Souter's GNT Preface

            In 1910, Scottish scholar Alexander Souter (1873-1949) released his Novum Testamentum Graece.  This was just 21 years after Westcott and Hort replaced the Textus Receptus with their own very heavily pro-Alexandrian compilation, and only nine years after Eberhard Nestle released the first edition of his Novum Testamentum Graece in 1898.  Souter’s Greek New Testament presented what he understood to have been the base-text of the 1881 Revised Version.  Souter’s GNT is not the text of Westcott and Hort, but of Westcott and Hort after it had been filtered through the minds of their fellow creators of the 1881 Revised Version.

            In 1912 Souter wrote The Text and Canon of the New Testament (revised in 1935).  He also produced a Pocket Lexicon of the Greek New Testament, which (unlike the UBS Greek-English Dictionary) includes some terms that are used in the text of Codex Bezae but which are not found in most other manuscripts.  Souter also edited The Earliest Latin Commentaries on the Epistles of St. Paul (1927).  His last major work was A Glossary of Later Latin to 600 A.D.

            Souter’s GNT (copies of which can still be found at online markets such as eBay, etc.) has been superseded in the marketplace by the UBS and Nestle-Aland editions.  Those who seek it out will, however, find a tidy edition of the Greek New Testament very similar to what is in print today.  

            How did Souter introduce his work?  With two very short prefaces, written in Latin.  Since Latin is treated as a relic in many schools in America today, I thought it might be helpful to present here an English rendering of the Prefaces with which Souter introduced his GNT.   But beware:  my own skill at translating Latin is minimal; I hope that other will improve upon the translation given here.  Stay tuned for corrections/revisions:

1910 PREFACE:

The purpose of this edition of the Greek New Testament is to present the text which was the basis for the Revised Version in English published in 1881, which was produced by scholars at Oxford whose research into the text is necessary to gain an overview of its history. 

Regarding the selection of readings that I have noted in the apparatus:  although I devoted much time to this, I am unable to placate everyone, and it can scarcely be doubted that readers will reproach me for having omitted a particular variant somewhere.  But if I am going to please no one in this regard, at least it may be said that many of the apparatus-notes here are more complete and more accurate than can be found in any other edition.

I have consulted versions as they are represented in the most recent editions, which were not covered in Tischendorf’s Greek compilations:  Latin (Old Latin and Vulgate), Syriac (the Old Syriac, the Peshitta, the Philoxenian, the Palestinian), Coptic (Bohairic, Sahidic [from Horner]), and, in the Apocalypse, Armenian (as represented in both the ancient text and in ordinary editions).  I have also consulted the patristic evidence; I cannot say how many thousands of passages in the fathers’ works I have re-examined.  And finally, I have consulted the writings of the primarily Latin interpreters, such as Ambrosiaster, Tyconius, Pelagius, Pseudo-Jerome, Cassiodorus, and Bede, using in some cases editions which I have prepared and which, I am confident, will not be significantly altered in the future either by our scholars or by foreigners.  It should be noted that the elegant work of William Sanday was always on hand to guide me.  May that tireless patron of New Testament studies be given his due honor and commemoration, and may the same be done for the printers, who have exercised extraordinary diligence.

 Sent from Oxford, in the year of our salvation 1910. 

 PREFACE OF THE UPDATED EDITION

 After 33 years, within which a large number of copies of the previous edition were sold, I was fortunate to be approached by a very respectable publishing-house which insisted upon another edition.  As far as the text itself is concerned, the discoveries of the past few years are not of the sort, in my view, that would make it wise to make a fresh compilation of the text. 

For now it is clear that there are many more textual variations than previous generations imagined, and it is also clear that it is better to rely on the many minuscule copies than has been done previously.  See, for example, the research by Kirsopp and Silva Lake, and by Hermann C. Hoskier – the former chiefly in the Gospels, the latter in the Apocalypse.  Adolph Jülicher’s laborious collection of versions of the Gospels has been a valuable contribution to the study of the Latin Gospels, and has had an effect upon almost the entire New Testament. 

            In the following pages, I have taken precisely this approach, and shared some readings from recently-discovered papyri, like those in the Chester Beatty collection, and from Codex Washingtoniensis (W) and Codex Koridethi (Θ) and also from some small fragmentary sources.  I reviewed the versional data in accordance with the current editions, citing readings from the best editions of the fathers which I have on hand, such as the Venerable Bede in Acts of the Apostles by M.L.W. Laistner, and in the General Epistles by British Library curator C.H. Milne, which is not yet published. 

            Readers, both known and unknown, have corrected a few mistakes of the first edition, for which I am grateful.  This edition was prepared with proof-reading by Frederick Fyvie Bruce, A.M. (a former student of mine), who is now a lecturer at Leeds University.  His learning and diligence made important contributions, to the great advantage of my readers. 

 Sent from Oxford, in September, in the year of our salvation 1944.

Here is Souter’s Latin text, for those who would like to correct my no-doubt flawed renderings:

PRAEFATIO

Huius editionis Novi Testamenti Graecu lex haec constituta eat, ut is textus, qui Anglae recensioni anno 1881 editae subesse uidetur quique Oxoniensium manibus teritur, denuo actum agere uideamur, breuem ad paratum criticum addidimus, quo adiutus multa inuenias quae sine ad uerum textum enucieandum siue ad historiam eius inlustrandam neglegi non possint.   In elegendis uero lectionibus quas adnotarem etsi multam operam impendi, omnibus scilicet satis facere nequeo et uix dubium est quin praetermissum hoc additum illud exprobraturi sint mihi lectores.

Quod si in illa re nemini sum placiturus, fortasse non siaplicebunt adnotatiunculae ipsae, quas diligentius interdumque plenius quam in ulla alia editione conscriptas reperias,   nammpraeter quam in ulla alia editiones codicum Graecorum Tischendorfio ignotorum quoas fieri poterat adhibui, uersiones laudaui secundum editiones criticas recentissimas : Latinas (et antiquioris et uulgatam), Suras (ueterem, uulgatam, Philoxenianam. Palaestinensem), Aegyptiacas (Bohairicam, Sahidicam), in Apocalypsi Aemeniacas (ueterem et uulgatam),  idem quoque de testimonio sanctorum patrum feci, nec possum dicere quot milia locorum denuo inspexerim.   Quod denique in libellostudiosis nostris maxima ex parte destinato ἐξηγητὰς Latinos, in quibus iam diu lucubro, Ambrosiastrum, Tyconium, Pelagium, Pseudo-Hieronymum, Cassiodorum, Bedam, secundum codicun conlationes a me ipso factas citaui, id doctis et nostris et alienigenis haudingratum fore confido.

