"Hear what God saith; not what thine own mind, in indulgence to
thine own sins, may say, or what thy friend, thine enemy rather
and his own too, bound in the same bond of iniquity with thee, may
say. Hear then what the Apostle saith: '_Marriage is honourable in
all, and the bed undefiled. But whoremongers and adulterers God
will judge._'"--_Hom. on N.T._, Serm. xxxii. [82 B], Oxf. T., vol.
xvi. p. 263.
"'_Honourable, therefore, is marriage in all_, [he had just before
been speaking of married persons] _and the bed undefiled._' And
this we do not so call a good, as that it is a good in comparison
of fornication," &c.--_Short Treat. de Bono Conjug._, Oxf. T.,
vol. xxii. p. 283.
3. St. Jerome, to whose authority perhaps CEPHAS will sooner bow on a
version of Holy Scripture than to Hammond's:
"Illi scriptum est: 'Honorabiles nuptiae, et cubile immaculatum:'
Tibi legitur, 'Fornicatores _autem_ et adulteros judicabit
Deus.'"--69. _Epist. ad Ocean. Hier. Op._, vol. i. f. 325.
Basileae. Ed. Erasm. 1526.
In all these passages the words are quoted _affirmatively_, as is
evident from the context; and it seems more likely, as well as more
charitable, to believe that our translators were induced to adopt the
present version in deference to such authorities, than to impute to them
paltry motives of party purposes, which at the same time they have
themselves taken the surest means to get exposed, by printing the
inserted word in Italics. Can CEPHAS adduce any Father who quotes the
text as he would read it, in the imperative mood, and with the sense of
"all things," not "all persons?" There may be such, but they require to
be alleged in the face of positive and adverse testimony. It is evident
that the mere substitution of [Greek: esto] for [Greek: esti], without
an entire change of the rest of the passage, will make no difference;
for that which was an assertion before will then have become a command.
II. CEPHAS proposes another version, and observes, "H. WALTER mistakes
the adjective feminine [Greek: en pasi] as meaning 'all men,' whereas it
signifies here 'in all things.'" Probably this is the first time that
MR. H. WALTER and your other readers ever heard that [Greek: en pasi]
was a _feminine_ adjective. Your learned critic must surely have either
forgotten his Greek grammar, in his haste to correct the translators of
the Bible, or else is not strong in the genders; for he has unluckily
hit upon the very gender which [Greek: pasi] cannot be, by any
possibility. But let it pass for a "lapsus memoriae." However, he
supports his version of "all things" by one other passage, 2 Cor. xi.
6., where yet it _may_ be translated, as Hammond himself does in the
margin, "among all men" (cf. v. 8.): and I will offer him one other:
[Greek: hina en pasi doxazetai ho Theos dia Iesou Christou].--1
Pet. iv. 11.
[Scil. [Greek: charismasin].]
But does CEPHAS mean to say that [Greek: en pasi] is _always_ to be thus
rendered, when found without a substantive? Here are five passages from
St. Paul's Epistles, in which, with one possible exception, it
_evidently_ means "persons," not "things."
1. [Greek: ho de autos esti Theos, ho energon ta panta en
pasin.]--1 Cor. xii. 6.