Scrivener: On the Principles of Comparative Criticism, Part 1 (1858)

      The following is an extract from F.H.A. Scrivenener's 1858/59 "Contributions to the Criticism of the Greek New Testament," which appeared as the Introduction to an Edition of the Codex Augiensis and 50 Other Manuscripts.  Only a few years later, Scrivener's work was eclipsed by the publication of Codex Sinaiticus, but there is much in his observations that remains relevant to the field of NTTC to this day.

     I have added a few notes for the sake of clarifying the meaning of some obscure words and references, and inserted his footnotes adjacent to his main comments, but for the most part Scrivener's comments are unchanged from the form in which they initially appeared.

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The term “Comparative Criticism” has been happily applied to that delicate and important process of investigation whereby we seek to trace the relative value and mutual connection of the authorities upon which the Greek Text of the New Testament is based, whether they be manuscripts of the original, early versions, or citations by the Christian Fathers.  Our accurate acquaintance with these authorities is very limited, much that we know about them being due to the exertions of scholars yet living.  Yet we are sufficiently aware of the extent of the subject,¹ and the minute and perplexing inquiries which beset the Biblical student at every step, not to seize with hearty welcome any clue that may promise to guide us through a labyrinth thus dark and doubtful.  To this natural feeling, far more than to any external evidence or internal probability of the theories themselves, I would ascribe the favor extended to the schemes of recension promulgated by Griesbach and his imitators in the last generation.  Men wished such compendious methods of settling the sacred text to be true, and as demonstrated truths they accordingly accepted them.  These systems, bold, ingenious, imposing, but utterly groundless, I have elsewhere discussed at length (Collation of the Holy Gospels, Introd. Chap. 1); it were needless to revert to them, for I believe that no one at the present day seriously entertains any one of them.  

[1 – I can hardly estimate the number of copies containing the Gospels alone (including Evangelistaria) to be much under a thousand, nineteen-twentieths of which are for critical purposes as good as uncollated.]  

     As Griesbach’s scheme and its subsequent modifications were gradually abandoned by critics, a more simple, but (I am persuaded) a no less mistaken theory grew up in its place, which, under the seemly profession of recurring to ancient authorities alone for the remodeling of the text, deliberately refuses so much as to hearken to the testimony of the vast majority of documents that freely offer themselves to the researches of patient industry.  This certainly appears a short and easy road to Scriptural science, but, like some other short routes, it may prove the longest in the end: yet it is recommended to us by names I cannot mention without deference and respect.  The countenance which Dr. Davidson lends to this principle is neither unreserved, nor supported by arguments he can well deem conclusive.  

     Tischendorf practically adopted it in his earlier works, but even then made concessions amounting to nearly all a discreet adversary would be disposed to claim: in Dr. Tregelles, however, it finds an advocate learned, able, uncompromising.¹  [1 – I refer to Dr. Davidson’s “Treatise on Biblical Criticism,” Vol. II. 1852; Tischendorf’s Prolegomena to his manual Greek Testament, Lips. 1849; and Tregelles’ “Account of the Printed Text of the Greek New Testament,” 1854.  These three works I shall cite throughout the present chapter, simply by the page affixed to their authors’ names.]     In my endeavor to refute what I conceive to be erroneous in his views on this subject, I trust I shall not be betrayed into one expression that may give him pain.  I honor the devotion and singleness of purpose he has brought to bear on these divine pursuits; I am sure that his edition of the New Testament by reason of the large accession it will make to our existing store of critical materials, and of its great accuracy so far as it has yet been tested, will possess, when completed,² what he modestly hopes for it:  “distinctive value to the Biblical student.”  I am not the less earnest in hailing the fruits of his long and persevering toil, because I fear that, as a clergyman of the English Church, I differ from him on matters of even more consideration than systems of Comparative Criticism.

 

[2 – At present (July 1858) but one part of this laborious Work has issued from the press, for the use of Subscribers only.  It contains the Gospels of St Matthew and St. Mark.]

