In reply to the Reviewer's document, Section II, entitled, "On the Bible MSS in general" we will note the following points:

Nineteen our of every twenty Greek manuscripts, according to some authors, (Tregelles, Account p.138), ninety-five out of every one hundred, according to other authors, (Hastings Encyclopedia, 916) and according to still other authors, ninety-nine out of every one hundred (Burgon, Revision Revised, pp 11,12) Greek manuscripts are in favor of the Received Text, My Reviewers (Section 2, pp 18,19) give authorities to say that there are 3000-4000 manuscripts (MSS); and less than 160 of these are uncials. An uncial MSS is one whose every letter is a capital; while a cursive MSS is like our writing, running, all letters connected and made without lifting the hand, With the uncials the writer must lift the hand to make each letter, In other words, 50 or less Greek manuscripts out of every one thousand-.will favor the Greek New Testament-from which the Revised Version was translated, while 950 or more out of every 1000 Greek manuscripts will favor the Greek New Testament from which the King James Bible was translated. In the face of this significant fact we are led to ask how did it come about that with such a small quantity of evidence on its side the Greek text underlying the Revised Version secured as great a place as it did? Dr, Hort, who was an opponent of the Received Text and who dominated the English New Testament Revision Committee, says:

"An overwhelming proportion of the text in all known cursive manuscripts except a few is, as a matter of fact, identical." - Hort's "Introduction".

Thus strong testimonies can be given not only to the Received Text, but also to the phenomenal ability of the manuscript scribes, writing in different countries and in different ages, to preserve an identical Bible in the overwhelming mass of manuscripts.

That the large number of conflicting readings which higher critics have gathered must come from only a few manuscripts is evident.

Since so much is said about the oldest manuscripts, or the most ancient manuscripts, and also about the uncials, it would be well here to quote from an author which my Reviewers have used a great deal, to show the relationship in style, in numbers, and in time, existing between the uncials and the cursives:

"The oldest manuscripts of the Greek-New Testament now in existence were written in the fourth century. Two splendid volumes, one now in the Vatican Library at Rome, the other at St. Petersburg, are assigned by all competent critics to this period. Two more were probably written in the fifth century; one of these is the glory of our own British Museum, the other is in the National Library at Paris. In addition to these there are perhaps twelve very fragmentary manuscripts of the same century, which contain only some small portions of the New Testament. From the sixth century, twenty-seven documents have come down to us, but only five of these contain so much as single book complete. From the seventh we have eight small fragments; from the eighth six manuscripts of some importance and eight fragments. So far the stream of tradition has run in a narrow bed. Time has, no doubt, caused the destruction of many copies; but it is also probable that during these centuries not so many copies were made as was the case subsequently, The style of writing then in use for works of literature was slow and laborious. Each letter was a capital, and had to be written separately; and the copying of a manuscript must have been long and toilsome task, In the ninth century, however, a change was made of great importance in the history of the Bible, and indeed of all ancient Greek literature, In place of the large capitals hitherto employed, a small style of letter came into use, modified in shape so as to admit of being written continuously, without lifting the pen after every letter, writing became easier and quicker; and to this fact we may attribute the marked increase in the number of manuscripts of the Bible which have come down to us from the ninth and tenth centuries," F.D.Fenyon, "Our Bible and the Ancient Manuscripts," pp 96, 97.

You will note from this quotation that there are only two manuscripts of the fourth century; two of the fifth century; twenty-seven from the sixth century, only five of which contain so much as a single book complete; eight from the seventh century, small fragments only; from the eighth century only six, also small fragments. In other words, if we were to put together all the manuscripts from the fourth to the eighth century inclusive, looking at them from their broken and fragmentary condition, we probably would not have more than a few New Testaments complete, But when we reach the ninth century, - what a great change takes place! Thousands of manuscripts come down to us from this period, 950 or more out of every 1,000 of them practically being the Textus Receptus, On the other hand the larger proportion of the uncials also witness to the Textus Receptus.

Here again, however, another fact stands out silhouetted against the sky of Biblical history. In view of the strong criticism launched against the Received Text by the advocates of the other type, would it be surprising to learn that the outstanding leader of the opponents to the Textus Receptus, Dr. Hort, testifies to the fact to which all authorities must agree, that the Greek New Testament of the Textus Receptus type, can be traced back very positively to the year 350 A.D. and is as old as any known manuscript, Hort says;

"The fundamental text of the late extant Greek MSS generally is beyond all question identical with the dominant Antiochian or Graeco-Syrian text of the second half of the fourth century. The community of text implies on genealogical grounds a community of parentage; the Antiochian Fathers and the bulk extant MSS written from about three or four to ten or eleven centuries later must have had, in the greater number extant variations, a common original either contemporary, with or older than our oldest extant MSS, which thus lose at once whatever presumption of exceptional purity they might have derived from their exceptional antiquity alone," -- Hort`s Introduction, p.92

This gives a greater antiquity to the T.R, than to the Greek Text of the Revised Version.

