The Last Twelve Verses of the Gospel According to S. Mark

by John William Burgon

I do not lose sight of the fact that the Epistle to the Ephesians ends without salutations, without personal notices of any kind. But in this respect it is not peculiar.[186] That,—joined to a singular absence of identifying allusion,—sufficiently explains why Marcion selected this particular Epistle for the subject of his fraud. But, to infer from this circumstance, in defiance of the Tradition of the Church Universal, and in defiance of its very Title, that the Epistle is [pg 108] “Encyclical,” in the technical sense of that word; and to go on to urge this characteristic as an argument in support of the omission of the words ἐν Ἐφέσῳ,—is clearly the device of an eager Advocate; not the method of a calm and unprejudiced Judge. True it is that S. Paul,—who, writing to the Corinthians from Ephesus, says “the Churches of Asia salute you,” (1 Cor. xvi. 19,)—may have known very well that an Epistle of his “to the Ephesians,” would, as a matter of course, be instantly communicated to others besides the members of that particular Church: and in fact this may explain why there is nothing specially “Ephesian” in the contents of the Epistle. The Apostle,—(as when he addressed “the Churches of Galatia,”)—may have had certain of the other neighbouring Churches in his mind while he wrote. But all this is wholly foreign to the question before us: the one only question being this,—Which of the three following addresses represents what S. Paul must be considered to have actually written in the first verse of his “Epistle to the Ephesians”?—

(1) τοῖς ἀγίοις τοῖς οὔσιν ἐν Ἐφέσῳ καὶ πιστοῖς ἐν Χ. Ἰ.

(2) τοῖς ἀγίοις τοῖς οὔσιν ἐν ... καὶ πιστοῖς ἐν Χ. Ἰ.

(3) τοῖς ἀγίοις τοῖς οὔσι, καὶ πιστοῖς ἐν Χ. Ἰ.

What I have been saying amounts to this: that it is absolutely unreasonable for men to go out of their way to invent a theory wanting every element of probability in order to account for the omission of the words ἐν Ἐφέσῳ from S. Paul's Epistle to the Ephesians; while they have under their eyes the express testimony of a competent witness of the iind century that a certain heretic, named Marcion, “presumed to prefix an unauthorized title to that very Epistle,” (“Marcion ei titulum aliquando interpolare gestiit,”)—which title obviously could not stand unless those two words were first erased from the text. To interpolate that new title, and to erase the two words which were plainly inconsistent with it, were obviously correlative acts which must always have been performed together.

But however all this may be, (as already pointed out,) the only question to be determined by us is,—whether it be credible that the words ἐν Ἐφέσῳ are an unauthorized [pg 109] addition; foisted into the text of Ephes. i. 1 as far back as the Apostolic age: an interpolation which, instead of dying out, and at last all but disappearing, has spread and established itself, until the words are found in every copy,—are represented in every translation,—have been recognised in every country,—witnessed to by every Father,—received in every age of the Church? I repeat that the one question which has to be decided is, not how the words ἐν Ἐφέσῳ came to be put in, or came to be left out; but simply whether, on an impartial review of the evidence, it be reasonable (with Tischendorf, Tregelles, Conybeare and Howson, and so many more,) to suspect their genuineness and enclose them in brackets? Is it credible that the words ἐν Ἐφέσῳ are a spurious and unauthorized addition to the inspired autograph of the Apostle?... We have already, as I think, obtained a satisfactory answer to this question. It has been shewn, as conclusively as in inquiries of this nature is possible, that in respect of the reading of Ephesians i. 1, Codd. B and א are even most conspicuously at fault.

IV. But if these two Codices are thus convicted of error in respect of the one remaining text which their chief upholders have selected, and to which they still make their most confident appeal,—what remains, but to point out that it is high time that men should be invited to disabuse their minds of the extravagant opinion which they have been so industriously taught to entertain of the value of the two Codices in question? It has already degenerated into an unreasoning prejudice, and threatens at last to add one more to the already overgrown catalogue of “vulgar errors.”

