[The Dean left positive instructions for the publication of this Dissertation, as being finished for Press.]
I propose next to call attention to the omission from St. Luke xxiv. 42 of a precious incident in the history of our Lord's Resurrection. It was in order effectually to convince the Disciples that it was Himself, in His human body, who stood before them in the upper chamber on the evening of the first Easter Day, that He inquired, [ver. 41] “Have ye here any meat? [ver. 42] and they gave Him a piece of a broiled fish, and of an honeycomb.” But those four last words (καὶ ἀπὸ μελισσίου κηρίου) because they are not found in six copies of the Gospel, are by Westcott and Hort ejected from the text. Calamitous to relate, the Revisers of 1881 were by those critics persuaded to exclude them also. How do men suppose that such a clause as that established itself universally in the sacred text, if it be spurious? “How do you suppose,” I shall be asked in reply, “if it be genuine, that such a clause became omitted from any manuscript at all?”
I answer,—The omission is due to the prevalence in the earliest age of fabricated exhibitions of the Gospel narrative; in which, singular to relate, the incident recorded in St. Luke xxiv. 41-43 was identified with that other mysterious repast which St. John describes in his last chapter[405]. [pg 241] It seems incredible, at first sight, that an attempt would ever be made to establish an enforced harmony between incidents exhibiting so many points of marked contrast: for St. Luke speaks of (1) “broiled fish [ἰχθύος ὀπτοῦ] and honeycomb,” (2) which “they gave Him,” (3) “and He did eat” (4) on the first Easter Day, (5) at evening, (6) in a chamber, (7) at Jerusalem:—whereas St. John specifies (1) “bread, and fish [ὀψάριον] likewise,” (2) which He gave them, (3) and of which it is not related that Himself partook. (4) The occasion was subsequent: (5) the time, early morning: (6) the scene, the sea-shore: (7) the country, Galilee.
Let it be candidly admitted on the other hand, in the way of excuse for those ancient men, that “broiled fish” was common to both repasts; that they both belong to the period subsequent to the Resurrection: that the same parties, our Lord namely and His Apostles, were concerned in either transaction; and that both are prefaced by similar words of inquiry. Waiving this, it is a plain fact that Eusebius in his 9th Canon, makes the two incidents parallel; numbering St. Luke (xxix. 41-3), § 341; and St. John (xxi. 9, 10, 12, first half, and 13), severally §§ 221, 223, 225. The Syriac sections which have hitherto escaped the attention of critical scholars[406] are yet more precise. Let the intention of their venerable compiler—whoever he may have been—be exhibited in full. It has never been done before:—
The intention of all this is unmistakable. The places are deliberately identified. But the mischief is of much older date than the Eusebian Canons, and must have been derived in the first instance from a distinct source. Eusebius, as he himself informs us, did but follow in the wake of others. Should the Diatessaron cf Ammonius or that of Tatian ever be recovered, a flood of light will for the first time be poured over a department of evidence where at present we must be content to grope our way[407].
But another element of confusion I suspect is derived from that lost Commentary on the Song of Solomon in which Origen is said to have surpassed himself[408]. Certain of the ancients insist on discovering in St. Luke xxiv. 42 the literal fulfilment of the Greek version of Cant. v. 1, “I ate my bread with honey.” Cyril of Jerusalem remarks that those words of the spouse “were fulfilled” when “they gave Him a piece of a broiled fish and of an honeycomb[409]”: while Gregory Nyss. points out (alluding to the same place) that “the true Bread,” when He appeared to His Disciples, “was by honeycomb made sweet[410].” Little did those [pg 243] Fathers imagine the perplexity which at the end of 15 centuries their fervid and sometimes fanciful references to Scripture would occasion!
