174. A. D. Loman would emend this passage by reading εἴτε ἀπὸ μοχθηρίας τῆς διορθώσεως τῶν γραφομένων εἴτε καὶ ἀπὸ τόλμης τινῶν τῶν τὰ ἑαυτοῖς δοκοῦντα (Leiden. Theol. Tijdschr., vii., 1873, 233).
175. What he says is (Viri Illust., c. 75): Pamphilus presbyter, Eusebii Caesariensis episcopi necessarius, tanto bibliothecae divinae amore flagravit, ut maximam partem Origenis voluminum sua manu descripserit, quae usque hodie in Caesariensi bibliotheca habetur. Sed et in duodecim prophetas vigintiquinque ἐξηγήσεων Origenis volumina manu eius (i.e. Pamphili) exarata repperi, quae tanto amplector et servo gaudio, ut Croesi opes habere me credam. Si enim laetitia est unam epistulam habere martyris, quanto magis tot milia versuum, quae mihi videntur suis sanguinis signasse vestigiis. The above is Richardson’s text. Bernoulli (Krüger’s Sammlung, Heft xi. 1895) reads habentur, Sed in, and videtur, and also omits volumina.
176. Προσφώνησις· κορωνίς εἰμι δογμάτων θείων διδάσκαλος· ἄν τινί με χρήσῃς ἀντίβιβλον λάμβανε, οἱ γὰρ ἀποδόται κακοί· Ἀντίφρασις· θησαυρὸν ἔχων σε πνευματικῶν ἀγαθῶν καὶ πᾶσιν ἀνθρώποις ποθητὸν ἁρμονίαις τε καὶ ποικίλαις γραμμαῖς κεκοσμημένον—νὴ τὴν ἀλήθειαν—οὐ δώσω σε προχείρως τινὶ οὐδ’ αὖ φθονέσω τῆς ὠφελείας, χρήσω δὲ τοῖς φίλοις ἀντίβιβλον λαμβάνων. The last seven words, which are erased in H, are supplied by the minuscule 93paul and the Armenian version. On ἀντίβιβλον = “borrowing-receipt” or “voucher,” see ThLz., 1895, 283, 407. See also Robinson, Euthaliana, Texts and Studies, iii. 3.
177. To the literature referred to on p. 79 should be added the second section of Bousset’s Textkritische Studien (TU. xi. 4, 1894), entitled, Der Codex Pamphili, pp. 45-73. Bousset affirms the close connection between the Corrector of Sinaiticus indicated by Tischendorf as c and Codex H. I have established the connection of this corrector in the Psalter with Eusebius by means of the latter’s Commentary on the Psalms (see above, p. 58). As yet no one appears to have examined the New Testament quotations in Eusebius. Cf. however Bousset, ThLz., 1900, 22, 611 ff.
178. It runs: Εἰσὶν ὅσα προτεταγμένον ἔχουσι τὸν ἀριθμὸν ὧδε, ὅσα Ὠριγένην ἐπιγεγραμμένον ἔχει τούτῳ τῷ μονοσυλλάβῳ Ρ/Ω· εἰσὶ δὲ μάλιστα ἐν τῷ Ἰώβ· ὅσα δὲ περὶ διαφωνίας ῥητῶν τινῶν τῶν ἐν τῷ ἐδαφίῳ ἢ ἐκδόσεών ἐστιν σχόλια, ἅπερ καὶ κάτω νενευκυῖαν περιεστιγμένην ἔχει προτεταγμένην, τῶν ἀντιβεβληκότων τὸ βιβλίον ἐστίν· ὅσα δὲ ἀμφιβόλως ἔξω κείμενα ῥητὰ ἔξω νενευκυῖαν περιεστιγμένην ἔχει προτεταγμένην, διὰ τὰ σχόλια προσετέθησαν κατ’ αὐτὰ τοῦ μεγάλου εἰρηκότος διδασκάλου ἵνα μὴ δόξῃ κατὰ κενοῦ τὸ σχόλιον φέρεσθαι, ἐν πολλοῖς μὲν τῶν ἀντιγράφων τῶν ῥητῶν οὕτως ἐχόντων, ἐν τούτῳ δὲ μὴ οὕτως κειμένων ἢ μηδ’ ὅλως φερομένων καὶ διὰ τοῦτο προστεθέντων.
