“Steadily rising in his profession,” Philip Mauro the Lawyer
On January 7, 1859, Philip Mauro was born in St.
Louis, Missouri. He was a son of Charles G. Mauro and Charlotte Emmeline Davis.
His
grandfather Philip Mauro came to the U.S. from Stuttgart, Germany at some time before
1814, at which time he became a naturalized citizen. Mauro’s grandfather was a
printer and his father was a lawyer.
Philip Mauro married Emily Johnston Rockwood
(1858–1917) on June 7, 1881. They had two daughters, Margaret and Isabel. Several
years after Emily’s death, Mauro married Mary Isobel Woodruff Welch
(1854-1929), the widow of William S. Welch. After her death, he married Frances
Perry (1880-1952).
Philip Mauro attended the Emerson Institute in
Washington, DC. He was admitted to the
bar after graduating from the law department of Columbian University
(now George Washington) in 1880. According to his biographer Gordon Gardiner,
Philip Mauro was “a member of the bar of the Supreme Court of the United States
and one of the foremost patent lawyers of his day.”[i]
Philip Mauro traveled a great deal both in his
personal life and ministry – including Belgium, Canada, England, France, Italy,
Puerto Rico. He and his daughter Margaret were passengers on the Carpathia
during the rescue of the survivors from the Titanic. U. S. Federal Censuses
show his residency in the following locations.[ii]
- 1860 At home, St Louis Ward 2, St. Louis, Missouri
- 1870 At home, St Louis Ward 3, St. Louis, Missouri
- 1880 Law student, Washington, District of Columbia
- 1900 Lawyer, Washington, District of Columbia
- 1910 Not found in the U. S. Census
- 1920 Traveling preacher, Sherborn, Middlesex, Massachusetts
- 1930 Lawyer, Pensacola, Escambia, Florida (counted in two places, 1930)
- 1930 Patent Attorney, Washington, District of Columbia (counted in two places, 1930)
- 1940 Lawyer, Washington, District of Columbia
- 1950 Unable to Work, Culpeper, Culpeper, Virginia
Philip Mauro continued to practice law throughout his
life, though the time given to it would decrease and his other pursuits
increase. Mauro died in Staunton City, Virginia, April 7, 1952 at age 93. He is
buried at the Masonic Cemetery in Culpeper, Culpeper County, Virginia.
“Dear fellow-Christian,” Philip Mauro the Christian
Emily Rockwood was raised in a Presbyterian family.
Mauro was a member of the Episcopalian Church of the Epiphany in Washington,
DC, which they attended after their marriage. Mauro had been part of this
church since around 1876, but he was not converted until 1903 at age 45 at the Gospel
Tabernacle in Washington. Albert Benjamin Simpson, founder of the Christian and
Missionary Alliance, was the pastor. In his Testimony, Mauro wrote:
“I came to a saving knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ on May 24, 1903, being then in my 45th year. I did not at that time fully understand what had happened to me on that day, and only learned subsequently through the study of the Scriptures, that, by the grace of God through faith in his Son Jesus Christ, I had then been quickened (Eph. 2:5), and had passed from death unto life (John 5:24).”[iii]
Mauro is not found in the 1910 U. S. Census because he
and his family were living in Rapallo, Italy. They moved there to care for his
aunt Anna Davis Foster. While living there he wrote a pamphlet titled Trusting
God in Sickness. He ministered in Rapallo through writing and speaking, ministered
to a flock while there, as well as traveling to preach the word. (Apparently Mauro was not ordained, but possibly consider a lay preacher.) Due to the
outbreak of World War I, the Mauro family returned to the United States and
brought his aunt with them.
As identified in the 1920 census, Mauro truly was a “traveling
preacher” carrying his message across the globe.
“The pen was the tongue of a ready writer,”
Philip Mauro the Writer
In addition to being a lawyer and itinerant
minister of the Christian & Missionary Alliance, Mauro was a prolific
writer. His works covered topics such as creation & evolution, eschatology,
and Bible versions. Mauro contributed essays to the 12-volume The
Fundamentals: A Testimony to The Truth, and produced Which Version
in 1924. His motto was “Scripture interprets Scripture.”[iv] According to “The Philip Mauro Digital
Library,” Mauro “wrote 35 books and at least 80 shorter writings.”[v] The first book was Reason
to Revelation in 1905. Other books written by Philip Mauro include:
- Life in the Word, 1909[vi]
- God’s Pilgrims, 1912
- Expository Readings in Romans, 1913
- Baptism: Its Place and Importance in Christianity, 1914
- Evolution at the Bar, 1922
- The Chronology of the Bible, 1922
- The Seventy Weeks and the Great Tribulation, 1923
- The Gospel of the Kingdom, 1928
- The Hope of Israel, 1929
- The Church, the Churches and the Kingdom, 1936
The Digital Library asserts that “a significant
library of writings” is Philip Mauro’s “greatest legacy” – and that he was “a ‘simple
soul’ who took God at his Word and lived the Word.”[vii]
“Much time with his Bible,” Philip Mauro
the Bible Man
Perhaps the biographer Gardiner had little interest in
or did not agree with Philp Mauro on Bible versions. At least he only mentions
it in passing.
“The year after the publication of this notable and controversial book [The Seventy Weeks and the Great Tribulation, 1923], its author brought out Which Version? Authorized or Revised?”[viii]
Yet Mauro through this book became a pivotal link
between 19th-century opposition to the Revised Version and modern
opposition to new versions seeking to supplant the King James Bible.
