Part 17 (2/2)

We are invited then to believe,--for it is well to know at the outset exactly what is required of us,--that from the fifth century downwards every _extant copy of the Gospels except five_ (DLT^{c}, 33, 124) exhibits a text arbitrarily interpolated in order to bring it into conformity with the Greek version of Isa. xxix. 13. On this wild hypothesis I have the following observations to make:--

1. It is altogether unaccountable, if this be indeed a true account of the matter, how it has come to pa.s.s that in no single MS. in the world, so far as I am aware, has this conformity been successfully achieved: for whereas the Septuagintal reading is [Greek: engizei moi ho laos outos EN to stomati AUTOU, kai EN tois cheilesin AUToN TIMoSI me],--the Evangelical Text is observed to differ therefrom in no less than six particulars.

2. Further,--If there really did exist this strange determination on the part of the ancients in general to a.s.similate the text of St. Matthew to the text of Isaiah, how does it happen that not one of them ever conceived the like design in respect of the parallel place in St. Mark?

3. It naturally follows to inquire,--Why are we to suspect the ma.s.s of MSS. of having experienced such wholesale depravation in respect of the text of St. Matthew in this place, while yet we recognize in them such a marked constancy to their own peculiar type; which however, as already explained, is _not_ the text of Isaiah?

4. Further,--I discover in this place a minute ill.u.s.tration of the general fidelity of the ancient copyists: for whereas in St. Matthew it is invariably [Greek: ho laos outos], I observe that in the copies of St. Mark,--except to be sure in (_a_) Codd. B and D, (_b_) copies of the Old Latin, (_c_) the Vulgate, and (_d_) the Pes.h.i.+tto (all of which are confessedly corrupt in this particular,)--it is invariably [Greek: outos ho laos]. But now,--Is it reasonable that the very copies which have been in this way convicted of licentiousness in respect of St. Mark vii.

6 should be permitted to dictate to us against the great heap of copies in respect of their exhibition of St. Matt. xv. 8?

And yet, if the discrepancy between Codd. B and [Symbol: Aleph] and the great bulk of the copies in this place did not originate in the way insisted on by the critics, how is it to be accounted for? Now, on ordinary occasions, we do not feel ourselves called upon to inst.i.tute any such inquiry,--as indeed very seldom would it be practicable to do.

Unbounded licence of transcription, flagrant carelessness, arbitrary interpolations, omissions without number, disfigure those two ancient MSS. in every page. We seldom trouble ourselves to inquire into the history of their obliquities. But the case is of course materially changed when so many of the oldest of the Fathers and all the oldest Versions seem to be at one with Codexes B and [Symbol: Aleph]. Let then the student favour me with his undivided attention for a few moments, and I will explain to him how the misapprehension of Griesbach, Tischendorf, Tregelles and the rest, has arisen. About the MSS. and the Versions these critics are sufficiently accurate: but they have fatally misapprehended the import of the Patristic evidence; as I proceed to explain.

The established Septuagintal rendering of Isa. xxix. 13 in the Apostolic age proves to have been this,--[Greek: Engizei moi ho laos outos tois cheilesin auton timosi me]: the words [Greek: en to stomati auton, kai en] being omitted. This is certain. Justin Martyr[287] and Cyril of Alexandria in two places[288] so quote the pa.s.sage. Procopius Gazaeus in his Commentary on Origen's Hexapla of Isaiah says expressly that the six words in question were introduced into the text of the Septuagint by Aquila, Symmachus, and Theodotion. Accordingly they are often observed to be absent from MSS.[289] They are not found, for example, in the Codex Alexandrinus.

But the asyndeton resulting from the suppression of these words was felt to be intolerable. In fact, without a colon point between [Greek: outos]

and [Greek: tois], the result is without meaning. When once the complementary words have been withdrawn, [Greek: engizei moi] at the beginning of the sentence is worse than superfluous. It fatally enc.u.mbers the sense. To drop those two words, after the example of the parallel place in St. Mark's Gospel, became thus an obvious proceeding.

Accordingly the author of the (so-called) second Epistle of Clemens Roma.n.u.s (-- 3), professing to quote the place in the prophet Isaiah, exhibits it thus,--[Greek: Ho laos outos tois cheilesi me tima]. Clemens Alexandrinus certainly does the same thing on at least two occasions[290]. So does Chrysostom[291]. So does Theodoret[292].

Two facts have thus emerged, which entirely change the aspect of the problem: the first, (_a_) That the words [Greek: en to stomati auton, kai en] were anciently absent from the Septuagintal rendering of Isaiah xxix. 13: the second, (_b_) that the place of Isaiah was freely quoted by the ancients without the initial words [Greek: engizei moi].

And after this discovery will any one be so perverse as to deny that on the contrary it must needs be Codexes B and [Symbol: Aleph], and not the great bulk of the MSS., which exhibit a text corrupted by the influence of the Septuagint rendering of Isaiah xxix. 13? The precise extent to which the a.s.similating influence of the parallel place in St. Mark's Gospel has been felt by the copyists, I presume not to determine. The essential point is that the omission from St. Matthew xv. 8 of the words [Greek: To stomati auton, kai], is certainly due in the first instance to the ascertained Septuagint omission of those very words in Isaiah xxix. 13.

