CHAPTER XIII.

CAUSES OF CORRUPTION CHIEFLY INTENTIONAL.

IX. CORRUPTION BY HERETICS.

§ 1.

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, 192which occasions our present embarrassment. They are in truth so exceedingly numerous; they are often so very considerable; they are, as a rule, so very licentious; they transgress to such an extent all regulations; they usurp so persistently the office of truth and faithfulness, that we really know not what to think about them. Sometimes we are presented with gross interpolations,—apocryphal stories: more often with systematic lacerations of the text, or transformations as from an angel of light.

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 193denounces it by name⁴⁴¹⁴⁴¹    ψευδωνύμου γνώσεως 1 Tim. vi. 20. and significantly condemns the wild fancies of its professors, their dangerous speculations as well as their absurd figments. Thus he predicts and condemns⁴⁴²⁴⁴²    1 Tim. iv. 1-3. their pestilential teaching in respect of meats and drinks and concerning matrimony. In his Epistle to Timothy⁴⁴³⁴⁴³    ii. 17. he relates that Hymeneus and Philetus taught that the Resurrection was past already. What wonder if a flood of impious teaching⁴⁴⁴⁴⁴⁴    γενεαλογίαι 1 Tim. i. 4: Titus iii. 9. Dangerous speculation (ἃ μὴ ἑώρακεν ἐμβατεύων Col. ii. 18). ‘Old wives’ fables’ (2 Tim : iv. 7. Tit. i. 24). broke loose on the Church when the last of the Apostles had been gathered in, and another generation of men had arisen, and the age of Miracles was found to be departing if it had not already departed⁴⁴⁵⁴⁴⁵    See the fragment of Irenaeus in Euseb. H. E. i ., and the loftiest boast which any could make was that they had known those who had [seen and heard the Apostles of the Lord].

The ‘grievous wolves’ whose assaults St. Paul predicted as imminent, and against which he warned the heads of the Ephesian Church⁴⁴⁶⁴⁴⁶    Acts xx. 29., did not long ‘spare the flock.’ Already, while St. John was yet alive, had the Nicolaitans developed their teaching at Ephesus⁴⁴⁷⁴⁴⁷    Rev. ii. 6. and in the neighbouring Church of Pergamos⁴⁴⁸⁴⁴⁸    Rev. ii. 15.. Our risen Lord in glory announced to His servant John that in the latter city Satan had established his dwelling-place⁴⁴⁹⁴⁴⁹    Rev. ii. 13.. Nay, while those awful words were being spoken to the Seer of Patmos, the men were already born who first dared to lay their impious hands on the Gospel of Christ.

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 194Fathers: some Old Latin MSS.⁴⁵⁰⁴⁵⁰    Chiefly the Low Latin amongst them. Tradit. Text. chap. vii. p. 137., the Bohairic and Sahidic, and coming later on, the Curetonian and Lewis,—among the Versions: of the copies Codd. B and א: and above all, coming later down still, Cod. D:—these venerable monuments of a primitive age occasionally present us with deformities which it is worse than useless to extenuate,—quite impossible to overlook. Unauthorized appendixes, —tasteless and stupid amplifications,—plain perversions of the meaning of the Evangelists,—wholly gratuitous assimilations of one Gospel to another,—the unprovoked omission of passages of profound interest and not unfrequently of high doctrinal import:—How are such phenomena as these to be accounted for? Again, in one quarter, we light upon a systematic mutilation of the text so extraordinary that it is as if some one had amused himself by running his pen through every clause which was not absolutely necessary to the intelligibleness of what remained. In another quarter we encounter the thrusting in of fabulous stories and apocryphal sayings which disfigure as well as encumber the text.—How will any one explain all this?

