The Causes of the Corruption of the Traditional Text

§ 2

Theodotus and his followers fastened on the first part of St. John viii. 40, when they pretended to shew from Scripture that Christ is mere Man505. I am persuaded that the reading ‘of My Father506,’—with which Origen507, Epiphanius508, Athanasius509, Chrysostom510, Cyril Alex.511, and Theodoret512 prove to have been acquainted,—was substituted by some of the orthodox in this place, with the pious intention of providing a remedy for the heretical teaching of their opponents. At the present day only six cursive copies are known to retain this trace of a corruption of Scripture which must date from the second century.

We now reach a most remarkable instance. It will be remembered that St. John in his grand preface does not rise to the full height of his sublime argument until he reaches the eighteenth verse. He had said (ver. 14) that ‘the Word was made flesh,’ &c.; a statement which Valentinus was willing to admit. But, as we have seen, the heresiarch and his followers denied that ‘the Word’ is also ‘the Son’ of God. As if in order to bar the door against this pretence, St. John announces (ver. 18) that ‘the only begotten Son, which is in the bosom of the Father, he hath declared him’: thus establishing the identity of the Word and the Only begotten Son. What else could the Valentinians do with so plain a statement, but seek to deprave it? Accordingly, the very first time St. John i. 18 is quoted by any of the ancients, it is accompanied by the statement that the Valentinians in order to prove that the ‘only begotten’ is ‘the Beginning,’ and is ‘God,’ appeal to the words,—‘the only begotten God who is in the bosom of the Father513,’ &c. Inasmuch, said they, as the Father willed to become known to the worlds, the Spirit of Gnosis produced the ‘only begotten’ ‘Gnosis,’ and therefore gave birth to ‘Gnosis,’ that is to ‘the Son’: in order that by ‘the Son’ ‘the Father’ might be made known. While then that ‘only begotten Son’ abode ‘in the bosom of the Father,’ He caused that here upon earth should be seen, alluding to ver. 14, one ‘as the only begotten Son.’ In which, by the way, the reader is requested to note that the author of the Excerpta Theodoti (a production of the second century) reads St. John i. 18 as we do.

I have gone into all these strange details,—derived, let it be remembered, from documents which carry us back to the former half of the second century,—because in no other way is the singular phenomenon which attends the text of St. John i. 18 to be explained and accounted for. Sufficiently plain and easy of transmission as it is, this verse of Scripture is observed to exhibit perturbations which are even extraordinary. Irenaeus once writes ‘ο [?] μονογενης υιος: once, ‘ο [?] μονογενης υιος Θεος: once, ‘ο μονογενης υιος Θεου514: Clemens Alex., ‘ο μονογενης υιος Θεος μονος515; which must be very nearly the reading of the Codex from which the text of the Vercelli Copy of the Old Latin was derived516. Eusebius four times writes ‘ο μονογενης υιος517: twice, μονογενης Θεος518: and on one occasion gives his reader the choice of either expression, explaining why both may stand519. Gregory Nyss.520 and Basil521, though they recognize the usual reading of the place, are evidently vastly more familiar with the reading ‘ο μονογενης Θεος522: for Basil adopts the expression thrice523, and Gregory nearly thirty-three times as often524. This was also the reading of Cyril Alex.525, whose usual phrase however is ‘ο μονογενης του Θεου λογος526. Didymus has only [? cp. context] ‘ο μονογενης Θεος,—for which he once writes ‘ο μονογενης Θεος λογος527. Cyril of Jer. seems to have read ‘ο μονογενης μονοσ528.

[I have retained this valuable and suggestive passage in the form in which the Dean left it. It evidently has not the perfection that attends some of his papers, and would have been amplified and improved if his life had been spared. More passages than he noticed, though limited to the ante-Chrysostom period, are referred to in the companion volume529. The portentous number of mentions by Gregory of Nyssa escaped me, though I knew that there were several. Such repetitions of a phrase could only be admitted into my calculation in a restricted and representative number. Indeed, I often quoted at least on our side less than the real number of such reiterations occurring in one passage, because in course of repetition they came to assume for such a purpose a parrot-like value.

But the most important part of the Dean’s paper is found in his account of the origin of the expression. This inference is strongly confirmed by the employment of it in the Arian controversy. Arius reads Θεος (ap. Epiph. 73—Tischendorf), whilst his opponents read ‘υιος. So Faustinus seven times (I noted him only thrice), and Victorinus Afer six (10) times in reply to the Arian Candidus530. Also Athanasius and Hilary of Poictiers four times each, and Ambrose eight (add Epp. I. xxii. 5). It is curious that with this history admirers of B and [Symbol: Aleph] should extol their reading over the Traditional reading on the score of orthodoxy. Heresy had and still retains associations which cannot be ignored: in this instance some of the orthodox weakly played into the hands of heretics531. None may read Holy Scripture just as the idea strikes them.]