The Traditional Text of the Holy Gospels Part 20

Enough has surely been said to exhibit and ill.u.s.trate this rude characteristic of the few Old Copies which out of the vast number of their contemporaries are all that we now possess. The existence of this characteristic is indubitable and undoubted: it is in a measure acknowledged by Dr. Hort in words on which we shall remark in the ensuing chapter(287). Our readers should observe that the "rubbing off" process has by no means been confined to particles like ?a? and ???, but has extended to tenses, other forms of words, and in fact to all kinds of delicacies of expression. The results have been found all through the Gospels: sacred and refined meaning, such as accomplished scholars will appreciate in a moment, has been pared off and cast away. If people would only examine B, ? and D in their bare unpresentableness, they would see the loss which those MSS. have sustained, as compared with the Text supported by the overwhelming ma.s.s of authorities: and they would refuse to put their trust any longer in such imperfect, rudimentary, and ill-trained guides.

CHAPTER XI. THE LATER UNCIALS AND THE CURSIVES.

-- 1(288).

The nature of Tradition is very imperfectly understood in many quarters; and mistakes respecting it lie close to the root, if they are not themselves the root, of the chief errors in Textual Criticism. We must therefore devote some s.p.a.ce to a brief explanation of this important element in our present inquiry.

Tradition is commonly likened to a stream which, as is taken for granted, contracts pollution in its course the further it goes. Purity is supposed to be attainable only within the neighbourhood of the source: and it is a.s.sumed that distance from thence ensures proportionally either greater purity or more corruption.

Without doubt there is much truth in this comparison: only, as in the case of nearly all comparisons there are limits to the resemblance, and other features and aspects are not therein connoted, which are essentially bound up with the subject believed to be ill.u.s.trated on all points in this similitude.

In the first place, the traditional presentment of the New Testament is not like a single stream, but resembles rather a great number of streams of which many have remained pure, but some have been corrupted. One cl.u.s.ter of bad streams was found in the West, and, as is most probable, the source of very many of them was in Syria: another occurred in the East with Alexandria and afterwards Caesarea as the centre, where it was joined by the currents from the West. A mult.i.tude in different parts of the Church were kept wholly or mainly clear of these contaminants, and preserved the pure and precise utterance as it issued from the springs of the Written Word.

But there is another pitfall hidden under that imperfect simile which is continually employed on this subject either by word of mouth or in writing. The Tradition of the Church does not take shape after the model of a stream or streams rolling in mechanical movement and unvaried flow from the fountain down the valley and over the plain. Like most mundane things, it has a career. It has pa.s.sed through a stage when one ma.n.u.script was copied as if mechanically from another that happened to be at hand.

Thus accuracy except under human infirmity produced accuracy; and error was surely procreative of error. Afterwards came a period when both bad and good exemplars offered themselves in rivalry, and the power of refusing the evil and choosing the good was in exercise, often with much want of success. As soon as this stage was accomplished, which may be said roughly to have reached from Origen till the middle of the fourth century, another period commenced, when a definite course was adopted, which was followed with increasing advantage till the whole career was fixed irrevocably in the right direction. The period of the two Gregories, Basil, Chrysostom, and others, was the time when the Catholic Church took stock of truth and corruption, and had in hand the duty of thoroughly casting out error and cleansing her faith. The second part of the Creed was thus permanently defined; the third part which, besides the Divinity of the Holy Ghost, relates to His action in the Church, to the Written Word, inclusive both of the several books generally and the text of those books, to the nature of the Sacraments, to the Ministry, to the character of the unity and government of the Church, was on many points delayed as to special definition by the ruin soon dealt upon the Roman Empire, and by the ignorance of the nations which entered upon that vast domain: and indeed much of this part of the Faith remains still upon the battlefield of controversy.

But action was taken upon what may be perhaps termed the Canon of St.

Augustine(289): "What the Church of the time found prevailing throughout her length and breadth, not introduced by regulations of Councils, but handed down in unbroken tradition, that she rightly concluded to have been derived from no other fount than Apostolic authority." To use other words, in the accomplishment of her general work, the Church quietly and without any public recension examined as to the written Word the various streams that had come down from the Apostles, and followed the mult.i.tude that were purest, and by gradual filtration extruded out of these nearly all the corruption that even the better lines of descent had contracted.

