First Corinthians 10:9 - "the Lord" or "Christ"?

             Leaving the Gospels momentarily, today we explore a textual variant in the Pauline Epistles:  in First Corinthians 10:9, did the text originally say “Nor let us tempt Christ” (Χριστόν) or “Nor let us tempt the Lord” (Κύριον) or “Nor let us tempt God” (Θεόν)?  All three readings are nomina sacra (sacred names, usually written in contracted form), and thus, with the nomina sacra in play, amount to the difference between ΧΝ, ΚΝ, and ΘΝ.

Erasmus' text of I Cor. 10:9 (1522)

            The treatment of this variant by editors, publishers and printers of the (mainly) Byzantine Text has been consistent:  Erasmus (all editions), Gerbel (1521), Stephanus (1550), Melchoir Sessa (Venice) 1538, John Fell (1675), Bengel (1734), and Scholz (1836) all have favored “Χριστόν”; Griesbach also had Χριστόν in the text.  Χριστόν is read in Hodges & Farstad’s Majority Text (1982), and in the Robinson-Pierpont Byzantine Textform (2005), and in the Solid Rock Greek New Testament. 

            English Bibles in use today with “Christ” in First Corinthians 10:9 include the KJV, NKJV, EOB (Eastern Orthodox Bible), WEB, EHV, and also the CSB, ESV, NET, NIV 2011, NLT, NCV (New Century Version), and NRSV.

I Cor. 10:9 (Nicolaus Gerbel, 1521)

            Κύριον was consistently adopted by most editors of the critical text, other than Griesbach, until about 1970:  “Lord” was the reading adopted by Lachmann (1831), Buttmann (1862), Tregelles (1869), Tischendorf (8^th edition, 1872), Westcott & Hort (1881), Eberhard Nestle (1904), Alexander Souter (1920), and the Nestle-Aland compilation up to and including the 25^th edition.  The first and second editions of the United Bible Society’s Greek New Testament also read Κύριον.      

I Cor. 10:9 (Fell, 1675)

            Consequently, “Lord” has appeared in First Corinthians 10:9 in several English Bibles of the past 150 years, including the Revised Version (1881), the American Standard Version (1901), the Revised Standard Version, the Living Bible, the New Life Version, the New American Standard Bible (1960 & 1995), the New International Version 1984, and the Tree of Life Version (2011).  Meanwhile, the Tyndale House GNT reads “κύριον” and the SBLGNT reads “Χριστόν.”

            Now let’s look at some text-critical data: 

Fell's footnote (1675)

             In 1982, in New Testament Textual Criticism:  Its Significance for Exegesis:  Essays in Honor of Bruce M. Metzger, a chapter by Carroll D. Osburn focused on this variant.  Osburn’s data is far more detailed than any other apparatus:  in support of Χριστόν, Osburn listed P46, D, E, F, G, K, L, Ψ 056 0142 0151 and 489 minuscules (including 1 6 18 35 69 88 131 205 209 323 330 424 440 451 489 517 547 614 618 629 630 796 910 945 999 1241 1242 1243 1245 1270 1315 1353 1424 1448 1505 1611 1646 1734 1738 1739 1827 1852 1854 1881 1891 1912 1982  1984 2125 2200 2400 2412 2492 2495), numerous Old Latin witnesses including it^ar, ^b, ^d, ^dem, ^e, ^f, ^g, ^o, ^x, ^z and the Vulgate, the Peshitta, the main text of the Harklean Syriac, the Sahidic version, and the Bohairic version.   

I Cor. 10:9 in Codex Sinaiticus     

           Κύριον, meanwhile, is supported by À B C P 0150 33 43 104 181 255^vid 256 263 326 365 436 1175 2110 2127 2464 and 22 other minuscules, and the margin of the Harklean Syriac, the Armenian version and the Ethiopic version.

            Osburn’s thorough list extends to two other readings:

            Codex A, 2 81 1127 1595 and 14 other minuscules (and 2815 which Osburn did not list, but Swanson does) read Θεόν.

            Nothing appears between ἐκπειράζωμεν and καθως in 97 1729* 1985 and 2659.

