The Causes of the Corruption of the Traditional Text of the Holy Gospels Part 23

Matt. xxvii. 35, where the quotation ([Greek: hina plerothe ... ebalon kleron]) must be taken for similar reasons to have been originally a gloss.]

FOOTNOTES:

[338] [Greek: prosengisai] is transitive here, like [Greek: engizo] in Gen. xlviii. 10, 13: 2 Kings iv. 6: Isaiah xlvi. 13.

[339] The following are the numbers of Transpositions supplied by B, [Symbol: Aleph], and D in the Gospels:--B, 2,098: [Symbol: Aleph], 2,299: D, 3,471. See Revision Revised, pp. 12, 13.

[340] Marcion (Epiph. i. 317): Eusebius (Mai, iv. 266): Epiphanius (i.

348): Cyril (Mai, ii. 438): John Thess. (Gall. xiii. 188).

[341] St. John v. 26, in [Symbol: Aleph]

[342] St. Mark ii. 12, in D.

[343] St. Luke xiv. 13, in [Symbol: Aleph]B.

[344] St. John v. 27.

[345] 'Nec aliter' (says Tischendorf) 'Tertull.' (Prax. 21),--'_et judicium dedit illi facere in potestate_.' But this (begging the learned critic's pardon) is quite a different thing.

[346] See the very learned, ingenious, and satisfactory disquisition in The Revision Revised, pp. 424-501.

[347] The numbers are:--

B, subst.i.tutions, 935; modifications, 1,132; total, 2,067.

[Symbol: Aleph], " 1,114; " 1,265; " 2,379.

D, " 2,121; " 1,772; " 3,893.

Revision Revised, pp. 12, 13.

[348] B has 536 words added in the Gospels: [Symbol: Aleph], 839: D, 2,213. Revision Revised, pp. 12, 13. The interpolations of D are notorious.

[349] St. Luke vii. 10.

[350] Theoph. p. 212.

[351] An opposite fate, strange to say, has attended a short clause in the same narrative, which however is even worse authenticated. Instead of [Greek: oude en to Israel tosauten pistin euron] (St. Matt. viii.

10), we are invited henceforth to read [Greek: par' oudeni tosauten pistin en to Israel euron];--a tame and tasteless gloss, witnessed to by only B, and five cursives,--but having no other effect, if it should chance to be inserted, than to mar and obscure the Divine utterance.

For when our Saviour declares 'Not even in Israel have I found so great faith,' He is clearly contrasting this proficiency of an earnest Gentile against whatever of a like nature He had experienced in His dealing with the Jewish people; and declaring the result. He is contrasting Jacob's descendants, the heirs of so many lofty privileges, with this Gentile soldier: their spiritual attainments with his; and a.s.signing the palm to him. Subst.i.tute 'With no one in Israel have I found so great faith,' and the contrast disappears. Nothing else is predicated but a greater measure of faith in one man than in any other. The author of this feeble attempt to improve upon St. Matthew's Gospel is found to have also tried his hand on the parallel place in St. Luke, but with even inferior success: for there his misdirected efforts survive only in certain copies of the Old Latin. Ambrose notices his officiousness, remarking that it yields an intelligible sense; but that, 'juxta Graecos,' the place is to be read differently (i. 1376.)

It is notorious that a few copies of the Old Latin (Augustine _once_ (iv. 322), though he quotes the place nearly twenty times in the usual way) and the Egyptian versions exhibit the same depravation. Cyril habitually employed an Evangelium which was disfigured in the same way (iii. 833, also Opp. v. 544, ed. Pusey.). But are we out of such materials as these to set about reconstructing the text of Scripture?

[352] 'In quibusdam Latinis codicibus additum est, _neque Filius_: quum in Graecis, et maxime Adamantii et Pierii exemplaribus hoc non habeatur adscriptum. Sed quia in nonnullis legitur, disserendum videtur.' Hier.

vii. 199 a. 'Gaudet Arius et Eunomius, quasi ignorantia magistri gloria discipulorum sit, et dic.u.n.t:--"Non potest aequalis esse qui novit et qui ignorat."' Ibid. 6.

In vi. 919, we may quote from St. Mark.

CHAPTER XII.

CAUSES OF CORRUPTION CHIEFLY INTENTIONAL.

VIII. Glosses.

-- 1.

