The Causes of the Corruption of the Traditional Text of the Holy Gospels Part 35

[609] [Greek: henos hekastou auton tas hamartias]. Ev. 95, 40, 48, 64, 73, 100, 122, 127, 142, 234, 264, 267, 274, 433, 115, 121, 604, 736.

[610] Appendix, p. 88.

[611] vi. 407:--Sed hoc videlicet infidelium sensus exhorret, ita ut nonnulli modicae fidei vel potius inimici verae fidei, (credo metuentes peccandi impunitatem dari mulieribus suis), illud quod de adulterae indulgentia Dominus fecit, auferrent de codicibus suis: quasi permissionem peccandi tribuerit qui dixit, 'Iam deinceps noli peccare;'

aut ideo non debuerit mulier a medico Deo illius peccati remissione sanari, ne offenderentur insani. De coniug. adult. ii. cap. 7. i.

707:--Forta.s.se non mediocrem scrupulum movere potuit imperitis Evangelii lectio, quae decursa est, in quo advertistis adulteram Christo oblatam, eamque sine d.a.m.natione dimissam. Nam profecto si quis en auribus accipiat otiosis, incentivum erroris incurrit, c.u.m leget quod Deus censuerit adulterium non esse d.a.m.nandum.

[612] Epist. 58. Quid scribebat? nisi illud Prophetic.u.m (Jer. xxii.

29-30), _Terra, terra, scribe hos vivos abdicatos_.

[613] Constt. App. (Gen. in. 49). Nicon (Gen. iii. 250). I am not certain about these two references.

[614] Two precious verses (viz. the forty-third and forty-fourth) used to be omitted from the lection for Tuesday before Quinquagesima,--viz.

St. Luke xxii. 39-xxiii. 1.

The lection for the preceding Sabbath (viz. St. Luke xxi. 8-36) consisted of only the following verses,--ver. 8, 9, 25-27, 33-36. All the rest (viz. verses 10-24 and 28-32) was omitted.

On the ensuing Thursday, St. Luke xxiii was handled in a similar style: viz. ver. 1-31, 33, 44-56 alone were read,--all the other verses being left out.

On the first Sabbath after Pentecost (All Saints'), the lesson consisted of St. Matt. x. 32, 33, 37-38: xix. 27-30.

On the fifteenth Sabbath after Pentecost, the lesson was St. Matt. xxiv.

1-9, 13 (leaving out verses 10, 11, 12).

On the sixteenth Sabbath after Pentecost, the lesson was St. Matt. xxiv.

34-37, 42-44 (leaving out verses 38-41).

On the sixth Sabbath of St. Luke,--the lesson was ch. viii. 26-35 followed by verses 38 and 39.

[615] 'This celebrated paragraph ... was probably not contained in the first edition of St. John's Gospel but added at the time when his last chapter was annexed to what had once been the close of his narrative,--xx. 30, 31.' Scrivener's Introduction to Cod. D, p. 50.

[616] In an unpublished paper.

[617] It is omitted in some MSS. of the Pes.h.i.+tto.

APPENDIX II.

CONFLATION AND THE SO-CALLED NEUTRAL TEXT.

Some of the most courteous of our critics, in reviewing the companion volume to this, have expressed regret that we have not grappled more closely than we have done with Dr. Hort's theory. I have already expressed our reasons. Our object has been to describe and establish what we conceive to be the true principles of Sacred Textual Science. We are concerned only in a secondary degree with opposing principles. Where they have come in our way, we have endeavoured to remove them. But it has not entered within our design to pursue them into their fastnesses and domiciles. Nevertheless, in compliance with a request which is both proper and candid, I will do what I can to examine with all the equity that I can command an essential part of Dr. Hort's system, which appears to exercise great influence with his followers.

-- 1.

CONFLATION.

