THE WONDERFUL PRESERVATION OF THE ORIGINAL TEXT.

611. Fact the Ninth — Another testimony to that Divine agency, which for eighteen centuries has guarded the scriptures of the New Testament, is the inexplicable preservation of their text.

This fact, so remarkable and so striking, has been profoundly studied, and duly established by the Herculean labours to which sacred criticism has devoted itself for two hundred years. When this new science began its work first of all among the English, in the preparation of Walton’s Polyglott in 1657, of Fell’s Greek Testament in 1675, above all, of Mill’s Greek Testament in 1707, followed by the task announced by Bentley, (1716,) of examining all the Greek manuscripts of the New Testament concealed in the libraries of Europe, in order to compare them with one another, and publish the variations, — the world at first thought that this immense undertaking menaced danger to the faith, that it would lead to unsettle it greatly, and even shake its foundations. The Germans followed the English in these extensive researches, and have since gone beyond them.¹ We know that Griesbach alone, in 1786, had collated 335 Greek manuscripts for the Gospels alone; and, fifty years later, Scholz 674, besides 200 for the Acts, 256 for Paul’s fourteen epistles, 93 for the Apocalypse, and others besides for the Catholic epistles.

We have elsewhere² treated at length of this interesting subject. “When we recollect,” we have said, “that the Greek New Testament has been copied and recopied in all Christian countries, and under the most different circumstances, during the course of fourteen hundred years; that it has passed through three centuries of pagan persecutions, when men convicted of having it in their possession were thrown to wild beasts; then, that during the second, third, and fourth centuries, lying books were fabricated; that in the eighth and ninth, false legends and false acts were multiplied; that in the tenth and eleventh, so few persons knew how to read, even among princes; that in the twelfth and thirteenth, when the use of . the Scriptures in the vulgar tongue was punished with death, and when, to propagate the error, the works of the fathers, and even the acts of the councils were wilfully mutilated; — when we recollect that scholars, not content with the public and private libraries of the West, have ransacked the convents of Mount Athos, of Turkish Asia, and of Egypt, — then we can conceive that at the beginning of these researches, the enemies of the Sacred Word might believe that by this means irreparable injuries would be inflicted upon it, and that a great number, even of its friends, might suffer distressing anxiety respecting the integrity of our Scriptures.” But what has been the result?

612. On the contrary, by these gigantic labours, on which so many distinguished men have expended their lives, a novel, splendid, and unexpected proof has been given to the world of that Providence which has watched for a succession of ages over the oracles of God. The text has been found purer and better attested than the most devout Christians dared to hope. From this mass of from — thirteen to fifteen hundred Greek manuscripts, sought out from all the libraries of Europe and Asia, carefully compared with one another, word by word, letter by letter, by modern criticism, and compared, too, with all the ancient versions, Latin, Armenian, Syriac, Sahidic, Coptic, Ethiopic, Arabic, Sclavonian, Gothic, and Persian, and with all the quotations made from the New Testament by the ancient fathers in their innumerable writings — from this mass let us say, and from these gigantic labours, our adversaries, astonished and confounded, have beheld sacred criticism return, covered with the dust of a thousand libraries, but unable, after all, to present the world with more than a paltry and inappreciable result, — paltry we will say with them, but invaluable by its nothingness we will say with the friends of the Sacred Word, and all-powerful by its insignificance.

In fact, all the hopes of the enemies of religion in this direction have been confounded, and, as Michaëlis has said, “They have ceased henceforth to hope for anything from those critical researches, which at first they had so strongly recommended.”³

And so well established is the preservation of our Scriptures from this time forward, that at this hour, over all the world, you will see all the sects of Christians, even the most opposite, give us the same Greek Testament, without the various readings having been able to form among them two distinct schools. In fact, all Jesuits, ministers, or popes, cardinals, pastors, or archemandrites, at Rome or at Geneva, at Moscow or at Cambridge or Berlin, all collate the same manuscripts, cite the same editions, and produce the same texts, Griesbach, or Scholz, or Lachmann, or Tregelles, or Tischendorf.

613. We have taken care in another work to construct tables that will give every reader the means of readily apprehending these results of sacred criticism. This is one of the subjects that require to be presented to the eye in order to be clearly understood. We shall not go over it again.