 

 

PART 1

 

     For Dr. Davidson a short notice will suffice. In his chapter (an excellent one on the whole) entitled “General Observations on MSS,” he tells us that “The first thing is to collate the oldest thoroughly and accurately, publishing the text in facsimile or otherwise, so that they need not be re-examined.  All the rest, or the great mass of juniors, may be dispensed with.  They are scarcely needed, because the uncials are numerous.  At present they do nothing but hinder the advancement of critical science, by drawing off to them time and attention which might be better devoted to older documents.” (Davidson, p. 328, etc.)  He then states (I am not concerned to say how truly) that Scholz, from attempting too much, accomplished little, and adds, “Critics have discovered a better way than Scholz’s diffuse perfunctory method.”  No profound discovery surely; that it is better to do a little well than much carelessly is an axiom tolerably familiar to most of us. Yet why must what is done well be of necessity but little? 

     Dr. Davidson’s judgment, with regard to the order in which the work should be executed, must be assented to by every reasonable person.  Of course there is a presumption beforehand that the older MSS written in uncial characters will prove of more weight than comparatively modern copies in cursive letters: the rule of common sense is to examine first what promises the most richly to reward our pains. Yet has not this been done?

     Which of the uncial codices of the Greek Testament not previously published in full, has escaped the unwearied zeal of Tischendorf on the continent, of Tregelles at home?  I really know of none, except those printed in my present and former volume, and four Evangelistaria in England (Barocc. 202, Canonici Graeci, 85 and 92 in the Bodleian, and Wheeler 3 at Lincoln College), and perhaps a few abroad.  Now respecting Evangelistaria and Lectionaries, Dr. Davidson holds that “till the ancient codices are collated and applied, it were better not to meddle with them.  They must have been oftener copied, and therefore are more liable to errors of transcription.”  I may question alike his fact, his inference and his conclusion on this point, yet at any rate we have here a reason, satisfactory to himself, why the whole process of collation should not be suspended till a few Evangelistaria shall be examined, hardly any of which date higher than the tenth century.

     But the mass of juniors, he tells us, are scarcely needed, “because the uncials are numerous.”  On a first perusal I was fairly at a loss to account for such a statement from so well-informed a source.  At length I came to recollect that “numerous,” like some others, is only a relative term, conveying to different minds widely different ideas.  One person will think it a “long distance” from London to Lancashire; another uses the same expression when speaking of the space between this earth and 61 Cygni, some sixty-three billions [i.e., trillions - JSJ] of miles.  We shall therefore best see Dr. Davidson’s meaning when we come to simple numbers.   

     In the Apocalypse the uncial MSS are three:  one of first-rate consequence, complete and well-known (A), another very ancient and well-known, but a mere heap of fragments (C), and the third of late date, hastily collated, and now virtually inaccessible (B).  These, I conceive, are not so “numerous” as to tempt us to dispense with further information, when we fortunately have it within our reach.  In the case of the Acts and Epistles matters are not much better. In the Acts, three MSS are very old (ABC); the last of them is a fragment: two incomplete (DE) exceedingly precious, but not so early; one (F^a) a fragment containing just seven verses; one (I) of 42 verses; two (GH) imperfect copies of the ninth century; in all nine.  

     In the Catholic Epistles we find four entire MSS, one fragment.  The list for the Pauline Epistles is nominally thirteen; from which deduct E a mere transcript of D, make allowance for the intimate connection subsisting between F and G, and reckon several as mere fragments, three of but a few passages (F^aIL): not one of the thirteen is complete.

     Dr. Davidson will probably tell us that he used the term “numerous” with reference to the uncial MSS of the Gospels; if so the fact should be stated, lest we be induced to throw aside the cursive copies of other parts of the New Testament as if they might be “dispensed with.”  Yet I really know not that his case is materially strengthened even in the Gospels. True, the list of uncials is formidable enough at a rapid glance.  Tischendorf’s catalogue (N. T. 7th edition, 1856) extends to thirty-two.  Let us briefly analyze its contents.

