reached a very alarming pass indeed to render intelligible the resort to
so extraordinary a step as a representative Conference of the “leading
Personages or Sees” (p. 134) of Eastern Christendom. The inference is at
least inevitable, that men in high place at that time deemed themselves
competent to grapple with the problem. Enough was familiarly known about
the character and the sources of these corrupt Texts to make it certain
that they would be recognizable when produced; and that, when condemned by
authority, they would no longer be propagated, and in the end would cease
to molest the Church. Thus much, at all events, is legitimately to be
inferred from the hypothesis.
XXI. Behold then from every principal Diocese of ancient Christendom, and
in the Church’s palmiest days, the most famous of the ante-Nicene Fathers
repair to Antioch. They go up by authority, and are attended by skilled
Ecclesiastics of the highest theological attainment. Bearers are they
perforce of a vast number of Copies of the Scriptures: and (by the
hypothesis) _the latest possible dates_ of any of these Copies must range
between A.D. 250 and 350. But the Delegates of so many ancient Sees will
have been supremely careful, before starting on so important and solemn an
errand, to make diligent search for the oldest Copies anywhere
discoverable: and when they reach the scene of their deliberations, we may
be certain that they are able to appeal to not a few codices _written
within a hundred years of the_ date of the _inspired Autographs_
themselves. Copies of the Scriptures authenticated as having belonged to
the most famous of their predecessors,—and held by them in high repute for
the presumed purity of their Texts—will have been freely produced: while,
in select receptacles, will have been stowed away—for purposes of
comparison and avoidance—specimens of those dreaded Texts whose existence
has been the sole cause why (by the hypothesis) this extraordinary
concourse of learned Ecclesiastics has taken place.
After solemnly invoking the Divine blessing, these men address themselves
assiduously to their task; and (by the hypothesis) they proceed to condemn
every codex which exhibits a “strictly Western,” or a “strictly
Alexandrian,” or a “strictly Neutral” type. In plain English, if codices
B, א, and D had been before them, they would have unceremoniously rejected
all three; but then, (by the hypothesis) neither of the two first-named
had yet come into being: while 200 years at least must roll out before
Cod. D would see the light. In the meantime, the _immediate ancestors_ of
B א and D will perforce have come under judicial scrutiny; and, (by the
hypothesis,) they will have been scornfully rejected by the general
consent of the Judges.
XXII. Pass an interval—(are we to suppose of fifty years?)—and the work
referred to is “_subjected to a second authoritative Revision_.” _Again_,
therefore, behold the piety and learning of the four great Patriarchates
of the East, formally represented at Antioch! The Church is now in her
palmiest days. Some of her greatest men belong to the period of which we
are speaking. Eusebius (A.D. 308-340) is in his glory. One whole
generation has come and gone since the last Textual Conference was held,
at Antioch. Yet is no inclination manifested to reverse the decrees of the
earlier Conference. This second Recension of the Text of Scripture does
but “carry out more completely the purposes of the first;” and “the final
process was apparently completed by A.D. 350” (p. 137).—So far the
Cambridge Professor.
XXIII. But the one important fact implied by this august deliberation
concerning the Text of Scripture has been conveniently passed over by Dr.
Hort in profound silence. We take leave to repair his omission by inviting
the Reader’s particular attention to it.
We request him to note that, _by the hypothesis_, there will have been
submitted to the scrutiny of these many ancient Ecclesiastics _not a few
codices of exactly the same type as codices_ B _and_ א: especially as
codex B. We are able even to specify with precision certain features which
the codices in question will have all concurred in exhibiting. Thus,—
(1) From S. Mark’s Gospel, those depraved copies will have omitted THE
LAST TWELVE VERSES (xvi. 9-20).
(2) From S. Luke’s Gospel the same corrupt copies will have omitted our
SAVIOUR’S AGONY IN THE GARDEN (xxii. 43, 44).
(3) His PRAYER ON BEHALF OF HIS MURDERERS (xxiii. 34), will have also been
away.
(4) The INSCRIPTION ON THE CROSS, in GREEK, LATIN, AND HEBREW (xxiii. 38),
will have been partly, misrepresented,—partly, away.
(5) And there will have been no account discoverable of S. PETER’S VISIT
TO THE SEPULCHRE (xxiv. 12).
(6) Absent will have been also the record of our LORD’S ASCENSION INTO
HEAVEN (_ibid._ 51).
