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Cornell University Library 
 BS591 .S92 
 
 Outline study of the history of the BibI 
 
 olln 
 
 3 1924 029 280 407 
 
 THE BIBLE IN ENGLISH 
 
AN OUTLINE STUDY 
 OF THE HISTORY OF THE 
 BIBLE IN ENGLISH WITH 
 A BRIEF ESSAY UPON ITS 
 QUALITY AS LITERATURE 
 
 FOR COLLEGE CLASSES 
 BY M. WOOLSEY STRYKER 
 
 JIatnilton College 
 
 MCMXIV 
 
 lis 
 
COPYRIGHTED BY 
 M. W.STRYKER, 1914 
 
The Holy Scriptures in English 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 INTRODUCTION 
 
 THE life of the ancient world is the background 
 against which that continuous record of divine 
 revelation which makes up the Hebrew and the 
 Greek Testaments stands out in bold and beautiful 
 relief. The 39 books of the earlier four-fifths and — 
 the 27 books of the later fifth of these precious and 
 permanent writings are the story of God's way by 
 and thro a people chosen to uttier and to record a 
 discipline and a message which has outgone locality 
 and date. 
 
 Historian, prophet, singer, evangelist, apostle, with ^ 
 writers in other literary forms, (as idyl, ode, drama, 
 and still more,) make up the composite unit which we 
 call the Book — the Bible. Jerome called it "The 
 Divine Library". 
 
 The facts it recites and the open theory of the 
 world, of God, of man, of evil and good, of deliver- 
 ance and immortal life,, are the basis of all that the 
 Christian religion affirms and offers. 
 
 A vast and quickening Spirit presides over these 
 scrolls of truth. The story interprets Time. All is 
 by a logical, internatural, process. The human and 
 the divine are interwoven. Upon the warp of human 
 life and feeling is shot the woof of holy vision and 
 the ever enlarging hope of righteousness. These 
 
 1 
 
select and providential remainders (where much may 
 have been lost) are a full outline and far more of the 
 ethical seeking of fifteen hundred years. The book 
 is as the growth of a great tree, and "its leaves are 
 for the healing of the nations". No other literature 
 is so varied and so consecutive. None is so ancient, 
 nor has been so marvellously preserved and distri- 
 buted. In width and depth it has a preemption and 
 prerogative all its own. It bears in itself the traces 
 of its graduated formation. 
 
 As in modem missions, so in the earliest group of 
 Christian believers there shows an instinct to translate 
 and to disseminate the verities of this written story of 
 redemption. Thus the history of vernacular render- 
 ings goes with the difiusion and conviction of faith in 
 Him who is God's answer to man's uttermost ques- 
 tions. Neglect of this volume of evidence is anaemic. 
 
 And the story of how we have this resultant 
 English Bible is that with which we begin. Simply 
 as a printed book, where does it come from ? How 
 the book came is a fascinating and heroic part of our 
 intellectual and spiritual history. Its incomputable 
 distribution, and its fundamental influence upon word 
 and action, reveal it as the peculiar treasure of our 
 Anglo-Saxon race. By it we are indeed "entrusted 
 with the oracles of God". It underlies the deepest 
 literature and the broadest life of England and 
 America. Lifted far above local interests and vary- 
 ing institutions it has "grown and multiplied", beyond 
 all the forecast or devising of men. It has made 
 deep ethical thought a coutagious passion. It is the 
 supreme monitor of all human moral relation as 
 toward Creator and fellow creatures. In the begin- 
 ning, God ! at last, God ! Here is shown again the 
 
 2 
 
Spirit moving upon the troubled waters of Time. 
 Here again is the fiat of the Light. Genesis and 
 John continue one curve of power. 
 
 The present Bible in English is the result of many 
 ages of laborious and scrupulous devotion. Its story 
 runs with the story of the English language and 
 literature for five hundred years. If the various 
 collected editions, tracing accurately the successive 
 stages of the process and leading on steadily to the 
 book we treasure, are not accessible to many of us, 
 nevertheless they are extant in the great libraries, to 
 illustrate and confirm the biology and biography of 
 this holy charter of our faith. 
 
 A long and continuous growth attests the labor of 
 love and reverence. "Translated out of the original 
 tongues and with the former translations diligently 
 compared and revised"— tells the story. 
 
 The outlines of this story every intelligent man 
 should know. Every Christian mind will welcome it. 
 It is all interwoven with great epochs and events. Its 
 appeal is stirring and pathetic; for about the book 
 and its readers persecution has builded its fires as it 
 did under the malignity of the decadent Roman 
 Emperors, and bonds and imprisonments and pro- 
 scriptions have attended its onward way. The en- 
 tangled affairs of church and state from the third 
 Edward to the first Charles are mixed with the 
 progress of the Book. It is therefore important to 
 master the chronology of these reigns and especially 
 to know the complex personal, domestic and poli- 
 tical affairs of the Tudors. Strangely enough the 
 marital experiences of Henry VIII have to do minute-i 
 ly with his temper toward that course by which all 
 thro his reign the Scriptures were becoming the 
 
 3 
 
supreme possession of England. Learn therefore the 
 name and influence of each of these wives. Learn 
 also, once for all, the names and present order of the 
 sixty-six books. 3 is the easy mnemonic of 39, 27, 
 and 66 
 
 In pursuing the story one must of course begin 
 with the days of bare and scanty learning, when all 
 books were in manuscript, when therefore they were 
 scarce and costly, when only the few could write or 
 read. 
 
 A series of great events prepared for the sixteenth 
 century and flung wide many effectual doors. A 
 few of these events are here dated, viz : 
 
 The invention of printing from movable type, 
 about 1440. The fall of Constantinople, 1453, 
 diffusing ancient literature thro western Europe, and 
 beginning the Revival of Letters. The introduction 
 of Greek at Oxford, 1 490. Columbus' discovery of 
 San Salvador, and so of America, 1 492. Magellan's 
 circumnavigation, 1521. Martin Luther's life and 
 work, 1 483- 1 546. Coincident dates are, Angelo, 
 1474-1464; Raphael, 1483-1520; Palestrina, 1524- 
 1594; Chaucer, 1340-1399; Edmund Spenser, 
 1 552- 1 599 ; Shakespere, 1 564- 1616; John Knox, 
 1 505-1 572 ; John Calvin, 1 509-1 564; 
 
 The first book printed was the 'Mazarin' Bible, 
 1 450. Greek grammars and glossaries were several 
 by 1 500, Hebrew by 1 530. The first Hebrew Old 
 Testament was printed in 1 488, Luther's version of 
 the New Testament in 1 522, of the entire Bible, 
 1534. The Zurich Bible, 1529. Caxton intro- 
 duced printing into England 1476. His 'Golden 
 Legend ' dated 1 470, in Latin, and 1 483 in English, 
 and it contained a great number of narratives from 
 Scripture. 4 
 
The history of the Bible is part of the vindication 
 of its primacy. The response to it in now nearly 
 five hundred tongues and dialects repeats Pentecost, 
 Our ow^ English is notable as a vehicle of its dignity 
 and .for<:e. The great rhetoric of Isaiah and the 
 deep feeling of the Psalms, and all the delicate 
 distinctions, in narrative and argument, of the Greek 
 Testament are better equivalenced and reproduced in 
 no other speech. Our very tongue itself has reacted 
 to the form and force of these immense ideas. 
 Constant revision has ever moved with the instinct of 
 fidelity to every phrase. "The flaming sword of 
 reverence" has always guarded the successive tran- 
 scriptions. The book has triumphed over the severe 
 tests of translation. 
 
 CHAPTER ir 
 TWILIGHT 
 
 Roman and Saxon years in Britain were but pre- 
 paratory to the ultimate triumph of the Bible. With 
 the Roman conquest 55 B. C, and during its subse- 
 quent sway for perhaps two hundred years, there 
 doubtless came believers and some copies of the 
 Latin scriptures. Traders came by way of Gaul. 
 Augustin was sent, 596 A. D., by Gregory the 
 Great. With him came the so-called "Itala" versions, 
 of which a few copies are extant. 
 
 Csedmon, about 680, paraphrased into Anglo- 
 Saxon certain narrative portions of the Latin Old 
 Testament. These were made in rude verse. It 
 was the first effort toward vernacular rendering and 
 with it English Literature began. 
 
 A little later Bp. Aldheim and also one Guthlac 
 produced two independent versions of the Psalms. 
 
 5 
 
The 'Venerable Bede' completed a translation of 
 the Gospel of John, May 27di, 735. Other parts 
 are doubtfully attributed to him. But he prepared 
 abundant commentaries (thus the first of a great 
 English line), and his Church History was printed in 
 Germany in 1 474. He also translated the Apostles' 
 Creed and our Lord's Prayer. He died pen in 
 hand. 
 
 King Alfred, (849-901), placed the Ten Com- 
 mandments at the front of his Statutes, and incorporat- 
 ed many passages from the Evangelists. He had 
 projected a Psalter: but death intervened. He wrote 
 — "The youth should employ themselves on nothing 
 till they are able to read well the English Scriptures." 
 But there were as yet only parts of the whole. 
 
 The "Durham Book" of the Gospels dates at 
 about this tenth century, also an interlinear version of 
 parts, known as the ' Rushworth Gloss ' , Then 
 began the bloody incursions of the Danes and all was 
 too confused to favor even crude letters. A distinc- 
 tively Saxon dialect, with its often ingenious com- 
 pound words, disappears with the Battle of Hastings 
 (Senlac) Oct. 14th, 1066. The language became 
 mixed with French and Latin, and out of this smelt- 
 ing modern EngUsh came, thro the processes of 400 
 years. There were many metrical paraphrases of 
 portions, employing the Saxon characters, and with 
 inaccurate freedom. They were Anglo-Norman. 
 The "Ormulum" («'r. 1150) contained the Gospels 
 and the Acts. Richard Rolle translated the Psalter 
 ( 1 349), and this was probably the earliest attempt in 
 literal prose. "I follow (said he) the letter as much 
 as I may. Where I find no proper English, I follow 
 the art of words". There are preserved many manu- 
 
 6 
 
script translations of this period, mainly of the 
 liturgical selections. These all base upon the Latin 
 and in its miscellaneous forms. As yet there was no 
 people's Bible, nor an idea of its needfulness. For a 
 resume of this Storr's address on Wyclif may well be 
 consulted, and for the Saxon and Norman spirit see 
 Taine, Vol. I, and Edward Freeman. Later will be 
 given a partial list of authorities. 
 
 Sir Thomas More, Foxe, and others assert that 
 there were complete translations earlier than Wyclif: 
 but while there were all sorts of portions, of divers 
 amounts and merit, the statement that there was any 
 one complete version is incapable of proof. So 
 passed the twilight in which the language and the 
 people were preparing for the full dawn. As long a 
 time nearly as that from Moses to John the Baptist 
 was making ready in England for the whole divine 
 Book to be revealed. 
 
 CHAPTER 111 
 
 JOHN WYCLIF 
 
 The father of a whole English Bible was John 
 Wyclif, born in Yorkshire 1 324. His translation 
 was entirely from the Latin and existed only in mss. 
 until printed, the N. T. in 1731 and in 1810, and 
 the whole in 1848, and later in 1865 dr., in four 
 sumptuous volumes by the Oxford Press. In the 
 fore part of his life he was associated with Oxford, 
 entering Queen's College at sixteen, becoming a 
 fellow of Merton in 1356, and later becoming a 
 lecturer there in philosophy, logic and theology. 
 Always he was a close student and he became a 
 ready and voluminous writer. 
 
 Wyclif first became notable {c. 1 360) in defending 
 7 
 
the University against the attempted jurisdiction of 
 the 'begging friars'. In 1365 he was present in 
 ParKament as an ecclesiastical adviser. In 1367 he 
 sustained Edward III in his refusal to meet a feuda- 
 tory claim of Urban V. He wrote also defending 
 the refusal of the same claim by Parliament. He 
 was a King's chaplain. In 1 372 he had the D.D. 
 from Oxford. He was an ambassador from the 
 King to a conference with the Pope's nuncios at 
 Bourges in 1 374. The dispute as to ecclesiastical 
 - benefices led his mind to consider reform. In 1377 
 he was under trial by church authorities, but was 
 abruptly rescued by powerful friends at Court. 
 Anne of Luxemburg, consort of Richard II, was his 
 staunch friend. 1378 was the year of the 'counter- 
 popes ' at Rome and Avignon, a most unsettled and 
 -exciting time. Wyclif was banished from Oxford in 
 1 382 and died as a parish priest, peaceably, at Lutter- 
 worth on the last day of 1 384. 
 
 In 1415 the Council of Constance ordered his bones 
 to be burned. This was tardily done by the bishop 
 of Lincoln in 1 428. (See Foxe's record of the con- 
 vocation of 1 377). 
 
 In 1410 his doctrines were mercilessly denounced 
 at Oxford : but in 1 564 all was rescinded. The noble 
 edition of his Bible occupied its editors twenty years, 
 some fifty years ago. (See Lewis' ' Life of Wyclif ' ). 
 
 Wyclif had done the Apocalypse about 1356, and 
 this anew, with all the N. T., by 1 380. His friend 
 and associate Nicholas de Hereford translated the fore- 
 part of the O. T. : but he was cited before Arundel 
 1380, excommunicated and fled the land. Wyclif 
 completed the whole shortly before his death in 1 384. 
 
 Thus by a hundred and forty years his was the 
 8 
 
first complete translation of the Scriptures into English. 
 His great desire to furnish the Gospel in the native 
 tongue of his countrymen was fulfilled and it was this 
 fearless and. diligent man who opened to them the 
 gates of revelation. Obscurantism did not stop him, 
 and he "lifted (Storrs) the lowly English roof to take 
 in heights beyond the stars". 
 
