Chapter II Materials of the Textual Criticism of the New Testament
Even in the age of printing, and with all the security afforded by that invention, it is not always easy or even possible to exhibit or restore the literary productions of a great mind in their original form. One has but to think of the obscurity in which the works of Shakespeare and their early editions are enveloped, or the questions raised over the Weimar edition of Luther’s works. And even when the author’s original manuscript is still preserved, but the proof-sheets, as is usual, destroyed, we cannot always be certain whether occasional discrepancies between the print and the manuscript are intentional or not. Nay, even when the two agree, there is still the possibility that what the author wrote and allowed to be printed was not what he thought or intended to be read. Did Lessing, e.g., mean us to read in Nathan ii. 5, 493, “the great man requires always plenty of room,” or “the great tree” does so? Various writers, in speaking of this or that artist’s talents or dexterity, have used the words “haud impigre.” To take them at their word, the object of their praise had no such endowment beyond the common. We may be certain that what they meant to convey was the very opposite of what they actually wrote, viz. “haud pigre” or “impigre.” As a rule, however, the purchaser of a modern classic may rely upon reading it in the form in which the author intended it to be circulated. It is quite different in the case of those works which were composed at a time when their multiplication was only possible by means of copying, and specially so in the case of those that are older by a thousand years than the invention of printing. For then every fresh copy was a fresh source of errors, even when the copyist was as painfully exact as it was possible for him to be. It is simply astonishing, in view of all the perils to which literary works have been exposed, to find how much has been preserved, and, on the whole, how faithfully.
Autographs.
The matter is, of course, quite a simple one, when by good fortune the author’s own manuscript, his autograph, is extant. The abstract possibility of this being so in the case of the New Testament writings cannot be denied. Thanks to the dryness of the climate of Egypt and the excellence of ancient writing material, we have documents more than twice the age that the New Testament autographs would be to-day did we possess them. Now and again we find a report circulated in the newspapers that such an original document has been found,—of Peter, e.g., or some other Apostle. About the year 489 it was asserted that the original copy of Matthew had been discovered in the grave of Barnabas in Cyprus. And to the eyes of the devout there are still exhibited not only the Inscription from the Cross, but works from the artist hand of Luke. In reality, however, we have no longer the autograph of a single New Testament book. Their disappearance is readily understood when we consider that the greater portion of the New Testament, viz. the Epistles, are occasional writings never intended for publication, while others were meant to have only a limited circulation. Even in the early ages of the Christian Church, when there must have been frequent occasion to appeal to them, the autographs were no longer in existence.
Tertullian (De Praescriptione Haereticorum, 36) mentions Thessalonica among the cities in which he believed the letters of the Apostles that were addressed there were still read from autograph copies.18 “Percurre ecclesias apostolicas, apud quas ipsae adhuc cathedrae apostolorum suis locis praesident, apud quas ipsae authenticae literae eorum recitantur, sonantes vocem et repraesentantes faciem uniuscuiusque.” But when the same author, in his De Monogamia, speaks of “Graecum authenticum,” he refers not to the autograph, but to the original text as distinguished from a version.
On the copy of Matthew’s Gospel found in the grave of Barnabas in Cyprus, vide Theodorus Lector (Migne, 86, 189); Severus of Antioch in Assemani, Bibliotheca Orientalis, ii. 81; Vitae omnium 13 Apostolorum: Βαρνάβας ὁ καὶ Ἰωσῆς... οὗτος τὸ κατὰ Ματθαῖον εὐαγγέλιον οἰκειοχείρως γράψας ἐν τῇ τῆς Κύπρου νήσῳ τελειοῦται.19 In the Imperial Court Chapel the lessons were read from this copy on Holy Thursday of every year. Vide Fabricius, Evv. Apocr., 341.
On the supposed autograph of Mark in Venice see Jos. Dobrowsky, Fragmentum Pragense Ev. S. Marci, vulgo autographi, Prague, 1778. It is really a fragment of a Latin manuscript of the Vulgate, dating from the seventh century, of which other fragments exist in Prague.
In the Chronicon Paschale there is a note on the reading τρίτη for ἕκτη in John xix. 14, to the following effect:—καθὼς τὰ ἀκριβῆ βιβλία περιέχει αὐτό τε τὸ ἰδιόχειρον τοῦ εὐαγγελιστοῦ, ὅπερ μέχρι τοῦ νῦν πεφύλακται χάριτι θεοῦ ἐν τῇ Ἐφεσίων ἁγιωτάτῃ ἐκκλησίᾳ καὶ ὑπὸ τῶν πιστῶν ἐκεῖσε προσκυνεῖται. Bengel himself said on 1 John v. 7:—“Et tamen etiam atque etiam sperare licet, si non autographum Johanneum, at alios vetustissimos codices graecos, qui hanc periocham habeant, in occultis providentiae divinae forulis adhuc latentes, suo tempore productum iri.” (N.T. 420, 602, 770.)
In disproof of an alleged autograph of Peter, see Lagarde, Aus dem deutschen Gelehrtenleben, Göttingen, 1880, p. 117 f. On legends of this sort among the Polish Jews, on the autograph copy of the Proverbs that Solomon sent to the Queen of Sheba, and now in the possession of the Queen of England, etc., vide S. Schechter, Die Hebraica in der Bibliothek des Britischen Museums, in the Jüdisches Literatur-Blatt for 1888, No. 46.
At the Sixth Ecumenical Council of 680-1, which Harnack (DG. ii. 408) says might be called the “Council of Antiquaries and Palaeographers”, investigations were instituted in this department with some success.