Dr. Hort's theory of 'Conflation' may be discovered on pp. 93-107. The want of an index to his Introduction, notwithstanding his ample 'Contents,' makes it difficult to collect ill.u.s.trations of his meaning from the rest of his treatise. Nevertheless, the effect of Conflation appears to be well described in his words on p. 133:--'Now however the three great lines were brought together, and made to contribute to a text different from all.' In other words, by means of a combination of the Western, Alexandrian, and 'Neutral' Texts--'the great lines of transmission ... to all appearance exclusively divergent,'--the 'Syrian'

text was constructed in a form different from any one and all of the other three. Not that all these three were made to contribute on every occasion. We find (p. 93) Conflation, or Conflate Readings, introduced as proving the 'posteriority of Syrian to Western ... and other ...

readings.' And in the a.n.a.lysis of eight pa.s.sages, which is added, only in one case (St. Mark viii. 26) are more than two elements represented, and in that the third cla.s.s consists of 'different conflations' of the first and second[618].

Perhaps I may present Dr. Hort's theory under the form of a diagram:--

Western Readings. Other Readings.

| | --------------------- | Syrian Text.

Our theory is the converse in main features to this. We utterly repudiate the term 'Syrian' as being a most inadequate and untrue t.i.tle for the Text adopted and maintained by the Catholic Church with all her intelligence and learning, during nearly fifteen centuries according to Dr. Hort's admission: and we claim from the evidence that the Traditional Text of the Gospels, under the true name, is that which came fresh from the pens of the Evangelists; and that all variations from it, however they have been ent.i.tled, are nothing else than corrupt forms of the original readings. Our diagram in rough presentation will therefore a.s.sume this character:--

Traditional Text.--|- |-Western Readings.

|-w |-x |-y |-z |-etc.

|-Alexandrian Readings.

It should be added, that w, x, y, z, &c., denote forms of corruption. We do not recognize the 'Neutral' at all, believing it to be a Caesarean combination or recension, made from previous texts or readings of a corrupt character.

The question is, which is the true theory, Dr. Hort's or ours?

The general points that strike us with reference to Dr. Hort's theory are:--

(1) That it is very vague and indeterminate in nature. Given three things, of which X includes what is in Y and Z, upon the face of the theory either X may have arisen by synthesis from Y and Z, or X and Z may owe their origin by a.n.a.lysis to X.

(2) Upon examination it is found that Dr. Hort's arguments for the posteriority of D are mainly of an internal character, and are loose and imaginative, depending largely upon personal or literary predilections.

(3) That it is exceedingly improbable that the Church of the fourth and fifth centuries, which in a most able period had been occupied with discussions on verbal accuracy, should have made the gross mistake of adopting (what was then) a modern concoction from the original text of the Gospels, which had been written less than three or four centuries before; and that their error should have been acknowledged as truth, and perpetuated by the ages that succeeded them down to the present time.

But we must draw nearer to Dr. Hort's argument.

He founds it upon a detailed examination of eight pa.s.sages, viz. St.

Mark vi. 33; viii. 26; ix. 38; ix. 49; St. Luke ix. 10; xi. 54; xii. 18; xxiv. 53.

1. Remark that eight is a round and divisible number. Did the author decide upon it with a view of presenting two specimens from each Gospel?

To be sure, he gives four from the first two, and four from the two last, only that he confines the batches severally to St. Mark and St.

Luke. Did the strong style of St. Matthew, with distinct meaning in every word, yield no suitable example for treatment? Could no pa.s.sage be found in St. John's Gospel, where not without parallel, but to a remarkable degree, extreme simplicity of language, even expressed in alternative clauses, clothes soaring thought and philosophical acuteness? True, that he quotes St. John v. 37 as an instance of Conflation by the Codex Bezae which is anything but an embodiment of the Traditional or 'Syrian' Text, and xiii. 24 which is similarly irrelevant. Neither of these instances therefore fill up the gap, and are accordingly not included in the selected eight. What can we infer from this presentment, but that 'Conflation' is probably not of frequent occurrence as has been imagined, but may indeed be--to admit for a moment its existence--nothing more than an occasional incident? For surely, if specimens in St. Matthew and St. John had abounded to his hand, and accordingly 'Conflation' had been largely employed throughout the Gospels, Dr. Hort would not have exercised so restricted, and yet so round a choice.

