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DIVINITY SCHOOL
TROWBRIDGE LIBRARY

ESSAY

RIGHT ESTIMATION OF MANUSCRIPT
EVIDENCE
IN THE TEXT OF
THE NEW TESTAMENT.

ESSAY

RIGHT ESTIMATION OF MANUSCRIPT
EVIDENCE

IN THE TEXT OP

THE NEW TESTAMENT.

THOMAS RAWSON BIRKS, M.A.
KNIGHTBRIDGE PEOFESSOK, CAMBEIDGE,
AND HON. CANON OF ELT.

Honiron ;
MACMILLAN AND CO.
1878
[All Rights reserved.}

CamftriUp:
PRINTED BY 0. J. CLAY, M.A.,
AT IHE UNIVERSITY EKESS.

PREFACE,

The present attempt to revise and improve our
English Bible is mixed up inseparably with a further
question. What is the true original Text of the New
Testament, on which any such revision has to be based ?
It seems unfortunate that this more important question
should be raised informally and indirectly in the course
of an attempt to improve our English version, instead
of being looked upon as a distinct preliminary, which
requires to be first settled on definite principles, before
the other work can be pursued with full prospect of
success. A vast amount of critical material, both in Manu
scripts and Versions of the New Testament, has been
amassed by the labour of collators and scholars through
the last hundred years. A dozen critical editions have
appeared in succession, by no means in full agreement
with each other, but with a common tendency to depart
rather widely from the Received Text, and to replace
it by one which treats the five hundred cursive manu-

VI PREFACE.
scripts nearly as if they were non-existent, and depends
almost entirely on the readings of five or six of the
oldest Uncials alone. The changes thus introduced
are neither few nor unimportant. The greater part of
them are not unlikely to be adopted in the revision
now in progress, and then to be commended to the
acceptance of the whole Church with the seeming
authority of all the eminent names to whom the secon
dary task has been practically confided.
I have a strong conviction that it is highly inexpedient
that so grave a matter as an authoritative decisioii, which
is the true text of the New Testament, should be settled
by a side-wind in the course of an attempt to improve our
English translation, without any previous discussion of
the principles on which the adoption of the new text is to
be maintained and enforced. Scholars are by no means
unanimous, either in their estimate of the relative weight
of different parts of the total evidence, or in the verdicts
to which they are led by their varying judgments on this
first prerequisite for any sure decision. One critic has
followed another in adopting certain rules or methods, as
if self-evident, which are at least open to very grave
doubt, and in my own opinion demonstrably untrue.
Dr Scrivener, inferior to no' living scholar in diligence,
learning, and soundness of judgment, makes the following
remarks on Tischendorf s eighth edition, that " it differs
from his seventh in 3369 places, to the scandal of the
science of comparative eriticism, as well as his own grave
discredit for discernment and consistency. The evidence

PREFACE. vn
of codex N, supported or even unsupported by one or two
other authorities of any description, is with him sufficient
to outweigh all other witnesses, whether manuscripts,
versions, or ecclesiastical writers." This seems almost to
justify the remark of Dean Burgon, that to have found
an early uncial codex is every bit as fatal in Biblical
Criticism, as in common trials to have taken a gift, and
" doth blind the eyes of the wise."
The following pages are an attempt to bring stricter
laws and principles of evidence to bear on this great
question, the present state of which, I think, is most un
satisfactory. I fully agree with Dean Burgon, that " the
hypothesis on which recent recensions of the Text have
been for the most part conducted, will on fuller search be
seen to be untenable. " And I offer some reasons, more
definite than have been, so far as I know, ever yet
adduced, to justify my entire disbelief in the truth and
soundness of the greater part of those changes which have
been latterly advocated, as if they were restorations of
the true and original text of the sacred oracles of God.

Cambbidob, Deeeinber, 1877.

CONTENTS.

PAGE
Iniboduction  1

CHAPTEE I.
The Docteinb op Gboups and Families  6

CHAPTEB II. "^^
On the Weight dub to Antiquity  22

CHAPTEE III.
On Latbb Impbovbmeni of MSS  33
CHAPTEE IV.
On Intebnai, Evidenoe  41
CHAPTEE V,
On Harmonisiic Chanobs  49

X • CONTENTS.

CHAPTEE VI. PAGE
On Pbobable Eates of Manuscbipt Cobbuption  56

CHAPTEE vn.
The Vatican and Sinaitic MSS  63
CHAPTEE Vni.
The Latebal Independence of MSS  70
CHAPTEE IX.
The E,abliee and Laibb Evidence  76
r CHAPTER X.
'Vaeious Lections, Matt, i— vii. . . . -^. . . ,  82
CHAPTEE XI.
Vaeious Lections, Matt, viii — xxi. . . .''  104
Tables .  125

INTRODUCTION.
The Revision of the Authorized Version of the Bible, now
in progress, makes it more than ever desirable that we
should come to a clear decision on the laws which deter
mine the relative weight of manuscript evidence. Only in
this way can we arrive at a practical agreement, in all
disputed passages, where the readings vary, what is the
true and genuine form of the original text of the New
Testament. Ample materials have been provided by the
researches of scholars and collators during the three last
centuries, since the revival of learning, and the appearance
of the first critical editions. But there is still no slight
divergence in the estimates of the relative weight which
belongs to the different parts of the whole collective body
of evidence. ,
The maxims, which are adopted by the majority of
modern critics, are regarded by others with donbt and
suspicion, and their truth is by no means self-evident. An
immense superiority of weight is assigned to a small
number of the oldest manuscripts. The true reading is
supposed, to be determined, not so much by the whole
body of evidence, as by one hundredth part of the sur
viving witnesses almost alone.
B. I

INTRODUCTION.

2. This principle, which gives almost exclusive autho
rity to the oldest extant manuscripts, in combination with
early versions, was the basis of Dr Bentley's proposals for
a revised edition of the New Testament, nearly two
hundred years ago. He said that there was "a marvel
lous agreement between the oldest Greek MSS. and those
of Jerome's Version, even in the order of the words," and
that he could thus restore the text of the fourth century, "so
that there shall not he twenty words, or even particles,
different." He promised to sfet forth an edition of each in
columns, without using any book under nine hundred years
old, that should "exactly agree word for word, and what is
more amazing, order for order, so that no two tallies of an
indenture could agree better."
Bentley survived his Proposals 22 years, but the pro
mised edition, which was to do such wonders in solving
the great problem of restoring a perfect text, never ap
peared. " We cannot but believe," says Dr Scrivener, " that
nothing less than the manifest impossibility of maintain
ing the principles his Letter enunciated, and which his
Proposals of 1720 scarcely modified, in the face of the
evidence his growing mass of collations bore against them,
could have had power to break off in the midst that
labour of love, from which he had looked for undying
fame." 3. About forty years ago Lachmann revived the same
idea, and pushed it to its farthest extreme, "He made,"
says the same scholar, " a clean sweep of the great mass of
MSS. usually cited in critical editions. In fact, he rejects!
all in a heap except Codd, ABC, the fragments PQTZ, and
for some purposes D, of the Gospels, and E of. the Acts,
only, and DGH of St Paul's Epistles." Thus he entirely
rejects the evidence of the later uncials, and of the five of

INTRODUCTION.

six hundred cursive manuscripts. The testimonies thus
Set aside are a hundredfold more than would suffice
to settle, with the moral certainty of a very near
approach to the truth, the text of any Greek or Latirl
author, if such were now, for the first time, rescued from
oblivion, Dr Tregelles adopts the same principle, and is only
rather more temperate and cautious in its application, "It
, consists,',' he says, "in resorting to ancient authorities alone
in the construction of the text, and in refusing, not only to
the Received or printed text, but also to the great mass of
MSS., all voice in determining the true readings." His
ancient authorities are "those MSS. which, not being
Lectionaries, happen to he written in uncial characters, with
the remarkable exceptions of Codd 1, 33, 69 of the
Gospels, and 61 of the Acts, which he admits, because he
conceives them to preseirve an ancient text." In his early
edition of the Apocalypse (1844) two MSS., A and C of the
fifth century, one of them deficient in nine chapters, and a
third, B, of the seventh century, are held to outweigh
"the whole mass of modem copies," that is to say,
nearly a hundred MSS., which range upward from the
fifteenth as high as the tenth century,
4, The principle of Dr Tischendorf is nearly the same.
It prevailed fully in his third edition* In the seventh he
varied from it, and restored the received text in six hun
dred places, where he had before abandoned it. But after
his discovery of the Sinaitic MS. the theory of his earlier
edition seems to have resumed its power. In his eighth
and last edition he offers a new text, varying in 3369
places from that which had been the ripest fruit of his
previous critical labours, which had then already, lasted;
more than twenty years, I — 2

4 INTRODUCTION.

5. The same general character appears in the critical
decisions of Dean Afford. "I have become disposed," be
says, "as research and comparison have gone on, to lay
more and more, weight on the evidence of our few most;
ancient MSS. and versions, and less on that of the great;
array of later MSS., which are so often paraded in digests
as supporting or impugning the commonly received text."
And again, with reference to an appeal to mere numbers.
"Perhaps these four or five are just the consensus of our
most ancient and venerable authorities, and ' all the rest'
may, for aught we know, be in many cases no more worthy
to be heard in the matter than so many separate printed
copies of our own day."
The view of Drs Westcott and Hort, in their intro
duction to the text of the Gospels (1870), privately circu
lated, and not yet pubhshed, is nearly the same. They
continue the series of high authorities in its favour. They
dissent from Tischendorf in ranking the Vatican higher
than the Sinaitic MS. But they affirm of both alike that
their age alone is no adequate measure of their excellence,
and that comparatively few contemporary MSS. can have
been so pure, Indeed this assumption seems almost
needful to justify the relative weight assigned to them.
Unless they were tenfold better than the average of
those of their own age, which have perished, no valid
reason appears why they should outweigh fifty times their
number of later times, which must certainly have been
derived from a very considerable number of MSS. of that
earlier age.
6. Dr Scrivener and Mr Burgon represent a partial
reaction or protest against what seems to them, in the able
critics previously mentioned, an extreme deference to age
alone, and assign a greater relative weight to the later

INTRODUCTION. 5

authorities. Yet the dissent, in Dr Scrivener's work, is
very limited, and cautiously expressed. " No living man,"
he says, " possessed of the slightest tincture of scholarship,
would dream of setting up testimony exclusively modern
against the unanimous voice of antiquity." He only con
tends that, in the numerous cases jvhere the earliest MSS.
disagree, considerable weight is due to the multitude of
later times. The consent, however, of the five or six
MSS., all that now survive earlier than A.D. 600, can
only by extreme violence be called " the unanimous voice
of antiquity." It is really much less than a hundredth
part of the evidence which must have existed at the time
to which it belongs. Mr MacClellan, in his recent work on
the Gospels, carries his dissent considerably further, and
speaks of the confidence placed in the two oldest MSS. as
a superstitious devotion, and says that a very different
estimate will be formed of not a few readings, now main
tained on their authority, when the science of Textual Cri
ticism is better matured. The Bishop of Lincoln, no mean
scholar, seems to share substantially in this judgment.
7. The two pillars, on which the popular school of
criticism rests its decisions, are these ; that the early age
of MSS. is far more important than their number, in a
true estimate of the collective weight of their testimony ;
and that their value, for critical purposes, depends mainly
on a proper arrangement of them in certain groups or
families. Are these principles true and sound ? They are
clearly not self-evident. I believe them to be really base
less. To unfold some of the reasons for this judgment is
the main object of the foUowing little work.

CHAPTER I.
THE DOCTRINE OF GROUPS AND FAMILIES.
8. The principle that the critical value of MSS. is
to be determined mainly by their distribution into certain
classes or families was first distinctly laid down by Bengel,
though in a rather indefinite form. It was then adopted
by Griesbach, and was ripened into his hypothesis of three
main families or recensions, the Alexandrian, the Western,
and the Constantinopolitan or Eastern. To the first of
these he ascribed the three Uncials A, B, C, also L of the
Gospels, and the Egyptian and some derived versions.
To the second were allotted D of the Gospels and Acts,
those and^gt copies which contain a Latin translation,
the Old Latin and Vulgate versions, and the Latin Fathers.
The third included the later Uncials, and the main body
of the cursive manuscripts, the Greek Fathers, and most
of the versions. Thus nine-tenths and upward of the
witnesses, numerically, were summed up in one group,
the least esteemed of the three, while the remaining tenth
¦was divided, and formed the two others. Such a classi
fication might seem an ingenious device to obscure and
reverse the real proportion of the testimonies, and would
make the decision depend on four or five uncials, and
three or four versions, almost alone. Hug and Scholz

THE DOCTRINE OF GROUPS AND FAMILIES. 7
retained Griesbach's threefold division, but with one
important change, that they gave most weight to the
Eastern family, which included the great numerical
majority of the witnesses,
9. This idea of three recensions, each internally con
sistent and mainly harmonious, but quite distinct from
the two others, is now almost wholly abandoned. The
facts, when closely sffted, fully disprove it. They reveal
a mixture and variation and manifold crossing of agree
ments and disagreements, almost in every conceivable
direction. And no wonder, when we reflect that what
it is attempted to assign to geographical bounds, and
arrange in provinces, is simply the total of errors produced
in various MSS. by careless mistake or wilful corruption.
In the course of all the successive copyings which part
them from the original text. In these mistakes, so far as
they are due to carelessness, there could not be the least
concert. Manuscripts are also very easy to transfer from
place to place, and must often have been so removed.
The blunders of scribes and copyists have no patent to
secure them from being reversed by more careful succes
sors, and could not possibly observe any strict rule of
geographical distribution. The theory, then, as Dr
Scrivener remarks, " will scarcely again find an advocate,
however attractive, and once widely received,"
10, The same general conception, however, that the
first business of criticism is to determine the affinities of
MSS., and fix their hneage and descent, and only after
wards to assign them any weight as evidence, still finds
its place in the views and reasonings of some of our ablest
scholars. Thus Drs Westcott and Hort make a modi
fied form of it their chief guide in the formation of a
revised text. The principles laid down are briefly these.

8 THE DOCTRINE OF GROUPS
(1) That all sound restoration of corrupted texts Is founded
on the study of their history, and the relations of descent
or affinity, which connect the witnesses, and that tbe
study of grouping is the foundation of all enduring criti
cism. (2) That the most striking phenomenon of the
history of the first three centuries from the death of the
Apostles, or A.D. 70 — 370, Is the rapid and wide propaga
tion of a text which may be called Western, since its best
representatives are bilingual MSS. written in the West.
(3) That this Western text is followed substantially by all
the early Greek writers not connected with Alexandria,
Irenseus, Hippolytus, Methodius, has a conspicuous place
In Clement and Origen, and is predominant in Eusebius,
and that no ancient version has escaped its influence,
especially those of Upper Egypt, Ethiopia, and Armenia.
(4) That Its chief and constant feature Is a love of para
phrase, and that words and even clauses were changed,
omitted, and inserted with astonishing freedom ; and there
is also a readiness to adopt alterations or additions from
traditional sources. (5) That the perpetuation of a purer
text is due to the scholars of Alexandria, and its best
representatives in the versions are the Egyptian, especially
that of Lower Egypt ; and the quotations which follow It
are most abundant in Clement, Origen, Didymus, and the
younger Cyril, all Alexandrians. (6) That in the fourth
century mixture prevails everywhere, and all texts be
came more or less chaotic, (7) That at a later period the
texts of Constantinople, which were Syrian, determined
the character of nearly all the MSS. (8) That the task
of the critic Is to penetrate beyond the time of mixture,
and to ascertain what was read in different churches, while
the several streams of tradition held a parallel course. So
that a double process is necessary, to recover the outlines

AND FAMILIES

of the history from the total of all kinds of evidence, and
then to apply the conclusions thus attained to determine
the origin and charq,cter of each principal authority.
11. Such in brief is one of the latest expositions of
the view on which recent critical recensions have been
made to rest, However great the respect due to its suc
cessive advocates, it seems to me to be loaded with logical
and historical difficulties of the most decisive kind.
And first, it seems to reverse and set aside one of the
simplest instincts of common sense. Abundance of evi
dence ought naturally to produce certainty and assurance.
But ff the plan here enjoined is the only proper course of
investigation, the copiousness of testimonies can only
lead to an exactly opposite result. The MSS. which still
survive, our helps In recovering the sacred original, are
ample beyond those of any other work. In the Gospels
they include, in whole or part, 56 uncials and 623
cursives ; in the Acts and Catholic Epistles, 14 and 232 ;
in St Paul's Epistles 15 and 283 ; and In the Apocalypse
5 uncials and 105 cursives. Besides these, we have 61
uncial and 285 cursive Evangellstrse or Lectionaries from
the Gospels for Church use, and 7 uncial and 74 cursive
Lectionaries of the Acts and the Epistles, There Is thus
an average of 40 uncials and, 400 cursives for the whole of
the New Testament,
Now ff the first essential, before we can use these
testimonies aright, is to trace the previous history of all
or most of them, tp fix their relations to each other and
tp their perished predecessors, and the geography of those
predecessors, and to arrange them in two, three, four, or
five distinct groups, each with a different text of its own,
divergent and distinct at first, but afterward confused and
mixed together, the labour must be interminable, and

lO THE DOCTRINE OF GROUPS
the prpblem quite hopeless of solution. Laborious scho
larship and extreme diligence can never supply the absolute
want of direct and positive evidence. The genealogy of
these four hundred cursives, and even of the Uncials, from
twenty to forty in number, must be a guess and nothing
more. The grouping of some thousand MSS. of the second
century, all of which have now perished, is still further
removed from definite historical certainty. It must be a
guess twice removed. The materials are ample In amount,
but beyond an approximate date, little is known, or can
now be known, of the steps of their derivation from the
originals. The room for conjecture is so wide, and the
positive evidence to fix the descent of each MS. so scanty,
that hundreds of schemes of derivation, more or less
plausible, might be framed. Shaken by every fresh critic,
the kaleidoscope will take a new form, as the materials
enter into new combinations. The decision, in disputed
passages, will come to depend on unproved conjectures as
to the exact historical relations between our surviving MSS.
and several thousands of others long since perished; for
which scarcely any historical data can be found ; Instead of
resting on the data really within our reach, that Is, the
number of the extant witnesses, and the approximate date
to which they severally belong. A decision so framed would
not be freed from dependence on arbitrary dogmatism, but
rather be subject to It in its extremest form.
12. The theory has a second fatal defect. It involves a
vicious circle. It requires us to assume the true original text
to be known, which Is the very aim of the whole inquiry,
To classify MSS. properly by their errors, or deviations
from the original, the true text must have been first as
certained. We may, indeed, form a provisional text, by
assuming the true reading to be that, in each case, of the

AND FAMILIES. ll

majority of witnesses. With the actual divergences, this
plainly reduces the total ¦ amount of error to a minimum.
But when we vary from this simplest rule, in each deviation
the readings of a majority must replace those of the
minority, in oiu' list of variations from the true standard.
So long as the nature and extent of these substitutions are
unknown, all grouping by affinities must remain uncertain.
Its grounds cannot exist in any part of the true text
itseff, but only in the deviations from it, the amount of
these, and their mutual relations to each other. Now
these must vary with every change in our conception of
the true original text. The problem. In such a scheme,
must first have been solved, before the attempt to solve It
can be successfully made.
13, The doctrine of groups implies three critical
maxims. First, that each MS., viewed as evidence, must
be considered as a whole, or as a single witness, of equal
value in every part. Secondly, that there were In the
second and third centuries several distinct and local texts ;
so that MSS. of the West, those of Syria, and those of
Egypt, had a common character in their errors and'
deviations from the original, distinct from those of the
other provinces. Thirdly, that the weight of evidence
does not depend simply on the number and the ages of
the MSS. and versions which contain it, but on the relative
weight or goodness of some set or school of authorities, to
which these witnesses, and this reading, seem on the whole
to belong. Each of these maxims, I believe, Is misleading
and erroneous.
14. The Gospels themselves are four distinct witnesses
to the life, character, and works of our blessed Lord. Each
of them, also, is one single and separate witness. But the
individual copies of these Gospels stand on a different

12 THE DOCTRINE OF GROUPS
footing. Each of these is the same Gospel, plus or minus
certain errors or faults, which the process of copying has
introduced. Its value and excellence depends on the
sacred original, so far as it transmits it unchanged. This
it shares with every othpr copy. Its individuality depends
on Its errors and faults alone. And these are not bound
together by any tie of lateral connexion, except so far as
they may consist in a peculiar spelling of names, or In the
preference for certain grammatical forms. They depend
simply on the series of copies, through which this particular
MS. has been derived from the original. If in any part
all the transcriptions have been exact, or an error in one
has been set right in the next and not repeated, the MS.
will there give the true reading, however great its faults
elsewhere may be. But the general goodness of the
previous series will not make the copy derived from them
better than one of the worst, in all those other places
where these parent MSS. are actually tainted with error.
15. The Gospels contain nearly 70,000 Greek words.
They may be parted, as in Codex Bezae, into ten thousand
successive lines or <jri)(pi, of nearly seven words apiece.
Each of these, in the copy, is derived from the answering
words of the original, through all the Intervening copies.
These ten thousand chains of evidence are nearly inde
pendent of each other. A MS. may be perfect in 9900 of
these clauses, and still in the remaining hundred have only
a negative value, so as to mislead the copyist who rehes
upon its authority. The right plan, then, must be to deal
i with the testimonies according to the real conditions of
' the problem. They cannot safely be fused together, as if
a low percentage of error throughout the whole of the
New Testament could make the error less real, or the
weight of the MS. greater, in those particular clauses, ;

AND FAMILIES. • 13

where one or more of the preceding copyists has actually
gone astray.
16, The hypothesis of local texts has been called the
most striking fact in the history of the three first cen
turies. It is evidently not a fact at all, but a pure con
jectural inference and is wholly wanting in direct and
positive evidence. It is also loaded with immense inherent
improbability. To make the Inquiry definite, let us confine ourselves
to the two centuries A.D. 100-323, or from the death of
the last Apostle, St John, to the council of Nice and the
reign of Constantine.
Is it a plain fact of history that In this interval the
MSS. diffused through the West had in common a special
set of deviations from the true text, nearly the same
throughout, and quite different from the errors or deviations
in the East ? Nothing less than this will satisfy the terms
of the hypothesis. If what are called Western readings
were either, first, the true and genuine readings, those In
the autographs ; or, secondly, were shared by other parts of
the Empire, the lands of the East ; or thirdly, were limited
to a small portion only of the Western MSS., and consist of
a total of errors, some present in some, and others in others,
and varying from time to time, and not constant, then the
whole theory must fall to the ground.
Now what direct evidence can be offered for any
one of these .three necessary postulates of the theory?
Not a single MS. of this period, either Eastern or Western,
now survives. The number, in the East and West together,
must have been a thousand at least before the close of the
period, and probably at its beginning. It may have been
a thousand in each half of the Empire alone. How can it
be a prominent fact of history that the greater part of the

14 THE DOCTRINE OF GROUPS
five hundred Western MSS. had one special set of wrong
readings, not shared by the five hundred or thousand
Eastern, when the true text is the very object of the
whole inquiry, and not a single MS. either of the West or
the East survives, to justify a contrasted statement so
precise, full, and comprehensive in its range ?
17. The only evidence, then, for the existence of such
a text has to be sought in the early versions, and the
incidental quotations of the Fathers. The versions of the
period are (1) The Peschito, (2) The NItrian Syriac, of
which one MS. only has been lately found, (3) The Old
Latin, of the second century, (4) The Memphitic or Coptic,
(5) The Thebaic or Sahidic, in the middle pf the third
century. The chief Fathers of the period are Justin,
Athenagoras, Melito, Theophilus, Irenseus, Clemens, Ori
gen, Tertullian, Hippolytus, Cyprian, Cyril of Antioch,
Methodius, Lactantlus, Arnobius, and a few others. Now
it Is plain that remoter, shades of difference would wholly
disappear In a version, or in quotations by Latin Fathers.
Of such varieties there could thus be hardly any surviving
I evidence. Also the proof of a Western text must depend
\ entirely on readings either known or assuhaed to be devla-
I tions from the original. The whole amount of the quota
tions in the previous writers can hardly be more than would
form a single complete copy of the New Testament, and
this too very unequally distributed. Some parts may occur
two or three times, and many others not at all. Those In
the Latin Fathers are much less. From these data it must
be Impossible to Infer the sum total of errors in the fifteen
or twenty copies which these Fathers separately used. How
much less can we infer the readings in five hundred or
a thousand copies, spread over all the provinces of the
Western Empire 1 To warrant a decision on the prevailing

