly, Luke xxi. 19 : " In your patience possess ye your souls ;" for the same correction ought there to find place. It is rather, " In your patience make ye your souls your own" — that is, " In and by your patience or endurance acquire your souls as indeed your own" (" salvas obtinete"). Thus Winer: "Durch Aus- dauer erwerbt euch eure Seelen ; sie werden dann erst euer wahres, unverlierbares Eigenthum werden." It is noticeable that our Translators have corrected the ' possess' of all the preceding versions at Matt. x. 9, exchanged this for the more accurate ' provide' (xTTjtfTjrfds), or, as it is in the margin, 'get;' which makes it strange that they should have allowed it in these other places to stand.

Imperfects lose their proper force, and are dealt with as aorists and perfects. The vividness of the narration often suffers from the substitution of the pure historic for what may be called the descriptive tense ; as, for example, at Luke xiv. 7 : "He put forth a parable to those that were bidden when He marked how they chose out the chief rooms." Read, " how they were choosing out (^t-Xsyovro) the chief

IN OUR VERSION. 127

rooms" — the sacred historian placing the Lord's ut terance of the parable in the midst of the events which he is describing. So Acts iii. 1 : " Now Peter and John went up together into the temple." Read, "were going up" (stvs'/3aivov). Again, Mark ii. 18: " And the disciples of John and of the Pharisees used to fast" Read, "were fasting" (^Vav vvjavsuovrsf), namely, at that very time ; which gives a special vigor to their remonstrances ; they were keeping a fast while the Lord's disciples were celebrating a festival. The incomplete, imperfect sense, which so often belongs to this tense, and from which it derives its name, they often fail to give ; the commencement of a work which is not brought to a conclusion, the consent and co-operation of another party, which was necessary for its completion, having been withheld ; in such cases the will is taken for the deed.* Thus, Luke i. 59: "And they called him Zacharias." It is not so, for Elizabeth would not allow this name to be given him ; but with the true force of the incom plete, imperfect tense, " they were calling (^xaXouv) him Zacharias." Once more, Luke v. 6 : " And their net brake" Had this been so, they would scarcely have secured the fish at all. Rather, " was in the act of breaking," or " was at the point to break" ((Jisp^/vuro). Other passages where they do not give the force of the imperfect, but deal with it as though it had been a perfect or an aorist, are John iii. 22 ;

* See Jelf 's Kuhner's Gramm., § 398, 2.

128 ON SOME ERRORS OF GREEK GRAMMAR

iv. 47 ; vi. 21 ; Luke xxiv. 32 ; Matt. xiii. 34 ; Acts xi. 20.

Aorists are rendered as if they were perfects ; and perfects as if they were aorists. Thus, we have an example of the first, Luke i. 19, where dirstrjOw is translated as though it were aWoVaX^ai, " I am sent,'' instead of " I ivas sent." Gabriel contemplates his mission, not at the moment of its present fulfilment, but from that of his first sending forth from the pres ence of God. Another example of the same occurs at 2 Pet. i. 14 : " Knowing that shortly I must put off this my tabernacle, even as our Lord Jesus Christ hath shewed me." By this "hath shewed me," we lose altogether the special allusion to an historic mo ment in the Apostle's life, to John xxi. 18, 19, which would at once come out, if edr,\u,ffs /xoi had been ren dered, " shewed me." Doubtless there are passages which would make difficult the universal application of the rule that perfects should be translated as per fects, and aorists as aorists ; thus, Luke xiv. 18, 19, where one might hesitate in rendering r/yo'parfa " I bought" instead of " I have bought" and some at least in the long line of aorists, eSogatfa, srsXsiWa, iya.- vg'pwtfa, sXa/3ov (ver. 4, 6, 8), in the high-priestly prayer, John xvii. Still, on these passages no conclusion can be grounded that the writers of the New Testament did not always observe the distinction.*

Again, the force of the aorist is missed, though in

* See Winer, Gramm., § 41, 5.

IN OUR VERSION. 129

another way, at Mark xvi. 2, where avarsiXavros rw yjXi'ou is translated, " at the rising of the sun." It can only be, " when the sun was risen." Did the anxiety to avoid a slight seeming discrepancy between this statement and that of two other Evangelists (Matt, xxviii. 1 ; Mark xvi. 2) modify the translation here ?

Examples, on the other hand, of perfects turned into aorists are frequent. Thus, at Luke xiii. 2: " Suppose ye that these Galileans were sinners above all the Galileans, because they .suffered such things ?" Rather, " because they have suffered (irssrovrfatfiv) such things." Our Lord contemplates the memorable ca tastrophe by which they perished, not as something belonging merely to the historic past ; but as a fact reaching into the present ; still vividly presenting itself to the mind's eye of his hearers.

