CHAPTER XI. THE LATER UNCIALS AND THE CURSIVES.

§ 1(288).

The nature of Tradition is very imperfectly understood in many quarters; and mistakes respecting it lie close to the root, if they are not themselves the root, of the chief errors in Textual Criticism. We must therefore devote some space to a brief explanation of this important element in our present inquiry.

Tradition is commonly likened to a stream which, as is taken for granted, contracts pollution in its course the further it goes. Purity is supposed to be attainable only within the neighbourhood of the source: and it is assumed that distance from thence ensures proportionally either greater purity or more corruption.

Without doubt there is much truth in this comparison: only, as in the case of nearly all comparisons there are limits to the resemblance, and other features and aspects are not therein connoted, which are essentially bound up with the subject believed to be illustrated on all points in this similitude.

In the first place, the traditional presentment of the New Testament is not like a single stream, but resembles rather a great number of streams of which many have remained pure, but some have been corrupted. One cluster of bad streams was found in the West, and, as is most probable, the source of very many of them was in Syria: another occurred in the East with Alexandria and afterwards Caesarea as the centre, where it was joined by the currents from the West. A multitude in different parts of the Church were kept wholly or mainly clear of these contaminants, and preserved the pure and precise utterance as it issued from the springs of the Written Word.

But there is another pitfall hidden under that imperfect simile which is continually employed on this subject either by word of mouth or in writing. The Tradition of the Church does not take shape after the model of a stream or streams rolling in mechanical movement and unvaried flow from the fountain down the valley and over the plain. Like most mundane things, it has a career. It has passed through a stage when one manuscript was copied as if mechanically from another that happened to be at hand. Thus accuracy except under human infirmity produced accuracy; and error was surely procreative of error. Afterwards came a period when both bad and good exemplars offered themselves in rivalry, and the power of refusing the evil and choosing the good was in exercise, often with much want of success. As soon as this stage was accomplished, which may be said roughly to have reached from Origen till the middle of the fourth century, another period commenced, when a definite course was adopted, which was followed with increasing advantage till the whole career was fixed irrevocably in the right direction. The period of the two Gregories, Basil, Chrysostom, and others, was the time when the Catholic Church took stock of truth and corruption, and had in hand the duty of thoroughly casting out error and cleansing her faith. The second part of the Creed was thus permanently defined; the third part which, besides the Divinity of the Holy Ghost, relates to His action in the Church, to the Written Word, inclusive both of the several books generally and the text of those books, to the nature of the Sacraments, to the Ministry, to the character of the unity and government of the Church, was on many points delayed as to special definition by the ruin soon dealt upon the Roman Empire, and by the ignorance of the nations which entered upon that vast domain: and indeed much of this part of the Faith remains still upon the battlefield of controversy.

But action was taken upon what may be perhaps termed the Canon of St. Augustine(289): “What the Church of the time found prevailing throughout her length and breadth, not introduced by regulations of Councils, but handed down in unbroken tradition, that she rightly concluded to have been derived from no other fount than Apostolic authority.” To use other words, in the accomplishment of her general work, the Church quietly and without any public recension examined as to the written Word the various streams that had come down from the Apostles, and followed the multitude that were purest, and by gradual filtration extruded out of these nearly all the corruption that even the better lines of descent had contracted.

We have now arrived at the period, when from the general consentience of the records, it is discovered that the form of the Text of the New Testament was mainly settled. The settlement was effected noiselessly, not by public debate or in decrees of general or provincial councils, yet none the less completely and permanently. It was the Church’s own operation, instinctive, deliberate, and in the main universal. Only a few witnesses here and there lifted up their voices against the prevalent decisions, themselves to be condemned by the dominant sense of Christendom. Like the repudiation of Arianism, it was a repentance from a partial and temporary encouragement of corruption, which was never to be repented of till it was called in question during the general disturbance of faith and doctrine in the nineteenth century. Doubtless, the agreement thus introduced has not attained more than a general character. For the exceeding number of questions involved forbids all expectation of an universal coincidence of testimony extending to every single case.

But in the outset, as we enter upon the consideration of the later manuscripts, our way must be cleared by the removal of some fallacies which are widely prevalent amongst students of Sacred Textual Criticism.

It is sometimes imagined (1) that Uncials and Cursives differ in kind; (2) that all Cursives are alike; (3) that all Cursives are copies of Codex A, and are the results of a general Recension; and (4) that we owe our knowledge of the New Testament entirely to the existing Uncials. To these four fallacies must be added an opinion which stands upon a higher footing than the preceding, but which is no less a fallacy, and which we have to combat in this chapter, viz. that the Text of the later Uncials and especially the Text of the Cursives is a debased Text.

