Читать книгу The Causes of the Corruption of the Traditional Text of the Holy Gospels - John William Burgon - Страница 18

§ 2.

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I do not find that sufficient attention has been paid to grave disturbances of the Text which have resulted from a slight clerical error. While we are enumerating the various causes of Textual depravity, we may not fail to specify this. Once trace a serious Textual disturbance back to (what for convenience may be called) a 'clerical error,' and you are supplied with an effectual answer to a form of inquiry which else is sometimes very perplexing: viz. If the true meaning of this passage be what you suppose, for what conceivable reason should the scribe have misrepresented it in this strange way—made nonsense, in short, of the place? … I will further remark, that it is always interesting, sometimes instructive, after detecting the remote origin of an ancient blunder, to note what has been its subsequent history and progress.

Some specimens of the thing referred to I have already given in another place. The reader is invited to acquaint himself with the strange process by which the '276 souls' who suffered shipwreck with St. Paul (Acts xxvii. 37), have since dwindled down to 'about 76[27].'—He is further requested to note how 'a certain man' who in the time of St. Paul bore the name of 'Justus' (Acts xviii. 7), has been since transformed into 'Titus,' 'Titus Justus,' and even 'Titius Justus[28].'—But for a far sadder travestie of sacred words, the reader is referred to what has happened in St. Matt. xi. 23 and St. Luke x. 15—where our Saviour is made to ask an unmeaning question—instead of being permitted to announce a solemn fact—concerning Capernaum[29].—The newly-discovered ancient name of the Island of Malta, Melitene[30], (for which geographers are indebted to the adventurous spirit of Westcott and Hort), may also be profitably considered in connexion with what is to be the subject of the present chapter. And now to break up fresh ground.

Attention is therefore invited to a case of attraction in Acts xx. 24. It is but the change of a single letter (λογοΥ for λογοΝ), yet has that minute deflection from the truth led to a complete mangling of the most affecting perhaps of St. Paul's utterances. I refer to the famous words αλλ' ουδενος λογον ποιουμαι, ουδε εχω την ψυχην μου τιμιαν εμαυτω, 'ως τελειωσαι τον δρομον μου μετα χαρας: excellently, because idiomatically, rendered by our Translators of 1611—'But none of these things move me, neither count I my life dear unto myself, so that I might finish my course with joy.'

For ουδενος λοΓΟΝ, (the accusative after ποιουμαι), some one having substituted ουδενος λοΓΟΥ—a reading which survives to this hour in B and C[31]—it became necessary to find something else for the verb to govern. Την ψυχην was at hand, but ουδε εχω stood in the way. Ουδε εχω must therefore go[32]; and go it did—as B, C, and [Symbol: Aleph] remain to attest. Τιμιαν should have gone also, if the sentence was to be made translatable; but τιμιαν was left behind[33]. The authors of ancient embroilments of the text were sad bunglers. In the meantime, Cod. [Symbol: Aleph] inadvertently retained St. Luke's word, ΛΟΓΟΝ; and because [Symbol: Aleph] here follows B in every other respect, it exhibits a text which is simply unintelligible[34].

Now the second clause of the sentence, viz. the words ουδε εχο την ψυχην μου τιμιαν εμαυτω, may on no account be surrendered. It is indeed beyond the reach of suspicion, being found in Codd. A, D, E, H, L, P, 13, 31—in fact in every known copy of the Acts, except the discordant [Symbol: Aleph]BC. The clause in question is further witnessed to by the Vulgate[35]—by the Harkleian[36]—by Basil[37]—by Chrysostom[38]—by Cyril[39]—by Euthalius[40]—and by the interpolator of Ignatius[41]. What are we to think of our guides (Tischendorf, Tregelles, Westcott and Hort, and the Revisers) who have nevertheless surrendered the Traditional Text and presented us instead with what Dr. Field—who is indeed a Master in Israel—describes as the impossible αλλ' ουδενος λογου ποιουμαι την ψυχην τιμιαν εμαυτω[42]?

The words of the last-named eminent scholar on the reading just cited are so valuable in themselves, and are observed to be so often in point, that they shall find place here:—'Modern Critics,' he says, 'in deference to the authority of the older MSS., and to certain critical canons which prescribe that preference should be given to the shorter and more difficult reading over the longer and easier one, have decided that the T.R. in this passage is to be replaced by that which is contained in those older MSS.

'In regard to the difficulty of this reading, that term seems hardly applicable to the present case. A difficult reading is one which presents something apparently incongruous in the sense, or anomalous in the construction, which an ignorant or half-learned copyist would endeavour, by the use of such critical faculty as he possessed, to remove; but which a true critic is able, by probable explanation, and a comparison of similar cases, to defend against all such fancied improvements. In the reading before us, αλλ' ουδενος λογου ποιουμαι την ψυχην τιμιαν εμαυτω, it is the construction, and not the sense, which is in question; and this is not simply difficult, but impossible. There is really no way of getting over it; it baffles novices and experts alike[43].' When will men believe that a reading vouched for by only B[Symbol: Aleph]C is safe to be a fabrication[44]? But at least when Copies and Fathers combine, as here they do, against those three copies, what can justify critics in upholding a text which carries on its face its own condemnation?

The Causes of the Corruption of the Traditional Text of the Holy Gospels

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