LIBRARY

UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA.

Class

THE TRADITIONAL TEXT

HOLY GOSPELS

HACI Tolc 'Api'oic ew Xpicrto MHCOY

PHIL. i. i

OXFORD : HORACE HART PRINTER TO THE UNIVERSITY

THE

TRADITIONAL TEXT

OF THE

HOLY GOSPELS

VINDICATED AND ESTABLISHED

BY THE LATE

JOHN WILLIAM BURGON, B.D.

7

DEAN OF CHICHESTER

ARRANGED, COMPLETED, AND EDITED BY

EDWARD MILLER, M.A.

/YKEHAMICAL PREBENDARY OF CHICHESTER J EDITOR OF THE FOURTH EDITION OF DR. SCRIVENER'S

' PLAIN INTRODUCTION TO THE TEXTUAL CRITICISM OF THE NEW TESTAMENT ' J AND

AUTHOR OF ' A GUIDE TO THE TEXTUAL CRITICISM OF THE NEW TESTAMENT '

LONDON GEORGE BELL AND SONS

CAMBRIDGE: DEIGHTON, BELL AND CO. 1896

'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 Proleg. p. xliv.

' Interrogate de semitis antiquis quae sit via bona, et ambulate in ea.' — JEREM. vi. 16.

' 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 Aposto- lorum fuerit sacrosanctum.' — TERTULL. adv. Marc. 1. iv. c. 5.

PREFACE

THE death of Dean Burgon in 1888, lamented by a large number of people on the other side of the Atlantic as well as on this, cut him off in the early part of a task for which he had made preparations during more than thirty years. He laid the foundations of his system with much care and caution, discussing it with his friends, such as the late Earl of Selborne to whom he inscribed The Last Twelve Verses, and the present Earl of Cranbrook to whom he dedicated The Revision Revised, for the purpose of sounding the depths of the subject, and of being sure that he was resting upon firm rock. In order to enlarge the general basis of Sacred Textual Criticism, and to treat of the principles of it scientifically and comprehensively, he examined manuscripts widely, making many discoveries at home and in foreign libraries ; collated some himself and got many collated by other scholars ; encour- aged new and critical editions of some of the chief Versions ; and above all, he devised and superintended a collection of quotations from the New Testament to be found in the works of the Fathers and in other ecclesiastical writings, going

221490

vi PREFACE.

far beyond ordinary indexes, which may be found in sixteen thick volumes amongst the treasures of the British Museum. Various events led him during his life-time to dip into and publish some of his stores, such as in his Last Twelve Verses of St. Mark, his famous Letters to Dr. Scrivener in the Guardian Newspaper, and in The Revision Revised. But he sedulously amassed materials for the greater treatise up to the time of his death.

He was then deeply impressed with the incom- plete state of his documents ; and gave positive instructions solely for the publication of his Text of the Gospels as marked in the margin of one of Scrivener's editions of the New Testament, of his disquisition on ' honeycomb ' which as exhibiting a specimen of his admirable method of criticism will be found in Appendix I of this volume, and perhaps of that on ogos in Appendix II, leaving the entire question as to publishing the rest to his nephew, the Rev. W. F. Rose, with the help of myself, if I would undertake the editing required, and of others.

The separate papers, which were committed to my charge in February, 1889, were contained in forty portfolios, and according to my catalogue amounted to 2,383. They were grouped under various headings, and some were placed in one set as ' Introductory Matter' ready for the printer. Most had been copied out in a clear hand, especially by *M. W.' mentioned in the Preface of the Revision Revised, to whom also I am greatly indebted for copying others. The papers were of lengths varying from fourteen pages or more down to a single

PREFACE. vii

sentence or a single reference. Some were almost duplicates, and a very few similarly triplicates.

After cataloguing, I reported to Mr. Rose, sug- gesting a choice between three plans, viz.,

1. Publishing separately according to the Dean's instructions such papers as were judged to be fit for publication, and leaving the rest : —

2. To put together a Work on the Principles of Textual Criticism out of the MSS., as far as they would go :—

3. To make up what was ready and fit into a Book, supplying from the rest of the materials and from elsewhere what was wanting besides filling up gaps as well as I could, and out of the rest (as well as from the Dean's published works) to construct brief notes on the Text which we had to publish.

This report was sent to Dr. Scrivener, Dean Goulburn, Sir Edward Maunde Thompson, and other distinguished scholars, and the unanimous opinion was expressed that the third of these plans should be adopted.

Not liking to encounter

Tot et tanta negotia solus,

I invited at the opening of 1890 the Rev. G. H. Gwilliam, Fellow of Hertford College, and the Rev. Dr. Waller, Principal of St. John's Hall, Highbury — a man of mathematical accuracy — to read over at my house the first draft of a large portion of Volume I. To my loss, Dr. Waller has been too busy since that time to afford me any help, except what may be found in his valuable

V"! PREFACE.

comparison of the texts of the Peshitto and Cure- tonian printed in Appendix VI : but Mr. Gwilliam has been ready with advice and help all along which have been of the greatest advantage to me especially on the Syriac part of the subject, and has looked through all the first proofs of this volume.

It was afterwards forced upon my mind that if possible the Indexes to the Fathers ought to be included in the work. Indeed no book could ade- quately represent Dean Burgon's labours which did not include his apparatus criticus in that province of Textual Criticism, in which he has shewn himself so facile princeps, that no one in England, or Germany, or elsewhere, has been as yet able to come near him. With Sir E. Maunde Thompson's kind help, I have been able to get the part of the Indexes which relates to the Gospels copied in type-writing, and they will be published in course of time, God willing, if the learned world evinces sufficient interest in the publication of them.

Unfortunately, when in 1890 I had completed a first arrangement of Volume II, my health gave way ; and after vainly endeavouring for a year to combine this severe toil with the conduct of a living, I resigned the latter, and moved into Oxford to devote myself exclusively to the important work of turning the unpublished results of the skilful faith- fulness and the indefatigable learning of that ' grand scholar' — to use Dr. Scrivener's phrase — towards the settlement of the principles that should regulate the ascertainment of the Divine Words constituting the New Testament.

PREFACE.

The difficulty to be surmounted lay in the fact that after all was gathered out of the Dean's remains that was suitable for the purpose, and when gaps of smaller or greater size were filled, as has been done throughout the series of unfinished and un- connected MSS., there was still a large space to cover without the Master's help in covering it.

Time and research and thought were alike necessary. Consequently, upon advice, I accepted an offer to edit the fourth edition of Scrivener's Plain Introduction, and although that extremely laborious accomplishment occupied far more time than was anticipated, yet in the event it has greatly helped the execution of my task. Never yet, before or since Dean Burgon's death, has there been such an opportunity as the present. The general ap- paratus criticus has been vastly increased ; the field of palaeography has been greatly enlarged through the discoveries in Egypt ; and there is a feeling abroad that we are on the brink of an improvement in systems and theories recently in vogue.

On returning to the work, I found that the key to the removal of the chief difficulty in the way of such improvement lay in an inflow of light upon what may perhaps be termed as to this subject the Pre-manuscriptal Period, — hitherto the dark age of Sacred Textualism, which precedes what was once ' the year one ' of Palaeography. Accordingly, I made a toilsome examination for myself of the quotations occurring in the writings of the Fathers before St. Chrysostom, or as I defined them in order to draw a self-acting line, of those who died before 400 A.D., with the result that the Traditional

x PREFACE.

Text is found to stand in the general proportion of 3 : 2 against other variations, and in a much higher proportion upon thirty test passages. After- wards, not being satisfied with resting the basis of my argument upon one scrutiny, I went again through the writings of the seventy-six Fathers concerned (with limitations explained in this book), besides others who yielded no evidence, and I found that although several more instances were conse- quently entered in my note-book, the general results remained almost the same. I do not flatter myself that even now I have recorded all the instances that could be adduced : — any one who is really ac- quainted with this work will know that such a feat is absolutely impossible, because such perfection cannot be obtained except after many repeated efforts. But I claim, not only that my attempts have been honest and fair even to self-abnegation, but that the general results which are much more than is required by my argument, as is explained in the body of this work, abundantly establish the antiquity of the Traditional Text, by proving the superior acceptance of it during the period at stake to that of any other.

Indeed, these examinations have seemed to me, not only to carry back the Traditional Text satisfactorily to the first age, but to lead also to solutions of several difficult problems, which are now presented to our readers. The wealth of MSS. to which the Fathers introduce us at second- hand can only be understood by those who may go through the writings of many of them with this view ; and outnumbers over and over again before

PREFACE. xt

the year 1000 all the contemporaneous Greek MSS. which have come down to us, not to speak of the years to which no MSS. that are now extant are in the opinion of all experts found to belong.

It is due both to Dean Burgon and to myself to say that we came together after having worked on independent lines, though I am bound to acknow- ledge my great debt to his writings. At first we did not agree thoroughly in opinion, but I found afterwards that he was right and I was wrong. It is a proof of the unifying power of our prin- ciples, that as to our system there is now absolutely no difference between us, though on minor points, generally outside of this immediate subject, we do not always exactly concur. Though I have the Dean's example for altering his writings largely even when they were in type, as he never failed to do, yet in loyalty I have delayed alterations as long as I could, and have only made them when I was certain that I was introducing some im- provement, and more often than not upon advice proffered to me by others.

Our coincidence is perhaps explained by our having been born when Evangelical earnestness affected all religious life, by our having been trained under the High Church movement, and at least in my case mellowed under the more moderate widen- ing caused by influences which prevailed in Oxford for some years after 1848. Certainly, the com- prehensiveness and exhaustiveness — probably in imitation of German method — which had before characterized Dr. Pusey's treatment of any subject, and found an exemplification in Professor Freeman's

xii PREFACE.

historical researches, and which was as I think to be seen in the action of the best spirits of the Oxford of 1848-56 — to quote my own experience, —lay at the root and constituted the life of Burgon's system, and the maintenance of these principles so far as we could at whatever cost formed the link between us. To cast away at least nineteen-twentieths of the evidence on points and to draw conclusions from the petty remainder, seems to us to be necessarily not less even than a crime and a sin, not only by reason of the sacrilegious destructiveness exercised thereby upon Holy Writ, but also because such a method is inconsistent with conscientious exhaustiveness and logical method. Perfectly familiar with all that can be and is advanced in favour of such proce- dure, must we not say that hardly any worse pattern than this in investigations and conclusions could be presented before young men at the critical time when they are entering upon habits of forming judgements which are to carry them through life ? Has the over-specialism which has been in vogue of late years promoted the acceptance of the theory before us, because it may have been under special- izing influences forgotten, that the really accom- plished man should aim at knowing something of everything else as well as knowing everything of the thing to which he is devoted, since narrowness in investigation and neglect of all but a favour- ite theory is likely to result from so exclusive an attitude ?

The importance of the question at stake is often underrated. Dr. Philip Schaff in- his well-known

PREFACE. xin

'Companion' (p. 176), — as Dr. E. Nestle of Ulm in one of his brochures (' Ein ceterum censeo zur neutestamentlichen Textkritik ') which he has kindly sent me, has pointed out, — observes that whereas Mill reckoned the variations to amount to 30,000, and Scrivener supposed that they have since in- creased to four times as much, they 'cannot now fall much short of 1 50,000.' This amount is appal- ling, and most of them are of a petty character. But some involve highly important passages, and even Hort has reckoned (Introduction, p. 2) that the disputed instances reach about one-eighth of the whole. Is it too strong therefore to say, that we live over a volcano, with a crust of earth of not too great a thickness lying between ?

The first half of our case is now presented in this Volume, which is a complete treatise in itself. A second will I hope follow at an early date, containing a disquisition on the Causes of the Corruption of the Traditional Text ; and, I am glad to say, will consist almost exclusively of Dean Burgon's own compositions. I ask from Critics who may not assent to all our conclusions a candid consideration of our case, which is rested solely upon argument and reason throughout. This explanation made by the Dean of his system in calmer times and in a more didactic form cannot, as I think, fail to remove much prejudice. If we seem at first sight anywhere to leap from reason- ing to dogmatism, our readers will discover, I believe, upon renewed observation that at least from our point of view that is not so. If we appear to speak too positively, we have done this,

xiv PREFACE.

not from confidence in any private judgement, but because we are sure, at least in our own minds, that we express the verdict of all the ages and all the countries.

May the great Head of the Church bless our effort on behalf of the integrity of His Holy Word, if not according to our plan and purpose, yet in the way that seemeth Him best!

EDWARD MILLER.

9 BRADMORE ROAD, OXFORD: Epiphany 1896.

CONTENTS.

INTRODUCTION.

PAGE

Sacred Textual Criticism — introduced by Origen — settled first in the fourth and before the eighth centuries — fresh rise after the invention of printing — infancy — childhood — youth — incipient maturity — Tra- ditional Text not identical with the Received Text . . . pp. 1-5

CHAPTER I.

PRELIMINARY GROUNDS.

§ L Importance of the subject — need of new advance and of candour in investigation. § 2. Sacred Textual Criticism different from Pro- fane— the New Testament assailed from the first. § 3. Overruling Providence — unique conditions, and overwhelming mass of evidence. § 4. Authority of the Church — Hort's admission — existence and descent of the Received Text. § 5. The question one of the many against the few — the plea of antiquity on the side of the few virtually a claim to subtle divination — impossibility of compromise . . pp. 6-18

CHAPTER II.

PRINCIPLES.

§ 1. Two chief branches of inquiry — collection of evidence — employ- ment of evidence. § 2. Providential multiplication of Copies, ordinary and lectionary — of Versions — of Patristic quotations. § 3. Similarity between later Uncials and Cursives — overestimate of the oldest Uncials — Copies the most important class of evidence — but not so old virtually as the earliest Versions and Fathers. § 4. Search for the readings of the autographs — the better attested, the genuine reading — need of tests or notes of truth — seven proposed. § 5. Mere antiquity of an authority not enough — yet antiquity a most important principle. § 6. ' Various readings' a misleading phrase — Corruption patent in B and N — four proofs that their text, not the Traditional, has been fabricated — Scrivener's mistake in supposing that the true texts must be sought in the oldest uncials — their constant disagreement with one another — self-impoverishment of some Critics pp. 19-39

xvi CONTENTS.

CHAPTER III.

THE SEVEN NOTES OF TRUTH.

PAGE

§ 1. Antiquity : — the more ancient, probably the better testimony — but not the sole arbiter. § 2. Number : — much fallacy in ' witnesses are to be weighed not counted' — used to champion the very few against the very many — number necessarily a powerful, but not the sole note of truth — Heb. iv. 2. § 3. Variety : — a great help to Number— various countries — various ages — no collusion — St. Matt. x. 8. § 4. Weight, or Respectability: — witnesses must be (i) respectable — (2) MSS. must not be transcripts of one another — (3; Patristic evidence must not be copied — (4) MSS. from one archetype — between one and two copies — (5} any collusion impairs weight — (6) a Version outweighs any single MS. — (7^1 also a Father — weight of single MSS. to be determined by peculiar characteristics. § 5. Continuity : — value of Unbroken Tradition — weakening effects of smaller chasms — fatal consequence of the admitted chasm of fifteen centuries. § 6. Context :— (a) Context of meaning— i Cor. xiii. 5 — (6) Context of readings— St. Matt. xvii. 21 — xi. 2-3 and St. Luke vii. 19 — consistency in immediate context . pp. 40-67

CHAPTER IV.

THE VATICAN AND SINAITIC MANUSCRIPTS.

§ 1. The seven Old Uncials— some understanding necessary between the two schools — dialogue with a Biblical Student — the superior antiquity of B and N a reasonable presumption that they are the purest — yet nearly 300 years between them and the autographs — no proof that their archetype was much older than they — conflict with the evidence of Versions and Fathers which are virtually much older — any superior excellence in their text merely the opinion of one school balanced by the other — Mai's editions of B — antiquity, number, variety, and continuity against that school — also weight — Traditional Text virtually older — proof that the text of B and X was derived from the Traditional text, not vice versa — alleged recensions no proof to the contrary — nor ' con- flation,' proved to be unsound — their disagreement with one another proved by passages. § 2. St. John v. 4 — St. Luke xi. 2—4. § 3. The ' Marys' of the Gospels. § 4. Jona and John. § 5. The foregoing instances typical — our appeal only to facts pp. 68-89

CHAPTER V.

THE ANTIQUITY OF THE TRADITIONAL TEXT. I. Witness of the Early Fathers.

§ 1. Involuntary witness of Dr. Hort : — though he denied the antiquity of the Traditional Text — no detailed examination of Dr. Hort's theory intended in this didactic treatise — his admission that we have the period

CONTENTS. xvil

PACK

of the Church since St. Chrysostom — driven to label the evidence of those centuries with the unhappy epithet ' Syrian ' — foisting into history his ' phantom recensions ' — facts, not theory. § 2. Testimony of the Ante- Chrysostom Writers : — two examinations made of all their quotations of the Gospels — trustworthiness of their writings on this point — many of their quotations not capable of use — general list — proportion of 3 : 2 for Traditional Text — verdict of those Writers on thirty test passages — proportion of 3 : i — validity of these lists — mistakes of Hort and others respecting separate Fathers — antiquity of corruption, though subor- dinate, also established — list of Early Traditional deponents — Later Traditional — Western or Syrio- Low- Latin — Alexandrian — lessons from these groups pp. 90-122

CHAPTER VI.

THE ANTIQUITY OF THE TRADITIONAL TEXT. II. Witness of the Early Syriac Versions.

Startling rise of Christianity in Syria — weakness of Cureton's arguments for the superior antiquity of the Curetonian — not helped by the heretical Lewis Codex — the idea of a Vulgate Peshitto founded upon a false parallel — traced to the fifth century by the universal use of the Peshitto by Nestorians, Monophysites, Christians of St. Thomas, and Maronites — very early date proved by numerous MSS. of the same period — attested in the fourth by Ephraem Syrus and Aphraates — must have been in existence before — proved back by its agreement with the Traditional Text — the petty Curetonian an unequal combatant — objection that the Text of the Curetonian and Lewis was the older — inaccurate advocacy of the Lewis — the age of these MSS. to be decided by the known facts — Mepharreshe or distinct Gospels to replace the Mehallete or mixed Gospels of Tatian pp. 123-134

CHAPTER VII.

THE ANTIQUITY OF THE TRADITIONAL TEXT. III. Witness of the Western or Syrio- Low- Latin Text.

Wiseman wrong in supposing that all Old Latin Texts came from one stem — the prima facie inference from similarity of language open to delusion — contrast of other Versions — table of the Old Latin MSS., as

b

CONTENTS.

PAGE

used by Tischendorf — no very generic difference — comparison under the thirty test passages — variety of synonyms denotes variety of sources — direct evidence of Augustine and Jerome — translations must have been made by all who wanted them in the bilingual Roman Empire — origin of Wiseman's idea in an etymological blunder — Diez's subsequent teaching — the deflection in the language of the Old Latin MSS. due to the Low-Latin dialects of the Italian Peninsula, the ' Itala ' of St. Augustine being in the most classical of later Latin — Syriacization of the Codex Bezae, and the teaching of the Ferrar group — pre-Evangelistic corruption carried to Rome from Antioch, and afterwards foisted into the Gospels — the Synoptic problem — the Traditional Text thus attested from the first by Fathers and Versions pp. 135-147

CHAPTER VIII.

ALEXANDRIA AND CAESAREA.

§ 1. Alexandrian Readings, and the Alexandrian School : — Text, or Readings ? — list of early Alexandrian Fathers — the thirty test passages in Bohairic — no Alexandrian MSS. of the period — instability — Origen the leading figure — elemental and critical — the cradle of criticism. § 2. Caesarean School : — dates from 231 A.D., when Origen moved to Caesarea — his witness to both texts — Pamphilus — Eusebius really prefers the Traditional — Palestine a central situation — coalition of readings — Eusebius' fifty MSS. probably included all sorts — Acacius more probably the scribe of B, and of the six leaves of tf — vellum came into prominent use at Caesarea— an Asiatic product — older MSS. written on papyrus — papyrus used till the tenth century — cursive hand on papyrus led to the ' Cursives ' pp. 148-158

CHAPTER IX. THE OLD UNCIALS. THE INFLUENCE OF ORIGEN.

§ 1. Superstitious deference to B — and X — products of the Semi- Arian or Homoean School — (i) dated from that time — (2) condemned when Arianism was finally condemned — (3) agree with Origenism — (4) pro- duced at Alexandria — colophons in N under Esther and Ezra, and agreement with Codex Pamphili — written accordingly at Caesarea. § 2. Origen : — his writings much studied by the ancients — of the same class as B and N , proved from various passages — Gal. iii. i — St. Matt. xiv. 19, xv. 35 — St. John xiii. 26 — St. Luke iv. 8 — St. John viii. 38. §3. Sceptical character of all the three pp. 159-171

CONTENTS. xix

CHAPTER X. THE OLD UNCIALS. CODEX D.

