Yes, the Nemesis of Superstition and Idolatry is ever the same. General mistrust of all evidence is the sure result. In 1870, Drs. Westcott and Hort solemnly assured their [pg 351] brother-Revisionists that “the prevalent assumption that throughout the N. T. the true Text is to be found somewhere among recorded Readings, does not stand the test of experience.” They are evidently still haunted by the same spectral suspicion. They invent a ghost to be exorcised in every dark corner. Accordingly, Dr. Hort favours us with a chapter on the Art of “removing Corruptions of the sacred Text antecedent to extant documents” (p. 71). We are not surprised (though we are a little amused) to hear that,—
“The Art of Conjectural Emendation depends for its success so much on personal endowments, fertility of resource in the first instance, and even more an appreciation of language too delicate to acquiesce in merely plausible corrections, that it is easy to forget its true character as a critical operation founded on knowledge and method.”—(p. 71.)
LXXIV. Very “easy,” certainly. One sample of Dr. Hort's skill in this department, (it occurs at page 135 of his Notes on Select Readings,) shall be cited in illustration. We venture to commend it to the attention of our Readers:—
(a) S. Paul [2 Tim. i. 13] exhorts Timothy, (whom he had set as Bp. over the Church of Ephesus,) to “hold fast” a certain “form” or “pattern” (ὑποτύπωσιν) “of sound words, which” (said he) “thou hast heard of me.” The flexibility and delicate precision of the Greek language enables the Apostle to indicate exactly what was the prime object of his solicitude. It proves to have been the safety of the very words which he had syllabled, (ὑγιαινόντων λόγων ὯΝ παρ᾽ ἐμοῦ ἤκουσασ). As learned Bp. Beveridge well points out,—“which words, not which form, thou hast heard of me. So that it is not so much the form, as the words themselves, which the Apostle would have him to hold fast.”[789]
All this however proves abhorrent to Dr. Hort. “This sense” (says the learned Professor) “cannot be obtained from the text except by treating ὧν as put in the genitive by an unusual and inexplicable attraction. It seems more probable that ὧν is a primitive corruption of ὅν after πάντων.”
Now, this is quite impossible, since neither ὅν nor πάντων occurs anywhere in the neighbourhood. And as for the supposed “unusual and inexplicable attraction,” it happens to be one of even common occurrence,—as every attentive reader of the New Testament is aware. Examples of it may be seen at 2 Cor. i. 4 and Ephes. iv. 1,—also (in Dr. Hort's text of) Ephes. i. 6 (ἧς in all 3 places). Again, in S. Luke v. 9 (whether ᾗ or ὧν is read): and vi. 38 (ῷ):—in S. Jo. xv. 20 (οὗ):—and xvii. 11 (ᾧ): in Acts ii. 22 (οἷς): vii. 17 (ἧς) and 45 (ὧν): in xxii. 15 (ὧν),&c.... But why entertain the question? There is absolutely no room for such Criticism in respect of a reading which is found in every known MS.,—in every known Version,—in every Father who quotes the place: a reading which Divines, and Scholars who were not Divines,—Critics of the Text, and grammarians who were without prepossessions concerning Scripture,—Editors of the Greek and Translators of the Greek into other languages,—all alike have acquiesced in, from the beginning until now.
We venture to assert that it is absolutely unlawful, in the entire absence of evidence, to call such a reading as the present in question. There is absolutely no safeguard for Scripture—no limit to Controversy—if a place like this may be solicited at the mere suggestion of individual caprice. (For it is worth observing that on this, and similar occasions, Dr. Hort is forsaken by Dr. Westcott. Such notes are enclosed in brackets, and subscribed “H.”) In the meantime, who can forbear smiling at the self-complacency of a Critic who [pg 353] puts forth remarks like those which precede; and yet congratulates himself on “personal endowments, fertility of resource, and a too delicate appreciation of language”?
(b) Another specimen of conjectural extravagance occurs at S. John vi. 4, where Dr. Hort labours to throw suspicion on “the Passover” (τὸ πάσχα),—in defiance of every known Manuscript,—every known Version,—and every Father who quotes or recognizes the place.[790] We find nine columns devoted to his vindication of this weak imagination; although so partial are his Notes, that countless “various Readings” of great interest and importance are left wholly undiscussed. Nay, sometimes entire Epistles are dismissed with a single weak annotation (e.g. 1 and 2 Thessalonians),—or with none, as in the case of the Epistle to the Philippians.
(c) We charitably presume that it is in order to make amends for having conjecturally thrust out τὸ πάσχα from S. John vi. 4,—that Dr. Hort is for conjecturally thrusting into Acts xx. 28, Υἱοῦ (after τοῦ ἰδίου),—an imagination to which he devotes a column and-a-half, but for which he is not able to produce a particle of evidence. It would result in our reading, “to feed the Church of God, which He purchased”—(not “with His own blood,” but)—“with the blood of His own Son:” which has evidently been suggested by nothing so much as by the supposed necessity of getting rid of a text which unequivocally asserts that Christ is God.[791]
LXXV. Some will be chiefly struck by the conceit and presumption of such suggestions as the foregoing. A yet larger number, as we believe, will be astonished by their essential foolishness. For ourselves, what surprises us most is the fatal misapprehension they evince of the true office of Textual Criticism as applied to the New Testament. It never is to invent new Readings, but only to adjudicate between existing and conflicting ones. He who seeks to thrust out “the Passover” from S. John vi. 4, (where it may on no account be dispensed with[792]); and to thrust “the Son” into Acts xx. 28, (where His Name cannot stand without evacuating a grand Theological statement);—will do well to consider whether he does not bring himself directly under the awful malediction with which the beloved Disciple concludes and seals up the Canon of Scripture:—“I testify unto every man that heareth the words of the prophecy of this Book,—If any man shall add unto these things, God shall add unto him the plagues that are written in this Book. And if any man shall take away from the words of the Book of this prophecy, God shall take away his part out of the Book of Life, and out of the holy City, and from the things which are written in this Book.”[793]