Chapter 6

Chapter 6.

1 Of the [〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉] 2. Their nature and Original. The difference is in the Consonants. 3. Morinus vain Charge on Arias Montanus. 4. The senses of both Consistent. 5. Of the great Congregation. The spring and rise of these various Readings. 6. The judgment of the Prolegomena about them, their order twice over in the Appendix. 7. The rise assigned to them. 8. Considered. 9. Of Capellus his Opinion and the danger of it.

Section 1. We are not as yet come to a Close. There is another thing agitated in these Prolegomena, and represented in the Appendix, that may seem to derogate from the Universality of my Assertion, concerning the entire preservation of the Original Copies of the Scripture. The [〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉] or the scriptio and lectio, or scriptum and lectum, is that which I intend. The general nature of these things is known to all them that have looked into the Bible. One word is placed in the line, and another in the margin; the Word in the line having not the Points or Vowels affixed to it that are its own, but those that belong to the Word in the Margin; Of this sort there are in the Bible 840, or thereabouts; for some of the late Editions by mistake or oversight, do differ in the precise number. All men that have wrote any Considerations on the Hebrew Text have spoken of their nature in General; So hath the Author of these Prolegomena. As to our present Concernment, namely to manifest that from them no Argument can tie us to the corruption of the Original, the ensuing Observation concerning them may suffice.

Section 2. 1. All the difference in these words is in the Consonants, not at all in the Vowels. The Word in the margin owns the Vowels in the line, as proper to it; and the Vowels in the line seem to be placed to the Word whereunto they do not belong, because there is no other meet place for them in the line where they are to be continued as belonging to the Integrity of the Scripture.

Section 3. Morinus to manifest his rage against the Hebrew Text, takes from hence Occasion to quarrel with Arias Montanus, and to accuse him of ignorance and false dealing; De Hebrew Text. sincer. Exercitation 1. chapter 4. page 40.

The pretence of his quarrel he makes to be, that Arias affirms the greatest part of these Various lections to consist in some differences of the points; for which purpose he cites his words out of his preface to his Collection of Various lections. Maxima in his lectionibus Varietatis pars in hujusmodi punctorum discrepantia Consistit, ut toto hujus Mazzoreth sive variarum lectionum volumine demonstratur. Whereunto he subjoins, mira assertio ne una quidem in punctis sita est. Catalogum plurimorum ipse ad finem praefationis adtexuit. Et Varietates omnes sunt in literis, nulla in punctis. Confidentius scribo omnium variarum lectionum quas Judaei appellant [〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉] Keri & Ketib: de quibus agit Arias nulla prorsus ad puncta pertinet. Iterum confidentius, etc. Would not any man think but that the man had made here some great discovery, both as to the nature of the [〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉] as also to the ignorance of Arias, whom he goes on to reproach as a Person unacquainted with the Massora, and with the Various lections of Ben-Asher, and Ben-Nepthali, of the East and Western Jews, at the end of the Venetian Bibles; which Bibles he chiefly used in the printing of his own. And yet on the other hand, men acquainted with the Ability and great deserving of Arias, will be hardly persuaded, that he was so blind and ignorant as to affirm the greatest part of the variety he spoke of consisted in the changing of Vowels, and immediately to give instances, wherein all he mentions consists in the change of Consonants only. But what if all this should prove the ignorance and prejudice of Morinus? First to his redoubled Assertion about the difference of the Keri and Ketib in the Consonants only, wherein he speaks as though he were blessing the world with a new and strange discovery, it is a thing known lippis et Tonsoribus, and hath been so since the days of Elias Levita; What then intended Arias Montanus to affirm the Contrary; hic nigri succus loliginis, haec est aerugo mera; he speaks not at all of the [〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉], but merely of the anomalous pointing of words, in a various way from the Genius of the tongue, as they are observed and reckoned up in the Massora, of other Varieties he speaks afterward; giving a particular account of the Keri Uketib, which whether he esteemed Various lections nor no, I know not. Non si te superis aeques. But all are ignorant, who are not of the mind of an aspiring Jesuit.

Section 4. That the difference in the sense taking in the whole context, is upon the matter very little or none at all; at least each word, both that in the line and that in the margin, yield a sense agreeable to the Analogy of faith.