             Settings aside Θεόν and the complete absence of any nomina sacra, Osburn focuses on the contest between Κύριον and Χριστόν.  Things get very interesting in the patristic evidence: 

            The earliest support for Χριστόν is Marcion (the arch-heretic from Pontus who worked for a while in Rome c. 140); Epiphanius, in the late 300s, claimed that Marcion changed the text from Κύριον to Χριστόν.  But, as Osburn argues, it is reasonable to understand Epiphanius’ claim as a presumption – i.e., that Epiphanius’ text read Κύριον and he assumed that Marcion had changed it – rather than as an observation.  Slightly later is Irenaeus (in Against Heresies, Book 4, ch. 27), and slightly later than Irenaeus are Clement of Alexandria, Origen (in a statement preserved in the margin of GA 1739), and Theotecnus (bishop of Caesarea-in-Palestine, and an associate of Origen), writing against Paul of Samosata for the Council of Antioch (268).  

            The bishops involved in the Council of Antioch in 268 also produced the Letter of Hymenaeus, of which Osburn provided a relevant extract, which implies that “neither Paul of Samosata nor his opponents were aware of a biblical text which read other than Χριστόν in v. 9.”  (Osburn mentioned in a footnote, however, that the text of the Letter of Hymenaeus printed by M.J. Routh in 1846, and by E.Schwartz in 1927, has Κύριον.) 

            Also in support of Χριστόν are Ambrosiaster, Ephraem Syrus, Pelagius, Augustine, Pseudo-Oecumenius, and Theophylact.  Chrysostom also cites I Cor. 10:9 with Χριστόν three times.

            Κύριον is supported by Epiphanius, Theodoret of Cyrrhus (in a substantial quotation in his commentary on the Pauline Epistles), Cassiodorus, John of Damascus, and Sedulius Scotus.  Chrysostom is cited as using κύριον once.  

           Now let’s analyze this evidence and reach a conclusion. 

I Cor. 10:9 in Tregelles' text.

            The case for κύριον is not lightweight:  agreements of À and B were considered practically decisive by Westcott & Hort, and their judgment held sway for over a century, though as early as 1899 Theodor Zahn, as Carroll noted, firmly opposed it.              

            Χριστόν has in its favor the support of very early and geographically diverse patristic witnesses.  The discovery of P46 with Χριστόν (written as ΧΡΝ - see BP II f.49 in the online Chester Beatty Papyrus Collection on the fourth line from the bottom) probably should have instantly elicited a change in the critical text here, inasmuch as with its discovery, Χριστόν scores high on multiple metrics:  it is the reading of the oldest manuscript; it is the reading of the most manuscripts (by far); it is the reading of the most diverse array of manuscripts; it is the reading favored by a strong combination of early patristic writers.  About the only counter-argument that favors Κύριον is the internal consideration that Paul would be unlikely to have written that the Hebrews in the wilderness tempted Christ – but as indicated in a note in the NET, Osburn built an effective cumulative argument that the case against Χριστόν driven by this internal evidence is weak.  I cannot think of any reason but haste, and perhaps over-reliance on the work of Tregelles (who had no access to P46) to elicit the Tyndale House GNT’s adoption of κύριον.  It was due to over-reliance upon À and B that κύριον was ever adopted in printed Greek New Testaments; hopefully the days of such over-reliance, repeatedly shown to be merely a disguised bias, are behind us. 

              Χριστόν merits confident inclusion in the text.                     

        

 

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.

 

Mark 1:2 (Part 4) - Miscellaneous Evidence

            Today as we conclude this exploration of the evidence about Mark 1:2, let’s consider some miscellaneous questions.

How diverse is the evidence for “in the prophets”?

Codex Cyprius (K, 017),
from the 800s.

            The agreement of Codex Washingtoniensis with Codex Alexandrinus and the Byzantine Text is sometimes treated casually, but it actually is rather significant, because although the text of Codex W is primarily Byzantine in Matthew and in Luke from 8:13 onward, its text of Mark is very different.  Larry Hurtado describes it in his introduction to the volume The Freer Biblical Manuscripts:  “In Mark 1-4 Codex W agrees more closely with Codex Bezae and other “Western” witnesses.  But at some point in Mark 5, the textual affiliation shifts markedly, and throughout the rest of Mark Codex W cannot be tied to any of the major text-types.  In this main part of Mark, however, W was later shown to exhibit a very interesting alignment with the Chester Beatty Gospels codex (P45).” 

