EARLY
HERESIES STILL WITH US TODAY
The Bible warns that there would be
those who would corrupt the word of God
(2 Corinthians 2:17) and handle it
deceitfully (2 Corinthians 4:2). There
would arise false gospels with false
epistles (2 Thessalonians 2:2), along
with false prophets and teachers who
would not only bring in damnable
heresies but would seek to make
merchandise of the true believer through
their own feigned words (2 Peter 2:1-3).
It did not take long for this to occur.
In the days of the Apostles, and shortly
afterwards, several doctrinal heresies
arose. Their early beginnings are
referred to in the New Testament in such
places as Galatians 1:6-8; 1 John 4:3; 2
John 1:7; and Jude 1:3-4. They not only
plagued the early Church, but are still
with us today, in modern form, in many
contemporary Christian cults. These
false doctrines influenced the
transmission of scripture and account
for some of the differences in the line
of manuscripts.
WESTCOTT AND HORT
Brooke Foss Westcott (1825-1901) and
Fenton John Anthony Hort (1828-1892)
produced a Greek New Testament in 1881
based on the findings of Tischendorf.
This Greek NT was the basis for the
Revised Version of that same year. They
also developed a theory of textual
criticism which underlay their Greek NT
and several other Greek NT since (such
as the Nestles text and the United Bible
Society's text). Greek New Testaments
such as these produced the modern
English translations of the Bible we
have today. So it is important for us to
know the theory of Westcott and Hort as
well as something of the two men who
have so greatly influenced modern
textual criticism.
In short, the Westcott and Hort theory
states that the Bible is to be treated
as any other book would be.
Westcott and Hort believed the Greek
text which underlies the KJV was
perverse and corrupt. Hort called the
Textus Receptus vile and villainous
(Life and Letters of Fenton John Anthony
Hort, Vol. I, p.211).
If Westcott and Hort are the fathers of
modern textual criticism and the
restorers of the true text, should we
not know something of their beliefs to
see if they are consistent with
Scripture?
This would be harmonious with the
teaching found in Matthew 7:17.
What they said about…
The Scriptures:
I reject the word infallibility of Holy
Scriptures overwhelmingly. (Westcott,
The Life and Letters of Brook Foss
Westcott, Vol. I, p.207).
Our Bible as well as our Faith is a mere
compromise. (Westcott, On the Canon of
the New Testament, p. vii).
Evangelicals seem to me perverted. .
.There are, I fear, still more serious
differences between us on the subject of
authority, especially the authority of
the Bible. (Hort, The Life and Letters
of Fenton John Anthony Hort, Vol. I,
p.400)
Dr. Wilbur Pickering writes that, Hort
did not hold to a high view of
inspiration. (The Identity of the New
Testament Text, p.212)
Perhaps this is why both the RV (which
Westcott and Hort helped to translate)
and the American edition of it, the ASV,
translated 2 Timothy 3:16 as, Every
scripture inspired of God instead of All
scripture is given by inspiration of
God, (KJV).
The Deity of Christ:
He never speaks of Himself directly as
God, but the aim of His revelation was
to lead men to see God in Him.
(Westcott, The Gospel According to St.
John, p. 297).
(John) does not expressly affirm the
identification of the Word with Jesus
Christ. (Westcott, Ibid., p. 16).
(Rev. 3:15) might no doubt bear the
Arian meaning, the first thing created.
(Hort, Revelation, p.36).
Perhaps this is why their Greek text
makes Jesus a created god (John 1:18)
and their American translation had a
footnote concerning John 9:38 And he
said, Lord I believe and he worshipped
him. which said, The Greek word denotes
an act of reverence, whether paid to a
creature, as here, or to the Creator.
(thus calling Christ a creature.)
Salvation:
The thought (of John 10:29) is here
traced back to its most absolute form as
resting on the essential power of God in
His relation of Universal Fatherhood.
(Westcott, St. John, p. 159).