 This was the English of Chaucer's time, so swiftly 
 to change and develop in the following century. 
 Chaucer is supposed to have been Wyclif's friend and 
 to have sketched him in his picture of the good parish 
 priest. It was an intermediate time. Costly as the 
 manuscripts necessarily were, they were much sought 
 and read, their circulation, entire or in part, grew 
 apace and their homely diction, going so far to estab- 
 lish the lofty and simple dialect of religion, was the 
 light of many hearts and homes for a century. 
 
 The writings of this true father of English liberty 
 had to be conned secretly and they were stringently 
 condemned by the ' Arundel Statute ' at Oxford in 
 1 408. To have or to read them made one an object 
 of sharp persecution. Imagine that now ! But Wy- 
 clif blazed the way by which the generations have 
 come to present freedom. 
 
 No misstatements or innuendos can disestablish our 
 debt. He was a zealous preacher and his Lollards 
 (q. v.) spread the light. He was a most literal trans- 
 lator, but of course it was 'secondary' as deriving 
 thro the Latin. John Purvey's revision of Wyclif, 
 1 388, with prolog and comment increased its value. 
 As yet there was no title page. 
 
 The whole study of the cathedral age, when paint- 
 ing, sculpture, architecture, music, were coming to their 
 own, is an important synchronological approach to our 
 
 9 
 
subject. Of the Wyclif and the Purvey mss. about 
 1 70 copies are extant. 
 
 Gutenberg {b. Mentz 1 400) while Constantinople 
 was storming, gave to the world (1450-55) the first 
 printed Bible — the ' Mazarin ' . Some twenty copies 
 of this are extant and known. It was a beautiful 
 book, from hand-cut brass type. 
 
 At first it was sought to hide the art of printing : but 
 the storming and capture of Mentz, 1 462, diffused the 
 skill of the printers thro Italy and France. In ten 
 years the art was practiced in 30 cities and in ten 
 years more thro 100 cities. 
 
 By 1 500 there had been fully a hundred editions 
 of the Latin Bible. Thus was Providence setting 
 wide the doors for the next period. 
 
 CHAPTER IV 
 WILLIAM TINDALE (OR TYNDALE) 
 
 A full century intervenes, and Tindale was bom, 
 on the borders of Wales, 1484. The Renaissance 
 had wrought. "Greece has risen from the grave v\ath 
 the New Testament in her hand". . The Hebrew 
 Bible was printed, near Cremona, in 1 488. Erasmus 
 printed his Greek Testament in 1516. The Com- 
 plutension Polyglot in 1 520, at Alcala, in Spain, was 
 made by Cardinal Ximenes. He followed late mss. 
 as had Erasmus. 
 
 Tindale was ordained priest in 1 502. He became 
 a friar, at Greenwich, about 1 508. He was identi- 
 fied with Oxford, but studied also at Cambridge. He 
 became a close student of Greek under Erasmus and 
 also, by many evidences, mastered Hebrew. He knew 
 seven languages. He became a tutor in the house- 
 hold of Sir John Walsh, of Gloucestershire. The 
 
 10 
 
entire population of England was at this time about 
 three million persons. Tindale was occupied in trans- 
 lating Erasmus' pungent Manual of a Christian 
 Soldier, in field preaching, (not without controversy 
 and assault), and his purpose to translate the Scrip- 
 tures was steadily maturing. To this he began to 
 bend his intensive studies. 
 
 Late in 1 522, Tindale went up to London and ^ 
 hoping for the patronage of Bp. Tunstall offered to him 
 many proofs of his competency in Greek. He met 
 no encouragement there. "There was no room in my 
 Lord of London's palace to translate the New Testa- 
 ment, but also there was no place to do it in all 
 England". 
 
 So in May 1 524 Tindale went into voluntary exile. ^ 
 He was never to return. Sir Humphrey Monmouth, 
 whose guest awhile he had been, promised him ten 
 pounds a year, equivalent to about seven hundred 
 dollars at the present time. Under this scant, but 
 kindly, provision Tindale made his way to Hamburg. 
 He was in constant danger and fled from city to city. 
 
 At Cologne, 1525, an informer hunted out the"^ 
 secret of his printer, and Tindale, with 3000 sheets of 
 his book, barely escaped to Worms. 
 
 There his interrupted work went on. In 1 525 the ^ 
 first octavo was printed, and also a 4-to, of which now 
 there is known but one complete copy, which how- 
 ever lacks the title page. This is in the British 
 Museum. Of this 800 edition but two copies are 
 extant. The book was in England early in 1 526. 
 
 Henry VIII and Wolsey attempted to stop the^ 
 circulation. The book was denounced from St. Paul's 
 and was publicly burned : but this violence whetted • 
 the demand. Quietly but rapidly it made its way. 
 
 11 
 
Every ingenuity was used to bring it in. Tindale 
 wrought on. In his massive and devoted purpose he 
 forgot all else. He translated the Pentateuch at Mar- 
 burg in 1530, and Jonah in 1531. Constantly he 
 was revising and emending. The revision of 1 534 at 
 Antwerp was hastened by the piratical and somewhat 
 garbled reprint by George Joye. The 1 535 edition 
 went into Roger's work in 1537. Constant and 
 minute correction left no detail overlooked. Eight or 
 ten distinct issues in ten years witnessed the diligence 
 of Tindale. 
 
 Finally his enemies had him. He was betrayed to 
 them in 1 535 and was imprisoned at Vilvorde>_ 
 Brussels. There, asking only for a candle and his. 
 Hebrew books, he was strangled and his body burned 
 in 1536; His last words were — "Lord, open the 
 King of England's eyes" ! At this time a folio New 
 Testament was printed in England, — the first. 
 
 The few and fragmentary copies of the early Tin- 
 dales attest the rigors with which his books were hunt- 
 ed down, as the rigid proscriptions showed the rising 
 general demand. 
 
 This brave and tranquil heart was the true father 
 of our Bible as it is. Continuous revision has not 
 abated but has increased our debt to his dedicated and 
 triumphant life. His originality and independence, his 
 keen and mordant idiom, his close exegesis, his racy 
 and vernacular terms, fixed fast the literary type of 
 our English scriptures and made it plain and popular 
 rather than academic. He used all and borrowed 
 nothing. The mistaken diatribe of Sir Thomas More 
 and the gross undervaluations of J. H. Blunt and a 
 few others, have not diminished his outstanding work 
 and fame. 
 
 12 
 
He saw clearly and wrought with marvellous stead- 
 fastness. He never flinched from his will to put the 
 scriptures in reach of "the boy that driveth the plow". 
 He stood alone. His translation was not ' secondary ' 
 but went straight to the Hebrew and the Greek. 
 Our Bible as it is, after all, is but a revision and re- 
 revision of Tindale 
 
 "He gave us our religious vocabulary". Stately 
 and homely, his diction lies at the base of English 
 Literature. We are in greater debt to no other. He ' 
 fixed the pure and non-pedantic type for all after 
 laborers. His is the language of the home and of 
 prayer. It has stood the tooth of time. As against 
 court and convocation he himself endured hardness and 
 foiled those who would have enticed him back into 
 the domain of that implacable monarch whose in- 
 famous divorce from Katharine Tindale had denounced. 
 Froude says, the English Bible "bears the impress of 
 the mind of one man, William Tindale". It is true. 
 In his touching letter to his associate, John Firth, then 
 in the ecclesiastical toils at London, and who at Smith- 
 field was to die in July, 1 533, (one of the 72,000 
 executions in England under Henry VIII), Tindale 
 wrote — "If you give yourself, cast yourself, commit 
 yourself wholly and only to your loving Father, then 
 shall His power be in you and make you strong". 
 "Truly and substantially the venerable version of 
 Tindale the martyr (writes Bp. Ellicott) is our English 
 Testament after all its changes and remodellings." 
 His spirit animates the whole. Under God we owe 
 more to him than to all other translators taken together. 
 
 [See "William 'Tindale, a Biography" by R. 
 Demaus; " The first printed English New Testa- 
 ment," by Edward Arber; and the three volumes of 
 
 13 
 
I'indale's works, published by the Parker Society. ] 
 
 CHAPTER V 
 
 1533-1539 
 
 With all his minute care, Tindale, in his preface 
 of 1 525, while stating that he had been unhelped of 
 any one, modestly described his work as not there 
 having full shape, and declared his intention still to 
 amend it. Thro the successive editions this was 
 sedulously done. The last but one was printed at 
 Antwerp, Nov. 1534. It is a small, thick octavo, 
 now very rare, printed in Black Letter. There were 
 some keen marginal notes and woodcuts also, as well 
 as prologs (mainly short) to the separate books. 
 
 George Joye's meddlesome and garbled edition is 
 valuable in evoking the protest of Tindale which was 
 sternly administered. It is a slight side-light on Tin- 
 dale. Only one more and still revised edition 
 was made by Tindale in 1 535. Other impressions 
 followed, one a beautiful folio. But Tindale had 
 ceased from his labors. 
 
 In 1 530 Abp. Wareham's assembly had formally 
 condemned all use of Tindale's N. T. : but with the 
 proviso that the King would, at a convenient season 
 have the N. T. "by faithful men faithfully and openly 
 translated". The King's will to do this may well be 
 doubted: but others did not forget. In that year 
 Hugh Latimer boldly called upon Henry to redeem 
 his promise. A little later Abp. Cranmer, thro con- 
 vocation, petitioned the King for a translation by 
 "honest and learned men", himself making some 
 futile beginnings. But the giant was out of the bottle. 
 
 Came Miles Coverdale. He was born in York- 
 shire 1488. He was educated in an Augustinian 
 
 14 
 
monastery at Cambridge. He preached with some 
 boldness in 1 528. In 1 529 he had to cross the 
 channel for safety. It is probable that he met Tin- 
 dale and wrought with him. Thomas Cromwell was 
 his friend. These years of his cannot be accurately 
 traced. The first complete English Bible was issued 
 by him in 1 535. 
 
 Wyclif existed only in mss. and Tindale was com- 
 plete only in the N. T. The book was a small black 
 letter foKo, with short prefaces to the sundry parts. 
 It was probably printed at Zurich. It utilized all that 
 had preceded it, was distinctly close to the German, 
 incorporated all of Tindale. It has many happy 
 turns and its style is clearly exhibited in the Psalter 
 which still is used in the Episcopal Prayer Book. 
 
 No copy in the original state is now known. It 
 was secretly, or at least unostentatiously issued. We 
 owe to it many beautiful scripture phrases. It was 
 reprinted by Bagster, in quarto, in 1 538. In 1 538-9 
 he was concerned with the Great Bible, to which we 
 will come later in this chapter. This was begun in 
 Paris. In 1 540 Coverdale (Lord Cromwell being 
 executed) returned to the continent — Tubingen. Un- 
 der Edward VI he came back and was consecrat- 
 ed Bishop of Exeter in 1551. He was deprived 
 under Mary in 1 553. Summoned for heresy he was 
 imprisoned, but being released by the intervention of 
 Charles II of Denmark, he went into exile to Fries- 
 land. In 1 558 he was at Geneva, returning once 
 more to England at the accession of Elizabeth. Cam- 
 bridge gave him the D.D. in 1 563. In the same 
 year he was afforded the living of St. Magnus, 
 resigning under certain scruples in 1 566. He died, 
 greatly lamented, in 1 569. Coverdale was modest 
 
 15 
 
and adroit, and by his temper of conciliation slipped 
 thro meshes which fatally involved bolder men. He 
 was modest as to his work, which was indeed com- 
 posite, and he fully acknowledged his indebtedness to 
 others. His first Bible had the tacit consent of the 
 authorities, tho containing all of Tindale. It was 
 adorned with wood-cuts, had no notes, nor chaptering 
 nor versing, and was defaced by its fulsome dedication 
 to that "habitual bridegroom" and ungodly autocrat 
 Henry VIII. It neither had nor claimed any of the 
 force of highly original work. It was melodious but 
 not terse. It was not in the line of the potent trans- 
 lations. It was reprinted four or five times in those 
 thirties. It conquered a ' silent permission ' for Tin- 
 dale, who tho ostracized was in it triumphant. Ex- 
 pediency made room for it. 
 
 The year 1537 saw the appearance of the folio 
 
 Bible of Thomas Matthew, the pseudonym of 
 
 John Rogers, friend of Tindale, his literary legatee, 
 and the first martyr at Smithfield under the Marian 
 holocaust. He was burned Feb. 4th, 1 555. (See 
 Foxe). This Bible was a large folio, with eighty 
 woodcuts. The print measured I2X62 inches. 
 The N. T. was all Tindale of 1 535 and the O. T. 
 was Tindale for Genesis to 2d Chronicles. The 
 remainder, including the Apocrypha was Coverdale. 
 It was published by Grafton and Whitechurch, Lon- 
 don. Where it was printed is not known. It had many 
 notes, chapter headings, and a table of contents 
 which was a kind of concordance, and which led to 
 Marbeck's Concordance of 1 550. It was first to have 
 the King's license — an irony indeed upon his earlier 
 stigmatizing of Tindale and all his works ! it was 
 ordered to be placed in every parish church. It was 
 
 16 
 
rapidly accepted. The first edition was of 1 5,000 
 copies and many impressions speedily followed. It 
 had indicated paragraphs, but not verses. It became 
 the especial basis of all subsequent revisions. 
 
 John Rogers' work was, however, transitional. He 
 was an editor rather than a translator. The influence 
 of this Bible was not independent, but derivative. 
 Rogers was born in 1 500. He took his B.A. at 
 Oxford in 1 525. He was a chaplain at Antwerp, 
 Tindale's comrade, and married in 1 536. Returning 
 to England upon the death of Hf-nry, he held import- 
 ant church positions while Edward VI reigned. His 
 preaching at St. Paul's Cross, later greatly offended 
 Mary, and after two years' imprisonment he went to 
 the fire, amid the acclaims of a vast multitude who 
 witnessed his courageous testimony. 
 