Of all the Varieties that are found of this kind, that of two words, the same in sound but of most distinct significations, seems of the greatest importance; Namely [〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉] and [〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉] verse 14 or 15 times where [〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉] not, is in the Text; the margin notes [〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉] to him, or his, to be read. But yet though these seem Contrary one to the other, yet where ever this falls out, a sense agreeable to the Analogy of faith ariseth fairly from either word. As to give one or two instances: Psalm 100. verse 3. [〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉] he hath made us, and not we our selves, The Keri in the margin is [〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉] his, giving this sense; he hath made us, and his we are; The verb Substantive being included in the pronoun. So Isaiah 63. 9. [〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉] in their afflictions or straits, no straitness; So the [〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉] the [〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉] straitness or affliction was to him, or he was straitened or afflicted: In the first way, God signifieth that when they were in their outward straits, yet he was not straitened from their relief; in the other, that he had Compassion for them, was afflicted with them, which upon the matter is the same; And the like may be showed of the rest.

Section 5. I confess I am not able fully to satisfy myself in the Original and spring of all this Variety, being not willing merely to depend on the Testimony of the Jews, much less on the conjectures of late innovators. To the uttermost length of my view, to give a full account of this thing, is a matter of no small difficulty. Their Venerable Antiquity, and unquestionable Reception by all Translators gives them sanctuary from being cast down from the place they hold by any man's bare Conjecture. That which to me is of the greatest importance, is, that they appear most of them to have been in the Bibles, then, when the Oracles of God were Committed to the Jews, during which time we find them not blamed for adding or altering one word or Tittle. Hence the Chaldee Paraphrast often follows the [〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉] which never was in the Line whatever some boastingly conjecture to the contrary: and sometimes the [〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉]. That which seems to me most probable is, that they were Collected for the most part of them, by that [〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉] the men of the Great Congregation. Some indeed I find of late (I hope not out of a design to bring all things to a further Confusion about the Original) to question whether ever there were any such thing as the great congregation. Morinus calls it a Judaical figment. Our Prolegomena question it. Prolegomena 8. Section 22. But this is only to question, whether Ezra, Nehemiah, Joshua, Zechariah, Haggai and the rest of the leaders of the people in their return from the Captivity, did set a Sanhedrin according to the institution of God, and labour to reform the Church and all the Corruptions that were crept either into the Word or worship of God. I see not how this can reasonably be called into question, if we had not to confirm it the Catholic tradition of Jews and Christians. Neither is it called the great Congregation from its number, but eminency of persons. Now on this supposition it may be granted that the [〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉] on the books of these men themselves Ezra and the rest, were collected by the succeeding Churches. Unless we shall suppose with Ainsworth, that the Word was so received from God, as to make both necessary. And if we know not the true Cause of its being so given, we have nothing to blame but our own ignorance, this not being the Only Case wherein we have reason so to do. Our last Translation generally rendreth the word in the Margin noting also the Word in the line where there is any Considerable difference. Those who have leisure for such a work, may observe what choice is used in this Case by old and Modern Translators. And if they had not believed them to have had an Authoritative original beyond the impeachment of any man in these days, they could not fairly and honestly have used both line and margin as they have done.

Section 6. What says now our Prolegomena, with the Appendix unto these things.

1. We have them in the Appendix represented unto us in their own order according as they are found in the books of the Scriptures; And then over again, in the order and under the heads that they are drawn and driven unto by Capellus; A task, that learned man took upon himself, that he might in the performance of it, give some Countenance to his Opinion, that they are for the most part Critical Emendations of the Text, made by some late Massorites, that came no man knows whence; that lived no man knows where, nor when. Thus whereas these Keri Uketib, have the only face and appearance upon the matter, of Various lections upon the old Testament, (for the Jews Collections of the Various Readings of Ben Asher and Ben Nepthali, of the Oriental and Occidental Jews, are of no Value, nor ever had place in their Bible and may be rejected) the unwary Viewer of the Appendix is presented with a great Bulk of them, their whole Army being mustered twice over in this service.

Section 7. But this inconvenience may be easily amended, nor am I concerned in it. Wherefore 3rdly for the rise of them it is said that some of them are the amendments of the Massorites or Rabbins, others, Various lections out of diverse Copies. That they are all, or the most part of them Critical amendments of the Rabbins is not allowed; for which latter part of his determination, we thank the learned Author; and take leave to say that in the former we are not satisfied, Prolegomena 8. 23, 24, 25: the Arguments that are produced to prove them not to have been from Ezra, but the most part from post-Talmudical Rabbins are capable of a very easy solution which also another occasion may discover; at present I am gone already too far beyond my intention, so that I cannot allow myself any farther digression.

