The Traditional Text of the Holy Gospels Part 18

Besides the multiplicity of points involved, three special causes delayed the complete settlement of the Text, so far as the attainment was concerned all over the Church of general accuracy throughout the Gospels, not to speak of all the New Testament.

1. Origenism, going beyond Origen, continued in force till it was condemned by the Fifth General Council in 553 A.D., and could hardly have wholly ended in that year. Besides this, controversies upon fundamental truths agitated the Church, and implied a sceptical and wayward spirit which would be ready to sustain alien variations in the written Word, till the censure pa.s.sed upon Monothelitism at the Sixth General Council in 680 A.D.

2. The Church was terribly tried by the overthrow of the Roman Empire, and the irruption of hordes of Barbarians: and consequently Churchmen were obliged to retire into extreme borders, as they did into Ireland in the fifth century(251), and to spend their energies in issuing forth from thence to reconquer countries for the Kingdom of Christ. The resultant paralysis of Christian effort must have been deplorable. Libraries and their treasures, as at Caesarea and Alexandria under the hands of Mahommedans in the seventh century, were utterly destroyed. Rest and calmness, patient and frequent study and debate, books and other helps to research, must have been in those days hard to get, and were far from being in such readiness as to favour general improvement in a subject of which extreme accuracy is the very breath and life.

3. The Art of Writing on Vellum had hardly pa.s.sed its youth at the time when the Text advocated by B and ? fell finally into disuse. Punctuation did but exist in the occasional use of the full stop: breathings or accents were perhaps hardly found: spelling, both as regards consonants and vowels, was uncertain and rudimental. So that the Art of transcribing on vellum even so far as capital letters were concerned, did not arrive at anything like maturity till about the eighth century.

But it must not be imagined that ma.n.u.scripts of substantial accuracy did not exist during this period, though they have not descended to us. The large number of Uncials and Cursives of later ages must have had a goodly a.s.semblage of accurate predecessors from which they were copied. It is probable that the more handsome and less correct copies have come into our hands, since such would have been not so much used, and might have been in the possession of the men of higher station whose heathen ancestry had bequeathed to them less orthodox tendencies, and the material of many others must have been too perishable to last. Arianism prevailed during much of the sixth century in Italy, Africa, Burgundy, and Spain. Ruder and coa.r.s.er volumes, though more accurate, would be readily surrendered to destruction, especially if they survived in more cultured descendants.

That a majority of such MSS. existed, whether of a rougher or more polished sort, both in vellum and papyrus, is proved by citations of Scripture found in the Authors of the period. But those MSS. which have been preserved are not so perfect as the others which have come from the eighth and following centuries.

Thus Codex A, though it exhibits a text more like the Traditional than either B or ?, is far from being a sure guide. Codex C, which was written later in the fifth century, is only a fragmentary palimpsest, i.e. it was thought to be of so little value that the books of Ephraem the Syrian were written over the Greek: it contains not more than two-thirds of the New Testament, and stands as to the character of its text between A and B.

Codex Q, a fragment of 235 verses, and Codex I of 135, in the same century, are not large enough to be taken into consideration here. Codexes F and S, recently discovered, being products of the end of the fifth or beginning of the sixth, and containing St. Matthew and St. Mark nearly complete, are of a general character similar to A, and evince more advancement in the Art. It is unfortunate indeed that only a fragment of either of them, though that fragment in either case is pretty complete as far as it goes, has come into our hands. After them succeeds Codex D, or Codex Bezae, now in the Cambridge Library, having been bequeathed to the University by Theodore Beza, whose name it bears. It ends at Acts xxii.

29.

-- 2. Codex D(252).

No one can pretend fully to understand the character of this Codex who has not been at the pains to collate every word of it with attention. Such an one will discover that it omits in the Gospels alone no less than 3,704 words; adds to the genuine text 2,213; subst.i.tutes 2,121; transposes 3,471, and modifies 1,772. By the time he has made this discovery his esteem for Cod. D will, it is presumed, have experienced serious modification. The total of 13,281 deflections from the Received Text is a formidable objection to explain away. Even Dr. Hort speaks of "the prodigious amount of error which D contains(253)."

But the intimate acquaintance with the Codex which he has thus acquired has conducted him to certain other results, which it is of the utmost importance that we should particularize and explain.

I. And first, this proves to be a text which in one Gospel is often a.s.similated to the others. And in fact the a.s.similation is carried sometimes so far, that a pa.s.sage from one Gospel is interpolated into the parallel pa.s.sage in another. Indeed the extent to which in Cod. D interpolations from St. Mark's Gospel are inserted into the Gospel according to St. Luke is even astounding. Between verses 14 and 15 of St.

