The Dean. Thank you for a most just reproof. Let us only proceed in the same spirit to the end, and we shall arrive at important results. Kindly explain yourself therefore in your own way.
B. S. I meant to say that because it is a reasonable presumption that the oldest Codexes will prove the purest, therefore Bא—being the oldest Codexes of the Gospels—may reasonably be expected to be the best.
The Dean. So far happily we are agreed. You mean, I presume, that inasmuch as it is an admitted principle that the stream is purest at its source, the antiquity of B and א creates a reasonable presumption in their favour. Is that what you mean?
B. S. Something of the kind, no doubt. You may go on.
The Dean. Yes, but it would be a great satisfaction to me to know for certain, whether you actually do, or actually do not mean what I suppose:—viz., to apply the principle, id verum esse quod primum, I take you to mean that in B and א we have the nearest approach to the autographs of the Evangelists, and that therefore in them we have the best evidence that is at present within reach of what those autographs actually were. I will now go on as you bid me. And I take leave to point out to you, that it is high time that we should have the facts of the case definitely before us, and that we should keep them steadily [pg 071] in view throughout our subsequent discussion. Now all critics are agreed, that B and א were not written earlier than about 340, or say before 330 a.d. You will admit that, I suppose?
B. S. I have no reason to doubt it.
The Dean. There was therefore an interval of not far short of three hundred years between the writing of the original autographs and the copying of the Gospels in B and א[73]. Those two oldest Codexes, or the earliest of them, are thus found to be separated by nearly three centuries from the original writings,—or to speak more accurately,—by about two centuries and three-quarters from three of the great autographs, and by about 250 years from the fourth. Therefore these MSS. cannot be said to be so closely connected with the original autographs as to be entitled to decide about disputed passages what they were or were not. Corruption largely infected the several writings[74], as I shall shew at some length in some subsequent chapters, during the great interval to which I have alluded.
B. S. But I am surprised to hear you say this. You must surely recollect that B and א were derived from one and the same archetype, and that that archetype was produced “in the early part of the second century if not earlier[75],” and was very close to the autographs, and that they must be accordingly accurate transcripts of the autographs, and—
The Dean. I must really pray you to pause:—you have left facts far behind, and have mounted into cloudland. I must beg you not to let slip from your mind, that we start with a fact, so far as it can be ascertained, viz. the production of B and א, about the middle of the fourth [pg 072] century. You have advanced from that fact to what is only a probable opinion, in which however I am agreed with you, viz. that B and א are derived from one and the same older manuscript. Together therefore, I pray you will not forget, they only count nearly as one. But as to the age of that archetype—forgive me for saying, that—unintentionally no doubt but none the less really—you have taken a most audacious leap. May I ask, however, whether you can quote any ancient authority for the date which you have affixed?
B. S. I cannot recollect one at the present moment.