The Causes of the Corruption of the Traditional Text

§ 7

Because a certain clause (e.g. και ‘η λαλια σου ‘ομοιαζει in St. Mark xiv. 70) is absent from Codd. [Symbol: Aleph]BCDL, Lachmann, Tischendorf, Tregelles, Alford, Westcott and Hort entirely eject these five precious words from St. Mark’s Gospel, Griesbach having already voted them ‘probably spurious.’ When it has been added that many copies of the Old Latin also, together with the Vulgate and the Egyptian versions, besides Eusebius, ignore their existence, the present writer scarcely expects to be listened to if he insists that the words are perfectly genuine notwithstanding. The thing is certain however, and the Revisers are to blame for having surrendered five precious words of genuine Scripture, as I am going to shew.

1. Now, even if the whole of the case were already before the reader, although to some there might seem to exist a prima facie probability that the clause is spurious, yet even so,—it would not be difficult to convince a thoughtful man that the reverse must be nearer the truth. For let the parallel places in the first two Gospels be set down side by side:—

St. Matt. xxvi. 73.

(1) Αληθως και συ
(2) εξ αυτων ει
(3) και γαρ
(4) ‘η λαλια σου δηλον σε ποιει

St. Mark xiv. 70.

(1) Αληθως
(2) εξ αυτων ει
(3) και γαρ Γαλιλαιος ει,
(4) και ‘η λαλια σου ‘ομοιαζει.

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 assenting to the proposal to suppress St. Mark’s (fourth) explanatory clause with its unique verb ‘ομοιαζει, 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 ff² 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 ‘η λαλια σου δηλον σε ποιει of the earlier Evangelist; and where it clearly has no business to be.

Indeed the object of D is found to have been to assimilate St. Matthew’s Gospel to St. Mark,—for D also omits και συ in clause (1).

2. The Ethiopic version, on the contrary, is for assimilating St. Mark to St. Matthew, for it transfers the same clause (4) as it stands in St. Matthew’s Gospel (και ‘η λαλια σου δηλον σε ποιει) 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,—και γαρ ‘η λαλια σου δηλον σε ‘ομοιαζει.

4. In C (and the Harkleian) the process of Assimilation 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 assimilated to St. Matthew’s by the unauthorized insertion into clause (1) of και συ (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 και ‘η λαλια σου ‘ομιαζει 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 question226. 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 passages 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 assimilate 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 cock crowed twice227.’ 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 pass 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 οψεσθε με (in ver. 16), and τουτο τι εστιν (in ver. 18).

187 Nonnus,—‘ιξομαι εις γεννητηρα.

188 viii. 465 a and c.

189 iv. 932 and 933 c.

190 = ανα-κειμενος + επι-πεσων. [Used not to suggest over-familiarity (?).]

191 Beginning with Anatolius Laodicenus, A.D. 270 (ap. Galland. iii. 548). Cf. Routh, Rell. i. 42.

192 Ουκ ανακειται μονον, αλλα και τω στηθει επιπιπτει (Opp. viii. 423 a).—Τι δε και επιπιπτει τω στηθει (ibid. d). Note that the passage 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 κειμενον (or text) that the verb is found,—Opp. iv. 735.

194 ‘ο δε θρασυς οξει παλμω | στηθεσιν αχραντοισι πεσων περιλημενος ανηρ.

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 ‘ο επι το στηθος αυτου αναπεσων (iii. 1, § 1).

199 ‘ο επι το στηθος του Κυριου αναπεσων (ap. Euseb. iii. 31).

200 Τι δει περι του αναπεσοντος επι το στηθος λεγειν του ‘Ιησου (ibid. vi. 25. Opp. iv. 95).

201 ‘ο επι τω στηθει του φλογος αναπεσων (Opp. ii. 49 a. Cf. 133 c).

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

203 του εις το της σοφιας στηθος πιστως επαναπεσοντος (ap. Chrys, xiii. 55).

204 ‘ο επι το στηθος του Ιησου αναπαυεται (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.—‘Αναπιπτειν, (which occurs eleven times in the N.T.), when said of guests (ανακειμενοι) 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 passed directly from the moment when he assumed his place at the table (ανεπεσεν), to that later moment when (επι το στηθος αυτου) 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 circumstantial and authoritative narrative which went before.

210 Traditional Text, Appendix IV.

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

212 Thus Griesbach, Scholz, Lachmann, Tischendorf, Tregelles, Alford, Wordsworth, Green, Scrivener, M^cClellan, Westcott and Hort, and the Revisers.

213 In pseudo-Jerome’s Brev. in Psalm., Opp. vii. (ad calc.) 198.

214 Mont. i. 462.

215 Ubi supra.

216 Omitting trifling variants.

217 [Symbol: Aleph]BL are exclusively responsible on 45 occasions: +C (i.e. [Symbol: Aleph]BCL), on 27: +D, on 35: +Δ, on 73: +CD, on 19: +CΔ, on 118: +DΔ (i.e. [Symbol: Aleph]BDLΔ), on 42: +CDΔ, on 66.

218 In the text of Evan. 72 the reading in dispute is not found: 205, 206 are duplicates of 209: and 222, 255 are only fragments. There remain 1, 22, 33, 61, 63, 115, 131, 151, 152, 161, 184, 209, 253, 372, 391:—of which the six at Rome require to be re-examined.

219 v. 10.

220 Ap. Hieron. vii. 17.

221 ‘Evangelistas arguere falsitatis, hoc impiorum est, Celsi, Porphyrii, Juliani.’ Hieron. i. 311.

222 γραφεως τοινυν εστι σφαλμα. Quoted (from the lost work of Eusebius ad Marinum) in Victor of Ant.’s Catena, ed. Cramer, p. 267. (See Simon, iii. 89; Mai, iv. 299; Matthaei’s N.T. ii. 20, &c.)

223 ‘Nos autem nomen Isaiae putamus additum Scriptorum vitio, quod et in aliis locis probare possumus.’ vii. 17 (I suspect he got it from Eusebius).

224 See Studia Biblica, ii. p. 249. Syrian Form of Ammonian sections and Eusebian Canons by Rev. G. H. Gwilliam, B.D. Mr. Gwilliam gives St. Luke iii. 4-6, according to the Syrian form.

225 Compare St. Mark vi. 7-13 with St. Luke ix. 1-6.

226 Schulz,—‘et λαλια et ομοιαζει aliena a Marco.’ Tischendorf—‘omnino e Matthaeo fluxit: ipsum ομοιαζει glossatoris est.’ This is foolishness,—not criticism.

227 Scrivener’s Full Collation of the Cod. Sin., &c., 2nd ed., p. xlvii.