Pseudo-Cyril: More Support for Mark 16:9-20

Sometimes it is tempting to dismiss patristic witnesses whose names begin with “Pseudo-.”  After all, “pseudo” means “false,” and such a name might convey that the reader is encountering the work of an imposter.   Yet, just as the devil can quote Scripture for his own purpose, imposters in ancient times could also do so, allowing the reader to get a look at the Scriptural text the imposter was using.

Pseudo-Cyril, the author of Homily on the Virgin Mary and Her Birth and Her Dormition, might initially appear to be one such imposter.  (The Cyril being referenced is Cyril of Jerusalem, who died in 386.)  But he does not describe himself as Cyril of Jerusalem, and he refers to Cyril of Jerusalam in the course of his homily.  Pseudo-Cyril is simply an anonymous writer whose homily is thrown in with the works of Cyril of Jerusalem.

I think that Pseudo-Cyril’s homily has been assigned to the first half of the 500s.  (His manuscript of the Gospels, if it was brand new when he used it, was about 225 years younger than Codex Vaticanus.)

E.A.W. Budge translated Pseudo-Cyril’s homily into English in 1915; the translation can be found online here.  Budge used the text in Brit. Mus. MS. Oriental No. 6784 as the basis for his translation.   

After a verbose beginning, Pseudo-Cyril mentions the widow’s two mites, and the fish that Peter was commanded to catch.  Pseudo-Cyril zooms in on the heresies that had been spread by Ebion and Harpocratius (Carpocrates?).  He then presents an account of Mary’s family.  Mary the mother of Jesus is identified as Mary Magdalene.  It must be emphasized that Pseudo-Cyril is not saying that Mary the mother of Jesus is the same individual who is named “Mary Magdalene” in the Gospels.  Pseudo-Cyril is merely claiming that Mary the mother of Jesus was born in the village of Magdala.  Mary the mother of Jesus and Mary Magdalene are pictured as two distinct individuals in the course of Pseudo-Cyril’s homily.

Pseudo-Cyril proceeds to relate the story of Mary’s birth to her parents Joakim (who is also named Cleopas by Pseudo-Cyril) and Anna (relying in part on the Protevangelium of James).  He then relates a brief account of the childhood of Mary and her service in the temple.  (The veracity or non-veracity of Pseudo-Cyril’s account is not my focus here.)  He then changes the subject and tells about Cyril’s encounter with Annarikhus, a monk who had been mislead by the books written by Ebion and Harpocratius.  Cyril and Annarikhus discuss whether the Gospel of the Hebrews ought to be a fifth Gospel along with the Gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John.  (Cyril says no; Annarikhus says yes.)

Pseudo-Cyril then attributes to Cyril of Jerusalem a few quotations of New Testament material (Matt 12.24, Second John v. 7 and Second John v. 10) in the course of opposing the Gospel of the Hebrews.  Annarikhus, in the anecdote in Pseudo-Cyril’s homily, promptly repents, and invites Cyril to burn Annarikhus’ books.

Pseudo-Cyril relates that Cyril, after doing so, taught Annarikhus against the Ebionite heresy that Mary had been the incarnation of some kind of mystical force, and then Annarikhus, upon receiving Cyril’s teaching, repented of being fooled by Ebion and Harpocrates’ books.

The Dormition of Mary, as depicted by Jacopo Torriti
in a cathedral-apse in Rome in 1296.

Pseudo-Cyril then turns to the subject of the death/departure/dormition of Mary (quoting Luke 1.36 along the way), and he says that he is informed that John and Mary “lived in the same house in Jerusalem.”  He relates that Mary called for Peter and James to come to her there.  Several passages of the Gospels (and Acts 1) are used in this part of the homily, as Mary is depicted speaking to John, Peter, and James.  Mary Magdalene then enters the picture, “out of whom the Christ had cast several devils.”  After Peter, James, and John have told a group of virgins that Mary the mother of Jesus has announced that she is about to “depart to the Jerusalem of heaven,” Mary Magdalene begins preparations for Mary’s funeral-observance.  Most of the rest of the homily is an account of the dormition of Mary.

Getting back to what Pseudo-Cyril attributed to Annarikhus:  at one point, Pseudo-Cyril says that Cyril asked Annarikhus, “Who sent thee to teach about these things,” and that the answer that Annarikhus gave was, “The Christ said, “Go ye forth into all the world, and teach ye all the nations in my name in every place.”

This is a blended use of Mark 16:15 and Matthew 28:19.(with possible indirect use of Mark 16:17 (for "in My name") and 16:20 (for "in every place")).

So:  Annarikhus-according-to-Pseudo-Cyril should be added to the list of individuals whose copies of Mark included Mark 16:9-20.  (As a contemporary of Cyril of Jerusalem, Annarikhus lived in the 300s, and his copy of Mark, if it was brand new, would have been about as old as Codex Sinaiticus.) 

