‘Tenet ecclesia nostra, tenuitque semper firmam illam et immotam Tertulliani regulam “Id verius quod prius, id prius quod ab initio.” Quo propius ad veritatis fontem accedimus, eo purior decurrit Catholicae doctrinae rivus.’
Cave’s Prolog. p. xliv.
‘Interrogate de semitis antiquis quae sit via bona, et ambulate in ea.’—
‘In summa, si constat id verius quod prius, id prius quod ab initio, id ab initio quod ab Apostolis; pariter utique constabit, id esse ab Apostolis traditum, quod apud Ecclesias Apostolorum fuerit sacrosanctum.’—Tertull. adv. Marc. 1. iv. c. 5.
THE reception given by the learned world to the First Volume of this work, as expressed hitherto in smaller reviews and notices, has on the whole been decidedly far from discouraging. All have had some word of encomium on our efforts. Many have accorded praise and signified their agreement, sometimes with unquestionable ability. Some have pronounced adverse opinions with considerable candour and courtesy. Others in opposing have employed arguments so weak and even irrelevant to the real question at issue, as to suggest that there is not after all so much as I anticipated to advance against our case. Longer examinations of this important matter are doubtless impending, with all the interest attaching to them and the judgements involved: but I beg now to offer my acknowledgements for all the words of encouragement that have been uttered.
Something however must be said in reply to an attack made in
the Guardian newspaper on
May 20, because it represents in the main the position occupied by some members
of an existing School. I do not linger over an offhand stricture upon my ‘adhesion
to the extravagant claim of a second-century origin for the Peshitto,’ because I
am
A curious instance of a fate like this has been supplied by a critic in the Athenaeum, who, when contrasting Dean Burgon’s style of writing with mine to my discredit, quotes a passage of some length as the Dean’s which was really written by me. Surely the principle upheld by our opponents, that much more importance than we allow should be attributed to the ‘Internal evidence of Readings and Documents,’ might have saved him from error upon a piece of composition which characteristically proclaimed its own origin. At all events, after this undesigned support, I am the less inclined to retire from our vantage ground.
But it is gratifying on all accounts to say now, that such interpolations
as in the companion volume I was obliged frequently to supply in order to fill up
gaps in the several MSS. and in integral portions of the treatise, which through
their very frequency would have there made square brackets unpleasant to our readers,
are not required so often in this part of the work. Accordingly, except in instances
of pure editing or in simple bringing up
But the Introduction, and Appendix II on ‘Conflation’ and the ‘Neutral Text,’ have been necessarily contributed by me. I am anxious to invite attention particularly to the latter essay, because it has been composed upon request, and also because—unless it contains some extraordinary mistake—it exhibits to a degree which has amazed me the baselessness of Dr. Hort’s theory.
The manner in which the Dean prepared piecemeal for his book,
and the large number of fragments in which he left his materials, as has been detailed
in the Preface to the former volume, have necessarily produced an amount of repetition
which I deplore. To have avoided it entirely, some of the MSS. must have been rewritten.
But in one instance I discovered when it was too late that after searching for,
and finding with difficulty and treating, an example which had not been supplied,
I had forestalled a subsequent examination of the same passage from his abler hand.
However I hope that in nearly all, if not all cases, each treatment involves some
new contribution to the question
My thanks are again due to the Rev. G. H. Gwilliam, B.D., Fellow of Hertford College, for much advice and suggestion, which he is so capable of giving, and for his valuable care in looking through all the first proofs of this volume; to ‘M. W.,’ Dean Burgon’s indefatigable secretary, who in a pure labour of love copied out the text of the MSS. before and after his death; also to the zealous printers at the Clarendon Press, for help in unravelling intricacies still remaining in them.
This treatise is now commended to the fair and candid consideration of readers and reviewers. The latter body of men should remember that there was perhaps never a time when reviewers were themselves reviewed by many intelligent readers more than they are at present. I cannot hope that all that we have advanced will be finally adopted, though my opinion is unfaltering as resting in my belief upon the Rock; still less do I imagine that errors may not be discovered in our work. But I trust that under Divine Blessing some not unimportant contribution has been made towards the establishment upon sound principles of the reverent criticism of the Text of the New Testament. And I am sure that, as to the Dean’s part in it, this trust will be ultimately justified.
EDWARD MILLER.
9 BRADMORE ROAD, OXFORD:
Sept. 2, 1896.
PAGE | |
INTRODUCTION. | |
---|---|
The Traditional Text—established by evidence—especially before St. Chrysostom —corruption—early rise of it—Galilee of the Gentiles — Syrio-Low-Latin source—various causes and forms of corruption | pp. 1-9 |
CHAPTER I. | |
GENERAL CORRUPTION. | |
§ 1. Modern re-editing—difference between the New Testament and other books—immense number of copies—ordinary causes of error—Doctrinal causes. § 2. Elimination of weakly attested readings—nature of inquiry. § 3. Smaller blemishes in MSS. unimportant except when constant. § 4. Most mistakes arose from inadvertency: many from unfortunate design | pp. 10-23 |
CHAPTER II. | |
ACCIDENTAL CAUSES OF CORRUPTION. I. PURE ACCIDENT. |
|
§ 1. St. |
pp. 24-35 |
CHAPTER III. | |
ACCIDENTAL CAUSES OF CORRUPTION. II. HOMOEOTELEUTON. |
|
St. |
pp. 36-41 |
ACCIDENTAL CAUSES OF CORRUPTION. III. FROM WRITING IN UNCIALS. |
|
§ 1. St. |
pp. 42-55 |
CHAPTER V. | |
ACCIDENTAL CAUSES OF CORRUPTION. IV. ITACISM. |
|
§ 1. Various passages-St. |
pp. 56-66 |
CHAPTER VI. | |
ACCIDENTAL CAUSES OF CORRUPTION. V. LITURGICAL INFLUENCE. |
|
§ 1. Lectionaries of the Church—Liturgical influence—Antiquity
of the Lectionary System. § 2. St. |
pp. 67-88 |
CHAPTER VII. | |
CAUSES OF CORRUPTION CHIEFLY INTENTIONAL. I. HARMONISTIC INFLUENCE. |
|
§ 1. St. |
pp. 89-99 |
CHAPTER VIII. | |
CAUSES OF CORRUPTION CHIEFLY INTENTIONAL. II. ASSIMILATION. |
|
§ 1. Transfer from one Gospel to another. § 2. Not entirely intentional—Various
passages. § 3. St. |
pp. 100-122 |
CAUSES OF CORRUPTION CHIEFLY INTENTIONAL. III. ATTRACTION. |
|
§ 1. St. |
pp. 123-127 |
CHAPTER X. | |
CAUSES OF CORRUPTION CHIEFLY INTENTIONAL. IV. OMISSION. |
|
§ 1. Omissions a class of their own—Exemplified from the Last Twelve
Verses of St. Mark—Omission the besetting fault of transcribers. § 2. The onus pvbandi rests upon omitters.
§ 3. St. |
pp. 128-156 |
CHAPTER XI. | |
CAUSES OF CORRUPTION CHIEFLY INTENTIONAL. | |
V. TRANSPOSITION. | |
§ 1. St. |
pp. 557-163 |
VI. SUBSTITUTION. | |
§ 4. If taken with Modifications, a large class—Various instances | pp. 164-165 |
VII. ADDITION. | |
§ 5. The smallest of the four—St. |
pp. 166-171 |
CHAPTER XII. | |
CAUSES OF CORRUPTION CHIEFLY INTENTIONAL. | |
VIII. GLOSSES. | |
§ 1. Not so numerous as has been supposed—St. |
pp. 170-190 |
CAUSES OF CORRUPTION CHIEFLY INTENTIONAL. IX. CORRUPTION BY HERETICS. |
|
§ 1. This class very evident—Began in the earliest times—Appeal
to what is earlier still—Condemned in all ages and countries. § 2. The earliest
depravers of the Tcxt—Tatian’s Diatessaron. § 3. Gnostics—St. |
pp. 191-210 |
CHAPTER XIV. | |
CAUSES OF CORRUPTION CHIEFLY INTENTIONAL. X. CORRUPTION BY THE ORTHODOX. |
|
§ 1. St. |
pp. 211-231 |
APPENDIX | |
PERICOPE DE ADULTERA | pp. 232-265 |
APPENDIX II. | |
DR. HORT’S THEORY OF CONFLATION AND THE NEUTRAL TEXT |
pp. 266-286 |
INDEX OF SUBJECTS | pp. 287-288 |
INDEX OF PASSAGES OF THE NEW TESTAMENT DISCUSSED | pp. 289-290 |
IN the companion volume to this, the Traditional Text, that is, the Text of the Gospels which is the resultant of all the evidence faithfully and exhaustively presented and estimated according to the best procedure of the courts of law, has been traced back to the earliest ages in the existence of those sacred writings. We have shewn, that on the one hand, amidst the unprecedented advantages afforded by modern conditions of life for collecting all the evidence bearing upon the subject, the Traditional Text must be found, not in a mere transcript, but in a laborious revision of the Received Text; and that on the other hand it must, as far as we can judge, differ but slightly from the Text now generally in vogue, which has been generally received during the last two and a half centuries.
The strength of the position of the Traditional Text lies in
its being logically deducible and to be deduced from all the varied evidence which
the case supplies, when it has been sifted, proved, passed, weighed, compared, compounded,
and contrasted with dissentient testimony. The contrast is indeed great in almost
all instances upon
It is evident that the turning-point of the controversy between
ourselves and the Neologian school must lie in the centuries before St. Chrysostom.
If, as Dr. Hort maintains, the Traditional Text not only gained supremacy at that
era but did not exist in the early ages, then our contention is vain. That Text
can be Traditional only if it goes back without break or intermission to the original
autographs, because if through break or intermission it ceased or failed to exist,
it loses the essential feature of It must be always borne in mind, that
it is not enough for the purpose of the other side to shew that the Traditional
Text was in a minority as regards attestation. They must prove that it was nowhere
in the earliest ages, if they are to establish their position that it was made in
the third and fourth centuries. Traditional Text of the Holy Gospels, p. 95.
In this volume, the other half of the subject will be discussed. Instead of exploring the genuine Text, we shall treat of the corruptions of it, and shall track error in its ten thousand forms to a few sources or heads. The origination of the pure Text in the inspired writings of the Evangelists will thus be vindicated anew by the evident paternity of deflections from it discoverable in the natural defects or iniquities of men. Corruption will the more slim itself in true colours:—
Quinquaginta atris immanis hiatibus hydra Altered from Conington’s version, Aen. vi. 576.
and it will not so readily be mistaken for genuineness, when
the real history is unfolded, and the mistakes are accounted for. It seems clear
that corruption arose in the
Tam ficti pravique tenax, quam nuntia veri Altered from Conington, Aen. iv. 188.
And as soon as inaccuracy had done its baleful work, a spirit of infidelity and of hostility either to the essentials or the details of the new religion must have impelled such as were either imperfect Christians, or no Christians at all, to corrupt the sacred stories.
Thus it appears that errors crept in at the very first commencement of the life of the Church. This is a matter so interesting and so important in the history of corruption, that I must venture to place it again before our readers.
Why was Galilee chosen before Judea and Jerusalem as the chief scene of our Lord’s Life and Ministry, at least as regards the time spent there? Partly, no doubt, because the Galileans were more likely than the other inhabitants of Palestine to receive Him. But there was as I venture to think also another very special reason.
‘Galilee of the nations’ or ‘the Gentiles,’ not only had a mixed
population Strabo, xvi, enumerates amongst its inhabitants Egyptians, Arabians, and
Phoenicians. Studia Biblica, i. 50-55. Dr. Neubauer, On the Dialects spoken in Palestine
in the time of Christ. Isaac Williams, On the Study of the Gospels,
341-352.
My devoted Syrian friend, Miss Helanie Baroody, told me during her stay
in England that a village is pointed out as having been traversed by our Lord
on Ills way from Caesarea Philippi to Mount Hermon. It is hardly improbable that these two eminent
Christians were some of those whom St. Paul found at Antioch when St.
Barnabas brought him there, and thus came to know intimately as
fellow-workers
(ἐπίσημοι ἐν τοῖς ἀποστόλοις, οἷ
καὶ πρὸ ἐμοῦ γεγόνασιν ἐν
Χριστῷ). Most of the names in ‘Jam pridem Syrus in Tiberim defluxit Orontes
Et linguam et mores . . . vexit.’—Juv. Sat. iii. 62-3.
It has been shewn in our first volume that, as is well known to all students of Textual Criticism, the chief amount of corruption is to be found in what is termed the Western Text; and that the corruption of the West is so closely akin to the corruption which is found in Syriac remains, that practically they are included under one head of classification. What is the reason of this phenomenon? It is evidently derived from the close commercial alliance which subsisted between Syria and Italy. That is to say, the corruption produced in Syria made its way over into Italy, and there in many instances gathered fresh contributions. For there is reason to suppose, that it first arose in Syria.
We have seen how the Church grew of itself there without regular
teaching from Jerusalem in the first beginnings, or any regular supervision exercised
by the Apostles. In fact, as far as the Syrian believers in Christ at first consisted
of Gentiles, they must perforce have been regarded as being outside of the covenant
of promise. Yet there must have been many who revered the stories told about our
Lord, and felt extreme interest and delight in them. The story of King Abgar illustrates
the history: but amongst those who actually heard our Lord preach there must have
been very many, probably a majority, who were uneducated. They would easily learn
from the
The Gospels were certainly not written till some thirty years after the Ascension. More careful examination seems to place them later rather than earlier. For myself, I should suggest that the three first were not published long before the year 70 A.D. at the earliest; and that St. Matthew’s Gospel was written at Pella during the siege of Jerusalem amidst Greek surroundings, and in face of the necessity caused by new conditions of life that Greek should become the ecclesiastical language. The Gospels would thus be the authorized versions in their entirety of the stories constituting the Life of our Lord; and corruption must have come into existence, before the antidote was found in complete documents accepted and commissioned by the authorities in the Church.
I must again remark with much emphasis that the foregoing suggestions
are offered to account for what may now be regarded as a fact, viz., the connexion
between the Western Text, as it is called, and Syriac remains in regard to corruption
in the text of the Gospels and of the Acts of the Apostles. If that corruption arose
at the very first spread of Christianity, before the record of our Lord’s Life had
assumed permanent shape in the Four Gospels, all is easy. Such corruption, inasmuch
as it beset the oral and written stories which were afterwards incorporated in the
Gospels, would creep into the authorized
In the following treatise, the causes of corruption are divided
into (I) such as proceeded from Accident, and (II) those which were Intentional.
Under the former class we find (1) those which were involved in pure Accident, or
(2) in what is termed Homoeoteleuton where lines or sentences ended with the same
word or the same syllable, or (3) such as arose in writing from Uncial letters,
or (4) in the confusion of vowels and diphthongs which is called Itacism, or (5)
in Liturgical Influence. The remaining instances may be conveniently classed as
Intentional, not because in all cases there was a settled determination to alter
the text, for such if any was
often of the faintest character, but because some sort
of design was to a greater or less degree embedded in most of them. Such causes
were (1) Harmonistic Influence, (2) Assimilation, (3) Attraction; such instances
too in their main character
This dissection of the mass of corruption, or as perhaps it may be better termed, this classification made by Dean Burgon of the numerous causes which are found to have been at work from time to time, appears to me to be most interesting to the inquirer into the hidden history of the Text of the Gospels, because by revealing the influences which have been at work it sheds light upon the entire controversy, and often enables the student to see clearly how and why certain passages around which dispute has gathered are really corrupt. Indeed, the vast and mysterious ogre called corruption assumes shape and form under the acute penetration and the deft handling of the Dean, whose great knowledge of the subject and orderly treatment of puzzling details is still more commended by his interesting style of writing. As far as has been possible, I have let him in the sequel, except for such clerical corrections as were required from time to time and have been much fewer than his facile pen would have made, speak entirely for himself.
§ 1.
WE hear sometimes scholars complain, and with a certain show of reason, that it is discreditable to us as a Church not to have long since put forth by authority a revised Greek Text of the New Testament. The chief writers of antiquity, say they, have been of late years re-edited by the aid of the best Manuscripts. Why should not the Scriptures enjoy the same advantage? Men who so speak evidently misunderstand the question. They assume that the case of the Scriptures and that of other ancient writings are similar.
Such remonstrances are commonly followed up by statements like
the following:—That the received Text is that of Erasmus:—that it was constructed
in haste, and without skill:—that it is based on a very few, and those bad Manuscripts:—that it belongs to an age when scarcely any of our present critical helps were
available, and when the Science of Textual Criticism was unknown. To listen to these
advocates for Revision, you would almost suppose that it fared with the Gospel at
this instant as it had fared with the original Copy of the Law for many years until
the days of King Josiah
Yielding to no one in my desire to see the Greek of the [This name is used fur want of a better. Churchmen are Unitarians
as well as Trinitarians. The two names in combination express our Faith. We dare
not alienate either of them.]
Now if the meaning of those who desire to see the commonly received text of the New Testament made absolutely faultless, were something of this kind:—That they are impatient for the collation of the copies which have become known to us within the last two centuries, and which amount already in all to upwards of three thousand: that they are bent on procuring that the ancient Versions shall be re-edited;—and would hail with delight the announcement that a band of scholars had combined to index every place of Scripture quoted by any of the Fathers:—if this were meant, we should all be entirely at one; especially if we could further gather from the programme that a fixed intention was cherished of abiding by the result of such an appeal to ancient evidence. But unfortunately something entirely different is in contemplation.
Now I am bent on calling attention to certain features of the problem which
have very generally escaped attention. It does not seem to be understood that
the Scriptures of the New Testament stand on an entirely different footing from
every other ancient writing which can be named. A
few plain remarks ought to bring this fact, for a fact
it
In the first place, then, let it be observed that the New Testament
Scriptures are wholly without a parallel in respect of their having been so frequently
multiplied from the very first. They are by consequence contained at this day in
an extravagantly large number of copies [probably, if reckoned under the six classes
of Gospels, Acts and Catholic Epistles, Pauline Epistles, Apocalypse, Evangelistaries, and Apostolos, exceeding the number of four thousand].
There is nothing like this, or at all approaching to it, in the case of any profane
writing that can be named See The Traditional Text of the Holy Gospels (Burgon
and Miller), p. 21, note 1.
And the very necessity for multiplying copies,—a necessity which has made itself felt in every age and in every clime,—has perforce resulted in an immense number of variants. Words have been inevitably dropped,—vowels have been inadvertently confounded by copyists more or less competent:—and the meaning of Scripture in countless places has suffered to a surprising degree in consequence. This first.
But then further, the Scriptures for the very reason because
they were known to be the Word of God became a mark for the shafts of Satan from
the beginning. They were by consequence as eagerly solicited by heretical teachers
on the one hand, as they were hotly defended by the orthodox on the other. Alike
from friends and from foes therefore, they are known to have experienced injury,
and that in the earliest age of all. Nothing of the kind can be predicated of any
other ancient writings. This
For I request it may be observed that I have not said—and I certainly do not mean—that the Scriptures themselves have been permanently corrupted either by friend or foe. Error was fitful and uncertain, and was contradicted by other error: besides that it sank eventually before a manifold witness to the truth. Nevertheless, certain manuscripts belonging to a few small groups—particular copies of a Version—individual Fathers or Doctors of the Church,—these do, to the present hour, bear traces incontestably of ancient mischief.
But what goes before is not nearly all. The fourfold structure
of the Gospel has lent itself to a certain kind of licentious handling—of which
in other ancient writings we have no experience. One critical owner of a Codex
considered himself at liberty to assimilate the narratives: another to correct
them in order to bring them into (what seemed to himself) greater harmony.
Brevity is found to have been a paramount object with some, and Transposition to
have amounted to a passion with others. Conjectural Criticism was evidently
practised largely: and almost with as little felicity as when Bentley held the
pen. Lastly, there can be no question that there was a certain school of Critics
who considered themselves competent to improve the style of the
Holy Ghost throughout. [And before the members of the Church had
gained a familiar acquaintance with the words of the New Testament, blunders continually
crept into the text of more or less heinous importance.] All this, which was chiefly
done during the second and third centuries, introduces an element of difficulty
in the handling of ancient evidence which can never be safely neglected: and will
make a thoughtful man suspicious of every various reading which comes in his way,
especially if it is attended
Add to all that goes before the peculiar subject-matter of the New Testament Scriptures, and it will become abundantly plain why they should have been liable to a series of assaults which make it reasonable that they should now at last be approached by ourselves as no other ancient writings are, or can be. The nature of God,—His Being and Attributes:—the history of Man’s Redemption:—the soul’s eternal destiny:—the mysteries of the unseen world:—concerning these and every other similar high doctrinal subject, the sacred writings alone speak with a voice of absolute authority. And surely by this time enough has been said to explain why these Scriptures should have been made a battle-field during some centuries, and especially in the fourth; and having thus been made the subject of strenuous contention, that copies of them should exhibit to this hour traces of those many adverse influences. I say it for the last time,—of all such causes of depravation the Greek Poets, Tragedians, Philosophers, Historians, neither knew nor could know anything. And it thus plainly appears that the Textual Criticism of the New Testament is to be handled by ourselves in an entirely different spirit from that of any other book.
§ 2.
I wish now to investigate the causes of the corruption of the
Text of the New Testament. I do not entitle the present a discussion of ‘Various
Readings,’ because I consider that expression to be incorrect and misleading See Traditional Text, chapter
ii, § 6, p. 32.
Waiving this however, the term is objectionable on other grounds. It is to beg the whole question to assume that every irregularity in the text of Scripture is a ‘various reading.’ The very expression carries with it an assertion of importance; at least it implies a claim to consideration. Even might it be thought that, because it is termed a ‘various reading,’ therefore a critic is entitled to call in question the commonly received text. Whereas, nine divergences out of ten are of no manner of significance and are entitled to no manner of consideration, as every one must see at a glance who will attend to the matter ever so little. ‘Various readings’ in fact is a term which belongs of right to the criticism of the text of profane authors: and, like many other notions which have been imported from the same region into this department of inquiry, it only tends to confuse and perplex the judgement.
No variety in the Text of Scripture can properly be called a
‘various reading,’ of which it may be safely declared that it never has been, and
never will be, read. In the case of profane authors, where the MSS. are for the
most part exceedingly few, almost every plausible substitution of one word for another,
if really entitled to alteration, is looked upon as a various
reading of the text. But in the Gospels, of which the copies are so numerous as
has been said, the case is far otherwise. We are there able to convince ourselves
in a moment that the supposed ‘various reading’ is nothing else but an instance
of licentiousness or inattention on the part of a previous scribe or scribes, and
we can afford to neglect it accordingly [Perhaps this point may be
cleared by dividing readings into two classes, viz. (1) such as really have strong
evidence for their support, and require examination before we can be certain that
they are corrupt; and (2) those which afford no doubt as to their being destitute
of foundation, and are only interesting as specimens of the modes in which
error was sometimes introduced. Evidently, the latter class are not ‘various’ at
all.]
The inquiry therefore on which we are about to engage, grows naturally out of the considerations which have been already offered. We propose to ascertain, as far as is practicable at the end of so many hundred years, in what way these many strange corruptions of the text have arisen. Very often we shall only have to inquire how it has come to pass that the text exhibits signs of perturbation at a certain place. Such disquisitions as those which follow, let it never be forgotten, have no place in reviewing any other text than that of the New Testament, because a few plain principles would suffice to solve every difficulty. The less usual word mistaken for the word of mare frequent occurrence;—clerical carelessness;—a gloss finding its way from the margin into the text;—such explanations as these would probably in other cases suffice to account for every ascertained corruption of the text. But it is far otherwise here, as I propose to make fully apparent by and by. Various disturbing influences have been at work for a great many years, of which secular productions know absolutely nothing, nor indeed can know.
The importance of such an inquiry will become apparent as we
proceed; but it may be convenient that I should call attention to the matter briefly
at the outset. It frequently happens that the one remaining plea of many critics
for adopting readings of a certain kind, is the inexplicable nature of the phenomena
which these readings exhibit. ‘How will you possibly account for such a reading
as the present,’ (say they,) ‘if it be not authentic?’ Or they say nothing, but
leave it to be inferred that the reading they adopt,—in spite of its intrinsic improbability,
in spite also of the slender amount of evidence on which it rests,—must needs be
accepted as true. They lose sight of the correlative difficulty:—How comes it to
pass that the rest of the copies read the place otherwise? On all such occasions
it is impossible to overestimate the importance of detecting
The discussion on which I now enter is then on the Causes of the various Corruptions of the Text. [The reader shall be shewn with illustrations to what particular source they are to be severally ascribed. When representative passages have been thus labelled, and the causes are seen in operation, he will be able to pierce the mystery, and all the better to winnow the evil from among the good.]
§ 3.
When I take into my hands an ancient copy of the Gospels, I expect that it will exhibit sundry inaccuracies and imperfections: and I am never disappointed in my expectation. The discovery however creates no uneasiness, so long as the phenomena evolved are of a certain kind and range within easily definable limits. Thus:—
1. Whatever belongs to peculiarities of
spelling or fashions of writing, I can afford to disregard. For example, it is clearly
consistent with perfect good faith, that a scribe should spell κράβαττον [I.e. generally
κράβαττον,
or else κράβατον, or even κράβακτον; seldom found as κράββαττον,
or spelt in the corrupt form κράββατον.]
2. In like manner the reduplication of syllables, words, clauses, sentences, is consistent with entire sincerity of purpose on the part of the copyist. This inaccuracy is often to be deplored; inasmuch as a reduplicated syllable often really affects the sense. But for the most part nothing worse ensues than that the page is disfigured with errata.
3. So, on the other hand,—the occasional omission of words, whether few or many,—especially that passing from one line to the corresponding place in a subsequent line, which generally results from the proximity of a similar ending,—is a purely venial offence. It is an evidence of carelessness, but it proves nothing worse.
4. Then further,—slight inversions, especially of ordinary words; or the adoption of some more obvious and familiar collocation of particles in a sentence; or again, the occasional substitution of one common word for another, as εἶπε for ἔλεγε, φώνησαν for κράξαν, and the like;—need not provoke resentment. It is an indication, we are willing to hope, of nothing worse than slovenliness on the part of the writer or the group or succession of writers.
5.
I will add that besides the substitution of one word for another, cases
frequently occur, where even the introduction into the text of one or more words
which cannot be thought to have stood in the original autograph of the
But it is high time to point out, that irregularities which fall under these last heads are only tolerable within narrow limits, and always require careful watching; for they may easily become excessive or even betray an animus; and in either case they pass at once into quite a different category. From cases of excusable oscitancy they degenerate, either into instances of inexcusable licentiousness, or else into cases of downright fraud.
6. Thus, if it be observed in the case of a Codex (a) that entire sentences or significant clauses are habitually omitted:—(b) that again and again in the course of the same page the phraseology of the Evangelist has upon clear evidence been seriously tampered with: and (c) that interpolations here and there occur which will not admit of loyal interpretation:—we cannot but learn to regard with habitual distrust the Codex in which all these notes are found combined. It is as when a witness, whom we suspected of nothing worse than a bad memory or a random tongue or a lively imagination, has been at last convicted of deliberate suppression of parts of his evidence, misrepresentation of facts,—in fact, deliberate falsehood.
7. But now suppose the case of a MS. in which words or clauses are clearly
omitted with design; where expressions are withheld which are confessedly harsh
or critically difficult,—whole sentences or parts of them which have a known
controversial bearing;—Suppose further that the same MS. abounds in worthless
paraphrase, and contains apocryphal additions throughout:—What are we to think
of our guide then? There can be but one opinion on the subject. From habitually
trusting, we shall entertain inveterate distrust. We have ascertained his character.
We thought he was a faithful witness, but we now find from experience of his
transgressions that
§ 4.
It may be regarded as certain that most of the aberrations discoverable in Codexes of the Sacred Text have arisen in the first instance from the merest inadvertency of the scribes. That such was the case in a vast number of cases is in fact demonstrable. [Inaccuracy in the apprehension of the Divine Word, which in the earliest ages was imperfectly understood, and ignorance of Greek in primitive Latin translators, were prolific sources of error. The influence of Lectionaries, in which Holy Scripture was cut up into separate Lections either with or without an introduction, remained with habitual hearers, and led them off in copying to paths which had become familiar. Acquaintance with ‘Harmonies’ or Diatessarons caused copyists insensibly to assimilate one Gospel to another. And doctrinal predilections, as in the case of those who belonged to the Origenistic school, were the source of lapsing into expressions which were not the verba ipsissima of Holy Writ. In such cases, when the inadvertency was genuine and was unmingled with any overt design, it is much to be noted that the error seldom propagated itself extensively.]
But next, well-meant endeavours must have been made at a very
early period to ‘rectify’ (διορθοῦν)
the text thus unintentionally corrupted; and so, what
began in inadvertence is sometimes found in the end to exhibit traces of design,
and often becomes in a high degree perplexing. Thus, to cite a favourite example,
it is clear to
me that in the earliest age of all (A.D. 100?) some copyist of St. I am
inclined to believe that in the age immediately succeeding that of the Apostles,
some person or persons of great influence and authority executed a Revision of the
N. T. and gave the world the result of such labours in a ‘corrected Text.’ The
guiding principle seems to have been to seek to abridge
the Text, to lop off whatever seemed redundant,
or which might in any way be spared, and to eliminate from one Gospel whatever expressions
occurred elsewhere in another Gospel. Clauses which slightly obscured
the speaker’s meaning; or which seemed to hang loose at the end of a sentence;
or which introduced a consideration of difficulty:—words which interfered with
the easy flow of a sentence:—every thing of this kind such a personage seems to
have held himself free to discard. But what is more serious, passages which occasioned
some difficulty, as the pericope de adultera; physical perplexity, as the
troubling of the water; spiritual revulsion, as the agony in the garden:—all these
the reviser or revisers seem to have judged it safest simply to eliminate. It is
difficult to understand how any persons in their senses could have so acted by the
sacred deposit; but it does not seem improbable that at some very remote period
there were found some who did act in some such way. Let it be observed, however,
that unlike some critics I do not base my real argument upon what appears to me
to be a not unlikely supposition.
I once hoped that it might be possible to refer all the Corruptions of the Text of Scripture to ordinary causes: as, careless transcription,—divers accidents,—misplaced critical assiduity,—doctrinal animus,—small acts of unpardonable licence.
But increased attention and enlarged acquaintance with the subject,
have convinced me that by far the larger number of the omissions of such.
Codexes as אBLD must needs be due to quite a different cause. These MSS. omit so
many words, phrases, sentences, verses of Scripture,—that it is altogether incredible
that the proximity of like endings can have much to do with the matter. Inadvertency
may be made to bear the blame of some omissions: it cannot bear the blame of shrewd
and significant omissions of clauses, which invariably leave the sense complete.
A systematic and perpetual mutilation of the inspired Text must needs be the result
of design, not of accident [Unless it be referred to the two converging streams of corruption,
as described in The Traditional Text.]
[It will be seen therefore that the causes of the Corruptions of the Text class themselves under two main heads, viz. (I.) Those which arose from Inadvertency, and (II.) Those which took their origin in Design.]
[IT often happens that more causes than one are combined in the origin of the corruption in any one passage. In the following history of a blunder and of the fatal consequences that ensued upon it, only the first step was accidental. But much instruction may be derived from the initial blunder, and though the later stages in the history come under another head, they nevertheless illustrate the effects of early accident, besides throwing light upon parts of the discussion which are yet to come.]
§ 1.
We are sometimes able to trace the origin and progress of accidental
depravations of the text: and the study is as instructive as it is interesting.
Let me invite attention to what is found in St.
St. John certainly wrote the familiar words,—ὁ πατήρ μου
This last exhibition of the text, which in fact scarcely yields
an intelligible meaning and rests
upon the minimum of manuscript evidence, would long since
have been forgotten, but that, calamitously for the Western Church, its Version
of the New Testament Scriptures was executed from MSS. of the same vicious type
as Cod. B See the passages quoted in Scrivener’s Introduction, II. 270-2,
4th ed. Tertull. (Prax. c. 22): Ambr. (ii. 576, 607, 689 bis):
Hilary (930 bis, 1089): Jerome (v. 208): Augustin (iii2. 615): Maximinus,
an Arian bishop (ap. Aug. viii. 651). Pater (or
Pater meus) quod dedit mihi (or mihi dedit), majus omnibus
est (or majus est omnibus: or omnibus majus est). iii2. 615. He begins, ‘Quid dedit Filio
Pater majus omnibus? Ut ipsi ille esset unigenitus Filius.’ i. 236. viii. 363 bis. i. 188: ii. 567: iii. 792: iv. 666 (ed. Pusey): v1. 326, 577, 578:
ap. Mai ii. 13: iii. 336. v. 1065 (= Dial Maced
ap. Athanas. 555).
‘But,’—I shall perhaps be asked,—‘although Patristic and manuscript
evidence are wanting for the reading ὃ δεδωκέ μοι. . . μείζων,—is
it not a significant circumstance that three translations of such high antiquity
as the Latin, the Bohairic, and the Gothic, should concur in supporting it? and
does it not inspire extraordinary confidence in B to find that B alone of MSS. agrees
with them?’ To which I answer,—It makes me, on the contrary, more and more distrustful
of the Latin, the Bohairic and the Gothic versions to find them exclusively siding
with Cod. B on such an occasion as the present. It is obviously not more ‘significant’ that the Latin, the Bohairic, and the Gothic, should here conspire with—than that
the Syriac, the Sahidic, and the Ethiopic, should here combine against B. On the
other hand, how utterly insignificant is the testimony of B when opposed to all
the uncials, all the cursives, and all the Greek fathers who quote the place. So
far from inspiring me with confidence in B, the present indication of the fatal
sympathy of that Codex with the corrupt copies from which confessedly many of the
Old Latin were executed, confirms Viz. + μου ABD: — μου א
| ος A: ο BאD | δεδωκεν BאA:
δεδωκως | μειζων אD:
μειζον AB | μειζ.
παντων εστιν Α: παντων
μειζ. εστιν BאD.
§ 2.
I do not find that sufficient attention has been paid to grave disturbances of the Text which have resulted from a slight clerical error. While we are enumerating the various causes of Textual depravity, we may not fail to specify this. Once trace a serious Textual disturbance back to (what for convenience may be called) a ‘clerical error,’ and you are supplied with an effectual answer to a form of inquiry which else is sometimes very perplexing: viz. If the true meaning of this passage be what you suppose, for what conceivable reason should the scribe have misrepresented it in this strange way,—made nonsense, in short, of the place? . . . I will further remark, that it is always interesting, sometimes instructive, after detecting the remote origin of an ancient blunder, to note what has been its subsequent history and progress.
Some specimens of the thing referred to I have already given
in another place. The reader is invited to acquaint himself with the strange process
by which the 276 souls’ who suffered shipwreck with St. Paul ( The Revision Revised, p. 51-3. The Revision Revised, p. 53-4. Ibid. p. 51-6. Ibid. p. 177-8.
