[All the Corruption in the Sacred Text may be classed under four heads, viz. Omission, Transposition, Substitution, and Addition. We are entirely aware that, in the arrangement adopted in this Volume for purposes of convenience, Scientific Method has been neglected. The inevitable result must be that passages are capable of being classed under more heads than one. But Logical exactness is of less practical value than a complete and suitable treatment of the corrupted passages that actually occur in the four Gospels.
It seems therefore needless to supply with a scrupulousness that might bore our readers a disquisition upon Substitution which has not forced itself into a place amongst Dean Burgon's papers, although it is found in a fragmentary plan of this part of the treatise. Substituted forms or words or phrases, such as ΟΣ ('ος) for ΘΣ (Θεος)[346] ηπορει for εποιει (St. Mark vi. 20), or ουκ οιδατε δοκιμαζειν for δοκιμαζετε (St. Luke xii. 56), have their own special causes of substitution, and are naturally and best considered under the cause which in each case gave them birth.
Yet the class of Substitutions is a large one, if Modifications, as they well may be, are added to it[347]. It will be readily concluded that some substitutions are serious, some of less importance, and many trivial. Of the more important class, the reading of 'αμαρτηματος for κρισεως (St. Mark iii. 29) which the Revisers have adopted in compliance with [Symbol: Aleph]BLΔ and three Cursives, is a specimen. It is true that D reads 'αμαρτιας supported by the first corrector of C, and three of the Ferrar group (13, 69, 346): and that the change adopted is supported by the Old Latin versions except f, the Vulgate, Bohairic, Armenian, Gothic, Lewis, and Saxon. But the opposition which favours κρισεως is made up of A, C under the first reading and the second correction, ΦΣ and eleven other Uncials, the great bulk of the Cursives, f, Peshitto, and Harkleian, and is superior in strength. The internal evidence is also in favour of the Traditional reading, both as regards the usage of ενοχος, and the natural meaning given by κρισεως. 'αμαρτηματος has clearly crept in from ver. 28. Other instances of Substitution may be found in the well-known St. Luke xxiii. 45 (του 'ηλιου εκλιποντος), St. Matt. xi. 27 (βουληται αποκαλυψαι), St. Matt. xxvii. 34 (οινον for οξος), St. Mark i. 2 ('ησαια for τοις προφηταις), St. John i. 18 ('ο Μονογενης Θεος being a substitution made by heretics for 'ο Μονογενης 'υιος), St. Mark vii. 31 (δια Σιδωνος for και Σιδωνος). These instances may perhaps suffice: many more may suggest themselves to intelligent readers. Though most are trivial, their cumulative force is extremely formidable. Many of these changes arose from various causes which are described in many other places in this book.]
§ 5.
[The smallest of the four Classes, which upon a pure survey of the outward form divide among themselves the surface of the entire field of Corruption, is that of Additions[348]. And the reason of their smallness of number is discoverable at once. Whilst it is but too easy for scribes or those who have a love of criticism to omit words and passages under all circumstances, or even to vary the order, or to use another word or form instead of the right one, to insert anything into the sacred Text which does not proclaim too glaringly its own unfitness—in a word, to invent happily—is plainly a matter of much greater difficulty. Therefore to increase the Class of Insertions or Additions or Interpolations, so that it should exceed the Class of Omissions, is to go counter to the natural action of human forces. There is no difficulty in leaving out large numbers of the Sacred Words: but there is much difficulty in placing in the midst of them human words, possessed of such a character and clothed in such an uniform, as not to betray to keen observation their earthly origin.
A few examples will set this truth in clearer light. It is remarkable that efforts at interpolation occur most copiously amongst the books of those who are least fitted to make them. We naturally look amongst the representatives of the Western school where Greek was less understood than in the East where Greek acumen was imperfectly represented by Latin activity, and where translation into Latin and retranslation into Greek was a prolific cause of corruption. Take then the following passage from the Codex D (St. Luke vi. 4):—
'On the same day He beheld a certain man working on the sabbath, and said to him, "Man, blessed art thou if thou knowest what thou doest; but if thou knowest not, thou art cursed and a transgressor of the law."'