The Traditional Text of the Holy Gospels Part 19

65, where the Evangelist, having related that Zacharias wrote-"His name is John," adds,-"and all wondered. And his mouth was opened immediately, and his tongue, and he spake praising G.o.d." The meaning of course is that his tongue "was loosed." Accordingly D actually supplies ?????,-the Latin copies, "resoluta est." But D does more. Presuming that what occasioned the "wonder" was not so much what Zacharias wrote on the tablet as the restored gift of speech, it puts that clause first,-ingeniously transposing the first two words (pa?a???a ?a?); the result of which is the following sentence:-"And immediately his tongue was loosed; and all wondered. And his mouth was opened, and he spake praising G.o.d".... In the next verse it is related that "fear came upon all who dwelt round about them." But the order of the words in the original being unusual (?a?

????et? ?p? p??ta? f??? t??? pe????????ta? a?t???), D and the Latin copies transpose them: (indeed the three Syriac do the same): but D b c gratuitously introduce an epithet,-?a? e?e?et? f??? e?a? ep? pa?ta? t???

pe????????ta? a?t??.... In ver. 70, the expression t?? ?p? a????? p??f?t??

a?t?? appearing harsh was (by transposing the words) altered into this, which is the easy and more obvious order: p??f?t?? a?t?? t?? ap?

a?????.... So again in ver. 71: the phrase s?t???a? ?? ?????? seeming obscure, the words ?? ?e???? (which follow) were by D subst.i.tuted for ??.

The result (s?t???a? ?? ?e???? ?????? ??? [compare ver. 74], ?a? p??t??

t?? ?s???t?? ???) is certainly easier reading: but-like every other change found in the same context-it labours under the fatal condemnation of being an unauthorized human gloss.

The phenomenon however which perplexes me most in Cod. D is that it abounds in fabricated readings which have nothing whatever to recommend them. Not contented with St. Luke's expression "to thrust out _a little_ (??????) from the land" (v. 3), the scribe writes ?s?? ?s??. In ver. 5, instead of "I will let down the net" (?a??s? t? d??t???) he makes St.

Peter reply, "I will not neglect to obey" (?? ? pa?a???s?a?). So, for "and when they had this done," he writes "and when they had straightway let down the nets": and immediately after, instead of d?e??????t? d? t?

d??t??? a?t?? we are presented with ?ste ta d??t?a ??sses?a?. It is very difficult to account for this, except on an hypothesis which I confess recommends itself to me more and more: viz. that there were in circulation in some places during the earliest ages of the Church Evangelical paraphrases, or at least free exhibitions of the chief Gospel incidents,-to which the critics resorted; and from which the less judicious did not hesitate to borrow expressions and even occasionally to extract short pa.s.sages. Such loose representations of pa.s.sages must have prevailed both in Syria, and in the West where Greek was not so well understood, and where translators into the vernacular Latin expressed themselves with less precision, whilst they attempted also to explain the pa.s.sages translated.

This notion, viz. that it is within the province of a Copyist to interpret the original before him, clearly lies at the root of many a so-called "various reading."

Thus for the difficult ?p?a??? ???a?e (in St. Mark xiv. 72), "when he thought thereon" (i.e. "when in self-abandonment he flung himself upon the thought"), "he wept," D exhibits ?a? ???at? ??a?e??, "and he began to weep," a much easier and a very natural expression, only that it is not the right one, and does not express all that the true words convey. Hence also the transposition by D and some Old Latin MSS. of the clause ?? ???

??a? sf?d?a "for it was very great" from xvi. 4, where it seems to be out of place, to ver. 3 where it seems to be necessary. Eusebius is observed to have employed a MS. similarly corrupt.

Hence again the frequent unauthorized insertion of a nominative case to determine the sense: e.g. ? ???e??? "the angel," xvi. 6, ? d? ??s?f "Joseph," xv. 46, or the subst.i.tution of the name intended for the p.r.o.noun,-as t?? ???saed (sic) for a?t?? in St. Luke i. 41.

Hence in xvi. 7, instead of, "He goeth before you into Galilee, there shall ye see Him as He said unto you,"-D exhibits,-"Behold, I go before you into Galilee, there shall ye see Me, as I told you." As if it had been thought allowable to recall in this place the fact that our SAVIOUR had once (St. Matt. xxvi. 32, St. Mark xiv. 28) spoken these words in His own person.

And in no other way can I explain D's vapid subst.i.tution, made as if from habit, of "a Galilean city" for "a city of Galilee, named Nazareth" in St.

Luke i. 26.

Hence the frequent insertion of a wholly manufactured clause in order to impart a little more clearness to the story-as of the words t? ???a a?t??

"his name" (after ?????seta? "shall be called")-into St. Luke i. 60.

These pa.s.sages afford expressions of a feature in this Ma.n.u.script to which we must again invite particular attention. It reveals to close observation frequent indications of an attempt, not to supply a faithful representation of the very words of Holy Scripture and nothing more than those words, but to interpret, to ill.u.s.trate,-in a word,-to be a Targum.

