And after this discovery will any one be so perverse as to deny that on the contrary it must needs be Codexes B and [Symbol: Aleph], and not the great bulk of the MSS., which exhibit a text corrupted by the influence of the Septuagint rendering of Isaiah xxix. 13? The precise extent to which the assimilating influence of the parallel place in St. Mark's Gospel has been felt by the copyists, I presume not to determine. The essential point is that the omission from St. Matthew xv. 8 of the words Τω στοματι αυτων, και, is certainly due in the first instance to the ascertained Septuagint omission of those very words in Isaiah xxix. 13.
But that the text of St. Mark vii. 6 has exercised an assimilating influence on the quotation from Isaiah is demonstrable. For there can be no doubt that Isaiah's phrase (retained by St. Matthew) is 'ο λαος ουτος,—St. Mark's ουτος 'ο λαος. And yet, when Clemens Romanus quotes Isaiah, he begins—ουτος 'ο λαος[293]; and so twice does Theodoret[294].
The reader is now in a position to judge how much attention is due to Dr. Tregelles' dictum 'that this one passage may be relied upon' in support of the peculiar views he advocates: as well as to his confident claim that the fuller text which is found in ninety-nine MSS. out of a hundred 'must be regarded as an amplification borrowed from the prophet.' It has been shewn in answer to the learned critic that in the ancient Greek text of the prophet the 'amplification' he speaks of did not exist: it was the abbreviated text which was found there. So that the very converse of the phenomenon he supposes has taken place. Freely accepting his hypothesis that we have here a process of assimilation, occasioned by the Septuagintal text of Isaiah, we differ from him only as to the direction in which that process has manifested itself. He assumes that the bulk of the MSS. have been conformed to the generally received reading of Isaiah xxix. 13. But it has been shewn that, on the contrary, it is the two oldest MSS. which have experienced assimilation. Their prototypes were depraved in this way at an exceedingly remote period.
To state this matter somewhat differently.—In all the extant uncials but five, and in almost every known cursive copy of the Gospels, the words τω στοματι αυτων, και are found to belong to St. Matt. xv. 8. How is the presence of those words to be accounted for? The reply is obvious:—By the fact that they must have existed in the original autograph of the Evangelist. Such however is not the reply of Griesbach and his followers. They insist that beyond all doubt those words must have been imported into the Gospel from Isaiah xxix. But I have shewn that this is impossible; because, at the time spoken of, the words in question had no place in the Greek text of the prophet. And this discovery exactly reverses the problem, and brings out the directly opposite result. For now we discover that we have rather to inquire how is the absence of the words in question from those few MSS. out of the mass to be accounted for? The two oldest Codexes are convicted of exhibiting a text which has been corrupted by the influence of the oldest Septuagint reading of Isaiah xxix. 13.
I freely admit that it is in a high degree remarkable that five ancient Versions, and all the following early writers,—Ptolemaeus[295], Clemens Alexandrinus[296], Origen[297], Didymus[298], Cyril[299], Chrysostom[300], and possibly three others of like antiquity[301],—should all quote St. Matthew in this place from a faulty text. But this does but prove at how extremely remote a period the corruption must have begun. It probably dates from the first century. Especially does it seem to shew how distrustful we should be of our oldest authorities when, as here, they are plainly at variance with the whole torrent of manuscript authority. This is indeed no ordinary case. There are elements of distrust here, such as are not commonly encountered.
§ 6.
What I have been saying is aptly illustrated by a place in our Lord's Sermon on the Mount: viz. St. Matt. v. 44; which in almost every MS. in existence stands as follows:
(1) αγαπατε τους εχθρους 'υμων,
(2) ευλογειτε τους καταρωμενους 'υμας,
(3) καλως ποιειτε τοις μισουσιν[302] 'υμας,
(4) και προσευχεσθε 'υπερ των επηρεαζοντων 'υμας,
(5) και διωκοντων 'υμασ[303].
On the other hand, it is not to be denied that there exists an appreciable body of evidence for exhibiting the passage in a shorter form. The fact that Origen six times[304] reads the place thus: