Now, as I am writing a book on the principles of Textual Criticism, I must be allowed to set my reader on his guard against all such unsupported dicta as the preceding, though enforced with emphasis and recommended by a deservedly respected name. I venture to think that the exact reverse will be found to be a vast deal nearer the truth: viz. that undoubtedly spurious readings, although they may at one time or other have succeeded in obtaining a footing in MSS., and to some extent may be observed even to have propagated themselves, are yet discovered to die out speedily; seldom indeed to leave any considerable number of descendants. There has always in fact been a process of elimination going on, as well as of self-propagation: a corrective force at work, as well as one of deterioration. How else are we to account for the utter disappearance of the many monstra potius quam variae lectiones which the ancients nevertheless insist were prevalent in their times? It is enough to appeal to a single place in Jerome, in illustration of what I have been saying[286]. To return however from this digression.
We are invited then to believe,—for it is well to know at the outset exactly what is required of us,—that from the fifth century downwards every extant copy of the Gospels except five (DLTc, 33, 124) exhibits a text arbitrarily interpolated in order to bring it into conformity with the Greek version of Isa. xxix. 13. On this wild hypothesis I have the following observations to make:—
1. It is altogether unaccountable, if this be indeed a true account of the matter, how it has come to pass that in no single MS. in the world, so far as I am aware, has this conformity been successfully achieved: for whereas the Septuagintal reading is εγγιζει μοι 'ο λαος ουτος ΕΝ τω στοματι ΑΥΤΟΥ, και ΕΝ τοις χειλεσιν ΑΥΤΩΝ ΤΙΜΩΣΙ με,—the Evangelical Text is observed to differ therefrom in no less than six particulars.
2. Further,—If there really did exist this strange determination on the part of the ancients in general to assimilate the text of St. Matthew to the text of Isaiah, how does it happen that not one of them ever conceived the like design in respect of the parallel place in St. Mark?
3. It naturally follows to inquire,—Why are we to suspect the mass of MSS. of having experienced such wholesale depravation in respect of the text of St. Matthew in this place, while yet we recognize in them such a marked constancy to their own peculiar type; which however, as already explained, is not the text of Isaiah?
4. Further,—I discover in this place a minute illustration of the general fidelity of the ancient copyists: for whereas in St. Matthew it is invariably 'ο λαος ουτος, I observe that in the copies of St. Mark,—except to be sure in (a) Codd. B and D, (b) copies of the Old Latin, (c) the Vulgate, and (d) the Peshitto (all of which are confessedly corrupt in this particular,)—it is invariably ουτος 'ο λαος. But now,—Is it reasonable that the very copies which have been in this way convicted of licentiousness in respect of St. Mark vii. 6 should be permitted to dictate to us against the great heap of copies in respect of their exhibition of St. Matt. xv. 8?
And yet, if the discrepancy between Codd. B and [Symbol: Aleph] and the great bulk of the copies in this place did not originate in the way insisted on by the critics, how is it to be accounted for? Now, on ordinary occasions, we do not feel ourselves called upon to institute any such inquiry,—as indeed very seldom would it be practicable to do. Unbounded licence of transcription, flagrant carelessness, arbitrary interpolations, omissions without number, disfigure those two ancient MSS. in every page. We seldom trouble ourselves to inquire into the history of their obliquities. But the case is of course materially changed when so many of the oldest of the Fathers and all the oldest Versions seem to be at one with Codexes B and [Symbol: Aleph]. Let then the student favour me with his undivided attention for a few moments, and I will explain to him how the misapprehension of Griesbach, Tischendorf, Tregelles and the rest, has arisen. About the MSS. and the Versions these critics are sufficiently accurate: but they have fatally misapprehended the import of the Patristic evidence; as I proceed to explain.
The established Septuagintal rendering of Isa. xxix. 13 in the Apostolic age proves to have been this,—Εγγιζει μοι 'ο λαος ουτος τοις χειλεσιν αυτων τιμωσι με: the words εν τω στοματι αυτων, και εν being omitted. This is certain. Justin Martyr[287] and Cyril of Alexandria in two places[288] so quote the passage. Procopius Gazaeus in his Commentary on Origen's Hexapla of Isaiah says expressly that the six words in question were introduced into the text of the Septuagint by Aquila, Symmachus, and Theodotion. Accordingly they are often observed to be absent from MSS.[289] They are not found, for example, in the Codex Alexandrinus.
But the asyndeton resulting from the suppression of these words was felt to be intolerable. In fact, without a colon point between ουτος and τοις, the result is without meaning. When once the complementary words have been withdrawn, εγγιζει μοι at the beginning of the sentence is worse than superfluous. It fatally encumbers the sense. To drop those two words, after the example of the parallel place in St. Mark's Gospel, became thus an obvious proceeding. Accordingly the author of the (so-called) second Epistle of Clemens Romanus (§ 3), professing to quote the place in the prophet Isaiah, exhibits it thus,—'ο λαος ουτος τοις χειλεσι με τιμα. Clemens Alexandrinus certainly does the same thing on at least two occasions[290]. So does Chrysostom[291]. So does Theodoret[292].
Two facts have thus emerged, which entirely change the aspect of the problem: the first, (a) That the words εν τω στοματι αυτων, και εν were anciently absent from the Septuagintal rendering of Isaiah xxix. 13: the second, (b) that the place of Isaiah was freely quoted by the ancients without the initial words εγγιζει μοι.