REMARKS ON Dr. HENDERSON'S APPEAL TO By professor LEE. Price Three Shillings and Sixpence. 1824. i:^ ^ ^^=^ ^:;a. ..^N^ i^ ^2- OF THK _ AT PRINCETON, N. J. SAMUEL AGNE\V, OF PHILADELPHIA, PA. I '£)S^60.... 4- I LA. ..i. m m'k REMARKS ON Dr. HENDERSON s APPEAL TO ON THE SUBJECT OF THE TURKISH VERSION OF THE NEW TESTAMENT PRINTED AT PARIS IN 1819. TO WHICH IS ADDED, AN APPENDIX, CONTAINING CERTAIN DOCUMENTS ON THE CHARACTER OF THAT VERSION. By the Rev. S. LEE, A.M. D.D. OF THE UNIVERSITY OF HALLE, HONORARY MEMBER OF THE ASIATIC SOCIETY OF PARIS, F.R.S.L. F.R.A.S. &C. AND PROFESSOR OF ARABIC IN THE UNIVERSITY OF CAMBRIDGE. " Qui sennone uxiitari se dicit Apostolos, priua imitetur virtutes in vita illorum." Jbrohe. CAMBRIDGE : Printed by J. Smith, Printer to the University; AND SOLD BY J. DEIGHTON Si SONS, AND STEVENSON, CAMBRIDGE; ALSO BY SEELEY, FLEET STREET; DUNCAN, HOLBORN ; AND HATCHARD & SON, PICCADILLY, LONDON. 1824 PREFACE Before we proceed to the consideration of the subject before us, it should] be observed^ that, in oflfering the following Remarks to the Public, I have not been swayed by any motives un- friendly to the writer on whose work they have been made. If, in company with others, I for- merly expressed an unfavourable opinion on his criticisms, I trust the reader will give me credit when I say, I gave that opinion, not from any feelings of disrespect to him, but from my con- victions that they were unimportant. Others, who have expressed similar opinions, have, no doubt, been actuated by motives no. less honour- able. The Committee of the Bible Society, who have acted upon the advice thus given, will perhaps be justified as to the measures they IV PREFACE. have adopted, when it is seen that no pains have been spared by them, in endeavouring to obtain the best information in their power : and in having proceeded with that delay and caution, which the nature of the case seemed to require. It is certainly much to be regretted, that Dr. Henderson met the resolution of the Com- mittee, which he has published, (p. 54), with so much precipitancy and impatience. No one, indeed, will be surprized at the importance which he has attached to his own remarks : but, that he should have demanded nothing less than an entire acquiescence in every iota which they required, must betray either a want of respect to the judg- ment of others, or of a knowledge of the world, which few would have expected from a person of his age and experience. Whether the charges advanced by Dr. Hen- derson, or the steps taken by him on this occa- sion, will be borne out or not by his criticisms, it will be the business of the candid reader to judge. Were I allowed to express an opinion, on this subject, I should say, I believe the unrea- sonableness of his demands, as already noticed, has been exceeded only by the futility of the PREFACE. V remarks on which they have been grounded. A difference of opinion on the use of certain words or phrases, — the omission or addition of a few words, in no way affecting the sense of the context, is the utmost that can be claimed for the far greater part of his Appeal. In many instances he has mistaken the sense of his original ; in others^, the meaning of the Ori- ental words, on which his criticisms have been made: and, in others, he has proposed words, which would either make the translation unin- telligible, or afford a sense totally at variance with the original text. The style of the version he has represented as ridiculously florid, which he supports by a translation of one passage only ; and that trans- lation is false. The main charge, indeed, of his pamphlet, rests on an erroneous passage, which he found in the book of Revelations, where the worship of the Lamb was forbidden. Upon making a little enquiry, however, he would have discovered, that the leaf containing that error had been cancelled, and the passage properly re- printed, nearly four years before his Appeal was sent to the Press. He has also asserted, that the doctrines of the divinity of our Lord, and of justification by faith in the merits of his atone- ERRATA. Page 52. /. 19- read ^j^jJUSI c:,.^!- 56. 29. linguae Hebraeae. Appendix. (25). I. 27. read >uua.c . (28). 26. defaut. CHAP L the author s reasons for entering on this question. dr. Henderson's charges appear to be two. the way in WHICH IT IS proposed TO MEET THEM. NOTICE OF THE LIFE AND cAaRACTER OF ALI BEY : INSINUATIONS OF THE APPEAL groundless. ITS CHARACTER OF A CERTAIN CLASS OF TRANS- LATORS ERRONEOUS. THE PRINCIPLES OF CRITICISM, ON WHICH THE QUESTION BEFORE US IS TO BE TRIED, DISCUSSED AND ESTA- BLISHED. As Dr. Henderson's criticisms on the Turkish Version of the New Testament printed at Paris, have at length been brought before the Public ; and, as considerable importance has been attached to them by some of their readers, I shall perhaps be excused if I offer a few remarks on them, when I assure the reader that the only motive I have for doing so is, the wish that the question may receive every consideration to which it is entitled; and that Dr. Henderson himself may see the reasons why I expressed an opinion on a former occasion, that his criticisms contained nothing of sufficient importance to warrant the suppression of the Work, on which they had been offered. A • Many of the preliminary and concluding re- marks of Dr. Henderson I shall pass over, as having no connection with the subject before us : the body of the appeal containing matter suffici- ently extensive to alarm one who has but little time to spare, and less inclination to enter on the discussion of questions like the present : — ques- tions which generally add but little to the stock of public information, and which almost univer- sally leave the reader in the possession of worse feelings than they found him. The appeal before us appears to me to consist of two distinct charges. One against the inability of those who acted as the advisers of the Committee of the Bible Society on this question : the other against the Committee itself, for having acted with- out due regard to the representations of Dr. Hen- derson, and without instituting a grave inquiry into the character of this Turkish version. The first of these charges will be sufficiently met, if it can be shewn that the criticisms of Dr. Henderson, not- withstanding the additions they have received, are still unimportant : that the assertions grounded upon them are erroneous ; and that the consequences which he anticipates, as arising out of them, are visionary and illusive : which I have no hesitation in affirming can be satisfactorily done. With re- gard to the second charge above-mentioned, the documents to be found in the Appendix to this Tract, will, it is believed, be deemed sufficient to meet it. 3 Before we proceed to consider the appeal in question, it may not be amiss to place the cha- racter of All Bey, the person who made this Turkish translation, in its just light : not because the question before us will depend on this ; but because justice to the memory of an eminent scholar at least, demands it. The character of Mohammedan translator sounds, indeed, rather terrifically in the enunciation of Dr. Henderson ; and, no doubt, it has had the effect which he intended on the minds of many of his readers. It should be remembered, however, that the question before us must be determined on totally different grounds. The acknowledged laws of criticism, and not the passions of the human mind, must here be appealed to; and by these alone must the question be judged. Few, I am willing to allow, would be disposed to employ a Mohammedan to translate the holy Scriptures, without appointing, at the same time, some vigilant superintendant to watch his proceed- ings. But, if Ali Bey was thus employed by Levin Warner, as Dr. Henderson himself allows, surely this ought to be construed as evincing a high degree of confidence placed by him in the fidehty of Ali Bey as a translator, whatever may have been his reli- gion, particularly when we are also told, that this translation was intended to be printed. It appears that Ali Bey was made captive by the Tartars at a very early age ; and was conse- A 2 quently compelled to embrace the Mohammedan religion, before he had knowledge sufficient to ascertain which of the two religions had its founda- tion in truth. Afterwards, we find he spared no pains in forwarding the cause of Christianity as far as his literary labours would go. To have attempt- ed more would have cost him his head. That it was his intention to make an open profession of Chris- tianity in this country^ I believe there is no doubt : and that he died before this event had taken place is equally true.* But are we on this account to * The following account of Ali Bey is taken from the "Biographic Universelle: " Ali-Bey, ou Ali-Beigh, premier drogman du sulthan Mahomet IV. naquit a Leopold, en Pologne, sous le nom de Bobrowski, au commencement du 17° siecle. Enleve tres-jeune par les Tatars, il fut vendu aux Turks, qui I'eleverent dans le serail jusqu' a I'age de 20 ans. II accompagna alors un seigneur Turk, qui se rendait en Egypte, fut mis par lui en liberte, et revint a Constantinople, ou il fut nomme interprete du grand-seigneur. II se voua des-lors a I'etude des langues. On pretend qu'il en apprit dix-sept, et qu'il connaissait surtout a fond le Fran9ais, 1' An- glais, et I'Allemand. Force a professer la religion des Musul- mans, il resta toujours devoue aux Chretiens, et il avait meme pris la resolution de retourner au Christianisme. II voulait, pour cet efFet, passer en Angleterre, ou il avait des relations ; rnais la mort I'empecha d'executer son projet; il mourut a Constantinople, an 1675. On a d'Ali-Bey des Memoires, en Latin, sur la liturgie des Turks, sur les pelerinages a la Mekke, &c. rediges a la demande de Thomas Smith, et publics par Thomas Hyde, dans son edition de Peritsol, Oxford, I69I, avec des notes; une Grammaire Turke, une Traduction en Turk, du caiechisme Anglais, une Traduction de la Bible, dans la consign him to perdition, and his work to infamy if No person, I am sure, will, with a grain of proper feeling, think of coming to such a conclusion : and, if it be found that his version of the Scriptures exhibits uncommon care and fidelity, in the full expression of every scriptural truth ; which, as far as I have seen, I have no hesitation in affirming to be the fact, justice demands the tribute of praise at least to his memory, and of thankfulness to Almighty God, for preserving to our times the labours of so extraordinary a person. We may now dismiss this part of our subject, and proceed to consider one or two of the preli- minary remarks of Dr. Henderson, which, like the preceding, were not intended to prove, but to insinuate, that the version in question is not a faithful one. Dr. Henderson, after stating that part of AH Bey's translation had fallen into the hands of N. G. Schroeder, by whom it had been published ; and that another part had also come la meme langue, restee manuscrite, et deposee a la Bibliotheque de Leyde. Ses Dialogi Turcici, et sa Traduction, en Turk, du Janua linguarum de Commenius, furent envoyes manuscrits a la Bibliotheque Royale de Paris. On croit qu' Ali-Bey fournit des Memoires a Ricaut pour son Etat de I'empire Ottoman, et qu'il fut le principal auteur de la Traduction en langue Turke du Traite de Grotius, de Veritate Religionis ChristiancB. A similar account is given by Hyde in his " Tractatus AU berti Bobovii," appended to his " Itinera Mundi of Peritsol," to which the reader, who is desirous of further information on ^.his subject, is referred. to the hands of Professor Tychsen, who had written a review of it, (which review has been procured by Dr. Henderson ;) he proceeds to remark^ that the probable reason why the version had not been printed by the Dutch, was owing to its merits, or rather demerits, which must have been well known to Levin Warner, who had employed the translator to make it. But, in order to have made this remark of any weight, he should have shewn, that no reason existed sufficient to account for the apparent neglect, of which he has thus availed himself. Might not the want of funds, or of a suitable editor, or some other consideration have caused the delay? Has Levin Warner any where expressed an opinion, that this version contains " such a mass of unholy matter" as not to admit of its being published ? Has Hyde, or Schroeder, or Tychsen^ who^ ac- cording to Dr. Henderson, has written a review of a part of it, ever expressed such an opinion? If any one of them has, why has that opinion not been produced ? I take it for granted that no such opinion has been expressed by them; and, as opinions will be produced hereafter, no less re- spectable than theirs, that this version is of a very different description from that represented by Dr. Henderson, the remark made by him cannot be construed as of sufficient weight to impugn the character of the translation in question, even in the slightest degree. We now come to the main questions, on which the character of the version before us must be tried. Dr. Henderson has asserted, that the liber- ties which he has detected in this version, are such as he '' found it totally impossible to reconcile with the acknowledged principles of sacred tastCy or the common rules of Biblical interpretation." Whether his views on this subject be correct or not, is fair matter for debate: but that he is right in first endeavouring to fix the princi- ples, on which our question is to be tried, there can be no doubt. And, as the investigation of this subject may be of some service to those who have any thing to do in the department of Scrip- tural translation, I shall spare no pains in endea- vouring to place it in its just point of view. In pages 15 and l6. Dr. Henderson says, ''The numerous translations of the holy Scriptures, which exist both in ancient and modern lan- guages, have generally been divided into two kinds : such as are literal, and closely adhere to the text; and the free or liberal, in which greater attention is paid to elegance of style, than to an exact representation of the origi- nal." Now, as all this respects matter of fact, it may be worth while to consider how far it is consistent with truth. It is true the translators of the Scrip- tures have generally been divided into two classes : ene following the letter of the iext as nearly as 8' possible : the other departing- in some degree from the observance of that rule. But it is not true, that a greater attention is paid to elegance of style by the latter class, than to an exact representation of the original ; the only difference of opinion that has existed between the two classes of Translators having been, which of the two did, in reality, .represent the original most faithfully. Some have thought, that if a Translator adhered closely to the text, giving a word in his translation corresponding both in sense and order to every one in the original, his translation would neces- sarily be a faithful transcript of the copy from which he translated. The advocates of the other class have supposed, that if a translator gave pre- cisely the ideas contained in the original, in lan- guage as nearly assimilated to that in which it had been written, as the idioms of the two lan- guages would allow, his translation would, of the two, be the most faithful. But, as far as my in- quiries have gone, I know of no instance in which this latter class has professedly paid a greater attention to the elegance of style, than to an exact representation of the precise force of the origi- nal : — of no instance in which a source of intel- lectual gratification has been attempted, in order to amuse the reader, as Dr. Henderson has as- serted, or to meet his prejudices ; nor of any, in which the end proposed has not been, accord- ing to the views of the translator, to furnish a 9 faithful image of the original text.* The state- ment of Dr. Henderson, is, therefore, far from being correct. With respect to the principles adopted by the first class of translators already alluded to, it may be affirmed without the fear of contradic- tion that, if any two languages can be found, in which the idiomatic expressions of both are ex- actly correspondent to each other respectively : all the words used, whether in their primary or metaphorical senses, being respectively parallel, then would a verbal translation from the one, afford a faithful representation of the other in every point of view. The style, for example, would be the same in both, and so would the sense : and not only would the collocation of words and sentences be the same, but also their number. It is very well known, however, that no two languages, nor even any two dialects of the same language, present any such correspondence as the above supposition implies. It will follow, con- * Of this class of translators, Castalio has perhaps taken the lead in the extent of his application of the rule above-mentioned; yet we find the following declaration from him, on this subject, in his dedication to King Edward the Sixth : " Ego operam dedi, utjidelis, et Latina, et perspicua esset haec translatio, quoad ejus fieri posset ; ne quem deinceps ora- tionis obscuritas, aut horriditas, aut etiam interpretationis in- ^fidelitas ab horum librorum lectione revocaret. Sed perspi- cuitaiis et Jidelitalis potissimum rationem diiximus." 10 jquently, that any such verbal translation made from the one, cannot be expected to be a faithful representation;, either of the sense or style of the other. What then^ it may be asked, is a trans- lator to do? I have no doubt in saying-, with the second class of translators condemned by Dr. Henderson, that, after due examination of the meanins: of the text to be translated, its full force and meaning should so be expressed in the lan- guage in which the translation is required to be made, as to depart as little as possible from the style adopted by the original writer. This, I think, is all that can be reasonably expected. Now, upon the supposition that the idioms of the languages in question should differ con- siderably, in order fully to express the sense con- tained in the one, a considerable difference must take place in the modes of expression adopted in the other : and, consequently, if the style of the original document to be translated, be found to be extremely elliptical, the translator will be left to the alternative, either of supplying these el- lipses, or of making a translation which will be perfectly unintelligible in a language, in which no such ellipses are known. In this case, it may again be asked, what is the translator to do ? Is he to express what he believes to be the sense of his author, or is he to be deterred from doing so, lest he should incur such charges as those advanced by Dr. Henderson, (p. 17), namely., 11 that he has omitted or foisted in words, according" to the dictates of his own fancy, or as the elegance of his style might have required? If such trans- lator fear God rather than man, I presume he will set such imputations at nought ; and give a faithful representation of the sense, bearing, and style of the original, as far as the idioms of both languages will admit. The conclusion at which we have arrived is, then, such as the necessity of the case has natu- rally led us to. Let us now see what one or two of the best translators of both ancient and modern times have said on this subject. In selecting a translator from the ancients, I believe there is no one, upon whose judgment and erudition, we can so safely rely as St. Jerome. " Difficile est," says he in his Epistle ad Pammachium, de optimo genere interpretandi, ''alienas lineas insequentem, non alicubi excidere ; et arduum, ut, quae in alia lingua bene dicta sunt, eundem decorem in trans- latione conservent. Significatum estaliquid unius verbi proprietate : non habeo meum, quo id effe- ram ; et, dum qusero implere sententiam, longo ambitu vix brevis viae spatia consumo. Accedunt hyperbatorum anfractus, dissimilitudines casuum, varietates figurarum, ipsum postremo suum, et ut ita dicam, vernaculse linguae genus. Si ad verbum interpretor, absurde resonant : si ob necessitatem aliquid in ordine, vel in sermone mutavero, ab interpretis videbor officio recessisse, &c." And 12 a little lower down, '' Alii syllabas aucupentuf;, et litteras : tu quaere sententias." " Hilarium/' continues he, ''confessorem, qui Homilias in Job, et in Psalmos tractatus plurimos in Latinum verlit e Graeco, nee assedit litterae dormitanti, et putida rusticorum interpretatione se torsit ; sed quasi captivos sensus in suam linguam victoris jure transposuit. Nee hoc mirum in caeteris seculi videlicet, an Ecclesiae viris, cum septuaginta in- terpretes, et Evangelistae, atque Apostoli idem in sacris voluminibus fecerint. Legimus in Marco dicentem Dominum. Talitha cumi ; statimque subjectum est, quod interpretatur, puella, (tibi dico) surg-e. Arg'uatur Evangelista mendacii, quare addiderit tibi dico, cum in Hebraeo tantum sit puella surge. Sed_, ut efx(paTiK(vT€pov faceret, et sensum vocantis atque imperantis exprimeret, addidit tibi dico." After giving- a number of ex- amples to the same effect, he adds, " Ex quibus universis perspicuum est, Apostolos, et Evange- listas, in interpretatione veterum scripturarum, sensum quaesisse, non verba, nee magnopere de ordine sermonibusque curasse, dum intellectui res pateret/' And, a little lower down, ''Nihil damni in sensu esse, si duo verba sint addita." Again, speaking of Aquila, who had endea- voured to translate the Hebrew Bible into the Greek, verbatim, he says ; " Aquila autem, pro- selytus, et contentiosus interpres, qui non solum verba, sed etymologias quoque verborum transferre 13 conatus est, jure projicitur a nobis. Quis enim pro frumento et vino et oleo possit vel legere, Vel inteliigere, -^ev/xa, oirwpia-fxov, anXliorrjTa, qUOd nos possumus dicere, fusionem, pomationemque, et splendentiam ? Atque non solum Hebraei habent ap9pa, sed et ille /ca/co^r/Xos, qui syllabas interpre- tatur, et litteras, Ut dicat, ae'iei t6v ovpavou kuI aeiei Tijv yrjv ; quod Latina lingua omnino non recepit." " Venerationi," continues he^ '"' mihi semper fuit, non verbosa rusticitas, sed sancta simplicitas. Qui* sermone imitari se dicit Apostolos^ prius imitetur virtutes in vita illorum, &c." It will perhaps be unnecessary to add any thing more^ on this subject, from the writings of this truly learned Father : but if any one should be desirous of examining all he has said on this subject, he cannot do better than turn to the epistle, from which these extracts have been taken. In selecting a translator from among the moderns, we cannot perhaps take a better than Dathe^ who, in his preface to the minor Prophets, says : " Et primo quidem monendum videtur, me non paraphrasin dare voluisse, sed versionem, quae proprie dicitur, quae nempe verbis prophetarum nihil addat, sed textus Hebraei sensum plane reddat. Quae vero nonnunquam verba in- terserta sunt, aliis typis exscripta, ea quidem in textu Hebraeo non leguntur, sed necessario ad- denda videbantur ad dicta prophetarum intelli- 14 genda ; ad amplificanda ea non faciunt, ideoque in illis locis paraphrasten egisse nemini videbor. In ipsa vertendi ratione secutus sum earn legem, quam optimi quique interpretes dederunt : sensum nempe verborum, quce interpretari velimus, reden- dum esse genio linguag^ in quam vertatur^ conve- nienter; non esse versionis nomine dignam, quae verbum de verbo reddat, omnesque linguae, ex qua fit versio, idiotismos in aliam transferal, ut ut ab ea alienos, parumque intelligibiles iis, qui ea lingua iituntur, &c." To this we may be allowed to add the opinion of Dr. Henderson himself, p. l6. ''A translator of the Scriptures is studiously to avoid such a scrupulous attachment to the letter as would do violence to the genius of the language into which his version is made, and necessarily render the version harsh, obscure, or unintelligible; he is, on the other hand^ equally to guard against