The Traditional Text of the Holy Gospels

by John William Burgon

Note, that Cureton and Lewis do the same: but then the Cureton stultifies itself by omitting from the introductory inquiry the underlined and clearly indispensable word,—“What good [thing] must I do?” The same peculiarity is exhibited by the Thebaic Version and by Cyril of Jer.[588] Now this is simply fatal to the testimony of Cureton's Syr. concerning “(II),”—seeing that, without it, the proposed reply cannot have been spoken.—It appears further that,

(c) Augustine, though he witnesses in favour of (II), yet witnesses against both (I) and (III):—and that,

(d) Hilary, though he witnesses in favour of (III), and yields uncertain testimony concerning (I), yet witnesses against (II):—and that,

(e) Justin M. (in one place) and the Marcosian and Naassene heretics, together with the Clementine homilies, though they witness in favour of (III), yet witness against (I) and (II):—and that,

(f) ps.-Dionysius, Eusebius, and Antiochus mon. (a.d. 614), though they witness in favour of (II), yet witness against (III).

(g) Cyril also, though he delivers uncertain testimony concerning (I) and (II), yet witnesses against (III).

The plain fact is that the place before us exhibits every chief characteristic of a clumsy fabrication. No sooner had it with perverse ingenuity been pieced together, than the process of disintegration set in. The spurious phrases τί με ἐρωτᾷς περὶ τοῦ ἀγαθοῦ, and εἶς ἐστιν ἀγαθός, having no lawful dwelling-place of their own, strayed out of the first Gospel into the third as soon as they were invented. Cureton in St. Luke xviii. 19 has both phrases, Lewis neither,—Marcion, in his heretical recension of St. Luke's Gospel (a.d. 150), besides the followers of Arius, adopt the latter[589]. “The key of the whole position,” as Scrivener points out, “is the epithet ‘good’ before ‘Master’ in ver. 16: for if this be genuine, the only pertinent answer is contained in the Received Text[590].” Precisely so: and it has been proved to be genuine by an amount of continuous attestation which is absolutely overwhelming. We just now analyzed the inconsistent testimony of sixteen ancient authorities; and found that only the two cursive copies favour the omission of ἀγαθέ, while nine of the oldest witnesses are for retaining it. Concerning the expression τί με ἐρωτᾷς περὶ τοῦ ἀγαθοῦ, these inconsistent witnesses are evenly divided,—seven being for it, seven against it. All, in fact, is error, [pg 272] confusion, discord, the instant we get outside the traditional text.

The reason of all this contrariety has been assigned already. Before Christianity was a hundred years old, two opposite evil influences were at work here: one, heretical—which resulted in (III): the other, orthodox,—which resulted in (II) and (I). These influences, proceeding from opposite camps, were the cause that copies got independently propagated of two archetypes. But the Church, in her corporate capacity, has declined to know anything of either. She has been careful all down the ages that the genuine reading shall be rehearsed in every assembly of the faithful on the 12th Sunday after Pentecost; and behold, at this hour it is attested by every copy in the world—except that little handful of fabricated documents, which it has been the craze of the last fifty years to cry up as the only authentic witnesses to the truth of Scripture, viz. Codd. BאDL and Origen. Now, as to the first two of these, Dr. Scrivener has pronounced[591] that (Bא), “subsequent investigations have brought to light so close a relation as to render it impossible to regard them as independent witnesses;” while every page of the Gospel bears emphatic witness to the fact that Codd. BאDL are, as has been said, the depositaries of a hopelessly depraved text.

But how about Origen? He, in a.d. 250, commenting on the present place of St. Matthew's Gospel, has a great deal to say concerning the grievously corrupt condition of the copies hereabouts. Now, the copies he speaks of must have been older, by at least 100 years, than either Cod. B or Cod. א. He makes this admission casually in the course of some remarks which afford a fair sample of his critical method and therefore deserve attention:—He infers from Rom. xiii. 9 that if the rich young ruler really did “love his [pg 273] neighbour as himself,” which, according to the three Evangelists, he virtually said he did[592], he was perfect[593]! Yet our Saviour's rejoinder to him is,—“If thou wilt be perfect,” go and do such and such things. Having thus invented a difficulty where none exists, Origen proposes, as a way out of it, to regard the precept (in St. Matt. xix. 20,—“Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself”) as an unauthorized accretion to the Text,—the work of some tasteless scribe[594]. The reasonableness of suspecting its genuineness (he says) is heightened by the fact that neither in St. Mark's nor yet in St. Luke's parallel narrative, are the words found about “loving one's neighbour as oneself.” As if that were not rather a reason for presuming it to be genuine! To be sure (proceeds Origen) it would be monstrous to regard these words, “Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself,” as an interpolation, were it not for the existence of so many other discrepancies hereabouts. The copies of St. Matthew are in fact all at strife among themselves. And so are the copies of the other Gospels. Vast indeed, and with this he concludes, is the discrepancy in St. Matthew[595]: whether it has proceeded from the carelessness of the scribes;—or from criminal audacity on the part of correctors of Scripture;—or whether, lastly, it has been the result of licentiousness on the part of those who, pretending to “correct” the text, have added or omitted according to their own individual caprice[596].

Now all this is very instructive. Here is the most famous Critic of antiquity estimating the genuineness of a clause in the Gospel, not by the amount of external attestation which it enjoys, but by his own self-evolved fancies concerning it. As a matter of fact, no extant copy, Father, or Version is without the clause under discussion. By proposing therefore that it shall be regarded as spurious, Origen does but convict himself of rashness and incompetency. But when this same Critic,—who, by his own shewing, has had the evil hap to alight on a collection of singularly corrupt documents,—proceeds to handle a text of Scripture which has demonstrably had a calamitous history from the first days of the Gospel until now;—two inconvenient questions force themselves on our attention:—The first,—What confidence can be reposed in his judgement? The second—What is there to conciliate our esteem for the particular Codex from which he happens to quote? On the other hand, the reader has been already shewn by a more open appeal to antiquity than has ever before been attempted, that the reading of St. Matt. xix. 16, 17 which is exclusively found in BאDL and the copy from which Origen quotes, is deficient in external attestation.