Читать книгу The Criticism of the New Testament - Frederick Henry Ambrose Scrivener - Страница 4

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1. When God was pleased to make known to man His purpose of redeeming us through the death of His Son, He employed for this end the general laws, and worked according to the ordinary course of His Providential government, so far as they were available for the furtherance of His merciful design. A revelation from heaven, in its very notion, implies supernatural interposition; yet neither in the first promulgation nor in the subsequent propagation of Christ's religion, can we mark any waste of miracles. So far as they were needed for the assurance of honest seekers after truth, they were freely resorted to: whensoever the principles which move mankind in the affairs of common life were adequate to the exigences of the case, more unusual and (as we might have thought) more powerful means of producing conviction were withheld, as at once superfluous and ineffectual. Those who heard not Moses and the prophets would scarcely be persuaded, though one rose from the dead.

2. As it was with respect to the evidences of our faith, so also with regard to the volume of Scripture. God willed that His Church should enjoy the benefit of His written word, at once as a rule of doctrine and as a guide unto holy living. For this cause He so enlightened the minds of the Apostles and Evangelists by His Spirit, that they recorded what He had imprinted on their hearts or brought to their remembrance, without the risk of error in anything essential to the verity of the Gospel. But this main point once secured, the rest was left, in a great measure, to themselves. The style, the tone, the language, perhaps the special occasion of writing, seem to have depended much on the taste and judgement of the several penmen. Thus in St. Paul's Epistles we note the profound thinker, the great scholar, the consummate orator: St. John pours forth the simple utterings of his gentle, untutored, affectionate soul: in St. Peter's speeches and letters may be traced the impetuous earnestness of his noble yet not faultless character. Their individual tempers and faculties and intellectual habits are clearly discernible, even while they are speaking to us in the power and by the inspiration of the Holy Ghost.

3. Now this self-same parsimony in the employment of miracles which we observe with reference to Christian evidences and to the inspiration of Scripture, we might look for beforehand, from the analogy of divine things, when we proceed to consider the methods by which Scripture has been preserved and handed down to us. God might , if He would, have stamped His revealed will visibly on the heavens, that all should read it there: He might have so completely filled the minds of His servants the Prophets and Evangelists, that they should have become mere passive instruments in the promulgation of His counsel, and the writings they have delivered to us have borne no traces whatever of their individual characters: but for certain causes which we can perceive, and doubtless for others beyond the reach of our capacities, He has chosen to do neither the one nor the other. And so again with the subject we propose to discuss in the present work, namely, the relation our existing text of the New Testament bears to that which originally came from the hands of the sacred penmen. Their autographs might have been preserved in the Church as the perfect standards by which all accidental variations of the numberless copies scattered throughout the world should be corrected to the end of time: but we know that these autographs perished utterly in the very infancy of Christian history. Or if it be too much to expect that the autographs of the inspired writers should escape the fate which has overtaken that of every other known relique of ancient literature, God might have so guided the hand or fixed the devout attention both of copyists during the long space of fourteen hundred years before the invention of printing, and of compositors and printers of the Bible for the last four centuries, that no jot or tittle should have been changed of all that was written therein. Such a course of Providential arrangement we must confess to be quite possible, but it could have been brought about and maintained by nothing short of a continuous, unceasing miracle;—by making fallible men (nay, many such in every generation) for one purpose absolutely infallible. If the complete identity of all copies of Holy Scripture prove to be a fact, we must of course receive it as such, and refer it to its sole Author: yet we may confidently pronounce beforehand, that such a fact could not have been reasonably anticipated, and is not at all agreeable to the general tenour of God's dealings with us.

4. No one who has taken the trouble to examine any two editions of the Greek New Testament needs be told that this supposed complete resemblance in various copies of the holy books is not founded on fact. Even several impressions derived from the same standard edition, and professing to exhibit a text positively the same, differ from their archetype and from each other, in errors of the press which no amount of care or diligence has yet been able to get rid of. If we extend our researches to the manuscript copies of Scripture or of its versions which abound in every great library in Christendom, we see in the very best of them variations which we must at once impute to the fault of the scribe, together with many others of a graver and more perplexing nature, regarding which we can form no probable judgement, without calling to our aid the resources of critical learning. The more numerous and venerable the documents within our reach, the more extensive is the view we obtain of the variations (or various readings as they are called) that prevail in manuscripts. If the number of these variations was rightly computed at thirty thousand in Mill's time, a century and a half ago, they must at present amount to at least fourfold that quantity.

