§ 3.
Besides these passages, in which there is actual evidence of a connexion subsisting between the readings which they contain and Origen, the sceptical character of the Vatican and Sinaitic manuscripts affords a strong proof of the alliance between them and the Origenistic School. It must be borne in mind that Origen was not answerable for all the tenets of the School which bore his name, even perhaps less than Calvin was responsible for all that Calvinists after him have held and taught. Origenistic doctrines came from the blending of philosophy with Christianity in the schools of Alexandria where Origen was the most eminent of the teachers engaged[247].
Chapter X. The Old Uncials. Codex D.
§ 1[248].
It is specially remarkable that the Canon of Holy Scripture, which like the Text had met with opposition, was being settled in the later part of the century in which these two manuscripts were produced, or at the beginning of the next. The two questions appear to have met together in Eusebius. His latitudinarian proclivities seem to have led him in his celebrated words[249] to lay undue stress upon the objections felt by some persons to a few of the Books of the New Testament; and cause us therefore not to wonder that he should also have countenanced those who wished without reason to leave out portions of the Text. Now the first occasion, as is well known, when we find all the Books of the New Testament recognized with authority occurred at the Council of Laodicea in 363 a.d., if the passage is genuine[250], which is very doubtful; and the [pg 173] settlement of the Canon which was thus initiated, and was accomplished by about the end of the century, was followed, as was natural, by the settlement of the Text. But inasmuch as the latter involved a large multitude of intricate questions, and corruption had crept in and had acquired a very firm hold, it was long before universal acquiescence finally ensued upon the general acceptance effected in the time of St. Chrysostom. In fact, the Nature of the Divine Word, and the character of the Written Word, were confirmed about the same time:—mainly, in the period when the Nicene Creed was re-asserted at the Council of Constantinople in 381 a.d.; for the Canon of Holy Scripture was fixed and the Orthodox Text gained a supremacy over the Origenistic Text about the same time:—and finally, after the Third Council of Constantinople in 680 a.d., at which the acknowledgement of the Natures of the Son of Man was placed in a position superior to all heresy; for it was then that the Traditional Text began in nearly perfect form to be handed down with scarce any opposition to future ages of the Church.
Besides the multiplicity of points involved, three special causes delayed the complete settlement of the Text, so far as the attainment was concerned all over the Church of general accuracy throughout the Gospels, not to speak of all the New Testament.
1. Origenism, going beyond Origen, continued in force till it was condemned by the Fifth General Council in 553 a.d., and could hardly have wholly ended in that year. Besides this, controversies upon fundamental truths agitated the Church, and implied a sceptical and wayward spirit which would be ready to sustain alien variations in the written Word, till the censure passed upon Monothelitism at the Sixth General Council in 680 a.d.
2. The Church was terribly tried by the overthrow of the Roman Empire, and the irruption of hordes of Barbarians: [pg 174] and consequently Churchmen were obliged to retire into extreme borders, as they did into Ireland in the fifth century[251], and to spend their energies in issuing forth from thence to reconquer countries for the Kingdom of Christ. The resultant paralysis of Christian effort must have been deplorable. Libraries and their treasures, as at Caesarea and Alexandria under the hands of Mahommedans in the seventh century, were utterly destroyed. Rest and calmness, patient and frequent study and debate, books and other helps to research, must have been in those days hard to get, and were far from being in such readiness as to favour general improvement in a subject of which extreme accuracy is the very breath and life.
3. The Art of Writing on Vellum had hardly passed its youth at the time when the Text advocated by B and א fell finally into disuse. Punctuation did but exist in the occasional use of the full stop: breathings or accents were perhaps hardly found: spelling, both as regards consonants and vowels, was uncertain and rudimental. So that the Art of transcribing on vellum even so far as capital letters were concerned, did not arrive at anything like maturity till about the eighth century.
But it must not be imagined that manuscripts of substantial accuracy did not exist during this period, though they have not descended to us. The large number of Uncials and Cursives of later ages must have had a goodly assemblage of accurate predecessors from which they were copied. It is probable that the more handsome and less correct copies have come into our hands, since such would have been not so much used, and might have been in the possession of the men of higher station whose heathen [pg 175] ancestry had bequeathed to them less orthodox tendencies, and the material of many others must have been too perishable to last. Arianism prevailed during much of the sixth century in Italy, Africa, Burgundy, and Spain. Ruder and coarser volumes, though more accurate, would be readily surrendered to destruction, especially if they survived in more cultured descendants. That a majority of such MSS. existed, whether of a rougher or more polished sort, both in vellum and papyrus, is proved by citations of Scripture found in the Authors of the period. But those MSS. which have been preserved are not so perfect as the others which have come from the eighth and following centuries.