Section 8. To Answer briefly. Ezra and his Companions might be the Collectors of all those in the Bible, but their own Books; and those in their own books might be added by the succeeding Church. The Oriental and Occidental Jews, differ about other things as well as the Keri and ketib. The Rule of the Jews, that the Keri is always to be followed, is novel; and therefore the old Translators might read either, or both, as they saw cause. There was no occasion at all why these things should be mentioned by Josephus, Philo, Origen: Jerome says indeed on Isaiah 49. 5. that Aquila rendered that word, to him, which is written with [〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉] and [〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉] not [〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉] and [〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉]. But he makes it not appear that Aquila read not as he translated, that is by the [〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉]. And for what is urged of the Chaldee and 70, making use of the keri and ketib, it is not intended that they knew the difference under these names, but that these differences were in their days. That the word now in the margin was in the line until the days of the pretended Masoretes, is not to be said nakedly but proved, if such a novel fancy expect any Credit in the world. That the Judaic Rabbis have made some alterations in the Text of their own accord, at least placed words in the margin, as to their Consonants, supplying their Vowels in the line, where they ought not to have place; that there were various lections in the Copies after the Talmud, which have been gathered by some obscure Jews, no mention being made of those collections in the Masora, or any of their Grammarians, is the sum of the discourse under Consideration. When all this, or any part of it is proved by Testimony, or evident Reason, we shall further attend unto it.

Section 9. In the mean time I cannot but rejoice, that Capellus his fancy about these things, than which I know nothing more pernicious to the truth of God, is rejected. If these hundreds of words were the Critical conjectures and amendments of the Jews, what security have we of the mind of God as truly represented unto us, seeing that it is supposed also, that some of the words in the margin were sometimes in the line; and if it be supposed, as it is, that there are innumerable other places of the like nature, standing in need of such amendments, what a door would be opened unto Curious Pragmatic wits, to overturn all the certainty of the Truth of the Scripture, every one may see. Give once this liberty to the audacious curiosity of men, priding themselves in their Critical Abilities, and we shall quickly find out what woeful state and condition the Truth of the Scripture will be brought unto. If the Jews have made such amendments and Corrections of the Text, and that to so good purpose, and if so much worth of the like kind yet remain, can any man possibly better employ himself, than with his uttermost diligence to put his hand to this plow. But he that pulls down an Hedge, a Serpent shall bite him.

Chapter 6.

1. Of the Keri and Kethib. 2. Their nature and origin. The difference is in the consonants. 3. Morinus's vain charge against Arias Montanus. 4. The senses of both consistent. 5. Of the great congregation. The source and origin of these variant readings. 6. The judgment of the Prolegomena about them, their array presented twice over in the Appendix. 7. The origin assigned to them. 8. Considered. 9. Of Capellus's opinion and the danger of it.

Section 1. We have not yet reached a close. There is another matter raised in these Prolegomena and presented in the Appendix that may appear to undermine the universality of my argument concerning the complete preservation of the original copies of Scripture. The Keri and Kethib — the written and the read, or what is written in the text and what is to be read in its place — is what I have in mind. The general nature of these is known to all who have looked into the Bible. One word is placed in the text, and another in the margin. The word in the text does not have its own vowel points affixed to it, but instead carries the vowels belonging to the word in the margin. There are about 840 such instances in the Bible — some of the later printed editions differ slightly in the exact count due to oversight or error. All who have written on the Hebrew text have discussed their general nature, as has the author of these Prolegomena. As for our present concern — to show that no argument for the corruption of the original can be drawn from them — the following observation will suffice.

Section 2. All the difference in these words is in the consonants, not at all in the vowels. The word in the margin claims the vowels in the text as properly belonging to it. The vowels in the text appear to be placed with a word to which they do not belong because there is no other suitable place for them in the line, where they must be retained as belonging to the integrity of the Scripture.

Section 3. Morinus, to display his hostility toward the Hebrew text, uses this as an occasion to quarrel with Arias Montanus and accuse him of ignorance and dishonesty. De Hebraeo Textu Sinceritate, Exercitation 1, chapter 4, page 40.

