Chapter VIII. Internal Evidence.

[pg 244]Chapter VIII. Internal Evidence.We have now described, in some detail, the several species of external testimony available for the textual criticism of the New Testament, whether comprising manuscripts of the original Greek, or ancient translations from it, or citations from Scripture made by ecclesiastical writers. We have, moreover, indicated the chief editions wherein all these materials are recorded for our use, and the principles that have guided their several editors in applying them to the revision of the text. One source of information, formerly deemed quite legitimate, has been designedly passed by. It is now agreed among competent judges thatConjectural Emendationmust never be resorted to, even in passages of acknowledged difficulty243; the absence of proof that a reading proposed to be substituted for the common one is actually supported by some trustworthy document being of itself a fatal objection to our receiving it244. Those that have[pg 245]been hazarded aforetime by celebrated scholars, when but few codices were known or actually collated, have seldom, very seldom, been confirmed by subsequent researches: and the time has now fully come when, in the possession of abundant stores of variations collected from memorials of almost every age and country, we are fully authorized in believing that the reading to which no manuscript, or old version, or primitive Father has borne witness, however plausible and (for some purposes) convenient, cannot safely be accepted as genuine or even as probable; even though there may still remain a few passages respecting which we cannot help framing a shrewd suspicion that the original reading differed from any form in which they are now presented to us245.In no wise less dangerous than bare conjecture destitute of external evidence, is the device of Lachmann for unsettling by means of emendation (emendando), without reference to the balance of conflicting testimony, the very text he had previously fixed by revision (recensendo) through the means of critical authorities: in fact the earlier process is but so much trouble misemployed, if its results are liable to be put aside by[pg 246]abstract judgement or individual prejudices. Not that the most sober and cautious critic would disparage the fair use of internal evidence, or withhold their proper influence from those reasonable considerations which in practice cannot, and in speculation should not, be shut out from every subject on which the mind seeks to form an intelligent opinion. Whether we will or not, we unconsciously and almost instinctively adopt that one of two opposite statements,in themselves pretty equally attested to, which we judge the better suited to recognized phenomena, and to the common course of things. I know of no person who has affected to construct a text of the N. T. on diplomatic grounds exclusively, without paying some regard to the character of the sense produced; nor, were the experiment tried, would any one find it easy to dispense with discretion and the dictates of good sense: nature would prove too strong for the dogmas of a wayward theory.“It is difficult not to indulge insubjectiveness, at least in some measure,”writes Dr. Tregelles (Account of Printed Text, p. 109): and, thus qualified, we may add that it is one of those difficulties a sane man would not wish to overcome.The foregoing remarks may tend to explain the broad distinction between mere conjectural emendation, which must be utterly discarded, and that just use of internal testimony which he is the best critic who most judiciously employs. They so far resemble each other, as they are both products of the reasoning faculty exercising itself on the sacred words of Scripture: they differ in this essential feature, that the one proceeds in ignorance or disregard of evidence from without, while the office of the other has no place unless where external evidence is evenly, or at any rate not very unevenly, balanced. What degree of preponderance in favour of one out of several readings, all of them affording some tolerable sense, shall entitle it to reception as a matter of right; to what extent canons of subjective criticism may be allowed to eke out the scantiness of documentary authority; are points that cannot well be defined with strict accuracy. Men's decisions respecting them will always vary according to their temperament and intellectual habits; the judgement of the same person (the rather if he be by constitution a little unstable) will fluctuate from time to time as to the same evidence brought to bear on the self-same[pg 247]passage. Though thecanonsor rules of internal testimony be themselves grounded either on principles of common sense, or on certain peculiarities which all may mark in the documents from which our direct proofs are derived; yet has it been found by experience (what indeed we might have looked for beforehand), that in spite, perhaps in consequence, of their extreme simplicity, the application of these canons has proved a searching test of the tact, the sagacity, and the judicial acumen of all that handle them. For the other functions of an editor accuracy and learning, diligence and zeal are sufficient: but the delicate adjustment of conflicting probabilities calls for no mean exercise of a critical genius. This innate faculty we lack in Wetstein, and notably in Scholz; it was highly developed in Mill and Bengel, and still more in Griesbach. His well-known power in this respect is the main cause of our deep regret for the failure of Bentley's projected work, with all its faults whether of plan or execution.Nearly all the following rules of internal evidence, being founded in the nature of things, are alike applicable to all subjects of literary investigation, though their general principles may need some modification in the particular instance of the Greek Testament.I.Proclivi Scriptioni praestat ardua: the more difficult the reading the more likely it is to be genuine. It would seem more probable that the copyist tried to explain an obscure passage, or to relieve a hard construction, than to make that perplexed which before was easy: thus in John vii. 39, Lachmann's addition of δεδομένον to οὔπω ἦν πνεῦμα ἅγιον is very improbable, though countenanced by Cod. B and (of course) by several of the chief versions. We have here Bengel's prime canon, and although Wetstein questioned it (N. T., vol. i. Proleg. p. 157), he was himself ultimately obliged to lay down something nearly to the same effect246. Yet this excellent rule may easily[pg 248]be applied on a wrong occasion, and is only trueceteris paribus, where manuscripts or versions lend strong support to the harder form.“To force readings into the text merely because they are difficult, is to adulterate the divine text with human alloy; it is to obtrude upon the reader of Scripture the solecisms of faltering copyists, in the place of the word of God”(Bp. Chr. Wordsworth, N. T., vol. i. Preface, p. xii)247. See Chap.XIIon Matt. xxi. 28-31. Compare also above, Vol. I. i. § 11.II. That reading out of several is preferable, from which all the rest may have been derived, although it could not be derived from any of them. Tischendorf (N. T., Proleg. p. xlii. 7th edition) might well say that this would be“omnium regularum principium,”if its application were less precarious. Of his own two examples the former is too weakly vouched for to be listened to, save by way of illustration. In Matt. xxiv. 38 he248and Alford would simply read ἐν ταῖς ἡμέραις τοῦ κατακλυσμοῦ on the very feeble evidence of Cod. L, one uncial Evst. (13),aeff, the Sahidic version, and Origen (in two places); because the copyists, knowing that the eating and drinking and marrying took place not in the days of the flood, but before them (καὶ οὐκ ἔγνωσαν ἕως ἦλθεν ὁ κατακλυσμός ver. 39), would strive to evade the difficulty, such as it was, by adopting one of the several forms found in our copies: ἡμέραις πρὸ τοῦ κατακλ.,[pg 249]or ἡμέραις ταῖς πρὸ τοῦ κατακλ., or ἡμέραις ἐκείναις πρὸ τοῦ κατακλ., or ἡμέραις ἐκείναις ταῖς πρὸ τοῦ κατακλ., or even ἡμέραις τοῦ νῶε. In his second example Tischendorf is more fortunate, unless indeed we choose to refer it rather to Bengel's canon. James iii. 12 certainly ought to run μὴ δύναται, ἀδελφοί μου, συκῆ ἐλαίας ποιῆσαι, ἢ ἄμπελος σῦκα; οὔτε (velοὐδὲ) ἁλυκὸν γλυκὺ ποιῆσαι ὕδωρ, as in Codd. אABC, in not less than six good cursives, the Vulgate and other versions. To soften the ruggedness of this construction, some copies prefixed οὅτως to οὔτε or οὔδε, while others inserted the whole clause οὕτως οὐδεμία πηγὴ ἁλυκὸν καί before γλυκὺ ποιῆσαι ὕδωρ. Other fair instances may be seen in Chap.XII, notes on Luke x. 41, 42; Col. ii. 2249. In the Septuagint also the reading of א συνεισελθόντας 1 Macc. xii. 48 appears to be the origin both of συνελθόντας with A, the uncial 23, and four cursives at least, and of εἰσελθόντας of the Roman edition and the mass of cursives.III.“Brevior lectio, nisi testium vetustorum et gravium auctoritate penitus destituatur, praeferenda est verbosiori. Librarii enim multò proniores ad addendum fuerunt, quam ad omittendum”(Griesbach, N. T., Proleg. p. lxiv. vol. i). This canon bears an influential part in the system of Griesbach and his successors, and by the aid of Cod. B and a few others, has brought great changes into the text as approved by some critics. Dr. Green too (Course of Developed Criticism on Text of N. T.) sometimes carries it to excess in his desire to remove what he considersaccretions. It is so far true, that scribes were no doubt prone to receive marginal notes into the text which they were originally designed only to explain or enforce (e.g.[pg 250]1 John v. 7, 8)250; or sought to amplify a brief account from a fuller narrative of the same event found elsewhere, whether in the same book (e.g. Act. ix. 5 compared with ch. xxvi. 14), or in the parallel passage of one of the other synoptical Gospels. In quotations, also, from the Old Testament the shorter form is always the more probably correct (ibid.). Circumstances too will be supplied which were deemed essential for the preservation of historical truth (e.g. Act. viii. 37), or names of persons and places may be inserted from the Lectionaries: and to this head we must refer the graver and more deliberate interpolations so frequently met with in Cod. D and a few other documents. Yet it is just as true that words and clauses are sometimes wilfully omitted for the sake of removing apparent difficulties (e.g. υἱοῦ βαραχίου, Matt, xxiii. 35 in Cod. א and a few others), and that the negligent loss of whole passages through ὁμοιοτέλευτον is common to manuscripts of every age and character. On the whole, therefore, the indiscriminate rejection of portions of the text regarded as supplementary, on the evidence of but a few authorities, must be viewed with considerable distrust and suspicion.IV. That reading of a passage is preferable which best suits the peculiar style, manner, and habits of thought of an author; it being the tendency of copyists to overlook the idiosyncrasies of the writer. For example, the abrupt energy of St. James'asyndeta(e.g. ch. i. 27), of which we have just seen a marked instance, is much concealed by the particles inserted by the common text (e.g. ch. ii. 4, 13; iii. 17; iv. 2; v. 6): St. Luke in the Acts is fond of omitting“said”or“saith”after the word indicating the speaker, though they are duly supplied by recent scribes (e.g. ch. ii. 38; ix. 5; xix. 2; xxv. 22; xxv. 28, 29). Thus again, in editing Herodotus, an Ionic form is more eligible than an Attic one equally well attested, while in the Greek Testament an Alexandrian termination should be chosen under similar circumstances. Yet even this canon has a double edge: habit or the love of critical correction will sometimes lead[pg 251]the scribe to change the text to his author's more usual style, as well as to depart from it through inadvertence (seeActs iv. 17; 1 Pet. ii. 24): so that we may securely apply the rule only where the external evidence is not unequally balanced.V. Attention must be paid to the genius and usage of each several authority, in assigning the weight due to it in a particular instance. Thus the testimony of Cod. B is of the less influence in omissions, that of Cod. D (Bezae) in additions, inasmuch as the tendency of the former is to abridge, that of the latter to amplify the sacred text. The value of versions and ecclesiastical writers also much depends on the degree of care and critical skill which they display.Every one of the foregoing rules might be appliedmutatis mutandisto the emendation of the text of any author whose works have suffered alteration since they left his hands: the next (so far as it is true) is peculiar to the case of Holy Scripture.VI.“Inter plures unius loci lectiones ea pro suspectâ merito habetur, quae orthodoxorum dogmatibus manifestè prae ceteris favet”(Griesbach, N. T., Proleg., p. lxvi. vol. i). I cite this canon from Griesbach for the sake of annexing Archbishop Magee's very pertinent corollary:“from which, at least, it is reasonable to infer, that whatever readings, in favour of the Orthodox opinion, may have hadhissanction, have not been preferred by him from any bias in behalf of Orthodoxy”(Discourses on Atonement and Sacrifice, vol. iii. p. 212). Alford says that the rule,“sound in the main,”does not hold good, when,“whichever reading is adopted, the orthodox meaning is legitimate, butthe adoption of the stronger orthodox reading is absolutely incompatible with the heretical meaning,—then it is probable thatsuch stronger orthodox reading was the original”(N. T., Proleg., vol. i. p. 83, note 6, 4th edition): instancing Act. xx. 28, where the weaker reading τὴν ἐκκλησίαν τοῦ κυρίου would quite satisfy the orthodox, while the alternative reading τοῦ θεοῦ“would have been certain to be altered by the heretics.”But in truth there seems no good ground for believing that the rule is“sound in the main,”though two or three such instances as[pg 252]1 Tim. iii. 16251and the insertion of θεόν in Jude, ver. 4, might seem to countenance it. We dissent altogether from Griesbach's statement,“Scimus enim, lectiones quascunque, etiam manifestò falsas, dummodo orthodoxorum placitis patrocinarentur, inde a tertii seculi initiis mordicus defensas seduloque propagatas, ceteras autem ejusdem loci lectiones, quae dogmati ecclesiastico nil praesidii afferrent, haereticorum perfidiae attributas temere fuisse”(Griesb.ubi supra), if he means that the orthodox forged those great texts, which,believing them to be authentic, it was surely innocent and even incumbent on them to employ252. The Church of Christ“inde a tertii seculi initiis”has had her faults, many and grievous, but she never did nor shall fail in her duty as a faithful“witness and keeper of Holy Writ.”But while vindicating the copyists of Scripture from all wilful tampering with the text, we need not deny that they, like others of their craft, preferred that one out of several extant readings that seemed to give the fullest and most emphatic sense: hence Davidson would fain account for the addition ἐκ τῆς σαρκὸς αὐτοῦ καὶ ἐκ τῶν ὀστέων αὐτοῦ (which, however, is not unlikely to be genuine253) in Eph. v. 30. Since the mediaeval scribes belonged almost universally to the monastic orders, we will not dispute the truth of Griesbach's rule,“Lectio prae aliis sensum pietati (praesertim monasticae) alendae aptum fundens, suspecta est,”though its scope is doubtless very limited254. Their[pg 253]habit of composing and transcribing Homilies has also been supposed to have led them to give a hortatory form to positive commands or dogmatic statements (seeVol. I. p. 17), but there is much weight in Wordsworth's remark, that“such suppositions as these have a tendency to destroy the credit of the ancient MSS.; and if such surmises were true, those MSS. would hardly be worth the pains of collating them”(note on1 Cor. xv. 49).VII.“Apparent probabilities of erroneous transcription, permutation of letters, itacism and so forth,”have been designated by Bp. Ellicott“paradiplomaticevidence”(Preface to the Galatians; p. xvii, first edition), as distinguished from the“diplomatic”testimony of codices, versions, &c. This species of evidence, which can hardly be deemed internal, must have considerable influence in numerous cases, and will be used the most skilfully by such as have considerable practical acquaintance with the rough materials of criticism. We have anticipated what can be laid before inexperienced readers on this topic in the first chapter of our first volume, when discussing the sources of various readings255: in fact, so far as canons of internal[pg 254]or of paradiplomatic evidence are at all trustworthy, they instruct us in the reverse process to that aimed at in Vol. I. Chap. I; the latter showing by what means the pure text of the inspired writings was brought into its present state ofpartialcorruption, the former promising us some guidance while we seek to retrace its once downward course back to the fountain-head of primeval truth256. To what has been previously stated in regard to paradiplomatic testimony it may possibly be worth while to add Griesbach's caution“lectionesrhythmifallaciâ facillimè explicandae nullius sunt pretii”(N. T., Proleg. p. lxvi), a fact whereof 2 Cor. iii. 3 affords a memorable example. Here what once seemed the wholly unnatural reading ἐν πλαξὶκαρδίαιςσαρκίναις, being disparaged by dint of the rhyming termination, is received by Lachmann in the place of καρδίας, on the authority of Codd. AB (sic) CDEGLP, perhaps a majority of cursive copies (seven out of Scrivener's twelve, and Wake 12 or Paul. 277); to which add Cod. א unknown to Lachmann, and that abject slave of manuscripts, the Harkleian Syriac. Codd. FK have καρδίας, with all the other versions. If we attempt to interpret καρδίαις, we must either render with Alford, in spite of the order of the Greek,“on fleshy tables, [your] hearts:”or with the Revisers of 1881“in tablesthat arehearts of flesh;”yet surely σαρκίναις as well as λιθίναις must agree with πλαξί. Dr. Hort in mere despair would almost reject the second πλαξί (Introd., Notes, p. 119).It has been said that“when the cause of a various reading is known, the variation usually disappears257.”This language may seem extravagant, yet it hardly exaggerates what may be effected by internal evidence, when it is clear, simple, and unambiguous. It is, therefore, much to be lamented that this is seldom the case in practice. Readings that we should uphold in virtue of one canon, are very frequently (perhaps in a majority of really doubtful passages) brought into suspicion by means of[pg 255]another; yet they shall each of them be perfectly sound and reasonable in their proper sphere. An instance in point is Matt. v. 22, where the external evidence is divided. Codd. אΒ (in Δsecundâ manu), 48, 198, 583, 587, Origentwice, the Ethiopic and Vulgate, omit εἰκῆ after πᾶς ὁ ὀργιζόμενος τῷ ἀδελφῷ ἀυτοῦ, Jerome fairly stating that it is“in quibusdam codicibus,”not“in veris,”which may be supposed to be Origen's MSS., and therefore removing it from his revised Latin version. It is found, however, in all other extant copies (including ΣDEKLMSUVΔ (primâ manu) Π, most cursives, all the Syriac (the Peshitto inserting, not a Syriac equivalent, but the Greek word εἰκῆ) and Old Latin copies, the Bohairic, Armenian, and Gothic versions), in Eusebius, in many Greek Fathers, in the Latin Fathers from Irenaeus downwards258, and even in the Old Latin Version of Origen himself; the later authorities uniting with Codd. ΣD and their associates against the two oldest manuscripts extant. Under such circumstances the suggestions of internal evidence would be precious indeed, were not that just as equivocal as diplomatic proof.“Griesbach and Meyer,”says Dean Alford,“hold it to have been expunged from motives of moral rigorism:—De Wette to have been inserted to soften the apparent rigour of the precept259.”Our sixth Canon is here opposed to our first260. The important yet precarious and strictly auxiliary nature of rules of internal evidence will not now escape the attentive student; he may find them exemplified very slightly and imperfectly in the twelfth Chapter of this volume, but more fully by recent critical editors of the Greek Testament; except perhaps by Tregelles, who usually passes them by in silence, though to[pg 256]some extent they influence his decisions; by Lachmann, in the formation of whose provisional text they have had no share; and by Dean Burgon, who held that“we must resolutely maintain, that External Evidence must after all be our best, our only safe guide”(The Revision Revised, p. 19)261. We will close this investigation by citing a few of those crisp little periods (conceived in the same spirit as our own remarks) wherewith Davidson is wont to inform and sometimes perhaps to amuse his admirers:“Readings must be judged on internal grounds. One can hardly avoid doing so. It is natural and almost unavoidable. It must be admitted indeed that the choice of readings on internal evidence is liable to abuse. Arbitrary caprice may characterize it. It may degenerate into simplesubjectivity. But though the temptation to misapply it be great, it must not be laid aside.... While allowing superior weight to the external sources of evidence, we feel the pressing necessity of the subjective. Here, as in other instances, the objective and subjective should accompany and modify one another. They cannot be rightly separated.”(Biblical Criticism, vol. ii. p. 374, 1852.)[pg 257]Chapter IX. History Of The Text.An adequate discussion of the subject of the present chapter would need a treatise by itself, and has been the single theme of several elaborate works. We shall here limit ourselves to the examination of those more prominent topics, a clear understanding of which is essential for the establishment of trustworthy principles in the application ofexternalevidence to the correction of the text of the New Testament.1. It was stated at the commencement of this volume that the autographs of the sacred writers“perished utterly in the very infancy of Christian history:”nor can any other conclusion be safely drawn from the general silence of the earliest Fathers, and from their constant habit of appealing to“ancient and approved copies262,”when a reference to the originals, if extant, would have put an end to all controversy on the subject of various readings. Dismissing one passage in the genuine Epistles of Ignatius (d. 107), which has no real connexion with the matter263, the only allusion to the autographs of Scripture met with in the primitive ages is the well-known declaration of[pg 258]Tertullian (fl. 200):“Percurre Ecclesias Apostolicas, apud quas ipsae adhuc Cathedrae Apostolorum suis locis praesident, apud quas ipsae Authenticae Literae eorum recitantur, sonantes vocem, et repraesentantes faciem uniuscujusque. Proximè est tibi Achaia, habes Corinthum. Si non longè es a Macedoniâ, habes Philippos, habes Thessalonicenses. Si potes in Asiam tendere, habes Ephesum. Si autem Italiae adjaces, habes Romam ...”