SAMUEL PRIDEAUX TREGELLES, LL.D. HIS LIFE AND LETTERS

Many well qualified students do not hesitate to claim that Dr. Samuel Prideaux Tregelles was in fact the greatest Biblical scholar of the nineteenth century. He was born at Wodehouse Place, Falmouth, on 30^th January, 1813. His father, Samuel Tregelles, was a merchant and related to the Foxes; his mother was Dorothy Prideaux, of Kingsbridge. His early training among the Tregelles, Prideaux and Foxe families was in the Society of Friends; he did not, however, become one himself. In the early days of the Brethren movement he was in some matters associated, but did not identify himself with them. In the later years of his life he worshipped with Presbyterians,* but it may be said of him that he was one of those who are best described as “Christians unattached”.

From his early childhood he was remarkable for a retentive memory. At the age of twelve he entered Falmouth Classical School, where he remained for three years. The headmaster of the Classical School, which he attended in 1825 - 28, wanted him to proceed to a University, but his upbringing among the Society of Friends made this impossible, for in those days the Universities were forbidden to such. It is surprising to find that Tregelles, who had shown a definite inclination to academic study, was employed for six years, from 1828 to 1834, at the Neath Abbey Iron Works in Wales. Possibly his practical-minded father distrusted youthful enthusiasm and thought it well for him to learn something of the hard reality of life.

[* That Tregelles became a Presbyterian after his dissociation from the Plymouth meeting of Brethren is also stated by E. C. Marchant in his article on Tregelles in the Dictionary of National Biography. F. H. A. Scrivener, however, says that “his last years were more happily spent as a humble lay member of the Church of England, a fact he very earnestly begged me to keep in mind”; and adds in a footnote: “He gave the same assurance to A. Earle, D.D., Bishop of Marlborough, assigning as his reason the results of the study to the Greek New Testament” (Plain Introduction to the Criticism of the N.T., 4^th edition, 1894, VOL 2, P. 241). This conflict of evidence suggests that Mr. Fromow is fairly near the mark in using the epithet “unattached”!

‑F. F. BRUCF, D.D.]

The Western Morning News as recently as January I 7^th, 1957, said: “Largely self-taught, personally modest and gentle-natured, Tregelles must rank as the most learned man ever associated with Plymouth; which was remarkable in the last century for producing several noted scholars in Divinity and Biblical literature, notably the celebrated deaf workhouse lad, John Kitto; Dr. R. F. Weymouth, best known for his New Testament in Modern Speech; and more recently, the erudite Dr. Rendle Harris. A portrait of him painted about 1870, by the local artist Francis Lane, was presented by his friends and admirers to the Plymouth Institution, and another by the same artist was given to the Royal Cornwall Polytechnic.” No. 6, Portland Square, was his home during 1846-75, and a bronze tablet recording the fact was placed on the house.

As a young man, Tregelles was drifting from Christian teaching. Christendom’s misapplication of the Scriptures of the Prophets and the Psalms utterly failed to satisfy his keen sense of proportion. His intelligence recoiled against the glosses, traditions, explanations and interpretations of the spiritualizing schools and would have driven him to the verge of infidelity. But it pleased the Lord to draw his attention to prophetic truth through a tract on that subject which changed his whole outlook on religion and life; indeed, God used it as a means which wrought the vital change of his regeneration. What a student he became! What a scholar! What books and translations of the ancient languages and Bible manuscripts! Henceforth his cousin B. W. Newton became his helper spiritually, and in his publications, financially.

After conversion. the iron works could not hold him; he was led forward into the plan of his life work. His ambition was not less than that of an authenticated Greek Text of the New Testament.

He returned to Falmouth, where he spent two years as a private tutor. At the age of twenty-five (1838) he announced his proposals:

(1) For the formation of a text of the Scriptures on the authority of ancient copies, without allowing “the received text” any prescriptive right.

(2) To give to the ancient versions a determining voice as to the insertion or non-insertion of clauses, letting the order of the words rest wholly upon the MSS.

(3) To give the authorities to the text clearly and accurately, so that the reader might at once see what rests upon ancient evidence.

In order that he might himself collate the ancient Uncial MSS. (i.e. the earliest written in capitals) he went abroad in October 1845. He spent five months in Rome studying, under great difficulty, the famous Vatican Codex. He was not allowed to transcribe any part, but it is said that he made an occasional note on his finger-nails.

At other great libraries he received every facility - at the Augustinian Monastery in Rome, at Florence, Modena, Venice, Munich, Basle, Paris, and many other places. The great work of the Greek New Testament was not completed until 1872, when he was an old man, stricken in health. His work, however, remains still in publication - one of the great classics.

By 1850 his writings had become known all over the world, and his ripe scholarship was acknowledged in Europe and America. At the age of thirty-seven the University of St. Andrews conferred on him the honorary degree of LL.D. Many works came from his pen. For the students he prepared Heads of Hebrew Grammar, and Hebrew Reading Lessons. He wrote many works dealing with the prophetic books of the Bible. C. H. Spurgeon said of him: “Tregelles is deservedly regarded as a great authority upon prophetical subjects.” Many of these books are still in circulation and some are still obtainable; notably his Remarks on the Prophetic Visions in the Book of Daniel; his The Revelation: A New Translation; his The Historic Evidence of the Authorship and Transmission of the Books of the New Testament; and The Hope of Christ’s Second Coming: How is it taught in Scripture? and wby? His health prevented him from serving on the Revised Version Committee; he had been invited as a matter of course, but his refusal was inevitable. Had he thus have served, it is probable that he would have pleaded for a more faithful revision of those passages which Mr. Newton felt called upon to dispute in his book Remarks on the Revised Version.

In 1862, on Lord Palmerston’s recommendation, he was granted a Civil List Pension of £100 and in Mr. Gladstone’s administration this was supplemented in 1870 by a further £100. His portrait in oil, by Lane, was placed in the Polytechnic Hall, in Falmouth. He died in Plymouth, on 24^th April, 1875, and was buried in Plymouth Cemetery. J. Brooking Rowe in a memoir said of him that “he was able to shed a light upon any topic that might be introduced; it was dangerous to ask him a question; doing so was like reaching to take a book and having the whole shelf-full precipitated upon your head”. In theology he devoutly upheld the Reformed Faith in all its Free Grace implications, and in prophetic teaching he was a pre-millennialist of simple futurist convictions.

The Dictionary of National Biography gives a copious review of his life-story of literary and linguistic accomplishments (V0L 57 (1899), PP. 170 f).

Articles by Dr. Tregelles are to be found in: Cassell’s Dictionary, Smith’s Dictionary of the Bible, Kitlo’s Journal of Sacred Literature.

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