The Revision Revised Part 19

XLIV. "At a long interval after B, but hardly a less interval before all other MSS., stands ?" (p. 171).-Such is the sum of the matter!... A coa.r.s.er,-a clumsier,-a more unscientific,-a more _stupid_ expedient for settling the true Text of Scripture was surely never invented! _But_ for the many foggy, or rather unreadable disquisitions with which the _Introduction_ is enc.u.mbered, "Textual Criticism made easy," might well have been the t.i.tle of the little volume now under Review; of which at last it is discovered that _the general Infallibility of Codex_ B is the fundamental principle. Let us however hear these learned men out.

XLV. They begin by offering us a chapter on the "General relations of B and ? to other doc.u.ments:" wherein we are a.s.sured that,-

"_Two striking facts_ successively come out with especial clearness. Every group containing both ? and B, _is found_ ... to have _an apparently more original Text_ than every opposed group containing neither; and every group containing B ... _is found_ in a large preponderance of cases ... to have _an apparently more original Text_ than every opposed group containing ?."-(p. 210.)

"_Is found_"! but pray,-_By whom?_ And "_apparently_"! but pray,-_To whom?_ and _On what grounds of Evidence_? For unless it be on _certain_ grounds of Evidence, how can it be pretended that we have before us "two striking _facts_"?

Again, with what show of reason can it possibly be a.s.serted that these "two striking facts" "come out with _especial clearness_"? so long as their very existence remains _in nubibus_,-has never been established, and is in fact emphatically denied? Expressions like the foregoing _then_ only begin to be tolerable when it has been made plain that the Teacher has some solid foundation on which to build. Else, he occasions nothing but impatience and displeasure. Readers at first are simply annoyed at being trifled with: presently they grow restive: at last they become clamorous for demonstration, and will accept of nothing less. Let us go on however.

We are still at p. 210:-

"We found ? and B to stand alone in their almost complete immunity from distinctive Syriac readings ... and B to stand far above ? in its _apparent_ freedom from either Western or Alexandrian readings."-(p. 210.)

But pray, gentlemen,-_Where_ and _when_ did "we find" either of these two things? We have "found" nothing of the sort hitherto. The Reviewer is disposed to reproduce the Duke of Wellington's courteous reply to the Prince Regent, when the latter claimed the arrangements which resulted in the victory of Waterloo:-"_I have heard your Royal Highness say so_."...

At the end of a few pages,

"_Having found_ ? B the constant element in groups of every size, distinguished by internal excellence of readings, _we found_ no less excellence in the readings in which they concur without other attestations of Greek MSS., or even of Versions or Fathers."-(p.

219.)

What! again? Why, we "_have found_" nothing as yet but Reiteration. Up to this point we have not been favoured with one particle of Evidence!... In the meantime, the convictions of these accomplished Critics,-(but not, unfortunately, those of their Readers,)-are observed to strengthen as they proceed. On reaching p. 224, we are a.s.sured that,

"The independence [of B and ?] can be carried back so far,"-(not a hint is given _how_,)-"that their concordant testimony may be treated as equivalent to that of a MS. older than ? and B themselves by at least two centuries,-_probably_ by a generation or two more."

How _that_ "independence" was established, and how _this_ "probability"

has been arrived at, we cannot even imagine. The point to be attended to however, is, that by the process indicated, some such early epoch as A.D.

100 has been reached. So that now we are not surprised to hear that,

"The respective ancestries of ? and B must have diverged from a common parent _extremely near the Apostolic autographs_."-(p. 220.

See top of p. 221.)

Or that,-"_The close approach to the time of the autographs_ raises the presumption of purity to an unusual strength."-(p. 224.)

And lo, before we turn the leaf, this "presumption" is found to have ripened into certainty:-

"This general immunity from substantive error ... in the common original of ? B, in conjunction with its very high antiquity, provides in a mult.i.tude of cases _a safe criterion of genuineness, not to be distrusted_ except on very clear internal evidence.

Accordingly ... it is our belief, (1) That Readings of ? B _should be accepted as the true Readings_ until strong internal evidence is found to the contrary; and (2), _That no Readings of_ ? B _can be safely rejected absolutely_."-(p. 225.)

XLVI. And thus, by an unscrupulous use of the process of Reiteration, accompanied by a boundless exercise of the Imaginative faculty, we have reached the goal to which all that went before has been steadily tending: viz. the absolute supremacy of codices B and ? above all other codices,-and, when they differ, then of codex B.

And yet, the "immunity from substantive error" of a _lost_ Codex of _imaginary_ date and _unknown_ history, cannot but be a pure imagination,-(a mistaken one, as we shall presently show,)-of these respected Critics: while their proposed practical inference from it,-(viz.

to regard two remote and confessedly depraved Copies of that original, as "_a safe criterion of genuineness_,")-this, at all events, is the reverse of logical. In the meantime, the presumed proximity of the Text of ? and B to the Apostolic age is henceforth discoursed of as if it were no longer matter of conjecture:-

"The ancestries of both MSS. having started from a common source _not much later than the Autographs_," &c.-(p. 247.)

