DOCTRINE OF THE GREEK ARTICLE APPLIED TO THE CRITICISM AND ILLUSTRATION OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. BY THE LATE RIGHT REV. THOMAS FANSHAW MIDDLETON, D.D. LORD BISHOP OF CALCUTTA. ARTICULI Certe naturæ cognitio sat est necessaria, quamvis cum publico malo Ecclesiæ hæc BOHLIUS IN THESAURO THEOL. POLY A NEW EDITION, WITH PREFATORY OBSERVATIONS AND NOTES BY HUGH JAMES ROSE, B.D. JOINT-DEAN OF BOCKING. PRINTED FOR J. & J. J. DEIGHTON, CAMBRIDGE, & J. G. & F. RIVINGTON, LONDON. 1833. ΤΟ MRS. MIDDLETON, WHO, IN THE WORDS OF HER HUSBAND, WAS THE COMPANION OF ALL HIS TRAVELS, "THE DEPOSITARY OF ALL WHICH HE THOUGHT, AND THE TRANSCRIBER OF ALMOST EVERY THING HE WROTE," THIS NEW EDITION OF HIS CHIEF WORK IS INSCRIBED, WITH EVERY FEELING OF RESPECT AND SYMPATHY. PRELIMINARY OBSERVATIONS. BY THE EDITOR. THE last edition of Bishop Middleton's work on the Greek Article (published in 1828) being exhausted, application has been made to me to superintend a new edition, with such additions as I should judge advisable. Having long felt the highest veneration for Bishop Middleton's character and abilities, I heartily rejoice at finding any opportunity of testifying my feelings towards him, and regret only that my powers second my inclinations so ill, that any thing which I can add to a work of his must be so unworthy of it and of him. I wish to say a few words on the work itself, and then to state what I have endeavoured to do in the present edition. The Inquiry into the Greek Article is a work to which sufficient justice has not been done in this country. I have been surprised to find how many men to whom I am accustomed to look with the highest respect, have not even read the volume', 1 The rapid sale of the last edition is rather owing, I think, to the value justly set upon Bishop Middleton's notes on the New Testament, than to any interest in the theory of which he intended them only as the illustration. I may perhaps add here, that, as I have found no formal objections made to Bishop Middleton's theory, I have thought that Mr. Le Bas's call for a full discussion of the question, would, on the whole, be best complied with by noticing such observations of modern critics as appear to be inconsistent with the Bishop's rules, leaving his powerful reasoning in defence of them to speak for itself. See Mr. Le Bas's admirable Life of Bishop Middleton, vol. i. p. 11. |