PAGE

§ 1. Parallel and connexion between the settlements of the Canon and the Text — end of the controversy after the last General Council — Origenism finally condemned then — no rest in Roman Empire till then — the art of writing on vellum then perfected — existence of better copies than B and X during the early Uncial period — A, #, and 5. § 2. Codex D : — strange character — I. Assimilation on a large scale — St. Markiii. 26— St. Luke xix. 27 — St. Matt. xx. 28 — St. Lukexiv. 8-10 — II. Extreme licentiousness — St. Mark iv. i. § 3. St. Luke iii. 23-38. § 4. St. Luke xxii. 20, and St. Mark xv. 43-4. § 5. St. Luke i. 65 — St. Mark xiv. 72, &c. § 6. Bad features in D and its family. § 7. Clum- siness and tastelessness in the Old Uncials. § 8. St. John ix. 36, xiv. 22, St. Matt. i. 18, St. Luke xviii. 14, St. John xvii. 2 delicate points thus rubbed off ......... pp. 172-195

CHAPTER XI. THE LATER UNCIALS AND THE CURSIVES.

§ 1. Nature of Tradition — many streams — great period of the two St. Gregories, St. Basil, and St. Chrysostom — Canon of St. Augustine — Uncials and Cursives do not differ in kind — Cursives different enough to be independent witnesses — not copies of Cod. A — a small minority of real dissentients — era of greater perfection from end of seventh century — expression by the majority of later Uncials and the Cursives of the settled judgement of the Church. § 2. The text of the Cursives not debased — (i) the Traditional Text already proved to go back to the first — (2) could not have been formed out of non-existing materials — (3) superior to the text of B and X — proved by the consentience of Copies, Versions, Fathers, and superior under all the Notes of Truth. § 3. St. Luke xix. 42. § 4. St. Matt. xx. 22-23. § 5. St. Matt. iv. 17-22, St. Mark i. 14-20, St. Luke v. i-n. § 6. St. Mark x. 23-24. § 7. St. Luke xvi. 9. § 8. St. John xvi. 13. § 9. St. Matt. viii. 5-13. § 10. St. Luke xx. 14. § 11. Familiarity through collation with the Cursive copies will reveal the general excellence of their text . pp. 196-223

CHAPTER XII. CONCLUSION.

Recapitulation — quod semper, quod ubique, quod ab omnibus, the principle of the Traditional Text — an exhaustive case — and very strong — answers to objections — (i) antiquity of B and N — (2) witnesses must be weighed first — (3) charge of conflation, Eph. v. 30 — weak

xx CONTENTS.

PAGE

pleas — (4) Genealogy explained — only true in a limited measure — reduces some groups of MSS. to one archetype each — advance of this plea solely as an excuse for B and X — which were founders of an obscure family dating from Caesarea, with huge gaps in their descent — perfect genealogy of the Traditional Text through many lines of descent — attested contemporaneously by numerous Fathers — proved step by step back to the earliest days — the Traditional Text contrasted with the Neologian in three ways, viz.— (I) wide and deep against narrow- ness— (II) founded on facts, not on speculation— (III) increasing now in strength, instead of daily getting out of date— the verdict of the Church, and therefore RESTING ON THE ROCK .... pp. 224-239

APPENDIX I.

HONEYCOMB — UTTO /zeXto-o-iov Krjpiov pp. 240-252

APPENDIX II. "o£os — VINEGAR pp. 253-258

APPENDIX III. THE RICH YOUNG MAN PP. 259-278

APPENDIX IV. ST. MARK i. i PP. 279-286

APPENDIX V. THE SCEPTICAL CHARACTER OF B AND K . .pp. 287-291

APPENDIX VI. THE PESHITTO AND CURETONIAN . . . .pp. 292-297

APPENDIX VII.

THE LAST TWELVE VERSES OF ST. MARK'S GOSPEL

pp. 298-307 APPENDIX VIII. NEW EDITIONS OF THE PESHITTO-SYRIAC AND THE

HARKLEIAN VERSIONS pp. 308-309

GENERAL INDEX pp.

INDEX OF PASSAGES OF THE NEW TESTAMENT

COMMENTED ON pp.

THE TRADITIONAL TEXT OF THE NEW TESTAMENT.

INTRODUCTION.

A FEW remarks at the outset of this treatise, which was left imperfect by Dean Burgon at his unexpected death, may make the object and scope of it more intelligible to many readers.

Textual Criticism of the New Testament is a close inquiry into what is the genuine Greek — the true text of the Holy Gospels, of the Acts of the Apostles, of the Pauline and Apostolic Epistles, and the Revelation. In- asmuch as it concerns the text alone, it is confined to the Lower Criticism according to German nomenclature, just as a critical examination of meaning, with all its attendant references and connexions, would constitute the Higher Criticism. It is thus the necessary prelude of any scientific investigation of the language, the purport, and the teaching of the various books of the New Testament, and ought itself to be conducted upon definite and scientific principles. The object of this treatise is to lead to a general settle- ment of those principles. For this purpose the Dean has stripped the discussion of all adventitious disguise, and has pursued it lucidly into manifold details, in order that no

B

2 INTRODUCTION.

employment of difficult terms or involved sentences may shed any mystification over the questions discussed, and that all intelligent people who are interested in such questions — and who is not ? — may understand the issues and the proofs of them.

In the very earliest times much variation in the text of the New Testament, and particularly of the Holy Gos- pels— for we shall treat mainly of these four books as constituting the most important province, and as affording a smaller area, and so being more convenient for the present inquiry : — much diversity in words and expression, I say, arose in the Church. In consequence, the school of scientific Theology at Alexandria, in the person of Origen, first found it necessary to take cognizance of the matter. When Origen moved to Caesarea, he carried his manuscripts with him, and they appear to have formed the foundation of the celebrated library in that city, which was afterwards amplified by Pamphilus and Eusebius, and also byAcacius and Euzoius1, who were all successively bishops of the place. During the life of Eusebius, if not under his controlling care, the two oldest Uncial Manuscripts in existence as hitherto discovered, known as B and N, or the Vatican and Sinaitic, were executed in handsome form and exquisite caligraphy. But shortly after, about the middle of the fourth century— as both schools of Textual Critics agree — a text differing from that of B and tf advanced in general acceptance ; and, increasing till the eighth century in the predominance won by the end of the fourth, became so prevalent in Christendom, that the small number of MSS. agreeing with B and N forms no sort of comparison with the many which vary from those two. Thus the problem of the fourth century anticipated the problem of the nine-

1 See Jerome, Epist. 34 (Migne, xxii. p. 448). Cod. V. of Philo has the following inscription: — Ev£otos fniaiconos iv cra>naTiois avtveuaaro, i.e. tran- scribed on vellum from papyrus. Leopold Cohn's edition of Philo, De Opiticiis Mundi, Vratislaw, 1889.

SCHOOLS OF TEXTUAL CRITICISM. 3

teenth. Are we for the genuine text of the New Testament to go to the Vatican and the Sinaitic MSS. and the few others which mainly agree with them, or are we to follow the main body of New Testament MSS., which by the end of the century in which those two were produced entered into possession of the field of contention, and have con- tinued in occupation of it ever since ? This is the problem which the following treatise is intended to solve, that is to say, which of these two texts or sets of readings is the better attested, and can be traced back through the stronger evidence to the original autographs.

A few words are now needed to describe and account for the present position of the controversy.

After the discovery of printing in Europe, Textual Criticism began to rise again. The career of it may be divided into four stages, which may be termed respectively, Infancy, Childhood, Youth, and Incipient Maturity l.

I. Erasmus in 1516 edited the New Testament from a very small number of manuscripts, probably only five, in repute at the time ; and six years afterwards appeared the Complutensian edition under Cardinal Ximenes, which had been printed two years before that of Erasmus. Robert Stephen, Theodore Beza, and the Elzevirs, also, as is well known, published editions of their own. In the latter edition of the Elzevirs, issued in 1633, occurred for the first time the widely-used expression ' Textus Receptus.' The sole object in this period was to adhere faithfully to the text received everywhere.

II. In the next, evidence from Manuscripts, Versions, and Fathers was collected, chiefly by Mill and Wetstein. Bent- ley thought of going back to the fourth century for decisive evidence. Bengel and Griesbach laid stress upon families and recensions of manuscripts, and led the way in departing

1 See my Guide to the Textual Criticism of the New Testament, pp. 7-37. George Bell and Sons, 1886.

B 2

4 INTRODUCTION.

from the received standard. Collation of manuscripts was carried on by these two critics and by other able scholars, and largely by Scholz. There was thus an amplification of materials, and a crop of theories. Much that was vague and elemental was intermingled with a promise of a great deal that would prove more satisfactory in the future.

III. The leader in the next advance was Lachmann, who began to discard the readings of the Received Text, supposing it to be only two centuries old. Authorities having already become inconveniently multitudinous, he limited his attention to the few which agreed with the oldest Uncials, namely, L or the Regius at Paris, one or two other fragments of Uncials, a few Cursives, the Old Latin Manuscripts, and a few of the oldest Fathers, making up generally some six or seven in all upon each separate reading. Tischendorf, the discoverer of N, the twin-sister of B, and the collator of a large number of MSS. \ followed him in the main, as did also Tregelles. And Dr. Hort, who, with Bishop Westcott, began to theorize and work when Lach- mann's influence was at the highest, in a most ingenious and elaborate Introduction maintained the cause of the two oldest Uncials — especially B — and their small band of followers. Admitting that the Received Text dates back as far as the middle of the fourth century, Hort argued that it was divided by more than two centuries and a half from the original Autographs, and in fact took its rise at Antioch and should be called 'Syrian,' notwithstanding the predominance which he acknowledged that it has enjoyed since the end of the fourth century. He termed the readings of which B and tf are the chief exponents ' the Neutral Text,' and held that that text can be traced back to the genuine Autographs 2.

1 For an estimate of Tischendorf's great labour, see an article on Tischen- dorf s Greek Testament in the Quarterly Review for July, 1895.

8 Dr. Hort's theory, which is generally held to supply the philosophical explanation of the tenets maintained in the school of critics who support B

TRADITIONAL TEXT. 5

IV. T have placed the tenets of the opposite school last as exhibiting signs of Incipient Maturity in the Science, not because they are admitted to be so, that being not the case, but because of their intrinsic merits, which will be unfolded in this volume, and because of the immense addition recently made of authorities to our store, as well as on account of the indirect influence exercised of late by discoveries pursued in other quarters 1. Indeed, it is sought to establish a wider stock of ruling authorities, and a sounder method in the use of them. The leaders in the advocacy of this system have been Dr. Scrivener in a modi- fied degree, and especially Dean Burgon. First, be it understood, that we do not advocate perfection in the Textus Receptus. We allow that here and there it requires revision. In the Text left behind by Dean Burgon 2, about 150 corrections have been suggested by him in St. Matthew's Gospel alone. What we maintain is the TRADITIONAL TEXT. And we trace it back to the earliest ages of which there is any record. We trust to the fullest testimony and the most enlightened view of all the evidence. In humble dependence upon God the Holy Ghost, Who we hold has multiplied witnesses all down the ages of the Church, and Whose cause we believe we plead, we solemnly call upon those many students of the Bible in these days who are earnest after truth to weigh without prejudice what we say, in the prayer that it may contribute something towards the ascertainment of the true expressions employed in the genuine Word of GOD.

and X as pre-eminently the sources of the correct text, may be studied in his Introduction. It is also explained and controverted in my Textual Guide, pp. 38-59 ; and has been powerfully criticized by Dean Burgon in The Revision Revised, Article III, or in No. 306 of the Quarterly Review, without reply.

1 Quarterly Review, July 1895, ' Tischendorf's Greek Testament.'

3 See Preface.

CHAPTER I.

PRELIMINARY GROUNDS.

§1-

IN the ensuing pages I propose to discuss a problem of the highest dignity and importance l : namely, On what principles the true text of the New Testament Scriptures is to be ascertained ? My subject is the Greek text of those Scriptures, particularly of the four Gospels ; my object, the establishment of that text on an intelligible and trustworthy basis.

That no fixed principles were known to exist before 1880 is proved by the fact that the most famous critics not only differed considerably from one another, but also from them- selves. Till then all was empiricism in this department. A section, a chapter, an article, a pamphlet, a tentative essay — all these indeed from time to time appeared : and some were excellent of their kind. But we require some- thing a vast deal more methodical, argumentative, and

1 It is remarkable, that in quarters where we should have looked for more scientific procedure the importance of the Textual Criticism of the New Testa- ment is underrated, upon a plea that theological doctrine may be established upon passages other than those of which the text has been impugned by the destructive school. Yet (a) in all cases consideration of the text of an author must perforce precede consideration of inferences from the text — Lower Criticism must be the groundwork of Higher Criticism ; (6) confirmatory passages cannot be thrown aside in face of attacks upon doctrine of every possible character ; (c) Holy Scripture is too unique and precious to admit of the study of the several words of it being interesting rather than important ; (d) many of the passages which Modern Criticism would erase or suspect — such as the last Twelve Verses of St. Mark, the first Word from the Cross, and the thrilling description of the depth of the Agony, besides numerous others — are valuable in the extreme ; and, (e) generally speaking, it is impossible to pronounce, especially amidst the thought and life seething everywhere round us, what part of Holy Scripture is not, or may not prove to be, of the highest importance as well as interest. — E. M.

NEED OF A NEW TREATISE. 7

complete, than is compatible with such narrow limits. Even where an account of the facts was extended to greater length and wras given with much fullness and ac- curacy, there was an absence of scientific principle sufficient to guide students to a satisfactory and sound determina- tion of difficult questions. Tischendorf 's last two editions differ from one another in no less than 3,572 particulars. He reverses in every page in 1872 what in 1859 he offered as the result of his deliberate judgement. Every one, to speak plainly, whether an expert or a mere beginner, seemed to consider himself competent to pass sentence on any fresh reading which is presented to his notice. We were informed that 'according to all principles of sound criticism ' this word is to be retained, that to be rejected : but till the appearance of the dissertation of Dr. Hort no one was so obliging as to tell us what the principles are to which reference is confidently made, and by the loyal application of which we might have arrived at the same result for ourselves. And Hort's theory, as will be shewn further on, involves too much violation of principles generally received, and is too devoid of anything like proof, ever to win universal acceptance. As matters of fact easily verified, it stands in sharp antagonism to the judgement passed by the Church all down the ages, and in many respects does not accord with the teaching of the most celebrated critics of the century who preceded him.

I trust I shall be forgiven, if in the prosecution of the present inquiry I venture to step out of the beaten track, and to lead my reader forward in a somewhat humbler style than has been customary with my predecessors. Whenever they have entered upon the consideration of principles, they have always begun by laying down on their own authority a set of propositions, some of which so far from being axiomatic are repugnant to our judge- ment and are found as they stand to be even false. True

8 PRELIMINARY GROUNDS.

that I also shall have to begin by claiming assent to a few fundamental positions : but then I venture to promise that these shall all be self-evident. I am very much mistaken if they do not also conduct us to results differing greatly from those which have been recently in favour with many of the most forward writers and teachers.

Beyond all things I claim at every thoughtful reader's hands that he will endeavour to approach this subject in an impartial frame of mind. To expect that he will succeed in divesting himself of all preconceived notions as to what is likely, what not, were unreasonable. But he is invited at least to wear his prejudices as loose about him as he can ; to be prepared to cast them off if at any time he has been shewn that they are founded on misappre- hension ; to resolve on taking nothing for granted which admits of being proved to be either true or false. And, to meet an objection which is sure to be urged against me, by proof of course I do but mean the nearest approach to demonstration, which in the present subject-matter is attainable.

Thus, I request that, apart from proof of some sort, it shall not be taken for granted that a copy of the New Testament written in the fourth or fifth century will exhibit a more trustworthy text than one written in the eleventh or twelfth. That indeed of two ancient documents the more ancient might not unreasonably have been expected to prove the more trustworthy, I am not concerned to dispute, and will not here discuss such a question ; but the probabilities of the case at all events are not axiomatic. Nay, it will be found, as I am bold enough to say, that in many instances a fourteenth-century copy of the Gospels may exhibit the truth of Scripture, while the fourth-century copy in all these instances proves to be the depositary of a fabricated text. I have only to request that, until the subject has been fully investigated, men will suspend their

SACRED TEXTUAL CRITICISM. 9

judgement on this head : taking nothing for granted which admits of proof, and regarding nothing as certainly either true or false which has not been shewn to be so.

§2.

That which distinguishes Sacred Science from every other Science which can be named is that it is Divine, and has to do with a Book which is inspired ; that is, whose true Author is God. For we assume that the Bible is to be taken as inspired, and not regarded upon a level with the Books of the East, which are held by their votaries to be sacred. It is chiefly from inattention to this circumstance that misconception prevails in that department of Sacred Science known as ' Textual Criticism.' Aware that the New Testament is like no other book in its origin, its contents, its history, many critics of the present day nevertheless permit themselves to reason concerning its Text, as if they entertained no suspicion that the words and sentences of which it is composed were destined to experience an extra- ordinary fate also. They make no allowances for the fact that influences of an entirely different kind from any with which profane literature is acquainted have made themselves felt in this department, and therefore that even those principles of Textual Criticism which in the case of profane authors are regarded as fundamental are often out of place here.

It is impossible that all this can be too clearly appre- hended. In fact, until those who make the words of the New Testament their study are convinced that they move in a region like no other, where unique phenomena await them at every step, and where seventeen hundred and fifty years ago depraving causes unknown in every other department of learning were actively at work, progress cannot really be made in the present discussion. Men must by all means disabuse their minds of the prejudices

10 PRELIMINARY GROUNDS.

which the study of profane literature inspires. Let me explain this matter a little more particularly, and establish the reasonableness of what has gone before by a few plain considerations which must, I think, win assent. I am not about to offer opinions, but only to appeal to certain un- deniable facts. What I deprecate, is not any discriminating use of reverent criticism, but a clumsy confusion of points essentially different.

No sooner was the work of Evangelists and Apostles recognized as the necessary counterpart and complement of God's ancient Scriptures and became the ' New Testament,' than a reception was found to be awaiting it in the world closely resembling that which He experienced Who is the subject of its pages. Calumny and misrepresentation, per- secution and murderous hate, assailed Him continually. And the Written Word in like manner, in the earliest age of all, was shamefully handled by mankind. Not only was it confused through human infirmity and mis- apprehension, but it became also the object of restless malice and unsparing assaults. Marcion, Valentinus, Basilides, Heracleon, Menander, Asclepiades, Theodotus, Hermophilus, Apollonides, and other heretics, adapted the Gospels to their own ideas. Tatian, and later on Ammonius, created confusion through attempts to combine the four Gospels either in a diatessaron or upon an intricate arrange- ment made by sections, under which as a further result the words of one Gospel became assimilated to those of another1. Want of familiarity with the sacred words in the first ages, carelessness of scribes, incompetent teaching, and ignorance of Greek in the West, led to further corruption of the Sacred Text. Then out of the fact that there existed a vast number of corrupt copies arose at once the need of Recension, which was carried on by Origen and his school. This was a fatal

1 See below, Vol. II. throughout, and a remarkable passage quoted from Caius or Gaius by Dean Burgon in The Revision Revised (Quarterly Review, No. 306), pp. 323-324-

EARLY CORRUPTION. II

necessity to have made itself felt in an age when the first principles of the Science were not understood ; for ' to correct ' was too often in those days another word for ' to corrupt.' And this is the first thing to be briefly explained and enforced : but more than a counterbalance was provided under the overruling Providence of God.

§3.

Before our Lord ascended up to Heaven, He told His disciples that He would send them the Holy Ghost, Who should supply His place and abide with His Church for ever. He added a promise that it should be the office of that inspiring Spirit not only * to bring to their remem- brance all things whatsoever He had told them 1/ but also to ' guide ' His Church ' into all the Truth/ or, * the whole Truth2' (irao-av rj]v a\i')9eiav). Accordingly, the earliest great achievement of those days was accomplished on giving to the Church the Scriptures of the New Testament, in which authorized teaching was enshrined in written form. And first, out of those many Gospels which incompetent persons had * taken in hand ' to write or to compile out of much floating matter of an oral or written nature, He guided them to discern that four were wholly unlike the rest — were the very Word of God.

There exists no reason for supposing that the Divine Agent, who in the first instance thus gave to mankind the Scriptures of Truth, straightway abdicated His office ; took no further care of His work ; abandoned those pre- cious writings to their fate. That a perpetual miracle was wrought for their preservation — that copyists were protected against the risk of error, or evil men prevented from adul- terating shamefully copies of the Deposit — no one, it is presumed, is so weak as to suppose. But it is quite a different thing to claim that all down the ages the sacred

1 St. John xiv. 26. 2 St. John xvi. 13.

12 PRELIMINARY GROUNDS.

writings must needs have been God's peculiar care ; that the Church under Him has watched over them with intelligence and skill ; has recognized which copies exhibit a fabricated, which an honestly transcribed text ; has generally sanctioned the one, and generally disallowed the other. I am utterly disinclined to believe — so grossly improbable does it seem — that at the end of 1800 years 995 copies out of every thousand, suppose, will prove un- trustworthy ; and that the one, two, three, four or five which remain, whose contents were till yesterday as good as unknown, will be found to have retained the secret of what the Holy Spirit originally inspired. I am utterly unable to believe, in short, that God's promise has so entirely failed, that at the end of 1800 years much of the text of the Gospel had in point of fact to be picked by a German critic out of a waste-paper basket in the convent of St. Catherine ; and that the entire text had to be remodelled after the pattern set by a couple of copies which had remained in neglect during fifteen centuries, and had pro- bably owed their survival to that neglect ; whilst hundreds of others had been thumbed to pieces, and had bequeathed their witness to copies made from them.

