[256] That I may not be accused of suppressing what is to be said on the other side, let it be here added that the sum of the adverse evidence (besides the testimony of many MSS.) is the Harkleian version:—the doubtful testimony of Eusebius (for, though Valerius reads καρδιας, the MSS. largely preponderate which read καρδιαις in H. E. Mart. Pal. cxiii. § 6. See Burton's ed. p. 637):—Cyril in one place, as explained above:—and lastly, a quotation from Chrysostom on the Maccabees, given in Cramer's Catena, vii. 595 (εν πλαξι καρδιαις σαρκιναις), which reappears at the end of eight lines without the word πλαξι.
[257] [The papers on Assimilation and Attraction were left by the Dean in the same portfolio. No doubt he would have separated them, if he had lived to complete his work, and amplified his treatment of the latter, for the materials under that head were scanty.—For 2 Cor. iii. 3, see also a note of my own to p. 65 of The Traditional Text.]
CHAPTER X.
CAUSES OF CORRUPTION CHIEFLY INTENTIONAL.
IV. Omission.
[We have now to consider the largest of all classes of corrupt variations from the genuine Text[258]—the omission of words and clauses and sentences,—a truly fertile province of inquiry. Omissions are much in favour with a particular school of critics; though a habit of admitting them whether in ancient or modern times cannot but be symptomatic of a tendency to scepticism.]
§ 1.
Omissions are often treated as 'Various Readings.' Yet only by an Hibernian licence can words omitted be so reckoned: for in truth the very essence of the matter is that on such occasions nothing is read. It is to the case of words omitted however that this chapter is to be exclusively devoted. And it will be borne in mind that I speak now of those words alone where the words are observed to exist in ninety-nine MSS. out of a hundred, so to speak;—being away only from that hundredth copy.
Now it becomes evident, as soon as attention has been called to the circumstance, that such a phenomenon requires separate treatment. Words so omitted labour prima facie under a disadvantage which is all their own. My meaning will be best illustrated if I may be allowed to adduce and briefly discuss a few examples. And I will begin with a crucial case;—the most conspicuous doubtless within the whole compass of the New Testament. I mean the last twelve verses of St. Mark's Gospel; which verses are either bracketed off, or else entirely severed from the rest of the Gospel, by Tischendorf, Tregelles, Alford and others.
The warrant of those critics for dealing thus unceremoniously with a portion of the sacred deposit is the fact that whereas Eusebius, for the statement rests solely with him, declares that anciently many copies were without the verses in question, our two oldest extant MSS. conspire in omitting them. But, I reply, the latter circumstance does not conduct to the inference that those verses are spurious. It only proves that the statement of Eusebius was correct. The Father cited did not, as is evident from his words[259], himself doubt the genuineness of the verses in question; but admitted them to be genuine. [He quotes two opinions;—the opinion of an advocate who questions their genuineness, and an opposing opinion which he evidently considers the better of the two, since he rests upon the latter and casts a slur upon the former as being an off-hand expedient; besides that he quotes several words out of the twelve verses, and argues at great length upon the second hypothesis.