I confess I have no repugnance to the
primitive doctrine of a ransom paid to
Satan. I can see no other possible form
in which the doctrine of a ransom is at
all tenable; anything is better than the
doctrine of a ransom to the father. (Hort,
The First Epistle of St. Peter 1:1-2:17,
p. 77).
Perhaps this is why their Greek text
adds to salvation in 1 Peter 2:2. And
why their English version teaches
universal salvation in Titus 2:11 For
the grace of God hath appeared, bringing
salvation to all men, (ASV).
Hell:
(Hell is) not the place of punishment of
the guilty, (it is) the common abode of
departed spirits. (Westcott, Historic
Faith, pp.77-78).
We have no sure knowledge of future
punishment, and the word eternal has a
far higher meaning. (Hort, Life and
Letters, Vol. I, p.149).
Perhaps this is why their Greek text
does not have Mark 9:44, and their
English translation replaces
"everlasting fire" [Matt.
18:8] with "eternal fire" and
change the meaning of eternal as cited
by Hort in the above quote.
Creation:
"No one now, I suppose, holds that
the first three chapters of Genesis, for
example, give a literal history. I could
never understand how anyone reading them
with open eyes could think they
did." (Westcott, cited from Which
Bible?, p. 191).
"But the book which has most
engaged me is Darwin. Whatever may be
thought of it, it is a book that one is
proud to be contemporary with….. My
feeling is strong that the theory is
unanswerable." (Hort, cited from
Which Bible?, p. 189)
Romanism:
"I wish I could see to what
forgotten truth Mariolatry (the worship
of the Virgin Mary) bears witness."
(Westcott, Ibid. )
"The pure Romanish view seems to be
nearer, and more likely to lead to the
truth than the Evangelical." (Hort,
Life and Letters, Vol. I, p. 77)
It is one
thing to have doctrinal differences on
baby-sprinkling and perhaps a few other
interpretations. It is another to be a
Darwin-believing theologian who rejects
the authority of scriptures, Biblical
salvation, the reality of hell, and
makes Christ a created being to be
worshipped with Mary his mother. Yet,
these were the views of both Westcott
and Hort. No less significant is the
fact that both men were members of
spiritist societies (the Hermes Club and
the Ghostly Guild).
Westcott and Hort talked to Spirits of
the dead.
I call it Satanism.
Westcott and Hort
Brooke Foss Westcott (1825-1903) and
Fenton John Anthony Hort (1828-1892)
have been highly controversial figures
in biblical history.
On one side, their supporters have
heralded them as great men of God,
having greatly advanced the search for
the original Greek text.
On the other side, their opponents have
leveled charges of heresy, infidelity,
apostasy, and many others, claiming that
they are guilty of wreaking great damage
on the true text of Scripture.
I have no desire to sling mud nor a
desire to hide facts.
I believe it is essential at this time
that we examine what we know about these
men and their theories concerning the
text of the Bible.
I long sought for copies of the books
about their lives.
These are The Life and Letters of Brooke
Foss Westcott, by his son, Arthur, and
The Life and Letters of Fenton John
Anthony Hort, written by his son.
After literally months of trying, I was
able to acquire copies of them both for
study. Most of the material in
this section will be directly from these
sources so as to prevent it from being
secondhand.
We cannot blindly accept the finding of
any scholar without investigating what
his beliefs are concerning the Bible and
its doctrines. Scholarship alone makes
for an inadequate and dangerous
authority, therefore we are forced to
scrutinize these men's lives.
A Monumental Switch
Westcott and Hort were responsible for
the greatest feat in textual criticism.
They were responsible for replacing the
Universal Text of the Authorized Version
with the Local Text of Egypt and the
Roman Catholic Church. Both Westcott and
Hort were known to have resented the
pre-eminence given to the Authorized
Version and its underlying Greek Text.