(De Praescriptione Haereticorum, c. 36.) Attempts have been made, indeed, and that by eminent writers, to reduce the term“Authenticae Literae”so as to mean nothing more than“genuine, unadulterated Epistles,”or even the authentic Greek as opposed to the Latin translation264. It seems enough to reply with Ernesti, that any such non-natural sense is absolutely excluded by the word“ipsae,”which would be utterly absurd, if“genuine”only were intended (Institutes, Pt. iii. Ch. ii. 3)265: yet the African Tertullian was too little likely to be well informed on this subject, to entitle his rhetorical statement to any real attention266. We need not try to explain away his obvious meaning, but we may fairly demur to the evidence of this honest, but impetuous and wrong-headed man. We have no faith in the continued existence of autographs which are vouched[pg 259]for on no better authority than the real or apparent exigency ofhisargument267.2. Besides the undesigned and, to a great extent, unavoidable differences subsisting between manuscripts of the New Testament within a century of its being written, the wilful corruptions introduced by heretics soon became a cause of loud complaint in the primitive ages of the Church268. Dionysius, Bishop of Corinth, addressing the Church of Rome and Soter its Bishop (a.d.168-176), complains that even his own letters had been tampered with: καὶ ταύτας οἱ τοῦ διαβόλου ἀπόστολοι ζιζανίων γεγέμικαν, ἃ μὲν ἐξαιροῦντες, ἃ δὲ προστιθέντες; οἷς τὸ οὐαὶ κεῖται: adding, however, the far graver offence, οὐ θαυμαστὸν ἄρα εἰ καὶ τῶν κυριακῶν ῥαδιουργῆσαί τινες ἐπιβέβληνται γραφῶν (Euseb., Eccl. Hist., iv. 23), where αἱ κυριακαὶ γραφαί can be none other than the Holy Scriptures. Nor was the evil new in the age of Dionysius. Not to mention Asclepiades, or Theodotus, or Hermophylus, or Apollonides, who all under the excuse of correcting the sacred text corrupted it269, or the Gnostics Basilides (a.d.130?) and Valentinus (a.d.150?) who published additions to the sacred text which were avowedly of their own composition, Marcion of Pontus, the[pg 260]arch-heretic of that period, coming to Rome on the death of its Bishop Hyginus (a.d.142)270, brought with him that mutilated and falsified copy of the New Testament, against which the Fathers of the second century and later exerted all their powers, and whose general contents are known to us chiefly through the writings of Tertullian and subsequently of Epiphanius. It can hardly be said that Marcion deserves very particular mention in relating the history of the sacred text271. Some of the variations from the common readings which his opponents detected were doubtless taken from manuscripts in circulation at the time, and, being adopted through no private preferences of his own, are justly available for critical purposes. Thus in 1 Thess. ii. 15, Tertullian, who saw only τοὺς προφήτας in his own copies, objects to Marcion's reading τοὺς ἰδίους προφήτας (“licetsuosadjectio sit haeretici”), although ἰδίους stands in the received text, in Evann. KL (DE in later hands) and all cursives except eight, in the Gothic and both (?) Syriac versions, in Chrysostom, Theodoret, and John Damascenus. Here the heretic's testimony is useful in showing the high antiquity of ἰδίους, even though אABDEFGP, eight cursives, Origen thrice, the Vulgate, Armenian, Ethiopic, and all three Egyptian versions, join with Lachmann, Tischendorf, Tregelles, Westcott and Hort in rejecting it, some of them perhaps in compliance with Tertullian's decision. In similar instances the evidence of Marcion, as to matters of fact to which he could attach no kind of importance, is well worth recording272: but where on the contrary the dogmas of his own miserable system are touched, or no codices or other witnesses countenance his changes (as is perpetually the case in his edition of St. Luke, the only Gospel—and that maimed or interpolated from the others—he seems to have acknowledged at all), his blasphemous extravagance may very well be forgotten. In such cases he[pg 261]does not so much as profess to follow anything more respectable than the capricious devices of his misguided fancy.3. Nothing throws so strong a light on the real state of the text in the latter half of the second century as the single notice of Irenaeus (fl. 178) on Apoc. xiii. 18. This eminent person, the glory of the Western Church in his own age, whose five books against Heresies (though chiefly extant but in a bald old Latin version) are among the most precious reliques of Christian antiquity, had been privileged in his youth to enjoy the friendly intercourse of his master Polycarp, who himself had conversed familiarly with St. John and others that had seen the Lord (Euseb., Eccl. Hist., v. 20). Yet even Irenaeus, though removed but by one stage from the very Apostles, possessed (if we except a bare tradition) no other means of settling discordant readings than are now open to ourselves; namely, to search out the best copies and exercise the judgement on their contents. Hislocus classicusmust needs be cited in full, the Latin throughout, the Greek in such portions as survive. The question is whether St. John wrote χξιϛ᾽ (666), or χιϛ᾽ (616).“Hic autem sic se habentibus, et in omnibus antiquis et probatissimis et veteribus scripturis numero hoc posito, et testimonium perhibentibus his qui facie ad faciem Johannem viderunt (τούτων δὲ οὕτως ἐχόντων, καὶ ἐν πᾶσι δὲ τοῖς σπουδαίοις καὶ ἀρχαίοις ἀντιγράφοις τοῦ ἀριθμοῦ τούτου κειμένου, καὶ μαρτυρούντων ἀυτῶν ἐκείνων τῶν κατ᾽ ὄψιν τὸν Ἰωάννην ἑωρακότων, καὶ τοῦ λόγου διδάσκοντος ἡμᾶς ὅτι ὁ ἀριθμὸς τοῦ ὀνόματος τοῦ θηρίου κατὰ τὴν τῶν Ἑλλήνων ψῆφον διὰ τῶν ἐν ἀυτῷ γραμμάτων [ἐμφαίνεται]), et ratione docente nos quoniam numerus nominis bestiae, secundum Graecorum computationem, per literas quae in eo sunt sexcentos habebit et sexaginta et sex: ignoro quomodo erraverunt quidam sequentes idiotismum et medium frustrantes numerum nominis, quinquaginta numeros deducentes, pro sex decadis unam decadem volentes esse (οὐκ οἶδα πῶς ἐσφάλησάν τινες ἐπακολουθήσαντες ἰδιωτισμῷ καὶ τὸν μέσον ἠθέτησαν ἀριθμὸν τοῦ ὀνόματος, ν᾽ ψήφισμα ὑφελόντες καὶ ἀντὶ τῶν ἓξ δεκάδων μίαν δεκάδα βουλόμενοι εἶναι). Hoc autem arbitror scriptorum peccatum fuisse, ut solet fieri, quoniam et per literas numeri ponuntur, facilè literam Graecam quae sexaginta enuntiat numerum, in iota Graecorum literam expansam.... Sed his quidem qui simpliciter et sine malitia hoc fecerunt, arbitramur veniam dari a Deo.”(Contra Haeres. v. 30. 1: Harvey, vol. ii. pp. 406-7.)Here we obtain at once the authority of Irenaeus for receiving the Apocalypse as the work of St. John; we discern the living interest its contents had for the Christians of the second century, even up to thetraditionalpreservation of its minutest readings;[pg 262]we recognize the fact that numbers were then represented by letters273; and the far more important one that the original autograph of the Apocalypse was already so completely lost, that a thought of it never entered the mind of the writer, though the book had not been composed one hundred years, perhaps not more than seventy274.4. Clement of Alexandria is the next writer who claims our attention (fl. 194). Though his works abound with citations from Scripture, on the whole not too carefully made (“in adducendis N. T. locis creber est etcastus,”is rather too high praise, Mill, Proleg. § 627), the most has not yet been made of the information he supplies. He too complains of those who tamper with (or metaphrase) the Gospels for their own sinister ends, and affords us one specimen of their evil diligence275. His pupil Origen's [185-253] is the highest name among the critics and expositors of the early Church; he is perpetually engaged in the discussion of various readings of the New Testament, and employs language in describing the then existing state of the text, which would be deemed strong if applied even to its present[pg 263]condition, after the changes which sixteen more centuries must needs have produced. His statements are familiar enough to Biblical enquirers, but, though often repeated, cannot be rightly omitted here. Seldom have such warmth of fancy and so bold a grasp of mind been united with the life-long patient industry which procured for this famous man the honourable appellation ofAdamantius. Respecting the sacred autographs, their fate or their continued existence, he seems to have had no information, and to have entertained no curiosity: they had simply passed by and were out of reach. Had it not been for the diversities of copies in all the Gospels on other points (he writes)—καὶ εἰ μὲν μὴ καὶ περὶ ἄλλων πολλῶν διαφωνία ἦν πρὸς ἄλληλα τῶν ἀντιγράφων—he should not have ventured to object to the authenticity of a certain passage (Matt. xix. 19) on internal grounds: νυνὶ δὲ δηλονότι πολλὴ γέγονεν ἡ τῶν ἀντιγράφων διαφορά, εἴτε ἀπὸ ῥαθυμίας τινῶν γραφέων, εἴτε ἀπὸ τόλμης τινῶν μοχθηρᾶς τῆς διορθώσεως τῶν γραφομένων, εἴτε καὶ ἀπὸ τῶν τὰ ἑαυτοῖς δοκοῦντα ἐν τῇ διορθώσει προστιθέντων ἢ ἀφαιρούντων (Comment. on Matt., Tom. iii. p. 671,De la Rue).“But now,”saith he,“great in truth has become the diversity of copies, be it from the negligence of certain scribes, or from the evil daring of some who correct what is written, or from those who in correcting add or take away what they think fit276:”just like Irenaeus had previously described revisers of the text as persons“qui peritiores apostolis volunt esse”(Contra Haeres. iv. 6. 1).5. Nor can it easily be denied that the various readings of the New Testament current from the middle of the second to the middle of the third century, were neither fewer nor less considerable than such language would lead us to anticipate. Though no[pg 264]surviving manuscript of the Old Latin version, or versions, dates before the fourth century, and most of them belong to a still later age, yet the general correspondence of their text with that used by the first Latin Fathers is a sufficient voucher for its high antiquity. The connexion subsisting between this Latin version, the Curetonian Syriac, and Codex Bezae, proves that the text of these documents is considerably older than the vellum on which they are written; the Peshitto Syriac also, most probably the very earliest of all translations, though approaching far nearer to the received text than they, sufficiently resembles these authorities in many peculiar readings to exhibit the general tone and character of one class of manuscripts extant in the second century, two hundred years anterior to Codd. אB. Now it may be said without extravagance that no set of Scriptural records affords a text less probable in itself or less sustained by any rational principles of external evidence, than that of Cod. D, of the Latin codices, and (so far as it accords with them) of Cureton's Syriac. Interpolations, as insipid in themselves as unsupported by other evidence, abound in them all277: additions so little in accordance with the genuine spirit of Holy Writ that some critics (though I, for one, profess no skill in such alchemy) have declared them to be as easily separable from the text which they encumber, as the foot-notes appended to a modern book are from the main body of the work (Tregelles, An Account of the Printed Text, p. 138, note). It is no less true to fact than paradoxical in sound, that the worst corruptions to which the New Testament has ever been subjected, originated within a hundred years after it was composed; that Irenaeus and the African Fathers and the whole Western, with a portion of the Syrian Church, used far inferior manuscripts to those employed by Stunica, or Erasmus, or Stephen thirteen centuries later, when[pg 265]moulding the Textus Receptus. What passage in the Holy Gospels would be more jealously guarded than the record of the heavenly voice at the Lord's Baptism? Yet Augustine (De Consensu Evangelist, ii. 14) marked a variation which he thought might be found“in aliquibus fide dignis exemplaribus,”though not“in antiquioribus codicibus Graecis,”where, in the place of ἐν σοὶ ἠυδόκησα (Luke iii. 22), the words ἐγὼ σήμερον γεγέννηκά σε are substituted from Psalm ii. 7: so also reads the Manichaean Faustus apud Augustin.; Enchiridion ad Laurentium, c. 49. The only Greek copy which maintains this important reading is D: it is met with moreover inabc(indof course), inff1primâ manu, and inl, whose united evidence leaves not a doubt of its existence in the primitive Old Latin; whence it is cited by Hilary three times, by Lactantius and Juvencus, to which list Abbot adds Hilary the deacon (Quaestiones V. et N. T.). Among the Greeks it is known but to Methodius, and to those very early writers, Justin Martyr and Clement of Alexandria, who seem to have derived the corruption (for such it must doubtless be regarded) from the Ebionite Gospel (Epiphan., Haeres., xxi. 13)278. So again of a doubtful passage which we shall examine in ChapterXII, Irenaeus cites Acts viii. 37 without the least misgiving, though the spuriousness of the verse can hardly be doubted; and expressly testifies to a reading in Matt. i. 18 which has not till lately found many advocates. It is hard to believe that 1 John v. 7, 8 was not cited by Cyprian, and even the interpolation in Matt. xx. 28 was widely known and received. Many other examples might be produced from the most venerable Christian writers, in which they countenance variations (and those not arbitrary, but resting on some sort of authority) which no modern critic has ever attempted to vindicate.6. When we come down to the fourth century, our information grows at once more definite and more trustworthy. Copies of Scripture had been extensively destroyed during the long and terrible period of affliction that preceded the conversion of[pg 266]Constantine. In the very edict which marked the beginning of Diocletian's persecution, it is ordered that the holy writings should be burnt (τὰς γραφὰς ἀφανεῖς πυρὶ γενέσθαι, Eusebius, Eccl. Hist., viii. 2); and the cruel decree was so rigidly enforced that a special name of reproach (traditores), together with the heaviest censures of the Church, was laid upon those Christians who betrayed the sacred trust (Bingham, Antiquities, book xvi. ch. vi. 25). At such a period critical revision or even the ordinary care of devout transcribers must have disappeared before the pressure of the times. Fresh copies of the New Testament would have to be made in haste to supply the room of those seized by the enemies of our Faith; and, when made, they had to circulate by stealth among persons whose lives were in jeopardy every hour. Hence arose the need, when the tempest was overpast, of transcribing many new manuscripts of the Holy Bible, the rather as the Church was now receiving vast accessions of converts within her pale. Eusebius of Caesarea, the ecclesiastical historian, seems to have taken the lead in this happy labour; his extensive learning, which by the aid of certain other less commendable qualities had placed him high in Constantine's favour, rendered it natural that the emperor should employ his services for furnishing with fifty copies of Scripture the churches of his new capital, Constantinople. Eusebius' deep interest in Biblical studies is exhibited in several of his surviving works, as well as in his Canons for harmonizing the Gospels: and he would naturally betake himself for the text of his fifty codices to the Library founded at his Episcopal city of Caesarea by the martyr Pamphilus, the dear friend and teacher from whom he derived his own familiar appellationEusebius Pamphili. Into this Library Pamphilus had gathered manuscripts of Origen as well as of other theologians, and of these Eusebius made an index (τοὺς πίνακας παρεθέμην: Eccles. Hist., vi. 32). From this collection Cod. H of St. Paul and others are stated to have been derived, nay even Cod. א in its Old Testament portion (seevol. I. p. 55 and note), which is expressly declared to have been corrected to the Hexapla of Origen. Indeed we know from Jerome (Comment. in Epist. ad Tit.) that the very autograph (“ipsa authentica”) of Origen's Hexapla was used by himself at Caesarea, and Montfaucon (Praeliminaria in Hexapl., chap. i. 5) cites from one[pg 267]manuscript the following subscription to Ezekiel, Ὁ Εὐσέβιος ἐγὼ σχόλια παρέθηκα. Πάμφιλος καὶ Εὐσέβιος ἐδιωρθώσαντο.7. We are thus warranted, as well from direct evidence as from the analogy of the Old Testament, to believe that Eusebius mainly resorted for his Constantinopolitan Church-books to the codices of Pamphilus, which might once have belonged to Origen. What critical corrections (if any) he ventured to make in the text on his own judgement is not so clear. Not that there is the least cause to believe, with Dr. Nolan (Inquiry into the Integrity of the Greek Vulgate, p. 27), that Eusebius had either the power or the will to suppress or tamper with the great doctrinal texts 1 John v. 7, 8; 1 Tim. iii. 16; Acts xx. 28; yet we cannot deny that his prepossessions may have tempted him to arbitrary alterations in other passages, which had no direct bearing on the controversies of his age279. Codd. אB are quite old enough to have been copied under his inspection280, and it is certainly very remarkable that these two early manuscripts omit one whole paragraph (Mark xvi. 9-20) with his sanction, if not after his example (seebelow, Chap.XII). Thus also in Matt, xxiii. 35 Cod. א, with the countenance only of Evan. 59, Evst. 6, 13, 222 (see under Evst. 222), discards υἱοῦ βαραχίον, for which change Eusebius (silentio) is literally the only authority among the Fathers, Irenaeus and even Origen retaining the words, in spite of their obvious difficulty. The relation in which Cod. א stands to the other four chief manuscripts of the Gospels, may be roughly estimated from analyzing the transcript of four pages first published by Tischendorf281, as well as in any other[pg 268]way. Of the 312 variations from the common text therein noted, א stands alone in forty-five, in eight agrees with ABCD united (much of C, however, is lost in these passages), with ABC together thirty-one times, with ABD fourteen, with AB thirteen, with D alone ten, with B alone but once (Mark i. 27), with C alone once: with several authorities against AB thirty-nine times, with A against B fifty-two, with B against A ninety-eight. Hence, while the discovery of this precious document has unquestionably done much to uphold Cod. B (which is the more correctly written, and doubtless the more valuable of the two) in many of its more characteristic and singular readings, it has made the mutual divergencies of the very oldest critical authorities more patent and perplexing than ever282.8. Codd. אB were apparently anterior to the age of Jerome, the latest ecclesiastical writer whose testimony need be dwelt upon, since from his time downwards the stream of extant and direct manuscript evidence, beginning with Codd. AC, flows on without interruption. Jerome's attention was directed to the criticism of the Greek Testament by his early Biblical studies, and the knowledge he thus obtained had full scope for its exercise when he was engaged on revising the Old Latin version. In his so-often cited“Praefatio ad Damasum,”prefixed to his recension of the Gospels, he complains of certain“codices, quos a Luciano et Hesychio nuncupatos, paucorum hominum asserit perversa contentio,”and those not of the Old Testament alone, but also of the New. This obscure and passing notice of corrupt and (apparently) interpolated copies has been made the foundation of more than one theory as fanciful as ingenious. Jerome further informs us that he had adopted in his translation the canons which Eusebius“Alexandrium secutus Ammonium”(but[pg 269]seeVol. I. pp. 59, &c.) had invented or first brought into vogue; stating, and, in his usual fashion, somewhat exaggerating283, an evil these canons helped to remedy, the mixing up of the matter peculiar to one Evangelist with the narrative of another. Hence we might naturally expect that the Greek manuscripts he would view with special favour, were the same as Eusebius had approved before him. In the scattered notices throughout his works, Jerome sometimes speaks but vaguely of“quaedam exemplaria tam Graeca quam Latina”(Luke xxii. 43-4, almost in the words of Hilary, his senior); or appeals to readings“in quibusdam exemplaribus et maximè in Graecis codicibus”(Mark xvi. 14). Occasionally we hear of“multi et Graeci et Latini codices”(John vii. 53), or“vera exemplaria”(Matt. v. 22; xxi. 31), or“antiqua exemplaria”(Luke ix. 23), without specifying in which language: Mark xvi. 9-20“in raris fertur Evangeliis,”since“omnes Graeciae libri paene”do not contain it284. In two places, however, he gives a more definite account of the copies he most regarded. In Galat. iii. 1 τῇ ἀληθείᾳ μὴ πείθεσθαι is omitted by Jerome, because it is not contained“in exemplaribus Adamantii,”although (as he elsewhere informs us)“et Graeca exemplaria hoc errore confusa sint.”In the other of the two passages Jerome remarks that in some Latin copies of Matt. xxiv. 36neque filiusis added,“quum in Graecis, et maxime Adamantii et Pierii exemplaribus, hoc non habeatur adscriptum.”Pierius the presbyter of Alexandria, elsewhere called by Jerome“the younger Origen”(Cat. Scriptt. Eccl., i. p. 128), has been deprived by fortune of the honour due to his merit and learning. A contemporary, perhaps the teacher of Pamphilus (Euseb., Eccl. Hist., vii. 32) at Caesarea, his copies of Scripture would naturally be preserved with those of Origen in the great Library of that city. Here they were doubtless seen by Jerome when, to his deep joy, he found Origen's writings copied in Pamphilus' hand (Cat. Scriptt. Eccl.,[pg 270]ubi supra), which volumes Acacius and Euzoius, elder contemporaries of Jerome himself, had taken pious care to repair and renew (ibid.i. p. 131; ad Marcell. Ep. cxli). It is not therefore wonderful if, employing as they did and setting a high value on precisely the same manuscripts of the N. T., the readings approved by Origen, Eusebius, and Jerome should closely agree.9. Epiphanius [d. 403], who wrote at about the same period as Jerome, distinguishes in his note on Luke xix. 41 or xxii. 44 (Tom. ii. p. 36) between the uncorrected copies (ἀδιορθώτοις), and those used by the Orthodox285. Of the function of the“corrector”(διορθωτής) of an ancient manuscript we have spoken several times before: but a system was devised by Professor J. L. Hug of Freyburg (Einleitung, 1808), and maintained, though with some modifications, by J. G. Eichhorn, which assigned to these occasional, and (as they would seem to be) unsystematic labours of the reviser, a foremost place in the criticism of the N. T. Hug conceived that the process of corruption had been going on so rapidly and uniformly from the Apostolic age downwards, that by the middle of the third century the state of the text in the general mass of codices had degenerated into the form exhibited in Codd. D, 1, 13, 69, 124 of the Gospels, the Old Latin and Sahidic (he would now have added the Curetonian Syriac) versions, and to some extent in the Peshitto and in the citations of Clement of Alexandria and of Origen in his early works. To this uncorrected text he gave the name of κοινὴ ἔκδοσις, and that it existed, substantially in the interpolated shape now seen in Cod. D, the Old Latin, and Cureton's Syriac, as early as the second century, need not be doubted. There is some foundation for this position, but it was marred by Hug's lack of sobriety of judgement. What we may fairly dispute is that this text ever[pg 271]had extensive circulation or good repute in the Churches whose vernacular language was Greek. This“common edition”Hug supposes to have received three separate emendations in the middle of the third century; one made by Origen in Palestine, which he thinks Jerome adopted and approved; two others by Hesychius and Lucian (a presbyter of Antioch and Martyr), in Egypt and Syria respectively, both which Jerome condemned, and Pope Gelasius (a.d.492-6) declared to be apocryphal286. To Origen's recension he referred such copies as AKM, 42, 106, 114, 116, 253 of the Gospels, the Harkleian Syriac, the quotations of Chrysostom and Theodoret; to Hesychius the Alexandrian codices BCL; to Lucian the Byzantine documents EFGHSV and the mass of later books. The practical effect of this elaborate theory would be to accord to Cod. A a higher place among our authorities than some recent editors have granted it, even than it quite deserves, yet its correspondence with Origen in many characteristic readings would thus be admitted and accounted for (but seep.226). But in truth Hug's whole scheme is utterly baseless as regards historical fact, and most insufficiently sustained by internal proof. Jerome's slight and solitary mention of the copies of Lucian and Hesychius abundantly evinces their narrow circulation and the low esteem in which they were held; and even Eichhorn perceived that there was no evidence whatever to show that Origen had attempted a formal revision of the text. The passages cited above, both from Eusebius and Jerome—and no others are known to bear on the subject—will carry us no further than this:—that these Fathers had access to codices of the N. T. once possessed by Adamantius, and here and there, perhaps, retouched by his hand. The manuscripts copied by Pamphilus were those of Origen's own works; and while we have full and detailed accounts of what he accomplished for the Greek versions of the Old Testament, no hint has been thrown out by any ancient writer that he carried his pious labour into[pg 272]the criticism of the New. On the contrary, he seems to disclaim the task in a sentence now extant chiefly in the old Latin version of his works, wherein, to a notice of his attempt to remove diversity of reading from codices of the Septuagint by the help of“the other editions”(κριτηρίῳ χρησάμενοι ταῖς λοιπαῖς ἐκδόσεσιν, i.e. the versions of Aquila and the rest), he is represented as adding,“In exemplaribus autem Novi Testamenti, hoc ipsum me posse facere sine periculo non putavi”(Origen, Tom. iii. p. 671).10. Hug's system of recensions was devised as a corrective to those of Bengel and of Griesbach, which have been adequately discussed in ChapterVII. The veteran Griesbach spent his last effort as a writer in bringing to notice the weak points of Hug's case, and in claiming him, where he rightly could, as a welcome ally287. But neither did Hug's scheme, nor that propounded by Scholz some years later, obtain the general credit and acceptance which had once been conceded to Griesbach's. It was by this time plainly seen that not only were such theories unsupported by historical testimony (to which indeed the Professor of Halle had been too wise to lay claim), but that they failed to account for more than a part, and that usually a small part, of the phenomena disclosed by minute study of our critical materials. All that can be inferred from searching into the history of the sacred text amounts to no more than this: that extensive[pg 273]variations, arising no doubt from the wide circulation of the New Testament in different regions and among nations of diverse languages, subsisted from the earliest period to which our records extend. Beyond this point our investigations cannot be carried, without indulging in pleasant speculations which may amuse the fancy, but cannot inform the sober judgement. Such is the conclusion to which we are reluctantly brought after examining the principles laid down, as well by the critics we have named above, as by Lachmann, by his disciple Tregelles, and even by thepar nobileof Cambridge Doctors, Professor Hort and Bishop (formerly Canon) Westcott, of whose labours we shall speak presently.[pg 274]

