Appendix II. Ὄξος—Vinegar.

[The Dean thought this to be one of his most perfect papers.]

When He had reached the place called Golgotha, there were some who offered to the Son of Man (ἐδίδουν “were for giving” Him) a draught of wine drugged with myrrh[461]. He would not so much as taste it. Presently, the soldiers gave Him while hanging on the Cross vinegar mingled with gall[462]. This He tasted, but declined to drink. At the end of six hours, He cried, “I thirst”: whereupon one of the soldiers ran, filled a sponge with vinegar, and gave Him to drink by offering the sponge up to His mouth secured to the summit of the reed of aspersion: whereby (as St. John significantly remarks) it covered the bunch of ceremonial hyssop which was used for sprinkling the people[463]. This time He drank; and exclaimed, “It is finished.”

Now, the ancients, and indeed the moderns too, have hopelessly confused this pathetic story by identifying the “vinegar and gall” of St. Matt. xxvii. 34 with the “myrrhed wine” of St. Mark xv. 23; shewing therein a want of critical perception which may reasonably excite astonishment; for [pg 254] “wine” is not “vinegar,” neither is “myrrh” “gall.” And surely, the instinct of humanity which sought to alleviate the torture of crucifixion by administering to our Saviour a preliminary soporific draught, was entirely distinct from the fiendish malice which afterwards with a nauseous potion strove to aggravate the agony of dissolution. Least of all is it reasonable to identify the leisurely act of the insolent soldiery at the third hour[464], with what “one of them” (evidently appalled by the darkness) “ran” to do at the ninth[465]. Eusebius nevertheless, in his clumsy sectional system, brackets[466] together these three places (St. Matt. xxvii. 34, St. Mark xv. 23, St. John xix. 29): while moderns (as the excellent Isaac Williams) and ancients (as Cyril of Jerusalem)[467] alike strenuously contend that the two first must needs be identical. The consequence might have been foreseen. Besides the substitution of “wine” for “vinegar” (οἶνον for ὄξος) which survives to this day in nineteen copies of St. Matt. xxvii. 34, the words “and gall” are found improperly thrust into four or five copies of St. John xix. 29. As for Eusebius and Macarius Magnes, they read St. John xix. 29 after such a monstrous fashion of their own, that I propose to invite separate attention to it in another place. Since however the attempt to assimilate the fourth Gospel to the first (by exhibiting ὄξος μετὰ χολῆς in St. John xix. 29) is universally admitted to be indefensible, it need not occupy us further.

I return to the proposed substitution of οἶνον for ὄξος in St. Matt. xxvii. 34, and have only to point out that it is as [pg 255] plain an instance of enforced harmony as can be produced. That it exists in many copies of the Old-Latin, and lingers on in the Vulgate: is the reading of the Egyptian, Ethiopic, and Armenian Versions and the Lewis Cod.; and survives in BאDKLΠ, besides thirteen of the cursives[468];—all this will seem strange to those only who have hitherto failed to recognize the undeniable fact that Codd. B-א DL are among the foulest in existence. It does but prove how inveterately, as well as from how remote a period, the error under discussion has prevailed. And yet, the great and old Peshitto Version,—Barnabas[469],—Irenaeus[470],—Tertullian[471],—Celsus[472],—Origen[473],—the Sibylline verses in two places[474] (quoted by Lactantius),—and ps.-Tatian[475],—are more ancient [pg 256] authorities than any of the preceding, and they all yield adverse testimony.

