The Causes of the Corruption of the Traditional Text of the Holy Gospels Part 24

Almost as reasonably in the beginning of the same verse might Tischendorf (with [Symbol: Aleph]) have subst.i.tuted [Greek: anadeiknynai] for [Greek: hina poiesosin auton], on the plea that Cyril[381] says, [Greek: zetein auton anadeixai kai basilea]. We may on no account suffer ourselves to be imposed upon by such shallow pretences for tampering with the text of Scripture: or the deposit will never be safe. A patent gloss,--rather an interpretation,--acquires no claim to be regarded as the genuine utterance of the Holy Spirit by being merely found in two or three ancient doc.u.ments. It is the little handful of doc.u.ments which loses in reputation,--not the reading which gains in authority on such occasions.

In this way we are sometimes presented with what in effect are new incidents. These are not unfrequently discovered to be introduced in defiance of the reason of the case; as where (St. John xiii. 34) Simon Peter is represented (in the Vulgate) as _actually saying_ to St. John, 'Who is it concerning whom He speaks?' Other copies of the Latin exhibit, 'Ask Him who it is,' &c.: while [Symbol: Aleph]BC (for on such occasions we are treated to any amount of apocryphal matter) would persuade us that St. Peter only required that the information should be furnished him by St. John:--'Say who it is of whom He speaks.' Sometimes a very little licence is sufficient to convert the _oratio obliqua_ into the recta. Thus, by the change of a single letter (in [Symbol: Aleph]BX) Mary Magdalene is made to say to the disciples 'I have seen the Lord'

(St. John xx. 18). But then, as might have been antic.i.p.ated, the new does not altogether agree with the old. Accordingly D and others paraphrase the remainder of the sentence thus,--'and she signified to them what He had said unto her.' How obvious is it to foresee that on such occasions the spirit of officiousness will never know when to stop!

In the Vulgate and Sahidic versions the sentence proceeds, 'and He told these things unto me.'

Take another example. The Hebraism [Greek: meta salpingos phones megales] (St. Matt. xxiv. 31) presents an uncongenial ambiguity to Western readers, as our own incorrect A. V. sufficiently shews. Two methods of escape from the difficulty suggested themselves to the ancients:--(_a_) Since 'a trumpet of great sound' means nothing else but 'a loud trumpet,' and since this can be as well expressed by [Greek: salpingos megales], the scribes at a very remote period are found to have omitted the word [Greek: phones]. The Pes.h.i.+tto and Lewis (interpreting rather than translating) so deal with the text.

Accordingly, [Greek: phones] is not found in [Symbol: Aleph]L[Symbol: Delta] and five cursives. Eusebius[382], Cyril Jerus.[383], Chrysostom[384], Theodoret[385], and even Cyprian[386] are also without the word. (_b_) A less violent expedient was to interpolate [Greek: kai]

before [Greek: phones]. This is accordingly the reading of the best Italic copies, of the Vulgate, and of D. So Hilary[387] and Jerome[388], Severia.n.u.s[389], Asterius[390], ps.-Caesarius[391], Damascene[392] and at least eleven cursive copies, so read the place.--There can be no doubt at all that the commonly received text is right. It is found in thirteen uncials with B at their head: in Cosmas[393], Hesychius[394], Theophylact[395]. But the decisive consideration is that the great body of the cursives have faithfully retained the uncongenial Hebraism, and accordingly imply the transmission of it all down the ages: a phenomenon which will not escape the unprejudiced reader. Neither will he overlook the fact that the three 'old uncials' (for A and C are not available here) advocate as many different readings: the two wrong readings being respectively countenanced by our two most ancient authorities, viz. the Pes.h.i.+tto version and the Italic. It only remains to point out that Tischendorf blinded by his partiality for [Symbol: Aleph] contends here for the mutilated text, and Westcott and Hort are disposed to do the same.

-- 4.