     In the first place we notice ten which consist of only a few leaves, some of but a few verses (F^aJNOR¹TWY¹ΘΛ): they are beyond all price as specimens of the state of the text at periods varying from the sixth to the tenth century, yet I doubt whether all put together contain as much matter as St. Luke’s Gospel.  PQZ exhibit larger fragments, Z indeed a considerable portion of the single Gospel of St. Matthew: these three may contain about as much as the sum of the other ten.  The Nitrian palimpsest R consists of fragments of St Luke on 45 leaves; the two Bodleian MSS Γ and Λ are considerable, and between them contain about as much matter as one complete copy (see Tischendorf, Anecdota Sacra et Profana, pp. 4-6).  Then we must in fairness deduct six, which, being not earlier and some of them decidedly later than the tenth century (GHMSUX), are entitled to no more weight than many “junior copies" of the same age.  This observation applies, though with diminished force to five (FKVΓΔ) ascribed to the ninth, and even to three (ELΛ) of about the eighth century.  There will then remain but the four primary authorities ABCD, of which B alone is complete, A and C being seriously mutilated. I cannot imagine that many will judge this apparatus criticus so comprehensive, as to render further investigation superfluous.

     Notwithstanding the sentiments on which I have commented, it would be wrong to regard Dr. Davidson as a willing advocate for the suppression of all manuscript evidence not written in uncial letters.  I shall presently have occasion to confirm my own argument by statements of his respecting the importance of the cursive or later codices, quite as full as anything I could hope to say.  The fact is that Davidson, himself no mean example of the dignity of intellectual toil, despairs of a thorough collation of all existing materials from the languid students of our age.  “It is sufficient for one man to collate well several important documents, whether they be versions, MSS, or patristic citations.  It exhausts his patience and energy.” (Davidson, p. 105).  So discouraging a representation of energy and patience exhausted by a few slight efforts cannot, must not, be true of the younger school of Biblical critics in our two great Universities; I will leave Dr. Dobbin, the editor of the Codex Montfortianus, to speak for that of Dublin.  These men will not surely much longer suffer the manuscript treasures of their public libraries to lie neglected or unapplied. The very repulsiveness of this task, at its first aspect, is to the earnest student only one reason the more for prosecuting it with ever-growing interest;

Et non sentitur SEDULITATE labor.

 

To be continued in PART TWO

Meet Codex Boernerianus (012)

            Two months ago (April 2018) we met Codex Sangallensis (a.k.a. Codex Δ (Delta), or 037), an important manuscript of the Gospels, in which the Greek text is accompanied by an interlinear Latin translation.  (This Latin text is known as VL (Vetus Latina) 77.)  Today, let’s get to know Codex Δ’s sibling:  Codex Boernerianus (a.k.a. Codex G^p or 012), made in the 800s.  It is a copy of the Epistles of Paul (not including Hebrews), and is named after the German scholar Christian Frederick Boerner (1685-1753), who loaned it to his contemporary Richard Bentley.  It has been cited in compilations of the Greek New Testament ever since the 1752 edition by Johann Jakob Wettstein.    

 

Romans 12:7-16 in Codex 012,
with verse-numbers superimposed,
and unusual readings framed
(Yellow:  12:11)  (Orange: 12:14)

           Codex 012 was probably a companion-volume of Codex 037; they are very similar in size and format.  The text of 012 is not quite complete.  It is missing some portions – Romans 1:1-4, Romans 2:17-24, Romans 14:24-36 (as presented in the usual Byzantine Text), First Corinthians 3:8-16, First Corinthians 6:7-14, Colossians 2:1-8, and the last five verses of Philemon.  In each case, the copyist perceived that his exemplar was defective, and left memorial-space to convey that there should be additional text where the page on which he wrote was blank.   

