3. Matt. xi. 19. The change of τέκνων of the Received text into ἔργων, as made by Tischendorf, Tregelles (who retains τέκνων in his margin), by Hort and Westcott, is quite destructive to the sense, so far as we can perceive, for Jerome's exposition (“Sapientia quippe non quaerit vocis testimonium, sed operum”) could [pg 326] hardly satisfy any one but himself. The reading ἔργων is supported by אB* (with τέκνων in the margin by the hand B2), 124, the Peshitto Syriac (apparently; for all the older editions we know punctuate ܠܒܕܘ (or ܘܕܒܠ) “doers,” not ܠܒܕܘ (or ܘܕܒܠ) “works”), the Harkleian text (but not its margin), the Bohairic, some copies known to Jerome, Armenian manuscripts, the Ethiopic (one MS. contains both forms), and (after the Peshitto Syriac) the Persic of the Polyglott and its codices. We can hardly question that the origin of the variation arose from the difficulty on the part of translators and copyists to understand the Hellenistic use of τέκνων in this place, and modern editors have been tempted to accept it from a false suspicion that the present passage has been assimilated to Luke vii. 35, where indeed Cod. א and St. Ambrose have ἀπὸ πάντων τῶν ἔργων ἀυτῆς. As we have alleged that Jerome's explanation is unsatisfactory in St. Matthew's Gospel, we subjoin that of Ambrose, which is certainly no less obscure, on the parallel place of St. Luke: “Bene ab omnibus quia circa omnes justitia servatur, ut susceptio fiat fidelium, rejectio perfidorum. Unde plerique Graeci sic habent: justificata est sapientia ab omnibus operibus suis, quod opus justitiae sit, circa uniuscujusque meritum servare mensuram.” In the face of the language of these two great Latin Fathers it is remarkable that all other Latin authorities agree with the Curetonian Syriac and the mass of Greek manuscripts in upholding τέκνων, which is undoubtedly the only true reading.
4. Matt. xvi. 2, 3. The whole passage from Ὀψίας ver. 2 to the end of ver. 3 is set within brackets by Tischendorf in his eighth edition, within double brackets by Westcott and Hort, who holds (Notes, p. 13) that “both documentary evidence and the impossibility of accounting for omission prove these words to be no part of the text of Mt.” Yet it might seem impossible for any one possessed of the slightest tincture of critical instinct to read them thoughtfully without feeling assured that they were actually spoken by the Lord on the occasion related in the Received text, and were omitted by copyists whose climate the natural phenomena described did not very well suit, the rather as they do not occur in the parallel text, ch. xii. 38, 39. Under these circumstances, the internal evidence in favour of the passage being thus clear and irresistible, the witnesses against it are [pg 327] more likely to damage their own authority than to impair our confidence in its genuineness. These witnesses are אBVXΓ, 2, 13, 34, 39, 44, 84, 124 primâ manu, 157, 180, 194, 258, 301, 511, 575. Cod. 482 has the words, but only in a later hand at the foot of the page (Nicholson). Of these cursive codices 157 alone is of the first class for importance, and the verses are explained in the scholia of X (for ver. 3) and of 39. E and 606 have them with an asterisk; but they are wanting in the Curetonian Syriac, the Bohairic according to Mill (but not so other Coptic manuscripts and editions), and the Armenian, as unaltered from the Latin. Origen passes them over in his commentary, and Jerome, in his sweeping way, declares “hoc in plerisque codicibus non habetur.” They are recognized in the Eusebian canons (Tregelles, An Account of the Printed Text, p. 205).
The united testimony of אB and the Curetonian version suffices to show that the omission was current as early as the second century, while the accordance of CD, of all the Latins and the Peshitto, with the mass of later codices assures us that the words were extant at the same early date. If any one shall deem this a case best explained by the existence of two separate recensions of the same work, one containing the disputed sentences, the other derived from copies in which they had not yet been inserted, he may find much encouragement for his conjecture by considering certain passages in the latter part of St. Luke's Gospel, where the same sort of omissions, supported by a class of authorities quite different from those we have to deal with here, occur too often to be merely accidental.
