(1) Ὅς is read with a1 [indisputably; after minute personal inspection; see note, p. 104.] c1 [Tischendorf Prol. Cod. Ephraemi, § 7, p. 39.] F G א (see below); 17, 73, 181; Syr.-Philoxenian, Coptic, Sahidic, Gothic; also (ὅς or ὅ) Syriac, Arabic (Erpenius), Æthiopic, Armenian; Cyril, Theodorus Mopsuest., Epiphanius, Gelasius, Hieronymus in Esaiam liii. 11.
(2) ὅ, with d1 (Claromontanus), Vulgate; nearly all Latin Fathers.
(3) Θεός, with d3 k l; nearly all MSS.; Arabic (Polyglott), Slavonic; Didymus, Chrysostom (? see Tregelles, p. 227 note), Theodoret, Euthalius, Damascene, Theophylact, Œcumenius,—Ignatius Ephes. 29, (but very doubtful). A hand of the 12th century has prefixed θε to ος, the reading of א; see Tischendorf edit. major, Plate xvii. of Scrivener's Collation of א, facsimile (13).
On reviewing this evidence, as not only the most important uncial MSS., but all the Versions older than the 7th century are distinctly in favour of a relative,—as ὅ seems only a Latinizing [pg 430] variation of ὅς,—and lastly, as ὅς is the more difficult, though really the more intelligible, reading (Hofmann, Schriftb. Vol. I. p. 143), and on every reason more likely to have been changed into Θεός (Macedonius is actually said to have been expelled for making the change, Liberati Diaconi Breviarium cap. 19) than vice versâ, we unhesitatingly decide in favour of ὅς.”—(Pastoral Epistles, ed. 1869, pp. 51-2.)
Such then is your own statement of the evidence on this subject. I proceed to demonstrate to you that you are completely mistaken:—mistaken as to what you say about ὅς,—mistaken as to ὅ,—mistaken as to Θεός:—mistaken in respect of Codices,—mistaken in respect of Versions,—mistaken in respect of Fathers. Your slipshod, inaccurate statements, (all obtained at second-hand,) will occasion me, I foresee, a vast deal of trouble; but I am determined, now at last, if the thing be possible, to set this question at rest. And that I may not be misunderstood, I beg to repeat that all I propose to myself is to prove—beyond the possibility of denial—that the evidence for Θεός (in 1 Timothy iii. 16) vastly preponderates over the evidence for either ὅς or ὅ. It will be for you, afterwards, to come forward and prove that, on the contrary, Θεός is a “plain and clear error:” so plain and so clear that you and your fellow-Revisers felt yourselves constrained to thrust it out from the place it has confessedly occupied in the New Testament for at least 1530 years.
You are further reminded, my lord Bishop, that unless you do this, you will be considered by the whole Church to have dealt unfaithfully with the Word of God. For, (as I shall remind you in the sequel,) it is yourself who have invited and provoked this enquiry. You devote twelve pages to it (pp. 64 to 76),—“compelled to do so by the Reviewer.” “Moreover” (you announce) “this case is of great importance as an example. It illustrates in a striking manner the [pg 431] complete isolation of the Reviewer's position. If he is right all other Critics are wrong,” &c., &c., &c.—Permit me to remind you of the warning—“Let not him that girdeth on his harness boast himself as he that putteth it off.”
Testimony of the Manuscripts concerning 1 Tim. iii. 16: and first as to the testimony of Codex a.
You begin then with the Manuscript evidence; and you venture to assert that ΟΣ is “indisputably” the reading of Codex a. I am at a loss to understand how a “professed Critic,”—(who must be presumed to be acquainted with the facts of the case, and who is a lover of Truth,)—can permit himself to make such an assertion. Your certainty is based, you say, on “minute personal inspection.” In other words, you are so good as to explain that you once tried a coarse experiment,[933] by which you succeeded in convincing yourself that the suspected diameter of the Ο is exactly coincident with the sagitta of an epsilon (Ε) which happens to stand on the back of the page. But do you not see that unless you start with this for your major premiss,—“Theta cannot exist on one side of a page if epsilon stands immediately behind it on the other side,”—your experiment is nihil ad rem, and proves absolutely nothing?