They had been deceived into believing
that the Roman Catholic manuscripts,
Vaticanus and Aleph, were better because
they were older. This they believed,
even though Hort admitted that the
Antiochian or Universal Text was equal
in antiquity.
Hort said: 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. 85
Vicious Prejudice
In spite of the fact that the readings
of the Universal Text were found to be
as old, or older, Westcott and Hort
still sought to dislodge it from its
place of high standing in biblical
history. Hort occasionally let his
emotions show, Hort said: I had no idea
till the last few weeks of the
importance of text, having read so
little Greek Testament, and dragged on
with the villainous Textus Receptus …
Think of the vile Textus Receptus
leaning entirely on late MSS; it is a
blessing there are such early ones. 86
Westcott and Hort built their own Greek
text based primarily on a few uncial MSS
of the Local Text. It has been stated
earlier that these perverted MSS do not
even agree among themselves. The ironic
thing is that Westcott and Hort knew
this when they formed their text!
Burgon exposed Dr. Hort's confession,
Even Hort had occasion to notice an
instance of the concordia discourse.
Commenting on the four places in Mark's
gospel (14:30, 68, 72, a, b) where the
cocks crowing is mentioned said, The
confusion of attestation introduced by
these several cross currents of change
is so great that of the seven principal
MSS, Aleph, A, B, C, D, L, no two have
the same text in all four places. 87
A Shocking Revelation
That these men should lend their
influence to a family of MSS which have
a history of attacking and diluting the
major doctrines of the Bible, should not
come as a surprise. Oddly enough,
neither man believed that the Bible
should be treated any differently than
the writings of the lost historians and
philosophers!
Hort wrote, quote: For ourselves, we
dare not introduce considerations which
could not reasonably be applied to other
ancient texts, supposing them to have
documentary attestation of equal amount,
variety and antiquity. 88
He also states, Qoute: In the New
Testament, as in almost all prose
writings which have been much copied,
corruptions by interpolation are many
times more numerous than corruptions by
omission. (Emphasis mine.) 89
We must consider these things for a
moment. How can God use men who do not
believe that His Book is any different
than Shakespeare, Plato, or Dickens? It
is a fundamental belief that the Bible
is different from all other writings.
Why did these men not believe so?
Blatant Disbelief
Their skepticism does, in fact, go even
deeper. They have both become famous for
being able to deny scriptural truth and
still be upheld by fundamental
Christianity as biblical authorities!
Both Westcott and Hort failed to accept
the basic Bible doctrines which we hold
so dear and vital to our fundamental
faith.
Hort denies the reality of Eden:
I am inclined to think that no such
state as Eden (I mean the popular
notion) ever existed, and that Adams
fall in no degree differed from the fall
of each of his descendants, as Coleridge
justly argues. 90
Furthermore, he took sides with the
apostate authors of Essays and Reviews.
Hort writes to Rev. Rowland Williams,
October 21, 1858, Further I agree with
them [Authors of Essays and Reviews] in
condemning many leading specific
doctrines of the popular theology …
Evangelicals seem to me perverted rather
than untrue. There are, I fear, still
more serious differences between us on
the subject of authority, and especially
the authority of the Bible. 91
We must also confront Hort's disbelief
that the Bible was infallible: If you
make a decided conviction of the
absolute infallibility of the N.T.
practically a sine qua non for
co-operation, I fear I could not join
you. He also stated:
As I was writing the last words a note
came from Westcott. He too mentions
having had fears, which he now
pronounces groundless, on the strength
of our last conversation, in which he
discovered that I did recognize
Providente in biblical writings. Most
strongly I recognize it; but I am not
prepared to say that it necessarily
involves absolute infallibility. So I
still await judgment.
And further commented to a colleague:
But I am not able to go as far as you in
asserting the absolute infallibility of
a canonical writing. 92
Strange Bedfellows
Though unimpressed with the evangelicals
of his day, Hort had great admiration
for Charles Darwin! To his colleague,
B.F. Westcott, he wrote excitedly:
…Have you read Darwin? How I should
like to talk with you about it! In spite
of difficulties, I am inclined to think
it unanswerable. In any case it is a
treat to read such a book.
