The Traditional Text of the Holy Gospels

by John William Burgon

§ 3. Variety.

I must point out in the next place, that Evidence on any passage, which exhibits in perfection the first of the two foregoing characteristics—that of Antiquity, may nevertheless so easily fall under suspicion, that it becomes in the highest degree necessary to fortify it by other notes of Truth. And there cannot be a stronger ally than Variety.

No one can doubt, for it stands to reason, that Variety distinguishing witnesses massed together must needs constitute a most powerful argument for believing such Evidence to be true. Witnesses of different kinds; from different countries; speaking different tongues:—witnesses who can never have met, and between whom it is incredible that there should exist collusion of any kind:—such witnesses deserve to be listened to most respectfully. Indeed, when witnesses of so varied a sort agree in large numbers, they must needs be accounted worthy of even implicit confidence. Accordingly, the essential feature of the proposed Test will be, that the Evidence of which “Variety” is to be predicated shall be derived from a variety of sources. Readings which are witnessed to by MSS. only; or by ancient Versions only: or by one or more of the Fathers only:—whatever else may be urged on their behalf, are at least without the full support of this note of Truth; unless there be in the case of MSS. a sufficient note of Variety within their own circle. It needs only a slight acquaintance with the principles which regulate the value of evidence, and a comparison with other cases enjoying it of one where there is actually no variety, to see the extreme importance of this third Test. When there is real variety, what may be called hole-and-corner work,—conspiracy,—influence of sect or clique,—are impossible. Variety it is which imparts virtue to mere Number, prevents the witness-box from being filled with packed deponents, ensures genuine testimony. False witness is thus detected and condemned, because it agrees not with the rest. Variety is the consent of independent witnesses, and is therefore eminently Catholic. Origen or the Vatican and the Sinaitic, often stand all but alone, because there are scarce any in the assembly who do not hail from other parts with testimony different from theirs, whilst their own evidence finds little or no verification.

It is precisely this consideration which constrains us to [pg 051] pay supreme attention to the combined testimony of the Uncials and of the whole body of the Cursive Copies. They are (a) dotted over at least 1000 years: (b) they evidently belong to so many divers countries,—Greece, Constantinople, Asia Minor, Palestine, Syria, Alexandria, and other parts of Africa, not to say Sicily, Southern Italy, Gaul, England, and Ireland: (c) they exhibit so many strange characteristics and peculiar sympathies: (d) they so clearly represent countless families of MSS., being in no single instance absolutely identical in their text, and certainly not being copies of any other Codex in existence,—that their unanimous decision I hold to be an absolutely irrefragable evidence of the Truth[46]. If, again, only a few of these copies disagree with the main body of them, I hold that the value of the verdict of the great majority is but slightly disturbed. Even then however the accession of another class of confirmatory evidence is most valuable. Thus, when it is perceived that Codd. אBCD are the only uncials which contain the clause νεκροὺς ἐγείρετε in St. Matt. x. 8, already spoken of, and that the merest fraction of the cursives exhibit the same reading, the main body of the cursives and all the other uncials being for omitting it, it is felt at once that the features of the problem have been very nearly reversed. On such occasions we inquire eagerly for the verdict of the most ancient of the Versions: and when, as on the present occasion, they are divided,—the Latin and the Ethiopic recognizing the clause, the Syriac and the Egyptian disallowing it,—an impartial student will eagerly inquire with one of old time,—“Is there not here a prophet of the Lord besides, that we might inquire of him?” He will wish to hear what the old Fathers have to say on this subject. I take the liberty of adding that when he has once perceived that the text employed by Origen [pg 052] corresponds usually to a surprising extent with the text represented by Codex B and some of the Old Latin Versions, he will learn to lay less stress on every fresh instance of such correspondence. He will desiderate greater variety of testimony,—the utmost variety which is attainable. The verdict of various other Fathers on this passage supplies what is wanted[47]. Speaking generally, the consentient testimony of two, four, six, or more witnesses, coming to us from widely sundered regions is weightier by far than the same number of witnesses proceeding from one and the same locality, between whom there probably exists some sort of sympathy, and possibly some degree of collusion. Thus when it is found that the scribe of B wrote “six conjugate leaves of Cod. א[48],” it is impossible to regard their united testimony in the same light as we should have done, if one had been produced in Palestine and the other at Constantinople. So also of primitive Patristic testimony. The combined testimony of Cyril, patriarch of Alexandria;—Isidore of Pelusium, a city at the mouth of the Nile;—and Nonnus of Panopolis in the Thebaid, is not nearly so weighty as the testimony of one of the same three writers in conjunction with Irenaeus, Bishop of Lyons in Gaul, and with Chrysostom who passed the greater part of his life at Antioch. The same remark holds true of Versions. Thus, the two Egyptian Versions when they conspire in witnessing to the same singular reading are entitled to far less attention [pg 053] than one of those same Versions in combination with the Syriac, or with the Latin, or with the Gothic.