Recent Editors are agreed that we are henceforth to read in St. John xviii. 14 [Greek: apothanein] instead of [Greek: apolesthai]:--'Now Caiaphas was he who counselled the Jews that it was expedient that one man should _die_' (instead of '_perish_') 'for the people.' There is certainly a considerable amount of ancient testimony in favour of this reading: for besides [Symbol: Aleph]BC, it is found in the Old Latin copies, the Egyptian, and Pes.h.i.+tto versions, besides the Lewis MS., the Chronicon, Cyril, Nonnus, Chrysostom. Yet may it be regarded as certain that St. John wrote [Greek: apolesthai] in this place. The proper proof of the statement is the consentient voice of all the copies,--except about nineteen of loose character:--we know their vagaries but too well, and decline to let them impose upon us. In real fact, nothing else is [Greek: apothanein] but a critical a.s.similation of St. John xviii. 14 to xi. 50,--somewhat as 'die' in our A. V. has been retained by King James'

translators, though they certainly had [Greek: apolesthai] before them.

Many of these glosses are rank, patent, palpable. Such is the subst.i.tution (St. Mark vi. 11) of [Greek: hos an topos me dexetai hymas]

by [Symbol: Aleph]BL[Symbol: Delta] for [Greek: hosoi an me dexontai hymas],--which latter is the reading of the Old Latin and Pes.h.i.+tto, as well as of the whole body of uncials and cursives alike. Some Critic evidently considered that the words which follow, 'when you go out _thence_,' imply that _place_, not _persons_, should have gone before.

Accordingly, he subst.i.tuted 'whatsoever place' for '_whosoever_[396]': another has bequeathed to us in four uncial MSS. a lasting record of his rashness and incompetency. Since however he left behind the words [Greek: mede akousosin hymon], which immediately follow, who sees not that the fabricator has betrayed himself? I am astonished that so patent a fraud should have imposed upon Tischendorf, and Tregelles, and Lachmann, and Alford, and Westcott and Hort. But in fact it does not stand alone. From the same copies [Symbol: Aleph]BL[Symbol: Delta] (with two others, CD) we find the woe denounced in the same verse on the unbelieving city erased ([Greek: amen lego hymin, anektoteron estai Sodomois e Gomorrois en hemerai kriseos, e te polei ekeine]). Quite idle is it to pretend (with Tischendorf) that these words are an importation from the parallel place in St. Matthew. A memorable note of diversity has been set on the two places, which in _all_ the copies is religiously maintained, viz. [Greek: Sodomois e Gomorrois], in St. Mark: [Greek: ge Sodomon kai Gomorron], in St. Matt. It is simply incredible that this could have been done if the received text in this place had been of spurious origin.

-- 5.

The word [Greek: apechei] in St. Mark xiv. 41 has proved a stumbling-block. The most obvious explanation is probably the truest.

After a brief pause[397], during which the Saviour has been content to survey in silence His sleeping disciples;--or perhaps, after telling them that they will have time and opportunity enough for sleep and rest when He shall have been taken from them;--He announces the arrival of 'the hour,' by exclaiming, [Greek: Apechei],--'It is enough;' or, 'It is sufficient;' i.e. _The season for repose is over._

But the 'Revisers' of the second century did not perceive that [Greek: apechei] is here used impersonally[398]. They understood the word to mean 'is fully come'; and supplied the supposed nominative, viz. [Greek: to telos][399]. Other critics who rightly understood [Greek: apechei] to signify 'sufficit,' still subjoined 'finis.' The Old Latin and the Syriac versions must have been executed from Greek copies which exhibited,--[Greek: apechei to telos]. This is abundantly proved by the renderings _adest finis_ (f),--_consummatus est finis_ (a); from which the change to [Greek: apechei to telos KAI he hora] (the reading of D) was obvious: _sufficit finis et hora_ (d q); _adest enim consummatio; et_ (ff^{2} _venit_) _hora_ (c); or, (as the Pes.h.i.+tto more fully gives it), _appropinquavit finis, et venit hora_[400]. Jerome put this matter straight by simply writing _sufficit_. But it is a suggestive circ.u.mstance, and an interesting proof how largely the reading [Greek: apechei to telos] must once have prevailed, that it is frequently met with in cursive copies of the Gospels to this hour[401]. Happily it is an 'old reading' which finds no favour at the present day. It need not therefore occupy us any longer.

As another instance of ancient Glosses introduced to help out the sense, the reading of St. John ix. 22 is confessedly [Greek: hina ean tis auton h.o.m.ologesei Christon]. So all the MSS. but one, and so the Old Latin. So indeed all the ancient versions except the Egyptian. Cod. D alone adds [Greek: einai]: but [Greek: einai] must once have been a familiar gloss: for Jerome retains it in the Vulgate: and indeed Cyril, whenever he quotes the place[402], exhibits [Greek: ton Christon einai]. Not so however Chrysostom[403] and Gregory of Nyssa[404].

