Chapter III · THEORY AND PRAXIS OF THE TEXTUAL CRITICISM OF THE NEW TESTAMENT.[129]

CHAPTER III. THEORY AND PRAXIS OF THE TEXTUAL CRITICISM OF THE NEW TESTAMENT.^[129]

There is no special theory of the textual criticism of the New Testament. The task and the method are the same for all literary productions. The task is to exhibit what the original writer intended to communicate to his readers, and the method is simply that of tracing the history of the document in question back to its beginning, if, and in so far as, we have the means to do so at our command. Diversity of treatment can only arise when the fortunes of one written work have been more chequered and complicated than those of another, or when we have more abundant means at our disposal to help us in the one case than in the other. The task is very simple when we have only one completely independent document to deal with, as in the case of several of the recently discovered papyri, but this occurs very seldom with literary texts. In this case all that we have to do is to see that we read the existing text correctly, and then by means of the 157so-called internal criticism to determine whether the text so received can be correct. |Internal Criticism.| Even when several witnesses are at our command, we cannot altogether dispense with this internal criticism in the matter of sifting and weighing their testimony, only it would be unfortunate were we left with such a subjective criterion alone. For not only in such a case would different scholars come to very different conclusions, but even one and the same scholar would not be able to avoid a certain amount of uncertainty and inconsistency in most cases. The principle laid down in the maxim, lectio difficilior placet, or, as Bengel more correctly and more cautiously puts it, proclivi scriptioni praestat ardua, is perfectly sound; that reading is correct, is the original reading, from which the origin of another or of several others can be most easily explained. But how seldom can this be established with certainty! Take an illustration:—

Conclusion of the Apocalypse.

How does the Apocalypse, and the New Testament with it, conclude? Leaving out of account additions like “Amen” or “Amen, Amen,” and variations like “The grace of the Lord Jesus,” and “our Lord Jesus,” and “the Lord Jesus Christ,” and “Christ” simply, we find that the following forms are given:—

(1) μετὰ πάντων ὑμῶν

(2) μετὰ πάντων ἡμῶν

(3) μετὰ πάντων τῶν ἁγίων

(4) μετὰ πάντων

(5) μετὰ τῶν ἁγίων

How are we to decide without external evidence which is the correct form? Even supposing we know that the first two are out of the question, and why they are so, it is very difficult on internal grounds alone to decide between the other three. Lachmann, who did not know of (5), decided in favour of (4). But so does Tischendorf, Weizsäcker, and Weiss, the latter giving as his reason for doing so that (5), τῶν ἁγίων, is explanatory of (4), πάντων, which is manifestly too 158general, and that (3) is the result of a combination of these two. On the other hand, Tregelles and Westcott and Hort favour (5), without so much as mentioning (4) in their margin; while Bousset, the latest expositor of the Apocalypse, regards (3) as the correct reading, and thinks that in all probability both (4) and (5) are due to a transcriptional error. Who is to decide when doctors disagree? Manifestly one might argue on quite as good if not better grounds than those of Weiss to the very opposite conclusion—viz. that a later writer who wished the Apocalypse, and with it the New Testament, to conclude with as comprehensive a benediction as possible, substituted the words “Grace be with all” in place of the restricted and somewhat strange expression “Grace be with the saints.” I did not observe that Bousset still defends the third form when I said in the first edition of this work that this reading does not fall to be considered at all. But my reason for saying so was not “because this form proves to be a combination of the other two,” or “because the authorities for it are later,” but because it could be shown that its supporters follow a corrected text in other places as well as this; and I concluded with observing that the decision between (4) and (5) could not be made to depend solely on internal criteria either, but depended on the decision come to regarding the general relationship between the witnesses that support each one, in this instance between A, as supporting (4), and א, as supporting (5).

(1) It may be stated here, merely by way of comment, that the first form of the benediction, “with you all,” was clearly translated into Greek by Erasmus from his Latin Bible, without the authority of a single Greek manuscript. But in spite of this, it is still propagated in the textus receptus by the English Bible Society, and even in the last revision of Luther’s German Bible it was allowed to stand without demur. The English Authorised Version had it in this form, but the Revised Version adopts the fifth form “with the saints,” and puts (4) in the margin, with a note to the effect that “two ancient authorities read ‘with all.’”

159The second form, “with us all,” which was adopted by Melanchthon in his Greek Bible of 1545, published by Herwag, is just as arbitrary an alteration. The third form, “with all the saints,” is read by the Complutensian with Q, with more than forty minuscules, and the Syriac, Coptic, and Armenian versions. The fourth, “with all,” is found in A and Codex Amiatinus, while the fifth, “with the saints,” is given by א and the Old Latin g. In the Syriac version of the Apocalypse, edited by Gwynn in 1897, a sixth form seems to have been brought to light, which Baljon, who himself decides for (5), cites as μετὰ πάντων τῶν ἁγίων αὐτοῦ: Syr^gwynn. But the pronoun, which in Syriac is indicated by a suffix only, is employed now and again merely to represent the Greek definite article, so that this new Syriac manuscript does not give us a sixth form but only another witness to the third. On the other hand, Gwynn mentions the omission of the entire verse in Primasius, a fact that neither Tischendorf nor Weiss takes the least notice of, and he adduces lastly that a manuscript of the Vulgate reads “cum omnibus hominibus.” One sees from an illustration like this what an amount of pains is required seriously to apply, even in a single point, Bengel’s principle that the smallest particle of gold is gold, but that nothing must be passed as gold that has not been proved to be such (Introductio in Crisin Novi Testamenti, § 1, p. 572).

(2) Literature.—See especially Gebhardt (Urt., p. 16). Ed. Reuss, Geschichte der h. Schriften des N. T., Braunschweig, 1887, § 351 ff. S. P. Tregelles, An Introduction to the Textual Criticism of the N.T. (= vol. iv. of Horne’s Introduction, 1877). F. H. A. Scrivener (see above, p. 6); also Adversaria Critica Sacra, edited by Miller, Cambr. 1893. B. F. Westcott, The New Testament in Smith’s Dictionary of the Bible, vol. ii., London, 1863. C. E. Hammond, Outlines of Textual Criticism, Oxford, 1890. Westcott-Hort, vol. ii. (see p. 21). B. B. Warfield, Introduction to the Textual Criticism of the N. T., New York, 1887; London, 1893. J. W. Burgon, Last Twelve Verses of the Gospel according to St. Mark, Oxford and London, 1871; also The Traditional Text of the Holy Gospels vindicated and established, edited by Miller, London, 1896; also, The Causes of the Corruption of the Traditional Text of the Holy Gospels, edited by Miller, London and Cambridge, 1896. The Oxford Debate on the Textual Criticism of the N. T. held at New College on May 6, 1897; with a preface (by Miller) explanatory of the Rival Systems, 1897, pp. xvi. 43. Ed. Miller, The Present State 160of the Textual Controversy respecting the Holy Gospels (see above, p. 152).

Martin (Abbé J. P.), Introduction à la Critique textuelle du N.T., in five volumes, with plates and facsimiles: vol. i. pp. xxxvi. 327, Paris, 1884, 25 fr.; vol. ii. pp. ix. 554, 1884, 40 fr.; vol. iii. pp. vi. 512, 1885, 40 fr.; vol. iv. pp. vi. 549, 1886, 40 fr.; vol. v. pp. xi. 248 and 50 pp. of facsimiles, 1886, 20 fr. Also by the same author, Description technique des manuscrits grecs relatifs au N.T. conservés dans les Bibliothèques de Paris. Supplement to the foregoing, Paris, 1884, pp. xix. 205, with facsimiles, 20 fr.; Quatre manuscrits importants du N.T. auxquels on peut en ajouter un cinquième, Paris, 1886, pp. 62, 3 fr.; Les plus anciens mss. grecs du N.T., leur origine, leur véritable caractère, in the Revue des Quest. Hist., 1884, No. 71, pp. 62-109; Origène et la Critique textuelle du N.T., Paris. Reprinted from the Rev. des Quest. Hist. for Jan. 1885, No. 73, pp. 5-62.

Th. Zahn, Geschichte des N.T. Kanons: vol. i., Das N.T. vor Origenes, Part 1, 1888; Part 2, 1889. Vol. ii., Urkunden und Belege zum ersten und dritten Band, Part 1, 1890; Part 2, 1892. The third vol. has not yet appeared. The order of the books of the N.T. is discussed in vol. ii. p. 343 ff., and the conclusion of Mark’s Gospel in the same vol., p. 910 ff.

Salmon (Geo.), Some thoughts on the Textual Criticism of the N.T., London, 1897, pp. xv. 162. Blass, Philology of the Gospels, London, 1898, pp. viii. 250. Ada Bryson, Recent Literature on the text of the N.T. in the Expository Times for April 1899, pp. 294-300. M. Vincent, History of the Textual Criticism of the N.T., 1900. G. L. Cary, The Synoptic Gospels, with a chapter on the Textual Criticism of the N.T., New York, 1900. See also Prof. Jannaris in the Expositor, vol. viii. of Series V. There is an article in the American Journal of Theology, 1897, iv. p. 927 ff., entitled Alexandria and the N.T., which I have not been able to consult.

In attempting to restore the text of the New Testament as nearly as possible to its original form, it is essential to remember that the New Testament, as we have it to-day, is not all of one piece, but consists of twenty-seven separate documents now arranged in five groups, and that every several document and every several group has had its own peculiar history. Of these groups the most complicated, perhaps, is 161the one with which the New Testament opens—viz. the Gospels.

Gospels.

It is quite uncertain when our four Gospels were first written together in one volume and arranged in the order that is now common. The Muratorian Fragment on the Canon^[130] is defective at the beginning, but seems to imply this arrangement. It was supposed that the Gospels were written in the following order—viz. Matthew first and John last. The order, Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, which is found in nearly all the Greek and Syriac manuscripts, was made popular by Eusebius and Jerome. The former followed it in his Canons, which were afterwards adopted by Jerome in his Latin Bible. According to Eusebius (Eccl. Hist., vi. 25),^[131] Origen knew this order, though he very frequently cites the Gospels in the order Matthew, Luke, Mark.

The following arrangements are also found:—

[Transcriber’s Note: The following list begins with (2).]

(2) Matthew, Mark, John, Luke, in the earlier (Curetonian) Syriac and in the Canon Mommsenianus, a catalogue of the Books of the Bible and of the works of Cyprian, originating in Latin Africa about the year 360, and first published by Mommsen.^[132]

(3) Matthew, Luke, Mark, John, in the so-called Ambrosiaster and in a Catalogue of the Sixty Canonical Books.

162(4) Matthew, John, Mark, Luke—i.e. the two Apostles put before the two pupils of Apostles, in the Codex Claromontanus.^[133] This order occurs also in the Arabic writer Masudi’s Meadows of Gold.^[134]

(5) Matthew, John, Luke, Mark, in Codd. D and X, in the Apostolic Constitutions, in Ulfilas, and especially in the Old Latin Manuscripts; see Corssen, Monarchianische Prologe, p. 65, in TU. xv. 1.^[135]

(6) John, Luke, Mark, Matthew, in Codex k.

(7) John, Matthew, Mark, Luke, in the Vocabularies of the Egyptian versions.

