The Traditional Text of the Holy Gospels Part 14

III. A source of corruption is found in Low-Latin MSS. and especially in Africa. The evidence of the Fathers shews that it does not appear to have been so general as the name "Western" would suggest. But this will be a subject of future investigation. There seems to have been a connexion between some parts of the West in this respect with Syria, or rather with part of Syria.

IV. Another source of corruption is fixed at Alexandria. This, as in the last case, is exactly what we should expect, and will demand more examination.

V. Syria and Egypt,-Europe, Asia, and Africa,-seem to meet in Palestine under Origen.

But this points to a later time in the period under investigation. We must now gather up the depositions of the earliest Versions.

CHAPTER VI. THE ANTIQUITY OF THE TRADITIONAL TEXT. II. WITNESS OF THE EARLY SYRIAC VERSIONS.

The rise of Christianity and the spread of the Church in Syria was startling in its rapidity. Damascus and Antioch shot up suddenly into prominence as centres of Christian zeal, as if they had grown whilst men slept.

The arrangement of places and events which occurred during our Lord's Ministry must have paved the way to this success, at least as regards princ.i.p.ally the nearer of the two cities just mentioned. Galilee, the scene of the first year of His Ministry-"the acceptable year of the Lord"-through its vicinity to Syria was admirably calculated for laying the foundation of such a development. The fame of His miracles and teaching extended far into the country. Much that He said and did happened on the Syrian side of the Sea of Galilee. Especially was this the case when, after the death of John the Baptist had shed consternation in the ranks of His followers, and the Galilean populace refused to accompany Him in His higher teaching, and the wiles of Herod were added as a source of apprehension to the bitter opposition of Scribes and Pharisees, He spent some months between the Pa.s.sover and the Feast of Tabernacles in the north and north-east of Palestine. If Damascus was not one of the "ten cities(145)," yet the report of His twice feeding thousands, and of His stay at Caesarea Philippi and in the neighbourhood(146) of Hermon, must have reached that city. The seed must have been sown which afterwards sprang up men knew not how.

Besides the evidence in the Acts of the Apostles, according to which Antioch following upon Damascus became a basis of missionary effort hardly second to Jerusalem, the records and legends of the Church in Syria leave but little doubt that it soon spread over the region round about. The stories relating to Abgar king of Edessa, the fame of St. Addaeus or Thaddaeus as witnessed particularly by his Liturgy and "Doctrine," and various other Apocryphal Works(147), leave no doubt about the very early extension of the Church throughout Syria. As long as Aramaic was the chief vehicle of instruction, Syrian Christians most likely depended upon their neighbours in Palestine for oral and written teaching. But when-probably about the time of the investment of Jerusalem by Vespasian and t.i.tus and the temporary removal of the Church's centre to Pella-through the care of St. Matthew and the other Evangelists the Gospel was written in Greek, some regular translation was needed and doubtless was made.

So far both Schools of Textual Criticism are agreed. The question between them is, was this Translation the Pes.h.i.tto, or was it the Curetonian? An examination into the facts is required: neither School has any authority to issue decrees.

The arguments in favour of the Curetonian being the oldest form of the Syriac New Testament, and of the formation of the Pes.h.i.tto in its present condition from it, cannot be p.r.o.nounced to be strong by any one who is accustomed to weigh disputation. Doubtless this weakness or instability may with truth be traced to the nature of the case, which will not yield a better harvest even to the critical ingenuity of our opponents. May it not with truth be said to be a symptom of a feeble cause?

Those arguments are mainly concerned with the internal character of the two texts. It is a.s.serted(148) (1) that the Curetonian was older than the Pes.h.i.tto which was brought afterwards into closer proximity with the Greek. To this we may reply, that the truth of this plea depends upon the nature of the revision thus claimed(149). Dr. Hort was perfectly logical when he suggested, or rather a.s.serted dogmatically, that such a drastic revision as was necessary for turning the Curetonian into the Pes.h.i.tto was made in the third century at Edessa or Nisibis. The difficulty lay in his manufacturing history to suit his purpose, instead of following it. The fact is, that the internal difference between the text of the Curetonian and the Pes.h.i.tto is so great, that the former could only have arisen in very queer times such as the earliest, when inaccuracy and looseness, infidelity and perverseness, might have been answerable for anything. In fact, the Curetonian must have been an adulteration of the Pes.h.i.tto, or it must have been partly an independent translation helped from other sources: from the character of the text it could not have given rise to it(150).