AND FAMILIES. IS

character and dominant readings of all these, at least a
hundred of them ought to be still extant. But not a single
copy of the whole number has survived, and we have to
guess at their character from a few versions, and loose
patristic quotations alone.
18. Again, the text in question Is said to have been
used by all the Antenicene Greek Fathers, except those of
Alexandria, to predominate In Eusebius of Caesarea whose
home was in Syria, and to hold a conspicuous place in the
writings of Clemens and Origen, both Alexandrians. But
any set of readings, over the whole New Testament, wit
nessed by a consent of Greek as well as Latin Fathers, and
by others dwelling in Egypt and Palestine, cannot surely
without great Impropriety be styled a Western text. The
alleged facts disprove the accuracy of the title. If they
were correctly stated, the natural conclusion would be
that readings so widely attested were the true ones, and
not, as the hypothesis requires, a special kind or set
of errors and divergences, prevalent in the West alone.
The Gospels and Epistles are the common inheritance of the
whole church. But local texts could have no other possible
basis than local faults of transcription alone.
19. Besides the entire absence of all direct evidence,
the hypothesis of several distinct texts, that Is, separate
and parallel streams of false readings in distinct local
ities and spread through hundreds of manuscripts, is
inherently improbable to the last degree. A copy Is
simply the original Gospel or Epistle, plus or minus
certain faults of addition, change, or omission. No MS. of
the second or third century survives, two only of the fourth,
:and three only of the fifth. The total number at the
time must have been more than a thousand. The 1
individuality of each copy consists only in the sum of Its (

l6 THE DOCTRINE OF GROUPS
errors, that Is, of the mistakes or wilful corruptions, due to
successive transcribers. These are most unlikely to have
followed any definite law, or to be mainly the same in any
two MSS. of the same date, unless one were copied from
the other, or both from a third. Hence the formation of
local texts, or sets of scores or hundreds of copies, nearly
alike, with hundreds or thousands of common errors not
shared by the copies of other districts, is almost Impossible
In the veiy nature of things. The chances against such a
resemblance on one side, and contrast on the other, are
almost infinite. As soon as the divergences were serious,
and began to attract attention, efforts for the correction of
them would be sure to follow. And thus the flowing
onward, side by side, almost undisturbed, of several
streams of error, each distinct from the other, is hardly
conceivable. It would be no real loss, but rather a gain,
for a cosmos of which the definition Is only the coexistence
and permanence of several different sets of corrupted
readings, to be resolved by intermixture and correction
into chaos again.
20. Another character, ascribed tg> the Western text
is that words and even clauses were changed, omitted, and
inserted with astonishing freedom. But the result of such
a process could never be one distinct text or recension. It
would rather be a medley of defective MSS., differing even
more widely from each other than from the common ori
ginal. And ff there was the further tendency to introduce
alterations and additions from doubtful or apocryphal
sources, the resulting divergence must have been still
greater. The effect of such a licence could never be to
create one consistent variety of text, and then to spread it
unchanged over half or two-thirds of the Empire. Nay,
the mere assertion that such was the general character of

AND FAMILIES. 1/

one-half or two-thirds of the extant MSS. of the New
Testament in the second and third centuries, and this
when not a single MS. survives, directly to prove It, goes
very far towards degrading written revelation to the lower
level of mere oral tradition.
21. The facts, alleged In proof of the existence of a
separate Western text In the second and third centuries,
seem to me to point naturally, and almost necessarily, to
a very different view. They must consist entirely of the
collective divergences from the Received Text of the
earliest versions, and the quotations in ecclesiastical
authors before Constantine and the Nicene Council. Now
so far as these are common to the Greek Ante-NIcene
Fathers with those of the West, they will yield some
presumption that the Received Text is wrong, and that a
different reading Is the true original, but can yield no
proof at all of a distinctively Western text. So far as they
consist in loose paraphrase or apocryphal additions, they
will illustrate and confirm the general habit of free or lax
quotation in those early writers ; but the errors, in the total
absence of direct evidence, cannot reasonably be charged
on the whole multitude of perished manuscripts. They
will be referred more naturally to some carelessness or
laxity of quotation in the Individual writer. To transfer
each paraphrastic change or apocryphal addition, made
with astonishing freedom, first from the author himself to
his copy of the New Testament, and next to the majority
of copies then extant, at least in the West, is a process
wholly unwarrantable, and opens the door to a serious
degradation of the worth of all manuscript evidence.
The same instinct, to paraphrase instead of quoting with
verbal exactness, might exist In various writers; but its
result must be variety and multiplicity, not unity and
Bi 2

l8 THE DOCTRINE OF GROUPS
sameness, in the derived copies. The tendency to insert
spurious matter could never produce a Western recension,
but only a great diversity of copies, deviating more from
each other than from the true text. The total amount of
error, gathered from five versions and twenty authors, may
be large. And. yet thfe share due to each author, and to
the copy he employed, may be comparatively small, so.
that any faults might be readily removed by the simple
plan of collecting two or three copies, when a hew copy
was to be made.
22. Another fact has also to be remembered, which
will naturally account for more paraphrastic readings in
the Western manuscripts. For in the West the Scriptures
would be constantly read In the churches in a Latin ver
sion. What they heard constantly would react on the
minds of those who heard it, whether as cppylsts or
authors. Whenever their care relaxed in copying a Greek
MS., or where it was illegible, the natural tendency would
be to retranslate the version familiar to their ears, and in
this way to modify the original text. The best represent
atives of the so-called Western text are said to be the
bilingual MSS., vrith Greek and Latin in parallel pages
or columns, which must plainly have been designed for
the Latin-speaking churches. Thus various deviations
from the true text might arise from the partial mixture,
of retranslations from Latin with the proper Greek
original. The general character, however, of these changes
as loose, paraphrastic, and adscitltious, instead of proving \
that a distinct text with these features was widely spread,,. '
proves rather the exact reverse. There must thus have,
been many divergent varieties, differing at least as much '
from each other, as from the truth, and easily capable, for,-
this very reason, of being freed from their respective

AND FAMILIES.: 19
accretions of error, as soon as the divergence was per
ceived, and reasonable care was exercised by later scribes
to recover and maintain a purer text.
23. The error of the attempt to determine the true
text of the New Testament by a supposed grouping of the
early MSS., previous to the close of the fourth century,
may be proved by three distinct arguments. The first is
the want of direct evidence of the contents of those MSS.,
which makes any such process of decision really a guess
in the dark. No MS. of the second and third centuries
exists, and only two of the fourth, so that the readings of
some thousand of perished MSS., by which to group and
classify them are to be divined by conjectural inferences
alone, In twenty thousand different clauses. Secondly, the
main features of the actual evidence, from which a so-
called Western text is inferred, agree much better with a
wholly different solution, which refers it chiefiy to the
loose manner of quotation usual "with the Fathers, or
to occasional re-translation from Latin versions, and not
lo wide corruption in the majority of Greek manuscripts.
For this second cause of divergence would plainly not-
apply to the manuscripts of Greece, Asia, Syria, and
JEgypt, 24. But a third objection remains. Even if the evi
dence were more abundant, the doctrine of groups is
wholly erroneous in itself. It supposes that we must
combine contemporary MSS., in case they were extant,
either by their local nearness in place, or their critical near
ness in common readings, and then treat each set or group.
as a single witness, to which the same weight is to be
assigned in the whole, range of the questions which need
to be determined. But these assumptions have no solid
ground. Two MSS. may be locally near, and yet have.
2 — 2

20 THE DOCTRINE OF GROUPS
been derived from the original by intermediate copies-
whoUy distinct. Two MSS. may locally be wide apart,
and yet may have been derived, even at the first remove/
and still more probably, at the second, third, or fourth,
from the same copy. Nearness in place, therefore, in the'
case of manuscripts, is no reason why two witnesses should^
be counted' only as one. And the same remark must
apply to a larger number of copies.
25. The same is true, with one case of exceptipn, of
critical nearness, or affinity in various readings. If ther6
are many deviations from the probable original in two
MSS., and nearly all of these are the same, this will be
strong evidence that either one of them is copied from the
other, or both from a common source. But a number of
divergences from each other, rather below the average,
¦which might lead a set of MSS. to be combined as one'
group, can he no real presumption for their common
origin, low down in the successive steps of transmission.
Let us put the case that Instead of only two MSS. as
early as the fourth century, a hundred had survived, each
after six steps of transmission, and that fifty of these were
the result of specially careful copying, introducing at each
step, in the Gospels, only a hundred variations, great or
small. Any pair of these would have less than 1200
differences from each other, or three times less than those
of the Vatican and Sinaitic MSS. They would thus form a
group to themselves. Let each ten of the other fifty have
been derived from a copy in the third descent, which
through careless copying or wilful change had a thousand
variations from the true text. Three other copyings of a
more careful kind might introduce three hundred more.
But the thousand variations common to each of the ten,
being three-fourths of the total number, would serve to

AND FAMILIES. 21
mark them out as one group, and being a different thou
sand for each of the five sets, would give five well defined
groups of ten MSS. apiece. Thus, by the principle of
grouping, the hundred MSS. would have a sixfold division,
and the first fifty, hecause they were purer and better
than the rest, and had suffered less change In copying,
would count as only one slx;th part of the whole. And
thus the consent of thirty inferior MSS., giving a decided
majority In four out of six groups, would be made to
outweigh twenty of like value, with fifty other better and
purer MSS.
26. The method of criticism, then, which is founded on
¦the distribution of MSS. into groups and families, from
the closer affinity of their readings, seems to me doubly
fallacious and unsound. It fails. In the first place, because
of the almost entire want of direct historical evidencCj by
which we would determine the actual process of derivation,
and lines of descent, in the hundreds of cursive manuscripts,
or even In the very few uncials which still survive. And
it fails, In the second place, because, if the materials were
a hundred times more abundant, it wholly mistakes the
true relation between the witnesses, on which the force
of the collective evidence must depend. For this Is not
lateral, but vertical. Each witness or manuscript must
have its weight determined by the series of copyings.
¦tjhrough which it has passed, and not by its agreement or
disagreement with other copies of its own age, of which the
steps of transmission may have been, and often must have
been, wholly different frcm its own.

CHAPTER II.
ON THE WEIGHT DUE TO ANTIQUITY.
'27. A second maxim, current among critics of the
New Testament during the last century, from Griesbach
onward, is the vastly superior weight due to a few of the
earliest MSS., compared with the hundreds of later times.
The prln(5ple was carried by Lachmann to Its farthest
extreme. He treats all manuscripts, .except a few of the
earliest, as quite worthless, and leaves them out of sight
altogether. But Dean Alford, Drs Tischendorf and
Tregelles, and more recently Drs Westcott and Hort,
scholars all of whom stand high In reputation in this
branch of study, go very far In the same direction. With
each of them the consent of the Vatican, Sinaitic, and
Alexandrian MSS. would probably outweigh all the later
uncials, and nearly the whole of the cursives, though these
last are not leSs than a hundred even on the Apocalypse,
where they are fewest in number, three hundred on the
Epistles, and six hundred on the Gospels.
28. The following remarks of Dean Alford will show
the general nature of the reasons alleged for this almost
exclusive deference to the earliest manuscripts.
"We find a certain number of MSS. and versions,
respecting which our knowledge is definite and reliable,
whose date we can determine within narrow limits. So

ON THE WEIGHT DUE TO ANTIQUITY. 23
far, as to external evidence, we are safe. We cannot by
their means arrive at the original sacred text, because,
before they were written, a course of correction and a series
of mistakes in transcribing had taken place. But we can
arrive at a result, of which we know the value. We can
ascertain, In the main, what was .the text of the time to
which that body of evidence belongs. We can then, under
safe caution, apply to that text the canons of subjective
criticism. We now come to the great mass of cursive MSS.
of later ages. What Is stated above, that some of these may
possibly be transcripts of texts of as much value as those
of our most ancient MSS. hardly admits a doubt. But in
the great majority of cases, where are we now, as to definite
ness of evidence ? What do we know of the character of
tbe texts we are citing ? How can we be sure that many
of our witnesses ought not to be reduced to one, as mere
transcripts of one and the same text 1 Here all Is uncer
tainty, all is vague, and liable to wide mistake. In this
field It is that the strong assertions may be safely made,
which we so constantly find In the pages of those who would
defend the received text at all hazards; who tell us again
and again that four or five MSS. only read this or that,
and all the rest agree with the received text; when perhaps
those four or five are just the consensus of our most ancient
and venerable authorities, and all the rest may, for aught
we know, be In many cases no more worthy to be heard on
the matter than so many separate printed copies of our
own day.... It is such considerations which have led me
to banish from my digest long processions of cursive MSS.,
and to base my revision only on those witnesses respecting
which I am able to speak with something like certainty."
, 29, The principle, laid down by Dean Alford in this
passage, and by Dr Tregelles in his promise " to give the

24 ON THE WEIGHT
text of ,the New .Testament on the authority of the ancient
witnesses, with the aid of the earlier citations, so as to
: present the text best attested in the earlier centuries,"
has a positive and negative side. Positively, it professes
to determine the nature, contents, and prevalept readings
of more than a thousand MSS. of the fourth and fifth
centuries, now all perished. In twenty thousand different
: clauses, by the testimony pf five MSS. of the like date,
. which are all that now survive, and which, as contempo
rary, have to those others neither the relation of parent
nor child. And negatively, it refuses any weight, in
deplding, what were the readings of those thousand MSS.,
and their prevailing testimony, to four hundred later
MSS. which are now extant, and which must certainly
have been derived from at least fifty or a hundred, and
perhaps from two or three hundred, of those very manu
scripts in a direct and immediate line of succession.
30. The error of such a double assumption is surely very
plain. And its consequences, when logically reasoned out,
would be very fatal, If 450 cursive MSS. have no weight
or power at all, to determine the contents of a hundred or
more parent MSS., from four to seven centuries earlier
than themselves, and from -vyhlch they must have been
derived, much less can four or five MSS. only, separated
nearly three centuries from the times of the Gospel, be
able to assure us of the /true and exact contents of the
sacred originals themselves. The theory tends to destroy,
all faith in the adequacy of written documents, however'
numerous the copies, to transmit a Divine message, unim
paired, through so long an Interval as six or seven hundred
years. 31. Surviving witnesses of an earlier date can only
exclude and supersede the later, when they form nearly

DUE TO ANTIQUITY. 25
the whole, or at least the greater part, of the evidence
existing in their own days. In this case alone it would be
certain that most of the later are derived from them.
These will add nothing to the evidence of the present
early copies. The remainder can only yield imperfect evi
dence of what was read in some of the perished copies.
They will weigh, therefore, only as the fraction of a frac
tion of the voice of a minority. But the actual case Is far
different. Did we not see the fact before our eyes, it would
seem Incredible that critics should begin by setting aside
nineteen-twentieths of the actual evidence, as ff non-exis
tent or quite worthless, and compensate this great sacrifice
by treating one per cent., or less, of the ancient MSS. of
the fourth and fifth centuries, tbe only part that now sur
vives, as equivalent to the whole. Or that when these
few witnesses happen to agree, while differing from the
received text, this consent of less than one per cent, of
the MSS. of those days should receive the high-sounding
title of "the unanimous voice of Christian antiquity."
32. Let us now look at the subject more closely, and
try to deal with It by strict mathematical reasoning.
The manuscripts of the Four Gospels, which sur
vive, and of which approximate dates are given in Dr
Scrivener's "Introduction", are as follows :
Cent. IV.  2 Cent, xr  123

„ V............. 3
„ VI. & VII. ...fragm. only,
„ VIII  3
„ IX. ,  lO&fragm,
„ X.  ,22

XII  116
XIII  78
XIV.  57
,xv.  32
XVI  28

Thus of the Centt. IV. and v. only five MSS. remain,
and thirteen of Centt. viil. and ix.; while those of later

26 ON THE WEIGHT
date are nearly five hundred, besides all the Lectionaries,
aud a supplementary list to which dates are not assigned.
What are styled ancient authorities are just one per cent.
of the whole, But they are also less than one per cent.
of the MSS. of their own age. We have no distinct record,
it is true, of, the number of copies of the Gospels from
the second tP the fifth century. But they must have
reached a thousand even in the second century, being read
constantly in all the churches, and at the later date it is
probable that they were several thousands in number.
When we hear Theodoret, early in the fifth century,
stating that he had replaced two hundred copies of Tatian's
Diatessaron by others of the Gospels themselves in his own
diocese of Cyrus in Syria, that the total number in all the
Churches of the East and West must have been several
thousands is tolerably clear from that fact alone,
33, Let us now suppose that the 18 MSS. to the close
of the ninth century, all agree in a particular reading.
There must plainly be very high probability in favour of
its truth. It is most unhkely that all should have been
corrupted, and all In the same way. Such evidence might
well be reckoned decisive, ff It stood alone.
But now let us put another case, that all the later
MSS., more than four hundred in number, agree in one
and the same reading. There must evidently be a very
strong ' pfe'sump'tion for its truth. And this presumption
will be even stronger than in the similar case of the older
MSS. It Is harder to explain how four hundred MSS. should
have gone wrong together, and In the same way, than to
account for It In the case of eighteen only. That the
mean interval may be eleven or twelve centuries Instead
of three, four, or five, cannot outweigh the Immense
contrast in the number of the consenting witnesses ; for

DUE TO ANTIQUITY. 27
the longer the interval, the greater the risk of divergence,
when once the true text has been forsaken.
Did such a case, then, arise, there would be a conflict
of two extreme Improbabilities. But there is no reason
to believe that such an instance can be found. The
Uncials, as well as the cursives, are usually divided
In all cases of disputed readings. And the question Is
commonly of this kind, whether a small preponderance
of the Uncials should outweigh either a small or a great
excess of evidence from cursive MSS, for a different
reading. The answer depends on the relative weight, as
evidence, which ought to be given to different MSS.
because of their greater or less antiquity.
34. The superior value of an early MS. depends on
the likelihood that it has passed through fewer transcrip
tions. Mere lapse of time cannot introduce error into a
written or printed document. It may, however, render a
MS. partly illegible, and, so far, ¦worthless. But every
time it is copied, it Is possible, and even probable, that
some new mistakes may be made. Of these copyings we
have no record. It Is on their number, and the care
exercised in each of them, that the total amount of final
error will depend.
Let us assume several transcriptions to be made
successively with equal care. What law will determine
the decrease In the evidential value of the resulting copy ?
It will not follow an arithmetical, but a geometrical rule.
If one tenth of error is Introduced by one transcriptloui
two tenths and three tenths will not be Introduced after
two and three transcriptions. The proportion of the
unaltered part to the altered will be the same for each
copying, and the unaltered part, after two copyings, will

28 ON THE WEIGHT
be ^V' aiifi after three copyings 729 -^ 1000. Thus if
ten to one were the excess of true over altered readinge
in a single transcription, then after three such transcrip-l
tions 1000 4- 331 or 3^ to one, will be the average evi
dential value of the resulting document.
35. The age of a MS. Is of course a very imperfect guide
to the amount of its error. One of the fifth century may,
on tbe one hand, have passed through fewer transcriptions
in the line of descent than another of the second century ;
or again, it may have had more than a third manuscript
of the tenth or elventh century. One transcription may
be made from a copy not twenty years old, and another \
from one that dates backward five hundred years. One
careless transcription, also, may introduce more. faulty j
readings than three or four others made with especial!
care. Nay, a scribe, who took especial pains and careij
a,nd Collated other copies in doubtful cases, might not
seldom produce a copy more free from errors than its
original. But these deviations, when we deal with many
MSS., tend to compensate and neutralize each other.
And since we have no historical record of the transcriptions,
and no assurance, even if we knew the dates of all of them, |
that they were made with equal care, we can only approackl
to the truth by assuming an even rate ,of error for eaels |
century or half . century, from the origin of the works j
copied. Then, ff r is the proportion of the altered to the i
unaltered part of the transcriptions of a single century,
1 : (1 -f r)" — 1 will be the proportion, after n centuries, and .
the evidential values will be — log r, and — log (1 +r)'' — 1, ',
36. The date of the originals of the Gospels, Epistles,
and Apocalypse, vary from A.D. 50 or 60 to A.D, 100, It
would seem, then, at first sight, that this amount shouldf
he deducted from the date of each MS, in years of thei

DUE TO ANTIQUITY.

Christian era, to get the value of n, or the number of
centuries, in which the decrease of purity depends. But
a little further thought will show that the most probable
correction is of an opposite kind.
And first, the increase of error depends, not on the
mere lapse of time, but on the number of transcriptions.
But after the Gospels and Epistles were first written, one,
two, or three copyings would be . required, before the
number of copies was enough to meet the wants of the
early churches. A score of copies, perhaps, would be made
within one or two years, and dispersed among the other
churches, either near or at a distance. Each of these
copies, in ten or twenty years, would be not unlikely to
give birth to ten or twenty copies of the second order.
And If we suppose the copies to have reached a thousand
by the date A. D. 100, many of these would be the result of
two and still more of three or four copyings. Thus this
Interval of one-third of a century would probably have more
copyings. In proportion to the parent manuscripts, than a
whole century in later times.
37. Fresh copies would be required for two reasons,
to replace those which were worn out by use, or lost, or to
meet the wants of new churches, or of private Clirlstlans,
during a time of, rapid enlargement of the whole Church
of Christ. This latter cause must clearly have' been in
operation till near the middle of the fourth century. Also
a MS. must always have been liable to be copied, even
after one or two years. But the other limit of a MS.
generation must plainly have been enlarging continually.
In A.D. 100, no MS. copied could have been more than
40 or 60 years old. In A,D. 200, the limit would be 140
years; in A.D. 300, 240 years. And thus the mean interval
between the age of each original and its copy must have

30 ON THE WEIGHT
tended to increase, at first rapidly, and then more slowly.
Also when the object was to provide new copies, and
critical questions had hardly arisen, the nearest MS. would
be likely to be copied, wholly irrespective of its age. But
when copies were to be replaced, which had been long in
use, it would be a natural instinct to choose out for
transcription the oldest manuscripts. For this reason
also, the mean interval of age between the original and
its copy would tend to increase in later times.
38. The historical data are too imperfect to allow of
more than an approximate estimate. But It seems probable
that the transcriptions to the end of the first century,
except for the Apocalypse, would at least equal those of a
full century, and those of the second and third centuries
he not fewer than the average of three centuries In later
times. And since no MS. of those dates survives, the
result will be that the degradation at A.D. 300 would be
equivalent to that of four later centuries, and that n=c-\-\
where c are the centuries of the Christian era, would be a
first approximation to the relative number of the degrees
of descent from the purity of the origmal text, &r any
later age.
39. We are jiow ahle to gain approximate values for
the relative weight of ancient and modern manuscripts, as
depending on their age alone. The higher the rate «f
corruption, the greater will be the excess of value of the
earliest over the latest. Let us first take, a high rate of
corruption, and suppose that at the end of the third
century it is one-eleventh of the whole. This would
answer to 6500 errors in the Four Gospels, or twice as
many for the Vatican and Sinaitic separately as their
divergences from each other. The index for a.d. 300 will
be 4, for A.D. 1500, 16. Hence IT* = 1-464X wiU.be the,

• DUE TO ANTIQUITY. 31
representative number for the unaltered and altered por
tions at the later date. The evidential value for A. D. 300
is 10:1, and for A.D. 1500 Ih- -4641 = 2-1547. But
2T5443' = 10. So that, with this extreme rate of degrada
tion, three MSS. dating from the end of the fifteenth
century would exactly equal In their evidential weight a
single manuscript of the beginning of the fourth century.
40. Let us now suppose the error, after a mean in
terval of four centuries, to be only one part in 21, This
would stlU answer to an alteration of 3300 words in
the Four Gospels alone. But 1-05* = 1-215506 and
1 -=- -215506 = 4-640242. Thus 20:1 is the evidential
value of the earlier, and 4-64:1. of the later MS. But
4-64" = 21-55296, So that, with this lower rate of corrup
tion, two of the latest would slightly outweigh one of the
earhest MSS.
41. Next, let us inquire what higher rates of cor
ruption would be necessary, to justify the excessive weight
assigned by modern critics to the few oldest manuscripts.
We shall compare the dates A.D. 300 and A.D. 1100, or a
little, earlier than the oldest MSS. now extant, and the
age at which, half of them earlier and haff later, more than
two hundred now survive. The values of n, the index, are
4 and 12; or — log r, and — log (1 + rY — 1, are the values
for the two dates. Assuming l-)-r to be 1"125, 1*15,
1-175, 1-20 In succession, the values of (1 + r)" are
1-423828, 1-520875, 1-6222.34 and 1-728. But we have
log -125 -=- log -423828 = 2-4224,
log -15 -^ log -520875 = 2-9087,
log -175 H- log -622234 = 367375,
log -20 -^ log -728 =5-0698.
Thus we find that, with these high rates, a MS. at the
opening of the fourth century would equal, in weight.