1. The real difference between Uncials and Cursives is patent to all people who have any knowledge of the subject. Uncials form a ruder kind of manuscripts, written in capital letters with no space between them till the later specimens are reached, and generally with an insufficient and ill-marked array of stops. Cursives show a great advance in workmanship, being indited, as the name suggests, in running and more easily flowing letters, with “a system of punctuation much the same as in printed books.” As contrasted with one another, Uncials as a class enjoy a great superiority, if antiquity is considered; and Cursives are just as much higher than the sister class, if workmanship is to be the guiding principle of judgement. Their differences are on the surface, and are such that whoso runs may read.

But Textual Science, like all Science, is concerned, not with the superficial, but with the real;—not with the dress in which the text is presented, but with the text itself;—not again with the bare fact of antiquity, since age alone is no sure test of excellence, but with the character of the testimony which from the nature of the subject-matter is within reach. Judging then the later Uncials, and comparing them with the Cursives, we make the discovery that the texts of both are mainly the same. Indeed, they are divided by no strict boundary of time: they overlap one another. The first Cursive is dated May 7, 835(290): the last Uncials, which are Lectionaries, are referred to the eleventh, and possibly to the twelfth, century(291). One, Codex Λ, is written partly in uncials, and partly in cursive letters, as it appears, by the same hand. So that in the ninth, tenth, and eleventh centuries both uncials and cursives must have issued mainly and virtually from the same body of transcribers. It follows that the difference lay in the outward investiture, whilst, as is found by a comparison of one with another, there was a much more important similarity of character within.

2. But when a leap is made from this position to another sweeping assertion that all cursives are alike, it is necessary to put a stop to so illicit a process. In the first place, there is the small handful of cursive copies which is associated with B and א. The notorious 1,—handsome outwardly like its two leaders but corrupt in text,—33, 118, 131, 157, 205, 209(292), and others;—the Ferrar Group, containing 13, 69, 124, 346, 556, 561, besides 348, 624, 788;—these are frequently dissentients from the rest of the Cursives. But indeed, when these and a few others have been subtracted from the rest and set apart in a class by themselves, any careful examination of the evidence adduced on important passages will reveal the fact that whilst almost always there is a clear majority of Cursives on one side, there are amply enough cases of dissentience more or less to prove that the Cursive MSS. are derived from a multiplicity of archetypes, and are endued almost severally with what may without extravagance be termed distinct and independent personality. Indeed, such is the necessity of the case. They are found in various countries all over the Church. Collusion was not possible in earlier times when intercommunication between countries was extremely limited, and publicity was all but confined to small areas. The genealogies of Cursive MSS., if we knew them, would fill a volume. Their stems must have been extremely numerous; and like Uncials, and often independently of Uncials, they must have gone back to the vast body of early papyrus manuscripts.

3. And as to the Cursives having been copies of Codex A, a moderate knowledge of the real character of that manuscript, and a just estimate of the true value of it, would effectually remove such a hallucination. It is only the love of reducing all knowledge of intricate questions to the compass of the proverbial nutshell, and the glamour that hangs over a very old relic, which has led people, when they had dropped their grasp of B, to clutch at the ancient treasure in the British Museum. It is right to concede all honour to such a survival of so early a period: but to lift the pyramid from its ample base, and to rest it upon a point like A, is a proceeding which hardly requires argument for its condemnation. And next, when the notion of a Recension is brought forward, the answer is, What and when and how and where? In the absence of any sign or hint of such an event in records of the past, it is impossible to accept such an explanation of what is no difficulty at all. History rests upon research into documents which have descended to us, not upon imagination or fiction. And the sooner people get such an idea out of their heads as that of piling up structures upon mere assumption, and betake themselves instead to what is duly attested, the better it will be for a Science which must be reared upon well authenticated bases, and not upon phantom theories.

4. The case of the Cursives is in other respects strangely misunderstood, or at least is strangely misrepresented. The popular notion seems to be, that we are indebted for our knowledge of the true text of Scripture to the existing Uncials entirely; and that the essence of the secret dwells exclusively with the four or five oldest of those Uncials. By consequence, it is popularly supposed that since we are possessed of such Uncial Copies, we could afford to dispense with the testimony of the Cursives altogether. A more complete misconception of the facts of the case can hardly be imagined. For the plain truth is that all the phenomena exhibited by the Uncial MSS. are reproduced by the Cursive Copies. A small minority of the Cursives, just as a small minority of the Uncials, are probably the depositaries of peculiar recensions.

It is at least as reasonable to assert that we can afford entirely to disregard the testimony of the Uncials, as to pretend that we can afford entirely to disregard the testimony of the Cursives. In fact of the two, the former assertion would be a vast deal nearer to the truth. Our inductions would in many cases be so fatally narrowed, if we might not look beyond one little handful of Uncial Copies.