 In 1 538 Coverdale p'"epared a dictlot N. T., of 
 the Latin and English in parallel columns. His printer 
 bungled this and he therf fore in Paris printed what 
 he had intended. This 'Holly bush' edition had 
 three issues. In Antwerp 1 538 there was printed an 
 edition of Coverdale's N. T. in octavo, having ?00 
 woodcuts, and ■with new notes at the end of many of 
 the chapters. 
 
 RiCHARD TAVERNFR in 1539 issued both a 
 folio and a quarto revision of Matthews. He was an 
 Oxford graduate of 1529, and a fellow of Cndinal 
 (now Christ Church) college. He was an accomplished 
 scholar, specially in Greek, and many of his emenda- 
 tions have force and point. His work also was 
 printed in several volumes 1 2 mo., in 1 540, and 
 was reprinted in folio by John Daye in 1551. 
 Perspicuous as his work was, it was c f minor import- 
 ance, except as a precept toward accuracy, and it 
 
 17 
 
litde affected the after development of revision. He 
 was twice imprisoned, released, was a lawyer, a 
 justice, high-sheriff, a preacher, proffered knighthood 
 by Elizabeth but declined the honor thro poverty. 
 And he died in 1 575. He first suggested collabora- 
 tion. 
 
 We come to the 'GREAT BIBLE' (named so 
 for its size) of 1539. The secret of Matthews 
 Bible was out. Under Cromwell a group of scholars, 
 v«th Coverdale as Editor-in-chief, was appointed, and 
 a magnifient folio was planned, to print which England 
 had no facilities. Under certain sharp restrictions 
 this had the permission of Francis I to be done in 
 Paris. Grafton had it nearly completed, when an 
 order came from the Inquisitor-General prohibiting to 
 complete it or to use what was already printed. 
 However, all hands escaped to English soil, with the 
 types, presses and sheets so far. It was finished in 
 April, 1 539. 
 
 The Great Bible is sometimes called 'Cranmers 
 Bible ' , tho he had little to do with it excepting that 
 he favored its use and that his name, as the Primate 
 authorizing it, appeared on the title page of the 
 editions subsequent to the first. 
 
 It was a large folio with a frontispiece by Holbein. 
 It was the first Bible to be fully authorized, and 
 marked the first real relaxing of the hostility of Henry 
 VIII. It was ordered to be set up in all the churches 
 of the realm. It was eagerly received. It continued 
 in authority until the 'Bishop's Bible', that is for 
 nearly thirty years. Five editions followed within 
 two years. Great crowds came to St. Pauls to hear 
 it read. (Cromwell went to the block in 1 541). 
 
 It was based upon Matthews, Coverdale's earlier 
 18 
 
work (his smooth Psalter, etc.) and a Latin translation 
 of the O. T., 1 534-5. Its price was equivalent to a 
 present $35.00. It was some fifty times reprinted 
 under Edward VI, and tho under Mary it was 
 removed from the churches and burned, no drastic 
 search, was made for it. Still was Tindale the sub- 
 stance of it. It was the first to print supplied words 
 in Italics. It made its mark upon the "Prayer Book 
 of Edward VI", and upon the revision of that in 
 1562. 
 
 These were indeed stormy years, but they were 
 the storms of early spring! 
 
 The vacillating Henry, in 1 543, strove to recall 
 and greatly restrict his permissions. Parliament en- 
 joined from use all of Tindale and later the early work 
 of Coverdale. It was sought to hinder the general 
 reading of any English Bible. Henry died 1 547. 
 Anne Askew was the last martyr of his murderous 
 reign. 
 
 CHAPTER VI 
 
 THE GENEVA BIBLE 
 
 ■ The reactionary policy of Henry came to naught. ' 
 Controversy was rife: but with the accession of the 
 boy King Edward and under Cranmer the Bible was 
 once more fully released, and it became familiar to the 
 English mind. It was sinking deeply into the heart of 
 multitudes. The noble army of martyrs in the next 
 reign, showed the work the Bible had done among 
 the lowly and the high. 
 
 The order for the Great Bible in the church was 
 renewed. Editions were multiplied both of it and of 
 Coverdale and Tindale. Of the fifty-seven presses 
 then in England thirty-one were thus employed. 
 
 19 
 
Came Mary Tudor, child of Katharine, wife of 
 Philip II of Spain. It is a tragic period of five years. 
 Rogers led the way. Stephen Gardiner was the 
 bloody chancellor. Four hundred died for their faith, 
 two hundred and eighty-eight by fire. A vast num- 
 ber were banished or self-exiled. But by the light of 
 the fagot England only pondered her Bible more 
 deeply and the calamities were overpast. 
 
 Geneva was a centre of religious and intellectual 
 action. Thither went many refugees from Mary's 
 severities, and there, under the shadow of the Alps, 
 was made the version known as the GENEVA BIBLE 
 which was more abundantly printed and more widely 
 distributed than any which preceded it, or that fol- 
 lowed it until 1611. Over one hundred and fifty 
 editions of it were printed, of these some thirty after 
 1 603, and such was its vitality that it held the field 
 for over eighty years. Among those at Geneva, were 
 John Knox. Coverdale, and many Oxford and Cam- 
 bridge scholars. Of those associated in making this 
 collaborative version William Whittingham was the 
 leader in the work. He was born 1 524 and died 
 1 579. He married the sister of John Calvin, succeed- 
 ed Knox as pastor of the English Church at Geneva, 
 was made Dean of Durham in 1 563. He contribut- 
 ed a number of metrical psalms to ihe collection of 
 Sternhold and Hopkins. He issued, in 1557, a 
 small octavo N. T. in English. The notes in this led 
 to the extensive notes of the ' Geneva ' . This ap- 
 peared in 1 560, a small quarto, the page nine inches 
 by six and a quarter. It was in Roman character 
 and at once became the Bible of the English home. 
 It was the book of the New England pilgrims and of 
 Cromwell's troopers. It was given the absurd nick- 
 
 20 
 
name of the "Breeches Bible", because of the queer 
 translation of Genesis iii : 7. The title page bears a 
 woodcut of the crossing of the Red Sea. The order 
 of the books was that to which we are now accustom- 
 ed. The Apocrypha was included. It had a digni- 
 fied dedication to Queen Elizabeth, wholly unlike the 
 nauseating flattery of James which afterward disfigured 
 the "A. V." It had further an "Address to the 
 Readers" and several tables, chronological and other. 
 For substance it was a studious revision of the Great 
 Bible, of course collated with Tindale. It was also 
 indebted to Beza, whose Latin Testament had issued 
 in 1556. It was a close verbal translation, eliminat- 
 ing many archaic words and spellings. It was the 
 first to be divided into verses. The abundant notes 
 gave offence to some: but they are pithy and instruct- 
 ive. It was the first Bible to be printed in Scotland, 
 1 576-79. 
 
 Geneva was then a centre of Biblical learning. 
 Stephen's third edition of the Greek text of the N. T. 
 issued in 1 550. The Bible was put into French, 
 with many revisions, from 1 540 on. The Bible in 
 Italian came in 1 562. 
 
 The popularity of the Geneva book was immediate 
 and immense. Its handy size greatly promoted its use. 
 The reasons for its instant approval were many. 
 Marginal alternative readings were frequent. There 
 are some things yet to be said for individual transla- 
 tion : but the principle of associated labor was by this 
 version once for all established. 
 
 The cost of the book was borne by the whole 
 congregation at Geneva, an especial patron being 
 found in John Bodley. 
 
 Abp. Laud, under Charles I, made it a crime to 
 21 
 
bind, vend, or import the book: but this belated 
 decree was a piece of ex post facto impotence. Its 
 mighty work was done and its influence upon subse- 
 quent versions was established. 
 
 CHAPTER VII 
 THE BISHOP'S BIBLE 
 
 The ' Geneva ' promoted the revision of the Great 
 Bible, as the one extant fully "authorized" version. 
 There was now no further interference from crown or 
 crosier, except that the right to print any book what- 
 soever was still granted only by royal patent. To 
 Robert and Christopher Barker, in 1 573, was granted 
 the right to print "all Bibles and Testaments in Eng- 
 lish." This order specified no particular translation. 
 Parker had asked for what was a practical taboo up- 
 on 'unauthorized' copies with their "divers prejudi- 
 cial notes" but had not won this. Two versions at 
 this time held the field, — the ' Great ' and ' Geneva ' , 
 of which the latter was now used even in many 
 churches. It was the prevalence of the 'Geneva', 
 which clearly outshone the 'Great' and whose ob- 
 vious anti-Episcopal bearings rasped the authorities of 
 the Established Church, that prompted the desire for 
 a new ecclesiastical version. 
 
 Abp. Matthew Parker superintended and finally 
 himself revised the work, so that sometimes it is known 
 as ' Parker's Bible ' . The task was distributed among 
 fifteen scholarly men, of whom eight were bishops, 
 each to labor upon his especial part. This ^Bishop's 
 Bible^ was completed in four years and was publish- 
 ed in 1 568, October. It was first to be issued by 
 Episcopal authority, displacing the Great Bible, of 
 which there was no edition after 1559. This new 
 
 22 
 
Bible was a splendid folio, larger than any before 
 printed. It had one hundred and forty-three engrav- 
 ings, mainly from copper-plates, maps, coats of arms, 
 etc., and portraits, among which were those of Eliza- 
 beth, Dudley, Cecil, and Lord Burleigh. There were 
 many preliminary tables, etc., of which fore-leaves 
 Parker's prolog occupied five close pages. It had no 
 dedicatory address. It does not appear that there 
 was any direct royal authorization. The canny Eliza- 
 beth held what Eadie calls a Laodicean position : but 
 her silent approval is shown by her non-interference. 
 That she could interfere with what she disliked her 
 reign shows well. In one year she refused her royal 
 assent to no less than 48 bills which had passed both 
 houses. Of her queenly prerogative she was never in 
 doubt. 
 
 Convocation, in 1571, specially ordered the use of 
 this version. Its new version of the Psalms could not 
 acceptably displace Coverdale, and in 1572 these 
 two were printed in parallel columns. The N. T. of 
 this version was carefully revised by Lawrence and 
 his work (N. T.) was thereafter standard. 
 
 Twenty-nine editions of the Bishop's Bible in 
 various sizes, were published in all, the last of these 
 appearing in 1 600. The notes are fewer and more 
 terse than those in the Geneva. This Bible was a 
 recension of the Great, but the Geneva was its un- 
 acknowledged mentor. Tindale still was basic. His 
 genetic relation to all that came after him needs no 
 further enforcing. The Bishop's Bible was not con- 
 spicuous for excellence in its renderings of Hebrew, 
 and on the whole it is historically interesting, rather 
 than as having any potent or permanent influence. 
 
 23 
 
THE RHEIMS-DOUAY VERSION 
 
 '.^ During the latter half of this Tudor century many 
 adherents ti the Roman Church sought a more con- 
 genial residence on the Continent. The Rheims 
 translation of the N. T. appeared in that city in 1 582, 
 ■and the Douay (Flanders) O. T. in 1609. It was 
 ' secondary ' as to its source, not being made from the 
 Hebrew and the Greek, but from the Latin ' Vulgate ' 
 of Jerome, which the Council of Trent, 1 545 sq., had 
 decreed to be the finality. The polemical bias of this 
 version was inevitable. Its preface is a demur against 
 the desirability of having the Scriptures in a given 
 vernacular. It was made to withstand the previous 
 English translations. Its notes were decidedly con- 
 troversial. It had both the values and the faults of 
 Jerome's work, but thro it came the strongest influence 
 of the Vulgate upon the "A. V." It was done by 
 scholarly hands and was mainly accurate tho rigid. It 
 Latini/ed many English words, or rather Anglicised 
 much Latin, transfering rather than translating and 'in- 
 venting many etymologies. Some of these were harsh, 
 but many of them were adopted in the A. V. and 
 have become standard terms to the enrichment of 
 theological language. This version, with all its obscure 
 transliteration of Latin, had many grammatical felicities, 
 as in the discriminating translation of the Greek 
 definite article, and the uniform rendering of the same 
 word in given connotations. Some of its good idiom- 
 atic phrases we still retain. Some of its ecclesiastical 
 words bend the sense to the argument. In general 
 the makers of this version were loyal to the Latin 
 ' copy ' . On both sides of the controversy there was 
 more ingenuity than ingenuousness, each harshly deny- 
 ing the integrity of the other. The preface to' the O. 
 
 24 
 
T. is much the more frank, serious, and fair. The 
 revisers of 1611 evidently considered well the Rheims 
 N. T. Who chooses may peruse the controversial 
 notes ; such is no part of our errand. With no speci- 
 fied standard edition this version has in process of 
 time been much altered. The 2d edition of the N. 
 T. was printed in 1600, and of the O. T. in 1635, 
 and not again until 1 750. Dr. Kenrick, of Baltimore, 
 prepared a new edition, and others since have renew- 
 ed his labors. 
 
 While not in the direct genealogical line of an 
 English Bible, this version requires attention and, in 
 many things, respect. 
 
 CHAPTER VIII 
 THE ENGLISH BIBLE OF 1 61 1 
 
 ' Authorized ' it was not, by crown or convocation 
 or Parliament, tho Authorized Version is its under- 
 stood name.. But its significance and values and 
 historic influence do not depend upon any adventitious 
 and extraneous permission or mandate. 
 
