'A reminiscence of Lev. vii. 13 ... has created β out of α.' But why should not the reminiscence have been our Lord's? The passage appears like a quotation, or an adaptation, of some authoritative saying. He positively advances no other argument than the one just quoted, beyond stating two points in which the alteration might be easily effected.
(5) St. Luke ix. 10. 'He took (His Apostles) and withdrew privately
α. Into a city called Bethsaida (εις πολιν καλουμενην B.).
β. Into a desert place (εις τοπον ερημον), or Into a desert place called Bethsaida, or of Bethsaida.
Trad. Text. Into a desert place belonging to a city called Bethsaida.'
The evidence for these readings respectively is—
α. BLXΞ, with one correction of [Symbol: Aleph] (Ca), one Cursive, the Bohairic and Sahidic. D reads κωμην.
β. The first and later readings (Cb) of [Symbol: Aleph], four Cursives?, Curetonian, some variant Old Latin (β2), Peshitto also variant (β3).
Trad. Text. A (with ερημον τοπον) C + twelve Uncials, all Cursives except three or five, Harkleian, Lewis (omits ερημον), Ethiopic, Armenian, Gothic, with Theophylact (i. 33).
Remark the curious character of α and β. In Dr. Hort's Neutral Text, which he maintains to have been the original text of the Gospels, our Lord is represented here as having withdrawn in private (κατ' ιδιαν, which the Revisers shirking the difficulty translate inaccurately 'apart') into the city called Bethsaida. How could there have been privacy of life in a city in those days? In fact, κατ' ιδιαν necessitates the adoption of τοπον ερημον, as to which the Peshitto (β3) is in substantial agreement with the Traditional Text. Bethsaida is represented as the capital of a district, which included, at sufficient distance from the city, a desert or retired spot. The group arranged under β is so weakly supported, and is evidently such a group of fragments, that it can come into no sort of competition with the Traditional reading. Dr. Hort confines himself to shewing how the process he advocates might have arisen, not that it did actually arise. Indeed, this position can only be held by assuming the conclusion to be established that it did so arise.