S2 ON THE WEIGHT DUE TO ANTIQUITY.
2|, 3, 3f, and 6 MSS. at the opening of the tweffth
century. And this last rate is one which would imply a
corruption of more than ten thousand words, In the Gos
pels alone, in an average MS. early In the fourth century.
Such an amount is contrary to all experience or proba
bility, and wholly incredible.
42. What, then. Is the conclusion which follows natu
rally, and indeed inevitably, from this first step In our
Inquiry 1 It Is of a very plain and simple kind. The two
hundred and forty MSS. of the eleventh and twelfth cen
turies, which stiU survive. Instead of being of trivial weight
compared with the five earliest, ought, at the lowest esti
mate, to be reckoned of nine or ten times greater weight.
From this conclusion, as regards the average weight of
their evidence, there seems no possible escape, unless, on
purpose to depreciate them and exalt their rivals, we
Indulge in gratuitous conjectures for which there is no
grain of historical evidence.

CHAPTER III,
ON LATER IMPROVEMENT OF MSS.
¦ ' 43, Another important fact has now to be considered.
Constant increase of error is no certain and inevitable
result of repeated transcription. Errors, after they have
found entrance, may be removed as well as increased in
later copies. A careful scribe may not only make ie\i
mistakes of his own, hut he may correct manifest faults of
the manuscript from which he copies, and avail himself
of the testimony of others, so as to revise ' and improve"
the text of that on which he chiefly relies.
Here the scholars who rate the Vatican and Sinaitic
MSS. so high as to make them outweigh a host of others
less ancient seem to commit a great oversight. They
admit and affirm that corruption of the text began early,
and prevailed, even in the second and third centuries, to a
great extent. Yet they overlook the conclusion which
must inevitably follow with regard to the lessened weight
of individual MSS. of the period which immediately fol
lowed, or of the precise date which belongs to the two
oldest manuscripts,
44. The corruption of manuscripts by heretics was
early a subject of complaint. Thus, about a.d. 240 Origen
writes, " But now great indeed Is become the diversity of
copies, whether from the negligence of some scribes, or from
B. 3

34 ON LATER IMPROVEMENT
the evil rashness of others in correcting what is written, or
from those who, in correcting, add or take away whatever
seems good to them." And Dr Scrivener remarks that
"the various readings of the New Testament from the
middle of the second to that of the third century were
neither fewer nor less considerable than such language
would lead us to suppose." He continues as follows :
" It is no less true in fact than paradoxical in sound,
that the worst corruptions of the New Testament originated
within a hundred years after it was composed ; and that
Irenaeus andi;he African Fathers, and the whole Western,
with a portion of the Syrian Church, used far inferior MSS.
to those employed by Stunica, Erasmus, and Stephens,
thirteen centuries later, when moulding the Received Text."
(Introd. p. 453.)
Drs Westcott and Hort recognize the same fact, how
ever adverse to their opinion of the vastly .superior weight
of the two earliest MSS. The confusion from variety of
readings began, they say, not later than the third century,
and increased greatly in the fourth. By the end of that
century a large proportion of the worst known corruptions
were in existence. They hold further that a text of which
two main characters were capricious changes,, alterations
and omissions, additions of clauses, and insertion of apo
cryphal matter, was widely spread, and widely divergentfrom
the true text, before the middle of the second century,
45. It is thus admitted, both by scholars who hold the
immensely superior weight of the few oldest MSS., and by
those who share this doctrine very partially, or even oppose
it, that many copies were seriously corrupted and defective
as early as one full century after the Gospels and Epistles
were written. The evil had attracted notice in the days
of Origen, occasioning loud complaints, and the efforts

OF MANUSCRIPTS. 3$

of the more learned Fathers, Origen, Eusebius, and Jerome,
were employed in devising some practical remedy.
When once this inquiry had begun, a simple means
would suggest Itself to any thoughtful mind, by which the
desired object might to a great extent be attained. Tares
had been sown while men slept. Errors had crept In and
spread, almost before it was remembered how easy it is for
a copyist to go wrong, and do his work without proper
care. But when once the evil was patent, and had perplexed
Christian students, the maxim of the Divine law would be
remembered and applied, — " In the mouth of two or three
witnesses shall every word be established." Truth is one,
error is manifold. It is easy for copyists to go wrong and
vary from the original. It is easy, also, for wilful corrupt
ers to make altered copies, and put them In circulation.
But it is not easy for scribes, fr.om mere carelessness, to go
wrong in the same passages, and just in the same way.
This is almost equally true of wilful alterations of the
•text. And hence the simple plan of using three MSS.,
when a new copy was to be made, and following the
majority where they disagreed, would be sure to weed out
nearly all the errors, if successively adopted two or three
times In the process of transcription. The worst errors
would thus be very soon eliminated. Improved copies
would be formed, in which the divergence from each other,
and from the true original, would sensibly diminish, and
soon almost wholly disappear.
46. An earhe r MS. is not, in all cases, purer or better
than a later one by reason of its date alone. It may have
many faults, from which those who used it for a text would
free their copies, by greater care, and the use of other ma
terials within their reach, besides the correction of plain
clerical oversights, and an avoidance of the.grosser kind of
3—2

36 ON LATER IMPROVEMENT
errors. W^e cannot-even be sure that the number of tran
scriptions has been less, simply from a higher date. A MS.
may be copied when only five or ten years old, or after a
thousand years, The mean interval would probably increase
after the first centuries. The maximum age of a copied MS:
in the third century, till almost its close, would be less
than 200 years. But In tbe middle ages, the copy might
be younger than its parent by five, six, or seven centuries,-
A MS. of Cent, XVL may have undergone fewer transcript
tions, and one of Cent. IV. a much larger number, than
corresponds to the average for sixteen or four centuries.
And this, will render it unsafe, when only a few MSS. are
concerned, to rely too much on an estimate, depending on
averages alone.
47. But the second element In the comparison is
even still more important, A greater number of trann
.scriptions doeg not prove a greater total of error, A tran-
.licript, made not only with care, but with critical pains and
discernment, will give a copy nearer to the truth than Its
own Immediate original. The effect will be much the same
,as If that interval of age had a negative' sign, and the copy
were higher and nearer to the source than Its own prede-.
cesser, ^,nd not further removed from it. After six copy
ings, a seventh might lessen the error- by an amount equal
to its average increase in two transcriptions. The result
would then correspond. In purity, to four transcriptions
instead of seven. That is, if the average interval of tran
scriptions were fifty years,' the effect would be to make the
copy, as evidence, rank a century and a half higher than Its
actual jiate.
48. Another fact also demands separate notice, and
must probably have had much influence on the process
pf transmission. >

OF MANUSCRIPTS. $7
The Gospels and Epistles were read continually,
throughout the Eastern Churches, from the Greek originals
themselves. The scribes who copied them must generally
have had their ears accustomed to the sound of them> as
thus read publicly in the church of their abode, and the
place where the copy was made. In copying any private
MS. divergence from this public standard must commonly
have been felt at once, and would often lead to spon
taneous substitution of the publicly accepted reading.
There would thus be a natural check upon wide and
indefinite variation. The public copies, also, would be
likely to have been made with especial care, under a
.double sense of responsibility.
The copyists in Africa and the West would have no
such aid for securing accuracy and avoiding new varia
tions. The New Testament, in those provinces, would be
read in an old Latin version, and about ten copies, as
old as the fourth or fifth century, still survive. In copying
a Greek MS. they would thug be exposed to the risk of
mingling their mechanical work, as mere copyists, with a
partial retranslatlon of the Latin version with which their
ears were familiar, ¦whenever their attention relaxed, or
the MS. they were copying was Illegible.
49. Several features ascribed to a so-called Western text
¦ admit of explanation in this Way. The loose and inexact
style of quotation, often apparent in the -writings of the
Fathers, and especially the Latin Fathers, might be partly
the cause, partly the effect, of a similar latitude and
diversity in the Latin versions in early use in the Western
Churches. One version would have no clear ground of
preference over another, when the meaning was the same.
There might be several varieties, from the most literal, to
others loose and paraphrastlcal, but more agreeable to the

38 ON LATER IMPROVEMENT
Latin Idiom. Copyists, whose ears were accustomed to a
version In local use, would be liable to colour their work
with occasional retranslations, whenever a clause of the
Greek was illegible. And hence the two features, that
" words and even clauses were changed with astonishing
freedom" and that there was " a readiness to adopt altera
tions and additions from traditional sources," would both
be explained in an easy and natural way. Such characters
are wholly inconsistent with the notion of one definite
Western text, present In nearly all the Western copies,
and deviating from the true originals .by one fixed set of
variations. But they agree with the hypothesis that
many MSS. copied in the West partook of the looseness,
inaccuracy, paraphrastic style, and ease in accepting slight
explanatory interpolations, which attend a double process
•of translation and retranslatlon,
50, We are thus guided to a further principle, which
ought to mo.dffy our estimate of the comparative value of
MSS. differing in age. Corruptions would Increase gra
dually for a time, till their amount was such as to attract
attention, and cause perplexity among observant readers.
But about the close of the third century this process would
be partly arrested, partly reversed, by the rise of a school
of critical observers of that diversity, and by their efforts
to remove It, and restore, If possible, a purer text. This
effort would be most likely to be constant and successful
In the Greek provinces, because In these there would be a
constant comparison of any copies privately made, with
those which were read publicly In the churches. And If
we suppose the corruption to have become conspicuous at
the close of the third century, the Inference seems tolerably
•clear and" plain. The two oldest MSS, that now survive
:will. belong precisely to the daite, when the corruption had

OF MANUSCRIPTS. 39
nearly reached its height, and run its course, and when an
arrest was put on Its further progress by the process of
comparison and collation of authorities which had then
recently begun. After that date we have strong reason
to expect, either a much slower decline in the purity cf
MSS. or even a positive improvement, from greater care
on the part of the scribes and copyists, especially In the
Greek-speaking provinces of the Roman Empire.
51. It has bsen shewn already that the frequency of
transcription In the line of descent must have been greater
in the three first centuries, so that on this account alone
it would be reasonable to reckon that interval equivalent,
. In decrease of the purity of copies, to four full centuries
of later times. Thus in the formula, — log (1 + r)" — 1,
which expresses the evidential value of a MS. the index n
would have to be taken as c+1, or one more than the
number of completed centuries of the Christian era. But
now it must appear probable ' that there was a further
excess in the rate of corruption, down to the close of the
third century, compared with all later ages. They were
a period, speaking generally, of unrevised copying. The
later times were those of copying, after the fact of varia
tion had been openly recognized, and when efforts to undo
the process of corruption had begun. It would be quite
possihle, if that process were systematically pursued, for a
general advance and improvement of MSS. In point of
purity, to be attained, and of course, a lessened amount of
divergence. But at least it seems a moderate estimate
that the rate of decline from perfect purity might be one
half greater, in the period of unrevised copying, than after
revision and collation of MSS. had set In. The period
from the date of the Gospels and Epistles to the end of
the third century, Instead of only four, would thus he

40 ON LATER IMPROVEMENT OF MANUSCRIPTS.
equivalent to six complete centuries, and m = c -f- 3 would
become the value of the index, by means of which the
comparative weight of MSS. of different ages would be
determined. Thus for A.D. 300 n = 6, for A.D. 900 « = 12,
and for A.D. 1500 n = 18, and the earliest MSS., those of
the tenth century at its opening, and of the sixteenth, would
have their error in a simple, a duplicate, and a triplicate
proportion.

CHAPTEE IV.
ON INTERNAL EVIDENCE.
52. The Internal Evidence for a reading consists in
the presumption for its truth, arising from its agreement
with the drift of the passage, its emphasis or naturalness
of expression, or its harmony with any special 'features in
the style of the sacred author.
Modern critics differ considerably in the weight which
they are disposed to assign to it. Dr Tregelles would exclude
it entirely. Dean Alford, also, says that consideration of
the context is the very last that should be allowed by the
critic to be present in his mind as an element of judgment.
He thinks that " it is from this very consideration that our
deteriorated text has in many cases arisen," and that " the
general adoption of It as a critical law would be the worst
imaginable retrograde step In sacred criticism."
Such a maxim sounds very strange. Virtually it
affirms that our acceptance or rejection of a reading, as
part of an Inspired message from God, ought not to be In
the least affected by Its making good sense rather than
utter nonsense. The paradox of such a maxim. In extreme
cases, ¦w;ould be Insufferable. No one in his senses could
ever act upon it. Even short of this, it could only be
justified by the assumption, that we have a very clear,

42 ON INTERNAL

certain, absolute rule, apart from the sense, for comparing
the weight of external evidence. In disputed readings, on
each side. But the same critics, who would shut out tbe
internal evidence, unhappily measure the external by a
mere hypothesis of their own, which is even demonstrably
erroneous, and enables them to reduce it into a mere
expansion of their own subjective prejudice in favour of
two or three of the oldest manuscripts.
53. Drs Westcott and Hort reason somewhat in the
same direction. They think that the possibility of sound
textual criticism is destroyed by a premature use of what is
called Internal evidence. Of this, however, they distinguish
two kinds. The first is the thought of what an author is
likely to have written. The second is the thought of what
a copyist is likely to have made him write. And It is
against this second kind thatthe following remark is aimed.
"A few hours," It is said, "spent in studying a series of the
countless corrections which no one would think of accepting,
will shew the variety of instinct to be found among scribes,
the frequent disagreement between their, instincts and our
own, and the conflicting effects of different instincts in the
same passage. It is possible to go wrong in interpreting
the historical growth of a text. But the chances of error
are beyond comparison greater in attempting to divine
exhaustively the movements in the minds of unknown
ancient scribes."
. The two problems, I believe, are equally hopeless, to
divine the motives for the adoption and rejection of every
reading, in the minds of a thousand scribes of the third
and fourth centuries, and to reproduce the results of those
inotive forces, through eight thousand verses, in the
three or four thousand MSS. which were, the probable fruit
pf their labours, and which have long since disappeared.

EVIDENCE. 43

5-4. Dr Scrivener, on the other hand, observes with
perfect truth, " Whether we will or not, we unconsciously
and instinctively adopt that of two opposite statements, in
themselves pretty equally attested, which we judge better
suited to recognized phenomena, and the common course of
things. I know of no person, who has affected to construct
a text of the New Testament on diplomatic grounds only,
without paying some regard to the character of the sense
produced. Nor, v/ere the experiment tried, would any one
find It easy to dispense with discretion, and the dictates of
good sense. It is difficult, writes Dr Tregelles, not to
Indulge in subjectlveness in some measure. And we may
add, that is one of those difficulties which a sane man
would not wish to overcome." He then proceeds to name
the following usual canons, with the remark that, in spite
.of their simplicity, the application of them has proved a
¦searching test of the tact, acumen, and sagacity, of those
,who handle them, and strive by their help to decide on
the true text.
" (1) A hard reading Is to be preferred to an easy one.
(2) A shorter reading is to be preferred to one more diffuse.
(3) A reading is preferable from which the others might
have more easily been derived. (4) Also one which best
suits the style, manner, and habits of thought, of the
writer. (5) Attention must be paid to the usage and
character of each authority, in assigning the weight due
to it. (6) A reading may be suspected, which manifestly
favours, above others, orthodox dogmas (Griesbach). (7)
Lastly, probabilities of erroneous transcription must be
taken into account." And he remarks in another place
how difficult it is to hinder the internal evidence from
sinking, even in skilfiil hands, into vague and arbitrary
(Conjecture.  ; -

44 ON INTERNAL
55. Internal evidence, I would first observe, is not
really more liable to subjective bias than the external.
For what do we mean by the external evidence ? Not the
bare fact that such and such MSS. of dates approximately
known, have one reading, and such and such MSS. either
of the same or different dates, have another. We mean
the likelihood of truth, from the number and dates of the
witnesses on either side, apart from any reference to the
sense produced, and its agreement or disagreement with
the context. Now this, as usually understood, involves
conjectures on the derivation of MSS. from each other, the
prevalence Pf different sets of readings in different ages or
-localities, the worth or cheapness of different witnesses or
classes of evidence, all of which are j ust as much exposed to a
subjective bias as the direct comparison of a text with its
context. It Is a thousand times plainer that, in Mat. xxvii.
28, the Evangelist wrote .e'/cSuo-ai'Te?, which agrees with the
whole context, and not ivBiia-avrei, which makes nonsense,
than that some five early MSS. ought to outweigh a
.hundred otherg. Reasons froih the context may be not
less objective, and far more forcible, than trains of argu
ment on the probable or possible readings of a thousand
perished MSS., which sustained the life of the church
through four centuries, but have now wholly disappeared.
56. Next, the second kind of evidence, mentioned
before, is not really Internal. It Is simply one of two
factors, both alike essential to the' existence of any external
evidence. For the practical questions are of this kind.
Given two lections, A and B, of the same passage, supported
hymand n MSS. ; Is it more likely that the reading B should •
have been turned into J. in m MSS. or that A should have
been turned to B in the n others ? Proclivity to change,
one way or the other, is thus an essential factor of the

EVIDENCE: ^ 45'

problem in each case, so far as it rests on external evidence
alone. .
It is thus an entire mistake to think that the difficulty
of divining the motives and instincts of copyists is a reason
for ranking the internal evidence below the external. It
is just the reverse. The Internal evidence, properly so
called. Is wholly independent of the caprices of copyists
and scribes. It depends on the text andthe context alone.
But the external evidence does involve, as one inseparable
factor, some decision as to the greater or less likelihood of a
copier making one particular change, or the exact opposite;
57. Again," the proper internal evidence, and this Inters
nal factor of the external evidence ; that Is, the comparative
likelihood of a change from A to B, or from 5 to .4 on the
part of any copyist, must usually v?eigh in opposite scales;
Jf one reading is plainly more reasonable and natural than
another, it will be easier to conceive that a scribe would
replace the worse by the better, than the better by the
worse. The same internal reasons, which tend to establish
any reading as true, make it harder to account for any de
viation from it. To put the case In an extreme form, if we
assume it as equally probable that a verse in the Gospels
was originaUy either good- sense or direct and open
nonsense, then, should MSS. be- equally divided, it is far
easier to see why scribes should have turned nonsense into
sense In fifty copies than why they should have turned
sense Into nonsense in fifty others. The maxim, "procllvi
gcriptionl praestat ardua" recognizes the latter truth, and
neglects the former. It is thus open to Bishop Words
worth's remark,— "To force readings Into the text, merely
hecause they are difficult, is to adulterate the Divine text
with human alloy. It is to obtrude on the reader the
'Solecisms of faltering copyists in place of the word of God."

46 ON INTERNAL

58. There are many readings, in which there is no
clear disparity of reasonableness on either side. The
adoption of either must then depend on the amount of
testimony, the outward element of the external evidencci
alone. There are a small number in which a difficulty at
first sight may, on further and fuller thought, reveal some
secret emphasis, or hidden beauty. In these cases the
maxim will really apply., A copier might easily overlook
the deeper sense ; and not seeing it, an altered text might
seem more reasonable. But there may be very many,
¦where one reading both seems to be, and is, more reason-?
able than another, and we might expect that copylsts.would
feel it so to be. This of course will of itself tend to dimin
ish the weight, as evidence, of the MSS. which contain it,
and to increase that pf the others. Its introduction must be
easier to account for than Its rejection. But this secondary
consequence of its greater naturalness, while it weighs in
the opposite scale to the internal evidence, of which it is &
kind of inverted reflection, can never really balance it.
For it Is certain that the Apostles neither wrote nonsense,
nor feeble and diluted sense. But it is quite possible that
a copj'ist might dilute their strength into a feeble para
phrase, and sometimes even, when his attention flagged^
substitute direct nonsense.
59. The maxim that a shorter must he preferred tp s,
longer reading depends on the hypothesis, that scribes
were usually more disposed to enlarge their text, and
incorporate new matter, than to make omissions. This Is
probably true as a general rule. But it Is quite possible
that some scribes were prone to an opposite fault, that of
shortening their work by omitting words or clauses, when
they could be retrenched without any evident loss to the
sense. Of Codex B we are told that it leaves out words

EVIDENCE. 47

or clauses "330 times in St Matthew, 365 times in St Mark,
439 in Luke, 384 in Acts, 681 times in the Epistles, or in,
all 2556 times." And that no small part of these changes
were mere oversights of the scribe seems evident, because
he has repeatedly written words twice over, "a class of
mistakes which Mai and the collators have seldom thought
fit to notice, and which by no means enhances our idea of
the care employed in copying this venerable record."
(Scrlv. Intr. p. 108>)
Now if external evidence is weighed on the assump
tion that the instinct of all scribes is to add and enlarge,
- and not to shorten, while two or three MSS. have a weight
assigned out of all proportion above the rest; and if in
these cases the instinct of the two or three scribes were
quite different, to spare their own work by slight omissions,
the conclusions drawn from the union of such premises
will be most misleading and deceptive. The maxim itself
relates really to the external evidence, not to the internal.
For it does not depend on the character of the reading in
itself, hut Is a special hypothesis about the instincts and
habits of copyists, that they are always more likely to have
erred by adding to the word of God than by taking away,
60. The compound result of the critical rules now
examined, as usually applied, seems to me highly injurious.
The internal evidence, properly so called, is set aside as
subjective and capricious, though in many cases its voice
alone might seem almost decisive. Next, the internal
factor, essentially involved in all the external evidence, is
so explained as to create a steady preference for readings,
in proportion as they are harsh In construction, abbreviated,
difficult to explain, ambiguous In their bearing on Christian
doctrine, and barely capable of any Intelligible meaning.
When to these rules is added the ascription of Immensely

48 ON INTERNAL EVIDENCE.
superior weight to two or three early MSS, abounding in
clerical errors, and the utter depreciation and neglect of
several hundreds of later times, and a complex theory of
texts and recensions, and their formation, mixture and
obliteration, for which no real historical evidence exists,
deserving the name, the effect of the whole is to transfer
bur faith from a vast body of evidence, capable of at least
approximate measurement by definite rules, to a minute
fraction of the whole, and even this, interpreted by conjec
tural hypotheses ¦which may easily be 'varied like the shift-
ings of a kaleidoscope. By such' a method of criticism the
mistakes and bscltancies of two or three copyists of the-
fourth century may come, in not a few instances, to
displace the "genuine text of the Gospels and Epistles, the
very charter and title-deeds of the Christian covenant.