Also, Pseudo-Cyril should be included in the textual apparatus’ list of patristic writers who cite Mark 16:15 (or, at least, whose writings affirm Mark 16:9-20).  (Pseudo-Cyril, along with Palladius and Fortunatianus, is one of numerous patristic writers whose names have been overlooked in the UBS and N-A apparatuses - and by Christian teacher Mike Winger, among others.)

(I note, in passing, that if it was known to Mark’s readers that Mary the mother of Jesus was from Magdala, then Mark would have a very good reason for mentioning (in Mark 16:9) that Mary Magdalene was the person from whom Jesus had cast out seven demons:  to avoid giving the impression that Jesus’ mother Mary was the individual visiting the tomb.) 

(I also note, in passing, that the unnamed companion of Cleopas in Luke 24 may have been Mary herself - which would be a subtle confirmation by Luke of his use of Mary’s own testimony as one of his sources.) 

 

Video Lecture 20: Luke 22:43-44: Jesus in Gethsemane

 

The 20th video lecture in the series Introduction to NT Textual Criticism is accessible at YouTube and at Bitchute.  This lecture is 32 minutes long.  Here's an extract:

            Justin Martyr, who was martyred in the 160s, used this text in his composition Dialogue With Trypho, chapter 103.  Commenting on Psalm 22, verse 14, he wrote, “In the memoirs which, I say, were drawn up by His apostles and those who followed them, it is recorded that His sweat fell down like drops of blood while He was praying.”

             Reckoning that the Gospel of Luke was not written before the early 60s, this implies that Justin’s copy of the Gospel of Luke was separated from the autograph of the Gospel of Luke by less than a century.

            About two decades after Justin, Irenaeus wrote the Third Book of his composition Against Heresies.  In the 22^nd chapter, Irenaeus used Luke 22:44, mentioning that if Jesus had taken nothing of Mary, that is, if He had not experienced a physical human nature, he would not have eaten food harvested from the earth, He would not have become hungry, or weary, “Nor would He have sweated great drops of blood.” 

            Irenaeus’ contemporary Tatian included Luke 22:43-44 in his Diatessaron, around the year 172.  Around the year 360, as Ephrem Syrus composed his commentary on the Diatessaron, he also mentioned the detail about Jesus’ sweat becoming like drops of blood. 

            Also, in Ephrem’s Carmina Nisibena, in Hymn 35, part 18, Ephrem pictures the devil saying about Jesus, “While He was praying I saw Him and was glad, because He changed color and was afraid:  His sweat was as drops of blood, because He felt that His day had come.”

            In the early 200s, the writer Hippolytus referred to Luke 22:44, near the beginning of chapter 18 of Against Noetus.  In the course of giving examples of the contrast between Jesus’ divinity and humanity, Hippolytus wrote that “In agony He sweats blood, and is strengthened by an angel.”

            The first patristic writer to mention manuscripts that do not support Luke 22:43-44 is Hilary of Poitiers.  Around 350, in Book 10 of his Latin composition De Trinitate, in part 41, Hilary wrote, “We cannot overlook that in very many Greek and Latin codices nothing is recorded about the angel’s coming, and the sweat like blood.” 

            Despite acknowledging such manuscripts, Hilary does not offer a judgment on whether the passage has been omitted in the copies where it is absent, or interpolated in the copies in which it is found.  He seems to have been less concerned about reaching a correct verdict on the textual question and more concerned about promoting correct theology.

            He said that heretics should not be encourage by the idea that Jesus’ weakness is confirmed by the need for an angel to strengthen Him, and that His sweat should not be construed as a sign of weakness.  And like Irenaeus, he points out that the bloody sweat demonstrated the reality of Jesus’ physical body.  When he states, “We are forced to the conclusion that all this happened on our account.” He seems content to use the text.

            In 374, Epiphanius of Salamis made some very interesting statements about Luke 22:43-44.  In Panarion 19:4, he quoted these verses an example of passages that Arians use to show that Jesus sometimes needed assistance from others, or that He was inferior to the Father:  “And it says in the Gospel according to Luke, ‘There appeared an angel of the Lord strengthening Him when He was in agony, and He sweat; and His sweat was as it were drops of blood, when He went out to pray before His betrayal.” 

            It should be noticed that Epiphanius quoted verse 43 with the reading “angel of the Lord.”  

            In Panarion 61, Epiphanius used the passage again in the same way.  He used the passage for doctrinal purposes, and stated that without the display of agony and sweat pouring from His body, the Manichaeans and Marcionites might seem reasonable in their theory that Christ was an apparition, and not completely real.”  He emphasizes how Jesus’ sweat like blood showed that “His flesh was real, and not an apparition.”

            Epiphanius claims in Panarion that Arius cited this very passage from the Gospel of Luke in an attempt to demonstrate the subordination of the Son to the Father.

            So far, we could read Epiphanius’ remarks and think that the only form of the text he knew included verses 43 and 44.  But in Ancoratus, chapter 31, Epiphanius wrote that the passage “is found in the Gospel according to Luke in unrevised copies.”  Then he said, “The orthodox have removed the passage, frightened and not thinking about its significance.”  Coming from someone who seemed ready to blame heretics for bad weather, this is a remarkable statement.