§ 4. Weight, or Respectability.

We must request our readers to observe, that the term “weight” may be taken as regards Textual Evidence in two senses, the one general and the other special. In the general sense, Weight includes all the notes of truth,—it may relate to the entire mass of evidence;—or else it may be employed as concerning the value of an individual manuscript, or a single Version, or a separate Father. Antiquity confers some amount of Weight: so does Number: and so does Variety also, as well as each of the other notes of truth. This distinction ought not to be allowed to go out of sight in the discussion which is now about to occupy our attention.

We proceed then to consider Weight in the special sense and as attached to single Witnesses.

Undeniable as it is, (a) that ancient documents do not admit of being placed in scales and weighed; and (b) that if they did, the man does not exist who is capable of conducting the operation,—there are yet, happily, principles of sound reason,—considerations based on the common sense of mankind, learned and unlearned alike,—by the aid of which something may be effected which is strictly analogous to the process of weighing solid bodies in an ordinary pair of scales. I proceed to explain.

1. In the first place, the witnesses in favour of any given reading should be respectable. “Respectability” is of course a relative term; but its use and applicability in this department of Science will be generally understood and admitted by scholars, although they may not be altogether agreed as to the classification of their authorities. Some critics will claim, not respectability only, but absolute and oracular [pg 054] authority for a certain set of ancient witnesses,—which others will hold in suspicion. It is clear however that respectability cannot by itself confer pre-eminence, much less the privilege of oracular decision. We listen to any one whose character has won our respect: but dogmatism as to things outside of actual experience or mathematical calculation is the prerogative only of Revelation or inspired utterance; and if assumed by men who have no authority to dogmatize, is only accepted by weak minds who find a relief when they are able

“jurare in verba magistri.”

“To swear whate'er the master says is true.”

And if on the contrary certain witnesses are found to range themselves continually on the side which is condemned by a large majority of others exhibiting other notes of truth entitling them to credence, those few witnesses must inevitably lose in respectability according to the extent and frequency of such eccentric action.

2. If one Codex (z) is demonstrably the mere transcript of another Codex (f), these may no longer be reckoned as two Codexes, but as one Codex. It is hard therefore to understand how Tischendorf constantly adduces the evidence of “E of Paul” although he was perfectly well aware that E is “a mere transcript of the Cod. Claromontanus[49]” or D of Paul. Or again, how he quotes the cursive Evan. 102; because the readings of that unknown seventeenth-century copy of the Gospels are ascertained to have been derived from Cod. B itself[50].

3. By strict parity of reasoning, when once it has been ascertained that, in any particular instance, Patristic testimony is not original but derived, each successive reproduction of the evidence must obviously be held to add nothing at all to the weight of the original statement. Thus, it used to be the fashion to cite (in proof of the spuriousness [pg 055] of “the last twelve verses” of St. Mark's Gospel) the authority of “Eusebius, Gregory of Nyssa, Victor of Antioch, Severus of Antioch, Jerome[51],”—to which were added “Epiphanius and Caesarius[52],”—“Hesychius of Jerusalem and Euthymius[53].” In this enumeration, the names of Gregory, Victor, Severus, Epiphanius and Caesarius were introduced in error. There remains Eusebius,—whose exaggeration (a) Jerome translates, (b) Hesychius (sixth century) copies, and (c) Euthymius (a.d. 1116) refers to[54] and Eusebius himself neutralizes[55]. The evidence therefore (such as it is) collapses hopelessly: being reducible probably to a random statement in the lost treatise of Origen on St. Mark[56], which Eusebius repudiates, even while in his latitudinarian way he reproduces it. The weight of such testimony is obviously slight indeed.