And to John Ellerton he writes: But the
book which has most engaged me is
Darwin. Whatever may be thought of it,
it is a book that one is proud to be
contemporary with … My feeling is
strong that the theory is unanswerable.
If so, it opens up a new period. 93
Dr. Hort was also an adherent to the
teaching of Samuel Taylor Coleridge. His
son writes: In undergraduate days, if
not before, he came under the spell of
Coleridge. 94
Coleridge was the college drop-out whose
drug addiction is an historical fact.
The opium habit, begun earlier to deaden
the pain of rheumatism, grew stronger.
After vainly trying in Malta and Italy
to break away from opium, Coleridge came
back to England in 1806. 95
One of Coleridge's famous works is Aids
to Reflection. Its chief aim is to
harmonize formal Christianity with
Coleridges variety of transcendental
philosophy. He also did much to
introduce Immanual Kant and other German
philosophers to English readers. 96
This man, Coleridge, had a great
influence on the two scholars from
Cambridge.
Forsaking Colossians 2:8
Hort was also a lover of Greek
philosophy. In writing to Mr. A.
MacMillian, he stated: You seem to make
(Greek) philosophy worthless for those
who have received the Christian
revelation. To me, though in a hazy way,
it seems full of precious truth of which
I find nothing, and should be very much
astonished and perplexed to find
anything in revelation.97
Lost in the Forest
In some cases Hort seemed to wander in
the woods. In others he can only be
described as utterly lost in the forest.
Take, for example, his views on
fundamental Bible truths.
Hort's Devil
Concerning existence of a personal devil
he wrote:
The discussion which immediately
precedes these four lines naturally
leads to another enigma most intimately
connected with that of everlasting
penalties, namely that of the
personality of the devil. It was
Coleridge who some three years ago first
raised any doubts in my mind on the
subject - doubts which have never yet
been at all set at rest, one way or the
other. You yourself are very cautious in
your language.
Now if there be a devil, he cannot
merely bear a corrupted and marred image
of God; he must be wholly evil, his name
evil, his every energy and act evil.
Would it not be a violation of the
divine attributes for the Word to be
actively the support of such a nature as
that? 98
Hort's Hell
Hort also
shrunk from the belief in a literal,
eternal hell.
I think Maurice's letter to me
sufficiently showed that we have no sure
knowledge respecting the duration of
future punishment, and that the word
eternal has a far higher meaning than
the merely material one of excessively
long duration; extinction always grates
against my mind as something impossible.
99
Certainly in my case it proceeds from no
personal dread; when I have been living
most godlessly, I have never been able
to frighten myself with visions of a
distant future, even while I held the
doctrine. 100
Hort's Purgatory
Although the idea of a literal devil and
a literal hell found no place in Hort's
educated mind, he was a very real
believer in the factious Roman Catholic
doctrine of purgatory.
To Rev. John Ellerton he wrote in 1854:
I agree with you in thinking it a pity
that Maurice verbally repudiates
purgatory, but I fully and unwaveringly
agree with him in the three cardinal
points of the controversy: (1) that
eternity is independent of duration; (2)
that the power of repentance is not
limited to this life; (3) that it is not
revealed whether or not all will
ultimately repent. The modern denial of
the second has, I suppose, had more to
do with the despiritualizing of theology
then almost anything that could be
named. 101
Also while advising a young student
he wrote:
The idea of purgation, of cleansing as
by fire, seems to me inseparable from
what the Bible teaches us of the Divine
chastisements; and, though little is
directly said resecting the future
state, it seems to me incredible that
the Divine chastisements should in this
respect change their character when this
visible life is ended.