5. Matt. xix. 17. For Τί με λέγεις ἀγαθόν? οὐδεὶς ἀγαθός, εἰ μὴ εἷς, ὁ Θεός, Griesbach, Lachmann, Tischendorf, Tregelles, Alford, Westcott and Hort read Τί με ἐρωτᾷς περὶ τοῦ ἀγαθοῦ? εἷς ἐστὶν ὁ ἀγαθός. The self-same words as in the Received text occur in the parallel places Mark x. 18, Luke xviii. 19 with no variation worth speaking of; a fact which (so far as it goes) certainly lends some support to the supposition that St. Matthew's autograph contained the other reading [?]. Add to this that any change made from St. Matthew, supposing the common reading to be true, must have been wilfully introduced by one who was offended at the doctrine of the Divine Son's inferiority to the [pg 328] Father which it seemed to assert or imply. Internal evidence, therefore, would be a little in favour of the alteration approved by Lachmann, Tischendorf, and the rest; and in discussing external authority, their opponents are much hampered by the accident that A is defective in this place, while א has recently been added to the list of its supporters [though more recently Φ and Σ have come into the opposite balance]. Under these circumstances we might have been excused from noticing this passage at all, as we are no longer able to uphold the Received text with the same confidence as before, but that it seemed dishonest to suppress a case on which Tregelles (An Account of the Printed Text, pp. 133-8) has laid great stress, and which, when the drift of the internal evidence is duly allowed for, tells more in his favour than any other he has alleged, or is likely to be met with elsewhere[342].
The alternative reading Τί με ἐρωτᾷς περὶ τοῦ ἀγαθοῦ κ.τ.λ. occurs in אBD (omitting τοῦ and ὁ) L, 1 (omitting ὁ), 22, 604. In 251 both readings are given, the Received one first, in ver. 17, the other interpolated after ποίας ver. 18, prefaced by ὁ δὲ ἰησοῦς εἶπεν αὐτῷ. Excepting these seven, all other extant codices reject it, CEFGHKMSUVΓΔ (Γ omits τί με λέγεις ἀγαθόν; Δ omits λέγεις, Π is defective here), even Codd. 33, 69. The versions are more seriously divided. The Peshitto Syriac, the Harkleian text, the Sahidic (Oxford fragments), the Old Latin f q, the Arabic, &c., make for the common reading; Cureton's and the Jerusalem Syriac, the Old Latin a b c e ff1.2 l, the Vulgate (the Anglo-Saxon and Frankish, of course), Bohairic and Armenian, for that of Lachmann and his followers. Several present a mixed form: τί με ἐρωτᾷς περὶ τοῦ ἀγαθοῦ? οὐδεὶς ἀγαθὸς εἰ μὴ εἷς: viz. the margin of the Harkleian, the Ethiopic, and g1 h m of the Old Latin. A few (Cureton's Syriac, b c ff1.2 g1 h l m, Jerome and the Vulgate) add ὁ θεός, as in the common text; but this is unimportant.
Tregelles presses us hard with the testimony of Origen in favour of the reading he adopts: ὁ μὲν οὖν Ματθαῖος, ὡς περὶ ἀγαθοῦ ἔργου ἐρωτηθέντος τοῦ σωτῆρος ἐν τῷ, Τί ἀγαθὸν ποιήσω? ἀνέγραψεν. Ὁ δὲ Μάρκος καὶ Λουκᾶς φασὶ τὸν σωτῆρα εἰρηκέναι, Τί με λέγεις ἀγαθόν? οὐδεὶς ἀγαθός, εἰ μὴ εἷς, ὁ Θεός (Tom. iii. p. 644 d). “The reading which is opposed to the common text,” Tregelles [pg 329] writes, “has the express testimony of Origen in its favour” (p. 134); “might I not well ask for some proof that the other reading existed, in the time of Origen, in copies of St. Matthew's Gospel?” (p. 137). I may say in answer, that the testimony of Origen applies indeed to the former part of the variation which Tregelles maintains (τί με ἐρωτᾷς περὶ τοῦ ἀγαθοῦ), but not at all to the latter (εἷς ἐστιν ὁ αγαθός), and that the Peshitto Syriac version of the second, as also the Sahidic of the third century, uphold the common text, without any variation in the manuscripts of the former, that we know of. Or if he asks for the evidence of Fathers to counterbalance that of a Father, we have Justin Martyr: προσελθόντος αὐτῷ τινὸς καὶ εἰπόντος (words which show, as Tischendorf observes, that St. Matthew's is the only Gospel that can be referred to) Διδάσκαλε ἀγαθέ, ἀπεκρίνατο λέγων, Οὐδεὶς ἀγαθὸς εἰ μὴ μόνος ὁ Θεὸς ὁ ποιήσας τὰ πάντα, citing loosely, as is usual with him, but not ambiguously. Or if half the variation will satisfy, as it was made to do for Origen, Tregelles' own note refers us to Irenaeus 92 for τί με λέγεις ἀγαθόν? εἷς ἐστὶν ἀγαθός, and to Eusebius for the other half in the form above quoted from the Ethiopic, &c. Moreover, since he cites the last five words of the subjoined extract as belonging to St. Matthew, Tregelles entitles us to employ for our purpose the whole passage, Marcos. apud Iren. 92, which we might not otherwise have ventured to do; καὶ τῷ εἰπόντι αὐτῷ Διδάσκαλε ἀγαθέ, τὸν ἀληθῶς ἀγαθὸν θεὸν ὡμολογηκέναι, εἰπόντα Τί με λέγεις ἀγαθόν? εἷς ἐστιν ἀγαθός, ὁ πατὴρ ἐν τοῖς οὐρανοῖς. Jerome and Augustine (for the first clause only, though very expressly: de Consensu Evan. ii. 63) are with the Latin Vulgate, Hilary with the common Greek text, as are also Optatus, Ambrose, Chrysostom, and the main body of later Fathers. Thus the great mass of manuscripts, headed by C [followed by Φ and Σ], is well supported by versions, and even better by ecclesiastical writers; yet, in virtue of the weight of internal evidence [?], we dare not hold out unreservedly against the reading of BDL, &c., now that Cod. א is found to agree with them, even though subsequent investigations have brought to light so close a relation between א and B as to render it impossible, in our opinion, to regard them as independent witnesses[343].