[pg 244]Chapter VIII. Internal Evidence.We have now described, in some detail, the several species of external testimony available for the textual criticism of the New Testament, whether comprising manuscripts of the original Greek, or ancient translations from it, or citations from Scripture made by ecclesiastical writers. We have, moreover, indicated the chief editions wherein all these materials are recorded for our use, and the principles that have guided their several editors in applying them to the revision of the text. One source of information, formerly deemed quite legitimate, has been designedly passed by. It is now agreed among competent judges thatConjectural Emendationmust never be resorted to, even in passages of acknowledged difficulty243; the absence of proof that a reading proposed to be substituted for the common one is actually supported by some trustworthy document being of itself a fatal objection to our receiving it244. Those that have[pg 245]been hazarded aforetime by celebrated scholars, when but few codices were known or actually collated, have seldom, very seldom, been confirmed by subsequent researches: and the time has now fully come when, in the possession of abundant stores of variations collected from memorials of almost every age and country, we are fully authorized in believing that the reading to which no manuscript, or old version, or primitive Father has borne witness, however plausible and (for some purposes) convenient, cannot safely be accepted as genuine or even as probable; even though there may still remain a few passages respecting which we cannot help framing a shrewd suspicion that the original reading differed from any form in which they are now presented to us245.In no wise less dangerous than bare conjecture destitute of external evidence, is the device of Lachmann for unsettling by means of emendation (emendando), without reference to the balance of conflicting testimony, the very text he had previously fixed by revision (recensendo) through the means of critical authorities: in fact the earlier process is but so much trouble misemployed, if its results are liable to be put aside by[pg 246]abstract judgement or individual prejudices. Not that the most sober and cautious critic would disparage the fair use of internal evidence, or withhold their proper influence from those reasonable considerations which in practice cannot, and in speculation should not, be shut out from every subject on which the mind seeks to form an intelligent opinion. Whether we will or not, we unconsciously and almost instinctively adopt that one of two opposite statements,in themselves pretty equally attested to, which we judge the better suited to recognized phenomena, and to the common course of things. I know of no person who has affected to construct a text of the N. T. on diplomatic grounds exclusively, without paying some regard to the character of the sense produced; nor, were the experiment tried, would any one find it easy to dispense with discretion and the dictates of good sense: nature would prove too strong for the dogmas of a wayward theory.“It is difficult not to indulge insubjectiveness, at least in some measure,”writes Dr. Tregelles (Account of Printed Text, p. 109): and, thus qualified, we may add that it is one of those difficulties a sane man would not wish to overcome.The foregoing remarks may tend to explain the broad distinction between mere conjectural emendation, which must be utterly discarded, and that just use of internal testimony which he is the best critic who most judiciously employs. They so far resemble each other, as they are both products of the reasoning faculty exercising itself on the sacred words of Scripture: they differ in this essential feature, that the one proceeds in ignorance or disregard of evidence from without, while the office of the other has no place unless where external evidence is evenly, or at any rate not very unevenly, balanced. What degree of preponderance in favour of one out of several readings, all of them affording some tolerable sense, shall entitle it to reception as a matter of right; to what extent canons of subjective criticism may be allowed to eke out the scantiness of documentary authority; are points that cannot well be defined with strict accuracy. Men's decisions respecting them will always vary according to their temperament and intellectual habits; the judgement of the same person (the rather if he be by constitution a little unstable) will fluctuate from time to time as to the same evidence brought to bear on the self-same[pg 247]passage. Though thecanonsor rules of internal testimony be themselves grounded either on principles of common sense, or on certain peculiarities which all may mark in the documents from which our direct proofs are derived; yet has it been found by experience (what indeed we might have looked for beforehand), that in spite, perhaps in consequence, of their extreme simplicity, the application of these canons has proved a searching test of the tact, the sagacity, and the judicial acumen of all that handle them. For the other functions of an editor accuracy and learning, diligence and zeal are sufficient: but the delicate adjustment of conflicting probabilities calls for no mean exercise of a critical genius. This innate faculty we lack in Wetstein, and notably in Scholz; it was highly developed in Mill and Bengel, and still more in Griesbach. His well-known power in this respect is the main cause of our deep regret for the failure of Bentley's projected work, with all its faults whether of plan or execution.Nearly all the following rules of internal evidence, being founded in the nature of things, are alike applicable to all subjects of literary investigation, though their general principles may need some modification in the particular instance of the Greek Testament.I.Proclivi Scriptioni praestat ardua: the more difficult the reading the more likely it is to be genuine. It would seem more probable that the copyist tried to explain an obscure passage, or to relieve a hard construction, than to make that perplexed which before was easy: thus in John vii. 39, Lachmann's addition of δεδομένον to οὔπω ἦν πνεῦμα ἅγιον is very improbable, though countenanced by Cod. B and (of course) by several of the chief versions. We have here Bengel's prime canon, and although Wetstein questioned it (N. T., vol. i. Proleg. p. 157), he was himself ultimately obliged to lay down something nearly to the same effect246. Yet this excellent rule may easily[pg 248]be applied on a wrong occasion, and is only trueceteris paribus, where manuscripts or versions lend strong support to the harder form.“To force readings into the text merely because they are difficult, is to adulterate the divine text with human alloy; it is to obtrude upon the reader of Scripture the solecisms of faltering copyists, in the place of the word of God”(Bp. Chr. Wordsworth, N. T., vol. i. Preface, p. xii)247. See Chap.XIIon Matt. xxi. 28-31. Compare also above, Vol. I. i. § 11.II. That reading out of several is preferable, from which all the rest may have been derived, although it could not be derived from any of them. Tischendorf (N. T., Proleg. p. xlii. 7th edition) might well say that this would be“omnium regularum principium,”if its application were less precarious. Of his own two examples the former is too weakly vouched for to be listened to, save by way of illustration. In Matt. xxiv. 38 he248and Alford would simply read ἐν ταῖς ἡμέραις τοῦ κατακλυσμοῦ on the very feeble evidence of Cod. L, one uncial Evst. (13),aeff, the Sahidic version, and Origen (in two places); because the copyists, knowing that the eating and drinking and marrying took place not in the days of the flood, but before them (καὶ οὐκ ἔγνωσαν ἕως ἦλθεν ὁ κατακλυσμός ver. 39), would strive to evade the difficulty, such as it was, by adopting one of the several forms found in our copies: ἡμέραις πρὸ τοῦ κατακλ.,[pg 249]or ἡμέραις ταῖς πρὸ τοῦ κατακλ., or ἡμέραις ἐκείναις πρὸ τοῦ κατακλ., or ἡμέραις ἐκείναις ταῖς πρὸ τοῦ κατακλ., or even ἡμέραις τοῦ νῶε. In his second example Tischendorf is more fortunate, unless indeed we choose to refer it rather to Bengel's canon. James iii. 12 certainly ought to run μὴ δύναται, ἀδελφοί μου, συκῆ ἐλαίας ποιῆσαι, ἢ ἄμπελος σῦκα; οὔτε (velοὐδὲ) ἁλυκὸν γλυκὺ ποιῆσαι ὕδωρ, as in Codd. אABC, in not less than six good cursives, the Vulgate and other versions. To soften the ruggedness of this construction, some copies prefixed οὅτως to οὔτε or οὔδε, while others inserted the whole clause οὕτως οὐδεμία πηγὴ ἁλυκὸν καί before γλυκὺ ποιῆσαι ὕδωρ. Other fair instances may be seen in Chap.XII, notes on Luke x. 41, 42; Col. ii. 2249. In the Septuagint also the reading of א συνεισελθόντας 1 Macc. xii. 48 appears to be the origin both of συνελθόντας with A, the uncial 23, and four cursives at least, and of εἰσελθόντας of the Roman edition and the mass of cursives.III.“Brevior lectio, nisi testium vetustorum et gravium auctoritate penitus destituatur, praeferenda est verbosiori. Librarii enim multò proniores ad addendum fuerunt, quam ad omittendum”(Griesbach, N. T., Proleg. p. lxiv. vol. i). This canon bears an influential part in the system of Griesbach and his successors, and by the aid of Cod. B and a few others, has brought great changes into the text as approved by some critics. Dr. Green too (Course of Developed Criticism on Text of N. T.) sometimes carries it to excess in his desire to remove what he considersaccretions. It is so far true, that scribes were no doubt prone to receive marginal notes into the text which they were originally designed only to explain or enforce (e.g.[pg 250]1 John v. 7, 8)250; or sought to amplify a brief account from a fuller narrative of the same event found elsewhere, whether in the same book (e.g. Act. ix. 5 compared with ch. xxvi. 14), or in the parallel passage of one of the other synoptical Gospels. In quotations, also, from the Old Testament the shorter form is always the more probably correct (ibid.). Circumstances too will be supplied which were deemed essential for the preservation of historical truth (e.g. Act. viii. 37), or names of persons and places may be inserted from the Lectionaries: and to this head we must refer the graver and more deliberate interpolations so frequently met with in Cod. D and a few other documents. Yet it is just as true that words and clauses are sometimes wilfully omitted for the sake of removing apparent difficulties (e.g. υἱοῦ βαραχίου, Matt, xxiii. 35 in Cod. א and a few others), and that the negligent loss of whole passages through ὁμοιοτέλευτον is common to manuscripts of every age and character. On the whole, therefore, the indiscriminate rejection of portions of the text regarded as supplementary, on the evidence of but a few authorities, must be viewed with considerable distrust and suspicion.IV. That reading of a passage is preferable which best suits the peculiar style, manner, and habits of thought of an author; it being the tendency of copyists to overlook the idiosyncrasies of the writer. For example, the abrupt energy of St. James'asyndeta(e.g. ch. i. 27), of which we have just seen a marked instance, is much concealed by the particles inserted by the common text (e.g. ch. ii. 4, 13; iii. 17; iv. 2; v. 6): St. Luke in the Acts is fond of omitting“said”or“saith”after the word indicating the speaker, though they are duly supplied by recent scribes (e.g. ch. ii. 38; ix. 5; xix. 2; xxv. 22; xxv. 28, 29). Thus again, in editing Herodotus, an Ionic form is more eligible than an Attic one equally well attested, while in the Greek Testament an Alexandrian termination should be chosen under similar circumstances. Yet even this canon has a double edge: habit or the love of critical correction will sometimes lead[pg 251]the scribe to change the text to his author's more usual style, as well as to depart from it through inadvertence (seeActs iv. 17; 1 Pet. ii. 24): so that we may securely apply the rule only where the external evidence is not unequally balanced.V. Attention must be paid to the genius and usage of each several authority, in assigning the weight due to it in a particular instance. Thus the testimony of Cod. B is of the less influence in omissions, that of Cod. D (Bezae) in additions, inasmuch as the tendency of the former is to abridge, that of the latter to amplify the sacred text. The value of versions and ecclesiastical writers also much depends on the degree of care and critical skill which they display.Every one of the foregoing rules might be appliedmutatis mutandisto the emendation of the text of any author whose works have suffered alteration since they left his hands: the next (so far as it is true) is peculiar to the case of Holy Scripture.VI.“Inter plures unius loci lectiones ea pro suspectâ merito habetur, quae orthodoxorum dogmatibus manifestè prae ceteris favet”(Griesbach, N. T., Proleg., p. lxvi. vol. i). I cite this canon from Griesbach for the sake of annexing Archbishop Magee's very pertinent corollary:“from which, at least, it is reasonable to infer, that whatever readings, in favour of the Orthodox opinion, may have hadhissanction, have not been preferred by him from any bias in behalf of Orthodoxy”(Discourses on Atonement and Sacrifice, vol. iii. p. 212). Alford says that the rule,“sound in the main,”does not hold good, when,“whichever reading is adopted, the orthodox meaning is legitimate, butthe adoption of the stronger orthodox reading is absolutely incompatible with the heretical meaning,—then it is probable thatsuch stronger orthodox reading was the original”(N. T., Proleg., vol. i. p. 83, note 6, 4th edition): instancing Act. xx. 28, where the weaker reading τὴν ἐκκλησίαν τοῦ κυρίου would quite satisfy the orthodox, while the alternative reading τοῦ θεοῦ“would have been certain to be altered by the heretics.”But in truth there seems no good ground for believing that the rule is“sound in the main,”though two or three such instances as[pg 252]1 Tim. iii. 16251and the insertion of θεόν in Jude, ver. 4, might seem to countenance it. We dissent altogether from Griesbach's statement,“Scimus enim, lectiones quascunque, etiam manifestò falsas, dummodo orthodoxorum placitis patrocinarentur, inde a tertii seculi initiis mordicus defensas seduloque propagatas, ceteras autem ejusdem loci lectiones, quae dogmati ecclesiastico nil praesidii afferrent, haereticorum perfidiae attributas temere fuisse”(Griesb.ubi supra), if he means that the orthodox forged those great texts, which,believing them to be authentic, it was surely innocent and even incumbent on them to employ252. The Church of Christ“inde a tertii seculi initiis”has had her faults, many and grievous, but she never did nor shall fail in her duty as a faithful“witness and keeper of Holy Writ.”But while vindicating the copyists of Scripture from all wilful tampering with the text, we need not deny that they, like others of their craft, preferred that one out of several extant readings that seemed to give the fullest and most emphatic sense: hence Davidson would fain account for the addition ἐκ τῆς σαρκὸς αὐτοῦ καὶ ἐκ τῶν ὀστέων αὐτοῦ (which, however, is not unlikely to be genuine253) in Eph. v. 30. Since the mediaeval scribes belonged almost universally to the monastic orders, we will not dispute the truth of Griesbach's rule,“Lectio prae aliis sensum pietati (praesertim monasticae) alendae aptum fundens, suspecta est,”though its scope is doubtless very limited254. Their[pg 253]habit of composing and transcribing Homilies has also been supposed to have led them to give a hortatory form to positive commands or dogmatic statements (seeVol. I. p. 17), but there is much weight in Wordsworth's remark, that“such suppositions as these have a tendency to destroy the credit of the ancient MSS.; and if such surmises were true, those MSS. would hardly be worth the pains of collating them”(note on1 Cor. xv. 49).VII.“Apparent probabilities of erroneous transcription, permutation of letters, itacism and so forth,”have been designated by Bp. Ellicott“paradiplomaticevidence”(Preface to the Galatians; p. xvii, first edition), as distinguished from the“diplomatic”testimony of codices, versions, &c. This species of evidence, which can hardly be deemed internal, must have considerable influence in numerous cases, and will be used the most skilfully by such as have considerable practical acquaintance with the rough materials of criticism. We have anticipated what can be laid before inexperienced readers on this topic in the first chapter of our first volume, when discussing the sources of various readings255: in fact, so far as canons of internal[pg 254]or of paradiplomatic evidence are at all trustworthy, they instruct us in the reverse process to that aimed at in Vol. I. Chap. I; the latter showing by what means the pure text of the inspired writings was brought into its present state ofpartialcorruption, the former promising us some guidance while we seek to retrace its once downward course back to the fountain-head of primeval truth256. To what has been previously stated in regard to paradiplomatic testimony it may possibly be worth while to add Griesbach's caution“lectionesrhythmifallaciâ facillimè explicandae nullius sunt pretii”(N. T., Proleg. p. lxvi), a fact whereof 2 Cor. iii. 3 affords a memorable example. Here what once seemed the wholly unnatural reading ἐν πλαξὶκαρδίαιςσαρκίναις, being disparaged by dint of the rhyming termination, is received by Lachmann in the place of καρδίας, on the authority of Codd. AB (sic) CDEGLP, perhaps a majority of cursive copies (seven out of Scrivener's twelve, and Wake 12 or Paul. 277); to which add Cod. א unknown to Lachmann, and that abject slave of manuscripts, the Harkleian Syriac. Codd. FK have καρδίας, with all the other versions. If we attempt to interpret καρδίαις, we must either render with Alford, in spite of the order of the Greek,“on fleshy tables, [your] hearts:”or with the Revisers of 1881“in tablesthat arehearts of flesh;”yet surely σαρκίναις as well as λιθίναις must agree with πλαξί. Dr. Hort in mere despair would almost reject the second πλαξί (Introd., Notes, p. 119).It has been said that“when the cause of a various reading is known, the variation usually disappears257.”This language may seem extravagant, yet it hardly exaggerates what may be effected by internal evidence, when it is clear, simple, and unambiguous. It is, therefore, much to be lamented that this is seldom the case in practice. Readings that we should uphold in virtue of one canon, are very frequently (perhaps in a majority of really doubtful passages) brought into suspicion by means of[pg 255]another; yet they shall each of them be perfectly sound and reasonable in their proper sphere. An instance in point is Matt. v. 22, where the external evidence is divided. Codd. אΒ (in Δsecundâ manu), 48, 198, 583, 587, Origentwice, the Ethiopic and Vulgate, omit εἰκῆ after πᾶς ὁ ὀργιζόμενος τῷ ἀδελφῷ ἀυτοῦ, Jerome fairly stating that it is“in quibusdam codicibus,”not“in veris,”which may be supposed to be Origen's MSS., and therefore removing it from his revised Latin version. It is found, however, in all other extant copies (including ΣDEKLMSUVΔ (primâ manu) Π, most cursives, all the Syriac (the Peshitto inserting, not a Syriac equivalent, but the Greek word εἰκῆ) and Old Latin copies, the Bohairic, Armenian, and Gothic versions), in Eusebius, in many Greek Fathers, in the Latin Fathers from Irenaeus downwards258, and even in the Old Latin Version of Origen himself; the later authorities uniting with Codd. ΣD and their associates against the two oldest manuscripts extant. Under such circumstances the suggestions of internal evidence would be precious indeed, were not that just as equivocal as diplomatic proof.“Griesbach and Meyer,”says Dean Alford,“hold it to have been expunged from motives of moral rigorism:—De Wette to have been inserted to soften the apparent rigour of the precept259.”Our sixth Canon is here opposed to our first260. The important yet precarious and strictly auxiliary nature of rules of internal evidence will not now escape the attentive student; he may find them exemplified very slightly and imperfectly in the twelfth Chapter of this volume, but more fully by recent critical editors of the Greek Testament; except perhaps by Tregelles, who usually passes them by in silence, though to[pg 256]some extent they influence his decisions; by Lachmann, in the formation of whose provisional text they have had no share; and by Dean Burgon, who held that“we must resolutely maintain, that External Evidence must after all be our best, our only safe guide”(The Revision Revised, p. 19)261. We will close this investigation by citing a few of those crisp little periods (conceived in the same spirit as our own remarks) wherewith Davidson is wont to inform and sometimes perhaps to amuse his admirers:“Readings must be judged on internal grounds. One can hardly avoid doing so. It is natural and almost unavoidable. It must be admitted indeed that the choice of readings on internal evidence is liable to abuse. Arbitrary caprice may characterize it. It may degenerate into simplesubjectivity. But though the temptation to misapply it be great, it must not be laid aside.... While allowing superior weight to the external sources of evidence, we feel the pressing necessity of the subjective. Here, as in other instances, the objective and subjective should accompany and modify one another. They cannot be rightly separated.”(Biblical Criticism, vol. ii. p. 374, 1852.)[pg 257]Chapter IX. History Of The Text.An adequate discussion of the subject of the present chapter would need a treatise by itself, and has been the single theme of several elaborate works. We shall here limit ourselves to the examination of those more prominent topics, a clear understanding of which is essential for the establishment of trustworthy principles in the application ofexternalevidence to the correction of the text of the New Testament.1. It was stated at the commencement of this volume that the autographs of the sacred writers“perished utterly in the very infancy of Christian history:”nor can any other conclusion be safely drawn from the general silence of the earliest Fathers, and from their constant habit of appealing to“ancient and approved copies262,”when a reference to the originals, if extant, would have put an end to all controversy on the subject of various readings. Dismissing one passage in the genuine Epistles of Ignatius (d. 107), which has no real connexion with the matter263, the only allusion to the autographs of Scripture met with in the primitive ages is the well-known declaration of[pg 258]Tertullian (fl. 200):“Percurre Ecclesias Apostolicas, apud quas ipsae adhuc Cathedrae Apostolorum suis locis praesident, apud quas ipsae Authenticae Literae eorum recitantur, sonantes vocem, et repraesentantes faciem uniuscujusque. Proximè est tibi Achaia, habes Corinthum. Si non longè es a Macedoniâ, habes Philippos, habes Thessalonicenses. Si potes in Asiam tendere, habes Ephesum. Si autem Italiae adjaces, habes Romam ...”(De Praescriptione Haereticorum, c. 36.) Attempts have been made, indeed, and that by eminent writers, to reduce the term“Authenticae Literae”so as to mean nothing more than“genuine, unadulterated Epistles,”or even the authentic Greek as opposed to the Latin translation264. It seems enough to reply with Ernesti, that any such non-natural sense is absolutely excluded by the word“ipsae,”which would be utterly absurd, if“genuine”only were intended (Institutes, Pt. iii. Ch. ii. 3)265: yet the African Tertullian was too little likely to be well informed on this subject, to entitle his rhetorical statement to any real attention266. We need not try to explain away his obvious meaning, but we may fairly demur to the evidence of this honest, but impetuous and wrong-headed man. We have no faith in the continued existence of autographs which are vouched[pg 259]for on no better authority than the real or apparent exigency ofhisargument267.2. Besides the undesigned and, to a great extent, unavoidable differences subsisting between manuscripts of the New Testament within a century of its being written, the wilful corruptions introduced by heretics soon became a cause of loud complaint in the primitive ages of the Church268. Dionysius, Bishop of Corinth, addressing the Church of Rome and Soter its Bishop (a.d.168-176), complains that even his own letters had been tampered with: καὶ ταύτας οἱ τοῦ διαβόλου ἀπόστολοι ζιζανίων γεγέμικαν, ἃ μὲν ἐξαιροῦντες, ἃ δὲ προστιθέντες; οἷς τὸ οὐαὶ κεῖται: adding, however, the far graver offence, οὐ θαυμαστὸν ἄρα εἰ καὶ τῶν κυριακῶν ῥαδιουργῆσαί τινες ἐπιβέβληνται γραφῶν (Euseb., Eccl. Hist., iv. 23), where αἱ κυριακαὶ γραφαί can be none other than the Holy Scriptures. Nor was the evil new in the age of Dionysius. Not to mention Asclepiades, or Theodotus, or Hermophylus, or Apollonides, who all under the excuse of correcting the sacred text corrupted it269, or the Gnostics Basilides (a.d.130?) and Valentinus (a.d.150?) who published additions to the sacred text which were avowedly of their own composition, Marcion of Pontus, the[pg 260]arch-heretic of that period, coming to Rome on the death of its Bishop Hyginus (a.d.142)270, brought with him that mutilated and falsified copy of the New Testament, against which the Fathers of the second century and later exerted all their powers, and whose general contents are known to us chiefly through the writings of Tertullian and subsequently of Epiphanius. It can hardly be said that Marcion deserves very particular mention in relating the history of the sacred text271. Some of the variations from the common readings which his opponents detected were doubtless taken from manuscripts in circulation at the time, and, being adopted through no private preferences of his own, are justly available for critical purposes. Thus in 1 Thess. ii. 15, Tertullian, who saw only τοὺς προφήτας in his own copies, objects to Marcion's reading τοὺς ἰδίους προφήτας (“licetsuosadjectio sit haeretici”), although ἰδίους stands in the received text, in Evann. KL (DE in later hands) and all cursives except eight, in the Gothic and both (?) Syriac versions, in Chrysostom, Theodoret, and John Damascenus. Here the heretic's testimony is useful in showing the high antiquity of ἰδίους, even though אABDEFGP, eight cursives, Origen thrice, the Vulgate, Armenian, Ethiopic, and all three Egyptian versions, join with Lachmann, Tischendorf, Tregelles, Westcott and Hort in rejecting it, some of them perhaps in compliance with Tertullian's decision. In similar instances the evidence of Marcion, as to matters of fact to which he could attach no kind of importance, is well worth recording272: but where on the contrary the dogmas of his own miserable system are touched, or no codices or other witnesses countenance his changes (as is perpetually the case in his edition of St. Luke, the only Gospel—and that maimed or interpolated from the others—he seems to have acknowledged at all), his blasphemous extravagance may very well be forgotten. In such cases he[pg 261]does not so much as profess to follow anything more respectable than the capricious devices of his misguided fancy.3. Nothing throws so strong a light on the real state of the text in the latter half of the second century as the single notice of Irenaeus (fl. 178) on Apoc. xiii. 18. This eminent person, the glory of the Western Church in his own age, whose five books against Heresies (though chiefly extant but in a bald old Latin version) are among the most precious reliques of Christian antiquity, had been privileged in his youth to enjoy the friendly intercourse of his master Polycarp, who himself had conversed familiarly with St. John and others that had seen the Lord (Euseb., Eccl. Hist., v. 20). Yet even Irenaeus, though removed but by one stage from the very Apostles, possessed (if we except a bare tradition) no other means of settling discordant readings than are now open to ourselves; namely, to search out the best copies and exercise the judgement on their contents. Hislocus classicusmust needs be cited in full, the Latin throughout, the Greek in such portions as survive. The question is whether St. John wrote χξιϛ᾽ (666), or χιϛ᾽ (616).“Hic autem sic se habentibus, et in omnibus antiquis et probatissimis et veteribus scripturis numero hoc posito, et testimonium perhibentibus his qui facie ad faciem Johannem viderunt (τούτων δὲ οὕτως ἐχόντων, καὶ ἐν πᾶσι δὲ τοῖς σπουδαίοις καὶ ἀρχαίοις ἀντιγράφοις τοῦ ἀριθμοῦ τούτου κειμένου, καὶ μαρτυρούντων ἀυτῶν ἐκείνων τῶν κατ᾽ ὄψιν τὸν Ἰωάννην ἑωρακότων, καὶ τοῦ λόγου διδάσκοντος ἡμᾶς ὅτι ὁ ἀριθμὸς τοῦ ὀνόματος τοῦ θηρίου κατὰ τὴν τῶν Ἑλλήνων ψῆφον διὰ τῶν ἐν ἀυτῷ γραμμάτων [ἐμφαίνεται]), et ratione docente nos quoniam numerus nominis bestiae, secundum Graecorum computationem, per literas quae in eo sunt sexcentos habebit et sexaginta et sex: ignoro quomodo erraverunt quidam sequentes idiotismum et medium frustrantes numerum nominis, quinquaginta numeros deducentes, pro sex decadis unam decadem volentes esse (οὐκ οἶδα πῶς ἐσφάλησάν τινες ἐπακολουθήσαντες ἰδιωτισμῷ καὶ τὸν μέσον ἠθέτησαν ἀριθμὸν τοῦ ὀνόματος, ν᾽ ψήφισμα ὑφελόντες καὶ ἀντὶ τῶν ἓξ δεκάδων μίαν δεκάδα βουλόμενοι εἶναι). Hoc autem arbitror scriptorum peccatum fuisse, ut solet fieri, quoniam et per literas numeri ponuntur, facilè literam Graecam quae sexaginta enuntiat numerum, in iota Graecorum literam expansam.... Sed his quidem qui simpliciter et sine malitia hoc fecerunt, arbitramur veniam dari a Deo.”(Contra Haeres. v. 30. 1: Harvey, vol. ii. pp. 406-7.)Here we obtain at once the authority of Irenaeus for receiving the Apocalypse as the work of St. John; we discern the living interest its contents had for the Christians of the second century, even up to thetraditionalpreservation of its minutest readings;[pg 262]we recognize the fact that numbers were then represented by letters273; and the far more important one that the original autograph of the Apocalypse was already so completely lost, that a thought of it never entered the mind of the writer, though the book had not been composed one hundred years, perhaps not more than seventy274.4. Clement of Alexandria is the next writer who claims our attention (fl. 194). Though his works abound with citations from Scripture, on the whole not too carefully made (“in adducendis N. T. locis creber est etcastus,”is rather too high praise, Mill, Proleg. § 627), the most has not yet been made of the information he supplies. He too complains of those who tamper with (or metaphrase) the Gospels for their own sinister ends, and affords us one specimen of their evil diligence275. His pupil Origen's [185-253] is the highest name among the critics and expositors of the early Church; he is perpetually engaged in the discussion of various readings of the New Testament, and employs language in describing the then existing state of the text, which would be deemed strong if applied even to its present[pg 263]condition, after the changes which sixteen more centuries must needs have produced. His statements are familiar enough to Biblical enquirers, but, though often repeated, cannot be rightly omitted here. Seldom have such warmth of fancy and so bold a grasp of mind been united with the life-long patient industry which procured for this famous man the honourable appellation ofAdamantius. Respecting the sacred autographs, their fate or their continued existence, he seems to have had no information, and to have entertained no curiosity: they had simply passed by and were out of reach. Had it not been for the diversities of copies in all the Gospels on other points (he writes)—καὶ εἰ μὲν μὴ καὶ περὶ ἄλλων πολλῶν διαφωνία ἦν πρὸς ἄλληλα τῶν ἀντιγράφων—he should not have ventured to object to the authenticity of a certain passage (Matt. xix. 19) on internal grounds: νυνὶ δὲ δηλονότι πολλὴ γέγονεν ἡ τῶν ἀντιγράφων διαφορά, εἴτε ἀπὸ ῥαθυμίας τινῶν γραφέων, εἴτε ἀπὸ τόλμης τινῶν μοχθηρᾶς τῆς διορθώσεως τῶν γραφομένων, εἴτε καὶ ἀπὸ τῶν τὰ ἑαυτοῖς δοκοῦντα ἐν τῇ διορθώσει προστιθέντων ἢ ἀφαιρούντων (Comment. on Matt., Tom. iii. p. 671,De la Rue).“But now,”saith he,“great in truth has become the diversity of copies, be it from the negligence of certain scribes, or from the evil daring of some who correct what is written, or from those who in correcting add or take away what they think fit276:”just like Irenaeus had previously described revisers of the text as persons“qui peritiores apostolis volunt esse”(Contra Haeres. iv. 6. 1).5. Nor can it easily be denied that the various readings of the New Testament current from the middle of the second to the middle of the third century, were neither fewer nor less considerable than such language would lead us to anticipate. Though no[pg 264]surviving manuscript of the Old Latin version, or versions, dates before the fourth century, and most of them belong to a still later age, yet the general correspondence of their text with that used by the first Latin Fathers is a sufficient voucher for its high antiquity. The connexion subsisting between this Latin version, the Curetonian Syriac, and Codex Bezae, proves that the text of these documents is considerably older than the vellum on which they are written; the Peshitto Syriac also, most probably the very earliest of all translations, though approaching far nearer to the received text than they, sufficiently resembles these authorities in many peculiar readings to exhibit the general tone and character of one class of manuscripts extant in the second century, two hundred years anterior to Codd. אB. Now it may be said without extravagance that no set of Scriptural records affords a text less probable in itself or less sustained by any rational principles of external evidence, than that of Cod. D, of the Latin codices, and (so far as it accords with them) of Cureton's Syriac. Interpolations, as insipid in themselves as unsupported by other evidence, abound in them all277: additions so little in accordance with the genuine spirit of Holy Writ that some critics (though I, for one, profess no skill in such alchemy) have declared them to be as easily separable from the text which they encumber, as the foot-notes appended to a modern book are from the main body of the work (Tregelles, An Account of the Printed Text, p. 138, note). It is no less true to fact than paradoxical in sound, that the worst corruptions to which the New Testament has ever been subjected, originated within a hundred years after it was composed; that Irenaeus and the African Fathers and the whole Western, with a portion of the Syrian Church, used far inferior manuscripts to those employed by Stunica, or Erasmus, or Stephen thirteen centuries later, when[pg 265]moulding the Textus Receptus. What passage in the Holy Gospels would be more jealously guarded than the record of the heavenly voice at the Lord's Baptism? Yet Augustine (De Consensu Evangelist, ii. 14) marked a variation which he thought might be found“in aliquibus fide dignis exemplaribus,”though not“in antiquioribus codicibus Graecis,”where, in the place of ἐν σοὶ ἠυδόκησα (Luke iii. 22), the words ἐγὼ σήμερον γεγέννηκά σε are substituted from Psalm ii. 7: so also reads the Manichaean Faustus apud Augustin.; Enchiridion ad Laurentium, c. 49. The only Greek copy which maintains this important reading is D: it is met with moreover inabc(indof course), inff1primâ manu, and inl, whose united evidence leaves not a doubt of its existence in the primitive Old Latin; whence it is cited by Hilary three times, by Lactantius and Juvencus, to which list Abbot adds Hilary the deacon (Quaestiones V. et N. T.). Among the Greeks it is known but to Methodius, and to those very early writers, Justin Martyr and Clement of Alexandria, who seem to have derived the corruption (for such it must doubtless be regarded) from the Ebionite Gospel (Epiphan., Haeres., xxi. 13)278. So again of a doubtful passage which we shall examine in ChapterXII, Irenaeus cites Acts viii. 37 without the least misgiving, though the spuriousness of the verse can hardly be doubted; and expressly testifies to a reading in Matt. i. 18 which has not till lately found many advocates. It is hard to believe that 1 John v. 7, 8 was not cited by Cyprian, and even the interpolation in Matt. xx. 28 was widely known and received. Many other examples might be produced from the most venerable Christian writers, in which they countenance variations (and those not arbitrary, but resting on some sort of authority) which no modern critic has ever attempted to vindicate.6. When we come down to the fourth century, our information grows at once more definite and more trustworthy. Copies of Scripture had been extensively destroyed during the long and terrible period of affliction that preceded the conversion of[pg 266]Constantine. In the very edict which marked the beginning of Diocletian's persecution, it is ordered that the holy writings should be burnt (τὰς γραφὰς ἀφανεῖς πυρὶ γενέσθαι, Eusebius, Eccl. Hist., viii. 2); and the cruel decree was so rigidly enforced that a special name of reproach (traditores), together with the heaviest censures of the Church, was laid upon those Christians who betrayed the sacred trust (Bingham, Antiquities, book xvi. ch. vi. 25). At such a period critical revision or even the ordinary care of devout transcribers must have disappeared before the pressure of the times. Fresh copies of the New Testament would have to be made in haste to supply the room of those seized by the enemies of our Faith; and, when made, they had to circulate by stealth among persons whose lives were in jeopardy every hour. Hence arose the need, when the tempest was overpast, of transcribing many new manuscripts of the Holy Bible, the rather as the Church was now receiving vast accessions of converts within her pale. Eusebius of Caesarea, the ecclesiastical historian, seems to have taken the lead in this happy labour; his extensive learning, which by the aid of certain other less commendable qualities had placed him high in Constantine's favour, rendered it natural that the emperor should employ his services for furnishing with fifty copies of Scripture the churches of his new capital, Constantinople. Eusebius' deep interest in Biblical studies is exhibited in several of his surviving works, as well as in his Canons for harmonizing the Gospels: and he would naturally betake himself for the text of his fifty codices to the Library founded at his Episcopal city of Caesarea by the martyr Pamphilus, the dear friend and teacher from whom he derived his own familiar appellationEusebius Pamphili. Into this Library Pamphilus had gathered manuscripts of Origen as well as of other theologians, and of these Eusebius made an index (τοὺς πίνακας παρεθέμην: Eccles. Hist., vi. 32). From this collection Cod. H of St. Paul and others are stated to have been derived, nay even Cod. א in its Old Testament portion (seevol. I. p. 55 and note), which is expressly declared to have been corrected to the Hexapla of Origen. Indeed we know from Jerome (Comment. in Epist. ad Tit.) that the very autograph (“ipsa authentica”) of Origen's Hexapla was used by himself at Caesarea, and Montfaucon (Praeliminaria in Hexapl., chap. i. 5) cites from one[pg 267]manuscript the following subscription to Ezekiel, Ὁ Εὐσέβιος ἐγὼ σχόλια παρέθηκα. Πάμφιλος καὶ Εὐσέβιος ἐδιωρθώσαντο.7. We are thus warranted, as well from direct evidence as from the analogy of the Old Testament, to believe that Eusebius mainly resorted for his Constantinopolitan Church-books to the codices of Pamphilus, which might once have belonged to Origen. What critical corrections (if any) he ventured to make in the text on his own judgement is not so clear. Not that there is the least cause to believe, with Dr. Nolan (Inquiry into the Integrity of the Greek Vulgate, p. 27), that Eusebius had either the power or the will to suppress or tamper with the great doctrinal texts 1 John v. 7, 8; 1 Tim. iii. 16; Acts xx. 28; yet we cannot deny that his prepossessions may have tempted him to arbitrary alterations in other passages, which had no direct bearing on the controversies of his age279. Codd. אB are quite old enough to have been copied under his inspection280, and it is certainly very remarkable that these two early manuscripts omit one whole paragraph (Mark xvi. 9-20) with his sanction, if not after his example (seebelow, Chap.XII). Thus also in Matt, xxiii. 35 Cod. א, with the countenance only of Evan. 59, Evst. 6, 13, 222 (see under Evst. 222), discards υἱοῦ βαραχίον, for which change Eusebius (silentio) is literally the only authority among the Fathers, Irenaeus and even Origen retaining the words, in spite of their obvious difficulty. The relation in which Cod. א stands to the other four chief manuscripts of the Gospels, may be roughly estimated from analyzing the transcript of four pages first published by Tischendorf281, as well as in any other[pg 268]way. Of the 312 variations from the common text therein noted, א stands alone in forty-five, in eight agrees with ABCD united (much of C, however, is lost in these passages), with ABC together thirty-one times, with ABD fourteen, with AB thirteen, with D alone ten, with B alone but once (Mark i. 27), with C alone once: with several authorities against AB thirty-nine times, with A against B fifty-two, with B against A ninety-eight. Hence, while the discovery of this precious document has unquestionably done much to uphold Cod. B (which is the more correctly written, and doubtless the more valuable of the two) in many of its more characteristic and singular readings, it has made the mutual divergencies of the very oldest critical authorities more patent and perplexing than ever282.8. Codd. אB were apparently anterior to the age of Jerome, the latest ecclesiastical writer whose testimony need be dwelt upon, since from his time downwards the stream of extant and direct manuscript evidence, beginning with Codd. AC, flows on without interruption. Jerome's attention was directed to the criticism of the Greek Testament by his early Biblical studies, and the knowledge he thus obtained had full scope for its exercise when he was engaged on revising the Old Latin version. In his so-often cited“Praefatio ad Damasum,”prefixed to his recension of the Gospels, he complains of certain“codices, quos a Luciano et Hesychio nuncupatos, paucorum hominum asserit perversa contentio,”and those not of the Old Testament alone, but also of the New. This obscure and passing notice of corrupt and (apparently) interpolated copies has been made the foundation of more than one theory as fanciful as ingenious. Jerome further informs us that he had adopted in his translation the canons which Eusebius“Alexandrium secutus Ammonium”(but[pg 269]seeVol. I. pp. 59, &c.) had invented or first brought into vogue; stating, and, in his usual fashion, somewhat exaggerating283, an evil these canons helped to remedy, the mixing up of the matter peculiar to one Evangelist with the narrative of another. Hence we might naturally expect that the Greek manuscripts he would view with special favour, were the same as Eusebius had approved before him. In the scattered notices throughout his works, Jerome sometimes speaks but vaguely of“quaedam exemplaria tam Graeca quam Latina”(Luke xxii. 43-4, almost in the words of Hilary, his senior); or appeals to readings“in quibusdam exemplaribus et maximè in Graecis codicibus”(Mark xvi. 14). Occasionally we hear of“multi et Graeci et Latini codices”(John vii. 53), or“vera exemplaria”(Matt. v. 22; xxi. 31), or“antiqua exemplaria”(Luke ix. 23), without specifying in which language: Mark xvi. 9-20“in raris fertur Evangeliis,”since“omnes Graeciae libri paene”do not contain it284. In two places, however, he gives a more definite account of the copies he most regarded. In Galat. iii. 1 τῇ ἀληθείᾳ μὴ πείθεσθαι is omitted by Jerome, because it is not contained“in exemplaribus Adamantii,”although (as he elsewhere informs us)“et Graeca exemplaria hoc errore confusa sint.”In the other of the two passages Jerome remarks that in some Latin copies of Matt. xxiv. 36neque filiusis added,“quum in Graecis, et maxime Adamantii et Pierii exemplaribus, hoc non habeatur adscriptum.”Pierius the presbyter of Alexandria, elsewhere called by Jerome“the younger Origen”(Cat. Scriptt. Eccl., i. p. 128), has been deprived by fortune of the honour due to his merit and learning. A contemporary, perhaps the teacher of Pamphilus (Euseb., Eccl. Hist., vii. 32) at Caesarea, his copies of Scripture would naturally be preserved with those of Origen in the great Library of that city. Here they were doubtless seen by Jerome when, to his deep joy, he found Origen's writings copied in Pamphilus' hand (Cat. Scriptt. Eccl.,[pg 270]ubi supra), which volumes Acacius and Euzoius, elder contemporaries of Jerome himself, had taken pious care to repair and renew (ibid.i. p. 131; ad Marcell. Ep. cxli). It is not therefore wonderful if, employing as they did and setting a high value on precisely the same manuscripts of the N. T., the readings approved by Origen, Eusebius, and Jerome should closely agree.9. Epiphanius [d. 403], who wrote at about the same period as Jerome, distinguishes in his note on Luke xix. 41 or xxii. 44 (Tom. ii. p. 36) between the uncorrected copies (ἀδιορθώτοις), and those used by the Orthodox285. Of the function of the“corrector”(διορθωτής) of an ancient manuscript we have spoken several times before: but a system was devised by Professor J. L. Hug of Freyburg (Einleitung, 1808), and maintained, though with some modifications, by J. G. Eichhorn, which assigned to these occasional, and (as they would seem to be) unsystematic labours of the reviser, a foremost place in the criticism of the N. T. Hug conceived that the process of corruption had been going on so rapidly and uniformly from the Apostolic age downwards, that by the middle of the third century the state of the text in the general mass of codices had degenerated into the form exhibited in Codd. D, 1, 13, 69, 124 of the Gospels, the Old Latin and Sahidic (he would now have added the Curetonian Syriac) versions, and to some extent in the Peshitto and in the citations of Clement of Alexandria and of Origen in his early works. To this uncorrected text he gave the name of κοινὴ ἔκδοσις, and that it existed, substantially in the interpolated shape now seen in Cod. D, the Old Latin, and Cureton's Syriac, as early as the second century, need not be doubted. There is some foundation for this position, but it was marred by Hug's lack of sobriety of judgement. What we may fairly dispute is that this text ever[pg 271]had extensive circulation or good repute in the Churches whose vernacular language was Greek. This“common edition”Hug supposes to have received three separate emendations in the middle of the third century; one made by Origen in Palestine, which he thinks Jerome adopted and approved; two others by Hesychius and Lucian (a presbyter of Antioch and Martyr), in Egypt and Syria respectively, both which Jerome condemned, and Pope Gelasius (a.d.492-6) declared to be apocryphal286. To Origen's recension he referred such copies as AKM, 42, 106, 114, 116, 253 of the Gospels, the Harkleian Syriac, the quotations of Chrysostom and Theodoret; to Hesychius the Alexandrian codices BCL; to Lucian the Byzantine documents EFGHSV and the mass of later books. The practical effect of this elaborate theory would be to accord to Cod. A a higher place among our authorities than some recent editors have granted it, even than it quite deserves, yet its correspondence with Origen in many characteristic readings would thus be admitted and accounted for (but seep.226). But in truth Hug's whole scheme is utterly baseless as regards historical fact, and most insufficiently sustained by internal proof. Jerome's slight and solitary mention of the copies of Lucian and Hesychius abundantly evinces their narrow circulation and the low esteem in which they were held; and even Eichhorn perceived that there was no evidence whatever to show that Origen had attempted a formal revision of the text. The passages cited above, both from Eusebius and Jerome—and no others are known to bear on the subject—will carry us no further than this:—that these Fathers had access to codices of the N. T. once possessed by Adamantius, and here and there, perhaps, retouched by his hand. The manuscripts copied by Pamphilus were those of Origen's own works; and while we have full and detailed accounts of what he accomplished for the Greek versions of the Old Testament, no hint has been thrown out by any ancient writer that he carried his pious labour into[pg 272]the criticism of the New. On the contrary, he seems to disclaim the task in a sentence now extant chiefly in the old Latin version of his works, wherein, to a notice of his attempt to remove diversity of reading from codices of the Septuagint by the help of“the other editions”(κριτηρίῳ χρησάμενοι ταῖς λοιπαῖς ἐκδόσεσιν, i.e. the versions of Aquila and the rest), he is represented as adding,“In exemplaribus autem Novi Testamenti, hoc ipsum me posse facere sine periculo non putavi”(Origen, Tom. iii. p. 671).10. Hug's system of recensions was devised as a corrective to those of Bengel and of Griesbach, which have been adequately discussed in ChapterVII. The veteran Griesbach spent his last effort as a writer in bringing to notice the weak points of Hug's case, and in claiming him, where he rightly could, as a welcome ally287. But neither did Hug's scheme, nor that propounded by Scholz some years later, obtain the general credit and acceptance which had once been conceded to Griesbach's. It was by this time plainly seen that not only were such theories unsupported by historical testimony (to which indeed the Professor of Halle had been too wise to lay claim), but that they failed to account for more than a part, and that usually a small part, of the phenomena disclosed by minute study of our critical materials. All that can be inferred from searching into the history of the sacred text amounts to no more than this: that extensive[pg 273]variations, arising no doubt from the wide circulation of the New Testament in different regions and among nations of diverse languages, subsisted from the earliest period to which our records extend. Beyond this point our investigations cannot be carried, without indulging in pleasant speculations which may amuse the fancy, but cannot inform the sober judgement. Such is the conclusion to which we are reluctantly brought after examining the principles laid down, as well by the critics we have named above, as by Lachmann, by his disciple Tregelles, and even by thepar nobileof Cambridge Doctors, Professor Hort and Bishop (formerly Canon) Westcott, of whose labours we shall speak presently.[pg 274]