Attention is therefore invited to a case of attraction in
For
οὐδενὸς λοΓΟΝ, (the accusative after
ποιοῦμαι),
some one having substituted
οὐδενὸς λοΓΟΥ,—a reading which survives to this hour in B and
C Also in Ammonius the presbyter, A.D. 458—see Cramer’s Cat. p. 334-5,
last line. Λόγου is read besides in the cursives I look for an approving word from learned Dr. Field, who wrote in
1875—‘The real obstacle to our acquiescing in the reading
of the T. R. is, that if the words
οὐδὲ ἔχω had
once formed apart of the original text, there
is no possibility
of accounting for the subsequent omission of them.’ The same
remark, but considerably toned down, is found in his delightful Otium Norvicense,
P. iii, p. 84. B and C read—ἀλλʼ οὐδενὸς λόγον
ποιοῦμαι τὴν ψυχὴν τιμίαν ἐμαυτῳ̂: which is exactly what Lucifer
Calarit. represents,—‘sed pro nihilo aestimo animam meam carom esse mihi’
(Galland. vi. 241). א reads—ἀλλ᾽ οὐδενὸς λόγον ποιοῦμαι τὴν ψυχὴν τιμίαν ἐμαυτῷ ὡς
τελειῶσαι τὸν δρόμον μου.
Now the second clause of the sentence, viz. the words
οὐδὲ ἔχω τὴν ψυχήν μου τιμίαν ἐμαυτῷ,
may on no account be surrendered. It is indeed beyond the reach of suspicion, being
found in Codd. A, D, E, H, L, 13, 31,—in fact in every known copy of the Acts, except
the discordant אBC. The clause in question is further witnessed to by the Vulgate ‘Sed nihil horum [τούτων,
is found in many Greek Codd.] vereor, nec facio animam meam pretiosiorem quam
me.’ So, the Cod. Amiat. It is evident then that when Ambrose (ii. 1040)
writes ‘nec facio animam meam cariorem mihi,’ he is quoting the latter of
these two clauses. Augustine (iii1. 516), when he cites the place thus, ‘Non enim facio animam meam pretiosiorem quam me’; and elsewhere (iv. 268)
‘pretiosam mihi’; also Origen (interp.
iv. 628 c), ‘sed ego non facio cariorem animam meam mihi’; and even the Coptic, ‘sed anima
mea, dico, non est pretiosa mihi in aliquo verbo’:—these evidently summarize the place, by making
a sentence out of what survives of the second clause. The Latin of D exhibits ‘Sed nihil horum cura est mihi: neque
habeo ipsam animam caram mihi.’ Dr. Field says that it may be thus Graecized—ἀλλ᾽
οὐδένα λόγον ποιοῦμαι,
οὐδὲ λελόγισταί μοι ψυχή μού τι τίμιον. ii. 296 e,—exactly as the T. R. Exactly as the T. R., except that he
writes τὴν ψυχήν, without μου (ix. 332). So
again, further on (334 b),
οὐκ ἔχω τιμίαν τὴν ἐμαυτοῦ ψυχήν. This
latter place is quoted in Cramer’s Cat. 334. Ap. Mai ii. 336 ἔδει καὶ τῆς ζωῆς καταφρονεῖν ὑπὲρ τοῦ τελειῶσαι τὸν
δρόμον, οὐδὲ τὴν ψυχὴν ἔφη ποιεῖσθαι τιμίαν ἑαυτῷ. λόγον ἔχω, οὐδὲ ποιοῦμαι τὴν ψυχὴν τιμίαν ἐμαυτῷ, ὥστε κ.τ.λ.
(ap. Galland. x. 222). ἀλλ᾽ οὐδενὸς λόγου ποιοῦμαι
τῶν δεινῶν, οὐδὲ ἔχω
τὴν ψυχὴν τιμίαν ἐμαυτῷ.
Epist. ad Tars. c. 1 (Dressel, p. 255). The whole of Dr. Field’s learned annotation deserves to be
carefully read and pondered. I speak of it especially in the shape in
which it originally appeared, viz. in 1875.
The words of the last-named eminent scholar on the reading just cited are so valuable in themselves, and are observed to be so often in point, that they shall find place here:—‘Modern Critics,’ he says, in deference to the authority of the older MSS., and to certain critical canons which prescribe that preference should be given to the shorter and more difficult reading over the longer and easier one, have decided that the T. R. in this passage is to be replaced by that which is contained in those older MSS.
‘In regard to the difficulty of this reading, that term seems
hardly applicable to the present case. A difficult reading is one which presents
something apparently incongruous in the sense, or anomalous in the construction,
which an ignorant or half-learned copyist would endeavour, by the use of such critical
faculty as he possessed, to remove; but which a true critic is able, by probable
explanation, and a comparison of similar cases, to defend against all such fancied
improvements. In the reading before us,
ἀλλ᾽ οὐδενὸς λόγου ποιοῦμαι τὴν ψυχὴν
τιμίαν ἐμαυτῷ, it is the construction, and not the sense, which is in question; and this
is not simply difficult, but impossible. There is really no way of getting over
it; it baffles novices and experts alike Ibid. p. 2 and 3. Surprising it is how largely the text
of this place has suffered at the hands of Copyists and Translators. In A and D,
the words
ποιοῦμαι and
ἔχω have been made to change
places. The latter Codex introduces μοι after
ἔχω,—for
ἐμαυτῷ, writes
ἐμαυτοῦ,—and exhibits τοῦ τελειῶσαι without
ὡς. C writes ὡς τὸ τελειῶσαι.
אB alone of Codexes present us with
τελειώσω for
τελειῶσαι, and are followed by Westcott and Hort
alone of Editors. The Peshitto (‘sed mihi nihili aestimatur
anima mea’), the Sahidic (‘sed non facio animam meam in ullâ re’), and the Aethiopic (‘sed
non reputo animam means nihil quidquam’), get rid of
τιμίαν as well as of
οὐδὲ ἔχω. So much diversity of text, and in such primitive witnesses, while it points
to a remote period as the date of the blunder to which attention is called in the
text, testifies eloquently to the utter perplexity which that blunder occasioned
from the first.
§ 3.
We now come to the inattention of those long-since-forgotten Ist
or IInd century scribes who, beguiled by the similarity of the letters ΕΝ and ΑΝ
(in the expression ΕΝ ΑΝ-θρωποις ευδοκια,
St.
That this is the true history of a blunder which the latest Editors
of the New Testament have mistaken for genuine Gospel, is I submit certain Another example of the same phenomenon, (viz. the absorption of ΕΝ by the first
syllable of ΑΝθρωποις) is to be seen in For those which insert in (14), and those which reject it (25), see Wordsworth’s
edition of the Vulgate on this passage. Of Fathers:—Ambrose i. 1298—Hieronymus i. 4482, 693, 876:
ii. 213: iv. 34, 92: v. 147: vi. 638: vii. 241, 281, 283,—Augustine
34 times,—Optatus (Galland. v. 472, 487),—Gaudentius Brix. (ap. Sabat.),—Chromatius
Ag. (Gall. viii. 337),—Orosius (ib. ix. 134), Marius M. (ib. viii.
672), Maximus Taus. (ib. ix. 355),—Sedulius (ib. 575),—Leo M. (ap. Sabat.),—Mamertus Claudianus (Gall. x. 430,—Vigilius Taps.
(ap. Sabat.),—Zacchaeus (Gall. ix. 241,—Caesarius Arel. (ib. xi. 11),—ps.-Ambros. ii. 394, 396,—Hormisdas P. (Conc. iv. 1494, 1496),—52 Bps. at 8th
Council of Toledo (Conc. 395), &c., &c.
§ 4.
In other cases the source, the very progress of a blunder,—is discoverable.
Thus whereas St. Mark (in
Whenever in fact the final syllable of one word can possibly
be mistaken for the first syllable of the next, or vice versa, it is safe
sooner or later to have misled somebody. Thus, we are not at all surprised to
find St. Mark’s ἃ παρέλαβον
(
[Another startling instance of the same phenomenon is supplied
by the substitution in St.
Strange to say it results in the following monstrous figment:—that the fruit of Herod’s incestuous connexion with Herodias had been a daughter,
who was also named See Wetstein on this place. Antiqq.
i. 99, xviii. 5. 4.
This is indeed an instructive instance of the effect of accidental errors—another proof that אBDL cannot be trusted.
Sufficiently obvious are the steps whereby the present erroneous
reading was brought to perfection. The immediate proximity in MSS. of the selfsame
combination of letters is observed invariably to result in a various reading. ΑΥΤΗCΤΗC was safe to
part with its second ΤΗC on the first opportunity, and the definitive article
(τῆς) once lost, the substitution of ΑΥΤΟΥ for
ΑΥΤΗC is just such a mistake
as a copyist with ill-directed intelligence would be sure to fall into if he were
bestowing sufficient attention on the subject to be aware that the person spoken
of in
[This recurrence of identical or similar syllables near together
was a frequent source of error. Copying has
§ 5.
Another interesting and instructive instance of error originating
in sheer accident, is supplied
by the reading in certain MSS. of St.
This blunder must date from the second century, for ‘iterum’
is met with in the Old Latin as well as in the Vulgate, the Gothic, the Bohairic,
and some other versions. On the other hand, it is against ‘every true principle
of Textual Criticism’ (as Dr. Tregelles would say), that the more difficult expression
should be abandoned for the easier, when forty-nine out of every fifty MSS. are observed
to uphold it; when the oldest version of all, the Syriac, is on the same side;
when the source of the mistake is patent; and when the rarer word is observed to
be in St. Mark’s
peculiar manner. There could be in fact no hesitation on this subject, if the opposition
had not been headed by those notorious false witnesses אBDL, which it is just now
the fashion to uphold at all hazards. They happen to be supported on this occasion
by GMNΔ and
In St.
So again in St.
NO one who finds the syllable ΟΙ recurring six times over in
about as many words,—e. g. καὶ ἐγένετο, ὡς ἀπῆλθον . . . ΟΙ ἄγγελΟΙ, καὶ ΟΙ
ἄνθρωπΟΙ ΟΙ πΟΙμένες εἶπον,—is
surprised to learn that MSS. of a certain type exhibit serious
perturbation in that place. Accordingly, BLΞ: leave out the words
καὶ οἱ ἄνθρωποι; and
in that mutilated form the modern critical editors are contented to exhibit St.
ΟΙ ΑΓΓΕΛΟΙ [ΚΑΙ ΟΙ ΑΝΟΙ ΟΙ] ΠΟΙΜΕΝΕC |
}or else{ | ΟΙ ΑΓΓΕΛΟΙ [ΚΑΙ ΟΙ ΑΝΟΙ] ΟΙ ΠΟΙΜΕΝΕC |
Another such place is found in St.
διέδωκεν
τοις [μαθηταις,
οι δε μαθηται
τοις] ανακειμενοις.
The one sufficient proof that St. John did so write, being the
testimony of the MSS. Moreover, we are expressly assured by St. Matthew (
Indeed, there does not exist a source of error which has proved
more fatal to the transcribers of MSS. than the proximity of identical, or nearly
identical, combinations of letters. And because these are generally met with in
the final syllables of words, the error referred to is familiarly known by a Greek
name which denotes ‘likeness of ending’ (Homoeoteleuton). The eye of a scribe on reverting from
his copy to the original before him is of necessity apt sometimes to alight on the
same word, or what looks like the same word, a little lower down.
It is obvious, that however inconvenient it may prove to find
oneself in this way defrauded of five, ten, twenty, perhaps thirty words, no very
serious consequence for the most part ensues. Nevertheless, the result is often
sheer nonsense. When this is the case, it is loyally admitted by all. A single example
may stand for a hundred. [In St.
But it requires very little familiarity with the subject to be
aware that occasions must inevitably be even of frequent occurrence when the result
is calamitous, and even perplexing, in the extreme. The writings of Apostles and
Evangelists, the Discourses of our Divine Lord Himself, abound in short formulae; and the intervening matter on such occasions is constantly an integral sentence,
which occasionally may be discovered from its context without evident injury to
the general meaning of the place. Thus [
Worst of all, it will sometimes of necessity happen that such an omission took place at an exceedingly remote period; (for there have been careless scribes in every age:) and in consequence the error is pretty sure to have propagated itself widely. It is observed to exist (suppose) in several of the known copies; and if,—as very often is the case,—it is discoverable in two or more of the ‘old uncials,’ all hope of its easy extirpation is at an end. Instead of being loyally recognized as a blunder,—which it clearly is,—it is forthwith charged upon the Apostle or Evangelist as the case may be. In other words, it is taken for granted that the clause in dispute can have had no place in the sacred autograph. It is henceforth treated as an unauthorized accretion to the text. Quite idle henceforth becomes the appeal to the ninety-nine copies out of a hundred which contain the missing words. I proceed to give an instance of my meaning.
Our Saviour,
having declared (St.
And yet it is perfectly certain that the words are genuine. Those thirty-one letters probably formed three lines in the oldest copies of all. Hence they are observed to exist in the Syriac (Peshitto, Harkleian and Jerusalem), the Vulgate, some copies of the Old Latin, the Armenian, and the Ethiopic, besides at least seventeen uncials (including ΒΦΣ), and the vast majority of the cursives. So that there can be no question of the genuineness of the clause.
A somewhat graver instance of omission resulting from precisely
the same cause meets us a little further
on in the same Gospel. The threefold recurrence of των in the expression
ΤῶΝ ψιχίων
ΤῶΝ πιπτόν ΤωΝ
(St. P. 232. Ap. Orig. i. 827. Ambrose i. 659, 1473, 1491:—places which shew how insecure would
be an inference drawn from i. 543 and 665. Hieron. v. 966; vi. 969. Ap. Mai ii. 516, 520. i. 370. P. 12. ii. 169. ii. 142. i. 715, 720; ii. 662 (bis), 764; vii. 779. v2. 149 (luc. text, 524).
[The foregoing instances afford specimens of the influence of accidental causes upon the transmission from age to age of the Text of the Gospels. Before the sense of the exact expressions of the Written Word was impressed upon the mind of the Church,—when the Canon was not definitely acknowledged, and the halo of antiquity had not yet gathered round writings which had been recently composed,—severe accuracy was not to be expected. Errors would be sure to arise, especially from accident, and early ancestors would be certain to have a numerous progeny; besides that evil would increase, and slight deviations would give rise in the course of natural development to serious and perplexing corruptions.
In the next chapter, other kinds of accidental causes will come under consideration.]
§ 1.
CORRUPT readings have occasionally resulted from the ancient practice of writing Scripture in the uncial character, without accents, punctuation, or indeed any division of the text. Especially are they found in places where there is something unusual in the structure of the sentence.
St. It is clearly unsafe to draw any inference
from the mere omission of ἤδη in
The only point of importance however is the position of ἤδη:
which is claimed for i. 219: iii. 158: iv. 248, 250 bis, 251 bis, 252, 253,
255 bis, 256, 257. Also
iv. 440 note, which = catox iv.
21. dem. 440. But not in cs.
426: theoph.
262, 275. vii. 488, 662: ix. 32. i. 397. 98. (Palladius) 611: iii. 57. So also in iv. 199,
ἔτοιμος ἤδη πρὸς τὸ πιστεύειν. Ambrose, ii. 279, has ‘Et qui metit.’ Iren.int substitutes ‘nam’ for ‘et,’ and omits jam.’
Jerome 9 times introduces
‘jam’ before ‘albae sunt.’ So Aug. (iii2 417): but elsewhere (iv. 639:
v.
531) he omits the word altogether.
§ 2.
Sometimes this affects the translation. Thus, the Revisers propose
in the parable of the prodigal ‘And I perish here with hunger!’ But why
‘here?’ Because I answer, whereas in the earliest copies of St. Luke the
words stood thus,—ΕΓωΔΕΛΙΜωΑΠΟΛΛΥΜΑΙ,
some careless scribe after writing ΕΓωΔΕ, reduplicated
the three last letters (ωΔΕ):
he mistook them for an independent word. ‘Hic’ is not recognized in Ambrose.
Append. ii. 367. The Fathers render us very little help here. Ps.-Chrys. twice
(viii. 34: x. 838) has ἐγὼ δὲ ὧδε: once (viii.
153) not. John
Damascene (ii. 579) is without the ὧδε.
The inventors of ὧδε or other scribes quickly saw that this word requires a correlative
in the earlier part of the sentence. Accordingly, the same primitive authorities
which advocate ‘here,’ are observed also to advocate, above, ‘in my Father’s house.’
No extant Greek copy is known to contain the bracketed words in the sentence [ἐν τῷ οἴκῳ
τοῦ πατρός μου: but such copies
must have existed in the second century. The Peshitto, the Cureton and Lewis recognize
the three words in question; as well as copies of the Latin with which Jerome i. 76: vi.
16 (not vi. 484). iii.2 259 (not
v. 511). p.
405.
If hesitation to accept the foregoing verdict lingers in any
quarter, it ought to be dispelled by a glance at the context in אBL. What else but
the instinct of a trained understanding is it to survey the neighbourhood of a place
like the present? Accordingly, we discover that in
Which certainly he did not say [The prodigal was prepared to say
this; but his father’s kindness stopped him:—a feature in the account which
the Codexes in question ignore.]
From the fact that three words in St. iii. 687. But in i. 228 and 259 he recognizes θεοῦ. Ap. Mai vii. 135. Praep. xiii. 6,—μόνου τοῦ ἑνός (vol. ii. 294).
§ 3.
St. Luke explains ( Same word occurs in St. iii. 101.
‘Euornotus is so called as intervening
immediately between Eurus
and Notus,
and as partaking, as was thought, of the qualities of
both. The same holds true of Libonotus,
as being interposed between Libs and
Notus. Both these compound winds lie in the same quarter or quadrant of
the circle with the winds of which they are composed, and Falconer’s Dissertation on St. Paul’s Voyage, pp. 16 and
12.
Further, why should the wind be designated by an impossible
Latin name? The ship was ‘a ship of Alexandria’ ( Let the learned Vercellone be heard on behalf of Codex B: ‘Antequam manum de tabulâ amoveamus, e re fore videtur, si, ipso codice Vaticano inspecto,
duos injectos scrupulos eximamus. Cl. Tischendorfius in nuperrimâ suâ editione scribit
(Proleg. p. cclxxv), Maium ad Ap. Galland. x. 225. Remark that some vicious sections evidently owed their
origin to the copyist knowing more of Latin than of Greek. True, that the compounds euronotus euroauster exist in Latin.
That it the reason why
the Latin translator (not understanding the word) rendered it Euroaquilo:
instead of writing Euraquilo. I have no doubt that it was some Latin copyist who began the mischief. Like
the man who wrote ἐπ᾽ αὐτῷ τῷ φόρῳ for
ἐπ᾽ αὐτοφώρῳ. Readings of Euroclydon ΕΥΡΑΚΥΔωΝ
B (sic) ΕΥΡΑΚΥΛωΝ
א A ΕΥΡΑΚΗΛωΝ ΕΥΤΡΑΚΗΛωΝ ΕΥΡΑΚΛΗΔωΝ
Peshitto. ΕΥΡΑΚΥΚΛ;ωΝ Euroaquilo Vulg.
ΕΥΡΟΚΛΥΔωΝ
HLP ΕΥΡΑΚΛΥΔωΝ
Syr. Harkl. ΕΥΡΥΚΛΥΔωΝ
B2 man.
In St.
St. |
become | κατευλογει (אBC) |
” |
” | εξεθαυμασαν (אB) |
” |
” | καταβεβαρημενοι (AאB) |
It is impossible to doubt that και (in modern critical
editions of St. Οπου (ου א) γαρ
(—γαρ אBDL)
εαν (αν D) το πτωμα (σωμα א).
It is proposed that we should henceforth read St.
οἵτινες λέγουσιν ἀνάστασιν μὴ εἶναι (St.
Mark xii. 18 ) and
οἱ ἀντιλέγοντες ἀνάστασιν μὴ εἶναι (St.Luke xx. 27 )
may be considered as decisive in a case like the present. Sure I am that it will be so regarded by any one who has paid close attention to the method of the Evangelists. Add that the origin of the mistake is seen, the instant the words are inspected as they must have stood in an uncial copy:
CΑΔΔΟΥΚΑΙΟΙΟΙΛΕΓΟΝΤΕS
and really nothing more requires to be said. The second
ΟΙ was safe to be dropped
in a collocation of letters like
§ 4.
The termination ΤΟ (in certain tenses of the verb), when followed by the neuter article,
naturally leads to confusion; sometimes to uncertainty. In St.
The question becomes less difficult of decision when (as in St.
Akin to the foregoing are all those instances,—and they are literally without number—, where the proximity of a like ending has been the fruitful cause of error. Let me explain: for this is a matter which cannot be too thoroughly apprehended.
Such a collection of words as the following two instances exhibit will shew my meaning.
In the expression ἐσθῆτα λαμπρὰν ἀνέπεμψεν
(St.
The letters ΝΑΙΚωΝΑΙΚΑΙ in the expression
(St.
Thus also the reading εν ολη τη Γαλιλαια
(B) in St.
B reads καὶ περιῆγεν ἐν ὅλῃ τῇ Γαλιλαίᾳ.
א ” καὶ περιῆγεν ὁ ῑς̄ ἐν τῇ Γαλιλαίᾳ.
C ” καὶ περιῆγεν ὁ ῑς̄ ἐν ὅλῃ τῇ Γαλιλαίᾳ.
But—(I shall be asked)—what about the position of the Sacred Name? How comes it to pass that ὁ Ἰησοῦς, which comes after Γαλιλαίαν in almost every other known copy, should come after ριῆγεν ὁ in three of these venerable authorities (in D as well as in א and C), and in the Latin, Peshitto, Lewis, and Harkleian? Tischendorf, Alford, Westcott and Hort and the Revisers at all events (who simply follow B in leaving out ὁ Ἰησοῦς altogether) will not ask me this question: but a thoughtful inquirer is sure to ask it.
The phrase (I
reply) is derived by אCD from the twin place in St. Matthew
(
§ 5.
The introduction of
ἀπό in the place of ἅγιοι
made by the ‘Revisers’ into the Greek Text of Sancti Dei homines. Ap. Galland. x. 236 a. Trin. 234. iii. 389. ‘Locuti sunt homines D .’
Another excellent specimen of this class of error is furnished
by Their only supporters seem to be K [i. e. Paul 117 (Matthaei’s
§)], 17, 59 [published in full by Cramer, vii.
202], 137 [Reiche, p.
60]. Why does
Tischendorf quote besides E of Paul, which is nothing else but a copy of D of Paul? Chrys. xii. 120
b, 121 a. Theodoret, iii. 584. J. Damascene, ii. 240 c.
§ 6.
I have reserved for the last a specimen which is second to none
in suggestiveness. ‘Whom will ye that I release unto you?’ asked Pilate on a memorable
occasion St. Cf. ὁ λεγόμενος Βαραββᾶς. St. Int. iii. 918 c d. On the two other occasions when Origen quotes St.
The sum of the matter is probably this:—Some inattentive
second century copyist [probably a Western Translator into Syriac who was an
indifferent Greek scholar] mistook the final syllable of ‘unto you’ (ΥΜΙΝ) for the word
‘Jesus’ (ῙΝ̄): in other words, carelessly
reduplicated the last two letters of ΥΜΙΝ,—from which, strange to say, results
the form of inquiry noticed at the outset. Origen caught sight of the extravagance,
and condemned it though he fancied it to be prevalent, and the thing slept for 1500
[IT has been already shewn in the First Volume that the Art of Transcription on vellum did not reach perfection till after the lapse of many centuries in the life of the Church. Even in the minute elements of writing much uncertainty prevailed during a great number of successive ages. It by no means followed that, if a scribe possessed a correct auricular knowledge of the Text, he would therefore exhibit it correctly on parchment. Copies were largely disfigured with misspelt words. And vowels especially were interchanged; accordingly, such change became in many instances the cause of corruption, and is known in Textual Criticism under the name ‘Itacism.’]
§ I.
It may seem to a casual reader that in what follows undue attention
is being paid to minute particulars. But it constantly happens,—and this is a sufficient
answer to the supposed objection,—that, from exceedingly minute and seemingly trivial
mistakes, there result sometimes considerable and indeed serious misrepresentations
of the Spirit’s meaning. New incidents:—unheard-of statements:—facts as yet unknown
to readers of Scripture:— St. St. St. St.
Speaking of our Saviour’s triumphal
entry into Jerusalem, which took place ‘the day after’ ‘they made Him a supper,’
and Lazarus ‘which had been dead, whom He raised from the dead,’ sat at the table
with Him’ (St. St. ‘Quae quidem orationis prolixitas non conveniens esset
si ὅτε
legendum esset.’
The same mistake—of ὅτι for ὅτε—is met with at
iv. 577: ‘quando.’ Dem. Ev. 310,
312, 454 bis. i. 301. ii. 488, and ap. Gall. vi. 580. Trin. 59, 99,
242. viii. 406, 407. Also ps.-Chrysost. v. 613. Note, that ‘Apolinarius’ in Cramer’s Cat. 332
is Chrys. viii. 407. Ap. Chrys. vi. 453. iv. 505, 709, and ap. Mai iii.
85. ii. 102: iv. 709, and ap. Mai iii. 118. v1. 642.
§ 2.
[A suggestive example Unfortunately, though the Dean left several lists
of instances of Itacism, he worked out none, except the substitution of ἓν for
ἐν in St. λούσαντι. λύσαντι.
An instance where an error from an Itacism has crept into the
Textus Receptus may be seen in St.
Again, in St. οὕτως. BCEFGHLMXΔ.
Most cursives. Goth. οὗτος. KSUΓΛ. Ten cursives. Omit אADΠ Many cursives. Vulg. Pesh. Ethiop. Armen. Georg. Slavon.
Bohair. Pers. E. g. Thuc. vii. 15, St. See St.
Another case of confusion between ω and ο may be seen in St.
24. ἀπολωλώς. אaABD &c. ἀπολωλός. א*GKMRSXΓΠ*. Most curs. 32. ἀπολωλώς. א*ABD &c. ἀπολωλός. אcKMRSXΓΠ*. Most curs. Pp. 179, 1So. Since the Dean has not adopted καθαρίζων into his corrected text, and on account of other indications which caused me
to doubt whether he retained the opinion of his earlier years, I applied to the
Rev. W. F. Rose, who answered as follows:—‘I am thankful to say that I can resolve
all doubt as to my uncle’s later views of St. ‘The
majority of the Old Latin MSS. have “in secessum uadit
(or exiit) purgans omnes escas”; i
(Vindobonensis) and r (Usserianus) have “et purgat”
for “purgans”: and a has a conflation “in secessum exit purgans omnes escas et exit
in rivum”—so they all point the same way.’—(Kindly communicated by Mr. H. J. White.) Dem. xv. (Graffin)—‘Vadit enim esca in ventrem, unde purgatione in secessum
emittitur.’ (Lat.) iii. 764. ‘Et in secessum exit, purgans omnes escas.’ Galland. 319. ‘Cibis, quos Dominus dicit perire, et in secessu naturali lege
purgari.’ iii. 494. ἔλεγε ταῦτα ὁ Σωτήρ,
καθαρίζων πάντα τὰ βρώματα. i. 206.
ἐκκαθαρίζων πάντα
τὰ βρώματα. Galland. 400.
ἀλλὰ καὶ ὁ Σωτήρ,
πάντα καθαρίζων τὰ βρώματα.
§ 3.
Another minute but interesting indication of the accuracy and
fidelity with which the cursive copies were made, is supplied by the constancy with
which they witness to the preposition ἐν (not the numeral
ἓν) in St. Evan. 2. Sce Hoskier,
Collation of Cod. Evan. 604, App. F. p. 4.
Codd. אCA (two ever licentious and Δ similarly so throughout
St. Mark) substitute for the preposition ἐν the preposition εἰς,—(a sufficient proof to me that they understand
ΕΝ to represent ἐν, not ἓν): and are followed
by Tischendorf, Tregelles, and the Revisers. As for the chartered [The following specimens taken from the first hand of B may illustrate
the kakigraphy, if I may use the expression, which is characteristic of that MS.
and also of א. The list might be easily increased. I. Proper Names. Ιωανης, generally: Ιωαννης,
Βεεζεβουλ,
Ναζαρετ, Μαρια for Μαριαμ, Κουμ, Ιστραηλειται, Ιστραηλιται, Ισραηλειται, Ισραηλιται. Ελεισαβετ, Ελισαβετ. Μωσησ, Μωυσης. Δαλμανουθα, Ιωση (Joseph of Arimathea), II. Mis-spelling of ordinary words. καθ᾽ ἰδιαν, γενημα, A similar confusion between γένεσις and γέννησις, Matt.
i, and between ἐγενήθην and ἐγεννήθην,
and γεγένημαι and γεγέννημαι.
See Kuenen and Cobet N. T. ad fid. Cod. Vaticani lxxvii. III. Itacisms. κρίνεω, τειμῶ, τιμῶ, ἐνεβριμήθη ( IV. Bad Grammar. τῷ οἰκοδεσπότῃ ἐπεκάλεσαν or τὸν οἰκοδεσπότην ἐκάλ..
( V. Impossible words. ἐμνηστευμένην (
§ 4.
St. Paul This paper on All Matthaei’s 16,—all Rinek’s 7,—all Reiche’s 6,—all Scrivener’s
13, &c., &c. 622. Ed. Swete, ii. 247 (domos suas bene regentes); 248 (domus proprias optime
regant). ii. (Eth.) 291 a, 309 b. xi. 750 a, 751 b c d—ἡ οἰκουρὸς καὶ οἰκονομική. iii.
704. ii. 271. Cod. Clarom. Cod. Amiat., and August. iii1. 804. vii. 716 c,
718 b (Bene domum
regere, 718 c). κατ᾽ οἶκον οἰκουροῦσιν ὥστε παρθένοι (Soph. Oed.
P. 293, lin.
4 (see lin.
2). P. 288,
lin. 20.
Notwithstanding this, Lachmann, Tischendorf, Tregelles, Westcott
and Hort, because they find οἰκουργούς in
א*ACD*F-G, are for thrusting that ‘barbarous
and scarcely intelligible’ word, if it be not even a non-existent οἰκουργεῖν—which occurs in Clemens Rom. (ad Cor. c. 1)—is probably due to the
scribe.
So again, in the cry of the demoniacs,
τί ἡμῖν καὶ σοί,
Ἰησοῦ, υἱὲ τοῦ Θεοῦ
(St.
The reason is plain the instant an ancient MS. is inspected:—ΚΑΙCΟΙΙΥΥΙΕΤΟΥΘΥ:—the recurrence of the same letters caused too great a strain to scribes, and the omission of two of them was the result of ordinary human infirmity.
Indeed, to this same source are to be attributed an extraordinary number of so-called ‘various readings’; but which in reality, as has already been shewn, are nothing else but a collection of mistakes,—the surviving tokens that anciently, as now, copying clerks left out words; whether misled by the fatal proximity of a like ending, or by the speedy recurrence of the like letters, or by some other phenomenon with which most men’s acquaintance with books have long since made them familiar.
THERE is one distinct class
of evidence provided by Almighty
God for the conservation of the deposit in
its integrity [I have retained this passage
notwithstanding the objections made in some quarters against similar passages in
the companion volume, because I think them neither valid, nor creditable to high
intelligence, or to due reverence.] [Textual student will remember that besides the Lectionaries of the
Gospels mentioned here, of which about 1000 are known, there are some 300
more of the Acts and Epistles, called by the name Apostolos.]
As for the external appearance of these documents, it may be enough to say that they range, like the mass of uncial and cursive copies, over a space of about 700 years,—the oldest extant being of about the eighth century, and the latest dating in the fifteenth. Rarely are any so old as the former date,—or so recent as the last named. When they began to be executed is not known; but much older copies than any which at present exist must have perished through constant use: [for they are in perfect order when we first become acquainted with them, and as a whole they are remarkably consistent with one another]. They are almost invariably written in double columns, and not unfrequently are splendidly executed. The use of Uncial letters is observed to have been retained in documents of this class to a later period than in the case of the Evangelia, viz. down to the eleventh century. For the most part they are furnished with a kind of musical notation executed in vermilion; evidently intended to guide the reader in that peculiar recitative which is still customary in the oriental Church.
In these books the Gospels always stand in the following order: St. John: St. Matthew: St. Luke: St. Mark. The lessons are brief,—resembling the Epistles and Gospels in our Book of Common Prayer.
They seem to me to fall into two classes: (a) Those
which contain a lesson for every day in the year: (b) Those which
only contain [lessons for fixed Festivals and] the Saturday-Sunday lessons
(σαββατοκυριακαί). We are reminded [‘It seems also a singular note of antiquity that the Sabbath
and the Sunday succeeding it do as it were cohere, and bear one appellation; so
that the week takes its
name—not from the Sunday with which it commences, but—from the
Saturday-and-Sunday with which it concludes.’ Twelve Verses, p. 194, where more
particulars are given.] [For the contents of these Tables, see Scrivener’s Plain Introduction,
4th edition, vol. i. pp. 80-89.]
Liturgical use has proved a fruitful source of textual perturbation.
Nothing less was to have been expected,—as every one must admit who has examined
ancient Evangelia with any degree of attention. For a period before the custom arose
of writing out the Ecclesiastical Lections in the ‘Evangelistaries,’ and ‘Apostolos,’
it may be regarded as certain that the practice generally prevailed of accommodating
an ordinary copy, whether of the Gospels or of the Epistles, to the requirements
of the Church. This continued to the last to be a favourite method with the
ancients See Scrivener’s Plain Introduction, 4th edition,
vol. i. pp. 56-65. Twelve Verses, p. 220. The MS.
stops in the middle of a sentence. St.
That Lessons from the New Testament were probably read in the
assemblies of the faithful according to a definite scheme, and on an established
system, at least as early as the fourth century, has been shewn to follow from plain
historical fact in the tenth chapter of the Twelve Last Verses of St. Mark’s Gospel,
to which the reader is referred for more detailed information. Cyril, at Jerusalem,—and
by implication, his namesake at Alexandria,—Chrysostom, at Antioch and at Constantinople,—Augustine,
in Africa,—all four expressly witness to the circumstance. In other words, there
is found to have been at least at that time fully established throughout the Churches
of Christendom a Lectionary, which seems to have been essentially one and the same
in the West and in the East. That it must have been of even Apostolic antiquity
may be inferred from several considerations In the absence of materials
supplied by the Dean upon what was his own special subject, I have thought best
to extract the above sentences from the Twelve Last Verses, p. 207. The next
illustration is his own, though in my words. i. 311.
Indeed, the high antiquity of the Church’s Lectionary System is inferred with certainty from many a textual phenomenon with which students of Textual Science are familiar.
It may be helpful to a beginner if I introduce to his notice
the class of readings to be discussed
in the present chapter, by inviting his attention to the first words of the Gospel
for St. Philip and St. James’ Day in our own English Book of Common Prayer,—‘And
Jesus said unto His εἶπεν ὁ Κύριος τοῖς ἑαυτοῦ μαθηταῖς· μὴ ταρασσέσθω. και ειπεν τοις μαθηταις αυτου. The same Codex (D) also
prefixes to St. ‘Et ait discipulis suis, non turbetur.’ E.g. the words καὶ λέγει αὐτοῖς· εἰρήνη ὑμῖν
have been omitted by Tisch. and rejected by W. Hort from St.