I have addressed what goes before to persons who sympathize with me in my belief. To others the argu- ment would require to be put in a different way. Let it then be remembered, that a wealth of copies existed in early times; that the need of zealous care of the Holy Scriptures was always felt in the Church ; that it is only from the Church that we have learnt which are the books of the Bible and which are not ; that in the age in which the Canon was settled, and which is presumed by many critics to have introduced a corrupted text, most of the intellect of the Roman Empire was found within the Church, and was directed upon disputed questions ; that in the succeeding ages the art of transcribing was brought

DIVINE SUPERINTENDENCE. 13

to a high pitch of perfection ; and that the verdict of all the several periods since the production of those two manuscripts has been given till a few years ago in favour of the Text which has been handed down : — let it be further borne in mind that the testimony is not only that of all the ages, but of all the countries : and at the very least so strong a presumption will ensue on behalf of the Traditional Text, that a powerful case indeed must be constructed to upset it. It cannot be vanquished by theories grounded upon internal considerations — often only another name for personal tastes — , or for scholarly likes or dislikes, or upon fictitious recensions, or upon any arbitrary choice of favourite manuscripts, or upon a strained division of authorities into families or groups, or upon a warped application of the principle of genealogy. In the ascertainment of the facts of the Sacred Text, the laws of evidence must be strictly followed. In questions relating to the inspired Word, mere speculation and unreason have no place. In short, the Traditional Text, founded upon the vast majority of authorities and upon the Rock of Christ's Church, will, if I mistake not, be found upon examination to be out of all comparison superior to a text of the nineteenth century, whatever skill and ingenuity may have been expended upon the production or the defence of it.

§4.

For due attention has never yet been paid to a circum- stance which, rightly apprehended, will be found to go a great way towards establishing the text of the New Testament Scriptures on a solid basis. I refer to the fact that a certain exhibition of the Sacred Text — that exhibition of it with which we are all most familiar — rests on eccle- siastical authority. Speaking generally, the Traditional Text of the New Testament Scriptures, equally with the New Testament Canon, rests on the authority of the Church

14 PRELIMINARY GROUNDS.

Catholic. 'Whether we like it, or dislike it' (remarked a learned writer in the first quarter of the nineteenth cen- tury), ' the present New Testament Canon is neither more nor less than the probat of the orthodox Christian bishops, and those not only of the first and second, but of the third and fourth, and even subsequent centuries V In like manner, whether men would or would not have it so, it is a plain fact that the Traditional Greek Text of the New Testament is neither more nor less than the probat of the orthodox Greek Christian bishops, and those, if not as we maintain of the first and second, or the third, yet unquestionably of the fourth and fifth, and even subsequent centuries.

For happily, the matter of fact here is a point on which the disciples of the most advanced of the modern school are entirely at one with us. Dr. Hort declares that ' The fundamental text of late extant Greek MSS. generally is, beyond all question, identical with the dominant Antiochian or Graeco-Syrian text of the second half of the fourth century. . . . The bulk of extant MSS. written from about three or four to ten or eleven centuries later must have had in the greater number of extant variations a common original either contemporary with, or older than, our oldest MSS.2' And again, 'Before the close of the fourth century, as we have said, a Greek text, not materially differing from the almost universal text of the ninth century and the Middle Ages, was dominant, probably by authority, at Antioch, and exercised much influence elsewhere 3.' The mention of 'Antioch' is, characteristically of the writer, purely arbitrary. One and the same Traditional Text, except in comparatively few particulars, has prevailed in the Church from the beginning till now. Especially de- serving of attention is the admission that the Text in

1 Rev. John Oxlee's sermon on Luke xxii. 28-30 (1821), p. 91 (Three Sermons on the power, origin, and succession of the Christian Hierarchy, and especially that of the Church of England).

2 Westcott and Hort, Introduction, p. 92. 3 Ibid. p. 142.

THE TEXT NECESSARILY TRADITIONAL. 15

question is of the fourth century, to which same century the two oldest of our Sacred Codexes (B and tf ) belong. There is observed to exist in Church Lectionaries precisely the same phenomenon. They have prevailed in unintermitted agreement in other respects from very early times, probably from the days of St. Chrysostom 1, and have kept in the main without change the form of words in which they were originally cast in the unchangeable East.

And really the problem comes before us (God be praised !) in a singularly convenient, a singularly intelli- gible form. Since the sixteenth century — we owe this also to the good Providence of God — one and the same text of the New Testament Scriptures has been generally re- ceived. I am not defending the ' Textus Receptus ' ; I am simply stating the fact of its existence. That it is without authority to bind, nay, that it calls for skilful revision in every part, is freely admitted. I do not believe it to be absolutely identical with the true Traditional Text. Its existence, nevertheless, is a fact from which there is no escaping. Happily, Western Christendom has been con- tent to employ one and the same text for upwards of three hundred years. If the objection be made, as it probably will be, ' Do you then mean to rest upon the five manuscripts used by Erasmus ? ' I reply, that the copies employed were selected because they were known to represent with accuracy the Sacred Word ; that the descent of the text was evidently guarded with jealous care, just as the human genealogy of our Lord was preserved ; that it rests mainly upon much the widest testimony; ami that where any part of it conflicts with the fullest evidence attainable, there I believe that it calls for correction.

The question therefore which presents itself, and must needs be answered in the affirmative before a single syllable of the actual text is displaced, will always be one

1 Scrivener, Plain Introduction, ed. 4, Vol. I. pp. 75-76.

l6 PRELIMINARY GROUNDS.

and the same, viz. this : Is it certain that the evidence in favour of the proposed new reading is sufficient to warrant the innovation ? For I trust we shall all be agreed that in the absence of an affirmative answer to this question, the text tnay on no account be disturbed. Rightly or wrongly it has had the approval of Western Christendom for three centuries, and is at this hour in possession of the field. Therefore the business before us might be stated somewhat as follows : What considerations ought to determine our acceptance of any reading not found in the Received Text, or, to state it more generally and fundamentally, our preference of one reading before another ? For until some sort of understanding has been arrived at on this head, progress is impossible. There can be no Science of Textual Criticism, I repeat — and therefore no security for the in- spired Word — so long as the subjective judgement, which may easily degenerate into individual caprice, is allowed ever to determine which readings shall be rejected, which retained.

In the next chapter I shall discuss the principles which must form the groundwork of the Science. Meanwhile a few words are necessary to explain the issue lying between myself and those critics with whom I am unable to agree. I must, if I can, come to some understanding with them ; and I shall use all clearness of speech in order that my meaning and my position may be thoroughly apprehended.

§5.

Strange as it may appear, it is undeniably true, that the whole of the controversy may be reduced to the following narrow issue : Does the truth of the Text of Scripture dwell with the vast multitude of copies, uncial and cursive, concerning which nothing is more remarkable than the marvellous agreement which subsists between them ? Or is it rather to be supposed that the truth abides exclusively

THE MANY AGAINST FEW. 17

with a very little handful of manuscripts, which at once differ from the great bulk of the witnesses, and — strange to say — also amongst themselves ?

The advocates of the Traditional Text urge that the Consent without Concert of so many hundreds of copies, executed by different persons, at diverse times, in widely sundered regions of the Church, is a presumptive proof of their trustworthiness, which nothing can invalidate but some sort of demonstration that they are untrustworthy guides after all.

The advocates of the old uncials— for it is the text exhibited by one or more of five Uncial Codexes known as ABXCD which is set up with so much confidence — are observed to claim that the truth must needs reside exclusively with the objects of their choice. They seem to base their claim on ' antiquity ' ; but the real confidence of many of them lies evidently in a claim to subtle divination, which enables them to recognize a true reading or the true text when they see it. Strange, that it does not seem to have struck such critics that they assume the very thing which has to be proved. Be this as it may, as a matter of fact, readings exclusively found in Cod. B, or Cod. K, or Cod. D are sometimes adopted as correct. Neither Cod. A nor Cod. C are ever known to inspire similar confidence. But the accession of both or either as a witness is always acceptable. Now it is remarkable that all the five Codexes just mentioned are never found, unless I am mistaken, exclusively in accord.

This question will be more fully discussed in the follow- ing treatise. Here it is only necessary further to insist upon the fact that, generally speaking, compromise upon these issues is impossible. Most people in these days are inclined to remark about any controversy that the truth resides between the two combatants, and most of us would like to meet our opponents half-way. The present

C

]8 PRELIMINARY GROUNDS.

contention unfortunately does not admit of such a decision. Real acquaintance with the numerous points at stake must reveal the impossibility of effecting a settlement like that. It depends, not upon the attitude, or the temper, or the intellects of the opposing parties: but upon the stern and incongruous elements of the subject-matter of the struggle. Much as we may regret it, there is positively no other solution.

Indeed there exist but two rival schools of Textual Criticism. And these are irreconcilably opposed. In the end, one of them will have to give way : and, vae victis ! unconditional surrender will be its only resource. When one has been admitted to be the right, there can no place be found for the other. It will have to be dismissed from attention as a thing utterly, hopelessly in the wrong1.

1 Of course this trenchant passage refers only to the principles of the school found to fail. A school may leave fruits of research of a most valuable kind, and yet be utterly in error as to the inferences involved in such and other facts. Dean Burgon amply admitted this. The following extract from one of the many detached papers left by the author is appended as possessing both illus- trative and personal interest : —

' Familiar as all such details as the present must of necessity prove to those who have made Textual Criticism their study, they may on no account be with- held. I am not addressing learned persons only. I propose, before I lay down my pen, to make educated persons, wherever they may be found, partakers of my own profound conviction that for the most part certainty is attainable on this subject-matter ; but that the decrees of the popular school — at the head of which stand many of the great critics of Christendom — are utterly mistaken. Founded, as I venture to think, on entirely false premisses, their conclusions almost invariably are altogether wrong. And this I hold to be demonstrable ; and I propose in the ensuing pages to establish the fact. If I do not succeed, I shall pay the penalty for my presumption and my folly. But if I succeed — and I wish to have jurists and persons skilled in the law of evidence, or at least thoughtful and unprejudiced persons, wherever they are to be found, and no others, for my judges, — if I establish my position, I say, let my father and my mother's son be kindly remembered by the Church of Christ when he has departed hence.'

CHAPTER II.

PRINCIPLES.

§1-

THE object of Textual Criticism, when applied to the Scriptures of the New Testament, is to determine what the Apostles and Evangelists of Christ actually wrote — the precise words they employed, and the very order of them. It is therefore one of the most important subjects which can be proposed for examination ; and unless handled unskil- fully, ought to prove by no means wanting in living interest. Moreover, it clearly takes precedence, in synthetical order of thought, of every other department of Sacred Science, so far as that rests upon the great pillar of Holy Scripture.

Now Textual Criticism occupies itself chiefly with two distinct branches of inquiry, (i) Its first object is to collect, investigate, and arrange the evidence supplied by Manu- scripts, Versions, Fathers. And this is an inglorious task, which demands prodigious labour, severe accuracy, un- flagging attention, and can never be successfully conducted without a considerable amount of solid learning. (2) Its second object is to draw critical inferences ; in other words, to discover the truth of the text — the genuine words of Holy Writ. And this is altogether a loftier function, and calls for the exercise of far higher gifts. Nothing can be successfully accomplished here without large and exact knowledge, freedom from bias and prejudice. Above all, there must be a clear and judicial understanding. The

C 3

20 PRINCIPLES.

logical faculty in perfection must energize continually: or the result can only be mistakes, which may easily prove calamitous.

My next step is to declare what has been hitherto effected in either of these departments, and to characterize the results. In the first-named branch of the subject, till recently very little has been attempted : but that little has been exceedingly well done. Many more results have been added in the last thirteen years : a vast amount of additional evidence has been discovered, but only a small portion of it has been thoroughly examined and collated. In the latter branch, a great deal has been attempted : but the result proves to be full of disappointment to those who augured much from it. The critics of this century have been in too great a hurry. They have rushed to con- clusions, trusting to the evidence which was already in their hands, forgetting that only those conclusions can be scientifically sound which are drawn from all the materials that exist. Research of a wider kind ought to have pre- ceded decision. Let me explain and establish what I have been saying.

§2.

It was only to have been anticipated that the Author of the Everlasting Gospel — that masterpiece of Divine Wisdom, that miracle of superhuman skill — would shew Himself supremely careful for the protection and preserva- tion of His own chiefest work. Every fresh discovery of the beauty and preciousness of the Deposit in its essential structure does but serve to deepen the conviction that a marvellous provision must needs have been made in God's eternal counsels for the effectual conservation of the inspired Text.

Yet it is not too much to assert that nothing which man's inventive skill could have devised nearly comes up

MULTITUDINOUS EVIDENCE. 21

to the actual truth of the matter. Let us take a slight but comprehensive view of what is found upon investigation, as I hold, to have been the Divine method in respect of the New Testament Scriptures.

I. From the very necessity of the case, copies of the Gospels and Epistles in the original Greek were multiplied to an extraordinary extent all down the ages and in every part of the Christian Church. The result has been that, although all the earliest have perished, there remains to this day a prodigious number of such transcripts ; some of them of very high antiquity. On examining these with care, we discover that they must needs have been (a) pro- duced in different countries, (b) executed at intervals during the space of one thousand years, (c] copied from originals no longer in existence. And thus a body of evidence has been accumulated as to what is the actual text of Scripture, such as is wholly unapproachable with respect to any other writings in the world1. More than two thousand manu- script copies are now (1888) known to exist2.

1 There are, however, in existence, about 200 MSS. of the Iliad and Odyssey of Homer, and about 150 of Virgil. But in the case of many books the existing authorities are but scanty. Thus there are not many more than thirty of Aeschylus, and they are all said by W. Dindorf to be derived from one of the eleventh century : only a few of Demosthenes, of which the oldest are of the tenth or eleventh century : only one authority for the first six books of the Annals of Tacitus (see also Madvig's Introduction) : only one of the Clemen- tines: only one of the Didache, &c. See Gow's Companion to School Classics, Macmillan & Co. 1888.

2 ' I had already assisted my friend Prebendary Scrivener in greatly enlarging Scholz's list. We had, in fact, raised the enumeration of " Evangelia" [copies of Gospels] to 621 : of ''Acts and Catholic Epistles" to 239: of "Paul" to 281 : of "Apocalypse " to 108 : of" Evangelistaria " [Lectionary copies of Gospels] to 299 : of the book called " Apostolos" [Lectionary copies of Acts and Epistles] to 81 — making a total of 1629. But at the end of a protracted and somewhat laborious correspondence with the custodians of not a few great continental libraries, I am able to state that our available " Evangelia " amount to at least 739 : our " Acts and Cath. Epp." to 261 : our " Paul " to 338 : our " Apoc." to 122 : our " Evst." to 415 : our copies of the " Apostolos " to 128— making a total of 2003. This shews an increase of three hundred and seventy-four.' Revision Revised, p. 521. But since the publication of Dr. Gregory's Prole- gomena, and of the fourth edition of Dr. Scrivener's Plain Introduction to the

22 PRINCIPLES.

It should be added that the practice of reading Scripture aloud before the congregation — a practice which is observed to have prevailed from the Apostolic age — has resulted in the increased security of the Deposit: for (i) it has led to the multiplication, by authority, of books containing the Church Lessons ; and (2) it has secured a living wit- ness to the ipsissima verba of the Spirit — in all the Churches of Christendom. The ear once thoroughly familiarized with the words of Scripture is observed to resent the slightest departure from the established type. As for its tolerating important changes, that is plainly out of the question.

II. Next, as the Gospel spread from land to land, it became translated into the several languages of the ancient world. For, though Greek was widely understood, the com- merce and the intellectual predominance of the Greeks, and the conquests of Alexander having caused it to be spoken nearly all over the Roman Empire, Syriac and Latin Versions were also required for ordinary reading, probably even in the very age of the Apostles. And thus those three languages in which ' the title of His accusation ' was written above His cross — not to insist upon any abso- lute identity between the Syriac of the time with the then 'Hebrew' of Jerusalem — became from the earliest time the depositaries of the Gospel of the World's Redeemer. Syriac was closely related to the vernacular Aramaic of Palestine and was spoken in the adjoining region : whilst Latin was the familiar idiom of all the Churches of the West.

Thus from the first in their public assemblies, orientals

Criticism of the New Testament, after Dean Burgon's death, the list has been largely increased. In the fourth edition of the Introduction (Appendix F, p. 397*) the total number under the six classes of ' Evangel ia,' 'Acts and Catholic Epistles,' ' St. Paul,' 'Apocalypse,' * Evangelistaria,' and' Apostolos,' has reached (about) 3,829, and may be reckoned when all have come in at over 4,000. The separate MSS. (some in the reckoning just given being counted more than once) are already over 3,000.

COPIES, VERSIONS, FATHERS. 23

and occidentals alike habitually read aloud the writings of the Evangelists and Apostles. Before the fourth and fifth centuries the Gospel had been further translated into the peculiar idioms of Lower and Upper Egypt, in what are now called the Bohairic and the Sahidic Versions, — of Ethiopia and of Armenia, — of Gothland. The text thus embalmed in so many fresh languages was clearly, to a great extent, protected against the risk of further change ; and these several translations remain to this day as wit- nesses of what was found in copies of the New Testament which have long since perished.

III. But the most singular provision for preserving the memory of what was anciently read as inspired Scriptures remains to be described. Sacred Science boasts of a litera- ture without a parallel in any other department of human knowledge. The Fathers of the Church, the Bishops and Doctors of primitive Christendom, were in some in- stances voluminous writers, whose works have largely come down to our times. These men often comment upon, freely quote, habitually refer to, the words of Inspira- tion : whereby it comes to pass that a host of unsuspected witnesses to the truth of Scripture are sometimes pro- ducible. The quotations of passages by the Fathers are proofs of the readings which they found in the copies used by them. They thus testify in ordinary quotations, though it be at second hand : and sometimes their testimony has more than usual value when they argue or comment upon the passage in question. Indeed, very often the manu- scripts in their hands, which so far live in their quotations, are older — perhaps centuries older — than any copies that now survive. In this way, it will be perceived that a three- fold security has been provided for the integrity of the Deposit: — Copies, — Versions, — Fathers. On the relation of each of which heads to one another something par- ticular has now to be delivered.

24 PRINCIPLES.

§3.

Manuscript copies are commonly divided into Uncial, i. e. those which are written in capital letters, and Cursive or 'minuscule,' i.e. these which are written in 'running' or small hand. This division though convenient is misleading. The earliest of the ' Cursives ' are more ancient than the latest of the ' Uncials ' by full one hundred years 1. The later body of the Uncials belongs virtually, as will be proved, to the body of the Cursives. There is no merit, so to speak, in a MS. being written in the uncial character. The number of the Uncials is largely inferior to that of the Cursives, though they usually boast a much higher antiquity. It will be shewn in a subsequent chapter that there is now, in the face of recent discoveries of Papyrus MSS. in Egypt, much reason for inferring that Cursive MSS. were largely derived from MSS. on Papyrus, just as the Uncials them- selves were, and that the prevalence for some centuries of Uncials took its rise from the local library of Caesarea. For a full account of these several Codexes, and for many other particulars in Sacred Textual Criticism, the reader is referred to Scrivener's Introduction, 1894.

Now it is not so much an exaggerated, as an utterly mistaken estimate of the importance of the Textual decrees of the five oldest of these Uncial copies, which lies at the root of most of the criticism of the last fifty years. We are constrained in consequence to bestow what will appear to some a disproportionate amount of attention on those five Codexes : viz. the Vatican Codex B, and the Sinaitic Codex {*, which are supposed to be both of the fourth century: the Alexandrian Codex A, and the fragmentary Parisian Codex C, which are assigned to the fifth : and lastly D, the Codex Bezae at Cambridge, which is supposed to have been written in the sixth. To these

1 Evan. 481 is dated A.D. 835 ; Evan. S. is dated A. D. 949.

VARIETY IN COPIES. 25

may now be added, as far as St. Matthew and St. Mark are concerned, the Codex Beratinus 4>, and the Rossanenslan Codex 2, both of which are of the early part of the sixth century or end of the fifth. But these two witness generally against the two oldest, and have not yet received as much attention as they deserve. It will be found in the end that we have been guilty of no exaggeration in characterizing B, N, and D at the outset, as three of the most corrupt copies in existence. Let not any one suppose that the age of these five MSS. places them upon a pedestal higher than all others. They can be proved to be wrong time after time by evidence of an earlier period than that which they can boast.

Indeed, that copies of Scripture, as a class, are the most important instruments of Textual Criticism is what no competent person will be found to deny. The chief reasons of this are their continuous text, their designed embodi- ment of the written Word, their numbery and their variety. But we make also such great account of MSS., because (i) they supply unbroken evidence to the text of Scripture from an early date throughout history until the invention of printing ; (2) they are observed to be dotted over every century of the Church after the first three ; (3) they are the united product of all the patriarchates in Christendom. There can have been no collusion therefore in the prepara- tion of this class of authorities. The risk of erroneous transcription has been reduced to the lowest possible amount. The prevalence of fraud to a universal extent is simply a thing impossible. Conjectural corrections of the text are pretty sure, in the long run, to have become effectually excluded. On the contrary, the testimony of Fathers is fragmentary, undesigned, though often on that account the more valuable, and indeed, as has been already said, is often not to be found ; yet occasionally it is very precious, whether from eminent antiquity or the clearness of

26 PRINCIPLES.

their verdict: while Versions, though on larger details they yield a most valuable collateral evidence, yet from their nature are incapable of rendering help upon many important points of detail. Indeed, in respect of the ipsissima verba of Scripture, the evidence of Versions in other languages must be precarious in a high degree.