5. As the New Testament far surpasses all other remains of antiquity in value and interest, so are the copies of it yet existing in manuscript and dating from the fourth century of our era downwards, far more numerous than those of the most celebrated writers of Greece or Rome. Such as have been already discovered and set down in catalogues are hardly fewer than three thousand six hundred, and more must still linger unknown in the monastic libraries of the East. On the other hand, manuscripts of the most illustrious classic poets and philosophers are far rarer and comparatively modern. We have no complete copy of Homer himself prior to the thirteenth century, though some considerable fragments have been recently brought to light which may plausibly be assigned to the fifth century; while more than one work of high and deserved repute has been preserved to our times only in a single copy. Now the experience we gain from a critical examination of the few classical manuscripts that survive should make us thankful for the quality and abundance of those of the New Testament. These last present us with a vast and almost inexhaustible supply of materials for tracing the history, and upholding (at least within certain limits) the purity of the sacred text: every copy, if used diligently and with judgement, will contribute somewhat to these ends. So far is the copiousness of our stores from causing doubt or perplexity to the genuine student of Holy Scripture, that it leads him to recognize the more fully its general integrity in the midst of partial variation. What would the thoughtful reader of Aeschylus give for the like guidance through the obscurities which vex his patience, and mar his enjoyment of that sublime poet?

6. In regard to modern works, it is fortunate that the art of printing has wellnigh superseded the use of verbal or (as it has been termed) Textual criticism. When a book once issues from the press, its author's words are for the most part fixed, beyond all danger of change; graven as with an iron pen upon the rock for ever. Yet even in modern times, as in the case of Barrow's posthumous works and Pepys's Diary and Lord Clarendon's History of the Rebellion, it has been occasionally found necessary to correct or enlarge the early editions, from the original autographs, where they have been preserved. The text of some of our older English writers (Beaumont and Fletcher's plays are a notable instance) would doubtless have been much improved by the same process, had it been possible; but the criticism of Shakespeare's dramas is perhaps the most delicate and difficult problem in the whole history of literature since that great genius was so strangely contemptuous of the praise of posterity, that even of the few plays that were published in his lifetime the text seems but a gathering from the scraps of their respective parts which had been negligently copied out for the use of the actors.

7. The design of the science of Textual criticism, as applied to the Greek New Testament, will now be readily understood. By collecting and comparing and weighing the variations of the text to which we have access, it aims at bringing back that text, so far as may be, to the condition in which it stood in the sacred autographs; at removing all spurious additions, if such be found in our present printed copies; at restoring whatsoever may have been lost or corrupted or accidentally changed in the lapse of eighteen hundred years. We need spend no time in proving the value of such a science, if it affords us a fair prospect of appreciable results, resting on grounds of satisfactory evidence. Those who believe the study of the Scriptures to be alike their duty and privilege, will surely grudge no pains when called upon to separate the pure gold of God's word from the dross which has mingled with it through the accretions of so many centuries. Though the criticism of the sacred volume is inferior to its right interpretation in point of dignity and practical results, yet it must take precedence in order of time: for how can we reasonably proceed to investigate the sense of holy writ, till we have done our utmost to ascertain its precise language?

8. The importance of the study of Textual criticism is sometimes freely admitted by those who deem its successful cultivation difficult, or its conclusions precarious; the rather as Biblical scholars of deserved repute are constantly putting forth their several recensions of the text, differing not a little from each other. Now on this point it is right to speak clearly and decidedly. There is certainly nothing in the nature of critical science which ought to be thought hard or abstruse, or even remarkably dry and repulsive. It is conversant with varied, curious, and interesting researches, which have given a certain serious pleasure to many intelligent minds; it patiently gathers and arranges those facts of external evidence on which alone it ventures to construct a revised text, and applies them according to rules or canons of internal evidence, whether suggested by experience, or resting for their proof on the plain dictates of common sense. The more industry is brought to these studies, the greater the store of materials accumulated, so much the more fruitful and trustworthy the results have usually proved; although beyond question the true application even of the simplest principles calls for discretion, keenness of intellect, innate tact ripened by constant use, a sound and impartial judgement. No man ever attained eminence in this, or in any other worthy accomplishment, without much labour and some natural aptitude for the pursuit; but the criticism of the Greek Testament is a field in whose culture the humblest student may contribute a little that shall be really serviceable; few branches of theology are able to promise, even to those who seek but a moderate acquaintance with it, so early and abundant reward for their pains.

9. Nor can Textual criticism be reasonably disparaged as tending to precarious conclusions, or helping to unsettle the text of Scripture. Even putting the matter on the lowest ground, critics have not created the variations they have discovered in manuscripts or versions. They have only taught us how to look ascertained phenomena in the face, and try to account for them; they would fain lead us to estimate the relative value of various readings, to decide upon their respective worth, and thus at length to eliminate them. While we confess that much remains to be done in this department of Biblical learning, we are yet bound to say that, chiefly by the exertions of scholars of the last and present generations, the debateable ground is gradually becoming narrower, not a few strong controversies have been decided beyond the possibility of reversal, and while new facts are daily coming to light, critics of very opposite sympathies are learning to agree better as to the right mode of classifying and applying them. But even were the progress of the science less hopeful than we believe it to be, one great truth is admitted on all hands;—the almost complete freedom of Holy Scripture from the bare suspicion of wilful corruption; the absolute identity of the testimony of every known copy in respect to doctrine, and spirit, and the main drift of every argument and every narrative through the entire volume of Inspiration. On a point of such vital moment I am glad to cite the well-known and powerful statement of the great Bentley, at once the profoundest and the most daring of English critics: “The real text of the sacred writers does not now (since the originals have been so long lost) lie in any MS. or edition, but is dispersed in them all. 'Tis competently exact indeed in the worst MS. now extant; nor is one article of faith or moral precept either perverted or lost in them; choose as awkwardly as you will, choose the worst by design, out of the whole lump of readings.” And again: “Make your 30,000 [variations] as many more, if numbers of copies can ever reach that sum: all the better to a knowing and a serious reader, who is thereby more richly furnished to select what he sees genuine. But even put them into the hands of a knave or a fool, and yet with the most sinistrous and absurd choice, he shall not extinguish the light of any one chapter, nor so disguise Christianity, but that every feature of it will still be the same4.” Thus hath God's Providence kept from harm the treasure of His written word, so far as is needful for the quiet assurance of His church and people.

