Chapter 21

ACCIDENTAL CAUSES OF CORRUPTION.

V. Liturgical Influence.

§ 1.

There is one distinct class of evidence provided by Almighty God for the conservation of the deposit in its integrity[145], which calls for special notice in this place. The Lectionaries of the ancient Church have not yet nearly enjoyed the attention they deserve, or the laborious study which in order to render them practically available they absolutely require. Scarcely any persons, in fact, except professed critics, are at all acquainted with the contents of the very curious documents alluded to: while collations of any of them which have been hitherto effected are few indeed. I speak chiefly of the Books called Evangelistaria (or Evangeliaria), in other words, the proper lessons collected out of the Gospels, and transcribed into a separate volume. Let me freely admit that I subjoin a few observations on this subject with unfeigned diffidence; having had to teach myself throughout the little I know;--and discovering in the end how very insufficient for my purpose that little is. Properly handled, an adequate study of the Lectionaries of the ancient Church would become the labour of a life. We require exact collations of at least 100 of them. From such a practical acquaintance with about a tenth of the extant copies some very interesting results would infallibly be obtained[146].

As for the external appearance of these documents, it may be enough to say that they range, like the mass of uncial and cursive copies, over a space of about 700 years,--the oldest extant being of about the eighth century, and the latest dating in the fifteenth. Rarely are any so old as the former date,--or so recent as the last named. When they began to be executed is not known; but much older copies than any which at present exist must have perished through constant use: [for they are in perfect order when we first become acquainted with them, and as a whole they are remarkably consistent with one another]. They are almost invariably written in double columns, and not unfrequently are splendidly executed. The use of Uncial letters is observed to have been retained in documents of this class to a later period than in the case of the Evangelia, viz. down to the eleventh century. For the most part they are furnished with a kind of musical notation executed in vermilion; evidently intended to guide the reader in that peculiar recitative which is still customary in the oriental Church.

In these books the Gospels always stand in the following order: St. John: St. Matthew: St. Luke: St. Mark. The lessons are brief,-- resembling the Epistles and Gospels in our Book of Common Prayer.

They seem to me to fall into two classes: (_a_) Those which contain a lesson for every day in the year: (_b_) Those which only contain [lessons for fixed Festivals and] the Saturday-Sunday lessons ([Greek: sabbatokyriakai]). We are reminded by this peculiarity that it was not till a very late period in her history that the Eastern Church was able to shake herself clear of the shadow of the old Jewish Sabbath[147]. [To these Lectionaries Tables of the Lessons were often added, of a similar character to those which we have in our Prayer-books. The Table of daily Lessons went under the title of Synaxarion (or Eclogadion); and the Table of the Lessons of immovable Festivals and Saints' days was styled Menologion[148].]

Liturgical use has proved a fruitful source of textual perturbation. Nothing less was to have been expected,--as every one must admit who has examined ancient Evangelia with any degree of attention. For a period before the custom arose of writing out the Ecclesiastical Lections in the 'Evangelistaries,' and 'Apostolos,' it may be regarded as certain that the practice generally prevailed of accommodating an ordinary copy, whether of the Gospels or of the Epistles, to the requirements of the Church. This continued to the last to be a favourite method with the ancients[149]. Not only was it the invariable liturgical practice to introduce an ecclesiastical lection with an ever-varying formula,--by which means the holy Name is often found in MSS. where it has no proper place,--but notes of time, &c., ['like the unique and indubitably genuine word [Greek: deuteroprôtôi][150],' are omitted as carrying no moral lesson, as well as longer passages like the case of the two verses recounting the ministering Angel with the Agony and the Bloody Sweat[151].

That Lessons from the New Testament were probably read in the assemblies of the faithful according to a definite scheme, and on an established system, at least as early as the fourth century, has been shewn to follow from plain historical fact in the tenth chapter of the Twelve Last Verses of St. Mark's Gospel, to which the reader is referred for more detailed information. Cyril, at Jerusalem,--and by implication, his namesake at Alexandria,--Chrysostom, at Antioch and at Constantinople,-- Augustine, in Africa,--all four expressly witness to the circumstance. In other words, there is found to have been at least at that time fully established throughout the Churches of Christendom a Lectionary, which seems to have been essentially one and the same in the West and in the East. That it must have been of even Apostolic antiquity may be inferred from several considerations[152]. For example, Marcion, in A.D. 140, would hardly have constructed an Evangelistarium and Apostolicon of his own, as we learn from Epiphanius[153], if he had not been induced by the Lectionary System prevailing around him to form a counterplan of teaching upon the same model.]

§ 2.

Indeed, the high antiquity of the Church's Lectionary System is inferred with certainty from many a textual phenomenon with which students of Textual Science are familiar.

It may be helpful to a beginner if I introduce to his notice the class of readings to be discussed in the present chapter, by inviting his attention to the first words of the Gospel for St. Philip and St. James' Day in our own English Book of Common Prayer,--'And Jesus said unto His disciples.' Those words he sees at a glance are undeniably nothing else but an Ecclesiastical accretion to the Gospel,--words which breed offence in no quarter, and occasion error to none. They have nevertheless stood prefixed to St. John xiv. 1 from an exceedingly remote period; for, besides establishing themselves in every Lectionary of the ancient Church[154], they are found in Cod. D[155],--in copies of the Old Latin[156] as the Vercellensis, Corbeiensis, Aureus, Bezae,--and in copies of the Vulgate. They may be of the second or third, they must be as old as the fourth century. It is evident that it wants but a very little for those words to have established their claim to a permanent place in the Text. Readings just as slenderly supported have been actually adopted before now[157].