Concinnanti opus numquam deerat mihi consilium sagacissimum Guilelmi Sanday S.T.P.  studiorum talium patroni indefessi, neque taceda est typographorum eximia diligentia.

Dabam Oxonii mense Septembri

Anno Salutis MCMX.

EDITIONIS ALTERIUS PRAEFATIO

Feliciter mihi contigit ut post XXXIII annos, intra quos permulta exemplaria editionis prioris sunt diuendita, bibliopola honestissimus alteram poposcerit.  Quantum quidem ad textum ipsum pertinet, recentuirum annorum reperta eius generis sunt ut praesenti tempore imprudentis me iudice esset textus editionem nouam refingere.  Nunc enim luce clarius est antiquissimis temporibus multo plures fuisse uarias letiones quam maiores nostri putarant et codices uetustos non necessario semper omnium optimos quia sint uetusti, neque recentiores minoris momenti esse quod antiquitate scriptionis non gaudeant.   Codices quoque multos qui ‘minusculi’ dicuntur, melius e diligentius quam adhuc factum est innitescere oportet, exemplo Kirsopp et Siluae Lake, Hermanni C. Hoskier, illorum praecipue in Euangelio, huius in Apocalypsi.   Uersionum quidem quas uocant Sahidicae editio a G. W. Horner curata totum fere Nouum Testamentum inlustrauit, Adolphi Jülicher collectio laboriosa adiumentum pretiosissimum ad studium Latinarum euangeliorum uersionum antiquarum contulit, nec praetermittendae sunt editiones aliarum uersionum qualis Roberti P. Blake Georgicae.   In paginis sequentibus id solum egi ut communicem papyraceorum recns repertorum aliquot lectiones, uelut Chester Beatty, pergamenorum uelut Washingtoniensis (W), Koridethi (Θ), minusculorum denique quorundam ; uersoinum indicia ad normam hodiernam recenseam ; patrum lectiones ad optimas quas ad manum habeo editiones citem, ut Bedae Venerabilis in Actus Apostolorum a M. L. W. Laistner, in Epistulas Canonicas a C. H. Milne curatam, quae nondum sub prelo est.

Editionis prioris pauca errata correxerunt lectores noti ignotique, quibus maximam habeo gratiam.  Fridericus Fyuiee Bruce, A.M., olim discipulus meus, Universitatis Leodiensis nunc praelector, plagulas huius editionis, qua est summa doctrina diligentiaque, perlegit, magno emolumento meo et lectorum.

Dabam Oxonii mense Septembri

Anno Salutis MCMXXXXIIII.

Lectionary 60 - The One With Runes

Runes on the frontispiece of Lect 60.

            Lectionary 60 was made in the year 1022, and is thus almost one thousand years old.  It has a very unusual feature on its frontis-piece-page (which displays the remains of a picture of Christ, surrounded by symbols of the Evangelists):  runes.  The rune-inscription identifies the manuscript as the property of Saint Dionysius’ church – the famous basilica north of Paris where kings in France were entombed since Dagobert in 639. 

            Perhaps someone at St.-Denis, noticing that past generations of monks had been obligated to pay Vikings to spare the basilica, and to ransom their abbot, considered it wise to write this note in a language which Vikings could understand – just in case the Vikings might wonder where to send the ransom-note.  Or perhaps a Viking church-member wrote it.

            This existence of this lectionary ought to dissuade us from picturing the history of the Greek New Testament as an exclusively non-European thing – as if Greek manuscripts did not show up in western Europe until the 1400s.  Lectionary 60 shows that Greek manuscripts were not only read, but were produced, in France in the century before the First Crusade.  

            This arrangement of the text in Lectionary 60 tends to follow the pattern for the Synaxarion – movable days – given at Robert Waltz’s Encyclopedia of New Testament Textual Criticism.  Beginning at Easter-time, lections (i.e., selections for reading in church-services) from the Gospel of John are presented, along with lections from the book of Acts.  Lectionary 60 has lections for week-days as well as for Saturdays and Sundays.  After Pentecost, the lections are excerpted from the Gospel of Matthew and from Paul’s Epistles, beginning with Romans.  Twelve weeks’ worth of lections later, the lections are taken from the Gospel of Mark and from Paul’s other epistles.  Lectionary 60 has the lection-cycle for Easter-week, with the Twelve Gospel-readings for Good Friday, and the Readings for the Vigil at the first, third, sixth, and ninth hours, other Easter-time readings, and the Heothina-series.  On page 162, the Menologion section begins.

            There are, however, variations from the Byzantine pattern – especially when it comes to the lection that was to be read in honor of Saint Dionysius the Areopagite.  This lection was particularly esteemed at the church that was named in Saint Dionysius’ honor.  Why Dionysius had received that honor might take some explaining: 

            There are three Dionysiuses in the picture.  First there was Dionysius the Areopagite, who was converted to Christianity by the preaching of Paul in Athens, as reported in chapter 17 of the book of Acts.  Second, there was the patron saint of France, Saint Denis (Denis is short for “Dionysius”), a bishop who was beheaded in Paris in a wave of persecution initiated by Emperor Decius in the mid-200s.  (This martyr was commemorated by the famous Oriflamme banner.)  Third, there was the anonymous author of several influential philosophical compositions that were circulated in the late 400s and early 500s; this author is known as Pseudo-Dionysius.

            Among medieval clerics who thought that Pseudo-Dionysius was actually Dionysius the Areopagite (an impression which Pseudo-Dionysius’ writings encouraged), there was also confusion between Dionysius the Areopagite and Dionysius the third-century martyr.  This may account for the emphasis (a natural emphasis at the basilica of Saint Denis) on the lection for Dionysius the Areopagite (Acts 17:22-34) in Lectionary 60:  it appears in the lectionary three times.  First, it is written in Greek (but in Latin-like handwriting) on page 55, after an acrostic (ΔΟΞΑ ΤΩ ΘΕΩ ΑΜΗΝ) which interrupts the lectionary-material.  It is also found on fol. 153, in a Latin-like script completely unlike the main copyist’s handwriting; the person who wrote this lection seems to have had a gift for finding unusual ways to spell words in Greek.  (Apparently, there had been blank pages in the manuscript, leftover between sections, and someone used them as the material upon which to write this particular lection.)  And it is written near the very end of the lectionary, in much better (recent?) handwriting, with a Latin heading. 
            Two lections in two different kinds of handwriting occupy fol. 154a:  Luke 6:17-23 is written, in something like sense-lines, before Matthew 4:25-5:3a.   Near the bottom of the page, there is an inartistic Greek alphabet and, in Latin, a curse upon anyone who steals this holy book from the library of the St-Denis church.  (Another Greek alphabet appears in the lower margin of fol. 82.)