10. It is now time for us to afford to the uninitiated reader some general notion of the nature and extent of the various readings met with in manuscripts and versions of the Greek Testament. We shall try to reduce them under a few distinct heads, reserving all formal discussion of their respective characters and of the authenticity of the texts we cite for the next volume (Chapter XI).

(1) To begin with variations of the gravest kind. In two, though happily in only two instances, the genuineness of whole passages of considerable extent, which are read in our printed copies of the New Testament, has been brought into question. These are the weighty and characteristic paragraphs Mark xvi. 9–20 and John vii. 53-viii. 11. We shall hereafter defend these passages, the first without the slightest misgiving, the second with certain reservations, as entitled to be regarded authentic portions of the Gospels in which they stand.

(2) Akin to these omissions are several considerable interpolations, which, though they have never obtained a place in the printed text, nor been approved by any critical editor, are supported by authority too respectable to be set aside without some inquiry. One of the longest and best attested of these paragraphs has been appended to Matt. xx. 28, and has been largely borrowed from other passages in the Gospels (see below, class 9). It appears in several forms, slightly varying from each other, and is represented as follows in a document as old as the fifth century:

“But you, seek ye that from little things ye may become great, and not from great things may become little. Whenever ye are invited to the house of a supper, be not sitting down in the honoured place, lest should come he that is more honoured than thou, and to thee the Lord of the supper should say, Come near below, and thou be ashamed in the eyes of the guests. But if thou sit down in the little place, and he that is less than thee should come, and to thee the Lord of the supper shall say, Come near, and come up and sit down, thou also shalt have more glory in the eyes of the guests5.”

We subjoin another paragraph, inserted after Luke vi. 4 in only a single copy, the celebrated Codex Bezae, now at Cambridge: “On the same day he beheld a certain man working on the sabbath, and said unto him, Man, blessed art thou if thou knowest what thou doest; but if thou knowest not, thou art cursed and a transgressor of the law.'”

(3) A shorter passage or mere clause, whether inserted or not in our printed books, may have appeared originally in the form of a marginal note, and from the margin have crept into the text, through the wrong judgement or mere oversight of the scribe. Such we have reason to think is the history of 1 John v. 7, the verse relating to the Three Heavenly Witnesses, once so earnestly maintained, but now generally given up as spurious. Thus too Acts viii. 37 may have been derived from some Church Ordinal: the last clause of Rom. viii. 1 (μὴ κατὰ σάρκα περιπατοῦσιν, ἀλλὰ κατὰ πνεῦμα) is perhaps like a gloss on τοῖς ἐν Χριστῷ Ἰησοῦ: εἰκῆ in Matt. v. 226 and ἀναξίως in 1 Cor. xi. 29 might have been inserted to modify statements that seemed too strong: τῇ ἀληθείᾳ μὴ πείθεσθαι Gal. iii. 1 is precisely such an addition as would help to round an abrupt sentence (compare Gal. v. 7). Some critics would account in this way for the adoption of the doxology Matt. vi. 13; of the section relating to the bloody sweat Luke xxii. 43, 44; and of that remarkable verse, John v. 4: but we may well hesitate before we assent to their views.

(4) Or a genuine clause is lost by means of what is technically called Homoeoteleuton (ὁμοιοτέλευτον), when the clause ends in the same word as closed the preceding sentence, and the transcriber's eye has wandered from the one to the other, to the entire omission of the whole passage lying between them. This source of error (though too freely appealed to by Meyer and some other commentators hardly less eminent than he) is familiar to all who are engaged in copying writing, and is far more serious than might be supposed prior to experience. In 1 John ii. 23 ὁ ὁμολογῶν τὸν υἱὸν καὶ τὸν πατέρα ἔχει is omitted in many manuscripts, because τὸν πατέρα ἔχει had ended the preceding clause: it is not found in our commonly received Greek text, and even in the Authorized English version is printed in italics. The whole verse Luke xvii. 36, were it less slenderly supported, might possibly have been early lost through the same cause, since vv. 34, 35, 36 all end in ἀφεθήσεται. A safer example is Luke xviii. 39, which a few copies omit for this reason only. Thus perhaps we might defend in Matt. x. 23 the addition after φεύγετε εἰς τὴν ἄλλην of κἂν ἐν τῇ ἑτέρᾳ διώκωσιν ὑμᾶς, φεύγετε εἰς τὴν ἄλλην (ἑτέραν being substituted for the first ἄλλην), the eye having passed from the first φεύγετε εἰς τήν to the second. The same effect is produced, though less frequently, when two or more sentences begin with the same words, as in Matt. xxiii. 14, 15, 16 (each of which commences with οὐαὶ ὑμῖν), one of the verses being left out in some manuscripts.