179. Περι των ὀ ερμηνευτων, iv. 904. Athens, 1844-1849.
181. Euthaliusstudien, pp. 111-115; 115 ff.
182. Neue Jahrbücher für deutsche Theologie, ii. 3, 3 (1894), pp. 360-363. Compare also von Dobschütz, lib. cit., 111.
183. μάλιστα δὲ παρὰ τοὺς καθ’ ἡμᾶς πάντας διέπρεπε τῇ περὶ τὰ θεῖα λόγια γνησιωτάτῃ σπουδῇ. Euseb., Eccl. Hist., viii. 11.
184. See above, p. 87 ff., on Evan. 473, Act. 246, 419, Evl. 286, and compare Zahn, ThLbl., 1899, 181: Would that some one with the time and opportunity to work in the Monasteries of Mount Athos applied himself to the Codex written in the year 800 by the unhappy Empress Maria (Lambros 129, S. Pauli 2). Since the above was written the manuscript has been collated by Von der Goltz.
185. On κόφινον κοπρίων, see Chase, Syro-Latin Text, p. 135 f. It may be observed in passing how variously καταργεῖ is rendered in the different Latin manuscripts—viz. by evacuat in b ff2 l q, by detinet in ff2c i r, by intricat in e, and by occupat in d and the Vulgate.
186. The evidence of d in this passage cannot be had, unfortunately, as eight leaves (a quaternio) containing the Greek of Matt. vi. 20-ix. 2, and the Latin of vi. 8-viii. 27, have gone amissing.
187. Unfortunately h exhibits only the text of Matthew, otherwise I might simply have referred to the list of variants on p. 120. I am not aware if what Wordsworth and White (vol. i. p. xxxii) say of this manuscript is still true: Codex hodie, ut fertur, in bibliotheca Vaticana inveniri non potest.
188. See Index in Wordsworth and White, p. 751.
189. At the same time it must be pointed out here that not only in Luke and Acts, but in all the books of the N. T., it is wrong in principle to present the alternative “original or later alteration” or even forgery. The dilemma can be wrongly stated. Blass was not the first to express the opinion, “Lucam bis edidisse Actus.” De Dieu did so before him, and by an examination of those passages of the Gospels in which the original text has been preserved in purely “Western” witnesses Hort (§ 241) was led to suppose that the Western and non-Western texts may have “started respectively from a first and a second edition of the Gospels, both conceivably apostolic.” Similarly Wordsworth and White are unable to explain the origin and propagation of several readings in the manuscripts of the Vulgate otherwise than by supposing that the primitive document itself contained certain variants (corrections) in the passages in question.
190. Geschichte des neutestamentlichen Kanons (Erlangen): I. Band, Das N. T. vor Origenes, 1 and 2 Hälfte, 1888-89; II. Band, Urkunden und Belege zum ersten und dritten Band, 1890-92. It is to be hoped that the third volume will not be long in making its appearance. Along with this we must take his Forschungen zur Geschichte des neutestamentlichen Kanons und der altkirchlichen Literatur, of which six volumes have been published (1881-1900). Meanwhile Zahn’s Einleitung in das Neue Testament (Leipzig, I., 1898; II., 1899, 2nd ed., 1900) cannot be too strongly recommended. It contains a great deal of valuable material for the criticism of the text. Needless to say, textual criticism is the basis on which all sound exegesis rests.
191. A small selection will be found in Preuschen, Analecta, pp. 152-157.
192. Here again, unfortunately, we have no collection of notices referring to the history of the text as distinguished from that of the canon.
