It is clear, then, that the man or men who come forward with a "corrected" version of the Testament should give some assurance to the public of two indispensable qualifications good faith and ability. A version by Tom, Dick, or Harry is a thing to be thrown into the fire by those who have no means of judging whether it be God's word or not Such a version can have no sacredness with the masses, since they have no grounds for believing it to be the Bible-the very Bible. We object to the "Common English Version Corrected," because coming to us without a single word of preface. What authority has it? Not a tenth part of our American citizens know anything about the Bible Union or the "Final Committee." What assurance have we of their good faith; and that being supposed, what proofs of their competency have been laid before us? Who are the "Final Committee" at all? Are they known, and worthy of trust, as biblical scholars ? And speaking of scholarship, another objection presents itself. The "Testament" is put into our hands as corrected by the "Final Committee." We could wish they had set forth, in general terms, in what our common and long-used English version needed correction. They seem to have forgotten that King James's version was received only upon the very highest human authority. All the learning of Europe, at least of the Protestant churches, was brought into requisition at the getting up of that version. After much consultation and consideration, some general rules for the guidance of the translators were arrived at, and sanctioned. These had to be observed, and were. Those who wrought out our common version were eminent and well-known scholars. They had, it may be said, moreover, all Europe in consultation; and the translation, when accomplished and corrected, received the approbation of the most learned divines of the Anglican and other Protestant churches. The writer of this paper is very anxious for the advance of biblical studies. We own to many faults in our English version. We should certainly desire to see them corrected. We should wish, too, that a book which ought to be so constantly in the hands of all could be brought into closer harmony of expression with modern English than King James's version is. But a text prepared with such care and learning, handed down with such reverence by our fathers, sæculorum usu comprobatus, we cannot see coolly set aside by an unknown committee without a protest. We protest against it as devoid of that external , authority, that assurance and guarantee, wherewith a version of the Scriptures should come recommended. We decline to receive it on à priori grounds. It may be good or it may be bad. Its merits or demerits we shall not stop to consider ; nor, indeed, would we presume to decide on all that is right or all that is wrong in any version. Blotches here and there we may discover in all versions; but which of them, all things considered, were the fittest to be received as a text-book in church and school, we must leave to learned divines to decide, who can speak with more authority and judgment in the matter than we. We must be satisfied of such authority ere we substitute every text for the honored one of our fathers. We cannot accept any new-fangled thing presented to us by this man or that, by a committee of New York or a committee of Philadelphia, or any other would-be judges or correctors, as the word of God. What the "Final Committee" attempted in the version before us we have no means of knowing. We have no notion of plodding patiently through a book we utterly discard, to compare it line for line with our old version. A glance, however, at the Gospel of St. John shows us that they undertook to modernize the language. How they have succeeded we have no inclination to examine. We merely ask our readers, Is there anything more barbarous, from Matthew to Revelation, in King James's, than the following sentence from the first page of that gospel: "But as many as received him, to them gave he power to become children of God to them that believe on his name?" We have now done with the Final Committee and their New Testament. To justify the exception we have made to Macaulay's proposition in favor of translators of the Holy Scripture, we would beg our readers to examine one text with us, and see how translators, for want of learning, have floundered one after another in it. Take, for instance, St. John, chap. viii., v. 25: In the Greek we find ""Elɛyoy our αὐτῷ· Σὺ τίς εἶ; Καὶ εἶπεν αὐτοῖς ὁ Ιησοῖς· Τὴν ἀρχὴν ὅ τι καὶ λαλῶ ὑμῖν.” The Saviour's answer to the question "Who art thou" is “ Τὴν ἀρχὴν ὅ τι παὶ λαλῶ ὑμῖν. Let us see what a mess our translators have made of this passage. The Latin Vulgate has " Principium, qui et loquor vobis." But what does "Principium quis et loquor" mean, or how is it to be parsed? Principium, accusative (representing τny apxny), governed how, or by what? Can any one suppose the translator of the Vulgate knew himself what he meant when he penned these words? Credat Judæus-he did not. The words "principium qui et loquor vobis," taken singly each by itself, are indeed Latin words, but, taken as they stand together, are not Latin; they have no meaning. The translator did not understand his text, and was seemingly determined to justify his ignorance by challenging his Latin readers to make out a sentence which he called Latin. The common English version, or King James's, renders the passage thus: "Who art thou? ... Even the same that I said unto you from the beginning." Though this is anything but correct, it is preferable to the Vulgate. If a false translation, we have, at least, an English sentence; it is intelligible; it means something; whereas the Vulgate is mere nonsense. This much, however, is all we can claim for the Protestant reading. It is intelligible, and bears a meaning, but whose meaning is that-the translator's or St. John's? Not St. John's, but the translator's. The interpretation was first suggested, or at least advanced, and defended by the able Jesuit commentators Lapide and Maldonatus. The latter translates "(Ego