Immediately following its birth, Protestantism sustained one hundred years of terrible conflict with Roman Catholicism. At the beginning of this 100 years, the Textus Receptus made its appearance in the lands dominated by the Papacy, brought forth by the hands of Erasmus. During the 1,000 years previous the Greek language and literature was practically unknown in this territory. Protestantism and the Textus Receptus were twins; they both saw the light practically the same year. After 100 years of anxious and dreadful conflict with cruel armies and corrupted literature, the King James Version was brought forth. It was destined to have splendid success and rise to a commanding position in the world. The King James Bible had hardly begun its career before armies commenced to fall upon it. Though it has held its place among us for three hundred years in splendid leadership, a striking phenomenon, nevertheless, as the years increase, the attacks become more furious. If the book were a dangerous document, a source of corrupting, influence and a nuisance, we would wonder why it has been necessary to assail it since it would naturally die of its own weakness. But when it is a divine blessing of great worth, a faultless power of transforming influence, who can they be who are so stirred up as to deliver against it one assault after another? Great theological seminaries participate. Point us out anywhere, any situation similar concerning the sacred books of any other religion, or even of Shakespeare, or of any other work of literature. Especially since 1814 when the Jesuits were restored by the order of the Pope, if they needed restoration, have the attacks by Catholic scholars on the King James Bible and by other scholars who are Protestants in name, become bitter I quote from William Palmer:

"For it must be said that the Roman Catholic or Jesuitical system of argument, the work of the Jesuits from the sixteenth century to the present day evinces an amount of Learning and dexterity, a subtlety of reasoning, a sophistry, a plausibility, combined, of which ordinary Christians have but little idea... Those who do so ... (take the trouble to investigate) find that, if tried by the rules of right reasoning, the argument is defective, assuming the points which should be proved; that it is logically false, being grounded on sophisms; that it rests in many cases on quotations which are not genuine... on passages which, when collated with the original, are proved to be wholly inefficacious as proofs." Wm. Palmer, Narrative of Events on the Tracts." p. 23

Another quotation will show that the counter-reformation launched by the Jesuits, and having for its purpose the destruction of Protestantism, concentrated its most effective opposition against the Bible as the strongest bulwark of Protestantism. I quote from Von Dobschutz:

"Wherever the so called Counter-Reformation, started by the Jesuits, gained hold of the people, the vernacular was suppressed and the Bible kept from the laity. So eager were the Jesuits to destroy the authority of the Bible--the paper Pope of the Protestants, as they contemptuously called it--that they even did not refrain from criticizing its genuineness and historical value."-VonDobschutz, "The Influence of the Bible" p.136

A quotation from another source:

"A French priest, Richard Simon (1638-1712), was the first who subjected the general questions concerning the Bible to a treatment which was at once comprehensive in scope and scientific in method. Simon is the forerunner of modern Biblical criticism." Catholic Encyclopedia, Vol. 4, p.492.

"In 1753 Jean Astruc, a French Catholic physician of considerable note, published a little book, 'Conjectures sur les memoires originaux dont it parait que Moise s'est servi pour composer le livre de la Genese,' in which he conjectured, from the alternating use of two names of God in the Hebrew Genesis, that Moses had incorporated therein two pre-existing documents, one of which employed Elohim and the other Jehovah. The idea attracted little attention till it was taken up by a German scholar, who however, claims to have made the discovery independently. This was Johann Gottfried Eichorn...Eichorn greatly developed Astruc's hypothesis." Idem, pp. 492, 493.

"Yet it was a Catholic priest of Scottish origin, Alexander Geddes (1737-1802) who broached a theory of the origin of the Five Books (to which he attached Josue) exceeding in boldness either Simon's or Eichorn's. This was the well-known 'Fragment' hypothesis, which reduced the Penteteuch to a collection of fragmentary sections partly of Mosaic origin, but put together in the reign of Solomon. Geddes' opinion was introduced into Germany in 1805 by Vater," - Idem, p. 493.

"Some of the earliest critics in the field of collecting variant readings of the New Testament in Greek, were Mill and Bengel. We have Dr. Kenrick, Catholic Bishop of Philadelphia in 1849, as authority that they and others had examined these manuscripts recently exalted as superior such as the Vaticanus, Alexandrinus, Bezas and Ephraem, and had pronounced in favor of the Vulgate, the Catholic Bible." - quoted in Rheims and Douay by Dr. H. Cotton, p.155.

