The Traditional Text of the Holy Gospels

by John William Burgon

The Dean. Excuse me, I forget no such thing; and for a very good reason, because such Recensions never occurred. Why, there is not a trace of them in history: it is a mere dream of Dr. Hort: they must be “phantom recensions,” as Dr. Scrivener terms them. The Church of the time was not so unconscious of such matters as Dr. Hort imagines. Supposing for a moment that such Recensions, took place, they must have been either merely local occurrences, in which case after a controversy on which history is silent they would have been inevitably rejected by the other Churches in Christendom; or they must have been general operations of the Universal Church, and then inasmuch as [pg 080] they would have been sealed with the concurrence of fifteen centuries, I can hardly conceive greater condemnations of B and א. Besides, how could a text which has been in fact Universal be “Syrian”? We are on terra firma, let me remind you, not in the clouds. The undisputed action of fifteen centuries is not to be set aside by a nickname.

B. S. But there is another way of describing the process of change which may have occurred in the reverse direction to that which you advocate. Expressions which had been introduced in different groups of readings were combined by “Conflation” into a more diffuse and weaker passage. Thus in St. Mark vi. 33, the two clauses καὶ προῆλθον αὐτούς, καὶ συνῆλθον αὐτοῦ, are made into one conflate passage, of which the last clause is “otiose” after συνέδραμον ἐκεῖ occurring immediately before[89].

The Dean. Excuse me, but I entirely disagree with you. The whole passage appears to me to savour of the simplicity of early narratives. Take for example the well-known words in Gen. xii. 5, “and they went forth to go into the land of Canaan; and into the land of Canaan they came[90].” A clumsy criticism, bereft of any fine appreciation of times and habits unlike the present, might I suppose attempt to remove the latter clause from that place as being “otiose.” But besides, your explanation entirely breaks down when it is applied to other instances. How could conflation, or mixture, account for occurrence of the last cry in St. Mark xv. 39, or of vv. 43-44 in St. Luke xxii describing the Agony and Bloody Sweat, or of the first Word from the Cross in St. Luke xxiii. 34, or of the descending angel and the working of the cure in St. John v. 3-4, or of St. Peter's visit to the sepulchre in St. Luke xxiv. 12, or what would be the foisting of verses or passages of different lengths into [pg 081] the numerous and similar places that I might easily adduce? If these were all transcribed from some previous text into which they had been interpolated, they would only thrust the difficulty further back. How did they come there? The clipped text of B and א—so to call it—could not have been the source of them. If they were interpolated by scribes or revisers, the interpolations are so good that, at least in many cases, they must have shared inspiration with the Evangelists. Contrast, for example, the real interpolations of D and the Curetonian. It is at the least demonstrated that that hypothesis requires another source of the Traditional Text, and this is the argument now insisted on. On the contrary, if you will discard your reverse process, and for “Conflation” will substitute “Omission” through carelessness, or ignorance of Greek, or misplaced assiduity, or heretical bias, or through some of the other causes which I shall explain later on, all will be as plain and easy as possible. Do you not see that? No explanation can stand which does not account for all the instances existing. Conflation or mixture is utterly incapable of meeting the larger number of cases. But you will find before this treatise is ended that various methods will be described herein with care, and traced in their actual operation, under which debased texts of various kinds were produced from the Traditional Text.

B. S. I see that there is much probability in what you say: but I retain still some lingering doubt.

The Dean. That doubt, I think, will be removed by the next point which I will now endeavour to elucidate. You must know that there is no agreement amongst the allies, except so far as the denial of truth is concerned. As soon as the battle is over, they at once turn their arms against one another. Now it is a phenomenon full of suggestion, that such a Concordia discors is conspicuous amongst B and א and their associates. Indeed these two Codexes are [pg 082] individually at variance with themselves, since each of them has undergone later correction, and in fact no less than eleven hands from first to last have been at work on א, which has been corrected and re-corrected backwards and forwards like the faulty document that it is. This by the way, but as to the continual quarrels of these dissentients[91], which are patent when an attempt is made to ascertain how far they agree amongst themselves, I must request your attention to a few points and passages[92].

§ 2. St. John v. 4.

When it is abruptly stated that אBCD—four out of “the five old uncials”—omit from the text of St. John's Gospel the account of the angel descending into the pool and troubling the water,—it is straightway supposed that the genuineness of St. John v. 4 must be surrendered. But this is not at all the way to settle questions of this kind. Let the witnesses be called in afresh and examined.

Now I submit that since these four witnesses omitting A, (besides a multitude of lesser discrepancies,) are unable to agree among themselves whether “there was at Jerusalem a sheep-pool” (א), or “a pool at the sheep-gate”: whether it was “surnamed” (BC), or “named” (D), or neither (א):—which appellation, out of thirty which have been proposed for this pool, they will adopt,—seeing that [pg 083] C is for “Bethesda”; B for “Bethsaida”; א for “Bethzatha”; D for “Belzetha”:—whether or no the crowd was great, of which they all know nothing,—and whether some were “paralytics,”—a fact which was evidently revealed only to D:—to say nothing of the vagaries of construction discoverable in verses 11 and 12:—when, you see, at last these four witnesses conspire to suppress the fact that an Angel went down into the pool to trouble the water;—this concord of theirs derives suggestive illustration from their conspicuous discord. Since, I say, there is so much discrepancy hereabouts in B and א and their two associates on this occasion, nothing short of unanimity in respect of the thirty-two contested words—five in verse 3, and twenty-seven in verse 4—would free their evidence from suspicion. But here we make the notable discovery that only three of them omit all the words in question, and that the second Corrector of C replaces them in that manuscript. D retains the first five, and surrenders the last twenty-seven: in this step D is contradicted by another of the “Old Uncials,” A, whose first reading retains the last twenty-seven, and surrenders the first five. Even their satellite L forsakes them, except so far as to follow the first hand of A. Only five Cursives have been led astray, and they exhibit strikingly this Concordia discors. One (157) follows the extreme members of the loving company throughout. Two (18, 314) imitate A and L: and two more (33, 134) have the advantage of D for their leader. When witnesses prevaricate so hopelessly, how far can you believe them?

Now—to turn for a moment to the other side—this is a matter on which the translations and such Fathers as quote the passage are able to render just as good evidence as the Greek copies: and it is found that the Peshitto, most of the Old Latin, as well as the Vulgate and the Jerusalem, with Tertullian, Ammonius, Hilary, Ephraem [pg 084] the Syrian, Ambrose (two), Didymus, Chrysostom (eight), Nilus (four), Jerome, Cyril of Alexandria (five), Augustine (two), and Theodorus Studita, besides the rest of the Uncials[93], and the Cursives[94], with the slight exception already mentioned, are opposed to the Old Uncials[95].

Let me next remind you of a remarkable instance of this inconsistency which I have already described in my book on The Revision Revised (pp. 34-36). “The five Old Uncials” (אABCD) falsify the Lord's Prayer as given by St. Luke in no less than forty-five words. But so little do they agree among themselves, that they throw themselves into six different combinations in their departures from the Traditional Text; and yet they are never able to agree among themselves as to one single various reading: while only once are more than two of them observed to stand together, and their grand point of union is no less than an omission of the article. Such is their eccentric tendency, that in respect of thirty-two out of the whole forty-five words they bear in turn solitary evidence.