In the case of Holl’s researches on the Sacra Parallela of John Damascene, published in the same Collection,[160] matters are too complicated for beginners in textual criticism, but of non-biblical texts mention may be made of the Recherches sur la tradition manuscrite des lettres de l’Empereur Julien by S. Bidez and Fr. Cumont (Brussels, 1898), as showing how much can be attained by combining the internal and external history of the transmission of literary texts.[161] |Latin New Testament.| In the field of Biblical texts, and particularly of the New Testament, the study of Wordsworth and White’s Epilogus to the first volume of their Novum Testamentum Latine is to be specially recommended, particularly c. iv. De Patria et Indole Codicum nostrorum, c. v. De Textus Historia, and c. vi. De Regulis a nobis in Textu constituendo adhibitis. As was said before, Jerome undertook his revision of the Gospels in the year 383; his work was of an entirely uniform texture, apart from a few passages where a correction may have occurred even in the original manuscript; and there is a sufficiency of manuscripts extant, some of them going back to the sixth century. One of these, which formerly belonged to the Church of St. Willibrord at Echternach, contains a note dated 558, and copied into it from the parent manuscript, to the effect: proemendavi ut potui secundum codicem in bibliotheca Eugipi presbyteri, quem ferunt fuisse sancti Hieronymi. (See above, p. 122.) In these circumstances it must surely be possible, one would think, to arrive at some satisfactory conclusion. And yet, in spite of all this, and in spite of long years of labour, many a problem remains to perplex the editor of the Vulgate. To begin with, there is one striking circumstance. Jerome executed his work at Rome, in obedience to the commission of Pope Damasus. One would therefore expect to find the best manuscripts in Rome, or at least originating from Rome. But that is by no means the case: “praeter expectationem accidit ut pauci vel nulli ex codicibus optimis et antiquissimis originem Romanam clare ostendant.” The manuscript that editors consider the best—viz. Codex Amiatinus, now at Florence—was certainly at Rome for a long time, but it was sent there as a present from beyond the Alps; indeed, it came from England. And on the other hand it was not from Rome that the Latin Bible came to England, or to Canterbury in particular, although Augustine was sent thither by Pope Gregory the Great, but from the South of Italy; in fact, it was from Naples. Codex Fuldensis, which may have been brought to Fulda by Boniface, formerly belonged to Bishop Victor of Capua; the Echternach manuscript referred to above came from the Lucullan Monastery at Naples, while the manuscript from which Codex Amiatinus was copied was written by Cassiodorus of Vivarium, and therefore came from Calabria. The history of the transmission of the Latin Bible reveals many other facts as strange as these in connection with the locality to which manuscripts belong. We must be prepared, therefore, for similar surprises in the case of Greek manuscripts also, and need not be astonished to hear that the Greek-Latin Codex Bezae, so much decried as “Western,” takes us back to Smyrna or Ephesus by way of Lyons and by means of Irenæus.[162]
It is also very instructive to observe that after long years of the most thorough study of their manuscripts, Wordsworth and White refrain from constructing stemmata or genealogies of these. All they venture to do is to distinguish certain large classes or families, and within these again to bring certain manuscripts into somewhat closer relationship with each other. They distinguish two main classes. In the first they reckon five, or it may be four, Italian-Northumbrian manuscripts, A Δ H* S Y, two Canterbury O X, three Italian J M P, the two mentioned already from Capua-Fulda F and Lucullan-Echternach EP, and the Harleian Z, so called from a former possessor and now in the British Museum. To the second class belong five Celtic D E L Q R, three French B BF G, and two Spanish C T. After these come the witnesses to the history of the text in the stricter sense of the term, the recensions made by Theodulf (Hc Θ) and Alcuin (KV M̅), and, for the form which the text assumed in the later manuscripts and in the printed editions, the Salisbury Codex W. We should have great reason to congratulate ourselves, could we arrive at like certain results in the region of the far older and more diversified history of the transmission of the Greek text, but there too we shall encounter the same general features—viz., a form of the text in the printed editions, in the later manuscripts, in the Recensions, the dates of which are still to be determined (Lucian, Hesychius?, Pamphilus), and in the families, which are only to be classified in a general way.
It is also instructive to find that in the case of several manuscripts, Wordsworth and White are obliged to observe that they seem to have been corrected from the Greek, H* (p. 709), M (p. 711), EP* (p. 712), D R L (pp. 714, 716), which suggests the possibility of Greek manuscripts also having been influenced by one of the versions, be it Latin or Syriac.
