The words of the last-named eminent scholar on the reading just cited are so valuable in themselves, and are observed to be so often in point, that they shall find place here:—'Modern Critics,' he says, 'in deference to the authority of the older MSS., and to certain critical canons which prescribe that preference should be given to the shorter and more difficult reading over the longer and easier one, have decided that the T.R. in this passage is to be replaced by that which is contained in those older MSS.
'In regard to the difficulty of this reading, that term seems hardly applicable to the present case. A difficult reading is one which presents something apparently incongruous in the sense, or anomalous in the construction, which an ignorant or half-learned copyist would endeavour, by the use of such critical faculty as he possessed, to remove; but which a true critic is able, by probable explanation, and a comparison of similar cases, to defend against all such fancied improvements. In the reading before us, αλλ' ουδενος λογου ποιουμαι την ψυχην τιμιαν εμαυτω, it is the construction, and not the sense, which is in question; and this is not simply difficult, but impossible. There is really no way of getting over it; it baffles novices and experts alike[43].' When will men believe that a reading vouched for by only B[Symbol: Aleph]C is safe to be a fabrication[44]? But at least when Copies and Fathers combine, as here they do, against those three copies, what can justify critics in upholding a text which carries on its face its own condemnation?
§ 3.
We now come to the inattention of those long-since-forgotten Ist or IInd century scribes who, beguiled by the similarity of the letters ΕΝ and ΑΝ (in the expression ΕΝΑΝθρωποις ευδοκια, St. Luke ii. 14), left out the preposition. An unintelligible clause was the consequence, as has been explained above (p. 21): which some one next sought to remedy by adding to ευδοκια the sign of the genitive (Σ). Thus the Old Latin translations were made.
That this is the true history of a blunder which the latest Editors of the New Testament have mistaken for genuine Gospel, is I submit certain[45]. Most Latin copies (except 14[46]) exhibit 'pax hominibus bonae voluntatis,' as well as many Latin Fathers[47]. On the other hand, the preposition ΕΝ is retained in every known Greek copy of St. Luke without exception, while the reading ευδοκιας is absolutely limited to the four uncials AB[Symbol: Aleph]D. The witness of antiquity on this head is thus overwhelming and decisive.
§ 4.
In other cases the source, the very progress of a blunder,—is discoverable. Thus whereas St. Mark (in xv. 6) certainly wrote 'ενα δεσμιον, ΟΝΠΕΡ ητουντο, the scribe of Δ, who evidently derived his text from an earlier copy in uncial letters is found to have divided the Evangelist's syllables wrongly, and to exhibit in this place ΟΝ.ΠΕΡΗΤΟΥΝΤΟ. The consequence might have been predicted. [Symbol: Aleph]AB transform this into ΟΝ ΠΑΡΗΤΟΥΝΤΟ: which accordingly is the reading adopted by Tischendorf and by Westcott and Hort.
Whenever in fact the final syllable of one word can possibly be mistaken for the first syllable of the next, or vice versa, it is safe sooner or later to have misled somebody. Thus, we are not at all surprised to find St. Mark's 'α παρελαβον (vii. 4) transformed into 'απερ ελαβον, but only by B.
[Another startling instance of the same phenomenon is supplied by the substitution in St. Mark vi. 22 of της θυγατρος αυτου 'Ηρωδιαδος for της θυγατρος αυτης της 'Ηρωδιαδος. Here a first copyist left out της as being a repetition of the last syllable of αυτησ, and afterwards a second attempted to improve the Greek by putting the masculine pronoun for the feminine (ΑΥΤΟΥ for ΑΥΤΗΣ). The consequence was hardly to have been foreseen.]
Strange to say it results in the following monstrous figment:—that the fruit of Herod's incestuous connexion with Herodias had been a daughter, who was also named Herodias; and that she,—the King's own daughter,—was the immodest one[48] who came in and danced before him, 'his lords, high captains, and chief estates of Galilee,' as they sat at the birthday banquet. Probability, natural feeling, the obvious requirements of the narrative, History itself—, for Josephus expressly informs us that 'Salome,' not 'Herodias,' was the name of Herodias' daughter[49],—all reclaim loudly against such a perversion of the truth. But what ought to be in itself conclusive, what in fact settles the question, is the testimony of the MSS.,—of which only seven ([Symbol: Aleph]BDLΔ with two cursive copies) can be found to exhibit this strange mistake. Accordingly the reading ΑΥΤΟΥ is rejected by Griesbach, Lachmann, Tregelles, Tischendorf and Alford. It has nevertheless found favour with Dr. Hort; and it has even been thrust into the margin of the revised Text of our Authorized Version, as a reading having some probability.