            Epiphanius uses Luke 22:43-44 again in Ancoratus chapter 37 as evidence that Jesus was truly human, and that His sweat shows that He was physical.    

            Around the year 405 in Asia Minor, Macarius Magnes, in the third part of the work Apocriticus, quoted from a pagan writer, probably Hierocles, a student of Porphyry.  Hierocles lived in the late 200s and early 300s. 
            When this pagan writer objected to Jesus’ statement, “Do not fear those who kill the body,” he wrote that Jesus Himself, “being in agony,” prayed that His sufferings should pass from Him.”  The term “being in agony” here is probably a recollection of Luke 22:43, because this term is used there, but not in the parallel-passages.          

            For the testimony of Amphilochius of Iconium, who lived from about 340 to about 400, we rely on a collection of extracts in the medieval manuscript Athous Vatopedi 507, from the 1100s.  A note simply says:  “Of Amphilochius bishop of Iconium, on the Gospel of Luke:  it states there, “Being in agony, He prayed more earnestly.”

            There is some reason to wonder whether Didymus the Blind, or someone else, was the author of the Greek composition called De Trinitate that is attributed him.  Some interpretations of the author are different from interpretations expressed by Didymus in some other works.  But, theologians do sometimes change their views.  Whoever wrote De Trinitate, he made an accurate quotation of Luke  22:43 in Book 3, Part 21.

             Ambrose of Milan, in the late 300s, in his commentary on Luke, seems to use a text that did not include verses 43-44; he does not mention the appearance of an angel and he does not mention that Jesus’ sweat became like drops of blood.

            John Chrysostom is yet another patristic writer who used Luke 22:43-44.  Once he did so in a comment on Psalm 109.  And once he did so in the course of his 83^rd Homily on the Gospel of Matthew, which covers the parallel-material in Matthew 26:36-38.

            In Homily 83 on Matthew, Chrysostom does not say that he has put down the text of Matthew and has turned to the text of Luke.  But after referring to Jesus’ prediction of Peter’s denials, and Peter’s insistence that he will never deny Jesus, Chrysostom transitions to the contents of Luke 22:43, stating, “And He prays with earnestness, in order that the thing might not seem to be acting.  And sweat flows over Him for the same cause again, even that the heretics might not say this, that His agony was a pretense.  Therefore there is a sweat like blood, and an angel appeared strengthening Him, and a thousand sure signs of fear.”
            After interpreting this for several sentences, Chrysostom returns to the text of Matthew 26:40.

            We will reconsider the significance of this after we have seen the testimony of the cluster of manuscripts known as family 13.

            For now, let’s go on to the next patristic reference.

            The testimony of John Cassian should not be overlooked, even though his name does not appear in the textual apparatus for Luke 22:43-44 in the UBS Greek New Testament or the Nestle-Aland compilation.  John Cassian traveled widely:  to the Holy Land, to Egypt, and to Rome, before residing in what is now France in about 415.  In his First Conference of Abbot Isaac on Prayer, also known as the Ninth Conference, in chapter 25, Cassian states that the Lord, “in an agony of prayer, even shed forth drops of blood.”

            Jerome, in Against the Pelagians, Book 2, part 16, shows that he was aware of some copies that had Luke 22:43-44, and some copies that did not.  In 383, he included this passage in the Vulgate.  Later, in Against the Pelagians, he wrote that these words – the words we know as Luke 22:43-44 – are “In some copies, Greek as well as Latin, written by Luke,” which implies that Jerome also knew of copies in which the verses were not included.

           Theodore of Mopsuestia, a contemporary of Jerome who worked mainly in Syria and Cilicia, also had Luke 22:43-44 in his Gospels-text.  In 1882, the researcher H. B. Swete published a collection of some fragments from Theodore’s works, and one of them includes a full quotation of Luke 22:43-44.

            Only slightly later comes Theodoret of Cyrrhus, who famously oversaw the withdraw of 200 copies of the Diatessaron in his churches.  In 453, Theodoret wrote Haereticarum Fabularum Compendium, and in this work, after presenting Jesus’ statement in John 12:27, he says that Luke taught more clearly how Jesus was indeed suffering, when He was in agony, and he proceeds to use part of verse 44.   

            Now we come to the testimony of Cyril of Alexandria, who died in the year 444.  In Cyril of Alexandria’s Sermon 146 and Sermon 147 on the Gospel of Luke, Cyril describes the events in Gethsemane in Luke 22, but he does not mention the appearance of an angel, and he does not mention Jesus being in agony or shedding drops of sweat like blood.  

            He states, “Everywhere we find Jesus praying alone, you may also learn that we ought to talk with God over all with a quiet mind, and a heart calm and free from all disturbance.”  This is not the sort of thing one says when one is reading a text that says that Jesus is praying in agony, and sweating huge drops of blood.

            Cyril says in Sermon 147,  “Let no man of understanding say that He offered these supplications as being in need of strength or help from another – for He is Himself the Father’s almighty strength and power.”  Cyril does not come out and say that he rejects the idea that an angel appeared and strengthened Jesus, but he comes very close to doing so.

