Appendix To Chapter X.
Matt. vi. 8. The transparent gloss ὁ θεός is inserted before ὁ πατὴρ ὑμῶν by Codd. א*B and the Sahidic version[309].
Ver. 22. Ὁ λύχνος τοῦ σώματός ἐστιν ὁ ὀφθαλμός σου B, a b c ff1 n1.2 h l, the printed Vulgate, some Latin writers, and the Ethiopic. The addition of σου is more strongly attested in Luke xi. 34 by א*ABCDM, but is intolerable in either place.
Matt. xvi. 21. Ἀπὸ τότε ἤρξατο ἰησοῦς χριστός: so the first hands of א and B, with the Bohairic version only, their very frequent companion.
Matt. xxvii. 28. On the impossible reading of אcBD, a b c ff2 q, and a few others, enough has been said in Chap. VII. p. [234].
Ver. 49. We are here brought face to face with the gravest interpolation yet laid to the charge of B, whose tendency is usually in the opposite direction. Westcott and Hort alone among the editors feel constrained to insert in the text, though enclosed in their double brackets and regarded as “most probably an interpolation,” a sentence which neither they nor any other competent scholar can easily believe that the Evangelist ever wrote[310]. After σώσων αὐτόν are set the following words borrowed from John xix. 34, with a slight verbal change, and representing that the Saviour was pierced before his death: ἄλλος δὲ λαβὼν λόγχην ἔνυξεν αὐτοῦ τὴν πλευράν, καὶ ἐξῆλθεν ὕδωρ καὶ ἁῖμα. Thus we read in אBCLU (which has εὐθέως before ἐξῆλθεν αἷμα καὶ ὕδωρ) Γ, 5, 48, 67, 115, 127*, five good manuscripts of the Vulgate, Kells, gat., mm., chad., mac-regol., and Oxon., C. C. (not in Bodl.), Harl. 1023 and 1802*, and the margin of 1 E. vi, the Jerusalem Syriac once when the Lesson occurs, and the Ethiopic. Chrysostom thus read in his copy, but used the clause with so little reflection that he regarded the Lord as dead already. Severus of Antioch [d. 539], who himself protested against this gross corruption, tells us that Cyril of Alexandria as well as Chrysostom received it. A scholion found in Cod. 72 refers this addition εἰς τὸ καθ᾽ ἱστορίαν εὐαγγέλιον Διοδώρου καὶ Τατιάνου καὶ ἄλλων διαφόρων ἁγίων πατέρων, on the authority of Chrysostom; and from the unintentional blunders of Harmonists like Tatian such an insertion might very well have crept in. The marvel is that it found favour so widely as it did[311].
Matt. xxviii. 19. βαπτίσαντες occurs only in BD (whose Latin has baptizantes), as though Baptism were to precede instruction in the faith. Tregelles alone dares to place this reading in the text: Westcott and Hort have it in their margin.
Mark iii. 14, 16. After noticing the evidence which supported the corrupt sentence in Matt. xxvii. 49, we are little disposed to accept what is in substance the same for such feeble glosses as are afforded us in these two verses; namely, οὓς καὶ ἀποστόλους ὠνόμασεν after δώδεκα in ver. 14 (derived from Luke vi. 13), and καὶ ἐποίησε τοὺς δώδεκα at the beginning of ver. 16. Westcott and Hort receive both clauses, Tischendorf only the latter, with אBC*Δ and an Ethiopic manuscript: yet the former, if less likely to be genuine, is the better supported. It is found in אBC*Δ (with some variation), in 13, 28, 69, 124, 238, 346, the Bohairic, the margin of the Harkleian Syriac, the Ethiopic, the Arabic of the Polyglott: a goodly array from divers sources to uphold so bad a reading.
Mark vi. 2. οἱ πολλοί is read by Westcott and Hort (so Tischendorf) instead of πολλοί with BL, 13, 28, 69, 346. Three out of the four cursives belong to Professor Ferrar's group.