I proceed to cite another instance; and here the success of
an ordinary case of Lectionary licence will be perceived to have been complete:
for besides recommending itself to Lachmann, Tischendorf, Tregelles, and Westcott
and Hort, the blunder in question has established itself in the pages of the Revised
Version. Reference is made to an alteration of the Text occurring in certain copies
of Pp. 78-80.
But by far the most considerable injury which has resulted to
the Gospel from this cause is the suspicion which has alighted in certain quarters
on the last twelve verses of the Gospel according to St. Mark. [Those verses made
up by themselves a complete Lection. The preceding Lection, which was used on the
Second Sunday after Easter, was closed with the Liturgical note ‘The End,’ or ΤΟ ΤΕΛΟC, occurring
after the eighth verse. What more probable, nay, more certain result could there
be, than that some scribe should mistake the end of the Lection for the end of St.
Mark’s Gospel, if the last leaf should chance to have been torn off, and should
then transcribe no more See Traditional Text, Appendix VII.
And there probably does not exist, in the whole compass of the
Gospel, a more interesting instance of this than is furnished by the words
εἶπε δὲ ὁ Κύριος, in
St. Bp. C. Wordsworth. But Alford, Wcstcott
and Mort, doubt it. Thus Codex V. actually interpolates at this place the
words—οὐκέτι ἐκείνοις ἐλέγετο, ἀλλὰ τοῖς μαθηταῖς.
Tisch. ad loc.
Indeed, when the expressions are considered, it is perceived
that this account of them must needs be the true one. Thus, we learn from the
Another specimen of unauthorized accretion originating in the
same way is found a little farther on. In St.
Indeed, it is surprising what a fertile source of corruption
Liturgical usage has proved. Every careful student of the Gospels remembers that
St. Matthew describes our Lord’s first and second missionary journey in very nearly the same words.
The former place ( Cyril Alex. (four times) and the Verona Codex (b), besides L and
a few other copies, even append the same familiar words to
καὶ πᾶσαν μαλακίαν
in St.
But sometimes corruptions of this class are really perplexing. Thus א testifies
to the existence of a short additional clause (καὶ πολλοὶ ἡκολούθησαν αὐτῷ) at
the end,
This is the reason why, in certain of the oldest documents accessible,
such a strange amount of discrepancy is discoverable in the text of the first words of St.
Take another instance. St.
Let us not be told by Schulz (Griesbach’s latest editor) that
‘the quotation is not in Mark’s manner; that the formula which introduces it is
John’s: and that it seems to be a gloss taken from
Now it happens that all the Uncials but six and an immense majority
of the Cursive copies contain the words before us:—that besides these, the Old
Latin, the Syriac, the Vulgate, the Gothic and the Bohairic versions, all concur
in exhibiting them:—that the same words are expressly recognized by the Sectional
System of Eusebius;—having a section (σις/η i.e. 216/8) to themselves—which
is the weightiest sanction that Father had it in his power to give to words of
Scripture. So are they also recognized by the Syriac sectional system (260/8), which is diverse from that
of Eusebius and independent of it. What then is to be set against such a
weight of ancient evidence? The fact that the following six Codexes are without
this
Let it not be once more insinuated that we set numbers before
antiquity. Codex D is of the sixth century; Cod. X not older than the ninth: and
not one of the four Codexes which remain is so old, within perhaps two centuries,
as Investigate Possinus,
345, 346, 348.
It will be not unreasonably asked by those who have learned to regard whatever is found in B or א as oracular,— ‘But is it credible that on a point like this such authorities as אABCD should all be in error?’
It is not only credible, I answer, but a circumstance of which we meet with so many undeniable examples that it ceases to be even a matter of surprise. On the other hand, what is to be thought of the credibility that on a point like this all the ancient versions (except the Sahidic) should have conspired to mislead mankind? And further, on what intelligible principle is the consent of all the other uncials, and the whole mass of cursives, to be explained, if this verse of Scripture be indeed spurious?
I know that the rejoinder will be as follows:—‘Yes, but if the ten words in dispute really are part of the inspired verity, how is their absence from the earliest Codexes to be accounted for?’ Now it happens that for once I am able to assign the reason. But I do so under protest, for I insist that to point out the source of the mistakes in our oldest Codexes is no part of a critic’s business. It would not only prove an endless, but also a hopeless task. This time, however, I am able to explain.
If the reader will take the trouble to inquire at the Bibliotheque
at Paris for a Greek Codex numbered ‘71,’ an Evangelium will be put into his hands
which differs from any that I ever met with in giving
singularly minute and full rubrical directions. At the
end of St. It
is surprising to find so great an expert as Griesbach in the last year of his
life so entirely misunderstanding this subject. See his Comment. Crit. Part ii.
p. 190. ‘Nec ulla . . . debuerint.’
One word about the evidence of the cursive copies on this occasion. Tischendorf says that ‘about forty-five’ of them are without this precious verse of Scripture. I venture to say that the learned critic would be puzzled to produce forty-five copies of the Gospels in which this verse has no place. But in fact his very next statement (viz. that about half of these are Lectionaries),—satisfactorily explains the matter. Just so. From every Lectionary in the world, for the reason already assigned, these words are away; as well as in every MS. which, like B and א, has been depraved by the influence of the Lectionary practice.
And now I venture to ask,—What is to be thought of that Revision
of our Authorized Version which omits
A gross depravation of the Text resulting from this cause, which
nevertheless has imposed on several critics,
The four oldest of the six available uncials conspire however
in representing the words which immediately precede in the following unintelligible
fashion:—ὁ δὲ Κύριος προσετίθει τοὺς
σωζομένους καθ᾽ ἡμέραν πὶ τὸ αὐτό. Πέτρος δὲ κ.τ.λ. How
is it to be thought that this strange and vapid presentment of the passage had its
beginning? It results, I answer, from the ecclesiastical practice of beginning
a fresh lection at the name of ‘Peter,’ prefaced by the usual formula ‘In those
days.’ It is accordingly usual to find the liturgical word ἀρχή—indicative
of the beginning of a lection,—thrust in between
ἐπὶ τὸ αὐτὸ δέ and Πέτρος. At a
yet earlier period I suppose some more effectual severance of the text was made
in that place, which unhappily misled some early scribe τοὺς σωζομένους καθημέραν ἐν τῇ ἐκκλησίᾳ. ἐπὶ τὸ αὐτὸ δὲ [ΤΗ ς ΤΗC διακινΗCιμου] Πέτρος καὶ Ἰωάννης, κ.τ.λ.
Addit. 16,184,
fol. 152 b.
What I am saying will commend itself to any unprejudiced reader when it has been stated that Cod. D in this place actually reads as follows:—καθημέραν ἐπὶ τὸ αὐτό ἐν τῇ ἐκκλησίᾳ. Ἐν δὲ ταῖς ἡμέραις ταύταις Πέτρος κ.τ.λ.: the scribe with simplicity both giving us the liturgical formula with which it was usual to introduce the Gospel for the Friday after Easter, and permitting us to witness the perplexity with which the evident surplusage of τῇ ἐκκλησίᾳ ἐπὶ τὸ αὐτό occasioned him. He inverts those two expressions and thrusts in a preposition. How obvious it now was to solve the difficulty by getting rid of τῇ ἐκκλησίᾳ.
It does not help the adverse case to shew that the Vulgate as
well as the copy of Cyril of Alexandria are disfigured with the same corrupt reading
as אABC. It does but prove how early and how widespread is this depravation of the
Text. But the indirect proof thus afforded that the actual Lectionary System must
needs date from a period long anterior to our oldest Codexes is a far more important
as well as a more interesting inference. In the meantime I suspect that it was in
Western Christendom that this corruption of the text had its beginning: for proof
is not wanting that the expression ἐπὶ τὸ αὐτό
seemed hard to the Latins Bede, Retr. 111. D (add. of ἐν τ. ἐκκλ.). Brit.
Mus. Addit. 16, 184. fol. 152 b. Vulgate.
Hence too the omission of παλιν from אBD (St. So the place stands in Evan. 64. The liturgical notes are printed in a smaller
type, for distinction.
ακουετω. τελος
παλιν. αρχη. ειπεν ο Κυριος την παρβολην ταυτην.
Ομοια εστιν κ.τ.λ.
The word παλιν, because it stands between the end (τελος) of the lesson for the sixth
Thursday and the beginning (αρχη) of the first Friday after Pentecost, got left out [though every one
acquainted with Gospel MSS. knows that ἀρχή and τέλος were often inserted in the text]. The second of these
two lessons begins with ὁμοία [because πάλιν, at the beginning of a lesson is not wanted]. Here then is a singular
token of the antiquity of the Lectionary System in the Churches of the East: as
well as a proof of the untrustworthy character of Codd. אBD. The discovery that they are supported this time by copies of the Old Latin (a
c e ff1.2 g1.2 k l), Vulgate, Curetonian, Bohairic, Ethiopic, does but further shew that such an amount of
When therefore I see Tischendorf, in the immediately preceding
verse (
It is precisely in this way and for the selfsame reason, that
the clause ἐλυπήθησαν σφόδρα
(St.
Indeed, the Ancient Liturgy of the Church has frequently exercised
a corrupting influence on the text of Scripture. Having elsewhere considered St.
Luke’s version of the Lord’s
Prayer The Revision Revised, 34-6. See The Traditional
Text, p. 104.
The essential note of primitive antiquity at all events these
fifteen words enjoy in perfection, being met with in all copies of the Peshitto:—and this is a far weightier consideration than the fact that they are absent from
most of the Latin copies. Even of these however four (k f gl q)
Four uncial MSS. (אBDZ), supported by five cursives of bad character
(I, 17 which gives ἀμήν, 118,
130, 209), and, as we have seen, all the Latin copies but
four, omit these words; which, it is accordingly assumed, must have found their way surreptitiously into
the text of all the other copies in existence. But let me ask,—Is it at all likely,
or rather is it any way credible, that in a matter like this, all the MSS. in the
world but nine should have become corrupted? No hypothesis is needed to account
for one more instance of omission in copies which exhibit a mutilated text in every
page. But how will men pretend to explain an interpolation universal as the present; which may be traced as far back as the second century; which has established
itself without appreciable variety of reading in all the MSS.; which has therefore
found its way from the earliest time into every part of Christendom; is met with
One and the same reply has been rendered to this inquiry ever since the days of Erasmus. A note in the Complutensian Polyglott (1514) expresses it with sufficient accuracy. ‘In the Greek copies, after And deliver us from evil, follows For thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, for ever. But it is to be noted that in the Greek liturgy, after the choir has said And deliver us from evil, it is the Priest who responds as above: and those words, according to the Greeks, the priest alone may pronounce. This makes it probable that the words in question are no integral part of the Lord’s Prayer: but that certain copyists inserted them in error, supposing, from their use in the liturgy, that they formed part of the text.’ In other words, they represent that men’s ears had grown so fatally familiar with this formula from its habitual use in the liturgy, that at last they assumed it to be part and parcel of the Lord’s Prayer. The same statement has been repeated ad nauseam by ten generations of critics for 360 years. The words with which our Saviour closed His pattern prayer are accordingly rejected as an interpolation resulting from the liturgical practice of the primitive Church. And this slipshod account of the matter is universally acquiesced in by learned and unlearned readers alike at the present day.
From an examination of above fifty ancient oriental liturgies,
it is found then that though the utmost variety prevails among them, yet that
not one of them exhibits the evangelical formula as it stands in St.
‘For thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, Father, Son and Holy Ghost, now and always and for ever and ever. Amen.’
But as every one sees at a glance, such a formula as the foregoing,—with
its ever-varying terminology of praise,—its constant reference to the blessed Trinity,—its
habitual νῦν καὶ ἀεὶ,—and its invariable
εἰς τοὺς αἰῶνας τῶν αἰώνων,
(which must needs be of
very high antiquity, for it is mentioned by Irenaeus, ἀλλὰ καὶ ἡμᾶς ἐπὶ τῆς Εὐχαριστίας λέγοντας,
`εἰς τοὺς αἰῶνας τῶν αἰώνων,´ κ.τ.λ.
Contra Haer. lib. i. c. 3.
On the other hand, the inference from a careful survey of so
many Oriental liturgies is inevitable. The universal prevalence of a doxology of
some sort at the end of the Lord’s
Prayer; the general prefix ‘for thine’; the prevailing mention
therein of ‘the kingdom and the power and the glory’; the invariable reference to
Eternity:—all this constitutes a weighty corroboration of the genuineness of the
form in St. Matthew. Eked out with a confession of faith in the Trinity, and otherwise
amplified as piety or zeal for doctrinal purity suggested, every liturgical formula
of the kind is clearly derivable from the form of words in St.
What need to point out in conclusion that the Church’s peculiar method of reciting the Lord’s Prayer in the public liturgy does notwithstanding supply the obvious and sufficient explanation of all the adverse phenomena of the case? It was the invariable practice from the earliest time for the Choir to break off at the words ‘But deliver us from evil.’ They never pronounced the doxology. The doxology must for that reason have been omitted by the critical owner of the archetypal copy of St. Matthew from which nine extant Evangelia, Origen, and the Old Latin version originally derived their text. This is the sum of the matter. There can be no simpler solution of the alleged difficulty. That Tertullian, Cyprian, Ambrose recognize no more of the Lord’s Prayer than they found in their Latin copies, cannot create surprise. The wonder would have been if they did.
Much stress has been laid on the silence of certain of the Greek
Fathers concerning the doxology although they wrote expressly on the
Lord’s Prayer; as
Origen, Gregory of Nyssa But the words of Gregory of Nyssa are doubtful. See Scrivener, Introduction,
ii. p. 325, note 1.
The sum of what has been offered may be thus briefly stated:—The
textual perturbation observable at St.
There yet remains something to be said on the same subject for the edification of studious readers; to whom the succeeding words are specially commended. They are requested to keep their attention sustained, until they have read what immediately follows.
The history of the rejection of these words is in a high degree
instructive. It dates from 1514, when the Complutensian editors, whilst admitting
that the words were found in their Greek copies, banished them from the text solely
in deference to the Latin version. In a marginal annotation they started the hypothesis
that the doxology is a liturgical interpolation. But how is that possible, seeing
that the doxology is commented on by Chrysostom? ‘We presume,’ they say, ‘that this
corruption of the original text must date from an antecedent period.’ The same adverse
sentence, supported by the same hypothesis, was reaffirmed by Erasmus, and on the
same grounds; but in his edition of the N.T. he suffered the doxology to stand.
As the years have rolled out, and Codexes DBZא have successively come to light,
critics have waxed bolder and bolder in giving their verdict. First, Grotius, Hammond,
Walton; then Mill and Grabe; next Bengel, Wetstein, Griesbach; lastly Scholz,
Lachmann, Tischendorf,
But how does it appear that tract of time has strengthened the
case against the doxology? Since 1514, scholars have become acquainted with the
Peshitto version; which by its emphatic verdict, effectually disposes of the evidence
borne by all but three of the Old Latin copies. The Litbaxi of the first or second
century, the Sahidic version of the third century, the Apostolic Constitutions (2),
follow on the same side. Next, in the fourth century come Chrysostom, Ambrose, ps.-Caesarius,
the Gothic version. After that Isidore, the Ethiopic, Cureton’s Syriac. The Harkleian,
Armenian, Georgian, and other versions, with Chrysostom (2), the Opus Imperfectum,
Theophylact, and Euthymius (2), bring up the rear See my Textual Guide, Appendix V. pp. 131-3 (G. Bell & Sons). I
have increased the Dean’s list with a few additional authorities.
The whole matter may be conveniently restated thus:—Liturgical
use has indeed been the cause of a depravation of the text at St.
Nor is any one at liberty to appeal to a yet earlier period than
is attainable by existing liturgical evidence; and to suggest that then the doxology
used by the priest may have been the same with that which is found in the ordinary
text of St. Matthew’s Gospel. This may have been the case or it may not. Meanwhile,
the hypothesis, which fell to the ground when the statement on which it rested
was disproved, is not now to be built up again on a mere conjecture. But if the fact
could be ascertained,—and I am not at all concerned to deny that such a thing is
possible,—I should regard it only as confirmatory of the genuineness of the doxology.
For why should the liturgical employment of the last fifteen words of the
Lord’s Prayer be thought
to cast discredit on their genuineness? In the meantime, the undoubted fact, that
for an indefinitely remote period the Lord’s Prayer was
not publicly recited by the people further than ‘But deliver us from evil,’— a doxology
of some sort being invariably added, but pronounced by the priest alone,—this clearly
ascertained fact is fully sufficient to account for a phenomenon so ordinary [found
indeed so commonly throughout St. Matthew, to say nothing of occurrences in the
other Gospels] as really not to require particular explanation, viz. the omission
of the last half of St.
[IT must not be imagined that all the causes of the depravation of the text of Holy Scripture were instinctive, and that mistakes arose solely because scribes were overcome by personal infirmity, or were unconsciously the victims of surrounding circumstances. There was often more design and method in their error. They, or those who directed them, wished sometimes to correct and improve the copy or copies before them. And indeed occasionally they desired to make the Holy Scriptures witness to their own peculiar belief. Or they had their ideas of taste, and did not scruple to alter passages to suit what they fancied was their enlightened judgement.
Thus we can trace a tendency to bring the Four Records into one harmonious narrative, or at least to excise or vary statements in one Gospel which appeared to conflict with parallel statements in another. Or else, some Evangelical Diatessaron, or Harmony, or combined narrative now forgotten, exercised an influence over them, and whether consciously or not,—since it is difficult always to keep designed and unintentional mistakes apart, and we must not be supposed to aim at scientific exactness in the arrangement adopted in this analysis,—induced them to adopt alterations of the pure Text.
We now advance to some instances which will severally and conjointly explain themselves.]
Nothing can be more exquisitely precise than St. John’s way of
describing an incident to which St. Mark ( Μαρία δὲ
εἱστήκει πρὸς τὸ μνημεῖον
κλαίουσα ἔξω,
(St.
All this, singular to relate, was completely misunderstood by the
critics of the two first centuries. Not only did they identify the incident recorded
in St. Note, that in the sectional system of Eusebius according to
the Greek, the following places are brought together:— Consider ὁ δὲ Πέτρος εἱστήκει
πρὸς τῇ θύρᾳ ἔξω
(St. Hesychius, qu. 51 (apud Cotelerii Eccl. Gr. Mon. iii. 43), explains St.
Mark’s phrase ἐν τοῖς δεξιοῖς as
follows:—δηλονότι τοῦ ἐξωτέρου
σπηλαίου.
(St.
1-4.(St.
2-5.(St.
1-4.(St.
1, 11, 12.
According to the Syriac:—
3, 4.
5.
3, 4, 5(½).
11, 12.
There is no reason for distrusting the received reading of the
present place in any particular. True, that most of the uncials and many of the
cursives read πρὸς τῷ μνημείῳ:
but so did neither Chrysostom viii. 513. iv. 1079.
Those writers who overlook the corruptions which the text has
actually experienced through a mistaken solicitude on the part of ancient critics
to reconcile what seemed to them the conflicting statements of different Evangelists,
are frequently observed to attribute to this kind of officiousness expressions which
are unquestionably portions of the genuine text. Thus, there is a general consensus
amongst critics of the destructive school to omit the words καὶ τινες σὺν αὐταῖς
from St.
But how, I shall be asked, would you explain the omission of
these words which to yourself seem necessary? And after insisting that one is never
bound to explain how the text of any particular passage came to be corrupted, I
answer, that these words were originally ejected from the text in order to bring
St. Luke’s statement into harmony with that of the first Evangelist, who mentions
none but Mary Magdalene and Mary the mother of James and Joses. The proof is that
four of the same Latin copies which are for the omission of καὶ τινες σὺν
αὐταῖς
are observed to begin St.
[A very interesting instance of such Harmonistic Influence may be found in the substitution of ‘wine’ (οἶνον) for vinegar (ὄξος), respecting which the details are given in the second Appendix to the Traditional Text.]
[Observe yet another instance of harmonizing propensities in the Ancient Church.]
In St.
The scribe of the Vercelli Codex (a) was about to do the same thing; but he checked himself when he had got as far as ‘the pinnacle of the temple,’—which he seems to have thought as good a scene for the third temptation as ‘a high mountain,’ and so left it.
A favourite, and certainly a plausible, method of accounting
for the presence of unauthorized matter in MSS. is to suggest that, in the first
instance, it probably existed only in the shape of a marginal gloss, which through
the inadvertence of the scribes, in process of time, found its way into the sacred
text. That in this way some depravations of Scripture may possibly have arisen,
would hardly I presume be doubted. But I suspect that the hypothesis is generally
a wholly mistaken one; having been imported into this subject-matter (like many
other notions which are
Another favourite way of accounting for instances of assimilation, is by taking for granted that the scribe was thinking of the parallel or the cognate place. And certainly (as before) there is no denying that just as the familiar language of a parallel place in another Gospel presents itself unbidden to the memory of a reader, so may it have struck a copyist also with sufficient vividness to persuade him to write, not the words which he saw before him, but the words which he remembered. All this is certainly possible.
But I strongly incline to the suspicion that this is not by any means .the right way to explain the phenomena under discussion. I am of opinion that such depravations of the text were in the first instance intentional. I do not mean that they were introduced with any sinister motive. My meaning is that [there was a desire to remove obscurities, or to reconcile incongruous passages, or generally to improve the style of the authors, and thus to add to the merits of the sacred writings, instead of detracting from them. Such a mode of dealing with the holy deposit evinced no doubt a failure in the part of those who adopted it to understand the nature of the trust committed to the Church, just as similar action at the present day does in the case of such as load the New Testament with ‘various readings,’ and illustrate it as they imagine with what are really insinuations of doubt, in the way that they prepare an edition of the classics for the purpose of enlarging and sharpening the minds of youthful students. There was intention, and the intention was good: but it was none the less productive of corruption.]
I suspect that if we ever obtain access to a specimen of those
connected Gospel narratives called Diatessarons, which are known to have existed
anciently in the Church, we shall be furnished with a clue to a problem which at
present is shrouded in obscurity,—and concerning the solution of which, with such
instruments of criticism as we at present possess, we can do little else but conjecture.
I allude to those many occasions on which the oldest documents extant, in narrating
some incident which really presents no special difficulty, are observed to diverge
into hopeless variety of expression. An example of the thing referred to will best
explain my meaning. Take then the incident of our Lord’s paying tribute,—set
down in St.
The received text exhibits,—‘And when he [Peter] had entered
( ὅτε εἰσῆλθεν) into the house, Jesus
was beforehand with him, saying, What thinkest thou, Simon? Of whom do earthly kings take toll or tribute? of their sons or of strangers?’
Here, for ὅτε εἰσῆλθεν,
Codex B (but no other uncial) substitutes ἐλθόντα: Codex א (but
no other) εἰσελθόντα Codex D (but no other) εἰσελθόντι: Codex C (but no other)
ὄτε ἦλθον: while a fifth lost copy certainly contained εἰσελθόντων; and a
sixth, ἐλθόντων αὐτῶν. A very fair specimen this, be it remarked in passing, of
the concordia discors which prevails in the most ancient uncial copies Traditional
Text, pp. 81-8.
The Evangelist proceeds,—‘Peter saith unto Him (Λέγει αὐτῷ ὁ Πέτρος), Of strangers.’
These four words C retains, but continues—‘Now when he had said, Of strangers’
(Εἰπόντος δὲ αὐτοῦ, ἀπὸ τῶν ἀλλοτρίων);—which unauthorized clause, all but the word
αὐτοῦ, is
found also in א, but in no other uncial. On the other hand, for Λέγει αὐτῷ ὁ Πέτρος,
א (alone of uncials)
substitutes Ὁ δὲ ἔφη: and B (also alone I am tempted to inquire,—By virtue of what verifying faculty
do Lachmann and Tregelles on the former occasion adopt the reading of א;
Tischendorf, Alford, W. and I fort, the reading of B? On the second occasion, I
venture to ask,—What enabled the Revisers, with Lachmann, Tischendorf,
Tregelles, Westcott and Hort, to recognize in a reading, which is the peculiar
property of B, the genuine language of the Holy Ghost? Is not a superstitious
reverence for B and א betraying for ever people into error?
As already hinted, I suspect that it was occasioned in the first
instance by the prevalence of harmonized Gospel narratives. In no more loyal way
can I account for the perplexing phenomenon already described, which is of perpetual
recurrence in such documents as Codexes BאD, Cureton’s Syriac, and copies
of the Old Latin version. It is well known that at a very remote period some eminent
persons occupied themselves in constructing such exhibitions of the Evangelical
history: and further, that these productions enjoyed great favour, and were in
general use. As for their contents,—the notion we form to ourselves of a Diatessaron,
is that it aspired to be a weaving of the fourfold Gospel into one continuous narrative: and we suspect that in accomplishing this object, the writer was by no means scrupulous
about retaining the precise words of the inspired original. He held himself at liberty,
on the contrary, (a) to omit what seemed to himself superfluous clauses: (b)
to introduce new incidents: (c) to supply picturesque details: (d) to
give a new turn to the expression: (e) to vary the
construction at pleasure: (f) even slightly to paraphrase. Compiled after some
such fashion as I have been describing, at a time too when the preciousness of the
inspired documents seems to have been but imperfectly apprehended,—the works I speak
of, recommended by their graphic interest, and sanctioned by a mighty name, must
have imposed upon ordinary readers. Incautious
Not that we would imply that permanent mischief has resulted to the Deposit from the vagaries of individuals in the earliest age. The Divine Author of Scripture hath abundantly provided for the safety of His Word written. In the multitude of copies,—in Lectionaries,—in Versions,—in citations by the Fathers, a sufficient safeguard against error hath been erected. But then, of these multitudinous sources of protection we must not be slow to avail ourselves impartially. The prejudice which would erect Codexes B and א into an authority for the text of the New Testament from which there shall be no appeal:—the superstitious reverence which has grown up for one little cluster of authorities, to the disparagement of all other evidence wheresoever found; this, which is for ever landing critics in results which are simply irrational and untenable, must be unconditionally abandoned, if any real progress is to be made in this department of inquiry. But when this has been done, men will begin to open their eyes to the fact that the little handful of documents recently so much in favour, are, on the contrary, the only surviving witnesses to corruptions of the Text which the Church in her corporate capacity has long since deliberately rejected. But to proceed.
[From the Diatessaron of Tatian and similar attempts to harmonize
the Gospels, corruption of a serious nature has ensued in some well-known places,
such as the transference Revision Revised, p. 33. Traditional Text, Appendix
I, pp. 244-252.
Hence also, in Cureton’s Syriac The Lewis MS. is defective here.
THERE results inevitably from the fourfold structure of the Gospel,.—from the very fact that the story of Redemption is set forth in four narratives, three of which often ran parallel,—this practical inconvenience: namely, that sometimes the expressions of one Evangelist get improperly transferred to another. This is a large and important subject which calls for great attention, and requires to be separately handled. The phenomena alluded to, which are similar to some of those which have been treated in the last chapter, may be comprised under the special head of Assimilation.
It will I think promote clearness in the ensuing discussion if we determine to consider separately those instances of Assimilation which may rather be regarded as deliberate attempts to reconcile one Gospel with another: indications of a fixed determination to establish harmony between place and place. I am saying that between ordinary cases of Assimilation such as occur in every page, and extraordinary instances where per fas et nefas an enforced Harmony has been established,—which abound indeed, but are by no means common,—I am disposed to draw a line.
This whole province is beset with difficulties: and the This paper bears the date 1877: but I have thought best to keep
the words with this caution to the reader.
1. When we speak of Assimilation, we do not mean that a writer
while engaged in transcribing one Gospel was so completely beguiled and overmastered
by his recollections of the parallel place in another Gospel,—that, forsaking the
expressions proper to the passage before him, he unconsciously
(a) We shall probably be agreed that when the
scribe of Cod. א, in place of βασανίσαι ἡμᾶς
(in St.
(b) Again, when in Codd. אB we find τασσόμενος thrust
without warrant into St.
(c) In the same way I make no doubt that ποταμῷ (St.
(d) To be brief:—the insertion by א of ἀδελφέ
(in St. Above, p. 32.
(e) But I should have been willing
to go further. I might have been disposed to admit that when אDL introduce into
St.
(f) Again. When א and Evan. 61 thrust
into St.
Sometimes indeed the true Text bears witness to itself, as may be seen in the next example.
The little handful of well-known authorities (אBDL, with a few
copies of the Old Latin, and one of the Egyptian Versions The alleged evidence of Origen (iv. 453) is nil; the sum of it being that he takes no notice whatever
of the forty words between ὄψεσθέ με
(in Nonnus,—ἵξομαι εἰς γεννητῆρα. viii. 465 a and c. iv.
932 and 933 c.
Let it be observed—and then I will dismiss the matter—that the
selfsame thing has happened in the next verse but one (
Were I invited to point to a beautifully described incident in
the Gospel, I should find it difficult to lay my finger on anything more apt for
my purpose than the transaction described in St.
The Greek is exquisite. At first, St. John has been simply ‘reclining (ἀνακείμενος) in the
bosom’ of his Divine Master: that is, his place at the Supper is the next
adjoining =ἀνα-κείμενος + ἐπι-πεσών.
[Used not to suggest over-familiarity (?). Beginning with Anatolius Laodicenus,
A.D. 270 (ap. Galland. iii. 548). Cf. Routh, Rell. i. 42.
Now, every delicate discriminating touch in this sublime picture
is faithfully retained throughout by the cursive copies in the proportion of about
eighty to one. The great bulk of the MSS., as usual, uncial and cursive alike, establish
the undoubted text of the Evangelist, which is here the Received Text. Thus, a vast
majority of the MSS., with אAD at their head, read ἐπιπεσών
in St. Οὐκ ἀνάκειται μόνον, ἀλλὰ καὶ τῷ στήθει ἐπιπίπτει (Opp.
viii. 423 a).—Τὶ δὲ καὶ ἐπιπίπτει τῷ στήθει
(ibid. d). Note that
the passage ascribed to ‘Apolinarius’ in Cord. Cat. p. 342 (which includes
the second of these two references) is in reality part of Chrysostom’s Commentary
on St. John (ubi supra, c d). Cord. Cat. p. 341. But it is only in the κείμενον (or text) that the verb is found,—Opp. iv. 735. ὁ
δὲ θρασὺς ὀξέϊ παλμῷ | στήθεσιν ἀχράντοισι πεσὼν πεφιλημένος ἀνήρ. iv. 437 c: 440 d. Ibid. p. 342.
That this is the true history of the substitution of ἀναπεσών in St. Even Chrysostom, who certainly read the place as we do, is observed
twice to glide into the more ordinary expression, viz. viii. 423, line
13 from the bottom, and p. 424, line 18 from the top. ὁ ἐπὶ τὸ στῆθος αὐτοῦ ἀναπεσών (iii. 2, §
1). ὁ ἐπὶ τὸ στῆθος
τοῦ Κυρὶου ἀναπεσών (ap. Euseb. 31). Τί δεῖ περὶ τοῦ ἀναπεσόντος ἐπὶ τὸ στῆθος λέγειν τοῦ Ἰησοῦ
(ibid. vi. 25. Opp. iv. 95). ὁ ἐπὶ τῷ στήθει τοῦ φλογὸς ἀναπεσών (Opp. ii. 49 a. Cf.
133 c). (As quoted by Polycrates): Opp. i. 1062: ii. 8. τοῦ εἰς τὸ τῆς σοφίας στῆθος πιστῶς ἐπαναπεσόντος (ap. Chrys. xiii. 55). ὁ ἐπὶ τὸ στῆθος τοῦ Ἰησοῦ ἀναπαύεται (Opp. i. 591). (As quoted by Polycrates): Opp. i. 488. Wright’s Apocryphal Acts (fourth century), translated from the Syriac,
p. 3. (Fourth or fifth century) ap. Galland. vi. 132. Ap. Chrys. viii. 296.
Instructive in the meantime it is to note the fate which this
word has experienced at the hands of some Critics. Lachmann, Tischendorf, Tregelles,
Alford, Westcott and Hort, have all in turn bowed to the authority of Cod. B and
Origen. Bishop Lightfoot mistranslates On a fresh Revision, &c., p. 73.—‘Ἀναπίπτειν, (which occurs eleven times
in the N. T.’, when said of guests (ἀνακείμενοι) at a repast, denotes
nothing whatever but the preliminary act of each in taking his place at
the table; being the Greek equivalent for our “sitting down” to dinner.
So far only does it signify “change of posture.” The notion of “falling
backward” quite disappears in the notion of “reclining” or “lying down.”’—In St.
It would be time to pass on. But because in this department of study men are observed never to abandon a position until they are fairly shelled out and left without a pretext for remaining, I proceed to shew that ἀναπεσών (for ἐπιπεσών) is only one corrupt reading out of many others hereabouts. The proof of this statement follows. Might it not have been expected that the ‘old uncials’ (אABCD) would exhibit the entire context of such a passage as the present with tolerable accuracy? The reader is invited to attend to the results of collation:—
xiii. 21. | —ο אB: υμιν λεγω tr. B. |
22. | —ουν BC: + οι Ιουδαιοι א: απορουντει D. |
23. | —δε B: + εκ אABCD: — ο B: + και D. |
24. | (for πυθεσθαι τις αν ειη + ουτος D) και λεγει αυτω, ειπε τις εστιν BC: (for λεγει) ελεγεν א: + και λεγει αυτω ειπε τις εστιν περι ου λεγει א. |
25. | (for επιπεσων) αναπεσων BC: —δε BC: (for δε) ουν אD: —ουτος אAD. |
26. | + ουν BC: + αυτω D: —ο B: + και λεγει אBD: + αν D: (for βαψας) εμβαψας AD: βαψω . . . και δωσω αυτω BC: + ψωμου (after ψωμιον) C: (for εμβαψας) βαψας D: (for και εμβαψας) βαψας ουν אBC: —το B: + λαμβανει και BC: Ισκαριωτου אBC: απο Καρυωτου D. |
27. | —τοτε א: —μετα το ψωμιον τοτε D: (for λεγει ουν και λενει D: —ο B. |
In these seven verses therefore, (which present no special difficulty
to a transcriber,) the Codexes in question are found to exhibit at least thirty-five
varieties,—for twenty-eight of which (jointly or singly) B is responsible: א for
twenty-two: C for twenty-one: D for nineteen: A for three. It is found that twenty-three
words have been added to the text: fifteen substituted: fourteen taken
The first two verses of St. Mark’s Gospel have fared badly.
Easy of transcription and presenting
no special difficulty, they ought to have come down to us undisfigured by any serious
variety of reading. On the contrary. Owing to entirely different causes, either
verse has experienced calamitous treatment. I have elsewhere Traditional Text, Appendix IV. Pesh. and Harkl.: Cur. and Lew. are defective. Thus Griesbach, Scholz, Lachmann, Tischendorf, Tregelles, Alford, Wordsworth,
Green, Scrivener, McClellan, Westcott and Hort, and the Revisers.
1. The testimony of the oldest versions, when attention is paid to their contents,
is discovered to be of inferior moment in minuter matters of this nature. Thus,
copies of the Old Latin version thrust Isaiah’s name into St. In pseudo-Jerome’s Brev. in Psalm., Opp. vii. (ad calc.) 198. Mont. i. 462. Ubi supra.
