The Politics of the Revised Version: A Tale of Two New Testament Revision Companies 9780567673466, 9780567673480, 9780567673473

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SCRIPTURAL TRACES: CRITICAL PERSPECTIVES ON THE RECEPTION AND INFLUENCE OF THE BIBLE

14 Editors Claudia V. Camp, Texas Christian University Matthew A. Collins, University of Chester Andrew Mein, Westcott House, Cambridge Editorial board Michael J. Gilmour, David Gunn, James Harding, Jorunn Økland

Published under LIBRARY OF HEBREW BIBLE/OLD TESTAMENT STUDIES

637 Formerly Journal for the Study of the Old Testament Supplement Series

Claudia V. Camp, Texas Christian University Andrew Mein, Westcott House, Cambridge Founding Editors David J. A. Clines, Philip R. Davies and David M. Gunn Editorial Board Alan Cooper, Susan Gillingham, John Goldingay, Norman K. Gottwald, James E. Harding, John Jarick, Carol Meyers, Daniel L. Smith-Christopher, Francesca Stavrakopoulou, James W. Watts

THE POLITICS OF THE REVISED VERSION

A Tale of Two New Testament Revision Companies

Alan H. Cadwallader

T&T CLARK Bloomsbury Publishing Plc 50 Bedford Square, London, WC1B 3DP, UK 1385 Broadway, New York, NY 10018, USA BLOOMSBURY, T&T CLARK and the T&T Clark logo are trademarks of Bloomsbury Publishing Plc First published in Great Britain 2019 Copyright © Alan H. Cadwallader, 2019 Alan H. Cadwallader has asserted his right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as Author of this work. For legal purposes the Acknowledgements on pp. x–xi constitute an extension of this copyright page. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or any information storage or retrieval system, without prior permission in writing from the publishers. Bloomsbury Publishing Plc does not have any control over, or responsibility for, any third-party websites referred to or in this book. All internet addresses given in this book were correct at the time of going to press. The author and publisher regret any inconvenience caused if addresses have changed or sites have ceased to exist, but can accept no responsibility for any such changes. A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. A catalogue record for this book is available from the Library of Congress. ISBN: HB: 978-0-5676-7346-6 ePDF: 978-0-5676-7347-3 ePUB: 978-0-5676-8521-6 Series: Library of Hebrew Bible/Old Testament Studies, ISSN 2513–8758, volume 637 Typeset by Newgen KnowledgeWorks Pvt. Ltd., Chennai, India To find out more about our authors and books visit www.bloomsbury.com and sign up for our newsletters.

In memory of John and Thelma Westcott, kindness personified

CONTENTS Acknowledgements x A Note on Sources xii List of Abbreviations xv INTRODUCTION Gladstone and the Revision of the Authorized Version Unity and Division over Bible Revision Beyond the Assessments of the Revised Version Language, Text and Identity Problematizing Traditional Theories of Translation An Outline

1 1 3 5 7 11 14

Chapter 1 THE CONTESTED PLACE OF THE KING JAMES VERSION IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY Finding the Basis of Authorization in England America and the Authorization of the King James Bible An Authorized Bible as Instrument of Unity Questioning the Authority of the Authorized Version Building Pressure for Revision The Search for New Foundations for Language Text and Translation as the Solution to the Crisis of Language

17 18 23 26 28 30 31 36

Chapter 2 PLANNING AND COUNTERING A REVISION John Wesley and Revision of the Authorized Version Herbert Marsh and the Revival of Calls for Revision Shifting the Ground for Revision The Mounting Campaign The Quest for Institutional Backing for Revision Laying the Foundational Rules for Revision

45 46 49 51 54 56 58

Chapter 3 A LAUNCH AND A NEAR-ABORT: THE WESTMINSTER SCANDAL Wrangling in Convocation Observing the General Principles Building the Diversity of Revisers

65 66 69 71

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Contents

Exposing the Divisions in the Nation and in Thought Counting Numbers, Parties and Procedures An Inclusive Holy Communion The Response to a Unitarian at Holy Communion Turning the Westminster Scandal against the Revision The Attempt to Change the Rules of Revision

75 76 78 81 83 84

Chapter 4 CONFLICTS OVER ORIGINAL TEXT AND METHOD 89 The Textual Critics on the Revision Company 89 The Westcott-Hort Greek New Testament in the Revision Company 95 Making Decisions about the Greek Text for Revision 100 The Contribution of the Revision Company to the Westcott-Hort Greek Text 103 The Revisers at Work on Text and Translation 106 The ‘Longer Ending’ of Mark’s Gospel 108 The Revision as the Mark of the Shift in English Text-Critical Scholarship 112 Chapter 5 IDENTITY FORMATION IN ENGAGEMENT WITH THE NEW TESTAMENT Cultivating Harmony as the Mark of the Revision Company The Development of Group Cohesion The Procedural Two-Thirds Rule and Cracks in Company Unity The Lord’s Prayer and Caucusing for Change The Lord’s Prayer and Disputes over Truth: The Unitarian’s Position Baptists and the Issue of Water and the Spirit

115 115 118 122 126 132 135

Chapter 6 TWO PEOPLES DIVIDED BY A COMMON LANGUAGE: THE AMERICANS Americans Troubled in the Work of Revision Revision and Nationhood Uncertainty about the Nature of American Involvement Organizing the Americans for the Revision Initial American Difficulties: The Episcopalians The Standing of American Suggestions for the English Revisers Advisers or Fellow Revisers: The Conflict of Harmony with Justice The Offence of the Revised Version Appendix

141 141 144 148 149 153 159 164 167

Chapter 7 TIME AND MONEY: THE OPENING FOR THE PRESSES Funding the Revision: The Recourse to Public Subscription Time Pressures on the Work of Revision The Interest from Publishing Houses The University Presses, Copyright and the Standing of the Americans

171 171 175 176 178

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The Contest between Moral and Commercial Claims The Presses’ Ban on American Involvement Joseph Angus and the Americans Restoring and Further Disrupting Cooperation for Revision

181 185 187 189

Chapter 8 THE AFTERMATH The Flood before the Drought Marshalling against Leaks about the Revision The Failure of Anticipated Returns for the Revised Version The Conversion of the Revised Version to a Study Bible Marketing the New Bible The Americans and the Revised Version The Loss of a Common English Bible and Its Consequences The Significance of the Revised Version

195 196 197 199 202 205 206 207 210

Appendix A THE MEMBERS OF THE TWO NEW TESTAMENT REVISION COMPANIES 213 The Twenty-Nine Members of the English New Testament Revision Company 213 The Nineteen Members of the American New Testament Revision Company 214 Appendix B THE RESOLUTIONS AND FUNDAMENTAL RULES FOR THE REVISION OF THE AUTHORISED VERSION 215 The Resolutions of the Joint Committee (the ‘Permanent Committee’) of the Convocation of Canterbury 215 The Fundamental Resolutions and General Principles to Guide the Revision 215 Bibliography 218 Index of Biblical References 231 Index of Modern Authors 234 Index of Subjects 238

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS No work of this nature can be undertaken without the meticulous conservation and cataloguing of archivists and librarians who readily assist researchers in their personal quests. Some remain quietly in the background ensuring that the wheels of discovery turn; so, to those whose names I never discovered (especially at the British Library), I nevertheless express my gratitude. There are some who were at the front line of my inquiries and who professionally organized my sometimesnebulous requests and directed me in the pathways that I should go. So, to Kristin Miller, archivist for the American Bible Society when the headquarters was located in New  York, who generously gave of her time and skill to open the American Revised Version archives to me, my sincere thanks. I  am also most grateful to Peter Meadows of the Manuscripts Department at Cambridge University Library for making available to me the Robert Scott papers shortly after they had been transferred from Edinburgh. And also at Cambridge, the staff at Westcott House are due special thanks for orienting an Australian not only to the labyrinthine laneways of Cambridge but also to the intricacies of the Brooke Foss Westcott archives. To a number of archivists and librarians at the Andover Harvard Theological Library, I  give profound thanks for welcoming me on a number of occasions, each time opening up another avenue for exploration: Fran O’Donnell, Jessica Suarez and Maureen Jennings. That land of folk-tales and prince-bishops called Durham is filled with generous conservators who are rightly proud of the riches they hold and welcome those wanting to venture into their own discoveries. Sincere thanks to Margaret McCollum and Joan Williams. Above all, I  cannot express sufficient thanks to the various members of the Westcott family line who allowed me to access and publish so many items that belong to the life of Bishop Brooke Foss Westcott. They have inspired this book, given me hospitality, watched in patient anticipation for the results of my work. Alas, two members in particular, John and Thelma Westcott, did not live to see these first-fruits; but in their son Brooke they live on and it is he who will, I hope, understand the dedication of this book. Several institutions have made possible, through the generosity of grants and accommodation, the length of stays necessary to support research. So my gratitude is due to the University College Durham and its then master, Maurice Tucker, for the award of a Leonard Slater Memorial Trust fellowship, to the Society of the Sacred Mission for accommodation at Durham and the award of a Kelham Fund Grant, to the Australian Research Theology Fund for the award of a research grant and above all to Peter Francis, warden of Gladstone’s Library in Hawarden, for a series of scholarships that made possible the mining of nineteenth-century treasures.

Acknowledgements

xi

I must extend warm and grateful thanks to friends and colleagues who have encouraged (and sometimes cajoled), made suggestions and introduced contacts over the years of the gestation of this work. Some, alas, have not lived to see the result; others have just begun their life’s work and will no doubt contribute to new insights that I will not see: Jeremy Morris, Patrick Armstrong, Graham Patrick, David Hilliard, Geoff Treloar, Greg Horsley, Joachim Foot, David Cline, Peter Davis, Marigold Lamin, Donald Allchin, Beth Prior, Peter Nockles, Christopher Stray, Michael Wheeler, Peter Gurry, Bruce Kaye. To each of you I owe particular debts along the journey. To Dominic Mattos and Sarah Blake at Bloomsbury/T&T Clark, I am grateful for your patience, kindness and loyalty to the project. And last, but never least, to my companion along the way, Robyn. You know the journey because you have walked it with me, helping me to speak, to write, to find rest.

A NOTE ON SOURCES The main collections of archival material related to the two New Testament Revision Companies are seven. In the Manuscripts Collection of Cambridge University Library are held six main groups of manuscripts related to the Revision:  the letters of Brooke Foss Westcott; the letters, textual notes and draft writings of Fenton J.  A. Hort; the official Minute Book of the English New Testament Revision Company written by the secretary, John Troutbeck; letters and papers mainly directed to or from the chair and secretary of the New Testament Revision Company; the letters and related papers of the two University Presses (mainly the Syndics of Cambridge University Press); and the Robert Scott papers. The Scott papers were transferred from the National Library of Scotland, Edinburgh, shortly before I was granted access to them. They had been grouped into folders and had at the time of research yet to be individually itemized. The University Library Manuscripts Collection also houses the archives of the British and Foreign Bible Society which includes some items related to the Revision. The British Library holds two sets of volumes of notes taken by the Reverend Professor Samuel Newth. Newth called his notes ‘Minutes’ but for the sake of distinction from the official Minute-book, they are designated ‘RV Notes’ in this book. Newth transferred the ‘Rough Copy’ volumes, taken in the course of the New Testament Company meetings, into a neater form in 1893 during his retirement years. This re-visiting of his ‘Rough Copy’ led to additional comments being inserted into the original notes by way of clarification and correction with occasional extra material also being included. These additions were usually written on the verso page facing the recto page; the recto was the main page on which his original notes were written. The ‘Fair Copy’ remains relatively faithful to the material in the ‘Rough Copy’ though occasionally omitting some of the asides that had been written, presumably because Newth did not consider them germane to the main focus. The Westcott Family Archives are a collection of materials belonging to Brooke Foss Westcott (and some of his sons) gathered from the large number of his descendants by John Westcott over a period of time. Among a wide range of items (books, letters, photographs, original drafts of sermons and manuscripts, sketchbooks and sundry objects) were two exercise books of notes taken during the meetings of the New Testament Company. The family granted me permission to announce the existence of these two surviving volumes of what was originally a set of twenty-one books, volumes II and III of the series. A description of the contents of these books was given in the Journal of Theological Studies (2007), with an example of the detailed record that they contained. Like the pattern adopted by

A Note on Sources

xiii

Newth, the recto of the leaves of the exercise books contained the bulk of the notes. In Westcott’s case, the recto contains notes of the period of the ‘first revision’. The facing verso page contains, in the main, notes from the ‘second revision’ though sometimes also subsequent reviews of the decisions of the English Company’s work informed by the American suggestions and criticisms. The exercise books also held notes of various matters related to the work of revision, including notes taken by William Moulton for Westcott when the latter was absent from meetings. The extant exercise books cover the Gospel of Matthew, ­chapters  5–16 (with occasional lacunae). These chapters provide most of the illustrations of revision used in this book, because of the ability to correlate Westcott’s notes with those taken by Samuel Newth. The Durham Dean and Chapter Library in the Cathedral Precincts at Durham holds the Joseph Barber Lightfoot Papers. A number of these have been published over the years. The most complete review and collation of the Lightfoot Papers, including the letters and manuscripts, is found in Geoffrey Treloar’s erudite book Lightfoot the Historian. The letters from the period of the work of the New Testament Revision Company contain many insights into the alignments and behind-the-scenes negotiations related to the work of revision. There are also papers engaging aspects of the arguments about specific details of revision, such as the Lord’s Prayer. The Auckland Castle Episcopal Records are held in the Palace Green Library of Durham University. These contain further letters of and to Brooke Foss Westcott beyond those held by the Cambridge University Library and Westcott House. Many of the letters can be directly correlated with those held in the Lightfoot Papers. The American Bible Society has a very large archive of materials related to the work of the American Bible Revision Committee. Philip Schaff ’s offices were located in the American Bible Society building in New  York. The Society received the holding of these materials, other Schaff materials being held by Union Theological Seminary where Schaff was a professor from 1870. Schaff organized the various materials of the Revision Committee through the eight years of the American Revision of the New Testament and especially as he prepared the Documentary History and Historical Account of the American Bible Revision Committee. Occasionally his numbering system faltered and his classification sometimes combined items. For example, some Domestic Correspondence was included with Foreign Correspondence and there is a separate, carefully compiled letterbook. Like Henry Thayer, Schaff seems to have been particularly attentive to reports about revision that were aired in newspapers and magazines. Not only are cuttings collected but there is also an exercise book that indexes the date and type of report. Because of the ongoing tensions with their English counterparts, a series of printed documents was prepared that combined letters between the two Committees and with the University Presses on various subjects. The Minutebook of Committee and Subcommittee meetings is found here, along with detailed items related to Andrew Taylor’s work in the Finance Committee. However, it should be noted that Schaff ’s organization of Revision materials also prompted

xiv

A Note on Sources

an editing of the materials to be retained. For example, there are no letters from Joseph Angus in the collection from late 1875 to early 1881, even though other evidence indicates that there was no hiatus in his correspondence; and there is no evidence in the collection of the accusations of literary piracy leveled at Schaff and Matthew Riddle. Moreover, the detailed printed sheets of the first, second and subsequent revisions along with suggestions and criticisms are not included in this collection. The Andover-Harvard Theological Library holds two substantial collections of archives related to the Revised Version in the papers of Henry Thayer and Ezra Abbot. Both contain the critical documents missing from the American Bible Society archives, that is, the variety of printed draft revisions and the meticulous records of American decisions regarding criticisms and suggestions. In addition there are personal records and notes in preparation for revision meetings and notes on the meetings themselves. There are also substantial notes on meetings related to the formulation of the American Appendix of readings for the published Revised Version of the New Testament. Henry Thayer’s papers also include much of the detail related to the work of the Revision Committee subsequent to 1885 until the publication of the American Standard Edition in 1901. Of particular value is a holding in the Rare Books collection of the development of the ‘re-revision’ of the Revised Version, with the addition of multiple cross-references. This working copy is the manuscript for the American Standard Edition. There are of course important collections of manuscripts held at other repositories that include items of value for research into the Revised Version. There are letter collections that include references to the work of revision (as in the Macmillan and Gladstone Correspondence at the British Library), documentary evidence related to the Delegates of Oxford University Press held at Oxford, or printings of draft revisions (such as at Emory University) or the Westcott-Hort draft Greek text (held in several manuscript collections of Cambridge colleges). It is my hope that this first book-length study of the Revised Version, which concentrates on the New Testament revision, will prompt the surfacing of further materials related to the overall work of the revision of 1870–85. And further, it is my hope that the research that deepens our appreciation of significant moments in the history of Bible translation will find in this particular field and period a fertile ground for analysis and reflection.

ABBREVIATIONS ABRC ABS ACER AEH AeJT AHTLA ATL AV BFQR BL CHRC CornRO CRO CUL DDC EQ ETL HBT HC IJCT JAS JBR JECS JRH JTS KJB KJV LDJHN LPL MA Mou NIV NRSV OTE PTL RSV RV

American Bible Revision Committee American Bible Society Auckland Castle Episcopal Records (Durham University Library, Palace Green) Anglican and Episcopal History Australian eJournal of Theology Andover-Harvard Theological Library Archives Adelaide Theological Library Authorized Version British and Foreign Quarterly Review British Library Church History and Religious Culture Cornwall Record Office Cheshire Record Office Cambridge University Library Durham Dean and Chapter Library Evangelical Quarterly Ephemerides Theologicae Lovanienses Horizons in Biblical Theology Haverford College Archives International Journal of the Classical Tradition Journal of Anglican Studies Journal of Bible and Religion Journal of Early Christian Studies Journal of Religious History Journal of Theological Studies King James Bible King James Version The Letters and Diaries of John Henry Newman, edited by Ian Ker et al. (31 vols; Charlottesville, VA: InteLex Corp, 1995) Lambeth Palace Library Methodist Archives, Moulton Collection (University of Manchester, John Rylands Library) New International Version New Revised Standard Version Old Testament Essays Pitts Theological Library Revised Standard Version Revised Version

xvi SJCL SJT TC TCC TR TRHS WFA WHA

Abbreviations St John’s College Library, Cambridge Scottish Journal of Theology TC: a Journal of Biblical Textual Criticism Trinity College, Cambridge Textus Receptus Transactions of the Royal Historical Society Westcott Family Archives Westcott House Archives

I N T R O DU C T IO N

William Gladstone was Liberal member in the House of Commons, four times Prime Minister of England and the Grand Old Man shaping the political debates over manifold issues for a proud, nineteenth-century nation. He was also a bibliophile and churchman. His legacy of thousands of books and a building to house them thrives in the library bearing his name in the hamlet of Hawarden in North Wales. The eminence of his public office and his renowned literary interests attracted many an author or publisher to send a copy of their latest production for his notice. His diary entries and prolific pencil notations in the books themselves1 demonstrate that his reading rose above some postured public relations exercise designed to display the prowess of his awareness of contemporary affairs.

Gladstone and the Revision of the Authorized Version One forgettable work by an overly ambitious controversialist gained a brief audience. The title flagged the rhetoric of the entire work: Should the Revised New Testament Be Authorised? Gladstone pencilled his answer on the front page: ‘NO!’.2 This emphatic negation distilled his attitude to the May 1881 release of the Revised New Testament. He was more expansive in a letter to the publisher, John Murray, though he carefully marked the communication as ‘Private’: I must not omit to send you more than formal thanks for the gift of Mr Beckett’s able book. The calamity (I cannot use a weaker word) which it was written to avert is I trust no longer impending; undoubtedly he has given us an additional 1.  The fourteen volumes of the Gladstone Diaries are littered with references to, sometimes notes upon books that had come to Gladstone’s notice. His annotations on his books and other literature have been collated and are now available through the online ‘GladCat’ catalogue of Gladstone’s Library in Hawarden. 2. Sir Edmund Beckett, Should the Revised New Testament Be Authorised? (London: John Murray, 1882); the call number is WEG/B 15.7/BEC. Beckett was then Chancellor of the Diocese of York, a noted architect and canon lawyer, whose expertise did not transfer to his literary accomplishments.

2

The Politics of the Revised Version security against it. The English nation, while they retain their senses, never can assent to such a substitution as this. The revised version cannot be corrected; the work will have to be begun anew on other principles; & the good work will have to be picked up out of the mass of trashy alterations. Such is my surmise.3

Gladstone’s appeal to the ‘English nation’ had become for him a profitable investment. His remarkable win of the seat of Midlothian in 1880 had been factored on a calculated appeal to ‘the people’, that is, a deliberate strategy to make ordinary folk a recognized part of political life.4 Inevitably, his electoral success cemented his own position as ‘the people’s William’.5 Consequently, his own conservative leanings in regard to the Church and its treasures – the Book of Common Prayer and the Authorized Version – became amplified as the preferences of the populace.6 Significantly, Gladstone shifted from his cover-page negative to a positive ‘Yes’ next to Beckett’s assertion that a committee of Convocation should have reported to its delegating body and to the public on the ‘alterations in the Greek text’ that were being employed.7 Political accountability to the public was, it seems, seamlessly transmogrified into demands for the accountability of ecclesiastical bodies  – at least as far as Gladstone’s objectives on this issue were concerned. Many of the New Testament Company of revisers held political allegiances at some remove from Gladstone’s liberalism. They understood the role of the public more in terms of untutored folk who were the necessary recipients of education 3. Gladstone to J. Murray 23/1/1882 (H. C. G. Matthew, The Gladstone Diaries Vol X Jan 1881–June 1883 [Oxford: Clarendon, 1990], 200). Beckett was criticized for his ‘vehement and unwarranted strictures’ by others, including by those who did not favour the Revised Version; see W. A. Osborne, The Revised Version of the New Testament (London: Kegan Paul and Trench, 1882), vii. 4. J. S. McLelland, The Crowd and the Mob (London: Routledge, 1989), 3–4; R. Price, British Society 1680–1880: Dynamism, Containment and Change (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999), 289–90. 5. The magazine, Vanity Fair, published a caricature of Gladstone on 1 July 1879, with the tagline ‘The People’s William’; see generally D. Leonard, Nineteenth Century British Premiers: Pitt to Rosebery (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2008), 286–309; R. Jenkins, Gladstone: A Biography (New York: Random House, 1997), 415–34. 6. One of the revisers, Brooke Foss Westcott, regarded Gladstone as ‘intensely conservative in literary matters’. G. W. E. Russell to Westcott 20/10/1898 (WFA Russell correspondence), Russell citing Westcott’s understanding. The assessment in the correspondence comes five months after Gladstone’s death in May 1898. The letter appears to be part of an exchange between Westcott and Russell gravitating around Russell’s collection of extracts from Gladstone’s writings; see BL Ms Add 70951, f.483. 7. Beckett, Revised New Testament, 44. The assertion however is more polemical than factual. The recognition that inadequacies in the Greek text behind the AV would need to be addressed as part of the work of revision was expressly stated in the resolution of the Convocation of Canterbury in February 1870.

Introduction

3

in the greater accuracy of biblical understanding. When he had become Bishop of Durham, Brooke Foss Westcott, a leading proponent of Bible revision, addressed the Convocation of York (the gathering of bishops, clergy and leading laity from northern England) with his own appeal to the people: ‘The Revision has brought . . . the words and thoughts of the Apostles before English people with a purity and exactness never attained before.’8 The tension reflected in the appeals to ‘the people’ sometimes moved from the external world to the confined interchanges of the members gathered in the Jerusalem Chamber of Westminster Abbey or Bible House in New York.9 Little wonder that one of the New Testament revisers in England, Charles John Vaughan, singled out ‘the hectoring tone of Mr Gladstone’ as handicapping the acceptance of the revision from the beginning.10 Vaughan yoked Gladstone with the Dean of Chichester, John Burgon and the publisher John Murray as the draught horses pitted against the challenge to the authority of the King James Version of the Bible. A sensitive nerve-centre had been irritated.

Unity and Division over Bible Revision This minor artefact of a major upheaval in church and society of the 1870s and 1880s in the English-speaking world witnesses to the complex interaction of tensions that surround the national and international project that has come to be abbreviated as ‘The Revised Version’. Battles over privacy, authority, translation, national interest and more were fought out in a triangulation of the state, the church and, largely unrecognized perhaps, publishing houses. The arena of triangulated interactions was duplicated by the fateful decision to invite the Americans to be involved in the work of revision (especially significant because no one from England’s continuing colonies received the same invitation). Not only were there reiterations of English issues in the United States but the interaction of the two committees generated at times white-hot exchanges. One exasperated American reviser, Howard Crosby, incensed at the English failure to accept more than a thimble-full of American suggestions for changes to the New Testament and at the English resistance to include an appendix recognizing the reservoir of alternate readings (and thereby the serious and scholarly efforts of the Americans), declared 8. B. F. Westcott, Lessons from Work (London: Macmillan, 1901), 164. The address was made on 23 February 1892. 9. Philip Schaff was at pains to distinguish the work of the American Revisers in Bible House from the American Bible Society, from which rooms were rented. The Society, founded in 1816, had a constitutional commitment to the AV and this arrangement created sufficient ‘arms length’ for congeniality and fidelity to coexist. See P. Schaff, A Companion to the Greek Testament and the English Version (London: Macmillan, 1883), 392. 10.  Vaughan to Alex Macmillan 15/3/1882 (BL Add Ms 55113, f.78). For more on Gladstone’s role, see Chapter 2.

4

The Politics of the Revised Version

support for ‘an American biblical Declaration of Independence’.11 It became clear that the unifying slogan ‘English-speaking people’ to which appeal was made by protagonists for both Authorized Version (AV) and RV as well as a host of other causes, could not repair the fracture that had occurred in 1776. More than another century would lapse before cooperative activity on biblical translation was broached between England and the United States. The Bible’s ability to create ties between individuals, parties, denominations, nations and even across its own translations may have proved illusory, but the illusion was cultivated with considerable energy and commitment by the various players. When the Revised New Testament was submitted to the Upper House of Convocation by Bishop Ellicott in 1881 as the necessary authenticating step accompanying the public release, he waxed lyrical if hyperbolically removed from the truth: ‘the brotherly feeling and harmony that prevailed among us remained unimpaired to the very end’.12 The unity between those involved in the work of revision was repeatedly accented in public pronouncement, strengthened by reiterations of operating according to properly constituted authority and affirmations of the unbroken continuity between the various English versions, each one building on and incorporating much of its predecessor. Significantly, both for the AV and the RV, the formal rhetorical term was not ‘translation’ but ‘revision’. In 1878, seven years since the inception of the work of revision but still three fractious years from publication of the Revised New Testament in 1881, William Moulton, headmaster of the Leys School in Cambridge, and Methodist member of the New Testament Revision Company in England, concluded his History of the English Bible with a brave defence of the still in utero project. On one point, however, no apprehension will be entertained by any who have studied the constitution of the companies or the rules which guide their action. There will be no attempt to introduce a new translation under the mask of revision. The bond that has united the several versions which have successively been given to the English people will not now be broken . . . In the last century the chief aim of revisers may have been to depart as widely as possible from the severe style and simple language of the AV. The highest praise sought by any now engaged in revision is that they may be held to have removed the blemishes without impairing the excellence of our revered English Bible.13

11. Notes of the New Testament Revision Company’s discussion about ‘The Appendix’ 27/2/1880 taken by J. Henry Thayer (AHTLA bMS 672/4(4) Thayer papers). 12.  ‘Report of the Proceedings of the Convocation of Canterbury, 17 May 1881’, reprinted in (P. Schaff), Historical Account of the Work of the American Committee of Revision of the Authorised English Version of the Bible (New York: Charles Scribner & Sons, 1883), 23. 13.  W. F. Moulton, The History of the English Bible (London/Paris/New  York:  Cassell, Petter & Galpin, 1882), 223.

Introduction

5

Moulton’s efforts were far from isolated, but it was clear from the initiation of the project in 1870 to the publication of the New Testament Revision in 1881 and the Old Testament Revision in 1885 that conflict, caucusing and dissent ran deeply through the project. There was rancour enough that the revision attracted in the public sphere, and it was anchored especially to the New Testament Company. Newspaper articles, private and public letters, florid essays and analyses sharply attacked the involvement of various denominations (most especially Unitarians), the contamination by American English, the reliance upon an eclectic Greek text (instead of the Textus Receptus) as the foundation for decision-making about the revision of the AV, and the commitment to a literal exactitude (rather than a poetic/liturgically informed sensitivity) in translational judgements. All these were laced with repeated claims upon the Almighty and/or his devotees. These public criticisms find a place in this book. But the contests and contentions behind the veil of unity and congenial collaboration demonstrate that much more was at stake than simply the search for agreement about how to best render a Greek word or phrase into accurate English, as informed by the traditions of the AV and its predecessors. The hidden disputes, sequestered in notebooks, letters, private printings, even vows of silence, restrictive commercial contracts and legal threats reveal that the process of translation was invested with multiple layers of competition for desired outcomes. This competition was fed by values and interests that were as much about the identity and commitments of one or more revisers (and other stakeholders) as about concern for the final product. The Bible was not esteemed in and of itself. Its importance, even its sanctity, was tied to the concerns of those who handled it. And sometimes those concerns were only able to be named in the privacy of Revision meetings when a dismantling of deeply held commitments and aspirations was felt to be chillingly imminent.

Beyond the Assessments of the Revised Version Accordingly this book is not an assessment of the RV itself. Modern evaluations abound:  Frederick Grant called the result ‘a schoolboy’s “pony” ’14; similarly David Norton judged it as ‘over-constrained by the pressures of literalism’15; Josh Marsh dubbed it the ‘ultimate desacralisation of “bible English” ’16; Michael Wheeler depreciated it as ‘something of a flop’,17 though whether this last 14. F. C. Grant, Translating the Bible (Edinburgh: Thomas Nelson, 1961), 92. 15. D. Norton, ‘The Revised Version of the Bible’, in The Oxford Dictionary of Literary Translation Vol 4: 1790–1900, ed. P. France (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006), 456. 16.  J. Marsh, Word Crimes:  Blasphemy, Culture and Literature in Nineteenth-Century England (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1998), 256. 17. M. Wheeler, ‘Ruskin and His Contemporaries Reading the King James Bible’, in The King James Bible after 400 Years: Literary, Linguistic, and Cultural Influences, ed. H. Hamlin and N. W. Jones (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010), 239.

6

The Politics of the Revised Version

judgement runs to language, profits or displacement of the AV is not quite clear. Such assessments basically reiterate criticisms that erupted in the immediate aftermath of the publication of the Revision. A  generation after the release of the RV, a disturbing evaluation was printed as a letter to the editor of The Times, disturbing in the sense that the grave of Brooke Foss Westcott (one of the revisers), centrally located in the chapel of Bishop Auckland, must have creaked and cracked in annoyance. The correspondent was none other than Westcott’s eldest son, Frederick Brooke Westcott. What he lacked in his father’s visionary creativity he made up for in the arrogance of hindsight. After lamenting the bloated size of the company as ‘calamitously’ handicapping ‘successful literary results’, he argued that two self-imposed guidelines determined the ‘laborious version’, fatally wounding its chance of success against the AV. The first stricture was ‘the determination to represent one Greek word (in all places) by one English’; the second was the constraint caused by ‘grammatical prejudices’ about Greek tenses, particularly the aorist.18 He also noted the mistiming of the project in light of the flood of papyri into scholarly notice shortly after publication of this Bible. The evidence changed the assessment of the ‘type of Greek in which the Scriptures were written’.19 It was one sonorous pronouncement of the demise of the RV among many. Such assessments might explain why this Revision has

18. The same criticisms had been levelled by J. J. S. Perowne, the Dean of Peterborough Cathedral:  ‘The Revised Version of the New Testament’, The Contemporary Review 40 (July 1881):  151–68. Perowne was a member of the Old Testament Company, whose work of revision continued on past the publication of the New Testament. There had been some lively exchanges between the two companies over guidelines for the revision, most especially as they touched on Old Testament passages cited in the New Testament. Perowne had already written the substance of his criticisms in private to the chair of the New Testament Company, Bishop Charles John Ellicott, in 1877. His willingness to go public in The Contemporary Review hints at the tensions that existed among members of the Revision Companies. (Perowne to the Bishop of Gloucester and Bristol 12/12/1877; CUL Ms Add 9739 folder 7, Robert Scott papers); the Congregationalist Samuel Newth made a note of Perowne’s ‘dissatisfaction with some portions of our work’ (‘RV Notes’ 17/11/1877, BL Ms Add 36282, f.370), implying that a lively dialogue had prefaced the letter. There was a further personal edge to his criticism: Westcott was then canon of Peterborough and had led considerable reforms of cathedral practices and administration, often to Perowne’s chagrin. Lightfoot had beaten Perowne in the bid for the Lady Margaret Professorship at Cambridge when Perowne saw the numbers against him. Perowne retreated from Cambridge to the position at Peterborough (see Lightfoot to Westcott ACER 3.13, file 3 [1875]; DDC Lady Margaret Professorship Letters). 19. F. B. Westcott to the Editor, The Times 22/3/1912. There had even been a criticism that the classically trained learned revisers had produced a tome reflecting Atticist idiom! See W. G. Rutherford, St. Paul’s Epistle to the Romans:  A New Translation with a Brief Analysis (London: Macmillan, 1900), x, xi.

Introduction

7

become all but invisible in some scholarship about the Bible in the nineteenth century.20 One can see in these contemporary and modern critiques, the discrediting of the literal equivalence philosophy of translation, and, among some, a hankering after the aesthetic quality that was and is felt to imbue the AV. But both cases – that of formal equivalence, and that of aesthetic preference – reflect the entwined result of a complex aggregation of values, decisions about the future of church and nation, and commitments delineating the grouping(s) to which an individual is aligned. For all the assessment of the unwieldy literalism of the New Testament in the RV, behind the published product lay an ongoing competition between the philological and poetic sensibilities of England’s two universities.21 Cambridge certainly had an asymmetrical influence in the company compared to Oxford,22 and the RV was a display-case for the forensic scholarship of the former. William Sanday pinned it thus: ‘At Cambridge, scholarship is more exact and close; at Oxford, it is looser but has in it larger affinities with general literary culture.’23 Perhaps, writing from the new University of Durham, Sanday could afford to be perceptive, though he would, before the Old Testament Revision had been released, be awarded a chair at Oxford.

Language, Text and Identity Erving Goffman long ago recognized that language (even the language of a translation of sacred scripture) becomes a most important player in the 20. Such as T. Larsen, A People of One Book: The Bible and the Victorians (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011) – one fleeting aside (132); Hamlin and Jones’ collection The King James Bible after 400 Years managed three (36, 165, 239); D. Lawton, Faith, Text and History: The Bible in English (New York: Harvester Wheatsheaf, 1990), no mention; P. T. Marsh, The Victorian Church in Decline: Archbishop Tait and the Church of England 1868– 1882 (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1969), one passing reference (249); P. D. Hanson, A Political History of the Bible in America (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 2015), no reference in nearly 700 pages, a particular curiosity given that Philip Schaff and his band of American revisers were particularly concerned to contribute to the mode and standing of American biblical interpretation through the new version. 21.  See D. J. Delaura, ‘Matthew Arnold and John Henry Newman, The “Oxford Sentiment” and the Religion of the Future’, Texas Studies in Literature and Language 6 (1965): 571–702; A. H. Cadwallader, ‘Male Diagnosis of the Female Pen in Late Victorian Britain: Private Assessments of Supernatural Religion’, JAS 5 (2007): 69–88. 22. Samuel Hemphill allocates the ratio by training as 13 to 5, though not all Cambridgetrained men were adept in the new philological emphasis just as non-Oxbridge-trained men (such as Moulton) could readily accept it. See S. Hemphill, A History of the Revised Version of the New Testament (London: Elliot Stock, 1906), 111. 23. W. Sanday, ‘The Revised Version of the New Testament: The Style’, The Expositor (2nd Series) 3.4 (1882): 249.

8

The Politics of the Revised Version

subtle business of asserting a position for an individual or group within society.24 When this is narrowed to the admission of a minority identity, as with the inclusion of ‘Nonconformist’ members in the Companies for the Revision of the Old Testament and New Testament, the involvement of such individuals requires their underlying embrace of the dominant influence, in the anticipation that this will afford some gains for the minority group. This is already shown above in the publication of the Methodist, William Fiddian Moulton, who readily resiled to the Established Church’s resolution to defend the work to which he was whole-heartedly committed. It became personified in the friendship between Moulton and Westcott, with Moulton, on the occasion of the release of his Concordance to the Greek Testament in 1897, sending a copy to his colleague in ‘gratitude’ for the ‘guidance, help and friendship’ he had received.25 As we shall see, there were significant gains made by the Unitarians through their membership on the New Testament Company in the person of G.  Vance Smith in England and Ezra Abbot in the United States, as much in terms of recognition as in the influence exerted on the text and marginalia incorporated into the Revision. Vance Smith along with many of his fellowrevisers composed a volume in support of the RV that followed on the heels of its publication. He noted a number of passages in the revision that were more supportive of the Unitarian position.26 He concluded with an optimistic appeal to the twin arbiters of nineteenth-century intellectual life: ‘[I]‌n the light of advancing science and historical research the unlovely dogmatic temper will gradually cease to exist, or be ashamed to show itself.’27 At the macro level, the place of the Established Church within English society and in relation to parliamentary government was judged by many to be under threat. There were rumours of disestablishment (as had recently happened for the Irish Anglican Church in 1869), constantly fuelled by notices of episcopal extravagance if not profligacy. The satirical bite of Punch regularly set upon the church’s hind quarters in this regard. One cartoon of Episcopus Vastator, captioned an entomologically cast bishop, as ‘peculiarly remarkable for the damage it does to the cloth . . . It often commits great ravages on Church property, which it 24. E. Goffman, Stigma: Notes on the Management of Spoiled Identity (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1963), 32–39; Encounters (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1972), 28. 25. Moulton to Westcott 30/4/1897 (ATL letter accompanying the book). For Westcott’s reply, see Westcott to Moulton MA MOU I, 49. Moulton, Westcott and Fenton J. A. Hort had continued the work of revision into the 1890s in their revision of 2 Maccabees and the Wisdom of Solomon in the Apocrypha (released in 1895), three revisers only, rather than the large company with international collaborators. 26. G. Vance Smith, Texts and Margins of the Revised New Testament Affecting Theological Doctrine Briefly Reviewed (London: British and Foreign Unitarian Association, 1881). The texts he particularly singled out were Jn 5.4 (pp. 22–23), 1 Tim. 3.16 (p. 39), Tit. 2.13 (p.39) and 1 Jn 5.7 (pp. 44–45). 27. Vance Smith, Texts and Margins, 48.

Introduction

9

gets hold of and appropriates to its own purposes’.28 More significantly, dramatic changes in English intellectual life with the advent of evolutionary theory, higher criticism of the Bible and scientific advancement had begun to create options in belief previously beyond issue for most who aspired to position in society. But options potentially created instability. The long-standing English Bible became a touchstone of loyalty to the Crown in Ireland, an establishment facing growing debates about Home Rule. Irish connections were extremely critical of the disruption to the stabilities of English tradition and governance sacredly epitomized in the AV – disruption was a ‘luxury of emendation’ the Irish, or at least the royalists, could ill afford!29 The language of ‘crisis’ and the calls for ‘reform’ provided the atmosphere within which the sense of necessity for revision grew among the churches’ intellectual leadership.30 Somehow the removal of mistakes in the Greek foundational text and in the translation was to be a remediation that might address something of the scepticism of the age and the drift from orthodox religion. The previous approach, of bringing charges of heresy, that was attempted in the first half of the nineteenth century, had been found wanting and detrimental to the churches’ standing in intellectual life and in its preparedness for the future.31 As Westcott’s close confidant Joseph Barber Lightfoot wrote early in the process of revision, commenting on a range of issues from the damnatory clauses of the Athanasian creed to disestablishment to the decline in men seeking orders: ‘I am dismayed at the prospect of leaving things as they are.’32 Revision was interpreted by such clergymen as critical to the place of the Established Church, not only as a pillar of English society but also as emblematic of the expansive embrace of other Christian confessions within the nation. Nonconformist leaders were only too ready to foster the vision. ‘A work intended to be national must represent the nation’, wrote the Congregationalist Old Testament 28. Punch 21 (1851): 112. 29. See Hemphill, History of the Revised Version, 73. 30. Westcott frequently made recourse to the language of crisis, even turning it into the leitmotif of turning points in history. See his ‘On a Form of Confraternity Suited to the Present Work of the English Church’, Contemporary Review 40 (April 1870): 101–14. 31. The most famous heresy trial was that of Bishop John Colenso. See T. Larsen, ‘Bishop Colenso and His Critics:  The Strange Emergence of Biblical Criticism in Victorian Britain’, SJT 50 (1997):  433–58. Colenso was not the only one to feel the heat of the charge. The philologist John William Donaldson, fellow at Trinity College, Cambridge, and the latitudinarian theologian, Renn Dickson Hampden, Lady Margaret Professor at Cambridge, had earlier battled against the defenders of shibboleths. The turning point came with the publication of Essays and Reviews in 1861. The threat of heresy was thwarted and the call to deal with critical and scientific issues finally gained traction. See I. Ellis, Seven against Christ:  A Study of ‘Essays and Reviews’ (Leiden: Brill, 1980). 32. Lightfoot to Westcott 30/12/1871 (ACER 3.13.9.9, his emphasis).

10

The Politics of the Revised Version

scholar Samuel Davidson at the beginning of the moves for a revision in 1870, ‘that is, be done by men chosen from the nation at large’.33 But there was yet something larger than the national level. There was an international reputation to be cultivated. David Simpson has observed that ‘definitions of national character must be seen as rationalizations of the various political processes whereby . . . nation-states . . . were trying either to come into being, to maintain themselves, or to extend their territories and their imagined moral superiorities. Each defines itself in terms of, and usually at the expense of, the others’.34 Arthur Penrhyn Stanley, Dean of Westminster Abbey, cultivated an expansive vision of the importance of the work of revision. The English Bible was held dear across the English-speaking world; a revision could do no less than involve that world, especially a country that could also claim an ‘authorization’ of the King James Version. For all that Stanley was feted in American assessments of the Revision process almost as much as he was when he visited the country in 1878,35 there remains the sense that the issue of the invitation for American cooperation had, as one of its elements, the demonstration of the fecundity of England’s contribution to the world. He wrote that ‘this great and holy work may add another link to the friendly intercourse and communion between English Christendom and that powerful and ever-increasing offspring that it has produced beyond the Atlantic’.36 Not everyone in England welcomed the American contribution. Gladstone strongly resisted the move. At the end of the decade-long process, Punch reiterated his attitude:  ‘[A]‌s a matter of philological interest, we should very much like to know what were the suggestions for improvement made by our American cousins? If they at all corresponded to the English popular idea of Americanisms we do not wonder at their rejection.’37 The second sentence hints at knowledge of a testy and testing exchange as to the adoption, or even recognition of the suggested changes offered by the Americans. The Americans were also keen to display their national prowess in biblical scholarship. Philip Schaff, the chair of the American committee, publically held that ‘American churches have too much self-respect and sense of independence to accept for public use a new version of the Bible in which they had no lot or share’.38 This discourse took the experience of engagements with the English to gain shape. His views in private were more intense and persistent and ultimately, 33.  S. Davidson, On a Fresh Revision of the English Old Testament (London/ Edinburgh: Williams and Norgate, 1873), 144. 34.  D. Simpson, Romanticism, Nationalism and the Revolt against Theory (Chicago/ London: University of Chicago Press, 1993), 41. Simpson has Europe as the focus of his assessment but the observation has a peculiar relevance to America’s involvement in the Revision. 35. ABS Newsclippings Folder 1878. 36. Stanley to Schaff 13/1/1871, recorded in (Schaff), Historical Account, 33. 37. Punch 28/5/1881 (p. 252). 38. Schaff, Companion, 391–92.

Introduction

11

in the face of a perceived rebuttal of equality in contribution to the Revision, set in motion a distinctly American version. But for the period of the English revision, the Americans were keen to demonstrate their proficiency. One American reviser, Professor Joseph Packard of Virginia, on a visit to England in 1874, joined the English Old Testament Company for a brief moment. He wrote to Schaff that ‘judging from their discussion, our company would not at all suffer in comparison with them. Confidentially, I  would say that some of them seemed ignorant of a very plain construction in Hebrew’.39 This desire to establish a nation’s scholarly credentials in the Bible actually muted interdenominational fractions in the American Revision Companies compared to the English side of the Atlantic. It probably helped that only one Episcopalian bishop was included.

Problematizing Traditional Theories of Translation This peculiar valency of competitive interests moves the study of the RV far beyond a simple example of formal equivalence versus dynamic equivalence in translation theory. For political purposes, the revisers were loath to use the term ‘translation’ for their more-than-a-decade-long enterprise. The authorization from the Convocation of Canterbury specifically charged that ‘we do not contemplate any new translation of the Bible, or any alteration of the language, except where in the judgement of the most competent scholars such change is necessary’.40 More than 36,000 changes later,41 the semantic difference between ‘revision’ and ‘translation’ had become moot. In 1881, William Sanday had no qualms about using the word ‘translation’ of the result. His perceptive distinction between Cambridge and Oxford universities was paired with the division between ‘two competing theories of translation’. He described the bifurcation as between expressing ‘the full force and meaning of every turn of phrase’ on the one hand, and ‘a result which shall not read like a translation at all, but which shall move in its new dress with the same ease as in that which is native to it’ on the other.42 This 39. Packard to Schaff 8/7/1874 (ABS ABRC Domestic Correspondence). 40. Resolution 3 of May 1870. 41. The figure is an estimation that appears to have originated in The Guardian newspaper. Rufus Wendell made a more exact calculation:  18,358 words changed by a substituted rendering of the Received Text; 4,654 words added in translation of the Received Text; 550 words in translation of additions in the Greek text; 1,604 words which translate an altered Greek text; and 222 words taken from the margin into the text; in all 25,388 words changed out of 179,914, or 17 per cent. R. Wendell, The Student’s Revised New Testament: Being the Anglo-American Revision Completely Reprinted and Exhaustively Compared with the King James’s Version (Albany, NY: Wendell, 1881). 42. Sanday, ‘Revised Version’, 249. His insights are followed by David Daniell, The Bible in English: Its History and Influence (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2003), 694.

12

The Politics of the Revised Version

neatly fits the contemporary debates between theories of formal and dynamic equivalence.43 Both theories of translation however remove the object, the translated product, from the translators and the interests they bring to the production. Umberto Eco has demonstrated that any translation is circumscribed by the ‘horizon of the translator’, that combination of constituents of a cultural context that ultimately marks the resulting work as a product of time and space.44 When the number of translators is multiplied – as in the (slightly shifting) twenty-four members of the New Testament Company and (again, slightly shifting) twenty-seven members of the Old Testament Company in England with their equivalents, seventeen and fifteen respectively in the United States45  – then there is an exponential impact on the translation. For Eco, translation is a concentrated focus of interpretation.46 The Catholic convert (Cardinal) John Henry Newman was less sanguine:  ‘The translated Bible is the stronghold of heresy.’47 Westcott by contrast considered the interpretative work was deferred: ‘We have only to determine what is written and how it can be rendered. Theologians may deal with the text and version afterwards.’48 Nevertheless, it was clear that negotiation, at times erupting into outright conflict, was as vivid to Westcott and his fellow revisers as to Eco more than a century later. The value of Eco’s characterization of translation as a dynamic process of negotiation is that the familiar language of translation studies – foreignization and domestication, comparability and commensurability, semantics and substance, double coding and literal comprehensibility, semantic equivalence and functional equivalence, modernizing and archaizing  – are turned into spectrums. They multiply interacting layers rather than provide simple synonyms of the tensive polarity of flesh and spirit. While Eco remains partly under the thrall of the dualism that he admits dominates Western patterns of thinking,49 he recognizes that at any instance of translation (from word to sentence through to genre and 43. On the debate, see R. Boer, ‘The Dynamic Equivalence Caper’, in Ideology, Culture and Translation, ed. S. S. Elliott and R. Boer (Atlanta, GA: SBL Press, 2012), 13–23; and E. Wendland and S. Pattemore, ‘The Dynamic Equivalence Caper – A Response’, OTE 26 (2013): 471–90. 44. U. Eco, Mouse or Rat? Translation as Negotiation (London: Phoenix, 2003), 143–44. 45. The membership varied with deaths and resignations. 46. Eco, Mouse or Rat, 124–26. 47. As attributed by F. W. Farrar, The Bible: Its Meaning and Supremacy, 2nd edn (London/ New York: Longmans, Green & Co, 1901), 199. The remark and its attribution seem to have passed into folklore about Newman. I  have not been able to source the quotation more closely, though it is clear that Newman was extremely careful about what materials he left to posterity. 48. Westcott to Hort 1/7/1870 in A. Westcott, The Life and Letters of Brooke Foss Westcott, 2 vols (London: Macmillan, 1903), vol. 1, 392–93. 49. Eco, Mouse or Rat, 177.

Introduction

13

context) a series of choices has to be made. These decisions are informed by a variety of factors that may include the influence of publishers and the constraints of economics as much as literary and educational objectives.50 Where Eco falters is that some translations become so influential that regardless of their accuracy or relevance (the variations on the source/target standard bifurcation in translation theory), they become embedded in the culture they have helped to shape – like Schlegel’s Shakespeare in Germany.51 Eco certainly acknowledges the ability of translations to become proactive cultural and linguistic players (e.g. T. S. Eliot in Italian)52 but he underestimates (at least here) the forces beyond the linguistic demands that need to be ‘negotiated’. These forces are apparent, for example, even among members of the Revision Companies, as in Perowne’s increasingly public criticism of the direction of the revision of the New Testament, noted above. Some inaugurating Company members resigned as the cultural affront of the revision began to smother their own preferences. The revision, for some, had become a subversion not merely of the authority of the AV, already benchmarked in the Convocation Resolution, but also of the cultural capital that the AV had come to hold in its vaults. There were some, both supporters and antagonists, who saw the revision as an attempt to destabilize the existing order of church and society, however much that ‘order’ was a nostalgic fiction. The AV, whatever its claims upon aesthetic finesse, had come to be associated by revision supporters with a blockage in the progress of humanity that was advancing at an increasing rate in the nineteenth century, a blockage that threatened to consign the church to a backwater. For antagonists, the AV was one sure anchor in an increasingly complex and destabilized world. Even with the acknowledgement that the RV was a bad translation, it actually drew attention to the disrupted forms, masked tendencies and rhetorical self-serving of the AV and its ideological reinforcement.53 The addition of marginal comments and cross-references, studiously restricted in the AV to the point of disappearance in later printings,54 only served to highlight the instabilities in original text and translation. In the second half of the nineteenth century, the Bible had become 50. See J. Rogerson, ‘Can a Translation of the Bible Be Authoritative?’ in Bible Translation on the Threshold of the Twenty-First Century, ed. A. Brenner and J. W. van Henten (London: Sheffield Academic Press, 2002), 26–27. 51. K. Reichert, ‘ “It is Time”: The Bieker-Rosenzweig Bible Translation in Context’, in The Translatability of Cultures: Figuration of the Space Between, ed. S. Budick and W. Iser (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1996), 169–85. 52. Eco, Mouse or Rat, 143. 53.  See E. Gentzler, Translation and Identity in the Americas:  New Directions in Translation Theory (London/New York: Routledge, 2008), 111–12. 54.  J. A. Naudé, ‘The Role of the Metatexts in the King James Version as a Means of Mediating Conflicting Theological Views’, in The King James Version at 400: Assessing its Genius as Bible Translation and Its Literary Influence, ed. D. G. Burke, J. F. Kutsko and P. H. Towner (Atlanta: SBL, 2013), 169–79.

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The Politics of the Revised Version

a litmus test of the at-times acidic tensions operating in English society and between England and the world in which it strode as empire. This book seeks to explore the complex intrigues and clashing values that accompanied the work of revision. It necessarily concentrates on the New Testament, primarily because much of the drive for revision came from those with expertise in that collection; indeed, there was a moment when the revision was going to be located only in the second testament. The formal initiation and administration of this Christian labour saw the New Testament as the primary authority, with the Old Testament a sometimes-troubling and inept preface. Eventually, the Apocrypha also came up for consideration but by then, a radically streamlined process, one which excluded the Americans, had been decided.

An Outline The scene is set in the first chapter by reviewing the growing momentum for correcting the AV; the intricate planning that occurred to bring about a formal decision in favour of revision (Chapter 2). Of course, more important even than the decision for revision is the selection of members (Chapter 3). The tensions over whether to include Catholics and Jews erupted with the involvement of a Unitarian scholar – not just in the revision but in the ritual inauguration of the work. It came to be known as the Westminster Scandal. In America, by contrast, the greatest initial hurdle was not set by the Unitarians but by the Episcopalians (Chapter 6). Revision effectively became translation once it was admitted that the foundational document, the Greek text of the New Testament, had to be renegotiated. The provision of a new Greek basis became the prompt for all manner of conspiratorial theories, especially when a major new edition of the ‘original’ Greek New Testament was, by date of publication and intent of the editors, tied to the release of the RV of the New Testament – the Greek edition of Westcott and Hort. The method of construction of this edition  – known as the genealogical method  – remained outside the ken of some members of the company even after publication (Chapter 4). Examples of the debates over both text and translation provide a clear demonstration of the values and affiliations of those inside and outside the New Testament Company. These gain particular attention in Chapter 5. The delay in the publication of the revision (by and large ready to go to press in 1877) masks the affront to American identity and hopes that began to surface in accusations and counter-allegations in the ongoing debates over the actual status and significance of the American contribution. In the end, the Americans stayed the course but were so damaged by the involvement that not only were energies fired to the production of two significant revisions – the Americanized Revised Version and the American Standard Version of 1901  – but Anglo-American cooperation in matters of biblical translation was effectively terminated for a century. Nationhood was to be marked by other than collegiality, regardless of the public avowals of friendship, even if this were true of individual relationships (Chapter 6). Finally, the influence of the presses, most especially the University Presses of Oxford and

Introduction

15

Cambridge, and the demands of commercial ‘realities’ take the work of Revision from the supposedly refined realms of scholarship and deliver it into the soiled and soiling hands of Mammon (Chapter 7). At every step of the way, the political negotiations are pressing and pressured. The work of revision of the AV entered an agonistic, political arena. The parties to its production were involved in an array of caucuses, alliances and betrayals. This is the story waiting to be unfolded in the pages that follow. Because much of the material that has fed the research is drawn from archives and less accessed resources, a note on the sources is included at the beginning of the book. For those who wish to have some grasp of the documents and evidence relied upon for this book, attention is drawn to that section. The list of abbreviations provides a key to the repositories, in addition to the standard journals and collections.

Chapter 1 T H E C O N T E ST E D P L AC E O F T H E K I N G J A M E S V E R SIO N I N T H E N I N E T E E N T H C E N T U RY

The English Bible known as the King James Bible, aka ‘the Authorized Version’, was neither a translation nor authorized. Stephen Prickett recognizes that the homogenization of language in the King James Bible  – what he dubs the ‘steamroller’ effect – was due to the fact that the work of the translators that became the 1611 publication was both the result of the evaluating scrutiny of committee supervision,1 and the heavy borrowing (enforced by the commissioning edict of King James in 1604) from previous translations – the Geneva Bible, the Bishops’ Bible, the Coverdale, Matthew, Whitchurch and Tyndale translations.2 In a neat twist of history, the ‘heretic’ William Tyndale left a powerful legacy in precisely the Bible attributed by name to royal imprimatur. The King James revisers themselves were keen to accent that their work was simply an improvement. One of their number (Miles Smith), doubtless aware of the muskets levelled at the work, wrote a long explanatory preface (often dropped in later printings of the text) in which full flights of forensic rhetoric defended the efforts: ‘Truly (good Christian Reader) we never thought from the beginning that we should need to make a new translation . . . but to make a good one better, or out of many good ones, one principal good one, not justly to be excepted against.’3 Nonetheless, the shift away from the prescribed benchmark, the Bishops’ Bible, and even to include reference to versions not listed in the guidelines (such as the Rheims Version – a 1.  Fifty-four translators were appointed; the number appears to have contracted to forty-seven by work’s end. A  final revision by a smaller number of supervisors selected from their ranks smoothed out remaining irregularities that may have resulted from the six committees working on allotted books of the Bible in different parts of England: two in Westminster, two in Oxford, two in Cambridge. 2.  S. Prickett, ‘Language within Language:  The King James Steamroller’, in The King James Bible after 400 Years: Literary, Linguistic and Cultural Influences, ed. H. Hamlin and N. W. Jones (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010), 30, 33. King James’ commission (probably drafted by Bishop Richard Bancroft) specified the prior translations in guidelines 1 and 14; the Bishops’ Bible was privileged above all. 3. ‘The Translators to the Reader’, Section 13; G. Bray, Translating the Bible: From William Tyndale to King James (London: Latimer Trust, 2010), 228–29.

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The Politics of the Revised Version

work of English Catholics)4 were sufficient to bring Westcott’s sober verdict ‘that the revisers did not hold themselves to be closely bound by the instructions which were given them . . . If indeed they had not interpreted liberally the license of judgment which was given them, they could not have accomplished their task’.5 Written in 1868, the words had a prescience of the revision to come – and perhaps, with that historical consciousness, a permission to sacrifice the letter of regulation to the goal of accuracy.6

Finding the Basis of Authorization in England Given the close attention to previous English versions, the language of the King James Bible already had an archaic ring to it.7 Indeed, one of the commissioning guidelines expressly charged that ‘[t]‌he old ecclesiastical words to be kept’, going on to glaze a window into the ecclesiastical politics of its own day by expressly stating that ‘the word “church” not to be translated “congregation” ’, a clear marginalizing of Tyndale’s translation, adding an ‘etc’ that was probably intended to cover any flagship terminology of the Puritans!8 Not only did this traditional tone undermine any accusation of vulgarity or subversion, but, as Owen Chadwick 4.  The use of the Rheims Version seems to be underestimated, albeit acknowledged, by Hannibal Hamlin and Norman W.  Jones, ‘Introduction:  The KJB and Its Reception History’, in The King James Bible after 400 Years, 6. Ward Allen, by contrast, holds that ‘the Rheims New Testament furnished to the Synoptic Gospels and Epistles in the AV as many revised readings as any other single version’. Translating the New Testament Epistles 1604– 1611:  A Manuscript from King James’s Westminster Company (Nashville, TN:  Vanderbilt University Press, 1977), xxv. See also G. Hammond, The Making of the English Bible (Manchester: Carcanet, 1982), 158–73. 5. B. F. Westcott, A General View of the History of the English Bible (London: Macmillan, 1868), 270. 6. Ward Allen might be cited for the claim that ‘[t]‌he annotated Bishop’s Bible, MS.98, Bois’s notes and scattered remarks about the work of King James’s translators lead to the conclusion that these translators worked according to their instructions’ (D. Daniell, The Bible in English: Its History and Influence [New Haven: Yale University Press, 2003], 439) but Allen had acknowledged the significant contribution of the Rheims. On that basis, Westcott’s judgement is supportable. 7.  D. Lawton, Faith, Text and History:  The Bible in English (New  York:  Harvester Wheatsheaf, 1990), 79–81; Daniell, Bible in English, 441–42; A. McGrath, In the Beginning: The Story of the King James Bible (London: Hodder & Stoughton, 2001), 265–76. 8.  Guideline 3.  For the full list of guidelines, see D. Wilson, The People’s Bible:  The Remarkable History of the King James Version (Oxford: Lion, 2010), 89–90. The guideline was irregularly successful. The ἐπίσκοπ- wordgroup gained ‘bishopric’ in Acts 1.20, ‘bishop’ in 1 Tim. 3.1, but ‘oversight’ in 1 Pet. 5.2 and ‘overseers’ in Acts 20.28 – a neat balancing of church and Puritan interests. The RV opted for ‘office’ with margin ‘overseership’, ‘bishop’

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so astutely intimated, it generated an atmosphere that was the aural equivalent to the architectural majesty of an ancient cathedral.9 And the aural was a deliberate artifice, with each line being rehearsed aloud before the final committee, ‘a final quality control check’.10 This Bible became beloved of Nonconformist churches in England and was the staple of Christianity in the United States. It offered a vicarious evocation of a medieval nave for those bench-bound at chapel. David Norton’s efforts to demonstrate the proximate literalism of the King James Bible to its foundational texts apply equally to the translation as it was heard and read, ‘[I]t carries the reader from here to there and from now to then.’11 The King James Bible allowed Nonconformists to forget their Nonconformity, especially given that they could hear something of their own language in the text. This investment would be crucial in preparing the seedbed of their desire to be involved in the work of revision. The Dean of Westminster in 1858, Richard Trench, deemed it ‘the chiefest [bond] that binds the English Dissenters to us and us to them’.12 It was this, ultimately, that authorized the KJB. Even though its front matter declaimed that it was ‘appointed to be read in churches’, there was in fact no convocational, parliamentary or even royal ‘authorization’. This had become the axiomatic designation brought to that Bible by successive generations who had heard that language. Richard Burridge claims that the tag ‘Authorised Version’ only entered the naming of the English Bible in the early nineteenth century, on the heels of the ‘King James Version’; the ‘King James Bible’ had emerged in the previous century.13 Such titular terminology, KJV and KJB, became possible only with margin ‘overseer’, ‘oversight’, and ‘bishops’ with margin ‘overseers’ respectively  – indicating a preference but an inability to be rid of differences about ecclesiastical polity. 9. O. Chadwick, The Victorian Church: Part Two 1860–1901 (London: SCM, 1972), 44; compare M. Wheeler, ‘Ruskin and His Contemporaries Reading the King James Bible’, in The King James Bible after 400 Years, 236. 10. L. A. Ferrell, ‘The Bible in Early Modern England’, in The Oxford History of Anglicanism, Volume 1: Reformation and Identity c. 1520–1622, ed. A. Milton (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2017), 424. 11. D. Norton, ‘The KJV at 400: Assessing Its Genius as Bible Translation and Its Literary Influence’, in The King James Version at 400: Assessing Its Genius as Bible Translation and Its Literary Influence, ed. D. G. Burke, J. F. Kutsko and P. H. Towner (Atlanta: SBL, 2013), 17. 12. R. C. Trench, On the Authorized Version of the New Testament (New York: Redfield, 1858), 175. 13. R. A. Burridge, ‘Priorities, Principles, and Prefaces: From the KJV to Today (1611– 2011)’, in The King James Version at 400, 225 n46. However, Kent Richards does claim that the King James Bible was described as an ‘authorized work’ as early as 1620, though the support is left uncited; K. H. Richards, ‘King James Version (KJV)’, in Encyclopedia of the Bible and Its Reception, ed. C.-L. Seow and H. Spieckermann (Berlin: de Gruyter, 2010), 9. David Norton credits it to one Ambrose Ussher whose unfinished, unpublished English translation was going to be dedicated to James I. (D. Norton, The King James Bible: A Short History from Tyndale to Today [Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011], 134 and n4 [read p. 598]). Ussher, a fellow of Trinity College, Dublin, had already prepared his ‘Epistle

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The Politics of the Revised Version

because of the ubiquity of its use and acceptance, admittedly after a stuttering advance into the populace. The power of such identification has not been lost on subsequent publishers however who rush to have a readily recognized label headlining their cover and readily reduced to an abbreviated tag, such as RSV, NRSV, NIV and so on, along a canyonesque production line. ‘Authorized’, it seemed, was a worthy if not authentic accolade to attach to this Bible, but the term thereby remained malleable in the hands of those who advocated it. ‘The very idea of an authorized translation inevitably involves the concept of representation’, writes the translation theorist Stefano Arduini. Something in the text that is authorized participates in the reality it describes. Language, the language of the AV, participates in sacrality.14 Authorization was formed by the cultivation of ‘Church English’, a result of the appointment of the KJB ‘to be read in churches’. Prickett calls it an ‘idiolect . . . related to everyday speech but also at one remove from it’.15 Add God to that language and the translation becomes inspired. Thomas Hobbes’ caustic tongue long before (in 1668)  had captured the result: ‘After the Bible was translated into English, euery man, nay euery boy and wench that could read English, thought they spoke with God Almighty and vnderstood what he said.’16 The hold of that language played powerfully into Gladstone’s claim upon the people. As he is reported as saying in yet another deflation of the RV, ‘You will sacrifice truth if you don’t read it; you will sacrifice the people if you do.’17 It was a fateful bifurcation, indicating that truth was expendable or impressionable in the face of popular devotion. As David Lawton tellingly distils it, and as he tellingly fails to include the AV under its ambit, ‘[T]‌he Bible that readers prefer is the Bible they wish (or wish not) to believe.’18 Language, the language of ‘authorized’ became subject to a solipsistic authority. The old anti-democratic watchword of ‘the mob’ fed inversely on such populist sentiments,19 exposing the contradiction of paternalistically claiming popular devotion at the same time as distrusting popular autonomy. It would take a bridge built with massive education and marketing to overcome the division that Gladstone had made – and the revisionists certainly tried, even as they had succeeded in bringing on revision through a well-orchestrated campaign. Ironically, the very division orchestrated in such agonistic terminology dedicatorie’, and refers to ‘our new translators of the authorized bible’. Fourth Report of the Royal Commission on Historical Manuscripts: Part I, Report and Appendix (London: Eyre and Spottiswoode, 1874), 598. 14. S. Arduini, ‘Introduction: Epistemology and Theory’, in A History of Bible Translation, ed. P. A. Noss (Rome: Edizioni di Storia e Letteratura, 2007), 191. 15. Prickett, ‘Language within Language’, 33. 16. T. Hobbes, Behemoth, or the Long Parliament, ed. P. Seaward (Oxford: Clarendon, 2010 [1668]), 135. 17. Chadwick, The Victorian Church, Part Two, 55, citing The Guardian 1890, 717. 18. Lawton, Faith, Text and History, 83. 19. J. S. McLelland, The Crowd and the Mob (London: Routledge, 1989), 91.

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actually guaranteed the eventual fracturing of the authority of authorization and would secure the multiplication of translations usually called ‘versions’ in the twentieth century, versions that operate as marks of political allegiance as much as conduits to ‘God’s Word’.20 The language of ‘authorized’ became the determinant of a group even as it was determined by that group. Already by the mid-nineteenth century, the nature of the authorization of the King James Bible was being debated. Neither royal edict nor parliamentary order could be found that would provide the reality for the assumption behind the attribute of ‘authorized’.21 There was nothing imitating Henry’s express ‘auctorysed and apoynted by the commaundemente of oure moost redoubted Prynce and Soueraygne Lorde Kynge’.22 Some pointed out that the likely archive of the documentary sanction, the records of the Privy Council for the relevant period, had been destroyed by fire.23 But such arguments from silence only demonstrate how tendentious the debates over authorization could become. Even so, there were three elements that helped to cultivate a presumption of approval and sanction from the highest authority. The first was the link between royalty and the promotion of the English-language Bible that predated the King James Version. The Great Bible, a revision of the so-called Matthew Bible (a mixture of Tyndale’s and Coverdale’s respective versions), had gained official royal approval. Henry VIII’s proclamation of 1541 deemed that ‘in al and synguler parysche churches, there shuld be provided . . . Bybles conteynynge the olde and newe Testament, in the Englyshe tounge’ but this was no blanket permission. The elaborate frontispiece of the Great Bible that was already then approaching two years in publication was self-referential and clearly displayed what was authorized. At the apex of the engraving was situated the King, handing the verbum dei to Thomas Cranmer and Thomas Cromwell who then organized the translation and dissemination of the (Great) Bible, trickling down the page to the populace. Their response was similarly and prolifically orchestrated: vivat rex, though two rustics are permitted to release the vulgar acclamation, ‘God save the Kynge’.24 The Latin 20. See P. J. Thuesen, In Discordance with the Scriptures: American Protestant Battles over Translating the Bible (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999), 3–16 and passim. 21.  Westcott, General History, (18722), 122; J. B. Lightfoot, On a Fresh Revision of the English New Testament (London/New  York:  Macmillan, 18722), 11–12; P. Schaff, A Companion to the Greek Testament and the English Version (London:  Macmillan, 1883), 330–37. The Times 10/6/1881 (correspondence of Christopher Wordsworth, Bishop of Lincoln and Lord Selborne). 22.  Sourced from W. F. Moulton, The History of the English Bible (London/Paris/ New York: Cassell, Petter & Galpin, 1882), 142. It was attached to the fourth edition of the Great Bible. 23. E. Beckett, Should the Revised New Testament Be Authorised? (London: John Murray, 1882), 1–2. 24. William Moulton gave considerable attention to the title page, said to be designed by Hans Holbein. See his History of the English Bible, 138–41.

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The Politics of the Revised Version

ensured the timbre of antiquity, carefully aligned with the divine right of kings. The political interest in the unity of the realm was yet expressed in terms of the availability of the Bible in the language that was most readily accessible to that realm. During the reign of Henry’s daughter, Elizabeth, the unity of the realm was again of paramount concern.25 The multiplicity of English versions was held to be a potential threat to that aim. Accordingly, although it was never enacted, a draft bill was drawn for the ‘reducing of diversities of Bibles now extant in the English tongue to one settled Vulgar translated from the original . . . many desire an authorised version’.26 The discourse of unity in the realm and governmental authority clearly demonstrate the tendenz of thinking, even if the bill never became Elizabethan law. When the New Testament RV was released, the prime recipient was to be Queen Victoria. At the final meeting of the New Testament Company, the unanimous resolution was ‘[t]‌hat a copy of the Revised New Testament printed on vellum, with the subjoined inscription, and suitably bound, be presented to HM the Queen contemporaneously with the presentation of the work to the two Houses of Convocation of Canterbury, and that the Chairman [Bp Ellicott] be requested to carry this resolution into effect’.27 Modes of national governance may have changed across three centuries, but the sense of continuity through such a presentation was thereby cultivated, at least in hope. Henry’s official backing of the Bible in English sent a tracer beam of authorization beyond his own time, beyond his own Bible.28 It shone its authenticating light more successfully on the James’ successor than that of its Revision. Second, when the King James Bible was published, its dedicatory preface was ‘To the most high and mightie Prince, James by the grace of God’. That the dedication remained unchallenged, that it acknowledged that ‘The Translators of the Bible’, as the preface continued, had fulfilled their royal commission by the presentation to His Majesty, generated the repair of any lacuna of authorization in the minds of readers.29 James had commissioned the work; James had received the work; and the work went forth into his realm. What more authorization was needed? 25. The connection between the Bible in English and stability in governance is accented in the lavish dedication of William Fulke to Elizabeth I in his Defence of the Sincere and True Translations of the Holy Scriptures into the English Tongue (Parker Society edn; Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1843 [1583]), 4–6. 26. Westcott, General History, x, n1 (to the second edition, repeated in the third); my emphasis. 27. Resolution 4 of the meeting held on 11/11/1880 (CUL Ms Add 9739, folder 3, Robert Scott Papers). 28. The Great Bible with colourization of the title page engraving is held at the British Library and is considered to be Henry’s personal copy. 29.  J. A.  Naudé, ‘The Role of the Metatexts in the King James Version as a Means of Mediating Conflicting Theological Views’, in The King James Version at 400, 166.

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Third, just to make sure that a sense of authority did attach to the King James Bible, the special role of the printer, Robert Barker, was designated as privileged. Not only had he underwritten the costs of the work, to the tune of £3,500, but he was granted a monopoly on the printing, confirmed in the publication of the Treatise concerning the Regulation of Printing that granted its continuation to his son, Matthew. The RV would have its own thatch of complexity in the involvement of publishing houses. Significantly, in the copy of the Bible published under the name of Robert Barker, the title page includes before ‘Appointed to be read in the churches’ an acknowledgement of the argument I have outlined in the previous paragraph. It states, ‘The Holy Bible, containing the Old Testament and the New, newly translated out of the original tongues, and with the former translations diligently compared and revised:  by his Majesties special commandment.’ The ambiguities of the phrase I  have italicized embraced the commission and the printing and the release, and connoted ‘authorization’ in one or all, without ever actually saying so. That many did say so only testifies to the rhetorical brilliance evoked by the engraving for Henry. The voice of the populace ultimately clinches the very attribution that it has been manipulated to confer. Gladstone had learned the lesson well. When one of the key movers for Revision, the Dean of Westminster Abbey Arthur Penrhyn Stanley, sought the appointment of a Royal Commission for the Revision of the Bible in 1870, and financial backing for the work,30 it was not because of his latitudinarian tendencies for which he has frequently been charged. Rather it sprang from a recognition that the language of ‘King James Version’ and ‘Authorized Version’ had seeped into general consciousness with the default meaning of legislative authorization or royal command. Gladstone, in declining both requests, again returned to a claim on ‘the people’. He stated, ‘[T]‌he business of the Crown is held to be rather to appoint Commissioners where questions are becoming ripe for settlement, and with a view to stamping that settlement by public authority.’31 Stanley would have to rely on the Convocation of Canterbury then meeting, and thereby be forced to negotiate a further political complication of the relationship between Convocation – ‘a mere private body’32 – and Parliament. The inability to gain the desired imprimatur for either the initiation of revision or the final outcome would handicap the acceptance of both from the beginning. Stanley’s approach was built on a fallacy about authorization, but it was powerful nonetheless.

America and the Authorization of the King James Bible Ironically the shadow of doubt over the authorization of the King James Bible was not cast over the US deliberations. The American War of Independence had 30. Stanley to Gladstone 3/5/1870 (BL Ms Add 44318, f.91). 31. Gladstone to Stanley 4/5/1870 (BL Ms Add 44318, f.94). 32. Charles Buxton, Hansard 202 (1870), 100 (14/6/1870).

