CHAPTER X. RECENT VIEWS OF COMPARATIVE CRITICISM.

Yet is it true that we are thus cast upon the wide ocean without a compass

or a guide? Can no clue be found that may conduct us through the tangled

maze? Is there no other method of settling the text of the New Testament

than by collecting and marshalling and scrutinizing the testimony of

thousands of separate documents, now agreeing, now at issue with each

other:—manuscripts, versions, ecclesiastical writers, whose mutual

connexion and interdependence, as far as they exist (and to some extent

they do and _must_ exist), defy all our skill and industry to detect and

estimate aright? This would surely be a discouraging view of critical

science as applied to the sacred volume, and it is by no means warranted

by proved and admitted facts. Elaborate systems have failed, as might have

been looked for from the first. It was premature to frame them in the

present stage of things, while the knowledge we possess of the actual

contents of our extant authorities is imperfect, vague, and fragmentary;

while our conclusions are liable to be disturbed from time to time by the

rapid accession of fresh materials, of whose character we are still quite

ignorant. But if we be incompetent to devise theories on a grand or

imposing scale, a more modest and a safer course is open. Men of the

present generation may be disqualified for taking a general survey of the

whole domain of this branch of divine learning, who may yet be employed,

serviceably and with honour, in cultivating each one for himself some

limited and humble field of special research, to which his taste, his

abilities, or opportunities have attached him: those persons may usefully

improve a farm, who cannot hope to conquer a kingdom. Out of the long

array of uncollated manuscripts which swell our catalogues, let the

student choose from the mass a few within his reach which he may deem

worthy of complete examination; or exhaust the information some

ecclesiastical writer of the first six centuries can afford; or contribute

what he can to an exact acquaintance with some good ancient version,

ascertaining the genius of its language and (where this is attainable) the

literary history of its text. If, in the course of such quiet toil, he

shall mark (as a patient observer will find cause to mark) resemblances

and affinities more than accidental, between documents of widely different

ages and countries; he will not only be contributing to the common stock

what cannot fail to be available hereafter as raw material, but he will be

helping to solve that great problem which has hitherto in part eluded the

most earnest inquiries, the investigation of the true laws and principles

of COMPARATIVE CRITICISM.

The last-mentioned term has been happily applied by Tregelles to that

delicate and important process, whereby we seek to determine the

_comparative_ value, and trace the mutual relation, of authorities of

every kind upon which the original text of the N. T. is based. Thus

explained (and in this enlarged sense scholars have willingly accepted

it), its researches may be pursued with diligence and interest, without

reference to the maintenance or refutation of any particular system or

scheme of recensions. The mode of procedure is experimental and tentative,

rather than dogmatical; the facts it gradually develops will eventually

(as we trust) put us on the right road, although for the present we meet

with much that is uncertain, perplexing, ambiguous. It has already enabled

critics in some degree to classify the documents with which they have to

deal; it may possibly lead them, at some future period, to the

establishment of principles more general, and therefore more simple, than

we can now conceive likely or even possible to be attained to.

1. In the course of investigations thus difficult and precarious, designed

to throw light on a matter of such vast consequence as the genuine

condition of the text of Scripture, one thing would appear at first sight

almost too clear for argument, too self-evident to be disputed,—that it is

both our wisdom and our duty _to weigh the momentous subject at issue in

all its parts_, shutting out from the mind no source of information which

can reasonably be supposed capable of influencing our decision. Nor can

such a course become less right or expedient because it must perforce

involve us in laborious, extensive, and prolonged examination of a vast

store of varied and voluminous testimony. It is essential that divines

should strive to come to definite conclusions respecting disputed points

of sacred criticism; it is not necessary that these conclusions should be

drawn within a certain limited period, either this year, or even in the

lifetime of our generation. Hence such a plan as that advocated by

Lachmann, for abridging the trouble of investigation by the arbitrary

rejection of the great mass of existing evidence, must needs be condemned

for its rashness by those who think their utmost pains well bestowed in

such a cause; nor can we consistently praise the determination of others,

who, shunning the more obvious errors into which Lachmann fell, yet follow

his example in constructing the text of the N. T. on a foundation somewhat

less narrow, but scarcely more firm than his. As the true science of

Biblical criticism is in real danger of suffering harm from the efforts of

disciples of this school, it cannot be out of place if we examine the

pleas which have been urged in vindication of their scheme, and assign (as

briefly as we may) our reasons for believing that its apologists are but

labouring in vain.

2. _Brevis vita, ars longa._ For this lawful cause, if for no other, the

most ardent student of Biblical criticism would fain embrace some such

system as is advocated by Lachmann and his followers, if only it could be

done in tolerable safety. The process of investigation might thus be

diminished twentyfold, and the whole subject brought within a compass not

too vast for one man’s diligence or the space of an ordinary lifetime. The

simplicity and comparative facility of this process of resorting to the

few for instruction hitherto supposed to be diffused among the many, has

created in its favour a strong and not unnatural prejudice, which has

yielded, so far as it has yet yielded at all, to nothing but the stubborn

opposition of indisputable facts. It will also readily be admitted, that

certain principles, not indeed peculiar to this theory, but brought by it

into greater prominence, are themselves most reasonable and true. No one

will question, for example, that “if the reading of the ancient

authorities in general is unanimous, there can be but little doubt that it

should be followed, whatever may be the later testimonies; for it is most

improbable that the independent testimony of early MSS., versions, and

Fathers should accord with regard to something entirely groundless”

(Tregelles, N. T., Introductory Notice, p. 2). No living man, possessed of

a tincture of scholarship, would dream of setting up testimony exclusively

modern against the unanimous voice of antiquity. The point on which we

insist is briefly this:—that the evidence of ancient authorities is

anything but unanimous; that they are perpetually at variance with each

other, even if we limit the term ancient within the narrowest bounds.

Shall it include, among the manuscripts of the Gospels, none but the five

oldest copies Codd. אABCD(288)? The reader has but to open the first

recent critical work he shall meet with, to see them scarcely ever in

unison; perpetually divided two against three, or perhaps four against

one. All the readings these venerable monuments contain must of course be

_ancient_, or they would not be found where they are; but they cannot all

be true. So again, if our search be extended to the versions and primitive

Fathers, the same phenomenon unfolds itself, to our grievous perplexity

and disappointment. How much is contained in Cureton’s Syriac and the Old

Latin for which no Greek original can now be alleged? Do not the earliest

ecclesiastical writers describe readings as existing and current in their

copies, of which few traces can be met with at present(289)? If the

question be fairly proposed, “What right have we to set virtually aside

the agreement in the main of our oldest uncials, at the distance of one or

two centuries—of which, owing probably to the results of persecution, we

have no MS. remains—with the citations of the primitive Fathers, and with

the earliest versions?”: the answer must be rendered, without hesitation,

_no right whatever_. Where the oldest of these authorities really agree,

we accept their united testimony as practically conclusive. It is not at

all our design to seek our readings from the later uncials, supported as

they usually are by the mass of cursive manuscripts; but to employ their

confessedly secondary evidence in those numberless instances wherein their

elder brethren are hopelessly at variance(290). We do not claim for the

recent documents the high consideration and deference fitly reserved for a

few of the oldest; just as little do we think it right to pass them by in

silence, and allow to them no more weight or importance than if they had

never been written. “There are passages,” to employ the words of a very

competent judge, “where the evidence of the better cursives may be of

substantial use in confirming a good reading, or in deciding us between

two of nearly equal merit to place one in the text and assign the other to

the margin(291).”

3. It may readily be supposed that the very few manuscripts which, being

ancient themselves, are regarded by the school of Lachmann as alone

preserving an ancient and genuine form, have not been selected as

virtually the sole authorities for the settling of the sacred text, except

for reasons which those who thus adopt them regard as weighty, and which

merit at any rate our best consideration before we put them aside as

insufficient. The great uncials, we are told, are treated with so much

deference, not only or chiefly because they are old, but because they have

been rigorously tested and have proved on trial to deserve the confidence

which has been reposed in them. The process of investigation shall now be

stated, as fairly and even favourably as possible. It is not worth while,

as it certainly is not our desire, to snatch a transient advantage by

misrepresenting the views we are controverting. We would rather comprise

in our own system all that is sound and exact in them, while we withstand

the attempt to carry them beyond the limits which they may legitimately

occupy, and refuse to generalize on the strength of facts which are only

partially true.

We have already laid down the axiom admitted by all, that manuscripts of

the original hold the first rank among our critical materials; versions,

and, yet more, the citations of ecclesiastical authors being subordinate

to them. Yet whatever other disadvantages the Patristic writings may

labour under, we are at any rate certain respecting the age in which they

were composed, the works themselves being assumed to be authentic. If

Irenaeus, or Tertullian, or Origen, expressly assure us that particular

words which they name were read in their copies of Scripture, we cannot

withstand their testimony that such words were really found in manuscripts

of the New Testament in the second and third centuries, one or two hundred

years before Codd. אB were in existence. If, therefore, we take a various

reading of the text for which any one of these venerable men has vouched,

and observe that it is supported perhaps by a few manuscripts of various

ages, then by a version or two, especially if they be natives of different

countries, and flow together into the same stream from sources remote from

each other;—the rather too if the reading be plausible and even probable

in itself:—and if, after having formed an opinion that on the whole it

deserves to be respectfully considered, we then turn to א or B, or to

both, and discover the same reading in them also:—not only has the

variation itself made out an urgent case for our acceptance, but the

character of א and B as faithful witnesses is largely enhanced. It is

moreover evident, that if the same method of investigation be pursued many

times over with the same, or something approaching to the same success,

the value of א and B as truthful codices will be proportionally increased.

A single good example of this process will make it yet more intelligible

to the careful student. It shall be one that has been chosen for the

purpose by more than one of the advocates of the system we are on the

whole opposing. Of the two forms in which the Lord’s Prayer is delivered

to us, Matt. vi. 13 has the clause ἀλλὰ ῥῦσαι ἡμᾶς ἀπὸ τοῦ πονηροῦ in

every known authority: in Luke xi. 4 the case is far otherwise. That

Tertullian, when citing the words before and after it, should take no

notice of it, would of itself prove little. Origen, however, once passes

it by in like manner, once more expressly declares that it was not in St.