But the point to which the reader’s attention is specially invited is this:—that so far from our being entirely dependent on Codexes BאCD, or on some of them, for certain of the most approved corrections of the Received Text, we should have been just as fully aware of every one of those readings if neither B nor א, C nor D, had been in existence. Those readings are every one to be found in one or more of the few Cursive Codexes which rank by themselves, viz. the two groups just mentioned and perhaps some others. If they are not, they may be safely disregarded; they are readings which have received no subsequent recognition(293).

Indeed, the case of the Cursives presents an exact parallel with the case of the Uncials. Whenever we observe a formal consensus of the Cursives for any reading, there, almost invariably, is a grand consensus observable for the same reading of the Uncials.

The era of greater perfection both in the outer presentment and in the internal accuracy of the text of copies of the New Testament may be said, as far as the relics which have descended to us are concerned, to have commenced with the Codex Basiliensis or E of the Gospels. This beautiful and generally accurate Codex must have been written in the seventh century(294). The rest of the later Uncials are ordinarily found together in a large or considerable majority: whilst there is enough dissent to prove that they are independent witnesses, and that error was condemned, not ignored. Thus the Codex Regius (L, eighth century), preserved at Paris, generally follows B and א: so does the Codex Sangallensis (Δ, ninth century), the Irish relic of the monastery of St. Gall, in St. Mark alone: and the Codex Zacynthius (Ξ, an eighth century palimpsest) now in the Library of the Bible Society, in St. Luke(295). The isolation of these few from the rest of their own age is usually conspicuous. The verdict of the later uncials is nearly always sustained by a large majority. In fact, as a rule, every principal reading discoverable in any of the oldest Uncials is also exhibited in one, two, or three of the later Uncials, or in one or more of the small handful of dissentient Cursives already enumerated. Except indeed in very remarkable instances, as in the case of the last twelve verses of St. Mark, such readings are generally represented: yet in the later MSS. as compared with the oldest there is this additional feature in the representation, that if evidence is evidence, and weight, number, and variety are taken into account, those readings are altogether condemned.

§ 2(296).

But we are here confronted with the contention that the text of the Cursives is of a debased character. Our opponents maintain that it is such that it must have been compounded from other forms of text by a process of conflation so called, and that in itself it is a text of a character greatly inferior to the text mainly represented by B and א.

Now in combating this opinion, we are bound first to remark that the burden of proof rests with the opposite side. According to the laws which regulate scientific conclusions, all the elements of proof must be taken into consideration. Nothing deserves the name of science in which the calculation does not include all the phenomena. The base of the building must be conterminous with the facts. This is so elementary a principle that it seems needless to insist more upon it.

But then, this is exactly what we endeavour to accomplish, and our adversaries disregard. Of course they have their reasons for dismissing nineteen-twentieths of the evidence at hand: but—this is the point—it rests with them to prove that such dismissal is lawful and right. What then are their arguments? Mainly three, viz. the supposed greater antiquity of their favourite text, the superiority which they claim for its character, and the evidence that the Traditional Text was as they maintain formed by conflation from texts previously in existence.

Of these three arguments, that from antiquity has been already disposed of, and illustration of what has been already advanced will also be at hand throughout the sequel of this work. As to conflation, a proof against its possible applicability to the Traditional Text was supplied as to particles and other words in the last chapter, and will receive illustration from instances of words of a greater size in this. Conflation might be possible, supposing for a moment that other conditions favoured it, and that the elements to be conflated were already in existence in other texts. But inasmuch as in the majority of instances such elements are found nowhere else than in the Traditional Text, conflation as accounting for the changes which upon this theory must have been made is simply impossible. On the other hand, the Traditional Text might have been very easily chipped and broken and corrupted, as will be shewn in the second part of this Treatise, into the form exhibited by B and א(297).

Upon the third argument in the general contention, we undertake to say that it is totally without foundation. On the contrary, the text of the Cursives is greatly the superior of the two. The instances which we proceed to give as specimens, and as specimens only, will exhibit the propriety of language, and the taste of expression, in which it is pre-eminent(298). Let our readers judge fairly and candidly, as we doubt not that they will, and we do not fear the result.

