Tatian and Mark 16:9-20

           Recently the website of the Text & Canon Institute featured a case for Mark 16:9-20, by me, and a case against Mark 16:9-20, by Dr. Peter Head.   My attention in this post is focused on Dr. Head’s reluctance to admit that Tatian knew Mark 16:9-20 and used material from Mark 16:9-20 in the Diatessaron.

          Dr. Head wrote about coming to  “more cautious conclusions about Tatian’s Diatessaron” because “Snapp’s evidence for this second-century harmony actually comes from a sixth-century Latin manuscript and a fourth-century Syriac commentary.”  The sixth-century Latin manuscript to which he referred is Codex Fuldensis.  The fourth-century Syriac commentary to which he referred is the commentary by Ephrem Syrus (d. 373). 

          Before looking into Ephrem’s commentary and Codex Fuldensis further, two things should be pointed out. 

          (1) Dr. Head’s own footnote for the above quotation runs as follows:   “Within this Syriac commentary, the only evidence for the Longer Ending of Mark comes in the form of Jesus’ commission:  ‘Go forth into the whole world, and baptize in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Spirit.”  This admittedly, does seem like a conflation of Mark 16:15 and Matt 28:19.  But that is the only direct evidence.  Quoted from C. McCarthy, Saint Ephrem’s Commentary on Tatian’s Diatessaron: An English Translation of Chester Beatty Syriac MS 709 with Introduction and Notes (JSSS 2; Oxford: OUP, 1993), 289.”  Notice the line, “This admittedly, does seem like a conflation of Mark 16:15 and Matt 28:19.”  What else does Dr. Head imagine that it could be?         

          (2) Contrary to Dr. Head’s footnote, the passage on page 289 of McCarthy’s book is not “the only direct evidence.”  On page 145, near the beginning of Part VIII of Ephrem’s commentary as preserved in Chester Beatty Syriac MS 709 (made in 480-500; see pp. 138-139 of Michelle Brown’s In the Beginning:  Bibles Before the Year 1000 for a picture), McCarthy provides the part of the commentary in which Ephrem’s main focus is on the occasion of the sending of the disciples (in Matthew 10 and Luke 10).  After noting that on this occasion, Jesus “restrained his disciples, lest they preach to the Gentiles,” Ephrem wrote,  “After they had crucified him, he commanded his disciples, ‘Go out into the whole world and proclaim my Gospel to the whole of creation, and baptize all the Gentiles.” (Comm. VIII  §1b in McCarthy 1993).  This was indexed as a reference to Matthew 28:18, but it is clearly based on Mark 16:15. McCarthy notes that §1b “is absent from the Armenian version.”

         Now let’s review some developments in the study of the Diatessaron.  In 1880, in Institute Lectures, Ezra Abbot speculated that the Armenian version of Ephrem’s commentary was “made, it is supposed, in the fifth century” (Institute Lectures p. 173).  (The Armenian manuscripts themselves were from 1195.)  A Latin translation of the Armenian text that had been prepared by J. P. Aucher (using one Armenian manuscript) and edited by George Moesinger (using another Armenian manuscript) was published in 1876, and, Abbot reported, it went “almost unnoticed by scholars.”  

James Rendel Harris 

          J. Rendel Harris, in The Diatessaron of Tatian:  A Preliminary Study, (1890) offered a few more details about this Armenian text of Ephrem’s commentary, beginning on page 22, pointing out that Paul de Lagarde was an exception to Abbot’s generalization.   Harris then described the 1881 work of Theodor Zahn, in Forschungen zur Geschichte des Neutestamentlichen Kanons, Theil. 1, “Tatian’s Diatessaron, as “a skillful combination of this work of Ephrem with the earlier Syriac writers” that provides the means to “very nearly judge without the Arabic Harmony, what sequence Tatian followed, what passages he omitted, and what additions his text shews when compared with later texts.”

          Zahn’s work was eclipsed in 1888 by the publication of Tatiani Evangeliorum Harmoniae Arabice by Agostino Ciasca, in which Ciasca presented the Arabic text of the Diatessaron as found in two manuscripts, from the 1100s and 1300s.   Harris reported (on page 8) that in the manuscript from the 1300s, a colophon states that it was translated from Syriac into Arabic by Abu-l-Faraj Abdullah Ben-at-tîb, and that its Syriac basis had been made by ʻIsa ben Ali Almottabbeb, a disciple of Abu Zaid Honain ben Ishaq.

          Harris went on to say that Abu Zaid Honain ben Ishaq was “a famous Syrian physician and writer in medicine, who died in the year 873, and whose headquarters were at Bagdad.”  He also mentions that Bar-hebraeus, a later writer, gives the date of the death of Abdulfarag as A.D. 1043.

          Harris wrote, “The Diatessaron had seen 700 years of Syriac life before its translation into Arabic; and we can readily infer that the Syriac at the time of translation must have been in many points altered from its original cast.  Still, the comparison with the collateral evidence is sufficient to justify us in our belief that we have here substantially the work of Tatian.”

          Mark 16:9-20 is plainly incorporated into the text of the Arabic Diatessaron that was published by Ciasca.  We should ask, then, (1) Is the inclusion of Mark 16:9-20 in the Arabic Diatessaron a result of an expansion based on the Peshitta (the Syriac text), and (2) Is the inclusion of Mark 16:9-20 in Codex Fuldensis a result of an expansion based on the Vulgate?” 

          To find the answer to this question, we must compare the arrangement of Mark 16:9-20 in the Arabic (Syriac-based) Diatessaron (an Eastern witness) and the arrangement of Mark 16:9-20 in Codex Fuldensis (a Western witness).    

          I should first briefly introduce Codex Fuldensis.  This manuscript was produced in 541-546, under the supervision of bishop Victor of Capua (in Italy).  The Gospels-text in Codex Fuldensis is a Vulgate text, but Victor reported that its arrangement in Codex Fuldensis was based on the arrangement of an older Latin text which Victor suspected of being a translation of Tatian’s Diatessaron.  It is described a little more by J. M. Harden in Some Manuscripts of the Vulgate New Testament.  