Luke (παρὰ τῷ Λουκᾷ σεσιώπηται), a third time explains in his most happy

manner why it was omitted by the one Evangelist, inserted by the other.

The question thus raised sets us upon the inquiry what other evidence we

have for rejecting the clause in St. Luke. It appears to be wanting in

several Greek manuscripts, such as L, 1, 22, 57, 130 both Greek and Latin,

131, 226*, 237, 242, 426, 582, 604, and in the catenas annexed to 36, 237,

239, 253, 259, 426; several of these codices (as 57, 226, 242) not being

much found in such company. It is absent from the Vulgate version, and

apparently from some forms of the Old Latin, the rather as Augustine says

that St. Luke gives five petitions in the Lord’s Prayer, St. Matthew

seven, and attributes the omission of our clause to some such reason as

Origen had assigned. It is omitted also in the Armenian version, which,

except for the later translation by Sahak from Syriac, might be supposed

to differ _toto caelo_ from the Latin in country and genius. The list is

closed by the younger Cyril, a pure witness from another region, very

different lines of evidence thus converging into one. Then comes the

probability that if one of the Gospels contained the Lord’s Prayer in a

shorter form than the other, nothing was so likely as that a scribe in

perfect innocence would supply what he considered an undoubted defect,

without staying to reflect with Origen and Augustine that the two were

delivered on different occasions, to different classes of persons, with

different ends in view. Turning therefore now, with a strong case already

made out for the omission of the clause, to א and B, which have been

hitherto kept out of sight, we find that B has not the disputed words at

all, nor had א by the first hand, but in one three centuries later. The

clear result, so far as it goes, is at once to vindicate the claim of אB

to high consideration, and to make out a formidable case against the

genuineness of the six words involved. We say advisedly a formidable, not

necessarily a fatal case, for the counter evidence is still very strong,

and comes as much as that alleged above from different quarters, being

also as early as widely diffused. It consists of Codd.

ACDEFGHKMR(292)SUVΓΔΛΠ, of all cursives not named above, of the Old Latin

_b_ _c_ _f_ _ff_ _i_ _l_ _q_, whereof _f_ mostly goes with the Vulgate

(_hiant a e_), the Bohairic, Peshitto, Curetonian, Harkleian Syriac (the

Jerusalem not containing this week-day Lesson), and the Ethiopic versions.

So far as this side as stated is weak at all, it lacks Patristic evidence

(which cannot now be investigated for our purpose), and the balance of

internal evidence is decidedly adverse to it.

4. The student may try the same experiments on two other passages often

urged in this debate, Matt. v. 22, for which he will find the materials

above, p. 255, and Matt. xix. 17, which will be discussed in Chap. XII. We

freely admit that these are but a few out of many cases where the

statements of ancient writers about whose date there can be no question

are borne out by the readings of the more ancient codices, especially of א

or B, or of the two united. Undoubtedly this circumstance lends a weight

and authority to these manuscripts, and to the few which side with them,

which their mere age would not procure for them: it does not entitle them

to be regarded as virtually the only documents worthy of being consulted

in the recension of the sacred text; as qualifying to be sole arbiters in

critical questions relating to the New Testament, against whose decision

there can be no appeal. Yet nothing less than this is claimed in behalf of

one or two of them by their devoted admirers. In a court of justice, we

are told, when once the evidence of a witness has been thoroughly probed

and tested, it is received thenceforth as true, even on those points where

it stands alone, and in the face of strong antecedent improbabilities. Now

reasoning in metaphor has its advantages, as well for the sake of clearly

expressing our meaning, as of making an impression on those we address;

but it is attended with this grave inconvenience, that, since the analogy

between no two things that can be compared is quite complete, we are

sorely tempted to apply to the one of them properties which appertain

exclusively to the other. In the present instance, besides the properties

wherein documentary can be assimilated to oral testimony, such as general

accuracy and means of information, an important element is present in the

latter, to which the former has nothing parallel, namely, moral character,

that full persuasion of a witness’s good faith and disinterested integrity

to which a jury will often surrender, and rightly surrender, all earlier

impressions and predilections. Of this we can have nothing in the case of

the manuscripts of Scripture which we now possess. In the second century

we have seen too many instances of attempts to tamper with the text of

Scripture, some merely injudicious, others positively dishonest; but all

this was over long before the scribes of the fourth and fifth centuries

began their happy task, as simple and honest copyists of the older records

placed before them. Let their testimony be received with attention at all

times; let it be accepted as conclusive whensoever there are no grave

reasons to the contrary, but let not their paramount authority shut out

all other considerations, external and internal, which might guide us to

the true reading of a passage; nor let us be so illogical as to conclude,

because א and B are sometimes right, that therefore they never are in the

wrong(293).

The results of this excessive and irrational deference to one of our chief

codices, that which he was so fortunate as to bring to the light

twenty-five years ago, appears plainly in Tischendorf’s eighth edition of

the New Testament. That great critic had never been conspicuous for

stability of judgement. His third edition was constructed almost without

any reference to the cursive manuscripts, which, unless they be, what no

one asserts or imagines, merely corrupt copies, or copies of copies, of

existing uncials, must needs be the representatives of yet older codices

which have long since perished: “respectable ancestors” (as one has

quaintly put the matter) “who live only in their descendants” (Long,

Ciceronis Verrin. Orat., Praef. p. vi)(294). In Tischendorf’s seventh

edition, completed in 1859, that error was rectified, and the sum of

textual variations between the third and seventh edition in consequence

amounted to 1296, in no less than 595 of which (430 of the remainder being

mere matters of spelling) he returned to the readings of the Received

text, which he had before deserted, but to which fresh materials and

larger experience had brought him back(295). In the eighth edition another

disturbing element is introduced, and that edition differs from his

seventh in as many as 3369 places, to the scandal of the science of

Comparative Criticism, as well as to his own grave discredit for

discernment and consistency. The evidence of Cod. א, supported or even

unsupported by one or two authorities of any description, proved with him

sufficient to outweigh all other witnesses, whether manuscripts, versions,

or ecclesiastical writers.

The foregoing examination will probably have satisfied the student that we

have no right to regard Cod. B as a second Infallible Voice proceeding

from the Vatican, which, when it has once spoken, must put an end to all

strife. Yet nothing less than this is claimed for it by writers, who yet

have bestowed much thought and labour on this controversy. “Seeing that

the Vatican manuscript does not contain one single passage that can be

demonstrated to be spurious, or that by the evidence of other manuscripts

and of the context, admits of just doubt as to its authenticity, a

position that no other manuscript enjoys, man is bound to accept the

testimony of that manuscript alone, as his present text of the sacred

record, wherever he possesses its teaching(296).” I am not sure whether,

if we conceded this writer’s premisses, we should be bound to accept his

conclusion; but the easiest way of disposing of his argument, as well as

of that of persons, who, in heart agreeing with him, would hardly like to

enunciate their principle so broadly, is presently to lay before the

student a few readings of Cod. B, either standing alone, or supported by א

and others, respecting whose authenticity, or rather genuineness, some of

us must be forgiven if we cherish considerable doubts. It is right,

however, to declare that this discussion is forced upon us through no wish

to dissemble the great value of the Codex Vaticanus, which in common with

our opponents we regard as the most weighty single authority that we

possess, but entirely by way of unavoidable protest against a claim for

supremacy set up in its behalf, which can belong of right to no existing

document whatsoever.

5. But indeed the theories of preceding critics, as well as the practical

application of those theories to the sacred text, have been thrown into

the shade by the more recent and elaborate publications of Drs. Hort and

Westcott, briefly noticed in a preceding chapter, and claiming in this

place our serious attention(297).

The system on which their text has been constructed has been vindicated,

so far as vindication was possible, in Dr. Hort’s “Introduction,” a very

model of earnest reasoning, calling for and richly rewarding the close and

repeated study of all who would learn the utmost that can be done for

settling the text of the New Testament on dogmatic principles. The germ of

this theory can be traced in the speculations of Bentley and Griesbach;

its authors would confess themselves on many points disciples of Lachmann,

although their process of investigation is far more artificial than his.

But there is little hope for the stability of their imposing structure, if

its foundations have been laid on the sandy ground of ingenious

conjecture: and since barely the smallest vestige of historical evidence

has ever been alleged in support of the views of these accomplished

editors, their teaching must either be received as intuitively true, or

dismissed from our consideration as precarious, and even visionary. This

much said by way of preface, we will endeavour to state the principles

they advocate, as fairly and concisely as we can.

(α) The books of the New Testament, even the Holy Gospels themselves,

could not well have been collected into one volume till some time after

the death of St. John. During this early period, each portion of the

inspired record would be circulated separately, until at length the four

Gospels would be brought together in one book or Quaternion, and, since

each component member had to receive a distinctive appellation, the

simplest and the earliest headings would ascribe them to their respective

authors, κατὰ Ματθαῖον, κατὰ Μάρκον, κ.τ.λ., the general title of the four

being Εὐαγγέλιον. “It is quite uncertain to what extent the whole N. T.

was ever included in a single volume in Ante-Nicene times” (Hort,

Introduction, pp. 223, 268), only that the Gospels had certainly been

collected together when Justin Martyr wrote his first Apology between A.D.

139 and 150, inasmuch as he appeals thrice over to the Memoirs of the

Apostles, which he once identifies with the Gospels (οἱ ἀπόστολοι ἐν τοῖς

γενομένοις ὑπ᾽ ἀυτῶν ἀπομνημονεύμασιν ἃ καλεῖται εὐαγγέλια). Justin’s

disciple Tatian, again, composed a Harmony of the Four (Διὰ τεσσάρων),

respecting the precise nature of which we have recently gained very

seasonable information. “The idea, if not the name, of a collective

‘Gospel’ is implied throughout the well-known passage in the third book of

Irenaeus, who doubtless received it from earlier generations” (Hort, p.

