Q. R. “To answer that question fully would require a considerable Treatise. I will not, however, withhold a slight outline of what I conceive to be the only safe method of procedure. I could but fill up that outline, and illustrate that method, even if I had 500 pages at my disposal.
LVIII. “On first seriously applying ourselves to these studies, many years ago, we found it wondrous difficult to divest ourselves of prepossessions very like your own. Turn which way we would, we were encountered by the same confident terminology:—‘the best documents,’—‘primary manuscripts,’—‘first-rate authorities,’—‘primitive evidence,’—‘ancient readings,’—and so forth: and we found that thereby cod. a. or b,—cod. c or d—were invariably and exclusively meant. It was not until we had laboriously collated these documents (including א) for ourselves, that we became aware of their true character. Long before coming to the end of our task (and it occupied us, off and on, for eight years) we had become convinced that the supposed ‘best documents’ and ‘first-rate authorities’ are in reality among the worst:—that these Copies deserve to be called ‘primary,’ only because in any enumeration of manuscripts, they stand foremost;—and that their ‘Evidence,’ whether ‘primitive’ or not, is contradictory throughout.—All Readings, lastly, we discovered are ‘ancient.’
“A diligent inspection of a vast number of later Copies scattered throughout the principal libraries of Europe, and the exact Collation of a few, further convinced us that the deference generally claimed for b, א, c, d is nothing else but a weak superstition and a vulgar error:—that the date of a MS. is not of its essence, but is a mere accident of the problem:—and that later Copies, so far from ‘crumbling down salient points, softening irregularities, conforming [pg 338] differences,’[765] and so forth,—on countless occasions, and as a rule,—preserve those delicate lineaments and minute refinements which the ‘old uncials’ are constantly observed to obliterate. And so, rising to a systematic survey of the entire field of Evidence, we found reason to suspect more and more the soundness of the conclusions at which Lachmann, Tregelles, and Tischendorf had arrived: while we seemed led, as if by the hand, to discern plain indications of the existence for ourselves of a far ‘more excellent way.’
LIX. “For, let the ample and highly complex provision which Divine Wisdom hath made for the effectual conservation of that crowning master-piece of His own creative skill,—The Written Word,—be duly considered; and surely a recoil is inevitable from the strange perversity which in these last days would shut us up within the limits of a very few documents to the neglect of all the rest,—as though a revelation from Heaven had proclaimed that the Truth is to be found exclusively in them. The good Providence of the Author of Scripture is discovered to have furnished His household, the Church, with (speaking roughly) 1000 copies of the Gospels:—with twenty Versions—two of which go back to the beginning of Christianity: and with the writings of a host of ancient Fathers. Why out of those 1000 MSS. two should be singled out by Drs. Westcott and Hort for special favour,—to the practical disregard of all the rest: why Versions and Fathers should by them be similarly dealt with,—should be practically set aside in fact in the lump,—we fail to discover. Certainly the pleas urged by the learned Editors[766] can appear satisfactory to no one but to themselves.
LX. “For our method then,—It is the direct contradictory to that adopted by the two Cambridge Professors. Moreover, [pg 339] it conducts us throughout to directly opposite results. We hold it to be even axiomatic that a Reading which is supported by only one document,—out of the 1100 (more or less) already specified,—whether that solitary unit be a Father, a Version, or a Copy,—stands self-condemned; may be dismissed at once, without concern or enquiry.
“Nor is the case materially altered if (as generally happens) a few colleagues of bad character are observed to side with the else solitary document. Associated with the corrupt b, is often found the more corrupt א. Nay, six leaves of א are confidently declared by Tischendorf to have been written by the scribe of b. The sympathy between these two, and the Version of Lower Egypt, is even notorious. That Origen should sometimes join the conspiracy,—and that the same Reading should find allies in certain copies of the unrevised Latin, or perhaps in Cureton's Syriac:—all this we deem the reverse of encouraging. The attesting witnesses are, in our account, of so suspicious a character, that the Reading cannot be allowed. On such occasions, we are reminded that there is truth in Dr. Hort's dictum concerning the importance of noting the tendency of certain documents to fall into ‘groups:’ though his assertion that ‘it cannot be too often repeated that the study of grouping is the foundation of all enduring Criticism,’[767] we hold to be as absurd as it is untrue.
