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EDITOR’S INTRODUCTION

MY FATHER’S PARENTS were the Rev. Robert Lorimer, Free Church Minister of Mains & Strathmartine, a rural parish situated on the northern outskirts of Dundee, and Isabella Lockhart Robertson, who were married at Berne, Switzerland, in 1869, and during the next seventeen years had five sons and three daughters. He was the seventh of these eight children, was born at Strathmartine in 1885, and lived for most of his life within sight of the Sidlaws. When they grew up, his two eldest brothers, John Gordon Lorimer and David Lockhart Robertson Lorimer, both made distinguished contributions to Oriental linguistic studies; his eldest sister, Hilda Lockhart Lorimer, made an equally distinguished contribution to Homeric studies, and latterly became Vice-Principal of Somerville College, Oxford; and if he had died without having made the Scots translation of the New Testament printed in this memorial volume, his name might never have become quite so well known as any of theirs.⁸

Until towards the end of the eighteenth century, his eponymous ancestors had been farmers in Nithsdale: but his father’s paternal grandfather was the Rev. Robert Lorimer, LL.D., nicknamed the Pope of Haddington, who was born in 1765 and died in 1848. He was the son of Robert Lorimer, farmer in Cleughfoot and Gateside, near Sanquhar, but was educated at Glasgow University, and then entered the ministry of the Church of Scotland. In 1792, when he was twenty-six or twenty-seven, the estates of the defunct Marquisate of Annandale devolved upon the Earl of Hopetoun, one of the principal heritors of the wealthy parish of Haddington. In 1793 the Rev. Robert Lorimer was appointed Chaplain to the Hopetoun Fencibles; in 1796 he was ordained Minister of Haddington; and in 1801 he married Elizabeth Gordon, daughter of John Gordon of Balmoor, W.S., and Margaret Stuart, through whom she was descended from James, fourth Earl of Moray, the Bonnie Earl’s grandson. Their son, the Rev. John Gordon Lorimer, D.D., was born in 1804 and died in 1868. After having been educated at Glasgow University, he was ordained Minister of Torryburn, Fife, in 1828, but only three years later became Minister of St David’s (commonly called the Ram’s Horn Kirk), Glasgow. He married Jane Campbell, daughter of the Rev. John Campbell, D.D., who had been Moderator of the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland in 1819. One of the Rev. Dr John Campbell’s first cousins was Thomas Campbell the poet; and amongst her second cousins Jane Campbell numbered both the classical scholars Lewis Campbell and Charles Badham.

Ever since the Anglo-Scottish Parliamentary Union of 1707, the clergy of the Established Church had not only occupied a much more dignified social position, but had also been much better-off, than most of their parishioners. The Pope of Haddington and his son had both risen in the world, and had both seemingly become pillars of the Establishment. But in 1843, when ten years of mounting conflict between Church and State culminated in the Disruption, the Rev. John Gordon Lorimer instantly renounced his emoluments, and soon became the first Free Church Minister of St David’s, Glasgow. Only a few weeks later, the Pope followed his son’s example, and in due course became Haddington’s first Free Church Minister. What the Earl of Hopetoun may perhaps have had to say about his defection from the Establishment has not been recorded.

The Rev. John Gordon Lorimer’s elder son, Robert, was born in 1840 and died in 1925. Like both his father and his paternal grandfather before him, he was educated at Glasgow University, and then, not without some preliminary hesitation, entered the ministry. In 1866 he was ordained Minister of Mains & Strathmartine; in 1900, when the Free Church and the United Presbyterian Church together formed the United Free Church, he became Strathmartine’s first United Free Church Minister; and in 1909 he retired from active service. Although his ministry had thus lasted for forty-two years, the stipend on which he had brought up a family of eight children had never exceeded £400 a year: but none of them ever questioned the validity of the principles for which his father and grandfather had sacrificed the security which their merits had earned. He was dignified, but not ambitious; and, although he was both considerate and conscientious, he was so undemonstrative that he was not popularly regarded as an inspiring preacher. Before finally deciding to enter the ministry, he had wished to become an architect, and later transformed Strathmartine’s original Free Church into a charming example of Victorian romanesque architecture.⁹ It was in Rome, while studying architecture, that he first met his future wife, whose family was by contemporary standards much better connected than his.