Finally, when we enquire as to the relationship between Jerome and the Greek manuscript or manuscripts used by him, we find that that manuscript must have been most nearly related to the Sinaiticus, while it had no sort of connection with Codex D. Whether this result tells in favour of א or the reverse, we will not pronounce at present: Jerome certainly avers that he made use of a Graecorum codicum emendata conlatione ... sed veterum (p. 108), only veterum is a comparative term, and it might quite well happen that to Jerome that form of text appeared to be the best which was most recent or most widely circulated in his neighbourhood, and that he would have nothing to do with such a singular form of text as D exhibits, even supposing he was acquainted with it, a point we cannot decide. The intimate connection in various passages between his text and that of the cursive 473 (2pe) is remarkable, and especially the many points of resemblance between the Irish manuscripts (D L R) and the members of the Ferrar Group.
And this brings us back from our survey of the history of the Latin text to that of the Greek, where we seem to have got at least one fixed point to begin with in this perplexing chaos, for that is the first impression we gain on glancing at the mass of Greek manuscripts before us. But here again our too sanguine hopes are likely to be disappointed, and we shall learn only too soon that even this is no Archimedean point from which we are able to regulate this world of disorder.
If we find that in a certain number of manuscripts the passage usually indicated as John vii. 53-viii. 11 occurs in Luke, and in exactly the same place in each one—viz. after Luke xxi. 38—we must needs conclude that the manuscripts exhibiting this common peculiarity are intimately connected with each other. This is the case with the cursives 13, 69, 124, 346, 624, 626. Whether the others that are reckoned in this group have this same peculiarity, I am not perfectly sure. Now one would naturally expect that these manuscripts would also coincide in the other peculiarities characteristic of this group. |Variation.| But on the contrary, they part company over the very first and most conspicuous of these—viz. Matthew i. 16. Here, unfortunately, 13 and 69 are defective, but we can compare 124 and 346. And we find that whereas the former has the usual text, the latter, with the support of 556, 624, 626, exhibits in place of τὸν ἄνδρα ... Χριστός, the reading already mentioned, ᾧ μνηστευθεῖσα παρθένος Μαριὰμ ἐγέννησεν Ἰησοῦν τὸν λεγόμενον Χριστόν. Which of these readings is right, or whether both of them may not be wrong, we need not enquire at present. It is sufficient to point out that one and the same mother may give birth to very different children. The specific difference will be inherited from the other of the two parents, in this case represented by the copyist, and will depend on whether he is painstaking, careless, violent, arbitrary, well-informed, or the reverse. But the mother herself has a great number of hereditary or acquired peculiarities which, the latter no less than the former, may be transmitted to the children in a variety of ways. There is perhaps no manuscript in existence which is entirely free from corrections, while, on the other hand, there are many so overlaid with corrections that the original writing is scarcely now recognisable. Codex B, on the whole, is in a very good state of preservation, but it was supposed lately (see ThLz., 1899, col. 176) that its first hand wrote in John viii. 57, “and Abraham saw thee” instead of “and hast thou seen Abraham,” as all our editors read in that passage.[163] The supposition proved to be incorrect, but if that could possibly happen with B, what must have happened in the case of manuscripts that are so full of corrections as א and D, if they came to be copied in later times? Suppose that one scribe took the trouble to copy the text of the first hand, while another thought it his duty to follow the corrections, the result would be two manuscripts whose common origin would be scarcely recognisable. And in the course of centuries how often may not this process have been repeated. No wonder, therefore, that so few manuscripts have as yet been clearly made out to be the descendants of our oldest codices, so as to permit of their being removed from the board with one sweep, as having no independent testimony to contribute, as is the case with E3 which is merely a bad copy of D2 (p. 77), or that scholars cannot agree as to the relationship existing between two manuscripts like F2 and G3 (p. 77).[164] Nor need we be surprised to find that some of our most peculiar witnesses seem to have remained absolutely childless, while a less valuable race is perpetuated in many copies. The words of Homer—οἵη περ φύλλων γενεή, τοίη δὲ καὶ ἀνδρῶν—may be applied conversely to the leaves to which we entrust our immortality: habent sua fata libelli. The only unfortunate thing is that we are so little able to follow the course of these fates by means of external testimony.