(5) Numerous variations occur in the order of words, the sense being slightly or not at all affected; on which account this species of various readings was at first much neglected by collators. Examples abound everywhere: e.g. τὶ μέρος or μέρος τι Luke xi. 36; ὀνόματι Ἀνανίαν or Ἀνανίαν ὀνόματι Acts ix. 12; ψυχρὸς οὔτε ζεστός or ζεστὸς οὔτε ψυχρός Apoc. iii. 16. The order of the sacred names Ἰησοῦς Χριστός is perpetually changed, especially in St. Paul's Epistles.

(6) Sometimes the scribe has mistaken one word for another, which differs from it only in one or two letters. This happens chiefly in cases when the uncial or capital letters in which the oldest manuscripts are written resemble each other, except in some fine stroke which may have decayed through age. Hence in Mark v. 14 we find ΑΝΗΓΓΕΙΛΑΝ or ΑΠΗΓΓΕΙΛΑΝ; in Luke xvi. 20 ΗΛΚΩΜΕΝΟΣ or ΕΙΛΚΩΜΕΝΟΣ; so we read Δαυίδ or Δαβίδ indifferently, as, in the later or cursive character, β and υ have nearly the same shape. Akin to these errors of the eye are such transpositions as ΕΛΑΒΟΝ for ΕΒΑΛΟΝ or ΕΒΑΛΛΟΝ, Mark xiv. 65: omissions or insertions of the same or similar letters, as ΕΜΑΣΣΩΝΤΟ or ΕΜΑΣΩΝΤΟ Apoc. xvi. 10: ΑΓΑΛΛΙΑΣΘΗΝΑΙ or ΑΓΑΛΛΙΑΘΗΝΑΙ John v. 35: and the dropping or repetition of the same or a similar syllable, as ΕΚΒΑΛΛΟΝΤΑΔΑΙΜΟΝΙΑ or ΕΚΒΑΛΛΟΝΤΑΤΑΔΑΙΜΟΝΙΑ Luke ix. 49; ΟΥΔΕΔΕΔΟΞΑΣΤΑΙ or ΟΥΔΕΔΟΞΑΣΤΑΙ 2 Cor. iii. 10; ΑΠΑΞΕΞΕΔΕΧΕΤΟ or ΑΠΕΞΕΔΕΧΕΤΟ 1 Pet. iii. 20. It is easy to see how the ancient practice of writing uncial letters without leaving a space between the words must have increased the risk of such variations as the foregoing.

(7) Another source of error is described by some critics as proceeding ex ore dictantis, in consequence of the scribe writing from dictation, without having a copy before him. One is not, however, very willing to believe that manuscripts of the better class were executed on so slovenly and careless a plan. It seems more simple to account for the itacisms 7 or confusion of certain vowels and diphthongs having nearly the same sound, which exist more or less in manuscripts of every age, by assuming that a vicious pronunciation gradually led to a loose mode of orthography adapted to it. Certain it is that itacisms are much more plentiful in the original subscriptions and marginal notes of the writers of mediaeval books, than in the text which they copied from older documents. Itacisms prevailed the most extensively from the eighth to the twelfth century, but not by any means during that period exclusively:—indeed, they are found frequently in the oldest existing manuscripts. In the most ancient manuscripts the principal changes are between ι and ει, αι and ε, though others occur: in later times η ι and ει, η οι and υ, even ο and ω, η and ε, are used almost promiscuously. Hence it arises that a very large portion of the various readings brought together by collators are of this description, and although in the vast majority of instances they serve but to illustrate the character of the manuscripts which exhibit them, or the fashion of the age in which they were written, they sometimes affect the grammatical form (e.g. ἔγειρε or ἔγειραι Mark iii. 3; Acts iii. 6; passim: ἴδετε or εἴδετε Phil. i. 30), or the construction (e.g. ἰάσωμαι or ἰάσομαι Matt. xiii. 15: οὐ μὴ τιμήσῃ or οὐ μὴ τιμήσει Matt. xv. 5: ἵνα καυθήσωμαι or ἵνα καυθήσομαι 1 Cor. xiii. 3, compare 1 Pet. iii. 1), or even the sense (e.g. ἑταίροις or ἑτέροις Matt. xi. 16: μετὰ διωγμῶν or, as in a few copies, μετὰ διωγμόν Mark x. 30: καυχᾶσθαι δὴ οὐ συμφέρει or καυχᾶσθαι δεῖ; οὐ συμφέρει 2 Cor. xii. 1: ὅτι χρηστὸς ὁ Κύριος or ὅτι χριστὸς ὁ Κύριος 1 Pet. ii. 3). To this cause we may refer the perpetual interchange of ἡμεῖς and ὑμεῖς, with their oblique cases, throughout the whole Greek Testament: e.g. in the single epistle of 1 Peter, ch. i. 3; 12; ii. 21 bis; iii. 18; 21; v. 10. Hence we must pay the less regard to the reading ἡμέτερον Luke xvi. 12, though found in two or three of our chief authorities: in Acts xvii. 28 τῶν καθ᾽ ἡμᾶς, the reading of the great Codex Vaticanus and a few late copies, is plainly absurd. On the other hand, a few cases occur wherein that which at first sight seems a mere itacism , when once understood, affords an excellent sense, e.g. καθαρίζων Mark iii. 19, and may be really the true form.

