It does not help the adverse case to shew that the Vulgate as well as the copy of Cyril of Alexandria are disfigured with the same corrupt reading as [Symbol: Aleph]ABC. It does but prove how early and how widespread is this depravation of the Text. But the indirect proof thus afforded that the actual Lectionary System must needs date from a period long anterior to our oldest Codexes is a far more important as well as a more interesting inference. In the meantime I suspect that it was in Western Christendom that this corruption of the text had its beginning: for proof is not wanting that the expression επι το αυτο seemed hard to the Latins[166].
Hence too the omission of παλιν from [Symbol: Aleph]BD (St. Matt, xiii. 43). A glance at the place in an actual Codex[167] will explain the matter to a novice better than a whole page of writing:—
ακουετω. τελος
παλιν. αρχη. ειπεν ο Κυριος την παραβολην ταυτην.
Ομοια εστιν κ.τ.λ.
The word παλιν, because it stands between the end (τελος) of the lesson for the sixth Thursday and the beginning (αρχη) of the first Friday after Pentecost, got left out [though every one acquainted with Gospel MSS. knows that αρχη and τελος were often inserted in the text]. The second of these two lessons begins with 'ομοια [because παλιν at the beginning of a lesson is not wanted]. Here then is a singular token of the antiquity of the Lectionary System in the Churches of the East: as well as a proof of the untrustworthy character of Codd. [Symbol: Aleph]BD. The discovery that they are supported this time by copies of the Old Latin (a c e ff1.2 g1.2 k l), Vulgate, Curetonian, Bohairic, Ethiopic, does but further shew that such an amount of evidence in and by itself is wholly insufficient to determine the text of Scripture.
When therefore I see Tischendorf, in the immediately preceding verse (xiii. 43) on the sole authority of [Symbol: Aleph]B and a few Latin copies, omitting the word ακουειν,—and again in the present verse on very similar authority (viz. [Symbol: Aleph]D, Old Latin, Vulgate, Peshitto, Curetonian, Lewis, Bohairic, together with five cursives of aberrant character) transposing the order of the words παντα 'οσα εχει πωλει,—I can but reflect on the utterly insecure basis on which the Revisers and the school which they follow would remodel the inspired Text.
It is precisely in this way and for the selfsame reason, that the clause και ελυπηθησαν σφοδρα (St. Matt. xvii. 23) comes to be omitted in K and several other copies. The previous lesson ends at εγερθησεται,—the next lesson begins at προσηλθον.
§ 6.
Indeed, the Ancient Liturgy of the Church has frequently exercised a corrupting influence on the text of Scripture. Having elsewhere considered St. Luke's version of the Lord's Prayer[168], I will in this place discuss the genuineness of the doxology with which the Lord's Prayer concludes in St. Matt. vi. 13[169],—'οτι σου εστιν 'η βασιλεια και 'η δυναμις και 'η δοξα εις τους αιωνας. αμην,—words which for 360 years have been rejected by critical writers as spurious, notwithstanding St. Paul's unmistakable recognition of them in 2 Tim. iv. 18,—which alone, one would have thought, should have sufficed to preserve them from molestation.
The essential note of primitive antiquity at all events these fifteen words enjoy in perfection, being met with in all copies of the Peshitto:—and this is a far weightier consideration than the fact that they are absent from most of the Latin copies. Even of these however four (k f g1 q) recognize the doxology, which is also found in Cureton's Syriac and the Sahidic version; the Gothic, the Ethiopic, Armenian, Georgian, Slavonic, Harkleian, Palestinian, Erpenius' Arabic, and the Persian of Tawos; as well as in the Διδαχη (with variations); Apostolical Constitutions (iii. 18-vii. 25 with variations); in St. Ambrose (De Sacr. vi. 5. 24), Caesarius (Dial. i. 29). Chrysostom comments on the words without suspicion, and often quotes them (In Orat. Dom., also see Hom. in Matt. xiv. 13): as does Isidore of Pelusium (Ep. iv. 24). See also Opus Imperfectum (Hom. in Matt. xiv), Theophylact on this place, and Euthymius Zigabenus (in Matt. vi. 13 and C. Massal. Anath. 7). And yet their true claim to be accepted as inspired is of course based on the consideration that they are found in ninety-nine out of a hundred of the Greek copies, including Φ and Σ of the end of the fifth and beginning of the sixth centuries. What then is the nature of the adverse evidence with which they have to contend and which is supposed to be fatal to their claims?
Four uncial MSS. ([Symbol: Aleph]BDZ), supported by five cursives of bad character (1, 17 which gives αμην, 118, 130, 209), and, as we have seen, all the Latin copies but four, omit these words; which, it is accordingly assumed, must have found their way surreptitiously into the text of all the other copies in existence. But let me ask,—Is it at all likely, or rather is it any way credible, that in a matter like this, all the MSS. in the world but nine should have become corrupted? No hypothesis is needed to account for one more instance of omission in copies which exhibit a mutilated text in every page. But how will men pretend to explain an interpolation universal as the present; which may be traced as far back as the second century; which has established itself without appreciable variety of reading in all the MSS.; which has therefore found its way from the earliest time into every part of Christendom; is met with in all the Lectionaries, and in all the Greek Liturgies; and has so effectually won the Church's confidence that to this hour it forms part of the public and private devotions of the faithful all over the world?