(7) Also, from S. John’s Gospel, the codices in question will have omitted
the incident of THE TROUBLING OF THE POOL OF BETHESDA (v. 3, 4).
Now, we request that it may be clearly noted that, _according to Dr.
Hort_, against every copy of the Gospels so maimed and mutilated, (_i.e._
_against every copy of the Gospels of the same type as codices_ B _and_
א,)—the many illustrious Bishops who, (_still_ according to Dr. Hort,)
assembled at Antioch, first in A.D. 250 and then in A.D. 350,—by common
consent set a mark of _condemnation_. We are assured that those famous
men,—those Fathers of the Church,—were emphatic in their sanction,
instead, of codices of the type of Cod. A,—in which all these seven
omitted passages (and many hundreds besides) are duly found in their
proper places.
When, therefore, at the end of a thousand and half a thousand years, Dr.
Hort (guided by his inner consciousness, and depending on an intellectual
illumination of which he is able to give no intelligible account) proposes
to reverse the deliberate sentence of Antiquity,—his position strikes us
as bordering on the ludicrous. Concerning the seven places above referred
to, which the assembled Fathers pronounce to be genuine Scripture, and
declare to be worthy of all acceptation,—Dr. Hort expresses himself in
terms which—could they have been heard at Antioch—must, it is thought,
have brought down upon his head tokens of displeasure which might have
even proved inconvenient. But let the respected gentleman by all means be
allowed to speak for himself:—
(1) THE LAST TWELVE VERSES of S. Mark (he would have been heard to say)
are a “very early interpolation.” “Its authorship and precise date must
remain unknown.” “It manifestly cannot claim any Apostolic authority.” “It
is doubtless founded on some tradition of the Apostolic age.”—(_Notes_,
pp. 46 and 51.)
(2) THE AGONY IN THE GARDEN (he would have told them) is “an early Western
interpolation,” and “can only be a fragment from traditions, written or
oral,”—“rescued from oblivion by the scribes of the second century.”—(pp.
66-7.)
(3) THE PRAYER OF OUR LORD FOR HIS MURDERERS (Dr. Hort would have
said),—“I cannot doubt comes from an extraneous source.” It is “a Western
interpolation.”—(p.68.)
(4) TO THE INSCRIPTION ON THE CROSS, IN GREEK, LATIN, AND HEBREW [S. Luke
xxiii. 38], he would not have allowed so much as a hearing.
(5) The spuriousness of the narrative of S. PETER’S VISIT TO THE SEPULCHRE
[S. Luke xxiv. 12] (the same Ante-Nicene Fathers would have learned) he
regards as a “moral certainty.” He would have assured them that it is “a
Western non-interpolation.”—(p. 71.)
(6) They would have learned that, in the account of the same Critic, S.
Luke xxiv. 51 is another spurious addition to the inspired Text: another
“Western non-interpolation.” Dr. Hort would have tried to persuade them
that OUR LORD’S ASCENSION INTO HEAVEN “_was evidently inserted from an
assumption_ that a separation from the disciples at the close of a Gospel
_must be the Ascension_,” (_Notes_, p. 73).... (What the Ante-Nicene
Fathers would have thought of their teacher we forbear to conjecture.)—(p.
71.)
(7) THE TROUBLING OF THE POOL OF BETHESDA [S. John v. 3, 4] is not even
allowed a bracketed place in Dr. Hort’s Text. How the accomplished Critic
would have set about persuading the Ante-Nicene Fathers that they were in
error for holding it to be genuine Scripture, it is hard to imagine.
XXIV. It is plain therefore that Dr. Hort is in direct antagonism with the
collective mind of Patristic Antiquity. _Why_, when it suits him, he
should appeal to the same Ancients for support,—we fail to understand. “If
Baal be GOD, then follow _him_!” Dr. Hort has his codex B and his codex א
to guide him. He informs us (p. 276) that “the fullest consideration does
but increase the conviction that the _pre-eminent relative purity_” of
those two codices “is approximately _absolute_,—_a true approximate
reproduction of the Text of the Autographs_.” On the other hand, he has
discovered that the Received Text is virtually the production of the
Fathers of the Nicene Age (A.D. 250-A.D. 350),—exhibits a Text fabricated
throughout by the united efforts of those well-intentioned but thoroughly
misguided men. What is it to _him_, henceforth, how Athanasius, or
Didymus, or Cyril exhibits a place?