2. Next, for the testimony of the Uncial Codexes אBDLΔ:—If any one
will be at the pains to tabulate the 900 Omitting trifling variants. אBL are exclusively responsible
on 45 occasions: +C (i.e. אBCL), on 27: + D, on 35: + Δ
on 73: + CD, on 19: + CΔ, on 118:
+ DΔ (i.e. אBDLΔ), on 42: + CDΔ, on 66.
3. The cursive copies which exhibit ‘Isaiah’ in place of ‘the prophet,’ reckoned
by Tischendorf at ‘nearly twenty-five,’ are probably less than fifteen In the text of Evan. 72 the reading in
dispute is not found: 205, 206 are duplicates of 209:
and 222, 255
are only fragments. There remain 1, 22, 33, 62, 63, 115,
131, 151, 152, 161, 184, 209, 253, 372, 391:—of which the
six at Rome require to be re-examined.
4. From Tischendorf’s list of thirteen Fathers, serious deductions
have to be made. Irenaeus and Victor of Antioch are clearly with the Textus
Receptus. Serapion, Titus, Basil do but borrow from Origen; and, with his argument,
reproduce his corrupt text of St. v. 20. Ap. Hieron. vii. 17. Evangelistas arguere falsitatis, hoc impiorum
est, Celsi, Porphyrii, Juliani.’ Hieron. 311. γραφέως τοίνυν ἐστὶ σφάλμα. Quoted
(from the lost work of Eusebius ad Marinum) in Victor of Ant.’s Catena, ed. Cramer,
p. 267. (See Simon, iii. 89; Mai, iv. 299; Matthaei’s
N. T. ii. 20, &c.) ‘Nos autem nomen Isaiae putamus
additum Scriptorum vitio, quod et in aliis locis probare possumus.’ vii. 17 (I suspect he got
it from Eusebius).
And do any inquire,—How then did this perversion of the truth
arise? In the easiest way possible, I answer.
St. Matt. | St. Mark. | St. Luke. | St. John. |
η´ (i. e. 3). | β´ (i. e. 3). | ζ´ (i. e. iii. 3-6). | ι´ (i. e. 23) See Studia Biblica, p. 249. Syrian Form of Ammonian
sections and Eusebian Canons by Rev. G. H. Gwilliam, B.D. Mr. Gwilliam gives St.
|
Now, since the name of Isaiah occurs in the first, the third
and the fourth of these places in connexion with the quotation from
Regarded as an instrument of criticism, Assimilation requires to be very delicately as well as very skilfully handled. If it is to be applied to determining the text of Scripture, it must be employed, I take leave to say, in a very different spirit from what is met with in Dr. Tischendorf’s notes, or it will only mislead. Is a word—a clause—a sentence—omitted by his favourite authorities אBDL? It is enough if that learned critic finds nearly the same word,—a very similar clause,— a sentence of the same general import,—in an account of the same occurrence by another Evangelist, for him straightway to insist that the sentence, the clause, the word, has been imported into the commonly received Text from such parallel place; and to reject it accordingly.
But, as the thoughtful reader must see, this is not allowable,
except under peculiar circumstances. For first, whatever a priori improbability
might be supposed to attach to the existence of identical expressions in two Evangelical
records of the same transaction, is effectually disposed of by the discovery that
very often identity of expression actually does occur. And (2), the only condition
which could warrant the belief that there has been assimilation, is observed to
be invariably away from Dr. Tischendorf’s instances,—viz. a sufficient number of
respectable attesting witnesses: it being a fundamental principle in the law of
Evidence, that the very few are rather to be suspected than the many. But further
(3), if there be some marked diversity of expression discoverable in the two parallel
places; and if that diversity has been carefully maintained all down the ages in
either place;—then it may be regarded as certain, on the contrary, that there has
not been assimilation; but that this is only one more instance of two Evangelists
saying similar things or the same thing in slightly different language. Take for
example the following case:—Whereas St. Matt. (
Take two more instances of misuse in criticism of Assimilation.
St. Matthew (
It is in fact surprising how often a familiar place of Scripture
has exerted this kind of assimilating influence over a little handful of copies.
Thus, some critics are happily agreed in rejecting the proposal of אBDLR, (backed
scantily by their usual retinue of evidence) to substitute for
γεμίσαι τὴν κοιλίαν αὑτοῦ
ἀπό, in St.
The reader has now been presented with several examples of Assimilation.
Tischendorf, who habitually overlooks the phenomenon where it seems to be sufficiently
conspicuous,
The value—may I not say, the use?—of these delicate differences
of detail becomes apparent whenever the genuineness of the text is called in question.
Take an example. The following fifteen words are deliberately excluded from St.
Mark’s Gospel (
It does but remain to point out that the exclusion of
these fifteen words from the text of St. Mark, has merely resulted from the
influence of the parallel place in St. Luke’s Gospel ( Compare St.
Because a certain clause (e.g. καὶ ἡ λαλιά σου
ὁμοιάζει in St.
1. Now, even if the whole of the case were
already before the reader, although to some there might seem to exist a
prima facie probability
that the clause is spurious, yet even so,—it would not be difficult to convince
a thoughtful man that the reverse must be nearer the truth. For let the
St. |
St. |
||
(1) Ἀληθῶς καὶ σὺ | (1) Ἀληθῶς | ||
(2) ἐξ αὐτῶν εἶ· | (2) ἐξ αὐτω̂ν εἶ· | ||
(3) καὶ γὰρ | (3) καὶ γὰρ Γαλιλαι̂ος εἶ, |
||
(4) ἡ λαλιά σου δῆλόν σε ποιεῖ. |
(4) καὶ ἡ λαλιά σου ὁμοιάζει |
What more clear than that the later Evangelist is explaining what his predecessor meant by ‘thy speech bewrayeth thee’ [or else is giving an independent account of the same transaction derived from the common source]? To St. Matthew,—a Jew addressing Jews,—it seemed superfluous to state that it was the peculiar accent of Galilee which betrayed Simon Peter. To St. Mark,—or rather to the readers whom St. Mark specially addressed,—the point was by, no means so obvious. Accordingly, he paraphrases,—‘for thou art a Galilean and thy speech correspondeth.’ Let me be shewn that all down the ages, in ninety-nine copies out of every hundred, this peculiar diversity of expression has been faithfully retained, and instead of assenting to the proposal to suppress St. Mark’s (fourth) explanatory clause with its unique verb ὁμοιάζει, I straightway betake myself to the far more pertinent inquiry,—What is the state of the text hereabouts? What, in fact, the context? This at least is not a matter of opinion, but a matter of fact.
1. And first, I discover that Cod. D, in concert with several copies of the Old Latin (a b c ff2 h q, &c.), only removes clause (4) from its proper place in St. Mark’s Gospel, in order to thrust it into the parallel place in St. Matthew,—where it supplants the ἡ λαλιά σου δῆλόν σε ποιεῖ of the earlier Evangelist; and where it clearly has no business to be.
Indeed the object of D is found to have been to assimilate St. Matthew’s Gospel to St. Mark,—for D also omits καὶ συ in clause (1).
2. The Ethiopic version, on the contrary, is for assimilating St. Mark to St. Matthew, for it transfers the same clause (4) as it stands in St. Matthew’s Gospel (καὶ ἡ λαλιά σου δῆλόν σε ποιεῖ) to St. Mark.
3. Evan. 33 (which, because it exhibits an ancient text of a type like B, has been styled [with grim irony] ‘the Queen of the Cursives’) is more brilliant here than usual; exhibiting St. Mark’s clause (4) thus,—καὶ γὰρ ἡ λαλιά σου δῆλόν σε ὁμοιάζει.
4. In C (and the Harkleian) the process of Assimilation is as conspicuous as in D, for St. Mark’s third clause (3) is imported bodily into St. Matthew’s Gospel. C further omits from St. Mark clause (4).
5. In the Vercelli Codex (a) however, the converse process is conspicuous. St. Mark’s Gospel has been assimilated to St. Matthew’s by the unauthorized insertion into clause (1) of καὶ συ, (which by the way is also found in M), and (in concert with the Gothic and Evann. 73, 131, 142*) by the entire suppression of clause (3).
6. Cod. L goes beyond all. [True to the craze of omission], it further obliterates as well from St. Matthew’s Gospel as from St. Mark’s all trace of clause (4).
7. א and B alone of Codexes, though in agreement with the Vulgate and the Egyptian version, do but eliminate the final clause (4) of St. Mark’s Gospel. But note, lastly, that—
8. Cod. A, together with the Syriac versions, the Gothic, and the whole body of the cursives, recognizes none of these irregularities: but exhibits the commonly received text with entire fidelity.
On a survey of the premisses, will any candid person Schulz,—‘et λαλια et ομοιαζει aliena a Marco.’
Tischendorf—‘omnino e Matthaeo
fluxit: ipsum ομοιαζει glossatoris est.’
This is foolishness,—not criticism. Scrivener’s Full Collation of the Cod. Sin., &c., 2nd ed.,
p. xlvii.
[We now pass on to a kindred cause of adulteration of the text of the New Testament.]
THERE exist not a few corrupt Readings,—and
they have imposed largely on many critics,—which, strange to relate, have arisen
from nothing else but the proneness of words standing side by side in a sentence to be
attracted into a likeness of ending,—whether in respect of grammatical form or of
sound; whereby sometimes the sense is made to suffer grievously,—sometimes entirely
to disappear. Let this be called the error of Attraction. The phenomena
of ‘Assimilation’ are entirely distinct. A somewhat gross instance, which however
has imposed on learned critics, is furnished by the Revised Text and Version of
St.
‘Judas Iscariot’ is a combination of appellatives with which every
Christian ear is even awfully familiar. The expression Ἰούδας Ἰσκαριώτης
is found in St. St.
But in the two places of St. John’s Gospel which remain to be
noticed, viz.
Another and a far graver case of ‘Attraction’ is found in Above, pp. 28-31.
St. Paul in a certain place (
In the second century, Irenaeus 753 int.
In the third century, Orison seven times ii. 843 e. Also int. ii. 96, 303; iv. 419, 489,
529, 558.
In the fourth century, the Dialogus Ap. Orig. i. 866 a,—interesting and emphatic
testimony. Cord. Cat. in i. 161 e. Cord. Cat.
in i. 683 (οὐκ ἐν πλαξὶ λιθίναις
. . . ἀλλ᾽ ἐν τῷ τῆς καρδίας πυξίῳ). Galland. viii. 40 b. vii. 2: x. 475. i. 29.
In the fifth century, Cyril i. 8: 504: v2. 65. (Aubert prints καρδίας σαρκίνης. The
published Concilia (iii. 240) exhibits καρδίας σαρκίναις. Pusey,
finding in one of his MSS. ἀλλ᾽ ἐν πλαξὶ καρδίαις λιθίναις (sic),
prints καρδίαις σαρκίναις.) Ap. Mai, iii. 89, 90. 299. iii. 302.
In the seventh century, Victor, Bp. of Carthage addressing Theodorus
P. Concil. 154.
In the eighth century, J. Damascene ii. 129. 344. i. 762: ii. 668, 1380. Galland. v. 505. vi. 609. Galland. viii. 742 dis. i. 672: ii. 49: iii1. 472, 560: iv. 1302: v. 743-4: viii. 311: x. 98, 101,
104, 107, 110. Galland. xi. 248. Ps.-Ambrose, ii. 176. Yet strange to say, Tischendorf claims the support of Didymus
and Theodoret for καρδίαις, on the ground that in the course of their expository
remarks they contrast καρδίαι
σαρκίναι (or λογικαί) with
πλάκες λίθιναι: as if it were not the word
πλαξί
which alone occasions difficulty. Again, Tischendorf enumerates Cod. E (Paul)
among his authorities. Had he then forgotten that E is ‘nothing better than a transcript
of Cod. D (Claromontanus), made by some ignorant person’? that ‘the Greek
is manifestly worthless, and that it should long since have been removed
from the list of authorities’? (Scrivener’s Introd., 4th edit., i. 177. See also
Traditional Text, p. 65, and note. Tischendorf is frequently inaccurate in his references
to the Fathers.]
But then it so happens that—attracted by the two datives between
which καρδίας stands, and tempted by the consequent jingle, a surprising number
of copies are found to exhibit the ‘perfectly absurd’ and ‘wholly unnatural reading Scrivener’s Introd. 254. A in the Epistles differs from A in the Gospels. Besides GLP and the following cursivcs,—29, 30, 44, 45, 46, 47. 48, 55,
74, 104, 106, 109, 112, 113, 115, 137, 219,
221, 238, 252, 255, 257, 262,
277. That I may not be accused of suppressing what is to be said on
the other side, let it be here added that the sum of the adverse evidence (besides
the testimony of many MSS.) is the Harkleian version:—the doubtful testimony of
Eusebius (for, though Valerius reads καρδίας, the MSS.
largely preponderate which read καρδίαιςin
H. E. Mart.
Pal. cxiii. § 6. See Burton’s ed. p. 637):—Cyril in one place, as explained above:—and lastly, a quotation from Chrysostom on the Maccabees, given in Cramer’s Catena,
vii. 595 (ἐν πλαξὶ καρδίαις σαρκίναις), which reappears
at the end of eight lines without the word πλαξί. [The papers on Assimilation and Attraction were left by the
Dean in the same portfolio. No doubt he would have separated them, if he had lived
to complete his work, and amplified his treatment of the latter, for the materials
under that head were scanty.—For
[WE have now to consider the largest of all classes of corrupt
variations from the genuine Text It will be observed
that these are empirical, not logical, classes. Omissions are found in many of the
rest.
Omissions are often treated as ‘Various Readings.’ Yet only by an Hibernian licence can words omitted be so reckoned: for in truth the very essence of the matter is that on such occasions nothing is read. It is to the case of words omitted however that this chapter is to be exclusively devoted. And it will be borne in mind that I speak now of those words alone where the words are observed to exist in ninety-nine MSS. out of a hundred, so to speak;—being away only from that hundredth copy.
Now it becomes evident, as soon as attention has been called
to the circumstance, that such a phenomenon requires separate treatment. Words so
omitted labour prima facie under
a disadvantage which is all their own.
The warrant of those critics for dealing thus unceremoniously
with a portion of the sacred deposit is the fact that whereas Eusebius, for the
statement rests solely with him, declares that anciently many copies were without
the verses in question, our two oldest extant MSS. conspire in omitting them. But,
I reply, the latter circumstance does not conduct to the inference that those verses
are spurious. It only proves that the statement of Eusebius was correct. The Father
cited did not, as is evident from his words Last Twelve Verses of St. Mark’s Gospel, chapter v, and Appendix
B.
On the other hand, one and that the least faulty of the two MSS.
witnessing for the omission confesses mutely its error by leaving a vacant space
where the omitted verses should have come in; whilst the other was apparently copied
from an exemplar containing the verses See Dr. Gwynn’s remarks in Appendix VII of The Traditional Text,
pp. 298-301. The Revision Revised, pp. 42-45, 422-424: Traditional Text, p. 109,
where thirty-eight testimonies are quoted before 400 A.D. The expression of Jerome,
that almost all the Greek MSS. omit this passage, is only a translation of Eusebius.
It cannot express his own opinion, for he admitted
the twelve verses into the Vulgate, and quoted parts of them
twice, i.e.
That is the simple truth: and the question will now be asked by an intelligent reader, ‘If such is the balance of evidence, how is it that learned critics still doubt the genuineness of those verses?’
To this question there can be but one answer, viz. ‘Because those critics are blinded by invincible prejudice in favour of two unsafe guides, and on behalf of Omission.’
We have already seen enough of the character of those guides,
and are now anxious to learn what there can be in omissions which render them so
acceptable to minds of the present day. And we can imagine nothing except the halo
which has gathered round the detection of spurious passages in modern times, and
has extended to a supposed detection of passages which in fact are not spurious.
Some people appear to feel delight if they can prove any charge against people who
claim to be orthodox; others without any such feeling delight in superior criticism; and the flavour of scepticism especially commends itself to the taste of many.
To the votaries of such criticism, omissions of
Yet the experience of copyists would pronounce that Omission
is the besetting fault of transcribers. It is so easy
under the influence of the desire of accomplishing a task, or at least of anxiety
for making progress, to pass over a word, a line, or even more lines than one. As
has been explained before, the eye readily moves from one ending to a similar ending
with a surprising tendency to pursue the course which would lighten labour instead
of increasing it. The cumulative result of such abridgement by omission on the part
of successive scribes may be easily imagined, and in fact is just what is presented
in Codex B Dr. Dobbin has calculated 330 omissions in St. Matthew, 365 in
St. Mark, 439 in St. Luke, 357 in St. John, 384 in the Acts, and 681 in the Epistles—2,556
in all as far as Such as in Cod. D after St.
The fact seems to be all but overlooked that a very much larger
amount of proof than usual is required at the hands of those who would persuade
us to cancel words which have
The force of what I am saying will be
best understood if a few actual specimens of omission may he adduced, and individually
considered. And first, let us take the case of an omitted word. In St.
Now I desire to be informed how it is credible that so very difficult and peculiar a word as this,—for indeed the expression has never yet been satisfactorily explained,—should have found its way into every known Evangelium except אBL and a few cursives, if it be spurious? How it came to be here and there omitted, is intelligible enough. (a) One has but to glance at the Cod. א,
ΤΟ εΝ CΑΒΒΑΤω |
ΔεΥΤΡΟΠΡωΤω |
in order to see that the like ending (Τω) in the superior
line, fully accounts for the omission of the second line. (b) A proper lesson begins at this place; which by itself would explain the phenomenon. (c)
Words which the
In reply to all this, I shall of course be told that really I must yield to what is after all the weight of external evidence: that Codd. אBL are not ordinary MSS. but first-class authorities, of sufficient importance to outweigh any number of the later cursive MSS.
My rejoinder is plain:—Not only am I of course willing to yield
to external evidence, but it is precisely ‘external evidence’ which makes me insist
on retaining δευτεροπρώτῳ—ἀπὸ μελισσίου
κηρίου—ἄρας τὸν στ9αυρόν—καὶ ἀνεφέρετο εἰς
τὸν οὐρανόν—ὅταν
\ἐκλίπητε—the
And first as to the rejection of an entire verse.
The καὶ ὁ πεσὼν ἐπὶ τὸν λίθον τοῦτον συνθλασθήσεται· ἐφ᾽ ὃν δ᾽ ἂν πέσῃ, λικμήσει αὐτόν.
For the verse is found in the Old Latin, and in the Vulgate,—in
the Peshitto, Curetonian, and Harkleian Syriac,—besides in the Coptic, Armenian,
and Ethiopic versions. It is found also in Origen iv. 25 d, 343 d.—What proves these two quotations to be from
St. P. 193. P.
11. vii. 672 a [freely quoted as Greg. Naz. in the Catena
of Nicetas, p. 669] xii. 27 d. Ap. Mai, ii. 401 dis. Ap. Chrys. vi. 171 c. vii. 171 d. iii2. 86, 245:
v. 500 e, 598 d.
But, says Tischendorf,—the verse is omitted by Origen and by
Eusebius,—by Irenaeus and by Lucifer of Cagliari,—as well as by Cyril of Alexandria.
I answer, this most insecure of arguments for mutilating the traditional text is
plainly inadmissible on the present occasion. The critic refers to the fact that
Irenaeus 682-3 (Massuet 277). iii.
786. Theoph. 235-6 ( =Mai, iv. 122). ii. 660 a, b, c. ‘Praeterit et Lucifer.’ Ap.
Galland. vi. 191 d. Ibid. vii. 20 c. Ibid. ix. 768 a.
I have elsewhere explained what I suspect occasioned the omission of St. [I am unable to find any place in the Dean’s writings where he has made this
explanation. The following note, however, is appended here]:— With ‘Omnino ex Lc. assumpta videntur.’ The section in St. Matthew is numbered 265,—in St. Luke,
274: both being referred to Canon V, in which St. Matthew and St. Luke are
exclusively compared.
In the meantime there emerges from the treatment which St.
I am guided to my next example, viz. the text of St.
ST. MATT. | ST. MARK |
‘Ye hypocrites, well did Isaiah prophesy of you saying, “This people draweth nigh unto Me with their mouth and honoureth me with their lips (ἐγγίζει μοι ὁ λαὸς οὗτος τῷ στόματι αὐτῶν, καὶ τοῖς χείλεσί με τιμᾷ·), but their |
‘Well did Isaiah prophesy of you, hypocrites, as it is written, “This people honoureth Me with their lips (οὗτος ὁ λαὸς τοῖς χείλεσί με τιμᾷ, but their heart is far from Me.”’ heart is far from Me.”’ |
The place of Isaiah referred to, viz.
Now, about the text of St. Mark in this place no question is
raised. Neither is there any various reading worth speaking of in ninety-nine MSS.
out of a hundred in respect of the text in St. Matthew. But when reference is made
to the two oldest copies in existence, B and א, we are presented with what, but
for the parallel place in St. Mark, would have appeared to us a strangely abbreviated
reading. Both MSS. conspire in exhibiting St. Vol. i. 13.
The reader has now the hypothesis fully before him by
which from the days of Griesbach it has been proposed to account for the
discrepancy between ‘the few copies’ on
Now, as I am writing a book on the principles of Textual
Criticism, I must be allowed to set my reader on his guard against all such unsupported
dicta as the preceding, though enforced with emphasis and recommended by a deservedly
respected name. I venture to think that the exact reverse will be found to be a
vast deal nearer the truth: viz. that undoubtedly spurious readings, although they
may at one time or other have succeeded in obtaining a footing in MSS., and to some
extent may be observed even to have propagated themselves, are yet discovered to
die out speedily; seldom indeed to leave any considerable number of descendants.
There has always in fact been a process of elimination going on, as well as of self-propagation: a corrective force at work, as well as one of deterioration. How else are we to
account for the utter disappearance of the many monstra potius quam variae lectiones which the ancients nevertheless insist were prevalent
in their times? It is enough to appeal to a single place in Jerome, in illustration
of what I have been saying Letter to Pope
Damasus. See my book on St. Mark, p. 28.
We are invited then to believe,—for it is well to know at the
outset exactly what is required of us,—that from the fifth century downwards
every extant copy of the Gospels
except five (DLTc, 33, 124) exhibits
a text arbitrarily interpolated in order to bring it into conformity with the Greek
version of
1. It is altogether unaccountable, if this be indeed a true account
of the matter, how it has come to pass that in no single MS. in the world, so far
as I am aware, has this conformity been successfully achieved: for whereas the
2. Further,—If there really did exist this strange determination on the part of the ancients in general to assimilate the text of St. Matthew to the text of Isaiah, how does it happen that not one of them ever conceived the like design in respect of the parallel place in St. Mark?
3. It naturally follows to inquire,—Why are we to suspect the mass of MSS. of having experienced such wholesale depravation in respect of the text of St. Matthew in this place, while yet we recognize in them such a marked constancy to their own peculiar type; which however, as already explained, is not the text of Isaiah?
4. Further,—I discover in this place a minute illustration of
the general fidelity of the ancient copyists: for whereas in St. Matthew it is
invariably
ὁ λαὸς οὗτος, I observe that in the copies of St. Mark,—except to be sure in
(a) Codd.
B and D, (b) copies of the Old Latin, (c) the Vulgate, and (d) the Peshitto
(all of which are confessedly corrupt in this particular,)—it is invariably
οὗτος ὁ λαός. But now,—Is it reasonable that the very copies which have
been in this way convicted of licentiousness in respect of St.
And yet, if the discrepancy between Codd. B and א and the great
bulk of the copies in this place did not originate in the way insisted on by the
critics, how is it to be accounted for? Now, on ordinary occasions, we do not feel
ourselves called upon to institute any such inquiry,—as indeed very seldom would
it be practicable to do. Unbounded licence of transcription, flagrant carelessness,
arbitrary interpolations, omissions without number, disfigure
The established Septuagintal rendering of Dial. § 78, ad fin. (p. 272). Opp. ii. 215 a: v. part ii. 118 c. See Holmes and Parsons’ ed. of the LXX,—vol. iv.
in loc.
But the asyndeton resulting from the suppression of these words
was felt to be intolerable. In fact, without a colon point between
οὗτος and τοῖς, the
result is without meaning. When once the complementary words have been withdrawn,
ἐγγίζει μοι at
the beginning of the sentence is worse than superfluous. It fatally encumbers the
sense. To drop those two words, after the example of the parallel place in St. Mark’s
Gospel, became thus Opp. pp. 143 and 206. P. 577 is allusive only. Opp. vii. 158 c: ix. 638 b. Opp. ii. 1345: iii. 763-4.
Two facts have thus emerged, which entirely change the aspect
of the problem: the first, (a) That the words ἐν τῷ στόματι αὐτῶν, καὶ ἐν, were anciently absent from the Septuagintal rendering
of
And after this discovery will any one be so perverse as to deny
that on the contrary it must needs be Codexes B and א,
and not the great bulk of the MSS., which exhibit a text corrupted by the influence
of the Septuagint rendering of
But that the text of St. § xv:—on which his learned editor (Bp. Jacobson) pertinently remarks,—‘Hunc
locum Prophetae Clemens exhibuisset sicut a Christo laudatum, S. Marc. vii.
6, si pro ἄπεστιν dedissct ἀπέχει.’ Opp. i. 1502: iii. 1114.
The reader is now in a position to judge how much
To state this matter somewhat differently.—In all the extant
uncials but five, and in almost every known cursive copy of the Gospels, the words
τῷ στόματι αὐτῶν, καί are found to
belong to St.
I freely admit that it is in a high degree remarkable that five
ancient Versions, and all the following early writers,—Ptolemaeus Ap. Epiphanium, Opp. i. 218 d. Opp. p. 461. Opp. iii. 492 (a remarkable place): ii. 723: iv. 121. De Trinitate, p. 242. Opp. ii. 413 b. [Observe how this evidence leads us to Alexandria.] Opp.
vii. 522 d. The other place, ix. 638 b, is uncertain. It is uncertain whether Eusebius and Basil quote St. Matthew
or Isaiah: but a contemporary of Chrysostom certainly quotes the Gospel,—Chrys. Opp. vi. 425 d (cf. p. 417, line
10).
What I have been saying is aptly illustrated by a place in our
Lord’s Sermon
on the Mount: viz. St.
(1) ἀγαπᾶτε τοὺς ἐχθροὺς ὑμῶν
(2) εὐλογεῖτε τοὺς καταρωμένους ὑμᾶς
(3) καλῶς ποιεῖτε τοῖς μισοῦσιν But Eus.
(4) καὶ προσεύχεσθε ὑπὲρ τῶν ἐπηρεαζόντων ὑμᾶς
(5) καὶ διωκόντων
ὑμᾶς I have numbered the clauses for convenience.—It will perhaps facilitate the
study of this place, if (on my own responsibility) I subjoin a representation of the same words in Latin:— (1) Diligite inimicos vestros, (2) benedicite maledicentes vos, (3) benefacite odientibus vos, (4) et orate pro calumniantibus vos, (5) et persequentibus vos.
On the other hand, it is not to be denied that there exists an
appreciable body of evidence for exhibiting the passage in a shorter form. The
fact that Origen six times Opp. iv. 324 bis, 329 bis, 355. Gall. xiv. App.
106.
ἀγαπᾶτε τοὺς ἐχθροὺς ὑμῶν
καὶ προσεύχεσθε ὑπὲρ τῶν διωκόντων ὑμᾶς
(which amounts to a rejection of the second, third, and fourth
clauses;)—and that he is supported therein by Bא, (besides a few cursives)
the Curetonian, the Lewis, several Old Latin MSS., and the Bohairic ‘A large majority, all but five, omit it. Some add it in the margin.’ Traditional
Text, p. 549. Opp. p. 79, cf. 146. Scap. c. 1. Opp. iv.
946. Haer. III. xviii. 5. Dem. Evan. xiii. 7. In Bapt. Christ. Orig. Opp.
i. 812.
Let us however inquire more curiously for the evidence of Versions
and Fathers on this subject; remembering that the point in dispute is nothing
else but the genuineness of clauses 2, 3, 4. And here, at starting, we make the notable discovery that Origen,
whose practice was relied on for retaining none but the first and the fifth clauses,—himself
twice Opp. i. 768: iv. 353. Opp. i. 827: 399. Spect. c. 16: (Anim.
c. 35): Pat. c. 6.
But in fact the Western Church yields unfaltering testimony.
Besides the three copies of the Old Latin which exhibit all the five clauses, the
Vulgate retains the first, third, fifth and fourth. Augustine [In Ep. Joh. IV. Tract. ix.
3 (1, 3 (ver. 45 &c.)); In In Opp. pp. 303, 297. Pro S. Athanas. ii. Ep. ii.
And first we turn to Chrysostom Opp. iii. 167: iv.
619: v. 436:—ii. 340: v. 56: xii. 654:—ii. 258: iii. 41:—iv. 267: xii. 425.
Gregory Nyss. Opp. iii. 379.
Eusebius Praep.
654:
The Apostolic Constitutions Pp. 3. 198.
Clemens Alex. Opp. p. 605
and 307.
Athenagoras Leg. pro Christian. 11.
Theophilus Ad Autolycum, iii. 14.
While Justin M. Opp. i. 40.
And Polycarp Ad
Didache § 1.
In the face of all this evidence, no one it is presumed will any more be found to dispute the genuineness of the generally
received reading in St.
ἀγαπᾶτε τοὺς ἐχθροὺς ὑμῶν
καὶ προσεύχεσθε ὑπὲρ τῶν διωκόντων ὑμᾶς.—
by no possibility could the men of that age in referring to St.
This result of ‘comparative criticism’ is therefore respectfully recommended to the notice of the learned. If it be not decisive of the point at issue to find such a torrent of primitive testimony at one with the bulk of the Uncials and Cursives extant, it is clear that there can be no Science of Textual Criticism. The Law of Evidence must be held to be inoperative in this subject-matter. Nothing deserving of the name of ‘proof’ will ever be attainable in this department of investigation.
But if men admit that the ordinarily received text of St.
Mill was of opinion, (and of course his opinion finds favour
with Griesbach, Tischendorf, and the rest,) that these three clauses have been
imported hither from St. ‘Theodoret once (iv. 946) gives
the verse as Tischendorf gives it: but on two other occasions (i. 827: ii. 399) the
same Theodoret exhibits the second member of the sentence thus,—εὐλογεῖτε τοὺς διώκοντας ὑμᾶς (so pseud.-Athan. ii. 95), which shews how little stress is to be laid on
such evidence as the first-named place furnishes. Origen also (iv.
324 bis, 329 bis, 351) repeatedly gives the place as Tischendorf gives it—but on
one occasion, which it will be observed is fatal to his evidence (i. 768), he
gives the second member thus,—iv. 353: καὶ προσεύχεσθε ὑπὲρ
τῶν ἐπηρεαζόντων
ὑμᾶς. ... 1. 4. Next observe how Clemens Al. (605) handles the same place:— ἀγαπᾶτε τοὺς ἐχθροὺς ὑμῶν, εὐλογεῖτε
τοὺς καταρωμένους ὑμᾶς,
καὶ προσεύχεσθε ὑπὲρ τῶν ἐπηρεαζόντων ὑμῖν,
καὶ τὰ ὅμοια ... 1, 2, 4.—3, 5. Justin M. (i. 40) quoting the same place from memory (and with
exceeding licence), yet is observed to recognize in part both the clauses
which labour under suspicion: ... 1, 2, 4.—3, 5. εὔχεσθε ὑπὲρ τῶν ἐχθρῶν ὑμῶν καὶ ἀγαπᾶτε τοὺς
ὑμᾶς, which roughly represents καὶ εὐλογεῖτε
τοὺς καταρωμένους ὑμῖν,
καὶ εὔχεσθε ὑπὲρ
τῶν ἐπηρεαζόντων ὑμᾶς. The clause which hitherto lacks support is that which regards
τοὺς μισοῦντας ὑμᾶς. But the required help is supplied by Irenaeus (i. 521), who
(loosely enough) quotes the place thus,— Diligite inimicos vestros, et orate pro eis, qui vos oderunt. ... (made up of 3, 4).—2, 5. And yet more by the most venerable witness of all, Polycarp, who writes:—ad
Orate pro persequentibus et odientibus vos. ... 4, 5.—1, 2, 3. I have examined [Didaché] Justin, Irenaeus,
Eusebius, Hippolytus, Cyril Al., Greg. Naz., Basil, Athan., Didymus, Cyril Hier.,
Chrys., Greg. Nyss., Epiph., Theod., Clemens. And the following are the results:— Didache. Εὐλογεῖτε τοὺς
καταρωμένους ὑμῖν, καὶ προσεύχεσθε ὑπὲρ τῶν ἐχθρῶν ὑμῶν, νηστεύετε
δὲ ὑπὲρ τῶν διωκότων ὑμᾶς· . . .
ὑμεῖς δὲ ἀγαπᾶτε τοὺς μισοῦντας
ὑμᾶς ... 2, 3, 4, 5. Aphraates, Dem. ii. The Latin Translation runs:—Diligite inimicos vestros, benedicite
ei qui vobis maledicit, orate pro eis qui vos vexunt et persequuntur. Eusebius Prae 654. ... 2, 4, 5, omitting I, 3. Ps 699. ... 4, 5, omitting 1, 2, 3. Es 589. ... 2, 3, 4, 5, omitting 2. Clemens Al. 605. ... 1, 2, 4, omitting 3, 5. Greg. Nyss. iii. 379. ... 3, 4, 5, omitting 2. Vulg. Diligite inimicos vestros, benefacite his qui oderunt vos, et orate pro
persequentibus et calumniantibus vos.
... 1, 3, 5, 4, omitting 2. Hilary, 297. Benedicite qui vos persequuntur, et orate pro calumniantibus
vos ac persequentibus vos. ... 2, 4, 5, omitting the
first and third. Hilary, 303. Diligite inimicos vestros, et orate pro calumniantibus
vos ac persequentibus vos. ... 1, 4, 5, omitting
the second and third. Cf. 128. Cyprian, 79 (cf. 146). Diligite inimicos vestros, et orate pro his qui vos persequuntur.
... 1,
5, omitting 2, 3, 4. Tertullian. Diligite (enim) inimicos vestros, (inquit,) et orate pro maledicentibus
vos—which apparently is meant for a quotation of 1, 2. ... 1, 2, omitting 3, 4, 5. Tertullian. Diligite (enim) inimicos vestros, (inquit,) et maledicentibus benedicite,
et orate pro persecutoribus vestris—which is a quotation of 1, 2, 5. ... 1, 2, 5, omitting 3, 4. Tertullian. Diligere inimicos, et orare pro eis qui vos persequuntur. ... 1, 5, omitting 2, 3, 4. Tertullian. Inimicos diligi, maledicentes benedici.