the adoption of any words, phrases, or modes of construction, that would in any way injure the spirit and manner of the original, or convey one shade of meaning more or less than what it was designed to express." We are agreed therefore in the principle ; namely, that a translator is not to adhere so scrupulously to the letter of his original, as to do violence to the genius of the language into which his version is to be made ; while, on the other hand, he is not to depart unnecessarily from it ; nor to introduce any thing into his translation, which does not cor- 15 respond to his original, both in sense and style, as nearly as the genius of both languages will allow. The principle, therefore, adopted by the second class of translators, is that by which we are agreed that the merits of the question before us shall be tried : which is indeed the only one to which we can have recourse, whether we take the path which is obviously pointed out by the necessity of the case, or are guided by the prac- tice of the best translators both of ancient and modern times. We may now dismiss, without the fear of injuring our question, all that occurs in page 16, beginning with "^Faults against this rule," and ending, page 17, with "the elaborate arts of human science," because the only differ- ence of opinion which can now exist between us, must be on the application of the principle above-mentioned ; and this can be determined no other way than by an appeal to the usages of both the languages with which we are now con- cerned, namely ; that of the original, and that into which the translation has been made. I have been the more anxious to establish this point, in the first place, because people are, in general, apt to be alarmed at the idea of contri- buting to the circulation of any thing, which is said to be not the pure word of God ; and, in the second, because I am of opinion, that the writer of the appeal before us has done the utmost in his power to excite this truly laudable feeling, 16 for the furtherance of opinions which have no foundation in truth ; and with the view of fore- stalling the feelings of his reader^ rather than of convincing- his judgment. The pure word of God, then^ as found in a translation, is, according to our principle, that which comprehends every idea contained in the original Scriptures, fully and faithfully expressed in such translation ; and laid down in a style as nearly approaching to that of the original, as the idioms of both languages will allow. This, I believe, is the theory held by all who have been eminent in Biblical translation. But, as translators are men, and therefore fallible beings, perhaps no translation is to be found, in which this theory has been so successfully applied, as to leave no cause for doubt as to its perfect accuracy : or, upon which a considerable diversity of opinion, at least, has not existed. In ascertaining, therefore, the real worth of any translation, we must first enquire, whether due care has been taken, faithfully to represent the word of God, as found in the original ; and, se- condly, whether the translator was duly qualified for the performance of such a task. Perfection is not to be expected; much less unanimity in translating passages, respecting which a great diversity of opinion prevails among Bibhcal scho- lars, as to the sense of the original. No one among ourselves, for example, will dispute the n fact, that the English authorized version of the Bible contains the mind of the Holy Ghost, de- livered in language sufficiently explicit for all the purposes of edification, exhortation, reproof, and thoroughly to furnish believers to every good work: or further, that the salvation of thousands has not been secured by its instrumentality. Yet no one, who knows any thing of Biblical learning, will attempt to argue, that this version is in every respect an exact copy of the original ; or that considerable improvements might not be made in its context. The same, 1 believe, may be said of every version that ever has been made, or ever will. Perfection is not to be expected. Perfect unanimity has never existed on any one subject : nor is it likely that it ever will. With respect to the version before us, it will be found, I believe, upon examination, not to be without passages about which some diversity of opinion may be entertained ; and others, which might be altered, perhaps, for the better. But, that it contains no passage, which can fairly be construed as opposed to the mind of the Holy Ghost, or subversive of any Christian doctrine : and further, that it ranks among the best works of this kind, in the very close adherence which it has observed to the just principles of interpretation. ''That it is of a totally different stamp in point of freedom from all the versions printed by the Society;" or, that it '^exhibits B 18 passages with which the overstrained nicety and bold hberties of a Castalio would sink in compa- rison," as asserted by Dr. Henderson, p. 18, I deny; because I believe the version in question to be of a very different character ; and because. Dr. Henderson has offered no proof whatsoever in support of his assertions, as it will be seen hereafter. CHAP. II. EXAMINATION OF THE FIRST CLASS OF ERRORS CHARGED BY THE AUTHOR OF THE APPEAL ON ALI BEY, WHICH IS STYLED BY HIM, "THE MISTRANSLATION OF PROPER NAMES." AiTER laying- it down as a principle, that the word Geos, signifying God, should be uniformly translated by the Arabic word aJJI Allah, which also means God, Dr. Henderson proceeds to point out the instances in which this rule has been violated in the book of Revelations alone. He allows, in the first place, that the word adJ! Allah occurs, just as he would have it, in twenty seven passages; so far, then, there is no cause for complaint. In the remaining passages, how- ever, which amount to a little more than seventy, we have one or other of the following words, or periphrases, substituted for it : namely, JUj' AW 19 The supreme God, c^ ^^- The glorious Majesty, ^j\j c->U>- The Divine Majesty, i-J^ ^ The time Majesty, ^^Jj Tengri, God, in the Tartar language, JUJ' ^W ^Jj Tengri, the Supreme God, Jl*j" lJj^ The Supreme Divinity, M c:Jj^2s^ The illustrious God. To these the four following are added, (p. 21.) namely, Jp- Jl*j' The supreme Verity, (js- clJj,j»~ The illus- trious Verity, ^^ ^_s*^j The GoocZ Goc?, and JUj' (_f^" The supreme God. To the word Ai!l ^/ZaA we have seen, no objection has been made ; we now affirm, that the Tartar word i^JJ Tengri is equally un- objectionable, because it also means God, and is equally intelligible to every Turk. Dr. Hen- derson has indeed premised, that the word i^\ Allah, should always be used ; but, as this is one of his own canons, fabricated solely for the purpose of giving support to his appeal, we may disregard it for the present, and allow this word the same privilege which he has conceded to i^\ Allah. Before we proceed with the consideration of the other names, it will be proper to give a correct translation of them, as that given by Dr. Henderson is not to be relied upon; unless it can be shewn, that he has also discovered some new canons on the principles of transla- B 2 20 tion, in addition to the one above noticed on interpretation. In the first instance, we have JUj dlil The supreme God. Without taking advantage of the mistake of rendering jJUi' as an adjective, which is in reality a verb; and allowing, that the word has- been so applied, that an adjective will most readily convey its force to the mind of an European, we may perhaps be allowed to ask Dr. Henderson, why he has gone out of his way, to give a sense to it, which it will not bear? The obvious mean- ing of the root is, to exalt, lift up, elevate, or the like ; and, in the sixth conjugation, in which the word appears, according to Golius, " Altus eminuit, se extulit, excelsum gessit." The sense, then, most applicable to the word JUj" taala, will be high, highest, or the like. The phrase jJUj ^\ Allah tadla then will imply the high^ or most high God. In the Hebrew Scriptures, God is occasionally styled jV^V El-i/on, the most highj and yi'bv '?^* El El-yon the most high God, and onD ^rh^ Elohe Marom, The high God* In the first of which, the word is derived from the same root with the Arabic JUi' tadla. In the * Micah vi. 6. So much has the usage of this word iadla prevailed, that it is very frequently found without the adjunct i^\ Allah, when God is intended as the sense to be understood by the reader. 21 second, both words are derived from the same or cognate roots, with those of ^^Uj" ^\ Allah tadla ; and in the third, the sense is also the same. The phrase, then, JI«j M Allah tadla, is not equivalent to the metaphysical one, su- preme God, as Dr. Henderson has rendered it ; but is the Scriptural phrase, which occurs times innumerable, in our own Bibles. Nor does this phrase JUj' ^\ Allah tadla, ever enter into the metaphysical essays of the Mohammedans : the words used by them being* ciJoa^I ^_^ *3j*-j!1 u--o-lj, e^Jbi^^ ^jXP or the like, which are seldom found in their books on theology. Now, 1 will venture to affirm, that, in all the Mo- hammedan books of any value, whether written in the Arabic, Persic, Turkish, Hindostanee, or Malay languages, the word aiSl Allah is, ninety nine times, at least, in every hundred, followed by the word JUj' taala. It is true, Dr. Henderson has cited the names of Martyn, Sabat, Brunton and Dickson, as having omitted it ; but, without detracting any thing from the merit of those scholars, I would simply remark, that they cannot be appealed to as decisive on questions relating to the usages of the Moham- medans. The best Mohammedan writers alone can be relied on in questions of this kind ; and * by their decisions must we be governed in this. Now, allowing that no word corresponding to Jl*J" is found in the original, in the places 22 alluded to by Dr. Henderson, he will not object that the idea conveyed by the original, has not been conveyed in the translation ; nor will he assert, that the word JlO' has lowered that idea, or, in any way injured it. The only thing he can urge is, that it is introduced in a manner more reverential in this translation, than in our own; nor can he now affirm, that this is done in a way unknown to the phraseology of Scripture. The canon, moreover, of interpretation, with which we set out, does not call for a verbal imitation of the original. The introduction, therefore, of the word JUj tadla, in these places, neither injures the sense, nor violates our prin^ ciples, no more than the tibi dico cited by Je- rome does the words of our Lord, Talitha cumi. Still Dr. Henderson will urge, that the prin- ciples of sacred taste, (terms which are perfectly new to me,) have been violated ; for by these it can be shewn, that the word JU; might have been left out. I have no hesitation in allowing, that the word might have been left out, with- out injuring the sense: but, I have doubts, whether the translation would have been im- proved by the omission ; because I believe, (it may be upon the principles of sacred taste,) that a Mohammedan understands by JUi" i^\ Allah tadla, exactly what a primitive Christian did by the words o Geo? ; and, until Dr. Hen- derson can shew, that this is not the case, it 2S would be rash to cancel a version^, which has been attended with so much labour and ex- pense, because his principles have afforded it no better a character, than that of being des- ecrated and meretricious. From the number of obnoxious passages pointed out by the Doctor, we may now sub- tract thirty-one more, without the fear of doing- any injury to the cause of truth, or to the pure word of God; we now have, therefore, a number under forty, out of the hundred in which it has been said the word occurs. Let us, in the next place, take the phrase JUj" ^! ijjj Tengri Allah tadla. The form, however, in which this occurs, is a little different from that given by the Doctor. It is this, (chap. V. 10.) JUj" adllj^^iJ', where the translator has represented his original, as having Kvp'up tw Gew ^fxwv, Unto the Lord our God. Which might have been the reading of his copy ; but if it had not, the addition is of no importance what- soever, as every one must see. We may, there- fore, subtract this from the number of passages, which have induced our Appellant to pronounce this version a mass of unholy matter. We have now, therefore, a number still exceeding thirty, of which some notice is to be taken. The next mode of expression is c^ijs- c->U^ which Dr. Henderson translates by The glorious 24 Majesty. The literal meaning of the first of these words c->U=- Janab \s, according to the Soorah, i^l^j dargah, place, courts or the like : and of the second, cj'Jx^ hzat, strength, or vic- tory. The phrase is literally, therefore, place or court, of strength or victory; and, in this point of view, God is said to be a refuge for the oppressed*, to be our refuge'\, the place of repair, or harbour of his people J, as in the text or margin of our Bibles. The import of the phrase is, therefore, mighty God, a phrase with which every reader of the Bible is well acquainted ; and in this sense is it understood by every Mohammedan. Here, as before, no violence whatever is done to the sense of the original : the dignity of the person mentioned, is by no means lowered. The term employed is not a technical one, that is, it is not pecu- liar to the writers on metaphysics, or any other science, but is common to the religious trea- tises of every class and sect of the Mohammedans. Whether the principles of taste, as formed and acted upon among Europeans, have been violated, is another question ; and one, I think, with which we have nothing to do at present. I be- lieve, however, this periphrasis of the name of God, will not be considered as an infraction of ■* Psalm ix. 9. f Ibid. xlvi. 7- t Joel iii. I6. 25 the rules of taste, by which the Orientals are guided in composition. Dr. Henderson has,, in- deedj truly remarked^ that a translator would not be allowed, in this countrv, to use such words as Deity, supreme Being, and the like, as substitutes for the word Geo?. I grant it: but I must be allowed to observe, that no such words as these have been introduced into the translation of Ali Bey ; they are found in the Ap- peal, it is true, but there they are erroneous translations of the phrases in question. The Hebrew Bible, we know, abounds with similar phraseology. If, then, the idiomatical expressions of the original scriptures can be rendered in the Old Testament, by others which are equivalent to them, I am at a loss to conceive by what principle of criticism it is, that an European is to step in and say, with respect to the New ; This is an unholy mass, a desecrated meretricious jargon, because some of the phraseology peculiar to the Old Testament has been adopted. In the present case, indeed, the word i^\ Allah, or ^jjj Tengri, would have expressed all that is intended by the word Geo? ; but the variety of expressions employed by Ali Bey, in these instances, cannot be construed by any acknowledged principles of criticism, as suffi- cient to warrant the suppression of the edition in question : or to draw down those epithets, with which our Doctor has been pleased to disgrace it. 26 The next periphrasis of the name of the Deity, which we shall notice^ is ^jj\j <-r»^^ Janah Bdri, which Dr. Henderson translates by The Divine Majesty. The word ^j^V Bdri, however^ means Creator, and is perfectly parallel to the K"lU Bore of Isaiah.* The true translation, there- fore, is The Creator, and not The Divine Majesty. And in this sense it is understood by every Mohammedan. Nor is this any technical term. The sense conveyed, therefore, in the translation, is exactly the same with that in the original, God being the person intended in both. In the next place we have ^^ M^ The true Majesty, according to our Appellant : but The true God, o a\r}6ivo9 Oeo?, and nothing more or less is conveyed by this expression. The sense of the original is not, therefore, injured by its adop- tion, nor is the taste of either the European or Oriental reader offended. We need not now be told that The Supreme Divinity is not the true sense of ^Uj" tJ;V Bdri tadla. The exalted Creator, being all that is meant. We have here, consequently, nothing unscriptural or unintelligible : we have only, as before, a periphrasis conveying precisely the same idea with the word Geos, of which it is a trans- lation. In the last place, we have, ail^ '^^j^^^ Hazrat * Chap. xlii. 5. Sec 27 Allah, which Dr. Henderson makes to raean^ The Illustrious God. But he has not told us how it comes to pass, that lu^^s>. Hazrat means illustrious. When applied to kings, this word may properly be rendered by the presence, which is its exact meaning*. When applied to God it is nearly equivalent to the Jewish term Shekinah, but can by no principle of interpretation be made to signify illustrious, as its primary meaning. In page 14, we have some remarks on this word which may now be considered. It is there said that "t-i^-^is- is a title by which kings and great men are addressed, and which correspond to our majesty, highness, lordship, ladyship, &c. Now, not to insist on its being totally foreign to the simplicity of the sacred writers, to put into their mouth : His Majesty Jesus, or. The Illustrious Jesus, it certainly cannot appear, at least to us Christians, to convey any peculiar degree of honour on our Redeemer, to give him a title in common with Mohammed, and the Koran. For the same reasons, 1 must object to its being applied to God as a title of respect. Instead of exalting, it is derogatory to his honour." We may remark, the word cj.,^;^ Hazrat means neither majesty, highness, lordship, nor ladyship. We do not mean to argue, however, that this word has not been translated occasionally, as giving the sense laid down by Dr. Henderson ; or that these translations have not been sufficiently accu- 28 rate for general readers. But we cannot, therefore, also allow, that we can hence determine the sense of the word sufficiently accurate for our present purpose. In the next place it is said, that it is totally foreign to the simplicity of the sacred writers to use such words as His Majesty Jesus, or, the Illustrious Jesus. It is true we have not these words in our translation of the sacred Writings : but we know, that Jesus is called o Kvpio^ lr]crov^ in Greek, which is, in our Translation, rendered by the Lord Jesus : and that Kvpio^ in Greek and '•3ni< in Hebrew, no less than Lord in English is a term of respect often given to men of rank, as well as to prophets, and even to God himself. Now, the word iUjAs^ in Arabic is used precisely in the same way, being applied to any person of rank, whether the rank be that of Lord, as a nobleman, a prophet, or of the most high God. Might not the word Kvpios Lord, be objected to, as used in the Septuagint for mrT* Jehovah, and adopted by the Evangelists, on the same principle? But Dr. Henderson thinks, (as a Christian) that the word Hazrat, vvhich is parallel to Kvpiog Lord, cannot confer any honour on our Redeemer, nor, for the same reasons, can it be applied to God as a title of respect. Dr. Henderson, therefore, can sit down quietly at St. Petersburg, and determine, according to his principles of sacred taste, what every Mohammedan, whether he be Turk, Persian, 39 Arab, Jew, Infidel or Heretic, ought, or ought not to consider as a term of respect : and, whether, if the sacred Writers had lived at this day, and in those countries, they would have used it or not ! Besides, he adduces in proof the names of Brunton, Dickson, Martyn, and Sabat. This may indeed all seem very forcible to him ; and he may appeal to his conscience as attesting the firmness of the ground, which he has felt under him ; yet such is my blindness or perverseness, or both, that I can see no such thing. Still, I allow ci^^ Hazrat might have been omitted without injuring the sense : but I am not quite so sure that the Orien- tal idiom would have been so well preserved. Sub- tracting, therefore, the numbers attached to these phrases, which we have seen, do not affect the sense, the formidable sum will vanish : and it will follow, that although the word Geos, oc- curring nearly one hundred times in the book of Revelations might have been differently rendered, there does not appear any good reason, why the book should be suppressed because that has not been done. In either case, the sense would have remained precisely the same : in one, the sacred taste of an European, not very profoundly skilled in these matters would have been followed ; in the other, that of an Oriental translator of ac- knowledged talent and experience in his language. And, as to the holiness or unholiness of the mass, of which this version is made up, it would have 30 remained, in reality, just what it now is, notwith- standing all that Dr. Henderson might think to the contrary. The four remaining expressions noticed at page 21, we can now dismiss in a few words. JUi" (js^ The supreme verity according to Dr. Henderson, is nothing more than o aXridivo" t-_^ supreme Lord ; i^j (-1.^3=- illustrious Lord ; i-jj ^y*>^j ^^\xJ good supreme Lord; cl^Js- t-'lV the glo- rious majesty ; and Jlxj' ci]\\ the supreme God." We remark, in the first place, that the word ^[)j no where occurs in the gospel of St. Matthew, The Acts of the Apostles, the Epistle to the Romans, or the book of Revelations, upon which Dr. Henderson professes to have made his re- marks, as a translation of the word liupio^ : and we may venture to affirm, that it occurs in no other book, as a translation of that word with- out some adjunct. The mistake, therefore, which Dr. Henderson ascribes to Ali Bey, must, in fact, fall upon himself alone. We observe, in the second place, that as far as our researches have gone, we have not been able to find the expressions ^W t-^ ^y^j good su- preme Lord, in either of the above-mentioned books, given as a translation of the word Kvpio^. -We, therefore, dismiss this for the present, by re- marking, that should it be found in any other C 34 book, no one need be alarmed on that account, because^ as already remarked, no violence will be done to the original, when the glare of Dr. Henderson's erroneous translation of it is put out of the question. With respect to the remaining expressions, viz. JUj t_^ Rabb taala, c-^ cJjJis^ Hazrat Rabb, c^ '-r'^ Jandb Izzat, and ^lUj i!^\ Allah taala, it has been already shewn, that a Moham- medan understands by them precisely what a pri- mitive Christian would by the Greek word ©eoy, 00(1; and, as Dr. Henderson allows, that the word Kvpio9 is, in the passages in which these are found, equivalent in meaning to that of Oeos God, it cannot follow that this version ought to be sup- pressed on their account, or that its real character is any thing like that which he has affirmed it to be. But further, upon what principle of cri- ticism is it, that Dr. Henderson lays it down, that Kvpio^, when applied to God, should uniformly be rendered by c_^ Rabb ? If, as he says, Kvpios is here put for God, i. e. is equivalent to Geo?, why might it not be translated by ^\ Allah, which he contends at page 19, is the true translation of the word Oeos, for he has no where laid it down as a rule that any version must, to be a faithful one, exactly represent every word in the original } But, dismissing the words ^^Uj taala, and cj-as- Haz- rat, which we have shewn to be perfectly harmless. 