Yes, we repeat it,—Dr. Hort is in direct antagonism with the Fathers of
the IIIrd and the IVth Century. His own fantastic hypothesis of a “Syrian
Text,”—the solemn expression of the collective wisdom and deliberate
judgment of the Fathers of the Nicene Age (A.D. 250-A.D. 350),—is the best
answer which can by possibility be invented to his own pages,—is, in our
account, the one sufficient and conclusive refutation of his own Text.
Thus, his prolix and perverse discussion of S. Mark xvi. 9-20 (viz. from
p. 28 to p. 51 of his _Notes_),—which, carefully analysed, is found merely
to amount to “Thank you for showing us our mistake; but we mean to stick
to our _Mumpsimus_!”:—those many inferences as well from what the Fathers
do _not_ say, as from what they _do_;—are all effectually disposed of by
his own theory of a “Syrian text.” A mighty array of forgotten Bishops,
Fathers, Doctors of the Nicene period, come back and calmly assure the
accomplished Professor that the evidence on which he relies is but an
insignificant fraction of the evidence which was before themselves when
they delivered their judgment. “Had you known but the thousandth part of
what we knew familiarly,” say they, “you would have spared yourself this
exposure. You seem to have forgotten that Eusebius was one of the chief
persons in our assembly; that Cyril of Jerusalem and Athanasius, Basil and
Gregory of Nazianzus, as well as his namesake of Nyssa,—were all living
when we held our Textual Conference, and some of them, though young men,
were even parties to our decree.”... Now, as an _argumentum ad hominem_,
this, be it observed, is decisive and admits of no rejoinder.
XXV. How then about those “Syrian _Conflations_” concerning which a few
pages back we heard so much, and for which Dr. Hort considers the august
tribunal of which we are now speaking to be responsible? He is convinced
that the (so-called) Syrian Text (which he regards as the product of their
deliberations), is “an eclectic text _combining Readings from the three
principal Texts_” (p. 145): which Readings in consequence he calls
“_conflate_.” How then is it to be supposed that these “Conflations”
arose? The answer is obvious. As “Conflations,” _they have no
existence_,—save in the fertile brain of Dr. Hort. Could the ante-Nicene
fathers who never met at Antioch have been interrogated by him concerning
this matter,—(let the Hibernian supposition be allowed for argument
sake!)—they would perforce have made answer,—“You quite mistake the
purpose for which we came together, learned sir! You are evidently
thinking of your Jerusalem Chamber and of the unheard-of method devised by
your Bishop” [see pp. 37 to 39: also p. 273] “for ascertaining the Truth
of Scripture. Well may the resuscitation of so many forgotten blunders
have occupied you and your colleagues for as long a period as was expended
on the Siege of Troy! _Our_ business was not to _invent_ readings whether
by ‘Conflation’ or otherwise, but only to distinguish between spurious
Texts and genuine,—families of fabricated MSS., and those which we knew to
be trustworthy,—mutilated and unmutilated Copies. Every one of what _you_
are pleased to call ‘Conflate Readings,’ learned sir, we found—just as you
find them—in 99 out of 100 of our copies: and we gave them our deliberate
approval, and left them standing in the Text in consequence. We believed
them to be,—we are confident that they _are_,—the very words of the
Evangelists and Apostles of the LORD: the _ipsissima verba_ of the SPIRIT:
‘_the true sayings of the_ HOLY GHOST.’ ” [See p. 38, note 2.]
All this however by the way. The essential thing to be borne in mind is
that, according to Dr. Hort,—_on two distinct occasions between_ A.D. 250
_and_ 350—the whole Eastern Church, meeting by representation in her
palmiest days, deliberately put forth _that_ Traditional Text of the N. T.
with which we at this day are chiefly familiar. That this is indeed his
view of the matter, there can at least be no doubt. He says:—
“_An authoritative Revision_ at Antioch ... was itself subjected
to _a second authoritative Revision_ carrying out more completely
the purposes of the first.” “At what date between A.D. 250 and 350
_the first process_ took place, it is impossible to say with
confidence.” “_The final process_ was apparently completed by A.D.
350 or thereabouts.”—(p. 137.)
“The fundamental text of late extant Greek MSS. generally _is
beyond all question_ identical with the dominant Antiochian or
Græco-Syrian text of _the second half of the IVth century_.”—(p.
92.)