Luke v. thirty-two words are interpolated from the parallel pa.s.sage in St.

Mark i. 45-ii. 1: and in the 10th verse of the vith chapter twelve words are introduced from St. Mark ii. 27, 28. In St. Luke iv. 37, ? ????, "the report," from St. Mark i. 28, is subst.i.tuted for ????, "the sound," which is read in the other ma.n.u.scripts. Besides the introduction into St. Luke i. 64 of ????? from St. Mark vii. 35, which will be described below, in St. Luke v. 27 seven words are brought from the parallel pa.s.sage in St.

Mark ii. 14, and the entire pa.s.sage is corrupted(254). In giving the Lord's Prayer in St. Luke xi. 2, the scribe in fault must needs ill.u.s.trate the Lord's saying by interpolating an inaccurate transcription of the warning against "vain repet.i.tions" given by Him before in the Sermon on the Mount. Again, as to interpolation from other sources, grossly enough, St. Matt. ii. 23 is thrust in at the end of St. Luke ii. 39; that is to say, the scribe of D, or of some ma.n.u.script from which D was copied, either directly or indirectly, thought fit to explain the carrying of the Holy Child to Nazareth by the explanation given by St. Matthew, but quoting from memory wrote "by the prophet" in the singular, instead of "by the prophets" in the plural(255). Similarly, in St. Luke iv. 31 upon the mention of the name of Capernaum, D must needs insert from St. Matt. iv.

13, "which is upon the sea-coast within the borders of Zabulon and Nephthalim" (t?? pa?a?a?a.s.s??? (_sic_) e? ?????? ?a????? ?a? ?ef?a?e?).

Indeed, no adequate idea can be formed of the clumsiness, the coa.r.s.eness of these operations, unless some instances are given: but a few more must suffice.

1. In St. Mark iii. 26, our LORD delivers the single statement, "And if Satan is risen against himself (???ste ?f? ?a?t??) and is divided (?a?

e???sta?) he cannot stand, but hath an end (???? t???? ??e?)." Instead of this, D exhibits, "And if Satan cast out Satan, he is divided against himself: his kingdom cannot stand, but hath the end (???? t? t???? ??e?)."

Now this is clearly an imitation, not a copy, of the parallel place in St.

Matt. xii. 26, where also a twofold statement is made, as every one may see. But the reply is also a clumsy one to the question asked in St. Mark, but not in St. Matthew, "How can Satan cast out Satan?" Learned readers however will further note that it is St. Matthew's ?e??s??, where St.

Mark wrote e???sta?, which makes the statement possible for him which is impossible according to the representation given by D of St. Mark.

2. At the end of the parable of the pounds, the scribe of D, or one of those whom he followed, thinking that the idle servant was let off too easily, and confusing with this parable the other parable of the talents,-blind of course to the difference between the punishments inflicted by a "lord" and those of a new-made king,-inserts the 30th verse of St. Matt. xxv. at the end of St. Luke xix. 27.

3. Again, after St. Matt. xx. 28, when the LORD had rebuked the spirit of ambition in the two sons of Zebedee, and had directed His disciples not to seek precedence, enforcing the lesson from His own example as shewn in giving His Life a ransom for many, D inserts the following tasteless pa.s.sage: "But ye seek to increase from a little, and from the greater to be something less(256)." Nor is this enough:-an addition is also made from St. Luke xiv. 8-10, being the well-known pa.s.sage about taking the lowest room at feasts. But this additional interpolation is in style and language unlike the words of any Gospels, and ends with the vapid piece of information, "and this shall be useful to thee." It is remarkable that, whereas D was alone in former errors, here it becomes a follower in one part or other of the pa.s.sage of twelve Old Latin ma.n.u.scripts(257): and indeed the Greek in the pa.s.sage in D is evidently a version of the Syrio-Low-Latin. The following words, or forms of words or phrases, are not found in the rest of the N.T.: pa?a??????te? (aor. part. _rogati_ or _vocati_), ??a????es?e (_rec.u.mbite_), ??????ta? (_eminentioribus_), de?p?????t?? (_invitator caenae_), ?t? ??t? ???e? (_adhuc infra accede_), ?tt??a t?p?? (_loco inferiori_), ?tt?? (_inferior_), s??a?e ?t? ???

(_collige adhuc superius_). These Latin expressions are taken from one or other of the twelve Old Latin MSS. Outside of the Latin, the Curetonian is the sole ally, the Lewis being mutilated, of the flighty Old Uncial under consideration.