We have now arrived at the period, when from the general consentience of the records, it is discovered that the form of the Text of the New Testament was mainly settled. The settlement was effected noiselessly, not by public debate or in decrees of general or provincial councils, yet none the less completely and permanently. It was the Church's own operation, instinctive, deliberate, and in the main universal. Only a few witnesses here and there lifted up their voices against the prevalent decisions, themselves to be condemned by the dominant sense of Christendom. Like the repudiation of Arianism, it was a repentance from a partial and temporary encouragement of corruption, which was never to be repented of till it was called in question during the general disturbance of faith and doctrine in the nineteenth century. Doubtless, the agreement thus introduced has not attained more than a general character. For the exceeding number of questions involved forbids all expectation of an universal coincidence of testimony extending to every single case.

But in the outset, as we enter upon the consideration of the later ma.n.u.scripts, our way must be cleared by the removal of some fallacies which are widely prevalent amongst students of Sacred Textual Criticism.

It is sometimes imagined (1) that Uncials and Cursives differ in kind; (2) that all Cursives are alike; (3) that all Cursives are copies of Codex A, and are the results of a general Recension; and (4) that we owe our knowledge of the New Testament entirely to the existing Uncials. To these four fallacies must be added an opinion which stands upon a higher footing than the preceding, but which is no less a fallacy, and which we have to combat in this chapter, viz. that the Text of the later Uncials and especially the Text of the Cursives is a debased Text.

1. The real difference between Uncials and Cursives is patent to all people who have any knowledge of the subject. Uncials form a ruder kind of ma.n.u.scripts, written in capital letters with no s.p.a.ce between them till the later specimens are reached, and generally with an insufficient and ill-marked array of stops. Cursives show a great advance in workmanship, being indited, as the name suggests, in running and more easily flowing letters, with "a system of punctuation much the same as in printed books."

As contrasted with one another, Uncials as a cla.s.s enjoy a great superiority, if antiquity is considered; and Cursives are just as much higher than the sister cla.s.s, if workmanship is to be the guiding principle of judgement. Their differences are on the surface, and are such that whoso runs may read.

But Textual Science, like all Science, is concerned, not with the superficial, but with the real;-not with the dress in which the text is presented, but with the text itself;-not again with the bare fact of antiquity, since age alone is no sure test of excellence, but with the character of the testimony which from the nature of the subject-matter is within reach. Judging then the later Uncials, and comparing them with the Cursives, we make the discovery that the texts of both are mainly the same. Indeed, they are divided by no strict boundary of time: they overlap one another. The first Cursive is dated May 7, 835(290): the last Uncials, which are Lectionaries, are referred to the eleventh, and possibly to the twelfth, century(291). One, Codex ?, is written partly in uncials, and partly in cursive letters, as it appears, by the same hand. So that in the ninth, tenth, and eleventh centuries both uncials and cursives must have issued mainly and virtually from the same body of transcribers. It follows that the difference lay in the outward invest.i.ture, whilst, as is found by a comparison of one with another, there was a much more important similarity of character within.

2. But when a leap is made from this position to another sweeping a.s.sertion that all cursives are alike, it is necessary to put a stop to so illicit a process. In the first place, there is the small handful of cursive copies which is a.s.sociated with B and ?. The notorious 1,-handsome outwardly like its two leaders but corrupt in text,-33, 118, 131, 157, 205, 209(292), and others;-the Ferrar Group, containing 13, 69, 124, 346, 556, 561, besides 348, 624, 788;-these are frequently dissentients from the rest of the Cursives. But indeed, when these and a few others have been subtracted from the rest and set apart in a cla.s.s by themselves, any careful examination of the evidence adduced on important pa.s.sages will reveal the fact that whilst almost always there is a clear majority of Cursives on one side, there are amply enough cases of dissentience more or less to prove that the Cursive MSS. are derived from a multiplicity of archetypes, and are endued almost severally with what may without extravagance be termed distinct and independent personality. Indeed, such is the necessity of the case. They are found in various countries all over the Church. Collusion was not possible in earlier times when intercommunication between countries was extremely limited, and publicity was all but confined to small areas. The genealogies of Cursive MSS., if we knew them, would fill a volume. Their stems must have been extremely numerous; and like Uncials, and often independently of Uncials, they must have gone back to the vast body of early papyrus ma.n.u.scripts.