The pretended basis of his quarrel is that Arias affirms that the greatest part of these variant readings consists in certain differences of the points. For this purpose he cites Arias's words from his preface to his collection of variant readings: "The greatest part of the variety in these readings consists in such discrepancies of the points, as is demonstrated throughout this whole volume of the Massorah or variant readings." To which Morinus subjoins: "A remarkable claim — not one of them lies in the points." He then adds: "He himself attached a catalogue of several at the end of his preface. And all the variants are in the letters, none in the points. I write with confidence that none of all the variant readings which the Jews call Keri and Kethib — which is what Arias is discussing — belongs in the slightest to the points. Again with confidence," etc. Would not any man think that he had here made some great discovery — both regarding the nature of the Keri and Kethib and the ignorance of Arias, whom he goes on to reproach as a person unacquainted with the Massora and with the variant readings of Ben Asher and Ben Naphtali, of the Eastern and Western Jews, found at the end of the Venetian Bibles — which were the Bibles Arias chiefly used in printing his own? And yet men acquainted with the ability and great accomplishment of Arias will be hard pressed to believe that he was so blind and ignorant as to affirm that the greatest part of the variety he spoke of consisted in the changing of vowels, while at the same time providing examples where all the variants consist in changes of consonants only. But what if all this should prove to expose the ignorance and prejudice of Morinus himself? First, as to his repeated assertion that the difference in the Keri and Kethib lies in the consonants only — which he presents as though he were revealing a new and remarkable discovery — this has been commonly known since the days of Elias Levita. What, then, did Arias Montanus intend by saying otherwise? This is pure malice and groundless accusation. He speaks not at all of the Keri and Kethib, but entirely of the anomalous pointing of words — where words are pointed in ways that deviate from the genius of the language — as observed and catalogued in the Massorah. Of other variants he speaks afterward, giving a particular account of the Keri and Kethib, which whether he regarded as variant readings in the proper sense I do not know. You cannot match someone who does not compete on equal terms. But in the eyes of an ambitious Jesuit, all are ignorant who do not share his conclusions.

Section 4. Taking the whole context into account, the difference in sense between the word in the text and the word in the margin is in practice very little or none at all. Indeed, each word — both the one in the text and the one in the margin — yields a sense agreeable to the analogy of faith.

Of all the variants of this kind, the most significant involves two words that sound the same but have very different meanings: the word meaning "not" written in the text, with the margin noting a word meaning "to him" or "his" to be read in its place — this occurs fourteen or fifteen times. Yet even though these appear contrary to one another, wherever this occurs, a sense agreeable to the analogy of faith arises clearly from either word. To give one or two examples: Psalm 100:3. The text reads: "He has made us, and not we ourselves." The Keri in the margin gives: "his," yielding the sense: "He has made us, and His we are" — the verb "to be" being implied in the pronoun. So also Isaiah 63:9. The text reads: "In their afflictions or straits, no straitness" — meaning God was not constrained from relieving them. The Keri gives: "the affliction or straitening was to Him" — or He was afflicted with them, He shared in their suffering. In the first reading, God signifies that when they were outwardly pressed, He was not constrained from coming to their relief; in the other, that He had compassion for them and was afflicted along with them — which in substance amounts to the same thing. The same may be shown for the rest.

Section 5. I confess I cannot fully satisfy myself as to the original and source of all this variety, being unwilling simply to rely on the testimony of the Jews, and much less on the conjectures of modern innovators. To give a full account of this matter, to the utmost of my understanding, is no small difficulty. Their venerable antiquity and their unquestioned reception by all translators protects them from being dismissed from their established place by anyone's bare conjecture. What seems to me most significant is that most of them appear to have been in the Bibles at the time when the oracles of God were committed to the Jews — during which period the Jews are nowhere found to have been blamed for adding or altering so much as one word or tittle. For this reason, the Chaldean Paraphrast often follows the word in the margin, which was never in the line of the text in any copy — whatever some may boastingly conjecture to the contrary — and sometimes follows the word in the text. What seems most probable to me is that most of them were collected by the men of the great congregation. Some in recent times — I hope not with any design to bring all things into further confusion regarding the origin of these readings — have begun to question whether there ever was any such thing as the great congregation. Morinus calls it a Jewish fiction. Our Prolegomena question it, Prolegomena 8, section 22. But to question the great congregation is simply to question whether Ezra, Nehemiah, Joshua, Zechariah, Haggai, and the rest of the leaders of the people in their return from captivity set up a council according to God's institution and labored to reform the church and all corruptions that had crept into the Word or worship of God. I do not see how this can reasonably be called into question — even apart from the universal tradition of Jews and Christians that confirms it. Nor is it called the great congregation because of its size, but because of the eminence of its members. On this assumption, it may be granted that the Keri and Kethib found in the books of Ezra and the rest were collected by the churches that followed them. Unless we are to suppose with Ainsworth that the Word was so given by God as to make both readings necessary. And if we cannot identify the exact reason it was so given, we have nothing to blame but our own ignorance — this not being the only case where such a conclusion is warranted. Our most recent English translation generally renders the word in the margin while also noting the word in the text where there is any significant difference. Those with the time for such a study may observe the choice made in this matter by translators old and modern. And if those translators had not believed these readings to have an authoritative origin beyond any man's power today to challenge, they could not fairly and honestly have used both text and margin as they have done.