But before entering upon the character of the later text, a few words are required to remind our readers of the effect of the general argument as hitherto stated upon this question. The text of the later Uncials is the text to which witness is borne, not only by the majority of the Uncials, but also by the Cursives and the Versions and the Fathers, each in greater numbers. Again, the text of the Cursives enjoys unquestionably the support of by very far the largest number among themselves, and also of the Uncials and Versions and Fathers. Accordingly, the text of which we are now treating, which is that of the later Uncials and the Cursives combined, is incomparably superior under all the external Notes of Truth. It possesses in nearly all cases older attestation(299): there is no sort of question as to the greater number of witnesses that bear evidence to its claims: nor to their variety: and hardly ever to the explicit proof of their continuousness; which indeed is also generally—nay, universally—implied owing to the nature of the case: their weight is certified upon strong grounds: and as a matter of fact, the context in nearly all instances testifies on their side. The course of doctrine pursued in the history of the Universal Church is immeasurably in their favour. We have now therefore only to consider whether their text, as compared with that of BאD and their allies, commends itself on the score of intrinsic excellence. And as to this consideration, if as has been manifested the text of B-א, and that of D, are bad, and have been shewn to be the inferior, this must be the better. We may now proceed to some specimen instances exhibiting the superiority of the Later Uncial and Cursive text.

§ 3.

Our SAVIOUR’S lament over Jerusalem (“If thou hadst known, even thou, at least in this thy day, the things which belong unto thy peace!”) is just one of those delicately articulated passages which are safe to suffer by the process of transmission. Survey St. Luke’s words (xix. 42), Εἰ ἔγνως καὶ σύ, καί γε ἐν τῇ ἡμερᾳ σου ταύτῃ, τὰ πρὸς εἰρήνην σου,—and you will perceive at a glance that the vulnerable point in the sentence, so to speak, is καὶ σύ, καί γε. In the meanwhile, attested as those words are by the Old Latin(300) and by Eusebius(301), as well as witnessed to by the whole body of the copies beginning with Cod. A and including the lost original of 13-69-124-346 &c.,—the very _order_ of those words is a thing quite above suspicion. Even Tischendorf admits this. He retains the traditional reading in every respect. Eusebius however twice writes καί γε σύ(302); once, καὶ σύ γε(303); and once he drops καί γε entirely(304). Origen drops it 3 times(305). Still, there is at least a general _consensus_ among Copies, Versions and Fathers for beginning the sentence with the characteristic words, εἰ ἔγνως καὶ σύ; the phrase being witnessed to by the Latin, the Bohairic, the Gothic, and the Harkleian Versions; by Irenaeus(306),—by Origen(307),—by ps.-Tatian(308),—by Eusebius(309),—by Basil the Great(310),—by Basil of Seleucia(311),—by Cyril(312).

What then is found in the three remaining Uncials, for C is defective here? D exhibits ει εγνως και συ, εν τη ημερα ταυτη, τα προς ειρηνην σοι: being supported only by the Latin of Origen in one place(313). Lachmann adopts this reading all the same. Nothing worse, it must be confessed, has happened to it than the omission of καί γε, and of the former σου. But when we turn to Bא, we find that they and L, with Origen once(314), and the Syriac heading prefixed to Cyril’s homilies on St. Luke’s Gospel(315), exclusively exhibit,—ει εγνως εν τη ημερα ταυτη και συ τα προς ειρηνην: thus, not only omitting καί γε, together with the first and second σου, but by transposing the words καὶ σύ—ἐν τῇ ἡμερᾳ ταύτῃ, obliterating from the passage more than half its force and beauty. This maimed and mutilated exhibition of our LORD’S words, only because it is found in Bא, is adopted by W.-Hort, who are in turn followed by the Revisers(316). The Peshitto by the way omits καὶ σύ, and transposes the two clauses which remain(317). The Curetonian Syriac runs wild, as usual, and the Lewis too(318).

Amid all this conflict and confusion, the reader’s attention is invited to the instructive fact that the whole body of cursive copies (and all the uncials but four) have retained in this passage all down the ages uninjured every exquisite lineament of the inspired archetype. The truth, I say, is to be found in the cursive copies, not in the licentious BאDL, which as usual stand apart from one another and from A. Only in respect of the first σου is there a slight prevarication on the part of a very few witnesses(319). Note however that it is overborne by the consent of the Syriac, the Old Latin and the Gothic, and further that the testimony of ps.-Tatian is express on this head(320). There is therefore nothing to be altered in the traditional text of St. Luke xix. 42, which furnishes an excellent instance of fidelity of transmission, and of an emphatic condemnation of B-א.

§ 4.

It is the misfortune of inquiries like the present that they sometimes constrain us to give prominence to minute details which it is difficult to make entertaining. Let me however seek to interest my reader in the true reading of St. Matt. xx. 22, 23: from which verses recent critical Editors reject the words, “and to be baptized with the baptism that I am baptized with,” καὶ τὸ βάπτισμα ὃ ἐγὼ βαπτίζομαι βαπτισθῆναι.

About the right of the same words to a place in the corresponding part of St. Mark’s Gospel (x. 38), there is no difference of opinion: except that it is insisted that in St. Mark the clause should begin with ἤ instead of καί.