... 1, 2, omitting
3, 4, 5. Ambrose. Diligite inimicos vestros benefacite its qui oderunt vos: orate pro calumniantibus et persequentibus vos. ... 1, 3, 4, 5, omitting
2. Ambrose. Diligite inimicos vestros, orate pro calumniantibus et persequentibus vos. ... 1, 4, 5, omitting 2, 3. Augustine. Diligite inimicos vestros benefacite his qui vos oderunt: et orate
pro eis qui vos persequuntur. ... 1, 3, 5, omitting 2, 4. ‘Benedicite qui vos persequuntur, et orate pro calumniantibus vos ac persequentibus
vos.’ Hilary, 297. Cyril Al. twice (i. 270: 807) quotes the place thus,— εὖ ποιεῖτε τοὺς ἐχθροὺς ὑμῶν, καὶ προσεύχεσθε ὑπὲρ τῶν ἐπηρεαζόντων ὑμᾶς. Chrys. (iii. 355) says αὐτὸς γὰρ εἶπεν, εὔχεσθε ὑπὲρ τῶν ἐχθρῶν [ὑμῶν], and repeats the quotation at iii. 340 and xii. 453. So Tertull. (Apol. c. 31), pro inimicis deum orare, et persecutoribus nostris
bone precari. ... 1, 5. If the lost Greek of Irenaeus (i. 521) were recovered, we should probably
find ἀγαπᾶτε τοὺς ἐχθροὺς ὑμῶν, καὶ προσεύχεσθε ὑπὲρ τῶν μισούντων ὑμᾶς. and of Polycarp (ad προσεύχεσθε ὑπὲρ τῶν
διωκόντων καὶ μισούντων
ὑμᾶς.
[I take this opportunity to reply to a reviewer in the Guardian
newspaper, who thought that he had reduced the authorities quoted from before
A.D. 400 on page 103 of The Traditional
Text to two on our side against seven, or rather six Dialogus Adamantii is not adducible within my limits,
because it is in all probability the production of a later age.’ My number was eight.
1. It must be borne in mind, that this is a question both negative
and positive:—negative on the side of our opponents, with all the difficulties
involved in establishing a negative conclusion as to the non-existence in St. Matthew’s
Gospel of clauses 2, 3, and 5,—and positive for us, in the establishment of those clauses
as part of the genuine text in the passage which we are considering. If we can so
establish the clauses, or indeed any one of them, the case against us fails: but
unless we can establish all, we have not proved everything that we seek to demonstrate.
Our first object is to make the adverse position untenable: when we have done that,
we fortify our own. Therefore both the Dean and myself have drawn attention to the
fact that our authorities are summoned as witnesses to the early existence in each
case of ‘some of the clauses,’ if they do not depose to all of them. We are quite
aware of the reply: but we have with us the advantage of positive as against negative
evidence. This advantage especially rules in such an instance as the present, because
alien circumstances govern the quotation, and regulate particularly the length of
it. Such quotation is always liable to shortening, whether by leaving out intermediate
clauses, or by sudden curtailment in the midst of the passage. Therefore, actual
citation of separate clauses,
2. The reviewer says that ‘all four clauses are read by both texts,’ i. e. in
St. Matthew and St. Luke, and appears to have been unaware as regards the present
purpose of the existence of the fifth clause, or half-clause, in St. Matthew.
Yet the words—ὑπὲρ . . . τῶ διωκόντων ὑμᾶς are a very label, telling incontestibly
the origin of many of the quotations. Sentences so distinguished with St. Matthew’s
label cannot have come from St. Luke’s Gospel. The reviewer has often gone wrong
here. The ὑπὲρ—instead
of the περί after אBLΞ in St. Luke—should be to
our opponents a sign betraying the origin, though when it stands by itself—as
in Eusebius, In
3. Nor again does the reviewer seem to have noticed the effects of the context
in shewing to which source a quotation is to be referred. It is a common custom
for Fathers to quote
The references as corrected are given in the note Observe that 5 = ὑπὲρ . . . τῶν διωκόντων. For— Didache (§ 1), 2 (3), 3 (2), 4, 5. Polycarp (xii), 3 (2), 5. Justin Martyr, Apol. 15, 3 (2), 2 (3), 4 (4), 5? ὑπὲρ τῶν ἐχθρῶν (= διωκόντων?)
but the passage more like St. Luke, the context more like St. Matt., ver. 45. Athenagoras (Leg. pro Christian. 11), 1, 2 (3), 5, ver. 45. Tertullian (De Patient. vi), 1, 2 (3), 5, pt. ver. 45. Add Apol.
c. 31. 1, 5. Theophilus Ant. (Ad Autolycum iii. 14), 1, 4 (4),
ὑπέρand ver. 46. Clemens Alex.
(Strom. iv. 14), 1, 2 (3), 4 (4), pt. ver. 45; (Strom. vii. 14), favours St. Matt. Origen (De Orat.
i), 1, 4 (4),
ὑπέρ and in the middle of two quotations from St. Matthew; (Cels.
viii. 45), 1, 4 (4),
ὑπέρ and all
ver. 45. Eusebius (Praep. Evan. xiii. 7), 2 (3), 4 (4), 5, all ver.
45; (Comment. in Apost. Const. (i. 2), 1, 3 (2), 4 (4), 5,
ὑπέρ and ver.
45. Greg. Naz. (Orat. iv. 124), 2 (3), 4 (4), 5, ὑπερεύχεσθαι. Greg. Nyss. (In Bapt. Christi), 3 (2), 4 (4), 5,
ὑπέρ, ver. 45. Lucifer (Pro S. Athan. ii) omits 4 (4), but quotes ver. 44 . . . end of chapter. Pacianus (Epist. ii), 2
(3), 5. Hilary (Tract. in Ambrose (In Aphraates (Dem. ii), 1, 2 (3), 4 (4), 5, ἐθνικοί. Apocryphal Acts of the Apostles (p. 89), 2 (3), 3 (2), 4 (4), ver. 45. Number = 25.
Especially have we need to be on our guard against conniving
at the ejection of short clauses consisting of from twelve to fourteen letters,—which
proves to have been the exact length of a line in the earliest copies. When such
omissions leave the sense manifestly imperfect, no evil consequence can result.
Critics then either take no notice of the circumstance, or simply remark in passing
that the omission has been the result of accident. In this way, [οἱ πατέρες αὐτῶν, though it is omitted
by Cod. B in St.
ΗΓΑΡ
CΑΡΞΜΟΥΑΛΗΘωC
[εCΤΙΒΡωCΙCΚΑΙ
ΤΟΑΙΜΑΜΟΥΑΛΗΘωC]
εCΤΙΠΟCΙC
But when, notwithstanding the omission of two or three words,
the sense of the context remains unimpaired,—the clause being of independent signification,—then
great danger arises lest an attempt should be made through the officiousness of
modern Criticism to defraud the Church of a part of her inheritance. Thus
[καὶ οἱ σὺν αὑτῷ (St.
When indeed the omission dates from an exceedingly remote period; took place, I mean, in the third, or more likely still in the second century;
then the fate of such omitted words may be predicted with certainty. Their doom
is sealed. Every copy made from that defective original of necessity reproduced
the defects of its prototype: and if (as often happens) some of those copies have
descended to our times, they become quoted henceforward as if they were independent
witnesses See
Traditional Text, p. 55.
ΟΚΛεΠΤΗC
εΡΧεΤΑΙ [εΓΡΗΓΟΡ
ΗCεΝΚΑΙ] ΟΥΚΑΝΑ
ΦΗΚεΝ
his house to be broken through.’ Here, the clause within brackets, which has fallen out for an obvious reason, does not appear in Codd. א and D. But the omission did not begin with א. Two copies of the Old Latin are also without the words ἐγρηγόρησεν καὶ,—which are wanting besides in Cureton’s Syriac. Tischendorf accordingly omits them. And yet, who sees not that such an amount of evidence as this is wholly insufficient to warrant the ejection of the clause as spurious? What is the ‘Science’ worth which cannot preserve to the body a healthy limb like this?
[The instances of omission which have now been examined at some
length must by no means be regarded as the only specimens of this class of corrupt
passages For one of the two most important
omissions in the New Testament,
viz. the Pericope
de Adultera, see Appendix I. See also Appendix II. Westcott and Hort, Introduction, p. 134.
ONE of the most prolific sources of Corrupt Readings, is Transposition, or the arbitrary inversion of the order of the sacred words,—generally in the subordinate clauses of a sentence. The extent to which ‘this prevails in Codexes of the type of BאCD passes belief. It is not merely the occasional writing of ταῦτα πάντα for πάντα ταῦτα,—or ὁ λαὸς οὗτος for οὗτος ὁ λαός, to which allusion is now made: for if that were all, the phenomenon would admit of loyal explanation and excuse. But what I speak of is a systematic putting to wrong of the inspired words throughout the entire Codex; an operation which was evidently regarded in certain quarters as a lawful exercise of critical ingenuity,—perhaps was looked upon as an elegant expedient to be adopted for improving the style of the original without materially interfering with the sense.
Let me before going further lay before the reader a few specimens of Transposition.
Take for example St.
And sometimes I find short clauses added which I prefer to ascribe to the misplaced critical assiduity of ancient Critics. Confessedly spurious, these accretions to the genuine text often bear traces of pious intelligence, and occasionally of considerable ability. I do not suppose that they ‘crept in’ from the margin: but that they were inserted by men who entirely failed to realize the wrongness of what they did,—the mischievous consequences which might possibly ensue from their well-meant endeavours to improve the work of the Holy Ghost.
[Take again St. προσέγγισαι is transitive here, like ἐγγίζω in
It will be seen therefore that some cases of transposition are
of a kind which is without excuse and inadmissible. Such transposition consists
in drawing back a word which occurs further on, but is thus introduced into a new
context, and gives a new sense. It seems to be assumed that since the words are
all there, so long as they be preserved, their exact collocation is of no moment.
Transpositions of that kind, to speak plainly, are important only as affording conclusive
proof that such copies as BאD preserve a text which has undergone a sort of critical
treatment which is so obviously indefensible that the Codexes themselves, however
interesting as monuments of a primitive age,—however valuable commercially and to
be prized by learned and unlearned alike for their unique importance,—are yet to
be prized chiefly as beacon-lights preserved by a watchful Providence to warn every
voyaging bark against making shipwreck on a shore already strewn with wrecks The following are the numbers
of Transpositions supplied by B, א, and D in the Gospels:—2,098: א, 2,299: D, 3,471. See
Revision Revised, pp. 12, 13.
Transposition may sometimes be as conveniently illustrated in
English as in Greek. St. Luke relates (
It is difficult to divine for what possible reason most of these
transpositions were made. On countless occasions they do not in the least affect
the sense. Often, they are incapable of being idiomatically represented, in English.
Generally speaking, they are of no manner of importance, except as tokens of the
licence which was claimed by disciples, as I suspect, of the Alexandrian school
[or exercised unintentionally by careless or ignorant Western copyists]. But there
arise occasions when we cannot afford to be so trifled with. An important change
in the meaning of a sentence is sometimes effected by transposing its clauses;
and on one occasion, as I venture to think, the prophetic intention of the Speaker
is obscured in consequence. I allude to St.
To reason about such transpositions of words, a wearisome proceeding
at best, soon degenerates into the veriest trifling. Sometimes, the order of the
words is really
I will content myself with inviting attention to one or two samples
of my meaning. It has been made a question whether St. Luke ( Marcion (Epiph.
i. 317): Eusebius (Mai, iv. 266):
Epiphanius (i. 348): Cyril (Mai, ii. 438): John Thess. (Gall. xiii. 188).
On countless occasions doubtless, it is very difficult—perhaps
impossible—to determine, apart from external evidence, which collocation of two
or more words is the true one, whether e. g. ἔχει ζωήν for instance or
ζωὴν ἔχει St. St. St.
Obvious at the same time is it to foresee that if a man sits
down before the Gospel with the deliberate intention of improving the style of the
Evangelists by transposing their words on an average of seven (B), eight (א), or
twelve (D) times in every page, he is safe to convict himself of folly in repeated
instances, long before he has reached the end of his task. Thus, when the scribe
of א, in place of
ἐξουσίαν ἔδωκεν αὐτῷ καὶ κρίσιν ποιεῖν St. ‘Nec aliter’ (says Tischendorf)
‘Tertull.’ (Prax. 21),—‘et judicium dedit
illi facere in potestate.’ But this (begging
the learned critic’s pardon) is quite a different thing.
[This characteristic of the old uncials is now commended to the attention of students, who will find in the folios of those documents plenty of instances for examination. Most of the cases of Transposition are petty enough, whilst some, as the specimens already presented to the reader indicate, constitute blots not favourable to the general reputation of the copies on which they are found. Indeed, they are so frequent that they have grown to be a very habit, and must have propagated themselves. For it is in this secondary character rather than in any first intention, so to speak, that Transpositions, together with Omissions and Substitutions and Additions, have become to some extent independent causes of corruption. Originally produced by other forces, they have acquired a power of extension in themselves.
It is hoped that the passages already quoted may be found sufficient to exhibit the character of the large class of instances in which the pure Text of the original Autographs has been corrupted by Transposition. That it has been so corrupted, is proved by the evidence which is generally overpowering in each case. There has clearly been much intentional perversion: carelessness also and ignorance of Greek combined with inveterate inaccuracy, characteristics especially of Western corruption as may be seen in Codex D and the Old Latin versions, must have had their due share in the evil work. The result has been found in constant slurs upon the sacred pages, lessening the beauty and often perverting the sense,—a source of sorrow to the keen scholar and reverent Christian, and reiterated indignity done in wantonness or heedlessness to the pure and easy flow of the Holy Books.]
[ALL the Corruption in the Sacred Text may be classed under four heads, viz. Omission, Transposition, Substitution, and Addition. We are entirely aware that, in the arrangement adopted in this Volume for purposes of convenience, Scientific Method has been neglected. The inevitable result must be that passages are capable of being classed under more heads than one. But Logical exactness is of less practical value than a complete and suitable treatment of the corrupted passages that actually occur in the four Gospels.
It seems therefore needless to supply with a scrupulousness that
might bore our readers a disquisition upon Substitution which has not forced itself
into a place amongst Dean Burgon’s papers, although it is found in a fragmentary
plan of this part of the treatise. Substituted forms or words or phrases, such as
ΟC (ὅς) for
θ̄c̄ (Θεός) See the very learned, ingenious, and
satisfactory disquisition in The Revision Revised, pp. 424-501.
Yet the class of Substitutions is a large one, if Modifications,
as they well may be, are added
to it The numbers are:— Revision Revised, pp. 12, 13.
B,
substitutions,
935;
modifications,
1,132;
total,
2,067.
א
”
1,114;
”
1,265;
”
2,379.
D,
”
2,121;
”
1,772;
”
3,893.
[THE smallest
of the four Classes, which upon a pure survey of the outward form divide among themselves
the surface of the entire field of Corruption, is that of Additions B has 536 words added in the Gospels:
א, 839:
D, 2,213. Revision Revised, pp. 12, 13. The interpolations of D are notorious.
A few examples will set this truth in clearer light. It is remarkable
that efforts at interpolation occur most copiously amongst the books of those who
are least fitted to make them. We naturally look amongst the representatives of
the Western school where Greek was less understood than in the East where Greek
acumen was imperfectly represented by Latin activity, and where translation into
Latin and retranslation into Greek was a prolific cause of corruption. Take then
the following passage from the Codex D (St.
‘On the same day He beheld a certain man working on the sabbath, and said to him, “Man, blessed art thou if thou knowest what thou doest; but if thou knowest not, thou art cursed and a transgressor of the law.”’
And another from the Curetonian Syriac (St.
‘But seek ye from little to become greater, and not from greater to become less. When ye are invited to supper in a house, sit not down in the best place, lest some one come who is more honourable than thou, and the lord of the supper say to thee, “Go down below,” and thou be ashamed in the presence of them that have sat down. But if thou sit down in the lower place, and one who is inferior to thee come in, the lord also of the supper will say to thee, “Come near, and come up, and sit down,” and thou shalt have greater honour in the presence of them that have sat down.’
Who does not see that there is in these two passages no real ‘ring of genuineness’?
Take next some instances of lesser insertions.]
Conspicuous beyond all things in the Centurion of Capernaum (St.
St. Theoph.
p. 212. 3 An opposite fate, strange to say, has attended a short clause
in the same narrative, which however is even worse authenticated. Instead
of οὐδὲ ἐν τῷ Ἰσραὴλ τοσαύτην
πίστιν εὗρον (St.
For when our Saviour
declares ‘Not even in Israel have I found so great faith,’
He is clearly contrasting this proficiency of an earnest Gentile against whatever
of a like nature lie had experienced in His dealing with the Jewish people; and
declaring the result. He is contrasting Jacob’s descendants, the heirs of so many
lofty privileges, with this Gentile soldier: their spiritual attainments with his; and assigning the palm to him. Substitute
‘With no one in Israel have I found so great faith,’ and the contrast
disappears. Nothing else is predicated but a greater measure of faith in one man
than in any other. The author of this feeble attempt to improve upon St.
Matthew’s Gospel is found to have also tried his hand on the parallel place in
St. Luke, but with even inferior success: for there his misdirected efforts
survive only in certain copies of the Old Latin. Ambrose notices his
officiousness, remarking that it yields an intelligible sense; but that, ‘juxta Graecos,’ the place is to be
read differently (i. 1376.). It is notorious that a few copies
of the Old Latin (Augustine once (iv. 322), though he
quotes the place nearly twenty times in the usual way.) and the Egyptian versions exhibit the same depravation. Cyril
habitually employed an Evangelium which was disfigured in the same way (iii. 833, also Opp. v. 544, ed. Pusey.). But are
we out of such materials as these to set about reconstructing the text of Scripture?
[Another and that a most remarkable Addition may be found
in St. This disquisition is made up in part from the Dean’s materials.
They are (a) of Uncials א (in the first reading and as re-corrected in the seventh century) BD; (b) five Cursives (for a present of 346 may be freely made to Tischendorf); (c) ten Old Latin copies also the Aureus (Words.), some of the Vulgate (four according to Wordsworth), the Palestinian, Ethiopic, Armenian; (d) Origen (Lat. iii. 874), Hilary (733a), Cyril Alex. (Mai Nova Pp. Bibliotheca, 481), Ambrose (i. I478f). But Irenaeus (Lat. i. 386), Cyril (Zach. 800), Chrysostom (ad locum) seem to quote from St. Mark. So too, as Tischendorf admits, Amphilochius.
On the other hand we have, (a)
the chief corrector of א (ca)
ΦΣ with thirteen other Uncials and the Greek MSS. ‘In quibusdam Latinis codicibus additum est,
neque Filius: quum in Graecis, et maxime Adamantii et Pierii exemplaribus hoc non habeatur
adscriptum. Sed quia in nonnullis legitur, disserendum videtur.’ Hier.
vii. 199 a. ‘Gaudet Arius et Eunomius, quasi ignorantia magistri gloria discipulorum sit,
et dicunt:—“Non potest aequalis esse qui novit et qui ignorat.”’ Ibid. 6. In vi. 919, we may quote from St. Mark.
Theophylact (i. 133), Hesychius Presb. (Migne, lxiii. 142) Eusebius (Galland. ix. 580), Facundus Herm. (Galland. xi. 782), Athanasius (ii. 660), quote the words as from the Gospel without reference, and may therefore refer to St. Mark. Phoebadius (Galland. v. 251), though quoted against the Addition by Tischendorf, is doubtful.
On which side the balance of evidence inclines, our readers will judge. But at least they cannot surely justify the assertion made by the majority of the Revisers, that the Addition is opposed only by ‘many authorities, some ancient,’ or at any rate that this is a fair and adequate description of the evidence opposed to their decision.
An instance occurs in St.
Explanation has been already given, how the introductions to
Lections, and other Liturgical formulae, have been added by insertion to. the Text
in various places. Thus ὁ Ἰησοῦς
has often been inserted, and in some places remains wrongly
(in the opinion of Dean Burgon) in the pages of the Received Text. The three most
important additions to the Received Text occur, as Dean Burgon thought, in St.
‘GLOSSES,’ properly so called, though they
enjoy a conspicuous place in every enumeration like the present, are probably by
no means so numerous as is commonly supposed. For certainly every unauthorized accretion
to the text of Scripture is not a ‘gloss’: but only those explanatory words or clauses
which have surreptitiously insinuated themselves into the text, and of which no
more reasonable account can be rendered than that they were probably in the first
instance proposed by some ancient Critic in the way of useful comment, or necessary
explanation, or lawful expansion, or reasonable limitation of the actual utterance
of the Spirit. Thus I do not call the clause νεκροὺς ἐγείρετε
in St. See The Traditional Text, pp. 51-52.
[Glosses, or scholia,
or comments, or interpretations, are of various kinds,
but are generally confined to Additions or Substitutions, since of course we do
not omit in order to explain, and transposition of words already placed in lucid
order, such as the sacred Text may be reasonably supposed to have observed, would
confuse rather than illustrate the meaning. A clause, added in Hebrew fashion St.
Sometimes a ‘various reading’ is nothing else but a gratuitous gloss;—the unauthorized substitution of a common for an uncommon word. This phenomenon is of frequent occurrence, but only in Codexes of a remarkable type like BאCD. A few instances follow:—
1. The disciples on a certain occasion (St. iii. 3 e: 4 b and c: 442 a: 481 b. Note, that the ῥῆσις in which
the first three of these quotations occur seems to have been obtained by De la Rue
from a Catena on St. Luke in the Mazarine Library (see his Monitum, iii. i). A large
portion of it (viz. from p. 3, line 25, to p. 4, line 29) is ascribed to ‘I. Geometra
in Proverbia’ in the Catena in Luc. of Corderius, p. 217. ii. 345. ii. 242. The Latin is edissere or
dissere, cnarra or narra, both here and in xv. 15. iv. 254 a. In St. The inference is, that the translators had the same Greek word
in each place, especially considering that in the only other place where, besides
St. Since φράζειν only occurs in St. of ἐπιλύειν, St. of διερμηνεύειν, St. of διανοίγειν, St.
On the whole I have no doubt (though it is not susceptible of
proof) that
the Peshitto had, in both the places quoted above, φράσον. N.B. The Cureton and Lewis have, in St. in ” in ” The Cureton (Lewis defective) has a word often used in Syriac for
‘shew,’ ‘declare.’ [Rev. G. H. Gwilliam.]
} =
Peshitto.
”
2. Take another instance. Πυγμῇ,—the obscure
expression (Δ leaves it out) which St. Mark employs in In St. The Root means to ‘cease’; thence ‘to have leisure for a thing’: it has nothing
to do with ‘Fist.’ [Rev. G. H. Gwilliam.]
A gloss little suspected, which—not without a pang of regret—I
proceed to submit to hostile scrutiny, is the expression ‘daily’ (καθ᾽
ἡμέραν) in St. Harkl. Marg. in loc., and Adler, p. 115. Viz. a b c e ff2 l q. Ὀφείκει ψυχή, ἐν
τῷ λόγῳ τοῦ Κυρίου κατακολουθοῦσα,
τὸν σταυρὸν αὐτοῦ
καθ᾽ ἡμέραν αἴρειν, ὡς
γέγραπται· τοῦτ᾽ ἔστιν,
ἑτοίμως ἔχουσα ὑπομένειν διὰ
Χριστὸν πᾶσαν θλῖψιν καὶ
πειρασμόν, κ.τ.λ. (ii. 326 e). In the same spirit, further
on, he exhorts to constancy and patience,—τὸν ἐπὶ τοῦ
Κυρίου θάνατον
ἐν ἐπιθυμίᾳ πάντοτε πρὸ
ὀφθαλμῶν ἔχοντες, καὶ (καθὼς εἴρηται ὑπὸ τοῦ Κυρίου)
καθ᾽ ἡμέραν τὸν σταυρὸν
αἴροντες, ὅ ἐστι θάνατος (ii. 332 e). It is fair to assume that
Ephraem’s reference is to St. Ἄκουε Λουκᾶ λέγοντος,—i. 281 f. Also, int.
iii. 543. Pp. 221 (text), 222, 227. ii. 751 e, 774 e (in Es.)—the proof that
these quotations are from St. Luke; that Cyril exhibits ἀρνησάσθω instead of
ἀπαρν. (see Tischendorf’s note on St. Migne, vol. lxxxvi. pp. 256 and 257. After quoting St. This is found in his solution of XI Quaestiones, ‘ad
Algasiam,’—free translations probably from the Greek of some earlier Father. Six
lines lower down (after quoting words found nowhere in the Gospels), Jerome
proceeds:—‘Quotidie
credens in Christum tollit crucem suam, et negat seipsum.’
But the case assumes an entirely different aspect the instant
it is discovered that out of the cursive copies only eight are found to contain
καθ᾽
ἡμέραν in St. This spurious clause adorned the
lost archetype of Evann. 13, 69, 346 (Ferrar’s four); and survives in certain other Evangelia which
enjoy a similar repute,—as 1, 33, 72 (with a marginal note of distrust), 131. They are St. i. 597 c (Adorat.)—elsewhere (viz. i. 21 d: 528 c: 580 b: iv.
1058 a; v2. 83 c)
Cyril quotes the place correctly. Note, that the quotation found in Mai, iii. 226,
which Pusey edits (v. 418), in Ep. ad Hebr., is nothing else but an excerpt from
the treatise de Adorat. 528 c. In his Commentary on St. i.
949 b,—‘Quotidie (inquit Apostolus) morior propter
vestram salutem. Et Dominus, juxta antiqua exemplaria, Nisi quis tulerit crucem
suam quotidie, et sequutus fuerit me, non potest meus esse discipulus.’ —Commenting on St. Viz. Evan. 473 (2po).
Its origin is not far to seek. Chrysostom, in a certain place,
after quoting our Lord’s saying about taking up the cross and following Him, remarks that
the words ‘do not mean that we are actually to bear the wood upon our shoulders,
but to keep the prospect of death steadily before us, and like St. Paul to “die
daily” ii. 66 c, d. See above, p. 175, note 2. Proleg. p.
cxlvi. N. T. (1803), i. 368.
Sincerely regretting the necessity of parting with an expression
with which one has been so long familiar, we cannot suffer the sentimental plea
to weigh with us when the Truth of the Gospel is at stake. Certain it is that but
for Erasmus, we should never have known the
regret: for it was he that introduced καθ᾽
ἡμέραν into the Received
[The attention of the reader is particularly invited to this last paragraph. The learned Dean has been sneered at for a supposed sentimental and effeminate attachment to the Textus Receptus. He was always ready to reject words and phrases, which have not adequate support; but he denied the validity of the evidence brought against many texts by the school of Westcott and Hort, and therefore he refused to follow them in their surrender of the passages.]
Indeed, a great many ‘various readings,’ so called, are nothing
else but very ancient interpretations,—fabricated readings therefore,—of which the
value may be estimated by the fact that almost every trace of them has long since
disappeared. Such is the substitution of φεύγει
for ἀνεχώρησεν in St. Lewis here agrees with Peshitto.
Almost as reasonably in the beginning of
the same verse might Tischendorf (with א) have substituted ἀναδεικνύναι for
ἵνα ποιήσωσιν αὐτὸν,
on the plea that Cyril iv. 745.
In this way we are sometimes presented with what in effect are
new incidents. These are not unfrequently discovered to be introduced in defiance
of the reason of the case; as where (St.
Take another example. The Hebraism μετὰ σάλπιγγος
φωνῆς μεγάλης
(St. In 229 and 236. vii.
736: xi. 478. ii. 1209. 269. 577. i. 881. Ap. vi. 460. Ap. Greg. Nyss.
ii. 258. Galland. vi. 53. ii. 346. ii. 261, 324. Ap. Greg. Nyss.
iii. 429. i. 132.
Recent Editors are agreed that we are henceforth to read in St.
Many of these glosses are rank, patent, palpable. Such is the
substitution (St. The attentive student of the Gospels will recognize with
interest how gracefully the third Evangelist St. Luke (
The word ἀπέχει in St. Augustine, with his accustomed acuteness, points out that St.
Mark’s narrative shews that after the words of ‘Sleep on now and take your rest,’
our Lord must have been silent for a brief space in order to allow His disciples
a slight prolongation of the refreshment which his words had already permitted them
to enjoy. Presently, He is heard to say,—‘It is enough’—(that is, ‘Ye have now
slept and rested enough’); and adds, ‘The hour is come. Behold, the Son of Man
is betrayed into the hands of sinners.’ ‘Sed quia commemorata non est ipsa interpositio
silentii Domini, propterea coartat intellectum, ut in illis verbis alia pronuntiatio
requiratur.’—iii2. 106 a, b. The passage in question runs thus;—Καθείδετε τὸ λοιπὸν καὶ ἀναπαύεσθε.
ἀπέχει· ἦλθεν ἡ ὥρα· ἰδοὺ. κ.τ.λ..
But the Revisers’ of the second century did not perceive that
ἀπέχει is here used impersonally Those who saw this, explain the word amiss. Note the Scholion
(Anon. Vat.) in Possinus, p. 321:—ἀπέχει, τουτέστι, πεπλήρωται, τέλος ἔχει τὸ κατ᾽ ἐμέ., Last Twelve Verses, p.
226, note. I retract unreservedly what I offered on this subject in a
former work (Last Twelve Verses, &c., pp. 225, 226). I was misled by one who seldom
indeed misleads,—the learned editor of the Codex Bezae (in loco). So Peshitto. Lewis, venit hora, appropinquat finis. Harkleian,
adest consummatio, venit hora. απεχει. Vg.
sufficit. + το τελος,
13, 69, 124, 2Pe, cser, 47, 54, 56, 61,
184, 346, 348, 439. d, q, sufficit
finis et hora. f, adest finis, venit hora. c,
ff2, adest enim consummatio, et (ff2 venit)
hora. a,
consummatus est finis, advenit hora. It is certain that one
formidable source of danger to the sacred text has been its occasional
obscurity. This has resulted,—(1) sometimes in the omission of words: Δευτερόπρωτον. (2)
Sometimes in substitution, as πυγμῇ. (3)
Sometimes in the insertion of unauthorized matter: thus, τὸ τέλος, as above.
As another instance of ancient Glosses introduced to help out
the sense, the reading of St. iii. 105: iv. 913.
So also iv. 614. vi. 283. i. 307.
There is scarcely to be found, amid the incidents immediately
preceding our Saviour’s Passion, one more affecting or more exquisite than the anointing
of His feet at Bethany by Mary the sister of Lazarus, which received its unexpected
interpretation from the lips of Christ Himself. ‘Let her alone. Against the day of
My embalming hath she kept it.’ (St. viii. 392. iv. 696. Cramer’s Cat.
in loc. 1063. E.g. ver.
1. All the three officiously insert (ὁ Ἰησοῦς,
in order to prevent people from imagining that Lazarus
raised Lazarus from the dead; ver. 4, D gives the gloss, ἀπὸ Καρυώτου for
Ἰσκαρίωτης; ver. 13, spells
thus,—ὡσσανά; besides constant inaccuracies,
in which it is followed by none. א omits
nineteen words in the first thirty-two verses of the chapter, besides adding eight
and making other alterations. B is far from being accurate.
In accordance with what has been said above, for Ἄφες αὐτήν·
εἰς τὴν ἡμέραν τοῦ ἐνταφιασμοῦ μου
τετηρήκεν αὐτό (St. ‘Let her alone, that she may keep it against the day of My
burying’ (Alford). But how could she keep it after
she had poured it all out?—’Suffer her to have kept it against the day of My preparation
unto burial’ (McClellan). But ἵνα τηρήσῃ could hardly mean that: and the day of His
ἐνταφιασμός had not
yet arrived.
Our Lord,
in His great Eucharistic address to the eternal Father, thus speaks:—I
have glorified Thee on the earth. I have perfected the work which Thou Consider Consider Consider St. Lewis,
‘and the work I have perfected’: Harkleian, “because the work, &c., “because’ being obelized. The Bohairic and Ethiopic are hostile. i. 245 (= Constt. App. viii. i;
ap. Galland. iii. 199). P. 419. Mcell p.
157. i. 534. ii. 196, 238: iii. 39. v. 256: viii. 475 bis. iii. 542: iv. 954: v1. 599, 601, 614: v2. 152.—In the following
places Cyril shews himself acquainted with the other reading,—iv. 879: v1. 167,
366: vi. 124. Polyc. frg. v (ed. Jacobson). Ps.-Ignat. 328. Ap. Gall. iii. 215. P. 285. ii. 545. Pp. 510,
816, 1008. But opere
consummato, pp. 812, 815.—Jerome also once (iv. 563) has
opere completo. Ap. Gall. v.
135. P. 367. Ap. Gall. iii. 308. Ap. Aug. viii. 622. iii2. 761: viii. 640.
But the asyndeton (so characteristic of the fourth Gospel) proving
uncongenial to certain of old time, D inserted καὶ. A more popular
device was to substitute the participle
(τελειώσας) for ἐτελείωσα: whereby
our Lord is made to say that He had
glorified His Father’s Name ‘by perfecting’ or ‘completing’—‘in
that He had finished’
When some came with the message ‘Thy daughter is dead: why troublest
thou the Master further?’ the Evangelist relates that Jesus
‘as soon as He heard (εὐθέως ἀκούσας)
what was being spoken, said to the
ruler of the synagogue, Fear not: only believe.’ (St.
In this way it happened that in the earliest age the construction
of St. v. 1166. Ibid. 1165 g, 1165 a. Though the Bohairic, Gothic, Vulgate, and Ethiopic versions are disfigured in the same way, and the Lewis reads ‘is.’
It seems to have been anciently felt, in connexion with the first
miraculous draught of fishes, that St. Luke’s statement ( Theoph.
216 note: ὡς κινδυνεύειν αὐτὰ βυθισθῆναι.
I strongly suspect that the introduction of the name of ‘Pyrrhus
into Cod. Amiat. g,—at Stockholm. Stephanus De Urbibus in voc. Βέροια.
THE Corruptions of the Sacred Text which we have been hitherto considering, however diverse the causes from which they may have resulted, have yet all agreed in this: viz. that they have all been of a lawful nature. My meaning is, that apparently, at no stage of the business has there been mala fides in any quarter. We are prepared to make the utmost allowance for careless, even for licentious transcription; and we can invent excuses for the mistaken zeal, the officiousness if men prefer to call it so, which has occasionally not scrupled to adopt conjectural emendations of the Text. To be brief, so long as an honest reason is discoverable for a corrupt reading, we gladly adopt the plea. It has been shewn with sufficient clearness, I trust, in the course of the foregoing chapters, that the number of distinct causes to which various readings may reasonably be attributed is even extraordinary.
But there remains after all an alarmingly large assortment of
textual perturbations which absolutely refuse to fall under any of the heads of
classification already enumerated. They are not to be accounted for on any ordinary
principle. And this residuum of cases it is,
We are constrained to inquire, How all this can possibly have come about? Have there even been persons who made it their business of set purpose to corrupt the [sacred deposit of Holy Scripture entrusted to the Church for the perpetual illumination of all ages till the Lord should come?]
At this stage of the inquiry, we are reminded that it is even notorious that in the earliest age of all, the New Testament Scriptures were subjected to such influences. In the age which immediately succeeded the Apostolic there were heretical teachers not a few, who finding their tenets refuted by the plain Word of God bent themselves against the written Word with all their power. From seeking to evacuate its teaching, it was but a single step to seeking to falsify its testimony. Profane literature has never been exposed to such hostility. I make the remark in order also to remind the reader of one more point of [dissimilarity between the two classes of writings. The inestimable value of the New Testament entailed greater dangers, as well as secured superior safeguards. Strange, that a later age should try to discard the latter].
It is found therefore that Satan could not even wait for the
grave to close over St. John. ‘Many’ there were already who taught that Christ had not come
in the flesh. Gnosticism was in the world already. St. Paul ψευδωνύμου γνώσεως γενεαλογίαι See the fragment of Irenaeus in Euseb. H. E. i .
