CAUSES OF CORRUPTION CHIEFLY INTENTIONAL.
IX. Corruption by Heretics.
§ 1.
The Corruptions of the Sacred Text which we have been hitherto
considering, however diverse the causes from which they may have
resulted, have yet all agreed in this: viz. that they have all been of a
lawful nature. My meaning is, that apparently, at no stage of the
business has there been _mala fides_ in any quarter. We are prepared to
make the utmost allowance for careless, even for licentious
transcription; and we can invent excuses for the mistaken zeal, the
officiousness if men prefer to call it so, which has occasionally not
scrupled to adopt conjectural emendations of the Text. To be brief, so
long as an honest reason is discoverable for a corrupt reading, we
gladly adopt the plea. It has been shewn with sufficient clearness, I
trust, in the course of the foregoing chapters, that the number of
distinct causes to which various readings may reasonably be attributed
is even extraordinary.
But there remains after all an alarmingly large assortment of textual
perturbations which absolutely refuse to fall under any of the heads of
classification already enumerated. They are not to be accounted for on
any ordinary principle. And this residuum of cases it is, which
occasions our present embarrassment. They are in truth so exceedingly
numerous; they are often so very considerable; they are, as a rule, so
very licentious; they transgress to such an extent all regulations; they
usurp so persistently the office of truth and faithfulness, that we
really know not what to think about them. Sometimes we are presented
with gross interpolations,--apocryphal stories: more often with
systematic lacerations of the text, or transformations as from an angel
of light.
We are constrained to inquire, How all this can possibly have come
about? Have there even been persons who made it their business of set
purpose to corrupt the [sacred deposit of Holy Scripture entrusted to
the Church for the perpetual illumination of all ages till the Lord
should come?]
At this stage of the inquiry, we are reminded that it is even notorious
that in the earliest age of all, the New Testament Scriptures were
subjected to such influences. In the age which immediately succeeded the
Apostolic there were heretical teachers not a few, who finding their
tenets refuted by the plain Word of God bent themselves against the
written Word with all their power. From seeking to evacuate its
teaching, it was but a single step to seeking to falsify its testimony.
Profane literature has never been exposed to such hostility. I make the
remark in order also to remind the reader of one more point of
[dissimilarity between the two classes of writings. The inestimable
value of the New Testament entailed greater dangers, as well as secured
superior safeguards. Strange, that a later age should try to discard the
latter].
It is found therefore that Satan could not even wait for the grave to
close over St. John. 'Many' there were already who taught that Christ
had not come in the flesh. Gnosticism was in the world already. St. Paul
denounces it by name[441], and significantly condemns the wild fancies
of its professors, their dangerous speculations as well as their absurd
figments. Thus he predicts and condemns[442] their pestilential teaching
in respect of meats and drinks and concerning matrimony. In his Epistle
to Timothy[443] he relates that Hymeneus and Philetus taught that the
Resurrection was past already. What wonder if a flood of impious
teaching broke loose on the Church when the last of the Apostles had
been gathered in, and another generation of men had arisen, and the age
of Miracles was found to be departing if it had not already departed,
and the loftiest boast which any could make was that they had known
those who had [seen and heard the Apostles of the Lord].
The 'grievous wolves' whose assaults St. Paul predicted as imminent, and
against which he warned the heads of the Ephesian Church[444], did not
long 'spare the flock.' Already, while St. John was yet alive, had the
Nicolaitans developed their teaching at Ephesus[445] and in the
neighbouring Church of Pergamos[446]. Our risen Lord in glory announced
to His servant John that in the latter city Satan had established his
dwelling-place[447]. Nay, while those awful words were being spoken to
the Seer of Patmos, the men were already born who first dared to lay
their impious hands on the Gospel of Christ.
No sooner do we find ourselves out of Apostolic times and among
monuments of the primitive age than we are made aware that the sacred
text must have been exposed at that very early period to disturbing
influences which, on no ordinary principles, can be explained. Justin
Martyr, Irenaeus, Origen, Clement of Alexandria,--among the Fathers:
some Old Latin MSS.[448] the Bohairic and Sahidic, and coming later on,
the Curetonian and Lewis,--among the Versions: of the copies Codd. B and
[Symbol: Aleph]: and above all, coming later down still, Cod. D:--these
venerable monuments of a primitive age occasionally present us with
deformities which it is worse than useless to extenuate,--quite
impossible to overlook. Unauthorized appendixes,--tasteless and stupid
amplifications,--plain perversions of the meaning of the
Evangelists,--wholly gratuitous assimilations of one Gospel to
another,--the unprovoked omission of passages of profound interest and
not unfrequently of high doctrinal import:--How are such phenomena as
these to be accounted for? Again, in one quarter, we light upon a
systematic mutilation of the text so extraordinary that it is as if some
one had amused himself by running his pen through every clause which was
not absolutely necessary to the intelligibleness of what remained. In
another quarter we encounter the thrusting in of fabulous stories and
apocryphal sayings which disfigure as well as encumber the text.--How
will any one explain all this?