Chapter VIII. Internal Evidence.We have now described, in some detail, the several species of external testimony available for the textual criticism of the New Testament, whether comprising manuscripts of the original Greek, or ancient translations from it, or citations from Scripture made by ecclesiastical writers. We have, moreover, indicated the chief editions wherein all these materials are recorded for our use, and the principles that have guided their several editors in applying them to the revision of the text. One source of information, formerly deemed quite legitimate, has been designedly passed by. It is now agreed among competent judges thatConjectural Emendationmust never be resorted to, even in passages of acknowledged difficulty243; the absence of proof that a reading proposed to be substituted for the common one is actually supported by some trustworthy document being of itself a fatal objection to our receiving it244. Those that have[pg 245]been hazarded aforetime by celebrated scholars, when but few codices were known or actually collated, have seldom, very seldom, been confirmed by subsequent researches: and the time has now fully come when, in the possession of abundant stores of variations collected from memorials of almost every age and country, we are fully authorized in believing that the reading to which no manuscript, or old version, or primitive Father has borne witness, however plausible and (for some purposes) convenient, cannot safely be accepted as genuine or even as probable; even though there may still remain a few passages respecting which we cannot help framing a shrewd suspicion that the original reading differed from any form in which they are now presented to us245.In no wise less dangerous than bare conjecture destitute of external evidence, is the device of Lachmann for unsettling by means of emendation (emendando), without reference to the balance of conflicting testimony, the very text he had previously fixed by revision (recensendo) through the means of critical authorities: in fact the earlier process is but so much trouble misemployed, if its results are liable to be put aside by[pg 246]abstract judgement or individual prejudices. Not that the most sober and cautious critic would disparage the fair use of internal evidence, or withhold their proper influence from those reasonable considerations which in practice cannot, and in speculation should not, be shut out from every subject on which the mind seeks to form an intelligent opinion. Whether we will or not, we unconsciously and almost instinctively adopt that one of two opposite statements,in themselves pretty equally attested to, which we judge the better suited to recognized phenomena, and to the common course of things. I know of no person who has affected to construct a text of the N. T. on diplomatic grounds exclusively, without paying some regard to the character of the sense produced; nor, were the experiment tried, would any one find it easy to dispense with discretion and the dictates of good sense: nature would prove too strong for the dogmas of a wayward theory.“It is difficult not to indulge insubjectiveness, at least in some measure,”writes Dr. Tregelles (Account of Printed Text, p. 109): and, thus qualified, we may add that it is one of those difficulties a sane man would not wish to overcome.The foregoing remarks may tend to explain the broad distinction between mere conjectural emendation, which must be utterly discarded, and that just use of internal testimony which he is the best critic who most judiciously employs. They so far resemble each other, as they are both products of the reasoning faculty exercising itself on the sacred words of Scripture: they differ in this essential feature, that the one proceeds in ignorance or disregard of evidence from without, while the office of the other has no place unless where external evidence is evenly, or at any rate not very unevenly, balanced. What degree of preponderance in favour of one out of several readings, all of them affording some tolerable sense, shall entitle it to reception as a matter of right; to what extent canons of subjective criticism may be allowed to eke out the scantiness of documentary authority; are points that cannot well be defined with strict accuracy. Men's decisions respecting them will always vary according to their temperament and intellectual habits; the judgement of the same person (the rather if he be by constitution a little unstable) will fluctuate from time to time as to the same evidence brought to bear on the self-same[pg 247]passage. Though thecanonsor rules of internal testimony be themselves grounded either on principles of common sense, or on certain peculiarities which all may mark in the documents from which our direct proofs are derived; yet has it been found by experience (what indeed we might have looked for beforehand), that in spite, perhaps in consequence, of their extreme simplicity, the application of these canons has proved a searching test of the tact, the sagacity, and the judicial acumen of all that handle them. For the other functions of an editor accuracy and learning, diligence and zeal are sufficient: but the delicate adjustment of conflicting probabilities calls for no mean exercise of a critical genius. This innate faculty we lack in Wetstein, and notably in Scholz; it was highly developed in Mill and Bengel, and still more in Griesbach. His well-known power in this respect is the main cause of our deep regret for the failure of Bentley's projected work, with all its faults whether of plan or execution.Nearly all the following rules of internal evidence, being founded in the nature of things, are alike applicable to all subjects of literary investigation, though their general principles may need some modification in the particular instance of the Greek Testament.I.Proclivi Scriptioni praestat ardua: the more difficult the reading the more likely it is to be genuine. It would seem more probable that the copyist tried to explain an obscure passage, or to relieve a hard construction, than to make that perplexed which before was easy: thus in John vii. 39, Lachmann's addition of δεδομένον to οὔπω ἦν πνεῦμα ἅγιον is very improbable, though countenanced by Cod. B and (of course) by several of the chief versions. We have here Bengel's prime canon, and although Wetstein questioned it (N. T., vol. i. Proleg. p. 157), he was himself ultimately obliged to lay down something nearly to the same effect246. Yet this excellent rule may easily[pg 248]be applied on a wrong occasion, and is only trueceteris paribus, where manuscripts or versions lend strong support to the harder form.“To force readings into the text merely because they are difficult, is to adulterate the divine text with human alloy; it is to obtrude upon the reader of Scripture the solecisms of faltering copyists, in the place of the word of God”(Bp. Chr. Wordsworth, N. T., vol. i. Preface, p. xii)247. See Chap.XIIon Matt. xxi. 28-31. Compare also above, Vol. I. i. § 11.II. That reading out of several is preferable, from which all the rest may have been derived, although it could not be derived from any of them. Tischendorf (N. T., Proleg. p. xlii. 7th edition) might well say that this would be“omnium regularum principium,”if its application were less precarious. Of his own two examples the former is too weakly vouched for to be listened to, save by way of illustration. In Matt. xxiv. 38 he248and Alford would simply read ἐν ταῖς ἡμέραις τοῦ κατακλυσμοῦ on the very feeble evidence of Cod. L, one uncial Evst. (13),aeff, the Sahidic version, and Origen (in two places); because the copyists, knowing that the eating and drinking and marrying took place not in the days of the flood, but before them (καὶ οὐκ ἔγνωσαν ἕως ἦλθεν ὁ κατακλυσμός ver. 39), would strive to evade the difficulty, such as it was, by adopting one of the several forms found in our copies: ἡμέραις πρὸ τοῦ κατακλ.,[pg 249]or ἡμέραις ταῖς πρὸ τοῦ κατακλ., or ἡμέραις ἐκείναις πρὸ τοῦ κατακλ., or ἡμέραις ἐκείναις ταῖς πρὸ τοῦ κατακλ., or even ἡμέραις τοῦ νῶε. In his second example Tischendorf is more fortunate, unless indeed we choose to refer it rather to Bengel's canon. James iii. 12 certainly ought to run μὴ δύναται, ἀδελφοί μου, συκῆ ἐλαίας ποιῆσαι, ἢ ἄμπελος σῦκα; οὔτε (velοὐδὲ) ἁλυκὸν γλυκὺ ποιῆσαι ὕδωρ, as in Codd. אABC, in not less than six good cursives, the Vulgate and other versions. To soften the ruggedness of this construction, some copies prefixed οὅτως to οὔτε or οὔδε, while others inserted the whole clause οὕτως οὐδεμία πηγὴ ἁλυκὸν καί before γλυκὺ ποιῆσαι ὕδωρ. Other fair instances may be seen in Chap.XII, notes on Luke x. 41, 42; Col. ii. 2249. In the Septuagint also the reading of א συνεισελθόντας 1 Macc. xii. 48 appears to be the origin both of συνελθόντας with A, the uncial 23, and four cursives at least, and of εἰσελθόντας of the Roman edition and the mass of cursives.III.“Brevior lectio, nisi testium vetustorum et gravium auctoritate penitus destituatur, praeferenda est verbosiori. Librarii enim multò proniores ad addendum fuerunt, quam ad omittendum”(Griesbach, N. T., Proleg. p. lxiv. vol. i). This canon bears an influential part in the system of Griesbach and his successors, and by the aid of Cod. B and a few others, has brought great changes into the text as approved by some critics. Dr. Green too (Course of Developed Criticism on Text of N. T.) sometimes carries it to excess in his desire to remove what he considersaccretions. It is so far true, that scribes were no doubt prone to receive marginal notes into the text which they were originally designed only to explain or enforce (e.g.[pg 250]1 John v. 7, 8)250; or sought to amplify a brief account from a fuller narrative of the same event found elsewhere, whether in the same book (e.g. Act. ix. 5 compared with ch. xxvi. 14), or in the parallel passage of one of the other synoptical Gospels. In quotations, also, from the Old Testament the shorter form is always the more probably correct (ibid.). Circumstances too will be supplied which were deemed essential for the preservation of historical truth (e.g. Act. viii. 37), or names of persons and places may be inserted from the Lectionaries: and to this head we must refer the graver and more deliberate interpolations so frequently met with in Cod. D and a few other documents. Yet it is just as true that words and clauses are sometimes wilfully omitted for the sake of removing apparent difficulties (e.g. υἱοῦ βαραχίου, Matt, xxiii. 35 in Cod. א and a few others), and that the negligent loss of whole passages through ὁμοιοτέλευτον is common to manuscripts of every age and character. On the whole, therefore, the indiscriminate rejection of portions of the text regarded as supplementary, on the evidence of but a few authorities, must be viewed with considerable distrust and suspicion.IV. That reading of a passage is preferable which best suits the peculiar style, manner, and habits of thought of an author; it being the tendency of copyists to overlook the idiosyncrasies of the writer. For example, the abrupt energy of St. James'asyndeta(e.g. ch. i. 27), of which we have just seen a marked instance, is much concealed by the particles inserted by the common text (e.g. ch. ii. 4, 13; iii. 17; iv. 2; v. 6): St. Luke in the Acts is fond of omitting“said”or“saith”after the word indicating the speaker, though they are duly supplied by recent scribes (e.g. ch. ii. 38; ix. 5; xix. 2; xxv. 22; xxv. 28, 29). Thus again, in editing Herodotus, an Ionic form is more eligible than an Attic one equally well attested, while in the Greek Testament an Alexandrian termination should be chosen under similar circumstances. Yet even this canon has a double edge: habit or the love of critical correction will sometimes lead[pg 251]the scribe to change the text to his author's more usual style, as well as to depart from it through inadvertence (seeActs iv. 17; 1 Pet. ii. 24): so that we may securely apply the rule only where the external evidence is not unequally balanced.V. Attention must be paid to the genius and usage of each several authority, in assigning the weight due to it in a particular instance. Thus the testimony of Cod. B is of the less influence in omissions, that of Cod. D (Bezae) in additions, inasmuch as the tendency of the former is to abridge, that of the latter to amplify the sacred text. The value of versions and ecclesiastical writers also much depends on the degree of care and critical skill which they display.Every one of the foregoing rules might be appliedmutatis mutandisto the emendation of the text of any author whose works have suffered alteration since they left his hands: the next (so far as it is true) is peculiar to the case of Holy Scripture.VI.“Inter plures unius loci lectiones ea pro suspectâ merito habetur, quae orthodoxorum dogmatibus manifestè prae ceteris favet”(Griesbach, N. T., Proleg., p. lxvi. vol. i). I cite this canon from Griesbach for the sake of annexing Archbishop Magee's very pertinent corollary:“from which, at least, it is reasonable to infer, that whatever readings, in favour of the Orthodox opinion, may have hadhissanction, have not been preferred by him from any bias in behalf of Orthodoxy”(Discourses on Atonement and Sacrifice, vol. iii. p. 212). Alford says that the rule,“sound in the main,”does not hold good, when,“whichever reading is adopted, the orthodox meaning is legitimate, butthe adoption of the stronger orthodox reading is absolutely incompatible with the heretical meaning,—then it is probable thatsuch stronger orthodox reading was the original”(N. T., Proleg., vol. i. p. 83, note 6, 4th edition): instancing Act. xx. 28, where the weaker reading τὴν ἐκκλησίαν τοῦ κυρίου would quite satisfy the orthodox, while the alternative reading τοῦ θεοῦ“would have been certain to be altered by the heretics.”But in truth there seems no good ground for believing that the rule is“sound in the main,”though two or three such instances as[pg 252]1 Tim. iii. 16251and the insertion of θεόν in Jude, ver. 4, might seem to countenance it. We dissent altogether from Griesbach's statement,“Scimus enim, lectiones quascunque, etiam manifestò falsas, dummodo orthodoxorum placitis patrocinarentur, inde a tertii seculi initiis mordicus defensas seduloque propagatas, ceteras autem ejusdem loci lectiones, quae dogmati ecclesiastico nil praesidii afferrent, haereticorum perfidiae attributas temere fuisse”(Griesb.ubi supra), if he means that the orthodox forged those great texts, which,believing them to be authentic, it was surely innocent and even incumbent on them to employ252. The Church of Christ“inde a tertii seculi initiis”has had her faults, many and grievous, but she never did nor shall fail in her duty as a faithful“witness and keeper of Holy Writ.”But while vindicating the copyists of Scripture from all wilful tampering with the text, we need not deny that they, like others of their craft, preferred that one out of several extant readings that seemed to give the fullest and most emphatic sense: hence Davidson would fain account for the addition ἐκ τῆς σαρκὸς αὐτοῦ καὶ ἐκ τῶν ὀστέων αὐτοῦ (which, however, is not unlikely to be genuine253) in Eph. v. 30. Since the mediaeval scribes belonged almost universally to the monastic orders, we will not dispute the truth of Griesbach's rule,“Lectio prae aliis sensum pietati (praesertim monasticae) alendae aptum fundens, suspecta est,”though its scope is doubtless very limited254. Their[pg 253]habit of composing and transcribing Homilies has also been supposed to have led them to give a hortatory form to positive commands or dogmatic statements (seeVol. I. p. 17), but there is much weight in Wordsworth's remark, that“such suppositions as these have a tendency to destroy the credit of the ancient MSS.; and if such surmises were true, those MSS. would hardly be worth the pains of collating them”(note on1 Cor. xv. 49).VII.“Apparent probabilities of erroneous transcription, permutation of letters, itacism and so forth,”have been designated by Bp. Ellicott“paradiplomaticevidence”(Preface to the Galatians; p. xvii, first edition), as distinguished from the“diplomatic”testimony of codices, versions, &c. This species of evidence, which can hardly be deemed internal, must have considerable influence in numerous cases, and will be used the most skilfully by such as have considerable practical acquaintance with the rough materials of criticism. We have anticipated what can be laid before inexperienced readers on this topic in the first chapter of our first volume, when discussing the sources of various readings255: in fact, so far as canons of internal[pg 254]or of paradiplomatic evidence are at all trustworthy, they instruct us in the reverse process to that aimed at in Vol. I. Chap. I; the latter showing by what means the pure text of the inspired writings was brought into its present state ofpartialcorruption, the former promising us some guidance while we seek to retrace its once downward course back to the fountain-head of primeval truth256. To what has been previously stated in regard to paradiplomatic testimony it may possibly be worth while to add Griesbach's caution“lectionesrhythmifallaciâ facillimè explicandae nullius sunt pretii”(N. T., Proleg. p. lxvi), a fact whereof 2 Cor. iii. 3 affords a memorable example. Here what once seemed the wholly unnatural reading ἐν πλαξὶκαρδίαιςσαρκίναις, being disparaged by dint of the rhyming termination, is received by Lachmann in the place of καρδίας, on the authority of Codd. AB (sic) CDEGLP, perhaps a majority of cursive copies (seven out of Scrivener's twelve, and Wake 12 or Paul. 277); to which add Cod. א unknown to Lachmann, and that abject slave of manuscripts, the Harkleian Syriac. Codd. FK have καρδίας, with all the other versions. If we attempt to interpret καρδίαις, we must either render with Alford, in spite of the order of the Greek,“on fleshy tables, [your] hearts:”or with the Revisers of 1881“in tablesthat arehearts of flesh;”yet surely σαρκίναις as well as λιθίναις must agree with πλαξί. Dr. Hort in mere despair would almost reject the second πλαξί (Introd., Notes, p. 119).It has been said that“when the cause of a various reading is known, the variation usually disappears257.”This language may seem extravagant, yet it hardly exaggerates what may be effected by internal evidence, when it is clear, simple, and unambiguous. It is, therefore, much to be lamented that this is seldom the case in practice. Readings that we should uphold in virtue of one canon, are very frequently (perhaps in a majority of really doubtful passages) brought into suspicion by means of[pg 255]another; yet they shall each of them be perfectly sound and reasonable in their proper sphere. An instance in point is Matt. v. 22, where the external evidence is divided. Codd. אΒ (in Δsecundâ manu), 48, 198, 583, 587, Origentwice, the Ethiopic and Vulgate, omit εἰκῆ after πᾶς ὁ ὀργιζόμενος τῷ ἀδελφῷ ἀυτοῦ, Jerome fairly stating that it is“in quibusdam codicibus,”not“in veris,”which may be supposed to be Origen's MSS., and therefore removing it from his revised Latin version. It is found, however, in all other extant copies (including ΣDEKLMSUVΔ (primâ manu) Π, most cursives, all the Syriac (the Peshitto inserting, not a Syriac equivalent, but the Greek word εἰκῆ) and Old Latin copies, the Bohairic, Armenian, and Gothic versions), in Eusebius, in many Greek Fathers, in the Latin Fathers from Irenaeus downwards258, and even in the Old Latin Version of Origen himself; the later authorities uniting with Codd. ΣD and their associates against the two oldest manuscripts extant. Under such circumstances the suggestions of internal evidence would be precious indeed, were not that just as equivocal as diplomatic proof.“Griesbach and Meyer,”says Dean Alford,“hold it to have been expunged from motives of moral rigorism:—De Wette to have been inserted to soften the apparent rigour of the precept259.”Our sixth Canon is here opposed to our first260. The important yet precarious and strictly auxiliary nature of rules of internal evidence will not now escape the attentive student; he may find them exemplified very slightly and imperfectly in the twelfth Chapter of this volume, but more fully by recent critical editors of the Greek Testament; except perhaps by Tregelles, who usually passes them by in silence, though to[pg 256]some extent they influence his decisions; by Lachmann, in the formation of whose provisional text they have had no share; and by Dean Burgon, who held that“we must resolutely maintain, that External Evidence must after all be our best, our only safe guide”(The Revision Revised, p. 19)261. We will close this investigation by citing a few of those crisp little periods (conceived in the same spirit as our own remarks) wherewith Davidson is wont to inform and sometimes perhaps to amuse his admirers:“Readings must be judged on internal grounds. One can hardly avoid doing so. It is natural and almost unavoidable. It must be admitted indeed that the choice of readings on internal evidence is liable to abuse. Arbitrary caprice may characterize it. It may degenerate into simplesubjectivity. But though the temptation to misapply it be great, it must not be laid aside.... While allowing superior weight to the external sources of evidence, we feel the pressing necessity of the subjective. Here, as in other instances, the objective and subjective should accompany and modify one another. They cannot be rightly separated.”(Biblical Criticism, vol. ii. p. 374, 1852.)

