The Traditional Text of the Holy Gospels Part 3

2. Next,-Because,-although for convenience we have hitherto spoken of Codexes B?DL as exhibiting a single text,-it is in reality not one text but fragments of many, which are to be met with in the little handful of authorities enumerated above. Their witness does not agree together. The Traditional Text, on the contrary, is unmistakably one.

3. Further,-Because it is extremely improbable, if not impossible, that the Traditional Text was or could have been derived from such a doc.u.ment as the archetype of B-?: whereas the converse operation is at once obvious and easy. There is no difficulty in producing a short text by omission of words, or clauses, or verses, from a fuller text: but the fuller text could not have been produced from the shorter by any development which would be possible under the facts of the case(21). Glosses would account for changes in the archetype of B-?, but not conversely(22).

4. But the chief reason is,-Because, on making our appeal unreservedly to Antiquity-to Versions and Fathers as well as copies,-the result is unequivocal. The Traditional Text becomes triumphantly established,-the eccentricities of B?D and their colleagues become one and all emphatically condemned.

All these, in the mean time, are points concerning which something has been said already, and more will have to be said in the sequel. Returning now to the phenomenon adverted to at the outset, we desire to explain that whereas "Various Readings," properly so called, that is to say, the Readings which possess really strong attestation-for more than nineteen-twentieths of the "Various Readings" commonly quoted are only the vagaries of scribes, and ought not to be called "Readings" at all-do not require cla.s.sification into groups, as Griesbach and Hort have cla.s.sified them; "Corrupt Readings," if they are to be intelligently handled, must by all means be distributed under distinct heads, as will be done in the Second Part of this work.

III. "It is not at all our design" (remarks Dr. Scrivener) "to seek our readings from the later uncials, supported as they usually are by the ma.s.s of cursive ma.n.u.scripts; but to employ their confessedly secondary evidence in those numberless instances wherein their elder brethren are hopelessly at variance(23)." From which it is plain that in this excellent writer's opinion, the truth of Scripture is to be sought in the first instance at the hands of the older uncials: that only when these yield conflicting testimony may we resort to the "confessedly secondary evidence" of the later uncials: and that only so may we proceed to inquire for the testimony of the great ma.s.s of the cursive copies. It is not difficult to foresee what would be the result of such a method of procedure.

I venture therefore respectfully but firmly to demur to the spirit of my learned friend's remarks on the present, and on many similar occasions.

His language is calculated to countenance the popular belief (1) That the authority of an uncial codex, because it is an uncial, is necessarily greater than that of a codex written in the cursive character: an imagination which upon proof I hold to be groundless. Between the text of the later uncials and the text of the cursive copies, I fail to detect any separative difference: certainly no such difference as would induce me to a.s.sign the palm to the former. It will be shewn later on in this treatise, that it is a pure a.s.sumption to take for granted, or to infer, that cursive copies were all descended from the uncials. New discoveries in palaeography have ruled that error to be out of court.

But (2) especially do I demur to the popular notion, to which I regret to find that Dr. Scrivener lends his powerful sanction, that the text of Scripture is to be sought in the first instance in the oldest of the uncials. I venture to express my astonishment that so learned and thoughtful a man should not have seen that before certain "elder brethren"

are erected into a supreme court of judicature, some other token of fitness besides that of age must be produced on their behalf. Whence, I can but ask-, whence is it that no one has yet been at the pains to establish the contradictory of the following proposition, viz. that Codexes B?CD are the several depositaries of a fabricated and depraved text: and that B?D, for C is a palimpsest, i.e., has had the works of Ephraem the Syrian written over it as if it were of no use, are probably indebted for their very preservation solely to the fact that they were anciently recognized as untrustworthy doc.u.ments? Do men indeed find it impossible to realize the notion that there must have existed such things as refuse copies in the fourth, fifth, sixth, and seventh centuries as well as in the eighth, ninth, tenth, and eleventh? and that the Codexes which we call B?CD may possibly, if not as I hold probably, have been of that cla.s.s(24)?

Now I submit that it is a sufficient condemnation of Codd. B?CD as a supreme court of judicature (1) That as a rule they are observed to be discordant in their judgements: (2) That when they thus differ among themselves it is generally demonstrable by an appeal to antiquity that the two princ.i.p.al judges B and ? have delivered a mistaken judgement: (3) That when these two differ one from the other, the supreme judge B is often in the wrong: and lastly (4) That it constantly happens that all four agree, and yet all four are in error.