Her father, grandfather, and great-grandfather had all been called David Robertson, and had all served the Honourable East India Company. Her paternal grandfather was Major David Robertson, H.E.I.C., who was born in 1766/7 and died at Cheltenham in 1847. He was the son of Captain David Robertson, H.E.I.C., a naval officer, and Marion Forbes, daughter of Hugh Forbes, advocate, and Margaret Aikman, daughter of William Aikman the painter; and on his mother’s side he was also descended from Duncan Forbes of Culloden, the Lord President’s grandfather, from Sir Thomas Urquhart of Cromartie, grandfather of Sir Thomas Urquhart the translator of Rabelais, and from Grizel Crichton, the Admirable Crichton’s half-sister. He married Caroline Lockhart (described by her grand-daughter Bella as having been “a peepie-weepie old lady who went to bed whenever there was a thunderstorm”) and retired early from service in India because the climate impaired his wife’s health. Three of his four unmarried sisters lived to be very old; and Bella often saw them when she was a child. Like all Scottish gentlewomen of their generation, they ordinarily spoke Scots, not English; and one of them, Bella’s Aunt Betsy, is not only said to have taken down part of Marmion from Scott’s dictation, but had also danced as a girl with the Young Pretender, presumably in Rome towards the end of his life.

Bella’s father, David Robertson, H.E.I.C., was Major David Robertson’s son, and was born in 1811. After having been educated at Haileybury, where he was awarded a gold medal for mathematics, he went to India, and ultimately became a judge at Bareilly, midway between Delhi and Lucknow. In 1838 he married Elizabeth Hickson, who had been born in Dublin, but brought up in Cheltenham; and in 1857 he was hanged by his own servants during the Indian Mutiny.

His daughter Bella was born at Bareilly in 1849 and died at Bournemouth in 1931. Long before the Mutiny she had already been sent home to Scotland. With her brother David, who later returned to India, commanded a battalion of Gurkhas, and became a major-general in the Indian Army, she and her sisters were brought up mainly in Edinburgh, but also resided for some time in Rome, Heidelberg, and some other Continental cities. During their travels she acquired a European rather than a Scottish outlook, and became so proficient in languages that she spoke French, German, and Italian fluently. The Rev. Robert Lorimer, Strathmartine, also spoke Italian; and their lifelong habit of speaking it whenever they did not wish anyone else to understand what they were saying may perhaps have stimulated her three eldest children’s precocious interest in language as such. Unlike her Aunt Betsy, she did not, however, speak Scots, and firmly insisted that in polite society her children must speak correct standard English. In later life most of them spoke it with at least a trace of her peculiarly Anglo-Scottish-Irish intonation, and with much more than a trace of her most un-English intensity. Energetic, excitable, and altruistic, she possessed a vigorous and acquisitive intellect, and despite her somewhat nomadic up-bringing was both well-educated and well-read. Unlike her husband, she was highly ambitious, and not only made life difficult for her five youngest children by encouraging them to emulate the youthful success already achieved by Gordon, Hilda, and Lock, but sometimes also exhorted them to be perfect, even as their Father in heaven was perfect. As a minister’s wife, she set herself the same high standards as she set them, and was long remembered for the good works she had indefatigably done in the slums of Dundee.

When I was five or six years old, my grandparents were staying in furnished lodgings in Inverleith Row. One fine, fresh, sunny summer morning, my grandfather was looking after me while I played in the drawing-room. When my grandmother suddenly returned, she was shocked to find me leaning on the balcony which overlooked the garden, and made so much fuss that I burst into tears. In the midst of all the commotion thus precipitated by my prospective defenestration, my grandfather quietly drew me aside and said, only just loud enough for me to hear, “If only you’d just stop crying for a moment or two, I’d tell you a great secret. . .. Never cry till you’re hurt.” At once I stopped crying; and many years later my father told me that in childhood he had often had similar experiences.

IT WOULD SCARCELY be possible to improve upon Sir Kenneth Dover’s eloquent, informative, and judicious account of my father’s life and works;¹⁰ and I shall accordingly confine myself to dealing with those aspects of them which seem most relevant to the history of his translation.

He was educated at Dundee High School, Fettes College, where he was Head of the School for two years, and Trinity College, Oxford.¹¹ At Fettes he won so many college prizes, all magnificently bound in full calf, gilt, that they occupy thirty-four inches of shelf-space. At Oxford he was less successful. In 1906 prolonged ill-health prevented him from sitting his examination for Classical Honour Moderations; and in 1908 he narrowly missed a first in Literae Humaniores. During his breakdown he reluctantly but finally renounced the religious beliefs with which his parents had indoctrinated him in childhood: but in 1906, while staying with his cousins the Crichton Millers¹² at San Remo, he was captivated by the charms of one of their domestic servants,¹³ from whom he received so much encouragement that before he returned home to Strathmartine he had already acquired a fluent command of Italian; and by the time that he went down from Oxford, he had also learnt to read German.