-- 6.

There is scarcely to be found, amid the incidents immediately preceding our Saviour's Pa.s.sion, one more affecting or more exquisite than the anointing of His feet at Bethany by Mary the sister of Lazarus, which received its unexpected interpretation from the lips of Christ Himself.

'Let her alone. Against the day of My embalming hath she kept it.' (St.

John xii. 7.) He a.s.signs to her act a mysterious meaning of which the holy woman little dreamt. She had treasured up that precious unguent against the day,--(with the presentiment of true Love, she knew that it could not be very far distant),--when His dead limbs would require embalming. But lo, she beholds Him reclining at supper in her sister's house: and yielding to a Divine impulse she brings forth her reserved costly offering and bestows it on Him at once. Ah, she little knew,--she could not in fact have known,--that it was the only anointing those sacred feet were destined ever to enjoy!... In the meantime through a desire, as I suspect, to bring this incident into an impossible harmony with what is recorded in St. Mark xvi. 1, with which obviously it has no manner of connexion, a scribe is found at some exceedingly remote period to have improved our Lord's expression into this:--'Let her alone in order that against the day of My embalming she may keep it.' Such an exhibition of the Sacred Text is its own sufficient condemnation. What that critic exactly meant, I fail to discover: but I am sure he has spoilt what he did not understand: and though it is quite true that [Symbol: Aleph]BD with five other Uncial MSS. and Nonnus, besides the Latin and Bohairic, Jerusalem, Armenian, and Ethiopic versions, besides four errant cursives so exhibit the place, this instead of commending the reading to our favour, only proves damaging to the witnesses by which it is upheld. We learn that no reliance is to be placed even in such a combination of authorities. This is one of the places which the Fathers pa.s.s by almost in silence. Chrysostom[405] however, and evidently Cyril Alex.[406], as well as Ammonius[407] convey though roughly a better sense by quoting the verse with [Greek: epoiese] for [Greek: tetereken]. Antiochus[408] is express. [A and eleven other uncials, and the cursives (with the petty exception already noted), together with the Pes.h.i.+tto, Harkleian (which only notes the other reading in the margin), Lewis, Sahidic, and Gothic versions, form a body of authority against the palpable emasculation of the pa.s.sage, which for number, variety, weight, and internal evidence is greatly superior to the opposing body. Also, with reference to continuity and antiquity it preponderates plainly, if not so decisively; and the context of D is full of blunders, besides that it omits the next verse, and B and [Symbol: Aleph] are also inaccurate hereabouts[409]. So that the Traditional text enjoys in this pa.s.sage the support of all the Notes of Truth.]

In accordance with what has been said above, for [Greek: Aphes auten; eis ten hemeran tou entaphiasmou mou tetereken auto] (St. John xii. 7), the copies which it has recently become the fas.h.i.+on to adore, read [Greek: aphes auten hina ... terese auto]. This startling innovation,--which destroys the sense of our Saviour's words, and furnishes a sorry subst.i.tute which no one is able to explain[410],--is accepted by recent Editors and some Critics: yet is it clearly nothing else but a stupid correction of the text,--introduced by some one who did not understand the intention of the Divine Speaker. Our Saviour is here discovering to us an exquisite circ.u.mstance,--revealing what until now had been a profound and tender secret: viz. that Mary, convinced by many a sad token that the Day of His departure could not be very far distant, had some time before provided herself with this costly ointment, and 'kept it' by her,--intending to reserve it against the dark day when it would be needed for the 'embalming' of the lifeless body of her Lord. And now it wants only a week to Easter. She beholds Him (with Lazarus at His side) reclining in her sister's house at supper, amid circ.u.mstances of mystery which fill her soul with awful antic.i.p.ation. She divines, with love's true instinct, that this may prove her only opportunity. Accordingly, she '_antic.i.p.ates_ to anoint'

([Greek: proelabe myrisai], St. Mark xiv. 8) His Body: and, yielding to an overwhelming impulse, bestows upon Him all her costly offering at once!... How does it happen that some professed critics have overlooked all this? Any one who has really studied the subject ought to know, from a mere survey of the evidence, on which side the truth in respect of the text of this pa.s.sage must needs lie.

-- 7.

