THE BRITISH CRITIC, For JANUARY, 1802. Tanta eft Chriftianarum profunditas literarum, ut in eis quotidiè proficerem, fi eas folas ab ineunte pueritiâ ufque ad decrepitam fenectutem, maximo otio, fummo ftudio, meliore ingenio, conarer addifcere. AUGUSTIN. Such is the profundity of Chriftian Literature, that were we to apply to it exclufively, from early youth to the decay of age, with all poffible leifure, the utmost attention, and the fineft genius, we might daily be improving in it. ART. I. Critical Remarks on the Hebrew Scriptures: corref= ponding with a new Tranflation of the Bible. By the Rev. Alexander Geddes, LL. D. Vol. I. containing Remarks on the Pentateuch. 4to. Il. 11s. 6d. Johnson. OUR 1800. UR readers will probably recollect, that Dr. Geddes's tranflation of the Bible, fo far as it is yet publifhed, with his explanatory notes, has already been the fubject of our criticifm*. In thofe volumes we found fomething to commend, but more to cenfure: we pronounced, however, our judgment, of approbation or difapprobation, with that impartiality for which we truft the public gives us credit. The critical notes now publifhed by Dr. Geddes are partly philological, exhibiting the varitus readings which, upon the authority of MSS. or ancient verfions, he has thought proper to adopt; the alterations which he has made in many paffages, upon mere conjecture, without any authority; and giving his reafons for the new fenfes which he puts upon many others, without either various reading or conjectural emendation. In an attentive perufal of thefe philological notes, we have not feen reafon to retract the opinion we formerly gave, upon particular paffages of his tranflation, and his explanations of them. In general, we think Dr. Geddes too ready to adopt various readings upon the authority of the verfions, without the confent of the collated MSS. and too apt to indulge conjecture. He places great reliance on the Samaritan text, and the Verfion of the LXX. With refpect to the former it is not our intention, at prefent, to enter into the difcuffion of its merits, which have been too much extolled, perhaps, by fome, and undervalued by others. It certainly deferves great attention, and has furnished many valuable readings, and cleared up paffages of great difficulty; we cannot, however, agree with Dr. Geddes in the opinion, that the facred text is in better prefervation in the SAMARITAN than in the HEBREW CODE. With refpect to the version of the LXX, we agree with Dr. Geddes in the opinion of its general excellence, as far as the Pentateuch is concerned, to which might be added the book of Pfalms and the Proverbs. A learned critic, to whofe opinions we pay just refpect, has indeed lately called in queftion the authority of this verfion for eftablishing various readings*, and has gone fo far as to fay, that if the MSS. which thofe tranflators used were now extant, they would probably be of less authority (for reafons which he afligns) than the Maforetical text. Yet we apprehend, that the critic in queftion ought to be underftood as fpeaking generally, and in the grofs, of the whole of that Greek tranflation, which now goes under the name of the Septuagint a work, probably of perfons of very unequal abilities, in different ages; and, in the very best and earliest parts of it, by no means the unadulterated verfion of Ptolemy's tranflators. With respect to the Prophets, we think the Greek tranflators of their works muft either have been furnished with very bad MSS. or muft have been very il! qualified to make use of good ones. But, in the Pentateuch, we agree with Dr. Geddes that the verfion is undoubtedly, in general, excellent; and that the various readings, which it fuggefts, deserve confiderable attention. We think however at the fame time, that Dr. G. puts in it too implicit a faith; and we cannot accede to the opinion, that its readings are, in every inftance, or even generally, to be preferred to the prefent Hebrew text, or its fenfe to that of our *We gave the paffage in our laft, p. 573. public tranflation, or of other verfions. On the contrary, we think that, in many important paffages, its readings have been corrupt, and that the fenfe it gives is erroneous. In this part, however, of his work, we shall not attempt to withhold from Dr. Geddes the praise of great diligence, in the collation of the ancient verfions; though we may, in many inftances, impeach his judgment in the refult: at the fame time allowing. that he has difcerned the true fenfe of not a few passages, ill understood by those who have preceded him. But the philological difcuffions are by no means the most important part of these critical notes, nor that on which we mean to bestow our principal attention. The great object of Dr. Geddes's laborious undertaking, as appears from his Preface to this volume, is nothing less than to fettle the faith of Chriftians upon a fure foundation; which hitherto, in his opinion, has refted upon unstable ground. The majority of Chriftians indeed, he thinks, have no ground for the faith which they profefs; and Alexander Geddes is raifed up, after the lapfe of eighteen centuries, during which the faithful have been wandering in mists and darkness, to fet these matters right, to reform the principles of belief, and to fix our faith upon an immoveable bafis. The method taken, by this CATHOLIC CHRISTIANT, for by that name he defires to be called, of ftrengthening foundations, feems very extraordinary. For it confilts in tearing up all the foundations, which the learning and the piety of the divines of former ages had been employed to lay. It would, perhaps, be doing more juftice to his great enterprife, to fay, that it is an attempt to tear up the foundations which the SPIRIT OF GOD has laid. He attacks the credit of Mofes, in every part of his character; as an hiftorian, a legillator, and a moralift. Whether Mofes was himself the writer of the Pentateuch is, with Dr. G. a matter of