            Severus of Antioch, in the first half of the 500s, supplies some additional information about the text used by Cyril.  In an extract from the third letter of the sixth book that he wrote to “the glorious Caesaria,” Severus stated the following:

            “Regarding the passage about the sweat and the drops of blood, know that in the divine and evangelical Scriptures that are at Alexandria, it is not written.  Wherefore also the holy Cyril, in the twelfth book written by him on behalf of Christianity against the impious demon-worshipper Julian, plainly stated the following: 

            “‘But, since he said that the divine Luke inserted among his own words the statement that an angel stood and strengthened Jesus, and his sweat dripped like blood-drops or blood, let him learn from us that we have found nothing of this kind inserted in Luke’s work, unless perhaps an interpolation has been made from outside which is not genuine. 

            The books therefore that are among us contain nothing whatever of this kind.  And so I consider it madness for us to say anything to him about these things.  And it is a superfluous thing to oppose him regarding things that are not stated at all, and we shall be very justly condemned to be laughed at.’”

            Then Severus says:  “In the books therefore that are at Antioch and in other countries, it is written, and some of the fathers mention it.”  He names “Gregory the Theologian” and John Chrysostom as two examples.  Then he says that he himself used this text, “in the sixty-fourth homily.”

            In this way, Severus drew his reader’s attention to Emperor Julian’s use of the passage in the mid-300s, and to Cyril of Alexandria’s rejection of the passage in the early 400s, and to the acceptance of the passage in Antioch, and by Gregory of Nazianzus, by John Chrysostom, and by Severus himself. 

            Severus’ testimony is particularly significant because he specifies that the copies in Alexandria lacked the passage.    

            Later, in the 600’s, a writer named Athanasius, Abbot of Sinai, is credited with yet another text-critically relevant statement about Luke 22:43-44.  Amy Donaldson, in her 2009 dissertation, Explicit References to New Testament Variant Readings Among Greek and Latin Church Fathers,  included his statement: 

            “Be aware that some attempted to delete the drops of blood, the sweat of Christ, from the Gospel of Luke and were not able.  For those copies that lack the section are disproved by many and various gospels that have it; for in all the gospels of the nations it remains, and in most of the Greek.”

            There is also a marginal note, preserved in minuscule 34, that states that “the report about the sweat-drops is not in some copies, but Dionysius the Areopagite, Gennadius of Constantinople, Epiphanius of Cyprus, and other holy fathers testify to it being in the text.” 

            We could examine more patristic support for Luke 22:43-44, from Augustine and Nestorius, for example.  But let’s go back to the evidence from Chrysostom. 

            Why, in Homily 83 on Matthew, does he take a detour to comment on Luke 22:43-44?  It cannot be absolutely ruled out that he just wanted to cover a parallel-passage.  But another possibility is that by the time John Chrysostom wrote Homily 83 on Matthew, it was already customary that when the lector read the Gospels-reading for the Thursday of Holy Week, after reading Matthew 26:39, he also read Luke 22:43-44.

            John’s brief detour into Luke 22 interlocks very snugly with this custom.  In addition, in Codex C, a secondary hand has written the text of Luke 22:43-44 in the margin near Matthew 26:39. 

            This brings us to the evidence from the cluster of manuscripts known as family 13.  In most members of family-13, Luke 22:43-44 appears in Luke, either in the text or margin after Luke 22:42.  Most of the members of family 13 also have these two verses embedded in the text of Matthew after 26:39. 
            The evidence from minuscule 1689, a member of family 13, is very helpful.  This manuscript was lost for several years, but has been found safe and sound in the city of Prague.  It has Luke 22:43-44 in the text of Luke, and alongside Matthew 26:39, there is a margin-note instructing the lector to jump to Section 283 in the Gospel of Luke – that is, to jump to Luke 22:43-44.

            Many other manuscripts have similar notes in the margin at this point, as part of the lectionary apparatus.
            It does not require a long leap to deduce what has happened in family 13:  instead of resorting exclusively to margin-notes to instruct the lector to jump from Matthew 26:39 to Luke 22:43-44 and then return to Matthew 26:40, someone whose work influenced members of family 13 simplified things for the lector, by combining the parts of the lection in order within the text of Matthew. 

             Some commentaries have misrepresented this as if it implies that the passage is not genuine.  But the evidence in family 13 just shows that a passage that was regarded as part of the text of Luke was embedded into the text of Matthew after 26:39 for liturgical purposes.

            On a related point:  when Luke 22:43-44 is accompanied by one or more asterisks, such as in minuscule 1216, the default deduction should not be that the purpose of the asterisks was to express scribal doubt, but to serve as part of the lectionary apparatus, drawing attention to the two verses that were to be read after Matthew 26:39 in the lection for Maundy Thursday. 

            So:  was Luke 22:43-44 initially present, or initially absent?  The passage is supported by a broad array of manuscripts, plus the manuscripts of over 20 patristic writers, and a couple of non-Christian writers.  Four patristic writers – Hilary, Epiphanius, Jerome, and Athanasius of Sinai – show that they were aware that verses 43-44 were not supported in all copies, but nevertheless they favored the inclusion of the verses.        Epiphanius even said that orthodox individuals had attempted to remove the passage.