Does any one then inquire,-But why at all events may not resort be had in the first instance to Codd. B?ACD?-I answer,-Because the inquiry is apt to prejudice the question, pretty sure to mislead the judgement, only too likely to narrow the issue and render the Truth hopelessly difficult of attainment. For every reason, I am inclined to propose the directly opposite method of procedure, as at once the safer and the more reasonable method. When I learn that doubt exists, as to the reading of any particular place, instead of inquiring what amount of discord on the subject exists between Codexes AB?CD (for the chances are that they will be all at loggerheads among themselves), I inquire for the verdict as it is given by the main body of the copies. This is generally unequivocal.

But if (which seldom happens) I find this a doubtful question, then indeed I begin to examine the separate witnesses. Yet even then it helps me little, or rather it helps me nothing, to find, as I commonly do, that A is on one side and B on the other,-except by the way that wherever ?B are seen together, or when D stands apart with only a few allies, the inferior reading is pretty sure to be found there also.

Suppose however (as commonly happens) there is no serious division,-of course, significance does not attach itself to any handful of eccentric copies,-but that there is a practical unanimity among the cursives and later uncials: I cannot see that a veto can rest with such unstable and discordant authorities, however much they may singly add to the weight of the vote already tendered. It is as a hundred to one that the uncial or uncials which are with the main body of the cursives are right, because (as will be shown) in their consentience they embody the virtual decision of the whole Church; and that the dissentients-be they few or many-are wrong. I inquire however,-What say the Versions? and last but not least,-What say the Fathers?

The essential error in the proceeding I object to is best ill.u.s.trated by an appeal to elementary facts. Only two of the "five old uncials" are complete doc.u.ments, B and ?: and these being confessedly derived from one and the same exemplar, cannot be regarded as two. The rest of the "old uncials" are lamentably defective.-From the Alexandrian Codex (A) the first twenty-four chapters of St. Matthew's Gospel are missing: that is, the MS. lacks 870 verses out of 1,071. The same Codex is also without 126 consecutive verses of St. John's Gospel. More than one-fourth of the contents of Cod. A are therefore lost(25).-D is complete only in respect of St. Luke: wanting 119 verses of St. Matthew,-5 verses of St. Mark,-166 verses of St. John.-On the other hand, Codex C is chiefly defective in respect of St. Luke's and St. John's Gospel; from the former of which it omits 643 (out of 1,151) verses; from the latter, 513 (out of 880), or far more than the half in either case. Codex C in fact can only be described as a collection of fragments: for it is also without 260 verses of St.

Matthew, and without 116 of St. Mark.

The disastrous consequence of all this to the Textual Critic is manifest.

He is unable to compare "the five old uncials" together except in respect of about one verse in three. Sometimes he finds himself reduced to the testimony of A?B: for many pages together of St. John's Gospel, he is reduced to the testimony of ?BD. Now, when the fatal and peculiar sympathy which subsists between these three doc.u.ments is considered, it becomes apparent that the Critic has in effect little more than two doc.u.ments before him. And what is to be said when (as from St. Matt. vi. 20 to vii.

4) he is reduced to the witness of two Codexes,-and those, ?B? Evident it is that whereas the Author of Scripture hath bountifully furnished His Church with (speaking roughly) upwards of 2,300(26) copies of the Gospels, by a voluntary act of self-impoverishment, some Critics reduce themselves to the testimony of little more than one: and that one a witness whom many judges consider to be undeserving of confidence.

CHAPTER III. THE SEVEN NOTES OF TRUTH.

-- 1. Antiquity.

The more ancient testimony is probably the better testimony. That it is not by any means always so is a familiar fact. To quote the known dictum of a competent judge: "It is no less true to fact than paradoxical in sound, that the worst corruptions to which the New Testament has ever been subjected, originated within a hundred years after it was composed; that Irenaeus and the African Fathers and the whole Western, with a portion of the Syriac Church, used far inferior ma.n.u.scripts to those employed by Stunica, or Erasmus, or Stephen, thirteen centuries after, when moulding the Textus Receptus(27)." Therefore Antiquity alone affords no security that the ma.n.u.script in our hands is not infected with the corruption which sprang up largely in the first and second centuries. But it remains true, notwithstanding, that until evidence has been produced to the contrary in any particular instance, the more ancient of two witnesses may reasonably be presumed to be the better informed witness. Shew me for example that, whereas a copy of the Gospels (suppose Cod. B) introduces the clause "Raise the dead" into our SAVIOUR'S ministerial commission to His Apostles (St. Matt. x. 8),-another Codex, but only of the fourteenth century (suppose Evan. 604 (Hoskier)), omits it;-am I not bound to a.s.sume that our LORD did give this charge to His Apostles; did say to them, ?e?????