Section 6. What then does our Prolegomena say, together with the Appendix, concerning these things?

First, in the Appendix we have them presented in their natural order, as they occur through the books of Scripture — and then a second time, reorganized under the headings that Capellus has arranged and forced them into. This is a task that learned man undertook so that, in performing it, he might lend some support to his opinion that these readings are for the most part critical emendations of the text made by some late Masoretes who came from no one knows where, lived no one knows when or where. Thus, while the Keri and Kethib are the only readings in the Old Testament that have even the appearance of genuine variant readings — for the Jews' collections of the variant readings of Ben Asher and Ben Naphtali, of the Eastern and Western Jews, are of no value, never had a place in the Bible, and may be set aside — the unsuspecting reader of the Appendix is presented with a great bulk of them, their whole army mustered twice over in this service.

Section 7. But this inconvenience can be easily remedied, and I am not directly concerned with it. Therefore, on the question of their origin, the Prolegomena says that some of them are corrections made by the Masoretes or rabbis, and others are variant readings drawn from different manuscripts. That they are all, or mostly, critical emendations by the rabbis is not accepted. For the latter part of that determination we thank the learned author. As for the former, we are not satisfied — Prolegomena 8, sections 23, 24, 25. The arguments produced to prove that they came not from Ezra but mostly from post-Talmudic rabbis are capable of a very easy answer, which another occasion may bring out. For now I have already gone far beyond my original intention, and I cannot allow myself any further digression.

Section 8. To answer briefly. Ezra and his companions might have been the collectors of all those found throughout the Bible except in their own books, with those in their own books added by the church that followed them. The Eastern and Western Jews differ about other matters besides the Keri and Kethib. The Jewish rule that the Keri is always to be followed is a later development, and so the ancient translators could rightly read either, or both, as they saw fit. There was no occasion at all for these things to be mentioned by Josephus, Philo, or Origen. Jerome does say, on Isaiah 49:5, that Aquila rendered a certain word as "to him" — which is written with one set of letters — rather than with another set. But Jerome does not show that Aquila read the text differently than he translated it, that is, following the Keri. And as for what is argued from the Chaldean Paraphrase and the Septuagint making use of the Keri and Kethib — the point is not that they knew the distinction by those names, but that these differences existed in their day. That the word now in the margin was in the text until the time of the supposed Masoretes — this is not merely to be asserted but proved, if such a novel theory expects any credibility in the world. That the Jewish rabbis have made some alterations in the text on their own authority, or at least placed words in the margin while supplying the vowels in the text where those vowels ought not to be; and that there were variant readings in manuscripts after the Talmud which have been gathered by some obscure Jews — no mention being made of these collections in the Masorah or in any of their grammarians — that is the substance of the discussion under consideration. When any of this, or all of it, is proved by testimony or clear reasoning, we will give it further attention.

Section 9. In the meantime I cannot but rejoice that Capellus's theory about these matters — than which I know nothing more harmful to the truth of God — has been rejected. If these hundreds of words were the critical conjectures and emendations of the Jews, what security would we have that the mind of God is truly represented to us? For it is also supposed that some of the words now in the margin were formerly in the text. And if it is supposed, as it is, that there are countless other places of a similar kind still in need of such emendations, any man can see what a door that would open for clever, meddlesome minds to overturn all certainty in sacred truth. Once this liberty is given to the audacious curiosity of men who pride themselves on their critical abilities, we shall quickly discover in what a dreadful state the truth of Scripture will be left. If the Jews have already made such amendments and corrections of the text — and to such good purpose — and if so much further work of that kind yet remains to be done, can any man better employ himself than by putting his hand eagerly to this plow? But the one who tears down a hedge — a serpent shall bite him.