Thus Codex A, though it exhibits a text more like the Traditional than either B or א, is far from being a sure guide. Codex C, which was written later in the fifth century, is only a fragmentary palimpsest, i.e. it was thought to be of so little value that the books of Ephraem the Syrian were written over the Greek: it contains not more than two-thirds of the New Testament, and stands as to the character of its text between A and B. Codex Q, a fragment of 235 verses, and Codex I of 135, in the same century, are not large enough to be taken into consideration here. Codexes Φ and Σ, recently discovered, being products of the end of the fifth or beginning of the sixth, and containing St. Matthew and St. Mark nearly complete, are of a general character similar to A, and evince more advancement in the Art. It is unfortunate indeed that only a fragment of either of them, though that fragment in either case is pretty complete as far as it goes, has come into our hands. After them succeeds Codex D, or Codex Bezae, now in the Cambridge Library, having been bequeathed to the University by Theodore Beza, whose name it bears. It ends at Acts xxii. 29.
§ 2. Codex D[252].
No one can pretend fully to understand the character of this Codex who has not been at the pains to collate every word of it with attention. Such an one will discover that it omits in the Gospels alone no less than 3,704 words; adds to the genuine text 2,213; substitutes 2,121; transposes 3,471, and modifies 1,772. By the time he has made this discovery his esteem for Cod. D will, it is presumed, have experienced serious modification. The total of 13,281 deflections from the Received Text is a formidable objection to explain away. Even Dr. Hort speaks of “the prodigious amount of error which D contains[253].”
But the intimate acquaintance with the Codex which he has thus acquired has conducted him to certain other results, which it is of the utmost importance that we should particularize and explain.
I. And first, this proves to be a text which in one Gospel is often assimilated to the others. And in fact the assimilation is carried sometimes so far, that a passage from one Gospel is interpolated into the parallel passage in another. Indeed the extent to which in Cod. D interpolations from St. Mark's Gospel are inserted into the Gospel according to St. Luke is even astounding. Between verses 14 and 15 of St. Luke v. thirty-two words are interpolated from the parallel passage in St. Mark i. 45-ii. 1: and in the 10th verse of the vith chapter twelve words are introduced from St. Mark ii. 27, 28. In St. Luke iv. 37, ἡ ἀκοή, “the report,” from St. Mark i. 28, is substituted for ἦχος, “the sound,” which is read in the other manuscripts. Besides the introduction into St. Luke i. 64 [pg 177] of ἐλύθη from St. Mark vii. 35, which will be described below, in St. Luke v. 27 seven words are brought from the parallel passage in St. Mark ii. 14, and the entire passage is corrupted[254]. In giving the Lord's Prayer in St. Luke xi. 2, the scribe in fault must needs illustrate the Lord's saying by interpolating an inaccurate transcription of the warning against “vain repetitions” given by Him before in the Sermon on the Mount. Again, as to interpolation from other sources, grossly enough, St. Matt. ii. 23 is thrust in at the end of St. Luke ii. 39; that is to say, the scribe of D, or of some manuscript from which D was copied, either directly or indirectly, thought fit to explain the carrying of the Holy Child to Nazareth by the explanation given by St. Matthew, but quoting from memory wrote “by the prophet” in the singular, instead of “by the prophets” in the plural[255]. Similarly, in St. Luke iv. 31 upon the mention of the name of Capernaum, D must needs insert from St. Matt. iv. 13, “which is upon the sea-coast within the borders of Zabulon and Nephthalim” (την παραθαλασσιον (sic) εν οριοις Ζαβουλων και Νεφθαλειμ). Indeed, no adequate idea can be formed of the clumsiness, the coarseness of these operations, unless some instances are given: but a few more must suffice.
