Luke xv. 21. Here by adding from ver. 19 ποίησόν με ὡς ἕνα τῶν μισθίων σου (placed in the text by Westcott and Hort within brackets) the great codices אBD, with UX, 33, 512, 543, 558, 571, a catena, and four manuscripts of the Vulgate (bodl. gat. mm. tol.), manage to keep out of sight that delicate touch of true nature which Augustine points out, that the son never carried out his purpose of offering himself for a hireling, “quod post osculum patris generosissime jam dedignatur.”
Luke xvi. 12. It is hard to tell how far thorough scholars and able critics are prepared to push a favourite theory, when Westcott and Hort place τὸ ἡμέτερον τίς δώσει ὑμῖν in the text, reserving ὑμέτερον for the margin. Not to mention that the interchange of η and υ in these pronouns [pg 306] is the most obstinate of all known itacisms, and one to which B is especially prone (e.g. Acts xvii. 28; 1 Pet. ii. 24; 1 John ii. 25; iii. 1, Vol. I. p. 11), ἡμέτερον is found only in BL, Evst. 21, and Origen once: in 157, e i l, and in Tertullian twice it is softened down to ἐμόν.
Luke XXI. 24: ἄχρι οὗ πληρωθῶσιν [καὶ ἔσονται] kairoὶ ἐthnῶn. The words within brackets appear thus in Westcott and Hort's text alone; what possible meaning can be assigned to them in the position they there occupy it is hard to see. They are obviously derived by an error of the scribe's eye from καὶ ἔσονται (the reading of אBD, &c.) at the beginning of ver. 25. This unintelligible insertion is due to B; but L, the Bohairic, and a codex cited in the Harkleian margin also have it with another καιροί prefixed to καὶ ἔσονται. D runs on thus: ἄχρις οὗ πληρωθῶσιν καὶ ἔσονται σημεῖα (om. καιροὶ ἐθνῶν). Those who discover some recondite beauty in the reading of B compare with this the genuine addition καὶ ἐσμέν after κληθῶμεν in 1 John iii. 1. Nempè amatorem turpia decipiunt caecum vitia, aut etiam ipsa haec delectant.
Luke xxiii. 32. For ἕτεροι δύο κακοῦργοι, which is unobjectionable in the Greek, though a little hard in a close English translation, אB and the two Egyptian versions, followed by Westcott and Hort, have the wholly impossible ἕτεροι κακοῦργοι δύο.
John ii. 3. The loose paraphrase of Cod. א in place of ὑστερήσαντος οἴνου commends itself to no one but Tischendorf, who in his turn admires the worst deformities of his favourite: it runs καὶ οἶνον οὐκ εἶχον ὅτι συνετελέσθη ὁ οἶνος τοῦ γάμου, in which few readers will be able to discern with him the manner and style of St. John. The Old Latin a b ff2 and Gaudentius [iv]; also e l, the Ethiopic, and the margin of the Harkleian in part, exhibit the same vapid circumlocution. Cod. א in this Gospel, and sometimes elsewhere, has a good deal in common with the Western codices and Latin Fathers, and some of its glosses are simply deplorable: e.g. καλοκαγαθίας for κακοπαθείας, James v. 10; συνομιλοῦντες for συνοικοῦντες, 1 Pet. iii. 7; ἀποθανόντος for παθόντος, 1 Pet. iv. 1 after ch. ii. 21, where it does not stand alone, as here. Of a better character is its bold supplement of ἐκκλησία before συνεκλεκτή in 1 Pet. v. 13, apparently borrowed from primitive tradition, and supported by the Peshitto, Vulgate (in its best manuscripts and editions), and Armenian versions.
John iv. 1. After βαπτίζει we find ἤ omitted in AB* (though it is added in what Tischendorf considers an ancient hand, his B2) GLΓ, 262, Origen and Epiphanius, but appears in אCD and all the rest. Tregelles rejects ἤ in his margin, Hort and Westcott put it within brackets. Well may Dr. Hort say (Notes, p. 76), “It remains no easy matter to explain how the verse as it stands can be reasonably understood without ἤ, or how such a mere slip as the loss of Η after ΕΙ should have so much excellent Greek authority, more especially as the absence of ἤ increases the obvious no less than the real difficulty of the verse.”
John vii. 39. One of the worst faults a manuscript (the same is not true of a version) can have is a habit of supplying, either from the margin or from the scribe's misplaced ingenuity, some word that may clear up a difficulty, or limit the writer's meaning. Certainly this is not a common fault with Cod. B, but we have here a conspicuous example of it. It [pg 307] stands almost alone in receiving δεδομένον after πνεῦμα: one cursive (254) has δοθέν, and so read a b c e ff2 g l q, the Vulgate, the Peshitto, and the Georgian (Malan, St. John), the Jerusalem Syriac, the Polyglott Persic, a catena, Eusebius and Origen in a Latin version: the margin of the Harkleian Syriac makes a yet further addition. The Sahidic, Ethiopic, and Erpenius' Arabic also supply some word. But the versions and commentators, like our own English translations, probably meant no more than a bold exposition. The whole blame of this evident corruption rests with the two manuscripts. No editor follows B here.
John ix. 4. Most readers will think with Dean Burgon that the reading ἡμᾶς δεῖ ἐργάζεσθαι τὰ ἔργα τοῦ πέμψαντος (whether followed by με or ἡμᾶς) “carries with it its own sufficient condemnation” (Last Twelve Verses, &c., p. 81). The single or double ἡμᾶς, turning the whole clause into a general statement, applicable to every one, is found in א*BDL, the two Egyptian, Jerusalem Syriac, Erpenius' Arabic, and Roman Ethiopic versions, in the younger Cyril and the versifier Nonnus. Origen and Jerome cite the passage as if the reading were ἐργάζεσθε, which, by a familiar itacism (see p. [11]), is the reading of the first hand of B. The first ἡμᾶς is adopted by Tischendorf, Tregelles, Westcott and Hort: the second by Tischendorf alone after א*L, the Bohairic, Roman Ethiopic, Erpenius' Arabic, and Cyril. Certainly με of BD, the Sahidic, and Jerusalem Syriac, is very harsh.
John x. 22. For δέ after ἐγένετο Westcott and Hort read τότε with BL, 33, the Sahidic, Gothic, Slavonic, and Armenian versions. No such use of τότε in this order, and without another particle, will be found in the New Testament, or easily elsewhere. The Bohairic and gat. of the Vulgate have δὲ τότε, which is a different thing. Moreover, the sense will not admit so sharp a definition of sameness in time as τότε implies. Three months intervened between the feast of Tabernacles, in and after which all the events named from ch. vii downwards took place, and this winter feast of Dedication.
John xviii. 5. For λέγει αὐτοῖς ὁ ἰησοῦς ἐγώ ἐιμι, B and a have the miserable variation λέγει αὐτοῖς ἐγώ ἐιμι ἰησοῦς, which Westcott and Hort advance to a place in their margin. The first ΙΣ (omitting ὁ) was absorbed in the last syllable of ΑΥΤΟΙΣ, the second being a mere repetition of the first syllable of ΙΣΤΗΚΕΙ (sic B primâ manu). Compare Vol. I. p. 10. With so little care was this capital document written[317].