The ‘grievous wolves’ whose assaults St. Paul predicted as imminent,
and against which he warned the heads of the Ephesian Church
No sooner do we find ourselves out of Apostolic lines and among
monuments of the primitive age than we are made aware that the sacred text must
have been exposed at that very early period to disturbing influences which, on no
ordinary principles, can be explained. Justin Martyr, Irenaeus, Origen, Clement
of Alexandria,—among the Chiefly
the Low Latin amongst them. Tradit. Text. chap. vii. p. 137.
Let me however at the risk of repeating what has been already said dispose at once of an uneasy suspicion which is pretty sure to suggest itself to a person of intelligence after reading what goes before. If the most primitive witnesses to our hand are indeed discovered to bear false witness to the text of Scripture,—whither are we to betake ourselves for the Truth? And what security can we hope ever to enjoy that any given exhibition of the text of Scripture is the true one? Are we then to be told that in this subject-matter the maxim ‘id verius quod prius’ does not hold? that the stream instead of getting purer as we approach the fountain head, on the contrary grows more and more corrupt?
Nothing of the sort, I answer. The direct reverse is the case. Our appeal is always made to antiquity; and it is nothing else but a truism to assert that the oldest reading is also the best. A very few words will make this matter clear; because a very few words will suffice to explain a circumstance already adverted to which it is necessary to keep always before the eyes of the reader.
The characteristic note, the one distinguishing feature, of all the monstrous and palpable perversions of the text of Scripture just now under consideration is this:—that they are never vouched for by the oldest documents generally, but only by a few of them,—two, three, or more of the oldest documents being observed as a rule to yield conflicting testimony, (which in this subject-matter is in fact contradictory). In this way the oldest witnesses nearly always refute one another, and indeed dispose of one another’s evidence almost as often as that evidence is untrustworthy. And now I may resume and proceed.
I say then that it is an adequate, as well as a singularly satisfactory
explanation of the greater part of those gross depravations of Scripture which admit
of no legitimate excuse, to attribute them, however remotely, to those licentious
free-handlers of the text who are declared by their contemporaries to have falsified,
mutilated, interpolated, and in whatever other way to have corrupted the Gospel; whose blasphemous productions of necessity must once have obtained a very wide
circulation: and indeed will never want some to recommend and uphold them. What
with those who like Basilides and his followers invented a Gospel of their own:—what
with those who with the Ebionites and the Valentinians interpolated and otherwise
perverted one of the four Gospels until it suited their own purposes:—what with
those who like Marcion shamefully maimed and mutilated the inspired text:—there
must have been a large mass of corruption
Numerous as were the heresies of the first two or three centuries
of the Christian era, they almost all agreed in this;—that they involved a denial
of the eternal Godhead
The men who first systematically depraved the text of Scripture,
were as we now must know the heresiarchs Basilides (fl. 134), Valentinus (fl. 140),
and Marcion (fl. 150): three names which Origen is observed almost ’Ausus fuit et Basilides scribere
Evangelium, et suo illud nomine titulare.’— Orig. Opp. iii. 933 c: Iren. 23: Clem.
Al. 409, 426, 506, 509, 540, 545: Tertull. c. 46: Epiph. 24: Theodor. i. 4. ’Evangelium habet etiam suum, praeter haec nostra’ (De Praescript.,
ad calcem). Origen (commenting on St. ‘Licet non sint digni fide, qui fidem primam irritam fecerunt,
Marcionem loquor et Basilidem et omnes Haereticos qui vetus laniant Testamentum: tamen eos aliqua ex parte ferremus, si saltem in novo continerent manus suas;
et non auderent Christi (ut ipsi iactitant) boni Dei Filii, vel Evangelistas violare, vel
Apostolos. Nunc vero, quum et Evangelia eius dissipaverint; et Apostolorum epistolas,
non Apostolorum Christi fecerunt esse, sed proprias; miror quomodo sibi Christianorum
nomen audeant vindicare. Ut enim de caeteris Epistolis taceam, (de quibus quidquid
contrarium suo dogmati viderant, evaserunt, nonnullas integras repudiandas crediderunt);
ad Timotheum videlicet utramque, ad Hebraeos, et ad Titum, quam nunc conamur exponere.’
Hieron. Praef. ad Titum. ‘Hi vero, qui sunt a Valentino, exsistentes extra omnem timorem,
suas conscriptiones praeferentes, plura habere gloriantur, quam sint ipsa Evangelia. Siquidem in tantum processerunt audaciae, uti quod ab his non
olim conscriptum est, Veritatis Evangelium titulent.’ Iren. iii. xi. 9. See, by all means, Epiphanius, Haer. xxx. c. xiii; also
c. iii. ‘Tanta est circa Evangelia haec firmitas, ut et ipsi haeretici
testimonium reddant eis, et ex ipsis egrediens unusquisque eorum conetur suam confirmare
doctrinam. Ebionaei etenim eo Evangelio quod est secundum Matthaeum, solo utentes,
ex illo ipso convincuntur, non recte praesumentes de Domino. Marcion autem id quod
est secundum Lucam circumcidens, ex his quae adhuc servantur penes eum, blasphemus in solum existentem Deum ostenditur. Qui autem
Iesum separant a Christo, et impassibilem
perseverasse Christum, passum vero Iesum dicunt, id quod secundum
Marcum est praeferentes
Evangelium; cum amore veritatis legentes illud, corrigi possunt. Hi autem qui a
Valentino sunt, eo quod est secundum Joannem plenissime
utentes,’ &c. Iren. iii. xi. 7. Ἡρακλέων, ὁ τῆς Οὐαλεντίνου σχολῆς δοκιμώτατος. Clem.
Al. p. 595. Of Heracleon it is expressly related by Origen that he depraved the
text of the Gospel. Origen says (iv. 66) that Heracleon (regardless of the warning
in
Concerning Marcion, who is a far more conspicuous personage,
it will be necessary to speak more particularly. He has left a mark on the text
of Scripture of which traces are distinctly recognizable at the present day Celsus having objected that believers
had again and again falsified the text of the Gospel, refashioning it, in order
to meet the objections of assailants, Origen replies:
Μεταχαράξαντας δὲ τὸ εὐαγγέλιον ἄλλους οὐκ οἶδα, ἢ τοὺς ἀπὸ
Μαρκίωνος, καὶ τοὺς ἀπὸ Οὐαλεντίνου, οἶμαι δὲ καὶ τοὺς ἀπὸ Λουκάνου. τοῦτο δὲ
λεγόμενον οὐ τοῦ λόγου ἐστὶν ἔγκλημα, ἀλλὰ τῶν τολμησάντων ῥᾳδιουργῆσαι τᾳ
εὐαγγέλια. Opp. i. 411 B. De Praesc. Haer. c. 51.
Another writer of this remote time who, as I am prone to think, must have exercised sensible influence on the text of Scripture was Ammonius of Alexandria.
But Tatian beyond every other early writer of antiquity [appears to me to have caused alterations in the Sacred Text.]
It is obviously no answer to anything that has gone before to
insist that the Evangelium of Marcion (for instance), so far as it is recognizable
by the notices of it given by Epiphanius, can very rarely indeed be shewn to have
resembled any extant MS. of the Gospels. Let it be even freely granted that many
of the charges brought against it by Epiphanius with so much warmth, collapse when
closely examined and severely sifted. It is to be remembered that Marcion’s Gospel
was known to be an heretical production: one of the many creations of the Gnostic
age,—it must have been universally execrated and abhorred by faithful men. Besides
this lacerated text of St. Luke’s Gospel, there was an Ebionite recension of
The proneness of these early Heretics severally to adopt one
of the four Gospels for their own, explains why there is no consistency observable
in the corruptions they introduced into the text. It also explains the bringing
into one Gospel of things which of right clearly belong to another—as in St.
I do not propose (as will presently appear) in this way to explain any considerable number of the actual corruptions of the text: but in no other way is it possible to account for such systematic mutilations as are found in Cod. B,—such monstrous additions as are found in Cod. D,—such gross perturbations as are continually met with in one or more, but never in all, of the earliest Codexes extant, as well as in the oldest Versions and Fathers.
The plan of Tatian’s Diatessaron will account for a great deal.
He indulges in frigid glosses, as when about the wine at the feast of Cana in Galilee
he reads that the servants knew ‘because they had drawn the water’; or in tasteless
and stupid amplifications, as in the going back of the Centurion to his house. I
suspect that the τί με ἐρωτᾷς
These professors of ‘Gnosticism’ held no consistent theory. The two leading problems on which they exercised their perverse ingenuity are found to have been (1) the origin of Matter, and (2) the origin of Evil.
(1) They taught that the world’s artificer (‘the Word’) was
Himself a creature of the ‘Father Οὗτος δὲ δημιουργὸς καὶ ποιητὴς τοῦδε τοῦ παντὸς κόσμου καὶ τῶν ἐ9ν αὐτῷ . . .
ἔσται μὲν καταδεέστερος τοῦ τελείου Θεοῦ . . . ἅτε δὴ καὶ γεννητὸς ὤν, καὶ οὐκ
ἀγέννητος. Ptolemaeus, ap. Epiph.
p. 217. Heracleon saw in the nobleman of Capernaum an image of the Demiurge who,
βασιλικὸς ὠνομάσθη οἱονεὶ μικρός
τις βασιλεύς, ὑπὸ καθολικοῦ βασιλέως τεταγμένος ἐπὶ μικρὰς βασιλείας p. 373. Ὁ
Ἰωάννης . . . βουλόμενος εἰπεῖν τὴν τῶν ὅλων γένεσιν, καθ᾽ ἢν τὰ πάντα προέβαλεν
ὁ Πατήρ, ἀρχήν τινα ὑποτίθεται, τὸ πρῶτον γεννηθὲν ὑπὸ τοῦ Θεοῦ, ὃν δὴ καὶ υἱὸν
Μονογενῆ καὶ Θεὸν κέκληκεν, ἐν ᾧ τὰ πάντα ὁ Πατὴρ προέβαλε σπερματικᾶς. Ὑπὸ δὲ
τούτου φησὶ τὸν Λόγον προβεβλῆσθαι, καὶ ἐν αὐτῷ τὴν ὅλην τῶν Αἰώνων οὐσίαν, ἢν
αὐτὸς ὔστερον ἐμόρφωσεν ὁ Λόγος . . . Πάντα δι ᾽ αὐτοῦ ἐγένετο, καὶ χωρὶς
αὐτοῦ ἐγένετο οὐδὲ ἕν· πᾶσι γὰρ τοῖς μετ᾽ αὐτὸν Αἰῶσι μορφῆς καὶ γενέσεως
αἵτ.ος ὁ Λόγος ἑγένετο. Ἐν τῷ Πατρὶ καὶ ἐκ τοῦ Πατρὸς ἡ ἀρχή, καὶ ἐκ τῆς ἀρχῆς ὁ Λόγος. Καλῶς
οὖν εἶπεν· ἐν ἀρχῇ ἦν ὁ Λόγος· ἦν γὰρ ἐν τῷ Υἱῷ. Καὶ ὁ Λόγος ἦν πρὸς τόν
Θεόν· καὶ γὰρ ἡ Ἀρχή· καὶ Θεὸς ἦν ὁ Λόγοςm ἀκολούθως. Τὸ γὰρ ἐκ Θεοῦ γεννηθὲν
Θεός ἐστιν.—Ibid. p. 102. Compare the
Excerpt. Theod. ap. Clem. Al. c. vi. p. 963.
Heracleon, commenting on St. Ap. Orig. 938. 9. So Theodotus (p. 980), and so Ptolemaeus (ap. Epiph. i. 217),
and so Heracleon (ap. Orig. p. 954). Also Meletius the Semi-Arian (ap.
Epiph. 1. 882).
Of the change of οὐδὲ ἕν into οὐδέν See The Traditional Text, p. 113. Clem. Al. always has οὐδὲ ἕν (viz.
pp. 134, 156, 273, 769, 787, 803, 812, 815, 820): but when he quotes the Gnostics
(p. 838) he has οὐδέν. Cyril, while writing his treatise De Trinitate, read οὐδέν
in his copy. Eusebius, for example, has οὐδὲ ἕν, fifteen times; οὐδέν only twice,
viz. Praep. 322: Esai. 529. Opp. 74. Ap. Iren. 102. Ibid. 940. Ap. Clem. Al. 968, 973. Philosoph. 107. But not when he is refuting the tenets of the Peratae: οὐδὲ ἕν,
ὃ γέγονεν. ἐν αὐτῷ ζωή ἐστιν. ἐν αὐτῷ δέ, φησίν, ἡ Εὔα γέγονεν,
ἡ Εὔα ζωή. Ibid. p. 134. Opp. 114, 218, 1009. Cels. vi. 5: Princip. II. ix. 4: IV. i. 30: In Ἀναγκαίως φησίν, “ὃ γέγονεν, ἐν αὐτῷ ζωὴ
ἦν.” οὐ μόνον φησί, “δι᾽ αὐτοῦ τὰ πάντα ἐγένετο,” ἀλλὰ καὶ εἱ τι γέγονεν ἦν ἐν
αὐτῷ ἡ ζωή. τοῦτ᾽ ἔστιν, ὁ μονογενὴς τοῦ Θεοῦ λόγος, ἡ πάντων ἀρχή, καὶ σύστασις
ὁρατῶν τε καὶ ἀοράτων . . . αὐτὸς γὰρ ὑπάρχων ἡ κατὰ φύσιν ζωή, τὸ εἶναι καὶ ζῆν
καὶ κινεῖσθαι πολυτρόπως τοῖς οὖσι χαρίσεται. Opp. iv. 49 e. He understood the Evangelist to declare concerning the
Λόγος, that, πάντα δι᾽ αὐτοῦ ἐγένετο, καὶ
ἦν ἐν τοῖς γενομένοις ὡς ζωή. Ibid. 60 c. Οὗτοι δὲ βούλονται αὐτὸ εἶναι κτίσμα κτίσματος. φασὶ γάρ, ὅτι πάντα δι᾽
αὐτοῦ γέγονε, καὶ χωρὶς αὐτοῦ ἐγένετο οὐδὲ ἕν. ἄρα, φασὶ, καὶ τὸ Πνεῦμα ἐκ τῶν
ποιημάτων ὑπάρχει, ἐπειδὴ πάντα δι᾽ αὐτοῦ γέγονε.
Opp. 741. Which is the teaching of Eusebius, Marcell. 333-4. The Macedonians were an offshoot of the Arians. i. 778 D, 779 B. See also ii. 80. Opp. viii. 40.
But in the meantime, Valentinus, whose example was followed by Theodotus and by at least two of the Gnostic sects against whom Hippolytus wrote, had gone further, The better to conceal St. John’s purpose, the heresiarch falsified the inspired text. In the place of, ‘What was made in Him, was life,’ he substituted ‘What was made in Him, is life.’ Origen had seen copies so depraved, and judged the reading not altogether improbable. Clement, on a single occasion, even adopted it. It was the approved reading of the Old Latin versions,—a memorable indication, by the way, of a quarter from which the Old Latin derived their texts,—which explains why it is found in Cyprian, Hilary, and Augustine; and why Ambrose has so elaborately vindicated its sufficiency. It also appears in the Sahidic and in Cureton’s Syriac; but not in the Peshitto, nor in the Vulgate. [Nor in the Bohairic.] In the meantime, the only Greek Codexes which retain this singular trace of the Gnostic period at the present day, are Codexes א and D.
[We may now take some more instances to shew the effects of the operations of Heretics.]
The good Shepherd in a certain place (St. Consider Chrysostom alone seems to have noticed this:—ἵνα μὴ τῆς γνώσεως ἴσον τὸν
μέτρον νομίσῃς, ἄκουσον πῶς διορθοῦται αὐτὸ τῇ ἐπαγωγῇ· γινώσκω τὰ ἐμά,
φησι, καὶ γινώσκομαι ὑπὸ τῶν ἐμῶν. ἀλλ᾽ οὐκ ἴση ἡ γνῶσις, κ.τ.λ. viii. 352 d. P. 38. (Gall. vii. 26.) i. 298, 613. viii. 351, 352 d and e. iv. 652 c, 653 a, 654 d. i. 748: iv. 274, 550. In Dionys. Ar. 192.
But in fact it is discovered that these words of our
Lord experienced depravation
at the hands of the Manichaean Φησὶ δὲ ὁ αὐτὸς Μάνης . . . τὰ ἐμὰ πρόβατα γινώσκει μέ, καὶ γινώσκω ⌄ὰ ἐ μὰ
πρόβατα.
(Epiphan. 697.)—Again,—ἤρπασεν ὁ αἱρετικὸς πρὸς τὴν ἰδίαν κατασκευὴν
τῆς βλασφημίας. ἰδού, φησιν, εἴρηται· ὅτι γινώσκουσί (lower down, γινώσκει) με τὰ ἐμά, καὶ
γινώσκω τὰ ἐμά. (Basil ii. 188 a, b.) Ἐν τάξει τῇ οἰκείᾳ καὶ πρεπωδεστάτῃ τῶν πραγμάτων ἕκαστα τιθείς. οὐ γὰρ
ἔφη, γινώσκει με τὰ ἐμά, καὶ γινώσκω τὰ ἐμά, ἀλλ᾽ ἑαυτὸν ἐγνωκότα πρότερον
εἰσφέρει τὰ ἴδια πρόβατα, εἶθ᾽ οὔτως γνωσθήσεσθαὶ φησι παρ᾽ αὐτῶν . . . οὐχ ἡμεῖς
αὐτὸν ἐπεγνώκαμεν πρῶτοι, ἐπέγνω δὲ ἡμᾶς πρῶτον αὐτός . . . οὐχ ἡμεῖς ἡρξάμεθα
τοῦ πράγματος, ἀλλ᾽ ὁ ἐκ Θεοῦ Θεὸς μονογενής—iv. 654 d, 655 a. (Note, that this passage appears in a mutilated
form, viz. words are omitted, in
the Catena of Corderius, p. 267,—where it is wrongly assigned
to Chrysostom: an instructive instance.) In ii. 188 a:—which is the more remarkable, because Basil proceeds
exquisitely to shew (1886) that man’s ‘knowledge’ of God consists in his
keeping of God’s Commandments. ( So Jerome, iv. 484:
vii. 455. Strange, that neither Ambrose nor Augustine
should quote the place. See Revision Revised, p. 220.
§ 5.
DOCTRINAL.
The question of Matrimony was one of those on which the early
heretics freely dogmatized. Saturninus Or Saturnilus—τὸ δὲ γαμεῖν καὶ γεννᾷν ἀπὸ τοῦ Σατανᾶ φησὶν εἶναι.
p. 245, 1. 38. So Marcion, 253.
We are not surprised after this to find that those places in
the Gospel which bear on the relation between man and wife exhibit traces of perturbation.
I am not asserting that the heretics themselves depraved the text. I do but state
two plain facts: viz. (1) That whereas in the second century certain heretical
tenets on the subject of Marriage prevailed largely, and those who advocated as
well as those who opposed such teaching relied chiefly on the Gospel for their proofs: (2) It is accordingly found that not only does the phenomenon of
‘various readings’
prevail in those [The MS. breaks off here,
with references to St.
St. |
St. |
St. |
η γυναικα, | η γυναικα, | η γυναικα, |
—BD abc Orig. | —אBDΔ, abc, &c. | all allow it. |
ὅταν δὲ λέγῃ· ὅτι “πᾶς ὅστις ἀφῆκε γυναῖκα,” οὐ τοῦτό φησιν, ὥστε ἁπλῶς διασπᾶσθαι τοὺς γάμους, κ.τ.λ. Chrys. vii. 636 E.
Παραδειγματίσαι (in St. Mai, iv. 221.
It sounds so like trifling with a reader’s patience to invite
his attention to an elaborate discussion of most of the changes introduced into
the text by Tischendorf and his colleagues, that I knowingly pass over many hundreds
of instances where I am nevertheless perfectly well aware
§ 1.
ANOTHER cause why, in very early times, the Text of the Gospels underwent serious depravation, was mistaken solicitude on the part of the ancient orthodox for the purity of the Catholic faith. These persons, like certain of the moderns, Beza for example, evidently did not think it at all wrong to tamper with the inspired Text. If any expression seemed to them to have a dangerous tendency, they altered it, or transplanted it, or removed it bodily from the sacred page. About the uncritical nature of what they did, they entertained no suspicion: about the immorality of the proceeding, they evidently did not trouble themselves at all. On the contrary, the piety of the motive seems to have been held to constitute a sufficient excuse for any amount of licence. The copies which had undergone this process of castigation were even styled ‘corrected,’—and doubtless were popularly looked upon as ‘the correct copies’ [like our ‘critical texts’]. An illustration of this is afforded by a circumstance mentioned by Epiphanius.
He states (ii. 36) that the orthodox, out of jealousy for the
Lord’s.
Divinity, eliminated from St. Πρὸς τοὶς δοκήσει τὸν Χριστὸν πεφηνέναι λέγοντας.
So then, the process of ‘correction’ was a critical process conducted on utterly erroneous principles by men who knew nothing whatever about Textual Criticism. Such recensions of the Text proved simply fatal to the Deposit. To ‘correct’ was in this and such like cases simply to ‘corrupt.’
Codexes BאD may be regarded as specimens of Codexes which have once and again passed through the hands of such a corrector or διορθωτής.
St. Luke ( Τὸ δὲ παιδίον ηὔξανε, καὶ ἐκραταιοῦτο πνεύματι. It is the twenty-fourth and the
thirtieth question in the first Dialogus of pseudo-Caesarius (Gall. vi. 17, 20).
But because it is אBDL, Origen Opp. 953, 954—with suspicious emphasis.
When then, and where did the work of depravation take place?
It must have been before the sixth century, because Leontius of Cyprus Ed. Migne, vol. 93, p. 1581 a, b (Novum Auct.
i. 700). When Cyril writes (Scholia, ed. Pusey,
vol. vi. 568),—“Τὸ δὲ παιδίον ηὔξανε
καὶ ἐκραταιοῦτο ΠΝΕΥΜΑΤΙ, πληρούμενον ΣΟΦΙΑ καὶ ΧΑΡΙΤΙ.” καίτοι κατὰ
φύσιν παντέλειός ἐστιν ὡς Θεὸς καὶ ἐξ ἰδίου πληρώματος διανέμει τοῖς ἁγίοις τὰ
ΠΝΕΥΜΑΤΙΚΑ, καὶ αὐτός ἐστιν ἡ ΣΟΦΙΑ, καὶ τῆς ΧΑΡΙΤΟΣ ὁ δοτήρ,—it is clear that
πνεύματι must have stood
in Cyril’s text. The same is the reading of Cyril’s Treatise, De Incarnatione
(Mai, ii. 57): and of his Commentary on St. Luke (ibid. p. 136). One is surprised
at Tischendorf’s perverse inference concerning the last-named place. Cyril had
begun by quoting the whole of ver. ii. 152: iv. 112: v. 120, 121 (four times). Εἰ τέλειός ἐστι Θεὸς ὁ Χριστός, πῶς ὁ εὐαγγελιστὴς λέγει, τὸ δὲ παιδίον
Ἰησοῦς ηὔξανε καὶ ἐκραταιοῦτο
πνεύματι;—S. Caesarii, Dialogus I, Quaest. 24 (ap. Galland. vi. 17 c). And see Quaest. 30. ii. 36 d. Fragmenta Syriaca, ed. Sachau, p.53.—The only other Greek Fathers who quote
the place are Euthymius and Theophylact.
§ 2.
Theodotus and his followers fastened on the first part of St.
Ἢν ἤκουσα παρὰ τοῦ Θεοῦ Epiph. i. 463. Instead of παρὰ τοῦ Θεοῦ. i. 410: iv. 294, 534. Elsewhere he defends and employs it. i. 260, 463: 49. i. 705. viii. 365. (Glaph.) i. 18. iv. 83, 430. But both Origen (1. 705: iv. 320, 402) and Cyril
(iv. 554: v. 758) quote the traditional reading; and Cyril (iv. 549) distinctly
says that the latter is right, and παρὰ τοῦ πατρός wrong.
We now reach a most remarkable instance. It will be remembered
that St. John in his grand preface does not rise to the full height of his sublime
argument until he reaches the eighteenth verse. He had said ( Excerpt. Theod. 968.—Heracleon’s name is also connected by Origen
with this text. Valentinus (ap.
Iren. 100) says, ὃν δὴ καὶ υἱὸν Μονογενῆ καὶ Θεὸν
κέκληκεν.
I have gone into all these strange details,—derived, let it be
remembered, from documents which carry us back to the former half of the second
century,—because in no other way is the singular phenomenon which attends the text
of St. Pp. 627, 630, 466. P. 956. ‘Deum nemo vidit umquam: nisi
unicus filius solus, sinum patris ipse enarravit.’—(Comp. Tertullian:—‘Solus filius patrem novit et sinum patris
ipse exposuit’ (Prax. c. 8. Cp. c. 21): but he elsewhere (ibid. c. 15) exhibits
the passage in the usual way.) Clemens writes,—τότε ἐποπτεύσεις τὸν κόλπον τοῦ
Πατρός, ὃν ὁ μονογενὴς υἱὸς Θεὸς μόνος ἐξηγήσατο
(956), and in the Excerpt. Theod. we find
οὖτος τὸν κόλπον τοῦ Πατρὸς ἐξηγήσατο ὁ Σωτήρ
(969). But this is unintelligible until it is remembered that
our Lord is often spoken of by the Fathers as ἡ δεξιά τοῦ ὑψίστου . . . κόλπος δέ τῆς δεξιᾶς ὁ Πατήρ.(Greg. Nyss. 192.) Marcell. 334: Theoph. 14. Marcell. 132. Read
on to p. 134. Opp. ii. 466. Opp. iii. 23, 358. Greg. Nyss. Opp. i. 192, 663 (θεὸς πάντως ὁ μονογενής, ὁ ἐν τοῖς κόλποις
ὢν τοῦ Πατρός, οὕτως εἰπόντος τοῦ Ἰωάννου) Also ii. 432, 447,
450, 470, 506: (always ἐν
τοῖς κόλποις). Basil, Opp. iii. 12. Basil, Opp. iii. 14,
16, 117: and so Eunomius (ibid. i. 623). Contra Eunom. I have noted ninety-eight places. Cyril (iv. 104) paraphrases St. He uses it seventeen times in his Comm.on Isaiah (ii. 4,
35, 122, &c.), and actually so reads St. De Trin. 76, 140, 372:—7. P. 117.
[I have retained this valuable and suggestive passage in the
form in which the Dean left it. It evidently has not the perfection that attends
some of his papers, and would have been amplified and improved if his life had been
spared. More passages than he noticed, though limited to the ante-Chrysostom period,
are referred to in the companion volume Traditional Text, p. 113, where the references
are given.
But the most important part of the Dean’s paper is found in his
account of the origin of the expression. This inference is strongly confirmed by
the employment of it Who quoted Arius’ words:—‘Subsistit ante tempora et aeones
plenus Deus,
ungenitus, et immutabilis.’ But I cannot yet find Tischendorf’s reference. The reading Υἱός is established by unanswerable evidence.
All are familiar with the received text of The Gnostics Basilides and Valentinus were the direct precursors
of Apolonius, Photinus, Nestorius, &c., in assailing the Catholic doctrine of the
Incarnation. Their heresy must have been actively at work when St. John wrote his
first ( Ἐπιπηδῶσιν ἡμῖν οἱ αἱρετικοί λέγοντες·
ἰδοὺ οὐκ ἀνέλαβε πάρκα ὁ Χριστός· ὁ
δεύτ. γάρ φησιν ἄνθρ. ὁ κ. ἐξ οὐρανοῦ. Chrys. 114 b. Τὴν γὰρ κατὰ σάρκα γέννησιν τοῦ Χριστοῦ ἀνελεῖν βουλόμενοι, ἐνήλλαξαν τό,
ὁ δεύτερος ἄνθρωπος· καὶ ἐποίησαν, ὁ δεύτερος Κύριος.
Dial. [ap. Orig.] i. 868.—Marcion had in fact already substituted
Κύριος for ἄνθρωπος
in Tertull. 304, (Primus homo de humo terrenus, secundus
Dominus de Caelo). Dial. [Orig. i.] 868, (ὁ δεύτερος Κύριος ἐξ οὐρανοῦ).
(I) It furnished a pretext to those heretics who maintained that
Christ was ‘Man’ before He came into the
World. This heresy came to a head in the persons of Apolinarius Τὸ δὲ πάντων χαλεπώτατον ἐν ταῖς ἐκκλησιαστικαῖς συμφοραῖς, ἡ τῶν Ἀπολιναριστῶν
ἐστὶ παρρησία. Greg. Naz. 167. ii. 168,—a very interesting place. See also p. 87. i. 831. ii. 443, 531. Pp. 180, 209, 260, 289, 307 (primus homo de terrae limo,
&c.). iii. 40. iii. 114 four times: x. 394,
395. Once (xi. 374) he has ὁ δεύτ. ἄνθρ. ἐξ οὐρανοῦ. iv. 1051. Ap. Thdt. v. 1135. Ap. Galland. viii. 626, 627. i. 222 (where for ἄνθρ. he reads
Ἀδάμ), 563. Also ii. 120, 346. ’Adversus Manichaeos,’—ap. Mai, iv. 68, 69. ii. 228:—οὐχ ὅτι ὁ ἄνθρωπος, ἤτοι τὸ ἀνθρώπινον πρόσλημμα, ἐξ οὐρανοῦ ἦν,
ὡς ὁ ἄφρων Ἀπολιν8άριος ἐλήρει. Naz. ii. 87 (= Thdt. iv. 62), 168.—Nyss. ii. 11. Ap. Epiphan. i. 830. ii. 559 (with the Text. Recept.): iv.
302 not. Hippolytus may not be cited in evidence, being read both ways.
(Cp. ed. Fabr. ii. 30:—ed. Lagarde, 138. 15:—ed. Galland. ii. 483.)—Neither may the expression
τοῦ δευτέρου ἐξ οὐρανοῦ ἀνθρώπου in Pet. Alex. (ed. Routh, Rell. Sacr.
iv. 48) be safely pressed.
(II) But then, (as all must see) such a maimed exhibition of
the text was intolerable. The balance of the sentence had been destroyed. Against
ὁ πρῶτος ἄνθρωπος, St. Paul had set
ὁ δεύτερος ἄνθρωπος:
against ἐκ γῆς—ἐξ οὐρανοῦ: against
χοϊκός—ὁ
Κύριος:. Remove ὁ
Κύριος, and some substitute for it must
be invented as a counterpoise to
χοϊκός. Taking a hint from
what is found in Primus homo de terra, terrenus: secundus homo de caelo
caelestis.—i. 1168, 1363: ii. 265, 975. And so ps.-Ambr. 166, 437. ii. 298: iv. 930: vii. 296. The places are given by Sabatier in loc. Only because it is the Vulgate reading, I am persuaded, does
this reading appear in Orig. interp. ii. 84, 85: iii. 951: iv. 546. As Philastrius (ap. Galland. vii.
492, 516).—Pacianus (ib. 275).—Marius Mercator (ib. viii. 664).—Capreolus (ib.
ix. 493). But see the end of the next ensuing note. Vol. i. p. 1275,—ὁ δεύτερος ἄνθρ. ὁ Κύριος ἐξ οὐρανοῦ
οὐράνιος:—on
which he remarks, (if indeed it be he),
ἰδοὺ γὰρ ἀμφοτέρωθεν οὐράνιος ἄνθρωπος
ὀνομάζεται. And lower
down,—Κύριος, διὰ τὴν μίαν ὑπόστασιν· δεύτ. μὲν ἄνθρ., κατὰ
τὴν ἑνωμένην ἀνθρωπότητα. ἐξ οὐρανοῦ δέ, κατὰ τὴν θεότητα.—P.
448,—ὁ δεύτερος ἄνθρ. ἐξ οὐρανοῦ ἐπουράνιος.—Ap.
Montf. ii. 13 (= Galland. v. 167),—ὁ δεύτ. ἄνθρ. ἐξ οὐρανοῦ.—Note that Maximinus,
an Arian bishop, A.D. 427-8 (ap. Augustin. viii. 663) is found to have
possessed a text identical with the first of the preceding:—‘Ait ipse Paulus, Primus homo Adam de terra
terrenus, secundus homo Dominus de Caelo caelestis advenit.’
But now, let me ask,—Will any one be disposed, after a careful
survey of the premisses, to accept the verdict of Tischendorf, Tregelles and the
rest, who are for bringing the Church back to the maimed text of which I began by
giving the history and explaining the origin? Let it be noted that the one question
is,—shall ὁ Κύριος be retained in the
I have been the fuller on this place, because it affords an instructive
example of what has occasionally befallen the words of Scripture. Very seldom indeed
are we able to handle a text in this way. Only when the heretics assailed, did the
orthodox defend: whereby it came to pass that a record was preserved of how the
text was read by the ancient Father. The attentive reader will note (a) That all
the changes which we have been considering belong to the earliest age of all:—(א)
That the corrupt reading is retained by אBC and their following: the genuine text,
in the great bulk of the copies:—(c) That the first mention of the text is found
in the writings of an early heretic:—(d) That [the orthodox introduced a change
in the interests, as they fancied, of truth, but from utter misapprehension
Closely allied to the foregoing, and constantly referred to in
connexion with it by those Fathers who undertook to refute the heresy of Apolinarius,
is our Lord’s declaration to Nicodemus,—‘No man hath ascended up to heaven, but
He that came down from heaven, even the Son of Man which is in heaven’ (St. See
Revision Revised, pp. 132-5: and The Traditional Text, p. 114.
No thoughtful reader will rise from a discussion like the foregoing without inferring from the facts which have emerged in the course of it the exceeding antiquity of depravations of the inspired verity. For let me not be supposed to have asserted that the present depravation was the work of Apolinarius. Like the rest, it is probably older by at least 150 years. Apolinarius, in whose person the heresy which bears his name came to a head, did but inherit the tenets of his predecessors in error; and these had already in various ways resulted in the corruption of the deposit.
This paper is marked as having been written at Chichester in 1877, and is therefore earlier than the Dean’s later series.
The matter in hand will be conveniently illustrated by inviting
the reader’s attention to another famous place. There is a singular consent among
the Critics for eliminating from St.
The first of these clauses (ὡς καὶ Ἡλίας ἐποίησε),
which claims to be part of the inquiry of St. John and St. James, Mill rejected
as an obvious interpolation. ‘Res ipsa clamat. Proleg. 418. The text of St.
Now it may as well be declared at once that Codd. אBLΞ 1 gl
Cyrluc 2, two
MSS. of the Bohairic (d 3, d 2), the Lewis, and two cursives (71, 157) are literally
the only authority, ancient or modern, for so exhibiting the text [in all its bare
crudeness]. Against them are arrayed the whole body of MSS. uncial and cursive,
including ACD; every known lectionary; all the Latin, the Syriac (Cur. om. Clause
1), and indeed every other known version: besides seven good Greek Fathers beginning
(1) In the meantime it becomes necessary to consider the disputed clauses separately, because ancient authorities, rivalling modern critics, are unable to agree as to which they will reject, which they will retain. I begin with the second. What persuades so many critics to omit the precious words καὶ εἶπεν, Οὐκ οἴδατε οἵου πνεύματός ἐστε ὑμεῖς, is the discovery that these words are absent from many uncial MSS.,—אABC and nine others; besides, as might have been confidently anticipated from that fact, also from a fair proportion of the cursive copies. It is impossible to deny that prima facie such an amount of evidence against any words of Scripture is exceedingly weighty. Pseudo-Basil (ii. 271) is found to have read the passage in the same curt way. Cyril, on the other hand, seems to have read it differently.
