(1) The impurity of the Texts exhibited by Codices b and א is not a matter of opinion, but a matter of fact.[740] These are [pg 316] two of the least trustworthy documents in existence. So far from allowing Dr. Hort's position that—“A Text formed” by “taking Codex b as the sole authority,” “would be incomparably nearer the Truth than a Text similarly taken from any other Greek or other single document” (p. 251),—we venture to assert that it would be, on the contrary, by far the foulest Text that had ever seen the light: worse, that is to say, even than the Text of Drs. Westcott and Hort. And that is saying a great deal. In the brave and faithful words [pg 317] of Prebendary Scrivener (Introduction, p. 453),—words which deserve to become famous,—
“It is no less true to fact than paradoxical in sound, that the worst corruptions to which the New Testament has ever been subjected, originated within a hundred years after it was composed: that Irenæus [a.d. 150], and the African Fathers, 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.”
And Codices b and א are, demonstrably, nothing else but specimens of the depraved class thus characterized.
Next—(2), We assert that, so manifest are the disfigurements jointly and exclusively exhibited by codices b and א,[741] [pg 318] that instead of accepting these codices as two “independent” Witnesses to the inspired Original, we are constrained to regard them as little more than a single reproduction of one and the same scandalously corrupt and (comparatively) late Copy. By consequence, we consider their joint and exclusive attestation of any particular reading, “an unique criterion” of its worthlessness; a sufficient reason—not for adopting, but—for unceremoniously rejecting it.
Then—(3), As for the origin of these two curiosities, it can perforce only be divined from their contents. That they exhibit fabricated Texts is demonstrable. No amount of honest copying,—persevered in for any number of centuries,—could by possibility have resulted in two such documents. Separated from one another in actual date by 50, perhaps by 100 years,[742] they must needs have branched off from a common corrupt ancestor, and straightway become exposed continuously to fresh depraving influences. The result is, that codex א, (which evidently has gone through more adventures and fallen into worse company than his rival,) has been corrupted to a far graver extent than codex b, and is [pg 319] even more untrustworthy. Thus, whereas (in the Gospels alone) b has 589 Readings quite peculiar to itself, affecting 858 words,—א has 1460 such Readings, affecting 2640 words.
One solid fact like the preceding, (let it be pointed out in passing,) is more helpful by far to one who would form a correct estimate of the value of a Codex, than any number of such “reckless and unverified assertions,” not to say peremptory and baseless decrees, as abound in the highly imaginative pages of Drs. Westcott and Hort.
(4) Lastly,—We suspect that these two Manuscripts are indebted for their preservation, solely to their ascertained evil character; which has occasioned that the one eventually found its way, four centuries ago, to a forgotten shelf in the Vatican library: while the other, after exercising the ingenuity of several generations of critical Correctors, eventually (viz. in a.d. 1844[743]) got deposited in the waste-paper basket of the Convent at the foot of Mount Sinai. Had b and א been copies of average purity, they must long since have shared the inevitable fate of books which are freely used and highly prized; namely, they would have fallen into decadence and disappeared from sight. But in the meantime, behold, their very Antiquity has come to be reckoned to their advantage; and (strange to relate) is even considered to constitute a sufficient reason why they should enjoy not merely extraordinary consideration, but the actual surrender of the critical judgment. Since 1831, Editors have vied with one another in the fulsomeness of the homage they have paid to these “two false Witnesses,”—for such b and א are, as the concurrent testimony of Copies, Fathers and Versions abundantly proves. Even superstitious reverence has been claimed [pg 320] for these two codices: and Drs. Westcott and Hort are so far in advance of their predecessors in the servility of their blind adulation, that they must be allowed to have easily won the race.
LIV. With this,—so far as the Greek Text under review is concerned,—we might, were we so minded, reasonably make an end. We undertook to show that Drs. Westcott and Hort, in the volumes before us, have built up an utterly worthless Textual fabric; and we consider that we have already sufficiently shown it. The Theory,—the Hypothesis rather, on which their Text is founded, we have demonstrated to be simply absurd. Remove that hypothesis, and a heap of unsightly ruins is all that is left behind,—except indeed astonishment (not unmingled with concern) at the simplicity of its accomplished Authors.
Here then, we might leave off. But we are unwilling so to leave the matter. Large consideration is due to ordinary English Readers; who must perforce look on with utter perplexity—not to say distress—at the strange spectacle presented by that Text (which is in the main the Text of the Revised English Version) on the one hand,—and this Review of it, on the other:—
(1) “And pray, which of you am I to believe?”—will inevitably be, in homely English, the exclamation with which not a few will lay down the present number of the “Quarterly.” “I pretend to no learning. I am not prepared to argue the question with you. But surely, the oldest Manuscript must be the purest! It even stands to reason: does it not?—Then further, I admit that you seem to have the best of the argument so far; yet, since the three most famous Editors of modern times are against you,—Lachmann, [pg 321] Tregelles, Tischendorf,—excuse me if I suspect that you must be in the wrong, after all.”