Part 10 (2/2)

Much stress has been laid on the silence of certain of the Greek Fathers concerning the doxology although they wrote expressly on the Lord's Prayer; as Origen, Gregory of Nyssa[171], Cyril of Jerusalem, Maximus.

Those who have attended most to such subjects will however bear me most ready witness, that it is never safe to draw inferences of the kind proposed from the silence of the ancients. What if they regarded a doxology, wherever found, as hardly a fitting subject for exegetical comment? But however their silence is to be explained, it is at least quite certain that the reason of it is not because their copies of St.

Matthew were unfurnished with the doxology. Does any one seriously imagine that in A.D. 650, when Maximus wrote, Evangelia were, in this respect, in a different state from what they are at present?

The sum of what has been offered may be thus briefly stated:--The textual perturbation observable at St. Matt. vi. 13 is indeed due to a liturgical cause, as the critics suppose. But then it is found that not the great bulk of the Evangelia, but only Codd. [Symbol: Aleph]BDZ, 1, 17, 118, 130, 209, have been victims of the corrupting influence. As usual, I say, it is the few, not the many copies, which have been led astray. Let the doxology at the end of the Lord's Prayer be therefore allowed to retain its place in the text without further molestation. Let no profane hands be any more laid on these fifteen precious words of the Lord Jesus Christ.

There yet remains something to be said on the same subject for the edification of studious readers; to whom the succeeding words are specially commended. They are requested to keep their attention sustained, until they have read what immediately follows.

The history of the rejection of these words is in a high degree instructive. It dates from 1514, when the Complutensian editors, whilst admitting that the words were found in their Greek copies, banished them from the text solely in deference to the Latin version. In a marginal annotation they started the hypothesis that the doxology is a liturgical interpolation. But how is that possible, seeing that the doxology is commented on by Chrysostom? 'We presume,' they say, 'that this corruption of the original text must date from an antecedent period.'

The same adverse sentence, supported by the same hypothesis, was reaffirmed by Erasmus, and on the same grounds; but in his edition of the N.T. he suffered the doxology to stand. As the years have rolled out, and Codexes DBZ[Symbol: Aleph] have successively come to light, critics have waxed bolder and bolder in giving their verdict. First, Grotius, Hammond, Walton; then Mill and Grabe; next Bengel, Wetstein, Griesbach; lastly Scholz, Lachmann, Tischendorf, Tregelles, Alford, Westcott and Hort, and the Revisers have denounced the precious words as spurious.

But how does it appear that tract of time has strengthened the case against the doxology? Since 1514, scholars have become acquainted with the Pes.h.i.+tto version; which by its emphatic verdict, effectually disposes of the evidence borne by all but three of the Old Latin copies.

The [Greek: Didache] of the first or second century, the Sahidic version of the third century, the Apostolic Const.i.tutions (2), follow on the same side. Next, in the fourth century come Chrysostom, Ambrose, ps.-Caesarius, the Gothic version. After that Isidore, the Ethiopic, Cureton's Syriac. The Harkleian, Armenian, Georgian, and other versions, with Chrysostom (2), the Opus Imperfectum, Theophylact, and Euthymius (2), bring up the rear[172]. Does any one really suppose that two Codexes of the fourth century (B[Symbol: Aleph]), which are even notorious for their many omissions and general accuracy, are any adequate set-off against such an amount of ancient evidence? L and 33, generally the firm allies of BD and the Vulgate, forsake them at St.

Matt. vi. 13: and dispose effectually of the adverse testimony of D and Z, which are also balanced by [Symbol: Phi] and [Symbol: Sigma]. But at this juncture the case for rejecting the doxology breaks down: and when it is discovered that every other uncial and every other cursive in existence may be appealed to in its support, and that the story of its liturgical origin proves to be a myth,--what must be the verdict of an impartial mind on a survey of the entire evidence?

The whole matter may be conveniently restated thus:--Liturgical use has indeed been the cause of a depravation of the text at St. Matt. vi. 13; but it proves on inquiry to be the very few MSS.,--not the very many,--which have been depraved.

Nor is any one at liberty to appeal to a yet earlier period than is attainable by existing liturgical evidence; and to suggest that then the doxology used by the priest may have been the same with that which is found in the ordinary text of St. Matthew's Gospel. This may have been the case or it may not. Meanwhile, the hypothesis, which fell to the ground when the statement on which it rested was disproved, is not now to be built up again on a mere conjecture. But if the fact could be ascertained,--and I am not at all concerned to deny that such a thing is possible,--I should regard it only as confirmatory of the genuineness of the doxology. For why should the liturgical employment of the last fifteen words of the Lord's Prayer be thought to cast discredit on their genuineness? In the meantime, the undoubted fact, that for an indefinitely remote period the Lord's Prayer was not publicly recited by the people further than 'But deliver us from evil,'--a doxology of some sort being invariably added, but p.r.o.nounced by the priest alone,--this clearly ascertained fact is fully sufficient to account for a phenomenon so ordinary [found indeed so commonly throughout St. Matthew, to say nothing of occurrences in the other Gospels] as really not to require particular explanation, viz. the omission of the last half of St.

Matthew vi. 13 from Codexes [Symbol: Aleph]BDZ.

FOOTNOTES:

[145] [I have retained this pa.s.sage notwithstanding the objections made in some quarters against similar pa.s.sages in the companion volume, because I think them neither valid, nor creditable to high intelligence, or to due reverence.]

[146] [The Textual student will remember that besides the Lectionaries of the Gospels mentioned here, of which about 1000 are known, there are some 300 more of the Acts and Epistles, called by the name Apostolos.]

[147] ['It seems also a singular note of antiquity that the Sabbath and the Sunday succeeding it do as it were cohere, and bear one appellation; so that the week takes its name--_not_ from the Sunday with which it commences, but--from the Sat.u.r.day-and-Sunday with which it concludes.'

Twelve Verses, p. 194, where more particulars are given.]

[148] [For the contents of these Tables, see Scrivener's Plain Introduction, 4th edition, vol. i. pp. 80-89.]

[149] See Scrivener's Plain Introduction, 4th edition, vol. i. pp.

56-65.

[150] Twelve Verses, p. 220. The MS. stops in the middle of a sentence.

[151] St. Luke xxii. 43, 44.

[152] In the absence of materials supplied by the Dean upon what was his own special subject, I have thought best to extract the above sentences from the Twelve Last Verses, p. 207. The next ill.u.s.tration is his own, though in my words.

[153] i. 311.

[154] [Greek: eipen ho Kyrios tois heautou mathetais; me tara.s.sestho.]

[155] [Greek: kai eipen tois mathetais autou]. The same Codex (D) also prefixes to St. Luke xvi. 19 the Ecclesiastical formula--[Greek: eipen de kai eteran parabolen].

[156] '_Et ait discipulis suis, non turbetur_.'

[157] E.g. the words [Greek: kai legei autois; eirene hymin] have been omitted by Tisch, and rejected by W.-Hort from St. Luke xxiv. 36 _on the sole authority_ of D and five copies of the Old Latin. Again, on the same sorry evidence, the words [Greek: proskynesantes auton] have been omitted or rejected by the same critics from St. Luke xxiv. 52. In both instances the expressions are also branded with doubt in the R. V.

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