One other example must suffice. In that great doc trinal passage, Col. i. 13-22, St. Paul declares, ver. 16, that " by Christ were all things created." The aorist £x<r,'<rfr] has its right force given to it here ; but the Apostle in a most remarkable way, when in the last clause of the verse he resumes the doctrine of the whole, changes the aorist sxriV^ for the perfect sWitfrcu. And why ? Because he is no longer looking at the one historic act of creation, but at the permanent re sults flowing on into all time and eternity therefrom. Our Translators have not followed him here, but, as if no change had been made, they render this clause also : " All things were created by Him, and for Him ;"

6*

130 ON SOME ERRORS OF GREEK GRAMMAR .

but read rather: "All things have been created by Him, and for Him."*

Imperfects and aorists are turned without necessity into pluperfects. It is admitted by all that an aorist, under certain conditions, may have this sense of a past behind another past ;f nor, according to some, can this force be altogether denied to the imperfect ; but a pluperfect force is given in our Version to these tenses, where certainly no sort of necessity requires it. Thus, for the words, " because He had done these things on the sabbath" (John v. 16), read, "because He did (siro»'s<) these things on the sabbath." And, again, in the same chapter read, " for Jesus conveyed Himself away''' (sgs'vsuo'sv) ; that is, so soon as this dis cussion between the Jews and the healed man arose, not, " had conveyed Himself away" previously, as our Version would imply.

Neither do our Translators always give its right force to a middle verb. They fail to do so at Phil, ii. 15 : " among whom ye shine as lights in the world." To justify these words, " ye shine" which are shared by all the Versions of the English Hexapla, St. Paul ought to have written (pai'vsrs, and not (pouWds, as he has written. <J>a»'vsiv, indeed, is to shine (John i. 5 ;

* The fact that we almost all learn our grammar from the Latin, and that in the Latin the perfect indicative does its own duty and that of the aorist as well, renders us very unobservant of inaccuracies in this particular kind till we have been specially trained to observe them.

t What these conditions are, see Winer's Gramm., § 41, 5.

IN OUR VERSION. 131

2 Pet. i. 19 ; Rev. i. 16) ; but <pa«vetfdai to appear (Matt, xxiii. 27 ; 1 Pet. iv. 18 ; Jam. iv. 14). It is worthy of note that while the Vulgate, having ' lucetis,' shares and anticipates our error, the earlier Italic Version was free from it ; as is evident from the verse as quoted by Augustine (Enarr. in Psalm., cxlvi. 4) : " In qui- bus apparetis tanquam luminaria in mundo."

Sometimes the force of a passive is lost. Thus is it at 2 Cor. v. 10 : " For we must all appear before the judgment-seat of Christ.". The words contain a yet more solemn and awful announcement than this : " For we must all be made manifest" (Vav-ras r^as <pavspud?jvai &•"), "exhibited as what we indeed are, displayed in our true colors, the secrets of our hearts disclosed, and we, so to speak, turned inside out"" (for the word means as much as this) "before the judgment-seat of Christ." There is often reason to think that the exposition of Chrysostom exercised considerable influence on our Translators. Here it might have done so with benefit ; for, commenting on these words (in Cor. Horn., 10), he says: "oJ yap

iraparfT^vaj r^ag atfXwj SeT, aXXct xal <pav s pw$5jva«,"

showing that he would not have been satisfied with what our Translators have here done.

With one or two miscellaneous observations I will conclude this chapter. It would be very impertinent to suppose that our Translators, who numbered in their company many of the first scholars of their time, were not perfectly at home in the use of *Zf, and

132 ON SOME ERRORS OP GREEK GRAMMAR

familiar with the very simple modifications of its meaning as employed with or without an article ; and yet it must be owned that they do not always observe its rules. One example may suffice.

Acts x. 12. — " Wherein were all manner of four- footed beasts of the earth." But ifavra TO, <rs.rpa<iro<5a can not possibly have the meaning ascribed to it here. Translate rather : " Wherein were all the four-footed beasts of the earth" — " omnia animalia," as the Vul gate rightly has it. Here, probably, as Winer ob serves, they were tempted to forsake the more accu rate rendering from an unwillingness to ascribe some thing which seemed to them like exaggeration to the sacred historian : how, they said to themselves, could " all the four-footed beasts of the earth" be contained in that sheet ? For, indeed, this shrinking from a meaning which an accurate translation would render up, is a very frequent occasion of mistranslation, and also of warped exegesis. It is much better, however, that the translator should go forward on his task without regard to such considerations as these. The Word of God can take care of, and vindicate itself, and does not need to be thus taken under man's pro tection.