            Photographs of 012 were made in 1909, and that was a fortunate event, because a few decades later in 1945, during World War II, the manuscript was severely damaged when the city of Dresden (where it was kept) was bombed.  The photographs of the pages from 1909 can be viewed online at the website of the Saxon State and University Library at Dresden. (The book-by-book index, though all in German, is easy to understand.)  All of the 1909 photos of the entire manuscript can be downloaded as a PDF, too.  Gary S. Dykes has provided an introduction to the 1909 facsimile of 012 (with an informative section about the relationship between Codex Boernerianus and Codex Augiensis), and at CSNTM, facsimile-pages have been indexed page by page.

            The text of 012 is not Alexandrian.  It is usually categorized as “Western.”  A list of its idiosyncratic itacisms would be extremely long and wearisome; it is as if much of the Greek text has been deliberately written in what seemed to a copyist (not necessarily the copyist of 012, but a copyist somewhere in its text’s transmission-line) to be phonetic spelling.  Here is a sample of 012’s other (not itacisms) readings from Romans chapter 12:

3 – 012 repeats τὸ ἀγαθὸν, a case of dittography.

3 – 012 skips παρ’ ὃ δεῖ φρονεῖν, a case of parablepsis (the copyist’s line of sight drifted from the final letters of the preceding word ὑπερφρονεῖν to the same letters that occur a little later in the text). 

4 – 012 begins the verse with ωσπερ instead of καθάπερ.

5 – 012 does not have the word ἐσμεν.

8 – 012 does not have ειτε at the beginning of the verse.

8 – 012 repeats εν τη after παρακαλων (another case of dittography).

9 – 012 reads μεισουντες instead of αποστυγουντες.

11 – 012 reads καιρω (“time”) instead of Κυρίω (“Lord”).  This variant is old; Jerome alluded to it in his Epistle 27, To Marcella), and, if Rufinus did not expand on the comments of Origen when he (Rufinus) translated his (Origen’s) commentary on Romans, then Origen, in the first half of the 200s, was also aware of this variant.  Ambrosiaster, too, shows an awareness of this reading; he even prefers it, proposing that it was meant to convey the same idea as Ephesians 5:16.  It was later adopted by the scholar Stephanus in his 1550 edition of the Greek New Testament – a clear example of the variations among different compilations that circulated in the 1500s, showing that Stephanus and Beza did not unthinkingly reproduce the work of Erasmus.

13 – 012 reads μνίαις instead of χρείαις.

14 – 012 skips the words τους διώκοντας ὑμᾶς εὐλογειτε, a case of parablepsis in which the copyist’s line of sight drifted from the εὐλογειτε at the beginning of the verse to the same word a little later in the text.

17 – 012 has an extra phrase, ου μονον ενώπειον του Θυ αλλα κει, so as to make the sentence read, “Give careful thought to do what is right not only in the sight of God but also in the sight of all men.”  The Greek text has been conformed to the Vulgate, in which this part of the verse is made to resemble Second Corinthians 8:21.

21 – 012 reads απο instead of υπο.

The text of 012 is almost famous (or infamous) for moving First Corinthians 14:34-35 to a location after verse 40.  Here are some other anomalous readings of 012 in First Corinthians 14:

1 – 012 reads Αιώκεται instead of Διώκετε.  Apparently somewhere along the line, a copyist misread his exemplar, confusing the similar letters Α (alpha) and Δ (delta).

2 – 012 reads γλώσσαις instead of γλώσσῃ.

4 – 012 adds Θυ after εκκλησείαν, yielding the reading, “builds up the church of God.”

5 – 012 reads αλλειν instead of λαλειν, a case of letter-transposition.

7-9 – 012 does not have the word τοις, and reads γνώσθη instead of γνώσθησεται.  It also reads γλώσσ instead of γλώσσης in v. 9, as if copied verbatim from a damaged exemplar.

10 – 012 does not have τοσαυτα at the beginning of the verse.

10 – 012 adds εστιν after αφωνον.

10 – 012 reads γινώσκω instead of ειδω.

21 – 012 reads ετεραις γλώσσαις instead of ετερογλώσσαις. 

22 – 012 reads πιστοις instead of πιστεύουσιν.

