1. The New Testament in the Original Greek, according to the Text followed in the Authorized Version, together with the Variations adopted in the Revised Version. Edited for the Syndics of the Cambridge University Press, by F. H. A. Scrivener, M.A., D.C.L., L.L.D., Prebendary of Exeter and Vicar of Hendon. Cambridge, 1881.
2. Η ΚΑΙΝΗ ΔΙΑΘΗΚΗ. The Greek Testament, with the Readings adopted by the Revisers of the Authorized Version. Oxford, at the Clarendon Press, 1881. [Preface by the Editor, Archdeacon Palmer, D.D.]
Chapter VIII. Internal Evidence.
We have now described, in some detail, the several species of external testimony available for the textual criticism of the New Testament, whether comprising manuscripts of the original Greek, or ancient translations from it, or citations from Scripture made by ecclesiastical writers. We have, moreover, indicated the chief editions wherein all these materials are recorded for our use, and the principles that have guided their several editors in applying them to the revision of the text. One source of information, formerly deemed quite legitimate, has been designedly passed by. It is now agreed among competent judges that Conjectural Emendation must never be resorted to, even in passages of acknowledged difficulty[243]; the absence of proof that a reading proposed to be substituted for the common one is actually supported by some trustworthy document being of itself a fatal objection to our receiving it[244]. Those that have [pg 245] been hazarded aforetime by celebrated scholars, when but few codices were known or actually collated, have seldom, very seldom, been confirmed by subsequent researches: and the time has now fully come when, in the possession of abundant stores of variations collected from memorials of almost every age and country, we are fully authorized in believing that the reading to which no manuscript, or old version, or primitive Father has borne witness, however plausible and (for some purposes) convenient, cannot safely be accepted as genuine or even as probable; even though there may still remain a few passages respecting which we cannot help framing a shrewd suspicion that the original reading differed from any form in which they are now presented to us[245].
In no wise less dangerous than bare conjecture destitute of external evidence, is the device of Lachmann for unsettling by means of emendation (emendando), without reference to the balance of conflicting testimony, the very text he had previously fixed by revision (recensendo) through the means of critical authorities: in fact the earlier process is but so much trouble misemployed, if its results are liable to be put aside by [pg 246] abstract judgement or individual prejudices. Not that the most sober and cautious critic would disparage the fair use of internal evidence, or withhold their proper influence from those reasonable considerations which in practice cannot, and in speculation should not, be shut out from every subject on which the mind seeks to form an intelligent opinion. Whether we will or not, we unconsciously and almost instinctively adopt that one of two opposite statements, in themselves pretty equally attested to, which we judge the better suited to recognized phenomena, and to the common course of things. I know of no person who has affected to construct a text of the N. T. on diplomatic grounds exclusively, without paying some regard to the character of the sense produced; nor, were the experiment tried, would any one find it easy to dispense with discretion and the dictates of good sense: nature would prove too strong for the dogmas of a wayward theory. “It is difficult not to indulge in subjectiveness, at least in some measure,” writes Dr. Tregelles (Account of Printed Text, p. 109): and, thus qualified, we may add that it is one of those difficulties a sane man would not wish to overcome.
The foregoing remarks may tend to explain the broad distinction between mere conjectural emendation, which must be utterly discarded, and that just use of internal testimony which he is the best critic who most judiciously employs. They so far resemble each other, as they are both products of the reasoning faculty exercising itself on the sacred words of Scripture: they differ in this essential feature, that the one proceeds in ignorance or disregard of evidence from without, while the office of the other has no place unless where external evidence is evenly, or at any rate not very unevenly, balanced. What degree of preponderance in favour of one out of several readings, all of them affording some tolerable sense, shall entitle it to reception as a matter of right; to what extent canons of subjective criticism may be allowed to eke out the scantiness of documentary authority; are points that cannot well be defined with strict accuracy. Men's decisions respecting them will always vary according to their temperament and intellectual habits; the judgement of the same person (the rather if he be by constitution a little unstable) will fluctuate from time to time as to the same evidence brought to bear on the self-same [pg 247] passage. Though the canons or rules of internal testimony be themselves grounded either on principles of common sense, or on certain peculiarities which all may mark in the documents from which our direct proofs are derived; yet has it been found by experience (what indeed we might have looked for beforehand), that in spite, perhaps in consequence, of their extreme simplicity, the application of these canons has proved a searching test of the tact, the sagacity, and the judicial acumen of all that handle them. For the other functions of an editor accuracy and learning, diligence and zeal are sufficient: but the delicate adjustment of conflicting probabilities calls for no mean exercise of a critical genius. This innate faculty we lack in Wetstein, and notably in Scholz; it was highly developed in Mill and Bengel, and still more in Griesbach. His well-known power in this respect is the main cause of our deep regret for the failure of Bentley's projected work, with all its faults whether of plan or execution.