LXI. “So far negatively.—A safer, the only trustworthy method, in fact, of ascertaining the Truth of Scripture, we hold to be the method which,—without prejudice or partiality,—simply ascertains which form of the text enjoys the earliest, the fullest, the widest, the most respectable, and—above all things—the most varied attestation. That a Reading should be freely recognized alike by the earliest [pg 340] and by the latest available evidence,—we hold to be a prime circumstance in its favour. That Copies, Versions, and Fathers, should all three concur in sanctioning it,—we hold to be even more conclusive. If several Fathers, living in different parts of ancient Christendom, are all observed to recognize the words, or to quote them in the same way,—we have met with all the additional confirmation we ordinarily require. Let it only be further discoverable how or why the rival Reading came into existence, and our confidence becomes absolute.
LXII. “An instance which we furnished in detail in a former article,[768] may be conveniently appealed to in illustration of what goes before. Our Lord's ‘Agony and bloody sweat,’—first mentioned by Justin Martyr (a.d. 150), is found set down in every MS. in the world except four. It is duly exhibited by every known Version. It is recognized by upwards of forty famous Fathers writing without concert in remote parts of ancient Christendom. Whether therefore Antiquity,—Variety of testimony,—Respectability of witnesses,—or Number,—is considered, the evidence in favour of S. Luke xxii. 43, 44 is simply overwhelming. And yet out of superstitious deference to two Copies of bad character, Drs. Westcott and Hort (followed by the Revisionists) set the brand of spuriousness on those 26 precious words; professing themselves ‘morally certain’ that this is nothing else but a ‘Western Interpolation:’ whereas, mistaken zeal for the honour of Incarnate Jehovah alone occasioned the suppression of these two verses in a few early manuscripts. This has been explained already,—namely, in the middle of page [82].
LXIII. “Only one other instance shall be cited. The traditional reading of S. Luke ii. 14 is vouched for by every [pg 341] known copy of the Gospels but four—3 of which are of extremely bad character, viz. א b d. The Versions are divided: but not the Fathers: of whom more than forty-seven from every part of ancient Christendom,—(Syria, Palestine, Alexandria, Asia Minor, Cyprus, Crete, Gaul,)—come back to attest that the traditional reading (as usual) is the true one. Yet such is the infatuation of the new school, that Drs. Westcott and Hort are content to make nonsense of the Angelic Hymn on the night of the Nativity, rather than admit the possibility of complicity in error in א b d: error in respect of a single letter!... The Reader is invited to refer to what has already been offered on this subject, from p. [41] to p. 47.
LXIV. “It will be perceived therefore that the method we plead for consists merely in a loyal recognition of the whole of the Evidence: setting off one authority against another, laboriously and impartially; and adjudicating fairly between them all. Even so hopelessly corrupt a document as Clement of Alexandria's copy of the Gospels proves to have been—(described at pp. [326-31])—is by no means without critical value. Servilely followed, it would confessedly land us in hopeless error: but, judiciously employed, as a set-off against other evidence; regarded rather as a check upon the exorbitances of other foul documents, (e.g. b א c and especially d); resorted to as a protection against the prejudice and caprice of modern Critics;—that venerable document, with all its faults, proves invaluable. Thus, in spite of its own aberrations, it witnesses to the truth of the Traditional Text of S. Mark x. 17-31—(the place of Scripture above referred to[769])—in several important particulars; siding with it against Lachmann, 9 times;—against Tischendorf, 10 times;—against Tregelles, 11 times;—against Westcott and Hort, 12 times.