Ver. 22. In the room of τῆς θυγατρὸς αὐτῆς τῆς Ἡρωδιάδος a serious variation of אBDLΔ, 238, 473, 558 is admitted into the text by Westcott and Hort, τῆς θυγατρὸς αὐτοῦ (+ τῆς 238, 558) Ἡρῳδιάδος, thus bringing St. Mark into direct contradiction with Josephus, who expressly states that the wretched girl was named Salome, and was the daughter of Herod Philip by Herodias, who did not leave her husband till after Salome's birth (Josephus, Antiq., lib. xviii. ch. v. § 4). Add to this the extreme improbability that even Herod the Tetrarch should have allowed his own child to degrade herself in such wise as Salome did here, or that she could not have carried her point with her father without resorting to licentious allurements. We must therefore regard αὐτοῦ as certainly false, while αὐτῆς strongly expresses the writer's feeling that even Herodias could stoop so low, and being used emphatically has so much offended a few that they omit it altogether. Such are 1, 118, 209, and some versions (b c f, the Bohairic, Armenian, Ethiopic, and Gothic) which did not understand it. Tischendorf was hardly right in adding the Peshitto to the list[312].
Mark ix. 1. ὧδε τῶν for τῶν ὧδε (ἑστηκότων) is the almost impossible reading of BD*, c k* (a d q n are uncertain), adopted the more readily by Tischendorf, Tregelles, Westcott and Hort, because all have the proper order τῶν ὧδε in Matt. xvi. 28.
Mark xiii. 33. Lachmann, Tischendorf, Westcott and Hort reject (Tregelles more fitly sets within brackets) καὶ προσεύχεσθε with BD, 122, and the Latin a c k and tol.* of the Vulgate only. It is in the favour of the two words that they cannot have come from the parallel place in [pg 304] St. Matthew (ch. xxiv. 42), nor is the preceding verb the same in ch. xiv. 38. Here even אLΔ side against B with AC and all other authorities, including the Egyptian and most Latin, as well as the Syriac versions.
Luke iv. 44. The wonderful variation Ἰουδαίας is brought into the text of Hort and Westcott, the true reading Γαλιλαίας being banished to their margin. Their change is upheld by a strong phalanx indeed: אNBCLQR, 1, 21, 71, Evst. 222, 259 and some twenty other cursives (Evan. 503 and two Lectionaries read αὐτῶν instead of either), the Bohairic and the text of the Harkleian: authorities enough to prove anything not in itself impossible, as Ἰουδαίας is in this place. Not only is Galilee the scene of the events recorded immediately before and after the present verse, but the passage is manifestly parallel to Mark i. 39. The three Synoptic Gospels are broadly distinguished from that of St. John by their silence respecting the Lord's ministry in Judaea before He went up to the last passover. Yet Alford in loco, while admitting that “our narrative is thus brought into the more startling discrepancy with that of St. Mark, in which unquestionably the same portion of the sacred history is related,” most strangely adds, “Still these are considerations which must not weigh in the least degree with the critic. It is his province simply to track out what is the sacred text, not what, in his own feeble and partial judgement, it ought to have been.”
Luke vi. 48. It is surprising how a gloss so frigid as διὰ τὸ καλῶς οἰκοδομῆσθαι αὐτήν could have been accepted by Tischendorf, Tregelles, Westcott and Hort, in the room of τεθελεμίωτο γὰρ ἐπὶ τὴν πέτραν, chiefly, it may be presumed, because the latter is the expression of St. Matthew (ch. vii. 25). Yet such is the reading of אBLΞ, of the two best cursives 33, 157, of the Bohairic (with some variation in its copies), of the margin of the Harkleian, and of Cyril of Alexandria. The Ethiopic preserves both forms. As the present οἰκοδόμοῦντι early in the verse involves a plain contradiction when compared with the perfect οἰκοδομῆσθαι at the end, Tregelles changes the latter into οἰκοδομεῖσθαι on the feeble authority of the third hand of B, of 33, and possibly of 157.