Again, when (2) Cureton lays stress upon "certain peculiarities in the original Hebrew which are found in this text, but not in the Greek," he has not found others to follow him, and (3) the supposed agreement with the Apocryphal Gospel according to the Hebrews, as regards any results to be deduced from it, is of a similarly slippery nature. It will be best to give his last argument in his own words:-"It is the internal evidence afforded by the fact that upon comparing this text with the Greek of St.

Matthew and the parallel pa.s.sages of St. Mark and St. Luke, they are found to exhibit the same phenomena which we should, _a priori_, expect certainly to discover, had we the plainest and most incontrovertible testimony that they are all in reality translations from such an Aramaic original as this." He seems here to be trying to establish his position that the Curetonian was at least based on the Hebrew original of St.

Matthew, to which he did not succeed in bringing over any scholars.

The reader will see that we need not linger upon these arguments. When interpreted most favourably they carry us only a very short way towards the dethronement of the great Pes.h.i.tto, and the instalment of the little Curetonian upon the seat of judgement. But there is more in what other scholars have advanced. There are resemblances between the Curetonian, some of the Old-Latin texts, the Codex Bezae, and perhaps Tatian's Diatessaron, which lead us to a.s.sign an early origin to many of the peculiar readings in this ma.n.u.script. Yet there is no reason, but all the reverse, for supposing that the Pes.h.i.tto and the Curetonian were related to one another in line-descent. The age of one need have nothing to do with the age of the other. The theory of the Pes.h.i.tto being derived from the Curetonian through a process of revision like that of Jerome const.i.tuting a Vulgate rests upon a false parallel(151). There are, or were, mult.i.tudes of Old-Latin Texts, which in their confusion called for some recension: we only know of two in Syriac which could possibly have come into consideration. Of these, the Curetonian is but a fragment: and the Codex Lewisia.n.u.s, though it includes the greater part of the Four Gospels, yet reckons so many omissions in important parts, has been so determinedly mutilated, and above all is so utterly heretical(152), that it must be altogether rejected from the circle of purer texts of the Gospels. The disappointment caused to the adherents of the Curetonian, by the failure of the fresh MS. which had been looked for with ardent hopes to satisfy expectation, may be imagined. _Noscitur a sociis_: the Curetonian is admitted by all to be closely allied to it, and must share in the ignominy of its companion, at least to such an extent as to be excluded from the progenitors of a Text so near to the Traditional Text as the Pes.h.i.tto must ever have been(153).

But what is the position which the Pes.h.i.tto has occupied till the middle of the present century? What is the evidence of facts on which we must adjudicate its claim?

Till the time of Cureton, it has been regarded as _the_ Syriac Version, adopted at the time when the translation of the New Testament was made into that language, which must have been either the early part of the second century, or the end of the first,-adopted too in the Unchangeable East, and never deposed from its proud position. It can be traced by facts of history or by actual doc.u.ments to the beginning of the golden period of Syriac Literature in the fifth century, when it is found to be firm in its sway, and it is far from being deserted by testimony sufficient to track it into the earlier ages of the Church.

The Pes.h.i.tto in our own days is found in use amongst the Nestorians who have always kept to it(154), by the Monophysites on the plains of Syria, the Christians of St. Thomas in Malabar, and by "the Maronites on the mountain-terraces of Lebanon(155)." Of these, the Maronites take us back to the beginning of the eighth century when they as Monothelites separated from the Eastern Church; the Monophysites to the middle of the fifth century; the Nestorians to an earlier date in the same century. Hostile as the two latter were to one another, they would not have agreed in reading the same Version of the New Testament if that had not been well established at the period of their separation. Nor would it have been thus firmly established, if it had not by that time been generally received in the country for a long series of years.

But the same conclusion is reached in the indubitable proof afforded by the MSS. of the Pes.h.i.tto Version which exist, dating from the fifth century or thereabouts. Mr. Gwilliam in the third volume of Studia Biblica et Ecclesiastica(156) mentions two MSS. dating about 450 A.D., besides four of the fifth or sixth century, one of the latter, and three which bear actual dates also of the sixth. These, with the exception of one in the Vatican and one belonging to the Earl of Crawford, are from the British Museum alone(157). So that according to the ma.n.u.scriptal evidence the treasures of little more than one library in the world exhibit a very _apparatus criticus_ for the Pes.h.i.tto, whilst the Curetonian can boast only one ma.n.u.script and that in fragments, though of the fifth century.

