The Causes of the Corruption of the Traditional Text of the Holy Gospels Part 14

(1) [Greek: Alethos kai su] (1) [Greek: Alethos]

(2) [Greek: ex auton ei] (2) [Greek: ex auton ei]

(3) [Greek: kai gar] (3) [Greek: kai gar Galilaios ei,]

(4) [Greek: he lalia sou delon se poiei]

(4) [Greek: kai he lalia sou h.o.m.oiazei.]

What more clear than that the later Evangelist is explaining what his predecessor meant by 'thy speech bewrayeth thee' [or else is giving an independent account of the same transaction derived from the common source]? To St. Matthew,--a Jew addressing Jews,--it seemed superfluous to state that it was the peculiar accent of Galilee which betrayed Simon Peter. To St. Mark,--or rather to the readers whom St. Mark specially addressed,--the point was by no means so obvious. Accordingly, he paraphrases,--'for thou art a Galilean and thy speech correspondeth.'

Let me be shewn that all down the ages, in ninety-nine copies out of every hundred, this peculiar diversity of expression has been faithfully retained, and instead of a.s.senting to the proposal to suppress St.

Mark's (fourth) explanatory clause with its unique verb [Greek: h.o.m.oiazei], I straightway betake myself to the far more pertinent inquiry,--What is the state of the text hereabouts? What, in fact, the context? This at least is not a matter of opinion, but a matter of fact.

1. And first, I discover that Cod. D, in concert with several copies of the Old Latin (a b c ff^{2} h q, &c.), only removes clause (4) from its proper place in St. Mark's Gospel, in order to thrust it into the parallel place in St. Matthew,--where it supplants the [Greek: he lalia sou delon se poiei] of the earlier Evangelist; and where it clearly has no business to be.

Indeed the object of D is found to have been to a.s.similate St. Matthew's Gospel to St. Mark,--for D also omits [Greek: kai su] in clause (1).

2. The Ethiopic version, on the contrary, is for a.s.similating St. Mark to St. Matthew, for it transfers the same clause (4) as it stands in St.

Matthew's Gospel ([Greek: kai he lalia sou delon se poiei]) to St. Mark.

3. Evan. 33 (which, because it exhibits an ancient text of a type like B, has been styled [with grim irony] 'the Queen of the Cursives') is more brilliant here than usual; exhibiting St. Mark's clause (4) thus,--[Greek: kai gar he lalia sou delon se h.o.m.oiazei].

4. In C (and the Harkleian) the process of a.s.similation is as conspicuous as in D, for St. Mark's third clause (3) is imported bodily into St. Matthew's Gospel. C further omits from St. Mark clause (4).

5. In the Vercelli Codex (a) however, the converse process is conspicuous. St. Mark's Gospel has been a.s.similated to St. Matthew's by the unauthorized insertion into clause (1) of [Greek: kai su] (which by the way is also found in M), and (in concert with the Gothic and Evann.

73, 131, 142*) by the entire suppression of clause (3).

6. Cod. L goes beyond all. [True to the craze of omission], it further obliterates as well from St. Matthew's Gospel as from St. Mark's all trace of clause (4).

7. [Symbol: Aleph] and B alone of Codexes, though in agreement with the Vulgate and the Egyptian version, do but eliminate the final clause (4) of St. Mark's Gospel. But note, lastly, that--

8. Cod. A, together with the Syriac versions, the Gothic, and the whole body of the cursives, recognizes none of these irregularities: but exhibits the commonly received text with entire fidelity.

On a survey of the premisses, will any candid person seriously contend that [Greek: kai he lalia sou homiazei] is no part of the genuine text of St. Mark xiv. 70? The words are found in what are virtually the most ancient authorities extant: the Syriac versions (besides the Gothic and Cod. A), the Old Latin (besides Cod. D)--retain them;--those in their usual place,--these, in their unusual. Idle it clearly is in the face of such evidence to pretend that St. Mark cannot have written the words in question[226]. It is too late to insist that a man cannot have lost his watch when his watch is proved to have been in his own pocket at eight in the morning, and is found in another man's pocket at nine. As for C and L, their handling of the Text hereabouts clearly disqualifies them from being cited in evidence. They are condemned under the note of Context. Adverse testimony is borne by B and [Symbol: Aleph]: and by them only. They omit the words in dispute,--the ordinary habit of theirs, and most easily accounted for. But how is the punctual insertion of the words in every other known copy to be explained? In the meantime, it remains to be stated,--and with this I shall take leave of the discussion,--that hereabouts 'we have a set of pa.s.sages which bear clear marks of wilful and critical correction, thoroughly carried out in Cod.