When the Emperor Constantine e.g. asks Eusebius to supply him with fifty copies of the Scriptures at once, we cannot but suppose that these became authoritative over a large area. But in which of the classes into which our manuscripts have hitherto been divided are we to look for these now?[165] And conversely if, in another locality, heathen persecution was directed specially against the Bibles of the Christians, this cannot have been without some effect. According to C. Hülsen (Bilder aus der Geschichte des Kapitols, Rome, 1899), even the Roman Bishop Marcellinus, with his deacons Strabo and Cassianus, in the year 304, burned, in front of the temple of Juno Moneta, those Gospels which ten years later were made the law of Christian Rome by the Emperor Constantine. These scattered notices must be much more carefully collected and considered than hitherto, and combined with the results obtained from the collation of the manuscripts.
Most of our information with respect to the recensions of the Bible comes from the Syrian Church, and is concerned rather with the Old Testament than with the New; but the recensions of the former may throw some light on those of the latter.
(a) As the result of their researches, Westcott and Hort have made it very probable, on internal grounds, that a recension of an official nature was undertaken in Syria, perhaps at Antioch, about the fourth century, and that to this recension are due the origin and propagation of that form of the text of the New Testament which was widely disseminated in the Byzantine Empire, now represented in our later minuscules, and made the textus receptus by means of the first printed editions.
Lucian, the celebrated founder of the Antiochean school of exegesis, suffered martyrdom in the year 311 or 312, most probably the latter. Of all the names that we know, none has a better claim than his to be associated with such a recension, and the conjecture derives some support from the passage of Jerome cited above (p. 85).[166] It is, perhaps, even better supported by what we know of Lucian’s recension of the Old Testament. In his preface to the Chronicles, Jerome wrote: “Alexandria et Aegyptus in Septuaginta suis Hesychium laudat auctorem, Constantinopolis usque Antiochiam Luciani martyris exemplaria probat, mediae inter has provinciae Palaestinae (v.l. Palaestinos) codices legunt, quos ab Origene elaboratos Eusebius et Pamphilus vulgaverunt; totusque orbis hac inter se trifaria varietate compugnat.” Now it is true that the words of a man like Jerome must not be pressed too far, and what may have been true in his day might be quite different in a comparatively short time—think e.g. of the fifty copies of the Bible that Eusebius Pamphili had sent to Constantine, or the Bible or Bibles sent by Athanasius to Constans[167]—at the same time it has been established beyond all doubt by Field and Lagarde, that it is to Lucian we must refer a peculiar recension of the Greek Old Testament preserved in a good many manuscripts, the one found in the unfortunately small remnant of the Gothic Old Testament and especially in the numerous Biblical quotations of the famous theologian John of Antioch, better known as Chrysostom of Constantinople, who was a pupil of Lucian. The probability, therefore, is very great that the same thing will hold good of the New Testament portion of the Bible of Ulfilas and Chrysostom. As regards the former, Kauffmann has expressed a decided opinion to this effect in his work on the Gothic Bible cited above (p. 139). The supposition would be converted into something like certainty if it could be proved on palæographic grounds that this or that New Testament manuscript belongs to this or that Old Testament manuscript of Lucianic derivation as part of what was originally one and the same complete Bible. This is a point which I am not in a position personally to investigate, and I must therefore content myself with throwing out this suggestion, and with adding in support of it that we have the express testimony of the Menologies for saying that Lucian bequeathed to his pupils a copy of the Old and New Testaments written in three columns with his own hand.