193. Jülicher, loc. cit., from Sozomen, Hist. Eccl., i. 11. On the Latin form grabattum, see W.-W., Index, p. 756, σκίμπους occurs as early as Clem. Al. Paed., 1, 2, 6. In the parallels to Mark ii. 6, Matthew has κλίνη (ix. 6), and Luke κλινίδιον (v. 24). Cf. the passage cited by Lagarde (De Novo Test., 20 = Ges. Abh., 118) from Lucian’s Philopseudes, 11; ὁ Μίδας αὐτὸς ἀράμενος τὸν σκίμποδα ἐφ’ οὗ ἐκεκόμιστο ᾤχετο εἰς ἀγρὸν ἀπιών.
194. Τὴν σήμερον οὖν Κυριακὴν ἡμέραν διηγάγομεν, ἐν ᾗ ἀνέγνωμεν ὑμῶν τὴν ἐπιστολήν· ἣν ἕξομεν ἀεί ποτε ἀναγινώσκοντες νουθετεῖσθαι, ὡς καὶ τὴν προτέραν ἡμῖν διὰ Κλήμεντος γραφεῖσαν.
195. Cf. Matt. xiii. 27, δοῦλοι τοῦ οἰκοδεσπότου, and also the superscriptions of the N. T. Epistles, particularly those of Paul, where δοῦλος Ἰησοῦ Χριστοῦ is varied by ἀπόστολος Ἰ. Χ.
196. “is reserved”—Syr.
197. “but”—Syr.
198. This reading is confirmed by the Syriac as against ὑπ’ αὐτοῦ read by Christophorson and Savil.
199. The passage is a conspicuous example of the importance of punctuation. Bengel punctuates ἅγιον, κληθήσεται υἱὸς Θεοῦ, and Westcott and Hort ἅγιον κληθήσεται, υἱὸς Θεοῦ. Weiss is accordingly not quite right in citing Bengel along with Bleek and Hoffman as supporting the view of Tertullian (see Bengel’s Gnomon). It will be difficult to prove that Tertullian’s construction is impossible “on account of the position of κληθήσεται.” Westcott and Hort surely know Greek, and Tertullian knew it better than any of us.
200. It seems worth while to quote here Harnack’s words on these notices of the earliest attempts at textual criticism. He says (ibid., p. 189): “The charge preferred against the disciples of that erudite Tanner (Theodotus) by the author of the Little Labyrinth is threefold. He complains of their formal and grammatical exegesis of Scripture, of their arbitrary system of textual criticism, and of the extent to which they were engrossed in Logic, Mathematics, and empirical Science. At the first glance, therefore, it would appear that these people had no interest to spare for Theology. But the very opposite is the case. The complainant himself has to confess that they employed the method of grammatical exegesis ‘with the object of establishing their godless conclusions,’ and textual criticism in order to correct the manuscripts of the holy Scriptures. In place of the allegorical method of exposition, the grammatical is the only right one, and we have here an attempt to discover a text more nearly resembling the original instead of simply accepting the traditional form. How inimitable and charming really are these notices!... These scholars had to be generals without an army, because their grammar and textual criticism and logic might only discredit in the eyes of the churches that christological method which long tradition had invested with admiration and respect.... As ‘genuine’ scholars—this is an exceedingly characteristic description that is given of them—they also took a jealous care that none of them lost the credit of his conjectures and emendations. No remnants have been preserved of the works of these the first scholarly exegetes of the Christian Church (the Syntagma knows of the existence of such; cf. Epiph. lv. c. 1).” So writes Harnack. Nothing, however, is said in the text of Eusebius of a jealous watch over the priority of the conjectures. In the sentence which Harnack renders “for their disciples have with an ambitious zeal recorded what each one has corrected as they call it, that is corrupted (deleted?),” φιλοτίμως ἐγγεγράφθαι is to be understood simply of a diligent record of “corrections” undertaken solely out of an interest in their contents. According to the Syriac ἠφανισμένα is not to be rendered by “deleted,” but as Harnack translates it: cf. the various Syriac versions in Matthew vi. verse 16 (Syrp), verses 19 and 20 (Syrpc). On the validity of the charge of inventing false Scriptures, see Zahn, GK. 1, 296 f.