Be it so. It follows that the Text exhibited by such codices as B and א
_was deliberately condemned_ by the assembled piety, learning, and
judgment of the four great Patriarchates of Eastern Christendom. At a
period when there existed _nothing more modern_ than Codices B and
א,—nothing _so_ modern as A and C,—all specimens of the former class were
_rejected_: while such codices as bore a general resemblance to A were by
common consent pointed out as deserving of confidence and _recommended for
repeated Transcription_.
XXVI. Pass _fifteen hundred_ years, and the Reader is invited to note
attentively what has come to pass. Time has made a clean sweep, it may be,
of every Greek codex belonging to either of the two dates above indicated.
Every tradition belonging to the period has also long since utterly
perished. When lo, in A.D. 1831, under the auspices of Dr. Lachmann, “a
new departure” is made. Up springs what may be called the new German
school of Textual Criticism,—of which the fundamental principle is a
superstitious deference to the decrees of cod. B. The heresy prevails for
fifty years (1831-81) and obtains many adherents. The practical result is,
that its chief promoters make it their business to throw discredit on the
result of the two great Antiochian Revisions already spoken of! The
(so-called) “Syrian Text”—although assumed by Drs. Westcott and Hort to be
the product of the combined wisdom, piety, and learning of the great
Patriarchates of the East from A.D. 250 to A.D. 350; “a ‘Recension’ in the
proper sense of the word; a work of attempted Criticism, performed
deliberately by Editors and not merely by Scribes” (p. 133):—this “Syrian
Text,” Doctors Westcott and Hort denounce as “_showing no marks of either
critical or spiritual insight:_”—
It “presents” (say they) “the New Testament in a form smooth and
attractive, but _appreciably impoverished in sense and force_; more fitted
for cursory perusal or recitation than for repeated and diligent
study.”—(p. 135.)
XXVII. We are content to leave this matter to the Reader’s judgment. For
ourselves, we make no secret of the grotesqueness of the contrast thus,
for the second time, presented to the imagination. On _that_ side, by the
hypothesis, sit the greatest Doctors of primitive Christendom, assembled
in solemn conclave. Every most illustrious name is there. By ingeniously
drawing a purely arbitrary hard-and-fast line at the year A.D. 350, and so
anticipating many a “_floruit_” by something between five and
five-and-twenty years, Dr. Hort’s intention is plain: but the expedient
will not serve his turn. Quite content are we with the names secured to us
within the proposed limits of time. On _that_ side then, we behold
congregated choice representatives of the wisdom, the piety, the learning
of the Eastern Church, from A.D. 250 to A.D. 350.—On this side sits—Dr.
Hort! ... An interval of 1532 years separates these two parties.
XXVIII. And first,—How may the former assemblage be supposed to have been
occupying themselves? The object with which those distinguished personages
came together was the loftiest, the purest, the holiest imaginable: viz.
to purge out from the sacred Text the many corruptions by which, in their
judgments, it had become depraved during the 250 (or at the utmost 300)
years which have elapsed since it first came into existence; to detect the
counterfeit and to eliminate the spurious. Not unaware by any means are
they of the carelessness of Scribes, nor yet of the corruptions which have
been brought in through the officiousness of critical “Correctors” of the
Text. To what has resulted from the misdirected piety of the Orthodox,
they are every bit as fully alive as to what has crept in through the
malignity of Heretical Teachers. Moreover, while the memory survives in
all its freshness of the depravations which the inspired Text has
experienced from these and other similar corrupting influences, the _means
abound_ and _are at hand_ of _testing_ every suspected place of Scripture.
Well, and next,—How have these holy men prospered in their holy
enterprise?
XXIX. According to Dr. Hort, by a strange fatality,—a most unaccountable
and truly disastrous proclivity to error,—these illustrious Fathers of the
Church have been at every instant substituting the spurious for the
genuine,—a fabricated Text in place of the Evangelical Verity. Miserable
men! In the Gospels alone they have interpolated about 3100 words: have
omitted about 700: have substituted about 1000; have transposed about
2200: have altered (in respect of number, case, mood, tense, person, &c.)
about 1200.(724) This done, they have amused themselves with the
give-and-take process of mutual accommodation which we are taught to call
“_Conflation_:” in plain terms, _they have been manufacturing Scripture_.