            One Latin writer – Ambrose of Milan – did not have verses 43 and 44 in his text of Luke 22. 

            And one Greek writer, Cyril of Alexandria, from the 400s, definitely did not have verses 43-44 in his text.

            The most ancient evidence, from Justin, Tatian, and Irenaeus, includes the passage.  The most geographically diverse support points in the same direction.  And support for these verses does not come only from authors with only one doctrinal view.

            Plus, internally, nothing in the surrounding material calls for the insertion of additional material.  Bart Ehrman has proposed that verses 43-44 do not look like something Luke would write, on the grounds that Luke had an interest in portraying Jesus as “imperturbable.”  However, Luke reports about several actions of Jesus in which His disposition is far from stoical or disinterested, including His criticism of the synagogue-ruler in chapter 13, and His weeping over the city of Jerusalem in chapter 19.  There is no substantial case based on internal evidence for the idea that verses 43-44 could not originate with Luke.

            When we look at the external evidence that supports Luke 22:43-44, the question should not be “Did someone remove these verses from the text of Luke,” but “Why did someone remove these verses from the text of Luke?”

            It is virtually unique to see a Christian writer assert that “the orthodox” tampered with the Gospels-text, and to imply that some orthodox believers revised the text in a way that was influenced by their fear.

            In the 100s, the second-century writer Celsus, in a statement preserved by Origen, claimed that some believers “alter the original text of the gospel three or four or several times over, and they change its character to enable them to deny difficulties in face of criticism.”

            There’s no way to tell if Celsus saw what he says he saw, but it can’t be ruled out that he did indeed notice Christians making changes to the Gospels-text, and that because some of those changes appeared to him to relieve perceived difficulties in the text, he naturally believed that this was the motivation for the changes.

            However, he might have seen, and misunderstood, something else:  textual adjustments that were not made to minimize interpretive difficulties, but to render the text easier to use when it was read in church-services.

            One of those adjustments may have involved a liturgical feature pointed out by John Burgon in The Revision Revised.   Here I slightly paraphrase his observations: 

            “In every known Greek Gospels lectionary, verses 43-44 of Luke 22 follow Matthew 26:39 in the reading for Maundy Thursday.  In the same lectionaries, these verses are omitted from the reading for the Tuesday after Sexagesima – the Tuesday of the Cheese-eaters, as the those in the East call that day, when Luke 22:39-23:1 used to be read.

            Furthermore, in all ancient copies of the Gospels which have been accommodated to ecclesiastical use, the reader of Luke 22 is invariably directed by a marginal note to skip over these two verses, and to proceed from verse 42 to verse 45.

            What is more obvious, therefore, than that the removal of verses 43 and 44 from their proper place is explained as a side-effect of a lection-cycle of the early church?

            Many manuscripts have been discovered since the time of Burgon, but in general, what he describes is accurate:  Luke 22:43-44 is embedded after Matthew 26:39 in the lection for Maundy Thursday, and it is left out of the lection assigned to the Tuesday after Sexagesima Sunday. 

            The customary transfer of Luke 22:43-44 into the text of Matthew, when the text was read during Easter-week, may explain the sudden detour that Chrysostom took into this passage in the course of his Homily 83.

            A scenario that explains the most evidence in the fewest steps is that when an attempt was made to revise the text for liturgical reading, one group of liturgical revisors took verses 43 and 44 out of Luke 22, but failed to re-insert them into Matthew 26.  As soon as these verses dropped out of the text, the shorter reading was defended along the same lines that we see Cyril of Alexandria use to defend it.

            We do not have hard evidence of this particular liturgical step of revision being undertaken in the second century, but the elegance of Burgon’s explanation is a strong factor in its favor.  Plus, this theory accounts for the correspondence between this particular feature in the Easter-time lections, and the very similar contrast between forms of the text with and without the passage.

            So:  I conclude that Luke 22:43-44 was an original part of the Gospel of Luke. 

             I also conclude that its removal, in the second century, was probably not the result of some copyist’s desire to get rid of what he considered a problematic passage; nor was it the result of a heretic’s desire to remove a text that demonstrated the physicality of Jesus’ body.  Instead, it occurred when orthodox believers transferred verses 43 and 44 into Matthew, after 26:39, conforming to their Easter-time custom, but failed to retain it in Luke, again reflecting their early Eastertime liturgy.  As a result, these two verses fell out of the text. 

            This influenced texts known to Hilary, to Ambrose, and especially  Cyril of Alexandria.  It affected the text that was translated into Sahidic, and the Greek text that was translated into Armenian, and the Armenian text that was translated into Georgian.  But as Athanasius the Abbot of Sinai stated, although some attempted to delete the drops of blood from the Gospel of Luke, the legitimacy of the passage is shown by the “many and various Gospels-manuscripts in which the passage is read.”

            Luke 22:43-44 should therefore be respected and cherished for what it is:  part of the Word of God.