2. But we must advance a step further. Dean Burgon as we have seen has calculated the differences between B and the Received Text at 7,578, and those which divide [Symbol: Aleph] and the Received Text as reaching 8,972. He divided these totals respectively under 2,877 and 3,455 omissions, 556 and 839 additions, 2,098 and 2,299 transpositions, and 2,067 and 2,379 subst.i.tutions and modifications combined. Of these cla.s.ses, it is evident that Conflation has nothing to do with Additions or Transpositions. Nor indeed with Subst.i.tutions, although one of Dr.

Hort's instances appears to prove that it has. Conflation is the combination of two (or more) different expressions into one. If therefore both expressions occur in one of the elements, the Conflation has been made beforehand, and a subst.i.tution then occurs instead of a conflation. So in St. Luke xii. 18, B, &c, read [Greek: ton siton kai ta agatha mou] which Dr. Hort[619] considers to be made by Conflation into [Greek: ta genemata mou kai ta agatha mou], because [Greek: ta genemata mou] is found in Western doc.u.ments. The logic is strange, but as Dr.

Hort has claimed it, we must perhaps allow him to have intended to include with this strange incongruity some though not many Subst.i.tutions in his cla.s.s of instances, only that we should like to know definitely what subst.i.tutions were to be comprised in this cla.s.s. For I shrewdly suspect that there were actually none. Omissions are now left to us, of which the greater specimens can hardly have been produced by Conflation.

How, for instance, could you get the last Twelve Verses of St. Mark's Gospel, or the Pericope de Adultera, or St. Luke xxii. 43-44, or any of the rest of the forty-five whole verses in the Gospels upon which a slur is cast by the Neologian school? Consequently, the area of Conflation is greatly reduced. And I venture to think, that supposing for a moment the theory to be sound, it could not account for any large number of variations, but would at the best only be a sign or symptom found every now and then of the derivation attributed to the Received Text.

3. But we must go on towards the heart of the question. And first to examine Dr. Hort's eight instances. Unfortunately, the early patristic evidence on these verses is scanty. We have little evidence of a direct character to light up the dark sea of conjecture.

(1) St. Mark (vi. 22) relates that on a certain occasion the mult.i.tude, when they beheld our Saviour and his disciples on their way in a s.h.i.+p crossing to the other side of the lake, ran together ([Greek: synedramon]) from all their cities to the point which He was making for ([Greek: ekei]), and arrived there before the Lord and His followers ([Greek: proelthon autous]), and on His approach came in a body to Him ([Greek: synelthon pros auton]). And on disembarking ([Greek: kai exelthon]), i.e. ([Greek: ek tou ploiou], ver. 32), &c. It should be observed, that it was only the Apostles who knew that His ultimate object was 'a desert place' (ver. 31, 30): the indiscriminate mult.i.tude could only discern the bay or cape towards which the boat was going: and up to what I have described as the disembarkation (ver. 34), nothing has been said of His movements, except that He was in the boat upon the lake. The account is pictorial. We see the little craft toiling on the lake, the people on the sh.o.r.es running all in one direction, and on their reaching the heights above the place of landing watching His approach, and then descending together to Him to the point where He is going to land. There is nothing weak or superfluous in the description.

Though condensed (what would a modern history have made of it?), it is all natural and in due place.

Now for Dr. Hort. He observes that one clause ([Greek: kai proelthon autous]) is attested by B[Symbol: Aleph] and their followers; another ([Greek: kai synelthon autou] or [Greek: elthon autou], which is very different from the 'Syrian' [Greek: synelthon pros auton]) by some Western doc.u.ments; and he argues that the entire form in the Received Text, [Greek: kai proelthon autous, kai synelthon pros auton], was formed by Conflation from the other two. I cannot help observing that it is a suspicious mark, that even in the case of the most favoured of his chosen examples he is obliged to take such a liberty with one of his elements of Conflation as virtually to doctor it in order to bring it strictly to the prescribed pattern. When we come to his arguments he candidly admits, that 'it is evident that either [Symbol: delta] (the Received Text) is conflate from [Symbol: alpha] (B[Symbol: Aleph]) and [Symbol: beta] (Western), or [Symbol: alpha] and [Symbol: beta] are independent simplifications of [Symbol: delta]'; and that 'there is nothing in the sense of [Symbol: delta] that would tempt to alteration,'

and that 'accidental' omission of one or other clause would 'be easy.'