          By comparing the arrangement of the material from Mark 16:9–20 in the Arabic Diatessaron, and the arrangement of the material from Mark 16:9–20 and Codex Fuldensis, we can discern whether their arrangements can be reasonably attributed to two independent harmonists, or if they are so similar as to demand to be recognized as a trait derived from Tatian’s Diatessaron.

          Using, for convenience, J. Hamlyn Hill’s 1894 English translation of the Arabic Diatessaron and the presentation of the Latin text of Codex Fuldensis made by Ernestus Ranke (1868), a comparison can be made of eleven aspects of their arrangements of Mark 16:9–20. (“Arab D” represents the Arabic Diatessaron, and “Fuld” represents Codex Fuldensis.)

1►    Arab D 53 has Mk 16:9 after Jn 20:2–17.

1►    Fuld 174 has part of Mk 16:9 between Jn 20:2–10 and 20:11–17.

 

2►    Arab D 53 uses Mk 16:10 after Lk 24:9.

2►    Fuld 176 uses Mk 16:10 after Lk 24:9.

 

3►    Arab D 53 uses Mk 16:11 between Lk 24:10 and 24:11.

3►    Fuld 176 uses Mk 16:11 between Lk 24:9 and 24:11.

 

4►    Arab D 53 uses Mk 16:12 between Lk 24:11 and 24:13.

4►    Fuld 177 uses Mk 16:12 between Lk 24:11 and 24:13.

 

5►    Arab D 53 uses Mk 16:13b between Lk 24:13b–35 and part of Lk 24:36.

5►    Fuld 178 uses Mk 16:13b between Lk 24:13–35 and part of Lk 24:36.

 

6►    Arab D 55 uses Mk 16:14 between Mt 28:17 and 28:18.

6►    Fuld 182 uses Mk 16:14 between Mt 28:17 and 28:18.

 

7►    Arab D 55 uses Mk 16:15 between Mt 28:18 and Mt 28:19.

7►    Fuld 182 uses Mk 16:15 between Mt 28:18 and 28:19.

          (The Arabic text also includes “For even as my Father sent me, so I also send you,” which is normally found in Jn 20:21 but is also in the Peshitta in Mt 28:18.  The Syriac text translated into Arabic was probably conformed to the Peshitta to this extent.)

8►    Arab D uses Mk 16:16–18 between Mt 28:20 and Lk 24:49.

8►    Fuld 182 uses Mk 16:16–18 between Mt 28:20 and Lk 24:49.

 

9►    Arab D blends “And our Lord Jesus,” from Mk 16:19 with Lk 24:50.

9►    Fuld 182 does not.

 

10►  Arab D uses “and sat down at the right hand of God” (from Mk 16:19) between Lk 24:51 and 24:52.

10►  Fuld 182 uses “and sat down at the right hand of God” (from Mk 16:19) between Lk 24:51 and 24:52.

 

11►  Arab D uses Mk 16:20 between Lk 24:53 and Jn 21:25.

11►  Fuld 182 uses Mk 16:20 after Lk 24:53 and ends there with “Amen.” (In Codex Fuldensis, Jn 21:25 appears at the end of 181.)

           So:  there are small differences, but the arrangement of the contents of Mark 16:9–20 in Codex Fuldensis, and the arrangement of the contents of Mark 16:9–20 in the Arabic Diatessaron, are essentially the same. (By the way, this evidence was presented by me in 2012 in The Heroic Age.)

          The agreement between Codex Fuldensis and the Arabic Diatessaron, as evidence that Tatian’s Diatessaron included Mark 16:9-20, has  corroborative witnesses besides Ephrem’s commentary.  One of them is Aphrahat, a Syriac writer who used the Diatessaron.  According to Harris, Aphrahat’s “first 22 homilies are based upon the text of the Diatessaron.”  Harris says that these homilies “were written about the year 336 A.D., and a supplementary 23rd homily was added in the year 345.”

           In Aphrahat’s first homily, also called “Demonstration One:  Of Faith,” he wrote in chapter 17, “When our Lord gave the sacrament of baptism to his apostles, he said thus to them: Whosoever believes and is baptized shall live, and whosoever believes not shall be condemned,” and, “Again he said thus: ‘This shall be the sign for those that believe; they shall speak with new tongues and shall cast out demons, and they shall lay their hands on the sick and they shall be made whole’” (See John Gwynn’s 1898 Selections, Translated into English, from the Hymns and Homilies of Ephrem, and from the Demonstrations of Aphrahat the Persian Sage, on page 351).

          (Aphrahat’s Demonstration One was misidentified in the textual apparatus of the UBS Greek New Testament (1966) as a work of Jacob of Nisibis, even though John Burgon had corrected such misidentification in 1871 on page 258 of The Last Twelve Verses of Mark.)

          In conclusion:  there is no real justification for Dr. Head’s “caution,” and there should be no doubt at all that Mark 16:9-20 was in Tatian’s Diatessaron.

 

Codex 064: Transcriptions of the New Pages

            What is the text on the four newly identified pages of 064 at St. Catherine’s Monastery at Mount Sinai?  That’s the question that this post was written to answer!  Without further introduction, here is the front-and-back transcription of the Greek lower writing on fol. 72 and fol. 71 of Syriac 7.  Red letters indicate a deviation from the Robinson-Pierpont Byzantine Textform.

On 72v., in the first column, in the 10th line, part of the text is obscured by the upper writing.  It looks like the copyist accidentally skipped a syllable and perhaps a correction was made in different ink which did not survive.

The last digit in the Section-number beside Mt. 27:37 is probably Δ but it is difficult to say for sure because it is obscured by the upper writing.

Page-views of Syriac 7 are online at the Sinai Palimpsests Project at sinai.library.ucla.edu, a publication of St. Catherine’s Monastery of the Sinai in collaboration with EMEL and UCLA.  The pages with the text represented here can be viewed as the last two pages of the manuscript, upside down (relative to the Syriac text).


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

Codex Sangallensis: The Amplified Vulgate

John 21:20b-23a
in Codex Sangallensis,
page 394.  A Latin double-reading
(highlighted) is at the start of 20:23.