6. Matt. xx. 28. The extensive interpolation which follows this verse in some very ancient documents has been given above (I. 8), in the form represented in the Curetonian Syriac version. It bears the internal marks of evident spuriousness, the first sentence consisting of a rhetorical antithesis as unsuitable as can be imagined to the majestic simplicity of our Lord's usual tone, while the sentiment of the rest is manifestly borrowed from Luke xiv. 8-10, although there is little or no resemblance in the words. The only extant Greek for the passage is in Codd. Φ and D, of which D gives the fullest text, as follows: ὑμεις δε ζητειτε; εκ μεικρου αυξησαι και εκ μειζονος ελαττον ειναι Εισερχομενοι δε και παρακληθεντες δειπνησαι; μη ανακλεινεσθαι εις τους εξεχοντας τοπους μη ποτε ενδοξοτερος σου επελθη και προσελθων ο δειπνοκλητωρ ειπη σοι ετι κατω χωρει; και καταισχυνθηση Εαν δε αναπεσης; εις τον ηττονα τοπον και επελθη σου ηττων ερει σοι ο δειπνοκλητωρ; συναγε ετι ανω και εσται σοι τουτο χρησιμον. The codices of the Old Latin version (a b c e ff1.2 h n and and. em. of the Vulgate[344]) mostly support the same addition, though with many variations: d, as usual, agrees with none; g2has not the first clause down to εἶναι, while g1 m have nothing else. Besides the Curetonian Syriac, the margin of the Harkleian contains it in a shape much like d, noting that the paragraph is “found in Greek copies in this place, but in ancient copies only in St. Luke, κεφ. 53” [ch. xiv. 8, &c.]: Cureton has also seen it in one manuscript of the Peshitto (Brit. Mus. 14,456), but there too in the margin. Marshall states that it is contained in four codices of the Anglo-Saxon version, which proves its wide reception in the West. Of the Fathers, Hilary recognizes it, as apparently do Juvencus and Pope Leo the Great (a.d. 440-461). It must have been [pg 331] rejected by Jerome, being entirely absent from the great mass of Vulgate codices, nor is it in the Old Latin, f l q. No other Greek codex, or version, or ecclesiastical writer, has any knowledge of the passage: while the whole language of the Greek of Cod. D, especially in such words as δειπνοκλήτωρ, ἐξέχοντας, ἥττων, χρήσιμος, is so foreign to the style of St. Matthew's Gospel, that it seems rather to have been rendered from the Latin[345], although in the midst of so much variation it is hard to say from what copy. Cureton too testifies that the Syriac of the version named from him must have been made quite independently of that in the margins of the Harkleian and Peshitto.
No one has hitherto ventured to regard this paragraph as genuine, however perplexing it may be to decide at what period or even in what language it originated. The wide divergences between the witnesses must always dismiss it from serious consideration. Its chief critical use must be to show that the united testimony of the Old Latin, of the Curetonian Syriac, and of Cod. D, are quite insufficient in themselves to prove any more than that the reading they exhibit is ancient: certainly as ancient as the second century.
