CHAPTER V.. Accidental Causes of Corruption.

ACCIDENTAL CAUSES OF CORRUPTION.

IV. Itacism.

Sec. 1.

It may seem to a casual reader that in what follows undue attention is being paid to minute particulars. But it constantly happens,--and this is a sufficient answer to the supposed objection,--that, from exceedingly minute and seemingly trivial mistakes, there result sometimes considerable and indeed serious misrepresentations of the Spirit's meaning. New incidents:--unheard-of statements:--facts as yet unknown to readers of Scripture:--perversions of our Lord's Divine sayings:--such phenomena are observed to follow upon the omission of the article,--the insertion of an expletive,--the change of a single letter. Thus [Greek: palin], thrust in where it has no business, makes it appear that our Saviour promised to return the ass on which He rode in triumph into Jerusalem. By writing [Greek: o] for [Greek: o], many critics have transferred some words from the lips of Christ to those of His Evangelist, and made Him say what He never could have dreamed of saying. By subjoining [Greek: s] to a word in a place which it has no right to fill, the harmony of the heavenly choir has been marred effectually, and a sentence produced which defies translation. By omitting [Greek: to] and [Greek: Kyrie], the repenting malefactor is made to say, 'Jesus! remember me, when Thou comest in Thy kingdom.'

Speaking of our Saviour's triumphal entry into Jerusalem, which took place 'the day after' 'they made Him a supper' and Lazarus 'which had been dead, whom He raised from the dead,' 'sat at the table with Him' (St. John xii. 1, 2), St. John says that 'the multitude which had been with Him when He called Lazarus out of the tomb and raised Him from the dead bare testimony' (St. John xii. 17). The meaning of this is best understood by a reference to St. Luke xix. 37, 38, where it is explained that it was the sight of so many acts of Divine Power, the chiefest of all being the raising of Lazarus, which moved the crowds to yield the memorable testimony recorded by St. Luke in ver. 38,--by St. John in ver. 13. But Tischendorf and Lachmann, who on the authority of D and four later uncials read [Greek: hoti] instead of [Greek: hote], import into the Gospel quite another meaning. According to their way of exhibiting the text, St. John is made to say that 'the multitude which was with Jesus, testified that He called Lazarus out of the tomb and raised him from the dead': which is not only an entirely different statement, but also the introduction of a highly improbable circumstance. That many copies of the Old Latin (not of the Vulgate) recognize [Greek: hoti], besides the Peshitto and the two Egyptian versions, is not denied. This is in fact only one more proof of the insufficiency of such collective testimony. [Symbol: Aleph]AB with the rest of the uncials and, what is of more importance, the whole body of the cursives, exhibit [Greek: hote],--which, as every one must see, is certainly what St. John wrote in this place. Tischendorf's assertion that the prolixity of the expression [Greek: ephonesen ek tou mnemeiou kai egeiren auton ek nekron] is inconsistent with [Greek: hote],--may surprise, but will never convince any one who is even moderately acquainted with St. John's peculiar manner.

The same mistake--of [Greek: hoti] for [Greek: hote]--is met with at ver. 41 of the same chapter. 'These things said Isaiah because he saw His glory' (St. John xii. 41). And why not 'when he saw His glory'? which is what the Evangelist wrote according to the strongest attestation. True, that eleven manuscripts (beginning with [Symbol: Aleph]ABL) and the Egyptian versions exhibit [Greek: hoti]: also Nonnus, who lived in the Thebaid (A.D. 410): but all other MSS., the Latin, Peshitto, Gothic, Ethiopic, Georgian, and one Egyptian version:-- Origen,--Eusebius in four places,--Basil,--Gregory of Nyssa twice,--Didymus three times,--Chrysostom twice,-- Severianus of Gabala;--these twelve Versions and Fathers constitute a body of ancient evidence which is overwhelming. Cyril three times reads [Greek: hoti], three times [Greek: hote],--and once [Greek: henika], which proves at least how he understood the place.

Sec. 2.

Sec. 3.

Another minute but interesting indication of the accuracy and fidelity with which the cursive copies were made, is supplied by the constancy with which they witness to the preposition [Greek: en] (not the numeral [Greek: hen]) in St. Mark iv. 8. Our Lord says that the seed which 'fell into the good ground' 'yielded by ([Greek: en]) thirty, and by ([Greek: en]) sixty, and by ([Greek: en]) an hundred.' Tischendorf notes that besides all the uncials which are furnished with accents and breathings (viz. EFGHKMUV[Symbol: Pi]) 'nearly 100 cursives' exhibit [Greek: en] here and in ver. 20. But this is to misrepresent the case. All the cursives may be declared to exhibit [Greek: en], e.g. all Matthaei's and all Scrivener's. I have myself with this object examined a large number of Evangelia, and found [Greek: en] in all. The Basle MS. from which Erasmus derived his text exhibits [Greek: en],--though he printed [Greek: hen] out of respect for the Vulgate. The Complutensian having [Greek: hen], the reading of the Textus Receptus follows in consequence: but the Traditional reading has been shewn to be [Greek: en],--which is doubtless intended by [Greek: EN] in Cod. A.