             

            Once one gets used to the handwriting and untrained initial-drawing of the main copyist in Lectionary 60, its text is not bad at all (although the spelling is phenomenally bad).  Here, as a sort of spot-check, are comparisons of four passages in Lectionary 60 to the Robinson-Pierpont Byzantine Textform; I have disregarded incipit-phrases, and most itacisms (which are everywhere):

            John 9:1-10 (p. 39):  in v. 7, Lect 60 does not have ουν (“therefore”), and in v. 10, Lect 60 has ηνεόχθησάν instead of ανεώχθησάν [NA:  ηνεώχθησάν]

            John 14:1-4 (p. 44):  in v. 1, Lect 60 has μηδε διλιτω [≈14:27], in v. 2, Lect 60 has δια τα εργα αυτα before ειπον [≈14:11],

            First Corinthians 4:1-5 (p. 68):  in v. 2, λοιπόν is absent, in v. 4, Lect has γαρ instead of δε before ανακρίνων [-νον in Lect 60],

            Mark 1:1-5 (p. 178):  in v. 5, Lect 60 does not have ἡ after πασα, in v. 5, and Lect 60 has ϊερουσαλημ instead of οι ιεροσολυμιται.  In v. 4, John’s name is written as ιω.  

                       

            Here are some interesting textual features, and other features, of Lectionary 60:

            ● Mark 16:9-20 is included (on p. 156); it is one of the readings in the Heothina-series

            ● John 5:3-4 is included (on p. 7), and the angel is described as the angel of the Lord (αγγελος γαρ κυ)

            ● Acts 8:37 is not included (on p. 25)

            ● Luke 22:43-45a is included in the text of Matthew, following Mt. 26:39 (on p. 125b, page-view 262 at CSNTM)  (This is normal in Byzantine Gospels-lectionaries – but still interesting.)

            ● In Matthew 10:8 (on fol. 152b, p. 316 at CSNTM), νεκρους εγειρεται (“raise the dead”) is included, but not immediately following “heal the sick.”  Instead, it appears at a later point in the verse, between εκβάλλεται and the first δωρεὰν. P and W and Δ share this reading with Lectionary 60.  (On the same page, there is something strange about the text of Matthew 11:27.)

            ● On page 9, the number Β (2) appears in the upper outer corner of the page; on page 97, the number ΙΓ (13) appears; on page 145, ΙΘ, that is, 19, appears.  Perhaps these are quire-numbers, and perhaps there were once more numbers on other pages, written a little further to the right, but the others have been trimmed away.  (Some notes in the upper margin have been trimmed away; some have been half-trimmed away.)

            ● The margins of Lectionary 60 have quite a few notes, mostly in Latin.  (They are not all from the same hand.)  For example, on page 154b, where Matthew 1:1 begins the text, the opening Latin phrase of Matthew 1:1 is written in the margin.  130b contains a good example of Latin notes alongside Greek notes.

            ● On page 55, the lectionary-material is interrupted by an acrostic poem. (The initials say ΔΟΞΑ ΤΩ ΘΕΩ ΑΜΗΝ)  (This is followed by the St. Dionysius lection, already described.)

            ● The parchment that was used for Lectionary 60 was not of high quality; the copyist(s) frequently had to adapt to uneven pages and pages with holes.

            ● Lectionary 60 includes lections from Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, Acts, Romans, First Corinthians, Second Corinthians, Hebrews, Galatians, Ephesians, Colossians, First Thessalonians, First Timothy, Second Timothy, and Philippians.

            ● On fol. 108 there is a little prayer-note in the lower margin.

            ● Although I did not investigate the question thoroughly, I suspect that at least two copyists, besides later supplement-providers, worked on this lectionary. 

            ● A colophon on fol. 193 supplies the name of a copyist, his location, and the production-date of the manuscript:  ἐτελ[ε]ιοθ[η]  τω παρον εκλογαδ[ιον] δια χειρος Ηλιοῦ πρεσβυτερου κ[αι] μοναχου σπιλεό [?] του μη[νος] Νοεμβριω κς ημερα κυ[ριακῇ], ωρ[α] θ.  τε. ϛφλ ινδ. Ε εν χόρα φραγκι καστρο δε κολόνιας.  –  Something like, “The gift of this Eclogadion was completed through the hand of Elias, presbyter and monk, stained [?] in the month of November, on the 25^th day, Sunday, at the 9^th hour, year 6,530 in the fifth indiction.  In the country of France, in the castle of Kolonia.”  Someone did the calculations and wrote the implied production-date, 1022, in the margin.

            Lectionary 60 is presently housed at the Bibliothèque Nationale de France (the national Library of France), where it is cataloged as Grec 375.  A digital file of the entire manuscript can be downloaded from the Gallica website.

Update! (Sept. 2021)  Denis Salgado has provided more information about Lectionary 60 at the CSNTM blog.

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

First John 5:7 and Greek Manuscripts

           Earlier this month over at the Evangelical Textual Criticism blog, Elijah Hixson offered an informative post which included pictures of the few Greek manuscripts which have the Comma Johanneum in the text of First John 5:7.  The earliest is GA 629, a Latin-Greek manuscript dated to 1362.  I offered some analysis of the text of First John 5:7 in GA 629 in August of 2016 (see the replica of the relevant part of 629 at this link, or a page-view of the manuscript itself at the Vatican Library’s website at this link).  The second-oldest manuscript of First John that has the Comma Johanneum in the text of 5:7 is GA 61, which was made in the early 1500s.  The third-oldest Greek manuscript with the Comma Johanneum in the text of First John 5:7 is GA 918.  Hixson, by a series of simple deductions, narrowed his estimate of its production-date to the 1570s. 

GA 641:  The Comma Johanneum is absent.

            And that’s it, unless we include GA 2473 (from 1634) and 2318 (from the 1700s) – both of which were made after printed editions of the Greek New Testament were made, and which very probably include the Comma Johanneum because their copyists used a printed Greek New Testament as an exemplar. 

