B. B. Warfield on New Testament Textual Criticism

B. B. Warfield

“I believe that Warfield is second only to Jonathan Edwards as America’s greatest theologian.” – R.C. Sproul

            Let’s look into B. B. Warfield’s 1886 An Introduction to the Textual Criticism of the New Testament.       

            Benjamin Breckinridge Warfield (1851-1921) is usually remembered by his intellectual heirs (such as Daniel Wallace) on account of his defense of the doctrine of Biblical inerrancy.  Born in Kentucky, Warfield graduated from Princeton Seminary in 1876, studied briefly in Germany,  and served as pastor at First Presbyterian Church in Baltimore for two years.  He then taught New Testament at Western Theological Seminary for nine years.  In 1886 he left Allegheny and began his prolific career as Professor of Reformed Theology at Princeton, and served there until his death.   His writings include The Inspiration and Authority of the Bible, The Significance of the Westminster Standards as a Creed,  Counterfeit Miracles, and  Revelation and Inspiration.

            What exactly is the New Testament text that Warfield considered inerrant?  He almost answered that question in the same year that he began his professorship at Princeton, at age 35, when he published An Introduction to the Textual Criticism of the New Testament preparing students to engage the compilations made by Tischendorf (his eighth edition, which due to the impact of Codex Sinaiticus differs from his seventh edition at 3,572 points), Tregelles, and Westcott & Hort.  

            Warfield’s approach to New Testament textual criticism closely echoed Hort’s.  He had a direct and down-to-earth writing style, and presented the case for Hort’s ideas with practical candor in four chapter:  (1) The Matter of Criticism, (2) The Methods of Criticism, (3) The  Praxis of Criticism, and (4) The History of Criticism.

            After sampling Tischendorf’s textual apparatus in Mark 1:11, Warfield lists and briefly describes the major witnesses to the text of the New Testament – uncials, minuscules, lectionaries, versions, and patristic quotations.   He acknowledged the lack of papyri, observing that “No very early papyrus manuscripts of the New Testament have come down to us,” with trivial exceptions.    

            Like John Burgon, Warfield knew the shallowness of the research done on these materials.  He lamented that “A critical edition of even the Vulgate is, however, still a desideratum” and acknowledged that “the versions are not even critically edited.”  And he knew how relatively novel the foundational discoveries were on which Hort’s transmission-model depended, observing that “À was not published until 1862; no satisfactory  edition of B existed until 1868;  C, Q, D, D₂, N, P, R, Z, L, X, E₂, P₂, S, have all been issued since 1843.”   Unlike Burgon, though, Warfield embraced Hort’s approach enthusiastically.     

            Warfield believed that the Peshitta had existed in 250 and went through a standardization process that ended around 350, suggesting that a “late third or early fourth century revision” is likely because of its non-inclusion of Second Peter, Second John, Third John, Jude, and Revelation.   He was misinformed about the age of some Ethiopic manuscripts, stating that the Ethiopic version’s earliest extant MSS “appear to be as late as the fifteenth century.”  The first chapter closes with a consideration of the textual contest in John 7:8 between ουκ and ουπω.  But he declined to declare a winner, using the data to illustrate the precariousness of  simplistic reliance on the mere quantity of witnesses, and on the age of the witnesses, and moves on.

            In chapter 2, Warfield very openly dismisses traditionally accepted readings despite their appearance in a super-majority of manuscripts in Matthew 6:4, Matthew 6:13, Mark 9:29, and Luke 8:31.    He highlights the importance of internal evidence, both intrinsic and transcriptional, which he summarizes beautifully on page 84:  “We are making use of two separate methods of inquiry; one of which deals with the probability that the author wrote this reading, and the other with the probability that the scribe began with it.”

            Warfield’s  claims in the second chapter are initially startling, but he follows  up with reasonable qualifications.  He shows his willingness to reject the reading favored by a super-majority of Greek MSS in Matthew 6:1.  Intrinsic evidence is likewise decisive in Luke 15:21.  Additional examples are drawn from Acts 12:25 and 11:20.  He states although internal evidence “is very easy to abuse,” “no conclusion to which it does not give at least its consent can be accepted as final in any case of textual criticism.”   On one hand, this is normal caution; on the other it guarantees that his New Testament text is perpetually tenuous where reasonable critics reach opposite verdicts. 

            Although Warfield repeatedly expresses his admiration for Codex Vaticanus as the best manuscript of the New Testament, when investigating Matthew 27:49 he rules against ÀB.   

            In the course of illustrating transcriptional evidence, Warfield raises issues about “the famous  reading Θεος in I Tim iii. 16,” Romans 12:11, Acts 17:25, Acts 13:23, and even mentions that “Perhaps the form Ἀσάφ in Matt. i. 7 has so come into the text from the influence of the Ἰωσαφάτ which stands immediately beneath it.”  After touring various categories of transcriptional errors, following a list of errors drawn from Codex Sinaiticus’ text of Hebrews, he reminds readers (p. 107) that “All “canons of criticism” are only general averages.”  Within this frame of caution he proceeds to posit – as “general guides,” to which exceptions should be expected, three valuable rules:  (1)  “the more difficult reading is to be preferred” (2) “the shorter reading is to be preferred” and (3) “the more characteristic reading is to be preferred” and above all these, he dictates that “That reading is to be preferred from which the origin of all the others can most safely be derived.”  

            In his presentation of external evidence, Warfield repeatedly cautions against oversimplifications, such as assuming that preference should always be given to what is more ancient, or always to the reading with the most abundant pieces of independent evidence in its favor.  He opposes the notion that if a witness is late, its text must therefore be bad, and affirms candidly (like Burgon) that “There is reason to believe that the very grossest errors that have ever deformed the text had entered it already in the second century.”

            He leans heavily on Tregelles’ analysis of the variant-unit in Matthew 6:4 (the presence, or absence, of ἐν τῷ φανερω), and follow up with a less detailed rejection of the doxology in Matthew 6:13.  Then he revisits John 7:8 –and again declines to issue a verdict.

            Warfield observed (p. 126) that “The discovery of a single manuscript (À) revolutionized  Tischendorf’s text.”   Certainly:  according to Eberhard Nestle, Tischendorf’s eighth edition differed from his seventh edition at 3,572 points, due primarily to the impact of Codex Sinaiticus.  Nevertheless Warfield seems entirely undisturbed by the prospect of another major discover destabilizing the compilation he supports (the readings about which Tischendorf, Tregelles, and Hort agree). 

            On page 132-133 Warfield expresses his position very clearly:  he endorses Hort’s approach, stating that “his results may be safely accepted as sound,” and regards Vaticanus as “plainly the best single codex known.”  Little by little, he reveals his confident adherence to Hort’s transmission-model, including the Lucianic recension.   At the same time he rejects the reading of ÀBCLUΓ at Matthew 27:49.    