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 196festering in the Church throughout the immediate post-Apostolic age. But even this is not all. There were those who like Tatian constructed Diatessarons, or attempts to weave the fourfold narrative into one,—‘Lives of Christ,’ so to speak;—and productions of this class were multiplied to an extraordinary extent, and as we certainly know, not only found their way into the remotest corners of the Church, but established themselves there. And will any one affect surprise if occasionally a curious scholar of those days was imposed upon by the confident assurance that by no means were those many sources of light to be indiscriminately rejected, but that there must be some truth in what they advanced? In a singularly uncritical age, the seductive simplicity of one reading,—the interesting fullness of another,—the plausibility of a third,—was quite sure to recommend its acceptance amongst those many eclectic recensions which were constructed by long since forgotten Critics, from which the most depraved and worthless of our existing texts and versions have been derived. Emphatically condemned by Ecclesiastical authority, and hopelessly outvoted by the universal voice of Christendom, buried under fifteen centuries, the corruptions I speak of survive at the present day chiefly in that little handful of copies which, calamitous to relate, the school of Lachmann and Tischendorf and Tregelles look upon as oracular: and in conformity with which many scholars are for refashioning the Evangelical text under the mistaken title of ‘Old Readings.’ And now to proceed with my argument.

§ 2.

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 197of the Son of Man: denied that He is essentially very and eternal God. This fundamental heresy found itself hopelessly confuted by the whole tenor of the Gospel, which nevertheless it assailed with restless ingenuity: and many are the traces alike of its impotence and of its malice which have survived to our own times. It is a memorable circumstance that it is precisely those very texts which relate either to the eternal generation of the Son,—to His Incarnation,—or to the circumstances of His Nativity, —which have suffered most severely, and retain to this hour traces of having been in various ways tampered with. I do not say that Heretics were the only offenders here. I am inclined to suspect that the orthodox were as much to blame as the impugners of the Truth. But it was at least with a pious motive that the latter tampered with the Deposit. They did but imitate the example set them by the assailing party. It is indeed the calamitous consequence of extravagances in one direction that they are observed ever to beget excesses in the opposite quarter. Accordingly the piety of the primitive age did not think it wrong to fortify the Truth by the insertion, suppression, or substitution of a few words in any place from which danger was apprehended. In this way, I am persuaded, many an unwarrantable ‘reading’ is to be explained. I do not mean that ‘marginal glosses have frequently found their way into the text’:—that points to a wholly improbable account of the matter. I mean, that expressions which seemed to countenance heretical notions, or at least which had been made a bad use of by evil men, were deliberately falsified. But I must not further anticipate the substance of the next chapter.