35 and likewise ^\}j divine^ and ^^^^^ good, which do not occur^ we shall have Kvpio^ when equi- valent to Geo? in the original, every where trans- lated either by <-j; Rahb, or ^\ Allah, or some other word or phrase signifying God, and cor- responding exactly to the sense of the original. Dr. Henderson has^ indeed, laid it down as a law, that the word l^j should here be universally adopted. But, if we dismiss his principle of sacred taste, which after all differs toto ccelo from that of the Orientals, we shall tind it difficult to point out any other, calling for such an ob- servance. And, however we may wish to change their views on this subject, I believe we shall not be justified in condemning a version of the Scrip- tures, in every respect faithful to the original, and conceived in phraseology common enough to the Hebrew Bible, because it is found to be a little at variance with the diction employed in our own. The next remark of Dr. Henderson, (p. 25), is, '" The names of God and Lord, and Jesus and Christ, are frequently interchanged without any thing like a scrupulous adherence to the order of the original. It is easy to be perceived how much influence this must have on the doctrine of the divinity of Christ." And in a note at the foot of the page. '' In The Acts of the Apostles alone, I have found not fewer than twenty-jive passages, in which 411 God, JUf is^\ the supreme c 2 36 God, ^Jj M^ divine majesty, or ^\xi ^j». supreme verity, are substituted for c_^ Lord : yet in almost all these passages the designation refers, not to God absolutely considered, as when thus changed it exclusively does, but to our blessed Saviour, who as mediator is made both Lord and Christ, and on this account is called Kvpio^ kut e^oxrjv in the New Testament." Here, we may remark, much is threatened ; and, as it is often the case with angry disputants, nothing proved. The scrupulous adherence to the order of the original, upon which he lays so much stress, does not enter into our principle of interpretation : we only expect to see the sense and bearing of the original accurately ex- pressed in the language of the translation. We are told, in the next place, that there can be no difficulty in perceiving how much influence this must have on the doctrine of the divinity of Christ. This is alarming enough ; but let us go a little farther, and see what use Dr. Henderson has made of this frightful assertion. "He has found,'* he says, '' not fewer than^ve and twenty passages in which i^\ God, &c. have been substituted for i-jj." I suppose the Dr. means, that he has found five and twenty passages in which Kvpio^ has been translated by some word or other, which restricts the meaning of that word, to God the Father, in which it should have been made to 37 refer to our Lord, by being- translated by <-j, .* Now, in order to have made this remark con- clusive, he should have previously shewn that this word <_^ Rabh, will be understood by the Mohammedans as signifying our Lord and Sa- viour: but this he has not attempted to do ; and, if he had, he would have failed. The fact is, the Mohammedans understand it as applicable to none but God.f To have rendered the word Kvpto l^}\ J>.^ 16 ^\ jjJt\ &c. " El Rahb, with the article El, is applied to none but God (to whom) be power and glory." The Oriental Christians, it is true, usually translate Ki/pio. Rabb, but with them this word is just as am- biguous as the Greek Ki/pto?, the divinity of our Lord would not, therefore, be established in their estimation by the use of this word : the context affording the only criterion, as in the original. 38 would, therefore^ have been ineffectual. In the original, it is from the context alone that we must determine when Kvpio^ refers to God the Father, or to the person of our Lord, the word itself being ambiguous. In the Arabic, Persic, and Tur- to none but God. Whenever, therefore, the word Kvpio^ is rendered by any one of these, the true God, is, according to their acceptation of these words, meant, and no other person. And, if the context be found to ascribe any of these titles to our Lord, it will, according to their notions, as- cribe to him titles due to none but God alone. In any case, therefore, God would be meant, and the conclusion at which we have arrived is, that instead of the version militating in any way against the doctrine of the divinity of our Lord, it most clearly inculcates it. If Dr. Henderson here means by Kvpio9 kut e^o^m in the New Tes- tament, that such passages should have been trans- lated by some word applicable to man, and not to God, surely e^^^U Sahib, j>jwj Sayyud^ Ui Aghd, or the like, should have been proposed, and not <— ^ Rabb, in order to have restricted the meaning to our Lord considered as a man. It is truly astonishing that a gentleman, so well qualified for reviewing and correcting a version of the Scriptures, should, in endeavouring to establish his position, that the passages relat- ing to the divinity of our Lord have suffered, 39 have argued entirely on the other side of the question ! If Dr. Henderson had intended to prove, that the passages relating to the divinity of our Lord had been tampered with^ surely he should have shewn that some such word as t-^ft-U^ Juu> or the like, exactly represent the force of the original. And, lastly, if the sacred writer appears manifestly to point out his divine nature, then will c_jJ! El Rabb, a1!1 Jllah, ^Jj Tengri, or the like, be a faithful representation of the original. Now, in every case adduced by Dr. Henderson, no attempt whatever has been made to shew, that a word or epithet which properly belongs only to a temporal teacher, or Lord, has been applied to our Saviour, when the context manifestly required the contrary. No; he has only argued, that where the context shews that the word Kvfjio^ Lord, refers to our Redeemer, ascribing to him the attributes or acts, which properly belong to none but Jehovah, the translator has rendered this word by one, which limits the act or attribute to God ; but he recommends at the same time the adoption of another word, which would do pre- cisely the same thing! That is, if I understand him aright, he would have the translation refer such act or attribute to a person equal in dig- nity with the Father, as touching his Godhead; but at the same time, to do this in language 43 not conveying the idea of a divine person. The translation, therefore, must convey an idea of divinity, but the words composing- it, must have no such sense ! And, what is still more strange, | he proposes a word conveying precisely the | sense which he reprobates, and which, never- I theless, he would have the reader to understand ' as the true sense of the passage. I ask, can any translator, on any principles, expect to es- cape the lash of such a Homeromastix as this? Where is the Society of men, who can satisfy the requirements of such an Appellant, w^ho, bidding defiance to every principle of criticism, feels, or thinks he feels, the ground firm under him, and then proceeds to arraign, condemn, and execute, for the pure love of truth ? — But to proceed, " The reader will naturally conclude," continues he, " that he, (that is, Crispus) had for- merly been an Atheist or Idolater, but was now converted to the true God." Very true. Dr. Hen- derson, there are many false, though very natural conclusions, drawn from the text of Holy Writ. Crispus was, no doubt, a ruler of the Syna- gogue; he may, nevertheless, have been an Atheist or an Idolator, in the strict sense of those terms, and still a ruler of the Synagogue. And further, although professing a belief in the God of Israel, he may have virtually denied him, in rejecting his Messiah ; and now, for the first time, have been initiated in the true faith. 44 There is not much stress, therefore, to be laid on the Doctor's dogmatic reasons ; and his critical ones are absurd. Let us examine the next part of this exquisite piece of criticism. " It might even be shewn, that the passage,, as it stands in Ali Bey's translation, implies that Crispus became a Mo- hammedan." We are then gravely told, "that a book of testimony, written by some Peer Ali, has the following passage : jJ JUj" iW\ j^,/j The supreme God is our Divinity," &c. '' The very terms used by Luke, (Ali Bey I mean,) form the distinguishing Shibboleth of the genuine Moslem, and the complete form JUj ^\ J^J^ is substituted for o Geo? rjfxcov. 2 Thess. ii. 11*, &c." I remark, in the first place, that i_fp Tengri does not mean Divinity, as given by the Doctor, but God, or Lord, when applied to God. The true translation, therefore, is. The Lord is our God, and the sentiment is just as proper for a Christian or a Jew, as it is for a Moham- medan. But, what could Dr. Henderson have been thinking about, when he cited this passage, occurring in the Epistle to the Thessalonians, to prove, that Crispus was a Mohammedan? There is no mention whatever of Crispus in the chapter in which this passage is found: and, as for that in The Acts, it does not correspond * The passage referred to, is probably 2 Thess. i. 11. 45 with the dogma of Peer All's text book; the Doctor's remark must, therefore, fall to the ground. We may now consider the passages quoted from the Revelations, as translations of the ori- ginal Ky'jOto? o Geos o UavTOKpaTwp, (p. 22.). It should be premised, that most of the names and epithets applied to the Deity by Mohammedans, are given in the Arabic language, as found in the Koran. In the Arabic, there are no com- pound words, such as UavTOKpdrwp Al-mighty. The expressions, therefore, which are used as equivalent to this, are a literal translation of it, thus, j^lS or ^.jJi ^ J^ ^>• Upon the word iSW being added, we have, j:> ^ Jj^ ^S jjli or jsi, to which Jl~ tadla may still be added immediately after 'i^\ Allah. In this case we have a literal translation of 6 Qeo^ o Ilai'To- Kpara^p. If to this i^)\ or ^Jj be added, we then have a literal translation of 6 Kvpio^ 6 Geos o TlauTOKpaTcop. '' Prom this specimen, it will be seen," con- tinues Dr. Henderson, " that in the first and last examples, (that is, in pp. 22, 23. of the Appeal,) there is no word at all answering to Kvpios ; in the second, third, and fourth, it is rendered by Rebbi and Effendi ; and in the fifth Tengrimuz, ' our God,' is substituted in its stead." By the first and last examples. Dr. Hen- derson means, 1 believe. Rev. iv. 8, and xxi, 22, 46 in which^ it is true, the Greek word Kvpios of the original, has no corresponding one in the Turkish translation. These are certainly omis- sions : but they are the only omissions of the kind, occurring in this book. In other instances, Kvpio^ is rendered properly, either by Rebhi, Effendi or Tengri, as Dr. Henderson has re- marked. It cannot, therefore, be inferred, that these omissions have been made through design : but, that they are mistakes of inadvertency, either by the translator, the copyist, or the printer. Another consideration is, they are unimportant, as to the scope and bearing of the context : no religious truth, whatever, suffering in conse- quence of them. In this instance, therefore, the table of errata will set the matter right. Dr. Henderson thinks, indeed, that the addition of a table of errata is most objectionable ; and, in proof of this opinion, he has adduced a Persian exile, (pp. 58, 59.) expressing his fear, lest a work, having such an appendage, should be a false Gospel. In answer to all this, I would merely observe, that no such fear as this is ex- pressed by the Mohammedans themselves, with respect to the Koran. Any one, who can con- sult the Commentaries of Jelal Oddeen and Beidawi will see, that they make no scruple in allowing, that various readings are found to exist in the different copies of the Koran itself And, in other books, nothing is more common. 47 than a hope expressed by the copyist in the epi- graphe, that the reader would pardon and cor- rect his mistakes. A Persian slave, indeed, might be unacquainted with these facts ; but, if the Bible Society is to be governed in its proceed- ings by a fear, that they may be misunderstood by a Persian slave, then had they better not circulate the Persian Scriptures at all, lest such a person, being unlearned, should wrest them to his own destruction. I am inclined to think, therefore, that a table of errata, supplying such defects as the above, will not be objected to, by any well educated Mohammedan. And for this end alone it was, that the table of errata was originally projected. This may, perhaps, suffice on this subject. Dr. Henderson proceeds: "In the second, third, and fourth (examples, Kvpio^) is rendered by Rebbi and Effendi." To the first of these, viz. Rebbi, he will, of course, make no objection, as it is the very word which he himself has proposed. To the second, indeed, namely Effendi, he has expressed strong objections. Of the propriety of applying this word to the Deity, he, at first, entertained very strong doubts, (p. 23.) and, upon further enquiry from a well educated Persian, he was informed, with the most frightful contortions of visage expressed by his informant, that no such word could ever be applied to the Deity, (ibid.). 48 It is a happy circumstance enoug-h, that nei- ther the frightful contortions of a well educated Persian, nor the fears expressed by a Persian of lower attainments^, will be construed by an enlight- ened Public as unanswerable arguments on any question. The fact is, however, that the word Effendi is applied to God by the Turks, whatever may be the expressions of countenance assumed by a Persian. In the three first Psalms of the Psalter already alluded to, which has been trans- lated into the Turkish language, and recom- mended to the Christians of Turkey by the Me- tropolitan of Angouri, 'PaTTTTtX ecpevrrj, (_s the two noble sanctuaries." In a Mohammedan book, now before me, I find Mecca called d^lx< ^^wjJ " the blessed holy place. Now an illiterate fol- lower of the false prophet will necessarily be at a loss to know whether Mecca, Medina, or Jeru- salem, be the city referred to in the New Testa- ment, though it will be natural for him to draw a conclusion in favour of one of the former." - In answer to this, it should be remarked in the first place, that although Mecca and Medina are styled ^J^„/> \j^j^ ' Haramein sherifein, Jeru- salem is never designated by any Mohammedan writer by those epithets. It must be natural, therefore, for a Mohammedan to conclude, that the place termed uJj^ ^<^ kudsi sherif, is neither Mecca nor Medina ; and, as the Doctor D 2 52 himself has allowed, in the preceding- page, that this is the name given to Jerusalem by Oriental writers, there can be no reason to apprehend any such mistake as that which he has pointed out. In the second place, the Doctor has made a trifling mistake in saying- that a^J^ ijM^i^ kuds mobdrika means Mecca, in the Mohammedan book which lay before him. I believe it means no such thing-, the phrase being universally applied by Oriental writers* to Jerusalem, as he himself has allowed in the preceding page. But why has he forborne to give the title and chapter of that book ? I very strongly suspect, that if these words occur, they relate not to Mecca, but to Jerusalem ; and that the Doctor has mistaken the intention of the writer: because I believe, no very great confi- * In the Kamoos, the best Dictionary that has hitherto been compiled in the Ai'abic language, we have *«a!lj (uj^Xiil! that is, fujjJil! El kuds or El kudus, &c. Holiness: being a verbal noun. It is also the name of a great mountain in Najd, also of Jerusalem, &c. The author of the Soorah, another Arabic Dictionary of great authority, gives the same after Jauhari. If the Doctor will look into his Golius and Meninski, he will find they have said the same thing. In the latter of which it will be seen, from what Oriental writers he took the epithets ^j^ (j^'^ > and (jwtXJi IjuU^1 withdraw- ing from every thing but (the service of) God. The importof both words is, therefore, very nearly the same. Now, every one^ who has made any progress in the Oriental languages, very well knows, that words are frequently reduplicated for the sole purpose of giving emphasis to the thing related ; — that others having precisely, or nearly the same import, are added for the same reason : that whenever letters are doubled or repeated in any word, such word is then termed djti\s^\ mJ\ , a noun of excess : examples of all of which are found in great numbers in the Hebrew Bible.* * On this question the authority, of Glassius will perhaps be allowed to be sufficient. In his Phil. Sac. Vol. I. p. 641. Ed. Dathe, we have, " Pleonasmus seu abundantia verborum aut sententiarum ita dicitur, non quod otiosa sint aut inutilia, quae repetuntur vel abundant Hoc vero videtur tantum in ea lingua, in quam verba Hebraea verti debent, quod haec pleo- nasmos lingua Hebraea ignorat. Quid vero .'' num propterea lingua ipsa reprehendenda, contemnenda est ? rium ista ad contemtum 57 The addition of the word ^^sj^ takwa, therefore, in this instance, as well as of the words, Uj thand, and jk/**- hamd, J*^/ Goojsiz, li^jLJ Kasdwat, ^^s^"*^ Mustahakk, ^U- hdzir, &c. have no other effect in all the passag^es adduced, than that of giving emphasis to the expressions in which they have been found. Dr. Henderson says, in a note at the foot of the page, that this "^is what the Greeks of Constantinople call coffee-house Tur- kish, and is perfectly incompatible with the dig- nity of the Holy Scriptures/' Whatever we may think of the Greeks of Constantinople, I have no idea that their authority can be appealed to in questions of this kind : and, if the style itself is incompatible with the dignity of the Holy Scriptures, how does it come to pass, that the Hebrew Bible abounds with it? That the best books to be found in the East, whether written in the Arabic, Persian, or Turkish languages, are all composed in this style, is a fact of which, I believe, no one, if we except Dr. Hen- derson, has ever entertained a doubt : a proof that the sacred taste of the Orientals differs very widely from that of the Doctor. But, as no religious truth has been injured, in these cases, we may dismiss Class the second without any further ceremony. contemhim scriptorum sacrorum atque adeo verbi divini Irahenda ? Atqui nemo nisi insignem linguarum insciliam prodere velit, ita judicabit. 58 CHAP. IV. ON THE WANT OF UNIFORMITY, &C. KISCOVERABLE IN THE VERSION OF ALI BEY. We come in the next place to Class the thirds in which our translator is accused of a " Want of uniformity and consistency, and a solicitude to vary as much as possible the mode of expres- sion." " While it is granted/' says the Doctor, " that there are words which are used in different senses, and where words of equal latitude cannot be found, &c. it is a fixed maxim in Biblical in- terpretation, that where no such diversity exists^ or where the same sense obtains, the words of the sacred original are to be rendered uniform throughout the translation." It is not very easy to see what is here meant by the words of the sacred original being rendered uniform. If the Doctor means, that the canon to which he alludes requires, that when a word is found in one pas- sage, used precisely in the same sense as it is in another, it must then be translated by the same word in both cases, I have no hesitation in as- serting, that no such canon any where exists, save only in the Appeal under consideration.* * That the translators of our authorized Version acknow- ledged no such canon, may be seen stated at length in their Preface to the reader. 59 The principle with which we set out requires only that the sense be accurately preserved, and this in a way as nearly corresponding- to the original, as the idioms of both languages will allow. In pages 68, 69, we have the opinion of Eichorn cited on this point ; and, from this, I presume, our Doctor will allow the merits of this question to be tried. Let the reader turn to the passage ; and, if he can find any such canon as that here insisted upon by our Appellant, I shall be willing to give up the point. But here, Eichorn says nothing about the identity of words, he only urges, what all will allow, that the sense is to be retained inviolate, just as Jerome and Dathe have stated in the extracts already made from them. " The contrary practice," continues he, " not only manifests the absence of a conviction that the writers were directed to the choice of the most suitable words, but is a daring attempt to improve on the language of the Holy Spirit." What will Dr. Henderson say, when I tell him, that, upon his principle, the sacred writers themselves are chargeable with all the iniquity which he has here heaped upon Ali Bey ? That the Evangelists and Apostles, in making citations from the Old Tes- tament, have never observed any thing like the uniformity which this new canon of his would make universal ? What must be his surprize to find, that Luke and Paul and others have made this daring attempt to improve on the language 60 of the Holy Spirit ; and that no translation has hitherto been made, not chargeable with this crime? But the truth is, the departure from our new canon involves no such consequences. The Evangelists and Apostles have, under the guidance of the Holy Spirit, given in words varying as the nature of the subject required, the sense of other sacred writers which they had occasion to quote. The best translators have, since the times of the first Targumist, down to the present day, given the mind of the Holy Ghost, in their different versions, without any such uniformity as our Doctor here contends for : and, 1 have no hesitation in affirming, that if they had adhered to his principle, violence would have been done, both to the sacred original, and to the idioms of the languages into which they severally translated. Let any one read the re- marks of St. Jerome on the verbal and etymo- logical renderings of Aquila, in his epistle, already alluded to, de optimo genere interpretandi, and then ask himself the question, whether Jerome was justified or not, in styling him " contentiosus interpres," or, in denominating the principle by which he was guided, KaKoXriKia ? If he doubt at all after this, he may next turn over a few of the now neglected pages of Mr. John Bellamy, and he will be perfectly satisfied, that no such a prin- ciple as that laid down by Dr. Henderson, can^ for a moment, be admitted. 