            His definition of internal evidence of groups is worth remembering:  “Internal evidence of  groups is, therefore, simply internal evidence of documents applied to lost documents, a list of the readings which has come down to us, and nothing more.”

            Another pithy statement emphasizing the importance of considering evidence in terms of groups, on p. 139:  “MSS agree together nor by accident but by inheritance.”  And then Warfield proceeds to consider, in more detail than Hort, genealogical evidence – concluding that Hort was justified to set aside all that is distinct in the Syriac (i.e., the Byzantine) text.  What Warfield writes on p. 157-170 is essentially a summary of what Hort’s introduction presented more verbosely.  Warfield helpfully offers diagrams to illustrate the how the text of the Gospels has been transmitted.  He even utilizes Hort’s slanted nomenclature without question.

            By the time he has finished summarizing Hort, Warfield says that “The proper procedure” for settling textual contests involves, as its first step, “Sift out all  Syrian evidence from the mass of witnesses.”  He states outright (p. 171) “Any reading supported only by the Syriac class is convicted of having originated after A.D. 250.”

            When facing Hort’s theory of “Western non-interpolations,” Warfield bypasses Luke 24, and merely treats the “Neutral and Alexandrian” reading in Matthew 27:49 as an error.  He moves on to small variant-units such as μᾶλλον in Second Corinthians 2:7 and διο in Second Corinthians 12:7 and the contest between ᾖλθεν versus ᾖλθον in Galatians 2:12.  A hint of frustration seems to peek out in his brief discussion of Hebrews 10:11 where he laments, “We long for B,” and he admits that as far as the text of Revelation is concerned, “genealogical evidence can as yet be scarcely employed at all, without the greatest doubt and difficulty.”   How the same mind could make such an admission, and expect his readers to confidently regard their newly printed compilations simultaneously as inerrant and tenuous, is mystifying.

            In his third chapter, The Praxis of Textual Criticism, Warfield focuses on Acts 20:28, John 1:18, First Timothy 3:16, John 7:53-8:11, and Mark 16:9-20, and in each case he rejects the Syrian reading, “sifting out the Syrian evidence.”  He favors Θεου in Acts 20:28 and fails to mention Hort’s conjecture that υιου has dropped out of the text.   Warfield does, however, briefly delve into the subject of conjectural emendation, stating that “The only test of a successful conjecture is that it shall approve itself as inevitable” and mentioning proposed emendations in Colossians 2:18:  Lightfoot’s ἐώρᾳ or αἰώρᾳ κενεμβατεύων and C. Taylor’s  ἀέρα κενεμβατεύων.  (In the same verse Hort proposed ἐθελοταπεινοφροσύνῃ where θέλων ἐν ταπεινοφροσύνῃ.)

            Chapter Four is brief and Warfield’s history adds nothing that later authors such as Bruce Metzger have not presented other than to notice more prominently the work of Simon Colinaeus (1534) and Edward Wells (1709-1719) (whose annotated Paraphrase of the New Testament is available in Part One and Part Two).  Warfield recognized that he was in a generation of pioneers, not street-pavers; yet he was confidently optimistic enough to state, “We have at least attained the position of having evidence enough before us to render the sketching of the history of the text possible, and to certify us that new discoveries will only  enlighten dark places, and not overturn the whole fabric.”  He closes not by declaring that the text of the New Testament has been established, but by point to Tischendorf’s 8^th edition (1864-1872), Tregelles’ compilation (1857-1879) and Westcott & Hort’s compilation (1881) as “the high-water mark of modern criticism, and states that where they differ, “future criticism may find her especial task.”  It does not seem to have bothered him that he could never show exactly what was the New Testament text that he considered inerrant.         

 

 

 

Do Any Textual Variants Impact Doctrine?

           Do any textual variants in the New Testament have the potential to make a significant doctrinal impact?

          In the past, major champions of the traditional text answered that question with a simple “No.”  Robert L. Dabney wrote in 1871, that the received text – the Textus Receptus, the base-text of the KJV, while “not asserted to be above emendation,” “contains undoubtedly all the essential facts and doctrines intended to be set down by the inspired writers,” and “If it were corrected with the severest hand, by the light of the most divergent various readings found in any ancient MS or version, not a single doctrine of Christianity, nor a single cardinal fact, would be thereby expunged.”

          More recent writers have expressed similar sentiments.   D.A. Carson, for example, has written that the Westminster Confession’s affirmation that the Biblical text has been kept pure in all ages ought to be understood to mean that “nothing we believe to be doctrinally true, and nothing we are commanded to do, is in any way jeopardized by the variants.” (from p. 56 of The KJV-Only Controversy – A Plea for Realism.) 

          The view of Dan Wallace, however, is better-informed and more nuanced.  It amounts to this:  no viable and meaningful variant jeopardizes any cardinal doctrine.  The adjectives in that sentence are important, so let’s look into what they mean.  A viable variant is one which textual critics regard as potentially original; it is favored by weighty (though not necessarily decisive) evidence.  A meaningful variant is one which affects the meaning of the passage in which it occurs.  And a cardinal doctrine is one that expresses a fundamental point of the Christian faith.  

          Using this nuanced approach, a question immediately arises:  which doctrines are cardinal?  Is inerrancy a cardinal doctrine?  Looking at the website of Dallas Theological Seminary (where Dr. Wallace has taught), a statement can be seen that requires students to agree with seven beliefs; the seventh is “the authority and inerrancy of Scripture.”  And looking at the requisite Statement of Faith – “requisite” in the sense that faculty members at DTS are required to affirm it annually – one sees a statement that “We believe that the whole Bible in the originals is therefore without error.”

          Michael Kruger argued at the Ligonier website (in 2015) that the doctrine of inerrancy is essential, and that it supplies “the foundation for why we can trust and obey God’s Word.”   Don Stewart has also proposed that “inerrancy is an essential, foundational concept and its importance should not be minimized.”  Dan Wallace, meanwhile, has downplayed the centrality of inerrancy, stating in 2006 (in a post that is still online) that “inerrancy and verbal inspiration are more peripheral than core doctrines.”  In other words – if I understand him correctly – Dr. Wallace does not, and has not, for some time, regarded inerrancy as a cardinal doctrine – and so his statement to the effect that no viable and meaningful variant significantly affects cardinal doctrines should not be interpreted to mean that no viable and meaningful variants affect the doctrine of inerrancy. 

          Some apologists have followed the example of Wallace’s nuanced approach very closely; for example, in an article at Stand To Reason’s website, Tim Barnett wrote in 2016 that “No major doctrines depend on any meaningful and viable variants.” 