But that the text of St. Mark vii. 6 has exercised an a.s.similating influence on the quotation from Isaiah is demonstrable. For there can be no doubt that Isaiah's phrase (retained by St. Matthew) is [Greek: ho laos outos],--St. Mark's [Greek: outos ho laos]. And yet, when Clemens Roma.n.u.s quotes Isaiah, he begins--[Greek: outos ho laos][293]; and so twice does Theodoret[294].

The reader is now in a position to judge how much attention is due to Dr. Tregelles' dictum 'that this one pa.s.sage may be relied upon' in support of the peculiar views he advocates: as well as to his confident claim that the fuller text which is found in ninety-nine MSS. out of a hundred 'must be regarded as an amplification borrowed from the prophet.' It has been shewn in answer to the learned critic that in the ancient Greek text of the prophet the 'amplification' he speaks of did not exist: it was the abbreviated text which was found there. So that the very converse of the phenomenon he supposes has taken place. Freely accepting his hypothesis that we have here a process of a.s.similation, occasioned by the Septuagintal text of Isaiah, we differ from him only as to the direction in which that process has manifested itself. He a.s.sumes that the bulk of the MSS. have been conformed to the generally received reading of Isaiah xxix. 13. But it has been shewn that, on the contrary, it is the two oldest MSS. which have experienced a.s.similation.

Their prototypes were depraved in this way at an exceedingly remote period.

To state this matter somewhat differently.--In all the extant uncials but five, and in almost every known cursive copy of the Gospels, the words [Greek: to stomati auton, kai] are found to belong to St. Matt.

xv. 8. How is the presence of those words to be accounted for? The reply is obvious:--By the fact that they must have existed in the original autograph of the Evangelist. Such however is not the reply of Griesbach and his followers. They insist that beyond all doubt those words must have been imported into the Gospel from Isaiah xxix. But I have shewn that this is impossible; because, at the time spoken of, the words in question had no place in the Greek text of the prophet. And this discovery exactly reverses the problem, and brings out the directly opposite result. For now we discover that we have rather to inquire how is the absence of the words in question from those few MSS. out of the ma.s.s to be accounted for? The two oldest Codexes are convicted of exhibiting a text which has been corrupted by the influence of the oldest Septuagint reading of Isaiah xxix. 13.

I freely admit that it is in a high degree remarkable that five ancient Versions, and all the following early writers,--Ptolemaeus[295], Clemens Alexandrinus[296], Origen[297], Didymus[298], Cyril[299], Chrysostom[300], and possibly three others of like antiquity[301],--should all quote St.

Matthew in this place from a faulty text. But this does but prove at how extremely remote a period the corruption must have begun. It probably dates from the first century. Especially does it seem to shew how distrustful we should be of our oldest authorities when, as here, they are plainly at variance with the whole torrent of ma.n.u.script authority.

This is indeed no ordinary case. There are elements of distrust here, such as are not commonly encountered.

-- 6.

What I have been saying is aptly ill.u.s.trated by a place in our Lord's Sermon on the Mount: viz. St. Matt. v. 44; which in almost every MS. in existence stands as follows:

(1) [Greek: agapate tous echthrous humon], (2) [Greek: eulogeite tous kataromenous humas], (3) [Greek: kalos poieite tois misousin[302] humas], (4) [Greek: kai proseuchesthe huper ton epereazonton humas], (5) [Greek: kai diokonton hymas][303].

On the other hand, it is not to be denied that there exists an appreciable body of evidence for exhibiting the pa.s.sage in a shorter form. The fact that Origen six times[304] reads the place thus:

[Greek: agapate tous echthrous humon, kai proseuchesthe huper ton diokonton humas].

(which amounts to a rejection of the second, third, and fourth clauses;)--and that he is supported therein by B[Symbol: Aleph], (besides a few cursives) the Curetonian, the Lewis, several Old Latin MSS., and the Bohairic[305], seems to critics of a certain school a circ.u.mstance fatal to the credit of those clauses. They are aware that Cyprian[306], and they are welcome to the information that Tertullian[307] once and Theodoret once[308] [besides Irenaeus[309], Eusebius[310], and Gregory of Nyssa[311]] exhibit the place in the same way. So does the author of the Dialogus contra Marcionitas[312],--whom however I take to be Origen. Griesbach, on far slenderer evidence, was for obelizing all the three clauses. But Lachmann, Tregelles, Tischendorf and the Revisers reject them entirely. I am persuaded that they are grievously mistaken in so doing, and that the received text represents what St. Matthew actually wrote. It is the text of all the uncials but two, of all the cursives but six or seven; and this alone ought to be decisive. But it is besides the reading of the Pes.h.i.+tto, the Harkleian, and the Gothic; as well as of three copies of the Old Latin.

Let us however inquire more curiously for the evidence of Versions and Fathers on this subject; remembering that the point in dispute is nothing else but the genuineness of clauses 2, 3, 4. And here, at starting, we make the notable discovery that Origen, whose practice was relied on for retaining none but the first and the fifth clauses,--himself twice[313] quotes the first clause in connexion with the fourth: while Theodoret, on two occasions[314], connects with clause 1 what he evidently means for clause 2; and Tertullian once if not twice connects closely clauses 1, 2; and once, clauses 1, 2, 5[315]. From which it is plain that neither Origen nor Theodoret, least of all Tertullian, can be held to disallow the clauses in question. They recognize them on the contrary, which is simply a fatal circ.u.mstance, and effectively disposes of their supposed hostile evidence.

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