V. I cannot, I suppose, act more fairly by Tischendorf than by transcribing in conclusion his remarks on the four remaining readings of Codex א to which he triumphantly appeals: promising to dismiss them all with a single remark. He says, (addressing unlearned readers,) in his “Introduction” to the Tauchnitz (English) New Testament[187]:—

“To these examples, others might be added. Thus, Origen says on John i. 4, that in some copies it was written, ‘in Him is life’ for ‘in Him was life.’ This is a reading which [pg 110] we find in sundry quotations before the time of Origen;[188] but now, among all known Greek MSS. it is only in the Sinaitic, and the famous old Codex Bezae, a copy of the Gospels at Cambridge; yet it is also found in most of the early Latin versions, in the most ancient Syriac, and in the oldest Coptic.—Again, in Matth. xiii. 35, Jerome observes [pg 111] that in the third century Porphyry, the antagonist of Christianity, had found fault with the Evangelist Matthew for having said, ‘which was spoken by the prophet Esaias.’ A writing of the second century had already witnessed to the same reading; but Jerome adds further that well-informed men had long ago removed the name of Esaias. Among all our MSS. of a thousand years old and upwards, there is not a solitary example containing the name of Esaias in the text referred to,—except the Sinaitic, to which a few of less than a thousand years old may be added.—Once more, Origen quotes John xiii. 10 six times; but only the Sinaitic and several ancient Latin MSS. read it the same as Origen: ‘He that is washed needeth not to wash, but is clean every whit.’—In John vi. 51, also, where the reading is very difficult to settle, the Sinaitic is alone among all Greek copies indubitably correct; and Tertullian, at the end of the second century, confirms the Sinaitic reading: ‘If any man eat of my bread, he shall live for ever. The bread that I will give for the life of the world is my flesh.’ We omit to indicate further illustrations of this kind, although there are many others like them.”[189]

Let it be declared without offence, that there appears to [pg 112] exist in the mind of this illustrious Critic a hopeless confusion between the antiquity of a Codex and the value of its readings. I venture to assert that a reading is valuable or the contrary, exactly in proportion to the probability of its being true or false. Interesting it is sure to be, be it what it may, if it be found in a very ancient codex,—interesting and often instructive: but the editor of Scripture must needs bring every reading, wherever found, to this test at last:—Is it to be thought that what I am here presented with is what the Evangelist or the Apostle actually wrote? If an answer in the negative be obtained to this question, then, the fact that one, or two, or three of the early Fathers appear to have so read the place, will not avail to impart to the rejected reading one particle of value. And yet Tischendorf thinks it enough in all the preceding passages to assure his reader that a given reading in Cod. א was recognised by Origen, by Tertullian, by Jerome. To have established this one point he evidently thinks sufficient. There is implied in all this an utterly false major premiss: viz. That Scriptural quotations found in the writings of Origen, of Tertullian, of Jerome, must needs be the ipsissima verba of the Spirit. Whereas it is notorious “that the worst corruptions to which the New Testament has ever been subjected originated within a hundred years after it was composed: that Irenæus and the whole Western, with a portion of the Syrian Church, used far inferior manuscripts to those employed by Stunica, or Erasmus, or Stephens, thirteen centuries later, when moulding the Textus Receptus.”[190] And one is astonished that a Critic of so much sagacity, (who of course knows better,) should deliberately put forth so gross a fallacy,—not only without a word of explanation, a word of caution, but in such a manner as inevitably to mislead an unsuspecting reader. Without offence to Dr. Tischendorf, I must be allowed to declare that, in the remarks we have been considering, he shews himself far more bent on glorifying the “Codex Sinaiticus” than in establishing the Truth of the pure Word of God. He convinces me that to have found [pg 113] an early uncial Codex, is every bit as fatal as to have “taken a gift.” Verily, “it doth blind the eyes of the wise.”[191]