201. Westcott, Canon, Pt. I. c. iv. § 8, p. 308 ff.
202. Westcott, Canon, Pt. I. c. iv. p. 310.
203. Ibid., p. 291.
204. Ibid., p. 303 ff. Cf. Texts and Studies, vol. i. 4: The Fragments of Heracleon, by A. E. Brooke, M.A.
205. On the literature of the subject, cf. Zahn, GK. i. 585-718, Das N. T. Marcions; ii. 409-529, Marcions N. T. All other works are superseded by this, but mention may still be made of A. Hahn, Das Evangelium Marcions in seiner ursprünglichen Gestalt (1823); Thilo, Codex Apocryphus Novi Testamenti (1832: for this work Hahn attempted to restore the text of Marcion, pp. 401-486); A. Ritschl, Das Evangelium Marcions und das kanonische Evangelium des Lucas (1846); Hilgenfeld, in the Z. f. hist. Theol., 1855, pp. 426-484; Sanday, The Gospels in the Second Century, c. viii.
206. The proof passages will be found in Zahn, GK. i. 620, 626, 663: machaera non stilo: erubescat spongia Marcionis (Tert., v. 4, p. 282. Is it permissible to infer from this that minium was already used in manuscripts of the Bible at that time?—cf. Augustine, Con. Jul., iii. 13: ipsum libri tui argumentum erubescendo convertatur in minium): non miror si syllabas subtrahit, quum paginas totas plerumque subducet. Quis tam comesor mus Ponticus quam qui evangelia corrosit (con. Marc., i. 1): tuum apostoli codicem licet sit undique circumrosus (Adamantius).
207. See the passage from Tertullian (cotidie reformant illud (sc. evangelium), prout a nobis cotidie revincuntur), and from Adamantius (Pseudo-Origenes, de la Rue, i. 887 = Lat. in Caspari Anecdota, i. 57) in Zahn, GK. i. 613.
208. Cf. also GK. p. 681.
209. Cf. Westcott, Canon, Pt. I. c. iv. § 9, Marcion: “Some of the omissions can be explained at once by his peculiar doctrines, but others are unlike arbitrary corrections, and must be considered as various readings of the greatest interest, dating as they do to a time anterior to all other authorities in our possession” (p. 315). See also note at the end of the paragraph, where certain readings peculiar to Marcion are cited.
211. Cf. also ibid., p. 682: “I repeat that readings which are proved to be earlier than Marcion by their simultaneous occurrence in his text and that of the several Catholic witnesses deserve greater consideration both in the Gospels and Epistles than has generally been accorded them. It is much more important to ascertain whether a certain reading has the support of Marcion than to observe that it occurs in this or that uncial manuscript. In spite of this, however, the critical notes in our commentaries hardly ever refer to Marcion, not to speak of their doing so systematically.”
212. Pp. 409-449, on the criticism of the sources; pp. 449-529, the restoration of the text. On p. 449 f. he gives his verdict on the earlier works of Hilgenfeld, Volkmar, and van Manen in this direction.
213. Zahn interjects “as yet.”
214. We have not yet discovered a manuscript containing exactly Marcion’s text. The chances of our still doing so are very small in view of the hatred with which Marcion was pursued. But when the libelli of certain libellatici have been found, and also a great part of the Gospel of Peter, we need not despair of finding other lost works as well. Codex 604 is interesting as exhibiting the Marcionite reading, ἐλθέτω τὸ πνεῦμά σου ἐφ’ ἡμᾶς καὶ καθαρισάτω ἡμᾶς, in the Lord’s Prayer, Luke xi. 2. The same manuscript omits με λέγετε εἶναι in Luke ix. 20, and λέγουσα in verse 35. Compare also Jülicher, Gleichnisreden Jesu, ii. 5: “Marcion, who perhaps created the Roman text of Luke xxi. 30.”