CHAPTER Y.
ON HARMONISTIO CHANGES,
61. Great influence has been ascribed, by many
modem critics, to a supposed tendency, in copyists, to assi-
.milate the Gospels to each other. This form of license is
said to have begun early, to have been universal in it^
range, and highly mischievous In Its results, and that It
tended to obliterate the characteristics of each GospeJ^
through an impulse to harmonize and complete. Still it
is admittedi that there was no attempt at completeness
.in this assimilation, though the variety and universality of
the changes actually made might have afforded precedents
for a much more extensive and consistent removal of dif
ferences than what actually occurred.
Some liability of copyists to replace words of one
Gospel by those of another or to insert words of one
Gospel in another, by way of addition, may be admitted,
without involving any charge of dishonesty or wilful ,cor-
ruptlon. For the Gospels, from an early period, were all
read publicly in the Christian Churches. In the East
this reading would be of the originals, but in the Westj
with a few exceptions, it would be In a Latin version, , Now
.there are many verses common to two, and some even to
three Gospels, and many which have a close resemblance
B. 4

50 ON HARMONISTIO CHANGES.
in two at least. A scribe, in copying, might sometimes
trust to his memory, and transfer some of the words
publicly read from one Gospel to another. He would
thus produce unconsciously some degree of mixture, and
a partial blending of two distinct narratives into one.
62. But the alleged harmonlstic tendency seems to
mean something more than such a liability. It affirms a
deliberate and systematic effort to alter each Gospel in
tum, so as to make it agree better with, some other, either
in the verbal phrase or in the substance of the narrative.
If such a settled purpose or effort can be shewn to have
existed, our faith in the integrity and correctness of our
actual MSS. of the Four Gospels must of course be
sensibly impaired. The -effect of the hypothesis is to in
crease the presumption in favour of all those readings
which make the Gospels diverge most widely from each
other, either in form or in substance. If it he true at all,
the limits of its application ought to be clearly defined, or
else it must lead to very dangerous consequences. For if
readings are to be preferred when they make the nar
ratives inconsistent or contradictory, and those are held
suspicious, however many the copies which contain them,
in which one Gospel has the closest resemblance to
another, a direct bounty will he given on the intro
duction of harshnesses, difficulties, solecisms, and even
direct contradictions, into the sacred word of God.
63. But before we accept the maxim hroadiy as a
rule of New Testament criticism, several facts should be
horne in mind, -which look directly the opposite way.
First, even if we adopt the text of those critics who assign
the greatest weight to this supposed tendency to assimilate,
there still remain very many passages. In which the resem
blance of two, or even three, of the earlier Gospels, is very

ON HARMONISTIO CHANGES. 51

great, and almost complete. Again, in the Received Text,
which Is alleged to have suffered a good deal from these
changes, the differences are so many and so great, as to
have furnished ample , pretexts for sceptical doubts and
laborious controversies In every age. Only a narrow limit,
then, remains, within which this harmonizing instinct can
have been exercised, or have had power to Introduce and
give wide currency to any actual changes. But within this
limit an opposite Influence must also have been at work,
which would tend to introduce unreal diversity and in
creased divergence.
64. The Four Gospels were of course written and also
published separately. One probably appeared first ia
Palestine, another in Rome or Csesarea, a third In Syria
or Greece, and the fourth at Ephesus. The interval from
the first to the last must have been at least thirty, and
perhaps forty or fifty years. Each must have been widely
used in the Churches, and copies made, aud copies of
copies, to the third or fourth descent, before it became
usual to unite them into the single volume. The time
when this took place was probably about the middle of
the second century, or from seventy to ninety years after
the time when they were written. Till then, each Gospel
in the quaternion would be translated or copied from a
copy of that Gospel alone, and not of all the four. So
long as this was the case, it seems clear that the risk of
artificial divergence, through faults in the transcription
of each separate Gospel, would be much greater than the
likelihood of systematic assimilation, or the danger of any
process of harmonistic corruption.
65. Near the close of the Second century attention
was publicly drawn, by Origen and others, to the fact that
a considerable variety of divergent readings had crept into
4—2

.52 ON HARMONISTIC CHANGES
,the MSS. of the New Testament. A second period must
have followed, before long, when it would be a natural in
stinct to compare different MSS. together, to make efforts
to harmonize them, .and to recover a purer text. But fqr
.almost a full century,. while the four were separately used
and copied, and not yet joined into one volume, the tendr
ency, alike of all careless mistakes and wilful corrup
tions, would certainly be to introduce divergences and
discordant readings, and not to remove them,
66. The harmonistic tendencies that ensued later will
have to be differently judged, as we start from one or the
other of two opposite views with regard to the character
of the original text of the four Gospels. We may assume
that their first and primitive condition was that of writ
ings crude and ungrammatical in style, and in frequent
and glaring contradiction to each other; or we may assume
that their first style, was easy and natural, and that they
were free from all positive error or direct contradiction.
Defects of style, harsh constructions, or contradictory state
ments, might still be easily Introduced by errors or blunders
in the copyists of a single Gospel, not .shared, in the an^
swering passage, by the copies of the other three. Mistakes
might also be made froin suspecting corruption on insuffi
cient grounds, and real faults be caused in attempting tP
remove those which were imaginary. But in many cases
the true explanation would be just the opposite. What
has been defamed as harmonistic corruption, effacing cha
racteristic features of each Gospel, may often, perhaps, be
only an effort, in the second stage of transmission, after
the Gospels were united into one volume, to undo and
reverse earlier corruptions, to which they must have been
Hable, so long as they were copied separately, and before
,a stage of more exact and careful criticism had begun, j

ON HARMONISTIC CHANGES. 55
•^ 67. The Gospel pf . St Matthew has always stood the
first in order of all the four from the earliest times. It would
tihius be likely to be the first to suffer change, when scribes
were tempted to alter the text from subjective reasons.
On the other hand, the harmonizing tendency, removing
apparent discrepancies, and assimilating the phraseology,
would be more likely to affect St Mark and St Luke. For
these would come later in the volume, after the first
Gospel had been already copied, and any difference In
authority would weigh In favour of the first Gospel,
written by an Apostle, compaiTed with two Evangelists
who were only companions of the Apostles, and not Apos
tles themselves.
There are ninety places in St Matthew, where Dean
Alford appeals to tliis harmpnizing instinct, to justify his
preference for a particular reading, and usually in opposi
tion to a large preponderance of direct MS. evidence. In
St Mark there are two hundred and fifty, and In St Luke
one hundred and forty-five, or jn all nearly five hundred.
But in the far greater part of these cases, the operation of
such a motive is really incredible And Iji conceivable. Take,
for instance, the texts Matt xiii. 9, 23, 34 ; xiv. 3, 12, 15.
Is It credible that a scribe w-ould insert aKoveiV' in Matt.
xiii. 9, or substitute Trjv yrjv ttjv KaXrjv for rijv KaXrjv yrjv
in xiii. 23, or change ovSev into ojuk v. 34, or insert the
name of Philip xiv. 3, or change avrov into avro, him into
it. In xiv. 12, Pr ottilt ovv xiv. 15, after dvoXvaov, merely
to make the reading, In these minute particulars, bear a
closer resemblance to St Mark's Gospel, which would not
be under his eye at the moment, and which it would
be just as easy to alter In the reverse direction so as to
make It accord with St Matthew ? Yet In each of these
cases and three-fourths of the i;est, the lection of a large

54 ON HARMONISTIC CHANGES.
majority of MSS. is set aside, and another preferred, for
this shadowy and unsubstantia! reason alone.
68. The simple enumeration, briefly given, of the
changes ascribed to this cause, will make it apparent how
unreasonable it must be to desert the preponderance of
direct evidence and MS. testimony "on such a ground.
The Received Text will be given first, and after it the
substitute preferred, in the seven chapters. Matt. Hi-— ix.,
by Lachmann, Tischendorf, Tregelles and Alford.
Matt, iii. 6, ev Tw.'IopScivg, LTTr not A, + ¦jrorapM.
iii. 8, Kapjrovs d^Cov?, LTTr A Kapirov aiiov. Luke iii. 8.
iii. 10, ¦^Br] he Kal ¦>] dilvri, LTTr A om. koi, Luke iii. 9.
V. 44, £iXoy£rT€...ju,icrovi'Tas u/acis, LTTr A om., from Luke
vi. 28.
vi. 1 2, d<^Ufx,f.v, LTTrA aj>-riKap.fv. Luke xi. 4.
vi. 28, •TTuJs au^dvii, ov KOTTia, oiSe vrjOei, LTA Kommo'iv,
Tr KOTTtovoTLv, LTTrA vijOovcriv. Luke xii. 27.
vii. 2, dvTip.erpyjB'^aetai, LTTr A /icrprjSifo-ETat. Luke vi. 28.
vii. 9, oV idv, LTTrA om. idv.
vii. 10, Kal idv, LTTrA t; koX.
vii. 28, CTDi/CTeXco-ev LTTrA kriXio-ev.
viii. 10, oiSe ev t5 I<rpaT)\, LTTrA irap o«8evl Totra-unjv...
viii. 15, SiijKovet avroTs, LTTrA avrij. Mark i. 31. Luke
iv. 39.
viii. 31, hrirpo^ov ij/xtv dtreXOiiv, LTTrA aTro'crreiXov ij/Aas,
ix. 8, i6avfiaa-a.v, LTTrA i^o^TJOrjo-av.
ix. 12, d 8e 'Irjo-ovi aKOwas eiTTEV a-uroTs, LTTrA oni. 'Irjcrovs,
avTois, from Mark, Luke.
ix. 22, eiricTTpac^eis, LTTrA orpo^els, from Mark.
ix. 23, Xe'yei avrois LTTrA eXeyev, from Mark.
69. Now in these, and most of the other passages, I
think it plain, on the least reflection, that the suggested ex
planation is quite inadequate. What object could a tran-

ON HARMONISTIC CHANGES. 55
scriber have In deviating from his copy to Introduce such
microscopic changes, by which there would be a slightly
increased resemblance to another Gospel not under his
eyes at the time ? Can we suppose that copyists knew
the later Gospels by heart, even to the minutest detail in
the order of the words, and the exact phraseology ? It is
surely a most groundless supposition that a scribe would
alter e\e76 to Xeya in ix. 23, or omit efw In x, 14, to
approach one shade nearer to the text of Mark or Luke,
The passages v. 44, and ix. 12, need separate considera
tion. But as to all the rest, the explanation of the change
from a wish of qopylsts to assimilate one Gospel to
another seems to me,_on the face of it, quite unreasonable.
70, A similar remark applies to the four hundred
alleged changes in the second and third Gospels, We
may easily conceive of the Interpolation of a fact from one
Gospel Into another, or an attempt to soften or remove a
seeming discrepancy by a slight change in either text. But
such changes as of etire Se into «al etTre, or avaarrjvai into
eyep6fjvai, or of iTrecricia^ev into erreaKiacrev, Luke Ix. 9, 22,
34, could fulfil no object worth the labour and pains of any
copyist to secure. And even In the few cases of a more
important variation, it seems a strange paradox to lay
down that a reading is more likely to be genuine, which
makes one Gospel contradict the statements of the others,
even where the testimonies are nearly unanimous the other
way. Yet this Is the practical result, in extreme cases, of
the canons adopted by a majority of recent critics, ,

CHAPTER VI.
ON PROBABLE RATES OF MANUSCRIPT
CORRUPTION,
71. Textual criticism, in recent times, has been
i-emarkable for the variety and number of the hypotheses
which have been framed to explain the mutual relations,
first of the Gospels themselves, and next of the MSS. and
Versions. There has also been an Immense increase in
the mass of materials collected by the assiduity of critics.
But little has been done to bring exact reasoning to
bear on the estimates of the total evidence in the case
of rival or disputed readings. The internal evidence, of
course, can hardly admit of strict quantitative measure
ment. But those critics who magnify external evidence
to the exclusion of the other, and seem alriiost to hold
that a reading is more probable in proportion as it Is
harsh, obscure, and difficult to explain, offer no distinct
rule or law for the comparative weight which they ascribe
to different kinds of manuscripts. They assume, with no
attempt at proof, that five witnesses of the fourth and
fifth centuries, and three of the eighth, carry more weight
than fifty times their number of later times, or more than

RATES OF MANUSCRIPT CORRUPTION. $7
an hundred of the eleventh, and the like number of the
tweffth centuiy. The result of such a view must be the
preference of readings opposed alike to the Internal and
the main body of the external evidence, whenever there
has been an accidental concurrence, either of careless
error or mistaken correction of the text, on the part of
those five or six scribes of the fourth and fifth centuries
whose copies happen to have survived all the thou
sands of their own date, and alone have reached our own
day. 72. The total error in a MS. must depend on the
number of transcriptions it has undergone In derivation
from the first original. It consists of the suni of the
changes thus introduced, deducting all which have been
reversed in a later transcription. But no record of these
remains. We can only guess at their number from the date
of the Ms., and even this Is seldom exactly known. These
transcriptions may vary greatly in their distance from each
other in time, and in the care with which they were made. A
"MS. may be copied from another made in the same year,
or from another some centuries old. A copying may
introduce less than half, or more than double, the average
amount of error, and in some cases more faults may be
removed than the new errors introduced. All we Certainly
know is that the total number of variations in the five or
six hundred extant MSS. is very great, and must have
entered somewhere In the Interval from the date of the
New Testament. There must, on the whole, have been
an increase of error with the lapse of time, but even this
is subject to important exceptions. For errors may be
removed, as well as added to, in later copyings. This
would always be the case, when they were copied with
especial care, and collation of the earlier MSS. was

58 ON THE PROBABLE RATES
practised with moderate judgment, in giving birth to a
new manuscript,
73. The altered and unaltered parts, after one tran
scription, being r and 1, after n transcriptions they will be
1 and (1 + ry — 1, and the logarithms of the reciprocals of
r and (1 -f r)" ^ 1 will represent the evidential weight of
a manuscript after 1 or m steps of derivation. This index,
for each copy, must have gone on increasing in Its own
descent. Th^ mean interval would also probably Increase
from the first century onward, since the minimum limit
of age was always the same, bnt the maximum went on
enlarging continually. The ratio of error, also, in a single
transcription, would probably increase for some time, but
then diminish, when once the amount of actual divergence
was considerable, When the diversity had become
marked and conspicuous, a period of greater care and
caution would succeed, with efforts to restore and then to
retain a purer text. The simple plan of using three MSS.
for a fresh copy, and following a double authority in cases
of disagreement, would steadily lessen the amount of error
in MSS. formed under such a rule, and the original be
recovered, almost with perfect accuracy, by three or four
steps of transcription and revision of this more exact and
careful kind.
74. Since the dates of the several transcriptions are
unknown, the intei-vals which separated them, and also
the degrees of accuratry in each, it is useless to form a scale
depending on their number alone, instead of one for the
mean ratio of error accumulated in a given interval of time.
In this way the two sources of irregularity will in some
degree neutrahze each other. The simplest plan, then,
is to form a scale for the proportion of error after the
lapse, of so many centuries. The evidential weight.

OF MANUSCRIPT CORRUPTION. 59
after one century, being log 1 -i- r, and after n centuries
log 1 -T- (1 -f r)" — 1, the first questlpn to settle Is the most
probable values for the index n, depending on the date.
A first approximation is to reckon the fraction of the first
century to the. year A.D, 100 as equivalent to a full century,
and the second and third centuries together equal to three
of later times, as in Nos. 35^ — 38, But further reflection will
shew the need for a further deviation from the uniform
scale, in order to approach near to the relative values.
75. First, it Is clear that the first thirty or forty years,
'from the dates of the Gospels and Epistles to the end of
the first century, must have answered at least to two full
centuries of later times, in their tendency to lower the
purity of the text. If ten copies -were taken from each of
the originals, and ten again from each of these, and ten
from each of the last, then, when the total reached a thou
sand, a hundred would be of the second order of descent,
and the rest of the third. So that assuming one transcrip
tion in 100 years for the later centuries, the first correction
of the scale ¦would be to reckon, the ages of the MSS. by
the interval from B.C. 100, instead of their actual date.
But again, in the second and third centuries, the mean
interval of descent, or the age of a MS. when copied, must
probably have been from one-half to one-third of that in
the latest time. And when the Church was yet In Its
infancy, and its numbers fast increasing, so that many
fresh copies were required every year, there is reason to
think that the average care and caution In copying was
less than in later times, It was about the beginning of
the third century that attention was first called by Origen
and others to the diversity of readings, and to the number
of careless errors or wilful corruptions which had crept In.
Thus, o^,d, priori grounds, there , is reason to think that

66 ON THE PROBABLE RATES

each quarter century from A.D. 100 to 300 involved an
increase of error equal to that of a full century in the
latest times. And thus, the index of A.D. 100 would
answer to 2, that of A,D. 200 to 6, and that of A.D. 300 to
10, in a uniform scale, or be equal to that of two, six or
ten centuries.
76. When the error had spread thus far, so as, with
the :^ scale, to affect nearly one part in four, it would
naturally arrest the attention, and cause systematic efforts
to counteract the evil. Soon after the days of Origen this
process may have begun, and lasted perhaps for two
centuries, through the season of special critical and eccle
siastical activity from the eve of the Nicene Council to the
accession of Justinian. Then, probably for one or two
centuries, the efforts for removing en-or In fresb transcrip
tions might nearly balance the risk of its further increase.
77. The seeming proportion of error will of course be
larger with a larger unit. Our modern verses have an
average of 18 words, and when a verse is made the unit, an
error in any single word will transfer the whole verse from
the pure to the faulty or altered portion. The clause of
six words, or three clauses to each verse, will be a con
venient unit, and is rather less than the ancient a-rl'xo^i
¦which has an average of 7\ words. The rate of 2|- per
cent, of error to a century will then answer, in sixteen
centuries, to the error of one part in three, or to an
average of one fault for every verse^ This seems an ex
treme of probable corruption through the whole range of
the Gospels, though a double rate^ or higher, may obtain
In special texts.
78. The index of degradation, by the "former re
marks, for the middle and close of each century from
the third onward, and the relative evidential weight, or

OF MANUSCRIPT CORRUPTION. 6l
-— logi (1 -f- r)" — 1 for the mean rate 2 J per century, and
.the double, or 5 per cent rate, w:ill be as follows ;
' A. D. n r=!2\.r=5 A.D. % r=2j' r=5

250

8'

66

32

800

H

58

23

300

10^

55

20

' 850

10

55

20

350

n

'58

23

950

11

50

15

400

9

60

26

> 1050

12

46

10

450

•8|

63

29

1150

13

42

5

500 ¦)
650 ¦

8

66

32

1250
. 1350

14 15

38 35

1

700

8J

63

29

14.'50

16.

31

750

9

60

26

1550

17

28

79. The witnesses to be combined include nearly five
hundred dated MSS., two of the fourth, three of the fifth,
and three of the eighth century, with sixteen fragments,
and ten of the ninth century, these mainly uncial; and
of the later centuries, all cursive except three of the tenth.
Cent, X. 22; xi. 123; xii. 116; xiii. 78; xiv. 57; xv. 32;
xvi. 28 ; or a total of 474 manuscripts, of which the date
is given, approximately. In Dr Scrivener's Introduction.
80. There are eleven versions, between the close of
the first and of the sixth century, if we count the Peschito,
the NItrian or Curetonian Syriac, of which one copy has
been lately found, the Jerusalem and Phlloxenlan Syriac,
as distinct and independent. To these are to be added
the Old Latin or ItaUc, and the Vulgate ; the Coptic
and Sahidic ; the Gothic, Armenian, and .^thiopic. The
number of Fathers, or works of unknown authorship, cited
by Dean Alford, is about 160. But barely one fourth
of these supply any considerable amount of evidence as
to the sacred text. The amount, also, varies much in
different authors. Thus Iren^us quotes about 660 verses

62 RATES OF MANUSCRIPT CORRUPTION.
of the Gospels out of 3760, or just one sixth of the whole,
while Chrysostom gives us nearly a continuous commen
tary. In general, on. examining the references in Alford,
there is an average of five or six patristic authorities on
each disputed reading. The evidence, of a version may
be roughly rated as equivalent tp that of a MS. coeval
with Its own date. The evidence of the Fathers varies
much from passage to, passage, but on the average may
be nearly equal to that of five or ,slx early MSS,
The way Is now prepared for a closer examination of
the earliest witnesses.

CHAPTER VII,
THE VATICAN AND SINAITIC MSS.
81. Two very different estimates have been formed of
the weight due to these two earliest MSS. compared -with
all of later times. Most recent critics exalt them to almost
absolute supremacy, which reduces all the five hundred'
others to complete insignificance. Tischendorf gives the
palm to the Sinaitic, his own discovery. He assigns it
•such weight that In his 8th edition he has altered the text
of his 7th edition In 3369 places, chiefly from deference to
this one added witness, Drs Westcott and Hort decidedly
prefer the Vatican, But they say of both that we
•ought to be very thankful for their exceptional excellence,
and that few of their own age can have been so pure.
The final result of their discussion on the formation and
mixture of texts is that a vast numerical majority of
witnesses must be treated as having no primary authority.
The right method of recovering the true text, in their
judgment, differs by a mere shade from what it would be
if the 480 MSS, from century ix, onward had perished
altogether, 82. Dr Scrivener dissents in part, and Dean Burgon
and Mr MacClellan more entirely, from this exclusive tmst
in two or three, or five at most, of the oldest MSS. The

64 THE VATICAN AND
last speaks of the servile deference paid to these two sur
vivors of the fourth century, which threatens us, he says,
with bondage to a corrupt Egyptian text. The Dean
observes that much is required in the way of further
collation of MSS., Versions, and Fathers, before textual
criticism can emerge from its present. Infancy. "When
this has been done, the plausible, hypothesis, on which
recent recensions of the text have for the most part been
conducted, will be found no longer tenable, and the latest
decisions in consequence will be generally reversed."
,83. I agree mainly with these remarks. But I do
not think the principles followed by most recent/ mtlcs
so much as plausible. Their entire error, when submitted
to strict Inquiry, seems to me a matter qf demonstration.
If we combine all the real data, and set aside a large
amount of unprpved hypothesis and loose conjecture, by
which those data have been obscured and overlaid. Those
principles, toOj when carried out to their logical results,
involve a complete undermining of all historical certainty
as to the true text of the New Testament, which many c^
.the able scholars who have adopted them would be arndtig '
the first to deprecate and deplore. And I think it possibl^.
from Dr Tisch endorf's own labours, to obtain data for ^
full refutation of his own excessive estimate of these two
early MSS., although shared by Dean Alford, and Drs
Tregelles, Westcott, and Hort, and almost imposed on us
as a matter of moral and religious obligation to receive. '
84. Tischendorf's edition of the Sinaitic MS. In 1865
gives us the text, alte,red in 190 places in the Gospels to ex
clude some manifest errors, where he replaces the reading d,
pnmd manu by one of the countless self-corrections that
are one great feature of the MS. Three sets of notes are
attached. The first gives these self-corrections, or.varia^

SINAITIC MANUSCRIPTS. 6$
tions of the MS. from itself. The second gives the different
readings of B or the Vatican, and the third those of
Stephen's Edition, or the usually Received Text.
The Four Gospels contain 1071 + 678 + 1151 + 880 or
3780 verses, and 2560 -I- 1616 -I- 2740 -F 2024 or 8940
tnlxoi. The words are about 67000, or 19100 + 12600 +,
20300 -t- 15000. But the passages Mar. xvi. 9—20, Joh. vll.
53 — vIII. 11, are wanting in both MSS., and contain 12
verses each and about 30 a-ri'xpi, or clauses of six words
.each, and 360 words. When these are deducted the basis
of calculation will be as follows.
85, The numbers for the Four Gospels will be these :
Verses 1071 -F 666 -f- 1151 +' 868= .3756
'ZtLxoi 2560 -M586 + 2740 -f 1994= 8880
Clauses 3213 -f 2006 -t- 3453 -I- 2608 = 11280
Dfff^ofNandK 404 -f- 226 -t- 496-1- 443= 1569
„ ofNandB 835 -f- 638 -f 952 -M043 = 3468
' „ of^andR 1074 + 1030-1-1471 + 1176= 4751
Corrections of N 48+ 28+ 73+ 41= 190,
But in comparing MSS., to determine their relative
purity or proportions of error, no corrections can be intro
duced without falsifying the problem. Hence the numbers
of the last row must be added to the two above, and they
become Diff^of^andB 883+ 666 + 1025 + 1084 = 3658;
Diff^ of J? and R 1122 + 1058 + 1544 + 1217 = 4941,
86. Now ff we take the o-Tt'xo? for the unit, we shall
have for M and B differences 3658, agreements '5222; and
for J^ and R, differences 4941, agreements 3939. Hence,
' on the hypothesis most favourable to the two MSS., that
they are invariably right when they agree, and assigning
half of their differences as the only errors of each, the
B, 5

66 THE VATICAN AND
ratio is 7051 + 1829, giving ratio of the altered part to the
rest -2594, answering to rather more than 9 centuries in
the medium or probable scale. If we take the clause of
six words, or one-third of a verse, as the unit, the ratio In
the same extreme case will be 9451 + 1829, or -19352,
answering to *l\ centuries in the same scale.
Of tbe differences above, 1950 are common. In which
B and R agree in their deviation from ^, so that the
differences of B and R are only 2991, while those of N and
R are 4941, a proportion of 3 to 5. Dividing their differ
ences 3658 In this ratio as a more probable distribution,
¦we have 1372 for the errors of B and 2286 for those of X,
and 1372 -r 9908 and 2286 -r 8994 for the fraction of error
ih each. This is -1384 for B and -2542 for 5{, and answers
to h\ and 9J centuries respectively. In this extreme
hypothesis, which assigns to B and ^ infallible excellence |
when they agree, and distributes their certain errors
between them in the ratio of their divergence from the
Received Text, the weight of B Is -860 and that of }^ -595
by the table, that of a MS. of the 11th century being -462,
and of cent. xv. -428. In other words, on the hypothesis
most favourable to the early MSS., and specially to the
Vatican, its weight is exactly that of two MSS. of the
15 th century, • while the Sinaitic weighs only one-third
jnore than an average MS. of the eleventh century, or of
index 12 In the table.
87. But the idea that all the differences of the Re
ceived Text from both B and N, in number 2991, are due
to its fault and not to theirs, is plainly preposterous. Let
us next assume that one-fifth only are faults of B and J^,
and let these be added to 1708 and 1950, the number of
B's differences from both N and R, and of {^'s differences!,
from both B and R. Then 2304 and 2548 will be the num-«

SINAITIC MANUSCRIPTS. 6j
ber of faulty clauses In the two MSS. and the fractions of
error '2566 and -2918 respectively. These correspond to
9^ and 10 j centuries in the scale.
88. But ff we make the Received Text, provisionally, of
equal weight to either of the two MSS., or their conjoint
weight as 2 to 1, then one-third of Its differences from
both win probably be right, or 997 must be added to their
-errors, proved by their divergence alone. The two numbers
wUl then be 2705 and 2947, or assuming them equal 2826,
and the ratio of error 2826 -f- 8454, or one-third and
upward, and answers to an Index of llf centuries in the
scale. 89. These conclusions, from the internal evidence of the
divergences of the two MSS., on which Dean Burgon has
Insisted in general terms, may be thus given in a tabular
form. The 3658 differences of B and t? may be divided
equaUy between them, or in the ratio of their respective
disagreements with the Received Text, and taken either
as their whole error, or else increased by one-fifth or one-
third of the cases where their joint authority is opposed
to the Received Text. The answering errors, out of 11280
clauses, will be 1829, 1372, 2286; 2427, 1970, 2884; 2826,
2369, and 3283. The resulting fractions of error are -1935,
•1384 and -2542; -27414,-2566 and -2918 ; -3342, -2658 and
-4105. These, In the 2J per cent, scale, answer to 7i, hi,
%l centuries in the first case, ^, 2\ and 10 J In the second,
and llf, 9 J and 14 centuries In the third.
The scale provisionally assumed before, which ascribes
a decline equal to 10 mean centuries to the date
A.D. 300, and 9J to the date A.D. 350, Is thus shewn not
to be excessive, and is equalled or exceeded by the errors of
the only two survivors of that date, as proved by their
divergence alpne, tegether with a moderate estimate of
5—2

68 THE VATICAN AND
their probable errors in their cases of common divergence
from the reading of the Received Text.
90. The same general conclusion may be put In
another -way, which is perhaps still more striking.. The
interval of time from the date of the Gospels to that of
these MSS., referring them to the middle of the fourth
century, is 290 years. Now if the rate of error, proved
by their divergence alone, and treating them as infallible
where they agree, were continued In later years, it would
make the erroneous or corrupt part one-half of the whole
after 1136 years, or at the end of the 12th century. But
ff they are further in error only once In ten times, where
they are jointly opposed to the Received Text, then a MS.
of the date A. D. 1020 would cease to have any weight as
evidence, and would contain as many corrupted or altered
clauses as those which were still a faithful copy of the
original text. Thus all MSS. after the close of the tenth
centuiy would be almost wholly useless as evidence for
determining the original text. And thus the price which
must be paid for tbe excessive value which modem critics
have placed on these two earliest MSS. Is the destruction
of our faith in the power of writing to transmit any reve
lation in a trustworthy form beyond the limit of nine and
a half centuries, or less than a thousand years. , But such
a conclusion is wholly unnatural and incredible.
91. The notion, then, of any exceptional merit In
these two MSS. above their contemporaries can only be
maintained by a general degradation of the MSS. of that
age below those of an earlier or a later date. In fact, the
phenomena they present agree with the conclusion we
have deduced from other facts, that A. D. 300 answers to a
decline of purity, never exceeded till we descend as low
as the middle of the eighth century. It follows that their '

SINAITIC MANUSCRIPTS. 6g
weight as evidence Is slightly less, Instead of vastly greater,
than that of the later uncials, and surpasses that of an
average MS. of the 12th century only in about the pro
portion of four to three.
92. All those alterations, then, of the Received Text,
which have been based on the erroneous assumption that
each of these two MSS. is equal in evidential value to
fifty or a hundred cursive MSS., I agree with Dean
Burgon and Mr MacClellan, must be renounced and re
versed, whenever the Text of the New Testament comes
to be settled on clear and definite principles with regard
to the just estimation of the weight of manuscript evi
dence.