sum) id quod vobis a principio loquor. Tηv apxny, according to Maldonatus, must be taken as an adverbial expression with xara understood, and having the force of εξ αρχης or απ' αρχης, i. e., a principio, from the beginning. This were all well if it could only be shown that τnv apxηv is sometimes used adverbially in the signification of απ' αρχής οι εξ αρχης. In the first place, we observe that τηv apxny nowhere occurs in the Bible bearing such a meaning. But granted this argument would be insufficient, and that it may occur once, though no more, before such a meaning could be affixed to the words it were to be shown from profane authors that they may mean "from the beginning." But no passage of any Greek writer has yet been adduced to show that the words are capable of the meaning imposed on them in our common version. "From the beginning," then, is no more a translation of the Greek Tηv apxny than "from Calcutta" or "the Bay of Biscay" would be. or While on the subject let us point out another circumstance or two which tell against the English interpretation. St. John had frequently occasion to express the idea "from the beginning."** In all cases he expresses himself in the usual Greek formula of an' or ε apxns. Again, the common interpretation entirely overlooks the structure; the order of * See ch. vi., v. 64; xv., 27; xvi., 4, and First Ep., ch. ii., vs. 7 and 24. words in the sentence. We have not ο τι και την αρχήν, but την αρχην ο τι και, κ. τ. λ. It is ridiculous to suppose that the Evangelist,in giving a simple reply of the Saviour to a simple question, "Who art thou?" would make use of such a violent hyperbaton as our common interpretation demands. If the adverbial phrase την αρχην belonged to λαλω, meaning "I said from the beginning," the sentence would assuredly run ο τι και την αρχην, κ. τ. λ. But so it runs not. But there still remains another serious objection to the common interpretation; one so plain and palpable that we wonder how it could have been so persistently overlooked by translators. Had St. John wished to express " as I said," we should not have the verb lalo at all, but λɛy; nor should we have the verb in the present (law), but in an aorist or preterit tense. Next comes the Douay interpretation, which was adopted by the late Archbishop Kenrick, in his "Four Gospels:"* "The beginning who also speak to you." This is, if possible, still more meaningless than the Latin Vulgate. The word "beginning," in answer to the question "Who art thou ?" is unquestionably in the nominative case, whereas principium, representing τnv apxnv, must be in the accusative. Again, "beginning" is made to stand antecedent to "who," while it is evident that neither its Latin nor Greek representative is the antecedent of the following pronoun. În a foot-note to this passage the archbishop modestly remarks: "As the passage is confessedly obscure, I have literally rendered the Vulgate, and presented the reader with the explanation of St. Augustine." But we have just shown that he did not literally render the Vulgate. As to the interpretation of St. Augustine, the learned archbishop should have been aware of the fact that St. Augustine was entirely mistaken as to the Greek text, reading the conjunctive or instead of the two pronouns o and Ti. Of course, this threw St. Augustine entirely out as to the meaning of the phrase. 'In a later editiont the archbishop gives up this rendering and approaches the Protestant text, translating" As from the beginning I also say to you." Say what? The sentence is done. And such is presented to us as Christ's reply to the question "Who art thou?" Let us commend, however, all we can. We get something for the xaz (" also"), for which the Baltimore, 1862. New York, 1849. Protestant text shows nothing. For the rest, we have already proved that τny apyny does not mean "from the beginning." Still we like the version of 1862 better than that of 1849. In the former the archbishop recognises the necessity the translator-even a Catholic translator-is under of acting at times the role of interpreter. Besides, he gives up the old plea which read so stupid and faggish, and followed the Vulgate, when the world knew the Vulgate had nothing in it for him to follow. In passing, we may observe that the "Final Committee" have not "corrected" the mistranslation of tηv apxnv. They follow Archbishop Kenrick, "That which I also say to you from the beginning." * A word on a few foreign translations we have seen of this passage: The Abbé Glaire, in his edition of the New Testament, thus renders the passage, "Ils lui dirent: Qui êtes vous ? Jésus leur répondit, le principe moi-même qui vous parle." This only differs from the Rhemish in that it is a good deal worse. It has all the errors we pointed out in that version, and a clinching one of its own to boot, viz.: the introduction of the word "moi-même." Where on earth was this found? Then, what becomes of xat, a particle that certainly holds a remarkable and significant place in the sentence? De Sacy's translation is much the same. In the edition we are using we read "(Je suis) le principe (de toutes choses) moi-même qui vous parle." Dr. Martini, in his Italian version, translates in like manner : "Il principio, io, che a voi parlo." That "io" he has inserted of himself, and of himself, too, has suppressed naι, which he saw the Vulgate retain. : Dr. Allioli translates: Wer bist, du denn? Jesus sprach zu ihnen: Der Anfang, der auch zu euch redet." Like the Abbé Glaire, he manages to become a bit worse than either Vulgate or Rhemish. Besides all theirs, he has a fault over and above, all to himself: Aaλo, loquor, becomes a third singular, "redet," in his hands. In a note he gives the following paraphrase and explanation of the text: "I am the Eternal Word which reveals itself to you. The Son of God calls himself the Beginning,' not only because he is the 'Begotten' of the Father before all time, but also because he is the source of all creation (' der Grund alles Geschaffe • Paris, 1861. + Bruxelles, 1844. + Siebente Auflage-Munchen und Landshut, 1851. |