Undeniable it is, that as far as regards Primitiveness, certain of the Versions, and not a few of the Fathers, throw Manuscripts altogether in the shade. We possess no actual copies of the New Testament so old as the Syriac and the Latin Versions by probably more than two hundred years. Something similar is perhaps to be said of the Versions made into the languages of Lower and Upper Egypt, which may be of the third century l. Reasonable also it is to assume that in no instance was an ancient Version executed from a single Greek exemplar : consequently, Versions enjoyed both in their origin and in their acceptance more publicity than of necessity attached to any individual copy. And it is undeniable that on countless occasions the evidence of a translation, on account of the clearness of its testimony, is every bit as satisfactory as that of an actual copy of the Greek.

But I would especially remind my readers of Bentley's golden precept, that ' The real text of the sacred writers does not now, since the originals have been so long lost, lie in any MS. or edition, but is dispersed in them all.' This truth, which was evident to the powerful intellect of that great scholar, lies at the root of all sound Textual Criticism. To abide by the verdict of the two, or five, or seven oldest Manuscripts, is at first sight plausible, and is the natural refuge of students who are either superficial, or who wish to make their task as easy and simple as possible. But to put aside inconvenient witnesses is contrary to all principles of justice and of science. The problem is more

1 Or, as some think, at the end of the second century.

ORIGINAL READINGS. 27

complex, and is not to be solved so readily. Evidence of a strong and varied character may not with safety be cast away, as if it were worthless.

§4.

We are constrained therefore to proceed to the con- sideration of the vast mass of testimony which lies ready to our hands. And we must just as evidently seek for principles to guide us in the employment of it. For it is the absence of any true chart of the ocean that has led people to steer to any barren island, which under a guise of superior antiquity might at first sight present the delusive appearance of being the only safe and sure harbour.

i. We are all, I trust, agreed at least in this, — That the thing which we are always in search of is the Text of Scripture as it actually proceeded from the inspired writers themselves. It is never, I mean, ' ancient readings ' which we propose as the ultimate object of our inquiries. It is always the oldest Reading of all which we desire to ascertain ; in other words, the original Text, nothing else or less than the very words of the holy Evangelists and Apostles themselves.

And axiomatic as this is, it requires to be clearly laid down. For sometimes critics appear to be engrossed with the one solicitude to establish concerning the readings for which they contend, that at least they must needs be very ancient. Now, since all readings must needs be very ancient which are found in very ancient documents, nothing has really been achieved by proving that such and such readings existed in the second century of our era : — unless it can also be proved that there are certain other attendant circumstances attaching to those readings, which constitute a fair presumption, that they must needs be regarded as the only genuine wording of the passage in question. The Holy Scriptures are not an arena for the exercise or display of the ingenuity of critics.

28 PRINCIPLES.

2. I trust it may further be laid down as a fundamental principle that of two possible ways of reading the Text, that way which is found on examination to be the better attested and authenticated — by which I mean, the reading which proves on inquiry to be supported by the better evidence — must in every instance be of necessity presumed to be the actual reading, and is to be accepted accordingly by all students.

3. I will venture to make only one more postulate, viz. this : That hitherto we have become acquainted with no single authority which is entitled to dictate absolutely on all occasions, or even on any one occasion, as to what shall or shall not be regarded as the true Text of Scripture. We have here no one infallible witness, I say, whose solitary dictum is competent to settle controversies. The problem now to be investigated, viz. what evidence is to be held to be * the best/ may doubtless be stated in many ways : but I suppose not more fairly than by proposing the following question, — Can any rules be offered whereby in any case of conflicting testimony it may be certainly ascertained which authorities ought to be followed? The court is full of witnesses who contradict one another. How are we to know which of them to believe? Strange to say, the witnesses are commonly, indeed almost invariably, observed to divide themselves into two camps. Are there no rules discoverable by which it may be probably determined with which camp of the two the truth resides ?

I proceed to offer for the reader's consideration seven Tests of Truth, concerning each of which I shall have some- thing to say in the way of explanation by-and-by. In the end I shall ask the reader to allow that where these seven tests are found to conspire, we may confidently assume that the evidence is worthy of all acceptance, and is to be implicitly followed. A reading should be attested then by the seven following

SEVEN TESTS OF TRUTH. 29

NOTES OF TRUTH.

1. Antiquity, or Primitiveness ;

2. Consent of Witnesses, or Number ;

3. Variety of Evidence, or Catholicity ;

4. Respectability of Witnesses, or Weight ;

5. Continuity, or Unbroken Tradition ;

6. Evidence of the Entire Passage, or Context ;

7. Internal Considerations, or Reasonableness.

§5.

The full consideration of these Tests of Truth must be post- poned to the next chapter. Meanwhile, three discussions of a more general character demand immediate attention.

I. Antiquity, in and by itself, will be found to avail nothing. A reading is to be adopted not because it is old, but because it is the best attested, and therefore the oldest. There may seem to be paradox on my part : but there is none. I have admitted, and indeed insist upon it. that the oldest reading of all is the very thing we are in search of: for that must of necessity be what proceeded from the pen of the sacred writer himself. But, as a rule, fifty years, more or less, must be assumed to have intervened between the production of the inspired autographs and the earliest written representation of them now extant. And precisely in that first age it was that men evinced them- selves least careful or accurate in guarding the Deposit, — least critically exact in their way of quoting it ; — whilst the enemy was most restless, most assiduous in procuring its depravation. Strange as it may sound, — distressing as the discovery must needs prove when it is first distinctly realized. — the earliest shreds and scraps — for they are at first no more — that come into our hands as quotations of the text of the New Testament Scriptures are not only disappointing by reason of their inexactness, their frag- mentary character, their vagueness ; but they are often

30 PRINCIPLES.

demonstrably inaccurate. I proceed to give one example out of many.

' My God, My God, wherefore hast thou forsaken me ? ' fjit eyKare'A.nre? ; So it is in St. Matt, xxvii. 46 : so in St. Mark xv. 34. But because, in the latter place, NB, one Old Latin, the Vulgate, and the Bohairic Versions, besides Eusebius, followed by L and a few cursives, reverse the order of the last two words, the editors are unanimous in doing the same thing. They have yet older authority, however, for what they do. Justin M. (A.D. 164) and the Valentinians (A.D. 150) are with them. As far therefore as antiquity goes, the evidence for reading fyicar&iir& jute is really wondrous strong.

And yet the evidence on the other side, when it is considered, is perceived to be overwhelming1. Add the discovery that ey/careOuTre'? jue is the established reading of the familiar Septuagint, and we have no hesitation what- ever in retaining the commonly Received Text, because the secret is out. NB were sure to follow the Septuagint, which was so dear to Origen. Further discussion of the point is superfluous.

I shall of course be asked, — Are we then to understand that you condemn the whole body of ancient authorities as untrustworthy ? And if you do, to what other authorities would you have us resort ?

I answer : — So far from regarding the whole body of ancient authorities as untrustworthy, it is precisely ' the whole body of ancient authorities' to which I insist that we must invariably make our appeal, and to which we must eventually defer. I regard them therefore with more than reverence. I submit to their decision unreservedly. Doubtless I refuse to regard any one of those same most ancient manuscripts — or even any two or three

1 ACS (4> in St. Matt.) with fourteen other uncials, most cursives, four Old Latin, Gothic, St. Irenaeus, &c. &c.

VALUE OF REAL ANTIQUITY. 31

of them — as oracular. But why ? Because I am able to demonstrate that every one of them singly is in a high degree corrupt, and is condemned upon evidence older than itself. To pin my faith therefore to one, two, or three of those eccentric exemplars, were indeed to insinuate that the whole body of ancient authorities is unworthy of credit.

It is to Antiquity, I repeat, that I make my appeal : and further, I insist that the ascertained verdict of Antiquity shall be accepted. But then, inasmuch as by ' Antiquity ' I do not even mean any one single ancient authority, how- ever ancient, to the exclusion of, and in preference to, all the rest, but the whole collective body, it is precisely ' the body of ancient authorities ' which I propose as the arbiters. Thus, I do not mean by ' Antiquity ' either (i) the Peshitto Syriac : or (2) Cureton's Syriac : or (3) the Old Latin Versions : or (4) the Vulgate : or (5) the Egyptian, or indeed (6) any other of the ancient Versions: — not (7) Origen, nor (8) Eusebius, nor (9) Chrysostom, nor (TO) Cyril, — nor indeed (n) any other ancient Father standing alone: neither (12) Cod. A. — nor (13) Cod. B. — nor (14) Cod. C,— nor (15) Cod. D, — nor (16) Cod. N*,— nor in fact (17) any other individual Codex that can be named. I should as soon think of confounding the cathedral hard by with one or two of the stones which compose it. By Antiquity I understand the whole body of documents which convey to me the mind of Antiquity, — transport me back to the primitive age, and acquaint me, as far as is now possible, with what was its verdict.

And by parity of reasoning, I altogether decline to accept as decisive the verdict of any two or three of these in defiance of the ascertained authority of all, or a majority of the rest.

In short, I decline to accept a fragment of Antiquity, arbitrarily broken off, in lieu of the entire mass of ancient witnesses. And further than this, I recognize other Notes

32 PRINCIPLES.

of Truth, as I have stated already ; and I shall prove this position in my next chapter.

§6.

II. The term ' various readings ' conveys an entirely incorrect impression of the grave discrepancies discoverable between a little handful of documents — of which Codexes B-N of the fourth century, D of the sixth, L of the eighth, are the most conspicuous samples — and the Traditional Text of the New Testament. The expression ' various readings' belongs to secular literature and refers to phe- nomena essentially different from those exhibited by the copies just mentioned. Not but what ' various readings,' properly so called, are as plentiful in sacred as in profane codexes. One has but to inspect Scrivener's Full and Exact Collation of about Twenty Greek Manuscripts of the Gospels (1853) to be convinced of the fact. But when we study the New Testament by the light of such Codexes as BKDL, we find ourselves in an entirely new region of experience ; confronted by phenomena not only unique but even portentous. The text has undergone apparently an habitual, if not systematic, depravation ; has been manipulated throughout in a wild way. Influences have been demonstrably at work which altogether perplex the judgement. The result is simply calamitous. There are evidences of persistent mutilation, not only of words and clauses, but of entire sentences. The substitution of one expression for another, and the arbitrary transposition of words, are phenomena of such perpetual occurrence, that it becomes evident at last that what lies before us is not so much an ancient copy, as an ancient recension of the Sacred Text. And yet not by any means a recension in the usual sense of the word as an authoritative revision : but only as the name may be applied to the product of individual inaccuracy or caprice, or tasteless assiduity

THE TEXT OF B AND K INFERIOR. 33

on the part of one or many, at a particular time or in a long series of years. There are reasons for inferring, that we have alighted on five specimens of what the misguided piety of a primitive age is known to have been fruitful in pro- ducing. Of fraud, strictly speaking, there may have been little or none. We should shrink from imputing an evil motive where any matter will bear an honourable interpreta- tion. But, as will be seen later on, these Codexes abound with so much licentiousness or carelessness as to suggest the inference, that they are in fact indebted for their pre- servation to their hopeless character. Thus it would appear that an evil reputation ensured their neglect in ancient times ; and has procured that they should survive to- our own, long after multitudes which were much better had perished in the Master's service. Let men think of this matter as they will, — whatever in fact may prove to be the history of that peculiar Text which finds its chief exponents in Codd. BNDL, in some copies of the Old Latin, and in the Curetonian Version, in Origen, and to a lesser extent in the Bohairic and Sahidic Translations, — all must admit, as a matter of fact, that it differs essentially from the Traditional Text, and is no mere variation of it.

But why, it will be asked, may it not be the genuine article ? Why may not the * Traditional Text ' be the fabrication ?

i. The burden of proof, we reply, rests with our oppo- nents. The consent without concert of (suppose) 990 out of 1000 copies, — of every date from the fifth to the four- teenth century, and belonging to every region of ancient Christendom, — is a colossal fact not to be set aside by any amount of ingenuity. A predilection for two fourth- century manuscripts closely resembling one another, yet standing apart in every page so seriously that it is easier to find two consecutive verses in which they differ than two consecutive verses in which they entirely agree : — such

X>

34 PRINCIPLES.

a preference, I say, apart from abundant or even definitely clear proof that it is well founded, is surely not entitled to be accepted as conclusive.

2. Next, — Because, — although for convenience we have hitherto spoken of Codexes BNDL as exhibiting a single text, — it is in reality not one text but fragments of many, which are to be met with in the little handful of authorities enumerated above. Their witness does not agree together. The Traditional Text, on the contrary, is unmistakably one.

3. Further, — Because it is extremely improbable, if not impossible, that the Traditional Text was or could have been derived from such a document as the archetype of B-N: whereas the converse operation is at once obvious and easy. There is no difficulty in producing a short text by omission of words, or clauses, or verses, from a fuller text : but the fuller text could not have been produced from the shorter by any development which would be possible under the facts of the case 1. Glosses would account for changes in the archetype of B-tf , but not conversely 2.

4. But the chief reason is, — Because, on making our appeal unreservedly to Antiquity — to Versions and Fathers as. well as copies, — the result is unequivocal. The Tra- ditional Text becomes triumphantly established, — the eccentricities of BND and their colleagues become one and all emphatically condemned.

1 See Vol. II.

2 All such questions are best understood by observing an illustration. In

St. Matt. xiii. 36, the disciples say to our Lord, ' Explain to us (<f>pdaov the parable of the tares.' The cursives (and late uncials) are all agreed in this reading. Why then do Lachmann and Tregelles (not Tischendorf) exhibit ?.iaaa<f>r]ffov'l Only because they find $iaad(J>r)crov in B. Had they known that the first reading of N exhibited that reading also, they would have been more confident than ever. But what pretence can there be for assuming that the Traditional reading of all the copies is untrustworthy in this place ? The plea of antiquity at all events cannot be urged, for Origen reads qpaaov four times. The Versions do not help us. What else is Siaodtprjaov but a transparent Gloss? AiaaaQijaov (elucidate) explains <f>paaov, but Qpacrov (tell) does not explain

THE TRADITIONAL A SUPERIOR TEXT. 35

All these, in the mean time, are points concerning which something has been said already, and more will have to be said in the sequel. Returning now to the phenomenon adverted to at the outset, we desire to explain that whereas ' Various Readings,' properly so called, that is to say, the Readings which possess really strong attestation — for more than nineteen-twentieths of the ' Various Readings ' com- monly quoted are only the vagaries of scribes, and ought not to be called ' Readings ' at all — do not require classifi- cation into groups, as Griesbach and Hort have classified them ; ' Corrupt Readings/ if they are to be intelligently handled, must by all means be distributed under distinct heads, as will be done in the Second Part of this work.

III. * It is not at all our design ' (remarks Dr. Scrivener) ' to seek our readings from the later uncials, supported as they usually are by the mass of cursive manuscripts ; but to employ their confessedly secondary evidence in those numberless instances wherein their elder brethren are hope- lessly at variance1.' From which it is plain that in this excellent writer's opinion, the truth of Scripture is to be sought in the first instance at the hands of the older uncials: that only when these yield conflicting testimony may we resort to the 'confessedly secondary evidence' of the later uncials: and that only so may we proceed to inquire for the testimony of the great mass of the cursive copies. It is not difficult to foresee what would be the result of such a method of procedure.

I venture therefore respectfully but firmly to demur to the spirit of my learned friend's remarks on the present, and on many similar occasions. His language is calculated to countenance the popular belief (i) That the authority of an uncial codex, because it is an uncial, is necessarily greater than that of a codex written in the cursive character : an imagination which upon proof I hold to be groundless.

1 Plain Introduction, I. 277. 4th edition. D 2

36 PRINCIPLES.

Between the text of the later uncials and the text of the cursive copies, I fail to detect any separative difference : certainly no such difference as would induce me to assign the palm to the former. It will be shewn later on in this treatise, that it is a pure assumption to take for granted, or to infer, that cursive copies were all descended from the uncials. New discoveries in palaeography have ruled that error to be out of court.

But (2) especially do I demur to the popular notion, to which I regret to find that Dr. Scrivener lends his powerful sanction, that the text of Scripture is to be sought in the first instance in the oldest of the uncials. I venture to express my astonishment that so learned and thoughtful a man should not have seen that before certain ' elder brethren ' are erected into a supreme court of judicature, some other token of fitness besides that of age must be produced on their behalf. Whence, I can but ask — , whence is it that no one has yet been at the pains to establish the contradictory of the following proposition, viz. that Codexes BNCD are the several depositaries of a fabricated and depraved text : and that BND, for C is a palimpsest, i. e., has had the works of Ephraem the Syrian written over it as if it were of no use, are probably indebted for their very preservation solely to the fact that they were anciently recognized as untrustworthy documents ? Do men indeed find it impossible to realize the notion that there must have existed such things as refuse copies in the fourth, fifth, sixth, and seventh centuries as well as in the eighth, ninth, tenth, and eleventh ? and that the Codexes which we call BNCD may possibly, if not as I hold probably, have been of that class J ?

Now I submit that it is a sufficient condemnation of

1 It is very remarkable that the sum of Eusebius' own evidence is largely ngainst those uncials. Yet it seems most probable that he had B and N executed from the aKpifir) or 'critical' copies of Origen. See below, Chapter IX.

NO SPECIAL AUTHORITY IN OLDEST UNCIALS. 37

Codd. BN'CD as a supreme court of judicature (i) That as a rule they are observed to be discordant in their judge- ments : (2) That when they thus differ among themselves it is generally demonstrable by an appeal to antiquity that the two principal judges B and N* have delivered a mistaken judgement : (3) That when these two differ one from the other, the supreme judge B is often in the wrong : and lastly (4) That it constantly happens that all four agree, and yet all four are in error.

Does any one then inquire, — But why at all events may not resort be had in the first instance to Codd. BKACD ?— I answer, — Because the inquiry is apt to prejudice the question, pretty sure to mislead the judgement, only too likely to narrow the issue and render the Truth hopelessly difficult of attainment. For every reason, I am inclined to propose the directly opposite method of procedure, as at once the safer and the more reasonable method. When I learn that doubt exists, as to the reading of any particular place, instead of inquiring what amount of discord on the subject exists between Codexes ABNCD (for the chances are that they will be all at loggerheads among themselves), I inquire for the verdict as it is given by the main body of the copies. This is generally unequivocal. But if (which seldom happens) I find this a doubtful question, then in- deed I begin to examine the separate witnesses. Yet even then it helps me little, or rather it helps me nothing, to find, as I commonly do, that A is on one side and B on the other, — except by the way that wherever N B are seen together, or when D stands apart with only a few allies, the inferior reading is pretty sure to be found there also.

Suppose however (as commonly happens) there is no serious division, — of course, significance does not attach itself to any handful of eccentric copies, — but that there is a practical unanimity among the cursives and later uncials : I cannot see that a veto can rest with such unstable and

38 PRINCIPLES.

discordant authorities, however much they may singly add to the weight of the vote already tendered. It is as a hundred to one that the uncial or uncials which are with the main body of the cursives are right, because (as will be shown) in their consentience they embody the virtual de- cision of the whole Church ; and that the dissentients — be they few or many— are wrong. I inquire however, — What say the Versions? and last but not least, — What say the Fathers ?

The essential error in the proceeding I object to is best illustrated by an appeal to elementary facts. Only two of the ' five old uncials ' are complete documents, B and tf : and these being confessedly derived from one and the same exemplar, cannot be regarded as two. The rest of the 'old uncials' are lamentably defective. — From the Alexandrian Codex (A) the first twenty-four chapters of St. Matthew's Gospel are missing : that is, the MS. lacks 870 verses out of 1,071. The same Codex is also without 126 consecutive verses of St. John's Gospel. More than one-fourth of the contents of Cod. A are therefore lost l. — D is complete only in respect of St. Luke: wanting 119 verses of St. Matthew, — 5 verses of St. Mark, — 166 verses of St. John. — On the other hand, Codex C is chiefly defective in respect of St. Luke's and St. John's Gospel ; from the former of which it omits 643 (out of 1,151) verses ; from the latter, 513 (out of 880), or far more than the half in either case. Codex C in fact can only be described as a collection of fragments : for it is also without 260 verses of St. Matthew, and without 116 of St. Mark.

The disastrous consequence of all this to the Textual Critic is manifest. He is unable to compare ' the five old uncials ' together except in respect of about one verse in three. Sometimes he finds himself reduced to the testi- mony of ANB : for many pages together of St. John's

1 Viz. 996 verses out of 3,780.

THE FIVE OLD UNCIALS DEFECTIVE. 39

Gospel, he is reduced to the testimony of NBD. Now, when the fatal and peculiar sympathy which subsists between these three documents is considered, it becomes apparent that the Critic has in effect little more than two documents before him. And what is to be said when (as from St. Matt. vi. 20 to vii. 4) he is reduced to the witness of two Codexes,— and those, NB? Evident it is that whereas the Author of Scripture hath bountifully furnished His Church with (speaking roughly) upwards of 2,300 1 copies of the Gospels, by a voluntary act of self-impoverishment, some Critics reduce themselves to the testimony of little more than one: and that one a witness whom many judges consider to be undeserving of confidence.

1 Miller's Scrivener (4th edition), Vol. I. Appendix F. p. 397*. 1326 + 73 + 980 - 2379.

CHAPTER III.