There is a statement in the Pseudo-Athanasian Synopsis,[168] which seems, however, to refer only to the Old Testament portion, to the effect that it was discovered in a concealed cupboard (πυργίσκος) in the house of a Jew at Nicomedia in the time of Constantine. Long ago Hug and Eichhorn attributed the “Asiatic” or “Byzantine” recension to Lucian, and no decided objection can be established to the view of Hort, which Gregory also is inclined to accept (TiGr., p. 814).[169]
(b) It is, on the other hand, somewhat difficult to make out how matters stand with regard to the recension of Hesychius. Jerome commends it with that of Lucian for the Old Testament, but contemptuously rejects it for the New; and accordingly, in the decree of Pope Gelasius, we hear of Gospels “quae falsavit Lucianus, apocrypha, evangelia quae falsavit Hesychius, apocrypha” (c. vi. 14, 15). Considering the important position of Alexandria and Egypt, and the vast number of manuscripts referred with more or less certainty to that locality, it is the more remarkable that so few unmistakable traces have as yet been discovered of the recension of which “Alexandria et Aegyptus ... Hesychium laudat auctorem,” and that till the present moment the most divergent views have been held with regard to it. And this is true of the Old Testament no less than of the New. One view, for which a good deal can be said, has already been referred to (p. 61 f.)—viz. that we have the recension of Hesychius in Codex B. |Codex B.| Rahlfs, who was the first to connect B with the Canon of Athanasius, says (lib. cit., p. 78, note 7); “If we care to trust ourselves to pure hypothesis, we might hazard the conjecture that our superb Codex, manifestly written for one of the principal churches of Egypt, was prepared at the instigation of St. Athanasius himself. The locality in which the manuscript was produced supports this conjecture, while the time is not inconsistent with it.” I am not aware if Rahlfs knew that Athanasius had executed πυκτία τῶν θείων γραφῶν for Constans, and I am not sufficiently acquainted with the minutiæ of the ecclesiastical history of that time, and with the life of Athanasius in particular, to hazard the assertion that Codex B was prepared by Athanasius for the Emperor Constans. It is certainly the case, as every Church History records, that Constans was Prefect of Illyricum and Italy, and that Athanasius fled to Rome to Julius II., which would help to explain how Codex B comes to be in that city.[170] I cannot ascertain however from the books at my command, whether any particular resemblance has been observed between the text of this manuscript and the Biblical quotations found in those writings of Athanasius that belong to this period of his life, that is, prior to the year 350. And, besides, one has always to take into consideration how very little reliance can be placed as yet on the text of the Biblical quotations in our editions of the Fathers. In the Book of Judges B certainly exhibits quite a peculiar form of text which is not used by the earlier Egyptian teachers, Clement and Origen, nor even by Didymus (d. 394 or 399), but was employed first by Cyril of Alexandria, and which is the basis of the Sahidic version. This fact may have an important bearing on the question as to the text of the New Testament as well.[171] As early as 1705 Grabe expressed the opinion that the Sahidic version was the work of Hesychius, but we have very little information indeed regarding that Church Father, and in particular as to his connection with the lexicographer of that name. Here also, the evidence afforded by palæography would need to be examined with a view to ascertaining whether or not any of the manuscripts agreeing with B in the Book of Judges—viz. G (Brit. Mus., 20,002), 16, 30, 52, 53, 58, 63, 77, 85, 131, 144, 209, 236, 237, Catena Nicephori—has a counterpart in some manuscript of the New Testament. On Codex G see Rahlfs (p. 35, n. 2), and compare v. Dobschütz (ThLz., 1899, 3, 74) on the two New Testament manuscripts Λ and 566evv. (Greg).[172] According to the latter, the difference in size precludes the supposition that Λ and 566 are the New Testament portion of the manuscript described by Rahlfs (loc. cit.). But if they are not written by the same scribe, they both undoubtedly come from the same school of copyists. At most, however, Λ-566 would only possess importance for the recension of Hesychius if the text they, or rather it, follows were different from that with which it was collated. Its subscription shows that it belongs to those exemplars which were collated with the Codex of Pamphilus. This fact has an important bearing on the Gospel of the Hebrews. See Zahn, GK. ii. 648.