His second in Greats made it difficult for him to find academic employment, but in 1910 he was fortunately appointed Professor Burnet’s Assistant in Greek at St Andrews University. While teaching Greek, he fell in love with St Andrews—that haunted town,

Where o’er the rocks, and up the Bay,

The long sea-rollers surge and sound,

And still the thin and biting spray

Drives down the melancholy street—

and with one of his students, Marion Rose Gordon, whom he married in 1915.

They did not dream, they could not know,

How soon the Fates would sunder them.

In 1914 he was commissioned in the Gordon Highlanders, but renewed ill-health rendered him unfit for active service; and from 1916 to 1919 he served in the Intelligence Directorate of the War Office, while his wife was employed in the War Trade Intelligence Department, and consequently knew how many British merchant ships were being sunk in 1917. While reading and analysing the neutral press, he learnt to read several languages, including Swedish, Dutch, Frisian, Romaunsch, and Roumanian, and became increasingly keenly interested in the difficulties encountered by ethnic minorities and their languages.

In 1919 he returned, with wife and son, to St Andrews, and in 1921 they finally settled down to live at 19 Murray Park, now called Lorimer House. In September 1922 his wife died suddenly, while on holiday at Braemar. The wounds inflicted by her death were at first overwhelming, and never completely healed: but with characteristic sagacity he soon succeeded in finding a housekeeper capable of helping him to bring up his son. Mrs MacGregor (1873/4–1930) was a miner’s daughter from Ayrshire, and her maiden name was Helen Strachan. During the next seven years my father and I both learnt plenty of Scots from her.

In 1925 Burnet’s health broke down, and my father was appointed acting head of his department. When Burnet died, he was succeeded by H. J. Rose; and in 1929 my father reluctantly accepted a Readership in Humanity at University College, Dundee, with permission to remain resident in St Andrews, and Principal Sir James Irvine’s verbal assurance that he would not be obliged to retire until he reached the age of seventy. In 1947 the Principal was finally persuaded to offer him the Chair of Humanity at St Andrews, which he firmly declined; in 1953, when Rose retired, he was not only appointed Professor of Greek, but was also elected a Fellow of the British Academy; and in 1955 he relinquished the chair once occupied by his kinsman Lewis Campbell.¹⁴

Except in term-time, when lecturing, he had regularly worked at his desk every day from nine to one, and again from five to eight, but had always made a point of taking plenty of exercise. In childhood he had walked every day three miles down through the Hill Toun to school, and then three steep miles back home.¹⁵ When ten years old he had once walked right round Loch Tay in one day. In 1908, when summoned to Oxford to attend a vivâ vocè examination, he had walked from Spean Bridge, climbed Ben Alder, and reached Dalwhinnie in time to catch the night train. During his first two or three years at St Andrews he had played hockey for the University. And in the hot summer of 1911 he had once walked fifty-two miles by road from Stirling to St Andrews in one day. In later life he always, if possible, walked at least three miles every afternoon; and during most of his retirement he enjoyed excellent health. His last illness began in December 1966, when he was eighty-one; and he died in Edinburgh on 25 May the following year, without having completed his own final recension of the Scots translation of the New Testament to which he had devoted the last ten years of his life.

ALTHOUGH HE WAS proud of his mother’s connexions, he had never identified himself so closely with them as with his father’s comparatively plebeian eponymous ancestors, and liked to think that the latter included two of the stone-masons employed in building Drumlanrig.

When he was only nine years old, he responded to his mother’s conflicting requirements that her children must all endeavour to learn as many different languages as possible, but must not themselves speak Scotch, by beginning to keep a notebook in which he wrote down the Scots words and phrases spoken by Mrs Mollison, Mrs Haggart, and Mrs Hodge, three aged and impoverished pensioners who inhabited the cottar-houses behind his father’s manse. As a girl Mrs Hodge had been summoned (but not called) to give evidence at the trial of the Wife of Denside. Mrs Mollison had seen Strathmore illuminated from end to end by the flames of the bonfires lit to celebrate the passage of the Reform Bill. Mrs Haggart was bedridden. Once, when the Laird’s daughter attempted to persuade her to lift her lines and join the Episcopal Church, she listened in stony silence until her young visitor ran out of arguments, and then replied, “Na, na, Miss Ogilbie: at the Lest Juidgement, Christ’ll no speir fat Kirk we belanged tae.” On another occasion, when someone persisted in trying to persuade her to perform some Victorian equivalent of telling white lies to the Social Security Inspector, she drew herself up in bed and indignantly retorted, “I ken brawlie richt bi wrang!” And although my father subsequently lost the notebook in which he recorded her idiomatic Scots, he never forgot how much it differed from English spoken with a Scots accent.

