Here we wish to state distinctly that by the "Traditional Greek Text" of the NT, we mean the text which has been handed down to us by and in the catholic Church, and which is contained in the mass of copies and is attested by ecclesiastical writers.¹

We do not necessarily mean the 'Textus Receptus'. Everybody knows that the latter is only a text, found in a particular edition, to which this title was assigned by the editor. THis text has no authority whatever beyond that of the few MSS, on which it ultimately rests.²

If, as in truth is the case, it coincides to a very large extent with the Traditional Greek Text, this fact alone, not the name "Receptus", imparts any weight, or importance, to its readings.

Yet in the heat of the controversy which followed the publication of The Revision Revised, opponents were heard to sneer at the late Dean Burgon, as though he quoted the Textus Receptus - or, which is practically the same thing, Lloyd's Greek Testament - as an authority. ³

Burgon, who had devoted a lifetime to the textual problem, knew better than to show such ignorance. When he quoted the Textus Receptus, or Lloyd, he did so because those editions give the readings of the Traditional Text of the catholic Church.

So far was he from a superstitious deference to those late forms of text, that he deliberately proposed, and intended to publish, a large number of emendations, in order to bring the current text into harmony with that of the majority of MSS and the readings of the Fathers. ⁴

Original Footnotes:

1. See The Traditional Text of the Holy Gospels Vindicated and Established, Burgon & Miller, 1896, p.5 and passim; Revision Revised, p. 269 (xiii), with which compare p.21 note 2. Miller indeed (op.cit. Introd., p.vii) sets the TR in contrast to the texts of Tisch. and others, but that he recognized that it possessed no inherent authority is clear from the words used in the Introd. to the Trad. Text.., p.5. The paragraph is from his pen, not Burgon's.

2. The editions of the Elzeviers, of one which the editor says 'textum habes ab omnibus receptum' - whence the familiar appellation - are practically identical with the earlier editions of Stephens, and therefore rest on the MSS Stephens employed. These MSS, for the most part, exhibited the readings which belong to the Traditional Greek Text. See more in Scrivener's Introduction, ed.4 vol ii, ch 7.

3. Several years afterwards the same charge was brought against the Dean by Dr. Salmon in Some Thoughts on the TC of the NT, see pp. 3 & 4. For Miller's reply see The Present State of the Textual Controversy respecting the Holy Gospels, pp.24-26.

4. See Appendix to this essay.