61 " It also tends/' continues Dr. Henderson, " to destroy the diversity of style^ which we find in the sacred writings." It has already been re- marked, that the style of an author cannot be preserved in a verbal translation, unless the idioms &c. of both languages, run perfectly parallel. On every other supposition, the sublimest decla- rations of the original, would, in a verbal trans- lation, become stiff, languid, and preposterous : and, should the sense haply be retained, it would be seen through a medium so miserably distorted, dark, and unsightly, as to leave the reader in doubt, whether such translation was intended to convey the sense of its original, or to be a burlesque on its contents. Of the truth of these remarks the reader can have no doubt, who has read, for one half hour only, the barbarous version of Santes as revised by Arias Montanus, and republished in the London Polyglott. At the same time, 1 would have it understood, that in saying this, it is not intended to detract in any way from the merit of that work as designed for the use of learners. It has without doubt been exceedingly useful in that way; but I contend, that no adequate idea of the style of any one of the sacred writers can be ascertained from its perusal : nor, in very many instances, the precise meaning of the Holy Ghost. We are told, in the next place, that, '' It breaks the connexion ; obscures, and not unfrequently alters the sense; and precludes the possibility of 62 the reader's deriving that edification from the col- lation of parallel passages, &c." I answer, if the sense be faithfully preserved in the translation, we need not trouble ourselves much about the gram- matical construction or form of words presented in the original ; because the idioms of both languages mio-ht not allow either a similar form or collocation of them. We need not therefore be alarmed lest the connexion should be broken : nor, as to the frequency of alteration in the sense, which our Appellant predicts. With respect to the edification to be derived from the collation of parallel pas- sages, we may remark, this edification must be derived, not from the similarity of words, but from the affinity discoverable in the meaning of passages so collated. It is true^ a great number of the references found in the margins of our Bibles, can boast of no other affinity than that which is to be derived from the recurrence of the same word ; but, I believe, it has long been determined, that these are, by no means, the passages which are best calculated to promote individual edification. We may also allow, that a Concordance constructed upon the text of the original, would not answer every purpose when apphed to the translation : but the reputation of the version need not suffer on this account. Besides, it is premature to suppose, that, in the present instance, the Turks will suffer consi- derably in their edification, either from the want 63 of a Concordance, or from the difficulty of con- structing one. There is nothing to be appre- hended, therefore, from the want of uniformity, of which Dr. Henderson so much complains, either as to the style, or fidelity of the transla- tion in question, or, as to the personal edification to be derived from a collation of its parallel passages. Now, as no objection of any weight has been made, as to the propriety of the dif- ferent renderings of the words found in pages 30, 31, and part of 32; and, as we believe, no well grounded objection can be made to them, we may be excused passing them over in silence. We now proceed, therefore, to notice the following passages, (p. 32.). "It is also deserving notice," it is said, " that where the same identical words are quoted in different places from the Old Testament, scarcely two of them are found alike. Take, as an example, Rom. iv. 3. Juj\ aj ^\xj ^\ a^]j\ i^ji>U ^ J J iJ^S ^'^ 'rf'^)^ Abraham believed in the Supreme God, and that faith he counted instead of righteousness, compared with Gal. iii. 6. ^Jj_^ ji ^\ jjj iJ^jy^ J^} ^. J^-*" ^^ (r^\;i^ ^jsLU Abraham believed in the Supreme God, and this he counted to him for righteousness and piety." Now, I may perhaps venture to assert, that in these instances, there is not a shade of dif- 64 ference observable in the meaning of both pas- sages; and^ that neither of them differs, in any respect, from the sense of the original. But let us suppose, nevertheless, that the difference apparent in the phraseology, is sufficient to con- demn the version in question. If this be the case then, a similar laxity must, of course, have the same bearing on any other version. Our authorized version has. Gen. xv. 6. where this passage first occurs, " And he believed in the Lord ; and he counted it to him for righteous- ness." Again, Rom. iv. 3. " Abraham believed God, and it was counted unto him for righte- ousness." Gal. iii. 6. "Abraham believed God, and it was accounted to him for righteousness." James ii. 23. "Abraham believed God, and it was imputed unto him for righteousness." In the first place, the citation differs in words, from the passage from which it was originally taken. In the second place, it is differently translated in every passage, in our authorized version, al- though the Greek is sufficiently uniform to have admitted of the same translation in all. I have no doubt Dr. Henderson will allow, that our English translators have violated his principle of uniformity, just as much as the Turkish translator has done. What are we now to do? Dr. Henderson's love of truth will no doubt re- ply, that both ought to be suppressed without delay, that the world may no longer be troubled 65 with books, not only violating every principle of sacred taste, but exhibiting such a mass of unholiness, as had hitherto not been supposed. But, want of uniformity is not the greatest evil chargeable upon this passage. Dr. Hen- derson also informs us, that '' the rendering in both passages, at once sets aside the im- portant doctrine of justification by faith in the righteousness of Christ, and substitutes faith as a principle which God will accept in lieu of obedience," &c. I do not deny, that it may be very easy for Dr. Henderson to see all this ; nor am I surprised at his seeing directly the contrary in the next page, where he argues from the re- petition of precisely the same renderings that the doctrine of good works is also inculcated, to the exclusion of that of justification by faith ; which we shall presently consider. In the passages above cited, I suppose Dr. Henderson grounds his opinion on the use of the word instead, in the one instance, and for in the other; because it is said in the one, " That faith he counted instead of righte- ousness," and in the other, "for righteousness.'* The latter expression, however, is found in our own authorized version, which will still be thought to be equivalent to the Greek ets, and the Hebrew •? of the original Scriptures, not- withstanding our Appellant's opinions to the E 66 contrary. But when the reader finds, that even this word for does not occur in the version of Ali Bey^ what will he suppose must be the fate of the remark which has been grounded upon it, and which was intended to shew, that this version is calculated to oppose the doctrine of justification by faith in our Lord Jesus Christ? The Arabic version, printed by Erpenius, gives both these passages precisely in the same way, \j cJJj y, is equivalent to his translation instead, as given in the first passage, I still am unable to dis- cover, what sense different from that found in our authorized version is here discoverable. If the faith here evinced by Abraham, was accounted to him instead of righteousness, in the words of Ali Bey, or for righteousness, as it stands in our version, I suppose the meaning, in either case is, that Abraham was esteemed righteous, in consequence of the faith there spoken of. Now, how does St. Paul apply this text of Scripture, in both the passages adduced? If 67 the reader will turn to the context, he will find, that it is not in exclusion to the obe- dience which he every where else urges, and without which it is elsewhere declared that faith would be dead; but, in opposition to that self- righteousness which prevailed among- the Jews of his day, regardless of that principle of faith by which Abraham was justified in the sight of God, before the Law had been given. But further, did he hereby exclude faith in the atonement and merits of Christ? In the con- cluding verses of the chapter first cited, (Rom. iv. 23, 24, 25.) " Now it was not written for his, (that is, Abraham's) sake alone, that it was im- puted to him ; but for us also, to whom it shall be imputed, if we believe on him that raised up Jesus our Lord from the dead. Who was de- livered for our offences, and loas raised again for our justification." And in the Epistle to the Galatians, (chap. iii. 14.) "That the blessing of" Abraham might come on the Gentiles through Jesus Christ; that we might receive the pro- mise of the Spirit through faith.'' Now, I will affirm, that every one of these passages gives, in the version of Ali Bey, precisely the same sense, as they do in the text of the original, and in our own authorized version. But, as Dr. Henderson has offered no proof, whatsoever, of his assertions, nor is likely to do so hereafter, we may perhaps conclude E 2 68 on this head^ that the alarm, which it appears to have been his object to excite, is perfectly groundless. CHAP V. ON THE FALSE RENDERINGS CHARGED BY DR. HENDERSON ON THE VERSION IN QUESTION. We now come to Class IV., which is said to contain false renderings. " Under this class," says our Author, " the first place is certainly due to the interpretation of ciKaioavvn, righteous- ness, Rom.iv. 13. V.17. X.3. Gal.ii.21. iii.6,21. in all which passages it is translated ^jyiJ. j, right- eousness and piety." One might have hoped, that the pallentes umbrce of these two unhappy words, had long ago been sent to their place of rest: but no; they appear again. "Now," says Dr. Henderson, " it is the concurrent testimony of all orthodox divines, that, in these passages, the word ^right- eousness,' is not descriptive of any inherent or implanted righteousness, or any works of righteousness done by man, but of the meritorious righteousness of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, &c. But, according to Ali Bey's version. 69 we are accepted of God, and entitled to eternal life, on the footing of our own works!!!" What has been said on the precise import of the words Lsfyj Birr loatakwa, (p. 64.) need not be repeated here. Words more fully, and at the same time, more cautiously expressing the sense of the original, I believe, could not have been chosen, not to insist on the fact, that one of them, namely, j, Birr, which is most frequently used by Ali Bey, has long ago been adopted by the Christians of the East, as the citation above given from Golius and the Arabic texts of Erpenius and the Polyglott, abundantly prove. Our Author, however, in this, as in other instances, offers no proof in support of his assertions ; he only insinuates, that something is wrong, presents his three notes of admira- tion (!!!), cites his passages marked with italics, and then leaves the matter with the perturbed spirit of his reader, to do its work of mercy. We may be allowed perhaps to consider the justness of his frightful inferences. The first of his citations is this : " For the pro- mise, that he should be the heir of the world, was not to Abraham or his seed through the Law, but through the righteousness and piety of faith." Let us now see how this is calcu- lated to inculcate the doctrine of good works, or self righteousness : and, that we may do this 70 the more satisfactorily, we will consider the obnoxious expressions severally. In the first place, then, the promise will be said to be through the righteousness of faith. That this does not inculcate the doctrine of good works, to the exclusion of faith in the merits of our Lord, I may perhaps affirm Tias been established by the concurrent testimony/ of all orthodox divines, as grounded on the expressions found in the original text of Scripture. In the next place, it may be said, that the promise was to Abraham, through the piett/ of faith. In any sense, the pieti/ of faith cannot be said to be the piet^ of works, or of self- righteousness, unless our Appellant has discovered some rule of Logic, with which the world has been hitherto unacquainted, as he certainly has several of Biblical criticism. But, waving this supposition, and, taking into consideration the true import of this word, viz. cijAJ takwa, as given (p. 56.), if it adds any thing to the word, with which it is here joined, it must be, that such faith is active, devotional, cautious, absti- nent. In this case, therefore, the principle of faith recommended is that, which, I believe, tjie concurrent testimony of orthodox divines, of every age and country, may be cited to shew, is the faith of the Gospel of Christ. The next passage adduced, is Rom. v. 17- " They who receive the gift of righteousness 71 and piety, shall reign in life/' <&c. We may here remark, the righteousness and pieti/ here spoken of, is said to be a gift; it is not, there- fore, the result of any good work, as done by man, or inherent in him. The doctrine of jus- tification by good works, therefore, or of the inherent righteousness of man, is not here incul- cated : both righteousness and pieti/ being said to be the gift of God. The next citation is from Rom. x. 3. ''For they, being ignorant of God's righteousness and piety, &c." Dr. Henderson adds, '' that is, if the words have any meaning, the righteousness and piety which God requireth." I answer, suppose we allow this in all the latitude for which our Doctor can possibly contend, what then? The Jews appear to have imagined, that the righteousness and piety which God required, as necessary for the justification of a sinner, could be obtained by the observance of the law of Moses. St. Paul argues against this, and labours to convince the Jews, that the righte- ousness, by which Abraham was justified, was that of faith : for he was accounted righteous by his faith, before the law had been given. That this included the practice of piety there can be no doubt, for Abraham was commanded to walk before God, and to be perfect. St. Paul also tells us, (Hebr. xi. 8.) " that Abraham obeyed;" and St. James says, when speaking of 72 the faith of Abraham, (chap. ii. 22.) " Seest thoUj how faith wrought with his works, and by works was faith made perfect." And, in the next verse, "And the Scripture was fulfilled, which saith, Abraham beheved God, and it was imputed to him for righteousness ; and he was called the Friend of God." We may conclude, perhaps, from all this, that God did require both a righteousness and piety, which was not to be obtained by the works of the law ; and, that it was the intention of the Apostle to inform them, whence this righteousness and piety were to be derived. But how, it may be asked, does this inculcate the doctrine with which Dr. Hen- derson ha3 charged the passage before us^ al- lowing his own comment to be a just one? How does it appear, that, because God requires a righteousness and piety, of which the Jews were then ignorant, it must follow, that the doc- trine of self-righteousness, or salvation by good works alone, is here urged ? I must con- fess, I am unable to see how the Doctor could have possibly come to this conclusion. But, he has also said, " If the words have any mean- ing, it must be the righteousness and piety which God requireth." That the words have some meaning, 1 have no doubt; yet I am not equally certain, that the meaning attached to them by him, is the true one. The passage may have in view, the righteousness and piety 78 which none but God can bestow. In a passage already quoted, the gift of righteousness and piety has been mentioned ; and, for all the Doctor has shewn, or can shew to the contrary, this may be the intention of the Apostle here. That this is the case, no one can doubt, 1 think, who will take the trouble to examine the con- text. We may now leave this portion of Scrip- ture, therefore, and proceed to the consideration of the next. Gal. ii. 21. ''If goodness, or righteousness and piety came by the law," &c. Here our Appellant tries his hand at a new translation of the word j Birr, the precise meaning of which has been already given ; his translation may, therefore, be rejected, as a fabrication of his own. But, after all, what does he gain by it? The context is manifestly intended to shew, that goodness, if he pleases, or righteousness and piety, take them in what sense you will, came not by the law, either ceremonial or moral, but by the death of Christ. We may now proceed to the next citation, which is from Gal. iii. 6. '' God counted faith to Abraham for righteousness and piety." Under our last head Dr. Henderson argued, that Ali Bey, when citing the same passage several times from the Old Testament, gave it generally in words differing from those which he had used on former occasions. It was (here shewn, that the 74 Apostles, as well as our own Translators, had done the same thing. We can now cite an author omni exceptione major, in the estimation of our Ap- pellant, and that is Dr. Henderson himself. Let the reader look at his translation of Ali Bey's text of Gal. iii. 6, in p. 32. If my eyes do not deceive me, it stands thus : " Abraham believed in the supreme God, and this he counted to him for righteousness and piety." In p. 33, we have it : '' God counted faith to Abraham for righteousness and piety!" Still, it will perhaps be urged, that this is no violation of the princi- ple of uniformity in our Appellant, while it is a most flagrant one in the case of Ali Bey : for he was little better than a Turk, as Meninski has shewn. But to proceed : The Doctor here cites this garbled passage from Gal. iii. 6. to shew, that Ali Bey's version inculcates the doctrine of good works, self- righteousness, &c. to the ex- clusion of the justifying principle of faith. But in p. 32;, he also cites it to shew, that it there inculcates the doctrine of faith as a prin- ciple, to the exclusion of obedience and good works ! ! ! The gentle reader will I hope excuse my using the Doctor's notes of admiration in this place, when I tell him that I really am surprised : and, if I am not much mistaken, the reader will also be surprised. I must now be allowed to pass on to the re- 75 mark* (p. 34.) on Matth. vi. 32. In this place as well as in many others, it is said that to. 'iOvrj, " the nations/' is very improperly rendered by J^jI oj idolaters. "^All these things do idolaters seek after ;" as if none were earthly minded but such as fall down to stocks and stones : whereas the Apostle Paul teaches that the supreme desire of earthly things is idolatry. '"A Mohammedan," continues Dr. Henderson, " who is taught to entertain the most perfect abhorrence of the worship of idols, could not fail to draw a very fair conclusion, in his own favour, from his re- presentation of the passage." I have no doubt with Dr. Henderson that the passage adduced by him might have been better translated than by the words J-^j i.::^ idolaters, yet, I have great doubts, whether a * We have at the foot of this page a rather curious note, which I shall briefly notice. Dr. H. proposes that instead of having .^ Jij\ hell fire, instead of j!^\ ^Si\ everlasting fire. I answer, whatever the difference between the meaning of J^ and ^jSi\ may here be, when considered separately, the general sense afforded by the context, in the case of either F2 84 being adopted, is precisely the same ; and, as the word used by the Turkish translator is not unscriptural, no good reason can be assigned, why the book should, on this account, be sup- pressed. 1 have no hesitation, however, in allow- ing, that {Jx)\ t_fJol would be the better transla- tion of the two. We are told, in the next place, that (Matt, xxvii. 62.) Tvapa&Kevt], " the day of preparation," is converted into &xyt^ the day of assembly, that is, Friday, the Mohammedan Sabbath. "Here," continues Dr. Henderson, '"the Anachronism makes the Evangelist speak of an appropriation of the day which did not take place, till several centuries after he wrote!" Whether the appropriation of the day, of which Dr. Henderson here speaks, took place several centuries after the Evangelist wrote, is, perhaps, not quite so easy to be proved, as he seems to imagine. 1 believe it has been placed beyond all doubt, that the Pagan Arabs considered the Friday as a sacred day, on which, as they supposed, the work of Creation had been completed : but. whether the name a^e^ was then given to it in addition to that of ^,^jc-, is not yet known. But, waving this, what can our Appellant mean, when he says, the translator is guilty of an anachronism? Does he suppose, that translators are not at liberty to use any words in their translations, but such as were in use 85 when the original itself was composed ? Suppose we allow, that the word d«/»^ Jumaa, was not in use in the days of St. Matthew, but 'Ujy^^ or some other word, which has now become ob- solete ; is the translator here bound to adopt the obsolete word, or, if he does not, is he to be charged with having* committed an anachro- nism ? By an anachronism has usually been understood, an error in chronology; but now the word has acquired a new sense, , which is perhaps to be attributed to the principles of interpretation, which have, for the first time, beamed upon us from St. Petersburgh. But, if the word above objected to, desig- nate the day on which the Mohammedan Sab- bath happens to have fallen, can that be con- strued to shew, that it is not, therefore, the Friday, or the day of preparation? I believe not : and, as I know of no canon of criticism forbidding Christians to use such words as are common to the Mohammedans, I also believe this word might safely be used, whenever the sense of the original may point out the day, of which it is the name. But, it may be asked. What have the Ori- ental Christians done in this case? have they thus used the Mohammedan word above-men- tioned? For if they have, the Christians of the West may, perhaps, be excused if they follow their example. Now, in the Arabic Testa- 86 ment printed by Erpenius, in that edited by Walton in the London Polyglott, in that of the Propaganda edition, which had been superin- tended by an Archbishop of Damascus^ we have this objectionable word ixA^ Jumaa, given in this place. The Eastern Christians, therefore, have been unanimous in adopting it : and Sea- man, whose version our Reviewer thinks may in all other cases be followed, has also adopted it. But, Dr. Henderson will still urge, they are all nevertheless guilty of an anachronism. I answer, let it first be shewn, why this new fangled principle of his is to be admitted ; and when this shall have been done, we shall be content to acquiesce in his judgment. ''Rev. i. 10," continues our Appellant, "ex- hibits an error of the same kind, though to a Christian ear still more offensive. The words Tr] KvpuiKri rnxepa, which should havc been translated i^jJu^^ cJoj on the Lord's dm/, as they are in Brunton's version, are rendered j\j[i ji ndSjji , literally, on a Market Day!!!" &c. A very alarming conclusion truly ! But let us try (o amend the translation, in the way pro- ' posed by Dr. Henderson. It should have been translated, says he, by axsj^^ cXij on the Lord's day. We have already seen, that by the word c-^ Rabb, the Mohammedans do not understand our Lord Jesus Christ, but God, to the ex- 87 elusion of every other Being. A Mohammedan will, therefore, understand by hxkij^ cAjj on God's day^ an expression which will convey to him no precise meaning whatever. Brunton's ver- sion, therefore, the fidelity of which, says our Doctor, cannot be too much praised, is here perfectly unintelligible to a Mohammedan : the same is true of Seaman's, who has translated the passage in the same way. So much for «ur emendation. We may now notice the remainder of Dr. Henderson's remark. " A phrase," says he, " which seems most inconsistently to have been adopted by the Oriental Christians resident in Turkey, just as most of their Western brethren make use of Sunday, a term which could be admitted into no European translation of the Scriptures, though its adoption would not destroy the sacredness of the day ; whereas, in the other case, the conversion of the Christian Sabbath into a day of merchandize, is sanctioned by apostolic authority." Let us see whether this be the fact. St. John is said to have been in the Spirit on a certain day, which is known in Turkey by the Market day. Nothing more can be made of this, than that his vision happened on that day : for St. John has no where said, that the day was entitled to any respect on that account. Supposing, in the 88 next place, the reader- to enquire what word is found in the original, corresponding- to this,, and to find, that it is rj KvpiaKij rmepa, and, further, that the commentators of the Christians have believed, that this was the day on which Jesus Christ rose from the dead, and which they have kept holy on that account. If we further sup- pose such enquirer to discover, that the Christ- ians and others in Turkey have, for some years, held their markets on that day, what will now be his conclusion ? Not that the Apostle has either taught or sanctioned such a practice, 1 presume ; but, that the Christians and others of those parts, have converted into a day of mer- chandize, a day, which Christians, at least, should have kept holy. The translator, therefore, has not made the Apostle to sanction such a practice; for neither appear to have had any intention of giving an opinion, either on the one side or the other. Dr. Henderson thinks, however, that Ali Bey's version, as it now stands, sanctions these Sunday markets, upon the authority of St. John. I must confess, I can see no such thing. He also thinks, that by calling the day Suriday, its sacredness would not be destroyed; for he has found the passage so translated in some of the earlier versions of the Scriptures. But Sunday is an idolatrous term, implying that the day is sacred to the Sun ; surely this is quite as unholy as terming it a market day ; and if 89 found in this place, must, likewise, be said to sanction idolatrous practices on the authority of St. John ; but, in this case. Dr. Henderson can see no such inference ! After a display of Armenian, Syriac, Ethio- pic, Arabic, and other rendering-s of this phrase, we are told in the notes, that the Slavonic is remarkable, but that the common Russ is the , most appropriate, viz. Voskresenie " Resurrec- tion," corresponding- to the Ava(7Tdaino!^ one. 105 the Gospel, the Jew had no privilege which had not also been placed before the Gentile, in the bounty of the one, or same Lord, who would answer the prayers of all who should call upon him. But let us turn to Meninski, and see how he understands the phrase j<.>^ here used. He says, if my eyes do not deceive me, Bir dur. Unum, et idem est. And, with the negative bir degUldiir. Non est idem. The passage in question, therefore, is, according to Meninski, properly translated. The Doctor adds in a note, ''Rom. ix. 5. must be viewed in connexion with the above pas- sage. The words 6 wv eirl TrdvTwv 0609 6^X0717x09 €ts Toi)? a'loova^, are thus rendered, ciu^tUss- 4\^ jd st cJ;UJU \^\ iJOjjj\ * He who is over all a god blessed for ever,'^' &c. We then have the follow- ing philological account of the word si]. ''It is well known to all who have any knowledge of Arabic, that