From 1910 to 1914, and from 1919 to 1955, he was mainly engaged in teaching Greek and Latin, and although he thus incidentally became an experienced, resourceful, and versatile translator, did not have much spare time to devote to studying Scots. Before the New Testament can be translated into Scots, or any other language, it must first, however, be translated out of Greek; and during these years he not only acquired an incomparable knowledge of ancient Greek lexis, grammar, usage, and syntax from 800 B.C. to A.D. 400 or so but also kept abreast of all the latest developments in New Testament studies.

As already mentioned, it was while reading the neutral press in 1916–19 that he had first become keenly interested in the problems encountered by linguistic minorities in reviving or developing their languages. Before the beginning of the Second World War further study had convinced him that, if Scots was ever to be resuscitated and rehabilitated, two great works must first be produced: a good modern Scots dictionary, and a good modern Scots translation of the New Testament, with which (it might be assumed) all well-educated general readers, and many others, were already familiar. In September 1945, soon after I returned home from the War, he told me that he had recently been considering what to do when he retired, and had tentatively decided to undertake the task of making his own Scots translation of the New Testament.

He was well aware that in doing so he would also be setting out to resuscitate and recreate Scots prose; and early in 1946 he wrote to William Grant, then editor of The Scottish National Dictionary, drawing his attention to some omission in one of the fascicules already published. In reply, Grant generously invited him to contribute such further information as he thought fit; and he soon became one of the Dictionary’s chief external contributors. In 1947 he was elected a member of the Scottish National Dictionary Association’s Executive Council; in the same year, Mr David Murison succeeded William Grant as Editor; and from 1953 until his death in 1967 my father also officiated as Chairman of the Executive Council. He had already contributed to the revised edition of Liddell & Scott’s Greek Lexicon published before the Second World War, and in assessment of his contribution to The Scottish National Dictionary Murison says:

For twenty years Lorimer continued this work with his wonted prodigious thoroughness and accuracy, applying to it the same exacting standards of scholarship he had brought to bear in his work for the revision of Liddell & Scott, seeking out new sources, supplying better examples of usage, and noting errors and omissions, so that there can be hardly a page that does not contain some contribution from him. He began to hunt . . . for obscure authors, and in a few years had amassed a large collection of out-of-the-way texts. . . . These he excerpted with great care, and little escaped him; he noted not merely words but constructions, phrases and idioms, rhymes, . . . odd spellings, and so on. His particular interest in the Greek particles alerted him to similar usages in Scots, and one thinks in this connexion of his acute and invaluable study of the quasi-enclitic na, by which the relevant articles in the S.N.D. are so much the richer. He was in fact compiling a lexicon of his own, almost a thesaurus, from which he generously supplied the Dictionary where it was necessary; and it is now clear that this intense study of Scots was at the same time serving his other purpose, the translation of the New Testament.¹⁶

Murison’s statement confirms that long before my father began work on his translation, he was already engaged in ransacking all available linguistic sources; and two brief examples will suffice to show that, when finally commenced, the work that he did on his translation went hand in hand with that which he still went on doing for the Dictionary.

My father’s housekeeper, Mrs Barclay, once happened to say, “I’m gey forfauchelt.”

“What was that word you used?” he incautiously interrupted. “Forfauchelt?”

“Na, na,” she replied, “I juist said I wis gey forfochen”, and, when pressed, obstinately denied that she had ever heard any such word as “forfauchelt”. After further investigation, my father, however, communicated it to the Dictionary, in which it is now supported by several other references; and in due course he also introduced it into his translation. Similarly, when, in reading Paterson’s History of the Counties of Ayr & Wigton, he came across the statement that c. 1740 “The wet seasons threw up a bad weed in the crop, called the doite”, he duly reported it to the Dictionary; and in translating the Parable of the Tares and the Wheat he subsequently made good use of this discovery.¹⁷

In December 1946 he asked the National Bible Society of Scotland to provide him with copies of several modern translations of the New Testament, including one Frisian, two Flemish, one Afrikaans, and three Roumanian. During the next ten years he scrutinised a great many translations of the New Testament in many different languages;¹⁸ and he also found time to make some experimental Scots translations of Galatians, Hebrews (11.32–7), James, I Peter, and Jude. Until 1955 he was still teaching; and even when he retired, he did not finally become free to begin making his definitive translation until towards the end of 1957. Many of his ancestors had, however, been very long-lived; and he had often assured me in the past that we both possessed excellent prospects of living to be at least eighty years old.