Of course, such a design or tendency is absolutely fatal to the accuracy of a transcriber. Yet the habit is too strongly marked upon the pages of Codex D to admit of any doubt whether it existed or not(264).

In speaking of the character of a MS. one is often constrained to distinguish between the readings and the scribe. The readings may be clearly fabricated: but there may be evidence that the copyist was an accurate and painstaking person. On the other hand, obviously the scribe may have been a considerable blunderer, and yet it may be clear that he was furnished with an admirable archetype. In the case of D we are presented with the alarming concurrence of a fabricated archetype and either a blundering scribe, or a course of blundering scribes.

But then further,-One is often obliged (if one would be accurate) to distinguish between the penman who actually produced the MS., and the critical reader for whom he toiled. It would really seem however as if the actual transcriber of D, or the transcribers of the ancestors of D, had invented some of those monstrous readings as they went on. The Latin version which is found in this MS. exactly reflects, as a rule, the Greek on the opposite page: but sometimes it bears witness to the admitted truth of Scripture, while the Greek goes off _in alia omnia_(265).

-- 6.

It will of course be asked,-But why may not D be in every respect an exact copy,-line for line, word for word, letter for letter,-of some earlier archetype? To establish the reverse of _this_, so as to put the result beyond the reach of controversy, is impossible. The question depends upon reasons purely critical, and is not of primary importance. For all practical purposes, it is still Codex D of which we speak. When I name "Codex D" I mean of course nothing else but Codex D according to Scrivener's reprint of the text. And if it be a true hypothesis that the actual Codex D is nothing else but the transcript of another Codex strictly identical with itself, then it is clearly a matter of small importance of which of the two I speak. When "Codex D" is cited, it is the contents of Codex D which are meant, and no other thing.

And upon this point it may be observed, that D is chiefly remarkable as being the only Greek Codex(266) which exhibits the highly corrupt text found in some of the Old Latin ma.n.u.scripts, and may be taken as a survival from the second century.

The genius of this family of copies is found to have been-

1. To subst.i.tute one expression for another, and generally to paraphrase.

2. To remove difficulties, and where a difficult expression presented itself, to introduce a conjectural emendation of the text. For example, the pa.s.sage already noticed about the Publican going down to his house "justified rather than the other" is altered into "justified more than that Pharisee" (a???? pa?? e?e???? t?? Fa??sa???. St. Luke xviii.

14)(267).

3. To omit what might seem to be superfluous. Thus the verse, "Lord, he hath ten pounds" (St. Luke xix. 25) is simply left out(268).

Enough has been surely said to prove amply that the text of Codex D is utterly untrustworthy. Indeed, the habit of interpolation found in it, the constant tendency to explain rather than to report, the licentiousness exhibited throughout, and the isolation in which this MS. is found, except in cases where some of the Low-Latin Versions and Cureton's Syriac, and perhaps the Lewis, bear it company, render the text found in it the foulest in existence. What then is to be thought of those critics who upon the exclusive authority of this unstable offender and of a few of the Italic copies occasionally allied with it, endeavour to introduce changes in face of the opposition of all other authorities? And since their ability is unquestioned, must we not seek for the causes of their singular action in the theory to which they are devoted?

-- 7.

Before we take leave of the Old Uncials, it will be well to invite attention to a characteristic feature in them, which is just what the reader would expect who has attended to all that has been said, and which adds confirmation to the doctrine here propounded.

The clumsy and tasteless character of some at least of the Old Uncials has come already under observation. This was in great measure produced by constantly rubbing off delicate expressions which add both to the meaning and the symmetry of the Sacred Record. We proceed to give a few examples, not to prove our position, since it must surely be evident enough to the eyes of any accomplished scholar, but as specimens, and only specimens, of the loss which the Inspired Word would sustain if the Old Uncials were to be followed. s.p.a.ce will not admit of a full discussion of this matter.

An interesting refinement of expression, which has been hopelessly obscured through the proclivity of ?BD to fall into error, is found in St.

Matt. xxvi. 71. The Evangelist describing the second of St. Peter's denials notes that the damsel who saw him said to the bystanders, "This man _too_ (?a?) was with Jesus of Nazareth." The three MSS. just mentioned omit the ?a?. No other MS., Uncial or Cursive, follows them. They have only the support of the unstable Sahidic(269). The loss inflicted is patent: comment is needless.

Another instance, where poverty of meaning would be the obvious result if the acceptance by some critics of the lead of the same trio of Uncials were endorsed, may be found in the description of what the shepherds did when they had seen the Holy Child in the manger. Instead of "they made known abroad" (d?e?????sa?), we should simply have "they made known"

(??????sa?). We are inclined to say, "Why this clipping and pruning to the manifest disadvantage of the sacred deposit." Only the satellite L and ?

and six Cursives with a single pa.s.sage from Eusebius are on the same side.

The rest in overwhelming majority condemn such rudeness(270).

-- 8.

