§ 5.

I am guided to my next example, viz. the text of St. Matt. xv. 8, by the choice deliberately made of that place by Dr. Tregelles in order to establish the peculiar theory of Textual Revision which he advocates so strenuously; and which, ever since the days of Griesbach, has it must be confessed enjoyed the absolute confidence of most of the illustrious editors of the New Testament. This is, in fact, the second example on Tregelles' list. In approaching it, I take leave to point out that that learned critic unintentionally hoodwinks his readers by not setting before them in full the problem which he proposes to discuss. Thoroughly to understand this matter, the student should be reminded that there is found in St. Matt. xv. 8,—and parallel to it in St. Mark vii. 6,—

St. Matt.

'Ye hypocrites, well did Isaiah prophesy of you saying, "This people draweth nigh unto Me with their mouth and honoureth me with their lips (εγγιζει μοι 'ο λαος 'ουτος τω στοματι αυτων, και τοις χειλεσι με τιμα), but their heart is far from Me."'

St. Mark.

'Well did Isaiah prophesy of you, hypocrites, as it is written, "This people honoureth Me with their lips ('ουτος 'ο λαος τοις χειλεσι με τιμα), but their heart is far from Me."'

The place of Isaiah referred to, viz. ch. xxix. 13, reads as follows in the ordinary editions of the LXX:—και ειπε Κυριος, εγγιζει μοι 'ο λαος 'ουτος εν τω στοματι αυτου, και εν τοις χειλεσιν αυτων τιμωσι με.

Now, about the text of St. Mark in this place no question is raised. Neither is there any various reading worth speaking of in ninety-nine MSS. out of a hundred in respect of the text in St. Matthew. But when reference is made to the two oldest copies in existence, B and [Symbol: Aleph], we are presented with what, but for the parallel place in St. Mark, would have appeared to us a strangely abbreviated reading. Both MSS. conspire in exhibiting St. Matt. xv. 8, as follows:—'ο λαος 'ουτος τοις χειλεσι με τιμα. So that six words (εγγιζει μοι and τω στοματι αυτων, και) are not recognized by them: in which peculiarity they are countenanced by DLTc, two cursive copies, and the following versions:—Old Latin except f, Vulgate, Curetonian, Lewis, Peshitto, and Bohairic, (Cod. A, the Sahidic and Gothic versions, being imperfect here.) To this evidence, Tischendorf adds a phalanx of Fathers:—Clemens Romanus (A.D. 70), Ptolemaeus the Gnostic (A.D. 150), Clemens Alexandrinus (A.D. 190), Origen in three places (A.D. 210), Eusebius (A.D. 325), Basil, Cyril of Alexandria, Chrysostom: and Alford supplies also Justin Martyr (A.D. 150). The testimony of Didymus (A.D. 350), which has been hitherto overlooked, is express. Tertullian, Cyprian, Hilary, are naturally found to follow the Latin copies. Such a weight of evidence may not unreasonably inspire Dr. Tregelles with an exceeding amount of confidence. Accordingly he declares 'that this one passage might be relied upon as an important proof that it is the few MSS. and not the many which accord with ancient testimony.' Availing himself of Dr. Scrivener's admission of 'the possibility that the disputed words in the great bulk of the MSS. were inserted from the Septuagint of Isaiah xxix. 13[285],' Dr. Tregelles insists 'that on every true principle of textual criticism, the words must be regarded as an amplification borrowed from the Prophet. This naturally explains their introduction,' (he adds); 'and when once they had gained a footing in the text, it is certain that they would be multiplied by copyists, who almost always preferred to make passages as full and complete as possible' (p. 139). Dr. Tregelles therefore relies upon this one passage,—not so much as a 'proof that it is the few MSS. and not the many which accord with ancient testimony';—for one instance cannot possibly prove that; and that is after all beside the real question;—but, as a proof that we are to regard the text of Codd. B[Symbol: Aleph] in this place as genuine, and the text of all the other Codexes in the world as corrupt.

The reader has now the hypothesis fully before him by which from the days of Griesbach it has been proposed to account for the discrepancy between 'the few copies' on the one hand, and the whole torrent of manuscript evidence on the other.