??e??ete; and that the words in question have accidentally dropped out of the sacred Text in that later copy? Show me besides that in three other of our oldest Codexes (?CD) the place in St. Matthew is exhibited in the same way as in Cod. B; and of what possible avail can it be that I should urge in reply that in three more MSS. of the thirteenth or fourteenth century the text is exhibited in the same way as in Evan. 604?

There is of course a strong antecedent probability, that the testimony which comes nearest to the original autographs has more claim to be the true record than that which has been produced at a further distance from them. It is most likely that the earlier is separated from the original by fewer links than the later:-though we can affirm this with no absolute certainty, because the present survival of Uncials of various dates of production shews that the existence of copies is measured by no span like that of the life of men. Accordingly as a general rule, and a general rule only, a single early Uncial possesses more authority than a single later Uncial or Cursive, and a still earlier Version or Quotation by a Father must be placed before the reading of the early Uncial.

Only let us clearly understand what principle is to guide us, in order that we may know how we are to proceed. Is it to be a.s.sumed, for instance, that Antiquity is to decide this matter? by which is meant only this,-That, of two or more conflicting readings, that shall be deemed the true reading which is observed to occur in the oldest known doc.u.ment. Is that to be our fundamental principle? Are we, in other words, to put up with the transparent fallacy that the oldest reading must of necessity be found in the oldest doc.u.ment? Well, if we have made up our minds that such is to be our method, then let us proceed to construct our text chiefly by the aid of the Old Latin and Pes.h.i.tto Versions,-the oldest authorities extant of a continuous text: and certainly, wherever these are observed to agree in respect of any given reading, let us hear nothing about the conflicting testimony of ? or B, which are of the fourth century; of D, which is of the sixth; of L, which is of the eighth.

But if our adversaries shift their ground, disliking to be "hoist with their own petard," and if such a solution standing alone does not commend itself to our own taste, we must ask, What is meant by Antiquity?

For myself, if I must a.s.sign a definite period, I am disposed to say the first six or seven centuries of our era. But I observe that those who have preceded me in these inquiries draw the line at an earlier period.

Lachmann fixes A.D. 400: Tregelles (ever illogical) gives the beginning of the seventh century: Westcott and Hort, before the close of the fourth century. In this absence of agreement, it is found to be both the safest and the wisest course to avoid drawing any hard and fast line, and in fact any line at all. Antiquity is a comparative term. What is ancient is not only older than what is modern, but when constantly applied to the continuous lapse of ages includes considerations of what is more or less ancient. Codex E is ancient compared with Codex L: Cod. A compared with Cod. E: Cod. ? compared with Cod. A: Cod. B though in a much lesser degree compared with Cod. ?: the Old Latin and Pes.h.i.tto Versions compared with Cod. B: Clemens Roma.n.u.s compared with either. If we had the copy of the Gospels which belonged to Ignatius, I suppose we should by common consent insist on following it almost implicitly. It certainly would be of overwhelming authority. Its decrees would be only not decisive. [This is, I think, too strong: there might be mistakes even in that.-E. M.]

Therefore by Antiquity as a principle involving more or less authority must be meant the greater age of the earlier Copies, Versions, or Fathers.

That which is older will possess more authority than that which is more recent: but age will not confer any exclusive, or indeed paramount, power of decision. Antiquity is one Note of Truth: but even if it is divorced from the arbitrary selection of Authorities which has regulated too much the employment of it in Textual Criticism, it cannot be said to cover the whole ground.

-- 2. Number.

We must proceed now to consider the other Notes, or Tests: and the next is Number.

1. That "witnesses are to be weighed-not counted,"-is a maxim of which we hear constantly. It may be said to embody much fundamental fallacy.