Next, the reader is requested to attend to the following circumstance: that, except of course the four (אBDL) and Z which omit the place altogether and one other (S), all the Uncials together with the bulk of the Cursives, and the Peshitto and Harkleian and several Latin Versions, concur in reading ἢ τὸ βάπτισμα in St. Matthew: all the Uncials but eight (אBCDLWΔΣ), together with the bulk of the Cursives and the Peshitto, agree in reading καὶ τὸ βάπτισμα in St. Mark. This delicate distinction between the first and the second Gospel, obliterated in the Received Text, is faithfully maintained in nineteen out of twenty of the Cursive Copies.

In the meantime we are assured on the authority of אBDLZ—with most of the Latin Copies, including of course Hilary and Jerome, the Cureton, the Lewis, and the Bohairic, besides Epiphanius,—that the clause in question has no right to its place in St. Matthew’s Gospel. So confidently is this opinion held, that the Revisers, following Griesbach, Lachmann, Tischendorf, Tregelles, Alford, have ejected the words from the Text. But are they right? Certainly not, I answer. And I reason thus.

If this clause has been interpolated into St. Matthew’s Gospel, how will you possibly account for its presence in every MS. in the world except 7, viz. 5 uncials and 2 cursives? It is pretended that it crept in by assimilation from the parallel place in St. Mark. But I reply,—

1. Is this credible? Do you not see the glaring improbability of such an hypothesis? Why should the Gospel most in vogue have been assimilated in all the Copies but seven to the Gospel least familiarly known and read in the Churches?

2. And pray when is it pretended that this wholesale falsification of the MSS. took place? The Peshitto Syriac as usual sides with the bulk of the Cursives: but it has been shewn to be of the second century. Some of the Latin Copies also have the clause. Codex C, Chrysostom and Basil of Seleucia also exhibit it. Surely the preponderance of the evidence is overwhelmingly one way. But then

3. As a matter of fact the clause cannot have come in from St. Mark’s Gospel,—for the very conclusive reason that the two places are delicately discriminated,—as on the testimony of the Cursives and the Peshitto has been shewn already. And

4. I take upon myself to declare without fear of contradiction on the part of any but the advocates of the popular theory that, on the contrary, it is St. Matthew’s Gospel which has been corrupted from St. Mark’s. A conclusive note of the assimilating process is discernible in St. Mark’s Gospel where ἢ has intruded,—not in St. Matthew’s.

5. Why St. Matthew’s Gospel was maimed in this place, I am not able to explain. Demonstrable it is that the Text of the Gospels at that early period underwent a process of Revision at the hands of men who apparently were as little aware of the foolishness as of the sinfulness of all they did: and that Mutilation was their favourite method. And, what is very remarkable, the same kind of infatuation which is observed to attend the commission of crime, and often leads to its detection, is largely recognizable here. But the Eye which never sleeps has watched over the Deposit, and provided Himself with witnesses.

§ 5.

Singular to relate, the circumstances under which Simon and Andrew, James and John were on the last occasion called to Apostleship (St. Matt. iv. 17-22: St. Mark i. 14-20: St. Luke v. 1-11) have never yet been explained(321). The facts were as follows.

It was morning on the Sea of Galilee. Two boats were moored to the shore. The fishermen having “toiled all the night and taken nothing(322),‘—’were gone out of them and had washed out (ἀπέπλυναν) their nets (τὰ δίκτυα)(323).” But though fishing in deep water had proved a failure, they knew that by wading into the shallows, they might even now employ a casting-net with advantage. Accordingly it was thus that our SAVIOUR, coming by at this very juncture, beheld Simon and Andrew employed (βάλλοντας ἀμφίβληστρον)(324). Thereupon, entering Simon’s boat, “He prayed him that he would thrust out a little from the land(325).” The rest requires no explanation.

Now, it is plain that the key which unlocks this interesting story is the graphic precision of the compound verb employed, and the well-known usage of the language which gives to the aorist tense on such occasions as the present a pluperfect signification(326). The Translators of 1611, not understanding the incident, were content, as Tyndale, following the Vulgate(327), had been before them, to render ἀπέπλυναν τὰ δίκτυα,—“were washing their nets.” Of this rendering, so long as the Greek was let alone, no serious harm could come. The Revisers of 1881, however, by not only retaining the incorrect translation “were washing their nets,” but, by making the Greek tally with the English—by substituting in short ἔπλυνον for ἀπέπλυναν,—have so effectually darkened the Truth as to make it simply irrecoverable by ordinary students. The only point in the meantime to which the reader’s attention is just now invited is this:—that the compound verb in the aorist tense (ἀπέπλυναν) has been retained by the whole body of the Cursives, as transmitted all down the ages: while the barbarous ἔπλυνον is only found at this day in the two corrupt uncials BD(328) and a single cursive (Evan. 91)(329).