321). Hence it is not unreasonable to suspect that our great codices

(אABC), which originally contained the whole N. T., may have been

transcribed in their several parts from copies differing from each other

in genius and in date. With such a possibility before us we ought not to

be perplexed if the character of the text whether of Cod. A or of Cod. B

differs in the Gospels from that which it bears in the Acts and the

Epistles; or if Cod. C in the Apocalypse, and Cod. Δ in St. Mark, as has

been already explained under those MSS., appear to belong to a family or

group apart from that of the rest of their respective codices.

(β) At this remote period, during the first half of the second century,

must have originated the wide variations from the prevailing text on the

part of our primary authorities, both manuscripts and versions, which

survive in Cod. Bezae of the Greek, and in the Old Latin codices or at

least in some of them. The text they exhibit is distinguished as Western,

and they have been joined by a powerful ally, the Curetonian Syriac.

Critics of every school agree in admitting the primitive existence of this

Western recension, and in their estimate of its general spirit. “The

earliest readings which can be fixed chronologically belong to it... But

any prepossessions in its favour that might be created by this imposing

early ascendency are for the most part soon dissipated by continuous study

of its internal character” (Hort, p. 120). “The chief and most constant

characteristic of the Western readings is a love of paraphrase. Words,

clauses, and even whole sentences were changed, omitted, and inserted with

astonishing freedom, wherever it seemed that the meaning could be brought

out with greater force and definiteness” (_ibid._ p. 122). “Another

equally important characteristic is a disposition to enrich the text at

the cost of its purity by alterations or additions taken from traditional

and perhaps from apocryphal and other non-biblical sources” (_ibid._ p.

123). Especially may we note among other interpolations the long passage

after Matt. xx. 28 which we cited above, Vol. I. p. 8.

(γ) We now come to the feature which distinguishes Dr. Hort’s system from

any hitherto propounded; by the acceptance or non-acceptance of which his

whole edifice must stand or fall. He seems to exaggerate the force of

extant evidence when he judges that the corrupt Western “was the more

widely-spread text of Ante-Nicene times” (_ibid._ p. 120); but he tacitly

assumes that many codices, versions, and ecclesiastical writers remained

free from its malignant influence. The evidence of this latter class was

preserved comparatively pure until the middle of the third century, when

it was taken in hand, at some time between A.D. 250 and 350, “at what date

it is impossible to say with confidence, and even for conjecture the

materials are scanty” (_ibid._ p. 137), by the Syrian bishops and Fathers

of the Patriarchate of Antioch, who undertook (1) “an authoritative

revision at Antioch” of the Greek text, which (2) was then taken as a

standard for a similar authoritative revision of the Syriac text, and (3)

was itself at a later time subjected to a second authoritative revision,

carrying out more completely the purposes of the first (_ibid._ p. 137).

Of this twofold authoritative revision of the Greek text, of this formal

transmutation of the Curetonian Syriac into the Peshitto (for this is what

Dr. Hort means, though his language is a little obscure), although they

must have been of necessity public acts of great Churches in ages

abounding in Councils General or Provincial, not one trace remains in the

history of Christian antiquity; no one writer seems conscious that any

modification either of the Greek Scriptures or of the vernacular

translation was made in or before his time. It is as if the Bishops’ Bible

had been thrust out of the English Church service and out of the studies

of her divines, and the Bible of 1611 had silently taken its place, no one

knew how, or when, or why, or indeed that any change whatever had been

made. Yet regarding his speculative conjecture as undubitably true, Dr.

Hort proceeds to name the text as it stood before his imaginary era of

transfusion a _Pre-Syrian_ text, and that into which it was changed,

sometimes _Antiochian_, more often _Syrian_(298); while of the latter

recension, though made deliberately, as our author believes, by the

authoritative voice of the Eastern Church, he does not shrink from

declaring that “all distinctively Syrian readings must be at once

rejected” (_ibid._ p. 119), thus making a clean sweep of all critical

materials, Fathers, versions, manuscripts uncial or cursive, comprising

about nineteen-twentieths of the whole mass, which do not correspond with

his preconceived opinion of what a correct text ought to be (_ibid._ p.

163).

(δ) But one or two steps yet remain in this thorough elimination of

useless elements. A few authorities still survive which are honoured as

_Pre-Syrian_, and continued unaffected by the phantom revisions, which,

for critical purposes, have reduced their colleagues to ignominious

silence. Besides the Western, Dr. Hort has in reserve two other groups,

the Alexandrian and the Neutral. The former retains a text essentially

pure from Syrian (though not from Western) mixture, but its component

members are portentously few in number, being tolerably void of corruption

as regards the substance, with “no incorporation of matter extraneous to

the canonical text of the Bible, and no habitual or extreme license of

paraphrase ... the changes made having usually more to do with language

than with matter, and being marked by an effort after correctness of

phrase” (_ibid._ p. 131). There are no unmixed vouchers for this

Non-Western, Pre-Syrian, Alexandrian class, though Cyril of Alexandria

seems to come the nearest to purity (_ibid._ p. 141), then Origen,

occasionally other Alexandrian Fathers, also the Sahidic, and especially

the Bohairic version (_ibid._ p. 131). No extant MS. has preserved so many

Alexandrian readings as Cod. L (_ibid._ p. 153). Cod. C has some, T and Ξ

more: in the Gospels they are chiefly marked by the combination אCLXZ, 33

(_ibid._ p. 166). In Cod. A, for the Acts and Epistles, the Alexandrian

outnumber both the Syrian and Western readings (Hort, p. 152), but they

all are mere degenerations so far as they depart from Dr. Hort’s standard

(ε) The _Neutral_ type of text: so called because it is free from the

glaring corruption of the Western, from the smooth assimilations of the

Syrian, and from the grammatical purism of the Alexandrian. Only two

documents come under this last head, Codd. B and א, and of these two, when

they differ, B is preferable to א, which has a not inconsiderable Western

element, besides that the scribe’s bold and rough manner has rendered “all

the ordinary lapses due to rapid and careless transcription more numerous”

than in B (_ibid._ p. 246). Yet, with certain slight exceptions which he

carefully specifies, it is our learned author’s belief “(1) that the

readings of אB should be accepted as the true readings until strong

internal evidence is found to the contrary, and (2) that no readings of אB

can safely be rejected absolutely, though it is sometimes right to place

them only on an alternative footing, especially where they receive no

support from Versions and Fathers” (_ibid._ p. 225): and this their

pre-eminence, in our critic’s judgement, “is due to the extreme, and, as

it were, primordial antiquity of the common original from which the

ancestries of the two MSS. have diverged, the date of which cannot be

later than the earlier part of the second century, and may well be yet

earlier” (_ibid._ p. 223).

That אB should thus lift up their heads against all the world is much,

especially having regard to the fact that several versions and not a few

Fathers are older than they: for, while we grant that a simple patristic

citation, standing by itself, is of little value, yet when the context or

current of exposition renders it clear what reading these writers had

before them, they must surely for that passage be equivalent as

authorities to a manuscript of their own age. Nor will Dr. Hort allow us

to make any deduction from the weight of the united testimony of אB by

reason of the curious fact, demonstrated as well to his satisfaction

(Hort, p. 213) as to our own, that the scribe of B was the actual writer

of parts of three distinct quires, forming three pairs of conjugate leaves

of א (_see_ above, p. 96, note 1); but on this head we think he will find

few readers to agree with him. His devotion to Cod. B when it stands alone

is of necessity far more intelligent than that of the unnamed writer

mentioned already, yet we believe that his implied confidence is scarcely

the less misplaced. He is very glad when he can to find friends for his

favourite, and discusses with great care the several binary combinations,

such as BL, BC, BT, Bι, BD (which last, indeed, is unsafe enough), AB, BZ,

B 33 or BΔ (for St. Mark) in the Gospels; AB, BC, &c., in the rest of the

N. T. (Hort, p. 227). He does not disparage the _subsingular_ readings of

B, meaning by this convenient, perhaps novel, term, the agreement of B

with “inferior Greek MSS., Versions, or Fathers, or combinations of

documentary evidence of these kinds” (_ibid._ p. 230). But, when the worst

comes to the worst, and Cod. B is left absolutely alone, its advocates

need not despair, inasmuch as no readings of that manuscript, not

involving clerical error (and “the scribe reached by no means a high

standard of accuracy,” _ibid._ p. 233), must be lightly or hastily

rejected, so powerfully do they commend themselves on their own merits

(_ibid._ p. 238). This transcendent excellency, however, belongs to it

chiefly in the Gospels. In the Acts and Catholic Epistles, if the value of

A increases as has been said, that of B is somewhat diminished; while in

the Pauline Epistles a “local Western element of B” (Hort, p. 240) brings

it into the less reputable company of DFG or even of D alone. Hence in the

formation of Westcott and Hort’s Pauline text we sometimes meet with what

appears the paradoxical result that the evidence of B alone is accepted,

while that of B attended by other codices is laid aside as insufficient.

