The Traditional Text of the Holy Gospels Part 15

xviii. 11 e. ff1.

xix. 17 (1) ??a?? b. c. f. ff2. a. e. ff1. g1.2. h. q.

(2) t? e f. q. a. b. c. e. ff1.2. g1. h.

???t?? l. (Vulg.) ?.t.?.

(3) e?? ?st. f. g1. m. q. b.c.ff1.2. g1. h. l.

? ??. (Vulg.) xxiii. 38. All-except ff2.

(Lk. xiii.

35) xxvii. 34 c. f. h. q. a. b. ff1.2. g1.2. l.

(Vulg.) xxviii. 2 f. h. a. b. c. ff1.2. g1.2. l.

n.

" 19 All.

St. Mark i. 2 All.

xvi. 9-20 All-except k.

St. Luke i. 28 All.

ii. 14 All.

x. 41-42 f. g1.2. q. (Vulg.) a. b. c. e. ff2. i. l.

xxii. 43-44 a. b. c. e. ff2. g1.2. i. f.

l. q.

xxiii. 34 c. e. f. ff2. l. a. b. d.

" 38 All-except a.

" 45 a. b. c. e. f. ff2. l. q.

xxiv. 40 c. f. q. a. b. d. e. ff2. l.

" 42 a. b. f. ff2. l. q. e.

St. John i. 3-4 c. (Vulg.) a. b. e. ff2. q.

" 18 a. b. c. e. f. ff2. l. q.

iii. 13 All.

x. 14 All.

xvii. 24 All (Vulg.) Vulg. MSS.

xxi. 25 All.

It will be observed that in all of these thirty pa.s.sages, Old-Latin MSS.

witness on both sides and in a sporadic way, except in three on the Traditional side and six on the Neologian side, making nine in all against twenty-one. In this respect they stand in striking contrast with all the Versions in other languages as exhibiting a discordance in their witness which is at the very least far from suggesting a single source, if it be not wholly inconsistent with such a supposition.

Again, the variety of synonyms found in these texts is so great that they could not have arisen except from variety of origin. Copyists do not insert _ad libitum_ different modes of expression. For example, Mr. White has remarked that ?p?t??? is translated "in no less than eleven different ways," or adding _arguere_, in twelve, viz. by

admonere emendare minari praecipere comminari imperare obsecrare prohibere corripere(174) increpare objurgare arguere (r).

It is true that some of these occur on the same MS., but the variety of expression in parallel pa.s.sages hardly agrees with descent from a single prototype. Greek MSS. differ in readings, but not in the same way.

Similarly d?????, which occurs, as he tells us, thirty-seven times in the Gospels, is rendered by _clarifico_, _glorifico_, _honorem accipio_, _honorifico_, _honoro_, _magnifico_, some pa.s.sages presenting four variations. So again, it is impossible to understand how s????? in the phrase s????? ????? (St. Luke xxi. 25) could have been translated by compressio (Vercellensis, _a_), _occursus_ (Brixia.n.u.s, _f_), _pressura_ (others), _conflictio_ (Bezae, _d_), if they had a common descent. They represent evidently efforts made by independent translators to express the meaning of a difficult word. When we meet with _possidebo_ and _haereditabo_ for ????????s? (St. Luke x. 25) _lumen_ and _lux_ for f??

(St. John i. 9), _ante galli cantum_ and _antequam gallus cantet_ for p???

????t??a f???sa? (St. Matt. xxvi. 34), _loc.u.m_ and _praedium_ and _in agro_ for ?????? (xxvi. 35), _transfer a me calicem istum_ and _transeat a me calix iste_ for pa?e???t? ?p? ??? t? p?t????? t??t? (xxvi. 39);-when we fall upon _vox venit de caelis_, _vox facta est de caelis_, _vox de caelo facta est_, _vox de caelis_, and the like; or _qui mihi bene complacuisti_, _charissimus in te complacui_, _dilectus in quo bene placuit mihi_, _dilectus in te bene sensi_ (St. Mark i. 11), or _adsumpsit_ (_autem_ ... _duodecim_), _adsumens_, _convocatis_ (St. Luke xviii. 31) it is clear that these and the instances of the same sort occurring everywhere in the Old-Latin Texts must be taken as finger-posts pointing in many directions. Various readings in Greek Codexes present, not a parallel, but a sharp contrast. No such profusion of synonyms can be produced from them.