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 198 invariably to enumerate together. Basilides⁴⁵¹⁴⁵¹    ’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. and Valentinus⁴⁵²⁴⁵²    ’Evangelium habet etiam suum, praeter haec nostra’ (De Praescript., ad calcem). are even said to have written Gospels of their own. Such a statement is not to be severely pressed: but the general fact is established by the notices, and those are exceedingly abundant, which the writers against Heresies have cited and left on record. All that is intended by such statements is that these old heretics retained, altered, transposed, just so much as they pleased of the fourfold Gospel: and further, that they imported whatever additional matter they saw fit:—not that they rejected the inspired text entirely, and substituted something of their own invention in its place⁴⁵³⁴⁵³    Origen (commenting on St. Luke x. 25-28) says,—ταῦτα δὲ εἴρηται πρὸς τοὶς ἀπὸ Οὐαλεντίνου, καὶ Βασιλίδου, καὶ τοὺς ἀπὸ Μαρκίωνος. ἔχουσι γὰρ καὶ αὐτοὶ τὰς λέξεις ἐν τῷ καθ᾽ ἑαυτοὺς εὐαγγελίῳ. Opp. iii. 981 A.. And though, in the case of Valentinus, it has been contended, apparently with reason, that he probably did not individually go to the same length as Basilides,—who, as well in respect of St. Paul’s Epistles as of the four Gospels, was evidently a grievous offender⁴⁵⁴⁴⁵⁴    ‘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.,—yet, since it is clear that his principal followers, who were also his contemporaries, put forth a composition which they were pleased to style the ‘Gospel of Truth⁴⁵⁵⁴⁵⁵    ‘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.,’ it is idle to dispute as to the limit of the 199rashness and impiety of the individual author of the heresy. Let it be further stated, as no slight confirmation of the view already hazarded as to the probable contents of the (so-called) Gospels of Basilides and of Valentinus, that one particular Gospel is related to have been preferred before the rest and specially adopted by certain schools of ancient Heretics. Thus, a strangely mutilated and depraved text of St. Matthew’s Gospel is related to have found especial favour with the Ebionites⁴⁵⁶⁴⁵⁶    See, by all means, Epiphanius, Haer. xxx. c. xiii; also c. iii., with whom the Corinthians are associated by Epiphanius: though Irenaeus seems to say that it was St. Mark’s Gospel which was adopted by the heretical followers of Cerinthus. Marcion’s deliberate choice of St. Luke’s Gospel is sufficiently well known. The Valentinians appropriated to themselves St. John⁴⁵⁷⁴⁵⁷    ‘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.. Heracleon, the most distinguished disciple of this school, is deliberately censured by Origen for having corrupted the text of the fourth Evangelist in many places⁴⁵⁸⁴⁵⁸    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 Prov. xxx. 6) added to the text of St. John i. 3 (viz. after the words ἐγένετο οὐδὲ ἕν) the words τῶν ἐν τῷ κόσμῳ, καὶ τῷ κτίσει, Heracleon clearly read ὃ γέγονεν ἐν αὐτῷ ζωὴ ἦν; See Orig. iv. 64. In St. John ii. 19, for ἐν τρισί, he wrote ἐν τρίτῃ. He also read (St. John iv. 18) (for πέντε), ἒξ ἄγδρας ἔσχες.. A considerable portion of his Commentary on St. John has been preserved to us: and a very strange production it is found to have been.

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 day⁴⁵⁹⁴⁵⁹    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.. A great deal more is known about him than about any other individual of his school. Justin Martyr and Irenaeus wrote against him: besides Origen and Clement of Alexandria, Tertullian in the West⁴⁶⁰⁴⁶⁰    De Praesc. Haer. c. 51., and Epiphanius in the East, elaborately refuted his teaching, and give us large information as to his method of handling Scripture.

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 201St. Matthew: a Cerinthian exhibition of St. Mark: a Valentinian perversion of St. John. And we are but insisting that the effect of so many corruptions of the Truth, industriously propagated within far less than 100 years of the date of the inspired verities themselves, must needs have made itself sensibly felt. Add the notorious fact, that in the second and third centuries after the Christian era the text of the Gospels is found to have been grossly corrupted even in orthodox quarters,—and that traces of these gross corruptions are discoverable in certain circles to the present hour,—and it seems impossible not to connect the two phenomena together. The wonder rather is that, at the end of so many centuries, we are able distinctly to recognize any evidence whatever.

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. Mark iii. 14 οὓς καὶ ἀποστόλους ὠνόμασεν.

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 202περὶ τοῦ ἀγαθοῦ, ‘Why do you ask me about that which is good?’ is to be referred to some of these tamperers with the Divine Word.

§ 3.

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 ‘Father⁴⁶¹⁴⁶¹    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..’ Encountered on the threshold of the Gospel by the plain declaration that, ‘In the beginning was the Word: and the Word was with God: and the Word was God’: and presently, ‘All things were made by Him’;—they were much exercised. The expedients to which they had recourse were certainly extraordinary. That ‘Beginning’ (said Valentinus) was the first thing which ‘the Father’ created: which He called ‘Only begotten Son,’ and also ‘God’ and in whom he implanted the germ of all things. Seminally, that is, whatsoever subsequently came into being was in Him. ‘The Word’ (he said) was a product of this first-created thing. And ‘All things were made by Him,’ because in ‘the Word’ was the entire essence of all the subsequent worlds (Aeons), to which he assigned forms⁴⁶²⁴⁶²    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.. From which it is plain that, according to Valentinus, ‘the 203Word’ was distinct from ‘the Son’; who was not the world’s Creator. Both alike, however, he acknowledged to be ‘God⁴⁶³⁴⁶³    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.’: but only, as we have seen already, using the term in an inferior sense.