I proceed to cite another instance; and here the success of an ordinary case of Lectionary licence will be perceived to have been complete: for besides recommending itself to Lachmann, Tischendorf, Tregelles, and Westcott and Hort, the blunder in question has established itself in the pages of the Revised Version. Reference is made to an alteration of the Text occurring in certain copies of Acts iii. 1, which will be further discussed below[158]. When it has been stated that these copies are [Symbol: Aleph]ABCG,--the Vulgate,--the two Egyptian versions,--besides the Armenian,--and the Ethiopic,--it will be admitted that the Ecclesiastical practice which has resulted in so widespread a reading, must be primitive indeed. To some persons such a formidable array of evidence may seem conclusive in favour of any reading: but it can only seem so to those who do not realize the weight of counter-testimony.

But by far the most considerable injury which has resulted to the Gospel from this cause is the suspicion which has alighted in certain quarters on the last twelve verses of the Gospel according to St. Mark. [Those verses made up by themselves a complete Lection. The preceding Lection, which was used on the Second Sunday after Easter, was closed with the Liturgical note 'The End,' or [Greek: TO TELOS], occurring after the eighth verse. What more probable, nay, more certain result could there be, than that some scribe should mistake the end of the Lection for the end of St. Mark's Gospel, if the last leaf should chance to have been torn off, and should then transcribe no more[159]? How natural that St. Mark should express himself in a more condensed and abrupt style than usual. This of course is only put forward as an explanation, which leaves the notion of another writer and a later date unnecessary. If it can be improved upon, so much the better. Candid critics ought to study Dean Burgon's elaborate chapter already referred to before rejecting it.]

§ 3.

And there probably does not exist, in the whole compass of the Gospel, a more interesting instance of this than is furnished by the words [Greek: eipe de ho Kyrios], in St. Luke vii. 31. This is certainly derived from the Lectionaries; being nothing else but the formula with which it was customary to introduce the lection that begins at this place. Accordingly, only one out of forty copies which have been consulted for the purpose contains them. But the circumstance of interest remains to be stated. When these four unauthorized words have been thus got rid of, the important discovery is made that the two preceding verses (verses 28 and 29) must needs form a part of our Lord's discourse,--which it is perceived flows on unbroken from v. 24 to v. 35. This has been seen already by some[160], though denied by others. But the fact does not admit of rational doubt; though it is certainly not as yet generally known. It is not generally known, I mean, that the Church has recovered a piece of knowledge with which she was once familiar[161], but which for many centuries she has forgotten, viz. that thirty-two words which she supposed to be those of the Evangelist are in reality those of her Lord.

Indeed, when the expressions are considered, it is perceived that this account of them must needs be the true one. Thus, we learn from the 24th verse that our Saviour was at this time addressing 'the crowds' or 'multitudes.' But the four classes specified in verses 29, 30, cannot reasonably be thought to be the Evangelist's analysis of those crowds. In fact what is said of 'the Pharisees and Lawyers' in ver. 30 is clearly not a remark made by the Evangelist on the reception which our Saviour's words were receiving at the hands of his auditory; but our Saviour's own statement of the reception which His Forerunner's preaching had met with at the hands of the common people and the publicans on the one hand,--the Pharisees and the Scribes on the other. Hence the inferential particle [Greek: oun] in the 31st verse; and the use in ver. 35 of the same verb ([Greek: edikaiôthê]) which the Divine Speaker had employed in ver. 29: whereby He takes up His previous statement while He applies and enforces it.

Another specimen of unauthorized accretion originating in the same way is found a little farther on. In St. Luke ix. 1 ('And having called together His twelve Disciples'), the words [Greek: mathêtas autou] are confessedly spurious: being condemned by nearly every known cursive and uncial. Their presence in the meantime is fully accounted for by the adjacent rubrical direction how the lesson is to be introduced: viz. 'At that time Jesus having called together His twelve Disciples.' Accordingly we are not surprised to find the words [Greek: ho Iêsous] also thrust into a few of the MSS.: though we are hardly prepared to discover that the words of the Peshitto, besides the Latin and Cureton's Syriac, are disfigured in the same way. The admirers of 'the old uncials' will learn with interest that, instead of [Greek: mathêtas autou], [Symbol: Aleph]C with LX[Symbol: Lambda][Symbol: Xi] and a choice assortment of cursives exhibit [Greek: apostolous],--being supported in this manifestly spurious reading by the best copies of the Old Latin, the Vulgate, Gothic, Harkleian, Bohairic, and a few other translations.

Indeed, it is surprising what a fertile source of corruption Liturgical usage has proved. Every careful student of the Gospels remembers that St. Matthew describes our Lord's first and second missionary journey in very nearly the same words. The former place (iv. 23) ending [Greek: kai pasan malakian en tô laô] used to conclude the lesson for the second Sunday after Pentecost,--the latter (ix. 35) ending [Greek: kai pasan malakian] occupies the same position in the Gospel for the seventh Sunday. It will not seem strange to any one who considers the matter, that [Greek: en tô laô] has in consequence not only found its way into