            Codex Sangallensis (Δ, 037) is best-known for its Greek text; it is one of the “consistently cited witnesses of the second order” used in the Nestle-Aland Novum Testamentum Graece compilation.  Its Latin Gospels-text, known as δ or Vetus Latina 27, has some interesting features too.  For the most part, it agrees with the Vulgate, the translation that Jerome made in 383-384, and for which he consulted ancient Greek manuscripts.  Occasionally its text contains additional words which mean approximately the same thing as the main Latin text are included; for this reason, 037’s Latin text may be thought of as the Amplified Vulgate.

            Even before the text of the Gospels begins in Codex Sangallensis, the main text of Jerome’s Preface to the Vulgate Gospels (Epistula Ad Damasum) – a secondary attachment to the Gospels-codex – is supplemented by notes – some interlinear and some in the margins – which explain or simplify the meaning of the text.  For example, in the sentence in which Jerome mentions two causes to feel comforted although his work is bound to be rejected by some individuals, “first cause” (prima causa) and “second cause” (seconda causa) are written above the main text, just to ensure the reader’s understanding. 

            Occasionally such supplemental material is accompanied by a special symbol, consisting of the combination of a dot, a vertical line, and another dot (×½×).  This symbol, which stands for the Latin words id est (“that is”), sporadically accompanies notes and supralinear readings in the Gospels-text.  In 1891, the prolific researcher J. Rendel Harris (in a detailed study) investigated the significance of this symbol and the material it accompanies, as part of a broader investigation of the source, or sources, of the verbal amplifications in the Latin text of 037.  Harris sought to determine whether the copyist had freely and spontaneously added clarifications to the text, or else derived the amplifications from a second Latin exemplar, with an Old Latin Gospels-text.      

            The presence of supplemental notes, including a few with the ×½× symbol, in the Epistula Ad Damasum, does not interlock well with the idea that the copyist was consulting an Old Latin text that was completely independent from the Vulgate, inasmuch as Epistula Ad Damasum cannot have been an integral part of any Old Latin text.  Yet, Codex Sangallensis also contains the Argumentum Matthai – one of the “Monarchian” Prologues, not written by Jerome (contrary to the title given to it in 037) – and in its text, too, the ×½× symbol introduces some (but not all) supplemental notes.  For instance, where the text mentions that Matthew’s record of Christ’s genealogy involves the beginning of the covenant-sign of circumcision and God’s sovereign election, the marginalia identifies Abraham and David specifically as the individual ancestors whose lives involved these things. 

Clearly, the ×½× symbol is capable of accompanying interpretive comments.  But most of the interpretive comments are not introduced by it; for instance, where the Prologue mentions that Christ was born under the Law (making an allusion to Galatians 4:4), a supralinear note (with no symbol accompanying it) identifies this as a reference to circumcision.      

Sometimes, in the text of the Gospels, the symbol accompanies material which is paralleled in Old Latin manuscripts.  More frequently, although the symbol is lacking, the Latin amplification seems to be drawn from a written source, rather than inserted due to a whim of the copyist.  (And, on occasion, the Latin text simply isn’t there, showing that it has not been rigorously conformed to the accompanying Greek text.) 

Let’s look into the first eight chapters of Matthew for a closer look at some of the features which have earned this manuscript a place among the Vetus Latina).  The word vel (“or”) is usually abbreviated.

            ● Mt. 1:20a – δ:  Noli (the Vulgate reading) vel ne

            ● Mt. 1:20b – δ:  timeas in the text; vel timere (the Vulgate reading) is supralinear

            ● Mt. 1:20c – δ:  uxorem before coniugem

            ● Mt. 1:20d – δ:  ut nascetur after natum

            ● Mt. 2:12 – δ:  gap above being divinely warned; Latin text resumes with ne redirent

            ● Mt. 2:20 – δ: ×½× quaerentes before quaerebant

            ● Mt. 2:23 – δ: ex (not Vulgate per)

            ● Mt. 3:2 – δ: ×½× penitete before penitentiam

            ● Mt. 5:40 – δ: vestimentum vel before pallium

            ● Mt. 5:44 δ:  gap above those who curse

            ● Mt. 6:13 – δ:  majestas vel gloria over δοξα (glory).  The Greek text and the Latin text include the doxology.

            ● Mt. 6:31 – δ:  vel cogitate after ne solliciti estis (Vulgate:  Nolite ergo solliciti esse) above Do not worry.  The Greek text and the Latin text both continue with the words your soul.   

            ● Mt. 6:33 – δ:  the Latin text agrees with the Vulgate (adicientur); a note in the margin says vel adponent.

            ● Mt. 6:34a – δ:  the verse begins with Ne and the Vulgate reading (Nolite) has been written above it, with et.     

            ● Mt. 6:34b – δ:  the text has cogitetis and sollicite esse has been written above it; vel te (te being the alternate word-ending, so as to form cogitate) follows in the text.

            ● Mt. 7:1a – δ:  Ne is in the main text; Nolite vel is written above it.

            ● Mt. 7:1b – δ:  iudicate is in the main text; vel re is written after it (implying iudicare)

            ● Mt. 7:13 – δ:  above destruction, the Latin line has an abbreviated form of interitum followed by vel mortem.  Neither is the Vulgate reading (perditionem).

            ● Mt. 8:15 – δ:  above λογω (word), written in contractions, are the words verbo vel sermo.  Verbo is the Vulgate reading.

            ● Mt. 8:17 – δ:  above δια (through) are the words ex vel per.  Per is the Vulgate reading.

            ● Mt. 8:34 – δ:  above μεταβη is the word transiret, the usual Vulgate reading, but accompanying it in the nearby margin is ascenderet.  

            The double-readings in these eight chapters alone (and Harris collected many more) adequately compel the conclusion that the copyist is not spontaneously augmenting the Latin text with synonyms; a second Latin exemplar is being cited.  

            This does not mean that every supplemental note represents a variant in the Latin text –for example, on page 310, in Luke 24:24, the ×½× symbol precedes a note identifying those who visited the tomb as Peter and John.  But often the double-readings are explained far more plausibly as citations of a secondary Old Latin source than as explanatory notes added by the copyist. 

Two outstanding indications that the copyist was using a second Latin exemplar occur in Matthew 10:31 – where the Greek word διαφέρετε (“better”) is matched by the Latin meliores (the Vulgate reading) which is augmented by vel praecellitis – and in a cluster of double-reading in Matthew 12:34-35; the motive for the double-readings in these places seems particularly unlikely to have been to make the passage clearer to the reader.    