§ 6.

“How hardly shall they that _have riches_ enter into the Kingdom of Heaven,” exclaimed our LORD on a memorable occasion. The disciples were amazed. Replying to their thoughts,—“Children,” He added, “how hard is it for them that _trust in riches_ to enter into the Kingdom of GOD.” (St. Mark x. 23, 24). Those familiar words, vouched for by 16 uncials and all the cursives, are quite above suspicion. But in fact all the Versions support them likewise. There is really no pretext for disturbing what is so well attested, not to say so precious. Yet Tischendorf and Westcott and Hort eject τοὺς πεποιθότας ἐπὶ τοῖς χρήμασιν from the text, on the sole ground that the clause in question is omitted by אBΔ, one copy of the Italic (k), and one copy of the Bohairic. Aware that such a proceeding requires an apology,—“I think it unsafe,” says Tischendorf, “to forsake in this place the very ancient authorities which I am accustomed to follow”: i.e. Codexes א and B. But of what nature is this argument? Does the critic mean that he must stick to antiquity? If this be his meaning, then let him be reminded that Clemens(330), a more ancient authority than אB by 150 years,—not to say the Latin and the Syriac Versions, which are more ancient still,—recognizes the words in question(331). Does however the learned critic mean no more than this,—That it is with him a fundamental principle of Textual Criticism to uphold at all hazards the authority of B and א? He cannot mean that; as I proceed to explain.

For the strangest circumstance is behind. Immediately after he has thus (in ver. 24) proclaimed the supremacy of אB, Tischendorf is constrained to reject the combined evidence of אBCΔ. In ver. 26 those 4 copies advocate the absurd reading λέγοντες πρὸς ΑΥΤΟΝ Καὶ τίς δύναται σωθῆναι; whereas it was evidently to themselves (πρὸς ἑαυτούς) that the disciples said it. Aware that this time the “antiquissimae quas sequi solet auctoritates” stand self-condemned, instead of ingenuously avowing the fact, Tischendorf grounds his rejection of προς αυτον on the consideration that “Mark never uses the expression λεγειν προς αυτον.” Just as if the text of one place in the Gospel is to be determined by the practice of the same Evangelist in another place,—and not by its own proper evidence; which in the present instance is (the reader may be sure) simply overwhelming!

Westcott and Hort erroneously suppose that all the copies but four,—all the versions but one (the Bohairic),—may be in error: but that B-א, C, and Cod. Δ which is curious in St. Mark, must needs be in the right.

§ 7.

There are many occasions—as I remarked before,—where the very logic of the case becomes a powerful argument. Worthless in and by themselves,—in the face, I mean, of general testimony,—considerations derived from the very reason of the thing sometimes vindicate their right to assist the judgement wherever the evidence is somewhat evenly balanced. But their cogency is felt to be altogether overwhelming when, after a careful survey of the evidence alone, we entertain no doubt whatever as to what must be the right reading of a place. They seem then to sweep the field. Such an occasion is presented by St. Luke xvi. 9,—where our LORD, having shewn what provision the dishonest steward made against the day when he would find himself houseless,—the Divine Speaker infers that something analogous should be done by ourselves with our own money,—“in order” (saith He) “that _when ye fail_, ye may be received into the everlasting tabernacles.” The logical consistency of all this is as exact, as the choice of terms in the Original is exquisite: the word employed to designate Man’s departure out of this life (ἐκλίπητε), conveying the image of one fainting or failing at the end of his race. It is in fact the word used in the LXX to denote the peaceful end of Abraham, and of Ishmael, and of Isaac, and of Jacob(332).

But instead of this, אBDLRΠ with AX present us with εκλιπη or εκλειπη,—shewing that the author of this reading imagined without discrimination, that what our LORD meant to say was that when at last our money “fails” us, we may not want a home. The rest of the Uncials to the number of twelve, together with two correctors of א, the bulk of the Cursives, and the Old Latin copies, the Vulgate, Gothic, Harkleian, and Ethiopic Versions, with Irenaeus(333), Clemens Alex.(334), Origen(335), Methodius(336), Basil(337), Ephraem Syrus(338), Gregory Naz.(339), Didymus(340), Chrysostom(341), Severianus(342), Jerome(343), Augustine(344), Eulogius(345), and Theodoret(346), also Aphraates (A.D. 325)(347), support the reading ἐκλίπητε. Cyril appears to have known both readings(348).

His testimony, such as it is, can only be divined from his fragmentary remains; and “divination” is a faculty to which I make no pretence.