Coming down to the fourth century, (to which B-א belong,) those two Codexes find themselves contradicted by Athanasius[476] in two places,—by another of the same name[477] who has been mistaken for the patriarch of Alexandria,—by Eusebius of Emesa[478],—by Theodore of Heraclea[479],—by Didymus[480],—by Gregory of Nyssa[481],—and by his namesake of Nazianzus[482],—by Ephraem Syrus[483],—by Lactantius[484],—by Jerome[485],—by Rufinus[486],—by Chrysostom[487],—by Severianus of Gabala[488],—by Theodore of Mopsuestia[489],—by Cyril of Alexandria[490],—and by Titus of Bostra[491]. Now these are more respectable contemporary witnesses to the text of Scripture by far than Codexes B-א and D (who also have to reckon with A, Φ, and Σ—C being mute at the place), as well as outnumber them in the proportion of 24 to 2. To these (8 + 16 =) 24 are to be added the [pg 257] Apocryphal “Gospel of Nicodemus[492],” which Tischendorf assigns to the third century; the “Acts of Philip[493],” and the Apocryphal “Acts of the Apostles[494],” which Dr. Wright claims for the fourth; besides Hesychius[495], Amphilochius[496], ps.-Chrysostom[497], Maximus[498], Severus of Antioch[499], and John Damascene[500],—nine names which far outweigh in antiquity and importance the eighth and ninth-century Codexes KLΠ. Those critics in fact who would substitute “wine” for “vinegar” in St. Matt. xxvii. 34 have clearly no case. That, however, which is absolutely decisive of the question against them is the fact that every uncial and every cursive copy in existence, except the very few specimens already quoted, attest that the oldest known reading of this place is the true reading. In fact, the Church has affirmed in the plainest manner, from the first, that ὄξος (not οἶνον) is to be read here. We are therefore astonished to find her deliberate decree disregarded by Lachmann, Tischendorf, Tregelles, Westcott and Hort, in an attempt on their part to revive what is a manifest fabrication, which but for the Vulgate would long since have passed out of the memory of Christendom. Were they not aware that Jerome himself knew better? “Usque hodie” (he says) “Judaei et omnes increduli Dominicae resurrectionis, aceto et felle potant Jesum; et dant ei vinum myrrhatum ut eum consopiant, et mala eorum non videat[501]:”—whereby he both shews that he read St. Matt. xxvii. 34 according to the traditional text (see also p. 233 c), and that he bracketed together two incidents which he yet perceived were essentially distinct, and in marked contrast with one another. But what most offends me is the deliberate attempt of the Revisers in this place. Shall I be thought unreasonable [pg 258] if I avow that it exceeds my comprehension how such a body of men can have persuaded themselves that it is fair to eject the reading of an important place of Scripture like the present, and to substitute for it a reading resting upon so slight a testimony without furnishing ordinary Christian readers with at least a hint of what they had done? They have considered the evidence in favour of “wine” (in St. Matt. xxvii. 34) not only “decidedly preponderating,” but the evidence in favour of “vinegar” so slight as to render the word undeserving even of a place in the margin. Will they find a sane jury in Great Britain to be of the same opinion? Is this the candid and equitable action befitting those who were set to represent the Church in this momentous business?

Appendix III. The Rich Young Man.

The eternal Godhead of Christ was the mark at which, in the earliest age of all, Satan persistently aimed his most envenomed shafts. St. John, in many a well-known place, notices this; begins and ends his Gospel by proclaiming our Saviour's Eternal Godhead[502]; denounces as “deceivers,” “liars,” and “antichrists,” the heretical teachers of his own day who denied this[503];—which shews that their malice was in full activity before the end of the first century of our era; ere yet, in fact, the echoes of the Divine Voice had entirely died out of the memory of very ancient men. These Gnostics found something singularly apt for their purpose in a famous place of the Gospel, where the blessed Speaker seems to disclaim for Himself the attribute of “goodness,”—in fact seems to distinguish between Himself and God. Allusion is made to an incident recorded with remarkable sameness of expression by St. Matthew (xix. 16, 17), St. Mark (x. 17, 18) and St. Luke (xviii. 18, 19), concerning a certain rich young Ruler. This man is declared by all three to have approached our Lord with one and the same question,—to have prefaced it with one and the same glozing address, “Good Master!”—and to [pg 260] have been checked by the object of his adulation with one and the same reproof;—“Why dost thou [who takest me for an ordinary mortal like thyself[504]] call me good? No one is good [essentially good[505]] save one,” that is “God.” ... See, said some old teachers, fastening blindly on the letter,—He disclaims being good: ascribes goodness exclusively to the Father: separates Himself from very and eternal God[506].... The place was accordingly eagerly fastened on by the enemies of the Gospel[507]: while, to vindicate the Divine utterance against the purpose to which it was freely perverted, and to establish its true meaning, is found to have been the endeavour of each of the most illustrious of the Fathers in turn. Their pious eloquence would fill a volume[508]. Gregory of Nyssa devotes to this subject the eleventh book of his treatise against Eunomius[509].

