§ 2.
It is difficult to divine for what possible reason most of these transpositions were made. On countless occasions they do not in the least affect the sense. Often, they are incapable of being idiomatically represented, in English. Generally speaking, they are of no manner of importance, except as tokens of the licence which was claimed by disciples, as I suspect, of the Alexandrian school [or exercised unintentionally by careless or ignorant Western copyists]. But there arise occasions when we cannot afford to be so trifled with. An important change in the meaning of a sentence is sometimes effected by transposing its clauses; and on one occasion, as I venture to think, the prophetic intention of the Speaker is obscured in consequence. I allude to St. Luke xiii. 9, where under the figure of a barren fig-tree, our Lord hints at what is to befall the Jewish people, because in the fourth year of His Ministry it remained unfruitful. 'Lo, these three years,' (saith He to the dresser of His Vineyard), 'come I seeking fruit on this fig-tree, and find none; cut it down; why cumbereth it the ground?' 'Spare it for this year also' (is the rejoinder), 'and if it bear fruit,—well: but if not, next year thou shalt cut it down.' But on the strength of [Symbol: Aleph]BLTw, some recent Critics would have us read,—'And if it bear fruit next year,—well: but if not, thou shalt cut it down':—which clearly would add a year to the season of the probation of the Jewish race. The limit assigned in the genuine text is the fourth year: in the corrupt text of [Symbol: Aleph]BLTw, two bad Cursives, and the two chief Egyptian versions, this period becomes extended to the fifth.
To reason about such transpositions of words, a wearisome proceeding at best, soon degenerates into the veriest trifling. Sometimes, the order of the words is really immaterial to the sense. Even when a different shade of meaning is the result of a different collocation, that will seem the better order to one man which seems not to be so to another. The best order of course is that which most accurately exhibits the Author's precise shade of meaning: but of this the Author is probably the only competent judge. On our side, an appeal to actual evidence is obviously the only resource: since in no other way can we reasonably expect to ascertain what was the order of the words in the original document. And surely such an appeal can be attended with only one result: viz. the unconditional rejection of the peculiar and often varying order advocated by the very few Codexes,—a cordial acceptance of the order exhibited by every document in the world besides.
I will content myself with inviting attention to one or two samples of my meaning. It has been made a question whether St. Luke (xxiv. 7) wrote,—λεγων, 'Οτι δει τον 'υιον του ανθρωπου παραδοθηναι, as all the MSS. in the world but four, all the Versions, and all the available Fathers'[340] evidence from A.D. 150 downwards attest: or whether he wrote,—λεγων τον 'υιον του ανθρωπου 'οτι δει παραδοθηναι, as [Symbol: Aleph]BCL,—and those four documents only—would have us believe? [The point which first strikes a scholar is that there is in this reading a familiar classicism which is alien to the style of the Gospels, and which may be a symptom of an attempt on the part of some early critic who was seeking to bring them into agreement with ancient Greek models.] But surely also it is even obvious that the correspondence of those four Codexes in such a particular as this must needs be the result of their having derived the reading from one and the same original. On the contrary, the agreement of all the rest in a trifling matter of detail like the present can be accounted for in only one way, viz., by presuming that they also have all been derived through various lines of descent from a single document: but that document the autograph of the Evangelist. [For the great number and variety of them necessitates their having been derived through various lines of descent. Indeed, they must have the notes of number, variety, as well as continuity, and weight also.]