One of his notebooks contains preliminary drafts, begun in 1957, and all finally completed between 27 December the same year and 8 June 1958, of Galatians, Philemon, Hebrews (11.32–7), James, I Peter, and Jude. (It was not only because these works were so short, but also because they presented such a wide variety of styles, that he chose to begin with them.) Before going any further he entirely revised these preliminary drafts. But during the last seven months of 1959 he also completed his first drafts of Philippians, I–II Thessalonians, II–III John, Titus, and II Timothy; and in 1960 he completed those of I Timothy, Colossians, Ephesians, I John, and II Peter.

Early in 1961 he began work on the Gospels; and it took him two years and three months to complete the first drafts of Mark, Matthew, Luke, and John. On 23 June 1963 he began work on Acts; and by 19 February 1964 he had also completed his first draft of Revelation. Since the beginning of 1961, when he had first set out to translate the Gospels, his progress had thus been surprisingly rapid. But much the most difficult part of his daunting task still lay ahead of him; and it was not until towards the end of the following year that he finally completed the first drafts of II Corinthians, I Corinthians, Romans, and Hebrews, the last of which was finished on 10 October 1965, at “9.3 p.m.” Thus it had taken him approximately eight years to translate the whole of the New Testament into Scots; and all that he had so far produced was only a first draft. He was now eighty years old, and no longer possessed sufficiently good eyesight to read small print.

Early in 1966 he began to make what he called a revised edition of his first drafts, and had soon completed revised final transcripts of James, Mark, and Jude. Then he embarked on a hasty revision of the first drafts of Matthew, Luke, and Acts: but at the end of April 1966, he resumed the labour of transcription; and during the summer months he completed his revised final transcripts of I Peter, I-II Timothy, Titus, I-III John, II Peter, Philemon, Galatians, Philippians, Colossians, and Ephesians (completed 28 September 1966). Thus it had already cost him eight or nine laborious months to transcribe only one fourth of his first drafts. Even if he had succeeded in maintaining the same rate of progress, it would have taken him at least two more years to complete the task of revising and transcribing the other three-fourths; and, probably because he was beginning to feel that he was not destined to live so long, he now set out to revise the first drafts of I-II Corinthians, Romans, Hebrews, Acts, Matthew, Luke, John, and Revelation. He began to make this rapid revision on 29 September 1966, and finally completed it on II December 1966, at “c. 9.45 p.m.”

On 12 December 1966 he put me editorially in charge of his translation and drafted, at my request, a few brief notes on “Orthography & Pronunciation”, in which he expressly says:

I have deliberately refrained from writing in a uniform “standard” Scots. On the contrary, I have made differences between different writers. In doing so, I have made the following units, which are intended to be internally consistent in forms and orthography:

1.	MATTHEW.
2.	MARK, except: 2(a), 16.9–20.
3.	LUKE–ACTS.
4.	JOHN, with I–III John, except: 4(a) Jn. 7.53–8.ii; 4(b), Jn. 21.
5.	PAUL, incl. Romans, I–II Corinthians, Galatians, Philippians, Colossians, I–II Thessalonians, Philemon, and (perhaps with some differences) Ephesians.
6.	PASTORALS, incl. I–II Timothy and Titus.
7.	HEBREWS.
8.	JAMES.
9.	I PETER.
10.	II PETER.
11.	JUDE.
12.	REVELATION.

In quotations from the O.T. I have made occasional use of Old Scots words.

IN ONE OF the few conversations in which my father discussed his translation with me during his last illness, he said that in revising his first drafts he had carefully reconsidered all such variants and alternative renderings as they contained, and had in most cases indicated his final preference, but that in doing so he had often mistrusted his own judgement, and still felt doubtful about many of the spellings he had adopted. Accordingly he instructed me that in editing his manuscripts I must always, in the last resort, be guided by my own editorial judgement.

The manuscripts of his translation are contained in ten notebooks ranging in format from 8¼×6½ to 10¼×8¼ ins., and comprise:

(a) REVISED FIRST DRAFTS (Matthew, Luke, John, Acts, Romans, I–II Corinthians, Hebrews, and Revelation): All text is written, in single verses, on recto pages; it contains a great many variants; and many alternative renderings are also written, with notes, on previous verso pages.