            The agreement of Codex A and Codex W demonstrates a more widespread range of attestation than the agreement of ﬡ and B, which were very likely produced in the same scriptorium, or by copyists trained in the same place.  Augmenting the case that Codex A’s transmission-line is separate from that of Codex W is the observation that they read differently at the end of Mark 1:2 (A has εμπροσθεν σου; W does not) – not to mention the insertion in Codex W of several lines of Greek text from Isaiah 40:4-8 between Mark 1:3 and 1:4.

GA 1216.

            In addition, sub-groups of manuscripts within the Byzantine transmission-line consistently support “in the prophets” in Mark 1:2.  Besides those mentioned already, 72 (a copy with some Arabic notes), 117, 128, 304 (a manuscript of Matthew and Mark, in which the text is divided into segments interspersed with commentary), 444, 492, 780, 783, 809 (a deluxe manuscript from the 1000s, with some marginal commentary), 817 (a manuscript used by Erasmus; like other manuscripts in which the text of John is accompanied by Theophylact’s commentary, it does not contain John 7:53-8:11), 826 (considered a strong representative of the f¹³ cluster), 389 (a manuscript with unusual decorations in its Canon-tables), 1216, 1342, 2483, some Armenian copies, Ethiopic copies, and the Old Slav/Glagolitic version demonstrate that the reading “in the prophets” was read in multiple locales. 

           

Why don’t we see a scribal tendency toward specificity in Matthew 27:35b?

            The scribal tendency toward specificity manifested in versional evidence at Matthew 1:22, 2:5, 2:15, 21:4, but not in Matthew 27:35b.  The reason for this is that Matthew 27:35b did not circulate as widely as the rest of the text of Matthew; it is in the Textus Receptus but it is not included in the Robinson-Pierpont Byzantine Textform, or in the archetype of f³⁵ compiled by Wilbur Pickering.

            The question about whether Matthew 27:35b is original or not may be set aside for the time being (though perhaps it should be mentioned that this verse-segment is strongly supported by Old Latin evidence, and that it ends with the same word (κλῆρον) as the verse-segment that precedes it, which would make it vulnerable to accidental loss).  The thing to see is that Matthew 27:35b escaped being the subject of the scribal tendency toward specificity by being absent from multiple transmission-lines.

What was the text of Mark 1:2 quoted by Victorinus of Pettau?    

            Victorinus of Pettau, in the late 200s, cited Mark 1:2 with “in Isaiah the prophet” in his Latin commentary on Revelation.  His text may reveal the kind of liberties that were taken by Western copyists.   Either Victorinus cited Mark 1:1-2 very loosely, or else his Latin text was radically altered; Victorinus quoted Mark 1:1-2 as follows:  “Mark, therefore, as an Evangelist, who begins, ‘The beginning of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, as it is written in Isaiah the prophet:  ‘The voice of one crying in the wilderness,’ has the likeness of a lion.” (Notice that Victorinus’ text not only omits the material from Malachi, but also lacks the phrase “the Son of God.”) 

How do patristic writers of the mid-late 300s – Serapion of Thmuis, Basil of Caesarea, and Epiphanius of Salamis – quote Mark 1:1-2?

            I do not possess critically edited editions of the works of Serapion of Thmuis, or of Titus of Bostra, or of Basil of Caesarea, or of Epiphanius (who have all been cited as support for “in Isaiah the prophet”) – and so I have resorted to the comments of John Burgon, in the form in which they were collected by Edward Miller for the book called The Causes of Corruption of the Traditional Text of the Holy Gospels, published in 1896.  I rephrased some wording and changed the syntax slightly in the following quasi-quotation from page 113: 

