XIV. In marked contrast to the Text we speak of,—(which is identical with the Text of every extant Lectionary of the Greek Church, and may therefore reasonably claim to be spoken of as the Traditional Text,)—is that contained in a [pg 270] little handful of documents of which the most famous are codices b א, and the Coptic Version (as far as it is known), on the one hand,—cod. d and the old Latin copies, on the other. To magnify the merits of these, as helps and guides, and to ignore their many patent and scandalous defects and blemishes:—per fas et nefas to vindicate their paramount authority wherever it is in any way possible to do so; and when that is clearly impossible, then to treat their errors as the ancient Egyptians treated their cats, dogs, monkeys, and other vermin,—namely, to embalm them, and pay them Divine honours:—such for the last 50 years has been the practice of the dominant school of Textual Criticism among ourselves. The natural and even necessary correlative of this, has been the disparagement of the merits of the commonly Received Text: which has come to be spoken of, (we know not why,) as contemptuously, almost as bitterly, as if it had been at last ascertained to be untrustworthy in every respect: a thing undeserving alike of a place and of a name among the monuments of the Past. Even to have “used the Received Text as a basis for correction” (p. 184) is stigmatized by Dr. Hort as one “great cause” why Griesbach went astray.
XV. Drs. Westcott and Hort have in fact outstripped their predecessors in this singular race. Their absolute contempt for the Traditional Text,—their superstitious veneration for a few ancient documents; (which documents however they freely confess are not more ancient than the “Traditional Text” which they despise;)—knows no bounds. But the thing just now to be attended to is the argumentative process whereby they seek to justify their preference.—Lachmann avowedly took his stand on a very few of the oldest known documents: and though Tregelles slightly enlarged the area of his predecessor's observations, his method was practically identical with that of Lachmann.—Tischendorf, appealing to every [pg 271] known authority, invariably shows himself regardless of the evidence he has himself accumulated. Where certain of the uncials are,—there his verdict is sure also to be.... Anything more unscientific, more unphilosophical, more transparently foolish than such a method, can scarcely be conceived: but it has prevailed for 50 years, and is now at last more hotly than ever advocated by Drs. Westcott and Hort. Only, (to their credit be it recorded,) they have had the sense to perceive that it must needs be recommended by Arguments of some sort, or else it will inevitably fall to pieces the first fine day any one is found to charge it, with the necessary knowledge of the subject, and with sufficient resoluteness of purpose, to make him a formidable foe.
XVI. Their expedient has been as follows.—Aware that the Received or Traditional Greek Text (to quote their own words,) “is virtually identical with that used by Chrysostom and other Antiochian Fathers in the latter part of the IVth century:” and fully alive to the fact that it “must therefore have been represented by Manuscripts as old as any which are now surviving” (Text, p. 547),—they have invented an extraordinary Hypothesis in order to account for its existence:—
They assume that the writings of Origen “establish the prior existence of at least three types of Text:”—the most clearly marked of which, they call the “Western:”—another, less prominent, they designate as “Alexandrian:”—the third holds (they say) a middle or “Neutral” position. (That all this is mere moonshine,—a day-dream and no more,—we shall insist, until some proofs have been produced that the respected Authors are moving amid material forms,—not discoursing with the creations of their own brain.) “The priority of two at least of these three Texts just noticed to the Syrian Text,” they are confident has been established by the eight “conflate” [pg 272] Syrian Readings which they flatter themselves they have already resolved into their “Western” and “Neutral” elements (Text, p. 547). This, however, is a part of the subject on which we venture to hope that our Readers by this time have formed a tolerably clear opinion for themselves. The ground has been cleared of the flimsy superstructure which these Critics have been 30 years in raising, ever since we blew away (pp. [258-65]) the airy foundation on which it rested.
At the end of some confident yet singularly hazy statements concerning the characteristics of “Western” (pp. 120-6), of “Neutral” (126-30), and of “Alexandrian” Readings (130-2), Dr. Hort favours us with the assurance that—
“The Syrian Text, to which the order of time now brings us,” “is the chief monument of a new period of textual history.”—(p. 132.)
“Now, the three great lines were brought together, and made to contribute to the formation of a new Text different from all.”—(p. 133.)
Let it only be carefully remembered that it is of something virtually identical with the Textus Receptus that we are just now reading an imaginary history, and it is presumed that the most careless will be made attentive.
“The Syrian Text must in fact be the result of a ‘Recension,’ ... performed deliberately by Editors, and not merely by Scribes.”—(Ibid.)
But why “must” it? Instead of “must in fact,” we are disposed to read “may—in fiction.” The learned Critic can but mean that, on comparing the Text of Fathers of the IVth century with the Text of cod. b, it becomes to himself self-evident that one of the two has been fabricated. Granted. Then,—Why should not the solitary Codex be the offending party? For what imaginable reason should cod. b,—which comes to us without a character, and which, when tried by [pg 273] the test of primitive Antiquity, stands convicted of “universa vitiositas,” (to use Tischendorf's expression);—why (we ask) should codex b be upheld “contra mundum”?... Dr. Hort proceeds—(still speaking of “the [imaginary] Syrian Text”),—