The arguments which the Old-Latin Texts supply internally about themselves are confirmed exactly by the direct evidence borne by St. Augustine and St. Jerome. The well-known words of those two great men who must be held to be competent deponents as to what they found around them, even if they might fall into error upon the events of previous ages, prove (1) that a very large number of texts then existed, (2) that they differed greatly from one another, (3) that none had any special authority, and (4) that translators worked on their own independent lines(175). But there is the strongest reason for inferring that Augustine was right when he said, that "in the earliest days of the faith whenever any Greek codex fell into the hands of any one who thought that he had slight familiarity (_aliquantulum facultatis_) with Greek and Latin, he was bold enough to attempt to make a translation(176)." For what else could have happened than what St.

Augustine says actually did take place? The extraordinary value and influence of the sacred Books of the New Testament became apparent soon after their publication. They were most potent forces in converting unbelievers: they swayed the lives and informed the minds of Christians: they were read in the services of the Church. But copies in any number, if at all, could not be ordered at Antioch, or Ephesus, or Rome, or Alexandria. And at first no doubt translations into Latin were not to be had. Christianity grew almost of itself under the viewless action of the HOLY GHOST: there were no administrative means of making provision. But the Roman Empire was to a great extent bilingual. Many men of Latin origin were acquainted more or less with Greek. The army which furnished so many converts must have reckoned in its ranks, whether as officers or as ordinary soldiers, a large number who were accomplished Greek scholars.

All evangelists and teachers would have to explain the new Books to those who did not understand Greek. The steps were but short from oral to written teaching, from answering questions and giving exposition to making regular translations in fragments or books and afterwards throughout the New Testament. The resistless energy of the Christian faith must have demanded such offices on behalf of the Latin-speaking members of the Church, and must have produced hundreds of versions, fragmentary and complete. Given the two languages side by side, under the stress of the necessity of learning and the eagerness to drink in the Words of Life, the information given by St. Augustine must have been amply verified. And the only wonder is, that scholars have not paid more attention to the witness of that eminent Father, and have missed seeing how natural and true it was.

It is instructive to trace how the error arose. It came chiefly, if I mistake not, from two ingenious letters of Cardinal Wiseman, then a young man, and from the familiarity which they displayed with early African Literature. So Lachmann, Tischendorf, Davidson, Tregelles, Scrivener, and Westcott and Hort, followed him. Yet an error lies at the root of Wiseman's argument which, if the thing had appeared now, scholars would not have let pa.s.s unchallenged and uncorrected.

Because the Bobbian text agreed in the main with the texts of Tertullian, Cyprian, Arn.o.bius, and Primasius, Wiseman a.s.sumed that not only that text, but also the dialectic forms involved in it, were peculiar to Africa and took their rise there. But as Mr. White has pointed out(177), "that is because during this period we are dependent almost exclusively on Africa for our Latin Literature." Moreover, as every accomplished Latin scholar who is acquainted with the history of the language is aware, Low-Latin took rise in Italy, when the provincial dialects of that Peninsula sprang into prominence upon the commencement of the decay of the pure Latin race, occurring through civil and foreign wars and the sanguinary proscriptions, and from the consequent lapse in the predominance in literature of the pure Latin Language. True, that the pure Latin and the Low-Latin continued side by side for a long time, the former in the best literature, and the latter in ever increasing volume. What is most apposite to the question, the Roman colonists in France, Spain, Portugal, Provence, and Walachia, consisted mainly of Italian blood which was not pure Latin, as is shewn especially in the veteran soldiers who from time to time received grants of land from their emperors or generals. The six Romance Languages are mainly descended from the provincial dialects of the Italian Peninsula. It would be contrary to the action of forces in history that such and so strong a change of language should have been effected in an outlying province, where the inhabitants mainly spoke another tongue altogether. It is in the highest degree improbable that a new form of Latin should have grown up in Africa, and should have thence spread across the Mediterranean, and have carried its forms of speech into parts of the extensive Roman Empire with which the country of its birth had no natural communication. Low-Latin was the early product of the natural races in north and central Italy, and from thence followed by well-known channels into Africa and Gaul and elsewhere(178). We shall find in these truths much light, unless I am deceived, to dispel our darkness upon the Western text.