It is a striking fact that the new science of textual criticism, first fashioned in the hands of the Jesuits made no progress until we reached time of the end. As this was the hour when we also had reached perilous time and men have become lovers of pleasure more than lovers of God, and have been turning away from truth unto fables, the soil of the Protestant world was fertile for receiving the seeds of the new so-called science of Biblical criticism. We quote now from Dr. Kenyon:

"But with the nineteenth century a new departure was made, and we reach the region of modern textual criticism, of which the principle is, setting aside the 'Received Text' to construct a new text with the help of the best authorities now available. The author of this new departure was C. Lachmann (1793-1851), who published in 1842-50 a text constructed according to principles of his own devising. Out of all the mass of manuscripts collected by Mill, Wetstein, and their colleagues, he selected a few of the best (A, B, C, and sometimes D, with the fragments P, Q, T, Z, in the Gospels; D, E2 in the Acts; D2, G3, H3, in the Pauline Epistles; together with some of the best MSS of the Latin Vulgate, and a few of the Fathers), and from these he endeavored to recover the text of the New Testament as it was current in the Fourth Century (when the earliest of these authorities were written) by the simple method of counting the authorities in favor of each reading, and always following the majority. Lachmann's method was too mechanical in its rigidity, and the list of his authorities was too small." -'Our Bible in the Ancient Authorities" pp 117,118 (Emphasis mine)

While Dr, Kenyon, who favors the modern criticism of the Bible criticized the list of authorities used by Lachmann as being too small, nevertheless he believes that it was productive of improvements on the Received Text. "Lachmann was followed by the two great critics of the last generation, Tischendorf and Tregelles." Tischendorf's (1815-1874) outstanding claim upon history is his discovery of the Sinaitic manuscript in the convent at the foot of Mt.Sinai. Mankind is indebted to this prodigious worker for having published manuscripts not accessible to the average reader. Nevertheless, his discovery of Codex Aleph toppled his judgment. Previous to that time he had brought out seven different Greek New Testaments, declaring that the seventh was perfect and could not be superseded. Then, to the scandal of textual criticism, after he had found the Sinaitic Manuscript, he brought out his eighth Greek New Testament, which was different from his seventh in 3572 places. (Burgon and Miller, Traditional Text, p.7). Moreover, he demonstrated how textual critics can artificially bring out Greek New Testaments when, at the request of a French Publishing House, Firmin Didot, he edited an edition of the Greek Testament for Catholics, conforming it to the Latin Vulgate. (Ezra Abbott, Unitarian Review, March 1875).

Tregelles (1813-1875) followed Lachmann's principles by going back to what he considered the ancient manuscripts, and like him, he ignored the Received Text and the great mass of cursive manuscripts. (Schaff, "Companion of Greek Testament" p.264). of him, Ellicott says:

"His critical principles, especially his general principles of estimating and regarding modern manuscripts, are new, perhaps justly, called in question by many competent scholars;" and that his text is rigid and mechanical, and sometimes fails to disclose that critical instinct and peculiar scholarly sagacity which is so much needed in the great and responsible work of constructing a critical text of the Greek New Testament," Ellicott, "Considerations", pp. 47-48

In his splendid work which convinced Gladstone that the Revised Version was a failure, Sir Edmund Beckett, speaking of the principles which controlled such men as Lachmann, Tischendorf, Tregelles, Westcott and Hort in their modern canons of criticism, says:

"If two, or two-thirds of two dozen men steeped in Greek declare that they believe that he (John) ever wrote that he saw in a vision seven angels clothed in stone with golden girdles, which is the only honest translation of their Greek, and defend it with such arguments as these, I.. .distrust their judgment on the "preponderance of evidence' for new readings altogether, and all their modern canons of criticism, which profess to settle the relative value of manuscripts, with such results as this and many others.", Beckett, "The Revised N.T." p.181

8. The Real Method of Handling MSS.

In regard to the other method of handling manuscripts which we believe is the right method and which prevailed until these subtle influences began to work which resulted in the strange and mysterious principles of some textual critics in the last one hundred years, I quote again from Dr. Kenyon:

"Of Westcott and Hort we have spoken at length in the preceding chapter, showing how they revived Griesbach's principle, and worked it out with greater elaboration and with a far fuller command of material. Their names close, for the present, the list of editors of the Greek New Testament whose attention has been directed expecially to its text rather than (as Alford, Lightfoot, Weiss, and others) its interpretation, It is right, however, to mention the names of one or two scholars who have devoted their attention to textual studies without actually publishing revised texts of their own. Chief among those is F.H.A. Scrivener, who, besides editing the manuscripts D and F2 and collating a number of cursives, wrote, in his "Introduction to the Criticism of the New Testament," the standard history of the New Testament text. J.W. Burgon, Dean of Chichester, was another scholar of immense industry, learning and zeal in textual matters, although his extreme distaste for innovations led him to oppose, rightly or wrongly, nearly every new departure in this field or in any other. To Scrivener and Burgon may especially be attributed the defense of the principle that all the available authorities should, so far as possible be taken into consideration, and not only the most ancient.. They attached much weight to the evidence of the great mass of MSS. headed by A and C, while they opposed the tendency of Westcott and Hort, and their followers to defer almost invariably to the testimony of B (Vaticanus) and Aleph (Sinaiticus).", "Our Bible and the Ancient Manuscripts" pp. 119,120. (Emphasis mine)

