The Causes of the Corruption of the Traditional Text of the Holy Gospels / Being the Sequel to The Traditional Text of the Holy Gospels

by John William Burgon

[49] Antiqq. i. 99, xviii. 5. 4.

CHAPTER III.

ACCIDENTAL CAUSES OF CORRUPTION.

II. Homoeoteleuton.

No one who finds the syllable ΟΙ recurring six times over in about as many words,—e.g. και εγενετο, 'ως απηλθον ... ΟΙ αγγελΟΙ, και ΟΙ ανθρωπΟΙ ΟΙ πΟΙμενες ειπον,—is surprised to learn that MSS. of a certain type exhibit serious perturbation in that place. Accordingly, BLΞ leave out the words και 'οι ανθρωποι; and in that mutilated form the modern critical editors are contented to exhibit St. Luke ii. 15. One would have supposed that Tischendorf's eyes would have been opened when he noticed that in his own Codex ([Symbol: Aleph]) one word more ('οι) is dropped,—whereby nonsense is made of the passage (viz. 'οι αγγελοι ποιμενες). Self-evident it is that a line with a 'like ending' has been omitted by the copyist of some very early codex of St. Luke's Gospel; which either read,—

ΟΙ ΑΓΓΕΛΟΙ
[ΚΑΙ ΟΙ ΑΝΟΙ ΟΙ]
ΠΟΙΜΕΝΕΣ

or else

ΟΙ ΑΓΓΕΛΟΙ
[ΚΑΙ ΟΙ ΑΝΟΙ]
ΟΙ ΠΟΙΜΕΝΕΣ

Another such place is found in St. John vi. 11. The Evangelist certainly described the act of our Saviour on a famous occasion in the well-known words,—και ευχαριστησας

διεδωκε
τοις [μαθηταις,
οι δε μαθηται
τοις] ανακειμενοις.