(8) John, Matthew, Luke, Mark, in Tertullian and cod. 19. See Arthur Wright, Some New Testament Problems, p. 196 ff.^[136]

This very variety shows that for a long time, perhaps till the third century, at all events much longer than the Pauline Epistles, the Gospels were propagated singly, perhaps on rolls, and only afterwards incorporated in a codex. And this makes it probable that the text of our manuscripts was not taken from a single copy of the first Tetraevangelium. More than probable we cannot call it, seeing that a copyist may have had any sort of reasons of his own for disarranging the order of the books given in his exemplar, as may still be gathered luckily from the position occupied by Hebrews in Codex B. The probability is heightened, however, by the fact that our manuscripts display a considerably greater amount of textual variation in the Gospels than in the Pauline Epistles, though not in all to the same extent as in D which contains an entirely peculiar recension, especially in Luke. One of the most remarkable indications of this is afforded by the discovery made by E. Lippelt, a pupil of Professor Blass. The order of the books in D is Matthew, John, Luke, Mark, Acts, where it will be seen that the two portions of the book 163inscribed to Theophilus are separated by Mark. Now Lippelt observed that while the name Johannes is regularly spelt with two ν’s (Ἰωάννης) in Matthew, John, and Mark, it is just as regularly spelt with one (Ἰωάνης) in Luke and Acts, sundered though these two books are by Mark, where the other spelling prevails.^[137] This shows an accuracy of tradition which is surprising, but till now it has only been traced in this one manuscript. The others write the name throughout with two ν’s and B as consistently with one. In this connection the question naturally arises whether certain liberties were not taken with the books on the occasion of their collection and arrangement. Resch, e.g., thinks that it was then that the second Gospel received the conclusion or appendix which is found in most of our manuscripts, and Rohrbach holds a similar opinion.^[138] I have elsewhere expressed the idea that the peculiar opening of Mark is to be accounted for in this way.^[139] Zahn, however, doubts whether the use of ἀρχή and τέλος for ἄρχεται and ἐτελέσθη, incipit and explicit, can be established for early times.^[140] I have found it in Greek Psalters, though not very early, I admit, where αρχη των ωδων occurs instead of ωδαι as the superscription of the Hymns at the end of the Psalter.^[141] However, there is no need to dwell 164further on this point. Zahn (p. 174) is quite right in his contention that the usual titles κατὰ Μαθθαῖον, etc.,^[142] imply a collection of the Gospels of which Εὐαγγέλιον is the general title.

If, then, for the sake of simplicity, we take as our goal the first manuscript of the Tetraevangelium, one would think it must be possible with the means at our command gradually to work back to it. Even the latest of our manuscripts is surely copied from an earlier one, and that one from another, and so on always further and further back, so that all we have to do is to establish their genealogy, pretty much as Reuss has done for the printed editions of the New Testament; and seeing we have manuscripts as old as the fourth and fifth century, that means that the entire period of a thousand years prior to the invention of printing is bridged over at once, so that the task would appear to be simply that of throwing a bridge over the first few centuries of the Christian era. And by going on comparing the witnesses and always eliminating those that prove unreliable, it must be possible, one would suppose, in this way to arrive at the original. But a little experience will shortly moderate our expectations.

At the outset it is very much against us that we have no really serviceable text for comparison. The text of our present critical editions is a patchwork of many colours, more wonderful than the cloak of Child Roland of old. In fact it is a text that never really existed at all. In the preparation of my Supplement, which I undertook with the object of making the text of Codex Bezae easily accessible to every one, I compared the text of that manuscript with that of Tischendorf-Gebhardt’s edition, and I saw clearly that my work would necessarily present a very confused appearance indeed. I also issued an interleaved edition of my Stuttgart New Testament with a similar object—viz. to furnish a convenient means of 165comparing the text of manuscripts and of Patristic quotations, but that, too, labours under the same disadvantage. Whoever intends really to further the textual criticism of the New Testament will have to issue a copy of a single manuscript printed in such a way as will make it practically convenient for the comparison of different texts, something like Tischendorf’s edition of Codex Sinaiticus (Novum Testamentum Sinaiticum, 1863), which, however, is of little use for other purposes, or like Schjøtt’s edition of the New Testament (see above, p. 24). But as these are in the hands of very few, there is nothing for it at present but to take one of our most common texts, always bearing in mind its composite character. This feature of the text appears at the very outset in the title. In א B (D) it is κατα Μαθθαιον. Codex D is defective at the beginning down to c. i. 20, but κατ Μαθθαιον is found regularly as the title at the top of the pages, a fact which Tischendorf has overlooked. Most other manuscripts, C E K M etc., have Ευαγγελιον κατα Ματθαιον. If this latter is held as incorrect, then all these manuscripts should for the future be dropped out of account and א B D alone be regarded as authoritative.

Again, in verse 2, א* has Ισακ twice, while the others have Ισαακ, so that א too would drop out, leaving B standing alone. But then in verse 3 our editors forthwith reject B, which reads Ζαρε, and decide in favour of the others which have Ζαρα. Whether this may not be a little premature, seeing that there are other places where ε is found for final ח,^[143] and that one manuscript, 56, has deliberately corrected Ζαρα into Ζαρε in Gen. xxxviii. 30, where a third has Ζαρε, we do not pause to determine. The point is simply this, that in these first three verses there is no manuscript that is always right in the judgment of our editors. True, the cases we have been considering are trifling, the differences being of an orthographical nature merely, and one must not be too particular in such matters, though at the same time the oft-quoted maxim, minima non curat praetor, is nowhere less 166applicable than in textual criticism. But the same state of things reappears immediately where we have differences involving important matters of fact. What is the fact in verse 11? Did Josias beget Jechoniah, or did he beget Joachim and Joachim Jechoniah? Verse 16 has already been referred to: in this case our oldest Greek manuscripts would give no occasion to mention the verse. But in verse 25 we have again to ask which is correct, ἔτεκεν υἱόν or ἔτεκεν τὸν υἱὸν αὐτῆς τὸν πρωτότοκον? |Dogmatic influence.| And when we hear Jerome say—Ex hoc loco quidam perversissime suspicantur et alios filios habuisse Mariam, dicentes primogenitum non dici nisi qui habeat et fratres, we learn already how dogmatic motives may have some influence upon the form of the text. And, moreover, when we call to mind the words of Luke ii. 7, we are made aware of another thing that may exert a disturbing influence in the Gospels—viz. the tendency to alter the text in conformity with the parallel passage. |Parallel passages.| Apart from the stylistic peculiarities of Codex D, we meet with no materially important variants in our Greek manuscripts of Matthew till we come to the Sermon on the Mount. The only thing is in iii. 15, where two Latin witnesses have an addition which is evidently taken from a Greek source: et cum baptizaretur, lumen ingens circumfulsit de aqua ita ut timerent omnes qui advenerant (congregati erant). This interpolation, however, does not concern the criticism of the text of the New Testament, seeing that it is derived from some source outside the Canon.

On the other hand, there is a great question as to the order of the first three Beatitudes in Matthew v. 3-5, whether they are to be read in the order given in the common text, πτωχοί ... πενθοῦντες ... πραεῖς ..., or as our recent editors prefer πτωχοί ... πραεῖς ... πενθοῦντες.^[144] The latter arrangement is attested by only two Greek manuscripts—D and 33. Now, if their evidence is accepted here in spite of 167its apparent weakness, how can we justify the refusal to acknowledge the authority of D in other similar cases? Verse 22, but a short way down, is a case in point. Here D, with most authorities, exhibits the sorely-contested εἰκῇ. But our modern critics will have nothing to do with it, going by א B, Origen, Jerome, and Athanasius. Merx (Die vier kanonischen Evangelien, pp. 231-237) has recently come forward as a strong supporter of it, on the ground that Syr^sin also has it,^[145] but how is its omission, especially by Jerome, to be explained? The Vulgate itself shows that it was easier to insert it than to omit it, because out of twenty-four manuscripts collated in W.-W. three have it, though it certainly does not belong to the text of the Vulgate.^[146]

In view of these illustrations, which serve to show the somewhat haphazard way in which the text of our editions hitherto has been arrived at, the question becomes very important how the original text is to be restored in disputed or doubtful cases.

Conjectural emendation.

The first case, or, if we like to call it, the last, but at all events the one most easy of settlement, is when the correct reading is no longer found in any of our witnesses, neither in Greek manuscript, version, nor patristic quotation. Here we must simply have recourse to conjecture. Not long ago philologists evinced such a fondness for conjectural emendation that the question might not unreasonably be asked why they did not rather themselves write the text that they took in hand to explain. At the same time, the aversion to this method of criticism which till recently prevailed and still to some extent prevails, especially in the matter of the New Testament text, is just as unreasonable. Tischendorf, e.g., did not admit a single emendation of this nature into his text, while Westcott and Hort consider it to be necessary in only a 168very few cases, such as Colossians ii. 18, though they also decline to adopt any conjectural readings in their text. For ΑΕΟΡΑΚΕΝΕΜΒΑΤΕΥΩΝ in this passage, which Weizsäcker renders “pluming himself upon his visions,” they would read ΑΕΡΑ ΚΕΝΕΜΒΑΤΕΥΩΝ, which is obtained by the omission of a single letter and a different division of the words. In Holland conjectural criticism is freely indulged in,^[147] the example of Cobet and his school being followed by such critics as S. A. Naber, W. C. van Manen, W. H. van de Sande-Bakhuyzen, van de Becke Callenfels, D. Harting, S. S. de Koe, H. Franssen, J. M. S. Baljon, J. H. A. Michelsen, and J. Cramer.^[148] Baljon has adopted a great number of such conjectural emendations in his edition of the text published in 1898 (see above, p. 24). In place of πολλοὶ διδάσκαλοι, e.g., in James iii. 1, Lachmann would read πῶλοι δύσκολοι, Naber πλανοδιδάσκαλοι, while Junius, de Hoop-Scheffer, and Bakhuyzen prefer πολυλάλοι on the ground that m⁶⁴ has nolite multiloqui esse.^[149] So far, therefore, this last is not pure conjecture. For κρινέτω in Col. ii. 16 Lagarde wished to read κιρνάτω, because the verb דוד found in the Peshitto at this place is elsewhere used to translate θροεῖν (Matt. xxiv. 6), ταράσσειν (John xiv. 1, 27), ἐγκόπτειν (Gal. v. 7), and also διαστρέφειν (Eccl. vii. 18; xii. 3). My proposal to read ἐπὶ πόντον in Apoc. xviii. 17, a reading adopted by Baljon in his text, instead of ἐπὶ τόπον or ἐπὶ πλοίων as given in our manuscripts, was a pure conjecture, but it has the support of super mare in Primasius.^[150] There is therefore no objection on principle to the method of conjecture, 169nor to the adoption of conjectural readings in the text, though it is only to be resorted to as the ultima ratio regis and with due regard to all the considerations involved, transcriptional, linguistic, and otherwise.^[151] There is no essential difficulty in supposing, e.g., that κιρνάτω in Col. ii. 16 was first corrupted into κρινάτω and then into κρινέτω. Such a transposition of the liquid is quite common in all languages.^[152] But we must see if κιρνάτω has the sense required in the passage. There is no doubt a reference to drinking here, and so far, therefore, the word seems to suit the context better. It is also true that evidence is not wanting of the metaphorical use of the word proposed to be inserted. Passow, e.g., gives τὸ τῆς φύσεως σκληρὸν κιρνᾶν from Polybius iv. 21, 3, and τὴν πόλιν κιρνᾶν from Aristophanes i. 1. In spite of this, however, I have considerable misgivings whether this sense of the word is in harmony with Pauline usage and is suitable to the context of the passage. If it is sought to justify a conjectural reading on transcriptional grounds, then, as has been observed (p. 82), a strict account must be taken of the manner of writing 170prevalent at the time when the corruption is supposed to have originated. Luke’s handwriting must have been very bad indeed if we are to suppose that the scribe of D or the parent manuscript mistook ἠρνήσασθε for the enigmatical ἐβαρύνατε in Acts iii. 14, though it is quite conceivable how he came to write δόξῃ instead of δεξιᾷ in v. 31, or conversely wrote ἐδέξαντο instead of ἐδόξασαν in xiii. 48, or that ΚΑΙΤΟΥΤΩΣΥΝΦΩΝΟΥΣΙΝ was made into ΚΑΙΟΥΤΩΣΣΥΝΦΩΝΗΣΟΥΣΙΝ or vice versa.^[153] A slight experience in the reading of ancient manuscripts shows how easy it is to make mistakes of this sort. And if we wish to see what mistakes of this sort actually do occur in Codices Vaticanus, Alexandrinus, Sinaiticus, and Ephraemi, we have only to look into Morrish’s Handy Concordance of the Septuagint,^[154] though of course the examples there are all from the Old Testament. We have, e.g., ἀγαπάω for ἀπατάω; ἀγάπη for ἀπάτη; ἁγιάζω for ἀγοράζω; ἅγιος for αἴγειος, ἀγγεῖον, ἀγρός, γῆ; ἀδιάλυτος for διάλυτος; βάλλω and its compounds for λαμβάνω and its compounds; λαός for ναός, etc.

