Journal: Bibliotheca Sacra
Volume: BSAC 68:271 (Jul 1911)
Article: The Golden Gospels In Latin In The Library Of Mr. J. Pierpont Morgan
Author: E. S. Buchanan

BSac 68:271 (July 1911) p. 416

The Golden Gospels In Latin In The Library Of Mr. J. Pierpont Morgan1

E. S. Buchanan

“The Fundamental Principles of the Science of Textual Criticism are not yet apprehended. In proof of this assertion, we appeal to the new Greek Text of Drs. Westcott and Hort — which, beyond all controversy, is more hopelessly remote from the inspired Original than any which has yet appeared. Let a generation of Students give themselves entirely up to this neglected branch of sacred Sciences. Let 500 more Copies of the Gospels, Acts, and Epistles be diligently collated. Let at least 100 of the ancient Lectionaries be very exactly collated also. Let the most important of the ancient Versions be edited afresh. . . . Above all, let the Fathers be called upon to give up their precious secrets. Only so will it ever be possible to obtain a Greek Text on which absolute reliance may be placed, and which may serve as the basis for a satisfactory Revision of our Authorized Version.”2

There has come about in the last thirty years a new interest in the Latin MSS. of the New Testament. The old answer to Latin and Syriac students was, “Let us have the original Greek”; and with that reply the unreflecting were silenced. But further research has led to the belief that the original Greek is not always preserved in the Greek MSS. that have come down to us, but the true text is in some instances to be found preserved in the Versions, or Translations, that were

BSac 68:271 (July 1911) p. 417

made in apostolic and subapostolic times. The most valuable of the Versions from the point of view of antiquity and of influence is the Latin Version. From the fourth century to the sixteenth the only Bible known in Western Europe was the Latin Bible. Wiclif knew only the Latin Bible. The language of Tyndale, although he translated from Erasmus’s Greek Testament, is steeped in Latin thought and Latin expressions. Our Authorized Version is in the main Tyndale’s translation with a reactionary infusion of Latin words and Latin ecclesiastical terms.

Now the Bible Wiclif translated was Jerome’s revision, which appeared first of all in the last decade of the fourth century, and which is known to-day as the Vulgate.

The Vulgate is quite an ancient recension, seeing that it takes us back across fifteen centuries; but it is possible to get behind the Vulgate. We have two almost complete MSS. of the Gospels — b and ff (or ff₂) —which are pre-Vulgate. The copies from which they were copied had not been overwritten with a single one of Jerome’s new read...