The Text, as it comes forth from their hands,—
(a) “_Shews no marks of either critical or spiritual insight:_”—
(b) “Presents the New Testament in a form smooth and attractive, but
_appreciably impoverished in sense and force_:”—
(c) “_Is more fitted for cursory perusal or recitation, than for repeated
and diligent study._”
Moreover, the mischief has proved infectious,—has spread. In Syria also,
at Edessa or Nisibis,—(for it is as well to be circumstantial in such
matters,)—the self-same iniquity is about to be perpetrated; of which the
Peschito will be the abiding monument: _one_ solitary witness only to the
pure Text being suffered to escape. Cureton’s fragmentary Syriac will
alone remain to exhibit to mankind the outlines of primitive Truth. (The
reader is reminded of the character already given of the document in
question at the summit of page 279. Its extravagance can only be fully
appreciated by one who will be at the pains to read it steadily through.)
XXX. And pray, (we ask,)—_Who_ says all this? _Who_ is it who gravely puts
forth all this egregious nonsense?... It is Dr. Hort, (we answer,) at pp.
134-5 of the volume now under review. In fact, according to _him_, those
primitive Fathers have been the great falsifiers of Scripture; have proved
the worst enemies of the pure Word of GOD; have shamefully betrayed their
sacred trust; have done the diametrical reverse of what (by the
hypothesis) they came together for the sole purpose of doing. They have
depraved and corrupted that sacred Text which it was their aim, their
duty, and their professed object to purge from its errors. And (by the
hypothesis) Dr. Hort, at the end of 1532 years,—aided by codex B and his
own self-evolved powers of divination,—has found them out, and now holds
them up to the contempt and scorn of the British public.
XXXI. In the meantime the illustrious Professor invites us to believe that
the mistaken textual judgment pronounced at Antioch in A.D. 350 had an
immediate effect on the Text of Scripture throughout the world. We are
requested to suppose that it resulted in the instantaneous extinction of
codices the like of B א, wherever found; and caused codices of the A type
to spring up like mushrooms in their place, and _that_, in every library
of ancient Christendom. We are further required to assume that this
extraordinary substitution of new evidence for old—the false for the
true—fully explains why Irenæus and Hippolytus, Athanasius and Didymus,
Gregory of Nazianzus and Gregory of Nyssa, Basil and Ephraem, Epiphanius
and Chrysostom, Theodore of Mopsuestia and Isidore of Pelusium, Nilus and
Nonnus, Proclus and Severianus, the two Cyrils and Theodoret—_one and
all_—show themselves strangers to the text of B and א.... We read and
marvel.
XXXII. For, (it is time to enquire,)—Does not the learned Professor see
that, by thus getting rid of the testimony of the whole body of the
Fathers, he leaves the Science which he is so good as to patronize in a
most destitute condition,—besides placing himself in a most inconvenient
state of isolation? If clear and consentient Patristic testimony to the
Text of Scripture is not to be deemed forcible witness to its
Truth,—_whither_ shall a man betake himself for constraining Evidence? Dr.
Hort has already set aside the Traditional Text as a thing of no manner of
importance. The venerable Syriac Version he has also insisted on reducing
very nearly to the level of the despised cursives. As for the copies of
the old Latin, they had confessedly become so untrustworthy, at the time
of which he speaks, that a modest Revision of the Text they embody, (the
“_Vulgate_” namely,) became at last a measure of necessity. What remains
to him therefore? Can he seriously suppose that the world will put up with
the “idiosyncrasy” of a living Doctor—his “personal instincts” (p.
xi.)—his “personal discernment” (p. 65),—his “instinctive processes of
Criticism” (p. 66),—his “individual mind,”—in preference to articulate
voices coming to us across the gulf of Time from every part of ancient
Christendom? How—with the faintest chance of success—does Dr. Hort propose
to remedy the absence of External Testimony? If mankind can afford to do
without either consent of Copies or of Fathers, why does mankind any
longer adhere to the ancient methods of proof? Why do Critics of every
school _still_ accumulate references to MSS., explore the ancient
Versions, and ransack the Patristic writings in search of neglected
citations of Scripture? That the ancients were indifferent Textual
Critics, is true enough. The mischief done by Origen in this
department,—through his fondness for a branch of Learning in which his
remarks show that he was all unskilled,—is not to be told. But then, these
men lived within a very few hundred years of the Apostles of the LORD
JESUS CHRIST: and when they witness to the reading of their own copies,
their testimony on the point, to say the least, is worthy of our most
respectful attention. _Dated codices,_ in fact are they, _to all intents
and purposes,_ as often as they bear clear witness to the Text of
Scripture:—a fact, (we take leave to throw out the remark in passing,)
which has not yet nearly attracted the degree of attention which it
deserves.