           

             An interesting ocurrence of the ×½× symbol is in Mark 9:23, where in the first line of page 167 the words of Jesus begin with το ει δυνη παντα δυνατα (“‘If you can’?  All things are possible . . .”) but the Latin text reads si potes and then, above παντα, ×½× credere omnia; the copyist seems to have recognized that his Greek and Latin texts did not match up at this point. 

Luke 20:15-23

            It may be worthwhile, as we finish our examination of the Latin text of Codex 037, to notice what J. Rendel Harris noticed about some of the Latin alternate-renderings that occur in the first part of Matthew 25:  where the text of δ disagrees with, or is augmented by, a non-Vulgate reading, the non-Vulgate reading often agrees with the Latin text of Codex Bezae.  This seems to compel the conclusion that not only are the amplifications of δ’s Latin text echoes of a secondary exemplar, but that this secondary Latin exemplar contained a Western text similar to what is found in the Latin pages of Codex Bezae.             

            Thus, Codex Sangallensis may be considered congruent to two and a half manuscripts: 

● the Greek text (most of which is thoroughly Byzantine in Matthew, Luke, and John, but a mixture of Byzantine and Alexandrian in Mark) and

● the interlinear Latin text (most of which represents the Vulgate, with some adjustments to correspond to the Greek text) and

● the amplifications in the Latin text (which echo an Old Latin exemplar).  

           

           

Pictured:  Luke 20:15-23 in Codex Sangallensis (037).   

Red Underline = Δ disagrees with NA and Byz.  Notice the reading λαλοις (where the text should be αλλοις; the copyist apparently accidentally reversed the first two letters) at the end of the third line, in verse 16.  

Red and Green Underline:  Δ disagrees with NA but agrees with Byz.

Dashed Orange Underline:  Δ agrees with NA but disagrees with Byz.

Blue Background:  Non-Vulgate readings in δ.

Yellow Background:  Double-reading in δ. 

Large letters in the text alongside the purple bracket:  a chapter-title, About the question about the tax-money.  The chapter-number (71) is in the left margin.

[Readers are welcome to double-check the data in this post.]

Mark 1:2 (Part 3) - Irenaeus and Tatian

[Continued from the previous post]

 

            Continuing our investigation about the text of Mark 1:2, let’s turn now to Irenaeus, the earliest evidence for Mark 1:2.  Irenaeus had grown up in Asia Minor (he states in Against Heresies 3:3:4 that he saw Polycarp at Smyrna), and served as bishop in the city of Lugdunum (now Lyons), in Gaul (now France).  He also visited Rome in 177, when Roman persecution targeted Lugdunum.  He wrote the third book of his most famous work, Against Heresies, in about 184, which means that his quotations of Mark are from a manuscript earlier than any known to exist.            

A Vulgate copy
from the 800s,
with "in Isaiah the prophet"
in Mark 1:2.

            Considerable sections of Against Heresies are extant only in Latin or Syriac, rather than in the Greek language in which Irenaeus wrote.  For this reason, some scholars have suspected that when we encounter quotations of Mark 1:2 with “in the prophets” in Against Heresies, we are seeing the hand of a Latin translator who replaced Irenaeus’ quotations with a text more familiar to the translator.  However, the Old Latin and Vulgate firmly support “in Isaiah the prophet” – so whoever suggests that the Latin translator made Irenaeus’ Greek quotation agree with some Latin text that read “in the prophets” in Mark 1:2 should identify what Latin text he has in mind.

            In Against Heresies 3:10:5, Irenaeus wrote, “Wherefore also Mark, the interpreter and follower of Peter, does thus commence his Gospel narrative:  ‘The beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God, as it is written in the prophets, Behold, I send my messenger before your face, who shall prepare your way.  The voice of one crying in the wilderness, Prepare the way of the Lord; make the paths straight before our God.’  Plainly does the commencement of the Gospel quote the words of the holy prophets, and point out Him at once, whom they confessed as God and Lord, Him, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who had also made promise to Him, that He would send His messenger before His face, who was John, crying in the wilderness, in the spirit and power of Elijah, ‘Prepare ye the way of the Lord; make straight paths before our God.’”

            (The combination of variants in this citation is interesting, and merits closer study:  “Son of God” is included in verse 1, and “in the prophets” is read in verse 2; yet “before you” is not read at the end of verse 2, and the close of the quotation seems to be conformed to the text of Isaiah 40:3.)

            Against the idea that Irenaeus’ text has been altered here by a copyist of his works, it should be noticed that Irenaeus, commenting on the passage, did not proceed to say that one prophet (i.e., Isaiah) thus testified, but that they (i.e., the prophets) confessed him as God and Lord, and he made this affirmation as he saw no need for further comment.

            However, in Against Heresies 3:11:8, which is preserved in Greek and Latin, Irenaeus quotes Mark 1:1-2 with “in Isaiah the prophet.”  In addition, his brief quotation does not include the phrase “the Son of God” – Ἀρχὴ τοῦ εὐαγγελίου Ἰησοῦ Χριστοῦ ὡς γέγραπται ἐν Ἡσαΐα τῷ προφήτη.  This form of Mark 1:1-2a, excluding “Son of God” and including “in Isaiah the prophet” without τῷ before Ἡσαΐα, is rare; it is attested only in Codex Θ and in the Armenian and Georgian versions, and a few respectably early patristic compositions, as far as I can tell.  While nothing precludes the idea that Irenaeus possessed the kind of text displayed in Codex Θ (and in Oxyrhynchus Papyri LXXVI 5073, a talisman probably made in the late 200s), there is another possibility:  that at this point Irenaeus was incorporating the contents of an earlier source into his own composition.        

            Let’s take a look at the context of the quotation in Against Heresies 3:11:8:  it arrives as Irenaeus is defending the idea that there are four, and only four, Gospels. Just as there are four cherubim around God’s heavenly throne; each angelic likeness is associated with one of the four Gospels.  Using Revelation 4:7, Irenaeus explains that the Gospel of John corresponds to the confident lion; the Gospel of Luke corresponds to the ox; the Gospel of Matthew corresponds to the man, and the Gospel of Mark corresponds to the eagle – this last association being based on the swiftness of an eagle’s flight and the swiftness with which Mark summarizes Jesus’ activities, providing a quick overview:  “Mark, on the other hand, commences with the prophetical spirit coming down from on high to men, saying, ‘The beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ, as it is written in Isaiah the prophet,’ – pointing to the winged aspect of the gospel; and on this account he made a compendious and cursory narrative, for such is the prophetical character.”

