In Hort’s 1881 Introduction, he proposed that the Syrian (Byzantine) Text is
derivative of the Alexandrian and Western text-types. He based his argument partly on conflations –
an argument which I addressed earlier this month – and partly on the
observation that Irenaeus, Hippolytus, Clement of Alexandria, Origen,
Tertullian, Cyprian, Methodius, and Eusebius of Caesarea do not support any
distinctly Byzantine readings: “Before the
middle of the third century, at the very earliest,” he wrote, “we have no
historical signs of the existence of readings, conflate or other, that are
marked as distinctively Syrian.”
That
statement is no longer true, thanks in part to the discovery of various papyrus
copies of books of the New Testament which contain distinctly Byzantine
readings. But before we look at those
readings, let’s look at a map of territory that was, at one time or another,
the territory of the Roman Empire . If we were to put a big umbrella over the headquarters
of Irenaeus (Lugdunum), Hippolytus
(Rome), Clement of Alexandria (Alexandria, of course), Origen (Alexandria and
Caesarea), Tertullian (Carthage), Cyprian (Carthage and Rome), Methodius
(Olympus, in Lycia), and Eusebius of Caesarea, and assume that all Christians
under those umbrellas in the 100s-200s used a text like the text of the writer
who worked in that area, does that leave any part of the Roman Empire
uncovered?
Headquarters of early patristic writers, and their vicinities. |
It
does. The evidence from these writers surely
has much to tell us about the text of the New Testament that circulated in the
areas where those writers worked and wrote, but it would be presumptive to
suppose that it can tell us much about the text elsewhere – an “elsewhere”
which includes Syria, Greece, Cyprus, Crete, Dalmatia, and five-sixths of
Turkey, including the destinations of all of Paul’s letters except Romans. Even when each location is extended very far
from each writer’s headquarters, the picture does not materially change.
A second
thing to consider: the extent to which a
specific writer quotes from a specific book. Clement of Alexandria , for example, hardly quotes the
Gospel of Mark at all, except from the tenth chapter. And according to a simple check of the
Scripture-index in Vol. 6 of the Ante-Nicene
Fathers, Methodius, the least famous member of this group of writers, uses
Acts twice. Who can say with confidence
that two quotations, both from the 28th chapter of a 28-chapter book,
can show us that Methodius’ copy of Acts did not have a Byzantine
character?
Headquarters of early patristic writers, and their vicinities' vicinities. |
Similarly,
Methodius uses Mark four times. Who can say that four quotations from Mark’s 16
chapters demonstrate that Methodius’ text of Mark did not have a Byzantine
character? Methodius does not quote
from 13 of Matthew’s 28 chapters; he does not quote from 15 of Luke’s 24
chapters, and he does not quote from nine of John’s 21 chapters – and his
quotations from chapters 2, 4, 9, 10, 12. and 16 are limited to a verse each. And (still relying on the ANF index) Methodius quotes from the General
Epistles a total of seven times. Who
wants to establish from seven assorted verses (most from First Peter) a picture
of the character of a 22-chapter segment of the text?
This is
not to say that the evidence from each of the other writers is as sporadic as
it is in the case of Methodius. But when
assessing the significance of the non-use of Byzantine readings by an author,
one should first establish the extent of the author’s quotations, and their
precision.
A third
thing to consider when asking how much this evidence can tell us: after an inventory has been made of a
patristic writer’s clear utilizations of New Testament passages, how much of
that is capable of displaying Byzantine or non-Byzantine character? For instance, Methodius uses John 1:18 near
the beginning of his composition On Free
Will, and one might hope to find there some evidence of whether his
manuscripts read “Son” or “God” in that verse, but he only speaks allusively
about raising a hymn to the holy Father, “glorifying in the Spirit Jesus, who
is in His bosom.” If one were to pick at random a verse from the
Gospels, Acts, or an Epistle, chances are less than 50% that the Byzantine form
of the verse is recognizably different from the Western and Alexandrian forms. (That is my general impression.) Where the text-types agree, even a clear quotation does not point to a specific form of the text.
Evidence of absence? Or an absence of evidence? |
A fourth
thing to consider, when asking how much this evidence can tell us, has to do
with the limitations of Latin: is a
specific quotation that has been preserved in Latin capable of displaying a
Byzantine reading in a form discernible from an Alexandrian or Western
rival? Irenaeus’ work is mainly
preserved in Latin. Tertullian and
Cyprian wrote in Latin. When the
difference between the Byzantine and Alexandrian and/or Western rivals is deep
and wide, surely the answer is “Yes,” but when things are more nuanced –
involving orthography, or the presence of an article, or a matter of word-order
– not so much.
And there
is a fifth factor to consider: the diversity
of readings that have been called Alexandrian or Western. When Irenaeus or Hippolytus or Clement of Alexandria or Origen or Tertullian
or Cyprian or Methodius or Eusebius clearly utilizes an identifiable
passage in the Gospels, and uses a reading that agrees with Byz and disagrees
with B and D, does Hort conclude that the writer has used a distinctively
Byzantine reading? Not so fast! For a reading to be distinctively Byzantine, it has to not only be unique from the
readings in the major Greek representatives of the Alexandrian and Western
text-types, but their minor representatives as well.