In order to emphasize this impious as well as shallow gloss the heretic Valentinus (a.d. 120),—with his [pg 261] disciples, Heracleon and Ptolemaeus, the Marcosians, the Naassenes, Marcion (a.d. 150), and the rest of the Gnostic crew,—not only substituted “One is good” for “No one is good but one,”—but evidently made it a great point besides to introduce the name of the Father, either in place of, or else in addition to, the name of “God[510].” So plausible a depravation of the text was unsuspiciously adopted by not a few of the orthodox. It is found in Justin Martyr[511],—in pseudo-Tatian[512],—in the Clementine homilies[513]. And many who, like Clemens Alex.,—Origen,—the Dialogus,—and pseudo-Tatian (in five places), are careful to retain the Evangelical phrase “No one is good but one [that is] God,”—even they are observed to conclude the sentence with the heretical addition “the Father[514].” I am not of course denying that the expression is theologically correct: but only am requesting the reader to note that, [pg 262] on the present occasion, it is clearly inadmissible; seeing that it was no part of our Saviour's purpose, as Didymus, Ambrose, Chrysostom, Theodoret point out, to reveal Himself to such an one as the rich young ruler in His own essential relation to the Eternal Father[515],—to proclaim in short, in this chance way, the great mystery of the Godhead: but only (as the ancients are fond of pointing out) to reprove the man for his fulsomeness in addressing one of his fellows (as he supposed) as “good[516].” In the meantime, the extent to which the appendix under discussion prevails in the Patristic writings is a singular illustration of the success with which, within 60 or 70 years of its coming into being, the text of Scripture was assailed; and the calamitous depravation to which it was liable. Surprising as well as grievous to relate, in every recent critical recension of the Greek text of St. Matthew's Gospel, the first four words of the heretical gloss (εἶς ἐστιν ὁ ἀγαθός) have been already substituted for the seven words before found there (οὐδεὶς ἀγαθὸς εἰ μὴ εἶς, ὁ Θεός); and (more grievous still) now, at the end of 1700 years, an effort is being made to establish this unauthorized formula in our English Bibles also. This is done, be it observed, in opposition to the following torrent of ancient testimony:—viz., in the second century, the Peshitto Version,—Justin [pg 263] Martyr[517],—ps.-Tatian (5 times)[518],—Clemens Alex. (twice)[519]:—in the third century, the Sahidic Version,—ps.-Dionysius Areopag.[520]:—in the fourth century, Eusebius (3 times)[521], Macarius Magnes (4 times)[522],—Basil[523],—Chrysostom[524]:—Athanasius[525],—Gregory Nyss. (3 times)[526],—and Didymus apparently (twice)[527]:—in the fifth century, Cod. C,—Augustine in many places[528],—Cyril Alex.[529],—and Theodoret (8 times)[530]:—in the sixth century, Antiochus mon.[531],—the Opus imperf.[532]—with the Harkleian and the Ethiopic Version. ... When to these 21 authorities have been added all the known copies, except six of dissentients,—an amount of ancient evidence has been adduced which must be held to be altogether decisive of a question like the present[533].

For what, after all, is the proper proof of the genuineness of any reading, but the prevailing consent of Copies, [pg 264] Fathers, Versions? This fundamental truth, strangely overlooked in these last days, remains unshaken. For if the universal consent of Copies, when sustained by a free appeal to antiquity, is not to be held definitive,—what in the world is? Were the subject less solemn there would be something diverting in the naïveté of the marginal note of the revisers of 1881,—“Some ancient authorities read ... ‘None is good save one [even] God.’ ” How many “ancient authorities” did the Revisers suppose exhibit anything else?