We have there shewn as an example, for the Epistle to the Romans, (the longest and most important of the New Testament,) all the corrections Griesbach has found that are capable of making the slightest change in the meaning of any phrase, and are susceptible of being expressed in a translation. And how many do you think he has been able to find in the four hundred and thirty-three verses of this Scripture after a collation of about one hundred and forty manuscripts? He has found five small and insignificant ones, which yet, according to more modern critics, (Tittmann and Lachmann,) are reducible to two, or, according to Scholz, more modern still, to three. The first (vii. 6) depends only on the difference of a letter, ( an o instead of an e.) Instead of reading “that being dead in which we were held,” Griesbach reads, “being dead to that in which we were held.” The second (chap. xi.) only withdraws as superabundant the parallel and reverse part of ver. 6; and the third (xvi. 5) reads, “the first-fruits of Asia,” instead of “the first-fruits of Achaia.”⁴

We have taken for another example the Epistle to the Galatians, and shewn that in the 149 verses of which it consists, Griesbach has found only the three following corrections, which, moreover, affect the sense only in the slightest degree. “They wish to exclude us,” reads with Griesbach, “They wish to exclude you.” For “which is the mother of us all,” (iv. 26,) read, “which is the mother of us.” In ch. v. 19, for “adultery, fornication, uncleanness,” read, “fornication, uncleanness.”

Would you wish to know, as another example, the corrections in the Epistle to the Hebrews, which contains 303 verses? The following are those which Griesbach⁵ has been able to discover in nine uncial manuscripts, 121 cursive manuscripts, eleven Sclavonian manuscripts, of which Dobrowski gave him the readings, and fifteen others, the greater part in the library at Moscow, and made use of by Matthaei in 1776. In the quotation Paul makes from Psalm viii., in chap. ii. 7, Griesbach omits the words “Thow hast set him over the works of Thy hands.” Chap. vi. 10 — for “labour of love which ye have shewed,” he reads, “the love which you have shewed.” Chap. viii. 11, for “his neighbour,” he reads, his “fellow-citizen.” Chap. x. 9 — for “to do, O God, thy will,” he reads, “to do thy will.” Chap. x. 31 — for “ye had compassion of me in my bonds,” he reads, “ye had compassion on those in bonds.” Chap. xi. 11 — for she “received strength to conceive seed, and was delivered of a child when she was past age,” he reads, “she received strength to conceive seed when she was past age.” Chap. xi. 13 — for “having seen them afar off, were persuaded of them, and embraced,” he reads, “having seen them afar off and embraced them.” Chap. xii. 26 — for “shall be stoned or thrust through with a dart,” he reads, “shall be stoned.” Chap. xiii. 9 — for “be not carried hither and thither,” he reads, “be not carried.”

In a word, as we have said, of the 7959 verses of the New Testament, there are hardly ten or a dozen in which all the corrections occasioned by the new readings of Griesbach, Scholz, Lachmann, Tischendorf, Tregelles, and many others, in consequence of their immense researches, are of any weight; and even eight of these twelve corrections consist only in the difference of a single word, and sometimes even of a single letter. We have enumerated them elsewhere, and shall not go over them again.

614. Such, then, has been the astonishing preservation of the sacred text through so many ages — such is the testimony of the manuscripts; and it is thus that the science which has collected them has exhibited to our view a magnificent monument of the ever-active Providence which watches over the Scriptures, and which has resolved to preserve with the same sovereignty the oracles of the New Testament, as it has guarded those of the Old.

615. What, then, do we infer from all this as to the Sacred Volume?

Our inference is, if it is fully demonstrated that the God of the Scriptures has watched over the text of the book, it is impossible to doubt that He has watched over its canon; for, assuredly, if there is a Providence to guard the words, there must also be a Providence to guard the books.

Such is our ninth fact; we now proceed to the tenth

1) The noble labours of Bengel, Wetstein, (of Bâle,) Griesbach, Scholz, Matthaei, Tittmann, Lachmann, and Tischendorf are well known; as well as the recent labours of the excellent and learned Dr Tregelles, (see his Account of the Printed Text of the Greek New Testament, London, 1854.) In the Prolegomena of his seventh edition of the New Testament, (1858,) Tischendorf has reprinted the Plan of Bentley’s projected researches.

2) Theopneustia, chap. iv., sect. 8, pp. 164-197. (Scott's translation.)

3) Vol. ii, p. 266. See also pp. 467-479.

4) Dr Tregelles, on his recent visit to Rome, ascertained the reading in chap. v. 1 in the Vatican manuscript to be ἔχωμεν, instead of ἔχομεν. Instead of “we have peace with God,” it reads, “let us have peace with God.” Mill had already pointed out this reading, and Tregelles confirms his testimony.

5) We have preferred giving these readings after Griesbach to render the actual fact more significant, as he is considered by the latest critics to have accepted new readings too easily; this, however, is not the opinion of Tischendorf.

In addition, a just idea of the effect of the various readings on the sense of the text may be formed by consulting the interesting translation which M. Rilliet has made of the precious manuscript of the Vatican. To the version of this ancient copy, M. Rilliet has added those of the various readings furnished by the Latin Vulgate, and by the Greek manuscripts as late as the tenth century.