215. On this passage W.-W. observe: “D ex Latinis forsan correctus.”
216. “Licet suos adiectio sit haeretici.” Tertullian.
217. In the critical notes at the end of this chapter I have cited a number of Marcion’s readings from Zahn’s work, with the hope that these will now earn a fuller recognition in our theological commentaries. See e.g. on Luke xviii. 20; xxiii. 2; xxiv. 37; 1 Cor. vi. 20; xiv. 19.
218. See Literature on p. 105 f., to which add Westcott, Canon, Part I. c. iv. § 10.
219. Defending the plurality of the canonical Gospels against the Marcionites, he says: τὸ ἀληθῶς διὰ τεσσάρων ἕν ἐστιν εὐαγγέλιον (Philocalia, ed. Robinson, 47; Zahn, GK. i. 412; PRE3, v. 654). From what Origen says, Contra Celsum, vi. 51, it would seem that he himself heard Tatian.
220. Euseb., Hist. Eccl., iv. 29, with reference to the Encratites: Χρῶνται μὲν οὖν οὗτοι Νόμῳ καὶ Προφήταις καὶ Εὐαγγελίοις (Syriac has אונגליון), ἰδίως ἑρμηνεύοντες τῶν ἱερῶν τὰ νοήματα γραφῶν ... βλασφημοῦντες δὲ Παῦλον τὸν ἀπόστολον ἀθετοῦσιν αὐτοῦ τὰς Ἐπιστολὰς, μηδὲ τὰς Πράξεις τῶν ἀποστόλων καταδεχόμενοι. ὁ μέντοι γε πρότερος αὐτῶν ἀρχηγὸς ὁ Τατιανὸς συνάφειάν τινα καὶ συναγωγὴν οὐκ οἶδ’ ὅπως τῶν Εὐαγγελίων συνθεὶς Τὸ Διὰ Τεσσάρων τοῦτο προσωνόμασεν· ὃ καὶ παρά τισιν εἰσέτι φέρεται. Τοῦ δὲ Ἀποστόλου φασὶ τολμῆσαί τινας αὐτὸν μεταφράσαι φωνὰς ὡς ἐπιδιορθούμενον αὐτῶν τὴν τῆς φράσεως σύνταξιν. Καταλέλοιπε δὲ οὗτος πολύ τι πλῆθος γραμμάτων κ.τ.λ. In the Syriac version it runs: But this Tatian, their first head, collected and combined and framed a (or, the) אונגליון and called it דיטסרון, that is “the combined,” which is in the possession of many till this day. And it is said of him that he ventured to alter certain phrases of the Apostle (the plural points in the Syriac are to be omitted) as with the object of amending the composition of the phrases. And he has left many writings, etc.
221. Epiphan., Haeret., 46, 1 (Pet. 391): λέγουσι δὲ τὸ διὰ τεσσάρων Εὐαγγέλιον ὑπ’ αὐτοῦ γεγενῆσθαι, ὅπερ κατὰ Ἑβραίους τινὲς καλοῦσι.
222. Minuscule Evan. 72 (Harleianus 5647 of the eleventh century) on Matt. xxvii. 48: ση[μείωσαι] ὅτι εἰς τὸ καθ’ ἱστορίαν εὐαγγέλιον Διοδώρου καὶ Τατιανοῦ καὶ ἄλλων διαφόρων ἁγίων πατέρων τοῦτο προσκεῖται. Instead of Διοδώρου, Harnack-Preuschen (i. 493), read Διαδώρου, whether rightly or not I do not know. Nothing being known of the historical Gospel of one Diodorus, it is natural enough to conjecture (Zahn, Forsch., i. 28) that the reading should be διὰ δ’, but what becomes then of ωρου καὶ? Harnack suggests διὰ δ’ Σύρου Τατιανοῦ, but see Zahn, Forsch., ii. 298. The omission of the article before διὰ δ’ is a difficulty.
