"Wettstein, Johann Jakob, a celebrated New- Test, critic, was born at Basle, ^March 5, 1693, the sec- ond in a family of tliirteen children. His father was minister in St. Leonard's Cliurch, and liis teachers were the younger Buxtorf, Samuel Werenfels, Iseliii, Frey, etc. His attention was early turned upon the manu- scripts in the public library and tlie comparison of cod- ices, and his earliest dissertation had for its subject r>e I'ariis IV. T. I^ectionibus. Travels to Geneva, Lyons, Paris, and England, in connection with which he visited all accessible libraries and made liimself acquainted with all the more important manuscripts of the New Test., served to enlarge the range of his views, as did also asso- ciation with IMontfaucon, La Rue, and Bentley. He obtained a chajilaincy in a Dutch regiment of .Switzers through Bentley's influence, but in 1717 returned to Basle and was made diaconus communis, and in 1720 deacon of St. Leonard's and assistant to his father. In this station he earned the reputation of an able preach- er and faithful pastor; but study being his favorite oc- cupation, he read private lectures on exegesis and sys- tematic tlieology before a class of young men, and gave his spare moments to the continued comparison of mann- scri])ts in the library. He conceived in this period the idea of publishing a critical edition of the New Test. Iselin and Vrey were at the same time studying the codices of the Basle Library for the purpose of aiding Bengel in the preparation of his iXew Test., and Wett- stein came into conflict with them respecting the age of the Basle Codex of the Gospels (E), which he be- lieved to be much lower than they would concede. This dispute soon became personal. Wettstein's ortho- doxy had for some time been suspected. He was
WETZEL
911 WEXFORD, COUNCIL OF
cliarijed with holding Arian and Socinian errors, and to this fault were now added his alleged critical aberra- tions. His ])reference of bf to Oeog in 1 Tim. iii, l(i, on the ground that a careful examination of the Cod. Alex- andrin. had convinced him of its genuineness, was cred- ited to an alleged desire of depriving the doctrine of Christ's deity of a proof. Complaints respecting his lieterodoxy were expressed even in the Diet of the Con- fe<leration, and ultimately a formal process of inquisition was inaugurated against him. Wettstein had taken the )irecauti(in, however, to send the manuscript of his New Test, to H<illand, and his assailants were accordingly compelled to substantiate their charges from the n()tes of his pupils, and from tlie memories of those who had heard him preach. He was ultimately dismissed from his post, May 13, 1730. He found a new place at Am- sterdam, as successor to Clericus in the College of the Ke- monstrants, and thenceforward made Holland Ins home. The Prolegomena to his Neic Test, had already been issued anonymously in 1730. In 1751-52 appeared the New Test, itself, the work of his life; but such was the timidity of the age that he was compelled to state the readings he preferred in foot-notes, and to give the re- ceived text in the body of his work. William Bowyer, of London, first published a New Test, with Wettstein's improvements in 17G3. It contained a wealth of vari- ous readings, numerous antiquarian remarks illustrative of the subject-matter, and parallel passages from classi- cal, ecclesiastical, and Rabbinical writers, which made it a valuable aid both to exegesis ami criticism. Wett- stein had appended to his New Test, two Syriac letters discovered by him and cretlited to Clemens Komanus, but whose genuineness has since been disproved (the letters to vire/ins). He earned the reputation of having excelled all his predecessors in the industry and exact- ness with which he prosecuted the comparison of cod- ices, having personally examined about forty. To him we owe the designation of codices now current in the theological world. He did not long outlive the publi- cation of his book, and died Jlarch 22, 1754. His col- league, Jacob Krighout, delivered a funeral discourse over his remains, which led to a dispute between himself and F'rey, of Basle. Previous to his death, Wettstein had been made a member of academies of science in Berlin and London, and of the British Society for the Extension of Cliristianity. See ^1 then. Rovr. p. 379 sq. ; Meister, He! vet. Srenen d. neuern Schwdnnerei n. Jntol- eranz (Zurich, 1785), p. 1C7 sq. ; Hagenbach, Wet/stein . . .11. seine Gegner, in lUgen's Zeitschrift f. hist. Theol. 1839, No. 1, p. 13; Herzog, Real-EncyMop. s. v.
Wetzel, Andreas, a Lutheran minister of Ger- many, was born .Ian. 17, 1808, at Weil, in Wiirtemberg. He studied at Tubingen, and in 1831 he arrived in the United States. In Lewis County, N. Y., he commenced his ministerial labors with great success, looking at the same time after his coreligionists in Oneida County. In 1832 he also commenced preaching at Utica. In 1844, the congregation organized there built a church — Zion's Churcli — and in 11S45 Mr. Wetzel left Verona, where he had resided, for Utica, where he labored tnitil the year 1879, when bodily infirmities obliged him to retire from his office. He died Aug. 16, 1880. Mr. Wet- zel was highly honored in his ecclesiastical body, in which he held for a great many years the office of treas- urer. He also promoted the cause of education within his own Church and the community in which he lived, and took an active part in all movements which tended to elevate the moral standard of the people. (B. P.)