WTJ 57 (1995) 463-70

A NOTE O N ARCHIBALD ALEXANDER'S APOLOGETIC MOTIVE

IN POSITING " E R R O R S " IN T H E AUTOGRAPHS

RONALD V. HUGGINS

I. Introduction

In his 1983 work on Archibald Alexander and the founding of Princeton

Seminary, Lefferts A. Loetscher writes:

When Dr. Alexander turned to lecture on the text of the New Testament, he
conceded, as he had done in the case of the Old Testament, "that it is even
possible that some of the autographs, if we had them, might not be altogether free
from such errors as arise from the slip of the pen, as the Apostles and ["had"]
amanuensis [- es] who were not inspired." Thus here, as in treating the Old
Testament, Alexander avoided asserting the literal "inerrancy" of the original
autographs of the New Testament. Trifling as it may seem to a later day, this was
a concession that logically weakened his desire for an absolute base for theology,
a concession which his successors, A. A. Hodge and B. B. Warfield, in the process
of tightening up the theology, declined to make. Alexander suggested that an
interlinear correction by the author himself of such a pen slip would be impossible
to distinguish from an emendation by a later scribe. He then sought deftly to turn
this concession to advantage by arguing that "the loss of the autographs therefore
need not be considered of so much importance as we know that they were copied
with the utmost care." For the later Old Princeton position, the argument at this
point tended to be reversed. The loss of the unknown original autographs made
it possible to blame existing discrepancies on supposed errors in transmission of
the text.1

Here Loetscher wants to contrast Alexander, who, he says, avoided as

serting literal inerrancy, and later Princetonians A. A. Hodge and . B. War-
field, who did not. This article argues, however, that in doing so Loetscher
does justice neither to Alexander's point nor to the later Princeton position.
Alexander's remark actually "conceded" nothing, but was framed to make
an entirely positive (though perhaps poorly conceived) 2 apologetic point

1
Lefferts A. Loetscher, Facing the Enlightenment and Pietism: Archibald Alexander and the Found
ing of Princeton Theological Seminary (Westport, CN: Greenwood, 1983) 228. On p. 224, Loetscher
refers to a marginal note in Archibald Alexander, "Biblical Criticism," no. IV (at Princeton
Theological Seminary; not paginated), where Alexander is said to have allowed "for copyists'
errors, noting that the original writers of Scripture might have used amanuenses and that,
thus, copyists' errors might even have crept into the original Old Testament writings."
2
That it was poorly conceived is clear from what Loetscher makes of it. Alexander, as will
be seen, wanted only to defend the adequacy of the apographa without belittling the autographa.
463
464 WESTMINSTER THEOLOGICAL JOURNAL

about the adequacy of current copies of the Bible. Further, in framing his
amanuensis illustration Alexander shall be seen to share the same under-
standing of inspiration as the 1881 Hodge/Warfield article with which
Loetscher wishes to contrast it.3
The passage Loetscher discusses comes from the unpublished notes of
Archibald Alexander on NT criticism, written in the teens of the nineteenth
century. We now reproduce it in its larger context (portions quoted by
Loetscher are italicized):

It is even possible that some of the Autographs, if we had them, might not be altogethe
from such errors as arise from the slip of the pen, as the Apostles and Amanuensis who
not inspired, and if the Apostle should have corrected any slips that the Amanu-
ensis might have made, yet this would have produced an interlineation, and at
this day we c'd not distinguish the corrections of the author from others that
might have been made afterward.
The loss of the Autographs therefore need not be considered of so much importance
know that they were copied with the utmost care; and the Apographs now in possession
of the learned are very numerous + some of them very ancient.4

It is to be observed that Loetscher quotes only the first half of Alexander's

remark concerning errors introduced by a non-inspired amanuensis. This
seems to suggest that Loetscher understood the passage to contain a dual
reference: (1) an admission that errors might have been introduced into the
autographs by non-inspired amanuenses, and (2) an admission that even if
an inspired apostle had corrected these slips, we would not now be able to
tell whether it was the inspired apostle making any given correction, or
some later non-inspired scribe. But the passage is not to be read this way.
Rather it contains only a single reference. Alexander imagines that the
autographs have come into his hands. Since it is a fact that the apostolic
authors employed amanuenses from time to time, and since these amanu-
enses were not inspired, Alexander would strongly suspect before turning
over the first page that within he would encounter words crossed out and
corrected. This is because, as he says elsewhere, "it is impossible for men
[non-inspired men] to write the whole of a book without making some
mistakes."5 Had the inspired apostles themselves done all the writing,