THE SEVEN NOTES OF TRUTH.

§ 1. Antiquity.

THE more ancient testimony is probably the better testimony. That it is not by any means always so is a familiar fact. To quote the known dictum of a competent judge : ' It is no less true to fact than paradoxical in sound, that the worst corruptions to which the New Testament has ever been subjected, originated within a hundred years after it was composed ; that Irenaeus and the African Fathers and the whole Western, with a portion of the Syriac Church, used far inferior manuscripts to those employed by Stunica, or Erasmus, or Stephen, thirteen centuries after, when moulding the Textus ReceptusV Therefore Antiquity alone affords no security that the manuscript in our hands is not infected with the corruption which sprang up largely in the first and second centuries. But it remains true, notwithstanding, that until evidence has been produced to the contrary in any particular instance, the more ancient of two witnesses may reasonably be pre- sumed to be the better informed witness. Shew me for example that, whereas a copy of the Gospels (suppose Cod. B) introduces the clause ' Raise the dead ' into our SAVIOUR'S ministerial commission to His Apostles (St. Matt. x. 8), — another Codex, but only of the fourteenth century

1 Scrivener's Introduction, Ed. iv (1894), Vol. II. pp. 264-265.

ANTIQUITY. 41

(suppose Evan. 604 (Hoskier)), omits it ;— am I not bound to assume that our LORD did give this charge to His Apostles ; did say to them, vtKpovs eyei/oere ; and that the words in question have accidentally dropped out of the sacred Text in that later copy ? Show me besides that in three other of our oldest Codexes (KCD) the place in St. Matthew is exhibited in the same way as in Cod. B ; and of what possible avail can it be that I should urge in reply that in three more MSS. of the thirteenth or fourteenth century the text is exhibited in the same way as in Evan. 604 ?

There is of course a strong antecedent probability, that the testimony which comes nearest to the original auto- graphs has more claim to be the true record than that which has been produced at a further distance from them. It is most likely that the earlier is separated from the original by fewer links than the later : — though we can affirm this with no absolute certainty, because the present survival of Uncials of various dates of production shews that the exist- ence of copies is measured by no span like that of the life of men. Accordingly as a general rule, and a general rule only, a single early Uncial possesses more authority than a single later Uncial or Cursive, and a still earlier Version or Quotation by a Father must be placed before the reading of the early Uncial.

Only let us clearly understand what principle is to guide us, in order that we may know how we are to proceed. Is it to be assumed, for instance, that Antiquity is to decide this matter? by which is meant only this, — That, of two or more conflicting readings, that shall be deemed the true reading which is observed to occur in the oldest known document. Is that to be our fundamental principle? Are we, in other words, to put up with the transparent fallacy that the oldest reading must of necessity be found in the oldest document ? Well, if we have made up our minds

42 THE SEVEN NOTES OF TRUTH.

that such is to be our method, then let us proceed to con- struct our text chiefly by the aid of the Old Latin and Peshitto Versions, — the oldest authorities extant of a con- tinuous text : and certainly, wherever these are observed to agree in respect of any given reading, let us hear nothing about the conflicting testimony of N or B, which are of the fourth century ; of D, which is of the sixth ; of L, which is of the eighth.

But if our adversaries shift their ground, disliking to be £ hoist with their own petard,' and if such a solution standing alone does not commend itself to our own taste, we must ask, What is meant by Antiquity ?

For myself, if I must assign a definite period, I am disposed to say the first six or seven centuries of our era. But I observe that those who have preceded me in these inquiries draw the line at an earlier period. Lachmann fixes A.D. 400 : Tregelles (ever illogical) gives the begin- ning of the seventh century : Westcott and Hort, before the close of the fourth century. In this absence of agree- ment, it is found to be both the safest and the wisest course to avoid drawing any hard and fast line, and in fact any line at all. Antiquity is a comparative term. What is ancient is not only older than what is modern, but when constantly applied to the continuous lapse of ages includes considerations of what is more or less ancient. Codex E is ancient compared with Codex L : Cod. A compared with Cod. E : Ccd. N compared with Cod. A : Cod. B though in a much lesser degree compared with Cod. N : the Old Latin and Peshitto Versions compared with Cod. B : Clemens Romanus compared with either. If we had the copy of the Gospels which belonged to Ignatius, I suppose we should by common consent insist on following it almost implicitly. It certainly would be of overwhelming authority. Its decrees would be only not decisive. [This is, I think, too strong : there might be mistakes even in that — E. M.]

ANTIQUITY AND NUMBER. 43

Therefore by Antiquity as a principle involving more or less authority must be meant the greater age of the earlier Copies, Versions, or Fathers. That which is older will possess more authority than that which is more recent : but age will not confer any exclusive, or indeed paramount, power of decision. Antiquity is one Note of Truth : but even if it is divorced from the arbitrary selection of Authorities which has regulated too much the employment of it in Textual Criticism, it cannot be said to cover the whole ground.

§ 2. Number.

II. We must proceed now to consider the other Notes, or Tests : and the next is NUMBER.

1. That ' witnesses are to be weighed — not counted,' — is a maxim of which we hear constantly. It may be said to embody much fundamental fallacy.

2. It assumes that the 'witnesses' we possess, — meaning thereby every single Codex, Version, Father — , (i) are capable of being weighed : and (2) that every individual Critic is competent to weigh them : neither of which pro^ positions is true.

3. In the very form of the maxim, — ' Not to be counted — but to be weighed,' — the undeniable fact is overlooked that ' number ' is the most ordinary ingredient of weight, and indeed in matters of human testimony, is an element which even cannot be cast away. Ask one of Her Majesty's Judges if it be not so. Ten witnesses (suppose) are called in to give evidence : of whom one resolutely contradicts what is solemnly deposed to by the other nine. Which of the two parties do we suppose the Judge will be inclined to believe ?

4. But it may be urged — would not the discovery of the one original autograph of the Gospels exceed in ' weight ' any ' number ' of copies which can be named ? No doubt

44 THE SEVEN NOTES OF TRUTH.

it would, I answer. But only because it would be the original document, and not ' a copy ' at all : not * a witness ' to the fact, but the very fact itself. It would be as if in the midst of a trial, — turning, suppose, on the history of the will of some testator — , the dead man himself were to step into Court, and proclaim what had actually taken place. Yet the laws of Evidence would remain unchanged : and in the very next trial which came on, if one or two witnesses out of as many hundred were to claim that their evidence should be held to outweigh that of all the rest, they would be required to establish the reasonableness of their claim to the satisfaction of the Judge : or they must submit to the inevitable consequence of being left in an inconsiderable minority.

5. Number then constitutes Weight, or in other words,— since I have used ' Weight ' here in a more general sense than usual, — is a Note of Truth. Not of course absolutely, as being the sole Test, but caeteris paribus, and in its own place and proportion. And this, happily, our opponents freely admit : so freely in fact, that my only wonder is that they do not discover their own inconsistency.

6. But the axiom in question labours under the far graver defect of disparaging the Divine method, under which in the multitude of evidence preserved all down the ages pro- vision has been made as matter of hard fact, not by weight but by number, for the integrity of the Deposit. The prevalent use of the Holy Scriptures in the Church caused copies of them to abound everywhere. The demand enforced the supply. They were read in the public Services of the Church. The constant quotation of them by Ecclesiastical Writers from the first proves that they were a source to Christians of continual study, and that they were used as an ultimate appeal in the decision of knotty questions. They were cited copiously in Sermons. They were em- ployed in the conversion of the heathen, and as in the case

NUMBER. 45

of St. Cyprian must have exercised a strong influence in bringing people to believe.

Such an abundance of early copies must have ensured perforce the production of a resulting abundance of other copies made everywhere in continuous succession from them until the invention of printing. Accordingly, although countless numbers must have perished by age, use, destruc- tion in war, and by accident and other causes, nevertheless 63 Uncials, 737 Cursives, and 414 Lectionaries are known to survive of the Gospels alone l. Add the various Versions, and the mass of quotations by Ecclesiastical Writers, and it will at once be evident what materials exist to constitute a Majority which shall outnumber by many times the Minority, and also that Number has been ordained to be a factor which cannot be left out of the calculation.

7. Another circumstance however of much significance has yet to be stated. Practically the Axiom under con- sideration is discovered to be nothing else but a plausible proposition of a general character intended to shelter the following particular application of it : — ' We are able ' — says Dr. Tregelles — 'to take the few documents . . . and safely discard . . . the J# or whatever else their numerical propor- tion may be2.' Accordingly in his edition of the Gospels, the learned writer rejects the evidence of all the cursive Codexes extant but three. He is mainly followed by the rest of his school, including Westcott and Hort.

Now again I ask, — Is it likely, is it in any way credible, that we can be warranted in rejecting the testimony of (suppose) 1490 ancient witnesses, in favour of the testimony borne by (suppose) ten ? Granting freely that two of these ten are older by 50 or TOO years than any single MS. of the 1490 I confidently repeat the question. The respective

1 But see Miller's edition of Scrivener s Introduction, I. 397*, App. F, where the numbers as noiv known are given as 73, 1326, 980 respectively.

2 Account of the Printed Text, p. 138.

46 THE SEVEN NOTES OF TRUTH.

dates of the witnesses before us may perhaps be thus stated. The ten MSS. so confidently relied upon date as follows, speaking generally : —

2 about A.D. 330-340.

i „ 55°-

i „ 7:'o.

6 (say),, 950 to A.D. 1350.

The 1490 MSS. which are constantly observed to bear consentient testimony against the ten, date somewhat thus: —

1 . . A.D. 400.

I- • • „ 450-

2 . . „ 500.

1 6 (say) „ 650 to A. D. 850. 1470 . . ., 850 to A.D. 1350.

And the question to which I invite the reader to render an answer is this : — By what process of reasoning, apart from an appeal to other authorities, (which we are going to make by-and-by), can it be thought credible that the few witnesses shall prove the trustworthy guides, — and the many witnesses the deceivers ?

Now those many MSS. were executed demonstrably at different times in different countries. They bear signs in their many hundreds of representing the entire area of the Church, except where versions were used instead of copies in the original Greek. Many of them were written in monasteries where a special room was set aside for such copying. Those who were in trust endeavoured with the utmost pains and jealousy to secure accuracy in the tran- scription. Copying was a sacred art. And yet, of multitudes of them that survive, hardly any have been copied from any of the rest. On the contrary, they are discovered to differ among themselves in countless unimportant particulars ; and every here and there single copies exhibit idiosyncrasies which are altogether startling and extraordinary. There has therefore demonstrably been no collusion — no assimila-

NUMBER. 47

tion to an arbitrary standard, — no wholesale fraud. It is certain that every one of them represents a MS., or a pedigree of MSS., older than itself; and it is but fair to suppose that it exercises such representation with tolerable accuracy. It can often be proved, when any of them exhibit marked extravagancy, that such extravagancy dates back as far as the second or third century. I venture to think — and shall assume until I find that I am mistaken — that, besides the Uncials, all the cursive copies in existence represent lost Codexes of great antiquity with at least the same general fidelity as Ev. i, 33, 69, which enjoy so much favour in some quarters only because they represent lost MSS. demonstrably of the same general type as Codd. NBD1.

It will be seen that the proofs in favour of Number being a recognized and powerful Note of Truth are so strong, that nothing but the interests of an absorbing argument can prevent the acknowledgement of this position. It is doubtless inconvenient to find some 1490 witnesses con- travening some ten, or if you will, twenty favourites : but Truth is imperative and knows nothing of the inconvenience or convenience of Critics.

8. When therefore the great bulk of the witnesses, — in the proportion suppose of a hundred or even fifty to one, — yield unfaltering testimony to a certain reading ; and the remaining little handful of authorities, while advocating a different reading, are yet observed to be unable to agree among themselves as to what that different reading shall precisely be, — then that other reading concerning which all that discrepancy of detail is observed to exist, may be regarded as certainly false.

I will now give an instance of the general need of the testimony of Number being added to Antiquity, in order to establish a Reading.

1 This general position will be elucidated in Chapters IX and XI.

48 THE SEVEN NOTES OF TRUTH.

There is an obscure expression in the Epistle to the Hebrews, — Alford speaks of it as ' almost a locus desperatus ' —which illustrates the matter in hand not unaptly. The received reading of Heb. iv. 2, — 'not being mixed [viz. the word preached] with faith in them that heard it/ — is supported by the united testimony of the Peshitto and of the Latin versions1. Accordingly, the discovery that tf also exhibits o-uyKeKepaoTxez/os determined Tischendorf, who however stands alone with Scholz, to retain in this place the singular participle. And confessedly the note of Antiquity it enjoys in perfection ; as well as yields a suffi- ciently intelligible sense. But then unfortunately it proves to be incredible that St. Paul can have been the author of the expression 2. All the known copies but four 3 read not (TvyKfKpajjievos but -jute'rouy. So do all the Fathers who are known to quote the place 4 : — Macarius 5, Chrysostom 6, Theodorus of Mopsuestia 7, Cyril 8, Theodoret 9, Damas- cene 10, Photius n, Theophylactus 12, Oecumenius 13. The testimony of four of the older of these is even express : and such an amount of evidence is decisive. But we are

1 So also the Georgian and Sclavonic versions (the late Dr. Malan).

2 The Traditional view of the authorship of the Epistle to the Hebrews is here maintained as superior both in authority and evidence to any other.

3 N, 31,41,114.

* Tischendorf wrongly adduces Irenaeus. Read to the end of III. c. 19, § I. 8 Ap. Galland. vii. 1 78.

6 xii. 64 c, 65 b. Kcu opa ri 0avfjiaffTu>s' OVK fi-ntv, ov ovvftpuvrjaav, dAA", oy avvfKpaOrjaav. See by all means Cramer's Cat. p. 451.

7 Ap. Cramer, Cat. p. 177. Ou yap ^anv Kara rtjv irianv rots frrayye^Ofiffi ffvvr}^.fj.evoi' oQtv OVTWS uvayvcaffTeov, "f»^ avyKtKfpaanevovs rrj -niard rots

8 vi. 1 5 d. 'Apo -yap tfif\\ov KO.TCL TUV iffov rpoirov avvavaKipvaoOai rt d\\rj- \ois, Ko.Qa.ntp dfj.(\et KO.I oivos vSan, K.T.\. After this, it becomes of little moment that the same Cyril should elsewhere (i. 394) read avyKCKpaptvos cv mam rois aKovaaoi.

9 iii. 566. After quoting the place, Thdrt. proceeds, Tt 70^ wvrjatv fj rov Qfov eirayy(\ia revs . . . /J.T] . . . olov ruts rov ®eov Xoyois uvanpaO^vras ;

10 ii. 234. u Ap. Oecum. 12 ii. 670.

13 From Dr. Malan, who informs me that the Bohairic and Ethiopic exhibit ' their heart was not mixed with ' : which represents the same reading.

NUMBER AND VARIETY. 49

able to add that of the Harkleian, Bohairic, Ethiopia, and Armenian versions. However uncongenial therefore the effort may prove, there can be no doubt at all that we must henceforth read here, — * But the word listened to did not profit them, because they were not united in respect of faith with those who listened [and believed] ' : or words to that effect 1. Let this then be remembered as a proof that, besides even the note of Variety to some extent super- added to that of Antiquity, it must further be shewn on behalf of any reading which claims to be authentic, that it enjoys also the support of a multitude of witnesses : in other words that it has the note of Number as well 2.

And let no one cherish a secret suspicion that because the Syriac and the Latin versions are such venerable documents they must be held to outweigh all the rest, and may be right in this matter after all. It will be found explained elsewhere that in places like the present, those famous versions are often observed to interpret rather than to reproduce the inspired verity : to discharge the office of a Targum rather than of a translation. The sympathy thus evinced between N and the Latin should be observed : the significance of it will come under consideration after- wards.

§ 3. Variety.

I must point out in the next place, that Evidence on any passage, which exhibits in perfection the first of the two foregoing characteristics — that of Antiquity, may never- theless so easily fall under suspicion, that it becomes in the highest degree necessary to fortify it by other notes of Truth. And there cannot be a stronger ally than Variety.

1 So Theophylactus (ii. 670), who (with all the more trustworthy authorities) writes ovyncKpa^fvovs. For this sense of the verb, see Liddell and Scott's Lex., and especially the instances in Wetstein.

2 Yet Tischendorf says, ' Dubitare nequeo quin lectio Sinaitica hujus loci mentem scriptoris recte reddat atque omnium sit verissima.'

E

50 THE SEVEN NOTES OF TRUTH.

No one can doubt, for it stands to reason, that Variety distinguishing witnesses massed together must needs con- stitute a most powerful argument for believing such Evidence to be true. Witnesses of different kinds ; from different countries ; speaking different tongues : — witnesses who can never have met, and between whom it is incredible that there should exist collusion of any kind : — such witnesses deserve to be listened to most respectfully. Indeed, when witnesses of so varied a sort agree in large numbers, they must needs be accounted worthy of even implicit confidence. Accordingly, the essential feature of the proposed Test will be, that the Evidence of which ' Variety ' is to be predicated shall be derived from a variety of sources. Readings which are witnessed to by MSS. only; or by ancient Versions only: or by one or more of the Fathers only : — whatever else may be urged on their behalf, are at least without the full support of this note of Truth ; unless there be in the case of MSS. a sufficient note of Variety within their own circle. It needs only a slight acquaintance with the principles which regulate the value of evidence, and a comparison with other cases enjoying it of one where there is actually no variety, to see the extreme importance of this third Test. When there is real variety, what may be called hole-and- corner work, — conspiracy, — influence of sect or clique, — are impossible. Variety it is which imparts virtue to mere Number, prevents the witness-box from being filled with packed deponents, ensures genuine testimony. False witness is thus detected and condemned, because it agrees not with the rest. Variety is the consent of independent witnesses, and is therefore eminently Catholic. Origen or the Vatican and the Sinaitic, often stand all but alone, because there are scarce any in the assembly who do not hail from other parts with testimony different from theirs, whilst their own evidence finds little or no verification.

It is precisely this consideration which constrains us to

VARIETY. 51

pay supreme attention to the combined testimony of the Uncials and of the whole body of the Cursive Copies. They are (a) dotted over at least 1000 years : (b) they evidently belong to so many divers countries, — Greece, Constanti- nople, Asia Minor, Palestine, Syria, Alexandria, and other parts of Africa, not to say Sicily, Southern Italy, Gaul, England, and Ireland : (c] they exhibit so many strange characteristics and peculiar sympathies : (d) they so clearly represent countless families of MSS., being in no single instance absolutely identical in their text, and certainly not being copies of any other Codex in existence, — that their unanimous decision I hold to be an absolutely irre- fragable evidence of the Truth \ If, again, only a few of these copies disagree with the main body of them, I hold that the value of the verdict of the great majority is but slightly disturbed. Even then however the accession of another class of confirmatory evidence is most valuable. Thus, when it is perceived that Codd. NBCD are the only uncials which contain the clause v€Kpovs eyet/oere in St. Matt. x. 8, already spoken of, and that the merest fraction of the cursives exhibit the same reading, the main body of the cursives and all the other uncials being for omitting it, it is felt at once that the features of the problem have been very nearly reversed. On such occasions we inquire eagerly for the verdict of the most ancient of the Versions : and when, as on the present occasion, they are divided, — the Latin and the Ethiopic recognizing the clause, the Syriac and the Egyptian disallowing it, — an impartial student will eagerly inquire with one of old time, — ' Is there not here a prophet of the LORD besides, that we might inquire of him ? ' He will wish to hear what the old Fathers have to say on this subject. I take the liberty of adding that when he has once perceived that the text employed by Origen

1 See below, Chapter XI, where the character and authority of Cursive Manuscripts are considered.

E 2,

52 THE SEVEN NOTES OF TRUTH.

corresponds usually to a surprising extent with the text repre- sented by Codex B and some of the Old Latin Versions, he will learn to lay less stress on every fresh instance of such correspondence. He will desiderate greater variety of testimony, — the utmost variety which is attainable. The verdict of various other Fathers on this passage supplies what is wanted l. Speaking generally, the consentient testimony of two, four, six, or more witnesses, coming to us from widely sundered regions is weightier by far than the same number of witnesses proceeding from one and the same locality, between whom there probably exists some sort of sympathy, and possibly some degree of collusion. Thus when it is found that the scribe of B wrote ' six conjugate leaves of Cod. tf 2/ it is impossible to regard their united testimony in the same light as we should have done, if one had been produced in Palestine and the other at Constanti- nople. So also of primitive Patristic testimony. The combined testimony of Cyril, patriarch of Alexandria ; — Isidore of Pelusium, a city at the mouth of the Nile ; — and Nonnus of Panopolis in the Thebaid, is not nearly so weighty as the testimony of one of the same three writers in conjunction with Irenaeus, Bishop of Lyons in Gaul, and with Chrysostom who passed the greater part of his life at Antioch. The same remark holds true of Versions. Thus, the two Egyptian Versions when they conspire in witnessing to the same singular reading are entitled to far less attention

1 The evidence on the passage is as follows : — For the insertion : —

K*etc. BC**2DPA, i, 13, 33, 108, 157, 346, and about ten more. Old Latin (except f ), Vulgate, Boliairic, Ethiopic, Hilary, Cyril Alex. (2), Chrysostom (2). Against : —

EFGKLMSUVXrn. The rest of the Cursives, Peshitto (Pusey and Gwilliam found it in no copies), Sahidic, Eusebius, Basil, Jerome, Chrysostom, in loc., Tuvencus. Compare Revision Revised, p. 108, note.