Let me however at the risk of repeating what has been already said
dispose at once of an uneasy suspicion which is pretty sure to suggest
itself to a person of intelligence after reading what goes before. If
the most primitive witnesses to our hand are indeed discovered to bear
false witness to the text of Scripture,--whither are we to betake
ourselves for the Truth? And what security can we hope ever to enjoy
that any given exhibition of the text of Scripture is the true one? Are
we then to be told that in this subject-matter the maxim '_id verius
quod prius_' does not hold? that the stream instead of getting purer as
we approach the fountain head, on the contrary grows more and more
corrupt?
Nothing of the sort, I answer. The direct reverse is the case. Our
appeal is always made to antiquity; and it is nothing else but a truism
to assert that the oldest reading is also the best. A very few words
will make this matter clear; because a very few words will suffice to
explain a circumstance already adverted to which it is necessary to keep
always before the eyes of the reader.
The characteristic note, the one distinguishing feature, of all the
monstrous and palpable perversions of the text of Scripture just now
under consideration is this:--that they are never vouched for by the
oldest documents generally, but only by a few of them,--two, three, or
more of the oldest documents being observed as a rule to yield
conflicting testimony, (which in this subject-matter is in fact
contradictory). In this way the oldest witnesses nearly always refute
one another, and indeed dispose of one another's evidence almost as
often as that evidence is untrustworthy. And now I may resume and
proceed.
I say then that it is an adequate, as well as a singularly satisfactory
explanation of the greater part of those gross depravations of Scripture
which admit of no legitimate excuse, to attribute them, however
remotely, to those licentious free-handlers of the text who are declared
by their contemporaries to have falsified, mutilated, interpolated, and
in whatever other way to have corrupted the Gospel; whose blasphemous
productions of necessity must once have obtained a very wide
circulation: and indeed will never want some to recommend and uphold
them. What with those who like Basilides and his followers invented a
Gospel of their own:--what with those who with the Ebionites and the
Valentinians interpolated and otherwise perverted one of the four
Gospels until it suited their own purposes:--what with those who like
Marcion shamefully maimed and mutilated the inspired text:--there must
have been a large mass of corruption festering in the Church throughout
the immediate post-Apostolic age. But even this is not all. There were
those who like Tatian constructed Diatessarons, or attempts to weave the
fourfold narrative into one,--'Lives of Christ,' so to speak;--and
productions of this class were multiplied to an extraordinary extent,
and as we certainly know, not only found their way into the remotest
corners of the Church, but established themselves there. And will any
one affect surprise if occasionally a curious scholar of those days was
imposed upon by the confident assurance that by no means were those many
sources of light to be indiscriminately rejected, but that there must be
some truth in what they advanced? In a singularly uncritical age, the
seductive simplicity of one reading,--the interesting fullness of
another,--the plausibility of a thirds--was quite sure to recommend its
acceptance amongst those many eclectic recensions which were constructed
by long since forgotten Critics, from which the most depraved and
worthless of our existing texts and versions have been derived.
Emphatically condemned by Ecclesiastical authority, and hopelessly
outvoted by the universal voice of Christendom, buried under fifteen
centuries, the corruptions I speak of survive at the present day chiefly
in that little handful of copies which, calamitous to relate, the school
of Lachmann and Tischendorf and Tregelles look upon as oracular: and in
conformity with which many scholars are for refashioning the Evangelical
text under the mistaken title of 'Old Readings.' And now to proceed with
my argument.
§ 2.
Numerous as were the heresies of the first two or three centuries of the
Christian era, they almost all agreed in this;--that they involved a
denial of the eternal Godhead of the Son of Man: denied that He is
essentially very and eternal God. This fundamental heresy found itself
hopelessly confuted by the whole tenor of the Gospel, which nevertheless
it assailed with restless ingenuity: and many are the traces alike of
its impotence and of its malice which have survived to our own times. It
is a memorable circumstance that it is precisely those very texts which
relate either to the eternal generation of the Son,--to His
Incarnation,--or to the circumstances of His Nativity,--which have
suffered most severely, and retain to this hour traces of having been in
various ways tampered with. I do not say that Heretics were the only
offenders here. I am inclined to suspect that the orthodox were as much
to blame as the impugners of the Truth. But it was at least with a pious
motive that the latter tampered with the Deposit. They did but imitate
the example set them by the assailing party. It is indeed the calamitous
consequence of extravagances in one direction that they are observed
ever to beget excesses in the opposite quarter. Accordingly the piety of
the primitive age did not think it wrong to fortify the Truth by the
insertion, suppression, or substitution of a few words in any place from
which danger was apprehended. In this way, I am persuaded, many an
unwarrantable 'reading' is to be explained. I do not mean that 'marginal
glosses have frequently found their way into the text':--that points to
a wholly improbable account of the matter. I mean, that expressions
which seemed to countenance heretical notions, or at least which had
been made a bad use of by evil men, were deliberately falsified. But I
must not further anticipate the substance of the next chapter.