Nevertheless it might seem from the way he developed his argument that he was making light
of the autographs. It may be significant, therefore, that in the portion of his book Evidences of
the Authenticity, Inspiration and Canonical Authority of the Holy Scriptures (Philadelphia: Presbyterian
Board of Publication, 1836), written after his Biblical Criticism notes, Alexander leaves out
this argument involving amanuenses at the place we should expect to find it (p. 271).
1
A. A. Hodge and B. B. Warfield, "Inspiration," Presbyterian Review 2 (1881) 225-60.
4
Archibald Alexander, "Biblical Criticism ofthe New Testament," no. 1 (not paginated),
in "Biblical Criticism Notes by Archibald Alexander." Used by permission of the Princeton
Theological Seminary Libraries.
5
Alexander, Evidences, 112. Similarly, Alexander writes in his lecture notes on the OT
under the heading, " . . . opinion of Bauer on this subject": "The copies which were after-
wards made of necessity must be liable to the same errors; and also to the usual mistakes
 ARCHIBALD ALEXANDER'S APOLOGETIC MOTIVE 465

Alexander would have supposed that such errors would have been avoided.
But since non-inspired amanuenses were used, mistakes must have been
made, which the inspired apostles would then have corrected where such
mistakes introduced error. If that was where corrections stopped, and Alex
ander could be sure of it, then ascertaining the inspired reading would be
a simple matter of always adopting the corrected one. But what if some
scribe introduced further corrections later? Then, says Alexander, "we c'd
not distinguish the corrections of the author from others that might have
been made afterward." In view of this, Alexander argues, it is better to have
a straightforward copy of the apostle's corrected text than the first draft of
the autographs made by an amanuensis with apostolic corrections marked in.

II. The Inspiration of Superintendence

This illustration of the corrected autographs was born out of Alexander's

understanding of inspiration. In an 1836 work, Alexander identifies three
different types of inspiration: (1) superintendence, (2) suggestion, and (3) eleva
tion.6 Elevation enables people to "bring forth productions, in speaking or
writing, far more sublime and excellent than they could have attained by
the exercise of their own faculties."7 Alexander includes as examples of
elevation the Psalms, Proverbs, the dialogues of the book of Job, and in
stances where women in the OT "instantly uttered, in elevated strains of
poetry, discourses in praise of God, which, by their unassisted powers, they
could never have produced."8 Suggestion, or revelation, has to do with re
vealing unknown truths, "as when the prophets were inspired to predict
the revolutions of empires, or to communicate a message from God to a
whole people, or to an individual, the ideas must of course have been
immediately suggested by the Holy Spirit."9 But it is superintendence that is
directly relevant in the present case:

[Superintendence] takes place, when an historian is influenced by the Holy Spirit

to write, and in writing is so directed as to select those facts and circumstances
which will answer the end proposed; and so assisted and strengthened in the
narrative of events, as to be preserved from all error and mistake. The facts need
not be revealed, because they may be well known to the writer from his own

incident to so tedious + continuous [?] a work, as that of copying the whole volume of the O.T.
It is indeed not [to] be believed, that without a miracle, anyone could make a transcript of
the whole Bible without committing a single error" (Alexander, "Biblical Criticism," no. IV;
used by permission of Princeton Theological Seminary Libraries). So also Warfield writes:
"Everybody knows that no book ever was printed, much less hand-copied, into which some
errors did not intrude in the process" (. B. Warfield, "The Inerrancy of the Original Auto
graphs," The Independent 45 [March 23, 1893] 2 [382]).
b
Alexander, Evidences, 224.
7
Ibid., 225.
8
Ibid.
9
Ibid.
466 WESTMINSTER THEOLOGICAL JOURNAL

observation, and may be deeply impressed on his memory; but no man can avoid
inaccuracies and mistakes in a narrative of facts, long past. If it is important that
such a narrative be exempt from error, the writer must be inspired.10