            The other manuscripts do not have the Comma Johanneum in the text; the Comma Johanneum is written in the margin instead.  Hixson’s post includes pictures of the relevant portions of these manuscripts, so I will only spend a little time reviewing them here: 

            ● In GA 221, a manuscript from the 900s, the Comma Johanneum is written in the margin, but it appears that the Comma Johanneum arrived there rather recently, considering that (as Hixson reports) a description of GA 221 made in 1854 says that the manuscript does not have the Comma Johanneum, with nothing said about a margin-note. 

            ● In GA 177, the Comma Johanneum is written in the upper margin of the page and is identified by its verse-number, which means that the Comma Johanneum was placed in the margin of GA 177 sometime after 1550.  (Dan Wallace noticed the Comma Johanneum in the margin of GA 177 in 2010.)   Hixson offers a more precise date, however:  the annotator of this manuscript left his name in it:  Ignatius Hardt, who was born in 1749.  Guided by a little more data about Hardt’s career, Hixson estimates that Hardt wrote the Comma Johanneum in the margin of 177 no earlier than the 1770s.

            ● In GA 88, a manuscript from the 1100s, the Comma Johanneum appears in the margin with almost no clues about who added it or when.   Almost no clues:  as Hixson observed, whereas copyists routinely contracted sacred names such as “Father” and “Spirit,” in the margin-note in 88 these words are written out in full, which may indicate that the person writing them was using as his source a printed book, rather than a manuscript.

            ● In GA 429, a manuscript from the 1300s, the Comma Johanneum is written in the margin, and it matches up with the text of the Comma Johanneum printed in Erasmus’ third edition – because, as Hixson explains, Erasmus’ third edition was its source.

            ● In GA 636, a manuscript from the 1400s, the Comma Johanneum is written in the margin, and is missing the articles, which is consistent with a scenario in which it was translated from Latin. 

                       

            Let’s review the implications of this evidence:  First, there is no Greek manuscript made before the 1500s in which the Comma Johanneum appears in the text of First John in a form which does not appear to be derived from Latin; strictly speaking, the exact text of the Comma Johanneum that appears in the Textus Receptus does not appear in the text of any Greek manuscript made before the 1500s.  Second, in the Greek manuscripts in which the Comma Johanneum appears in the margin, it either appears to be derived from Latin, or else it appears to have been copied from a printed source. 

           

            Now let’s look on the other side of the equation.  Here, from researcher Timothy Berg, is a list of the Greek manuscripts that contain First John but do not have the Comma Johanneum in the text:

Manuscripts Produced Before the 700s:  01, 03, 02, 048, 0296

Manuscripts Produced in the 700s-800s:  018, 020, 025, 049, 0142, 1424, 1862, 1895, 2464

Manuscripts Assigned to the 900s:  044, 056, 82, 93, 175, 181, 221, 307, 326, 398, 450, 454, 456, 457, 602, 605, 619, 627, 832, 920, 1066, 1175, 1720, 1739, 1829, 1836, 1837, 1841, 1845, 1851, 1871, 1874, 1875, 1880, 1891, 2125, 2147,     

Manuscripts Assigned to the 1000s:  35, 36, 2, 42, 43, 81, 104, 131, 133, 142, 177, 250, 302, 325, 312, 314, 424, 436, 451, 458, 459,   462, 464, 465, 466, 491, 506, 517, 547, 606, 607, 617, 623, 624, 635, 638, 639, 641, 699, 796,   901, 910, 919, 945, 1162, 1243, 1244, 1270, 1311, 1384, 1521, 1668, 1724, 1730, 1735, 1738, 1828, 1835, 1838, 1846, 1847, 1849, 1854, 1870, 1888, 2138, 2191, 2344, 2475, 2587, 2723,   2746     

Manuscripts Assigned to the 1100s:  3, 38, 1, 57, 88, 94, 97, 103, 105, 110, 180, 203, 226, 256, 319, 321, 323, 330, 337, 365, 431, 440, 442, 452, 618, 620, 622, 625, 632, 637, 656, 720, 876, 917, 922, 927, 1058, 1115, 1127, 1241, 1245, 1315, 1319, 1359, 1360, 1448, 1490, 1505, 1573, 1611, 1646, 1673, 1718, 1737, 1740, 1743, 1752, 1754, 1850, 1853, 1863, 1867, 1868, 1872, 1885, 1889, 1893, 1894, 1897, 2127, 2143, 2186, 2194, 2289, 2298, 2401, 2412, 2541, 2625, 2712, 2718, 2736, 2805     

Manuscripts Assigned to the 1200s:  4, 5, 6, 51, 204, 206, 172, 141, 218, 234, 263, 327, 328, 378, 383, 384, 390, 460, 468, 469, 479, 483, 496, 592, 601, 614, 643, 665, 757, 912, 914, 915, 941, 999, 1069, 1070, 1072, 1094, 1103, 1107, 1149, 1161, 1242, 1251, 1292, 1297, 1352, 1398, 1400, 1404, 1456, 1501, 1509, 1523, 1563, 1594, 1595, 1597, 1609, 1642, 1719, 1722, 1727, 1728, 1731, 1736, 1758, 1780, 1827, 1839, 1842, 1843, 1852, 1855, 1857, 1858, 1860, 1864, 1865, 1873, 2180, 2374, 2400, 2404, 2423, 2483, 2502, 2558, 2627, 2696       

Manuscripts Assigned to the 1300s:  18, 62, 76, 189, 201, 209, 216, 223, 254, 308, 363, 367, 386, 393, 394, 404, 421, 425, 429, 453,  489, 498, 582, 603, 604, 608, 621, 628, 630, 633, 634, 680, 743, 794, 808, 824, 913, 921, 928, 935, 959, 986, 996, 1022, 1040, 1067, 1075, 1099, 1100, 1102, 1106, 1248, 1249, 1354, 1390, 1409, 1482, 1495, 1503, 1524, 1548, 1598, 1599, 1610, 1618, 1619, 1622, 1637, 1643, 1661, 1678, 1717, 1723, 1725, 1726, 1732, 1733, 1741, 1742, 1744, 1746, 1747, 1753, 1761, 1762, 1765, 1769, 1831, 1832, 1856, 1859, 1866, 1877, 1881, 1882, 1886, 1890, 1892, 1899, 1902, 2080, 2085, 2086,  2197, 2200, 2261, 2279, 2356, 2431, 2466, 2484, 2492, 2494, 2508, 2511, 2527, 2626, 2675, 2705, 2716, 2774, 2777

Manuscripts Assigned to the 1400s:  69, 102, 149, 205, 322, 368, 385, 400, 432, 444, 467, 615, 616, 631, 636, 664, 801, 1003, 1105, 1247, 1250, 1367, 1405, 1508, 1626, 1628, 1636, 1649, 1656, 1729, 1745, 1750, 1751, 1757, 1763, 1767, 1830, 1876, 1896, 2131, 2221, 2288, 2352, 2495, 2523, 2554, 2652, 2653, 2691, 2704

Manuscripts Assigned to the 1500s and Later:  90, 296, 522, 1702, 1704, 1749, 1768, 1840, 1844, 1861, 2130, 2218, 2255, 2378, 2501, 2516, 2544, 1101, 1721, 1748, 1869, 1903, 2243, 2674, 2776, 2473, 1104

            With this data in mind, let’s consider a few extracts from a defense of the Comma Johanneum recently offered by Taylor DeSoto of Agros Reformed Baptist Church in Arizona: 
            ► “There is manuscript evidence for it.”  True, but as Hixson’s analysis shows, the Greek manuscript evidence for the Comma Johanneum is sparse, late, and shows clear signs of being derived either from Latin or from a printed text.   