It is very instructive to compare the foregoing sketch of Dr. Hort’s

system, brief and inadequate, yet not we trust unfair, as it is, with the

theory of Griesbach, for whose labours and genius we share much of his

successor’s veneration. As regards the modification of text called Western

their views are nearly identical, only that Griesbach was necessarily

ignorant of such important constituents of it as the Curetonian Syriac and

the Old Latin codices which have come to light since his day, and thus was

exempted from the temptation to which Dr. Hort has unhappily yielded, of

believing that Codd. אB, with all their comparative purity, represent a

primitive text already corrupted by certain accretions from which the

Western copies were free (_see_ below, p. 299 and note 1): a violent

supposition which seriously impairs the homogeneousness and

self-consistency of his whole argument (Hort, pp. 175-6). Griesbach’s

Alexandrian class includes not only that which Dr. Hort understands by the

name, but the later critic’s _Neutral_ class also, which indeed we fail to

distinguish from the other by any marked peculiar characteristics. The

more mixed text which Griesbach called Constantinopolitan, and which is

represented by Cod. A in the Gospels, in part by Cod. C, the Latin

Vulgate, and later authorities, differs from Dr. Hort’s Syrian in much

more than name. Wider and deeper researches have made it evident that

Griesbach’s notion of a gradual modernizing of the text used from the

fourth century downwards in the Patriarchate of Constantinople, would not

adequately account for the phenomena wherewith we have to deal. The

general, almost universal, prevalence of such a departure from the

readings of אB, met with in ecclesiastical writers at least as early in

date as the parchment of those manuscripts themselves, can be explained by

nothing less than a comprehensive, deliberate, authoritative recension of

the sacred books, undertaken by the chief rulers of the Antiochene Church,

accepted throughout that great Patriarchate, yet, in spite of all this,

never noticed even in the way of passing reference by writers of any

description from that period onwards, until its consequences, not its

process, became known to eminent critics in the latter half of the

nineteenth century. Nothing less than the exigency of his case could have

driven our author to encumber himself with a scheme fraught with

difficulties too great even for his skill to overcome.

Dr. Hort’s system, therefore, is entirely destitute of historical

foundation(299). He does not so much as make a show of pretending to it:

but then he would persuade us, as he has persuaded himself, that its

substantial truth is proved by results; and for results of themselves to

establish so very much, they must needs be unequivocal, and admit of no

logical escape from the conclusions they lead up to. But is this really

the case? “Two Members of the New Testament Company” of Revisers, in a

temperate and very able pamphlet, have answered in the affirmative, and

have assigned, after Dr. Hort, but with greater precision than he, _three_

reasons “for the belief that the Syrian text is posterior in origin to

those which he calls Western, Alexandrian, and Neutral” (The Revisers and

the Greek text of the N. T., p. 25). Granting for our present purpose the

reality of this Syrian text, of whose independent existence we have no

direct proof whatever, let us see what the three reasons will amount to.

(α) “The first reason appears to us almost sufficient to settle the

question by itself. It is founded on the observation ... that the Syrian

text presents numerous instances of readings which, according to all

textual probability, must be considered to be combinations of early

readings still extant.”... “The reader will find in Dr. Hort’s own pages

abundant illustration of the fact in eight examples rigorously analyzed,

which seem to supply a proof, as positive as the subject admits, that

Syrian readings are posterior both to Western readings, and to other

readings which may be properly described as Neutral” (_ibid._ pp. 25-6).

But the misfortune is that the subject does not admit of positive proof;

that what appears to one scholar “textual probability,” appears to another

a mere begging of the whole question. These eight examples have been

re-analyzed by Canon Cook (Revised Version, pp. 205-18), and just before

him by the _Quarterly Reviewer_ (Revision Revised, pp. 258-65), writers

not destitute either of learning or of natural acuteness, who would fain

lead us to draw directly opposite inferences from Dr. Hort’s. We will take

but one specimen, the eighth and last, to make our meaning as clear as

possible. “This simple instance,” says Dr. Hort complacently, “needs no

explanation” (Hort, p. 104).

Luke xxiv. 53. καὶ ἦσαν διαπαντὸς ἐν τῷ ἱερῷ, αἰνοῦντες καὶ εὐλογοῦντες

τὸν Θεόν. Thus it stands in the Received text with AC**FHKMSUVXΓΔΛΠ, all

cursives, even those most esteemed by Westcott and Hort, with _c_ _f_ _g_,

the Vulgate, Peshitto and Harkleian Syriac, the Armenian, and Ethiopic

virtually (εὐλογοῦντες καὶ αἰνοῦντες τὸν Θεόν). This is called the Syrian

reading.

The two so-termed Pre-Syrian forms are,

om. αἰνοῦντες καὶ אBCL*, Bohairic (Hort), Jerusalem Syriac. This

is the Neutral and Alexandrian text.

om. καὶ εὐλογοῦντες D, _a_ _b_ _e_ _ff_ _l_, _gat._ _bodl._,

Bohairic (Tischendorf). This is the Western text.

The assumption of course is that the Syrian reading is a _conflation_ of

those of the other two classes, so forming a full but not overburdened

clause. But if this _praejudicium_ be met with the plea that D and the

Latins perpetually, B and its allies very often, seek to abridge the

sacred original, it would be hard to demonstrate that the latter

explanation is more improbable than the former. Beyond this point of

subjective feeling the matter cannot well be carried, whether on one side

or the other.

Dr. Hort’s other examples of conflation have the same double edge as Luke

xxiv. 53, and there is no doubt that Dr. Sanday is right in asserting that

like instances may be found wheresoever they are looked for; but they

prove nothing to any one who has not made up his mind beforehand as to

what the reading ought to be. We have already confessed that there is a

tendency on the part of copyists to assimilate the narratives of the

several Gospels to each other; and that such Harmonies as that of Tatian

would facilitate the process; that synonymous words are liable to be

exchanged and harsh constructions supplied. Part of the value of the older

codices arises from their comparative freedom from such corrections: but

then this modernizing process is on the part of copyists unsystematic,

almost unconscious; it is wholly different from the deliberate formal

emendations implied throughout Dr. Hort’s volume.

(β) The second reason adduced by the _Two Revisers_ “is almost equally

cogent” in their estimation. It is that while the Ante-Nicene Fathers

“place before us from separate and in some cases widely distant countries

examples of Western, Alexandrian, and Neutral readings, it appears to be

certain that before the middle of the third century we have no historical

traces of readings which can properly be entitled distinctively Syrian”

(The Revisers, &c., p. 26). Now the middle of the third century is the

earliest period assigned by Dr. Hort for the inception of his phantom

scheme of Syrian revision, and we feel sure that the epoch of Patristic

evidence was not put thus early, in order to exclude Origen, whose support

of his Alexandrian readings Griesbach found so partial and precarious

(_see_ above, p. 226). In fact Dr. Hort expressly states that “The only

period for which we have anything like a sufficiency of representative

knowledge consists roughly of three-quarters of a century from about 175

to 250: but the remains of four eminent Greek Fathers, which range through

this period, cast a strong light on textual history backward and forward.

They are Irenaeus, of Asia Minor, Rome, and Lyons; his disciple

Hippolytus, of Rome; Clement, of Athens and Alexandria; and his disciple,

Origen, of Alexandria and Palestine” (Hort, p. 112). Even if the extant

writings of these Fathers had been as rigorously examined and as

thoroughly known as they certainly are not, “their scantiness and the

comparative vagueness of the textual materials contained in them”

(_ibid._) would hinder our drawing at present any positive conclusions

regarding the sacred text as known to them. Even the slender specimens of

controverted readings collected in our Chap. XII would suffice to prove

that their evidence is by no means exclusively favourable to Dr. Hort’s

opinions, a fact for which we will allege but one instance out of many,

the support given to the Received text by Hippolytus in that grand

passage, John iii. 13(300).

There are three considerable works relating to the criticism of the N. T.

still open to the enterprise of scholars, and they can hardly be taken up

at all except by the fresh hopefulness of scholars yet young. We need a

fuller and more comprehensive collation of the cursive manuscripts (Hort,

pp. 76-7): “a complete collection of all the fragments of the Thebaic New

Testament is now the most pressing want in the province of textual

criticism,” writes Bp. Lightfoot, and he might have added a better edition

of the Bohairic also: but for the demands of the present controversy we

must set in the first rank the necessity for a complete survey of the

Patristic literature of the first five centuries at the least. While we

concede to Dr. Hort that as a rule “negative patristic evidence”—that

derived from the mere silence of the writer, “is of no force at all”

(Hort, p. 201), and attach very slight importance to citations which are

not express, it is from this source that we must look for any stable

decision regarding the comparative purity in reference to the sacred

autographs of the several classes of documents which have passed under our

review.

(γ) Hence the second reason for supporting the text of Westcott and Hort

urged by the _Two Revisers_ relates to an investigation of facts hitherto

but partially ascertained: the third, like the first, involves only

matters of opinion, in which individual judgements and prepossessions bear

the chief part. “Yet a third reason is supplied by Internal Evidence, or,

in other words, by considerations ... of intrinsic or of Transcriptional

Probability” (The Revisers &c., p. 26): and “here,” they very justly add,

“it is obvious that we enter at once into a very delicate and difficult

domain of textual criticism, and can only draw our conclusions with the

utmost circumspection and reserve” (_ibid._). On the subject of Internal

Evidence enough for our present purpose has been said, and Dr. Hort’s

Transcriptional head appears to be Bp. Ellicott’s _paradiplomatic_ under a

more convenient name. Our author’s discussion of what he calls the

“rudimental criticism” of Internal evidence (Hort, Part ii. pp. 19-72), if

necessarily somewhat abstruse, is one of the most elaborate and

interesting in his admirable volume. It is sometimes said that all

reasoning is analytical, not synthetical; the reducing a foregone

conclusion to the first principles on which it rests, rather than the

building upon those first principles the materials wherewith to construct

the conclusion. Of this portion of Dr. Hort’s labours the _dictum_ is

emphatically true. Cod. B and its characteristic peculiarities are never

out of the author’s mind, and those lines of thought are closely followed

which most readily lead up to the theory of that manuscript’s practical

impeccability. We allege this statement in no disparaging spirit, and it

may be that Dr. Hort will not wholly disagree with us. Not only is he duly

sensible of the precariousness of Intrinsic evidence, inasmuch as “the

uncertainty of the decision in ordinary cases is shown by the great

diversity of judgement which is actually found to exist” (Hort, p. 21),

but he boldly, and no less boldly than truly, intimates that in such cases

the ultimate decision must rest with the individual critic: “in almost all

texts variations occur where personal judgement inevitably takes a large

part in the final decision.... Different minds will be impressed by

different parts of the evidence as clearer than the rest, and so virtually

ruling the rest: here therefore personal discernment would seem the surest

ground for confidence” (_ibid._ p. 65). For the critic’s confidence

perhaps, not for that of his reader.