            “Serapion, Titus, and Basil merely borrow from Origen; and, with his argument, reproduce his corrupt text of St. Mark 1:2.  Basil, however, saves his reputation by leaving out the quotation from Malachi, passing directly from the mention of Isaiah to the actual words of that prophet.  Epiphanius (and Jerome, too, on one occasion) does the same thing.”            Those who wish to test Burgon’s claims, if they have the resources, may wish to consult Serapion of Thmuis’ Against the Manichees, 25, 37, and Basil of Caesarea’s Against Eunomius, 2:15, and Epiphanius’ Panarion 51:6:4, and see if their compositions run parallel to the contents of Origen’s comments in Book 2 of Contra Celsus, which run as follows:   

            “Even one of the Evangelists, Mark, says, ‘The beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ, as it is written in the prophet Isaiah, Behold, I send my messenger before your face, who shall prepare your way before you.’  This shows that the beginning of the gospel is connected with the Jewish writings.  What, then, is the force in Celsus’ Jew’s objection [Celsus had pictured a Jew objecting that Christians were merely a sect of Judaism] seeing that if anyone was to predict to us that the Son of God would visit mankind, it would be one of our prophets, and the prophet of our God?  Or how is it a charge against Christianity to point out that John, who baptized Jesus, was a Jew?”

 

            Similarly, in Chromatius’ use of Mark 1:2 with “in Isaiah the prophet” in Prologues to Sermons on Matthew, Chromatius seems to have recycled the material that one sees in Irenaeus’ Against Heresies 3:11:9. 

Do Byzantine copyists elsewhere display willingness to remove a prophet’s name from the text if it appears problematic?

            Such willingness is assumed by many commentators, as exemplified by Bruce Terry in his online A Student’s Guide to Textual Variants:  “The quotation in verses 2 and 3 is from two scriptures:  the first part is from Malachi 3:1 and the second part is from Isaiah 40:3.  Thus it is likely that copyists changed the reference to make it more general.”

            Robert Waltz provides another example:  “The quotation is not from Isaiah alone, but from Malachi and Isaiah.  The attribution to Isaiah is an error, and scribes would obviously have been tempted to correct it.”

            The same assumption is expressed by Metzger in A Textual Commentary:  “The quotation in verses 2 and 3 is composite, the first part being from Mal 3.1 and the second part from Is 40.3.  It is easy to see, therefore, why copyists would have altered the words “in Isaiah the prophet” . . . . to the more comprehensive introductory formula, “in the prophets.””

            However reasonable that may sound, when we turn to Matthew 27:9 – where readers could understandably imagine that Matthew attributed to Jeremiah a paraphrase of Zechariah 11:12-13 – the Byzantine text adamantly reads “Jeremiah” nevertheless.

            Meanwhile, when we look at representatives of the transmission-lines where “in Isaiah the prophet” was read in Mark 1:2, it is precisely there that we see a willingness to mess with the text of Matthew 27:9.  A consultation of the first volume of Willker’s Textual Commentary on the Greek Gospels will show that Origen, Eusebius, and Jerome all expressed a suspicion that there was a scribal error in the manuscripts that read “Jeremiah” in Matthew 27:9.  Augustine (in The Harmony of the Gospels, Book 3, chapter 7, written in A.D. 400), shows that by his time, some Latin copyists had removed the name “Jeremiah” to relieve readers of the burden of investigating the text:

            “If anyone finds a difficulty in the circumstance that this passage is not found in the writings of the prophet Jeremiah, and thinks that this damages the credibility of the Evangelist, let him first take notice of the fact that the ascription of the passage to Jeremiah is not contained in all the codices of the Gospels, and that some of them state simply that it was spoken “by the prophet.” 

            Augustine, for his part, proceeded to reject the non-inclusion of Jeremiah’s name – because, he explained, most of the codices contain Jeremiah’s name, and because “those critics who have studied the Gospel with more than usual care in the Greek copies report that they have found that the more ancient Greek exemplars include it,” and so forth.  But not all copyists shared his insight – which is why, in minuscules 33 and 157 (33 being one of the few minuscules that read “in Isaiah the prophet” in Mark 1:2) – there is no proper name in Matthew 27:9, and, turning to versional evidence, there is likewise no proper name there in the Peshitta, nor in VL 3 (both of which support “in Isaiah the prophet” in Mark 1:2).  In minuscule 22 and in the margin of the Harklean Syriac version, Zechariah’s name is placed there, and in the Old Latin Codex Rehdigeranus (VL 11, from the first half of the 700s) not only is Jeremiah’s name absent, but Isaiah’s name has been put into the text.