Luke viii. 40. For αὐτόν after προσδοκῶντες we find τὸν θεόν in א only. Of course the variation is quite wrong, but it is hard to see the pertinency of Dr. Vance Smith's hint (Theological Review, July, 1875) “that it cannot have got in by accident.”
Luke x. 1. This case is interesting, as being one wherein B (not א) is at variance with the very express evidence of the earliest ecclesiastical writers, while it makes the number of these disciples, not seventy, but seventy-two[313]. With B are DM, also R (“ita enim certè omnino videtur,” [pg 305] Tisch., Monum. sacra inedita, vol. ii. Proleg. p. xviii), in the prefixed table of τίτλοι (Vol. I. p. 57, n), its text being lost, Codd. 1, 42, a c e g1.2? l, the Vulgate, Curetonian Syriac, and Armenian. Lachmann with Westcott and Hort insert δύο, but within brackets, for the evidence against it is overwhelming both in number and in weight: namely, Codd. אACEGHKLSUVXΓΔΛΞΠ, all other cursives, b f g of the Old Latin, the Bohairic, the three other Syriac, the Gothic, and Ethiopic versions.
Luke xiv. 5. Here again we have a strong conviction that א, though now in the minority, is more correct than B, supported as the latter is by a dense array of witnesses of every age and country. In the clause τίνος ὑμῶν ὄνος ἢ βοῦς of the Received text all the critical editors substitute υἱὸς for ὄνος, which introduces a bathos so tasteless as to be almost ludicrous[314]. Yet υἱὸς is found with or without ὁ before it in AB (hiant CF)EGHMSUVΓΔΛ, in no less than 125 cursive copies already cited by name[315] (also υἱὸς ὑμῶν Evst. 259), in e f g, the Sahidic, Peshitto and Harkleian[316] Syriac versions: Cod. 508 and the Curetonian combine both forms υἱὸς ἢ βοῦς ἢ ὄνος, and Cod. 215 has υἱὸς ἢ ὄνος without βοῦς. Add to these Cyril of Alexandria (whose words are cited in catenas, as in the scholia to X, 253, 259), Titus of Bostra the commentator, Euthymius, and Theophylact. For ὄνος are אKLXΠ, 1, 33, 66 secundâ manu, 69 (ὄρος), 71, 207 sec. man., 211, 213, 407, 413, 492, 509, 512, 549, 550, 555, 556, 569, 570, 599, 602, and doubtless others not cited: also the text of X, 253, 259 in spite of the annexed commentary; of the versions a b c i l of the Old Latin, the Vulgate, Bohairic, Jerusalem Syriac, Armenian, and Ethiopic (bos eius aut asinus), though the Slavonic codices and Persic of the Polyglott make for υἱός. Cod. 52 (sic) and the Arabic of the Polyglott omit ὄνος ἤ, while D has πρόβατον (ovis d) for ὄνος (comp. Matt. xii. 11), and 557 exhibits βοῦς ἢ ὄνος. ΥΣ or ΟΙΣ mistaken as the contraction for ΥΙΟΣ is a mere guess, and we are safest here in clinging to common sense against a preponderance of outward evidence.
Luke xv. 21. Here by adding from ver. 19 ποίησόν με ὡς ἕνα τῶν μισθίων σου (placed in the text by Westcott and Hort within brackets) the great codices אBD, with UX, 33, 512, 543, 558, 571, a catena, and four manuscripts of the Vulgate (bodl. gat. mm. tol.), manage to keep out of sight that delicate touch of true nature which Augustine points out, that the son never carried out his purpose of offering himself for a hireling, “quod post osculum patris generosissime jam dedignatur.”