          However, I can think of at least two variants that jeopardize the doctrine of inerrancy, both of which occur in the first book of the New Testament:  in Matthew 13:35 and Matthew 27:49.  Only the one in Matthew 13:35 is acknowledged by a footnote in the NLT, NASB, and ESV.  (At least, this is the case in the copies that I have.  So many editions of modern versions are in circulation that it would be burdensome to keep track of them all – which might make one wonder how seriously the “Standard” part of their names should be taken.)  Neither of these variants is given a footnote in the CSB, nor in the NKJV, nor in the hyper-paraphrase known as The Message.  And the Tyndale House Greek New Testament does not have a footnote at Matthew 13:35 or at Matthew 27:49. 

          Most of the English versions I have named so far are currently ranked among the ten most-popular versions of the Bible in America.  So much for the idea that no one is hiding these variants.

          Let’s see what those variants in Matthew 13:35 and 27:49 say.  

          In Matthew 13:35, the scribe of Codex Sinaiticus, rather than writing that a prophecy was spoken by “the prophet,” wrote that it was spoken by “Isaiah the prophet.”  This reading collides with reality:  the referred-to prophecy is from Psalm 78:2 – a composition by Asaph, and not from Isaiah.  In addition to the scribe of Codex Sinaiticus, witnesses that support “Isaiah the prophet” in Mt. 13:35 include (according to the textual apparatus of UBS4) Q, f¹, f¹³, 33, and the reading was known to Jerome; Jerome wrote (in Homily 11 on Psalm 77) that “in all the ancient copies,” the prophecy is explicitly attributed to Asaph, and Jerome offers the theory that scribes who were unfamiliar with Asaph replaced his name with Isaiah’s name.  The editors of UBS4 assigned this reading a ranking of “C,” which, as they explain in their Introduction, “indicates that the Committee had difficulty in deciding which variant to place in the text.”                   

          In an earlier generation, F. J. A. Hort – who edited, with Westcott, the primary ancestor of the base-text of the New Testament used for the NIV, ESV, NLT, CSB, NASB and NRSV – argued for including “in Isaiah the prophet” in the text.  His argument ran as follows:  “It is difficult not to think Ἠσαίου genuine.  There was a strong tendency to omit it (cf. xxvii 9; Mc 1 2); and, though its insertion might be accounted for by an impulse to supply the name of the best known prophet, the evidence of the actual operation of such an impulse is much more trifling than might have been anticipated.  Out of the 5 (6) other places where the true text has simply τοῦ προφήτου, in two (Mt ii 15 [Hosea]; Acts vii 48 [Isaiah]) , besides the early interpolation in Mt xxvii 35 [Psalms], no name is inserted; in two a name is inserted on trivial evidence (Mt ii 5, Micah rightly, and Isaiah [by a] wrongly ; xxi 4, Isaiah and Zechariah both rightly [Zech by lat.vt]) ; and once (Mt i 22) Isaiah is rightly inserted on various Western evidence.  Also for the perplexing Ἰερεμίου of xxvii 9, omitted by many documents, rhe has Ἠσαίου.  Thus the erroneous introduction of Isaiah’s name is limited to two passages, and in each case to a single Latin MS.  On the other hand the authority of rushw and aeth is lessened by the (right) insertion of Ἠσαίου by one in Mt i 22, and by both in xxi 4.  The adverse testimony of B is not decisive, as it has a few widely spread wrong readings in this Gospel.”   

          Constantine von Tischendorf included Ἠσαίου in Matthew 13:35 in the 8th edition of his compilation of the Greek New Testament.  And in 1901, Eberhard Nestle wrote (on p. 251 of his Introduction to the Textual Criticism of the Greek New Testament) that διὰ Ἠσαίου τοῦ προφήτου “is certainly, therefore, original.”  Anyone using a Greek New Testament compiled by Tischendorf or Nestle today would be rather challenged if he were to attempt to maintain the doctrine of inerrancy, inasmuch as if Matthew attributed Psalm 78:2 to Isaiah, then Matthew erred.  

Mt. 27:49 in Codex L.

         In Matthew 27:49, major Alexandrian witnesses (Sinaiticus, Vaticanus, Codex C, Codex L), some important versional witnesses (Mae¹, Mae², the Ethiopic version, and assorted witnesses (listed by Willker as U, Γ, 5, 26, 48, 67, 115, 127, 160, 175, 364, 782, 871, 1010, 1057, 1300, 1392, 1416, 1448, 1555, 1566, 1701, 1780, 2117, 2126, 2139, 2283, 2328, 2437*, 2585, 2586, 2622, 2680, 2766, and 2787) support the reading, at the end of the verse, ἄλλος δὲ λαβών λόγχην ἔνυξεν αὐτοῦ τήν πλευράν καί ἐξῆλθεν ὕδωρ καί αἷμα.  (In the underlined witnesses the final words are αἷμα καί ὕδωρ instead of ὕδωρ καί αἷμα.)  This means:  And another [person], taking a spear, pierced his side, and out came water and blood.   Then, in Matthew 27:50, Jesus dies.

          The adoption of this reading into the text would be fatal to the doctrine of inerrancy, because the Gospel of John candidly states (in 19:34) that Jesus was pierced in His side with a spear, resulting in a flow of blood and water, after He died, and this contradicts the text of Matthew if this reading – supported by the two early manuscripts (À and B) that are the primary basis for the heading and footnote that draw into question Mark 16:9-20 in the ESV, CSB, NRSV, etc. – is adopted.

          In 2018, in a post at Evangelical Textual Criticism, Tyndale House GNT editor Dirk Jongkind acknowledged that this variant probably should have been mentioned in the apparatus of the Tyndale House GNT.  He also acknowledged that “On external evidence, the addition has definitely a very good shout” – which  – I think – is tantamount to granting that the reading is viable.  But Jongkind rejects the reading, admitting that “The ‘best and earliest manuscripts’ do not always present us with the ‘best and earliest readings.’”   Perhaps this statement should be printed in large letters alongside the ESV’s bracketed heading between Mark 16:8 and 16:9 (which reads, “Some of the earliest manuscripts do no include 16:9-20.”).

          But this reading in the most significant manuscripts representative of the Alexandrian Text certainly was treated as viable by Westcott and Hort, who included the variant, within double brackets, in their compilation.  In Westcott & Hort’s Notes on Select Readings, after analyzing the evidence pertaining to this variant, they concluded as follows:  “Two suppositions alone are compatible  with the whole evidence.  First, the words  ἄλλος δὲ κ.τ.λ. [“κ.τ.λ.” meaning “etc.”] may belong to the genuine text of the extant form of Mt, and have been early omitted (originally by the Western text) on account of the obvious difficulty.  Or, secondly, they may be a very early interpolation, absent in the first instance from the Western text only, and thus resembling the Non-Western interpolations in Luke xxii xxiv except in its failure to obtain admission into the prevalent texts of the third and fourth centuries.  The prima facie difficulty of the second supposition is lightened by the absence of the words from all the earlier versions, though the defectiveness of African Latin, Old Syriac, and Thebaic evidence somewhat weakens the force of this consideration. We have thought it on the whole right to give expression to this view by including the words within double brackets, though we did not feel justified in removing them from the text, and are not prepared to reject altogether the alternative supposition.”