(8) Introductory clauses or Proper Names are frequently interpolated at the commencement of Church-lessons (περικοπαί), whether from the margin of ordinary manuscripts of the Greek Testament (where they are usually placed for the convenience of the reader), or from the Lectionaries or proper Service Books, especially those of the Gospels (Evangelistaria). Thus in our English Book of Common Prayer the name of Jesus is introduced into the Gospels for the 14th, 16th, 17th, and 18th Sundays after Trinity; and whole clauses into those for the 3rd and 4th Sundays after Easter, and the 6th and 24th after Trinity8. To this cause may be due the prefix εἶπε δὲ ὁ Κύριος Luke vii. 31; καὶ στραφεὶς πρὸς τοὺς μαθητὰς εἶπε Luke x. 22; and such appellations as ἀδελφοί or τέκνον Τιμόθεε (after σὺ δέ in 2 Tim. iv. 5) in some copies of the Epistles. The inserted prefix in Greek Lectionaries is sometimes rather long, as in the lesson for the Liturgy on Sept. 14 (John xix. 6–35). Hence the frequent interpolation (e.g. Matt. iv. 18; viii. 5; xiv. 22) or changed position (John i. 44) of Ἰησοῦς. A peculiarity of style in 1, 2 Thess. is kept out of sight by the addition of Χριστός in the common text of 1 Thess. ii. 19; iii. 13: 2 Thess. i. 8, 12.

(9) A more extensive and perplexing species of various readings arises from bringing into the text of one of the three earlier Evangelists expressions or whole sentences which of right belong not to him, but to one or both the others9. This natural tendency to assimilate the several Gospels must have been aggravated by the laudable efforts of Biblical scholars (beginning with Tatian's Διὰ τεσσάρων in the second century) to construct a satisfactory Harmony of them all. Some of these variations also may possibly have been mere marginal notes in the first instance. As examples of this class we will name εἰς μετάνοιαν interpolated from Luke v. 32 into Mark ii. 17: the prophetic citation Matt. xxvii. 35 ἵνα πληρωθῇ κ.τ.λ. to the end of the verse, unquestionably borrowed from John xix. 24, although the fourth Gospel seldom lends itself to corruptions of this kind. Mark xiii. 14 τὸ ῥηθὲν ὑπὸ Δανιὴλ τοῦ προφήτου, is probably taken from Matt. xxiv. 15: Luke v. 38 καὶ ἀμφότεροι συντηροῦνται from Matt. ix. 17 (where ἀμφότεροι is the true reading): the whole verse Mark xv. 28 seems spurious, being received from Luke xxii. 37. Even in the same book we observe an anxiety to harmonize two separate narratives of the same event, as in Acts ix. 5, 6 compared with xxvi. 14, 15.

(10) In like manner transcribers sometimes quote passages from the Old Testament more fully than the writers of the New Testament had judged necessary for their purpose. Thus ἐγγίζει μοι … τῷ στόματι αὐτῶν καί Matt. xv. 8: ἰάσασθαι τοὺς συντετριμμένους τὴν καρδίαν Luke iv. 18: αὐτοῦ ἀκούσεσθε Acts vii. 37: οὐ ψευδομαρτυρήσεις Rom. xiii. 9; ἤ βολίδι κατατοξευθήσεται Heb. xii. 20, and (less certainly) καὶ κατέστησας αὐτὸν ἐπὶ τὰ ἔργα τῶν χειρῶν σου Heb. ii. 7, are all open to suspicion as being genuine portions of the Old Testament text, but not also of the New. In Acts xiii. 33, the Codex Bezae at Cambridge stands almost alone in adding Ps. ii. 8 to that portion of the previous verse which was unquestionably cited by St. Paul.

(11) Synonymous words are often interchanged, and so form various readings, the sense undergoing some slight and refined modification, or else being quite unaltered. Thus ἔφη should be preferred to εἶπεν Matt. xxii. 37, where εἶπεν of the common text is supported only by two known manuscripts, that at Leicester, and one used by Erasmus. So also ὀμμάτων is put for ὀφθαλμῶν Matt. ix. 29 by the Codex Bezae. In Matt. xxv. 16 the evidence is almost evenly balanced between ἐποίησεν and ἐκέρδησεν (cf. ver. 17). Where simple verbs are interchanged with their compounds (e.g. μετρηθήσεται with ἀντιμετρηθήσεται Matt. vii. 2; ἐτέλεσεν with συνετέλεσεν ibid. ver. 28; καίεται with κατακαίεται xiii. 40), or different tenses of the same verb (e.g. εἰληφώς with λαβών Acts xiv. 24; ἀνθέστηκε with ἀντέστη 2 Tim. iv. 15), there is usually some internal reason why one should be chosen rather than the other, if the external evidence on the other side does not greatly preponderate. When one of two terms is employed in a sense peculiar to the New Testament dialect, the easier synonym may be suspected of having originated in a gloss or marginal interpretation. Hence caeteris paribus we should adopt δικαιοσύνην rather than ἐλεημοσύνην in Matt. vi. 1; ἐσκυλμένοι rather than ἐκλελυμένοι ix. 36; ἀθῶον rather than δίκαιον xxvii. 4.

