Читать книгу The Causes of the Corruption of the Traditional Text of the Holy Gospels - John William Burgon - Страница 31

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St. Luke explains (Acts xxvii. 14) that it was the 'typhonic wind called Euroclydon' which caused the ship in which St. Paul and he sailed past Crete to incur the 'harm and loss' so graphically described in the last chapter but one of the Acts. That wind is mentioned nowhere but in this one place. Its name however is sufficiently intelligible; being compounded of Ευρος, the 'south-east wind,' and κλυδων, 'a tempest:' a compound which happily survives intact in the Peshitto version. The Syriac translator, not knowing what the word meant, copied what he saw—'the blast' (he says) 'of the tempest[76], which [blast] is called Tophonikos Euroklidon.' Not so the licentious scribes of the West. They insisted on extracting out of the actual 'Euroclydon,' the imaginary name 'Euro-aquilo,' which accordingly stands to this day in the Vulgate. (Not that Jerome himself so read the name of the wind, or he would hardly have explained 'Eurielion' or 'Euriclion' to mean 'commiscens, sive deorsum ducens[77].') Of this feat of theirs, Codexes [Symbol: Aleph] and A (in which ΕΥΡΟΚΛΥΔΩΝ has been perverted into ΕΥΡΑΚΥΛΩΝ) are at this day the sole surviving Greek witnesses. Well may the evidence for 'Euro-aquilo' be scanty! The fabricated word collapses the instant it is examined. Nautical men point out that it is 'inconsistent in its construction with the principles on which the names of the intermediate or compound winds are framed:'—

'Euronotus is so called as intervening immediately between Eurus and Notus, and as partaking, as was thought, of the qualities of both. The same holds true of Libonotus, as being interposed between Libs and Notus. Both these compound winds lie in the same quarter or quadrant of the circle with the winds of which they are composed, and no other wind intervenes. But Eurus and Aquilo are at 90° distance from one another; or according to some writers, at 105°; the former lying in the south-east quarter, and the latter in the north-east: and two winds, one of which is the East cardinal point, intervene, as Caecias and Subsolanus[78].'

Further, why should the wind be designated by an impossible Latin name? The ship was 'a ship of Alexandria' (ver. 6). The sailors were Greeks. What business has 'Aquilo' here? Next, if the wind did bear the name of 'Euro-aquilo,' why is it introduced in this marked way (ανεμος τυφωνικος, 'ο καλουμενος) as if it were a kind of curiosity? Such a name would utterly miss the point, which is the violence of the wind as expressed in the term Euroclydon. But above all, if St. Luke wrote ΕΥΡΑΚ-, how has it come to pass that every copyist but three has written ΕΥΡΟΚ-? The testimony of B is memorable. The original scribe wrote ΕΥΡΑΚΥΔΩΝ[79]: the secunda mantis has corrected this into ΕΥΡΥΚΛΥΔΩΝ—which is also the reading of Euthalius[80]. The essential circumstance is, that not ΥΛΩΝ but ΥΔΩΝ has all along been the last half of the word in Codex B[81].

In St. John iv. 15, on the authority of [Symbol: Aleph]B, Tischendorf adopts διερχεσθαι (in place of the uncompounded verb), assigning as his reason, that 'If St. John had written ερχεσθαι, no one would ever have substituted διερχεσθαι for it.' But to construct the text of Scripture on such considerations, is to build a lighthouse on a quicksand. I could have referred the learned Critic to plenty of places where the thing he speaks of as incredible has been done. The proof that St. John used the uncompounded verb is the fact that it is found in all the copies except our two untrustworthy friends. The explanation of ΔΙερχωμαι is sufficiently accounted for by the final syllable (ΔΕ) of μηδε which immediately precedes. Similarly but without the same excuse,

St. Mark x. 16 ευλογει has become κατευλογει ([Symbol: Aleph]BC). St. Mark xii. 17 θαυμασαν has become εζεθαυμασαν ([Symbol: Aleph]B). St. Mark xiv. 40 βεβαρημενοι has become καταβεβαρημενοι (A[Symbol: Aleph]B).

It is impossible to doubt that και (in modern critical editions of St. Luke xvii. 37) is indebted for its existence to the same cause. In the phrase εκει συναχθησονται 'οι αετοι it might have been predicted that the last syllable of εκει would some day be mistaken for the conjunction. And so it has actually come to pass. ΚΑΙ οι αετοι is met with in many ancient authorities. But [Symbol: Aleph]LB also transposed the clauses, and substituted επισυναχθησονται for συναχθησονται. The self-same casualty, viz. και elicited out of the insertion of εκει and the transposition of the clauses, is discoverable among the Cursives at St. Matt. xxiv. 28—the parallel place: where by the way the old uncials distinguish themselves by yet graver eccentricities[82]. How can we as judicious critics ever think of disturbing the text of Scripture on evidence so precarious as this?

It is proposed that we should henceforth read St. Matt. xxii. 23 as follows:—'On that day there came to Him Sadducees saying that there is no Resurrection.' A new incident would be in this way introduced into the Gospel narrative: resulting from a novel reading of the passage. Instead of 'οι λεγοντες, we are invited to read λεγοντες, on the authority of [Symbol: Aleph]BDMSZP and several of the Cursives, besides Origen, Methodius, Epiphanius. This is a respectable array. There is nevertheless a vast preponderance of numbers in favour of the usual reading, which is also found in the Old Latin copies and in the Vulgate. But surely the discovery that in the parallel Gospels it is—

'οιτινες λεγουσιν αναστασιν μη ειναι (St. Mark xii. 18) and

'οι αντιλεγοντες αναστασιν μη ειναι (St. Luke xx. 27)

may be considered as decisive in a case like the present. Sure I am that it will be so regarded by any one who has paid close attention to the method of the Evangelists. Add that the origin of the mistake is seen, the instant the words are inspected as they must have stood in an uncial copy:

ΣΑΔΔΟΥΚΑΙΟΙΟΙΛΕΓΟΝΤΕΣ

and really nothing more requires to be said. The second ΟΙ was safe to be dropped in a collocation of letters like that. It might also have been anticipated, that there would be found copyists to be confused by the antecedent ΚΑΙ. Accordingly the Peshitto, Lewis, and Curetonian render the place 'et dicentes;' shewing that they mistook ΚΑΙ ΟΙ ΛΕΓΟΝΤΕΣ for a separate phrase.