But all this, however interesting and instructive, would have attracted little attention were it not for the far more serious corruption of the Sacred Text, which has next to be considered. The point to be attended to is, that at the very remote period of which we are speaking, it appears that certain of the Orthodox,—with the best intentions doubtless, but with misguided zeal,—in order to counteract the pernicious teaching which the enemies of Christianity elicited from this place of Scripture, deliberately falsified the inspired record[534]. Availing themselves of a slight peculiarity in St. Matthew's way of exhibiting the words of the young Ruler,—(namely, “What good thing shall I do,”)—they turned our Lord's reply, “Why callest thou me good?” in the first Gospel, into this,—“Why askest thou me concerning the good?” The ensuing formula which the heretics had devised,—“One there is that is good,” with some words of appendix concerning God the Father, as already explained,—gave them no offence, because it occasioned them no difficulty. It even suited their purpose better than the words which they displaced. On the other hand, they did not fail to perceive that the epithet “good,” “Good Master,” if suffered to remain in the text, would witness inconveniently against them, by suggesting our [pg 265] Lord's actual reply,—viz. “Why callest thou me good?” Accordingly, in an evil hour, they proceeded further to erase the word ἀγαθέ from their copies. It is a significant circumstance that the four uncial Codexes (BאDL) which exclusively exhibit τί με ἐρωτᾷς περὶ τοῦ ἀγαθοῦ; are exclusively the four which omit the epithet ἀγαθέ.

The subsequent history of this growth of error might have been foreseen. Scarcely had the passage been pieced together than it began to shew symptoms of disintegration; and in the course of a few centuries, it had so effectually disappeared, that tokens of it here and there are only to be found in a few of the earliest documents. First, the epithet (ἀγαθέ) was too firmly rooted to admit of a sentence of perpetual banishment from the text. Besides retaining its place in every known copy of the Gospels except eight[535], it survives to this hour in a vast majority of the most ancient documents. Thus, ἀγαθέ is found in Justin Martyr[536] and in ps.-Tatian[537]:—in the remains of the Marcosian[538],—and of the Naassene[539] Gnostics;—as well as in the Peshitto,—and in the Old Latin versions:—in the Sahidic,—and the Bohairic version,—besides in the Clementine Homilies[540], in Cureton and Lewis,—and in the Vulgate:—in Origen[541],—in [pg 266] Athanasius[542],—and in Basil[543],—and in Cyril of Jerusalem[544]:—in Ephraem Syrus[545], and in Gregory of Nyssa[546]: in Macarius Magnes[547],—and in Chrysostom[548]:—in Juvencus[549],—Hilary[550],—Gaudentius[551],—Jerome[552],—and Augustine[553];—lastly in Vigilius Tapsensis[554]:—in Cyril Alex.[555],—in Theodoret[556],—in Cod. C,—in the Harkleian Version,—and in the Opus imperfectum[557]. So that, at the end of 1700 years, 6 witnesses of the second century,—3 of the third,—14 of the fourth,—4 of the fifth,—2 of the sixth, come back from all parts of Christendom to denounce the liberty taken by the ancients, and to witness to the genuineness of the traditional text.

So much then,—(1) For the unauthorized omission of ἀγαθέ, and—(2) For the heretical substitution of εἶς ἐστιν ὁ ἀγαθός in the room of οὐδεὶς ἀγαθὸς εἰ μὴ εἶς ὁ Θεός. We have still to inquire after the fate of the most conspicuous fabrication of the three: viz.—(3) The substitution of Τί με ἐρωτᾷς περὶ τοῦ ἀγαθοῦ; for τί με λέγεις ἀγαθόν; What [pg 267] support do the earliest witnesses lend to the inquiry,—“Why askest thou me concerning the good?” ... That patent perversion of the obvious purport of our Saviour's address, I answer, is disallowed by Justin Martyr[558] (a.d. 140),—by the Marcosians[559],—and the Naassenes[560] (a.d. 150),—by the Clementine homilies[561],—and ps.-Tatian[562] (third century);—by the Peshitto and the Thebaic version;—by Macarius Magnes[563],—Athanasius[564],—and Basil[565];—by Hilary[566],—Gregory of Nyssa[567];—by Chrysostom[568],—by Cyril Alex.[569],—by Theodoret[570],—by the Opus imperfectum[571],—by the Harkleian,—and the Armenian versions. I have produced 18 witnesses,—4 belonging to the second century: 3 to the third: 6 to the fourth: 5 to the fifth. Moreover they come from every part of ancient Christendom. Such an amount of evidence, it must be again declared, is absolutely decisive of a question of this [pg 268] nature. Whether men care more for Antiquity or for Variety of testimony; whether Respectability of witnesses or vastly preponderating Numbers, more impresses the imagination,—they must needs admit that the door is here closed against further debate. The traditional text of St. Matt. xix. 16, 17 is certainly genuine, and must be allowed to stand unmolested.

