Before we take leave of the Old Uncials, it will be well to invite attention to a characteristic feature in them, which is just what the reader would expect who has attended to all that has been said, and which adds confirmation to the doctrine here propounded.
The clumsy and tasteless character of some at least of the Old Uncials has come already under observation. This was in great measure produced by constantly rubbing off delicate expressions which add both to the meaning and the symmetry of the Sacred Record. We proceed to give a few examples, not to prove our position, since it must surely be evident enough to the eyes of any accomplished scholar, but as specimens, and only specimens, of the loss which the Inspired Word would sustain if the Old Uncials were to be followed. Space will not admit of a full discussion of this matter.
An interesting refinement of expression, which has been hopelessly obscured through the proclivity of אBD to fall into error, is found in St. Matt. xxvi. 71. The Evangelist describing the second of St. Peter's denials notes that the [pg 191] damsel who saw him said to the bystanders, “This man too (καὶ) was with Jesus of Nazareth.” The three MSS. just mentioned omit the καὶ. No other MS., Uncial or Cursive, follows them. They have only the support of the unstable Sahidic[269]. The loss inflicted is patent: comment is needless.
Another instance, where poverty of meaning would be the obvious result if the acceptance by some critics of the lead of the same trio of Uncials were endorsed, may be found in the description of what the shepherds did when they had seen the Holy Child in the manger. Instead of “they made known abroad” (διεγνώρισαν), we should simply have “they made known” (ἐγνώρισαν). We are inclined to say, “Why this clipping and pruning to the manifest disadvantage of the sacred deposit.” Only the satellite L and Ξ and six Cursives with a single passage from Eusebius are on the same side. The rest in overwhelming majority condemn such rudeness[270].
§ 8.
The undoubtedly genuine expression καὶ τίς ἐστι, Κυριε (which is the traditional reading of St. John ix. 36), loses its characteristic ΚΑΙ in Cod. א*AL,—though it retains it in the rest of the uncials and in all the cursives. The καί is found in the Complutensian,—because the editors followed their copies: it is not found in the Textus Receptus only because Erasmus did not as in cases before mentioned follow his. The same refinement of expression recurs in the Traditional Text of ch. xiv. 22 (Κύριε, ΚΑῚ τί γέγονεν), [pg 192] and experienced precisely the same fate at the hands of the two earliest editors of the printed Greek Text. It is also again faithfully upheld in its integrity by the whole body of the cursives,—always excepting “33”. But (as before) in uncials of bad character, as BDL (even by AEX) the καί is omitted,—for which insufficient reason it has been omitted by the Revisers likewise,—notwithstanding the fact that it is maintained in all the other uncials. As is manifest in most of these instances, the Versions, being made into languages with other idioms than Greek, can bear no witness; and also that these delicate embellishments would be often brushed off in quotations, as well as by scribes and so-called correctors.
We have not far to look for other instances of this. St. Matthew (i. 18) begins his narrative,—μνηστευθείσης ΓᾺΡ τῆς μητρὸς αὐτοῦ Μαρίας τῷ Ἰωσήφ. Now, as readers of Greek are aware, the little untranslated (because untranslateable) word exhibited in capitals[271] stands with peculiar idiomatic force and propriety immediately after the first word of such a sentence as the foregoing, being employed in compliance with strictly classical usage[272]: and though it might easily come to be omitted through the carelessness or the licentiousness of copyists, yet it could not by any possibility have universally established itself in copies of the Gospel—as it has done—had it been an unauthorized accretion to the text. We find it recognized in St. Matt. i. 18 by Eusebius[273], by Basil[274], by Epiphanius[275], by Chrysostom[276], by Nestorius[277], by Cyril[278], by Andreas Cret.[279]: which is even extraordinary; for the γάρ is not at all required for purposes of quotation. But the essential circumstance as [pg 193] usual is, that γάρ is found besides in the whole body of the manuscripts. The only uncials in fact which omit the idiomatic particle are four of older date, viz. BאC*Z.
This same particle (γάρ) has led to an extraordinary amount of confusion in another place, where its idiomatic propriety has evidently been neither felt nor understood,—viz. in St. Luke xviii. 14. “This man” (says our Lord) “went down to his house justified rather than” (ἢ γάρ) “the other.” Scholars recognize here an exquisitely idiomatic expression, which in fact obtains so universally in the Traditional Text that its genuineness is altogether above suspicion. It is vouched for by 16 uncials headed by A, and by the cursives in the proportion of 500 to 1. The Complutensian has it, of course: and so would the Textus Receptus have it, if Erasmus had followed his MS.: but “praefero” (he says) “quod est usitatius apud probos autores.” Uncongenial as the expression is to the other languages of antiquity, ἢ γάρ is faithfully retained in the Gothic and in the Harkleian Version[280]. Partly however, because it is of very rare occurrence and was therefore not understood[281], and partly because when written in uncials it easily got perverted into something else, the expression has met with a strange fate. ΗΓΑΡ is found to have suggested, or else to have been mistaken for, both ΗπΕΡ[282] and ΥΠΕΡ[283]. The prevailing expedient however was, to get rid of the Η—to turn ΓΑΡ into ΠΑΡ,—and, for ἐκεῖνος to write ἐκεῖνον[284]. The [pg 194] uncials which exhibit this strange corruption of the text are exclusively that quaternion which have already come so often before us,—viz. BאDL. But D improves upon the blunder of its predecessors by writing, like a Targum, μᾶλλον ΓΑΡ᾽ αἰκεῖνον (sic), and by adding (with the Old Latin and the Peshitto) τὸν Φαρισαῖον,—an exhibition of the text which (it is needless to say) is perfectly unique[285].
And how has the place fared at the hands of some Textual critics? Lachmann and Tregelles (forsaken by Tischendorf) of course follow Codd. BאDL. The Revisers (with Dr. Hort)—not liking to follow BאDL, and unable to adopt the Traditional Text, suffer the reading of the Textus Receptus (ἢ ἐκεῖνος) to stand,—though a solitary cursive (Evan. 1) is all the manuscript authority that can be adduced in its favour. In effect, ἢ ἐκεῖνος may be said to be without manuscript authority[286].
The point to be noticed in all this is, that the true reading of St. Luke xviii. 14 has been faithfully retained by the MSS. in all countries and all down the ages, not only by the whole body of the cursives, but by every uncial in existence except four. And those four are BאDL.