3. And as to the Cursives having been copies of Codex A, a moderate knowledge of the real character of that ma.n.u.script, and a just estimate of the true value of it, would effectually remove such a hallucination. It is only the love of reducing all knowledge of intricate questions to the compa.s.s of the proverbial nutsh.e.l.l, and the glamour that hangs over a very old relic, which has led people, when they had dropped their grasp of B, to clutch at the ancient treasure in the British Museum. It is right to concede all honour to such a survival of so early a period: but to lift the pyramid from its ample base, and to rest it upon a point like A, is a proceeding which hardly requires argument for its condemnation. And next, when the notion of a Recension is brought forward, the answer is, What and when and how and where? In the absence of any sign or hint of such an event in records of the past, it is impossible to accept such an explanation of what is no difficulty at all. History rests upon research into doc.u.ments which have descended to us, not upon imagination or fiction. And the sooner people get such an idea out of their heads as that of piling up structures upon mere a.s.sumption, and betake themselves instead to what is duly attested, the better it will be for a Science which must be reared upon well authenticated bases, and not upon phantom theories.

4. The case of the Cursives is in other respects strangely misunderstood, or at least is strangely misrepresented. The popular notion seems to be, that we are indebted for our knowledge of the true text of Scripture to the existing Uncials entirely; and that the essence of the secret dwells exclusively with the four or five oldest of those Uncials. By consequence, it is popularly supposed that since we are possessed of such Uncial Copies, we could afford to dispense with the testimony of the Cursives altogether. A more complete misconception of the facts of the case can hardly be imagined. For the plain truth is that all the phenomena exhibited by the Uncial MSS. are reproduced by the Cursive Copies. A small minority of the Cursives, just as a small minority of the Uncials, are probably the depositaries of peculiar recensions.

It is at least as reasonable to a.s.sert that we can afford entirely to disregard the testimony of the Uncials, as to pretend that we can afford entirely to disregard the testimony of the Cursives. In fact of the two, the former a.s.sertion would be a vast deal nearer to the truth. Our inductions would in many cases be so fatally narrowed, if we might not look beyond one little handful of Uncial Copies.

But the point to which the reader's attention is specially invited is this:-that so far from our being entirely dependent on Codexes B?CD, or on some of them, for certain of the most approved corrections of the Received Text, we should have been just as fully aware of every one of those readings if neither B nor ?, C nor D, had been in existence. Those readings are every one to be found in one or more of the few Cursive Codexes which rank by themselves, viz. the two groups just mentioned and perhaps some others. If they are not, they may be safely disregarded; they are readings which have received no subsequent recognition(293).

Indeed, the case of the Cursives presents an exact parallel with the case of the Uncials. Whenever we observe a formal consensus of the Cursives for any reading, there, almost invariably, is a grand consensus observable for the same reading of the Uncials.

The era of greater perfection both in the outer presentment and in the internal accuracy of the text of copies of the New Testament may be said, as far as the relics which have descended to us are concerned, to have commenced with the Codex Basiliensis or E of the Gospels. This beautiful and generally accurate Codex must have been written in the seventh century(294). The rest of the later Uncials are ordinarily found together in a large or considerable majority: whilst there is enough dissent to prove that they are independent witnesses, and that error was condemned, not ignored. Thus the Codex Regius (L, eighth century), preserved at Paris, generally follows B and ?: so does the Codex Sangallensis (?, ninth century), the Irish relic of the monastery of St. Gall, in St. Mark alone: and the Codex Zacynthius (?, an eighth century palimpsest) now in the Library of the Bible Society, in St. Luke(295). The isolation of these few from the rest of their own age is usually conspicuous. The verdict of the later uncials is nearly always sustained by a large majority. In fact, as a rule, every princ.i.p.al reading discoverable in any of the oldest Uncials is also exhibited in one, two, or three of the later Uncials, or in one or more of the small handful of dissentient Cursives already enumerated.