 Slowly it displaced its predecessors, taking fifty 
 years entirely to supersede the Geneva. It made 
 good by its excellences and, from 161 I to 1870, it 
 was becoming and fully became the English Bible. 
 The official standing of the Bishop's Bible did not give 
 that cumbersome and costly and not over scholarly 
 (tho most beautiful) version durability. Only the in- 
 herent can be the outlasting. The fight was now 
 fought and the Book was open when James Stuart 
 came to the thrown in 1 603. He was a disagreeable 
 person, absurd, pedantic and vain. ' Wisdom would 
 not die with him': but he is associated with the 
 triumphant Book. 
 
 25 
 
On this wise. Posing as a renovator, belike he 
 had small care for the essential thing in what he was 
 nevertheless instrumental to set a-going. 
 
 The strife of High-Churchmen and Puritans was 
 active. In mid-January, 1 604, this James I called to- 
 gether the 'Hampton Court Conference'. Here at 
 that palace, on the Thames, which Wolsey had pre- 
 sented to Henry VIII, the factions met. James had 
 conveniently forgotten his praises in Scotland of the 
 Kirk. He browbeat his councils and his conferences. 
 But his qualities and his sundry behaviors are suffient- 
 ly chronicled in manifold histories and need no detail- 
 ing here. 
 
 At this conference Reynolds, one of the leading 
 scholars of the Puritan party, made the suggestion to 
 revise the English Bible. This informal proposal took 
 the fancy of the shrewd and would-be-literary king, 
 tho the Bishop of London was stoutly opposed to it. 
 James rather slowly, but at last with zest, proceeded 
 with the project, not without ulterior reasons, one of 
 which was his hope to buttress his favorite 'king- 
 craft'. It was to be made "by the best learned men 
 in both universities, after them to be reviewed by the 
 Bishops and the chief learned of the church, from 
 them to be presented to the Privy Council and lastly 
 to be ratified by royal authority". It was to have no 
 controversial notes, James especially hating those in 
 the Geneva, which he desired totally to eclipse. 
 
 In July, 1 604, James notified the Bishop of London 
 that he had chosen fifty-four translators. All learned 
 men were to be invited to submit their observations 
 and proposals. The colleges were expected without 
 charge to entertain the revisers, who in six companies 
 eventually sat at Oxford, Cambridge, and West- 
 
 26 
 
minster. It all cost the royal exchequer not one groat. 
 The expenses of publication were entirely borne by 
 Barker, who owned the patent to print. 
 
 There is no full history of the details of the enter- 
 prise. It was 1607 when the revisers began their 
 task. Of the fifty-four originally designated but forty- 
 seven (some of them had died— Dr. Reynolds in 
 1607) actually undertook the work. The earlier 
 versions which were to be utilized were specified. 
 But others, as the Rheims, had influence. The sun- 
 dry parts, as done by one of the groups, were to be 
 sent to the rest for inspection. The first draft was 
 completed in about thirty months, probably in 1 609. 
 The whole was finally revised at London by six men, 
 two from each centre. These gave it smoothness, 
 consistency, and standardized its terms. As printed 
 this A. V. (which never had explicit authorization) 
 contained some 7,000 marginal alternative readings, 
 (many of which the " R. V. " incorporated) and many 
 cross references to kindred passages. There was an 
 absurdly fulsome and sycophantic dedication to the 
 grotesque James. The explicit preface was written 
 by Dr. Miles Smith. The italics, for supplied words, 
 were somewhat superabundant. Real scholars in 
 many tongues and men of many views contributed to 
 the result. They wrought under certain specific, and 
 in the main most sensible, rules. Each portion was 
 passed under the utmost critical review and that again 
 and again. The first folios of 1611 were in black 
 letter with an elaborate title page, and fine initials, but 
 with no other illustrations. The first octavo and 
 quarto editions were made in 1612. 
 
 This version appropriated the best from every 
 quarter, indeed such was the direction: but in varia- 
 
 27 
 
tions from the Bishop's seven-eighths of these are 
 debtors to the Geneva. 
 
 The verbal influence of the Rhemish was large. 
 These men did not undertake to make a brand new 
 translation, but a revision, — "to make a good one 
 better, or out of many good ones to make our principal 
 good one". This they nobly did. Historically it 
 was actually the fifth, or sixth, revision of Tindale. 
 The Greek text which was the basis of everything so 
 far was by no means as old as that which now we 
 have. 
 
 Such was the mighty result — "a growth (says 
 Westcott) which countless influences molded". Al- 
 ford wrote: "We can hardly be surprised that many 
 refuse to see its faults and are unable with any content 
 to contemplate the proposal of their being corrected". 
 
 At first the Book provoked a storm of antagonism, 
 most like to that which greeted Jerome's Latin revision 
 of A. D. 400. One Hugh Broughton, a most erudite 
 but vain Hebraist, and who had been omitted from the 
 revisers because of his impossible temper, assailed it as 
 corrupt and wrote to James that "rather than read it 
 he would be torn in pieces by wdld horses",. But 
 against all such its character made headway. It held 
 and steadily, tho slowly, it grew in acceptance, finally 
 and silently supplanting the Geneva, and was the 
 English Bible for a quarter of a millenium. 
 
 It may here be remarked that the comparison of 
 versions is an excellent approach, so far as English can 
 go, toward the nicer shades of meaning, and that yet 
 it remains that no translation of anything can inevitably 
 repeat the very flavor and aroma of original etymology 
 and idiom. The intellectual pleasure of complete ap- 
 preciation is and always must be heightened by fami- 
 
 28 
 
liarity with the tongue in which books were bom. 
 Shakespere is not absolutely himself when turned in- 
 to French, nor Hugo in English. To read one's 
 Testament in French, or in German, or Italian, or 
 Latin, is to gain some flashes of nearer perception. 
 How much more is this true if the original Greek 
 can be thought and felt! 
 
 In 1616 the first folio edition in Roman type, of 
 the "A. V." was printed. In 1636 the text was 
 revised to correct typographical errors. This was 
 done again in 1 769. A more radical revision was 
 projected in Parliament 1653, 1656: but nothing 
 came to pass. The Book stood because of its inher- 
 ent quality. The testimony of F. W. Faber to its 
 "uncommon beauty and marvellous English" is well 
 known. "It lives on the ear like a music that can 
 never be forgotten, like the sound of church bells. 
 * V * Yhe felicities often seem to be almost things 
 rather than mere words. It is a part of the national 
 mind and the anchor of national seriousness". It is 
 English. Only one twenty-ninth of its words, as 
 against one-third of Gibbon's and one-fourth of John- 
 son's, have a foreign origin. The biography of such a 
 book may well claim our careful regard. 
 
 CHAPTER IX 
 THE REVISED VERSION 
 
 This term, as now we can see, is not distinctive, 
 tho so used. It is rather the latest revision, nor is 
 it yet the last. 
 
 Primarily it was made in the interest of a still 
 closer accuracy. It is not infallible tho it is a positive 
 gain. With no brief for its praise, one must be 
 
 29 
 
thankful for the minute labor attending it and for the 
 result. 
 
 During the first part of the 1 9th Century the pro- 
 posal for a further Revision was widely discussed. 
 In the latest two centuries great numbers of more 
 ancient mss. had come to light; archaeology, geography, 
 and a far more incisive knowledge of Greek etymology 
 and grammar, added their cogent reasons for revision. 
 Many words had become obscure and obsolete to the 
 clouding of meaning. There had in the process or 
 years been many silent corrections of piinter's errors: 
 but men who were eager for a closer approximation 
 toward complete accuracy came to feel the need of 
 all possible improvement, and so the impulse grew. 
 
 Of course the old objections against change how- 
 ever valid its demand, were numerously heard. Many 
 elaborate adverse arguments were published. Fears 
 were expressed which in the event were not justified. 
 Todd, (1819). Brantley, (1837), McCaul, (1857), 
 G. T. Day, T. S. Green, Gonrad, John Cuming, S. 
 C. Malan, Geo. P. Marsh, Pusey, the Earl of Shaf- 
 tesbury, Bp. A. C. Coxe and many more, minutely 
 voiced their dissatisfaction. Hugh Ross, (1 727), Ken- 
 nicott, (1 753), Doddridge. (1 765), Campbell, (1 789), 
 Symonds. (1789). Granvilla Sharp. (1803), T. F. 
 Middeton, (1813), Adon. Judson, ( 1 839), Bp. Hinds, 
 (1853). Abp. Whately, Channing. Bp. McDougal, 
 the Edinburgh Review, (1852, 1855). Conant, 
 (1855), Bp. Henry Burgess, (1857), Prof. H. B. 
 Hackett, (1859), Humphrey. Payne Smith, Prof. 
 Selwyn, Dean Alford, Schaff, Tregelles, Guthrie, 
 Prof. C. S. Bartlett, Canon Lightfoot, Vance Smith, 
 Pres. Thco. D. Woolsey, and countless others wrote 
 ably and amply for Revision. So also Dean Stanley, 
 
 30 
 
Prof. Kendtick, Abp. Trench, and Bp. EUicott. 
 
 The sundry urgings of all these men are elaborately 
 quoted in the first Appendix (pp. 345-388) of Prof. 
 E. C. Bissel's aniple book on "The Historic Origin of 
 the Bible" — a volume to which large acknowledge- 
 ment is here made for many details of all these pages. 
 
 Feb. 1st, 1856, Canon Selwyn proposed to the 
 Lower House of Convocation a petition for Revision. 
 It was also moved in the House of Commons, but 
 was vWthdrawn. But discussion increased and convic- 
 tion advanced. 
 
 Feb. 10th, 1870, a resolution to appoint a joint 
 Committee, "to report upon the desirableness of 
 Revision" was unanimously carried thro both Houses 
 of the Convocation of Canterbury. 
 
 The report, from seven Bishops with fourteen mem- 
 bers of the Lower House, was favorable, and on 
 May 25th, 1870, a joint Committee of sixteen was 
 appointed, devising two companies, one for each 
 Testament, and naming certain eminent biblical schol- 
 ars for each company. These principles of guidance 
 were stated: (abbreviated) — 
 
 1. To introduce as few changes as possible consistently with faith- 
 fulness. 
 
 2. To adhere to language and style of the A. V. as a standard. 
 
 3. Each company to go twice over all changes. 
 
 4. The preponderating evidence as to text to be adopted and varia- 
 tions to be mai^nally indicated. 
 
 5. The final retention of changes to require a tulo-lhirds approval of 
 the given company. 
 
 Each company was to communicate to the other its 
 work as completed, so to secure the smallest possible 
 deviation of language. There were other careful 
 details as to procedure. 
 
 The Convocation of York declined to favor the 
 projected Revision. 
 
 31 
 
The revisers began their work June 22d, 1870. 
 Under the wise activity of Philip Schaff, an organiza- 
 tion of American scholars was effected to co-operate 
 with the English companies. 
 
 This double American Committee was enlarged 
 and completed October 4th, 1 872. 
 
 Of the two English companies there were 64 mem- 
 bers in all. Of the American there were 24. 
 
 These two bands of revisers made a constant con- 
 fidential interchange of their work as it proceeded. 
 The relations of these companies to each other are set 
 forth in the Prefaces of the ultimate Revision. The 
 final differences of the English and American revisers 
 were included in an Appendix to each Testament. 
 These Prefaces and Appendices should be carefully 
 studied. 
 
 This first distinct Church revision was published, 
 the N. T. in 1881, and the O. T. in 1885. 
 
 In the first year after its issue three million copies of 
 the New Testament were called for. To meet the 
 general public interest, before the first copies could 
 reach America large sections of it were sent by cable. 
 Schaff's "Companion to the Greek Testament and 
 the English Versions", and T. W. Chamber's book, 
 furnish full details of the work. Of course there was 
 and there is large variation of opinion as to the 
 superior excellence of this Revision of 1 881 -85. But 
 no prejudice may decide. 
 
 Holding no brief for its advocacy, one may well 
 state a few of its claims to great respect. 
 
 The period of the keenest Biblical criticism has 
 also demanded the most faithful rendering, under the 
 light of the best available knowledge. The admitted 
 inaccuracies of the A. V. surely needed mending. 
 
 32 
 
Fidelity must stand above elegance or familiarity. 
 With great caution, erring if at all on the side of con- 
 servatism, this Revision sought to do justice to the 
 original Hebrew and the Greek text, in their best 
 attainable form. 
 
 The actual probable text is the arbiter. The little 
 words of a sentence are its hinges and handles. And 
 so in scrupulous heed to precision in the use of article, 
 and of all particles, much nicety of important destinc- 
 tion was attained. The refinements of Greek tense 
 were heeded as never before. Verbal discrimination 
 also went far. The need of this appears when one 
 considers that the word "receive" has 17 Greek 
 verbs, "abide" 10, "take" 20, "keep" 12. The 
 wealth of Greek substantives contains immense and 
 exact variety. It was sought more nearly to meet this. 
 But upon these technical matters there are volumes of 
 accessible treatise. Suffice it to say that not only was 
 the textual apparatus vastly enriched, there was also a 
 ready and exact science of Greek grammar, such as 
 the men of the sixteenth century had not. 
 
 The removal of archaisms, the more limited use of 
 italics, the harmonization of proper names (e. g. Isaiah, 
 Esaias), the closer designation of localities and of 
 official titles and of coins, the paragraphing (accepting 
 the long standing and now inevitable, tho often mechan- 
 ical, verse and chapter divisions, but reducing their 
 obtrusiveness), the indication of poetry and of poetical 
 passages by an evident arrangement, ordinarily the 
 repeating of the same English word for the repeated 
 Greek word in a given sentence (as e. g. "covet", see 
 Rom. l:iy, these and more a many decided gains are 
 in full evidence. Withal the dignified and classic 
 
 33 
 
style of the earlier versions is not forsaken for any 
 crude colloquialisms. 
 