- 3\ \s^ J>j^ *\ ^^.♦iowc. "'Were you (Jews) witnesses, when Death was present (with) Jacob, and when he said to his sons ; What will you worship after me? They said; We will worship thy (aj^ llah) God, and {llah jJ^) the God of thy fathers, Abra- ham, and Ishmael, and Isaac, one {^i!^\ llah) God; and to him will we be devoted." And agRin, verse l65. of the same Surat, ^ 1\ <)J1 ^ Jc-Ij ^\ S4\^ (^J\ ^J^A^)\- "And your God (^^^\ the Messiah, ^^^ac Jesus, t^Jusl Effendi, or the like ? If he had done this, he would have been accused of having given a paraphrase instead of a trans- lation. In the versions used by the Eastern Christians, the word c_^ Rabb is indeed used ; but it should be remembered, they have applied this term exclusively to our Lord, even in passages in which there is no intimation whatever of his divinity in the original. No such sense, how- ever, has obtained among the Mohammedans ; and the conclusion must therefore be here, as on a former occasion, that Ali Bey has taken the safe side of the question ; leaving the reader to deter- mine, whether the context relates or not to our blessed Lord. If then it certainly relates to him in this passage, as Dr. Henderson thinks is the case, and to which I know of no good objection, the conclusion of the reader must necessarily be, that he is a lion, instead of the lion. But, as the context sufficiently declares who is here meant, the insertion of the indefinite article is unimpor- tant. The charge next advanced by Dr. Henderson is, (p. 42.) that Ali Bey has so expressed himself in rendering Rev. vii. 10. by a mere declaration, instead of an ascription of praise to the Almighty, and the Lamb, as to convey an idea to the Mohamnjedan reader that the Lamb is not to be worshipped : " Our salvation is from the su- preme God," and ^'^ from the Lamb. u^iJUj' ^\ The passage in the original is, ») aivrrjpia tw Beu> &c. And, " Salvation to our God/' in the au- thorized English version. The Redeemed appear here to be praising God for that salvation which they have derived solely from him and the Lamb. Now whether this be termed an ascription of praise, or a declaration of that which amounts to the same thing, seems to be of but little moment. That the gift of salvation is declared to have been obtained from God and the Lamb, as the passage now stands in the Turkish, there can be no doubt : and, that precisely the same thing is not said in the original, is perhaps more than Dr. Henderson himself can prove. He has indeed said, that no version which he has seen has so translated the passage. Perhaps so. It is the fact nevertheless, that the construction here found in all the Arabic versions may be rendered by the genitive case : and, if Griesbach may be relied upon, the Slavonic, and even some Greek manuscripts read rov 9eou of God: thus, rj awTrjpia rov 06oy, /c.T.X. "The salvation of God, &c." Let us now see what the Commentators have said on this passage. Grotius says, t] awTripia t^ Geo) &c. Est metonymia : nam salutem vocat gratias oh acceptam salutem ; sicut Kparo^ supra 1. 6. et 5. 13. est agnitio potentice &c.^' Drusius has the following note : " Salus Deo nostro, ^^^'^':'^*S nviii^TT, ubi h vim hahet genitivi, ut in x'/aVos TM A«»/i^, aut TO) 'Aadcp, quod f^atinc reUdi H 114 potest Psalmus Davidis aut Asaphi. Nam qui T7 /iinvvar], that IS, ^lAs»- Cl^^iJJ, tO whlch 127 the word fiavmrj Manna, is added. May we not here ask with Dr. Henderson, was the word ^ too simple? The Metropolitan must be left to answer for himself and AH Bey, and I have no doubt, his answer will be satisfactory. Whether such phraseology is scrupulously to be avoided, may be determined from the con- sideration of the word Gospel, adopted by our own Translators ; a word compounded of God and spel, as the best translation of the Greek Evay- yeXiov. If we try Dr. Henderson's principle, then, upon this word, will it not appear, that our Lord came to preach the spel, (history, account, or speech) o^ omnipotence or of God, to the poor? But, let us try another word upon the same prin- ciple, which, like the above, is also a compound one; let it be Understanding. "In Under- standing be ye men." Now this word is com- pounded of the preposition under, and the participle standing. Under-standing or standing under, therefore, must mean the being placed under something, in a standing position, or under some weight. The passage above cited, there- fore, must mean, ye must stand firm like men, under any weight that may be imposed upon you, &c. !!! Why have not our translators adopted the word wisdom? Was it too simple? We know they have used it elsewhere. Now, if we suppose a Bible Society to have been formed in Turkey ; and, that the English autho- S28 rized version had been printed by it, for the use of the inhabitants of this country, might not some learned Effendi, who had perhaps read three or four books of it with the help of a Grammar and Dictionary, have urged, from the above examples, that this version presented such a mass of unholy matter, rendering £^776X101', for instance, God's spel, &c. as to call for immediate suppression ? I have no doubt, that the instances above adduced are just what a Turk thus circumstanced would stumble upon : and, that he would make no hesi- tation in grounding his remarks on what he would term the principles of sacred taste : but whether his brethren should place an implicit confidence on all he should say, is another question : which, as far as I can see, ought to be determined on other grounds. '' John xi. 35." exhibits another palpable in- stance of inflated style. The words E^aKpvaev 6 l^aovs. " Jesus wept," have ever been regarded as peculiarly sublime and affecting— rendered so by their simplicity as well as by their meaning : but in Ali Bey's Turkish they are : ,^y*^ c^^-a*- j^j ^^^^ i^^lII) jj^, which I cannot better turn into Enghsh than in the words of Harwood : ('' Then the illustrious) Jesus hurst into 'a. flood of tears!" With respect to the first word j^^ then, although the common Greek Testaments have no word cor- responding to it; yet, according to Griesbach, the word Km occurs in some MSS. and its corres- 129 ponding* one in the Syriac, Persic, Arabic, Coptic, Ethiopic, Gothic^ and Vulgate Latin, versions. There is_, therefore, some authority for its insertion here in the form of j^ then. The word cj,-a»-, which is here rendered by illustrious, we have already considered. In the next place ^V. Jj^ ''» rendered by Meninski Lacryma. And the re- maining- word l/J*^'^ is the pret. third person sing-ular of cLU^y effundere. lS<^^^ i^y-^'V.j/ ^'''» therefore, be exactly parallel to lacrymas effudit. Now the Greek verb, of which this is intended to be a translation, is SaKpvu), and may be rendered by either lacrymor or lacrymas effundo, e^uKpvaev, will, therefore, be either lacrymatus est, or la- crymas effudit. The literal translation then in either case will be, upon admitting the particle Kai, as above noticed : Turn Jesus lacrymas effudit, according to the Greek ; or, Tum Do- minus Jesus lacrymas effudit, according to the Turkish. As Dr. Henderson's charge, therefore, appears to rest solely on his own mistranslation of the passage before us, we may now dismiss it. But let us proceed. Acts xvii. 2. is translated by t^<^[;y " from the Pentateuch." The original reads ctTro twv ypa(p(vu "■ from the Scriptures " without limitation. I answer, just as the word voiuos meaning the law is used in the New Testament, to signify the whole of the Jewish system of religion, so is c^];y used among the Mohammedans, for the whole of I 130 the Old. The same is true of the Hebrew word nun Torah, of which the above is nothing more than a transcript in the Arabic letters. That this word means the Bible among the Turks, the au- thority of Meninski is sufficient to prove : and, that the Hebrew min, and the Greek i/omos, law, have so been used in the Scriptures,, the reader has only to turn to Schleusner's Lexicon of the New Testament, to be fully informed (sub voce VO/XOS'.) Our next critique is on Acts xviii. 28. where we have ill ^S^ " The Divine Books," " i. e. not the Bible alone, but also the Koran. Such is the meaning of the phrase in the Mohammedan world." We then have a citation from a Turkish book to shew, that by these books is meant, the Koran, the Law, the Gospel, and the Psalms. 1 answer, we are here circumstanced just as we were in the case of the words (jwj<^ Jirdaus, u^j Rabb, and allt Allah, the Mohammedans attach- ing ideas to these words different from those inculcated in the Scriptures. In the present case they include the Koran ; and, include it they will, use what phraseology you please, in render- ing the original rwv ypacpwv. The Christians of the East, it is true, use a different phrase, viz. Z-jJUl! c-^J^^ El Kutub El Mukaddasat : still, a Mohammedan will include the Koran, because he believes it to be a holy book. In these cases, therefore, if I am not much mistaken, it rests 131 with the Mohammedans to correct their notions ; and not with the Christians to give erroneous translations in order to meet their prejudices, which must be the case if we would obviate the objections of Dr. Henderson. In the next place we have Col. iii. 11. ^^^j^ ^ ijj^^ ^j ^'neither barbarian nor Tatar" (Tartar usually), "Another instance," says Dr. Henderson, " of g-ross anachronism. The Tatars were not known to the ancients, as a people, till the fifth century, and the name itself first occurs in the twelfth/' &c. At what precise period this people began to be known in Europe or elsewhere by the name of Tartar or Tatar, is but of little consequence to our enquiry ; we shall therefore proceed to examine this critique in another point of view. The word occurring in the original, in this place, is aKvOr]^ Scythian^ which our orthodox Divines have supposed formerly to have designated that race of men, which has for many years been called Tartar. Schleusner says under the word : '' Sci/tha. Est nomen gentile significans incolam Scythioe, seu ex Sci/thia oriundum. Scythia au- tem latissima olim erat regio, magnam Europae, Asiaeque partem, hodiernam nirairum Tartariam cum regionibus quibusdam finitimis complectens," &c. A Scythian, therefore, of ancient times, is sup- posed to have been of the same nation as a Tartar or Tatar of the present. Ali Bey, therefore, has i2 \S2 committed no mistake in rendering cKvOri^ by Tatar. But Dr. Henderson will persist in assert- ing that, notwithstanding all this, Ali Bey has committed an anachronism. I answer, this may be very true according to his principles ; but as Ali Bey did not translate for the use of the ancients who called these people Scythians, but for the moderns, who call them Tatars, he may perhaps be excused ; because, if he had introduced the word Scythian into his translation, it is probable that no Turk or Tatar, now in existence, would have understood him ! The translation is there- fore, in this place, both correct and intelligible, neither of which would have been the case, had the Translator adopted Dr. Henderson's rules of Biblical interpretation. '' James v. 4. The phrase Kupos craBacoO, ' Lord of Sabaoth,' instead of being rendered LsO J^jT ' Lord of armies,' is commuted for the Koranic ^jJ>a!W1 i-jj ' Lord of the worlds/ which among Mohammedans properly means the three species of rational creatures in which they be- lieve, angels, genii, and men." " Instead of being rendered ^j Jjj>- ' Lord of armies,' says Dr. Henderson. Let us now suppose it to be so rendered, and then see how the passage will stand. We have already seen what is meant by L^j Rabbi. According to Meninski the former of these words, viz. o>=.- cheri, means Miles, exer- 133 cituSj militia. ^OlUat .... Soldato, soldatesca .... g-ens d'armes, &c." Whence we have 4_f^ ^Jj Jen-y cheri. Nova Militia, or Janizary. By iJj J^-jT" therefore will be meant, the God of troops, or soldiers. Let us now see, how this will cor- respond with the original Kvpm a-afiaayO " Lord of Sabaoth." " Bis tantum legitur (says Schleusner, i. e. vox (TafiatoO) in N. T. Rom. ix. 29. et Jacob. V. 4. ubi Deus Kvpio^ aafiawd Dominus exercituum vocatur, quatenus imperio ejus omnia subjecta sunt, ut sit i. q. TravTOKparwp. Excrcitus Dei enim in V. T. modo angeli, modo astra, ob summam eorum copiam ac ordinem, quo moventur, modo omnis rerum natura dicitur, ut adeo, quando Deus Kvpio^ (TafiawO dicitur, summam ipsius im- perium et summa potestas indicetur, &c." By Lord of Sabaoth, therefore, appears to be meant, the Lord of both the heavenly and earthly hosts, comprehending all the creation of God. Now, does it appear, that the word J^.jf- Cherilar, will afford any such idea as this ? A very good Lexico- grapher tells us, that it means nothing more than the Turkish militias. Janizaries or the like : J->,y>- ^j will, therefore mean, the God of these troops ; or, in the estimation of a well educated Turk, would perhaps extend as far as to Mars the God of war : but, in no case would it correspond to the above interpretation of the Lord of Sabaoth. We must therefore reject, as on former occasions, Dr. Hen- 131 derson's emendation. Let us now enquire, what is meant by the term which has been used by Ali Bey. By ^^U!! Ljj Rabbo Idlamin. The Mo- hammedans understand, as Dr. Henderson has ob- served, " Lord of worlds, comprehending angels, genii, men, &c." as may be seen in Marracci's notes to the first chapter of the Koran. By this phrase will therefore be meant, God of worlds, i. e. of all his own creation. In the Arabic of the Polyglott, Erpenius, of the Propaganda ; in the Syriac, the Coptic, and Seaman's Turkish, we have the Hebrew word mi^lii or aajSawO retained, in this place; but in the Malay, made under the inspection of the Dutch, we have the word used by Ali Bey, ^U ^jJ^^-j j^ ij^y- Tuan serva sakalien Aalam. In Heb. i. 2. where aiwva^ is believed by the Commentators to have the same sense with the word (xaj3aco9, as above cited from Schleusner, the Arabic of the Polyglott, of Erpenius, the Propaganda, both the Syriac ver- sions, and the Malay, have also the word adopted by Al! Bey. The Turkish translator, therefore, has not been the first to adopt it in a version of the Christian Scriptures: and, as there is no other word in use in the Turkish, which could have conveyed the full sense of the original, he had only this alternative, either to adopt the original word Sabaotli, as other translators had done before him, or, to employ this Koranic term, to which Dr. Henderson so loudly objects. The objection, 135 however, after all, seems to be principally directed against this word's conveying a notion of the Genii : to its meaning, angels, men, &c. there is perhaps no objection. The word^ however, considered in itself, contains no such meaning; it means nothing more than the loorlds : it is from the erroneous creed of the Mohammedans, that the other notion has arisen. It has already been remarked more than once^ that if we are to use no such words as these, which are in common with Christians, Jews, and Mohammedans, although each community may interpret their bearings differently in their com- mentaries, there must necessarily be an end to all translation. As far as I can see, I believe Ali Bey to have given as good a translation of the phrase before him, as the genius of the Turkish lan- guage would admit of, if his reader misunderstand him, in consequence of either his own ignorance or prejudice, surely that cannot be fairly as- cribed to inability, or want of faith in the translator. The next objection is to the word s^, given as a translation for evToXrj, precept, because it is found in some other passages to signify covenant. Dr. Henderson nevertheless allows, that it some- times occurs in the sense of precept : but he says, we must be guided by the usage of the language. It is strange enough, that he should one minute allow, that the usage of the language sometimes attaches the meaning of precept to this word ; 136 and the next affirm or infer, that the usage of the language is against it. But, waving these inconsistencies : if St. John be said to give a new covenant to believers, which he also exhorts them to observe, I would only ask, what difference there can be, between such a covenant and a pre- cept F And, as the word manifestly means precept on some occasions, is not the context here suffi- cient to restrict its meaning to that sense? Let the reader examine the context and judge for himself, 1 John ii. 7. The next animadversion is on the word JU-J Dedjial, 1 John ii. 18. ''As ye have heard that JU-j* Dedjial cometh." "Now this is perfectly false/' says Dr. Henderson, " nobody ever heard of the coming of Dedjial till the time of Mo- hammed, &c." Dr. Henderson will perhaps ex- cuse me, if I say, this is also far from being true. The Christians of Syria, (and no doubt those of Arabia), had heard of this JW-J at least 500 years before Mohammed was born. Dr. Henderson himself has allowed, that it is found in the Syriac Testament, written iJ>^ dagolo, and that it is there put for avTi-^^pia-To^ ; which, however, he thinks is improper ; because, it should seem, the etymologif of both words is not exactly the same. Now, the Syriac Testament was probably com- pleted in the first century of the Christian ^ra ; and, as the Christians of Arabia were formerly 137 of the Syrian communion, nothing can be more probable than, that this word was in use among them, and understood as designating the Anti- christ. But whether they considered him as an opponent of Christ, or as a pretender, is not very easy to determine : it is probable they understood both. It was either from the Christians of Syria or Arabia that Mohammed adopted the word in his Koran, as the word is evidently of Syrian origin. The legend which has been grafted upon it by Mohammedan writers, was probably framed some hundred years after he was dead. We have this word, therefore, in the Syriac version, unac- companied, indeed, "^with Mohammedan ideas," as Dr. Henderson has allowed : a literal trans- lation of it is given in the Arabic of Erpenius ( c->l j^l 'f:^*^ )> the same may be said of the Arabic of the Propaganda, and the Ethiopic ver- sion ; but, in the Malay we have the very word JU-J Dedjial, unaccompanied, perhaps, with Mo- hammedan ideas, because, as before, "it occurs in the simple sense oi false. ^^ Now, whether we take avTiy^iaTo^ in the sense of pro Christo^ as the etymology of it seems to require, or contra Christum, as the context does, I do not see what objection can be made to the word Jlf-^ or c->^jk^n r^Jwu^ a liar, or the It/ing Messiah; because in either case, he who substitutes himself for Christ, or he who opposes him in any other way, may 138 properly be termed a liar. And, as the Oriental Christians themselves seem to have taken the pas- sage in this point of view, there appears to be no good reason, why we should condemn Ali Bey for using a word which had been so extensively adopted before his time. The Mohammedan Commentators, it is true, have framed some ridi- culous stories respecting his person, as they also have respecting Heaven, Paradise, Hell, the Earth, &c. but few, perhaps, will go so far as to say, that a translator of the Christian Scrip- tures, cannot, on this account, ever make use of those words. The Roman Catholics have, in the same way, framed a ridiculous hypothesis on the name of St. Peter ; but are we therefore, as Protestants, either to change or erase that word in such copies of the Scriptures, as we would pre- sent to them ? I believe not : and consequently, that Dr. Henderson's principle cannot be adopted. And, as no good reason can be adduced why the word JU-J should not be retained in this place; no objection can be made to Ali Bey's version on that account. We may here be allowed to notice a remark made at page 10. of the Appeal. After lowering the character of Ali Bey for no very charitable purpose. Dr. Henderson proceeds : "He is said to have intended to embrace the Christian faith, but died before accomplishing his design, which fur- nishes an awful illustration of the delusive doctrine 139 inculcated by his version of Luke xxii. 32. " One day {^^ j) when thou art converted!. .. .there is reason to fear that the ' one day,' the ' conve- nient season/ never arrived." 1 answer, this phrase, according to Meninski, means, not only unus dies, but also Quodam die, aliquando, olim, the phrase ^^ y , therefore, is perfectly parallel to TTore, when, of the original. The translation is consequently correct. 