Luke xvi. 12. It is hard to tell how far thorough scholars and able critics are prepared to push a favourite theory, when Westcott and Hort place τὸ ἡμέτερον τίς δώσει ὑμῖν in the text, reserving ὑμέτερον for the margin. Not to mention that the interchange of η and υ in these pronouns [pg 306] is the most obstinate of all known itacisms, and one to which B is especially prone (e.g. Acts xvii. 28; 1 Pet. ii. 24; 1 John ii. 25; iii. 1, Vol. I. p. 11), ἡμέτερον is found only in BL, Evst. 21, and Origen once: in 157, e i l, and in Tertullian twice it is softened down to ἐμόν.
Luke XXI. 24: ἄχρι οὗ πληρωθῶσιν [καὶ ἔσονται] kairoὶ ἐthnῶn. The words within brackets appear thus in Westcott and Hort's text alone; what possible meaning can be assigned to them in the position they there occupy it is hard to see. They are obviously derived by an error of the scribe's eye from καὶ ἔσονται (the reading of אBD, &c.) at the beginning of ver. 25. This unintelligible insertion is due to B; but L, the Bohairic, and a codex cited in the Harkleian margin also have it with another καιροί prefixed to καὶ ἔσονται. D runs on thus: ἄχρις οὗ πληρωθῶσιν καὶ ἔσονται σημεῖα (om. καιροὶ ἐθνῶν). Those who discover some recondite beauty in the reading of B compare with this the genuine addition καὶ ἐσμέν after κληθῶμεν in 1 John iii. 1. Nempè amatorem turpia decipiunt caecum vitia, aut etiam ipsa haec delectant.
Luke xxiii. 32. For ἕτεροι δύο κακοῦργοι, which is unobjectionable in the Greek, though a little hard in a close English translation, אB and the two Egyptian versions, followed by Westcott and Hort, have the wholly impossible ἕτεροι κακοῦργοι δύο.
John ii. 3. The loose paraphrase of Cod. א in place of ὑστερήσαντος οἴνου commends itself to no one but Tischendorf, who in his turn admires the worst deformities of his favourite: it runs καὶ οἶνον οὐκ εἶχον ὅτι συνετελέσθη ὁ οἶνος τοῦ γάμου, in which few readers will be able to discern with him the manner and style of St. John. The Old Latin a b ff2 and Gaudentius [iv]; also e l, the Ethiopic, and the margin of the Harkleian in part, exhibit the same vapid circumlocution. Cod. א in this Gospel, and sometimes elsewhere, has a good deal in common with the Western codices and Latin Fathers, and some of its glosses are simply deplorable: e.g. καλοκαγαθίας for κακοπαθείας, James v. 10; συνομιλοῦντες for συνοικοῦντες, 1 Pet. iii. 7; ἀποθανόντος for παθόντος, 1 Pet. iv. 1 after ch. ii. 21, where it does not stand alone, as here. Of a better character is its bold supplement of ἐκκλησία before συνεκλεκτή in 1 Pet. v. 13, apparently borrowed from primitive tradition, and supported by the Peshitto, Vulgate (in its best manuscripts and editions), and Armenian versions.
John iv. 1. After βαπτίζει we find ἤ omitted in AB* (though it is added in what Tischendorf considers an ancient hand, his B2) GLΓ, 262, Origen and Epiphanius, but appears in אCD and all the rest. Tregelles rejects ἤ in his margin, Hort and Westcott put it within brackets. Well may Dr. Hort say (Notes, p. 76), “It remains no easy matter to explain how the verse as it stands can be reasonably understood without ἤ, or how such a mere slip as the loss of Η after ΕΙ should have so much excellent Greek authority, more especially as the absence of ἤ increases the obvious no less than the real difficulty of the verse.”