1. In St. Mark iii. 26, our Lord delivers the single statement, “And if Satan is risen against himself (ἀνέστε ἐφ᾽ ἑαυτὸν) and is divided (καὶ μεμέρισται) he cannot stand, but hath an end (ἀλλὰ τέλος ἔχει).” Instead of this, D exhibits, “And if Satan cast out Satan, he is divided against himself: his kingdom cannot stand, but hath the end (ἀλλὰ [pg 178] τὸ τέλος ἔχει).” Now this is clearly an imitation, not a copy, of the parallel place in St. Matt. xii. 26, where also a twofold statement is made, as every one may see. But the reply is also a clumsy one to the question asked in St. Mark, but not in St. Matthew, “How can Satan cast out Satan?” Learned readers however will further note that it is St. Matthew's ἐμερίσθη, where St. Mark wrote μεμέρισται, which makes the statement possible for him which is impossible according to the representation given by D of St. Mark.
2. At the end of the parable of the pounds, the scribe of D, or one of those whom he followed, thinking that the idle servant was let off too easily, and confusing with this parable the other parable of the talents,—blind of course to the difference between the punishments inflicted by a “lord” and those of a new-made king,—inserts the 30th verse of St. Matt. xxv. at the end of St. Luke xix. 27.
3. Again, after St. Matt. xx. 28, when the Lord had rebuked the spirit of ambition in the two sons of Zebedee, and had directed His disciples not to seek precedence, enforcing the lesson from His own example as shewn in giving His Life a ransom for many, D inserts the following tasteless passage: “But ye seek to increase from a little, and from the greater to be something less[256].” Nor is this enough:—an addition is also made from St. Luke xiv. 8-10, being the well-known passage about taking the lowest room at feasts. But this additional interpolation is in style and language unlike the words of any Gospels, and ends with the vapid piece of information, “and this shall be useful to thee.” It is remarkable that, whereas D was alone in former errors, here it becomes a follower in one part or other of the passage of twelve Old Latin manuscripts[257]: and indeed the Greek in the passage in D is [pg 179] evidently a version of the Syrio-Low-Latin. The following words, or forms of words or phrases, are not found in the rest of the N.T.: παρακληθέντες (aor. part. rogati or vocati), ἀνακλίνεσθε (recumbite), ἐξέχοντας (eminentioribus), δειπνοκλήτωρ (invitator caenae), ἔτι κάτω χώρει (adhuc infra accede), ἥττονα τόπον (loco inferiori), ἥττων (inferior), σύναγε ἔτι ἄνω (collige adhuc superius). These Latin expressions are taken from one or other of the twelve Old Latin MSS. Outside of the Latin, the Curetonian is the sole ally, the Lewis being mutilated, of the flighty Old Uncial under consideration.
These passages are surely enough to represent to the reader the interpolations of Codex D, whether arising from assimilation or otherwise. The description given by the very learned editor of this MS. is in the following words:—“No known manuscript contains so many bold and extensive interpolations (six hundred, it is said, in the Acts alone), countenanced, where they are not absolutely unsupported, chiefly by the Old Latin and the Curetonian version[258].”
II. There are also traces of extreme licentiousness in this copy of the Gospels which call for distinct notice. Sometimes words or expressions are substituted: sometimes the sense is changed, and utter confusion introduced: delicate terms or forms are ignored: and a general corruption ensues.
I mean for example such expressions as the following, which are all found in the course of a single verse (St. Mark iv. 1).
St. Mark relates that once when our Saviour was teaching “by the sea-side” (παρά) there assembled so vast a concourse of persons that “He went into the ship, and [pg 180] sat in the sea,” all the multitude being “on the land, towards the sea”: i.e. with their faces turned in the direction of the ship in which He was sitting. Was a plain story ever better told?
But according to D the facts of the case were quite different. First, it was our Saviour who was teaching “towards the sea” (πρός). Next, in consequence of the crowd, He crossed over, and “sat on the other side of the sea” (πέραν). Lastly, the multitude—followed Him, I suppose; for they also—“were on the other side of the sea” (πέραν) ... Now I forgive the scribe for his two transpositions and his ungrammatical substitution of ὁ λαός for ὄχλος. But I insist that a MS. which circulates incidents after this fashion cannot be regarded as trustworthy. Verse 2 begins in the same licentious way. Instead of,—“And He taught them many things (πολλά) in parables,” we are informed that “He taught them in many parables” (πολλαῖς). Who will say that we are ever safe with such a guide?