CHAPTER YIII,
ON THE LATERAL INDEPENDENCE OF MSS.
93.. The subject, thus far, has been the relative
weight of MSS. of different ages, on the whole, or on the
average through their whole extent. The oldest, it has
been shewn, does not exceed the weight of two of the
latest, and those of the date A. D. 300 or 350 do not rank
higher than 10 or 9J centuries of degradation, when
referred to a uniform scale.
94. The true principle, however, of sound criticism.
Is not the grouping of MSS., as if each -were a mere unit,
by their coUective agreements or differences. This would
render the whole problem hopeless of solution from the
entire absence of the historical materials, which are
essentiail fof a Complete genealogy of the extant MSS.
We cmght, on the contrary, to resolve them into their
different parts, and to collect the total evidence for the
rival readings in each disputed passage, almost as If it
stood alone. Critics have done this to a great extent
from sheer necessity. But the reasons for this course,
which Is diametrically opposite to the principle of deciding
by a grouping and classification of entire MSS., has never
received a direct discussion.
95, Each Gospel or Epistle itself is one organic whole;
and its parts are linked together by an essential and

INDEPENDENCE OF MANUSCRIPTS. 71

organic unity. But the errors which enter into the
several copies, and distinguish them from each other,
have no such unity. They arise either from carelessness,
intentional corruption, or faulty attempts to correct and
remove previous errors, on the part of successive copyists.
Totals of error thus produced are bound together by no
organic law, and have scarcely any dependence on each
other In passing from one part of a MS. to another.
Thus the errors in different parts of the same MS.
have no lateral union. The only real links of connection
are in the lines of vertical descent, by which every verse
or clause Is derived from the answering verse or clause of
the original. At whatever step of descent an error creeps
in, it will be transmitted to later copies In the same series,
until the care and better judgment of some later scribe
reverses the fault of his predecessor, and thus restores the
true and original reading.
96. The balance, then, of testimony for and agamst
any reading does not depend on the total amount of error
In the MSS. which contain or reject It, In other books,
chapters, or verses. It depends on the number and age,
the purity or corruption, of the rival witnesses in that
passage alone. The errors of a MS. are not spread evenly
over its whole extent. Some parts may have been copied
from a very good, others from a very inferior and imperfect
copy. Whatever the steps of the change, a large part
remains still free from error. The rest has not merely a
certain risk or chance of error, but is actuaUy wrong,
Each clause or word is either the same with the Prigl:,
nal,, or differs from it, and is actually more or less
erroneous. The ratio of the true and unaltered part to the altered
throughout the whole, is no sufficient guide in dealing.

72 ON THE LATERAL
with any particular verse. If we set aside a certain
number of disputed texts, the proportion of the true to
the altered texts in the rest, or for each text, that of the
sound to the altered MSS., is certainly much higher than
two to one. If only as high as four to one, it will answer
to the mean likelihood of truth after nine centuries at
the rate of 2|- per cent., or be slightly higher than the
average value of the Vatican and Sinaitic through their
whole extent, as proved by their differences from each
other alone.
97. Let us now consider the exceptional cases, where,
for some cause or other, the centurlal rate of error has
been double, or 5 per cent Then after 14 centuries the
derived copies will lose all weight as evidence for the
truth of their offered reading. One taken at hazard will
be as likely to be false as true. This index, in our
modified or approximate scale, answers to A.D. 1250, or
the middle of the 13th century. In aU such cases the 117
MSS. of the 14th, l5th and 16th centuries will cease to
have any weight at aU as evidence.
98. How, then, may we distinguish the cases in which
the rate of error has been high and exceptional ? In a
direct and simple way.- The total amount of centuries of
transcription, for the 18 or 16 uncial MSS. and the 456
cursives, is about 6200. Suppose the true reading, usually,
to be that which is found in the greatest number of copies,
then if more than 62 x 2|= 155 deviate from this predomi
nant reading, there Is proof, in that verse or clause, of a rate
pf error above the average. If, however, we assume the
reading of a small minority to be the true, there must be, on
that hypothesis, a high and excessive rate of error. But
then this conclusion depends on that hypothesis alone,
and ceases when it is set aside. Again, ff the MSS. are

INDEPENDENCE OF MANUSCRIPTS. 73
nearly equally parted between three readings, then, which
ever we adopt, the percentage of error will be not less
than 316 -T- 62, or rather more than five per cent.
99. When numbers are on one side, and the consent
of a smaller number of ancient authorities on the other. We
may reckon the rate of error which must have prevailed,
if the less numerously attested reading Is preferred. And
we must then Inquire whether any reason can be given
why this higher rate, 4, 5, 6 or 7 per cent., should have
prevailed in this particular passage with copyists in
general through successive ages, and through the whole
extent of tbe Church or of the Roman Empire. The
frequent adoption of such an hypothesis, with no special
presumptions In its favour, must tend to undermine the
very foundations of our faith In the secure transmission of
the Divine oracles from one age to another. It degrades
written revelation nearly to the same level of uncertainty
with loose, floating, unwritten tradition.
100. The main doctrine here advanced, when once we
reflect upon It, seems to be certain and clear beyond a
reasonable doubt. Mistakes In one part of a MS. have no
causal power to Induce mistakes in another and wholly
distinct portion. The causal connection Is in the vertical
lines alone ; and these lines, for the 8000 verses, or 24000
clauses of the New Testament, are almost entirely distinct.
There are a few exceptional cases, as In the last twelve
verses of St Mark. In others, two or three streams of
descent may be mingled, where a copyist uses more MSS.
than one. But even then the connection, though more
complex, is vertical, and not lateral. The Idea of a local
or Western text, in which a common character of total,
collective deviation from the truth prevails and propa
gates itself within definite geographical limits, seems to

74 ON THE LATERAL
me a mere illusion, and its exjistence in the very nature
of things impossible. The MSS. of a given district, at a
given date, will of course have a certain number which
exhibit particular false readings In this or that passage.
The proportion will alter slowly as new copies are made,
or imported into the district, and as the error is repeated
in thera or else removed,. But these proportions formed
In this way have no causal or organic character. A
mistake In one or two Codices has no Influence to induce
the same error in others of the same date, but only in
those of a later generation. Also an error or false reading '
In one chapter or verse has no power to create or' prevent
similar, but distinct errors. In other verses or chapters' of
the same manuscript.
101. Sound Criticism, then, In the choice between rival
lections, does not depend on conjectural groupings of
hundreds and thousands of perished MSS. from the second
to the sixth century, nor on guesses at the filiation of the
dozen or score of early authorities which still survive.
The attempt to distribute these Into families by the
totality of their various readings, and then to substitute
these recensions or conjectural families for their individual
components mu.st fail for two reasons. First, we have really
no materials for executing such a task. Five or six MSS.
between A.D. 300 and 600 are all that are now extant out
of two or three thousand. To restore the readings of those
thousands of MSS. in 8000 verses or 24000 clauses from
these five or six alone, with the help of the loose qiiota^
tions in the Fathers, or the imperfect evidence of the
Versions, is plainly quite hopeless. The data are either,
wholly wanting, or exist only In those 400 or 500 later
MSS. and Lectionaries, which the theory now examined
flings aside as worthless.

INDEPENDENCE OF MANUSCRIPTS. 75
102. But even if the materials were ample Instead of
being almost wholly wanting, the method Itseff Is radically
and demonstrably unsound. It overlooks and sets aside
a connection that really exists, and Invents one which Is
purely imaginary and non-existent. Its direct tendency
Is to multiply the weight of documents in proportion as
they abound In error, and to reduce witnesses, however
numerous, to reckon as only one, if they are exceptionally
good and pure, and therefore agree.
103. The Gospels and Epistles themselves have each
of them its own organic unity. But no such unity belongs
to the totals of error introduced Into the separate later
copies by the neglect or fraud of successive scribes. These
are not living organisms, which can be ranked in families, sub-
famihes, and species. They are only aggregates of specks
of dust. The worst MS., in two-thirds of its clauses, is as
good as the best, because it equally retains and exhibits
the tme original text. The best MS., again, in a certain
number, say one-sixth or seventh of the whole, is as faulty
as the worst, because in those clauses it offers a wrong and
not the true reading. And hence the Lateral Independence
of MSS., and the rejection of any artificial estimate of their
value by some imaginary group to which the individual is
fancied to belong, is one of the main principles to be kept
ever in view, if we would form a right estimate of the
coUective evidence on either side. In every case of disputed
readings where the witnesses diverge and disagree,

CHAPTER IX.
THE EARLIER AND THE LATER EVIDENCE.
104. The evidence to be combined is of four kinds;
Uncial MSS., Versions, and Fathers or Patristic Quotations,
and the Cursive MSS. from the tenth century onward, of
Avhich about 456 have their dates assigned in Scrivener's
Introduction. The three first make up what is called
distinctively the Ancient, and the fourth, the Modern
evidence. The latter is treated by most modem critics,
almost as ff it had no existence whatever. Dean Alford ,
ventures to affirm that all the cursives, except four or five
of the oldest, may, for aught we know, be in many cases
no more worthy to be heard in the matter than so many
printed copies of our day. If this be true In many cases
It must be true In all cases whatever. We may not make
our witnesses rise or fall In value by mere caprice. If
hundreds of later MSS. agree with four or five uncials in
some cases, and differ in others, it is ridiculous to assign
them no weight at all in the latter case, and then to
pretend that we give them greater weight in the rest.
We really treat them as mere ciphers in both, and our
judgment will be always decided by the few early MSS.
alone. Is it tme that, for aught we know, 450 extant MSS.
from century xi. downward, have no more worth, as evi-

EARLIER AND LATER EVIDENCE. 77
dence of the readings of the original text, than as many
printed copies of our day ? If this were true, we niight
as well destroy at once all our books of history, which rest
on an amount of testimony, ten or twenty times less than
what is here pronounced probably, or at least possibly,
quite worthless, and cast Ignominiously aside.
105. The uncials to be combined are X and B of the
fourth century, A, C, D of the fifth, E, L, V of the eighth, F,
H, K, M, r. A, A, H, X of the ninth, and G, S, U of the
tenth, or twenty in all, besides fragments I, N, Q, T of the
5th, I, N,P,R,T, Z, 0 of the 6th, T,@ of the 7th and 0,W,Y
pf the 8th century. These in quantity amount to about
3983 verses, and the lacuna In the other uncials to 4467,
so that the amount is rather less than 20 complete MSS.
106. The collective weight in the 2, "2.^, 3, 4, 5 scales
are 13-53, 11-40, 9625, 6-745, 4-413, or an average of -677,
-570, -4812, -3372, -2206 for each uncial. Thus A,C,D,E,L,V
would be slightly above the mean value, and B, K, F, H,
K, M, P, A, A, H, X, G, S, U slightly below it. In the
mean 2|- scale, each of the 20 uncials may be reckoned
to weigh -57, or f of a unit ratio, without sensible error.
107, The versions are eleven,
A.D. 150, Peschito and Old Latin, index 4,
A.D. 200, Curetonian-'Syrlac, Coptic, Sahidic, index 6,
A.D. 350, Gothic, Index 9^; 400 Vulgate, Index 9,
A.D. 450, Armenian, Jerusalem Syriac, index 8|,
A.D. 500, PhUox. Syriac, index 8 ; 550 Aethiopic, 8.
The totals in the five scales are 9-29, 8-12, 7-18, 5-66,
and 4-45, or an average for each version -845, "74, -65,
-515, and -405, or f of a unit ratio. In the mean scale.
108. Of the Fathers we may select 44, with their
approximate dates ;

78 THE EARLIER AND
A.D. 100. Clemens, Ignatius.
150. Justin.
175. Irenseus, TMeophilus, Athenagoras.
200. Tertullian.
225. Clemens, Hippolytus, Africanus.
250. Cyprian, Origen, Dionysius.
300. Arnobius, Lactantlus.
325. Eusebius, Juvencus.
350. Athanaslus, Ephrem, Hilary.
375. Basil, Cyril-Jer., the Gregories, Caesarius, Optatus.
400. Ambrose, August., Chrysostom, Jerome, Gau-
dentlus, Epiphanius, Victor of Antioch,. Isidore,
Prudentius.
425. Prosper, Cyril Alex.
450. Leo, Salvian, Theodoret.
500. Fulgentius, Gelasius, Caesarius of Aries.
600. Gregory of Rome.
Their total amounts in the five scales are 33-1, 28-7,
25-1, 19-2 and 14-4, and the averages -75, -652, '570, -4364,
'328, or for the 2|- scale, nearly f of a unit. Thus sum
ming for the total amounts of the three classes, and taking
for the Fathers one-seVenth, or an average of rather more
than six authorities, we find

Versions,

9-29

8-12

7-18

5-66

4-45

Fathers,

4-73

4-10

3-58

•2-74

2-06

Uncials,

13-53

11-40

9-62

6-74

4-41

Total,

27-55

23-62

20-38

15-14

10-92

109. Each unit, in the above totals, denotes a ratio of
10 to 1, in favour of the reading In which the witnesses
agree. Henee the weight of the ancient authorities alone,
if unanirfwus. Is scarcely overrated, even by modern critics.
In the five different scales it is 10", 10,", 10% 10^^'^ and

THE LATER EVIDENCE. 79
10'-"', or in the 2^ per cent, scale little less than as a
billion of billions to one. But with a partial dissent It
decreases rapidly, both because It then depends on the
excess, and not the whole number, and the rate of error in
that passage Is proved to be high. This rate is approxi
mately one-half of the deficit from 37 of the consenting
authorities, or with the consent of 27 It answers to the
5 per cent, scale and is an excess of 17 authorities, or only
a hundred thousand to one.
110. The later or cursive MSS. have their weight
lessened by two causes, their lower place, individually. In
the scale of values, from the larger number of transcriptions
which have gone before, and the risk of mutual depend
ence, which increases with each fresh transcription. The
former has less effect than Is often assumed. In the
mean or most probable scale and rate a MS. of cent. IV. is
barely equal in weight to two of the 11th, and with a
double rate, or 5 per cent., and the index resulting from
their divergencies alone, to four of the 11th. But in
estimating the collective weight a large abatement has
to be made In the latest centuries.
111. The foUowing approximation seems to give full
weight to the diminution from this cause.
Since 676 MSS. of the Gospels survive even now, and
346' Lectionaries, three centuries after copying has
ceased through the use of printed editions, one thousand
seems a lower limit for the coexisting MSS. of the Gospels
at any time from the fourth century downward, even
exclusive of the mere handful that still remain of centuries
before the tenth. Taking, then, from Dr Scrivener's work,
20, 124, 116, 78, 56, 32, 28 for the dated MSS. from
Cent. X. to Cent, xvi., a total of 454, we may calculate on
the two hypotheses of a transcription once, on the average,
in each. centuiy or haff century. The chance of inde-

So

THE EARLIER AND

pendence or of junction with a prior line of descent in
each transcription, will be 1000 — w :> 1000 when n is the,
number of the MSS. of the previous centuries, plus the
mean, or one-half, of those of the current century. Thus
the reducing factors will be cent. X. 990, cent. XL 918,
cent. XII. 798, cent. Xlll. 701, cent. XIV. 634, cent. XV. 590,
cent. XVI. 560, and the continued product of these Into
the number of the MSS. of each century will give the
equivalent number of independent witnesses. The results;
are cent. XL 112-7; xn. 84-1; xin. 39-67; xiv. 18-0;
XV. 6-1; XVI. 3-0, But the multipliers for the half centu
ries are XI. 949, 887; xn. 827, 769; xiii. 721, 682; xiv.
648, 620; XV. 598, 582; XVL 567, 551. The results are for
cent. XL 57-3 + 50-8 = 108-1 ; xir. 40-0 + 30-7 = 70-7 ; xm.
14-9 + 10-1 = 25; xiv. 4-7 + 2-9 = 7-6 ; xv. 1 + -58 = 1-6;
XVL -29 + -16 = -45. We may thus take cent. x. 20; XL
110; XIL 70 ; xill. 25 ; xiv. 7-5 ; XV. 1-5 ; XVL -5 as ap
proximate equivalents for the collective weight In evidence
of the 20, 124, 116, 78, 56, 32 and 28 dated MSS. of the
centuries from cent. x. to cent. xvi.
112, The final result will then be as follows :

Bate 2

Eate 24

Eate 3

Eate 4

Eate 5

per cent.

per cent.

per cent.

per cent.

per cent.

Cent. IX. 2 MSS.

1-32

1-11

-93

-64

-40

Cent. X. 20 MSS.

12-27

10-11

8-31

5-63

2-97-

Cent. XI. 124=110

62-86

50-86

40-79

24-32

10-91

Cent. xn. 116= 70

37-26

29-53

23-05

12-31

3-69

Cent. XIII. 78= 25

12-39

9-60

7-26

3-39

2-20

Cent. XIV. 56= 7|

1-73

1-31

•95

-36

Cent. XV. 32= \\

-64

-47

-33

•09

Modem,
128-47
102-99
81-62
46-74
20-17
Ancient,
27-55
23-62
20-38
15-14
10-92
Total,
156-02
126-61
102-00
61-88
31-09
THE LATER EVIDENCE. 8 1
113. It results, from this inquiry, in which several
assumptions have been made, unduly favouring the elder
authorities, that with a mean or probable rate of error, of
2J per cent, a century, the Cursives exceed the coUective
weight of the Fathers, Versions and Uncials, rather more
than in the proportion of four to one. With the 4 per
cent, rate, their excess is just three to one, and even with
the double or highly exceptional rate of 5 per cent., their
excess is still almost exactly as two to one. Nor can this
be thought surprising, when we remember that these
cursives are 456 In number, and the earlier witnesses
114-6 + 20 = 37 only, so that the later outnumber them
in the proportion of more than twelve to one. And even
when we have reduced them to the independent lines. Put
of a thousand, which they probably represent, the number
is about 230, or an excess above the earlier of more than
six to one.

CHAPTER X,
THE VARIOUS READINGS IN MATT. I— VIL
114. The way Is now open for an application of the
principles established in the previous chapters to the
details of New Testament criticism, and for a more exact
estimate of the relative weight of the evidence, by which >
the Received Text is either sustained or set aside.
In Dr Scrivener's Manual Greek Testament the diver:';
gent readings of Lachmann, Tischendorf, and Tregelles are
noted for the whole New Testament, and the minor differ
ences of Stephens, Beza, and the Elzevir editions. Of these
there are 1124 in St Matthew alone, and about 630 in
which the three modern editors mainly agree, and most of
these changes are also adopted by Drs Westcott and Hort
in their printed text of the Gospels. Of these 630, 40 con
sist only in a different spelling of some proper name, and
about 90 more in a slight inversion of the order of one or
two words, or other changes so slight as to disappear in
any version. There remain, then, 500, great or small,
which deserve some notice, I propose to examine the
more Important In the first seven chapters, and a selec
tion of those in the rest of the Gospel. The same prin
ciples will apply, of course, to the rest of the New
Testament.