(b) REVISED FINAL TRANSCRIPTS (Mark, Galatians, Ephesians, Philippians, Colossians, I–II Thessalonians, I–II Timothy, Titus, Philemon, James, I–II Peter, I–III John, and Jude): All text is transcribed, in solid paragraphs, on recto pages; it contains only a few remaining variants; and scarcely any alternative renderings are written en face on previous verso pages. There are, however, a few explanatory or critical notes.

The Revised First Drafts together contain about three-fourths of my father’s translation, and have, of course, demanded much more editorial attention than the Revised Final Transcripts.

Without having lost sight of the requirement that each of the twelve authorial units already specified should be internally consistent in forms and orthography, I have made a good many minor alterations in my father’s spelling. Most of them do not require any detailed discussion, but a few brief comments must now be made on those which affect the pronunciation.

In his revised final transcript of I–III John,¹⁹ my father throughout writes “truith”. Throughout his revised first draft of John’s Gospel²⁰ he first also wrote “truith”, but subsequently altered it, wherever it occurred, to “trowth”; and in a definitive list of spellings compiled less than three months before his health broke down he expressly adopts “trowth” as standard in Luke, Acts, and John. John’s Gospel and I–III John all, however, belong to one of his twelve authorial units; and in I–III John I have accordingly substituted “trowth” for “truith” wherever it occurs.

In the same annotated list of standard spellings, my father records his final preference for the spellings “king(dom), wing, wisdom”. But in one of the few conversations in which we discussed his translation during his last illness he told me that he had never finally made up his mind whether these words should be pronounced king, wing, wizdom, or keeng, weeng, weezdom. I received the impression that he had not completely overcome his hankering for the pronunciations keeng, weeng, weezdom; and after prolonged editorial indecision I finally resolved to spell these words so as to be pronounced keeng, weeng, weezdom, in the Pauline Epistles, Mark, Matthew, and Hebrews, but so as to be pronounced king, wing, wizdom everywhere else. Any reader who dislikes my spellings of these words should simply ignore them.

Finally, my father’s manuscripts also provide much evidence which suggests that he had not finally made up his mind how two other words should be pronounced: “same”, which he sometimes spells “sam”; and “shame(fu)”, which he often spells “sham(fu)”. I doubt whether he would have retained either of these spellings if the last two volumes of The Scottish National Dictionary had been published before his death; and I have always (except once) substituted “same, shame(fu)”, for “sam, sham(fu)”, wherever each occurs.

My father had once told me, while I was still at school, that “fornicatio” was a legalism which had first been introduced into the language of Christian morals by Jerome in the Vulgate. A few months before his health broke down, I asked him whether “hurin”, etc., would not therefore be much better Scots translations of πορνεία, etc., than “furnication”, etc. After his death I found that in the revised first draft of I Corinthians 5.9–11 he had originally written “furnicators”, etc., but had subsequently added in pencil the variant “hoorers”, etc. Elsewhere in his manuscripts, there are a few other passages (e.g., I Cor. 6.9) in which he had tentatively added the same or similar variants. All such additions are written in shaky handwriting, and appear to have been made not long before his health broke down. I feel sure that if it had not broken down so soon after our discussion of this particular question, he would once more have gone through all his voluminous manuscripts, adding similar variants wherever appropriate; and I doubt whether he would in the end have preferred “furnicators” to “hurers”. I have throughout his translation altered the text accordingly; and in my apparatus criticus I have accurately reported all such alterations.

My father’s own passionate devotion to truth was probably the only dogmatic commitment which restricted the freedom which his combined knowledge of Greek and Scots permitted him to exercise; and, like his collateral ancestor Sir Thomas Urquhart of Cromartie, he was sometimes an exuberant translator. In deciding which of several variants or alternative renderings to adopt, I have sometimes hesitated to collaborate with his scholarship in inhibiting his creativity; and, although I have in general been governed by such final preferences as he has indicated, mine have not always coincided with his. Thus in I Corinthians 14.11 his text reads:

I will be like a barbârian tae him an he will be like a barbârian tae me.

But written on the previous verso page there is also an alternative rendering, which reads:

my speech will be like the {cheepin o a spug/currooin o a (cushie) doo} tae him an his will be like the {chitterin o a swallow/claikin o a [kae/craw]} tae me.