          Competent textual critics – including some who laid the foundation for the compilations of the ESV, CSB, NLT, and NRSV – have treated one or two readings that convey erroneous statements as if they are viable and meaningful.  Therefore, the notion that there are no viable and meaningful textual variants in the New Testament that jeopardize any cardinal doctrine can only be maintained by those who do not consider the doctrine of inerrancy to be a “cardinal doctrine.”    

           So:  do any textual variants in the New Testament have the potential to make a significant doctrinal impact?  If you consider the doctrine of inerrancy a significant doctrine (which most evangelical Christians do), the answer is yes.        

    

 

John 6:15 - An Interesting Little Detail

           Near the end of John 6:15 – following John’s account of the feeding of the 5,000 – there is an interesting variant-unit:  did John write that Jesus withdrew again (ἀνεχώρησεν πάλιν) to the mountain by himself, or that Jesus withdrew (ἀνεχώρησεν) (without “again”) to the mountain by himself, or that Jesus “fled again” φεύγει πάλιν) to the mountain by himself?

          John does not use ἀνεχώρησεν anywhere else, so perhaps there is something to be said in favor of φεύγει:  the idea is that copyists changed the wording of Jesus’ movement to avoid giving the impression that Jesus was running away like Brave Sir Robin.  On the other hand, John does not use φεύγει anywhere else, either. 

          Constantine von Tischendorf was willing to let Codex Sinaiticus overrule all other Greek manuscripts in existence in John 6:15, in his eighth edition of the Greek New Testament.  Scholars less entranced with À have not concurred, arguing (as Metzger reports in his Textual Commentary) that φεύγει originated as a Western reading.  It had to be introduced as a sort of paraphrase fairly early, inasmuch as it is supported by Tertullian, De Rebaptismate, Ambrose, Jerome (who placed fugit in the Vulgate, agreeing with several Old Latin copies) and Augustine.  (Tertullian’s reference is not airtight, however:  in On Idolatry XVIII, he simply says that Christ “shrank back from being made a king,” without explicitly quoting John 6:15.)     

          Ἀνεχώρησεν is read in all text-types:  Alexandrian (P75, B, L), Western (D), Byzantine (A, K, Λ, Π, N) and Caesarean (f¹).   But did John write only ἀνεχώρησεν or ἀνεχώρησεν πάλιν?  Manuscripts without πάλιν here include W, Δ, Ψ, and most Byzantine copies.  The Peshitta, likewise, does not support πάλιν.  The word could perhaps have been skipped accidentally, if a copyist’s line of sight slid from the ν at the end of ἀνεχώρησεν to the ν at the end of πάλιν.  Or, having just read John 6:3’s account of Jesus going up into the mountain, early copyists couldn’t resist harmlessly adding πάλιν – but one would have to believe this happened at least twice for πάλιν to drift into A, D, Π, N, and Y.    

          The Curetonian Syriac, interestingly, supports a conflate reading:  fled and withdrew again.  

          Readers of the Nestle-Aland Novum Testamentum Graece compilation would never detect that the reading found in the Byzantine Text, W, and the Peshitta exists:  the N-A apparatus mentions the reading in À but not the reading of most manuscripts – an omission that is difficult to explain except as an effect of the editors’ pro-Alexandrian bias.  The UBS apparatus doesn’t mention the non-inclusion of πάλιν either; nor does they Tyndale House GNT’s apparatus.    

          The non-original reading φεύγει is more interesting than it looks – not only because it was temporarily favored by a leading textual critic in the 1800s, but because it reveals that retro-translation sporadically affected the Greek text in the exemplar of the opening chapters of John in Sinaiticus – the same sort of Western phenomenon that has unfortunately affected the NIV 2011’s base-text of Mark 1:41.

 

Why Is James White Still Spreading a Myth?

           James R. White, the director of Alpha & Omega Ministries, continues to spread a false version of how Codex Sinaiticus was initially encountered by Constantine Tischendorf - and it looks likes his colleagues in/around Phoenix, Arizona are doing nothing to prevent him from doing so.  As far back as 1995, when the first edition of The KJV-Only Controversy was published, White claimed that in 1844, Constantine Tischendorf visited St. Catherine's monastery and saw "some parchment scraps" in a basket.  White went on to say that on a subsequent visit in 1853, Tischendorf's incessant search for manuscripts was "of no avail," but on another visit six years later, the steward of St Catherine's monastery showed him Codex Sinaiticus, have produced it from the close of his cell, "wrapped in a red cloth."
            This version of how Tischendorf first encountered Codex Sinaiticus was repeated in 2009, when the second edition of The KJV-Only Controversy was released.  Earlier, in March of 2006 (in material that is still online at Alpha & Omega Ministries' website), James White appealed to his own account in The King James Only Controversy in an attempt to refute the claim by Douglas Stauffer (currently a preacher in Niceville, FL) that Codex Sinaiticus was discovered in a trash can.  White writes:

            "So as you can see, Sinaiticus was not found in a trash can.  It was clearly prized by its owner, and well cared for.  The only reason Stauffer and those like him continue to repeat this story is for its impact upon those ignorant of history and unlikely to actually look into it for themselves.  But for anyone serious about the subject, such dishonesty destroys one's credibility."

            James R. White thus accused Dr. Stauffer of falsely saying that Codex Sinaiticus was found in a trash can ‒ and I'd say that he also appears to have accused Dr. Stauffer of dishonesty.  But it is James R. White who is telling a tale here, with help from Richard Pierce and from Bethany House Publishers (which has spread White's remarkably misleading version of events for over 20 years, in addition to many other inaccurate claims James White has made).

           Tischendorf's account of his first encounter with part of Codex Sinaiticus ‒ an account which is itself highly suspect in some respects ‒ can be found, in English, in his 1867 essay, verbosely titled, When Were Our Gospels Written?  An Argument by Constantine Tischendorf.  With a Narrative of the Discovery of the Sinaitic Manuscript - Translated and Published by the Religious Tract Society in London, Under an Arrangement with the Author.  Happily this document can be found online at Google Books and at Archive.org among other places.

