nal called u New Literary Notices from Tubingen.” As to the changes made by him in the Received Text of the Apocalypse, on which his reviewer had dwelt most severely, Bengel showed that- Erasmus so hurried it to press, that he had actually substituted for the original Greek of the concluding part, a translation of his own into Greek from the Latin Vulgate ! As to his Greek text supply- ing infidels with weapons, he shows that, on the contrary, if we restrict the liberty of proper revision, we leave the sacred text exposed to every presumptuous judgment ; that infidels cannot be ignorant of the existence of various readings, which, instead of finding in- creased by his revision, they would find fewer for objecting against than ever ; that whereas one party accused him of undue caution , but the other of temerity , it was evident he had kept the middle, and therefore the right way.
The Romanist party, headed by Rev. T. A. Berghauer, at- tacked Bengel, in a publication entitled Bibliomachia , in which the writer threatens such u heretics, who have their flaming pride lighted up by the Bible, with the strong arm and spiritual and tem- poral sword of the Catholic Church.” Bengel, in his u Practical Addresses” on the Apocalypse, Append, on 58th-60th of his u Prac- tical Addresses on the Apocalypse” (to be found also in Ed. 2 of the Appar. Crit., p. 748), replied, meekly showing that he had done no more than what Cardinal Ximenes and the Editors of the Complu- tensian Bible, with their patron Leo X., had done, viz. set a high value upon sound criticism : that the author had appropriately en- titled his pamphlet u Bibliomachia,” War with the Bible; for that it was a congeries of blasphemy against the word of God in all Bibles, Catholic and Protestant : that the threat of persecution only showed that many prophecies in the Apocalypse must now be on the point of fulfilment, and u well may we arm ourselves with the patience and faith of the saints. The children of peace cannot love contention : it is painful to them to be obliged to contend even for the truth itself.”
J. L. Hug, in his Introduction to New Testament , 2d Ed., vol. i. p. 313, remarks, that Bengel was the first who classified MSS. according to the incidental agreements in their general features, and in their particular lections. He marked two classes, the African and the Asiatic ; and the general principles, elicited by this simplifi- cation of the question, set in motion the present march of criticism, which will now proceed, even supposing his own editorial works could ever be forgotten.
In 1742, J. Gambold published Bengel’s Greek Testament at Oxford ; and, in 1745, Bengel’s text was taken as the standard for revising the authorized Danish Version. A second edition of the 66 Appar. Criticus” was published in 1763 by P. D. Burk, contain- ing later corrections of the Author, supplementary criticism on the New Testament, and collations of another MS. of the Apocalypse, of which a copy was given him by J. L. Mosheim.