            Codex D’s text also displays scribal willingness to simply delete a proper name that seemed problematic in Matthew 14:3; Philip’s name is missing.  And in Mark 6:3, Codex D does not include Jairus’ name, apparently merely to bring the Marcan text into closer conformity to the Matthean parallel.

            Codex ﬡ’s text similarly resolves a perceived difficulty in Matthew 23:35 via the removal of the words υἱοῦ Βαραχίου.

            Meanwhile, the Byzantine Text in these passages retains the proper names which were considered problematic – so problematic that they were removed or replaced – in various Western, Caesarean, and Alexandrian manuscripts.  This evidence ought to lead one to suspect that the witnesses which contain a text in which names were inserted or removed – Codex Bezae (D), Codex Sinaiticus (ﬡ), Codex Koridethi (Θ), the Old Latin witnesses (especially VL 3), the Peshita, 33, and f¹ – should not be trusted very much where a variant involves the presence or absence of a name, such as in Mark 1:2.  To remove those witnesses from the picture would be to remove over half of the Greek manuscript-support cited in the UBS apparatus for “in Isaiah the prophet” in Mark 1:2.

Was Mark more likely to write “in Isaiah the prophet,” or “in the prophets”? 

            Two other New Testament authors – Matthew and Paul – occasionally blend together two citations from the Old Testament, using one as a sort of thematic cross-reference for the other.  Matthew appears to do this in 21:4-5, focusing on Zechariah 9:9 with a dash of Isaiah 62:11.  And in 27:9, Matthew appears to use verbiage from Zechariah to frame the scene in Jeremiah 32:6-9 – unless, as some suspect (as Origen and Jerome did), Matthew refers here to an entirely different and non-canonical composition by Jeremiah, consisting of Hebrew source-material used in “The Prophecy of Jeremiah to Passhur.”  (See Willker, Vol. 1, TVU #377, for details.)  Likewise Paul, in Romans 3, does not meticulously separate his quotations which are united by a common theme. 

            Mark, however, was not like Matthew and Paul.  Matthew repeatedly quotes from the Old Testament, expecting his readers to know their Scriptures.  Paul, trained as a Pharisee, quoted from the Old Testament frequently.  Mark, in contrast, seems to have felt a stronger obligation to explain coinage-values (cf. 12:42) than to specify which Old Testament prophecies were fulfilled by Jesus.   

            Turning, then, to the other passages in Mark where material from Isaiah is used – 4:12 (Isaiah 6:9), 7:6-7 (Isaiah 29:13), 9:44, 9:46, 9:48 (Isaiah 66:24 – 9:44 and 9:46 are absent from the Nestle-Aland compilation), 11:17 (Isaiah 56:7), and, in the Byzantine text, 15:28 (Isaiah 53:12) – what stylistic pattern do we see?  Except for 7:6, it is one of non-specificity.     

                  

            The cumulative weight of these points favors “in the prophets” as the original reading of Mark 1:2.  The reading “in Isaiah the prophet” is likely to have arisen in both the early Alexandrian and Western transmission streams independently, due to a widespread scribal tendency to add specificity to the text. 

POSTSCRIPT

            I do not intend for this postscript to be considered an integral part of the case for “in the prophets,” but some readers may enjoy pondering it.  The Alexandrian Text of the Gospels (particularly the text of Codex Vaticanus) is well-aligned with the earliest stratum of the Sahidic version, and the Western Text of the Gospels is likewise well-aligned with the Old Latin version.  Could translators have introduced proper names into their local translations?  And, subsequently, could the Greek texts in the locales where these translations were in use have been adjusted to conform to the translation?

            We see a tendency toward specificity in some modern English paraphrases.  In Matthew 1:22, The Amplified Bible includes Isaiah’s name, bracketed, in the text; The Voice includes it in italics.  In Matthew 2:5, the Living Bible, the Voice translation, and Eugene Peterson’s “The Message” all include Micah’s name.  The Voice includes Zechariah’s name in Matthew 21:4.  The Message also inserts Amos’ name in Acts 7:42, and Isaiah’s name in Acts 7:48.