            ► “It has more manuscript evidence support than let’s just say, the Gospel of Mark without 16:9-20.”  That is not quite the case; there are three Greek manuscripts in which Mark 16 ends at 16:8 (À, B, and 304 – all with other anomalous features), so technically, the quantities are equal.  But it would be foolish to use simple quantities to frame this evidence, because B and À are the two earliest manuscripts of Mark 16 known to exist, while GA 629 is from the mid-1300s, 61 is from the early 1500s, and 918 is from the 1570s, and the rest, as Hixson’s data shows, are either dependent on Latin, or else extremely late.  

            As a defender of the genuineness of Mark 16:9-20, I do not grant to B and À the level of weight that was given to them by Westcott and Hort (and which continues, in some circles, to be assumed).  But it is not just the testimony of B and À which we ought to consider.  It is also the testimony of 02, 048, 0296, 018, 020, 025, 049, 0142, 1424, 1862, 1895, 2464, 044, 056, 82, 93, 175, 181, 221, 307, 326, 398, 450, 454, 456, 457, 602, 605, 619, 627, 832, 920, 1066, 1175, 1720, 1739, 1829, 1836, 1837, 1841, 1845, 1851, 1871, 1874, 1875, 1880, 1891, 2125, 2147, 35, 36, 2, 42, 43, 81, 104, 131, 133, 142, 177, 250, 302, 325, 312, 314, 424, 436, 451, 458, 459,   462, 464, 465, 466, 491, 506, 517, 547, 606, 607, 617, 623, 624, 635, 638, 639, 641, 699, 796,   901, 910, 919, 945, 1162, 1243, 1244, 1270, 1311, 1384, 1521, 1668, 1724, 1730, 1735, 1738, 1828, 1835, 1838, 1846, 1847, 1849, 1854, 1870, 1888, 2138, 2191, 2344, 2475, 2587, 2723, 2746, 3, 38, 1, 57, 88, 94, 97, 103, 105, 110, 180, 203, 226, 256, 319, 321, 323, 330, 337, 365, 431, 440, 442, 452, 618, 620, 622, 625, 632, 637, 656, 720, 876, 917, 922, 927, 1058, 1115, 1127, 1241, 1245, 1315, 1319, 1359, 1360, 1448, 1490, 1505, 1573, 1611, 1646, 1673, 1718, 1737, 1740, 1743, 1752, 1754, 1850, 1853, 1863, 1867, 1868, 1872, 1885, 1889, 1893, 1894, 1897, 2127, 2143, 2186, 2194, 2289, 2298, 2401, 2412, 2541, 2625, 2712, 2718, 2736, 2805, and so forth. 

            ► “Those who attack the authenticity of this reading appeal to the assumption that it was introduced from a Latin manuscript.”  Mr. DeSoto writes as if there is no basis for this “assumption.”  However, it is not an assumption; it is a deduction from evidence:  in the Old Latin text of First John 5:8 (as I have explained already in an earlier post), the nouns are typically transposed to the order water-blood-spirit, which is conducive to a figurative interpretation in which the water represents the Father, the blood represents the Son, and the Spirit represents, of course, the Holy Spirit.  And that interpretation is the Comma Johanneum – an interpretive gloss that was inserted into the Old Latin text (and from there into the later medieval Vulgate text).  Its origin is linked to the transposition:  in evidence uninfluenced by Latin, where the transposition is absent, the Comma Johanneum is absent as well.

            ► “Can 1 John 5:7 be said to have been definitively introduced from the Latin, as though it were never found in a Greek manuscript?”  Yes, it can.  All one needs to do is observe the evidence and think it through:  everything is completely consistent with precisely that scenario.  Just look at the Latin text that runs parallel to the Greek text in 629, and look at the absence of the articles, and look at the absence of the Comma Johanneum in 02, 048, 0296, 018, 020, 025, 049, 0142, 1424, 1862, 1895, 2464, 044, 056, 82, 93, 175, 181, 221, 307, 326, 398, 450, 454, 456, 457, 602, 605, 619, 627, 832, 920, 1066, 1175, 1720, 1739, 1829, 1836, 1837, 1841, 1845, 1851, 1871, 1874, 1875, 1880, 1891, 2125, 2147, 35, 36, 2, 42, 43, 81, 104, 131, 133, 142, 177, 250, 302, 325, 312, 314, 424, 436, 451, 458, 459, 462, 464, 465, 466, 491, 506, 517, 547, 606, 607, 617, 623, 624, 635, 638, 639, 641, 699, 796, 901, 910, 919, 945, 1162, 1243, 1244, 1270, 1311, 1384, 1521, 1668, 1724, 1730, 1735, 1738, 1828, 1835, 1838, 1846, 1847, 1849, 1854, 1870, 1888, 2138, 2191, 2344, 2475, 2587, 2723, 2746, 3, 38, 1, 57, 88, 94, 97, 103, 105, 110, 180, 203, 226, 256, 319, 321, 323, 330, 337, 365, 431, 440, 442, 452, 618, 620, 622, 625, 632, 637, 656, 720, 876, 917, 922, 927, 1058, 1115, 1127, 1241, 1245, 1315, 1319, 1359, 1360, 1448, 1490, 1505, 1573, 1611, 1646, 1673, 1718, 1737, 1740, 1743, 1752, 1754, 1850, 1853, 1863, 1867, 1868, 1872, 1885, 1889, 1893, 1894, 1897, 2127, 2143, 2186, 2194, 2289, 2298, 2401, 2412, 2541, 2625, 2712, 2718, 2736, 2805, and so forth.  Then ask, what more could I possibly ask for, if I were asking for evidence that the Comma Johanneum drifted into a few Greek manuscripts due to the actions of copyists who wanted to make their Greek copies conform more precisely to the meaning of their Latin copies? 