And yet, the entire aspect of the case becomes changed the instant
it is perceived that this disputed clause is recognized by Clemens See the fragment (and
Potter’s note), Opp. p. 1019: also Galland. 157. First in Hippolyt., Opp. ed. Fabric.
ii. 71.
(2) The third clause (ὁ γὰρ
ὑιὸς τοῦ ἀνθρώπου οὐκ
ἦλθε ψυχὰς ἀνθρώπων
ἀπολέσαι, ἀλλὰ σῶσαι) rests on precisely the same solid evidence as the second; except
that the testimony of Clemens is no longer available,—but only because his quotation
does not extend so far. Cod. D also omits this third clause; which on
the other hand is upheld by Tertullian, Cyprian and Ambrose. Tischendorf
suggests that it has surreptitiously found its way into the text from
St. In St.
(3) We are at liberty in the meantime to note how apt an illustration is here
afforded of the amount of consensus which subsists between documents of the
oldest class. This divergence becomes most conspicuous when we direct our attention
to the grounds for omitting the foremost clause of the three, ὡς καὶ Ἠλίας
ἐποίησεν: for
here we make the notable discovery that the evidence is not only less weighty,
but also different. Codexes B and א are now forsaken by all their former allies
except LΞ and a single cursive copy. True, they are supported by the Curetonian
Syriac, the Vulgate and two copies of the Old Latin. But this time
Do any inquire, How then has all this contradiction and depravation of Codexes אABC(D) come about? I answer as follows:—
It was a favourite tenet with the Gnostic heretics that the Law
and the Gospel are at variance. In order to establish this, Marcion (in a work called
Antitheses) set passages of the New Testament against passages of the Old; from
the seeming disagreement between which his followers were taught to infer that the
Law and the Gospel cannot have proceeded from one and the same author Bp.
Kaye’s Tertullian, p. 468. ‘Agnosco iudicis severitatem. E contrario Christi in eandem animadversionem
destinantes discipulos super illum viculum Samaritarum.’ Marc. iv.
23 (see p. 221). He adds,—‘Let Marcion also confess that by the same
terribly severe judge Christ’s leniency was foretold;’ and he cites in proof Augustine (viii. 111-150, 151-182) writes a book against him.
And he discusses St. Addas Adimantus (a disciple of Manes) was the author of a work of the same kind. Augustine (viii. 606 c) says of it,—‘ubi de utroque Testamento
velut inter se contraria testimonia proferuntur versipelli dolositate, velut inde
ostendatur utrumque ab uno Deo esse non posse, sed alterum ab altero.’ Cerdon was
the first to promulgate this pestilential tenet (605 a). Then Marcion his pupil,
then Apelles, and then Patricius.
But then it is further discovered that at the same remote period
(about A.D. 130) this place of Scripture was much fastened on by the enemies
of the Gospel. The Manichaean heretics pressed believers with it Titus Bostr. adv. Manichaeos (ap.
Galland. v. 329 b), leaving others to note the correspondences between the New
and the Old Testament, proposes to handle the ‘Contrasts’: πρὸς αὐτὰς τὰς ἀντιθέσεις τῶν λογίων χωρήσωμεν.
At pp. 339 e, 340 a, b, he confirms what Tertullian says about the calling down
of fire from heaven.
Of these three clauses then, which are closely interdependent,
and as Tischendorf admits Verba ὡς καὶ Ἠ. ἐποίησε
cur quis addiderit, planum. Eidem interpolatori debentur quae verba στρ. δὲ ἐπετί. αὐτοῖς excipiunt.
Gravissimum est quod testium additamentum ὁ γὰρ υἱός,
&c. ab eadem manu derivandum est, nec per se solum pro spurio haberi potest; cohaeret
enim cum argumento tum auctoritate arctissime cum prioribus. (N. T. ed. 1869, p. 544.) Secundo iam saeculo quin in codicibus omnis
haec interpolatio circumferri consueverit, dubitari nequit. (Ibid.) The following are the references left by the Dean. I have not
had time or strength to search out those which are left unspecified in this MS.
and the last. Jerome.—Apostoli in Lege versati . . . ulcisci nituntur iniuriam,
et imitari Eliam, &c. Dominus, qui non ad iudicandum venerat, sed
ad salvandum, &c. . . . increpat eos quod non meminerint doctrinae suae et bonitatis Evangelicae, &c. (i. 857 b, c, d.) Cyprian, Synodical Epistle.—‘Filius hominis non venit animas hominum perdere,
sed salvare.’ p. 98. A.D. 253. Tatian.—Veni, inquit, animam salvam facere. (Cam. c. 12 et
10: and Anim.
c. 13.) Augustine gives a long extract from the same letter and thus quotes the words
twice,—x. 76, 482. Cp. ii. 593 a. Καὶ ὁ Κύριος πρὸς τοὺς ἀποστόλους εἰπόντας ἐν πυρὶ κολάσαι τοὺς μὴ δεξαμένους
αὐτοὺς κατὰ τὸν Ἠλίαν· Οὐκ οἴδατε φησὶ ποίου πνεύματός ἐστε.
(p. 1019.) Theodoret, iii. 1119. (ποίου.) Epiph. ii. 31. (οἵου.) Basil, ii. 271 (Eth.) quotes the whole place. Augustine.—Respondit eis Dominus, dicens eos nescire cuius spiritus
filii essent, et quod ipse liberare venisset, non perdere. viii. 139 b. Cp. iii.
(2), 194 b. Cyril Al.—Μήπω τῆς νέας κεκρατηκότες χάριτος . . .
τοῦτο εἶπον, τὸ Ἠλίαν ἀφορῶντες τὸν πυρὶ κ.τ.λ.
Cord. Cat. 263
= Cram. Cat. 81. Also iv. 1017.—By a strange slip of memory, Cyril sets down a reproof found
in St. Matthew: but this is enough to shew that he admits that some reproof finds record in the Gospel. Chrys. vii. 567 e: x. 305 d: vii. 346 a: ix. 677
c. Opus Imp. ap. Chrys. vi. 211, 219. Didymus.—Οὐκ οἴδατε οἵου
πνεύματός ἐστιν ὁ ὑιὸς
τοῦ ἀνθρώπου. De Trin. p. 188.
The endeavour to establish agreement among the witnesses by a skilful distribution
or rather dislocation of their evidence, a favourite device with the Critics, involves
a fallacy which in any other subject would be denied a place. I trust that henceforth
St.
A thoughtful person may still inquire, Can it however be explained further how it has come to pass that the evidence for omitting the first clause and the two last is so unequally divided? I answer, the disparity is due to the influence of the Lectionaries.
Let it be observed then that an ancient Ecclesiastical Lection
which used to begin either at St. Evst. 48 (Matthaei’s c): Evst. 150 (Harl. 5598). See Matthaei, N. T. 1786, vol. p. 17. [I have been unable to
discover this Lection.]
I HAVE purposely reserved for the last
the most difficult problem of all: viz. those twelve famous verses of St. John’s
Gospel (
It is a singular circumstance that at the end of eighteen centuries
two instances, and but two, should exist of a considerable portion of Scripture
left to the mercy, so to speak, of ‘Textual Criticism.’ Twelve consecutive Verses
in the second Gospel—as many consecutive Verses in the fourth—are in this predicament.
It is singular, I say, that the Providence which has watched so marvellously over
the fortunes of the, Deposit,— the Divine Wisdom
And first, the case of the pericope de adultera requires to be placed before the reader in its true bearings. For those who have hitherto discussed it are observed to have ignored certain preliminary considerations which, once clearly apprehended, are all but decisive of the point vat issue. There is a fundamental obstacle, I mean, in the way of any attempt to dislodge this portion of the sacred narrative from the context in which it stands, which they seem to have overlooked. I proceed to explain.
Sufficient prominence has never yet been given to the fact that in the present discussion the burden of proof rests entirely with those who challenge the genuineness of the Pericope under review. In other words, the question before us is not by any means,—Shall these Twelve Verses be admitted—or, Must they be refused admission—into the Sacred Text? That point has been settled long, long ago. St. John’s Twelve verses are in possession. Let those eject them who can. They are known to have occupied their present position for full seventeen hundred years. There never was a time—as far as is known—when they were not where,—and to all intents and purposes what—they now are. Is it not evident, that no merely ordinary method of proof,—no merely common argument,—will avail to dislodge Twelve such Verses as these?
‘Twelve such Verses,’ I say. For it is the extent of the subject-matter
which makes the case so formidable. We have here to do with no dubious clause, concerning
which ancient testimony is divided; no seeming gloss, which is suspected to have
overstepped its proper limits, and to have crept in as from the margin; no importation
from another Gospel; no verse of Scripture which has lost its way; no weak amplification
of the Evangelical meaning; no tasteless appendix, which encumbers the narrative
and almost condemns itself. Nothing of the sort. If it were some inconsiderable
portion of Scripture which it was proposed to get rid of by shewing that it is disallowed
by a vast amount of ancient evidence, the proceeding would be intelligible. But
I take leave to point out that a highly complex and very important incident—as related
in twelve consecutive verses of the Gospel—cannot be so dealt with. Squatters on
the waste are liable at any moment to be served with a notice of ejectment: but
the owner of a mansion surrounded by broad acres which his ancestors are known to
have owned before the Heptarchy,
It shall be presently shewn that these Twelve Verses hold their
actual place by a more extraordinary right of tenure than any other twelve verses
which can be named in the Gospel: but it would be premature to enter upon
the proof of that circumstance now. I prefer to invite the reader’s attention, next
to the actual texture of the pericope de adultera, by which name (as already explained) the last verse of
St.
The first thing which strikes me in them is that the actual narrative concerning ‘the woman taken in adultery’ is entirely contained in the last nine of these verses: being preceded by two short paragraphs of an entirely different character and complexion. Let these be first produced and studied:
‘and every man went to his own house: but Jesus went to the Mount of Olives.’ ‘And again, very early in the morning, He presented Himself in the Temple; and all the people came unto Him: and He sat down and taught them.’
Now as every one must see, the former of these two paragraphs
is unmistakably not the beginning but the end Compare Ammonius (Cord. Cat. p. 216), with evident reference to it, remarks
that our Lord’s words in
It is vain for any one to remind us that these two verses are
in the same predicament as those which follow: are as ill supported by MS. evidence
as the other ten: and must therefore share the same fate as the rest. The statement
is incorrect, to begin with; as shall presently be shewn. But, what is even better
deserving of attention, since confessedly these twelve verses are either to stand
or else to fall together, it must be candidly admitted that whatever begets a suspicion
that certain of them, at all events, must
I proceed to call attention to another inconvenient circumstance which some Critics in their eagerness have overlooked.
The reader will bear in mind that—contending, as I do, that the entire Pericope under discussion is genuine Scripture which has been forcibly wrenched away from its lawful context,—I began by examining the upper extremity, with a view to ascertaining whether it bore any traces of being a fractured edge. The result is just what might have been anticipated. The first two of the verses which it is the fashion to brand with ignominy were found to carry on their front clear evidence that they are genuine Scripture. How then about the other extremity?
Note, that in the oracular Codexes B and א immediate transition
is made from the words out of Galilee ariseth no prophet,’ in
But the thing is incredible. Look back at what is contained
between So Eusebius Ὅτε κατὰ τὸ αὐτὸ συναχθέντες οἱ τῶν Ἰουδαίων ἔθνους
ἄρχοντες ἐπὶ τῆς Ἱερουσαλήμ, συνέδριον ἐποιήσαντο καὶ σκέψιν ὅπως αὐτὸν
ἀπολέσωσιν· ἐν ᾦ οἱ μὲν θάνατον αὐτοῦ κατεψηφίσαντο· ἕτεροι δὲ ἀντέλεγον, ὡς
ὁ Νικόδημος, κ.τ.λ.
(in Psalmos, p. 230 a).
But on the contrary, survey the context in any ordinary copy
of the New Testament, and his meaning is perfectly clear. The last great day of
the Feast of Tabernacles is ended. It is the morrow and ‘very early in the morning.’
The Holy One has ‘again presented Himself in the Temple’ where on the previous night
He so narrowly escaped violence at the hands of His enemies, and He teaches the
people. While thus engaged,—the time, the place, His own occupation suggesting thoughts
of peace and holiness and love,—a rabble rout, headed by the Scribes and Pharisees,
enter on the foulest of errands; and we all remember with how little success. Such
an interruption need not have occupied much time. The Woman’s accusers having departed,
our Saviour resumes His discourse which
had been broken off. ‘Again therefore’ it is said in Westcott and Hort’s prefatory matter (1870) to their revised Text of the New
Testament, p. xxvii.
But even that is not all. On close and careful inspection, the mysterious texture of the narrative, no less than its ‘edifying and eminently Christian’ character, vindicates for the Pericope de adultera a right to its place in the Gospel. Let me endeavour to explain what seems to be its spiritual significancy: in other words, to interpret the transaction.
The Scribes and Pharisees bring a woman to our Saviour on a charge
of adultery. The sin prevailed to such an extent among the Jews that the Divine
enactments concerning one so accused had long since fallen into practical oblivion.
On the present occasion our Lord
is observed to revive His own ancient ordinance after a hitherto
unheard of fashion. The trial by the bitter water, or water of conviction So in the LXX. See
Let the provisions of the law, contained in
And now, who sees not that the Holy One dealt with His hypocritical
assailants, as if they had been the accused parties? Into the presence of incarnate
Jehovah verily they had been brought: and perhaps when He stooped down and wrote upon the ground, it was a bitter sentence
against the adulterer and adulteress which He wrote. We have but to assume some
connexion between the curse which He thus traced in the dust of the floor of the
tabernacle’ and the words which He uttered with His lips, and He may with truth
be declared to have ‘taken of the dust and put in on the water,’ and ‘caused them
to drink of the bitter water which causeth the curse.’ For when, by His Holy Spirit,
our great High Priest in His human flesh addressed these adulterers,—what did He
but present them with living water
Whatever may be thought of the foregoing exposition—and I am
not concerned to defend it in every detail,—on
To come now to particulars, we may readily see from its very
texture that it must needs have been woven in a heavenly loom. Only too obvious
is the remark that the very subject-matter of the chief transaction recorded in
these twelve verses, would be sufficient in and by itself to preclude the suspicion
that these twelve verses are a spurious addition to the genuine Gospel. And then
we note how entirely in St. John’s manner is the little explanatory clause in Compare Consider Westcott and Hort, ibid. pp. xxvii, xxvi.
But it is time to turn from such considerations as the foregoing,
and to inquire for the direct testimony, which is assumed by recent Editors and
Critics to be fatal to these twelve verses. Tischendorf pronounces it ‘absolutely certain that this narrative
was not written by St. John Novum Testamentum, 1869, p. 829. Plain Introduction, 1894, ii. 364. Printed Texts, 1854, p. 241. Developed Criticism, p. 82. Outlines, &c.,
p. 103. Nicholson’s Gospel according to the Hebrews, p. 141. Scrivener, ut supra, ii. 368.
To begin then. Tischendorf—(who may be taken as a fair sample of the assailants of this passage)—commences by stating roundly that the Pericope is omitted by אABCLTXΔ, and about seventy cursives. I will say at once, that no sincere inquirer after truth could so state the evidence. It is in fact not a true statement. A and C are hereabout defective. No longer possible therefore is it to know with certainty what they either did, or did not, contain. But this is not merely all. I proceed to offer a few words concerning Cod. A.
Woide, the learned and accurate I insert this epithet on sufficient authority. Mr. Edw. A. Guy,
an intelligent young American,—himself a very accurate observer and a competent
judge,—collated a considerable part of Cod. A in 1875, and assured me that he scarcely
ever found any discrepancy between the Codex and Woide’s reprint. One instance of
italicism was in fact all that had been overlooked in the course of many
pages. It is inaccurate also.
His five lines contain eight mistakes. Praefat. p. xxx, § 86.
Two leaves of Cod. A have been here lost: viz. from the word
καταβαίνων in
As for L and Δ, they exhibit a vacant space after St.
But I shall be reminded that about seventy MSS. of later date are without the pericope de adultera: that the first Greek Father who quotes the pericope is Euthymius in the twelfth century: that Tertullian, Origen, Chrysostom, Cyril, Nonnus, Cosmas, Theophylact, knew nothing of it: and that it is not contained in the Syriac, the Gothic, or the Egyptian versions. Concerning every one of which statements I remark over again that no sincere lover of Truth, supposing him to understand the matter about which he is disputing, could so exhibit the evidence for this particular problem. First, because so to state it is to misrepresent the entire case. Next, because some of the articles of indictment are only half true:—in fact are untrue. But chiefly, because in the foregoing enumeration certain considerations are actually suppressed which, had they been fairly stated, would have been found to reverse the issue. Let me now be permitted to conduct this inquiry in my own way.
The first thing to be done is to enable the reader clearly to
understand what the problem before him actually is. Twelve verses then, which, as
a matter of fact, are found dovetailed into a certain context of St. John’s Gospel,
the Critics insist must now be dislodged. But do the Critics in question prove that
they must? For unless they do, there is no help for it but the pericope de adultera must be
Now I begin by establishing as my firtt proposition that,
(1) These twelve verses occupied precisely the same position which they now occupy from the earliest period to which evidence concerning the Gospels reaches.
And this, because it is a mere matter of fact, is sufficiently
established by reference to the ancient Latin version of St. John’s Gospel. We are
thus carried back to the second century of our era: beyond which, testimony does
not reach. The pericope is observed to stand in situ in Codd. b c e ff2 g h j. Jerome (A.D. 385), after a careful survey of older Greek
copies, did not hesitate to retain it in the Vulgate. It is freely referred to and
commented on by himself ii. 630, addressing Rufinns, A.D. 403. Also ii. 748-9. i. 291, 692, 707, 1367: ii. 668, 894, 1082:
iii. 892-3, 896-7. i. 30: ii. 527, 529-30: iii1. 774: iii2. 158,
183, 531-2
(where he quotes the place largely and comments upon it): iv. 149, 466 (largely
quoted), 1120: v. 80, 1230 (largely quoted in both places): vi. 407, 413 viii.
377, 574. Pacian (A.D. 372) refers the Novatians to
the narrative as something which all men knew. ‘Nolite in
Evangelio legere quod pepercerit Dominus etiam adulterae confitenti, quam nemo
damnarat?’ Pacianus, Op. Epist. iii. Contr.
Novat. (A.D. 372). Ap. Galland. vii. 267. Ap. Augustin. viii. 463. In his translation of Eusebius. Nicholson, p. 53. Chrysologus, A.D. 433, Abp. of Ravenna. Venet. 1742. Ile mystically explains
the entire incident. Serm. cxv. § 5. Sedulius (A.D. 435) makes it the subject of a poem, and devotes a whole chapter
to it. Ap. Galland. ix. 553 and 590. ’Promiss.’ De Promissionibus dimid. temp. (saec. iv). Quotes viii. 4, 5,
9. P. 2, c. 22, col. 147 b. Ignot. Auct., De Vocatione omnium Gentium (circa,
A.D. 440), ap. Opp. Prosper. Aquit. (1782), i. p. 460-1:—‘Adulteram ex legis
constitutione lapidandam . . . liberavit . . . cum executores praecepti de conscientiis
territi, trementem ream sub illius iudicio reliquissent. . . . Et inclinatus,
id est ad humana dimissus . . . “digito scribebat in terram,” ut legem mandatorum
per gratiae decreta vacuaret,’ &c. Wrongly ascribed to Idacius. Gelasius P. A.D. 492. Conc. iv. 1235. Quotes viii. 3, 7,
10, 11. Cassiodorus, A.D. 514. Venet. 1729. Quotes viii. 11. See ii. p. 96, 3, 5-180. Dialogues, xiv. 15.
To this it is idle to object that the authors cited all wrote
in Latin. For the purpose in hand their evidence is every bit as conclusive as if
they had written in Greek,—from which language no one doubts that they derived
Once more. The Ethiopic version (fifth century),—the Palestinian Syriac (which is referred to the fifth century),—the Georgian (probably fifth or sixth century),—to say nothing of the Slavonic, Arabic and Persian versions, which are of later date,—all contain the portion of narrative in dispute. The Armenian version also (fourth–fifth century) originally contained it; though it survives at present in only a few copies. Add that it is found in Cod. D, and it will be seen that in all parts of ancient Christendom this portion of Scripture was familiarly known in early times.
But even this is not all. Jerome, who
was familiar with Greek MSS. (and who handled none
of later date than B and א), expressly relates (380) that the
pericope de adultera
‘is found in many copies both Greek and Latin ii. 748:—In evangelio secundum Ioannem in multis et Graecis et Latinis codicibus invenitur
de adultera muliere, quae accusata est apud Dominum. ἑνὸς ἑκάστου αὐτῶν τὰς ἁμαρτίας. Ev. 95,
40, 48, 64, 73, 100, 122,
127, 142, 234,
264, 267, 274, 433, 115, 121, 604, 736.
It must be admitted then that as far back as testimony reaches
the passage under discussion stood where it now stands in St. John’s Gospel. And
this is my first position. But indeed, to be candid, hardly any one has seriously
called that fact in question. No, nor do any (except Dr. Hort Appendix, p. 88.
It clearly follows,—indeed it may be said with truth that it only remains,—to inquire what may have led to its so frequent exclusion from the sacred Text? For really the difficulty has already resolved itself into that.
And on this head, it is idle to affect perplexity. In the earliest
age of all,—the age which was familiar with the universal decay of heathen virtue,
but which had not yet witnessed the power of the Gospel to fashion society afresh,
and to build up domestic life on a new and more enduring basis;—at a time when
the greatest laxity of morals prevailed, and the enemies of the Gospel were known
to be on the look out for grounds of cavil against Christianity and its Author;—what
wonder if some were found to remove the pericope de adultera
from their copies, lest it should be pleaded in extenuation
of breaches of the seventh commandment? The very subject-matter, I say, of St. vi. 407:—Sed hoc videlicet infidelium sensus exhorret, ita
ut nonnulli modicae fidei vel potius inimici verae fidei, (credo metuentes peccandi
impunitatem dari mulieribus suis), illud quod de adulterae indulgentia Dominus fecit,
auferrent de codicibus suis: quasi permissionem peccandi tribuerit qui dixit, ‘Iam deinceps noli
peccare;’ aut ideo non debuerit mulier a medico Deo illius peccati
remissione sanari, ne offenderentur insani. De coniug. adult. ii. cap. 7. i. 707:—Fortasse non mediocrem scrupulum movere potuit imperitis Evangelii lectio, quae
decursa est, in quo advertistis adulteram Christo oblatam, eamque sine damnatione
dimissam. Nam profecto si quis ea auribus accipiat otiosis, incentivum erroris incurrit,
cum leget quod Deus censuerit adulterium non esse damnandum. Epist. 58. Quid scribebat? nisi illud Propheticum ( Constt. App. (
The Church in the meantime for an obvious reason had made choice
of St.
We may now proceed to the consideration of my second proposition, which is
(2) That by the very construction of her Lectionary, the Church in her corporate capacity and official character has solemnly recognized the narrative in question as an integral part of St. John’s Gospel, and as standing in its traditional place, from an exceedingly remote time.
Take into your hands at random the first MS. copy of St. John’s Gospel which presents itself, and turn to the place in question. Nay, I will instance all the four Evangelia which I call mine,—all the seventeen which belong to Lord Zouch,—all the thirty-nine which Baroness Burdett-Coutts imported from Epirus in 1870-2. Now all these copies—(and nearly each of them represents a different line of ancestry)—are found to contain the verses in question. How did the verses ever get there?
But the most extraordinary circumstance of the case is behind.
Some out of the Evangelia referred to are observed to have been prepared for ecclesiastical
use: in other words, are so rubricated throughout as to shew where. every separate
lection had its ‘beginning’ (ἀρχή), and where its ‘end’
(τέλος). And some of these lections
are made up of disjointed portions of the Gospel. Thus, the lection for Whitsunday
is found to have extended from
But first,—How is it that those who would reject the narrative
are not struck by the essential foolishness of supposing that twelve fabricated
verses, purporting to be an integral part of the fourth Gospel, can have so firmly
established themselves in every part of Christendom from the second century downwards,
that they have long since become simply ineradicable? Did the Church then,
pro hac vice, abdicate her function
of ‘being a witness and a keeper of Holy Writ’? Was she all of a sudden forsaken
by the inspiring Spirit, who, as she was promised, should
‘guide her into all Truth’? And
has she been all down the ages guided into the grievous error of imputing to the
disciple whom Jesus loved a narrative of which he knew nothing? For, as I remarked at
the outset, this is not merely an assimilated expression, or an unauthorized nominative,
or a weakly-supported clause, or any such trifling thing. Although be it remarked
in passing, I am not aware of a single such trifling excrescence which we are not
able at once to detect and to remove. In other words, this is not at all a question,
like the rest, about the genuine text of a passage. Our inquiry is of an essentially
different kind, viz. Are these twelve consecutive verses Scripture at all, or not? Divine or human?
Which?
Above all,—(the reader is entreated to give the subject his sustained
attention),—Is it not perceived that the admission involved in the hypothesis before
us is fatal to any rational pretence that the passage is of spurious origin? We
have got back in thought at least to the third or fourth century of our era. We
are among the Fathers and Doctors of the Eastern Church in conference assembled: and they are determining what shall be the Gospel for the great Festival of Pentecost.
‘It shall begin’ (say they) ‘at the thirty-seventh verse of St.
And no one may regard it as a suspicious circumstance that the
present Pentecostal lection has been thus maimed and mutilated in respect of twelve
of its verses. There is nothing at all extraordinary in the treatment which St.
Two precious verses (viz. The lection for the preceding Sabbath (viz. St. On the ensuing Thursday, St. Luke xxiii was handled in a
similar style: viz. On the first Sabbath after Pentecost (All Saints’), the lesson
consisted of St. On the fifteenth Sabbath after Pentecost, the lesson was St.
On the sixteenth Sabbath after Pentecost, the lesson was St.
On the sixth Sabbath of St. Luke,—the lesson was
Permit me to suppose that, between the Treasury and Whitehall,
the remote descendant of some Saxon thane occupied a small tenement and garden which
stood in the very middle of the ample highway. Suppose further, the property thereabouts
being Government property, that the road on either side of this estate had been
measured a hundred times, and jealously watched, ever since Westminster became Westminster.
Well, an act of Parliament might no doubt compel the supposed proprietor of this
singular estate to surrender his patrimony; but I submit that no government lawyer
would ever think of setting up the plea that the owner of that peculiar strip of
land was an impostor. The man might have no title-deeds to
In this way then it is that the testimony borne to these verses by the Lectionary of the East proves to be of the most opportune and convincing character. The careful provision made for passing by the twelve verses in dispute:—the minute directions which fence those twelve verses off on this side and on that, directions issued we may be sure by the highest Ecclesiastical authority, because recognized in every part of the ancient Church,—not only establish them effectually in their rightful place, but (what is at least of equal importance) fully explain the adverse phenomena which are ostentatiously paraded by adverse critics; and which, until the clue has been supplied, are calculated to mislead the judgement.
For now, for the first time, it becomes abundantly plain why
Chrysostom and Cyril, in publicly commenting on St. John’s Gospel, pass straight
from
The proposed inference from the silence of certain of the Fathers is therefore invalid. The argument e silentio—always an insecure argument,—proves inapplicable in this particular case. When the antecedent facts have been once explained, all the subsequent phenomena become intelligible. But a more effectual and satisfactory reply to the difficulty occasioned by the general silence of the Fathers, remains to be offered.
There underlies the appeal to Patristic authority an opinion,—not
expressed indeed, yet consciously entertained by us all,—which in fact gives the
appeal all its weight and cogency, and which must now by all means be brought to
the front. The fact that the Fathers of the Church were not only her Doctors and
Teachers, but also the living voices by which alone her mind could be proclaimed
to the world, and by which her decrees used to be authoritatively promulgated;—this
fact, I say, it is which makes their words, whenever they deliver themselves, so
very important: their approval, if they approve, so weighty; their condemnation,
if they condemn, so fatal. But then, in the present instance, they do not condemn.
They neither approve nor condemn. They simply say nothing. They are silent: and
in what precedes, I have explained the reason why. We wish it had been otherwise.
We would give a great deal to persuade those ancient oracles to speak on the subject
of these twelve verses: but they
To proceed however with what I was about to say.
It is the authoritative sentence of the Church then on this difficult subject that we desiderate. We resorted to the Fathers for that: intending to regard any quotations of theirs, however brief, as their practical endorsement of all the twelve verses: to infer from their general recognition of the passage, that the Church in her collective capacity accepted it likewise. As I have shewn, the Fathers decline, almost to a man, to return any answer. But,—Are we then without the Church’s authoritative guidance on this subject? For this, I repeat, is the only thing of which we are in search. It was only in order to get at this that we adopted the laborious expedient of watching for the casual utterances of any of the giants of old time. Are we, I say, left without the Church’s opinion?
Not so, I answer. The reverse is the truth. The great Eastern
Church speaks out on this subject in a voice of thunder. In all her Patriarchates,
as far back as the written records of her practice reach,—and they reach back to
the time of those very Fathers whose silence we felt to be embarrassing,—the Eastern
Church has selected nine out of these twelve verses to be the special lesson for
And let me not be told that I am hereby setting up the Lectionary
as the true standard of appeal for the Text of the New Testament: still less let
me be suspected of charging on the collective body of the faithful whatever irregularities
are discoverable in the Codexes which were employed for the public reading of Scripture.
Such a suspicion could only be entertained by one who has hitherto failed to apprehend
the precise point just now under consideration. We are not examining the text of
St.
Now when to this has been added what is implied in the rubrical direction that a ceremonious respect should be shewn to the Festival of Pentecost by dropping the twelve verses, I submit that I have fully established my second position, viz. That by the very construction of her Lectionary the Church in her corporate capacity and official character has solemnly recognized the narrative in question, as an integral part of St. John’s Gospel, and as standing in its traditional place, from an exceedingly remote time.
For,—(I entreat the candid reader’s sustained attention),—the circumstances of the present problem altogether refuse to accommodate themselves to any hypothesis of a spurious original for these verses; as I proceed to shew.
Repair in thought to any collection of MSS. you please; suppose
to the British Museum. Request to be shewn their seventy-three copies of St. John’s
Gospel, and turn to the close of his seventh chapter. At that particular place you
will find, in sixty-one of these copies, these twelve verses: and in thirty-five
of them you will discover, after the words Προφήτης ἐκ τῆς Γαλιλαίας οὐκ ἐγ.
a rubrical note to the effect that ‘on Whitsunday, these twelve verses are
to be dropped; and the reader is to go on at
(3) But further. How is it proposed to explain why one of St. John’s after-thoughts should have fared
so badly at the Church’s hands;—another, so well? I find it suggested that
perhaps the subject-matter may sufficiently account for all that has happened
to the pericope de adultera: And so it may, no doubt. But then, once admit
this, and the hypothesis under consideration
becomes simply nugatory: fails even to touch the difficulty which it professes to remove. For if men
were capable of thinking scorn of these twelve verses when they found them in
the ‘second and improved edition of St. John’s Gospel,’ why may they not have
been just as irreverent in respect of the same verses, when they appeared in
the first edition? How is
it one whit more probable that every Greek Father for a thousand years should
have systematically overlooked the twelve verses in dispute when they appeared
in the second edition of St. John’s Gospel, than that the same Fathers should
have done the same thing when they appeared in the first ‘This celebrated paragraph
. . . was probably not contained in the first edition of St. John’s Gospel but added
at the time when his last chapter was annexed to what had once been the close of
his narrative,—xx. 30, 31.’ Scrivener’s Introduction to Cod. D, p. 50.
(4) But the hypothesis is gratuitous and nugatory: for it has been invented
in order to account for the phenomenon that whereas twelve verses of St. John’s
Gospel are found in the large majority of the later Copies,—the
What chiefly offends me however in this extraordinary suggestion is its irreverence. It assumes that the Gospel according to St. John was composed like any ordinary modern book: capable therefore of being improved in the second edition, by recension, addition, omission, retractation, or what not. For we may not presume to limit the changes effected in a second edition. And yet the true Author of the Gospel is confessedly God the Holy Ghost: and I know of no reason for supposing that His works are imperfect when they proceed forth from His Hands.
The cogency of what precedes has in fact weighed so powerfully
with thoughtful and learned Divines that they have felt themselves constrained,
as their last resource, to cast about for some hypothesis which shall at once account
for the absence of these verses from so many copies of St. John’s Gospel, and yet
retain them for their rightful owner and author,—St. John. Singular to relate, the
assumption which has best approved itself to their judgement has been, that there
must have existed two editions of St. John’s Gospel,—the earlier edition without,
the later edition with, the incident under discussion. It is
1. But this is unreasonable: for nothing else but the absence of St.
2. So, concerning St. In an unpublished paper. It is omitted in some MSS. of the Peshitto.
(5) Assuming, however, just for a moment the hypothesis correct
for argument’s sake, viz. that in the second edition of St. John’s Gospel the history
of the woman taken in adultery appeared for the first time. Invite the authors of
that hypothesis to consider what follows. The discovery that five out of six
of the oldest uncials extant (to reckon here the fragment T) are without the
verses in question; which
[The MS. here leaves off, except that a few pencilled words are added in an incomplete form. I have been afraid to finish so clever and characteristic an essay.]
SOME of the most courteous of our critics, in reviewing the companion volume to this, have expressed regret that we have not grappled more closely than we have done with Dr. Hort’s theory. I have already expressed our reasons. Our object has been to describe and establish what we conceive to be the true principles of Sacred Textual Science. We are concerned only in a secondary degree with opposing principles. Where they have come in our way, we have endeavoured to remove them. But it has not entered within our design to pursue them into their fastnesses and domiciles. Nevertheless, in compliance with a request which is both proper and candid, I will do what I can to examine with all the equity that I can command an essential part of Dr. Hort’s system, which appears to exercise great influence with his followers.
§ 1.
CONFLATION.
Dr. Hort’s theory of ‘Conflation’ may be discovered on pp. 93-107.
The want of an index to his Introduction, notwithstanding his ample ‘Contents,’
makes it difficult to collect illustrations of his meaning from the rest of his
treatise. Nevertheless, the effect of Conflation appears to Dr. Hort has represented Neutral readings by α, Western by β,
as far as I can understand, ‘other’ by γ, and ‘Syrian’ (= Traditional) by
δ. But he nowhere gives an example of γ.