            The people who made these paraphrases did not consider what they did to be reckless and unnecessary tampering when they inserted proper names into these passages.  They regarded this step as a helpful amplification of the specific meaning of the text.  Some translators of early versions (particularly the Sahidic, Old Latin, and Syriac) – and some early copyists who prepared Greek manuscripts to be read to congregations – had the same intention.

●●●●●●●

Note:

All four posts in this series can be downloaded as a single file at my Academia.edu page, and also among the files on Facebook in the NT Textual Criticism group.

Envy and Murder in Galatians 5

          A famous list is found in the fifth chapter of the book of Galatians, in verses 22-23:  love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.  These nine qualities are introduced as the fruit of the Spirit.  Just a few verses earlier, a very different list is provided.  Just as the Spirit-led life produces Christ-like virtues, a life centered on selfish desires produces bad fruit of various kinds – and those vices are listed in verses 19-21:  the works of the flesh.           

          When Paul wrote this, how many items did he include in that list of vices?  A comparison of the ESV and the MLV (Modern Literal Version) shows that the MLV’s list is slightly longer:  

          “Adultery, fornication, uncleanness, unbridled-lusts, idolatry, sorcery, enmities, strife, jealousies, wraths, selfish ambitions, dissensions, sects, envies, murders, drunkenness, revelings and things similar to these.”  

          Adultery and murders are included in the MLV’s list, but neither one is in the ESV’s list.  This is due to a difference in the Greek compilations that were used for each version:  the MLV’s base-text, the Byzantine Text – which represents the vast majority of Greek manuscripts – includes them both in the list (as does the Textus Receptus, the base-text of the KJV, NKJV, and MEV).  The Nestle-Aland/UBS compilation has neither.  

          However, it would be incorrect to think that the ancient witnesses fall into just two groups, in which one group has both words, and the other one has neither.  It would be easy to get that impression if we only looked at Greek manuscripts, but the patristic evidence suggests something more complicated.  

          In the early Latin translation of Book 5 of Irenaeus’ Against Heresies, chapter 11, Irenaeus quoted this list with “adultery” but without “murders” – “Manifesta autem sunt opera carnis, quae sunt:  adulteria, fornicationes, immunditia, luxuria, idololatria, veneficia, inimicitiae, contentiones, zeli, irae, aemulationes, animositates, irritationes, dissensiones, haereses, invidiae, [here one would expect “homicidia,”] ebrietates, comissationes, et hic similia.”  Eighteen vices are named in this list.

          Jerome wrote his Commentary on Galatians in 386 (about 200 years after Irenaeus wrote), but Jerome frequently consulted (and borrowed from) earlier sources, including the commentaries of Origen (fl. 230-250) and Eusebius of Emesa (a student of the more famous Eusebius of Caesarea, earlier in the 300’s).  Jerome commented in detail about the list of vices in Galatians 5:19-21.  His list, containing 15 vices, was as follows:  fornication, impurity, debauchery, idolatry, sorcery, hostility, discord, jealousy, rage, quarrels, dissensions, heresies, envy, drunkenness, carousing, and the like.

          After commenting in some detail about these vices, he wrote, “In Latinis codicibus adulterium quoque et impudicitia et homicidia in hoc catalogi uitiorum scripta referuntur.  Sed sciendum non plus quam quindecim carnis opera nominata, de quibus et disseruimus.”  That is:  “In the Latin codices, adultery and immodesty and murder are written in this list of vices.  But we understand that no more than 15 works of the flesh are named, and I have covered them above.”  

          Thus, although Latin manuscripts known to Jerome included adultery, immodesty (impudicitia), and murder in the list, Jerome did not include them.  It would appear that either the Latin translation of Irenaeus’ Against Heresies, Book 5, has been conformed to an early Latin text that contained an expansion (the inclusion of “adultery” at the beginning of the list), or else the translation is accurate, in which case Irenaeus had access to a form of the Greek text which Jerome did not.  

          When considering whether copyists, in verse 19 and in verse 21, were likely to enlarge the list, or to shrink it, we should first be aware of the phenomenon known as colometric formatting.  In some manuscripts, when the copyists encountered lists of names or other quantities which tended to begin or end in similar ways, they stopped aligning the right edge of the text-column, and used a verse-like format instead.  

