Exactly so! We meant, and we mean that, and no other thing. But then, we venture to point out, that the learned Professor considerably understates the case: seeing that the “vice versâ presumption” is absolutely non-existent. On the other hand, apart from Proof to the contrary, we are disposed to maintain that “a majority of extant documents” in the proportion of 995 to 5,—and sometimes of 1999 to 1,—creates more than “a presumption.” It amounts to Proof of “a majority of ancestral documents”.
Not so thinks Dr. Hort. “This presumption,” (he seems to have persuaded himself,) may be disposed of by his mere assertion that it “is too minute to weigh against the smallest tangible evidence of other kinds” (Ibid.). As usual, however, he furnishes us with no evidence at all,—“tangible” or “intangible.” Can he wonder if we smile at his unsupported dictum, and pass on?... The argumentative import of his twenty weary pages on “Genealogical Evidence” (pp. 39-59), appears to be resolvable into the following barren truism: viz. That if, out of 10 copies of Scripture, 9 could be proved to have been executed from one and the same common original (p. 41), those 9 would cease to be regarded as 9 independent witnesses. But does the learned Critic really require to be told that we want no diagram of an imaginary case (p. 54) to convince us of that?
The one thing here which moves our astonishment, is, that Dr. Hort does not seem to reflect that therefore (indeed by his own showing) codices b and א, having been demonstrably “executed from one and the same common original,” are not to be reckoned as two independent witnesses to the Text of the New Testament, but as little more than one. (See p. 257.)
High time however is it to declare that, in strictness, all this talk about “Genealogical evidence,” when applied to [pg 256] Manuscripts, is—moonshine. The expression is metaphorical, and assumes that it has fared with MSS. as it fares with the successive generations of a family; and so, to a remarkable extent, no doubt, it has. But then, it happens, unfortunately, that we are unacquainted with one single instance of a known MS. copied from another known MS. And perforce all talk about “Genealogical evidence,” where no single step in the descent can be produced,—in other words, where no Genealogical evidence exists,—is absurd. The living inhabitants of a village, congregated in the churchyard where the bodies of their forgotten progenitors for 1000 years repose without memorials of any kind,—is a faint image of the relation which subsists between extant copies of the Gospels and the sources from which they were derived. That, in either case, there has been repeated mixture, is undeniable; but since the Parish-register is lost, and not a vestige of Tradition survives, it is idle to pretend to argue on that part of the subject. It may be reasonably assumed however that those 50 yeomen, bearing as many Saxon surnames, indicate as many remote ancestors of some sort. That they represent as many families, is at least a fact. Further we cannot go.
But the illustration is misleading, because inadequate. Assemble rather an Englishman, an Irishman, a Scot; a Frenchman, a German, a Spaniard; a Russian, a Pole, an Hungarian; an Italian, a Greek, a Turk. From Noah these 12 are all confessedly descended; but if they are silent, and you know nothing whatever about their antecedents,—your remarks about their respective “genealogies” must needs prove as barren—as Dr. Hort's about the “genealogies” of copies of Scripture. “The factor of Genealogy,” in short, in this discussion, represents a mere phantom of the brain: is the name of an imagination—not of a fact.
The nearest approximation to the phenomenon about which Dr. Hort writes so glibly, is supplied—(1) by Codd. f and g of S. Paul, which are found to be independent transcripts of the same venerable lost original:—(2) by Codd. 13, 69, 124 and 346, which were confessedly derived from one and the same queer archetype: and especially—(3) by Codd. b and א. These two famous manuscripts, because they are disfigured exclusively by the self-same mistakes, are convicted of being descended (and not very remotely) from the self-same very corrupt original. By consequence, the combined evidence of f and g is but that of a single codex. Evan. 13, 69, 124, 346, when they agree, would be conveniently designated by a symbol, or a single capital letter. Codd. b and א, as already hinted (p. [255]), are not to be reckoned as two witnesses. Certainly, they have not nearly the Textual significancy and importance of B in conjunction with a, or of a in conjunction with c. At best, they do but equal 1-½ copies. Nothing of this kind however is what Drs. Westcott and Hort intend to convey,—or indeed seem to understand.
VIII. It is not until we reach p. 94, that these learned men favour us with a single actual appeal to Scripture. At p. 90, Dr. Hort,—who has hitherto been skirmishing over the ground, and leaving us to wonder what in the world it can be that he is driving at,—announces a chapter on the “Results of Genealogical evidence proper;” and proposes to “determine the Genealogical relations of the chief ancient Texts.” Impatient for argument, (at page 92,) we read as follows:—
“The fundamental Text of late extant Greek MSS. generally is beyond all question identical with the dominant Antiochian or Græco-Syrian Text of the second half of the fourth century.”
We request, in passing, that the foregoing statement may be carefully noted. The Traditional Greek Text of the New [pg 258] Testament,—the Textus Receptus, in short,—is, according to Dr. Hort, “beyond all question” the “Text of the second half of the fourth century.” We shall gratefully avail ourselves of his candid admission, by and by.
Having thus assumed a “dominant Antiochian or Græco-Syrian text of the second half of the IVth century,” Dr. H. attempts, by an analysis of what he is pleased to call “conflate Readings,” to prove the “posteriority of ‘Syrian’ to ‘Western’ and other ‘Neutral’ readings.”... Strange method of procedure! seeing that, of those second and third classes of readings, we have not as yet so much as heard the names. Let us however without more delay be shown those specimens of “Conflation” which, in Dr. Hort's judgment, supply “the clearest evidence” (p. 94) that “Syrian” are posterior alike to “Western” and to “Neutral readings.” Of these, after 30 years of laborious research, Dr. Westcott and he flatter themselves that they have succeeded in detecting eight.