For sometime past there has been an aggressive and wide-spread effort to discredit the Waldenses, to discredit Erasmus and to discredit Luther. This campaign has resulted in practically obscuring the real history and real character and the great work of the Waldenses. The first seven counts in Section II of my Reviewers' document claim: (l) Erasmus, himself was a Catholic. (2) His Bible was a Catholic Vulgate. (3) He dedicated his New Testament to Pope Leo X and printed the Pope's letter of approval. (4) The Greek New Testament of Erasmus was not the first one printed, though it was the first put into circulation. (5) The first Greek Testament was printed by Cardinal Ximenes' in 1514. (6) Erasmus knew of Cardinal Ximenes' Greek Testament and used it to make over 100 corrections in his own fourth edition. (7) Cardinal Ximenes had a number of scholars to work on his edition, while Erasmus worked alone on his text for publication for less than a year.

I will answer the seven points in order.

(1) Erasmus, himself, was a Catholic my Reviewers urge. Of course he was. At that moment the whole western civilized world was Catholic. There never would have been any Protestantism, except a divergence started somewhere. Erasmus started that divergence. Erasmus could not have appeared from thin air a full-fledged Protestant and having in his hand a finally perfected Textus Receptus. That being so, my Reviewers must admit that some man had to start somewhere to produce the divergence. Very naturally before he started he would have to be a Catholic, or as the famous proverb has it: "Erasmus laid the egg and Luther hatched it." Further, it might be claimed that Luther was a Catholic when he burned the Pope's Bull, In fact historians show that Protestantism was never finally and fully separated from Catholicism until the Council of Trent was broken up by the armies of Charles the Fifth in 1564.

(2) My Reviewers claim that Erasmus' own Bible was the Catholic Vulgate which he printed in a second edition along with his Greek Testament. This they claim was a fact "both before and after he issued his Greek Testament". But why did they not tell all the facts? When Erasmus published the Bibles in parallel he did not confine himself, as my Reviewers state, to printing only two Bibles in parallel, the Greek Text and the Catholic Vulgate. He printed three in parallel, the third parallel Bible being Erasmus' recension or revision of the Latin Vulgate. I quote again from Dr. Scrivener:

"The fourth edition (dated March, 1527) contains the text in three parallel columns, The Greek, the Latin Vulgate and Erasmus' recension of it. Scrivener,"Introduction", Vol. 2, page 186.

Also another quote from Dr. Miller:

"A fourth edition exhibited the text in three parallel columns, the Greek, the Latin Vulgate, and a recesion of the latter by Erasmus." Miller's Textual Guide, p.9

See also Tregelles, "Account of the Printed Text", p.21. It was the third column, the revised Vulgate, that brought down the storm on Erasmus' head. I wonder how far my Reviewers have misled you? My Reviewers ought to know that Erasmus' edition contained the Greek text of Erasmus, the old Catholic Vulgate and his own revised Vulgate. They left the impression that Erasmus was still clinging to the Catholic Vulgate. They gave no hint that he had revised it. I quote their statement now that you may see how far from fact their statement is. They say: "His own Bible was the Catholic Vulgate, both before and after he issued his Greek New Testament and he printed the Vulgate along with his Greek Testament in the second edition." (Section II, p.l) Why did they not tell you, if they knew, that in the fourth edition, he printed his revision of the Vulgate also.

(3) My Reviewers feel that they have given us a strong argument because Erasmus dedicated his Greek New testament to Pope Leo X and printed the latter's letter of approval in his second edition, but they forget that for 1,000 years Europe, with very small exception, had known nothing of Greek manuscripts and Greek literature, as Dr. Hort points out. (Hort's Introduction, p.142) Pope Leo was not a prophet. He could not foresee the colossal effects in the strength of the Greek New Testament of Erasmus. Pope Leo had no event from the past of a strong nature by which he could predict the coming greatness of the work of Erasmus. Neither could he foretell it. Why should not Erasmus have dedicated to the Pope his work? Why should not Leo X give it his papal smile? The Pope was hard pressed. He needed friends and Erasmus was a great man. There was every reason in the world for him to beam graciously upon this product of the learned Erasmus. The Pope could not foresee the great Reformation which was about to dawn and that the Greek New Testament of Erasmus would be an opening wedge. My Reviewers have missed the whole point. The fact is of little moment that Erasmus dedicated his work to the Pope and received the Pope's approbation. What has been the attitude of the Catholic Church since the real meaning of Erasmus' work is known and understood, is the real question.