We have now described, in some detail, the several species of external testimony available for the textual criticism of the New Testament, whether comprising manuscripts of the original Greek, or ancient translations from it, or citations from Scripture made by ecclesiastical writers. We have, moreover, indicated the chief editions wherein all these materials are recorded for our use, and the principles that have guided their several editors in applying them to the revision of the text. One source of information, formerly deemed quite legitimate, has been designedly passed by. It is now agreed among competent judges thatConjectural Emendationmust never be resorted to, even in passages of acknowledged difficulty243; the absence of proof that a reading proposed to be substituted for the common one is actually supported by some trustworthy document being of itself a fatal objection to our receiving it244. Those that have[pg 245]been hazarded aforetime by celebrated scholars, when but few codices were known or actually collated, have seldom, very seldom, been confirmed by subsequent researches: and the time has now fully come when, in the possession of abundant stores of variations collected from memorials of almost every age and country, we are fully authorized in believing that the reading to which no manuscript, or old version, or primitive Father has borne witness, however plausible and (for some purposes) convenient, cannot safely be accepted as genuine or even as probable; even though there may still remain a few passages respecting which we cannot help framing a shrewd suspicion that the original reading differed from any form in which they are now presented to us245.

In no wise less dangerous than bare conjecture destitute of external evidence, is the device of Lachmann for unsettling by means of emendation (emendando), without reference to the balance of conflicting testimony, the very text he had previously fixed by revision (recensendo) through the means of critical authorities: in fact the earlier process is but so much trouble misemployed, if its results are liable to be put aside by[pg 246]abstract judgement or individual prejudices. Not that the most sober and cautious critic would disparage the fair use of internal evidence, or withhold their proper influence from those reasonable considerations which in practice cannot, and in speculation should not, be shut out from every subject on which the mind seeks to form an intelligent opinion. Whether we will or not, we unconsciously and almost instinctively adopt that one of two opposite statements,in themselves pretty equally attested to, which we judge the better suited to recognized phenomena, and to the common course of things. I know of no person who has affected to construct a text of the N. T. on diplomatic grounds exclusively, without paying some regard to the character of the sense produced; nor, were the experiment tried, would any one find it easy to dispense with discretion and the dictates of good sense: nature would prove too strong for the dogmas of a wayward theory.“It is difficult not to indulge insubjectiveness, at least in some measure,”writes Dr. Tregelles (Account of Printed Text, p. 109): and, thus qualified, we may add that it is one of those difficulties a sane man would not wish to overcome.

The foregoing remarks may tend to explain the broad distinction between mere conjectural emendation, which must be utterly discarded, and that just use of internal testimony which he is the best critic who most judiciously employs. They so far resemble each other, as they are both products of the reasoning faculty exercising itself on the sacred words of Scripture: they differ in this essential feature, that the one proceeds in ignorance or disregard of evidence from without, while the office of the other has no place unless where external evidence is evenly, or at any rate not very unevenly, balanced. What degree of preponderance in favour of one out of several readings, all of them affording some tolerable sense, shall entitle it to reception as a matter of right; to what extent canons of subjective criticism may be allowed to eke out the scantiness of documentary authority; are points that cannot well be defined with strict accuracy. Men's decisions respecting them will always vary according to their temperament and intellectual habits; the judgement of the same person (the rather if he be by constitution a little unstable) will fluctuate from time to time as to the same evidence brought to bear on the self-same[pg 247]passage. Though thecanonsor rules of internal testimony be themselves grounded either on principles of common sense, or on certain peculiarities which all may mark in the documents from which our direct proofs are derived; yet has it been found by experience (what indeed we might have looked for beforehand), that in spite, perhaps in consequence, of their extreme simplicity, the application of these canons has proved a searching test of the tact, the sagacity, and the judicial acumen of all that handle them. For the other functions of an editor accuracy and learning, diligence and zeal are sufficient: but the delicate adjustment of conflicting probabilities calls for no mean exercise of a critical genius. This innate faculty we lack in Wetstein, and notably in Scholz; it was highly developed in Mill and Bengel, and still more in Griesbach. His well-known power in this respect is the main cause of our deep regret for the failure of Bentley's projected work, with all its faults whether of plan or execution.