For it is high time to inquire,—What, after all, is the evidence producible on the other side? The exhibition of the text, I answer, which recommends itself so strongly to my opponents that they have thrust it bodily into the Gospel, is found in its entirety only with that little band of witnesses which have already so often come before us; and always with false testimony. I am saying that Origen[572] in the third century,—Codd. B-א in the fourth,—Cod. D in the fifth,—Cod. L in the eighth,—besides a couple of cursive Codexes (Evann. 1 and 22),—are literally the whole of the producible evidence for the Revisers' text in its entirety. Not that even these seven so-called consentient witnesses are in complete accord among themselves. On the contrary. The discrepancy between them is perpetual. A collation of them with the traditional text follows:—

Και ιδου εις προσελθων ειπεν (D [not Orig. BאL] λεγει) αυτω (Bא [not Orig. DL] αυτω ειπε), Διδασκαλε αγαθε (Orig. BאDL—αγαθε) τι αγαθον ποιησω (אL [not Orig. BD] ποιησας) ινα εχω (Orig. BD [not אL] σχω) ζωην αιωνιον (Orig. 664b אL [not Orig. 664a BD] ζωην αιωνιον κληρονομησω); ο δε ειπεν αυτω, Τι με λεγεις αγαθον (Orig. 664-5 BאDL τι με ερωτας [Orig. 666b επερωτας] περι του (Orig. 664c D [not Orig. 665c 666b BאL]—του) αγαθου); ουδεις αγαθος ει μη εις ο Θεος (BאDL εις εστιν ο (D [not Orig. BאL]—ο) αγαθος).

Can it be possibly reasonable to avow that such an amount of discrepancy between witnesses which claim to be consentient, inspires confidence rather than distrust in every one of them?

The reader is next to be told that there survive, as might have been expected, traces in sundry quarters of this threefold ancient fraud (as it seems to be rather than blunder);—as in Justin[573], and the Marcosian[574], and Naassene heretics[575]; the Latin Versions[576]; the Bohairic[577]; the Cureton and Lewis[578]; pseudo-Dionysius[579], the Clementine homilies[580] and Eusebius[581]; Cyril Alex.[582] and Antiochus the monk[583] (a.d. 614); Hilary[584], Jerome[585], and Augustine[586]; [pg 270] besides in Evann. 479 and 604, and Evst. 5. But the point to be attended to is, that not one of the foregoing authorities sanctions the text which Lachmann, Tischendorf, Tregelles, W.-Hort, and the Revisers of 1881 unanimously adopt. This first. And next, that no sooner are these sixteen witnesses fairly confronted, than they set about hopelessly contradicting one another: so that it fares with them as it fared with the Philistines in the days of Saul:—“Behold, every man's sword was against his fellow, and there was a very great discomfiture[587].” This will become best understood by the reader if he will allow “(I),” to represent the omission of the epithet ἀγαθέ:—“(II),” the substitution of τί με ἐρωτᾷς περὶ τοῦ ἀγαθοῦ:—and “(III),” the substitution of εἶς ἐστιν ὁ ἀγαθός with or without appendix. For it will appear that,—

(a) Evan. 479 and Evst. 5, though they witness in favour of (I), yet witness against (II) and (III):—and that,

(b) The Latin and the Bohairic Versions, with Jerome and Evan. 604, though they witness in favour of (II) and (III), yet witness against (I).

