Essays on the Work Entitled Supernatural Religion | Page 5

the earlier passages in his work.
These two examples have been chosen, not because they are by any
means the worst specimens of our author's Greek, but because in both
cases an elaborate argument is wrecked on this rock of grammar. If any
reader is curious to see how he can drive his ploughshare through a
Greek sentence, he may refer for instance to the translations of
Basilides (II. p. 46) [8:1], or of Valentinus (II. p. 63) [8:2], or of Philo
(II. p. 265 sq) [8:3]. Or he may draw his inferences from such
renderings as [Greek; ho logos edêlou], 'Scripture declares,' [8:4] or
[Greek: kata korrês propêlakizein], [8:5] 'to inflict a blow on one side';
or from such perversions of meaning as 'did no wrong,' twice repeated
[8:6] as a translation of [Greek: ouden hêmarte] in an important passage
of Papias relating to St Mark, where this Father really means that the
Evangelist, though his narrative was not complete, yet 'made no
mistake' in what he did record.
Nor does our author's Latin fare any better than his Greek, as may be
inferred from the fact that he can translate 'nihil tamen differt
credentium fidei,' 'nothing nevertheless differs in the faith of believers,'

[8:7] instead of 'it makes no difference to the faith of believers,' thus
sacrificing sense and grammar alike [8:8]. Or it is still better illustrated
by the following example:--
'Nam ex iis commentatoribus | 'For of the Commentators quos habemus,
Lucam videtur | whom we possess, Marcion seems Marcion elegisse
quem caederet.' | (videtur) to have selected Luke, Tertull. adv. Marc. iv.
2. | which he mutilates.' S.R. | II. p. 99. [8:9]
Here again tenses and moods are quite indifferent, an imperfect
subjunctive being treated as a present indicative; while at the same time
our author fails to perceive that the "commentatores" are the
Evangelists themselves. His mind seems to be running on the
Commentaries of De Wette and Alford, and he has forgotten the
Commentaries of Cæsar [9:1].
Having shown that the author does not possess the elementary
knowledge which is indispensable in a critical scholar, I shall not stop
to inquire how far he exhibits those higher qualifications of a critic,
which are far more rare--whether for instance he has the discriminating
tact and nice balance of judgment necessary for such a work, or
whether again he realizes how men in actual life do speak and write
now, and might be expected to speak and write sixteen or seventeen
centuries ago--without which qualifications the most painful study and
reproduction of German and Dutch criticism is valueless. These
qualifications cannot be weighed or measured, and I must trust to my
subsequent investigations to put the reader in possession of data for
forming a judgment on these points. At present it will be sufficient to
remark that a scholarly writer might at least be expected not to
contradict himself on a highly important question of Biblical criticism.
Yet this is what our author does. Speaking of the descent of the angel at
the pool of Bethesda (John v. 3, 4) in his first part, he writes: 'The
passage is not found in the older MSS of the Fourth Gospel, and it was
probably a later interpolation.' [9:2] But, having occasion towards the
end of his work to refer again to this same passage, he entirely forgets
his previously expressed opinion, and is very positive on the other side.
'We must believe,' he writes, 'that this passage did originally belong to

the text, and has from an early period been omitted from the MSS on
account of the difficulty it presents.' [10:1] And, to make the
contradiction more flagrant, he proceeds to give a reason why the
disputed words must have formed part of the original text.
It must be evident by this time to any 'impartial mind,' that the
Supernatural Religion of the reviewers cannot be our _Supernatural
Religion_. The higher criticism has taught me that poor foolish Papias,
an extreme specimen of 'the most deplorable carelessness and want of
critical judgment' displayed by the Fathers on all occasions, cannot
possibly have had our St Mark's Gospel before him [10:2], because he
says that his St Mark recorded only 'some' of our Lord's sayings and
doings, and did not record them in order (though by the way no one
maintains that everything said and done by Christ is recorded in our
Second Gospel, or that the events follow in strict chronological
sequence); and how then is it possible to resist the conclusion, which is
forced upon the mind by the concurrent testimony of so many able
reviewers, the leaders of intellectual thought in this critical nineteenth
century, to the consummate scholarship of the writer, that they must be
referring to a different recension, probably more authentic