            Nevertheless Mr. DeSoto states, “I have yet to see a scholar actually produce a manuscript, or historical source from antiquity which demonstrates that this verse was added from the Latin.”   It seems to me that he is simply resisting the plain implications of the evidence. 

            In addition. Mr. DeSoto resorts to a grammatical argument (offered in a past generation by commentator Robert Dabney) as evidence for the genuineness of the Comma Johanneum – and then states, “The only people I have seen stand against this grammatical argument are people who self-admittedly are rusty in Greek.”  However, this whole approach is a nothingburger, as demonstrated already by Dr. Barry Hofstetter in the 2018 post, The Comma Johanneum and Greek Grammar. 

            Furthermore, Mr. DeSoto misrepresents the evidence when he states that “Jerome and Nazianzes comment on it.”  By “Jerome” he appears to mean the author of the Preface to the Canonical Epistles – an author who (as I have already pointed out) used the transposed form of First John 5:8.  And by saying that “Gregory of Nazianzes comments on it,” he seems to be referring to the statement by Gregory of Nazianzus where, after stating that John says “that there are three that bear witness, the Spirit and the water and the blood” – as we find verse 8 in most manuscripts, without the phrase “on earth” – he bring up a frivolous objection from a posited grammarian only in order to tear it down, stating “You see how completely your argument from con-numeration has completely broken down, and is refuted by all these instances,” and he goes on from there – not once citing any part of the Comma Johanneum.  

            It is simply false to claim that Gregory of Nazianzus commented on the Comma Johanneum.  He did not do so.   Furthermore, in the very next chapter of his composition, Gregory of Nazianzus refers to the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit, without referencing the Comma Johanneum.

            Mr. DeSoto did not leave that falsehood without company.  He also claimed, “The Comma Johanneum was seated at 1 John 5:7 until evangelical textual critics began deconstructing the Scriptures.”  As long as one ignores the testimony of 02, 048, 0296, 018, 020, 025, 049, 0142, 1424, 1862, 1895, 2464, 044, 056, 82, 93, 175, 181, 221, 307, 326, 398, 450, 454, 456, 457, 602, 605, 619, 627, 832, 920, 1066, 1175, 1720, 1739, 1829, 1836, 1837, 1841, 1845, 1851, 1871, 1874, 1875, 1880, 1891, 2125, 2147, 35, 36, 2, 42, 43, 81, 104, 131, 133, 142, 177, 250, 302, 325, 312, 314, 424, 436, 451, 458, 459, 462, 464, 465, 466, 491, 506, 517, 547, 606, 607, 617, 623, 624, 635, 638, 639, 641, 699, 796, 901, 910, 919, 945, 1162, 1243, 1244, 1270, 1311, 1384, 1521, 1668, 1724, 1730, 1735, 1738, 1828, 1835, 1838, 1846, 1847, 1849, 1854, 1870, 1888, 2138, 2191, 2344, 2475, 2587, 2723, 2746, 3, 38, 1, 57, 88, 94, 97, 103, 105, 110, 180, 203, 226, 256, 319, 321, 323, 330, 337, 365, 431, 440, 442, 452, 618, 620, 622, 625, 632, 637, 656, 720, 876, 917, 922, 927, 1058, 1115, 1127, 1241, 1245, 1315, 1319, 1359, 1360, 1448, 1490, 1505, 1573, 1611, 1646, 1673, 1718, 1737, 1740, 1743, 1752, 1754, 1850, 1853, 1863, 1867, 1868, 1872, 1885, 1889, 1893, 1894, 1897, 2127, 2143, 2186, 2194, 2289, 2298, 2401, 2412, 2541, 2625, 2712, 2718, 2736, 2805, and so forth, that is something that can be honestly said.  Yes, if you resolve to be blind to these Greek manuscripts, and focus instead, like a horse wearing blinders, upon interpolated and transposed Latin texts, and on a few late manuscripts influenced by them, then you can say that you have a basis for keeping the Comma Johanneum in your text of First John.  But if you are going to say that it was a good thing that at some point in the past, the Latin text was on the throne, and that the Greek text was usurped and pushed to the side, and that such ought to be the case today, then you thus are not actually recognizing the authority of the original text.      

            Finally, after asking a series of rhetorical questions, Mr. DeSoto asks, “Do we gain anything by removing this passage?”  To which I say, first, that this is a trick question, because when we look at 02, 048, 0296, 018, 020, 025, 049, 0142, 1424, 1862, 1895, 2464, 044, 056, 82, 93, 175, 181, 221, 307, 326, 398, 450, 454, 456, 457, 602, 605, 619, 627, 832, 920, 1066, 1175, 1720, 1739, 1829, 1836, 1837, 1841, 1845, 1851, 1871, 1874, 1875, 1880, 1891, 2125, 2147, 35, 36, 2, 42, 43, 81, 104, 131, 133, 142, 177, 250, 302, 325, 312, 314, 424, 436, 451, 458, 459, 462, 464, 465, 466, 491, 506, 517, 547, 606, 607, 617, 623, 624, 635, 638, 639, 641, 699, 796, 901, 910, 919, 945, 1162, 1243, 1244, 1270, 1311, 1384, 1521, 1668, 1724, 1730, 1735, 1738, 1828, 1835, 1838, 1846, 1847, 1849, 1854, 1870, 1888, 2138, 2191, 2344, 2475, 2587, 2723, 2746, 3, 38, 1, 57, 88, 94, 97, 103, 105, 110, 180, 203, 226, 256, 319, 321, 323, 330, 337, 365, 431, 440, 442, 452, 618, 620, 622, 625, 632, 637, 656, 720, 876, 917, 922, 927, 1058, 1115, 1127, 1241, 1245, 1315, 1319, 1359, 1360, 1448, 1490, 1505, 1573, 1611, 1646, 1673, 1718, 1737, 1740, 1743, 1752, 1754, 1850, 1853, 1863, 1867, 1868, 1872, 1885, 1889, 1893, 1894, 1897, 2127, 2143, 2186, 2194, 2289, 2298, 2401, 2412, 2541, 2625, 2712, 2718, 2736, 2805, and so forth, nobody is removing the passage; it is not there to begin with. 