            When we open that text, we find that what White described as "parchment scraps" found by Constantine Tischendorf on his first visit to St. Catherine's Monastery (in 1844) were pages of Codex Sinaiticus, which at the time Tischendorf called Codex Frederico-Augustanus, in honor of one of his chief European benefactors, Frederick Augustus II of Saxony.  Tischendorf makes this perfectly clear, beginning in his description of his first encounter with pages of Codex Sinaiticus:

           "It was at the foot of Mount Sinai, in the convent of St. Catherine, that I discovered the pearl of all my researches.  In visiting the library of the monastery, in the month of May, 1844, I perceived in the middle of the great hall a large and wide basket full of old parchments; and the librarian, who was a man of information, told me that two heaps of papers like this, mouldered by time, had been already committed to the flames. What was my surprise to find amid this heap of papers a considerable number of sheets of a copy of the Old Testament in Greek, which seemed to me to be one of the most ancient that I had ever seen.  The authorities of the convent allowed me to possess myself of a third of these parchments, or about forty-five sheets, all the more readily as they were destined for the fire.  But I could not get them to yield up possession of the remainder. The too lively satisfaction which I had displayed, had aroused their suspicions as to the value of this manuscript.  I transcribed a page of the text of Isaiah and Jeremiah, and enjoined on the monks to take religious care of all such remains which might fall in their way."

              The reason why Doug Stauffer and D. A. Waite and various other individuals have spread the report that Tischendorf found pages of Codex Sinaiticus in a basket, about to be burned, is obvious:  they have rephrased the same thing that James White rephrased when he wrote that in 1844 Tischendorf was presented with "parchment scraps in a basket that was to be used to stoke the fires in the monastery's oven." (see The KJV-Only Controversy, p. 56, 2nd ed.).  The difference is that they grasped that Tischendorf was referring to pages of Codex Sinaiticus:  Tischendorf himself claimed to have found pages of Codex Sinaiticus in "a large and wide basket" which seemed in danger of being disposed of by the monks.  The "about forty-five sheets" of Codex Sinaiticus that Tischendorf took to Leipzig were stamped with the stamp of the Library of Leipzig University, which can still be seen to this day at the Codex Sinaiticus website, for instance in Lamentations.

            White went on to say that in 1853, "Tischendorf tried to find more manuscripts at the monastery in 1853 but to no avail."  This is very different from Tischendorf's own account:  "Having set out from Leipzig in January, 1853, I embarked at Trieste for Egypt, and in the month of February I stood, for the second time, in the convent of Sinai.  This second journey was more successful even than the first, from the discoveries that I made of rare Biblical manuscripts." 

            Only as James White describes Tischendorf's third visit to St. Catherine's Monastery, in 1859, does his version of events begin to converge with Tischendorf's.  In 1859, according to Tischendorf, the steward of the convent "took down from the corner of the room a bulky kind of volume wrapped up in a red cloth, and laid it before me.  I unrolled the cover, and discovered, to my great surprise, not only those very fragments which, fifteen years before, I had taken out of the basket, but also other parts of the Old Testament, the New Testament complete, and in addition, the Epistle of Barnabas and a part of the Pastor of Hermas."

           How James White has managed to repeat the detail about Codex Sinaiticus being wrapped in a red cloth (in a footnote on page 58 of The KJV-Only Controversy, 2nd ed.) and yet fail to realize that pages of Codex Sinaiticus ‒ not mere "parchment scraps in a basket that was to be used to stoke the fires in the monastery's oven" (KJV-Only Controversy, p. 56) ‒ were what Tischendorf encountered in 1844, is mind-boggling.  Nevertheless that is exactly what seems to have happened, and White's contorted version of events has been spread far and wide (with the endorsement of Craig Blomberg and D.A. Carson!) for over two decades.

            I recommend to those in charge at Bethany House Publishers (a division of Baker Publishing Group), and to whoever has any control over what Alpha & Omega Ministries produces, and to the leadership of Apologia Church including Jeff Durbin, Luke Pierson, and Zack Morgan in Mesa, Arizona (where James White is currently an elder), to arrange for a retraction of James White's false report about Codex Sinaiticus, and an apology from James White to those he has insulted and/or misrepresented in this regard, including Doug Stauffer.  James White wrote (at Alpha & Omega Ministries' blog), "Any "scholar" who can't even get this story straight is not really worth reading, to be honest."   Ten years ago when I made a short video attempting to prod James White to revise his distorted claims, I disagreed:  surely the gracious option is to think that although someone has made an inexplicable blunder, he can still be worth listening to.  But now, after ten years have passed in which James White has not retracted his version of the story, I agree.

   

Scrivener: Principles of Comparative Criticism - Part 3

 

F. H. A. Scrivener

I am unfeignedly anxious to present to the reader a clear and even forcible statement of the principles of textual criticism maintained in Dr. Tregelles’ “Account of the Printed Text of the Greek Testament.”  I assure him I do not criticize his book unread,¹ or reject his theory without patient examination.  [1 – “Let me request anyone who may wish to understand the principles of textual criticism which I believe to be true, to read what I have stated,” etc. (Tregelles, Addenda, p. 2). A moderate request certainly, but I should hope it was hardly needed.]

 I presume he would wish it to be enunciated in such terms as the following:

The genuine text of the Greek New Testament must be sought exclusively from the most ancient authorities, especially from the earliest uncial copies of the Greek.  The paramount weight and importance of the last arises not from the accidental circumstance of their age, but from their agreement with the other independent and most ancient authorities still extant, viz. the oldest versions and citations by the fathers of the first four centuries.

 

To which proposition must be appended this corollary as a direct and necessary consequence:

“The mass of recent documents [i.e. those written in cursive characters from the tenth century downwards] possess no determining voice, in a question as to what we should receive as genuine readings. We are able to take the few documents whose evidence is proved to be trustworthy, and safely discard from present consideration the eighty-nine ninetieths, or whatever else the numerical proportion may be” (Tregelles, p. 138).

In the ordinary concerns of social life, one would form no favorable estimate of the impartiality of a judge (and such surely is the real position of a critical editor) who deemed it safe to discard unheard eighty-nine witnesses out of ninety that are tendered to him, unless indeed it were perfectly certain that the eighty-nine had no means of information, except what they derived from the ninetieth.  On that supposition, but on that supposition alone, could the judge’s reputation for wisdom or fairness be upheld.  That mere numbers should decide a question of sacred criticism never ought to have been asserted by any one; never has been asserted by a respectable scholar.  Tischendorf himself (Proleg. p. xii) cannot condemn such a dogma more emphatically than the upholders of the general integrity of the Elzevir text.  