 

John 7:8: Not, Not Yet, or Nothing?

            Perhaps there is no textual contest anywhere in the New Testament in which the internal evidence and external evidence point more strongly to opposite conclusions than in John 7:8.  In the vast majority of manuscripts, when Jesus’ unbelieving brothers invite Jesus to show Himself to the world and go with them to the Feast of Tabernacles at Jerusalem, Jesus replies, “You go up to this feast.  I am not yet going up to this feast, for My time has not yet fully come.”

            In a small group of manuscripts that includes Papyrus 75, Codex Vaticanus, and codices L, N, and W, Jesus’ statement is similar, but the first occurrence of the word “this” is absent, yielding the statement, “You go up to the feast.  I am not yet going up to this feast, for My time has not yet fully come.”

             In another small group of manuscripts, including Codex Sinaiticus, Jesus’ statement is, “You go up to this feast.  I am not going up to this feast, for My time has not yet fully come.”

            In yet another small group of manuscripts (33 565 579 664 2193 – mostly members of f¹ – the phrase “I am not going up to this feast” is absent, yielding the statement, “You go up to this feast, for My time has not yet fully come.”

            And in minuscule 69 (Codex Leicestrensis), the second occurrence of “to this feast” is absent, yielding the statement, “You go up to the feast.  I am not yet going, for My time has not yet fully come.”

            We may set aside the reading in 69 as the symptom of a scribe’s dislike of what he perceived to be superfluous repetition.  Similarly, the reading in 33 565 579 664 2193 may be set aside as either the result of parableptic error – when a scribe’s line of sight drifted from either the end of εορτην (“feast”) or the end of ταύτην (“this”) to the end of εορτην ταύτην further along in the verse, accidentally omitting the letters in between – or an early copyist’s ruthless attempt to avoid a perceived difficulty.

            The contest between the presence, or absence, of ταύτην in the first part of the verse is more difficult, because while its absence is attributable to haplography (from the –την at the end of εορτην to the -την at the end of ταύτην), such an error would either have to be extremely early, or would have to occur independently in more than one transmission-line, in order to show up, as it does, in manuscripts as diverse as Papyrus 75, Codex D, Codex N, Codex Π, Codex W, and 1424.  Yet it appears in Codex À, and in the vast majority of Greek manuscripts, and was likely in the ancestry of 33 565 579 664 2193.  It is also supported by the Peshitta.  

           The variant-unit that gets the most attention in this verse is the contest between οuκ (“not”) and οupw (“not yet”).  Part of the reason for this is that the reading οuκ is capable of giving readers the impression that Jesus misled His brothers by first saying that He was not going to the Feast, and then went.  To restate the problem:  if the reading οuκ is original, then it appears that Jesus says that He is not going to the feast, but then decides to go.  The note-writer of the NET Bible considered this difficulty a point in favor of οuκ as the original reading:  “It is more likely,” the NET’s note says, “that οupw was introduced early on to harmonize with what is said two verses later.”

            However, harmonistic considerations seem to have not affected the scribes of codices K, M, and Π here; all three read οuκ.  It may be helpful to step back and look at the external evidence for each reading:

οuκ:  À D K M Π 1071 1241, with versional support from the Vulgate, the Sinaitic Syriac and Curetonian Syriac, the Armenian version, the Ethiopic version, several Old Latin copies (including a, aur, b, c, d, e, ff²), and with patristic support from Epiphanius (in Panarion, Book 2, 25:4), Chrysostom (Homily 48 on John), Cyril  of Alexandria (Comm. John 4:5), Ambrosiaster (Question 78 in his Questions on the Old and New Testaments), and Augustine (in Sermon 83) – plus a comment from Jerome (in Against the Pelagians Book 2, part 17) which implies that Porphyry – a heathen critic of the Gospels in the third century – used the text with οuκ as evidence that Jesus displayed fickleness and therefore was not divine:  “Jesus said that He would not go up, and then did what He had previously said He would not do.  Porphyry rants and accuses Him of inconsistency and indecisiveness, not knowing that all scandals must be imputed to the flesh.” (By this last phrase, Jerome seems to mean that if a passage seems problematic or puzzling to a reader, the problem is not in the text, but in the reader’s lack of illumination.)

            The UBS apparatus also lists a few lectionaries that read οuκ here:   lectionaries 672 (an uncial lectionary from the 800s), 673, 813 (from the 900s), 950, and 1223.

οupw:  Papyrus 66, Papyrus 75, B E F G H L N T U W Γ Δ Θ Ψ 0105 0141 0250 (Codex Climaci Rescriptus)  Δ f¹ f¹³ 157 205 700 892 1424 Byz with versional support from the Peshitta Sahidic and Palestinian Aramaic versions.

              

            Wayne C. Kannaday offers a detailed analysis of this textual contest on pages 90-97 of his 2004 book Apologetic Discourse and the Scribal Tradition.  Kannaday concludes that οuκ is probably the original reading, largely on the grounds that when the term οupw is used in the Gospel of John, it is used formulaically to refer to Jesus’ hour, or time, i.e., the time of His passion:      

            ● 2:4:  “My hour has not yet come.”
            ● 7:6:  “My time has not yet come.”
            ● 7:8b:  “My time has not yet fully come.”

