The Traditional Text of the Holy Gospels

by John William Burgon

The parts of it to which I refer are in substance briefly the following:

“The text found in the mass of existing MSS. does not date further back than the middle of the fourth century. Before that text was made up, other forms of text were in vogue, which may be termed respectively Neutral, Western, and Alexandrian. The text first mentioned arose in Syria and more particularly at Antioch. Originally there had been in Syria an Old-Syriac, which after Cureton is to be identified with the Curetonian. In the third century, about 250 a.d., ‘an authoritative revision, accepted by Syriac Christendom,’ was made, of which the locality would be either Edessa or Nisibis, or else Antioch itself. ‘This revision was grounded probably upon an authoritative revision at Antioch’ (p. 137) of the Greek texts which called for such a recension on account of their ‘growing diversity and confusion.’ Besides these two, a second revision of the Greek texts, or a third counting the Syriac revision, similarly authoritative, was completed at Antioch ‘by 350 or thereabouts’; but what was now ‘the Vulgate Syriac’ text, that is the Peshitto, did not again undergo any corresponding revision. From the last Greek revision [pg 092] issued a text which was afterwards carried to Constantinople—‘Antioch being the true ecclesiastical parent of Constantinople’—and thenceforward became the Text dominant in Christendom till the present century. Nevertheless, it is not the true Text, for that is the ‘Neutral’ text, and it may be called ‘Syrian.’ Accordingly, in investigations into the character and form of the true Text, ‘Syrian’ readings are to be ‘rejected at once, as proved to have a relatively late origin.’ ”

A few words will make it evident to unprejudiced judges that Dr. Hort has given himself away in this part of his theory.

1. The criticism of the Canon and language of the Books of the New Testament is but the discovery and the application of the record of Testimony borne in history to those books or to that language. For a proof of this position as regards the Canon, it is sufficient to refer to Bishop Westcott's admirable discussion upon the Canon of the New Testament. And as with the Books generally, so with the details of those Books—their paragraphs, their sentences, their clauses, their phrases, and their words. To put this dictum into other terms:—The Church, all down the ages, since the issue of the original autographs, has left in Copies or in Versions or in Fathers manifold witness to the books composed and to the words written. Dr. Hort has had the unwisdom from his point of view to present us with some fifteen centuries, and—I must in duty say it—the audacity to label those fifteen centuries of Church Life with the title “Syrian,” which as used by him I will not characterize, for he has made it amongst his followers a password to contemptuous neglect. Yet those fifteen centuries involve everything. They commenced when the Church was freeing herself from heresy and formulating her Faith. They advanced amidst the most sedulous care of Holy Scripture. They implied a consentient record from [pg 093] the first, except where ignorance, or inaccuracy, or carelessness, or heresy, prevailed. And was not Dr. Hort aware, and do not his adherents at the present day know, that Church Life means nothing arbitrary, but all that is soundest and wisest and most complete in evidence, and most large-minded in conclusions? Above all, did he fancy, and do his followers imagine, that the Holy Ghost who inspired the New Testament could have let the true Text of it drop into obscurity during fifteen centuries of its life, and that a deep and wide and full investigation (which by their premisses they will not admit) must issue in the proof that under His care the Word of God has been preserved all through the ages in due integrity?—This admission alone when stripped of its disguise, is plainly fatal to Dr. Hort's theory.

2. Again, in order to prop up his contention, Dr. Hort is obliged to conjure up the shadows of two or three “phantom revisions,” of which no recorded evidence exists[115]. We must never forget that subjective theory or individual speculation are valueless, when they do not agree with facts, except as failures leading to some better system. But Dr. Hort, as soon as he found that he could not maintain his ground with history as it was, instead of taking back his theory and altering it to square with facts, tampered with historical facts in order to make them agree with his theory. This is self-evident: no one has been able to adduce, during the quarter of a century that has elapsed since Dr. Hort published his book, passages to shew that Dr. Hort was right, and that his supposed revisions really took place. The acute calculations of Adams and Leverrier would have been very soon forgotten, if Neptune had not appeared to vindicate their correctness.

But I shall not leave matters here, though it is evident [pg 094] that Dr. Hort is confuted out of his own mouth. The fifteen centuries of dominant evidence, which he admits to have been on our side, involve the other centuries that had passed previously, because the Catholic Church of Christ is ever consistent with itself, and are thus virtually decisive of the controversy; besides the collapse of his theory when superimposed upon the facts of history and found not to coincide with them. I proceed to prove from the surviving records of the first three or four centuries, during the long period that elapsed between the copying of the Vatican and Sinaitic MSS. and the days of the Evangelists, that the evidence of Versions and Fathers is on our side.

And first of the Fathers.

§ 2. Testimony of the Ante-Chrysostom Writers.

No one, I believe, has till now made a systematic examination of the quotations occurring in the writings of the Fathers who died before a.d. 400 and in public documents written prior to that date. The consequence is that many statements have been promulgated respecting them which are inconsistent with the facts of the case. Dr. Hort, as I shall shew, has offended more than once in this respect. The invaluable Indexes drawn up by Dean Burgon and those who assisted him, which are of the utmost avail in any exhaustive examination of Patristic evidence upon any given text, are in this respect of little use, the question here being, What is the testimony of all the Fathers in the first four centuries, and of every separate Father, as to the MSS. used by them or him, upon the controversy waged between the maintainers of the Traditional Text on the one side, and on the other the defenders of the Neologian Texts? The groundwork of such an [pg 095] examination evidently lies not in separate passages of the Gospels, but in the series of quotations from them found in the works of the collective or individual Fathers of the period under consideration.

I must here guard myself. In order to examine the text of any separate passage, the treatment must be exhaustive, and no evidence if possible should be left out. The present question is of a different kind. Dr. Hort states that the Traditional Text, or as he calls it “the Syrian,” does not go back to the earliest times, that is as he says, not before the middle of the fourth century. In proving my position that it can be traced to the very first, it would be amply sufficient if I could shew that the evidence is half on our side and half on the other. It is really found to be much more favourable to us. We fully admit that corruption prevailed from the very first[116]: and so, we do not demand as much as our adversaries require for their justification. At all events the question is of a general character, and does not depend upon a little more evidence or a little less. And the argument is secondary in its nature: it relates to the principles of the evidence, not directly to the establishment of any particular reading. It need not fail therefore if it is not entirely exhaustive, provided that it gives a just and fair representation of the whole case. Nevertheless, I have endeavoured to make it exhaustive as far as my power would admit, having gone over the whole field a second time, and having employed all the care in either scrutiny that I could command.