Superintendence comes into play especially where an inspired writer re-

lated well-known facts using his own peculiar style; in other words, where
he ' 'did not need a continual suggestion of every idea, but only to be so
superintended, as to be preserved from error."11 A point to keep in mind
is that for Alexander the inspiration of superintendence works primarily on
the author not on the text. The text is inspired in that it is written by a
person under inspiration. It is with this perspective that Alexander brings
forward his illustration of a dictated-then-corrected autograph. Alexander
is describing the process in which an inspired writer, using a non-inspired
amanuensis, brings the product of his earlier dictation into line with the
precise message God intends to deliver through him.
At this point there is a danger of Alexander being thought to hold not
too loose a view of inerrancy but too strict; i.e., an extremely mechanical
view in which the ridiculous picture of an infinitely exacting apostolic
proofreader, endlessly picking over details, is called forth. Yet while Alex-
ander is not explicit in this passage, we may be sure he would not have
endorsed such a picture. Here again it is Alexander's understanding of
superintendence that makes this clear. The inspiration of superintendence
extends to the actual words used only in so far as was necessary to secure
freedom from error:

. . . there existed no necessity that every word should be inspired; but there was
the same need of a directing and superintending influence as in regard to the
things themselves . . . this superintendence, both as to ideas and words, may be
illustrated by the case of a father conducting a child along a narrow path. The
child walks by its own activity, and takes steps according to its ability; but the
father preserves it from falling, and keeps it in the straight path. Just so it is with
men when under the superintending influence of the Holy Spirit. Their own
powers of understanding, memory and invention are not superseded, but only
directed, and preserved from inaccuracy and error; but the man pursues his own
peculiar method of thinking, reasoning, and expression. He speaks or writes in the
language which he has learned, and uses that idiom and style which have become
habitual; so that inspired men will . . . retain their peculiarity of style and ex-
pression just as fully, as if they were writing or speaking without inspiration.12

This same understanding continued at Princeton after Alexander. Charles

Hodge wrote: "The object of revelation is the communication of knowl-
edge. The object or design of inspiration is to secure infallibility in

10
Ibid., 224-25.
11
Ibid, 226-27.
12
Ibid, 227.
 ARCHIBALD ALEXANDER'S APOLOGETIC MOTIVE 467

teaching." n Like Alexander, the elder Hodge rejected the idea that the
biblical writers were "like calculating machines which grind out loga-
rithms with infallible correctness.",4

If a Hebrew was inspired, he spake Hebrew; if a Greek, he spake Greek; if an

educated man, he spoke as a man of culture; if uneducated, he spoke as such a
man is wont to speak. If his mind was logical, he reasoned, as Paul did; if emo-
tional and contemplative, he wrote as John wrote. . . . The sacred writers im-
pressed their peculiarities on their several productions as plainly as though they
were the subjects of no extraordinary influence.15

Thus in an 1857 article, Hodge could write: "In the historical portions of
Scripture, there is little for inspiration to accomplish beyond the proper
selection of the materials, and accuracy of statement."16 The same idea is
carried on by his son A. A. Hodge in the original edition of the latter's
Outlines of Theology (1860): "Inspiration, therefore, while it controlled the
writer, so that all he wrote was infallibly true, and to the very purpose for
which God designed it, yet left him free in the exercise of his natural
faculties, and to the use of materials drawn from different sources, both
natural and supernatural."17
In the famous 1881 article on inspiration, which he wrote with B. B. War-
field, A. A. Hodge again carefully stressed that the inspiration of superin-
tendence "interfered with no spontaneous natural agencies, which were, in
themselves, producing results conformable to the mind of the Holy Spirit."18
On the contrary, "The record itself furnishes evidence that the writers were
in large measure dependent for their knowledge upon sources and methods
in themselves fallible."19 Furthermore:

There is a vast difference between exactness of statement, which includes an

exhaustive rendering of details, an absolute literalness, which the Scriptures
never profess, and accuracy, on the other hand, which secures a correct statement
of facts or principles intended to be affirmed. It is this accuracy and this alone,
as distinct from exactness, which the Church doctrine maintains of every affir-
mation in the original text of Scripture without exception.20