There are other reasons why the presence of the Pope's imprimatur upon the New Greek New Testament of Erasmus means nothing at all with respect to the problem under discussion. (1) If that fact has so important a bearing as my Reviewers claim, why did the Catholic Church for hundreds of years, oppose by fire, flame, and sword, and put on the index, the vernacular translation from the Greek Text of Erasmus, and also the German Bible of Luther, the English Bible of Tyndale, and that of the French? (2) In the second place why did the Papacy never make any use of the Greek New Testament brought forth by the Cardinal Ximenes? It was a Catholic possession and there was nothing to hinder the Roman pontiff from making splendid use of it in spreading the gospel throughout the world. (3) And this is a point particularly to be emphasized, why did the Papacy work so desperately at the Council of Trent (1545-1563) to proclaim the Vulgate as the official Bible of the Roman Catholic Church? We call attention to the fact that it was this famous Council which changed the Roman Catholic Church into a Jesuitical church. And it cannot be too strongly emphasized that the very first four resolutions of this dreadful Council were; (a) That the Vulgate was the official Bible of the Roman Catholic Church (b) That the books of the Apocrypha were on a par with the other books of the Bible; (c) That tradition stood on an equal footing with the Bible and (d) That the interpretation of the Holy Scripture should be in the hands of the priests and not in the hands of the people. Why did not my Reviewers tell us that the Papacy put the Greek N.T. of Erasmus on the Index? Rome condemned all versions that departed from the Vulgate. (Putnam, "Censorship of Church," II, pp. 21,22)

The second reason why the imprimatur of the Pope would at this time have no particular hearing upon the question, is, that the New Testament of Erasmus was Greek. At that point in history this gesture meant nothing. The Pope could put his blessing on all the Hebrew, Greek, and Latin Bibles or other Bibles in any dead language, because without any successful hope of putting them into the vernacular, against the still unshaken and invincible power of the papal church, there was nothing to fear.

My Reviewers ask us to explain how Erasmus could bring forth in this atmosphere a pure Greek Text while the Revisers are suspicioned by me as bringing forth a Catholic product in the Protestant age? Please tell us what was the atmosphere which surrounded Erasmus? It was all the difference between 1516 and 1901. Erasmus was in the grip of a gigantic undertow, running with irresistible force away from Catholicism toward the reformation. And Erasmus was helping it on, because he was fighting for the reformation; the only difference between him and Luther was that Erasmus, before he died, brought reform as far forward as he could in the Catholic Church, while Luther finally was driven to create it outside the church.

But the Revisers, on the other hand, were in the grip of a gigantic undertow, running away from Protestantism towards Catholicism. And they were helping it on. In my book I brought ample proof of this gigantic undertow running from Protestantism to Catholicism in the chapter entitled "How the Jesuits captured Oxford University." My Reviewers have entirely ignored this chapter and its unanswerable proof and this explains why they ask this inconsistent question in endeavoring to explain Erasmus and the Revisers.

As for the Revisers working ten years--Yes! They worked ten years, but in dead secrecy. As to the statement made by my Reviewers that there was no Catholic on the Committee,--that was not true, because it was the fault of the committee. Let the world know that Cardinal Newman, who has done more to damage Protestantism and popularize Romanism than any other man that ever, lived, was invited to sit on this revision committee. Dr. Hort idolized him. Hort and Westcott walked in the light of his writings. And as to Dr. Philip Schaff, president of both the American Revision Committees, their creator and their life, I have this to say: Cardinal Neman and Dr. Schaff drank their inspiration from the same fountain,--from the higher critical theology of Germany,--at the same time both pagan and papal. As to the results of Newman's life and the Oxford Movement, let a quarterly "Review" testify:

"He (Newman) had left the leprosy of Popery cleaving to the very walls of Oxford, to infect the youth of England, through an unknown future." - New Brunswick Review, Aug. 1854, p. 322

Do not forget, also, that Oxford University, with Cambridge, paid the bill of the Revisers.

As to the effect of Dr. Schaff, the Mercersburg theology, and his doctrines, let the same witness testify again:

"Our examination has extended only to a little beyond the middle of Dr. Schaff's work (i.e. his History of the Apostolic Church). But the positions he has already advanced, are such as to lay the whole truth and grace of God, and the whole liberty, hope and salvation of the human race, at the feet of the Roman Papacy." -- New Brunswick Review, Aug.1854, p.325

(4-5) My Reviewers state: "Erasmus' Greek Text was not the first one printed though it was the first one to go into circulation. The first Greek text was printed by Cardinal Ximenes in 1514," etc. etc.

What of it? The Greek New Testament of Cardinal Ximenes went into cold storage and has been there ever since, but the Greek Testament of Erasmus was used by Luther in the circulation and publication of his German Bible which made the German Reformation. The same Greek Text of Erasmus was used by Tyndale in the publication of his English Bible which made the English Reformation. This is further proof that the tide was running away from Catholicism to Protestantism. I quote from Sister White:

"While Luther was opening a closed Bible to the people of Germany, Tyndale was impelled by the Spirit of God to do the same for England. Wycliffe's had been translated from the Latin text, which contained many errors...In 1516, a year before the appearance of Luther's theses, Erasmus had published his Greek and Latin version of the New Testament. Now for the first time the word of God was printed in the original tongue. In this work many errors of former versions were corrected, and the sense was more clearly rendered. It led many among the educated classes to a better knowledge of the truth, and gave a new impetus to the work of reform. But the common people were still, to a great extent, debarred from God's word. Tyndale was to complete the work of Wycliffe in giving the Bible to his countrymen.

