If this clause has been interpolated into St. Matthew's Gospel, how will you possibly account for its presence in every MS. in the world except 7, viz. 5 uncials and 2 cursives? It is pretended that it crept in by assimilation from the parallel place in St. Mark. But I reply,—
1. Is this credible? Do you not see the glaring improbability of such an hypothesis? Why should the Gospel most in vogue have been assimilated in all the Copies but seven to the Gospel least familiarly known and read in the Churches?
2. And pray when is it pretended that this wholesale falsification of the MSS. took place? The Peshitto Syriac as usual sides with the bulk of the Cursives: but it has been shewn to be of the second century. Some of the Latin Copies also have the clause. Codex C, Chrysostom and Basil of Seleucia also exhibit it. Surely the preponderance of the evidence is overwhelmingly one way. But then
3. As a matter of fact the clause cannot have come [pg 211] in from St. Mark's Gospel,—for the very conclusive reason that the two places are delicately discriminated,—as on the testimony of the Cursives and the Peshitto has been shewn already. And
4. I take upon myself to declare without fear of contradiction on the part of any but the advocates of the popular theory that, on the contrary, it is St. Matthew's Gospel which has been corrupted from St. Mark's. A conclusive note of the assimilating process is discernible in St. Mark's Gospel where ἢ has intruded,—not in St. Matthew's.
5. Why St. Matthew's Gospel was maimed in this place, I am not able to explain. Demonstrable it is that the Text of the Gospels at that early period underwent a process of Revision at the hands of men who apparently were as little aware of the foolishness as of the sinfulness of all they did: and that Mutilation was their favourite method. And, what is very remarkable, the same kind of infatuation which is observed to attend the commission of crime, and often leads to its detection, is largely recognizable here. But the Eye which never sleeps has watched over the Deposit, and provided Himself with witnesses.
§ 5.
Singular to relate, the circumstances under which Simon and Andrew, James and John were on the last occasion called to Apostleship (St. Matt. iv. 17-22: St. Mark i. 14-20: St. Luke v. 1-11) have never yet been explained[321]. The facts were as follows.
It was morning on the Sea of Galilee. Two boats were [pg 212] moored to the shore. The fishermen having “toiled all the night and taken nothing[322],‘—’were gone out of them and had washed out (ἀπέπλυναν) their nets (τὰ δίκτυα)[323].” But though fishing in deep water had proved a failure, they knew that by wading into the shallows, they might even now employ a casting-net with advantage. Accordingly it was thus that our Saviour, coming by at this very juncture, beheld Simon and Andrew employed (βάλλοντας ἀμφίβληστρον)[324]. Thereupon, entering Simon's boat, “He prayed him that he would thrust out a little from the land[325].” The rest requires no explanation.
Now, it is plain that the key which unlocks this interesting story is the graphic precision of the compound verb employed, and the well-known usage of the language which gives to the aorist tense on such occasions as the present a pluperfect signification[326]. The Translators of 1611, not understanding the incident, were content, as Tyndale, following the Vulgate[327], had been before them, to render ἀπέπλυναν τὰ δίκτυα,—“were washing their nets.” Of this rendering, so long as the Greek was let alone, no serious harm could come. The Revisers of 1881, however, by not only retaining the incorrect translation “were washing their nets,” but, by making the Greek tally with the English—by substituting in short ἔπλυνον for ἀπέπλυναν,—have so effectually darkened the Truth as to make it simply irrecoverable by ordinary students. The only point in the meantime to which the reader's attention is just now invited is this:—that the compound verb in the aorist tense (ἀπέπλυναν) has been retained by the whole body of the Cursives, as transmitted all down the ages: while the [pg 213] barbarous ἔπλυνον is only found at this day in the two corrupt uncials BD[328] and a single cursive (Evan. 91)[329].