I do not hold it contradictory to the
Article to think that the condemned
doctrine has not been wholly injurious,
inasmuch as it has kept alive some sort
of belief in a great and important
truth. 102
Thus we see that Dr. Hort's opinions
were certainly not inhibited by
orthodoxy. Yet his wayward ways do not
end here. For, as his own writings
display, Dr. Hort fell short in several
other fundamental areas.
Hort's Atonement
There was also his rejection of Christ's
atoning death for the sins of all
mankind.
The fact is, I do not see how Gods
justice can be satisfied without every
man's suffering in his own person the
full penalty for his sins. 103
In fact, Hort considered the teachings
of Christs atonement as heresy!
Certainly nothing can be more
unscriptural than the modern limiting of
Christs bearing our sins and sufferings
to His death; but indeed that is only
one aspect of an almost universal
heresy. 104
The fact is, that Hort believed Satan
more worthy of accepting Christs payment
for sins than God.
I confess I have no repugnance to the
primitive doctrine of a ransom paid to
Satan, though neither am I prepared to
give full assent to it. But I can see no
other possible form in which the
doctrine of a ransom is at all tenable;
anything is better than the notion of a
ransom paid to the Father. 105
Hort's Baptism
Dr. Hort also believed that the Roman
Catholic teaching of baptismal
regeneration was more correct than the
evangelical teaching.
…at the same time in language stating
that we maintain Baptismal Regeneration
as the most important of doctrines …
the pure Romish view seems to me nearer,
and more likely to lead to, the truth
than the Evangelical. 106
He also states that, Baptism assures us
that we are children of God, members of
Christ and His body, and heirs of the
heavenly kingdom. 107
In fact, Hort's heretical view of
baptism probably cost his own son his
eternal soul, as we find Hort assuring
his eldest son, Arthur, that his infant
baptism was his salvation:
You were not only born into the world of
men. You were also born of Christian
parents in a Christian land. While yet
an infant you were claimed for God by
being made in Baptism an unconscious
member of His Church, the great Divine
Society which has lived on unceasingly
from the Apostles time till now. You
have been surrounded by Christian
influences; taught to lift up your eyes
to the Father in heaven as your own
Father; to feel yourself in a wonderful
sense a member or part of Christ, united
to Him by strange invisible bonds; to
know that you have as your birthright a
share in the kingdom of heaven. 108
Hort's Twisted Belief
Along with Hort's unregenerated
misconceptions of basic Bible truths,
there were his quirkish and sometimes
quackish personal beliefs.
One such example is his hatred for
democracy, as he asserts in a letter to
Rev. Westcott dated April 28, 1865:
…I dare not prophesy about America,
but I cannot say that I see much as yet
to soften my deep hatred of democracy in
all its forms. 109
It is not an amazing thing that any one
man could hold to so many unscriptural
and ungodly beliefs. It is amazing that
such a man could be exalted by Bible
believing preachers and professors to a
point of authority higher than the King
James Bible!
Dr. Hort was a truly great Greek
scholar, yet a great intellect does not
make one an authority over the Bible
when they themselves do not even claim
to believe it! Albert Einstein was a man
of great intellect, but he rejected
Scripture, and so where he speaks on the
subject of Scripture he is not to be
accepted as authoritative. Possessing a
great mind or great ability does not
guarantee being a great spiritual
leader. Dr. Hort was a scholar, but his
scholarship alone is no reason to accept
his theories concerning Bible truth.
If fundamental pastors of today enlisted
the services of an evangelist and found
that this evangelist had beliefs
paralleling those of Fenton John Anthony
Hort, I believe that the pastor would
cancel the meeting. Strangely through,
when a pastor discovers such to be true
about Dr. Hort, he excuses him as a
great Greek scholar and presents his
Authorized Version to him to be
maliciously dissected and then discarded
as Dr. Hort sets himself down in the
seat of authority which the Bible once
held. Here again I must assert that most
often this is done with childlike faith
on the part of the pastor, due to the
education he received while in seminary.