Now, as I am writing a book on the principles of Textual Criticism, I must be allowed to set my reader on his guard against all such unsupported dicta as the preceding, though enforced with emphasis and recommended by a deservedly respected name. I venture to think that the exact reverse will be found to be a vast deal nearer the truth: viz. that undoubtedly spurious readings, although they may at one time or other have succeeded in obtaining a footing in MSS., and to some extent may be observed even to have propagated themselves, are yet discovered to die out speedily; seldom indeed to leave any considerable number of descendants. There has always in fact been a process of elimination going on, as well as of self-propagation: a corrective force at work, as well as one of deterioration. How else are we to account for the utter disappearance of the many monstra potius quam variae lectiones which the ancients nevertheless insist were prevalent in their times? It is enough to appeal to a single place in Jerome, in illustration of what I have been saying[286]. To return however from this digression.

We are invited then to believe,—for it is well to know at the outset exactly what is required of us,—that from the fifth century downwards every extant copy of the Gospels except five (DLTc, 33, 124) exhibits a text arbitrarily interpolated in order to bring it into conformity with the Greek version of Isa. xxix. 13. On this wild hypothesis I have the following observations to make:—

1. It is altogether unaccountable, if this be indeed a true account of the matter, how it has come to pass that in no single MS. in the world, so far as I am aware, has this conformity been successfully achieved: for whereas the Septuagintal reading is εγγιζει μοι 'ο λαος ουτος ΕΝ τω στοματι ΑΥΤΟΥ, και ΕΝ τοις χειλεσιν ΑΥΤΩΝ ΤΙΜΩΣΙ με,—the Evangelical Text is observed to differ therefrom in no less than six particulars.

2. Further,—If there really did exist this strange determination on the part of the ancients in general to assimilate the text of St. Matthew to the text of Isaiah, how does it happen that not one of them ever conceived the like design in respect of the parallel place in St. Mark?

3. It naturally follows to inquire,—Why are we to suspect the mass of MSS. of having experienced such wholesale depravation in respect of the text of St. Matthew in this place, while yet we recognize in them such a marked constancy to their own peculiar type; which however, as already explained, is not the text of Isaiah?

4. Further,—I discover in this place a minute illustration of the general fidelity of the ancient copyists: for whereas in St. Matthew it is invariably 'ο λαος ουτος, I observe that in the copies of St. Mark,—except to be sure in (a) Codd. B and D, (b) copies of the Old Latin, (c) the Vulgate, and (d) the Peshitto (all of which are confessedly corrupt in this particular,)—it is invariably ουτος 'ο λαος. But now,—Is it reasonable that the very copies which have been in this way convicted of licentiousness in respect of St. Mark vii. 6 should be permitted to dictate to us against the great heap of copies in respect of their exhibition of St. Matt. xv. 8?

And yet, if the discrepancy between Codd. B and [Symbol: Aleph] and the great bulk of the copies in this place did not originate in the way insisted on by the critics, how is it to be accounted for? Now, on ordinary occasions, we do not feel ourselves called upon to institute any such inquiry,—as indeed very seldom would it be practicable to do. Unbounded licence of transcription, flagrant carelessness, arbitrary interpolations, omissions without number, disfigure those two ancient MSS. in every page. We seldom trouble ourselves to inquire into the history of their obliquities. But the case is of course materially changed when so many of the oldest of the Fathers and all the oldest Versions seem to be at one with Codexes B and [Symbol: Aleph]. Let then the student favour me with his undivided attention for a few moments, and I will explain to him how the misapprehension of Griesbach, Tischendorf, Tregelles and the rest, has arisen. About the MSS. and the Versions these critics are sufficiently accurate: but they have fatally misapprehended the import of the Patristic evidence; as I proceed to explain.

The established Septuagintal rendering of Isa. xxix. 13 in the Apostolic age proves to have been this,—Εγγιζει μοι 'ο λαος ουτος τοις χειλεσιν αυτων τιμωσι με: the words εν τω στοματι αυτων, και εν being omitted. This is certain. Justin Martyr[287] and Cyril of Alexandria in two places[288] so quote the passage. Procopius Gazaeus in his Commentary on Origen's Hexapla of Isaiah says expressly that the six words in question were introduced into the text of the Septuagint by Aquila, Symmachus, and Theodotion. Accordingly they are often observed to be absent from MSS.[289] They are not found, for example, in the Codex Alexandrinus.