            Further along in Against Heresies, in 3:16:3, Irenaeus again refers to Mark 1:2.  He specifically quotes from Mark:  “Wherefore Mark also says, ‘The beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God, as it is written in the prophets.’  Knowing one and the same Son of God, Jesus Christ, who was announced by the prophets . . . .”

            In the two instances where Irenaeus quotes Mark 1:1-2a with “Son of God” and “in the prophets,” the adjacent comments from Irenaeus do not give any hint that his own text has been replaced with something else; his comments interlock with a text of Mark in which those two readings are in the text.  But at the same time, there is no sign of tampering in the quotation in which Irenaeus fails to use “Son of God” and in which he names Isaiah the prophet.

            None of these passages in Against Heresies shows any sign of tampering by the Latin translator of Against Heresies.  It looks like Irenaeus used two different forms of the text of Mark 1:2 – one which read, “in the prophets,” and one which read “in Isaiah the prophet,” in the Western form of the Greek text (ἐν Ἠσαίᾳ τῷ προφήτῃ).  The only conclusion this evidence points to is that two forms of Mark 1:2 – one reading “in Isaiah the prophet” and another reading “in the prophets” – were in circulation in the 180’s. 

            Now let’s turn to a comment made by a Syriac writer named Isho’dad of Merv, around A.D. 850.  Though later than Charlemagne, Isho’dad’s writings are valuable, inasmuch as he frequently relied upon older compositions.  Isho’dad acknowledged a difficulty in the Syriac text of Mark 1:2 (where the Peshitta reads “in Isaiah the prophet”) and he mentioned five proposals about how to resolve it, without expressing a preference for any of them: 

            “It is asked, ‘Why did Mark say, “As it is written in Isaiah the prophet, ‘Behold, I send My messenger before Thy face,’” etc., when it is written in Malachi? 

            “Some say that it was in Isaiah and was lost.  Other say that he put to the voice of one crying in the wilderness, ‘Prepare the way,’ etc., this sign as an answer.  Others say that because it was translated from Roman [i.e., Latin; this reflects a tradition that Mark originally wrote in Latin] to Greek, and from that to Syriac, the interpreters made a mistake, and put ‘Isaiah’ instead of ‘Malachi.’ 

            “Others say that he [i.e., Mark] is not concerned to be meticulously precise about the reference, as is the custom of the Scriptures. 

            “Others say that the Diatessaron-book, which was composed in Alexandria, instead of this ‘as it is written by Isaiah the prophet,’ says, ‘by the prophets.’”  (See Margaret Gibson’s The Commentaries of Isho’dad of Merv, 1911, Vol. 1, page 126). 

            Let’s zoom in on that last proposal.  Isho’dad, in his description of the Diatessaron as a text composed in Alexandria, has probably confused the Diatessaron of Ammonius of Alexandria – a Matthew-centered cross-reference system mentioned in the much-circulated Ad Carpian, but not known to be extant – with the Diatessaron produced by Tatian (in the early 170’s), in which the contents of the four Gospels were blended together into a single non-repeating narrative. 

            The text that Tatian produced – whether Greek or Syriac – is not extant, and its fullest echo, the Arabic Diatessaron, has been extensively (but not entirely) conformed to the Peshitta. (That is, the arrangement of the text was substantially retained, but because Tatian was suspected of heresy due to his asceticism, the text itself was adjusted to agree (mostly) with the Peshitta, and this Syriac text was subsequently translated into Arabic.)  Isho’dad’s statement here, then, may be the only extant indication that Tatian’s Diatessaron originally contained the reading “in the prophets” extracted from Mark 1:2. 

            J. Rendel Harris, in the preface to Gibson’s translation of Isho’dad’s Commentary (p. xxviii), mentioned that a later Syriac writer, Jacob Bar-Salibi (d. 1171), expanded Isho’dad’s remark:  “Others [say] that in the book Diatessaron which is preserved [or was composed] in Alexandria and was written by Tatianus the bishop, as also in the Greek Gospel and in the Harkalian, it is written ‘in the prophet,’ without explaining what prophet.”

            If indeed Tatian’s Diatessaron read “in the prophets,” then this would constitute another second-century witness for that reading.

Continued in Part Four:  Mark 1:2 and Some Other Evidence

Why the ESV is Errant in Matthew 1:7-10

          “All Scripture is breathed out by God.”  That statement is not only the introductory phrase of Second Timothy 3:16 in the English Standard Version; it is also an affirmation in the introduction of the ESV Reader’s Gospels  (in more traditional wording):  “All Scripture is inspired by God.”  At the ESVBible website, a brief essay teaches that “As the Bible is the inspired word of God, presenting us with God’s words as mediated through human language, it is likewise inerrant and infallible.”

          Evangelical theologians may therefore have good reason to wonder why the ESV New Testament promotes two errors on its first page.  I refer to the ESV’s erroneous claims that Asaph and Amos were among the kings of Judah in the ancestry of Christ.  The answer to this question involves textual variants.  

          The ESV’s preface was intended to give readers the impression that the ESV is a direct descendant of the KJV:  the ESV, the writer claims, “stands in the classic mainstream of English Bible translations,” and continues “the Tyndale-King James legacy,” and so forth.  However, those who read the section of the preface sub-titled Textual Basis and Resources will find a statement that the ESV New Testament is based on the fourth edition of the United Bible Societies’ Greek New Testament and on the 27^th edition of the Nestle-Aland Novum Testamentum Graece – which is another way of saying that the ESV New Testament was translated from a base-text that is very similar to the compilation produced by Westcott and Hort in 1881 – a compilation which thoroughly replaced the primarily Byzantine base-text of the KJV New Testament with primarily Alexandrian readings, resulting in over 5,000 changes.     