At first sight, this may perhaps seem far-fetched. It should not, however, be overlooked that, in classical Greek, foreign languages were proverbially compared to the twittering of birds;²¹ and, although βάρβαρος means “anyone who does not speak Greek”, it does not strictly mean “anyone who is not civilised”. In the text printed below, I have consequently resorted to my father’s alternative rendering.

In one of the few conversations in which he discussed his translation with me during the last five months of his life, I reminded him that he had once shown me an apocryphal rendering of Matthew’s account of the Temptation in which the Devil spoke English; and when I asked whether he could tell me what had become of it, he replied that since it had never been intended for publication, he had destroyed all extant copies of it. A draft headed Interpretatio Apocrypha had, however, survived; and after his death I found it, quite by chance, amongst the spoilt papers which he had always kept in his desk. Once having plucked this brand out of the fire, I could not finally bring myself to suppress so characteristic an example of his wit; and I have accordingly printed an edited transcript of it in Appendix II below.

Fortunately for me, my father’s handwriting was always so legible that I have only twice had any difficulty in reading it. In the text printed below, I have silently corrected a few mere slips of the pen; and in perhaps as many as three or four passages (e.g., especially, Jn. 6.42, I Cor. 15.27) I have taken it upon myself to supply a few inadvertently omitted words.

The Goliardic mixture of Greek, Latin, Scots, and English in which my father composed the Notes printed in Appendix III, I daresay, would make most contemporary publishers’ editors stare and gasp: but since it illustrates his intellectual agility, I have reproduced it with as few trifling editorial alterations as I have considered necessary.

In the apparatus criticus printed below the text, I have concisely reported:

(a) All cases in which I have finally adopted any of the alternative renderings written on verso pages;

(b) All cases in which I have supplied any missing words; and

(c) Except with regard to “king, wing, wisdom, same, shame(fu)”, all cases in which I have made any orthographical alteration which alters the pronunciation.

I have not reported:

(d) More than very few cases in which I have adopted any of the variants written on recto pages;

(e) Any alterations of my father’s punctuation;

(f) Any orthographical alterations which do not affect the pronunciation; or

(g) Obvious corrections of any mere slips of the pen.

In the text all words quoted from the Old Testament are printed in italics; and, where necessary, special emphasis is indicated by letter-spaced roman type. Some detailed notes on spelling and pronunciation will be found in Appendix IV.

The genesis of my father’s translation can, as I have shown, be traced back to the autumn of 1945. From the first notion of the brain to the last motion of the press, at least thirty-eight years will thus have elapsed since he first tentatively decided to make it; and I hope that all those into whose hands it comes will enjoy reading it as much as I have enjoyed editing it.

WHILE MAKING HIS translation, my father let only a few close friends and relatives know what he was doing. Throughout the whole course of its production he read each successive instalment aloud to Dr R. G. Cant, with whom he discussed it in detail, seeking his advice, pondering his occasional criticisms, and welcoming his remedial suggestions. Whenever he came to Edinburgh, he seized the opportunity to read as much of the latest instalments as time allowed to Mr David and Mrs Hilda Murison, whose combined advice he invariably sought on all doubtful points. From time to time, he also read parts of it to the late Professor D. C. C. Young, the only contemporary Scottish poet whose advice he solicited. During the last few years of his life, he often told me how much he valued all the advice, criticism, and encouragement that these four friends of ours had so freely and fruitfully provided; and if he had lived long enough he would certainly have expressed his profound gratitude to them for all their help.

Without saying why, he often consulted his friends and colleagues the Very Rev. Professor Matthew Black, Professor Kenneth Dover (as he then was), and perhaps a few others whose names are not known to me, and would undoubtedly have thanked them for their judicious, illuminating, and ungrudged advice.

Perhaps he might, however, have reserved his deepest gratitude for his father’s parishioners Mrs Haggart, Mrs Mollison, and Mrs Hodge, the three “auld wives” of Strathmartine from whose lips he first took down some of the living Scots into which he was later to translate the Book which gave them their faith; and there cannot be much doubt that he would also have acknowledged how much he subsequently gleaned from those of his housekeepers Mrs MacGregor and Mrs Barclay.

Last, but by no means least, no words of mine can sufficiently thank their ultimate successor, Miss Elsie Shepherd, without whose faithful, assiduous, and efficient service he could not possibly have completed his great work before he died.

