The Traditional Text of the Holy Gospels

by John William Burgon

But why, it will be asked, may it not be the genuine article? Why may not the “Traditional Text” be the fabrication?

1. The burden of proof, we reply, rests with our opponents. The consent without concert of (suppose) 990 out of 1000 copies,—of every date from the fifth to the fourteenth century, and belonging to every region of ancient Christendom,—is a colossal fact not to be set aside by any amount of ingenuity. A predilection for two fourth-century manuscripts closely resembling one another, yet standing apart in every page so seriously that it is easier to find two consecutive verses in which they differ than two consecutive verses in which they entirely agree:—such [pg 034] a preference, I say, apart from abundant or even definitely clear proof that it is well founded, is surely not entitled to be accepted as conclusive.

2. Next,—Because,—although for convenience we have hitherto spoken of Codexes BאDL as exhibiting a single text,—it is in reality not one text but fragments of many, which are to be met with in the little handful of authorities enumerated above. Their witness does not agree together. The Traditional Text, on the contrary, is unmistakably one.

3. Further,—Because it is extremely improbable, if not impossible, that the Traditional Text was or could have been derived from such a document as the archetype of B-א: whereas the converse operation is at once obvious and easy. There is no difficulty in producing a short text by omission of words, or clauses, or verses, from a fuller text: but the fuller text could not have been produced from the shorter by any development which would be possible under the facts of the case[21]. Glosses would account for changes in the archetype of B-א, but not conversely[22].

4. But the chief reason is,—Because, on making our appeal unreservedly to Antiquity—to Versions and Fathers as well as copies,—the result is unequivocal. The Traditional Text becomes triumphantly established,—the eccentricities of BאD and their colleagues become one and all emphatically condemned.

All these, in the mean time, are points concerning which something has been said already, and more will have to be said in the sequel. Returning now to the phenomenon adverted to at the outset, we desire to explain that whereas “Various Readings,” properly so called, that is to say, the Readings which possess really strong attestation—for more than nineteen-twentieths of the “Various Readings” commonly quoted are only the vagaries of scribes, and ought not to be called “Readings” at all—do not require classification into groups, as Griesbach and Hort have classified them; “Corrupt Readings,” if they are to be intelligently handled, must by all means be distributed under distinct heads, as will be done in the Second Part of this work.

III. “It is not at all our design” (remarks Dr. Scrivener) “to seek our readings from the later uncials, supported as they usually are by the mass of cursive manuscripts; but to employ their confessedly secondary evidence in those numberless instances wherein their elder brethren are hopelessly at variance[23].” From which it is plain that in this excellent writer's opinion, the truth of Scripture is to be sought in the first instance at the hands of the older uncials: that only when these yield conflicting testimony may we resort to the “confessedly secondary evidence” of the later uncials: and that only so may we proceed to inquire for the testimony of the great mass of the cursive copies. It is not difficult to foresee what would be the result of such a method of procedure.

I venture therefore respectfully but firmly to demur to the spirit of my learned friend's remarks on the present, and on many similar occasions. His language is calculated to countenance the popular belief (1) That the authority of an uncial codex, because it is an uncial, is necessarily greater than that of a codex written in the cursive character: an imagination which upon proof I hold to be groundless. [pg 036] Between the text of the later uncials and the text of the cursive copies, I fail to detect any separative difference: certainly no such difference as would induce me to assign the palm to the former. It will be shewn later on in this treatise, that it is a pure assumption to take for granted, or to infer, that cursive copies were all descended from the uncials. New discoveries in palaeography have ruled that error to be out of court.

But (2) especially do I demur to the popular notion, to which I regret to find that Dr. Scrivener lends his powerful sanction, that the text of Scripture is to be sought in the first instance in the oldest of the uncials. I venture to express my astonishment that so learned and thoughtful a man should not have seen that before certain “elder brethren” are erected into a supreme court of judicature, some other token of fitness besides that of age must be produced on their behalf. Whence, I can but ask—, whence is it that no one has yet been at the pains to establish the contradictory of the following proposition, viz. that Codexes BאCD are the several depositaries of a fabricated and depraved text: and that BאD, for C is a palimpsest, i.e., has had the works of Ephraem the Syrian written over it as if it were of no use, are probably indebted for their very preservation solely to the fact that they were anciently recognized as untrustworthy documents? Do men indeed find it impossible to realize the notion that there must have existed such things as refuse copies in the fourth, fifth, sixth, and seventh centuries as well as in the eighth, ninth, tenth, and eleventh? and that the Codexes which we call BאCD may possibly, if not as I hold probably, have been of that class[24]?

Now I submit that it is a sufficient condemnation of [pg 037] Codd. BאCD as a supreme court of judicature (1) That as a rule they are observed to be discordant in their judgements: (2) That when they thus differ among themselves it is generally demonstrable by an appeal to antiquity that the two principal judges B and א have delivered a mistaken judgement: (3) That when these two differ one from the other, the supreme judge B is often in the wrong: and lastly (4) That it constantly happens that all four agree, and yet all four are in error.