(12) An irregular, obscure, or incomplete construction will often be explained or supplied in the margin by words that are subsequently brought into the text. Of this character is ἐμέμψαντο Mark vii. 2; δέξασθαι ἡμᾶς 2 Cor. viii. 4; γράφω xiii. 2; προσλαβοῦ Philem. 12 (compare ver. 17), and perhaps δῆλον 1 Tim. vi. 7. More considerable is the change in Acts viii. 7, where the true reading πολλοὶ … φωνῇ μεγάλῃ ἐξήρχοντο, if translated with grammatical rigour, affords an almost impossible sense. Or an elegant Greek idiom may be transformed into simpler language, as in Acts xvi. 3 ᾔδεισαν γὰρ πάντες ὅτι Ἕλλην ὁ πατὴρ αὐτοῦ ὑπῆρχεν for ᾔδεισαν γὰρ ἅπαντες τὸν πατέρα αὐτοῦ ὅτι Ἕλλην ὑπῆρχεν: similarly, τυγχάνοντα is omitted by many in Luke x. 30; compare also Acts xviii. 26 fin.; xix. 8, 34 init. The classical μέν has often been inserted against the best evidence: e.g. Acts v. 23: xix. 4, 15; 1 Cor. xii. 20; 2 Cor. iv. 12; Heb. vi. 16. On the other hand a Hebraism may be softened by transcribers, as in Matt. xxi. 23, where for ἐλθόντι αὐτῷ many copies prefer the easier ἐλθόντος αὐτοῦ before προσῆλθεν αὐτῷ διδάσκοντι, and in Matt. xv. 5; Mark vii. 12 (to which perhaps we may add Luke v. 35), where καί is dropped in some copies to facilitate the sense. Hence καὶ οἱ ἄνθρωποι may be upheld before οἱ ποιμένες in Luke ii. 15. This perpetual correction of harsh, ungrammatical, or Oriental constructions characterizes the printed text of the Apocalypse and the recent manuscripts on which it is founded (e.g. τὴν γυναῖκα Ἰεζαβὴλ τὴν λέγουσαν ii. 20, for ἡ λέγουσα).

(13) Hence too arises the habit of changing ancient dialectic forms into those in vogue in the transcriber's age. The whole subject will be more fitly discussed at length hereafter (vol. ii. c. x.); we will here merely note a few peculiarities of this kind adopted by some recent critics from the oldest manuscripts, but which have gradually though not entirely disappeared in copies of lower date. Thus in recent critical editions Καθαρναούμ, Μαθθαῖος, τέσσερες, ἔνατος are substituted for Καπερναούμ, Ματθαῖος, τέσσαρες, ἔννατος of the common text; οὕτως (not οὕτω) is used even before a consonant; ἤλθαμεν, ἤλθατε, ἦλθαν, γενάμενος are preferred to ἤλθομεν, ἤλθετε, ἦλθον, γενόμενος: ἐκαθερίσθη, συνζητεῖν, λήμψομαι to ἐκαθαρίσθη, συζητεῖν, λήψομαι: and ν ἐφελκυστικόν (as it is called) is appended to the usual third persons of verbs, even though a consonant follow. On the other hand the more Attic περιπεπατήκει ought not to be converted into περιεπεπατήκει in Acts xiv. 8.

(14) Trifling variations in spelling, though very proper to be noted by a faithful collator, are obviously of little consequence. Such is the choice between καὶ ἐγώ and κἀγώ, ἐάν and ἄν, εὐθέως and εὐθύς, Μωυσῆς and Μωσῆς, or even between πράττουσι and πράσσουσι, between εὐδόκησα, εὐκαίρουν and ηὐδόκησα, ηὐκαίρουν. To this head may be referred the question whether ἀλλά10, γε, δέ, τε, μετά, παρά &c. should have their final vowel elided or not when the next word begins with a vowel.

(15) A large portion of our various readings arises from the omission or insertion of such words as cause little appreciable difference in the sense. To this class belong the pronouns αὐτοῦ, αὐτῷ, αὐτῶν, αὐτοῖς, the particles οὖν, δέ, τε, and the interchange of οὐδέ and οὔτε, as also of καί and δέ at the opening of a sentence.

