xv. 27, he will read as follows:--'When thou readest the sixth Gospel of
the Passion,--also when thou readest the second Gospel of the Vigil of Good Friday,--stop here: skip verse 28: then go on at verse 29.' The inference from this is so obvious, that it would be to abuse the reader's patience if I were to enlarge upon it, or even to draw it out in detail. Very ancient indeed must the Lectionary practice in this particular have been that it should leave so fatal a trace of its operation in our four oldest Codexes: but _it has left it_[164]. The explanation is evident, the verse is plainly genuine, and the Codexes which leave it out are corrupt.
One word about the evidence of the cursive copies on this occasion. Tischendorf says that 'about forty-five' of them are without this precious verse of Scripture. I venture to say that the learned critic would be puzzled to produce forty-five copies of the Gospels in which this verse has no place. But in fact his very next statement (viz. that about half of these are Lectionaries),--satisfactorily explains the matter. Just so. From every Lectionary in the world, for the reason already assigned, these words are away; as well as in every MS. which, like B and [Symbol: Aleph], has been depraved by the influence of the Lectionary practice.
And now I venture to ask,--What is to be thought of that Revision of our Authorized Version which omits ver. 28 altogether; with a marginal intimation that 'many ancient authorities insert it'? Would it not have been the course of ordinary reverence,--I was going to say of truth and fairness,--to leave the text unmolested: with a marginal memorandum that just 'a very few ancient authorities leave it out'?
§ 5.
A gross depravation of the Text resulting from this cause, which nevertheless has imposed on several critics, as has been already said, is furnished by the first words of Acts iii. The most ancient witness accessible, namely the Peshitto, confirms the usual reading of the place, which is also the text of the cursives: viz. [Greek: Epi to auto de Petros kai Iôannês k.t.l.] So the Harkleian and Bede. So Codex E.
The four oldest of the six available uncials conspire however in representing the words which immediately precede in the following unintelligible fashion:--[Greek: ho de Kyrios prosetithei tous sôzomenous kath' hêmeran epi to auto. Petros de k.t.l.] How is it to be thought that this strange and vapid presentment of the passage had its beginning? It results, I answer, from the ecclesiastical practice of beginning a fresh lection at the name of 'Peter,' prefaced by the usual formula 'In those days.' It is accordingly usual to find the liturgical word [Greek: archê]--indicative of the beginning of a lection,--thrust in between [Greek: epi to auto de] and [Greek: Petros]. At a yet earlier period I suppose some more effectual severance of the text was made in that place, which unhappily misled some early scribe[165]. And so it came to pass that in the first instance the place stood thus: [Greek: ho de Kyrios prosetithei tous sôzomenous kath' hêmeran tê ekklêsia epi to auto],--which was plainly intolerable.
What I am saying will commend itself to any unprejudiced reader when it has been stated that Cod. D in this place actually reads as follows:--[Greek: kathêmeran epi to auto en tê ekklêsia. En de tais hêmerais tautais Petros k.t.l.]: the scribe with simplicity both giving us the liturgical formula with which it was usual to introduce the Gospel for the Friday after Easter, and permitting us to witness the perplexity with which the evident surplusage of [Greek: tê ekklêsia epi to auto] occasioned him. He inverts those two expressions and thrusts in a preposition. How obvious it now was to solve the difficulty by getting rid of [Greek: tê ekklêsia].
It does not help the adverse case to shew that the Vulgate as well as the copy of Cyril of Alexandria are disfigured with the same corrupt reading as [Symbol: Aleph]ABC. It does but prove how early and how widespread is this depravation of the Text. But the indirect proof thus afforded that the actual Lectionary System must needs date from a period long anterior to our oldest Codexes is a far more important as well as a more interesting inference. In the meantime I suspect that it was in Western Christendom that this corruption of the text had its beginning: for proof is not wanting that the expression [Greek: epi to auto] seemed hard to the Latins[166].
Hence too the omission of [Greek: palin] from [Symbol: Aleph]BD (St. Matt, xiii. 43). A glance at the place in an actual Codex[167] will explain the matter to a novice better than a whole page of writing:--
[Greek: akouetô. telos] [Greek: palin. archê. eipen o Kurios tên parabolên tautên.] [Greek: Omoia estin k.t.l.]
The word [Greek: palin], because it stands between the end ([Greek: telos]) of the lesson for the sixth Thursday and the beginning ([Greek: archê]) of the first Friday after Pentecost, got left out [though every one acquainted with Gospel MSS. knows that [Greek: archê] and [Greek: telos] were often inserted in the text]. The second of these two lessons begins with [Greek: homoia] [because [Greek: palin] at the beginning of a lesson is not wanted]. Here then is a singular token of the antiquity of the Lectionary System in the Churches of the East: as well as a proof of the untrustworthy character of Codd. [Symbol: Aleph]BD. The discovery that they are supported this time by copies of the Old Latin (a c e ff^{1.2} g^{1.2} k l), Vulgate, Curetonian, Bohairic, Ethiopic, does but further shew that such an amount of evidence in and by itself is wholly insufficient to determine the text of Scripture.
When therefore I see Tischendorf, in the immediately preceding verse (xiii. 43) on the sole authority of [Symbol: Aleph]B and a few Latin copies, omitting the word [Greek: akouein],--and again in the present verse on very similar authority (viz. [Symbol: Aleph]D, Old Latin, Vulgate, Peshitto, Curetonian, Lewis, Bohairic, together with five cursives of aberrant character) transposing the order of the words [Greek: panta hosa echei pôlei],--I can but reflect on the utterly insecure basis on which the Revisers and the school which they follow would remodel the inspired Text.
It is precisely in this way and for the selfsame reason, that the clause [Greek: kai elypêthêsan sphodra] (St. Matt. xvii. 23) comes to be omitted in K and several other copies. The previous lesson ends at [Greek: egerthêsetai],--the next lesson begins at [Greek: prosêlthon].
§ 6.
Indeed, the Ancient Liturgy of the Church has frequently exercised a corrupting influence on the text of Scripture. Having elsewhere considered St. Luke's version of the Lord's Prayer[168], I will in this place discuss the genuineness of the doxology with which the Lord's Prayer concludes in St. Matt. vi. 13[169],--[Greek: hoti sou estin hê basileia kai hê dynamis kai hê doxa eis tous aiônas. amên],--words which for 360 years have been rejected by critical writers as spurious, notwithstanding St. Paul's unmistakable recognition of them in 2 Tim.