Heracleon, commenting on St. John i. 3, insists that ‘all things’ can but signify this perishable world and the things that are therein: not essences of a loftier nature. Accordingly, after the words ‘and without Him was not anything made,’ he ventures to interpolate this clause,—of the things that are in the world and in the creation⁴⁶⁴⁴⁶⁴    Ap. Orig. 938. 9..’ True, that the Evangelist had declared with unmistakable emphasis, ‘and without Him was not anything’ (literally, ‘was not even one thing ‘) ‘made that was made.’ But instead of ‘not even one thing,’ the Valentinian Gnostics appear to have written ‘nothing⁴⁶⁵⁴⁶⁵    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).’; and the concluding clause ‘that was made,’ because he found it simply unmanageable, Valentinus boldly severed from its context, making it the beginning of a fresh sentence. With the Gnostics, ver. 4 is found to have begun thus,— ‘What was made in Him was life.’

Of the change of οὐδὲ ἕν into οὐδέν⁴⁶⁶⁴⁶⁶    See The Traditional Text, p. 113. traces survive in many of the Fathers⁴⁶⁷⁴⁶⁷    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.: but א and D are the only Uncial MSS. which are known to retain that corrupt reading.—The uncouth sentence which follows (ὃ γέγονεν ἐν αὐτῳ̂ ζωὴ ἦν), singular 204to relate, was generally tolerated, became established in many quarters, and meets us still at every step. It was evidently put forward so perseveringly by the Gnostics, with whom it was a kind of article of the faith, that the orthodox at last became too familiar with it. Epiphanius, though he condemns it, once employs it⁴⁶⁸⁴⁶⁸    Opp. 74.. Occurring first in a fragment of Valentinus⁴⁶⁹⁴⁶⁹    Ap. Iren. 102.: next, in the Commentary of Heracleon⁴⁷⁰⁴⁷⁰    Ibid. 940.: after that, in the pages of Theodotus the Gnostic (A.D. 192)⁴⁷¹⁴⁷¹    Ap. Clem. Al. 968, 973.: then, in an exposure by Hippolytus of the tenets of the Naäseni⁴⁷²⁴⁷²    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., (a subsection of the same school);—the baseness of its origin at least is undeniable. But inasmuch as the words may be made to bear a loyal interpretation, the heretical construction of St. John i. 3 was endured by the Church for full 200 years. Clemens Alex. is observed thrice to adopt it⁴⁷³⁴⁷³    Opp. 114, 218, 1009.: Origen⁴⁷⁴⁴⁷⁴    Cels. vi. 5: Princip. II. ix. 4: IV. i. 30: In Joh. i. 22, 34: 6, 10, 12, 13 bis: In Rom. iii. 10, 15: Haer. v. 151. and Eusebius⁴⁷⁵⁴⁷⁵    Psalm. 146, 235, 245: Marcell. 237. Not so in Ecl. 100: Praep. 322, 540. fall into it repeatedly. It is found in Codd. אCD: apparently in Cod. A, where it fills one line exactly. Cyril comments largely on it⁴⁷⁶⁴⁷⁶    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.. But as fresh heresies arose which the depraved text seemed to favour, the Church bestirred herself and remonstrated. It suited the Arians and the Macedonians⁴⁷⁷⁴⁷⁷    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., who insisted that the Holy Ghost 205is a creature. The former were refuted by Epiphanius, who points out that the sense is not complete until you have read the words ὃ γέγονεν. A fresh sentence (he says) begins at ἐν αὐτῷ ζωὴ ἦν⁴⁷⁸⁴⁷⁸    i. 778 D, 779 B. See also ii. 80.. Chrysostom deals with the latter. ‘Let us beware of putting the full stop’ (he says) ‘at the words οὐδὲ ἕν,—as do the heretics. In order to make out that the Spirit is a creature, they read ὃ γέγονεν ἐν αὐτῷ ζωὴ ἦν: by which means the Evangelist’s meaning becomes unintelligible⁴⁷⁹⁴⁷⁹    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.