In p. 349, after δεῖ δὲ πάντως αὐτοὺς ἀποπεσεῖν τῆς οἰκονομίας ἐπιπηδῶντος θανάτου, καὶ τῶν καθ᾽ ἡμᾳς πραγμάτων ἐξελκότος. ἀδιάφυκτον γὰρ ἀνθρώπῳ παντὶ τοῦ θανάτου τὸν λίνον,—Cyril is represented as saying (6 lines lower down) ὅταν αὐτοὺς ὁ ἐπίγειος ἐκλείτῃ ΠΛΟΥΤΟΣ, with which corresponds the Syriac of Luc. 509. But when we encounter the same passage in Cramer’s Catena (p. 122), besides the reference to death, ἀποπεσοῦνται πάντως τῆς οἰκονομίας ἐπιπηδῶντος αὐτοῖς τοῦ θανάτου (lines 21-3), we are presented with ὅταν αὐτοὺς ἡ ἐπίγειος ἐκλείποι Ζωή, which clearly reverses the testimony. If Cyril wrote _that_, he read (like every other Father) ἐκλίπητε. It is only right to add that ἐκλίπῃ is found besides in pp. 525, 526 (= Mai ii. 358) and 572 of Cyril’s Syriac Homilies on St. Luke. This however (like the quotation in p. 506) may well be due to the Peshitto. I must avow that amid so much conflicting evidence, my judgement concerning Cyril’s text is at fault.

§ 8.

There is hardly to be found a more precious declaration concerning the guiding and illuminating office of the Holy Ghost, than our Lord’s promise that “when He, the Spirit of Truth shall come, He shall guide you into all the Truth”: ὁδηγήσει ὑμᾶς εἰς πᾶσαν τὴν ἀλήθειαν (St. John xvi. 13). Now, the six words just quoted are found to have experienced an extraordinary amount of perturbation; far more than can be due to the fact that they happen to be the concluding words of a lection. To be brief,—every known variety in reading this passage may be brought under one of three heads:—

1. With the first,—which is in fact a gloss, not a reading (διηγήσεται ὑμῖν τὴν ἀλήθειαν πᾶσαν),—we need not delay ourselves. Eusebius in two places(349), Cyril Jer.(350), copies of the Old Latin(351), and Jerome(352) in a certain place, so read the place. Unhappily the same reading is also found in the Vulgate(353). It meets with no favour however, and may be dismissed.

2. The next, which even more fatally darkens our Lord’s meaning, might have been as unceremoniously dealt with, the reading namely of Cod. L (ὁδηγήσει ὑμᾶς ἐν τῇ ἀληθείᾳ πάσῃ), but that unhappily it has found favour with Tischendorf,—I suppose, because with the exception of πάσῃ it is the reading of his own Cod. א(354). It is thus that Cyril Alex.(355) thrice reads the place: and indeed the same thing practically is found in D(356); while so many copies of the Old Latin exhibit _in omni veritate_, or _in veritate omni_(357), that one is constrained to inquire, How is ἐν ἀληθείᾳ πασῃ to be accounted for?

We have not far to look. ὁδηγεῖν followed by ἐν occurs in the LXX, chiefly in the Psalms, more than 16 times. Especially must the familiar expression in Ps. xxiv. 5 (ὁδήγησόν με ἐν τῇ ἀληθείᾳ σου, _Dirige me in veritate tua_), by inopportunely suggesting itself to the mind of some early copyist, have influenced the text of St. John xvi. 13 in this fatal way. One is only astonished that so acute a critic as Tischendorf should have overlooked so plain a circumstance. The constant use of the Psalm in Divine Service, and the entire familiarity with the Psalter resulting therefrom, explains sufficiently how it came to pass, that in this as in other places its phraseology must have influenced the memory.

3. The one true reading of the place (ὁδηγήσει ὑμᾶς εἰς πᾶσαν τὴν ἀλήθειαν) is attested by 12 of the uncials (EGHIbKMSUΓΔΛΠ), the whole body of the cursives, and by the following Fathers,—Didymus(358), Epiphanius(359), Basil(360), Chrysostom(361), Theodotus, Bp. of Antioch(362), Cyril Alex.(363), Theodoret(364); besides Tertullian in five places, Hilary and Jerome in two(365).

But because the words πᾶσαν τὴν ἀλήθειαν are found transposed in ABY alone of manuscripts, and because Peter Alex.(366), and Didymus(367) once, Origen(368) and Cyril Alex.(369) in two places, are observed to sanction the same infelicitous arrangement (viz. τὴν ἀλήθειαν πᾶσαν),—Lachmann, Tregelles, Alford, Westcott and Hort, adopt without hesitation this order of the words(370). It cannot of course be maintained. The candid reader in the meantime will not fail to note that as usual the truth has been preserved neither by A nor B nor D: least of all by א: but comes down to us unimpaired in the great mass of MS. authorities, uncial and cursive, as well as in the oldest Versions and Fathers.