The best part of Wiseman's letters occurs where he proves that St.

Augustine used Italian MSS. belonging to what the great Bishop of Hippo terms the "Itala," and p.r.o.nounces to be the best of the Latin Versions.

Evidently the "Itala" was the highest form of Latin Version-highest, that is, in the character and elegance of the Latin used in it, and consequently in the correctness of its rendering. So here we now see our way. Critics have always had some difficulty about Dr. Hort's "European"

cla.s.s, though there is doubtless a special character in _b_ and its following. It appears now that there is no necessity for any embarra.s.sment about the intermediate MSS., because by unlocalizing the text supposed to be African we have the Low-Latin Text prevailing over the less educated parts of Italy, over Africa, and over Gaul, and other places away from Rome and Milan and the other chief centres.

Beginning with the Itala, the other texts sink gradually downwards, till we reach the lowest of all. There is thus no bar in the way of connecting that most remarkable product of the Low-Latin Text, the Codex Bezae, with any others, because the Latin Version of it stands simply as one of the Low-Latin group.

Another difficulty is also removed. Amongst the most interesting and valuable contributions to Sacred Textual Criticism that have come from the fertile conception and lucid argument of Mr. Rendel Harris, has been the proof of a closer connexion between the Low-Latin Text, as I must venture to call it, and the form of Syrian Text exhibited in the Curetonian Version, which he has given in his treatment of the Ferrar Group of Greek MSS. Of course the general connexion between the two has been long known to scholars. The resemblance between the Curetonian and Tatian's Diatessaron, to which the Lewis Codex must now be added, on the one hand, and on the other the less perfect Old-Latin Texts is a commonplace in Textual Criticism. But Mr. Harris has also shewn that there was probably a Syriacization of the Codex Bezae, a view which has been strongly confirmed on general points by Dr. Chase: and has further discovered evidence that the text of the Ferrar Group of Cursives found its way into and out of Syriac and carried back, according to Mr. Harris' ingenious suggestion, traces of its sojourn there. Dr. Chase has very recently shed more light upon the subject in his book called "The Syro-Latin Element of the Gospels(179)." So all these particulars exhibit in strong light the connexion between the Old-Latin and the Syriac. If we are dealing, not so much with the entire body of Western Texts, but as I contend with the Low-Latin part of them in its wide circulation, there is no difficulty in understanding how such a connexion arose. The Church in Rome shot up as noiselessly as the Churches of Damascus and Antioch. How and why? The key is given in the sixteenth chapter of St. Paul's Epistle to the Romans. How could he have known intimately so many of the leading Roman Christians, unless they had carried his teaching along the road of commerce from Antioch to Rome? Such travellers, and they would by no means be confined to the days of St. Paul, would understand Syriac as well as Latin. The stories and books, told or written in Aramaic, must have gone through all Syria, recounting the thrilling history of redemption before the authorized accounts were given in Greek. Accordingly, in the earliest times translations must have been made from Aramaic or Syriac into Latin, as afterwards from Greek. Thus a connexion between the Italian and Syrian Churches, and also between the teaching given in the two countries, must have lain embedded in the foundations of their common Christianity, and must have exercised an influence during very many years after.