And it follows too from this statement, that whereas only seven uncials of any size can be produced from all parts of the world of the Greek Text of the New Testament before the end of the sixth century, no less than eleven or rather twelve of the Pes.h.i.tto can be produced already before the same date. Doubtless the Greek Text can boast certainly two, perhaps three, of the fourth century: but the fact cannot but be taken to be very remarkable, as proving, when compared with the universal Greek original, how strongly the local Pes.h.i.tto Version was established in the century in which "commences the native historical literature of Syria(158)."

The commanding position thus occupied leads back virtually a long way.

Changes are difficult to introduce in "the unchangeable East."

Accordingly, the use of the Pes.h.i.tto is attested in the fourth century by Ephraem Syrus and Aphraates. Ephraem "in the main used the Pes.h.i.tto text"-is the conclusion drawn by Mr. F. H. Woods in the third volume of Studia Biblica(159). And as far as I may judge from a comparison of readings(160), Aphraates witnesses for the Traditional Text, with which the Pes.h.i.tto mainly agrees, twenty-four times as against four. The Pes.h.i.tto thus reckons as its supporters the two earliest of the Syrian Fathers.

But the course of the examination of all the primitive Fathers as exhibited in the last section of this work suggests also another and an earlier confirmation of the position here taken. It is well known that the Pes.h.i.tto is mainly in agreement with the Traditional Text. What therefore proves one, virtually proves the other. If the text in the latter case is dominant, it must also be in the former. If, as Dr. Hort admits, the Traditional Text prevailed at Antioch from the middle of the fourth century, is it not more probable that it should have been the continuance of the text from the earliest times, than that a change should have been made without a record in history, and that in a part of the world which has been always alien to change? But besides the general traces of the Traditional Text left in patristic writings in other districts of the Church, we are not without special proofs in the parts about Syria. Though the proofs are slight, they occur in a period which in other respects was for the present purpose almost "a barren and dry land where no water is."

Methodius, bishop of Tyre in the early part of the fourth century, Archelaus, bishop in Mesopotamia in the latter half of the third, the Synodus Antiochena in A.D. 265, at a greater distance Gregory Thaumaturgus of Neocaesarea in Pontus who flourished about 243 and pa.s.sed some time at Caesarea in Palestine, are found to have used mainly Traditional MSS. in Greek, and consequently witness to the use of the daughter text in Syriac.

Amongst those who employed different texts in nearly equal proportions were Origen who pa.s.sed his later years at Caesarea and Justin who issued from the site of Sychar. Nor is there reason, whatever has been said, to reject the reference made by Melito of Sardis about A.D. 170 in the words ? S????. At the very least, the Pes.h.i.tto falls more naturally into the larger testimony borne by the quotations in the Fathers, than would a text of such a character as that which we find in the Curetonian or the Lewis Codex.

But indeed, is it not surprising that the petty Curetonian with its single fragmentary ma.n.u.script, and at the best its short history, even with so discreditable an ally as the Lewis Codex, should try conclusions with what we may fairly term the colossal Pes.h.i.tto? How is it possible that one or two such little rills should fill so great a channel?

But there is another solution of the difficulty which has been advocated by the adherents of the Curetonian in some quarters since the discovery made by Mrs. Lewis. It is urged that there is an original Syriac Text which lies at the back of the Curetonian and the Codex Lewisia.n.u.s, and that this text possesses also the witness of the Diatessaron of Tatian:-that those MSS. themselves are later, but that the Text of which they give similar yet independent specimens is the Old Syriac,-the first Version made from the Gospels in the earliest ages of the Church.

The evidence advanced in favour of this position is of a speculative and vague nature, and moreover is not always advanced with accuracy. It is not "the simple fact that no purely 'Antiochene' [i.e. Traditional] reading occurs in the Sinai Palimpsest(161)." It is not true that "in the Diatessaron Joseph and Mary are never spoken of as husband and wife,"