But I must say that the counter-proposition, that numbers have “no determining voice,” is to my mind just as unreasonable, and rather more startling.  I agree with Dr. Davidson (p. 333) in holding it to be “an obvious and natural rule” that the reading of the majority is so far preferable. Not that a bare majority shall always prevail, but that numerical preponderance, especially where it is marked and constant, is an important element in the investigation of the genuine readings of Holy Scripture.  For on what grounds shall we justify ourselves in putting this consideration wholly aside?  Is the judge convinced to a moral certainty that the evidence of the eighty-nine is drawn exclusively from that of the ninetieth?  It has never I think been affirmed by any one (Dr. Tregelles would not be sorry to affirm it, if he could with truth) that the mass of cursive documents are corrupt copies of the uncials still extant: the fact has scarcely been suspected in a single instance, and certainly never proved.  I will again avail myself of Davidson’s words, not only because they admirably express my meaning, but because his general bias is not quite in favor of the views I am advocating.  “Ceteris paribus," he observes, “the reading of an ancient copy is more likely to be authentic than that of a modern one.  But the reading of a more modern copy may be more ancient than the reading of an ancient one.  A modern copy itself may have been derived not from an extant one more ancient, but from one still more ancient no longer in existence.  And this was probably the case in not a few instances” (p. 101).  

No one can carefully examine the readings of cursive documents, as represented in any tolerable collation, without perceiving the high probability that Davidson’s account of them is true.  But it is not essential to our argument that the fact of their being derived from ancient sources now lost should be established, though internal evidence points strongly to their being so derived: it is enough that such an origin is possible, to make it at once unreasonable and unjust to shut them out from a “determining voice” (of course jointly with others) on questions of doubtful reading.  I confess that Tregelles is only following his premises to their legitimate conclusion in manfully declaring his purpose in this respect; but we are bound to scrutinize with the utmost jealousy and distrust a principle which involves consequences so extensive, and he must forgive me if I add, so “perilous.”

It is agreed then on all hands that the antiquity of a document is only a presumption, a primâ facie ground for expectation, that it will prove of great critical importance.  “The oldest MSS,” writes Dr. Davidson again, “bear traces of revision by arbitrary and injudicious critics.  Good readings make good manuscripts” (p. 101).  “It ought to be needless for me to have to repeat again and again,” insists Dr. Tregelles, whose reviewers I suppose were δυσμαθέστεροι, “that the testimony of very ancient MSS is proved to be good on grounds of evidence (not mere assertion); and that the distinction is not between the ancient MSS on the one hand, and all other witnesses on the other – but between the united evidence of the most ancient documents – MSS, versions, and early citations – together with that of the few more recent copies that accord with them, on the one hand, and the mass of modern MSS on the other” (Tregelles, Addenda, p. 2).

Very well:  this immeasurable superiority claimed for the early uncials over all later authorities (so that the former shall be everything in criticism, the latter absolutely nothing) rests not on an axiom intuitively true; it has to be proved by an induction of scattered facts; and we are bound to watch the process of proof with the greater care, from our previous knowledge that when once established it will inevitably lead us to conclusions which seem hardly consistent with even dealing towards a whole legion of honest and reputable witnesses.

Now Dr. Tregelles produces no less than SEVENTY-TWO passages from various parts of the New Testament (pp. 133-147), as a kind of sample of some two or three thousand which he reckons to exist there, wherein “the more valuable ancient versions (or some of them) agree in a particular reading, or in which such a reading has distinct patristic testimony, and the mass of MSS stand in opposition to such a lection, [while] there are certain copies which habitually uphold the older reading” (Tregelles, p. 148).  Of course I cannot follow him step by step through this long and labored catalogue; an adequate specimen taken without unfair selection will amply suffice to show my opponent’s drift and purpose.  I will therefore transcribe all the places he cites from the Gospel of St. Mark (they amount to seven), making choice of that Gospel partly for its shortness, partly because I wish, in justice to Dr. Tregelles, to discuss in preference those texts which remain unmutilated in the four uncial codices of the first class (see above, vide supra, p. vi.); in the following list they all are complete, except C in Mark 13:14 alone.  As Tregelles “for the sake of brevity” has laid before us these passages “without any attempt to state the balance of evidence” (p. 148), l have ventured to supply within brackets an omission which I cannot help considering a little unfortunate.

(l).  “Mark 3:29.  Common text, αἰωνίου κρίσεως.  Vulg. has, however, ‘reus erit æterni delicti;’ so too the Old Latin [a. b. c. e. ff². g¹. l. Tregelles N. T., 1857], the Memphitic, Gothic, Armenian; and this is the reading of Cyprian [bis, Treg. N. T.], Augustine, and Athanasius. Corresponding with this BLΔ, 33 (and one other MS [28; add 2^pe]), read αἰωνίου ἀμαρτήματος, and C* (ut videtur), D, 69 (and two others [13. 346]), have αἰωνίου ἀμαρτίας, a perfectly cognate reading.” (p. 141).

[But κρίσεως is found in AC** (whose primitive reading seems quite doubtful) EFGHKMSUVΓ¹ being all the other uncials that contain the passage.  Of the cursive copies, all go with the received text, except the six named above, and three which have κολάσεως.  The Peshito Syriac reads [Syriac word] judicii; thus also the Harclean Syriac of the 7th century, the Ethiopic (“in condemnatione”), the Codex Brixianus f of the Italic (or Old Latin), the Codex Toletanus of the Vulgate, and any Fathers not named by Tregelles, many of whom must have cited this remarkable passage.]

 

[1 – Of the uncials cited for these texts B (Tregelles’ favorite) is least accurately known.  ACDLΔ have been edited in full; EFGHKMSUVΓ have been so repeatedly collated (recently by Tischendorf or Tregelles or both) that when they are not cited as supporting variations so marked as those under discussion, their testimony even sub silentio in behalf of the received text may be fully relied upon.  In these seven texts, however, they are expressly cited by Tischendorf’s seventh edition for the readings here ascribed to them.]

 

(2).  “Mark 4:12.  τὰ ἁμαρτήματα of the common text is omitted by Origen twice; by one MS of the Old Latin [two b. i. in Treg. N. T.], the Memphitic, and Armenian, with BCL, 1 (and some other MSS)” [i.e. “22. 118. 209. 251. 340* al.”   Scholz:  τὰ ἁμαρτήματα Theophyl. and eight MSS].

[τὰ ἁμαρτήματα is read in ADEFGHKMSUVΔ (hiat. Γ), all cursives not named above, Syriac both Peshito and Harclean, Ethiopic, Gothic, Vulgate, all Italic MSS except two].

 

(3).  “Mark 4:24. τοῖς ἀκούουσιν omitted by the Old Latin, Vulgate, Memphitic, Eth, with BCDLΔ, and some other copies.” [credentibus f Gothic, Treg. N. T.].

[Tischendorf, even in his seventh edition, adds G (Harl. 5684), but on reference to the MS, I find he is wrong.  Griesbach adds “item 13. 69 semel,” yet 69 in this verse reads τοῖς ἀκούουσιν, as do AEFGHKMSUV (hiat. Γ), all other cursive MSS, both Syrr.].