The men who first systematically depraved the text of Scripture, were as
we now must know the heresiarchs Basilides (fl. 134), Valentinus (fl.
140), and Marcion (fl. 150): three names which Origen is observed almost
invariably to enumerate together. Basilides[449] and Valentinus[450] are
even said to have written Gospels of their own. Such a statement is not
to be severely pressed: but the general fact is established by the
notices, and those are exceedingly abundant, which the writers against
Heresies have cited and left on record. All that is intended by such
statements is that these old heretics retained, altered, transposed,
just so much as they pleased of the fourfold Gospel: and further, that
they imported whatever additional matter they saw fit:--not that they
rejected the inspired text entirely, and substituted something of their
own invention in its place[451]. And though, in the case of Valentinus,
it has been contended, apparently with reason, that he probably did not
individually go to the same length as Basilides,--who, as well in
respect of St. Paul's Epistles as of the four Gospels, was evidently a
grievous offender[452],--yet, since it is clear that his principal
followers, who were also his contemporaries, put forth a composition
which they were pleased to style the 'Gospel of Truth[453],' it is idle
to dispute as to the limit of the rashness and impiety of the individual
author of the heresy. Let it be further stated, as no slight
confirmation of the view already hazarded as to the probable contents of
the (so-called) Gospels of Basilides and of Valentinus, that one
particular Gospel is related to have been preferred before the rest and
specially adopted by certain schools of ancient Heretics. Thus, a
strangely mutilated and depraved text of St. Matthew's Gospel is related
to have found especial favour with the Ebionites[454], with whom the
Corinthians are associated by Epiphanius: though Irenaeus seems to say
that it was St. Mark's Gospel which was adopted by the heretical
followers of Cerinthus. Marcion's deliberate choice of St. Luke's Gospel
is sufficiently well known. The Valentinians appropriated to themselves
St. John[455]. Heracleon, the most distinguished disciple of this
school, is deliberately censured by Origen for having corrupted the text
of the fourth Evangelist in many places[456]. A considerable portion of
his Commentary on St. John has been preserved to us: and a very strange
production it is found to have been.
Concerning Marcion, who is a far more conspicuous personage, it will be
necessary to speak more particularly. He has left a mark on the text of
Scripture of which traces are distinctly recognizable at the present
day[457]. A great deal more is known about him than about any other
individual of his school. Justin Martyr and Irenaeus wrote against him:
besides Origen and Clement of Alexandria, Tertullian in the West[458],
and Epiphanius in the East, elaborately refuted his teaching, and give
us large information as to his method of handling Scripture.
Another writer of this remote time who, as I am prone to think, must
have exercised sensible influence on the text of Scripture was Ammonius
of Alexandria.
But Tatian beyond every other early writer of antiquity [appears to me
to have caused alterations in the Sacred Text.]
It is obviously no answer to anything that has gone before to insist
that the Evangelium of Marcion (for instance), so far as it is
recognizable by the notices of it given by Epiphanius, can very rarely
indeed be shewn to have resembled any extant MS. of the Gospels. Let it
be even freely granted that many of the charges brought against it by
Epiphanius with so much warmth, collapse when closely examined and
severely sifted. It is to be remembered that Marcion's Gospel was known
to be an heretical production: one of the many creations of the Gnostic
age,--it must have been universally execrated and abhorred by faithful
men. Besides this lacerated text of St. Luke's Gospel, there was an
Ebionite recension of St. Matthew: a Cerinthian exhibition of St. Mark:
a Valentinian perversion of St. John. And we are but insisting that the
effect of so many corruptions of the Truth, industriously propagated
within far less than 100 years of the date of the inspired verities
themselves, must needs have made itself sensibly felt. Add the notorious
fact, that in the second and third centuries after the Christian era the
text of the Gospels is found to have been grossly corrupted even in
orthodox quarters,--and that traces of these gross corruptions are
discoverable in certain circles to the present hour,--and it seems
impossible not to connect the two phenomena together. The wonder rather
is that, at the end of so many centuries, we are able distinctly to
recognize any evidence whatever.
The proneness of these early Heretics severally to adopt one of the four
Gospels for their own, explains why there is no consistency observable
in the corruptions they introduced into the text. It also explains the
bringing into one Gospel of things which of right clearly belong to
another--as in St. Mark iii. 14 [Greek: ous kai apostolous ônomasen].
I do not propose (as will presently appear) in this way to explain any
considerable number of the actual corruptions of the text: but in no
other way is it possible to account for such systematic mutilations as
are found in Cod. B,--such monstrous additions as are found in Cod.
D,--such gross perturbations as are continually met with in one or more,
but never in all, of the earliest Codexes extant, as well as in the
oldest Versions and Fathers.