7. Matt. xxi. 28-31. This passage, so transparently clear in the common text, stands thus in the edition of Tregelles: (28) Τί δὲ ὑμῖν δοκεῖ? ἄνθρωπος εἶχεν τέκνα δύο, καὶ προσελθὼν τῷ πρώτῳ εἶπεν, Τέκνον, ὕπαγε σήμερον ἐργάζου ἐν τῷ ἀμπελῶνι. (29) ὁ δὲ ἀποκριθεὶς εἶπεν, Οὐ θέλω; ὕστερον δὲ μεταμεληθεὶς ἀπῆλθεν. (30) προσελθὼν δὲ τῷ δευτέρῳ εἶπεν ὡσαύτως. ὁ δὲ ἀποκριθεὶς εἶπεν, Ἐγώ, κύριε; καὶ οὐκ ἀπῆλθεν. (31) τίς ἐκ τῶν δύο ἐποίησεν τὸ θέλημα τοῦ πατρός? λέγουσιν, Ὁ ὕστερος. The above is indeed a brilliant exemplification of Bengel's Canon, “Proclivi orationi praestat ardua.” Lachmann in 1842 had given the same reading, with a few slight and unimportant exceptions. The question is proposed [pg 332] which of the two sons did their father's will; the reply is ὁ ὕστερος, the one that promised and then failed! Lachmann in 1850 (N. T., vol. ii. Praef. p. 5) remarks that had he been sure that πρῶτος (ver. 31) was the reading of Cod. C, he should have honoured it, the only word that makes sense, with a place in his margin: “Nihilo minus,” he naïvely adds, “id quod nunc solum edidi ... ὁ ὕστερος veri similius est altero, quod facile aliquis correctori adscribat, illud non item;” and we must fairly confess that no copyist would have sought to introduce a plain absurdity into so beautiful and simple a parable. “Quid vero,” he goes on to plead, “si id quod veri similius esse dixi ne intellegi quidem potest?” (a pertinent question certainly) “corrigetur, si modo necesse erit:” critical conjecture, as usual, is his panacea. Conjecture, however, is justly held inadmissible by Tregelles, whose mode of interpretation is a curiosity in its way. “I believe,” he says, “that ὁ ὕστερος refers not to the order in which the two sons have been mentioned, but to the previous expression about the elder son, ὕστερον δὲ μεταμεληθεὶς ἀπῆλθεν, afterwards he repented and went.” “Which of the two did his father's will! ὁ ὕστερος. He who afterwards [repented and went]. This answers the charge that the reading of Lachmann is void of sense” (An Account of the Printed Text, p. 107). I entertain sincere veneration for the character and services of Dr. Tregelles, but it is only right to assert at once that what stands in his text is impossible Greek. Even granting that instead of the plain answer “the first,” our Lord's adversaries resorted to the harsh and equivocal reply “he who afterwards,” they would not have said ὁ ὕστερος, but ὁ ὕστερον, or (the better to point out their reference to ὕστερον in ver. 29) ὁ τὸ ὕστερον.
Why then prefer nonsense, for the mere purpose of carrying out Bengel's canon to the extremity? The passage, precisely as it stands in Tregelles' N. T., is sanctioned by no critical authority whatsoever. Cod. B indeed has ὕστερος (which is here followed by Westcott and Hort), Cod. 4 δεύτερος, Codd. 13, 69, 124, 346 (Abbott's four), and 238, 262, 556, 604, perhaps others, ἔσχατος, one or other of which is in the Jerusalem Syriac and Bohairic, the Ethiopic (two manuscripts), the Armenian and two chief Arabic versions; but all these authorities (with tol. of the Vulgate secundâ manu, as also Isidore, the Pseudo-Athanasius, [pg 333] and John Damascene), transpose the order of the two sons in vv. 29, 30, so that the result produces just the same sense as in the Received text. The suggestion that the clauses were transferred in order to reconcile ὕστερος or ἔσχατος with the context may be met by the counter-statement that ὕστερος was just as likely to be substituted for πρῶτος to suit the inversion of the clauses. Against such inversion (which we do not pretend to recommend, though Westcott and Hort adopt it) Origen is an early witness, so that Cod. B and its allies are no doubt wrong: yet as that Father does not notice any difficulty in ver. 31, the necessary inference ought to be that he read πρῶτος[346]. Hippolytus testifies to ἔσχατος in ver. 31, but his evidence cannot be used, since he gives no indication in what order he took the clauses in vv. 29, 30. The indefensible part of Tregelles' arrangement is that, allowing the answers of the two sons to stand as in our common Bibles, he receives ὕστερος in the room of πρῶτος on evidence that really tells against him. The only true supporters of his general view are Cod. D αισχατος (i.e. ἔσχατος), the Old Latin copies a b e ff1.2 g1 h l, the best codices of the Vulgate (am. fuld. for. san. tol. harl.*), the Anglo-Saxon version, and Augustine, though not the Clementine edition of the Vulgate. Hilary perplexes himself by trying to explain the same reading; and Jerome, although he says “Sciendum est in veris exemplaribus non haberi novissimum sed primum,” has an expedient to account for the former word[347], which, however (if am. fuld., &c. may be trusted), he did not venture to reject when revising the Old Latin. On no true principles can Cod. D and its Latin allies [pg 334] avail against such a mass of opposing proof, whereof Codd. אCΦΣLX lead the van. Even the Curetonian Syriac, which so often favours Cod. D and the Old Latin, is with the textus receptus here.