The process of grouping authorities, whether by considerations of their

geographical distribution or (more uncertainly) according to their

genealogy as inferred from internal considerations (_ibid._ pp. 49-65),

occupies a large measure of Dr. Hort’s attention. The idea has not indeed

originated with him, and its occasional value will be frankly acknowledged

in the ensuing pages, so that on this head we need not further enlarge. In

conclusion we will say, that the more our Cambridge Professor’s

“Introduction” is studied the more it grows upon our esteem for fulness of

learning, for patience of research, for keenness of intellectual power,

and especially for a certain marvellous readiness in accounting after some

fashion for every new phenomenon which occurs, however apparently adverse

to the acceptance of his own theory. With all our reverence for his

genius, and gratitude for much that we have learnt from him in the course

of our studies, we are compelled to repeat as emphatically as ever our

strong conviction that the hypothesis to whose proof he has devoted so

many laborious years, is destitute not only of historical foundation, but

of all probability resulting from the internal goodness of the text which

its adoption would force upon us(301).

This last assertion we will try to verify by subjoining a select number of

those many passages in the N. T. wherein the two great codices א and B,

one or both of them, are witnesses for readings, nearly all of which, to

the best of our judgement, are corruptions of the sacred originals(302).

6. Those who devote themselves to the criticism of the text of the New

Testament have only of late come to understand the full importance of

attending closely to the mutual connexion subsisting between their several

materials of every description, whether manuscripts, versions, or Fathers.

The study of _grouping_ has been recently and not untruly said to be the

foundation of all enduring criticism(303). Now that theories about the

formal recensions of whole classes of these documents have generally been

given up as purely visionary, and the very word _families_ has come into

disrepute by reason of the exploded fancies it recalls, we can discern not

the less clearly that certain groups of them have in common not only a

general resemblance in regard to the readings they exhibit, but

characteristic peculiarities attaching themselves to each group.

Systematic or wilful corruption of the sacred text, at least on a scale

worth taking into account, there would seem to have been almost none; yet

the tendency to licentious paraphrase and unwarranted additions

distinguished one set of our witnesses from the second century downwards;

a bias towards grammatical and critical purism and needless omissions

appertained to another; while a third was only too apt to soften what

might seem harsh, to smooth over difficulties, and to bring passages,

especially of the Synoptic Gospels, into unnatural harmony with each

other. All these changes appear to have been going on without notice

during the whole of the third and fourth centuries, and except that the

great name of Origen is associated (not always happily) with one class of

them, were rather the work of transcribers than of scholars. Eusebius and

Jerome, in their judgements about Scripture texts, are more the echoes of

Origen than independent investigators.

Now, as a first approximation to the actual state of the case, the several

classes of changes which we have enumerated admit of a certain rude

geographical distribution, one of them appertaining to Western Christendom

and the earliest Fathers of the African and Gallic Churches (including

North Italy under the latter appellation); a second to Egypt and its

neighbourhood; the third originally to Syria and Christian Antioch, in

later times to the Patriarchate of Constantinople. We have here, no doubt,

much to remind us of Griesbach and his scheme of triple recensions, but

with this broad distinction between his conclusions and those of modern

critics, that whereas he regarded the existence of his families as a

patent fact, and grounded upon it precise and mechanical rules for the

arrangement of the text, we are now content to perceive no more than

unconscious tendencies, liable to be modified or diverted by a thousand

occult influences, of which in each single case it is impossible to form

an estimate beforehand. Even that marked bias in the direction of adding

to the record, which is the reproach of Codex Bezae and some of its

compeers, and renders the text of the Acts as exhibited by DE, by the

cursive 137, and the margin of the Harkleian Syriac, as unlike that

commonly read as can well be imagined(304), is mixed up with a proneness

to omissions which we should look for rather from another class of

documents (e.g. the rejection of ψευδόμενοι Matt. v. 11), and which in the

latter part of St. Luke’s Gospel almost suggests the idea of representing

an earlier edition than that now in ordinary use, yet proceeding from the

Evangelist’s own hand (_see_ p. 18)(305). Again, the process whereby the

rough places are made plain and abrupt constructions rounded, is

abundantly exemplified in the readings of the great uncial A, supported as

it is by the mass of later manuscripts (e.g. Mark i. 27; Acts xv. 17, 18;

xx. 24); yet in innumerable instances (_see_ Appendix to this chapter)

these self-same codices retain the genuine text of the sacred writers

which their more illustrious compeers have lost or impaired.

Hence it follows that in judging of the character of a various reading

proposed for our acceptance, we must carefully mark whether it comes to us

from many directions or from one. And herein the native country of the

several documents, even when we can make sure of it, is only a precarious

guide. If the Ethiopic or the Armenian versions have really been corrected

by the Latin Vulgate, the geographical remoteness of their origin must go

for nothing where they agree with the latter version. The relation in

which Cod. L and the Bohairic version stand to Cod. B is too close to

allow them their full value as independent witnesses unless when they are

at variance with that great uncial, wheresoever it may have been written:

the same might be said of the beautiful Latin fragment _k_ from Bobbio. To

whatever nations they belong, their resemblances are too strong and

perpetual not to compel us to withhold from them a part of the

consideration their concord would otherwise lay claim to. The same is

incontestably the case with the Curetonian and margin of the Harkleian

Syriac in connexion with Cod. D. Wide as is the region which separates

Syria from Gaul, there must have been in very early times some remote

communication by which the stream of Eastern testimony or tradition, like

another Alpheus, rose up again with fresh strength to irrigate the regions

of the distant West. The Peshitto Syriac leans at times in the same

direction, although both in nation and character it most assimilates to

the same class as Cod. A.

With these, and it may be with some further reservations which experience

and study shall hereafter suggest, the principle of grouping must be

acknowledged to be a sound one, and those lines of evidence to be least

likely to lead us astray which converge from the most varied quarters to

the same point. It is strange, but not more strange than needful, that we

are compelled in the cause of truth to make one stipulation more: namely,

that this rule be henceforth applied impartially in all cases, as well

when it will tell in favour of the Received text, as when it shall help to

set it aside. To assign a high value to cursive manuscripts of the best

description (such as 1, 33, 69, 157, Evst. 259, or 61 of the Acts), and to

such uncials as LRΔ, or even as א or C, whensoever they happen to agree

with Cod. B, and to treat their refined silver as though it had been

suddenly transmuted into dross when they come to contradict it, is a

practice too plainly unreasonable to admit of serious defence, and can

only lead to results which those who uphold it would be the first to

deplore(306).

7. It is hoped that the general issue of the foregoing discussion may now

be embodied in these four practical rules(307):—

(1) That the true readings of the Greek New Testament cannot safely be

derived from any one set of authorities, whether manuscripts, versions, or

Fathers, but ought to be the result of a patient comparison and careful

estimate of the evidence supplied by them all.

(2) That where there is a real agreement between all documents containing

the Gospels up to the sixth century, and in other parts of the New

Testament up to the ninth, the testimony of later manuscripts and

versions, though not to be rejected unheard, must be regarded with great

suspicion, and, UNLESS UPHELD BY STRONG INTERNAL EVIDENCE, can hardly be

adopted(308).

(3) That where the more ancient documents are at variance with each other,

the later uncial and cursive copies, especially those of approved merit,

are of real importance, as being the surviving representatives of other

codices, very probably as early, perhaps even earlier, than any now

extant.

(4) That in weighing conflicting evidence we must assign the highest value

not to those readings which are attested by the greatest number of

witnesses, but to those which come to us from several remote and

independent sources, and which bear the least likeness to each other in

respect to genius and general character.

Appendix To Chapter X.

Matt. vi. 8. The transparent gloss ὁ θεός is inserted before ὁ πατὴρ ὑμῶν

by Codd. א*B and the Sahidic version(309).

Ver. 22. Ὁ λύχνος τοῦ σώματός ἐστιν ὁ ὀφθαλμός σου B, _a_ _b_ _c_ _ff_1

_n_1.2 _h_ _l_, the printed Vulgate, some Latin writers, and the Ethiopic.

The addition of σου is more strongly attested in Luke xi. 34 by א*ABCDM,

but is intolerable in either place.

Matt. xvi. 21. Ἀπὸ τότε ἤρξατο ἰησοῦς χριστός: so the first hands of א and

B, with the Bohairic version only, their very frequent companion.

Matt. xxvii. 28. On the impossible reading of אcBD, _a_ _b_ _c_ _ff_2 _q_,

and a few others, enough has been said in Chap. VII. p. 234.

Ver. 49. We are here brought face to face with the gravest interpolation

yet laid to the charge of B, whose tendency is usually in the opposite

direction. Westcott and Hort alone among the editors feel constrained to

insert in the text, though enclosed in their double brackets and regarded

as “most probably an interpolation,” a sentence which neither they nor any

other competent scholar can easily believe that the Evangelist ever

wrote(310). After σώσων αὐτόν are set the following words borrowed from

John xix. 34, with a slight verbal change, and representing that the

Saviour was pierced before his death: ἄλλος δὲ λαβὼν λόγχην ἔνυξεν αὐτοῦ

τὴν πλευράν, καὶ ἐξῆλθεν ὕδωρ καὶ ἁῖμα. Thus we read in אBCLU (which has

εὐθέως before ἐξῆλθεν αἷμα καὶ ὕδωρ) Γ, 5, 48, 67, 115, 127*, five good

manuscripts of the Vulgate, _Kells_, _gat._, _mm._, _chad._, _mac-regol._,

and _Oxon._, _C. C._ (_not_ in _Bodl._), _Harl._ 1023 and 1802*, and the

margin of 1 E. VI, the Jerusalem Syriac once when the Lesson occurs, and

the Ethiopic. Chrysostom thus read in his copy, but used the clause with

so little reflection that he regarded the Lord as dead already. Severus of

Antioch [d. 539], who himself protested against this gross corruption,

tells us that Cyril of Alexandria as well as Chrysostom received it. A

scholion found in Cod. 72 refers this addition εἰς τὸ καθ᾽ ἱστορίαν

εὐαγγέλιον Διοδώρου καὶ Τατιάνου καὶ ἄλλων διαφόρων ἁγίων πατέρων, on the

authority of Chrysostom; and from the unintentional blunders of Harmonists

like Tatian such an insertion might very well have crept in. The marvel is

that it found favour so widely as it did(311).