doubt. But the writer, whoever he might be, is one, he tells us, who upon all occafions gives into the marvellous, adorns his narrative with fictions of the interference of the Deity, when every thing happened in a natural way; and, at other times, dreffes up fable in the garb of true hiftory. The Hiftory of the Creation is, according to him, a fabulous cofmogony. The tory of the Fall a mere Mythos, in which nothing but the mere imagination of the commentators, poffeffing more piety than judgment, could have difcovered either a feducing devil, or the promise of a Saviour. It is a fable, he afferts, intended for the purpose of perfuading the vulgar, that knowledge is the root of all evil, and the defire of it a crime. Mofes was, it feems, a man of great talents, as Numa and Lycurgus were. But + Ibid, p. vi. P. 49 et alibi. * Preface, p. v. A 2 like like them he was a falfe pretender to perfonal intercourse with the Deity, with whom he had no immediate communication. He had the art to take advantage of rare, but natural occurrences, to perfuade the Ifraelites that the immediate power of God was exerted to accomplish his projects. When a violent wind happened to lay dry the head of the gulf of Suez, he perfuaded them that God had made a paffage for them through the fea; and the narrative of their march is embellished with circumstances of mere fiction. In the delivery of the Decalogue, he took advantage of a thunder-ftorm, to perfuade the people that JEHOVAH had defcended upon Mount Sinai; and he counterfeited the voice of God, by a perfon, in the height of the ftorm, fpeaking through a trumpet. He presumes even that God had no immediate hand in delivering the Ifraelites from the Egyptian bondage*. The story of Balaam and his Afs has had a parallel in certain incidents of Dr. Geddes's own lifet!! The laws of Mofes are full of pious frauds (witness, the rite of the water of Jealoufy). His animal facrifices were inftitutions of ignorance and fuperftition. The conquest of Canaan was a project of unjust ambition, executed with cruelty; and the morality of the Decalogue itself is not without its imperfections. The old foundations being thus, in Dr. Geddes's conceit, demolished, we confefs ourselves at a lofs to difcover what new foundations he has laid, or, indeed, attempted to lay. In the end, he comes to this very plain confeffion. "The God of Mofes, Jehovah, if he really be fuch as he is described in the Pentateuch, is not the God whom I adore, nor the God whom I could love." He adds, indeed, "the God whom I adore and love, is the Father of our Lord Jefus," &c.—We wish to give Dr. Geddes credit for the faith which he profeffes in our Lord Jefus Chrift; but we are forry that we shall have occafion to remark fome paffages in his critical notes, which feem to us not perfectly confiftent with thefe profeffions. But we judge him not, further than he pronounces his own condemnation. We are fenfible, that very erroneous and extravagant opinions have fometimes been entertained in the minds of perfons, of whom, it may be hoped, that they were not deftitute of fome general belief in the Saviour. But we cannot think that man's faith built upon any ftrong foundation, who, with fome of the worst of the ancient Gnoftics, fets the Old Teftament at variance with the New ; who perceives not, that the Religion under the Law and Gospel was in substance the fame, only differing in the external forms: "Jefus Chrift, the fame yesterday, to-day, and for ever." Dr. Geddes, however, is fo enamoured of his own opinions, that, in the clofe + Vid. pp. 394, 474 * Vid. pp. 185, 222. of of this volume, he invokes the Latian Mufe, to clothe them with the ornaments of poetry*. For our own parts we confefs, whether in plain English or in Latin verfe, we read them with horror and indignation. It must appear to our readers, that the general account which we have thus laid before them, of the object and contents of Dr. Geddes's work, amounts to a direct charge of blafphemy against the author. That heavy charge we would With what fuccess, we leave our claffical readers to judge, when we tell them that, in twenty-eight lines, there are two grofs falfe quantities, and one verfe which will not fcan, befides plenty of bald and wretched Latin. Left this fhould be thought impoffible, take the proof. Quæris...refponfum hoc habe, Amice, meum. This is meant for a pentameter, but is no verse at all. The firft fyllable of Numa always is short. Ah! poffem tantùm Chrifti perficere dicta. Every learner knows that the i in the compounds of facio is inevitably fhort. Then for Latinity: En ego te, poffum quomodo, Chrifte, fequor, &c. We cannot think that his friend, Dr. Difney, to whom they appear to be addressed, would be much delighted by these verses; which have many more faults than we can here enumerate. But the Latian Mufes were always very scornful to Dr. Geddes. In the year 1790, he addreffed, without much neceffity, a complimentary Copy of Sapphics to his darling, the National Affembly of France. In this egregious effort of poetical enthufiafm, the author makes Louis XII. and Henry IV. (whom he ftyles Divi) rejoice, on account of the poor defpoiled Louis XVI, Galliam talem meruiffe Regem Tandem aliquando! Of the civic youth, he says, Velle teftetur patrias ad aras, Elegancies of this kind are thickly fown through every ftapza; fo that, though measure is a little better preferved (and but little) than in thefe latter verfes, the contempt of every fpecies of claffic elegance, either in construction or expreffion, is carried beyond all kind of example. Why a man fhould come forward, without call or neceffity, to prove to all the world a fhameful ignorance, which he might have either cured or concealed, it is not easy to say. But fuch is the fact. Dr. G. is a writer alfo of Macaronic verfes. Can it be unreasonable to expect that a man who proves himself a fhallow fciolift in fuch things, will ultimately be found fo in others? be |