§ 9.

It may have been anticipated by the readers of these pages that the Divine Author of Scripture has planted here and there up and down the sacred page—often in most improbable places and certainly in forms which we should have least of all imagined—tests of accuracy, by attending to which we may form an unerring judgement concerning the faithfulness of a copy of the sacred Text. This is a discovery which at first astonished me: but on mature reflection, I saw that it was to have been confidently anticipated. Is it indeed credible that Almighty Wisdom—which is observed to have made such abundant provision for the safety of the humblest forms of animal life, for the preservation of common seeds, often seeds of noxious plants,—should yet have omitted to make provision for the life-giving seed of His own Everlasting Word?

For example, strange to relate, it is a plain fact (of which every one may convince himself by opening a copy of the Gospels furnished with a sufficient critical apparatus), that although in relating the healing of the centurion’s servant (St. Matt. viii. 5-13) the Evangelist writes εκατονταρχΟΣ in verses 5 and 8, he writes εκατονταρχΗ instead of -ΧΩ in ver. 13. This minute variety has been faithfully retained by uncials and cursives alike. _Only_ one uncial (viz. א) has ventured to assimilate the two places, writing εκατονταρχης throughout. With the blindness proverbially ascribed to parental love, Tischendorf follows א, though the carelessness that reigns over that MS. is visible to all who examine it.

The matter is a trifle confessedly. But so was the scrap of a ballad which identified the murderer, another scrap of it being found with the bullet in the body of the murdered man.

§ 10.

The instances which have been given in this chapter of the superiority of the text exhibited in the later Uncials and the Cursives might have been increased in number to almost any extent out of the papers left by Dean Burgon. The reader will find many more illustrations in the rest of these two volumes. Even Dr. Hort admits that the Traditional Text which is represented by them is “entirely blameless on either literary or religious grounds as regards vulgarized or unworthy diction(371),” while “repeated and diligent study” can only lead, if conducted with deep and wide research, to the discovery of beauties and meanings which have lain unrevealed to the student before.

Let it be always borne in mind, that (_a_) the later Uncials and Cursives are the heirs in succession of numerous and varied lines of descent spread throughout the Church; that (_b_) their verdict is nearly always decisive and clear; and that nevertheless (_c_) such unanimity or majority of witnesses is not the testimony of mechanical or suborned testifiers, but is the coincidence, as facts unquestionably prove, except in certain instances of independent deponents to the same story.

Let me be allowed to declare(372) in conclusion that no person is competent to pronounce concerning the merits or demerits of cursive copies of the Gospels, who has not himself, in the first instance, collated with great exactness at least a few of them. He will be materially assisted, if it has ever fallen in his way to familiarize himself however partially with the text of vast numbers. But nothing can supply the place of exact collation of at least a few copies: of which labour, if a man has had no experience at all, he must submit to be assured that he really has no right to express himself confidently in this subject-matter. He argues, not from facts, but from his own imagination of what the facts of the case will probably be. Those only who have minutely collated several copies, and examined with considerable attention a large proportion of all the Sacred Codexes extant, are entitled to speak with authority here. Further, I venture to assert that no conviction will force itself so irresistibly on the mind of him who submits to the labour of exactly collating a few Cursive copies of the Gospels, as that the documents in question have been executed with even extraordinary diligence, fidelity, and skill. That history confirms this conviction, we have only to survey the elaborate arrangements made in monasteries for carrying on the duty, and perfecting the art, of copying the Holy Scriptures.

If therefore this body of Manuscripts be thus declared by the excellence of its text, by the evident pains bestowed upon its production, as well as by the consentience with it of other evidence, to possess high characteristics; if it represents the matured settlement of many delicate and difficult questions by the Church which after centuries of vacillation more or less, and indeed less rather than more, was to last for a much larger number of centuries; must it not require great deference indeed from all students of the New Testament? Let it always be remembered, that no single Cursive is here selected from the rest or advanced to any position whatsoever which would invest its verdicts with any special authority. It is the main body of the Cursives, agreeing as they generally do with the exception of a few eccentric groups or individuals, which is entitled to such respect according to the measure of their agreement. And in point of fact, the Cursives which have been collated are so generally consentient, as to leave no doubt that the multitude which needs collation will agree similarly. Doubtless, the later Uncials and the Cursives are only a class of the general evidence which is now before us: but it is desirable that those Textual Students who have been disposed to undervalue this class should weigh with candour and fairness the arguments existing in favour of it, which we have attempted to exhibit in this chapter.