1 leave it to others to shew, whether the doctrine inculcated is delusive or not. CHAP. VI. ON THE OMISSIONS DISCOVERED BY DR. HENDERSON IN THE TURKISH VERSION. We now come to Class the fifth, which con- tains a list of passages in which certain omissions are observable in the Turkish version. The first omission noticed is Matt. vi. 15, ra TrapaTTTcofiaTa v/uiav, " your trespasses." Th6 passage will therefore read thus : " But if ye for- give not men their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive you," omitting " your trespasses." Let the reader judge whether the sense is not precisely the same in each case. The fact is^ 140 the omission complained of^ every reader will supply in his own mind, by the ellipse. It is re- markable enough, that some of the manuscripts, and several of the Oriental versions, omit the pre- ceding ra TrapaTTTWfjLaTa avrwv, which Griesbach has put down for a various reading. There is no doubt, however, in my mind, that the ellipse will account for the omission in the versions, which are, the Syriac, the Arabic of the Polyglott, the Saxon, the Vulgate, &c. Ali Bey therefore, has, in this omission, done nothing contrary to the laws of Biblical interpretation ; or, to the practice of former translators, to whose fidelity no one has ob- jected. He has, in no point of view, injured either the sense or spirit of the original, but preserved both much better than he would have done, in my opinion, if he had given a translation of the words in question. In the next place. Matt. viii. 5. the word Irjaov is omitted. I answer, so it is in Griesbach's edition of the New Testament. The reader will there find his reasons for having done so ; which, should they fail to satisfy him, which, I believe, will not be the case, he will see, that Ali Bey's omission has not been made without good au- thority. If the reader will substitute he for Jesus, in the authorized version, he will be enabled fully to appreciate the value of Dr. Henderson's remark. Matt. viii. 19. wpoaeXBwv, ''coming," is also 141 omitted. Whether this is to be attributed to the translator, the copyist, or the printer, I know not; the omission, however, is of but little importance, no relig-ious truth suffering on its account. The table of errata will here supply the defect, which should be corrected in a future edition. The next omission noticed, is Matt. xxii. l6. in the word SiSaaKaXe, "Teacher." Here, as before, the omission is of little importance, the sense being- complete without this word. In the next place. Matt. xxvi. 65. o 'Ap^x^Lepeus, ''The high Priest," is left out, which is a fault: but, as the reader must necessarily supply the word in his own mind from the context, the sense of the text will be precisely the same in both the original and the translation. The next omission is in John i. 52. of the words Tod Oeou, ''of God," but here the word J!u Malaklar, Angels, neces- sarily includes of God, the Mohammedans know- ing of no angels, but the angels of God; the insertion of the words would be unnecessary in the translation, the omission is, therefore, of no importance. Rom. i. 8. presents the next omission, and this is, of the word /xov,' my, that is, " / thank God," instead of ' 1 thank my God." Little importance can, I believe, be attached to this; the Ethiopic translator seems to have been of the same opinion, for he also has omitted it. The 14^^ table of errata will properly supply this unim- portant defect. Rom. iv. 20. Tou Qeov "of God," is omitted, and we read the promise, instead of the promise of God. The context, however, necessarily sup- plies the omission, as the promise of none but of God can be understood. The omission is, therefore, of little importance, the sense of the context remaining precisely the same in either case. Rev. iii. 21. jueTci tov Trarpos fxov, "with my Father." "On this last passage," says Dr. Hen- derson, " I would remark, that the effect of the omission is to leave the Mohammedan in the dark, as to the throne on which the faithful and true Witness declares he was seated after his victory." As this remark seems to involve important consequences, let us see whether it is well found- ed or not. Let us, in the first place, read the verse as it stands in the authorized English ver- sion, omitting the words in question. ''To him that overcometh will 1 grant to "sit with me in my throne, even as I also overcame, and am set down ... on his throne." Now, to what does the word his refer in this place ? A very cursory perusal of the chapter will shew the reader, whether he be Turk or Englishman, that the word God is the antecedent. I take it for granted, that every con- siderate reader will come to this conclusion : and, 143 if this be the case, the Mohammedan will not be left in the dark, as to the throne on which the Faithful and true Witness declares himself to be seated ; but will see, that it is the throne of God. So much for Dr. Henderson's inference, as to the Theological part of our enquiry. Let us next enquire, whether Ali Bey had any authority or not for the omission, with which he is here charged. If the reader will turn to the passage in Griesbach's Greek Testament, he will see, that these words are not found in several valuable Greek Manuscripts. That the Editio princeps of the Greek Testament, as well a^ that of Arethas, omits them : and, that some others read the pas- sage differently. Now, can Dr. Henderson sup- pose, that all this has been done, in order to leave the Mohammedans in the dark? Would it not be more just to suppose, that Ali Bey followed one or other of these copies ? Dr. Henderson, however, seems to disdain making enquiry on any part of this subject, which may seem to mili- tate against his feelings : and, what is more strange, he is careless as to the accuracy of his assertions, should his criticisms be true in other respects. Of the nine omissions noticed by him, under this head, two of them are found in several va- luable manuscripts ; and of these, one has been ^. preferred by Griesbach. Of the seven others, two \ can satisfactorily be accounted for by having re- \ 144 / course to the ellipse ; and the remaining* five do not in any way affect the sense. CHAP. VII. ON THE ADDITIONAL WORDS AND PHRASES, SAID TO EXIST IN THE VERSION OF ALI BEY. We now come to the last class of alledged corruptions, whiph is said to contain words or phrases, in addition to those found in the ori- ginal. Of these the first is in Matt, xxvii. 5, 6. (an error of the press for 56.) j^^ ^^^ " the other Mary/' twice. It is true, >j^^j occurs twice ; but the word *j^ Mary, occurs only once more than it ought to do ; and J^d " the other," twice. This is undoubtedly a fault ; and, if it came from Ali Bey, the parallel passage in John xix. 25, may probably have accasioned it: for there we have an account of three Marys witnessing- the crucifixion. In the passage, under consider- ation, we have two Marys, with the mother of Zebedee's children, to whom Ali Bey, if this be the reading of his MS., has also given the name of Mary. I have some doubts, however, whether the error is not due to the copyist. Be this as it may, it may be corrected before the version is 145 put into circulation, which I should recommend to be done. Professor Kieffer has, I see, cor- rected it in the larger table of errata, but it will be better to cancel the page. The next animadversion is on Rom. iii. 21, where the additional word i_-^ books occurs. Here Dr. Henderson remarks, '' But the pro- phets testified of the Divine Righteousness, pre- vious to their depositing their prophecies in writing." I answer, this may be very true, without at all affecting the question before us. If I mistake not, St. Paul here appeals not to the unwritten (if ever there was any), but to the written Revelation, "'Now," says be, ''the righteousness of God without the Law is mani- fested, being witnessed by the Law and the Pro- phets." By the Law, he must mean the written Law; and by the Prophets, their written testi- mony. As it would be absurd to appeal to that of which no one had any knowledge. AH Bey has, therefore, very properly supplied the ellipse of the original. Rom. iii. 22. sy< us, is added. We have, therefore, '' unto us all, and upon all them that believe." This is certainly an addition to the words of the original ; but, whether it is to the sense, I am not quite so certain. The trans- lator, no doubt, inserted the word with the view of supplying an ellipse, which he supposed to exist in the original; but, whether such, ellipse K 146 exists or not, may be fair matter for debate, as it also may, in many such instances to be found in our own authorized version. For my own part, I do not think any such ellipse exists: but I do think, that its insertion is of too little im- portance to warrant the suppression of the edition on its account. The next addition is Rom. x. 5. ,^^.)/ which Dr. Henderson renders by precept. He is mis- taken, however, for the word is in the plural number, meaning* precepts. His citation is, in other respects, incorrect; for the addition is ^Jt>^}jS (^XImj^ ^.5^1^ That is, the precepts of the Law. Ali Bey, in this instance, instead of say- ing those things, as in our version, gives the above translation, in which the sense of the antecedent declaration to which it refers, is fully expressed. In this instance, therefore, he has done nothing more than it was his di^ty to do. If Dr. Henderson has misunderstood him, he is not to be condemned on that account. Rom. xi. 26. ^ sons, is added. The pas- sage will, therefore, read thus: "and shall turn away ungodliness from the sons of Jacob.'* I suppose Dr. Henderson will allow, that Jacob himself was dead, long before this declaration was originally made. The transgressions of the Patriarch himself, therefore, could not have been meant. By a figure very often used in the Scriptures, the name of the progenitor is often 147 put for that of the offspring ; thus;, the descend- ants of Jacob, who was also called Israel, are often called Israel; Edom is put for the descendants of Edom, and so of others. In the above in- stance, Jacob is put by the same figure for the descendants of Jacob ; it being absurd to sup- pose, that the promise could have affected one, who had been many hundred years dead. The translation of AH Bey has, therefore, very pro- perly supplied the ellipse of the original ; and Dr. Henderson, as in many former instances, has offered an absurd remark. Rom. xiv. 1. Ai\ cJU courteously. According to Schleusner, the Greek verb found in the ori- ginal, has precisely this sense. " Benigne aliquem et humaniter tracto, favore meo dignor," &c. Rom. xiv. 1. Tov 06 aaOevovvTa Trj iriGTei irpoaXafi- jBdveaOe, eum vero, qui est fide infirma et imbe- cilla, benigne et humaniter quoquo modo trac- tate" &c. The translation is, therefore, correct, I may be allowed to add, that without the above addition, it would have fallen short of the sense of the original. " Rom, xiv. 14. A>} cuUjsUj" by the doctrine of the Lord Jesus." But Dr. Henderson's translation is here, as in some other instances, incorrect. The correct translation is, b^ the teachings of the Lord Jesus, which, according to the com- mentators, is the true meaning of the passage. "Id est," says Grotius, "per Christum, qui mihi r2 148 hoc apei'tius quam aliis revelavit," And Vatablus, " qui me docuit." The passage is , therefore, accurately translated, and Dr. Henderson's ob- jection must fall to the ground. Rev. iii. 7. "The keys of the house of Da- vid." The house, therefore, has been added. Drusius says on this passage, " Tj/i/ /cXet^a rov Aafii^. Qui banc Scripturam solicitant contra omnium codicum fidem, nae illi nesciunt quid sit mons Domini. Nam mons Domini dictum pro mons domus Domini. Sic Moria vocatur. Eodum modo hie dicitur clavis David, pro clavis domus David. Ellipsis est si non nota tamen certa et indubitata, de qua ne Carneades qui- dem, si viveret, dubitaret." Grotius says it means, "plenissimum imperium in domo Dei," &c. AH Bey has, therefore, translated this pas- sage correctly, notwithstanding Dr. Henderson's animadversion. Rev. iii. 12. We have ^ ^ijas- like a pillar, instead of a pillar, that is, " Him that over- cometh, will I make like a pillar," &c. To make a man into a pillar, would certainly sound extremely odd in the ears of a Turk, or, indeed, in those of any other man, who had not been pre- viously informed, that the expression is meta- phorical. Bishops, and other leading persons in • the Christian Church, have, it should seem, been termed pillars, because they have been consi- dered as supporters of the Christian doctrine and i4D discipline, just as pillars are of the fabric of the Church : they have, therefore, been considered as like pillars. The word like, therefore, as intro- duced abovC;, does nothing more than supply an ellipse, without which, even the original itself cannot be understood, and the Turkish would be perfect nonsense. Schleusner says , 1822. Cancels and Table of Errata referred to Professor Lee. Sub-Committee, August 24, 1822. Professor Lee's opinion read. — Messrs. Stokes and Piatt, and Rev. T. Hartwell Home requested to peruse Table of Errata, with a view to reduce the number. Sub-Committee, Sept. Q, 1822. Report of Messrs. Stokes, Piatt, and Home presented.— Number of Errata reduced from 2l6 to 51. — Two additional Cancels recommended. — Report considered and agreed to. Sub-Committee, Oct. 28, 1822. Letter from Dr. Henderson read. — Professor Kieffer to send literal translations of any passages in the Old Testament, which require to be altered ; and also of the alterations which he proposes. Committee, Ja?i. 20, 1823. Letter read from Professor Kieffer respecting the cancel leaves and Table of Errata. — Copies to be sent to places whither Turkish Testaments have been forwarded. Committee, March 24, 182S. Letter from Dr. Henderson read, stating his opinion that the Turkish Testament cannot be so far improved as to be rendered fit for circulation. — Referred to Sub-Committee. (6) APPENDIX. Sub-Committee, April 2, 1823. Former proceedings reconsidered. — Professor Lee to pre- pare a series of questions for consideration of Turkish scholars. — Meanwhile circulation of Testament further suspended. Committee, April 7, J 823. Questions prepared by Professor Lee referred to Sub-Com- mittee. Sub-Committee, Mat/ 23, 1823. Mr. Piatt reported that the Turkish Testament had been submitted to Rev. Messrs. Usko and Renouard. Committee, June 23, 1823. Letter read from Rev. Mr. Renouard, with his opinion of Turkish Testament, and promise of literal translation of pas- sages from Turkish into English. Committee, August 4, 1823. Letter read from Rev. Mr. Usko, containing his opinion of Turkish Testament. Committee, October 11, 1823. Opinions read from Messrs. Petropolis and Eremian. — Also from seven Orientalists in France. Committee, Nov. 3, 1823. Letter from Rev. Mr. Renouard read, with translation of different passages, &c. Committee, Nov. 11, 1823. Letters from Professor KiefFer read — with his remarks on the Criticisms of M. Petropolis and Ert'mian. — Sub-Committee to be specially summoned to consider the whole question. Sub-Committee, Dec. 15, 1823. Subject fully considered — Suspension of circulation of Testament removed. APPENDIX. (7) APPENDIX (B). Extract from the Minutes of the Committee of the British and Foreign Bible Society. Dec. 15, 1823. At a Meeting of the Sub-Committee for Printing and general purposes: present: Right Hon. Lord Teignmouth, President, in the Chair. Right Hon. Lord Bexley, Vice-President. With the Secretaries and other Members of the Sub-Committee, assisted by the Rev. G. C. Renouard, B.D. late Arabic Reader in the University of Cambridge, and the Rev. J. F. Usko, both formerly Chaplains to the British Factory at Smyrna. The Sub-Committee having been assembled, pursuant to a Resolution of the General Committee, for the purpose of considering whether the Turkish New Testament, translated by Hali Bey, and edited by Professor Kieffer, shall be cir- culated, think it proper, in the first instance, to premise, that the circulation of this Work was suspended in consequence of a letter received from Dr. Henderson in the spring of this year, strongly censuring and condemning it. The errors im- puted to it are various, namely, typographical, omissions, misrepresentations of the sense of the original, various ex- pressions for the same word, synonymes for the name of God, epithetical additions to His name, and to that of our Saviour, the use of obsolete language, and the excessive in- troduction of Arabic and Persian words. (8) APPENDIX. To ascertain the importance and extent of these imputed errors, some of which had been corrected in the previous revision of the Work by the care of Professor KiefFer, the Committee adopted the only safe and practicable mode in their power, by proposing a series of queries on the subject to the learned Orientalists in France and elsewhere. Answers to these queries having been received, the Print- ing Sub-Committee, assisted by the judgment of the Rev. G. C. Renouard, late Arabic Reader at Cambridge, and for- merly Chaplain at Smyrna, and the Rev. J. F. Usko, also for- merly Chaplain at Smyrna, who favoured the Sub-Committee with their attendance on this occasion, now proceeded to the perusal and consideration of the following papers: No. 1. Letter from Dr. Henderson, above referred to, dated Petersburg, January I9, 1823. 2. Letter from Professor KiefFer, dated Paris, March 30, 1 823, giving an account of the scrupulous accuracy with which the edition of the Turkish New Testament in question had been revised. 3. Queries drawn up by Mr. Piatt,* and transmitted to va- rious Oriental scholars, as above stated, in May 1823. 4. Letter from Professor KiefFer, dated Paris, August 20, 1823, announcing the receipt of several answers to the above queries, and enclosing the following : 5. Answer of M. le Baron Silvestre de Sacy. 6. Answer of M. Jaubert, second Interpreting Secretary to the King of France for the Oriental languages. Professor of the Turkish language at the Royal Li- brary of Paris, author of a Turkish Grammar, and * Founded on the suggestions of Professor Lee, see Appendix (A), Committee, April 7, 1823. APPENDIX. (9) formerly in the service of the French government in Turkey, Egypt, and Persia. 7. Answer of M. Garcin de Tassy, author of several Oriental works, who has for some years devoted him- self especially to the study of the Turkish language. 8. Answer of M. Langles, Conservator of Oriental MSS. in the Royal Library of Paris. 9. Answer of M. Andrea de Nerciat, late Interpreter at Constantinople, and formerly in Syria and Persia. 10. Answer of M. Caussin de Perceval the younger, late Interpreter at Constantinople, and in Syria, and now Professor of Modern Arabic at the Royal Library of Paris. 1 1 . Answer of M. Bianchi, one of the two Assistant In- terpreting Secretaries to the King of France for the Oriental languages, and late Interpreter at Smyrna. 12. Answer of M. Desgranges, Assistant Interpreting Secre- tary to the King of France for the Oriental languages, colleague of M. Bianchi, subsequently transmitted by Professor Kieffer. 13. Letter from the Rev. H. D. Leeves, dated Constanti- nople, August 23, 1823, giving an account of his en- quiries respecting the character of the version in question, and enclosing remarks on it in answer to the queries proposed, from 14. M. Petropolis, late Turkish Secretary to the Greek Patriarch, 15. And from M. Eremian, Interpreter to the Danish Legation at Constantinople. 16. Reply of Professor Kieffer to the remarks of M. Ere- mian. 17. Observations of the Rev. G. C. Renouard, on the i^amc. (lO) APPENDIX. 18. Letter from the Rev. Mr. Renouard, dated Swans- combe, October 24, 1823, containing his opinion on the character of the version in question, and on the importance of the testimonies adduced in its favor, and enclosing 19- A translation by the Rev. Mr. Renouard of several pas- sages from various parts of the New Testament of Hali Bey, rendered literally into English from the Turkish version. 20. Letter . from the Rev. J. F. Usko, dated Orsett, July 14, 1823, containing his answer to the queries pro- posed as above, on the character of the Turkish version of the New Testament. 21. Opinion of the Right Hon. Lord Teignmouth on the general result from the whole of the documents above enumerated, written in December 1823. 22. Letter from Professor Kieffer, dated Paris, May 18, 1823, giving an account of various oral communica- tions, which he had had on the subject of the Turkish Testament, with Messrs. PopofF and Paterson. These papers having been severally read and considered, the following Resolution was unanimously adopted: That upon the most attentive consideration of the pre- ceding documents on the subject of the Turkish Testament, this Sub-Committee see no sufficient reason for longer sus- pending the circulation of it. At a meeting of the General Committee, Dec. 29, 1823. The minutes of the Printing Sub-Committee of December 15, were read and confirmed. APPENDIX. (11) APPENDIX (C.) Extract of a Letter from Professor Kieffer, addressed to Mr. Piatt, Honorary Librarian to the British and Foreign Bible Society. {Paper No. 4. before the Sub-Committee.) Paris, le 30 Aout, 1823. Je suis enfin en etat de repondre a la partie de votre lettre dii 19 Juin dernier, qui avoit pour objet de connoitre ropinion des Savans Orientalistes de Paris sur la version Turque du Nouveau Testament faite par Ali-Bey. C'est particulierement I'opinion des personnes, qui ont ete longtems au Levant et qui connoissent la langue Turque par la pratique, qu'il importoit de connoitre. Et je crois avoir satisfait la Societe Biblique Britanique et Etrangere avec la plus grande impartialite. Comme les questions que vous m'aviez adressees, etoient quelquefois un peu vagues, j'ai explique a ces savans en quoi consistoient les principaux reproches que contenoit la critique de Monsieur Henderson. Les avis des Savans Orientalistes, que je vous transmets aujourd'hui sont au nombre de Sept ; savoir, 1°. de Monsieur le Baron de Sacy. Ce savant est deja trop bien connu de la Societe pour que j'aie besoin de rien ajouter sur ses grandes connoissances dans les idiomes de I'Orient, et sur I'interet sincere qu'il prend aux travaux de la Societe. 2°. de Monsieur Jaubert, qui apres avoir rempli plusieurs missions en Turquie, en Egypte et en Perse, est aujourd'hui Second Secretaire Interprete du Roi pour les langues Orien tales, et Professeur de langue Turque a la Bibliotheque du Roi. 3". de M. Garcin de Tassy, qui est connu par plusieurs ouvrages Orientaux, et qui s'occupe, depuis quelques annees, tout pai'ticulierement de I'etude de la langue Turque. (12) APPENDIX. 4*. de M. Langles. Son iiom Europeen est tellenient connii, surtout en Angleterre, que je ne crois pas avoir besoin de rien ajouter sur son compte. 5°. de M. Andrea de Nerciat, qui a ete longtems, en qualite d'Interprete, a Constantinople, en Syrie, en Perse, et qui travaille presentement a la confection d'un Dictionnaire Persan. 6". de M. Caussin de Perceval fils, qui s'est particuliere- ment occupe de I'etude de la langue Turque, et qui est maintenant Professeur de I'Arabe vulgaire a la Bibliotheque du Roi, apres avoir passe plusieurs annees a Constantinople et en Syrie, en qualite d'Interprete du Gouvernement Fran^ais. 7". de M. Bianchi, qui, apres avoir etudie la langue Turque a Constantinople, et avoir rempli les fonctions d'Interprete a Smyrne, est aujourd'hui I'un des deux Secretaires Interpretes-Adjoints du Roi pour les langues Orientales. 8°. L'opinion de M. Desgranges, autre Secretaire- Inter- prete Adjoint du Roi pour les langues Orientales, ne m'est pas encore parvenue ; mais je vous I'enverrai. KlEFFER. The eight following Papers are Extracts from the enclosures referred to. I. Fro7n M. le Baron Silvesfre de Sacy. J'ai lu attentivement plusieurs chapitres de S. Matthieu et le premier chapitre de S. Jean, dans la traduction Turque, et je n'ai point trouve que le traducteur ait sacrifie la fidelite a 1' elegance. Je ne pense pas non plus qu'il ait fait trop d'usage des mots Arabes. La version me paroit aussi litterale qu'il est possible, si I'on veut etre entendu des Turcs. Les termes de I'original sont quelquefois susceptiblcs de plusieurs sens, et dans t:e cas 11 Taut APPENDIX.