'Glosses,' properly so called, though they enjoy a conspicuous place in every enumeration like the present, are probably by no means so numerous as is commonly supposed. For certainly _every_ unauthorized accretion to the text of Scripture is not a 'gloss': but only those explanatory words or clauses which have surrept.i.tiously insinuated themselves into the text, and of which no more reasonable account can be rendered than that they were probably in the first instance proposed by some ancient Critic in the way of useful comment, or necessary explanation, or lawful expansion, or reasonable limitation of the actual utterance of the Spirit. Thus I do not call the clause [Greek: nekrous egeirete] in St.

Matt. x. 8 'a gloss.' It is a gratuitous and unwarrantable interpolation,--nothing else but a clumsy enc.u.mbrance of the text[353].

[Glosses, or _scholia_, or comments, or interpretations, are of various kinds, but are generally confined to Additions or Subst.i.tutions, since of course we do not omit in order to explain, and transposition of words already placed in lucid order, such as the sacred Text may be reasonably supposed to have observed, would confuse rather than ill.u.s.trate the meaning. A clause, added in Hebrew fas.h.i.+on[354], which may perhaps appear to modern taste to be hardly wanted, must not therefore be taken to be a gloss.]

Sometimes a 'various reading' is nothing else but a gratuitous gloss;--the unauthorized subst.i.tution of a common for an uncommon word.

This phenomenon is of frequent occurrence, but only in Codexes of a remarkable type like B[Symbol: Aleph]CD. A few instances follow:--

1. The disciples on a certain occasion (St. Matt. xiii. 36), requested our Lord to 'explain' to them ([Greek: PHRASON hemin], 'they said') the parable of the tares. So every known copy, except two: so, all the Fathers who quote the place,--viz. Origen, five times[355],-- Basil[356],--J. Damascene[357]. And so _all_ the Versions[358]. But because B-[Symbol: Aleph], instead of [Greek: phrason], exhibit [Greek: DIASAPHeSON] ('make clear to us'),--which is also _once_ the reading of Origen[359], who was but too well acquainted with Codexes of the same depraved character as the archetype of B and [Symbol: Aleph],--Lachmann, Tregelles (not Tischendorf), Westcott and Hort, and the Revisers of 1881, a.s.sume that [Greek: diasapheson] (a palpable gloss) stood in the inspired autograph of the Evangelist. They therefore thrust out [Greek: phrason] and thrust in [Greek: diasapheson]. I am wholly unable to discern any connexion between the premisses of these critics and their conclusions[360].

2. Take another instance. [Greek: Pygme],--the obscure expression ([Symbol: Delta] leaves it out) which St. Mark employs in vii. 3 to denote the strenuous frequency of the Pharisees' ceremonial was.h.i.+ngs,--is exchanged by Cod. [Symbol: Aleph], but by no other known copy of the Gospels, for [Greek: pykna], which last word is of course nothing else but a sorry gloss. Yet Tischendorf degrades [Greek: pygme]

and promotes [Greek: pykna] to honour,--happily standing alone in his infatuation. Strange, that the most industrious of modern acc.u.mulators of evidence should not have been aware that by such extravagances he marred his pretension to critical discernment! Origen and Epiphanius--the only Fathers who quote the place--both read [Greek: pygme]. It ought to be universally admitted that it is a mere waste of time that we should argue out a point like this[361].

-- 2.

A gloss little suspected, which--not without a pang of regret--I proceed to submit to hostile scrutiny, is the expression 'daily' ([Greek: kath'

hemeran]) in St. Luke ix. 23. Found in the Pes.h.i.+tto and in Cureton's Syriac,--but only in some Copies of the Harkleian version[362]: found in most Copies of the Vulgate,--but largely disallowed by copies of the Old Latin[363]: found also in Ephraem Syrus[364],--but clearly not recognized by Origen[365]: found again in [Symbol: Aleph]AB and six other uncials,--but not found in CDE and ten others: the expression referred to cannot, at all events, plead for its own retention in the text higher antiquity than can be pleaded for its exclusion. Cyril, (if in such a matter the Syriac translation of his Commentary on St. Luke may be trusted,) is clearly an authority for reading [Greek: kath'

hemeran] in St. Luke ix. 23[366]; but then he elsewhere twice quotes St.