VARIOUS READINGS IN MATTHEW I— VII 83
115. The principles from which I start are these, and
are almost the exact reverse of those which have been In
vogue from the time of Griesbach until now. But their
truth, I believe, rests on a foundation which cannot bei
readily overthrown.
First, the 456 cursive MSS., instead of being an In
significant part of the evidence, which. In Dean Alford's
view, it is a merit to pass by in silence and without
notice, really constitute four-fifths of the whole in weight,
as well as eleven-twelfths in mere number. In excep
tional cases, less favourable to them, their weight may be
two-thirds only. But the entire neglect of them, in any
case, must be a fatal aud fundamental defect.
Next, the twenty uncials, on the average, have less
weight apiece than two MSS. of the eleventh and twelfth
centuries. In fact the two earliest, of the fourth century,
B and X, which are commonly ranked high above the
rest, have each of them a weight, as proved by their dif-^
ferences alone, not greater than two MSS. of the thirteenth
century. 116. Thirdly, the uncials are not very unequal in
value. Supposing a gradual and constant decline, the
earliest would be to the latest as 3 to 2, or three of the
latest of equal weight with the two earliest. But a more
reasonable scale makes the error to have reached a
maximum about A.D. 300, and to have been foUowed by a
partial recovery, so that a MS. of A.D. 350 and a.d. 700
jvould have nearly the same value, the recovery. In that
Interval, balancing the decline. Thus simple enumeration
wUl give a near approach to the relative weight of the
uncial evidence, and B and X are rather below, and not
immensely above, the average.
; Fpurthly, the earliest versions, as the Peschito and the
6—2

84 THE VARIOUS READINGS
Old Latin, may equal in weight three of the latest cursives,
being In the most probable scale as 98 to 31, while three
others are as 80 to 31, or together equal to eight cursives,
and the six later versions equal each to two of the later
cursives only.
117. Fifthly, all these conclusions will be modified in
those cases where there is a special amount of diversity,
proving a higher rate of error to have prevailed. This
may be determined by a full collation of the differencea
in that particular clause or verse alone, and a summing
up of the witnesses on each side. With a double rate of
error, the collective weight of the cursives is twice that of
the ancient evidence, instead of fourfold. The MSS. after
the 13th century then cease to have any evidential weight,
while the oldest versions, the Peschito and the Old Latin,
yi'iW then each be equal in weight to eight MSS. of the
11th century.
Lastly, the total centuries of error for the ancient
witnesses alone, eleven versions, twenty uncials, and six
Fathers, are about 240, so that a deviation of six authorities
from the adopted reading answers to the mean or 2J rate,
and a deviation of 12, or of 10, excluding the Fathers, an
swers to the rate 5 per cent, per century. But for the
ancient and modem together, the witnesses are 490 and
the centuries nearly 6200, sothat there must be an erro
neous reading in 155, or a consent of 335, to answer to
the %\ scale. Only when this amount of error is exceeded,
have we the right to vary the relative estimates by resorting
to the higher scales of MS. deterioration,
118. The first divergence Is In Matt. i. 6, "And David
the king begat, &c." Here Om. 6 jBaa-iXev^, B and J},
Copt, and Arm. verss., Augustine, and most of the modern
editors, Lachmann, Tischendorf, Tregelles, Alford, Drs

IN MATTHEW I— VIL 85
Westcott and Hort. Retain, CEKLMSUVA, and all the
cursives, so far as known, even 33, most of the Latin MSS,,
the later Syriac and the .^thiopic versions.
Thus the weight of the authorities for omission Is une.
1-2, verss. 2-4, F. -6, total 4-2. For the Received Text, une.
5-0, verss. 3-5, total 8-5. Thus the ancient evidence alone
is two to one in its favour. But all the modern MSS. are
on the same side, at least none is quoted by the patrons
of the change, and their weight, 104, is more than eight
times that of the total ancient evidence. The prepon
derance in its favour, then, is nearly thirty to one.
119. Matt. i. 12, R. eyiwrfo-e twice, Aff. yevva twice,
with no authorltybut B alone. Thus one witness, abounding
with faults of mere carelessness, is made to outweigh five
hundred consenting witnesses. Its weight is -56 to 130
or less than one-half per cent. With such vagaries of
criticism, what safety can there be for avoiding any
amount of arbitrary change? Dean Alford has here out
stripped even Lachmann, and stands alone in the race of
.innovation. 120. Matt. i. 18, R. "Jesus Christ." B transposes, and
reads "Christ Jesus," D "Christ" alone. So Drs Tregelles,
Westcott and Hort, and Mr McCleUan. The MS. evi
dence for change, if B and D both omitted "Jesus," which
B retains transposed, is just one per cent, of the whole. I
¦cannot, then, conceive why the omission should have been
pronounced " morally certain."
The Syriac, Coptic, Armenian, ^thlopic Versions,
Origen, and Eusebius, agree with the Received Text. The
Latin Version, the Curetonlan-Syrlac, and Irenseus, are
quoted for the omission. Giving these their fuU weight,
the authority both of Versions and Fathers is In excess
ior the Received Text, while the MS. evidence in Its

86 THE VARIOUS READINGS
favour is in number as 250 or 300 to one, and in weight
as 100 to one.
I believe, also, that the testimony of IrenEEUS is claimed
without cause for the omission. For his Greek text gives
the verse expressly " The birth of Jesus Christ was in this
wise," X. 11. And when he refers to It again xvii. 1, his
argument plainly rests on the presence of the name, Christ,
not on the absence of the other, so that it would be quite
possible that he read both, and quoted here only that
which was essential to his argument. "The Holy Spirit,
foreseeing deceivers, and guarding against their fraud, says
by Matthew, 'The birth of the Christ was thus'.. .lest we
should suspect that Jesus was one and Christ was another,
but might know them to be one and the same." Now
this end is most completely secured by the usual reading.
The internal evidence, I think, in contrast to Mr
McClellan, is hardly less decisive In its favour than the
external. For v. 17 is a parenthetic comment on the
genealogy at Its close. But "Jesus Christ" in v. 1, "Jesus
which is called Christ" In v. 16, and "Jesus Christ," v. 18,
refer to each other, and thus the article before the double
name, instead of being an objection. Is natural and em
phatic. The Book is that of the generation of "Jesus
Christ," and next, of this "Jesus who is called Christ" the
birth was in this way. The external evidence for the
omission is almost none, for the two main witnesses for
any change disprove each other. Dr Scrivener well ob
serves that the mass of evidence forms a body of proof not
to be shaken by subjective notions, which are in truth
quite unsubstantial.
In the same verse, R. yivvrftri'; with EKLMUV, 33 ;
yiveai<s BCPSZA, 1, Syr., Ath., Ens., Max. There is here
a nearly equal balance of ancient authorities, but aU the

IN MATTHEW I-^VlI ' 'Sf

modern, with very rare exceptions, give the Received
Text. 121. Matt. i. 25, R. "her firstborn son." There are
here four various readings :
vlov, KBZ, 1,33, abcgk, Curet.-Syr., Ambrose, HUary,
Greg. Naz. and the Editors LTTr, Alf. WH, and Greeh.
TOV vlov, Coptic; rov viov oi;t^?, Sahidic.
rov vlov rov rrptororoKov, D^L, d.
Bp. Wordsworth and Mr McClellan both adhere to
the usual text. As Mr McClellan justly remarks, "the
verse limps," when the change Is made.
The collective weight of evidence, in the most probable
scale, Is 130. The authorities for change are shared
among four lections ; their conjoint weight is about 8-7
and that of the best supported 5-8, or less than one-
twentieth of the whole.
122. The internal evidence against the omission is just
as complete and decisive as the external. The text as it
Stands, though not a disproof of the dogma of Mary's per*
petual virginity, seems rather to point the other way.
In the third century and later, when this tenet was ready
to be advanced as an article of the faith, there would be a
strong and natural Impulse to get rid in some way of a
perplexing statement. But if the text were maimed for
that purpose. It was nPt easy to give it a consistent and
natural form. Two methods were possible, to omit only
rov TTparoTOKov, or further to omit the article and pro
noun. The Sahidic takes the first course, but BXZ and
one or two other MSS. and three Fathers the second.
But the lameness and unnaturalness of this lection, even
if it had ten times as many witnesses in its favour, is
decisive against it. If so much is omitted, it is essential
that vlov too should be omitted. For that- the birth ' was

88 THE VARIOUS READINGS
that of a son, and not of a daughter. Is plain already from
the whole context. Thus either Ito? ov ercKev, or ew? ov
ereKe rov vihy avrrji}, is a reading credible in itself, but
eis)? ov 'ireicev vlov is unmeaning and intolerable.
On the contrary the Received Text, besides combining
nineteen-twentieths of the whole evidence, is consistent and
natural, and links itself with a whole series of types in the
Old Testament and several texts In the New, where our
Lord is styled the firstborn from the dead, and the first
born among many brethren,
123. This is the first passage noted In Mr Green's
"Develpped Criticism." But his remarks seem to me a
complete inversion, of all the rules of sound reasoning.
The chief ground for preferring the reading of BNZ
against hundreds^ of authorities is an hypothesis of the
proneness of scribes to add glosses, rather than make
omissions; but especiaUy the fact that the shorter reading,
if original, could hardly escape the application of supple
mentary glosses. This is certainly tme, just as it is true
that a clerical misprint pr faulty copy, In which the last
letter or syllable of a word was accidentally omitted, would
be almost sure to be corrected in all later copies. The
preferred reading carries falsehood on ifs face, and Is the
only one of the four which contradicts common sense,
which is not the case with the Coptic, Sahidic or Bezan
varieties. But this variety itself multiplies the evidence a thou
sand-fold against every deviation from the usual text.
The chances against the same reading being found in all
the existing copies, if their number is n, are increased in
the ratio of 4" to one. In the case, of 300 MSS., this Is
a million self-multiplied thirty times.
, ,124. Matt. il. 11. elhoy for evpov is confirmed by nearly

IN MATTHEW I— VIL 89

all the MSS. The transpositions in vv. 3, 8, 19, 22 are of
slight importance, though as usual the evidence against
the change in eaph case is greater than in Its favour.
125. Matt. ii. 18. eprjvo<i kuI is omitted by NBZ, 1,
Syr., Syr. Jer., Copt., Latt, -^thlop., Justin, Ambrose,
Jerome, Hilary, Optatus. The fuller reading Is In CDE
KLMSUVA, 33, Curet.-Syr., Phllox. and Armenian ver
sions. So far as appears, it is found in all the cursives,
except the one cited for the omission.
The ancient authorities for the omission are 14 in
number, with a coUective weight = 10. Those for the
retention twelve in number, and in weight about 8. But
on the same scale the weight of the cursives, if unanimous,
would be 105, and only one of them is. alleged for the
omission. Thus the total evidence against the omission
is more than eleven to one.
126. Matt. II. 21. For ^X0e of Received Text, the
compound ela-rjXOev is found In BNC and the Coptic
Version, and adopted by the Editors LTTr, Aff., and
WH. The ancient authorities for the change are four
only, three MSS. and one version. For the Received Text
are the MSS. DEKLMSUVA, and the Old Lat., Syrr., and
Sahidic versions. The uncials in its favour are nine to
three, and the versions six to one. Thus all the modem
evidence, four-fifths of the whole. Is in Its favour, and
three parts in four of the remaining fifth. The evidence
for the change is just one-twentieth part of the whole.
127. Matt. iii. 2. Omit Kal, XBg^, Copt., Sahid.,
Jlthiop., Hilary. And so Edd. LTTr, Aff, WH. There
are only five ancient witnesses for the omission, and
against .It CDEKLMSUVA, Latt, "Syr., . Arm., fourteen
authorities, ten uncials, and four versions. That is, nearly
three to one, and all the cursives, as before. , .

90 THE VARIOUS READINGS
128. Matt. ill. 6. Add irorap^, NBC'MA, 1, 33, Syrr.,
Copt, Sahidic, ^thiop.. Arm., Basil, and so LTTrWH
but not Alf.
Received Text, C'DEKLSUV, Lat. and Vulg., Ghrysost,'
and Hilary, and Mn and Wd,
Here the ancient witnesses for the insertion are 14 to
12, a slight excess in its favour, and their values 10 and 7.
To the latter adding the cursives, the total Is 112 against
and 10 in favour. Or with a doubled rate of error th6
values are 4*7, 2-6 and 19-2, or 4-7 for the addition and
21-8 against, that Is, an excess of near four to one for
the usual text.
The Internal evidence Is equally decisive.
The two reasons, which explain the presence of the word
in Mark i. 5, here are both reversed. The river has been
already named before, and this first Gospel was specially
written for Jewish Christians in Palestine, to whom
Jordan was a most familiar name, and could need no
-explanation. On both grounds the insertion is superfluous
and unnatural. Its presence, in six MSS. only out of
five hundred, is thus one of the clearest cases of faulty-
assimilation. 129. Matt Hi. 11. iJ/ia? ^aTrrL^a,- LTTrWH, not
Alf., with j^B, 1, 33, Justin, Orig, BasU, Chrys., Cypr.,
Cyril. The MSS. evidence for the change of order Is not
one-fortieth of the whole in weight, and in number not
one-hundredth. And on a point of such minuteness, the
order of the two words in a patristic quotation can have
little weight, especially when v/ta? ^arrrlaet foUows imme
diately in the same verse.
130. Matt. iv. 4. +0, NBCDELPUVZA, 1, 33. Om.
KMS and Euseb. The uncials are eleven to three for
the insertion. In Luke iv. 4 they are nearly equally

IN MATTHEW V—VIL^ 9^
divided; F'HKMSUTA, 69 or eight for the omission,
ABKDEGLVA, or nine, including the four oldest, for in,-
sertlPn, In the two together there, are 20 uncials for
insertion and 11 for omission. The Insertion is justified
by the ancient evidence. But even here the preponderance
Is not decisive.
131. Matt Iv. 12. Om. 6 'lT]aov<;, NBC'DZ, 33, am,for,k,
Copt., .^thlop., Orig., Eus., August. Retain with R,
C'EKLMPSUVA, 1. Old Lat., Vulg, Syrr.^ Armen.,
Hilary, Gaudentius.
The MS. evidence, even of the uncials alone, is in
its favour, nine to four, seven versions to two. Including
the three oldest, and all the cursives but one or two.
The Internal evidence is the same. The fuller pause thus
made between the Temptation and the Public Ministry
agrees best with the structure of the Gospel,

The Sermon on the Mount.
The changes In the text advocated here by modern
critics are very important, as they affect both the funda
mental code of Christianity and its one authoritative
pattern of worship.
132. Matt V. 11. Om. ^evBofievoi, D, Orig., Tert.,
HIL, and so LWH and Green. Retain, TTr, Alf., Str.,
Wdw., Mn.
The omission Is thus supported by one MS. only out
of near five hundred; three Syriac versions, six Latin
MSS. out of twenty, and perhaps three Fathers. Thus
the whole ancient evidence is one uncial out of ten,
three versions out of eleven, and three Fathers, their total
weight about 6 + 2-4 + 2-0 = 5 out of 21, while the consent
¦of aU the cursives, 105 is in the same scale with the

92 THE VARIOUS READINGS
residue. Thus the total evidence is as 5 to 121, or an
excess of twenty-four to one for the Received Text.
Mr Green boldly rejects it. In the teeth of this im
mense preponderance of testimony, on internal grounds
alone. He calls it an instance "of the effects of an
ill timed officiousness, engaged in stocking the margin
with superfluous expressions, and furnishing the first step
to an incumbrance of the text with feeble and imper
tinent accretions."
Now this word, by the consenting evidence of five
hundred witnesses, all agreeing, is one of those spoken by
the Divine Lawgiver, who said " Heaven and earth shall
pass away, but my words shall not pass away." The
criticism which, endorsing the neglect or oscitancy of
one solitary copyist, applies to this word of the Son of'
God the title of a feeble and impertinent accretion I
prefer to leave without any description of my own.
But the word is said to be " altogether a redundance
as regards the sense." Reproach against true servants of
Christ In enmity to their Master cannot rest on truth, and
thus the declaration need not be guarded by a formal
.hypothesis of falsehood in the charges alleged.
This, however, Is plainly and notoripusly untrue. True
charges, as well as false, may be brought, and often have
.been brought, against disciples of Christ, and yet In
enmity to Him whose name they bear, and whpse disciples
they profess to be. Few things have been more frequent
than this union of substantial truth in the matter of the
charge, and of malice in its motive. The word thus
fulfils a double purpose. It is both emphatic and
cautionary. It places in clearer light the guilt of the
malicious persecutors, whose malice prompts them, not
;0n.ly to taunt Christians with their real faults, but to add

IN MATTHEW V—riL gj

others of their own invention. And It gives the caution,
more fully expressed in 1 Pet. iv. 15, 16, that Christians
may expose themselves to reproaches really deserved, and
that in that case they have no claim to a part in this
blessing, however malicious their accusers may be.
The word, then. Is no "Impertinent accretion," but an
Integral part of one of the weightiest messages of Him
who is the Supreme Lawgiver, the Word and Wisdom of
God. 133. Matt. V. 22. Om. elKfj, KBA'', Vulg, .^thiop.,
Justin ? Origen, Pseud. -Basil, Pseud.-Ath., Aug., Jerome,
Juvencus, Salvian, Chronlcon ? And so most recent Edd.,
LTTr (Alf.?) WH, Green.
Retain, DEKLMSUVA^ 1, 33, abcfffg,„hlm, Syrr.,,
Copt., Goth., Arm., Iren^us, Greg. Nyss., Chrys., Cyril,
Isidore, Theodoret, Theoph., Euthymius, Cyprian, Hilary,
Optatus, Lucifer. Thus the ancient authorities are 11 un
cials, 11 versions, and 20 Fathers. Of these one uncial has
both readings, and two uncials^ two versions and eight
Fathers are for the omission, but 8 uncials, 8 versions,
and 12 Fathers for the Received Text, or 28 witnesses to
12. Thus the ancient evidence Is more than two to one
In its favour, and the whole weight of the cursives, with
a few exceptions, perhaps three or four at most, is in the
same scale. The adverse evidence Is about 8, the favour
able about 19 + 105 or 124, more than fifteen to one.
But St Jerome " describes the evidence of copies In his
time as strongly adverse, and decides accordingly," and
Mr Green says that " his information respecting contem
porary evidence could not be otherwise than correct."
Surely a startling assertion, when Chrysostom, Cyril,
Theodoret, Hilary, Optatus, Lucifer, of the same age, all
recognize the presence of eixr] in the text. The Fathers

$4 THE VARIOUS READINGS
are notoriously and habitually inexact in statements of
this kind. The words' of Jerome may prove that, the
word was wanting in a good number of copies in his day,
but that is the utmost they can prove In the face of such
counter evidence. The ancient witnesses In its favour are
more than two to- one, while in the later MSS. there is
scarcely an Instance of its omission.
134. Alford, who retains it doubtfully, says that '
the internal evidence is equally indecisive with the ex
ternal. In fact it is equally decisi-ve in its favour. To'
justify the omission Mr Green offers a modified interpre
tation of the phrase, evo^ps r^ Kpia-ei. " Judicial responsl-.
bility as to whether each particular act Is justifiable is the
utmost that Is signified by the words. It Is a limiting
proviso added to the summary command. Thou shalt not
kill " (Dev. Grit. p. 5)., The meaning, on this view, is that
every one who is angry, whether his anger be right or
Wrong, will be liable to a judicial Inquiry, whether It has
had a sufficient cause, and not exceeded due bounds.
"This simple view of the passage does hot require any
saving term." But how then must we explain the two
other clauses, " shall be In danger of the council," " shall
be In danger of hell fire"? Do these two mean only a
judicial Inquiry, of which the result may be either con
demnation' or acquittal ? Is it not plain that the three-
terms, by a figure taken from human tribunals, express
three degrees of guiltiness, and answerable degrees in the
Severity of the Divine judgment ? The offered gloss, then.
Is forced and intolerable. It does not merely dilute the
¦ meaning, but destroys it altogether. "Evoxo'i.rfi Kpiaei must
mean guilty before God' In the first of three degrees of
guiltiness, each with its answering meed of punishment.
• 135. Here, then, Ive- have a distinct jssue. Retain

IN MATTHEW V—VIL 95
the word, and we have a Divine law and sentence, exactly
worded, and worthy of the Great Lawgiver both for its
solemnity and its precision. One word marks the precise
line between an anger which is morally blameable in his
sight, and an anger which is free from blame, or may even
be a positive duty. Remove the word, and the sentence be
comes a condemnation of the Divine Lawgiver by his own
lips, when "he looked round with anger, being grieved
for the hardness of their heart," Mark Hi, 5, It can only
be kept from contradicting the true law of duty, and the
Y/hole teaching of the word of God, by supplying in
thought the very limitation which has been rashly ex
punged from the text in defiance of nine-tenths of the
direct evidence. And even then we only free the sentence
from the charge of direct falsehood by fastening on It one
of the worst faults in a legislative enactment, that It says
one thing and means another, and needs to have its
meaning explained away, and even reversed, by an impor
tant limitation, which, on this view, has no place In the
legal record itself. Thus not only is the external evidence
more than fifteen to one in favour of the text as it stands,
but the intemal Is stIU more decisive. Its rejection is the
result of a false reliance on two MSS., which have been
rated more than twenty times above their tme .relative
value, and on a statement of Jerome, disproved by the
testimony of six Fathers of his o-wn age, and in which his
ascetic rigorism seems to have been compensated by an
equal looseness in his induction of the MS. testimony in
his own days.
136. Matt. V, 44. Om. evXoye2re...Kat. H, B, 1, k,
Curet.-Syr., Copt., and the Fathers Ireuieus, Orig., Eus.,
Tert., Cypr., HU., Ambr., Jerome, Fulgentius, and so the
Editors LTTr, Alf., WH and Green*

96 THE VARIOUS READINGS
Ret. DEKLMSUVA, 33, cdfhm, Syr., Philox., Goth.,
Arm., iEthlop.
Retain first clanse, Athenag., Clem., Euseb., Theo-
phylact. Retain second clause, Vulg., abffgl, Aug., Juvencus,
Epiph., Optatus.
Both are present in the cursive MSS. almost without
exception. The preponderance of MS. evidence for both clauses Is
immense, in number 200 to one, in weight as sixty to one.
The testimony of Versions also is in their favour, almost
in the ratio of three to one.
Thus the only serious ground of doubt Is the omission
of both clauses in nine Fathers, of the first alone in three
others, and of the second alpne In three others. But the
verses are exactly of that kind which it would be natural
and easy to quote in an abbreviated form. Thus while
nine in quoting omit both clauses, eight retain either the
first or the second, and therefore are evidence in favour of
their presence In the text.
Alford says, indeed, that the omission of these clauses,
if genuine, " would be perfectly unaccountaTile." On the
contrary, it has the most easy and usual explanation
possible. For here four successive clauses end in ip,d<s,
after one ending In vp,aiv, and the principle of Homote-
leuton applies in fourfold measure to account for partial'
omissions. The order, also, is different from that in St
Luke, so as to exclude the harmonistic. explanation, that
a gloss has been added from the other Gospel.
137. Matt. vi. 1. BiKaioa-vvrjv, i^^BD, 1, Latt., Jer.
Syr., Orig, Int, Jerome, Isid., Hilary: iXerjfioa-vvrjV,
EKLMSUVZA, 33, Curet, Philox., Copt, Goth., Arm.,
.^thiop., f'k,, Chrysost. Three uncials are in favour

' IN MATTHEW V—VII 97
of the change, nine against it, three versions favourable,
six adverse, three Fathers favourable, one adverse, the
total nine authorities In favour, and sixteen adverse. The
cursives seem to be all but unanimous for the text as it
stands, and the total weight is nearly as 6 to 114, or as
nineteen to one.
Mr Green says that this Instance Is most instructive,
because it presents a scanty amount of testimony, but
including ancient witnesses, combined with strong internal
reasons, tp ask the judgment of an unbiassed and unfetT
tered criticism against the array of numbers. The only
intemal reason alleged is that If BiKaioa-vvrjv were the
orio-inal word it would be an Aramaism, and the other
would readily be introduced as an explanatoiy comment,
while there could be no such reason for introducing
BiKataavvriv, unless that "w^ere the original word. But
Afford and Wordsworth, who adopt the change, do not
accept the premise of this argument, that Blk. is a merp
synonym for, iXeriiJ,oa-vvrjv, and suppose it to be generic,
and to Include alike alms, prayer, and fasting. On the other
ha.jxd BiKaioa-vvr), is so famiUar in the Sept as a synonym
for almsgiving, that there can be nothing surprising ff a few
scribes, famihar with this Old Testament usage, substi
tuted it in this place. There can be no such contrast in
the likelihood of the two opposite changes as to out
weigh the Immense superiority of external evidence.
138. Matt. vi. 13, The Doxology is omitted in
«BDZ, 1, Old Lat,, Vulg., Copt., and Orig., Cyr.-Jer.,Max-
imus, TertulL, Cyprian, Ambrose, Sedullus, Fulgentius,
Jerome. And so the Complut"., Erasmus, Grotius, MIU,
Wetstein, Bengel, Griesbach, Scholz, and the later Edi-
,tors, Lachmann,. Tischendorf, Tregelles, Alf., WH and
,frreen, and even Words, and McCln,
" B,' " 7

98 THE VARIOUS READINGS
Dr Scrivener says that "he no longer regards it as
certainly an integral part of the Gospel^ but is not
adequately convinced of its spuriousness. It is wanting
in the oldest uncials extant, NBDZ, and since ACP are here
deficient, the burden of its defence is thrown on the later
ones, EGELMSUVAH, {Mat T), of which L is conspicuous
for usually siding with B. Of the cursives mly five are
known to omit the clause, 1, 17, 18, 130, 209; even 33
contains it, 69 being defective, whUe 157, 225, 418 add
rov rrarpoi Kal rov vlov Kal rov ayiov 7rvevfiaro<}.
It is found in all the four Syriac versions, the Thebaic,
the iEthlopIc, the Armenian, Gothic, Slavonian, Georgian,
and the Old Lat MSS. kfg'q. It is not found in most
Memphitic and Arabic MSS,, or the Old Lat abcff'hl,
or in the Vulgate and its satellites ; whence the Com-
plutenslan Editors passed it over, though present in their
Greek copies. The earhest Latin Fathers did not cite
what their Latin Codd. did not contain."
139. "Among the Greeks it is found In the Constt.,
probably of the fourth century, and Isidore, A.D. 412.
Chrysostom comments on it without any hint that its
authenticity was disputed. The silence of Origen and
Cyril of Jerusalem, when expounding the Lord's Prayer,
may p'artly be accounted for on the supposition that it
was regarded not so much as part of the prayer as a
hymn of praise attached. Yet the fact is so far unfavour
able to its genuineness as to be fatal to it, unless we knew
the precariousness of any argument derived from such
silence. The Fathers are constantly found overiooking
the most obvious citations from Scripture even where we
should expect them most, although we learn from other
passages that they were quite famUiar with them. In
ternal evidence is not unevenly balanced. It is probable,