          In Matthew 1:7-10, there is a contest between Ασα (Asa) and Ασαφ (Asaph), and between Αμων (Amon) and Αμως (Amos).  The compilers of the UBS and NA-texts, like Hort, rejected the readings that are found in the vast majority of manuscripts (and in diverse early witnesses including Codex Washingtoniensis, Old Latin Codex Vercellensis, the Vulgate, the Sinaitic Syriac, and the Peshitta), and adopted the Alexandrian readings Ασαφ and Αμως, thus conveying errors, inasmuch as Asaph was a songwriter (the author of several psalms) and Amos was a prophet who prophesied in the time of Uzziah.  (Uzziah is mentioned in the genealogy in Matthew 1:8-9).  Neither Asaph nor Amos was an ancestor of Jesus.  

Codex K (Cyprianus) displays the Byzantine reading.
In 1:7, note the interesting proximity of Ασα
to the letters σαφ in the next line.

         It is for that very reason that Ασαφ and Αμως were preferred by the editors of the ESV’s base-text, on the premise that copyists would tend to replace difficult readings with non-problematic ones, instead of the other way around.  The preference for the more difficult reading – a text-critical canon sometimes expressed in Latin as lectio difficilior potior – initially seems to compel the adoption of Ασαφ and Αμως.  However, that impression may be reversed when additional factors are considered.

          The late Bruce Metzger, in his argument for Ασαφ, mentioned a statement from Lagrange (an earlier scholar) to the effect that inasmuch as anyone making this genealogy-list would have to consult the Old Testament, and anyone reading the Old Testament would see the kings’ correct names, “It is necessary, therefore, to suppose that Ασαφ is a very ancient [scribal] error.”  Metzger dismissed that line of reasoning via the supposition that “the evangelist may have derived material for the genealogy, not from the Old Testament directly, but from subsequent genealogical lists, in which the erroneous spelling occurred.”

          However, there is no evidence for the use of such a hypothetical genealogical list in the hands of the evangelist; meanwhile the evidence for Matthew’s familiarity with the Old Testament permeates his Gospel-account.  In addition, considering that Matthew knew the Old Testament and treated it as authoritative, which source is he more likely to have favored when they disagreed:  the Old Testament text, or some “subsequent genealogical list” (assuming that he ever had one)?  

          Metzger attempted to present Ασαφ and Αμως as if the evangelist merely had a strange way of spelling Ασα and Αμων.  Footnotes in the ESV make the same attempt.  However, on balance, the evidence that Metzger cited weakens his position.  In the Septuagint, out of the many occurrences of Asa’s name, he is almost always called Asa; the few intrusions of Ασαφατ and Ασαφ and Ασαβ are simply scribal mistakes.  As Jonathan Borland has pointed out:  “That only these few comparable examples exist out of 90 or so instances of the two names in the LXX demonstrates just what one should expect: while the vast consensus of manuscripts always distinguished the names, less than 10 percent of the time a single scribe (with the exception of 2 Chr 29:13 where 3 manuscripts vary) wrote one name for the other.” 

          Before I offer an explanation of the origin of the Alexandrian reading, it may be appropriate to point out the diverse name-spellings found in the flagship manuscripts of the Alexandrian Text in Matthew 1:1-13: 

1:2 – ﬡ (Sinaiticus) reads Ισακ instead of Ισαακ.

1:3 – B (Vaticanus) reads Ζαρε instead of Ζαρα.

1:4 – ﬡ reads Αμιναδαβ correctly the first time the name is written, but Αμιναδαμ the second time.

1:5 – B, ﬡ, and P1 read Βοες against diverse opposition favoring Βοοζ.  (Nevertheless the UBS-compilers adopted Βοες).

1:5 – B and ﬡ and some Alexandrian allies read Ιωβηδ instead of Ωβηδ.  (33: Ιωβηλ.)

1:6 – ﬡ* reads Σαλομων instead of Σολομωνα.

1:6 – B reads Ουρειου instead of Ουριου.

1:7 – ﬡ reads Αβια, Αβιας instead of Αβια, Αβια.

1:8 – B and ﬡ read Οζειαν instead of Οζιαν. 

1:9 – ﬡ reads Αχας, Αχας instead of Αχαζ, Αχαζ.

1:10-11 – B and ﬡ read Ιωσειαν, Ιωσειας instead of Ιωσιαν, Ιωσιας.

1:12-13 – B reads Σελαθιηλ instead of Σαλαθιηλ, in addition to reading γεννα instead of εγεννησεν three times.

1:13 – ﬡ* reads Αβιουτ instead of Αβιουδ.

          (Except for the readings in 1:5, these readings disagree with both the UBS/NA compilation and with the RP2005 Byzantine Text.  This shows a high level of variation in the spelling of proper names in the Alexandrian text-stream.)  

          Several Old Latin manuscripts agree with the Alexandrian text’s readings for Asaph and Amos.  While, on one hand, this gives the reading some diversity, on the other hand it may indicate that at these points the primary Alexandrian witnesses ﬡ, B, and P1 reflect an early Western intrusion. 

          In 1885, J. Rendel Harris proposed that the reading Ασαφ, Ασαφ originated as the result of a “ghastly line-errors,” that is, Ασαφ was accidentally written when a copyist’s line of sight drifted to the letters σαφ in the nearby word Ιωσαφατ.  He suggested that the same phenomenon can account for the origin of the reading Αμως, Αμως – the copyist’s line of sight straying, in this case, to the letters ωσ in the nearby word Ιωσειαν.  Harris concluded, “It can hardly be accidental that this coincidence of letters is found in the proper names.  And this simple paleographic explanation being given, is not to be shaken by an array of excellent MSS in which the archaic error may be preserved.”  (The same sort of syllable-interchange may account for ﬡ’s reading Σαλομων in verse 6, echoing the Σαλ from Σαλμων’s name in verse 5.)

          I am not persuaded by Harris’ theory; the occurrence of two such mistakes so close together seems unlikely.  However, I am also not persuaded by proponents of the idea that Matthew would risk confusing his readers by listing Asaph and Amos as kings of Judah, knowing that his readers would recognize Asaph as a well-known psalm-writer, and Amos as a well-known prophet.   