(c) We have nearly as little certain information regarding the third, and perhaps most important, of the recensions mentioned by Jerome in connection with the Old Testament, that of Eusebius and Pamphilus, which goes back to Origen.[173] |Origen.| So far as I know, the references which Origen makes in his extant writings to his own labours in the field of textual criticism, relate only to the Old Testament. At the same time his complaint as to the evil condition of the manuscripts of his day refers to the New Testament, and to the Gospels in particular. Νυνὶ δὲ δηλονότι, he says, in his Commentary on Matthew, Bk. xv. 14, πολλὴ γέγονεν ἡ τῶν ἀντιγράφων διαφορά, εἴτε ἀπὸ ῥᾳθυμίας τινῶν γραφέων, εἴτε ἀπὸ τόλμης τινῶν μοχθηρᾶς τῆς διορθώσεως τῶν γραφομένων, εἴτε καὶ ἀπὸ τῶν τὰ ἑαυτοῖς δοκοῦντα ἐν τῇ διορθώσει προστιθέντων ἢ ἀφαιρούντων.[174] He tells us in the same place how, θεοῦ διδόντος, he found ways and means of remedying the evil by the employment of the critical symbols of Homeric commentators, the obelus and asterisk, τὴν μὲν οὖν ἐν τοῖς ἀντιγράφοις τῆς παλαιᾶς διαθήκης διαφωνίαν, θεοῦ διδόντος, εὕρομεν ἰάσασθαι. According to his own express declaration, supposing it to have been correctly preserved, for it is only extant in Latin, his work in textual criticism at that time at least was confined to the Old Testament: in exemplaribus autem Novi Testamenti hoc ipsum me posse facere sine periculo non putavi. Von Gebhardt consequently says (Urt., 25) that this statement from Origen’s own mouth should have kept anyone from ascribing a formal recension of the New Testament text to him, alluding to Hug’s system of recensions; but at the same time he will not deny that the works of Origen, who was a man of conspicuous critical accuracy, are of the highest importance for the criticism of the text of the New Testament. As a matter of fact, later church teachers appeal chiefly to Origen’s manuscripts of the Old Testament, but several references are also found to his New Testament manuscripts. On Gal. iii. 1, Jerome remarks (ii. 418): legitur in quibusdam codicibus, Quis vos fascinavit non credere veritati? Sed hoc (meaning, of course, the last three words only) quia in exemplaribus Adamantii non habetur, omisimus. The words are a gloss interpolated from ch. v. 7, but they are also found in Origen, though only in the Latin translation of Rufinus, and they appear, among our Greek manuscripts, in C Dc E K L P, and likewise in most codices of the Vulgate (see Wordsworth and White, p. 659). The same writer says on Matthew xxiv. 36 (ii. 199): in quibusdam latinis exemplaribus additum est “neque filius,” quum in Graecis et maxime Adamantii et Pierii exemplaribus hoc non habeatur additum; sed quia in nonnullis legitur, disserendum videtur (W. and W., p. 658). Pierius is no doubt the Presbyter of Alexandria who lived at Rome after the Diocletian persecution. He was styled “the younger Origen” on account of his learning, and was perhaps the teacher of Pamphilus (Jerome, Viri Ill., 76; Eusebius, Eccl. Hist., vii. 32). Adamantius, like Chalkenteros, is a surname of honour given to Origen. Here again, it is a strange fact that the words which Jerome says were omitted in Origen’s exemplar are found in a certain passage of his works also extant only in Latin, and there expounded so fully that there cannot be the slightest doubt that he had them in his text, and, moreover, had no conception of their omission in other copies. What explanation, if any, can be given of this fact we need not pause to enquire. Nor need we take up the question where Jerome obtained access to the exemplars of Pierius. I suppose it would be in Caesarea, where he also saw the (Bible?) volumes of Origen transcribed by Pamphilus with his own hand, and actually obtained possession of his copy of the commentary on the Minor Prophets.[175] Even supposing that what is meant by exemplaria Adamantii is not really a recension of the text of the Bible but simply the copy that Origen used most or used last, that copy might have been authoritative for Pamphilus if not for Eusebius, and so far, therefore, it becomes necessary for us to try and discover the Origenic text in the New Testament as well as in the Old. At all events a good many of our manuscripts go back to Pamphilus, and particularly H of the Pauline Epistles. In addition to a very practical suggestion as to the lending of books,[176] and a notice of its preparation and of the original writer, this manuscript has also the following note: ἀντεβλήθη δὲ ἡ βίβλος πρὸς τὸ ἐν Καισαρίᾳ ἀντίγραφον τῆς βιβλιοθήκης τοῦ ἁγίου Παμφίλου χειρὶ γεγραμμένον (αὐτοῦ). From this subscription Field (Hexapla, i. p. xcix) has concluded that the library of Pamphilus was still in existence in the sixth century, but it is doubtful whether the subscription may not have been found in the original of H and copied into it along with the text, as is the case with a similar note copied into the minuscules 15, 83, 173. |Euthalius.| In any case this manuscript is our principal witness for the recension of Pamphilus, or, as it used to be called, the recension of Euthalius.[177] I have no intention of discussing the question whether it should be Euthalius or Evagrius: Von Dobschütz (Euthaliusstudien, p. 152 n. 1) has promised to give us further particulars as to the Syriac texts relating to the subject. I would merely call attention to two facts, viz.—
(1) That the subscription testifying to a collation with the exemplar of Pamphilus is found also at the end of the Harklean Syriac published by Bensly (see above, pp. 79, 106).