The plan of Tatian's Diatessaron will account for a great deal. He
indulges in frigid glosses, as when about the wine at the feast of Cana
in Galilee he reads that the servants knew 'because they had drawn the
water'; or in tasteless and stupid amplifications, as in the going back
of the Centurion to his house. I suspect that the [Greek: ti me erôtas
peri tou agathou], 'Why do you ask me about that which is good?' is to
be referred to some of these tamperers with the Divine Word.
§ 3.
These professors of 'Gnosticism' held no consistent theory. The two
leading problems on which they exercised their perverse ingenuity are
found to have been (1) the origin of Matter, and (2) the origin of Evil.
(1) They taught that the world's artificer ('the Word') was Himself a
creature of 'the Father[459].' Encountered on the threshold of the
Gospel by the plain declaration that, 'In the beginning was the Word:
and the Word was with God: and the Word was God': and presently, 'All
things were made by Him';--they were much exercised. The expedients to
which they had recourse were certainly extraordinary. That 'Beginning'
(said Valentinus) was the first thing which 'the Father' created: which
He called 'Only begotten Son,' and also 'God': and in whom he implanted
the germ of all things. Seminally, that is, whatsoever subsequently came
into being was in Him. 'The Word' (he said) was a product of this
first-created thing. And 'All things were made by Him,' because in 'the
Word' was the entire essence of all the subsequent worlds (Aeons), to
which he assigned forms[460]. From which it is plain that, according to
Valentinus, 'the Word' was distinct from 'the Son'; who was not the
world's Creator. Both alike, however, he acknowledged to be 'God[461]':
but only, as we have seen already, using the term in an inferior sense.
Heracleon, commenting on St. John i. 3, insists that 'all things' can
but signify this perishable world and the things that are therein: not
essences of a loftier nature. Accordingly, after the words 'and without
Him was not anything made,' he ventures to interpolate this clause,--'of
the things that are in the world and in the creation[462].' True, that
the Evangelist had declared with unmistakable emphasis, 'and without Him
was not anything' (literally, 'was not even one thing') 'made that was
made.' But instead of 'not even one thing,' the Valentinian Gnostics
appear to have written 'nothing[463]'; and the concluding clause 'that
was made,' because he found it simply unmanageable, Valentinus boldly
severed from its context, making it the beginning of a fresh sentence.
With the Gnostics, ver. 4 is found to have begun thus,--'What was made
in Him was life.'
Of the change of [Greek: oude hen] into [Greek: ouden][464] traces
survive in many of the Fathers[465]: but [Symbol: Aleph] and D are the
only Uncial MSS. which are known to retain that corrupt reading.--The
uncouth sentence which follows ([Greek: ho gegonen en autô zôê ên]),
singular to relate, was generally tolerated, became established in many
quarters, and meets us still at every step. It was evidently put forward
so perseveringly by the Gnostics, with whom it was a kind of article of
the faith, that the orthodox at last became too familiar with it.
Epiphanius, though he condemns it, once employs it[466]. Occurring first
in a fragment of Valentinus[467]: next, in the Commentary of
Heracleon[468]: after that, in the pages of Theodotus the Gnostic (A.D.
192)[469]: then, in an exposure by Hippolytus of the tenets of the
Naäseni[470], (a subsection of the same school);--the baseness of its
origin at least is undeniable. But inasmuch as the words may be made to
bear a loyal interpretation, the heretical construction of St. John i. 3
was endured by the Church for full 200 years. Clemens Alex, is observed
thrice to adopt it[471]: Origen[472] and Eusebius[473] fall into it
repeatedly. It is found in Codd. [Symbol: Aleph]CD: apparently in Cod.
A, where it fills one line exactly. Cyril comments largely on it[474].
But as fresh heresies arose which the depraved text seemed to favour,
the Church bestirred herself and remonstrated. It suited the Arians and
the Macedonians[475], who insisted that the Holy Ghost is a creature.
The former were refuted by Epiphanius, who points out that the sense is
not complete until you have read the words [Greek: ho gegonen]. A fresh
sentence (he says) begins at [Greek: En autô zôê ên][476]. Chrysostom
deals with the latter. 'Let us beware of putting the full stop' (he
says) 'at the words [Greek: oude hen],--as do the heretics. In order to
make out that the Spirit is a creature, they read [Greek: ho gegonen en
autô zôê ên]: by which means the Evangelist's meaning becomes
unintelligible[477].'
But in the meantime, Valentinus, whose example was followed by Theodotus
and by at least two of the Gnostic sects against whom Hippolytus wrote,
had gone further. The better to conceal St. John's purpose, the
heresiarch falsified the inspired text. In the place of, 'What was made
in Him, was life,' he substituted 'What was made in Him, _is_ life.'
Origen had seen copies so depraved, and judged the reading not
altogether improbable. Clement, on a single occasion, even adopted it.