Luke ix. 23 in Greek without it[367]. Timotheus of Antioch, of the fifth century, omits the phrase[368]. Jerome again, although he suffered '_quotidie_' to stand in the Vulgate, yet, when for his own purposes he quotes the place in St. Luke[369],--ignores the word. All this is calculated to inspire grave distrust. On the other hand, [Greek: kath'

hemeran] enjoys the support of the two Egyptian Versions,--of the Gothic,--of the Armenian,--of the Ethiopic. And this, in the present state of our knowledge, must be allowed to be a weighty piece of evidence in its favour.

But the case a.s.sumes an entirely different aspect the instant it is discovered that out of the cursive copies only eight are found to contain [Greek: kath hemeran] in St. Luke ix. 23[370]. How is it to be explained that nine ma.n.u.scripts out of every ten in existence should have forgotten how to transmit such a remarkable message, had it ever been really so committed to writing by the Evangelist? The omission (says Tischendorf) is explained by the parallel places[371]. Utterly incredible, I reply; as no one ought to have known better than Tischendorf himself. We now scrutinize the problem more closely; and discover that the very _locus_ of the phrase is a matter of uncertainty.

Cyril once makes it part of St. Matt. x. 38[372]. Chrysostom twice connects it with St. Matt. xvi. 24[373]. Jerome, evidently regarding the phrase as a curiosity, informs us that 'juxta antiqua exemplaria' it was met with in St. Luke xiv. 27[374]. All this is in a high degree unsatisfactory. We suspect that we ourselves enjoy some slight familiarity with the 'antiqua exemplaria' referred to by the Critic; and we freely avow that we have learned to reckon them among the least reputable of our acquaintance. Are they not represented by those Evangelia, of which several copies are extant, that profess to have been 'transcribed from, and collated with, ancient copies at Jerusalem'?

These uniformly exhibit [Greek: kath hemeran] in St. Luke ix. 23[375].

But then, if the phrase be a gloss,--it is obvious to inquire,--how is its existence in so many quarters to be accounted for?

Its origin is not far to seek. Chrysostom, in a certain place, after quoting our Lord's saying about taking up the cross and following Him, remarks that the words 'do not mean that we are actually to bear the wood upon our shoulders, but to keep the prospect of death steadily before us, and like St. Paul to "die daily"[376].' The same Father, in the two other places already quoted from his writings, is observed similarly to connect the Saviour's mention of 'bearing the Cross' with the Apostle's announcement--'I die daily.' Add, that Ephraem Syrus[377], and Jerome quoted already,--persistently connect the same two places together; the last named Father even citing them in immediate succession;--and the inference is unavoidable. The phrase in St. Luke ix. 23 must needs be a very ancient as well as very interesting expository gloss, imported into the Gospel from 1 Cor. xv. 31,--as Mill[378] and Matthaei[379] long since suggested.

Sincerely regretting the necessity of parting with an expression with which one has been so long familiar, we cannot suffer the sentimental plea to weigh with us when the Truth of the Gospel is at stake. Certain it is that but for Erasmus, we should never have known the regret: for it was he that introduced [Greek: kath hemeran] into the Received Text.

The MS. from which he printed is without the expression: which is also not found in the Complutensian. It is certainly a spurious accretion to the inspired Text.

[The attention of the reader is particularly invited to this last paragraph. The learned Dean has been sneered at for a supposed sentimental and effeminate attachment to the Textus Receptus. He was always ready to reject words and phrases, which have not adequate support; but he denied the validity of the evidence brought against many texts by the school of Westcott and Hort, and therefore he refused to follow them in their surrender of the pa.s.sages.]

-- 3.

Indeed, a great many 'various readings,' so called, are nothing else but very ancient interpretations,--fabricated readings therefore,--of which the value may be estimated by the fact that almost every trace of them has long since disappeared. Such is the subst.i.tution of [Greek: pheugei]

for [Greek: anech.o.r.esen] in St. John vi. 15;--which, by the way, Tischendorf thrusts into his text on the sole authority of [Symbol: Aleph], some Latin copies including the Vulgate, and Cureton's Syriac[380]: though Tregelles ignores its very existence. That our Lord's 'withdrawal' to the mountain on that occasion was of the nature of 'flight,' or 'retreat' is obvious. Hence Chrysostom and Cyril remark that He '_fled_ to the mountain.' And yet both Fathers (like Origen and Epiphanius before them) are found to have read [Greek: anech.o.r.esen].