§ 4.

[We may now take some more instances to shew the effects of the operations of Heretics.]

The good Shepherd in a certain place (St. John x. 14, 15) says concerning Himself—‘I know My sheep and am known of Mine, even as the Father knoweth Me and I know the Father’: by which words He hints at a mysterious knowledge as subsisting between Himself and those that are His. And yet it is worth observing that whereas He describes the knowledge which subsists between the Father and the Son in language which implies that it is strictly identical on either side, He is careful to distinguish between the knowledge which subsists between the creature and the Creator by slightly varying the expression,—thus leaving it to be inferred that it is not, neither indeed can be, on either side the same. God knoweth us with a perfect knowledge. Our so-called ‘knowledge’ of God is a thing different not only in degree, but in kind⁴⁸⁰⁴⁸⁰    Consider 1 John ii. 3, 4: and read Basil ii. 188 b, c. See p. 207, note 4. Consider also Gal. iv. 9. So Cyril Al. [iv. 655 a], καὶ προέγνω μᾶλλον ἢ ἐγνώσθη παρ᾽ ἡμῶν.. Hence the peculiar form which the sentence assumes⁴⁸¹⁴⁸¹    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.:—γινώσκω τὰ ἐμά, καὶ γινώσκομαι ὑπὸ τῶν ἐμῶν And this delicate diversity of phrase has been faithfully retained all down the ages, being witnessed to at this hour by every MS. in existence except four now well known to us: viz. אBDL. The Syriac also retains it,—as does Macarius⁴⁸²⁴⁸²    P. 38. (Gall. vii. 26.), Gregory Naz.⁴⁸³⁴⁸³    i. 298, 613., Chrysostom⁴⁸⁴⁴⁸⁴    viii. 351, 352 d and e., Cyril⁴⁸⁵⁴⁸⁵    iv. 652 c, 653 a, 654 d., Theodoret⁴⁸⁶⁴⁸⁶    i. 748: iv. 274, 550., Maximus⁴⁸⁷⁴⁸⁷    In Dionys. Ar. 192.. It is a point which really admits of no rational doubt: for does any one suppose that if St. John had written ‘Mine own know Me,’ 996 MSS. out of 1000 at the end of 1,800 years would exhibit, ‘I am known of Mine’?

But in fact it is discovered that these words of our Lord experienced depravation at the hands of the Manichaean 207heretics. Besides inverting the clauses, (and so making it appear that such knowledge begins on the side of Man,) Manes (A.D. 261) obliterated the peculiarity above indicated. Quoting from his own fabricated Gospel, he acquaints us with the form in which these words were exhibited in that mischievous production: viz. γινώσκει με τὰ ἐμά, καὶ γινώσκω τὰ ἐμά. This we learn from Epiphanius and from Basil⁴⁸⁸⁴⁸⁸    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.). Cyril, in a paper where he makes clear reference to the same heretical Gospel, insists that the order of knowledge must needs be the reverse of what the heretics pretended⁴⁸⁹⁴⁸⁹    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.).—But then, it is found that certain of the orthodox contented themselves with merely reversing the clauses, and so restoring the true order of the spiritual process discussed —regardless of the exquisite refinement of expression to which attention was called at the outset. Copies must once have abounded which represented our Lord as saying, ‘I know My own and My own know Me, even as the Father knoweth Me and I know the Father’; for it is the order of the Old Latin, Bohairic, Sahidic, Ethiopic, Lewis, Georgian, Slavonic, and Gothic, though not of the Peshitto, Harkleian, and Armenian; and Eusebius⁴⁹⁰⁴⁹⁰    In Ps. 489: in Es. 509: Theoph. 185, 258, 260., Nonnus, and even Basil⁴⁹¹⁴⁹¹    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. (1 John ii. 3, 4.) See p. 206, note 1. so read the place. But no token of this clearly corrupt reading survives in any known copy of the 208Gospels,—except אBDL. Will it be believed that nevertheless all the recent Editors of Scripture since Lachman insist on obliterating this refinement of language, and going back to the reading which the Church has long since deliberately rejected,—to the manifest injury of the deposit? ‘Many words about a trifle,’—some will be found to say. Yes, to deny God’s truth is a very facile proceeding. Its rehabilitation always requires many words. I request only that the affinity between אBDL and the Latin copies which universally exhibit this disfigurement⁴⁹²⁴⁹²    So Jerome, iv. 484: vii. 455. Strange, that neither Ambrose nor Augustine should quote the place., may be carefully noted. [Strange to say, the true reading receives no notice from Westcott and Hort, or the Revisers⁴⁹³⁴⁹³    See Revision Revised, p. 220..]