because in St. Matt. i. 19 Joseph is expressly called "her husband," and in verse 24 it is said that Joseph "took unto him Mary his wife." It should be observed that besides a resemblance between the three doc.u.ments in question, there is much divergence. The Cerinthian heresy, which is spread much more widely over the Lewis Codex than its adherents like to acknowledge, is absent from the other two. The interpolations of the Curetonian are not adopted by the remaining members of the trio. The Diatessaron, as far as we can judge,-for we possess no copy either in Greek or in Syriac, but are obliged to depend upon two Arabic Versions edited recently by Agostino Ciasca, a Latin Translation of a commentary on it by Ephraem Syrus, and quotations made by Aphraates or Jacobus Nisibenus-, differs very largely from either. That there is some resemblance between the three we admit: and that the two Codexes are more or less made up from very early readings, which we hold to be corrupt, we do not deny. What we a.s.sert is, that it has never yet been proved that a regular Text in Syriac can be constructed out of these doc.u.ments which would pa.s.s muster as the genuine Text of the Gospels; and that, especially in the light shed by the strangely heretical character of one of the leading a.s.sociates, such a text, if composed, cannot with any probability have formed any stage in the transmission of the pure text of the original Version in Syriac to the pages of the Pes.h.i.tto. If corruption existed in the earliest ages, so did purity. The Word of G.o.d could not have been dragged only through the mire.

We are thus driven to depend upon the leading historical facts of the case. What we do know without question is this:-About the year 170 A.D., Tatian who had sojourned for some time at Rome drew up his Diatessaron, which is found in the earlier half of the third century to have been read in Divine service at Edessa(162). This work was current in some parts of Syria in the time of Eusebius(163), to which a.s.sertion some evidence is added by Epiphanius(164). Rabbula, bishop of Edessa, A.D. 412-435(165), ordered the presbyters and deacons of his diocese to provide copies of the distinct or _Mepharreshe_ Gospels. Theodoret, Bishop of Cyrrhus near the Euphrates(166), writes in 453 A.D., that he had turned out about two hundred copies of Tatian's Diatessaron from his churches, and had put the Gospels of the four Evangelists in their place. These accounts are confirmed by the testimony of many subsequent writers, whose words together with those to which reference has just been made may be seen in Mr. Hamlyn Hill's book on the Diatessaron(167). It must be added, that in the Curetonian we find "The _Mepharresha_ Gospel of Matthew(168)," and the Lewis Version is termed "The Gospel of the _Mepharreshe_ four books"; and that they were written in the fifth century.

Such are the chief facts: what is the evident corollary? Surely, that these two Codexes, which were written at the very time when the Diatessaron of Tatian was cast out of the Syrian Churches, were written purposely, and possibly amongst many other MSS. made at the same time, to supply the place of it-copies of the _Mepharreshe_, i.e. Distinct or Separate(169) Gospels, to replace the _Mehallete_ or Gospel of the Mixed.

When the sockets are found to have been prepared and marked, and the pillars lie fitted and labelled, what else can we do than slip the pillars into their own sockets? They were not very successful attempts, as might have been expected, since the Pes.h.i.tto, or in some places amongst the Jacobites the Philoxenian or Harkleian, entirely supplanted them in future use, and they lay hidden for centuries till sedulous inquiry unearthed them, and the ingenuity of critics invested them with an importance not their own(170).

What was the origin of the ma.s.s of floating readings, of which some were transferred into the text of these two Codexes, will be considered in the next section. Students should be cautioned against inferring that the Diatessaron was read in service throughout Syria. There is no evidence to warrant such a conclusion. The mention of Edessa and Cyrrhus point to the country near the upper Euphrates; and the expression of Theodoret, relating to the Diatessaron being used "in churches of our parts," seems to hint at a circ.u.mscribed region. Plenty of room was left for a predominant use of the Pes.h.i.tto, so far as we know: and no reason on that score can be adduced to counterbalance the force of the arguments given in this section in favour of the existence from the beginning of that great Version.

Yet some critics endeavour to represent that the Pes.h.i.tto was brought first into prominence upon the supersession of the Diatessaron, though it is never found under the special t.i.tle of _Mepharresha_. What is this but to disregard the handposts of history in favour of a pet theory?

CHAPTER VII. THE ANTIQUITY OF THE TRADITIONAL TEXT. III. WITNESS OF THE WESTERN OR SYRIO-LOW-LATIN TEXT.

There are problems in what is usually termed the Western Text of the New Testament, which have not yet, as I believe, received satisfactory treatment. Critics, including even Dr. Scrivener(171), have too readily accepted Wiseman's conclusion(172), that the numerous Latin Texts all come from one stem, in fact that there was originally only one Old-Latin Version, not several.