2 By the Editor. See Miller's Scrivener, Introduction (4th ed.), Vol. I. p. 96, note i, and below, Chapter IX.

VARIETY AND WEIGHT. 53

than one of those same Versions in combination with the Syriac, or with the Latin, or with the Gothic.

§ 4. Weight, or Respectability.

We must request our readers to observe, that the term 1 weight ' may be taken as regards Textual Evidence in two senses, the one general and the other special. In the general sense, Weight includes all the notes of truth,— it may relate to the entire mass of evidence ; — or else it may be employed as concerning the value of an individual manuscript, or a single Version, or a separate Father. Antiquity confers some amount of Weight : so does Number : and so does Variety also, as well as each of the other notes of truth. This distinction ought not to be allowed to go out of sight in the discussion which is now about to occupy our attention.

We proceed then to consider Weight in the special sense and as attached to single Witnesses.

Undeniable as it is, (a) that ancient documents do not admit of being placed in scales and weighed ; and (b) that if they did, the man does not exist who is capable of con- ducting the operation, — there are yet, happily, principles of sound reason, — considerations based on the common sense of mankind, learned and unlearned alike, — by the aid of which something may be effected which is strictly analogous to the process of weighing solid bodies in an ordinary pair of scales. I proceed to explain.

i. In the first place, the witnesses in favour of any given reading should be respectable. * Respectability ' is of course a relative term ; but its use and applicability in this depart- ment of Science will be generally understood and admitted by scholars, although they may not be altogether agreed as to the classification of their authorities. Some critics will claim, not respectability only, but absolute and oracular

54 THE SEVEN NOTES OF TRUTH.

authority for a certain set of ancient witnesses, — which others will hold in suspicion. It is clear however that respectability cannot by itself confer pre-eminence, much less the privilege of oracular decision. We listen to any one whose character has won our respect : but dogmatism as to things outside of actual experience or mathematical calculation is the prerogative only of Revelation or inspired utterance ; and if assumed by men who have no authority to dogmatize, is only accepted by weak minds who find a relief when they are able

' jurare in verba magistri.' ' To swear whate'er the master says is true.'

And if on the contrary certain witnesses are found to range themselves continually on the side which is condemned by a large majority of others exhibiting other notes of truth entitling them to credence, those few witnesses must inevitably lose in respectability according to the extent and frequency of such eccentric action.

2. If one Codex (z) is demonstrably the mere transcript of another Codex (/), these may no longer be reckoned as two Codexes, but as one Codex. It is hard therefore to understand how Tischendorf constantly adduces the evidence of ' E of Paul ' although he was perfectly well aware that E is 'a mere transcript of the Cod. Claro- montanus1 or D of Paul. Or again, how he quotes the cursive Evan. 102 ; because the readings of that unknown seventeenth-century copy of the Gospels are ascertained to have been derived from Cod. B itself2.

3. By strict parity of reasoning, when once it has been ascertained that, in any particular instance, Patristic testi- mony is not original but derived, each successive reproduc- tion of the evidence must obviously be held to add nothing at all to the weight of the original statement. Thus, it used to be the fashion to cite (in proof of the spuriousness

1 Miller's Scrivener, I. p. 176. 2 Ibid. p. 208.

WEIGHT. 55

of ' the last twelve verses ' of St. Mark's Gospel) the authority of ' Eusebius, Gregory of Nyssa, Victor of An- tioch, Severus of Antioch, Jerome Y — to which were added ' Epiphanius and Caesarius 2,' — ' Hesychius of Jerusalem and Euthymius 3.' In this enumeration, the names of Gregory, Victor, Severus, Epiphanius and Caesarius were introduced in error. There remains Eusebius, — whose exaggeration (a) Jerome translates, (b) Hesychius (sixth century) copies, and (c) Euthymius (A.D. 1116) refers to4 and Eusebius himself neutralizes 5. The evidence therefore (such as it is) collapses hopelessly: being reducible probably to a random statement in the lost treatise of Origen on St. Mark6, which Eusebius repudiates, even while in his latitudinarian way he reproduces it. The weight of such testimony is obviously slight indeed.

4. Again, if two, three, or four Codexes are discovered by reason of the peculiarities of text which they exhibit to have been derived, — nay, confessedly are derived — from one and the same archetype, — those two, three, or four Codexes "may no longer be spoken of as if they were so many. Codexes B and tf, for example, being cer- tainly the twin products of a lost exemplar, cannot in fairness be reckoned as = 2. Whether their combined evidence is to be estimated at = 1-75, 1-50, or 1-25, or as only i-o, — let diviners decide. May I be allowed to suggest that whenever they agree in an extraordinary reading their combined evidence is to be reckoned at about 1-50 : when in an all but unique reading, at 1-25 : when the reading they contain is absolutely unique, as when they exhibit a-vo-Tp^ofjifvoov 8e avrwz; in St. Matt. xvii. 22, they should be reckoned as a single Codex ? Never, at all events, can they be jointly reckoned as absolutely two.

1 Tregelles' Printed Text, &c., p. 247.

2 Tischendorf, N. T., p. 322. 3 Tischendorf and Alford.

4 Burgon's Last Twelve Verses, &cv pp. 33-69 ; also p. 267.

5 Ad Marinum. Ibid. p. 265. 6 Ibid. pp. 235-6.

56 THE SEVEN NOTES OF TRUTH.

I would have them cited as B-tf . Similar considerations should be attached to F and G of St. Paul, as being * in- dependent transcripts of the same venerable archetype1/ and to Evan. 13, 69, 124, 346, 556, 561. and perhaps 348, 624, 788 2, as being also the representatives of only one anterior manuscript of uncertain date.

5. It requires further to be pointed out that when once a clear note of affinity has been ascertained to exist between a small set of documents, their exclusive joint consent is henceforward to be regarded with suspicion: in other words, their evidential Weight becomes impaired. For instance, the sympathy between D and some Old Latin copies is so marked, so constant, in fact so extraordinary, that it becomes perfectly evident that D, though only of the sixth century, must represent a Greek or Latin Codex of the inaccurate class which prevailed in the earliest age of all, a class from which some of the Latin translations were made 3.

6. I suppose it may be laid down that an ancient Version outweighs any single Codex, ancient or modern, which can be named : the reason being, that it is scarcely credible that a Version- — the Peshitto, for example, an Egyptian, or the Gothic— can have been executed from a single exemplar. But indeed that is not all. The first of the above-named Versions and some of the Latin are older, — perhaps by two centuries — than the oldest known copy. From this it will appear that if the only witnesses pro- ducible for a certain reading were the Old Latin Versions and the Syriac Version on the one hand, — Codd. B-K on the other, — the united testimony of the first two would

1 Miller's Scrivener, I. p. 181.

2 Ferrar and Abbott's Collation of Four Important Manuscripts', Abbe Martin, Qtiatre MSS. important*, J. Rendel Harris, On the Origin of the Ferrar Group (C. J. Clay and Sons), 1893. Miller's Scrivener, I. p. 398*, App. F.

3 See below, Chapter X. Also Mr. Rendel Harris' ' Study of Codex Bezae ' in the Cambridge Texts and Studies.

WEIGHT. 57

very largely overbalance the combined testimony of the last. If B or if tf stood alone, neither of them singly would be any match for either the Syriac or the Old Latin Versions, — still less for the two combined.

7. The cogency of the considerations involved in the last paragraph becomes even more apparent when Patristic testimony has to be considered.

It has been pointed out elsewhere l that, in and by itself, the testimony of any first-rate Father, where it can be had, must be held to outweigh the solitary testimony of any single Codex which can be named. The circumstance requires to be again insisted on here. How to represent the amount of this preponderance by a formula, I know not : nor as I believe does any one else know. But the fact that it exists, remains, and is in truth undeniable. For instance, the origin and history of Codexes ABNC is wholly unknown : their dates and the places of their several production are matters of conjecture only. But when we are listening to the articulate utterance of any of the ancient Fathers, we not only know with more or less of precision the actual date of the testimony before us, but we even know the very diocese of Christendom in which we are standing. To such a deponent we can assign a definite amount of credibility, whereas in the estimate of the former class of evidence we have only inferences to guide us.

Individually, therefore, a Father's evidence, where it can be certainly obtained — caeteris paribus^ is considerably greater than that of any single known Codex. Collectively, however, the Copies, without question, outweigh either the Versions by themselves, or the Fathers by themselves. I have met —very rarely I confess — but I have met with cases where the Versions, as a body, were opposed in their testimony to the combined witness of Copies and Fathers. Also,

1 Last Twelve Verses of St. Mark, p. 21, &c. ; Revision Revised, p. 297.

58 THE SEVEN NOTES OF TRUTH.

but very rarely, I have known the Fathers, as a body, opposed to the evidence of Copies and Versions. But I have never known a case where the Copies stood alone — with the Versions and the Fathers united against them.

I consider that such illustrious Fathers as Irenaeus and Hippolytus, — Athanasius and Didymus, — Epiphanius and Basil, — the two Gregories and Chrysostom, — Cyril and Theodoret, among the Greeks, — Tertullian and Cyprian,— Hilary and Ambrose, — Jerome and Augustine, among the Latins, — are more respectable witnesses by far than the same number of Greek or Latin Codexes. Origen, Clemens Alexandrinus, and Eusebius, though first-rate Authors, were so much addicted to Textual Criticism themselves, or else employed such inconsistent copies, — that their testimony is that of indifferent witnesses or bad judges.

As to the Weight which belongs to separate Copies, that must be determined mainly by watching their evidence. If they go wrong continually, their character must be low. They are governed in this respect by the rules which hold good in life. We shall treat afterwards of the character of Codex D, of N, and of B.

§ 5. Continuity.

In proposing Continuous Existence as another note of a genuine reading, I wish to provide against those cases where the Evidence is not only ancient, but being derived from two different sources may seem to have a claim to variety also. I am glad to have the opportunity thus early of pointing out that the note of variety may not fairly be claimed for readings which are not advocated by more than two distinct specimens of ancient evidence. But just now my actual business is to insist that some sort of Continuousness is requisite as well as Antiquity, Number, Variety, and Weight.

We can of course only know the words of Holy Scripture

WEIGHT AND CONTINUITY. 59

according as they have been handed down to us ; and in ascertaining what those words actually were, we are driven perforce to the Tradition of them as it has descended to us through the ages of the Church. But if that Tradition is broken in the process of its descent, it cannot but be deprived of much of the credit with which it would otherwise appeal for acceptance. A clear groundwork of reasonableness lay underneath, and a distinct province was assigned, when quod semper was added to quod ubique et quod ab omnibus. So there, is a Catholicity of time, as well as of space and of people : and all must be claimed in the ascertainment and support of Holy Writ.

When therefore a reading is observed to leave traces of its existence and of its use all down the ages, it comes with an authority of a peculiarly commanding nature. And on the contrary, when a chasm of greater or less breadth of years yawns in the vast mass of evidence which is ready for employment, or when a tradition is found to have died out, upon such a fact alone suspicion or grave doubt, or rejection must inevitably ensue.

Still more, when upon the admission of the Advocates of the opinions which we are opposing the chasm is no longer restricted but engulfs not less than fifteen centuries in its hungry abyss, or else when the transmission ceased after four centuries, it is evident that according to an essential Note of Truth, those opinions cannot fail to be self-destroyed as well as to labour under condemnation during more than three quarters of the accomplished life of Christendom.

How Churchmen of eminence and ability, who in other respects hold the truths involved in Churchmanship, are able to maintain and propagate such opinions without surrendering their Churchmanship, we are unable to explain. We would only hope and pray that they may be led to see the inconsistencies of their position. And

60 THE SEVEN NOTES OF TRUTH.

to others who do not accept Church doctrine we would urge that, inasmuch as internal evidence is so uncertain as often to face both ways, they really cannot rest upon anything else than continuous teaching if they would mount above personal likings and dislikings to the posses- sion of definite and unmistakable support. In fact all traditional teaching which is not continuous must be like the detached pieces of a disunited chain.

To put the question in the most moderate form, my meaning is, that although it is possible that no trace may be discoverable in any later document of what is already attested by documents of the fourth century to be the true reading of any given place of Scripture, yet it is a highly improbable circumstance that the evidence should entirely disappear at such a very early period. It is reasonable to expect that if a reading advocated by Codexes N and B, for instance, and the Old Latin Versions, besides one or two of the Fathers, were trustworthy, there ought to be found at least a fair proportion of the later Uncial and the Cursive Copies to reproduce it. If, on the contrary, many of the Fathers knew nothing at all about the matter ; if Jerome reverses the evidence borne by the Old Latin ; if the later Uncials, and if the main body of the Cursives are silent also : — what can be said but that it is altogether unreasonable to demand acceptance for a reading which comes to us upon such a very slender claim to our confidence ?

That is the most important inference : and it is difficult to see how in the nature of the case it can be got over. But in other respects also : — when a smaller break occurs in the transmission, the evidence is proportionally injured. And the remark must be added, that in cases where there is a transmission by several lines of descent which, having in other respects traces of independence, coincide upon a certain point, it is but reasonable to conclude that those

CONTINUITY AND CONTEXT. 6l

lines enjoy, perhaps, a silent, yet a parallel and unbroken tradition all down the ages till they emerge. This prin- ciple is often illustrated in the independent yet consentient testimony of the whole body of the Cursives and later Uncials l.

§ 6. Context.

A prevailing fallacy with some critical writers on the subject to which the present volume is devoted, may be thus described. In the case of a disputed reading, they seem to think that they do enough if they simply marshal the authorities for and against, and deliver an oracular verdict. In critical editions of the Greek text, such a summary method is perhaps unavoidable. But I take leave to point out that in Sacred Textual Criticism there are several other considerations which absolutely require attention besides, and that those considerations ought to find ex- pression where the space permits. It is to some of these that I proceed now to invite the reader's attention.

A word, — a phrase, — a clause, — or even a sentence or a paragraph,— must have some relation to the rest of the entire passage which precedes or comes after it. There- fore it will often be necessary, in order to reach all the evidence that bears upon a disputed question, to examine both the meaning and the language lying on both sides of the point in dispute. We do not at present lay so much stress upon the contextual meaning, because people are generally not unready to observe it, and it is often open to much difference of opinion: — we refrain espe- cially, because we find from experience that there is in

1 See more upon this point in Chapters V, XI. Compare St. Augustine's Canon : ' Quod universa tenet Ecclesia nee conciliis institutum sed semper retentum est, non nisi auctoritate Apostolica traditum rectissime creditur.' C. Donatist. iv. 24.

62 THE SEVEN NOTES OF TRUTH.

the case of the New Testament always enough external evidence of whose existence no doubt can be entertained to settle any textual question that can arise.

Nevertheless, it may be as well to give a single instance. In i Cor. xiii. 5, Codex B and Clement of Alexandria read ro JUT) tavrrjs instead of ra eavrTys, i.e. * charity seeketh not what does not belong to her,' instead of ' seeketh not her own.' That is to say, we are invited, in the midst of that magnificent passage which is full of lofty principles, to suppose that a gross violation of the eighth command- ment is forbidden, and to insert a commonplace repudia- tion of gross dishonesty. We are to sink suddenly from a grand atmosphere down to a vulgar level. In fact, the light shed on the words in question from the context on either side of course utterly excludes such a supposition ; consequently, the only result is that we are led to distrust the witnesses that have given evidence which is so palpably absurd.

But as regards the precise form of language employed, it will be found also a salutary safeguard against error in every instance, to inspect with severe critical exactness the entire context of the passage in dispute. If in certain Codexes that context shall prove to be confessedly in a very corrupt state, then it becomes even self-evident that those Codexes can only be admitted as witnesses with considerable suspicion and reserve.

Take as an illustration of what I have been saying the exceedingly precious verse, ' Howbeit, this kind goeth not out but^by prayer and fasting ' (St. Matt. xvii. 21), which has met with rejection by the recent school of critics. Here the evidence against the verse is confined to B and the first reading of N amongst the Uncials, Evan. 33 alone of the Cursives, e and ff1 of the Old Latin Versions, as well as the Curetonian and the Lewis. Jerusalem, Sahidic, a few Bohairic copies, a few Ethiopia, and the Greek of Eusebius'

CONTEXT. 63

Canons : — evidence of a slight and shifty character, when contrasted with the witness of all the other Uncials and Cursives, the rest of the Versions, and more than thirteen of the Fathers beginning with Tertullian and Origen 1. It is plain that the stress of the case for rejection, since N being afterwards corrected speaks uncertainly, rests such as it is upon B ; and that if the evidence of that MS. is found to be unworthy of credit in the whole passage, weak indeed must be the contention which con- sists mainly of such support.

Now if we inspect vv. 19, 20, 22, and 23, to go no farther, we shall discover that the entire passage in B is wrapped in a fog of error. It differs from the main body of the witnesses in ten places ; in four of which its evidence is rejected by Lachmann, Tischendorf, Tregelles, Westcott and Hort, and the Revisers 2 ; in two more by the Revisers 3 ; and of the remaining four, it is supported in two by only tt and severally by one or six Cursives, and in the other two by only tf and D with severally four or five Cursive copies4.

Inspection of the Context therefore adds here strong confirmation: — though indeed in this instance to have recourse to such a weapon is to slay the already slain.

St. Matthew (xi. 2, 3) relates that John Baptist 'having heard in the prison the works of CHRIST, sent two of his Disciples' (bvo r&v fjia6r)T&v avrov) with the inquiry, 'Art Thou He that should come5, or are we to look for another (trtpov) ? ' So all the known copies but nine. So the Vulgate, Bohairic, Ethiopic. So Origen. So Chry- sostom. It is interesting to note with what differences .

1 See Revision Revised, pp. 91, 206, and below, Chapter V.

2 KaSf I8iav, *8vvT]Or]iJi(v, rpiTjuipq, avaarrjofTai,

3 (tfTdfia, fvOfv.

4 <rvffTp€(f)o^€Vojv, bXiyotTKJTiav ; omission of 'Ij/aoCs, \tyfi.

5 6 cpxonwos, for which D absurdly substitutes 6 (pya^ufitvos, ' he that worketh.'

64 THE SEVEN NOTES OF TRUTH.

of expression St. Luke reproduces this statement. Having explained in ver. 18 that it was the Forerunner's disciples who brought him tidings concerning CHRIST, St. Luke (vii. 19) adds that John ' called for certain two' (bvo rwas) of them, and 'sent them to JESUS': thus emphasizing, while he repeats, the record of the earlier Evangelist. Inasmuch however as trtpov means, in strictness, ' the other of two,' in order not to repeat himself, he substitutes aXKov for it. Now all this is hopelessly obscured by the oldest amongst our manuscript authorities. It in no wise sur- prises us to find that rivds has disappeared from D, the Peshitto, Latin, Bohairic, Gothic, and Ethiopic. The word has disappeared from our English version also. But it offends us greatly to discover that (i) NBLRXH (with Cyril) obliterate aXXov from St. Luke vii. 19, and thrust €T€pov into its place, — as clear an instance of vicious assi- milation as could anywhere be found : while (2) for bvo (in St. Matt. xi. 3) NBCDPZA write 8ta : which is acquiesced in by the Peshitto, Harkleian, Gothic and Armenian Ver- sions. The Old Latin Versions prevaricate as usual : two read, mittens duos ex discipulis suis : all the rest, — mittens discipulos suos, — which is the reading of Cureton's Syriac and the Dialogus (p. 819), but of no known Greek MS. * Lastly (3) for 'Irjo-ow in St. Luke, BLRH substitute Kvpiov. What would be thought of us if we were freely imposed upon by readings so plainly corrupt as these three ?

But light is thrown upon them by the context in St. Luke. In the thirteen verses which immediately follow, Tischendorf himself being the judge, the text has experienced depravation in at least fourteen particulars2.

1 So, as it seems, the Lewis, but the column is defective.

a Viz. Ver. 20, ait€ffTti\fv for uire0Ta\K(v, NB; ercpov for a\\ov, NDLXH. Ver. 22, omit on, NBLXH ; insert teal before K<u<j>oi, NBDFFA*A ; insert nal before -nrcaxoi, SFX. Ver. 23, 6s av for 6s lav, ND. Ver. 24, rots c/xAots for irpos rovs oxAovs, ND and eight others ; e^Aflare for f£(\i]\vOaTf, XABDLH. Ver. 25, itfMaTC for «f cA^Atdarf, NABDLH. Ver. 26, ffri\$art for f£(\rj\vOa.T(, NBDLE. Ver. 28, insert &i*qv before Ac'yaj, KLX ; omit irpwtfTijs, MBKLMX. Ver. 30,

CONTEXT AND INTERNAL EVIDENCE. 65

With what reason can the same critic straightway insist on other readings which rest exclusively upon the same authorities which the fourteen readings just mentioned claim for their support?

This Note of Truth has for its foundation the well-known law that mistakes have a tendency to repeat themselves in the same or in other shapes. The carelessness, or the vitiated atmosphere, that leads a copyist to misrepresent one word is sure to lead him into error about another. The ill-ordered assiduity which prompted one bad correction most probably did not rest there. And the errors com- mitted by a witness just before or just after the testimony which is being sifted was given cannot but be held to be closely germane to the inquiry.