Codd. [Symbol: Aleph]C[Symbol: Delta] (two ever licentious and [Symbol: Delta] similarly so throughout St. Mark) substitute for the preposition [Greek: en] the preposition [Greek: eis],--(a sufficient proof to me that they understand [Greek: EN] to represent [Greek: en], not [Greek: hen]): and are followed by Tischendorf, Tregelles, and the Revisers. As for the chartered libertine B (and its servile henchman L), for the first [Greek: en] (but not for the second and third) it substitutes the preposition [Greek: EIS]: while, in ver. 20, it retains the first [Greek: en], but omits the other two. In all these vagaries Cod. B is followed by Westcott and Hort.

Sec. 4.

St. Paul in his Epistle to Titus [ii. 5] directs that young women shall be 'keepers at home,' [Greek: oikourous]. So, (with five exceptions,) every known Codex, including the corrected [Symbol: Aleph] and D,--HKLP; besides 17, 37, 47. So also Clemens Alex. (A.D. 180),--Theodore of Mopsuestia,--Basil,--Chrysostom-- Theodoret,--Damascene. So again the Old Latin (domum custodientes),--the Vulgate (domus curam habentes),--and Jerome (habentes domus diligentiam): and so the Peshitto and the Harkleian versions,--besides the Bohairic. There evidently can be no doubt whatever about such a reading so supported. To be [Greek: oikouros] was held to be a woman's chiefest praise: [Greek: kalliston ergon gyne oikouros], writes Clemens Alex.; assigning to the wife [Greek: oikouria] as her proper province. On the contrary, 'gadding about from house to house' is what the Apostle, writing to Timothy, expressly condemns. But of course the decisive consideration is not the support derived from internal evidence; but the plain fact that antiquity, variety, respectability, numbers, continuity of attestation, are all in favour of the Traditional reading.

Notwithstanding this, Lachmann, Tischendorf, Tregelles, Westcott and Hort, because they find [Greek: oikourgous] in [Symbol: Aleph]*ACD*F-G, are for thrusting that 'barbarous and scarcely intelligible' word, if it be not even a non-existent, into Titus ii. 5. The Revised Version in consequence exhibits 'workers at home'--which Dr. Field may well call an 'unnecessary and most tasteless innovation.' But it is insufficiently attested as well, besides being a plain perversion of the Apostle's teaching. [And the error must have arisen from carelessness and ignorance, probably in the West where Greek was not properly understood.]

So again, in the cry of the demoniacs, [Greek: ti hemin kai soi, Iesou, huie tou Theou]; (St. Matt. viii. 29) the name [Greek: Iesou] is omitted by B[Symbol: Aleph].

The reason is plain the instant an ancient MS. is inspected:--[Greek: KAISOIIUUIETOUTHU]:--the recurrence of the same letters caused too great a strain to scribes, and the omission of two of them was the result of ordinary human infirmity.

Indeed, to this same source are to be attributed an extraordinary number of so-called 'various readings'; but which in reality, as has already been shewn, are nothing else but a collection of mistakes,--the surviving tokens that anciently, as now, copying clerks left out words; whether misled by the fatal proximity of a like ending, or by the speedy recurrence of the like letters, or by some other phenomenon with which most men's acquaintance with books have long since made them familiar.

FOOTNOTES:

St. Mark xi. 4. See Revision Revised, pp. 57-58.

St. Mark vii. 19, [Greek: katharizon] for [Greek: katharizon]. See below, pp. 61-3.

St. Luke ii. 14.

St. Luke xxiii. 42.

St. Matt. xx. 9. See also St. Mark xi. 9, 10.

'Quae quidem orationis prolixitas non conveniens esset si [Greek: hote] legendum esset.'

iv. 577: 'quando.'

Dem. Ev. 310, 312, 454 bis.

i. 301.

ii. 488, and ap. Gall. vi. 580.

Trin. 59, 99, 242.

viii. 406, 407. Also ps.-Chrysost. v. 613. Note, that 'Apolinarius' in Cramer's Cat. 332 is Chrys. viii. 407.