John vii. 39. One of the worst faults a manuscript (the same is not true of a version) can have is a habit of supplying, either from the margin or from the scribe's misplaced ingenuity, some word that may clear up a difficulty, or limit the writer's meaning. Certainly this is not a common fault with Cod. B, but we have here a conspicuous example of it. It [pg 307] stands almost alone in receiving δεδομένον after πνεῦμα: one cursive (254) has δοθέν, and so read a b c e ff2 g l q, the Vulgate, the Peshitto, and the Georgian (Malan, St. John), the Jerusalem Syriac, the Polyglott Persic, a catena, Eusebius and Origen in a Latin version: the margin of the Harkleian Syriac makes a yet further addition. The Sahidic, Ethiopic, and Erpenius' Arabic also supply some word. But the versions and commentators, like our own English translations, probably meant no more than a bold exposition. The whole blame of this evident corruption rests with the two manuscripts. No editor follows B here.
John ix. 4. Most readers will think with Dean Burgon that the reading ἡμᾶς δεῖ ἐργάζεσθαι τὰ ἔργα τοῦ πέμψαντος (whether followed by με or ἡμᾶς) “carries with it its own sufficient condemnation” (Last Twelve Verses, &c., p. 81). The single or double ἡμᾶς, turning the whole clause into a general statement, applicable to every one, is found in א*BDL, the two Egyptian, Jerusalem Syriac, Erpenius' Arabic, and Roman Ethiopic versions, in the younger Cyril and the versifier Nonnus. Origen and Jerome cite the passage as if the reading were ἐργάζεσθε, which, by a familiar itacism (see p. [11]), is the reading of the first hand of B. The first ἡμᾶς is adopted by Tischendorf, Tregelles, Westcott and Hort: the second by Tischendorf alone after א*L, the Bohairic, Roman Ethiopic, Erpenius' Arabic, and Cyril. Certainly με of BD, the Sahidic, and Jerusalem Syriac, is very harsh.
John x. 22. For δέ after ἐγένετο Westcott and Hort read τότε with BL, 33, the Sahidic, Gothic, Slavonic, and Armenian versions. No such use of τότε in this order, and without another particle, will be found in the New Testament, or easily elsewhere. The Bohairic and gat. of the Vulgate have δὲ τότε, which is a different thing. Moreover, the sense will not admit so sharp a definition of sameness in time as τότε implies. Three months intervened between the feast of Tabernacles, in and after which all the events named from ch. vii downwards took place, and this winter feast of Dedication.
John xviii. 5. For λέγει αὐτοῖς ὁ ἰησοῦς ἐγώ ἐιμι, B and a have the miserable variation λέγει αὐτοῖς ἐγώ ἐιμι ἰησοῦς, which Westcott and Hort advance to a place in their margin. The first ΙΣ (omitting ὁ) was absorbed in the last syllable of ΑΥΤΟΙΣ, the second being a mere repetition of the first syllable of ΙΣΤΗΚΕΙ (sic B primâ manu). Compare Vol. I. p. 10. With so little care was this capital document written[317].
Acts iv. 25. We have here, upheld by nearly all the authorities to which students usually defer, that which cannot possibly be right, though critical editors, in mere helplessness, feel obliged to put it in their text: ὁ τοῦ πατρὸς ἡμῶν διὰ πνεύματος ἁγίου στόματος δαυεὶδ παιδός σου εἰπών. Thus read אABE, 13, 15, 27, 29, 36, 38. Apost. 12, a catena and Athanasius. The Vulgate and Latin Fathers, the Harkleian Syriac and Armenian versions conspire, but with such wide variations as only serve to display their perplexity. We have here two several [pg 308] readings, either of which might be true, combined into one that cannot. We might either adopt with D ὃς διὰ μνς ἁγίου διὰ τοῦ στόματος λαλήσας δαυεὶδ παιδός σου (but david puero tuo d), or better with Didymus ὁ διὰ πνεύματος ἁγίου στόματος δὲ δαυεὶδ παιδός σου εἰπών (which will fairly suit the Peshitto and Bohairic); or we might prefer the easier form of the Received text ὁ διὰ στόματος δαβὶδ τοῦ παιδός σου εἰπών, which has no support except from P[318] and the cursives 1, 31, 40, 220, 221, &c. (the valuable copy 224 reads ὁ διὰ τοῦ πατρὸς ἡμῶν ἐν δαδ), and from Theophylact, Chrysostom being doubtful. Tischendorf justly pleads for the form he edits that it has second, third, and fourth century authority, adding “singula verba praeter morem sed non sine caussâ collocata sunt.” Praeter morem they certainly are, and non sine caussâ too, if this and like examples shall lead us to a higher style of criticism than will be attained by setting up one or more of the oldest copies as objects of unreasonable idolatry.