Nearly all the following rules of internal evidence, being founded in the nature of things, are alike applicable to all subjects of literary investigation, though their general principles may need some modification in the particular instance of the Greek Testament.

I.Proclivi Scriptioni praestat ardua: the more difficult the reading the more likely it is to be genuine. It would seem more probable that the copyist tried to explain an obscure passage, or to relieve a hard construction, than to make that perplexed which before was easy: thus in John vii. 39, Lachmann's addition of δεδομένον to οὔπω ἦν πνεῦμα ἅγιον is very improbable, though countenanced by Cod. B and (of course) by several of the chief versions. We have here Bengel's prime canon, and although Wetstein questioned it (N. T., vol. i. Proleg. p. 157), he was himself ultimately obliged to lay down something nearly to the same effect246. Yet this excellent rule may easily[pg 248]be applied on a wrong occasion, and is only trueceteris paribus, where manuscripts or versions lend strong support to the harder form.“To force readings into the text merely because they are difficult, is to adulterate the divine text with human alloy; it is to obtrude upon the reader of Scripture the solecisms of faltering copyists, in the place of the word of God”(Bp. Chr. Wordsworth, N. T., vol. i. Preface, p. xii)247. See Chap.XIIon Matt. xxi. 28-31. Compare also above, Vol. I. i. § 11.

II. That reading out of several is preferable, from which all the rest may have been derived, although it could not be derived from any of them. Tischendorf (N. T., Proleg. p. xlii. 7th edition) might well say that this would be“omnium regularum principium,”if its application were less precarious. Of his own two examples the former is too weakly vouched for to be listened to, save by way of illustration. In Matt. xxiv. 38 he248and Alford would simply read ἐν ταῖς ἡμέραις τοῦ κατακλυσμοῦ on the very feeble evidence of Cod. L, one uncial Evst. (13),aeff, the Sahidic version, and Origen (in two places); because the copyists, knowing that the eating and drinking and marrying took place not in the days of the flood, but before them (καὶ οὐκ ἔγνωσαν ἕως ἦλθεν ὁ κατακλυσμός ver. 39), would strive to evade the difficulty, such as it was, by adopting one of the several forms found in our copies: ἡμέραις πρὸ τοῦ κατακλ.,[pg 249]or ἡμέραις ταῖς πρὸ τοῦ κατακλ., or ἡμέραις ἐκείναις πρὸ τοῦ κατακλ., or ἡμέραις ἐκείναις ταῖς πρὸ τοῦ κατακλ., or even ἡμέραις τοῦ νῶε. In his second example Tischendorf is more fortunate, unless indeed we choose to refer it rather to Bengel's canon. James iii. 12 certainly ought to run μὴ δύναται, ἀδελφοί μου, συκῆ ἐλαίας ποιῆσαι, ἢ ἄμπελος σῦκα; οὔτε (velοὐδὲ) ἁλυκὸν γλυκὺ ποιῆσαι ὕδωρ, as in Codd. אABC, in not less than six good cursives, the Vulgate and other versions. To soften the ruggedness of this construction, some copies prefixed οὅτως to οὔτε or οὔδε, while others inserted the whole clause οὕτως οὐδεμία πηγὴ ἁλυκὸν καί before γλυκὺ ποιῆσαι ὕδωρ. Other fair instances may be seen in Chap.XII, notes on Luke x. 41, 42; Col. ii. 2249. In the Septuagint also the reading of א συνεισελθόντας 1 Macc. xii. 48 appears to be the origin both of συνελθόντας with A, the uncial 23, and four cursives at least, and of εἰσελθόντας of the Roman edition and the mass of cursives.

III.“Brevior lectio, nisi testium vetustorum et gravium auctoritate penitus destituatur, praeferenda est verbosiori. Librarii enim multò proniores ad addendum fuerunt, quam ad omittendum”(Griesbach, N. T., Proleg. p. lxiv. vol. i). This canon bears an influential part in the system of Griesbach and his successors, and by the aid of Cod. B and a few others, has brought great changes into the text as approved by some critics. Dr. Green too (Course of Developed Criticism on Text of N. T.) sometimes carries it to excess in his desire to remove what he considersaccretions. It is so far true, that scribes were no doubt prone to receive marginal notes into the text which they were originally designed only to explain or enforce (e.g.[pg 250]1 John v. 7, 8)250; or sought to amplify a brief account from a fuller narrative of the same event found elsewhere, whether in the same book (e.g. Act. ix. 5 compared with ch. xxvi. 14), or in the parallel passage of one of the other synoptical Gospels. In quotations, also, from the Old Testament the shorter form is always the more probably correct (ibid.). Circumstances too will be supplied which were deemed essential for the preservation of historical truth (e.g. Act. viii. 37), or names of persons and places may be inserted from the Lectionaries: and to this head we must refer the graver and more deliberate interpolations so frequently met with in Cod. D and a few other documents. Yet it is just as true that words and clauses are sometimes wilfully omitted for the sake of removing apparent difficulties (e.g. υἱοῦ βαραχίου, Matt, xxiii. 35 in Cod. א and a few others), and that the negligent loss of whole passages through ὁμοιοτέλευτον is common to manuscripts of every age and character. On the whole, therefore, the indiscriminate rejection of portions of the text regarded as supplementary, on the evidence of but a few authorities, must be viewed with considerable distrust and suspicion.

IV. That reading of a passage is preferable which best suits the peculiar style, manner, and habits of thought of an author; it being the tendency of copyists to overlook the idiosyncrasies of the writer. For example, the abrupt energy of St. James'asyndeta(e.g. ch. i. 27), of which we have just seen a marked instance, is much concealed by the particles inserted by the common text (e.g. ch. ii. 4, 13; iii. 17; iv. 2; v. 6): St. Luke in the Acts is fond of omitting“said”or“saith”after the word indicating the speaker, though they are duly supplied by recent scribes (e.g. ch. ii. 38; ix. 5; xix. 2; xxv. 22; xxv. 28, 29). Thus again, in editing Herodotus, an Ionic form is more eligible than an Attic one equally well attested, while in the Greek Testament an Alexandrian termination should be chosen under similar circumstances. Yet even this canon has a double edge: habit or the love of critical correction will sometimes lead[pg 251]the scribe to change the text to his author's more usual style, as well as to depart from it through inadvertence (seeActs iv. 17; 1 Pet. ii. 24): so that we may securely apply the rule only where the external evidence is not unequally balanced.

V. Attention must be paid to the genius and usage of each several authority, in assigning the weight due to it in a particular instance. Thus the testimony of Cod. B is of the less influence in omissions, that of Cod. D (Bezae) in additions, inasmuch as the tendency of the former is to abridge, that of the latter to amplify the sacred text. The value of versions and ecclesiastical writers also much depends on the degree of care and critical skill which they display.

Every one of the foregoing rules might be appliedmutatis mutandisto the emendation of the text of any author whose works have suffered alteration since they left his hands: the next (so far as it is true) is peculiar to the case of Holy Scripture.

VI.“Inter plures unius loci lectiones ea pro suspectâ merito habetur, quae orthodoxorum dogmatibus manifestè prae ceteris favet”(Griesbach, N. T., Proleg., p. lxvi. vol. i). I cite this canon from Griesbach for the sake of annexing Archbishop Magee's very pertinent corollary:“from which, at least, it is reasonable to infer, that whatever readings, in favour of the Orthodox opinion, may have hadhissanction, have not been preferred by him from any bias in behalf of Orthodoxy”(Discourses on Atonement and Sacrifice, vol. iii. p. 212). Alford says that the rule,“sound in the main,”does not hold good, when,“whichever reading is adopted, the orthodox meaning is legitimate, butthe adoption of the stronger orthodox reading is absolutely incompatible with the heretical meaning,—then it is probable thatsuch stronger orthodox reading was the original”(N. T., Proleg., vol. i. p. 83, note 6, 4th edition): instancing Act. xx. 28, where the weaker reading τὴν ἐκκλησίαν τοῦ κυρίου would quite satisfy the orthodox, while the alternative reading τοῦ θεοῦ“would have been certain to be altered by the heretics.”But in truth there seems no good ground for believing that the rule is“sound in the main,”though two or three such instances as[pg 252]1 Tim. iii. 16251and the insertion of θεόν in Jude, ver. 4, might seem to countenance it. We dissent altogether from Griesbach's statement,“Scimus enim, lectiones quascunque, etiam manifestò falsas, dummodo orthodoxorum placitis patrocinarentur, inde a tertii seculi initiis mordicus defensas seduloque propagatas, ceteras autem ejusdem loci lectiones, quae dogmati ecclesiastico nil praesidii afferrent, haereticorum perfidiae attributas temere fuisse”(Griesb.ubi supra), if he means that the orthodox forged those great texts, which,believing them to be authentic, it was surely innocent and even incumbent on them to employ252. The Church of Christ“inde a tertii seculi initiis”has had her faults, many and grievous, but she never did nor shall fail in her duty as a faithful“witness and keeper of Holy Writ.”But while vindicating the copyists of Scripture from all wilful tampering with the text, we need not deny that they, like others of their craft, preferred that one out of several extant readings that seemed to give the fullest and most emphatic sense: hence Davidson would fain account for the addition ἐκ τῆς σαρκὸς αὐτοῦ καὶ ἐκ τῶν ὀστέων αὐτοῦ (which, however, is not unlikely to be genuine253) in Eph. v. 30. Since the mediaeval scribes belonged almost universally to the monastic orders, we will not dispute the truth of Griesbach's rule,“Lectio prae aliis sensum pietati (praesertim monasticae) alendae aptum fundens, suspecta est,”though its scope is doubtless very limited254. Their[pg 253]habit of composing and transcribing Homilies has also been supposed to have led them to give a hortatory form to positive commands or dogmatic statements (seeVol. I. p. 17), but there is much weight in Wordsworth's remark, that“such suppositions as these have a tendency to destroy the credit of the ancient MSS.; and if such surmises were true, those MSS. would hardly be worth the pains of collating them”(note on1 Cor. xv. 49).

VII.“Apparent probabilities of erroneous transcription, permutation of letters, itacism and so forth,”have been designated by Bp. Ellicott“paradiplomaticevidence”(Preface to the Galatians; p. xvii, first edition), as distinguished from the“diplomatic”testimony of codices, versions, &c. This species of evidence, which can hardly be deemed internal, must have considerable influence in numerous cases, and will be used the most skilfully by such as have considerable practical acquaintance with the rough materials of criticism. We have anticipated what can be laid before inexperienced readers on this topic in the first chapter of our first volume, when discussing the sources of various readings255: in fact, so far as canons of internal[pg 254]or of paradiplomatic evidence are at all trustworthy, they instruct us in the reverse process to that aimed at in Vol. I. Chap. I; the latter showing by what means the pure text of the inspired writings was brought into its present state ofpartialcorruption, the former promising us some guidance while we seek to retrace its once downward course back to the fountain-head of primeval truth256. To what has been previously stated in regard to paradiplomatic testimony it may possibly be worth while to add Griesbach's caution“lectionesrhythmifallaciâ facillimè explicandae nullius sunt pretii”(N. T., Proleg. p. lxvi), a fact whereof 2 Cor. iii. 3 affords a memorable example. Here what once seemed the wholly unnatural reading ἐν πλαξὶκαρδίαιςσαρκίναις, being disparaged by dint of the rhyming termination, is received by Lachmann in the place of καρδίας, on the authority of Codd. AB (sic) CDEGLP, perhaps a majority of cursive copies (seven out of Scrivener's twelve, and Wake 12 or Paul. 277); to which add Cod. א unknown to Lachmann, and that abject slave of manuscripts, the Harkleian Syriac. Codd. FK have καρδίας, with all the other versions. If we attempt to interpret καρδίαις, we must either render with Alford, in spite of the order of the Greek,“on fleshy tables, [your] hearts:”or with the Revisers of 1881“in tablesthat arehearts of flesh;”yet surely σαρκίναις as well as λιθίναις must agree with πλαξί. Dr. Hort in mere despair would almost reject the second πλαξί (Introd., Notes, p. 119).

It has been said that“when the cause of a various reading is known, the variation usually disappears257.”This language may seem extravagant, yet it hardly exaggerates what may be effected by internal evidence, when it is clear, simple, and unambiguous. It is, therefore, much to be lamented that this is seldom the case in practice. Readings that we should uphold in virtue of one canon, are very frequently (perhaps in a majority of really doubtful passages) brought into suspicion by means of[pg 255]another; yet they shall each of them be perfectly sound and reasonable in their proper sphere. An instance in point is Matt. v. 22, where the external evidence is divided. Codd. אΒ (in Δsecundâ manu), 48, 198, 583, 587, Origentwice, the Ethiopic and Vulgate, omit εἰκῆ after πᾶς ὁ ὀργιζόμενος τῷ ἀδελφῷ ἀυτοῦ, Jerome fairly stating that it is“in quibusdam codicibus,”not“in veris,”which may be supposed to be Origen's MSS., and therefore removing it from his revised Latin version. It is found, however, in all other extant copies (including ΣDEKLMSUVΔ (primâ manu) Π, most cursives, all the Syriac (the Peshitto inserting, not a Syriac equivalent, but the Greek word εἰκῆ) and Old Latin copies, the Bohairic, Armenian, and Gothic versions), in Eusebius, in many Greek Fathers, in the Latin Fathers from Irenaeus downwards258, and even in the Old Latin Version of Origen himself; the later authorities uniting with Codd. ΣD and their associates against the two oldest manuscripts extant. Under such circumstances the suggestions of internal evidence would be precious indeed, were not that just as equivocal as diplomatic proof.“Griesbach and Meyer,”says Dean Alford,“hold it to have been expunged from motives of moral rigorism:—De Wette to have been inserted to soften the apparent rigour of the precept259.”Our sixth Canon is here opposed to our first260. The important yet precarious and strictly auxiliary nature of rules of internal evidence will not now escape the attentive student; he may find them exemplified very slightly and imperfectly in the twelfth Chapter of this volume, but more fully by recent critical editors of the Greek Testament; except perhaps by Tregelles, who usually passes them by in silence, though to[pg 256]some extent they influence his decisions; by Lachmann, in the formation of whose provisional text they have had no share; and by Dean Burgon, who held that“we must resolutely maintain, that External Evidence must after all be our best, our only safe guide”(The Revision Revised, p. 19)261. We will close this investigation by citing a few of those crisp little periods (conceived in the same spirit as our own remarks) wherewith Davidson is wont to inform and sometimes perhaps to amuse his admirers:

“Readings must be judged on internal grounds. One can hardly avoid doing so. It is natural and almost unavoidable. It must be admitted indeed that the choice of readings on internal evidence is liable to abuse. Arbitrary caprice may characterize it. It may degenerate into simplesubjectivity. But though the temptation to misapply it be great, it must not be laid aside.... While allowing superior weight to the external sources of evidence, we feel the pressing necessity of the subjective. Here, as in other instances, the objective and subjective should accompany and modify one another. They cannot be rightly separated.”(Biblical Criticism, vol. ii. p. 374, 1852.)