- (13) bien que le tradnctelir se determine pour 'un des sens. Ainsi dans I'Evangile de S. Jean, ch. i. ver. 5. le mot KareXa/Sfi/ dans ce passage, kcu »; o-Kor/a av-ro ov KaT£\a,'3ei/, est pris ordman'ement dans le sens de comprendre, connoitre, et c'est celui qu'a adopte le traducteur Turc : mais il pourrait aussi signifier s'emparer d'une chose, s'en rendre mnitre, s'en saisir, comme dans ce pas- sage : 7va fjiri o-kotIci tl/xa'c KciTaXuftri, et il serait possible que I'Evangeliste eut voulu dire que les tenehres n'ont pas etouffe et aneanli la lumiere. Toute traduction intelligible est ne'ces- sairement une sorte de commentaire, et par consequent on ne pent pas faire un reproche au traducteur Turc d'avoir quelque- fois employe deux mots pour exprimer un seul mot de I'original, comme j et i_^«aj pour rendre le seul mot ciKmoamrj, mot qui dans le Grec du N. T. a une acception toute particuliere. Les formules employees par le traducteur en parlant de Dieu et de Jesus Christ ne me paroissent ni alterer le sens, ni porter aucun prejudice reel a la fidelite de la traduction. Si la traduction etoit faite principalement pour des Mahometans, il seroit convenable de les employer. Mais dans une traduction faite pour des Chretiens, j'aimerois mieux n'en pas faire usage. Je prefererois aussi le nom de c»*uj pour Jesus a ,m*j^ qui est une forme Mahometane. Et si on faisoit une noiivelle edition, je conseillerois d'adopter ce changement. Je voudrois aussi qu'on conservat le nom de Jerusalem, auquel le traducteur a substitue I'expression moderne ^ot *. LjuSi . J'ai remarque quelques libertes prises par le traducteur que je ne condamne pas^ mais sur lesquelles les opinions pourroient etre partagees. Ainsi il traduit YaXiXa'a twv eOvwv par la Galilee des idolatres ; au lieu de ev "X^uipa Ka\ a-Kta dai/urov, ou suivant la Vulgate, in regione nmbrce mortis, il met, dans I'ombre de la region de la mart. Au lieu de, ocroi le IXaBov «i'to;/, cocoKfi/ nvrol'i e^ovaiav teKva Oeov yeveadai, to?? TrtaTevovatv ek TO ovofxu avTov, il traduit : il a donne la puissance de devenir enfans de Dieu a tous ceiix qui le recevant onl cm en son nom. •T'est \c\ un example des libertes qu'a prises le tradurteur pour (14) APPENDIX. se conformer au genie de la langue Turque. Je ne pense pas qu'il y aife alteratioiji du sens. Pour me resumer, mon avis est que dans une nouvelle edition il serait bon de faire quelques changemens, mais que la version dans son etat actuel n'ofFre aucun defaut important, et qu'il n'y a point de motif de la supprimer. le Baron Silvestre de Sacy. 26 Amt 1823. II. From M. Jaubert. Le but principal que le traducteur Turc a du se proposer a ete sans doute de se rendre intelligible aux personnes qui sa- vaient lire, et parconsequent c'etait la langue des livres qu'il fallait leur parler. Or cette langue ne difFere pas tellement de la vulgaire, qu'un homme du peuple ne puisse tres bien saisir, par exemple, le sens d'un sermon ecrit en Turc releve, ou celui d'une histoire elegamment racontee par un meddak. II est vrai que par compensation, I'homme instruit comprendrait parfaitement le Turc des halles ; mais on sent ce qu'aurait de choquant pour lui I'emploi d'un idiome grossier, bas et trivial. Puisqu'il fallait opter entre la langue litterale et la langue vulgaire, le nouveau traducteur a done tres bien fait de choisir la premiere et de ne pas perdre de vue que pour quiconque veut la parler et I'ecrire correctement, il est non seulement permis, mais meme indispensable d'employer tres frequemment des mots et des locutions entierement exotiques. Cela est tellement vrai que dans les manuscrits Tartares les plus anciens, on retrouve presqu'autant de mots Persans et Arabes que dans le Turc de Diarbiker, d' Erzeroum, de Smyrne, de Constantinople et d'ailleurs. Loin de nuire a la clarte et a la simplicite de la phrase originale, ce melange rend la version a la fois plus convenante et plus intelligible; but que tout traduc- teur doit se proposer. Afin de rendre ceci plus sensible, qu'on nous permette de APPENDIX. (15) prendre pour exemple la traduction de I'oraison dominicale contenue dans la version Tartare d' Astrakhan et de comparer cette traduction a celle d'Aly Bey. Version d'Aly Bey. Version d" Astrakhan. A^ *j^j^ (jj*^j^ ^'iV. ^-^^Ir* UT"^. ^^^■^-^•^^'♦^ Sur les 34 ou 35 mots employes pour rendre cette priere dans la version Tartare, il y en a cinq d'Arabes, et sur les quarante dont se compose la version d'Aly Bey sept idem. Exarainons quels sont ces mots. 1" Verset. II est evident que le mot Arabe j^\ employe dans la version d'Aly Bey est a la fois plus convenable et plus (l6) APPENDIX. .elegant que le mot Turc s\ '■ plus convenable puisqu'il est consacre dan sles formules religieuses, telles que t^lx* *-j^, i]^\ **uJ , plus elegant puisqu'il est usite chez les personnes qui se piquent de parler purement. 2^ Ferset. Le traducteur d'Astrakhan s'est cru oblige d'employer le mot c:„-^i'»«^ pour dire Royaume, il a done senti I'impossibilite de rendre sa pensee autrement que par ce mot Arabe: mais I'expression d'Aly Bey C-JjxLo est plus exacte et plus heureuse, elle est d'ailleurs consacree par la Polyglotte de Walton. 3* Ferset- Le troisieme verset ne donne lieu a aucune observation. 4* Ferset. Dans la version d'Astrakhan^ on a employe le mot i_-j-tf qui signifie peccata nostra : il n'etait pas possible de le rendre en Turc d'une maniere exacte; mais le mot ^j^J est Arabe, ce qui confirme notre argument. 5" Ferset. JJ>j Jj a-peu-pres comme le traducteur Franfais de Sacy. Dans le meme evangeliste, iv. 14 et suivans, au lieu de mettre simple- ment parole, comme dans le texte, le traducteur a mis parole de Dieu j^\ Jl^. Et 1 Cor. i. l6: J'ai aussi baptise les habitant de la maison d'Etietme *S^\ JO^'iJ^J i^'^ 15^^*^ 3^ HXm^ J i UJLai pour la maison simplement. De nieme que plus bas, v. 21, on lit les habitans du monde, Uj J jjjhl pour le monde. Les cas pareils se recontrent quelquefois dans la version Turque, et c'est tout naturel : la syntaxe Grecque permet de retrancher des mots qui sont necessaires en Turc et dans la plupart des langues. Ali Bey n'a pas voulu sa rendre inintelligible, comme quelques uns de nos traducteurs mot-a-mot. On ne peut que le louer APPENDIX. (19) du soil! qu'il a mis a ne rien faire perdre a la clarte de la parole de Dieu^ en la faisant passer dans une langiie si difFerente de la Grecque. D'ailleurs, quand meme ces legeres additions seraient quelquefois jugees inutiles, du moins n'alterent-elles en rien le texte sacre. Je ne parle pas ici des mots Grecs qu'il faut necessairement rendre en Turc par deux ou meme par trois mots. On sait qu'il y a des mots dans telle langue qui ne peuvent se rendre que par une periphrase dans une autre ; ainsi dans la version Turque du N. T. un nom est quelquefois traduit par un nom et un adjectif ; un adjectif par un adjectif et une particule ; un verbe enfin par le verbe substantif et par un nom ou un adjectif. Cette derniere expression est tres ordinaire en Turc, ainsi qu'en Persan. Onditdonc: 'jL*ijS}\ f-iyi ^ous faites attente, pour vous atiendez, 1 Cor. i. 7- et ibid. 8. aiJol dj^o tJ^dijSsKs- \i qfin qu'il vousfasse affermis jiisqu' a la Jin, pour, qu'il vous offer - misse. Dans tout ce que j'ai lu de la traduction Turque du N. T. j'ai vu, du reste je le repete, la plus grande exactitude et Ton peut dire qu' Ali Bey a souvent renonce a'la construction Turque et aux usages suivis par les ecrivains Turcs plutot que d'abandonner le strict litteral. 3". On se plaint que dans la version Turque, le meme mot soit traduit par des mots diiferens. Mais il n'en est pas en Turc comme dans la plupart des langues : il y a de veritables syno- nymes, qui naissent de I'emploi simultane qu'on fait dans cet idiome des mots Arabes, des mots Persans, et de ceux qui sont propres a la langue Turque. Ainsi I'emploi de difFerentes expres- sions pour traduire le meme mot Grec ne peut causer le moin- dxe inconvenient, ce n'est qu'une maniere moins monotone et exigee dans la langue, d'exprimer la meme idee. Ainsi Ali Bey a tres-bien fait de traduire Dieu tantot par les mots Arabes tantot par le mot Persan iA>^j tant6t parle mot Tartar e jcXi' ;, &c. b2 (20) APPENDIX. 4°. Quant au quatrieme reproche, on pent a peine con- cevoir qu'il ait ete fait. L'usage des orientaux est de joindre toujours au nom de Dieu et des prophetes, une formule de benediction ; Ali Bey ne pouvait s'en ecarter et Ton aurait eu grand tort, ce me semble, de retrancher ces formules. On dit qu'elles donnent au N. T. Turc une teinte Musulmane. Tant mieux. II serait a desirer que la teinte fut encore plus forte, cette traduction etant destinee specialement aux Musulmans qui malheureusement sont prevenus contre nos saints livres, persuades que nous les avons alteres. Je certifie du reste que ces legeres additions ne nuisent en aucune maniere ni a la fide- lite, ni a la simplicite de la version. 5*. II y a, dit-on, des mots inusites dans le langage vulgaire. II est possible en effet qu'il y ait des mots qui ne se rencon- trent pas souvent dans la bouche du peuple ; mais il est natural que le langage ecrit, quelque simple qu'il soit, differe du lan- gage parle. La version Anglaise de I'Ecriture sainte contient aussi des mots dont le peuple ne se sert pas ; en faut-il faire cesser l'usage ? Toutefois, il parait qu'il y avait en efFet originairement dans la traduction d'Ali Bey des mots aujourd'hui inusites; mais M. KiefFer a eu soin de les remplacer par d'autres d'un usage plus commun, et Ton peut se fier a ce savant et laborieux orientaliste qui a travaille en conscience et comme orientaliste et comme chretien. ' 6. II y a enfin, dit-on, une trop grande quantite de mots Arabes et Persans. La version d'Ali Bey est ecrite dans le Turc de Constanti- nople, ou des mots Arabes et Persans ont passe dans le langage le plus vulgaire, et non en Tartare de Crimee ou d'Astracan ; on doit done s'attendre a y trouver un assez grand nombre de mots Arabes ou Persans. On n'a qu'a parcourir les auteurs Turcs et Ton verra que dans les ouvrages Merits avec le plus de simplicite, ils emploient un grand nombre de mots propres a I'Arabe et au Persan ; ceux memes qui se piquent de bien lecrire, semblent se faire une regie de n'employer presque que APPENDIX. (21) des mots de ces deux idiomes, et Ton me permettra de citer a I'appui de ce que j'avance deux lignes (que j'ai dans ce moment sous les yeux) de Saad-uddin le plus celebre des ecrivains Turcs : A A PAA P PP Ci--:;^* (^Jj«ti2>- (o'*" tiif^ /jUaL-j (jUw*>l i,,;;^.Jm^ )i\t> A « A A A P A " A_^ ■ " ' ^A A " ^- A Si un ouvrage Turc ne contenait que des mots Turcs il serait presque inintelligible a Constantinople, de meme que si un livre Persan ne contenait que des mots Persans, on I'enten- drait bien difficilement a Schiraz. Ferdousi n'a guere employe que des mots Persans, aussi le comprend-on avec peine. Bien loin d'avoir mis trop de mots Arabes et Persans, je puis assurer qu' Ali Bey ne pouvait en mettre moins, et qu'on pourrait meme lui faire le reproche d'en avoir employe trop peu ; car on trouve souvent dans sa traduction des phrases ou il n'y a que des mots Turcs (ainsi en St. Marc i. 20. ii. 14. iii. 10, 13. iv. 3, 4, &c. &c.) ce qui est presque inusite chez les auteurs Turcs. Resume, l*""* consequence. Une partie des fautes que Ton reproche a la traduction d'Ali Bey n'existent pas. 2^* Une autre partie de ce qu'on nomme fautes n'en sont pas. 3^ II est vrai qu'il y a quelques erreurs typographiques ; qu'il y a meme quelques mots que Ton aurait peut-etre pu rendre avec un peu plus d'exactitude, mais ces taches legeres, cachet de I'humanite, ne sauraient efFacer le merite de cette excellente traduction, que Ton pourra d'ailleurs rendre plus par- faite dans une seconde edition. Garcin de Tassv. (22) APPENDIX. IV. From M. Langles. Paris, le 13 Aout, 1823. Apres avoir examine avec toute Tattention dont je suis capable les critiques dirigees centre I'edition du Nouveau Testament Turc, public par M. KiefFer, j'avoue que ces cri- tiques m'ont paru pecher par defaut de justesse et par exces de severite. II ne faut qu'avoir jette un leger coup d'ceil sur les bons ecrivains Turcs pour savoir qu'ils emploient souvent, et qu'ils afFectent meme d'employer un grand nombre de mots Arabes et Persans, tantot pour prouver leur erudition, tantot parceque ces mots sont indispensables pour rendre leurs idees. On confoit facilement que le Turc pur ou Tatar, u'site par des nations nomades et a demi barbares, ne renferme pas, a beau- coup pres, tous les mots necessaires pour rendre des idees complexes, metaphysiques ou sublimes. Ajoutons que la faci- lite avec laquelle la langue Arabe forme des mots pour exprimer des idees ou des observations neuves, sans tomber dans le neo- logisme, I'a rendue indispensable aux ecrivains Turcs et Persans. Enfin I'etude particuliere du petit vocabulaire Arabe-Turc et Persan que Ton fait dans toutes les ecoles publiques de I'Empire Othoman, doit pleinement confirmer mon opinion et justifier le \ traducteur des inculpations qu'on lui fait. Quant a I'epithete de Hazret CJj,as>^ qu'il donne a Jesus Christ, mJs- C-a*., elle est tellement consacree, qu'un ambassadeur on envoye Persan, Myr Daoud Khan, a qui je donnais le titre de Hazret, me repondit, " On n'emploie ce mot-la que pour Jesus." Je pense done que, loin de supprimer I'edition du Nouveau Testament Turc dont il s'agite, ce livre doit etre regarde comme une production aussi utile pour la litterature que pour la religion. L. Langles. APPENDIX. (23) V. From M. Andrea de Nerciat. J'ai lu avec attention la presque totalite des quatre evan- gelistes dans I'edition Turque que la Societe Biblique de Londres a fait imprimer a Paris. Pour repondre aux questions que vous m'avez fait I'honneur de me communiquer a ce sujet, j'etablirai d'abord que ce livre ayant une conformite si parfaite avec une Bible imprimee a Amsterdam, que je croirais que le meme texte a servi de guide au traducteur, ce serait user d'une rigueur extreme que de le supprimer, parceque quel- ques personnes y trouveraient des mots Arabes et des mots Persans en trop grande quantite. La plupart de ces mots sont compris par le vulgaire; dans tous les cas, ceux qui sont charges de repandre la lumiere evangelique, ne peuvent man- quer de les comprendre; ils auront envers les peuplades Turques le meme soin que prennent nos Cures et nos Pasteurs, lorsqu'ils parlent a leurs ouailles non lettrees d' incarnation, de redemption, de resurrection et d'autres termes qui n'entrent point dans le langage simple et borne des gens qui n'ont pas encore elargi la sphere de leurs idees. Je ne saurais non plus regarder comme un vice la variete d'expressions employees pour rendre la Divinite, parceque cette variete n'est pas telle- ment grande, quelle devienne une fatigue meme pour I'inteUi- gence la plus materielle. Quant aux epithetes honorifiques qui accorapagnent le nom de Notre Seigneur, il faudrait ne point connaitre I'esprit religieux des peuples orientaux en general, pour ne point sentir I'enormite de I'inconvenance que Ton commettrait, en pronon^ant tout sechement ce nom sacre ; et ainsi que nos predicateurs ne le proferent jamais sans oter jusqu'a leur calotte, de meme les Orientaux ne sauraient I'ecrire ou I'articuler, sans le faire preceder du mot CiJ' _,a>-, ou sans le faire suivre des epithetes de ^UjV, ^j^JJu, cJj\x _a^ est tres usitee parmi les Chretiens. II y aufait meme une sorte d'irreverence a enoncer simplement le nom de Jesus, sans y joindre CJ^-is^ ;, ou sans dire, ^r^**^M (/-^^ • ^e qui eut eu veritablement une teinte Mahometane, c'eut ete Les epithetes \\xj, et ajlsr^ ajoutees au nom de Dieu ne sont pas non plus particulieres aux Musulmans. II est dans le genie de la langue Turque, soit que ce soient des Chretiens ou des Mahometans qui la parlent ou I'ecrivent, d'associer par respect au nom de Dieu un de ces mots qui (26) APPENDIX. jouent le role d'adjectifs. Le traducteur aurait pu sans doute les supprimer, ainsi que le mot CU -a»^ :, et sacrifier dans ce cas, comme il I'a fait dans beaucoup d'autres^ le genie de la langue a I'exactitude litterale. Ces sortes d'infidelites, si on ne les approuve pas^, ne peuvent du moins etre regardees que comme des taches tres legeres. On peut dire la meme chose de I'expression ^i&^ t— jU**-, au lieu de <(1S| . Cette substitution ne nuit en rien a la simpli- cite du style. C'est encore le genie de la langue Turque qui a engage le traducteur a rendre dans quelques endroits, tel qu' a la page 6, ver. 6, le mot justilia par les deux mots iJ^Ajjjif quoique le mot j seul eut pu rendre justitia , et fut meme I'expression exactement correspondante dans cet exemple, de meme que I'expression, j\jii\ , derivee de cette racine, corres- pond au mot justi, les justes. Mais il est tres ordinaire dans le style Turc, d'associer deux mots qui sont presque sjoionymes, pour determiner plus precisement la signification du premier et lui donner plus denergie. Le traducteur s'est conforme ici a cet usage, et je ne pense pas qu'on doive Ten blamer. En resume, mon opinion est qu'on ne peut faire a cette version aucun reproche fonde, de quelque importance. L'exe- cution typographique m'en parait egalement satisfaisante et aussi exempte de fautes que peut I'etre un ouvrage de cette etendue. Caussin de Perceval, fils. Paris, ce 20 Aout 1823. APPENDIX. (27) VII. From M. Bianchi. J'ai ete dans le cas de lire plusieurs livres de la version Turque du Nouveau Testament d'Aly Bey, et je crois pouvoir declarer qu'a I'exception de quelques minuties que la critique le plus severe ne pourroit sans injustice caracteriser de fautes graves, je n'ai trouve aucun veritable contre-sens dans cette lecture. Quant au reproche du trop frequent emploi des synonymes, il suffit d'avoir etudie, ou ce qui est plus concluant encore, d'avoir pratique la langue Turque pendant quelques annees, soit a Constantinople, soit dans les provinces de I'Empire Ottoman, pour etre persuade que cette maniere d'ecrire, meme dans le style le plus ordinaire, tient essentiellement au genie de cette langue : vouloir s'en ecarter en employant trop souvent le meme mot pour la meme idee ne serait plus ecrire en Turc. Relativement a Temploi des mots <_-> < et ^i^ pour le nom de Dieu et de I'epithete ciJ-a»- qui accompagne le nom de Jesus, je puis assurer que les premiers sont toujours employes dans ce sens par les Chretiens en Orient, qui en outre ne pro- noncent jamais le nom du Sauveur sans le faire preceder du mot i,^yAr- , ainsi, ils disent toujours ^mjJ^ C^-as»- i^ Seig- neur Jesus. Pour ce qui concerne les termes inusites dans le langage ordinaire et le trop grand nombre de mots Arabes et Persans, je pense a I'egard des premiers qu'il eut ete presqu'impossible d'en employer d'autres que ceux de la version d'Aly Bey : quant aux seconds je suis persuade qu'il faudroit plutot renoncer a faire une traduction du Nouveau Testament en Turc que d'en exclure les termes Arabes et Persans. On ne trouve- roit peut-etre pas six mots dans le Turc proprement dit ou le Tartare de Crimee qui pussent rendre les idees sublimes dont se compose ce livre divin. Au reste, les mots Arabes et Persans relatifs a la morale et a la .religion sont aujourd'hui tellement identifies avec le langage ordinaire, qu'ils sont parfaitement (28) APPENDIX. entendus des Chretiens dans le Levant. Pendant un sejour de dix annees que j'ai fait tant a Constantinople qu'en Asie, j'ai souvent entendu precher en Turc, soit par les Missionnaires Latins de France et d'Autriche, soit par les pretres Armeniens Catholiques, et je puis certifier que le Turc qu'ils employaient dans les circonstances s'accordoit a peu de chose pres avec celui de la version d'Aly Bey. Je pense done d'apres tous ces motifs que ce livre, tel qu'il est, loin de devoir etre supprime dans la circulation, ne peut etre par sa publication que tres utile a la propagation de notre sainte religion. Je ne crois pouvoir mieux terminer cette declaration qu'en soumettant aux yeux des orientalistes les passages suivans de la traduction Turque des Pseaumes de David faite pour la haute Asie, et imprimee a Astracan en 1818. On verra que les mots Arabes et Persans y sont aussi frequens que dans le Nouveau Testament d'Aly Bey et que le style en general n'en differe pas essentiellement. ( Here follow the First and Second Psalms, transcribed from the above-mentioned edition.) C. BlANCHI. Paris le 4 Aout 1823. Vin. From M. Desgranges. Je vais me borner a vous dire mon avis d'une maniere g^nerale en examinant pourtant les reproches faits a la version Turque dans I'ordre ou vous me les avez adresses. 1° Des fautes de traduction. Ce defant le plus grave de tous, puisque sans doute on veut dire que la traduction renferme des contre-sens, ne me parait nullement pouvoir lui etre attribue. L'auteur, au contraire, a conserve toute la fidelite qu'exigeoit le sujet ; il a meme prefere se servir quelquefois de tournures qui s'eloignent un peu du genie de la langue Turque, plutot que de s'ecarter du veritable sens de I'original, de sorte que I'ouvrage, loin d'avoir une teinte Mahometane, semble porter I'empreinte des compositions Eu- ropeennes, assez faciles ovdinairenient ii distinguer dcb ecrits des Musulnians de naissance. APPENDIX. (29) :2" Un degre d'elegance superflu qui ne convient pas au sujet, et qui consiste, soit a traduire dans divers endroits un meme mot de I'original par des mots difFerens, soit en joignant au nom de Dieu, de Jesus, &c. plusieurs epithetes et meme en les rendant par des circonlocutions. La version d'Ali Bey ne merite pas plus ce reproche que le precedent. L'elegance dans la langue Turque consiste a faire de longues periodes dont les differentes parties riment entre elles, a rechercher les expressions les plus figurees et a multi- plier a I'exces les epithetes. Dans la traduction au contraire les phrases sont courtes, claires et precises, la construction en est simple, et les termes n'ont rien de recherche. Je n'ai pas trouve non plus que la variete de mots pour traduire une meme expression de I'original occasionnat des defauts d' exactitude. Dans la langue Turque, formee en grande partie de I'Arabe et du Persan, on peut varier son style dans une traduction sans alterer le sens de I'original, et ce qui serait vrai a cet egard dans d'autres idiomes, ne Test pas pour le Turc. Au surplus I'auteur de la version Turque, au lieu d'avoir employe un trop grand nombre de mots Arabes en Persans, comme on le lui reproche, me semble plutot en avoir use avec moderation et ne s'etre servi que des termes consacres par I'usage ordinaire. On se plaint encore de voir les noms de Dieu et de Jesus ornes de differentes epithetes et rendus par plusieurs circonlocutions. J'avoue que le reproche est fonde, et que ces epithetes et ces circonlocutions ne se trouvent pas dans I'original : mais par la I'auteur de la traduction a voulu se conformer a la coutume de tous les Chretiens Orientaux, car il serait aussi extraordinaire de ne pas dire en Turc ou en Arabe, son Excellence Jesus, qu'il serait singulier de s'exprimer ainsi parmi nous. En dernier resultat, je pense que la plupart des fautes reproches a la version Turque d'Ali Bey du Nouveau Testa- ment, n'existent pas, et que si elles existaient, cet ouvrage n'en serait pas moins tres recommandable et propre a repandre dans I'Orient la connaissance de I'Ecriture sainte. Desgranges. (30) APPENDIX (E). Extracts of Letters from the Rev. G. C. Renouard, B. D. Rector of Swanscombe, Kent, late Arabic Reader in the University of Cambridge, Sfc. Swanscombe, May 24, 1823. I have read a couple of chapters in Ali Bey's version of the New Testament, which you put into my hands. The opinion which I should at present form of it is favourable. As far as my examination has gone it is faithful and elegant, and I should suppose in a very readable style, a point of con- siderable importance among Mahometans, who consider the inimitable language of the Koran as one of the strongest proofs of its having come from heaven. In one instance an unusual word occurred, and it is true that Allah Tddla and Hazreii Isa are always substituted for Allah and Isa, but as the first sig- nifies only the " Most High God," and the other, " the Lord Jesus," there surely can be nothing very objectionable in such substitutions. I do not precisely understand what could be meant by " giving the version a Mahometan character," unless it were made to appear that particular passages had been interpreted so as to give an apparent sanction to the errors of the Turks. The expressions, however, mentioned above, will not be included in that category by any Christian, and if the omission of such terms of respect should appear harsh or offensive to any serious Musselman, (which I believe to be the case), there surely is a strong ground for introducing them. APPENDIX, (3l) I ought to have mentioned that it is written in an easy flowing style, and that the sentences are not interlaced one within the other in that perplexing manner which is exem- plified by every Jirman or buyuruldi. What I have read, I compared with the Greek, and it appeared close and faithful. June 6, 1823. I am much pleased to learn that Lord Teignmouth approves of my reasons for passing a favourable sentence on Ali Bey's version. I have since I last wrote to you continued my colla- tion with precisely similar results. The objections grounded on the introduction of unusual words when more common ones might have been used, are not, I believe, entirely unfounded ; but the instances which could be adduced, are apparently, very few, and that defect might be easily remedied in a future edition. The style of the version is neat and extremely easy without being low or vulgar, a fault, which as I before re- marked to you, is less pardonable in the estimation of a Turk than in that of an Englishman. I may also add that Persian words are perhaps too often introduced ; but that was the fashion in Ali Bey's time ; and the Insha's or Formularies for Letters, &c. of that age are now considered as improper models of style, solely because they abound in phrases borrowed from the Persian, while the Arabic has been the learned language most in vogue for the last fifty years. It also appears true that a greater variety of words to express the same idea, has been used by the translator than by the original writers; but this has been done in our own authorized version without exciting any animadversions, and surely unless obscurity or perversion of the sense is occasioned, it need not be condemned as a serious defect. (32) APPENDIX. Oct. 24, 1823. As far as I am able to judge, AH Bey's translation appears remarkable for correctness, precision and even elegance of diction, when compared with the old version by Seaman. This was the opinion which I formed on my first examination of it, as I believe I mentioned to you on former occasions, and I have seen little reason to alter that opinion, on further in- spection. It gives me, therefore, no small satisfaction to find that my own views of the work are borne out by the tes- timony of such great authorities as De Nerciat and Jaubert. The former I have long known by reputation, as a man of eminent ability and peculiarly well acquainted with the Turk- ish language; and I received my information from those whom I know by experience to be competent judges. M. Jaubert has given very satisfactory evidence of his talents and familiar acquaintance with Turkish literature, by his publications; and both have passed many years in the East, where their official duties required an habitual intercourse with Turks of different ranks, and such an intimate acquaintance with their language, as in Europe (Constantinople excepted) could not possibly be attained. I shall be excused for mentioning these facts, which are pro- bably already well known to the Committee, as they will serve to show why I think it right to lay so much stress upon the tes- timony of these gentlemen as to the character of Ali Bey's ver- sion. M. Bianchi ought, I believe, to be ranked with them, as having enjoyed the advantage of a long residence at the Porte ; and all the other names stand high in the records of Oriental Literature ; most of the Professors having given very substan- tial proofs of their accurate knowledge of the Turkish, as well as other Eastern languages. APPENDIX. (33) Oct. 28, 1823. I hope the short extracts which I now add, will serve at least to shew that Ali Bey was tolerably faithful. I scarcely ever looked at the Greek, because my object was to ascertain the meaning of the Turkish, but when I did, I had occasion to admire Ali Bey's exactness. Translations from Ali Bey's Turkish Version, enclosed in the above letter. Matt. i. 20. 