It was the approved reading of the Old Latin versions,--a memorable
indication, by the way, of a quarter from which the Old Latin derived
their texts,--which explains why it is found in Cyprian, Hilary, and
Augustine; and why Ambrose has so elaborately vindicated its
sufficiency. It also appears in the Sahidic and in Cureton's Syriac; but
not in the Peshitto, nor in the Vulgate. [Nor in the Bohairic] In the
meantime, the only Greek Codexes which retain this singular trace of the
Gnostic period at the present day, are Codexes [Symbol: Aleph] and D.
§ 4.
[We may now take some more instances to shew the effects of the
operations of Heretics.]
The good Shepherd in a certain place (St. John x. 14, 15) says
concerning Himself--'I know My sheep and am known of Mine, even as the
Father knoweth Me and I know the Father': by which words He hints at a
mysterious knowledge as subsisting between Himself and those that are
His. And yet it is worth observing that whereas He describes the
knowledge which subsists between the Father and the Son in language
which implies that it is strictly identical on either side, He is
careful to distinguish between the knowledge which subsists between the
creature and the Creator by slightly varying the expression,--thus
leaving it to be inferred that it is not, neither indeed can be, on
either side the same. God knoweth us with a perfect knowledge. Our
so-called 'knowledge' of God is a thing different not only in degree,
but in kind[478]. Hence the peculiar form which the sentence
assumes[479]:--[Greek: ginôskô ta ema, kai ginôskomai hypo tôn emôn].
And this delicate diversity of phrase has been faithfully retained all
down the ages, being witnessed to at this hour by every MS. in existence
except four now well known to us: viz. [Symbol: Aleph]BDL. The Syriac
also retains it,--as does Macarius[480], Gregory Naz.[481],
Chrysostom[482], Cyril[483], Theodoret[484], Maximus[485]. It is a point
which really admits of no rational doubt: for does any one suppose that
if St. John had written 'Mine own know Me,' 996 MSS. out of 1000 at the
end of 1,800 years would exhibit, 'I am known of Mine'?
But in fact it is discovered that these words of our Lord experienced
depravation at the hands of the Manichaean heretics. Besides inverting
the clauses, (and so making it appear that such knowledge begins on the
side of Man.) Manes (A.D. 261) obliterated the peculiarity above
indicated. Quoting from his own fabricated Gospel, he acquaints us with
the form in which these words were exhibited in that mischievous
production: viz. [Greek: ginôskei me ta ema, kai ginôskô ta ema]. This
we learn from Epiphanius and from Basil[486]. Cyril, in a paper where he
makes clear reference to the same heretical Gospel, insists that the
order of knowledge must needs be the reverse of what the heretics
pretended[487].--But then, it is found that certain of the orthodox
contented themselves with merely reversing the clauses, and so restoring
the true order of the spiritual process discussed--regardless of the
exquisite refinement of expression to which attention was called at the
outset. Copies must once have abounded which represented our Lord as
saying, 'I know My own and My own know Me, even as the Father knoweth Me
and I know the Father'; for it is the order of the Old Latin, Bohairic,
Sahidic, Ethiopic, Lewis, Georgian, Slavonic, and Gothic, though not of
the Peshitto, Harkleian, and Armenian; and Eusebius[488], Nonnus, and
even Basil[489] so read the place. But no token of this clearly corrupt
reading survives in any known copy of the Gospels,--except [Symbol:
Aleph]BDL. Will it be believed that nevertheless all the recent Editors
of Scripture since Lachmann insist on obliterating this refinement of
language, and going back to the reading which the Church has long since
deliberately rejected,--to the manifest injury of the deposit? 'Many
words about a trifle,'--some will be found to say. Yes, to deny God's
truth is a very facile proceeding. Its rehabilitation always requires
many words. I request only that the affinity between [Symbol: Aleph]BDL
and the Latin copies which universally exhibit this disfigurement[490],
may be carefully noted. [Strange to say, the true reading receives no
notice from Westcott and Hort, or the Revisers[491]].
§ 5.
Doctrinal.
The question of Matrimony was one of those on which the early heretics
freely dogmatized. Saturninus[492] (A.D. 120) and his followers taught
that marriage was a production of Hell.
We are not surprised after this to find that those places in the Gospel
which bear on the relation between man and wife exhibit traces of
perturbation. I am not asserting that the heretics themselves depraved
the text. I do but state two plain facts: viz. (1) That whereas in the
second century certain heretical tenets on the subject of Marriage
prevailed largely, and those who advocated as well as those who opposed
such teaching relied chiefly on the Gospel for their proofs: (2) It is
accordingly found that not only does the phenomenon of 'various
readings' prevail in those places of the Gospel which bear most nearly
on the disputed points, but the 'readings' are exactly of that
suspicious kind which would naturally result from a tampering with the
text by men who had to maintain, or else to combat, opinions of a
certain class. I proceed to establish what I have been saying by some
actual examples[493].
St. Matt. xix. 29.
[Greek: ê gynaika,]
--BD abc Orig.