"A diligent student and an earnest seeker for truth, he had received the gospel from the Greek Testament of Erasmus." Great Controversy, p. 245.

It would seem that these statements from Sister White would furnish all the answer any Seventh-day Adventist would ask for the first ten pages of the Reviewers Section II. All of their own assertions and quotations from their critical authorities disparaging Erasmus and his Greek Text; all of the scorn and doubt cast upon his work in these pages, is here contradicted by Sister White. If she is right, about the work of Erasmus, the Reviewers are wrong. You must choose between the two.

(6) The Reviewers use the fact that Erasmus made over one hundred corrections from the Complutensian.

(NOTE- LOA, the former publishers, here add this paragraph to clarify for our readers what the Complutensian Text was:

The New Testament was first printed in Greek in 1514 at Alcala inn Spain, under the direction of Cardinal Ximenes. This printing formed part of the Complutensian Polyglot (so called from Complutum, the Latin name for Alcala). In this the New Testament appeared with the Greek text and the Latin Vulgate in parallel columns; in the Old Testament section of the work the Latin Vulgate was flanked by the Hebrew and the Septuagint Greek (like our Lord on the cross between the two thieves, commented one contemporary who had no great enthusiasm for the new learning). But while the New Testament part of the enterprise was printed in 1514, it was not published until some years later, when the whole work, running to six volumes, was complete. The first Greek Testament to be published, therefore, was the first edition prepared by the Dutch humanist Desiderius Erasmus, printed at Basel and published in March 1516. THE ENGLISH BIBLE by F.F.Bruce, pp.24, 25.

Apparently they failed to discern that Cardinal Ximenes' text was the Complutensian and it was also the Textus Acceptus. If Erasmus used it in his fourth edition to make 100 corrections, would he not go forward "moulding the Textus Recptus" as Scrivenor says? Who of you knew as much in the first year of your college course as in the fourth? Give a man a chance to get his second breath. Shall we be like Herod who slaughtered the children of Bethlehem before they had a chance to get on their feet? Erasmus blazed the trail. No one had done anything like his work in Western Europe for one thousand years before. After him, Stephens and Elzevir continued to mould the Textus Receptus which reached a splendid condition about 1611 and there are a few touches which this Textus Receptus could undergo even yet. But to say that since Erasmus (1535) made one hundred corrections in his fourth edition of the Greek N.T., the Revision Committee was entitled to 5,337 corrections of the same in 1881, is a vastly different proposition.

Did God keep His church waiting to do in 1881 what Great Controversy (p.245) says was done by Erasmus in 1516? Moreover, Erasmus and his followers were moulding the TExtus Receptus forward. The Revisers of 1881 moulded the Greek New Testament backwards toward the Vulgate from which Erasmus and his Protestant successors delivered us. Why did not Luther and Tyndale translate their New Testament from the Vulgate? They clearly saw that the Vulgate was a Catholic Bible and would justify and protect the doctrines of the base of the Roman Catholic Church. Let us rejoice that Erasmus did as well as he did. Sister white praises Erasmus' text.

(7) we are now treated to the information that (a) Erasmus worked alone on his text, while Cardinal Ximenes had a number of scholars at the task; and (b) that Erasmus worked less than a year. In reply I will say that the Reviewers have entirely ignored the learning and the knowledge acquired by Erasmus in years of study and investigations, previous to bringing out his Greek Text. They entirely mislead you regarding the actual facts. Do you suppose that Erasmus alone, could in so brief a time, bring forth such a prodigious work, if he had not had years of preparation for his Greek text? I had only three or four weeks in which to reply to my Reviewers document. Where would I have come out if I had not had my material in hand before I was given this limited time to work. In other words, I intend to show you when I take up my Reviewers next seven points that to bring into relief the statement that Erasmus thus worked alone for less than a year, has absolutely no bearing whatever on the case. What work did he do in previous preparation is the vital question.

We will now address ourselves to the next seven points brought forward by the Reviewers (Section II, pp 3 etc.), to place Erasmus and the Textus Receptus in a position of inferiority. With regard to the Revisers and their new Greek text changed in 5,337 places they say; (1) Erasmus actually used only six or possibly seven manuscripts; (2) These are still at Basle except for Revelation which was a mutilated copy-- they took particular pains to tell us that the Book of Revelation was a mutilated copy that he was obliged to borrow etc. (3) That none of these manuscripts went back further than the 12th century, and some other remarks I will notice later. (4) That in the book of Revelation Erasmus supplied all of the last six verses and some other words either by translation from the Catholic Vulgate or by his own words,--either one or the other, the Reviewers apparently do not know which and we are left to take our choice; (5) That Erasmus says that his first edition was "precipitated not edited", etc. (6) That in later editions he made interpolations in one verse in Acts and one in First John, and (7) the same as point six in the former enumeration, he made over 100 corrections from the Catholic Complutensian edition which he did not see when his earlier editions were brought out.