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The Politics of the Revised Version

initiated an embargo on the import of goods from England in part retaliation for the earlier English Prohibitory Act against American trade; the printed Bible was caught into this net:  ‘from the circumstances of the war, an English edition of the Bible could not be imported’ was the euphemism employed.33 The fledgling Continental Congress of the United States responded affirmatively to its committee report into the request of its chaplain, Patrick Allison, for a local Bible. It held that the ‘use of the Bible is so universal and its importance so great’ that a means around the sanction had to be found.34 After initial efforts to import copies from countries other than England foundered, another avenue was sought. A certain Robert Aitken, already harnessed by Congress to print its journal and the outlet for none other than the early revolutionary writings of Thomas Paine,35 seized the opportunity. He was based in Philadelphia, along with the Congress; here the embargo had been vigorously enforced.36 He sought the backing of Congress ‘that he may be commissioned or otherwise appointed and authorized to print and vend editions of the Sacred Scriptures’.37 His King James Bible, devoid of the Apocrypha, was printed but without any reference to his Majesty’s special command or inclusion of the preface extolling the prince. After all, the Prohibitory Act had been enacted by ‘the King’s most excellent majesty’.38 It gained the approval of a Committee of Congress, as much a reinforcement of the military-political strategy of the embargo as of a spiritual care for the populace. Congress itself ultimately went on to commend Aitken’s initiative, recommend his edition ‘to the inhabitants of the United States’ and ‘hereby authorise him to publish this recommendation in the manner he shall think proper’.39 Aitken duly printed the full resolution along with other related excerpts under the heading ‘By the United States in Congress assembled’. The referent of authorization might be debated (authorization of the Bible itself or authorization for the publisher’s endeavours) but the distillation of ‘authorised by Congress’ quickly passed into acceptance.40 Indeed William 33. The report of James Duane, chair of the Committee of Congress into Robert Aitken’s proposal, is printed as part of the preface to the ‘Aitken Bible’. 34. Journal of Congress, 11/9/1777. 35. Paine’s early writings made fulsome use of the Scriptures; see J. Fea, ‘Does America have a Biblical Heritage’, in The Bible in the Public Square: Its Enduring Influence in American Life, ed. M. A. Chancey, C. Meyers and E. M. Meyers (Atlanta, GA: SBL, 2014), 68. 36.  D. L. Ammerman, ‘The Tea Crisis and Its Consequences, through 1775’, in A Companion to the American Revolution, ed. J. P. Greene and J. R. Pole (Malden/ Oxford: Blackwell, 2000), 201. 37. Papers of the Continental Congress No 78, I, f.421. 38. Preamble of the Act no. 5 of the sixteenth year of the reign of George III; A Collection of All the Statutes Now in Force Relating to the Revenue and Officers of the Customs in Great Britain the Plantations vol II (London: Eyre & Strahan, 1780), 1459. 39. Journal of Congress 12/9/1782 (vol. 24, 574); included in the Preface to the ‘Aitken Bible’ published in Philadelphia 1782. 40. See S. B. Frost, ‘The English Bible’, in A Light unto my Path: Old Testament Studies in Honor of Jacob M. Myers, ed. H. N. Bream, R. D. Heim and C. A. Moore (Philadelphia: Temple

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Strickland’s heights of rhetorical fancy declaimed in 1850, ‘Who will charge the government with indifference to religion, when the first Congress of the States assumed all the rights and performed all the duties of a Bible Society long before such an institution had an existence in the world!’41 Aitken, like the Englishman Barker before him, made no money from his efforts. His 1789 request to Congress to follow up their ‘authorization’ with a fourteen-year patent fell on deaf ears.42 Publishers’ anticipations of significant returns from Bible sales were unfulfilled, an ominous fog-horn that didn’t penetrate the mist of a century for those harbouring ambitions for the RV. Authorization therefore did not secure ground in a temporal legitimating institution. It was always a partial and contingent encouragement. For Catholics, the authority of the church in this matter was decisive. In one of the earliest references to the ‘Authorised Version’, James Glassford, a Crown investigator into education in Ireland, published an account of his own tours in Ireland in 1824 and 1826. His notes reflect how the language of authorization could be used in different ways to indicate the authority of the Scriptures: The Bishops . . . had agreed in the conclusion, that the Bible was not to be authorised in schools; and not to be authorised for the reading of the people, except with help and direction of the clergy. Some compliment paid to the language and style of the English authorised version; hinting at the merit of the composition, rather than the fidelity of the translation.43

In John Henry Newman’s understanding of inspiration, the original text was not the determinant but rather the church that developed Scripture and its Canon, and authorized its translation. This meant that inspiration could be attached to the works of translation, whether of the Hebrew into the Greek of the Septuagint or of the Hebrew-Greek Bible into the Vulgate. This especially extended to the substance of the text, that substance, at times, being confirmed by the decision of the church expressed in the longevity of its use: ‘The Vulgate then is the infallible record of God’s written revelation, because else for a 1000 years the Church had been teaching preaching, disputing, defining, under a mistake.’44 Such an appeal

University Press, 1974), 208–209; C. J. Richard, The Founders and the Bible (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2016), 301. 41. W. P. Strickland, History of the American Bible Society from Its Organization to the Present Time (New York: Harper, 1850), 20–21. 42. Daniell, Bible in English, 589. 43. J. Glassford, Notes on Three Tours in Ireland in 1824 and 1826 (Bristol: Strong and Chilcott, 1832), 8; emphasis in original. 44. Newman to T. G. Law 20/8/1877 (LDJHN 28.233; emphasis in original). The difficulty in this argument is found in Newman’s acknowledgement in the same letter that tradition, however much held through a great period of time, may yet be wrong. It is a fine distinction and one which, elsewhere, he used differently. So, for example, he wished to detach himself

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The Politics of the Revised Version

to divine providence would fuel the drive of some of the Revision’s non-Catholic opponents as well. Providence secured the Scripture, even against its own faults; that is, its inspiration was secure, under the hand of the church, as regards faith and morals, even if mistakes in the literal text (such as the distance of Emmaus from Jerusalem, the genealogical line of Jesus or the date of the Quirinius census) might sometimes be identified.45 When Newman declined to serve on the Revision Committee – the only Catholic (an Anglican convert!) to be invited – he knew that foundations of authority were already at issue and that their corrosion was likely to accelerate.

An Authorized Bible as Instrument of Unity The Bible which had been promoted as a sharp instrument for the unity of the realm and defender of the monarchy became the champion of religious diversity and the independent, republican sovereignty of the United States. Truly, the word of God had become a two-edged sword, in a scabbard embroidered with the name of the King James Bible on one side and the Congress of the United States on the other! It helps to explain why the lone crusader in the English Parliament for the instigation of revision in 1870, Charles Buxton, wanted a Royal Commission to revise the AV to be executed as a combined enterprise of ‘Her Majesty’ and ‘the President of the United States’.46 Gladstone’s opposition to the motion was irenic in public, but his own diary reveals that it was the ‘American collaboration’ that he specifically opposed in Buxton’s motion.47 The American act of self-determination became enshrined as a mark of identity in the foundation decision of the American Bible Society in 1816. Its first president, Elias Boudinot, had been a former president of the Continental Congress in the heady days of Revolution. Little wonder then that the founding charter of the ABS committed it to the dissemination of the King James Version. from the (more than 1,000 years) scripting of the Letter to the Hebrews as by Paul: Newman to Bp W. Clifford 7/1/1883 (LDJHN 30.172–3). The connection of Hebrews with Paul goes back at least to the manuscript 𝔓46 which is dated to around 200 CE. 45.  Jaak Seynaeve, Cardinal Newman’s Doctrine on Holy Scripture, according to his published works and previously unedited mss (Louvain:  Publications universitaires de Louvain, 1953), 104–105, 118–19, 129. Newman defended this basic notion through to the end of his life. His article ‘On the Inspiration of Scripture’ (The Nineteenth Century 84 [1884]:  185–99) retains the idea, especially as it could demonstrate that the results of historical-critical scholarship could be accommodated under this argument. See J. D. Holmes and R. Murray (eds), On the Inspiration of Scripture:  John Henry Newman (London: Chapman, 1967), 28–33. 46. House of Commons debate 14/6/1870, Hansard vol 202, 100. 47. Diary Entry 14/6/1870 (H. C. G. Matthew, The Gladstone Diaries Vol VII (Oxford: Clarendon, 1982), 307.

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Indeed its first history explicitly recites the connection made in Daniel Webster’s famous 1825 oration at Bunker Hill: ‘[I]‌t is not to be doubted that to the free and universal reading of the Bible is to be ascribed, in that age, that men were indebted for right views of Civil Liberty.’48 The wording of the constitution eschewed reference to King James, preferring ‘[t]he only copies in the English language to be circulated by the Society shall be of the version now in common use’.49 However, it was quite clear what ‘common version in the English language’ meant, as one of the first actions of the young Bible Society committee was to approach Oxford University Press for a facsimile first edition, though the American reproductions would shortly exclude the Apocrypha,50 and multiple orthographical and other changes followed.51 However, as the American Revision Committee found, Congress was far less sympathetic to a repeat authorization than it had been in the heady days of revolution. Judge Enoch Fancher, in an opinion given to the American Bible Revision Committee, held that American ‘copyright of the revised work may be secured in the usual method under the Acts of Congress of the United States’ provided, and this was crucial to the unfolding strain on relations between the English and the Americans, a shared copyright in the resulting work was to be granted.52 This was the most that could be expected by way of government authorization. Commercial caveats, rather than government embargoes, had thereby come into play53; accusations of piracy erupted; pre-emptive contracts were enforced. Accordingly, the AV was, in a sense, authorized in one country, but not in another, defended both the monarchy and the republic and was trumpeted as the surviving tie between ‘mother’ and ‘many of her children . . . not wholly lost 48. Strickland, History of the American Bible Society, 18. 49. Strickland, History of the American Bible Society, 31. 50. Strickland, History of the American Bible Society, 140, 368. 51. See H. P. Scanlin, ‘Revising the KJV: Seventeenth through Nineteenth Century’, in The King James Version at 400, 144–45. 52.  Fancher to Schaff 28/10/1875 (in P. Schaff et  al., Documentary History of the American Committee on Revision [New York: 1885], 106–108). A similar advice had been communicated almost a year earlier: Minutes of Meeting 27/11/1874 (ABS Committee and Sub-committee Records). 53. Congress did step in to waive the duties on imported copies of the New Testament RV  – for members of the American Revision Committee:  E. F.  Shepard to A.  L. Taylor 7/12/1881; C. J. Folger to E. F. Shepard 15/12/1881 (ABS Andrew Taylor Correspondence). Taylor was the chair of the Finance Committee for the American Revision who engaged the attorney Shepard to approach the secretary to the American Treasury, Charles J. Folger, to secure the exemption. In the end, an exemption was gained for all presentation RV Bibles for subscribers aiding the work of the American Committee. See P. Schaff, Church and State in the United States: or, the American Idea of Religious Liberty and Its Practical Effects (New York: Scribner, 1888), 68.

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The Politics of the Revised Version

to her’.54 It was claimed as the rationale for ecumenical, cooperative endeavour.55 Such a weight would prove hard, even for the KJV, to carry for long. The authority of the AV was felt, in both countries, to lie not in a political institution, but in a combination of its intrinsic merits and the universality of its acceptance, at least so the argument went. Talbot Chambers, himself a Dutch Reformed pastor in New York, drew the two elements together: ‘The glory of the English Bible is that while it conveys the mind of the Spirit with great exactness, it does this in such a way that the book has become the highest existing standard of our noble tongue.’ He then rattled off quote after quote from English authorities, from Macaulay to Huxley even to ‘a late distinguished pervert to Romanism’, F. W. Faber, all eulogizing the merits of the AV. He claimed ‘providential preparation’ for its translators and ‘the pure “well of English undefiled” ’.56

Questioning the Authority of the Authorized Version But precisely the fortissimo of the choir of adulation leads one to suspect that the intrinsic merits and universal acceptance were not what they were touted to be, not what they used to be. The authority of the AV might be affirmed as granting people access to the authority of the Word of God in their own language. But when commentator after commentator then proceeded to point to the problems in the same authorized English Bible, they were fronting up to its deficiencies as well as compounding the tremors of doubt about the reliability of that which was meant to bolster faith. Indeed confidence in the ability of language to feed faith was at least potentially threatened. Charles John Vaughan, when Vicar of Doncaster following a rapid, cloudy exit from Head of the Harrow School,57 perceived that part of the rebuilding of his own reputation was to be found in expanding his list of publications, anchored in sermons and commentaries. In the Preface to his Lectures on St Paul’s Epistle to The Philippians in 1862 he wrote, Each lecture is prefaced by a literal translation from the original Greek . . . in these translations no attempt has been made to adhere to the words of the Authorized English Version . . . while he [the Christian teacher] respects the Authorized 54.  C. P. Krauth, ‘The Authorized Version and the English Versions on Which It Is Based’, in Anglo-American Bible Revision:  Its Necessity and Purpose, ed. P. Schaff (Philadelphia: American Sunday-School Union, 1879), 34. 55.  Schaff, Companion, 386. Stanley to Schaff 13/1/1871 (in Schaff, Documentary History, 33–34). 56.  T. W.  Chambers, ‘The English Bible as a Classic’, in Anglo-American Bible Revision, 37–42. 57. See P. Grosskurth, The Memoirs of John Addington Symonds: The Secret Homosexual Life of a Leading Nineteenth Century Man of Letters (New  York:  Random House, 1984), 84–121.

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Version for its general correctness, and reveres it for its sacred associations, [it is a duty] to endeavor to stir it into new activity by every appliance which may add energy to its language or precision to its sense.58

Slightly more forthright, but in similar vein are the sentiments expressed by Charles John Ellicott, Bishop of Gloucester and Bristol. His New Testament Commentary for English Readers went through manifold printings into the onset of the twentieth century. When it was first released (1878) the revision was still awaiting its denouement. This is a work for general readers, to whom the Authorised version will for years to come be the form in which God’s Word is presented to them . . . But while it rightly occupies that place, care has been taken never to fail to indicate whensoever and wheresoever there is sound reason for believing that the words do not reflect the true text or the true meaning of the original . . . The notes will remind him [the reader] that there is real need for a revision of our Authorised version, perhaps even more in its textual than in its grammatical aspects.59

One can hear the special pleading for a revision that had rarely been devoid of newspaper commentary since work began at the beginning of the decade. But the focus is on the mistakes in the original text and in its rendition. Even though the claim to bring learnedness to the reader is laudatory, it yet unlocks a menace to the dependability, indeed trustworthiness, of language itself in religious discourse. Stephen Prickett may be right in seeing in the King James Version the cultivation of ‘Church English’, a contributor to and preserver of the vernacular, the inspiration for creativity in English culture and an aesthetics that was yet capable of transporting to the divine even when one had cancelled enrolment in ecclesiastical membership. George Marsh had written similarly 150 years before. The ‘consecrated diction’ built up and incorporated into the King James Version was so tied to the precepts of the faith that the language and the content were seamlessly entwined.60 To shake terminology, word-order and grammar was to shake belief because, in the minds of some, belief irrevocably had its characteristic and constraining mode of expression.61 No wonder Gladstone feared the intrusion of ‘Americanisms’. Revision, especially American-infiltrated revision, would invite not just a sullying of the English language; it had the potential to undermine faith – a further destabilization in a century already noted for change. 58. C. J. Vaughan, Lectures on St Paul’s Epistle to The Philippians (London: Macmillan, 1862), v–vi. 59.  C. J. Ellicott, A New Testament Commentary for English Readers, 3 vols (London: Cassell, 1901 [1878–79]), vol. 1, viii. 60. G. P. Marsh, Lectures on the English Language, 4th edn (New York: Charles Scribner, 1861), 624–25. 61. See R. Douglas-Fairhurst, Victorian Afterlives: The Shaping of Influence in NineteenthCentury Literature (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002), 292–93.

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It is not that Ellicott and Vaughan were deaf to these concerns. Vaughan reassured his readers that he considered ‘[t]‌he English Bible . . . a standard of taste, a model of language, a specimen of dignified simplicity. More than this, it is the heirloom of all families, and the link between successive generations of the faithful’.62 In the midst of revision work, Ellicott preached a sermon where he admitted that ‘it is a positive effort to them [countless thousands of readers] to feel and believe that the familiar words . . . nay, that the touching cadences of the Gospels were not originally so modulated by the tender and sympathizing voice of our own adorable Master’.63 Westcott, however, clearly saw the problem that had developed. The ‘beautiful music’ of the AV must yield to ‘the characteristic truth of Christian morality’. Truth, so often unfolded in commentators’ disputes with the very English text used as the basis of commentary, was not to be seduced by ‘the charm of rhythm or old associations’.64 Some unkind snitch might have pointed out Westcott’s developing deafness.65

Building Pressure for Revision These are but samples of a surge of comment for general readers that was building in the middle years of the nineteenth century. Many more could be added. Ellicott and Vaughan were appointed revisers, along with others who had also ventured criticisms. They were granted the opportunity to correct the identified problems. But that was still to come. The very act of identifying problems was in fact building the tension. Authority was in danger of being transferred to the ‘bitter notes’ of the commentators (the very marginalia eschewed by the King James revisers) even as those commentators strove in service of the truth for the sake of their readers and also for those who had abdicated into ritualism, scientific positivism or the idealism spawned by European philosophers. The growing momentum for change was energized by developments in society impacting upon the churches and by a growing willingness of those within the churches to respond to those pressures. Nineteenth-century England was a time of massive transformation of the ideational and the material landscape. Inevitably, the self-confidence that marked England’s place in the world required its own renegotiation of past verities as the freedom that both enabled and was wrought by changes in society removed fixed positions and accepted anchors. This especially placed demands upon church 62. Vaughan, Philippians, vi–vii. 63.  Quoted by H. D.  M. Spence, ‘Aspects of Revision’, Contemporary Review 15 (September 1870): 209. 64. B. F. Westcott, Lessons from Work (London: Macmillan, 1901), 170–71. 65. Westcott’s problems with his hearing were never a matter of public comment. The notice only surfaced in the aftermath of his death, when the new Bishop of Durham, Handley Moule, was being briefed on the diocese: ‘he became so very deaf ’; Robert Long to Moule 31/8/1901 (ACER GB-0036-AUC, Bishop of Durham’s Administration).

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leaders, whether Established, Nonconformist or Catholic. In the face of the growing assumption that epistemological foundations were found in science and history, they sought to establish Christian fundamentals in one or other, preferably both, of those terms; that is, if they did not retreat to an ever more-rigid reinforcement of dogma – and there were significant proponents of this mode of engagement in all three branches of Christianity in England. Richard Hutton, the editor of the Spectator newspaper, who was successively the son of a Unitarian minister, convert to Anglicanism and sympathetic defender of John Henry Newman (credentials that are characteristic of the age), put it this way in a letter to Newman: ‘[I]‌t is the most difficult of earthly problems to combine the religious spirit with the spirit of intellectual severity as to the objective conditions of belief.’66 Frederick Denison Maurice, one of the most unrecognized influences on those who would lead the charge of revision, sublimated the problem:  ‘I am sometimes staggered with the Atheism which there is in oneself, and which seems to come out in our most religious words and acts.’67 Somehow, a way had to be found that would bring the most critical inquiry into the service, and amendment, of faith, or more particularly, the language of faith. The AV may have become a landmark of adherence against the lure of Catholicism,68 but it was losing authority among its own.

The Search for New Foundations for Language The discursive signifier for the necessity of renewal was ‘crisis’. ‘Crisis’ embraced laments about the state of collapse of past sureties through to the intense motivations that prompted action in intellectual and social spheres.69 It has become recycled in the lexicon of modern interpreters of the period.70 And 66. Hutton to Newman 20/2/1872 (LDJHN 26.40). 67.  Maurice to Williams Wynn 29/7/1868 (F. Maurice, The Life of Frederick Denison Maurice, 2 vols [London: Macmillan, 1884], vol. 2, 578). 68. See E. H. Plumptre, ‘Version, Authorized’, in Dr William Smith’s Dictionary of the Bible [American Edition] ed. H. B. Hackett and E. Abbot, 4 vols (New  York:  Hurd and Houghton, 1877), vol. 4, 3438A. 69. See, for example, E. B. Pusey, A Letter to His Grace, the Archbishop of Canterbury on Some Circumstances Connected with the Present Crisis in the English Church (Oxford, 1842), along with Newman’s liberal use of the word in a letter noting Pusey’s work: Newman to J. R. Hope 11/11/1841 (LDJHN 8.325). Newman, and many of his contemporaries of various persuasions, retained the use of the word throughout the Victorian period. See as examples of its use by Establishment Church leaders, J.  B. Lightfoot to B.  F. Westcott 6/11/c.1860, 22/5/1876 (ACER 3.13.3.5, 3.13.10.6). Westcott printed a sermon he delivered to the boys arraigned in the Harrow chapel on the Sunday after Ascension, 1866; it was titled ‘Crises in the History of the Church’ (WHA Printed Pamphlets No 2). 70.  See, for example, J. Morris, F. D.  Maurice and the Crisis of Christian Authority (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008); H. Schlossberg, Conflict and Crisis in the Religious Life of Late Victorian England (New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction Press, 2009).

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precisely because issues were frequently approached as ‘crises’, controversies were inevitably generated. One matter in particular occupied the thinking of the various churches, and that was the intellectual integrity involved in handling the Bible. The theological question of how to define its authority had become pressing, as we have seen, because the temporal stays of its authorization had loosened amid the pressures of rapidly expanding scientific knowledge of the world – its geology, botany, zoology and anthropology. The sense of imminent threat had already attached itself to some of the collisions in this area, and charges of heresy sat atop mountains of controversy,71 along with a growing recognition that such heavyhanded responses were ultimately counterproductive. The shadow of Galileo lurked in the background (‘constantly cited’) of many an attack and defence.72 ‘Those who would not allow Galileo to reason 300 years ago, will not allow any one else now. The past is no lesson for them . . . and their notion of stability in faith is ever to be repeating errors and then repeating retractions of them.’73 Newman saw the crisis clearly. It was not simply attacks on historical verities that had been assumed to be the very lifeblood of scriptural teaching, crucial as the onslaught was. David Friedrich Strauss’s attack on received Christological dogma through a sceptical reading of the gospels had found its way into England through the inexact translation by George Eliot (Marian Evans).74 Even though Strauss would receive the ‘Judastag’ in his own country and become one of those in the mid-century who would pay the ultimate price – of maligning as a heretic and removal from office – the 71. The Church of England Bishop, J. W. Colenso, had been excommunicated (1866) for his questioning the accuracy of the Pentateuch:  see T. Larsen, ‘Bishop Colenso and His Critics:  The Strange Emergence of Biblical Criticism in Victorian Britain’, SJT 50 (1997):  433–58; other Anglicans were under similar threat:  see I. Ellis, Seven against Christ: A Study of ‘Essays and Reviews’ (Leiden: Brill, 1980); S. Meacham, Lord Bishop: The Life of Samuel Wilberforce, 1805–1873 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1970), 147–60. Newman and the Birmingham Oratory themselves felt the chill of the charge of heresy: Newman to Bp T. J. Brown 17/11/1859 (unsent; LDJHN 19.240–41 with notes; see also pp. 276–77). However, Newman himself had been prepared to apply the ice to others. 72. J. H. Newman, Apologia Pro Vita Sua, ed. M. J. Svaglic (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1967), 236. Svaglic interprets Newman’s public reticence to enter the Galileo debates not so much as a defence of the church in the seventeenth century but as a warning against the extremes of dogmatic resistance evident in some nineteenth-century responses (the so-called ultra-montanism). In private, Newman was more sanguine. See, for example, Newman to G. W. Cox 28/1/1865 (LDJHN 21.395–96) in the reference to the earth circling the sun in a letter referring also to the Colenso affair; and see his efforts to engage the critique of patriarchal longevity in the Bible delivered by the physiologist Professor Richard Owen: Newman to H. J. Coleridge 1/3/1872; Newman to Pusey 3/3/1872 (LDJHN 26.37–39, 43). 73. Newman to St G. J. Mivart 28/5/1876 (LDJHN 23.71–72). 74. G. Eliot (trans.), The Life of Jesus Critically Examined, 3 vols (London: 1846).

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stable-doors had been flung open. A succession of unnerving texts followed, many of them translated from continental works. The use of German writers, even the German language, was early so tainted that the first sniff of it might bring a charge of heresy. J. B. Lightfoot advised Westcott in 1861, ‘[T]‌he bare suspicion of German tendencies – which suspicion it is very difficult for any honest man who writes a book in these days to escape – might be fatal.’75 In England at the same time, Benjamin Jowett had proposed that the Bible should be read as any other book, that is, by making full use of literary and historical criticism, tools which lay in the hands of believers and sceptics alike.76 John Seeley followed in 1865 with his Ecce Homo, which was a portrait of Jesus as the epitome of moral humanity yet eschewing the use of doctrinal language in the exposition. He ducked for cover by remaining anonymous until sure that the repudiation from extreme establishment critics had lost its potency. Anonymity remained however for the author of Supernatural Religion, which spun a maelstrom of angst when it was released.77 The continued propagation of these ideas meant that neither church nor society, nor the ecclesiastical scholars seeking to maintain a respectably secure bridge between them, could avoid the issues. By the end of the century, the heat had dissipated from the debates,78 but the insecurity about language hung over the questions, hung over Bible and doctrine like a pall. The collapse of historical assurance meant that links between historical events, through typological and analogical associations,79 was severely loosened. With the fraying of the tie, so collapsed the sense of a ‘providential universe’, as David Katz has so ably demonstrated.80 It may explain why Westcott took pains at the beginning of the work of revision to accent that history was neither linear nor circular, but spiral: ‘There is progress without return; there is resemblance without repetition.’81 This captured the essence of revision. 75.  Lightfoot to Westcott 15/8/1861 (ACER 3.4.11). See generally, J. M. Turner, Conflict and Reconciliation: Studies in Methodism and Ecumenism in England 1740–1982 (London: Epworth, 1985), 169–70. 76. B. Jowett, ‘On the Interpretation of Scripture’, in Essays and Reviews (London: Parker, 1860), 330–433; see J. Barr, ‘Jowett and the Reading of the Bible “Like Any Other Book” ’, HBT 4/5 (1982–83): 1–44. 77.  See my ‘Male Diagnosis of the Female Pen in Late Victorian Britain:  Private Assessments of Supernatural Religion’, JAS 5 (2007): 67–86. 78. See my ‘How Wide Is the Horizon: History, Hermeneutics and Listening to What the Spirit Is Saying to the Church’, in Kaleidoscope of Pieces: Anglican Essays on Sexuality, Ecclesiology and Theology, ed. A. H. Cadwallader (Adelaide: ATF Press, 2015), 1–10. 79. See M. Wheeler, Heaven, Hell and the Victorians (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994), 19. 80.  D. S. Katz, God’s Last Words:  Reading the English Bible from the Reformation to Fundamentalism (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2004), 215. 81. B. F. Westcott, ‘On a Form of Confraternity Suited to the Present Form of the English Church’, Contemporary Review 14 (1870): 101–102.

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The surety of language was not to be saved by the transmutation of the language of faith into a cultural inheritance. Poets, painters and those who might be called aesthetic culturalists may have consigned faith understood as an historical deposit to an antediluvian layer of geological strata. But they sought another construction for faith and its language. Matthew Arnold’s defence of the Authorised Version was far from that of a reactionary poring over details or recitation of dogmatic positions. Both, for him, were dead-ends:  ‘[T]‌he mass of Englishmen enjoy pointing away at details long after it ceases to be necessary. What they hate is having to face the new ideas which await them when the detail-hunt is done with, and to re-make and re-settle their minds.’82 The critique was directed as much at the author of Supernatural Religion as at J. B. Lightfoot’s microscopic trawling over fine-points for countervailing dispute. One can hear the Oxford impatience with the philological niceties on which Cambridge prided itself. For Arnold, it was the poetic quality of the King James Bible that stirred the greatest access to a sense of ‘other’. It did not matter that the Hebrew and Greek originals behind the translation had already been shown to be inadequate at numerous points. It did not matter that the translation itself could be demonstrated to be faulty, and he restricted himself to barely a handful of corrections. More important is that the translation had ‘associations’. They can be a mistranslation, ‘yet they delight the ear, and they move us on’. Writing, as he was, just before the Revision of the Old Testament was due for release, he couldn’t help but make a plea that the translation be something that could be ‘deeply enjoyed’, not just respected for its accuracy. Aesthetic delight not philological conviction was better suited to provide moral improvement – and this, said Arnold with more than a nod to Bishop Butler, was the heart of religion.83 There was almost a rearguard action in his approach. In 1872, he published a book for young students:  The Great Prophecy of Israel’s Restoration (Isaiah Chapters 40–66). Arranged and Edited for Young Learners. The selection of chapters itself reflects his preparedness to allow the critical insight of the composite authorship behind the book of Isaiah, but this was not its purpose. He sent a copy to Lightfoot with a note: ‘My little book is part of an effort to make the class for which it is meant see that there are other pleasures in life besides material ones. To make any class of English society at present really see this is difficult.’84 Westcott had also named this  – ‘materially the prevalence of luxury’  – as a difficulty or evil,85 so it was clear that the advances wrought by rapid industrialization were recognized as bringing an equally rapid change in social values. But Arnold wanted to use poetry, more explicitly the poetry of the AV, to counter the earth-bound contagion that he saw spreading through English society. This was more than the 82. M. Arnold, God and the Bible (London: Smith, Elder & Co, 1875), 224. 83. M. Arnold, Isaiah of Jerusalem in the Authorised English Version with an Introduction, Corrections and Notes (London: Macmillan, 1883), 1–2. 84. Arnold to Lightfoot 20/7/1872 (DDC Lightfoot Letters). 85. Westcott, ‘On a Form of Confraternity’, 103.

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Christian alumni’s ‘inability to accept metaphysics, prophecy or miracle’.86 It was the widening gap between the AV’s inspiration of biblically based metaphors that had filled the arts, and the materially informed world of the nineteenth century.87 The metaphors designed to fire an apotheosis were becoming divorced from their material seed-bed. The problem was exacerbated by words and phrases that had become obsolete. Even the New Testament Company, with all their scholarship, was sometimes baffled – Westcott was bemused, writing on a loose sheet inserted in his personal notebook, that no one seemed to know what a ‘scrip’ was (the AV of Matt. 10.10; Mk 6.8; Lk. 9.3, 10.4, 22.35, 36).88 The word was already under threat in 1841 when Charles Dickens felt that he needed to provide an epexegetical expansion, ‘scrip or wallet’ in Barnaby Rudge.89 The New Testament Company opted for his expository addition – ‘wallet’ – though hardly from a knowledge of Dickens’s least-read novel.90 It was a rare instance of the choice of a domestic and modernizing translation.91 Arnold had succumbed to the division of flesh and spirit inherited from Plato.92 As Paul Ricoeur has observed, a proper use of symbol requires that poetic, psychic and cosmological aspects be kept integrated, that is, that the transformative power of the symbol retain its concrete position in the reality of the world.93 No extravagant serving of nostalgia would ultimately suffice. Both American and English proponents of revision recognized that the problems in the AV were problems of language. Somehow the retying of language more tightly to material connections – represented by a more scientific construction of an edition of the source texts in Hebrew and Greek and a more exact representation in translation – was considered likely to overcome the malaise that had developed or at least to 86. Daniell, Bible in English, 662. 87. See the analysis of Arnold’s crisis of language in S. Prickett, Words and the Word: Language, Poetics and Biblical Interpretation (Cambridge:  Cambridge University Press, 1988), 63–66. 88. Westcott, ‘RV Notes’ book II, insert (headed ‘Chapter 10’) (WFA). 89.  C. Dickens, Barnaby Rudge:  A Tale of the Riots of Eighty (Philadelphia:  Lea and Blanchard, 1842 [1841]), 191. Dickens had even further explained it: ‘in which to carry food’. 90. T. Rice, Barnaby Rudge: An Annotated Bibliography (New York: Garland, 1987), xv. 91. John Eadie, one of the Nonconformist New Testament revisers, provides an alternate explanation. He recalled its usage in 1 Sam. 17.40 where scrip was applied to ‘a shepherd’s bag’ in the AV. However, he noted that the word of late had come to mean a stock-exchange promissory note. Perhaps Westcott’s response in late 1870 had prompted a re-education! See J. Eadie, The English Bible . . . with Remarks on the Need of Revising the English New Testament, 2 vols (London: Macmillan 1876), vol. 2, 376 n1. A curious lack of match between the Old and New Testament Companies is seen in the RV retaining ‘scrip’ in 1 Sam. 17.40. 92. Arduini, ‘Epistemology and Theory’, 193. 93.  See, for example, the work of Paul Ricoeur, helpfully analysed in R. Detweiler, Story, Sign and Self:  Phenomenology and Structuralism as Literary-Critical Methods (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1978), 57–62.

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contribute to a solution. The manifold listing of linguistic problems in the KJV filled the comments even of those who were less than pleased with the prospect of revision. There was a widespread hope, as we have seen with Ellicott and Vaughan, that the beauty of the language of the AV could somehow be re-anchored to the intellectual advances of the nineteenth century, not merely in biblical scholarship but in scientific and historical knowledge. Of course, this had the potential to shift the locus of authority as well.

Text and Translation as the Solution to the Crisis of Language When those arguing for revision propounded their arguments, all of them were geared to language. The foremost ones are the familiar Scylla and Charybdis  – the faults in the edition of the Greek text (and to a considerably smaller extent the Hebrew) used as the source for the translation94 and the mistranslation of the source text used. For the Scylla, four were prominent:  the doxology liturgically stirring the end of the Lord’s Prayer in Matthew’s Gospel (Matt. 6.9-13),95 the ‘longer ending’ overcoming the fault-line denouement of Mark’s Gospel (Mk 16.920),96 the woman caught in adultery whose story wanders around various places of the New Testament (Jn 7.53–8.11)97 and the ‘comma Iohanneum’ in support of 94. The Greek source is often considered to be the TR but it appears rather that it was an eclectic text developed by the King James’ revisers themselves in the course of their work, operating from a number of editions available at the time. See J. R. Kohlenberger, ‘The Textual Sources of the King James Bible’, in Translation That Openeth the Window: Reflections on the History and Legacy of the King James Bible, ed. D. G. Burke (Atlanta, GA: SBL, 2009), 43–56. This was known to those working on a revision of the AV; see F. H. A. Scrivener, The New Testament in the Original Greek according to the Text Followed in the Authorised Version, Together with the Variations Adopted in the Revised Version (Cambridge:  Cambridge University Press, 1881). The Hebrew text for the AV was largely the Masoretic text with little recourse to ancient versional evidence. For early criticisms, see R. Lowth, A Sermon Preached at the Visitation . . . (London: Copley, 1758); A. Geddes, A Prospectus for a New Translation of the Holy Bible (Glasgow: Faulder, 1786). 95.  F. H. Chase, The Lord’s Prayer in the Early Church (Texts and Studies 1.3; Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1891), 168–76. 96. See P. W. van der Horst, ‘Can a Book End with a γάρ? A Note on Mark XVI.8’, JTS 23 (1972): 121–24; A. H. Cadwallader, ‘The Hermeneutical Potential of the Multiple Endings of Mark’s Gospel’, Colloquium 43 (2011): 129–46. 97.  See J. W. Knust, ‘Early Christian (Re)Writing and the History of the Pericope Adulterae’, JECS 14 (2006): 485–536; C. Keith, The Pericope Adulterae, the Gospel of John and the Literacy of Jesus (Leiden: Brill, 2009). On Westcott and Hort’s dealing with the pericope, see P. Gurry, ‘ “A Book Worth Publishing”: The Making of Westcott and Hort’s Greek New Testament (1881)’, in The Future of Textual Scholarship on the New Testament, ed. G. V. Allen. WUNT (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2018).

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the Trinity (I Jn 5.8-9).98 These were the obvious red flags to faults in the Greek text used by the authorized revisers,99 all accretions on the ‘Originall tongues’ claimed by the frontispiece of the AV and reinforced in section 6 of the Preface.100 But they were far from the only examples, some minor, some less so, in the Greek text.101 The list had been growing since eighteenth-century forays into manuscripts had unlocked greater awareness of the need for a revision of the text of the Greek New Testament.102 By the time of revision it was estimated that more than 1,000 critical changes in the Greek text that lay behind the AV had been recognized as required.103 The Charybdis was built at multiple levels. First, there was the lack of stability in the published copies of the AV. The most famous instance is the ‘Adulterer’s Bible’ (1631) where some philandering typesetter omitted the ‘not’ from the seventh commandment.104 William Moulton gave considerable attention to this lack of stability in the editions of the English Bible to his time: ‘the differences are by no means few or slight’, and included substitutions for words that had become obsolete, more examples of English additions to the original languages for the sake of clarity and multiplication of the marginal notes beyond the 750 or so in the New Testament alone. He used this as a further argument for revision,105 but did not address the relationship of these material mistakes to the representational capacity of language. Westcott at least noted that such changes already made, ‘refuses every claim to finality’ in the AV.106 Second, it was judged a failing that the King James’ revisers had used multiple English words to translate a single Greek word. They had expressly eschewed myopic, mechanical translations. The fourth guideline given by Bishop Bancroft under King James’ hand had admitted that a Greek or Hebrew word might have ‘divers significations’ but the revisers were to adopt the most common usage 98. See H. J. de Jonge, ‘Erasmus and the Comma Johanneum’, ETL 56 (1980): 381–89; M. Finkelberg, ‘The Original Versus the Received Text with Special Emphasis on the Case of the Comma Johanneum’, IJCT 21 (2014): 183–97. 99. The Dean of Canterbury, Frederick Farrar, added a few more: Matt. 17.21; Mk 9.29; Acts 8.37, 9.5, 6; 1 Cor. 7.5; The Bible: Its Meaning and Supremacy (New York: Longmans, Green & Co, 1897), 43. 100. Burridge, ‘Priorities, Principles and Prefaces’, 202–206. 101.  See H. Szesnat, ‘ “Some Witnesses Have . . .”:  The Representation of the New Testament Text in English Bible Versions’, TC 12 (2007): 1–18 (online: http://purl.org/TC). 102. See B. M. Metzger, The Text of the New Testament: Its Transmission, Corruption and Restoration (Oxford: Clarendon, 19682), 106–38. 103. E. Abbot, ‘The New Testament Text’, in Anglo-American Bible Revision, 94. 104. Archbishop Laud promptly slapped a fine of £300 on the offending publisher. 105. Moulton, History of the English Bible, 208–11. 106.  Westcott, Lessons from Work, 146. This is, in effect, the argument of Richard Burridge who sees in the whole notion of revision in the AV, its own authorization of subsequent revisions – an ‘inevitable consequence’: ‘Priorities, Principles and Prefaces’, 196.

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of the majority of the ‘ancient fathers’. However, the addition of ‘agreeable to the propriety of the place and the analogy of the faith’ gave permission for multiple departures. And this, according to Miles Smith’s preface, was taken expansively: ‘For is the kingdom of God to become words and syllables? Why should we be in bondage to them?’107 Again the distinction between the aural and the studied text shows out here. By the time of the 1870s revision, there was a growing concern (at least in the minds of those who felt charged to elucidate the Scriptures) that cross-sections and trajectories of the Bible through key terms were erased by failures in uniformity. Emlen Hare, a member of the American Old Testament Company, noted that ‘an identity of phrasing is often necessary as a clue to the meaning’.108 He illustrated this by reference to Exod. 2.11-12 where, in response to ‘an Egyptian smiting a Hebrew’, Moses ‘slew the Egyptian’. It suggested that Moses’ action was disproportionate  – a clear violation of the lex talionis (Exod. 21.23-25; Lev. 24.17-20; Deut. 19.21) credited to Mosaic authorship. The Hebrew for both verbs is the same ‫ נָכָה‬: hence, a life for a life. While many at the time and since have slated the RV for its reductionist approach to translation, it needs to be recognized that there was an educational ambition in their endeavours. As Westcott declaimed, ‘Revision [is] a call to study . . . Our duty was to place the English reader as nearly as possible in the position of the reader of the original text . . . to enable the English student to use his Concordance with like effect.’109 Third, Miles Smith’s assertion that ‘freedom’ was not bound by words had, at times, led to misrepresentation of the original. For some reason, ‘hope’ (Greek ἐλπίς/ἐλπίζω) was translated by ‘faith/trust’ as in Rom. 15.1, 1 Tim. 4.10, Heb. 10.23.110 Whatever may have been the reason for such a relatively consistent adjustment – semantic change, partisan promotion or . . .? – by the mid-nineteenth century ‘hope’ seemed imminently realizable and less prone to eschatological agitation. After all, the Empire was expanding its influence and the States was successfully rebuilding after the Civil War. The mistake required correction. A  similar freedom had been exercised in the provision of classical equivalents for Semitic names (as in ‘Mesopotamia’ for ‘Aram-Naharaim’ in Gen. 24.10, ‘Ethiopia’ for ‘Cush’ in 2 Kgs 19.9 or the remarkable ‘Frenchmen’ for ‘Gauls’ in 1 Macc. 8.2) or in inconsistencies in spelling between Old and New Testaments (such as Sharon~Saron in Acts 9.35) or within the New Testament (such as Luke~Lucas Col. 4.14~Phmn. 24). The rediscovery of the materiality of 107. ‘The Translators to the Readers’, section 15 (Bray, Translating the Bible, 232–33). 108.  G. E.  Hare, ‘The Current Version and Present Needs’, in Anglo-American Bible Revision, 50–51. 109. Westcott, Lessons from Work, 147 (heading), 166–67. The sentiment was not new. Richard Trench had expressed the same desire forty years earlier when moves for revision were still gathering momentum: On the Authorized Version, 71–72. 110.  See B. F. Westcott, Some Lessons of the Revised Version of the New Testament (London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1897), 197.

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the east through travel and archaeological artefacts cultivated a massive interest in the oriental ‘other’.111 For many, such as Lightfoot, the expectation kindled was a restoration of the historical worth of biblical texts such as the Acts of the Apostles.112 But in its wake came a concern also that eastern customs and mores be more accurately portrayed. Names were part of this respect. Fourth, language, even language deemed to be sacred, changes meaning when it is housed in a vernacular context. In the story of the death of John the Baptist in Mark’s Gospel (6.14-29), Herodias, following her stepfather’s manipulative offer, seems to ask that John’s head eventually be given to her riding atop a war-horse, or so the American reviser Theodore Woolsey construed it: ‘Give me, by and by, in a charger.’ ‘By and by’ no longer meant ‘forthwith/immediately’ (for ἐξαυτῆς) and ‘charger’ no longer meant a ‘platter’.113 The RV ultimately retained ‘charger’, with the English refusing to follow the American suggestion, and the Americans, ‘for the sake of harmony’, did not include it as one of its preferred readings in the Appendix to the published Revision. Curiously, in the 1896 Parallel Bible jointly produced by Cambridge and Oxford University Presses, the reading ‘charger’ is retained in both AV and RV of Mk 6.25 and yet in a supplementary index listing 642 ‘obsolete or ambiguous words in the English Authorized Version’,114 the word ‘charger’ is included with a meaning of ‘a large dish’. Circuitous as this comparison is (and there are many more like it), it points to the hidden disputes within and between the Revision Companies.115 When Joseph Barber Lightfoot prepared his On a Fresh Revision of the New Testament, he summed up the need for change in this way: 111.  A huge number of volumes of journeys in the East erupt in the nineteenth century. One of the most widely read was W. M. Thomson, The Land and the Book (London:  Nelson 1894 [1880]). In the United States, Horatio B. Hackett’s volume also gained a significant audience: Illustrations of Scripture Suggested by a Tour through the Holy Land (New York: Nelson, 1859). 112.  M. Ledger-Lomas, ‘Ephesus’, in Cities of God:  The Bible and Archaeology in Nineteenth Century England, ed. D. Gange and M. Ledger-Lomas (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2013), 256, 269–74. On the impact of European rediscovery of the materiality of the east, see generally, A. H. Cadwallader and M. Trainor, ‘Overcoming Dislocation, Dismemberment and Anachronicity’, in Colossae in Space and Time: Linking to an Ancient City, ed. A. H. Cadwallader and M. Trainor. NTOA (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2012), 9–47. 113.  T. Woolsey, ‘Reasons for a New Revision of the Scriptures in English’, in AngloAmerican Bible Revision, 49. 114. The list, not credited to a compiler, might seem something of an ambit claim and includes words which are retained in usage today, but Aldis Wright had passed this number by the letter G in his Bible Word-Book:  A Glossary of Archaic Words and Phrases in the Authorised Version of the Bible and the Book of Common Prayer (London: Macmillan 18842 [1866]). 115. See, further, Chapter 6.

40

The Politics of the Revised Version It will be necessary to substitute an amended for a faulty text; to remove artificial distinctions which do not exist in the Greek; to restore real distinctions which existing there were overlooked by our translators; to correct errors of grammar and errors of lexicography; to revise the treatment of proper names and technical terms; and to remove a few archaisms, ambiguities and faults of expression, besides inaccuracies of editorship, in the English.116

A number of examples we have noted; Lightfoot provided more and bemoaned the fact that an exhaustive treatment was impossible, which would have strengthened the case, he said. There was one noteworthy omission from his list, and it presents a somewhat different case. The problems with the representational capacity of language in sacred texts become exacerbated once key elements of doctrine that rely on those texts are interrogated. Within eighty years of the release of the AV, two heavyweights of English intellectual life had noticed manuscripts that were devoid of the Comma Johanneum, the unambiguous Trinitarian reference of 1 Jn 5.7: ‘For there are three that bear witness in heaven, the Father, the Word and the Holy Ghost:  and these three are one.’117 John Locke had already come under fire for his avoidance of express Trinitarian belief in his Reasonableness of Christianity published in 1695.118 Locke had privileged the Gospels and Acts in his treatment, regarding the epistles as addressing specific problems of specific communities at specific times and had to be interpreted accordingly, not mined for axiomatic aphorisms of doctrinal propositions.119 The charge of ‘Socinianism’, akin to the slur of ‘Epicurean’ thrown at opponents by early Christians, quickly came Locke’s way. It was a forerunner of charges to come against the New Testament Company of revisers. Locke’s friend, Isaac Newton, lent support through a ‘letter’ that he originally intended for publication. Newton wrote of manuscripts he had seen that did not have the Comma and was struck by the absence of its mention in early church fathers. Wisely, Newton withheld publication, knowing the penalties the Church could exact on his career.120 Indeed, in Scotland in 1697, one Thomas Aikenhead was hanged on the charge of denying the Trinity. But the manuscripts would not go away. Their textual witness was inserted into critical annotations of Greek editions through the following century in spite of the fear-mongering of 116. Lightfoot, On a Fresh Revision, 187. 117.  The words appear to have crept into Erasmus’ third edition of the Greek New Testament via a Greek manuscript that reflected the influence of the Vulgate. Bruce Metzger suggested the Greek manuscript was ‘made to order!’ (Text of the New Testament, 101); compare his more detailed treatment in A Textual Commentary on the Greek New Testament (United Bible Societies, 1971), 716–18. 118.  J. Locke, The Reasonableness of Christianity as Delivered in the Scriptures (London: Rivington, 1695). 119. Locke, Reasonableness, 151–57. 120. See K. I. Parker, ‘Newton, Locke and the Trinity: Sir Isaac’s Comments on Locke’s: A Paraphrase and Notes on the Epistle of St Paul to the Romans’, SJT 62 (2009): 41–43.

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controversialists such as Daniel Whitby, who saw the authority of Scripture under threat from ‘that slander of the Greek text’ associated with the text critical edition of John Mill.121 By the end of the century, debates over the authenticity of 1 Jn 5.7 were beginning to occur in public, championed with accusations of bigotry and fraud by none other than Edward Gibbon.122 The 1830 compendium of Augustin Scholz devoted two finely printed pages to the evidence – and excluded the poorly attested Comma from his Greek text.123 After the Revision of the New Testament was completed, the vicar of St Martins-in-the-Fields and New Testament reviser, William Humphry, faced the issue squarely:  ‘The removal of them from the Sacred text is required by the conscience of the Church, and in no degree weakens the strength of the testimony and argument on which the doctrine of the Holy Trinity is established.’124 The Unitarian on the New Testament Company, G. Vance Smith, simply pronounced ‘Requiescat in pace! and may no ill-judging defender of discarded texts attempt to disturb its repose’.125 He at least was glad to see unwarranted support for the Trinity depart. Equally keen to see Scriptural support disappear for another aspect of doctrine was an Establishment clergyman, Frederick Farrar. He, along with a number of colleagues, had anguished over the offence to conscience (and genteel sensibilities) caused by the Athanasian Creed.126 The matter had become such a concern that it was a trouble-spot for the Ritual Commission that handed down its final report (on the Prayer Book) in the same year as the establishment of the Revision. Some wanted the Creed dispensed with altogether; others wanted voluntary recitation127; 121. D. Whitby, Examen variantium lectionum J. Millii (London: 1710), iii. Whitby held that the reading of the received Greek text could be defended in its entirety. 122.  E. Gibbon, The Rise and Fall of the Roman Empire, 6 vols (London:  1776–89), vol. 6, 125 (retained in the new edition of 1797, vol. 6, 292). Archdeacon George Travis, Letters to Edward Gibbon Esq. in defence of the seventh verse of the first Epistle of St John (London: 1794 [1782]) – by the time of the third edition, Travis’s list of protagonists had grown considerably; but see R. Ponson, Letters to Archdeacon Travis, in answer to his Defence of the Three Heavenly Witnesses; 1 John v.7 (London: Egerton, 1790). The debates were constantly recalled in the first half of the nineteenth century. 123.  J. M.  A. Scholz, Novum Testamentum Graece (Leipzig:  Fleischer, 1830), part  2, 152–53. 124.  W. G. Humphry, A Commentary on the Revised Version of the New Testament (London: Cassell, Petter, Galpin, 1882), 457. 125. G. V. Smith, Texts and Margins of the Revised New Testament Affecting Theological Doctrine Briefly Reviewed (London: British and Foreign Unitarian Association, 1881), 44. 126. A. P. Stanley, The Athanasian Creed (London: Macmillan, 1871), a slightly expanded treatment of his essay in the Contemporary Review 15 (1870): 134–66. 127. (Final) Report of the Ritual Commission 1870, viii, xvii. Lord Shaftesbury’s petition against compulsory recitation gathered 6,000 signatories, including 149 from Members of Parliament and 11 from the bench. Shaftesbury to Archbishop Tait 4/7/1872 (LPL Tait Papers vol. 91, f.166); Lightfoot to Westcott 28/12/1871 (ACER 3.9.8); 17/1/1872 (ACER 3.9.10).

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some, like Lightfoot and Westcott, wanted textual and translational revision of the damnatory clauses.128 The debates continued.129 The misnamed, yet ancient creedal statement was required by the Book of Common Prayer to be recited at Morning Prayer on thirteen Sundays of the liturgical year. Quite apart from its duration and ‘incomprehensibility’, the unforgiving language of everlasting fire was seen as offensive. Farrar was not the first to raise the issue. F. D. Maurice had mounted a considerable critique in the 1850s when some men baulked at receiving ordination because of a requirement to ‘hold’ to its teaching.130 Farrar blamed its English translation on the AV with its accent on ‘everlasting’, ‘damnation’, ‘hell’ and expressed the hope that the RV would soften some of the harsh, and in his view unscriptural, notions fomented in the English Bible:131 ‘They attribute to the sacred writers . . . meanings such as they never sanctioned, language such as they never used. Not one of them can be retained by our revisers without necessitating hereafter yet another revision.’132 Aldis Wright, the secretary to the Old Testament Company of revisers, tied the problem to the obsolescence of language.133 One of the key supporting texts came from a passage we have met already – the longer ending to Mark’s Gospel (16.16). For one of the most vociferous opponents of the Revision from the beginning, the Dean of Chichester from 1876, John Burgon, the Athanasian Creed was ‘that most divine explication of the chiefest of our Christian beliefs’, citing the Anglican divine, Richard Hooker, as if the weight of the foremost Anglican divine might carry the day.134 So, whether at the level 128.  Benson Diaries 29/5/1879 (CornRO TCM 145); Henry Parry Liddon to Lord Halifax 29/10/1885 (Borthwick Institute, Halifax Papers). 129. See The Contemporary Review vol. 15 (1870) with articles by Dean Arthur Stanley and F. D. Maurice. The debates frequently turned to the issue of the origins of the Quicunque vult (as it was frequently known, from the opening of the text in Latin: A. E. Burn, Texts and Studies Vol IV.1 The Athansian Creed and Its Early Commentaries (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1896). 130. Maurice, Life, vol. 2, 146–48. Ordination candidates were not alone. One famous Indian convert, Pandita Ramabai, found the Athanasian Creed a hindrance to faith: Dorothy Beale (head of Cheltenham School) to Westcott October 1885 (CUL Ms Add 8317.1.4.i). She apparently found a sympathetic ear in Professor Westcott: Beale to Westcott 29/11/1885 (CUL Ms Add 8317.1.5.i). 131. F. D. Farrar, Eternal Hope (New York: Dutton, 1878), xxviii–xliv. See also Stanley, Athanasian Creed, 53–54, 61. 132. Farrar, Eternal Hope, xxviii. His hopes were partially realized as in Matt. 23.33 and Jn 5.29 (RV ‘judgement’ for AV ‘damnation’). The links between doctrinal development and Bible revision are omitted in Joshua Bennett’s treatment of the Athanasian Creed debates: ‘The Age of Athanasius: The Church of England and the Athanasian Creed, 1870– 1873’, CHRC 97 (2017): 220–47. 133. Wright, Bible Word-Book, 181–82. 134. J. W. Burgon, The Last Twelve Verses of the Gospel according to S. Mark (Oxford/ London: James Parker, 1871), 3.

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of theology lacking moral weight, or obsolete terminology, or textual accretion, revision was demanded. Equally, given the furore over Farrar’s sermons (delivered while revision was industriously underway), it was clear that there would not be smooth sailing.135 The express connection between the language of the AV, creedal formularies and doctrinal beliefs, seen in these two examples, one from the Greek text behind the AV, one from the English of the AV, demonstrates how fraught the concerns about language had become. The fear of many churchmen such as Christopher Wordsworth and John Burgon was that the language and the content were so inextricably connected that the loss of the precise terms of expression would mean the loss of the faith of the faithful. For others, deeply committed to their research and to the future of church and society, some alternative had to be found. And that meant, in their thinking, that the language of Scripture was key. Gradually their own repeated articulations of problems and prospects built a momentum for change. But finding the practical path to execute that change was fraught with difficulties.

135. See G. Rowell, Hell and the Victorians (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1974), 139–52.

Chapter 2 P L A N N I N G A N D C OU N T E R I N G A R EV I SIO N

Gordon Campbell has noted that ‘the oral qualities of the KJV made it ideal for the evangelical tradition focused on the centrality of the pulpit’.1 This might suggest that the Nonconformists in England and protestant denominations generally in the United States would approach with suspicion any proposal for revision of the AV. It may therefore come as a surprise that one of the earliest criticisms of the AV actually came in 1755 from John Wesley. His revision gained more traction than previous sallies that had railed against the King James Bible2 precisely because it accompanied such a powerful religious revival. Robin Scroggs once lamented that his Explanatory Notes upon the New Testament3 had not received the attention it deserved.4 Half a century later, David Daniell at least acknowledged that many of Wesley’s suggestions had been adopted by the English revisers in 1881 and even the Revised Standard Version of 1952. The example he provides, Lk. 15.20, ‘his father saw him, and his bowels yearned’, did not, however, enter the RV rendering (‘his father saw him, and was moved with compassion’), which remained closer to the AV reading (‘his father saw him, and had compassion’). Rather, Daniell takes it as an example of a shift ‘towards a New Testament for people “of feeling” ’,5 hardly a charge that was levelled against the RV. Wesley himself stated that his revision and notes had an educational objective: to ‘assist the unlearned reader’.6 George Cell, who provided a new edition of Wesley’s Notes in 1938, estimated that there 1.  G. Campbell, ‘Listening and Reading’, in The King James Bible:  Across Borders and Centuries, ed. A. Duran (Pittsburgh, PA: Duquesne University Press, 2014), 31. 2. The 800-page monster maul by Robert Gell leads the pack: R. Gell, An Essay toward the Amendment of the Last English Translation of the Bible (London: Norton-Crook, 1659). 3.  J. Wesley, Explanatory Notes upon the New Testament (New  York:  Eaton & Mains, 1754). A 200-year anniversary edition was published in 1953. 4. R. Scroggs, ‘John Wesley as Biblical Scholar’, JBR 28 (1960): 415. See now R. W. Wall, ‘Wesley as Biblical Interpreter’, in The Cambridge Companion to John Wesley, ed. R. J. Maddox and J. E. Vickers (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009), 113–28, though this essay concentrates on Wesley’s hermeneutical use of Scripture. 5. D. Daniell, The Bible in English (New Haven/London: Yale University Press, 2003), 537. 6. Wesley, Notes upon the New Testament, 3. The sentiment occurs a number of times in the Preface.

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were 12,000 changes from the AV – and this was for the New Testament alone! He further sampled the text against the RV and estimated that between half and threequarters of changes found in Wesley were found also in the RV.7

John Wesley and Revision of the Authorized Version Wesley’s Notes occupy a crucial position in the movement towards the RV. They passed through multiple editions. Wesley described ‘the common English translation’ (i.e. the AV) as ‘abundantly the best’. This deference became a mantra from those promoting revision thereafter, including the restrictive tone of the Convocation resolutions that delegated authority to revise, not make a new translation. Nevertheless, he looked to bring the AV ‘nearer to the original’. Twelve thousand changes later (‘here and there a small Alteration’, he claimed), the English had a decidedly new look, so much so that in 1790, the revision alone, without the notes, was published.8 One can only speculate what might have been the result if he had turned his attention to the Old Testament as well.9 His was far from the first new rendition since 1611,10 but it had a ready-made market. Even so, when news broke that Americans were intending to join the English in revising the AV, one American Methodist, while admitting Wesley’s New Testament revision, channelled the grave to pronounce that ‘he would have sooner flung it into the fire than allow it to disturb the supremacy of our old English Bible’.11 Wesley was also cognisant of a wider manuscript tradition for the Greek text than the King James’ revisers had been. ‘Neither will I affirm, That the Greek copies from which this Translation [i.e. the AV] was made, are always the most correct.’12 Although the two great manuscripts of the nineteenth century, Codex Vaticanus and Codex Sinaiticus, were yet to come (one by accurate transcription, the other 7.  G. C. Cell, ‘Introduction’, to John Wesley’s New Testament, Compared with the Authorized Version (Philadelphia: Winston, 1938), xi–xiii. 8. J. Wesley, The New Testament, with an Analysis of the Several Books and Chapters (London: 1790). 9.  According to Adam Clarke, Wesley himself related that meagre notes on the Old Testament had been produced but in the initial 1765 publication in the United States had been adversely affected by printing requirements and had subsequently been dropped: A. Clarke, The Holy Bible Containing the Old and New Testaments, 2 vols (New York: Lane and Sandford, 1843), vol. 1, 8. 10.  For example, Edward Wells published, in ten parts, an edition of the Greek text modelled on the critical text of John Mill (1707) in conjunction with the AV amended according to the corrected Greek text. A convenient chronological list of Bibles in English is found in Daniell, Bible in English, 843–52. 11. Methodist Quarterly Review, April 1873. 12. Wesley, Notes upon the New Testament, 3.

Planning and Countering a Revision

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by discovery to Western eyes and transcription), Wesley made copious use of the edition of Johann Bengel,13 and accredited the German Lutheran as the source of many of his own notes.14 He therefore set himself to pass the AV through the Scylla and Charybdis of original text and English translation. The result, adjudges Robin Scroggs, ‘is a modern English translation, concise, clear, yet somehow maintaining most of the sonority of the older version’.15 For all that Wesley was bringing the Bible and its interpretation to ‘plain unlettered men’, the frontispiece reminded readers that he was ‘Late Fellow of Lincoln College’. He saw himself as a medium of scholarship to those ‘who understand only their mother tongue’.16 This emphasis on education as a means of opening up, reinforcing and restoring the encounter of people with the Word of God became part of the commitment of those involved in revision, combined as it was with an expansion of the scholarship that fuelled such instruction. It also indicated that, from the eighteenth century, a distinction was emerging between a Bible for liturgical use and that for study. This of course only exacerbated the problems of language as a medium to, and of, the divine. The Wesleyanism, the Methodism that the ordained Anglican John Wesley fostered, brought a notable change in the religious landscape of England and America, though the lines of development would be different. In England, for all that the Methodists were the butt of taunts from Establishment clergy (indeed the name originated in a jibe), the learning of some of their leaders was beginning to be accepted. Scholarship was recognized as no longer confined to the Established Church and the old institutions of Oxford and Cambridge. A crucial development in this regard was a series of reference books under the general editorship of Dr William Smith. Early in their formation, Brooke Foss Westcott and J. B. Lightfoot were heavily involved with the assignment of entries for the Dictionary of the Bible (1863) and Dictionary of Christian Antiquities (1875).17 Some names stand out as neither Establishment nor Episcopalian – the Presbyterian, Philip Schaff of Bible House in New  York; the Brethren, Samuel Prideaux Tregelles; and the Congregationalist, George Day of Yale, the first two 13.  Scroggs, ‘Wesley as Biblical Scholar’, 416; H. P. Scanlin, ‘Revising the KJV: Seventeenth through Nineteenth Century’, in The King James Version at 400: Assessing Its Genius as Bible Translation and Its Literary Influence, ed. D. G. Burke, J. F. Kutsko and P. H. Towner (Atlanta: SBL, 2013), 146–47, 154 n19, both referring to J. A. Bengel, Novum Testamentum Graecum (Tübingen, 1734) with his notes, Gnomon Novi Testamenti, 3rd edn (Stuttgart: Steinkopf, 1773 [1742]). 14. Wesley, Notes upon the New Testament, vol. 1, 4. 15. Scroggs, ‘Wesley as Biblical Scholar’, 417. 16. Wesley, Notes upon the New Testament, vol. 1, 3. 17.  Lightfoot to Westcott 21/12/1859; 5/1/1863; 19/1/1863; 29/1/1867; 25/2/1867; 9/3/1867 (ACER 3.13.4.4, 26, 28; 3.13.5.13, 14, 16); 8/3/1869; 18/3/1869 (ACER 3.8.4, 5); Westcott to Lightfoot 27/6/1870 (DDC Lightfoot letters); Smith to Lightfoot 7/1/1864, 19/1/1866; 7/3/1867 (ACER 3.13.5.2, 10; 3.13.5.16).

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brought in through the suggestion of Westcott and Lightfoot.18 Indeed, Lightfoot credited Schaff ’s History of the Apostolic Church (first published in English in 1853 just before Lightfoot began as assistant tutor at Trinity College)19 with kindling his interest in historical study.20 Slowly but surely, scholarship was becoming esteemed without regard for confessional affiliation. Indeed, when a vacancy for an examiner at the relatively new (1836) University of London became available, the Methodist William Moulton applied, receiving glowing testimonials from a series of Establishment clergymen, all colleagues on the New Testament Company.21 Methodism it seems was beginning to negotiate its way back into acceptance as a key member of English society and church. Edward Plumptre, a member of the Old Testament Revision Company, even compared John Wesley to John the Baptist.22 And yet, when William Moulton, the Methodist member of the New Testament Revision Company, published his History of the English Bible in 1878, there was not one mention of Wesley’s revision and notes. By contrast, Moulton expressed his indebtedness to the writings on the English Bible from Westcott, Lightfoot and Edward Plumptre, all fellow-revisers (Plumptre on the Old Testament Company), all members of the Established Church, none of whom had made any reference to Wesley’s contribution. With acceptance, it appears, came certain expectations. There was a deep friendship and profound mutual respect for scholarship between Westcott and Moulton.23 It signalled a level of cooperation that marked a growing standing for Nonconformity in English society but there was also a level of satisfaction that the Established Church was fulfilling its leadership role in fostering the cohesion and comprehensiveness of English society.24 18. Lightfoot to Westcott 28/11/1867 (DDC Lightfoot letters) Lightfoot to Westcott nd [1869] (ACER 3.8.26). Two women are also named in the list of contributors: Miss A. B. C.  Dunbar and Mrs Humphry (Mary) Ward. These were not included in the work by suggestion of Lightfoot and Westcott. 19.  It is conceivable that Lightfoot read Schaff ’s work in the original German, prior to E. D. Yeoman’s translation. He was already concerned to make English scholarship the equal of German. See B. N. Kaye and G. R. Treloar, ‘J. B.  Lightfoot and New Testament Interpretation:  An Unpublished Manuscript of 1855’, Durham University Journal 82 (1990): 163. Lightfoot included Schaff on his recommended reading list for his Lectures on Theology (DDC Greek Testament Miscellaneous Papers I). 20. D. S. Schaff, The Life of Philip Schaff (New York: Scribners, 1897), 422–23. 21. W. F. and J. H. Moulton, William F. Moulton: A Memoir (London: Isbister, 1899), 105–107. The University of London was the institution from which Moulton had graduated. 22. E. H. Plumptre, ‘Publican’, in Dr William Smith’s Dictionary of the Bible [American Edition], ed. H. B. Hackett and E. Abbot, 4 vols (New York: Hurd and Houghton, 1877), vol. 3, 2637. 23. Moulton and Moulton, Moulton: A Memoir, 108–109. 24.  J. M. Turner, Conflict and Reconciliation:  Studies in Methodism and Ecumenism 1740–1982 (Westminster: Epworth, 1982), 180–81.

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The continued publication of Wesley’s Notes contributed to a growing wave of calls for revision; but more than that, the Notes actually helped to form a respect for learning among Methodists25 and, as time passed, for Methodist intellectual standing. However, considerable hurdles, including revolutions in America and France, dampened a willingness to sail into new waters. Indeed, Edward Plumptre commented in his own review of calls for revision that ‘[t]‌o suggest that the A.V. might be inaccurate was almost as bad as holding “French principles” ’.26

Herbert Marsh and the Revival of Calls for Revision A measure of how fraught was the call for revision of the AV at the beginning of the nineteenth century came in the vehemence of the attack on Herbert Marsh. Often forgotten in surveys of the Bible in English,27 Marsh brought three challenges to a biblical scholarship locked into the past: fluency in German criticism, a masterful grasp of textual and grammatical issues in the New Testament and a pugnaciousness to prosecute his insights against evangelical and traditionalist commitments.28 All this was poured into institutional offices that demanded respect, if not admiration, and which he was staunch in defending. He held the Lady Margaret Professorship at Cambridge and the bishopric of Llandaff, then Peterborough (one of the neighbouring dioceses for Cambridge). The mark of theology at the university, its commitment to incisive philological and historical research, can, in many ways, be traced back to him, though nervousness about controversy tempered the manner in which it was promoted. For a time, touching either the question of biblical inspiration or German scholarship became a liability, as Westcott himself found in his early career.29 This likely influenced Mark Pattison’s 1860 assessment in the infamous Essays and Reviews: ‘Of an honest critical enquiry into the origin and composition of the canonical writings there is but one trace, Herbert Marsh’s Lectures at Cambridge, and that was suggested from a foreign source, and died 25. William Moulton attended one of the schools founded by John Wesley: Moulton and Moulton, Moulton: A Memoir, 25–26. 26. E. H. Plumptre, ‘Version, Authorized’, in Dr William Smith’s Dictionary, vol. 4, 3439. See also W. Sanday, ‘The Revised Version of the New Testament: An Introductory Paper’, The Expositor (2nd Series) 2.1 (1881): 13. 27. Marsh gains no mention in David Daniell’s monumental The Bible in English nor in David S. Katz, God’s Last Words:  Reading the English Bible from the Reformation to Fundamentalism (New Haven/London: Yale University Press, 2004). 28.  See D. M. Thompson, Cambridge Theology in the Nineteenth Century:  Enquiry, Controversy and Truth (London: Routledge, 2016 [2008]), 31–48. 29. See J. W. Donaldson, Christian Orthodoxy: Reconciled with the Conclusions of Modern Biblical Learning:  A Theological Essay (London:  Williams and Northgate, 1857), 305–11; Lightfoot to Westcott 15/8/1861 (ACER 3.4.11); The Guardian 5/12/1860, 1070.

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away without exciting imitators.’30 But, as David Thompson has shown, Marsh’s contribution to the development of ‘a Cambridge tradition in theology’ was significant. Marsh demonstrated that ‘an openness to theological questioning is [not] incompatible with a personal conviction of the truth of Christianity’.31 Marsh had studied at Leipzig and brought back not only the then-radical theories of J.  D. Michaelis on, inter alia, the relationships between the synoptic gospels and of Johann Griesbach on the text of the New Testament. He was determined to feed them into English, both in translation32 and lecturing (which prior to 1809 had been delivered in Latin). Such a move emphasized that an eye and ear towards learning aided by the use of contemporary language was becoming more acceptable, if still opposed. Marsh had already entered into the text-critical debates about the accuracy of the AV when he criticized Archdeacon Travis’s defence of the authenticity of the comma Johanneum.33 His references to the English Bible vary between ‘our present English translation’34 and ‘our own authorised version’.35 But he accented that the treasured English Bible belonged to a history of development; it was dependent on previous English versions, and by implication was subject to the same process of change as those versions were forced to encounter.36 And most importantly, When we consider the immense accession which has been since made, both to our critical and to our philological apparatus; when we consider, that the whole mass of literature, commencing with the London Polyglot and continued to Griesbach’s Greek Testament, was collected subsequently to that period, when we consider that the most important sources of intelligence for the interpretation of the original Scriptures were likewise opened after that period, we cannot possibly pretend that our authorised version does not require amendment.37 30. M. Pattison, ‘Tendencies of Religious Thought in England, 1688–1750’, in Essays and Reviews (London: 1860), 262. Westcott however was thoroughly familiar with Marsh’s work and followed much of his method if not his results. See B. F. Westcott, An Introduction to the Study of the Gospels (London: Macmillan, 1875 [1860]), passim. And William Selwyn, a later holder of the Lady Margaret chair, reiterated his main arguments for revision, in his own proposals: On the Proposed Amendment of the Authorized Version of the Holy Scriptures (Cambridge: Deighton, Bell & Co, 1856), 7. 31. Thompson, Cambridge Theology, 25. 32. J. D. Michaelis, Introduction to the New Testament, translated by H. Marsh, 4 vols (Cambridge: J. Archdeacon for the University, 1793). The work went through many editions, sometimes with further expansions. 33. H. Marsh, Letters to Mr. Archdeacon Travis, in Vindication of One of the Translator’s Notes to Michaelis’s Introduction . . . (Leipzig: Solbrig, 1795). 34. Michaelis, Introduction, vol. 2, 618. 35. H. Marsh, Lectures on the Criticism and Interpretation of the Bible (London: Rivington, 1842 [1828]), 203, 294, 297. 36. Marsh, Lectures, 294 and Appendix, 509–23. 37. Marsh, Lectures, 295–96; his emphasis.

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His remarks in this regard, ancillary to his main work on gospel relationships, attracted the greatest criticism,38 but the call added fuel to smouldering coals from the previous two decades. This, combined with his position in the Church ensured that the impetus for revision remained alive, despite Pattison’s Oxford-reinforced demotion of the Cambridge professor’s work. Marsh was no friend of ‘Dissent’ and what he regarded as its aberrant imitators in the Church of England,39 so it is clear that while he and Wesley may have agreed on the need for the revision of the AV, there was still some way to go before additional questions of ‘by whom’ and ‘how’ could be settled. In both Establishment and Nonconformity, the pressure was maintained.40

Shifting the Ground for Revision What at the time portended the breakthrough moment came in the Lower House of the Convocation of Canterbury in February 1856. The then-Lady Margaret Professor of Divinity at Cambridge William Selwyn, who retained his proactive stance through to the realization of the goal, laid a notice of motion in favour of revising the AV before the House on the first of the month. This was a critical shift because it was clear that a number of clergy and even some laity had begun to realize that the calls for revision were not going to disappear. Moreover, news was travelling from America of moves for revision there. Unlike the American Bible Society, the ‘American Bible Union’, formed in 1850, had no commitment to the AV. Rather, its object was ‘to procure and circulate the most faithful Versions of the Sacred Scriptures’. While theirs was a missionary focus to that object, it was clear from their own work of revision of parts of the Bible that ‘most faithful’ did not apply to the AV. This Baptist organization had broken ranks and was now floating an alternate version that had begun to spread beyond its own shores.41 It jolted English churchmen that ‘their’ AV was being revised, not by their own learned divines, but by those whose ability in language was the subject of various aspersions  – and they were Baptists! Richard Trench mutedly signalled the dis-ease: ‘America is sending us the instalments – it must be owned not very encouraging ones – of a New Version, as fast as she can.’42 However, his gaiters 38. Marsh, Lectures, 509. 39.  G. Neville, Coleridge and Liberal Religious Thought:  Romanticism, Science and Theological Tradition (London/New  York:  Tauris, 2010), 39–40; Thompson, Cambridge Theology, 44–45. 40. In the Church of England, J. Scholefield, Hints for an Improved Translation of the New Testament (London: Deighton, 1832). For the Unitarians, J. R. Beard, A Revised English Bible: The Want of the Church and the Demand of the Age (London: Whitfield, 1857). 41. Selwyn, Proposed Amendment, 12. 42. R. C. Trench, On the Authorized Version of the New Testament (New York: Redfield, 1858), 9–10.