 In the Old Testament the ^ Masoretic Text ' was 
 still closely followed. However the LXX gave much 
 assistance. Many faulty renderings were corrected, and 
 the O. T. marginals are of great importance. Of all 
 the single books Job gained most, Isaiah next. There 
 is a great illumination of many passages in all the 
 prophets, which had before been all but unintelligible. 
 
 The American revisers' preferences were in nearly 
 all cases better. Since the copyright agreement was 
 out, these have been largely incorporated in the latest 
 standard American editions. The use of the true 
 name Jehovah is a cardinal instance. 
 
 Thus, entering into the labors of all preceding 
 generations, the Westminster Revision removed many 
 salient infelicities and greatly advanced the substantial' 
 integrity of the A. V. 
 
 It is not yet perfect nor can it ever become entirely 
 so. A not regrettable and inevitable conservatism 
 attended it. It did not always go as far as its precepts 
 warranted, nor in all things adhere to these. Some 
 passages still need clarifying, as e. g. Acts, 1 7 : 23, 
 26 ; and 26 : 28. James 4 : 5 (a most inept render- 
 ing). But what are these among so many luminous 
 improvements ! 
 
 The outstanding value of the Revision is its instinct 
 of accuracy as the first thing needful, and its testimony 
 to the supremacy of those 'texts' which under the 
 vigilance of ' textual ' study come closest to the native 
 tongue and original word of prophet and evangelist 
 and apostle. Coercive authorization and proscription 
 lost its case long ago. The English Bible stands 
 solely on its merits as a reverent and faithful transcript 
 
 34 
 
of "the oracles of God", Whenever it can provably 
 be bettered that will surely be done, for its perdur- 
 ability is not bound up with any would-be finality of 
 men, nor its mordancy determined by any individual 
 or collective imprimatur. 
 
 "I KNOW OF NO METHOD (wrote Bp. Westcott) IN 
 WHICH WE CAN UNDERSTAND THE MEANING OF THE 
 MESSAGE EXCEPT BY THE PATIENT OBSERVANCE OF 
 THE EXACT WORDS IN WHICH IT IS CONVEYED." 
 
 CHAPTER X 
 
 It is well here to attach the titles of a few out of 
 the so numerous books which directly bear upon the 
 topics of these chapters. The list could of course be 
 greatly extended, ^any of these can be found in 
 any good College Library. Of course the impressions 
 of the earlier Bibles themselves are excessively rare 
 and valuable. Some very great libraries have none 
 of these. There is a great Bible collection in the 
 British Museum. Some of the Theological Semi- 
 naries of America have individual treasures of this class. 
 
 Titles and brief characterizations of books of all 
 Biblical study, (including our present topics of course) 
 are . given in an admirable octavo (pp. 1 60) by Dr. 
 Marvin R. Vincent, — "The Student's New Testa- 
 ment Handbook". 
 
 The present writer cannot too earnestly commend 
 
 Thayer's: Gk. Eng. Lexicon of the N. T. 
 
 Cremer's: Word-book. 
 
 Crosby's: Greek Grammar (indispensable). 
 
 Winer's: New Testament Grammar. 
 
 Bruder's: Concordance. 
 
 Hastings: Concordance. 
 
 Young's: Concordance. 
 35 
 
Trench : Synonyms of N. T. 
 
 Vincent's: Word Studies of N. T. [3 big vols.] 
 
 W. Aldis Wright: Bible Word Book. 
 
 No reference is here made to particular commenta- 
 ries. These titles are of general works. 
 
 See articles: Bible, Version, etc., in Smith's 
 Bible Dictionary, and in the new Herzog. 
 
 Eadie: Hist. Eng. Bible, 2 vols., Lond. 1876. 
 
 Westcott: General View of Hist. Eng. Bible, 
 Lond. 1872. 
 
 W. F. Moulton: Hist. Eng. Bible, 1872. 
 " " Literary Study of the Bible. 
 
 Isaac Taylor: Transmission of Ancient Books, 
 1859. 
 
 Mombert: Hand book of English Version of 
 Bible, 1883. 
 
 SchafF : Companion to Greek Test, and Revision. 
 
 Lightfoot, Ellicott and Trench: R. V. 
 1 vol., New York, 1873. 
 
 Essays by six Revisers, Am. N. T. Com., Phila- 
 delphia, 1881. 
 
 Burgon: Revision Revised, Lond. 1883 {"sav- 
 age attack"]. 
 
 Lovett: The Printed Eng. Bible. 
 
 Pattison : Hist, of Eng. Bible. 
 
 Stoughton : Translation & Translators of E. B. 
 
 J. B. Dore: Old Bibles. 
 
 Canon Talbot : How our Bible came to us. 
 
 J. P. Smyth: How we got our Bible. 
 
 A, Edgar : The Bibles of England. 
 
 Scrivener : The A. V. of the Eng. Bible, 1 884. 
 
 Hatch : Essays in Biblical Greek. 
 36 
 
Anderson: Annals of the Eng. Bible, 1845. 
 
 Lewis ; History of the Eng. Trans, of Bible, 1 855. 
 
 R. Demaus; William Tyndale, a biography. 
 
 Francis Fry; various facsimile reprints. 
 
 " " ; Description of Great Bible and 
 
 A. v., 1865. 
 
 Francis Fry ; Description of the Editions of Tyn- 
 dale, 1878. 
 
 R. S. Storrs; John Wyclif and the first English 
 Bible. 
 
 Green; Hist, of Kn^-Peoph, passion. 
 
 Froude; 111 — [to be taken guardedly]. 
 
 Hallam ; Int. to Literature [not always accurate]. 
 
 Chambers ; Companion to Revision of the O. T. 
 
 Bissell ; Historic Origin of the Bible. 
 
 Foxe ; Book of Martyrs. 
 
 McAfee: The Greatest English classic, 1912. 
 
 Bowen ; A Layman's Study of Eng. Bible, 1 886. 
 
 American Standard Revised Version. 
 
 CHAPTER XI 
 
 THE WRITTEN TEXT 
 THE NEW TESTAMENT 
 
 The preceding chapters have sketched the process 
 of transfer into English of our greatest book. Now 
 we are to consider the vital sources of all this process 
 of translation. For convenience we will begin with 
 the earliest stage of either Testament and proceed with 
 the history of each in its original tongue. And first as 
 to the Greek Scripture of the New Testament. 
 
 At the opening of the Christian era the Greek lang- 
 uage was general thro all the Mediterranean world. 
 The conquest of Alexander (B. C. 324-323) had 
 
 37 
 
widely diffused it, not a little modified from the great 
 classical period. Commerce had adopted its uses. It 
 was the Greek of Alexandria that became the Greek 
 of Palestine. The common tongue of Israel was now 
 'Aramaic', a mixture of Hebrew and Chaldaic. 
 Pure Hebrew was only the language of books, of 
 scholars, and of the temple. Between the domestic 
 and the commercial speech many were bilingual. 
 Modified Attic Greek was the language of the New 
 Testament, carrying however a large infusion of He- 
 brew thought and idiom, and expanding many Greek 
 words under the influence of Christian ideas, ( e. g.) 
 New words are sometimes thus formed. The'syntax 
 is Greek, without- all of the Attic nicety. 
 
 This mingling of elements is neither to be overlooked 
 or exaggerated. The dialectic coloring is really an en- 
 richment. Distinctly the whole style is graphic. 
 
 The materials used were the reed-pen, papyrus, and 
 the black of burnt ivory. The papyrus was prepared 
 by matting cross layers. In time it grew brittle and per- 
 ishable. 
 
 Writing was mainly by dictation to amanuenses. In 
 the first centuries, only capital letters were used, writ- 
 ten without spacing of words and without punctuations 
 and accents. 
 
 Transcription was tedious and costly. The earlier 
 'copy' would be discarded. Libraries there were 
 not, to treasure early documents. The original drafts 
 are lost. 
 
 The extant manuscripts begin with the period (per- 
 haps 300 A. D.) when parchment came into full use. 
 This ' vellum ' withstands time. It is of the skins of 
 sheep, goats, antelopes, and of very young calves. 
 Cotton and, later, linen paper dates from the tenth cen- 
 
 38 
 
tury. The earliest linen paper extant is of 1 1 78 A.D. 
 
 An early manuscript is called a 'codex' — from 
 caudex — a wooden tablet. The earliest mss. (Heb- 
 rew, Egyptian, Latin) were connected into continuous 
 rolls. The N. T. mss. all are folded into various sizes. 
 Usually there are from two to four columns. 
 
 There are two classes of N. T. mss. — the ' Uncials ' 
 {twelfths, inch, ounce) written in capitals^ the ' Cur- 
 sives ' , or running hand, [currere). 
 
 The cursive writing does not appear before about 
 900 A. D. 
 
 Many details of form go far to imply the locality of 
 the given mss.; marginal data also assist this determin- 
 ation. 
 
 As parchment was expensive, in many cases ante- 
 rior writing was erased, or (oftener) covered, so to use 
 the material for other things. To restore these ' pal- 
 impsests ' and recover the first text is a work of deli- 
 cacy and often of high importance. There are cases 
 of two such owr-writing. Sometimes leaves have so 
 adhered, face to f iicyr that in separating them the let- 
 ters come off entire and must be read backward. All 
 this'is a minute and studious art, yielding however ex- 
 act critical results. Nor is it peculiar to the relics of 
 these sacred books. 
 
 The system of notation for the ancient N. T. mss. 
 uses the capitals. A, B, C, etc., for the Uncials, and 
 the numerals, 1 , 2, 3, etc., for the Cursives. But 
 Tischendorf adopted the first Hebrew letter (Aleph) 
 for the great mss. discovered by him in 1 844. It is a 
 simple system, for reference : but it is not entirely sat- 
 isfactory, tho now well established. Change would be 
 too confusing. 
 
 There are many fragmentary mss. and also ' Lec- 
 39 
 
tionaries ' (selections). The total of N. T. mss. is 1 54 
 Uncials and 1456 Cursives. Of the Gospels there 
 are 5 1 Uncials. The number of these documents is 
 great as compared with those of other ancient writings. 
 Of Homer there is not one complete copy earlier than 
 1 300 A. D. Of all the classic authors there are only 
 five or six earlier than 500 A. D. Of Herodotus 
 there are only 1 6 extant mss. of any age. Of many 
 authors there is but one. 
 
 The very early N. T. mss. are of course witnesses 
 to other preceding copies. Nothing we have goes 
 back of Diocletian (303) whose persecution especially 
 aimed to extinguish all Christian writings. But the 
 textual vindication of the N. T. far surpasses that of 
 any other ancient book. 
 
 The age of a given mss. can by many tokens be 
 ascertained to within fifty years. Stichometry (line 
 measure) was a system of writing which allotted a 
 breath to a Une. This division is a datum of about 
 460 A. D. Many other technical marks help us 
 toward the probable date of any given mss. 
 
 These mss. are widely distributed as the peculiar 
 treasure of the world's greatest libraries. Age, com- 
 pleteness, skill and care, are things most to be sought. 
 
 The Codex Sinaiticus (Aleph) is perhaps the great- 
 est and oldest, as it is the most complete of all the 
 Uncials. 
 
 It was discovered by a great scholar and textual 
 critic, Constantine Tischendorf, at the Convent of the 
 St. Catherine, Mount Sinai, in 1 844. The story is 
 celebrated, but its details are spared here. This Co- 
 dex was edited by its discoverer and published at Leip- 
 sic in 1 863. It now rests in the Imperial Library of 
 Petrograd. This beautiful mss. is claimed to be one 
 
 40 
 
of the 50 copies ordered by the Emperor Constantine 
 33 1 A. D. It has the N. T. complete and parts of 
 the Old. 
 
 Codex Vaticanus (B.) is in the Vatican Library. 
 It is of about 350 A. D. Many hold it to be first in 
 value. 
 
 Codex Alexandrinus (A.) was presented to Charles 
 I, by the patriarch of Constantinople in 1 628. It is 
 now in the British Museum. 
 
 These are the three earliest and chief witnesses to 
 the N, T. test. 
 
 Of the many hundreds of Cursives the C. Basili- 
 ensis, C. Colbertinus, C. Leicestrensis are among the 
 most valued. 
 
 The ascertainment of the reliable text is thus a 
 minute and scrupulous comparison and cross-reference 
 of many witnesses. With great slight variation the 
 confirmatory agreement is notable and makes the ap- 
 proximate resultant text more and more secure. It 
 does not lie exclusively in any one mss., but in all. 
 Unwearied research attains a substantial residual text 
 which can be minutely trusted and which far surpasses 
 the result concerning any other ancient book. 
 
 THE OLD TESTAMENT TEXT 
 
 Excepting a few brief passages the O. T. is Heb- ' 
 rew (a little Chaldee in Daniel and in Ezra). This 
 language is of perhaps the highest antiquity in the 
 Semitic group. It was probably the tongue of Abra- 
 ham modified and developed under Canaanitish influ- 
 ences. 
 
 An analysis of the qualities of the Hebrew language ' 
 is aside from our purpose; enough to say that it is un- 
 elastic, direct, pictorial, simple, abundant in substantives 
 
 41 
 
and verbs, . slender in particles, — a poetical and not a 
 philosophical tongue. Its vocabulary is small, its 
 syntax simple. Alphabetic writing was doubtless 
 anterior to Moses. 
 
 The Moabite Stone, discovered 1868, proves an 
 alphabet common to many nations 900 B. C. 
 
 The present Hebrew letters go no further back 
 than 600 B. C. There are 22 letters written origi- 
 nally without vowels or accents. When it ceased to 
 be generally spoken, these became necessary. 
 