            But taking the question as it stands:  yes we certainly do gain something.  First, we gain a purer, less corrupted text, which more closely resembles the original inspired text.  Mr. DeSoto recently stated in another post, “We need to receive the text as it has been passed down.”  I point out again that in the text of First John 5:7-8 that has been passed down in 99.2% of the handed-down Greek manuscripts, the Comma Johanneum is unsupported.  I point out again that the non-inclusion of the Comma Johanneum is supported.  I point out again that at this particular point, the Textus Receptus does not represent the text-that-was-handed-down, or the Byzantine Text, or the “Antiochan line.”  Yet this fact seems to have no effect on Mr. DeSoto’s position.  It seems abundantly clear that his goal is neither to defend the original text nor the text that has been handed down in Greek manuscripts; his agenda is to defend the contents of the Textus Receptus.

            (In addition, one must ask, “Which text that has been passed down?”, because the manuscripts that have survived to the present day do not always agree.  When asking, “Is this reading authoritative?” the decisive sub-question is not, Is it popular?, or “Is it familiar to a particular group of people?” (such as English readers of the KJV, or formulators of a particular creed from the 1600s), but, “Is it original?.)    

            Second, we lose the stigma of desperation which is the inevitable consequence of treating an interpolation as if deserves to be a foundation for Christian doctrine, as if the Textus Receptus must be right, and all those other manuscripts must be wrong.  It is morally wrong and strategically unwise to employ falsehoods – such as the false claim that John wrote the Comma Johanneum – in the service of the truth.  To continue to do so is to run the risk that onlookers will conclude that the orthodox view of the Trinity is so weak that its defenders must adopt non-original readings in order to defend it.  I would point out that few early theologians were as Trinitarian as Gregory of Nazianzus and Cyril of Alexandria – yet they did not use the Comma Johanneum, because it was not the Greek texts that they used. 

            Third, we gain the time that would otherwise be wasted continuing to discuss a textual variant which ought to be easily recognized as an interpolation.

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

  

Luke 9:23 - Taking Up the Cross

            There is something in Luke 9:23 that is not found in Matthew 16:24 or Mark 8:34.  In all three of the Synoptic Gospels, Jesus delivers His saying about taking up the cross shortly after Peter made his famous confession, recognizing that Jesus is the Christ.  And in all three, Jesus says that whoever wishes to follow Him ought to deny himself.  But when it comes to taking up the cross, Luke 9:23 includes a little phrase that Matthew and Mark did not mention:  καθ’ ἡμέραν – “daily.”

Luke 9:23 in Codex Alexandrinus.

             Or does it?  In most Greek manuscripts in which Luke 9:23 is extant, καθ’ ἡμέραν / “daily” is not in the text.  Here we have one of those unusual occurrences where the Textus Receptus (the KJV’s base-text), instead of agreeing with the Byzantine reading (which is supported by most manuscripts), agrees with the Alexandrian Text.  

            Let me say that again:  in Luke 9:23, the longer reading is opposed by most Greek manuscripts, but it was adopted in the Textus Receptus, and it is also supported by Papyrus 75, Codex Sinaiticus, and Codex Vaticanus.  The longer reading is also supported by the Peshitta, and the Gothic version, and Codices A K L M W Π, and by Cyril of Alexandria (Sermons 50 and 51).  Gregory the Great used the longer reading in his Homily 32 on the Gospels.

            This situation poses a problem for the widely-circulated model of the text’s history in which there are two distinct transmission-lines – one from Antioch, perpetuating the Textus Receptus, and one from Alexandria, producing the base-text of modern versions such as the ESV).   Some KJV-Onlyists use that model to give the impression that the Textus Receptus is supported by the majority of manuscripts; however, while that is generally the case (at least, in Matthew-Jude), it is not always the case.  Things are not really that simple.  In the case at hand, instead of seeing the “Antiochan” transmission line support the reading in the Textus Receptus, and the Egyptian text support some other reading, the situation is reversed.  The inclusion of καθ’ ἡμέραν in Luke 9:23 is just one of many readings in the Textus Receptus that are only supported by a minority of Greek manuscripts, and which cannot plausibly be considered to have an advantage in terms of either their popularity or their scope of influence in the Greek-speaking churches.

            To emphasize:  in Luke 9:23, the Textus Receptus agrees with the Alexandrian Text and disagrees with the Byzantine (Majority) Text.

            Is there any way that the Byzantine reading here could be original?  Consider the following:

            ● The Byzantine reading in Luke 9:23 is shorter than its rival.  There are still some textual critics who routinely teach their students that the shorter reading is to be preferred (although if one examines how editors have applied that flawed and obsolete principle, they might as well have said, “prefer the shorter reading unless it is Byzantine”).   

            ● The Byzantine reading maintains agreement among the Synoptic Gospels.  To some scholars, this is a point against the reading; the argument being that a scribal tendency to harmonize the accounts led to the deletion of καθ’ ἡμέραν so that all three parallel-passages would be identical.  But this raises two questions:  first, if  (a) καθ’ ἡμέραν is original, and (b) copyist typically expanded the text, as detractors of the Byzantine Text typically assume, then why didn’t scribes seeking to harmonize the parallel-passages simply insert καθ’ ἡμέραν into Matthew 16:24 and Mark 8:34?  We do not see such an insertion (at least, not on any scale) in these passages, nor in Mark 10:21 where the invitation to take up the cross appears in most manuscripts (but not in À B C D).  And, second, reckoning that Luke was dependent upon Marcan material, where did Luke get the idea to add καθ’ ἡμέραν?

            ● The longer reading could have been created as a means of interpreting the phrase “take up your cross” through the lens of Paul’s words in First Corinthians 15:31, where καθ’ ἡμέραν appears at the beginning of the verse.   John Burgon advocated this explanation, describing the Textus Receptus’ reading here as a “spurious accretion.”  Burgon also pointed out (in Causes of Corruption, pages 176-178) that Chrysostom connected the two passages; however, a consultation of Chrysostom’s Homily 5 On the Statues, part 14 shows that the passage that Chrysostom cites there is not Luke 9:23, nor one of its parallel-passages; it is Matthew 10:38, where, as far as I know, καθ’ ἡμέραν never appears in any Greek manuscript.  

            Jerome, in Epistle 127, To Principia, On Marcella, part 6, connects First Corinthians 15:31 and Luke 14:27 – but as he quotes Luke 14:27, it is with the Latin equivalent of καθ’ ἡμέραν included, and he states that this is how the verse appeared in the ancient copies; a quotation will be illustrative:

            “Marcella . . . often quoted with approval Plato’s saying that philosophy consists in meditating on death – a truth which our own apostle [i.e., Paul] endorses when he says:  for your salvation I die daily.  Indeed, according to the old copies our Lord himself says, Whoever does not bear His cross daily and come after me cannot be my disciple.” 