The seminary is not really guilty
either, for they have simply and
unsuspectingly accepted the authority of
two men raised under the influence of a
campaign by the Jesuits to re-Romanize
England. Wilkenson reports that Hort had
been influenced by these Roman Catholic
forces: Dr. Hort tell us that the
writings of Simon had a large share in
the movement to discredit the Textus
Receptus class of MSS and Bibles. 119
Problems with Westcott
Unfortunately for the new Bible
supporters, Dr. Westcott's credentials
are even more anti-biblical. Westcott
did not believe that Genesis 1-3 should
be taken literally. He also thought that
Moses and David were poetic characters
whom Jesus Christ referred to by name
only because the common people accepted
them as authentic.
Westcott states:
No one now, I suppose, holds that the
first three chapters of Genesis, for
example, give a literal history - I
could never understand how anyone
reading them with open eyes could think
they did - yet they disclose to us a
Gospel. So it is probably elsewhere. Are
we not going through a trial in regard
to the use of popular language on
literary subjects like that through
which we went, not without sad losses in
regard to the use of popular language on
physical subjects? If you feel now that
it was, to speak humanly, necessary that
the Lord should speak of the sun rising,
it was no less necessary that he would
use the names Moses and David as His
contemporaries used them.
There was no critical question at issue.
(Poetry is, I think, a thousand times
more true than History; this is a
private parenthesis for myself alone.)
120
He also said David is not a
chronological but a spiritual person.
121
That the first three chapter of Genesis
are all allegory has been believed by
liberals and modernists for years. Do
today's fundamentalists realize that
those modernists beliefs were nurtures
in the heart of this Bible critic?
Westcott was also a doubter of the
biblical account of miracles: I never
read an account of a miracle but I seem
instinctively to feel its improbability,
and discover somewhat of evidence in the
account of it. 122
If a great fundamental preacher of our
day were to make this statement, he
would be called apostate, but what then
of Westcott?
Westcott believed that the second coming
of Jesus Christ was not a physical
coming but a spiritual coming: "As
far as I can remember, I said very
shortly what I hold to be the Lord's
coming in my little book on the Historic
Faith. I hold very strongly that the
Fall of Jerusalem was the coming which
first fulfilled the Lords words; and, as
there have been other comings, I cannot
doubt that He is coming' to us now. 123
Westcott's Heaven
Wait! This fundamental doctrine is not
the last one to be denied by Bishop
Westcott, for he believed Heaven to be a
state and not a literal place. Note the
following quotations from Bishop
Westcott: No doubt the language of the
Rubric is unguarded, but it saves us
from the error of connecting the
Presence of Christ's glorified humanity
with place; heaven is a state and not a
place. 124
Yet the unseen is the largest part of
life. Heaven lies about us now in
infancy alone; and by swift, silent
pauses for thought, for recollection,
for aspiration, we cannot only keep
fresh the influence of that diviner
atmosphere, but breathe it more
habitually. 125
We may reasonably hope, by patient,
resolute, faithful, united endeavor to
find heaven about us here, the glory of
our earthly life. 126
Westcott's Newmanism
Dr. Westcott was also deeply devoted to
John Newman, the Roman Catholic defector
who took 150 Church of England clergymen
with him when he made the change. Those
of his disciples who did not make the
physical change to Rome, made the
spiritual change to Romanism, though
many, like Westcott, never admitted it.
These are the convictions of a man
greatly responsible for the destruction
of Christian faith in the Greek Text of
the Authorized Version. Place Mr.
Westcott next to any present fundamental
preacher or educator, and he would be
judged a modernist, liberal and heretic.
In spite of his outstanding ability in
Greek, a man of his convictions would
not be welcome on the campus of any
truly Christian college in America. This
is not an overstatement, nor is it
malicious. The Christian colleges of
today hold very high standards and
simply would not settle for a man of
such apostate conviction, no matter how
great his ability to teach a given
subject.
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