Eclectic method.

It is more difficult to answer the question how the text is to be restored in cases where there is no lack of external evidence. We have already seen that critics have hitherto adopted an eclectic mode of procedure. In general, whenever Vaticanus and Sinaiticus agree, editors, Tischendorf as well as Westcott and Hort, give the preference to their testimony. But if they do not agree, what is to be done? And what if a third reading seems on internal grounds to be better than either? In his Thoughts on the Textual Criticism of the New Testament, Salmon very pungently, but not altogether incorrectly, describes Westcott and Hort’s method on the lines of an anecdote told of Cato by Cicero: “To the question what authorities should be followed, Hort answers, Follow B א. But if B is not supported by א? Still follow B, if it has the 171support of any other manuscript. But suppose B stands quite alone? Even then it is not safe to reject B unless it is clearly a clerical error. But suppose B is defective? Then follow א. And what about D? What about killing a man!” Lagarde has said that the gag is the modern equivalent of the stake. Codex D has not been gagged outright, to be sure, but it has been shoved aside, and only now and then with remarkable inconsistency has its evidence been accepted as trustworthy. For one must surely call it inconsistent to follow one side as a rule and then all at once to take sides with that which is diametrically opposed to the first. In his Introduction, Hort, in the most brilliant manner one must admit, has established the principle that the restoration of the text must be grounded on the study of its history, and no one has studied that history as carefully as Hort has done. But the question remains whether he has not interpreted the history wrongly, whether what he calls the Neutral text is really the original, and whether that which he rejects as a Western Corruption is really to be regarded as such.

History of transmission.

I cannot presume to judge; but I have the feeling that the history of the transmission of our New Testament text must be studied in quite another way from that in which it has been done hitherto, and in a twofold direction:—

(1) The manuscripts and their relation to each other must be subjected to a still more searching investigation, and

(2) The works of the ecclesiastical writers, especially the Commentaries and the Catenæ, must be thoroughly explored for any information they may have to give regarding the history of the text of the New Testament, and these two results must then be set in relation with each other.

With regard to the former task, it might not be essential to make such a minute collation of the manuscripts as Ferrar, Hoskier, and other investigators deemed necessary, and as is certainly the right thing to do in the case of the oldest documents. With such a mode of procedure, the task could not be accomplished in any conceivable time. But suppose 172the work was organised the way that Reuss did with the printed editions, by selecting say a thousand passages for comparison, it would be possible, and in a very short time we should be much better informed than we are at present as to the state of the text in our manuscripts, and especially in the minuscules.

Such a task, moreover, must be preceded by a fresh scientific statement of the way in which the text was propagated previous to the invention of printing, on the lines laid down by Hort in the first fourteen paragraphs of his Introduction.^[155] A necessary preliminary to this is the study of genealogy, in which we have an excellent guide in Ottokar Lorenz’s Lehrbuch der gesamten wissenschaftlichen Genealogie (Berlin, 1898). See especially the first chapter of Part I. on the distinction between Genealogical Tree (Table of genealogy) and Table of Ancestors, and the third chapter of Part II. on the problem of Loss of Ancestors.

All the ideas pertaining to the genealogy of living creatures, such as crossing, heredity, and so forth, fall to be considered also in the genealogy of manuscripts, the only difference being that in the latter case new features make their appearance. It has been asserted somewhere that if an Englishman, a Dutchman, a German, a Frenchman, and an American meet in a company, the nationality of each is at once recognisable, but it is impossible to determine their exact genealogical relationships, and that the same impossibility exists in the case of the manuscripts of the New Testament. That is perhaps an exaggeration, but it is certainly a surprising fact that so few even of our latest manuscripts can be proved with certainty to be copies of manuscripts still in existence, or at least to be derived from a common original.

Analogous works.

It will be a very great help, particularly to those beginning 173work in this field, to compare the method and results of investigations pursued in similar and perhaps easier departments of study. Apart from the works of classical philologists, or works like the new edition of Luther’s writings, a great deal of most valuable research has been carried on of late years in the matter of textual criticism, some of it very extensive, some of it less so. Ed. Wölfflin, e.g., devoted his attention to the Rule of St. Benedict of Nursia, who died some time after the year 542. |Rule of Benedict.| His Rule, which extends only to eighty-five pages of the Teubner size, is extant in manuscripts dating as far back as the seventh and eighth centuries. By a comparison of these, Wölfflin was convinced that we still possess the Rule essentially in the identical wording of the original vulgar Latin, that Benedict himself had afterwards made certain alterations and additions, and that we have therefore to distinguish several (fortasse tres) editions.^[156] Wölfflin purported to give the text of that recension which he took to be the earliest. But we had no more than time to congratulate ourselves on the satisfactory result arrived at by this experienced philologist, when behold, another totally different conclusion was announced by a younger worker in the same field. Wölfflin had done little more than compare the manuscripts, but Lud. Traube applied also the external evidence afforded by the history of the text, and discovered that certain manuscripts that Wölfflin had thrown aside possessed a greater claim to originality.^[157]

De Viris Illustribus.

Similarly, E. C. Richardson gave several years to an examination of all the accessible manuscripts of the De Viris Illustribus of Jerome and Gennadius, a work not much larger than the Rule of Benedict. These manuscripts, about 120 in 174number, he grouped, and then framed his text in accordance with them.^[158] While his work was in the press, an edition was published by C. A. Bernoulli, based on some of the manuscripts that Richardson also had used.^[159] But from the very first sentence onwards, the two editors follow contradictory authorities, so that while one gives parvam as the correct reading, the other reads non parvam. But more than that, the same Part of Texte und Untersuchungen that gave us Richardson’s laborious work contained a second piece of work on the same material—viz., O. v. Gebhardt’s edition of the so-called Greek Sophronius, which is an old version of Jerome’s book. And the last chapter of this version, which is autobiographical, contains indications, according to v. Gebhardt’s Introduction, that Jerome issued two editions of his book, so that, if this be so, an entirely new grouping of the manuscripts becomes necessary.

Julian’s Letters.

In the case of Holl’s researches on the Sacra Parallela of John Damascene, published in the same Collection,^[160] matters are too complicated for beginners in textual criticism, but of non-biblical texts mention may be made of the Recherches sur la tradition manuscrite des lettres de l’Empereur Julien by S. Bidez and Fr. Cumont (Brussels, 1898), as showing how much can be attained by combining the internal and external history of the transmission of literary texts.^[161] |Latin New Testament.| In the field of Biblical texts, and particularly of the New Testament, the study of Wordsworth and White’s Epilogus to the first volume of their Novum Testamentum Latine is to be specially recommended, particularly c. iv. De Patria et Indole Codicum nostrorum, c. v. De Textus Historia, and c. vi. De Regulis a nobis in Textu constituendo adhibitis. As was said before, Jerome undertook his revision of the Gospels in the year 383; his work was of an entirely uniform texture, apart from a few 175passages where a correction may have occurred even in the original manuscript; and there is a sufficiency of manuscripts extant, some of them going back to the sixth century. One of these, which formerly belonged to the Church of St. Willibrord at Echternach, contains a note dated 558, and copied into it from the parent manuscript, to the effect: proemendavi ut potui secundum codicem in bibliotheca Eugipi presbyteri, quem ferunt fuisse sancti Hieronymi. (See above, p. 122.) In these circumstances it must surely be possible, one would think, to arrive at some satisfactory conclusion. And yet, in spite of all this, and in spite of long years of labour, many a problem remains to perplex the editor of the Vulgate. To begin with, there is one striking circumstance. Jerome executed his work at Rome, in obedience to the commission of Pope Damasus. One would therefore expect to find the best manuscripts in Rome, or at least originating from Rome. But that is by no means the case: “praeter expectationem accidit ut pauci vel nulli ex codicibus optimis et antiquissimis originem Romanam clare ostendant.” The manuscript that editors consider the best—viz. Codex Amiatinus, now at Florence—was certainly at Rome for a long time, but it was sent there as a present from beyond the Alps; indeed, it came from England. And on the other hand it was not from Rome that the Latin Bible came to England, or to Canterbury in particular, although Augustine was sent thither by Pope Gregory the Great, but from the South of Italy; in fact, it was from Naples. Codex Fuldensis, which may have been brought to Fulda by Boniface, formerly belonged to Bishop Victor of Capua; the Echternach manuscript referred to above came from the Lucullan Monastery at Naples, while the manuscript from which Codex Amiatinus was copied was written by Cassiodorus of Vivarium, and therefore came from Calabria. The history of the transmission of the Latin Bible reveals many other facts as strange as these in connection with the locality to which manuscripts belong. We must be prepared, therefore, for similar surprises 176in the case of Greek manuscripts also, and need not be astonished to hear that the Greek-Latin Codex Bezae, so much decried as “Western,” takes us back to Smyrna or Ephesus by way of Lyons and by means of Irenæus.^[162]

It is also very instructive to observe that after long years of the most thorough study of their manuscripts, Wordsworth and White refrain from constructing stemmata or genealogies of these. All they venture to do is to distinguish certain large classes or families, and within these again to bring certain manuscripts into somewhat closer relationship with each other. They distinguish two main classes. In the first they reckon five, or it may be four, Italian-Northumbrian manuscripts, A Δ H* S Y, two Canterbury O X, three Italian J M P, the two mentioned already from Capua-Fulda F and Lucullan-Echternach EP, and the Harleian Z, so called from a former possessor and now in the British Museum. To the second class belong five Celtic D E L Q R, three French B BF G, and two Spanish C T. After these come the witnesses to the history of the text in the stricter sense of the term, the recensions made by Theodulf (H^c Θ) and Alcuin (KV M̅), and, for the form which the text assumed in the later manuscripts and in the printed editions, the Salisbury Codex W. We should have great reason to congratulate ourselves, could we arrive at like certain results in the region of the far older and more diversified history of the transmission of the Greek text, but there too we shall encounter the same general features—viz., a form of the text in the printed editions, in the later manuscripts, in the Recensions, the dates of which are still to be determined (Lucian, Hesychius?, Pamphilus), and in the families, which are only to be classified in a general way.

It is also instructive to find that in the case of several manuscripts, Wordsworth and White are obliged to observe that they seem to have been corrected from the Greek, H* 177(p. 709), M (p. 711), EP* (p. 712), D R L (pp. 714, 716), which suggests the possibility of Greek manuscripts also having been influenced by one of the versions, be it Latin or Syriac.

Finally, when we enquire as to the relationship between Jerome and the Greek manuscript or manuscripts used by him, we find that that manuscript must have been most nearly related to the Sinaiticus, while it had no sort of connection with Codex D. Whether this result tells in favour of א or the reverse, we will not pronounce at present: Jerome certainly avers that he made use of a Graecorum codicum emendata conlatione ... sed veterum (p. 108), only veterum is a comparative term, and it might quite well happen that to Jerome that form of text appeared to be the best which was most recent or most widely circulated in his neighbourhood, and that he would have nothing to do with such a singular form of text as D exhibits, even supposing he was acquainted with it, a point we cannot decide. The intimate connection in various passages between his text and that of the cursive 473 (2^pe) is remarkable, and especially the many points of resemblance between the Irish manuscripts (D L R) and the members of the Ferrar Group.