Note, that Cureton and Lewis do the same: but then the Cureton stultifies itself by omitting from the introductory inquiry the underlined and clearly indispensable word,—“What good [thing] must I do?” The same peculiarity is exhibited by the Thebaic Version and by Cyril of Jer.[588] Now this is simply fatal to the testimony of Cureton's Syr. concerning “(II),”—seeing that, without it, the proposed reply cannot have been spoken.—It appears further that,

(d) Hilary, though he witnesses in favour of (III), and yields uncertain testimony concerning (I), yet witnesses against (II):—and that,

(e) Justin M. (in one place) and the Marcosian and Naassene heretics, together with the Clementine homilies, though they witness in favour of (III), yet witness against (I) and (II):—and that,

(f) ps.-Dionysius, Eusebius, and Antiochus mon. (a.d. 614), though they witness in favour of (II), yet witness against (III).

(g) Cyril also, though he delivers uncertain testimony concerning (I) and (II), yet witnesses against (III).

The plain fact is that the place before us exhibits every chief characteristic of a clumsy fabrication. No sooner had it with perverse ingenuity been pieced together, than the process of disintegration set in. The spurious phrases τί με ἐρωτᾷς περὶ τοῦ ἀγαθοῦ, and εἶς ἐστιν ἀγαθός, having no lawful dwelling-place of their own, strayed out of the first Gospel into the third as soon as they were invented. Cureton in St. Luke xviii. 19 has both phrases, Lewis neither,—Marcion, in his heretical recension of St. Luke's Gospel (a.d. 150), besides the followers of Arius, adopt the latter[589]. “The key of the whole position,” as Scrivener points out, “is the epithet ‘good’ before ‘Master’ in ver. 16: for if this be genuine, the only pertinent answer is contained in the Received Text[590].” Precisely so: and it has been proved to be genuine by an amount of continuous attestation which is absolutely overwhelming. We just now analyzed the inconsistent testimony of sixteen ancient authorities; and found that only the two cursive copies favour the omission of ἀγαθέ, while nine of the oldest witnesses are for retaining it. Concerning the expression τί με ἐρωτᾷς περὶ τοῦ ἀγαθοῦ, these inconsistent witnesses are evenly divided,—seven being for it, seven against it. All, in fact, is error, [pg 272] confusion, discord, the instant we get outside the traditional text.

The reason of all this contrariety has been assigned already. Before Christianity was a hundred years old, two opposite evil influences were at work here: one, heretical—which resulted in (III): the other, orthodox,—which resulted in (II) and (I). These influences, proceeding from opposite camps, were the cause that copies got independently propagated of two archetypes. But the Church, in her corporate capacity, has declined to know anything of either. She has been careful all down the ages that the genuine reading shall be rehearsed in every assembly of the faithful on the 12th Sunday after Pentecost; and behold, at this hour it is attested by every copy in the world—except that little handful of fabricated documents, which it has been the craze of the last fifty years to cry up as the only authentic witnesses to the truth of Scripture, viz. Codd. BאDL and Origen. Now, as to the first two of these, Dr. Scrivener has pronounced[591] that (Bא), “subsequent investigations have brought to light so close a relation as to render it impossible to regard them as independent witnesses;” while every page of the Gospel bears emphatic witness to the fact that Codd. BאDL are, as has been said, the depositaries of a hopelessly depraved text.