223. In his Ἐπιτομὴ αἱρετικῆς κακομυθίας (i. 20; vol. iv. 312), written in the year 453, he says at the end of the chapter on Tatian:—οὗτος καὶ τὸ διὰ τεσσάρων καλούμενον συντέθεικεν εὐαγγέλιον, τάς τε γενεαλογίας περικόψας καὶ τὰ ἄλλα ὅσα ἐκ σπέρματος Δαβὶδ κατὰ σάρκα γεγεννημένον τὸν κύριον δείκνυσιν, ἐχρήσαντο δὲ τούτῳ οὐ μόνοι οἱ τῆς ἐκείνου συμμορίας, ἀλλὰ καὶ οἱ τοῖς ἀποστολικοῖς ἑπόμενοι δόγμασι, τὴν τῆς συνθήκης κακουργίαν οὐκ ἐγνωκότες, ἀλλ’ ἁπλούστερον ὡς συντόμῳ τῷ βιβλίῳ χρησάμενοι. Εὗρον δὲ κἀγὼ πλείους ἢ διακοσίας βίβλους τοιαύτας ἐν ταῖς παρ’ ἡμῖν ἐκκλησίαις τετιμημένας, καὶ πάσας συναγαγὼν ἀπεθέμην καὶ τὰ τῶν τεττάρων εὐαγγελιστῶν ἀντεισήγαγον.
224. See Hamlyn Hill, Earliest Life of Christ, etc., p. 324; Hope W. Hogg, Ante-Nicene Library, Additional Volume.
225. See Die Ueberlieferung der griechischen Apologeten, 1882, pp. 196-218, and, on the other side, Zahn, Forschungen, ii. 292 ff.
226. The Diatessaron of Tatian: a Preliminary Study, 1890.
227. See ThLz., 1891, col. 356.
228. It is not clear whether Harnack gives this as his own opinion or not. For a reading of cod. Wd, akin to that of Tatian, see below on Mark vii. 33, p. 264.
229. Ante-Nicene Christian Library, Additional Volume, p. 38.
230. See Forschungen, i. 130, 140, 216, 228 f., 237, 248, 263.
231. London, Macmillan, 1895.
232. Forschungen, i. 179.
233. This will be found most conveniently in Hogg’s translation—Ante-Nicene Library, Additional Volume.
234. Cf. p. 393: “To judge from Ephraem’s Commentary, the Diatessaron contains scarcely as much apocryphal matter as Codex Cantabrigiensis of the Gospels and Acts.”
235. In his N. T. um 200, p. 108, Harnack treats Zahn’s interpretation of the words of Eusebius as a bad blunder. The latter defends himself by saying among other things that it is not quite clear whether Eusebius himself was aware of the double meaning of the word μεταφράσαι which was employed in the tradition (he says φασι) reported to him. He thinks that Rufinus might be said to have “paraphrased” certain commentaries of Origen, correcting his thought and phraseology in many places. True, but in Eusebius it is φωνάς τινας τοῦ ἀποστόλου, not whole epistles, that Tatian is said to have “metaphrased.”
236. On the words of Jerome (ad Tit. praef., vii. 686), “Sed Tatianus Encratitarum patriarches, qui et ipse nonnullas Pauli epistolas repudiavit, hanc vel maxime, hoc est ad Titum, apostoli pronuntiandam credidit, parvipendens Marcionis et aliorum qui cum eo in hac parte consentiunt assertionem,” compare Zahn, Forsch., i. 6, GK. i. 426.
