Part 14 (2/2)

Now, we trust we shall be forgiven if, at the close of the preceding enumeration, we confess to something like displeasure at the oracular tone a.s.sumed by Drs. Westcott and Hort in dealing with the Text of Scripture, though they admit (page 90) that they ”rely for doc.u.mentary evidence on the stores acc.u.mulated by their predecessors.” Confident as those distinguished Professors may reasonably feel of their ability to dispense with the ordinary appliances of Textual Criticism; and proud (as they must naturally be) of a verifying faculty which (although they are able to give no account of it) yet enables them infallibly to discriminate between the false and the true, as well as to a.s.sign ”a local habitation and a name”

to every word,-inspired or uninspired,-which purports to belong to the N.

T.:-they must not be offended with us if we freely a.s.sure them at the outset that we shall decline to accept a single argumentative a.s.sertion of theirs for which they fail to offer sufficient proof. Their wholly unsupported decrees, at the risk of being thought uncivil, we shall unceremoniously reject, as soon as we have allowed them a hearing.

This resolve bodes ill, we freely admit, to harmonious progress. But it is inevitable. For, to speak plainly, we never before met with such a singular tissue of magisterial statements, unsupported by a particle of rational evidence, as we meet with here. The abstruse gravity, the long-winded earnestness of the writer's manner, contrast whimsically with the utterly inconsequential character of his antecedents and his consequents throughout. Professor Hort-(for ”the writing of the volume and the other accompaniments of the Text devolved” on _him_,(714))-Dr. Hort seems to mistake his Opinions for facts,-his a.s.sertions for arguments,-and a Reiteration of either for an accession of evidence. There is throughout the volume, apparently, a dread of _Facts_ which is even extraordinary. An actual ill.u.s.tration of the learned Author's meaning,-a concrete case,-seems as if it were _never_ forthcoming. At last it comes: but the phenomenon is straightway discovered to admit of at least two interpretations, and therefore never to prove the thing intended. In a person of high education,-in one accustomed to exact reasoning,-we should have supposed all this impossible.... But it is high time to unfold the _Introduction_ at the first page, and to begin to read.

II. It opens (p. 1-11) with some unsatisfactory Remarks on ”Transmission by Writing;” vague and inaccurate,-unsupported by one single Textual reference,-and labouring under the grave defect of leaving the most instructive phenomena of the problem wholly untouched. For, inasmuch as ”Transmission by writing” involves two distinct cla.s.ses of errors, (1st) Those which are the result of _Accident_,-and (2ndly) Those which are the result of _Design_,-it is to use a Reader badly not to take the earliest opportunity of explaining to him that what makes codd. B ? D such utterly untrustworthy guides, (except when supported by a large amount of extraneous evidence,) is the circ.u.mstance that _Design_ had evidently so much to do with a vast proportion of the peculiar errors in which they severally abound. In other words, each of those codices clearly exhibits a fabricated Text,-is the result of arbitrary and reckless _Recension_.

Now, this is not a matter of opinion, but of fact. In S. Luke's Gospel alone (collated with the traditional Text) the _transpositions_ in codex B amount to 228,-affecting 654 words: in codex D, to 464,-affecting 1401 words. Proceeding with our examination of the same Gospel according to S.

Luke, we find that the words _omitted_ in B are 757,-in D, 1552. The words _subst.i.tuted_ in B amount to 309,-in D, to 1006. The readings _peculiar_ to B are 138, and affect 215 words;-those peculiar to D, are 1731, and affect 4090 words. Wondrous few of these _can_ have been due to accidental causes. The Text of one or of both codices must needs be depraved. (As for ?, it is so frequently found in accord with B, that out of consideration for our Readers, we omit the corresponding figures.)

We turn to codd. A and C-(executed, suppose, a hundred years _after_ B, and a hundred years _before_ D)-and the figures are found to be as follows:-

In A. In C.

The transpositions are 75 67 affecting 199 words 197 The words omitted are 208 175 The words subst.i.tuted 111 115 The peculiar readings 90 87 affecting 131 words 127

Now, (as we had occasion to explain in a previous page,(715)) it is entirely to misunderstand the question, to object that the preceding Collation has been made with the Text of Stepha.n.u.s open before us. Robert Etienne in the XVIth century was not _the cause_ why cod. B in the IVth, and cod. D in the VIth, are so widely discordant from one another; A and C, so utterly at variance with both. The simplest explanation of the phenomena is the truest; namely, that B and D exhibit grossly depraved Texts;-a circ.u.mstance of which it is impossible that the ordinary Reader should be too soon or too often reminded. But to proceed.

