§ 4.
[We may now take some more instances to shew the effects of the operations of Heretics.]
The good Shepherd in a certain place (St. John x. 14, 15) says concerning Himself—'I know My sheep and am known of Mine, even as the Father knoweth Me and I know the Father': by which words He hints at a mysterious knowledge as subsisting between Himself and those that are His. And yet it is worth observing that whereas He describes the knowledge which subsists between the Father and the Son in language which implies that it is strictly identical on either side, He is careful to distinguish between the knowledge which subsists between the creature and the Creator by slightly varying the expression,—thus leaving it to be inferred that it is not, neither indeed can be, on either side the same. God knoweth us with a perfect knowledge. Our so-called 'knowledge' of God is a thing different not only in degree, but in kind[478]. Hence the peculiar form which the sentence assumes[479]:—γινωσκω τα εμα, και γινωσκομαι 'υπο των εμων. And this delicate diversity of phrase has been faithfully retained all down the ages, being witnessed to at this hour by every MS. in existence except four now well known to us: viz. [Symbol: Aleph]BDL. The Syriac also retains it,—as does Macarius[480], Gregory Naz.[481], Chrysostom[482], Cyril[483], Theodoret[484], Maximus[485]. It is a point which really admits of no rational doubt: for does any one suppose that if St. John had written 'Mine own know Me,' 996 MSS. out of 1000 at the end of 1,800 years would exhibit, 'I am known of Mine'?
But in fact it is discovered that these words of our Lord experienced depravation at the hands of the Manichaean heretics. Besides inverting the clauses, (and so making it appear that such knowledge begins on the side of Man.) Manes (A.D. 261) obliterated the peculiarity above indicated. Quoting from his own fabricated Gospel, he acquaints us with the form in which these words were exhibited in that mischievous production: viz. γινωσκει με τα εμα, και γινωσκω τα εμα. This we learn from Epiphanius and from Basil[486]. Cyril, in a paper where he makes clear reference to the same heretical Gospel, insists that the order of knowledge must needs be the reverse of what the heretics pretended[487].—But then, it is found that certain of the orthodox contented themselves with merely reversing the clauses, and so restoring the true order of the spiritual process discussed—regardless of the exquisite refinement of expression to which attention was called at the outset. Copies must once have abounded which represented our Lord as saying, 'I know My own and My own know Me, even as the Father knoweth Me and I know the Father'; for it is the order of the Old Latin, Bohairic, Sahidic, Ethiopic, Lewis, Georgian, Slavonic, and Gothic, though not of the Peshitto, Harkleian, and Armenian; and Eusebius[488], Nonnus, and even Basil[489] so read the place. But no token of this clearly corrupt reading survives in any known copy of the Gospels,—except [Symbol: Aleph]BDL. Will it be believed that nevertheless all the recent Editors of Scripture since Lachmann insist on obliterating this refinement of language, and going back to the reading which the Church has long since deliberately rejected,—to the manifest injury of the deposit? 'Many words about a trifle,'—some will be found to say. Yes, to deny God's truth is a very facile proceeding. Its rehabilitation always requires many words. I request only that the affinity between [Symbol: Aleph]BDL and the Latin copies which universally exhibit this disfigurement[490], may be carefully noted. [Strange to say, the true reading receives no notice from Westcott and Hort, or the Revisers[491]].