            ● 7:30:  “His hour had not yet come.”

            ● 8:20:  “His hour had not yet come.”

If οupw is original, Kannaday argues, then “nowhere else does οupw invade the prefacing remarks of Jesus,” leading to the question, “Is this the only instance in John’s narrative where he violates an otherwise carefully prescribed and consistent use of the term οupw?”

            However, the idea that John deliberately limited his use of οupw to refer to Jesus’ hour, or time, does not survive close scrutiny.  As evidence, one can simply read the following passages (using here, for convenience, the NA/UBS text):

            ● 3:24:  “For John had not yet been thrown into prison.” 

            ● 6:17:  “Jesus had not yet come to them.”

            ● 7:39:  “The Spirit was not yet given, because Jesus was not yet glorified.”  (In the NA/UBS text, the term οupw is used for the first “yet” but the term ουδέπω is used for the second “yet.”)

            ● 8:57:  “You are not yet fifty years old.”

            ● 11:30:  “Now Jesus had not yet come into the town.”

            ● 20:17:  “I have not yet ascended to My Father.”

            When all of John’s utilizations of οupw are in view, and there is no cherry-picking, the case that John’s use of οupw is limited in a “carefully prescribed and consistent” manner that refers to Jesus’ hour, or time, fades to dust; there simply is no such unique utilization of the term.

            However, the question remains:  it is easy to posit a reason why a scribe would change οuκ to οupw:  to avoid the appearance of precisely the sort of fickleness that Porphyry accused Jesus of displaying.  But why would anyone change οupw (“not yet”) to οuκ (“not”)? 

            In the search for an answer, we should notice that this is not the only example of a textual contest involving οupw. 

            In Matthew 15:17, the verse begins with οὐ in manuscripts B, D, Z, Θ, 565 33 and 579, and this is supported by Latin, Syriac, and Coptic versions.  In most manuscripts, however, including À C L W (with some Latin and Bohairic support), the verse begins with ουπω.  Here there is no apologetic motive to alter the text; yet it must have been altered, one way or the other.

            In Matthew 16:9, the reading ουπω has overwhelming support, not only from Byzantine manuscripts but also from B À D Δ etc.  Yet in family 13, the verse begins with ου.

            In Mark 4:40, a small but strong array of witnesses (including B À D L Δ f¹ f¹³) supports ουπε before εχετε πίστιν.  In most manuscripts, however (including A C K M Π, supported by the Peshitta and the Gothic version), the question at the end of the verse is πως ουκ εχετε πίστιν.

            In Mark 8:21, Codex B reads ου νοειτε, and the Byzantine Text reads ου συνίετε  – but À A C L D K M N Π W Q support (sometimes with minor orthographic variation) ουπω συνίετε.  (This is a parallel-passage to Mt. 16:9.)                 
            In Mark 11:2, the Byzantine Text, allied with D M Q 157 565 f¹ does not include the word ουπω (conveying simply that no man had sat on the colt, rather than that no man had yet sat on the colt).  But in various early manuscripts, the word ουπω is present, either before or after ανθρώπων (“man”) – B L Δ Ψ have ουπω before ανθρώπων; À, C, 579, and f¹³ have ουπω after ανθρώπων; Y K Π have ουπω before ουδεις ανθρώπων.   Minuscule 1424 rearranges the words so as to read ουδεις ανθρώπων εκάθισεν ουπω.  (Codex A, meanwhile, reads πώποτε ανθρώπων, harmonizing to Luke 19:30.) 

            In Luke 23:53, where Luke mentions that Joseph of Arimathea’s tomb was completely unused, Papyrus 75 and Codices B, A, L, 118, and 579 read ουπω – so as to say that no one had yet lain in the tomb.  But they are challenged by a diverse combination of witnesses that includes À C D K M W Q Π 157 f¹³.which all support ουδέτω – so as to say that never had anyone lain in the tomb.  The Byzantine Text (along with Δ 700 1424 is aligned with the latter group, disagreeing only in word-order (by placing ουδέτω before, rather than after, ουδεις).

            In John 6:17, Papyrus 75 and codices B, À, D, L, N, W and Ψ contain a statement that Jesus had not yet (ουπω) come to the disciples.  In most manuscripts, however, including A K M Δ Θ f¹ 157 565 700, the verse has ουκ instead of ουπω.  Here we see a disagreement similar to what we see in John 7:8:  ουκ versus ουπω. 

            In John 7:6, where almost all manuscripts read ουπω, À reads ου, and W reads ουδέτω.  Ουδέτω is also the reading of Papyrus 66 in John 7:8b, where the rest of the manuscripts support ουπω.   Likewise in John 7:30, P66 reads ουδέτω where the other manuscripts read ουπω.  This raises a question:  ουπω is clear and unobjectionable; why would anyone change it to ου as the scribe of Sinaiticus did, or change it to ουδέτω as the scribe of P66 did twice?   And why, if ουπω is original in Luke 23:53, does the Byzantine Text and its assorted allies read ουδέτω?