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showed when, in the course of arguing for the involvement of Nonconformists, he specifically excluded Baptists because they demanded a partisan translation of Scripture that supported their own doctrinal position.43 He may have seen a report of the treatment of Matt. 3.11 in ‘a New Version’44; by the time the New Testament Company was underway in 1870, he was well-prepared to deal with a fellow-reviser, the Baptist Joseph Angus, in arguments over water baptism. When the widely read Edinburgh Review published a lead article on revision,45 it was clear that the debates had moved beyond scholars and divines46; now ‘the great body of the people were aware of it’.47 This was a Gladstonian roping of the support of the populace – but in an opposite direction. The anonymous author adopted the persona of a Christian layman looking to his leaders to deliver accuracy in the teaching of the Bible. ‘He’ noted that ‘all denominations of Protestants in this country’ commonly felt the imperfections of the AV. And he laid out a suggestion as to how a remedy might be achieved: the refinement of the ‘purity’ of its original text (and here comparison was made with the improved editions of classical writings), and the retention of the prominent quality of the language of translation, even while removing archaisms. Selwyn’s motion before the Lower House was measured and deferential. It sought the Upper House of Convocation, comprising the Archbishop of Canterbury and his fellow bishops of the southern Convocation, to request the Queen to appoint a body to revise the AV. These learned men, with knowledge of the original languages, were directed to consider changes that had already been proposed – presumably over the previous two centuries. Moreover, submissions were invited ‘from all persons who may be willing to offer them’; the revisers were to seek advice from ‘foreign scholars’ when confronted by a difficult passage and were to review the marginal readings that had accumulated over time. Special attention was directed to words and phrases that had changed meaning or become obsolete and the revisers were to provide regular reports.48 The wording was awkward and uneven in its directives. Without an organized group of supporters, the motion understandably failed to gain any backing. In the month between its tabling and time for debate, Selwyn discovered that the motion had no future. It was withdrawn and an effort to return a watered-down 43. Trench, On the Authorized Version, 179. 44. He refers to a newspaper report on p. 40. The American Bible Union had adopted ‘immerse’ for ‘baptize’ and ‘immersion’ for ‘baptism’. 45. Edinburgh Review 102 (1855): 214–22. It was ostensibly a review article of two new publications that had sectioned the AV into paragraphs rather than verses. This was to find an echo in the subsequent Revised Version. 46. Trench, On the Authorized Version, 10. 47. Edinburgh Review 102 (1855): 219, 222. Whether the author knew of market trends in the sales of the AV is unknown. Sales had fallen from 450,000 in 1840 to 66,000 in 1850, though this hardly demonstrates a thirst for revision. See Daniell, Bible in English, 685. 48. Selwyn, Proposed Amendment, 14.

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motion sank further. A leading ritualist, Archdeacon George Denison, stated that ‘it is not expedient that this House give any encouragement to any alteration or modification of the Authorized Version’, of any sort. He carried the day.49 However, four important developments had occurred. In Selwyn’s motion, revision was expanded from individual proposals to cooperative action – open to all, including foreigners (at least by invitation). Second, it laid out at least some few ground rules to guide the work. It was based in the AV and the original languages and was to take note of various particulars. Third, the debate had been shifted from controversies between individuals publishing books and papers and countering leaflets. It now was gaining, even demanding, the attention of key institutions in the country – a convocation of the Established Church and, by ambition, Parliament. And finally, it placed into the public arena (assisted by Selwyn’s subsequent publication of his actions) some concrete suggestions as to the way forward – open for discussion, modification and extension. The public display kept the matter alive. To underscore that the debate had entered a new phase, the evisceration of the motion in Convocation did not bring silence. The place of attention to revision was transferred to Parliament. In July of the same year, the Dissenter, James Heywood, Member for Lancashire in the House of Commons, brought a motion before the House. As reported in Hansard,50 he basically reiterated the terms used by Selwyn in his motion tabled at Convocation: Her Majesty was to be approached to appoint a Royal Commission consisting of learned men well skilled in the original languages of the Holy Scriptures, and conversant with modern biblical scholarship, to consider of such amendments of the authorised version of the Bible as had been already proposed, and to receive suggestions from all persons who might be willing to offer them; to point out errors of translation, and such words and phrases as had either changed their meaning or become obsolete in the lapse of time; and to report the amendments which they might be prepared to recommend.

Heywood meandered through a history of the AV, basically to support his contention that revision was a Crown matter, that revision rather than a new translation was recommended, that it would remove a moral problem for many Establishment clergy in reading from a Bible they knew to be ‘faulty and repugnant’ to scholarship, and so on.51 He argued that ‘the supreme authority of the Crown’ was necessary to ensure the appointment of the best scholars and to safeguard public confidence, a public that was comprised of a range of Christian 49.  C. J. Ellicott, Considerations on the Revision of the English Version of the New Testament (London:  Longmans, Green, Reader & Dyer, 1870), 5–7. On the ‘Tory High Churchman’, Denison, see P. B. Nockles, The Oxford Movement in Context: Anglican High Churchmanship, 1760–1857 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996), 244–48. 50. Hansard 3rd Ser, 143 (22/7/1856), 1221. 51. Hansard, 1222–24.

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confessions. The motion gained a seconder and so warranted a reply, which duly came from the Home Secretary, Sir George Grey. He laid out a response which would be echoed by Gladstone fourteen years later, namely, that nothing should be pursued by government ‘unless it was fully supported in that step by public opinion’. He was confident that opinion was not held; indeed ‘the adoption of the Motion would tend to unsettle the faith of the great body of the people, and to lessen the respect which they at present entertained for the inspired writings’. He proceeded to a general defence of the accuracy and beauty of the AV and to allow that learned men might keep their own critical notes to themselves and fellow scholars.52 Grey had successfully quarantined the concerns over revision to the ivory towers of the learned – of little relevance to common religion in the nation. Heywood accordingly withdrew his motion. But at least notice had been served, and this from a Dissenter using as his activating language, that of an Establishment clergyman. In a delicious irony of history, Heywood’s motion in the House immediately followed a question of England’s relations with the United States. Crucial in these arguments is the accent on recognition for the work of revision from authoritative institutions in the nation. This dependence on hierarchical approval by Establishment and Nonconformity alike is a critical mark of the growing pressure for revision in England. A striking contrast is found in the instructions for revision issued by the American Bible Union. Authority for the work is gained by the sharing and review of the work of revision between all those involved, with an effort to be made towards relative conformity of translation to text across the entire New Testament. The text itself and the common agreement of the revisers were the ground of authority for a revision. The contrast between monarchical and egalitarian governance could not be greater and would dominate the relationship between the English and the Americans once formal revision began.

The Mounting Campaign Publications calling for revision filled with demonstrations of faults and recommendations for amendment did not diminish. In the three following years alone, according to William Sanday, twenty-one separate works were released. Two publications in particular were important. First, the Established Church lent its weight to the cause of revision. Charles John Ellicott, George Moberly, Henry Alford, William Humphry and John Barrow joined their scholarship together to produce a revision of a selection of New Testament books. They based their revision on the Textus Receptus as had the AV more or less, in the knowledge that the urging for revision was being felt in England, America and even Holland. But the results were recognizably different. There was a notable display of scholarship but the tag line of authorship – ‘by Five Clergymen’ – brought a combined reputation to the outcome that individual efforts, especially by Nonconformists, had never attained. 52. Hansard, 1225–26.

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The Scottish Presbyterian, John Eadie, called it ‘the needful work of a pioneer’.53 It was designed to alleviate apprehensions that revision would ruin the beloved English Bible.54 One leading newspaper, The Guardian, was warm in its response.55 One of the revisers, Henry Alford, Dean of Canterbury Cathedral, carried their work through to an entire New Testament revision in 1869. The preface to that later work is telling: ‘The Reviser has only to express his wish that this work may be as soon as possible rendered useless by the more mature and multifarious labour of a Royal Commission.’56 Within a year his hopes were realized as to the scheme, though not as to the authorizing body. He joined three of his other ‘Five Clergymen’ on the Revision Company. But within a further year, Alford died and never saw the fruit of his work for and on New Testament Revision. Second, Richard Trench, then Dean of Westminster Abbey, in his 1858 thoughts on proposals for revision, turned his attention to national issues in addition to the usual array of offences alleged against the AV. He knew the unruly liaison of love for the King James Bible and the growing awareness of its flaws. He understood that any revision engineered by Establishment scholars alone would destroy one of the claims of the AV, that is, its ability to be embraced with equal devotion by Churchmen and Dissenters, including, at least as to the latter, the Americans: ‘the separation and division, which are now the sorrow, and perplexity, and shame of England, would become more marked, more deeply fixed than ever’.57 The discourse of national unity was now being appropriated by the revisers and applied to the modality of revision. Without this inclusive approach, Dissent would resist any new work foisted onto society by the Established Church and would further fracture Christian ties by multiplying their own partisan translations. Trench recoiled from the spectre of a revision every fifty years! The national leadership that the Church of England, as an Established Church, ought to show, demanded an eye to the whole nation, and its kaleidoscope of Christian expressions. That leadership required authorization ‘royal or ecclesiastical, or both’, an authorization that carried confidence, from ‘the whole Christian people of England’ with revisers primarily ‘asked as scholars, not as Dissenters’.58 The combined agreement about emendations would then be presented for public discernment to deliver a 53. J. Eadie, The English Bible . . . with Remarks on the Need of Revising the English New Testament, 2 vols (London: Macmillan, 1876), vol. 2, 363. 54. The Gospel According to St. John, after the Authorised Version; Newly Compared with the Original Greek and Revised by Five Clergymen (London:  Parker, 1857), ii. Romans through to Colossians followed in 1858–59. That this was one of the intents of the exercise was confirmed by Henry Mansell, Dean of St Paul’s Cathedral, during the initial debates over revision in 1870. See The Guardian Supplement 18/5/1870, 582. 55.  The Guardian 18/3/1857, 213. The editorial however regretted the absence of a revised Greek text. 56. H. Alford, The New Testament after the Revised Version (London: Strahan, 1869). 57. Trench, On the Authorized Version, 176. 58. Trench, On the Authorized Version, 177–79.

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confirmed admission of changes into the text. His one caveat was timing. In 1858, he felt that a critically established Greek original, and finesse in the construal of English was ‘wanting’ in his own time59 – a harsh judgement one might think but one that, at least as to the Greek text of the New Testament, was already in process towards a breakthrough refinement of edited text and methodology. Westcott and Hort would soon enough join him in the work of revision, and bring the results of eighteen years’ labour with them.60

The Quest for Institutional Backing for Revision The fire for revision had been set, with further fuel added through the 1860s, not least by the constant chipping in Smith’s extremely popular Dictionary of the Bible, where entry after entry took time out to highlight the faults in one or other part of the AV.61 Many of those who had argued for revision were now in Convocation as bishops, notably Charles Ellicott. ‘The newspapers’, wrote Lightfoot, ‘seem overwhelmed with the discovery that there is both wisdom and ability on the Episcopal Bench.’62 Edward Plumptre was more hesitant, drily observing with more than half-an-eye towards his own time, about the role of bishops in revision: ‘Had it been left to the bishops, we might have waited for the A. V. “till the day after doomsday”.’63 As things turned out, both scholars were partly right. But it was a bishop who initiated proceedings, albeit acting as the spokesman for a group of ‘scholars . . . and men of influence and public knowledge’. Significantly, as matters unfolded, it does not appear that Samuel Wilberforce, newly transferred from the see of Oxford to that of Winchester and soon to assert temporary ownership of the project, was one of them.64 The Bishop of Gloucester and Bristol, Charles Ellicott, wrote to Gladstone in January 1870, following the conclusion of business of the Ritual Commission. Ellicott headed his communication as ‘a subject of the greatest importance to the Church and to the cause of religion generally in this country’. He framed the question in terms of whether Gladstone’s government would support a motion brought to the House of Lords that had two objectives to be overseen by a Royal Commission. The first was ‘to revise the Textus Receptus wherever erroneous readings should be now distinctly known and 59. Trench, On the Authorized Version 12, 173–74. 60. See Chapter 4. 61.  See, for example, Smith, Dictionary of the Bible, vol. 3, 1892, 2300, 2355, 2546, 2665, 2671. 62. Lightfoot to Westcott 14/6/1869 (ACER 3.8.11). 63. Plumptre, ‘Version, Authorised’, vol. 4, 3435. 64. Wilberforce had walked to Pall Mall with Ellicott on 12 January, according to his diary, but revision does not appear to have been a topic of conversation: R. G. Wilberforce, The Life of the Right Reverend Samuel Wilberforce, 3 vols (London: John Murray, 1882), vol. 3, 338. The relationship appears to have been cordial, but no more.

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recognized by scholars’, suggesting Tischendorf ’s edition as a resource; the second was to recommend ‘corresponding alterations in the translation in our Authorized Version’. He drew on his membership of the ‘Five Clergymen’, claiming that the common work had yielded ‘the most important experiences. We not only learnt what was to be done but – what in responsible works of this kind is of the greatest moment  – how at length to do it’. He claimed that the work, as framed, would be smaller than the Revision he had been involved in twelve years previously. Those to be included should be, in his recommendation, Nonconformists as well as Churchmen, names ‘who had given public proof of aptitude’. He proceeded to provide a list of names,65 though it is clear that he had not spoken with some of them for he included the Archbishop of York, William Thomson, who, when the proposal hit the northern Convocation, voted against it! Gladstone declined. And his government was marshalled into line. Lord Edward Cavendish (Liberal MP for West Derbyshire and key member of the War Office) succinctly encapsulated the politician’s harnessing of religion: ‘Is it worthwhile to give up the version which satisfies the masses? And not substitute for it anything on which the learned will argue? I doubt it.’66 Ellicott was forced to adopt a new course of action and a new argument in writing. Arthur Stanley, the new Dean of Westminster, had wondered whether a combined work of the two universities might be a second choice for execution, but it seems, if his speech in the Lower House of Convocation is accurate, that this avenue was not explored. For him, Convocation was ‘the third best mode’.67 In Ellicott’s sales-pitch, Convocation rather than a Royal Commission was now providential because it would lead to a ‘revised’ rather than an ‘improved’ version, and there should be no attempt to form another Textus Receptus.68 It was but the beginning of Ellicott discovering that the swirl of winds from various quarters required fine-tunings in his own tack. Such adjustments reflect the contested question about where authority for a translation lay. Convocation, that gathering of the Upper House of Bishops and the Lower House of clergy (later laity as well), was the next port of call, indeed the only harbour for revision if the situation was not to be flung back to the pattern that had emerged over the previous two decades.69 Individual and small group revisions might spin into a growing web of criticism of the AV. They were not going to deliver a 65. Ellicott to Gladstone 22/1/1870 (BL MS Add 44424, ff. 154–57; his emphasis). 66. Cavendish to Stanley 10/5/1870 (CUL Ms Add 6946, f. 4). 67.  The Guardian Supplement 18/5/1870, 582. The same succession of ‘authority’ had been recognized for the earlier push for revision in 1857; see The Inquirer and Commercial News [Perth, Western Australia] 15/4/1857, 3.  Stanley certainly had strong misgivings about the authority and role of Convocation; see J. Witheridge, Excellent Dr Stanley: The Life of Dean Stanley of Westminster (Norwich: Michael Russell, 2013), 250–51. 68. Ellicott, Considerations on Revision, 44–46, 204–205. 69. This was precisely the result that Gladstone wanted; see Gladstone to Lord Shaftesbury 21/2/1870 (Wilberforce, Life of Samuel Wilberforce, vol. 3, 349).

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product attractive to the nation or the church understood in its broadest compass. Nostalgia for a long-distant past of everyone misty-eyed when reading or hearing the ‘common English bible’ might still direct some responses – and these would become scorched with white-hot anger over the next decade. But there was a sense that something was needed to release the pressure that had built. Convocation seemed the best option, but was itself caught into the troubling negotiations over where ultimate authority lay for decision-making and the execution of changes when an Established Church was involved. Convocation’s revival as a governing body rather than merely a fraternal talkfest had only recently occurred, in 1851– 55 for Canterbury, 1860–61 for the northern Convocation of York. One particular function of Convocation’s model of governance was the ability to appoint committees to continue work on specified matters of concern between meetings.70 Convocation had the capacity to grant the Church a distinct voice rather than the rhubarb of noise chattering for revision. It had a standing that the English Parliament recognized, albeit frequently straining to ensure that ultimate power be held in itself. And it could harness some (if not always sufficient) resources necessary to direct the task. But the Church of England had two Convocations, the northern as well as the southern; it also held a number of powerful figures who, for strategic or latitudinarian motivations, wanted Parliament to instigate and control any revision of the AV.

Laying the Foundational Rules for Revision The beginning was not auspicious. Samuel Wilberforce, the newly appointed Bishop of Winchester, who, as Bishop of Oxford, had been instrumental in the revival of the powers of Convocation, was relishing the chair of the Upper House in the absence, due to ill-health, of the Archbishop, Archibald Tait. It was clear in the wording of the proposal that he brought to the bishops on 10 February 1870 that he had not shared a draft, nor had he conferred with Archbishop Thomson of York. In a letter to William Gladstone, he admits that he was prompted in his capacity as chair to disrupt the rumoured moves from ‘the Broad party’ (to which Ellicott, Stanley, Westcott, Lightfoot and others were aligned) to instigate the revision.71 His proposal for a joint committee of both Houses with capacity to confer with a mirror committee appointed by the northern Convocation specified only the New Testament for revision with particular reference to errors in ‘the Hebrew or Greek text’ and the translation made therefrom.72 Errors in the Hebrew 70. F. D. Schneider, ‘The Anglican Quest for Authority: Convocation and the Imperial Factor, 1850–1860’, JRH 9 (1976): 151. 71. Wilberforce to Gladstone 22/2/1870 (Wilberforce, Life of Samuel Wilberforce, vol. 3, 350). 72. Chronicle of Convocation, 1870, 74 (Daniell, Bible in English, 683). The dutiful Life of Samuel Wilberforce deftly removed the reference to ‘Hebrew’ (vol. 3, 347).

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of the New Testament might have taken more than a day to report on, if mistakes in the Aramaic were included, but it seemed clear that the whole Bible was in view, and the procedural adjustment was afterwards made.73 No adjustment however came from the Convocation of York; only a blanket refusal. It was not to be the only stumble in Wilberforce’s handling of the process. A small joint working group was appointed to bring a report on the proposal to the next gathering of Convocation in May, but in the intervening three months, the question of the body suitable to take responsibility for revision was brought into Parliamentary process. The Liberal MP for Wisley, Charles Buxton, placed on the House of Commons notice-paper a motion, ‘That an humble Address be presented to Her Majesty, praying that She will be graciously pleased to invite the President of the United States to concur with Her Majesty in appointing Commissioners to revise the AV of the Bible.’74 Gladstone was masterful in his tactical manoeuvres. First, he delayed the debate, shifting the hearing from 18 March to 14 June, claiming that ‘Her Majesty’s government . . . wished more time to consider his motion’.75 Then he played to the vanity of two key supporters of the increased authority of Convocation, Bishop Wilberforce and Lord Shaftesbury. In his letter to Lord Shaftesbury, he deftly juxtaposed a refusal of a pledge of government initiative with an opinion that the government would not stand in the way of moves organized by the Church. He further signalled his own private reticence about a formal authorization of either a new Greek text or alterations to ‘the present version’. He subtly turned to his own advantage the arguments that the AV had no formal state authority but ‘became authorised on account of its excellence’, making it a model for the refusal of Crown initiative  – a blurring of the distinction between King James’ establishment of the work of revision and the official approval of the outcome.76 He held in reserve the (disputed) legal opinion that Established clergy were bound to use the AV in worship, as that could be turned to the necessity for Parliamentary intervention.77 But just to make sure that he tickled the sensibilities along the path he had chosen, he dropped in ‘the Roman Church . . . bold enough for most things’ 73.  The Bishop of Llandaff, Alfred Ollivant and the Bishop of St David’s, Connop Thirlwall, both Old Testament scholars who served on the Old Testament Company, brought the amendment:  S. Newth, Lectures on Bible Revision (London:  Hodder & Stoughton, 1881), 105. 74. Hansard, 3rd Series, 202 (1870), 100. 75. Charles Buxton, Hansard, 3rd Series, 202 (1870), 100; Gladstone to Lord Shaftesbury 21/2/1870 (Wilberforce, Life of Samuel Wilberforce, vol. 3, 348). 76. Gladstone to Lord Shaftesbury 21/2/1870 (Wilberforce, Life of Samuel Wilberforce, vol. 3, 348–49). 77.  The Daily Mail 30/5/1881 citing an opinion in the Solicitor’s Journal that used the precedent of Newbery v Goodwin (1 Phil. Ec. C. 282), a suit against a clergyman for ‘irregularities in reading the Holy Scripture’, to argue that no changes meant that the AV must be assumed to be the text from which no changes were to be admitted. Benjamin Kennedy, one of the revisers, certainly seemed to assume that the use of the RV in public

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as the epitome of the desire for authority. A measured approach was increasingly being contrasted in Anglican discourse of that time against well-publicized moves towards papal infallibility.78 Gladstone attached a copy of the letter to Lord Shaftesbury in his communication to Wilberforce, bringing together evangelical and High Churchman.79 Wilberforce replied with the words that were as musical to Gladstone’s ears as a Sunday lesson from the AV at St. Deiniol’s Church in Hawarden, his home parish. ‘I thought your objection to a Royal Commission unanswerable’ and affirmed that he wanted ‘the matter in our hands’.80 The ‘our’ may even have been the royal first person:  Edward White Benson, long-time friend of Westcott and Lightfoot, wrote in his diary of Wilberforce’s ‘desire to have everything his own way’.81 Little wonder that Gladstone rebuffed Arthur Stanley’s approach for a Royal Commission and for government financial backing just before Convocation returned in May 1870.82 Gladstone was quietly confident that he now had the matter in hand. When Buxton finally rose to speak to his motion, the matter had already been decided in Convocation; revisers were in the process of being invited. Buxton knew the result, knew the arguments, but nevertheless wanted the matter on parliamentary record. ‘He gave them all credit for having invited several learned scholars outside the Communion of the Church of England.’ The AV, after all, was not the property of any one sect, he said. However he lamented that the relationship with the Convocation of York had been botched. But he broadened the circle further, to the United States, to the Colonies, even to inviting Jewish scholars onto the Old Testament Company. With a degree of prescience, he pointed to the financial pressures sure to squeeze the work. Even though his speech was informed by reports from the meeting of the Convocation of Canterbury – transcribed in The Guardian day by day – he rounded on that body as singularly not fit for the task. ‘There was no public body at the present time existing in this country which had proved itself so entirely alien from the spirit of the age as Convocation. The displays of priestly intolerance, the old persecuting hatred of intellectual freedom in dealing with religious truth’83 and on he went, his Quaker sympathies beginning to surface. After a standard review of the problems with the AV in its textual basis

worship would need to be ‘authorised’. B. H. Kennedy, Ely Lectures on the Revised Version of the New Testament (London: Bentley, 1882), 72. 78. The Edict of Papal Infallibility was promulgated by the Vatican Council in July 1870. 79.  The Earl of Shaftesbury in addition to his parliamentary position was, inter alia, president of the British and Foreign Bible Society. He urged the BFBS to oppose the revision; the board decided to remain neutral (CUL BSA/E3/5/2/21 [1870]). 80. Wilberforce to Gladstone 22/2/1870 (Wilberforce, Life of Samuel Wilberforce, vol. 3, 349–50). 81. E. W. Benson Diary entry 8/6/1882 (TCM Ms 147, The Benson Diaries). 82. See Chapter 1. 83. Hansard, 3rd Series, 202 (1870), 104.

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and in its translation, Buxton handed the floor to his seconder, Percy Wyndham, member for Cumberland West. Gladstone led the posse that rounded on the motion:  ‘We believe the wise course is to allow persons who are willing to engage in this important field of labour to complete their work; but we say that that work ought to be subject to the action of public opinion.’ And they were to do it on their own account: ‘whilst not extravagantly opulent’ the higher clergy ‘in this great and wealthy country . . . have considerable means’. He saw no necessity for provision from the public purse. Gladstone did not raise his personal misgivings about the quality of American English, preferring the more diplomatic argument that the Constitution of the United States in his view would exclude that government’s involvement.84 Robert Fowler, the member for London, echoed Gladstone’s ideas, if more bluntly than masterful rhetoric would have framed it, ‘[T]‌he Bible was that which bound together the Protestant people of this country, . . . and, therefore, it was a serious thing to do anything which for a moment should reduce the hold which the Authorized Version had on the minds of the people of England.’85 There was grave danger in committing the government to a work, the results of which might be disastrous. John Henley, member for Oxfordshire, chimed in that ‘we have great reason to complain that a certain number of gentlemen, authorized by the Convocation of Canterbury, have taken upon themselves to unsettle all men’s minds on one of the most important subjects’. He saw the involvement of Americans as only leading to disputes over readings, and that there was no better way to play into the hands of Rome than by ‘discrediting the Bible’.86 Again the Catholic spectre of the day informed the warning. The AV was now carrying the weight of a defence against Roman encroachments into English society. More than that, the intensity with which the matter was debated in Parliament demonstrated that the AV was now, more than ever, tied to the political status quo. Lord Shaftesbury poked another phantom, that of revolution, when he compared revision to ‘Frenchified and squeaking sentences’.87 It guaranteed that whatever headway revision was to make, it had to sell itself in terms of fidelity to the AV, a cipher for loyalty to English conventions.88 In all, seven members rose in support of Gladstone’s refusal. Buxton had been outgunned, but his secondary purpose had been achieved. The issues

84. Hansard, 3rd Series, 202 (1870), 113–16. 85.  Hansard, 3rd Series, 202 (1870), 119–20. The view was evidently widely held in government circles. 86. Hansard, 3rd Series, 202 (1870), 118. 87.  Letter to The Times 5/3/1870. The comment reached the attention of Fenton Hort: Hort to ‘A Friend’ 7/7/1870 (A. Hort, Life and Letters of Fenton John Anthony Hort, 2 vols [London: Macmillan, 1896], vol. 2, 137). 88.  Note the insightful observations of the relation between translation/revision and governance of N. W. Hitchin, ‘The Politics of English Bible Translation in Georgian Britain’, TRHS, 6th Series 9 (1999): 70–74.

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were now a matter of parliamentary record; he withdrew the motion. In just over a year, he was dead. So, the decision of Convocation taken the previous month was secure. Gladstone could bide his time, ensuring that by delays, limpid support of the Church’s direction, quarantining financial aid and private erosion of the work of revision, the RV would not supplant the King James Bible, at least not with his help. On 3 May 1870, the Upper House unanimously adopted the report from a joint working group. There were five statements89: 1. That it is desirable that a revision of the Authorised Version of the Holy Scriptures be undertaken. 2. That the revision be so conducted as to comprise both marginal renderings and such emendations as it may be found necessary to insert in the text of the Authorised Version. 3. That in the above resolutions we do not contemplate any new translation of the Bible, nor any alteration of the language, except where, in the judgment of the most competent scholars, such changes is necessary. 4. That in such necessary changes, the style of the language employed in the existing version be closely followed. 5. That it is desirable that Convocation should nominate a body of its own members to undertake the work of revision, who shall be at liberty to invite the cooperation of any eminent for scholarship, to whatever nation or religious body they belong. The resolutions are remarkable for their constraints and their breadth. The constraints are to be expected: the hold of the AV is retained in its language and in its format (i.e. including its limited marginalia), with particular emphasis on retention of style, even in the changes deemed necessary. There is no mention of Greek or Hebrew, though it is ambiguous whether this was a limitation, as Henry Alford took it,90 or assumed to be covered by ‘the judgment of the most competent scholars’. The breadth is found in the fifth resolution. The work is committed to a body of Convocation’s own members but with freedom to draw into cooperation a scholar from ‘whatever nation or religious body’. The terms were so broad that even English-speaking peoples said to be embraced by the AV might be too narrow. And ‘whatever religious body’ could readily include Jews, as Dean Stanley argued approvingly in session. This went far beyond the usual claims upon Nonconformists that Henry Alford welcomed in his address.91 What Stanley underscored however, as a condition of his assent, was ‘the most absolute impartiality in the selection of the scholars to be employed in this work’. It was 89.  Reported in The Guardian Supplement 18/5/1870, 581. See also P. Schaff, A Companion to the Greek Testament and the English Version (London: Macmillan, 1883), 382. 90. The Guardian Supplement 18/5/1870, 582. 91. The Guardian Supplement 18/5/1870, 581.

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clear that he already had in mind no occasional consultancy (though this may be an ancillary possibility) but the ongoing involvement of scholars with no regard for their ecclesiastical confession – or nationality. A sop was handed to Canon Jebb whose opposition to the whole enterprise was soundly delivered, and defeated, by including him on the organizing committee to which Convocation delegated its work. That committee was to lay out the organizing principles to guide the work of revision and to provide a list of recommended names within the month. For all that the Dean of Westminster, Arthur Stanley, appeared to hold somewhat aloof with his ‘third best’ and ‘most absolute’, he was in fact ready. The offer of the Jerusalem Chamber for the work had already formed in his mind  – a resonant echo of one committee’s work on the AV. But he had also written in March, before Convocation returned, to the Unitarian, James Martineau, to elicit names of Unitarian scholars who might join the work of revision.92 And it was Stanley who, in July 1870, had taken advantage of the attendance at an Evangelical Alliance meeting in the United States of Joseph Angus, President of the Baptist College in London. He asked Angus to survey the names of suitable American scholars for the work of revision.93 On both scores  – the Unitarians and the Americans  – the work of revision almost came undone before it had even begun.

92. Martineau to Stanley 16/3/1870 (CUL Ms Add 6946, no. 1). 93. Angus to Schaff, July 1870 (ABS ABRC Foreign Correspondence).

Chapter 3 A L AU N C H A N D A N E A R- A B O RT:  T H E W E ST M I N ST E R S C A N DA L

Bishop Wilberforce was played like a Stradivarius. He had prided himself as being ‘a man of affairs’1 and cultivated the fawning recognition of High Churchmen, even members of the English Church Union. His ill-informed confidence in an old friendship with William Thomson that the archbishop would win the Convocation of York to follow the lead of Canterbury was crushed by the wall of resistance to the winds of change gusting up from the south. The formal message to the Convocation of Canterbury dismissed the need for revision, even though faults in the treasured text were admitted. ‘The Authorised Version of the English Bible is accepted, not only by the Established Church, but also by the Dissenters and by the whole of the English-speaking people of the world, as their standard of faith . . . they would deplore the recasting of its text.’2 The northern Convocation had stomped on the proposal with only six voting for it, thus turning the revision into an initiative of one province alone.3 Wilberforce had been weakened, but his connection with the High Church party of the Church was a potential advantage for the garnering of support for revision, provided he could be kept onside. A carrot was about to be offered.

1.  E. H. Thomson, The Life and Letters of William Thomson, Archbishop of York (London: John Lane, 1918), 398. 2. C. J. Ellicott, Addresses on the Revised Version of Holy Scripture (London: SPCK, 1901), 22–23, cited from the Chronicles of the Convocation of York, 1870, 210. 3.  This was an assessment noted by a number of newspaper correspondents:  The Guardian 25/5/1870, 603; The Christian Advocate 1/2/1872. Westcott himself wondered at the competence of a single Convocation ‘to initiate such a measure’. A. Westcott, Life and Letters of Brooke Foss Westcott, 2 vols (London: Macmillan, 1901), vol. 1, 390. The decision may have cost some worthy scholars a position on the Revision Companies, such as John Howson, Dean of Chester, although Howson was one of the candidates considered to replace Wilberforce when he died in 1873: Samuel Newth ‘RV Notes’ 15/10/1873 (Rough Copy) (BL Ms Add 36280, f. 284).

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Wrangling in Convocation When the five resolutions of the joint working group were adopted and passed down from the Upper House of Convocation, they were accompanied by a resolution to form another committee to devise ‘a scheme of revision’. The Upper House included in the resolution the names of eight of its number to be members of that committee, headed by the Bishop of Winchester, Samuel Wilberforce. Normal standing orders allowed the Lower House to have double that number, but the resolution explicitly added ‘[t]‌hat the Lower House be directed to appoint an equal number from their own body’. The reason was hidden in the last section of the resolution, ‘that the Committee be empowered to invite the cooperation of those whom they may judge fit from their Biblical Scholarship to aid them in their work’. The phrasing was ambiguous, probably deliberately so. It seemed to reiterate the sentiments of the fifth recommendation from the working group about a body of its own members having the liberty to invite cooperation.4 But the wording had been massaged. It still could be read as warranting occasional consultancies but it now seemed to intimate, in addition, the formal involvement of those who were not members of the Church of England. Henry Alford, the Dean of Canterbury, immediately saw the constitutional difficulty. It was one thing to have ‘fifty, sixty or a hundred men’ brought in as consultants. But it was quite another to have the involvement of those invited into ongoing cooperation. The constitutional issue was the standing of such scholarly invitees in what was, after all, to be a Committee of Convocation. Any hopes for a body authorized across the Church had been dashed by the Convocation of York or, in the case of the Convocation of Armagh and of Dublin, had not made it beyond the notice paper.5 Given the moral expectation that all invitees would have an equal footing when it came to the work of revision, did that mean they became honorary members of the southern Convocation (regardless of whence they were drawn)? When the Committee returned its ‘report’, that is the finished revision, did the presence of Nonconformists in its formation affect the status that the revision held?6 The questions were not answered but would return to haunt the Committee once the Americans were formally requested to cooperate in the work. The tension reflected the issue of the balance in the relationship between the Established Church and Nonconformist churches. It mirrored the desire that the initiative should lie with the Established Church (reflected in the language of ‘their own body’, ‘cooperation of those whom they may judge fit’ and so on) alongside the recognition that the revision must 4. See the previous chapter. 5. J. W. Blakesley, preamble to ‘Proposed Resolutions regarding the Second Revision of the English Version of the New Testament’, 1/8/1877 (PTL Ms 170). This revision proposal by Canon Selwyn, more expansive in its appeal to other convocations, had been sidelined by the Upper House resolution (proposed by Wilberforce) passed to the Lower House. 6. The Guardian 18/5/1870, 581, record of Convocation Lower House debates for 5 May.

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honour the AV as the Bible for ‘the whole English-speaking race’. The Chancellor of Lincoln Diocese, Francis Massingberd, oriented the hierarchy in his sweep: the Northern Province, the American Church, our ‘brethren all over the world or in the colonies’. Only after these, presumably all Anglican and/or Episcopalian, did he tack on ‘the great Nonconforming bodies’. That Nonconformity was to be involved in some way seemed to be accepted. How they were to contribute was far less apparent. The lack of clarity in the debates brought an initial rebuttal. The Lower House held to its privileges. After all, the first Joint Committee set up in February 1870 had seven bishops and fourteen members from the Lower House. Wilberforce argued that the restriction on numbers was simply to facilitate the process – that too many voices would unduly ramp up the suggestions for change for what was meant to be a minimalist revision. Wilberforce’s motion reiterated the reduced number, though prepared to run with the Lower House if they held firm. Ellicott sprang to second it and ‘echo the wise suggestions and conciliatory expressions we have just heard from him’. He accented the compounding of options and its detrimental effect on the work if too large a number of revisers were involved. Very briefly he mentioned that other scholars, both Church of England and Nonconformist, were yet to be added.7 Here lay the clue to a different tack, but Wilberforce secured his motion aided by Ellicott’s oil, and the resolution was passed back to the Lower House. On its second hearing, the matter finally passed. Edward Bickersteth, Dean of Lichfield and Prolocutor (organizer of business) for the Lower House of Convocation, jollied the house into acceptance (by twenty-seven votes to twentyfive)8 arguing how difficult it would be for him to select the names for Committee membership if the larger number were required, a tendentious modulation of Wilberforce’s argument. In the background was the drive of Ellicott and Arthur Stanley for Nonconformists to be invited at least into the work of revision. Indeed, the gathering of scholarly names had already begun. Space had to be found for them, and the Lower House accommodated that need, wittingly or unwittingly. The Joint Committee of sixteen members was appointed, ostensibly to guide the revision through all its stages, as well as provide the kernel for the Revision Companies. Ellicott dubbed it ‘The Permanent Committee’, giving it a status that did not match its output – exactly as Ellicott wanted.9 Within three weeks, it had submitted to the two Houses of Convocation the fundamental principles on which the revision was to proceed. It was shaped as a Decalogue, ten resolutions that included the names of those to be invited to join the members of the Permanent Committee who were themselves divided into two Companies, one for the Old and one for the New Testament. Ellicott later admitted that he had been the drafter of 7. The Guardian 11/5/1870, 553. 8.  B. F.  Westcott and W. A. Wright, A General History of the English Bible, 3rd edn (New York: Macmillan, 1927), 322. 9. However, a turn of events managed to restore significant involvement to the Permanent Committee – an approach from the University Presses. See Chapter 7.

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the guiding principles even though he had waved them under Wilberforce’s nose.10 Wilberforce claimed, in the stormy Convocation of February 1871, that his hand had written the resolutions, though he specifically had in mind the fifth resolution promoted by the first Convocation committee. But he added, ‘I do know that it was never intended to cover such an act’,11 namely, the invitation to the Unitarian G. Vance Smith. In a private printing of an exchange of correspondence between Stanley and Ellicott related to the issue, Stanley claimed that it was Ellicott who had raised an objection to inviting a Unitarian onto the Revision Company, but Wilberforce, on 24 March, had drafted the fifth resolution in full knowledge of the majority’s desire to include a Unitarian.12 When the second (‘Permanent’) committee devised its list of invitees,13 it is difficult to fathom Wilberforce’s inveighing against the offender G.  Vance Smith, except as a calculated effort to exonerate himself before opponents of the revision and its membership. Wilberforce had not attended the meeting that approved the list of invitees to be inserted into the sixth and seventh commandments guiding the revision, or so he claimed privately.14 It would not do to admit such truancy on the floor of Convocation however, as questions might be asked as to the reasons for it. Wilberforce disavowal of intent was probably formed as the fury of High Churchmen and Evangelicals alike tore at his chimere. His appearance in Westcott’s notebooks of revision indicates that he initially had no qualms about sitting in Vance Smith’s presence.15 Shortly after Convocation’s acceptance of the fundamental principles, Wilberforce welcomed Ellicott’s suggestion that he remain the chair of ‘The Permanent Committee’ and leave Ellicott to the tedious work of chairing the New Testament Company.16 It was a master stroke. Wilberforce’s pontificating style was removed from the chair of the Revision Company, thus saving some members who had already chaffed at his chairing of the preliminary committees. ‘A little lighter hand and loose rein were required to guide the Company pleasantly through the intricacies of criticism and scholarship’, was how an anonymous reviser recalled it.17 Gladstone had won Convocation through Wilberforce; Ellicott had, similarly, 10. Ellicott, Addresses on the Revised Version, 26; this also is the understanding of Philip Schaff, A Companion to the Greek Testament and the English Version (London: Macmillan, 1883), 385–86 n1. 11. Convocation of Canterbury 1871, speech of Wilberforce reported in the Church of England Messenger (Melbourne, Victoria) 21/4/1871. 12. ‘Printing of exchange of letters between Stanley and the Bishop of Gloucester and Bristol concerning the threatened change to RV Comm. 1871’ (CUL Ms Add 9739, folder 8, Robert Scott Papers). 13. For the full list of fundamental principles, see Appendix B. 14.  Wilberforce to Liddon July 1870 (S. Meacham, Lord Bishop:  The Life of Samuel Wilberforce 1805–1873 [Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1970], 304). 15. Westcott, ‘RV Notes’ book II, ff. 7, 9, 10; book III, f. 38 (WFA). 16. Ellicott to Wilberforce 31/5/1870 (Meacham, Lord Bishop, 305). 17. The Times (London, weekly edition) 20/5/1881.

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won the New Testament Company. Nevertheless, Wilberforce occasionally asserted his seniority as chair of the ‘Permanent Committee’, aided by Ellicott’s early self-designation as ‘acting chair’.18 Samuel Newth, the Congregationalist reviser, recorded in his notes that in February 1871, when Ellicott was, as usual, chairing the meeting, Wilberforce on successive days came in and immediately assumed that he would take over the chair. Just as sweepingly, within a short time, he left.19 The occasions when this happened were as brief as they were few, insufficient to disturb the official tally of Wilberforce’s attendance at revision meetings as one day.20

Observing the General Principles Westcott regarded the fundamental principles as vague and requiring concerted ‘interpretation’ if they were to have what, in his view, was a productive outcome. Nevertheless, they were, he admitted, ‘liberal’.21 They had certainly expanded the original five-part resolution of the working group briefed to provide a basis for a revision to proceed. ‘Faithfulness’ was one of those portals into the new world. The ‘Decalogue’s’ eighth resolution laid out eight subsidiary guidelines for the two companies to follow in their work. The opening guiding principle was as much a principle of revision as it was a strategic cultivation of reassurance about the work:  ‘To introduce as few alterations as possible in the text of the Authorized Version, consistently with faithfulness.’ The line became a mantra in England and America in recognition of how deeply the AV had laid its roots in the language, culture and biblically informed consciousness of society and church. Ellicott and Stanley well knew that the Established Church’s responsibility to the nation and church was repeatedly tied by prelate and politician to the common Bible. There could be no intimation of a full-scale attack or translation; even the alterations 18. Ellicott to Angus 20/7/1870 (P. Schaff et al., Documentary History of the American Committee on Revision [New York: 1885], 26). 19. Newth, ‘RV Notes’ 1/2/1873, 2/2/1873 (Rough Copy) (BL Ms Add 36284, f. 34v, f. 37). The same naming of Wilberforce’s practice was made for another day by John Troutbeck, an otherwise austere minuting secretary; RV New Testament Minute-book 14/7/1870 (CUL Ms Add 6935, f. 17). 20.  David Daniell has Wilberforce attending no meetings; The Bible in English (New Haven/London: Yale University Press, 2003), 687. Philip Schaff records him as attending only one session (Companion to the Greek Testament, 384 n3). The RV Notebooks of Westcott and Newth suggest that Wilberforce was at least a visitor, sometimes a contributor, sometimes assuming the chair, on at least five days. Nevertheless, Newth seems to record, as well, the official minuted attendance as one meeting by the end of June 1873, compared to 119 meetings for Ellicott. Accordingly, scepticism if not suspicion must hang over the official record of ‘one’ for Wilberforce’s attendance. 21. Westcott to Lightfoot 4/6/1870 (Westcott, Life of Westcott, vol. 1, 391).

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made were to follow the pattern of language in the AV (general principle II). But ‘faithfulness’ was exploited to its fullest extent. When Ellicott penned the introductory preface to the Revised New Testament, ‘faithfulness’ was the watchword governing the entire work. ‘We have found ourselves constrained by faithfulness’ was his avowal, but it authorized even amendments that ‘might not at first sight appear to be included under the rule’. Faithfulness covered a correction of the Greek text, a better rendering of the Greek, clarification of obscure words or phrases (although the second general principle sometimes brought increased archaism), a removal of inconsistency in renderings and consequential adjustments caused by the application of faithfulness to the preceding four alterations. Faithfulness had an expansive reach.22 How expansive was not admitted in Ellicott’s preface. Here was a concerted effort by a group within the Established Church to retrieve the Church’s role in the nation and to restore its position in society as a body worthy of respect as a valued contributor to intellectual life. The Prayer Book and the Bible were the pillars on which that Church had built its public edifice. Tinkerings with the Prayer Book were occasionally tried, most recently regarding the discipline of thirteen occasions of recital if not the actual wording of the Athanasian Creed. But the Bible held together a constituency that was broader than Establishment. Faithfulness to the Bible, to the accuracy of the Bible, to the scientific principles by which its text and translation were established, was the outer face of a deeper commitment to the nation, and the instrument by which that commitment might be demonstrated and realized. Revision was considered to be a major contribution to the well-being of the nation and therefore a fulfilment of the role of the church in its established position – that is, the service of the nation, its declared character and its perceived providential purpose in the world (in terms of both election and mission). Certainly all these points applauded the advent of the RV when the editor of The Guardian, a leading London newspaper and prolific reporter of ecclesiastical news, estimated its importance.23 There was an acute sense of responsibility bound into the moral fibre espoused by Victorian leadership that their position depended on their acceptance and redress of problems that had become all-too-visible in their own ancestral work.24 Philip Schaff caught the sentiment when he allowed, ‘The new Revision was born in the mother Church of English Christendom. She made the Authorized Version, and had an hereditary right to take the lead in its improvement and displacement . . . She would never accept a Revision from any other denomination.’25 22. Ellicott later acknowledged that there were significant critics of the RV who desired a more constricted view of ‘faithfulness’; Ellicott, Addresses on the Revised Version, 21–22. 23. The Guardian 16/11/1881, 1628–29. 24.  It was a characteristic feature of benign Tory leadership, articulated in Benjamin Disraeli’s novel Sibyl, which was described by his critics as ‘a feudal ideal, with patriarchal benevolence as the basis of social relations’. M. Hovell, The Chartist Movement (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1966 [1918]), 163. 25. Schaff, Companion, 381.

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Building the Diversity of Revisers There were some who stood on their position as Established Churchmen to argue that Nonconformity had no role but to accept the largesse of the Church, even return to its fold. Almost always this had an immovable status quo quality to it. But the broad view that directed the movement for revision recognized that their role was not to be restrictive but as expansive as faithfulness allowed. This was Stanley’s particular commitment, Ellicott’s sympathy and Wilberforce’s equivocation. Westcott would provide the theological rationale as we shall see. Some Nonconformists had initially been concerned that Convocation would only appoint scholars who represented its own interests26  – the converse to the argument by some Established clergy that an invitation to Nonconformists would only stimulate an outbreak of partisanship. The Congregationalist Old Testament scholar Samuel Davidson turned the broad church argument to his advantage: [A]‌n honestly-translated English Bible . . . cannot be done thoroughly by the Church of England in its present condition. Were that Church indeed practically national; its bosom wide enough to embrace men of different opinions on theological points, as it should be, the work might well be entrusted to its hands; but while the fetters of ancient creeds confine its freedom, and bishops are chosen for other reasons than an enlarged knowledge of the Bible, it cannot accomplish a proper revision of the English version with success . . . a work intended to be national must represent the nation, ie be done by men chosen from the nation at large.27

Of greater significance than all the arguments ventured by and on behalf of Nonconformist churches  – and they were prolific  – is the sheer involvement of Nonconformists in the question. Few, it seemed, were enticed to work at their own revision, though individuals from their denominations had ventured their offerings. The arguments for unity that they mounted – unity of nation, unity of national heritage in and through the language of the King James Bible, unity of 26.  Report on the Convocation of York in the Wesleyan Methodist Magazine (1870), 470–71. 27.  S. Davidson, On a Fresh Revision of the English Old Testament (London/ Edinburgh: Williams and Norgate, 1873), 143–44. The publication date belies the content and earnestness of the argument. The essay had in fact been written at the onset of 1870, intended as a major contribution to the cause of free thought and debate about religion – of which the liberation of the Bible from the conservatizing translation of the past was considered a key element. The proposed second Essays and Reviews, a sequel to that which had unleashed such a fracas in and beyond 1861, never eventuated. Davidson proceeded with his publication ‘hoping that it may prove itself a small contribution to the cause of free thought in relation to the best mode of bringing the contents of the Bible before Englishspeaking people’ (p. iii).

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dependence on the version – were not grounded in any ecumenical appeal such as might be familiar today. Rather, arguments about unity were the strategic position from which to advance claims and acceptance for Nonconformists in the English nation with its Established Church.28 Even within the New Testament Revision Company, the combination of a consciousness of Nonconformity and expressions of unity sometimes surfaced. At the death in 1871 of Dean Alford, one of the members of the Company, a momentary interruption to normal proceedings occurred for the New Testament Company to express their sympathies. The Presbyterian, John Eadie, and the Baptist, Joseph Angus, specifically declared that they ‘spoke as non-conformists’.29 There was, accordingly, an appearance of unityin-diversity in the record of condolences. It was assumed that the admission of Nonconformists into the Revision Companies did not lie within their own self-promotion, certainly not by touting their scholarship. Recognition was required. The benchmark of acceptance was their reception either by the Established Church or the Parliament that reinforced that Establishment. Nonconformists had initially thought Parliament the better protection of their interests given that their frequent experience of Established clergy was denigrating, patronizing at best. Robert Dale, in a pointed critique of Matthew Arnold’s advice to Nonconformists,30 reeled off the conglomerate of handicaps imposed on his fellows: farmers refused renewal of their leases because they were Nonconformists, day-schools barred to a child known to have attended a Methodist Sunday-school the day before, the ruling that no site should be sold or let for a Dissenting chapel, the voiding of a lease because a tenant permitted the property’s use for a Dissenting service.31 These were or ought to have been parliamentary concerns. However, there was something other than Arnold’s dear and glorious return to the Established Church that rang truer  – and that went to the common inheritance of faith. The unrivalled instrument by which unity and advancement might be achieved was invitation into the revision of the Bible. Here, Nonconformity, once accepted into the Revision Companies, could make its own contribution to the nation just as was expected of the Established Church. The distant newspaper, the South Australian Advertiser editorially commented, ‘Nonconformists can not only be genuine Christians, but they have amongst them learning enough to be associated with the bibliopoles of the Episcopal Church.’32 So, when the invitations were sent, they were, in almost all cases, quickly accepted. 28.  See, for example, George Vance Smith’s preface to his The Bible and Popular Theology: A Restatement of Truths and Principles (London: Longmans, Green, Reader and Dyer, 1871), v–vi. 29. Newth, ‘RV Notes’ 31/1/1871 (Rough Copy) (BL Ms Add 36279, f.69a). 30. M. Arnold, St Paul and Protestantism, with an Essay on Puritanism and the Church of England (London: Smith, Elder & Co, 1875 [1870]). 31. R. W. Dale, ‘Mr Matthew Arnold and the Nonconformists’, Contemporary Review 14 (1870): 570. 32. South Australian Advertiser 4/8/1870, 4.

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Vance Smith, one of those invited, deemed it ‘a wise and just provision considering the interest which all sects and parties have in the book to be revised’.33 The Congregationalist William Alexander of Edinburgh headed the list of Old Testament invitees. Other Scots joined him, the Presbyterians, Andrew Davidson and Patrick Fairbairn. Frederick Gotch and Benjamin Davies had Baptist affiliations; Christian Ginsburg was a Polish-born convert from Judaism and, in England, married into a Quaker family. A  similar parade of Nonconformity processed into the New Testament Company. Joseph Angus, a Baptist, led the contingent and was joined by the Scottish Presbyterians, William Milligan, John Eadie, David Brown and Alexander Roberts, the Congregationalist/independent Samuel Newth, the Unitarian George Vance Smith and the Wesleyan, William Moulton. Samuel Tregelles, a Brethren, was added shortly, probably as an honorific given the knowledge of his debilitating condition, and was replaced by David Brown, who followed shortly. Others were added to the list of names in the resolution, following refusal, retirement or death. Across the time of revision, sixtyfive scholars were involved in the English Companies. Newth broke the figures down: forty-one of these were from the Church of England with three more from the Episcopal Church of Scotland and of Ireland, leaving, from Nonconformity, four Baptists, three Congregationalists, five each from the Free Church of Scotland and the Established Church of Scotland, one United Presbyterian, two Wesleyans and one Unitarian.34 One Roman Catholic was invited, Dr John Henry Newman, former Anglican and symbol, in many Establishment minds, of the malaise of disintegration within English society. There were other Catholics of similar abilities,35 but Newman represented something other. He declined, and while his letter of refusal was noted by revision commentators at the time as gracious, no one believed his stated reason  – that he was not a scriptural scholar. There were hints of other factors.36 He had already headed two previous attempts at revision of the Catholic Bible in English, the Rheims-Douay version. He knew that the conjunction of the Edict on Papal Infallibility would, at least in the mind of microscopic observers, bring unwonted attention, if not contortions of his own conscience.37 For all the ostensible, wide embrace of all Englishspeaking Christians declaimed for the AV, Catholics saw the AV as a mark of the partisanship of Protestantism, beautiful and arresting as it may be.38 This 33. G. Vance Smith, ‘A Reviser on the Revision’, The Nineteenth Century 9 (1881): 918. 34. S. Newth, Lectures on Bible Revision (London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1881), 113. 35. Colin Barr lists James Stewart and Robert Ornsby from the university established by Newman: Paul Cullen, John Henry Newman, and the Catholic University of Ireland 1845–64 (Indiana: University of Notre Dame Press, 2003), 209. 36.  Newman to Ellicott [29?] May 1870 (LDJHN 25, 136). 37. Newman to J. S. Northcote 7/4/1872 (LDJHN 26, 59). 38. See A. H. Cadwallader, ‘Star-cross’d Lovers: John Henry Newman and the Revision of the Bible’, AeJT 19 (2012): 229–43.

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conflicted perspective projects in the first invitation to Newman to embark on a revision, in 1847. A  Catholic English version was desired but the AV was admitted as the basis from which he might work.39 Any proposed revision for Catholics would have had to eradicate any protestant odour, such as the reference to Jesus’ ‘brothers’ and ‘sisters’ in Mk 3.31-32, 6.3. His refusal was still remembered when the New Testament Revision was released in 1881, no doubt because it could be interpreted, as Gladstone had intimated to Lord Shaftesbury, to show a lack of Catholic loyalty to the nation.40 Newman’s refusal justified the absence of a Catholic invitation when the group of American revisers was organized:  ‘their conscientious convictions and official position would not permit them to co-operate with Protestants in the revision of a Protestant translation of the Holy Scriptures’,41 exactly the isolating sort of language Stanley had advised against.42 For all his promotion of ‘toleration of the widest limits’,43 Stanley himself may have contributed to the downfall of efforts to entice Newman. In the course of his contribution to the Lower House debates on revision in May he had used the ‘spurious’ verse relating to the Three Heavenly Witnesses (1 Jn 5.6), as an example of the need for revision. Fenton Hort had recognized how ‘The Trinity’ had become a politicized instrument, the ‘Trinitarian Alliance’ he called it, a ‘substitution of geometry for life’.44 But Stanley could not resist a tendentious remark. ‘At the present moment’, he argued, it was necessary to make the change given that the Council at Rome, with its moves to enshrine papal infallibility, was renewing the authority given to that verse. He went on to allege that Dr Newman, by citing the verse in his Grammar of Assent as the primary scriptural basis for the doctrine of the Trinity,45 ‘has been reduced to . . . humiliation’.46 The report of Stanley’s speech caused a flurry of sectarian debate in the press,47 hardly a lure for Newman to change his mind. Indeed, Stanley suspected Newman’s active undermining of the work of revision through private counsel and anonymous articles.48 The ambitions for national inclusivity reflected in the Revision Companies had been dented.

39. Newman to Allies 26/10/1863 (LDJHN 20.547). 40. The Guardian 3/8/1881, 1095. 41.  P. Schaff et  al., Documentary History of the American Committee on Revision (New York: 1885), 46. 42. Stanley to Schaff, 30/5/1871 (Documentary History, 45–46). 43. G. Stevenson, Edward Stuart Talbot, 1844–1934 (London: SPCK, 1936), 11. 44. Hort to Westcott 1/8/1870 (Hort, Life of Hort, vol. 2, 140) 45. J. H. Newman, An Essay in Aid of A Grammar of Assent (London: Burns, Oates & Co, 1874 [1870]), 135. 46. The Guardian 18/5/1870, 582. 47. The Guardian 15/6/1870, 689; 22/6/1870, 718. 48. Stanley to Schaff 17/7/1872 (ABS ABRC Foreign Correspondence S116).

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Exposing the Divisions in the Nation and in Thought These national ambitions had come hard up against a clash of approach to knowledge. Newman’s intent in publishing his Grammar had been to address what he saw as a crisis in the way belief was to be established and constructed. Belief, in his view, was not built on absolute proof. Neither was it a contingent locus awaiting further clarification. On the one hand, he had placed himself directly against the materialist experimental repetitions of contemporary science; on the other, he had rejected the proposition that historical inquiry necessitated a commitment to conditional certitude. Rather, personal judgment contributed the capstone to a reasonable assessment of certitude, making such belief absolute in its ethical correctness.49 Stanley’s citation of 1 Jn 5.6 drilled through to the fallacy of Newman’s argument. One could absolutely believe in the Trinity on the basis of a personal judgement grounded in 1 Jn 5.6 but, as Stanley and numerous other New Testament scholars were aware, on that basis one would be ‘dead wrong’.50 There was no more poignant demonstration that Christian belief was desperately in need of a more defensible foundation. But the journey to discover (or recover) that foundation meant that, for some, a terrifying dismantling was looming. The essential building blocks of the faith of many in England were the very elements being systematically threatened by Bible revision. 1 Jn 5.6 was only one of a number of New Testament references that had become crucial bulwarks of basic beliefs. In the words of one of the many correspondents, writing in the wake of the Communion Service at Westminster Abbey that was opened to all revisers, ‘Revision means . . . an outspoken and unsparing onslaught on every doctrine which a Christian holds dear.’51 Bible verses had become doctrines had become the faith. The battle between the establishment of a new (i.e. revised) foundation for faith and the shaking of faith to destruction governed the often-volatile debates about Bible revision. Ellicott and Stanley had carefully chosen the additional Establishment scholars for the Revision Companies as well as the Nonconformist representatives. Potentially the selection isolated those who either held to or could be swayed towards trepidation about disturbing the faith of the populace. The weighting of scholarship was strongly towards Cambridge-trained men, even if Frederick Scrivener and Fenton Hort represented the old and new schools of philological research. When a vacancy on the New Testament Company became available following the death of Bishop Wilberforce, Hort joined Scrivener in expressing the hope that an Oxford man would fill his boots.52 The existing Oxford men such as Wilberforce and even 49.  I am indebted here to J. C. Livingston, Religious Thought in the Victorian Age:  Challenges and Reconceptions (New  York/London:  T&T Clark, 2007), 17–18. He does not however see the importance of debates about Bible revision within the variety of approaches to science and belief. 50. Livingston, Religious Thought, 18. 51. Letter of Philip Freeman, The Guardian 24/8/1870, 1012. 52. Newth, ‘RV Notes’ (Rough Copy) 15/10/1873 (BL Ms Add 36280, f.284).

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Stanley seemed to have an inherent conservatism coursing through their veins, though again along vastly different lines. During a debate over candlesticks and candles (Matt. 5.15 AV) and lampstands and lamps (the eventual RV rendering) Wilberforce, in one of his brief visits, plaintively bleated, ‘Mustn’t we not consider our own people.’53 He was already flagging his own susceptibility to more public concerns that the effort to amend the text and translation of the English Bible in the name of a faith set on secure foundations, was so unsettling that faith that secure foundations were in danger of irrelevance.

Counting Numbers, Parties and Procedures The conservative minority on the Revision Company was not fixed however. Newman’s unwillingness to accept the invitation raised the issue of finding replacements for those who declined or who died shortly after the commencement. Hort was convinced that there were some in the New Testament Company who were going to subvert the more expansive revision that he and a number were planning. A  report in The Guardian in early July had indicated that the Joint Committee had invited six additional persons for the two Companies. He saw this as a deliberate effort by Wilberforce and others, who were members of one or other Company by virtue of their membership of the Joint Committee, to shape the direction of revision – ‘a small conclave of censors able to expurgate the work’ was his sharp turn of phrase.54 Hort knew that the voting procedures that had been set up would easily favour a conservative turn. Resolution VIII.6 required that the first round of revision was enabled to bring changes by a simple majority; but the second round of revision had to confirm proposed changes by a two-thirds majority. He worried that Wilberforce, influenced by popular or at least vociferous outcries, was already beginning to back away from the project and the process that he had a hand in constructing. Hort wanted the Company itself to be self-selecting now that it had commenced. In the end, neither gained what they were after, as the University Presses, once admitted into the work of revision as financiers, flexed their commercial muscle to dictate replacements.55 The ratio of Establishment to Nonconformity in the Revision Companies reflected both the residual control as well as the patronage of the Church of England:  ‘their scholarship and weight preponderated’, claimed The Times, whether from objective insight or a trace of concern about the control of the tone of the revision.56 Attendance levels, however they be explained, also favoured the 53. Westcott, ‘RV Notes’ book II, f.7 (WFA). 54. Hort to Stanley 7/7/1870 (CUL Ms Add 6946, f.6). 55. A. Flanders and S. Colclough, ‘The Bible Press’, in The History of Oxford University Press, vol 2: 1780 to 1896, ed. I. Gadd, S. Eliot and W. R. Louis (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013), 395. 56. The Times 22/7/1881.

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Establishment clergy, even if they were frequently divided in their own loyalties to the AV and the Textus Receptus.57 Samuel Newth observed that Arthur Stanley’s characteristic behaviour was to attend meetings when noteworthy passages were to be covered,58 although his attendance record (253 meetings) was still substantial. Nevertheless, Newth’s comment suggests that this pattern of attendance may not have been confined to Stanley, namely, that other members made a particular resolve to attend when verses in which they had a particular interest (whether for confessional or other reasons) were to be addressed. Whatever the pattern of attendance, an Established Church majority was assured. Even when that majority included the votes of Nonconformist members, that majority always took precedence. Benjamin Kennedy, writing after the publication of the New Testament, pronounced the value attached to the majority:  ‘[T]‌he decision of the majority, for which strong reasons were always urged, was wiser than the judgment of those who voted in a contrary sense.’ This provided his judgement on the American appendix to the RV.59 The scholars as scholars, gathered for revision, may have been little aware of their confessional differences for broad sections of the New Testament. But confessional differences are rarely built on megastructures. They draw upon isolated crumbs leaven-bloated into their own distinctive bread.60 The distinctions remained, indeed with real impacts in the practical interactions of the churches outside the rarefied confines of their revision meetings. But in the Jerusalem Chamber they were subsumed under the overall banner of the Established Church. The place of meeting itself, for all its nostalgic appropriation of the past usage for the AV, was dovetailed into the Westminster complex of buildings, other parts of which were occasionally used over the run of the decade. This was the ‘built environment’ of Establishment within which the focus on language, its texts and renderings, was conducted.61 The published lists of revisers regularly followed the reverse order of an Anglican procession on a high feast day.62 Occasionally 57.  Of the sixteen members who attended more than half of the 407 meetings, only three were Nonconformists:  Samuel Newth, William Moulton and G.  Vance Smith. Of the twelve who attended less than half (including those who died or resigned) five were Nonconformists. See Newth, Lectures, 125. 58. Newth, ‘RV Notes’ 19/3/1873 (later addition to Rough Copy) (BL Ms Add 36285, f. 117v). 59. B. H. Kennedy, Ely Lectures on the Revised Version of the New Testament (London: Bentley, 1882), 59. 60. See the following chapter. 61. See A. Duranti, Linguistic Anthropology (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997), 321–28. 62. See, for example, ‘The Committees for work on the Apocrypha 12 Nov 1880’, which, for the ‘Cambridge Committee’ working on Wisdom and 2 Maccabees, begins with ‘The Bishop of Durham’ and ends with ‘Rev Dr Roberts’ (CUL Ms Add 9739 folder 3, Robert Scott papers).

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the archbishop (Archibald Tait) or other bishops (such as James Fraser) paid a visit and briefly took over the chairing of the meeting,63 a privilege not afforded to other church leaders. The usual chairs of each Revision Company were bishops, who led the prayers that began each session with one or other collect from the Book of Common Prayer before a unison Pater Noster signalled the transition to formal business.64 The irony in this last mark of corporate unity, the communal Lord’s Prayer, was that the revisers were about to disrupt the continuity between the Biblical and Prayer-Book wording of the Lord’s Prayer in their handling of Matt. 6.9-13 – ‘a discord thrown into the daily devotions’.65 The RV removed the doxology (v. 13b), rattled the cosmic balance by inverting earth and heaven (v.10) and, thanks to Joseph Barber Lightfoot’s insistence, narrowed the supplication for deliverance from ‘evil’ to ‘the evil one’ (v. 13a).66

An Inclusive Holy Communion The cosmic shift in the ‘Our Father’ was nothing more than a blip compared to the supernova that was about to erupt in the Henry VII chapel of Westminster Abbey. The stages preparing for the commencement of revision had been successfully negotiated: from the initial resolution in Convocation, to the first subcommittee’s production of five resolutions, to Convocation’s acceptance, to the establishment of a second Joint Committee and its formation of a Decalogue of guiding principles, to the establishment of two Revision Companies. Springtime in London had augured a sense of hope, at least in some quarters of various churches. Hope was to be tested. In early June of 1870, Westcott had suggested to the Dean of Westminster, Arthur Stanley, that a fitting commencement to the work of revision would be a service of Holy Communion.67 It was nothing particularly unusual, neither in 63. For Tait, see Newth ‘RV Notes’ 31/1/1871 (Rough Copy) (BL Ms Add 36279, f. 24); for Fraser, see Newth ‘RV Notes’ 31/1/1871 (Rough Copy) (BL Ms Add 36279, f.  83). There is even an instance where Archbishop Tait not only chaired but made a suggestion (Westcott ‘RV Notes’ book III, f. 22 [WFA]). Apparently, he was above the rules governing membership! 64. For example, Westcott lists the prayers for the October (1870) opening meeting as ‘Blessed Lord [who hast caused all holy Scripture to be written for our learning . . .]’, ‘St. Bartholomew’s Day: altered’, ‘Prevent us [O lord in all our doings with thy most gracious favour]’ and the ‘Lord’s Prayer’ Westcott, ‘RV Notes’ book II, f.  11 (WFA). These are all ‘trademark’ prayers from the 1662 Book of Common Prayer. 65. Schaff, Companion, 413, citing some unnamed antagonists. 66.  Lightfoot came to be known among the dry wits as ‘ὁ πονηρός'’ (the evil one); Charles Merivale, Dean of Ely, to Christopher Wordsworth, Bishop of Lincoln 22/10/1881 (J. A. Merivale, Autobiography and Letters of Charles Merivale: Dean of Ely [Oxford: Horace Hart, 1898], 458). 67. Westcott, Life of Westcott, vol. 1, 391.

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conducting such a service inaugurating the work nor in flinging it open to all who were to perform that work. There had been evolving in England a tacit practice of a more open welcome to those of different Christian traditions to join the congregation in Book of Common Prayer services. Philip Schaff, the Swiss-born, German-trained American scholar aligned with the Presbyterian Church who was to become the leader of the American Committee on revision, paid his first visit to England in 1869. He met with a number of English scholars who would shortly be enrolled in the New Testament Revision Company. In the course of his travels, he had stayed with the Westcotts at the Harrow School and attended a number of services in the school chapel ‘and partook of the Holy Communion’.68 Ecclesiastical purists may have chaffed at the blurring of confessional lines and the failure to observe scrupulous minutiae of Prayer-Book rubrics but the expanded vision of a nation with an imperial presence across the globe was having its impact in the broadening of church practice. Stanley therefore adopted this idea and practice of hospitality that already had general currency. He would later claim that he had his own misgivings ‘but he was pressed to do so by two of the most orthodox and devout members of the Committee’. His own reservations must have been short-lived – in the four days between the invitation and the event, he had endeavoured to reassure the Unitarian, George Vance Smith, that his presence was most welcome.69 Westcott was one of these ‘most orthodox’ that Stanley obliquely claimed. Indeed, when Stanley went on to defend the presence at the Communion service of the Unitarian, George Vance Smith, he seemed to channel Westcott’s theology:  ‘[H]‌e only saw in Mr Vance Smith’s communion a humble effort to get as near as he could to the full meaning of that Sacrament.’70 Westcott’s all-inclusive understanding of the meaning of the Incarnation combined with his reading of Auguste Comte’s emphasis on the universality of family meant that confraternity knew no bounds.71 Henry Scott Holland, a disciple of Westcott, extolled Westcott’s promotion of ‘the “socialism” of learning, that is the importance of studying in common’.72 It required that there be humility in the approach to Truth, not only in the face of another making their inquiry but in oneself as seeking to receive and integrate the knowledge that the other has to offer. ‘If God has spoken in such a fashion and if in the Incarnation, God gathers all these fragments up so that nothing is lost, then we can do no less if we are not to be impoverished in our vision of God and in the quality of our life, just as we are 68. D. S. Schaff, The Life of Philip Schaff (New York: Scribner’s, 1897), 245. 69.  Smith to Prothero 1887; R. E. Prothero, Life and Letters of Dean Stanley (London: Thomas Nelson, 1909), 384–85. 70. Church of England Messenger 21/4/1871, report of Convocation of Canterbury. 71. B. F. Westcott, ‘On a Form of Confraternity Suited to the Present Work of the English Church’, Contemporary Review 14 (1870): 101–14. 72. H. S. Holland, ‘Preface’, in Lombard Street in Lent: A Course of Sermons on Social Subjects, ed. H. S. Holland (London: Eliot Stock, 1894), ix.

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impoverished when we turn a fragment into the totality.’73 For him, the notion of ‘catholic’ could not be reduced to always, everywhere, at all times, for this ‘left no room for growth’.74 His thinking was as far from that of Canon Pusey as the earth’s poles. Pusey had declined the invitation to join the Old Testament Company supposedly because of Vance Smith’s presence in the general revision.75 For Pusey, anyone who denied the full divinity of Christ must inevitably taint the work of revising the Bible in which, in Pusey’s view, that divinity is transparently set forth. In the presenting instance in Westminster Abbey, both chapel and Jerusalem Chamber, it was not simply Westcott’s presumption that the Unitarian was on a journey into revelation as all people were – hence, for Westcott, the impermanence and relativity of all existing knowledge. It was also that the Unitarian had shards of insight to offer. After all, Vance Smith brought considerable expertise and experience in revision to the Company. He had already contributed to a new translation of the Old Testament,76 just as others of the revisers had gained similar previous experience. It no doubt helped Westcott that he had grown up in the new industrial city of Birmingham, the stronghold for and significantly shaped by the Unitarian, J.  B. Priestley. This setting bred an acceptance of those of Unitarian persuasion but also an experience of the rancour that frequently was thrown at adherents.77 There was no need for fear: ‘We who are members of the Church of England could rightly show and confirm our fellowship.’78 Here was the theological rationale that fed Stanley’s desire for inclusivity as a fundamental service that the Established Church should promote in the nation. Stanley’s printed circular of invitation was sent on 18 June. The late morning service on Wednesday 22 June 1870 gathered all but two members of the New Testament Revision Company plus a number of the Old Testament revisers. Vance Smith knelt to receive the elements next to Bishop Ellicott. Hort was ecstatic: ‘one of those few great services which seem to mark points in one’s life’.79 And so the work, meeting four days each month outside the summer break, began.80 73. B. F. Westcott, The Religious Office of the University (London: Macmillan, 1873), 57–58. 74. A. G. B. West, Memories of Brooke Foss Westcott (Cambridge: Heffer, 1936), 7. 75.  J. Witheridge, The Excellent Dr Stanley:  The Life of Dean Stanley of Westminster (Norwich: Michael Russell, 2013), 249. 76. G. V. Smith et al., The Holy Scriptures of the Old Covenant in a Revised Translation, 3 vols (London: Longman, Green, Longman and Roberts, 1859–62). 77.  On Priestley, see R. E. Schofield, The Enlightened Joseph Priestley:  A Study of His Life and Work from 1733 to 1773 (University Park:  Pennsylvania State University Press, 1997); on the temper of Birmingham, see J. Smith, ‘Joseph Chamberlain’, in Modern British Statesmen, 1867–1945, ed. R. N. Kelly and J. Cantrell (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1997), 80–81. 78. Westcott to Lightfoot 10/6/1870 (Westcott, Life of Westcott, vol. 1, 391). 79. Hort to ‘A Friend’ 7/7/1870 (Hort, Life of Hort, vol. 2, 136). 80. The Old Testament Company met bimonthly in blocks of ten days.

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The Response to a Unitarian at Holy Communion News broke that a Unitarian, one who did not hold to the doctrine of the Trinity, one who doubted the full divinity of the Son of God, had taken part in the service at Westminster Abbey. For some involved in the social experiments beginning to shape public policy in the Australian colonies (such as free, secular and compulsory education), the service was a triumph. ‘It may be doubted whether it has ever been the scene of an event so fraught, if rightly considered, with possibilities of kindly intercourse between jarring factions, and pacific solution of warring problems as that which happened, silent and unobserved, on the 22 June.’81 Even Establishment clergy serving as ‘colonial chaplains’ knew full well that the austerities of colonial life meant that the hard lines of confessional separation were inappropriate at least in their context.82 The sentiment was not without expression in England. The Bishop of Manchester (James Fraser) wrote, The united Communion in Westminster Abbey, which some so strangely delight to carp at, but which was a source of lively satisfaction to me, proved the possibility of union in an act of common worship, of those who differ, even widely, on points of dogma. When men can be brought to kneel down side by side, dogmatic differences cannot long continue to sever hearts that own one common Lord.83

Such an argument had particular force in a climate that included ongoing tensions with the Roman Catholic Church, which, in July of the same year, passed the Edict of Papal Infallibility. This had been widely criticized in the English Church’s Convocation as fatally flawed since the claim to an ‘Ecumenical Conciliar’ decision was a fiction ‘if Christians from other provinces were not included’.84 If this argument was to have any moral weight, then the Established Church needed to demonstrate it in its own practice. It was admitted that a Unitarian might have a different understanding of elements of the service, might even conscientiously distance himself from parts of it, such as the Creed, but the question of differences in dogma were seen by some as too fundamental for erasure, modification or voluntary abstention. The concurrent debates over the Athanasian Creed were casting a long shadow. This was the flash-point for Establishment clergy (and some laity) that galvanized their negative assessment of the whole enterprise,85 most especially when Smith shortly 81. Wagga Wagga Advertiser and Riverina Reporter 10/9/1870, 4. 82. Letter of ‘A Colonial Chaplain’ to The Guardian 23/11/1870, 1367. 83. The Guardian 20/7/1870, 848. Compare The Guardian 14/7/1870, 1095. 84.  The Guardian 20/7/1870, 857. The matter received considerable attention from Convocation. See F. W. Cornish, The English Church in the Nineteenth Century, Part II (London: Macmillan, 1910), 344–45. 85. See John Burgon’s letter to The Guardian 7/9/1870, 1064.

