The word απεχει in St. Mark xiv. 41 has proved a stumbling-block. The most obvious explanation is probably the truest. After a brief pause[397], during which the Saviour has been content to survey in silence His sleeping disciples;—or perhaps, after telling them that they will have time and opportunity enough for sleep and rest when He shall have been taken from them;—He announces the arrival of 'the hour,' by exclaiming, Απεχει,—'It is enough;' or, 'It is sufficient;' i.e. The season for repose is over.
But the 'Revisers' of the second century did not perceive that απεχει is here used impersonally[398]. They understood the word to mean 'is fully come'; and supplied the supposed nominative, viz. το τελοσ[399]. Other critics who rightly understood απεχει to signify 'sufficit,' still subjoined 'finis.' The Old Latin and the Syriac versions must have been executed from Greek copies which exhibited,—απεχει το τελος. This is abundantly proved by the renderings adest finis (f),—consummatus est finis (a); from which the change to απεχει το τελος ΚΑΙ 'η 'ωρα (the reading of D) was obvious: sufficit finis et hora (d q); adest enim consummatio; et (ff2 venit) hora (c); or, (as the Peshitto more fully gives it), appropinquavit finis, et venit hora[400]. Jerome put this matter straight by simply writing sufficit. But it is a suggestive circumstance, and an interesting proof how largely the reading απεχει το τελος must once have prevailed, that it is frequently met with in cursive copies of the Gospels to this hour[401]. Happily it is an 'old reading' which finds no favour at the present day. It need not therefore occupy us any longer.
As another instance of ancient Glosses introduced to help out the sense, the reading of St. John ix. 22 is confessedly 'ινα εαν τις αυτον 'ομολογησηι Χριστον. So all the MSS. but one, and so the Old Latin. So indeed all the ancient versions except the Egyptian. Cod. D alone adds ειναι: but ειναι must once have been a familiar gloss: for Jerome retains it in the Vulgate: and indeed Cyril, whenever he quotes the place[402], exhibits τον Χριστον ειναι. Not so however Chrysostom[403] and Gregory of Nyssa[404].
§ 6.
There is scarcely to be found, amid the incidents immediately preceding our Saviour's Passion, one more affecting or more exquisite than the anointing of His feet at Bethany by Mary the sister of Lazarus, which received its unexpected interpretation from the lips of Christ Himself. 'Let her alone. Against the day of My embalming hath she kept it.' (St. John xii. 7.) He assigns to her act a mysterious meaning of which the holy woman little dreamt. She had treasured up that precious unguent against the day,—(with the presentiment of true Love, she knew that it could not be very far distant),—when His dead limbs would require embalming. But lo, she beholds Him reclining at supper in her sister's house: and yielding to a Divine impulse she brings forth her reserved costly offering and bestows it on Him at once. Ah, she little knew,—she could not in fact have known,—that it was the only anointing those sacred feet were destined ever to enjoy!... In the meantime through a desire, as I suspect, to bring this incident into an impossible harmony with what is recorded in St. Mark xvi. 1, with which obviously it has no manner of connexion, a scribe is found at some exceedingly remote period to have improved our Lord's expression into this:—'Let her alone in order that against the day of My embalming she may keep it.' Such an exhibition of the Sacred Text is its own sufficient condemnation. What that critic exactly meant, I fail to discover: but I am sure he has spoilt what he did not understand: and though it is quite true that [Symbol: Aleph]BD with five other Uncial MSS. and Nonnus, besides the Latin and Bohairic, Jerusalem, Armenian, and Ethiopic versions, besides four errant cursives so exhibit the place, this instead of commending the reading to our favour, only proves damaging to the witnesses by which it is upheld. We learn that no reliance is to be placed even in such a combination of authorities. This is one of the places which the Fathers pass by almost in silence. Chrysostom[405] however, and evidently Cyril Alex.[406], as well as Ammonius[407] convey though roughly a better sense by quoting the verse with εποιησε for τετηρηκεν. Antiochus[408] is express. [A and eleven other uncials, and the cursives (with the petty exception already noted), together with the Peshitto, Harkleian (which only notes the other reading in the margin), Lewis, Sahidic, and Gothic versions, form a body of authority against the palpable emasculation of the passage, which for number, variety, weight, and internal evidence is greatly superior to the opposing body. Also, with reference to continuity and antiquity it preponderates plainly, if not so decisively; and the context of D is full of blunders, besides that it omits the next verse, and B and [Symbol: Aleph] are also inaccurate hereabouts[409]. So that the Traditional text enjoys in this passage the support of all the Notes of Truth.]