Perhaps I may present Dr. Hort’s theory under the form of a diagram:—
Our theory is the converse in main features to this. We utterly
repudiate the term Syrian’ as being a most inadequate and untrue title for the Text
adopted and maintained by the Catholic Church with all her intelligence and learning,
during nearly fifteen centuries according to Dr. Hort’s admission: and we claim
from the evidence that the Traditional Text of the Gospels, under the true name,
is that which came fresh from the pens of the Evangelists; and that all variations
from it, however they have been entitled, are nothing else than corrupt forms of
It should be added, that w, x, y, z, &c., denote forms of corruption. We do not recognize the ‘Neutral’ at all, believing it to be a Caesarean combination or recension, made from previous texts or readings of a corrupt character.
The question is, which is the true theory, Dr. Hort’s or ours?
The general points that strike us with reference to Dr. Flores theory are:—
(1) That it is very vague and indeterminate in nature. Given three things, of which X includes what is in Y and Z, upon the face of the theory either X may have arisen by synthesis from Y and Z, or X and Z may owe their origin by analysis to X.
(2) Upon examination it is found that Dr. Hort’s arguments for the posteriority of D are mainly of an internal character, and are loose and imaginative, depending largely upon personal or literary predilections.
(3) That it is exceedingly improbable that the Church of the fourth and fifth
centuries, which in a most able period had been occupied with discussions on
verbal accuracy, should have made the gross mistake of adopting (what was then)
a modern concoction from the original
But we must draw nearer to Dr. Hort’s argument.
He founds it upon a detailed examination of eight passages, viz.
St.
1. Remark that eight is a round and divisible number. Did the
author decide upon it with a view of presenting two specimens from each Gospel?
To be sure, he gives four from the first two, and four from the two last, only that
he confines the batches severally to St. Mark and St. Luke. Did the strong style
of St. Matthew, with distinct meaning in every word, yield no suitable example for
treatment? Could no passage be found in St. John’s Gospel, where not without parallel,
but to a remarkable degree, extreme simplicity of language, even expressed in alternative
clauses, clothes soaring thought and philosophical acuteness? True, that he quotes
St.
2. But we must advance a step further.
Dean Burgon as we have seen has calculated the differences between Introduction, p. 103.
3. But we must go on towards the heart of the question. And first to examine Dr. Hort’s eight instances. Unfortunately, the early patristic evidence on these verses is scanty. We have little evidence of a direct character to light up the dark sea of conjecture.
(1) St. Mark (
Now for Dr. Hort. He observes that one clause (καὶ προῆλθον αὐτούς) is attested by
Bא and their followers; another (καὶ συνῆλθον αὐτοῦ,
or ἦλθον αὐτοῦ,
which is very different from the ‘Syrian’ συνῆλθον πρὸς αὐτόν) by some Western documents;
and he argues that the entire form
Accordingly, Dr. Hort’s conclusion must be reversed. ‘The
balance of Internal Evidence of Readings, alike from Transcriptional and from
Intrinsic Probability, is decidedly’
not ‘in favour of δ from α and β,’
but ‘of α and β from δ.’ The reading of the Traditional Text is the superior both as regards the meaning,
and as to the probability of its
(2) ‘To examine other passages equally in detail would occupy too much space.’ So says Dr. Hort: but we must examine points that require attention.
St.
But what says Dr. Hort? ‘Here a
is simple and vigorous, and it is unique in the New Testament: the peculiar Μηδὲ has the terse force of many sayings as given by St. Mark, but
the softening into Μή by א* shews
that it might trouble scribes.’ It is surely not necessary to controvert this. It
may be said however that a is bald as well as simple, and that the very difficulty
in β makes it probable that that clause was
not invented. To take τινὶ ἐν τῇ κώμῃ Hebraistically
for τινὶ τῶν ἐν τῇ κώμῃ
like the Cp. St.
(3) St.
Here the authority for α is אBCLΔ, four Cursives, f, Bohairic, Peshitto, Ethiopic, and the Lewis MS. For β there are D, two Cursives, all the Old Latin but f and the Vulgate. For the Traditional Text, i.e. the whole passage, ΑΦΣΝ + eleven Uncials, all the Cursives but six, the Harkleian (yet obelizes α) and Gothic versions, Basil (ii. 252), Victor of Antioch (Cramer, Cat. i. 365), Theophylact (i. 219): and Augustine quotes separately both omissions (α ix. 533, and β III. ii. 153). No other Fathers, so far as I can find, quote the passage.
Dr. Hort appears to advance no special arguments on his side, relying apparently upon the obvious repetition. In the first part of the verse, St. John describes the case of the man: in the second he reports for our Lord’s judgement the grounds of the prohibition which the Apostles gave him. Is it so certain that the original text of the passage contained only the description, and omitted the reason of the prohibition as it was given to the non-follower of our Lord? To me it seems that the simplicity of St. Mark’s style is best preserved by the inclusion of both. The Apostles did not curtly forbid the man: they treated him with reasonableness, and in the same spirit St. John reported to his Master all that occurred. Besides this, the evidence on the Traditional side is too strong to admit of it not being the genuine reading.
(4) St.
α. אBLΔ, fifteen Cursives, some MSS. of the Bohairic, some of the Armenian, and the Lewis.
β. D, six copies of the Old Latin, three MSS. of the Vulgate. Chromatius of Aquileia (Galland. viii. 338).
Trad. Text. ΑCΦΣΝ and twelve more Uncials, all Cursives except fifteen, two Old Latin, Vulgate, Peshitto, Harkleian, some MSS. of Ethiopic and Armenian, Gothic, Victor of Antioch (Cramer’s Cat. i. 368), Theophylact (i. 221).
This evidence must surely be conclusive of the genuineness of the Traditional reading. But now for Dr. Hort.
‘A reminiscence of
(5) St.
α. Into a city called Bethsaida (εἰς πόλιν καλουμένην Β.).
β. Into a desert place (εἰς τόπον ἔρημον), or Into a desert place called Bethsaida, or of Bethsaida.’
Trad. Text. Into a desert place belonging to a city called Bethsaida.’
The evidence for these readings respectively is—
α. BLXΞ, with one correction of א (Ca), one Cursive, the Bohairic and Sahidic. D reads κώμην.
β. The first and later readings (Cb) of four Cursives?, Curetonian, some variant Old Latin (β2), Peshitto also variant (β3).
Trad. Text. A (with ἔρημον τόπον) C + twelve Uncials, all Cursives except three or five, Harkleian, Lewis (omits ἔρημον), Ethiopic, Armenian, Gothic, with Theophylact (i. 332).
Remark the curious character of α and β. In Dr. Hort’s Neutral Text, which he maintains to have been the original text of the Gospels, our Lord is represented here as having withdrawn in private (κατ᾽ ἰδίαν, which the Revisers shirking the difficulty translate inaccurately ‘apart’) into the city called Bethsaida. How could there have been privacy of life in a city in those days? In fact, κατ᾽ ἰδίαν necessitates the adoption of τόπον ἔρημον, as to which the Peshitto (β3) is in substantial agreement with the Traditional Text. Bethsaida is represented as the capital of a district, which included, at sufficient distance from the city, a desert or retired spot. The group arranged under β is so weakly supported, and is evidently such a group of fragments, that it can come into no sort of competition with the Traditional reading. Dr. Hort confines himself to shewing how the process he advocates might have arisen, not that it did actually arise. Indeed, this position can only be held by assuming the conclusion to be established that it did so arise.
(6) St.
α. Laying wait for Him to catch something out of His mouth.
β. Seeking to get some opportunity (ἀφορμήν τινα) for finding out how to accuse Him (ἵνα εὕρωσιν κατηγορῆσαι); or, for accusing Him (ἵνα κατηγορήσωσιν αὐτοῦ).
Trad. Text. Laying wait for Him, and seeking to catch something (ζητοῦντες θηρεῦσαί τι) out of His mouth, that they might accuse Him.’
The evidence is—
α. אBL, Bohairic, Ethiopic, Cyril Alex. (Mai, Nov. Pp. Bibliotheca, ii. 87, iii. 249, not accurately).
β. D, Old Latin except f, Curetonian.
Trad. Text. AC + twelve Uncials, all Cursives (except five which omit ζητοῦντες), Peshitto, Lewis (with omission), Vulgate, Harkleian, Theophylact (i. 363).
As to genuineness, the evidence is decisive. The reading α is Alexandrian, adopted by B-א, and is bad Greek into the bargain, ἐνεδρεύοντες θηρεῦσαι being very rough, and being probably due to incompetent acquaintance with the Greek language. If α was the original, it is hard to see how β could have come from it. That the figurative language of α was replaced in β by a simply descriptive paraphrase, as Dr. Hort suggests, seems scarcely probable. On the other hand, the derivation of either α or β from the Traditional Text is much easier. A scribe would without difficulty pass over one of the participles lying contiguously with no connecting conjunction, and having a kind of Homoeoteleuton. And as to β, the distinguishing ἀφορμήν τινα would be a very natural gloss, requiring for completeness of the phrase the accompanying λαβεῖν. This is surely a more probable solution of the question of the mutual relationship of the readings than the laboured account of Dr. Hort, which is too long to be produced here.
(7) St.
α. My corn and my goods.
β. My crops (τὰ γενήματά μου). My fruits (τοὺς καρπούς μου).
Trad. Text. My crops (τὰ γενήματά μου) and my goods.’
This is a faulty instance, because it is simply a substitution, as Dr. Hort admitted, in
α of the more comprehensive
word γενήματά for σῖτον, and
a simple omission of καὶ τὰ ἀγαθὰ μου in β. And the admission of it into
the selected
α. BTLX and a correction of א(ac), eight Cursives, Peshitto, Bohairic, Sahidic, Armenian, Ethiopic.
β. א*D, three Cursives, b ff i q, Curetonian and Lewis, St. Ambrose (i. 573).
Trad. Text. AQ + thirteen Uncials. All Cursives except twelve, f, Vulgate, Harkleian, Cyril Alex. (Mai, ii. 294-5) bis, Theophylact (i. 370), Peter Chrysologus (Migne 52, 490-1) bis.
No more need be said: substitutions and omissions are too common to require justification.
(8) St.
α. Blessing God (εὐλογοῦντες).
β. Praising God (αἰνοῦντες).
Trad. Text. Praising and blessing God.’
The evidence is—
α. אBC*L, Bohairic, Palestinian, Lewis.
β. D, seven Old Latin.
Trad. Text. AC2 + twelve Uncials, all Cursives, c f q, Vulgate, Peshitto, Harkleian, Armenian, Ethiopic, Theophylact (i. 497).
Dr. Hort adds no remarks. He seems to have thought, that because
he had got an instance which outwardly met all the requirements laid down, therefore
it would prove the conclusion it was intended to prove. Now it is evidently
an instance of the omission of either of two words from the complete account by
different witnesses. The Evangelist employed both words in order to emphasize the
gratitude of the Apostles. The words are not tautological. Αἶνος is the
set praise of God, drawn out in more or less length, properly as offered in addresses
to Him Thus ἔπαινος is used for a public encomium, or panegyric.
4. Such are the eight weak pillars upon which Dr. Hort built his theory which was to account for the existence of his Neutral Text, and the relation of it towards other Texts or classes of readings. If his eight picked examples can be thus demolished, then surely the theory of Conflation must be utterly unsound. Or if in the opinion of some of my readers my contention goes too far, then at any rate they must admit that it is far from being firm; if it does not actually reel and totter. The opposite theory of omission appears to be much more easy and natural.
But the curious phenomenon that Dr. Hort has rested his case upon so small an induction as is supplied by only eight examples—if they are not in fact only seven—has not yet received due explanation. Why, he ought to have referred to twenty-five or thirty at least. If Conflation is so common, he might have produced a large number of references without working out more than was enough for illustration as patterns. This question must be investigated further. And I do not know how to carry out such an investigation better, than to examine some instances which come naturally to hand from the earlier parts of each Gospel.
It must be borne in mind, that for Conflation two differently-attested
phrases or words must be produced which are found in combination in some passage
of the Traditional Text. If there is only one which is omitted, it is clear that
there can be no Conflation because there must be at least two elements to conflate: accordingly our instances must be cases, not of single omission, but of double
or alternative
omission. If again there is no Western reading,
A. In St. Matthew we have (1)
B. From St. Mark we get, (1)
C. St. Luke yields us, (1)
D. We now come to St. John. See (1)
How surprising a result:—almost too surprising. Does it not
immensely strengthen my contention
that Dr. Hort took wrongly Conflation for the reverse process? That in the earliest
ages, when the Church did not include in her ranks so much learning as it has possessed
ever since, the wear and tear of time, aided by unfaith and carelessness,
THE NEUTRAL TEXT.
Here we are brought face to face with the question respecting the Neutral Text. What in fact is it, and does it deserve the name which Dr. Hort and his followers have attempted to confer permanently upon it? What is the relation that it bears to other so-called Texts?
So much has been already advanced upon this subject in the companion volume and in the present, that great conciseness is here both possible and expedient. But it may be useful to bring the sum or substance of those discussions into one focus.
1. The so-called Neutral Text, as any reader of Dr. Hort’s Introduction will see, is the text of B and א and their small following. That following is made up of Z in St. Matthew, Δ in St. Mark, the fragmentary Ξ in St. Luke, with frequent agreement with them of D, and of the eighth century L; with occasional support from some of the group of Cursives, consisting of 1, 33, 118, 131, 157, 205, 209, and from the Ferrar group, or now and then from some others, as well as from the Latin k, and the Egyptian or other versions. This perhaps appears to be a larger number than our readers may have supposed, but rarely are more than ten MSS. found together, and generally speaking less, and often much less than that. To all general intents and purposes, the Neutral Text is the text of B–א.
2. Following facts and avoiding speculation, the Neutral Text appears hardly
in history except at the Semiarian
3. Thus, as a matter of history acknowledged by Dr. Hort, it was mainly superseded before the end of the century of its emergence by the Traditional Text, which, except in the tenets of a school of critics in the nineteenth century, has reigned supreme ever since.
4. That it was not the original text of the Gospels, as maintained by Dr. Hort,
I claim to have established from an examination of the quotations from the Gospels
made by the Fathers. It has been proved that not only in number, but still more
conclusively in quality, the Traditional Text enjoyed a great superiority of
attestation over all the kinds of corruption advocated by some critics which
I have just now mentioned An attempt in the Guardian has been made in a review full
of errors to weaken the effect of my list by an examination of an unique set of
details. A correction both of the reviewer’s figures in one instance and of .my
own may be found above, pp. 144-153. There is no virtue in an exact proportion of
3:2, or of
6:1. A great majority will ultimately be found on our side.
5. The inferiority of the ‘Neutral Text’ is demonstrated by the overwhelming weight of evidence which is marshalled against it on passages under dispute. This glaring contrast is increased by the disagreement among themselves of the supporters of that Text, or class of readings. As to antiquity, number, variety, weight, and continuity, that Text falls hopelessly behind: and by internal evidence also the texts of B and א, and still more the eccentric text of the Western D, are proved to be manifestly inferior.
6. It has been shewn also by evidence, direct as well as
Such are the main points in the indictment and in the history of the Neutral Text, or rather—to speak with more appropriate accuracy, avoiding the danger of drawing with too definite a form and too deep a shade—of the class of readings represented by B and א. It is interesting to trace further, though very summarily, the connexion between this class of readings and the corruptions of the Original Text which existed previously to the early middle of the fourth century. Such brief tracing will lead us to a view of some causes of the development of Dr. Hort’s theory.
The analysis of Corruption supplied as to the various kinds of
it by Dean Burgon has taught us how they severally arose. This is fresh in the mind
of readers, and I will not spoil it by repetition. But the studies of textual critics
have led them to combine all kinds of corruption chiefly under the two heads of
the Western or Syrio-Low-Latin class, and in a less prominent province of the Alexandrian.
Dr. Hort’s Neutral is really a combination of those two, with all the accuracy that
these phenomena admit. But of course, if the Neutral were indeed the original Text,
it would not do for it to be too closely connected with one of such bad reputation
as the Western,
‘Naturam expellas furca: tamen usque recurret.’
He was tempted to the impossible task of driving water uphill. Therefore I claim, not only to have refuted Dr. Hort, whose theory is proved to be even more baseless than I ever imagined, but by excavating more deeply than he did, to have discovered the cause of his error.
No: the true theory is, that the Traditional Text—not in superhuman
perfection, though under some superhuman Guidance—is the embodiment of the original
Text of the New Testament. In the earliest times, just as false doctrines were widely
spread, so corrupt readings prevailed in many places. Later on, when Christianity
was better
And so I venture to hold, now that the question has been raised, both the learned and the well-informed will come gradually to see, that no other course respecting the Words of the New Testament is so strongly justified by the evidence, none so sound and large-minded, none so reasonable in every way, none so consonant with intelligent faith, none so productive of guidance and comfort and hope, as to maintain against all the assaults of corruption
THE TRADITIONAL TEXT.
A
א or Sinaitio MS., 2, 196.
Accident, 8; pure A., 24-35.
Addition, 266-7, 270.
Ages, earliest, 2.
Alexandrian error, readings, App. II. 268, 284.
Alford, passim.
Ammonius, 200.
Antiquity, our appeal always made to, 194-5.
Apolinarius, or -is (or Apoll.), 224, 257.
Arians, 204, 218.
Assimilation, 100-127; what it was, 101-2; must be delicately handled, 115.
Attraction, 123-7.
B
B or Vatican MS., 2, 8, 196; kakigraphy of, 64 note: virtually with א the ‘Neutral’ text, 282.
Basilides, 195, 197-9, 218 note 2.
Blunder, history of a, 24-7.
Bohairic Version, 249, and passim.
C
Caesarea, library of, 284.
Cerinthus, 201.
Clement of Alexandria, 193.
Conflation, 266-82.
Correctors of MSS., 21.
Corruption, first origin of, 3-8; classes of 8-9, 23; general, 10-23; prevailed from the first, 12; the most corrupt authorities, 8, 14; in early Fathers, 193-4.
Curetonian Version, passim. See Traditional Text.
Cursive MSS., a group of eccentric, 282; Ferrer group, 282.
D
D or Codex Besse, 8.
Δ, or Sangallensis, 8.
Damascus, 5.
Diatessarons, 89, 96-8, 101. See Tatian.
Doxology, in the Lord’s Prayer, 81-8.
E
Eclogadion, 69.
Epiphanius, 205, 211-2.
Erasmus, 10.
Error, slight clerical, 27-32.
Euroclydon, 46.
Evangelistaria (the right name), 67.
F
Falconer’s St. Paul’s voyage, 46-7.
Fathers, passim; earliest, 193.
Faustinus, 218.
Farrar group of Cursives, 282.
Field, Dr., 28 note 5, 30 and note 2.
G
Galilee of the Gentiles, 4-5.
Genealogy, 22. See Traditional Text.
Glosses, 94-5, 98, 172-90; described, 172.
Gospels, the four, probable date of, 7.
Guardian, review in, Pref., 150-2, 283 note.
Gwilliam, Rev. G. H., 115 note.
H
Harmonistic influence, 89-99.
Heracleon, 190, 202, 204, 225 note 2.
Heretics, corruptions by, 199-210; not always dishonest, 292; very numerous, 199 &c.
Homoeoteleuton, 36-42; explained, 8.
I
Inadvertency, 21, 23.
Internal evidence, Pref.
Interpolations, 166-7.
Irenaeus, St., 193.
Itacism, 8, 56-86.
J
Justin Martyr, St., 193.
L
L or Codex Regius, 8.
Lachmann, passim.
Last Twelve Verses, 72, 129-30.
Latin MSS., Old, passim; Low-Latin, 8. See Traditional Text.
Lectionaries, 67-81; ecclesiastical prefaces to, 71.
Lewis MS., passim, 194.
Liturgical influence, 67-88.
M
Macedonians, 204.
Manes, 207.
Manichaeans, 206.
Manuscripts, six classes of, 12; existing number of, 12; frequent inaccuracies in, 12; more serious faults, 20-1; and passim.
Marcion, 70, 195, 197, 199, 200, 219.
Matrimony, 208.
Menologion, 69.
N
Naaseni, 204.
‘Neutral Text,’ 267, 282-6.
O
Omissions, 128-156; the largest of all classes, 128; not ‘various readings,’ 128; prejudice in favour of, 130-1; proof of, 131-2; natural cause of corruption, 270.
Origen, 53-5, 98, 101, 111-3, 190, 193, 209.
Orthodox, corruption by, 211-31, misguided, 211.
P
Papyrus MSS., 2. See Traditional Text.
Parallel passages, 95.
Pella, 7.
Pericope de Adultera, 232-65.
Peshitto Version, passim. See Traditional Text.
Porphyry, 114.
R
Revision, 10-13.
Rose, Rev. W. K, 61 note 3.
S
Σαββατοκυριακαί, 68.
Sahidic Version, 194.
Saturninus, or Saturnilus, 208 and note 3.
Scrivener’s Introduction (4th Ed.), Miller’s, passim.
Semiarianism, 2.
Substitution, 164-5, 270, 277.
Synaxarion, ‘69.
T
Tatian’s Diatessaron, 8, 98, 101, 196, 200.
Textualism of the Gospels, different from T. of profane writings, 14.
Theodotus, 205, 214.
Tischendorf, 112-3, 176, 282, and passim; misuse of Assimilation, 118.
Traditional Text, 1-4; not = Received Text, 1. See Volume on it.
Transcriptional Mistakes, 55.
Transposition, 157-63; character of, 363, 270.
Tregelles, 34, 136, 238.
U
Uncials, 42-55.
V
Valentinus, 197-9, 201, 202-5, 215, 218 note 2.
Various readings, 24-26.
Vellum, 2.
Vercellone, 47 note.
Versions, passim.
Victorinus Afer, 218.
W
Western Readings or Text, 6, 266-85.
Z
Z or Dublin palimpsest, 8.
INDEX II.
PASSAGES OF THE NEW TESTAMENT DISCUSSED.
ST. MATTHEW: | Page | ST. MARK: | Page | ST. LUKE (cont.): | Page |
i. 19. iii. 6. 16. iv. 23 v. 44 vi. 13 18 vii. 4 viii. 9 13 26 29 ix. 24 35 x.12 xi. 23 xii. 10 xiii. 36 44 xv. 8 xvi. 8 xix. 9 16 xx. 24 28 xxi. 9 44 xxii. 23 xxiii. 14 xxiv. 15 31 36 xxv. 13 xxvii. 15 17 25-6 35 |
209 102 170-1 51-2 144-53 81-8 171 102 102 167-8 103 102 104 74 103 27 117 173 80-1 136-44 103 39 103 103 175 99 134-6 49-50 38 116 179-80 169-70 171 103 53-5 91 171 | i. 2 5 ii. 3 iv. 6 v. 36 vi. 11 32 33 vii. 14 19 31 viii. 1 26 ix. 38 49 x. 16 xii. 17 xiv. 40 41 70 xv. 6 x8 xvi. 9-20 ST. LUKE: i. 66 ii. 14 15 iii. 14 29 iv. 1-13 v. 7 14 vi. 1 4 26 |
111-5 157-8 158-9 63-4 188 118-9. 181-2 32-3 271-3 35 61-3 72-3 34 273-4 271 275 48 48 48 182-3 119-22 32 75-8 72, 129-30 188-9 21-2, 31-2 36 201 165 94 108 104 132-3 167 133 |
vii. 3 21 ix. 1 10 54-6 x. 15 25 xi. 54 xii. 18 29 xiii. 9 xiv. 3 xv. 16 17 24 32 xvi. 21 x5 xvii. 37 xix. 21 41 xxii. 67-8 xxiii. 11 27 42 xxiv. 1 7 53 ST. JOHN: i. 3-4 18 ii. 40 iii. 13 iv. 15 v. 4 27 |
174 50 74 275-6 224-31 28 75 276-7 277-8 155 160-1 117 117 43-5 61 61 40 60 48-9 103 212 210 50-1 51 57 92-4 161 278 203 215-8, 165 212-4 223-4 48 50 162 |
ST. JOHN (cont.) v. 44 vi. 11 15 55 71 viii. 40 ix. 22 x. 14-15 29 xii. 1, 2 7 13 xiii. 21-5 24 25 26 37 |
45 37-8 38, 178 153-4 124 214-5 183 206-8 24-7 57-9 184-6 99 106-11 179 60 124 35 |
ST. JOHN (cont.) xi. 16 xvii. 4 xviii. 14 xx. 11 ACTS: ii. 45-6 iii. 1 xviii. 6 xx. 4 24 xxvii. 14 37 xxviii. 1 1 COR.: xv. 47 |
105 186-8 180-1 90-2 159 78-80 27 190 28, 124-5 46-7 27 28 219-23 |
2 COR.: iii. 3 TITUS: ii. 5 HEB: vii. 1 2 PET.: i. 21 REV. i. 5 |
125-7 65-6 53 52-3 59-60 |
Genesis
Exodus
Leviticus
Numbers
1 Samuel
1 Kings
2 Kings
2 Chronicles
Esther
Psalms
1:272 1:844 3 3 38:2 38:2 38:10 78:2 118:9 118:10 118:12 118:16 137 138:27 146 235 245 440 489 501 699
Proverbs
Song of Solomon
Isaiah
29 29:13 29:13 29:13 29:13 29:13 29:13 29:13 29:13 29:13 40:3 42:2 46:13 66
Jeremiah
Matthew
1:19 1:19 1:20 1:22 1:25 2:23 2:23 3:6 3:7 4:13 4:23 4:23 4:23 5:6 5:22 5:44 5:44 5:44 5:44 5:44 5:44 5:45 5:45 6:13 6:13 6:13 6:13 6:13 6:13 6:13 6:13 6:13 6:13 6:18 6:28 7:1 7:4 7:6 8:9 8:10 8:13 8:13 8:13 8:26 8:29 8:29 9:13 9:24 9:30 9:35 9:35 9:35 9:36 9:36 9:36-10:8 10:1 10:3 10:4 10:5 10:8 10:12 10:13 10:15 10:25 10:25 10:32-33 10:37-38 10:38 10:38 10:38 11:23 11:27 12:6 12:10 12:10 12:22 12:24 12:27 12:34 12:41 12:42 13:35 13:36 13:36 13:36 13:36 13:36 13:36 13:43 13:43 13:44 14:7 14:13 14:13 14:19 14:23 15:4-5 15:5 15:8 15:8 15:8 15:8 15:8 15:8 15:8 15:8 15:15 15:15 15:15 15:23 16:8 16:24 16:24 16:24 16:24 16:24 17:1 17:19 17:23 17:25-26 17:25-26 18:11 18:11 18:31 18:31 18:35 19:9 19:16 19:19 19:21 19:27-30 19:28 19:29 20:24 20:28 20:28 20:28 21:4 21:9 21:9 21:11 21:18-43 21:18-43 21:33-43 21:42 21:43 21:43 21:43 21:43 21:44 21:44 21:44 21:44 21:44 21:44 21:44 21:44 21:44 21:44 21:44 22:17 22:23 22:23 23:14 23:14 23:33 24:1-9 24:3 24:11-12 24:13 24:15 24:28 24:31 24:31 24:34-37 24:36 24:38-41 24:42-44 25:13 25:24 26:3 26:14 26:29 26:39-40 26:73 27:9 27:9 27:15 27:16-17 27:17 27:17 27:17 27:17 27:17 27:34 27:35 27:49 27:57 27:59 27:61 27:61 28:1 28:1-4 28:2-3 28:2-3 28:2-3
Mark
1:1 1:1 1:1-2 1:2 1:2 1:2 1:2 1:2 1:5 1:5 1:5 1:24 1:45-2:1 2:3 2:12 3:14 3:15 3:16 3:16 3:19 3:22 3:28 3:29 4:8 4:8 4:8 4:20 4:28 4:32 4:34 4:34 4:37 4:39 5:36 5:41 6:6 6:7-13 6:11 6:11 6:11 6:11 6:11 6:20 6:20-21 6:22 6:30 6:31 6:31 6:32 6:32 6:33 6:33 6:33 6:34 6:39 6:41 7:3 7:3 7:3 7:4 7:6 7:6 7:6 7:6 7:10 7:14 7:18 7:19 7:19 7:19 7:20 7:20 7:29 7:31 7:33 8:1 8:1 8:10 8:17 8:26 8:26 8:26 8:34 8:34 9:38 9:38 9:38 9:49 9:49 10:7 10:16 10:29 10:29-30 10:41 11:4 11:8 11:9-10 12:14 12:17 12:18 13:7 13:14 13:14 13:32 13:33 14:8 14:10 14:25 14:40 14:41 14:41 14:70 14:70 14:70 14:70 14:70 15:5 15:6 15:6 15:6 15:7 15:27 15:28 15:28 15:28 15:28 15:28 15:28 15:29 15:42 15:45 15:47 16:1 16:1 16:2-5 16:5 16:5 16:5 16:8 16:9 16:9 16:9 16:9-20 16:14 20:40
Luke
1:13 1:26 1:27 1:60 1:63 1:66 1:66 1:80 1:80 1:80 2 2:5 2:13 2:14 2:14 2:14 2:15 2:15 2:19 2:40 2:40 2:40 2:44 2:51 3:4-6 3:7 4:1-13 4:4 4:4-5 4:9-12 4:16 4:34 5:7 5:7 5:14 6:1 6:1 6:4 6:4 6:4 6:16 6:16 6:26 6:27-28 6:27-28 6:27-28 6:37 6:42 7:4 7:8 7:10 7:21 7:24 7:24-35 7:28-29 7:29 7:29-30 7:30 7:31 7:31 7:31 7:35 7:43 8:2 8:24 8:26-35 8:38-39 8:45 8:53 8:54 9:1 9:1-6 9:5 9:5 9:10 9:10 9:16 9:23 9:23 9:23 9:23 9:23 9:23 9:23 9:23 9:23 9:44 9:49 9:51 9:51-56 9:54-55 9:54-55 9:54-56 9:54-56 9:54-56 9:54-56 9:56 9:57 10:5 10:15 10:25 10:25-28 11:4 11:15 11:15 11:18 11:19 11:32 11:54 11:54 12:18 12:18 12:18 12:39 12:56 12:57 13:9 13:9 13:17 14:3 14:3 14:13 14:27 14:27 15:8 15:16 15:16 15:17 15:20 15:22 15:24 15:32 16:19 16:20 16:20 16:21 16:25 17:37 17:37 18:2-3 18:18 18:29 19:10 19:21 19:27 19:37 19:37-38 19:38 19:41 19:41 19:42 20:18 20:18 20:22 20:27 21 21:8-9 21:8-36 21:10-24 21:25-27 21:28-32 21:33-36 22:18 22:31 22:37 22:37 22:39-23:1 22:43-44 22:43-44 22:43-44 22:43-44 22:56 22:67-68 23:1-31 23:11 23:11 23:27 23:33 23:42 23:44-56 23:45 23:50 23:55 23:55 24:1 24:1 24:1 24:1-4 24:3 24:3-4 24:7 24:10 24:24 24:27 24:32 24:36 24:52 24:53 24:53
John
1:3 1:3 1:3 1:3-4 1:4 1:14 1:14 1:18 1:18 1:18 1:18 1:18 1:18 1:18 1:18 1:22 1:34 1:46-47 2:6 2:10 2:11 2:12 2:13 2:19 3:13 3:13 3:15 4:6 4:6 4:14 4:15 4:15 4:18 4:34 4:35 4:35 4:35 4:35-36 4:35-36 4:36 4:36 4:36 4:36 4:36 4:42 4:51 5:3-4 5:3-4 5:4 5:4 5:16 5:26 5:27 5:27 5:36 5:37 5:44 5:44 6:6 6:11 6:11 6:15 6:15 6:50 6:51 6:55 6:55 6:64 6:71 6:71 6:71 6:71 6:71 7:17 7:25 7:37-38 7:37-52 7:37-8:12 7:37-8:12 7:37-8:12 7:37-8:12 7:39 7:40-42 7:44 7:45-52 7:52 7:52 7:52 7:52 7:52 7:52 7:52-8:12 7:53 7:53-8:11 7:53-8:11 7:53-8:11 7:53-8:11 7:53-8:11 7:53-8:11 7:53-8:11 7:53-8:11 7:53-8:11 7:53-8:11 8 8:1 8:1-11 8:2 8:3 8:3-11 8:6 8:6 8:7 8:8 8:11 8:12 8:12 8:12 8:12 8:40 8:40 8:40 8:52 9:1 9:16 9:22 9:22 9:25 10:14-15 10:14-15 10:29 10:29 10:29 11:2 11:13 11:37 11:40 11:46 11:50 11:51 12:1-2 12:1-2 12:3 12:4 12:6 12:7 12:7 12:7 12:13 12:13 12:17 12:33 12:41 12:41 12:48 13:1-38 13:2 13:11 13:21-25 13:21-25 13:24 13:24 13:25 13:25 13:25 13:25 13:26 13:26 13:26 13:28 13:31-32 13:37 13:37 14:1 14:1 14:22 16:16 16:16 16:16 16:16 16:16 16:17 16:18 16:18 16:19 17:4 17:4 18:14 18:14 18:14 18:16 19:19-21 19:22 19:30 19:31 19:34 19:38 20:1 20:11 20:11 20:11 20:12 20:12 20:12 20:16 20:18 20:18 20:30-31 21:1-25 21:1-25 21:1-25 21:19 21:20 21:20 21:20 21:24 21:24-25 21:25
Acts
1:13 2:45-46 3:1 3:1 3:1 3:1 3:4 4:6 4:12 4:13 4:19 11:20 12:25 13:1 13:5 13:25 15:37 17:3 18:7 20:4 20:4 20:11 20:24 20:24 20:24 20:24 20:29 27:6 27:14 27:14 27:14 27:17 27:37 36 96 105
Romans
1 Corinthians
15:31 15:45 15:47 15:47 15:47 15:47 15:48 15:51
2 Corinthians
Galatians
Ephesians
Philippians
Colossians
1 Timothy
2 Timothy
Titus
Hebrews
James
2 Peter
1 John
1:4 2:1 2:3-4 2:3-4 2:7 2:8 2:12 2:13 2:14 2:21 2:26 4:1-3 5:13
2 John
3 John
Jude
Revelation
1:1 1:4 1:5 1:5 1:11 1:19 2:1 2:6 2:13 2:15 10:4 14:13 17:8 19:9 20:12-13 21:5 21:27 22:8 22:18-19 22:19
i ii iii iv v vi vii viii ix x xi xii xiii xiv 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63 64 65 66 67 68 69 70 71 72 73 74 75 76 77 78 79 80 81 82 83 84 85 86 87 88 89 90 91 92 93 94 95 96 97 98 99 100 101 102 103 104 106 107 108 109 110 111 112 113 114 115 116 117 118 119 120 121 122 123 124 125 126 127 128 129 130 131 132 133 134 135 136 137 138 139 140 141 142 143 144 145 146 147 148 149 150 151 152 153 154 155 156 157 158 159 160 161 162 163 164 165 180 167 168 169 170 171 172 173 174 175 176 177 178 179 180 181 182 183 184 185 186 187 188 189 190 191 192 193 194 195 196 197 198 199 200 201 202 203 204 205 206 207 208 209 210 212 213 214 215 216 217 218 219 220 221 222 223 224 225 226 227 228 229 230 231 246 233 234 235 236 237 238 239 240 241 242 243 244 245 246 247 248 249 250 251 252 253 254 255 256 257 258 259 260 261 262 263 264 265 266 267 268 269 270 271 272 273 274 275 276 277 278 279 280 281 282 283 284 285 286 287 288 289 290