St. Mark x. 29.
[Greek: ê gynaika,]
--[Symbol: Aleph]BD[Symbol: Delta], abc, &c.
St. Luke xviii. 29.
[Greek: ê gynaika],
all allow it.
[Greek: hotan de legê; hoti "pas hostis aphêke gynaika," ou touto
phêsin, hôste aplôs diaspasthai tous gamous, k.t.l.] Chrys. vii. 636 E.
[Greek: Paradeigmatisai] (in St. Matt. i. 19) is another of the
expressions which have been disturbed by the same controversy. I suspect
that Origen is the author (see the heading of the Scholion in Cramer's
Catenae) of a certain uncritical note which Eusebius reproduces in his
'quaestiones ad Stephanum[494]' on the difference between [Greek:
deigmatisai] and [Greek: paradeigmatisai]; and that with him originated
the substitution of the uncompounded for the compounded verb in this
place. Be that as it may, Eusebius certainly read [Greek:
paradeigmatisai] (Dem. 320), with all the uncials but two (BZ): all the
cursives but one (I). Will it be believed that Lachmann, Tregelles,
Tischendorf, Alford, Westcott and Hort, on such slender evidence as that
are prepared to reconstruct the text of St. Matthew's Gospel?
It sounds so like trifling with a reader's patience to invite his
attention to an elaborate discussion of most of the changes introduced
into the text by Tischendorf and his colleagues, that I knowingly pass
over many hundreds of instances where I am nevertheless perfectly well
aware of my own strength,--my opponent's weakness. Such discussions in
fact become unbearable when the points in dispute are confessedly
trivial. No one however will deny that when three consecutive words of
our Lord are challenged they are worth contending for. We are invited
then to believe (St. Luke xxii. 67-8) that He did not utter the
bracketed words in the following sentence,--'If I tell you, ye will not
believe; and if I ask you, ye will not answer (Me, nor let Me go).' Now,
I invite the reader to inquire for the grounds of this assertion.
Fifteen of the uncials (including AD), and every known cursive, besides
all the Latin and all the Syriac copies recognize the bracketed words.
They are only missing in [Symbol: Aleph]BLT and their ally the Bohairic.
Are we nevertheless to be assured that the words are to be regarded as
spurious? Let the reader then be informed that Marcion left out seven
words more (viz. all from, 'And if I ask you' to the end), and will he
doubt either that the words are genuine or that their disappearance from
four copies of bad character, as proved by their constant evidence, and
from one version is sufficiently explained?
FOOTNOTES:
[441] [Greek: pseudônymou gnôseôs] 1 Tim. vi. 20.
[442] 1 Tim. iv. 1-3.
[443] ii. 17.
[444] Acts xx. 29.
[445] Rev. ii. 6.
[446] Rev. ii. 15.
[447] Rev. ii. 13.
[448] Chiefly the Low Latin amongst them. Tradit. Text. chap. vii. p.
137.
[449] 'Ausus fuit et Basilides scribere Evangelium, et suo illud nomine
titulare.'--Orig. Opp. iii. 933 c: Iren. i. 23: Clem. Al. 409, 426, 506,
509, 540, 545: Tertull. c. 46: Epiph. 24: Theodor. i. 4.
[450] 'Evangelium habet etiam suum, praeter haec nostra' (De
Praescript., ad calcem).
[451] Origen (commenting on St. Luke x. 25-28) says,--[Greek: tauta de
eirêtai prôs tois apo Oualentinou, kai Basilidou, kai tous apo
Markiônos. echousi gar kai autoi tas lexeis en tôi kath' heautous
euangeliôi]. Opp. iii. 981 A.
[452] 'Licet non sint digni fide, qui fidem primam irritam fecerunt,
Marcionem loquor et Basilidem et omnes Haereticos qui vetus laniant
Testamentum: tamen eos aliqua ex parte ferremus, si saltem in novo
continerent manus suas; et non auderent Christi (ut ipsi iactitant) boni
Dei Filii, vel Evangelistas violare, vel Apostolos. Nunc vero, quum et
Evangelia eius dissipaverint; et Apostolorum epistolas, non Apostolorum
Christi fecerunt esse, sed proprias; miror quomodo sibi Christianorum
nomen audeant vindicare. Ut enim de caeteris Epistolis taceam, (de
quibus quidquid contrarium suo dogmati viderant, evaserunt, nonnullas
integras repudiandas crediderunt); ad Timotheum videlicet utramque, ad
Hebraeos, et ad Titum, quam nunc conamur exponere.' Hieron. Praef. ad
Titum.
[453] 'Hi vero, qui sunt a Valentino, exsistentes extra omnem timorem,
suas conscriptiones praeferentes, plura habere gloriantur, quam sint
ipsa Evangelia. Siquidem in tantum processerunt audaciae, uti quod ab
his non olim conscriptum est, Veritatis Evangelium titulent.' Iren. iii.
xi. 9.