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afterwards went public to announce that he had not joined in the recitation of the Nicene Creed.86 ‘There can be no possible defence for such an act of desecration as the administration of the Holy Communion to Presbyterian, Baptists and Unitarians’, shrieked the Church Times.87 Smith became the emblem of the flaws of the process, but adherence to creeds could well remove other revisers as well. Even the conservative Joseph Angus, who maintained a belief in the fires of eternal punishment, was yet ambivalent about the creedal reinforcements of such beliefs. Angus averred that creeds, even Baptist ones, were merely representations ‘in a general way [of] the sentiment of the body’.88 It was too late to wish that Unitarian (or other Nonconformists) had just stayed away so that attention was not drawn, even worse to presume to dictate what should have been his ‘conscience’.89 Lightfoot’s fellow canon at St Paul’s Cathedral, Henry Liddon, wrote to him that the entire project was completely misconceived: ‘Fatal mistake was admission of any persons who were not members of the Church to seat and vote in the Revising Comm. Could admit them for opinions on various points but to go further than this was to ignore Our Lord’s provisions for the Teaching and Interpretative office of His Church to the end of time.’ The assumption here was that the Established Church held this dominical providence. There was no admission that there were two claimants to that privilege at that time, which competition undercut the force of the argument. Liddon went on, ‘[T]‌he mistake is due on the one hand to a desire to secure the friendship of Dissenters by paying them a public compliment at time when “Establishment” is felt to be imperilled and on the other to the ordinary academical instinct of substituting a communio doctorum for the communio sanctorum.’90 For Liddon, the strategic means of dealing with the challenges of the present was to buttress the grip on the past. The preservation of traditional foundations was the means to secure national and ecclesial identity, against Dissent, against Roman Catholicism. The fault lines in the Established Church were again on display. Vance Smith, in the immediate aftermath of the peak of the crisis, succinctly focused on how the Holy Communion carried different meanings within the Church of England. He called the Romanist and high Anglican doctrine of the Sacrament a ‘huge mistake’, in its claim to be a ‘sacrifice for sin, requiring to be perpetually renewed by a “sacrificing priest” ’.91 He portrayed the Lord’s Supper as ‘a service of 86. The Times 11/7/1870; compare also his letters to The Guardian 29/6/1870, 879 and 14/8/1870. 87. Church Times 8/7/1870; similarly the Church Herald 6/7/1870. 88. P. Schaff, Creeds of Christendom, with a History and Critical Notes Vol 1: The History of Creeds (New York: Harper, 1882), 852. 89. Editorial The Guardian 24/8/1870, 1001. Archbishop Tait similarly felt that Smith had made an error of judgement; Cornish, English Church, 176. 90. Liddon to Lightfoot 21/2/1871 (DDC Lightfoot Papers). 91. Smith, Bible and Popular Theology, 309. In the preface to this book, Smith seeks to clarify that the bulk of the book was completed just as Revision was commencing. Only the final chapter, the one quoted from here, was written in the aftermath of the controversy.

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grateful commemoration and reverence towards the Christian head . . . [and] . . . a testimony of sympathy and fellowship among those who partake’.92 Many in the Evangelical wing of the Church of England would have had little difficulty with the statement, even if choosing to frame the description differently. It was clear that even within the Church of England there was no monolithic unity of approach to the Sacrament.93 Smith obliquely noted how damaging the ‘miserable animosities’ had become: ‘alas for the Church which fences round this simple rite of faith with terms of communion unknown to Christ himself, and thus in effect forbids the approach to him of any who would seek to come in and sit down in the reverential spirit of Christian discipleship!’94

Turning the Westminster Scandal against the Revision Even as the work of revision continued in the bunker of the Jerusalem Chamber, forces were being marshalled against the enterprise. Petitions were mounted against the involvement of ‘teachers of other sects’. Canon T. T. Carter managed to secure a memorial with 1,500 signatures by the beginning of August.95 It included the names of Robert Gray, Bishop of Capetown,96 and Dr Augustus Short of Adelaide who added his own note of reprobation that the admission of Vance Smith ‘was a violation of the law of the Church both in principle and usage’.97 A  further memorial signed by 3,000 laymen followed.98 The vilifying labels of Socinian and Arian were hurled around, as fear-mongering through the delivery of the jibe in the nineteenth century as any remembrance of the Italian deniers of the divinity of Christ of the seventeenth century or the subtle angelic firstof-creatures in the convolutions of the more ancient Arius. Occasionally, ‘Jew’ and ‘Mahomet’ were added to Smith’s credentials.99 Even Archbishop Tait was accused of joining the ranks of the Socinian and infidel,100 so there was a certain indiscriminate distribution of name-calling at the time. Alliances were forged

92. Smith, Bible and Popular Theology, 310. 93.  Smith went on to express his opinion that disestablishment of the Church of England would not only create simply another sect but probably three or four more, given the splits that would occur: Bible and Popular Theology, 317. 94. Smith, Bible and Popular Theology, 310. 95. The Guardian 24/8/1870, 1012; E. M. Goulburn, John William Burgon: Late Dean of Chichester (London: John Murray, 1892), vol. 2, 45 n9. 96. See The Guardian 19/10/1870, 1223. 97. Evening Journal (Adelaide) 24/4/1871. 98. The Guardian 7/9/1870, 1063. 99. The Guardian 3/8/1870, 912; 10/8/1870, 957. 100.  R. T. Davidson and W. Benham, Life of Archibald Campbell Tait, Archbishop of Canterbury, 2 vols (London: Macmillan, 1891), vol. 1, 143.

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and schemes were hatched for the dismantling of revision itself, not merely the removal of Nonconformists. So vehement and incessant became the newspaper correspondence that The Guardian tried in October to draw a line against any further infliction of rage on its pages.101 The bishops were not so fortunate and were peppered by an intensifying array of accusations, beginning with Charles Wood of the English Church Union bemoaning the ‘dishonour to our Lord and Saviour’. It was not merely that a Unitarian had brought about this ‘Westminster Scandal’, this ‘Westminster Sacrilege’, as it was variously called. Vance Smith became the easy bullseye for a general attack on ‘recusants’, ‘separatists’, ‘sectarians’, ‘heretics’, that is, the array of Nonconformists who were now involved in the ongoing work of revision. Unitarianism simply focused all that was wrong with Nonconformity and, derivatively, with the revision. One member of the Old Testament Company, Canon John Jebb, resigned.102 The Church Herald editorialized on Convocation meeting in February 1871 that ‘[i]‌t is not that they [the bishops] have no “go” in them, but that they go best under pressure from behind’.103 It was apparent that in the interval between the opening of revision with a communion service in June and the meeting of Convocation in February of the New Year, a huge amount of pressure had been brought to bear on the high and mitred individuals charged with responsibility for the direction of the church.

The Attempt to Change the Rules of Revision The return to the Upper House of Convocation saw bishops scurrying to shore up a vessel that seemed to be springing leaks on every side. The Bishop of Ely, Harold Browne, regressed to a dogmatic position, claiming that the Holy Communion was ‘a rite which to my mind has no meaning unless He who ordained it was Divine’. He claimed, ‘I saw no way out of it. I was aware also that the whole English and American Churches were scandalized. Still I saw no daylight.’104 Wilberforce brought the remedying resolution on 14 February 1871, possibly assisted in its formulation by his friend Henry Liddon105:

101. The Guardian 10/10/1870, 958. 102.  He had not attended the Communion Service, claiming an inability to arrive in time, yet, in a letter to Dean Stanley, had welcomed the chance to receive it together (The Guardian 7/12/1870, 18). This was a public ‘graciousness’ that masked a disquieted conscience. 103. The Church Herald 18/2/1871, 2. 104. Bp of Ely to Lightfoot 16/2/1871 (DDC Lightfoot Papers). 105. See Wilberforce to Liddon 16/7/1870 (R. G. Wilberforce, Life of the Right Reverend Samuel Wilberforce, DD. Lord Bishop of Oxford and Afterwards of Winchester, 3 vols [London: John Murray, 1882], vol. 3, 352–53).

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That it is the judgment of this House that no person who denies the Godhead of our Lord Jesus Christ ought to be invited to join either Company to which is committed the revision of the Authorised Version of Holy Scripture; and that it is further the judgment of this House that any such person now on either Company should cease to act therewith.

The vote was ten to four,106 with Ellicott voting for the resolution. All hell broke loose. Stanley led the charge in the Lower House; other Establishment members of the Revision Company threatened resignation,107 including the band of Cambridge affiliates; the Nonconformists in the Companies were themselves agitated: ‘This action of the bishops gave great offence.’108 What very quickly became clear was that the issue fundamentally amounted to a breach of faith. Lightfoot wrote to Samuel Newth, ‘[N]‌either you nor I, nor any other member of the Company would have been safe from a similar edict of expulsion.’109 The Lower House redrafted the resolution, expressing regret at the offence that may have been caused, but no more. The Upper House backed down.110 The Evening Journal in Adelaide reflected the keen, colonial interest in the events occurring in the home country. It reported on a meeting about Bible Revision at the city’s Unitarian Church and concluded its summary of the Rev. J. C. Woods’s address with the observation: ‘It was not likely that . . . men of that stamp would give way to the bigotry of a number of obscure men, although their cause was advocated by a Bishop of Winchester, whose ability was undoubted and whose eloquence was great, but whose disinterestedness and straightforward manliness of character many of his countrymen doubted.’111 Ellicott’s position had seemingly become untenable and he absented himself from chairing the revision meeting on 28 February. Wilberforce however considered himself above reproach and put in an appearance on that day, though he left the chairing to the Bishop of Salisbury, George Moberly.112 Where he sat in relation to Vance Smith, who was also present, is not known. Joseph Blakesley, Dean 106. The effort of the Bishop of St David’s Connop Thirlwall to redirect the resolution to a reaffirmation of the original resolution seeking any scholarly assistance failed. See J. J. S. Perowne, Remains Literary and Theological of Connop Thirlwall, 2 vols (London: Daldy, Isbister & Co, 1877), vol. 2, 316. 107. Lightfoot to Ellicott 18/2/1871; Blakesley to Lightfoot 18/2/1871 (DDC Lightfoot Letters). 108. Newth, ‘RV Notes’ (Fair Copy) (BL Ms Add 36284, f.45b). 109. Lightfoot to Newth 23/2/1871, Newth ‘RV Notes’ (Fair Copy) (BL Ms Add 36284, f.45b). Newth copied parts of Lightfoot’s letter into his ‘fair copy’ of his notes on the meetings of the New Testament Revision Company. He had apparently kept the letter filed in his ‘rough copy’. 110. A. P. Stanley, Letters to a Friend by Connop Thirlwall, Late Lord Bishop of St David’s, 2 vols (London: Richard Bentley, 1881), vol. 2, 240–41. 111. Evening Journal 24/4/1871. 112. Westcott, ‘RV Notes’ book III, f. 62 (WFA).

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of Lincoln, was tempted to have the Company itself pass a resolution condemning what had transpired in the Upper House of Convocation: ‘I want to give the Bishop of Winchester and Gloucester so sound a rap on the knuckles as to induce them either to resign or at any rate to make up their minds to abstain from all such machinations for the future.’113 Westcott was of a similar mind, deeply desirous of reinforcing the independence of the Revision Companies.114 Ellicott however was already feverishly working to mend bridges. He confided in Lightfoot that even his near-death experience in a railway crash more than a decade earlier (which afflicted him with a permanent limp) had not left him so dispirited.115 Lightfoot became the mediator bringing reconciliation among all the parties. Ellicott returned to the chair, missing only one further day in the entire course of revision. In his subsequent writings about revision, he avoided all mention of the scandal. Bishop Wilberforce became even less frequent in his occasional appearances. His reasons depended on his audience. Gladstone had induced him to give up the see of Oxford for that of Winchester which had, in the hierarchical ascent, given him the chair of Convocation and its Joint Committees (in the absence of Archbishop Tait). But a debilitated diocese brought a new set of demands to one who no longer had the fresh energy of youth. Wilberforce claimed that the pressure of diocesan work prevented him from preparing the work necessary for the Revision Company.116 To members of the Church Union and the leaders of opposition to the revision, he claimed that the continued presence of a Socinian offended him.117 Westcott’s assessment was damning:  ‘the Bishop of Winchester . . . has no instincts of scholarship to keep alive his better self.’118 But stress was also impacting his health.119 The then Headmaster of Harrow, H. Montagu Butler, could not resist a private, sharp remonstrance:  ‘That sad Bishop of Winchester. What punishment would a new Dante devise for him? To take the Chair eternally at some meeting where Vance Smiths in endless succession were throwing him the resolutions of last year.’120 There was a certain prescience in his remark; in July of 1873, Wilberforce suffered a fatal fall while horse riding. 113. Blakesley to Lightfoot 18/2/1871 (DDC Lightfoot Papers). 114.  Westcott to Mary Westcott (his wife) 20/2/1871 (Westcott, Life of Westcott, vol. 1, 395). 115. Ellicott to Lightfoot 20/2/1871 (DDC Lightfoot Papers). 116.  R. G. Wilberforce, Leaders of the Church 1800–1900:  Bishop Wilberforce (London: Mowbray, 1905), 222; Wilberforce, Life of Wilberforce, vol. 3, 351. 117.  Wilberforce to Burgon 10/4/1871 (Goulburn, Burgon, 66). The Bishop is not identified in Goulburn’s biography but is named in S. Hemphill, A History of the Revised Version of the New Testament (London: Elliot Stock, 1906), 37. 118. Westcott to Hort 7/7/1870 (Westcott, Life of Westcott, vol. 1, 393). ‘Winchester’ is omitted by the tact of the biographer, Arthur Westcott, but the reference is transparent. For an assessment of Wilberforce’s scholarly ability, see Daniell, Bible in English, 683–87. 119. Meacham, Lord Bishop, 306–307. 120. Butler to Lightfoot 23/2/1873 (DDR Lightfoot Letters).

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Lightfoot anticipated that with the silencing of Convocation ‘our position is made stronger and more independent than ever, and I trust we shall feel ourselves more closely bound to each other by the danger which has threatened us from without’.121 Oxford University might have been a centre for ritualist scruples but its fellows nevertheless elected Arthur Stanley to be its University Preacher in December 1872.122 However, the forces marshalled in the early months after the ‘Westminster Scandal’ refused to withdraw, at least as far as the intent of John Burgon was concerned.123 Every Vance Smith publication across the next decade brought a renewed flurry of protest in the newspapers. But the tarring of Vance Smith crept into the Company as well. When the work on the Apocrypha was being divided up among members of the two Revision Companies, Vance Smith’s name was crossed off.124 The Company revealed how much it had been damaged by the reaction to his participation in the inaugural, inclusive service of Holy Communion. It became much more circumspect in arranging its service to mark the end of the English Company’s work on its second revision of the New Testament. The service was non-Eucharistic and was held at William Humphry’s parish church of St Martin-in-the-Fields, not the Abbey’s chapel.125 And the infamy of the scandal reached across the Atlantic, almost completely souring any Episcopalian involvement in or backing for American participation in the work of revision. It was not the most auspicious start to a work hoping to cultivate unity for English-speaking peoples.

121. Lightfoot to Newth 23/2/1871, Newth ‘RV Notes’ (Fair Copy) (BL Ms Add 36284, f. 45b). 122. Newth ‘RV Notes’ 11/12/1872 (Fair Copy) (BL Ms Add 36285, f. 83v). 123.  See, for example, Burgon’s letter to The Guardian 24/1/1872, 99; An Unitarian Reviser of our Authorised Version, intolerable; an earnest Remonstrance and Petition (Oxford: Parker, 1872); ‘Letter to Bishop Ellicott, In Reply to His Pamphlet’, included in The Revision Revised (London: John Murray, 1883), 369–521. 124.  ‘The Committees for work on the Apocrypha 18 February 1879’ (CUL Ms Add 9739 f. 3, Robert Scott papers). 125. ‘Final Resolutions, postscript’ printed note dated 12 November 1880 (CUL Ms Add 9739, f. 3, Robert Scott papers).

Chapter 4 C O N F L IC T S O V E R O R IG I NA L T E X T A N D   M E T HO D

‘Stern Accuracy in inquiring, bold Imagination in expounding and filling up . . . these are the two pinions on which History soars.’1 So wrote Thomas Carlyle in a famous distillation, thought to capture the essence of nineteenth-century approaches to history. To interpret the past accurately exacted a balance between two poles. One pole required an acknowledgement that history was a present activity, dealing with sherds that have survived, an accidence or remainder that could never yield the vastness of the ‘pastness’ of the past. Hence, the construction of history was an ethical enterprise, constantly with an eye to contemporary concerns and calling forth ‘the act’ – the realization of the lessons learned. But the other pole was a necessary constraint on unfettered flights of fancy. Interpretation that extracted and exposited the truth of history must pay the strictest attention to chronology, geography, documentary evidence and whatever else might be yielded from the search into the realia that the past had bequeathed to the present.2

The Textual Critics on the Revision Company There were three textual critics that saw the project of revision through to the end, four if one counts the acceptances to the invitation to join. They can be divided according to the two halves of Carlyle’s axiom. The ‘stern accuracy in inquiring’ certainly classifies Frederick H.  A. Scrivener and Samuel Prideaux Tregelles. From his first publication in 1845,3 Scrivener had committed himself to collecting ancient manuscript evidence, sometimes producing facsimile editions,4 1.  T. Carlyle, ‘Count Cagliostro in Two Flights’, Fraser’s Magazine 8 (July–August 1833): 23. 2.  See S. Anger, Victorian Interpretation (Ithaca/London:  Cornell University Press, 2005), 61–94. 3.  F. H.  A. Scrivener, A Supplement to the Authorised English Version of the New Testament: Being a Critical Illustration of Its More Difficult Passages from the Syriac, Latin and Earlier English Versions (London: William Pickering, 1845). 4. F. H. A. Scrivener, An Exact Transcription of the Codex Augiensis (Cambridge: Deighton, Bell & Co, 1859); Bezae Codex Cantabrigiensis (Cambridge: Deighton, Bell & Co, 1864).

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sometimes making accurate collations of ancient manuscripts.5 His A Plain Introduction to the Criticism of the New Testament was a model of antiquarian harvesting and organization,6 and he had provided the authoritative edition of the Textus Receptus in 1859.7 In 1872, he was honoured in the Civil List, which secured him a pension, in reward for his services to textual criticism. Gladstone’s hand again might be seen indicating his preference and Scrivener duly vindicated the choice the following year with The Cambridge Paragraph Bible where, among a number of formatting arrangements which identified the much-loved poetic texts, he purified the text and marginal notes of the AV from the accretions of two and a half centuries of promiscuous printing.8 For all his vast knowledge of texts, his preference was strongly for those texts that today would be identified as reflecting ‘Byzantine’ readings, the forerunner to the Textus Receptus (the general basis of the AV), though to be distinguished from it. He often was swayed by the volume of manuscripts delivering ancient textual support for a reading,9 even though he was conscious of the transmissional vagaries in our evidence. If anyone was familiar with the detail of the status quo for the AV, Scrivener was. When the peculiar ‘an hill’ of Matt. 5.14 was noted by the Baptist Dr Angus as a simple printer’s mistake and by Stanley as ‘an innocent archaism’, Scrivener brought depth to the observations: ‘What is said of [the] A.V. may be true of later editions, but in the early editions [there was] no universal usage.’10 His abilities clearly qualified him for the minutiae of the marginalia that run around the perimeter of the text of the

5. A Full Collation of the Codex Sinaiticus with the Received Text of the New Testament (Cambridge:  Deighton, Bell & Co, 1864, 18672); Adversaria Critica Sacra (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1893). 6. A Plain Introduction to the Criticism of the New Testament (Cambridge: Deighton, Bell & Co, 1861; 4th edn, 2 vols, 1894). 7. Novum Testamentum: Textus Stephanici A. D. 1550 (Cambridge: Deighton, Bell & Co, 1859). On the text used by the King James revisers, see J. R. Kohlenberger, ‘The Textual Sources of the King James Bible’, in Translation That Openeth the Window: Reflections on the History and Legacy of the King James Bible, ed. D. G. Burke (Atlanta, GA: SBL, 2009), 43–53. 8.  The Cambridge Paragraph Bible of the Authorised (English) Version (Cambridge: University Press, 1873); the task of purification took some time, with a final renewal coming with his The Authorised Version of the English Bible (1611) (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1884). 9. For example, when, on 28/3/1871, the Company were covering Matt. 21.7, Scrivener noted that seventy-six of the later manuscripts, which amounts to nearly all of the most ancient authorities, read ἐπεκάθισεν (‘he sat thereon’; RV) rather than ἐπεκάθισαν (‘they set him thereon’; AV): Samuel Newth, ‘RV Notes’ (Fair Copy) (BL Ms Add 36284, f. 61b). Needless to say, on the change to the Greek text for the purposes of revision, Scrivener agreed. 10. B. F. Westcott, ‘RV Notes’ book II, ff. 5–6 (WFA). The offending ‘an’ was unanimously voted out.

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RV. When the Company formalized arrangements to observe the requirement of the General Principles for marginalia, Scrivener headed the subcommittee that was appointed. He would rub shoulders thereafter with a Unitarian (Vance Smith), a Methodist (William Moulton) and a Scottish Presbyterian (Alexander Roberts).11 Four months later, J.  B. Lightfoot (himself no slouch in textual matters) raised the question of punctuation. Scrivener said (on behalf of the subcommittee for marginalia) that he was ‘quite willing to undertake the charge’.12 The appointment was complicated by a further explicit task given to him alone by the Company, that he ‘be requested to make a list of those places in which the original text approved by the Company differs from the text presumed to be used by the translators of the common version’.13 Whether it was purely a recognition of ‘his single-minded devotion to Biblical study’,14 or a means of ensuring that he was thoroughly occupied away from major contentions about the text and revision (or perhaps both) is not clear. But as final touches to the revision approached, the exhaustion was beginning to show, prevailing against Fenton Hort’s unwearied predilection to continual amendment: ‘In a word, if we are ever to have an end to our labours, we must hold our hands now.’15 11. Minute-book of the Company for the Revision of the Authorised Version of the New Testament 13/6/1871 (CUL Ms Add 6935, f. 10). 12. Westcott, ‘RV Notes’ book II, f. 26 (WFA). The RV Minute-book curtly noted the resolution: 14/10/1870 (CUL Ms Add 6935, f.47). Punctuation, observed Ellicott, would be done ‘uncertainly’ by a large body. 13.  Minute-book 12/10/1870 (CUL Ms Add 6935, f.  34). In the end, the number of changes to the Greek text were so many that they threatened to clog the page, much in the manner of medieval manuscripts containing ancient catenae. The orchestrating hand of the University Presses stepped in and instructed a cull (Bartholomew Price and Charles Clay to Scrivener and Moulton 24/12/1880; CUL Pr.V.17, f.138). However, shortly after the release of the Revised New Testament, both University Presses published the text settled upon by the Company with a list of the 5,788 departures from the Greek text presumed to have underlain the AV. Scrivener edited for Cambridge, Edwin Palmer, of Christ Church College, Oxford, another though later-entry reviser, for Oxford University Press: F. H. A. Scrivener, The New Testament in the Original Greek according to the Text followed in the Authorized Version together with the Variations adopted in the Revised Version (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1881); E. Palmer, The Greek Testament with the Readings adopted by the Revisers of the Authorised Version (Oxford:  Clarendon Press, 1882). Both adopted as their parent text that which was the basis of the AV and marked the revisers’ readings in a footer apparatus. However, Scrivener’s was the more accurately formed, as Palmer contented himself with the third edition of Stephanus’s Greek text of 1550, an edition made by Scrivener himself. The figure of 5,788 departures is a calculation made by Scrivener as stated by F. C. Cook, The Revised Version of the First Three Gospels (London: John Murray, 1882), 222 cf. 230. 14. Westcott to Lady Victoria Welby 22/3/1886 (A. Westcott, Life and Letters of Brooke Foss Westcott, 2 vols (London: Macmillan, 1901), vol. 2, 82. 15. Scrivener to Hort 6/7/1880(?) (CUL Ms Add 6950, f. 232).

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Tregelles, known as a Plymouth Brethren for many years but seemingly joining the ranks of the alumni in later life,16 had dedicated his life to the search for New Testament manuscripts and their collation. His manner sometimes added phosphorus to the incendiary bomb that was Constantin von Tischendorf, both brilliant textual scholars, both prone to explosive remarks.17 In the initial meeting of the Committee delegated by Convocation to establish guidelines for the revision and to suggest names of scholars on 2 May 1870, Tregelles’ name had been omitted,18 possibly because the ischaemic paralysis that ultimately took his life in 1875 was already tightening its vice. Hort may have taken a lead in securing the nominal honour. He had worked to gain for Tregelles secure sponsorship for his quest for manuscripts in libraries across Europe.19 Hort had also been the ghost writer behind the completion of Tregelles’ momentous Greek New Testament published in seven fascicles,20 having maintained ongoing contact with him since 1854; in turn, Tregelles had promised access to all his resources.21 Tregelles, unlike Scrivener, had begun the process of disentangling the Greek Testament from the hold of minuscule manuscripts especially as they were interwoven with the Textus Receptus. Instead of providing the TR as the main text and then inviting a modestly trained reader to make the adjustments to this text on the basis of the readings given in fine print squeezed into the bottom margin, Tregelles, like von Tischendorf, and Karl Lachmann before them both, sought a critically constructed Greek text. These two were, by degrees, second and third cousins to Carlyle’s pilloried character (stolen from Walter Scott) of Mr Dryasdust,22 that is, a character hunting down every skerrick of information yet without a clear understanding of how to 16. So, F. F. Bruce, ‘Preface’, to B. W. Newton and Dr. S. P. Tregelles: Teachers of the Faith and the Future, by G. H. Fromow (London: Sovereign Grace, 1959). 17. See T. C. F. Stunt, ‘Some Unpublished Letters of S. P. Tregelles Relating to the Codex Sinaiticus’, EQ 48 (1976): 15–26. Some indication of Tregelles’ polemic may be found in his early pamphlet, A Lecture on the Historic Evidence of the Authorship and Transmission of the Books of the New Testament (London: Bagster, 1852). 18. Robert Scott Papers 3.1 (CUL Ms Add. 9739, folder 3). 19. Tregelles to Sir J. F. T. Crampton 1860 (BL Ms Add 61835, f. 15). 20.  This is the loud hint in A. Hort, Life and Letters of Fenton John Anthony Hort, 2 vols (London:  Macmillan, 1896), vol. 2, 235–36. See also D. Jongkind, ‘Introduction’, to the transcription of Tregelles’ Greek New Testament available at http://www.tyndalehouse. com/tregelles/ (2009):  3–4. The publication of the fifth fascicle in 1870 contained an ‘Advertisement’ mentioning that this and subsequent publications would be in the hands of others. Hort and B. M. Newton were instrumental in the execution. The full series of the Greek New Testament was published by Samuel Bagster from 1857 to the posthumous seventh fascicle in 1879. 21. Hort, Life of Hort, vol. 1, 314, 374, 396, 404. 22.  T. Carlyle, ‘Oliver Cromwell’s Letters and Speeches’, Edinburgh Magazine 61 (1847): 401, 403.

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organize and weigh the importance of the material. Certainly both Westcott and Hort were always on the hunt for new manuscripts, new readings. The assessment of a modern critic that they never ‘actually collated a single manuscript but worked completely from published material’ is misleading.23 If they could not extract sample collations of manuscripts, their circle of friends dropped into European libraries to hunt out the desired information.24 Similarly, they were ever-ready to share their materials with colleagues.25 Scrivener himself in a letter to Lightfoot wrote of his preparation for a new edition of the Plain Introduction: ‘I have from all sources large materials for improving and correcting it ready for use. Hort and Vansittart are among those who have been kindest to me that way.’26 Westcott and Hort were not satisfied to join the growing ranks of those trawling through the traces of manuscripts among the dust of libraries, monasteries and private collections. This retrieval may have achieved volume but, as Richard Trench lamented, ‘much refuses still to group itself in any satisfying combination’.27 The Trinity College duo belonged to Carlyle’s second pinion, ‘bold Imagination in expounding and filling up’. Scrivener admitted as much. Mid-way through the work on the RV, he published a small book (relative, that is, to his Plain Introduction). He had apparently gained permission from Westcott and Hort to use their as-yetunpublished Greek New Testament and proceeded to reference it throughout his work.28 Scrivener pointed to the accumulation of data from the manuscripts over 23. K. Aland and B. Aland, The Text of the New Testament, translated by E. F. Rhodes (Grand Rapids:  Eerdmans, 1987), 18. The Alands are correct only if they meant that Westcott and Hort published few collations. Westcott used Stanley’s contacts to gain access to manuscripts in private holdings. See, for example, Stanley to Lord Curzon 20/10/1862 (CUL Ms Add. 8316.1.53). Hort used the contacts of Henry Bradshaw to gain access to Irish texts:  Hort to Bradshaw 13/12/1860 (CUL Ms Add 2591.593, f.  63). Westcott and Hort’s Private Printing of the Gospels acknowledged that they began with the collections of previous editors but these have been ‘augmented, as well as frequently verified and reexamined’. ‘The New Testament in the Original Greek: The Gospels’, v–vi (SJCL Mayor Papers, Cambridge). 24.  Henry Bradshaw to Westcott 12/4/1873 (on a manuscript at Milan) (WFA insert in book, J. M. A. Scholz, Novum Testamentum Graece (Leipzig: Fleischer, 1830). Scholz’s edition, from Westcott’s own library, is filled with pencilled corrections in Westcott’s hand. (Scholz was notoriously inaccurate in his transcriptions.) Compare Scrivener’s kindness to Westcott: Westcott to Lightfoot 2/1/1867 (DDC Lightfoot Letters). 25. Tregelles singles out Westcott and Hort in the introduction to his second fascicle (on Luke and John), ‘I must acknowledge my obligations for many acts of kindness.’ 26.  Scrivener to Lightfoot 14/1/1871 (DDC Lightfoot Letters). A.  A. Vansittart was a Fellow of Trinity College and frequently did leg-work for Scrivener, Westcott and Hort. Scrivener repeats the acknowledgement in A Plain Introduction, 191. 27. R. C. Trench, On the Authorized Version of the New Testament: in connection with some recent proposals for its revision (New York: Redfield, 1858), 6. 28. F. H. A. Scrivener, Six Lectures on the Text of the New Testament (Cambridge: Deighton, Bell & Co, 1875).

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preceding generations but went on to add that ‘the task of constructing afresh the text of the New Testament calls for critical discernment and acuteness, such as fall to the lot of few’. He then went on to add that the labour and the honour had been bestowed in a high degree on Westcott and Hort.29 This is not to move Scrivener into full acceptance of Westcott and Hort’s theory of reconstructing the Greek New Testament. He was willing to give other detractors their voice in his last (posthumous) publication before the terror of textual critics, failing eyesight, tore at him.30 Hort was quite clear, in his contact with other textual critics, of the basic difference between them.31 The following year (1876), another member of the Revision Company, the Scottish Presbyterian John Eadie, referred not only to the Westcott-Hort text but also to ‘the clear and compact preface . . . to their edition, 1870’.32 Four years later (again before the formal publication in 1881), William Rushbrooke gained permission to use the Westcott-Hort Greek text for the preparation of his synopsis.33 This is hardly the ‘strictest secrecy’ that Burgon imagined them demanding.34 It rather indicates the level of scholarly collaboration that textual criticism requires. However, subsequent interpreters of the making of the RV and the history of textual criticism have been much too swayed by the fateful reference to ‘opposing principles’ made by William Moulton for the filial hagiography of Fenton Hort.35 Scrivener was dragged unwittingly into the camp of the blustering attack by Dean John Burgon who, in his efforts to (further) destabilize acceptance of the RV, had launched into the Westcott and Hort Greek New Testament. According to Burgon’s portrayal, it had swamped the revisers.36 He claimed Scrivener as ‘the 29. Scrivener, Six Lectures, 112–13. 30. Scrivener, Adversaria Critica Sacra (London: Clay, 1893), xxvii–xxviii. It is striking that nowhere in this collection does Scrivener refer to Westcott. Hort alone is given the responsibility for the burden of the edited text published in 1881. Scrivener died in 1891. 31. ‘I should be the last to question his knowledge or accuracy speaking absolutely. He is I think the most accurate of collators and editors of texts . . . But I do not think that he has any clear principles of criticism, he is apt to be an advocate rather than an impartial student and he is not too generous in his treatment of others as he ought to be. His accuracy too is not seldom at fault when he is writing by compilation not from personal knowledge.’ Hort to Caspar Gregory 16/2/1877 (CUL Ms Add. 6597, f. 159). 32. J. Eadie, The English Bible . . . with Remarks on the Need of Revising the English New Testament, 2 vols (London: Macmillan, 1876), vol. 2, 347 n2. 33. W. G. Rushbrooke, Synopticon: An Exposition of the Common Matter of the Synoptic Gospels (London: Macmillan, 1880). His preface is dated 3/11/1879; he thanked Hort for the suggestion about the columnar arrangement of the gospel parallels. 34.  J. W. Burgon, The Revision Revised (London:  John Murray, 1883), xi–xii. See further, below. 35. Hort, Life of Hort, vol. 2, 237. 36. Burgon, Revision Revised, iv. The attack, initially published in the Quarterly Review, was met by an outright denial and lengthy demonstration from Ellicott and Palmer, The Revisers and the Greek Text of the New Testament (London: Macmillan, 1882).

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best critic living’ and deliberately misapplied Scrivener’s preface to a new edition of the Stephanus New Testament in 188737 by isolating the phrase splendidum peccatum, non κτῆμα εἰς ἀεὶ, in lucem emiserunt (‘they have sent into the light a glorious failure, not a work to last forever’).38 The criticism was rather directed to the application of Lachmann-inspired principles for the grouping and evaluation of New Testament manuscripts. In fact, a few sentences before, Scrivener (and his assistant editor William Shilleto) had graciously conceded (benigne concedentibus editoribus ipsis) the contribution Westcott and Hort had made to their own new edition. Hort found Burgon’s dragooning odd,39 even though he knew, as Scrivener did, that there was a world of difference in their approaches to New Testament manuscripts. Westcott wrote, ‘I cannot read Burgon yet. A glance at one or two sentences leads me to think that his violence answers himself.’40 Lightfoot advised them both, ‘[N]‌o, do not answer Burgon. He and people who think with him in matters of textual criticism have minds incapable of influence by true principles.’41 The issue for the revisers, as we shall see, came down to which edition would be the base text from which independent judgements about the Greek text for translation would be made. For the textual critics, it became a contest between the isolation of an archival approach to history and the embrace of a scheme that provided an explanation for the collected evidence.42

The Westcott-Hort Greek New Testament in the Revision Company Ezra Abbot of the American New Testament Revision Company had recognized that the tracing of relationships between manuscripts through establishing their genealogies went back to Johann Bengel (1734) via Karl Lachmann, though Hort built it into ‘a truly monumental form’.43 But a neighbour to Westcott and Hort at Scroope Terrace in Cambridge recognized a specific connection. Henry Gwatkin 37. Burgon to Viscount Cranbrook 21/2/1887 (E. M. Goulburn, John William Burgon: Late Dean of Chichester [London: John Murray, 1892], 277). 38. F. H. A. Scrivener, H KAINH ΔΙΑΘΗΚΗ. Novum Testamentum Textus Stephanici A.D. 1550 (New  York:  Holt, 1887), ix. In one line, Scrivener had combined in the best Byzantine style, allusions to Augustan, Thucydides and a medieval commonplace for ‘publication’. 39. ‘Burgon’s language about Scrivener is very strange, but cannot be taken as evidence in the teeth of Scrivener’s own writings, and especially the progress which they have exhibited.’ Westcott to Gregory Delémont 7/6/1882 (CUL Ms Add. 6597 f. 189). 40. Westcott to Hort 28/10/1881 (CUL Ms Add. 6597, f. 176). 41. Lightfoot to Hort 14/11/1881 (CUL Ms Add. 6597, f. 177). 42. Compare the Memoir to H. M. Gwatkin in The Sacrifice of Thankfulness: Sermons (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1917), xv. 43. E. Abbot, ‘Bible Text’, in The New Schaff-Herzog Encyclopedia of Religious Knowledge, ed. S. M. Jackson, 13 vols (New York: Funk and Wagnalls, 1908), vol. 2, 110.

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was a church historian but he drew a direct line in the use of the genealogical method between textual criticism and the natural sciences.44 And the natural sciences were Hort’s second discipline.45 Hort regarded Charles Darwin’s Origin of Species as unanswerable, ‘a treat to read’.46 Westcott himself, like many a Cambridge student, had cultivated a collection of ferns and rocks, the latter remaining with him through to his episcopacy at Durham.47 Meticulous attention to detail and refined schema of classification were the Victorian asceticism for those aspiring to influence in intellectual life; Westcott and Hort were examplars.48 When the two decided in 1853 to give themselves to the work of establishing a Greek New Testament text founded on a more defensible methodology than that of the Textus Receptus, this was the schema that informed their work. The collaborative venture enacted one of Westcott’s criticisms of Carlyle, that of his excessive individualism, a critique informed by the insights of Guiseppi Mazzini.49 We have already encountered Westcott’s commitment to cooperativism; Mazzini was a companion throughout his life.50 The partnership with Hort and the extensive probings of the Greek text in the Revision Company meetings gratified Westcott’s thirst for common projects.51 Their division of manuscripts into four text-types – the Syrian (or Byzantine), the Alexandrian, the Western and the neutral – has been considerably modified. The tendentious labelling of the last text-type as neutral (most blatantly represented by the fourth- to fifth-century manuscript, Codex Vaticanus), as if it had escaped contamination, has been rejected.52 However, their methodology has continued to 44.  H. M. Gwatkin, Studies of Arianism (Cambridge:  Deighton, Bell and Co, 1900 [1882]), xi; see also S. C. Carpenter, Church and People, 1789–1889: A History of the Church of England from William Wilberforce to ‘Lux Mundi’ (London: SPCK, 1933), 513–15; and generally, Y.-J. Lin, The Erotic Life of Manuscripts: New Testament Textual Criticism and the Biological Sciences (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2016). 45. Hort, Life of Hort, vol. 1, 61, 178–79. 46. Hort to Westcott 10/3/1860 (Hort, Life of Hort, vol. 1, 414–15). 47. Westcott, Life of Westcott, vol. 1, 233 cf. 259. 48.  D. Newsome, Godliness and Good Learning:  Four Studies on a Victorian Ideal (London: John Murray, 1961), 92–96. This does not mean that we should expect the detail of a computerized ancestry, pace Yii-Jan Lin, Erotic Life of Manuscripts, 62–64. 49.  G. Mazzini, ‘On the Genius and Tendency of the Writings of Thomas Carlyle’, BFQR 16 (January 1844):  262–93, reprinted in J. P. Seigel (ed.), The Critical Heritage (London: Routledge, 1995), 250–62. 50. Westcott, Life of Westcott, vol. 2, 353. This is not to deny the influence of Carlyle. Hort was an avid fan (Hort, Life of Hort, vol. 1, 73, 128, 177, 264, 402); Westcott, a collector of autographs as well (though crediting his wife’s interest), sought a sample of Carlyle’s signature for his collection (Westcott to Macmillan 18/2/1864, BL Ms Add 55092, f. 124). 51. Westcott at one stage seriously entertained a coenobium, a community of thinking, working families; Westcott, Life of Westcott, vol. 1, 263–66. 52. See the judicious evaluation of R. F. Hull, The Story of the New Testament Text: Movers, Materials, Motives, Methods and Models (Atlanta, GA: SBL, 2010), 96–108.

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exert considerable influence on new developments in textual criticism. Eberhard Nestle, in sending a complimentary copy of his own Novum Testamentum Graece to Westcott in 1898, accompanied it with a note: ‘I testify once more with the greatest pleasure, I never handled a book made up with so much care and thoughtfulness in the smallest details as your edition.’53 Many of their decisions on the ‘original’ text have survived the test of time, with Codex B (Vaticanus) receiving significant support from a papyrus codex (dated to about 200 AD) of the Pauline letters now monocled as 𝔓46, but unknown at the time.54 One modern textual critic, Jacobus Petzer, credits Westcott and Hort with the final relegation of the Byzantine text.55 How final is, of course, subject to the same provisionality that governed all the decisions of the Cambridge pair. Precisely because the approach of Westcott and Hort was so novel to many of the members of the Revision Company, there was some difficulty in comprehending their method. The removal of manuscript volume (which inevitably favoured the Byzantine text-type) as the arbiter of text, in favour of a criterion based on the age of a manuscript was relatively easy to accept.56 But, as Hort accented, ‘Age by itself affords only a provisional criterion.’57 The means by which the value of a manuscript was assessed, even an old one (let alone the value of a cursive), was less easy to follow, let alone the intricate discernment of lines of connection between manuscripts that enabled text-types to be established. (Carlyle’s chronology, geography and corroborative documentary evidence were crucial here.) It was clear when Charles Merivale, Dean of Ely, came onto the Company to replace the deceased Henry Alford that he hadn’t even caught up with Sinaiticus and Vaticanus let alone the more difficult questions of how to assess them.58 One year after the 53. Nestle to Westcott, end March 1898 (WHA Books 2.1). 54.  G. Zuntz, The Text of the Epistles:  A Disquisition upon the Corpus Paulinum (London: British Academy, 1953). 55. J. H. Petzer, ‘The History of the New Testament – its Reconstruction, Significance and Use in New Testament Textual Criticism’, in New Testament Textual Criticism, Exegesis and History, ed. B. Aland and J. Delobel (Kampen:  Kok Pharos, 1994), 15–18. A  recent effort to revive the Byzantine (or Majority Text) as containing the original text has been systematically dismembered by Daniel Wallace in a series of essays. See his ‘The Majority Text Theory: History, Methods and Critique’, in The Text of the New Testament in Contemporary Research, ed. B. D. Ehrman and M. W. Holmes (Grand Rapids, MN: Eerdmans, 1995), 297– 320; ‘There is simply no shred of evidence that the Byzantine text-type existed prior to the fourth century’ (p. 313). 56.  Westcott himself in his explanatory notes for the text of Vaughan’s commentary on Romans had accented the age of a manuscript: C. J. Vaughan, Η ΠΡΟΣ ΡΩΜΑΙΟΥΣ ΕΠΙΣΤΟΛΗ: St Paul’s Epistle to the Romans with Notes (London: Macmillan & Co, 1860), iv. A far more detailed overview (‘Principles of Textual Criticism’) was written for Smith’s Dictionary of the Bible, vol. 3 sv ‘New Testament’. 57. Westcott-Hort, ‘Private Printing: The Gospels’, xiv. 58.  Westcott, ‘RV Notes’ book III, f.  68 (WFA). Merivale later claimed that his withdrawal was compelled by ‘the course our colleagues were intent on pursuing and

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work of revision had formally begun, the Archdeacon of Dublin, William Lee – no stranger to the work of the early Westcott59 – brought a resolution to the Company: That a Committee be appointed, consisting of the Bishop of Gloucester and Bristol [Charles Ellicott], the Dean of Rochester [Robert Scott], Prof Westcott, Mr Scrivener and Mr Hort, to draw up a table of the relative values of the great uncial MSS and of the principal cursives, so that the text selected may be construed according to a uniform rule and likewise to suggest the best means of securing this end.

He probably had a copy of Westcott and Hort’s preliminary Greek text and the short prolegomenon, but it apparently wasn’t enough. Hort’s friend, the able, scholarly gentleman, Augustus Vansittart, had already warned Hort about the short introduction:  ‘You will probably succeed in impressing readers with the conviction that textual criticism is an obscure and unprofitable study, in which two well-qualified enquirers rarely arrive at the same result.’60 In any case, a healthy discussion followed and eventually the motion was withdrawn, ‘the proposer considering that his object in bringing the question forward had been sufficiently attained’.61 Whether light had entered the fog is unknown. The resolution does show, first, that pressure had been building from the exchanges over Greek textual matters in the Revision meetings62; second that there were a group of five considered to have expertise above the others (a supplement to the familiar three); and third that the debates had moved the participants to an appreciation, however nominal, that the value of individual manuscripts had to be assessed. It needs to be noted that the official Minute Book kept by John Troutbeck, Stanley’s precentor at Westminster Abbey, mutes any indication of tension in the the critical principles they maintained’; Merivale to Christopher Wordsworth, Bishop of Lincoln, 22/10/1881 (J. A. Merivale, Autobiography and Letters of Charles Merivale: Dean of Ely [Oxford: Horace Hart, 1898], 451). Again, the moral high-ground was stormed by incompetence. 59. W. Lee, The Inspiration of Holy Scripture: Its Nature and Proof (London: Rivingtons, 1854), 25, 142–45. 60.  Vansittart to Hort 7/8/1870 (CUL Ms Add 6597, f.  142). This lack of agreement among textual scholars was exactly the conclusion reached by Francis Cornish, The English Church in the Nineteenth Century (London: Macmillan, 1910), vol. 2, 170–71. 61.  Minute Book 25/5/1871 (CUL Ms Add 6935, f.  282). Note that the manuscript number needs correcting in A. H. Cadwallader, ‘The Politics of Translation of the Revised Version: Evidence from the Newly Discovered Notebooks of Brooke Foss Westcott’, JTS 58 (2007): 430 n74. 62.  In his notebook, Samuel Newth records that the previous day (24/5/1871) as the end of Matthew’s Gospel had been reached, Lee ‘called attn. to the practice before the Co in deciding the text, and urged the importance of some clearly defined rules of judgment’. Newth, ‘RV Notes’ (Fair Copy) (BL Ms Add 36284, f. 106b).

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group. Voting records for members’ decisions over the text disappear after the first two days of work.63 Initially Westcott and Hort’s access to Vaticanus was derivative and Sinaiticus was only the stuff of rumour.64 These were the two great codices of the Greek Bible that were revolutionizing the understanding of the New Testament text. Westcott and Hort first considered printing the results of their labours for Matthew and Mark’s Gospel in 1858.65 In 1859, Westcott had also released to Charles Vaughan, still enthroned as Headmaster of Harrow, their text of Romans for his new commentary.66 And Philip Schaff, when visiting Westcott at Harrow in 1869, may have received an early printing of their Greek New Testament.67 But the texts of these New Testament books were to receive considerable modification before even the Company of New Testament Revisers began to see their research. So, for example, Vaughan included, from Westcott’s text, εὑρηκέναι in the notoriously difficult Rom. 4.1 after Τί οὖν ἐροῦμεν and before Ἀβραὰμ τὸν προπάτορα ἡμῶν (‘what shall we say our forefather Abraham found’). A marginal note for the omission of εὑρηκέναι was given (and Vaughan interpreted the verse according to the omission!) but the 1881 edition of Westcott-Hort reversed the decision. The Stephanus edition of Scrivener retained the word but transposed it after ἡμῶν.

63. Charles Vaughan tried to revive voting records for the decisions about the Greek text, but lost, five in favour to six against: Samuel Newth, ‘RV Notes’ (Rough Copy) 28/3/1871 (BL Ms Add 36279, f. 58b). 64.  A poor quality transcription of Codex Vaticanus was published in 1857:  A. Mai, Η ΠΑΛΑΙΑ ΚΑΙ Η ΚΑΙΝΗ ΔΙΑΘΗΚΗ. Vetus et Novum Testamentum ex antiquissima Codice Vaticano (Rome:  Spithöver, 1857). Hort was very conscious of the inadequacy of a facsimile formed by reproducing the manuscript’s later re-tracing:  Hort to Ezra Abbot 11/2/1890 (CUL Ms Add 6579, f. 749). Tischendorf produced a reliable edition in 1867: Novum Testamentum Vaticanum post Angeli Maii aliorumque imperfectos laboresex ipso codice (Leipzig:  Gieseke & Devrient, 1867). Two years previously he had published Sinaiticus with another self-serving title: Novum Testamentum Graecum ex Sinaitico codice omnium antiquissimo (Leipzig: Brockhaus, 1865). 65. Hort to Ellerton 4/3/1858 (Hort, Life of Hort, vol. 1.397). 66.  Vaughan, Η ΠΡΟΣ ΡΩΜΑΙΟΥΣ ΕΠΙΣΤΟΛΗ. Westcott’s particular involvement in the text of Romans at this stage (p. xiii) may explain why the list of disagreements about readings acknowledged between them (p. xx) is heaviest in Romans in the final edition: The New Testament in the Original Greek: Introduction and Appendix (Cambridge/ London: Macmillan, 1881), 108–14. 67. Schaff noted in his diary ‘Westcott and Hort’s Greek Testament I think will suit me exactly.’ D. S. Schaff, The Life of Philip Schaff (New York: Scribner’s, 1897), 245. It may have been nothing more than his anticipation after discussing with Westcott the labours to which he and Hort were committed. But, in any case, it indicates how widely known and freely discussed their project was.

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Making Decisions about the Greek Text for Revision One can perhaps understand the quandary of the general Company of revisers when their work began. The General Principles developed for the direction of the Companies contained two explicit references to the foundational Greek text and one implicit guideline. The latter required that as few alterations as possible were to be introduced into the Text of the Authorized Version ‘consistently with faithfulness’. This moral injunction was notoriously vague. Westcott had held, ‘We have only to determine what is written and how it can be rendered. Theologians may deal with the text and version afterwards.’68 This became directed towards the equivalence of a single English word for each occurrence of a Greek foundation,69 but it presupposed that the Greek was clear. The order in Westcott’s phrasing is significant – the Greek had to be established first. This was made plain in the fourth principle, that ‘the Text to be adopted be that for which the evidence is decidedly preponderating’ and when different from that which lay behind the AV, a marginal note be appended. Direction was also made to each reviser (the tenth principle) as to how to prepare for each meeting. The page of preparations was, it seems to be divided in two, ‘to place all the corrections due to textual considerations on the left-hand margin and all other corrections on the right-hand margin’.70 (Of all the principles, this was the one most loosely followed, though it is clear that all but one or two, such as Samuel Wilberforce, were conscientious in preparing their notes beforehand.) So it was assumed, doubtless from the weight of criticism accumulated over the preceding century, that the text would be changed. The issue was not revision of the Greek text but rather a decision about which edition should be used as the basis of revision. There had been, as we have seen, a number of reconstructed texts of the Greek New Testament; even more were there changes to the English translation that presumed a different Greek base. The American Bible Union’s program for a new translation had specified the use of Bagster’s 1851 edition,71 which included the variants noted in Griesbach, Scholz, Lachmann and Tischendorf (up to that date). It had in fact been Westcott’s recommendation to Hort early in his time at Trinity College, Cambridge.72 This at least revealed the options available. 68. Westcott to Hort 1/7/1870 (Westcott, Life of Westcott, vol. 1, 392–93). 69. S. Newth, Lectures on Bible Revision (London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1881), 124–25. 70. Printed resolution paper (CUL Ms Add.9739, f. 3, Robert Scott papers). 71.  W. Selwyn, On the Proposed Amendment of the Authorized Version of the Holy Scriptures (Cambridge: Deighton, Bell & Co, 1856), 13. 72. Hort to Ellerton 29–30/12/1851 (Hort, Life of Hort, vol. 1, 211). Westcott, born in 1825, had held the dream since he was 21 years old (Westcott, Life of Westcott, vol. 1, 42). For the planning and development of their work, see P. Gurry, ‘ “A Book Worth Publishing”: The Making of Westcott and Hort’s Greek New Testament (1881)’, in The Future of Textual Scholarship on the New Testament, ed. G. V. Allen. WUNT (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2018), forthcoming.

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Tischendorf ’s great editio octava critica maior had been published in 1869. Five volumes of Tregelles’ edition were available by 1870, with one more of the text of the New Testament to come. However, it was also clear that these editions had been fostered, indeed necessitated, by exciting discoveries seemingly unending, won as a result of European confidence that sparked expeditions to ever-moreremote locations. Some considered the time was too green to settle on a text73; A. Cleveland Coxe, Bishop of Western New York, editor of the American edition of the Ante-Nicene Fathers series and in some ways the American incarnation of John Burgon,74 railed against those who ‘marvel at the unexplored treasures of MSS, which are daily coming to light’ and the ‘unrest and turbulence [of the age] which mark it as a period of mere transition’.75 At the very least, there was a pronounced reserve about creating a new Textus Receptus. For Coxe, this would have been anathema anyway.76 At the beginning, the New Testament Company reverted to the tried and true. Scrivener’s edition of the Stephanus text of 1550 became the starting point for argument, assessment and decision. This edition was not to determine the resultant text. There were too many members of the company familiar with the advances in understanding the Greek New Testament to settle for that. Indeed, many of the members, including the more textually conservative ones such as Trench and Alford, had made those advances part of their call for revision. But the Stephanus text was the base from which the Company began their work to establish the Greek text that they would adopt for the sake of English revision. In 1872, the chair of the English New Testament Company, Charles Ellicott, sent through to Henry Thayer, secretary for the American New Testament Company, a copy of the first draft revision for the Synoptic Gospels. It bore an ominous injunction that ‘[t]‌his copy is for the use of Professor J. H. Thayer alone, and is not to be published or communicated to anyone beyond the body of American Revisers’. There was included a ‘List of changes provisionally made in the text of the Greek Testament by the Company of Revisers of the Authorized Version’. The chapters of each Gospel were listed down the printed page and after each chapter a line of numbers. So, for example: ‘S. MATTHEW, Chap V. Nos. 5.8.9.12.14.16 (L.T.Tr.).19.22.27.30.31.33.34.35.’ The explanation of these numbers was given in a head note: ‘The numerals refer to the notes in Scrivener’s edition of the text of Stephens, 1872.’77 Here the L. refers to Lachmann, the T. to Tischendorf and the Tr. to Tregelles. Scrivener had collated into an apparatus the readings adopted by these editors, along with the 1565 edition 73. See Eadie, The English Bible, vol. 2, 355. 74. Coxe however aimed higher, journaling ‘I in Buffalo, he [Augustine] in Hippo’; E. A. Clark, ‘Arthur Cleveland Coxe, the Ante-Nicene Fathers, and Roman Catholicism’, AEH 85 (2016): 180. 75. The Church Journal (1870), 264–65. 76. Clark, ‘Arthur Cleveland Coxe’, 179. 77.  ‘List of Changes provisionally made in the text of the Greek Testament by the Company of Revisers of the Authorized Version’ (AHTLA bMS 672/2(3) Thayer papers).

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of Theodore Beza (B), and the 1624 edition of Bonaventure and Abraham Elzevir (E). When Bishop Ellicott and Edwin Palmer mounted a lengthy parry to John Burgon’s riposte regarding the accusation that the Cambridge Professors, Westcott and Hort, had controlled the formation of the Greek text behind the RV, they took up one of the heavily contested verses, 1 Tim. 3.16. Stephanus’s text read θεὸς ἐφανερώθη ἐν σαρκί, ‘God was manifest in the flesh’ (AV). It was an unequivocal proof-text supporting the Christian doctrine of the incarnation and the two natures of Christ. Burgon certainly hammered the connection.78 The reading adopted by the revisers was ὃς ἐφανερώθη ἐν σαρκί (‘He who was manifested in the flesh’; RV) which, in the isolation of the shift from the AV reading, might seem to diminish if not remove the divinity of Christ. Ellicott and Palmer then cited the authorities in favour of the change:  Griesbach, Lachmann, Tischendorf and Tregelles. They add further supports: the judgements of ‘the late Dean Alford’, Bishop Ellicott in his commentary on the Pastoral Epistles and Christopher Wordsworth (a member of the Old Testament Revision Company).79 The list of authorities in favour of the change indicates that the primary point of reference for the establishment of the Greek text was Scrivener’s edition of Stephanus Greek New Testament. Two other revisers the depth of the discussion that followed after a recitation of critical texts for and against; it is clear that the merits of various manuscript readings were studiously scrutinized.80 It is also clear that Westcott and Hort were but one (pair) of text-critical contributors to the decision. This expands our understanding of the process by which the Company approached their task, beyond the simplified rendering of Samuel Newth’s explanation. Newth had written in the aftermath of revision that two members were ‘specially entitled to speak with authority’ about textual matters, Scrivener and Hort. The impression he gives is that the Stephanus edition was read as the basis. But Scrivener’s edition provided much more. So Scrivener himself cannot be taken as providing an unsophisticated defence of the TR. Rather, as Newth states, Scrivener gave ‘his judgment upon the bearing of the evidence’ with Hort providing any additional matters ‘that may call for notice’. The abbreviated reference to other editions in Scrivener’s numbered footnotes to the received Greek text did not provide the manuscript citations relied upon by the other editors. A  review of manuscript evidence would have needed further explanation drawn from other resources. Then the panel was opened for discussion and a vote followed (on the same principle as for the English renderings, i.e., a simple majority for the first revision, a two-thirds majority for the review, ‘a second revision’).81 78.  Burgon, Revision Revised, 98–106, 425–503 (the latter section, a response to the Ellicott-Palmer response). 79. Ellicott-Palmer, The Revisers and the Greek Text, 5. 80.  W. Humphry, A Commentary on the Revised Version of the New Testament (London: Cassell, Petter, Galpin & Co, 1882), 387; A. Roberts, Companion to the Revised Version of the English New Testament (London: Cassell, Petter, Galpin & Co, 18823), 66–68. 81.  Newth, Lectures, 119–20. Westcott records the decision of the Company that the two-thirds rule applied to both text and rendering: ‘RV Notes’ book II, f. 65v (WFA).

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A good example of the input helping to shape the Greek text for revision is provided by Westcott’s report of the decision over Matt. 16.21. Scrivener’s edition read Ἀπὸ τότε ἤρξατο ὁ Ἰησους δεικνύειν (‘from that time forth began Jesus to show . . .’; AV). The only footnote indicating a textual variant was the absence of the article (ὁ) in Lachmann’s edition, with it gaining an option in Tregelles. At the time this verse was first discussed (28 February 1871), the Westcott-Hort private printing of their Greek text had not yet been finalized – it would come in July. It may explain why Newth’s later published sequence is reversed. According to Westcott’s notes, Hort began. He proposed adoption of the Greek reading Ἀπὸ τότε ἤρξατο ὁ Ἰησους Χριστὸς δεικνύειν, that this appearance in ‫( א‬Codex Sinaiticus) and B (Codex Vaticanus) along with memphitic coptic manuscripts was ‘an unique phenomenon’. He acknowledged that the combination ‘Jesus Christ’ occurred ‘elsewhere in synoptics only at beginnings’, but that this was a very important moment in the Gospel: ‘Half the ministry is over. Now the Passion begins to be spoken of.’ When his Introduction to the Greek New Testament was published in 1882, the same arguments that Westcott records were repeated in expanded form.82 Scrivener responded, bringing the matter to a vote: ‘[T]‌he question to be considered is should we follow ‫ א‬B Memph. There is immense internal evidence against them.’ The same arguments have guided decisions in Greek editions ever since.83 The Company followed Scrivener on this occasion, though the vote is not recorded in Westcott’s notes (simply ‘lost’). Hort however was not to be dampened. He moved that a marginal note be added that ‘some very ancient authorities read “Jesus Christ” ’.84 This was agreed, though ‘very’ was deleted at the suggestion of the American Revision Company.85

The Contribution of the Revision Company to the Westcott-Hort Greek Text The printed copies of Westcott and Hort’s Greek New Testament did not supplant Scrivener’s edition of Stephanus to become the text from which the Revisers worked.86 Rather their still-in-formation text was intended to join with the editions of Lachmann, Tischendorf, Tregelles, Beza and Elzevir to be factored into the apparatus in the Scrivener collation – precisely the adjustment Scrivener made 82. B. F. Westcott and F. J. A. Hort, The New Testament in the Original Greek: Introduction, Appendix (London: Macmillan, 1882), Appendix 13–14. 83. See B. Metzger, A Textual Commentary on the Greek New Testament (UBS, 1971), 42–43; W. D. Davies and D. C. Allison, The Gospel According to Saint Mathew, 3 vols (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1991), vol. 2, 655 n10. Davies and Allison acknowledge that some commentators follow the Westcott-Hort reading. 84. Westcott, ‘RV Notes’ book III, f. 69 (WFA). 85. ‘First and Provisional Revision, Gospel of Matthew’, 41 (AHTLA bMS 624/1 [11], Ezra Abbot papers). The American vote for the elision of the intensifier was 8-0. 86. Contra the suggestion of P. S. Thuesen, In Discordance with the Scriptures: American Protestant Battles over Translating the Bible (Oxford:  Oxford University Press, 1999), 46.

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in his new edition of 1887. The advent of the revision had prompted Westcott and Hort to isolate their work on the gospels and to publish it separately from the rest of the Greek New Testament.87 They no doubt reasoned that, like Tregelles, they could print their text of the New Testament privately in fascicles, keeping up with the pace of the revisers’ work.88 There was also the advantage to be gained by exposing their work before the eyes of two Companies, English and American, containing the world’s foremost scholars outside of Europe, and benefitting from the critical discussions that ensued.89 They discussed the options with Alexander Macmillan after a meeting of the Revision Company in November 1870. There were issues about stalling American piracy of the work to be considered (an ongoing concern, but one that was severely to impact the relations with the Americans over the Revision).90 They opted for a private printing, which was dated ‘Christmas 1870’ but was still not organized until the following year.91 Their Cambridge neighbour and fellow-reviser, William Moulton, read through the proofs and contributed a series of corrections.92 Hort requested that sixty copies be made, with fifty copies of the introduction.93 Macmillan must have been precipitous – he had after all been waiting for more than a decade for the manuscript. He rushed an advertisement into the cover of the Journal of Philology, only to receive a scolding from Hort that this was a draft private-printing only.94 The introduction provided twenty-three pages setting out the distinctive purpose and guiding principles of the edition, a prolegomenon that Hort described as ‘virtually meant only meant [sic] for experts . . . We hope to be more explicit hereafter. Brevity for the time has its own advantages as to intelligibility’.95 Even though the American revisers had received Westcott and Hort’s Greek text we have seen already that the base Greek text for discussion between the Americans and English was Scrivener’s edition of Stephanus. 87. Hort to ‘A Friend’ 7/7/1870 (Hort, Life of Hort, vol. 2, 137). 88.  Hort to Macmillan 17/1/1871 (BL Ms Add 55094, f.  51), signals the need for preparation of a printing of the Acts of the Apostles, but this did not occur until more than a year later (BL Ms 55094, ff. 51, 53). The Catholic Epistles were to follow: Hort to Macmillan 21/11/1873 (BL Ms Add 55094, f. 57). 89. Hort had from the beginning recognized the importance of the Revision Companies for the advance of learning; Hort to Moulton 17/6/1870; Hort to Ellerton 19/7 and 10/8/1870 (Hort, Life of Hort, vol. 2, 135, 139). 90. Hort to Macmillan 9/11/1870 (BL Ms Add 55094, f. 41). 91. It did not eventuate until July 1871: Hort to Ellerton 13/10/1871 (Hort, Life of Hort, vol. 2, 148). 92. Westcott to Moulton November 1870 (W. F. and J. H. Moulton, William F. Moulton: A Memoir [London: Isbister, 1899], 176). 93. Hort to Macmillan 30/12/1870 (BL Ms Add 55094, f. 45). 94. Hort to Macmillan 3/5/1871 (BL Ms Add 55094, f. 47). 95. Hort to Lightfoot 27/8/1870 (DDC Lightfoot Letters).

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He attempted to state the fundamental principle in brief: ‘[W]‌herever there is a serious conflict of authority, a decision founded solely on the evidence, external or internal, belonging to the single passage can rarely be satisfactory: each reading demands the previous study of many other readings.’96 In other words, familiarity with the tendenz of an entire manuscript was required; this was what lay behind the privileging of Codex Vaticanus when in combination with another group of witnesses for a particular reading.97 Westcott is reported on at least one occasion stating the general principle that ‘Aleph and B without any contrary reason nearly always right’.98 This was in relation to a decision about the Greek text of Matt. 11.19, that is, whether to read τῶν τέκνων αὐτῆς (‘her children’; AV) or τῶν ἔργων αὐτῆς (‘her works’; RV).99 Such methodological guidelines were not conferred by Scrivener’s edition which merely cited the judgement of other, albeit perceptive, critics on minutiae of single verses. This is what drove Archdeacon Lee’s request mentioned previously. However, it was clear that brevity had not achieved its goal and the introduction to the Westcott-Hort Greek New Testament would go through further refinements, and with each refinement an expansion,100 before seeing the light of day in 1881, following the publication of both the Westcott-Hort Greek New Testament and the Revised New Testament. The Westcott-Hort text included in its margin alternate readings where there was either doubt in their own minds as to the correct text or which might yet be able to stake such a claim. As we have seen with their text of Romans furnished to Vaughan, they operated with the circumspection that a final definitive text was impossible. Westcott in a sermon delivered after the full Revised Bible was released, noted, ‘The very idea of a revision of the Bible which extends to the ground-texts, as well as to the renderings, suggests to us that the Bible is a vital record to be interpreted according to the growth of life.’101 For him, the efforts at textual and translational revision were proximate, never final, a characteristic of all language. Precision was demanded, but it merely confirmed that language could only ever ‘feel’ after the Truth.102 It is understandable therefore that this 1870 private printing, which was sent out to scholars beyond the ranks of the 96. Westcott-Hort, ‘Private Printing: The Gospels’, xiv. 97.  Ibid., xvi–xvii. Hort recognized that the privilege granted to Codex B could be misinterpreted. In his fuller published Introduction he was careful to accent that ‘to take it as the sole authority except where it contains self-betraying errors . . . is an unwarrantable abandonment of criticism’. Westcott and Hort, Introduction, Appendix, 250. 98. Newth ‘RV Notes’ 31/1/1871 (BL Ms Add 36279, f. 47b). 99. ‘Her children’ is clearly an assimilation from Lk. 7.35, as is noted in the RV margin. 100. Both Westcott and Macmillan were anxious about the length of the final product; see Westcott to Macmillan 14/6/1878, 17/6/1878, 2/1/1879 (BL Ms Add. 55092, ff. 306, 308, 312). 101. E. W. Benson and B. F. Westcott, Two Sermons Preached at the Dedication Festival of All Hallows, Borking (London: Macmillan, 1886), 6 (‘The Lesson of Biblical Revision’). 102. Westcott, Lessons from Work (London: Macmillan, 1901), 81.

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New Testament Revision Companies of England and America,103 was not their final product. The 1878 complaint of Alexander Macmillan, their publisher, that these private printings were being ‘freely handed about’ suggests that further printings (with further changes) were made and distributed.104 Even the 1881 public release of The New Testament in the Original Greek five days before the New Testament Revision was published, continued to receive tinkerings until 1898.105 It is also understandable that an audience cultivated on a tight correlation of word and reality would be nervous about such provisional understandings (even with a little phenomenal help from Plato), let alone the execution of them in a displacement of the AV.

The Revisers at Work on Text and Translation Most of the revisers were devoted in their attention to the task of preparation for the four-day meetings of the Revision Company each month. Some revisers at different times were unable to attend, but we have a number of surviving examples of their detailed notes sent to the chair so that their opinions might be proffered into the discussion.106 We know of two members who kept relatively detailed notes of proceedings for their own record,107 a welcome insight given that the official Minutes kept by John Troutbeck offered little more than ‘for . . . (AV) read . . . (RV)’. These revisers occasionally give attention to decisions about the Greek text. Because only two of Westcott’s twenty-one exercise books of notes are extant,108 comparison with Samuel Newth’s notebooks of meetings will be restricted to the Gospel of Matthew. In Matt. 6.33, the AV had ‘Seek ye first the kingdom of God’ based on a Greek reading βασιλείαν τοῦ θεοῦ. Westcott’s notebook records 103.  Copies are known to have been sent to Paul de Lagarde and Edward Reuss on the Continent:  Lagarde to Westcott 29/9/1871, Reuss to Westcott and Hort 30/12/1871 (CUL Add. MS 8317.1.131, 157), among a dozen foreign scholars whose names were given to Macmillan (BL Ms 55097, f.  47). Copies were sent to the American revisers (Hort to Ellerton 13/10/1871; Hort, Life of Hort, vol. 2.148). 104.  Macmillan to Hort 6/6/1878 (C. L. Graves, The Life and Letters of Alexander Macmillan [London: Macmillan, 1910], 345). 105.  Westcott to Burkitt 4/4/1895 (CUL Ms Add. 7658, B1000); see also in the same collection letters dated 18/5/1895 (B1001), 27/12/1895 (B1005). 106.  Vance Smith per Robert Scott 3/5/1880 (CUL Ms Add. 9739, f.  4, Robert Scott papers). 107.  There are likely to be more to have done so, even though their records have disappeared. Moulton is mentioned as lending notes to Westcott (Westcott, Life of Westcott, vol. 1, 332–33); a fragment of Moulton’s neat hand has been retained in Westcott’s surviving notebooks. Substantial fragments of Hort’s record of discussions are also extant. 108.  The number of Westcott’s notebooks comes from Westcott, Life of Westcott, vol. 1, 397.

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Joseph Blakesley, another Cambridge man,109 as moving the omission of τοῦ θεοῦ and had Hort ‘summing up the evidence’. Lightfoot chimed in with a translation and suggested that a marginal note be added: ‘many ancient authorities read “the kingdom of God” ’. Westcott simply notes that the omission was carried,110 but Newth provides the voting of ‘M’ (meaning the ‘Majority’ – abstentions sometimes vary the total in each meeting) with one against. He does not report who voted against. This became the Greek text but Lightfoot’s suggestion for the marginal note did not surface in the published revision. Both notebooks record a discussion on 10 November 1870 over the Greek reading in Matt. 8.12. The Greek of Stephanus had ἐκβληθήσονται (‘shall be cast out’) but Scrivener’s edition had provided an additional note that Tischendorf (in his eight edition) had opted for ἐξελεύσονται (‘shall go out’), a significant difference in the agency exercised for the destination of outer darkness! According to Newth’s notes, Vaughan, Alford and Scrivener simply spoke as to the reading, presumably in favour of ἐκβληθήσονται. He then lengthens the discussion with Westcott’s own contribution: ‘W. explained that the authority for ἐξελεύσονται are all of one class and thought that this VR [=Variant Reading] should not be noticed.’111 This was a clear example of Tischendorf ’s preference for the manuscript he had discovered (Codex Sinaiticus) getting the better of his judgement. Westcott’s notes substantially cohere, recording (under ‘Self ’) that he argued that there be no marginal note for Tischendorf ’s reading as it is ‘supported by only one group’.112 Ultimately the only change was in the English rendering of the Greek common to the AV and RV: ‘shall be cast forth’. The insights are important as indicating that the Scrivener-Hort opening to discussions was not an absolute standard for proceedings. (Hort is not mentioned in notes to this verse.) Moreover, a number of the revisers were aware of the actual manuscript support for the variant, rather than simply the reading supported by one or other edition. And finally, in spite of Ellicott’s later snide remark that Westcott contributed very little to discussions, this does not appear to be the case.113 Edwin Palmer and Charles Ellicott reckoned that overall there were no more than sixty-four readings adopted in the Greek text for the RV that were unique to Westcott and Hort’s text.114 In the Gospel of Matthew alone, there were 109.  He became Dean of Lincoln Cathedral in 1872, following a stint as canon of Canterbury Cathedral (where he had a somewhat tense relationship with Henry Alford). 110. Westcott, ‘RV Notes’ book II, ff. 50–51 (WFA). 111. Newth, ‘RV Notes’ (Rough Copy) 10/11/1870 (BL Ms Add 36279, f. 18). 112. Westcott, ‘RV Notes’ book II, f. 67 (WFA). 113. Owen Chadwick rightly suspects a defensive remark; O. Chadwick, The Victorian Church Part Two: 1860–1901 (London: SCM Press, 1987 [1972]), 48. On one rare instance of Ellicott’s departure on pressing business, he handed the chair to Westcott: Newth, ‘RV Notes’ 12/12/1875 (Rough Copy) (BL Ms Add 36282, f. 378). The Company also adopted a time-saving resolution that Westcott brought to use the Matthean rendering they had already adopted when they came to the parallel passage in Mark: Minute-book 27/6/1871 (CUL Ms Add 6935, f. 301). 114. Ellicott-Palmer, The Revisers and the Greek Text, 41.

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approximately 470 changes to the Greek text considered to be the basis for the AV. Hort reckoned that the Westcott-Hort text of Matthew contained sixty-six ‘peculiar’ readings, that is, readings that they had adopted but were not found as the critical text in the three contemporary editions collated into Scrivener’s volume of Stephanus (i.e. Lachmann, Tischendorf, Tregelles). Of these sixty-six, none were adopted into the constructed Greek text of the revisers and only nine secured a marginal note.115 Little wonder that Scrivener commented that the influence of the Westcott-Hort text ‘was by no means a predominating one’.116 Indeed, a sample of the first fifteen chapters of Matthew covered in Newth’s notes reveals first that Hort’s contributions were few; second that on only one occasion are Scrivener and Hort recorded as promoting opposite positions in the assessment of the text; and third that Scrivener frequently made suggestions about the shaping of the Greek text which were adopted. When a comparison is made with Westcott’s notes on Matthew ­chapter 5 at the first foray into revision, Hort is recorded thirty-six times, Scrivener nineteen times. Hort tended to contribute more when it came to renderings but both received rejections117 as well as approvals for their suggestions.118 For comparison, Charles Vaughan leads the notices – forty-nine times – and Charles Ellicott is revealed as a fairly involved chair, mentioned twenty-eight times. The raw statistics of course do not correlate blithely with influence, nor do Westcott’s notes report everything of substance, as a comparison with Newth’s notebooks demonstrates. Yet, with all the provisos that must accompany notes made for personal record and interest, the stereotyped representations of the power of figures such as Hort that have become part of received history119 do not seem to be borne out.