In reply I would say in reference to point (1) that though it may be Erasmus used only six or possibly seven manuscripts, he consulted many.

I will quote my words in my book (page 54) which the Reviewers mutilated. (Section II, p.3). By quoting two words, omitting a sentence of thirteen words, quoting seven, omitting nineteen words, then quoting some more, they distorted my meaning by this piecemeal method of quoting, and failed entirely to convey the thought in my statements. I said, "There were hundreds of manuscripts for Erasmus to examine, and he did; but he used only a few." Now what are the facts of the case? We are told by Scrivener that Erasmus had a long time of preparation in this field of manuscripts; and secondly, that he had many manuscripts for his work.

"He was in England when John Froben, a celebrated publisher at Basle ... made application to Erasmus, through a common friend, to undertake immediately an edition of the N.T.-This proposal was sent on April 17, 1515, years before which time Erasmus had prepared numerous annotations to illustrate a revised Latin version he had long projected." - Scrivener, "Introduction", Vol. II, p. 182. (Emphasis mine)

Dr. Tregelles points out the same fact,

"This was on April 17, 1515. It seems as if Erasmus had before this made some preparation for such a work." - "Account", p.19.

Scrivener says:

"Besides this scanty roll, however, he not rarely, refers in his annotations to other manuscripts he had seen in the course of his travels ... yet too indistinctly for his allusions to be of much use to critics." -"Introduction." Vol. II, p. 184.

To illustrate further the enormous work that Erasmus did in traveling, examining manuscripts, etc., I quote from Froude:

"Trouble enough and anxiety enough! Yet in the midst of bad health and furious monks -- (Note: Reviewers would stamp Erasmus as Catholic, then why monks furious?) -- it is the noblest feature in him--his industry never slackened, and he drew out of his difficulties the materials which made his name immortal. He was forever on the wing, searching libraries visiting learned men, consulting with politicians or princes. His correspondence was enormous. His letters on literary subjects are often treatises in themselves, and go where he would, his eyes were open to all things and persons. His writings were passing through edition on edition. He was always adding and correcting; while new tracts, new editions of the Fathers show an acuteness of attention and an extent of reading which to a modern student seems beyond the reach of any single intellect. Yet he was no stationary scholar confined to desk or closet. He was out in the world, traveling from city to city, gathering materials among all places and all persons, from palace to village alehouse, and missing nothing which had meaning or amusement in it." - "Life of Erasmus" pp. 206, 207.

How does this statement square up with the manner in which the Reviewers belittle Erasmus and his work?

Burgon and Miller say:

"Erasmus followed his few manuscripts because he knew them to be good representatives of the mind of the Church which had been informed under the ceaseless and loving care of medieval transcribers: and the text of Erasmus printed at Basle, agreed in but little variation with the text of the Complutsensian editors published in Spain, for which Cardinal Ximenes procured MSS at whatever cost he could. No one doubts the coincidence in all essential points of the printed text with the text of the cursives.: - "Traditional Text", p. 236.

And finally on the same subject I will quote from Nolan quoted on page 29 of my Reviewers' document:

"With reference to manuscripts, it is indisputable that he (Erasmus) was acquainted with every variety which is known to us; having distributed them into two principal classes, one of which corresponds with the Complutensian edition, the other with the Vatican manuscript." - Frederick, Nolan, "Integrity of the Greek Vulgate", p. 413

Here I give the testimony of two Revisers to the goodness of Erasmus` MSS. They show also that his MSS were not Catholic:

"The manuscripts which Erasmus used, differ, for the most part, only in small and insignificant details from the bulk of the cursive manuscripts,- that is to say, the manuscripts which are written in running hand and not in capital or (as they are technically called) uncial letters. The general Received Text is carried up beyond the individual manuscripts used by Erasmus the great body of manuscripts of which the earliest are assigned to the ninth century."

Then after quoting Dr. Hort, they draw this conclusion on his statement:

"This remarkable statement completes the pedigree of the Received Text. That pedigree stretches back to a remote antiquity. The first ancestor of the Received Text was, as Dr. Hort is careful to remind us, at least contemporary with the oldest of our extant manuscripts, if not older than any one of them." - Two Members of the N.T. Company on the Revisers and Greek Text., pp. 11, 12.

Notice that the above quotations are not from my authorities; they are not even from my Reviewers' authorities. They are from the REVISERS themselves. They settle once and forever that the MSS of Erasmus were representative, almost perfectly so of the over 3,000 MSS which agree with the Received Text, and which run back into antiquity as far, if not father than any known MSS. Erasmus did not do badly after all.

Why did not my Reviewers tell this? Thus we see that the Reviewers have entirely ignored the many MSS that Erasmus knew and compared, and his prodigious investigation and preparation for his Greek Text, when using Greek MSS and hosts of Latin and Greek Fathers in preparation for his revision of the Catholic Vulgate. It was not so hasty after all, as the Reviewers would have you believe.