At no point, then, in the development of the Old Princeton Theology

would Alexander's amanuensis illustration been deemed inconsistent with
the correct understanding of inspiration or with the inerrancy of the auto-
graphs. Alexander's argument involves nothing more than the normal way

11
Charles Hodge, Systematic Theology (3 vols.; New York: Scribner, 1872) 1.155.
14
Ibid., 156.
15
Ibid., 157.
,b
[Charles Hodge], "Inspiration," Biblical Repertory and Princeton Review 29 (1857) 675.
17
A. A. Hodge, Outlines of Theology (New York: Robert Carter & Brothers, I860) 68.
18
Hodge and Warfield, "Inspiration," 226 (italics added).
19
Ibid., 238.
20
Ibid.
468 WESTMINSTER THEOLOGICAL JOURNAL

way in which books were produced in the ancient world, a process with
which the inspiration of superintendence would not have needed to inter-
fere beyond what was necessary to secure freedom from error.
Had Alexander described more precisely the actual process in which the
inspired apostle corrected the work of his amanuensis, he would probably
have said that only such slips as actually significantly changed the apostle's
meaning, or introduced error, would have needed correction. Minor
changes of wording or spelling which did not alter the meaning might have,
with divine permission, passed unnoticed under the apostle's eye; or, even
supposing the apostle did notice them, might have been approved and left.

III. Alexander's Apologetic Intent

Contrary to Loetscher's analysis, nothing in the passage being discussed

suggests that Alexander was pressed into conceding errors in the auto-
graphs, or that he afterward tried to make good the damage by "deftly"
refocusing attention away from the autographs and onto the accuracy of the
copies. (In any case, how can inaccurate autographs give birth to accurate
apographs?)21 His illustration was entirely positive and hypothetical arising,
as already said, out of a general reflection on the nature of book production
using amanuenses, and framed as part of a larger argument that the loss of
the autographs need not undermine confidence in Scripture.
That this was his motive is clearly evident from the flow of the discussion
in the larger context in which the amanuensis illustration appears. Alex-
ander opens the lecture by noting (on the first page of this MS pamphlet)
that although the autographs had been preserved with care they were no
longer in existence. This loss, however, was not surprising, since "there is
no M.S. of any book extant which is as old as the days of the Apostles, unless
we except some of the MSS wh. have been preserved in Herculaneum." The
autographs, he goes on to say, appear to have survived at least to Tertul-
liano day. Next he introduces the amanuensis illustration, and then brings
the entire subsection on the significance of the loss of the autographs to a
close with this concluding statement: "The loss of the Autographs therefore
need not be considered of so much importance as we know that they were
copied with the utmost care; and the Apographs now in possession of the
learned are very numerous + some of them very ancient." Loetscher read
this last statement as rhetorical avoidance. Such a reading would be more
plausible were it not for the fact that this passage concludes not only the
alleged admission of errors in the autographs, as Loetscher's treatment
implies, but Alexander's entire discussion of the significance of their loss up
to this point in the lecture.

21
By being corrected? If so, corrected in reference to what? and according to what stan-
dard?
 ARCHIBALD ALEXANDER'S APOLOGETIC MOTIVE 469

Loetscher's charge that Alexander "avoided asserting the literal 'iner-

rancy' of the original autographs of the New Testament," 22 in order to
distance him from later Old Princeton, is bewildering. Alexander's under-
standing of inspiration of superintendence was essentially identical to that
of later Old Princeton (though instead of speaking of the inspiration of super-
intendence and the inspiration of revelation, the latter preferred the simpler
terminology, inspiration and revelation). Alexander would have had abso-
lutely no disagreement with A. A. Hodge's distinction between "an ex-
haustive rendering of details, an absolute literalness," which is not claimed
for Scripture, and "accuracy . . . which secures a correct statement of facts
or principles intended to be affirmed,"23 which is.

