Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 21.djvu/105

 recent acts which had been adopted by the administrators of the mission fund. Disputes followed; the bishop displayed undue severity. Geddes was irritable and unconciliatory. The result was an open rupture. At the close of 1779 it had been amicably arranged that Geddes should leave the mission. In February 1780 Bishop Hay expressed a desire to see him at Aberdeen on his way south, in the hope of making a satisfactory pecuniary settlement. On the very Sunday in Eastertide that the bishop was spending in the Enzie, Geddes was imprudent enough to accompany a small party of friends to hear a sermon preached by the presbyterian minister of Banff. The news spread to Aberdeen. Bishop Hay had an interview with Geddes. On 8 May 1780 he reprimanded him by letter for having attended the protestant service, and for having scandalised the catholics by hunting, contrary to the canons of the church; he finally threatened to suspend him a divinis. Eventually towards the end of the year the bishop gave Geddes ‘dimissorials,’ and he was thus enabled to seek more congenial employment. His literary ability had by this time become appreciated in the north, and in 1780 the university of Aberdeen conferred on him the degree of LL.D. He was also unanimously elected a corresponding member of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland, which he had actively helped to establish. During his residence at Auchinhalrig he mitigated, by his liberality of sentiment, the rancour which had subsisted between his own congregation and their protestant neighbours, for ‘he could ridicule the infallibility of the pope, and laugh at images and relics, at rosaries, scapulars, agnus Deis, blessed medals, indulgences, obits, and dirges, as much as the most inveterate protestant in his neighbourhood’ (, p. 36).

On coming to London he officiated as priest in the imperial ambassador's chapel; formed an acquaintance with many eminent scholars, and was introduced to Lord Petre. The latter admitted him to close intimacy, allowed him an annual salary of 200l., and provided him with the books needed to carry out his scheme of translating the bible. The first imperfect sketch of his undertaking was published in 1780 under the title of an ‘Idea of a New Version of the Holy Bible, for the use of the English Catholics.’ It was then his intention to translate from the Vulgate, and to make the Douay version, with Bishop Challoner's amendments, in some respects the basis of his own; but he soon abandoned this plan. At the close of 1780 the imperial chapel at which he had officiated was suppressed by the emperor Joseph II. He preached, however, occasionally at the chapel in Duke Street (now Sardinia Street), Lincoln's Inn Fields, till the Easter holidays of 1782, after which period he gave up all ministerial functions and seldom officiated. In 1783 he was introduced to Dr. Kennicott, who urged him to proceed with his biblical design, and also to Dr. Lowth, bishop of London, by whose advice he published a ‘Prospectus of a New Translation of the Holy Bible, from corrected Texts of the Originals, compared with ancient versions; with various readings, explanatory notes, and critical observations,’ London, 1786, 4to, with a dedication to Lord Petre. To this he added an appendix, entitled ‘A Letter to the … Bishop of London: containing Queries, Doubts, and Difficulties relative to a Vernacular Version of the Holy Scriptures,’ London, 1787, 4to. After this he published several pamphlets on contemporary topics. In 1788 appeared his ‘Proposals for printing by subscription a New Translation of the Bible, from corrected texts of the original; with various readings, explanatory notes, and critical observations,’ London, 4to. In this he solicited the suggestions of scholars, and he received so many that in July 1790 he published ‘Dr. Geddes' General Answer to the Queries, Counsels, and Criticisms that have been communicated to him since the publication of his Proposals for printing a New Translation of the Bible.’ He adopted very few suggestions, but liberally expressed his obligations to their authors. His catholic brethren already doubted his orthodoxy, and regarded him with marked suspicion and distrust. Among the 343 subscribers to the projected work very few were members of the Roman church.

The first volume of the translation appeared under the title of ‘The Holy Bible, or the Books accounted Sacred by Jews and Christians, otherwise called the Books of the Old and New Covenants, faithfully translated from the corrected Text of the Original; with various readings, explanatory notes, and critical remarks,’ London, 1792, 4to; and a second volume appeared in 1797. These volumes include the historical books from Genesis to Chronicles, and the book of Ruth. In the notes, and in a subsequent volume of ‘Critical Remarks,’ Geddes absolutely denied the doctrine of the divine inspiration of the sacred writings, rejected contemptuously opinions universally received and respected by the catholic church, and generally adopted the German methods of rationalising the narrative of the Old Testament. Dr. Van Mildert, in his ‘Boyle Lectures,’ remarks that ‘Geddes applied the whole weight of his learning and talents to an artful attack upon the divine