Chapter IX. History Of The Text.An adequate discussion of the subject of the present chapter would need a treatise by itself, and has been the single theme of several elaborate works. We shall here limit ourselves to the examination of those more prominent topics, a clear understanding of which is essential for the establishment of trustworthy principles in the application ofexternalevidence to the correction of the text of the New Testament.1. It was stated at the commencement of this volume that the autographs of the sacred writers“perished utterly in the very infancy of Christian history:”nor can any other conclusion be safely drawn from the general silence of the earliest Fathers, and from their constant habit of appealing to“ancient and approved copies262,”when a reference to the originals, if extant, would have put an end to all controversy on the subject of various readings. Dismissing one passage in the genuine Epistles of Ignatius (d. 107), which has no real connexion with the matter263, the only allusion to the autographs of Scripture met with in the primitive ages is the well-known declaration of[pg 258]Tertullian (fl. 200):“Percurre Ecclesias Apostolicas, apud quas ipsae adhuc Cathedrae Apostolorum suis locis praesident, apud quas ipsae Authenticae Literae eorum recitantur, sonantes vocem, et repraesentantes faciem uniuscujusque. Proximè est tibi Achaia, habes Corinthum. Si non longè es a Macedoniâ, habes Philippos, habes Thessalonicenses. Si potes in Asiam tendere, habes Ephesum. Si autem Italiae adjaces, habes Romam ...”(De Praescriptione Haereticorum, c. 36.) Attempts have been made, indeed, and that by eminent writers, to reduce the term“Authenticae Literae”so as to mean nothing more than“genuine, unadulterated Epistles,”or even the authentic Greek as opposed to the Latin translation264. It seems enough to reply with Ernesti, that any such non-natural sense is absolutely excluded by the word“ipsae,”which would be utterly absurd, if“genuine”only were intended (Institutes, Pt. iii. Ch. ii. 3)265: yet the African Tertullian was too little likely to be well informed on this subject, to entitle his rhetorical statement to any real attention266. We need not try to explain away his obvious meaning, but we may fairly demur to the evidence of this honest, but impetuous and wrong-headed man. We have no faith in the continued existence of autographs which are vouched[pg 259]for on no better authority than the real or apparent exigency ofhisargument267.2. Besides the undesigned and, to a great extent, unavoidable differences subsisting between manuscripts of the New Testament within a century of its being written, the wilful corruptions introduced by heretics soon became a cause of loud complaint in the primitive ages of the Church268. Dionysius, Bishop of Corinth, addressing the Church of Rome and Soter its Bishop (a.d.168-176), complains that even his own letters had been tampered with: καὶ ταύτας οἱ τοῦ διαβόλου ἀπόστολοι ζιζανίων γεγέμικαν, ἃ μὲν ἐξαιροῦντες, ἃ δὲ προστιθέντες; οἷς τὸ οὐαὶ κεῖται: adding, however, the far graver offence, οὐ θαυμαστὸν ἄρα εἰ καὶ τῶν κυριακῶν ῥαδιουργῆσαί τινες ἐπιβέβληνται γραφῶν (Euseb., Eccl. Hist., iv. 23), where αἱ κυριακαὶ γραφαί can be none other than the Holy Scriptures. Nor was the evil new in the age of Dionysius. Not to mention Asclepiades, or Theodotus, or Hermophylus, or Apollonides, who all under the excuse of correcting the sacred text corrupted it269, or the Gnostics Basilides (a.d.130?) and Valentinus (a.d.150?) who published additions to the sacred text which were avowedly of their own composition, Marcion of Pontus, the[pg 260]arch-heretic of that period, coming to Rome on the death of its Bishop Hyginus (a.d.142)270, brought with him that mutilated and falsified copy of the New Testament, against which the Fathers of the second century and later exerted all their powers, and whose general contents are known to us chiefly through the writings of Tertullian and subsequently of Epiphanius. It can hardly be said that Marcion deserves very particular mention in relating the history of the sacred text271. Some of the variations from the common readings which his opponents detected were doubtless taken from manuscripts in circulation at the time, and, being adopted through no private preferences of his own, are justly available for critical purposes. Thus in 1 Thess. ii. 15, Tertullian, who saw only τοὺς προφήτας in his own copies, objects to Marcion's reading τοὺς ἰδίους προφήτας (“licetsuosadjectio sit haeretici”), although ἰδίους stands in the received text, in Evann. KL (DE in later hands) and all cursives except eight, in the Gothic and both (?) Syriac versions, in Chrysostom, Theodoret, and John Damascenus. Here the heretic's testimony is useful in showing the high antiquity of ἰδίους, even though אABDEFGP, eight cursives, Origen thrice, the Vulgate, Armenian, Ethiopic, and all three Egyptian versions, join with Lachmann, Tischendorf, Tregelles, Westcott and Hort in rejecting it, some of them perhaps in compliance with Tertullian's decision. In similar instances the evidence of Marcion, as to matters of fact to which he could attach no kind of importance, is well worth recording272: but where on the contrary the dogmas of his own miserable system are touched, or no codices or other witnesses countenance his changes (as is perpetually the case in his edition of St. Luke, the only Gospel—and that maimed or interpolated from the others—he seems to have acknowledged at all), his blasphemous extravagance may very well be forgotten. In such cases he[pg 261]does not so much as profess to follow anything more respectable than the capricious devices of his misguided fancy.3. Nothing throws so strong a light on the real state of the text in the latter half of the second century as the single notice of Irenaeus (fl. 178) on Apoc. xiii. 18. This eminent person, the glory of the Western Church in his own age, whose five books against Heresies (though chiefly extant but in a bald old Latin version) are among the most precious reliques of Christian antiquity, had been privileged in his youth to enjoy the friendly intercourse of his master Polycarp, who himself had conversed familiarly with St. John and others that had seen the Lord (Euseb., Eccl. Hist., v. 20). Yet even Irenaeus, though removed but by one stage from the very Apostles, possessed (if we except a bare tradition) no other means of settling discordant readings than are now open to ourselves; namely, to search out the best copies and exercise the judgement on their contents. Hislocus classicusmust needs be cited in full, the Latin throughout, the Greek in such portions as survive. The question is whether St. John wrote χξιϛ᾽ (666), or χιϛ᾽ (616).“Hic autem sic se habentibus, et in omnibus antiquis et probatissimis et veteribus scripturis numero hoc posito, et testimonium perhibentibus his qui facie ad faciem Johannem viderunt (τούτων δὲ οὕτως ἐχόντων, καὶ ἐν πᾶσι δὲ τοῖς σπουδαίοις καὶ ἀρχαίοις ἀντιγράφοις τοῦ ἀριθμοῦ τούτου κειμένου, καὶ μαρτυρούντων ἀυτῶν ἐκείνων τῶν κατ᾽ ὄψιν τὸν Ἰωάννην ἑωρακότων, καὶ τοῦ λόγου διδάσκοντος ἡμᾶς ὅτι ὁ ἀριθμὸς τοῦ ὀνόματος τοῦ θηρίου κατὰ τὴν τῶν Ἑλλήνων ψῆφον διὰ τῶν ἐν ἀυτῷ γραμμάτων [ἐμφαίνεται]), et ratione docente nos quoniam numerus nominis bestiae, secundum Graecorum computationem, per literas quae in eo sunt sexcentos habebit et sexaginta et sex: ignoro quomodo erraverunt quidam sequentes idiotismum et medium frustrantes numerum nominis, quinquaginta numeros deducentes, pro sex decadis unam decadem volentes esse (οὐκ οἶδα πῶς ἐσφάλησάν τινες ἐπακολουθήσαντες ἰδιωτισμῷ καὶ τὸν μέσον ἠθέτησαν ἀριθμὸν τοῦ ὀνόματος, ν᾽ ψήφισμα ὑφελόντες καὶ ἀντὶ τῶν ἓξ δεκάδων μίαν δεκάδα βουλόμενοι εἶναι). Hoc autem arbitror scriptorum peccatum fuisse, ut solet fieri, quoniam et per literas numeri ponuntur, facilè literam Graecam quae sexaginta enuntiat numerum, in iota Graecorum literam expansam.... Sed his quidem qui simpliciter et sine malitia hoc fecerunt, arbitramur veniam dari a Deo.”(Contra Haeres. v. 30. 1: Harvey, vol. ii. pp. 406-7.)Here we obtain at once the authority of Irenaeus for receiving the Apocalypse as the work of St. John; we discern the living interest its contents had for the Christians of the second century, even up to thetraditionalpreservation of its minutest readings;[pg 262]we recognize the fact that numbers were then represented by letters273; and the far more important one that the original autograph of the Apocalypse was already so completely lost, that a thought of it never entered the mind of the writer, though the book had not been composed one hundred years, perhaps not more than seventy274.4. Clement of Alexandria is the next writer who claims our attention (fl. 194). Though his works abound with citations from Scripture, on the whole not too carefully made (“in adducendis N. T. locis creber est etcastus,”is rather too high praise, Mill, Proleg. § 627), the most has not yet been made of the information he supplies. He too complains of those who tamper with (or metaphrase) the Gospels for their own sinister ends, and affords us one specimen of their evil diligence275. His pupil Origen's [185-253] is the highest name among the critics and expositors of the early Church; he is perpetually engaged in the discussion of various readings of the New Testament, and employs language in describing the then existing state of the text, which would be deemed strong if applied even to its present[pg 263]condition, after the changes which sixteen more centuries must needs have produced. His statements are familiar enough to Biblical enquirers, but, though often repeated, cannot be rightly omitted here. Seldom have such warmth of fancy and so bold a grasp of mind been united with the life-long patient industry which procured for this famous man the honourable appellation ofAdamantius. Respecting the sacred autographs, their fate or their continued existence, he seems to have had no information, and to have entertained no curiosity: they had simply passed by and were out of reach. Had it not been for the diversities of copies in all the Gospels on other points (he writes)—καὶ εἰ μὲν μὴ καὶ περὶ ἄλλων πολλῶν διαφωνία ἦν πρὸς ἄλληλα τῶν ἀντιγράφων—he should not have ventured to object to the authenticity of a certain passage (Matt. xix. 19) on internal grounds: νυνὶ δὲ δηλονότι πολλὴ γέγονεν ἡ τῶν ἀντιγράφων διαφορά, εἴτε ἀπὸ ῥαθυμίας τινῶν γραφέων, εἴτε ἀπὸ τόλμης τινῶν μοχθηρᾶς τῆς διορθώσεως τῶν γραφομένων, εἴτε καὶ ἀπὸ τῶν τὰ ἑαυτοῖς δοκοῦντα ἐν τῇ διορθώσει προστιθέντων ἢ ἀφαιρούντων (Comment. on Matt., Tom. iii. p. 671,De la Rue).“But now,”saith he,“great in truth has become the diversity of copies, be it from the negligence of certain scribes, or from the evil daring of some who correct what is written, or from those who in correcting add or take away what they think fit276:”just like Irenaeus had previously described revisers of the text as persons“qui peritiores apostolis volunt esse”(Contra Haeres. iv. 6. 1).5. Nor can it easily be denied that the various readings of the New Testament current from the middle of the second to the middle of the third century, were neither fewer nor less considerable than such language would lead us to anticipate. Though no[pg 264]surviving manuscript of the Old Latin version, or versions, dates before the fourth century, and most of them belong to a still later age, yet the general correspondence of their text with that used by the first Latin Fathers is a sufficient voucher for its high antiquity. The connexion subsisting between this Latin version, the Curetonian Syriac, and Codex Bezae, proves that the text of these documents is considerably older than the vellum on which they are written; the Peshitto Syriac also, most probably the very earliest of all translations, though approaching far nearer to the received text than they, sufficiently resembles these authorities in many peculiar readings to exhibit the general tone and character of one class of manuscripts extant in the second century, two hundred years anterior to Codd. אB. Now it may be said without extravagance that no set of Scriptural records affords a text less probable in itself or less sustained by any rational principles of external evidence, than that of Cod. D, of the Latin codices, and (so far as it accords with them) of Cureton's Syriac. Interpolations, as insipid in themselves as unsupported by other evidence, abound in them all277: additions so little in accordance with the genuine spirit of Holy Writ that some critics (though I, for one, profess no skill in such alchemy) have declared them to be as easily separable from the text which they encumber, as the foot-notes appended to a modern book are from the main body of the work (Tregelles, An Account of the Printed Text, p. 138, note). It is no less true to fact than paradoxical in sound, that the worst corruptions to which the New Testament has ever been subjected, originated within a hundred years after it was composed; that Irenaeus and the African Fathers and the whole Western, with a portion of the Syrian Church, used far inferior manuscripts to those employed by Stunica, or Erasmus, or Stephen thirteen centuries later, when[pg 265]moulding the Textus Receptus. What passage in the Holy Gospels would be more jealously guarded than the record of the heavenly voice at the Lord's Baptism? Yet Augustine (De Consensu Evangelist, ii. 14) marked a variation which he thought might be found“in aliquibus fide dignis exemplaribus,”though not“in antiquioribus codicibus Graecis,”where, in the place of ἐν σοὶ ἠυδόκησα (Luke iii. 22), the words ἐγὼ σήμερον γεγέννηκά σε are substituted from Psalm ii. 7: so also reads the Manichaean Faustus apud Augustin.; Enchiridion ad Laurentium, c. 49. The only Greek copy which maintains this important reading is D: it is met with moreover inabc(indof course), inff1primâ manu, and inl, whose united evidence leaves not a doubt of its existence in the primitive Old Latin; whence it is cited by Hilary three times, by Lactantius and Juvencus, to which list Abbot adds Hilary the deacon (Quaestiones V. et N. T.). Among the Greeks it is known but to Methodius, and to those very early writers, Justin Martyr and Clement of Alexandria, who seem to have derived the corruption (for such it must doubtless be regarded) from the Ebionite Gospel (Epiphan., Haeres., xxi. 13)278. So again of a doubtful passage which we shall examine in ChapterXII, Irenaeus cites Acts viii. 37 without the least misgiving, though the spuriousness of the verse can hardly be doubted; and expressly testifies to a reading in Matt. i. 18 which has not till lately found many advocates. It is hard to believe that 1 John v. 7, 8 was not cited by Cyprian, and even the interpolation in Matt. xx. 28 was widely known and received. Many other examples might be produced from the most venerable Christian writers, in which they countenance variations (and those not arbitrary, but resting on some sort of authority) which no modern critic has ever attempted to vindicate.6. When we come down to the fourth century, our information grows at once more definite and more trustworthy. Copies of Scripture had been extensively destroyed during the long and terrible period of affliction that preceded the conversion of[pg 266]Constantine. In the very edict which marked the beginning of Diocletian's persecution, it is ordered that the holy writings should be burnt (τὰς γραφὰς ἀφανεῖς πυρὶ γενέσθαι, Eusebius, Eccl. Hist., viii. 2); and the cruel decree was so rigidly enforced that a special name of reproach (traditores), together with the heaviest censures of the Church, was laid upon those Christians who betrayed the sacred trust (Bingham, Antiquities, book xvi. ch. vi. 25). At such a period critical revision or even the ordinary care of devout transcribers must have disappeared before the pressure of the times. Fresh copies of the New Testament would have to be made in haste to supply the room of those seized by the enemies of our Faith; and, when made, they had to circulate by stealth among persons whose lives were in jeopardy every hour. Hence arose the need, when the tempest was overpast, of transcribing many new manuscripts of the Holy Bible, the rather as the Church was now receiving vast accessions of converts within her pale. Eusebius of Caesarea, the ecclesiastical historian, seems to have taken the lead in this happy labour; his extensive learning, which by the aid of certain other less commendable qualities had placed him high in Constantine's favour, rendered it natural that the emperor should employ his services for furnishing with fifty copies of Scripture the churches of his new capital, Constantinople. Eusebius' deep interest in Biblical studies is exhibited in several of his surviving works, as well as in his Canons for harmonizing the Gospels: and he would naturally betake himself for the text of his fifty codices to the Library founded at his Episcopal city of Caesarea by the martyr Pamphilus, the dear friend and teacher from whom he derived his own familiar appellationEusebius Pamphili. Into this Library Pamphilus had gathered manuscripts of Origen as well as of other theologians, and of these Eusebius made an index (τοὺς πίνακας παρεθέμην: Eccles. Hist., vi. 32). From this collection Cod. H of St. Paul and others are stated to have been derived, nay even Cod. א in its Old Testament portion (seevol. I. p. 55 and note), which is expressly declared to have been corrected to the Hexapla of Origen. Indeed we know from Jerome (Comment. in Epist. ad Tit.) that the very autograph (“ipsa authentica”) of Origen's Hexapla was used by himself at Caesarea, and Montfaucon (Praeliminaria in Hexapl., chap. i. 5) cites from one[pg 267]manuscript the following subscription to Ezekiel, Ὁ Εὐσέβιος ἐγὼ σχόλια παρέθηκα. Πάμφιλος καὶ Εὐσέβιος ἐδιωρθώσαντο.7. We are thus warranted, as well from direct evidence as from the analogy of the Old Testament, to believe that Eusebius mainly resorted for his Constantinopolitan Church-books to the codices of Pamphilus, which might once have belonged to Origen. What critical corrections (if any) he ventured to make in the text on his own judgement is not so clear. Not that there is the least cause to believe, with Dr. Nolan (Inquiry into the Integrity of the Greek Vulgate, p. 27), that Eusebius had either the power or the will to suppress or tamper with the great doctrinal texts 1 John v. 7, 8; 1 Tim. iii. 16; Acts xx. 28; yet we cannot deny that his prepossessions may have tempted him to arbitrary alterations in other passages, which had no direct bearing on the controversies of his age279. Codd. אB are quite old enough to have been copied under his inspection280, and it is certainly very remarkable that these two early manuscripts omit one whole paragraph (Mark xvi. 9-20) with his sanction, if not after his example (seebelow, Chap.XII). Thus also in Matt, xxiii. 35 Cod. א, with the countenance only of Evan. 59, Evst. 6, 13, 222 (see under Evst. 222), discards υἱοῦ βαραχίον, for which change Eusebius (silentio) is literally the only authority among the Fathers, Irenaeus and even Origen retaining the words, in spite of their obvious difficulty. The relation in which Cod. א stands to the other four chief manuscripts of the Gospels, may be roughly estimated from analyzing the transcript of four pages first published by Tischendorf281, as well as in any other[pg 268]way. Of the 312 variations from the common text therein noted, א stands alone in forty-five, in eight agrees with ABCD united (much of C, however, is lost in these passages), with ABC together thirty-one times, with ABD fourteen, with AB thirteen, with D alone ten, with B alone but once (Mark i. 27), with C alone once: with several authorities against AB thirty-nine times, with A against B fifty-two, with B against A ninety-eight. Hence, while the discovery of this precious document has unquestionably done much to uphold Cod. B (which is the more correctly written, and doubtless the more valuable of the two) in many of its more characteristic and singular readings, it has made the mutual divergencies of the very oldest critical authorities more patent and perplexing than ever282.8. Codd. אB were apparently anterior to the age of Jerome, the latest ecclesiastical writer whose testimony need be dwelt upon, since from his time downwards the stream of extant and direct manuscript evidence, beginning with Codd. AC, flows on without interruption. Jerome's attention was directed to the criticism of the Greek Testament by his early Biblical studies, and the knowledge he thus obtained had full scope for its exercise when he was engaged on revising the Old Latin version. In his so-often cited“Praefatio ad Damasum,”prefixed to his recension of the Gospels, he complains of certain“codices, quos a Luciano et Hesychio nuncupatos, paucorum hominum asserit perversa contentio,”and those not of the Old Testament alone, but also of the New. This obscure and passing notice of corrupt and (apparently) interpolated copies has been made the foundation of more than one theory as fanciful as ingenious. Jerome further informs us that he had adopted in his translation the canons which Eusebius“Alexandrium secutus Ammonium”(but[pg 269]seeVol. I. pp. 59, &c.) had invented or first brought into vogue; stating, and, in his usual fashion, somewhat exaggerating283, an evil these canons helped to remedy, the mixing up of the matter peculiar to one Evangelist with the narrative of another. Hence we might naturally expect that the Greek manuscripts he would view with special favour, were the same as Eusebius had approved before him. In the scattered notices throughout his works, Jerome sometimes speaks but vaguely of“quaedam exemplaria tam Graeca quam Latina”(Luke xxii. 43-4, almost in the words of Hilary, his senior); or appeals to readings“in quibusdam exemplaribus et maximè in Graecis codicibus”(Mark xvi. 14). Occasionally we hear of“multi et Graeci et Latini codices”(John vii. 53), or“vera exemplaria”(Matt. v. 22; xxi. 31), or“antiqua exemplaria”(Luke ix. 23), without specifying in which language: Mark xvi. 9-20“in raris fertur Evangeliis,”since“omnes Graeciae libri paene”do not contain it284. In two places, however, he gives a more definite account of the copies he most regarded. In Galat. iii. 1 τῇ ἀληθείᾳ μὴ πείθεσθαι is omitted by Jerome, because it is not contained“in exemplaribus Adamantii,”although (as he elsewhere informs us)“et Graeca exemplaria hoc errore confusa sint.”In the other of the two passages Jerome remarks that in some Latin copies of Matt. xxiv. 36neque filiusis added,“quum in Graecis, et maxime Adamantii et Pierii exemplaribus, hoc non habeatur adscriptum.”Pierius the presbyter of Alexandria, elsewhere called by Jerome“the younger Origen”(Cat. Scriptt. Eccl., i. p. 128), has been deprived by fortune of the honour due to his merit and learning. A contemporary, perhaps the teacher of Pamphilus (Euseb., Eccl. Hist., vii. 32) at Caesarea, his copies of Scripture would naturally be preserved with those of Origen in the great Library of that city. Here they were doubtless seen by Jerome when, to his deep joy, he found Origen's writings copied in Pamphilus' hand (Cat. Scriptt. Eccl.,[pg 270]ubi supra), which volumes Acacius and Euzoius, elder contemporaries of Jerome himself, had taken pious care to repair and renew (ibid.i. p. 131; ad Marcell. Ep. cxli). It is not therefore wonderful if, employing as they did and setting a high value on precisely the same manuscripts of the N. T., the readings approved by Origen, Eusebius, and Jerome should closely agree.9. Epiphanius [d. 403], who wrote at about the same period as Jerome, distinguishes in his note on Luke xix. 41 or xxii. 44 (Tom. ii. p. 36) between the uncorrected copies (ἀδιορθώτοις), and those used by the Orthodox285. Of the function of the“corrector”(διορθωτής) of an ancient manuscript we have spoken several times before: but a system was devised by Professor J. L. Hug of Freyburg (Einleitung, 1808), and maintained, though with some modifications, by J. G. Eichhorn, which assigned to these occasional, and (as they would seem to be) unsystematic labours of the reviser, a foremost place in the criticism of the N. T. Hug conceived that the process of corruption had been going on so rapidly and uniformly from the Apostolic age downwards, that by the middle of the third century the state of the text in the general mass of codices had degenerated into the form exhibited in Codd. D, 1, 13, 69, 124 of the Gospels, the Old Latin and Sahidic (he would now have added the Curetonian Syriac) versions, and to some extent in the Peshitto and in the citations of Clement of Alexandria and of Origen in his early works. To this uncorrected text he gave the name of κοινὴ ἔκδοσις, and that it existed, substantially in the interpolated shape now seen in Cod. D, the Old Latin, and Cureton's Syriac, as early as the second century, need not be doubted. There is some foundation for this position, but it was marred by Hug's lack of sobriety of judgement. What we may fairly dispute is that this text ever[pg 271]had extensive circulation or good repute in the Churches whose vernacular language was Greek. This“common edition”Hug supposes to have received three separate emendations in the middle of the third century; one made by Origen in Palestine, which he thinks Jerome adopted and approved; two others by Hesychius and Lucian (a presbyter of Antioch and Martyr), in Egypt and Syria respectively, both which Jerome condemned, and Pope Gelasius (a.d.492-6) declared to be apocryphal286. To Origen's recension he referred such copies as AKM, 42, 106, 114, 116, 253 of the Gospels, the Harkleian Syriac, the quotations of Chrysostom and Theodoret; to Hesychius the Alexandrian codices BCL; to Lucian the Byzantine documents EFGHSV and the mass of later books. The practical effect of this elaborate theory would be to accord to Cod. A a higher place among our authorities than some recent editors have granted it, even than it quite deserves, yet its correspondence with Origen in many characteristic readings would thus be admitted and accounted for (but seep.226). But in truth Hug's whole scheme is utterly baseless as regards historical fact, and most insufficiently sustained by internal proof. Jerome's slight and solitary mention of the copies of Lucian and Hesychius abundantly evinces their narrow circulation and the low esteem in which they were held; and even Eichhorn perceived that there was no evidence whatever to show that Origen had attempted a formal revision of the text. The passages cited above, both from Eusebius and Jerome—and no others are known to bear on the subject—will carry us no further than this:—that these Fathers had access to codices of the N. T. once possessed by Adamantius, and here and there, perhaps, retouched by his hand. The manuscripts copied by Pamphilus were those of Origen's own works; and while we have full and detailed accounts of what he accomplished for the Greek versions of the Old Testament, no hint has been thrown out by any ancient writer that he carried his pious labour into[pg 272]the criticism of the New. On the contrary, he seems to disclaim the task in a sentence now extant chiefly in the old Latin version of his works, wherein, to a notice of his attempt to remove diversity of reading from codices of the Septuagint by the help of“the other editions”(κριτηρίῳ χρησάμενοι ταῖς λοιπαῖς ἐκδόσεσιν, i.e. the versions of Aquila and the rest), he is represented as adding,“In exemplaribus autem Novi Testamenti, hoc ipsum me posse facere sine periculo non putavi”(Origen, Tom. iii. p. 671).10. Hug's system of recensions was devised as a corrective to those of Bengel and of Griesbach, which have been adequately discussed in ChapterVII. The veteran Griesbach spent his last effort as a writer in bringing to notice the weak points of Hug's case, and in claiming him, where he rightly could, as a welcome ally287. But neither did Hug's scheme, nor that propounded by Scholz some years later, obtain the general credit and acceptance which had once been conceded to Griesbach's. It was by this time plainly seen that not only were such theories unsupported by historical testimony (to which indeed the Professor of Halle had been too wise to lay claim), but that they failed to account for more than a part, and that usually a small part, of the phenomena disclosed by minute study of our critical materials. All that can be inferred from searching into the history of the sacred text amounts to no more than this: that extensive[pg 273]variations, arising no doubt from the wide circulation of the New Testament in different regions and among nations of diverse languages, subsisted from the earliest period to which our records extend. Beyond this point our investigations cannot be carried, without indulging in pleasant speculations which may amuse the fancy, but cannot inform the sober judgement. Such is the conclusion to which we are reluctantly brought after examining the principles laid down, as well by the critics we have named above, as by Lachmann, by his disciple Tregelles, and even by thepar nobileof Cambridge Doctors, Professor Hort and Bishop (formerly Canon) Westcott, of whose labours we shall speak presently.

An adequate discussion of the subject of the present chapter would need a treatise by itself, and has been the single theme of several elaborate works. We shall here limit ourselves to the examination of those more prominent topics, a clear understanding of which is essential for the establishment of trustworthy principles in the application ofexternalevidence to the correction of the text of the New Testament.

1. It was stated at the commencement of this volume that the autographs of the sacred writers“perished utterly in the very infancy of Christian history:”nor can any other conclusion be safely drawn from the general silence of the earliest Fathers, and from their constant habit of appealing to“ancient and approved copies262,”when a reference to the originals, if extant, would have put an end to all controversy on the subject of various readings. Dismissing one passage in the genuine Epistles of Ignatius (d. 107), which has no real connexion with the matter263, the only allusion to the autographs of Scripture met with in the primitive ages is the well-known declaration of[pg 258]Tertullian (fl. 200):“Percurre Ecclesias Apostolicas, apud quas ipsae adhuc Cathedrae Apostolorum suis locis praesident, apud quas ipsae Authenticae Literae eorum recitantur, sonantes vocem, et repraesentantes faciem uniuscujusque. Proximè est tibi Achaia, habes Corinthum. Si non longè es a Macedoniâ, habes Philippos, habes Thessalonicenses. Si potes in Asiam tendere, habes Ephesum. Si autem Italiae adjaces, habes Romam ...”(De Praescriptione Haereticorum, c. 36.) Attempts have been made, indeed, and that by eminent writers, to reduce the term“Authenticae Literae”so as to mean nothing more than“genuine, unadulterated Epistles,”or even the authentic Greek as opposed to the Latin translation264. It seems enough to reply with Ernesti, that any such non-natural sense is absolutely excluded by the word“ipsae,”which would be utterly absurd, if“genuine”only were intended (Institutes, Pt. iii. Ch. ii. 3)265: yet the African Tertullian was too little likely to be well informed on this subject, to entitle his rhetorical statement to any real attention266. We need not try to explain away his obvious meaning, but we may fairly demur to the evidence of this honest, but impetuous and wrong-headed man. We have no faith in the continued existence of autographs which are vouched[pg 259]for on no better authority than the real or apparent exigency ofhisargument267.

2. Besides the undesigned and, to a great extent, unavoidable differences subsisting between manuscripts of the New Testament within a century of its being written, the wilful corruptions introduced by heretics soon became a cause of loud complaint in the primitive ages of the Church268. Dionysius, Bishop of Corinth, addressing the Church of Rome and Soter its Bishop (a.d.168-176), complains that even his own letters had been tampered with: καὶ ταύτας οἱ τοῦ διαβόλου ἀπόστολοι ζιζανίων γεγέμικαν, ἃ μὲν ἐξαιροῦντες, ἃ δὲ προστιθέντες; οἷς τὸ οὐαὶ κεῖται: adding, however, the far graver offence, οὐ θαυμαστὸν ἄρα εἰ καὶ τῶν κυριακῶν ῥαδιουργῆσαί τινες ἐπιβέβληνται γραφῶν (Euseb., Eccl. Hist., iv. 23), where αἱ κυριακαὶ γραφαί can be none other than the Holy Scriptures. Nor was the evil new in the age of Dionysius. Not to mention Asclepiades, or Theodotus, or Hermophylus, or Apollonides, who all under the excuse of correcting the sacred text corrupted it269, or the Gnostics Basilides (a.d.130?) and Valentinus (a.d.150?) who published additions to the sacred text which were avowedly of their own composition, Marcion of Pontus, the[pg 260]arch-heretic of that period, coming to Rome on the death of its Bishop Hyginus (a.d.142)270, brought with him that mutilated and falsified copy of the New Testament, against which the Fathers of the second century and later exerted all their powers, and whose general contents are known to us chiefly through the writings of Tertullian and subsequently of Epiphanius. It can hardly be said that Marcion deserves very particular mention in relating the history of the sacred text271. Some of the variations from the common readings which his opponents detected were doubtless taken from manuscripts in circulation at the time, and, being adopted through no private preferences of his own, are justly available for critical purposes. Thus in 1 Thess. ii. 15, Tertullian, who saw only τοὺς προφήτας in his own copies, objects to Marcion's reading τοὺς ἰδίους προφήτας (“licetsuosadjectio sit haeretici”), although ἰδίους stands in the received text, in Evann. KL (DE in later hands) and all cursives except eight, in the Gothic and both (?) Syriac versions, in Chrysostom, Theodoret, and John Damascenus. Here the heretic's testimony is useful in showing the high antiquity of ἰδίους, even though אABDEFGP, eight cursives, Origen thrice, the Vulgate, Armenian, Ethiopic, and all three Egyptian versions, join with Lachmann, Tischendorf, Tregelles, Westcott and Hort in rejecting it, some of them perhaps in compliance with Tertullian's decision. In similar instances the evidence of Marcion, as to matters of fact to which he could attach no kind of importance, is well worth recording272: but where on the contrary the dogmas of his own miserable system are touched, or no codices or other witnesses countenance his changes (as is perpetually the case in his edition of St. Luke, the only Gospel—and that maimed or interpolated from the others—he seems to have acknowledged at all), his blasphemous extravagance may very well be forgotten. In such cases he[pg 261]does not so much as profess to follow anything more respectable than the capricious devices of his misguided fancy.