[454] See, by all means, Epiphanius, Haer. xxx. c. xiii; also c. iii.
[455] 'Tanta est circa Evangelia haec firmitas, ut et ipsi haeretici
testimonium reddant eis, et ex ipsis egrediens unusquisque eorum conetur
suam confirmare doctrinam. Ebionaei etenim eo Evangelio quod est
secundum Matthaeum, solo utentes, ex illo ipso convincuntur, non recte
praesumentes de Domino. Marcion autem id quod est secundum Lucam
circumcidens, ex his quae adhuc servantur penes eum, blasphemus in solum
existentem Deum ostenditur. Qui autem Iesum separant a Christo, et
impassibilem perseverasse Christum, passum vero Iesum dicunt, id quod
secundum Marcum est praeferentes Evangelium; cum amore veritatis
legentes illud, corrigi possunt. Hi autem qui a Valentino sunt, eo quod
est secundum Joannem plenissime utentes,' &c. Iren. iii. xi. 7.
[456] [Greek: Hêrakleôn, ho tês Oualentinou scholês dokimôtatos]. Clem.
Al. p. 595. Of Heracleon it is expressly related by Origen that he
depraved the text of the Gospel. Origen says (iv. 66) that Heracleon
(regardless of the warning in Prov. xxx. 6) added to the text of St.
John i. 3 (vii. after the words [Greek: egeneto oude en]) the words
[Greek: tôn en tô kosmôi, kai tê ktisei]. Heracleon clearly read [Greek:
ho gegonen en autô zôê ên]. See Orig. iv. 64. In St. John ii. 19, for
[Greek: en trisi], he wrote [Greek: en tritê]. He also read (St. John
iv. 18) (for [Greek: pente]), [Greek: ex andras esches].
[457] Celsus having objected that believers had again and again
falsified the text of the Gospel, refashioning it, in order to meet the
objections of assailants, Origen replies: [Greek: Metacharaxantas de to
euangelion allous ouk oida, hê tous apo Markiônos, kai tous apo
Oualentinou, oimai de kai tous apo Loukanou. touto de legomenon ou tou
logou estin egklêma, alla tôn tolmêsantôn rhadiourgêsai ta euangelia].
Opp. i. 411 B.
[458] De Praesc. Haer. c. 51.
[459] [Greek: Outos de dêmiourgos kai poiêtês toude tou pantos kosmou
kai tôn en autô ... estai men katadeesteros tou teleiou Theou ... ate dê
kai gennêtos ôn, kai ouk agennêtos]. Ptolemaeus, ap. Epiph. p. 217.
Heracleon saw in the nobleman of Capernaum an image of the Demiurge who,
[Greek: basilikos ônomasthê hoionei mikros tis basileus, hypo katholikou
basileôs tetagmenos epi mikras basileias], p. 373.
[460] [Greek: O Iôannês ... boulomenos eipein tên tôn holôn genesin,
kath' ên ta panta proebalen ho Patêr, archên tina hypotithetai, to
prôton gennêthen hypo tou theou, hon dê kai huion Monogenê kai Theon
keklêken, en hô ta panta ho Patêr proebale spermatikôs. Hypo de toutou
phêsi ton Logon probeblêsthai, kai en autô tên holên tôn Aiônôn ousian,
ên autos hysteron emorphôsen ho Logos.... Panta di' autou egeneto, kai
chôris autou egeneto oude hen; pasi gar tois met' auton Aiôsi morphês
kai geneseôs aitios ho Logos egeneto].
[461] [Greek: En tô Patri kai ek tou Patros hê archê, kai ek tês archês
ho Logos. Kalôs oun eipen; en archê ên ho Logos; ên gar en tô Huiô. Kai
ho Logos ên pros ton Theon; kai gar hê 'Archê; kai Theos ên ho Logos,
akolouthôs. To gar ek Theou gennêthen Theos estin].--Ibid. p. 102.
Compare the Excerpt. Theod. _ap_. Clem. Al. c. vi. p. 968.
[462] _Ap_. Orig. 938. 9.
[463] So Theodotus (p. 980), and so Ptolemaeus (_ap._ Epiph. i. 217),
and so Heracleon (_ap._ Orig. p. 954). Also Meletius the Semi-Arian
(_ap._ Epiph. i. 882).
[464] See The Traditional Text, p. 113.
[465] Clem. Al. always has [Greek: oude hen] (viz. pp. 134, 156, 273,
769, 787, 803, 812, 815, 820): but when he quotes the Gnostics (p. 838)
he has [Greek: ouden]. Cyril, while writing his treatise De Trinitate,
read [Greek: ouden] in his copy. Eusebius, for example, has [Greek: oude
hen], fifteen times; [Greek: ouden] only twice, viz. Praep. 322: Esai.
529.
[466] Opp. ii. 74.
[467] _Ap._ Iren. 102.
[468] Ibid. 940.
[469] _Ap._ Clem. Al. 968, 973.