But the asyndeton resulting from the suppression of these words was felt to be intolerable. In fact, without a colon point between ουτος and τοις, the result is without meaning. When once the complementary words have been withdrawn, εγγιζει μοι at the beginning of the sentence is worse than superfluous. It fatally encumbers the sense. To drop those two words, after the example of the parallel place in St. Mark's Gospel, became thus an obvious proceeding. Accordingly the author of the (so-called) second Epistle of Clemens Romanus (§ 3), professing to quote the place in the prophet Isaiah, exhibits it thus,—'ο λαος ουτος τοις χειλεσι με τιμα. Clemens Alexandrinus certainly does the same thing on at least two occasions[290]. So does Chrysostom[291]. So does Theodoret[292].

Two facts have thus emerged, which entirely change the aspect of the problem: the first, (a) That the words εν τω στοματι αυτων, και εν were anciently absent from the Septuagintal rendering of Isaiah xxix. 13: the second, (b) that the place of Isaiah was freely quoted by the ancients without the initial words εγγιζει μοι.

And after this discovery will any one be so perverse as to deny that on the contrary it must needs be Codexes B and [Symbol: Aleph], and not the great bulk of the MSS., which exhibit a text corrupted by the influence of the Septuagint rendering of Isaiah xxix. 13? The precise extent to which the assimilating influence of the parallel place in St. Mark's Gospel has been felt by the copyists, I presume not to determine. The essential point is that the omission from St. Matthew xv. 8 of the words Τω στοματι αυτων, και, is certainly due in the first instance to the ascertained Septuagint omission of those very words in Isaiah xxix. 13.

But that the text of St. Mark vii. 6 has exercised an assimilating influence on the quotation from Isaiah is demonstrable. For there can be no doubt that Isaiah's phrase (retained by St. Matthew) is 'ο λαος ουτος,—St. Mark's ουτος 'ο λαος. And yet, when Clemens Romanus quotes Isaiah, he begins—ουτος 'ο λαος[293]; and so twice does Theodoret[294].

The reader is now in a position to judge how much attention is due to Dr. Tregelles' dictum 'that this one passage may be relied upon' in support of the peculiar views he advocates: as well as to his confident claim that the fuller text which is found in ninety-nine MSS. out of a hundred 'must be regarded as an amplification borrowed from the prophet.' It has been shewn in answer to the learned critic that in the ancient Greek text of the prophet the 'amplification' he speaks of did not exist: it was the abbreviated text which was found there. So that the very converse of the phenomenon he supposes has taken place. Freely accepting his hypothesis that we have here a process of assimilation, occasioned by the Septuagintal text of Isaiah, we differ from him only as to the direction in which that process has manifested itself. He assumes that the bulk of the MSS. have been conformed to the generally received reading of Isaiah xxix. 13. But it has been shewn that, on the contrary, it is the two oldest MSS. which have experienced assimilation. Their prototypes were depraved in this way at an exceedingly remote period.

To state this matter somewhat differently.—In all the extant uncials but five, and in almost every known cursive copy of the Gospels, the words τω στοματι αυτων, και are found to belong to St. Matt. xv. 8. How is the presence of those words to be accounted for? The reply is obvious:—By the fact that they must have existed in the original autograph of the Evangelist. Such however is not the reply of Griesbach and his followers. They insist that beyond all doubt those words must have been imported into the Gospel from Isaiah xxix. But I have shewn that this is impossible; because, at the time spoken of, the words in question had no place in the Greek text of the prophet. And this discovery exactly reverses the problem, and brings out the directly opposite result. For now we discover that we have rather to inquire how is the absence of the words in question from those few MSS. out of the mass to be accounted for? The two oldest Codexes are convicted of exhibiting a text which has been corrupted by the influence of the oldest Septuagint reading of Isaiah xxix. 13.

I freely admit that it is in a high degree remarkable that five ancient Versions, and all the following early writers,—Ptolemaeus[295], Clemens Alexandrinus[296], Origen[297], Didymus[298], Cyril[299], Chrysostom[300], and possibly three others of like antiquity[301],—should all quote St. Matthew in this place from a faulty text. But this does but prove at how extremely remote a period the corruption must have begun. It probably dates from the first century. Especially does it seem to shew how distrustful we should be of our oldest authorities when, as here, they are plainly at variance with the whole torrent of manuscript authority. This is indeed no ordinary case. There are elements of distrust here, such as are not commonly encountered.