CHAPTER VIII. INTERNAL EVIDENCE.

We have now described, in some detail, the several species of external testimony available for the textual criticism of the New Testament, whether comprising manuscripts of the original Greek, or ancient translations from it, or citations from Scripture made by ecclesiastical writers. We have, moreover, indicated the chief editions wherein all these materials are recorded for our use, and the principles that have guided their several editors in applying them to the revision of the text. One source of information, formerly deemed quite legitimate, has been designedly passed by. It is now agreed among competent judges that _Conjectural Emendation_ must never be resorted to, even in passages of acknowledged difficulty(243); the absence of proof that a reading proposed to be substituted for the common one is actually supported by some trustworthy document being of itself a fatal objection to our receiving it(244). Those that have been hazarded aforetime by celebrated scholars, when but few codices were known or actually collated, have seldom, very seldom, been confirmed by subsequent researches: and the time has now fully come when, in the possession of abundant stores of variations collected from memorials of almost every age and country, we are fully authorized in believing that the reading to which no manuscript, or old version, or primitive Father has borne witness, however plausible and (for some purposes) convenient, cannot safely be accepted as genuine or even as probable; even though there may still remain a few passages respecting which we cannot help framing a shrewd suspicion that the original reading differed from any form in which they are now presented to us(245).

In no wise less dangerous than bare conjecture destitute of external evidence, is the device of Lachmann for unsettling by means of emendation (_emendando_), without reference to the balance of conflicting testimony, the very text he had previously fixed by revision (_recensendo_) through the means of critical authorities: in fact the earlier process is but so much trouble misemployed, if its results are liable to be put aside by abstract judgement or individual prejudices. Not that the most sober and cautious critic would disparage the fair use of internal evidence, or withhold their proper influence from those reasonable considerations which in practice cannot, and in speculation should not, be shut out from every subject on which the mind seeks to form an intelligent opinion. Whether we will or not, we unconsciously and almost instinctively adopt that one of two opposite statements, _in themselves pretty equally attested to_, which we judge the better suited to recognized phenomena, and to the common course of things. I know of no person who has affected to construct a text of the N. T. on diplomatic grounds exclusively, without paying some regard to the character of the sense produced; nor, were the experiment tried, would any one find it easy to dispense with discretion and the dictates of good sense: nature would prove too strong for the dogmas of a wayward theory. “It is difficult not to indulge in _subjectiveness_, at least in some measure,” writes Dr. Tregelles (Account of Printed Text, p. 109): and, thus qualified, we may add that it is one of those difficulties a sane man would not wish to overcome.

The foregoing remarks may tend to explain the broad distinction between mere conjectural emendation, which must be utterly discarded, and that just use of internal testimony which he is the best critic who most judiciously employs. They so far resemble each other, as they are both products of the reasoning faculty exercising itself on the sacred words of Scripture: they differ in this essential feature, that the one proceeds in ignorance or disregard of evidence from without, while the office of the other has no place unless where external evidence is evenly, or at any rate not very unevenly, balanced. What degree of preponderance in favour of one out of several readings, all of them affording some tolerable sense, shall entitle it to reception as a matter of right; to what extent canons of subjective criticism may be allowed to eke out the scantiness of documentary authority; are points that cannot well be defined with strict accuracy. Men’s decisions respecting them will always vary according to their temperament and intellectual habits; the judgement of the same person (the rather if he be by constitution a little unstable) will fluctuate from time to time as to the same evidence brought to bear on the self-same passage. Though the _canons_ or rules of internal testimony be themselves grounded either on principles of common sense, or on certain peculiarities which all may mark in the documents from which our direct proofs are derived; yet has it been found by experience (what indeed we might have looked for beforehand), that in spite, perhaps in consequence, of their extreme simplicity, the application of these canons has proved a searching test of the tact, the sagacity, and the judicial acumen of all that handle them. For the other functions of an editor accuracy and learning, diligence and zeal are sufficient: but the delicate adjustment of conflicting probabilities calls for no mean exercise of a critical genius. This innate faculty we lack in Wetstein, and notably in Scholz; it was highly developed in Mill and Bengel, and still more in Griesbach. His well-known power in this respect is the main cause of our deep regret for the failure of Bentley’s projected work, with all its faults whether of plan or execution.

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Nearly all the following rules of internal evidence, being founded in the nature of things, are alike applicable to all subjects of literary investigation, though their general principles may need some modification in the particular instance of the Greek Testament.