 

(4).  “Mark 10:21.  ἄρας τὸν σταυρὸν omitted by the Old Latin in most copies [b. c. f. ff². g^1,2 k. l. Treg. N. T.], Vulgate, Memphitic [by Schwartze], (so too Clem. Alex. and Hil.), with BCDΔ.” [L is here defective, and so for the first time deserts its allies: add to the list Scholz’s 406].

[ἄρας τὸν σταυρὸν is read in AEFHKMSUVXΓ, the whole mass of cursive copies, the Harclean Syriac, Wilkins’ Memphitic and the Gothic.  The words are placed before δευρο in G 1. 13. 69. 118. 124 and four other cursives; in Peshito Syr., Eth., Armenian, the Vercelli MS. a. of the Old Latin, and Irenaeus].

 

(5).  “Mark 12:4.  λιθοβολήσαντες omitted by Old Latin, Vulgate, Memphitic, [Theb., Treg. N. T.], Armenian, with BDLΔ, 1, 33 and four other copies.” [i.e. 28. 91. 118. 299.]

[But λιθοβολήσαντες is found in ACEFGHKMSUVXΓ, all other cursive copies, both Syrr,, Gothic, Eth.].

 

(6).  “Mark 12:23.  ὅταν ἀναστῶσιν om. some copies of Old Latin [b (ut vid.). (c). (k) Treg. N. T.], Memphitic, Syr, [i.e. Peshito; Treg. N. T. adds Theb. Eth.] with BCDLΔ, 33.

[ὅταν ἀναστῶσιν is read in AEFGHKMSUVXΓ, all cursives but one (13. 69. 346 alio ordine), Vulgate, a. ff. g². i. of Old Latin, Harclean Syriac, Gothic, Armenian].

 

(7).  “Mark 13:14.  τὸ ῥηθὲν ὑπὸ Δανιὴλ τοῦ προφὴτου om. most copies of Old Latin [a. ff. g¹. only in Treg. N. T., where he adds Theb.], Vulgate, Memphitic, Armenian, also Augustine expressly, with BDL.” [Scholz adds “nec attingunt Victor et Theophylact.”]

[The words are read in AEFGHKMSUVXΓΔ, all cursives (with some variation in my y and eight others), both Syriac, Eth, c. k. of Old Latin].

 

I do not think the reader will desire more than these specimens, transcribed as they are consecutively from Dr. Tregelles’ list without the possibility of undue selection.  I fully believe him that they may be increased twenty-fold.  It is time to offer a few remarks on the facts that have been alleged by each of us.  Meanwhile I must beg that the design of my learned opponent in producing his examples be carefully borne in mind.  He does not so much aim at showing that the readings of Codex B and its adherents are preferable to those of the received text (though this he implies throughout), as at demonstrating that the united testimonies of early uncials, primitive versions, and ecclesiastical authors of the first four centuries form together such a mass of evidence as will overhear the voice of the vast majority of witnesses of all ages and countries.

 We may grant that his favorite documents are entitled to great weight in the process of critical investigation, and this I admit fully and without reserve: we might even prefer many of their readings to those of the received text, which on the whole I am not quite disposed to do: and yet we must demur as firmly as ever to the claim of paramount and exclusive authority he sets up for them.  With these preliminary observations I pass on to an analysis of the state of evidence in the passages Dr. Tregelles has brought to our notice.

 

(1). First then it is obvious that the uncial documents, even the earliest of them, are much divided in every place he has cited. I hardly know why the Alexandrine MS. (A) has come to be considered a little younger than the Codex Vaticanus (B); we have free access to and minute knowledge of the one; through the jealousy of the Papal librarians our acquaintance with the other is still very imperfect¹; [1 – Since writing the above I have examined Cardinal Mai’s long-expected edition of the Vaticanus (5 Tom. Roman 1857) – the text of which was ten years passing through the press (1828-38), and was then kept back from publication till within the last few months.  I regret that I cannot even now modify my statement of the precariousness of our knowledge of this great document.  I must needs add my voice to the loud chorus of disappointment this work has called forth throughout Europe.  It is impossible to study Vercellono’s letter to the reader, prefixed to the first volume, without seeing the strange incompetency both of Mai and of himself, for the task they had undertaken.  In fact, Vercellone’s frank admission of the great Cardinal’s inaccuracy would be amusing if it were not most vexatious.  Finding his sheets full of errors and misrepresentations of the Codex Vaticanus (some of them inserted from printed books!), Mai tries to get rid of them as well as he can, sometimes by canceling a few leaves, sometimes by manual corrections made in each copy; while he reserves the mass for a table of errata, to be placed at the end of each volume.  In this unpromising state was the work found by Vercellone after Mai’s death in 1854, when, anxious to celebrate the Cardinal’s memory “novâ usque gloriâ atque splendidiore coronâ” (Tom. I. p. iii), he drew up the tables of errata projected by his predecessor, and at length submitted this deplorable performance to the judgment of Biblical scholars.  His lists of errata are obviously most imperfect; as regards orthography he only professes to give us “selectiora,” for Mai, it seems, did not care much about such points; at any rate it was not worth while to delay publication on their account: and so “reliqua quae supererunt eruditis castiganda permittimus; immo ut summâ ακριβεια castigentur optamus” (ib. p. xiii).  Add to all this that the lacunae throughout the MS are supplied from later sources; that even accidental omissions and errors of the pen are corrected in the text, though noted in the margin; that the breathings, accents, and ι subscriptum are accommodated to the modern fashion, and that a slight Preface of a few pages by Mai supplies the place of the full Prolegomena once promised and so urgently required.] 

  much doubt hangs over many of its readings; it seems barely certain whether its accents and breathings are prima or secunda manu.²  [2 – On this point however Vercellone’s testimony should be heard. After correcting Birch’s statement that the breathings and accents are prima manu, he adds, “etenim amanuensis ille, qui cunctas totius codicis litteras, vetustate pallescentes, atramento satis venuste, servata vetere forma, renovavit, idem accentus etiam spiritusque imposuit, qui nulli fuerant a prima manu; ut illae codicis particulae ostendunt, quas certis de causis (id est vel quia repetitas in codice vel ab eo improbatas) non attigit.  Rei hujus veritatem codicis spectatores ipsi per se deprehendent.” (Cod. Vatican. Tom. V. p. 499.)  I presume it is for this reason that while the facsimile of one column, Mark 1:1-9, prefixed to Tom. V. of Mai’s edition, contains no breathings or accents, they are represented in the splendid plate of the three columns of the first surviving page (commencing Gen. 46:28 πολιν) prefixed to Tom. I.]

We will adopt however the usual opinion about them: no competent critic places A later than the fifth, or B earlier than the fourth century.³ [3 – I find no traces in Mai’s Codex Vaticanus of the absurd opinion once imputed to him, that this MS dates as far back as the second century; Vercellone acquiesces in the date usually assigned to it, that of the fourth or early in the fifth century, but refers to Hug for the proof.]