          In some manuscripts, the entire text is written in sense-lines, like poetic verse (each measure is called a cola).  (The stichoi-count in such manuscripts was not intended to represent the total number of lines, but of 16-syllable clusters, or something like that.)  As a result, much of the space in the right half of the column or columns of text is empty.  There are not very many such manuscripts, probably because this format wasted so much space.  The format was used more frequently in the genealogies (in Matthew 1 and Luke 3), in the Beatitudes, and in lists such as this one in Galatians 5.       

Galatians 5:19
in Codex Claromontanus (06)

     

          Let’s take a look at one of the few surviving manuscripts in which the entire text is written in colometric format:  Codex Claromontanus, from the mid-400’s.   In Codex Claromontanus, in Galatians 5, sometimes a line is occupied by just one, two, or three words.  In the text of Galatians 5:19 in Codex Claromontanus, the term “adultery” (μοιχια, usually spelled μοιχεία) appears on the same line as the preceding words.  This format could elicit the loss of the word, if a scriptorium-master, after reading aloud to the copyists, “Now the works of the flesh are manifest, which are” jumped to the first indented item.  In two minuscule manuscripts that have a somewhat special text of the Pauline Epistles, 330 and 2400, μοιχεία was initially omitted but was re-inserted after ἀκαθαρσία (uncleanness) as the third item in the list, as if such a mistake was made, but was almost immediately detected.                     

Galatians 5:19b-21
in Codex Claromontanus (06)

          The colometric format had the advantage of making lists easy to read, if one could follow along with one’s finger or with a bookmark.  On the other hand, if a copyist skipped a line – which could easily happen, when several terms in a list ended in the same combination of letters – it would be difficult to detect, since the text of a list, though shorter, would still make sense.          

          In Codex Sinaiticus (ﬡ, Aleph), most of the text of Galatians is written in neat columns, but here in Galatians 5:19-21, the copyist resorted to a colometric format, giving each vice its own line of text. 

          The copyist of Codex Vaticanus (B) was less generous with his use of parchment, and wrote in the entire column, but he conveyed that in his exemplar, the text of the list in Galatians 5:19-21 was written in a colometric format, by adding distinct dots and spaces between the words. 

Galatians 5:20-21a in Latin
in Codex Claromontanus (VL 75).

          A comparison of Codex ﬡ and Codex Claromontanus, separated by about a century, suggests that in an ancient ancestor-manuscript, the text was written colometrically, and μοιχια was written to the right of ατινα εστιν (μοιχια was not written by the copyist of ﬡ, but the word was added there by a later corrector), and in which, in verse 21, the word φθόνοι (envies, or envyings) was followed on the next line by the very similar word φόνοι (murders) – the second word being lost early in a transmission-line in Egypt, but preserved in Codex Claromontanus (in Greek and in Latin – homicidiae appears on the opposite page where the passage is written in Latin), thanks perhaps to a cautious copyist’s observation that it would be a good idea to write both words on a single line to avoid an accidental loss.          

        The text of the important minuscule 6 is consistent with that hypothesis:  written without colometric formatting, it contains μοιχεία in verse 19, and both φθόνοι and φόνοι in verse 21.      

          In minuscule 1739, μοιχεία is not in the text but is added in the margin; 1739 has both φθόνοι and φόνοι in verse 21.            

The passage in minuscule 6.

          Generally, the Greek manuscripts with an Egyptian line of descent do not have  “adultery” (though we cannot be sure about Papyrus 46; damage has claimed its text from Galatians 5:17b-20a), and almost all others do.  

        Occasionally, the accumulation of so many words with similar endings got the better of a copyist:  in minuscules 614 and 2412, for example, after the copyist wrote ερις, ζηλοι, θυμοι, in verse 20, his line of sight jumped forward to the –οι before μέθαι in verse 21, thus skipping all the words in between.  (The mistake apparently was never caught by a proof-reader, even though minuscule 2412 was equipped for lection-reading.)

Minuscule 2412's copyist
skipped some text.