 AH extant Hebrew mss. are comparatively recent — 
 a roll of the law 843, a codex 9 1 6 A. D. The most 
 minute care was taken in transcription and all faulty 
 copies were destroyed. Specific and numerous rules 
 were upon all scribes. The following is from Dr. 
 Bissell's book:- — 
 
 "The material must be of parchment made from the 
 skin of a ceremonially clean animal. It must be pre- 
 pared by a Jew; the parchment must be divided into 
 columns of exactly equal length. More than three 
 words written off the line vitiated the whole work. 
 Black ink — prepared after a certain specified recipe — 
 could alone be used. The kind of character to be 
 employed was minutely described; as also, full direc- 
 tions concerning spaces, points, and the use of the pen. 
 Upon revision, which must take place within thirty 
 days after the completion of the transcription, if a word 
 were found to have a letter redundant, or was defi- 
 cient of one; or if one letter touched another, &c , the 
 entire manuscript was sacrificed. Such an enormous 
 estimate being put upon the absolute faultlessness of 
 these documents, unspeakably burdensome and irk- 
 some tho it must have been to copyists, was yet 
 exceedingly favorable to the purity of the text. 
 
 42 
 
Private manuscripts were often written on both 
 cotton and common paper, and appear in book form 
 of various sizes. Unlike the synagogue rolls they 
 employ the square Chaldee character with vowels, 
 accents, marginal readings, observations, and other im- 
 provements of the Masora. [tradition]^. There are 
 certain of this class of codices of a later period, how- 
 ever, called the Rabbinical, which are written in a 
 running hand without the Masoretic points and addi- 
 tions. These private mss., not being prepared under 
 the same strict official surveillance as the rolls for 
 public use, were naturally open to rtiore numerous 
 errors ; but even here rigorous rules were by no means 
 wanting in addition to the almost impassable barrier 
 to mistake found in the Masora. In fact, an impar- 
 tial collation of all the mss. of the O. T. Scriptures 
 that have come down to us disclose a striking similar- 
 ity among them. Different readings' are found, it is 
 true, but of an unimportant character, relating generally 
 but to single letters and of less moment than those of 
 the oldest New Testament mahuscripts, even when 
 the latter are compared among themselves. 
 
 The age of these codices it is difficult to determine 
 with precision. It is sometimes found stated on the 
 document itself, altho suf h dates are mostly looked 
 upon with distrust. The place of their origin is 
 ordinarily less open to doubt, being inferred from such 
 data as the order of the books, the character used in 
 writing, ornamentation, &c. The whole number of 
 different Hebrew mss. collated by Kennicott and 
 De Rossi, the most laborious students in this depart- 
 ment (1753-1783), was 1346". 
 
 All this scrupulous care tended to the most exact 
 preservation of the text. 
 
 43 
 
CHAPTER XII 
 'I HE PRINTED TEXT 
 
 The story of the Bible as we have it now naturally 
 proceeds thro the great results of the art of printing 
 from movable type (cir^ 1 440). 
 
 This availed itself, as to these writings, of all the mss. 
 then at hand, tho the basis of the text at any given 
 time 'received' modified continually as more and es- 
 pecially older mss. were discovered and collated. The 
 process and its augment of nearer and nearer approach 
 has been continuous. The inquisition of scholarly 
 ' textual critics ' has been constant and the technical 
 canons of this labor have become more and more ex- 
 act. 
 
 Fragmentary portions of the N. T. were in print, 
 from Venice 1 486 and 1 504 : but the first entire N. 
 T. in Greek was published by Erasmus ' of Rotter- 
 dam' in 1516. Of all the details of the task "to es- 
 tablish the original form and integrity of the text by 
 documentary evidence" there is no better single state- 
 ment than the fifth chapter of Schaff's "Companion to 
 the Greek Testament", (Harpers 1883). Of course 
 elaborate and numerous volumes may be found upon 
 this punctilious subject. 
 
 The " Complutensian Polyglot" of Ximenes was 
 coincident with the work of Erasmus, (1514-1522). 
 Both of these depended upon late texts. In a few de- 
 ficient passages, in the mss. he had, Erasmus made the 
 Greek upon the basis of the Vulgate : but both of 
 these men were actuated by fidelity to the primary 
 sources. 
 
 Tho not numerous at any one date there is continu- 
 ous succession of acute and enthusiastic scholars who 
 
 44 
 
have made the study of an exact N. T. ' text ' their 
 major life work. 
 
 Robert Stephens ( 1 503-59), a printer and scholar 
 of Paris, published l4i 1550 a 'royal edition' of what 
 long time was the accepted text. It leaned upon 
 Erasmus and Ximenes and some fifteen mss. in the 
 Paris library. This was several times reedited and 
 reprinted by later hands. 
 
 Theodore de Beze (1519-1 605) of Geneva, a ripe 
 and vigorous student, and with access to some impor- 
 tant mss. continued ( 1 565 sq.) the line of this study, 
 and his edirions were the chief basis of the "A. V." 
 1611. 
 
 The Elzevir brothers of Holland followed, 1 624- 
 41. Their Leyden edition, 1633, originated the 
 name textus receptus. 
 
 John Mill of England (Oxon. 1 707) marks an era 
 in the history of N. T. criticism. His fruitful work of 
 thirty years made him the real founder of this science. 
 At his hands the critical ' apparatus ' vastly extended. 
 
 Richard Bentley (1662-1742) proposed an edition 
 in 1 720 for which great preparations were made, but 
 which his death frustrated. His Proposals indicated 
 the radical intention to strike far back of the receptus, 
 to the oldest text of the first five centuries. The un- 
 answerable good sense of this was later reasserted and 
 executed by Lachman, but when made it elicited a 
 storm of angry controversy. 
 
 John A. Bengel of Wurtemburg (1687-1752) ad- 
 vanced upon the work of Mill and Bentley and met 
 the same hostility. He was acute, original, profound 
 and extensive. He developed many great and endur- 
 ing'critical principles, and to his fertile and assiduous 
 mind after workers were deeply indebted. 
 
 45 
 
J J. Wetstein [1693-1754] was a brilliant text- 
 critic for forty years. He journeyed widely and collat- 
 ed at least 1 00 mss., among them A, C, and D. He 
 introduced the present system for the notation of un- 
 cials and cursives. Controversy attended him : but 
 his Prokgomna is held to be invaluable. The mater- 
 ial collected by him became a rich storehouse of sug- 
 gestion and result. 
 
 Griesbach [ 1 745- 1812] was an honored Professor 
 of Divinity at Halle and then at Jena. To the life 
 work of textual criticism he brought accuracy, industry 
 and judgment. His chief rules were [a] that a read- 
 ing must have ancient support, [b] that the shorter 
 reading has probability, [c] that the difficult is likelier 
 to be correct than the easy, and the unusual than the 
 usual. He pushed on the development and sifted the 
 work of his predecessors. His greatest edition was in 
 4 folio volumes, 1803-1807. 
 
 Many followed him shortly. 
 
 Scholtz, [d. 1852] Professor at Bonn, was an ex- 
 tensive traveller and fully described many mss. 
 
 Lachman [1 793-1851], Professor of Classical Phi- 
 lology at Berlin, was a man of the truest scholarly or- 
 der. He was a master. He went to the oldest attain- 
 able authorities. He broke a new path, which the 
 greatest have since trod, and secured primacy for the 
 evidence of antiquity. 
 
 Tischendorf was the greatest textual critic of the 
 1 9th century. With liberal support he made great 
 search for mss. and found many not before investigat- 
 ed. Between 1841 and 1873 he published 24 edi- 
 tions of the N. T. His greatest service was the dis- 
 covery of the Sinaitic Codex, 1 844-49. 
 
 46 
 
Notable English names are Tregelles, Scrivener, 
 Alford, Westcott, and Hort. 
 
 The minute details of principles established and of 
 high accomplishment in this whole field may well be 
 sought in the before-named book of Philip Schaff. 
 
 The total result of all this huge and protracted la- 
 bor affords the most convincing evidence that we ap- 
 proach almost as nearly as is humanly possible to the 
 very words of the apostolic age. 
 
 In all the realm of books none is so securely found- 
 ed as the text of our present resultant Greek Testa- 
 ment. 
 
 THE OLD TESTAMENT 
 
 The printed text of the Hebrew scriptures bears 
 back upon the scrolls of the succeeding anterior cen- 
 turies with their rigid accuracy. Already reference 
 has been made to the exceeding care taken by the 
 Jewish scribes to guard and transmit the sacred text 
 of their venerated books. Everything was counted 
 and numbered. 
 
 "The Targums of Jonathan and Onkelos [first cen- 
 tury A. D ] and the translations of Aquila and others 
 prove the early establishment of the text " The 
 Mishna was the transcript of the oral law — tradition- 
 al interpretations. 
 
 Gemaras were commentaries upon this, known as 
 the Talmud. "The Talmudists [200-500 A. D.] ex- 
 ercised the most extraordinary vigilance to prevent all 
 changes of the text. The Torah was the Mosaic 
 Law itself. On every hand there was solicitude for 
 unalterability. 
 
 The Masorites [scribes of tradition^ wrote down, 
 marginally only, a vast mass of before oral readings : 
 
 47 
 
but these "Keris" were never inserted in the text it- 
 self. These men inserted the vowel and accent points 
 to enunciate the immemorial tradition. This vocaliza- 
 tion did not alter, but sealed the ancient reading. 
 This inherited text tended therefore to absolute uni- 
 formity. It was this fixed form that passed into the 
 earliest printed Old Testament about 1 470, and which 
 ever since has continued. All sources are here 
 merged into one unity, not now to be changed. Crit- 
 icism cannot be any more than conjectural. The text 
 stands fast. 
 
 CHAPTER Xlll 
 ANCIENT VERSIONS 
 
 The various versions, translations into sundry vern- 
 aculars, have value as showing what must have been 
 the text from which they derived, especially when 
 they are older than all extant codices. 
 
 It was always an instinct to turn the holy books in- 
 to the people's tongue. 
 
 These translations furnish a large quota of corrob- 
 orative evidence. 
 
 The Roman books came first. There was no one 
 preclusive translation into Latin — no one Itala: but 
 many. Jerome collated whatever preceded him (400 
 A. D.) and made that careful Vulgatus which sifted 
 their testimony. He was thus the first great known 
 revisionist and was so that he might popularize the 
 Bible for the Latin world. He did this with careful 
 regard to the Hebrew and the Greek scriptures them- 
 selves and utilized all that had preceded him in this 
 work of unification. His result was resisted but it 
 stands, in despite of those whom Jerome styled '^^bip- 
 edes asellos" , — who "thought ignorance was holiness". 
 
 48 
 
In time this Latin text was much deformed and it was 
 revised under Sixtus V and again under Clement 
 VIII. It is the standard since the decree of the 
 Council of Trent, April I 546. 
 
 Next the Syriac (Peshito, ^simple) version, dating 
 from perhaps the third century. It is in a close, 
 idiomatic and popular style, of large accuracy. It was 
 always highly venerated and was the Bible of a great 
 region. It is in remarkable and confirmatory accord 
 with the oldest codices. 
 
 The Philoxenian, (508) and the Curetornian frag- 
 ments of the Gospels, base upon the Peshito. 
 
 The Ethiopic [Abyssinian]; the Egyptian [in three 
 forms dating from the second century and of large 
 critical importance]; the Armenian, the Persic, the 
 Georgian, the Slavonic, all are of interest. 
 
 The Gothic Version [Ullilas, 348-388] was in 
 Germanic with Greek letters. "It once spoke to 
 nearly the whole of Europe. Schaff says "It is the 
 earliest specimen of Teutonic literature and the starting- 
 point of comparative Teutonic philology". 
 
 Patristic quotations are also of value in this depart- 
 ment of textual evidence. 
 
 Modern translations are of interest to all skilful 
 readers : but they of course add nothing to the testimony 
 or implication of those which were antecedent or con- 
 temporary with the eldest mss. 
 
 The support given to the text by ancient versions is 
 large and strong, but these secondary witnesses have 
 no primary authority. 
 
 OLD TESTAMENT VERSIONS 
 
 The Targums, the Hexapla of Origan, the transla- 
 tion into Greek by Aquila [ 1 1 7- 1 38 A. D.], all are 
 
 49 
 
of interest. But the supremely important witness to 
 the O. T. text is the Septuagint [LXX]. It was 
 done in Greek, in Alexandria, and was long time in 
 making, perhaps 280 to 1 50 B. C. It shows much 
 variation in the skill of those who made it. 
 
 Its evidence is highly valuable as to the reading of 
 the rolls from which it was translated, these far ante- 
 dating any extant Hebrew mss. The language was 
 of great influence upon the N. T. writers and the 
 Greek fathers of the earliest Christian centuries. Out 
 of 350 quotations from the O. T. in the N. T., some 
 300 are from this version. 
 
 The argument from anterior texts follows the same 
 course in both Testaments. All is assuring of the va- 
 lidity of our sacred documents. 
 
 CHAPTER XIV 
 THE ENGLISH BIBLE AS LITERATURE 
 
 The justification of a systematic study of the Bible, 
 as an established part of a well-planned College 
 course, lies in its ethical contents, its spiritual stimula- 
 tion, the variety and nobility of its literary forms, and 
 in its historical influence upon the peoples that have 
 most valued and diffused that influence. 
 
 Of undisputed ethical predominance, it deals with 
 the profoundest moral facts, and containing the mate- 
 rials of a sound prychology it touches every intimacy 
 of human relation. Sociological in the broadest sense, 
 it advances inquiry into the nature, duties and destiny 
 of the individual and the race. All theory of national 
 and of international life, of valid government and 
 right enactment, must respect its positive data and 
 their age-long illustration. Man's heredity in God is 
 told in the universal language of conscience. It sets 
 
 50 
 
forth historically the whole philosophy of rights. It 
 centres law. 
 