237. Introd., ii. § 170, p. 120. On all accounts the Western text claims our attention first. The earliest readings which can be fixed chronologically belong to it. As far as we can judge from extant evidence, it was the most widely-spread text of Ante-Nicene times; and sooner or later every version directly or indirectly felt its influence. But any prepossessions in its favour that might be created by this imposing early ascendancy are for the most part soon dissipated by continuous study of its internal character. The eccentric Whiston’s translation of the Gospels and Acts from the Codex Bezae, and of the Pauline Epistles from the Codex Claromontanus, and Bornemann’s edition of the Acts, in which the Codex Bezae was taken as the standard authority, are probably the only attempts which have ever been made in modern times to set up an exclusively, or even predominantly, Western Greek text as the purest reproduction of what the Apostles wrote. This all but universal rejection is doubtless partly owing to the persistent influence of a whimsical theory of the last century, which, ignoring all non-Latin Western documentary evidence except the handful of extant bilingual uncials, maintained that the Western Greek text owed its peculiarities to translation from the Latin; partly to an imperfect apprehension of the antiquity and extension of the Western text as revealed by Patristic quotations and by versions. Yet even with the aid of a true perception of the facts of Ante-Nicene textual history, it would have been strange if this text, as a whole, had found much favour. A few scattered Western readings have long been approved by good textual critics on transcriptional and to a great extent insufficient grounds; and in Tischendorf’s last edition their number has been augmented, owing to the misinterpreted accession of the Sinai MS. to the attesting documents. To one small and peculiar class of Western readings, exclusively omissions, we shall ourselves have to call attention as having exceptional claims to adoption.
§ 202 (p. 149). In spite of the prodigious amount of error which D contains, these readings, in which it sustains and is sustained by other documents derived from very ancient texts of other types, render it often invaluable for the secure recovery of the true text; and, apart from this direct applicability, no other single source of evidence, except the quotations of Origen, surpasses it in value on the equally important ground of historical or indirect instructiveness. To what extent its unique readings are due to licence on the part of the scribe rather than to faithful reproduction of an antecedent text now otherwise lost, it is impossible to say; but it is remarkable how frequently the discovery of fresh evidence, especially Old-Latin evidence, supplies a second authority for readings in which D had hitherto stood alone.
§ 240 (p. 175). On the other hand there remain, as has been before intimated (§ 170), a few other Western readings of similar form, which we cannot doubt to be genuine in spite of the exclusively Western character of their attestation. They are all omissions, or, to speak more correctly, non-interpolations of various length, that is to say, the original record has here, to the best of our belief, suffered interpolation in all the extant non-Western texts.... With a single peculiar exception (Matt. xxvii. 49), in which the extraneous words are omitted by the Syrian as well as by the Western text, the Western non-interpolations are confined to the last three chapters of St. Luke.
§ 241. These exceptional instances of the preservation of the original text in exclusively Western readings are likely to have had an exceptional origin.
In the edition of 1896, the surviving editor (Westcott) appends an Additional Note which contains a further exceedingly valuable admission in the same direction. It is as follows:—
Note to p. 121, § 170 (p. 328): “The Essays of Dr. Chase on The Syriac Element in Codex Bezae, Cambridge, 1893, and The Syro-Latin Text of the Gospels, Cambridge, 1895, are a most important contribution to the solution of a fundamental problem in the history of the text of the N.T. The discovery of the Sinaitic MS. of the Old Syriac raises the question whether the combination of the oldest types of the Syriac and Latin texts can outweigh the combination of the primary Greek texts. A careful examination of the passages in which Syrsin and k are arrayed against א B, would point to the conclusion.” [The proper title of Chase’s Essays is The Old Syriac, under which shorter (outside) title Zahn also quotes them (Einl., ii. 348).] This statement by Westcott sounds strange after the remark made in the Preface. “For the rest,” he says there, “I may perhaps be allowed to say that no arguments have been advanced against the general principles maintained in the Introduction and illustrated in the Notes since the publication of the First Edition, which were not fully considered by Dr. Hort and myself in the long course of our work, and in our judgment dealt with accurately.—Auckland Castle, March 27, 1896. B. F. D.”
238. See my Philologica Sacra, p. 3, where I have cited this passage of Lagarde. His book may not be very accessible to textual critics.
239. “Thou shalt worship no manuscripts” was one of the ten commandments that Lehrs gave philologists.
240. This passage was the subject of a heated discussion between Severus and Macedonius at Constantinople in the year 510. On this occasion the superb copy of Matthew’s Gospel, which had been discovered in the grave of Barnabas in the reign of the Emperor Zeno, was brought upon the scene.