          Moving to versional evidence:  the inclusion of “adultery” at the beginning of the list in verse 19 is not supported by the Peshitta, but envy and murder are both listed in verse 21.  And, as Jerome mentioned, the Old Latin includes adultery and murder.  Detailed information about the versional evidence in verse 19 is not easy to come by (UBS-4 did not even acknowledge the existence of this variant-unit!), but if the UBS-4 apparatus is to be trusted, then the Vulgate, the Harklean Syriac, the Bohairic, Armenian, and Ethiopic versions all support the longer reading in verse 21.  The Old Georgian version is divided, but the Georgian evidence for the shorter reading is so late, and is such a branch of a branch, that I suspect that it may display a relatively late omission rather than echo its ancestral text, as seems to be the case in some Greek lectionaries. 

           

          We already covered some patristic evidence, but there are a few other early writers whose comments on this passage are particularly notable.  

          Clement of Alexandria, in Book 4, chapter 8 of Stromata, quoted the list, without “adultery,” and without “murder.”  

          John Chrysostom (c. 400), in his Fifth Homily on Galatians, used a text with “adultery” at the beginning of the list.

          Epiphanius, who was a bishop of Salamis on the island of Cyprus in the late 300’s, wrote an immense composition opposing various heresies, called the Panarion, and in Book 42 of this work, Epiphanius’ target is the second-century heretic Marcion and his followers.  Marcion, according to Epiphanius, not only butchered the Gospel of Luke, but also made numerous alterations even to the ten Epistles of Paul that he accepted – and Epiphanius even cites numerous detailed examples, as if he himself has sifted through a copy of Marcion’s text.  

          Galatians 5:19-21 is among the passages listed by Epiphanius as having been altered by Marcion; Epiphanius states in Panarion, Book 42, part 11:8, that Marcion’s list ran as follows:  “Now the works of the flesh are manifest, which are these:  adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lasciviousness, idolatry, witchcraft, hatred, variance, emulations, wrath, strife, seditions, factions, envyings, drunkenness, carousings.”  Notably, adultery is present, and murder is absent.       

          This list is repeated in part 12:3 of the same book.  Some researchers have noted a slight difference in the two quotations; in at least one manuscript of Epiphanius, “murder” is present and not “envy.”  However, that may be a mere mistake by a copyist of Panarion.  It seems doubtful that Epiphanius would present two different versions of the same citation from Marcion’s text without making a note about the difference.                

          The reading of Galatians 5:19-21 with “adultery,” and without “murders,” is thus associated with Marcion – either as a feature of the text that he found and adopted, or which he initiated, for whatever reason.  It is unlikely that Marcion, whose opponents one and all accused him of fornication early in life, and who later practiced celibacy, would invent the addition of “adultery.”  In addition, in the course of his retort against the long-dead Marcion, Epiphanius stated, “How can the holy Mary not inherit the kingdom of heaven, flesh and all, when she did not commit fornication or uncleanness or adultery or do any of the intolerable deeds of the flesh, but remained undefiled?”  This indicates that “adultery” was also included in Epiphanius’ own text of Galatians 5:19.            

The list of the works of the flesh
in minuscule 604.

        So, although a few early manuscripts support a form of Galatians 5:19-21 without “adultery” and without “murders,” and this form of the Greek text was also known to Clement and Jerome, these two non-inclusions are accounted for by natural scribal accidents – misreading an exemplar with colometrically arranged text, in the first case, and simple parablepsis (jumping from one set of letters to a recurrence of the same (or similar) letters further along in the text) in the other.  Both “adultery” and “murders” belong in the text.

          There is another passage with an interesting history involving the similarity of the Greek words for envy and murder which I wanted to mention today, but it will have to wait for another time.  In the meantime, whether you accept the complete form of the list of vices, or the shorter one, let us acknowledge that the Scriptures elsewhere oppose both adultery and murder.  And, for those who would like to look into the text of Galatians more closely, I commend to you two online resources:  Stephen Carlson’s dissertation, and a new compilation of Galatians by Robert Waltz, whose Encyclopedia of New Testament Textual Criticism was recently updated and expanded.         

          May we all avoid the works of the flesh, and instead bear the fruit of the Spirit!