That this is at first sight the conclusion pressed upon the mind of the inquirer, I readily admit. The words and phrases, the general cast and flow of the sentences, are so similar in these texts, that it seems at the outset extremely difficult to resist the inference that all of them began from the same translation, and that the differences between them arose from the continued effect of various and peculiar circ.u.mstances upon them and from a long course of copying. But examination will reveal on better acquaintance certain obstinate features which will not allow us to be guided by first appearances. And before investigating these, we may note that there are some considerations of a general character which take the edge off this phenomenon.

Supposing that Old-Latin Texts had a multiform origin, they must have gravitated towards more uniformity of expression: intercourse between Christians who used different translations of a single original must, in unimportant points at least, have led them to greater agreement. Besides this, the ident.i.ty of the venerated original in all the cases, except where different readings had crept into the Greek, must have produced a constant likeness to one another, in all translations made into the same language and meant to be faithful. If on the other hand there were numerous Versions, it is clear that in those which have descended to us there must have been a survival of the fittest.

But it is now necessary to look closely into the evidence, for the answers to all problems must depend upon that, and upon nothing but that.

The first point that strikes us is that there is in this respect a generic difference between the other Versions and the Old-Latin. The former are in each case one, with no suspicion of various origination. Gothic, Bohairic, Sahidic, Armenian (though the joint work of Sahak and Mesrop and Eznik and others), Ethiopic, Slavonic:-each is one Version and came from one general source without doubt or question. Codexes may differ: that is merely within the range of transcriptional accuracy, and has nothing to do with the making of the Version. But there is no preeminent Version in the Old-Latin field. Various texts compete with difference enough to raise the question. Upon disputed readings they usually give discordant verdicts.

And this discord is found, not as in Greek Codexes where the testifying MSS. generally divide into two hostile bodies, but in greater and more irregular discrepancy. Their varied character may be seen in the following Table including the Texts employed by Tischendorf, which has been constructed from that scholar's notes upon the basis of the chief pa.s.sages in dispute, as revealed in the text of the Revised Version throughout the Gospels, the standard being the _Textus Receptus_:-

Brixia.n.u.s, f 286/54(173) = about 16/3 Monacensis, q 255/97 = 5/2 + Claromonta.n.u.s, h (only in St. Matt.) 46/26 = 5/3 + Colbertinus, c 165/152 = about 14/13 Fragm. Sangall. n 6/6 = 1 Veronensis, b 124/184 = 2/3 + Sangermanensis II, g2 24/36 = 2/3 Corbeiensis II, ff2 113/180 = 2/3 - Sangermanensis I, g2 27/46 = 3/5 - Rehdigera.n.u.s, I 104/164 = 5/8 + Vindobonensis, i 37/72 = 1/2 + Vercellensis, a 100/214 = 1/2 - Corbeiensis I, ff1 37/73 = 1/2 - Speculum, m 8/18 = 1/2 - Palatinus, e 48/130 = 1/3 + Frag. Ambrosiana, s 2/6 = 1/3 Bobiensis, k 25/93 = 1/4 +

Looking dispa.s.sionately at this Table, the reader will surely observe that these MSS. shade off from one another by intervals of a somewhat similar character. They do not fall readily into cla.s.ses: so that if the threefold division of Dr. Hort is adopted, it must be employed as not meaning very much. The appearances are against all being derived from the extreme left or from the extreme right. And some current modes of thought must be guarded against, as for instance when a scholar recently laid down as an axiom which all critics would admit, that _k_ might be taken as the representative of the Old-Latin Texts, which would be about as true as if Mr. Labouchere at the present day were said to represent in opinion the Members of the House of Commons.

The sporadic nature of these Texts may be further exhibited, if we take the thirty pa.s.sages which helped us in the second section of this chapter.

The attestation yielded by the Old-Latin MSS. will help still more in the exhibition of their character.

_Traditional._ _Neologian._ St. Matt.

i. 25 f. ff1. g2. q. b. c. g1. k.

v. 44 (1) c. f. h. a. b. ff1. g1.2. k. l.

(2) a. b. c. f. h.

vi. 13 f. g1. q. a. b. c. ff1. g2. l.

vii. 13 f. ff2. g1.2. q. a. b. c. h. k. m.

ix. 13 c. g1.2. a. b. f. ff1. h. k. l. q.

xi. 27 All.

xvii. 21 "Most" a. b. c. e. ff1. (?) g1.