Matt. xxviii. 19. βαπτίσαντες occurs only in BD (whose Latin has

_baptizantes_), as though Baptism were to precede instruction in the

faith. Tregelles alone dares to place this reading in the text: Westcott

and Hort have it in their margin.

Mark iii. 14, 16. After noticing the evidence which supported the corrupt

sentence in Matt. xxvii. 49, we are little disposed to accept what is in

substance the same for such feeble glosses as are afforded us in these two

verses; namely, οὓς καὶ ἀποστόλους ὠνόμασεν after δώδεκα in ver. 14

(derived from Luke vi. 13), and καὶ ἐποίησε τοὺς δώδεκα at the beginning

of ver. 16. Westcott and Hort receive both clauses, Tischendorf only the

latter, with אBC*Δ and an Ethiopic manuscript: yet the former, if less

likely to be genuine, is the better supported. It is found in אBC*Δ (with

some variation), in 13, 28, 69, 124, 238, 346, the Bohairic, the margin of

the Harkleian Syriac, the Ethiopic, the Arabic of the Polyglott: a goodly

array from divers sources to uphold so bad a reading.

Mark vi. 2. οἱ πολλοί is read by Westcott and Hort (so Tischendorf)

instead of πολλοί with BL, 13, 28, 69, 346. Three out of the four cursives

belong to Professor Ferrar’s group.

Ver. 22. In the room of τῆς θυγατρὸς αὐτῆς τῆς Ἡρωδιάδος a serious

variation of אBDLΔ, 238, 473, 558 is admitted into the text by Westcott

and Hort, τῆς θυγατρὸς αὐτοῦ (+ τῆς 238, 558) Ἡρῳδιάδος, thus bringing St.

Mark into direct contradiction with Josephus, who expressly states that

the wretched girl was named Salome, and was the daughter of Herod Philip

by Herodias, who did not leave her husband till after Salome’s birth

(Josephus, Antiq., lib. xviii. ch. v. § 4). Add to this the extreme

improbability that even Herod the Tetrarch should have allowed his own

child to degrade herself in such wise as Salome did here, or that she

could not have carried her point with her father without resorting to

licentious allurements. We must therefore regard αὐτοῦ as certainly false,

while αὐτῆς strongly expresses the writer’s feeling that even Herodias

could stoop so low, and being used emphatically has so much offended a few

that they omit it altogether. Such are 1, 118, 209, and some versions (_b_

_c_ _f_, the Bohairic, Armenian, Ethiopic, and Gothic) which did not

understand it. Tischendorf was hardly right in adding the Peshitto to the

list(312).

Mark ix. 1. ὧδε τῶν for τῶν ὧδε (ἑστηκότων) is the almost impossible

reading of BD*, _c_ _k_* (_a_ _d_ _q_ _n_ are uncertain), adopted the more

readily by Tischendorf, Tregelles, Westcott and Hort, because all have the

proper order τῶν ὧδε in Matt. xvi. 28.

Mark xiii. 33. Lachmann, Tischendorf, Westcott and Hort reject (Tregelles

more fitly sets within brackets) καὶ προσεύχεσθε with BD, 122, and the

Latin _a_ _c_ _k_ and _tol._* of the Vulgate only. It is in the favour of

the two words that they cannot have come from the parallel place in St.

Matthew (ch. xxiv. 42), nor is the preceding verb the same in ch. xiv. 38.

Here even אLΔ side against B with AC and all other authorities, including

the Egyptian and most Latin, as well as the Syriac versions.

Luke iv. 44. The wonderful variation Ἰουδαίας is brought into the text of

Hort and Westcott, the true reading Γαλιλαίας being banished to their

margin. Their change is upheld by a strong phalanx indeed: אNBCLQR, 1, 21,

71, Evst. 222, 259 and some twenty other cursives (Evan. 503 and two

Lectionaries read αὐτῶν instead of either), the Bohairic and the text of

the Harkleian: authorities enough to prove anything not in itself

impossible, as Ἰουδαίας is in this place. Not only is Galilee the scene of

the events recorded immediately before and after the present verse, but

the passage is manifestly parallel to Mark i. 39. The three Synoptic

Gospels are broadly distinguished from that of St. John by their silence

respecting the Lord’s ministry in Judaea before He went up to the last

passover. Yet Alford _in loco_, while admitting that “our narrative is

thus brought into the more startling discrepancy with that of St. Mark, in

which unquestionably the same portion of the sacred history is related,”

most strangely adds, “Still these are considerations which must not weigh

in the least degree with the critic. It is his province simply to track

out what is the sacred text, not what, in his own feeble and partial

judgement, _it ought to have been_.”

Luke vi. 48. It is surprising how a gloss so frigid as διὰ τὸ καλῶς

οἰκοδομῆσθαι αὐτήν could have been accepted by Tischendorf, Tregelles,

Westcott and Hort, in the room of τεθελεμίωτο γὰρ ἐπὶ τὴν πέτραν, chiefly,

it may be presumed, because the latter is the expression of St. Matthew

(ch. vii. 25). Yet such is the reading of אBLΞ, of the two best cursives

33, 157, of the Bohairic (with some variation in its copies), of the

margin of the Harkleian, and of Cyril of Alexandria. The Ethiopic

preserves both forms. As the present οἰκοδόμοῦντι early in the verse

involves a plain contradiction when compared with the perfect οἰκοδομῆσθαι

at the end, Tregelles changes the latter into οἰκοδομεῖσθαι on the feeble

authority of the third hand of B, of 33, and possibly of 157.

Luke viii. 40. For αὐτόν after προσδοκῶντες we find τὸν θεόν in א only. Of

course the variation is quite wrong, but it is hard to see the pertinency

of Dr. Vance Smith’s hint (_Theological Review_, July, 1875) “that it

cannot have got in by accident.”

Luke x. 1. This case is interesting, as being one wherein B (not א) is at

variance with the very express evidence of the earliest ecclesiastical

writers, while it makes the number of these disciples, not seventy, but

seventy-two(313). With B are DM, also R (“ita enim certè omnino videtur,”

Tisch., Monum. sacra inedita, vol. ii. Proleg. p. xviii), in the prefixed

table of τίτλοι (Vol. I. p. 57, _n_), its text being lost, Codd. 1, 42, _a

c e g_1.2? _l_, the Vulgate, Curetonian Syriac, and Armenian. Lachmann

with Westcott and Hort insert δύο, but within brackets, for the evidence

against it is overwhelming both in number and in weight: namely, Codd.

אACEGHKLSUVXΓΔΛΞΠ, all other cursives, _b f g_ of the Old Latin, the

Bohairic, the three other Syriac, the Gothic, and Ethiopic versions.

Luke xiv. 5. Here again we have a strong conviction that א, though now in

the minority, is more correct than B, supported as the latter is by a

dense array of witnesses of every age and country. In the clause τίνος

ὑμῶν ὄνος ἢ βοῦς of the Received text all the critical editors substitute

υἱὸς for ὄνος, which introduces a bathos so tasteless as to be almost

ludicrous(314). Yet υἱὸς is found with or without ὁ before it in AB

(_hiant_ CF)EGHMSUVΓΔΛ, in no less than 125 cursive copies already cited

by name(315) (also υἱὸς ὑμῶν Evst. 259), in _e f g_, the Sahidic, Peshitto

and Harkleian(316) Syriac versions: Cod. 508 and the Curetonian combine

both forms υἱὸς ἢ βοῦς ἢ ὄνος, and Cod. 215 has υἱὸς ἢ ὄνος without βοῦς.

Add to these Cyril of Alexandria (whose words are cited in catenas, as in

the scholia to X, 253, 259), Titus of Bostra the commentator, Euthymius,

and Theophylact. For ὄνος are אKLXΠ, 1, 33, 66 _secundâ manu_, 69 (ὄρος),

71, 207 _sec. man._, 211, 213, 407, 413, 492, 509, 512, 549, 550, 555,

556, 569, 570, 599, 602, and doubtless others not cited: also the text of

X, 253, 259 in spite of the annexed commentary; of the versions _a b c i

l_ of the Old Latin, the Vulgate, Bohairic, Jerusalem Syriac, Armenian,

and Ethiopic (_bos eius aut asinus_), though the Slavonic codices and

Persic of the Polyglott make for υἱός. Cod. 52 (_sic_) and the Arabic of

the Polyglott omit ὄνος ἤ, while D has πρόβατον (_ovis d_) for ὄνος (comp.

Matt. xii. 11), and 557 exhibits βοῦς ἢ ὄνος. ΥΣ or ΟΙΣ mistaken as the

contraction for ΥΙΟΣ is a mere guess, and we are safest here in clinging

to common sense against a preponderance of outward evidence.

Luke xv. 21. Here by adding from ver. 19 ποίησόν με ὡς ἕνα τῶν μισθίων σου

(placed in the text by Westcott and Hort within brackets) the great

codices אBD, with UX, 33, 512, 543, 558, 571, a catena, and four

manuscripts of the Vulgate (_bodl. gat. mm. tol._), manage to keep out of

sight that delicate touch of true nature which Augustine points out, that

the son never carried out his purpose of offering himself for a hireling,

“quod post osculum patris generosissime jam dedignatur.”