The undoubtedly genuine expression ?a? t?? ?st?, ????e (which is the traditional reading of St. John ix. 36), loses its characteristic ??? in Cod. ?*AL,-though it retains it in the rest of the uncials and in all the cursives. The ?a? is found in the Complutensian,-because the editors followed their copies: it is not found in the Textus Receptus only because Erasmus did not as in cases before mentioned follow his. The same refinement of expression recurs in the Traditional Text of ch. xiv. 22 (????e, ??? t? ?????e?), and experienced precisely the same fate at the hands of the two earliest editors of the printed Greek Text. It is also again faithfully upheld in its integrity by the whole body of the cursives,-always excepting "33". But (as before) in uncials of bad character, as BDL (even by AEX) the ?a? is omitted,-for which insufficient reason it has been omitted by the Revisers likewise,-notwithstanding the fact that it is maintained in all the other uncials. As is manifest in most of these instances, the Versions, being made into languages with other idioms than Greek, can bear no witness; and also that these delicate embellishments would be often brushed off in quotations, as well as by scribes and so-called correctors.

We have not far to look for other instances of this. St. Matthew (i. 18) begins his narrative,-??ste??e?s?? G?? t?? ?t??? a?t?? ?a??a? t? ??s?f.

Now, as readers of Greek are aware, the little untranslated (because untranslateable) word exhibited in capitals(271) stands with peculiar idiomatic force and propriety immediately after the first word of such a sentence as the foregoing, being employed in compliance with strictly cla.s.sical usage(272): and though it might easily come to be omitted through the carelessness or the licentiousness of copyists, yet it could not by any possibility have universally established itself in copies of the Gospel-as it has done-had it been an unauthorized accretion to the text. We find it recognized in St. Matt. i. 18 by Eusebius(273), by Basil(274), by Epiphanius(275), by Chrysostom(276), by Nestorius(277), by Cyril(278), by Andreas Cret.(279): which is even extraordinary; for the ??? is not at all required for purposes of quotation. But the essential circ.u.mstance as usual is, that ??? is found besides in the whole body of the ma.n.u.scripts. The only uncials in fact which omit the idiomatic particle are four of older date, viz. B?C*Z.

This same particle (???) has led to an extraordinary amount of confusion in another place, where its idiomatic propriety has evidently been neither felt nor understood,-viz. in St. Luke xviii. 14. "This man" (says our LORD) "went down to his house justified rather than" (? ???) "the other."

Scholars recognize here an exquisitely idiomatic expression, which in fact obtains so universally in the Traditional Text that its genuineness is altogether above suspicion. It is vouched for by 16 uncials headed by A, and by the cursives in the proportion of 500 to 1. The Complutensian has it, of course: and so would the Textus Receptus have it, if Erasmus had followed his MS.: but "_praefero_" (he says) "_quod est usitatius apud probos autores_." Uncongenial as the expression is to the other languages of antiquity, ? ??? is faithfully retained in the Gothic and in the Harkleian Version(280). Partly however, because it is of very rare occurrence and was therefore not understood(281), and partly because when written in uncials it easily got perverted into something else, the expression has met with a strange fate. ?G?? is found to have suggested, or else to have been mistaken for, both ?p??(282) and ????(283). The prevailing expedient however was, to get rid of the ?-to turn G?? into ???,-and, for ??e???? to write ??e????(284). The uncials which exhibit this strange corruption of the text are exclusively that quaternion which have already come so often before us,-viz. B?DL. But D improves upon the blunder of its predecessors by writing, like a Targum, ????? G???

a??e???? (sic), and by adding (with the Old Latin and the Pes.h.i.+tto) t??

Fa??sa???,-an exhibition of the text which (it is needless to say) is perfectly unique(285).

And how has the place fared at the hands of some Textual critics? Lachmann and Tregelles (forsaken by Tischendorf) of course follow Codd. B?DL. The Revisers (with Dr. Hort)-not liking to follow B?DL, and unable to adopt the Traditional Text, suffer the reading of the Textus Receptus (?

??e????) to stand,-though a solitary cursive (Evan. 1) is all the ma.n.u.script authority that can be adduced in its favour. In effect, ?

??e???? may be said to be without ma.n.u.script authority(286).

The point to be noticed in all this is, that the true reading of St. Luke xviii. 14 has been faithfully retained by the MSS. in all countries and all down the ages, not only by the whole body of the cursives, but by every uncial in existence except four. And those four are B?DL.

But really the occasions are without number when minute words have dropped out of ?B and their allies,-and yet have been faithfully retained, all through the centuries, by the later Uncials and despised Cursive copies.

In St. John xvii. 2, for instance, we read-d??as?? s?? t?? ????, ??a ??? ?

???? S?? d???s? s?: where ?a? is omitted by ?ABCD: and s?? (after ? ????) by ?BC. Some critics will of course insist that, on the contrary, both words are spurious accretions to the text of the cursives; and they must say so, if they will. But does it not sensibly impair their confidence in ? to find that it, and it only, exhibits ?e?????e? (for ?????se?) in ver.

1,-d?s? a?t? (for d?s? a?t???) in ver. 2, while ?B are peculiar in writing ??s??? without the article in ver. 1?