(2) That the name Evagrius, which Ehrhard proposes to read in place of Euthalius in Codex H, is actually found associated with the library of Pamphilus in another manuscript of the Old Testament. In his Notitia editionis codicis Bibliorum Sinaitici (Lipsiæ, 1860), pp. 73-122, Tischendorf published “Ex Codicibus Insulae Patmi, Ineditum Diodori Siculi; Origenis Scholia in Proverbia Salomonis.” The latter he took from a manuscript which, according to H. O. Coxe’s Report ... on the Greek MSS. yet remaining in the Levant (1858, p. 61), professed to contain “Origenis Hexapla cum Scholiis” after the Philocalia. In reality they are Origen’s Scholia on the Proverbs which Angelo Mai had published in a different form from the Vatican Catena 1802, in the Nova Patrum Bibliotheca, 1854. In the Patmos manuscript the scholia proper are prefaced by two (or three) explanatory notes on the use of the obelus and the asterisk, and on the different arrangement of the chapters in the Hebrew and Greek texts, followed by another explanation of the same sort under the title Εὐαγρίου σχόλιον.[178] Who they are that are referred to in the scholion as having collated the book (τῶν ἀντιβεβληκότων τὸ βιβλίον) we learn from the subscription, which says: μετελήφθησαν ἀφ’ ὧν εὕρομεν ἑξαπλῶν καὶ πάλιν αὐτὰ χειρὶ (leg. αὐτόχειρι) Πάμφιλος καὶ Εὐσέβιος διορθώσαντο. This subscription, which Oikonomos published fully fifty years ago from that Patmos manuscript,[179] should be added to those usually cited—viz. those appended to Ezra and Esther in א, to Isaiah and Ezekiel in Codex Marchalianus, to 3 and 4 Kings in the Syriac Hexapla, and to Ezekiel in Codex Chisianus 88.
With what has been said the student should compare what Von der Goltz tells us of a critical work upon the text of the New Testament belonging partly to the tenth and partly to the sixth century.[180] This, too, goes back to Origen, and in a scholion on James ii. 3, the greater part of which is unfortunately erased, the work mentions “a manuscript written by the hand of St. Eusebius.” As Zahn elsewhere shows, the writer of the Athos manuscript did not base his own work on this Codex of Eusebius, and in one passage he expressly contrasts it with the text of Origen which he follows. In spite of this, however, this Athos manuscript must be taken into account in dealing with the recension of Pamphilus. Still more so must the Armenian and Syriac texts, according to Conybeare and von Dobschütz.[181] Even the Latin manuscripts may contain traces of this recension. E. Riggenbach has shown that the table of chapters in Hebrews given in Codex Fuldensis and in a manuscript indicated as Cod. Vat. Reg. 9, is nothing but a translation of the corresponding part of “Euthalius.”[182] Unfortunately the relics of the literary activity of Pamphilus, that devoted student of the Scriptures,[183] are exceedingly scanty, and what little is left is extant only in a Latin translation. In these circumstances the attempt to specify more closely than hitherto his manuscripts of the Bible by means of his quotations does seem rather hopeless.
(d) As we are now dealing with the question how to arrive at the oldest form of the Greek text, it is unnecessary to take account of the labours of any later individuals in the formation of the Greek New Testament. Among these were Emperors and Empresses like Constantine and Constans, who exerted themselves in the dissemination of the Scriptures, and perhaps even made copies of them with their own hands, but these we may disregard.[184] The work of Andreas and Arethas on the Apocalypse will be noticed when we come to speak of that book. One naturally turns here to Krumbacher’s History of Byzantine Literature, but the index to the first edition of that work contains only two references to the New Testament, neither of them bearing on our present subject. The matter is one which may be commended to those who have the time and the opportunity and the willingness to investigate it, and considering the ardour with which the study of Byzantine antiquities is being prosecuted at present, it may suffice merely to throw out this hint.
