Johann Jakob Wettstein

[1] In 1713 in his public examination he defended a dissertation entitled De variis Novi Testamenti lectionibus, and sought to show that variety of readings did not detract from the authority of the Bible.

[1] In July 1717 Wettstein returned to take the office of a deacon at large (diaconus communis) at Basel, a post which he held for three years, after which he became his father's colleague and successor in the parish of St Leonard's.

[2] Doubts had been swirling about Wettstein's orthodoxy as early as the publication of his thesis in 1713, and he ultimately fell under suspicion of Socinianism when he was unwilling to defend the orthodox doctrine of the Trinity.

[3] In 1728 his one-time friend and mentor Johann Ludwig Frey accused Wettstein of using textual criticism as a means of advancing Socinian theology, which was investigated by a committee of clergy at Basel.

As soon as he reached Amsterdam, in 1730, he published anonymously the Prolegomena ad Novi Testamenti Graeci editionem, which he had proposed should accompany his Greek Testament, and which was later republished by him, with additions, in 1751.

The next year (1731) the Remonstrants offered him the chair of philosophy in their college at Amsterdam, vacated by the illness of Jean Leclerc, on condition that he clear himself of the suspicion of heresy.

Beneath the latter he gave a commentary, consisting principally of a mass of valuable illustrations and parallels drawn from classical and rabbinical literature, which has formed a storehouse for all later commentators.

In his Prolegomena he gave an admirable methodical account of the manuscripts, the versions and the readings of the fathers, as well as the troubled story of the difficulties with which he had had to contend in the prosecution of the work of his life.

Yet during the latter years of his life, he adopted the position that the oldest extant Greek manuscripts had been corrupted by influence of the Latin, resulting in his loss of confidence in those ancient copies, including Alexandrinus.

Novum Testamentum Græcum editionis receptæ, cum Lectionibus Variantibus Codicum MSS., Editionum aliarum, Versionum et Patrum, necnon Commentario pleniore ex Scriptoribus veteribus, Hebræis, Græcis, et Latinis, historiam et vim verborum illustrante, in two volumes.