Acts iv. 25. We have here, upheld by nearly all the authorities to which students usually defer, that which cannot possibly be right, though critical editors, in mere helplessness, feel obliged to put it in their text: ὁ τοῦ πατρὸς ἡμῶν διὰ πνεύματος ἁγίου στόματος δαυεὶδ παιδός σου εἰπών. Thus read אABE, 13, 15, 27, 29, 36, 38. Apost. 12, a catena and Athanasius. The Vulgate and Latin Fathers, the Harkleian Syriac and Armenian versions conspire, but with such wide variations as only serve to display their perplexity. We have here two several [pg 308] readings, either of which might be true, combined into one that cannot. We might either adopt with D ὃς διὰ μνς ἁγίου διὰ τοῦ στόματος λαλήσας δαυεὶδ παιδός σου (but david puero tuo d), or better with Didymus ὁ διὰ πνεύματος ἁγίου στόματος δὲ δαυεὶδ παιδός σου εἰπών (which will fairly suit the Peshitto and Bohairic); or we might prefer the easier form of the Received text ὁ διὰ στόματος δαβὶδ τοῦ παιδός σου εἰπών, which has no support except from P[318] and the cursives 1, 31, 40, 220, 221, &c. (the valuable copy 224 reads ὁ διὰ τοῦ πατρὸς ἡμῶν ἐν δαδ), and from Theophylact, Chrysostom being doubtful. Tischendorf justly pleads for the form he edits that it has second, third, and fourth century authority, adding “singula verba praeter morem sed non sine caussâ collocata sunt.” Praeter morem they certainly are, and non sine caussâ too, if this and like examples shall lead us to a higher style of criticism than will be attained by setting up one or more of the oldest copies as objects of unreasonable idolatry.
Acts vii. 46. ᾐτήσατο εὑρεῖν σκήνωμα τῷ θεῷ Ἰακώβ. The portentous variant οἴκῳ for θεῷ is adopted by Lachmann, and by Tischendorf, who observes of it “minimè sensu caret:” even Tregelles sets it in the margin, but Westcott and Hort simply obelize θεῷ as if they would read τῷ Ἰακώβ (compare Psalm xxiv. 6, cxxxii. 5 with Gen. xlix. 24). Yet οἴκῳ appears in א*BDH against אcACEP, all cursives (including 13, 31, 61, 220, 221), all versions. Observe also in ch. viii. 5 καισαρίας in א* for σαμαρείας on account of ver. 40 and ch. xxi. 8.
Acts x. 19. Ἰδοὺ ἄνδρες δύο is the reading of Westcott and Hort's text ([τρεῖς] margin) after B only, the true number being three (ver. 7): in ch. xi. 11 Epiphanius only has δύο. There might be some grounds for omitting τρεῖς here, as Tischendorf does, and Tregelles more doubtfully in his margin (with DHLP, 24, 31, 111, 182, 183, 184, 185, 188, 189, 220, 221, 224, m, the later Syriac, the Apostolical Constitutions, the elder Cyril, Chrysostom and Theophylact, Augustine and Ambrose), no reason surely for representing the Spirit as speaking only of the δύο οἰκέται.