And this brings us back from our survey of the history of the Latin text to that of the Greek, where we seem to have got at least one fixed point to begin with in this perplexing chaos, for that is the first impression we gain on glancing at the mass of Greek manuscripts before us. But here again our too sanguine hopes are likely to be disappointed, and we shall learn only too soon that even this is no Archimedean point from which we are able to regulate this world of disorder.

Ferrar Group.

If we find that in a certain number of manuscripts the passage usually indicated as John vii. 53-viii. 11 occurs in Luke, and in exactly the same place in each one—viz. after Luke xxi. 38—we must needs conclude that the manuscripts exhibiting this common peculiarity are intimately connected with each other. This is the case with the cursives 13, 69, 178124, 346, 624, 626. Whether the others that are reckoned in this group have this same peculiarity, I am not perfectly sure. Now one would naturally expect that these manuscripts would also coincide in the other peculiarities characteristic of this group. |Variation.| But on the contrary, they part company over the very first and most conspicuous of these—viz. Matthew i. 16. Here, unfortunately, 13 and 69 are defective, but we can compare 124 and 346. And we find that whereas the former has the usual text, the latter, with the support of 556, 624, 626, exhibits in place of τὸν ἄνδρα ... Χριστός, the reading already mentioned, ᾧ μνηστευθεῖσα παρθένος Μαριὰμ ἐγέννησεν Ἰησοῦν τὸν λεγόμενον Χριστόν. Which of these readings is right, or whether both of them may not be wrong, we need not enquire at present. It is sufficient to point out that one and the same mother may give birth to very different children. The specific difference will be inherited from the other of the two parents, in this case represented by the copyist, and will depend on whether he is painstaking, careless, violent, arbitrary, well-informed, or the reverse. But the mother herself has a great number of hereditary or acquired peculiarities which, the latter no less than the former, may be transmitted to the children in a variety of ways. There is perhaps no manuscript in existence which is entirely free from corrections, while, on the other hand, there are many so overlaid with corrections that the original writing is scarcely now recognisable. Codex B, on the whole, is in a very good state of preservation, but it was supposed lately (see ThLz., 1899, col. 176) that its first hand wrote in John viii. 57, “and Abraham saw thee” instead of “and hast thou seen Abraham,” as all our editors read in that passage.^[163] The supposition proved to be incorrect, but if that could possibly happen with B, what must have happened in the case of manuscripts that are so full of corrections as א and D, if they came to be copied in later times? Suppose that one scribe took the trouble to copy the text of the first hand, while 179another thought it his duty to follow the corrections, the result would be two manuscripts whose common origin would be scarcely recognisable. And in the course of centuries how often may not this process have been repeated. No wonder, therefore, that so few manuscripts have as yet been clearly made out to be the descendants of our oldest codices, so as to permit of their being removed from the board with one sweep, as having no independent testimony to contribute, as is the case with E₃ which is merely a bad copy of D₂ (p. 77), or that scholars cannot agree as to the relationship existing between two manuscripts like F₂ and G₃ (p. 77).^[164] Nor need we be surprised to find that some of our most peculiar witnesses seem to have remained absolutely childless, while a less valuable race is perpetuated in many copies. The words of Homer—οἵη περ φύλλων γενεή, τοίη δὲ καὶ ἀνδρῶν—may be applied conversely to the leaves to which we entrust our immortality: habent sua fata libelli. The only unfortunate thing is that we are so little able to follow the course of these fates by means of external testimony.

External testimony.

When the Emperor Constantine e.g. asks Eusebius to supply him with fifty copies of the Scriptures at once, we cannot but suppose that these became authoritative over a large area. But in which of the classes into which our manuscripts have hitherto been divided are we to look for these now?^[165] And conversely if, in another locality, heathen persecution 180was directed specially against the Bibles of the Christians, this cannot have been without some effect. According to C. Hülsen (Bilder aus der Geschichte des Kapitols, Rome, 1899), even the Roman Bishop Marcellinus, with his deacons Strabo and Cassianus, in the year 304, burned, in front of the temple of Juno Moneta, those Gospels which ten years later were made the law of Christian Rome by the Emperor Constantine. These scattered notices must be much more carefully collected and considered than hitherto, and combined with the results obtained from the collation of the manuscripts.

Recensions.

Most of our information with respect to the recensions of the Bible comes from the Syrian Church, and is concerned rather with the Old Testament than with the New; but the recensions of the former may throw some light on those of the latter.

Lucian.

(a) As the result of their researches, Westcott and Hort have made it very probable, on internal grounds, that a recension of an official nature was undertaken in Syria, perhaps at Antioch, about the fourth century, and that to this recension are due the origin and propagation of that form of the text of the New Testament which was widely disseminated in the Byzantine Empire, now represented in our later minuscules, and made the textus receptus by means of the first printed editions.

Lucian, the celebrated founder of the Antiochean school of exegesis, suffered martyrdom in the year 311 or 312, most probably the latter. Of all the names that we know, none has a better claim than his to be associated with such a recension, and the conjecture derives some support from the passage of Jerome cited above (p. 85).^[166] It is, perhaps, even better supported by what we know of Lucian’s recension of the Old Testament. In his preface to the Chronicles, Jerome wrote: “Alexandria et Aegyptus in Septuaginta suis Hesychium laudat 181auctorem, Constantinopolis usque Antiochiam Luciani martyris exemplaria probat, mediae inter has provinciae Palaestinae (v.l. Palaestinos) codices legunt, quos ab Origene elaboratos Eusebius et Pamphilus vulgaverunt; totusque orbis hac inter se trifaria varietate compugnat.” Now it is true that the words of a man like Jerome must not be pressed too far, and what may have been true in his day might be quite different in a comparatively short time—think e.g. of the fifty copies of the Bible that Eusebius Pamphili had sent to Constantine, or the Bible or Bibles sent by Athanasius to Constans^[167]—at the same time it has been established beyond all doubt by Field and Lagarde, that it is to Lucian we must refer a peculiar recension of the Greek Old Testament preserved in a good many manuscripts, the one found in the unfortunately small remnant of the Gothic Old Testament and especially in the numerous Biblical quotations of the famous theologian John of Antioch, better known as Chrysostom of Constantinople, who was a pupil of Lucian. The probability, therefore, is very great that the same thing will hold good of the New Testament portion of the Bible of Ulfilas and Chrysostom. As regards the former, Kauffmann has expressed a decided opinion to this effect in his work on the Gothic Bible cited above (p. 139). The supposition would be converted into something like certainty if it could be proved on palæographic grounds that this or that New Testament manuscript belongs to this or that Old Testament manuscript of Lucianic derivation as part of what was originally one and the same complete Bible. This is a point which I am not in a position personally to investigate, and I must therefore content myself with throwing out this suggestion, and with adding in support of it that we have the express testimony of the Menologies for saying that Lucian bequeathed to his pupils a copy of the Old and New Testaments written in three columns with his own hand.

182There is a statement in the Pseudo-Athanasian Synopsis,^[168] which seems, however, to refer only to the Old Testament portion, to the effect that it was discovered in a concealed cupboard (πυργίσκος) in the house of a Jew at Nicomedia in the time of Constantine. Long ago Hug and Eichhorn attributed the “Asiatic” or “Byzantine” recension to Lucian, and no decided objection can be established to the view of Hort, which Gregory also is inclined to accept (TiGr., p. 814).^[169]

Hesychius.

183(b) It is, on the other hand, somewhat difficult to make out how matters stand with regard to the recension of Hesychius. Jerome commends it with that of Lucian for the Old Testament, but contemptuously rejects it for the New; and accordingly, in the decree of Pope Gelasius, we hear of Gospels “quae falsavit Lucianus, apocrypha, evangelia quae falsavit Hesychius, apocrypha” (c. vi. 14, 15). Considering the important position of Alexandria and Egypt, and the vast number of manuscripts referred with more or less certainty to that locality, it is the more remarkable that so few unmistakable traces have as yet been discovered of the recension of which “Alexandria et Aegyptus ... Hesychium laudat auctorem,” and that till the present moment the most divergent views have been held with regard to it. And this is true of the Old Testament no less than of the New. One view, for which a good deal can be said, has already been referred to (p. 61 f.)—viz. that we have the recension of Hesychius in Codex B. |Codex B.| Rahlfs, who was the first to connect B with the Canon of Athanasius, says (lib. cit., p. 78, note 7); “If we care to trust ourselves to pure hypothesis, we might hazard the conjecture that our superb Codex, manifestly written for one of the principal churches of Egypt, was prepared at the instigation of St. Athanasius himself. The 184locality in which the manuscript was produced supports this conjecture, while the time is not inconsistent with it.” I am not aware if Rahlfs knew that Athanasius had executed πυκτία τῶν θείων γραφῶν for Constans, and I am not sufficiently acquainted with the minutiæ of the ecclesiastical history of that time, and with the life of Athanasius in particular, to hazard the assertion that Codex B was prepared by Athanasius for the Emperor Constans. It is certainly the case, as every Church History records, that Constans was Prefect of Illyricum and Italy, and that Athanasius fled to Rome to Julius II., which would help to explain how Codex B comes to be in that city.^[170] I cannot ascertain however from the books at my command, whether any particular resemblance has been observed between the text of this manuscript and the Biblical quotations found in those writings of Athanasius that belong to this period of his life, that is, prior to the year 350. And, besides, one has always to take into consideration how very little reliance can be placed as yet on the text of the Biblical quotations in our editions of the Fathers. In the Book of Judges B certainly exhibits quite a peculiar form of text which is not used by the earlier Egyptian teachers, Clement and Origen, nor even by Didymus (d. 394 or 399), but was employed first by Cyril of Alexandria, and which is the basis of the Sahidic version. This fact may have an important bearing on the question as to the text of the New Testament as well.^[171] As early as 1705 Grabe expressed the opinion that the Sahidic version was the work of Hesychius, but we have very little information indeed regarding that Church Father, and in particular as to his connection with the lexicographer of that name. Here also, the evidence afforded by palæography would need to be examined with a view to ascertaining whether or not any of the manuscripts agreeing with B in the 185Book of Judges—viz. G (Brit. Mus., 20,002), 16, 30, 52, 53, 58, 63, 77, 85, 131, 144, 209, 236, 237, Catena Nicephori—has a counterpart in some manuscript of the New Testament. On Codex G see Rahlfs (p. 35, n. 2), and compare v. Dobschütz (ThLz., 1899, 3, 74) on the two New Testament manuscripts Λ and 566^evv. (Greg).^[172] According to the latter, the difference in size precludes the supposition that Λ and 566 are the New Testament portion of the manuscript described by Rahlfs (loc. cit.). But if they are not written by the same scribe, they both undoubtedly come from the same school of copyists. At most, however, Λ-566 would only possess importance for the recension of Hesychius if the text they, or rather it, follows were different from that with which it was collated. Its subscription shows that it belongs to those exemplars which were collated with the Codex of Pamphilus. This fact has an important bearing on the Gospel of the Hebrews. See Zahn, GK. ii. 648.

Eusebius-Pamphilus.