(16) Manuscripts greatly fluctuate in adding and rejecting the Greek article, and the sense is often seriously influenced by these variations, though they seem so minute. In Mark ii. 26 ἐπὶ Ἀβιάθαρ ἀρχιερέως “in the time that Abiathar was high priest” would be historically incorrect, while ἐπὶ Ἀβιάθαρ τοῦ ἀρχιερέως “in the days of Abiathar the high priest” is suitable enough. The article will often impart vividness and reality to an expression, where its presence is not indispensable: e.g. Luke xii. 54 τὴν νεφέλην (if τήν be authentic, as looks probable) is the peculiar cloud spoken of in 1 Kings xviii. 44 as portending rain. Bishop Middleton's monograph (“Doctrine of the Greek Article applied to the Criticism and Illustration of the New Testament”), though apparently little known to certain of our most highly esteemed Biblical scholars, even if its philological groundwork be thought a little precarious, must always be regarded as the text-book on this interesting subject, and is a lasting monument of intellectual acuteness and exact learning.

(17) Not a few various readings may be imputed to the peculiarities of the style of writing adopted in the oldest manuscripts. Thus ΠΡΟΣΤΕΤΑΓΜΕΝΟΥΣΚΑΙΡΟΥΣ Acts xvii. 26 may be divided into two words or three; ΚΑΙΤΑΠΑΝΤΑ ibid. ver. 25, by a slight change, has degenerated into κατὰ πάντα. The habitual abridgement of such words as Θεός or Κύριος sometimes leads to a corruption of the text. Hence possibly comes the grave variation ΟΣ for ΘΣ 1 Tim. iii. 16, and the singular reading τῷ καιρῷ δουλεύοντες Rom. xii. 11, where the true word Κυρίῳ was first shortened into ΚΡΩ11, and then read as ΚΡΩ, Κ being employed to indicate ΚΑΙ in very early times12. Or a large initial letter, which the scribe usually reserved for a subsequent review, may have been altogether neglected: whence we have τι for Οτι before στενή Matt. vii. 14. Or overscores, placed over a letter (especially at the end of a line and word) to denote ν, may have been lost sight of; e.g. λίθον μέγα Matt. xxvii. 60 in several copies, for ΜΕΓΑ [with a line over the final Α]. The use of the symbol [symbol composed of Pi and Rho together], which in the Herculanean rolls and now and then in Codex Sinaiticus stands for προ and προς indifferently, may have produced that remarkable confusion of the two prepositions when compounded with verbs which we notice in Matt. xxvi. 39; Mark xiv. 35; Acts xii. 6; xvii. 5, 26; xx. 5, 13; xxii. 25. It will be seen hereafter that as the earliest manuscripts have few marks of punctuation, breathing or accent, these points (often far from indifferent) must be left in a great measure to an editor's taste and judgement.

(18) Slips of the pen, whereby words are manifestly lost or repeated, mis-spelt or half-finished, though of no interest to the critic, must yet be noted by a faithful collator, as they will occasionally throw light on the history of some particular copy in connexion with others, and always indicate the degree of care or skill employed by the scribe, and consequently the weight due to his general testimony.

The great mass of various readings we have hitherto attempted to classify (to our first and second heads we will recur presently) are manifestly due to mere inadvertence or human frailty, and certainly cannot be imputed to any deliberate intention of transcribers to tamper with the text of Scripture. We must give a different account of a few passages (we are glad they are only a few) which yet remain to be noticed.

(19) The copyist may be tempted to forsake his proper function for that of a reviser, or critical corrector. He may simply omit what he does not understand (e.g. δευτεροπρώτῳ Luke vi. 1; τὸ μαρτύριον 1 Tim. ii. 6), or may attempt to get over a difficulty by inversions and other changes. Thus the μυστήριον spoken of by St. Paul 1 Cor. xv. 51, which rightly stands in the received text πάντες μὲν οὐ κοιμηθησόμεθα, πάντες δὲ ἀλλαγησόμεθα, was easily varied into πάντες κοιμηθησόμεθα, οὐ π. δὲ ἀλ., as if in mere perplexity. From this source must arise the omission in a few manuscripts of υἱοῦ Βαραχίου in Matt. xxiii. 35; of Ἱερεμίου in Matt. xxvii. 9; the insertion of ἄλλου ἐκ before θυσιαστηρίου in Apoc. xvi. 7; perhaps the substitution of τοῖς προφήταις for Ἡσαΐᾳ τῷ προφήτῃ in Mark i. 2, of οὔπω ἀναβαίνω for οὐκ ἀναβαίνω in John vii. 8, and certainly of τρίτη for ἕκτε in John xix. 14. The variations between Γεργεσηνῶν and Γαδαρηνῶν Matt. viii. 28, and between Βηθαβαρᾶ and Βηθανίᾳ John i. 28, have been attributed, we hope and believe unjustly, to the misplaced conjectures of Origen.

Some would impute such readings as ἔχωμεν for ἔχομεν Rom. v. 1; φορέσμεν for φορέσομεν 1 Cor. xv. 49, to a desire on the part of copyists to improve an assertion into an ethical exhortation, especially in the Apostolical Epistles; but it is at once safer and more simple to regard them with Bishop Chr. Wordsworth (N. T. 1 Cor. xv. 49) as instances of itacism : see class (7) above.