Acts xii. 25. An important passage for our present purpose. That the two Apostles returned from, not to, Jerusalem is too plain for argument (ch. xi. 29, 30), yet εἰς Ἱερουσαλήμ (which in its present order surely cannot be joined with πληρώσαντες) is the reading of Westcott and Hort's text (ἐξ and the fatal obelus [Glyph: dagger] being in their margin) after אBHLP, 61, four of Matthaei's copies, Codd. 2, 4, 14, 24, 26, 34, 64, 78, 80, 95, 224, and perhaps twenty other cursives, but besides these only the margin of the Harkleian, the Roman Ethiopic, the Polyglott Arabic, some copies of the Slavonic and of Chrysostom, with Theophylact and Erasmus' first two editions, who says in his notes “ita legunt Graeci,” i.e. his Codd. 2, 4. A few which substitute “Antioch” for “Jerusalem” (28, 38, 66 marg., 67**, 97 marg., Apost. 5) are witnesses for εἰς, but not so those which, reading ἐξ or ἀπό, add with the Complutensian εἰς Ἀντιόχειαν (E, 7, 14**, 27, 29, 32, 42, 57, 69, 98 marg., 100, 105, 106, [pg 309] 111, 126**, 182, 183, 186, 220, 221, the Sahidic, Peshitto, and Erpenius' Arabic): Cod. 76 has εἰς Ἀντιόχειαν ἀπὸ Ἱερουσαλήμ. C is defective here, and the only three remaining uncials are divided between ἐξ (A, 13, 27, 29, 69, 214, Apost. 54, Chrysostom sometimes) and ἀπό (DE, 15, 18, 36, 40, 68, 73, 76, 81, 93, 98, 100, 105, 106, 111, 113, 180, 183, 184, a copy of Chrysostom, and the Vulgate ab). The two Egyptian, the Peshitto, the Philoxenian text, the Armenian and Pell Platt's Ethiopic have “from,” the only possible sense, in spite of אB. Tischendorf in his N. T. Vaticanum 1867 alleges that in that codex “litterae εισ ιερου primâ ut videtur manu rescriptae. Videtur primum απο pro εισ scriptum fuisse.” But since he did not repeat the statement three years later in his eighth edition, he may have come to feel doubtful about it. Dr. Hort conjectures that the original order was τὴν εἰς Ἱερουσαλὴμ πληρώσαντες διακονίαν.
Acts xvii. 28. Here Westcott and Hort place ὑμᾶς in their text, ἡμᾶς in the margin. For ἡμᾶς we find only B, 33, 68, 95, 96, 105, 137, and rather wonder than otherwise that the itacism is not met with in more cursives than six. The Bohairic has been cited in error on the same side. It needs not a word to explain that the stress of St. Paul's argument rests on ὑμᾶς. To the Athenians he quotes not the Hebrew Scriptures, but the poets of whom they were proud. Compare Luke xvi. 12, above.
An itacism not quite so gross in ch. xx. 10 μὴ θορυβεῖσθαι (B*, 185, 224*) is likewise honoured with a place in Westcott and Hort's margin. In Matt. xi. 16 they follow Tischendorf and Tregelles in adopting ἑτέροις for ἑταίροις with BCDZ, and indeed the mass of copies. This last itacism (for it can be nothing better) was admitted so early as to affect many of the chief versions.
Acts xx. 30. Cod. B omits αὐτῶν after ὑμῶν, where it is much wanted, apparently with no countenance except from Cod. 186, for this is just a point in which versions (the Sahidic and both Ethiopic) can be little trusted. The present is one of the countless examples of Cod. B's inclination to abridge, which in the Old Testament is carried so far as to eject from the text of the Septuagint words that are, and always must have been, in the original Hebrew. Westcott and Hort include αὐτῶν within brackets.
Acts xxv. 13. Agrippa and Bernice went to Caesarea to greet the new governor (ἀσπασόμενοι), not surely after they had sent their greeting before them (ἀσπασάμενοι), which, if it had been a fact, would not have been worth mentioning. Yet, though the reading is so manifestly false, the evidence for the aorist seems overwhelming (אABHLP, the Greek of E, 13, 24*, 31, 68, 105, 180, 220, 224*, a few more copies, and the Coptic and Ethiopic versions). The future is found possibly in C, certainly in 61, 221, and the mass of cursives, in e and other versions, in Chrysostom, and in one form of Theophylact's commentary. Here again Dr. Hort suspects some kind of prior corruption (Notes, p. 100).
Acts xxviii. 13. For περιελθόντες of all other manuscripts and versions א*B have περιελόντες, evidently borrowed from ch. xxvii. 40. Even this vile error of transcription is set in Westcott and Hort's text, the alternative not even in their margin. In ver. 15 they once set οἱ within [pg 310] brackets[319] on the evidence of B, 96 only. Cod. B is very prone to omit the article, especially, but not exclusively, with proper names.
Rom. vii. 22. The substitution of τοῦ νοός (cf. ver. 23) for τοῦ θεοῦ seems peculiar to Cod. B.