(c) We have nearly as little certain information regarding the third, and perhaps most important, of the recensions mentioned by Jerome in connection with the Old Testament, that of Eusebius and Pamphilus, which goes back to Origen.^[173] |Origen.| So far as I know, the references which Origen makes in his extant writings to his own labours in the field of textual criticism, relate only to the Old Testament. At the same time 186his complaint as to the evil condition of the manuscripts of his day refers to the New Testament, and to the Gospels in particular. Νυνὶ δὲ δηλονότι, he says, in his Commentary on Matthew, Bk. xv. 14, πολλὴ γέγονεν ἡ τῶν ἀντιγράφων διαφορά, εἴτε ἀπὸ ῥᾳθυμίας τινῶν γραφέων, εἴτε ἀπὸ τόλμης τινῶν μοχθηρᾶς τῆς διορθώσεως τῶν γραφομένων, εἴτε καὶ ἀπὸ τῶν τὰ ἑαυτοῖς δοκοῦντα ἐν τῇ διορθώσει προστιθέντων ἢ ἀφαιρούντων.^[174] He tells us in the same place how, θεοῦ διδόντος, he found ways and means of remedying the evil by the employment of the critical symbols of Homeric commentators, the obelus and asterisk, τὴν μὲν οὖν ἐν τοῖς ἀντιγράφοις τῆς παλαιᾶς διαθήκης διαφωνίαν, θεοῦ διδόντος, εὕρομεν ἰάσασθαι. According to his own express declaration, supposing it to have been correctly preserved, for it is only extant in Latin, his work in textual criticism at that time at least was confined to the Old Testament: in exemplaribus autem Novi Testamenti hoc ipsum me posse facere sine periculo non putavi. Von Gebhardt consequently says (Urt., 25) that this statement from Origen’s own mouth should have kept anyone from ascribing a formal recension of the New Testament text to him, alluding to Hug’s system of recensions; but at the same time he will not deny that the works of Origen, who was a man of conspicuous critical accuracy, are of the highest importance for the criticism of the text of the New Testament. As a matter of fact, later church teachers appeal chiefly to Origen’s manuscripts of the Old Testament, but several references are also found to his New Testament manuscripts. On Gal. iii. 1, Jerome remarks (ii. 418): legitur in quibusdam codicibus, Quis vos fascinavit non credere veritati? Sed hoc (meaning, of course, the last three words only) quia in exemplaribus Adamantii non habetur, omisimus. The words are a gloss interpolated from ch. v. 7, but they are also found in Origen, though only in the Latin 187translation of Rufinus, and they appear, among our Greek manuscripts, in C D^c E K L P, and likewise in most codices of the Vulgate (see Wordsworth and White, p. 659). The same writer says on Matthew xxiv. 36 (ii. 199): in quibusdam latinis exemplaribus additum est “neque filius,” quum in Graecis et maxime Adamantii et Pierii exemplaribus hoc non habeatur additum; sed quia in nonnullis legitur, disserendum videtur (W. and W., p. 658). Pierius is no doubt the Presbyter of Alexandria who lived at Rome after the Diocletian persecution. He was styled “the younger Origen” on account of his learning, and was perhaps the teacher of Pamphilus (Jerome, Viri Ill., 76; Eusebius, Eccl. Hist., vii. 32). Adamantius, like Chalkenteros, is a surname of honour given to Origen. Here again, it is a strange fact that the words which Jerome says were omitted in Origen’s exemplar are found in a certain passage of his works also extant only in Latin, and there expounded so fully that there cannot be the slightest doubt that he had them in his text, and, moreover, had no conception of their omission in other copies. What explanation, if any, can be given of this fact we need not pause to enquire. Nor need we take up the question where Jerome obtained access to the exemplars of Pierius. I suppose it would be in Caesarea, where he also saw the (Bible?) volumes of Origen transcribed by Pamphilus with his own hand, and actually obtained possession of his copy of the commentary on the Minor Prophets.^[175] Even supposing that what is meant by exemplaria Adamantii is not really a recension of the text of the Bible but simply 188the copy that Origen used most or used last, that copy might have been authoritative for Pamphilus if not for Eusebius, and so far, therefore, it becomes necessary for us to try and discover the Origenic text in the New Testament as well as in the Old. At all events a good many of our manuscripts go back to Pamphilus, and particularly H of the Pauline Epistles. In addition to a very practical suggestion as to the lending of books,^[176] and a notice of its preparation and of the original writer, this manuscript has also the following note: ἀντεβλήθη δὲ ἡ βίβλος πρὸς τὸ ἐν Καισαρίᾳ ἀντίγραφον τῆς βιβλιοθήκης τοῦ ἁγίου Παμφίλου χειρὶ γεγραμμένον (αὐτοῦ). From this subscription Field (Hexapla, i. p. xcix) has concluded that the library of Pamphilus was still in existence in the sixth century, but it is doubtful whether the subscription may not have been found in the original of H and copied into it along with the text, as is the case with a similar note copied into the minuscules 15, 83, 173. |Euthalius.| In any case this manuscript is our principal witness for the recension of Pamphilus, or, as it used to be called, the recension of Euthalius.^[177] I have no intention of discussing the question whether it should be Euthalius or Evagrius: Von Dobschütz (Euthaliusstudien, p. 152 n. 1) has promised to give us further particulars 189as to the Syriac texts relating to the subject. I would merely call attention to two facts, viz.—

Harklean.

(1) That the subscription testifying to a collation with the exemplar of Pamphilus is found also at the end of the Harklean Syriac published by Bensly (see above, pp. 79, 106).

Evagrius.

(2) That the name Evagrius, which Ehrhard proposes to read in place of Euthalius in Codex H, is actually found associated with the library of Pamphilus in another manuscript of the Old Testament. In his Notitia editionis codicis Bibliorum Sinaitici (Lipsiæ, 1860), pp. 73-122, Tischendorf published “Ex Codicibus Insulae Patmi, Ineditum Diodori Siculi; Origenis Scholia in Proverbia Salomonis.” The latter he took from a manuscript which, according to H. O. Coxe’s Report ... on the Greek MSS. yet remaining in the Levant (1858, p. 61), professed to contain “Origenis Hexapla cum Scholiis” after the Philocalia. In reality they are Origen’s Scholia on the Proverbs which Angelo Mai had published in a different form from the Vatican Catena 1802, in the Nova Patrum Bibliotheca, 1854. In the Patmos manuscript the scholia proper are prefaced by two (or three) explanatory notes on the use of the obelus and the asterisk, and on the different arrangement of the chapters in the Hebrew and Greek texts, followed by another explanation of the same sort under the title Εὐαγρίου σχόλιον.^[178] Who they are that are referred to in the scholion as having collated the book (τῶν ἀντιβεβληκότων τὸ βιβλίον) we learn from the subscription, which says: μετελήφθησαν ἀφ’ ὧν εὕρομεν ἑξαπλῶν καὶ πάλιν αὐτὰ χειρὶ (leg. αὐτόχειρι) Πάμφιλος καὶ Εὐσέβιος διορθώσαντο. This subscription, which Oikonomos published fully fifty years ago 190from that Patmos manuscript,^[179] should be added to those usually cited—viz. those appended to Ezra and Esther in א, to Isaiah and Ezekiel in Codex Marchalianus, to 3 and 4 Kings in the Syriac Hexapla, and to Ezekiel in Codex Chisianus 88.

With what has been said the student should compare what Von der Goltz tells us of a critical work upon the text of the New Testament belonging partly to the tenth and partly to the sixth century.^[180] This, too, goes back to Origen, and in a scholion on James ii. 3, the greater part of which is unfortunately erased, the work mentions “a manuscript written by the hand of St. Eusebius.” As Zahn elsewhere shows, the writer of the Athos manuscript did not base his own work on this Codex of Eusebius, and in one passage he expressly contrasts it with the text of Origen which he follows. In spite of this, however, this Athos manuscript must be taken into account in dealing with the recension of Pamphilus. Still more so must the Armenian and Syriac texts, according to Conybeare and von Dobschütz.^[181] Even the Latin manuscripts may contain traces of this recension. E. Riggenbach has shown that the table of chapters in Hebrews given in Codex Fuldensis and in a manuscript indicated as Cod. Vat. Reg. 9, is nothing but a translation of the corresponding part of “Euthalius.”^[182] Unfortunately the relics of the literary activity of Pamphilus, that devoted student of the Scriptures,^[183] are exceedingly scanty, and what little is left is extant only in a Latin translation. In these circumstances the attempt to specify more closely than hitherto his manuscripts of the Bible by means of his quotations does seem rather hopeless.

Later revisers.

(d) As we are now dealing with the question how to arrive at the oldest form of the Greek text, it is unnecessary to take 191account of the labours of any later individuals in the formation of the Greek New Testament. Among these were Emperors and Empresses like Constantine and Constans, who exerted themselves in the dissemination of the Scriptures, and perhaps even made copies of them with their own hands, but these we may disregard.^[184] The work of Andreas and Arethas on the Apocalypse will be noticed when we come to speak of that book. One naturally turns here to Krumbacher’s History of Byzantine Literature, but the index to the first edition of that work contains only two references to the New Testament, neither of them bearing on our present subject. The matter is one which may be commended to those who have the time and the opportunity and the willingness to investigate it, and considering the ardour with which the study of Byzantine antiquities is being prosecuted at present, it may suffice merely to throw out this hint.

Pre-Origenic texts.