Acts vii. 46. ᾐτήσατο εὑρεῖν σκήνωμα τῷ θεῷ Ἰακώβ. The portentous variant οἴκῳ for θεῷ is adopted by Lachmann, and by Tischendorf, who observes of it “minimè sensu caret:” even Tregelles sets it in the margin, but Westcott and Hort simply obelize θεῷ as if they would read τῷ Ἰακώβ (compare Psalm xxiv. 6, cxxxii. 5 with Gen. xlix. 24). Yet οἴκῳ appears in א*BDH against אcACEP, all cursives (including 13, 31, 61, 220, 221), all versions. Observe also in ch. viii. 5 καισαρίας in א* for σαμαρείας on account of ver. 40 and ch. xxi. 8.
Acts x. 19. Ἰδοὺ ἄνδρες δύο is the reading of Westcott and Hort's text ([τρεῖς] margin) after B only, the true number being three (ver. 7): in ch. xi. 11 Epiphanius only has δύο. There might be some grounds for omitting τρεῖς here, as Tischendorf does, and Tregelles more doubtfully in his margin (with DHLP, 24, 31, 111, 182, 183, 184, 185, 188, 189, 220, 221, 224, m, the later Syriac, the Apostolical Constitutions, the elder Cyril, Chrysostom and Theophylact, Augustine and Ambrose), no reason surely for representing the Spirit as speaking only of the δύο οἰκέται.
Acts xii. 25. An important passage for our present purpose. That the two Apostles returned from, not to, Jerusalem is too plain for argument (ch. xi. 29, 30), yet εἰς Ἱερουσαλήμ (which in its present order surely cannot be joined with πληρώσαντες) is the reading of Westcott and Hort's text (ἐξ and the fatal obelus [Glyph: dagger] being in their margin) after אBHLP, 61, four of Matthaei's copies, Codd. 2, 4, 14, 24, 26, 34, 64, 78, 80, 95, 224, and perhaps twenty other cursives, but besides these only the margin of the Harkleian, the Roman Ethiopic, the Polyglott Arabic, some copies of the Slavonic and of Chrysostom, with Theophylact and Erasmus' first two editions, who says in his notes “ita legunt Graeci,” i.e. his Codd. 2, 4. A few which substitute “Antioch” for “Jerusalem” (28, 38, 66 marg., 67**, 97 marg., Apost. 5) are witnesses for εἰς, but not so those which, reading ἐξ or ἀπό, add with the Complutensian εἰς Ἀντιόχειαν (E, 7, 14**, 27, 29, 32, 42, 57, 69, 98 marg., 100, 105, 106, [pg 309] 111, 126**, 182, 183, 186, 220, 221, the Sahidic, Peshitto, and Erpenius' Arabic): Cod. 76 has εἰς Ἀντιόχειαν ἀπὸ Ἱερουσαλήμ. C is defective here, and the only three remaining uncials are divided between ἐξ (A, 13, 27, 29, 69, 214, Apost. 54, Chrysostom sometimes) and ἀπό (DE, 15, 18, 36, 40, 68, 73, 76, 81, 93, 98, 100, 105, 106, 111, 113, 180, 183, 184, a copy of Chrysostom, and the Vulgate ab). The two Egyptian, the Peshitto, the Philoxenian text, the Armenian and Pell Platt's Ethiopic have “from,” the only possible sense, in spite of אB. Tischendorf in his N. T. Vaticanum 1867 alleges that in that codex “litterae εισ ιερου primâ ut videtur manu rescriptae. Videtur primum απο pro εισ scriptum fuisse.” But since he did not repeat the statement three years later in his eighth edition, he may have come to feel doubtful about it. Dr. Hort conjectures that the original order was τὴν εἰς Ἱερουσαλὴμ πληρώσαντες διακονίαν.