The ‘Longer Ending’ of Mark’s Gospel The changes to the Greek text that we have offered as illustrations thus far have been relatively minor. One change however was conducted in a most tense environment 115.  ‘Notes by F.  J. A.  Hort on the Text of the English Bible’ (CUL Ms Add 6950, ff. 99–102). 116. Scrivener, A Plain Introduction, vol. 2, 285 n297. 117.  For example, Hort wanted ‘abolish’ as the translation of καταλῦσαι rather than ‘destroy’ (AV) in Matt. 5.17: Westcott, ‘RV Notes’ book II, f. 8. The Authorised rendering was retained in the RV. Scrivener recommended the transliterated ‘Gehenna’ in Matt 5.22 rather than ‘hell’, ‘since hell is not Greek’: Westcott, ‘RV Notes’ book II, f. 17. This at least made the RV margin ‘Gehenna of fire’. Frederick Farrar would have applauded if he had known! 118. Hort secured Scrivener’s preference for ‘Gehenna of Fire’ for the margin: Westcott, ‘RV Notes’ book II, f. 22. Scrivener’s suggestion for an explanation of ‘publican’ in Matt. 5.46 to be provided in the margin was adopted: Westcott, ‘RV Notes’ book II, f. 32. 119. See S. Hemphill, A History of the Revised Version of the New Testament (London: Eliot Stock, 1906), 48–54.

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because a grenade had been hurled from outside the Jerusalem Chamber by the incessant protagonist, John Burgon. The discussions and the decisions within the Revision Company were sworn to secrecy. There were of course occasional consultants whose opinions were sought.120 Westminster Abbey was a magnet to visitors from overseas and, if the Company were meeting, the Dean of Westminster, Arthur Stanley, sometimes introduced them to the revisers. Dr John Broadhurst (Broadus), a Baptist Professor of Homiletics and the Interpretation of the New Testament, who had penned a critique of the American Bible Union’s recent translation of the New Testament, spent a lunch-break in discussion with Westcott and Hort.121 No doubt evening soirées brought some discussion of this or that text, likely at a general level. After retirement as Principal of New College, the Congregationalist Samuel Newth set himself to write a fair copy of the notebooks on revision he had kept two decades before. In the leisurely balm of retrospective wisdom, he inserted a number of extra comments into his ‘fair copy’. One was his opinion that Lord Lyttelton held an undue influence over the contributions of Joseph Blakesley.122 But the one regular public notice of the work of the Revision Companies were the newspaper announcements of the meetings held and the texts covered.123 Burgon appears to have calculated from the beginning of the revisers’ meetings when one of his shibboleths was going to be discussed  – the ending to Mark’s Gospel. He, or at least his publisher, determined to have his defence of the ‘Longer Ending’ (Mk 16.9-20) into the public arena at just the right time to have the greatest impact. The chair and secretary of the Company were frequently at the receiving end of suggestions from the public about this or that passage, some bizarre, some esoteric, some considered. But Burgon was different. His scything command of rhetoric, his assemblage of apparent learning and his astute feel for strategic timing made his ‘defence’ a formidable attack. Burgon was no friend of Nonconformity, of revision to the AV, of change. But the accelerant to the fire of his sensitivities, as we have seen, was the active presence 120. Later in life, Ellicott could only recall an inquiry about the capacity of sea vessels directed to the Admiralty (in relation to the sea journey in Acts 27): Addresses on the Revised Version of Holy Scripture (London: SPCK, 1901), 31–32. However, Emmanuel Deutsch of the British Museum Library provided advice on the chronology of the move of gehenna from a geographical to a symbolic sense (Deutsch to the Revision Company 13/7/1870 (CUL Ms Add 6946, f. 7); Dean Stanley wanted the company to seek advice from rabbinical scholars on the meaning of Raca and Môre in Matt. 5.22 (Westcott, ‘RV Notes’ book II, f. 11 [WFA]). 121. Westcott, ‘RV Notes’ book II, f. 4. 122.  Newth ‘RV Notes’ 28/4/1871 (Fair Copy) (BL Ms Add 36284, f.  93b). Blakesley tutored Lyttelton at Trinity College. Lyttelton was related by marriage to Gladstone. 123. The importance of ‘handling’ the press is recognized by Ellicott: Bp. of Gloucester and Bristol to Stanley (CUL Ms Add 6946, f. 117). Very occasionally, an unremarkable notice related to the meetings would be given, such as the visit of the Archbishop of Canterbury to the gathering on 13 July 1870.

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of a Unitarian. Scripture for Burgon was part and parcel of God’s sacred deposit of revelation. Those who denied the full divinity of Christ were, for him, like a poison slowly decaying the entire body of faith.124 Burgon knew that key verses of the Textus Receptus supportive of Christ’s divinity, such as the Comma Johanneum and 1 Tim. 3.:16, were already suspect in critical Greek texts, as was the Longer Ending to Mark. He also knew that Unitarians would welcome their exit.125 So for him, the defence of the AV was a defence of the faith. Biblical language was, in his view, assailed only as an onslaught on faith, either by intent or result. ‘There has arisen in these last days a singular impatience of Dogmatic Truth’, so he heralded his opening.126 Accordingly, the Longer Ending of Mark’s Gospel was sacrosanct; it was bonded with the Athanasian Creed. After all, he asserted, verse 16 – ‘he that believeth not shall be damned’ – ‘proceeded from Divine Lips’.127 Any suggestion that Christ was not raised, as might be deducible from an ending that affronted literary sensibilities with a terminating conjunction (γάρ) and omitted any witnesses to the resurrected Jesus, could not be countenanced. Frederick Cook, in a forthright critical review of the RV gospels, pointed to a leading exponent of modern scepticism, William Greg, who had been raised as a Unitarian. Cook noted that Greg regarded ‘the omission in St Mark’s Gospel of all reference to personal appearances of our Lord after the resurrection [as obliterating] the earliest and most authoritative attestation to that cardinal event’.128 On this line of thinking, a key tenet of the faith demanded the Longer Ending of Mark’s Gospel, and therefore it must be there – almost regardless of the history of the text. Burgon regarded the thought unfathomable that the inspired Author could leave the Gospel ‘in this imperfect or unfinished state’.129 He made a carefully calculated manoeuvre; he cited Scrivener’s explanation that the full-length gospel had been mutilated because of a perceived embarrassment among some ancient scribes over the inconsistencies between the resurrection 124.  See his An Unitarian Reviser of our Authorised Version intolerable:  an earnest remonstrance and petition addressed to C. J. Ellicott, Bishop of Gloucester and Bristol (Oxford/ London: J. Parker, 1872). 125.  On this he was correct. See G. V. Smith, Texts and Margins of the Revised New Testament Affecting Theological Doctrine Briefly Reviewed (London:  British and Foreign Unitarian Association, 1881). 126. J. W. Burgon, The Last Twelve Verses of the Gospel according to S. Mark Vindicated against Recent Critical Objectors and Established (Oxford/London: James Parker, 1871), 2. 127. Burgon, Last Twelve Verses, 3. 128. Cook, First Three Gospels, 121. The unsourced reference in Cook is to W. R. Greg, The Creed of Christendom: Its Foundations and Superstructure, 2nd edn (London: Trübner, 1863), 191–205. Greg’s reference to the ending of Mark at 16.8 is confined to a footnote (193n2) in a more general demolition of the accounts of resurrection. On Greg, see R. J. Helmstadter, ‘W. R.  Greg, A  Manchester Creed’, in Victorian Faith in Crisis:  Essays on Continuity and Change in Nineteenth Century Religious Belief, ed. R. J. Helmstadter and B. Lightman (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1990), 187–222. 129. Burgon, Last Twelve Verses, 244.

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appearance in Mk. 16.9-20 and accounts in the other gospels. Expurgation was resolution. Apparently the ancient scribes did not share Cook’s nineteenth-century consternation. Burgon then flattered Scrivener as ‘the most judicious living Master of Textual Criticism’.130 Westcott and Hort, by contrast, deliver a ‘hostile verdict’ on the passage, he claimed.131 Even though Burgon claimed to have been assembling his defence over a period of three years,132 it is clear that the rhetoric had been shaped by the advent of the RV. It must be acknowledged that many of the arguments that Burgon mounted in favour of the retention of verses 9–20 have retained their currency among contemporary defenders of their integrity.133 But the crisis was one of how language was to be understood, especially in relation to matters of doctrine and faith and the method for handling its use. Hort saw the political danger immediately, as did a prospective member of the Old Testament Revision Company, Thomas Cheyne, then at Balliol College, Oxford. Cheyne contacted Hort to elicit a response to Burgon’s noise. Hort moaned to Westcott on the rapid refutation that was needed if Scrivener was not to be emboldened to hold to his explanation of the absence of the disputed verses in some ancient manuscripts and so sway the committee.134 If the Company didn’t vote against the ‘Longer Ending’ for the text when a simple majority was required, it would not survive the two-thirds rule later. Hort’s critique appeared in The Academy just in time for the meeting of the Revised Company dealing with the passage.135 He corrected a number of issues of fact which, by Burgon’s arrangement, ‘could not fail to mislead an unwary reader’.136 He noted the problems caused by another ending, the so-called Shorter Ending, which Burgon conveniently sidestepped. It was clear that the early church was nonplussed at the abrupt ending of Mark’s Gospel; a variety of solutions was tried. And then Hort turned to a brief elaboration of the genealogical method which alone could assist the decision. Hort’s peroration is telling of his circumspection about the work of textual criticism: ‘The high antiquity of the narrative cannot reasonably be doubted, and almost as little its ultimate if not proximate Apostolic origins.’ The reserve of the 130. Burgon, Last Twelve Verses, viii. 131. Burgon, Last Twelve Verses, 13. Knowledge of Westcott’s views was readily obtained from his Introduction to the Study of the Gospels (London: Macmillan, 18724), 333–35. 132. Burgon to Monier Williams 15/8/1871 (Goulburn, Burgon, 52). It should be recalled how quickly Burgon brought out his lengthy repudiation of the Revised New Testament in the January 1882 edition of the Quarterly Review. 133. For a review, see A. H. Cadwallader, ‘The Hermeneutical Potential of the Multiple Endings of Mark’s Gospel’, Colloquium 43 (2011): 129–46. 134.  Hort to Westcott 28/10/1871 [the entry mistakenly has November], All Saints Eve (31/10) 1871 (CUL Ms Add 6597, ff. 145, 146. Regardless of the escalation of the conflict, Westcott had anticipated the problem of the Longer Ending (Westcott to his wife 19/10/1871; Westcott, Life of Westcott, vol. 1, 396). 135. ‘The Last Twelve Verses of St Mark’, The Academy 2 (15/11/1871): 518–19. 136. The Academy vol. 2, 519.

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final phrase points to the vast gulf between the new critically informed approach to Scripture, as ‘a book like any other book’,137 and Scripture as the wellspring of unadulterated dogma. As it was, the implication from the official RV Minutes is that the discussions on this passage were lengthy if not heated. Almost all the revisers who had written on the subject, bar Scrivener, had supported verse 8 as the original end. And yet, of all the 412 days of meeting, this seven-hour meeting yielded the least number of verses processed.138 Verses 9–20 were ultimately separated from verses 1–8 by a double spacing in the Revised English release and in the Greek texts published by Scrivener and Palmer. Only Scrivener added the marginal note ‘that ver. 9–20 are wanting in certain ancient authorities, and that some have a different ending to the Gospel’ – a succinct summary of Hort’s article and the lengthy explanation in the Westcott-Hort introduction.139

The Revision as the Mark of the Shift in English Text-Critical Scholarship The note sounded the triumph for genealogical method and the historical, rather than dogmatic, approach to the weighing of texts. But there were still some revisers who were reticent in their accolades. In the massive industry of selling the new revision in the aftermath of its release, some used the new paragraphing and marginal note as a means of educating their readers.140 But William Humphry ploughed through the entire twenty verses of Mark 16 as if there had never been any decision by the Revision Company to register the final twelve verses as a secondary addition.141 This prevarication signals how perceptive and strategic Burgon had been in the assessment of the importance of this deutero-Markan passage for the future role of language to the articulation of faith. By the end of the century, the episcopal bench asked Brooke Foss Westcott, Bishop of Durham, to lay out the change in attitude towards the Bible, as a precursor to the 1897 Lambeth Conference. He charted that change on the basis of repudiations of three previous assumptions: I that ‘the authority of the several books’ (including the Apocrypha) could be ‘placed beyond the range of historical enquiry’; II that ‘the current text was free from corruption to which other ancient texts are liable’; 137. The phrase became infamous after Jowett’s argument in Essays and Reviews. Jowett went on to affirm that when he did so, he discovered ‘that it was not like any other book’ (Essays and Reviews, 377). 138.  Minute-Book Thursday 16/11/1871 (CUL Ms Add 6935, ff. 449–55). The usual progress was about thirty-six verses. 139. Westcott and Hort, Introduction, Appendix, Appendix, 28–51. 140. See, for example, Roberts, Companion, 61–63. 141. Humphry, Commentary, 89–90.

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III that ‘the interpretation of the Bible was guarded by an authoritative tradition’.142

The locus of that change, in no small measure, was the Jerusalem Chamber where the work of revision had unfolded across eleven years of scholarly intensity. The result may not have won the hearts of English believers. But it had provided the key demonstration that the minds were irrevocably in a process of transition.

142. ‘Notes on the Critical Study of Holy Scripture’; Papers of the Bishop of Salisbury [John Wordsworth], 1896–1911 (LPL Wordsworth Papers, vol. 1401, ff. 5–6).

Chapter 5 I D E N T I T Y F O R M AT IO N I N E N G AG E M E N T W I T H T H E N EW T E STA M E N T

Just as ‘crisis’ was the watchword of the need for action, so ‘harmony’ was cultivated as the public persona of the New Testament Revision Companies once the work began. Philip Schaff rapturously extolled ‘the Committee proved to be remarkably harmonious’; ‘the remarkable harmony of the Revisers in the prosecution of their work’. Of the Americans themselves, ‘never . . . a more faithful and harmonious body of competent scholars’.1 More than once, Westcott declaimed that ‘the memory of the years spent in Biblical Revision witnesses to those who took part in it how the closest, minutest, most free inquiry into the meaning of the sacred writings brought together in spiritual fellowship men widely separated by confessional differences’.2 Edward Bickersteth offered a poetic retrospective: ‘His Love has been our banner on our road!’3 Samuel Newth echoed with ‘the spirit of harmony and brotherly affection’.4 Harmony, collegiality, cooperation – these appeared to be the mark of the corporate work. They were certainly claimed as such; ‘happily united’ was the expression of the preface to the Revised New Testament.

Cultivating Harmony as the Mark of the Revision Company Or at least one might consider that there was a determination that harmony should govern the appearance of the Company at work in the aftermath of the ‘Westminster Scandal’. Fears had been expressed that the presence of Nonconformists in the band of revisers would simply lead to partisan squabbles, with each denomination determined to hijack the revision to reinforce their own distinctive beliefs and 1.  P. Schaff, A Companion to the Greek Testament and the English Version (London: Macmillan, 1883), 386, 389, 395. 2. ‘Notes on the Critical Study of Holy Scripture’ (LPL Ms 1401, ff. 5–6, Papers of the Bishop of Salisbury [John Wordsworth]). 3. The poem was offered at the service at St Martin-in-the-Fields on Friday, 13 December 1878, to mark the end of work on the second review of text and translation (called ‘the second revision’). CUL Ms Add 9739, f. 3, Robert Scott Papers. 4. S. Newth, Lectures on Bible Revision (London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1881), 125.

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practices. Such apprehensions were not confined to the Established clergy and vociferous laymen like Lord Shaftesbury. Vance Smith did not want ‘any little knot of chapel-founders’ in control.5 The Baptist, Joseph Angus, advised Bishop Ellicott and the Dean of Westminster, Arthur Stanley, that Nonconformist representation should be limited to ‘evangelicals’ and that Jews and Unitarians be no more than consultants.6 But the display performed in the February 1871 Convocation and in six months’ warfare waged on the fields of religious newspapers had paraded how fierce was the party spirit within the Established Church. It effectively paled the threat of divisions conjured up in the imagination about the work of revision delivered to representatives of the various churches. ‘The bishops have shamelessly broken a contract’, wrote Westcott. ‘Can it really be that principles of honour die out in Churchmen?’7 Joseph Angus felt the ‘sundry unlovely things [said] on the “equality” of Noncons’, but added that, by contrast, ‘[a]‌ll parties are working in an admirable spirit and Vance Smith is a very moderate “devout” man’.8 Subsequent resignations from the Companies only came from the Establishment side.9 By contrast, the Nonconformists were committed to stay the course. ‘Harmony’ became one of the discursive means by which a sense of reliability about the work and the result of revision might be cultivated. Somehow it made a new Bible translation the more trustworthy, given that one of the expected virtues of Christian fellowship taught in the Bible (Jn 1.35, Acts 4.32; Gal. 6.10 etc.) was on display among those who had been responsible for its production. Against the silhouette of the rancour in Convocation, a harmony displayed among the members of the Revision Companies value-added to the final product and the reputation of those involved. This does not have to be read in egalitarian terms but it did generate hopes that a unified labour might generate a unity among the churches from which the scholars came. Again in retrospect, Westcott captured something of the feeling: ‘None of us can count up what he owes to the meetings in the Jerusalem Chamber. From the first I felt that the Revision itself would not be the greatest result of the gathering. May our common work be fruitful for each

5. G. V. Smith, The Bible and Popular Theology (London: Longmans, Green, Reader and Dyer, 1871), 319. 6. Angus to Schaff 28/2/1871 (ABS ABRC Foreign Correspondence A-4). 7. Westcott to Hort 16/2/1871 (A. Westcott, Life and Letters of Brooke Foss Westcott, 2 vols [London: Macmillan, 1903], vol. 1, 394). 8. Angus to Schaff 28/2/1871 (ABS ABRC Foreign Correspondence A-4). Personal piety figured prominently in Angus’s ecclesiology; see I. Randall, ‘Baptists’, in The Oxford History of Protestant Dissenting Traditions, Volume III: The Nineteenth Century, ed. T. Larsen and M. Ledger-Lomas (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2017), 58. 9. The Bishop of Lincoln, Christopher Wordsworth, Canon John Jebb, the Dean of Ely, Charles Merivale all resigned from disagreement with the direction of the revision. The Bishop of Llandaff, Alfred Ollivant resigned from the Old Testament Company in 1875 from ill-health, but continued to send through his notes on various readings and renderings.

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one of us, and for the whole Church in ways which we cannot yet foresee.’10 So, among at least some of the participants, there was a collegial mirroring of the external presentation, a self-referential use of language expressive of the totality of the revision project. This delivered a crucial reiteration by which the language umbrella over the revision socialized the very conformity and unity between members that reinforced the image about the work of revision that was being projected. Simply at the level of group construction, the prayers at the beginning of each session led by Bishop Ellicott reinforced a common mind and common expression, a predilection for common work. This was no doubt the intent behind the service of Holy Communion, the celebration of a common purpose gathered into a common, communal ritual. Only those who resigned from the Company, usually because their scholarship was not up to the general standard of exchange, evaded the socializing power of the developing common language. This is not to deny that there were many examples of fraternal scholarship and friendship that pre-existed the formation of the Revision Companies. The ‘Cambridge Triumvirate’ of Joseph Barber Lightfoot, Brook Foss Westcott and Fenton J. A. Hort is a clear example of that. It is noteworthy that they used their friendship and common mind on many matters to steer certain directions for the New Testament Company.11 But it is also clear that there were manifold occasions when their common views on specific texts did not carry the Company,12 as well as many instances when their views differed from one another. Similar was the relationship between Robert Scott, Dean of Rochester, and Henry Alford,13 and between William Milligan and William Moulton.14 There were also examples of friendships that developed over the period of work. The Wesleyan Headmaster of the Leys School Cambridge, William Moulton, developed strong and close ties with Westcott and Hort, no doubt aided by regular shared train trips to London for the revision meetings. Similarly, the common work and common travel, sometimes dinner parties and accommodation at the same residence (such as the Deanery), seem to have healed some previous tensions between certain members. Frederick Scrivener and Henry Alford had had some serious disagreements, doubtless over textual matters, in the past. When Alford died, Scrivener, according to Samuel Newth’s notes of meetings, testified how ‘the pleasant terms of intercourse in this room’ had brought a previously unknown warmth to their exchanges.15

10. Westcott to Moulton 20/12/1880 (W. F. and J. H. Moulton, William F. Moulton: A Memoir [London: Isbister, 1899], 104). 11.  Westcott to Hort 29/5/1870; Westcott to Lightfoot 4/6/1870 (Westcott, Life of Westcott, vol. 1, 390, 391). 12. Moulton and Moulton, Moulton: A Memoir, 190–92. 13. Newth ‘RV Notes’ 31/1/1871 (Rough Copy) (BL Ms Add 36279, f. 69). 14. The two collaborated on a number of projects; see Moulton and Moulton, Moulton; A Memoir, 161, 162. 15. Newth ‘RV Notes’ 31/1/1871 (Rough Copy) (BL Ms Add 36279, f. 69).

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The Development of Group Cohesion The New Testament Revision Company met for a total of 407 days across ten and a half years; the Old Testament Revision Company spent 792 days across fourteen years. Those members who were regular attenders over such a length of time of concerted purpose (say from Joseph Angus who attended 199 days to Scrivener who managed 399),16 fell into a pattern of understanding of regular matters to be discussed and dealt with – from margins to text to dealing with the italics in the AV. They doubtless were familiarized with the particular approaches and stances of others who were regular attenders. A pattern and a cohesion developed among the members. Hort, for one, recognized how such a developing culture was crucial to the project, ‘how impossible it would be for me to absent myself ’.17 It meant that on the few occasions when regulars were unable to attend (from pressures of dioceses or educational institutions) the notes that were forwarded almost operated as a proxy authority for the views of the member.18 Those who were less frequent in attendance and thus less familiar with the dynamics of the meetings were sometimes disruptive and slightly isolated from the flow. Thus, when Samuel Wilberforce, the Bishop of Winchester, asked, ‘Is there a text committee?’,19 the question merely demonstrated that the questioner had not been initiated into the developing harmony of the group. His regular truancy did not furnish the fitting familiarity for fellowship to form. The Bishop of St Andrews, Charles Wordsworth, at one stage during his 109 appearances, complained that he had been ‘kept very ignorant of matters of business and expressed his hope in future that the company should be kept from time to time informed of all steps taken in connection with the work of persons’.20 What the presenting issue was is not known, but clearly communication problems were felt most keenly by those unable to benefit from the ancillary conversations and gatherings that accompanied regular attendance. Cohesion was predicated on presence. Occasionally, other factors appear to have been at work. By the time the Archbishop of Dublin, Richard Trench made his first appearance on 31 January 1871 (the first of his ninety-three attendances),21 the Company had almost 16. The various statistics are laid out by C. J. Ellicott, Addresses on the Revised Version of Holy Scripture (London: SPCK, 1901), 33–36. 17. Hort to Fanny, his wife 25/7/1871 (A. Hort, Life and Letters of Fenton John Anthony Hort, 2 vols [London: Macmillan, 1896], vol. 2, 146). 18. Blakesley told Lightfoot that he left his notes on St Mark with the Secretary, John Troutbeck, no doubt as a means of ensuring they were presented: Blakesley to Lightfoot 18/6/1871 (DDC Lightfoot Papers); ‘Vance Smith May 3, 1880 detailed notes’ sent to Robert Scott for presentation at the Revision Company meeting (CUL Ms Add 9739, f. 4, Robert Scott papers) on which, see further below. 19. Westcott, ‘RV Notes’ book II, f. 10 (WFA). 20. Newth, ‘RV Notes’ (Rough Copy) 20/10/1871 (BL Ms Add 36279, f. 265). 21. Newth, ‘RV Notes’ (Rough Copy) 31/1/1871 (BL Ms Add 36279, f. 68v).

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completed the first revision of fourteen chapters of Matthew. But he was much respected:  he was the Dean of Westminster prior to Stanley, and had, after all, argued for a revision some years previously.22 When Matt. 15.28 hit the table for review on the afternoon of 3 February 1871, the Bishop of Salisbury, George Moberly, and Frederick Scrivener had a few suggestions to make for the second half of the verse. The AV read: ‘[G]‌reat is thy faith; be it unto thee even as thou wilt. And her daughter was made whole from that very hour.’ A comparison of the notebooks of Samuel Newth and Westcott enables us to piece together something of the review. Scrivener wanted the italics removed and the addition of ‘done’ after ‘be it’. The Company agreed. Moberly wanted the ‘very’ and ‘even’ removed since the Greek did not support the renderings.23 He was successful for the first suggestion but Trench chimed in, desiring ‘to keep “even as” ’ because it was “very beautiful” ’. Moberly agreed it was beautiful but muttered ἐντάλματι ἀνθρώπων presumably after the vote ran with Trench.24 This was a thinly veiled, probably humorous, allusion to the citation of Isa. 29.13 in Matt. 15.9 just covered in discussion, an accusation that the decision had been made by the ‘precept of men’ rather than in fidelity to ‘the word of God’ (Matt. 15.6). The American revisers did not dispute the decision. There were other elements that built the cohesiveness of the revising group. We have seen a little of one important element already – humour. We are reliant on the interest of Westcott and Newth for this aspect of the interactions of the revisers and therefore are a little constrained by what they found light-hearted. What is important is that for their own notes, humour meant enough for them to write it down. Interestingly, Newth frequently removed these notices when he transferred his rough copy into a fair copy. It seems that humour was not something to be promoted as a mark of sober scholarship. Equally, Westcott’s public presentation, through photograph and addresses, was of a deeply reflective, earnest master-cumprofessor-cum-bishop. His son Arthur did little to dispel this aura. But privately, he had a sharp sense of humour, ever ready to prick the bubble of conceit in letters to close friends or in cartoons whipped up by his brilliant sketching for the delight of his wife.25 The following examples are designed to give a sense of the atmosphere amid the serious scholarship being unfolded. When reviewing Matt. 6.26 a second time, ‘Behold the fowls of the air’ (AV), it was recognized that ‘fowls’ by the 22. R. C. Trench, On the Authorized Version of the New Testament: In Connection with Some Recent Proposals for Its Revision (New York: Redfield, 1858). 23. ‘even as’ is better supported by καθώς than the ὡς of the text of Matthew, just as the RV corrected the AV in Matt. 21.6: ‘And the disciples went and did even as [καθὼς] Jesus.’ In 1952, the RSV made the amendment to 15.28 accordingly. 24. Newth, ‘RV Notes’ (Rough Copy) 3/2/1871 (BL Ms Add 36279, ff. 88v–89); Westcott, ‘RV Notes’ book II, f. 51 (WFA). 25.  His letter to his wife Mary 6/9/1893 contains a caricature sketch made when, as bishop, he was sitting in the House of Lords (WHA 7.85.77, Letters to Mary).

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nineteenth century had generally lost their ability to fly. ‘Birds’ replaced them. Newth recorded some wit, possibly Joseph Blakesley, expressing the demise, ‘Dear me, poor fowls.’26 In the second visit to Matt. 12.23 ‘Is not this the son of David?’ (AV), the earlier decision to omit ‘not’ from the English rendering was upheld by the requisite two-thirds majority.27 The chair, Charles Ellicott, pronounced, ‘The “not” is gone.’ Robert Scott fired back, ‘The (k)not is cut.’28 When, as required by the general principles, the New Testament and Old Testament Companies shared their work as a means to conform style, spelling and the like, Newth recalls in his Fair Copy that Canon Selwyn of the Old Testament Company entered the room introducing himself as ‘coming from the Brethren at Jerusalem to the Brethren at Antioch’.29 There may have been a barb in this reference given that the New Testament Company met in the Jerusalem Chamber and yet the Old Testament Company were claiming the seniority associated with the name Jerusalem and with the commissioning of Paul, Barnabas, Judas and Silas to bring the results of the Jerusalem Council to the city of Antioch (Acts 15.22). Some doubts were expressed by the Old Testament Company about the style and extent of rendering executed by their New Testament confrères. Westcott’s record displays the humour from the beginning. When negotiating the torturous demands of rendering καθίσαντος in Matt. 5.1, Robert Scott suggested ‘he was set down’. Joseph Angus complained that the grammar of that expression ‘was not modern’ which drew Scrivener’s wry comment, ‘So much the worse for the grammar.’30 On 14 October 1870, Arthur Stanley was late to the meeting; on his entrance, Ellicott quipped, ‘I am glad to see the innocent archaist here.’31 Apparently, there was a triple ribbing here. Stanley had, the previous day, called the ‘an hill’ of Matt. 5.14 ‘an innocent archaism’.32 Ellicott was deliberately recalling Stanley’s comment which had been incisively corrected by Scrivener. It was a light-hearted reminder of a gap in expertise. It was also unlikely that Ellicott would see Stanley as ‘innocent’ given much of the fracas that was associated with the revision. When Stanley died, shortly after the release of the New Testament Revision, Scrivener commented to John Troutbeck, the precentor of the Abbey and secretary to the New Testament Company, ‘Great virtues and some grave faults . . . His native taste and grace and tact were marvellous but I thought I saw in him a 26. Newth, ‘RV Notes’ (Rough Copy) 31/1/1871 (BL Ms Add 36279, f. 69v). The verso in the numbering usually indicates for Newth (as for Westcott) the proceedings of the second revision. 27. The rendering hinged on how to understand the force of the negative μήτι. 28. Newth, ‘RV Notes’ (Rough Copy) 31/1/1871 (BL Ms Add 36279, f. 54v). 29. Newth, ‘RV Notes’ (Fair Copy) 19/4/1872 (BL Ms Add 36279, f. 2v). 30. Westcott, ‘RV Notes’ book II, f. 1 (WFA). For a full analysis of the debates over this verse, see A. H. Cadwallader, ‘The Politics of Translation of the Revised Version: Evidence from the Newly Discovered Notebooks of Brooke Foss Westcott’, JTS 58 (2007): 435–38. 31. Westcott, ‘RV Notes’ book II, f. 28 (WFA). 32. Westcott, ‘RV Notes’ book II, f. 6 (WFA).

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real inability to take pains enough to master anything though his quick intelligence stood him in good stead even here. He led us Revisionists into our worst scrapes and then gave us no efficient help in our labours.’33 But of some surprise to his fellow revisionists, Stanley turned out to be fairly conservative when it came to changes to the AV. The gentle reference to ‘archaist’ seems to indicate that this trait was already recognized. It was picked up again by Joseph Blakesley when the review had moved on to Matt. 5.25. Stanley had argued that the ‘whiles’ of ‘whiles thou art in the way with him’ (AV) was ‘altogether proper’. Blakesley commented, ‘Don’t like these ghosts of former times: “Innocent archaisms”.’ Ellicott observed, ‘The Dean has saved a whole legion of them.’34 Westcott added his own silent caret over the top, ‘mischievous “whiles” kept’. And it survived into the final publication in spite of a unanimous call (10:0) for ‘while’ from the Americans.35 When the Company arrived at Matt. 14.26, various efforts were made at translating the Greek word φάντασμα. Spirit, phantom, ghost, vision, spectre, apparition were all suggested. Benjamin Kennedy deemed that ‘phantom [was] a badly formed word’. Ellicott pronounced, ‘[P]‌hantom has disappeared.’36 These examples are drawn from the notes that were made by Newth and especially Westcott during the period when the ‘Westminster Scandal’ was threatening to derail the revision, let  alone the spirits of the revisers. The dry wit, built around puns, wordplays, even satire, combined with insights from contemporary situations and light-hearted ribbing reminiscent of undergraduate days, provided a relief from the intensity of the labours and the oppression of public denunciations.37 It enabled the revisers to enjoy the experience and the relationships in the Jerusalem Chamber. The humour offered a sense of proportion about the work, reviving flagging energies, rehabilitating fractured relationships and enabling an experience of harmony to be realized alongside its promotion in the marketplace. But it would be the revelation of the humour among the revisers that would, at a later stage, severely compromise one of its members.38 There was also a more sober cultivation of networks that occurred in and around the work of revision. When one or other of the scholars had published 33. Scrivener to Troutbeck 19/7/1881 (CUL Ms Add 6946, f. 120). 34. Westcott, ‘RV Notes’ book II, f. 18 (WFA). ‘Innocent archaism’ became a chuckle point for some time after; see ‘RV Notes’ book II, ff. 36, 47 (WFA). Hort’s suggestion of ‘apparition’ on the basis of its occurrence in the Wisdom of Solomon was adopted. His reference was to Wis. 17.3, 15 though the AV ‘apparition’ serves two Greek words, ἴνδαλμα and φάντασμα. 35. ‘First and Provisional Revision, Gospel of Matthew’, 9 (AHTLA bMS 624/1 [11], Ezra Abbot papers). 36. Westcott, ‘RV Notes’ book III, f. 43 (WFA). 37.  There were times when Westcott noted the tiredness of the company:  ‘Much desultory discussion which I could not follow. Everyone a little tired.’ Westcott, ‘RV Notes’ book II, f. 51 (WFA). 38. See Chapter 7.

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a new volume, they would frequently send a complimentary copy to the other scholars, accompanied by a note of friendship and humble hints for a kind reception. My own library holds the third edition of William Moulton’s translation of Winer’s Grammatik des neutestamentlichen Sprachidioms with Moulton’s own extensive additions and indices.39 It is dedicated in the printed front matter to the ‘Right Reverend C. J. Ellicott’ but inside the front cover, my copy has, in Moulton’s neat hand, ‘F. H. A. Scrivener, from the Editor, Dec. 27 1881’. Moulton had already sent an earlier edition to Hort and probably also Westcott.40 Indeed, Scrivener had also received the first edition in 1870.41 These ties of friendship cultivated in scholarship were a commonplace across the intellectual elite of English society but, on the Revision Company, they served to cement the relationships factored around the work of revision. These gifts were also, at times, calculated to bring detailed analyses of key New Testament passages to the attention of fellow revisers, in addition to the private printing of papers that provided a detailed exegesis of one or other verse. Copies of Lightfoot’s On a Fresh Revision of the English New Testament were circulated around the Company,42 and Charles Vaughan’s new edition of his commentary on Romans, which used as its Greek text the then unpublished edition of Westcott and Hort, also was presented to each member.43 The sharing of scholarship by and between members of the Revision Company functioned to diminish the silo-effect of confessional allegiances.

The Procedural Two-Thirds Rule and Cracks in Company Unity But there was also a procedural rule that cultivated cohesiveness in decisionmaking, and supported Trench (and others) in the default preference for the ‘beauty’ of the AV.44 The fifth guideline of the general principles laid down that when the second and final revision was made, no change was to be registered in the text except as approved by two-thirds of those present.45 To set the process 39. W. F. Moulton, A Treatise on the Grammar of New Testament Greek, Regarded as a Sure Basis for New Testament Exegesis (Edinburgh:  T&T Clark, 1882). The printed date shows how efficient Moulton was in distributing his advance copies. 40. Hort to Moulton 17/6/1870 (Hort, Life of Hort, vol. 2, 134); Westcott to Moulton 1876 (Moulton and Moulton, Moulton: A Memoir, 186). 41.  Scrivener to Moulton 17/2/1870 (Moulton and Moulton, Moulton:  A Memoir, 95–96). 42.  See Joseph Angus to Lightfoot and Wordsworth to Lightfoot 21/4/1871 (DDC Lightfoot Letters). 43. Newth, ‘RV Notes’ 21/4/1874 (Rough Copy) (BL Ms Add 36281, f. 35). 44. This appears to be Trench’s favourite description of the AV: Trench, On the Authorized Version, 12. 45. There is a documentary difficulty here. The official Minutes of the New Testament Revision Company made by John Troutbeck do not record the voting on decisions after the

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going, the first revision allowed for a simple majority of those present to amend the AV, but when that revision was reviewed a second time, the confirmation of the amendment demanded a higher proportion. Some, such as Scrivener, saw the provision as the saviour of a more conservative approach to the revision and stayed some their arguments until that time. A simple example will suffice. In Matt. 15.9, the AV ran ‘teaching for doctrines the commandments of men’. The Greek text preoccupied the revisers not because of any dispute about its reading but because of the cognate terms that gained no parallel repetition in the AV translation: διδάσκοντες διδασκαλίας ἐνταλματα ἀνθρώπων. Stanley saw the repetition of διδασκ as meaning ‘vehemently teaching’ but the Dean of Rochester, Robert Scott, dismissed this by reference to an aural adjudication: ‘It would sound ludicrous.’46 Benjamin Kennedy agreed, saying it was ‘too strong’. Not to be subdued, Stanley came back with ‘Teaching as teachings’ which, according to Westcott’s notes, initially went down ‘7:M’. This M(ajority) probably means that eleven or twelve voted against it.47 However, Lightfoot came to the rescue and suggested ‘teaching as their teachings’ which, either by weight of his authority or the sheer appeal of the rendering, secured a tied vote (9:9).48 Ellicott then chipped in saying that he transferred his vote for the AV reading across to the new suggestion which, he added, should ‘now . . . make one person supremely happy’.49 The humour may have been completely spontaneous; it may yet mask a debt to Lightfoot deriving from the preservation of Ellicott’s position on the Company.50 This reading found its way into the printing of the first revision, along with Stanley’s recommendation that ‘as their’ be put into italics and Hort’s recommendation that ‘precepts’ replace the AV’s ‘commandments’. Charles Vaughan’s nostalgic parenthesis – ‘May second meeting on 23 June 1870. A comparison of the notebooks of Westcott and Newth shows that even though both kept records of voting, their recorded scores did not cover every point of decision with sometimes only one of them providing the issue and the vote. Occasionally their scoring patterns differ, just as their method of noting the votes also differed. This raises the question of whether any official voting was kept at all. It may have been that the record of the rendering as printed up in the ‘First and Provisional Revision’ was sufficient and thereafter a simple recording of changes to this revision was taken as finding two-thirds support (for acceptance) or not (for a return to the AV reading). This only makes the numbers registered by Newth and Westcott, for all their faultiness, crucial to assess the dynamics of the proceedings. 46. Westcott, ‘RV Notes’ vol. II, f. 43 (WFA). 47. Occasionally a member failed to vote or was temporarily absent. Newth’s equivalent notes indicate that nineteen revisers were present. 48. Newth’s notes have Stanley responsible for ‘as their teachings’ but Westcott’s record is fuller here and he had a keen ear for the interpersonal nuances; Newth, ‘RV Notes’ 3/2/1871 (Rough Copy) (BL Ms Add 36279, ff. 85–86). 49. Ellicott as chair had the casting vote when there was a tie. He used it on a number of occasions; see Westcott ‘RV Notes’ book III, ff. 44, 60 (WFA). 50. See Chapter 3.

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I once more plead for A.V.?’ – left no more than a trace in Westcott’s notebook. The Americans recommended (on a vote of 5:3) that ‘the’ before ‘precepts’ be omitted,51 a reading that was narrowly excluded by the English Company.52 So the first revision read ‘teaching as their teachings the precepts of men’, with one suggested amendment from the Americans. Much of the voting on this first round of revision was very close; when the second revision was completed, the two-thirds majority simply could not be found and the published rendering of the RV read, ‘Teaching as their doctrines the precepts of men.’ Only the italics and ‘precepts’ now registered a change from the AV. Vaughan at least would have been partially satisfied. This two-thirds requirement helped to create a semblance of uniformity in the resultant text and rendering,53 and imply that the group was similarly of one mind. But it was also designed as a defence of the primary general principle, ‘To introduce as few alterations as possible into the Text of the AV consistent with faithfulness.’ We have seen how ‘faithfulness’ was stretched to sanction significant changes but the two-thirds rule governing the second revision effectively muzzled an even more full-blown revision, such as to make it more obviously a new translation. It was here that cracks began to show, between different schools of thought among the Establishment scholars and between the Established Church position and Nonconformity, and, occasionally, with a cross-mixture of confessional allegiances. Hort admitted to his wife that there were ‘some stiff battles’, though he added ‘without any ill feeling’.54 The hold of the AV blended with the dogmatic superstructure built upon it, revealed itself in a number of ways. Archdeacon Lee, for example, saw Jesus as bringing ‘doctrine’ (thus narrowing the horizon between the theological creativity of the church and dominical pronouncements) in Matt. 7.28. This was the rendering of the AV and he wanted to return to it. For him, ‘teachings’ insufficiently conveyed what the Master had given. Similarly, William Humphry wanted a return to the AV rendering in the next verse, restoring ‘the scribes’ instead of ‘their scribes’, in spite of clear support for αὐτῶν in the text which needed to be rendered. Both Lee and Humphry were unsuccessful. Not even the smoothing ‘as one having authority’ survived, with RV removing the italicized word. But it seems that Humphry almost gained his wish. The original vote was five for and nine against – not quite the two-thirds majority. Apparently Ellicott stepped in to give a casting vote, to make it five to ten. Vance Smith protested in unrestrained terms, ‘against the 51. ‘First and Provisional Revision, Gospel of Matthew’, 37 (AHTLA bMS 624/1 [11], Ezra Abbot papers). This printed copy has Abbot’s notes and record of votes from the review of the English Company’s text by the American revisers. 52. Westcott, ‘RV Notes’ vol. II, f. 44 (WFA). The omission initially was passed 10:9 but was resubmitted probably following Vaughan’s request that ‘the whole verse be reconsidered’. 53.  Scrivener clarified, in the course of the second revision, that the two-thirds rule applied to the Greek as also to the English: Westcott, ‘RV Notes’ book II, f. 65v (WFA). 54. Hort, Life of Hort, vol. 2, 146.

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tyrannical addition of one to the majority’. Westcott added his own comment, ‘But it is settled.’55 The language of ‘tyranny’ must have been uttered frequently through the time of the second revision. Benjamin Kennedy, in his promotion of the RV, wrote, ‘Each of us, times out of number, has been outvoted by a “tyrant majority”.’56 It is a clue to the independence of judgement of the scholars in the Company that, for all the avowed cohesiveness of the group, there were decided preferences about different verses held by all, not just the more famous members. Westcott notes a witty comment from Ellicott on the thorny issue of how to translate the wicker containers of Matt. 15:37, given the Greek distinction between the κόφινος of Matt. 14.20 and the σπυρίς of this verse: ‘Bp of Gl will back “basket” with 2/3 behind it against all comers.’57 Everyone, it seems, was well aware of the bite of the fundamental guideline in the second revision. Westcott however was far less sanguine when it came to some treasured readings in his favourite gospel, John. He stormed out his feelings to his wife, ‘Our work yesterday was positively distressing. Another day like it will make me bitterly regret the months which have been wasted. Whatever good had been done in St John 1 was undone . . . if we fail again I think that I shall fly, utterly despairing of the work.’58 Although his Notebooks for this revision material have not, to my knowledge, survived, William Moulton’s son, himself a biblical scholar, deduced what had happened. One thorn was the rendition of the Greek preposition δία. It occurs in Jn 1.3, 10, 17. The Greek in this instance was not in dispute. The AV had translated the word instrumentally: ‘by him’ . . . ‘by him’ . . . ‘by Jesus Christ’. Westcott, in his monumental commentary on John’s Gospel, had argued, even when required to use the AV as his base text, that the Word was the ‘mediate agent’, the Father being the source of everything in creation.59 The instrumental preposition (‘by’) would be ὑπό in the Greek. Hort, Lightfoot, Moulton and Milligan all held the same view but, apparently, it was not enough to secure the two-thirds displacement of the AV reading. These were but three of 55. Westcott, ‘RV Notes’ book II, ff. 61v, 62 (WFA). 56.  B. H. Kennedy, Ely Lectures on the Revised Version of the New Testament (London: Richard Bentley, 1882), ix. 57.  Westcott, ‘RV Notes’ book III, f.  55v (WFA). According to Moulton’s notes made for Westcott in the latter’s absence from a meeting, Robert Scott had proposed for κόφινος a marginal note, ‘Or:  panniers’ and for σπυρίς the rendering in the text of ‘handbasket’. Moulton reports a considerable discussion (Westcott, ‘RV Notes’ book II, Moulton notepaper A2–A3 [WFA]) as the revisers struggled to find adequate English words to mark the different Greek words. The RV in a rare occurrence obscured any distinction. 58. Westcott to his wife, Mary 27/1/1875 (Westcott, Life of Westcott, vol. 1, 397). 59. B. F. Westcott, ‘St John’s Gospel’, in The Holy Bible, New Testament Vol II, ed. F. C. Cook (London: John Murray, 1899), 4. It was a requirement of this series that the AV be taken as the text for commentary. After all, the editor, Frederick Cook, was a devotee and became an outspoken opponent of the RV. Westcott’s son, Arthur, later released an edited version of the commentary substituting the Revised text.

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numerous proposed changes in the opening chapter of the fourth gospel that did not survive the two-thirds judgement. The younger William Moulton commented that ‘the conservatives triumphed wherever there was a difference of opinion; but that the school represented by the five revisers were united, in almost every case, on the defeated side’.60 Of particular interest is the reading and rendering of Jn 1.18. Westcott and Hort had argued that the Greek should read μονογενὴς θεός ‘only-begotten God’ rather than μονογενὴς υἱός ‘only-begotten Son’. The reading would have gone a long way to overcome the loss of a number of significant texts that had escalated the divinity of Christ (such as 1 Tim. 3.16 and 1 Jn 5.7) which had gained majority approval for change. Hort published a major defence of the ‘new’ reading midway through the life of the New Testament Company,61 though it had little effect inside the chamber. Vance Smith, the Unitarian, seems to have joined the majority in favouring the AV emphasis upon ‘only-begotten Son’. But he later avowed that it was a pity that the words were not taken into the text, because ‘an only-begotten God’ was almost incongruous and indebted more to Hellenistic philosophy than a Jewish background, ‘a greater blow than the popular or orthodox theology of our day would have been able to bear’.62

The Lord’s Prayer and Caucusing for Change There was one passage however that seemed strangely resistant to a return to the AV – the Lord’s Prayer in Matt. 6.9-13, one of the most notorious outcomes of the revision and often taken as symptomatic of the whole. Philip Schaff admitted, ‘This is the most serious and most unpopular change in the whole book.’63 Unfortunately, we don’t have Samuel Newth’s notes of the debates about the passage because, as he explained, he did not start to take his detailed ‘minutes’ (as he called them) until the tenth meeting.64 So we are reliant on the extant notes of Westcott. I transcribe here his (notoriously illegible) handwriting, expanding only the abbreviations that he utilized (such as for names). For the sake of easy comparison, I first give the English of the AV, which had become deeply ingrained in popular usage, albeit mediated by the Book of Common Prayer: 9 Our Father which art in heaven, Hallowed be thy name. 10 Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done in earth, as it is in heaven. 11 Give us this day our daily bread. 12 And forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors. 60. Moulton and Moulton, Moulton: A Memoir, 190–91. 61. F. J. A. Hort, Two Dissertations (Cambridge/London: Macmillan, 1876). 62. G. V. Smith, Texts and Margins of the Revised New Testament (London: British and Foreign Unitarian Association, 1881), 17. 63. Schaff, Companion, 439. 64. Newth, ‘RV Notes’ Memo inserted into the Rough Copy (BL Ms Add 36279, f. 5v).

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13 And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil: For thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, for ever. Amen. The italics belong to the AV as the means of signalling English words that have no corresponding Greek. Here then is Westcott’s report of the deliberations of the New Testament Revision Company for the first revision of the passage on Friday, 14 October 1870. 9 Bishop of Winchester [Wilberforce]: which? 10 Vaughan: as in heaven so on earth        (carried)      Bishop of Gloucester: add ‘also’   (lost)    Hort: the punctuation 11 daily: margin give for the coming day                  √ 13 Lightfoot: from the evil one (carried) = 9: ⊗ – margin – Bishop of Salisbury [Moberly]: So we must be consistent – Blakesley: moves omission of doxology. – Scrivener: defends retention in [    ] 2: ⓜ – Hort notices the variations of cur and k and other authorities. – Dean of Westminster [Stanley]: If from liturgical use why show greater regard than the Douai revision – Bishop of Gloucester: Manuscript authority not sufficient for any insertion. Vaughan: Why insult with these things [  ]? which I hate. Brown: no sufficient evidence for its retention. Known in Syrian not known in Western Church. Impossible to say how it could be western. Bishop of Gloucester: No antecedent objection to [  ]. Hort: In other copies mentioned for [  ] add something to Sacred Scripture. Not so here. Scrivener: Many authorities, some ancient but with variations, add65 Some comments may be helpful. It appears that the Bishop of Winchester was seeking to replace ‘which’ with ‘who’, exactly as the Americans later recommended (by seven votes to two) in their comments on the first revision,66 a nice irony given Wilberforce’s attitude to the American ‘separatists’.67 Charles Vaughan is responsible for suggesting that the English follow the word order of the Greek text in verse 10  – the reversing of cosmic order! Ellicott’s defeated suggestion 65. Westcott, ‘RV Notes’ book II, ff. 38–39 (WFA). 66. ‘First and Provisional Revision, Gospel of Matthew’, 12 (AHTLA bMS 624/1 [11], Ezra Abbot papers). 67. This is Wilberforce’s terminology for the Americans in a letter, Wilberforce to Stanley 6/4/1871 (CUL Ms Add 6946, f. 17).

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of ‘also’ is probably an amendment to Vaughan’s rendering, that is, ‘so also on earth’. Hort’s reference to punctuation is not expanded but may be presumed to be consequential on the acceptance of Vaughan’s suggestion. The member moving a marginal note ‘give for the coming day’ (which ultimately was included in the RV with a small change) is not identified. Lightfoot’s infamous insistence on ‘from the evil one’ for the general ‘from evil’ (taking the undifferentiated Greek as a masculine not neuter genitive) appears to have been on the verge of defeat in this first revision. Westcott inexplicably reverts to his losing vote marker ⊗ (the converse of ⓜ which indicates an unspecified majority) rather than give the number. However the tick above the 9 is his way of indicating a decision ultimately won. The official minutes have twenty-three members present throughout the day.68 This passage was the last to be reviewed before adjournment, so a few may have left or there may have been abstentions. The combination however suggests that there were nine opposed to the reading and that Ellicott as chair cast his deciding vote (again) for Lightfoot’s suggestion. The underlining of ‘one’ is usually Westcott’s mark of emphasis but the official Minute Book adds the note that ‘one’ was to be italicized.69 Scrivener appears to have accepted that the doxology was on very weak grounds,70 but sought to preserve it, unsuccessfully, in the text by the use of square brackets, thereby potentially introducing another siglum into the flow. Hort’s pulling into view of some more obscure manuscript traditions was probably designed to demonstrate that the doxology (in its origins) was far from monolithic in its wording, reflecting different liturgical intrusions  – an argument against its originality.71 Hence his reference to ‘cur’ (=Curetonian) and ‘k’ (= Codex Bobbiensis) were designed to illustrate different liturgical phrases independently concluding the Lord’s Prayer in the gospel. The Cureton Syriac omitted ‘the power’ from the doxology,72 but Bobbiensis (k) reads tibi virtus in saecula saeculoru, ‘for yours is the power for ever and ever’.73 Stanley’s citation of the Douai version, the Catholic English Bible, is used as support for the omission of the doxology. The doxology with a notice of variations in its form ultimately was named in the published margin of the RV.

68. ‘Minutes of the New Testament Revision Company’ 14/10/1870 (CUL Ms Add 6935, f. 47). 69. ‘Minutes of the New Testament Revision Company’ 14/10/1870 (CUL Ms Add 6935, f. 54). 70. Scrivener admitted in publication, ‘It can hardly be upheld any longer as a portion of the sacred text.’ Six Lectures on the Text of the New Testament (Cambridge: Deighton, Bell & Co, 1875), 124; cf. F. H. A. Scrivener and E. Miller, A Plain Introduction to the Criticism of the New Testament, 2 vols (Cambridge: Deighton, Bell & Co, 18944), vol. 2, 325. 71. There is considerable attention given to this in Westcott-Hort, Appendix, 8–10. 72. Scrivener, Six Lectures, 123. 73.  Latin text from J. Wordsworth, W. Sanday and H. J. White (eds), Portions of the Gospels according to St. Mark and St. Matthew (Oxford: Clarendon, 1886), 32.

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The American company received the first provisional revision of Matthew and Mark in October 1872, almost two years after the English Company had first dealt with the passage. The recommended changes to the passage containing the Lord’s Prayer were minimal. They provided an additional alternative for ‘daily bread’ in v. 11, adding in the margin ‘or, for subsistence’ to ‘Gr. for the coming day’. They wanted the marginalized ‘evil’ to replace ‘the evil one’ in the text. Finally they suggested ‘and’ to be added before ‘the power’ in the doxology now confined to the margin. The changes were slight, except for a resistance to ‘the evil one’. Even so, the only change ultimately accepted was the addition of the conjunction ‘and’ to the doxology confined to the margin. When the passage came up for review a second time, Westcott’s notes become slightly more full than many of his other verso pages detailing the second revision discussions, indicating that there was some warm division in the group. These ‘second revision’ notes were generally made on the left-facing page to the notes on the first revision on the right. Here then are the notices Westcott made:                    √ 10 Vance Smith: Go back to the AV  13:2   (Bishop of Dublin [Trench]: to be like S. Luke) 11 Hort: ἐπιούσιος – more fairly discussed.   Margin. Or for subsistence.   Hort opposes: not a shred of authority for such a sense. A mere guess.      Nothing more. 13 As to margin? – Keep   As to ἀπὸ τοῦ πονηροῦ   Self [Westcott]: The contract of the two spiritual powers which affect man   Lightfoot: τοῦ πονηροῦ not evil doing          √       evil one   13:4 After some discussion this is accepted as final Brown: would record a protest Archbishop of Dublin [Trench]: the margin is a protest. The notes are tantalizing and in part confusing. Vance Smith’s plea for a return to the AV for verse 10 seems to have been successful according to the voting record but Trench’s comment seems to indicate that the focus was the first petition in the verse, given that this is the only section that is duplicated in Luke’s Gospel (Lk. 11.2c). But there is no record in these eyewitness notes that it was ever disputed. However, Humphry’s later commentary on the RV insists on translating ‘May thy will be done’ as unfolding what the AV (and the Greek) meant.74 Discussions in the Jerusalem Chamber must have flown faster than Westcott could record them, even 74.  W. G. Humphry, A Commentary on the Revised Version of the New Testament (London: Cassell, Petter, Galpin & Co, 1882), 15.

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in abbreviated form. So it may have been missed. But there is also the possibility that Westcott’s too-brief distillation actually caught Vance Smith’s concerns about reception of the changes overall (see below). His reference to ‘more fairly discussed’, after the first entrance of Hort into discussion of the passage, reveals that there is much more behind the summary line.75 It appears from Hort’s second comment that the English Company members were accompanied in their deliberations by copies of the suggestions made by the American Company. Hort’s was a curt dispatch of the American suggestion for a marginal addition. Two omissions in Westcott’s notes probably indicate their ready acceptance. Westcott has no record of the changes at either the first or second revision. The first revision contained ‘as we also have forgiven our debtors’, a change from the present tense of the AV to the perfect tense. This is based on a choice for ἀφήκαμεν rather than ἀφίεμεν in the Greek text, supported by all the main editors of the period. However, Westcott’s second omission was not included in the first provisional revision of Matthew. The published RV reads, ‘And bring us not into temptation’ rather than the familiar ‘lead’ of the AV. Benjamin Kennedy, who elsewhere admitted being ill-at-ease about changes to the Lord’s Prayer, happily proclaimed that the change was ‘right’ given that ‘the Greek in both Gospels means “bring” and because “lead” is an over-strong and painful word drawn from the Vulgate’76  – a Catholic association that regularly proved the death-knell to particular readings. However, this may well be his after-the-fact acceptance and promotion. The change to ‘bring’ seems to have come into the text very late in the piece, that is, after 31 March 1880 in the final preparations for publication.77 Kennedy’s reference to the Greek of both Gospels being the same provides the clue. The Greek μὴ εἰσενέγκῃς in Lk. 11.4b had been translated ‘bring us not’ at a later meeting and only at the last minute had it been realized that the Matthew rendering of the same Greek had been left untouched from the AV. Members of the English Company had been assigned different parts of the New Testament to check whether there was a consistency of rendering the Greek. It must have been in the final months before the last meeting on 11 November 1880 that the difference was discovered. The most curious notice is that Lightfoot’s ‘evil one’ easily survived the second cut, perhaps because many of the arguments later published in public controversy about the changes to the Lord’s Prayer had already been rehearsed; in January

75. Hort’s own notes reveal that he had actually armed himself with his own translation which included ‘In heaven and on earth’ as an alternate rendition to ‘As in heaven so on earth’ (CUL Ms Add 6950, f. 12 additional sheet). 76. Kennedy, Ely Lectures, 71. 77.  It is noted in a printed pamphlet titled ‘Collation of the “Revised Version”, ie E5, with “Revised Version, 31st March 1880” ie E4’ (AHTLA bMS 672/3(5), Thayer papers). The pamphlet also demonstrates that the Revision went through five editions before final publication.

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1876, Bickersteth requested a copy of his paper specifically on the petition for deliverance.78 In his notebooks, Westcott rarely includes himself; when he does so, it is always as ‘Self ’. He combined the two petitions as suggesting one thought with two parts, namely, temptation and evil, to be understood as two sides of the same danger. It was a typical Westcott exegetical insight but potentially undermining of Lightfoot’s rendering of the Greek τοῦ πονηροῦ as masculine. It explains why Lightfoot follows immediately with a correction:  ‘not evil doing’, a ready understanding of Westcott’s meaning. It is unlikely that Westcott had intended such confusion because he had been the one to suggest at the first revision that ἐκ τοῦ πονηροῦ in Matt. 5.37 be rendered ‘of the evil one’. He records two rounds of votes on this change, the first 10:7, the second after a call that it be resubmitted, 9:8. The vote was tight and Westcott records in a bracketed note to himself that the ‘Bishop of Gloucester would have voted for it’.79 Such a record seems to indicate that Westcott at least kept a close eye not simply on some objective report of arguments but on the voting patterns on specific alternatives. This is confirmed in his notes for the second revision when there seems to have been considerable dispute over whether ‘evil’ or ‘the evil one’ belonged in the margin, with the other in the text. Vance Smith had opposed ‘the evil one’, though Westcott does not record the reasons that he gave. Westcott’s next entry, from Lightfoot, suggests that Smith had given them: ‘Important, but truth not regard feelings’.80 Westcott (under the ‘Self ’) simply noted Matt. 13.19, a timely interjection that pointed unequivocally to ‘the evil one’ (ὁ πονηρός), the opponent who snatches the word that has been sown by the sower. The crossreference was not as transparent a proof as might be thought, given the different grammatical construction of Matt 5.37 and 6.13, where πονηρός was governed by a preposition and thereby ambiguous in its gender. But the argument seems to have been effective; the vote was taken and won 12:7, with a tick placed over the 12 suggesting that it may have required a second round of voting to secure the requisite two-thirds (i.e. 14:7). A most unusual addition to Westcott’s notes on Matt. 5.37 suggests that something larger was operating. He specifically details the names of the seven who voted against ‘the evil one’:  Dr Vance Smith, Dr Bickersteth, Mr Humphry, Dr Kennedy, the Dean of Westminster, Lee, Dr Angus. In only one other place in his surviving notebooks (the second revision of Matt. 8.10)81 does Westcott record the names of those who voted, even though, at times, it is possible to work this out from the presented arguments. Clearly, Westcott is identifying those who were likely to oppose ‘the evil one’ not just here but in the much more charged text of the Lord’s Prayer. This verse of the Lord’s Prayer (Matt. 6.13) was to be covered the following

78. Bickersteth to Lightfoot 26/1/1876 (DDC Lightfoot Letters). 79. Westcott, ‘RV Notes’ book II, f. 24 (WFA). 80. Westcott, ‘RV Notes’ book II, f. 23v (WFA). 81. Westcott, ‘RV Notes’ book II, f. 65v (WFA).

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day and the result, 13:4, indicates abstentions and perhaps a cross-over. Such a change in voting was admitted in publication by Benjamin Kennedy. He wrote that he had initially voted for placing ‘evil one’ in the margin; ‘[L]‌ater on, feeling the strength of the argument for the masculine, I did not vote.’82 It is tantalizing to see this directly correlating with the information provided by Westcott’s notebooks and wondering whether Kennedy had an overnight visitation from the Cambridge Triumvirate! At any rate, it does seem to demonstrate that the isolated references to preliminary caucusing by ‘the three’ was a reality, strategic in its prosecution of ‘the truth’. The Americans, however, were not convinced. They wanted a return of the cosmic order of the AV in verse 10, and the marginalization of ‘the evil one’ in verse 13.83 Neither was accepted in the ‘third revision’ (from 1878) when the English Company reviewed the comments sent across the Atlantic. Strikingly however, the Americans made a judgement call that neither of these objections were to figure in the published ‘List of readings and renderings preferred’ that completed the 1881 RV in England.84

The Lord’s Prayer and Disputes over Truth: The Unitarian’s Position Lightfoot’s commitment, sublimated in his comment about truth having no feeling, not only catches the essence of his own work.85 It also points to the different understandings of truth operating in the debate. Vance Smith was hardly a conservative. Unitarianism prided itself on the free exercise of rational thought. At one level, the Cambridge Triumvirate adopted a similar platform, Hort especially. But they also held a supreme confidence that the fundamentals of Christianity would remain after the barnacles of misguided piety and politicized orthodoxy were removed. The truth recovered by the scientific application of textual and grammatical criticism commanded their allegiance. In later debates with Frederick Cook over the rendering, Lightfoot affirmed, ‘This is strictly a question of fidelity.’86 On this Lightfoot was later supported:  ‘We should have failed in our first duty before God and man, if from a regard for men’s feelings we had withheld a rendering which, using the best reasoning which God has 82. Kennedy, Ely Lectures, x. 83. ‘New Testament Revision Company: Suggestions on the Gospels I and II’ (CUL Ms Add 9739, f. 6, Robert Scott papers). 84.  See the following chapter. The Americans did however want recorded that they would add to ‘our bread for the coming day’ in the existing margin for v. 11, ‘or our needful bread’. 85. So G. Treloar, Lightfoot the Historian (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1998), 251. 86. J. B. Lightfoot, On a Fresh Revision of the English New Testament (London: Macmillan, new edition 1891), Appendix II, 270 (a reprint from The Guardian 7, 14, 21/9/1881). It was a response to F. C. Cook, ‘Deliver us from evil’: a protest against the change in the last petition of the Lord’s Prayer, adopted in the Revised Version: A Letter to the Bishop of London (London: John Murray, 1881).

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given us, we believed in our heart of hearts to be decidedly the most probable rendering.’87 Vance Smith in no less fashion tied himself to the truth but that truth was neither confined to the Bible nor to the greater precision that one might give the text and its rendering. For him and most Unitarians, the Devil was a figment, an explanation that belonged to a bygone era, even though it still trammelled popular preaching. Similarly, as Westcott mischievously noted for his own amusement in an entry on Matt. 5.22, ‘V.Sm. objects to hell altogether.’88 Evil was real nevertheless for Unitarians, demanding of human beings a weighty moral responsibility to combat it, rather than escape the obligation for ethical action by thrusting blame onto some mythological creature  – ‘a temporary and superficial relief ’ just as substitutionary atonement with its payment of a ransom to the Devil was ‘a product of dark and ignorant ages’.89 Accordingly, the revival of ‘the evil one’, even with the multitudinous citations from church fathers endorsing the reading,90 was to be decried, especially given that the warrant for the change was not as overwhelming as, say, the change from the present to the perfect tense in ‘as we also have forgiven’. Smith was not to be quietened. His concerns about the danger that the thoroughly revised Lord’s Prayer presented for the Revision in general interlocked with his own confessional commitments. Smith was not able to be present during the final touches being made to the Revision before publication. He sent detailed notes through Robert Scott, the Dean of Rochester. The date on the document is significant: 3 May 1880. In this final period of editorial revision between ‘Edition 4’ and ‘Edition 5’, a resolution of the Company from two years before stood in the minutes. It held that no further changes were to be agreed to unless a two-thirds majority of a gathered meeting so decide.91 So Vance Smith was battling a huge obstacle, even if he had been present. Through Scott, he spoke, ‘May I take this opportunity of begging you to consider again two or three points connected with our rendering of Matt vi.13?’ The first was that the change from the AV rendering was so ‘far from necessary’ that it ‘will expose our work to much unfavourable criticism’. Smith knew that the Revision would stand or fall not on its overall excellence (which he affirmed) but on those parts that had a special hold on the 87. ‘The Revised Version of the New Testament. By the author of “Pessimism”, etc.’, The Churchman’s Shilling Magazine 30 (1881–82): 146–47. See also W. A. Osborne, The Revised Version of the New Testament (London: Kegan Paul, Trench & Co, 1882), 5–6. 88. Westcott, ‘RV Notes’ book II, f. 15v (WFA). Vance Smith was more content with the transliteration ‘Gehenna’ that became a marginal note. 89. G. V. Smith, The Bible and Popular Theology (London: Longmans, Green, Reader and Dyer, 1871), 75, 280. 90. This was one of Lightfoot’s key arguments in favour of a masculine parsing of the Greek text as ‘the evil one’. See ‘Lightfoot Revised Version Papers’ (DDC). But it should be noted that, for Lightfoot, this was about establishing the correct, historical understanding of the text, not the theological ramifications that might be drawn from that foundation. 91. ‘Resolutions 7th May 1878’ (CUL Ms Add 9739, f. 3, Robert Scott Papers).

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religious sensibilities of the public. He pointed out that there was ‘ample reason’ for taking the expression τοῦ πονηροῦ in the abstract or general sense, citing Lk. 6.45 and Rom. 12.9 (where ‘evil’ is abstract in the RV). He further claimed, ‘[T]‌his meaning we have already accepted in Matt v.37.’ This is a most striking affirmation given that, as we have seen, Westcott’s notes suggest that ‘of the evil one’ was accepted, albeit the vote at the second revision being 12:7 and only later (but how much later?) receiving the tick (√) of affirmation in Westcott’s notes. If Vance Smith thought that ‘of evil’ was the preferred reading of the revision in May 1880, then one wonders when the transfer to the margin occurred. The American list of changes to the second revision make no suggestion regarding this part of Matt. 5.37 implying that, by comparison with their desire for ‘evil’ to enter the text from the margin of Matt. 6.13, in Matt. 5.37, ‘evil’ did sit, at that stage, in the text. One can only assume that, in the last few months of 1880, the desire to harmonize the renderings of the Greek words across the New Testament brought about the change. This is confirmed by the Collation sheet in the Thayer collection of papers marking changes from the ‘fourth revision’ to the ‘fifth revision’.92 At this stage, the meetings of the New Testament Revision Company were close to the end; the numbers in attendance had declined to around eleven. Even if the two-thirds rule was still operational,93 it may have been easier to get such a change through. As Hort had learned, ‘I dare not be away from Revision after former experience of the necessity for both speaking and voting incessantly.’94 With the chair, Bishop Ellicott, already noted by Westcott as on-side, there was little administrative block likely to occur. Smith went on with his arguments. He reasoned that some of the key terms of the Lord’s Prayer and its immediate context were also general and abstract. He cited ὀφειλήματα (‘debts’), πειρασμός (‘temptation’) and παραπτώματα (‘trespasses’). This aspect of his case was not particularly strong so he turned to directly tackling what he saw as the main argument for the rendering, the testimony of the church fathers. Here, his Unitarian sensibilities began to show. He undercut the fathers because of their (irrational) belief in demons, citing the more rationalist approach to miracles and the supernatural found in contemporary commentators, Conyers Middleton and Lecky.95 The fathers themselves, he remonstrated, were ‘very ignorant and unreflecting men . . . in following the fathers . . . we are surely following blind guides’. He concluded by 92. ‘New Testament Revision Company: Suggestions on the Gospels I and II’ (CUL Ms Add 9739, f. 6, Robert Scott papers). 93. The resolution of the meeting 19/5/1874 ‘Minutes of the New Testament Revision Company’ (CUL MS Add 6937, f. 449), was reiterated on 7/5/1878 (CUL Ms Add 9739, f. 3, Robert Scott Papers). 94. Hort to Ellerton 13/10/1871 (Hort, Life of Hort, vol. 2, 148). 95. C. Middleton, A Free Inquiry into the Miraculous Powers which are supposed to have subsisted in the Christian Church (Dublin: J. Smith, 1749); W. E. H. Lecky, History of the Rise and Influence of the Spirit of Rationalism in Europe, 2 vols (New York: Appleton, 1872).

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expressing the hope that it was not too late to bring about the change, that he had written to a number of members in the same vein and that he apologized for his inability to attend.96 Almost certainly, it was Smith’s inability to attend that helped to secure ‘the evil one’ in the Lord’s Prayer and to bring a change to ‘the evil one’ in Matt. 5.37. If the references to the rationalist writers were conveyed to the meeting, it is likely that the clash in the different approaches to Truth would have been patent. Certainly Westcott and Hort’s alignment of groups of manuscripts and the reach of their genealogical method depended on a knowledge of the very same fathers that Vance Smith had impugned. And Lightfoot’s entire historical project was designed to narrow the gap from the fathers to the New Testament, creating a bridge rather than a chasm. The Baptist, Joseph Angus, had already set himself against rationalist undercutting of the miraculous,97 so he may have found himself conflicted in his support for Smith’s position without agreeing with his arguments. In any case, the only votes accepted in decision-making were those of members present. Smith had ended up losing two battles when his plan had been to fight one, albeit vicariously. But Smith was proven right in his prediction that the changes to the Lord’s Prayer would seriously undermine the acceptance of the Revised New Testament. John Burgon created, if not caught, the mood. Under the banner header of ‘The Devil has been improperly thrust into the Lord’s Prayer’, he fulminated, ‘A more injudicious and unwarrantable innovation it would be impossible to indicate in any part of the present unhappy volume.’98 How surprised he may have been to discover that he had his Unitarian enemy fighting alongside him for this battle at least. In fact, immediately following the publication of the Revised New Testament, Vance Smith publically stood against the RV rendering.99

Baptists and the Issue of Water and the Spirit Smith’s efforts to gain a reconsideration of the AV rendering of Matt 6.13 turned to the formulation of a private paper for circulation to a number if not all members. These limited printings form a common adjunct to the formal work of the Revision Company. We have seen it with Westcott and Hort, with Lightfoot and with Smith. Many others did the same, and the Americans also held to this scholarly pattern. The effort was to exert influence on the minds and judgements of the Revision 96.  ‘Vance Smith, May 3 1880 detailed notes’ (CUL Ms Add 9739, f.  4, Robert Scott papers). 97. J. Angus and S. G. Green, The Bible Handbook: An Introduction to the Study of Sacred Scripture (London: Religious Tract Society, 1915 [1853]), 92–93. The first edition contains less direct engagement with rationalism but assumes the importance of the miraculous (pp. 89–90, 569). 98. John Burgon, The Revision Revised (London: John Murray, 1883), 214. 99. G. V. Smith, ‘A Reviser on the New Revision’, The Nineteenth Century 9 (1881): 933.

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Company, all in addition to the lengthy hours of preparation expected to arm the members for their work in the Jerusalem Chamber. A number of revisers, both English and American, reflected on their time in the work as a period of great learning, so it certainly appears that these papers did have some worth in the proceedings. Schaff ’s journal noted ‘our monthly meetings so full of instruction and interest’ with, of course, ‘ruled by perfect harmony’100 – probably more true of the Americans than the English. One such paper reveals how a small verse can be the splinter that festers confessional loyalties and the hold of Establishment commitments. It demonstrates that for all the avowals of harmony and mutuality, negotiations became intense when the niceties of grammar correlated with the ideology of group identity, an identity that was either grounded in or sought confirmation from a turn of phrase in the Bible. Translations then become revealed as agents serving particular interests and confirming particular views. That splinter was Matt. 3.11: ‘I indeed baptize you with water unto repentance: but he that cometh after me is mightier than I, whose shoes I am not worthy to bear: he shall baptize you with the Holy Ghost, and with fire’ (AV). Unfortunately we do not have either Westcott’s or Newth’s notes on this verse, Westcott’s because his first volume of notes is not extant, Newth’s because he only began to take detailed notes of proceedings from Matthew 6, first reviewed in the tenth meeting of the Revision Company. But a paper, privately circulated among the revisers, reveals that the construal of the verse generated a particularly contentious debate. For Baptist commitments, baptism by immersion was central.101 Angus, for forty-four years President of the Baptist College in London, was appointed a learned articulator, indeed ideologue, of the Baptist position.102 He had written at length about Baptist history and writings and had noted the persecutions that his group had suffered in the past. Baptist identity was bound to the translation of ‘ἐν’ not as an instrumental ‘with’ but as a locative ‘in’. The first revision had apparently not gone well for him; it retained the AV’s ‘with water’ and ‘with the Holy Ghost’. His contacts with the American Revisers were more developed and continuous than any other reviser. Significantly, the American Revision Company was not dominated by Episcopalians but rather Nonconformists, 100. Journal entry 22/10/1880 (D. S. Schaff, The Life of Philip Schaff [New York: Scribner, 1897], 382). 101. P. J. Wosh, Spreading the Word: The Bible Business in Nineteenth-Century America (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1994), 142–45. 102.  T. Armitage, A History of the Baptists (New  York:  Bryan, Taylor & Co, 1890), 588; E. A. Payne, ‘The Development of Nonconformist Theological Education in the Nineteenth Century, with Special Reference to Regent’s Park College’, in Studies in History and Religion:  Presented to Dr.  H.  Wheeler Robinson, M.A.  on His Seventieth Birthday (London: Lutterworth, 1942), 229, 232.