(e) So far as we have gone, therefore, it appears that much uncertainty prevails regarding the text formations we have already considered—those of Lucian, Hesychius, Pamphilus, and the Ferrar Group. Considering the amount of evidence at our command—how the external testimony points in the same direction as the manuscripts themselves, and, indeed, how probable is the whole nature of the operation in question—one would expect these to be the most easily distinguishable of all. Indeed, even so cautious an enquirer as Zahn speaks without any hesitation of “the official recensions originating subsequent to the time of Origen” (ThLbl., 1899, 180). The vagueness of our conclusions with respect to these recensions does not look very promising for the result of our investigation of the text prior to the time of Origen, when activity in this field was more disconnected and might be said to run wild and unrestrained. And there is this further 192difficulty that some of the writers who fall to be considered in this period came in later times more or less justly under the imputation of heresy, with the consequence that the results of their labours were less widely disseminated, if not deliberately suppressed. In circumstances like these any attempted revision of the text must have been equally mischievous, whether it proceeded from the orthodox side or from the opposite. That there were διορθωταί who were supposed to correct the text in the interests of orthodoxy we have already learned from Epiphanius. Indeed, from our point of view the action of the orthodox correctors must be thought the more regrettable of the two, since the books without a doubt parted at their hands with many vivid, strange, and even fantastic traits of language. Even in the matter of style it seems to me incontestable that it was at their hands that the Gospels received that reserved and solemn tone which we would not now willingly part with, and which can be compared to nothing so much as to those solemn pictures of Christ that we see painted on a golden background in Byzantine churches. For myself, at least, I have not the slightest doubt that the Gospel, and the Gospel particularly, was originally narrated in a much more vivacious style. Just consider this, for example. In all our present authorities—Greek manuscripts, ancient versions, Syriac, Egyptian, and so forth, and in all the Church Fathers without exception, so far as I am aware—we read the beautiful words: “your Father knoweth what things ye have need of before ye ask Him,” πρὸ τοῦ ὑμᾶς αἰτῆσαι αὐτόν (Matt. vi. 8). Compare with this what we find singly and solely in Codex D and the Old Latin h, πρὸ τοῦ ἀνοῖξαι τὸ στόμα, antequam os aperiatis, “before ever you open your mouth.” To me it is a striking indication to what an extent the instinctive sense of originality is wanting, that a reading like this is not inserted by Westcott and Hort among their Noteworthy Rejected Readings, nor even cited by Baljon in his critical apparatus, and that our commentators have not a single syllable about it, so that our 193students and preachers know nothing whatever of this form of the words of Jesus. If my edition of the New Testament did no more than bring such things to the notice of those who previously were unacquainted with them, I should consider it had done no small service. But take another illustration from the parable of the Barren Fig Tree. “Cut it down, why cumbereth it the ground,”—that is how our ordinary texts give the commandment of the justly indignant husbandman in Luke xiii. 7: ἔκκοψον αὐτήν· ἱνατί καὶ τὴν γῆν καταργεῖ. Here again, the great majority of our witnesses of every sort exhibit no variation worth mentioning, except that a good many (A L T etc.) insert a very prosy οὖν after the imperative, while B 80 read τὸν τόπον for τὴν γῆν. And in the answer of the vine-dresser (verse 8), “till I shall dig about it and dung it,” there is again no various reading in our ordinary witnesses of all kinds except the insignificant interchange of (βάλω) κόπρια, κοπρίαν, and κόπρον. What a difference do we find here also in the text of D: “bring the axe,” φέρε τὴν ἀξίνην, adfers securem; and, “I will throw in a basket of dung,” βάλω κόφινον κοπρίων, mittam qualum (= squalum) stercoris d, or cophinum stercoris a b c f ff² i l q, from which it was taken into the Codex of Marmoutier, a copy of the Alcuinian recension of the Vulgate written in gold.^[185] Here again, our editors and commentators for the most part take no notice. “Bring the axe” is omitted by Weiss, father and son, Westcott-Hort, Tregelles, and also by Baljon, while Holtzmann ignores both variants. It stands to reason, of course, that greater vivacity of style is not of itself an actual proof of greater originality. But the whole question is raised as to the principles by which we are to be guided in estimating the comparative value of the witnesses. One might be inclined to regard such peculiarities as due to the caprice 194of some scribe by whom D or its parent manuscript was written. As a matter of fact, Westcott and Hort, and most recent editors with them, do so regard them, seeing they cite the reading of D neither in Matt. vi. 8 nor in Luke xiii. 7. In the latter passage one might be inclined to take that view of the case, because as yet we have no other testimony to φέρε τὴν ἀξίνην than D d. But it is not so likely in the case of Matt. vi. 8, seeing that here the testimony of D is supported by that of h. To justify our neglect of these witnesses, we should require to prove either that h is derived from D or D from h.^[186] So far as my knowledge goes, no one has yet maintained the latter view. The derivation of h from D is an impossibility, for this reason alone that h belongs either to the fourth, or, what is perhaps more likely, to the fifth century (see p. 113).^[187] The truth is, rather, that we have in h a second and independent witness to the fact that at a very early date the text of Matt. vi. 8 read, “before you open your mouth.” But it is quite impossible to ignore the evidence of D in Luke xiii. 8 (κόφινον κοπρίων). Here too, of course, one might take exception and say that as D is bilingual, its Greek text might be derived from the Latin. Fortunately, however, it happens that the Latin of D, that is, d, differs from all the other eight Latin witnesses in reading not cophinus but qualus, and it is cophinus that is a loan word from the Greek^[188]; so that this objection, actually raised against D in the case of other readings, does not apply to this one. There is this to be observed, moreover—a point not given in Tischendorf, but noticed in Westcott and Hort—viz., that Origen also seems to have read “basket.” The passage is again one that is extant only in 195the Latin translation of Rufinus, and Tischendorf cites Or. 3, 452 among the witnesses supporting κόπρια; but Westcott and Hort expressly mention that Origen’s context appears to support the reading κόφινον (“Lev. lat. Ruf., 190, apparently with context”).

Here, then, we have these three stages:—

(1) D d alone, φέρε τὴν ἀξίνην—i.e. one solitary Greek manuscript.

(2) D supported by h, ἀνοῖξαι τὸ στόμα—i.e. the same solitary Greek manuscript with the addition of one representative of a version.

(3) D supported by eight Latin manuscripts and Origen, κόφινον κοπρίων—i.e. the same solitary Greek manuscript with the addition of eight representatives of one version and one not absolutely certain quotation.

What then? Can it be allowable to judge a reading’s claim to be mentioned and considered from the number of the witnesses supporting it, and like Westcott and Hort and Baljon to mention the third only, and take no notice of the other two? I think not. For just as in certain circumstances the correct reading may no longer appear in any manuscript, but must be determined by conjecture, so in another case the truth may have only one solitary representative left to support it against a whole world of adversaries (Heb. xii. 3), and this solitary witness either a manuscript, a version, or a quotation. On the other hand, it may have a whole cloud of witnesses accompanying it and supporting it. In matters of this kind numbers have nothing to do with the case whatever. To speak of majorities is nonsense. The true man is willing and able to stand alone, and to many a witness of this sort we must apply the words of Socrates: ἃ μὲν συνῆκα γενναῖα· οἶμαι δὲ καὶ ἃ μὴ συνῆκα. If we have been able to verify the word of a witness once, several times, frequently, then we shall be willing to trust him even in cases 196where we cannot check his evidence. Of course we must make allowance for human fallibility—quandoque bonus dormitat Homerus; least of all in matters of this kind must we look for inerrancy. A manuscript whose testimony was decisive on every point would be even a greater miracle than a book printed without a single error at the time of the Incunabula, which the printers of that age would have regarded as an eighth wonder of the world. But how to estimate the character of such a witness, seeing that the subjective feeling, the instinctive perception of what is original, is as little to be trusted as the number of the witnesses—that is the difficulty. And what is the point that our discussion has brought us to? From the “official recensions of the text” made in the later centuries, we sought to get back to similar works of earlier times, and we found that the original text may have suffered as much at the hands of orthodox revisers and correctors, who toned down and obscured the fresh colouring of the ancient records, as at the hands of heretics who inserted foreign and extraneous elements.^[189]

Unfortunately very little definite information has come down to us from those early times, and as that relates more to the history of the canon than of the text, reference must be made here to the monumental work of Zahn.^[190] Two figures, however, 197emerge from this chaos who have left their traces on the history of the text as well, Tatian and Marcion, the former chiefly in connection with the Gospels, the latter with the Pauline Epistles. Both have been already referred to more than once in the chapter on the “Materials” (Tatian, p. 97 f.; Marcion, pp. 76, 87), and both will require careful consideration here in our treatment of the principles involved in the reconstruction of the text. How much would be achieved could we but restore the original work of Tatian upon the Gospels, or the Gospel and the Apostle of Marcion!

Heretics.

(f) Before speaking of their work, however, there are still a few less important notices to be gleaned from their own and the preceding time.

Nearly all the heretics were in turn accused of falsifying the Scriptures. In this sense, also, the Dutch proverb is true, “jedere ketter heeft zijn letter” (every heretic has his letter, his text of the Scriptures). In early times Justin charged the Jews with such falsification in the Old Testament, and Lagarde was sometimes inclined to suspect that the Massoretic numbers in Genesis had been manipulated by the opponents of Christianity. Such complaints were most frequently made against the Gnostics, particularly the Valentinians, and when we glance over the long lists of apocryphal and pseudepigraphical writings,^[191] it is abundantly evident that at various times there was a good deal of falsification—i.e., a good deal written under false names. At the same time it cannot be denied that alterations were also made on early Christian works and the books of Scripture in the interests of dogma. These alterations are of all sorts, ranging from quite harmless changes made in all innocence to supposed corrections, 198and, it may be, even wilful corruptions.^[192] But most assuredly the heretics are not alone in being chargeable with this offence: Iliacos intra muros peccatur et extra.

As Jülicher (Einl., 378) points out, the orthodox Church teachers were very fond of making this charge against the heretics: παραλλάσσειν, παραχαράσσειν, ῥᾳδιουργεῖν, διαφθείρειν, ἐξαιρεῖν, ἀφανίζειν, κατορθοῦν (ironically), ἀποκόπτειν, παρακόπτειν, περικόπτειν, μετατιθέναι, προστιθέναι, interpolare, adulterare, violare, corrodere, dissecare, auferre, delere, emendare (ironically), eradere, subvertere, extinguere, these are some of the expressions we hear in this connection. Marcion gave occasion to the reproach by his edition of the Gospel of Luke and the Epistles of Paul, but against the rest of the Gnostics, especially the Valentinians, against the Artemonites, Novatians, Arians, and Donatists, and against the Nestorians, the same accusation is made as was formerly brought against the Jews. Even within the pale of the Church one party attributed such practices to the other. Ambrosiaster, e.g., believed that in the case of important discrepancies between the Greek and Latin manuscripts, the variations were due to the presumption of the Greek writers who had interpolated spurious matter. Jerome was afraid this would be said of him if he ventured to make the slightest alteration: quis doctus pariter vel indoctus non statim erumpat in vocem, me falsarium, me, clamans, esse sacrilegum qui audeam aliquid in veteribus libris addere, mutare, corrigere! The curse in Apoc. xxii. 18 f. was also referred to the “falsifiers,” who thought it more convincing and more reverent to observe the rules of grammar and logic than to abide by all the peculiar expressions in the Scriptures. At a meeting of Cyprian bishops, about the year 350, when one of them, in quoting the verse John v. 8, substituted for κράβαττος the better Greek word σκίμπους, another shouted to him in the hearing of all the multitude, “Art thou better than he who said 199κράβαττος that thou art ashamed to use his words?”^[193] And it is a well-known fact that in the time of Augustine there was very nearly an uproar in an African congregation over Jonah’s “gourd” (cucurbita) or Jonah’s “ivy” (hedera). A few references at least may be collected here:—

(1) On a certain Sunday^[194] in the year 170 or thereabouts, Dionysius, Bishop of Corinth, wrote a letter to the Church at Rome through their Bishop Soter, of which Eusebius has preserved the following among other passages (Eccl. Hist., iv. 23):—Ἐπιστολὰς γὰρ ἀδελφῶν ἀξιωσάντων με γράψαι ἔγραψα. Καὶ ταύτας οἱ τοῦ διαβόλου ἀπόστολοι^[195] ζιζανίων γεγέμικαν, ἃ μὲν ἐξαιροῦντες, ἃ δὲ προστιθέντες. Οἷς τὸ οὐαὶ κεῖται.^[196] Οὐ θαυμαστὸν ἄρα,^[197] εἰ καὶ τῶν Κυριακῶν ῥᾳδιουργῆσαί τινες ἐπιβέβληνται γραφῶν, ὁπότε καὶ ταῖς οὐ τοιαύταις ἐπιβεβουλεύκασι. The κυριακαὶ γραφαὶ are in all likelihood the Gospels (the Syriac renders “the writings of our Lord”), but may also include the Pauline Epistles and the O.T. If we are to take the words of Dionysius in their strict sense, it would appear that these writings, like his own letters, had been corrupted by means of “additions” and “omissions.” The last sentence, if it is put correctly, and if it has been faithfully transmitted, leads us to infer that in his letter to Corinth Soter had expressed his surprise that the writings of the Lord should have been falsified. To which Dionysius replies that certain letters of his own had been falsified also, and that it was therefore no wonder if they did the same to the writings of the Lord, seeing they tampered also (or, even) with those that were inferior to them. The simplest explanation of the words is, undoubtedly, that Dionysius sought to console himself over the fate that 200had befallen his letters, by reflecting that it was not surprising that they had falsified his letters of less importance, seeing they had presumed to do the same even to the writings of the Lord. On the first interpretation, one would certainly expect Dionysius to use a stronger expression to describe his feelings at the manipulation of the sacred writings than the mere οὐ θαυμαστόν. Who are meant by τινές? One most naturally thinks of Marcion. According to a later account, Soter, whom Jerome does not mention among the writers, composed a book against the Montanists.

Artemonites.