23 – 012 does not include ουν.

29 – 012 reads ανακρινέτωσαν instead of διακρινέτωσαν.

37 – 012 reads εστειν instead of εστιν (or εισιν) εντολη.

The oddities of the text of 012 are myriad.  Perhaps this is due to three factors in its textual ancestry:  a copyist who did not hesitate to conform the Greek text so as to make its meaning agree more closely with his Latin Text, and a copyist who was nearly illiterate in Greek and who attempted to copy his exemplar’s contents mechanically, and a copyist who attempted to spell the Greek text in a somewhat phonetic way.  As a result, Codex Boernerianus (along with its very close relative Codex Augiensis) is perhaps the most unreliable of all Greek manuscripts of the Pauline Epistles.

Readers of the Nestle-Aland Novum Testamentum Graece may be interested to know that the Nestle-Aland apparatus’ record of the readings of 012 is occasionally in error.  For example, as Reuben Swanson reported, in Galatians 1:8 012 clearly reads ευαγγελιζαηται, not ευαγγελιζηται.  Swanson also reported that the N-A apparatus is wrong in Galatians 4:25; the reading from Codex 012 should be η συνστοιχουσα τη.  (But not, contra Swanson, συνστοιχουσα δε.)  Swanson listed other miscitations of Codex 012 in the Nestle-Aland apparatus in I Cor. 1:15, 1:22, 1:29, 3:1, 3:2, 3:3, 3:12, etc., etc. – not less than 50 imprecise or erroneous citations in just the first 10 chapters of First Corinthians.   

                 No description of Codex Boernerianus would be complete without mentioning the short Irish poem which appears in the lower margin of folio 23r (below the text of First Corinthians 2:9b-3:3a).    It runs as follows:

Téicht doróim mór saido beic torbai · INrí chondaigi [n (with deletion-marks)] hifoss manimbera / latt ni fog bai ·

Mór báis morbaile mór coll ceille mór

mire ·  Olais airchenn teicht doécaib ·  Beith fo étoil maíc Maire ·

Not being fluent in medieval Irish, I am dependent on other sources when I say that that means something like this:

To go to Rome is to have much trouble, and little profit.

Unless you bring here the thing (or, the King) you seek, you do not find it (or, Him).

[It is] Much foolishness, much frenzy, much nonsense, much craziness –

For surely you have set out for death,

displeasing the Son of Mary.

            That these lines are written in Irish strongly suggests that Codex Boernerianus was made by Irish monks at the monastery of Saint Gall (in modern-day Switzerland).  (Saint Columba’s student Gallus founded the monastery there.)  Possibly these Irish lines represent a copyist’s (or reader’s) recollection of words attributed to Saint Bridgit in a story about the demise of Conlaeth (a.k.a. Conlaed, Conleth, Conlaith, etc.) – the first bishop of Kildare.    

The story goes that Conlaeth, in the year 519 or 520, wanted to visit Rome (perhaps to study advancements in metallurgical artwork, a craft in which he was gifted, or perhaps to replace his priestly wardrobe, which had been sold or traded in service of the poor) but Saint Bridgit refused to bless his plan, and warned him against leaving.  As Saint Bridgit had predicted, the journey turned out to be fatal to Conlaeth, who, after departing, was eaten by wolves while still in Ireland.  It might be worthwhile to explore the possibility that a lection from chapter 2 or 3 of First Corinthians was read in honor of Saint Conlaeth or Saint Bridgit in some lection-cycle used by Irish monks; that might account for the appearance of these lines at this particular place in the text. 

            Two other items of interest in Codex Boernerianus are (1) the intriguing title of “The Beginning of the Epistle to the Laodiceans” after the text and closing-title of Philemon, which is followed immediately not by the patchwork composition presented in some Latin manuscripts as the Epistle from Paul to the Laodiceans, but instead by (2) several pages of a Latin commentary on the Gospel of Matthew, written by a scribe who used every square inch of the page.

Readers are encouraged to explore the embedded links in this post, which will lead to additional resources.