TO MAKE DUE acknowledgement for all the help of which I have availed myself in course of my editorial work will tax my linguistic capacities. I wish first to express my deepest gratitude to the Very Rev. Professor R. A. S. Barbour, Dr R. G. Cant, and Emeritus Professor Sir Thomas Smith for all their inexhaustible generosity, and for all the wise advice, guidance, and encouragement that they have given me in this connexion, and many others, during the last seventeen years. In editing my father’s translation I have also, from time to time, consulted the Very Rev. Principal Matthew Black, Sir Kenneth Dover, Miss Iseabail Macleod, Mr David Murison, Mrs Mairi Robinson, and Dr Tom Scott, and welcome this opportunity to thank them, not only for all their learned advice, but also for the alacrity with which they have invariably provided it. I am also very grateful to Mr G. H. Elliot, Mr I. R. Guild, Professor R. M. Hare, and Mr P. W. Simpson for much good counsel and practical help that they have given me during the last few years. In acknowledging my indebtedness to all those already named in this paragraph, I wish, however, to make it quite clear that, in compliance with my father’s instructions, I have always, in the last resort, been guided by my own editorial judgement, and am solely responsible for all that I have done.

My friends Professor Barbour, Emeritus Professor David Daiches, Mr Michael Grieve, Mr W. G. Henderson, and Sir Thomas Smith all have so many other responsibilities that, had I initially foreseen how much hard work it would cost us to found and establish the W. L. Lorimer Memorial Trust Fund, I might perhaps have forborne to invite them to accept office as its Trustees; and I cannot sufficiently thank them for all the help they have given me in raising the funds required to finance the production and publication of this memorial volume. In expressing our gratitude to all those who graciously permitted us to name them as Patrons or Sponsors of our Appeal, we wish particularly to mention the supererogatory services so willingly rendered by Dr Jean Balfour, Dr Cant, Sir Kenneth Dover, Dr David Russell, and, not least, Lady Stormonth-Darling. A list of all donors who have not chosen to remain anonymous will be found at the end of this book. In expressing our heartfelt gratitude to all those who have responded to our Appeal, it would be invidious, however, to single any of them out for special mention; and we wish merely to say that, although we have most gratefully received some quite substantial donations, we have been no less grateful for many widows’ mites whose donors, we dare say, could ill afford to make them. It remains to be recorded that we are also very grateful to Mr R. E. Pears, the W. L. Lorimer Memorial Trust Fund’s Honorary Treasurer, for all the advice and assistance that he has so willingly provided, to Mr T. K. Fleming for having so generously helped us to launch our Appeal, and to Mr Alastair M. Dunnett for having so productively promoted it.

Soon after my father handed his manuscripts over to me, I deposited them in the National Library of Scotland for safe-keeping; and I wish to express my gratitude to Professor W. R. Beattie, Professor E. F. D. Roberts, Mr James Ritchie, and Dr T. I. Rae for all their courteous and efficient co-operation. Grateful acknowledgement is also due to the British Academy for permission to print the extract from Mr David Murison’s statement quoted on p. xv.

For much helpful professional advice and assistance I am especially indebted to my friends and colleagues Mr Ruari McLean, Mr Christopher Maclehose, Mr George Thomson, Mrs Stephanie Wolfe Murray, and Mr Charles Wild; and in recording my gratitude to Clark Constable (1982) Ltd for the readiness with which their compositors, readers and managers have always responded to my exorbitant editorial demands, I wish particularly to thank my friends Mr K. G. Dickson and Mr L. Mair for all the trouble they have taken. Most editors can seldom have been so well served by their printers as I have been by mine.

To Miss Sally Glover, Dr W. J. Irvine, Dr J. S. A. Sawers, and all other members of the National Health Service whose care and skill saved me from going blind four years ago, I can only say:

Non è l’ affezion mia tanto profonda

che basti a render voi grazia per grazia:

ma quei che vede e puote a ciò risponda.

Elsewhere²² Dante shortly defines “the vernacular speech” as “that which we acquire without any rule, by imitating our nurses”; and I wish penultimately to record my lifelong gratitude to my dear nurse Gregor for having, inter alia, familiarised me in childhood with our “nobler speech”. In conclusion, I cannot, however, find words sufficient to thank my wife Priscilla for all the help and encouragement that she has abundantly supplied from her store of grace.

Edinburgh

17 February 1983

R. L. C. LORIMER

POSTSCRIPT, Strathtummel, 30 January 1985. The text here printed has been collated with my father’s manuscripts and supersedes those printed in the first three impressions.

I am particularly grateful to Professor G. P. Henderson, for having supplied several corrections, and to Dr A. R. Rennie, formerly Registrar General of Scotland, for having pointed out that in the first impression the genealogy printed on p. 105 contains no record of Isaac’s birth.

R. L. C. L.