         What has happened, I suspect, is that an early Western scribe, unfamiliar with Old Testament chronology, introduced the names of Asaph and Amos as a primitive attempt to pad Jesus’ Messianic résumé, so to speak, by adding prophets among his ancestry.  The tampering of this scribe influenced the Western transmission-line represented by some Old Latin copies.  When these Western readings intersected with the Alexandrian transmission-line, they blended into a crowd of orthographic variations – that is, in some Western Old Latin copies, and in Egypt, the names of Asaph and Amos were assumed to be variant-spellings referring to Asa and Amon, and for that reason, they were not corrected.  Elsewhere, though, these readings were either never encountered, or were almost always rejected as variants which Matthew had not written and which he had been highly motivated not to write. 

          Among the passages in the ESV New Testament which its editors should revisit when preparing the next edition, Matthew 1:7-10 is near the top of the list.  Ask yourselves, ESV editors:  where is the evidence for Metzger’s theory that Matthew used a “subsequent genealogical list” instead of simply consulting the Old Testament text?  And how realistic is the theory that Matthew would take for granted that his readers would identify Asaph and Amos as kings of Judah?  Why wouldn’t Matthew – especially if one affirms that Matthew was writing under the inspiration of God –write the usual names?  The rationales which some commentators, advocating the Alexandrian readings, have attributed to Matthew, may more readily be assigned to scribes.

          Lectio difficilior potior has its limits.  However difficult it may be to picture a scribe introducing the names of Asaph and Amos into the text of Matthew 1:7-10, whether accidentally or deliberately, it is much more difficult to picture Matthew (or any first-century author familiar with the contents of the Old Testament) doing so. 

The English Standard Version (ESV) is Copyright ©2001 by Crossway, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers.  All rights reserved.  

The Armenian Version of the Gospels

            The status of the Armenian version of the New Testament as an important text-critical resource is likely to continue to increase in the coming decades.  It is not easy to realize its significance by reading the 2005 edition of Bruce Metzger’s handbook, The Text of the New Testament:  Its Transmission, Corruption, and Restoration, (co-edited by Bart Ehrman).  Like the preceding editions, its description of the Armenian version barely fills a page.  

A statue of Mesrop Mashtots at Ejmiadsin, Armenia.

            Fortunately, in The Text of the New Testament in Contemporary Research:  Essays on the Status Quaestiones, initially published in 1995, S. Peter Cowe’s chapter on the Armenian version occupies 31 pages (not including the bibliography).  Cowe’s research shows that although the Armenian version has been contaminated by rival text-streams, its earliest recoverable forms are valuable witnesses to the New Testament text.  He also shows that the Armenian evidence is extensive, stating (on page 256) that a recent inventory of the six largest public collections of Armenian Scriptures includes 115 New Testaments and 3,003 Gospel-books.

            The history of the Armenian New Testament began in the early 400s; the scholar Mesrop Mashtots (also spelled Maštoc) designed the Armenian alphabet and used it in the production of a translation of the Bible, beginning in 406 with the book of Proverbs, and finishing in 411.  Working with him in this task were other scholars including Sahak (Isaac) the Parthian and  Eznik of Golb.

            The initial translation is generally thought to have been based on a Syriac text.  Twenty years later, though, when Eznik and other Armenian scholars returned to Armenia from the Council of Ephesus, they brought with them a cherished Bible which had been obtained in Constantinople.  Recognizing the superiority of this newly available resource, the Armenian scholars revised their translation so as to bring it into conformity with the Greek text.  This revision was completed by 440.

            Before moving on from the lifetimes of the first generation of Armenian translators, we should realize that the Armenian version of the New Testament had a prehistory.  Prior to the introduction of the Armenian alphabet, Armenia was already a Christian nation.  Just as the Armenian city of Yerevan pre-dates Rome, the adoption of Christianity as the official religion of Armenia pre-dates the official adoption of Christianity in any other nation.  

Gregory the Illuminator

           In the late 200s, King Trdat (Tiridates)  III persecuted and imprisoned the Christian preacher Gregory the Illuminator (257-331), and oversaw the martyrdom of some of his fellow Christians.  In 301, though, when Trdat recovered from a mental disorder after Gregory was brought to him and prayed for him, Trdat was converted, and proceeded to sponsor the evangelization of his people.
            The message of Christ circulated in Armenia for over a century before it was written down in the alphabet devised by Mesrop Mashtots.  The echo of Syriac texts did not die out the instant that the initial Armenian version was revised, and it shaped both the Armenian canon and some aspects of its text.  The text known as Third Corinthians, for example, which was part of a Syriac text of the Pauline Epistles, was also included in the early Armenian canon.  Likewise Revelation was not initially in the Armenian canon, but was included later.

          The transmission-stream of the Armenian New Testament in the 400s-600s was a racetrack on which the text of the initial translation (from Syriac) and the text of the revision (from Greek) were in competition – and readings from one sometimes rubbed off onto the other.       

           In the early Middle Ages, Armenian scholar-monks spread the Armenian version wherever they went – and they went throughout Eastern Christendom:  to Jerusalem, to Edessa, to Alexandria, to St. Catherine’s, to Mount Athos, and so forth.  Occasionally the Armenians compared their Armenian Scriptures to local standards and adjusted their text accordingly.  In the later Middle Ages in Cilicia (southeastern Turkey), the Latin Vulgate – the text of the nearby Crusader States – influenced the Armenian text, resulting in the introduction of some readings that are conspicuously absent from earlier copies.    

            Most Armenian manuscripts are medieval, and quite a few were made after the invention of the printing-press.  Even the earliest substantial Gospels-manuscripts in Armenian feature the Eusebian Canons and, frequently, illustrations, which may indicate that these features were present in the Armenian tradition along with the text ever since the revision in the 430’s.  Aside from fragments and pages recycled as part of the bindings of younger manuscripts, the most important Armenian copies of the Gospels include the following:

            (1)  Gospels of Queen Mlk’ē (San Lazzaro MS 1144/86), produced in 851. 

            (2)  The Lazarian Gospels (Matenadaran MS 6200), produced in 887.

            (3)  British Library Add. MS 21932, produced c. 900.

            (4)  Gospels of the Priests (Walters MS 537), produced in 966.  This is the earliest substantial Armenian manuscript in the Western hemisphere.      