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for whom the rendition of the preposition of the text was less affected by Episcopalian preference. Angus had managed to secure ‘in’ for the margin but the Americans backed him (by a vote of 7:3)103 for the margin to be brought into the text. Joseph Angus, knowing he had the backing of the Americans and hoping that the minority of Nonconformist representation on the English Companies might be expanded by American membership,104 prepared a privately printed circulation for his fellow revisers.105 He argued strenuously that the Greek of Matt. 3.11, βαπτίζω ἐν ὕδατι, should be translated ‘baptize in water’ not ‘with water’ (as also ‘in the Holy Spirit and fire’). His arguments were well-researched and courteously presented. First he looked to the ripples of context. The only phrase in Matthew, he pointed out, is βαπτίζειν ἐν; in Matt. 3.6 it was translated ‘in Jordan’ (AV). He no doubt thought it impertinent to display the incongruity of ‘with Jordan’, instead opting for the brief, ‘The change [i.e. from 3.6 to 3.11] misleads.’ He then flung his net wider, pointing out that in the Old Testament (by which he meant for his argument, the Greek version called the Septuagint) its fourteen occurrences were always rendered by ‘in’ because, he argued, ἐν ὕδατι never expressed the Hebrew instrumental dative with βαπτίζω. He referred to the fulfilment of the promise in Acts 1.5, βαπτισθήσεσθε ἐν Πνεύματι Ἁγίῳ106  – the Holy Spirit filled ‘the place where they were assembled’. Here he was also fighting the confirmation of the AV rendering, with ‘in’ added to the margin as an alternative rendering to ‘with’. Then he turned to the majority of early English translations. This last was a potentially powerful argument given that, in the ‘General Principles’ laid down by resolution of the Houses of Convocation to guide the revision, the language of revision was to follow as far as possible ‘the language of the Authorised and earlier English versions’. In this case, the AV rendering of ‘with’ had won out against the ‘in’ of Wycliffe and Tyndale’s translations, but he tried to bolster the English Bibles by reference to a chronological range from the Ethiopic to the more recent German translations. Angus could, perhaps tactically should, have added that in John and in the Paulines, the Established Church’s Regius Professor at Cambridge, Brooke Foss Westcott, had accented that the full weight of ‘ἐν’ should be affirmed (as in 103. ‘First and Provisional Revision, Gospel of Matthew’, 5 (AHTLA bMS 624/1 [11], Ezra Abbot papers). The vote and other annotations are from Abbot’s hand. 104.  Angus to Schaff 14/12/1871, 18/3/1875 (ABS ABRC Foreign Correspondence A6, A14). 105. ‘Notes on the Gospel of S. Matthew by J.A.’ (CUL Ms Add 9739 f. 7, Robert Scott papers). Angus also provided another extended note on the atonement, similarly seeking the clarification of the translation and its formatting so as to accommodate Baptist understandings more sensitively. 106. Here he adopted the Greek word order in Scrivener’s edition of Stephanus rather than the order proposed by Lachmann, Tregelles, Tischendorf, along with Westcott and Hort. It was probably for convenience rather than any tactical appeal.

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the change made to Phil. 2.10). Westcott’s own theology relied in its foundation on the repetition of ‘in Christ’.107 However, the sheer weight of numbers of those on the Company who were content with the general use of, rather than specific immersion in, water, held to the instrumental usage. The walls of the Jerusalem Chamber were not hermetically sealed from the outside world. Richard Trench, serving with the revisers, had, when he argued for a new revision of the AV, tentatively suggested that such an enterprise should include Nonconformists. But quite savagely he excluded ‘the so-called Baptists, who of course could not be invited, seeing that they demand, not a translation of Scripture, but an interpretation’. He even went so far as to argue that other Dissenters ‘as accept our doctrinal articles’ could not cooperate with them either.108 He sank to the derogatory suggestion that ‘I have a baptism to be baptized with’ (Lk. 12.50) might end up ‘I have an immersion to undergo’.109 Such attitudes flowed through into more recent tensions. A  minor skirmish between a parish clergyman and his local bishop disturbed the regularly agitated pages of The Guardian. A certain Rev. Dr Blackwood had invited a Baptist minister, Dr Steane, to preach in his church.110 Near to the Abbey, one Establishment clergyman had even installed a baptistery in the parish church at Lambeth, because the local, famous Baptist minister, F. B. Meyer, was attracting not merely new converts but Anglicans into the waters.111 Angus’s criticism remained marginal, quite literally, as the brief ‘or in’ found its way into the marginal note of the second draft and the final published Revision. The Americans held to their defence of the position taken by Angus, arguing in their ‘Suggestions Affecting Classes of Passages’ to ‘Translate the Gr. preposition ἐν after “baptize” by “in” with marg. “Or with” in Matt iii.11 (bis); Mark i.8 (bis); Luke iii.16; John i.26, 31(?), 33 (bis); Acts i.5; xi.16’.112 Philip Schaff and Matthew Riddle went so far as to reimagine the actual scene with people standing ‘kneedeep or waist-deep’, literally in the Jordan.113 And with this marginalization was 107. Westcott had written to the elderly Master of Trinity College, Cambridge: ‘There are many things in the work which we all regret, but it was worth long years of anxious effort to make clearer (for example) to an English reader what is meant by ἐν Χριστῷ.’ Westcott to William Thompson 13/6/1881 (TCC Ms Add 73, f. 139). 108. Trench, On the Authorized Version, 179–80. 109. Trench, On the Authorized Version, 39. His snide dismissal is actually closer to the meaning of the word as the sinking of a ship. 110. The Guardian 9/11/1870, 1324. 111. Randall, ‘Baptists’, 59. 112. ‘Suggestions Relative to the Second Revision of the Gospels’ No. IX (AHTLA bMS 624/1[2]‌, Ezra Abbot papers). 113. P. Schaff, The International Revision Commentary on the New Testament: Based Upon the Revised Version of 1881, Vol. I, The Gospel According to Matthew (New York: Scribner, 1881), 30–31.

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placed also his denomination’s Nonconformity. Angus was bound by the terms of confidentiality, which had been a condition of participation, to accept the decision. He had felt the full force of rebuff when it was suggested that, at one private lecture, he had breached this binding rule.114 Only private papers reveal the conflict over identity, as nothing of this was permitted either in the media release or even in the minutes of revision proceedings kept by the secretary, John Troutbeck. Angus himself had argued that ‘churches were always independent associations of men as equals’.115 He certainly tried to enter this understanding into the revision text, arguing that ἐκκλησία in Matt. 16.18 should be translated ‘assembly’ rather than ‘church’ or even ‘congregation’ (which latter Stanley tried unsuccessfully to gain for the margin).116 Angus may have considered his service in the assembly of the RV Company as an example of this egalitarian principle or an attempt to gain it, just as he collected autograph signatures on books (especially by eminent non-Baptists) for the Regent Park college library.117 His Nonconformist colleague, William Moulton, did the same.118 His hard lesson was that, at the point of key differences of identity, all his reception onto the Company for his criticism of the AV and his undoubted learning were insufficient to have his particular views adopted, even when the objective arguments were in his favour, or at least evenly balanced. The legacy of King James lived long and ‘Church’, with its Establishment capital, remained dominant. In Erving Goffman’s conception of ‘the stigmatized’, the acceptance of the invitation to membership of the New Testament Revision Committee had led to the belief that the Nonconformist invitee was more accepted than he was, a belief that evaporated right at the moment when the unwanted stigma was given particular notice.119 Shortly before the publication of the Revised New Testament, Angus gave a public lecture on the Revised New Testament in Plymouth. He was thought to have offended for a second time the confidentiality clause of revision work, as Establishment clergy leapt on his comment upon Heb. 114. Angus to Ellicott 26/1/1876 (CUL Ms Add 6946, f. 62). The newspapers carrying the reports were the Daily News 28/12/1875 and The Day of Rest 3/1 and 24/1/1876. The particular event that breached the seal, reached Australian notice: Gippsland Times 4/4/1876, so there was genuine concern that an unwanted portal into the Jerusalem Chamber had opened. Towards the end of the work of the Company, further leaks began to occur: the Morning Post 17/1/1879. There may be an indication of the tensions in the New Testament Company that the problems of leaks and revelations consistently were connected with it rather than its Old Testament partner. 115. J. Angus and J. Waddington, Christian Churches (London: Ward, 1862), 8. 116. Westcott, ‘RV Notes’ book III, f. 67 (WFA). 117.  T. Whelan, ‘Joseph Angus and the Use of Autograph Letters in the Library at Holford House, Regent’s Park College, London’, The Baptist Quarterly 40 (2004): 455–76. 118. See Moulton and Moulton, Moulton: A Memoir, 92–93. 119. E. Goffman, Stigma: Notes on the Management of Spoiled Identity (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1963), 45–46, 145.

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13.7, ‘We render this “Remember your elders / remember your leaders”.’ (There were two reports and they did not match, but the assumption was that, with ‘We’, he had spoken for the Company.)120 When the Revision did hit the bookshops, a quick check revealed that the AV had been substantially preserved: ‘Remember them that had the rule over you’ (RV; my emphasis) . . . And Angus did just that. Thereafter, as often before, he found a more sympathetic fraternity with the Americans.121

120. The Guardian 23/2/1881, 392. 121.  Angus was asked to the commentary on Hebrews for Philip Schaff ’s The International Revision Commentary (Angus to Schaff 9/6/1881; [ABS ABRC Foreign Correspondence A-17]). Significantly, the only members of the English Revision Company invited to contribute to the six volume series were the Nonconformists.

Chapter 6 T WO P E O P L E S D I V I D E D B Y A C OM M O N L A N G UAG E :   T H E A M E R IC A N S

Americans Troubled in the Work of Revision In April 1919, Robert Morison, a former student-librarian at the Harvard Divinity School, wrote to Professor James Ropes, holder of the Hollis Chair at the same institution.1 Ropes had asked Morison a general question about the papers of a former professor, the Congregationalist J. Henry Thayer (who died in 1901), that he must have stumbled on in the archives.2 The large collection included what is now catalogued as ‘The Used “Copy” of the American Standard Edition of the Revised New Testament’.3 This in fact was a copy of the 1881 Oxbridge edition of the Revised New Testament that had been carefully separated from its binding into separate sheets with an A5 length of plain paper glued to the vertical margin of each sheet. These extra sheets were filled with corrections to the printed text, sometimes by interchange of the existing marginal note with its equivalent word or phrase within the text. So, for example, ‘Holy Spirit’ regularly replaces ‘Holy Ghost’, ‘demons’ replaces ‘devils’. And, yet again, baptism is made ‘in’ water rather than ‘with’. The added sheets are also filled with cross-references with a letter notation mark identifying the part of the printed text to which they relate. The ‘S.’ (=Saint) before Matthew and ‘the Apostle’ after ‘Paul’ in the printed text of the headings to New Testament books are lined through, with ‘of Paul the Apostle’ completely gone after the heading ‘to the Hebrews’. The frontispiece of the published RV is similarly mauled. Red pencil lettering now titles the work ‘The New Covenant commonly called . . . Newly edited by the New Testament members of the American Revision Committee’. A decidedly convincing strap is drawn through ‘Printed for the Universities of Oxford and Cambridge’ and ‘Oxford at the University Press, 1881’. A date is given, ‘A.D. 1899’, though this is also corrected to ‘1900’. It clearly indicates that the members of 1. The Andover-Harvard Theological Library was formed in 1911, replacing the library connected to the Divinity School and usually staffed by theological students. Morison was a non-student librarian until 1908. 2. Ropes had written a length obituary for Thayer: ‘Joseph Henry Thayer: The Man and His Work’, The Biblical World 19 (1902): 248–67. 3. AHTL Rare Books R.B.R/BS 2090.A1/1900H.

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the American New Testament Revision Committee did not stop work with the final suggestions for changes sent through to the English Company in late 1880. Equally clearly, it raises serious questions as to the intensity of motivations driving a group of scholars to continue work for a further two decades, leaving some of the members unable to live long enough to see the end, the American Standard Edition/Version. Thayer survived into the year that the Old Testament was added to the ASV. The letter from Morison was at some stage placed in the box containing the foundation manuscript for the ASV New Testament. It mused on the bequest of the Thayer papers to the library: ‘I suppose that Dr Thayer felt that if ever a full history of the Revision was to be written and especially if the question of differences of opinion between the English and American revisers was to be studied, these papers would furnish data that might not be obtainable elsewhere.’ He went on to recall that ‘I got the impression from Dr Thayer that there was a good deal of difference of opinion that led to friction that generated some heat.’4 It seems that Thayer was not the only one concerned that history might relate a tale that could not be told at the time. Ezra Abbot, with his methodical classification of papers, bequeathed his materials to the same library. Schaff ’s voluminous and well-ordered papers, now housed at the American Bible Society, provided the basis for two histories of the American involvement in the Revision, both privately printed,5 but both edited so as to remove some of the more ‘objectionable’ letters flowing between Bishop Ellicott and Philip Schaff.6 The volumes were an attempt, in the American revisers’ assessment, to address a lack of acknowledgement of the contribution that the Americans had made in a begrudging mention from the chair, Bishop Ellicott, in the official Preface to the published Revision. Ellicott carefully avoided any mention of American ‘revisers’. Rather he wrote, ‘We gratefully acknowledge their [i.e. the Americans’] care, vigilance and accuracy.’ The accent was that the Americans had provided a response to the initiating drafts of the English Company, nothing more.7 Ezra Abbot was not 4. Morison to Ropes 21/4/1919 in AHTL Rare Books R.B.R/BS 2090.A1/1900H. 5. ‘Official Letters and Documents of the American Bible Revision Committee Printed (not published) for the use of the Committee’ 1884; An Historical Account of the Work of the American Committee of Revision of the Authorized English Version of the Bible prepared from the Documents and Correspondence of the Committee (New York: Scribner, 1885). 6.  Abbot to Ellicott 18/7/1883 (ABS RG #86 0-3-6 ABRC Foreign and Domestic Correspondence 1883). The ‘Documentary History’ was overseen by a subcommittee of Alfred Lee, George Day (secretary to the Revision Company), Timothy Dwight with Dwight especially acting as a caution against full exposure. See Dwight to Schaff 17/8/1883 (ABS RG #86 0-3-6 ABRC Foreign and Domestic Correspondence 1883). The copy of the Historical Account in the ABS archives has a telling handwritten ‘Safe’ on the front cover. The handwriting is, I think, Ezra Abbot’s. 7.  C. J. Ellicott, ‘Preface’ to The New Testament of Our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ (Oxford: The University Press, 1881).

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impressed: ‘If Canon Westcott or Bp Lightfoot had written the Preface we should have had, I believe, a frank and handsome acknowledgment not merely that the American suggestions had been “closely and carefully considered” but that many of them had been found valuable, and adopted.’8 Identical concerns were felt about the multiple commentaries and descriptions of the Revised New Testament that followed rapidly on the heels of the release of the Oxbridge publication. Alex Roberts, one of the Nonconformist English revisers, produced his own Companion to the Revised New Testament in May 1881. Almost at the same time, an American edition was released but this had a substantial addendum by ‘An American Reviser’ (almost certainly, Philip Schaff) who made constant mention of ‘AngloAmerican Revision’,9 a phrase never uttered in English publications. It was added to Robert’s manuscript because it was ‘silent about the American Appendix and the relation of the American Committee to the whole work’.10 All the flourishes about unity could not paper over the deep rifts, evident in the addendum, caused by a failure of acknowledgement, a resistance to American suggestions and a latent reinforcement of hierarchical differentiation. Lurking behind Ellicott’s reticence to mention the Americans was the practical issue of publishers’ copyright over the final product and this had more than a negligible impact on the relationships between the two Companies. Later, Ellicott cleverly, and not without a measure of accuracy, shifted responsibility to the ‘wise and conciliatory’ presses for his inability to acknowledge the Americans as ‘fellow revisers’.11 The rapidity with which American presses pirated the Oxbridge publication and registered their volumes according to American law, was not merely an act of commercial calculation. It was an assertion that the Revision belonged, by the involvement of American scholarship, to more than merely the English. Indeed, one editor of an early American publication, Isaac Hall, boasted that in ‘typography, materials, binding and accompanying information, this may be far better than the English issue’.12 Significantly, he now applied the familiar term ‘authorised’ (spelt ‘authorized’) to the product released by the University Presses as the conferring body. The English publishers might urge ‘that theirs is the only authorized edition’, he allowed. But in an adroit calisthenics of language that switched attention from the institution to the product, he argued that ‘any exact 8. Abbot to Schaff, 10/6/1881 (ABS Domestic Correspondence folder A). 9. A. Roberts, Companion to the Revised Version of the New Testament (New York: Funk, 1881), 87–113. The addendum contains noteworthy turns of phrase replicated in P. Schaff, Companion to the Greek Testament and the English Version (London:  Macmillan, 1883), such as ‘The mother took the lead, the daughter followed’. (Roberts, Companion, 100 [American edn].) 10. Roberts, Companion, iii (American edn). 11.  C. J. Ellicott, Addresses on the Revised Version of Holy Scripture (London:  SPCK, 1901), 41, 42. See further below and the following chapter. 12. I. H. Hall (ed.), The Revised New Testament and History of Revision (Philadelphia: Hubbard, 1881), iv.

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reprint of the English edition will be just as perfectly “authorized” as that’.13 Hall had restored the Bible to a common, ‘free’ heritage for all English-speaking people, even in its revised form, at least in America. As we shall see in the next chapter, the publishers were neither seduced nor impressed by the shift from commercial to moral claims on the ‘new’ sacred text. Moral claims undergirded Schaff ’s determination to present the case for the American Company. But precisely because of the self-censorship that Schaff and others exercised over the final privately printed editions, copies of the vindication were able to be dispatched internationally. Ellicott was confident that he could display the generosity of eldership and direct attention to the volumes in his own tailored rendition of the involvement of the Americans in the work of revision, written eight years after Schaff ’s death in 1893. He also gave a bouquet to Schaff ’s recounting of American involvement in his more public Companion to the Greek Testament describing it as ‘valuable and accurate’.14 Ellicott deftly inferred that he was the origin of American involvement, having operated under the authority of Convocation15 and delegating the search for American scholars to the English Baptist, Joseph Angus. And he polished that worn coin, ‘harmony’, as governing all the relations between the English and the Americans, citing approvingly an American reviser, Talbot Chambers, that ‘[n]‌ever, even once, did the odium theologicum appear’.16 There was definitely an advantage in outliving all the other revisers! Schaff had sent copies of the histories to a number of his English friends when they were first printed. Not all of them read the contents with such rosecoloured spectacles as Ellicott. For Angus, as much as he valued the documentary record, they were, nevertheless, ‘a sad memorial of a noble enterprise’.17

Revision and Nationhood Deep-seated views of nationhood were being contested in the relationship between England and America. These rarely bubbled to the surface, at least in public, but they are revealed in turns of phrase (such as Wilberforce’s reference to the Americans and/or Nonconformists as ‘Separatists’), casuistic arguments about the nature of involvement and, most of all, through access to the unpublished materials of the two New Testament Revision Companies. Before the revision began, a desire had been kindled that American scholarship be recognized as having international credentials. When the American edition of Dr Smith’s Dictionary 13. Hall, Revised New Testament, iv; his emphasis. 14. Ellicott, Addresses, 36, 37, 42. 15. A resolution of July 1870 is said to have authorized an invitation for ‘the cooperation of some American divines’. 16.  T. W. Chambers, Companion to the Revised Old Testament (New  York:  Funk & Wagnalls, 1885), ix. 17. Angus to Schaff 22/6/1885 (ABS ABRC Foreign Correspondence).

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of the Bible was released in 1867 by Horatio Hackett and Ezra Abbot (later to become members of the American New Testament Revision Company), Hackett used language that was to recur constantly in the exchanges between the English and the Americans: ‘Fuller recognition has been made of the names and works of American scholars.’ Recognition was ‘an act of justice to them as co-workers with those of other lands’.18 The invitation to participate in the revision of the AV entered into an environment where American scholarship was gaining confidence that it was ready for a standing among English and European colleagues. The invitation to Philip Schaff to contribute to Smith’s original English-based Dictionary was a vanguard of that acknowledgement and a spur to those aspirations. Schaff himself recognized both English attitudes and American ambitions when he wrote that ‘the English estimate of American scholarship increased as the work [of revision] advanced, and seven years later was handsomely acknowledged in the Preface’.19 We have already noted that such public avowals of recognition were driven as much by public relations and marketing as sincere feeling. Schaff ’s private response to Ellicott about the Preface was far less submissive: ‘[T]‌he Preface has a disheartening effect upon the progress and completion of the Revision and suggests to many the expediency of secession and independence.’20 But both assessments of the Preface, positive and negative, demonstrate that the stature of learning was being grafted into an already well-formed sense of a nation forged from biblically invested motivations. For all that the language of ‘the Bible of English-speaking peoples’ was used as an overarching construction of interest in both revision and resistance to revision, any efforts to create a common task across those English-speaking peoples came up against other equally vibrant traditions that were formed in resistance, utopian visions and counter-polities. The American Reviser (Philip Schaff) who provided the addendum to Roberts’s Companion did not speak of English-speaking peoples but rather of ‘two independent and high-minded nations sensitive of their honor’.21 It was, after all, less than a century since the American War of Independence when the work of revision began. There were, through 1871 and early 1872, equally painful and sensitizing reminders before the respective publics because of the British seizure of the SS. Alabama and secreting of the ship to the Confederate side in the Civil War recently concluded.22 Each country asserted its ‘honour’ was 18.  H. B. Hackett and E. Abbot (eds), Dr William Smith’s Dictionary of the Bible (Boston: Houghton, Mifflin and Co, 1892 [1873]). 19. Schaff, Companion, 391 n2. 20. Schaff to Ellicott 8/7/1881 (ABS ‘Reports, Papers and Correspondence’). 21. Roberts, Companion (American edn), 113. 22. Considerable tensions developed over the Union’s claim for compensation for the Alabama’s damage to the northern side. The matter was ultimately resolved by arbitration but it generated considerable public antagonism on both sides of the Atlantic. See M. Hall and E. Goldstein, ‘Writers, the Clergy, and the “Diplomatisation of Culture”: Sub-structures of Anglo-American Diplomacy, 1820–1914’, in On the Fringes of Diplomacy: Influences on British Foreign Policy 1800–1945, ed. J. Fisher and A. Best (Surrey: Ashgate, 2011), 128.

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at stake.23 Disraeli prickled: ‘The tone of the American Government towards the Government of England is different from that used toward the Government of any other country.’ He accused the American President of violent invective against the English government and the English nation. ‘England cannot be insulted or injured with impunity.’24 The efforts to involve the Americans in the work of revision may have been seen as a Christian alternative to the political contests of the day, and even an opportunity to fulfil Schaff ’s long-cherished dreams of ecumenical unity. As he said, it was a ‘joint work of both committees . . . among the two most civilized nations of the earth’.25 His hyperbole scaled more general political and economic aspirations as well:  ‘England and America have honoured themselves by thus honouring the Bible, and proved its inseparable connection with true freedom and progress.’26 But such heights cannot be separated from the tensions of identity that were operating within and between the nations at large. The two nations covered very different time-frames in the formation of their respective national identities; for the Americans, symbolized in the origins and training of Schaff himself, national identity was still in considerable flux. He, along with the keen interest of many in revision, was convinced that the work was to be instrumental in giving a distinctive Christian and critical shape to the nation. Revision was (to be) a means of unifying a nation, disparate in its migrant groups and in its politics. Language, religion and nationhood were entwined through this project of translation. Edwin Gentzler’s perceptive delineation of the importance of translation for the shaping of American identity is especially pertinent here, yet he omits any notice of the work of revision of the AV. This work encapsulated, in a large-scale group process, the very forces he has identified as operative in the role of translation in the shaping of America.27 England, by contrast, for all the cultural upheavals that were consequent upon social and scientific changes, was nevertheless convinced of its (preeminent) place in the world. Its ancient foundation was believed to confer a right to exercise leadership in that world, certainly among English-speaking peoples who had a passionate devotion to the King James Bible. ‘Empire’ was not too remote from its claim and self-definition. Religion in this sense could not be separated from national identity, even when that identity was subject to contested claims within one or other nation. What made this use of the Bible so significant and so fraught was that rather than drawing select biblical images and themes to shape 23. Mount Alexander Mail 20/5/1872. 24.  Hansard 204 (9/2/1871), 89–92; reported across the English-speaking world. See, for example, the Daily Alta (California) 9/3/1871; The Tasmanian 22/4/1871 (from the Saturday Review). 25. Schaff, Companion, 478, 404. 26. Schaff, Companion, 406. 27. E. Gentzler, Translation and Identity in the Americas (London/New York: Routledge, 2008), 31, 134.

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and articulate national identity,28 the Bible as a whole was being dismantled and reassembled. The fear of some, more perhaps in England with its lengthy biblically informed history, was that such a project was not merely ambitious; it was promethean and threatened the evaporation of the very images and themes – often called ‘doctrines’ – that glued national identity. Lord Cavendish captured the hold of longevity, ‘The words of the existing version are dear to old and young – and have really fixed our language for two and a half centuries.’29 It was precisely the new and emerging energy of a fledgling and recently reconfirmed United States that prepared it for the revision. The English reviser, Benjamin Kennedy, in yet another accompanying package endorsing the RV, reckoned that the ‘Americans seem to have understood and acknowledged the need of that work [of revision] more justly than our own countrymen’.30 Certainly, American response to the first dawn of revision was generally positive. ‘If my Bible cannot stand the daylight, I  do not want it any longer.’ So pronounced the Rev. Minot J. Savage in a letter to the press. ‘And if we will not let it be seen as it is, others will begin to entertain the same feelings.’31 Revision was seen as an apologetic and missionary necessity. But the necessity of revision does not demand address by those who recognize that necessity. There was a measure of deferral to the established reputation of those appointed to the Companies of Revisers that provided reassurance to all American Christians that the work would be judicious and successful. One American Baptist newspaper intoned, ‘The names of the English Churchmen who have this undertaking in charge, will inspire general confidence.’32 The implication at this early stage was that there remained a concomitant lack of confidence about biblical scholarship in the United States. The translation efforts of the American Bible Union had not managed to dent that complex; for some, they had confirmed it. And some English newspapers, as rumours of American involvement in whatever measure began to swirl, had been only too happy to see that complex remain. One editorial in the London Standard played to Gladstonian sensibilities, expressing his ‘informed’ opinion that ‘[b]‌iblical scholars are few and far between in America and . . . the three or four whose services might be acceptable would by no means contribute to render the new version popular among their countrymen’.33 Perhaps the editor had checked the list of American contributors to Dr King’s Dictionary of the Bible in the English edition only. But the difficulty was that such sentiments were not unparalleled in the United States itself. In The Guardian, one self-styled 28. See A. D. Smith, Chosen Peoples: Sacred Sources of National Identity (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003). 29. Cavendish to Stanley 10/5/1870 (CUL Ms Add 6946, f. 4). 30. B. H. Kennedy, Ely Lectures on the Revision of the New Testament (London: Bentley, 1882), vi. 31. The Chicago Advance 18/8/1870. 32. National Baptist 23/6/1870. 33. London Standard, reproduced in the Philadelphian Evening Telegraph 30/6/1870.

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‘Clergyman of the American Episcopal Church’ intoned before English eyes that there were probably only three Episcopalians with ‘any considerable reputation as Biblical critics’.34 Revision might gain a fertile ground in the United States, but the husbandry required to nurse its growth was not assuredly American.

Uncertainty about the Nature of American Involvement There is a trace of nervousness about who might be invited into the labour of revision revealed in the successive resolutions of the Committees of the Convocation of Canterbury appointed to advance the project. The first Joint Committee boldly decided that any eminent scholar might be invited to cooperate, ‘to whatever nation or religious body they may belong’.35 The second Committee, called the Permanent Committee by Bishop Charles Ellicott, provided a fundamental guideline: ‘To refer, on the part of each company, when considered desirable, to divines, scholars, and literary men, whether at home or abroad, for their opinions.’36 The sequence might suggest a narrowing had occurred, given that this guideline was part of a larger Decalogue of resolutions that included the names of those invited to serve on the Revision Companies. At the very least, there was a distinct ambiguity about the intent and how it might be realized, given that the initiative for such ‘reference for opinions’ was handed to ‘each company’. It might be argued that the resolution of the first Joint Committee set the overall parameters. Ellicott certainly underscored this direction in the Preface to the 1881 Revision; it was frequently emphasized by the Americans.37 There was an ambiguity and it was to be exploited in different directions throughout the years of revision. Initially, those of expansive vision for the work of revision accented and cultivated cooperation, though this was not without some difficulty; within two years, the advent of the University Presses into the mix of interests had turned the compass decidedly towards ‘opinions’ rather than ‘cooperation’. Such a shift, after formal arrangements were already operational, had all the hallmarks of a repetition of the breach of faith that almost excluded the Unitarian, Vance Smith.38 In fact, the obligations attendant on entering into an arrangement with the Americans were drawn into Stanley’s arguments in defence of Vance Smith against the efforts of the Upper House in February 1871 to remove the Socinian.39 The ‘Westminster Scandal’ had not immediately developed such a head of steam as to thoroughly dampen the initial enthusiasm for revision. The initiative 34. The Guardian 27/3/1872, 421. 35. Resolution 5 of the Joint Committee Report 24 March 1870, submitted 3 May of the same year. 36. Resolution VIII.8. 37. See, for example, Roberts Companion, 92 (American edn). 38. See Chapter 3. 39. Stanley to Ellicott 9/2/1871 (CUL Ms Add 9739, f. 8, Robert Scott papers).

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for American involvement came from the Lower House on 7 July 1870. It reflects the convoluted administrative sequence of authority that marked the efforts of Convocation to establish its own good order: the Lower House moved that the Upper House should instruct the ‘Permanent Committee’ ‘to invite the co-operation of some American divines’. The Upper House agreed. It seemingly clarified any ambiguity as to who might be invited to assist in revision. Although the formalities for the execution of this directive are not known, it appears that a mirroring of Convocation’s two houses governed the delegation of responsibility for the approach to the Americans. It certainly maintained the hierarchical differentiation between episcopal and Nonconformist. The Bishop of Winchester, Samuel Wilberforce, was to approach the Episcopalians in the United States. The Dean of Westminster, Arthur Stanley, was to negotiate with the non-Episcopalians. It was a fateful bifurcation. Stanley swung immediately into action. Wilberforce procrastinated, whether from an already forming intent to derail revision or because of his oft-mentioned pressure of work.40 Certainly, he later complained that ‘I do not think that our instructions warrant the suggesting any American Board of Revision’.41 Whatever the reason, delay was death. He engineered nothing formally until August of the following year! The Episcopalians were miffed, not only that non-Episcopalians were given the front-running, but, for some, that they were in the race at all.

Organizing the Americans for the Revision Stanley rapidly approached his go-to man, Joseph Angus, the Baptist principal of Stepney College at Regent’s Park, barely two miles from Westminster Abbey. It may be that informal discussions around the meetings for Revision on 13–15 July 1870 provided the opportunity for briefing. Angus was in regular contact with his ‘noncom’ associates (as he called them) who were members of the Evangelical Alliance and was about to catch the steamship for a summer Alliance meeting in New  York in September. Bishop Ellicott handed over his formal letter. The salient matters were an accent on a plurality of fellow scholars – ‘our brethren’, ‘an authorised committee’, ‘round a common table’ – and a commitment to ‘pay all attention’ to their suggested corrections to work transmitted ‘across the water’.42 The tone was welcoming, collegial and, more importantly, conveyed a patent note of authorization with a hint at how a group might operate. Schaff ’s (anonymous) addendum to the American edition of Roberts’s Companion registered his reception of Ellicott’s meaning, ‘If it be asked by what authority the American Committee 40.  Stanley wrote euphemistically to Schaff of ‘the preoccupation of the Bishop of Winchester, that prevented him from being able to give his attention to the subject at an earlier date’. Stanley to Schaff 8/4/1871 (ABS ABRC Foreign Correspondence, S 112). 41. Wilberforce to Stanley 6/4/1871 (CUL Ms Add 6946, f. 17). 42. Ellicott to Angus 20/7/1870 (Historical Account, 30; Documentary History, 28–29).

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was appointed, we can only say, by the authority of the British Committee which was vested in it from the beginning by the Convocation of Canterbury.’43 Joseph Angus wasted no time when he docked in New  York. Angus once confided to Schaff his own admiration of the man’s work ethic.44 Here was the scholar, familiar with German trends, known to English dons, networked across American colleges and universities and prodigious in his organizational capacity. He had, even if he didn’t know it, been cited in the Jerusalem Chamber on Matt. 5.41.45 And he was a member of Angus’s own Evangelical Alliance,46 at that stage broad in its ecumenical scope (captured under its motto, Unum corpus sumus in Christo). Within a few days, Angus sent a letter inviting interest to those scholars whom Schaff had suggested. (It helped that the Alliance meetings were postponed because of the outbreak of the Franco-Prussian War, a notice Angus only discovered after he arrived.) The communication was preparatory and required the more formal invitation from the English Company. But it extended the accent on ‘cooperation’, suggesting a ‘committee of a dozen or eighteen . . . in the States’ who could ‘meet and agree on suggestions’ which would then be ferried back. He considered that expenses would be slight and, as in England (at that stage), could be met by subscription.47 Schaff however was exuberant, and launched into action. Two developments tempered the enthusiasm that had already unleashed affirmative interest among American scholars. The first was Stanley’s own subtle, allusive formalization of the arrangements initiated by Angus and Schaff. He wrote, in January 1871, the formal request to Schaff. Even as it continued to fan the American preparations for involvement in revision, there was a decided ambiguity. On the one hand he accented that the English Revision Companies comprised English, Scottish and Irish scholars and that he had been ‘requested to ask the friendly co-operation of some divines from the United States of America’. But then he intimated a distinction, by accenting that the object of ‘the Committee of Convocation and of the revising Companies is to procure the assistance . . . purely on the ground of scholastic and Biblical qualifications’.48 It rang a decidedly individualistic note. There was no mention of Ellicott’s ‘authorised committee’, 43. Roberts, Companion, 93 (American edn). 44.  Angus to Schaff, 8/2/1875 (ABS ABRC Foreign Correspondence, A13). A  similar acknowledgement from members of the American Companies was made at the conclusion of the privately distributed Historical Account, 56. 45. Westcott, ‘RV Notes’ book II, f. 29. 46.  Schaff was officially listed as a ‘Corresponding Secretary’ on Alliance printed notepaper. See also P. Thuesen, In Discordance with the Scriptures:  American Protestant Battles over Translating the Bible (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999), 47; E. A. Clark, Founding the Fathers: Early Church History and Protestant Professors in Nineteenth Century America (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2011), 45–46. 47.  Angus to American Scholars, August 1870 (Historical Account, 31; Documentary History, 30). 48. Stanley to Schaff 13/1/1871 (Historical Account, 32).

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nor a request for suggestions based on a draft, revised text. This accent on individual scholars even included the proposal that Schaff might approach some Episcopalians through the Bishop of New York, Horatio Potter, who represented the Protestant Episcopal Church. Stanley admitted that the Bishop of Winchester had already written to him, but there was a tone in his reference to ‘my superior in rank’ that thinly disguised a dissatisfaction. Potter was hardly an expansive man of Stanley’s latitudinarian sensibilities and had in 1865 banned parochial openness to non-Episcopalian preachers or teachers. He was dismissive of Schaff ’s overtures, claiming that Wilberforce had made no overture about a revision committee and he had no power to form one.49 A frustrated Ellicott informed John Troutbeck, the Secretary for the New Testament Company, that ‘Bishop Potter does not act’.50 Wilberforce had written to Potter and to a number of American bishops, but the invitation to cooperate appears to have been directed to them as individuals (either themselves or some recommended surrogate).51 Casuistry was, it appears, well-practised. Stanley offered, after consultation with Angus, a few suggestions of names of scholars who might be invited. In order to overcome the tyranny of distance and the loss of time it generated, he delegated to Schaff a wide brief ‘to enter into such negotiations as you may deem advisable with the scholars of these [nonEpiscopalian] churches’. Philip Schaff took the invitation to provide names as an intention to form a group of scholars to cooperate,52 in his mind, on the entire project. Stanley acceded that it was a matter of American organization for which they alone, and not the English, were responsible. He carefully corrected Schaff ’s draft letter of invitation to various scholars making just this point. Schaff ’s draft had read: ‘I have been requested and authorized by the British Committee for a revision of the Authorized Version of the Holy Scriptures, through the Dean of Westminster, to form an American Committee in co-operative union with the British, and to invite a select number of Biblical scholars from different denominations to assist in the proposed revision.’ Stanley’s corrections were telling, reflecting his own concern at making American involvement acceptable in England: ‘The British Committee for a revision of the Authorized Version have requested the Bishop of Winchester and the Dean of Westminster to communicate with the scholars of the United States of America with a view to inviting their co-operation in the work of revision.’53 The distinction between ‘assist in the proposed revision’ and ‘co-operation in the work of revision’ was subtle, but would prove ominous. A  clearer indication of 49. D. S. Schaff, The Life of Philip Schaff (New York: Scribner, 1897), 359–60. 50. Ellicott to Troutbeck 10/3/1871 (CUL Ms Add 6946, f. 16). 51.  Subsequent letters of Episcopal bishops to Schaff refer to earlier communications from Bishop Wilberforce to them as individuals; see Historical Account, 38–39. 52.  This executed a theological commitment as much as a political strategy; see H. Schwarz, Theology in a Global Context:  The Last Two Hundred Years (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2005), 61–62. 53. Stanley to Schaff 30/5/1871 (Documentary History, 45).

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Stanley’s reserve came with his rejection of Schaff ’s use of ‘fraternal equality’ in his draft suggestions to Bishop Ellicott for the initiation of the American Revision Committee. Schaff had written, ‘The American Committee to co-operate with the British Committee on terms of fraternal equality and on the basis of the principles and rules adopted by the Convocation of Canterbury and the British Committee.’54 Stanley held, ‘though doubtless most reasonable as regards the spirit in which it is made, [it] might mislead unless more carefully explained’.55 But Joseph Angus had already made this careful point privately to Schaff and there were likely discussions at the Deanery in Westminster that shaped his thinking. Angus noted that ‘fraternal equality’ could not apply between the American Committee and the English ‘Permanent Committee’ given that the latter was an official delegate of Convocation. In any case it was unnecessary, claimed Angus, since the Committee had virtually become redundant, with ‘no power in the Companies at all’. This latter reason proved to be misguided. Wilberforce’s approach to the Episcopal Convention in August 1871 was as chair of that Committee (not of one of the Companies) and the Committee became the guiding instrument of negotiation when the thorny issue of copyright began to pierce the seal of academic revision. Angus was also disposed to think ‘fraternal equality’ did not apply to the Companies: ‘Equality would naturally suggest that you share in all parts of this work equally with the British Companies; which we suppose is not contemplated.’ He did ask ‘is it possible to go further?’ before advising that ‘fraternal equality . . . better be omitted’.56 Accordingly, the English understanding (held by Established Churchmen and Nonconformists) was that the Americans, however they might wish to organize themselves and on what principles they may wish to proceed, were viewed as little different in kind, though different in degree, from the eminent advisers on nautical matters sought out by the English Company for one-off assistance on how best to interpret terms for the shipwreck in Acts 27.57 The Americans were, from Stanley’s careful manoeuvring, not in the same position, nor with the same authority as the English Revisers, though this yet remained to be clearly demarcated. However, Schaff ’s eagerness for American involvement either blinded him to any warning signs or steeled him to take the rhetorical question ‘is it possible to go further?’ as a warrant to press for an equality of recognition for the American contribution. Fraternity increasingly frayed in the drive, but Schaff continued to assert that ‘the American Revisers entered upon their work with the distinct understanding on their part that they were fellow Revisers, with the same rights and responsibilities as those members who were appointed by the original Commission from the Church 54. Schaff to Angus 18/8/1870 (Documentary History, 31). 55. Stanley to Schaff 30/5/1871 (Documentary History, 46). 56. Angus to Schaff 28/4/1871 (ABS ABRC Foreign Correspondence, A5). Significantly, Schaff did not include this letter in the Documentary History or the Historical Account. 57.  W. G. Humphry, A Word on the Revised Version of the New Testament (London: Christian Knowledge Society, 1881), 34.

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of England and the Dissenting Denominations’.58 Schaff ’s renowned enthusiasm had its drawbacks.59 His failure/refusal to hear the subtleties in Stanley’s and Angus’s advice seriously contributed to later contentions. Schaff ’s organizational skills rapidly pulled together the regulatory frame and the names of suitable scholars. He boasted that the American Companies more than mirrored their English counterparts as he managed to add a Quaker, Thomas Chase, into the band of revisers. No effort, however, was made to find a Roman Catholic scholar. Catholics had been carefully excluded from the beginning of the American venture by an accent on the use of the AV as a Protestant Bible.60 Catholics were deemed to be rusted onto their Douai Version.61 Stanley had tried to persuade Schaff otherwise.62 Schaff ultimately rationalized the decision: ‘Catholicity has its limits in the extent of sympathy and the laws of co-operation. We must aim at what is attainable, and not waste time and strength on utopian schemes.’63 In any case, Schaff wanted the American Companies to mirror the English as closely as possible. Even though the American Companies were set up as respondents to English drafts, they paid as much attention to questions of text and translation. The records were meticulous, even down to lists and cuttings of newspaper columns, and the preparatory labours of revisers such as Thayer and Abbot, as well as Schaff, were prodigious. Private papers were printed and circulated64; public addresses and books related to revision were spread across the American landscape, even though the members were drawn from the east coast. An island had distinct advantages over the continent when it came to assembling travellers.

Initial American Difficulties: The Episcopalians There were a few areas where the distinctiveness of the American Companies stood out, apart from the niceties of ecclesiastical constitutionality. In formal structure, the overarching Committee was far more involved in organizing the continuity of the work than the ‘Permanent Committee’ in England, partly because the whole enterprise in America had to be financed by public subscription and partly because of intricate negotiations with publishers. The constituents that 58.  Schaff to Ellicott 8/7/1881 in ABRC English and American Committees and Directors of University Presses, Document 7 (ABS Reports and Papers 1881). 59.  His passion was both legendary and an avowed commitment; see Schaff, Life of Schaff, 378–79. 60. Qualification 3 formulated by the Committee on New Members and adopted by the American Bible Revision Committee 30/11/1872 (ABS ABRC Minute Book). 61. New York Standard 4/1/1880. 62. Stanley to Schaff 30/5/1871 (Documentary History, 46). 63. Roberts, Companion, 92. 64. Schaff, Companion, 478.

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Schaff was able to draw together were, in spite of Stanley’s intimations that he might approach individual Episcopalians, all ‘Nonconformists’ in English eyes. By the time of the Episcopal convention in October 1871, the ground for revision was already prepared and substantially sown. Eminent American bishops disapproved of the boundaries that had been set and the husbandry that had begun. The ripples ran across the ocean to England, with John Burgon scandalized that revision had been put into the hands of Baptists.65 A further diminution of a united American response began in the month prior to Wilberforce’s attempt to engineer a change of the membership and direction of the Revision Companies in England in the February 1871 meeting of Convocation. Control and kudos over Revision was slipping from his hands. His approach to Horatio Potter in January 1871 was not the most perspicacious decision in terms of timing – it had rankled Episcopal sensitivities, regardless of whether the invitation was sent to him as an individual to cooperate or to assist in establishing a committee.66 Potter’s appreciation of scholarship is fairly represented by his assertion, ‘We plead the united Church of the first three hundred years against Romanists, and against Unitarians, etc.’67 Even though Wilberforce had written to other Episcopal bishops, when it came to a second effort to gain Episcopalian involvement, he twisted the openness to American involvement expressed in the Convocation of Canterbury to mean an approach to the Episcopal body in America,68 rather than to an individual regardless of the religious body to which he belonged.69 Not only did this bring inevitable delays as the tortoise of ecclesial machinery slothed into gear,70 there was also a widespread, though not universal, isolationist tendency in the Episcopal Church. One contemporary Episcopal clergyman described it as a ‘snug little American Zion’.71 The church combined an air of its own pre-eminence in American ecclesial life – a legacy of the Establishment mentality that a century had not eradicated – with a confronting realization that it was a minor player in the American religious arena. Philip Schaff perceived the danger of allowing the Episcopal Church a representation beyond its relative demography. He named the imbalance in the relations between the Church of England and Nonconformist churches:  ‘It is impossible to give the Episcopal Church such a preponderance in the American committee over larger denominations . . . as the Church of 65. The Guardian 24/1/1872, 99. 66. Bp Cleveland Coxe pointed to the Angus letter to scholars of August 1870 and yet no invitation to American bishops until January 1871; The Churchman 10/7/1880, 32. 67.  H. Potter, Considerations for a Candid Mind inquiring after Divine Truth (New York: Pott, Young and Co, 1871), section 3. 68. Wilberforce to Potter 7/8/1871 (Appendix XIV in Journal of the General Convention of the Protestant Episcopal Church [1871]: 615–16; Historical Account, 34). 69. Bishop Coxe was not fooled: The Churchman 31/7/1880, 119. 70. ‘It was a pity to bring the matter before them as a body. That causes delay.’ Angus to Schaff 14/12/1871 (ABS ABRC Foreign Correspondence, A6). 71. Letter of an Episcopal clergyman to The Guardian 27/3/1872.

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England may claim over Dissenters in the British committee. Unless the American committee can be constructed on principles of justice and in conformity with the configuration of American Christianity and scholarship, it will prove a failure.’72 Joseph Angus conveyed Schaff ’s perplexity to Arthur Stanley – that Wilberforce’s invitation might result in the fifty-four Episcopal bishops sending ‘a larger number of names than others may deem fair’, even if they could agree (which Angus doubted).73 Schaff needn’t have worried. Kevin Ward’s pithy summation of the ‘Olympian detachment’ of the nineteenth-century Episcopal Church74 reflects the church’s ongoing struggles to rebuild after the War of Independence. It had lost clergy, education, supervision. One early biographer admitted, ‘Her members . . . were without habits of co-operation and were much divided in opinion.’75 So it remained in the 1871 Convention. Potter himself moved to lay Wilberforce’s letter of invitation ‘on the table’ and to hiss out ‘a courteous and brotherly acknowledgement of his communication . . . stating that this House, having had no part in originating or organizing the said work of revision, is not at present in a condition to deliver any judgment respecting it’.76 Many Episcopalians bristled that the group of decidedly Protestant denominations – not ‘Churchmen’ as one Episcopalian scalpelled the distinction77 – were already gathering as an organized unit for the revision; ‘the marked exclusiveness of the movement’ was the judgement of a resolution of the Diocese of Illinois.78 However much they stood under the banner of Protestant, the bishops were in no mood to have their episcopal status undervalued. For all that the AV might be the Bible for the great bulk of Americans, it was a peculiar mark of the Anglican Communion and was therefore a sacred trust – in their vault. Arthur Cleveland Coxe, the Bishop of Western New York, lifted his oratory to Marcian heights: churchmen are the ‘hereditary guardians in America of the integrity of that golden Version with which our Anglican Mother has enriched the treasury of the universe’.79 There wasn’t much headway for revision to be made here. Coxe endued himself with his episcopal armoury for a long battle and became a regular protagonist in American newspapers and magazines. His blows were directed at the Church in England: ‘[O]‌n every consideration of catholic principle 72. Schaff to Angus 20/3/1871 (Schaff, Life of Schaff, 360–61). 73. Angus to Stanley 15/4/1871 (CUL Ms Add 6946, f. 19). 74. K. Ward, A History of Global Anglicanism (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006), 55. 75. M. A. DeWolfe Howe, Memoirs of the Life and Services of the Rt. Rev. Alonzo Potter (Philadelphia: Lippincott, 1871), 286. 76. Journal of the General Convention, 262, 353. 77. The Guardian 21/11/1870, 1367. 78. The Guardian 5/10/1870, 1179. 79.  As cited by G. S. Burrows, ‘Bishop Arthur Cleveland Coxe  – Author’, Historical Magazine of the Protestant Episcopal Church 8 (1939):  48. The source appears to be the Church Review and Ecclesiastical Register 9 (1856–57): 422–23.

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and international courtesy, the convocation was bound to act for America only through our own Church as a sister Church.’80 Convocation itself had acted unilaterally and lost thereby any catholicity for the revision81; even that control had been lost, sold ‘with the character of a private enterprise’ to the universities (by which he meant the University Presses).82 Schaff ’s migrant origins came under fire: ‘the learned gentleman . . . has not lived so very long in this country as to share our instincts and traditions’.83 The American Revision Companies were accused of manipulating the press to its own position.84 Coxe reiterated familiar English lambasts, thereby showing his avid devouring of the print media across the Atlantic; it would ‘beget a large family of experimental versions . . . which would end in the entire destruction of the common English Bible as the one remaining bond among . . . Christians’85; the original text would be tampered with86; ‘if we once lay hands on the grand old heir-loom of the English-speaking world, we shall never get anything satisfactory in its place’.87 And he made sure that his views were communicated to his English counterpart, John Burgon, always with a view to public consumption.88 In a thinly veiled allusion, he detested the mixing of denominations in one society,89 and pointed to the horrors of ‘blasphemous contradiction’ with Unitarian involvement.90 The Westminster Scandal had cast its shadow into the General Convention: ‘Who does not foresee what must follow? Here a text will be stigmatized as influenced by the Baptist Revisers; another will be credited to the Methodists; and another to those Socinian and semi-Arian helpers who are called in.’91 Opponent after opponent was quarried and attacked, no breath taken, no quarter given. The field of battle was less the Episcopal Convention than the popular press, a tactic exploited by both sides of the debate, the rewards or the loss being public support. For the Revision Committee, this

80. The Churchman 7/8/1880. 81. The Churchman 10/7/1880, 31. 82. The Churchman 31/7/1880, 120. 83. The Churchman 10/7/1880, 32. On the long-running feud between Coxe and Schaff, see E. A. Clark, ‘Arthur Cleveland Coxe, the Anti-Nicene Fathers, and Roman Catholicism’, AEH 85 (2016): 178–80. 84. The Churchman 24/4/1880; cf. The Churchman 8/4/1880. 85. The Churchman 10/7/1880, 31. 86. The New York Observer 13/1/1876; The Churchman 31/7/1880, 119. 87. The Tribune 29/3/1879. 88. The Guardian 24/1/1872, 99. 89.  A. C. Coxe, Apollos, or the Way of God:  A Plea for the Religion of Scripture (Philadelphia: Lippincott, 1873), 174. He may also have had the Evangelical Alliance in his sights. However, the phrase ‘mixed societies’ and the evils thereof were a familiar trope of his: Church Guardian October 1858. 90. The Churchman 12/4/1879. 91. The Second Congress of the Protestant Episcopal Church (1872), 198.

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had possible financial harm to public subscriptions, and so, for every Coxe thrust, there was a reviser’s parry. The upshot of bruised Episcopal feelings was that the American Committee initially found itself without Episcopal representation. This became a sore point in England. Bishop Ellicott wrote to Schaff: [W]‌ e have many violently opposed to us here at home who seek every opportunity against us. It, therefore, really would be imprudent for us to take any final step till your Committee is so constituted as to represent (with other Communities) the Episcopal Church distinctly and acceptedly. The presence of two Bishops or so would at once give the home-public of Church-people the needed confidence.92

It seemed to the Unitarian, Ezra Abbot, professor at the Harvard Divinity School, that ‘a man’s official position in the Church’ had taken precedence over scholarship, quite counter to any of the formal resolutions and regulations related to the projected Revision and a key motivation behind American involvement in the project. He restrained his public tongue, if not his private pen.93 In the end, repeated pleas to a number of Episcopal bishops (McIlvaine, Williams, Whittingham, Lee) and increasingly high-ranking private representation forced one hand, that of the Bishop of Delaware, Arthur Lee. He was promptly given the task of opening deliberations with prayer at his first attendance, a responsibility noted in the minutes,94 and passed in correspondence across the Atlantic,95 doubtless to satisfy the ‘needed confidence’ that Bishop Ellicott had requested. Stanley’s wit was wryly reported: ‘One bishop is quite enough.’96 But Lee became the American revisers’ champion at least in dealing with the flurries agitated by the Episcopal Church. He may have been a slightly later entry into the Company but became invaluable in the efforts to portray the American mirroring of the English Companies, albeit in a glass darkly. All the fuss and pressure, however, manifestly indicated a group, not separate individuals. A  group had emerged carefully constructed to imitate in some measure the English Committee for Revision. As noted above, the English had earlier avowed that how the Americans chose to organize themselves was their affair,97 and yet they soon began to be spoken of, even by the English, as a ‘company’.98 This communicated an unambiguous message to Schaff. He intended 92. Ellicott to Schaff 22/4/1872 (Documentary History, 59). 93. Abbot to Schaff 14/3/1872 (ABS ABRC Domestic Correspondence Folder A); Abbot to Joseph Barber Lightfoot 5/1/1872 (DDC Lightfoot Letters). 94. ABRC Minute Book 4/10/1872 (ABS Committee and Sub-committee Records). 95. Schaff to Ellicott 12/10/1872 (Documentary History, 72; Historical Account, 41). 96. Documentary History, 70; Schaff, Life of Schaff, 366. 97. Stanley to Schaff 8/4/1871 (ABS ABRC Foreign Correspondence, Letter 112). 98. Ellicott to Schaff 23/10/1871, conveying a resolution of the New Testament Company (ABS Foreign Correspondence Letter No. 42).

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all along that the project be understood as an international project for English speakers by the two leading English-speaking nations.99 The difficulty was that the authority for the two Companies of the English Committee was direct – the Convocation of Canterbury  – and this was rehearsed often enough to make the point. But the same Convocation had not been as clear about specifically American appointment or involvement. Even the Constitution of the American Revision Committee agreed to at the first formal American Revision meeting on 7 December 1871 made constant reference to their derivation from the English. They were ‘invited by the British Committee’ (Art. I); ‘The President shall conduct the official correspondence with the British Revisers’ (Art. III); the British were to ‘submit to the American Companies’ the first revision as sections of the New Testament were settled, with the American Companies transmitting ‘their criticisms and suggestions to the British Companies before the Second Revision’ (Art VIII). Most significantly, ‘The American Committee shall co-operate with the British Companies on the basis of the principles and rules of Revision adopted by the British Committee’ (Art. V). A provision for a joint meeting (Art. IX) was named ‘if possible’.100 Such a combined gathering never eventuated. In its draft form, the location of the mooted joint meeting was expressly named as ‘London or New York’, but a pencilled note in Schaff ’s hand refers to a conference with Dean Stanley who advised that ‘it would be quite impossible for the English Company to meet in New York’.101 Regardless of the practical realities at the surface of Stanley’s remark, it again showed the relative standing of the two parties. It would again be the English who dispensed the second revision to the Americans to undergo the same process of receiving ‘criticisms and suggestions’. The initiative, the regulation and control belonged to the English Companies; drafts and discussions of articles of this constitution had already passed through the sieve of English revisers both by mail,102 and also during the course of Schaff ’s visit to England in the summer of 1871.103 The one striking assertion of standing, that ‘[t]‌he American Companies pay their own expenses and have the ownership and control of the copyright’ (Art. X) was, in Schaff ’s words, ‘abandoned . . . in the course of negotiations with the British Universities’.104 What he omitted to say was that the University Presses made this a pre-condition of the continued involvement of the Americans after 1875.105

99. Stanley to Schaff 13/1/1871 (ABS Foreign Correspondence, Letter No. 111). 100. Schaff, Companion, 396–97. 101. ‘Draft Constitution of the American Committee’ (ABS ABRC Reports and Papers, Letterbook, p. 20). 102. Angus to Schaff 28/4/1871 (ABS ABRC Foreign Correspondence, A5). 103. ABRC Minutes 7/12/1871 (ABS Committee and Sub-committee records); Schaff, Life of Schaff, 362. 104. Schaff, Companion, 397 n3; Roberts, Companion, 95. 105. See the following chapter.

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John Howson, Dean of Chester, attended this inaugural meeting.106 He was not a member of the Revision Companies (being under the authority of the Northern Convocation) but was supportive of the project and a pseudo-representative when no other was available.107 The deference to England was marked in an invitation for him to address a consequential public meeting in Calvary Episcopal Church. Schaff was doing everything to cement the fraternal equality that was denied him in print.

The Standing of American Suggestions for the English Revisers At the most basic level of decisions about text and rendering, that is, the exercise of a vote by simple majority and then by two-thirds majority, there was nothing in the resolutions or general principles to suggest that the exercise of a vote was to be conferred on a person invited to cooperate or referred to for an opinion. The English Companies themselves had decided that voting was only available to members who were present at meetings, though absentee revisers might pass on their recommendations of text and rendering. Consistency with this rule governed their dealings with the Americans. Later, when negotiations between the Companies became tense under the impact of the University Presses, there was an unrealistic suggestion that two members of each American Company be permitted to sit on the English Companies so that voting rights might be exercised. Accordingly, the exchanges were limited to ‘criticisms and suggestions’. Schaff delivered copies of the English first revision of the Synoptic Gospels to his colleagues in October 1872.108 By the time that the English New Testament Revision Company returned to the Gospels for its second revision in April 1874, a thorough, documented list of criticisms and suggestions had been received from the Americans. The Americans’ commitment to follow the fundamental guidelines of the English Committee had made their own ‘first revision’ decisions based on the vote of a simple majority of revisers present in each respective Company. But the American decisions were caught into the English second revision and therefore were subject to the two-thirds rule when the English revisers brought American recommendations into their consideration. When the English New Testament Company began their review of their first round of revision, they had not touched the Gospels for almost eighteen months, having been preoccupied with the Pauline and Catholic epistles. A  reorientation of their perspective was necessary. Edward Bickersteth, the Dean of Lichfield and Prolocutor for the Lower House of the southern Convocation, along with Robert Scott, the Dean of Rochester, successfully moved that if any member wanted to bring forward 106. Historical Account, 36. 107. Schaff to Ezra Abbot 28/11/1871 confirmed Howson was to ‘speak on the subject on behalf of the British Companies of Revision’ (AHTLA bMS 624/1(1) Ezra Abbot papers). 108. Schaff, Life of Schaff, 366.

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new matter for consideration, then a brief report in writing or viva voce could be made in seeking a majority of the company to give permission for it to enter discussions.109 Over the usual twenty to thirty minutes given to luncheon, Vance Smith apparently decided that this compounded the disadvantages already inherent in the American position in relation to decision-making on the text and its renderings. He proposed that the American votes on readings be added ‘to ours’. This, in fact, echoed a request that Schaff had put before the Company when he visited in July 1873, before the Americans had finished their review of the English first revision.110 When the American printed copy of suggestions arrived, there was no indication that the English were supplied with the voting patterns of the Americans. However, it is clear from the meticulous notes of Ezra Abbot and Henry Thayer that these could have been provided with little trouble, in the time it took for an exchange of letters (perhaps twenty-six days – in time for the next monthly gathering). They would, of course, be votes based on the simple majority rule and would have been brought into a two-thirds governance with no allowance for the socialization into acceptance or rejection of readings that had occurred through the past meetings of the English Company. And it would have offended the reiterated constraint to be present to exercise a vote. Needless to say, Vance Smith’s motion was lost . . . and decisively; he was the only supporter. Some dis-ease must have been felt among the English revisers over the weight to be given to American suggestions and to the standing the American revisers had in relation to their English counterparts. Westcott records the suggestion (the source is not identified) that the English revisers ‘concede to Am. where we can’. This is directly related to the vote on the rendering of Matt. 5.25. The English first revision had read, ‘Agree with thine adversary quickly, whiles thou art with him in the way; lest the adversary deliver thee to the judge.’ The Americans had suggested that ‘while’ replace ‘whiles’ and ‘lest haply’ replace ‘lest’. Ezra Abbot records the American vote as 10:1 in favour for both. The English were clearly more conservative, for their vote, according to Westcott, was ‘11:6+’. This was not quite the two-thirds required. He wrote the note of ‘concession’ to the Americans after the vote and it was apparently resubmitted, recorded as ‘+11:6’ with the overriding √ above the ‘11’ indicating acceptance. The same resubmission to the vote on the basis of a declared American preference when (but only when) the vote was so close to a two-thirds majority, seems to have occurred occasionally. Westcott recorded a number of votes where the two-thirds majority was not quite achieved yet adds the √-override to mark acceptance for the ‘second revision’.111 It is noteworthy that the ‘concession’ was not mentioned until the fifth chapter of 109. Newth, ‘RV Notes’ 23/4/1874 (Rough Copy) (BL MS Add 36281, f. 51). 110. Newth, ‘RV Notes’ 15/7/1873 (Rough Copy) (BL Ms Add 36280, f. 243). 111. Westcott, ‘RV Notes’ book II, f. 54v (‘will give’ instead of ‘will he give’ in Matt. 7.10). The same convention seems to have applied in the review of the American suggestions for the second revision: Westcott ‘RV Notes’ Notepaper C (‘behold’ instead of ‘look upon’ in Matt. 11.7).

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Matthew’s gospel, indicating that most votes that factored American suggestions were not close, one way or the other. But when the two-thirds majority was almost in reach, the Americans as a Company acquired a de facto vote. This English condescension hardly matched Vance Smith’s liberal suggestion, which would have admitted far more American preferences into the text. Henry Thayer, by then the Secretary for the American New Testament Revision Company, carefully hand-annotated the raw details of the English response. I give here the details for the Gospel of Matthew (chosen because of the ability to correlate with Westcott’s notebooks); 582 suggestions were made for the English first revision of the Gospel. There were no suggestions at that stage to the paragraphing breaks that had already become part of the English decision-making. Of the 582 suggestions, 378 were rejected, 203 accepted and 1 has no decision recorded in Thayer’s notes. Thayer’s notes also have a handwritten addition to Matt. 10.39 where the Americans had recommended that the marginal note ‘Or, soul’, for ‘life’ in the text, be deleted. The note read that ‘Dr Angus argued in favour of our change’,112 again registering the close sympathies between Angus and the American revisers, as well as the insider information on how their recommendations were received. Angus had in fact written to Schaff at the end of the month when the English second revision had begun: ‘We have just finished two days of revision of Matthew. Your suggestions have found general favour. Where we differ I think our view is sometimes the less accurate . . . I cannot go just now into detail but would suggest that you should reiterate your suggestions when you are not convinced that we are right.’113 He went on to lament that the ‘S.’ before Matthew at the incipit of the Gospel was retained (against the earliest Greek manuscript evidence), apparently justified by reference to ‘feeling’ and printer’s headings. And he added that ‘[w]‌ith water stands of course’, a reference to the battle over baptism that Angus continued to fight. It illustrates that the intensity of argument about ‘popular reception’ could scale up or down with different people depending, it would seem, on one’s Establishment authority (whether traditionalist or progressive). Vance Smith knew this only too well with the loss of his plea that ‘from evil’ be retained. Lightfoot was too authoritatively learned a member of the Church of England to counter successfully, even by appeal to the AV and people’s pious sensibilities. It was fortunate that Angus had cared to write. One poignant letter from Schaff to Ellicott in this period of the English second revision suggests that little response came at an official or semi-official level. Schaff signed off, ‘We need some encouragement that our labors are not in vain.’114 Angus’s letter does however provide an insight into the attention that was given by the English to the American suggestions, an authentic honouring of the commitment that had launched the 112. The desired removal of the marginal note was felt so strongly that it was retained in the published Appendix of American preferred readings of the sanctioned RV New Testament. 113. Angus to Schaff 25/4/1874 (ABS ABRC Foreign Correspondence, A12). 114. Schaff to Ellicott 24/11/1874 (ABS ABRC Letterbook, p. 81).

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American Committee, even if mechanically communicated. This is confirmed to an extent in Westcott’s notebooks. The extant volumes number only two and cover Matt. 5.1 to Matt. 16.24 with some lacunae that have been retrieved in some limited measure by inserted notepapers in the hand of Westcott or William Moulton.115 For this section of Matthew, the Americans had suggested 270 changes, receiving 85 acceptances and 184 rejections. Westcott specifically identifies American contributions by ‘Am.’ (Moulton with ‘Amer.’) in 45 instances.116 Given that such notices are haphazard both because of available time and because they are kept for the recorder’s personal usage, this is sufficient to indicate that the American suggestions were reviewed specifically. However, the notebooks also indicate that they frequently entered the discussion as one of a series of voices addressing some particular or other, and could easily be swamped in the mood (however informed) of the meeting. The reference to voice is deliberate. In one of Westcott’s notes, the rub of that divergence in a commonly spoken language becomes apparent. The appeal to ‘English-speaking peoples’ as bound around their common English Bible was beginning to sound, not so much hollow, as sometimes off-key. The Americans had chaffed against the ‘farthing’ as the cost of two sparrows in Matt. 10.29. Americans knew that they cost a ‘penny’. Of course neither were right but it illustrates that the need to provide a meaningful contemporary understanding was felt even among those reputed to be producing one of the most literal translations known to English. To transliterate the Greek ἀσσάριον would leave an audience none the wiser, so the effort was made to convey the minimal expense involved. The problem was that even though both Companies were here sensitive to what today might be described as a ‘target audience’, they had come up against divisions in two nations speaking a common language. In Matt. 5.16, ‘your Father’ is mentioned, ‘which is in heaven’. The American Company, by a vote of ten to zero, had backed ‘who’ rather than ‘which’, as consistently elsewhere in their suggestions (e.g. Matt. 6.9, in the Lord’s Prayer). Westcott adds what seems to be his own reflection, though it may have been spoken into the meeting, ‘some difference between their “ears” and ours’.117 This is an extremely rare notice of the separation in both pronunciation and grammar that had quickened after the Revolution. John Burgon, in more courteous vein, had referred to Bishop Coxe’s sympathetic communication to him, with a notice about a difference between English and American modes of speech: ‘He expresses himself with colloquial freedom.’118 115. For a description of the contents of Westcott’s notebooks, see A. H. Cadwallader, ‘The Politics of Translation of the Revised Version: Evidence from the Newly Discovered Notebooks of Brooke Foss Westcott’, JTS 58 (2007):  428–33. Note that the only part of ­chapter 4 of Matthew’s Gospel (book II, f. 1) are notes on the paragraphing divisions. 116.  There are a handful of these forty-five instances where it is clear that Westcott is recording the American second revision suggestions. By this stage in proceedings, the notebooks were more adjuncts supporting the review than summaries of contributions. 117. Westcott, ‘RV Notes’ book II, f. 5v (WFA). 118. The Guardian 24/1/1872, 99.

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Stanley Porter has recognized that divisions over language are not merely polite disagreements; they could be contentious and become the lode-stone of wider disagreements: ‘There is a long-standing conflict between America and Britain, often focusing on the use of language.’119 When in July 1873, Philip Schaff, on one of his almost annual pilgrimages to the Jerusalem Chamber to plead the cause of the American Revisers, addressed those gathered, he spoke of a development in the American organization of the review. They were already beginning to divide their amendments into two classes:  those on which they were all agreed and those on which they were divided. The first grouping did not find its way into the printed suggestions for the first revision in 1874 but would do so in later recommendations. In fact, as there developed an increasing consciousness of differences in the understanding of text and rendering, an expanding list of ‘classes of suggested changes’ were regularly printed and despatched to the English in the hope of acceptance. They ranged from the removal of ‘S.’ before the names of writers at the head of New Testament writings to the use of ‘recline’ instead of ‘sit down/sit at meat’ (as, e.g., in Matt. 9.10, 14.19).120 After the publication of the 1881 RV, the continuing American Revision Company printed multiple lists of differences between their preferred readings and those of the now-very-English RV. These included the 193 instances where ‘who’ was to replace ‘which’ and 189 instances where ‘that’ was to replace ‘which’.121 The volume of differences and the sheer printing underscore that language had become a major point of dispute between the English and American Companies. But it was more than that. Language, biblical language given its textual focus, had become the arena within which conflict between the Companies was being orchestrated. National identity, as expressed linguistically, was now at stake. Although these statistics reflect a later period where differences had become exacerbated, they were already present when Schaff addressed the English New Testament Company in 1873. He flagged unanimous American support for ‘Hades’ not ‘hell’, ‘demons’ not ‘devils’, ‘evil’ not ‘evil one’ among a wider range. But these ‘points of serious difference’ were tied not to scholarly disagreement only. They related to the standing that the preferences and their promoters had in relation to the English Company. After all, as Schaff emphasized, the Americans had modelled themselves on the English mode of procedure.122 This was designed to secure approval for the American work and more. It was calculated 119. S. E. Porter, ‘The Contemporary English Version and the Ideology of Translation’, in Translating the Bible: Problems and Prospects, ed. R. S. Hess and S. E. Porter (London/ New York: T&T Clark, 2004 [Sheffield Academic Press 1999]), 35–36. 120. ‘Suggestions relative to the Second Revision of the Gospels’ (AHTLA bMS 672/2(8) Thayer papers). This particular, printed paper has eighteen classes. A  later list contains twenty-one classes (AHTLA bMS 672/3 (6) Thayer papers). 121. ‘Basis of Study’ (AHTLA bMS 672/2(8) Thayer papers). 122. Newth, ‘RV Notes’ 15/7/1873 (Rough Copy) (BL Ms Add 36280, ff. 242–243).

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to demonstrate that the Americans were operating on the same terms as the English and therefore should be granted the same terms for securing the text of the revision.

Advisers or Fellow Revisers: The Conflict of Harmony with Justice Much of the remainder of the decade revolved around the effort to find a basis of authority that would carry similar if not equivalent weight for the Americans. Schaff and his Committee tried a range of possibilities. Schaff had organized structures and procedures of operation to mirror the English Committee subdivided into two Companies, one for the Old Testament, one for the New. He tirelessly promoted the work of revision by public lectures and media essays. He worked with Andrew Taylor to cultivate the monetary support of American subscribers, there being no arrangement with publishing houses to secure the finances. He accented the relative size of the American population and their interest in the Bible. He made constant reference if not deference to English advice. All these elements were tested as possible sources of authority for the American work. The very introduction of such a range of conceivable anchors into the developing tensions in the American relationship with the English indicates the American sense of uncertainty about their own foundational authority for the enterprise and their place in accreditation for the result. The American receipt of the English first revision had barely occurred when serious dis-ease filtered through the ranks of the American scholars about the standing of their recommendations. Bishop Ellicott’s letter of 10 May 1873 was summarized in the (American) Minutes of the Revision Committee.123 It announced the intention of the English New Testament Company to begin work on the second revision of the Gospels in October of that same year. No reference was made to awaiting American suggestions nor, apparently, allowing sufficient time for the fledgling group to devise them, although Schaff had expressed the hope to Ellicott that Matthew would be ready in that month.124 George Day, the American Committee’s minute secretary, cryptically recorded ‘some interchange of views’.125 Little wonder that two days later, a further Committee meeting was called. Schaff ’s forthcoming summer visit to England was, accordingly, given a specific brief to determine: What weight shall the opinions of the American Committee have in determining the revision – and that he be authorised to intimate that we expect to have a positive and well defined weight in the decision; and further (if he shall find it 123. It is not extant in the catalogued Foreign Correspondence related to Revision in the ABS archives. 124. Schaff to Ellicott 12/3/1873 (ABS ABRC Letterbook, p. 50). 125. ABRC Minute Book 29/5/1873 (ABS Committee and Subcommittee Records).

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necessary) that he request them to appoint those of their number who may come to America in October, to act with power as a committee of conference with us on this subject.126

This ‘weight’ meant nothing less than a recognition that the biblical scholarship of the Americans had the same worth and ability as their English colleagues. The proof was to be found not in the discussions over various technicalities of text and translation but in the equal voting rights deciding the final wording, or as Schaff wrote to Ellicott in his usual conciliatory fashion, ‘as to the precise terms of cooperation’.127 Schaff brought back to the US resolutions from each English Company. These introduced the mantra of English response that eventually began to irritate rather than placate, namely, they ‘will give them the greatest possible weight’.128 Matters came to a head with Schaff ’s next visit to England in 1875, fired as it was by the American Committee’s resolve that they should be treated not as advisers but as fellow revisers and fellow authors. This was not a manoeuvre about copyright, though that lurked in the background. It was an issue of recognition – ‘the greatest contest of my life’, he called it in his journal.129 He mustered a range of arguments, of justice, honour and expediency designed ultimately to claim the moral authority of the American position. This discourse of justice was not new. We have observed it already in the American edition of Dr Smith’s Dictionary. The arguments were invested with a tone designed to tweak English sensitivity130: i) The American companies mirrored the English organization; they contained leading biblical scholars from across the churches; they represented 40 million people; they were conscientious in their work and expected no payment; they had meticulously authored their own work as a mature contribution to the process. ‘It would be unreasonable’, he said, ‘to continue such an expensive machinery simply for giving advice.’ ii) The honour of America was at stake, a ‘spirit of self-respect and manly independence’ that had been inherited from their British ancestors. This honour nevertheless carried economic consequences, with the prediction

126. ABRC Minute Book 31/5/1873. 127. Schaff to Ellicott 3/6/1873 (ABS ABRC Letterbook, p. 56). 128. The phrase comes from a later letter of Schaff to Dr James Cartmell, president of the Syndics of the Cambridge Press, and clearly shows his frustration: Schaff to Cartmell 5/5/1876 (ABS ABRC Letterbook, Schaff-Cartmell correspondence). 129. Schaff, Life of Schaff, 370. 130.  A summary of his addresses to the two Companies was printed for private circulation (CUL Ms. Add. 9739, f. 3, Robert Scott papers; see also Documentary History, 89–93).