But how about Origen? He, in a.d. 250, commenting on the present place of St. Matthew's Gospel, has a great deal to say concerning the grievously corrupt condition of the copies hereabouts. Now, the copies he speaks of must have been older, by at least 100 years, than either Cod. B or Cod. א. He makes this admission casually in the course of some remarks which afford a fair sample of his critical method and therefore deserve attention:—He infers from Rom. xiii. 9 that if the rich young ruler really did “love his [pg 273] neighbour as himself,” which, according to the three Evangelists, he virtually said he did[592], he was perfect[593]! Yet our Saviour's rejoinder to him is,—“If thou wilt be perfect,” go and do such and such things. Having thus invented a difficulty where none exists, Origen proposes, as a way out of it, to regard the precept (in St. Matt. xix. 20,—“Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself”) as an unauthorized accretion to the Text,—the work of some tasteless scribe[594]. The reasonableness of suspecting its genuineness (he says) is heightened by the fact that neither in St. Mark's nor yet in St. Luke's parallel narrative, are the words found about “loving one's neighbour as oneself.” As if that were not rather a reason for presuming it to be genuine! To be sure (proceeds Origen) it would be monstrous to regard these words, “Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself,” as an interpolation, were it not for the existence of so many other discrepancies hereabouts. The copies of St. Matthew are in fact all at strife among themselves. And so are the copies of the other Gospels. Vast indeed, and with this he concludes, is the discrepancy in St. Matthew[595]: whether it has proceeded from the carelessness of the scribes;—or from criminal audacity on the part of correctors of Scripture;—or whether, lastly, it has been the result of licentiousness on the part of those who, pretending to “correct” the text, have added or omitted according to their own individual caprice[596].

Now all this is very instructive. Here is the most famous Critic of antiquity estimating the genuineness of a clause in the Gospel, not by the amount of external attestation which it enjoys, but by his own self-evolved fancies concerning it. As a matter of fact, no extant copy, Father, or Version is without the clause under discussion. By proposing therefore that it shall be regarded as spurious, Origen does but convict himself of rashness and incompetency. But when this same Critic,—who, by his own shewing, has had the evil hap to alight on a collection of singularly corrupt documents,—proceeds to handle a text of Scripture which has demonstrably had a calamitous history from the first days of the Gospel until now;—two inconvenient questions force themselves on our attention:—The first,—What confidence can be reposed in his judgement? The second—What is there to conciliate our esteem for the particular Codex from which he happens to quote? On the other hand, the reader has been already shewn by a more open appeal to antiquity than has ever before been attempted, that the reading of St. Matt. xix. 16, 17 which is exclusively found in BאDL and the copy from which Origen quotes, is deficient in external attestation.

Now, when it is considered that Bא confessedly represent one and the same archetype, which may very well have been of the date of Origen himself,—how is it possible to resist the conviction that these three are not independent voices, but echoes of one and the same voice? And, What if certain Codexes preserved in the library of Caesarea in Palestine[597];—Codexes which were handled in turn by Origen, by Eusebius, by Jerome, and which also furnished the archetype from which B and א were derived;—what, I say, if it shall some day come to be generally admitted, that [pg 275] those Caesarean Codexes are most probably the true fons et origo of much of our past perplexity and of our present trouble? Since “coincidence of reading infallibly implies identity of ancestry[598],” are we not even led by the hand to see that there must have existed in the famous library of Caesarea a little nest of copies credited, and justly so, with containing every “last new thing” in the way of Textual Criticism, to which Critics of the type of Origen and Jerome, and perhaps Eusebius, must have been only too fond of resorting? A few such critically corrected copies would furnish a complete explanation of every peculiarity of reading exhibited exclusively by Codexes B and א, and [fondled, perhaps with some critical cynicism, by] those three Fathers.

Yet it is to be remembered, (with reference to the place before us,) that “Origen, Eusebius, and Jerome” are not in accord here, except in reading τί με ἐρωτᾷς περὶ τοῦ ἀγαθοῦ?—for Eusebius differs from Origen and Jerome in proceeding with the traditional text οὐδεὶς ἀγαθὸς εἰ μὴ εἶς: while Jerome and even Origen concur with the traditional text in recognizing the epithet ἀγαθέ,—a circumstance which, as already explained, may be regarded as fatal to the formula τί με ἐρωτᾷς κ.τ.λ. which follows.