 As Literature, it has all the qualities which appeal 
 to conviction and to action. Plural and manifold, the 
 'book of books' has a generic unity and solidarity. 
 Its continuous warp carries a varied woof : but it is a 
 tapestry and panorama of feeling and purpose which 
 in consecutive event reflected the vital influence of the 
 most formative race of Time. Great and enduring 
 literature is the answer to life in worthy forms of 
 language. That lasts and is classic whose value 
 verifies its right of undiminishing appeal to all large 
 and well-windowed minds. This is ever an open 
 canon. Power is the criterion. The continued and 
 perpetually renewing efficiency of any book vindicates 
 its quality. This aristocracy of excellence is the 
 birthright of the Bible. 
 
 Such a place and rank is slowly and historically 
 assigned. Generations must unite to accord it. Time 
 is the test, whose verdict cannot be coerced or 
 suborned. That which the centuries ponder and 
 join to honor has a sanction and authorization not to 
 be imitated or denied. This supreme regard has a 
 reflex influence which claims full recognition. The 
 result is a symptom, caused and flowing, and an 
 indivisible part of the thought of peoples that feel and 
 perpetuate that result. Here lies a clinic of national 
 character. 
 
 Vitality then; first in thought, then noble expression, 
 then in careful record, last in continuous influence, — 
 these are the tests of classic value. That which out- 
 lives incidental neglect or disparagement shows its 
 fitness to survive. 
 
 Such a classic, beyond all controversy, is that 
 51 
 
storied collection of providential writings which we 
 call the Bible. Its claim and attraction is immortal. 
 Research and ignorance, admiration and detraction, 
 love and antagonism, patronage and homage, say 
 their several words and go their ways : but the books 
 abide. "Age cannot wither nor custom stale their 
 infinite variety" of charm and tenure, of still unexhaust- 
 ed and still unapplied wisdom. 
 
 APPROACH 
 
 The well-justified ideal of a true college course is 
 of a systematic beginning in the general development 
 of manhood, mental and moral. Such a course seeks 
 to ground the first principles of reason and of choice. 
 
 Sympathy with life thro language and literature, 
 aptness to discern and to select, familiarizing with the 
 masters of reflective and expressive skill, a sense of 
 the dramatic world, appreciation of the intent of the 
 prolific and evolutional past, that utterance whose 
 energy lies in the accent of conviction; — such a 
 discipline may well esteem the thesaurus of Scripture. 
 
 All aside from later specific activities, or distinctly 
 professional equipment, here is that whose atmosphere, 
 whose bearing upon true culture and conduct, upon 
 all opinion and plan of career, affirms a primary and 
 supreme value. And therefore a curriculum professing 
 to be formative cannot forego that which, by such a 
 depth and width, is fitted to qualify for the most 
 sincere and abundant life. 
 
 The linguistic study of the two Testaments, as 
 Hebrew and as Greek, may present but a secondary 
 claim. But it is ventured that a crowning reason for 
 the more general pursuit of Greek, at least, is that the 
 most important book of Time is writ in this tongue. 
 
 52 
 
Outside of dispute, if one studies German, French, 
 Italian, to read their greatest authors at first hand,' or 
 Saxon to appreciate our crisp, primary, tongue, why 
 should one not master Greek so as to come to the 
 closest verbal intimacy with Luke and Paul and John ? 
 
 Commerical values are not here in point. Philo- 
 logy is for the technical few. But surely one reads 
 Latin as a means to feel the life of the antique world, 
 to understand and to measure its message, wase or 
 wistful or wanton. So Greek, with its august vital 
 contribution to all subsequent thought and manner. 
 
 Side values there are of regular and refined grammar, 
 derivation, all that goes with verbal analysis and dis- 
 crimination : but all this is that we may seek the 
 temperament and tempo of the Mediterranean world, 
 and find in its philosophy and permanent effects the 
 worth of our careful while. Vocabulary, nicety of 
 expression, wealth of wise allusion, mental precedent, 
 the training of that intellectual good sense which we 
 call taste, — these are much : but the real thing beyond, 
 and which the classics minister withal, is horizon, 
 contagion of energy, a surer and intenser activity of 
 mind. 
 
 By all such tests, along with those far higher, the 
 Bible is a classic of all Time. In variety of form and 
 matter, and in their close interrelation it is the peer of 
 anything within two covers. But consider that unity 
 of purpose which pervades its variety. See how this 
 covers a process of fifteen hundred years of composi- 
 tion. Remember its claim to record the revelation of 
 the Creator Spirit to the spirit of man Think what 
 this revelation has done and may yet do for a race 
 recalcitrant and mutinous. Then tell what regard 
 such a phenomenal book justly demands ! 
 
 53 
 
The claim is in court. It must be met. Be it 
 untrue or exaggerated it must be met. Even if 
 delusive, it is too vast and permeative to be ignored. 
 Under any theory the clinic of this book remains an 
 unescapable necessity for whoever would explain its 
 story of power over the minds and hearts of so many 
 centuries. He who would be "of large discourse, 
 looking before and after" must hear the case. 
 
 There must be a rational definition of this moral 
 wonder, which also happens to be (does it ' happen ' ?) 
 the foremost literary marvel of the world. A trained 
 and truthful mind will not shun this issue. 
 
 The exegetical study of these Scriptures is a task 
 too large and too minute to engross any main part of a 
 brief college course. Exegesis is the application of 
 lexicon and syntax, in order to a strict and scientific 
 interpretation. For this the whole book is material 
 and life not too long. Whole lives have fruitfully 
 been given to portions. Commentary would itself 
 make a vast library, whose tides alone would be an 
 abundant book. Of true 'exegesis' the close study 
 of any author in any language is typical, and toward 
 this book most helpful. The principles are constant. 
 Their application to the Bible is in kind with all 
 language work. It is this exactitude which mines this 
 book, illustrating the honest and thoro way which all 
 great books, in their very own idiom, invite and 
 reward. Upon this all which is didactic bases and 
 expands. The attention afforded in a college course 
 should prepare that personal confidence in the validity 
 and scope of the Bible, reflecting as these do its 
 power. The intrinsic thought is that which creates 
 and guides the instrumental speech, and which 
 accounts for the authority thereof. This it is which 
 
 54 
 
prompts welcome and response. Matriculation lies in 
 personal commitment to Him Whose providence has 
 devised and preserved this mstrument of the soul's 
 vision and the heart's music. All converse with the 
 chief figures and critical events leads directly to the 
 Supreme Person and contains the development of 
 Christian teaching as not logical alone, but biological. 
 The analysis of particular ' books ' is tributary to the 
 sense of that consistency, symmetry, and progress, 
 which rules the total story. The Book, as a whole, 
 effects its completeness not in the effacement but in 
 the coordination of various individualities. No voice 
 is without signification in the harmony. Man and 
 date and place, are sundry parts of -a spiritual trend 
 which is so cogent because it is not mechanical. The 
 one inspiration breathes in the common consent. The 
 impossibility of collusion makes the absence of collision 
 the proof of a Master Mind and its guiding purpose. 
 
 The Bible is history and of all its interpretation the 
 historical sense must be the fulcrum. Genealogy was 
 a great matter with the Hebrews. Thro it these 
 scriptures make their approach. All is genesis. This 
 very word introduces the New Testament — "Bible of 
 genesis of Jesus Christ, son of David, son of Abra- 
 ham". Many an apostolical discourse has this warp, 
 just as many of the Psalms were recapitulatory of 
 Israel. The feeling of continuity, the historical logic 
 of the situation, the declaration of consistent advance 
 (see Hebs. 1 : 1 ) — these are what introduced and 
 grounded the proclamation of the Gospel. 
 
 The study of Institutions cannot escape the basilar 
 and architectonic influence of what the Bible records. 
 Institutions protect the life which their forms reveal. 
 Hebrew law, government, society, are permanent 
 
 55 
 
factors of tlie present world. The Mosaic legislation 
 has lasting practical beatings. Its material is not 
 obsolete. About these precepts the being of a people 
 clustered. These educated their intensive and diffusive 
 life. Of the increasing conviction the biographies bear 
 viritness, the ' burden ' of the prophet and the hope of 
 the Psalm are counterproof. The whole status and 
 story of the people is mnemonic. As the history of 
 the United States is the unfolding and commentary of 
 our constitutional law, so was theirs of that which 
 chartered the phenomenal Hebrew personality. And 
 the investigation of the legation and leadership of 
 Moses, as one of the great forces of the ages since, 
 bears weightily upon our own tense. 
 
 Womanhood, childhood, the rights and the duties 
 of the physical laborer, property, judicial authority, 
 the law of 52 rest days in the year; — these, with 
 many a thing besides, go back to him who gave such 
 inspiration to the chisel of Angelo. Legislator, gen- 
 eral, statesman, prophet, poet, in his lonely altitude he 
 has no human parallel. The man was and thence 
 his record. Washington and Lincoln made their place 
 upon the human map. And the story of Moses is as 
 sedate and stedfast, with as little of fantasy or myth. 
 
 Not a philosophy, these scriptures furnish philosophy 
 with immense material. They build on God, — His 
 Spirit as the biological source of all form, the unity, 
 of His creatorship and control and rights. His im- 
 manence and holy love, man's relation to his Maker 
 and to fellow, the law of fraternity, the divinity of 
 sacrifice, the true goal, these are profoundly manifest. 
 
 Ethics, Religion, Sociology, Economics verily, must 
 use these data as to the source and ends of life. 
 Meliorism or pessimism ; liberty under law, or license 
 
 56 
 
and ruffian violence ; the solidarity of mankind, or 
 insularity; immortality, or all the sanctions of morality 
 dissolved in non-entity; Heaven at last or Hell novv^; 
 Theism, or despair; — these are the alternatives 
 betw^een which there is no rational half-way. These 
 questions both of philosophy and practice, philanthropy 
 must handle. 
 
 All law and custom are challanged to see how 
 these ancient declarations lie at the very heart of the 
 modern world, with its still brutal selfishness and its 
 ungodly wars. All those equities which have so 
 changed jurisprudence find here their mentor. The 
 codes have more than begun to incorporate the 
 humanizing mercies of the New Testament. 'Com- 
 mon law' answers the benign pressure. Rights are 
 more and more read in the glowing terms of duties. 
 Statute broadens its registration of the humane impulse 
 and its sanctions comprehend more of mercy and of 
 the catholicity of man-right. But this is a distinctively 
 Christian trend, enacting what goes with the general 
 conscience, that whose standards of an honesty not 
 occult educate personal and public self-respect. All 
 these sub-stratal ethics live in the Bible, and only 
 obstinacy can ignore that which so comprehends the 
 whole horizon of being. 
 
 We are presently to consider the notable literary 
 values of the Bible : but we may well be aware that 
 at last the intrinsic beauty of any words lies in their 
 truth. It is in the answer of sound to sense that deep 
 calls to deep. Here reality weaves the tissue of 
 appeal. One must emphasise the form that unfolds the 
 spirit. The climax of the Scriptures is the portraiture 
 of that final and central Figure, from Whom they 
 have their coherency and completeness Of Him 
 
 57 • 
 
they all testify, and from Him they have their organic 
 relation. Thro and by Israel is developed this ul- 
 timate Word, mortising people and record in the 
 providential order of the world as an order of Re- 
 demption. 
 
 A symmetrical training, then, preparing in mental 
 sensitiveness and moral sympathy for the noble exac- 
 tions of opportunity and its clear summons to the 
 calling of the highest manhood is bound to reckon 
 with the heavenly vision. Where are there themes 
 more regulative and inspirations more direct, a surer 
 key to the wisdom of the fear of God, a brighter 
 promise or a tenderer guidance than in this hallowed 
 book? What else shall so cleanse our ways? 
 
 The eager critical questions which attend the Bible 
 are the counterproof of . its importance. These are 
 not to be evaded or half-handled, but to be squarely 
 met, and this in the interests of intellectual probity. 
 So meeting them, and with pains and purging testing 
 every step of his way, one can come to an assured 
 and large place, where calmly he can rest, in the con- 
 fidence that the God of Time is the 'Father of 
 Eternity ' and his Father and Redeemer. 
 
 The great, comprehensible, facts are as plain as the 
 Sierras against the sky's unfathomed blue. A genuine 
 study can fasten some beginnings that will not ravel 
 and by which one can nobly live and peacefully die. 
 
 This tonic of both intellect and heart is potent 
 beyond all definition. ' That inspiration, which is a 
 circle not to be squared by the metes and bounds of 
 fallible terms, will vindicate itself in every soul that 
 earnestly seeks the interpretation and would practice 
 the presence of the living God. 
 
 58 
 
THE ARGUMENT FROM LITERATURE 
 
 All that is already said tends, it is hoped, toward 
 expectation of a Book single in its eminence as to 
 form. 
 
 In a merely secular view and purely as Literature 
 we are dealing with the foremost English classic — 
 the preeminent volume of the language that has our 
 heart. 
 
 "Literature" (says Coyle) is specifically higher than 
 language. It stands for a higher type of corporate 
 life. It is the chief agency thro which the higher 
 historical forces are transmitted with least refraction 
 or deflection or diminution of energy. So the great 
 books reproduce life". 
 
 One who is not familiar with the Bible, as litera- 
 ture, is not a well educated man. This most import- 
 ant book in the English tongue is not merely a book, 
 — it is a library. It is not merely literature, it is a 
 literature. In the Old Testament it reflects the deep- 
 est life of a people whose genius and annals are the 
 profoundest ethnic influence of Time. The germinal 
 vitality of a phenomenal race issued in the writings 
 which are the transcript of the Hebrew mind for a 
 thousand years. It is the result and explanation of an 
 incomparable people. For ; — 
 
 " Out of the heart of Nature rolled 
 
 The burdens of the Bible old " (vide) * 
 
 The classics of Greece, Rome, Persia, China, are 
 of far slighter importance. Anglo-Saxon character 
 more is indebted to the Hebrew spirit than to all 
 others. So far has this gone to make English and 
 American letters and men. 
 