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that continued liberality of support from American subscribers was dependent on recognition of the equality of labour from the American committee.131 iii) Recognition of American title in the work was critical to the acquisition of copyright to protect the resulting publication in America from literary piracy. Schaff went on to unfold some practical alternatives  – joint conferences, select representatives of one nation sitting on the companies of the other – all designed to demonstrate common authorship. Some on the English Companies had heard these arguments before. Schaff had repeatedly raised the question of the quality and nature of the relationship between the Revision Companies of the two countries. But for this meeting, some English members had schooled him in the shaping of arguments. In the aftermath of a measure of success,132 when a revised printing of the abstract of Schaff ’s arguments and suggestions was prepared for the English University Presses, Fenton Hort provided further refinements to the text, admitting, ‘I should not in any case have thought it right to criticise it as a document in which I had myself a responsibility.’133 There was however one strategic mistake in Schaff ’s presentation. He raised for the first time in this larger theatre the possibility of two editions, what later would be spoken of as ‘two recensions’, one for England and one for the United States. His journal records that the suggestion came from William Gladstone, the sublime tactician in the subtle art of exploiting division.134 A particular consciousness of differences in the target audiences had been evolving, touching on the acceptance of archaisms, the use of aoristic compared to perfect forms of verb construction, and this in spite of the avowed intent for greater literal accuracy in the Revision. We have come across some of these differences already. This consciousness was undermining the repeated accents on a common tongue and a single Bible 131.  Andrew Taylor was the financial secretary for the American Bible Revision Committee whose sole role was to garner contributions for the work (ABS Taylor-Schaff Correspondence). 132. Both Companies agreed to a substantial modification of an earlier agreement, by looking to the appointment of certain members of each Company to serve on its parallel. The New Testament Company added a number of conditions, the most decisive being ‘the express consent of the two University Presses’ (Documentary History, 94). 133. Hort to Schaff 14/7/1875 (ABS ABRC Foreign Correspondence, Letter No 73). This was not the first time that a member of the Cambridge triumvirate had advised Schaff on the best approach to matters, mindful as they were of English sensitivities:  Lightfoot to Schaff 15/7/1872 (ABS Foreign Correspondence Letter no. 78). 134.  Schaff, Life of Schaff, 370. The entry is dated 17 June. Gladstone records that he hosted fourteen people to breakfast, including Dr Schaff, but no more information is conveyed: H. C. G. Matthew, The Gladstone Diaries Vol IX January 1875–December 1880 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1986), 44.

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for English-speaking peoples. And, as Gladstone knew, if two Revisions were published, there was little chance that the AV would confront a strong challenge. But now the suggestion for two distinct editions became combined with a commercial difficulty, the details of which will occupy much of the following chapter. Suffice to say that in the long run, the decision was taken out of the hands of the Revision Companies by the University Presses who sensed that their hold on the commercial return for the new Revision, in both countries, might be devastated. Given that the University Presses were subventing most of the expenses of the British Companies (unlike the Americans who relied on private subscriptions from over 1,200 people),135 they began to call in the return on their investment. The English Companies found some of their organizational independence curtailed. The Presses also had an eye to the American market of forty million people and extracted from the American Revision Companies a commitment to support the editions published by the University Presses.

The Offence of the Revised Version Appendix In the end, the Americans adhered to their commitment to produce, as much as possible, a common Revision. Too much time and effort had been expended on the project and they settled for a narrower official recognition than that for which they argued – they accepted the University Presses’ suggestion for an ‘American Appendix’.136 There was also the trust of many generous private contributors to be honoured. Certainly, American public recognition abounded. Notice of the major unresolved differences in the rendering of the Revision between the American and British Companies was recorded in an Appendix.137 But even this added to the irritation. Not only did the English Revisers in the final two years before publication feel emboldened to reject American readings contenting themselves with a recommendation to the Americans that they syphon such rejections into ‘their’ Appendix.138 But more demeaning of dignity was the published heading for the Appendix. It was unceremoniously boiled down from what had been provided. The published heading read simply, ‘List of readings and renderings preferred 135. ‘List of Contributors to the Fund for defraying the Expenses of the ABRC, October 1872 to Mar 1 1881’ (ABS ABRC Eng & Amer Comms and Directors of University Presses: Private and Confidential Documents). 136.  ‘Memorandum of Agreement’ 3/8/1877 (Historical Account, 52–53). There is however a hint of the thought of an Appendix in the American Minute-book for 24/9/1875. The Memorandum is certainly the result of several prior negotiations. 137. There were many more suggestions for changes made by the Americans: ‘List of Changes made in the Text of the Greek Testament by the Company of Revisers of the AV’ (CUL Ms Add 9739, f. 6, Robert Scott papers). 138. See, for example, Westcott, ‘RV Notes’ book II, notepaper A on Matt. 11.23 margin; book III, ff. 39v, 56v (WFA).

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by the American Committee, recorded at their desire’. It sounded, as Schaff complained to Ellicott, ‘as a favour, instead of a right by virtue of Agreement’. It cruelled Schaff to find that the Appendix was described in The Times celebration of the Revised New Testament as ‘of such little moment’ that readers ‘will probably wonder that the American divines thought it worth while thus to formally record their dissent’.139 The heading that Schaff had sent, in full expectation that it would be included, read, ‘The American New Testament Revision Company, having in many cases yielded their preference for certain readings and renderings, present the following instances in which they differ from the English Company as in their view of sufficient importance to be appended to the Revision, in accordance with an understanding between the Companies.’140 The Appendix could have been much longer but the Americans were caught. A major discussion about the matter was held in July 1880. Henry Thayer took detailed notes of the various views.141 The revisers considered that too many alternatives in the list would destabilize the reception of the Revised New Testament as a whole, by implying that the Word of God rested on shifting sand. At the same time, an appendix must be published as a witness to American involvement, ‘a respect to the nation’, asserted one of the New Testament revisers, Dr Jonathan Burr. So, two appendices were to be prepared from the mountain of notes and printed sheets already compiled, one for public consumption, one not merely for private record, but as a foundation for future work. It was canvassed already that the Appendix was to be ‘temporary and provisional’, because plans were afoot to prepare for the expiry of the hold of the University Presses on the authorized form of the RV available through outlets in the United States. The American Revision Committee formally placed into their record that the Appendix ‘ought to have been printed according to promise’ but that, in the Preface, it ought to have been noted that American suggestions were not only ‘closely and carefully considered’ but ‘many of them adopted also’.142 Bishop Alfred Lee trawled through the records to find the figures of American readings that were adopted in the final publication, and Schaff made certain that these figures were brought to the notice of the American public.143 The Preface to the Old Testament was 139. The Times 20/5/1881 (weekly edition). The anonymous piece was written by one of the English Revisers. It was printed in the American revisers’ Historical Account. This dismissive opinion attracted a footnote from (probably) Schaff, ‘With this judgment few Americans will agree’ (Historical Account, 11). 140. Schaff to Ellicott 8/7/1881 (ABS Letterbook). See also Historical Account, 56. 141. Handwritten notes on Appendix Meeting 7/7/1880 (AHTLA bMS 672/4(4) Thayer papers). 142. ABRC Minute Book 28/10/1881 (ABS); emphasis in the original. 143. Lee found 318 American suggestions in the Gospels, 186 for Acts and 400 for the Epistles and Revelation; see Roberts, Companion 98–99 (American edn). Lee prepared a fuller list which was published as Appendix IV in Schaff, Companion, 579–606.

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warmer in its appreciation, perhaps sensitized by the ill-feeling that had ensued from Ellicott’s pitch to English reception. The Appendix at least implied the role the Americans had played in the final form of the revised text,144 even if it also confirmed the fear-inducing polemics spun at the beginning of the project that the two nations would produce different translations and thereby fuel uncertainty among ordinary Christian folk.145 But the American members worked assiduously to promote the official edition of the University Presses in the United States in the face of the predicted piracy and the irony of repeated substitutions of their own Appendix renderings into the main text, with the English wording transferred to the tail-end of the volume. The regularity with which this happened registered how much national pride as much as skill in translation was gathered around the Revision. The 136 delegates at the Baptist Convention held at Saratago in May 1883 resolved to adopt the Revised New Testament – with the American appendix incorporated.146 Schaff ’s protest about the Preface and the Appendix, where his feelings about the treatment of the American Companies had finally spilled into epistolary ink, were tersely dismissed by Ellicott.147 Ellicott also, unilaterally it seems, decided that the work on the Apocrypha would proceed without any American collaboration.148 Ellicott finally strained out an apologetic description of ‘fellow-revisers’ in 1901,149 when the thoroughly American ‘re-revision’ was published. The Americans had been deeply injured. They were caught between the need to promote the finished revised Bible and to nurse their wounds. Schaff wanted a record to be made and was intent on the more public release of the Documentary History. Other heads counselled him against doing so. Timothy Dwight advised him: I think it would be a great deal better not to publish these letters and quite a number of them . . . had better be buried in the past with the controversy that gave rise to them, and in which the English brethren overpowered us and we yielded. It is a past controversy – not very creditable to the English and in my judgment somewhat humiliating in its result to us.150

144. This seems to have been recognized in some quarters in England. A resolution of the Assembly of the Congregational Union of England and Wales, carried on 4 October 1881, offered ‘hearty thanks to the scholars of England and America’ (ABS Foreign Correspondence, Letter no 39, and attachment). 145. This was precisely the point made by J. W. Henley, the member for Oxfordshire, in the House of Commons debate in June 1870: Hansard 202, 118. 146. ABS Foreign Correspondence 1883. 147. Ellicott to Schaff 25/7/1881 (ABS Letterbook). 148.  Troutbeck communicated the decision; Troutbeck to Schaff 20/8/1881 (ABS Letterbook). 149. Ellicott, Addresses, 41. 150. Dwight to Schaff 21/7/1883 (ABS ABRC Foreign Correspondence).

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Schaff compromised on the amount included in, and the circulation of, the record, but the energy for the promotion of American scholarship was not dampened. If nothing else, the bitter experience had demonstrated in his mind that American biblical scholarship could match the English. The ‘Anglophile tendency’ that Gary Pranger sees in Philip Schaff had been exorcised.151 Schaff sent to Ellicott a copy of the Documentary History and the Historical Account which endeavoured to lay out an edited perspective on American difficulties through the revision process. His note saw this missive as the finale to American involvement with the English: ‘My official correspondence with the British Companies is now brought to a close.’152 He never resiled from the language of ‘fellow revisers’, ‘joint labours’, the ‘Anglo-American Revision’. But henceforth, American independence would be asserted in biblical scholarship. The American Companies voted to continue their work, breaking their English connection and turning to German scholarship for more advanced examination of the Hebrew text.153 Schaff, with Charles Briggs, his colleague at Union Theological Seminary, and Frederic Gardiner of Berkeley Divinity School, Connecticut, initiated the Society of Biblical Literature in 1880.154 A  decade later Brooke Foss Westcott was welcomed as a foundation honorary member; so also was Charles John Ellicott, whose scholarship was undoubted.155 Schaff pursed his counsel. For the Cambridge triumvirate at least, nothing was to be lost to England’s reputation by the acknowledgement of America’s. But the intense political struggles locked into the international efforts for the revision of the AV left a distinct shadow over Anglo-American relations for a considerable time to come, dark enough to ensure that future enterprises (such as the Revised Standard Version and the New English Bible) were distinctly national rather than international efforts.

151.  G. Pranger, Philip Schaff (1819–1893):  Portrait of an Immigrant Theologian (New York: Peter Lang, 1997), 66. 152. Schaff to Ellicott 9/6/1885 (ABS Letterbook p. 545). 153. ABS Letterbook p. 587. See also Schaff, Life of Schaff, 418–21. 154.  Strictly, the full title was Society for the Promotion of Study in Biblical Literature and Exegesis. The shortened, familiar name was only adopted in 1962. See E. W. Saunders, Searching the Scriptures: A History of the Society of Biblical Literature, 1880–1980 (Chico, CA: Scholars Press, 1982), 3. 155. Saunders, Searching the Scriptures, 7, 107.

Chapter 7 T I M E A N D M O N EY:   T H E O P E N I N G F O R T H E P R E S SE S

There was one commandment omitted from the general principles imparted by the Joint Committee of the Convocation of Canterbury, too soiling to enter the refined atmosphere of the parameters and personnel of text and translation. The question of how such a project was to be funded had barely been mentioned. The most explicit naming of the importance of finances had occurred privately in the approaches to William Gladstone, who knew full well that even a good idea could quickly vaporize if it was starved of funds.1 A small Finance Committee was appointed at the second meeting on 23 June 1870,2 headed by Arthur Stanley, Dean of Westminster, the very person who had approached the Prime Minister. The Committee members represented a range of churchmanship and could be expected to tweak lines of influence to raise the requisite funds. Charles Vaughan was Master of the Temple, a position conferring automatic access to the legal fraternity. He was also married into the wealth of the Stanley family (and brother-in-law of Arthur Stanley) and a favourite among the Queen’s bank of chaplains. Joseph Angus provided multiple contacts through the Baptist and Nonconformist population. His membership of the Evangelical Alliance also generated a link with American support that none of the others could readily muster. William Humphry was already a long-term vicar of the plum London parish of St Martin-in-the-Fields; he had links into the banking industry through Simon Jones-Lloyd (Lord Overstone) and had demonstrated his own considerable economic acumen in his period as Treasurer for the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge.

Funding the Revision: The Recourse to Public Subscription After the failure to secure government backing, Stanley turned to the public. The mounting of a subscription campaign had become a commonplace in Victorian England, a sometimes-profitable means of securing support for a matter of

1. Gladstone to Stanley 4/5/1870 (BL Ms Add 44318, f. 94). 2.  ‘Minutes of the New Testament Revision Company’ 23/6/1870 (CUL Ms Add 6935, f. 5).

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interest.3 But the demands of a Company with an average of sixteen attendees per meeting across the decade, indeed, with a higher attendance rate in the first flush of enthusiasm, were not inconsiderable. Every member gave their time without payment; some with means even donated towards the costs.4 Their travel costs (sometimes from remote parts of the United Kingdom), accommodation and food expenses quickly became a burden. In addition, printing charges for the infrastructure of meetings (minutes, resolutions and the like) and the regular dissemination of position papers on thorny issues of text and translation and the drafts of revisions were considerable. Legal opinions were fewer but equally as expensive.5 Samuel Newth hints that for some members, the burden of meeting the sheer financial demands of their commitment to revision had become considerable.6 For Nonconformists, like him, there was no Establishment sinecure to draw upon, nor, rarely, a source of independent means. Even for some members of the Church of England, such as Frederick Scrivener, funds were always limited; he was dependent on a special government pension. When Vance Smith brought in the princely sum of £126/3/0 in October of the first year it was a welcome sign of the backing for the project7 (and an added reason against breaking faith with the Unitarian early in the following year when Convocation’s Upper House wanted to retract its invitation).8 But the subscription circular had estimated costs of ‘not less than £6000’.9 Finance Committee meetings were slotted into the time allocated for revision,10 a confusion as well as a slowing of the main work. The subscription publicity had an unexpected consequence. It alerted publishing houses that Convocation had not provided funds for the grand scheme nor made arrangements to secure the necessary financial undergirding. Archbishop Tait could enter the Jerusalem Chamber and dispense ‘confidence and hope which is generally felt in the work’,11 but no substance for the body accompanied the blessing. The Secretary of Oxford University Press, Professor Bartholomew Price, wrote to Stanley expressing his alarm at the action of the Revision Companies 3. The Cambridge Triumvirate had been the organizers behind the Cambridge Mission to Delhi for which subscriptions were raised. See Westcott to ? 20/8/1881 (BL Ms Add 42577, f. 307 [Sherborn autograph collection]). 4.  This seems to be the meaning of a curt letter from Charles Vaughan to W.  Aldis Wright 21/12/1891 (TCC Add. Ms. b. 65/50) about repayment. 5. Newth, ‘RV Notes’ 15/7/1873 (Fair Copy) (BL Ms Add 36285, ff. 181v, 182v). 6. S. Newth, Lectures on Bible Revision (London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1881), 126. 7. Vance Smith to Stanley 5/10/1870 (CUL Ms Add 6946, f. 11). 8. Angus to Schaff 28/2/1871 (ABS ABRC Foreign Correspondence A4). 9. A. Flanders and S. Colclough, ‘The Bible Press’, in The History of Oxford University Press, vol 2: 1780 to 1896, ed. I. Gadd, S. Eliot and W. R. Louis (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013), 393. 10. Newth, ‘RV notes’ (Fair Copy) (BL Ms Add 36284, f. 76v). 11. Westcott, ‘RV Notes’ book III, f. 13 (11/11/1870) (WFA).

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of Convocation:  ‘You cannot proceed without funds.’12 The Delegates of Oxford University Press were not the only publisher to smell a profitable investment in the future. The birthright of the revision shortly was thrust into negotiations for its sale. Across the Atlantic, support by subscription was also the chosen path. Once the American Revision Committee was established, revenue was gained through individual subscriptions and support. Initially, Philip Schaff headed this work as well, though several of the revisers gained support from their local constituencies.13 When Schaff visited the English Companies in July 1873, he proudly informed them that $2,000 had already been raised.14 He used the liberal donations as part of his argument to the English Revision Companies for recognition as fellow revisers and fellow authors, claiming that anything otherwise would negatively impact the financial undergirding of American revision work.15 The thwarting of American ambitions for copyright in the United States related to their contribution to the revision16 meant that Schaff was greatly relieved to transfer the drive to a new Treasurer, Andrew Taylor,17 though he continued to be involved in the fundraising events through to the end.18 But with the transfer came a healthy balance of $1,388.97, which Schaff estimated as more than enough to meet expenses for the remaining six months of 1875.19 From this amount, it can be reckoned that in the beginning, the Americans organized their revision work on a budget of about $2,000 annually, though the overall expenditures from 1872 to 1883 point to an increase in expenses, with $35,225.66 in total.20 In 1879, one Finance Committee circular spoke of an undertaking to raise $3,000 annually.21 These figures become 12. Price to Stanley 2/8/1870 (CUL Ms Add 6946, f. 10). 13. For example, the young Quaker businessman, Edward Lawrence Scull, worked, as a member of the Haverford College Board, to collect money for the support of the only Quaker on the American Revision Companies, Thomas Chase (HC Ms. Coll. 965, Box 1/28, f. 2). 14. Newth ‘RV Notes’ 15/7/1873 (Rough Copy) (BL Ms Add 36280, f. 242). 15. Printed paper titled ‘Bible Revision for Members of the English and American Bible Revision Committees and the Directors of the University Presses’ section 4 (CUL Ms Add 9739, f. 3, Robert Scott papers); D. S. Schaff, The Life of Philip Schaff (New York: Scribner’s, 1897), 377. 16.  P. Schaff, A Companion to the Greek Testament and the English Version (London: Macmillan, 1883), 401. 17. Schaff to George Day 14/5/1875 (Documentary History of the American Committee on Revision [New York: private printing, 1885], 87). 18. ABS ABRC Minute-book 29/10/1880 (Documentary History, 135). 19.  Schaff to Bible Revision Committee 14/5/1875 (Documentary History, 133–34). Schaff also informed them that he would be making no claim for travelling expenses for his coming trip to England to confer with the English Committee. 20. Historical Account, 70. 21. ‘Finance Committee Circular’ March 1879 (ABS Reports and Papers).

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crucial to assessing the enticement thrown to the English Companies by the Oxford and Cambridge University Presses, estimated by Schaff to be equivalent to $100,000.22 Taylor was the treasurer of the American Bible Society, housed in the same building where the Revision Companies regularly gathered.23 The Finance Committee itself, headed by the leading Baptist benefactor Nathan Bishop,24 comprised twenty members, drawn from various denominations and backgrounds.25 Their appointment was less to do with attraction to the drudge of committee meetings as with tapping into the munificent veins in their own backgrounds. Elizabeth Clark notes how well-connected Philip Schaff was with old Dutch money in New York.26 Elliot Shepard was a son-in-law of the affluent William H. Vanderbilt and a member of the Finance Committee. Schaff ’s transfer ushered in a new powerhouse of money-raising. So committed to the American cause was the Finance Committee that it authorized finances to be disbursed for the printing of the Documentary History and Historical Account that endeavoured to record the labours expended and adversities encountered by the American Revision Companies.27 The Finance Committee also authorized a payment to a newly formed subcommittee dedicated to drawing up a ‘digest’ of the specific American contributions to the total RV, to demonstrate how much the Americans had added to the final edition (and thereby, how little English credit had been given to the American provision). Each of the nine revisers involved in this ancillary work was to receive $125.00 for their labour.28 It demonstrates not only how much American aspiration for recognition had been thwarted but also how successful the money-raising efforts had been.29 22. Schaff, Companion, 402. This was the conversion from the £20,000 expended by the University Presses for the work of revision. It was a figure widely circulated in the United States (see The Observer 11/3/1880). 23. Occasionally, under the pressure of meeting deadlines for return of their suggestions and criticism, the Companies would spend weeks on retreat away from the demands of office and college; see Schaff to Ellicott 7/5/1872 (ABS ABRC Letterbook, no. 56). 24.  When Bishop died in 1880, he was replaced by Judge Enoch Fancher, who had provided, gratis, considerable legal advice to the American Revision Committee. 25.  An Historical Account of the Work of the American Committee of Revision of the Authorized English Version of the Bible prepared from the Documents and Correspondence of the Committee (New York: Scribner, 1885), 70. 26.  E. A. Clark, Founding the Fathers:  Early Church History and Protestant Professors in Nineteenth Century America (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2011), 30. 27. Documentary History, 137. 28.  Documentary History, 137. A  summation of the results was published in Schaff, Companion, 478–82. The fuller results for the New Testament are found in A. Lee, Cooperative Revision of the New Testament (New York: Randolph, 1882), 22–72. 29. There was a surplus of $9,091.79 in the accounts when the formal work of revision was concluded. This amount was put towards subsequent promotion of the American efforts.

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Time Pressures on the Work of Revision The pressure of monetary considerations grew relatively quickly with the realization that the revision was going to take considerable time. The revision was not confined to judgements about text and rendering. Decisions about the use and suitability of italics, the placement of paragraphs, the difficult adjudications about the content and volume of margins and cross-references and the frequently tense discussions with the generally more conservative Old Testament Company about conformity in spellings and renderings  – all these were adding to the weight of time. As early as 8 November 1870, Charles Vaughan moved that the Company be divided into two sections, with one to proceed with the Gospels and the other to be given responsibility for the Epistles, each section still to refer to the other. The intent was ‘a view to swifter progress’.30 ‘It seems to be the one chance for us’ was his comment to Joseph Barber Lightfoot as he sought to garner support.31 It was to no avail as Lightfoot and others opposed it. Henry Alford, the Dean of Canterbury, thought the motion premature; the Bishop of Salisbury, George Moberly, was concerned as to how the division of the company would be satisfactorily executed; the chair, Bishop Charles Ellicott drew a parallel with the AV: ‘it really has suffered from the divided labours’.32 Vaughan withdrew the motion.33 A more successful if less effective measure came in June 1871, halfway through the first revision of Mark’s Gospel. Brooke Foss Westcott brought a resolution designed to curtail at least some of the labour expanding before them: ‘in passages common to S. Matthew and S. Mark the rendering adopted in S. Matthew after discussion be transferred without further discussion to S. Mark’ though allowing that the second revision could review decisions.34 The following day, this was extended to include marginal notes.35 Concern about the length of time required for the revision did not abate, even after the backing provided by University Presses. William Moulton handed to Westcott, in May 1874, his calculations of what remained before them, based on the number of days given to each book. It was more optimistic than accurate. He estimated completion of the New Testament in May 1879 and the Old Testament in October 1881.36 He hadn’t counted on the disruptions that stalled proceedings due to negotiations with the publishing houses and their subsequent impact on American involvement. His prognosis was reasonable when confined to experience of the days expended up to May 1874. This suggests that two years were added to the revisers’ commitment 30. Westcott, ‘RV Notes’ book II, printed insert (WFA). 31. Vaughan to J. B. Lightfoot 1/11/1870 (DDC Lightfoot Papers). 32. Westcott, ‘RV Notes’ book II, f. 40 (WFA). 33. Newth, ‘RV Notes’ 8/11/1870 (Rough Copy) (BL Ms Add 36279, f. 8). 34. RV Minutebook 27/6/1871 (CUL Ms 6935, f. 301); Newth ‘RV Notes’ (Fair Copy) (BL Ms Add 36284, f. 115v). 35. RV Minutebook 27/6/1871 (CUL Ms Add 6935, f. 309). 36. Moulton to Westcott 22/5/1874, ‘RV Notes’ book III, insert (WFA).

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because of the complexities wrought by the Presses’ dealings with both English and American Companies.

The Interest from Publishing Houses The trail to the revisers’ door began to be laid in less than a month of the commencement of revision. The Master of Clare College and Vice-Chancellor of the University of Cambridge, Edward Atkinson, seems to have begun proceedings. He wrote to Samuel Wilberforce as chair of the Joint Committee for Revision, Charles Ellicott, chair of the New Testament Revision Company, and Arthur Stanley, the chair of the Finance Committee.37 It was clear from the letter to Stanley that Atkinson had already begun negotiations with the Delegates of Oxford University Press. Eyre and Spottiswoode, the Royal printers, were also involved in the early initiation of publishing offers, and at one stage looked to form a triad of companies hoping to secure the same monopoly over publication of the RV as had been held over the AV.38 As negotiations functioned to inflate the offer from the publishers, Eyre and Spottiswoode withdrew, only to regret their decision a decade later as the fervour of interest in the coming release rose to haunt them.39 There were two main arguments that Atkinson offered to the respective chairs. The first was the appeal to tradition – continuity with the AV would be signalled by maintaining the connection with the authorized publishers. And then there was the material incentive, or, as Atkinson delicately phrased it, the Presses would ‘make considerable pecuniary sacrifices for that purpose as such knowledge may not be without influence over the proceedings of the Committee over which you preside’.40 He neglected any mention of the main driver of the University Presses’ interest – copyright. Before the letter was written to Stanley, Price and Atkinson had already seen that copyright was paramount to the commercial interests of the University Presses. At that stage it was thought that Convocation was the primary body holding the copyright but that they were likely to transfer that interest to the Committee (Ellicott’s ‘Permanent Committee’). The respective secretaries may have been a little confused about the structural arrangements behind the revision and possibly meant the Companies or their members. Atkinson admitted as much 37. Atkinson to Wilberforce 5/7/1870 (CUL Pr.B.4, f. 20); Ellicott to Atkinson 6/7/1870 (CUL Pr.B.4, f.  22, referring to Atkinson’s prior communication); Atkinson to Stanley 2/8/1870 (CUL Ms Add 6946, ff. 8, 9). 38. Price to Stanley 2/8/1870 (CUL Ms Add 6946, f. 10). 39. Eyre & Spottiswoode to the Syndics of CUP 14/12/1880 (CUL Pr.B.37 (3), f. 59c). They argued that the conjunction of the three ‘authorised’ presses would give added weight to the publication and that the added distribution channels in England, America and the colonies brought in by Eyre & Spottiswoode would be advantageous for sales. The University Presses were not convinced (Price to Atkinson 17/12/1880 [CUL Pr.B.37 (3), f. 67]). 40. Atkinson to Stanley 2/8/1870 (CUL Ms Add 6946, f. 9).

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to Stanley.41 But Price viewed such a proprietary holding as undermining the commercial value of their venture. At the same time, there were rumours that other publishers were offering substantial sums (£5,000 and £6,000).42 Wilberforce replied that such early days of revision prevented any serious engagement with the Presses. He mused (with apparently no conversation with other Committee members) that the Synoptic Gospels might be released in draft form for public criticism before presentation to Convocation and that might be the time for formal discussions.43 Ellicott, however, was ready for negotiations. He advised Atkinson that larger offers had already been made, ‘though we shall feel every bias towards the University’ and added ‘but our expenses are large’.44 Whether or not Ellicott had done the projections is not known; but he certainly spun the lure. Cambridge University Press became the primary contact for the Joint Committee and the Companies though both University Presses joined together from the beginning, working out their relationship with little reference to other parties. Their legal advice confirmed that, as Convocation was not a legal corporation, copyright must reside in the individuals involved.45 This strengthened the hand of the members of the Revision Companies and would be utilized by Ellicott to boost the pecuniary offer. But Joseph Angus later used his interest to protect those of the Americans, shortly after they had organized their Companies to review the English first revision. He was fortunate that negotiations became protracted. In November 1870, the Finance Committee calculated that £15,000 would be required for the Revision, based on a six-year revision period for the New Testament Company and a twelve-year span for the Old Testament Company. According to Westcott’s notes, the ‘Scotch publishers’ (not identified) considered £10,000 very cheap,46 so there seems to have been more operating than simply the coverage of expenses. That very same meeting, they turned their attention to Matt. 6.24 to debate whether to retain ‘mammon’ or render the Greek as ‘riches’.47 The irony of the conjunction escapes mention in the notes of Westcott or Newth. A marginal explanation that the opaque ‘mammon’ meant ‘riches’ was rejected.48 41.  Atkinson to Stanley 2/8/1870 (CUL Ms Add 6946, f.  8). Atkinson seems to have written two letters to Stanley on the same day. 42. Price to Atkinson 23/7/1870 (CUL Pr.B.4, f. 24). The publishing firm of Smith, Elder and Company had early entered the fray (CUL Ms Add 6948, f. 3). 43. Wilberforce to Atkinson 8/7/1870 (CUL Pr.B.4, f. 21). 44. Ellicott to Atkinson 6/7/1870 (CUL Pr.B.4, f. 22); his emphasis. 45.  Price to Stanley 23/12/1870 (CUL 6946, f.  13). Opinion of Sir Randell Palmer undated [1871] (CUL Ms Add 6948, f. 20). Ellicott was already appraised of the Company members’ vested interest: T. Chenery (a member of the Old testament Company) to Ellicott 8/11/1870 (CUL Ms Add 6948, f. 2). 46. Westcott, ‘RV Notes’ book II, f. 41 (WFA). 47. Westcott, ‘RV Notes’ book II, ff. 45–46 (WFA). 48. Newth, ‘RV Notes’ 8/11/1870 (Rough Copy) (BL Ms Add 36279, f. 8).

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When the University Presses returned the following month with a formal offer, the figure of £15,000 was supplemented by an offer of half the profits for twenty years.49 Again the offer was rejected, though the sticking point seems to have been the figure rather than the share of the profits. These monetary considerations continued to dog the work of revision over the coming two years.50 Eighteen drafts of the agreement were formulated. However, the University Presses became more confident of their position and it seems that they made at least one ex gratia payment (of £1,000) to a cash-strapped Revision Finance Committee.51 An obligation had been created.

The University Presses, Copyright and the Standing of the Americans Into the negotiations over the terms of the relationship came the Americans. As we have seen, soundings about their involvement, however that be understood, had begun informally from July 1870, the same time that the publishing houses had begun to beat a path to the chairs of revision in England. The Americans had organized their own Revision Companies and were armed with the English first revision in October 1872. But the agreement for such involvement in the revision had been made months earlier.52 On the 28 June 1872, George Moberly raised as a matter of formal procedure, whether the University Presses were aware of this commitment. Edward Bickersteth was delegated to convey the information.53 He contacted James Cartmell, the Master of Christ’s College and one of the board of Syndics of Cambridge University Press. Cartmell began his response politely, agreeing to their involvement as potentially of some advantage, provided that confidentiality was maintained. But then the underbelly of English attitudes to the Americans found its way into ink: ‘The Americans as such are so fond of making known all that they know, of publishing what everyone writes or says, or is believed to think, on every imaginable subject, that one becomes rather distrustful of them.’ He tried to soften the tone by adding ‘I readily believe that there will be no danger in this case.’54 The easy carriage of such attitudes can be judged from his transmission of a copy of the letter to Bartholomew Price of the Delegates of Oxford University Press. It was an attitude that needs to be factored into the conduct of relations.

49. Offer 12/12/1870 (CUL Ms Add 6946, f. 4). 50. CUL Pr.B.4, ff. 1–18. 51. William Humphry to Atkinson 16/7/1872, 29/7/1872 (CUL Pr.B.4, ff. 50, 56); Price to Stanley 24/7/1872 (CUL Ms Add 6946, f. 25). 52. Angus to Schaff 8/2/1872 (ABS ABRC Foreign Correspondence, A7). The delay was caused by the continuing efforts to secure an Episcopal representative on the American Companies. 53. Newth, ‘RV Notes’ 28/6/1872 (Fair Copy) (BL Ms Add 36285, f. 38v). 54. Cartmell to Bickersteth 2/7/1872 (CUL Pr.B.5, f. 48).

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Price’s more measured letter was read to the English Revision Company,55 and Joseph Angus conveyed to Schaff the Presses’ welcome of the Americans.56 The sticking point was the demand for the assignment of copyright. The Presses wanted the possession of copyright to be in perpetuity. This was no doubt viewed as a commercial protection. It was also argued that it protected the copyright held on the AV.57 The Presses may already have had an eye to the bootlegging of English publications in the free markets of the United States although this particular issue only surfaced at a later date. Angus however strongly resisted any creation of ‘a perpetual monopoly . . . so selling our birthright for the mess of pottage’.58 Angus wanted to ensure that there would be nothing to prevent the circulation of cheap editions once the RV gained traction.59 He prepared a two-page document laying out his objections to the proposed terms of assignment.60 He proposed, as acceptable, a ‘temporary copyright’ so that the University Presses might recoup their outlays. He was also concerned that the proposed terms were even stricter than those governing the AV and would prevent the use of the text in a commentary or other ancillary text.61 He was particularly astute when he addressed the issue of international copyright, even though he knew the Americans would be most interested. He did not mention the Americans but spoke in general terms of the unpopularity of a strict monopoly in other countries, implicitly nodding towards the commercial interests driving the University Presses. Unbeknown to Angus, the Cambridge network was heavily exercised by his resistance, revealing just how intertwined were the members of the Companies, the Universities and the University Presses. Lightfoot, Bickersteth, Hort and Cartmell among others, discussed how to proceed. Cartmell thanked Bickersteth for his ‘loyal feeling toward the University’,62 now apparently identified in its reputation and objectives with the University Press. At the same time, Cartmell recognized the danger of causing a schism in the Company – again, commercial futures might be threatened. Legal opinions were sought and generally brought about some

55. Newth ‘RV Notes’ 16/7/1872 (Fair Copy) (BL Ms Add 36285, f. 39v). 56. Angus to Schaff 5/11/1872 (ABS ABRC Foreign Correspondence A10). 57. ? to Stanley [December?] 1871 (CUL Ms Add 6946, f. 22). 58. Angus to Bickersteth 18/10/1872 (CUL Pr.B.4, f. 65). 59. Angus seems to have had some support in the Company. Hort wrote of two signatures as still withheld in November 1872: Hort to Charles Clay (University printer) 18/11/1872 (CUL Pr.B.4, f. 72). 60.  Angus to Schaff 5/11/1872 (ABS ABRC Foreign Correspondence A10, appended paper). 61. In this, he was correct. The Presses moved very quickly on those who were seeking, without permission, to prepare a concordance and a gospel harmony; Price to William L. Martin 1881 (CUL Pr.B.37(4), f. 137); Mary Wilson to Charles Clay 31/10/1887 (CUL Pr.B.37(10), f. 77a). 62. Cartmell to Bickersteth 29/10/1872 (CUL Pr.B.4, f. 67).

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reduction in hostilities,63 though not before Bickersteth had broached the possibility that Angus be left behind64 – a decision that would have brought the entire project to its knees, at least in terms of the involvement of most Nonconformist members and the Americans. Angus kept Schaff abreast of developments, triumphantly announcing that perpetual copyright had been replaced by a short-term copyright interest. The period was yet to be agreed. Angus considered it to be thirty-five or forty years,65 long enough to survive them both. In one of his last acts with the New Testament Revision Company, Samuel Wilberforce, along with Bishop Connop Thirlwall, signed the agreement with the University Presses on 14 June 1873.66 Of the fourteen stipulations of the covenant, some stand out for their particular ability to influence the future negotiations related to the revision. The preamble and first section not only bound the Old and New Testament Companies to expedite the completion of the revision but any ‘other persons or person (if any) who may be associated with them in the work’. The sweep was curious since the consideration of the contract (i.e. the monies to be paid) only applied to the Companies themselves. Certainly it bound the individual members of the English Companies given that resignations were deemed possible by notice in writing; nevertheless, it left open for debate the definition of ‘associated’. When the Americans sought a vote on the Companies and indeed, in one negotiation, were offered two places on each Company,67 they may have been able to attract the same legal standing – at least as members of the English Companies  – as those from Scotland or Ireland. The second section of the agreement seems to bear this out, given that the approval of the Presses was required if further persons were to be invited to join the Companies. How far the Companies might extend these provisions was never tested. The University Presses asserted their control over the printing of any drafts related to the revision (s.3). The company of Sarill and Edwards had performed the printing of the first revision that was sent to the Americans and they were under strict instructions from the Secretary of the New Testament Revision Company, John Troutbeck, to retain no copies for themselves and to ‘distribute the type’.68 The Presses wanted even tighter protection of their interests. It was clear that there was a commercially driven fear that the new renderings would leak. It proved to be a

63.  Cartmell to Price 29/10/1872 (CUL Pr.B.4, f.  68); Angus individually and the Revision Company as a body both sought out their own legal advice as well; Angus to Schaff 5/11/1872 (ABS ABRC Foreign Correspondence A10, appended paper); Newth, ‘RV Notes’ 14/11/1872 (Rough Copy) (BL Ms Add 36280, ff. 30–31). 64. Bickersteth to Cartmell 13/12/1872 (CUL Pr.B.4, f. 73). 65. Angus to Schaff 31/12/1872 (ABS ABRC Foreign Correspondence A11). 66. Revision Agreement (CUL Pr.B.37 (2), ff. 2a, 2b). 67. Resolution of the English Revision Companies 8/7/1875, 15/7/1875 (Documentary History, 95). 68. Sarill, Edwards and Co to Troutbeck 6/1/1872 (CUL 6946, f. 23).

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well-grounded fear and the Presses moved swiftly in retaliation. The protection against unpermitted copies was specifically laid out in section 5. Joseph Angus’s contested section regarding copyright was explicitly laid out in section 8. There was no copyright in perpetuity but neither was any restricted period named. It thereby became subject to other statutory or common law limitations. Finally, each member agreed to be bound by the decisions of the Companies – this would come to have particular bearing on how much could be disclosed about decisions during the period of revision. Angus had secured an opening for general publication of the RV in some distant future, a protection of common distribution of cheap copies. It also delivered a small though significant protection for the Americans, provided the details of the length of time the University Presses were to hold a virtual monopoly could be established. The Americans however were not party to the covenant; what is more, the basis under which the English Revision Companies now operated was no longer a consensual, moral agreement but a legal covenant. The decision-making capacity that the Companies had been so concerned to assert, even against Convocation, was now transferred to the University Presses. Every negotiation that flowed from this legal covenant was, from the point of view of the University Presses, ultimately determined by projected commercial outcomes.

The Contest between Moral and Commercial Claims The Americans however consistently pressured the English Companies and the University Presses from the basis of a ‘moral right’. In the increasingly tense relationships between the Americans and the English, the American Committee issued a statement to their English counterpart, ‘[T]‌he relation between the British Committee and the University Presses is one with which we have nothing to do. That is largely a pecuniary relation. Our claim is a moral one entirely.’69 The Americans wanted the English Companies and the University Presses to recognize them as fellow revisers, fellow authors in the project. This, for them, was the fundamental principle that they wanted settled. The moment the agreement was signed, the English Companies effectively became the agents of the Presses, released to pursue their scholarly work free from the penurious emaciation wrought by inadequate funds, but released also from the autonomy that they had striven for from the beginning. At the same time, the fundamental distinction between the English Companies as delegates of Convocation and the Americans as invitees of those delegates that had been the English construction (including that of Joseph Angus)70 from the beginning, now claimed a legal grounding. Within a month of the signing of the covenant, Philip Schaff was in London pressing the claims of the American 69. Statement 26/5/1876 (Documentary History, 114). 70. As late as 1881, Angus was mindful of the difference in the initial foundations of the Companies: Angus to Schaff 15/8/1881 (ABS Foreign Correspondence 17½).

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revisers before the English Companies, including the seeking of American voting rights in the exercise of the two-thirds rule.71 The following day, the two English Companies determined that their respective replies to Schaff ’s proposal needed to be ‘independent’ but not ‘discordant’.72 The formal Agreement between the English Companies and the University Presses now became the instrument reinforcing the English resistance to allowing the Americans as ‘fellow revisers’ by the conferral of equal recognition and equal decision-making on the renderings of the revision. The New Testament Company assured the Americans ‘that they will attach great weight and importance to all the suggestions of the American Committee . . . but they are precluded by the fundamental rules of their constitution as well as by the terms of their agreement with the University Presses, from admitting any persons not members of their body, to take part in their decisions.’73 The moral had become the legal, and in such metamorphosis, had been eviscerated as the determinant of the relationship. Even if the moral plea mounted by the Americans were to have swayed the majority of the Company members (and we have seen in the small two-thirds voting rule some sign that the English gave a limited allowance to the claim), the English revisers were themselves reduced to the same level as the Americans in relation to the University Presses  – that of moral persuasion marginal to the power of a document enforceable at law. For moral claims to gain traction among the University Presses, some economic return to the University Presses had to be attached to the work of the Americans. Two commercial possibilities were tested: first, the purchase of the rights for printing and distribution of the University Presses’ edition of the RV in the United States; and second, the turning of the American population from a moral arbiter into a lucrative and/or retributive market. Joseph Angus was the first to suggest the economic turn. After the assurance that he had succeeded in the removal of ‘perpetual copyright’ from the terms of the English agreement with the University Presses, he wrote to Schaff suggesting that the plates of the work be sent to the Americans at cost price, ‘that you may repay your expenses as we are repaying ours’.74 The wording is ambiguous given that the English were simply repaying the outlays of the University Presses through their labours. The American position was vastly different and Schaff frequently accented that American labours were supported by the American public. Angus seems to have in mind that some arrangement would be negotiated with an American publisher that would confer economic benefits for the support of the revisers’ work and in future sales. Schaff set the wheels in motion with the University Presses.75 Publishing in the United States was a fraught business. Laws against bootlegging 71. Newth, ‘RV Notes’ 15/7/1873 (Fair Copy) (BL Ms Add 36285, f. 180b). 72. Newth, ‘RV Notes’ 15/7/1873 (Fair Copy) (BL Ms Add 36285, f. 185b). 73. Documentary History, 82; Schaff, Companion, 399. 74. Angus to Schaff 31/12/1872 (ABS Foreign Correspondence A11). 75. Schaff to the University Presses 30/6/1873 (Documentary History 99).

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were not passed at congressional level until 1891,76 so if the commercial risk of publishing in America could be mitigated, there was an advantage to the English publishers. But Schaff operated under a disadvantage in the negotiations. He struggled to separate moral persuasion from commercial negotiation. He wrote, ‘We are willing to give the Delegates of the Oxford Clarendon Press and the Syndics of the Cambridge University Press the commercial benefit of our revision labors for the British Empire, and we believe that in justice we are entitled to the same privilege within the United States.’77 The language lays claim to a commercial transaction but is grounded completely in Schaff ’s understanding of the moral framework under which he and his fellow American revisers were operating. The response of the University Presses suffered under no such confusion. They wanted the Americans to secure exclusive copyright on the edition in the United States and, as consideration, would confer exclusive rights to printing, publishing and selling under that copyright for the period of the University Presses’ copyright in England, namely, forty-two years. They also offered to supply the plates of the Revision in all editions for a payment of £5,000, a figure that was immediately recognized as an effort to recoup costs expended upon the English Companies. It also, in a fashion, seemed to compel the Americans to pay for their own work (at least in part).78 The advantage in the arrangement was that it brought the Americans into a legally defined relationship with the University Presses and it provided the means to ensure that the published RV would be identical in both countries. There remained, after all, a desire to present the Word of God, even in translation, as stable. Left unstated was that there was no restriction on the export of copies published by the University Presses to the United States or anywhere else. No American publishing house would touch the offer, as Schaff soon discovered.79 Moreover, the draft agreement made no mention of the Americans as authors in their own right or even as contributors in any fashion to the very product over which they were negotiating. There was certainly no reference to the allocation of voting rights in the English Companies to the Americans. But proof of authorship was critical to any chance the Americans might have had to securing copyright, as their unofficial attorney, Judge Fancher, advised them in his legal assessment.80 Little wonder that the proposal lay unresolved and substantially untouched. The duration of the negotiations had two consequences. First, the American revisers themselves became hardened in their commitment to be recognized as 76.  See M. Hall and E. Goldstein, ‘Writers, the Clergy, and the “Diplomatisation of Culture”:  Sub-structures of Anglo-American Diplomacy 1820–1914’, in On the Fringes of Diplomacy:  Influences on British Foreign Policy 1800–1945, ed. J. Fisher and A. Best (Farnham: Ashgate, 2011), 131. 77. Schaff to Cartmell 30/3/1874 (Documentary History, 100). 78. Schaff to Harold Browne 8/6/1876 (ABS Letterbook, no. 149). 79. Documentary History, 104. 80. ABRC Minutes 27/11/1874 (ABS Committee Records). Judge Fancher’s advice was reiterated a number of times through the issues concerning copyright.

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authors. If nothing else, the inability to be confident of gaining copyright standing in the United States only underscored the failure to gain a moral recognition of their collaboration. This fuelled the building of the American moral claims and, according to the privately printed Historical Account distributed to American subscribers,81 the American revisers were determined to receive no ‘pecuniary benefit from their work’ given that ‘the book should be made a free gift to the public, with no limitation whatever in the way of its widest circulation’.82 When the University Presses began to pressure the Americans for a decision over the purely commercial arrangements,83 that is, to gain a commitment to the payment for plates, the Americans became more direct in their response:  ‘any financial arrangement . . . is premature . . . and entirely impracticable’ until ‘the main question of our position as fellow-revisers’ is decided.84 But the American Company relayed this response back to the English Companies, not, initially, to the Presses. Not only did the Companies continue to retreat to their agreement with the Presses but E. Harold Browne, the new Bishop of Winchester and new chair of the Old Testament Company, named the very thing that was an offence to American ears, namely, ‘however desirable it may be to separate financial considerations from the question of joint authorship . . . such a separation cannot be effected’.85 Fenton Hort wrote similarly in a private letter to Schaff. The cooperative commitment to a common revision was revealing a raft of differences and inequalities not merely about translation options but about the relations of power between the two groups, the divergent national legal structures under which the groups operated, along with the assumptions of loyalty embroiled in the social consensus that undergirds those differing legal forms. As Hort admitted, ‘I must confess my inability to find fault with the requirements put forward by the presses.’86 The translation options were about to be the fodder in far deeper battles of national identity and pride. Edwin Gentzler has emphasized that imbalances of power frequently govern translation practices. He places his analysis in the context of English-majority translations of language minorities.87 But in this case, the imbalances of power were being revealed through translators operating with a shared language. The control that the Established Church had 81. Schaff to Price 22/12/1884 (ABS Letterbook no. 545). ‘Copy of the Historical Account of the Work . . .’ prefatory note (AHTLA bMS672/6(4) Thayer papers). 82.  Historical Account, 50–51. Much of this was conveyed to the English Companies:  ‘Statement of the American Bible Revision Committee to the British Bible Revision Committee, 26/5/1876’ (ABS ABRC Reports and Papers, Document 3). 83. Cartmell to Schaff 5/1/1876; Price to Schaff 8/1/1876 (Documentary History, 109–10). 84. American Committee Resolution 28/1/1876 (Documentary History, 110). 85. Browne to Schaff 20/3/1876 (Documentary History, 112). 86. Schaff, Life of Schaff, 374 n1. There is a difficulty in interpretation of Hort’s letter because it is not dated. Its content seems to reflect the situation just before late March 1876. 87. E. Gentzler, Translation and Identity in the Americas: New Directions in Translation Theory (London: Routledge, 2008), 32.

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asserted in numerous subtle and sometimes not-so-subtle imbalances of power over Nonconformists in England and scholars in the United States had now sought the extra resources, commercial and legal, of the society which it had portrayed itself as serving. But the harnessing of those resources was about to confront the English revisers with the full cost of their actions.

The Presses’ Ban on American Involvement The impasse over copyright and recognition of (co-)authorship fed a second, potentially disastrous consequence. The inability of the Americans to gain copyright protection revived the worst apprehensions of the Syndics and Delegates about the fragility of publishing in the United States. When Schaff raised the possibility of a single edition with two recensions, the Presses saw their control over the product evaporating. It appeared as a tacit permission to tamper with a settled common text, a threat both to the hopes of supplanting the AV and to the commercial benefits flowing from the new Bible. The Presses, without warning, intervened to stop any further transmission of the draft revisions of the two English Companies to the American revisers. It may have been exasperation that the 1874 offer of plates was unresolved. More likely, it was an effort to remind the Americans of their place in the scheme of things, or at least in the scheme of the work of revision now under the auspices of the University Presses. But it was precipitous and potentially reminiscent of English coercive acts in conflicts a century earlier; it had the all the hallmarks of the breach of faith exacted by the Upper House on Vance Smith. The difficulty is trying to divine the details. Samuel Newth’s notes are scant here because he was ill and absent from the March meeting when the letter of prohibition from Bartholomew Price of the Oxford Delegates was read.88 There appears to have been some resistance among the English revisers, as they required confirmation from the Cambridge Syndics that they concurred with this notice from the Oxford Delegates. No motion for a letter of advice to the Americans about the University Presses’ embargo was raised until the June gathering. Moreover, while the Documentary History and Historical Account, designed for American subscribers and for university libraries as a vindication of the American revisers,89 do mention the Presses’ decision, there is little about the immediate response of the Americans. Rather the histories move rapidly to the restored negotiations for a new understanding of cooperation. Most importantly, the American revision archives have a lacuna in the communications of Joseph Angus to Schaff right at this time. When Philip Schaff wanted to assemble the Documentary History, he was repeatedly warned by other revisers that certain material should not be included; it was too incendiary.90 Ezra Abbot did not want the history released 88. Newth ‘RV Notes’ 28/3/1876 (Rough Copy) (BL Ms Add 36282, f. 3). 89. ‘Documentary History Distribution List’ (ABS ABRC Foreign Correspondence). 90. Dwight to Schaff 21/7/1883, 17/7/1883 (ABS Foreign Correspondence).

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at all.91 Accordingly, for all the organization of materials that are stamped with Schaff ’s energy now held in archives, that arrangement also testifies to editorial excisions. The official letter notifying the American revisers of the Presses’ decision did not arrive until late June 1876. As if to signal their control over the various parties, the Presses did not communicate directly with the American Committee. The English Companies conveyed the message through their meek, secretarial messengers: ‘I am requested by the Company to inform you that the University Presses have prohibited them from sending you any more of their work.’92 The opacity of the three-month gap between the direction to the English Companies by the Presses and the receipt of Troutbeck’s letter is difficult to penetrate.93 When Schaff noted in his journal at the end of March ‘An important crisis in our relation to the English Committee and the University presses’,94 it seems to relate to the abdication of the English Companies in decision-making about the official status of the American revisers that was dictated in the letters of Ellicott and Browne. These letters, in February and mid-March respectively, are mentioned in the same journal note linked to the well-worn language of ‘crisis’. Schaff ’s reply to Browne, written on 8 June, similarly gives no indication of knowledge of the Presses’ move. And yet the letter also contains a revealing turn of phrase: that, if the Presses continued to insist on commercial arrangements being formalized before the status of the revisers was decided, ‘we shall have to agree to independent cooperation with the possibility of the issue of two recensions of the same Revision’. Assurances of ‘harmonious cooperation’, ‘common work’ and ‘good will’ continued to smooth out the discourse,95 but a distinctive note had been struck. The language of ‘independence’ was new to the discourse between the English and Americans, at least as far as the revision was concerned. But of course, it was far from new to American discourse generally. It had already become part of the nation’s identity. But now it was helping to name the impending rupture between England and the United States, a recapitulation of previous fractures in relationship but now being played out on the developing battlefield of the Bible. Suzanne Jill Levine has written of translation as ‘a mode of writing that might enable one to find one’s own language through another’s’.96 Here she is writing of 91. Abbot to Schaff 6/2/1881 (ASB Domestic Correspondence). 92.  Troutbeck to Schaff 14/6/1876 (ABS Committee Records). John deWitt acting secretary of the Old Testament Company repeated the news (Documentary History, 115). 93. In a letter dated 1/7/1876 to Bishop Charles Wordsworth of St Andrews thanking him for a book gift, Schaff mentioned that he had just been informed by Troutbeck of the Presses’ decision (ABS Letterbook nos. 152–53). The official receipt of Troutbeck’s notification by the American Revision Committee was not until 5 July; Schaff, Life of Schaff, 374. 94. Schaff, Life of Schaff, 372. 95. Schaff to Browne 8/6/1876 (ABS Letterbook no. 149). 96.  S. J. Levine, The Subversive Scribe:  Translating Latin American Fiction (St Paul, MN: Graywolf, 1991), 2.

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the discovery, formation and assertion of one’s own identity through the work of engagement with a text in another language. This is certainly relevant to biblical translation generally and was one of the main concentrations of the revision. But the Americans were, in a sense, ‘finding their own language’, in and through a common tongue. It touched not only the more obvious difference of terms, syntax and pronunciation between the English of England and America. It infused the rise of self-confidence in the scholarship necessary to the work of translation/ revision. The advent of the language of ‘independence’ marked a turning point in the self-awareness of the American revisers, just as it would become a major moment in the history of the Bible in English. According to Schaff ’s journal, the language of independence had already been raised in April 1876, before official news of the Presses’ prohibition had been received.97 It was, after all, approaching the centennial celebrations of the birth of the United States as a nation. Schaff ’s own commitment to the concretization of ecumenical sentiment cooled some of the radical energy kindling in the bellies of some of the revisers. Even so, one four-hour meeting ended with a tied vote of twelve members for ‘a declaration of independence’ and twelve against. Significantly, in view of the complexities of global Anglican ties, the Episcopalians (Alfred Lee, Edward Washburn, Joseph Packard, George Hare and Charles Short) voted as a block to maintain the ties of revision with the English.98 Matthew Riddle was among those ready to brave independence, significant because he later delivered a new rupture to the restored collaboration. The following month, the same issue of the relationship between the American revisers and the English Companies and Presses dominated discussions. Again the language of ‘independence’ became ubiquitous.99 A  public split from the English was avoided in the end, as much out of the legacy of commitment to a common English Bible and a residue of individual fraternal, transatlantic bonds. The problem is to explain the sudden eruption of this language.

Joseph Angus and the Americans The conspicuous silence here is the lack of any reference to Joseph Angus, who, as we have seen, had been instrumental from the beginning in advice to Schaff and the Americans. The silence might be explained by an embarrassing dent to Angus’s reputation. In 1881, the evidence of contact revives in the archives, with Angus providing a copy of a letter from Ellicott that he thought would be of interest to Schaff.100 The nature of this later contact suggests that there had been no interruption through a five-year period; there is simply no record in the RV 97. Schaff, Life of Schaff, 372. 98. Schaff, Life of Schaff, 373. 99. Schaff, Life of Schaff, 373. 100. Angas to Schaff 11/5/1881 (ABS Foreign Correspondence A16).

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archives curated by the American Bible Society. The probable explanation lies in 1875. In December of that year, Angus had addressed a small Baptist gathering in Accrington, Lancashire, on the work of revision. The ad hoc lecture referred to the loss of a certain text in Acts favoured by Baptists (i.e. Acts 8.37, the statement of faith by the Ethiopian eunuch) because there was no ancient manuscript to support it.101 This might have escaped censure, being a critical decision already widely circulated in the public domain. But he went on to recount some of the humorous discussions that prefaced some decisions, such as whether to allow the word ‘publican’ to stand, so entrenched in the AV (e.g. Matt. 5.46).102 Westcott’s notes reveal that the substance of what was reported in Angus’s lecture fairly revealed the inner workings of the New Testament Company, though Westcott captured less of the humour that marked Angus’s presentation.103 But Angus’s fine recall in late 1875 of the exchanges of the meetings held in October 1870 indicate that Angus had kept substantial notes, just like Newth and Westcott. The report was circulated in the Pall Mall Budget but spread quickly, including to English colonial newspapers.104 It also seemed to curry anonymous reproductions of the insights ‘by one of the Revisers’ in newspapers and magazines eager for revelations of the revisers’ work.105 The affair brought unwanted attention and threatened to reflect ‘seriously upon the conduct of the Revision’ as Aldis Wright, Secretary to the Old Testament Company, reported to his New Testament equivalent. Fundamentally, it breached the confidentiality to which every reviser agreed to adhere when the work began, and Wright accented that it breached the ‘Private and Confidential’ epigraph printed on the copies of the revisers’ work.106 Angus was not only much grieved, sending a penitential letter to the chair of his Company. He was also now much injured in his ability to be entrusted with private information, tainted with a pall of suspicion. His judgement, that he did not suppose that his remarks would go beyond the venue of the school-room,107 was now questionable. Whether Angus did in fact communicate with Schaff in the first half of 1876 about the Presses’ ban or other matters is not known. Either he did not (which would certainly have tweaked Schaff ’s concern at the sudden evaporation of contact) or Schaff made a particular point of keeping any confidence absolutely hidden, even from his colleagues in America, and, later, in the records of the American Revision. Accordingly, we do not know whether the Presses’ intervention against any further transfer of draft revisions notified to the English Companies in late March 1876 101. Frederick Scrivener admitted its spurious quality, suggesting that it may have arisen from some church ordinal; A Plain Introduction to the Criticism of the New Testament, 2 vols (London: George Bell, 18944), vol. 1, 8. 102. Pall Mall Budget 15 (7/1/1876), 18. 103. Westcott, ‘RV Notes’ book II, ff. 31–32. 104. For example, the Gippsland Times 4/4/1876, in Australia. 105. For example, The Day of Rest 3/1/1876, 24/1/1876. 106. Wright to Troutbeck 22/1/1876 (CUL Ms Add 6946, f. 59). 107. Angus to Ellicott 26/1/1876 (CUL Ms Add 6946, f. 62).

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was discretely conveyed. If it were, this would help to explain the unexpected entry of talk of independence among the American Revision Committee. The demonstration of the American determination is that the Companies resolved to continue on their own work of revision regardless, at least in the sense of preparing for whatever drafts might come their way from the English.108 A series of Henry Thayer’s notes illustrates the reality of this determination – a fully fledged debate on the significance of the presence or absence of the definite article with νόμος (‘law’) and ἄνομος (‘lawless’) no less!109 It proved to be a dress-rehearsal for American revision after 1885. Similarly, it is not known whether anything of an impending collapse of the joint enterprise had found its way to English ears, or simply that the private protests from the English revisers began to be felt by the Presses. Certainly the revisers themselves would have been the poorer not only in scholarship but also in reputation if their arduous securing of American assistance had collapsed. Before a month had passed, the University Presses withdrew their offer to sell the plates and removed other commercial arrangements from the table. The retraction included any consideration of American positions on the English Companies. It sounded severe but the notice concluded with an invitation to draft a new set of proposals that might restore cooperation.110 Schaff seized on the opening and was able to win the consent of the Revision Committee to direct their energies to regaining their joint involvement. His avowed principle was that ‘[w]‌e ought by all means to unify our revision as much as possible before it is published. The interests of the Bible and of international Christian union are infinitely above all personal and national considerations’.111 And yet . . . the genie of independence had been released.

Restoring and Further Disrupting Cooperation for Revision In December 1876, Schaff made yet another journey to England armed with a set of resolutions from the American Committee that was to form the basis of negotiations for the reinstatement of a joint enterprise. It helped his negotiating position that news of a possible split had begun to circulate in Scotland, outside the membership of the Companies. The rumour included inside knowledge that the English had sold their copyright but that the Americans refused to do so in order that ‘free reproduction right and left’ might occur.112 The Presses could not afford such leaks to multiply. 108. Resolution 27/10/1876 (ABS ABRC Minutes). 109. Thayer, ‘Book of Notes’ p. 289, dated 24/11/1876 (AHTLA bMS672/6(2)). Thayer recorded Abbot’s summation, ‘All are agreed that the absence of the article does not prove the Mosaic law is not referred to.’ 110. Cartmell to Schaff 10/7/1876 (Documentary History, 115). 111. Schaff to Wordsworth 1/7/1876 (ABS Letterbook no. 152–53). 112. Robert Andrew Macfie to Schaff 12/12/1876 (ABS Letterbook no. 83). Macfie was for a time a liberal member of Parliament and well-connected in Scottish scientific and

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The resolutions restated some of the familiar American concerns but argued not only for the opportunity to review the English second revision but to work on the final release of the Revision so that there be ‘one and the same revision for both countries’. American confidence in their own position and abilities was beginning to colour the negotiations. They appeared to have come to recognize that the language that the University Presses understood was commercial, so an incentive was offered. If a single revision was agreed upon as the work of both the English and the Americans, then the American revisers would endorse the English publications in order to secure a commercial advantage for the University Presses for a specified period. The Americans had now turned the more ephemeral entity of ‘the market’ to their advantage. The American population, touted previously as keenly interested in the justice to be accorded to a recognizable American contribution to the Bible, had now become ‘a market’, crucial to a return on the investment of the University Presses. Just to ensure that the message was received, the resolutions reiterated that, in the event of a failure of the English and American Companies to agree, the potential for two recensions remained.113 The secretary for the Cambridge Syndics, James Cartmell, so welcomed the new proposal that Schaff whisked off a telegram to the revisers’ treasurer, Andrew Taylor, channelling Julius Caesar: ‘Veni, vidi, vici.’114 It took a further six months for the final skirmishes over the agreement to be concluded,115 but it released the tensions within both sets of Companies. Cooperation on matters of scholarly investigation was restored . . . for a time. In August 1877, the American revisers set to work on reviewing the draft second revision of the English revisers. Two further matters fanned the embers of distrust between the University Presses and the American Revision Company, both of which strained the relationship between the English and the American revisers. One revived suspicions about American piracy. The other refreshed the atmosphere of independence briefly savoured in 1876. Angus had received a knuckle-rap from the English revisers but the same castigation directed to the Americans curried an exacerbated embarrassment given the moral elevation that the Americans had previously claimed. Matthew Riddle had been secured by Philip Schaff as editor for the Popular Commentary series, one of the many ventures Schaff managed to squeeze into his densely packed schedule. The commentary series was published through Scribners in New York and T&T Clark in Edinburgh. It was precisely the first volume of work that almost cost Schaff his own position. Matthew Riddle, one of Schaff ’s fellow New Testament revisers, had taken responsibility for the Gospel of Matthew. The marginal notes literary circles. His knowledge intimated in his letter to Schaff suggests contact with one of the Scottish revisers. 113. ‘Correspondence on Bible Revision, Document no. 4’ [1876] item 30/9/1876 (ABS Papers and Reports); Documentary History, 116–17. 114. Schaff to Taylor 2/1/1877 (ABS Foreign Correspondence, no. 108). 115. Documentary History, 122–23. The formal agreement was dated 3/8/1877.

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included in his commentary were all but identical to those included in the English draft first revision. Ellicott decided to contact Henry Thayer rather than Schaff or Riddle. Meanwhile the Presses briefed lawyers.116 The message was curt: We feel it our duty in justice to ourselves and the University Presses to bring under your notice this serious infraction of the pledge given to us by the American committee that all copies of the Revised Version should be held to be strictly confidential. We sincerely trust that the American Committee will use all their influence at once to restrain the further publication of this work.117

The English, for the first time, had abrogated the language of ‘justice’. Thayer immediately sieved through the evidence; his meticulous handwritten tables of comparison survive.118 By contrast, Schaff ’s editorial judgement seems to have ensured that there be no inkling of the ‘Riddle affair’ in the Revision archives. Thayer was however convinced and contacted Schaff who pleaded innocence by way of ignorance. In January and February of 1880 the American New Testament Company reviewed the evidence and confronted Riddle with his ‘grave fault . . . violating the relations of confidence existing between the English and American Committees’. Schaff was declared ‘guiltless’ except only in a failure to exercise proper care ‘in revising the work done by his associate’.119 Riddle ate humble pie.120 The Presses withdrew their legal threats,121 and Schaff still managed to secure permission to use the RV for his commentary series, once the official edition was released.122 Lurking in the background however were English attitudes towards American behaviour that had, for a time, been suppressed. Aldis Wright removed his veneer of civility in a letter to Troutbeck, a sharing between two secretaries: ‘My belief is that the work has been done by someone who did not understand it, a woman probably, so mechanically has it been performed.’123 This was a stock piece of English intellectual snobbery used to demean work considered of an inferior standard or from which one wanted to distance oneself.124 The damage had been done however and the advantage that the Americans had managed to secure eighteen months previously was now reduced to the letter of 116. Price to Troutbeck 12/12/1879 (CUL Ms Add 6946, f. 93). 117. Ellicott to Thayer 11/12/1879 (CUL Ms Add 6946, f. 92). 118.  ‘Sample Comparison of Differences in Translations and Margins’ (AHTLA bMS672/3(8) Thayer papers). 119. Thayer to Ellicott 31/1/1880 (CUL Ms Add 6946, f. 98). 120. Riddle to Ellicott 7/2/1880 (CUL Ms Add 6946, f. 101). 121. Price and Clay to T&T Clark 14/2/1880 (CUL Ms Add 6946, f. 102). 122. Schaff to Price 27/12/1879 (CUL Pr.V.17, f. 45). 123. Wright to Troutbeck 28/1/1880 (CUL Ms Add 6946, f. 97). 124.  See A. H. Cadwallader, ‘Male Diagnosis of the Female Pen in Late Victorian Britain: Private Assessments of Supernatural Religion’, JAS 5 (2007): 67–86.

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the agreement. The University Presses added pressure to avoid two recensions and opt for a common edition. The best that the Americans could now advance, apart from the quality of their suggestions for the final publication, was an Appendix that registered their particular preferences and suggestions, curtailed so as not to unsettle the public.125 When the RV Preface was read, the Americans felt an immediate depreciation of their contribution. Matthew Riddle wrote to Schaff, ‘[T]‌he University Presses and the writer of the Preface have done precisely what I  expected . . . I  see no relief, except in making such a commotion as would endanger the success of the Revision.’126 The American revisers had committed themselves for a period of fourteen years to lend their authority to supporting the English publishers’ edition,127 in full consciousness that pirated copies were very likely to erupt. They were not wrong. A  close friend of the American revisers and editor of the Sunday School Times, Isaac Hall, quickly brought out a History of Revision to which was attached a complete reproduction of the English edition. Before long, the American Appendix of readings had been transferred into the text displacing the English preferred readings.128 Schaff tried to persuade the Presses to bring out an official American edition early, with a mechanical transfer of the Appendix into the text.129 This request anticipated the release of the Revised Version Old Testament and was designed to produce an authorized American edition of the whole RV to counteract or at least compete with the pirated American versions already circulating. But the Presses declined, reliant on the terms of the 1877 agreement. The discourse in the exchanges is significant. The Americans sanctioned the edition published by the University Presses as the only version of the Revision ‘authorized’ by the American revisers: ‘recognizing the editions of the University Presses as the authorized editions’ was the wording of the Memorandum of Agreement in August 1877. Henry Frowde, the new secretary of the Oxford Delegates, wrote to Schaff asking that he provide a ‘Certificate’ for insertion in each copy, ‘This edition is authorized by the American Company of Revision’.130 Schaff to some extent complied.131 The language of ‘authorized’ had now been reduced to 125. For an example of the detailed discussions over the content of the Appendix, see Schaff, Life of Schaff, 381–82; see also Thayer’s notes on the Appendix 27/2/1880 (AHTLA bMS672/4(4)). 126. Riddle to Schaff 9/6/1881 (ABS ABRC Domestic Correspondence). 127.  Abbot to Schaff 25/1/1881 reminded Schaff that this was their agreement (ABS ABRC Domestic Correspondence). 128.  Courtney Kenny of Downing College Cambridge to Clay 6/12/1881 (CUL Pr.B.37(4), f. 237). 129. Meeting of the Representatives of the University Presses 29/10/1884 (CUL Pr.V.18, f. 58). 130. Frowde to Schaff 12/2/1881 (ABS ABRC Foreign Correspondence F63). 131. Schaff and Day to Price Oct 1880 (CUL Pr.B.37, f. 44); Schaff, Companion, 401, 403.

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a blend of copyright in England (and Europe)132 and a stamp of manufacture from the revisers themselves in America – it was a far cry from any of the three tiers of authority that Arthur Stanley had surveyed in Convocation debates eleven years before. Convocation was reduced to the reception of the New Testament Revision as a ‘report’ from a Committee.133 The Revised Bible was now in the hands of the publishers and, as they hoped, in the approving hands of the public. It was an unplanned setting, little different from the first decades of the King James Bible. Fourteen years later, while the surviving American revisers were working towards their own American Standard Edition of the RV, the University Presses broke whatever gossamers of goodwill and unity were left in the relationship. They produced an edition with the American preferred readings now replacing the English readings, a work prepared, as Thayer charged, ‘by anonymous persons’, precisely what Schaff had suggested for the release of the whole Revised Bible. Again the Presses claimed that there was nothing in the commercial agreement with the Americans to prevent them so doing. Again, commercial exigencies had triumphed. Henry Thayer was furious, as his letter to the editor and scribbled notes on an account of the affair in the Sunday School Times indicate.134 ‘Whatever may be the “legal rights” in the case, certainly the laws of ordinary courtesy have been violated’, he wrote.135 That the University Vice Chancellors claimed in response that they had no idea that the American revisers were continuing their work, whether true or not, is a fitting litmus test of the depths to which relations between the English and the Americans had sunk in their work on a common Bible.136 Thayer’s energy was revitalized in his collation of a series of cross-references to add to the RV now further revised and standardized for American usage. The result was published at the opening of the new century by Thomas Nelson, the former agents of the University Presses in the United States. Nelson had had its own bitter separation from the University Presses and was now proclaiming ‘These are American made books’.137 Thayer lived just long enough to see the independent edition stand as a new obelisk on the Bunker Hill of American biblical scholarship.

132.  The University Presses spent considerable amounts on legal fees related to the registration of copyright in England and in various European countries (CUL Pr.B.37 (4), ff. 167, 194). 133. The Church Times 27/5/1881. 134. Sunday School Times 15/4/1899 and 24/4/1899 (AHTLA bMS 672/7(6)). There were multiple exchanges in the SS Times across the first quarter of 1899. 135. Letter to Sunday School Times 23/2/1899 (AHTLA bMS 672/7(6)). 136. ‘Memorandum of the University Presses’ 20/1/1899 (AHTLA bMS 672/7(8)). 137. ‘Memorandum of the University Presses’ 20/1/1899 (AHTLA bMS 672/7(8)).

Chapter 8 T H E A F T E R M AT H

A buying frenzy greeted the release of the Revised New Testament. In the United States, a world record for the longest telegraph message was laid down as the English edition was ripped from the New York docks and transmitted to Chicago newspapers for overnight release.1 There were a million pre-orders to fill. Two million sales drained the London warehouses. In New York, the Oxford distributor, Thomas Nelson, reported sales of 365,000 in six months.2 In 1886, with the small pica style of the whole RV being produced in England for 4 shillings (about USD 1) and retailing in the United States for $4 as an example,3 a smile rivalling the Cheshire cat was anticipating healthy profits. American prices were generally slightly lower than the comparative cost in England, probably designed to counteract the rush of pirated copies.4 A  final request by the American Finance Committee to seek American copyright a year before the New Testament release had been rejected,5 probably because the matter had been so thoroughly exhausted. Price competition was the best alternative.6 It was necessary. Before the Revised New Testament had even been released in the United States, the New York publishing firm of I. K. Funk was already taking orders for its own printings, charging 25 cents for a paperback 1.  P. Schaff, A Companion to the Greek Testament and the English Version (London: Macmillan, 1883), 405. For a vivid sense of the fervour associated with its release, see Schaff, Companion, 406–11. 2. Schaff, Companion, 404. 3. ‘Recommended Price List’ 10/6/1885 (CUL Pr.V.18, f. 67). 4. ‘Table of Warehouse Prices for the Various Formats of the New Testament’ 9/7/1884 (CUL Pr.V.18, f. 54). 5. Finance Committee to the University Presses 22/5/1880 (AHTLA bMS 624/1(3) Ezra Abbot papers). It is difficult to reconcile the continuing efforts of the Americans to secure copyright (and the plates) with Philip Schaff ’s insistence on the American revisers altruism in free labour for a cheap Bible version (which predated this confidential letter). Given that the letter has no personal addressees it may have been a decision of the Finance Committee without reference to Schaff or the revisers generally. 6. A. Flanders and S. Colclough, ‘The Bible Press’, in The History of Oxford University Press, vol 2: 1780 to 1896, ed. I. Gadd, S. Eliot and W. R. Louis (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013), 380.