This however by the way. That so ill-supported a fraud should have imposed upon Griesbach, Lachmann, Tischendorf, Tregelles, Alford, Westcott and Hort, and the Revisers of 1881, including Scrivener,—is to me unintelligible. The substituted reading is an impossible one to begin with, being inconsistent with its context. And although I hold the introduction of intrinsic probability into these inquiries to be unlawful, until the truth has been established on grounds of external evidence; yet, when that has been accomplished, not only do internal considerations claim [pg 276] a hearing, but their effect is often, as in the present case, entirely to sweep the field. It is impossible, so at least it seems to me, to survey the narrative by the light of internal probability, without being overcome by the incoherence and essential foolishness of the reading before us. This is a point which deserves attention.

1. That our Lord actually did remonstrate with the young ruler for calling Him “good,” is at least certain. Both St. Mark (x. 17, 18) and St. Luke (xviii. 18, 19) record that fact, and the text of neither is disputed. How grossly improbable then is the statement that He also reproved the young man for inviting Him to a philosophical discussion concerning τὸ ἀγαθόν,—which yet the young man clearly had not done. According to two out of the three Evangelists, if not to the third also, his question had not been about the abstract quality; but concerning the concrete thing, as a means to an end:—“What good work must I do in order that I may inherit eternal life?”—a purely practical question. Moreover, the pretended inquiry is not touched by the proposed rejoinder,—“One there is who is good,”—or “There is none good but one, that is God.” Does not the very wording of that rejoinder shew that it must needs have been preceded by the inquiry, “Why callest thou Me good?” The young man is told besides that if he desires to “inherit eternal life” he must keep God's commandments. The question and the answer in the genuine text are strictly correlative. In the fabricated text, they are at cross purposes and inconsistent with one another in a high degree.

2. Let it however be supposed for an instant that our Lord's reply actually was,—“Why askest thou Me concerning abstract goodness?” Note what results. Since it cannot be thought that such an interrogation is substantially equivalent to “Why callest thou Me good?” the saying,—if uttered at all,—must have been spoken in [pg 277] addition. Was it then spoken to the same man?—“Yes,” replies the author of Cureton's Syriac: “the rejoinder ran thus,—‘Why callest thou Me good?’ and, ‘Why askest thou Me respecting the good[599]?’ ”—“Not exactly,” remarks the author of Evan. 251, “The second of those two inquiries was interposed after the word ‘Which?’ in ver. 18.”—“Not so,” cries the author of the Gospel to the Hebrews. “The men who came to our Lord were two in number[600].” There is reason for suspecting that certain of the early heretics were of the same opinion[601]. Will not every candid reader admit that the more closely we look into the perplexed tangle before us, the more intolerable it becomes,—the more convinced we feel of its essential foolishness? And—Is it too much to hope that after this deliberate exposure of the insufficiency of the evidence on which it rests, no further efforts will be made to bolster up a reading so clearly indefensible?

Nothing more, I suppose, need be added. I have been so diffuse concerning the present place of Scripture because I ardently desire to see certain of the vexatae quaestiones in Textual Criticism fairly threshed out and settled. And this is a place which has been famous from the earliest times,—a θρυλλούμενον κεφάλαιον as Macarius Magnes (p. 12) calls it, in his reply to the heathen philosopher who had proposed it as a subject for discussion. It is (in the opinion of modern critics) “quite a test passage[602].” Tischendorf made this the subject of a separate dissertation in 1840[603]. Tregelles, who discusses it at great length[604], informs us [pg 278] that he even “relies on this one passage as supplying an argument on the whole question” which underlies his critical Recension of the Greek Text. It has caused all the Critics—Griesbach, Lachmann, Tischendorf, Tregelles, Alford, W.-Hort, the Revisers, even Scrivener[605], to go astray. Critics will spend their strength in vain if they seek any further to establish on a rational basis alterations made on the strength of testimony which is both restricted and is at variance with itself.

Let it be noted that our persistent appeal concerning St. Matt. xix. 17, 18 has been made to Antiquity. We reject the proposed innovation as undoubtedly spurious, because of the importance and overwhelming number of the witnesses of the second, third, and fourth centuries which come forward to condemn it; as well as because of the plain insufficiency and want of variety in the evidence which is adduced in its support. Whenever a proposed correction of the Sacred Text is insufficiently attested, and especially when that attestation is destitute of Variety,—we claim that the traditional reading shall stand.