(e) So far as we have gone, therefore, it appears that much uncertainty prevails regarding the text formations we have already considered—those of Lucian, Hesychius, Pamphilus, and the Ferrar Group. Considering the amount of evidence at our command—how the external testimony points in the same direction as the manuscripts themselves, and, indeed, how probable is the whole nature of the operation in question—one would expect these to be the most easily distinguishable of all. Indeed, even so cautious an enquirer as Zahn speaks without any hesitation of “the official recensions originating subsequent to the time of Origen” (ThLbl., 1899, 180). The vagueness of our conclusions with respect to these recensions does not look very promising for the result of our investigation of the text prior to the time of Origen, when activity in this field was more disconnected and might be said to run wild and unrestrained. And there is this further difficulty that some of the writers who fall to be considered in this period came in later times more or less justly under the imputation of heresy, with the consequence that the results of their labours were less widely disseminated, if not deliberately suppressed. In circumstances like these any attempted revision of the text must have been equally mischievous, whether it proceeded from the orthodox side or from the opposite. That there were διορθωταί who were supposed to correct the text in the interests of orthodoxy we have already learned from Epiphanius. Indeed, from our point of view the action of the orthodox correctors must be thought the more regrettable of the two, since the books without a doubt parted at their hands with many vivid, strange, and even fantastic traits of language. Even in the matter of style it seems to me incontestable that it was at their hands that the Gospels received that reserved and solemn tone which we would not now willingly part with, and which can be compared to nothing so much as to those solemn pictures of Christ that we see painted on a golden background in Byzantine churches. For myself, at least, I have not the slightest doubt that the Gospel, and the Gospel particularly, was originally narrated in a much more vivacious style. Just consider this, for example. In all our present authorities—Greek manuscripts, ancient versions, Syriac, Egyptian, and so forth, and in all the Church Fathers without exception, so far as I am aware—we read the beautiful words: “your Father knoweth what things ye have need of before ye ask Him,” πρὸ τοῦ ὑμᾶς αἰτῆσαι αὐτόν (Matt. vi. 8). Compare with this what we find singly and solely in Codex D and the Old Latin h, πρὸ τοῦ ἀνοῖξαι τὸ στόμα, antequam os aperiatis, “before ever you open your mouth.” To me it is a striking indication to what an extent the instinctive sense of originality is wanting, that a reading like this is not inserted by Westcott and Hort among their Noteworthy Rejected Readings, nor even cited by Baljon in his critical apparatus, and that our commentators have not a single syllable about it, so that our students and preachers know nothing whatever of this form of the words of Jesus. If my edition of the New Testament did no more than bring such things to the notice of those who previously were unacquainted with them, I should consider it had done no small service. But take another illustration from the parable of the Barren Fig Tree. “Cut it down, why cumbereth it the ground,”—that is how our ordinary texts give the commandment of the justly indignant husbandman in Luke xiii. 7: ἔκκοψον αὐτήν· ἱνατί καὶ τὴν γῆν καταργεῖ. Here again, the great majority of our witnesses of every sort exhibit no variation worth mentioning, except that a good many (A L T etc.) insert a very prosy οὖν after the imperative, while B 80 read τὸν τόπον for τὴν γῆν. And in the answer of the vine-dresser (verse 8), “till I shall dig about it and dung it,” there is again no various reading in our ordinary witnesses of all kinds except the insignificant interchange of (βάλω) κόπρια, κοπρίαν, and κόπρον. What a difference do we find here also in the text of D: “bring the axe,” φέρε τὴν ἀξίνην, adfers securem; and, “I will throw in a basket of dung,” βάλω κόφινον κοπρίων, mittam qualum (= squalum) stercoris d, or cophinum stercoris a b c f ff2 i l q, from which it was taken into the Codex of Marmoutier, a copy of the Alcuinian recension of the Vulgate written in gold.[185] Here again, our editors and commentators for the most part take no notice. “Bring the axe” is omitted by Weiss, father and son, Westcott-Hort, Tregelles, and also by Baljon, while Holtzmann ignores both variants. It stands to reason, of course, that greater vivacity of style is not of itself an actual proof of greater originality. But the whole question is raised as to the principles by which we are to be guided in estimating the comparative value of the witnesses. One might be inclined to regard such peculiarities as due to the caprice of some scribe by whom D or its parent manuscript was written. As a matter of fact, Westcott and Hort, and most recent editors with them, do so regard them, seeing they cite the reading of D neither in Matt. vi. 8 nor in Luke xiii. 7. In the latter passage one might be inclined to take that view of the case, because as yet we have no other testimony to φέρε τὴν ἀξίνην than D d. But it is not so likely in the case of Matt. vi. 8, seeing that here the testimony of D is supported by that of h. To justify our neglect of these witnesses, we should require to prove either that h is derived from D or D from h.