Our Lord, in His great Eucharistic address to the eternal Father, thus speaks:--'I have glorified Thee on the earth. I have perfected the work which Thou gavest Me to do' (St. John xvii. 4). Two things are stated: first, that the result of His Ministry had been the exhibition upon earth of the Father's 'glory[411]': next, that the work which the Father had given the Son to do[412] was at last finished[413]. And that this is what St. John actually wrote is certain: not only because it is found in all the copies, except twelve of suspicious character (headed by [Symbol: Aleph]ABCL); but because it is vouched for by the Pes.h.i.+tto[414]

and the Latin, the Gothic and the Armenian versions[415]: besides a whole chorus of Fathers; viz. Hippolytus[416], Didymus[417], Eusebius[418], Athanasius[419], Basil[420], Chrysostom[421], Cyril[422], ps.-Polycarp[423], the interpolator of Ignatius[424], and the authors of the Apostolic Const.i.tutions[425]: together with the following among the Latins:--Cyprian[426], Ambrose[427], Hilary[428], Zeno[429], Ca.s.sian[430], Novatian[431], certain Arians[432], Augustine[433].

But the asyndeton (so characteristic of the fourth Gospel) proving uncongenial to certain of old time, D inserted [Greek: kai]. A more popular device was to subst.i.tute the participle ([Greek: teleiosas]) for [Greek: eteleiosa]: whereby our Lord is made to say that He had glorified His Father's Name 'by perfecting' or 'completing'--'in that He had finished'--the work which the Father had given Him to do; which damages the sense by limiting it, and indeed introduces a new idea. A more patent gloss it would be hard to find. Yet has it been adopted as the genuine text by all the Editors and all the Critics. So general is the delusion in favour of any reading supported by the combined evidence of [Symbol: Aleph]ABCL, that the Revisers here translate--'I glorified Thee on the earth, _having accomplished_ ([Greek: teleiosas]) the work which Thou hast given Me to do:' without so much as vouchsafing a hint to the English reader that they have altered the text.

When some came with the message 'Thy daughter is dead: why troublest thou the Master further?' the Evangelist relates that Jesus '_as soon as He heard_ ([Greek: eutheos akousas]) what was being spoken, said to the ruler of the synagogue, Fear not: only believe.' (St. Mark v. 36.) For this, [Symbol: Aleph]BL[Symbol: Delta] subst.i.tute 'disregarding ([Greek: parakousas]) what was being spoken': which is nothing else but a sorry gloss, disowned by every other copy, including ACD, and all the versions. Yet does [Greek: parakousas] find favour with Teschendorf, Tregelles, and others.

-- 8.

In this way it happened that in the earliest age the construction of St.

Luke i. 66 became misapprehended. Some Western scribe evidently imagined that the popular saying concerning John Baptist,--[Greek: ti apa to paidion touto estai], extended further, and comprised the Evangelist's record,--[Greek: kai cheir Kyriou en met' autou]. To support this strange view, [Greek: kai] was altered into [Greek: kai gar], and [Greek: esti] was subst.i.tuted for [Greek: en]. It is thus that the place stands in the Verona copy of the Old Latin (b). In other quarters the verb was omitted altogether: and that is how D, Evan. 59 with the Vercelli (a) and two other copies of the Old Latin exhibit the place.

Augustine[434] is found to have read indifferently--'ma.n.u.s enim Domini c.u.m illo,' and 'c.u.m illo est': but he insists that the combined clauses represent the popular utterance concerning the Baptist[435]. Unhappily, there survives a notable trace of the same misapprehension in [Symbol: Aleph]-BCL which, alone of MSS., read [Greek: kai gar ... en][436]. The consequence might have been antic.i.p.ated. All recent Editors adopt this reading, which however is clearly inadmissible. The received text, witnessed to by the Pes.h.i.+tto, Harkleian, and Armenian versions, is obviously correct. Accordingly, A and all the uncials not already named, together with the whole body of the cursives, so read the place. With fatal infelicity the Revisers exhibit 'For indeed the hand of the Lord was with him.' They clearly are to blame: for indeed the MS. evidence admits of no uncertainty. It is much to be regretted that not a single very ancient Greek Father (so far as I can discover) quotes the place.

-- 9.