It is remarkable how little careful our Translators are to note the difference between the verb of being and that of becoming; between c/pi and ys'/ova. It would not be easy to find the passage in \\\Q New Tes tament where these are confounded, but they confound

IN OUR VERSION. 133

them frequently, and often to our loss. Thus, at Heb. v. 11, the Apostle complains of the difficulty of un folding some hard truths to those whom he addresses, " seeing ye are dull of hearing." But the rebuke is sharper than this — "seeing ye have become dull of

hearing" (itsl vudpol ysydvars <raus cocoa??). This would

imply that it was not so once, in the former days, when they first were enlightened (x. 32) ; but that now they had gone back from that liveliness of spirit ual apprehension which once they had (see Chrysos- tom). The Vulgate has it rightly : " Quoniam imbe- cilles facti estis ad audiendum ;" being followed by the Rheims : " Because ye are become weak to hear ;" so, too, De Wette : "Da ihr trage von Verstande g-eworden seid" At Matt. xxiv. 32, there is the same loss of the true force of the word. Not the being- tender of the branch of the fig-tree, but the becoming- tender, is the sign of the nearness of sum mer.

In other points our Translators are without fault, where yet the modern copies by careless reproduction of their work involve them in apparent error, which indeed is none of theirs, but that of the too care less guardians of their text. They have their own burden to bear ; they ought not to be made to bear the burden of others. But they do so at Matt. xii. 23. Correcting all our previous translations, they rendered the words, (^<n 06™'$ l<r<nv 6 v]l$ A«/3' S, with perfect accuracy : " Is this the Son of David ?" fully

134 ERRORS OF GREEK GRAMMAR IN OUR VERSION.

understanding that, according to the different idioms of the Greek and English, the negative particle of the original was not to reappear in the English ; cf. Acts vii. 42 ; John viii. 22. I am unable to say when the reading, which appears in all our modern Bibles, " Is not this the Son of David ?" first crept in ; it is already in Hammond, 1659 ; but it is little creditable to those who should have kept their text inviolate, that they have not exercised a stricter vigilance over it. It is curious that, having escaped error here, our Transla tors should yet have fallen into it in the exactly simi lar phrase at John iv. 29, /xr<n oSVfc ^aviv 6 XpitfToV; where they do render, " Is not this the Christ ?" but should have rendered, "Is this the Christ?" The Samaritan woman in her joy, as speaking of a thing too good to be true, which she will suggest, but dare not absolutely affirm, asks of her fellow-countrymen, " Is this the Christ ? — can this be He whom we have looked for so long ?" — expecting in reply not a nega tive but an affirmative answer.

QUESTIONABLE RENDERINGS OP WORDS. 135

CHAPTER VIII.

ON SOME QUESTIONABLE RENDERINGS OP WORDS.

THERE are a certain number of passages in which no one can charge our Translators with error, the version they have given being entirely defensible, and numbering among its defenders some, it may be many, well worthy to be heard ; while yet another version on the whole will commend itself as preferable to that which they have adopted. Let me adduce a few pas sages where, to me at least, it seems there is a greater probability, in some a far greater, in favor of some other translation rather than of that which they have admitted.

Matt. vi. 27 (cf. Luke xii. 25). — "Which of you by taking thought can add one cubit to his stature ?" Erasmus was, I believe, the first who suggested the rendering of *jXjxi'« not by ' stature,' but by " length of life ;" and this his suggestion has since found ac ceptance with a large number of interpreters ; with Hammond, Wolf, Olshausen, Meyer, and others. While

136 ON SOME QUESTIONABLE

the present translation may be abundantly justified, yet this certainly appears far preferable to me, and for the following reasons : «. In that natural rhetoric of which our Lord was the great master, He would have adduced some very small measure, and reminded his hearers that they could not add even this to their stature ; He would not have adduced a cubit, which is about a foot and a half; but He would have de manded, " Which of you with all your carking and caring can add an inch or a hair's breadth to his stature ?" /3. Men do not practically take thought about adding to their stature ; it is not an object of desire to one in a thousand to be taller than God has made him ; this could scarcely therefore be cited as one of the vain solicitudes of men. On the other hand, everything exactly fits when we understand our Lord to be asking this question about length of life. The cubit, which is much when compared with a man's stature, is infinitesimally small, and therefore most appropriate, when compared to his length of life, that life being contemplated as a course, or £pof/.o.-, which he may attempt, but ineffectually, to prolong. And then, further, this the prolonging of life is something which men do seek ; striving, by various precautions, by solicitous care, to lengthen the period of their mortal existence ; to which yet they can not add a cubit, no, not a hand's breadth, more than God has apportioned to it.

Luke ii. 49. — " Wist ye not that I must be about

RENDERINGS OF WORDS. 137

my Father's business ?" But ?v rug TOU iiarpoj will as well mean, " in my Father's house :" and if the words will mean this as well, they will surely mean it bet ter. We shall thus have a more direct answer on the part of the Child Jesus to the