Essays on the Work Entitled Supernatural Religion | Page 3

reviewers with the work itself; and every unprejudiced mind must be convinced that 'the evidence is fatal to the claims' involved in this identification. Out of five reviews or notices of the work which I have read, only one seems to refer to our Supernatural Religion. The other four are plainly dealing with some apocryphal work, bearing the same name and often using the same language, but in its main characteristics quite different from and much more authentic than the volumes before me.
1. It must be observed in the first place, that the reviewers agree in attributing to the work scholarship and criticism of the highest order. 'The author,' writes one, 'is a scientifically trained critic. He has learned to argue and to weigh evidence.' 'The book,' adds a second, 'proceeds from a man of ability, a scholar and a reasoner.' 'His scholarship,' says this same reviewer again, 'is apparent throughout.' 'Along with a wide and minute scholarship,' he writes in yet another place, 'the unknown writer shows great acuteness.' Again a third reviewer, of whose general tone, as well as of his criticisms on the first part of the work, I should wish to speak with the highest respect, praises the writer's 'searching and scholarly criticism.' Lastly a fourth reviewer attributes to the author 'careful and acute scholarship.' This testimony is explicit, and it comes from four different quarters. It is moreover confirmed by the rumour already mentioned, which assigned the work to a bishop who has few rivals among his contemporaries as a scholar and a critic.
Now, since the documents which our author has undertaken to discuss are written almost wholly in the Greek and Latin languages, it may safely be assumed that under the term 'scholarship' the reviewers included an adequate knowledge of these languages. Starting from this as an axiom which will not be disputed, I proceed to inquire what we find in the work itself, which will throw any light on this point.
The example, which I shall take first, relates to a highly important passage of Iren?us [3:1], containing a reference in some earlier authority, whom this father quotes, to a saying of our Lord recorded only in St John's Gospel. The passage begins thus:--
'As the elders say, then also shall those deemed worthy of the abode in heaven depart thither; and others shall enjoy the delights of paradise; and others shall possess the splendour of the city; for everywhere the Saviour shall be seen according as they that see Him shall be worthy.'
Then follows the important paragraph which is translated differently by our author [4:1] and by Dr Westcott [4:2]. For reasons which will appear immediately, I place the two renderings side by side:--
WESTCOTT. | SUPERNATURAL RELIGION. | 'This distinction of dwelling, | 'But there is to be this they taught, exists between | distinction [4:4] of dwelling those who brought forth a | ([Greek: einai de t��n diastol��n hundred-fold, and those who | taut��n t��s oik��se?s]) of those bearing brought forth sixty-fold, and | fruit the hundred-fold, and of the those who brought forth | (bearers of) the sixty-fold, and of twenty-fold (Matt. xiii. 8)... | the (bearers of) the thirty-fold: of | whom some indeed shall be taken up | into the heavens, some shall live And it was for this reason | in Paradise, and some shall the Lord said that _in His | inhabit the City, and for that Father's House_ ([Greek: en | reason ([Greek: dia touto]-- tois tou patros]) are many | propter hoc_) the Lord declared mansions_ (John xiv. 2).' | many mansions to be in the (heavens) [4:3] | of my Father ([Greek: en tois tou | patros mou monas einai pollas]), etc.'
On this extract our author remarks that 'it is impossible for any one who attentively considers the whole of this passage and who makes himself acquainted with the manner in which Iren?us conducts his argument, and interweaves it with texts of Scripture, to doubt that the phrase we are considering is introduced by Iren?us himself, and is in no case a quotation from the work of Papias [5:1].' As regards the relation of this quotation from the Fourth Gospel to Papias any remarks, which I have to make, must be deferred for the present [5:2]; but on the other point I venture to say that any fairly trained schoolboy will feel himself constrained by the rules of Greek grammar to deny what our author considers it 'impossible' even 'to doubt.' He himself is quite unconscious of the difference between the infinitive and the indicative, or in other words between the oblique and the direct narrative; and so he boldly translates [Greek: einai t��n diastol��n] as though it were [Greek: estai] (or [Greek: mellei einai]) [Greek: h�� diastol��], and [Greek: eir��kenai ton Kurion] as though