Acts xvii. 28. Here Westcott and Hort place ὑμᾶς in their text, ἡμᾶς in the margin. For ἡμᾶς we find only B, 33, 68, 95, 96, 105, 137, and rather wonder than otherwise that the itacism is not met with in more cursives than six. The Bohairic has been cited in error on the same side. It needs not a word to explain that the stress of St. Paul's argument rests on ὑμᾶς. To the Athenians he quotes not the Hebrew Scriptures, but the poets of whom they were proud. Compare Luke xvi. 12, above.
An itacism not quite so gross in ch. xx. 10 μὴ θορυβεῖσθαι (B*, 185, 224*) is likewise honoured with a place in Westcott and Hort's margin. In Matt. xi. 16 they follow Tischendorf and Tregelles in adopting ἑτέροις for ἑταίροις with BCDZ, and indeed the mass of copies. This last itacism (for it can be nothing better) was admitted so early as to affect many of the chief versions.
Acts xx. 30. Cod. B omits αὐτῶν after ὑμῶν, where it is much wanted, apparently with no countenance except from Cod. 186, for this is just a point in which versions (the Sahidic and both Ethiopic) can be little trusted. The present is one of the countless examples of Cod. B's inclination to abridge, which in the Old Testament is carried so far as to eject from the text of the Septuagint words that are, and always must have been, in the original Hebrew. Westcott and Hort include αὐτῶν within brackets.
Acts xxv. 13. Agrippa and Bernice went to Caesarea to greet the new governor (ἀσπασόμενοι), not surely after they had sent their greeting before them (ἀσπασάμενοι), which, if it had been a fact, would not have been worth mentioning. Yet, though the reading is so manifestly false, the evidence for the aorist seems overwhelming (אABHLP, the Greek of E, 13, 24*, 31, 68, 105, 180, 220, 224*, a few more copies, and the Coptic and Ethiopic versions). The future is found possibly in C, certainly in 61, 221, and the mass of cursives, in e and other versions, in Chrysostom, and in one form of Theophylact's commentary. Here again Dr. Hort suspects some kind of prior corruption (Notes, p. 100).
Acts xxviii. 13. For περιελθόντες of all other manuscripts and versions א*B have περιελόντες, evidently borrowed from ch. xxvii. 40. Even this vile error of transcription is set in Westcott and Hort's text, the alternative not even in their margin. In ver. 15 they once set οἱ within [pg 310] brackets[319] on the evidence of B, 96 only. Cod. B is very prone to omit the article, especially, but not exclusively, with proper names.
Rom. vii. 22. The substitution of τοῦ νοός (cf. ver. 23) for τοῦ θεοῦ seems peculiar to Cod. B.
Rom. xv. 31. Lachmann and Tregelles (in his margin only) accept the manifest gloss δωροφορία for διακονία with B (see Vol. I. p. 290 for its “Western element”) D*FG (d e have remuneratio) and Ambrosiaster (munerum meorum ministratio). But διακονία is found in אACD2 and 3 and consequently in E (see Vol. I. p. 176), f (ministratio), g (administratio), Vulg. (obsequii mei oblatio), so d***, fuld. and Origen in the Latin (ministerium), with both Syriac, the Bohairic, Armenian and Ethiopic versions, Chrysostom, Theodoret, and John Damascene.