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and 40 cents for a cloth binding.7 Up to thirty more publishing houses joined the rush. Predictions of pecuniary loss seemed unwarranted, though they were made.8 Bishop Charles Ellicott leapt to the Revision’s defence, pointing to the initial sales figures in England and America as vindication.9

The Flood before the Drought However, by February 1884, copies of the Revised New Testament that had been shipped to the United States were being returned10 and by mid-year the University Presses were confronted with the repayment of royalties on unsold books.11 Cracks began to reappear in the relationship between the Syndics and the Delegates of the University Presses,12 each suspecting the other of manipulating sales figures and warehouse despatches for personal gain.13 These developments were unfolding before the Revised Old Testament was released in May 1885. But a repetition of an initial flurry followed by a lull and gradual decline in sales was not encouraging. By the end of 1890, the London Bible warehouse manager for Cambridge University Press, R. C. Lewis, reported 56,000 in the inventory of Revision Bibles with only 3,000 volumes sold in the previous twelve months. The figures were apparently scarcely touched by price-cutting: ‘We do not think it worthwhile to suggest further reductions in the prices of the RNT [Revised New Testament] as that seems to be quite dead.’14 Given the struggles of Cambridge University Press to rebuild its general viability and its place in Bible printing, it was not the news to gladden the hearts of the Syndics.15 Proportionate to Oxford University Press, Cambridge had more to lose. Its contribution to the expenses of the Revision Companies (£8,500 across the decade) had chewed relentlessly into its overall budget.16

7. Funk order form (ABS Newsclippings May 1881). 8. The Guardian 13/7/1881, 990. The Guardian was never a particular fan of revision. 9. Ellicott to Henry Frowde 14/7/1881 (CUL Pr.B.37 (4), f. 163b). 10. CUL Pr.V.18, f. 51. 11. CUL Pr.V.18, f. 52. 12. On the pre-existing rivalry between the University Presses, see D. McKitterick, A History of Cambridge University Press:  Volume 2, Scholarship and Commerce 1698–1872 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998), 402. 13.  CUL Pr.B.37 (14), f.  8. See D.  McKitterick, A History of Cambridge University Press: Volume 3, New Worlds for Learning 1873–1972 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004), 87. 14. Lewis to Clay CUL Pr.B.37 (14), f. 16. 15.  On the struggles of Cambridge University Press to respond to the publishing explosion in the mid-nineteenth century, see McKitterick, A History of Cambridge University Press: Volume 2, 386–400. 16. McKitterick, A History of Cambridge University Press: Volume 3, 71.

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The uncertainty about sales may have steeled the University Presses to ensure that they maximized returns, given the large outlay of funds that had been given to support the English Companies. The preliminary defence of their investment came as the day of publication approached. Leaks about the content of the Revision, the text on which it was based and the arguments leading to decision-making began to seep out and threatened to become, in the minds of some, a mighty stream.17 One of the responsibilities assumed by the subcommittee in charge of preparations for the publication of the RV was to exercise vigilance against premature disclosures. The subcommittee was a joint committee of the University Presses and the Revision Company. No Nonconformist representative was on this committee, but Nonconformists were the ones to receive the microscopic attention to scruples.

Marshalling against Leaks about the Revision It didn’t help that there were a number of postponements of delivery date for the Revised New Testament. Some revisers had prepared newspaper articles or books to herald the release. The subcommittee for preparation of the RV had been appointed in March 1879,18 so the expectation was heightened that publication was not far distant. Joseph Angus prepared a lengthy article on the understanding that the Revised New Testament was scheduled for release in December 1880, but then found himself hoisted on the publisher’s petard of the abhorrence of a vacuum in dead-lined copy. The Sunday Magazine ignored Angus’s instructions to hold the material if the Revision was postponed,19 even preparing advertisements in other papers of an ensuing scoop about the imminent Revision.20 Publication ensued and the news was repeated by many outlets in England and abroad,21 eager for the chance to excite a populace agitating for the release. English contrition or retractions sometimes followed, The Record pointedly concluding its grovel with apologies to ‘the Universities of Oxford and Cambridge, to whom the copyright belongs’.22 But the sweep of attorney’s silk had little impact on American newspapers, especially as they exposited the news that American preferences were to be placed in an Appendix. It was interpreted as an affront, indicating ‘that the British Committee assume the responsibility of the work’.23 It was not the first 17.  The same pattern repeated itself as the date for the release of the Old Testament Revision approached; see Thomas Chase to Schaff 9/6/1884 (ABS ABRC Foreign Correspondence). 18. Meeting of Joint Committee of the Presses and Revisers, 17/5/1879 (CUL Pr.V.18, ff. 3–4). 19. Angus to Schaff 11/5/1881 (ABS ABRC Foreign Correspondence A16). 20. Hort to Clay 11/12/1880 (CUL Pr.B.37 (3), f. 56a). 21. The Record 7/1/1881; The Guardian 12/1/1881; New York Observer 3/2/1881. 22. The Record 12/1/1881. 23. The Observer 24/3/1881.

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time that Schaff protested that much of the American work is ‘embodied in the text of the revision’.24 Ellicott’s Preface, however, did nothing to amplify or dignify Schaff ’s protests. As for Angus who had again sought to lift the recognition of the Americans in England only to find his efforts handicapped, he came under notice anew. Clay notified Fenton Hort, one of the committee’s police against premature delivery. Apparently the chain of command was to notify Bishop Ellicott as chair of the New Testament Company. Ellicott had already censured Alex Roberts because he had, mistakenly it seems, learned that Roberts was to expose the inner workings of the Revision Company in a small book. There was a sharpness in Ellicott’s pen when he reminded Roberts that he was far from ‘the most regular attendant’ and his exposure of ‘the varying reasons that influenced a body of independent scholars in arriving at a common result’ was ‘calculated to injure our work very gravely’.25 Roberts was nonplussed, claiming that the publisher had been misleading in his promotions and that he had no intention of revealing the inside machinations. He claimed that the book was originally planned as a plea or justification of revision and tellingly referred to the work of a fellow reviser, John Eadie. Eadie had died in June 1876; this had probably saved him from the ire of the Revision Company chair for his two-volume work on the English Bible had included details that appear to owe a considerable debt to the deliberations of the New Testament Revision Company.26 It may explain why Ellicott was not appeased by Roberts’s reply and not only replied again, but had the correspondence printed for circulation among the University Presses and the New Testament Company. It included a specimen page from the forthcoming publication that contained an expression that indicated Roberts had not agreed with the Company’s decision: ‘[W]‌e cannot read Mark ix.3, or Mark ix.24 without wishing that the words “as snow” and “with tears” which add to the graphic style of the narrative, had been retained.’27 In the printed copy distributed by Ellicott, Robert Scott added his own pencilled remarks, ‘Only, unhappily, . . . S Mark did not (according to the evidence) use the words which Professor Roberts prefers!’ He also noted that Roberts was present on 94 days out of 407,28 days that did not include the lamented departure of favoured renderings! It appeared that a certain testiness was returning to relations between revisers, with the Nonconformist members of the Company being made aware yet again of their dependence on the forbearance of the Established Church that had issued the original invitation. In the end, the Presses decided not to proceed. The revelation of internal bickering generally and 24. The Observer 31/3/1881. 25. Ellicott to Roberts 7/12/1880 (CUL Ms Add 9739, f. 3, Scott papers). 26. J. Eadie, The English Bible . . . with Remarks on the Need of Revising the English New Testament, 2 vols (London: Macmillan, 1876), vol. 2, 349–52. 27.  A. Roberts, Companion to the Revised Version of the English New Testament (London: Cassell, Petter, Galpin & Co, 18813), 46. 28.  ‘Publication of Correspondence between the Bishop of Gloucester and Professor Roberts’ 15/12/1880 (CUL Ms Add 9739, f. 3, Robert Scott papers).

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a castigation of Nonconformists in particular would have damaged the espoused reputation of unity and harmony around the work of revision. And, more potently, sales may have been impacted.29 As it was, a number of Nonconformist churches by the end of 1881 had begun to seek imports of the Americanized edition of the Revised New Testament.30 The affinity between English Nonconformists and the American churches, personified in the relationship between Angus and Schaff, was being played out in the preference for a Bible with certain distinct wordings.

The Failure of Anticipated Returns for the Revised Version The University Presses nevertheless were resistant to any efforts by English Bible Societies to gain special discounts for distribution through their own networks. Even Archibald Tait, close to the end of his time as Archbishop of Canterbury, was retained to lend his weight to the plea for a special rate that came from the Society for the Propagation of Christian Knowledge. SPCK was granted no more than any other society or group in securing ‘warehouse rates’.31 But by the end of the decade, the plummet in sales and the stockpiling of volumes turned the Presses’ minds to exploit a growing market in books for schools, ‘to distribute their surplus stock of the New Testament in order to popularize the RV’.32 As commercially calculated as the move may have been, it signalled the reputation that the RV, especially the New Testament, was gaining. That is, it was a school text, not in the maligning sense shafted towards its translation style, but as a teaching device. Its very literalness provided a scholarly conduit to the original text. So began the generational training of biblical awareness that was not grounded in the AV. In America, this was strikingly marked by the removal of the ‘King James only’ provision of the constitution of the American Bible Society.33 For some of the revisers, such as Westcott, an educational shift had been the intention all along. But, in the beginning, the polluting discussion about potential sales had never been broached. When Charles Clay, the printer for Cambridge University Press, drafted a review of financial accounts in the year following the release of the Revised Old Testament, he named a number of compounding matters behind the failure of the Revised Bible to produce ‘an adequate return’. He primarily blamed the disadvantage to 29. Hort to Clay 13/1/1881 (CUL Pr.B.37 (4), f. 4). 30. C. Kenny to Clay 6/12/1881 (CUL Pr.B.37 (4), f. 237). 31. Tait to Price 11/4/1881 (CUL Pr.B.37 (4), f. 67); Price to Clay 12/4/1881 (CUL Pr.B.37 (4), f. 68). 32. P. Lyttelton Gell to Clay 3/1/1889 (CUL Pr.B.37 (12), f. 1). 33.  The proposal for amendment to the ABS Constitution had been broached in the lead-up to the publication of the RV. See ‘Suggested Amendment of the ABS Constitution’ (ABS Andrew Taylor Correspondence). The move was not without opposition; see Northern Christian Advocate 6/1/1881, Examiner & Chronicle 29/1/1880.

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the Syndics in the partnership imposed by the Delegates of Oxford University Press. The relationship was described as ‘one of rivalry and antagonism in place of united and economical action’, with each Press seeking to outdo the other in stock production, no doubt prompted by the initial depletion of warehouse holdings. He mentioned the ‘various editions’ of the Revised Bible, but did not expressly blame the variety as a cause of the problem.34 The sheer variety in styles and formats actually contributed to the pressure on sales. In New  York, Thomas Nelson advertised twenty-two different styles in five sizes for the Revised New Testament, all at different prices.35 Cambridge University Press, operating through their American agent, Lippincott, produced a slightly more modest range, though still in double figures.36 The subcommittee for the publication of the RV had adopted a resolution from the New Testament Company that the initial release be in only two styles, one for cheap sale and both with the marginal notes held back for an edition released at a later time.37 The perceived problem however was the disadvantage that this presentation might attract by comparison with the huge variety of editions available for the AV. In 1876, the Oxford Press released the old Bible in forty different formats.38 By the time of release in May 1881, the Revised New Testament was not going to suffer by comparison with the AV, at least not on the score of presentation. When the volume was left unopened, this competitive styling was achieved. The problem arose once the pages were viewed. The revisers had decided in the interests of a promotion of contextual analysis to avoid the insertion of verse numbering into the text. Careful attention to paragraph segments had been given in the development of the draft first revision in pursuance of the seventh principle rule delivered at the beginning of the revision, but at that stage, verse numbering was retained within the draft printed text. When final publication arrived, verses had joined the marginal readings running down the outer lines of the text, just as in critical editions of classical texts.39 There was no clear mark of the beginning of a new verse. Rather, attention was directed to paragraph sectioning. Ellicott explained in the Preface to the New Testament that this was ‘to assist the general reader in following the current of narrative or argument’. In the United States, James Strong, a member of the Old Testament Company, echoed this notion of the assistance to flow when paragraphing is judiciously employed:  ‘Perverting proof texts’ are assisted ‘by neglecting the context’. He added that ‘[n]‌othing but slavery to custom could reconcile us to it [chapter

34. Clay to James Porter, Master of Peterhouse 17/11/1886 (CUL Pr.B.4, f. 91). 35. Thomas Nelson Advertisement (ABS ABRC Newspaper Clippings). 36. CUL Pr.V.18, ff. 54–55. 37. Meeting of Joint Committee of the Presses and Revisers, 17/5/1879 (CUL Pr.V.18, ff. 5–8). 38. Flanders and Colclough, ‘The Bible Press’, 387. 39. Ellicott in the Preface actually compared the practice of ‘some great standard work’.

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and verse disruption of the text] in these days of literary and mechanical improvement’.40 Progress might have been seen as a virtue, but typographically, it was a flawed decision. For all the language of continuity with the AV touted so as to inculcate acceptance of the new version, the appearance immediately conveyed discontinuity. Incunable printings of the fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries had provided the exemplar to follow; that is, cultivate as many formal aesthetics of continuity with scribal texts as possible to minimize the sense of displacement. But contemporary educational demands apparently overruled social engineering and the cost was felt commercially. One American publisher, A. J. Holman, wrote of selling 25,000–30,000 copies of the English editions of the New Testament and 20,000 copies of their own but that the demand at the beginning of February 1883 had ‘almost entirely ceased’. The preeminent objection, according to this publisher, was the ‘great change in the typographical appearance from the old Bible and the substitution of paragraphs for the verses’.41 Compounding the reaction was that the paragraph-dominated, verse-sidelined Bible actually handicapped the acceptance of the RV into public worship. The lectionary’s designated readings were pinpointed by chapter and verse, not paragraph. A  conscious effort was required, however small, to find where a passage was to begin and end, for public reading in Prayer Book offices and services, even allowing that it was generally agreed that the RV could replace the use of the AV in public worship if a local vicar so decided. There was a further contribution to the lack of fulfillment of the commercial hopes of the Presses. The decision was early made to release the two testaments when they were ready. No doubt the cost of support for two English Companies running through to 1884 (when the Old Testament Company concluded its work) would have been an intolerable burden on the finances of the University Presses, especially the Cambridge Syndics. It would likely have been difficult to quarantine from public gaze the largely concluded work of the New Testament for a further four years. But there were distinct differences in the ambience of the two Revisions. The chair of the Old Testament Company, Bishop Harold Browne, wrote at the conclusion of the Company’s work, ‘I think we shall come before the Church with a more conservative dress than the New Testament Company. Our work has necessarily been of a different character from theirs, and we have been less daring.’42 The ‘necessarily different character’ was built on the relatively unambiguous textual basis in the Hebrew. The Dead Sea Scrolls still lay undisturbed in remote heat. The Cairo Genizah had gained no thoroughgoing exploration or analysis. So the Masoretic text was the base with only occasional disturbances from ancient 40. J. Strong, ‘Paragraphs, Chapters, and Verses of the Bible’, in Anglo-American Bible Revision:  Its Necessity and Purpose, ed. P. Schaff (Philadelphia:  American Sunday-School Union, 1879), 168, 169. 41. A. J. Holman to Schaff 26/2/1883 (ABS ABRC Foreign Correspondence). 42.  G. W.  Kitchin, Edward Harold Browne:  Lord Bishop of Winchester (London:  John Murray, 1895), 470.

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versions, such as the Septuagint or the Syriac. The focus was on rendering, whereas much of the work on the New Testament Company was centred on establishing the text to render. William Moulton’s sons later argued that Hebrew lends itself to literal and archaic translation more easily than the Greek.43 This may have cultivated a more relaxed approach by the Old Testament revisers. Angus certainly complained to Schaff that the Old Testament Company are ‘very slow to move’.44 Moreover, there was a greater conservatism in the approach to rendering among the members. When a submission of the work of the New Testament Company to their Old Testament confreres for review was mooted in 1873 (as required by the guiding resolution IX), the New Testament Company passed their own resolution expressing a willingness to compare but ‘objecting to any collective judgment on our work either upon its general principles or upon details’.45 There was a general suspicion that a considerable gap existed in the approaches adopted by the two Companies. This was borne out when a member of the Old Testament Company, Frederick Field, decided to publish a critique of the Revised New Testament within a year of its release.46 The contrast between the two Revised testaments, especially in relation to the strength of continuity with the AV, was noted almost immediately. Field doubted the wisdom of releasing the two in sequence; he feared that the second volume would ‘fall flat on the exhausted energies of reviewers and correspondents’.47 He was partly right. The intensity of opposition by a John Burgon or George Denison certainly coloured the atmosphere of reception even for those disposed to accept the need for revision. Any hope that the University Presses had for a revival of sales with the second volume was dented by the all-too-rapid loss of fortune for the Revised New Testament.

The Conversion of the Revised Version to a Study Bible The fall in sales understandably did not stop the University Presses seeking to extract what they could from the Revision. The future of the Revision lay not in projecting the edition for divine worship in the Church of England but rather in promoting it for divine study. The distinction was recognized within a few months of publication.48 Edward Bickersteth observed in the month of its public release, ‘It seems to me invaluable as a commentary, and as an expression of the ripest 43. W. Moulton, The History of the English Bible, Fifth Edition Revised and Enlarged by His Son (London: Kelly, 1911), 249. 44. Angus to Schaff 14/12/1871 (ABS ABRC Foreign Correspondence A6). 45. Newth ‘RV Notes’ 21/1/1873 (Rough Copy) (BL Ms Add 36280, f. 74). 46. F. Field, Otium Novicense, pars tertia: Notes on Select Passages of the Greek Testament, chiefly with reference to recent English Versions (Oxford: Hall & Stacy, 1881). 47. Field, Otium Novicense, pars tertia, iv. 48. Field, Otium Novicense, pars tertia, iii.

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judgment of modern scholars as to readings and translations; but the English is in many parts so bald and rough that it would never do to substitute it for our present revision without the most extensive recension.’49 Some of his fellow revisers were doubtless glad that this sentiment did not enter his public statements.50 Initial equivocation by the University Presses about the publication of the Revised Bible with marginal notes and cross-references was dispelled and the work of William Moulton and Frederick Scrivener saw the light of day. This became part of a programme of refinement of the Revision. On the heels of release, there were also the inevitable corrections of oversights, or at least there were attempts to deal with them. There was the occasional removal of inconsistencies in renderings. The commitment to exactness of English translation of the same Greek word had now developed almost into a fetish. It was not only to conform to previous commitments about exactitude; it was also to protect against the forensic investigations of readers, many of whom had peppered the chair and secretary from the beginning with their confidence about the rightness of their proffered readings. In early July 1881, Ellicott sent round a sheet calling for votes by the now disbanded members of the New Testament Company. Apparently ‘console’ and ‘comfort’ had been used for the same Greek word in Jn 11.19 and 11.31 (παραμυθέω). He noted that ‘comfort’ in Jn 11.19 had been changed to ‘console’ on 14 May 1880 without a consequent change in 11.31. ‘This could not have been our intention’, he added. These changes were supposed to have been made at the harmonizing stage, when such consistency was checked. At this point, the Americans were removed from the picture; so also they were not asked for their ‘advice’ on this correction. Similarly, he pointed to the use of ‘strength’ and ‘power’ in 2 Cor. 12.9 for the same Greek word, δύναμις.51 It appears the Presses ignored these later requests for tightening.52 The inconsistency remained in the printed copies. The English revisers had ignored the Americans; the Presses ignored the English revisers. It was a microcosmic demonstration of a pattern that had developed through the years of revision. There was the also the publication of the Greek text used by the revisers. It was a mark of the lack of complete unanimity between the two Presses that two editions were published, one by Frederick Scrivener for Cambridge, and the other by Edwin Palmer for Oxford.53 But the edition bears the mark of the critical attention of 49.  F. K. Aglionby, The Life of Edward Henry Bickersteth:  Bishop and Poet (London: Longmans, Green & Co, 1907), 47. 50.  E. Bickersteth, The Revised Version of the New Testament:  A Lecture (London: Rivingtons, 1885). 51. Ellicott, ‘Memorandum’ 4/7/1881 (CUL Ms Add 9739 f. 3, Robert Scott papers). 52.  Henry Thayer sought corrections of errata in the American Appendix:  Report of Committee on the Revision of the Bible to the University Presses 10/6/1885 item 5 (CUL Pr.V.18, f.  64); Westcott, when Bishop of Durham, continued to press for corrections of inconsistencies. W. Aldis Wright to John Troutbeck 3/3/1899 (CUL 6946, f. 145). The result was the same. 53. F. H. A. Scrivener, The New Testament in the Original Greek according to the Text followed in the Authorized Version together with the Variations adopted in the Revised

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almost fifty members across two Revision Companies – unparalleled to that time. Ancillary supports for the New Testament, such as concordances and harmonies, followed. Meanwhile, many of the English New Testament revisers turned their attention to the Apocryphal books. They had the early selections of books to revise in small subcommittees, so much so that the members of the Old Testament Company, still at work to bring their revision to completion, complained that their New Testament colleagues had taken ‘the more important books for their share’.54 Again Moulton had a significant part to play, joining with the Cambridge pair of Westcott and Hort. The Revised Apocrypha joined the rest of the Revised Bible in 1895. And Moulton, the Wesleyan Methodist, demonstrated the gains in social, ecclesial and scholarly position that a Nonconformist member had made when his years of work on developing a set of cross-references to the New Testament text was incorporated into the publication of the New Testament Revision. The volume was published shortly after his death in 1898 with a fuller collection and final editing executed by his son James Moulton with Albert Greenup in 1909. The widely acknowledged scholarship of William Moulton the Wesleyan had secured a recognition that had crossed the barriers of the Establishment stronghold. He had helped to position the RV firmly as a study Bible. Thereby, like Wesley’s study Bible 150  years before, he had secured it as a resource for appropriation by those committed to advancing their biblical fluency. As Westcott encouraged one of Moulton’s sons to complete his father’s work, ‘I cannot doubt that all that your father collected should be made available for students.’55 Again Bible students were to be the beneficiaries. Almost inevitably this favoured the practices of Nonconformists. Church of England members had obtained their diet of biblical passages through church services and daily offices. Occasionally, individual parish church priests made a choice to use the RV and colonial churches were more amenable to the new Bible.56 But the AV remained the general text for public worship in the Church of England in England. Version (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1881); E. Palmer, The Greek Testament with the Readings Adopted by the Revisers of the Authorised Version (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1882). 54. This was reported to Schaff by an American Old Testament reviser who was invited into one English revision meeting when the matter of the Apocrypha was discussed:  T. W. Chambers to Schaff 11/7/1884 (ABS ABRC Foreign Correspondence). 55. Westcott to W. Moulton 22/2/1898 (MA Mou II, f. 483). 56. For example, St Paul’s Cathedral in the Diocese of Melbourne, Australia, used the RV as its desk Bible for the daily offices in the first decades of the twentieth century. One surviving copy of the RV in the collection of Mr Peter Burke of Adelaide, South Australia, contains an inside-cover dedication, dated 10/7/1931, and reads, ‘Replacing Bible presented by the Lay Canons of St Paul’s Cathedral for use at the Daily Services. September 1905.’ It seems that both the 1905 presented Bible and that of 1931 were the RV.

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Marketing the New Bible A cohort of revisers in both countries set about promoting the new Bible. Book after book emerged, reiterating earlier canvassing of the need for revision and providing exemplars of the work of the revisers to show that the problems had been overcome. Newspaper and magazine articles abounded. There was more than a touch of apologetics in this aspect of the revisers’ work as waves of criticism buffeted the arrival of the RV of the New Testament. Some revisers accented continuities with the old version; some accented the gain for truth in the new one. Frequently, the matter of excessive literalism was broached by pointing out that the equally excessive lack of uniformity in the AV had frequently led to distorted interpretations and the loss of connections that the Greek (or Hebrew) had intended to cultivate. Sometimes the variation in the AV rendering could be ascribed to the division of the work into six separated companies, though there was also an espoused commitment to provide stylistic variation. Καταργέω was often raised as an extreme example, with seventeen different English words covering the twenty-seven instances of its occurrence in the New Testament, scarcely conducive to the tracking of an authorial or religious key term. The RV swung the pendulum in the opposite direction and narrowed the awareness that Greek words might carry a semantic richness beyond one English rendering. Even with the emphasis on paragraphing rather than chapter and verse division as a means of engaging the text, the focus of attention remained on single words rather than discourse unit as the shaper of meaning. Hence the criticism that λόγος received twenty-three different English words in the AV wanted to privilege a philosophical/theological meaning associated with Jesus Christ and his message for the RV, and ignored the range of meanings that the Greek word might compass depending on its context (such as ‘proverb’ or ‘invoice’). By the end of the century, the advent of papyri began to exert its influence, with all its challenges to the RV’s rigour of rendering the tenses of verbs and the narrow semantics of items of vocabulary. Charles Ellicott’s resistance to comparative lexicography and comparative linguistics reveals how entrenched the New Testament revisers’ position had become. The books of the New Testament, he maintained, ‘form a special group to be primarily explained by itself ’.57 Here the Established Bishop was modulating Article 20 of the Established Church’s binding thirty-nine articles, that the Church may not ‘expound one place of Scripture, that it be repugnant to another’. However, Revision had been fought on the basis that there were parts of the AV that were repugnant to truth, both in text and translation. Now, with two versions widely circulating (the AV and the RV), the tension about meanings could only be exacerbated, with or without the extra contribution that the evidence of the papyri might deliver. In England, the critical importance of papyrological comparison was underscored by the scholarship of two sons of Nonconformist 57.  C. J. Ellicott, Addresses on the Revised Version of Holy Scripture (London:  SPCK, 1901), 111.

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revisers, George Milligan and James Moulton.58 The scholarship so extolled in defence and promotion of the RV had not only papered over sectarian differences; developing scholarship fostered further criticism of the very work claimed as the exemplar of scholarly cooperation and harmony. More significantly, the papyri fundamentally challenged the assumed preparation for, and constant correlation of, the interpretation of Greek grammar and forms of the New Testament, that is, classical literature, the bedrock training of almost every member of the English Revision Companies.

The Americans and the Revised Version Philip Schaff observed before the release of the Old Testament Revision that the popularity of the New Testament Revision in America surpassed that in England ‘although it is more an English work’. Similarly, Nonconformists in England seemed eager to embrace the work more readily than those of the Established Church. Schaff ascribed much of the advance in these quarters to their freedom from ‘church authority’.59 The embrace of the RV may have been exaggerated,60 but initial sales understandably encouraged hyperbole. However, the fourteenyear rule imposed by the University Presses on the American Revisers actually generated a countdown in the American popular press, first to the time when the American Appendix might be placed in the text proper and then, as the American revisers were known to continue their work of revision, for the final release of the fully revised American Standard Edition, the derivative of the RV that Paul Gutjahr extols as ‘the gold standard of translation accuracy’.61 The University Presses themselves released an American(ized) RV in 1898 just before the expiration of the fourteen-year restriction imposed on the American revisers themselves. It was no more than a transfer of the readings of the Appendix into the text. It reinvigorated not only the revisers themselves who had continued to work quietly on refining their revision,62 but also the general American 58. J. H. Moulton and G. Milligan, The Vocabulary of the Greek Testament, Illustrated from the Papyri and Other Non-literary Sources, 8 fascicles (London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1914–29). 59. Schaff, Companion, 415. 60. Ken Cmiel estimates that no more than 10 per cent of American Protestants had transferred their loyalty from the AV to the RV by the turn of the century; Democratic Eloquence: The Fight over Popular Speech in Nineteenth-Century America (New York: William Morrow, 1990), 216–17. 61.  P. Gutjahr, ‘From Monarchy to Democracy:  The Dethroning of the King James Bible in the United States’, in The King James Bible after 400 Years: Literary, Linguistic, and Cultural Influences, ed. H. Hamlin and N. W. Jones (Cambridge:  Cambridge University Press, 2010), 165. 62.  Henry Thayer kept a meticulous list of newspaper, magazine and monograph criticisms on particular elements of the New Testament Revision such as archaisms, the use

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awareness of the attempted assertion of English control over the Bible in America. An editorial in The Independent claimed that such an English-produced Bible had ‘no right to be called the American version’. It pointed to the American revision even of the Appendix let  alone other matters that had surfaced for attention as the RV was criticized and assessed over the previous decade and a half. The editorial seemed to be privy to some of the previously private machinations over the Appendix, claiming that the University Presses constrained the Americans into a hurried and less-measured Appendix. And it noted that the two-thirds rule that the Americans had followed in their own decision-making over the second revision would now be applied without reference to the English voting patterns. ‘It will be the American version, prepared by those who alone are authorized to prepare it.’63 Authorized, with its distinctive American spelling, now had absorbed a nationalistic self-assertion into its semantics. It was nothing especially new. For it had been extracted from the grasp of the unnamed English assumption that though the AV was authorized by popular acceptance, that acceptance was predicated on an achievement made in England. The AV was England’s, not just English. Those who wished to add their acceptance of this Bible were required in some way to acknowledge and adhere to the caveat. Schaff himself had done just this. Even with a continuing use of the King James Bible, the pride in American achievement (especially over against the experience of English domination in revision and publishing) meant that the American derivative version became the esteemed companion to the old Bible, if not its replacement. No longer could the unity of English-speaking peoples or of Protestant Americans be predicated on a single book, nor would eyes of deference or gratitude be turned towards a small island across the Atlantic. The Bible, long the source of American self-definition by appeals to selected content, was now in toto esteemed as shaped by American hands. It was no longer the English Bible; it was the American Bible, and it was not permitted to be released in England, by the decision of the University Presses.64 The nationalization and localization of Bibles in English had been sealed, to be reiterated multiple times through the twentieth century.

The Loss of a Common English Bible and Its Consequences In England, Charles Vaughan was similarly sensitive to the churches that had begun to embrace the new Revision, and those that were less welcoming. ‘No catastrophe is more earnestly to be deprecated than that which should destroy the one link of union which has hitherto bound together the English-speaking race . . . A heavy blow will have been struck . . . if . . . the time should ever arrive when the race shall of the article, disputes over the rendering of tenses, uniformity and the like, with the verses given as illustration (AHTLA bMS 672/5(3)). 63. The Independent 8/12/1898. 64. See Moulton, History of the English Bible, Fifth Edition, 247.

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have its two Bibles.’65 It was intended, in Vaughan’s finely spun rhetoric, to incite acceptance of the Revision; it became a prophetic harbinger of a division of groups and peoples over a common-language Bible. The appeal to ‘English-speaking peoples’ who shared the AV was failing to transfer to the revision of that Bible that had been initiated by the very Church that laid claim to the formation of the old revision. The United Presbyterian Church of Scotland recommended the RV to ‘the diligent and prayerful study of the ministers and members of the Church’ and prayed that it might ‘give the English-speaking people a clearer knowledge of the Holy Scriptures’.66 The shift in discourse was subtle but telling. The statement came from a non-Anglican source now evoking ‘English-speaking people’ and it accented (perhaps understandably for the Presbyterians) the study of the Bible. The Church of England’s failure to embrace the RV for English-speaking people may have enabled the AV to live in piety long into the twentieth century, but it had unleashed a sense that the AV was no longer the (only) Bible for those sharing a common tongue. Indeed the RV, and its re-revision called the American Standard Edition, came to mark out a series of narrower interests – particular parties within the Church of England, particular denominations and indeed a particular nation. Those national differences and the pride and sensitivities associated with them were never more explicitly laid out at the time than in a privately printed but widely disbursed letter of Frederick Field to Philip Schaff.67 Field was a member of the Old Testament Company but, because of his age (born in 1801) and profound deafness, had remained throughout the revision, ensconced in Norwich and immune from the socialization that attended the development in the life of the Companies meeting in Westminster. He had felt no qualms about criticizing the Revised New Testament, impugning the revisers as having isolated themselves from public opinion, and he felt no hesitation in sharpening his aged quill against Philip Schaff ’s Companion to the Greek Testament and the English Version published in 1883. The letter ran for fifteen tightly printed pages. Of particular significance for our purposes is what it reveals of the sense of national identity that lay behind the cultivation of revision and especially the attitudes towards other than Established clergymen involved in the revision. The attitudes might be exonerated by isolation to a scholarly elder clinging to past shibboleths, much as Charles Ellicott in 1901 revealed a struggle to appropriate new discoveries in his suspicion of the handling of papyri. But we have seen the prejudices in both private and public statement from the beginning, in Parliamentary speeches, newspaper satire and private letters and diaries. Field accented that the origin of the revision was the Church of England alone, just as the origin of the old Bible had the same institutional authority. Any invitation to Nonconformists was, in his view, a conciliatory exercise to ensure 65. C. J. Vaughan, Authorized or Revised? Sermons on Some of the Texts in Which the Revised Version Differs from the Authorized (London: Macmillan 1882), xvii. 66. Statement to the University Presses 10/5/1886 (CUL Pr.B.37 (9), f. 27). 67. Field to Schaff 29/12/1883 (ABS ABRC Foreign Correspondence).

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as wide an acceptance of the revision as had attended the version it was designed to replace. Nonetheless, he decried that the Nonconformists who, according to all precedent should have been excluded, would inflate themselves with pleasure that they were now fraternizing with bishops and other dignitaries of the Church. He saw the only counterbalance to this presumption in the hierarchy and the volume of the Church of England control over the enterprise, running down from bishops, deans, archdeacons and churchmen to dissenters, the last being outnumbered two to one. This, he claimed, protected the ‘Catholic impress’ of the RV. He then set off the scholarship, refined taste and temperate wisdom of this group against the ‘American auxiliary Company’ grafted ‘as an afterthought’ onto the ‘original stock’. He contrasted the necessary substratum of a thorough classical education that marked English learning with the misfortune of its absence among American scholars. The contrast went further. ‘A new country’ had ‘no old school associations or academical traditions’ that might protect the quality of the revision and the refinement of taste. It was as if Field had recognized in the American clamour for involvement in the revision, an attack on the very fabric of English church and society, symbolized, for him, in the American Committees’ determination to ‘abolish what are called archaisms altogether’. He lamented the loss of ‘prevent’ in its meaning of ‘precede’ (the word adopted in the RV of 1 Thess. 4.15), and the displacement of ‘bowels’ by ‘affections’ (as in 2 Cor. 6.12). He drew the contrast of old and new in architectural terms, pointing to the asymmetry between the ‘venerable Jerusalem Chamber’ and ‘the Bible House of New York’. And he castigated the disclosure of individual preferences, such as the Appendix, that undermined the whole. This was, he railed, nothing other than ‘the assertion of American equality’ over and above the ‘kindness and courtesy’ of the invitation to take a share. It was a Promethean vision that (again) evoked the French disease, what Field euphemistically styled ‘Gallicè, amour propre.’ He portrayed the service of Christ’s church envisaged in the revision as ‘made subservient to the miserable promptings of personal vanity or national prestige’. Field was correct, if myopic in his assessment, with no sense that it was precisely national prestige that infused the rationale of the Established Church and its project. That Church, epitomized to an extent in Field himself, had failed to anticipate that national prestige and even the self-respect of parties within nations were equally likely to be in play in the agreement to accept the invitation to join the work of revision. Field concluded his dressing-down by speculating that the reason that the RV was more popular in America than in England was because ‘American self-assertion is gratified by the notion of having had so large a share, through their own homebred scholars and divines, in the progress and final consummation of the work’. The conclusion laboured on about a self-styled American company, invested with independent action, craving for more – a fault of American Protestantism generally which lacks any central authority so that each ‘does what is right in its own eyes’. The letter is as chilling in its tone as it is in its insights, albeit viewed from the perspective of a century-and-half ’s passage of time. Needless to say, Schaff never revealed or addressed the contents of the letter, apart from a reference to Field’s criticism of a hermit English New Testament Revision Company. He showed the

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letter to the chair of the American New Testament Company, Theodore Woolsey. Woolsey isolated Field’s opinion about the revision as that of one man only but went on to complain about the ‘self-sufficient spirit of the English [that] kept them from accepting some or rather many of our changes’. Any alteration of their ‘feeling’ was judged as improbable. He went on to plot in skeletal outline how a ‘re-revision’ might proceed in America by Americans, or at least among those who wanted the removal of ‘which’ from the English text.68 Clearly, the ‘whiches’ and the ‘devils’ of the English RV had become a synecdoche of all that was mistaken in the revision69; even more, of all that was resistant to the validity of American claims. The assessment of national character by each side left little chance for reconciliation. The die was cast. The repair of the separation would not be achieved by private knowledge that the specific preference for ‘which’ was heavily debated in the English company.70 Westcott, in what was probably a note to himself (the note is square-bracketed), descended into punning humour about the choice between ‘which’ or ‘who’ in Matt. 9.8. He introduced Shakespeare’s witches: ‘here and there witches come! – Double, double, toil and trouble’.71 But the strength of feeling was aroused about larger, often ill-defined matters that rarely peeped into the light of day, and like such profound sentiments, frequently seeking an emblem that encapsulates the issue.

The Significance of the Revised Version The revision of the AV was a major public contest from the time of its announcement until decades after its two-part publication. Contemporary scholarship has delivered little more than repetitious reiterations of its failure to capture popular acceptance. As David McKitterick dubbed it, ‘a best-seller whose day passed all too quickly’.72 The RV was, in fact, a lightning rod of national and international identities and ambitions. Within England, the struggles about the rising influence of Nonconformity were played out in and around the revision, with most dissenting churches gaining a sense of stature and place in English society but doing so in a growing adherence to the version to which they had contributed more than merely an audience’s applause. And within the Established Church, the RV reflected the subterranean seething of struggles in English society, between rationalism and ritualism, philology and poetry, advances in the study of textual manuscripts and the place of the Bible in societal discussions and decision-making. It was a heavy 68. Woolsey to Schaff 16/2/1884 (ABS ABRC Foreign Correspondence). 69.  Schaff used the phrase as an indication of those who resisted modernization of antiquated words: Companion, 413, but it was clear that the transatlantic Companies fell down on the two sides of the linguistic divide. 70. Angus to Schaff 5/9/1883 (ABS ABRC Foreign Correspondence). 71. Westcott ‘RV Notes’ book III, f. 5 (WFA). 72. McKitterick, A History of Cambridge University Press: Volume 3, 87.

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load imposed upon a sacred text. Most particularly, the rising American confidence in its literary (which demanded, in the nineteenth century, biblical) scholarship came up against the vigour of an English assumption of its linguistic hegemony that matched its political power. Even though the Americans felt that they had been swamped by the English ascendancy, the growing assurance of their own ability stirred a national value that had lain dormant at the beginning of revision – that of independence. Although the RV could not be claimed to have been victorious in an intent to supplant the AV, it did bequeath a legacy of Nonconformist and American scholarship that could stand tall among the giants of the old world. It challenged fundamental presuppositions about where the Word of God was to be grounded, how it was to be understood and what factors must be admitted into interpretation  – questions that remain with us today.73 And it demonstrated, at least once the rhetorical postures of harmony, unity and cooperation are relaxed, the sometimes-desperate negotiations that disturb the process of translation, the constraints on scholars and scholarship that are imposed by commercial interests and the politicized tactics (reaching even into government) that might be employed to secure a desired outcome. The Bible was demonstrated to be what it always was, a scripture forged through contest.

73. So, differently, P. J. Thuesen, In Discordance with the Scriptures: American Protestant Battles over Translating the Bible (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999), 42.

Appendix A T H E M E M B E R S O F T H E T WO N EW T E STA M E N T R EV I SIO N C OM PA N I E S These include those who were added following the death or resignation of other members.

The Twenty-Nine Members of the English New Testament Revision Company Very Rev. H. Alford Dr J. Angus Prof. E. H. Bickersteth Dr J. W. Blakesley Prof. D. Brown Prof. J. Eadie Bp. C. J. Ellicott Dr F. J. A. Hort Preb. W. G. Humphry Canon B. H. Kennedy Ven. W. Lee Dr J. B. Lightfoot Very Rev. C. Merivale Prof. W. Milligan Bp. G. Moberly Prof. W. F. Moulton Prof. S. Newth Prof. E. Palmer Dr A. Roberts Prof. R. Scott Dr F. H. A. Scrivener Dr G. Vance Smith Very Rev. A. P. Stanley Dr S. P. Tregelles Abp. R. C. Trench Dr C. J. Vaughan

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Canon B. F. Westcott Bp. S. Wilberforce Bp. C. Wordsworth

The Nineteen Members of the American New Testament Revision Company Prof. E. Abbot Dr J. K. Burr Dr T. Chase Dr G. R. Crooks Dr H. Crosby Prof. T. Dwight Prof. H. B. Hackett Prof. J. Hadley Prof. C. Hodge Prof. A. C. Kendrick Bp. A. Lee Prof. M. B. Riddle Prof. P. Schaff Prof. C. Short Prof. H. B. Smith Prof. J. H. Thayer Prof. W. F. Warren Dr E. A. Washburn Dr T. D. Woolsey

Appendix B T H E R E S O LU T IO N S A N D F U N DA M E N TA L R U L E S F O R T H E R EV I SIO N O F T H E A U T HO R I SE D V E R SIO N

The Resolutions of the Joint Committee (the ‘Permanent Committee’) of the Convocation of Canterbury 1. That it is desirable that a revision of the Authorised Version of the Holy Scriptures be undertaken. 2. That the revision be so conducted as to comprise both marginal renderings and such emendations as it may be found necessary to insert in the text of the Authorised Version. 3. That in the above resolutions we do not contemplate any new translation of the Bible, or any alteration of the language, except where in the judgement of the most competent scholars such change is necessary. 4. That in such necessary changes the style of the language employed in the existing version be closely followed. 5. That it is desirable that Convocation should nominate a body of its own members to undertake the work of revision, who shall be at liberty to invite the cooperation of any eminent for scholarship, to whatever nation or religious body they may belong.

The Fundamental Resolutions and General Principles to Guide the Revision I.

That the committee, appointed by the Convocation of Canterbury at its last session, separate itself into two companies, the one for the revision of the Authorised Version of the Old Testament, the other for the revision of the Authorised Version of the New Testament. II. That the company for the revision of the Authorised Version of the Old Testament consist of the Bishops of St. David’s, Llandaff, Ely and Bath and Wells, and of the following members from the Lower House – Archdeacon Rose, Canon Selwyn, Dr Jebb and Dr Kay. I II. That the company for the revision of the Authorised Version of the New Testament consist of the Bishops of Winchester, Gloucester and Bristol,

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Appendix B

and Salisbury, and of the following members from the Lower House, the Prolocutor, the Deans of Canterbury and Westminster, and Canon Blakesley. IV. That the first portion of the work to be undertaken by the Old Testament Company be the revision of the Authorised Version of the Pentateuch. V. That the first portion of the work to be undertaken by the New Testament Company be the revision of the Authorised Version of the Synoptical Gospels. VI. That the following scholars and divines be invited to join the Old Testament Company: Dr W. L. Alexander, Prof. T. Chenery, Canon F. C. Cook, Prof. A. B. Davidson, Dr B. Davies, Prof. P. Fairbairn, Dr F. Field, Dr C. Ginsburg, Dr F. W. Gotch, Ven. C. Harrison, Prof. S. Leathes, Prof. J. McGill, Prof. R. Payne Smith, Prof. J. H. Perowne, Prof. E. H. Plumptre, Prof. E. B. Pusey, Dr W. Wright, W. A. Wright VII. That the following scholars and divines be invited to join the New Testament Company: Dr J. Angus, Prof. J. Eadie, Dr F. J. A. Hort, Preb. W. G. Humphry, Canon B. H. Kennedy, Ven. W. Lee, Dr J. B. Lightfoot, Prof. W. Milligan, Prof. W. F. Moulton, Dr J. H. Newman, Prof. S. Newth, Dr A. Roberts, Dr G. Vance Smith, Prof. R. Scott, Dr F. H. A. Scrivener, Dr S. P. Tregelles, Abp R. C. Trench, Dr C. J. Vaughan, Canon B. F. Westcott VIII. That the General Principles to be followed by both Companies be as follows – 1. To introduce as few alterations as possible in the text of the Authorised Version consistently with faithfulness. 2. To limit, as far as possible, the expression of such alterations to the language of the Authorised and earlier English versions. 3. Each Company to go twice over the portion to be revised, once provisionally, the second time finally and on principles of voting as hereinafter is provided. 4. That the text to be adopted be that for which the evidence is decidedly preponderating; and that when the text so adopted differs from that from which the Authorised Version was made, the alteration be indicated in the margin. 5. To make or retain no change in the text on the second final revision by each Company except two-thirds of those present approve of the same, but on the first revision to decide by simple majorities. 6. In every case of proposed alteration that may have given rise to discussion, to defer the voting thereupon till the next meeting, whensoever the same shall be required by one-third of those present at the meeting, such intended vote to be announced in the notice for the next meeting. 7. To revise the headings of chapters, pages, paragraphs, italics and punctuation. 8. To refer, on the part of each Company, when considered desirable, to divines, scholars and literary men, whether at home or abroad, for their opinions.

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217

IX. That the work of each company be communicated to the other as it is completed, in order that there may be as little deviation from uniformity in language as possible. X. That the special or by rules for each company be as follows: 1. To make all corrections in writing previous to the meeting. 2. To place all the corrections due to textual considerations on the left-hand margin, and all other corrections on the right-hand margin. 3. To transmit to the chairman, in case of being unable to attend, the corrections proposed in the portion agreed upon for consideration.

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Nockles, P. B. The Oxford Movement in Context: Anglican High Churchmanship, 1760– 1857. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996. Norton, D. ‘The Revised Version of the Bible’. In The Oxford Dictionary of Literary Translation Vol 4: 1790–1900, edited by P. France, 451–57. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006. Norton, D. The King James Bible: A Short History from Tyndale to Today. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011. Norton, D. ‘The KJV at 400: Assessing Its Genius as Bible Translation and Its Literary Influence’. In The King James Version at 400: Assessing Its Genius as Bible Translation and Its Literary Influence, edited by D. G. Burke, J. F. Kutsko and P. H. Towner, 3–27. Atlanta: SBL, 2013. Osborne, W. A. The Revised Version of the New Testament. London: Kegan Paul and Trench, 1882. Palmer, E. The Greek Testament with the Readings Adopted by the Revisers of the Authorised Version. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1882. Parker, K. I. ‘Newton, Locke and the Trinity: Sir Isaac’s Comments on Locke’s: A Paraphrase and Notes on the Epistle of St Paul to the Romans’. SJT 62 (2009): 40–52. Patrick, G. F. J. A. Hort: Eminent Victorian. Almond, 1988. Patrick, G. The Miner’s Bishop: Brooke Foss Westcott. London: Epworth, 2004. Pattison, M. ‘Tendencies of Religious Thought in England, 1688–1750’. In Essays and Reviews, 254–329. London: 1860. Payne, E. A. ‘The Development of Nonconformist Theological Education in the Nineteenth Century, with Special Reference to Regent’s Park College’. In Studies in History and Religion. Presented to Dr. H. Wheeler Robinson, M.A. on His Seventieth Birthday, 229–40. London: Lutterworth, 1942. Perowne, J. J. S. ‘The Revised Version of the New Testament’. The Contemporary Review 40 (July 1881): 151–68. Petzer, J. H. ‘The History of the New Testament – its Reconstruction, Significance and Use in New Testament Textual Criticism’. In New Testament Textual Criticism, Exegesis and History, edited by B. Aland and J. Delobel, 11–36. Kampen: Kok Pharos, 1994. Plumptre, E. H. ‘Publican’. In Dr William Smith’s Dictionary of the Bible [American Edition], edited by H. B. Hackett and E. Abbot, vol. 3, 2636B–2637B. 4 vols. New York: Hurd and Houghton, 1877. Plumptre, E. H. ‘Version, Authorized’. In Dr William Smith’s Dictionary of the Bible [American Edition], edited by H. B. Hackett and E. Abbot, vol. 4, 3424B–3445A. 4 vols. New York: Hurd and Houghton, 1877. Ponson, R. Letters to Archdeacon Travis, in Answer to His Defence of the Three Heavenly Witnesses; 1 John v.7. London: Egerton, 1790. Porter, S. E. ‘The Contemporary English Version and the Ideology of Translation’. In Translating the Bible: Problems and Prospects, edited by R. S. Hess and S. E. Porter, 18–45. London/New York: T&T Clark, 2004 (Sheffield Academic Press, 1999). Potter, H. Considerations for a Candid Mind inquiring after Divine Truth. New York: Pott, Young and Co, 1871. Pranger, G. Philip Schaff (1819–1893): Portrait of an Immigrant Theologian. New York: Peter Lang, 1997. Price, R. British Society 1680–1880: Dynamism, Containment and Change. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999. Prickett, S. Words and the Word: Language, Poetics and Biblical Interpretation. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988.

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INDEX OF BIBLICAL REFERENCES Genesis 24.10 38 Exodus 2.11–12 38 21.23–25 38 Leviticus 24.17–20 38 Deuteronomy 19.21 38 1 Samuel 17.40 35 2 Kings 19.9 38 Isaiah 29.13 119 1 Maccabees 8.2 38 Wisdom of Solomon 17.3 121 17.15 121 Matthew incipit 141, 161 3.6 137 3.11 52, 136, 137, 138, 141, 161 5–16 xiii, 106, 162 5 101, 108 5.1 120, 162 5.14 90, 120 5.15 76 5.16 162 5.17 108

5.22 108, 109, 133 5.25 121, 160 5.37 131, 134, 135 5.41 150 5.46 108, 188 6 136 6.9–13 36, 78, 126–35 6.9 162 6.10 127–8, 129, 132 6.13 131, 132, 133, 135 6.13a 78 6.13b 78 6.24 177 6.26 119–20 6.33 106–7 7.10 160 7.28 124 8.10 131–2 8.12 107 9.8 210 9.10 163 10.10 35 10.29 162 10.39 161 11.7 160 11.19 105 11.23 167 12.23 120 13.19 131 14.19 163 14.20 125 14.26 121 15.6 119 15.9 119, 123 15.28 119 15.37 125 16.18 139 16.21 103 16.24 162 17.21 37 21.6 119

232

Index of Biblical References

21.7 90 23.23 42 Mark 1.8 138 3.31–32 74 6.3 74 6.8 35 6.14–29 39 6.25 39 9.3 196 9.24 196 9.29 37 16 112 16.1–8 112 16.8 110, 112 16.9–20 36, 108–12 16.16 42, 110 Luke 3.16 138 6.45 134 7.35 105 9.3 35 10.4 35 11.2c 129 11.4b 130 12.50 138 15.20 45 22.35 35 22.36 35 John 1 125 1.3 125 1.10 125 1.17 125 1.18 126 1.26 138 1.31 138 1.33 138 1.35 116 5.4 8 5.29 42 7.53–8.11 36 11.19 203 11.31 203

Acts 1.5 137, 138 1.20 18 4.32 116 8.37 37, 188 9.5 37 9.6 37 9.35 38 11.16 138 15.22 120 20.28 18 27 109 Romans 4.1 99 12.9 134 15.1 38 1 Corinthians 7.5 37 2 Corinthians 6.12 209 12.9 203 Galatians 6.10 116 Philippians 2.10 138 Colossians 4.14 38 1 Thessalonians 4.15 209 1 Timothy 3.1 18 3.16 102, 110, 126 4.10 38 Titus 2.13 8 Philemon 24 38

Index of Biblical References Hebrews incipit 141 10.23 38 13.7 139–40 1 Peter 5.2 18

1 John 5.6 74, 75 5.7 8, 40–1, 126 5.8–9 36–7

233

I NDEX OF MODERN AUTHORS Abbot, E. xiv, 8, 37, 95, 99, 124, 137, 142–3, 145, 153, 157, 159, 160, 185–6, 189, 192 Aglionby, F. K. 203 Aland, B. 93, 218 Aland, K. 93, 218 Alford, H. 54, 55, 62, 66, 72, 97, 101, 102, 107, 117, 175 Allen, W. 18 Allison, D. C. 103 Ammerman, D. L. 24 Anger, S. 89 Angus, J. xiv, 52, 63, 69, 72, 73, 82, 90, 116, 118, 120, 122, 131, 135–40, 144, 149, 150–3, 154, 155, 158, 161–2, 171, 172, 177, 178, 179–81, 182, 185, 187–8, 190, 197–9, 202, 210 Arduini, S. 20, 35 Armitage, T. 136 Arnold, M. 34–5, 72 Barr, C. 73 Barr, J. 33 Beard, J. R. 51 Beckett, E. 1–2, 21 Bengel, J. A. 47, 95 Benham, W. 83 Bennett, J. 42 Benson, E. W. 42, 60, 105 Bickersteth, E. 67, 115, 131, 159, 178, 179–80, 202–3 Boer, R. 12 Bray, G. 17, 38 Bruce, F. F. 92 Burgon, J. W. 3, 42, 43, 81, 83, 86, 87, 94–5, 101, 102, 109–12, 135, 154, 156, 162, 202 Burn, A. E. 42 Burridge, R. A. 19, 37 Cadwallader, A. H. 7, 33, 36, 39, 73, 98, 111, 120, 162, 191

Campbell, G. 45 Carlyle, T. 89, 92, 93, 96, 97 Cell, G. C. 45–6 Chadwick, O. 18–19, 20, 107 Chambers, T. W. 28, 144, 204 Chase, F. H. 36 Clark, E. A. 101, 150, 156, 174 Clarke, A. 46 Cmiel, K. 206 Colclough, S. 76, 172, 195, 200 Cook, F. C. 91, 110, 111, 125, 132 Cornish, F. W. 81, 82, 98 Coxe, A. C. 101, 154, 155–7, 162 Dale, R. W. 72 Daniell, D. 11, 18, 25, 35, 45, 46, 49, 52, 58, 86 Darwin, C. 96 Davidson, R. T. 83 Davidson, S. 10, 71 Davies, W. D. 103 Delaura, D. J. 7 Detweiler, R. 35 DeWolfe Howe, M. A. 155 Dickens, C. 35 Disraeli, B. 70, 156 Douglas-Fairhurst, R. 29 Dunbar, A. B. C. 48 Duranti, A. 77 Eadie, J. 35, 55, 72, 73, 94, 101, 198 Eco, U. 12–13 Eliot, G. 32 Ellicott, C. J. 4, 6, 22, 29, 30, 36, 53, 54, 56–7, 58, 65, 67, 68–70, 71, 73, 75, 80, 85, 86, 91, 94, 98, 101, 102, 107, 108, 109, 116, 117, 118, 120, 121, 124, 125, 127, 134, 139, 142–3, 145, 148–53, 157, 161, 164–5, 168–9, 170, 174, 175, 176–7, 186, 187–8, 191, 196, 200, 203, 205, 208 Ellis, I. 9, 32

Index of Modern Authors Farrar, F. W. 12, 37, 41–2, 43, 108 Fea, J. 24 Ferrell, L. A. 19 Field, F. 202, 208–10 Finkelberg, M. 37 Flanders, A. 76, 172, 195, 200 Fromow, G. H. 92 Frost, S. B. 24 Fulke, W. 22 Geddes, A. 36 Gell, R. 45 Gentzler, E. 13, 146, 184 Gibbon, E. 41 Glassford, J. 25 Goffman, E. 7–8, 139 Goldstein, E. 145, 183 Goulburn, E. M. 83, 86, 95, 111 Grant, F. C. 5 Green, S. G. 135 Greg, W. R. 110 Grosskurth, P. 28 Gurry, P. 36, 100 Gutjahr, P. 206 Gwatkin, H. M. 95–6 Hackett, H. B. 39, 145 Hall, I. H. 143–4, 192 Hall, M. 145, 183 Hamlin, H. 7, 18 Hammond, G. 18 Hanson, P. D. 7 Hare, G. E. 38 Hemphill, S. 7, 9, 86, 108 Hitchin, N. W. 61 Hobbes, T. 20 Holland, H. S. 79 Holmes, J. D. 26 Horst, P. van der 36 Hort, F. J. A. 8, 14, 36, 56, 61, 74, 75, 76, 80, 91, 92–108, 109, 111–12, 117, 118, 121, 122, 123, 124, 125–6, 127–30, 132, 134, 135, 137, 166, 179, 184, 197, 198–9, 204 Hovell, M. 70 Humphry, W. G. 41, 54, 87, 102, 112, 124, 129, 131, 152, 171, 178 Jenkins, R. 2 Jones, N. W. 7, 18

235

Jonge, H. J. de 37 Jowett, B. 33, 112 Katz, D. S. 33, 49 Kaye, B. N. 48 Keith, C. 36 Kennedy, B. H. 59–60, 77, 121, 125, 130, 131–2, 147 Kitchin, G. W. 201 Knust, J. W. 36 Kohlenberger, J. R. 36, 90 Krauth, C. P. 28 Larsen, T. 7, 9, 32 Lawton, D. 7, 18, 20 Lecky, W. E. H. 134 Ledger-Lomas, M. 39 Lee, A. 142, 157, 168, 174, 187 Lee, W. 98, 105, 124, 131, 142 Leonard, D. 2 Levine, S. J. 186 Lightfoot, J. B. 6, 9, 21, 31, 33, 34, 39–40, 41, 42, 47–8, 49, 56, 58, 60, 78, 82, 85, 86–7, 91, 93, 95, 107, 117, 118, 122, 123, 125, 127–32, 133, 135, 143, 161, 166, 175, 179 Livingston, J. C. 75 Locke, J. 40 Lowth, R. 36 McGrath, A. 18 McKitterick, D. 196 McLelland, J. S. 2, 20 Mai, A. 99 Marsh, G. P. 29 Marsh, H. 49–51 Marsh, J. 5 Marsh, P. T. 7 Maurice, F. D. 31, 42 Matthew, H. C. G. 2, 26, 166 Mazzini, G. 96 Meacham, S. 32, 68, 86 Merivale, J. A. 78, 97–8, 116 Metzger, B. M. 37, 40, 103 Michaelis, J. D. 50 Middleton, C. 134 Mill, J. 41 Milligan, G. 206 Milligan, W. 73, 117, 125 Morris, J. 31

236

Index of Modern Authors

Moulton, J. H. 48, 117, 202, 206 Moulton, W. F. 4–5, 7, 8, 21, 37, 49, 73, 77, 91, 94, 104, 106, 117, 122, 139, 162, 175, 203, 204 Moulton, W. F. (jnr) 48, 117, 125–6, 202 Murray, R. 26 Naudé, J. A. 13, 22 Nestle, E. 97 Neville, G. 51 Newman, J. H. 12, 25, 26, 31, 32, 73–6 Newsome, D. 96 Newth, S. 6, 59, 65, 69, 73, 77, 85, 87, 90, 98, 99, 100, 102, 103, 106–9, 115, 117, 119–21, 123, 126, 136, 172, 177, 185, 188 Nockles, P. B. 53 Norton, D. 5, 19 Osborne, W. A. 2, 133 Palmer, E. 91, 94, 102, 107, 112, 203–4 Parker, K. I. 120 Pattison, M. 49–50, 51 Payne, E. A. 136 Perowne, J. J. S. 6, 13, 85 Petzer, J. H. 97 Plumptre, E. H. 31, 48, 56 Ponson, R. 41 Porter, S. 163 Potter, H. 151, 154–5 Pranger, G. 170 Price, R. 2 Prickett, S. 17, 20, 29, 35 Prothero, R. E. 79 Pusey, E. B. 31, 80 Reichert, K. 31 Rice, T. 35 Richards, K. 19 Ricoeur, P. 35 Riddle, M. xiv, 138, 187, 190–2 Roberts, A. 73, 77, 91, 102, 112, 143, 145, 148, 149–50, 153, 158, 168, 198 Rogerson, J. 13 Ropes, J. 141, 142 Rowell, G. 43 Rushbrooke, W. G. 94 Rutherford, W. G. 6

Sanday, W. 7, 11, 49, 54, 128 Saunders, E. W. 170 Scanlin, H. P. 27, 47 Schaff, D. S. 48, 99, 136, 186, 187 Schaff, P. xiv, 3, 4, 7, 10–11, 21, 27–8, 47–8, 62, 63, 68, 69, 70, 74, 78, 79, 82, 99, 115, 116, 126, 136, 138, 140, 142, 143–6, 149–61, 163–6, 168–70, 173–4, 179–80, 181–93, 195, 197–8, 199, 202, 204, 206, 207, 208–10 Schlossberg, H. 31 Schneider, F. D. 58 Schofield, R. E. 80 Scholefield, J. 51 Scholz, J. M. A. 41, 93, 100 Schwarz, H. 151 Scrivener, F. H. A. 36, 75, 89, 90, 91, 92–5, 98, 99, 101–5, 107–8, 110–12, 117, 118, 119, 120–1, 122, 123, 124, 127, 128, 137, 172, 188, 203 Scroggs, R. 45, 47 Selwyn, W. 50, 51–3, 66, 100, 120 Seynaeve, J. 26 Simpson, D. 10 Smith, A. D. 147 Smith, G. V. 8, 41, 68, 72–3, 77, 79–87, 91, 106, 110, 116, 118, 124, 126, 129–31, 132–5, 148, 160–1, 172, 185 Smith, J. 80 Smith, M. 17, 38 Smith, W. 47, 56, 144, 145, 165 Spence, H. D. M. 30 Stanley, A. P. 10, 23, 41, 42, 58, 60, 62–3, 67–8, 69, 71, 74–6, 77, 78–80, 84–5, 87, 90, 93, 98, 109, 116, 119, 120–1, 123, 127–8, 139, 148–55, 157, 158, 171, 172–3, 176–7, 193 Stevenson, G. 74 Strickland, W. P. 25, 27 Strong, J. 201 Stunt, T. C. F. 92 Thompson, D. M. 49, 50, 51 Thomson, E. H. 65 Thomson, W. M. 39 Thuesen, P. J. 21, 103, 150, 211 Tischendorf, C. von 57, 92, 99, 100, 101–3, 107, 108, 137

Index of Modern Authors Tregelles, S. P. 47, 73, 89, 92–3, 101–4, 108, 137 Treloar, G. 48, 132 Trench, R. C. 19, 38, 51, 55–6, 93, 101, 118–19, 122, 129, 138 Turner, J. M. 33, 48 Vaughan, C. J. 3, 28–30, 36, 97, 99, 105, 107, 108, 122, 123–4, 127–8, 171, 172, 175, 207–8 Waddington, J. 139 Wallace, D. 97 Ward, H. (M.) 48 Ward, K. 155 Wendell, R. 11 Wesley, J. 45–9, 51 West, A. G. B. 80 Westcott, A. 12, 78, 80, 91, 116 Westcott, B. F. xii, xiv, 2, 3, 6, 8, 9, 12, 14, 18, 21, 22, 30, 31, 33, 34, 35, 36, 37,

237

38, 42, 47–8, 49, 50, 56, 58, 60, 67, 68, 69, 71, 78–80, 86, 93–100, 102, 103–6, 107–8, 109, 111–12, 115, 117, 119–22, 123, 124–38, 143, 160–2, 170, 175, 177, 188, 199, 203, 204, 210 Wheeler, M. 5, 19 Whelan, T. 139 Whitby, D. 41 White, H. J. 128 Wilberforce, R. G. 86 Wilson, D. 18 Witheridge, J. 57 Woolsey, T. 39, 210 Wordsworth, J. 113, 115 Wosh, P. J. 136 Wright, W. A. 39, 42, 67, 188, 191 Zuntz, G. 97

I NDEX OF SUBJECTS American Bible Revision xiii–xiv, 3–4, 7, 10–11, 14, 27, 35, 46, 54, 63, 66, 67, 69, 74, 79, 87, 95, 101, 103, 104, 106, 115, 119, 121, 124, 127, 129, 132, 134, 135–6, 137–8, 140, 141–70, 173–4, 175–6, 178– 93, 197–8, 203–4, 206–7, 209–10 American Bible Society 26–7, 51, 142, 174, 188, 199 American Bible Union 51, 52, 54, 100, 109, 147 American Standard Edition/Version xiv, 14, 141–2, 193, 206, 208 Angus, Joseph (see Index of Modern Authors) attendance 69, 76–7, 106–7, 118, 134–5, 157, 172, 198, 208 and group cohesion 118–22 Authorized Version/King James Version 2, 4, 17–54, 57, 61, 69, 100, 101, 122, 151 authorized/authorization 10, 11, 17–26, 27–9, 31–2, 37, 55, 58, 59, 61, 66, 70, 143–4, 149, 151–2, 168, 176, 192–3, 207 Baptists 51, 52, 63, 72, 73, 82, 90, 109, 139, 147, 149, 154, 156, 169, 171 immersion 52, 135–8 (and see Angus, Joseph) Book of Common Prayer 2, 39, 41, 42, 70, 78, 79, 117, 201 Burgon, Dean John W. (see Index of Modern Authors) Buxton, Charles 23, 26, 59–61 Cavendish, Lord 57, 147 Congress of the United States 24–7, 183 Convocation 2, 19, 23, 56, 57–8, 71, 81 of Canterbury 4, 11, 13, 22, 23, 46, 51– 3, 60–3, 65, 66–9, 78, 84–7, 92, 116, 137, 144, 148–50, 152, 154–5, 156, 158, 171–3, 176–7, 181, 193 of York 3, 59, 65, 66, 159

copyright 27, 104, 143–4, 152, 158, 165, 166, 169, 173, 176–85, 189, 190–1, 193, 195, 197 crisis 9, 31–6, 75, 111, 115, 186 discourse 9, 10, 22, 29–36, 55, 60, 65–6, 145, 165, 186, 192–3, 208 dissent 19, 51, 53–4, 55, 65, 72, 82, 138, 153, 155, 209, 210 Ellicott, Bp Charles (see Index of Modern Authors) English Church Union 65, 84, 86 English colonies 3, 57, 60, 67, 72, 81, 85, 139, 176, 188, 204 English-speaking people, appeal to 3, 4, 10, 62, 65, 67, 144, 145–6, 156, 158, 162, 166–7, 207–8 Established Church 8–10, 30–1, 33, 41, 47, 48, 51, 53, 54–5, 58, 59, 65, 66, 69–72, 73, 75, 76–7, 80, 81, 82, 85, 97, 116, 124, 136, 138, 139, 152, 154, 161, 172, 184–5, 198, 204–10 and disestablishment 8, 9, 83 Evangelical Alliance 63, 149–50, 156, 171 Field, Frederick (see Index of Modern Authors) ‘Five Clergymen’ 54–5, 57 French, English suspicion of 49, 61, 209 Friendship 8, 14, 48, 65, 82, 117, 122 networks 117, 121–2, 126–32, 132, 150, 166, 170, 172, 179 Gladstone, William 1–3, 10, 20, 23, 26, 29, 54, 56–8, 59–62, 68, 74, 86, 90, 109, 166–7, 171 Gospel of Mark, Longer Ending 36, 42, 108–12 Shorter Ending 111

Index of Subjects Gospels 18, 30, 32, 36, 39, 40, 50–1, 93, 94, 99, 101–2, 103, 104, 106, 107, 125–6, 128, 129, 130, 159, 161, 164, 168, 175, 177, 179, 190 Greek text xiv, 2, 5, 6, 8, 9, 11, 14, 25, 28, 34, 35, 36–43, 46–7, 50, 55, 56, 58–9, 62, 70, 89–113, 119, 121, 122–31, 133, 134, 136–8, 162, 177, 202, 203, 205–6 manuscripts 26, 36–7, 40, 46–7, 89–93, 95–9, 102–3, 104, 107, 111, 127, 128, 135, 161, 188, 210 harmony 4, 27–8, 39, 115–17, 118, 121, 136, 144, 155–67, 189–90, 198–9, 206, 211 Heywood, James 53–4 history, historiography 8, 9, 17, 18, 31, 33–5, 32–3, 34, 36, 39, 48–9, 50, 75, 89–96, 110, 112, 133, 135, 147 Hort, Fenton J. A. (see Index of Modern Authors) House of Commons 59–62, 169 humour 8–9, 86, 119–21, 125, 188, 210 identity 7–10, 26–7, 82, 146–7 and independence 4, 10, 26, 139, 145, 165, 170, 186–7, 189–90, 193, 209, 211 and translation 7–11, 14–15, 115–40, 163, 184–5, 208–10 Jerusalem Chamber 3, 63, 77, 80, 83, 109, 113, 116, 120, 121, 129, 136, 150, 163, 172, 209 language 7–11, 17–18, 19–20, 33–4, 35–43, 62, 69–71, 77, 105–6, 116–17, 125, 146–7 American English 5, 10, 11, 29, 39, 141–70 Bible and (the) faith 20, 21, 25–6, 28– 30, 31, 33, 40–3, 47, 73–6, 102, 110– 12, 124, 125–6, 137, 147, 183, 201 Lightfoot, Joseph Barber (see Index of Modern Authors) literalism 3, 5, 6, 7, 19, 28, 35, 162, 166, 199, 202, 203, 205 Lord’s Prayer 36, 78, 126–35, 162 marketing 20, 46, 52, 121, 167, 179–80, 182–3, 190, 199–202, 205–7

239

(and see Copyright) Marsh, Herbert (see Index of Modern Authors) methodism (Wesleyanism) 46, 47, 49, 71, 72, 156, 204 Moberly, George 54, 85, 119, 127, 175, 178 Morison, Robert 141–2 Moulton, William F. (see Index of Modern Authors) New English Bible 170 Newman, John Henry (see Index of Modern Authors) nonconformist 8, 9, 18–19, 35, 41, 45–9, 51–2, 54, 57, 62, 66–7, 71–3, 75, 76, 77, 82, 84–5, 109, 115–16, 124, 136–40, 143, 144, 149, 152, 154, 171, 172, 180, 185, 197, 198–9, 204, 205–6, 208–11 protestantism 21, 45, 52, 61, 73–4, 153–5, 206, 207, 209 publishers 14–15, 143, 176–87, 188–93, 195–7, 199, 202–4, 206–7 Cambridge University Press (Syndics) 39, 67, 76, 91, 143, 148, 156, 158, 159, 165, 166, 167, 168, 169, 176–7, 178, 182, 183, 185, 190, 191, 193, 196, 199–200, 201 Eyre & Spottiswoode 176 Funk 195–6 John Murray 1–2, 3 Macmillan 104–6 Oxford University Press (Delegates) 39, 67, 76, 91, 143, 148, 156, 158, 159, 166, 167, 168, 169, 172–3, 176–7, 178–9, 182, 183, 185, 191, 192, 193, 195, 196, 200 Smith, Elder & Co 177 T&T Clark 190–1 Thomas Nelson 193, 195, 200 Revised Standard Version 20, 45, 119, 170 Revised Version passim and the Appendix 3–4, 39, 77, 143, 161, 167–70, 192, 197, 203, 206–7, 209 cross-references xiv, 141, 175, 193, 203, 204 guiding principles 11, 67–8, 69–70, 73, 76, 78, 202, 215–17

240

Index of Subjects

italics 118, 119, 123, 124, 127, 175, 216 margins 8, 11, 13, 19, 30, 37, 52, 62, 90, 91, 99, 100, 103, 107, 108, 112, 118, 125, 127–8, 130, 131–2, 133, 134, 137–8, 139, 141, 161, 167, 175, 177, 190–1, 200, 203, 215, 216 momentum for 7–11, 28–43, 45–58 paragraphs 52, 112, 161, 162, 175, 200–1, 205, 216 punctuation 91, 127, 128, 216 text and translation 9, 11, 12, 14, 35, 36–43, 46, 47, 52, 54, 58, 59, 60–1, 70, 76, 77, 91, 95, 99, 100, 105, 106–8, 124, 127, 133, 139, 153, 159, 160, 163, 165, 171, 172, 175, 184–5, 202, 205 two recensions 166, 185, 186, 190, 192 Rheims-Douay version 17–18, 73, 127–8, 153 Roman Catholicism 12, 14, 18, 25, 26, 31, 61, 73–4, 81, 82, 128, 130, 153 Schaff, Philip (see Index of Modern Authors) Scholarship, objectives of 7, 10, 15, 26, 35, 36, 47, 49, 53, 54–5, 62, 66, 72, 75–6, 86, 112–13, 117, 119, 122, 143, 144–7, 154–7, 165, 170, 187, 189, 193, 204–6, 209–11 Scrivener, Frederick J. A. (see Index of Modern Authors) Selwyn, William (see Index of Modern Authors) Shaftesbury, Lord 41, 57, 59–61, 74, 116 Smith, G. Vance (see Index of Modern Authors) Society of Biblical Literature 170 Stanley, Arthur P. (see Index of Modern Authors) Study Bible 38, 47, 79, 112–13, 115, 199, 202–4 Subscribers/subscriptions 27, 150, 153, 156–7, 164, 165–6, 167, 171–4, 184, 185

Tait, Abp Archibald 58, 78, 82, 83, 86, 172, 199 Textus Receptus 5, 54, 56, 57, 77, 90, 92, 96, 101, 110 Thayer, Henry xiv, 4, 101, 134, 141–2, 153, 160, 161, 168, 189, 191, 193, 203, 206 Translation xiv, 17–19, 28, 32, 46, 100, 109, 130, 147, 171, 172, 202, 205 faithfulness 51, 69–70, 71, 76, 100, 124, 162, 206 negotiation 3–5, 42, 69–70, 95–103, 106–8, 123–4, 137–8, 153, 163, 211 politics 4, 7–10, 21–3, 50, 52–63, 74, 116, 136, 169 theory 7, 11–14, 20, 25, 34–8, 47, 105, 146, 184, 186–7, 203 Trench, Richard (see Index of Modern Authors) Troutbeck, John xii, 69, 98, 106, 118, 120–1, 122, 139, 151, 169, 180, 186, 188, 191 Unitarian 5, 8, 14, 31, 41, 51, 63, 68, 73, 79–80, 81–4, 85, 87, 91, 109–10, 116, 126, 132–5, 148, 154, 156, 157, 172 University competition 5, 7, 11, 47, 82 philology and poetry 5, 7, 9, 34–6, 49–50, 75, 90, 210 Vaughan, Charles John (see Index of Modern Authors) Wesley, John 45–49, 51 translation, notes of New Testament 45–9 Westcott, Brooke Foss (see Index of Modern Authors) Westminster Scandal/Sacrilege 14, 75, 78–87, 115, 117, 121, 148, 156 Wilberforce, Bp Samuel 56–7, 58–60, 65– 9, 71, 75, 76, 84–6, 100, 118, 127, 144, 149, 151–2, 154–5, 176–7, 180