3. Nothing throws so strong a light on the real state of the text in the latter half of the second century as the single notice of Irenaeus (fl. 178) on Apoc. xiii. 18. This eminent person, the glory of the Western Church in his own age, whose five books against Heresies (though chiefly extant but in a bald old Latin version) are among the most precious reliques of Christian antiquity, had been privileged in his youth to enjoy the friendly intercourse of his master Polycarp, who himself had conversed familiarly with St. John and others that had seen the Lord (Euseb., Eccl. Hist., v. 20). Yet even Irenaeus, though removed but by one stage from the very Apostles, possessed (if we except a bare tradition) no other means of settling discordant readings than are now open to ourselves; namely, to search out the best copies and exercise the judgement on their contents. Hislocus classicusmust needs be cited in full, the Latin throughout, the Greek in such portions as survive. The question is whether St. John wrote χξιϛ᾽ (666), or χιϛ᾽ (616).

“Hic autem sic se habentibus, et in omnibus antiquis et probatissimis et veteribus scripturis numero hoc posito, et testimonium perhibentibus his qui facie ad faciem Johannem viderunt (τούτων δὲ οὕτως ἐχόντων, καὶ ἐν πᾶσι δὲ τοῖς σπουδαίοις καὶ ἀρχαίοις ἀντιγράφοις τοῦ ἀριθμοῦ τούτου κειμένου, καὶ μαρτυρούντων ἀυτῶν ἐκείνων τῶν κατ᾽ ὄψιν τὸν Ἰωάννην ἑωρακότων, καὶ τοῦ λόγου διδάσκοντος ἡμᾶς ὅτι ὁ ἀριθμὸς τοῦ ὀνόματος τοῦ θηρίου κατὰ τὴν τῶν Ἑλλήνων ψῆφον διὰ τῶν ἐν ἀυτῷ γραμμάτων [ἐμφαίνεται]), et ratione docente nos quoniam numerus nominis bestiae, secundum Graecorum computationem, per literas quae in eo sunt sexcentos habebit et sexaginta et sex: ignoro quomodo erraverunt quidam sequentes idiotismum et medium frustrantes numerum nominis, quinquaginta numeros deducentes, pro sex decadis unam decadem volentes esse (οὐκ οἶδα πῶς ἐσφάλησάν τινες ἐπακολουθήσαντες ἰδιωτισμῷ καὶ τὸν μέσον ἠθέτησαν ἀριθμὸν τοῦ ὀνόματος, ν᾽ ψήφισμα ὑφελόντες καὶ ἀντὶ τῶν ἓξ δεκάδων μίαν δεκάδα βουλόμενοι εἶναι). Hoc autem arbitror scriptorum peccatum fuisse, ut solet fieri, quoniam et per literas numeri ponuntur, facilè literam Graecam quae sexaginta enuntiat numerum, in iota Graecorum literam expansam.... Sed his quidem qui simpliciter et sine malitia hoc fecerunt, arbitramur veniam dari a Deo.”(Contra Haeres. v. 30. 1: Harvey, vol. ii. pp. 406-7.)

Here we obtain at once the authority of Irenaeus for receiving the Apocalypse as the work of St. John; we discern the living interest its contents had for the Christians of the second century, even up to thetraditionalpreservation of its minutest readings;[pg 262]we recognize the fact that numbers were then represented by letters273; and the far more important one that the original autograph of the Apocalypse was already so completely lost, that a thought of it never entered the mind of the writer, though the book had not been composed one hundred years, perhaps not more than seventy274.

4. Clement of Alexandria is the next writer who claims our attention (fl. 194). Though his works abound with citations from Scripture, on the whole not too carefully made (“in adducendis N. T. locis creber est etcastus,”is rather too high praise, Mill, Proleg. § 627), the most has not yet been made of the information he supplies. He too complains of those who tamper with (or metaphrase) the Gospels for their own sinister ends, and affords us one specimen of their evil diligence275. His pupil Origen's [185-253] is the highest name among the critics and expositors of the early Church; he is perpetually engaged in the discussion of various readings of the New Testament, and employs language in describing the then existing state of the text, which would be deemed strong if applied even to its present[pg 263]condition, after the changes which sixteen more centuries must needs have produced. His statements are familiar enough to Biblical enquirers, but, though often repeated, cannot be rightly omitted here. Seldom have such warmth of fancy and so bold a grasp of mind been united with the life-long patient industry which procured for this famous man the honourable appellation ofAdamantius. Respecting the sacred autographs, their fate or their continued existence, he seems to have had no information, and to have entertained no curiosity: they had simply passed by and were out of reach. Had it not been for the diversities of copies in all the Gospels on other points (he writes)—καὶ εἰ μὲν μὴ καὶ περὶ ἄλλων πολλῶν διαφωνία ἦν πρὸς ἄλληλα τῶν ἀντιγράφων—he should not have ventured to object to the authenticity of a certain passage (Matt. xix. 19) on internal grounds: νυνὶ δὲ δηλονότι πολλὴ γέγονεν ἡ τῶν ἀντιγράφων διαφορά, εἴτε ἀπὸ ῥαθυμίας τινῶν γραφέων, εἴτε ἀπὸ τόλμης τινῶν μοχθηρᾶς τῆς διορθώσεως τῶν γραφομένων, εἴτε καὶ ἀπὸ τῶν τὰ ἑαυτοῖς δοκοῦντα ἐν τῇ διορθώσει προστιθέντων ἢ ἀφαιρούντων (Comment. on Matt., Tom. iii. p. 671,De la Rue).“But now,”saith he,“great in truth has become the diversity of copies, be it from the negligence of certain scribes, or from the evil daring of some who correct what is written, or from those who in correcting add or take away what they think fit276:”just like Irenaeus had previously described revisers of the text as persons“qui peritiores apostolis volunt esse”(Contra Haeres. iv. 6. 1).

5. Nor can it easily be denied that the various readings of the New Testament current from the middle of the second to the middle of the third century, were neither fewer nor less considerable than such language would lead us to anticipate. Though no[pg 264]surviving manuscript of the Old Latin version, or versions, dates before the fourth century, and most of them belong to a still later age, yet the general correspondence of their text with that used by the first Latin Fathers is a sufficient voucher for its high antiquity. The connexion subsisting between this Latin version, the Curetonian Syriac, and Codex Bezae, proves that the text of these documents is considerably older than the vellum on which they are written; the Peshitto Syriac also, most probably the very earliest of all translations, though approaching far nearer to the received text than they, sufficiently resembles these authorities in many peculiar readings to exhibit the general tone and character of one class of manuscripts extant in the second century, two hundred years anterior to Codd. אB. Now it may be said without extravagance that no set of Scriptural records affords a text less probable in itself or less sustained by any rational principles of external evidence, than that of Cod. D, of the Latin codices, and (so far as it accords with them) of Cureton's Syriac. Interpolations, as insipid in themselves as unsupported by other evidence, abound in them all277: additions so little in accordance with the genuine spirit of Holy Writ that some critics (though I, for one, profess no skill in such alchemy) have declared them to be as easily separable from the text which they encumber, as the foot-notes appended to a modern book are from the main body of the work (Tregelles, An Account of the Printed Text, p. 138, note). It is no less true to fact than paradoxical in sound, that the worst corruptions to which the New Testament has ever been subjected, originated within a hundred years after it was composed; that Irenaeus and the African Fathers and the whole Western, with a portion of the Syrian Church, used far inferior manuscripts to those employed by Stunica, or Erasmus, or Stephen thirteen centuries later, when[pg 265]moulding the Textus Receptus. What passage in the Holy Gospels would be more jealously guarded than the record of the heavenly voice at the Lord's Baptism? Yet Augustine (De Consensu Evangelist, ii. 14) marked a variation which he thought might be found“in aliquibus fide dignis exemplaribus,”though not“in antiquioribus codicibus Graecis,”where, in the place of ἐν σοὶ ἠυδόκησα (Luke iii. 22), the words ἐγὼ σήμερον γεγέννηκά σε are substituted from Psalm ii. 7: so also reads the Manichaean Faustus apud Augustin.; Enchiridion ad Laurentium, c. 49. The only Greek copy which maintains this important reading is D: it is met with moreover inabc(indof course), inff1primâ manu, and inl, whose united evidence leaves not a doubt of its existence in the primitive Old Latin; whence it is cited by Hilary three times, by Lactantius and Juvencus, to which list Abbot adds Hilary the deacon (Quaestiones V. et N. T.). Among the Greeks it is known but to Methodius, and to those very early writers, Justin Martyr and Clement of Alexandria, who seem to have derived the corruption (for such it must doubtless be regarded) from the Ebionite Gospel (Epiphan., Haeres., xxi. 13)278. So again of a doubtful passage which we shall examine in ChapterXII, Irenaeus cites Acts viii. 37 without the least misgiving, though the spuriousness of the verse can hardly be doubted; and expressly testifies to a reading in Matt. i. 18 which has not till lately found many advocates. It is hard to believe that 1 John v. 7, 8 was not cited by Cyprian, and even the interpolation in Matt. xx. 28 was widely known and received. Many other examples might be produced from the most venerable Christian writers, in which they countenance variations (and those not arbitrary, but resting on some sort of authority) which no modern critic has ever attempted to vindicate.

6. When we come down to the fourth century, our information grows at once more definite and more trustworthy. Copies of Scripture had been extensively destroyed during the long and terrible period of affliction that preceded the conversion of[pg 266]Constantine. In the very edict which marked the beginning of Diocletian's persecution, it is ordered that the holy writings should be burnt (τὰς γραφὰς ἀφανεῖς πυρὶ γενέσθαι, Eusebius, Eccl. Hist., viii. 2); and the cruel decree was so rigidly enforced that a special name of reproach (traditores), together with the heaviest censures of the Church, was laid upon those Christians who betrayed the sacred trust (Bingham, Antiquities, book xvi. ch. vi. 25). At such a period critical revision or even the ordinary care of devout transcribers must have disappeared before the pressure of the times. Fresh copies of the New Testament would have to be made in haste to supply the room of those seized by the enemies of our Faith; and, when made, they had to circulate by stealth among persons whose lives were in jeopardy every hour. Hence arose the need, when the tempest was overpast, of transcribing many new manuscripts of the Holy Bible, the rather as the Church was now receiving vast accessions of converts within her pale. Eusebius of Caesarea, the ecclesiastical historian, seems to have taken the lead in this happy labour; his extensive learning, which by the aid of certain other less commendable qualities had placed him high in Constantine's favour, rendered it natural that the emperor should employ his services for furnishing with fifty copies of Scripture the churches of his new capital, Constantinople. Eusebius' deep interest in Biblical studies is exhibited in several of his surviving works, as well as in his Canons for harmonizing the Gospels: and he would naturally betake himself for the text of his fifty codices to the Library founded at his Episcopal city of Caesarea by the martyr Pamphilus, the dear friend and teacher from whom he derived his own familiar appellationEusebius Pamphili. Into this Library Pamphilus had gathered manuscripts of Origen as well as of other theologians, and of these Eusebius made an index (τοὺς πίνακας παρεθέμην: Eccles. Hist., vi. 32). From this collection Cod. H of St. Paul and others are stated to have been derived, nay even Cod. א in its Old Testament portion (seevol. I. p. 55 and note), which is expressly declared to have been corrected to the Hexapla of Origen. Indeed we know from Jerome (Comment. in Epist. ad Tit.) that the very autograph (“ipsa authentica”) of Origen's Hexapla was used by himself at Caesarea, and Montfaucon (Praeliminaria in Hexapl., chap. i. 5) cites from one[pg 267]manuscript the following subscription to Ezekiel, Ὁ Εὐσέβιος ἐγὼ σχόλια παρέθηκα. Πάμφιλος καὶ Εὐσέβιος ἐδιωρθώσαντο.

7. We are thus warranted, as well from direct evidence as from the analogy of the Old Testament, to believe that Eusebius mainly resorted for his Constantinopolitan Church-books to the codices of Pamphilus, which might once have belonged to Origen. What critical corrections (if any) he ventured to make in the text on his own judgement is not so clear. Not that there is the least cause to believe, with Dr. Nolan (Inquiry into the Integrity of the Greek Vulgate, p. 27), that Eusebius had either the power or the will to suppress or tamper with the great doctrinal texts 1 John v. 7, 8; 1 Tim. iii. 16; Acts xx. 28; yet we cannot deny that his prepossessions may have tempted him to arbitrary alterations in other passages, which had no direct bearing on the controversies of his age279. Codd. אB are quite old enough to have been copied under his inspection280, and it is certainly very remarkable that these two early manuscripts omit one whole paragraph (Mark xvi. 9-20) with his sanction, if not after his example (seebelow, Chap.XII). Thus also in Matt, xxiii. 35 Cod. א, with the countenance only of Evan. 59, Evst. 6, 13, 222 (see under Evst. 222), discards υἱοῦ βαραχίον, for which change Eusebius (silentio) is literally the only authority among the Fathers, Irenaeus and even Origen retaining the words, in spite of their obvious difficulty. The relation in which Cod. א stands to the other four chief manuscripts of the Gospels, may be roughly estimated from analyzing the transcript of four pages first published by Tischendorf281, as well as in any other[pg 268]way. Of the 312 variations from the common text therein noted, א stands alone in forty-five, in eight agrees with ABCD united (much of C, however, is lost in these passages), with ABC together thirty-one times, with ABD fourteen, with AB thirteen, with D alone ten, with B alone but once (Mark i. 27), with C alone once: with several authorities against AB thirty-nine times, with A against B fifty-two, with B against A ninety-eight. Hence, while the discovery of this precious document has unquestionably done much to uphold Cod. B (which is the more correctly written, and doubtless the more valuable of the two) in many of its more characteristic and singular readings, it has made the mutual divergencies of the very oldest critical authorities more patent and perplexing than ever282.

8. Codd. אB were apparently anterior to the age of Jerome, the latest ecclesiastical writer whose testimony need be dwelt upon, since from his time downwards the stream of extant and direct manuscript evidence, beginning with Codd. AC, flows on without interruption. Jerome's attention was directed to the criticism of the Greek Testament by his early Biblical studies, and the knowledge he thus obtained had full scope for its exercise when he was engaged on revising the Old Latin version. In his so-often cited“Praefatio ad Damasum,”prefixed to his recension of the Gospels, he complains of certain“codices, quos a Luciano et Hesychio nuncupatos, paucorum hominum asserit perversa contentio,”and those not of the Old Testament alone, but also of the New. This obscure and passing notice of corrupt and (apparently) interpolated copies has been made the foundation of more than one theory as fanciful as ingenious. Jerome further informs us that he had adopted in his translation the canons which Eusebius“Alexandrium secutus Ammonium”(but[pg 269]seeVol. I. pp. 59, &c.) had invented or first brought into vogue; stating, and, in his usual fashion, somewhat exaggerating283, an evil these canons helped to remedy, the mixing up of the matter peculiar to one Evangelist with the narrative of another. Hence we might naturally expect that the Greek manuscripts he would view with special favour, were the same as Eusebius had approved before him. In the scattered notices throughout his works, Jerome sometimes speaks but vaguely of“quaedam exemplaria tam Graeca quam Latina”(Luke xxii. 43-4, almost in the words of Hilary, his senior); or appeals to readings“in quibusdam exemplaribus et maximè in Graecis codicibus”(Mark xvi. 14). Occasionally we hear of“multi et Graeci et Latini codices”(John vii. 53), or“vera exemplaria”(Matt. v. 22; xxi. 31), or“antiqua exemplaria”(Luke ix. 23), without specifying in which language: Mark xvi. 9-20“in raris fertur Evangeliis,”since“omnes Graeciae libri paene”do not contain it284. In two places, however, he gives a more definite account of the copies he most regarded. In Galat. iii. 1 τῇ ἀληθείᾳ μὴ πείθεσθαι is omitted by Jerome, because it is not contained“in exemplaribus Adamantii,”although (as he elsewhere informs us)“et Graeca exemplaria hoc errore confusa sint.”In the other of the two passages Jerome remarks that in some Latin copies of Matt. xxiv. 36neque filiusis added,“quum in Graecis, et maxime Adamantii et Pierii exemplaribus, hoc non habeatur adscriptum.”Pierius the presbyter of Alexandria, elsewhere called by Jerome“the younger Origen”(Cat. Scriptt. Eccl., i. p. 128), has been deprived by fortune of the honour due to his merit and learning. A contemporary, perhaps the teacher of Pamphilus (Euseb., Eccl. Hist., vii. 32) at Caesarea, his copies of Scripture would naturally be preserved with those of Origen in the great Library of that city. Here they were doubtless seen by Jerome when, to his deep joy, he found Origen's writings copied in Pamphilus' hand (Cat. Scriptt. Eccl.,[pg 270]ubi supra), which volumes Acacius and Euzoius, elder contemporaries of Jerome himself, had taken pious care to repair and renew (ibid.i. p. 131; ad Marcell. Ep. cxli). It is not therefore wonderful if, employing as they did and setting a high value on precisely the same manuscripts of the N. T., the readings approved by Origen, Eusebius, and Jerome should closely agree.

9. Epiphanius [d. 403], who wrote at about the same period as Jerome, distinguishes in his note on Luke xix. 41 or xxii. 44 (Tom. ii. p. 36) between the uncorrected copies (ἀδιορθώτοις), and those used by the Orthodox285. Of the function of the“corrector”(διορθωτής) of an ancient manuscript we have spoken several times before: but a system was devised by Professor J. L. Hug of Freyburg (Einleitung, 1808), and maintained, though with some modifications, by J. G. Eichhorn, which assigned to these occasional, and (as they would seem to be) unsystematic labours of the reviser, a foremost place in the criticism of the N. T. Hug conceived that the process of corruption had been going on so rapidly and uniformly from the Apostolic age downwards, that by the middle of the third century the state of the text in the general mass of codices had degenerated into the form exhibited in Codd. D, 1, 13, 69, 124 of the Gospels, the Old Latin and Sahidic (he would now have added the Curetonian Syriac) versions, and to some extent in the Peshitto and in the citations of Clement of Alexandria and of Origen in his early works. To this uncorrected text he gave the name of κοινὴ ἔκδοσις, and that it existed, substantially in the interpolated shape now seen in Cod. D, the Old Latin, and Cureton's Syriac, as early as the second century, need not be doubted. There is some foundation for this position, but it was marred by Hug's lack of sobriety of judgement. What we may fairly dispute is that this text ever[pg 271]had extensive circulation or good repute in the Churches whose vernacular language was Greek. This“common edition”Hug supposes to have received three separate emendations in the middle of the third century; one made by Origen in Palestine, which he thinks Jerome adopted and approved; two others by Hesychius and Lucian (a presbyter of Antioch and Martyr), in Egypt and Syria respectively, both which Jerome condemned, and Pope Gelasius (a.d.492-6) declared to be apocryphal286. To Origen's recension he referred such copies as AKM, 42, 106, 114, 116, 253 of the Gospels, the Harkleian Syriac, the quotations of Chrysostom and Theodoret; to Hesychius the Alexandrian codices BCL; to Lucian the Byzantine documents EFGHSV and the mass of later books. The practical effect of this elaborate theory would be to accord to Cod. A a higher place among our authorities than some recent editors have granted it, even than it quite deserves, yet its correspondence with Origen in many characteristic readings would thus be admitted and accounted for (but seep.226). But in truth Hug's whole scheme is utterly baseless as regards historical fact, and most insufficiently sustained by internal proof. Jerome's slight and solitary mention of the copies of Lucian and Hesychius abundantly evinces their narrow circulation and the low esteem in which they were held; and even Eichhorn perceived that there was no evidence whatever to show that Origen had attempted a formal revision of the text. The passages cited above, both from Eusebius and Jerome—and no others are known to bear on the subject—will carry us no further than this:—that these Fathers had access to codices of the N. T. once possessed by Adamantius, and here and there, perhaps, retouched by his hand. The manuscripts copied by Pamphilus were those of Origen's own works; and while we have full and detailed accounts of what he accomplished for the Greek versions of the Old Testament, no hint has been thrown out by any ancient writer that he carried his pious labour into[pg 272]the criticism of the New. On the contrary, he seems to disclaim the task in a sentence now extant chiefly in the old Latin version of his works, wherein, to a notice of his attempt to remove diversity of reading from codices of the Septuagint by the help of“the other editions”(κριτηρίῳ χρησάμενοι ταῖς λοιπαῖς ἐκδόσεσιν, i.e. the versions of Aquila and the rest), he is represented as adding,“In exemplaribus autem Novi Testamenti, hoc ipsum me posse facere sine periculo non putavi”(Origen, Tom. iii. p. 671).

10. Hug's system of recensions was devised as a corrective to those of Bengel and of Griesbach, which have been adequately discussed in ChapterVII. The veteran Griesbach spent his last effort as a writer in bringing to notice the weak points of Hug's case, and in claiming him, where he rightly could, as a welcome ally287. But neither did Hug's scheme, nor that propounded by Scholz some years later, obtain the general credit and acceptance which had once been conceded to Griesbach's. It was by this time plainly seen that not only were such theories unsupported by historical testimony (to which indeed the Professor of Halle had been too wise to lay claim), but that they failed to account for more than a part, and that usually a small part, of the phenomena disclosed by minute study of our critical materials. All that can be inferred from searching into the history of the sacred text amounts to no more than this: that extensive[pg 273]variations, arising no doubt from the wide circulation of the New Testament in different regions and among nations of diverse languages, subsisted from the earliest period to which our records extend. Beyond this point our investigations cannot be carried, without indulging in pleasant speculations which may amuse the fancy, but cannot inform the sober judgement. Such is the conclusion to which we are reluctantly brought after examining the principles laid down, as well by the critics we have named above, as by Lachmann, by his disciple Tregelles, and even by thepar nobileof Cambridge Doctors, Professor Hort and Bishop (formerly Canon) Westcott, of whose labours we shall speak presently.

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