[186] So far as my knowledge goes, no one has yet maintained the latter view. The derivation of h from D is an impossibility, for this reason alone that h belongs either to the fourth, or, what is perhaps more likely, to the fifth century (see p. 113).[187] The truth is, rather, that we have in h a second and independent witness to the fact that at a very early date the text of Matt. vi. 8 read, “before you open your mouth.” But it is quite impossible to ignore the evidence of D in Luke xiii. 8 (κόφινον κοπρίων). Here too, of course, one might take exception and say that as D is bilingual, its Greek text might be derived from the Latin. Fortunately, however, it happens that the Latin of D, that is, d, differs from all the other eight Latin witnesses in reading not cophinus but qualus, and it is cophinus that is a loan word from the Greek[188]; so that this objection, actually raised against D in the case of other readings, does not apply to this one. There is this to be observed, moreover—a point not given in Tischendorf, but noticed in Westcott and Hort—viz., that Origen also seems to have read “basket.” The passage is again one that is extant only in the Latin translation of Rufinus, and Tischendorf cites Or. 3, 452 among the witnesses supporting κόπρια; but Westcott and Hort expressly mention that Origen’s context appears to support the reading κόφινον (“Lev. lat. Ruf., 190, apparently with context”).
Here, then, we have these three stages:—
(1) D d alone, φέρε τὴν ἀξίνην—i.e. one solitary Greek manuscript.
(2) D supported by h, ἀνοῖξαι τὸ στόμα—i.e. the same solitary Greek manuscript with the addition of one representative of a version.
(3) D supported by eight Latin manuscripts and Origen, κόφινον κοπρίων—i.e. the same solitary Greek manuscript with the addition of eight representatives of one version and one not absolutely certain quotation.
What then? Can it be allowable to judge a reading’s claim to be mentioned and considered from the number of the witnesses supporting it, and like Westcott and Hort and Baljon to mention the third only, and take no notice of the other two? I think not. For just as in certain circumstances the correct reading may no longer appear in any manuscript, but must be determined by conjecture, so in another case the truth may have only one solitary representative left to support it against a whole world of adversaries (Heb. xii. 3), and this solitary witness either a manuscript, a version, or a quotation. On the other hand, it may have a whole cloud of witnesses accompanying it and supporting it. In matters of this kind numbers have nothing to do with the case whatever. To speak of majorities is nonsense. The true man is willing and able to stand alone, and to many a witness of this sort we must apply the words of Socrates: ἃ μὲν συνῆκα γενναῖα· οἶμαι δὲ καὶ ἃ μὴ συνῆκα. If we have been able to verify the word of a witness once, several times, frequently, then we shall be willing to trust him even in cases where we cannot check his evidence. Of course we must make allowance for human fallibility—quandoque bonus dormitat Homerus; least of all in matters of this kind must we look for inerrancy. A manuscript whose testimony was decisive on every point would be even a greater miracle than a book printed without a single error at the time of the Incunabula, which the printers of that age would have regarded as an eighth wonder of the world. But how to estimate the character of such a witness, seeing that the subjective feeling, the instinctive perception of what is original, is as little to be trusted as the number of the witnesses—that is the difficulty. And what is the point that our discussion has brought us to? From the “official recensions of the text” made in the later centuries, we sought to get back to similar works of earlier times, and we found that the original text may have suffered as much at the hands of orthodox revisers and correctors, who toned down and obscured the fresh colouring of the ancient records, as at the hands of heretics who inserted foreign and extraneous elements.[189]
Unfortunately very little definite information has come down to us from those early times, and as that relates more to the history of the canon than of the text, reference must be made here to the monumental work of Zahn.[190] Two figures, however, emerge from this chaos who have left their traces on the history of the text as well, Tatian and Marcion, the former chiefly in connection with the Gospels, the latter with the Pauline Epistles. Both have been already referred to more than once in the chapter on the “Materials” (Tatian, p. 97 f.; Marcion, pp. 76, 87), and both will require careful consideration here in our treatment of the principles involved in the reconstruction of the text. How much would be achieved could we but restore the original work of Tatian upon the Gospels, or the Gospel and the Apostle of Marcion!