These pa.s.sages are surely enough to represent to the reader the interpolations of Codex D, whether arising from a.s.similation or otherwise.

The description given by the very learned editor of this MS. is in the following words:-"No known ma.n.u.script contains so many bold and extensive interpolations (six hundred, it is said, in the Acts alone), countenanced, where they are not absolutely unsupported, chiefly by the Old Latin and the Curetonian version(258)."

II. There are also traces of extreme licentiousness in this copy of the Gospels which call for distinct notice. Sometimes words or expressions are subst.i.tuted: sometimes the sense is changed, and utter confusion introduced: delicate terms or forms are ignored: and a general corruption ensues.

I mean for example such expressions as the following, which are all found in the course of a single verse (St. Mark iv. 1).

St. Mark relates that once when our SAVIOUR was teaching "by the sea-side"

(pa??) there a.s.sembled so vast a concourse of persons that "He went into the ship, and sat in the sea," all the mult.i.tude being "on the land, towards the sea": i.e. with their faces turned in the direction of the ship in which He was sitting. Was a plain story ever better told?

But according to D the facts of the case were quite different. First, it was our SAVIOUR who was teaching "towards the sea" (p???). Next, in consequence of the crowd, He crossed over, and "sat on the other side of the sea" (p??a?). Lastly, the mult.i.tude-followed Him, I suppose; for they also-"were on the other side of the sea" (p??a?) ... Now I forgive the scribe for his two transpositions and his ungrammatical subst.i.tution of ?

?a?? for ?????. But I insist that a MS. which circulates incidents after this fashion cannot be regarded as trustworthy. Verse 2 begins in the same licentious way. Instead of,-"And He taught them many things (p????) in parables," we are informed that "He taught them in many parables"

(p???a??). Who will say that we are ever safe with such a guide?

-- 3.

All are aware that the two Evangelical accounts of our LORD'S human descent exhibit certain distinctive features. St. Matthew distributes the 42 names in "the book of the generations of JESUS CHRIST, the son of David, the son of Abraham," into three fourteens; and requires us to recognize in the ?e????a? of ver. 11 a different person (viz. Jehoiakim) from the ?e????a? of ver. 12 (viz. Jehoiachin). Moreover, in order to produce this symmetry of arrangement, he leaves out the names of 3 kings,-Ahaziah, Joash, Amaziah: and omits at least 9 generations of Zorobabel's descendants(259). The mystical correspondence between the 42 steps in our SAVIOUR'S human descent from Abraham, and the 42 stations of the Israelites on their way to Canaan(260), has been often remarked upon.

It extends to the fact that the stations also were, historically, far more than 42. And so much for what is contained in St. Matthew's Gospel.

St. Luke, who enumerates the 77 steps of his genealogy in backward order, derives the descent of "JESUS, the son of Joseph" from "Adam, the son of G.o.d." He traces our LORD'S descent from David and again from Zorobabel through a different line of ancestry from that adopted by St. Matthew. He introduces a second "Cainan" between Arphaxad and Sala (ver. 35, 36). The only names which the two tables of descent have in common are these five,-David, Salathiel, Zorobabel, Joseph, JESUS.

But Cod. D-(from which the first chapter of St. Matthew's Gospel has long since disappeared)-in St. Luke iii. exhibits a purely fabricated table of descent. To put one name for another,-as when A writes "Shem" instead of Seth: to misspell a name until it ceases to be recognizable,-as when ?

writes "b.a.l.l.s" for Boaz: to turn one name into two by cutting it in half,-as where ? writes "Admin" _and_ "Adam" instead of Aminadab: or again, in defiance of authority, to leave a name out,-as when A omits Mainan and Pharez; or to put a name in,-as when Verona Lat. (b) inserts "Joaram" after Aram:-with all such instances of licence the "old Uncials"

have made us abundantly familiar. But we are not prepared to find that in place of the first 18 names which follow those of "JESUS" and "Joseph" in St. Luke's genealogy (viz. Heli to Rhesa inclusive), D introduces the 9 immediate ancestors of Joseph (viz. Abiud to Jacob) as enumerated by St.

Matthew,-thus abbreviating St. Luke's genealogy by 9 names.

Next,-"Zorobabel" and "Salathiel" being common to both genealogies,-in place of the 20 names found in St. Luke between Salathiel and David (viz.