III. Some remarks follow, on what is strangely styled ”Transmission by printed Editions:” in the course of which Dr. Hort informs us that Lachmann's Text of 1831 was ”the first founded on doc.u.mentary authority.”(716)... On _what_ then, pray, does the learned Professor imagine that the Texts of Erasmus (1516) and of Stunica (1522) were founded? His statement is incorrect. The actual difference between Lachmann's Text and those of the earlier Editors is, that _his_ ”doc.u.mentary authority” is partial, narrow, self-contradictory; and is proved to be untrustworthy by a free appeal to Antiquity. _Their_ doc.u.mentary authority, derived from independent sources,-though partial and narrow as that on which Lachmann relied,-exhibits (_under the good Providence of _G.o.d,) a Traditional Text, the general purity of which is demonstrated by all the evidence which 350 years of subsequent research have succeeded in acc.u.mulating; and which is confessedly the Text of A.D.

375.

IV. We are favoured, in the third place, with the ”History of this Edition:” in which the point that chiefly arrests attention is the explanation afforded of the many and serious occasions on which Dr.

Westcott (”W.”) and Dr. Hort (”H.”), finding it impossible to agree, have set down their respective notions separately and subscribed them with their respective initial. We are reminded of what was wittily said concerning Richard Baxter: viz. that even if no one but himself existed in the Church, ”Richard” would still be found to disagree with ”Baxter,”-and ”Baxter” with ”Richard”.... We read with uneasiness that

”no individual mind can ever act with perfect uniformity, or free itself completely from _its own Idiosyncrasies_;” and that ”the danger of _unconscious Caprice_ is inseparable from personal judgment.”-(p. 17.)

All this reminds us painfully of certain statements made by the same Editors in 1870:-

”We are obliged to come to the _individual mind_ at last; and Canons of Criticism are useful only as warnings against _natural illusions_, and aids to circ.u.mspect consideration, not as absolute rules to prescribe the final decision.”-(pp. xviii., xix.)

May we be permitted without offence to point out (not for the first time) that ”idiosyncrasies” and ”unconscious caprice,” and the fancies of the ”individual mind,” can be allowed _no place whatever_ in a problem of such gravity and importance as the present? Once admit such elements, and we are safe to find ourselves in cloud-land to-morrow. A weaker foundation on which to build, is not to be named. And when we find that the learned Professors ”venture to hope that the present Text has escaped some risks of this kind by being the production of two Editors of different habits of mind, working independently and to a great extent on different plans,”-we can but avow our conviction that the safeguard is altogether inadequate.

When two men, devoted to the same pursuit, are in daily confidential intercourse on such a subject, the ”_natural illusions_” of either have a marvellous tendency to communicate themselves. Their Reader's only protection is rigidly to _insist_ on the production of _Proof_ for everything which these authors say.

V. The dissertation on ”Intrinsic” and ”Transcriptional Probability” which follows (pp. 20-30),-being _unsupported by one single instance or ill.u.s.tration_,-we pa.s.s by. It ignores throughout the fact, that the most serious corruptions of MSS. are due, _not_ to ”Scribes” or ”Copyists,” (of whom, by the way, we find perpetual mention every time we open the page;) but to the persons who employed them. So far from thinking with Dr. Hort that ”the value of the evidence obtained from Transcriptional Probability is incontestable,”-for that, ”without its aid, Textual Criticism could rarely obtain a high degree of security,” (p. 24,)-we venture to declare that inasmuch as one expert's notions of what is ”transcriptionally probable” prove to be the diametrical reverse of another expert's notions, the supposed evidence to be derived from this source may, with advantage, be neglected altogether. Let the study of _Doc.u.mentary Evidence_ be allowed to take its place. Notions of ”Probability” are the very pest of those departments of Science which admit of an appeal to _Fact_.

VI. A signal proof of the justice of our last remark is furnished by the plea which is straightway put in (pp. 30-1) for the superior necessity of attending to ”the relative antecedent credibility of Witnesses.” In other words, ”The comparative trustworthiness of doc.u.mentary Authorities” is proposed as a far weightier consideration than ”Intrinsic” and ”Transcriptional Probability.” Accordingly we are a.s.sured (in capital letters) that ”Knowledge of Doc.u.ments should precede final judgment upon readings” (p. 31).

”Knowledge”! Yes, but how acquired? Suppose two rival doc.u.ments,-cod. A and cod. B. May we be informed how you would proceed with respect to them?

”Where one of the doc.u.ments is found habitually to contain _morally certain, or at least strongly preferred, Readings_,-and the other habitually to contain their rejected rivals,-we [_i.e._ _Dr. Hort_] can have no doubt that the Text of the first has been transmitted in comparative purity; and that the Text of the second has suffered comparatively large corruption.”-(p. 32.)

But can such words have been written seriously? Is it gravely pretended that Readings become ”_morally certain_,” because they are ”_strongly preferred_”? Are we (in other words) seriously invited to admit that the ”STRONG PREFERENCE” of ”the individual mind” is to be the ultimate standard of appeal? If so, though _you_ (Dr. Hort) may ”_have no doubt_”

as to which is the purer ma.n.u.script,-see you not plainly that a man of different ”idiosyncrasy” from yourself, may just as reasonably claim to ”have no doubt”-_that you are mistaken_?... One is reminded of a pa.s.sage in p. 61: viz.-

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