I proceed to shew how inveterately the ancients have confused these two narratives, or rather these two distinct occasions. “Who knows not,” asks Epiphanius, “that our Saviour ate, after His Resurrection from the dead? As the holy Gospels of Truth have it, ‘There was given unto Him’ [which is a reference to St. Luke], ‘bread and part of a broiled fish.’ [but it is St. John who mentions the bread];—‘and He took and ate’ [but only according to St. Luke], ‘and gave to His disciples,’ [but only according to St. John. And yet the reference must be to St. Luke's narrative, for Epiphanius straightway adds,] ‘as He also did at the sea of Tiberias; both eating,’ [although no eating on His part is recorded concerning that meal,] ‘and distributing[411].’ ” Ephraem Syrus makes the same mis-statement. “If He was not flesh,” he asks, “who was it, at the sea of Tiberias, who ate[412]?” “While Peter is fishing,” says Hesychius[413], (with plain reference to the narrative in St. John), “behold in the Lord's hands bread and honeycomb[414]”: where the “honeycomb” has clearly lost its way, and has thrust out the “fish.” Epiphanius elsewhere even more fatally confuses the two incidents. “Jesus” (he says) “on a second occasion after His Resurrection ate both a piece of a broiled fish and some honeycomb[415].” One would have set this down to sheer inadvertence, but that [pg 244] Jerome circumstantially makes the self-same assertion:—“In John we read that while the Apostles were fishing, He stood upon the shore, and ate part of a broiled fish and honeycomb. At Jerusalem He is not related to have done anything of the kind[416].” From whom can Jerome have derived that wild statement[417]? It is certainly not his own. It occurs in his letter to Hedibia where he is clearly a translator only[418]. In another place, Jerome says, “He sought fish broiled upon the coals, in order to confirm the faith of His doubting Apostles, who were afraid to approach Him, because they thought they saw a spirit,—not a solid body[419]”: which is a mixing up of St. John's narrative with that of St Luke. Clemens Alex., in a passage which has hitherto escaped notice, deliberately affirms that “the Lord blessed the loaves and the broiled fishes with which He feasted His Disciples[420].” Where did he find that piece of information?
One thing more in connexion with the “broiled fish and honeycomb.” Athanasius—and Cyril Alex.[421] after him—rehearse the incident with entire accuracy; but Athanasius adds the apocryphal statement that “He took what remained over, and gave it unto them[422]”: which tasteless appendix is found besides in Cureton's Syriac [not in the Lewis],—in the Bohairic, Harkleian, Armenian, and Ethiopic Versions; and must once have prevailed to a formidable extent, for [pg 245] it has even established itself in the Vulgate[423]. It is witnessed to, besides, by two ninth-century uncials (ΚΠ) and ten cursive copies[424]. The thoughtful reader will say to himself,—“Had only Cod. B joined itself to this formidable conspiracy of primitive witnesses, we should have had this also thrust upon us by the new school as indubitable Gospel: and remonstrances would have been in vain!”
Now, as all must see, it is simply incredible that these many Fathers, had they employed honestly-made copies of St. Luke's and of St. John's Gospel, could have fallen into such frequent and such strange misrepresentations of what those Evangelists actually say. From some fabricated Gospel—from some “Diatessaron” or “Life of Christ,” once famous in the Church, long since utterly forgotten,—from some unauthentic narrative of our Saviour's Death and Resurrection, I say, these several depravations of the sacred story must needs have been imported into St. Luke's Gospel. And lo, out of all that farrago, the only manuscript traces which survive at this distant day, are found in the notorious B-א, with A, D, L, and Π,—one copy each of the Old Latin (e) and the Bohairic [and the Lewis],—which exclusively enjoy the unenviable distinction of omitting the incident of the “honeycomb”: while the confessedly spurious appendix, “He gave them what remained over,” enjoys a far more ancient, more varied, and more respectable attestation,—and yet has found favour with no single Editor of the Sacred Text: no, nor have our Revisers seen fit by a marginal note to apprize the ordinary English reader that “many uncial authorities” are disfigured in this particular way. With this latter accretion to the inspired verity, therefore, we need not delay ourselves: but that, so [pg 246] many disturbing influences having resulted, at the end of seventeen centuries, in the elimination of the clause καὶ ἀπὸ μελισσίου κηρίου from six corrupt copies of St. Luke's Gospel,—a fixed determination or a blundering tendency should now be exhibited to mutilate the Evangelical narrative in respect of the incident which those four words embody,—this may well create anxiety. It makes critical inquiry an imperative duty: not indeed for our own satisfaction, but for that of others.