In his study of the Bible, Philip Mauro concluded that
the Greek text behind the English Revised Version was corrupt and that the
Authorized Version translation was “vastly superior” to the RV of 1881.[ix] He considered this
textual basis as problematic, thought the issue was important, and set out to inform
and warn his readers.
“Why was such as enormous number of changes made? On what authority? What is their general character and effect? Briefly, do they give us a better Version, that is, one that brings us nearer to the original autographs of the inspired Writings? And is the Authorized Version so very defective as implied by such an enormous number of corrections?”[x]
Mauro called this question “a matter of the highest
consequence.”[xi]
He instructs his readers concerning the Greek text, the translation, and the
work of the revision committee. He shows that Dean Burgon and others “brought
to light that the Committee had produced, not a ‘Revised’ Version (though that
was the name given to it) but a New Version, which was a translation of a ‘New
Greek Text.’”[xii]
Mauro admits that changes could be made to the Authorized
Version, especially of updating words whose meaning had changed since 1611.[xiii] Mauro’s conclusion was
not that the Revised Version was without worth, but that Authorized King James
Version was superior in underlying text,[xiv] the quality of
translation,[xv]
as well as in its style and composition.[xvi]
It is also notable that opponents of the KJV Defenders
– such as Gary Hudson and Doug Kutilek – key on and boost up David Otis Fuller’s
use of the writing of Benjamin Wilkinson in Fuller’s book Which Bible. This
advances their agenda of making so-called “King James Onlyism” evolve from
Seventh-day Adventism. However, David O. Fuller also reproduced much of Philip Mauro’s
work in the book True or False.[xvii] And, Mauro’s
book was published six years before Wilkinson’s. Is there a method in their
“madness.” Likely they do not want to attribute the origin of “King James
Onlyism,” a position they seem to despise, to a writer who contributed to The
Fundamentals! That might not play well in Peoria, neither fly far in
Fundamentalville.
Conclusion
“Philip Mauro was to linger on the border of the Promised
Land until April 7, 1952. Then, quietly, the valiant champion of the Kingdom
laid down his armor and entered into the presence of his King whom he had
served so nobly. This he did in the confidence expressed in the verse he had
written on the fly-leaf of his Bible many years before:
Unworthy though I be
For me a blood-bought, free reward,
A golden harp for me
’Tis strung and tuned for endless years
And formed by power divine
To sound in God the Father’s ears
No other name than thine.”[xviii]
[ii] U. S. Federal Censuses available at Ancestry.com.
[iii] Champion of the Kingdom, Gardiner, p. 4.
[iv] For example, “…we can interpret Scripture only by Scripture…” Of Things Which Must Soon Come to Pass: a Commentary on the Book of Revelation, Philip Mauro, Grand Rapids, MI: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 1933, p. 197.
[v] https://www.philipmauro.net/the-philip-mauro-library/
[vi] This was also published in the series called The Fundamentals.
[vii] “Biography of Philip Mauro” | https://www.philipmauro.net/philip-mauro/
[viii] Champion of the Kingdom, Gardiner, p. 41.
[ix] Which Version, p. 117.
[x] Which Version, p. 5.
[xi] Which Version, p. 5.
[xii] Which Version, p. 15.
[xiii] Which Version, p. 14.
[xiv] “…the Greek text is so corrupt…” Which Version, p. 117.
[xv] “…in this feature also, the Authorized Version is vastly superior to that of 1881.” Which Version, p. 117.
[xvi] “…it would be little short of a calamity were it [the Old Version] supplanted by the R. V.” Which Version, p. 117.
[xvii] Fuller also reproduced a good deal of the writing of John William Burgon. Peter J. Thuesen writes, “…treatises by the Revised Version’s most colorful opponents—Burgon, Mauro, and Wilkinson—would enjoy a remarkable shelf-life as late twentieth-century Protestant conservatives reprinted them as virtual classics. Equally notable was the ecumenical character of opposition to Bible revision. Wilkinson made no reference to his Seventh-day Adventist affiliation in Our Authorized Bible Vindicated, concentrating instead on issues of broad evangelical appeal. Mauro, who rejected the Episcopal Church in favor of A. B. Simpson’s Christian and Missionary Alliance, cited the Anglican Dean Burgon without compunction, as did Wilkinson. Similarly, David Otis Fuller, a minister in the General Association of Regular Baptists, during the 1970s edited reprints of works by Burgon, Mauro, Wilkinson, and others—all without apparent regard for denominational loyalties. ¶ Such pragmatic alliances among like-minded Protestants would take on additional significance in future Bible battles, for although modern critical consciousness drove conservatives and liberals apart, it also fostered intraconservative and intraliberal cooperation. The legacy of ‘King Truth’ was therefore ambiguous—as relentlessly paradoxical as the legacy of sixteenth century Protestant-Catholic disputation. The old Reformation debates over authority and interpretation would help set the terms of twentieth-century translation controversies, generating in the process rich rhetorical and ecumenical ironies.” In Discordance with the Scriptures: American Protestant Battles over Translating the Bible, Oxford University Press, 1999, p. 65.
[xviii] Champion of the Kingdom, Gardiner, p. 50. The hymn is from stanzas 6 and 7 of William Cowper’s “There is a Fountain filled with Blood” (Hymn 79, “Praise for the fountain opened.” Zech. 13:1 in Olney Hymns).
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