(2) In the last chapter of the Fifth Book of his Ecclesiastical History (c. xxviii.), entitled Περὶ τῶν τὴν Ἀρτέμωνος αἵρεσιν ἐξαρχῆς προβεβλημένων· οἷοί τε τὸν τρόπον γεγόνασι καὶ ὅπως τὰς ἁγίας γραφὰς διαφθεῖραι τετολμήκασιν, Eusebius quotes the following complaint from an earlier source, entitled the Little Labyrinth (± 235):—Γραφὰς μὲν θείας ἀφόβως ῥερᾳδιουργήκασιν, πίστεως δὲ ἀρχαίας κανόνα ἠθετήκασι, Χριστὸν δὲ ἠγνοήκασιν, οὐ τί αἱ θεῖαι λέγουσι γραφαὶ ζητοῦντες, but occupying themselves with Logic, Geometry, Euclid, Aristotle, Theophrastus, and Galen, ταῖς τῶν ἀπίστων τέχναις, τὴν ἁπλῆν τῶν θείων γραφῶν πίστιν καπηλεύοντες ... διὰ τοῦτο ταῖς θείαις γραφαῖς ἀφόβως ἐπέβαλον τὰς χεῖρας, λέγοντες αὐτὰς διωρθωκέναι. Καὶ ὅτι τοῦτο μὴ καταψευδόμενος αὐτῶν λέγω, ὁ βουλόμενος δύναται μαθεῖν. Εἰ γάρ τις θελήσει συγκομίσας αὐτῶν ἑκάστου τὰ ἀντίγραφα ἐξετάζειν πρὸς ἄλληλα, κατὰ πολὺ ἂν εὕροι διαφωνοῦντα. Ἀσύμφωνα γοῦν ἔσται τὰ Ἀσκληπιάδου τοῖς Θεοδότου· Πολλῶν δὲ ἔστιν εὐπορῆσαι διὰ τὸ φιλοτίμως ἐγγεγράφθαι τοὺς μαθητὰς αὐτῶν τὰ ὑφ’ ἑκάστου αὐτῶν, ὡς αὐτοὶ καλοῦσι κατωρθωμένα τουτέστιν ἠφανισμένα. Πάλιν δὲ τούτοις τὰ Ἑρμοφίλου οὐ συνᾴδει. Τὰ γὰρ Ἀπολλωνίδου οὐδὲ αὐτὰ ἑαυτοῖς ἐστι σύμφωνα. Ἔνεστι γὰρ συγκρῖναι τὰ πρότερον ὑπ’ αὐτῶν^[198] κατασκευασθέντα τοῖς ὕστερον πάλιν ἐπιδιαστραφεῖσι, καὶ εὑρεῖν κατὰ πολὺ ἀπᾴδοντα. Ὅσης δὲ τόλμης ἐστὶ τοῦτο τὸ ἁμάρτημα, εἰκὸς μηδὲ ἐκείνους ἀγνοεῖν. Ἢ γὰρ οὐ πιστεύουσιν Ἁγίῳ Πνεύματι λελέχθαι τὰς θείας γραφὰς, καί εἰσιν ἄπιστοι· ἢ ἑαυτοὺς ἡγοῦνται σοφωτέρους τοῦ Ἁγίου Πνεύματος ὑπάρχειν, καὶ τί ἕτερον ἢ δαιμονῶσιν; Οὐδὲ γὰρ ἀρνήσασθαι δύνανται ἑαυτῶν εἶναι τὸ τόλμημα, ὁπόταν καὶ τῇ αὐτῶν χειρὶ ᾖ γεγραμμένα, καὶ παρ’ ὧν κατηχήθησαν μὴ τοιαύτας παρέλαβον τὰς γραφάς· καὶ δεῖξαι ἀντίγραφα, ὅθεν αὐτὰ μετεγράψαντο, μὴ ἔχωσιν. Ἔνιοι δὲ αὐτῶν οὐδὲ παραχαράσσειν ἠξίωσαν αὐτὰς, ἀλλ’ ἁπλῶς 201ἀρνησάμενοι τόν τε νόμον καὶ τοὺς προφήτας ἀνόμου καὶ ἀθέου διδασκαλίας προφάσει χάριτος, εἰς ἔσχατον ἀπωλείας ὄλεθρον κατωλίσθησαν.

The passage is very instructive. We learn that copies of the writings of these heretics were to be found in abundance, because their disciples eagerly inserted their emendations in their texts, “each one’s emendations, as they style them, but in reality they are corruptions,” as the Syriac has it. At the same time, it is not quite certain that κατωρθωμένα really means corrected manuscripts of the Bible, and not the heretics’ own works—i.e., whether we should understand ἀντίγραφα τῶν θείων γραφῶν after τὰ Ἀσκληπιάδου, τὰ Θεοδότου, τὰ Ἑρμοφίλου, τὰ Ἀπολλωνίδου and not rather γράμματα or συντάγματα. In the former case we shall have to search for a recension of Asclepiades, of Theodotus, of Hermophilus, and in the case of Apollonides for a double recension, an earlier and a later. This interpretation of the words does certainly receive support from the positive way in which the historian argues from the conduct of these heretics, that they either did not believe in any inspiration of the holy Scriptures, or thought they could write better themselves, and also from his remark that they did not receive τὰς γραφάς in that form (τοιαύτας) from their (Christian) instructors, and were not able to show any older copies from which their own were transcribed. From the mention of the Law and the Prophets, we may conclude that the reference is mainly to the O. T. Epiphanius mentions the Theodotians as appealing to Deut. xviii. 15, Jer. xvii. 9, Isa. liii. 3, Matt. xii. 31, Luke i. 35, John viii. 40, Acts ii. 22, 1 Tim. ii. 5; while Hippolytus argues against them on the ground that in John i. 14, it is not τὸ πνεῦμα but ὁ λόγος σάρξ ἐγένετο. No sure traces, however, can be discovered in any of these N. T. passages of their supposed trenchant criticism of the text. The most probable instance is Luke i. 35. “If we may trust the statement of Epiphanius,” says Harnack (Monarchianismus, PRE³, x. 188), “Theodotus wished to separate the second half of the sentence from the first (διὸ καὶ τὸ γεννώμενον ἐκ σοῦ ἅγιον κληθήσεται, υἱὸς Θεοῦ),^[199] as 202if the words διὸ καὶ were wanting, which makes the sentence imply that the divine Sonship of Christ rests on his approving himself. But perhaps Theodotus omitted διὸ καὶ altogether, just as he seems to have read πνεῦμα κυρίου instead of πνεῦμα ἅγιον, in order to obviate all ambiguity.” The latter reading is not mentioned in Tischendorf, and the remark of Epiphanius in my opinion amounts to this, that whereas he understood ἅγιον to be the subject of the sentence, Theodotus made it the predicate and separated it from γεννώμενον.^[200]

Marcosians.

(3) Speaking of the Marcosians,^[201] Irenæus says (92):—Ἔνια δὲ καὶ τῶν ἐν Εὐαγγελίῳ κειμένων εἰς τοῦτον τὸν χαρακτῆρα μεθαρμόζουσιν ... ἀλλὰ καὶ ἐν τῷ εἰρηκέναι· πολλάκις ἐπεθύμησα ἀκοῦσαι ἕνα τῶν λόγων καὶ οὐκ ἔσχον τὸν ἐροῦντα, ἐμφαίνοντός φασι δεῖν διὰ τοῦ ἑνὸς τὸν 203ἀληθῶς ἕνα Θεόν. This seems to contain a reference to Matt. xiii. 17, but what is complained of is a false interpretation of the words of Scripture rather than an actual alteration of the text itself.^[202] The still earlier passage, Polycarp vii. 1, is also to be taken as referring to this practice, ὃς ἂν μεθοδεύῃ τὰ λόγια τοῦ Κυρίου πρὸς τὰς ἰδίας ἐπιθυμίας καὶ λέγῃ μήτε ἀνάστασιν μήτε κρίσιν [εἶναι], οὗτος πρωτότοκός ἐστι τοῦ Σατανᾶ. For the exposition of the passage see Zahn, GK. i. 842.

Basilides.

(4) That Basilides^[203] altered the text of the Gospels as received by the Church in accordance with his own religious and ethical views, and incorporated them in their altered form in his Evangelium, is shown by Zahn on Matt. xix. 10-12 (GK. i. 771). He shows also that the form into which Basilides cast the Synoptic narrative may have prepared the way for the belief that Simon the Cyrenian was crucified instead of Jesus, if this was really his doctrine.

Noëtus.

(5) Hippolytus says of Noëtus (Lagarde’s edition, 45, 19): ὁπόταν γὰρ θελήσωσιν πανουργεύεσθαι, περικόπτουσι τὰς γραφάς. He means by this, according to Zahn, that the Noetians garbled their quotations, and made selections of Scriptural sayings without paying regard to the context. But compare ibid., line 7 ff., αἱ μὲν γὰρ γραφαὶ ὀρθῶς λέγουσιν, ἀλλὰ ἂν καὶ Νόητος νοῇ· οὐκ ἤδη δὲ εἰ Νόητος μὴ νοεῖ, παρὰ τοῦτο ἔκβλητοι αἱ γραφαί.

Valentinians.

(6) Heracleon,^[204] the Valentinian, is said to have read πέντε instead of ἕξ in John ii. 20, but whether he made the alteration himself or found the former reading in his exemplar is not clearly made out. There is no notice of the variant in Tischendorf, Baljon, or in our commentaries. It is mentioned by Scrivener, Introd., ii. 260, n. 3, where reference is made to Lightfoot’s Colossians, p. 336, n. 1. Origen, commenting on John i. 28, cites Heracleon in support of the reading “Bethany,” which, he says, “is found in almost all the manuscripts.”

In contrast to the Marcionites and their practice of mutilating the Scriptures, Irenæus says of the Valentinians (iii. 12, 12): scripturas quidem confitentur, interpretationes vero convertunt, quemadmodum ostendimus in primo libro. There we read (i. 3, 6): καὶ οὐ μόνον ἐκ τῶν εὐαγγελικῶν καὶ τῶν ἀποστολικῶν πειρῶνται τὰς ἀποδείξεις ποιεῖσθαι παρατρέποντες τὰς ἑρμηνείας καὶ ῥᾳδιουργοῦντες τὰς ἐξηγήσεις, ἀλλὰ καὶ ἐκ νόμου καὶ προφητῶν. But in i. 11, 9 he says of them: Illi vero qui sunt a Valentino ... suas conscriptiones proferentes, plura habere 204gloriantur quam sint ipsa evangelia, siquidem in tantum processerunt audaciae, uti quod ab his non olim scriptum est, “veritatis evangelium” titulent, in nihilo conveniens apostolorum evangeliis, ut nec evangelium sit apud eos sine blasphemia. For the continuation and discussion of the passage, see Zahn, GK. ii. 748. See also Westcott, Canon, p. 298 ff.

Zahn (GK. ii. 755) endeavours to show that they corrected the text of the manuscripts, by the omission of ὑπὲρ αὐτῶν, e.g., in 1 Cor. xv. 29, and the insertion of θεότητες in Col. i. 16.

In i. 8, 1, Irenæus accuses them of ἐξ ἀγράφων ἀναγινώσκοντες καὶ τὸ δὴ λεγόμενον ἐξ ἄμμου σχοίνια πλέκεις ἐπιτηδεύοντες. The proverb is from Ahikar.

The well-known charge made by Celsus (Orig. con. Cels., 2, 27; Koetschau, i. 156) and the answer of Origen refer partly to the re-writing of manuscripts and partly to their alteration: Μετὰ ταῦτά τινας τῶν πιστευόντων φησὶν (Celsus) ὡς ἐκ μέθης ἥκοντας εἰς τὸ ἐφεστάναι αὑτοῖς μεταχαράττειν ἐκ τῆς πρώτης γραφῆς τὸ εὐαγγέλιον τριχῇ καὶ τετραχῇ καὶ πολλαχῇ, ἵν’ ἔχοιεν πρὸς τοὺς ἐλέγχους ἀρνεῖσθαι. Μεταχαράξαντας δὲ τὸ εὐαγγέλιον ἄλλους οὐκ οἶδα ἢ τοὺς ἀπὸ Μαρκίωνος καὶ τοὺς ἀπὸ Οὐαλεντίνου οἶμαι δὲ καὶ τοὺς ἀπὸ Λουκιάνου. Τοῦτο δὲ λεγόμενον οὐ τοῦ λόγου ἐστὶν ἔγκλημα ἀλλὰ τῶν τολμησάντων ῥᾳδιουργῆσαι τὰ εὐαγγέλια. Καὶ ὥσπερ οὐ φιλοσοφίας ἔγκλημά εἰσιν οἱ σοφισταὶ ἢ οἱ Ἐπικούρειοι ἢ οἱ Περιπατητικοὶ ἢ οἵτινές ποτ’ ἂν ὦσιν οἱ ψευδοδοξοῦντες, οὕτως οὐ τοῦ ἀληθινοῦ χριστιανισμοῦ ἔγκλημα οἱ μεταχαράττοντες τὰ εὐαγγέλια καὶ αἱρέσεις ξένας ἐπεισάγοντες τῷ βουλήματι τῆς Ἰησοῦ διδασκαλίας.