Luke xvi. 12. It is hard to tell how far thorough scholars and able

critics are prepared to push a favourite theory, when Westcott and Hort

place τὸ ἡμέτερον τίς δώσει ὑμῖν in the text, reserving ὑμέτερον for the

margin. Not to mention that the interchange of η and υ in these pronouns

is the most obstinate of all known itacisms, and one to which B is

especially prone (e.g. Acts xvii. 28; 1 Pet. ii. 24; 1 John ii. 25; iii.

1, Vol. I. p. 11), ἡμέτερον is found only in BL, Evst. 21, and Origen

once: in 157, _e i l_, and in Tertullian twice it is softened down to

ἐμόν.

Luke XXI. 24: ἄχρι οὗ πληρωθῶσιν [καὶ ἔσονται] kairoὶ ἐthnῶn. The words

within brackets appear thus in Westcott and Hort’s text alone; what

possible meaning can be assigned to them in the position they there occupy

it is hard to see. They are obviously derived by an error of the scribe’s

eye from καὶ ἔσονται (the reading of אBD, &c.) at the beginning of ver.

25. This unintelligible insertion is due to B; but L, the Bohairic, and a

codex cited in the Harkleian margin also have it with another καιροί

prefixed to καὶ ἔσονται. D runs on thus: ἄχρις οὗ πληρωθῶσιν καὶ ἔσονται

σημεῖα (om. καιροὶ ἐθνῶν). Those who discover some recondite beauty in the

reading of B compare with this the genuine addition καὶ ἐσμέν after

κληθῶμεν in 1 John iii. 1. _Nempè amatorem turpia decipiunt caecum vitia,

aut etiam ipsa haec delectant._

Luke xxiii. 32. For ἕτεροι δύο κακοῦργοι, which is unobjectionable in the

Greek, though a little hard in a close English translation, אB and the two

Egyptian versions, followed by Westcott and Hort, have the wholly

impossible ἕτεροι κακοῦργοι δύο.

John ii. 3. The loose paraphrase of Cod. א in place of ὑστερήσαντος οἴνου

commends itself to no one but Tischendorf, who in his turn admires the

worst deformities of his favourite: it runs καὶ οἶνον οὐκ εἶχον ὅτι

συνετελέσθη ὁ οἶνος τοῦ γάμου, in which few readers will be able to

discern with him the manner and style of St. John. The Old Latin _a b ff_2

and Gaudentius [iv]; also _e l_, the Ethiopic, and the margin of the

Harkleian in part, exhibit the same vapid circumlocution. Cod. א in this

Gospel, and sometimes elsewhere, has a good deal in common with the

Western codices and Latin Fathers, and some of its glosses are simply

deplorable: e.g. καλοκαγαθίας for κακοπαθείας, James v. 10; συνομιλοῦντες

for συνοικοῦντες, 1 Pet. iii. 7; ἀποθανόντος for παθόντος, 1 Pet. iv. 1

after ch. ii. 21, where it does not stand alone, as here. Of a better

character is its bold supplement of ἐκκλησία before συνεκλεκτή in 1 Pet.

v. 13, apparently borrowed from primitive tradition, and supported by the

Peshitto, Vulgate (in its best manuscripts and editions), and Armenian

versions.

John iv. 1. After βαπτίζει we find ἤ omitted in AB* (though it is added in

what Tischendorf considers an ancient hand, his B2) GLΓ, 262, Origen and

Epiphanius, but appears in אCD and all the rest. Tregelles rejects ἤ in

his margin, Hort and Westcott put it within brackets. Well may Dr. Hort

say (Notes, p. 76), “It remains no easy matter to explain how the verse as

it stands can be reasonably understood without ἤ, or how such a mere slip

as the loss of Η after ΕΙ should have so much excellent Greek authority,

more especially as the absence of ἤ increases the obvious no less than the

real difficulty of the verse.”

John vii. 39. One of the worst faults a manuscript (the same is not true

of a version) can have is a habit of supplying, either from the margin or

from the scribe’s misplaced ingenuity, some word that may clear up a

difficulty, or limit the writer’s meaning. Certainly this is not a common

fault with Cod. B, but we have here a conspicuous example of it. It stands

almost alone in receiving δεδομένον after πνεῦμα: one cursive (254) has

δοθέν, and so read _a b c e ff_2 _g l q_, the Vulgate, the Peshitto, and

the Georgian (Malan, St. John), the Jerusalem Syriac, the Polyglott

Persic, a catena, Eusebius and Origen in a Latin version: the margin of

the Harkleian Syriac makes a yet further addition. The Sahidic, Ethiopic,

and Erpenius’ Arabic also supply some word. But the versions and

commentators, like our own English translations, probably meant no more

than a bold exposition. The whole blame of this evident corruption rests

with the two manuscripts. No editor follows B here.

John ix. 4. Most readers will think with Dean Burgon that the reading ἡμᾶς

δεῖ ἐργάζεσθαι τὰ ἔργα τοῦ πέμψαντος (whether followed by με or ἡμᾶς)

“carries with it its own sufficient condemnation” (Last Twelve Verses,

&c., p. 81). The single or double ἡμᾶς, turning the whole clause into a

general statement, applicable to every one, is found in א*BDL, the two

Egyptian, Jerusalem Syriac, Erpenius’ Arabic, and Roman Ethiopic versions,

in the younger Cyril and the versifier Nonnus. Origen and Jerome cite the

passage as if the reading were ἐργάζεσθε, which, by a familiar _itacism_

(_see_ p. 11), is the reading of the first hand of B. The first ἡμᾶς is

adopted by Tischendorf, Tregelles, Westcott and Hort: the second by

Tischendorf alone after א*L, the Bohairic, Roman Ethiopic, Erpenius’

Arabic, and Cyril. Certainly με of BD, the Sahidic, and Jerusalem Syriac,

is very harsh.

John x. 22. For δέ after ἐγένετο Westcott and Hort read τότε with BL, 33,

the Sahidic, Gothic, Slavonic, and Armenian versions. No such use of τότε

in this order, and without another particle, will be found in the New

Testament, or easily elsewhere. The Bohairic and _gat._ of the Vulgate

have δὲ τότε, which is a different thing. Moreover, the sense will not

admit so sharp a definition of sameness in time as τότε implies. Three

months intervened between the feast of Tabernacles, in and after which all

the events named from ch. vii downwards took place, and this winter feast

of Dedication.

John xviii. 5. For λέγει αὐτοῖς ὁ ἰησοῦς ἐγώ ἐιμι, B and a have the

miserable variation λέγει αὐτοῖς ἐγώ ἐιμι ἰησοῦς, which Westcott and Hort

advance to a place in their margin. The first ΙΣ (omitting ὁ) was absorbed

in the last syllable of ΑΥΤΟΙΣ, the second being a mere repetition of the

first syllable of ΙΣΤΗΚΕΙ (_sic_ B _primâ manu_). Compare Vol. I. p. 10.

With so little care was this capital document written(317).

Acts iv. 25. We have here, upheld by nearly all the authorities to which

students usually defer, that which cannot possibly be right, though

critical editors, in mere helplessness, feel obliged to put it in their

text: ὁ τοῦ πατρὸς ἡμῶν διὰ πνεύματος ἁγίου στόματος δαυεὶδ παιδός σου

εἰπών. Thus read אABE, 13, 15, 27, 29, 36, 38. Apost. 12, a catena and

Athanasius. The Vulgate and Latin Fathers, the Harkleian Syriac and

Armenian versions conspire, but with such wide variations as only serve to

display their perplexity. We have here two several readings, either of

which might be true, combined into one that cannot. We might either adopt

with D ὃς διὰ _μνς_ ἁγίου διὰ τοῦ στόματος λαλήσας δαυεὶδ παιδός σου (but

_david puero tuo_ d), or better with Didymus ὁ διὰ πνεύματος ἁγίου

στόματος δὲ δαυεὶδ παιδός σου εἰπών (which will fairly suit the Peshitto

and Bohairic); or we might prefer the easier form of the Received text ὁ

διὰ στόματος δαβὶδ τοῦ παιδός σου εἰπών, which has no support except from

P(318) and the cursives 1, 31, 40, 220, 221, &c. (the valuable copy 224

reads ὁ διὰ τοῦ πατρὸς ἡμῶν ἐν _δαδ_), and from Theophylact, Chrysostom

being doubtful. Tischendorf justly pleads for the form he edits that it

has second, third, and fourth century authority, adding “singula verba

praeter morem sed non sine caussâ collocata sunt.” _Praeter morem_ they

certainly are, and _non sine caussâ_ too, if this and like examples shall

lead us to a higher style of criticism than will be attained by setting up

one or more of the oldest copies as objects of unreasonable idolatry.

Acts vii. 46. ᾐτήσατο εὑρεῖν σκήνωμα τῷ θεῷ Ἰακώβ. The portentous variant

οἴκῳ for θεῷ is adopted by Lachmann, and by Tischendorf, who observes of

it “minimè sensu caret:” even Tregelles sets it in the margin, but

Westcott and Hort simply obelize θεῷ as if they would read τῷ Ἰακώβ

(compare Psalm xxiv. 6, cxxxii. 5 with Gen. xlix. 24). Yet οἴκῳ appears in

א*BDH against אcACEP, all cursives (including 13, 31, 61, 220, 221), all

versions. Observe also in ch. viii. 5 καισαρίας in א* for σαμαρείας on

account of ver. 40 and ch. xxi. 8.

Acts x. 19. Ἰδοὺ ἄνδρες δύο is the reading of Westcott and Hort’s text

([τρεῖς] margin) after B only, the true number being three (ver. 7): in

ch. xi. 11 Epiphanius only has δύο. There might be some grounds for

omitting τρεῖς here, as Tischendorf does, and Tregelles more doubtfully in

his margin (with DHLP, 24, 31, 111, 182, 183, 184, 185, 188, 189, 220,

221, 224, _m_, the later Syriac, the Apostolical Constitutions, the elder

Cyril, Chrysostom and Theophylact, Augustine and Ambrose), no reason

surely for representing the Spirit as speaking only of the δύο οἰκέται.