Thus a
lot depends on what the allies of Byzantine readings happen to be. For example, Tertullian (in On Baptism, ch. 5) supports the
inclusion of John 5:3-4. This reading is not supported by Sinaiticus, B, or
D. But because it is supported by
several Old Latin copies, it is counted as a Western reading. In addition, Sinaiticus and Vaticanus
frequently disagree with one another, but at points where one of them agrees with the Byzantine Text, that particular reading
is struck from the list of distinctively
Byzantine readings. Because of the
textual diversity of the Old Latin text(s), and the incessant disagreement of
the major Alexandrian witnesses, the Byzantine readings are told, “Be completely unique, or else you are either a Western reading or an Alexandrian reading” and thus have their work cut out for them. If one reading were considered the Western
reading, and one reading were
considered the Alexandrian reading, then Byzantine readings would often have
ancient allies.
So: while this part of Hort’s basis for positing that the
Byzantine Text is relatively late might initially look like a simple matter of
sifting through patristic writings and noticing that eight ante-Nicene writers
never use distinctively Byzantine readings, it is not really so simple. Hort’s approach raises four questions:
(1) Territory: Do these eight writers adequately represent the whole
(2) Abundance of Quotations: Does
each of these eight writers quote from the New Testament in sufficient
abundance to facilitate meaningful comparisons of the readings in their
manuscripts to the readings of different text-types?
(3) Precision of Quotations: Does
each of these eight writers quote from the New Testament with sufficient
precision to facilitate meaningful comparisons of the readings in their
manuscripts to the readings of different text-types?
(4) Versional Limits: In the case of Irenaeus, Tertullian, and
Cyprian, is the Latin text of their writings capable of displaying variations
between rival Greek readings?
(5) Levels
of Distinctiveness: when a patristic
writer appears to use a Byzantine reading, but the same reading is also found
in an early witness other than Sinaiticus, Vaticanus, or Bezae, is it plausible
to treat that reading as if it cannot be considered evidence for the Byzantine
Text on the grounds that it is not uniquely Byzantine?
Some of
these same considerations apply with similar force to the contents of early
papyri. Hort claimed that the early
patristic writings show that eight early patristic writers never used
distinctively Byzantine readings, but the significance of his claim shrinks and
shrinks the more one considers the limits of those writers’ territory, the
limits of the extent of their quotations, and the limits of the precision of
their quotations. Similarly, to the
extent that the provenance of our papyri can be established, they represent one
particular locale (Egypt ),
and most of them are very fragmentary. Yet
even with these limits, they contain some readings which agree with the
Byzantine Text, and disagree with the Alexandrian and Western readings as found
in Sinaiticus, Vaticanus, and Bezae. Such readings should not exist in a world in which uniquely Byzantine readings are all the result of a Lucianic recension, as Hort proposed.
Hort simply
could not write today what he wrote about unique Byzantine readings in 1881 –
at least, not without exposing his approach as biased against the Byzantine
Text. The papyri agree with the
Byzantine Text dozens of times against Alexandrian and Western rivals. If one were to argue that these are not distinctively
Byzantine readings (and thus not evidence of the early existence of the
Byzantine Text) because they were found embedded in non-Byzantine texts, then
one would have to face the question: if
the existence of early Byzantine readings do not demonstrate that the Byzantine
Text is early (at least regarding the books in which the readings occur), then how
can the early Byzantine Text be
shown to exist?
To reframe the
problem: if a Greek patristic writer in 230
quoted from Mark 5:42, 6:2, 6:45, 6:48, 6:50, 7:12, 7:30, 7:31, 7:32, 7:35, and
7:36, and in each case, he used a Byzantine reading that is not supported by Sinaiticus
or Vaticanus or Bezae, Hort would have a hard time proving that this is not
evidence that that writer used the Byzantine Text. Yet Papyrus 45 has such readings.
If one argues that that these distinctively Byzantine readings in Papyrus 45 do not
mean that the Byzantine Text of Mark is early, then one is essentially admitting
that Hort’s parameters really mean nothing:
he argued that the absence of distinctively Byzantine readings are
evidence that the Byzantine Text is late, but you would be saying that even the
presence of distinctively Byzantine readings proves nothing about the Byzantine
Text (except the obvious point that some early distinctively Byzantine readings are not the result of a Lucianic recension, which is no small point). But whoever would go that far, and still adhere to Hort’s transmission-model (even after admitting that at least some distinctively Byzantine readings are not the result of a Lucianic recension), would implicitly submit that there
is only one way to show that the Byzantine Text is early: for an early Byzantine manuscript (made before 300) to exist.
Only the climate in Egypt is conducive to the preservation of papyrus, so this sets a special hurdle for the Byzantine Text to surmount: if a manuscript with a thoroughly Byzantine form of the text were made in the 100s-200s, anywhere in Syria, Cilicia, Asia, Cappadocia, Pontus, Bithynia, Thrace, Cyprus, Crete, Achaia, Epirus, Macedonia, or Dalmatia, it could not survive unless it somehow traveled to Egypt.