            (5)  The Cughrut Gospels, produced in 974.

            (6)  Matenadaran 2374, produced in 989.  This manuscript was formerly identified as Ejmiadsin (also spelled Etchmiadsin) 229.  A black-and-white facsimile is online.  It is known for its inclusion of an unusual form of the pericope adulterae (John 7:53-8:11), and for the note “The elder Ariston” added between Mark 16:8 and Mark 16:9, and for its four illustrations, and for its ivory covers, which may have been obtained from its exemplar.

            (7)  San Lazzaro MS 123/68, produced in the 900s.

If you know the Armenian numerals (which are the letters
of the alphabet), you can locate passages in the Gospels
by identifying their Eusebian section-number,
even if you can't read Armenian.

            (8)  Gospels of Adrianople, produced in 1007. 

            (9)  Matenadaran 10434, produced in 1069.  The colophon of this manuscript states that its exemplar, according to a tradition, had been made by Mesrop Mashtots.

            (10)  British Library Add. MS 19727, produced in 1166.

            (11)  The Red Gospels of Karahissar/Ganjasar (University of Chicago, Goodspeed Collection MS 949), produced in the 1100s or early 1200s.  Ernest Colwell made a detailed study of the text, illustrations, and liturgical marginalia in this manuscript in 1936.

             (12)  Gospels of Keran, produced in 1265.

             (13)  The Gladzor Gospels (UCLA Armenian MS #1), produced in the 1200s.

             Other manuscripts are listed at Dickran Kouymjian’s online Index of Armenian Art.  In addition to these codices, a multitude of ancient Armenian fragments have been collected from the bindings of later manuscripts.  Perhaps the most interesting early fragment is MS Arm. N. 640, a papyrus housed in the National Library of France.  In this non-Biblical fragment from the 500s, the text consists of Greek words transliterated in Armenian letters.  

Erkat'agir text from Mark 2:14-15 in
MS 338, Image 2.
From the Goodspeed Manuscript Collection
at the University of Chicago.

             Different Armenian manuscripts display different kinds of lettering, roughly analogous to the difference between uncials and minuscules in Greek manuscripts.  The earliest Armenian manuscripts have erkatʻagir lettering.  (This term means “iron letters.”  Some researchers have suggested that this name implies that this script was used in metal-working, but a more likely origin is that it expresses its first developers’ hope that this alphabet would endure for a very long time, like iron.)  Manuscripts from the 1100s and later – especially after the 1200s – usually have bolorgir lettering, which is rounder and smaller than the erkatʻagir script.  

             The relationship between the Armenian erkatʻagir and bolorgir scripts is probably similar to the relationship between the Greek uncial and minuscule scripts:  the erkatʻagir script existed first, and the bolorgir script developed later, in the 900s.  The theory that both scripts developed side-by-side cannot be ruled out; the earliest substantial Gospels-manuscript, written in erkatʻagir lettering, is from the mid-800s, and a bolorgir script was used in a non-Biblical manuscript only a century later.  However, the paucity of evidence before the 800s only allows, rather than supports, such a theory.    

            The third kind of Armenian script in Gospel-manuscripts is notrgir, which consists of cursive lettering.  In some manuscripts in which the main text is written in erkatʻagir or bolorgir lettering, the notrgir script is used in marginalia and colophons.

A zoomorphic Armenian letter
with bolorgir script in the Armenian
Gospels of the Fluting Shepherd,
MS 139, Image 133.
From the Goodspeed Manuscript Collection
at the University of Chicago.

            It is not rare for Armenian manuscripts to feature zoomorphic letters, that is, letters consisting of abstractly drawn animals, especially in the opening verses of each Gospel.  Birds often appear in the margins of Armenian manuscripts, sometimes to accompany Eusebian canon-numbers, but sometimes at random.  The Eusebian Canon-tables in some Armenian manuscripts are a veritable aviary and zoo, spectacularly decorated.

            The Armenian version’s earliest stratum represents the Caesarean Text, but it has been subjected to several divergent influences.  When assessing the text of an Armenian Gospels-manuscript, several questions should be asked:
            (1)  Is it written on parchment, or paper? 

            (2)  What script is used?

            (3)  Does it contain a colophon, and if so, what does it say about when and where the manuscript was made, and by whom, and on the basis of what kind of exemplar, and under what conditions? 

            (4)  Does the binding contain “guard leaves” from an earlier manuscript?

            (5)  Does the pericope adulterae appear after the end of the Gospel of John?  (This passage is not in the Gospel of John in most of the older Armenian Gospels-manuscripts, but was cited by Gregory of Narek in the mid-900s.)

            (6)  Does it contain Luke 22:43-44? 

            (7)  Do its chapter-divisions correspond to the chapter-divisions of the Vulgate?

By provisionally separating Armenian Gospels-manuscripts into groups, depending on the answers to these seven questions, one can create categories reflective of different stages in the transmission-history of the Armenian version.  This task, though not complicated, is far from complete.  The bright light that promises to shine from the Armenian evidence has not yet been set upon the lamp-stand it deserves.

            Additional resources about Armenian manuscripts and the history of Armenia (both ancient and recent) can be found by visiting the following links:

         

J. Rendel Harris, one of the leading
textual critics of the late 1800s,
protested the Hamidian Massacres
in 1895 and personally raised support
to deliver aid to persecuted Armenians.

Gospel-titles in Armenian and English

Armenian manuscripts at the National Library of Russia
Matenadaran - Gospels 

Matenadaran - Cilician Gospels (text begins on page 71)
Armenian Gospels from 1302 (text begins on page 17)
The Lectionary of King Hetum II

Miniature Painting in Armenian Cilicia 

Gregory of Narek’s Laments and Prayers 

The Armenian Library and Museum of America (in Watertown, Massachusetts)

History Museum of Armenia (in Yerevan, Armenia)
Arts of Armenian - by Dickran Kouymjian
Notes on Armenian Codicology, Part 2 - by Dickran Kouymjian
Armenian Resources at the University of Illinois
Armenian Genocide Museum

The Bible in Eastern Armenian

Gospel of Matthew in Eastern Armenian

Gospel of Mark in Eastern Armenian

Gospel of Luke in Eastern Armenian

Gospel of John in Eastern Armenian