2. It a.s.sumes that the "witnesses" we possess,-meaning thereby every single Codex, Version, Father-, (1) are capable of being weighed: and (2) that every individual Critic is competent to weigh them: neither of which propositions is true.

3. In the very form of the maxim,-"_Not_ to be counted-_but_ to be weighed,"-the undeniable fact is overlooked that "number" is the most ordinary ingredient of weight, and indeed in matters of human testimony, is an element which even cannot be cast away. Ask one of Her Majesty's Judges if it be not so. Ten witnesses (suppose) are called in to give evidence: of whom one resolutely contradicts what is solemnly deposed to by the other nine. Which of the two parties do we suppose the Judge will be inclined to believe?

4. But it may be urged-would not the discovery of the one original autograph of the Gospels exceed in "weight" any "number" of copies which can be named? No doubt it would, I answer. But only because it would be the original doc.u.ment, and not "a copy" at all: not "a witness" to the fact, but the very fact itself. It would be as if in the midst of a trial,-turning, suppose, on the history of the will of some testator-, the dead man himself were to step into Court, and proclaim what had actually taken place. Yet the laws of Evidence would remain unchanged: and in the very next trial which came on, if one or two witnesses out of as many hundred were to claim that their evidence should be held to outweigh that of all the rest, they would be required to establish the reasonableness of their claim to the satisfaction of the Judge: or they must submit to the inevitable consequence of being left in an inconsiderable minority.

5. Number then const.i.tutes Weight, or in other words,-since I have used "Weight" here in a more general sense than usual,-is a Note of Truth. Not of course absolutely, as being the sole Test, but _caeteris paribus_, and in its own place and proportion. And this, happily, our opponents freely admit: so freely in fact, that my only wonder is that they do not discover their own inconsistency.

6. But the axiom in question labours under the far graver defect of disparaging the Divine method, under which in the mult.i.tude of evidence preserved all down the ages provision has been made as matter of hard fact, not by weight but by number, for the integrity of the Deposit. The prevalent use of the Holy Scriptures in the Church caused copies of them to abound everywhere. The demand enforced the supply. They were read in the public Services of the Church. The constant quotation of them by Ecclesiastical Writers from the first proves that they were a source to Christians of continual study, and that they were used as an ultimate appeal in the decision of knotty questions. They were cited copiously in Sermons. They were employed in the conversion of the heathen, and as in the case of St. Cyprian must have exercised a strong influence in bringing people to believe.

Such an abundance of early copies must have ensured perforce the production of a resulting abundance of other copies made everywhere in continuous succession from them until the invention of printing.

Accordingly, although countless numbers must have perished by age, use, destruction in war, and by accident and other causes, nevertheless 63 Uncials, 737 Cursives, and 414 Lectionaries are known to survive of the Gospels alone(28). Add the various Versions, and the ma.s.s of quotations by Ecclesiastical Writers, and it will at once be evident what materials exist to const.i.tute a Majority which shall outnumber by many times the Minority, and also that Number has been ordained to be a factor which cannot be left out of the calculation.

7. Another circ.u.mstance however of much significance has yet to be stated.

Practically the Axiom under consideration is discovered to be nothing else but a plausible proposition of a general character intended to shelter the following particular application of it:-"We are able"-says Dr.

Tregelles-"to take the _few_ doc.u.ments ... and safely discard ... the 89/90 or whatever else their numerical proportion may be(29)." Accordingly in his edition of the Gospels, the learned writer rejects the evidence of all the cursive Codexes extant but three. He is mainly followed by the rest of his school, including Westcott and Hort.

Now again I ask,-Is it likely, is it in any way credible, that we can be warranted in rejecting the testimony of (suppose) 1490 ancient witnesses, in favour of the testimony borne by (suppose) ten? Granting freely that two of these ten are older by 50 or 100 years than any single MS. of the 1490 I confidently repeat the question. The respective dates of the witnesses before us may perhaps be thus stated. The ten MSS. so confidently relied upon date as follows, speaking generally:-

2 about A.D. 330-340.

1 about 550.

1 about 750.

6 (say) about 950 to A.D. 1350.

The 1490 MSS. which are constantly observed to bear consentient testimony against the ten, date somewhat thus:-

1: A.D. 400.

1: 450.

2: 500.

16 (say): 650 to A.D. 850.

1470: 850 to A.D. 1350.