Luke 9:23 in a Byzantine minuscule.

            Amy Donaldson, in her 2009 dissertation Explicit References to New Testament Variant Readings Among Greek and Latin Church Fathers, proposed that Jerome implied via his reference to “the old copies” that other copies existed in his day which omitted Luke 14:27.  Although there are nowadays copies extant that do indeed omit Luke 14:27 (Codex M, Γ, 2*, 69) due to parableptic error (skipping from μαθητής at the end of verse 26 to μαθητής at the end of verse 27), it seems to me more likely that Jerome was thinking of a contest between the presence and absence of “daily.”  Affirming this, Jerome says in his Commentary on Matthew, in a comment on Matthew 10:38, “In alio evangelio scribitur, Qui non accipit crucem suam quotidie,” that is, “In another Gospel, it is written, he who does not take up his cross daily.”  (The focus of these comments is Luke 14:27, but they might be considered relevant to the question about the text of Luke 9:23, for they seem to indicate that a scribe expanded Luke 14:27 by adding the word “daily,” and what would motivate a scribe to do this, if not the presence of “daily” in Luke 9:23?)

            ● Although the ancient codices that represent the text used in Egypt favor the inclusion of καθ’ ἡμέραν, there are witnesses of almost the same age for the shorter reading.  Not only is the Sinaitic Syriac among the witnesses which weigh in for the shorter reading, but so are several Old Latin copies, including (according to Burgon):  

            b, VL 4, Codex Veronensis, late 400s

            c, VL 6, Codex Colbertinus

            e, VL 2, Codex Palatinus, 400s

            ff², VL 8, Codex Corbeiensis secundus, 400s

            q, VL 13, Codex Monacensis (a.k.a. Codex Valerianus), 500s or 600s.

            The thing to see, regarding these witnesses, is not only their relatively early production-dates, but that they echo a text (or texts) translated into Latin sometime before the Vulgate.  That is, readings upon which they widely agree are echoes from the 100s-300s.  To this testimony is added the voices of Codices C X Δ E F G H S U V Γ Λ and, as already mentioned, most minuscules.  The margin of the Harklean Syriac version, from 616, chimes in too; “daily” is in its text but a note affirms that this is not found in all manuscripts.

            Codex Bezae, meanwhile, along with the Old Latin codices Vercellensis (late 300s) and Rehdigeranus, is sidelined from this particular context:  due to parableptic error (involving a skip from one “and” to another), the entire phrase between “deny himself” and “and follow Me” has dropped out of their text.

            And, as Willker observed, Codex Vaticanus has a ¨ symbol alongside the line where καθ’ ἡμέραν is in the text; this symbol signifies a scribe’s awareness of a textual variant in the line which it accompanies; the date at which such symbols were added to Codex B, however, is unknown.

            ● Hort noticed that the Western Text has a penchant for expansion; this consideration elicited Hort’s theory of Non-Western Interpolations, which specially affected Hort’s compilation in Luke 24.  Hort’s preference for short Western readings had a heavy impact and it influenced the Revised Standard Version.  That is why, if you take in hand a copy of the Revised Standard Version, you will not find the following:
            ► The phrase “of the Lord Jesus” in Luke 24:3,

            ► The words “He is not here, but has risen” in Luke 24:6,

            ► Any of Luke 24:12,

            ► Jesus’ words of peace in Luke 24:36,

            ► Any of Luke 24:40,

            ► Luke’s statement that Jesus was carried up into heaven in 24:51, or

            ► The word “And they worshiped Him” in 24:52.  

            The discovery of Papyrus 75 elicited a reversal on the part of the experts who made the RSV, and most of these readings were put back into the text in the New Revised Standard Version (but not the one in 24:3).  Subsequently, the producers of some younger versions have done an excellent job of letting their readers forget how different their version’s textual grandfather was in Luke 24; the Christian Standard Version, for example, has plenty of footnotes in Luke 24 but none of them mention these textual variants.  Similarly in the Tyndale House edition of the Greek New Testament, only one of these seven variants – the Western Text’s failure to mention Jesus’ ascension – is covered in the textual notes.

            But I digress; the thing to see is that the Western Text, or at least an early form of it, represented by the Sinaitic Syriac and several Old Latin manuscripts, resisted its tendency toward embellishment, and maintained the shorter reading in Luke 9:23.  Thus an argument in favor of the shorter reading in Luke 9:23 could include the same points that Hort made for the Western Non-Interpolations (a case which persuaded most of the editors of the RSV for a while),

           

            However, Burgon’s intriguing idea about καθ’ ἡμέραν being an insertion by an early scribe cannot withstand the force of the variety of the external evidence in which καθ’ ἡμέραν is confirmed.  We face a textual tree which has most of its fruit on a single branch (the medieval minuscules); another branch has the same fruit.  But on both of those branches, and on several other branches, there is a different fruit.  Grafters have been at work.  In this case I think we are obligated to favor the reading which is supported, not by the most fruit, but by most branches of the tree.  This means that harmonization-by-deletion occurred in Luke 9:23 in the Old Latin and Byzantine text-lines (and in the Sinaitic Syriac text), and that the longer reading in Luke 9:23 (supported by the earliest stratum of the Byzantine Text, by the earliest manuscripts which attest to the Alexandrian Text, by the Vulgate, by the Gothic version, by the Peshitta, by some of the Old Latin, by and the Armenian version, etc.) should be adopted.  

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

Meet Codex Boernerianus (012)

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

 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

5 – 012 does not have the word ἐσμεν.

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

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

9 – 012 reads μεισουντες instead of αποστυγουντες.

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

13 – 012 reads μνίαις instead of χρείαις.

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

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

21 – 012 reads απο instead of υπο.

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

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

2 – 012 reads γλώσσαις instead of γλώσσῃ.

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

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

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

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

10 – 012 adds εστιν after αφωνον.

10 – 012 reads γινώσκω instead of ειδω.

21 – 012 reads ετεραις γλώσσαις instead of ετερογλώσσαις. 

22 – 012 reads πιστοις instead of πιστεύουσιν.

23 – 012 does not include ουν.

29 – 012 reads ανακρινέτωσαν instead of διακρινέτωσαν.

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

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

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

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

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

Mór báis morbaile mór coll ceille mór

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

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

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

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

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

For surely you have set out for death,

displeasing the Son of Mary.

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

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

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

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