Except indeed in very remarkable instances, as in the case of the last twelve verses of St. Mark, such readings are generally represented: yet in the later MSS. as compared with the oldest there is this additional feature in the representation, that if evidence is evidence, and weight, number, and variety are taken into account, those readings are altogether condemned.

-- 2(296).

But we are here confronted with the contention that the text of the Cursives is of a debased character. Our opponents maintain that it is such that it must have been compounded from other forms of text by a process of conflation so called, and that in itself it is a text of a character greatly inferior to the text mainly represented by B and ?.

Now in combating this opinion, we are bound first to remark that the burden of proof rests with the opposite side. According to the laws which regulate scientific conclusions, all the elements of proof must be taken into consideration. Nothing deserves the name of science in which the calculation does not include all the phenomena. The base of the building must be conterminous with the facts. This is so elementary a principle that it seems needless to insist more upon it.

But then, this is exactly what we endeavour to accomplish, and our adversaries disregard. Of course they have their reasons for dismissing nineteen-twentieths of the evidence at hand: but-this is the point-it rests with them to prove that such dismissal is lawful and right. What then are their arguments? Mainly three, viz. the supposed greater antiquity of their favourite text, the superiority which they claim for its character, and the evidence that the Traditional Text was as they maintain formed by conflation from texts previously in existence.

Of these three arguments, that from antiquity has been already disposed of, and ill.u.s.tration of what has been already advanced will also be at hand throughout the sequel of this work. As to conflation, a proof against its possible applicability to the Traditional Text was supplied as to particles and other words in the last chapter, and will receive ill.u.s.tration from instances of words of a greater size in this. Conflation might be possible, supposing for a moment that other conditions favoured it, and that the elements to be conflated were already in existence in other texts. But inasmuch as in the majority of instances such elements are found nowhere else than in the Traditional Text, conflation as accounting for the changes which upon this theory must have been made is simply impossible. On the other hand, the Traditional Text might have been very easily chipped and broken and corrupted, as will be shewn in the second part of this Treatise, into the form exhibited by B and ?(297).

Upon the third argument in the general contention, we undertake to say that it is totally without foundation. On the contrary, the text of the Cursives is greatly the superior of the two. The instances which we proceed to give as specimens, and as specimens only, will exhibit the propriety of language, and the taste of expression, in which it is pre-eminent(298). Let our readers judge fairly and candidly, as we doubt not that they will, and we do not fear the result.

But before entering upon the character of the later text, a few words are required to remind our readers of the effect of the general argument as. .h.i.therto stated upon this question. The text of the later Uncials is the text to which witness is borne, not only by the majority of the Uncials, but also by the Cursives and the Versions and the Fathers, each in greater numbers. Again, the text of the Cursives enjoys unquestionably the support of by very far the largest number among themselves, and also of the Uncials and Versions and Fathers. Accordingly, the text of which we are now treating, which is that of the later Uncials and the Cursives combined, is incomparably superior under all the external Notes of Truth.

It possesses in nearly all cases older attestation(299): there is no sort of question as to the greater number of witnesses that bear evidence to its claims: nor to their variety: and hardly ever to the explicit proof of their continuousness; which indeed is also generally-nay, universally-implied owing to the nature of the case: their weight is certified upon strong grounds: and as a matter of fact, the context in nearly all instances testifies on their side. The course of doctrine pursued in the history of the Universal Church is immeasurably in their favour. We have now therefore only to consider whether their text, as compared with that of B?D and their allies, commends itself on the score of intrinsic excellence. And as to this consideration, if as has been manifested the text of B-?, and that of D, are bad, and have been shewn to be the inferior, this must be the better. We may now proceed to some specimen instances exhibiting the superiority of the Later Uncial and Cursive text.

-- 3.

Our SAVIOUR'S lament over Jerusalem ("If thou hadst known, even thou, at least in this thy day, the things which belong unto thy peace!") is just one of those delicately articulated pa.s.sages which are safe to suffer by the process of transmission. Survey St. Luke's words (xix. 42), ?? ?????