1 Cor. xiii. 5. Never was a noble speech more cruelly pared down to a trite commonplace than by the reading of B and Clement of Alexandria (very expressly) οὐ ζητεῖ τὰ μὴ ἑαυτῆς, in the place of οὐ ζητεῖ τὰ (or τὸ) ἑαυτῆς of the self-same Clement just as expressly elsewhere (see p. [262] and note 3), and of all other authorities of every description. Here Westcott and Hort place τὸ μή in their margin.
Col. iv. 15. For αὐτοῦ Lachmann, Tregelles' margin, Hort and Westcott have αὐτῆς from B, 676**, and the text of the later Syriac, thus implying that νύμφα is the Doric feminine form, which is very unlikely.
1 Thess. v. 4. Lachmann with Hort and Westcott (but not their margin) reads κλέπτας for κλέπτης with AB and the Bohairic, but this cannot be right.
Heb. vii. 1. For ὁ συναντήσας Lachmann, Tregelles, Hort and Westcott's text have ὃς συναντήσας with אABC**DEK, 17, a broken sentence: but this is too much even for Dr. Hort, who says, in the language habitual to him, that ὁ seems “a right emendation of the Syrian revisers” (Notes, p. 130).
James i. 17. What can be meant by ἀποσκιάσματος of א*B it is hard to say. The versions are not clear as to the sense, but ff alone seems to suggest the genitive (modicum obumbrationis). That valuable Cod. 184, now known only by Sanderson's collation at Lambeth (No. 1255, 10-14)[320], is said by him to add to the end of the verse οὐδὲ μέχρι ὑπονοίας τινὸς ὑποβολὴ ἀποσκιάσματος, which seems like a scholion on the preceding clause, and is found also in Cod. 221.
Nor will any one praise certain readings of Cod. B in James i. 9; 1 Pet. i. 9; 11; ii. 1; 12; 25; iii. 7; 14; 18 (om. τῷ θεῷ); iv. 1; v. 3; [pg 311] 2 Pet. i. 17; 1 John i. 2; ii. 14; 20; 25; 27; iii. 15; 3 John 4; 9; Jude 9, which passages the student may work out for himself.
Enough of the weary and ungracious task of finding fault. The foregoing list of errors patent in the most ancient codices might be largely increased: two or three more will occur incidentally in Chapter [XII] (1 Cor. xiii. 3; Phil. ii. 1; 1 Pet. i. 23; see also pp. [254], [319]). Even if the reader has not gone with me in every case, more than enough has been alleged to prove to demonstration that the true and pure text of the sacred writers is not to be looked for in א or B, in אB, or BD, or BL, or any like combination of a select few authorities, but demands, in every fresh case as it arises, the free and impartial use of every available source of information. Yet after all, Cod. B is a document of such value, that it grows by experience even upon those who may have been a little prejudiced against it by reason of the excessive claims of its too zealous friends[321]. Its best associate, in our judgement, is Cod. C, where the testimony of that precious palimpsest can be had. BC together will often carry us safe through difficulties of the most complicated character, as for instance, through that vexatious passage John xiii. 25, 26. Compare also Acts xxvi. 16. Yet even here it is necessary to commend with reserve: BC stand almost alone in maintaining the ingenious but improbable variation ἐκσῶσαι in Acts xxvii. 39 (see Chap. [XII]), and the frigid gloss κρίνοντι in 1 Pet. iv. 5: they unite with others in foisting on St. Matthew's text its worst corruption, ch. xxvii. 49. In Gal. iii. 1, C against AB contains the gloss τῇ ἀληθείᾳ μὴ πείθεσθαι. Again, since no fact relating to these pursuits is more certain than the absolute independence of the sources from which A and B are derived, it is manifest that their occasional agreement is always of the greatest weight, and is little less than conclusive in those portions of the N. T. where other evidence is slender in amount or consideration, e.g. 1 Pet. i. 21 and v. 10 (with the Vulgate); v. 11: also supported by those admirable cursives 27, 29, in 1 Pet. v. 14; 1 John iv. 3; 19; 2 John 3; 12. See also 1 John v. 18, to be discussed in Chap. [XII].