The Causes of the Corruption of the Traditional Text

§ 8

In this way it happened that in the earliest age the construction of St. Luke i. 66 became misapprehended. Some Western scribe evidently imagined that the popular saying concerning John Baptist,—τι απα το παιδιον τουτο εσται, extended further, and comprised the Evangelist’s record,—και χειρ Κυριου ην μετ’ αυτου. To support this strange view, και was altered into και γαρ, and εστι was substituted for ην. It is thus that the place stands in the Verona copy of the Old Latin (b). In other quarters the verb was omitted altogether: and that is how D, Evan. 59 with the Vercelli (a) and two other copies of the Old Latin exhibit the place. Augustine434 is found to have read indifferently—‘manus enim Domini cum illo,’ and ‘cum illo est’: but he insists that the combined clauses represent the popular utterance concerning the Baptist435. Unhappily, there survives a notable trace of the same misapprehension in [Symbol: Aleph]-BCL which, alone of MSS., read και γαρ... ην436. The consequence might have been anticipated. All recent Editors adopt this reading, which however is clearly inadmissible. The received text, witnessed to by the Peshitto, Harkleian, and Armenian versions, is obviously correct. Accordingly, A and all the uncials not already named, together with the whole body of the cursives, so read the place. With fatal infelicity the Revisers exhibit ‘For indeed the hand of the Lord was with him.’ They clearly are to blame: for indeed the MS. evidence admits of no uncertainty. It is much to be regretted that not a single very ancient Greek Father (so far as I can discover) quotes the place.