(20) Finally, whatever conclusion we arrive at respecting the true reading in the following passages, the discrepancy could hardly have arisen except from doctrinal preconceptions. Matt. xix. 17 Τί με λέγεις ἀγαθόν? οὐδεὶς ἀγαθὸς εἰ μὴ εἶς, ὁ Θεός; or Τί με ἐρωτᾷς περὶ τοῦ ἀγαθοῦ? εἶς ἐστὶν ὁ ἀγαθός: John i. 18 ὁ μονογενὴς υἱός or μονογενὴς Θεός: Acts xvi. 7 τὸ πνεῦμα with or without the addition of Ἰησοῦ: Acts xx. 28 τὴν ἐκκλησίαν τοῦ Θεοῦ or τὴν ἐκκλησίαν τοῦ Κυρίου: perhaps also Jude ver. 4 δεσπότην with or without Θεόν. I do not mention Mark xiii. 32 οὐδὲ ὁ υἱός, as there is hardly any authority for its rejection now extant; nor Luke ii. 22, where τοῦ καθαρισμοῦ αὐτῆς of the Complutensian Polyglott and most of our common editions is supported by almost no evidence whatever.

11. It is very possible that some scattered readings cannot be reduced to any of the above-named classes, but enough has been said to afford the student a general notion of the nature and extent of the subject13. It may be reasonably thought that a portion of these variations, and those among the most considerable, had their origin in a cause which must have operated at least as much in ancient as in modern times, the changes gradually introduced after publication by the authors themselves into the various copies yet within their reach. Such revised copies would circulate independently of those issued previously, and now beyond the writer's control; and thus becoming the parents of a new family of copies, would originate and keep up diversities from the first edition, without any fault on the part of transcribers14. It is thus perhaps we may best account for the omission or insertion of whole paragraphs or verses in manuscripts of a certain class [see above (1), (2), (3)]; or, in cases where the work was in much request, for those minute touches and trifling improvements in words, in construction, in tone, or in the mere colouring of the style [(5), (11), (12)], which few authors can help attempting, when engaged on revising their favourite compositions. Even in the Old Testament, the song of David in 2 Sam. xxii is evidently an early draft of the more finished composition, Ps. xviii. Traces of the writer's curae secundae may possibly be found in John v. 3, 4; vii. 53-viii. 11; xiii. 26; Acts xx. 4, 15; xxiv. 6–8. To this list some critics feel disposed to add portions of Luke xxi-xxiv.

12. The fullest critical edition of the Greek Testament hitherto published contains but a comparatively small portion of the whole mass of variations already known; as a rule, the editors neglect, and rightly neglect, mere errors of transcription. Such things must be recorded for several reasons, but neither they, nor real various readings that are slenderly supported, can produce any effect in the task of amending or restoring the sacred text. Those who wish to see for themselves how far the common printed editions of what is called the “textus receptus” differ from the judgement of the most recent critics, may refer if they please to the small Greek Testament published in the series of “Cambridge Greek and Latin Texts15,” which exhibits in a thicker type all words and clauses wherein Robert Stephen's edition of 1550 (which is taken as a convenient standard) differs from the other chief modifications of the textus receptus (viz. Beza's 1565 and Elzevir's 1624), as also from the revised texts of Lachmann 1842–50, of Tischendorf 1865–72, of Tregelles 1857–72, of the Revisers of the English New Testament (1881), and of Westcott and Hort (1881). The student will thus be enabled to estimate for himself the limits within which the text of the Greek Testament may be regarded as still open to discussion, and to take a general survey of the questions on which the theologian is bound to form an intelligent opinion.

13. The work that lies before us naturally divides itself into three distinct parts.

I. A description of the sources from which various readings are derived (or of their external evidence), comprising:

(a) Manuscripts of the Greek New Testament or of portions thereof.

(b) Ancient versions of the New Testament in various languages.

(c) Citations from the Greek Testament or its versions made by early ecclesiastical writers, especially by the Fathers of the Christian Church.

(d) Early printed or later critical editions of the Greek Testament.

II. A discussion of the principles on which external evidence should be applied to the recension of the sacred volume, embracing

(a) The laws of internal evidence, and the limits of their legitimate use.

(b) The history of the text and of the principal schemes which have been proposed for restoring it to its primitive state, including recent views of Comparative Criticism.

(c) Considerations derived from the peculiar character and grammatical form of the dialect of the Greek Testament.

III. The application of the foregoing materials and principles to the investigation of the true reading in the chief passages of the New Testament, on which authorities are at variance.

In this edition, as has already been explained in the preface, it has been found necessary to divide the treatise into two volumes, which will contain respectively—

I. First Volume:—Ancient Manuscripts.

II. Second Volume:—Versions, Citations, Editions, Principles, and Selected Passages.

It will be found desirable to read the following pages in the order wherein they stand, although the chief part of Chapters VII-XIV of the first volume and some portions elsewhere (indicated by being printed like them in smaller type) are obviously intended chiefly for reference, or for less searching examination.