Ap. Chrys. vi. 453.

iv. 505, 709, and ap. Mai iii. 85.

ii. 102: iv. 709, and ap. Mai iii. 118.

v^{1}. 642.

Unfortunately, though the Dean left several lists of instances of Itacism, he worked out none, except the substitution of [Greek: hen] for [Greek: en] in St. Mark iv. 8, which as it is not strictly on all fours with the rest I have reserved till last. He mentioned all that I have introduced (besides a few others), on detached papers, some of them more than once, and [Greek: lousanti] and [Greek: katharizon] even more than the others. In the brief discussion of each instance which I have supplied, I have endeavoured whenever it was practicable to include any slight expressions of the Dean's that I could find, and to develop all surviving hints.

E.g. Thuc. vii. 15, St. John iv. 6.

See St. John iv. 6: Acts xx. 11, xxvii. 17. The beloved Apostle was therefore called [Greek: ho epistethios]. See Suicer. s. v. Westcott on St. John xiii. 25.

24. [Greek: apololos.] [Symbol: Aleph]^{a}ABD &c. [Greek: apololos]. [Symbol: Aleph]*GKMRSX[Symbol: Gamma][Symbol: Pi]*. Most curs.

32. [Greek: apololos]. [Symbol: Aleph]*ABD &c. [Greek: apololos]. [Symbol: Aleph]^{c}KMRSX[Symbol: Gamma][Symbol: Pi]*. Most curs.

Pp. 179, 180. Since the Dean has not adopted [Greek: katharizon] into his corrected text, and on account of other indications which caused me to doubt whether he retained the opinion of his earlier years, I applied to the Rev. W. F. Rose, who answered as follows:--'I am thankful to say that I can resolve all doubt as to my uncle's later views of St. Mark vii. 19. In his annotated copy of the Twelve Verses he deletes the words in his note p. 179, "This appears to be the true reading," and writes in the margin, "The old reading is doubtless the true one," and in the margin of the paragraph referring to [Greek: katharizon] on p. 180 he writes, "Alter the wording of this." This entirely agrees with my own recollection of many conversations with him on the subject. I think he felt that the weight of the cursive testimony to the old rending was conclusive,--at least that he was not justified in changing the text in spite of it.' These last words of Mr. Rose express exactly the inference that I had drawn.

'The majority of the Old Latin MSS. have "in secessum uadit (or exiit) purgans omnes escas"; i (Vindobonensis) and r (Usserianus) have "et purgat" for "purgans": and a has a conflation "in secessum exit purgans omnes escas et exit in rivum"--so they all point the same way.'--(Kindly communicated by Mr. H. J. White.)

Dem. xv. (Graffin)--'Vadit enim esca in ventrem, unde purgatione in secessum emittitur.' (Lat.)

iii. 764. 'Et in secessum exit, purgans omnes escas.'

Galland. iii. 319. 'Cibis, quos Dominus dicit perire, et in secessu naturali lege purgari.'

iii. 494. [Greek: elege tauta ho Soter, katharizon panta ta bromata.]

i. 206. [Greek: ekkatharizon panta ta bromata.]

Galland. iii. 400. [Greek: alla kai ho Soter, panta katharizon ta bromata.]

Evan. 2. See Hoskier, Collation of Cod. Evan. 604, App. F. p. 4.

I. Proper Names.

II. Mis-spelling of ordinary words.

A similar confusion between [Greek: genesis] and [Greek: gennesis], Matt. i, and between [Greek: egenethen] and [Greek: egennethen], and [Greek: gegenemai] and [Greek: gegennemai]. See Kuenen and Cobet N. T. ad fid. Cod. Vaticani lxxvii.

III. Itacisms.

IV. Bad Grammar.

V. Impossible words.

This paper on Titus ii. 5 was marked by the Dean as being 'ready for press.' It was evidently one of his later essays, and was left in one of his later portfolios.

All Matthaei's 16,--all Rinck's 7,--all Reiche's 6,--all Scrivener's 13, &c., &c.

622.

Ed. Swete, ii. 247 (domos suas bene regentes); 248 (domus proprias optime regant).

ii. (Eth.) 291 a, 309 b.

xi. 750 a, 751 b c d--[Greek: he oikouros kai oikonomike.]

iii. 704.

ii. 271.

Cod. Clarom.

Cod. Amiat., and August. iii^{1}. 804.

vii. 716 c, 718 b (Bene domum regere, 718 c).

P. 293, lin. 4 (see lin. 2).

P. 288, lin. 20.

1 Tim. v. 13.