J. G. Berger, De Autographis Veterum, Vitenb., 1723. 4o.
J. R. Harris, New Testament Autographs (Supplement to the American Journal of Philology, No. 12), Baltimore, 1882. With three plates.
In this connection reference might be made to the falsifications of Constantine Simonides: Facsimiles of certain portions of the Gospel of St. Matthew, and of the Epistles of St. James and St. Jude, written on papyrus of the first century. London, 1862. Fol.
Manuscripts.
Seeing, then, that the autographs of the New Testament books have all perished, we have to do as in the case of the Greek and Latin classics, viz. apply to later copies of them, the so-called manuscripts of which frequent mention has already been made. But while in the case of most literary products of antiquity these manuscript copies are the only sources whence we may derive our knowledge of them, we are happily more fortunate in regard to the New Testament.
Versions.
The new faith very early and very rapidly spread to distant peoples speaking other languages than that in which the Gospel was first preached. Indeed, even in its native land of Palestine, several languages were in use at the same time. Accordingly, at a very early date, as early as the second, and perhaps, in the case of fragments, even in the first century, there arose in the East, and in the South, and in the West, versions of the Christian books very soon after their composition. At first only separate portions would be translated, but as time went on versions of the entire New Testament made their appearance. Manifestly, the value for our purpose of these versions depends on their age and accuracy. It is impossible, without further knowledge, to be certain whether a Greek copyist of later centuries followed his original quite faithfully or not. But a Latin version of the New Testament which dates from the second century, e.g., will represent with tolerable certainty the second century Greek manuscript from which it is derived, even supposing that our present copy of that version is not earlier than the sixth century or even later. But these versions confer yet another advantage. In the case of most, and certainly of the oldest Greek manuscripts, we do not know in what country they originated. But it is quite certain that a Latin version could not have originated in Egypt, or a Coptic version in Gaul. In this way we may learn from the versions how the text of the Bible read at a particular time and in a particular region. Lastly, if it should happen that several versions originating in quite isolated regions, in the Latin West, and in the Syrian East, and in the Egyptian South, agree, then we may be certain that what is common to them all must go back to the earliest times and to their common original.
Quotations.
In addition to the Greek manuscripts and the versions, we have still a third and by no means unimportant class of material that we can employ in reconstructing our text of the New Testament. We possess an uncommonly rich Christian literature, which gathers volume from the second half, or, at all events, from the last quarter of the first century onwards. Now, what an early Church teacher, or, for that matter, what any early writer quotes from the New Testament will have for us its own very peculiar importance, under certain conditions. Because, as a rule, we know precisely where and when he lived. So that by means of these patristic quotations we are enabled to locate our ancient manuscripts of the Bible even more exactly, and trace their history further than we are able to do with the help of the versions. Here, of course, we must make sure that our author has quoted accurately and not loosely from memory, and also that the quotations in his book have been accurately preserved and not accommodated to the current text of their time by later copyists or even by editors of printed editions, as has actually been done even in the nineteenth century. We shall now proceed to describe these three classes of auxiliaries.
Literature.—W. Wattenbach, Anleitung zur griechischen Palaeographie, 2nd ed., Leipzig, 1877; V. Gardthausen, Griechische Palaeographie, Leipzig, 1879; Fr. Blass, Palaeographie, Bücherwesen, und Handschriftenkunde, in I. v. Müller’s Handbuch der klassischen Alterthumswissenschaft, 2nd ed., vol. i., Munich, 1892; E. M. Thompson, Handbook of Greek and Latin Palaeography, London, 1891; T. Birt, Das antike Buchwesen, Berlin, 1882; W. A. Copinger, The Bible and its Transmission; F. G. Kenyon, Our Bible and the ancient Manuscripts, London, third edition, 1897; F. H. A. Scrivener, Six Lectures on the Text of the N.T. and the ancient Manuscripts which contain it, Cambridge and London, 1875; A Collation of about 20 Manuscripts of the Holy Gospels, London, 1853; Adversaria critica sacra, Cambridge, 1893; Hoskier; Urt., pp. 16, 54; O. Weise, Schrift-und Buchwesen in alter und neuer Zeit, Leipzig (Teubner), 1899 (with Facsimiles: a popular work); F. G. Kenyon, The Palaeography of Greek Papyri, Oxford, 1899 (with 20 Facsimiles and a Table of Alphabets, pp. viii., 160); Ulr. Wilcken, Tafeln zur älteren griechischen Palaeographie, Nach Originalen des Berliner K. Museums, Berlin and Leipzig, 1891 (with 20 photographs); G. Vitelli e C. Paoli, Collezione Fiorentina di facsimili paleografici greci e latini, Firenze, 1884-1897 (with 50 Greek Plates and 50 Latin, Folio); Charles F. Sitterly, Praxis in Manuscripts of the Greek Testament; the mechanical and literary processes involved in their writing and preservation (with table of Manuscripts and 13 Facsimile Plates), New York and Cincinnati, 1898, second enlarged edition, 1900; F. Carta, C. Cipolla e C. Frati, Monumenta Palaeographica sacra: Atlante paleografico-artistico composto sui manuscritti, Turin, 1899; Karl Dziatzko, Untersuchungen über ausgewählte Kapitel des antiken Buchwesens. Mit Text, Uebersetzung und Erklärung von Plinii Histor. Nat., lib. xiii. § 68, 69, Leipzig, Teubner, 1900.