  Now in each of these seven places A sides with the Elzevir text against B.  Is it an argument in favor of B that its readings are ancient?  The same plea might be entered for those of A.  And their divergencies, it will be noted, are not merely accidental exceptions to a general coincidence, but perpetual, almost systematic.  While I confess freely the great importance of B, I see not why its testimony ought, in the nature of things, to be received in preference to that of A.  I cannot frame a reason why the one should be listened to more deferentially than the other.

 (2).  In the next rank, yet decidedly below A or B, stand the palimpsest fragment C (Codex Ephraemi) and the Codex Beza or D. This latter is generally considered much the least weighty of the four great MSS of the Gospels (see for instance Alford, N.T. Proleg. on D.): and that not so much on account of its later date (perhaps about the middle of the sixth century), as from the violent corrections and strange interpolations wherewith it abounds.

“Its singularly corrupt text,” observes Davidson, “in connection with its great antiquity, is a curious problem, which cannot easily be solved.” (p. 288)⁴  [4 – Dr. Tregelles, indeed, in partial reference to Codex D, is good enough to say, “Some people rest much on some one incorrect reading of a MS, and then express a great deal of wonder that such a MS could be highly valued by critics. The exposure of such excessive ignorance as this might be well dealt with by one who knows Greek MSS as well as Mr. Scrivener” (p. 137 note). Thus appealed to, I will reply, that, putting aside the case of mere errors of the scribe, I do think that the admitted corruptions and deliberate interpolations which we all recognize in the Codex Bezae have a natural tendency to detract from the credibility of its testimony in more doubtful cases.]

Now in the seven passages under consideration, C accords with B in four cases, with A once; once its reading is doubtful, once its text has perished. Codex D agrees with B five times, much resembles it once, and once sides with A.  Thus these documents of the second class favor B rather than A, C however less decidedly than D.

 (3).  When we descend to uncials of the third rank, from the eighth century downwards, the case is entirely reversed. One of them indeed (L of the eighth or ninth century) edited by Tischendorf (Monumenta Sacr. Ined. pp. 57-399) is here and elsewhere constantly with B: Δ also (Codex Sangallensis of the ninth century) supports B five times, A only twice¹; [1 – Observe, however, that “The text of St. Mark’s selection of the passages in St Mark’s Gospel is that which especially gives this MS a claim to be distinguished from the mass of the later uncial copies.”  (Introductory Notice to Tregelles’ N. T. , 1857, p. iv);  which intimates that our selection of the passages in St. Mark’s Gospel is peculiarly favorable to Dr. Tregelles, so far as Δ is concerned.] while all the rest extant (EFGHKMSU and X where it is unmutilated) unanimously support A.  Some of these are as ancient as L, several quite as valuable as Δ.

(4). On coming down from uncial to cursive MSS the preponderance is enormous. Dr. Tregelles does not object to the rough estimate of ninety to one; and those few copies which often maintain the readings of BL are by no means steadfast in their allegiance.  Yet even here the resemblance to A or B or to each other is but general. The materials accumulated in the present volume and elsewhere show isolated readings of the most recent codices, even of those which approach nearest to the Elzevir edition, for which no ancient authority can be produced except the Codex Vaticanus.  No one who has at all studied the cursive MSS can fail to be struck with the individual character impressed on almost every one of them.  It is rare that we can find grounds for saying of one manuscript that it is a transcript of some other now remaining.  The fancy which was once taken up, that there existed a standard Constantinopolitan text, to which all copies written within the limits of that Patriarchate were conformed, has been “swept away at once and for ever” (Tregelles, p. 180) by a closer examination of the copies themselves.  Surely then it ill becomes us absolutely to reject as unworthy of serious discussion, the evidence of witnesses (whose mutual variations vouch for their independence and integrity) because their tendency on the whole is to uphold the authority of one out of the two most ancient documents against the other.

 

(5).  One of the arguments on which Dr. Tregelles lays most stress is the accordance of the oldest versions with Codex B rather than with A.  So far as the Latin versions are concerned the passages he has alleged must be admitted to prove the correctness of his assertion.  The Vulgate agrees with A but twice, with B five times. The Old Latin translations (for the term Italic, it seems, is obsolete), though in six instances some of them countenance A, give a clear majority for B.  I do not like to speak of the Coptic or Armenian translations, as I am totally ignorant of the languages wherein they are written: Tregelles, I perceive, labors under the same disadvantage (p. 171), and will be as reluctant as I am to dogmatize about matters on which we are both disqualified from pronouncing a trustworthy opinion.  Certainly these versions incline powerfully to the Latin, if we may rely on the common representation of them, and one of the editors of the Armenian (Zohrab) denies the correctness of the suspicion revived by Tischendorf, “Ætate multo seriori [than its origin in the fourth or fifth century] armenos codices passim ad latinam versionem correctos esse, virorum doctorum opinio fert” (Proleg. p. lxxviii).

It is time to turn to the Queen of the primitive versions, the graceful and perspicuous Peshito Syriac.  Here, at any rate, there is no ambiguity as to the preference bestowed on Codex A: it is supported by the Syriac in six cases out of the seven.  Nor is this the result of mere accident in the Gospel of St. Mark; no one who has studied its readings will question that a like proportion is steadily maintained throughout the New Testament.  Here then is a venerable translation, assigned by eminent scholars to the first century of our era [Now, in 2021, usually assigned to the late 300s – JSJ], undoubtedly not later than the second, which habitually upholds the readings of one of the two oldest uncial copies, of the later uncials, and of the vast majority in cursive characters.  Our conclusion shall now be drawn, mutatis mutandis, in the words of Tregelles, when he sums up the results of his induction of the seventy-two passages I have so often alluded to.  “Here then is a sample of very many passages, in which, by the testimony of the most ancient version, that such a reading was current in very early times, the fact is proved indubitably; so that even if no existing MS supported such readings, they would possess a strong claim on our attention; and such facts might have made us doubt, whether the old translators were not in possession of better copies than those that have been transmitted to us.  Such facts so proved might lead to the inquiry, whether there are not some MSS which accord with these ancient readings; and when examination shows that such copies actually exist (nay that they are the many in contrast to the few), it may be regarded as a demonstrated point that such MSS deserve peculiar attention” (Tregelles, p. 147) . . . . But here I pause; it is enough that I claim for Codex A and its numerous companions “peculiar attention” by reason of their striking conformity with the Peshito Syriac.  I ask not, I have no right to ask, that Codex B and its scanty roll of allies, strengthened as they are by the Latin, perhaps by other versions, should be overlooked in forming an estimate of the merits of conflicting readings. I am content to lay myself open to the poet's humorous reproof,

Νήπιοι, οὐδὲ ἴσσασιν ὅσῳ πλέον ἥμισυ παντός.