Acts xii. 25. An important passage for our present purpose. That the two

Apostles returned from, not to, Jerusalem is too plain for argument (ch.

xi. 29, 30), yet εἰς Ἱερουσαλήμ (which in its present order surely cannot

be joined with πληρώσαντες) is the reading of Westcott and Hort’s text (ἐξ

and the fatal obelus [Glyph: dagger] being in their margin) after אBHLP,

61, four of Matthaei’s copies, Codd. 2, 4, 14, 24, 26, 34, 64, 78, 80, 95,

224, and perhaps twenty other cursives, but besides these only the margin

of the Harkleian, the Roman Ethiopic, the Polyglott Arabic, some copies of

the Slavonic and of Chrysostom, with Theophylact and Erasmus’ first two

editions, who says in his notes “ita legunt Graeci,” i.e. his Codd. 2, 4.

A few which substitute “Antioch” for “Jerusalem” (28, 38, 66 _marg._,

67**, 97 _marg._, Apost. 5) are witnesses for εἰς, but not so those which,

reading ἐξ or ἀπό, add with the Complutensian εἰς Ἀντιόχειαν (E, 7, 14**,

27, 29, 32, 42, 57, 69, 98 _marg._, 100, 105, 106, 111, 126**, 182, 183,

186, 220, 221, the Sahidic, Peshitto, and Erpenius’ Arabic): Cod. 76 has

εἰς Ἀντιόχειαν ἀπὸ Ἱερουσαλήμ. C is defective here, and the only three

remaining uncials are divided between ἐξ (A, 13, 27, 29, 69, 214, Apost.

54, Chrysostom sometimes) and ἀπό (DE, 15, 18, 36, 40, 68, 73, 76, 81, 93,

98, 100, 105, 106, 111, 113, 180, 183, 184, a copy of Chrysostom, and the

Vulgate _ab_). The two Egyptian, the Peshitto, the Philoxenian text, the

Armenian and Pell Platt’s Ethiopic have “from,” the only possible sense,

in spite of אB. Tischendorf in his N. T. Vaticanum 1867 alleges that in

that codex “litterae εισ ιερου primâ ut videtur manu rescriptae. Videtur

primum απο pro εισ scriptum fuisse.” But since he did not repeat the

statement three years later in his eighth edition, he may have come to

feel doubtful about it. Dr. Hort conjectures that the original order was

τὴν εἰς Ἱερουσαλὴμ πληρώσαντες διακονίαν.

Acts xvii. 28. Here Westcott and Hort place ὑμᾶς in their text, ἡμᾶς in

the margin. For ἡμᾶς we find only B, 33, 68, 95, 96, 105, 137, and rather

wonder than otherwise that the itacism is not met with in more cursives

than six. The Bohairic has been cited in error on the same side. It needs

not a word to explain that the stress of St. Paul’s argument rests on

ὑμᾶς. To the Athenians he quotes not the Hebrew Scriptures, but the poets

of whom they were proud. Compare Luke xvi. 12, above.

An itacism not quite so gross in ch. xx. 10 μὴ θορυβεῖσθαι (B*, 185, 224*)

is likewise honoured with a place in Westcott and Hort’s margin. In Matt.

xi. 16 they follow Tischendorf and Tregelles in adopting ἑτέροις for

ἑταίροις with BCDZ, and indeed the mass of copies. This last itacism (for

it can be nothing better) was admitted so early as to affect many of the

chief versions.

Acts xx. 30. Cod. B omits αὐτῶν after ὑμῶν, where it is much wanted,

apparently with no countenance except from Cod. 186, for this is just a

point in which versions (the Sahidic and both Ethiopic) can be little

trusted. The present is one of the countless examples of Cod. B’s

inclination to abridge, which in the Old Testament is carried so far as to

eject from the text of the Septuagint words that are, and always must have

been, in the original Hebrew. Westcott and Hort include αὐτῶν within

brackets.

Acts xxv. 13. Agrippa and Bernice went to Caesarea to greet the new

governor (ἀσπασόμενοι), not surely after they had sent their greeting

before them (ἀσπασάμενοι), which, if it had been a fact, would not have

been worth mentioning. Yet, though the reading is so manifestly false, the

evidence for the aorist seems overwhelming (אABHLP, the Greek of E, 13,

24*, 31, 68, 105, 180, 220, 224*, a few more copies, and the Coptic and

Ethiopic versions). The future is found possibly in C, certainly in 61,

221, and the mass of cursives, in _e_ and other versions, in Chrysostom,

and in one form of Theophylact’s commentary. Here again Dr. Hort suspects

some kind of prior corruption (Notes, p. 100).

Acts xxviii. 13. For περιελθόντες of all other manuscripts and versions

א*B have περιελόντες, evidently borrowed from ch. xxvii. 40. Even this

vile error of transcription is set in Westcott and Hort’s text, the

alternative not even in their margin. In ver. 15 they once set οἱ within

brackets(319) on the evidence of B, 96 only. Cod. B is very prone to omit

the article, especially, but not exclusively, with proper names.

Rom. vii. 22. The substitution of τοῦ νοός (cf. ver. 23) for τοῦ θεοῦ

seems peculiar to Cod. B.

Rom. xv. 31. Lachmann and Tregelles (in his margin only) accept the

manifest gloss δωροφορία for διακονία with B (_see_ Vol. I. p. 290 for its

“_Western_ element”) D*FG (_d_ _e_ have _remuneratio_) and Ambrosiaster

(_munerum meorum ministratio_). But διακονία is found in אACD2 and 3 and

consequently in E (_see_ Vol. I. p. 176), _f_ (_ministratio_), _g_

(_administratio_), Vulg. (_obsequii mei oblatio_), so _d_***, _fuld._ and

Origen in the Latin (_ministerium_), with both Syriac, the Bohairic,

Armenian and Ethiopic versions, Chrysostom, Theodoret, and John Damascene.

1 Cor. xiii. 5. Never was a noble speech more cruelly pared down to a

trite commonplace than by the reading of B and Clement of Alexandria (very

expressly) οὐ ζητεῖ τὰ μὴ ἑαυτῆς, in the place of οὐ ζητεῖ τὰ (or τὸ)

ἑαυτῆς of the self-same Clement just as expressly elsewhere (_see_ p. 262

and note 3), and of all other authorities of every description. Here

Westcott and Hort place τὸ μή in their margin.

Col. iv. 15. For αὐτοῦ Lachmann, Tregelles’ margin, Hort and Westcott have

αὐτῆς from B, 676**, and the text of the later Syriac, thus implying that

νύμφα is the Doric feminine form, which is very unlikely.

1 Thess. v. 4. Lachmann with Hort and Westcott (but not their margin)

reads κλέπτας for κλέπτης with AB and the Bohairic, but this cannot be

right.

Heb. vii. 1. For ὁ συναντήσας Lachmann, Tregelles, Hort and Westcott’s

text have ὃς συναντήσας with אABC**DEK, 17, a broken sentence: but this is

too much even for Dr. Hort, who says, in the language habitual to him,

that ὁ seems “a right emendation of the Syrian revisers” (Notes, p. 130).

James i. 17. What can be meant by ἀποσκιάσματος of א*B it is hard to say.

The versions are not clear as to the sense, but _ff_ alone seems to

suggest the genitive (_modicum obumbrationis_). That valuable Cod. 184,

now known only by Sanderson’s collation at Lambeth (No. 1255, 10-14)(320),

is said by him to _add_ to the end of the verse οὐδὲ μέχρι ὑπονοίας τινὸς

ὑποβολὴ ἀποσκιάσματος, which seems like a scholion on the preceding

clause, and is found also in Cod. 221.

Nor will any one praise certain readings of Cod. B in James i. 9; 1 Pet.

i. 9; 11; ii. 1; 12; 25; iii. 7; 14; 18 (_om._ τῷ θεῷ); iv. 1; v. 3; 2

Pet. i. 17; 1 John i. 2; ii. 14; 20; 25; 27; iii. 15; 3 John 4; 9; Jude 9,

which passages the student may work out for himself.

Enough of the weary and ungracious task of finding fault. The foregoing

list of errors patent in the most ancient codices might be largely

increased: two or three more will occur incidentally in Chapter XII (1

Cor. xiii. 3; Phil. ii. 1; 1 Pet. i. 23; _see_ also pp. 254, 319). Even if

the reader has not gone with me in every case, more than enough has been

alleged to prove to demonstration that the true and pure text of the

sacred writers is not to be looked for in א or B, in אB, or BD, or BL, or

any like combination of a select few authorities, but demands, in every

fresh case as it arises, the free and impartial use of every available

source of information. Yet after all, Cod. B is a document of such value,

that it grows by experience even upon those who may have been a little

prejudiced against it by reason of the excessive claims of its too zealous

friends(321). Its best associate, in our judgement, is Cod. C, where the

testimony of that precious palimpsest can be had. BC together will often

carry us safe through difficulties of the most complicated character, as

for instance, through that vexatious passage John xiii. 25, 26. Compare

also Acts xxvi. 16. Yet even here it is necessary to commend with reserve:

BC stand almost alone in maintaining the ingenious but improbable

variation ἐκσῶσαι in Acts xxvii. 39 (_see_ Chap. XII), and the frigid

gloss κρίνοντι in 1 Pet. iv. 5: they unite with others in foisting on St.

Matthew’s text its worst corruption, ch. xxvii. 49. In Gal. iii. 1, C

against AB contains the gloss τῇ ἀληθείᾳ μὴ πείθεσθαι. Again, since no

fact relating to these pursuits is more certain than the absolute

independence of the sources from which A and B are derived, it is manifest

that their occasional agreement is always of the greatest weight, and is

little less than conclusive in those portions of the N. T. where other

evidence is slender in amount or consideration, e.g. 1 Pet. i. 21 and v.

10 (with the Vulgate); v. 11: also supported by those admirable cursives

27, 29, in 1 Pet. v. 14; 1 John iv. 3; 19; 2 John 3; 12. See also 1 John

v. 18, to be discussed in Chap. XII.