 The psychosis of the Hebrew mind is here, — its 
 59 
 
acumen, tenacity, vigilance. Even the newer tongue 
 or the Newr Testament, refining the expression, does 
 not change the impulse. It is still the Hebrew soul 
 speaking Greek. 
 
 With whatever expansion of theme and deepening 
 of the artesian thought, the increasing purpose' of the 
 27 books carries no divorce of feeling from the 39. 
 
 These two major parts, with all the components of 
 each are bound together in every sense, — O BIBA02. 
 
 With loss singularly small these scriptures have been 
 born again in English. Their inherent importance has 
 impelled to the revisions we have noted, but under 
 whatever translation or emendation the English Bible 
 has at every stage and period been the dominant 
 literary force. 
 
 Having thus that which has such a cogent literary 
 history, we may well give this English book a respect- 
 ful scrutiny, a scientific consideration of what it has 
 been and has done and what it is. 
 
 Not only as the one adequate elucidation of the 
 phenomenon of Christianity, not only for its values 
 devotional and moral, but for its potency upon English 
 letters the book is solitary and peerless. 
 
 All other books together have not so much influ- 
 enced the English race, and an influence so noble, so 
 enduring, cannot be conceived to have sources either 
 illegitimate or obscure. 
 
 This seminal force, so imposing and so constant, ' 
 derives from those thro whom the Scriptures came: 
 but of England and her children ( 1 60 millions now) 
 it may be said that the Book has made the peoples. 
 Nor are these alone in this, tho eminent. 
 
 This book lies at the 'footing course' of all our 
 vast literature, and it is exacted that one must factor 
 
 60 
 
with this secret of that literature's power. It is back 
 of and under all the result. The Bible has been the 
 people's primer and far more. By it plain men attain 
 mental widening and marked skill and pith of diction. 
 Its idiom is omnipresent. Familiarity with it cannot 
 long leave one illiterate. The illiterate lands are those 
 where it has been neglected. It is in itself a liberal 
 education. It is the key to the very core of English 
 literary history. Its place is rudimentary. Not every 
 one will make the Greek Testament his vade mecum; 
 not many will in Hebrew approach the directness and 
 instinctive religious sense of patriarch and prophet, to 
 find in its primary simplicity the just vehicle of its pro- 
 found realization of the God of the world and of man, 
 and to be nourished in its synthetic conviction: but 
 the English Bible is in the hands of us all. 
 
 It could be made a text book for a great variety of 
 courses, — psychology, logic, rhetoric, oratory, poetry, 
 law, sociology, and a many more. 
 
 But not as instrumental to any of these differentiat- 
 ed subjects and sciences is its claim here urged, but as 
 literature, — that which fuses all fact and holds up the 
 mirror to life itself, which, with the utmost realism, 
 seizes the general in the particular and makes for the 
 ideal and type. 
 
 The ruling purpose — its soul passion, is "to make 
 wise unto salvation" — to guide into a dutiful and 
 lofty life: but it happens (and judge whether by coin- 
 cidence or by consequence) that its ultimate themes 
 are set forth in literary forms whose charm has not in 
 the same compass any rival. 
 
 No other book better reveals the aptitude, the 
 felicities, the nervous strength, of our native speech. 
 One who kn^w no other book, but knew this book 
 
 61 
 
well, could have at his command all the resources of 
 the most effectual English. For clearness, point, en- 
 ergy, and for a matchless perfection of modulated 
 rhythm, a certain native and high-bred grace of 
 phrase and cadence, here is the purest and the amplest 
 pattern. It has a naivete so frank and wise, that 
 mere narrative often twinkles with unconscious wit or 
 trembles with pathos. 
 
 Only the most durable, because natural, writing 
 has this note at once of freedom and strength. For 
 the contagion of a noble style it is the best of books. 
 Well did Coleridge say that "it could keep any writer 
 from being vulgar". 
 
 As to its thrust of short words, with their keen 
 edge and grasp, study for one instance (not singular) 
 the opening of John's gospel. 
 
 Or consider the symmetry and finality of its par- 
 agraphs; or read aloud and hear its musical flow and 
 assonance — the instinctive prosody of its prose. Not- 
 ably have the Psalms this metrical swing, often hexa- 
 metrical. See the cadence of the 23d Psalm, and of 
 the ' Lord's prayer ' . 
 
 The instances of majestic rhetoric are scarcely to 
 be counted. See them in the last of Deuteronony, in 
 Job, Jeremiah, Zephaniah, Romans, Revelation; tho 
 to cite instances seems injuriously partial. 
 
 The unbroken testimony of literary masters to the 
 ennobling and enabling quality of this literature is a 
 warrant for the most sedulous attention. 
 
 Warner called it — "a mental gymnastic of the 
 highest order". 
 
 Charles Reade noted that this ' literary marvel ' is 
 the one book of the East that greatly interests the 
 West, and pointing to its deathless characters whose 
 
 62 
 
names are household words, said that in contrast 
 "Vergil gave us not one really great man, Homer not 
 one respectable God"! 
 
 Bowen says, "Its study has done more than any 
 other single cause to modify the course and happiness 
 of thinking men, and to color and direct the whole 
 course of modern civilization". But why multiply 
 names and adduce tributes ? They bear not the root, 
 but the root them. Indeed literature it is I 
 
 For one thing, it is a most fascinating human stpry- 
 book, full of folk-lore, of deep domestic affection, of 
 popular imagination. Hagar, Joseph, Ruth, Jonathan, 
 — what artistry and appeal, what rapidity and delicacy, 
 what verisimilitude and absence of false squeam ! Or 
 feel the intensity and motion in those which Stevenson 
 called "the marching measures of the Old Testament". 
 Share the song of Miriam and rest in the 9 1 st Psalm. 
 
 What other book has so compelled and endured 
 translation? Only the human books find themselves 
 at home in such diverse tongues. What old book is 
 so modern ? 
 
 And all our English literature is saturated with its 
 imagery. Reference and echo are everywhere. Such 
 is its semenality ! It underlies the pomp of Milton, 
 the rigor of Sam. Johnson, the limpid flow of Words- 
 worth, the rhythm of Ruskin (sonority become archi- 
 tecture), the eloquence of Macauley, the severe swift 
 ease of Arnold, the roll of Hooker and Browne, the 
 perfect periods of Dryden's prose, the rugged fire of 
 Carlyle, the companionability of Emerson, the clarity 
 and repose of DeQuincy, the chastity of Hawthorne, 
 the boldness of Whittier, the music of Tennyson, the 
 conviction of Browning. Bacon, Jeremy Taylor, Isaac 
 Taylor, Southey, Charles Wesley, Newman, Webster, 
 
 63 
 
Froude, and so many, many, more, answer the trench- 
 ant mastery, the polychromatic vividness, the purged 
 and exalted, the liquid and pellucid style of the book 
 that bred them. 
 
 What a portrait-gallery is this book ! What elem- 
 ental poetry it treasures! Drama, ode, idyl, lyric, 
 epithalamium, anthem, — all are here and are the 
 oldest poetry extant. What sublimity, tenderness, 
 exquisiteness, breathe in the Psalms ; as see Nos. 90, 
 104, 139, and forty more. What multiform trope 
 and fine conclusion. It is a scholar's book and a 
 child's. 
 
 Its prose is as satisfying. As a distinct and finish- 
 ed literary form, the parable, that singular prose 
 drama, so brief, so keen, is a study by itself. The 
 habit of memorizing great portions of noble writers is, 
 alas, decadent now : but it is a noble means to fix in 
 the memory the best models, the audible rehearsal of 
 these is an invaluable training of the ear, which in 
 turn teaches the tongue. For such inculcation of 
 grace and knitted force the English Bible is indeed a 
 various and massive store. One who has thus been 
 tutored and enriched may well be glad. 
 
 Ruskin, — master of eloquent prose, all inlaid with 
 gems and chased like a Damascus sword, — describes 
 the care with which his mother taught him to read 
 the Bible aloud, and had him commit it to memory in 
 large sections. Thus, says he, "She established my 
 soul in life, and gave me the most precious, the one 
 essential part of my education". 
 
 Green writes, — "As a mere literary monument, the 
 English version of the Bible remains the noblest 
 example of the English tongue. Its perpetual use 
 made it from the instant of its appearance the standard 
 
 64 
 
of our language". Just so did Luther's Bible fix 
 German speech at its best. 
 
 Marsh declares, — "He who would touch the better 
 sensibilities of his audience, or rouse the multitude to 
 vigorous action, chooses his words from the native 
 speech of our ancient fatherland". But the elect 
 word must come from familiar ownership. Vocab- 
 ulary and idiom are habit, not accident. The occasion 
 must draw upon the standing account. Here lay the 
 open secret of Lincoln's sureness and felicity of tongue 
 and pen. 
 
 The Bible as a monitor of verbal euphony and 
 vigor has graced and muscled English utterance from 
 the times of the Tudors. Its perfume lingers in sug- 
 gestion and reminiscence thro all our dearest books. 
 Everywhere clenching phrase and the tint of life recur 
 to its crystalline forms. 
 
 Bunyan's English builds here. As a study in style 
 alone one might well read aloud the Pilgrim's Progress 
 every year. But the Bible made his style, while it 
 also plumed his imagination. He holds the interwoven 
 Scripture as close as quartz holds gold. The Bible 
 made the author. It prompted him to write and 
 taught him how. His concision and wrist-power 
 has no source else than the Book. He lived thereby 
 and by it will live while English lasts. Here also are 
 great passages to hold fast in memory. 
 
 The "noble naturalness" and rationality of Script- 
 ural style has been well set forth by Prof. Albert S. 
 Cook, of Yale. He says, — "The picturesqueness of 
 the language addresses the mind's eye; its regular, 
 natural, harmony captures the mind's ear, so simple 
 because depending mainly on antiphony, regular be- 
 cause the ear knows what to expect. The verses 
 
 65 
 
fall into march-time; their movement is disciplinary, 
 first of emotion, then of conduct. It is natural, be- 
 cause the emphatic syllable coincides with the natural 
 stress of the rhythm, and both with the pulse of the 
 thought itself. Moreover the balance of clauses is 
 natural, in another sense, in that their length agrees 
 approximately with that of a single expiration of the 
 breath". 
 
 The resultant of a long process of revision, as it now 
 stands, the Bible has been a plastic influence, molding 
 and tempering whatever literature Britain has had for 
 a thousand years. From Saxon days down, the 
 scriptures, in Latin first, then in the transitiorial middle 
 English, were the lamp of letters. 
 
 Wycliff and Chaucer were contemporaries. Thro 
 the sixteenth century classic English was forming fast, 
 attaining its maturity. The development of the Eng- 
 lish Bible coincided (as did that of the book of Com- 
 mon Prayer) with the days when Spenser sang and 
 Shakespere was preparing. The "A. V." was mak- 
 ing in Shakespere's later years. 
 
 Permeating all our literature, every great prose 
 style of our time may have its characteristics traced to 
 the sources to which the Bible is kin and of which it 
 is the chief. 
 
 That is surely but a semi-approach to this book 
 which reads it by fragments. This is to lose its 
 swing and surge. 
 
 By neglecting its unitary strength and affording it 
 only a desultory and piecemeal attention we abuse it 
 as we do no other print between covers. The 
 wonder is that, even so, it is so effective. 
 
 The affliction of a newspaper age is extempore and 
 slipshod writing joined with random and casual read- 
 
 66 
 
ing. Curiosity supplants reflection. Our mental im- 
 pressions are too largely a diurnal succession of galv- 
 anic reactions — the tingling becoming a narcotic habit. 
 
 Amid the modern multiplicity of books one who 
 would not be drenched or even drowned by mere 
 quantity, must make selection with rigor, and of any 
 twenty, or ten, or three volurnes, to mark and to 
 master, to company with and to ruminate, this Book 
 is first. 
 
 Style is character. The accent tokens the quality. 
 The crystal proves the gem. Pliancy, sympathy, 
 rapture, these are the Bible's own. Annals and 
 apothegm, argument and appeal, — these are here. 
 The composite has its wonder-commanding scintillance. 
 It is a revolving tiara of light. 
 
 Richard Mulcaster, (1582), wrote, — "I do not 
 think any language, be it whatsoever, is better able 
 to utter all arguments, either with more pith or greater 
 plainness, than our English tongue is". If this be 
 true, and if English Literature is itself a phenomenon, 
 then the store of undefiled English in the Bible makes 
 it indeed a mine and a golden key. Its spatial translu- 
 cency is immortally showh and maintained in a literat- 
 ure that is dyed in its terms and suffused with its 
 thought. Here is an undiminished creative source — 
 a fountain from the granite, pure and unwasting. 
 Deep familiarity with this Book, apart from all the 
 other mighty considerations, could make any intelligent 
 man a master of the art of English speech. 
 
 Jesus the Messiah in His word is the master not 
 only of the true hearts of the world, but of the 
 world's libraries. It was an extorted acknowledge- 
 ment, but, however reluctant, sincere and just, — 
 "Whence knoweth this man letters"? The Old 
 
 67 
 
Testament is the answer! With that how much 
 more shall the New be ours ! 
 
 Wilful or witless, ignorance of the Bible is ignor- 
 ance of the literary masterpiece of all time. "It is a 
 book (wrote Macauley, in his essay on Dryden) which, 
 if everything else in our language should perish, would 
 alone suffice to show the whole extent of its beauty 
 and power".