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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 16 February 2015
Robert Witham (1667–1738) was the seventh son of a prominent Yorkshire Catholic Recusant family. Little is known about his early life. He studied at Douay, where he was ordained a priest circa 1691, and remained as a teacher until circa 1698. He returned to England to serve as a priest in Cliffe and was promoted in 1711 to Vicar General of England’s Northern District. In 1714 he was appointed the twelfth president of Douay. He assumed the position in 1715 and remained there until his death. In administering Douay, he was faced with an unrelenting demand for the most resourceful diplomacy. He had to keep satisfied his superiors and benefactors in England and Rome, and deal with the liberalizing influences of French institutions. In addition, he was confronted with a series of financial crises, including the forfeiture of Catholic estates that followed the unsuccessful Stuart rising of 1715, followed by the ‘Mississippi Bubble’ that devastated the French economy and cost Douay most of its endowment. The frustrations of what he termed this ‘troublesome office’, caused him on three occasions to offer his resignation. Nonetheless, Witham proved to be one of Douay’s most successful presidents, sometimes considered its ‘second founder’, eliminating the College debt, increasing the number of students, and beginning an ambitious building programme.
1 Bellenger gives the year as 1691, but concedes ‘year of ordination uncertain’; Kirk and Burton give the year as 1694.
2 As was common in English Catholic publications of this period, a publisher and place of publication are not cited. Blom et al. (p. 316) conjecture it was published at Douai.
3 Herbert (p. 254) refers to it as an ‘original and annotated version’. Pope (p. 346) titles a Chapter 23 of his book, Dr. Witham’s Version of the New Testament, 1730. However, in a separately published article (Orchard, p. 36) Pope refers to ‘Dr. Witham who in 1730 published under the initials R. W. the first revision of the Rheims NT’. A similar reference, ‘Dr. Witham’s revision of the Rheims New Testament’, is made by Sykes (Greenslade, p. 189).
4 The English translation of the new testament by C[ornelius] N[ary] C[onsultissimae] [facultatis] P[arisiensis] D[octor] an. 1719. Examin’d and compared with the Latin-vulgat, and the Greek by D.D. anno M.DCC.XXVI . Anon. Douai. Despite the Roman numeral date, Fagan and Blom et al. date this volume 1727. Although no author is clearly indicated, Fagan mentions a monogram appearing on the pamphlet with initials that appear to be ‘R.W.’ Blom et al. also cite a later edition in 1729.
5 Challoner, a member of Douay’s faculty at the time, is listed among the approving authorities. Challoner’s text of 1749 with additional revisions in 1750 and 1752 would become the standard for English speaking Catholics for the next 200 years. (The 1749 revision is used in Table No. 1. Challoner’s later revisions will vary somewhat, e.g., the 1752 revision substitutes ruler for Captain in Matt. 2:6 and sicknesses for infirmities in 10:01.) Other approbations are given by John Ingleton (1658–1739), confessor to the Stuart Pretender and member of the English faculty at Paris, Philip Loraine, a.k.a. Hall (d. 1765?) and Pacificus Baker (d. 1774). A separate Approbation of the annotations is given by George Kendal (d. 1766) and William Thornburgh (d. 1750), who would both later contend to succeed Witham as President of Douay (the latter prevailed). In addition, approbations of the first volume only are given by Ambrose Burgis (1673–1747) of the College of St. Thomas Aquinas at Louvain and Anthony Codrington (d. 1729?) of the Douay faculty, who died before completion of the second volume. Separate approbations for the first volume only were also given by the others. However, these are only included in the 1730 ‘Second edition’.
6 Witham’s example in Matt. 1:5 is followed by Rev’d. Francis Patrick Kenrick (1796–1863), American Bishop of Philadelphia and later Archbishop of Baltimore in his 1849 edition of the Four Gospels and in his complete New Testament of 1862. In Matt. 2:14, Kenrick follows the original Rheims in his 1849 edition, but switches to the Vulgate/Witham rendering in 1862. In addition, Anglican divine William Webster (1689–1758) follows the Vulgate/Witham renderings in both verses in his translation of the Vulgate that accompanied his translation from the French of the commentary of Rev’d. Richard Simon (1638–1712). Webster’s work was published in the same year as Witham’s, 1730.
7 Witham states, ‘In almost all G[reek] copies, and MSS, we now read angry without a cause; Yet St. [Jerome], who corrected the Latin of the [N]ew Testament from the best Copies in his Time, tells us, that these words, without a Cause, were only found in some Greek Copies, and not in the true ones… This as well as many other places may Convince us, that the Latin Vulgate, is many times, to be preferr’d to our present G[reek] Copies’. Nary considered the omitted phrase to be ‘understood’.
8 Nary states, ‘The Hebrew Word which answers this is Phase, a Passage, or Passover: the Greek is Pascha, Passion, or Suffering; and the Latin Vulgate retains the same, having canonized in some manner, the Word among its sacred Terms’. Witham responds in his note, ‘It is indeed an evident mistake (as S. Aug. observ’d) to take Pascha for a Greek word, as Mr. N… has done, who in his note on this place says, Pascha in Greek, is a Passion, or suffering. It is certain that the word Pascha, or Pasche, is from a Hebrew derivation, signifying a passing by, or passing over’.
9 Ref. the rendering, ‘For I was hungry, and you gave me to eat, etc’. Witham states, ‘We may take notice, that the wicked at the day of Judgment, are said to be condemn’d for having omitted to perform good works’.
10 This is an American edition in the Haydock series of Bibles infra published by Edward Dunigan of New York. The editors of the New Testament text were Revds. J. R. Bayley (1814–1877) and James McMahon (1814–1901), the latter being the most responsible. Examples of Witham’s renderings from Matthew that were used in this edition are master of a family (20:01), extortion (23:25) and whitened (23:27). Kenrick supra used whitened in his 1849 edition but reverted to whited in his 1862 edition.
11 First published in 1811–1814 and remaining in circulation through the nineteenth century, Haydock’s popular annotated Douay Bible has recently been reprinted in a modern edition that is still in circulation.
12 In one copy examined by this author, the engraving of Matthew is absent and a foldout engraving of the Crucifixion is inserted within that Gospel.