?a? s?, ?a? ?e ?? t? ?e?? s?? ta?t?, t? p??? e?????? s??,-and you will perceive at a glance that the vulnerable point in the sentence, so to speak, is ?a? s?, ?a? ?e. In the meanwhile, attested as those words are by the Old Latin(300) and by Eusebius(301), as well as witnessed to by the whole body of the copies beginning with Cod. A and including the lost original of 13-69-124-346 &c.,-the very _order_ of those words is a thing quite above suspicion. Even Tischendorf admits this. He retains the traditional reading in every respect. Eusebius however twice writes ?a? ?e s?(302); once, ?a? s? ?e(303); and once he drops ?a? ?e entirely(304).

Origen drops it 3 times(305). Still, there is at least a general _consensus_ among Copies, Versions and Fathers for beginning the sentence with the characteristic words, e? ????? ?a? s?; the phrase being witnessed to by the Latin, the Bohairic, the Gothic, and the Harkleian Versions; by Irenaeus(306),-by Origen(307),-by ps.-Tatian(308),-by Eusebius(309),-by Basil the Great(310),-by Basil of Seleucia(311),-by Cyril(312).

What then is found in the three remaining Uncials, for C is defective here? D exhibits e? e???? ?a? s?, e? t? ?e?a ta?t?, ta p??? e?????? s??: being supported only by the Latin of Origen in one place(313). Lachmann adopts this reading all the same. Nothing worse, it must be confessed, has happened to it than the omission of ?a? ?e, and of the former s??. But when we turn to B?, we find that they and L, with Origen once(314), and the Syriac heading prefixed to Cyril's homilies on St. Luke's Gospel(315), exclusively exhibit,-e? e???? e? t? ?e?a ta?t? ?a? s? ta p??? e??????: thus, not only omitting ?a? ?e, together with the first and second s??, but by transposing the words ?a? s?-?? t? ?e?? ta?t?, obliterating from the pa.s.sage more than half its force and beauty. This maimed and mutilated exhibition of our LORD'S words, only because it is found in B?, is adopted by W.-Hort, who are in turn followed by the Revisers(316). The Pes.h.i.tto by the way omits ?a? s?, and transposes the two clauses which remain(317).

The Curetonian Syriac runs wild, as usual, and the Lewis too(318).

Amid all this conflict and confusion, the reader's attention is invited to the instructive fact that the whole body of cursive copies (and all the uncials but four) have retained in this pa.s.sage all down the ages uninjured every exquisite lineament of the inspired archetype. The truth, I say, is to be found in the cursive copies, not in the licentious B?DL, which as usual stand apart from one another and from A. Only in respect of the first s?? is there a slight prevarication on the part of a very few witnesses(319). Note however that it is overborne by the consent of the Syriac, the Old Latin and the Gothic, and further that the testimony of ps.-Tatian is express on this head(320). There is therefore nothing to be altered in the traditional text of St. Luke xix. 42, which furnishes an excellent instance of fidelity of transmission, and of an emphatic condemnation of B-?.

-- 4.

It is the misfortune of inquiries like the present that they sometimes constrain us to give prominence to minute details which it is difficult to make entertaining. Let me however seek to interest my reader in the true reading of St. Matt. xx. 22, 23: from which verses recent critical Editors reject the words, "and to be baptized with the baptism that I am baptized with," ?a? t? ?pt?sa ? ??? apt???a? apt?s???a?.

About the right of the same words to a place in the corresponding part of St. Mark's Gospel (x. 38), there is no difference of opinion: except that it is insisted that in St. Mark the clause should begin with ? instead of ?a?.

Next, the reader is requested to attend to the following circ.u.mstance: that, except of course the four (?BDL) and Z which omit the place altogether and one other (S), all the Uncials together with the bulk of the Cursives, and the Pes.h.i.tto and Harkleian and several Latin Versions, concur in reading ? t? ?pt?sa in St. Matthew: all the Uncials but eight (?BCDLW?S), together with the bulk of the Cursives and the Pes.h.i.tto, agree in reading ?a? t? ?pt?sa in St. Mark. This delicate distinction between the first and the second Gospel, obliterated in the Received Text, is faithfully maintained in nineteen out of twenty of the Cursive Copies.