It seems to have been anciently felt, in connexion with the first miraculous draught of fishes, that St. Luke's statement (v. 7) that the s.h.i.+ps were so full that 'they were sinking' ([Greek: hoste bythizesthai auta]) requires some qualification. Accordingly C inserts [Greek: ede]

(were 'just' sinking); and D, [Greek: para ti] ('within a little'): while the Pes.h.i.+tto the Lewis and the Vulgate, as well as many copies of the Old Latin, exhibit 'ita ut _pene_.' These attempts to improve upon Scripture, and these paraphrases, indicate laudable zeal for the truthfulness of the Evangelist; but they betray an utterly mistaken view of the critic's office. The truth is, [Greek: bythizesthai], as the Bohairic translators perceived and as most of us are aware, means 'were beginning to sink.' There is no need of further qualifying the expression by the insertion with Eusebius[437] of any additional word.

I strongly suspect that the introduction of the name of 'Pyrrhus' into Acts xx. 4 as the patronymic of 'Sopater of Beraea,' is to be accounted for in this way. A very early gloss it certainly is, for it appears in the Old Latin: yet, the Pes.h.i.+tto knows nothing of it, and the Harkleian rejects it from the text, though not from the margin. Origen and the Bohairic recognize it, but not Chrysostom nor the Ethiopic. I suspect that some foolish critic of the primitive age invented [Greek: Pyrou]

(or [Greek: Pyrrou]) out of [Greek: Beroiaios] (or [Greek: Berroiaios]) which follows. The Latin form of this was 'Pyrus[438],' 'Pyrrhus,' or 'Pirrus[439].' In the Sahidic version he is called the 'son of Berus'

([Greek: huios Berou]),--which confirms me in my conjecture. But indeed, if it was with some _Beraean_ that the gloss originated,--and what more likely?--it becomes an interesting circ.u.mstance that the inhabitants of that part of Macedonia are known to have confused the _p_ and _b_ sounds[440].... This entire matter is unimportant in itself, but the letter of Scripture cannot be too carefully guarded: and let me invite the reader to consider,--If St. Luke actually wrote [Greek: Sopatros Pyrrou Beroiaios], why at the present day should five copies out of six record nothing of that second word?

FOOTNOTES:

[353] See The Traditional Text, pp. 51-52.

[354] St. Mark vi. 33. See The Traditional Text, p. 80.

[355] iii. 3 e: 4 b and c: 442 a: 481 b. Note, that the [Greek: rhesis]

in which the first three of these quotations occur seems to have been obtained by De la Rue from a Catena on St. Luke in the Mazarine Library (see his Monitum, iii. 1). A large portion of it (viz. from p. 3, line 25, to p. 4, line 29) is ascribed to 'I. Geometra in Proverbia' in the Catena in Luc. of Corderius, p. 217.

[356] ii. 345.

[357] ii. 242.

[358] The Latin is _edissere_ or _dissere_, _enarra_ or _narra_, both here and in xv. 15.

[359] iv. 254 a.

[360] In St. Matthew xiii. 36 the Pes.h.i.+tto Syriac has [Syriac letters]

'declare to us' and in St. Matthew xv. 15 the very same words, there being _no_ various reading in either of these two pa.s.sages.

The inference is, that the translators had the same Greek word in each place, especially considering that in the only other place where, besides St. Matt. xiii. 36, v. 1., [Greek: diasaphein] occurs, viz. St.

Matt. xviii. 31, they render [Greek: diesaphesan] by [Syriac letters]--they made known.

Since [Greek: phrazein] only occurs in St. Matt. xiii. 36 and xv. 15, we cannot generalize about the Pes.h.i.+tto rendering of this verb. Conversely, [Syriac letters] is used as the rendering of other Greek words besides [Greek: phrazein], e.g.

of [Greek: epiluein], St. Mark iv. 34; of [Greek: diermeneuein], St. Luke xxiv. 27; of [Greek: dianoigein], St. Luke xxiv. 32 and Acts xvii. 3.

On the whole I have _no doubt_ (though it is not susceptible of _proof_) that the Pes.h.i.+tto had, in both the places quoted above, [Greek: phrason].

[361] In St. Mark vii. 3, the translators of the Pes.h.i.+tto render whatever Greek they had before them by [Syriac letters], which means 'eagerly,' 'sedulously'; cf. use of the word for [Greek: spoudaios], St.

Luke vii. 4; [Greek: epimelos], St Luke xv. 8.