Your “inspection” happens however to be inaccurate besides. You performed your experiment unskilfully. A man need only hold up the leaf to the light on a very brilliant day,—as Tregelles, Scrivener, and many besides (including your present correspondent) have done,—to be aware that the sagitta of the epsilon on fol. 145b does not cover much more than a third of the area of the theta on fol. 145a. Dr. Scrivener further points out that it cuts the circle too [pg 432] high to have been reasonably mistaken by a careful observer for the diameter of the theta (Θ). The experiment which you describe with such circumstantial gravity was simply nugatory therefore.
How is it, my lord Bishop, that you do not perceive that the way to ascertain the reading of Codex a at 1 Tim. iii. 16, is,—(1) To investigate not what is found at the back of the leaf, but what is written on the front of it? and (2), Not so much to enquire what can be deciphered of the original writing by the aid of a powerful lens now, as to ascertain what was apparent to the eye of competent observers when the Codex was first brought into this country, viz. 250 years ago? That Patrick Young, the first custodian and collator of the Codex [1628-1652], read ΘΣ, is certain.—Young communicated the “various Readings” of a to Abp. Ussher:—and the latter, prior to 1653, communicated them to Hammond, who clearly knew nothing of ΟΣ.—It is plain that ΘΣ was the reading seen by Huish—when he sent his collation of the Codex (made, according to Bentley, with great exactness,[934]) to Brian Walton, who published the fifth volume of his Polyglott in 1657.—Bp. Pearson, who was very curious in such matters, says “we find not ὅς in any copy,”—a sufficient proof how he read the place in 1659.—Bp. Fell, who published an edition of the N. T. in 1675, certainly considered ΘΣ the reading of Cod. a.—Mill, who was at work on the Text of the N. T. from 1677 to 1707, expressly declares that he saw the remains of ΘΣ in this place.[935] Bentley, who had himself [pg 433] (1716) collated the MS. with the utmost accuracy (“accuratissime ipse contuli”), knew nothing of any other reading.—Emphatic testimony on the subject is borne by Wotton in 1718:—“There can be no doubt” (he says) “that this MS. always exhibited ΘΣ. Of this, any one may easily convince himself who will be at the pains to examine the place with attention.”[936]—Two years earlier,—(we have it on the testimony of Mr. John Creyk, of S. John's Coll., Cambridge,)—“the old line in the letter θ was plainly to be seen.”[937]—It was “much about the same time,” also, (viz. about 1716) that Wetstein acknowledged to the Rev. John Kippax,—“who took it down in writing from his own mouth,—that though the middle stroke of the θ has been evidently retouched, yet the fine stroke which was originally in the body of the θ is discoverable at each end of the fuller stroke of the corrector.”[938]—And Berriman himself, (who delivered a course of Lectures on the true reading of 1 Tim. iii. 16, in 1737-8,) attests emphatically that he had seen it also. “If therefore” (he adds) “at any time hereafter the old line should become altogether undiscoverable, there will never be just cause to doubt but that the genuine, and original reading of the MS. was ΘΣ: and that the new strokes, added at the top and in the middle by the corrector were not designed to corrupt and falsify, but to preserve and perpetuate the true reading, which was in danger of being lost by the decay of Time.”[939]—Those memorable words (which I respectfully commend to your notice) were written in a.d. 1741. How you (a.d. 1882), after surveying all this [pg 434] accumulated and consistent testimony (borne a.d. 1628 to a.d. 1741) by eye-witnesses as competent to observe a fact of this kind as yourself; and fully as deserving of credit, when they solemnly declare what they have seen:—how you, I say, after a survey of this evidence, can gravely sit down and inform the world that “there is no sufficient evidence that there was ever a time when this reading was patent as the reading which came from the original scribe” (p. 72):—this passes my comprehension.—It shall only be added that Bengel, who was a very careful enquirer, had already cited the Codex Alexandrinus as a witness for Θεός in 1734:[940]—and that Woide, the learned and conscientious editor of the Codex, declares that so late as 1765 he had seen traces of the θ which twenty years later (viz. in 1785) were visible to him no longer.[941]