§ 5.

DOCTRINAL.

The question of Matrimony was one of those on which the early heretics freely dogmatized. Saturninus⁴⁹⁴⁴⁹⁴    Or Saturnilus—τὸ δὲ γαμεῖν καὶ γεννᾷν ἀπὸ τοῦ Σατανᾶ φησὶν εἶναι. p. 245, 1. 38. So Marcion, 253. (A.D. 120) and his followers taught that marriage was a production of Hell.

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 209places of the Gospel which bear most nearly on the disputed points, but the ‘readings’ are exactly of that suspicious kind which would naturally result from a tampering with the text by men who had to maintain, or else to combat, opinions of a certain class. I proceed to establish what I have been saying by some actual examples⁴⁹⁵⁴⁹⁵    [The MS. breaks off here, with references to St. Mark x. 7, Eph. v. 31-2 (on which the Dean had accumulated a large array of references), St. Mark x. 29-30, with a few references, but no more. I have not had yet time or strength to work out the subject.].

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. Matt. i. 19) is another of the expressions which have been disturbed by the same controversy. I suspect that Origen is the author (see the heading of the Scholion in Cramer’s Catenae) of a certain uncritical note which Eusebius reproduces in his ‘quaestiones ad Stephanum⁴⁹⁶⁴⁹⁶    Mai, iv. 221.’ on the difference between δειγματίσαι and παραδειγματίσαι; and that with him originated the substitution of the uncompounded for the compounded verb in this place. Be that as it may, Eusebius certainly read παραδειγματίσαι (Dem. 320), with all the uncials but two (BZ): all the cursives but one (1). Will it be believed that Lachmann, Tregelles, Tischendorf, Alford, Westcott and Hort, on such slender evidence as that are prepared to reconstruct the text of St. Matthew’s Gospel?

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 210of my own strength,—my opponent’s weakness. Such discussions in fact become unbearable when the points in dispute are confessedly trivial. No one however will deny that when three consecutive words of our LORD are challenged they are worth contending for. We are invited then to believe (St. Luke xxii. 67-8) that He did not utter the bracketed words in the following sentence,—‘If I tell you, ye will not believe; and if I ask you, ye will not answer (Me, nor let Me go).’ Now, I invite the reader to inquire for the grounds of this assertion. Fifteen of the uncials (including AD), and every known cursive, besides all the Latin and all the Syriac copies recognize the bracketed words. They are only missing in אBLT and their ally the Bohairic. Are we nevertheless to be assured that the words are to be regarded as spurious? Let the reader then be informed that Marcion left out seven words more (viz. all from, ‘And if I ask you’ to the end), and will he doubt either that the words are genuine or that their disappearance from four copies of bad character, as proved by their constant evidence, and from one version is sufficiently explained?