Neri to Nathan inclusive), Cod. D presents us with the 15 royal descendants of David enumerated by St. Matthew (viz. Solomon to Jehoiachin(261) inclusive);-infelicitously inventing an imaginary generation, by styling Jehoiakim "the son of Eliakim,"-being not aware that "Jehoiakim" and "Eliakim" are one and the same person: and, in defiance of the first Evangelist, supplying the names of the 3 kings omitted by St. Matthew (i. 8), viz. Ahaziah, Joash, and Amaziah. Only 34 names follow in Cod. D; the second "Cainan" being omitted. In this way, the number of St. Luke's names is reduced from 77 to 66. A more flagrant instance of that licentious handling of the deposit which was a common phenomenon in Western Christendom is seldom to be met with(262). This particular fabrication is happily the peculiar property of Cod. D; and we are tempted to ask, whether it a.s.sists in recommending that singular monument of injudicious and arbitrary textual revision to the favour of one of the modern schools of Critics.

-- 4.

We repeat that the ill treatment which the deposit has experienced at the hands of those who fabricated the text of Cod. D is only to be understood by those who will be at the pains to study its readings throughout.

Constantly to subst.i.tute the wrong word for the right one; or at all events to introduce a less significant expression: on countless occasions to mar the details of some precious incident; and to obscure the purpose of the Evangelist by tastelessly and senselessly disturbing the inspired text,-_this_ will be found to be the rule with Cod. D throughout. As another example added to those already cited:-In St. Luke xxii, D omits verse 20, containing the Inst.i.tution of the Cup, evidently from a wish to correct the sacred account by removing the second mention of the Cup from the record of the third Evangelist.

St. Mark (xv. 43) informs us that, on the afternoon of the first Good Friday, Joseph of Arimathaea "taking courage _went in_ (e?s???e) to Pilate and requested to have the _body_ (s?a) of Jesus": that "Pilate wondered (??a?ase?) [at hearing] that He _was dead_ (t?????e) already: and sending for the centurion [who had presided at the Crucifixion] inquired of him if [JESUS] had been dead long?" (e? p??a? ?p??a?e.)

But the author of Cod. D, besides subst.i.tuting "_went_" (???e?) for "went _in_,"-"_corpse_" (pt?a) for "body" (which by the way he repeats in ver.

45),-and a sentiment of "continuous wonder" (??a?a?e?) for the fact of astonishment which Joseph's request inspired,-having also subst.i.tuted the prosaic te????e? for the graphic t?????e of the Evangelist,-represents Pilate as inquiring of the centurion "if [indeed JESUS] was dead already?"

(e? ?d? te????e?; _si jam mortuus esset?_), whereby not only is all the refinement of the original lost, but the facts of the case also are seriously misrepresented. For Pilate did not doubt Joseph's tidings. He only wondered at them. And his inquiry was made not with a view to testing the veracity of his informant, but for the satisfaction of his own curiosity as to the time when his Victim had expired.

Now it must not be supposed that I have fastened unfairly on an exceptional verse and a half (St. Mark xv. half of v. 43 and all v. 44) of the second Gospel. The reader is requested to refer to the note(263), where he will find set down a collation of _eight consecutive verses_ in the selfsame context: viz. St. Mark xv. 47 to xvi. 7 inclusive; after an attentive survey of which he will not be disposed to deny that only by courtesy can such an exhibition of the original verity as Cod. D be called "a copy" at all. Had the genuine text been _copied_ over and over again till the crack of doom, the result could never have been this. There are in fact but 117 words to be transcribed: and of these no less than 67-much more than half-have been either omitted (21), or else added (11); subst.i.tuted (10), or else transposed (11); depraved (12, as by writing a?ate????t?? for ??ate??a?t??), or actually blundered (2, as by writing e????ta? ???? for ?????ta? ???). Three times the construction has been altered,-once indeed very seriously, for the Angel at the sepulchre is made to personate Christ. Lastly, five of the corrupt readings are the result of a.s.similation. Whereas the evangelist wrote ?a? ??a???asa?

?e????s?? ?t? ?p??e????sta? ? ?????, what else but a licentious paraphrase is the following,-e????ta? ?a? e???s???s?? ap??e????se??? t?? ?????? This is in fact a fabricated, not an honestly transcribed text: and it cannot be too clearly understood that such a text (more or less fabricated, I mean) is exhibited by Codexes B?D throughout.

-- 5.

It is remarkable that whenever the construction is somewhat harsh or obscure, D and the Latin copies are observed freely to transpose,-to supply,-and even slightly to paraphrase,-in order to bring out the presumed meaning of the original. An example is furnished by St. Luke i.