            Briefly leaving the text of the Gospels, for thoroughness’ sake, we find that in First Corinthians 8:2, the reading ουπω is supported by Papyrus 46, B À A 33 1175 1739, but it has rivals; ουδέτω is read by D (i.e., Claromontanus) F G Ψ, ουδεν is read by 68 330 2400, ουδεν ουδέτω is read by 1424, and ουδέτω ουδεν is read by most manuscripts.  In Philippians 3:13, where P46, B, 1739, 1881, the Byzantine Text, and the Peshitta support ου, À A 075 33 81 614 and 1175 support ουπω instead.  Here too, then, is another contest between ου and ουπω.  And in Revelation 17:12, where most copies read ουπω, Codex A and minuscule 57 read ουκ.

           

            Taking all this into consideration, it suggests that some scribes either added ουπω or substituted a different word where ουπω  belonged, not only in John 7:8, but also in Matthew 15:17, Matthew 16:9, Mark 4:40, Luke 23:53, John 6:17, and John 7:6 – plus three passages outside the Gospels (I Cor. 8:2, Phil. 3:13, Rev. 17:12).  If ουκ was introduced in John 7:8, as a substitute for ουπω, it is possible that this was elicited not by mischievousness, but by the same factor (whatever it was) that elicited the scribe of Sinaiticus to introduce ουκ into the text of John 7:6 instead of ουπω – and for the same reason that ουπω was not added to Mark 11:2 by Byzantine scribes, and for the same reason that the Byzantine Text reads ουκ instead of ουπω in John 6:17.

            However, the specific nature of such a factor is difficult to nail down.  The least complicated idea, I think, is that (a) an early Latin translator rendered the relevant phrase as ego non ascendo ad diem festum, imagining that the reference to that particular festival-day would not preclude Jesus’ future attendance, and thus imply “yet.” – and (b) subsequently the Greek text was adjusted slightly (from ουπω to ουκ) to conform to the Latin parallel.

            If Codex Bezae alone supported ουκ, or even if D and À (which has Western affinities in this portion of John) and Old Latin copies supported ουκ, that would be an adequate explanation.  But the external evidence for ουκ, though sparse in our extant manuscripts, is broader and weightier than it may first appear:  besides À (very probably made in Caesarea) and D (provenance unknown), we should posit an ancestor of family Π, and the base-text of the Vulgate, plus the Sinaitic Syriac and Curetonian Syriac, the base-text of the Armenian version, several Old Latin copies, and copies known to Epiphanius in Crete, copies read by Chrysostom in Antioch and/or Constantinople, copies used by Cyril of Alexandria, the Latin text used by Ambrosiaster, the text used by Augustine in North Africa, and the text used by Porphyry.  This is wide-ranging evidence that cannot be cavalierly dismissed.

            Another consideration in favor of ουκ is that orthodox copyists, facing one exemplar with ουκ and another exemplar with ουπω, would naturally prefer ουπω as the reading less likely to elicit misunderstandings of the sort that Porphyry had displayed. 

            In conclusion:  the external evidence in favor of ουπω is so abundant that compilers and translators should maintain a footnote at John 7:8 mentioning this reading, especially in light of the possibility that new evidence might come to light which accounts for interchanges between ουκ and ουπω as merely linguistic phenomena.  However, barring such a development, internal evidence strongly favors ουκ as the reading more likely to elicit ουπω, rather than the other way around, and this consideration is so weighty that even the testimony of two early papyri, Codex Sinaiticus, and over 1,500 Byzantine manuscripts cannot balance it; ουκ demands its place in the text.

            This raises a fresh question:  was Porphyry right?  Many a defender of the traditional text, or of the KJV, has proposed that to adopt the reading ουκ is to turn Jesus into a liar, on the grounds that Jesus says in verse 8 that He is not going to the feast, and yet, two verses later, He goes.  Technically, resolving this perceived difficulty is outside the purview of textual criticism; nevertheless, as an example of how the problem is resolved, with ουκ, readers may consult this video from CIRA International, this essay from Apologetics Press, or simply observe that within those two verses – that is, between Jesus’ statement, “I am not going up to this feast” and John’s record that Jesus went up to the feast – some time has elapsed, and the situation has changed:  it is true that Jesus was not going up when He said that He was not going up, when it would have involved too much publicity.   What more needs to be said?  The sentence is more perspicuous with ουπω, but that does not make the reading with ουκ incorrect, as if “I am not going” must mean “I am never going.”   

            There is an extra takeaway to consider before we leave this variant-unit.  The non-Western uncials K M Π, which read ουκ, must preserve a text here that was remarkably resistant to assimilation from competing texts – more resistant than most representatives of the Alexandrian Text, and more resistant than most representatives of the more popular Byzantine transmission-lines.  This implies that the earliest stratum of family Π, particularly when it diverges from rival Alexandrian and Byzantine readings, is especially important.  



Readers are invited to double-check the data in this post.