[Symbol: Aleph], and only partially in Cod. B and some of its compeers; the object being so far to a.s.similate the narrative of Peter's denials with those of the other Evangelists, as to suppress the fact, vouched for by St. Mark only, that the c.o.c.k crowed twice[227].' _That_ incident shall be treated of separately. Can those principles stand, which in the face of the foregoing statement, and the evidence which preceded it, justify the disturbance of the text in St. Mark xiv. 70?

[We now pa.s.s on to a kindred cause of adulteration of the text of the New Testament.]

FOOTNOTES:

[184] This paper bears the date 1877: but I have thought best to keep the words with this caution to the reader.

[185] Above, p. 32.

[186] The alleged evidence of Origen (iv. 453) is _nil_; the sum of it being that he takes no notice whatever of the forty words between [Greek: opsesthe me] (in ver. 16), and [Greek: touto ti estin] (in ver.

18).

[187] Nonnus,--[Greek: hixomai eis gennetera].

[188] viii. 465 a and c.

[189] iv. 932 and 933 c.

[190] = [Greek: ana-keimenos + epi-peson]. [Used not to suggest over-familiarity (?).]

[191] Beginning with Anatolius Laodicenus, A.D. 270 (_ap._ Galland. iii.

548). Cf. Routh, Rell. i. 42.

[192] [Greek: Ouk anakeitai monon, alla kai to stethei epipiptei] (Opp.

viii. 423 a).--[Greek: Ti de kai epipiptei to stethei] (ibid. d). Note that the pa.s.sage ascribed to 'Apolinarius' in Cord. Cat. p. 342 (which includes the second of these two references) is in reality part of Chrysostom's Commentary on St. John (ubi supra, c d).

[193] Cord. Cat. p. 341. But it is only in the [Greek: keimenon] (or text) that the verb is found,--Opp. iv. 735.

[194] [Greek: ho de thrasys oxei palmo | stethesin achrantoisi peson perilemenos aner].

[195] iv. 437 c: 440 d.

[196] Ibid. p. 342.

[197] Even Chrysostom, who certainly read the place as we do, is observed twice to glide into the more ordinary expression, viz. xiii.

423, line 13 from the bottom, and p. 424, line 18 from the top.

[198] [Greek: ho epi to stethos autou anapeson] (iii. 1, -- 1).

[199] [Greek: ho epi to stethos tou Kyriou anapeson] (_ap._ Euseb. iii.

31).

[200] [Greek: Ti dei peri tou anapesontos epi to stethos legein tou 'Iesou] (ibid. vi. 25. Opp. iv. 95).

[201] [Greek: ho epi to stethei tou phlogos anapeson] (Opp. ii. 49 a.

Cf. 133 c).

[202] (As quoted by Polycrates): Opp. i. 1062: ii. 8.

[203] [Greek: tou eis to tes sophias stethos pistos epanapesontos]

(_ap._ Chrys, xiii. 55).

[204] [Greek: ho epi to stethos tou Iesou anapauetai] (Opp. i. 591).

[205] (As quoted by Polycrates): Opp. i. 488.

[206] Wright's Apocryphal Acts (fourth century), translated from the Syriac, p. 3.

[207] (Fourth or fifth century) _ap._ Galland. vi. 132.

[208] _Ap._ Chrys. viii. 296.

[209] On a fresh Revision, &c., p. 73.--'[Greek: Anapiptein], (which occurs eleven times in the N.T.), when said of guests ([Greek: anakeimenoi]) at a repast, denotes nothing whatever but the preliminary act of each in taking his place at the table; being the Greek equivalent for our "_sitting down_" to dinner. So far only does it signify "change of posture." The notion of "falling _backward_" quite disappears in the notion of "reclining" or "lying down."'--In St. John xxi. 20, the language of the Evangelist is the very mirror of his thought; which evidently pa.s.sed directly from the moment when he a.s.sumed his place at the table ([Greek: anepesen]), to that later moment when ([Greek: epi to stethos autou]) he interrogated his Divine Master concerning Judas. It is a _general_ description of an incident,--for the details of which we have to refer to the circ.u.mstantial and authoritative narrative which went before.

[210] Traditional Text, Appendix IV.

[211] Pesh. and Harkl.: Cur. and Lew. are defective.