IN MATTHEW V—VIt. 99
that it was interpolated from the Liturgies, and the
variations render this more likely. It is just as probable
that it was left out of St Matthew's Gospel to bring it
into harmony with St Luke." Introd. p. 496.
140. On the other hand Dean Alford observes con
fidently, " The Doxology must on every ground of sound
criticism be omitted. Had it formed part of the original
text, it is absolutely inconceivable that all the ancient
authorities should with one consent have omitted It,
They could have had no reason for doing so ; whereas the
habit of terminating liturgical prayers with ascriptions of
praise would naturally suggest some such ending, and
make Its insertion almost certain In course of time. We
find absolutely no trace of It in early times in any family
of MSS., or any exposition. The Peschito has it, hut
whether it always . had it is another question I Stier
eloquently defends its insertion (retention?) but solely
on subjective grounds, maintaining that the prayer is
incomplete vrithout it. In dealing with the sacred text
we must not allow any d priori considerations, of which
we are such poor judges, to outweigh the almost unanimous
testimony of antiquity."
141. Here, then, let us first meet this chaUenge on
the critic's own ground, of the ancient evidence alone.
The adverse evidence, on the most usual and natural
scale for degradation with time, mpdified by the most prO'
bable conditions, wUl be found to be : uncials 2-4, cursives
2-3, against; uncials 5-6, cursives 102, favourable. Thus
the uncial evidence Is five to two in its favour, and the
total MS. evidence more than 22 to 1. By what critical
process this can be transmuted into certain proof of
spuriousness it is not easy for simple minds tb under
stand.. .;-2

^OO THE VARIOUS READINGS
But perhaps the indirect evidence of versions and
Fathers will turn the scale. The versions which omit are
the Old Latin, Vulgate, and Coptic ; their joint weight
about 2-4. Those which retain are all the Syriac, the,
Thebaic, Gothic, Armenian and .^Ethioplc, or eight to
three; their joint weight 5'7, or more than two to one In
its favour. The Fathers alleged against it are Tert.,
Origen, Cyprian, Cyril-Jer., Max., Ambrose, Jerome,
pedulius, Fulgentius, their weight about 6 or 7. And
this is only negative or constructive evidence, from their
silence, Those which recognize its presence are the Apost,
Constt, Isidore, Chrysostom, and Gregory of Nyssa, their
weight about 2-5. Thus the total of ancient evidence
against it is about 12, and 138 In its favour. The entire
amount, ancient and modern, 14-3 against and 115-8 In
favour, or an excess in its favour of more than eight
to one. 142. The rejection Is thus in full opposition to the
external evidence, and is not justified by the ancient
witnesses alone, which are in its favour as seven to six In
iveight, and in number as 23 to 17. It can only be
justified by assuming, in this place, an exceptional pronei
ness to falsify and Interpolate the sacred words of Christ,
extending over all the Church, and through the whole
course of a thousand years. And this must have been
so extreme, as to make the purely negative presumption
from the silence of each of six or seven Latin Fathers
outweigh the consenting evidence of sixty or seventy
Greek MSS. of the Gospel. A view so utterly opposed to
every reasonable rule in the estimate of comparative
weight of evidence must leave the sacred text at the
mercy of the merest caprices of criticism.
143, The testimony of Chrysostom is very strong*

IN MATTHEW V—VIL tOI
He reasons on the clause as an essential part of the
prayer, and brings out a direct relation of contrast with
the petition just before. Our Lord, he says, having pre
pared us for confiict by mention of the great enemy,
raises our courage by reminding us of the greatness and
power of the Eternal King.
Gregory of Nyssa, again, is cited by Dean Alford as
an adverse witness, but really he is the reverse. His lan
guage, by its indirectness, doubles the force of the testi
mony that he regarded the Doxology as part of the sacred
text, for he writes thus:— "And deliver us from the
wicked one, who has acquired the power In this world,
from whom may we be rescued by the grace of Christ,
for of Him Is the power and the glory, with the Father
and the Holy Ghost, now and always, and for ever and
ever. Amen." Thus Origen and Cyril of Jerusalem alone
are left, of the Greek Fathers, whose silent pretermission
of the clause is to be reckoned enough to outweigh its
presence, with scarcely a variation, in more than four
hundred MSS. of the Gospel.
144. The hypothesis which rejects the clause as spurious
labours under two immense and insuperable difficulties.
It cannot in the least explain why there should be no
trace of the same or a like addition In St Luke. Clearly
one passage is just as open to the risk of interpolation as
the other. Yet the Doxology is found in aU the MSS. of
St Matthew, with only nine exceptions out of five hundred,
and we do not find it, or anything of the kind, in a single
MS. of St Luke's Gospel. How can this total contrast be
reasonably explained, but by the same contrast in the:
prlginal text ?
Again, why should the addition take this one form,
and no other ? Mr Green, it is true, speaks of the " strange.

102 THE VARIOUS READINGS
variety of the readings" as a warrant for the omission.
The only instances, however, to which he can refer, are the
omission of " and the power " in the Curetonian Syriac,
some difference in one copy k of the Old Latin, and ,
slight differences, not specified, In patristic passages, or the
loose quotations of the text by one or two Fathers. This
is all the evidence to prove Its fluctuation of form and
shifting shape. We may safely reverse the statement^
and say that this " strange variety " is strangely small for
five hundred Greek MSS.,, and aU the MSS. of eight
different versions, and the quotations of a dozen Fathers.
A spurious Doxology might have ,taken, and probably
would have taken, haff a dozen or a dozen different forms.
But supposing only three such alternatives possible, which
is the smallest number conceivable, the chances against
the adoption of the same spurious addition in five hundred
documents are 3™° to one, that is, a million multiplied
into itself thirty-nine times. It is the rejection of the
Doxology in the face of this tremendous improbability,
amounting in fact to "an impossibiUty, which Dean
Alford affirms to be required by every ground of sound
criticism. 145. This form of prayer, given expressly by our
Lord for the use of his disciples, is the passage, above
every other, where interpolation would be most unlikely
to be attempted, and where the attempt would be most
presumptuous and unaccountable, if ever made. But that
it should both be made, and succeed perfectiy, so that a
mere human addition should have found its way into five
hundred copies of the Gospel, with hardly a variation, and
thence have passed current in the whole Church for ages,
as the authentic voice and command of Christ himself, and
that this should be believed mainly on no better evidenca

IN MATTHEW V—VIL I03
than its absence in four uncials out of twelve, and two
and a half versions out of eleven, and six or seven cursives
out of five hundred, seems to me a wonderful instance of
the power of recondite and laborious scholarship to dis
guise a palpable inversion of aU natural rules and laws
for the reasonable estimate of historical evidence,

CHAPTER XI.
VARIOUS READINGS IN MATT. VIII— XXI.
In the rest of the Gospel I shaU select some of the
most important passages, where a change of the received
text Is strongly maintained.
146. Matt. ix. 13, Mark II. 17, Luke v. 32. Oi3 yap
rjXdov, (L. eXriXvOa) KoXeaai, BiKaiov<s, dXlC afiaprrnXov^ ek
fierdvoiav. Most recent Editors, from Lachmann onward,
expunge the two last words, not in St Luke, but from the
two first Gospels only.
The maxims, expressed or implied, on which their
decision rests, seem to be these : (1) The text in the
three Gospels should be viewed as independent, and just
as likely to have been quite different originally as to have
agreed. (2) The five hundred cursive MSS. of each
Gospel, from their later date, are insignificant and nearly
worthless as evidence, and may be left out of sight alto
gether, (3) Of the twenty uncials the four earUest, being
a little more ancient, have three or four times the weight of
the others, and their consent should outweigh all the rest
(4) If by these assumptions, or the indirect evidence of
Fathers and versions, the evidence in any one Gospel
is brought to a near balance, there is then a strong pre
sumption in favour of that reading -which sets the three

VARIOUS READINGS IN MATT. VIII— XXI. ioS
Gospels widest apart, and makes them partially contradict
each other.
In St Luke's Gospel there is an almost unanimous
agreement. But in St Matthew and St Mark, setting the
cursives wholly aside, and reckoning the early authorities
by the above rule, there is nearly a balance of witnesses
for the retention or omission of the words eh fieravoiav.
And hence, acting on rale (4) we are told with authority
that in "both these places they must be discarded." We are
thus taught, as the ripest conclusion of modem criticism,
to hold that either two evangelists have maimed the words
of Christ by an omission which quite alters their sense, or
that the third has corrupted them by a spurious addition.
147. AU these maxims need to be reversed, before we
can come to a just and sound decision as to the original
text. .
First, these three verses are simply three reports of one
and the same saying of Christ, of a very brief and definite
Isind, consisting only of nine or seven words, and defining
the main object of his earthly ministry. If the three are
true witnesses, their record wiU agree. If the suggested
pritlcism Is valid, either the third Is a false witness and has
added to the words of Christ a supplement which limits
and weakens them, or the first and second are defective
witnesses, and have left out an essential part of the
Divine message.
The first question is, What did our Lord really say ? and
for this we must use the evidence of all the copies of the
three Gospels. The next is. Have we evidence enough to
prove that St Matthew and St Mark have really given a
wrong version of his words, and one which makes them
directly contradict the facts of the Gospel history?
148. The witnesses that the words et? iieravoiav were

to6 THE VARIOUS READINGS
actually used by Christ, and form one part of the brief de
finition of his work, are more than a thousand In number.
First all the cursives of St Luke, without exception, or
nearly five hundred. Secondly, all the cursives of St
Matthew and St Mark, with only three specified excep
tions. Thirdly, all the uncials of St Luke, sixteen in
number, . Fourthly, ten uncials in St Matthew, and as
many in St Mark. Fifthly, eleven versions in St Luke,
three in St Matthew, and one in St Mark, a total of fifteen
witnesses. There is thus a total of 1500 witnesses to the
truth and accuracy of the record in St Luke and in the
received text of the two other Gospels.
149. Next, is there evidence enough to prove that
either St Matthew or St Mark really offered the words to
the Church in a defective and altered form? Reserving
the question whether insertion was more easy and na,tural
than omission, what is the actual amount of evidence on
each side ?
Matthew. Ins. CEGKLMSUVXcg, Coptt., Philox.,
and four patristic testimonies, Chrys., Cyril, Hilary, Vic
tor-Tun. The conjoint weight, U. = 5-6, V.=2-4, F. = 2-4,
or a total of 10-4. Om. NBDWA, Vulg., Syr., Syr., Goth.,
.^th.. Arm. ; Clem. Rom., Origen, Basil, Jerome, Augus
tine, Ambrose, or seventeen authorities as before, and
a total of about 10-2, an almost exact balance.
Mark, Ins. CEFGHMSUVPacffg, or a total of about
7-3, Om. NBDKLA, Vulg., Syr., Syr., Copt, Goth., .^th.,
Arm. ; and August,, Euthym., or fifteen authorities, a total
of about 10.
150. Thus the Weight even of ancient evidence is
almost exactly even in the case of St Matthew, and in St
Mark is as 4 to 3 for the change. But the cursive evi
dence, in each, weighs about 105 for the text as it stands.

IN MATTHEW VIII -XXI. 1 07

So that the excess in its favour, in Matthew, is 115 to 10*2,
or eleven and a haff to one, and in Mark 112 to 10, or an
excess of eleven to one
Thus in St Luke the whole evidence is unanimous for
the presence of the words, and In St Matthew and St
Mark the excess of weight in their favour answers to a
hundred unit ratios, or million multiplied into itself
sixteen times.
151. Let us now consider the assimUatlon hypothesis.
First, we have to get over the improbability that two
Gospels out of three would originally give a faulty and not
a true account of a short and most -weighty saying of
Christ, consisting of nine words at most. But admitting this
hypothesis as credible, why Is it more reasonable to think
that two Gospels should be enlarged to agree with a third,
than that one might be shortened to agree with the
others ? Clearly the latter. If assimilation were the key,
surely it was just twice as easy to secure- it by altering
St Luke alone. But of this, the easier change, we have
no trace whatever.
152, But why should there here be a tendency to
assimilate, -when so many differences are still found in the
common text of almost every page of the three Gospels ?
Surely on this ground, that they are three reports of the
very same speech of Christ on the same day, and that He
could not both have used the words, and also have omitted
them. Our sense of unlikelihood, then, of an original
difference wUl be in exact proportion to our sense of the
preciousness of the sayings of our Lord, and of the fidelity
and competence of the three evangehsts to give an exact
and faithful record.
153. But further, the presence or absence of the
words is not a matter of indifference. They are essential

lo8 THE VARIOUS READINGS
tp make the saying in strict agreement with the facts of
the history. The contrast of righteous and sinners is a
real, not an ideal contrast. The first refers to those who,
like Zacharias, or Joseph the husband of Mary, or Simeon
or Anna, or Joseph of Arimathea, Matt. i. 19 ; Luke i. 6,
ii. 25, 36, xxiii. 50, were already righteous, fearing God,
¦when our Saviour's ministry began. The second refers to
all who were then careless, unbelieving, or profane. In
the case of the Apostles our Lord did call "righteous
men," but it was a call to apostleship, not to repentance.
The call of the Twelve and of the Seventy, and of Mary,
John xi. 28, was of one kind ; but the general call to sin
ners was distinct, and uttered in those words that begin
his ministry, "Repent and believe the gospel." There
was a call of our Lord to those who were already righteous.
But his chief and wider message was the call to repentance,
with which his preaching began. And this could only
apply to those who were impenitent, and not to those who
had repented before. Conlp. Luke xv. 7. . The omission,
then, of the words In some early copies of Matthew and
Mark can only have been a faulty simplification by some
copyists who did not attend to, or did not perceive, the,
exact force and meaning of the whole message. The
external and internal evidence agree, and are decisive in
favour of the truth and correctness of the Received Text.
154. Matt X. 8. Om. i/e«;/)ow ^Ve/pere EFGKLMSUVXf,
Syr., Sahid., iEth. some MSS., Arm.; Euseb., Ath.,
BasU, Chrys., Euthym,, Jer., Ambr., JuV. Ret. NBCD, 1,
33, Latt., Copt., iEth., Cyr.^, Chrys.^, Hilary^, and. most of
the cursives. Thus the external evidence on the whole,
especially the modern and also the most ancient MSS.,
favour the Received Text. The peculiarity is that those
uncials which usually range against the cursives, here

IN MATTHEW VIII— XXL 10^
are aUied with them, and their usual allies are on the
other side. The different place of the words In those
copies which exhibit them Is the chief ground for some
doubt whether they are not a later addition.
155. Matt. xi. 2. Ati for Bvo, LTTrAlfWH, Green,
&c., with the authorities J<BCDPZA, 33, Syr., Syr., Goth.,
Arm. Bio, C'EFGKLMSUVX, Vulg. MSS., Syr. marg.,
Copt, M'Oa.. ; Orig., Chrys., Cyril, and the main body of
the cursives. Discipulos Latt., Cureton., Dialog. Cyprian^
Juvencus. The weight of the authorities for Bua, apart from the
cursives. Is 8-6 and for Bvo 10-7. But these later MSS. are
almost whoUy for the Received Text, or the collective
weight In its favour Is fourteen to' one. And this Is
strongly confirmed by the internal evidence. The doctrine
of assimilation has here been employed In a very strange
way, to tum the real evidence upside down, and read It
backward. For St Luke, whose reading is undisputed,
shews that two disciples were actually the messengers.
Now it is conceivable that St Matthew might record the
message itself without specifying the number, and that
this might afterwards have been added by assimilation.
But In this case the natural phrase must have been,
fiadr)ra<;, or roii<; fmOrjrai;, or possibly Bia /j,adr]Tcov. But
the least likely or natural form is Sta rwv p,a6r]rwv with
the article. On the other hand, the change of Bvo to Sta
Is the easiest possible, the latter word being five times as
frequent in the New Testament and other writings. At
the same time Si;o occurs so often In St Matthew as to be
almost a characteristic of this Gospel. The numbers are :
Matt., 41 ; Mark, 16 ; Luke, 27 ; John, 16. There is thus
jnore antecedent probability of his mentioning the number
of the messengers than even St Luke,

no TkE VARIOUS READINGS
156. Matt. xvi. 2, 3. Om. Tisch. 8th Ed., and WH
double brackets as sign of spuriousness.
Om. «BVXT, 13, 34, 39, 84, 157, 180, 194, 258, 301,
and 2", 44\ 124', Syr.^, Arm.-zoh., Origen. Ret. CDEFGH
KLMMSUA, 1, 33, Old Lat., Vulg, Syr.^, Syr.^, Copt.,
,Arm.-usc., ..^th.; Eus., Chrys., Theophl., HU., Euthym.,
Juvencus. Thus the ancient authorities for omission are
eight ; three, X, Arm., Orig, doubtful or divided. For the
retention, twenty-seven, two divided or doubtful. Of the
cursives they are known to be omitted in 13, and in three
of these are supplied by a later hand. Thus the weight
of the ancient witnesses for omission is about 5, and of the
modem about the same ; and for retention, the ancient 18,
and the cursives about 100 ; or the preponderance of the
ancient alone more than three to one, and of the whole
nearly twelve to one. Dr Scrivener remarks that "the
internal evidence In their favour being clear and irre
sistible, the witnesses against the passage are more likely
to damage their own authority than to impair our confi
dence in its genuineness."
157. Matt, xviii. 11. Om. NBL*, 1', 13, 33, Old
Lat, eff,Copt., Sahid., Syr.,, .^th. MSS. 3, OrIg.,Eus.-Can.,
Jerome, Juv., and so LTTrWH, not Alf Bet. DE
FGHIKL'MSUVXA, l^ Old Lat, Vulg., Syr.„„„ Copt
MSS., M\h.., Arm., and nearly all the cursives. The an
cient evidence for omission is only the Vatican and Sinaitic
MSS. and the Sahidic and Jer.-Syrlac verss., and foiir Fa
thers, undivided; andL, \,pr.m.,mmQ MSS. of theOld Latin
and the Coptic, and three of the j^thlopic, six MSS. or
versions, and four Fathers, a total weight of 6 or 7. For
the retention, 14 or 13 uncials and seven versions, a total
weight of 12 to 14. Thus the ancient evidence alone is
two to one for the genuineness, and the modem, or that
of the cursives, probably not less than a hundred to one.

IN MATTHEW VIII— XXL HI
158. Matt. xvii. 21. Om. ^B, 33, Syr.,, Theb., Memph.?
Mih.; Eus.-Canon; and so Tisch., WH, Milligan. Ret.
as A. v., N^CDEFGHKLMSUVXA, six verss., and Orig,
Chrys., Theophl., Euth., HIL, Ambr., Aug., Juv., and so of
Editors Griesb., Lachm., Lng., Str., Treg.1 Alf, Wordsw,,
Am. V. Not only all the modern evidence with hardly an
exception Is favourable, but three-fourths at least of the
ancient, fifteen uncials against two, six versions against
five, and eight Fathers against one or two only. Or a
weight of about 20 against three or four.
159. Matt xix. 16, 17, Mark x. 17, 18, Luke xvIII. 18, 19.
These three passages clearly record one and the same
event, a question addressed to Christ by the young Ruler,
and our Lord's reply. The report of the question and
reply are exactly the same In all the copies of St Mark and
St Luke, and far the greater part of those of St Matthew.
But a minority of these last give the question without the
, word arfaOe, on which our Lord's answer tums, and replace
that answer by one whoUy different. The passage there
runs as foUows : "Master, what good thing shaU I do, that
I may inherit eternal life ?...Why dost thou question me
about the good ? One is the good."
This variety is adopted as the real text of St Matthew
by a large consensus of modern editors, Bengel, Griesbach,
Lachmann, Tischendorf, TregeUes, Lange, Alford, Words
worth, Westcott and Hort, Green, Scrivener, the American
Revisers, and Farrar. Mr Hammond calls it a test passage,
to prove the high value of the two oldest MSS. It seems
to me a test passage for exactiy the opposite reason, to
sheW how completely modem critics have turned upside
down the real laws of evidence by their excessive trust
in the Vatican and Sinaitic MSS. Stier and MacClellan
alone hold to the Received Text, and the latter m so

112 THE VARIOUS READINGS
doing retracts his earlier judgment, so that the variation
stands in his text of St Matthew, though rejected in his
notes after a clear, full, and forcible discussion.
160. This general consent of Editors makes it neces
sary to examine the question with care. I believe it can
be shewn that the evidence Is millions of millions to one
in favour of the Received Text, and absolutely excludes
the gloss which has been accepted with such surprising
facility. The first question Is of the fact itself ; the second
of the three reports in the three Gospels, whether they
were originally the same, and in pei;fect. agreement, or
whether St Matthew, in his genuine text, contradicted
the two other Gospels, and gave an Inconsistent and
garbled account of the same occurrence.
161. First, the event recorded, beyond all question,
is one and the same. If the Received Text is true, the
three accounts perfectly agree, and confirm each other.
The record is confirmed. In two of the three, by the unani
mous consent of the MSS., and In the thfrd it is equally
confirmed, so far as known, by all the MSS., 47^4 In num
ber, except six alone. One of the six adds the varied
reading, and does not substitute it, like the other five.
Now if we hold that these five, and not the other five
hundred, give the true original text of St Matthew, one
of three alternatives must be chosen. First, that our Lord
gave both answers, or replied by two distinct questions, In
this case no one of the Evangelists has given a thoroughly
correct account of the conversation. Two have omitted
one haff, and not the least Important, and the other half has
been omitted by the third. But for this view of the event
we have only one witness out of fifteen hundred, namely
251 of St Matthew. The second question is there given
after Trota?, and prefaced by the words, "And Jesus said

IN MATTHEW VIII— XXL IIJ

t<3 him." The whole then reads thus: "Good Master,
what good thing shall I do, that I may have eternal.
life ? And he said unto him. Why callest thou me good ?.
there is none good but one, that is, God ; but if thou wilt,
enter Into life, keep the commandments. He saith unto-
him. Which ? And Jesus said unto him, Why dost thou
question me about the good? One is the good, that Is, God..
And Jesus said. Thou shalt do no murder &c. &c." Now
surely it Is self-evident- that this Is a false and Incredible
account of the dialogue, produced by an awkward attempt
to combine Into one two different and opposite versions..
In whatever other way it may be striven to mix them
Into one, it is impossible to make them cohere.
162. The second alternative, then, is that the question
of the Ruler was as we read in Mark and Luke, and also
the answer of our Lord, and this the sole answer.. We
have then a further alternative. Either a false account
somehow has replaced the true in five or six copies of
St Matthew alone, or the Evangelist himself gave that
false account, which has survived in a few copies, but
has been renounced in all the rest, so that these now give
the more correct account, as well as the two other Gospels.
163. A third alternative remains. St Matthew at
first gave this different account, and the account so given
is true. In this case two Gospels have given a wholly
false account of the conversation, and the error has
been faithfully retained in all their copies, and the same
error has also replaced the true account in ninety-nine
hundredths of the copies of St Matthew, whUe the true
record survives In five or six copies alone.
It is hard to say which of these two last-named alter
natives is the more Incredible, that St Matthew gave a
false account, which has since been replaced by the tme In
B. 8

114 THE VARIOUS READINGS
all but a few copies, or that Mark and Luke gave a false
account, which has spread from them into nearly all the
copies of the only Gospel which had a true account at the
first. Perhaps the second is one degree more monstrous
than the other.
164. The MSS. which plunge the critics into these
perplexities, involving inevitably a charge of false testi
mony against either the first Gospel alone, or the second
and third together, are these five only, B{<DL and 1.
These are further reinforced by several versions, the Cure
tonian and Jerusalem Syriac, some MSS. of the Old Latin,
the Vulgate, Memphitic, and Armenian. To these wit
nesses are added Origen, twice, and Jerome and Augustine,
only for the first clause.
165. The authorities for the reading of the Received
Text are the uncials CEFGHKMSUVA, several MSS. of
the Old Latin, the Peschito and Phlloxenlan Syriac,
the Sahidic or Memphitic, and the Arabic. Of the Fathers
Justin, Hilar}', Optatus, Ambrose, Chiysostom; for the
second clause, Eusebius and the main body of later Fathers.
Thus there are 11 uncials against 4, and 3J versions
against 5|, and five or six Fathers against three only.
There Is therefore a clear excess of ancient authorities for
the Received Text, which makes St Matthew give a true
report, in fuU agreement with the other Gospels, instead
of a false one which directly contradicts them both. Even
if we held the Vatican and Sinaitic to be each of double
or triple the weight of one of the later uncials, there
would remain a great excess of ancient MS. authority,
even In St Matthew, for the reading which accords with
the two other Gospels, in the ratio of 11 to seven. But
such a relative weight Is whoUy inconsistent with any
probable scale of deterioration.