This view of the interconnexion of the Syrian and Old-Latin readings leads us on to what must have been at first the chief origin of corruption. "The rulers derided Him": "the common people heard Him gladly." It does not, I think, appear probable that the Gospels were written till after St. Paul left Jerusalem for Rome. Literature of a high kind arose slowly in the Church, and the great missionary Apostle was the pioneer. It is surely impossible that the authors of the Synoptic Gospels should have seen one another's writings, because in that case they would not have differed so much from one another(180). The effort of St. Luke (Pref.), made probably during St. Paul's imprisonment at Caesarea (Acts xxiv. 23), though he may not have completed his Gospel then, most likely stimulated St. Matthew.

Thus in time the authorized Gospels were issued, not only to supply complete and connected accounts, but to become accurate and standard editions of what had hitherto been spread abroad in shorter or longer narratives, and with more or less correctness or error. Indeed, it is clear that before the Gospels were written many erroneous forms of the stories which made up the oral or written Gospel must have been in vogue, and that nowhere are these more likely to have prevailed than in Syria, where the Church took root so rapidly and easily. But the readings thus propagated, of which many found their way, especially in the West, into the wording of the Gospels before St. Chrysostom, never could have entered into the pure succession. Here and there they were interlopers and usurpers, and after the manner of such claimants, had to some extent the appearance of having sprung from the genuine stock. But they were ejected during the period elapsing from the fourth to the eighth century, when the Text of the New Testament was gradually purified.

This view is submitted to Textual students for verification.

We have now traced back the Traditional Text to the earliest times. The witness of the early Fathers has established the conclusion that there is not the slightest uncertainty upon this point. To deny it is really a piece of pure a.s.sumption. It rests upon the record of facts. Nor is there any reason for hesitation in concluding that the career of the Pes.h.i.tto dates back in like manner. The Latin Texts, like others, are of two kinds: both the Traditional Text and the forms of corruption find a place in them. So that the testimony of these great Versions, Syriac and Latin, is added to the testimony of the Fathers. There are no grounds for doubting that the causeway of the pure text of the Holy Gospels, and by consequence of the rest of the New Testament, has stood far above the marshes on either side ever since those sacred Books were written. What can be the attraction of those perilous quagmires, it is hard to understand. "An highway shall be there, and a way"; "the redeemed shall walk there"; "the wayfaring men, though fools, shall not err therein(181)."

CHAPTER VIII. ALEXANDRIA AND CAESAREA.

-- 1. Alexandrian Readings, and the Alexandrian School.

What is the real truth about the existence of an Alexandrian Text? Are there, or are there not, sufficient elements of an Alexandrian character, and of Alexandrian or Egyptian origin, to const.i.tute a Text of the Holy Gospels to be designated by that name?

So thought Griesbach, who conceived Origen to be the standard of the Alexandrian text. Hort, who appears to have attributed to his Neutral text much of the native products of Alexandria(182), speaks more of readings than of text. The question must be decided upon the evidence of the case, which shall now be in the main produced.

The Fathers or ancient writers who may be cla.s.sed as Alexandrian in the period under consideration are the following:-

_Traditional._ _Neologian._ Heracleon 1 7 Clement of Alexandria 82 72 Dionysius of Alexandria 12 5 Theognosius 0 1 Peter of Alexandria 7 8 Arius 2 1 Athanasius (c. Arianos) 57 56 -- -- 161 150

Under the thirty places already examined, Clement, the most important of these writers, witnesses 8 times for the Traditional reading and 14 times for the Neologian. Origen, who in his earlier years was a leader of this school, testifies 44 and 27 times respectively in the order stated.

The Version which was most closely connected with Lower Egypt was the Bohairic, and under the same thirty pa.s.sages gives the ensuing evidence:-

1. Matt. i. 25. Omits. One MS. says the Greek has "her first-born son".

2. " v. 44. Large majority, all but 5, omit. Some add in the margin.

3. " vi. 13. Only 5 MSS. have the doxology.

4. " vii. 13. All have it.

5. " ix. 13. 9 have it, and 3 in margin: 12 omit, besides the 3 just mentioned.

6. " xi. 27. All have ????ta?.

7. " xvii. 21. Only 6 MSS. have it, besides 7 in margin or interlined: 11 omit wholly.

8. " xviii. 11. Only 4 have it.