We have just learned from Scrivener that Erasmus had other manuscripts than those which are generally talked about, but traces of them are too vague and indistinct to be of value to critics. We saw also from Nolan that it is "indisputable" that Erasmus was acquainted with every variety of manuscript which is known to us. In other words, this is a fact which cannot be disputed. He may not have known all the manuscripts which can be listed under the different varieties, but he certainly knew all of the different varieties and classified them into two classes, namely: Those which agree with the Textus Recptus and those which agree with the Vaticanus. Nolan used the word "Complutensian" as the representative of one of these classes; but of course the Complutensian was the Textus Receptus.

This man, who as Froude says, could do ten hours work in one, and as many authors say was the intellectual dictator of Europe while he lived, had read more widely in the ancient fathers than probably any other man who has ever lived. He had within the vast storehouses of his scholarly learning more lines of evidence by which to weigh manuscripts than any of his successors. One writer speaks of Tischendorf as having the intellect of a giant, but the judgment of a child. He did not know how to weigh evidence. Erasmus knew how to weigh evidence. Sister White endorses his work.

It is interesting at this point to recall the number of manuscripts used by the much heralded men named Lachmann, Tischendorf, and Tregelles. Dr. Ellicott says, "Lachmann's text is really one based on little more than four manuscripts." ("Considerations", p.4.6). While of Tischendorf, let it be remembered he brought out seven different Greek New Testaments declaring that the seventh was perfect and could not be superseded. Then, to the scandal of textual criticism, after he had found the Sinaitiatic manuscript he brought out his eighth Greek Testament which was different from his seventh in 3,572 places. (Burgon and Miller, "Traditional Text," p.7). I call this going wild. If Erasmus had made one-twentieth as wild a job as this we would never heard the last of it. Let us hear from Tregelles, himself, how few manuscripts also he used:

"We are able to take the few documents whose evidence is proved to be trustworthy, and safely discard from present consideration the eighty-nine ninetieths, or whatever else their numerical proportion my be." - "Account of the Printed Text," p.138.

Thus Tregelles preferred one-ninetieth to eighty-nine ninetieths of the witnesses. He was a member of the Revision Committee. Dr. Schaff points out that, though Dr. Tregelles was prevented by feeble health from participating in the work of revision, yet he was present in spirit by his critical edition of the Greek New Testament. (Introduction to "Revision" by Lightfoot, Trench and Ellicott, p.III) What weight would you give to his judgment? But it was just this principle which prevailed with the Revisers.

Erasmus suffered in his day like the Waldenses did in their day, by having his writing corrupted by the monks. I quote from Froude:

"Erasmus could be calm for others. It was very hard for him to be calm for himself. The Louvairiers (a class of monks) got hold of more of his letters and published them with alterations in the text. He had written 'Lutherus': they changed it into 'Luther-Noster' to make him out Luther's friend. They reprinted his 'Colloquies,' imitated his style, and made him say the contradictory of what he had really said. He had denounced extorted confessions, and laughed at pilgrimages and ridiculed indulgences. His new editors reproduced his real language, but they attached paragraphs in his name where he was represented as declaring that he had once thought all that, but had perceived his error. He had written that 'the best confession was confession to God'; his editor changed it into 'the best confession is confession to a priest.' 'Wonderful Atlasses of a tottering faith' he might well call such people. 'Once,' he says, 'it was held a crime to publish anything in another man's name; now it special game of divines and they are proud of it."' -- Life of Erasmus, pp.271, 272

To show how the Jesuits worked to corrupt or destroy manuscripts, I give the following quotation from Gilly:

"It is a singular thing that the destruction or rapine, which has been so fatal to Waldensian documents, should have pursued then even to the place of security, to which all, that remained, were consigned by Morland, in 1658, the library of the University of Cambridge. The most ancient of these relics were ticketed in seven packets, distinguished by letters of the alphabet, from A to G. The whole of these were missing when I made enquiry for them in 1823. What these precious records were, may be seen by a reference to the catalog given in 'Morland's History of the Evangelical Churches of the Valleys of Piedmont.' pp. 95-98." - "Waldensian Researches" pp 80, 81.

I have answered the argument sufficiently, I think, urged against Erasmus that he used but a few manuscripts. It ought to be said that Tregelles denies that Erasmus worked alone. He distinctly says that Ecolampadius assisted him. ("Printed Text", p.20). With regard to correcting the mistakes of one edition in the second, let it be known that so hard and difficult is the field of textual criticism to work in, that almost every scholar, even the greatest, is constrained to correct in the second edition mistakes of the first. I call your attention to the words of Dr. Scrivener in the preface to the second edition of his "Collation of the Codex Sinaiticus". He says "The first edition of this little volume (1864) being exhausted, care has been taken to correct in the second issue whatever errors have been detected in the interval."