IV. Loetscher's Wedge

To this point we have endeavored to show that the wedge Loetscher

wants to drive between Alexander and Hodge/Warfield is unjust insofar as
his construal of Alexander's amanuensis illustration is concerned. Equally
unjust, however, is his claim that for Warfield and Hodgeas distinct from
Alexander"the loss of the unknown original autographs made it possible
to blame existing discrepancies on supposed errors in transmission of the
text." 24 Warfield rejected the idea in 1893: "That all the difficulties and
apparent discrepancies in current texts of Scripture are matters of textual
corruption, and not, rather, often of historical or other ignorance on our
own part, no sane man ever asserted."25 In addition Warfield would have
objected strenuously to the way Loetscher speaks of "the loss of the un-
known autographs":

It is another curiosity of the controversial use of a phrase ["the inerrancy of the

original autographs"], to find the Church's careful definition of the complete
truth and trustworthiness of the Scriptures as belonging, as a matter of course,
only to the genuine text of Scripture, represented as an appeal from the actually
existing texts of Scripture to a lost autographas if it were the autographic codex
and not the autographic text that is in question. Thus, we have heard a vast deal,
of late, of "thefirstmanuscripts of the Bible which no living man has ever seen,"
of "Scriptures that have disappeared forever," of "original autographs which
have vanished" . . . if this were to be taken literally, it would amount to a strong
asseveration that the Bible, as God gave it to men, is lost beyond recovery. . . .
God has not permitted the Bible to become so hopelessly corrupt that its resto-
ration to its original text is impossible. As a matter of fact, the great body of the
Bible is, in its autographic text, in the worst copies of the original texts in cir-
culation; practically the whole of it is in its autographic text in the best texts in
circulation; and he who will may to-day read the autographic text in large

22
Loetscher, Facing the Enlightenment, 228.
2:1
Hodge and Warfield, "Inspiration," 238.
24
Loetscher, Facing the Enlightenment, 228.
25
Warfield, "Inerrancy of Original Autographs," 3 (383; italics added).
470 WESTMINSTER THEOLOGICAL JOURNAL

stretches of Scripture without legitimate doubt, and, in the New Testament at

least, may know precisely at what rarely occurring points, and to what not very
great extent, doubts as to the genuineness of the text are still possible.26

Loetscher had implied that it was Alexanderin contrast to Hodge and

Warfieldwho had played down the accuracy of the autographs. Yet in an
1831 article Alexander remarks that, "while it is evident, that contradic-
tions merely apparent prove nothing against inspiration, it is equally cer-
tain, that real contradictions would furnish the strongest evidence against
the inspiration of the words in which they were found." 27 Also, instead of
blaming discrepancies on textual transmission, Alexander is represented by
Loetscher as content in attributing them to the original autographs them-
selves. But here again Alexander was as ready as Warfield (if not indeed
more ready) to blame these on textual transmission:

There are in the Bible apparent discrepancies which can easily be reconciled by
a little explanation; and there may be real contradictions in our copies, which
may be owing to the mistakes of transcribers. Now, when such things are ob-
served, there should not be a hasty conclusion that the book was not written by
inspiration, but a careful and candid examination of the passages, and even when
we cannot reconcile them, we should consider the circumstances under which
these books have been transmitted to us, and the almost absolute certainty, that
in so many ages, and in the process of such numerous transcriptions, mistakes
must necessarily have occurred, and may have passed into all the copies extant.20

V. Conclusion

In his amanuensis illustration, Alexander did not avoid "asserting the

literal 'inerrancy' of the original autographs of the New Testament." Quite
to the contrary, the Old Princeton understanding of superintendence, shared
by Alexander and his successors, was not in any way compromised by it,
since the inspiration of superintendence was seen as involved only in so far
as was necessary to assure the accuracy of the final product. In his illus-
tration Alexander is simply emphasizing one way in which the autographs
might be more problematic for us than a correct copy. The original scribe,
into whose hands the manuscript of the autographs marked with the
apostle's corrections was entrusted, would not have had to wonder, as Alex-
ander would, whether some or other of the corrections were added by a
later scribe, since he was himself the first scribe. Consequently his copy, or
a descendant of it, with all the apostle's corrections taken into account,
would be of more use to us than the marked-up autographic manuscript itself.

Bridge Box 536

Niagara Falls, New York 14305

2b
Ibid., 2-3 (382-383).
27
Archibald Alexander, "Review of Woods on Inspiration," Biblical Repertory and Theolog-
ical Review n.s. 3 (1831) 10.
28
Ibid, (italics added).
 ^ s
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