4. Again, if two, three, or four Codexes are discovered by reason of the peculiarities of text which they exhibit to have been derived,—nay, confessedly are derived—from one and the same archetype,—those two, three, or four Codexes may no longer be spoken of as if they were so many. Codexes B and א, for example, being certainly the twin products of a lost exemplar, cannot in fairness be reckoned as = 2. Whether their combined evidence is to be estimated at = 1.75, 1.50, or 1.25, or as only 1.0,—let diviners decide. May I be allowed to suggest that whenever they agree in an extraordinary reading their combined evidence is to be reckoned at about 1.50: when in an all but unique reading, at 1.25: when the reading they contain is absolutely unique, as when they exhibit συστρεφομένων δὲ αὐτῶν in St. Matt. xvii. 22, they should be reckoned as a single Codex? Never, at all events, can they be jointly reckoned as absolutely two. [pg 056] I would have them cited as B-א. Similar considerations should be attached to F and G of St. Paul, as being “independent transcripts of the same venerable archetype[57],” and to Evan. 13, 69, 124, 346, 556, 561, and perhaps 348, 624, 788[58], as being also the representatives of only one anterior manuscript of uncertain date.

5. It requires further to be pointed out that when once a clear note of affinity has been ascertained to exist between a small set of documents, their exclusive joint consent is henceforward to be regarded with suspicion: in other words, their evidential Weight becomes impaired. For instance, the sympathy between D and some Old Latin copies is so marked, so constant, in fact so extraordinary, that it becomes perfectly evident that D, though only of the sixth century, must represent a Greek or Latin Codex of the inaccurate class which prevailed in the earliest age of all, a class from which some of the Latin translations were made[59].

6. I suppose it may be laid down that an ancient Version outweighs any single Codex, ancient or modern, which can be named: the reason being, that it is scarcely credible that a Version—the Peshitto, for example, an Egyptian, or the Gothic—can have been executed from a single exemplar. But indeed that is not all. The first of the above-named Versions and some of the Latin are older,—perhaps by two centuries—than the oldest known copy. From this it will appear that if the only witnesses producible for a certain reading were the Old Latin Versions and the Syriac Version on the one hand,—Codd. B-א on the other,—the united testimony of the first two would [pg 057] very largely overbalance the combined testimony of the last. If B or if א stood alone, neither of them singly would be any match for either the Syriac or the Old Latin Versions,—still less for the two combined.

7. The cogency of the considerations involved in the last paragraph becomes even more apparent when Patristic testimony has to be considered.

It has been pointed out elsewhere[60] that, in and by itself, the testimony of any first-rate Father, where it can be had, must be held to outweigh the solitary testimony of any single Codex which can be named. The circumstance requires to be again insisted on here. How to represent the amount of this preponderance by a formula, I know not: nor as I believe does any one else know. But the fact that it exists, remains, and is in truth undeniable. For instance, the origin and history of Codexes ABאC is wholly unknown: their dates and the places of their several production are matters of conjecture only. But when we are listening to the articulate utterance of any of the ancient Fathers, we not only know with more or less of precision the actual date of the testimony before us, but we even know the very diocese of Christendom in which we are standing. To such a deponent we can assign a definite amount of credibility, whereas in the estimate of the former class of evidence we have only inferences to guide us.

Individually, therefore, a Father's evidence, where it can be certainly obtained—caeteris paribus, is considerably greater than that of any single known Codex. Collectively, however, the Copies, without question, outweigh either the Versions by themselves, or the Fathers by themselves. I have met—very rarely I confess—but I have met with cases where the Versions, as a body, were opposed in their testimony to the combined witness of Copies and Fathers. Also, [pg 058] but very rarely, I have known the Fathers, as a body, opposed to the evidence of Copies and Versions. But I have never known a case where the Copies stood alone—with the Versions and the Fathers united against them.

I consider that such illustrious Fathers as Irenaeus and Hippolytus,—Athanasius and Didymus,—Epiphanius and Basil,—the two Gregories and Chrysostom,—Cyril and Theodoret, among the Greeks,—Tertullian and Cyprian,—Hilary and Ambrose,—Jerome and Augustine, among the Latins,—are more respectable witnesses by far than the same number of Greek or Latin Codexes. Origen, Clemens Alexandrinus, and Eusebius, though first-rate Authors, were so much addicted to Textual Criticism themselves, or else employed such inconsistent copies,—that their testimony is that of indifferent witnesses or bad judges.

As to the Weight which belongs to separate Copies, that must be determined mainly by watching their evidence. If they go wrong continually, their character must be low. They are governed in this respect by the rules which hold good in life. We shall treat afterwards of the character of Codex D, of א, and of B.