IN MATTHEW VIII— XXI 11$

166. The only pretext, then, for preferring a reading,
with less external evidence than the other, must be what is
strangely called the Internal evidence, or the greater likeli
hood of those readings which make the Gospels contra
dict each other, which give a less natural sense, and of
¦which the entrance into the text, if they were not there
at first, is the most inconceivable. Accordingly it is on
this inverted ground of preference that the decision is
really based, even by so calm and careful a critic as Dr
Scrivener, who is less submissive than most others in his
deference to the two leading MSS. N and B. He says
that the selfsame words occurring iu the parallel places
Yfith no variation worth speaking of, certainly lends sup
port to the supposition that St Matthew's autograph con
tained the other reading, p. 48. In other words our certain
assurance, on full and decisive evidence, that our Lord said
one thing, is held a decided weight In the scale of the few
witnesses which make St Matthew affirm him to have
said something quite different and incompatible.
167. The Intemal evidence in favour of the Received
Text is in reality overwhelmingly strong. First, it is far
more likely that the Evangelist would give the tme
report of our Lord's discourse, as proved by the two other
Gospels, than a false account, irreconclleable with the
true. Next, it is certain that, ff our Lord censilred the
Ruler in his reply. He would censure what was really
faulty, and not blame him for an inquiry which was not
only lawful but even praiseworthy. Thirdly, ff He added
any words to justify and explain his censure, they would
certainly have been appropriate to their professed object.
But, in this spurious answer, the truth added as if to account
for the censure would rather be a full justification of
the inquiry so condemned. . For If One is the good, namely
8—2

1X6 THE VARIOUS READINGS
God, then to inquire about the good would be to inquire
about God himself, and this would clearly be a ground of
approbation, and not of blame.
168. Here, as elsewhere, the improper intemal evi
dence weighs in the opposite scale to that which alone is
properly so named. The plainer the superiority of a
reading, the harder it is to explain why, in any copies,
a worse should be put in its place. And the worse the
original text, the easier It is to conceive of its being
altered, and a better put In Its place. But this partial
compensation can never balance the original unlikelihood
of a false statement being found In the genuine text of the
Gospels, or false reasoning, praise of what is wrong, or
blame of what is right, in the words of Christ.
169. The true solution, however, In this place, offers
Itself at once, and satisfies punctually all the phenomena.
The change, as Stier remarks, is plainly a gloss to get ,
rid of what was mistaken for an implied denial, by our
Lord himself of His own Divine nature and dignity. To
gain the end, three changes were essential, first, to omit
the epithet 'good' In the original question of the Ruler;
secondly, to alter the coUnter-question, and replace it by
some other ; and thirdly, to remove the negative and ex
clusive form of the final statement. And these three
changes accordingly go together. 'Ayadi Is omitted In BD
Ll, alj, aeffj, .^th., Orig. and Hilary once. Tt fie ipcora,<i
nrepl rov dyadov is read In ^PDLl, al^, .^th., Orig..,, and
besides these only in some Latin MSS., Curet. and Phil,
Syriac, and Arm., Nov., Jer., Aug., Juv. EI? iariv p dyaffoi
is read in J^BDLl, Copt., Arm., Orig.^. Thus the same au
thorities which make any one change make all the three
required to fulfil the object which the falsifiers had in view.
170. Mr Green, Indeed, says, that "with regard to the

IN MATTHEW VIII— XXL 1 17
second clause It is important to remark, that even If
the various reading in the first can readily be Imagined
to be a wilful fabrication, no reason can be assigned
for altering the second at the same time, especially into
a form less explicit than the other. The less developed
form et? earw 6 dyado's, has thus an intemal mark of
genuineness, and in that a plea for the genuineness of tbe
whole." There is here a strange example of critical illusion.
For the exact reverse is plainly true, and forms one of
the most convincing proofs of the spuriousness of the
whole alteration. The difficulty which it was sought to
remove turned clearly on these two points, that our Lord
made objection and demur to the epithet ' good' being
applied to Him; and that the statement which followed
justified his objection on this ground, that God alone was
truly good, and no other. The stumbling-block was not
simply that our Lord seemed to decline the epithet, but
that He did so on this special ground, that it belonged to
God alone. To remove the negative and exclusive form of
the assertion was thus, of all three changes, the one most
essential to secure their common object, and the opposite
statement by Mr Green is a strange instance of the
blinding effect of a foregone conclusion. The crowning
proof of the mala fides in which the reading of N and
B had its origin is actually mistaken for a sign and
pledge of its genuine nature.
171. But the secondary variations. In the few witnesses
which uphold the rival lection, are a further sign of its
artificial origin. So Mr McClellan. B itself originally
omitted et?, one. D omits both 6 and rov. Origen also
omits rov. Eusebius reads ovSei? &c. as in the Received
Text The Italic'", Vulg., Syr.-Curet. and Memph., all.

1I& THE VARIOUS READINGS
like the Received Text, add wyaOe after BiBda-KoXe. The
Curetonian and Memph. omit dyaOov. The two last con
vict themselves of error, as their full reading "Good
Teacher. . . Why askest thou me conceming good?" is a mani
fest Incougrulty. Thus "of aU the authorities for the read
ing so unanimously accepted by modern critical editors,
no two MSS. completely agree together ; not one single
ancient version exactly corresponds to any of them, while
half of the versions are self^-destructlve."
172. The Introduction of this lection of five MSS.
only into the text of St Matthew, in opposition to the
unanimous evidence of all the copies of St Mark and
St Luke, and of nearly five hundred MSS. of the first
Gospel itself, is not only an inversion of all the real
laws of evidence, but involves a serious diminution
of our faith in the veracity or the competence of the
Evangelists, as witnesses of the words of Christ, and
faithful transmitters of his Divine discourses. In their
purity and Integrity, to all later generations.
173. liatt. xxi. 28—31,
The variations in this passage, Mr Green observes, are
too complicated to be expressed by marks. They consist
mainly In the substitution for the word "first" In the
reply, of terms of an opposite meaning, Bevrepo^, va-repoi,
or ecrx'^'TOi, accompanied in most cases by an inverted
order of the answers of the sons. He then proceeds,
"This passage, if the form here presented be supposed
the original one. Is just of a kind to escape the growth of
various readings, except of the most trifling and accidental
sort, because it is one of those where, in the clearness and
simplicity of the whole and its several terms, there is
nothing to provoke any gloss, emendation, or conjecture.
If, on the contrary, it Is found to be affected by remark-

IN MATTHEW VIII— XXI. 1 19
able and perplexing variations, there might arise a pre
sumption that this shape is not the original one. To
entertain such a presumption, however, would be un
favourable to the free and full investigation of a question
of some difficulty. It wiU be best to dismiss it, and to
state at once the variations of the principal authorities."
"For rrpwro^ B has varepo<i with an Inverted order of
the answers of the two sons. In the same place 4 has
Bevrepot, and 13, 69 ea'xaro<;, all -with the Inverted order,
and D has ea-xaro^ with the common order. This word
has also some patristic support, besides that of ancient
Latin copies, some still existing, some before the time of
Jerome." "Though mere numbers of authorities are overwhelm
ingly In favour of the common form of the passage,
variations so peculiar and thus supported fairly challenge
careful consideration."
174. The internal evidence, it is thus owned by an
able opponent, is strongly in favour of the text as it
stands. Its perfect consistency, clearness, and simplicity,
both as a whole, and in its parts, make it only difficult
to explain, if the text were such at first, how any serious
variation should arise. The external evidence, it Is further
owned, is overwhelmingly In its favour In the number of
its witnesses. Yet strange to say, that inverse Internal
evidence, which consists In the difficulty of explaining how
a text originally clear, simple, and consistent, should ever
have been changed In any copies, Is made, by Mr Green
and others, an adequate reason for forsaking a text thus
sustained by perfect internal, and overwhelming external
evidence, and adopting the reading of two or three MSS.
apparently on the very ground that it is either unintel
ligible, harsh, or obscure. The maxim proclivi lectioni

120 THE VARIOUS READINGS
praestat ardua is here carried by Lachmann, as Dr
Scrivener has observed, to an extreme of even brilliant
absurdity. The qrltl-cs who renounce the common text are Lach
mann and Tregelles, who have one variety, Mr McClellan,
who has a second, Mr Green, who has a third, and Drs
Westcott and Hort, who have a fourth. Not only Stier,
Wordsworth, and Scrivener, but Griesbach, Tischendorf,
and Afford, with whom this is more rare, here abide by the
usual text.
175. Let us first compare the direct e-vidence, ancient
and modern, for the Received Text, or some change.
The uncials that contain the passage are XBCDEFGH
KLMSUVXZA, or 17, but Z only for the second part
from eya v. 30.
All of these agree in the Received Text but B and D,
and these two have two different varieties.
176. The versions alleged are the four Syriac, the
Peschito, Curetonian, Jerusalem and Philox", the Coptic
and the Armenian. Three others are divided, some MSS.
agreeing with the Received Text, and others differing.
But by a preponderance the iEthlopIc is for, and the
Old Latin and Vulgate against, the usual text. Of the
first named the three first, which have the greatest
weight, are in favour of the same text.
Of the Fathers, Origen, Chrysostom, Eusebius are dis
tinctly for tbe text as it stands, and perhaps Irenseus;
but Hippolytus, Pseud.-Athan. and in part Hilary and
Jerome, for some change.
Thus, on the whole, there may be reckoned 2 U., 3 V.,
and 3 F. dissentient, or eight authorities out of thirty-two,
one in four. This would answer to a 4 per cent. rate. The
weight. In that scale, of 15 U., 4 V., 3 F., is, roughly reckoned.

IN MATTHEW VIII— XXI 121

8-8, and of the dissentients 3-2, or an excess of not quite
three to one for the Received Text,
177, The modem evidence is all the MSS. from the
tenth century onward, or the 454 cursives. A deviation
of 62 would answer to a rate of error for a single century
of one per cent., and 155 to the mean rate 2|- per cent.
But the deviation, in this case. Is plainly less than even
the first. For the critics who displace the Received Text
allege only 4, 33, 69 by name, and perhaps six others as
on their side. Hence the weight for the Received Text
is ninety-nine per cent, of the whole, in a lower scale of
error than 2 per cent., or more than 127*2. Thus the
¦weight of the cursives is really more than ten times tbe
whole weight of the ancient evidence, and Is nearly all in
favour of the Received Text, while of that ancient evi
dence just three-fourths are added to the same scale.
The comparison is 3*2 against, and 136 for the common
text, a proportion of more than forty to one.
178. But it remains to account for the few variations
which actuaUy exist in six or seven MSS. out of five
hundred, in three versions, and as many Fathers. Bp.
Wordsworth gives the probable key In a few words. " It
probably arose from a transposition of the paragraphs
w. 29, 30 o Se dTroKpi&el'i...dTrrjX6ev, and 6 Se diroKptOel's
. . .OVK dirriXOev, which was very likely to occur, because both
clauses begin and end with the same words. Besides, it
might be thought reasonable by some that the invitation
should he first made to those who represented the Pharisees.
Hence another occasion for transposition." And the more
closely we examine, the more complete this explication is
found to be. The deviations are few In total amount, but
diverse, and all are just such as would result from an ,
accidental exchange of the order of the two answers.

122 THE VARIOUS READINGS

b Se uTTOKptdeU elire, Ov deXto, varrepov Se pt£rap,e-
Xrjdel'} dirrjXOe.
6 Be dTTOKpiOeU elirev, ^Eyto, Kvpce, Kal ovk d-jrrjXffe.
In this case the scribe would go on easily, till he came
to the ¦w'ord In the answer of the Jews, 6 irpwroi;, and> not
to cancel three or four lines of MS., would need only
to change the word for some one of opposite meaning,
Sevrepo<;, vo-repo?, or ecTxajoi. All would then seem to fit
without further trouble, or the need of an extensive
erasure. 179. The actual diversities arethese :
1. Beiirepo? with inverse order of the clauses, MS. 4.
, 2. 'va-repo'i with reverse order, B. So W.H.
3. eaxarov with inverse order, 13, 69. So Mr
McClellan. 4. eaxaro'i with common order, D. So Mr Green
In Bev. Grit.
To these may be added a fifth, an Invention of modem
critics, with no single authority.
5. varepo<i with the common order, Lachmann and
Tregelles !
Now if the transposition were accidentally made, which
would not be unlikely once In twenty times, and then
were remedied, not in the best, but the shortest and easiest
way, the three alternatives would naturally appear.
Aevrepo'i would be substituted, from v. 30, when the
reading there was Bevrepo? and not erejoo?. But when it
was erepof, the term might be borrowed from the clause
itseff, to which It would then belong, varepov Se p,era-
p,eX7j6el<s aTrrjXdev. This would at once suggest iarepo^,
whether as meaning the last-mentioned, ov the one who
¦went ajierward. But again eo-j^aro? as the natural contrast
to TrpMTo?, when such a word was needed, would suggest

IN MATTHEW VIII— XXL 1 23

itseff at once from the repeated statements In the Gospel
just before, xix. 30, xx. 16. In setting right the first
mistake by a second, each word would have nearly an equal
chance of adoption, which is exactly what has occurred.
But in D, the third, aiffxaroi, being borrowed from such
an altered MS., the changed order has been reversed, and
the original order restored, leaving a helpless contradic
tion of the true meaning of the whole parable.
180. The reading of Lachmann and Tregelles, varepo<;
with the common order of the clauses, has no single MS.,
version, or Father In Its favour, besides turning the parable
into a palpable inversion of truth, or else an incredible
solecism, varepof being put for varepov or ro lierrepov.
The reading In WH. iiarepo'; with the clauses reversed,
escapes this worst fault, and follows B and three versions.
But besides being opposed to the consent of all MSS.,
but four or five, and sustained by one only, it is the worst
of the other three alternatives, nos. 1, 2, 3. For the two
versions, "the second mentioned," and "he who went
afterwards," are both Intolerable, and the one correct
meaning, "he who was the more backward or behind
hand," would be exactly the reverse of the tmth. For
this son would answer to the Trpodyovret of the later verse.
181. The reverse order, with e<rxaro<;, which Mr
McClellan adopts, escapes this defect, but has little more
direct authority, indeed less in the reckoning of most
modem critics, the two cursives 13 and 69, while B
Is commonly rated equal to fifty at least. Also the
evidence of Origen against a reversal of the usual order
Is very clear and full, and that* of Z, which breaks off
between the two halves of the parable.
The last variety Is that of Mr Green, eaxaro'i with the
usual order, following D alone, and leaving the meaning

124 VARIOUS READINGS IN MATT. VIII— XXL
of the word doubtful and obscure. He applies it to the
son first mentioned, because he was so much behind his
brother in point of mere profession. I can only say that
the preference of a reading which rests only on one infe
rior MS., plainly guilty of two other serious inteipolatlons
in this very parable, and which turns the clear, pellucid
beauty of the parable as it stands into an enigma which Its
own advocate cannot himself explain, is a development of
criticism much to be deprecated and deplored, since it re
verses the simplest laws of evidence, and tends to con
fuse and resolve into mist and confusion one of the most
sacred and solemn messages of the Son of God.
It would be easy to continue the inquiry, and extend
it to the rest of the Gospels. If the principles I have laid
down are true, and the reasonings based on them are
correct — and I see no way by which their truth can be
disproved — they confirm the judgment of Dean Burgon,
in his masterly discussion on the last verses of St Mark,
that all recent decisions will have to be reviewed, and
many of them reversed, when the Textual Criticism of the
New Testament once comes to be based on an Impartial
and inductive review of the whole evidence.

TABLE A.
DATED MANUSCEIPTS
PROM Dr Scrivener's Introduction,- &c. 1874.
Cent. IV. B, Vatican, a.d. 330 ? N, Sinaitic, a.d. 370 '
Cent.V. a, Alex" _,„„,, A.D. 430? C,Bplirem_„,„ a.d. 430? D, Bezae ,„.,
A.D.480? Frag. l3,Ni,„Q,3,T„,.
Cent. vi. Frag. Ii66N.„P,85E,i,T,iZs,oe.
Cent. vii. Frag. Te.
Cent. vm. E, Basil_iB. L, Cod. Beg._55. V, Mosq. def. Frag. GWY.
Cent. ix. F^^^^, H.^^g, KMFAA (Lu & Jn), n_,„ X part. 256, 461.
Cent. X. G_3,2, SU. 1, 15, 21, 25, 63, 91 ; 100, 4, 6, 25, 61 ; 200, 37,
62, 65, 66, 67, 74, 371. =22.
Cent. xi. 6, 7, 8, 12, 22, 23, 24, 26, 27, 28? 33, 34, 85, 36, 39, 40, 41, 43,
44, 46, 49, 50, 67, 72, 73, 75—7, 80, 83, 89 ; 103, 8, 12, 13, 23, 26, 27,
28, 31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 42—44, 47, 50, 51, 58, 59, 60, 64, 69, 74, 77,
80, 81, 86, 88, 93—95, 97 ; 213, 15, 21, 26, 30, 38, 39, 41, 49, 51—54,
69, 69, 70, 72, 75—7, 92, 99; 300, 1, 3, 7, 10, 20, 29, 30, 32, 40, 45,
48, 50, 51, 54, 55, 57, 60, 76, 89, 91 ; 401, 4, 5, 6, 7, 11, 22, 30, 37,
38, 50, 64, 67. =123.
Cent. xii. 3, 4, 5, 9, 11, 13, 19, 20, 29, 32, 37, 48, 57, 59, 66, 68, 71, 78,
84, 86, 87, 95, 98 ; 105, 11, 15, 16, 19, 22, 29, 31, 40, 42, 44, 45, 47,
60, 68, 71, 73, 78, 79, 80, 81, 82, 91, 97, 98; 202, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12,
25, 29, 31, 40, 42, 44, 45, 47, 60, 68, 71, 73, 78, 79, 80, 81, 82, 91, 97,
98 ; 306, 8, 9, 11, 14, 16, 17, 19, 81, 87, 38, 48, 44, 46, 47, 52, 66, 69,
74, 75, 87, 88, 92, 95, 96; 403, 9, 17, 21, 27, 31, 33, 89, 43, 51, 59,
60, 68. =116.
Cent. xni. 10, 14, 31, 38, 45, 51, 52, 55, 60, 65, 74, 85 ; 114, 18, 20, 30,
36, 41, 45, 48, 52, 63, 66, 68, 70, 73, 76, 84,. 90, 91, 92, 98; 204, 17,
18, 19, 27, 32, 33, 34, 48, 50, 55, 56, 58, 63, 64, 84, 90, 94, 95 ; 304,
6, 15, 21, 24, 25, 83, 39, 41, 42, 49, 53, 61, 62, 68, 64, 65, 82, 90;
428, 29, 49, 56, 57, 58, 65, 66. =78.
Cent. xiv. 16, 18, 53, 54, 69, 92 ; 107, 9, 49, 55, 67, 71, 88 ; 201, 14, 20,
22, 23, 24, 28, 35, 43, 46, 61, 83, 85, 93; 312, 13, 18, 26, 84, 58, 59,
67, 70, 78, 81, 94; 408, 10, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 20, 84, 36, 52, 53, 54,
55, 62, 63, 69. =57.
Cent. xv. 2, 47, 56, 58, 61, 62, 70, 96 ; 117, 54 ; 208, 5, 6, 86, 87 ; 327, 68,
72, 73, 77, 79, 80, 86, 97 ; 400, 2, 18, 44, 46, 47, 48. =32.
Cent. xvi. 17, 30, 90, 94, 97, 99 ; 101, 10 ; 288, 89, 96 ; 302, 23, 28, 35,
36, 66, 83—5, 93, 98, 99 ; 423—25, 32, 45. =28.

TABLE B.
VEESIONS AND FATHEES,

Versions.

A.D. 150. Peschito, Old Latin. (4.)
200. Coptic, Sahidic or Thebaic, Curet. Syriac. (6.)
350. Gothic. (9J.)
400. Vulgate. (9.)
450. Armenian, Jerus. Syriac. (8J.)
500. Philoxenian. (8.)
650. .ffithiopic. (8.)
Fathers. A.D. 100. Clemens Eomanus, Ignatius. (2.)
150. Justin, Hegesippus. (4.)
175. Athenagoras, Theophilus, Irenseus. (5.)
200. Clemens Alex., Tertullian. (6.)
225. Africanus, Hippolytus, Origen. (7.)
250. Cyprian, Dionysius. (8.)
800. Laotantius, Arnobius. (10.)
325. Eusebius, Juvencus. (10.)
350. Athanasius, Ephrem, Hilary; 375, Basil, Cyril Jer., Gregory
Naz., Greg. Nyss., Caesarius, Optatus. (9J.)
400. Ambrose, Augustine, Jerome, Chrysostom, Gaudentius, Epi
phanius, Vict.-Ant., Isidore, Prudentius. (9.)
425. Theodoret, Cyril Alex. (8i.)
450. Leo, Salvian, Prosper. (8J.)
500. Fulgentius, Gelasius, Caesarius. (8.)
The number in the parenthesis ia the index of decline, inferred from
the date alone, in the corrected scale.

TABLE C.
TOTAL PEOPOETIONS OF EEEOR
FOR n CENTURIES, OR STEPS OF DECLINE.
Values of (l+r)»-l.

Bate.

n 2

1
020100

2

24

3

34

4

44

5

040400

050625

060900

071225

081600

092025

010250

3

030301

061208

076891

092727

108718

124864

141166

157626

4

040604

082482

103813

125509

147523

169859

192619

215506

5

051010

104081

131408

159274

187686

216653

246182

276282

, 6

061520

126162

159698

194052

229255

265319

302260

340096

7

072135

148686

188686

229874

272279

315932

360862

407100

8

082857

171659

218403

266770

316809

868569

422101

.477455

8i

088258

183317

238538

285729

339665

895667

458746

513980

9

093685

195093

248863

304778

362897

423312

486095

551328

9i

099140

206984

264876

324198

386543

448932

519164

589626

10

104622

218994

280085

343916

410599

480244

552969

628895

11

115668

243374

312087

884234

459970

639454

622853

710839

12

126825

268242

844889

425761

511069

601032

695881

795856

13

188098

293607

378511

468534

563956

665074

772196

885649

14
1516

149474160969
172579

319479
345868872786

412974
448298
484506

512590
557967604706

618695675349
738986

731676
800944
872981

851945
985282

979932

539464
591437

511185

1718

184304
196147

400241
428246

521618559659

652848702433

794676
857489

947900

556688
604240

646009703309

512908

19

208109

456841

598650

753506

922501

563424

653930

763475

20 220190

485947

688616

806111

989789

595561

705857

826649

N.B. The numbers below the black lines are the total error halved,
when it exceeds the pure or unaltered part..

TABLE D.
LOGARITHMS OF RECIPROCAL, OR EVIDENTIAL
VALUES.
log 1 H- (1 + r)" — 1, rates 1 to 5 per cent.

Bate.

n

1

2

24

3

34

4

44

6

2
3.
4
6

696804
518543
39X481
292345

393619
213192083904

295635114125

215383
032794

147368

088810

036094

989276
802375
666541
558647

963699
831140726568

903563770911
664235

850424
715526
608744

983748
881378

901325798856

982628

6

210984

899071

796714

712082

639681

576282

519619

468398

7

141854

827730

724260

638510

564986

500406

442669

390299

8

081671

765333

660741

573863

499202

438481

374584

321068

84

054246

786798

631641

644045

468962

402670

348187

289096

9

028380

709758

604040

616023

440217

873339

813279

258590

94
10

008761

683749
659668

577778552710

489190468548

412802886582

847820
318538

284695
257299

229403
201422

980377

11

986862

613726

505724

415404

337270

268046

205614

148504

12

896795

571473

462321

8708B4

291620

221102

167466

099166

13

860828

532234

421921

829259

248755

177130

112272

052738

14
15 16

825434
793258
763012

495558
461090428540

384077348433
314701

290280
253391218456

208523170472
184812

185681
096398
059995

069588
029058

008804

291422268038

291422

17
18

734465707418

397678368807

282647
252077

185198
153395

099810
066771

023238

254388
218791

228089189761

289961

19

681709

340235

222827

122913

035033

256942

184469

152854

20

657202

813411

194760

093605 004457

225073

151283 0826791

N.B. Log 10=1 must be added to the decimals above the upper black
lines. Those at the right corner below are log" of 2^(l+r)"-l.

CAMBBIDOB : PRINTED BY 0. J. OLAT, M.A. AT THB UNIVERSITY PRESS.

3 9002 05112 3934