I. PROCLIVI SCRIPTIONI PRAESTAT ARDUA: the more difficult the reading the more likely it is to be genuine. It would seem more probable that the copyist tried to explain an obscure passage, or to relieve a hard construction, than to make that perplexed which before was easy: thus in John vii. 39, Lachmann’s addition of δεδομένον to οὔπω ἦν πνεῦμα ἅγιον is very improbable, though countenanced by Cod. B and (of course) by several of the chief versions. We have here Bengel’s prime canon, and although Wetstein questioned it (N. T., vol. i. Proleg. p. 157), he was himself ultimately obliged to lay down something nearly to the same effect(246). Yet this excellent rule may easily be applied on a wrong occasion, and is only true _ceteris paribus_, where manuscripts or versions lend strong support to the harder form. “To force readings into the text merely because they are difficult, is to adulterate the divine text with human alloy; it is to obtrude upon the reader of Scripture the solecisms of faltering copyists, in the place of the word of God” (Bp. Chr. Wordsworth, N. T., vol. i. Preface, p. xii)(247). See Chap. XII on Matt. xxi. 28-31. Compare also above, Vol. I. i. § 11.

II. That reading out of several is preferable, from which all the rest may have been derived, although it could not be derived from any of them. Tischendorf (N. T., Proleg. p. xlii. 7th edition) might well say that this would be “omnium regularum principium,” if its application were less precarious. Of his own two examples the former is too weakly vouched for to be listened to, save by way of illustration. In Matt. xxiv. 38 he(248) and Alford would simply read ἐν ταῖς ἡμέραις τοῦ κατακλυσμοῦ on the very feeble evidence of Cod. L, one uncial Evst. (13), _a_ _e_ _ff_, the Sahidic version, and Origen (in two places); because the copyists, knowing that the eating and drinking and marrying took place not in the days of the flood, but before them (καὶ οὐκ ἔγνωσαν ἕως ἦλθεν ὁ κατακλυσμός ver. 39), would strive to evade the difficulty, such as it was, by adopting one of the several forms found in our copies: ἡμέραις πρὸ τοῦ κατακλ., or ἡμέραις ταῖς πρὸ τοῦ κατακλ., or ἡμέραις ἐκείναις πρὸ τοῦ κατακλ., or ἡμέραις ἐκείναις ταῖς πρὸ τοῦ κατακλ., or even ἡμέραις τοῦ νῶε. In his second example Tischendorf is more fortunate, unless indeed we choose to refer it rather to Bengel’s canon. James iii. 12 certainly ought to run μὴ δύναται, ἀδελφοί μου, συκῆ ἐλαίας ποιῆσαι, ἢ ἄμπελος σῦκα; οὔτε (_vel_ οὐδὲ) ἁλυκὸν γλυκὺ ποιῆσαι ὕδωρ, as in Codd. אABC, in not less than six good cursives, the Vulgate and other versions. To soften the ruggedness of this construction, some copies prefixed οὅτως to οὔτε or οὔδε, while others inserted the whole clause οὕτως οὐδεμία πηγὴ ἁλυκὸν καί before γλυκὺ ποιῆσαι ὕδωρ. Other fair instances may be seen in Chap. XII, notes on Luke x. 41, 42; Col. ii. 2(249). In the Septuagint also the reading of א συνεισελθόντας 1 Macc. xii. 48 appears to be the origin both of συνελθόντας with A, the uncial 23, and four cursives at least, and of εἰσελθόντας of the Roman edition and the mass of cursives.

III. “Brevior lectio, nisi testium vetustorum et gravium auctoritate penitus destituatur, praeferenda est verbosiori. Librarii enim multò proniores ad addendum fuerunt, quam ad omittendum” (Griesbach, N. T., Proleg. p. lxiv. vol. i). This canon bears an influential part in the system of Griesbach and his successors, and by the aid of Cod. B and a few others, has brought great changes into the text as approved by some critics. Dr. Green too (Course of Developed Criticism on Text of N. T.) sometimes carries it to excess in his desire to remove what he considers _accretions_. It is so far true, that scribes were no doubt prone to receive marginal notes into the text which they were originally designed only to explain or enforce (e.g. 1 John v. 7, 8)(250); or sought to amplify a brief account from a fuller narrative of the same event found elsewhere, whether in the same book (e.g. Act. ix. 5 compared with ch.