In accordance with what has been said above, for Αφες αυτην; εις την 'ημεραν του ενταφιασμου μου τετηρηκεν αυτο (St. John xii. 7), the copies which it has recently become the fashion to adore, read αφες αυτην 'ινα ... τηρηση αυτο. This startling innovation,—which destroys the sense of our Saviour's words, and furnishes a sorry substitute which no one is able to explain[410],—is accepted by recent Editors and some Critics: yet is it clearly nothing else but a stupid correction of the text,—introduced by some one who did not understand the intention of the Divine Speaker. Our Saviour is here discovering to us an exquisite circumstance,—revealing what until now had been a profound and tender secret: viz. that Mary, convinced by many a sad token that the Day of His departure could not be very far distant, had some time before provided herself with this costly ointment, and 'kept it' by her,—intending to reserve it against the dark day when it would be needed for the 'embalming' of the lifeless body of her Lord. And now it wants only a week to Easter. She beholds Him (with Lazarus at His side) reclining in her sister's house at supper, amid circumstances of mystery which fill her soul with awful anticipation. She divines, with love's true instinct, that this may prove her only opportunity. Accordingly, she 'anticipates to anoint' (προελαβε μυρισαι, St. Mark xiv. 8) His Body: and, yielding to an overwhelming impulse, bestows upon Him all her costly offering at once!... How does it happen that some professed critics have overlooked all this? Any one who has really studied the subject ought to know, from a mere survey of the evidence, on which side the truth in respect of the text of this passage must needs lie.
§ 7.
Our Lord, in His great Eucharistic address to the eternal Father, thus speaks:—'I have glorified Thee on the earth. I have perfected the work which Thou gavest Me to do' (St. John xvii. 4). Two things are stated: first, that the result of His Ministry had been the exhibition upon earth of the Father's 'glory[411]': next, that the work which the Father had given the Son to do[412] was at last finished[413]. And that this is what St. John actually wrote is certain: not only because it is found in all the copies, except twelve of suspicious character (headed by [Symbol: Aleph]ABCL); but because it is vouched for by the Peshitto[414] and the Latin, the Gothic and the Armenian versions[415]: besides a whole chorus of Fathers; viz. Hippolytus[416], Didymus[417], Eusebius[418], Athanasius[419], Basil[420], Chrysostom[421], Cyril[422], ps.-Polycarp[423], the interpolator of Ignatius[424], and the authors of the Apostolic Constitutions[425]: together with the following among the Latins:—Cyprian[426], Ambrose[427], Hilary[428], Zeno[429], Cassian[430], Novatian[431], certain Arians[432], Augustine[433].
But the asyndeton (so characteristic of the fourth Gospel) proving uncongenial to certain of old time, D inserted και. A more popular device was to substitute the participle (τελειωσας) for ετελειωσα: whereby our Lord is made to say that He had glorified His Father's Name 'by perfecting' or 'completing'—'in that He had finished'—the work which the Father had given Him to do; which damages the sense by limiting it, and indeed introduces a new idea. A more patent gloss it would be hard to find. Yet has it been adopted as the genuine text by all the Editors and all the Critics. So general is the delusion in favour of any reading supported by the combined evidence of [Symbol: Aleph]ABCL, that the Revisers here translate—'I glorified Thee on the earth, having accomplished (τελειωσας) the work which Thou hast given Me to do:' without so much as vouchsafing a hint to the English reader that they have altered the text.
When some came with the message 'Thy daughter is dead: why troublest thou the Master further?' the Evangelist relates that Jesus 'as soon as He heard (ευθεως ακουσας) what was being spoken, said to the ruler of the synagogue, Fear not: only believe.' (St. Mark v. 36.) For this, [Symbol: Aleph]BLΔ substitute 'disregarding (παρακουσας) what was being spoken': which is nothing else but a sorry gloss, disowned by every other copy, including ACD, and all the versions. Yet does παρακουσας find favour with Teschendorf, Tregelles, and others.