So too on the other side. Clearness, correctness, self- collectedness, near to the moment in question, add to the authority of the evidence. Consequently, the witness of the Context cannot but be held to be positively or negatively, though perhaps more often negatively than positively, a very apposite Note of Truth.

§ 7. Internal Evidence.

It would be a serious omission indeed to close this enumeration of Tests of Truth without adverting to those Internal Considerations which will make themselves heard, and are sometimes unanswerable.

Thus the reading of TTCLVTMV (masculine or neuter) which is found in Cod. B (St. Luke xix. 37) we reject at once because of its grammatical impossibility as agreeing with bwdjjLtuv (feminine) ; and that of icapSiais (2 Cor. iii. 3) according to the witness of ANBCDEGLP on the score of its utter impossibility1. Geographical reasons are suffi-

omit €is tavrovs, KD. Ver. 32, a \(yti for Myovres, N*B. See Tischendo/f, eighth edition, in loco. The Concordia discors will be noticed.

1 The explanation given by the majority of the Revisers has only their English Translation to recommend it, ' in tables that are hearts of flesh ' for

F

66 THE SEVEN NOTES OF TRUTH.

ciently strong against reading with Codd. NIK Nil KOL ^rfKovra in St. Luke xxiv. 13 (i.e. a hundred and threescore furlongs), to make it of no manner of importance that a few additional authorities, as Origen, Eusebius, and Jerome, can be produced in support of the same manifestly corrupt reading. On grounds of ordinary reasonableness we cannot hear of the sun being eclipsed when the moon was full, or of our Lord being pierced before death. The truth of history, otherwise sufficiently attested both by St. Matthew and Josephus, absolutely forbids avrov (NBDLA) to be read for dmjs (St. Mark vi. 22), and in consequence the wretched daughter of Herodias to be taken to have been the daughter of Herod.

In these and such-like instances, the Internal reasons are plain and strong. But there is a manifest danger, when critics forsake those considerations which depend upon clear and definite points, and build their own inven- tions and theories into a system of strict canons which they apply in the teeth of manifold evidence that has really everything to recommend it. The extent to which some critics are ready to go may be seen in the monstrous Canon proposed by Griesbach, that where there are more readings than one of any place, that reading which favours orthodoxy is an object of suspicion1. There is doubtless some reason in the Canon which asserts that ' The harder the reading, the less likely it is to have been invented, and the more likely it is to be genuine,' under which

(v ir\a£l leapSiais aapKivais. In the Traditional reading (a) 7rAa£t aapitivais answers to wAafi XiOivais ; and therefore aapuivais would agree with ir\a£i, not with Ka.p8ia.is. (^) The opposition between \iOivais and ttapSiais oapKivais would be weak indeed, the latter being a mere appendage in apposition to ir\a£i, and would therefore be a blot in St. Paul's nervous passage, (c) The apposition is harsh, ill-balanced (contrast St. Mark viii. 8), and unlike Greek: Dr. Hort is driven to suppose 7rAa£i to be a ' primitive interpolation.' The faultiness of a majority of the Uncials is corrected by Cursives, Versions, Fathers.

1 * Inter plures unius loci lectiones ea pro suspecta merilo habetur, quae orthodoxorum dogmatibus manifeste prae ceteris favet.' N. T. Prolegomena, I. p. IxvL

INTERNAL EVIDENCE. 67

(St. Luke vi. i) must receive additional justification. But people are ordinarily so constituted, that when they have once constructed a system of Canons they place no limits to their operation, and become slaves to them.

Accordingly, the true reading of passages must be ascertained, with very slight exception indeed, from the preponderating weight of external evidence, judged accord- ing to its antiquity, to number, variety, relative value, continuousness, and with the help of the context. Internal considerations, unless in exceptional cases they are found in strong opposition to evident error, have only a subsidiary force. Often they are the product of personal bias, or limited observation : and where one scholar approves, another dogmatically condemns. Circumstantial evidence is deservedly rated low in the courts of justice : and lawyers always produce witnesses when they can. The Text of Holy Scripture does not vary with the weathercock accord- ing to changing winds of individual or general opinion or caprice : it is decided by the Tradition of the Church as testified by eye-witnesses and written in black and white and gold in all countries of Christendom, and all down the ages since the New Testament was composed.

I desire to point out concerning the foregoing seven Notes of Truth in Textual Evidence that the student can never afford entirely to lose sight of any of them. The reason is because although no doubt it is conceivable that any one of the seven might possibly in itself suffice to establish almost any reading which can be named, prac- tically this is never the case. And why? Because we never meet with any one of these Tests in the fullest possible measure. No Test ever attains to perfection, or indeed can attain. An approximation to the Test is all that can be expected, or even desired. And sometimes we are obliged to put up with a very slight approximation indeed. Their strength resides in their co-operation.

F 2

CHAPTER IV.

THE VATICAN AND SINAITIC MANUSCRIPTS.

§ I-

No progress is possible in the department of ' Textual Criticism ' until the superstition — for we are persuaded that it is nothing less— which at present prevails concerning certain of * the old uncials ' (as they are called) has been abandoned. By 'the old uncials' are generally meant, [i] The Vatican Codex (B), — and [2] the Sinaitic Codex (N), — which by common consent are assigned to the fourth century : [3] the Alexandrian (A), and [4] the Cod. Ephraemi rescriptus (C),— which are given to the fifth century : and [5] the Codex Bezae (D), — which is claimed for the sixth century : to which must now be added [6] the Codex Beratinus (<£), at the end of the fifth, and [7] the Codex Rossanensis (2), at the beginning of the sixth century. Five of these seven Codexes for some unexplained reason, although the latest of them (D) is sundered from the great bulk of the copies, uncial and cursive, by about as many centuries as the earliest of them (BN) are sundered from the last of their group, have been invested with oracular authority and are supposed to be the vehicles of imperial decrees. It is pretended that what is found in either B or in tf or in D, although unsupported by any other manuscript, may reasonably be claimed to exhibit the truth of scripture, in defiance of the combined evidence of all other documents to the contrary. Let a reading be advocated by B and N in conjunction, and it is assumed as a matter of course that such evidence must needs outweigh

QUESTION PROPOSED. 69

the combined evidence of all other MSS. which can be named. But when (as often happens) three or four of these 'old uncials' are in accord, — especially if (as is not unfrequently the case) they have the support of a single ancient version (as the Bohairic), — or a solitary early Father (as Origen), it seems to be deemed axiomatic that such evidence must needs carry all before it 1.

I maintain the contradictory proposition, and am pre- pared to prove it. I insist that readings so supported are clearly untrustworthy and may be dismissed as certainly unauthentic.

But let us in this chapter seek to come to some under- standing with one another. My method shall be to ask a plain question which shall bring the matter to a clear issue. I will then (i) invent the best answers I am able to that question : and then (2) to the best of my ability — I will dispose of these answers one by one. If the reader (i) is able to assign a better answer, — or (2) does not deem my refutation satisfactory, — he has but to call me publicly to account : and by the rejoinder I shall publicly render either he, or I, must be content to stand publicly dis- credited. If I knew of a fairer way of bringing this by no means recondite matter to a definite issue, the reader may be well assured I should now adopt it2. — My general question is, — Why throughout the Gospels are B and tf accounted so trustworthy, that all but the absolute disposal of every disputed question about the Text is held to depend upon their evidence ?

And I begin by asking of a supposed Biblical Student, — Why throughout the Gospels should Codex B and tf be deemed more deserving of our confidence than the other Codexes?

1 See Hort's Introduction, pp. 210-270.

2 I have retained this challenge though it has been rendered nugatory by the Dean's lamented death, in order to exhibit his absolute sincerity and fearlessness.— E. M.

70 THE VATICAN AND SINAITIC MANUSCRIPTS.

Biblical Student. Because they are the most ancient of our Codexes.

Dean Burgon. This answer evidently seems to you to convey an axiomatic truth : but not to me. I must trouble you to explain to me why * the most ancient of our Codexes ' must needs be the purest ?

B. S. I have not said that they ' must needs be the purest ' : and I request you will not impute to me any- thing which I do not actually say.

The Dean. Thank you for a most just reproof. Let us only proceed in the same spirit to the end, and we shall arrive at important results. Kindly explain yourself there- fore in your own way.

B. S. I meant to say that because it is a reasonable presumption that the oldest Codexes will prove the purest, therefore Btf — being the oldest Codexes of the Gospels- may reasonably be expected to be the best.

The Dean. So far happily we are agreed. You mean, I presume, that inasmuch as it is an admitted principle that the stream is purest at its source, the antiquity of B and N creates a reasonable presumption in their favour. Is that what you mean ?

B. S. Something of the kind, no doubt. You may go on.

The Dean. Yes, but it would be a great satisfaction to me to know for certain, whether you actually do, or actually do not mean what I suppose : — viz., to apply the principle, id verum esse quod primum, I take you to mean that in B and K we have the nearest approach to the autographs of the Evangelists, and that therefore in them we have the best evidence that is at present within reach of what those autographs actually were. I will now go on as you bid me. And I take leave to point out to you, that it is high time that we should have the facts of the case definitely before us, and that we should keep them steadily

DEFECTIVE ANTIQUITY. 71

in view throughout our subsequent discussion. Now all critics are agreed, that B and tf were not written earlier than about 340, or say before 330 A. D. You will admit that, I suppose?

B. S. I have no reason to doubt it.

The Dean. There was therefore an interval of not far short of three hundred years between the writing of the original autographs and the copying of the Gospels in B and N l. Those two oldest Codexes, or the earliest of them, are thus found to be separated by nearly three centuries from the original writings, — or to speak more accurately, — by about two centuries and three-quarters from three of the great autographs, and by about 250 years from the fourth. Therefore these MSS. cannot be said to be so closely connected with the original autographs as to be entitled to decide about disputed passages what they were or were not. Corruption largely infected the several writings 2, as I shall shew at some length in some subsequent chapters, during the great interval to which I have alluded.

B. S. But I am surprised to hear you say this. You must surely recollect that B and X were derived from one and the same archetype, and that that archetype was produced 'in the early part of the second century if not earlier V and was very close to the autographs, and that they must be accordingly accurate transcripts of the autographs, and —

The Dean. I must really pray you to pause : — you have left facts far behind, and have mounted into cloud- land. I must beg you not to let slip from your mind, that we start with a fact, so far as it can be ascertained, viz. the production of B and N, about the middle of the fourth

1 Here the Dean's MS. ceases, and the Editor is responsible for what follows. The MS. was marked in pencil, ' Very rough— but worth carrying on.'

2 See a passage from Caius quoted in The Revision Revised, p. 323. Eusebius, Hist. Eccles. v. 28. 3 Hort, Introduction, p. 223.

72 THE VATICAN AND SINAITIC MANUSCRIPTS.

century. You have advanced from that fact to what is only a probable opinion, in which however I am agreed with you, viz. that B and N are derived from one and the same older manuscript. Together therefore, I pray you will not forget, they only count nearly as one. But as to the age of that archetype — forgive me for saying, that — unintentionally no doubt but none the less really — you have taken a most audacious leap. May I ask, however, whether you can quote any ancient authority for the date which you have affixed ?

B. S. I cannot recollect one at the present moment.

The Dean. No, nor Dr. Hort either, — for I perceive that you adopt his speculation. And I utterly deny that there is any probability at all for such a suggestion : — nay, the chances are greatly, if not decisively, against the original from which the lines of B and N diverged, being anything like so old as the second century. These MSS. bear traces of the Origenistic school, as I shall afterwards shew l. They have too much method in their error for it to have arisen in the earliest age : its systematic character proves it to have been the growth of time. They evince effects, as I shall demonstrate in due course, of heretical teaching, Lectionary practice, and regular editing, which no manuscript could have contracted in the first ages of the Church.

B. S. But surely the differences between B and K, which are many, prove that they were not derived immediately from their common ancestor, but that some generations elapsed between them. Do you deny that ?

The Dean. I grant you entirely that there are many differences between them, — so much the worse for the value of their evidence. But you must not suffer yourself to be misled by the figure of genealogy upon points where it presents no parallel. There were in manuscripts no

1 See Appendix V, and below, Chapter IX.

THEIR ARCHETYPE NOT VERY OLD. 73

periods of infancy, childhood, and youth, which must elapse before they could have a progeny. As soon as a manuscript was completed, and was examined and passed, it could be copied : and it could be copied, not only once a year, but as often as copyists could find time to write and complete their copies1. You must take also another circumstance into consideration. After the destruction of manuscripts in the persecution of Diocletian, and when the learned were pressing from all quarters into the Church, copies must have been multiplied with great rapidity. There was all the more room for carelessness, inaccuracy, incompetency, and capricious recension. Several genera- tions of manuscripts might have been given off in two or three years. — But indeed all this idea of fixing the date of the common ancestor of B and N is based upon pure specu- lation : — Textual Science cannot rest her conclusions upon foundations of sand like that. I must bring you back to the Rock : I must recall you to facts. B and N were produced in the early middle, so to speak, of the fourth century. Further than this, we cannot go, except to say — and this especially is the point to which I must now request your attention, — that we are in the possession of evidence older than they are.

B. S. But you do not surely mean to tell me that other Uncials have been discovered which are earlier than these ?

The Dean. No : not yet : though it is possible, and perhaps probable, that such MSS. may come to light, not in vellum but in papyrus ; for as far as we know,

1 As a specimen of how quickly a Cursive copy could be written by an accomplished copyist, we may note the following entry from Dean Burgon's Letters in the Guardian to Dr. Scrivener, in a letter dated Jan. 29, 1873. ' Note fui ther, that there is ... another copy of the O. T. in one volume . . . at the end of which is stated that Nicodemus f> £cVos, the scribe, began his task on the 8th of June and finished it on the I5th of July, A. D. 1334, working very hard — as he must have done indeed.'

74 THE VATICAN AND SINAITIC MANUSCRIPTS.

B and tf mark the emergence into prominence of the ' Uncial ' class of great manuscripts 1. But though there are in our hands as yet no older manuscripts, yet we have in the first place various Versions, viz., the Peshitto of the second century 2, the group of Latin Versions 3 which begin from about the same time, the Bohairic and the Thebaic of the third century, not to speak of the Gothic which was about contemporary with your friends the Vatican and Sinaitic MSS. Next, there are the numerous Fathers who quoted passages in the earliest ages, and thus witnessed to the MSS. which they used. To take an illustration, I have cited upon the last twelve verses of St. Mark's Gospel no less than twelve authorities before the end of the third century, that is down to a date which is nearly half a century before B and tf appeared. The general mass of quotations found in the books of the early Fathers witnesses to what I say 4. So that there is absolutely no reason to place these two MSS. upon a pedestal by them- selves on the score of supreme antiquity. They are eclipsed in this respect by many other authorities older than they are. Such, I must beg you to observe, is the verdict, not of uncertain speculation, but of stubborn facts.

B. S. But if I am not permitted to plead the highest antiquity on behalf of the evidence of the two oldest Uncials, —

The Dean. Stop, I pray you. Do not imagine for a single instant that I wish to prevent your pleading any- thing at all that you may fairly plead. Facts, which refuse to be explained out of existence, not myself, bar your way. Forgive me, but you must not run your head against a brick wall.

B. S. Well then 5, I will meet you at once by asking

1 See below, Chapter VIII. § 2. 2 See Chapter VI.

3 See Chapter VII. * See next Chapter.

5 Another fragment found in the Dean's papers is introduced here.

DIFFERENT OPINIONS ABOUT THEM. 75

a question of my own. Do you deny that B and N are the most precious monuments of their class in existence ?

The Dean. So far from denying, I eagerly assert that they are. Were they offered for sale to-morrow, they would command a fabulous sum. They might fetch perhaps ^100,000. For aught I know or care they may be worth it. More than one cotton-spinner is worth — or possibly several times as much.

B. S. But I did not mean that. I spoke of their importance as instruments of criticism.

The Dean. Again we are happily agreed. Their im- portance is unquestionably first-rate. But to come to the point, will you state plainly, whether you mean to assert that their text is in your judgement of exceptional purity ?

B. S. I do.

TJie Dean. At last there we understand one another. I on the contrary insist, and am prepared to prove, that the text of these two Codexes is very nearly the foulest in existence. On what, pray, do you rely for your opinion which proves to be diametrically the reverse of mine * ?

B. S. The best scholars tell me that their text, and especially the text of B, is of a purer character than any other : and indeed I myself, after reading B in Mai's edition, think that it deserves the high praise given to it.

The Dean. My dear friend, I see that you have been taken in by Mai's edition, printed at Leipzig, and published in England by Williams & Norgate and D. Nutt. Let me tell you that it is a most faulty representation of B. It mixes later hands with the first hand. It abounds in mistakes. It inserts perpetually passages which are no- where found in the copy. In short, people at the time fancied that in the text of the mysterious manuscript in

1 Here the fragment ends.

76 THE VATICAN AND SINAITIC MANUSCRIPTS.

the Vatican they would find the verba ipsissima of the Gospels : but when Cardinal Mai was set to gratify them, he found that B would be unreadable unless it were edited with a plentiful correction of errors. So the world then received at least two recensions of B mixed up in this edition, whilst B itself remained behind. The world was generally satisfied, and taken in. But I am sorry that you have shared in the delusion.

B. S. Well, of course I may be wrong : but surely you will respect the opinion of the great scholars.

The Dean. Of course I respect deeply the opinion of any great scholars : but before I adopt it, I must know and approve the grounds of their opinion. Pray, what in this instance are they?

B. S. They say that the text is better and purer than any other.

The Dean. And I say that it is nearly the most corrupt known. If they give no special grounds except the fact that they think so, it is a conflict of opinion. There is a balance between us. But from this deadlock I proceed to facts. Take for example, as before, the last twelve verses of St. Mark. On the one side are alleged B and N,— of which B by the exhibition of a blank space mutely confesses its omission, and N betrays that it is double- minded l ; one Old Latin MS. (k), two Armenian MSS., two Ethiopic, and an Arabic Lectionary; an expression of Eusebius, who elsewhere quotes the passage, which was copied by Jerome and Severus of Antioch, saying that the verses were omitted in some copies. L of the eighth century, and a few Cursives, give a brief, but impossible, termination. On the other side I have referred to2 six witnesses of the second century, six of the third, fifteen of the fourth, nine of the fifth, eight of the sixth and seventh,

1 See Dr. Gwynn's remarks which are quoted below, Appendix VII. a The Revision Revised, p. 423. Add a few more; see Appendix VII.

CONDEMNED UNDER THE NOTES OF TRUTH. 77

all the other Uncials, and all the other Cursives, including the universal and immemorial Liturgical use. Here, as you must see, B and N, in faltering tones, and with only an insignificant following, are met by an array of authorities, which is triumphantly superior, not only in antiquity, but also in number, variety, and continuousness. I claim also the superiority as to context, internal con- siderations, and in weight too.

B. S. But surely weight is the ground of contention between us.

The Dean. Certainly, and therefore I do not assume my claim till I substantiate it. But before I go on to do so, may I ask whether you can dispute the fact of the four first Notes of Truth being on my side ?

B. S. No : you are entitled to so much allowance.

The Dean. That is a very candid admission, and just what I expected from you. Now as to Weight. The passage just quoted is only one instance out of many. More will abound later on in this book : and even then many more must of necessity remain behind. In point of hard and unmistakable fact, there is a continual conflict going on all through the Gospels between B and N and a few adherents of theirs on the one side, and the bulk of the Authorities on the other, and the nature and weight of these two Codexes may be inferred from it. They will be found to have been proved over and over again to be bad witnesses, who were left to survive in their handsome dresses whilst attention was hardly ever accorded to any services of theirs. Fifteen centuries, in which the art of copying the Bible was brought to perfection, and printing invented, have by unceasing rejection of their claims sealed for ever the condemnation of their character, and so detracted from their weight.

B. S. Still, whilst I acknowledge the justice of much that you have said, I cannot quite understand how the

78 THE VATICAN AND SINAITIC MANUSCRIPTS.

text of later copies can be really older than the text of earlier ones.

The Dean. You should know that such a thing is quite possible. Copies much more numerous and much older than B and N live in their surviving descendants. The pedigree of the Queen is in no wise discredited because William the Conqueror is not alive. But then further than this. The difference between the text of B and ?* on the one side and that which is generally represented by A and <£ and 2 on the other is not of a kind depending upon date, but upon recension or dissemination of readings. No amplification of B and N could by any process of natural development have issued in the last twelve verses of St. Mark. But it was easy enough for the scribe of B not to write, and the scribe of tf consciously l and de- liberately to omit, verses found in the copy before him, if it were determined that they should severally do so. So with respect to the 2,556 omissions of B. The original text could without any difficulty have been spoilt by leav- ing out the words, clauses, and sentences thus omitted : but something much more than the shortened text of B was absolutely essential for the production of the longer manuscripts. This is an important point, and I must say something more upon it.

First then2, Cod. B is discovered not to contain in the Gospels alone 237 words, 452 clauses, 748 whole sentences, which the later copies are observed to exhibit in the same places and in the same words. By what possible hypothesis will such a correspondence of the Copies be accounted for, if these words, clauses, and sentences are indeed, as is pretended, nothing else but spurious accretions to the text?

Secondly, the same Codex throughout the Gospels

1 Dr. Gwynn, Appendix VII. 8 Another MS. comes in here.

OMISSIONS IN B. 79

exhibits 394 times words in a certain order, which however is not the order advocated by the great bulk of the Copies. In consequence of what subtle influence will it be pre- tended, that all over the world for a thousand years the scribes were universally induced to deflect from the authentic collocation of the same inspired words, and always to deflect in precisely the same way?

