Chapter 3 Page 6-Which Version is The Bible?

believed neither in a literal Garden of Eden nor that Adam's fall differed in any degree from that of any of his descendants.¹ In a March 4, 1890 letter to the Archbishop of Canterbury on Old Testament Criticism, Westcott gave his "amen" to Hort's last sentiment by penning: "No one now, I suppose, holds that the first three chapters of Genesis, for example, give a literal history I could never understand how any one reading them with open eyes could think they did."²

Although not wishing to be under the dominion of the Pope, in writing to Rev. John Ellerton on July 6, 1848, Hort said: "the pure Romanish view seems to me nearer, and more likely to lead to, the truth than the evangelical view. ... We dare not forsake the sacraments or God will forsake us."³ In a December 14, 1846 letter to his father, Hort wrote " ... Methodism ... is worse than popery ... being more insidious",⁴ and in an 1864 correspondence to Bishop Westcott he stated his conviction that "Protestantism is only parenthetical and temporary".⁵ Indeed, Hort wrote Westcott (December 4, 1861) of preferring Greek philosophy and "its precious truth" to the Christian revelation in which he said he found "... nothing, and should be very much astonished and perplexed to find anything".⁶

Both W&H came under the influence of J.H. Newman, an Anglican Bishop who returned to the Roman church and was made Cardinal. Newman held a doctrine of angelology in which he taught the gnostic view that there were many intermediates between God and His creation. Westcott and Hort also fell under the spell of Coleridge and Maurice, two Unitarians who were pantheistic and metaphysical, holding low estimates of "inspiration of Scripture". Coleridge said "Reason was the divine logos."

Frederick Maurice was the son of a Unitarian minister and a brilliant student of Oxford and Cambridge. Having become a clergyman in the Church of England, he was dismissed as principal of King's College, London, on charges of heresy. Maurice had a commanding influence on many of the leaders of his day, especially Dr. Hort who wrote of him November 8, 1871: "... Mr. Maurice has been a dear friend of mine for twenty-three years, and I have been deeply influenced by his books".⁷ Westcott also admitted he owed much to the writings of Maurice,⁸ and Hort's son wrote of his father: "In undergraduate days, if not before, he came under the spell of Coleridge".⁹

Thus we have two Anglican priests whose stated beliefs were strongly Roman. Both accepted Darwin's theory of evolution. Writing to Rev. John Ellerton, April 3, 1860, Hort declared: "But the book that has engaged me most is Darwin. ... it is a book that one is proud to be contemporary with. ... My feeling is strong that the theory is unanswerable."¹⁰

Denying that the death of Christ Jesus made the once for all vicarious atonement for the sinner, W&H choose instead to emphasize atonement through the incarnation rather than through the crucifixion. This view was an attempt to exalt Mary's position as, of course, she was prominent at the conception and birth of Jesus. Such posture upholds the Roman Catholic Mass. So their view was that of atonement through Jesus' conception and birth rather than his shed blood!

1 A.F. Hort, Life and Letters of Fenton John Anthony Hort, op. cit., Vol. I, p. 78.

2 A. Westcott, Life and Letters of Brooke Foss Westcott, op. cit., Vol. II, p. 69.

3 A.F. Hort, Life and Letters of Fenton John Anthony Hort, op. cit., Vol. I, pp. 76-77.

4 Ibid., Vol. I, p. 49.

5 Ibid., Vol. II, p. 31.

6 Ibid., Vol. I, p. 449.

7 Ibid., Vol. II, p. 155.

8 A. Westcott, Life and Letters of Brooke Foss Westcott, op. cit., Vol. II, p. 11.

9 A.F. Hort, Life and Letters of Fenton John Anthony Hort, op. cit., Vol. I, p. 42.

10 Ibid., Vol. I, p. 416, also p. 414.

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