20 And while he was pondering upon this (matter), lo ! the angel of the Lord appeared unto him in a dream, and said unto him, O Joseph thou son of David ! Fear not to take thy wife Mary, for that which is conceived within her is from the 21 Holy Ghost : and she shall bring forth a son whom thou shalt name Jesus, for he shall deliver the people from their sin. Matt. iii. l6, 17- 16 And as the Lord Jesus came up out of the water after he had been baptized, lo ! the heavens were opened and he saw the Spirit of God descending upon him like a dove ; and 17 lo ! a voice came from heaven, and said, " This is my be- loved Son in whom I am well pleased." Matt. xi. 2—6. 2 At that time John, having heard in prison, the works of Christ, sent two of his disciples, to say unto him ; Art thou 3 he that should come, or do we expect another ? The Lord 4 Jesus also answered and said unto them ; Go and relate unto John that which ye have seen and heard : the blind see, the 5 paralytic walk, the lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the 6 dead live, and they preach the Gospel unto the poor: and how blessed is he who doubteth not in me ! Matt. xi. 9, 10. 9 But what did ye go to see ? A prophet .'' Verily, I say unto 10 you, more than a prophet. For this is he concerning whom it is written, Lo ! I send my Apostle before thy face that he may smooth thy path before thee. c (34) APPENDIX. Matt. xi. 28, 29, 30. 28 Oh ! all ye that are weary and laden ; come unto me and 29 I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble of heart, ye shall find 30 rest for your souls ! For my yoke is easy and my burden is light. Mark viii. 29—33. 29 And he said unto them. Oh ye ! who do ye say that I am ? 30 and Peter answered and said. Thou art the Christ. And he 31 forbade them to tell this concerning himself unto any man. Then began he to teach them that the Son of man must suffer many things and be rejected by the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be put to death, and after three 32 days be raised to life again. And these things he said openly, and Peter having taken him apart, began to re- 33 prove him; but he, having turned and looked upon his disciples, chode Peter and said. Get thee behind me O Satan, for thou hast not perceived the things which pertain unto God, but perceivest the things which pertain unto man. Mark xii. 28 — 34. 28 Then one of the scribes having heard of their contention with him and having known that he had given them an excellent answer, asked a question of him and said, 29 Which is the chief of all the commandments ? The Lord Jesus also gave answer : The chief of all the commandments is this which saith, Give ear, O Israel ! the Lord our 30 God is one Lord ! and thou shalt love thy Lord the most high God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind, likewise with all thy strength. This is 31 the chief commandment. And the second like unto it is this which saith, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. There is no great commandment besides these, (i. e. there is 32 no commandment greater than these.) The scribe also said unto him, O Master, indeed thou hast well said that God is APPENDIX. (35) 33 one, and that there is no other beside him : and to love him with all the heart, and with all the mind, and with all the soul, and with all the strength, also to love one's neighbour as one's self, is more than all offerings and burnt sacrifices. 34 The Lord Jesus also seeing that he had given a wise answer, said unto him ; Thou art not far from the kingdom of heaven ! And no one dared any more to ask questions of him. Mark xvi. 1 — 7. 1 Then, when the Sabbath-day was past, Mary Magdalene and the other Mary the mother of James, and Salome, having bought spices in order to anoint the Lord Jesus, 2 came thither to the sepulchre betimes in the morning, on 3 the first day of the week before sun-rise ; and were say- ing the one to the other. Who shall roll the stone away for 4 us from the mouth of the sepulchre ? Then having looked, they saw that the stone had been rolled away ; for it was 5 very great. And as they entered into the sepulchre, they saw a young man who was sitting on the right side, clothed 6 in white garments; and they were afraid. He also said unto them. Fear not! Ye are seeking Jesus of Nazareth rvho was crucified but hath been again brought to life; he is not here. Lo ! this is the place where they laid him : 7 But go, tell Peter and his disciples, he goeth before you into Galilee, as he said unto you, that ye should find him there. John iii. 14 — 17- 14 And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so 15 must the Son of man likewise be lifted up ; that he who 16 believeth in him should not perish but live eternally. For the most high God hath so loved the world, that He gave his only begotten Son that he who believeth in him should 17 not perish but live eternally. For the most high God sent not his only Son into the world that he should judge the world, but to the end that the world through him might find deliverance. {36) APPENDIX. Rom. iv. 18—25. 1 8 That Abraham who, having hoped when there was no cause of hope, believed that he should be the father of many nations as it had been said unto him; " Of thy seed thus 19 shall it be :" and, not being weak in faith, also counted not his own body to be as it were dead, he being an hundred years old, neither did he consider the womb of 20 Sarah which was dead likewise : and he did not, through want of faith, entertain any doubt of this promise, but being strengthened by faith, gave praise and glory to Al- 21 mighty God. And he knew certainly that the Lord of Truth is able to perform the promise which he hatli made. 22 Therefore was his Faith counted in the place of Righte- 23 ousness. Thus it was not written that it was reckoned 24 unto him, for him alone ; but for our sakes likewise, to whom it will also be reckoned ; to us who believe in him 25 who raised our Lord, the Lord Jesus, from the dead : That Lord Jesus who for our sins was delivered up unto death, and was afterwards for our justification raised unto life again. Rom. ix. 6 — 17- 6 In fine it cannot be that the word of God should fall to the 7 earth. For all they who are from Israel are not Israelites ; and though they be of the seed of Abraham, they ai'e not all sons; but it is written: In Isaac shall thy seed be 8 named. That is : Not they who are sons according to the flesh, are the sons of God, but the sons of the promise shall 9 be counted a seed. For the word of the promise Avas this ; Even in this season will I come, and Sai'ah shall bear a son. 10 And not for Sarah alone, but also for Rebecca did it thus come to pass, for she likewise was with child by one our 11 father Isaac. For before that they were brought forth and had done good or evil, that the foreordained decree of Almighty God might be established, according to his 12 will, not by works, but by him that calleth, it was said to APPENDIX. (37) 13 Rebecca, The elder shall serve the younger: As it is written, Jacob have I loved, but Esau I have not loved. 14 What shall we say then? Is there injustice with the most 15 high God? God forbid! For he saith unto Moses, I am merciful on whom I will have mercy, and I am 16 compassionate to whom I will shew compassion. Thus it is not in the hand of him that desireth and laboureth, but in the hand of the most high God who sheweth 1 7 mercy : For the Scripture saith to Pharaoh : For that cause have I brought thee into being, that in thee I might shew forth my power, and that my name might be remembered in the whole earth. Gal. ii. 16—21. 16 And we, as we know that no man is justified by the works of the law, but that he is justified by believing in the Lord Jesus Christ ; we likewise have believed in the Lord Jesus Christ, that we may be justified, not by the works of the law, but by faith in Christ; for no flesh is justified by 1 7 the works of the law. But if we who seek for justification by Christ be ourselves found sinners, is the Lord Jesus 18 then the servant of sin? God forbid! For if I were to build up again the things which I have pulled down, 19 I should make myself a transgressor. For by the law, I was 20 dead unto the law, until I lived unto the most high God. I was crucified, and am living with Christ; no longer I, but Christ who liveth in me. And now I am living that life which I have hved in the body, through that faith in the 21 Son of God, who hath loved me, and given himself for me. I will not make the grace of God of none effect ; for if it be by the righteousness and strength of the law, then hath Christ died in vain. Ephes. i. 3 — 8. 3 Blessed be the most high God and Father of our Lord, the Lord Jesus Christ, who hath blessed us with all kinds of blessings spiritual and heavenly, through Christ. (38) APPENDIX. 4 As he elected us before the foundation of the world, that we might be in his presence, holy and free from blame 5 with love. For he had foreordained us, that he might, of the good pleasure of his will, adopt us as his own sons 6 for the sake of our Lord Jesus Christ ; to the praise of that great mercy by which he hath received us to himself on account of his beloved Son ; since by it we obtain 7 salvation, that is to say, the pardon of our sins through his precious blood, from the riches of that mercy that 8 hath made him to abound to us in all wisdom and counsel. Heb. X. 26—29. 26 For if after having attained to the knowledge of the truth, we shall be guilty of deliberate sin, there no more remain- 27 eth any offering for sin : but a fearful expectation of judg- ment, and the fiery indignation which shall consume the 28 enemies. If any one hath set at nought the law of Moses, he is put to death without mercy, on the testimony of 29 two or three witnesses. What think ye .'' To what more grievous punishment shall that man be liable, who hath trodden under foot the Son of God, and, having counted unclean the blood of that covenant by which he hath been sanctified, hath blasphemed the Spirit of grace. 1 John V. 1 — 7- 1 Whosoever believeth that the Lord Jesus is Christ, is born of God ; and whosoever loveth the Father, loveth his child- 2 ren also. By this do we know that we love the sons of God, when we love the most high God, and keep his command- 3 ments. For this is the love of God, that ye should keep his commandments ; and his commandments are not grievous. 4 For whatsoever cometh of God, overcometh the world ; and the victory which overcometh the world is this, our faith. 5 Who is there that overcometh the world, but he who believ- 6 eth that the Lord Jesus was the Son of God ? This is he who cometh by water and by blood, that is Jesus Christ, not by APPENDIX. (39) water only, but by water and by blood ; and the Spirit 7 beareth witness unto us, and the Spirit is truth : for there are three that bear witness in heaven, the Father^ the Word, and the Holy Ghost ; but these three are also one. A Letter from the Rev. J. F. Usko, (Paper No. 20 before the Sub-Committee), expresses nearly the same opinion of the Version as the foregoing. Mr. Usko says in conclusioii : Besides, my principal attention was directed to those pas- sages wherein the divinity of our Saviour is proved by the original, and I must here mention, that according to my opinion, the principal passages, as John i. 1. Rom. ix. 5. 1 Tim. iii. 16. 1 John v. 20, &c. are translated in the sense of the orthodox church, and not according to the acceptation of it among the Unitarians and Mohammedans. To the foregoing communications may be added two more, received from Constantinople, on the subject of the Turkish Version of Ali Bey. One is from Mr. Jean Eremian, an Armenian by birth, first Dragoman, or interpreter to the Danish Legation in that city; an aged and respectable man, who has, among other works, made a very popular translation of Young's Night Thoughts, into the Turkish language; and who is looked upon as a very good Turkish scholar. The other is from Mr. Petropolis, a Greek, who is thought to have a consider- able knowledge of the Turkish language. Mr. Eremian's remarks are made on fifty-one passages, occurring in one or other of the Gospels, accompanied with the text of the Vulgate, and emendations proposed by himself^ in conformity with the text of that version. It is remarkable enough, that he has offered no remarks on the passages selected by Dr. Henderson, if we except the use of the words jJU? ^\ (40) APPENDIX. Allah taala, JUj" <_->. Rabh laala, .^kuJs- C-J-^i*- Hazrat Eesa, which he nevertheless affirms ought to stand ; because the Turks would consider the omission as shewing a want of reverence in those who should circulate the Version. He has also noticed the repetition of \Jo after X4>s>. praise, as unne- cessary; but he makes no objection to the Version on that account. We shall now select a few of his criticisms, as specimens of the rest, subjoining Professor KiefFer's remarks on them. His first critique is this : " Le traducteur apparemment pour ne pas se detacher trop de la construction du Texte, peche tres souvent contre les regies de la Syntaxe Turque, qui risque de rendre la phrase peu intelligible, et meme am- bique." The first example given is, Matt. i. 21, which is thus translated by Mr. Eremian, " Parce qu' il doit sauver ce peuple de ses peches." Mr. Kieffer replies : " M. Eremian a reporte ici le mot ,] il au mot suivant, et le traduit par ce peuple: mais Aly-Bey dit car lui il sauvera le peuple. Ah-Bey a, a la verite, ici oublie de rendre son, et c' est ime faute; mais la faute que M. Eremian lui reproche n' est pas une." The next passage noticed is Matt. i. 19- " Tout arbre qui ne fait pas des bons fruits." Mr. KiefFer replies, "Aly-Bey a mis des bons fruits, au lieu du singulier de bon fruit, cette faute ne me paroit pas bien grave, et n'altere pas le sens." The next critique is on Matt. viii. 28. " De hommes ayant deux demons," &c. Mr. Kieffer answers : M. Eremian a tra- duit les mots i^jl Ajte>- Sj\ par des hommes ayant deux demons ; mais il se trompe, car ces mots signifient deux hommes aifont des demons.* * It is probably from the occurrence of the word ^/^ Jin, that Dr. Henderson has charged this version as having the Mohammedan genii. The fact is, however, this word is not peculiar to the Moham- medans, it being found in all the Oriental versions made and adopted by the Christians themselves. APPENDIX. (41) For aulem and etiam, adopted in the Vulgate^ Mr. Eremian has noticed the words also, ^C>J bei?ig, as occurring in Ali Bey's Version. But no objection can be made to this, unless he had also shewn, that the passages in which they are found, require different words, which he has not done. The remainder of Mr. Ere- mian's criticisms consist, either in changing the order of the construction, in proposing words synonymous with those now in the version, or, in altering the sense to correspond with that found in the Vulgate: but, in no case, is the alteration propo- sed of any importance, if we except the first, noticed above, which has been pointed out, not by Mr. Eremian, but by Professor Kieffer ; which the Society will do well to adopt, before the version is generally circulated. The critique of Mr. Petropolis is very short. He objects to three passages only, in which, it will be seen, he has been mistaken. His opinion of the version is thus expressed in barbarous French, which, it appears, is a translation made by a boy, his nephew, from his Greek. " J'ai collationne les quatre Evangelistes et les Actes, jusqu' a la fin de Juillet. La traduction est tres bonne a I'egard de mon opinion. Le Ian- gage {dvd>]pov) Jieuri. Le traducteur ne s' ecarte point du texte de I'original." As the French of Mr. Petropolis's communication is scarcely intelligible, it will perhaps be better to give the reply of Professor Kieffer only. Matt. xi. 11. " M. Petropolis," says Mr. Kieffer, " s'est trompe en croyant que le mot j^j>- employe par Aly-Bey etoit le meme que i»jr>- qui signifie chaleur, ardeur. Le mot dont Aly-Bey s'est servi est le meme qui se trouve dans la version Arabe, et qui signifie, d'apres le Dictionnaire de Meninski, Tome H. page 570, pronum conci- dere in terram Deum adorandi ergo. Cependant comme ce mot est un peu recherche, il conviendra pent etre de le remplacer dans I'edition de la Bible Turque par une mot plus connu meme du peuple." d (42) APPENDIX. The next passage is Matt. v. 33. " Le mot ci-U*- /' says Mr. KiefFer, " qui M. Petropolis reproche a Aly-Bey comme trop elegant;, est le meme qui dans ee passage est employe par la version Arabe." Matt, xxiii. 13, 14. " M. Petropolis reproche ici a Aly-Bey d'avoir place le verset 14 avant le 13*. Mais Aly-Bey est ici fort innocent. Le reproche retombe tout entier sur moi. Ayant trouve dans I'edition du N. Testament Grec par Gries- bach qu'il avoit place le verset 14 avant le 13% j'ai era devoir suivre cet ordre; quoiqu' au fond cela soit aller indifferent pour le sens." The opinion, therefore, of M. Petropolis is favourable to the version in question, while his remarks to the contrary are totally groundless. The opinion of Mr. Eremian is less friendly than that of Mr. Petropolis, while his criticisms sanction no such opinion. It is probable, indeed, that the religion of Mr. Eremian, which is Catholic, has had a greater influence on his mind than he might be willing to allow; at all events, opinions destitute of proof, cannot be entitled to much confidence. As Dr. Henderson has thought proper to throw out some insinuations, (p. I9.) prejudicial to the character of Ali Bey's translation of the Old Testament, I have thought it might not be amiss to give, in this place, a literal translation of a very important part of the Book of Genesis, which may, in some degree, enable the reader to form an opinion on that part of the translation. Chap. III. 1. And the serpent, being more *malitious than all the * " Hinc porio," says Rosennniller on the passage, " ad malignam versutiam improbitatemque callidam tiansitus videtur factus uti Latini versutum dixerunt." APPENDIX. (43) animals* made by the Lord God, said to the woman; Hath God truly said to you, that ye should not eat of every tree of the garden ? 2. And the woman said to the serpent ; Of the fruit of the trees of the garden we may eat. 3. But of the fruit of the tree (which) is in the midst of the garden, we may not eat : God hath said : Eat ye not of it, nor touch it, that ye die not. 4. And the serpent said to the woman, Surely ye shall not die. 5. For God knows, that the same day on which ye eat of it, your eyes shall be opened, arid ye, being like Gods, shall know good and evil. 6. The woman, seeing then that the fruit of the tree was good for eating, and delectable to the eyes, and desirable for obtaining intelligence, she took of its fruit : she also gave to her husband, and he ate. 7- At that time, the eyes of both being opened, they knew that they were naked, and having sewed fig-leaves one to another, they made wrappers for wrapping themselves. 8. It being the time of the breeze of that day, they heard the voice of the Lord God walking in the garden ; and Adam and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the Lord God, among the trees of the garden. 9. And the Lord God, calling to Adam, said to him : Where art thou .'' 10. And he answered, (saying) I heard thy voice in the garden, and I was afraid: be- cause I am naked, therefore I hid myself. 11. God said to him : Who told thee that thou art naked ? Surely thou hast eaten of the tree of which I commanded thee, that thou should- est not eat.^ 12. And Adam said. The woman which thou gavest me for society, she gave of the tree, and I ate. 13. And the Lord said to the woman : What is this that thou hast done.^ The woman said, The serpent seduced me, and I ate. l-i. And the Lord God said to the serpent ; Since thou hast done this, thou art cursed above all cattle, and above all the beasts of the desert : on thy belly shalt thou go, and earth shalt thou eat all the days of thy life. 1 5. And between thee and the woman; * " Of the field" has been omitted, as hkely to obscure the sense. The same has been done by Bathe. (44) APPENDIX. also between thy seed and her seed, will I put enmity. He shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his, ancle. l6. And he said to the woman, The pains of thy child-bearing I have multiplied exceedingly : with pain shalt thou bring forth children. And thy desire shall be from thy husband, and he shall rule over thee. 17. And to Adam he said : Because thou hast obeyed the word of thy wife, and because thou hast eaten of the fruit of the tree, of which having commanded thee, saying, that thou shouldest not eat, cursed shall the earth be for thy sake : with toil shalt thou eat of it all the days of thy life. 18. Thorns and brambles shall it produce to thee: and the herb of the plain shalt thou eat. 19- With the sweat of thy front shalt thou eat bread, until thy return to the eartli ; for from it hast thou been taken : for earth thou art, and to earth shalt thou return. BS460 .T9H48 L4 Remarks on Dr. Henderson's appeal to the Princeton Theological Semlnary-Speer Library 1 1012 00081 8577