But Cod. B also contains 937 Gospel words, of which by common consent the great bulk of the Cursive Copies know nothing. Will it be pretended that in any part of the Church for seven hundred years copyists of Evangelia entered into a grand conspiracy to thrust out of every fresh copy of the Gospel self-same words in the self-same places l ?

You will see therefore that B, and so N, since the same arguments concern one as the other, must have been derived from the Traditional Text, and not the Traditional Text from those two Codexes.

B. S. You forget that Recensions were made at Edessa or Nisibis and Antioch which issued in the Syrian Texts, and that that was the manner in which the change which you find so difficult to understand was brought about.

The Dean. Excuse me, I forget no such thing ; and for a very good reason, because such Recensions never occurred. Why, there is not a trace of them in history : it is a mere dream of Dr. Hort : they must be ' phantom recensions,' as Dr. Scrivener terms them. The Church of the time was not so unconscious of such matters as Dr. Hort imagines. Supposing for a moment that such Recensions took place, they must have been either merely local occur- rences, in which case after a controversy on which history is silent they would have been inevitably rejected by the other Churches in Christendom ; or they must have been general operations of the Universal Church, and then inasmuch as

1 The MS. ceases.

8o THE VATICAN AND SINAITIC MANUSCRIPTS.

they would have been sealed with the concurrence of fifteen centuries, I can hardly conceive greater condemnations of B and N. Besides how could a text which has been in fact Universal be * Syrian ' ? We are on terra fir ma, let me remind you, not in the clouds. The undisputed action of fifteen centuries is not to be set aside by a nickname.

B. S. But there is another way of describing the process of change which may have occurred in the reverse direction to that which you advocate. Expressions which had been introduced in different groups of readings were combined by ' Conflation ' into a more diffuse and weaker passage. Thus in St. Mark vi. 33, the two clauses KCU irpo7J\6ov avrovs, KCU (Tvvij\6ov O.VTOV, are made into one conflate passage, of which the last clause is 'otiose' after vwibpapov €K€i occurring immediately before1.

The Dean. Excuse me, but I entirely disagree with you. The whole passage appears to me to savour of the simplicity of early narratives. Take for example the well- known words in Gen. xii. 5, * and they went forth to go into the land of Canaan ; and into the land of Canaan they came2.' A clumsy criticism, bereft of any fine appreciation of times and habits unlike the present, might I suppose attempt to remove the latter clause from that place as being ' otiose.' But besides, your explana- tion entirely breaks down when it is applied to other instances. How could conflation, or mixture, account for occurrence of the last cry in St. Mark xv. 39, or of vv. 43- 44 in St. Luke xxii describing the Agony and Bloody Sweat, or of the first Word from the Cross in St. Luke xxiii. 34, or of the descending angel and the working of the cure in St. John v. 3-4, or of St. Peter's visit to the sepulchre in St. Luke xxiv. 12, or what would be the foisting of verses or passages of different lengths into

1 Hort, Introduction, pp. 95-99.

bb ixri

CONFLATION A DREAM. 8l

the numerous and similar places that I might easily adduce ? If these were all transcribed from some previous text into which they had been interpolated, they would only thrust the difficulty further back. How did they come there ? The clipped text of B and N — so to call it — could not have been the source of them. If they were interpolated by scribes or revisers, the interpolations are so good that, at least in many cases, they must have shared inspiration with the Evangelists. Contrast, for example, the real interpolations of D and the Curetonian. It is at the least demonstrated that that hypothesis requires another source of the Traditional Text, and this is the argu- ment now insisted on. On the contrary, if you will discard your reverse process, and for ' Conflation ' will substitute * Omission ' through carelessness, or ignorance of Greek, or misplaced assiduity, or heretical bias, or through some of the other causes which I shall explain later on, all will be as plain and easy as possible. Do you not see that ? No explanation can stand which does not account for all the instances existing. Conflation or mixture is utterly incapable of meeting the larger number of cases. But you will find before this treatise is ended that various methods will be described herein with care, and traced in their actual operation, under which debased texts of various kinds were produced from the Traditional Text.

B. vS. I see that there is much probability in what you say : but I retain still some lingering doubt.

The Dean. That doubt, I think, will be removed by the next point which I will now endeavour to elucidate. You must know that there is no agreement amongst the allies, except so far as the denial of truth is concerned. As soon as the battle is over, they at once turn their arms against one another. Now it is a phenomenon full of suggestion, that such a Concordia dtscors is conspicuous amongst B and N and their associates. Indeed these two Codexes are

G

82 THE VATICAN AND SINAITIC MANUSCRIPTS.

individually at variance with themselves, since each of them has undergone later correction, and in fact no less than eleven hands from first to last have been at work on tf, which has been corrected and re-corrected back- wards and forwards like the faulty document that it is* This by the way, but as to the continual quarrels of these dissentients 1, which are patent when an attempt is made to ascertain how far they agree amongst themselves, I must request your attention to a few points and passages 2.

§ 2. St. John v. 4.

When it is abruptly stated that NBCD — four out of ' the five old uncials ' — omit from the text of St. John's Gospel the account of the angel descending into the pool and troubling the water, — it is straightway supposed that the genuineness of St. John v. 4 must be surrendered. But this is not at all the way to settle questions of this kind. Let the witnesses be called in afresh and examined.

Now I submit that since these four witnesses omitting A, (besides a multitude of lesser discrepancies,) are unable to agree among themselves whether ' there was at Jeru- salem a sheep-/w?/' (N), or 'a pool at the sheep-gate': whether it was 'surnamed* (BC), or 'named' (D), or neither (tf ) : — which appellation, out of thirty which have been proposed for this pool, they will adopt, — seeing that

1 An instance is afforded in St. Mark viii. 7, where ' the Five Old Uncials' exhibit the passage thus :

A. KCU ravra fvXoyrjaas eiirev irapareOTjvai Kai avra. N*. KOI evKoyrjaas avra Trapc0r]KCi>.

Nl. Kai evXoyrjaas cnrtv Kai ravra napartOwat.

B. /cat fv\oyr)aas aura (ITTCV KOI ravra irapariOevai.

C. Kai fvXoyrjaas avra eiirtv KOI ravra vapaOfre.

D. Kai tvxapiaTT](Tas (nrev Kai avrovs €K(\(vfffv irapanOevai. Lachmann, and Tischendorf (1859) follow A ; Alford, and Tischendorf (1869)

follow K ; Tregelles and Westcott, and Hort adopt B. They happen to be all wrong, and the Textus Receptus right. The only word they all agree in is the initial Kai.

2 After this the MSS. recommence.

CONCORDIA DISCORS. 83

C is for ' Bethesda ' ; B for ' Bethsaida ' ; tf for ' Bethzatha ' ; D for * Belzetha ' :— whether or no the crowd was great, of which they all know nothing,— and whether some were ' paralytics,' — a fact which was evidently revealed only to D : — to say nothing of the vagaries of construction dis- coverable in verses 1 1 and 1 2 : — when, you see, at last these four witnesses conspire to suppress the fact that an Angel went down into the pool to trouble the water ; — this concord of theirs derives suggestive illustration from their conspicuous discord. Since, I say, there is so much discrepancy hereabouts in B and N and their two associates on this occasion, nothing short of unanimity in respect of the thirty-two contested words — five in verse 3, and twenty- seven in verse 4 — would free their evidence from sus- picion. But here we make the notable discovery that only three of them omit all the words in question, and that the second Corrector of C replaces them in that manuscript. D retains the first five, and surrenders the last twenty- seven : in this step D is contradicted by another of the ' Old Uncials,' A, whose first reading retains the last twenty- seven, and surrenders the first five. Even their satellite L forsakes them, except so far as to follow the first hand of A. Only five Cursives have been led astray, and they exhibit strikingly this Concordia discors. One (157) follows the extreme members of the loving company throughout. Two (18, 314) imitate A and L : and two more (33, 134) have the advantage of D for their leader. When wit- nesses prevaricate so hopelessly, how far can you believe them?

Now — to turn for a moment to the other side — this is a matter on which the translations and such Fathers as quote the passage are able to render just as good evidence as the Greek copies : and it is found that the Peshitto, most of the Old Latin, as well as the Vulgate and the Jerusalem, with Tertullian, Ammonius, Hilary, Ephraem

G 2

84 THE VATICAN AND SINAITIC MANUSCRIPTS.

the Syrian, Ambrose (two), Didymus, Chrysostom (eight), Nilus (four), Jerome, Cyril of Alexandria (five), Augustine (two), and Theodorus Studita, besides the rest of the Uncials1, and the Cursives2, with the slight exception already mentioned, are opposed to the Old Uncials 3.

Let me next remind you of a remarkable instance of this inconsistency which I have already described in my book on The Revision Revised (pp. 34-36). ' The five Old Uncials' (NABCD) falsify the Lord's Prayer as given by St. Luke in no less than forty-five words. But so little do they agree among themselves, that they throw them- selves into six different combinations in their departures from the Traditional Text ; and yet they are never able to agree among themselves as to one single various reading : while only once are more than two of them observed to stand together, and their grand point of union is no less than an omission of the article. Such is their eccentric tendency, that in respect of thirty-two out of the whole forty-five words they bear in turn solitary evidence.

§3.

I should weary you, my dear student, if I were to take you through all the evidence which I could amass upon this disagreement with one another, — this Concordia discors. But I would invite your attention for a moment to a few points which being specimens may indicate the continued divisions upon Orthography which subsist between the Old Uncials and their frequent errors. And first4, how

1 Sn mark the place with asterisks, and A with an obelus.

2 In twelve, asterisks : in two, obeli.

3 The MS., which has not been perfect, here ceases.

* In the Syriac one form appears to be used for all the Marys (ji+n&^- Mar-yam, also sometimes, but not always, spelt in the Jerusalem Syriac ^pj^iJjo = Mar-yaam), also for Miriam in the O. T., for Mariamne the wife of Herod, and others ; in fact, wherever it is intended to represent a Hebrew female name. At Rom. xvi. 6, the Peshitto has Jkli^e =Ma/>/a, obviously as

DISCORDANCE IN ORTHOGRAPHY. 85

do they write the ' Mary's ' of the Gospels, of whom in strictness there are but three ?

'The Mother of JESUS V as most of us are aware, was not 'Mary' (Mapta) at all; but ' Mariam* (Mapufyx), — a name strictly identical with that of the sister of Moses 2. We call her c Mary' only because the Latins invariably write her name 'Maria.' So complete an obliteration of the distinction between the name of the blessed Virgin — and that of (i) her sister, Mary the wife of Clopas 3, of (2) Mary Magdalene, and of (3) Mary the sister of Lazarus, may be deplored, but it is too late to remedy the mischief by full 1800 years. The question before us is not that ; but only — how far the distinction between ' Mariam* and ' Maria ' has been maintained by the Greek copies ?

Now, as for the cursives, with the memorable exception of Evann. i and 33, — which latter, because it is disfigured by more serious blunders than any other copy written in the cursive character, Tregelles by a mativaise plaisanterie designates as ' the queen of the cursives,' — it may be said at once that they are admirably faithful. Judging from the practice of fifty or sixty which have been minutely

a translation of the Greek form in the text which was followed. (See Thesaurus Syriacus, Payne Smith, coll. 2225, 2226.)

In Syriac literature JU «J*O = Maria occurs from time to time as the name of some Saint or Martyr— e. g. in a volume of Acta Mart, described by Wright in Cat. Syr. MSS. in B. M. p. 1081, and which appears to be a fifth-century MS.

On the hypothesis that Hebrew-Aramaic was spoken in Palestine (pace Drs. Abbot and Roberts), I do not doubt that only one form (cf. Pearson, Creed, Art. iii. and notes) of the name was in use, ' Maryam,' a vulgarized form of 'Miriam'; but it may well be that Greek Christians kept the Hebrew form Mapta/* for the Virgin, while they adopted a more Greek-looking word for the other women. This fine distinction has been lost in the corrupt Uncials, while observed in the correct Uncials and Cursives, which is all that the Dean's argument requires. — (G. H. G.)

1 The MSS. continue here. 2 LXX.

3 St. John xix. 25. As the passage is syndeton, the omission of the nai which would be necessary if Mapia % rov KXcuira were different from $ dSeA^i) TTJS ftrjTpos airov could not be justified. Compare, e. g., the construction in the mention of four in St. Mark xiii. 3. In disregarding the usage requiring exclusively either syndeton or asyndeton, even scholars are guided unconsciously by their English experience. — (Eo.)

86 THE VATICAN AND SINAITIC MANUSCRIPTS.

examined with this view, the traces of irregularity are so rare that the phenomenon scarcely deserves notice. Not so the old uncials. Cod. B, on the first occasion where a blunder is possible 1 (viz. in St. Matt. i. 20), exhibits Mapta instead of Mapiajut : — so does Cod. C in xiii. 55, — Cod. D in St. Luke i. 30, 39, 56 : ii. 5, 16, 34,— Codd. CD in St. Luke by NBC, in St. Matt. i. 34, 38, 46,— Codd. BtfD, in ii. 19.

On the other hand, the Virgin's sister (Mapta), is twice written Maptoju : viz. by C, in St. Matt xxvii. 56 ; and by N*, in St. John xix. 25 : — while Mary Magdalene is written Mapta^ by ' the five old uncials ' no less than eleven times : viz. by C, in St. Matt, xxvii. 56, — by tf , in St. Luke xxiv. 10, St. John xix. 25, xx. n, — by A, in St. Luke viii. 2, — by NA, in St. John xx. i, — by tf C, in St. Matt, xxviii. i, — by NB, in St. John xx. 16 and 18, — by BC, in St. Mark xv. 40,— by NBC, in St. Matt, xxvii. 61.

Lastly, Mary (Mapta) the sister of Lazarus, is called Mapta/x by Cod. B in St. Luke x. 42 : St. John xi. 2 : xii. 3 ; — by BC, in St. Luke xi. 32 ; — by KC, in St. Luke x. 39. — I submit that such specimens of licentiousness or inattention are little calculated to conciliate confidence in Codd. BNCD. It is found that B goes wrong nine times : D, ten (exclusively in respect of the Virgin Mary) : C, eleven : N, twelve. — Evan. 33 goes wrong thirteen times : i, nineteen times. — A, the least corrupt, goes wrong only twice.

§4.

Another specimen of a blunder in Codexes BNL33 is afforded by their handling of our LORD'S words, — 'Thou art Simon the son of Jona.' That this is the true reading of St. John i. 43 is sufficiently established by the fact that

1 The genitive Map'as is used in the Textus Receptus in Matt. i. 16, 18 ; ii. II ; Mark vi. 3 ; Luke i. 41. Ma/>ta/* is used in the Nominative, Matt. xiii. 55 ; Luke i. 27, 34, 39, 46, 56 ; ii. 5, 19. In the Vocative, Luke i. 30. The Accusative, Matt. i. 20; Luke ii. 16. Dative, Luke ii. 5; Acts i. 14. occurs for another Mary in the Textus Receptus, Rom. xvi. 6.

BLUNDERS IN NAMES. 87

it is the reading of all the Codexes, uncial and cursive alike, — excepting always the four vicious specimens speci- fied above. Add to the main body of the Codexes the Vulgate, Peshitto and Harkleian Syriac, the Armenian, Ethiopic, Georgian, and Slavonic versions : — besides several of the Fathers, such as Serapion1, — Basil2, — Epiphanius3, — Chrysostom 4, — Asterius 5, — and another (unknown) writer of the fourth century6: — with Cyril7 of the fifth, — and a body of evidence has been adduced, which alike in respect of its antiquity, its number, its variety, and its respecta- bility, casts such witnesses as B-tf entirely into the shade. When it is further remembered that we have preserved to us in St. Matt. xvi. 17 our Saviour's designation of Simon's patronymic in the vernacular of Palestine, * Simon Bar-jona,' which no manuscript has ventured to disturb, what else but irrational is the contention of the modern School that for 'Jona' in St. John i. 43, we are to read ' John ' ? The plain fact evidently is that some second- century critic supposed that 'Jonah' and 'John' are iden- tical : and of his weak imagination the only surviving witnesses at the end of 1700 years are three uncials and one cursive copy, — a few copies of the Old Latin (which fluctuate between ' Johannis,' 'Johanna,' and *Johna'), — the Bohairic Version, and Nonnus. And yet, on the strength of this slender minority, the Revisers exhibit in their text, 'Simon the son of John/ — and in their margin volunteer the information that the Greek word is ' Joanes/ —which is simply not the fact : IcoauTj? being the reading of no Greek manuscript in the world except Cod. B 8.

1 Serapion, Bp. of Thmuis (on a mouth of the Nile) A. D. 340 (ap. Galland. v. 60 a).

2 Basil, i. 2406. 3 Epiphanius, i. 435 c.

4 Chrysostom, iii. 120 d e ; vii. 180 a, 547 e quat. ; viii. 112 a c (nine times).

5 Asterius, p. 128 b.

6 Basil Opp. (i. Append.) i. 5006 (cf. p. 377 Monitum).

7 Cyril, iv. 131 c.

8 A gives Iowa ; tf , Ifaavvrj^ ; C and D are silent. Obvious it is that the

88 THE VATICAN AND SINAITIC MANUSCRIPTS.

Again, in the margin of St. John i. 28 we are informed that instead of Bethany — the undoubted reading of the place, — some ancient authorities read * Betharabah.' Why, there is not a single ancient Codex, — not a single ancient Father, — not a single ancient Version, — which so reads the place l.

§5.

B. S. But2, while I grant you that this general dis- agreement between B and N and the other old Uncials which for a time join in their dissent from the Traditional Text causes the gravest suspicion that they are in error, yet it appears to me that these points of orthography are too small to be of any real importance.

The Dean. If the instances just given were only excep- tions, I should agree with you. On the contrary, they indicate the prevailing character of the MSS. B and N are covered all over with blots 3, — N even more so than B. How they could ever have gained the characters which have been given them, is passing strange. But even great scholars are human, and have their prejudices and other weaknesses; and their disciples follow them everywhere as submissively as sheep. To say nothing of many great scholars who have never explored this field, if men of ordinary acquirements in scholarship would only eman- cipate themselves and judge with their own eyes, they would soon see the truth of what I say.

revised text of St. John i. 43 and of xxi. 15, 16, 17, — must stand or fall together. In this latter place the Vulgate forsakes us, and NB are joined by C and D. On the other hand, Cyril (iv. 1117), — Basil (ii. 298), — Chrysostom (viii. 525 c d), — Theodoret (ii. 426), — Jo. Damascene (ii. 510 e),— and Eulogins ([A. D. 580] ap. Photium, p. 1612), come to our aid. Not that we require it.

1 ' Araba' (instead of 'abara') is a word which must have exercised so powerful and seductive an influence over ancient Eastern scribes, — (having been for thirty-four centuries the established designation of the sterile Wady, which extends from the Southern extremity of the Dead Sea to the North of the Arabian Gulf) — that the only wonder is it did not find its way into Evangelia. See Gesenius on i"liny (Apafia in the LXX of Deut. ii. 8, &c. So in the Revised O. T.).

2 The MSS. have ceased. 3 See Appendix V.

TO BE DECIDED BY FACTS. 89

B. S. I should assent to all that you have told me, if I could only have before me a sufficient number of instances to form a sound induction, always provided that they agree with these which you have quoted Those which you have just given are enough as specimens : but forgive me when I say that, as a Biblical Student, I think I ought to form my opinions upon strong, deep, and wide founda- tions of facts.

The Dean. So far from requiring forgiveness from me, you deserve all praise. My leading principle is to build solely upon facts, — upon real, not fancied facts, — not upon a few favourite facts, but upon all that are connected with the question under consideration. And if it had been permitted me to carry out in its integrity the plan which I laid down for myself1, — that however has been withheld under the good Providence of Almighty GOD. — Neverthe- less I think that you will discover in the sequel enough to justify amply all the words that I have used. You will, I perceive, agree with me in this, — That whichever side of the contention is the most comprehensive, and rests upon the soundest and widest induction of facts, — that side, and that side alone, will stand.

1 See Preface.

CHAPTER V.

THE ANTIQUITY OF THE TRADITIONAL TEXT1.

I. WITNESS OF THE EARLY FATHERS.

§ 1. Involuntary Evidence of Dr. Hort.

OUR readers will have observed, that the chief obstacle in the way of an unprejudiced and candid examination of the sound and comprehensive system constructed by Dean Burgon is found in the theory of Dr. Hort. Of the internal coherence and the singular ingenuity displayed in Dr. Hort's treatise, no one can doubt : and I hasten to pay deserved and sincere respect to the memory of the highly accomplished author whose loss the students of Holy Scripture are even now deploring. It is to his arguments sifted logically, to the judgement exercised by him upon texts and readings, upon manuscripts and versions and Fathers, and to his collisions with the record of history, that a higher duty than appreciation of a Theologian however learned and pious compels us to demur.

But no searching examination into the separate links and details of the argument in Dr. Hort's Introduction to his Edition of the New Testament will be essayed now. Such a criticism has been already made by Dean Burgon in the 3o6th number of the Quarterly Review, and has

1 This chapter and the next three have been supplied entirely by the Editor.

INVOLUNTARY WITNESS OF DR. HORT. 91

been republished in The Revision Revised