[470] Philosoph. 107. But not when he is refuting the tenets of the
Peratae: [Greek: oude hen, ho gegonen. en autô zôê estin. en autô de,
phêsin, hê Eua gegonen, hê Eua zôê]. Ibid. p. 134.
[471] Opp. 114, 218, 1009.
[472] Cels. vi. 5: Princip. II. ix. 4: IV. i. 30: In Joh. i. 22, 34: ii.
6, 10, 12, 13 _bis_: In Rom. iii. 10, 15: Haer. v. 151.
[473] Psalm. 146, 235, 245: Marcell. 237. Not so in Ecl. 100: Praep.
322, 540.
[474] [Greek: Anagkaiôs phêsin, "ho gegonen, eni autô zôê ên." ou monon
phêsi, "di autou ta panta egeneto," alla kai ei ti gegonen ên en autô hê
zôê. tout' estin, ho monogenês tou Theo logos, hê pantôn archê, kai
systasis horatôn te kai aoratôn ... autos gar hyparchôn hê kata physin
zôê, to einai kai zên kai kineisthai polytropôs tois ousi charisetai].
Opp. iv. 49 e.
He understood the Evangelist to declare concerning the [Greek: Logos],
that, [Greek: panta di' autou egeneto, kai ên en tois genomenois hôs
zôê]. Ibid. 60 c.
[475] [Greek: Outoi de boulontai auto einai ktisma ktismatos. phasi gar,
hoti panto di' autou gegone, kai chôris autou egeneto oude hen. ara,
phasi, kai to Pneuma ek tôn poiêmatôn hyparchei, epeidê panta di' autou
gegone]. Opp. i. 741. Which is the teaching of Eusebius, Marcell. 333-4.
The Macedonians were an offshoot of the Arians.
[476] i. 778 D, 779 B. See also ii. 80.
[477] Opp. viii. 40.
[478] Consider 1 John ii. 3, 4: and read Basil ii. 188 b, c. See p. 207,
note 4. Consider also Gal. iv. 9. So Cyril Al. [iv. 655 a], [Greek: kai
proegnô mallon hê egnôsthê par' hêmôn].
[479] Chrysostom alone seems to have noticed this:--[Greek: hina mê tês
gnôseôs ison ton metron nomisêis, akouson pôs diorthoutai auto têi
epagôgêi; ginôskô ta ema, phêsi, kai ginôskomai hypo tôn emôn. all' ouk
isê hê gnôsis, k.t.l.] viii. 353 d.
[480] P. 38. (Gall. vii. 26.)
[481] i. 298, 613.
[482] viii. 351, 353 d and e.
[483] iv. 652 c, 653 a, 654 d.
[484] i. 748: iv. 374, 550.
[485] In Dionys. Ar. ii. 192.
[486] [Greek: Phêsi de ho autos Manês ... ta ema probata ginôskei me,
kai ginôskô ta ema probata]. (Epiphan. i. 697.)--Again,--[Greek:
hêrpasen ho hairetikos pros tên idian kataskeuên tês blasphêmias. idou,
phêsin, eirêtai; hoti ginôasousi] (lower down, [Greek: ginôskei])
[Greek: me ta ema, kai ginôskô ta ema]. (Basil ii. 188 a, b.)
[487] [Greek: En taxei tê oikeia kai prepôdestatê tôn pragmatôn ekasta
titheis. ou gar ephê, ginôskei me ta ema, kai ginôskô ta ema, all'
heauton egnôkata proteron eispherei ta idia probata, eith' outôs
gnôsthêsesthai phêsi par autôn ... ouch hêmeis auton epegnôkamen prôtoi,
epegnô de hêmas prôton autos ... ouch hêmeis êrxametha tou pragmatos,
all' ho ek Theou Theos monogenês].--iv. 654 d, 655 a. (Note, that this
passage appears in a mutilated form, viz. 121 words are omitted, in the
Catena of Corderius, p. 267,--where it is wrongly assigned to
Chrysostom: an instructive instance.)
[488] In Ps. 489: in Es. 509: Theoph. 185, 258, 260.
[489] ii. 188 a:--which is the more remarkable, because Basil proceeds
exquisitely to shew (1886) that man's 'knowledge' of God consists in his
keeping of God's Commandments. (1 John ii. 3, 4.) See p. 206, note 1.
[490] So Jerome, iv. 484: vii. 455. Strange, that neither Ambrose nor
Augustine should quote the place.
[491] See Revision Revised, p. 220.
[492] Or Saturnilus--[Greek: to de gamein kai gennan apo tou Satana
phêsin einai]. p. 245, l. 38. So Marcion, 253.
[493] [The MS. breaks off here, with references to St. Mark x. 7, Eph.
v. 31-2 (on which the Dean had accumulated a large array of references),
St. Mark x. 29-30, with a few references, but no more. I have not had
yet time or strength to work out the subject.]
[494] Mai, iv. 221.