And again:-

"_Near as the divergence_ of the respective ancestries of B and ?

_must have been to the Autographs_," &c.-(p. 273.)

Until at last, we find it announced as a "moral certainty:"-

"_It is morally certain_ that the ancestries of B and ? _diverged from a point near the Autographs_, and never came into contact subsequently."-(_Text_, p. 556.)

After which, of course, we have no right to complain if we are a.s.sured that:-

"The fullest comparison does but increase the conviction that their pre-eminent relative _purity_ is approximately _absolute_,-_a true approximate reproduction of the Text of the Autographs_"-(p. 296.)

XLVII. But how does it happen-(we must needs repeat the enquiry, which however we make with unfeigned astonishment,)-How does it come to pa.s.s that a man of practised intellect, addressing persons as cultivated and perhaps as acute as himself, can handle a confessedly obscure problem like the present after this strangely incoherent, this foolish and wholly inconclusive fashion? One would have supposed that Dr. Hort's mathematical training would have made him an exact reasoner. But he writes as if he had no idea at all of the nature of demonstration, and of the process necessary in order to carry conviction home to a Reader's mind. Surely, (one tells oneself,) a minimum of "pa.s.s" Logic would have effectually protected so accomplished a gentleman from making such a damaging exhibition of himself! For surely he must be aware that, as yet, he has produced _not one particle of evidence_ that his opinion concerning B and ? is well founded. And yet, how can he possibly overlook the circ.u.mstance that, unless he is able to _demonstrate_ that those two codices, and especially the former of them, has "preserved not only a very ancient Text, but _a very pure line of ancient Text_" also (p. 251), his entire work, (inasmuch as it reposes on that one a.s.sumption,) on being critically handled, crumbles to its base; or rather melts into thin air before the first puff of wind? He cannot, surely, require telling that those who look for Demonstration will refuse to put up with Rhetoric:-that, with no thoughtful person will a.s.sertion pa.s.s for Argument:-nor mere Reiteration, however long persevered in, ever be mistaken for acc.u.mulated Proof.

"When I am taking a ride with Rouser,"-(quietly remarked Professor Saville to Bodley c.o.xe,)-"I observe that, if I ever demur to any of his views, Rouser's practice always is, to repeat the same thing over again in the same words,-_only in a louder tone of voice_" ... The delicate rhetorical device thus indicated proves to be not peculiar to Professors of the University of Oxford; but to be familiarly recognized as an instrument of conviction by the learned men who dwell on the banks of the Cam. To be serious however.-Dr. Hort has evidently failed to see that nothing short of a careful induction of particular instances,-a system of laborious footnotes, or an "Appendix" bristling with impregnable facts,-could sustain the portentous weight of his fundamental position, viz. that Codex B is so exceptionally pure a doc.u.ment as to deserve to be taken as a chief guide in determining the Truth of Scripture.

It is related of the ill.u.s.trious architect, Sir Gilbert Scott,-when he had to rebuild the ma.s.sive central tower of a southern Cathedral, and to rear up thereon a lofty spire of stone,-that he made preparations for the work which astonished the Dean and Chapter of the day. He caused the entire area to be excavated to what seemed a most unnecessary depth, and proceeded to lay a bed of concrete of fabulous solidity. The "wise master-builder" was determined that his work should last for ever. Not so Drs. Westcott and Hort. They are either troubled with no similar anxieties, or else too clear-sighted to cherish any similar hope. They are evidently of opinion that a cloud or a quagmire will serve their turn every bit as well as granite or Portland-stone. Dr. Hort (as we have seen already, namely in p. 252,) considers that his individual "STRONG PREFERENCE" of one set of Readings above another, is sufficient to determine whether the Ma.n.u.script which contains those Readings is pure or the contrary. "_Formidable arrays of_ [hostile] _Doc.u.mentary evidence_,"

he disregards and sets at defiance, when once his own "_fullest consideration of Internal Evidence_" has "p.r.o.nounced certain Readings to be right" [p. 61].

The only indication we anywhere meet with of the actual _ground_ of Dr.

Hort's certainty, and reason of his preference, is contained in his claim that,-

"Every binary group [of MSS.] _containing_ B is found to offer a large proportion of Readings, which, on the closest scrutiny, have THE RING OF GENUINENESS: while it is difficult to find any Readings so attested which LOOK SUSPICIOUS after full consideration."-(p. 227. Also vol. i. 557-where the dictum is repeated.)

XLVIII. And thus we have, at last, an honest confession of the ultimate principle which has determined the Text of the present edition of the N.

T. "_The ring of genuineness_"! _This_ it must be which was referred to when "_instinctive processes of Criticism_" were vaunted; and the candid avowal made that "the experience which is their foundation needs perpetual correction and recorrection."(729)

"We are obliged" (say these accomplished writers) "to _come to the individual mind at last_."(730)

And thus, behold, "at last" we _have_ reached the goal!... _Individual idiosyncrasy_,-_not_ external Evidence:-Readings "_strongly preferred_,"-_not_ Readings _strongly attested_:-"_personal discernment_"