Gnostics.

(7) Clement (Strom., iii. 39) complains that the Gnostics corrupted the sense of the Scriptures both by arbitrarily misplacing the emphasis (in oral delivery) and by altering the punctuation (in copying manuscripts?); see Zahn, GK. i. 424. On Tertullian’s complaint as to the way in which Marcion construed Luke xx. 35, see below, p. 276.

(8) Clement (Strom., iv. 41) quotes Matt. v. 10a, to which he annexes the reason found in verse 9b, and then goes on to say, ἢ ὥς τινες τῶν μετατιθέντων τὰ εὐαγγέλια, Μακάριοι, φησίν, οἱ δεδιωγμένοι ὑπὲρ τῆς δικαιοσύνης, ὅτι αὐτοὶ ἔσονται τέλειοι. Zahn (GK. i. p. 411) makes the surmise that when Clement spoke of certain persons who “transposed” or altered the Gospels—i.e., took liberties with the text, he may have been thinking of Tatian, whose personal intercourse he may have enjoyed for a length of time, and with whose Greek writings he shows himself to be familiar.

Simon Magus and the Marcionites.

205(9) In an Arabic Introduction to a collection of alleged Nicene Canons particular stress is laid upon the falsification of the Scriptures by heretics. The Emperor Constantine is represented as addressing the Fathers at Nicæa, and enjoining them, in dealing with heretics, to distinguish between those who reject and falsify the holy Scriptures and those who merely interpret them falsely. The arch-heretic Simon Magus already appears as a fabricator of spurious Scripture. His sect possessed an Evangelium in four books, to which they gave the title “Liber quatuor angulorum et cardinum mundi.” The Phocalites (Kukiani) retained the Old Testament, but in place of the Church’s New Testament they had one manufactured by themselves, in which the twelve Apostles bore barbaric names. It is said of the Marcionites: Sacras scripturas quibusdam in locis commutarunt addideruntque Evangelio et Epistolis Pauli apostoli quibusdam in locis, quaedam vero loca mutilarunt. Apostolorum Actus e medio omnino sustulerunt, alium substituentes Actorum librum, qui faveret opinionibus ac dogmatibus, illumque nuncuparunt “Librum propositi finis.” See Zahn, GK. ii. 448, where reference is made to Mansi, Conc. Coll., ii. (Flor., 1759), 947-1082; Hefele, Conciliengeschichte, 2nd. ed., i. 361-368, 282 f.; Harnack, Der Ketzer-Katalog des Bischofs Maruta von Maipherkat, TU. (New Series), iv., 1899; ThLz., 1899, 2.

Arians.

(10) Ambrose says on John iii. 6 (De Spiritu, iii. 10): Quem locum ita expresse, Ariani, testificamini esse de Spiritu, ut eum de vestris codicibus auferatis. Atque utinam de vestris et non etiam de Ecclesiae codicibus tolleretis. Eo enim tempore quo impiae infidelitatis Auxentius Mediolanensem Ecclesiam armis exercituque occupaverat, vel a Valente atque Ursatis nutantibus sacerdotibus suis incursabatur Ecclesia Sirmiensis, falsum hoc et sacrilegium vestrum in Ecclesiasticis codicibus deprehensum est. Et fortasse hoc etiam in oriente fecistis.

Greeks.

(11) Ambrosiaster has the following note on Rom. v. 14 (Migne, xvii. 100 f.): Et tamen sic (i.e. μὴ ἁμαρτήσαντες) praescribitur nobis de graecis codicibus, quasi non ipsi ab invicem discrepent, quod facit studium contentionis. Quia enim propria quis auctoritate uti non potest ad victoriam, verba legis adulterat, ut sensum suis quasi verba legis asserat, ut non ratio sed auctoritas praescribere videatur. Constat autem porro olim quosdam latinos de veteribus graecis translatos (esse) codicibus, quos incorruptos simplicitas temporum servavit et probat: postquam autem a concordia animis discedentibus et haereticis perturbantibus torqueri quaestionibus coeperunt, multa immutata 206sunt ad sensum humanum, ut hoc contineretur in litteris quod homini videretur, unde etiam ipsi Graeci diversos codices habent. Hoc autem verum arbitror, quando et ratio et historia et auctoritas observatur: nam hodie quae in latinis reprehenduntur codicibus, sic inveniuntur a veteribus posita, Tertulliano, Victorino, et Cypriano. The correction “hodie quae” for “hodieque” in the last sentence is due to Haussleiter, Forschungen, iv. 32. The passage is also interesting as being the earliest instance known to me of the collocation of ratio and auctoritas as the two arbiters in theological disputes. Compare the frequent combination of the two by Luther in his earlier polemics—e.g. against Prierias, and also later in his protest at Worms.

Again, Ambrosiaster says on Gal. ii. 1, with reference to Acts xv. 20, 29: Quae sophistae Graecorum non intelligentes, scientes tamen a sanguine abstinendum adulterant scripturam, quartum mandatum addentes “et a suffocatis observandum,” quod puto nec ne Dei nutu intellecturi sunt, quia iam supra dictum est, quod addiderunt.

Marcion.

(g) Marcion.—We have more exact information in regard to Marcion’s great undertaking than to these slender attempts at textual criticism. Here there is a fuller stream of testimony both in the Greek and Latin Fathers. It must be confessed, however, that hitherto attention has been directed more to his position in the matter of the Canon generally than to his work on the text of the New Testament. Here again, the works of Zahn throw most light upon the subject; in other works, like the PRE e.g., this side of Marcion’s activity is very superficially treated. Several points have already been referred to here and there in the previous part of this work, but the question must now be treated as a whole.^[205]

207In the opening sentence of his examination of Marcion’s New Testament, Zahn avers that no church teacher of the second century occupies such an important position in the history of the ecclesiastical canon as does that early writer. If this is really so, it becomes all the more important for us to inquire whether traces of his influence may not be discoverable also in our witnesses to the text of the New Testament.

His New Testament.

Marcion’s New Testament, which was at the same time his entire Bible, consisted of two books of moderate compass—viz. a Gospel-Book, which he seems to have called Εὐαγγέλιον simply, and a collection of ten Pauline Epistles called, probably by himself, τὸ Ἀποστολικὸν (sc. βιβλίον). The Epistles were arranged in an order which was evidently thought to correspond to that of their composition—viz., Gal., 1 and 2 Cor., Rom., 1 and 2 Thess., Laodicenos (= Ephes.), Col., Phil., Phm. He was unanimously accused by the Church teachers of having mutilated the ecclesiastical Bible in the manufacture of his own, and also of having corrupted the text here and there by means of interpolations, particularly in the case of Luke, which was the only Gospel he admitted. They complained that he used not the pen but the knife (only he used it for a purpose the opposite of that for which the scissors are employed nowadays), and the sponge, and also that he deleted not words merely but whole pages. They compared his work upon the manuscripts to that of a mouse.^[206] And as for his disciples! Every day they were improving their Gospel. Seeing that he himself had not gone so far as to erase the writings of Paul altogether, his disciples continued his work, and removed whatever did not concur with their views.^[207] 208But according to testimony extending over a long stretch of time, their text of the Scriptures seems to have undergone fewer alterations during that period than that of the Catholic Church (Zahn, GK. i. 613). In comparing the text of these two collections “it should be clearly understood that the Church’s text, whose treatment by Marcion is in question, is not to be identified with that of our Bible Societies, or of Tischendorf, or of Epiphanius, but was such a text as Marcion found in the Catholic Church or in the Roman community about the year 150. The text of the ecclesiastical exemplar on which Marcion based his labours can no longer be restored in every word, but sufficient means are at our command to give us a general idea of the form which the text of the Pauline Epistles presented in the second century, and at the same time to ascertain in many separate instances what text Marcion had before him. It turns out in many cases that what seems strange in Marcion’s text to one who compares it with the textus receptus, or with one of our modern critical editions, without knowing much about the history of the text, is by no means peculiar to Marcion, but was pretty common in the West in early times. Now it is quite inconceivable, in view of the implacable hostility of the Church to Marcion, that his text, condemned as it was unceasingly as being heretical and spurious, should have exerted any positive influence on that of the Church.^[208] It follows, accordingly, that all those things in Marcion’s Bible that seem to the uninitiated to be peculiar to it alone, but which are attested by Catholic manuscripts, versions, and Patristic writers, were not invented by Marcion, but taken by him from the Church’s Bible of that time, or from one such Bible at all events, and were only gradually ousted from the text used by the Church.”^[209] All this, which is taken word for word, with 209the exception of a slight change in the last sentence, from Zahn’s dissertation of the year 1889 (p. 636), should even at that time have been self-evident, but, like Zahn’s further statements in the same place, has not yet been sufficiently attended to, especially in our commentaries on Luke and the Pauline Epistles. He points out, e.g., that Tertullian, in speaking of the change of the address “ad Ephesios” to “Laodicenos,” credits Marcion with the intention of being “et in isto diligentissimus explorator,” so that it is possible that he compared several manuscripts in order to discover the original wording.^[210] In such cases, therefore, the question may be asked whether Marcion may not really have preserved the original text, and whether his text, so far as it is corroborated by any independent tradition, should not be estimated much higher than it is by the textual critics of the present.^[211] Zahn deserves all the more credit for giving such careful attention to questions relating to the text, seeing that the subject of his investigation was merely the history of the canon. He has dealt chiefly with those passages in which Marcion’s intentional alterations have been preserved. |His “Emendations.”| Reference may be made, e.g., to the pages in the first volume of his History, entitled Minor Emendations, wherein it is shown how Marcion, in his hostility to the Old Testament with its God of Righteousness, omitted the quotations from the Old Testament altogether, or dropped the introductory formula of quotation in Rom. i. 17, xii. 19, 2 Cor. iv. 13; excluded all the references to Abraham 210in Galatians except in iv. 22; altered ἀγνοοῦντες τὴν τοῦ θεοῦ δικαιοσύνην in Rom. x. 3 to ἀγνοοῦντες τὸν θεόν; removed the words γενόμενον ἐκ γυναικὸς, γενόμενον ὑπὸ νόμον from Gal. iv. 4; changed the active construction into the passive in 1 Cor. iii. 17; and elsewhere strove after greater condensation, lucidity, and brevity of expression. Marcion, says Zahn, had good grounds for believing that the text of the Scriptures had not remained unchanged during the century that had elapsed since their composition, though that might be said with more truth of the Gospels and the Acts than of the Epistles; but to attempt to rid the Apostle’s text of all supposed corruptions with no regard to any sort of critical material whatever, but depending simply and solely on his own instinctive sense of what was genuinely Christian and apostolic, was the undertaking of a giant, as Irenæus calls Marcion. And his disciples, in a blind veneration of his authority, seem to have exceeded the intention of the master and editor, “just as many Lutherans at the present day look upon Luther’s translation, with all its faults, as the very word of God, and hardly capable of improvement.”