The Traditional Text of the Holy Gospels

by John William Burgon

Only let us clearly understand what principle is to guide us, in order that we may know how we are to proceed. Is it to be assumed, for instance, that Antiquity is to decide this matter? by which is meant only this,—That, of two or more conflicting readings, that shall be deemed the true reading which is observed to occur in the oldest known document. Is that to be our fundamental principle? Are we, in other words, to put up with the transparent fallacy that the oldest reading must of necessity be found in the oldest document? Well, if we have made up our minds [pg 042] that such is to be our method, then let us proceed to construct our text chiefly by the aid of the Old Latin and Peshitto Versions,—the oldest authorities extant of a continuous text: and certainly, wherever these are observed to agree in respect of any given reading, let us hear nothing about the conflicting testimony of א or B, which are of the fourth century; of D, which is of the sixth; of L, which is of the eighth.

But if our adversaries shift their ground, disliking to be “hoist with their own petard,” and if such a solution standing alone does not commend itself to our own taste, we must ask, What is meant by Antiquity?

For myself, if I must assign a definite period, I am disposed to say the first six or seven centuries of our era. But I observe that those who have preceded me in these inquiries draw the line at an earlier period. Lachmann fixes a.d. 400: Tregelles (ever illogical) gives the beginning of the seventh century: Westcott and Hort, before the close of the fourth century. In this absence of agreement, it is found to be both the safest and the wisest course to avoid drawing any hard and fast line, and in fact any line at all. Antiquity is a comparative term. What is ancient is not only older than what is modern, but when constantly applied to the continuous lapse of ages includes considerations of what is more or less ancient. Codex E is ancient compared with Codex L: Cod. A compared with Cod. E: Cod. א compared with Cod. A: Cod. B though in a much lesser degree compared with Cod. א: the Old Latin and Peshitto Versions compared with Cod. B: Clemens Romanus compared with either. If we had the copy of the Gospels which belonged to Ignatius, I suppose we should by common consent insist on following it almost implicitly. It certainly would be of overwhelming authority. Its decrees would be only not decisive. [This is, I think, too strong: there might be mistakes even in that.—E. M.] [pg 043] Therefore by Antiquity as a principle involving more or less authority must be meant the greater age of the earlier Copies, Versions, or Fathers. That which is older will possess more authority than that which is more recent: but age will not confer any exclusive, or indeed paramount, power of decision. Antiquity is one Note of Truth: but even if it is divorced from the arbitrary selection of Authorities which has regulated too much the employment of it in Textual Criticism, it cannot be said to cover the whole ground.

§ 2. Number.

We must proceed now to consider the other Notes, or Tests: and the next is Number.

1. That “witnesses are to be weighed—not counted,”—is a maxim of which we hear constantly. It may be said to embody much fundamental fallacy.

2. It assumes that the “witnesses” we possess,—meaning thereby every single Codex, Version, Father—, (1) are capable of being weighed: and (2) that every individual Critic is competent to weigh them: neither of which propositions is true.

3. In the very form of the maxim,—“Not to be counted—but to be weighed,”—the undeniable fact is overlooked that “number” is the most ordinary ingredient of weight, and indeed in matters of human testimony, is an element which even cannot be cast away. Ask one of Her Majesty's Judges if it be not so. Ten witnesses (suppose) are called in to give evidence: of whom one resolutely contradicts what is solemnly deposed to by the other nine. Which of the two parties do we suppose the Judge will be inclined to believe?

4. But it may be urged—would not the discovery of the one original autograph of the Gospels exceed in “weight” any “number” of copies which can be named? No doubt [pg 044] it would, I answer. But only because it would be the original document, and not “a copy” at all: not “a witness” to the fact, but the very fact itself. It would be as if in the midst of a trial,—turning, suppose, on the history of the will of some testator—, the dead man himself were to step into Court, and proclaim what had actually taken place. Yet the laws of Evidence would remain unchanged: and in the very next trial which came on, if one or two witnesses out of as many hundred were to claim that their evidence should be held to outweigh that of all the rest, they would be required to establish the reasonableness of their claim to the satisfaction of the Judge: or they must submit to the inevitable consequence of being left in an inconsiderable minority.

5. Number then constitutes Weight, or in other words,—since I have used “Weight” here in a more general sense than usual,—is a Note of Truth. Not of course absolutely, as being the sole Test, but caeteris paribus, and in its own place and proportion. And this, happily, our opponents freely admit: so freely in fact, that my only wonder is that they do not discover their own inconsistency.