Ecclesiastical Tradition is therefore clearly against you, in respect of the reading of 1 Tim. iii. 16. How you estimate this head of Evidence, I know not. For my own part, I hold it to be of superlative importance. It transports us back, at once, to the primitive age; and is found to be infinitely better deserving of attention than the witness of any extant uncial documents which can be produced. And why? For the plain reason that it must needs have been once attested by an indefinitely large number of codices more ancient by far than any which we now possess. In fact, Ecclesiastical Tradition, when superadded to the testimony of Manuscripts and Fathers, becomes an overwhelming consideration.
And now we may at last proceed to sum up. Let me gather out the result of the foregoing fifty pages; and remind [pg 479] the reader briefly of the amount of external testimony producible in support of each of these rival readings:—ὅ,—ὅς—Θεός.
[I.] Sum of the Evidence of Versions, Copies, Fathers, in favour of reading μυστήριον; ὅ ἐφανερώθη in 1 Tim. iii. 16.
(α) The reading μυστήριον; ὅ ἐφανερώθη,—(which Wetstein strove hard to bring into favour, and which was highly popular with the Socinian party down to the third quarter of the last century,)—enjoys, as we have seen, (pp. [448-53],) the weighty attestation of the Latin and of the Peschito,—of the Coptic, of the Sahidic, and of the Æthiopic Versions.
No one may presume to speak slightingly of such evidence as this. It is the oldest which can be produced for the truth of anything in the inspired Text of the New Testament; and it comes from the East as well as from the West. Yet is it, in and by itself, clearly inadequate. Two characteristics of Truth are wanting to it,—two credentials,—unfurnished with which, it cannot be so much as seriously entertained. It demands Variety as well as Largeness of attestation. It should be able to exhibit in support of its claims the additional witness of Copies and Fathers. But,
(β) On the contrary, ὅ is found besides in only one Greek Manuscript,—viz. the VIth-century codex Claromontanus, D. And further,
(γ) Two ancient writers alone bear witness to this reading, viz. Gelasius of Cyzicus,[1068] whose date is a.d. 476;[1069] and the Unknown Author of a homily of uncertain date in the [pg 480] Appendix to Chrysostom[1070].... It is scarcely intelligible how, on such evidence, the Critics of the last century can have persuaded themselves (with Grotius) that μυστήριον; ὅ ἐφανερώθη is the true reading of 1 Timothy iii. 16. And yet, in order to maintain this thesis, Sir Isaac Newton descended from the starry sphere and tried his hand at Textual Criticism. Wetstein (1752) freely transferred the astronomer's labours to his own pages, and thus gave renewed currency to an opinion which the labours of the learned Berriman (1741) had already demonstrated to be untenable.
Whether Theodore of Mopsuestia (in his work “de Incarnatione”) wrote ὅς or ὅ, must remain uncertain till a sight has been obtained of his Greek together with its context. I find that he quotes 1 Tim iii. 16 at least three times:—Of the first place, there is only a Latin translation, which begins “Quod justificatus est in spiritu.”[1071] The second place comes to us in Latin, Greek, and Syriac: but unsatisfactorily in all three:—(a) The Latin version introduces the quotation thus,—“Consonantia et Apostolus dicit, Et manifeste magnum est pietatis mysterium, qui[1072] (or quod[1073]) manifestatus (or tum) est in carne, justificatus (or tum) est in spiritu:”—(b) The Greek, (for which we are indebted to Leontius Byzantinus, a.d. 610,) reads,—Ὅς ἐφανερώθη ἐν σαρκί, ἐδικαιώθη ἐν πνεύματι[1074]—divested of all [pg 481] preface.[1075] Those seven words, thus isolated from their context, are accordingly printed by Migne as a heading only:—(c) The Syriac translation unmistakably reads, “Et Apostolus dixit, Vere sublime est hoc mysterium, quod,”—omitting τῆς εὐσεβείας.[1076] The third quotation, which is found only in Syriac,[1077] begins,—“For truly great is the-mystery of-the-fear-of God, who was manifested in-the-flesh and-was-justified in-the-spirit.” This differs from the received text of the Peschito by substituting a different word for εὐσέβεια, and by employing the emphatic state “the-flesh,” “the-spirit” where the Peschito has the absolute state “flesh,” “spirit.” The two later clauses agree with the Harkleian or Philoxenian.[1078]—I find it difficult from all this to know what precisely to do with Theodore's evidence. It has a truly oracular ambiguity; wavering between ὅ—ὅς—and even Θεός. You, I observe, (who are only acquainted with the second of the three places above cited, and but imperfectly with that,) do not hesitate to cut the knot by simply claiming the heretic's authority for the reading you advocate,—viz. ὅς. I have thought it due to my readers to tell [pg 482] them all that is known about the evidence furnished by Theodore of Mopsuestia. At all events, the utmost which can be advanced in favour of reading μυστήριον; ὅ in 1 Timothy iii. 16, has now been freely stated. I am therefore at liberty to pass on to the next opinion.
[II.] Sum of the Evidence of Versions, Copies, Fathers in favour of reading μυστήριον; ὅς ἐφανερώθη in 1 Timothy iii. 16.
Remarkable it is how completely Griesbach succeeded in diverting the current of opinion with respect to the place before us, into a new channel. At first indeed (viz. in 1777) he retained Θεός in his Text, timidly printing ὅς in small type above it; and remarking,—“Judicium de hâc lectionis varietate lectoribus liberum relinquere placuit.” But, at the end of thirty years (viz. in 1806), waxing bolder, Griesbach substituted ὅς for Θεός,—“ut ipsi” (as he says) “nobis constaremus.” Lachmann, Tischendorf, Tregelles, Westcott and Hort, and the Revisers, under your guidance, have followed him: which is to me unaccountable,—seeing that even less authority is producible for ὅς, than for ὅ, in this place. But let the evidence for μυστήριον; ὅς ἐφανερώθη ἐν σαρκί be briefly recapitulated:—